I return to Xcargo

And so I consider returning to Blogspot. Or Blogger, of you prefer. Though I was never very fond of that name.

Either way, I’m not sure that I should. I’m told that blogging is dead. And that even if it isn’t, then Blogspot/Blogger is certainly dead. I’m told that no one goes here any more. I’m told that the future lies in Tumblr, or Wordpress, or on the “micro-blogging” sites, like Twitter, to which our current president (alas) so regularly goes to comfort his supporters, and terrify the rest of us.

But, then, I missed the blogging boom back in the early years of this century. I’m always a bit behind, it seems. Or else just a little too far ahead. My timing is notoriously bad. So, why not? I shall return to explosive-cargo, my blog, which was based on my e-zine, just when such things are entirely passé.

Anyway…

I will try to post here at least once a week. At least, when I have the energy to do so, which may not be all the time, I’m sorry to say. At sixty-one, I seem to have somewhat less vigor than I did once.

But I’ll try, because I want to focus again on my own writing — personal essays, chiefly. That’s what the original explosive-cargo (Xcargo) was all about. I find that, now, I want to return to that sort of thing. I want to, once again, write short pieces, dealing with my life and my observations of that life, however myopic my observations may be.

I might as well use this space, at least for a time, to begin.


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I must confess, though, I am uncertain whether to remain here, on blogspot. And I’m uncertain whether to keep the name “explosive-cargo,” which was the name of the ezine, and of the newspaper column before that (a long story which I’ll tell you someday). I’m uncertain about the name because I’ve always had the vague feeling…a superstition, really…that there was something ill-ill-fated about the name itself, and that if it had been something else I would have been much more widely read, maybe even become a professional columnist. As I say, an irrational concern, but maybe there’s something too it. A professional marketer could tell me.

As for Blogger, it never felt really right to me. It seemed a little cumbersome at the best of times. And it never really motivated me to write. You see, with an e-zine you get feedback from your readers. In a blog, you sometimes do and sometimes don’t. And when I tried to restart Xcargo as a blog, it felt as I were shouting into a vacuum. No one seemed to hear.

I suspect I won’t be heard now, either. I suspect the only hits I’ll get will be from bots, and half of them Russian, in search of a mark.

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Why do it at all, then? I guess because it is a way of getting myself back into motion. Even if no one reads this, I will at least publish something. And, then, afterwards, perhaps I’ll include this material in a self-published book.

Which may or may not be read, either. But that’s fine. At least I’ll publish it.


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But should it be here? On Blogger, I mean? I begin it here because, when I started, it was about the only game in town. And it was (still is) owned by Google. Which is pretty impressive.

However, if I had to do over again, I think I would have done it on Tumblr. It has a better look, and rather better technology. I’d be tempted to restart this blog on Tumblr, in fact, but Tumblr just terminated all its adult material. I have nothing that could be considered “adult” on my site, but I worry. Could, someday, my political opinions be considered controversial? And could I be then shut down.

That being the case, I’ll start posting here, and then check around a bit — find out what else is out there. If I find something better, I’ll switch. Then I put lots of links to the new site in my last post, here.

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So, stayed tuned. There is more to come.

As I used to say twenty years ago…

Onward and upward.