shanenickerson.com

a draft called "2001"

I know I said LAST week was unpublished drafts week, but since I have no Powerbook and feel uninspired to write at my messy excuse for a desk on a clunky full-sized keyboard, and since my sister loaned me Seasons 1 and 2 of The Shield, which I am tearing through voraciously, and since I'd rather watch a bunch of other series that I missed the boat on while they were on TV, like Deadwood and Firefly, I thought I'd dust off another draft and write a couple of run-on sentences to set it up. This piece is significant, not only because it marks the unfinished ending to one story in a collection of unfinished "serials" that longtime readers will recognize as a Nickerblog pattern, but also because it is itself, unfinished. Enjoy. I'm off to a Voice Over audition for Coke that I'm probably not going to get, because the description calls for a deep voice and my voice is more of a mid-range voice. Ahh...Hollywood.

SEPTEMBER 26, 2004

I figured I'd continue the timeline I started in AUGUST. Wow, time slips away. I'm publishing this on the blog now, although I wrote part of it back in October. It's 2001. It's more fashion errors. It's a Space Odyssey. And it was only 3 years ago.

It's easy to be critical of my fashion sense when I was younger. I was a mere lad. I made mistakes. I thought Z. Cavariccis were "fresh." I thought Van Halen painter hats were making a statement. I thought "Huk-a-Poo" brand velour shirts were what all the cool kids wore. I was naive.

2001 however means just four short years ago. Is't possible that I still made mistakes?
Well, yes. Yes 'tis.

So as I near the end of the running 33 year timeline that I've been doing here at Nickerblog, I urge you to do a bit of the same on your weblog. Extra credit for vintage photographic proof. Post an embarrassing clothing story and trackback. Share the pain of crimped hair, tie-dye socks or gray capezios. It's incredibly liberating. No weblog? Fine. Use the comments section of this post.

OK, off to 2001-2004.

untitled coffee shop draft

I wrote this right after the event described within actually happened. It was one of those rare moments that lasted long enough for me to get home and get out what needed to get out. It's not much, it's not brilliant, and it's nothing special, but I still kind of like it. It captures a moment and puts me back there when I read it. That's something.

July 20, 2005

Part of what makes Los Angeles so unique is that the overwhelming majority of people that live here are from somewhere else. Today, as I stopped in for a cup of coffee around the corner, I heard a man with an obvious Boston accent placing his order.

"Ahh, couple a bagels and two coffees. Cream and shuhgah," he told the employee.

She pointed to a small table behind him with cream, milk and sweeteners and told him, "Cream and sugar is right behind you sir."

He nodded, "Ah, right. Thanks."

(It's an easy mistake. In New England, the major coffee shop is Dunkin' Donuts and they are kind enough to add your cream and sugar for you.)

"You from Boston?" I asked the man, as he collected his two cups of coffee from the cashier.

"Yeah. You?" he asked me. He was about fifty and he had those piercing Irish blue eyes overflowing with a lifetime of experience surrounded by the ruddy, weathered skin of his face. If I were a casting director, I'd cast him as the captain of a fishing boat or the no-nonsense foreman of a construction site.

"New Hampshire," I told him with a nod.

He nodded as he moved past me to the cream and sugar table, "Ahh, ok. Whereabouts?"

"Londonderry?" I told him as I moved up to the cashier who was now waiting for my order. "Drip coffee," I told her quickly and then turned back to the man pouring milk in his two cups. "It's exit 4 off of 93."

He nodded as he tore the tops off of four sugars simultaenously. "Yeah, I know where it is. Used to have a sistah in Manchestah," he informed me without giving any sign as to whether that was a good or a bad thing.

"Oh, cool," I said, automatically.

"What about you? Where you from?" I asked. It was the next logical step in our conversation.

"Revere," he said as he recapped his coffees, now adequately mixed and prepared. It came out sounding like "Re-vee-yah."

"Oh, okay," I told him as if I knew exactly where Revere is. (I do have a vague idea)

He was not the stop and chat type, and I could not right then think of anything further to contribute. I'm sure we could have asked each other what we were both doing out here in LA or talked about the Red Sox or gloated about the fact that we don't miss the snow, but we didn't. Our standard "New Englanders connecting" moment was almost over.

"Get back much?" he asked as he gathered up his coffee and napkins.

"Not as much as I'd like," I told him, talking more to myself than him.

"I heah ya," he said without real emotion as he shook his head. "Alright, take cay-uh," he told me as he walked off.

"You too," I told him as the cashier handed me my coffee, "Thanks."

I mixed my coffee and lost myself as I walked out the door listening to the sound of the sentence that echoed in my mind:

Not as much as I'd like.

