Wishing I'd traveled the hippie trail

There are a couple of topics that, if you write about them consistently on your blog, I'm liable to be sucked in. These are: James Bond, sex, being young and horny during the years 1991-1998, the beach, unicorns, pop culture, grammar and usage, ABBA, historical fiction, porn, and traveling.

And of these, traveling might hold a dearer spot in my heart than some the others. At heart I'm a frustrated vagabond. I know that a lot of people get bored looking at other people's vacation slides. Not me. I want to see, and while you're at it give me a running commentary. And if your travels consist of roughing it, or going the long way around, or going somewhere tourists don't tend to go, or going by yourself? So much the better. I'm an escapist, I guess: I want to go with you, even if it's only through reading your stories. Hell, one of my favorite people is Rick Steves.

I wasn't sure about Toukakoukan: In at the Deep End when I first clicked on the site. I thought, "Oh, another Long Way Round." The design is kind of clunky and a bit basic. But it gets the job done, with the intro right there on the front page telling you where to start. The About page is informative, but nowhere does it explain Toukakoukan. Also, Sam, add a map -- it's a good way for us to tag along. A search option wouldn't go amiss, either.

You read it chronologically: The trek starts in May 2008, but there's buildup to the trip beginning in August 2007. You can skip the buildup, though, because it's mostly bike repairs and girlfriend drama and, well, buildup.

Initially Sam takes on a motivational-speakerish tone, but this quickly disappears (for the better). At first he seemed a go-getter, which can come across a little frenetic and disingenuous to me, but I'm more cynical than I realize sometimes. But quite soon it became obvious that this is a smart kid. Really smart. And more independent and inquisitive and, frankly, mature than most I've come across, including myself.

It is, ultimately, a diary. The posts, although smart and interesting, are a bit unpolished. This is both understandable and forgivable: he's writing this from the road, stopping in Internet cafes when he can, recalling tales and experiences and people. And though a little slipshod, his writing holds these great little kernels of character and wry observances and keen insights.

I'll admit the discussions about bikes and gear bored me to tears, but I'm a girl. And Sam is so cheerfully game, irreverent, and strangely wise for one so young. I don't normally excerpt in my reviews, but I really liked these:

"...only yesterday I spent the night in a ditch, which is not as bad as it sounds surprisingly."

"I hastily put down my, by now, sodden map of Corsica to wave at a group of eight German overlanders who were passing by just as I realised I’d spent the last 6 hours going in a circle trying to get to where I already was."

"I arrived in Chur, bent down to take off my motorcross boots as they’re as about as suitable for walking in as a chastity belt is for the reverse cowgirl."

"Bumper cars sit gently rusting, never having heard the playful whoops of children in their midst."

So, it's a little scattershot, the paragraph spacing is nonexistent, he goes a long time between posting (hell, he's living on a bike, I'll give him a break for that), and maybe there's a little rambling philosophizing going on, but do I care? No. Not at all. Because this guy's traveling around on his motorcycle, seeing the world and meeting people and having spills and letting us tag along for the ride. I'm a sucker for stories, and this guy's got one. Not to mention the truly great photos.

Yes, it's been done before and documented. But every journey is different, as is ever traveler. And Sam is a talented storyteller with an engaging perspective and a unique voice. Once he took to the road, I couldn't stop reading. And I'm not done yet.

Sam, good job keeping track of this once(or twice?)-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Don't let the experience slip away -- document everything with intention. And when you get settled and are off the road, come back to the blog and spruce things up. I hope you're keeping a written journal, too. Take the stuff you've written there, add it to the great things you've got going here, pile in the photos, and really make this a cohesive and detailed documentation of your journey. It's fascinating, you're a great guide, and I can't wait to read more.







*The Hippie Trail

Girl, you'll be a woman soon

I like to think of myself as positive, cheerful, optimistic, even idealistic. The glass is half full, people are generally good, unicorns exist.

