10 years ago today, I wrote my first blog post here at what I named The Johnny Bacardi Show. It has been a year since I've posted anything here, I know, and that makes me sad. I used to look forward to coming up with stuff to write about, and enjoyed the links and feedback I got upon occasion. Unfortunately, at some point a couple of years ago it began to feel like more of a grind and an obligation than anything else, and some of the writing that came somewhat easily early on became harder and harder, so this blog has become like a house that has been vacated, but nobody has bothered to move all the stuff out.
Don't see the hiatus ending anytime soon, I'm sorry to say...right now, at this stage of the game, not much about my life is conducive to writing, for fun or otherwise. High-stress job (I know that's all relative), apathy about so many things I was enthusiastic about just five or so years ago, family obligations, blah blah blah...there are many culprits. Perhaps things may change for me someday, who knows, but I don't see that happening anytime soon. I no longer have any illusions that my writing will lead to anything that will improve my life in any way...well, any more than it actually has by now. In a lot of ways, it's become sort of an exercise in futility for me, repeated over and over, and these days I rarely have the energy to fight it.
Anyway, just because I'm not writing here doesn't mean I'm not findable here on the Intarwebs. I have been known to get on Tweeting jags on Twitter about all sorts of things, even comics sometimes, so by all means follow me if you're on there. I also post stuff, mostly images, on Tumblr from time to time, and that one is the closest thing I have to what this site used to be. The LiveJournal is still alive, kinda dormant like this one unless I get in the mood (and have the time) to sketch something, and I put it up there. As of right now, I still review comics about once a month at Popdose...I'm kinda overdue right now in getting the latest one done. After putting it off for about eight years, I am finally, slowly but surely, rebuilding and redoing my Thriller site, this time in blog format. Please check in from time to time, I do want to get it done but it's difficult to get the time, energy, and desire to do it. I'm on Facebook too, because, well, why not.
And so, here we are. Ten years. That's quite a long time, and sometimes I wonder what it would have been like if I had had the energy and wherewithal of, say, a Mike Sterling, who has put something up almost every day since he started, or Laura "Tegan" Gjovaag, who has done the same. Who knows. A lot of the blogs that started out when I did are similarly no longer active, a victim of their owners either succumbing to ennui or moving on to higher-profile (and hopefully paying, in some cases) gigs. Does that mean blogging is dead? I doubt it, but in the wake of Twitter and Tumblr and so on, it certainly doesn't seem to be as widespread as it once was, and maybe that's for the best; there were a lot of, shall we say, undistinguished blog sites that sprang up so many years ago. I think perhaps the cream has risen to the top and a lot of the chaff has fallen by the wayside, if you'll forgive my mixed metaphors.
OK, enough rumination. If you have made it this far, I thank you most sincerely, and I appreciate it more than you'll ever know. Happy birthday, Johnny Bacardi, you old bastard. See ya in the funny papers. Or webcomics on your Kindle. Or whatever. As if you could even afford a Kindle.
