I had this Citizen obit site sent my way, and I’m sure it is old news to some, but I thought the employee cathartic process of the content was interesting.

And if nothing else, I think we can all connect with the real human emotions of job loss.

Job dissatisfaction is the stuff of song.

The stuff of  movies.

And so on.

Thoughts?

You know that giant Tiki on Fourth Ave.?

The one in front of The Hut almost everyone including local media seems to be calling a Tiki?

Well folks, it ain’t no Tiki.

At least that’s my take (and that of a few others as well).

According to Wikipedia: “Tiki refers to large wood and stone carvings of humanoid forms in Central Eastern Polynesian cultures of the Pacific Ocean. The term is also used as it relates to Māori mythology where Tiki is the first man.”

So okay that works I suppose. 

But a bust of George W. Bush could be a Tiki as well.  

To my eye it’s a Moai, created by the Rapanui people as a way of honoring their ancestors and found on Easter Island.

Imagine a statue of Shiva and everyone calling it Jesus because they are both sacred depictions.

Weird right?

Now I’m no anthropologist, but if we’re going to use depictions of sacred symbols from distant lands to sell booze (or miniature golf), I’d think getting the cultural context right would be the least we could do.

And regardless of whether it is called a Tiki or Moai, a huge thumbs-up to the folks at The Hut for saving this wonderful bit of local folk art from the wrecking ball and giving it a new life downtown.

Too bad someone couldn’t have saved the historic Santa Rita Hotel as well…

Thoughts?

Moai set in the hillside at Rano Raraku.

Imagine Hate Free Blog Traffic

Ryn’s comments today and at least one email I saw joking “– It’s too bad there weren’t ads on the site today! Think of the impressions!”  has got me wondering…

Just how far should one go to draw traffic to their blog or site?

It’s pretty common fare these days for media to pit one person against the other then watch the carnage.

The traffic will be robust.

The advertising dollars will flow.

But is this journalism?

Is this what blogs should be?

Is there a greater good that needs to be served?

Or is a blog nothing more than a forum for a cyber cock fight?

 (Heh-heh… he said cock fight.)

Right now as a Tucson Citizen blogger, there has been email about “blogger-generated site sponsorships and advertising.”

While the majority of us do this for free,  I’m sure everyone would like to see some revenue generated for their efforts.

As bloggers, we’re updated weekly on the traffic our blogs generate  (as some of you already know from my previous posts).

A few actually have jobs on the line.

In the Gannet version of Survivor, it is now down to the final few and the immunity idol’s been played.

So naturally the jaded journalist in me wonders if  on some level this wasn’t all intentional.

Or maybe unintentionally intentional.

I do not know Ryn, but I can’t help wonder how she thought people would react to comments like: 

“Here’s another one that could straddle the crap list: bilingual signs.”

or

“Yes, I know, there is no national language. But there should be. And yes, it should be English.”

After the TC site crashed from heavy traffic, there is no doubt it was a traffic bonanza.

Once the dust settles and the drama passes, will a bean counter somewhere smile over the numbers?

In a recent blog post I tested sensationalism out with a post about Michael Jackson’s legs and it nailed me a number two spot for traffic (although my Monkey Reform School post didn’t even show. No accounting for taste).

But I also found it left me feeling hollow.

Again, what Ryn’s intentions were for her blog post are a mystery to me, I am sure as she has stated  it was all a mix of ignorance and innocence.

What I’m interested in now is learning your thoughts?

How far should bloggers go for a couple of clicks?

Where do you draw the line for yourself?

Should blogger’s heed a moral compass or does anything go?

And at what cost?

What are your thoughts?

This is the time to be heard.

Perhaps with some sensitivity, we could all learn to get along a little better.

Photo of mysterious monkey-like creatures photographed at feeding time during a recent trip to the Central Park Zoo in New York City which is presented here for illustrative purposes only. PHOTO: GLENN WEYANT

You might ask yourself:  What is the connection between news stories about Michael Jackson’s legs and a rogue monkey reform school In India?

Good question.

Last week I posted a story about Michael Jackson’s odd leg condition.

Then I asked if this was the sort of news you’d like to see more of.

AZMOUSE summed up the majority opinion by noting: “Well, I thought it was interesting.”

So based upon  last week’s statistical click position, this week I would like to ask for your thoughts regarding Rogue Monkey Reform School.

Yep.

Hardened outlaw monkeys doing time for their crimes against humanity.

You like?

Over time I hope to  establish a sort of news appetite baseline.

What news do you find tasty?

What news gives you the quick step?

And so on.

Your feedback and clicks will help me refine this blog further as time allows.

At this point: Dead pop star news is tops.

Thank you and stay in touch.

SPLATT site stats for the MJ story:

A: Top 50 Page views by blog for the week July 17 to July 23: (Legacy site traffic deleted):

# 18. SPLATT 659 views or 0.8% of the site total.

B: Top 50 Page Views by Post for the week of July 17 – July 23:

2. STRANGE PHOTOS OF MICHAEL JACKSON’S LEGS – SPLATT 589 views or 1.4% of the site total.

Not Michael Jackson's Legs But A Possible Authentic Scenario If He Were To Hang In Tucson Playing A Banjo And Drinking A Beer And Did Not Look Like Himself

Earlier this week the Clan of TucsonCitizen Bloggers were forwarded traffic details for Web posts.

From what I can tell audience interests lie more with FOX than PBS.

And this got me to thinking:

What is it you the reader want to read about?

