Incredible music, but they've got a beef with the blogger

Earlier this year--in fact, twelve days before my Birthday--I received a more or less positive review from a place called Metafilter (whatever that word means). More or less, they loved my music and didn't care a lot for the guy putting it up. Which I can live with. I mean, I have to.

Kári Tulinius, who recommended my blog (they meta-recommend things to one another over there), had to pretty much backtrack and apologize for leading people there (I mean, here), because by the time her fellow above-and-beyonders got to my blog, I had written posts expressing my disappointment in The Huffington Post's way of doing things (I'd started to sense that H.P. was a con), PLUS I was documenting WFMU's Beware of the Blog's latest instance of removing someone's comments because they didn't match the party line.

And I have this blasted habit of using words when I write. I like to keep things more literary than journalistic, mainly because the weblog form gives writing room in which to breathe. Why should I keep everything sounding like a Dragnet prologue when I'm neither under a deadline nor beholden to a word count? But too many words causes issues for some. Especially those who use the meta prefix. (Irony Alert, Irony Alert. Beeeep, beeep, beeep!)

Flapjax at midnite wrote: "The blogger seems to have a bit of a beef with WFMU's Beware of the Blog. Censorship issues, says he. Hmmm..." Hmmmm.

roll truck roll: "Wow. Quite the criticism of the WFMU blog there."

Blingo: "Great stuff."

Kári returned with these words: "Aww damn. Had I seen the top entry I would've held the post back a few days. Not because I think WFMU is sacrosanct, but because his fraught relationship with Beware of the Blog (and Huffington Post) is not what draws me to the site. When I started to write the post the silly picture was the top entry. Oh well. I don't see it stopping anyone from checking out the music, so no harm is done."

Glad that no harm was done! Now I can sleep at night. And, you know--it's not as if the Internet existed for such subversive self-expression as mine. Thinking outside of the box is great--just so long as you don't do it. That's the catch.

But no harm was done. The Internet is still pulsing along, or whatever it does. And Kari doesn't think WFMU is sacrosanct. Obviously. No one at MF does--which explains why they fretted and focused and rationalized over the fact I called the place for censoring comment-section critics. Makes sense. How dare I even suggest that wiping out unwanted comments is not only wrong but downright petty? What am I, some sort of moralist?

It's just that she didn't want to take up her fellow Metafilterers' time with my fraught relationship with two blogs.

The nicest words came from Jack Mottram (whose nickname, Jack_Mo, is a truncated version of his real name): "Your man has had a bit of a beef with WFMU for a while - the ongoing and incredibly tedious flood of Christian comedy posts were all to score points against a single post at WFMU. I've taken to skipping the words and just clicking the links to download the often incredible music posted."

Ongoing and tedious? I spent several weeks rounding up examples of Christian comedy. My finds included an early-1920s Homer Rodeheaver disc containing short, stand-up-style comedy bits and the monster hit Here Come the Rattlesnakes, which WFMU's "single post" had managed to overlook. Along with a couple of Christian stand-up comics of the 1960s. The points I scored were points of scholarship. The truth, in response to gibberish. The WMFU survey had Christian comedy popping up long after it really did, and as an extension of Christian ventriloquism. (Right.)

The piece was nothing but the usual ritual bashing of faith, except, in this instance, it was masquerading as a survey. Ironically, it got me interested in the topic. I wanted to see what would happen if someone actually researched it.

Anyway, I don't detect a shred of anti-Christian sentiment in Jack's words.

It's too bad I have no means of making my music files unavailable to Jack, because I would do so in a heartbeat. Nothing personal.

In the meantime, many of the gripes I aired about Huff-Po were also expressed by syndicated columnist Froma Harrop in a terrific recent piece. It's possible my points had a point. And it looks like they were ahead of the curve. Back to you, Metafilter.

No, just kidding. As much as I appreciate the plug, I would prefer they never get back to me. Please? Thanks.


Lee