He must, so to speak, throw away the ladder after he has climbed up it.

- Ludwig Wittgenstein

After a few months of inactivity, I owe the followers of this space some honesty: this site is officially mothballed.

I am grateful to all the faithful subscribers and visitors to the site over the past 14 months. The valuable comments, e-mails and other forms of response have been resonant, validating and much, much more. I must confess, though, that the rate of response and number of visits are not enough for me to feel called to continue producing, or that this project has not taken a life of its own beyond being a personal lab in which I expressed my developing self via online media. I feel I have gotten all I can get out of doing these things in this context.

My plan is to let this site remain in its current form until the hosting agreement or domain name registration expires, whichever comes first, and then let the site exist in the Internet Archive. Most of the videos will remain on Blip and YouTube, and the podcasts will always be in my personal files. If you are interested in hearing one and cannot retrieve it, please let me know and I will be happy to send you the file. I do have a new personal blog. I have no idea what I am going to do with it yet, but I do feel “freed up” to do whatever I want with that (mostly) blank canvas. You can also add me on Facebook.

Finally, but most importantly, there is nothing more to say than thank you. I hope that the produce of this space has provided a fraction of the growth and development it has provided me.

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It’s been a while. Herein is the explanation.

So I buggered, natch, off to South Africa for 4 weeks after what’s been a mountain of a past few months. There’s not much in the way of connectivity for visitors without a gargantuan effort, and definitely not upload speeds conducive to vlogging and podcasting. So to all three of you that are still patiently watching this space, I thank you for your fortitude.

 The good news is I can now talk about EVERYTHING, and also have a pile of footage from all parts of this amazing country to share with you very soon. I fly back tonight. Give me a day or two to get over the jet-lag, and I’ll be back to putting out media and commentary about the gay web as soon as I am compus mentus.

Taking a quick break from anniversary festivities to direct you to a growing furor driven yet again by the GLBT Blogosphere concerning a disgustingly anti-gay advertising campaign launched during last night’s Super Bowl by M&M Mars, their advertising agency TBWA Chiat/Day New York (owned by the Omnicom Group), and the Snickers Public Relations agency Weber Shandwick (owned by the Interpublic Group).

I need to get back to celebrating, but Americablog’s John Aravosis gives the full rundown here.

And there’s more from fellow Rhodesian Ridgeback lover Pam Spaulding, Andy Towle, and Jeremy at Good As You.

UPDATE: The HRC (The largest US GLBT rights organization) has responded quickly, making a statement which you can read here.

UPDATE II: The site has been redirected, and the offensive videos have been taken down. Still no statement from neither of the marketing services agencies nor M&M/Mars. This situation isn’t over until we get an explanation, but the net-based pressure here produced a result. Every blogger, commenter, e-mailer and anyone else involved in this episode “flash activism” deserves both credit and thanks. More on this from John at Americablog.

UPDATE III: GLAAD finally has a press release out about this, including quotes from Pink Star Mother Judy Shepard. But here’s the rather interesting bit:

“In early January, TBWA\Chiat\Day New York asked GLAAD to review and provide analysis on a Snickers spot. GLAAD agreed. The next day, the agency abruptly withdrew its request without having shown GLAAD the ad.”

If I had to venture a guess, TBWA Chiat/Day did its job by speaking to GLAAD, but the Snickers client instructed TBWA (in one way or another) to stop talking to GLAAD. Or TBWA/Omnicom has really good friends at GLAAD.

UPDATE IV: New York Times article covering the backlash, including statement from Snickers parent Masterfoods.

Technorati Tags: snickers, homophobia, TBWA, Weber Shandwick, M&M, Mars, Super Bowl, Super Bowl Ads

Cold night. 1998. Met John. The date never ended.

More eclectic multimedia conversation tomorrow.

I don’t believe in moderating comments and banning commenters on blogs. That doesn’t mean, however, that gay bloggers need to just take violent homophobic threats sitting down. Such is the case that is breaking throughout the gay blogosphere this U.S. morning.

It seems a Philadelphia man responded to the popular Good As You blogger Jeremy Hooper’s appearance on the gay news magazine In The Life by saying the following:

“I just saw your clip on T.V. I know your (sic) not going to change who you are. I know what I have to say, your (sic) not really going to give a shit about, however you have this site so I’m posting on it.

You CAN’T just expect everyone to be okay with you, and your life. Your (sic) a fag, and that (sic) fine, but keep it to yourself. Trust me, if I ever walk by you on the street with my kids and I see you kissing or holding hands with some dude, I’ll brake (sic) every bone in your gay little body. Keep your shit behind closed doors, so children can’t see you.

I know your (sic) going to say “oh here is another person who is out to hurt me because I’m gay, oh the life I have to live”. Your (sic) wrong dude, I’m just giving you the “kick in the pants” you like to give the rest of the world, as you said on the T.V show. Now Ms.Honest, how’s that for truth?”

The intrepid Jeremy has responded by sharing with his audience the results of a small sleuthing operation. By googling the commenter’s e-mail address, Jeremy found out that the commenter is one Nick Peronace who runs a business in Philadelphia called Enterprise Steaks.

This is probably the best handling of below-the-belt commenting on gay blogs I have seen, and I love that Jeremy didn’t take the inconsequential easy way out by merely deleting and banning in this hate-speech and physical threat-ridden case. I hope some of you will join the crowds that are sending polite, above-the-belt notes to the not-so-kind owner of Enterprise Steaks. I also hope that you bloggers out there remember what Jeremy did if you should be so unfortunate to have something like this happen to you.

Technorati Tags: gay blogs, glbt blogs, blogosphere, flames, hate speech

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This one’s all about the some causes, some effects and some possible solutions to the massive profit pressure on corporations. I’m no genius about these topics, and this is by no means a comprehensive discussion. Nevertheless, I think this is a topic worth discussing.

Relevant Links:

Bicycle Mark on Pensions

Karmabanque