FAILED BLOG DIFFERENT THAN A FAILED MOVIE

BoomerPdx is a failed blog. (Does that make me a failed blogger? Uh oh)

After a Portland run to the art museum I came home and reviewed the evening.

You know what they say about writers?

We get to live things twice: Once in real life, once on the page.

Except I got sidetracked on Facebook.

How does that happen?

I scrolled past post after post of failed movies that made comebacks on social media , which got me thinking about failure.

BoomerPdx is a failed blog. I’m not sad to say it.

“This is a failed blog.”

For proof I look at the readers for my failed movie post. Two readers.

And I understand. No bitter feelings. I’ve got no problem with two readers. Thank you.

But, two readers for a new post on a day with four hundred and twenty four hits?

That’s a failed post by any estimation and I think I know why.

 

Failed movies all have one thing in common: Credits.

It’s what’s often missing from those who decide what constitutes a failure, then reconsider.

If you have no name and no credit to besmirch you can change your mind on everything at any time.

Movies get a second life on social media, a Facebook life.

There’s only one problem: the trend is spreading. People are posting new evaluations, re-reevaluting things, like Nixon.

A failed president is not the same as a failed movie.

The movie doesn’t get the right budget, doesn’t go to the right festivals, and people find it by word of mouth.

We found Nixon by words from his own mouth, his own recordings.

Oops, not opps.

If watching life through a veil is comfort, do continue, but go outside too.

And if you do something you’re proud of, put your name on it.

 

Stay In Your Lane, Pal

I make a trip to the local art museum and write a post about failed movies?

Where else do you find that online?

Only on a failed blog trying to connect dots with invisible lines.

The art museum isn’t a failure, wasn’t a failure. What it was was refreshing.

 

I’m a museum guy since 1975 when I lived next door to the Philadelphia Museum of Art and they had free Sundays.

You know the place. It’s where Rocky ran up the steps and they became the Rocky Steps.

I’d been running the Ben Franklin Parkway and up the same steps before Rocky, not to brag.

For him it was a movie set; for me it was real life.

My twenty year old brain thought ‘these are great steps, why hasn’t anyone put them in a movie.’

Fifty years later I’m still a museum guy keeping an eye on stuff and things.

 

It’s what improves my education, enthusiasm for learning, and different angles on history.

Who doesn’t like a new angle on history.

What are these people looking at?

 

 

History guy writes about history; art guy writes about art; political guy writes about politics.

A failed blogger writes about them all on a failed blog.

We failures keep failing with constant reminders.

 

The Online Success Plan

What I need to improve my blog status is a persona, an online persona.

Most baby boomer bloggers write about leisure, retirement, expensive nights out, vacations, life as they know it.

But I’m an Oregon blogger who has picked fish scales off my hands after a shift working at Hallmarks in Charleston; I’ve picked slivers out of my forearms after a shift working at Georgia Pacific in Bunker Hill.

Am I a blue collar boomer blogger? Noooo.

I know how to shine my shoes and straighten my gig-line after a tour of duty with the Army.

Am I an Army blogger? Noooo.

What is the most impressionable thing in my life?

Assisting the home births of my two kids. Why home births?

I dated a naturopathic doctor who delivered babies in their homes.

We worked our dating life in between appointments.

After we got married and started planning a baby I said, “This is a good plan, so far. We need to think about which hospital we want.”

“David, I deliver babies in their home. Why would we go to a hospital?”

There she was connecting dots with very visible ink. I saw that and piped down.

During labor my mom called and said we should be in a hospital.

I told her I agreed, but my wife would be upset if I left in the middle of things.

Does this make me a daddy blogger?

It could but the kids are skeptical about living an online life and I don’t blame them.

They are talented people married to talented people with exceptional kids that I could fill post after post with.

Then I’d be guaranteed the title of jackass blogger and get put on probation, granddad probation.

They even got testy after we grandparents learned about our roots on a genealogy site, and at first I didn’t get the concern.

It turns out companies are bought and sold and the data is available to who knows who, and I’m not a fan of malicious intent on innocent data.

Does that make me a data blogger? Noooo.

I just added a timeline of boomerpdx posts from the beginning to now after seeing another blogger post their archive.

They called it an archive. I was either inspired, or one-upping.

Let’s call it what it is: I’m a failed blogger with a long tail of posts wagging behind me.

Kind of nutty to me too, but I’ll keep working to crack the code.

 

PS:

Some call quitting based on failure the ultimate failure. Who can argue that.

 

PS:

I should get some baby boomer sponsors on boomerpdx, maybe one for teeth whitening, one for hair dye.

Or I could apply for sponsorship by Speedo?

Whoa, let’s not get crazy. (Where do I sign up)