The sun outside snapped me back, but I couldn't quite escape the lingering sense of longing for home that sometimes overtakes me when I least expect it.

influx

I guess I was feeling Orwellian when I wrote this post in June 2005, predicting the future of blogging. I didn't publish it because I didn't really feel qualified to be making assumptions and predictions. I still don't, but I am kind of pleased that I wasn't so far off. Keep in mind, blogging was a fringe movement up until very recently. Oops. There I go with the labeling and opinion presented as fact again. Anyway, here is an entry I called: Influx.

June 16, 2005

They say competition is good for the consumer. Consider weblogs:

Many of the established bloggers find themselves recently swamped with new traffic as this little secret, alternative form of expression rockets into the mainstream consciousness. It's daunting, to say the least, to now face scrutiny from all of the not-as-tech-savvy people that have moved past basic google searches into actually using the internet as a resource and entertainment tool. All of the people that all of us nerds were able to hide from are sniffing around on teh internets for some of them new-fangled blog thingies they've been reading about. Although I consider myself a relative late arrival to the blogosphere, I still feel like I got a good jump on blogging. Thankfully. All of the new competition makes it much harder to carve out a chunk of the internet that matters. More choices = less traffic.

It's no wonder then, that some bloggers are afraid of what the exponentially increasing interest in blogs brings. Not me. I say, bring the masses. If nothing else, it will weed out the weaker blogs. As the competition for traffic increases, and the reason for starting a weblog actually moves further towards "to make money," this format will evolve (and in some cases, devolve.) Someone will have a contagious idea about how to get all of the bloggers talking and linking, or better yet, create a modified blog that makes clunky old online diaries seem archaic and very 2001. People smarter than I will harness the power of this evolving forum, and inevitably, this once underground, vibrant form of expression will be at least partially sullied and compromised by unscrupulous greedy tactics and/or Corporate America. Lots of people are reading blogs, which means there is an opportunity to make lots of money. Throughout history, the innovative have found ways to make money off of the masses. I'm not talking about AdSense; I'm talking about REAL money. Blogging will be no exception. There are those that argue that very few people or businesses have managed to turn a profit on content. I think it will happen with blogs.

As an example, let's say Blogger X generates 7500 original hits per day. That's at least 7500 people who make it a point to find out what Blogger X is thinking, what he's linking to, what he's reading, what matters to him. Now let's say Blogger X decides he's going to charge 4.95/month for premium access to his blog. Premium access gets you even more entries; it gets you audioblogs and Videoblogs; it gets you further into the mind of Blogger X; it gives you more access to the blogger. If 1000 of the 7500 people per day pony up the 4.95/month, that's almost Five Grand each month. Even on a much smaller scale, blogging has the potential to turn a profit. 500 premium subscribers at 4.95/month is almost 30k/year. Oh, and theoretically, that's supplemental income to an actual job.

But the fact is, most bloggers don't get that kind of traffic. Most bloggers are fighting for FREE traffic, let alone traffic that will pay a premium. So the business model seems to be: Build a huge following and make yourself an essential read to enough people, and then charge for your content. I think it's safe to assume that it helps if you already have a following or fanbase.

Personally, I'm not interested. That's not to say I don't think it should be done, because if you can create a product that people are willing to buy on a regular basis, you deserve to be paid for your work. And this is work, by the way. I do it because I love it, but converting media and designing a layout and posting and editing and cleaning up spam and general blog maintenance is definitely time-consuming work for bloggers. We do it because we love it. We like sharing ideas and discussion. We like blogging. We like having readers.

But...

The time is coming when some of the people that are in it for other reasons will begin to be louder than those of us in it because we love it.

What does that mean for bloggers? It means that we must continue to produce a good product. Competition is good for us. It forces us to keep writing, keep pouring, keep pushing.

Some will fall away. Some will continue to rule. Some will redefine the genre with every entry.

For me, this is a valuable writing and self-exploration exercise. I welcome all of the new bloggers seeking the same outlet; I also hesitantly welcome the profiteers, licking their lips and greedily rubbing their hands together as they seek ways to make money on this whole game.

Best of luck to you. Remember, content is king. As long as there are thousands of free blogs as your competition, you'll have to really make your content valuable.

untitled vegas draft

I start some blog entries with the best of intentions. I'll have a story by the hair and my goal is to rip it out of my consciousness for all the world to see. Unfortunately, with a two year old girl who could wake the dead with her bellowing voice, I don't always succeed in getting the whole story out. I'm not complaining. I'd rather play with Lucy than write dumb blog entries about losing money at the card tables. Sometimes Dora intervenes; or Clifford the Big Red Dog; sometimes SpongeBob is just funny enough to distract me; sometimes the phone rings, mid-entry. And sometimes I just give up. For me, once the moment has passed, it's difficult to get excited about a story again. Once it's gone it's gone. I don't know what happened here. I not only started a blog entry, I started a POKER BLOG! I bailed on both. C'est la vie.

