Hark and Listen Hard

No internet at the apartment yet, and Seattle costs a lot more than Houston. Hence my quietness this week.

This is about links, and will be short. As some of you know, there are more sports blogs in this country than there are televisions and fingers. They all cull material from the same internet, and many times these sources are much more gigantic operations that just lack in know-how or brand credibility.

Admittedly, I've gotten salty about not being linked to before, but that was only when I found a video or photo that was buried deep within YouTube or Flickr. I'm not saying that no one else could have found them, but they didn't, and might not have if even if they had been looking. On the other hand, anything that lives in a a less wild and democratic media platform ( e.g. a newspaper) is out there. Even the local stuff can be turned up in a matter of seconds these days. Chances are, we're all going to find it, because there are plenty of bloggers whose daily toil consists of grabbing things to link to. Finding it first is hardly a noteworthy achievement, since it was never really "found" in the first place. There's a difference between finding treasure in a junk store and being the first person to check David Foster Wallace out of your public library.

Some of you may know that I like The Wire. Think about this: the blog game is just like the dope game, but the territory is the links. Now, what's more important, trifling over who got their post up first, or taking the time to say the best shit we can about breaking news? Really, there's only like four blogs that need to be curating daily lists of links, because those are the ones that have the traffic, the cohesive identity, and the resources to pull this off on a grand scale. Everyone else should be trying to form some non-obvious ideas about whatever happened. Because even if someone were to click over through the "via so and so" route, there's no guarantee they'd even remember they'd been there if all they saw was sports-talk-y tripe and a link. More street ministry: taking over a corner doesn't make it yours indefinitely, and certainly nothing's happened to identify your crew with anything lasting or meaningful (i.e. product).

There is so much time being wasted over this links business that I'm sick. You can call me Stringer, and I fully expect to be shot dead in an abandoned building over this. Because just as there's no rep in the streets without defending turf, the blogosphere ranks would dwindle to nothing if you actually expected people to write well and stop thinking they're reporters. Who, incidentally, are often themselves using the exact same material as everyone else standing next to them in the locker room.