I’ve been fortunate in my blogging in that I had some of the Big Dogs like Charles Johnson, Rob Smith, Dean Esmay and Stephen Green to promote my work (and it is work). When I went over 10,000 hits last week after only a few weeks of blogging, I was flabbergasted and humbled. I regularly read the archives of the above-mentioned and see their hard and, initially, unrecognized work. Seeing that reminds me that I am standing on their shoulders.
Rob/Acidman’s early blogging, born of a body-blow of pain, is captivating and highly literate. That he holds a B.A. in English Literature is very obvious and his early blogging belies every stereotype of the southern good old boy that ever was. Here, he laments his lack of readership. What a difference a year makes and rightly so.
Charles’ pre-9/11 work is that of a cycling/web design geek aficionado and that of a professional guitarist. It’s fun to read, even though much of it is in code-speak. (However, there’s even an early hint of things to come.) The border in his blogging—and his traffic—lies at September 10, 2001. After that, it’s all uphill.
Dean’s work includes a lot of interesting musings on race and religion, including a fascinating (and eyeball-roll inducing) conversation on “the brights.” (Sorry, Dean.) :-P
(And I’d love to drop a link on Stephen’s archived stuff, but I can’t find it on his page! However, he needs no touting from me.)
For those of you who may think I’m boot-licking the blogosphere dieties, I’ll say this as nicely as possible: bite me. These gentlemen linked to me early on, without me sending tons of e-mail reminders or anything. All I had to do was add my site URL to my comments posts in Rob’s and Charles’ cases. As for Misters Green and Esmay, they came, the read, they liked, they linked.
I just want them and you to know that this stuff isn’t easy, but it has been made far easier by these guys. They were doing the grunt work, so that we baby bloggers don’t have to.
(Portrait of "Purple, Siren, Patou and Earl" Bouvier des Flandres by Robin Renton)