December 15, 2005

A brief interlude from a trip to the city of promise and evil...

My flight was at 10:30 on Southwest airlines on Friday night. Originally, I was going to make the drive out on Friday morning with Wil, but life and work intervened and I was forced to push my departure deep into Friday night. Things happen. Luckily, Las Vegas doesn't sleep or panic if you show up late. Actually, I think Vegas prefers you to feel behind when you arrive.

Poker Bloggers are an interesting mix of writer and gambler. Most of them have mastered one or the other skill and combine them both to varying degrees of success on their weblogs. I thought, "Why not me?" I can blog about getting beaten at Poker! I know bad beats! I CAN BE A POKER BLOGGER!

So to amuse myself, I made one:

Donkey Joté

Enough said.

This however, was after a whirlwind weekend in Shittown, NV. Let me take you back to Friday...

The flight was on time. Southwest is basically the Greyhound of the skies, and since I arrived only a half an hour before my scheduled departure, I was relegated to the "C" boarding group. For those of you unfamiliar with the airline, that means you're stuck in a middle seat at best...probably by the toilet. If you're lucky, it won't be wedged between a massive gelatinous person and a hobo with baked in stank.

After twenty minutes of watching the "A" and "B" line people board, it was our turn. Luck was on my side, as there was a seat in the third row open (of course, it was the middle). The two passengers on the aisle and window pretended to be immersed in their books.

"I'm going to take that seat," I told them with some authority. I am not intimidated by the old ignore the line of people walking down the aisle trick. It was a full flight and I was on a mission to get to Vegas. They both sighed audibly as Aisle got up to let me in. "We were saving that seat for a hot chick," he told me, half-jokingly. He continued, "If a chick with big tits walks in next, we're kicking you out." I chuckled in a way that doubled as not only a courtesy laugh, but also as a laugh of disbelief to any women or easily offended passengers who might be watching. "I'm a lot better than some of the alternatives still coming in," I assured him. It was no lie. Some of the people in line behind me looked like warmed over zombies. He pushed it, "I'm just saying, we could have wound up with a hot stripper and instead we get some guy's ass crack in our face," he said under his breath as I leaned down to shove my bag under the seat. "I know," I began, unaffected by his insult. "I forgot a belt. Sorry," I added with some sincerity as I plunked into the middle seat between two guys waiting for a "set of big tits" to make their flight worthwhile. As I settled in, I decided that I couldn't be mad at them for that. I've hoped for the same thing as I've waited for the seat next to me to fill up on a flight. Guys are pigs. I'm fine with that. This guy next to me just happened to say it out loud.

I ordered a gin and tonic and a Foster's. The flight was fast, and in what seemed like a half hour, I was strolling into the Flamingo to drop my bag and head to the MGM Grand to meet a bunch of other dengenerates for a mixed game in the MGM Poker Room. Of course, it was already midnight. They had a massive head start on me. Some of them had already been there for days. Worst of all, I really only knew a couple of people in real life at this thing. I felt awkward and not drunk enough. Luckily, Vegas could read my mind...

stream

For several months in 2005 and into 2006, I felt depressed and uncreative and useless. I watched many of my friends and peers surge up within the business around me, and instead of feeling excitement for them, I felt pity for myself. I attribute my mini-depression to many contributing factors in 2005. I sent this unpublished post to a couple of friends, but I ultimately decided not to post it on the weblog for fear of worrying people. It's a bit overblown, this piece, but it's an accurate description of some of the feelings I felt. I'm happy to say that I managed to dig myself out of my bout with depression and self-pity. That's why I'm "un-drafting" it now. It's called, "stream."

January 26, 2005

On the worst days, it feels like everything is unravelling. It's hard to explain, really. Your rational mind tells you that everything is great. It tells you that you have it all and that you are lucky lucky lucky. Sure. It's all true, but it doesn't stop the feeling of drowning and sinking and losing sight of the pack. You are doubled over on the side of the road as they run ahead. It would take a miracle to keep them in sight, let alone catch them. Catching them seems less important that pinching yourself to try to reboot whatever is locked or stuck. Because something is. Something is stuck.

