"Mighty" Mike McGee's Electronic Place of Himself.
Typings of a well-traveled, talky, funny, hobo-poet.
Live from Minneapolis, MN…
For about the last two years, I’ve fantasized about putting together a truly comprehensive, non-Poetry Slam, Inc. website or wiki on the topic of poetry slam. My biggest drawback has been time and motivation. It is amazingly difficult to get amped-up about a community that only gets amped-up between April and August[!] (as they field teams to compete at the National Poetry Slam.)
I had found a dead wiki on poetry slam and wanted to revive it, but I gave up realizing it would become a time suck and would only fulfill this very personal need to have complete access to the history, lists, who’s-who bios, and stats of the poetry slam world.
Granted, there are so many poetry slams throughout the world. Some are reliably consistent, like the one run by Ko and Rayl at Substanz in Munich, and some exist for one night only. But because there are so many events and no real online source to discover all of them, to keep that information organized and accessible, I feel there is a need for some sort of slam database.
Then I noticed a Facebook wall post by poet and web-head Lindsay Stone for her brand-spanking new site SlamProfile.com So I checked it out and realized that this may be just what the poetry slam world needs.
It is without a doubt a Myspace/Facebook for performance poetry and I believe, if it catches on, it could be the source for poetry slam information, poet profiles and networking. There is no reason for people and poets not to check it out. You can post your audio and videos there, and one does not have to be logged-in to access those files either. That alone should be enough to get poets off of Myspace…
SlamProfile.com has a lot to offer poets, even right now in its earliest stage. I was the 41st poet to join, the water is warm and there is plenty of room. If it catches on, it should feel like a viable, valuable social networking tool for poets in no time.
Go check out SlamProfile.com and add “McGee” as a friend. Tell them I sent you.
And thank you, Lindsay Stone. You’re doing awesome things with it.
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Word to the nerd.
This entry was written by , posted on 9 July, 2010 at 3:50 PM, filed under Uncategorized and tagged facebook, myspace, Performance Poetry and Spoken Word, slamprofile.com, social networking, twitter. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.
Testing Out A Buncha Web Stuff All At Once!
Seeing if this post goes to LiveJournal, Facebook and Twitter at the same time. Also wanted to see how the PayPal (below) form held up in LJ and FB. I am able to cross-post from my website to LJ, which then sends it to FB, in theory. EDIT 11:45am: I am able to schedule posts to publish at any time I choose. It did post on my site at 11:00am EST. But apparently I didn’t set up Twitter’s update function or LJ’s for that matter. It’s working now. I like the fact that if I change anything from a post on my website, it automatically edits LiveJournal’s version as well. Yay, WordPress!
EDIT 12:45pm: Still not getting Twitter to update from my site. Nor will Facebook get my posts… I am frustrato!
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Speaking of LiveJournal, I’ve been posting everyday. I am trying to post a journal entry everyday in my own personal 365 POST CHALLENGE. It’s been great writing every day. You can keep up with all my posts at MikeMcGee.livejournal.com. Rock and/or Roll!?
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Want a signed copy of my book? Order now via PayPal and I will mail it from home or the road, signed and hugged.
You can always order it at writebloody.com or amazon.com, but this is the best way to let me sign it and get me a larger cut of the profit. Write Bloody authors get copies at a good price, however, the royalties through Amazon are way low.
–––––––––
Word to the nerd.
This entry was written by , posted on 21 January, 2010 at 8:00 AM, filed under Personal Updates and tagged facebook, twitter. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.
Testing Out A Buncha Web Stuff All At Once!
Seeing if this post goes to LiveJournal, Facebook and Twitter at the same time. Also wanted to see how the PayPal (below) form held up in LJ and FB. I am able to cross-post from my website to LJ, which then sends it to FB, in theory. EDIT 11:45am: I am able to schedule posts to publish at any time I choose. It did post on my site at 11:00am EST. But apparently I didn’t set up Twitter’s update function or LJ’s for that matter. It’s working now. I like the fact that if I change anything from a post on my website, it automatically edits LiveJournal’s version as well. Yay, WordPress!
EDIT 12:45pm: Still not getting Twitter to update from my site. Nor will Facebook get my posts… I am frustrato!
–––––––––
Speaking of LiveJournal, I’ve been posting everyday. I am trying to post a journal entry everyday in my own personal 365 POST CHALLENGE. It’s been great writing every day. You can keep up with all my posts at MikeMcGee.livejournal.com. Rock and/or Roll!?
–––––––––
Want a signed copy of my book? Order now via PayPal and I will mail it from home or the road, signed and hugged.
You can always order it at writebloody.com or amazon.com, but this is the best way to let me sign it and get me a larger cut of the profit. Write Bloody authors get copies at a good price, however, the royalties through Amazon are way low.
–––––––––
Word to the nerd.
Originally published at Mike McGee Town. You can comment here or there.
