This is the one thousandth post in the history of "One Poor Correspondent." It is with very mixed emotions that I feel compelled to announce that it will also be the last.
The posts on this site have dwindled down to a precious few in recent months, and it's not as if the lack of quantity has been accompanied by a surge in quality. I don't want this to be one of those blogs that ends up getting a post every three weeks, and everyone starts to wonder whether it's gone defunct or not until they stop caring and no longer click on it at all. The problem is that I have at times found myself running out of things to write about, and more importantly, I feel like I have no longer have sufficient time to devote to it.
As some of you may know, I am a freelance writer and editor, and as Bruce Springsteen put it, lately there ain't been much work on account of the economy. When I do have work, I don't have the time to adequately fill up OPC each day; when I don't have work, I feel like I ought to focus on getting more paying assignments. So I have decided to start putting the creative energy and time I put toward this blog toward more serious and remunerative undertakings.
One of those undertakings is putting together a book proposal based on the one-hit wonders that have been such an important part of this site to me. (If any of my friends in publishing would care to assist in getting that project off the ground, please feel free to do so.) There were other things I was planning to write about, like the one-two punch of "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" (originally done by Johnny Rivers) and "Wichita Lineman," or what Mick Jagger's lack of enunciation has cost us (I just the other day noticed, in "Turd on the Run" [nice title, Mick], which I have heard fifty times, that he sings, "Fell down to my knees and I hung onto your pants/But you just kept on runnin' while they ripped off in my hands," which cracked me up). I promised Joe I would write a post about Jim Stafford, and never got around to it. Yet I found the time to write a glowing assessment of Bread. Go figure.
I probably would have shut this thing down long ago if not for the incredible support and ideas coming from my readers. Just this past week, someone named Indiana Joe piped in to this thread to tell us all that Bob Seger has said it was in Rochester, Minnesota, where he stopped in a bar to have a brew. A special thanks to MJN, and Rob, and Kinky Paprika (you should go read his blog), and Joe, and Gavin (his too), and Volly (hers too), and Innocent Bystander, and Doug from Denver, and Marshall (and pike), and Mark Lerner, and jb (his too), and Scraps (his too), and Alex (my goodness, his too), and repoz, and everyone else who commented here. (The comments to that recent Leonard Cohen thread were almost enough to make me reconsider and keep this thing alive.) I apologize to those I have left out, but rest assured that every single comment was read and appreciated, except the Chinese spammer we had for a while and the anonymous person who wondered why I bothered to blog about music when I was so ignorant about it.
A thousand posts is a respectable body of work, isn't it? At about 500 words a post, that's two bound volumes worth of inanities and Partridge Family trivia. It's been a very enjoyable and educational experience for me, and I hope for you as well.
- Tom Nawrocki, Blogger (ret.)
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21 comments:
Tom,
I was very late to the OPC party, but I've enjoyed every minute of it and am sorry to see it end.
So thanks for all the great posts, good luck with whatever you do next, and and I'm sure the one-hit wonder book will be great.
Alex
Sometimes I look back into the OPC archives and re-read what I find. There's so much cool stuff that I had forgotten about, that it's as if I'm reading it for the first time. It's a very impressive collection of work, and you should be extremely proud of it. Thanks very much.
Sorry to hear this, but glad to know you'll still be writing.
Consider the next dark beer consumed out here to be hoisted in your honor.
Damn, Tom...sorry to see you wrapping this up.
And I was so looking forward to a extensive look at the career of Morty Jay & The Surferin' Cats!
I'm sorry to see this fine blog draw to a close, but I look forward to whatever's next from you. I'm sure it will be great.
I'll join the chorus. This was a damned fine blog, entertaining and edumacational.
Sorry to see it go but I understand the reasons.
All best!
Noooo! Don't do it! For the love of God, don't go.
Reminds me of the note you gave me the last week of high school - 'You know what I am - a starving artist'.
I have greatly enjoyed your articles - the one-hit wonder articles are good stuff. Its been great to wade back into Americana and remember. I'm sure we will get to enjoy more of your writing in good time - I'm looking forward to it. Thanks for always sharing.
Thank you very much for all your kind words. One of the things that made this blog successful, such as it was, was that I knew my readers were at least as smart as me - Gavin literally wrote the book on rock trivia - and that therefore I had to continually present fresh material that was new to me, in the hopes that it would be new to you as well.
In that sense, it's not much of an exaggeration to say that doing this blog taught me how to write. And for that, once again, I extend my thanks.
And it's not much of an exaggeration that your doing this blog taught me how to read.
Well, that may be an exaggeration. But there's no exaggerating the pleasure of reading OPC.
I hope you'll consider staging a reunion tour and getting that Jim Stafford post up.
I don't think it's a secret that I loved this blog without reservation; it sometimes amused me that we've become better friends through this medium after knowing each other for years face-to-face. Congratulations on a job very well done.
I was sorry to come late to the party (about halfway through, I think?) but now I have the solace of going through OPC: The Early Years.
I wish you lots of luck with all your writing and look forward to reading it wherever it may appear; I hope you'll consider at least posting links here so we don't miss your byline. (And if you get inspired to do some more Casey Kasem fact-checking, who could blame you?)
Please, please reconsider.
thanks for doing this so long and so brilliantly, Tom. here's hoping that, as David Gates sang in his solo theme for a movie that won an Oscar for an actor whose first role was a non-speaking part behind Norman Fell in one scene of "The Graduate," GOODBYE DOESN'T MEAN FOREVER.
because there's nothing like OPC (and its readership) (including Alan O'Day). I hope this might turn out to be a retirement like Minnie Minoso's.
but I know any and all projects you put your energy into will bear sweet fruit. and some of this fruit will involve Bread!
Tom - Thanks so much for your insights and observations. I've enjoyed so many of them here. Wishing you all the best.
Oh man. I am sorry.
A nice body of work, Tom. I'll miss OPC.
Well, I've enjoyed perusing the stacks of wax :)
Consider it a sabbatical. Take a little time off to breathe and maybe we'll see OPC again.
-The Jukeman's daughter
I miss this blog already. :(
And speaking of Baby Blue:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fCOOYrfhOc
(Canadian Rock rocks.)
The moment the author declares an end to a work, the work itself dies and only lives on as a digital memory. Numerous blogs before this one have come, and gone out, and when they do go out many a person (depending on how many readers there are) feel saddened. It is like losing a friend, you can no longer go in and say "hi" and see the new, and the feeling of being "at home" or in familiar territory slowly fades away.
In a sense you are visiting this old friend's house, unchanged since their demise, and wondering what could have been, if they had just been around for a while longer...
...the death of a Blog...
Best of luck. It is a grueling economy.
There was a very real perception that bi-racial was much worse for the white than it was for the person of color. The liberal culture, which was designed and promoted with the god's tools to achieve their Apocalyptic goals, screamed racism when there was a very reasonable explanation for this reality::::
In this white punishment known as the United States the person of color has already adopted the disfavors/temptations intended for another race. But by associating/mating with a person of color the white is newly adopting the disfavors of another culture.
And this is the reason why people of color are not welcome in the United States. The gods control everything:::The perception they want to create, the thoughts they want you to have.
People of color can't recover from absorbing the temptations from two cultures. And why they become more and more like so many blacks in America:::Veterans at absorbing the temptations of two cultures.
To further illustrate this is why California's educational system/funding was ranked #1 when California was white:::Education being the basis of the affluent economic system. Now even public higher education has become unaffordable.
The gods placed us all into our own corners of the globe. As such for thousands of years we spent time and reproduced with out own kind.
This is why mobilty/travel, biracial unions/offspring and partaking of other cultures is a sin::::
Each has it's own elements of disfavor, and by experiencing other cultures you are being exposed to these disfavors, which if people may adopt will make their state even worse than prior.
The United States has been considered a "melting pot" where rejects from around the world were sent when kicked out of their motherland.
Remember, this concept of cultural diversity is an element of the liberal platform the gods used to promote societal decay, revealed on the map with the "beast" that is the SanFranciscoBayArea and the spread of social deterioration that spread to the rest of the country and eventually to the entire globe.
Ronald Reagan spent the communist block into submission with defense buildup, and in the process increased the National debt from $1 trillion in 1980 to $6 trillion when he left office.
W charged both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars to the national debt, honest numbers to come.
The gods used W to initiate the "Great Recession" with deliberate legislation/regulation changes, allowing the sub-prime fiasco and corporate irresponsibility/criminal behavior which led to the multi-trillion dollar stimulous package, pocketted by Republican friends and donors::::$5 trillion charged to the National credit card.
This corruption is one element of evil in the party of good. War mongering is another.
Damned if you do, Damned if you don't::::With the Democrats you subscribe to social decay via liberlism, which WILL lead to the Apocalypse. Republicans are being used by the gods to bankrupt the United States, ultimately motivating people to the point of "desperation prayer" once anarchy presides::::Punishment designed to correct your behavior.
Not only is doing the right things important (praying, attoning for your sins, thinking the right way:::accepting humility, modesty, vulnerability), so is avoiding the wrong things important as well:::"Go and sin no more".
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