If anybody is set up to receive a notice whenever I post something here, you haven’t been getting much of anything in the way of notices.
That is going to change.
Since my blog has been over on ChicagoNow, I’ve let this just sit here. I thought I was going to have the time to do something with both, but that hasn’t worked out.
Just about everything I’ve written that has appeared on ChicagoNow is in the background here as a draft. I learned a long time ago to never trust your content on somebody elses’ site, so I always keep duplicates. It’s been a pleasure to be in a place that’s owned by the Chicago Tribune and I trust them, but something has been nagging at me.
Over there, it just doesn’t seem like me. Click on any one of the 400 or so blogs and they all look alike, just a different title.
Perusing my CN blog earlier today, I was going down the line checking titles on the summary of posts that I’ve made. Tucked between every few summaries was an ad. One ad was for General Mills cereals and there looking back at me was the Lucky Charms Leprechaun.
That was the straw.
Over the past 15 years of having forums and writing, I have never accepted sponsors, have never accepted advertising. I can be an extremely critical pain in the ass and in the outdoors industry, if I don’t like something I’m going to say so. Last thing I need is some sponsor/advertiser having a hissy fit about something I said.
Many years ago I was a struggling artist, painter, sculptor. I spent many years in studios doing what I felt I needed to do. When I stopped making what passes for art, I did nothing for years. When I started fishing, writing and combining the writing with images, I felt like I was back doing what can remotely pass for art. Well, to me.
I am compelled to do what I do, I have no choice. Whether or not financial gain comes from it makes no difference to me.
So, I’m going back to my original blog and putting everything back up and running here. Over the next day or two, if you get notices every time something gets posted here, you’ll be getting around 40 things in your email.
Sorry about that.
I’m going to keep the CN blog going for now, but I have no clue what I’m going to put up there.
We’ll just have to see what happens.
bob long
17 Oct 2011Welcome home. expansion is marvelous, but not at the expense of options.
You’ve always been an artist. A fisherman. A writer. Now they are combined.
Until the middle of the 20th Century, almost all artists were in it for the art, the passion, not for the money. ‘Cause there wasn’t any; unless you could drum up the scant commissions from royalty or the church.
Whatever was the equivalent of the cover of Time magazine over eons past, artists never made the cover. Neither did musicians, writers or actors. Nobody wanted their daughters to marry any of them.
A wanted poster (15 shillings for dis here fucker!) was about as good as it was going to get as far as a headshot was concerned.
We now think of art as a profession at which to make a living. For several thousand years prior we were one step above craftsmen – a low step at that. Fuck up the King’s portrait and that was our heads and our asses, literally.
Making a living is what we do. Our passions are what we are.
Stop apologizing for it (or qualifying it)
Welcome home.
Ken G
17 Oct 2011Mr. Bob, treating what I do as some kind of art form is something I think about when I’m out there all the time. Maybe it’s just the way I was trained.
I was wandering around on Saturday, an old road with virtually no traffic, woods on either side, snapping away taking pictures. When I looked at them later, I have no clue what I was taking pictures of. It was more the patterns of color and light. That’s what got me thinking of the training I went through in art school.
More on that later, maybe.
Being at CN seems a lot like working at a cubicle in an office building. That’s never been for me.
As for apologizing and qualifying, I was raised Catholic. Once a Catholic, always a Catholic. Apologizing and qualifying is what we do. Very similar to guilt tripping.
David Boggs
17 Oct 2011I really enjoy reading these blogs….. I understand your plight. It is inspirational to see people doing what they love to do. Good luck to you.
Ken G
18 Oct 2011Thanks David. Been agonizing over this for a good month. Hope I don’t drive you nuts the next few days as I put up about 40 past posts 🙂
Rebecca
17 Oct 2011Ken,
I hope you can find a medium between writing here and writing for the Chicago Tribune because I know that was a great opportunity for you.
