Tuesday, August 23, 2005
 Heyya Tony,
Thanks again for the book... I really enjoyed reading it--parts of it more than once! I know you are crazy busy guy but if you have any thoughts on this can you let me know?
Since you're mega-blog man... and my blogs are still new-ish... where do you draw the line at sharing personal information? What do you do if you're getting that skeevy wierd feeling from people?
I have been getting these blocked ID phone calls on my cell leaving really bizarre messages... I thought nothing of it til it occured to me that it's really easy to get my number online because of my photography-that info is easily found.
I wonder if it's such a good idea to be so frank and open on blogs-if that invites the weirdos to come out of hiding. My blog doesn't get that much traffic, and I started it for me to talk about what I wanted. As soon as you get an audience however, I become aware of them, what they think- am I boring them- how will they take what I am saying... Do you just ignore that feeling?
signed,
w (not the president) dear w,
turning off the internal voice that tells you not to do shit on your blog is the toughest thing that you will encounter while blogging.
on one hand you and i both know that the best part about reading blogs is learning about the people and about experiencing their "edge".
two of my favorite bloggers handle this totally different.
in canada we have Raymi who not only tells us everything about herself from her shits to her clothes to the way she parties to even her very sensitive sexual situations. and she also gets naked.
here in LA we have flagrant disregard who tells us everything about her eating disorders to her suicidal tendencies to her globetrotting.
on the surface you might think that these young women are doing things totally different since flagrant doesnt show any pictures of herself and she never announces where she will be and doesnt broadcast her voice or her moving images, and raymi does all of those things.
but in truth they are both hiding behind fake names and they keep their whereabouts basically anonymous.
 however: raymi's real name, for example, isnt raymi, but a regular reader can pretty much figure out her real name, whereas flagrants real name is hidden from everyone.
i say learn from both of these women and be out there as far as your emotional information but be smart about your whereabouts like what school you go to or where you work.
i know its slightly different for girls, but when i worked at E! i didnt say so on my blog for several reasons, one being i didnt want someone pissed at something that i wrote to be calling me at the E! switchboard, nor did i want them waiting for me out side of the koo koo roo with a sledgehammer to see if i really do work for the xbi or not. its not that i wouldnt totally love to waste someone on wilshire, its just the paperwork involved after the fact is a nightmare.
plus it doesnt really add to the story.
in fact the fact that i worked at E! may have convinced people that that was one of the reasons that my blog was popular (relatively) or why i was the writer that i was. however neither of those assumptions were true. my blog flourished because of the content and the committment that i had for blogging. period.
yes i tell people where i live, hollywood, but i never gave out my real address, and when i did have to give an address to anyone, i used a PO box that i rarely visit. that too deters stalkers. not that i have any, but who wants them?
i also dont talk about my sexual encounters unless the woman that im with truly wants me to write about them. and even then, oftentimes i let them have first crack at editing. lately ive been with women who arent the exhibitionists that we all wish they were so mum has been the word.
i do talk about my gray nut hairs, about some of the times that i beat off, about my dirty apartment, about my maid who has turned it into a clean apartment, my old drug habit, my laziness, my fears, some of my adventures, my past loves, and some of my plans. its my belief that the deeper you can get with your audience the more they will eat it up and the more your blog will be like a real diary and the more loyal your readership will become because they will feel like youre letting them into a special secret place that only a few (thousand) people have discovered.
its all a trick. its a trick creating intamacy, its a trick to allow yourself to open up, and its a trick to ignore the naysayers who i promise you will criticize anything that you do even if its opening your heart.
good luck baby,
tony
aaron + far from relevant + mitya + black lilly
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