This Blog Kills Fascists: TBKF R.S.V.P.

Though it's been a light week in terms of posting, much has changed with respect to the blog. First, for those of you who read your email (hint: if you're reading this, you do), This Blog Kills Fascists / The Daily Exorcise / The Blog So Nice, They Named it Thrice is now by invitation only.

We're very exclusive, you know. 18% gratuity included. Replace all divots. Do try not to piss in the fountain.

As my friend Richard explained to me, after declining to write a guest-post because he's too busy LEARNING JAZZ BASS GUITAR (see what I mean about friends doing cool things?), he simply wouldn't write for any blog that would have him as a member. He was paraphrasing Groucho Marx and he was kidding. I think.

The goal of going private was expediency, not exclusivity. If anything, I am glad to have a place to dump my thoughts and gladder yet to occasionally get feedback on them. I certainly don't pretend that my posts are pleasing any one more than me. It has been good to get things off my chest. And, by that measure, the blog has already been a much bigger success than I expected. If it made any of you laugh or think or productively angry, then, well, that's gravy. More than I hoped for when I began it.

Speaking of the blog's conception, a few people have commented to me on its name. If you haven't been able to tell by the various images that adorn the layout, it is a reference to a slogan that the late great Woody Guthrie used to write on his guitar. He was a complicated man who wrote what Pete Seeger called "deceptively simple" songs. He was also America's first punk rocker. And lots of other things. And lots of other things.

"But," you might be saying out loud to your computer screen, "isn't the title a little hard-core for a blog that has posted not once - but twice - on Celine Dion?"

To which I will respond by saying, "Good question. Yes, now that you mention it, the blog's name does seem a little inappropriate, given the content and style of the writing."

YOU: "And the new logo graphic! This from the guy whose idea of 'edgy' is a Muppets mash-up of a Rick Astley song?"

I: "Ok, ok, you're kinda piling it on now, but I get the message. I'm not 'underground.' But, it's not like I shop at The Gap while wearing a Che Guevara t-shirt made in Indonesia."

YOU: "Comparing yourself to other poseurs only puts you on the poseur scale, dude. And it's a slippery scale, if you know what I'm saying. Not to mention the fact that any argument you could possibly make is lost before it's made, thus spaketh Godwin and Godwin's word is Law!"

I: "That's all well and good, but the title AND the logo are staying. And here's why. I like them. Maybe someday my blog will stave off a totalitarian regime, maybe not. But for now it has a sense of humor. And fascists don't have a sense of humor. That's what makes them fascists. They're always blathering on and on about right angles & purity & the submission of individual rights to the needs of the state. Bor-ing! Furthermore, Richard (you may remember him from such paragraphs as "the third"), who is learning JAZZ BASS GUITAR, told me that the name of my blog "kicks so much ass." Stay with me on this. Jazz invented the word "cool." Who is the coolest member of any music group? The bass player. Richard = Bass + Jazz. Richard is unimpeachably cool. And he strongly endorses the blog name. Therefore, according to the Transitive Property of Jazz Bass, my blog name is cool."

For further proof of my street cred and my thesis, check out this indie cartoon: