The Future, Maybe?

It’s James Lileks, the columnist from Minnesota who lost his job and was "demoted." I think his current job is an all-day blog.

http://www.buzz.mn/?q=node/2402

He writes:

In the Olden Times it felt sufficient to write something for the paper once a week. The advent of the Internets changed that: once a day was now the norm. Blogging changed that: several times a day isnow the norm. Now it’s all that plus a little movie. It’s an accelerated version of the same impulse I’ve felt since I started my journals, 34 years ago: fix the day in amber, and you’ve justified your tenure on the right side of the dirt. That used to be a general principle; now it’s my bloody job description.

No complaints. Don’t take it that way. Just saying.

Then again: a year to write a noir novel – ahhhh, what a prospect.

Anyway: off to upload the next vidcast. I love these things. I am immensely grateful for the opportunity. Think of it: I can’t imagine doing something like this for, say, a TV station, because you’d ever have the Consultants hovering over, or at least the threat of Consultants. Ten years ago I was in the newspaper, on radio, and on TV; I stepped away from two by choice, one by circumstances – and now I have my site, my podcast, my videos, with 100% creative control. Which either makes me a totally modern 21st century globally-connected media operative, or the equivalent of a guy who puts his Xeroxed ‘zine in the racks at the newspaper stand when the clerk isn’t looking.

As warned, this will be a weak week for Bleats, since I’m steeped in Fair Duty. Never done something quite like this. Every day. Every day. I’m one-third of the way through.

At least I don’t wake up in the morning wondering what I’ll write about today. Or, for that matter, what I’ll film today. In addition to the daily entries, I’ve been doing a three-minute vidcast. It’s good practice. They take about 35 minutes to do now, which seems too long – but there’s copying the files from the camera, importing into the program, editing, doing the titles in Photoshop, then making a couple passes at a passable voice-over. Then export, then upload. The latest is up by now. It has sheep!