March 2009 MOB Party - The Taste Of Yesterday's Wine

Miracles appear in the strangest of places
Fancy me finding you here
The last time I saw you was just out of Houston
Let me sit down, let me buy you a beer

Your presence is welcome with me and my friend here
This is a hangout of mine
We come here quite often and listen to music
And to taste yesterday's wine

"Yesterday's Wine" by Merle Haggard and George Jones


The Minnesota Organization of Blogs (MOB) has never really had any stated goals, but if you looked at what has happened over the past few years, and looked at what MOB members have blogged about over the past few years, you might get the impression that the MOB has had an agenda, and has been successfully implementing that agenda.

What do I mean? MOB members have written countless posts fisking the pompous platitudes of Star-Tribune columnist Nick Coleman. The MOB motto "We Know Stuff" comes from Coleman's famous anti-blogger screed from September 2004. It was made public this very weekend that Nick Coleman was no longer writing for the Star-Tribune.

And when the MOB members weren't writing about Nick Coleman, we were writing about the Star-Tribune, complaining about its partisan coverage and non-coverage, the ideas to which it gave prime editorial page real estate, and its war against new media. In January 2009, the Star-Tribune filed for bankruptcy. Many bloggers pointed out that it didn't have to end this way. But quite a few of us found the Star-Tribune's sense of entitlement as influencers, and their exaltation of journalism as some kind of noble science, to be good reasons for their demise.

If it makes you happy
It can't be that bad
If it makes you happy
Then why the hell are you so sad?

"If It Makes You Happy" by Sheryl Crow


The MOB party in July of 2007 was a crowded, raucous affair, with both the inside and outside of Keegan's Irish Pub filled to overflowing. By comparison, this party was relatively subdued. It could have been because I got there at 8:00 pm, instead of 6:00 pm when the party started. But it could also be because the blogging medium has changed.

How has it changed? It's become an internet marketing tool, a place where people put posts about certain things to attract people who will look at and click on certain kinds of ads, and buy certain things. And when blogging stopped being about putting something interesting to me in public view, and started being about not leaving influence on the table, blogging stopped being fun for me.

That's one reason why I haven't blogged very much here at Crossword Bebop lately. I've been having more fun at Twitter. It's all down to a science now, how to have a blog that gets lots of visits, and I break all those rules, and I don't get very many visits. But those who mind don't matter to me, and those who matter to me don't mind.

How has the blogging medium changed? It's become shorter and faster. When Jorn Barger coined the word weblog, he was thinking of making a log of neat web sites he visited. The microblogging space of Twitter, identi.ca, Yammer, trillr and related sites have recaptured some of that original spirit of blogging, where a Twitter tweet is linking to a news story or blog post. Twitter has clearly arrived as a cultural phenomenon when it's being mocked in Doonesbury.


But now old friends are acting strange
They shake their heads, they say I've changed
Well something's lost, but something's gained
In living every day

"Both sides Now" by Judy Collins


So who was at the party? The "lifers," the people who were blogging before blogging was cool, and are still blogging even though blogging isn't really cool anymore. David Strom and Margaret Martin were walking out as I was walking in. Margaret gave me some very kind comments on my Twitter stream. James Lileks was holding court about halfway between the bar and the front door. Mitch Berg was the most official MOB person there, and was introducing people, but there weren't very many people who didn't know each other already. I had nice chats with John LaPlante and Craig Westover, and spoke briefly with Learned Foot, the Nihilist, Atomizer, Flash and Kevin Ecker. The only person I saw that I didn't talk to was Gary Miller.

So to me, the MOB party was a ruby red glass of yesterday's wine.