The Long-Delayed LiveJournal Update

Yes, I’m still here. No, I haven’t fled to Dreamwidth or canceled my account or anything. But it has been an awful long time since I’ve posted, hasn’t it? A month, in fact, since my last post with any real content. There are a number of reasons for my absence.

• I landed a very interesting new consulting gig with Journalism Online, a startup that hopes to help news publishers charge for content online. I will write more about this soon on my professional blog, but I’m excited about it. I think it has a good chance of working, and dog knows it needs to. I’ve been a journalist all my life, I have been working in online news for more than 20 years, and I’ve been doing paid content on the web for as long as there has been a such thing. So it’s a perfect job for me and one I believe in pretty strongly. It’s also consuming enormous amounts of time; most of the time I’m sitting at the computer and writing I’m working on that stuff.
• I have been playing more music. I’m taking on something of a hosting role for the Ponkiesburg Pickin’ Party on Sunday afternoons, I have a few gigs coming up, and I’ve been working on songwriting. More information about the jam will be on the Ponkiesblog.
• I’m working on a number of web projects, including finally finishing off my musician web site product (and, by the way, finally working on a redesign of my own poor site). When the musician product is up and running I’ll talk more about it, but I’m planning something that will be fairly cheap and effortless to update.
• It’s nice out! Well, not at the moment. But a lot of my free time has been spent in the park, and away from the computer.
• And, not to bury the lede, but I’m in a new relationship which is going well, and yet another reason not to be sitting at the computer.

As my available time contracts, I’m more likely to prioritize real-world relationships over virtual ones, being outside versus staying inside, playing music or riding the bike versus typing, reading books or newspapers in the park rather than reading on a screen indoors, short mobile updates to Facebook rather than long updates like this, emailing one-on-one rather than posting. I’ve also had to cut back my default reading list and I am no longer actively participating in any LJ communities.

If you follow me on Facebook, or Flickr, or YouTube, or the other places I linked to above, you’ll know what’s up with me. Most importantly, if you want to catch up, call me. Come to a show. Meet me for lunch in the park. I’m around.

Speaking of shows, you can catch me this weekend at a two-night festival of original work by musicians (like me) who come from the Brooklyn traditional/roots music scene, at the wonderful can’t-say-enough-good-things-about-it Jalopy Theater and School Of Music. On Saturday night, I’ll be doing a song circle with some great songwriters including my friend Doug Hatt. Friday night I’m going to start the night off playing for a square dance with Brooklyn’s own Andy Mullen, who calls a great dance, and then I’ll stay for the night. Both nights, I’ll be on early (at 7) but will stay for the whole show. On Sunday afternoon I’ll be playing at an informal jam for Summer Streets on Vanderbilt Avenue, near the corner of Prospect Place, and then heading over to the Pickin’ Party.