I realize now, after reading today's reviewee, that I may be these things, but for a 34-year-old. There's only so much innocence and idealism and cheerfulness allowed at a certain age, you know? Life doesn't let you hang on to that forever. Not entirely. Not without a healthy (or unhealthy) portion of cynicism and doubt and experiential reservation. These days I sometimes roll my eyes at the blind hopefulness of youth, the unswerving romanticism, the unfounded and likely-to-be-toppled idealism. But only sometimes.

Tabitha at Headed in the Right Direction reminds me that having hope, believing in something, and enjoying simple, innocent pleasures is worthwhile. They aren't my hopes, my beliefs, or my pleasures, but I can still appreciate the sentiment.

Her design is standard but with good tabs and organization. The About page gives us an idea of who she is and why she's doing this blogging thing, but Tabitha, you may want to include something about who Joe is here. Also, figure out how to import your old Blogger posts into your new Wordpress site, unless the focus of this blog is entirely different. I'm sure there's a way.

Now. I just want to warn my fellow cynical Askites: there's Bible study and devotional time and worship. Yeah. I know. But go with me on this.

She's young (that would be To Have and Have Not, not Honey I Shrunk the Kids) and in love (8 months? Get back to me after 12 years) and mostly cheerful and a bit naive and innocent in a charming way.

She's funny and honest and she tells a good story. Tabitha's a comfortable writer who knows her voice. And at 24, that's really very impressive. She rambles, but it's a cohesive, entertaining ramble, for the most part. She's long-winded and wordy, but it kind of works for her. Tabitha, you could stand to trim some of the fat from your posts -- go through and edit. But for the most part, I like your style, I like your rambling stream of consciousness because you do it well. A less skilled or personable writer would lose us in the words, would annoy the crap out of us by leading us hither and yon. But you do a pretty good job of drawing us in and keeping us there.

Tabitha gets it. She knows she's writing for an audience, even if she writes for herself first. "Cuz let’s face it, if I didn’t want input, responses, reactions, etc., I would make it all private, or just put it in a physical, paper journal, ya know?" -- Exaaaactly.

I liked this blog, in spite of myself. In spite of my wished-for cheerful optimism, I'm often a sneering cynic, especially now with bills mounting and love getting away from me and age settling in around my eyes. Reading Tabitha's blog was kind of refreshing, really. I don't share her values or religion or frame of reference, but she's kind and silly and thankful and so very eager but also, honestly, a talented writer. I can't help but wish her the best.

Tabitha, some further words of encouragement: you've got the conversation down. Branch out a little now. Get more creative, push your boundaries. Live in the words rather than just saying them. You tell us your stories with lighthearted optimism. Delve a little deeper, not for darkness but for truth, for maturity, for something at once raw and polished.

The folks you meet

The other day on my personal blog I wrote about my people. About the folks you meet who are instant connections, who fit, who just get it, get you. I was talking about face-to-face people, but I've found in my three years or so of blogging that my people are out there in the ether, too, churning out words I can relate to, being hilarious and insightful and smart and dirty and just my people.

A couple of months ago I found another one. They crop up like that, out of the blue, in unexpected ways, from a link or a post or a tweet. And there you are, connecting with someone you'd have never met otherwise, whose words resonate and whose personality shines through the screen.

Coincidentally, I pulled Here in Franklin out of the virtual hat to review today. I'd already been getting to know her, but today gave me a welcome opportunity to go back over the months of her blog and read it all.

She uses one of my favorite standard Wordpress themes. It's clean, uncluttered, and easy on the eyes. But I really hate the click to see more option in the archives. It's just so much work. I'm exhausted now. And if you can figure out how, Franklin, I'd add a search feature. That aside, she's got the About page nailed, the archives dropped, and her sidebars neat and tidy. Well done.

As LB illustrated in yesterday's review, boring blogs abound. But here's a writer who can make the most mundane, everyday thing (how much more everyday can you get than McDonald's?) interesting. She's southern, which wins her points from me, since I'm all southern fried. And Franklin is funny, y'all. She even has a sense of humor about cancer. She writes beautifully and confidently about silly, flippant things. No, really. Look at that grammar (which is fine, even though she rails against it -- and semi-colons are your friends). Admire the spelling. Revel in the gorgeous, well-constrained paragraphs.

