Welcome Blind Butcher!

Submitted by: Kilian Sweeney

I hesitate, actually, to post for the Blind Butcher only because we've shared a blog for so long and I'd like some fresh takes. But anyway, here's something...

I bought a four string Irish-Tenor banjo in a little wooden shop outside of Denver, Colorado in the mid 1990's; totally unaware at the time that this antediluvian purchase would lead to my first internet community experience. I didn't know a thing about banjos though, so I trolled the internet for banjo discussion boards and soon came across a forum anchored by the stately Sonny Osborne.

My initial impression of this internet community business was utterly positive. There I was, a total banjo novice in Houston, who nevertheless had the "ear" of a member of Bill Monroe's Bluegrass Boys - and not just Sonny but a host of banjo enthusiasts. I soon realized though that folks will squeeze all their beliefs onto any stage that will have them. In this particular case, there was a lot of Christian banter and of course the occasional melt down that leads to Nazi name calling and jingoism. Folks like Sonny wouldn't have much of that and always steered the conversation back to banjos. It took some work though. After a while I dropped off, somewhat disappointed in the amount of flag waving and cross bearing going on.

I took a look at other boards like Hands Up Houston, the Goner Records board, some culinary boards... The maturity of the board obviously depended on the maturity of the participants but all of them could at times be rather harsh and idiotic. For some reason the cooking boards seemed the most bitter (hehe). If someone didn't like a certain spice for instance that could really piss somebody else off. And then there would be a round of name-calling, charges of narrow-mindedness, etc. Certainly the most offensive stuff seemed to happen between two people who had no personal relationship whatsoever. It's not my experience exactly but on the internet it seems so easy to get pissed off at a person you don't even know.

It would seem that is true anyway, but really who are you getting pissed at when you mouth off at somebody's internet icon for typing that they don't like marjoram? Really I believe you reserve your true anger for the people closest to your hearts and chiefly yourself.

There's a lot of this ugliness exposed for the internet. So much so that for a while I was negative about the use of cyberspace. I thought it was malignantly different than other forms of communication. I thought it allowed people to be braver than they normally would with actions they wouldn't dare do in person, actions they probably shouldn't do. I don't feel that way now. Now I feel it is just another extension of humanity which reflects fairly honestly who we are.

Take the Goner Records Message Board for example. Somebody might post about their band's upcoming show; followed by a message like "your band sucks." It can look cold and unimaginative to an outsider, and indeed it is, but you can't read everything from those lines. I would tell myself that sort of rude dialog wouldn't go on in a bar. People are more polite, but of course that is rose colored glasses thinking right there -because you sure as hell are going to find people in a bar who don't mind telling you that your band sucks right to your face. I can tell you that from first hand experience. In fact by and large folks can be ugly to one another in bars - at least indifferent.

Take the NAP - the commonality of the first NAP group was that we had all crossed paths on the Houston original music scene some time in the 1990's. But you would not have found this crew sitting around a table together at Rudz. In a way, here was our chance to do that. The promise of NAP was to come to grips with dark traits of my own: anger, insecurity, and selfishness. I already saw internet forums not as loud shouts, not as soap boxing; internet posts and comments are whispers in a forest quickly muffled and seldom heard. But to emphasize their insignificance is boring. So my NAP ambitions weren't broad but I was going to put something in to it in the spirit of community and education. I saw the NAP as having two audiences - one being the participants and the other being "Houston." Houston in the sense that it would be an extension of our local musical friends, fans, other musicians and the like. Sure enough at least at first that was the case - and the NAP was linked from many Houston-based music related internet enterprises and then as now the majority of hits to the NAP site originate in Houston.

I always hope that more people from the extended audience and beyond would participate. I have enjoyed the extended community; and the present nap posting group is now made up from the second audience more than the original posters. Yet I am somewhat ambivalent about a broader audience because there is nothing more base than a comment-heavy site without a core community. Online newspaper comments being the embodiment of my concern. Although there are a handful of broad-audience comment sections that maintain a decent level of interest. Mark Bitman's culinary blog for the New York Times can be a good read, in part I believe, because Bitman actually reads his audience's comments and occasionally culls ideas from the forum and uses them in his posts. This gives his audience a sense of ownership.

Thanks to the way Ramon (the modest originator) presented NAP, its participants do have a sense of ownership. I believe NAP is an extension of ourselves. It is not wholly insignificant either, even to those who would have us believe otherwise - those who are apathetic and who lead us to wonder largely why they bother or rather don't bother. Even they are giving of themselves; demonstrating not only the insignificance upon which they lay this endeavor but the insignificance upon which they lay their sense of others. It's not a pleasant experience. It is something of a disappointment honestly; currently like a high school speech class - now it's my turn now it's your turn. Most contributors don't comment much as if they are too insecure and too petty to pay attention. But I ask myself what other way I would have it? I mean by force. To ask for more could only turn it over to pure cheese - lovey dovey kissy happy.

I hope for J & C and the Blind Butcher: a passionate crowd with a yearning to learn as much from others as they hope to share themselves. Comments don't have to be positive but they do have to demonstrate that interest was shown; interest enough to read and think about what has been shared. But now I turn it over to you to tell me what it is exactly that I am over-expecting.