....LMB: "Happy 2nd Birthday, LMB!"....

April 14, 2004

Yes, LMB turns two years old today (coincidently, as does fellow blog The Rittenhouse Review). You can click here and see how it all began, in its generic Blogger glory.

In a way, my blog's anniversary is a bigger deal to me than my birthday. I didn’t exactly have to contribute much to my own birth, and staving off death all these years has only been occasionally difficult. In contrast, starting the blog was a conscious choice, and keeping it "alive" has meant giving up a lot of time, doing a lot of research, and making my fingers move more than they would if I were, say, sleeping.

As for the LMB radio show, I’ve lost all track of those milestones. I think I passed the three-year mark sometime in late January.

[Fun fact: before it was called LMB, the show was called "Truth and Fire", after a line in a zapatista communique. And before that, the show was called "Relentless", after a Bill Hicks album.]

I could easily write up some of the history and significance of this blog, but I did that in last year’s anniversary post. Read that if you want el gran historia.

It’s been a rough year for me personally, as some of you know. My mother lost a long fight against cancer back in December. I spent about half the year trying to help her and the rest of my family as best as I could. I'm not okay. My family is not okay. But we've moved a few steps from terrible, and that's something.

I'm slowly making some changes to my lifestyle as well. For a long time now, I have felt like I've just been treading water. There's a lot of stuff I'm just not doing right in my life, but I've been getting by, and figured that's all i needed to do. But I've recently realized that "treading water" was not the right analogy to use. A more accurate one would be "walking on a sprained ankle." When you hurt your ankle like that, you can still walk around just fine, as long as you keep your feet and legs at certain angles and walk a certain way. But walking in this new way a) doesn't fix your ankle, and b) starts to hurt other parts of your body that aren't used to walking in this manner. It does you damage. And sometimes if you wait for the damage to become noticeable, it might be too late to fix it. The analogy kind of falls apart after that, so let's just say that I'm working on fixing that ankle before my hobbling fucks up too much of my future.

Maybe everyone could use a little self-analysis along those lines. Who's treading and who's hobbling?

Anyhow.

I'm happy with all the continued support and readership. I am also happy to see that in the links sectionsof their own personal webpages, people seem to put LMB in their "humor" section as often as their "politics" section, which means I must be doing something right.

Before I started blogging, a writer I truly respect told me that I had "discovered my voice" as a writer. He was wrong. The writing I was doing then was pretty straight forward quasi-journalism. It wasn't till I let all my humor and anger and hurt and confusion and sarcasm and quirk flow into the texts that my writing voice became true. And for some reason, I felt that I had completely hit my stride with this portion of this post:

"Not content to destroy the world in their own respective fields, Wal-Mart and Fox News have formed a partnership in which Wal-Mart will play Fox News segments on the TVs in their stores. In other news, Sauron and Cobra Commander are throwing a barbecue this weekend, and you're invited."

I find that paragraph so comfy I should be sitting on its front porch in rocking chair with a mug of hot chocolate.

Also this year, several people urged me to write a book. I think I will. I'm just not entirely sure what people would want to read from me. I might need y'all to give me a few pointers.

As an unintended coincidence, we also now have LMB buttons for sale just in time for the Two Year Anniversary. If you want yours to be a Special Two Year Anniverary Commemorative Edition, let me know, and I'll draw a "2" on the back with a pencil. Write me for details.

And since this is like a birthday and all, I'll drag out my Amazon.com Wishlist. C'mon, buy me things! (They're mainly political books and CDs, so it's not like you wouldn't get some second-hand benefit out of it) Okay, so no one's gonna buy me the iPod, but a fella can dream, can't he?

If no one wants to buy me the stuff above, maybe they can buy me one of those magic hypno-ties that Bush was wearing during his speech tonight. What the fuck was that about?

Special thanks to Mark McLaughlin and Quang Tang for all their work converting the drab old LMB to the new spunky one. Did I say "spunky"? I meant "groin-grabbingly spunky".

Also thanks to John, Kittie, Candice, Jeremy, Kat, Nomi, Louie, Tom, Serj, Michele, John K, David D, Steven V, Kill Radio (except that one guy. You know who I'm talking about), Aurora, Indira, Michelle, Ronny, Dad, Adam, 104.7, Dack, Alan, Chris, Cecily, Destroy All, Claudette, Schu, North Coast Hospice, Matt, Garrick, Jim, Leslie, Heidi, Lafe, Jeff, Wayne, Carsten, Matt B, Matt H, Elizabeth, Brad, Jaime, Scott, Emma, Dr. Frakes, Lili, my Mom, and a dozen others I'm surely forgetting right now.

And thanks to all of you regular readers and listeners. It is my pleasure to educate, entertain, and rock you. Without your participation, these tasks'd be a lot more depressing.

So let's all take a breather, and come back fully refreshed, ready to collectively spit in the face of power.

Cheers,

Jake.