She smart (she auditioned for Jeopardy, which just makes her my favorite person ever). She's not a natural housekeeper (me, neither). She's well-traveled. And I just pretty much agree with her (I can even forgive her the dog thing).

The only complaint I have -- which isn't a complaint, not really -- is that we don't get a lot of guts here. Oh, Franklin's entertaining and a stand-out writer and funny as hell, but she doesn't give us the inside scoop. Maybe it's because she's not anonymous. Understandable. But I am left wanting just a smidge more. A little more heart and soul.

Still, even without it, I fucking love you.

Make 'em laugh

Dizzblnd, my reviewee of the day, tells us in her profile: "I like having fun. Laughing makes me happy, making other people laugh makes me happy." This is true for, like, 98.9% of the population that isn't misanthropic. I'm not a misanthrope (usually -- Ghost and Thanatos and Love Bites are bad influences), so I might be rounding that number up. Making others laugh is a good portion of why I blog, too, followed shortly thereafter by exorcising my demons (there are only three or four) and talking about sex.

So, however inelegantly she states it, I get why Dizzblnd blogs. Laughter = good.

Her blog design, though, = bad. It's an unnecessary three columns with lots of whozits in the sidebars. And it's bright freaking yellow. The header is ok, if a bit overcheerful. And I like cheerful. There are links to her other blogs in the tabs, along with a shout-out to her blog designer and a link to Humorbloggers (our favorite). Dzz, consolidate into one sidebar and move your archives up toward the top.

I haven't a clue why this blog is called Soggy Doggy Bloggy. Aside from her extraordinarily generic profile page with blogger, there's no "About," so I'm left to just figure this person out on my own. Here's where I go on and on about an about page again. Seriously, folks, I just need one. Please. They help your reader get to know you without having to dive in blind, searching for glimmers of who you are. Just give us a little to go on. It doesn't have to be extensive, just the vitals. I wanna know who you think you are.

Dizz told us when she submitted for review: "I blog to hopefully give my stalkers a laugh or a chuckle every time they come. I am NOT a mommy blogger, although I WILL bitch about my teenagers occasionally." And you know what? She's right. This is exactly what she does. Dzzblnd seems like a fun, playful person who doesn't take herself seriously. She enjoys life, is silly and irreverent, and doesn't cater to her kids. She hates to clean, and she lives in Florida. I like her. I think she'd be good company.

But she frequently posts email forwards and other people's stuff and games and memes and tags and "Mad Lib Monday" and she even reposts her own stuff. Sigh. I scrolled over all these things. They added nothing real or personal or new or fresh. They're just rehashed bits of internet effluvia or exercises in patting herself and other bloggers on the back.

Dzz's writing is rambling, stream of consciousness stuff with no polish. She never claimed to be a writer, after all, but I still want more effort/concentration/finesse in her posts. However charming I might find her as a person, her writing is mediocre. As a "humor blogger" (setting aside for a moment our general contempt for those who label themselves that way), we don't get any meat or depth from Dzz, which is ok for her purposes. But it leaves me a bit unsatisfied. One cannot live on a diet of cotton candy alone. Alas.

Today you get a meh. But make it worth my while -- clean up the design, make it more organized, and tighten up your writing -- and I'd easily give you a star. You really are kinda funny, when you're not going on and on forever and using other people's crap as a crutch. Lay off the reposts and emails. Post when you have something to say, and edit before you do.

I'm pretty sure I couldn't make it there

I lie to myself and everyone else and say I once lived in NYC. I didn't, though. Not really. I stayed there for a month for what I later realized was an ill-advised career program. I lived in a hostel up on Amsterdam and took classes and didn't do a whole lot other than drink and walk so slowly people scowled at me.

But I always thought I should live there, at some point, because I dreamed of being in the publishing industry. And then life happened and graduate school happened and the publishing industry existed in DC, too, and it just seemed like I got too old for it to be worthwhile to up and move to the hard, fast world of NYC. So I didn't. But sometimes, just occasionally, I wish I did.

