OUTSIDE, GETTING SOME AIR.

I hate it when blogs make some big announcement that they're going to stop posting. You'll receive none of that here. But that doesn't mean that there isn't a little frustration at this end. Here's an overdue update:

1. Google sucks. Search engines tend to penalize blogs with a lot of outgoing links. As you've no doubt noticed, there's a shitload of outgoing links here. To make matters worse, the search engine that most people use, Google, seems to have fine tuned the algorithm to the point where this blog doesn't show up until you reach the sixth or seventh page of results. To put it in contrast, the term "Trastos" alone used to bring this blog up as the first or second search result on the first page. It was the wild west,  man.

2. Where is everybody? Today the blog only got 66 page views. That's down from an average of a few thousand a day. Part of it is due to the bad search results. What is ultra disappointing is that, from the beginning the whole purpose of this blog was to build a community of fiends that like all sorts of music and don't coddle any favorites that have passed their prime. You would think that after fifteen years of doing this there would be more than 66 page views in a day, especially when you consider that there are over 3600 posts.

3. Music blogs are all but kaput. I used to link to all sorts of music blogs that had music, videos or posts of note. I've always credited the sources and in many cases encouraged you to go to the other blogs. It's getting harder to find music in the nooks and crannies of other blogs. What blogs haven't shut down are now linking to YouTube links or Spotify. Shit, you can find stuff yourself doing that.

4. Time. When I think about all the time I've spent doing this over the years, if I would have applied that to learning an instrument, I'd be damn good by now. Time is precious, it really is. I've wasted enough over the years to know that. Unfortunately I don't have much to show for it, that's okay. Like I say to friends who ask why I bother to blog, I usually mention that one of the benefits is that it keeps me out of trouble. This is true in a sense. It does help to keep me from drinking. But who's to say returning to painting, learning an instrument, or writing about things other than music wouldn't do the same thing, possibly with more benefits.

Here's what I think I might do. Start a second Trastos affiliated blog. There I'd post only text, with a single link back here for any outgoing links. I might write about other shit too, besides just music. It would be a win-win for any of you regulars. You could skip the incessant blabbering and get to the meat.

I'm pondering that, yeah but I really just wanted to rag at length. It felt pretty good. Maybe that's why people bitch and moan so much online nowadays. It makes me want to stay offline altogether.