You know, I installed a back-end content management program into the site a few months ago in order to help me get more motivated, write more content, etc. And, here I am, once again spending six weeks without writing anything. Hmm.

I guess I shouldn't be so concerned. There was a study released recently that showed that only ten percent of web blogs are maintained on a daily basis. I should probably hunt that study down again - maybe my six weeks is ahead of the curve.

Okay, for the record, I refuse to call this site a blog. It's an "article archive", a "serious endeavor". I swear it is!!

Anyway, I suppose that part of the problem is that I'm never sure how much of my personal life (read: crap) belongs on here. I've read so many blogs where people just yammer on and on about how they found kumquats three for a dollar at Safeway, and how excited they were. You know: "Hey, kumquats!"

And then there's the occasional "Dude! Jim! Call me!" shout out, as if picking up a phone and calling Jim would be all that difficult. Jim: "Dude! I saw you tell me to call you on your blog, so I called!! You're awesome!!" I couldn't possibly match the hysteria of that.

I have a feeling I'm not going to have an answer for this anytime soon. And it's probably one of those grander topics that will feed on itself for a while as people try and decide where blogs should take their place within the Internet Tar Pits.

Regardless, if you're clicking through here because somebody linked to my Pearl Jam article, is my life really that interesting to read about?

(Speaking of which, the continuing hits on that article are crazy. I almost feel guilty about it, granted that my opinion of the matter has certainly tempered a lot in the months since I wrote it. But, there I am, in all of my totally teed-off glory, as if I just wrote the thing. One more fun part of words in semi-permanence.)

Not to mention, there's always that fear about writing something about someone I know, and then having to face them if they happen to read it. The ever popular: "I've got a crush on this girl, and I think she likes me, but I'm not sure..." Lame to write that in the first place, but how do you recover if she slides across the website and reads it? Does anybody outside the writer (and maybe some close friends) really need to hear that stuff?

As of yet, I haven't distributed the URL for this site that much among people that I know in "real life". Even beyond that, I realized recently that I can count on two hands how many of them know that I play guitar and sing. Most of them, if they know I play music at all, don't know that I write and record.

Honestly, there's a reasonably decent reason for the music thing. After college, I spent a fair amount of time hanging around somewhat business-minded people. When I mentioned that I was a musician, I'd get a bizarre ambiguous answer of: "A musician? That's cool." Not ambiguous in words, mind you, but in delivery. It was the split difference of positive: "I wish I were musically-inclined" and negative: "Geez, isn't it time to graduate from high school?"

You might have read that and thought, "Can't someone work a full-time job and be a musician?" A lot of those seriously business-minded people don't see it that way. Admittedly, there is certainly the potential of spending far more time on music than one should. But I have more than one excruciatingly talented friend who gave up music entirely because they felt it was distracting them from their career. When you hit twenty-five and realize that you're never going to be a big rock star, it's time to put down the guitar and pick up the briefcase.

On the flipside, there's nothing more tragic than the thirty-something loser who still lives with his parents and works at Starbucks, desperately seeking out the rock career that's eluded him for fifteen years. There are times when I can't help but see music as a drug, and the "addicts" it leaves in its wake. (And, sometimes, I can't help but wonder if I'm the addict-in-denial.)

I think I flirted with the search for "big fame" when I had my first "real" band playing "my" songs. We recorded an eight song demo, played a couple of shows, and had a fantastic reaction. I gave the tape to strangers, and they'd come back telling me, "Man, I thought it was going to suck, but I couldn't stop listening to it!!" Part of me wanted to drop out of college and give it a shot. Then, it dawned on me what a stupid idea that was. (Well, it might have had something to do with the thought that my family would disown me.) And, at twenty years old, it would have easily been the biggest mistake of my life.

Nowadays, I can say with complete sincerety that I record for my own benefit: there is no drug on the planet that can match how it feels to put a song to tape with all of the instruments and hear it for the first time. But there's this total elation that comes when you find out that a song works, especially when it's one that you didn't think would work. It's like hearing your favorite song on the radio again for the first time.

Don't get me wrong; I absolutely love it when people hear my stuff and enjoy it. There's always that part of me that thinks if I get this much enjoyment out of it, surely someone else would. (Probably not unlike when people find out that I made it to twenty-nine without having a beer or a cup of coffee. If they get so much enjoyment out of something so simple, how have I gone without?) Plus, it's nice to have the occasional confirmation that it's not just in your head. But I think (or hope) the personal aspect outweighs that now.

Feh. So much for "complete sincerity".

(At this point, it had better be about the music. If I told you how few albums I've sold, you'd think I was fishing for sympathy. But, honestly, I only made a handful of copies and sold enough to break even. I can't be unhappy with that.)

I think most of the people I play Ultimate with would think the musician thing was cool. But there's a voice in my head that thinks back to the other response and gets gun-shy. (Not to mention that I haven't been in a band since 1999 and, apart from two R.E.M. songs at my cousin's wedding in October, I haven't played a live set since 2001. My extent of musician-ness is pretty much what's on this site, so I don't know that it's so meaningful in a "real life" sense.)

The bigger picture: is my not talking about it just the worries about the reaction? Or is it just my life-long inability to bridge the gap of bonding with people versus being completely disconnected?

Okay, so there's one more small peek into my psyche. That "disconnected" thing is a week's worth of ranting at the least. As far as blogging goes, I think I'm okay with broader topics like these.

But, for the love of god, if you ever see me rave about groceries, rant about my credit card bill, or pledge my undying (and unrequited) affection for someone on this website, pay a hacker to drop a web bomb on my website, please?