Tina did. She took a fairly ritzy-sounding job in New York and moved from Seattle and logs her experiences as a newbie New Yorker. Fascinating, right? Well, it should be.

Let's just get the design out of the way. It's your standard white Blogger template with no personality. The header is a bit large, although I do like the picture. The subscribe section just under the header is overkill -- it should be off to the side. Hello, off-putting. It screams "LOVE ME!" Just take me to the content. And move the stuff in the sidebar to tabs. Roll up your archives. Give us an About page.

I should love this blog. Cute Seattle girl moves to NYC and works in the news and drinks a fair amount and tries to find her way around. But, especially at first, the writing is very much "letters to home." There's a serious lack of editing and most of the posts are ungodly long. And, Christ, the ellipses overkill. These are such a crutch. Get rid of them entirely. They should only -- and, dammit, I mean ONLY -- be used when you're trailing off an idea or when there is missing information from quoted material. And if you trail off every single idea you have and so tack on the ellipses then I don't want to read you. Be concise. Have a thought and finish it.

Though quite a few of the "girl in NYC" stories are interesting, they're robbed of life by the writer's slap it on the screen style. There's an inelegance that interrupts these could-be-interesting vignettes, especially when she writes about things like roaches. Who cares? Do you care, Tina? In five years are you going to want to know about that roach? Maybe you will, but I pretty much don't, not unless you can make that roach enthralling, hilarious, or terrifying, none of which you've done.

I think I'm being extra harsh because the potential is here for a really interesting blog. But it's just not delivering. Though the author is candid about her identity, we don't learn anything real about her other than her various encounters with the denizens of New York and her love for Lyle Lovett. There's not a lot of depth provided, and maybe that's precisely because she's written her name on the blog.

Tina, I did some snooping (it wasn't difficult) and discovered your title is or was "writer." Why aren't you writing here? You're just jotting down snippets of your life, without care, without editing, without polishing, without pulling in your reader. In scrolling through, I notice there are very few comments from readers. And maybe that's the point. This blog is for you, for posterity, not for us.

If you want it to be otherwise (and I hope you do, considering you submitted for a review), clean up the sidebar clutter, give us some organization, and write like you care that we're reading. If you don't, just keep this stuff in a ruled notebook by your bed, carry it in your huge ass purse and jot things down on the subway when the crazies come out. Because if you don't care about us, why should we care about you?

Right now I think I prefer nasty to namaste

Edited: Right now the very last thing I need in my life is more conflict, so in the interest of soothing ruffled feathers, even though certain folks should have realized they'd be ruffled given the title of our blog, and even though they checked that they'd read the FAQ, and even though there are no takesies backsies in blog reviewing, I'm removing the links (even though I wasn't asked to). 'Cause I'm decent like that. I will not, however, remove the review, since I spent a long damn time on it and produced it in good faith.

I've never been punched. I've never been slapped. I've never been choked or kicked. I've never even been shoved, except as a child by other children rough-housing. No one has ever laid a hand on me in anger, not really. My mother spanked me, but not often and not hard. I don't know what it's like to reel away from violence, to feel the smash of flesh and bone. My heart has taken its share of beatings, but my body hasn't. Knowing the statistics, reading the stories, I count myself lucky.

She [blogger redacted] was not so lucky.

This is what her blog centers around -- a single act of violence and her attempts at recovery. It's an intensely personal blog, which is in some ways difficult to judge. Because it's not for us, not really. I don't mean that there aren't people out there who should read this, who would want to read this -- I just mean the primary purpose isn't, or doesn't seem to be, discourse, dialog, or community, or even writing, really. The motivation for writing is so very emotional and visceral. She's writing to process, to heal. And critiquing that is hard for me, especially now when my own personal blog has gone from amusing essays to tears on the blogworld's shoulder.

But y'all ain't paying me to wax philosophical and melodramatic, are you? And she deserves a review. So.

There's poetry, oh goody. There's an its/it's problem. She has "Read full posts" links, which are annoying as hell. The design is benign and we see it all the time, but it's not too cluttered and there's a pretty header. She makes good use of tabs, but I'd put all your links on a tab, too. Thanks for the drop-downs, but get rid of all the other useless crap in your sidebar.

The tone of the blog is very woo-woo spiritual personal discovery, which I admit I can be partial to, when I'm not utterly embarrassed by it. And most of the posts are loooooong. And deep. And kind of exhausting. And when you have to click to read more, and the posts are already kind of long-winded and wordy and written with this very zen and meditative tone... well, I didn't click to read more as often as I might have. Even the ribald stuff is a bit, oh, I don't know. Contemplative, I guess.

I found her story interesting and heartbreaking and, if I'm being honest, not terribly easy for me to relate to. I kind of hate that I said that, but I just don't have the same sphere of reference. The spiritual journey, the PTSD, the gurus and yoginis and spiritual retreats and all that looking inward. I don't know -- I'm a little tired of my own innards right now, so I'm sure that's coloring my perspective.

God, didn't you guys miss me terribly? All this indecisiveness and malaise is riveting.

So. Bottom line. I liked it but I didn't love it. I think the writing could use some work. Tighten it up and edit, learn that whole its/it's thing, give us more action and less thinking. (I'm so tired of thinking.) I like that you're using blogging to process these things because I think it's therapeutic and helpful and someday you'll want to read all this stuff and remember and recognize how far you've come. And people in the same boat, or tied to your flotilla, will appreciate your insight and your journey. I just think I'm going to sail my boat in a different direction right now. Toward puppies and Firefly episodes and chocolate cake and books where people don't think so much.

Laissez les bons temps rouler

I haven't been to New Orleans since 8th grade. The last time I was there, Deion Sanders was blazing down the field at the Sugar Bowl, I got my portrait done in pastels near the Cafe DuMonde, and my friend and I pretended to be college students at the bars my parents snuck us into on New Year's Eve, sipping Hurricanes and ogling the debauchery on Bourbon Street. It was the best weekend of my young life, and I've wanted to return ever since. I read everything I can about it, in Poppy Z Brite and the Valentin St Cyr books and the Skip Langdon ones and, yes, Anne Rice, and books on Storyville and every bodice-ripper historical novel set in the town I can lay my hands on. Hell, I even watched K-Ville; I couldn't help myself. That bayou gumbo of decay and delight is seductive and fascinating and just so damn sultry.

When I saw that my reviewee for today is a bear from the Big Easy who's in theatre (with an "re")? Forget it. I was hooked. Until I saw the template.

Bigezbear has a truly terrible template. Three columns of blah. Get rid of the comments, members, map, and "hot off the presses" stuff in the sidebar, or at the very least put them on ONE sidebar. Although, really, get rid of the comments in the sidebar. It's just weird. Oh, and the "Event Brite" doohickey at the bottom? That's not doing you any favors. Just add a page to your site about your events -- problem solved.

I don't know where to start with this blog. You just land on "home" and are expected to plunge right on in because there's no "About" page, and his Blogger profile is sparse to say the least. There are no archives, so I had to go hit "Older Posts" about nine-hundred and seven times to get any perspective or background. Holy fuck am I a dedicated reviewer. But, ok, screw it. I don't care what information could be recovered by my going back to the beginning -- I'm starting at 2008.

At first, I didn't know what the hell was going on or who everyone was, but the writing is full and round and seasoned and heart stopping and just good. There's vodou and Dr. John and theatre and dirty martinis and wry observations about post-Katrina New Orleans and pretty pictures. There's a lot of life in this blog, and it's fascinating. Bigezbear posts all the time, about all manner of things (mostly to do with New Orleans and his neighborhood and his productions), and his posts are short and long, serious and silly, revealing and closed up tight and shy.

Once I got past the off-putting and completely uninspiring template and dug in to his writing, I was hooked. His voice -- his humor and self-deprecating wit and charm and passion for his city -- has captured me.

I fucking love you, you big ol' bear you. Give us a hug, burly beast.







Now go away, I'm reading. I have to find the beginning of your blog.