But I’m going to just throw this out there. I’ll be happy to have your writing back here because I can’t tell you how often I have read your wonderful posts on CT, but I haven’t commented because it requires a login.
That’s not a very good excuse for not letting you that I was there, read your words and appreciated what you had to say, but I just struggle with any site that has a sign up/login requirement.
We all have our quirks and I guess that’s one of mine, but I can’t tell you how nice it was to comment on your post tonight without any hoops to jump through.
Rebecca
Ken G
18 Oct 2011Rebecca,
With my time at a premium lately, I have no idea how this is going to work out. The other thing I noticed about CN is how city centric it was. I was working under the assumption that city people were aware that the bulk of “city people” actually lived outside of the city. There was always a certain attitude.
That sign in thing drives me nuts too. Why not something more automatic? Every site on earth does that. I had to sign in all the time too. Do it once, you’re good to go forever.
And thanks for the compliments. I joke all the time “nobody reads my stuff.”
I think I’m up to a dozen now that actually do 🙂
BrookfieldAngler
18 Oct 2011Welcome back, Ken! Notices are working for me!
I can’t imagine having two different sites going at the same time – especially when they are so closely related in subject matter. If one was outdoors and the other was cars, then I could see some hope.
Anyways, I like the look and feel over here – glad to see it going again
Ken G
18 Oct 2011Not sure how I’m going to split this up yet. Hunting/fishing here, conservation and general wandering over there.
I’ll see how things divide up as I go.
Mari
18 Oct 2011Ken,
I met you while you were writing this blog and I was hooked. 🙂 I’ve followed you over to CN and am happy to follow you back here, remaining amazed at the continuous flow – and volume – of words and pics.
Please get a Twitter account: you can post simultaneously to Facebook and Twitter. I’ve been tweeting links to your posts since we met…you might be amazed by the presence of angler-blog-hungry-readers.
And you also might recognize that more people read you than the 12 of which you already suspect exist.
When I read your posts I nod my head, I chuckle, I laugh, and I so enjoy the visuals…all criteria for my signing up for a subscription. Who’d have known when we met BCN? Then again we did spend a good deal of the day talking!
All the best,
Mari
Ken G
18 Oct 2011Mari,
No twitter for me. I got on facebook because my daughters insisted. My time has become far too limited. Can’t get on either of those from work and I have a dumb phone, it makes phone calls and that’s it.
I appreciate your spreading the word though.
Do you mean I may be up to 13 readers now?
Mari
18 Oct 2011OK, so your FB icon tricked me into thinking you might be open to expanding into Twitter. Without access to any analytics I’m comfortable estimating your readership is up to 13.
Erin Block
18 Oct 2011Good to have you back looking like you. 😉 I couldn’t comment over there without an account. And I don’t like accounts!
Ken G
18 Oct 2011I’ve been getting that comment a lot Erin. I don’t mind people not commenting, I don’t always do that. But to hear that they’re not commenting and it might have had nothing to do with me, that I don’t like much.
Now the problem is to find the time to put things down. This 3 hour round trip commute is killing me. I should do that dragon software thing.
Quill Gordon
18 Oct 2011I didn’t like needing to sign in, either. Now I won’t have to remember a password if I’ve got nothing to say.
Ken G
18 Oct 2011That seems to be the prevailing comment Quill. I’ve had more comments on this one post than just about all the posts on CN, combined.
Go figure.
Ken G
19 Oct 2011Geeez.
This is turning out to be a much more tedious adventure than I thought.
Need the tags in.
Need the dates in chronological order.
So much for getting it done in a night or two.
Dale Bowman
22 Oct 2011Ken, as you know, I find your journey one worth following, and from the comments, I see I am not alone.
Ken G
22 Oct 2011Thanks Dale. It’s been your interest in what I have to say, for better or worse, that keeps me going at times. There’s so much out there I haven’t got to yet, and that’s just the Fox Valley.
I’m such a local boy.