March 1: The End of This Blog.

As of March 1, Haibun will no longer exist as a regular weblog. I'm not sure if I'll keep it up or take it down; probably the former, for a while, if just for announcements and to re-direct people to my other projects. But yeah, not so much. March 1.

I've said this before, but it's time. I don't hate the b***osphere, not at all. But I think my time in it has passed. I just don't have the time to keep up, what with having a day job and a wife and two kids; I hate doing this boringly, and it's boring for me now, god only knows what it's like for the 25 or so people who read this. I'm probably linked more than I'm read!

When I started, I was sure that this weblog would be my main mode of expression in terms of being a human and a music critic. But I'm not sure that I care about being a music critic anymore, or even a reviewer most days. What the hell do I have to say here that I can't say on PopMatters or Stylus or ILX? And, more to the point, why the hell am I trying?

That's what this is all about: moving on. When I was a kid, I didn't sit around going all like "Man, I hope someday I can grow up and try to pontificate about the state of whatever music there is then." Geez, I didn't even want to make any kind of big statement like that when I first applied to InkBlotMagazine and told Jesse that I was the great undiscovered music writer of our time. I just wanted free stuff. And now I get a whole lot of free stuff, but I have no time to listen to it, and even less to reflect on it. I actually feel like I'm physically and emotionally addicted now to getting free music: the thrill of the new! so liberating! But there's an awful lot of stuff that I already love, gathering expensive dust in my basement and in the trunk of my car and at my desk at work. Something's gotta give sooner or later.

No, what I wanted to be when I was a kid was a WRITER. Someone who could really change the game, flip this crazee world on its ear with funny jokes and clever prose and wry observations. I have actually reached my goal three times over: I've published four books for children, I go to lots of schools to help kids with writing, and I've been a nationally recognized slam poet (corny but harder than it sounds). Then, I started to write reviews. Since then (and a second child and some tough times due to depression and inner demons and crap-eating weasel presidents of the United States of America blah blah blah), no writing, except about random CDs someone sent me in the mail, or that I bought at The Exclusive Company or Circuit City or Best Buy or Frugal Muse or what have you.

Anne-Marie says that I worry too much about the younger Matt Cibula hating my guts for being who I am. She might have a point, but I'm not going to change this conception. I'll still write reviews, but once the current batch is done, I might just pull a slow fade like Johnny Carson, not re-up my list, just focus on writing some of this stuff that's been waking up like a seed in spring.

Well, I'll probably still review, just not as much. Time to get paid and/or get busy.

So here's the deal: if you email me, I'll send you details about a new blogspot site that will begin on March 1. This site will be a serially-written novel that I'm hoping to publish someday. I'll write a new chapter each week. You can comment on it, yell at me, compliments and brickbats, whatever. But Haibun has to die so that new thing can live.

March 1.

I'll holler back a couple more times. In the meantime, ride that link train all the way into the sunset.