In a multitude of words you will not escape sin, but he who holds his tongue is wise."
-Proverbs, 10:19

"Still, I want the freedom to be myself,
I want the freedom to f--- around.
I just want the freedom to fail without
Bringing you down."
-Peter Stuart, What I Know Now

I started this blog in June of 2004 because everyone I knew was sick of my ranting and raving, and I like to rant and rave. I figured that the internet would be a safe place to rant. Between the gun nuts, the white supremacists, the anarchists and leftists and Nickleback fans and the sundry other nutcases with websites, I figured that the internet was a good place for a fat, grouchy redneck to bitch and gripe harmlessly. I mean, it wouldn't be like I was imposing my beliefs on anyone. Don't like what I write? Read another blog.

Simple. Right? No. Nothing's ever simple.

It isn't simple because I also enjoy reading other blogs, leaving comments, reading the comments that people leave here, etc. I like reading the opinions of others and responding to them. It's all fuel for the fire, and I'm a keyboard arsonist. Burn, baby, burn.

Not too long after I started blogging, the whole blog experience took an unexpected but mostly pleasant turn. I found myself forming "friendships" with other bloggers. Those who write the blogs I frequent and those who leave comments here have kinda informally formed something almost like clique. Next thing ya know, you find yourself with a bunch of "virtual buddies." My virtual buddies have included people with similar cultural interests, people who share many of my political inclinations, people I see as spiritual mentors, one or two (or three) bloggers who I just find irresistibly charming, a number of damn good writers, a bunch of fellow Catholics and a number of others with quirks and qualities which I just happen to enjoy.

Along the way, I also drug my wife into the blogosphere with me, although she never enjoyed blogging the way that I do and the pressure she often felt to come up with content to write about was sometimes more stress than fun for her. I always suspected that she was really just indulging me; trying to share one of my interests to make me happy.

I also got my friend Jamie into blogging, but I get the impression that it's a chore to him. My friend Otis is more of a natural, and if you've read his blog you know that he's just got the gift.

I'm getting off track. Here's the thing:

Blogging friendships, virtual or not, are a great deal like real-life friendships. Through blogging and reading blogs you get to "know" people (or, at least, to know the version of themselves that they present to the world), and you might end up growing to like the bloggers you read. I know that I have, anyway. And, of course, once you like someone, you end up feeling self-conscious about what you say around them.

For the most part, my goal with this blog never really changed. I started it to vent, mostly about politics in '04, but it's still really just my personal soapbox; a place where I can come and vent with the intentions of venting harmlessly. It's also a place where I can indulge my wannabe writer tendencies. I've missed writing ever since I stopped doing it for a living when I left radio in '94, and the blog has been a great outlet.

But here's the thing: venting at the blog was supposed to be harmless. Simple self interest prevents me from telling a friend, family member or co-worker when he or she strikes me as totally full of BS. I can't do that in real life, but I can do it at the blog without naming names or burning bridges. Or, at least, I felt that I could until relatively recently. If, for instance, I wanted to vent because a family member had said something mean about my religious beliefs, I could get it out of my system at the blog … but lately I end up worried that I'll offend fellow-blogger-A by doing so. If a co-worker is shoving a TV show down my throat, the blog would be a great place to get that out of my system … but I run the chance of upsetting fellow-blogger-B. And if, God forbid, I post a picture of a moron with McDonalds tattoos, brace yourself for WW III.

So right now you might be thinking to yourself "Hey, man, relax! Chill out! Don't take this stuff so personally!" If you're thinking that, you've missed my point. My point is that I do take these kinds of things personally. That's just my nature. I don't like to hurt people's feelings and it bugs me when I do so, especially if I've done it unintentionally. I started this blog so that I could write whatever I felt like writing and not have to worry that somebody's day would be ruined if I said, for instance, that Garfield is an unfunny and stupid comic strip which jumped the shark twenty years ago. Problem is, throw that kind of remark out there and it might turn out that fellow-blogger-C is, unbeknownst to me, the world's biggest Garfield fan. Then I gotta walk around at work bummed out because I obviously hurt fellow-blogger-C's feelings without meaning to do so.

Three incidents over the past week have really bugged me. One was when I vented about Heroes, figuring that I'd thrown in enough acerbic humor to maybe get a laugh or two from one or two folks, and I ended up upsetting MCF. MCF, of course, is a fellow blogger I've never met and yet a person I genuinely like.

The second incident involved a comment at the Hidden Blog. Unseen had mentioned that the secret service had questioned a teenage girl after she posted silly threats against the president on her MySpace page. Some prick made a snide remark to the effect that the Secret Service might be stalking underage girls on the internet. I thought that remark was crass and uncalled for, and I left a comment saying so. That lead to the prick implying that I must have some deep, dark, personal reasons for reacting negatively to charges of pedophilia. Yes, some people really are content to go in that direction with their conversations. I read the prick's remarks and asked myself "Do I really need this shit? Am I even enjoying it anymore?"

The third incident was when I posted a rant about a couple of people I work with (no names named, nothing specific mentioned) and how stupid they are. A close friend read that post and pointed out, correctly, that if my co-workers ever read that post, they'd "roast me alive." I was grateful for his clear-headed warning, and I took his advice and removed that post. Nonetheless, these incidents make it clear that my "harmless hobby" has turned into something I'd never intended. It has turned into a possible liability, a hassle, and a source of frequent irritation.

So, now what?

I still have the desire to write, and I still enjoy trying to find funny ways to voice the things that irritate me. It's just how I'm cut out. It's my nature. And, I still feel the urge to write film reviews, so film geeks will continue for sure in spite of the fact that Wendy's self-imposed exile has left me the lone contributing film geek. Writing movie reviews is less troubling because film reviews are more obviously subjective. Nobody ever got their feelings hurt, I'm sure, because Ebert hated The Usual Suspects.

I'll still post at SouthCon, but I'm tired of feeling like I have to second guess, reword, censor and stifle my ideas. I'm adding a standard disclaimer to the bottom of each post, and hopefully it will help keep things in check. Just take it as a given that every post I've ever written and every post I ever write in the future rhetorically ends with the phrase "But, hey, what the hell do I know about it?"

Besides, I can't just spend all my internet time kicking Otis's ass at video games.

"I hope you don't listen to me.
I don't always say what I'm thinking.
Sometimes I tell you what I think you want to hear,
But, most times, I just talk to make sound.
-Peter Stuart, Wish I Was Here