I’m going to be making some changes soon, based on a lot of thinking I’ve been doing.
First:
— Probably getting rid of Facebook account. I don’t like FB, but felt it was necessary to keep in touch with a lot of people. It has become a major and trivial timesuck, and I don’t need it — the people I want to get in touch with, I will keep in touch with and vice versa. Not sure yet what will become of the Slam discussion group I run there.
— Myspace: ditto, except that I need a replacement for the feature that allows me to post MP3s of Duende stuff for promotional purposes.
This may lead to the creation of a dedicated website, except I have no interest in creating one, learning to create one, and also have no spare money to have one done, or to maintain one. Dilemma. Will explore.
If I do create a Website, this (LJ) will likely turn into an embedded blog on the site, hosted either through LJ or through WordPress.
— This blog may become friends only — not sure yet. I’ll be really thinking very hard about what goes in here; still not planning on posting poems here again for a while.
Why all this?
I’m thinking very hard about reducing my "ego footprint." My need to be read and heard. While I understand the need to maintain an online presence for promotional purposes, I’m getting pretty close to done with the "social networking" experience.
There is something to be said about reducing accessibility to one’s self. Un-American, perhaps, but I become more and more convinced of this the older I get.
I’m not a particularly social being. I prefer relative solitude. I find myself with less and less in common with people in the slam and performance poetry scene, with a few valued exceptions. To try and be as "socially networked" as I am currently is a major expenditure of energy I don’t have. I need, for me, to handle that better by taking greater control over the way the Poetry is heard and read, and to simultaneously reduce the connection between my work and me.
Anathema to some, I’m sure. Ah, well.
Details to follow as they become clearer to me.
Dark Matter 
May 31st, 2009 at 4:18 pm
Have you looked at Reverb Nation? It might replace some of the myspace functions.
May 31st, 2009 at 4:26 pm
Well, the WordPress blog allows for soundfiles to be posted, so I’ll definitely be doing that. But I’m open to other things. Still waiting to hear about iTunes.
May 30th, 2009 at 11:59 pm
Hi Tony, Oscar directed me to your blog and particularly to this post, which I appreciate very much. I agree with you re: limiting your accessibility and at the same time keeping an online presence for purposes of marketing and publicity.
I was recently asked on an online radio show about blogging, and its usefulness. I responded that I think we are all coming out of our previous nascence, in which we were still learning how to negotiate the private, personal, and public aspects of our lives. At my most optimistic I think we are generally behaving more appropriately in public e-spaces.
I also agree with consolidating our online presences so we aren’t piecemeal all over the place.
It definitely makes the most sense, again from the marketing point of view, to keep it professional, and centralized. So I do encourage you to keep this space public, not for the sake of being social, but for purposes of initiating and maintaining dialogue.
Peace, BJR
May 31st, 2009 at 4:39 pm
Thanks, Barbara. That is my intent with this…a public, professional site for my body of work.