This entry was written by , posted on at 8:00 AM, filed under Personal Updates and tagged facebook, internet, personal updates, twitter. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.
Been busy since last night. Reading. Writing. Updating my internet presence. Streamline. Streamline. Streamline.
Couldn’t sleep. Now I am tired, but I feel like I should just plow through the day. Reading manuscripts for Write Bloody takes the wind out of you. Some damn good writers out there.
CLEANING UP MY INTERNET FOOTPRINT
I’ve been thinking a lot about how completely reliant I am of the internet these days. Not that I haven’t been pretty reliant over the past 11 years, it just seems that with so many social networks out there and so many apps available to stay tuned, turned-on, and tempted, I am using the web more throughout my day. Especially now that I use my BlackBerry for so many daily (every)things, I seem to easily forget that it’s all web all the time.
What I use most for networking:
• Gmail/G-apps
• Facebook
• Twitter*
• LiveJournal
• WordPress for my website
These are all also accessible from my BlackBerry thanks to apps. This makes things very, very easy, but not uncluttered and litter free…
To me, there is way too much “web-litter.“ Web-litter (litternet?) is electronic ephemera that exists because it is too easy to create, and does nothing to move your intended web experience along, becoming what I would also call a “yellol light“ (get it? yel-lol) well before a necessary red light stop point. Web-litter is NEVER quality information. If it has an intellectual value, then it cannot be rubbish. Trivial information is fine, as long as it is still info. Web-litter is useless.
I don’t know why I wish the web weren’t so cluttered, but to be honest, what killed Myspace for me were those UGLY "glittery" images of "Happy Valentine’s Day!" with a teddy bear holding a heart, or a 4-leaf clover and a leprechaun wishing me a "Happy St. Patty’s Day!" Fuck Valentine’s Day. Fuck St. Patty’s Day. Do some research. They’re both wack and offensive. I despised seeing new digi-glittering jpegs as comments on my page. They look horrendous and it made me de-friend people because that’s all they ever did. They never actually sent me a message or left text comments. What’s the point in staying?
Imagine the web represented by people and places you know. Someone you trust and rely on very much is your email account. Maybe your journal is your greatest living confidant, and Facebook is a café someone told you everyone you know goes to, and so you either live there or avoid it like plague. (Now that I think about it, it’s more like a strange voyeur café where we can come and watch people without them knowing… Creepy.)
Web-litter would be the most annoying people ever. Ever. Constantly bombarding us with shit, lol-crap and terds. I have created my share of web-litter, but I want to stop.
MY EXAMPLE PLAY
WEB-LITTER HUMAN EQUIVALENT: Hey, McGee! Look at this picture of this cat! I added this misspelled caption to it to make it cute!
ME: Get the fuck away from me. You just ruined my stride. My mom says we can’t play anymore.
FIN
I bring all this up because I know so many lazy people out there who aren’t doing shit aside from creating and trading this shit. Don’t support it, especially when you have other shit to do!
DO YOU HAVE A WEBSITE? ("No, but I have EVERYTHING ELSE.")
I get so frustrated with people, especially other poets, who have a dozen or so different web-networks to be seen, heard and contacted. I am floored that there are any poets who want to make a solid living at touring or get their name and work out there and still do not have their own website. Just do some research – invest a little cash – and you’ll see that it’s pretty easy to get your own site up and running. WordPress is a great place to start. I host my WordPress site on 1and1.com. I hear GoDaddy.com is very user friendly and inexpensive. I’m sure people can comment with other awesome web hosting services.
EDIT: When I was touring festivals with T.O.F.U., I talked to a lot of producers and record label types. I asked them what they look for in an act aside from skill and stage presence. They said they wanted awesome people who believed in themselves. They paid more attention to acts who knew their own aesthetic and had a solidly designed web presence, and very specifically, their own website. It didn’t matter what it looked like, since any label would revamp it anyway. It was just that they could see that the act was willing to put money where their mouth was and do the work to be taken seriously. According to them, If the only place to listen to your work is on Myspace, and it’s been that way for years, then you probably have a long way to go and don’t actually intend to get there.
*TWITTER
I’ve been using it for a while and all I do is text the same message to Facebook as a status update and to Twitter as a tweet. Is Twitter just a whisper scream into a dark hallway in the hope that someone will respond? I get it and I see that it can be useful, but when I go to read other people’s shit, it’s text-based web-litter. I like the quasi-tangible responses on Facebook and LiveJournal. Maybe I don’t use it enough or maybe I’ve already exhausted all possibilities with Twitter.
How’s Myspace doing? Is it okay? Is it eating right? Do people go to visit?
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Word to the nerd.
This entry was written by , posted on 20 January, 2010 at 8:36 AM, filed under Personal Updates and tagged facebook, networking, personal, twitter, useless, web-litter, web-presence, website, wordpress. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.