And suddenly you think back on a thousand choices you made that were easier than the harder choices and you tell yourself that if you had made even a few of the harder choices, you'd be happier. But rational kicks in and tells you that you are happy. Lucky lucky lucky, he tells you. And you are. You try to catch your breath to start it all up again and realize that at some point, you forgot what it is you were heading towards. Your sidetrack took you so far off the maintrack that you've not only forgotten which way is back, but how far back is and whether you were ever really on the right track in the first place.

And then a phone rings with someone else's good news and you feign happiness for someone else holding it together or someone else better at pretending it's all okay and good, and better at ignoring the seams and the bindings and the tenuous ground we all stand on. You tell yourself that your victories have the same effect on people somewhere and then try to remember which victories you are referring to. Rational pipes in with lucky lucky lucky and you snap his neck with a scoff and a wince. Turning up the radio to drown out thoughts that go nowhere is futile and the noise in your head wins over almost anything.

And so you drive to a place you hate in the name of income and hope to god that someone somewhere sees a way out for you and points you there. But they won't. They don't. They can't. We do walk our roads alone. It's more lonely when you aren't home and home isn't home when you are.

And so you promise yourself a change and a better this and a new that and a vow to do something better starting right after you keep doing the bad things that poison your life. You see the power these things have and yet you ignore the obvious bells and lights and whistles that suck your soul. And then you write some stream of consciousness bullshit to figure it out and only feel worse for being melodramatic and overblown all the time. You start to resent yourself and resent the self you wish you were because no matter what you try, you never quite get to be him. And you make more promises and fight more good fights and lose big battles that hurt more than you let on and fail in ways that should be familiar but seem to cut deeper each time, and you ask yourself...

What's next? Where am I going? Where have I been and does it really matter? And you chase a life that seems less and less relevant as your real life grows behind it and cling to the foolish dreams of a younger man with less to lose and more to prove. And you sit in a dark room and write it out to see if making it real on a computer screen can help, and in a lot of ways it does. It does because it's like bleeding.

It hurts, but you know at least that it's cleansing. At least, you hope it is.

It was.

untitled draft #2

I've decided to post more than one of these unpublished "drafts" per day this week. It's a bit of a Spring Cleaning for me, and maybe because Spring is in the air, I find I don't hate them as much as I did when I initially censored myself by holding them back. I wrote this one on July 3, 2005. I don't know what the impetus was, and I'm not sure if it matters. I'm not sure I know what the last sentence means.

If you want the secret, I have it.

It's about the work. Regardless of your chosen profession or station in life, the work is what matters. Skip it and you will be caught. Slack off, and others will catch up to you. Cut corners and you will have to answer to yourself at some point.

Of course, that said, the hardest question to answer once it is assumed that hard work is part of the equation is, "Now, what do I work on?" Whatever you love. Work on whatever you love and don't think about the payoff, but instead the road. If part of your road is a continual hunt for a payoff, so be it, but pick a life and career that makes you happy even in the very pursuit of the thing you've chosen.

And you know what? The same goes for the person you spend your life with. Ignore preconceptions and idealized impossibilities and find someone that you can't bear to be away from. Ultimately, after the explosions and fireworks, everything else falls away and you are left with only your two souls. If they are mismatched, all of the dressings and colors and decorated deceptive masks will not help you.

Find the life you love now, not the one you think will lead you to something better for the sake of betterment.

consumerism

This week, I decided to go through my unpublished archives to see what never made it onto Nickerblog. I decided to publish one a day this week, knowing that some of them are unfinished, unpolished, and unusual. I wrote the one that follows on May 26, 2005. I'm not sure why I never clicked "publish," although it seems to be an idea I had that I never fully developed. Sometimes I get into this mindset that blog entries should be polished, fully thought out works of writing. Perhaps not. Anyway, here's the first of five that I'm digging out of "draft" status this week:

Isn't it odd that our entire economy was originally based on the price of gold? Also, why is it that gold is still considered valuable? It's just a pretty metal. Our entire economy is focused on a quest for pretty metal. Doesn't anyone else think that's weird? We will probably live to see a day when baubles and gems are replaced by clean water and land as the most valuable things on earth. I don't understand the economy; specifically, I wonder sometimes if we are all part of a cult of consumerism designed to keep us buying so that we avoid the reality of what's going on in the world. Gadgets and distractions are more exciting than death tolls and Darfur. Malls and catalogs and online shopping have numbed me. Don't I need an iPod case? My car needs a wash so that the outside will look nice? Tip jars in a donut shop? You're handing me a donut, here's a dollar. No wonder the world hates us. I know we are a generous society and that there are generous people and that everyone wants to do the right thing, but doesn't anyone else feel brainwashed by consumerism? It's like being on a train that's never going to slow down until it hits something really, really big.

It will destroy us, I think. We can't stop spending.