So here is the first story in a series of experiments.

Now, would you like to read:

More like this?

Less like this?

Kindly post your thoughts if you wish and when the numbers for SPLATT come out later this week I’ll share them with you.

And if so, should it be?

I’m trying to find out.

As some of you know, one of my passions is playing the world with a cello bow and implements of mass percussion.

For a recent work titled: University of Arizona Sounding, I played some of the sculptures on campus gently with great amplification and soft mallets.

In the process I became alarmed to see that much of the public art on display was showing signs of structural stress and decay.

Water damage at base of Curving Arcades. Photo: Glenn Weyant

The split steel on Athena Tacha’s  Curving Arcades, three independent sections of 16-foot-high split sheets of steel bolted to a submerged concrete base, is rusting in some places with the steel visibly cracking in others.

Some of Barbara Grygutis’   Front Row Center’s  bronze chairs are showing signs of structural cracking.

The resin applications on Taller Yonke’s Border Sculpture  have begun to crack and peel as well.  In some locations  sections are missing.

At the Student Union war memorial, one of the two fountain chains streaming water did not appear to work and both appeared to be caked with mineral crust.

I’ve noticed similar distress on other public sculptures around town as well.

Heading into the city on Broadway for example, the Rattlesnake Bridge exterior is clearly peeling in places and rusting in others.

Cracking resin on Border Sculpture. In some locations sections are loose or missing. Photo: Glenn Weyant

Now here is where I could use some help.

When I started this blog I fell into my old journalistic habits of rounding up sources and writing a story based on quotes by city officials, UA officials, artists and so on.

But this being the new age of news and all, I thought it might be better to turn to you, the reader, for help in reporting.

I’ll poke around and update this story as I find out answers, but for now I’d like to know:

What is your take on this?

Should public money be spent on maintaining public art in a time of recession when education and basic services are being threatened?

What is the value of public art?

Does anyone know of other examples of public artwork in decay or direct cuts to art maintenance funding?

Should damaged art be taken down and placed in storage until better economic times roll around?

How about creating volunteer programs similar to adopt a highway only focused on adopting public art?

Do you know an artist who has a public installation anywhere in Tucson?

What other questions need to be asked or answered?

Is this even a story?

I look forward to reading your thoughts and seeing how this develops.

The Student Union war memorial appears to be only partially working and suffering from mineral deposit caking. Photo: Glenn Weyant.

After the last post, I stopped by Himmel Park this morning where the summer cicada chorus is coming into high form.

Here’s a soundscape for those interested, but I encourage you to get out and experience it for yourself.

Between the birds, planes, conversations, trucks, traffic, kids and bugs the tapestry can be wonderfully complex at times.

And as always, what you don’t hear may be as interesting as what you do.

 LISTEN WHILE YOU READ

It is cicada time in Tucson again.

Every year after living a life beneath the ground, doing whatever bugs do beneath the ground, the cicadas follow the monsoon moisture up trees and cactus stalks and telephone poles, grabbing on tight in the night before molting, their drones filling the new day in waves.

So I thought this time of drones and cicadas would also be a good time to introduce SPLATT – A Blog For The Hell’uv It.

Since 1995 I’ve been living in Tucson, and as many who call this place home quickly learn, living in Tucson takes some doing.

I’ve found there are basically three viable survival options:

1. Find a job and learn to hone your Machiavellian skills for when the crap hits the fan (and economically it seems the crap hits the fan in Tucson often);
2. Retire here and live off the treasure you acquired in exchange for your youth;
3. Become a juggler-of-all-trades or what is commonly known as a freelancer.

I began in Tucson practicing the first but didn’t have the heart for it, so I fell into the third.

Based solely on pay, freelancing in Tucson is more recreation than occupation.

Over the year’s I’ve been paid between $25 and $1,000 for a story. On average it works out to a few cents per word.

Before Tucson and the age of the Internet, I spent roughly 10 years in New Jersey, New York and Massachusetts as a staff journalist, earning a regular paycheck with full benefits and specializing in environmental stories mostly.

I thought journalism was the same everywhere but once in Tucson I quickly learned there was not much of a market for stories about steep slope ordinances or protection of scenic vistas. The days of writing 1,000 word stories on Draft Environmental Impact Statements was clearly over.

 However, what the editors were buying, stories about seaweed facials and aroma therapy, did sell well in Tucson and I won’t lie, they were are fun to do.

One of my all time favorite stories to write required I drink tequila. Not a bad way to get paid if you ask me.

However, to keep food in the refrigerator and a roof over my families head, I also hawked missiles to the military, taught college students journalism, founded a music label, took the fabulously rich and healthy hiking, became a stay-at-home husband/father, invented musical instruments of original design, laughed at Jerry Lewis’ jokes, spun a dot com success story, sold art, handled manuscripts for a journal of atmospheric sciences, baked early morning scones, edited Web sites, pretended to be a southern-based computer tech for a Tucson-based company owned by Ross Perot, answered phones at a rock quarry, moved furniture in a warehouse, and filed office folders alphabetically.

If you told me 20 years ago I would someday write a blog, without pay for a Gannett-hosted site, I would have either laughed, taken a swing at you or possibly done both.

In the late 1980’s/early 1990’s I watched Gannett march up the Hudson River in New York State consuming family owned newspapers like the Doomsday Machine, sucking them dry of advertising dollars and shrinking news holes into oblivion.

But time has a way of flip-flopping the universe in bizarro ways.

The Tucson Citizen as a paper is now gone.

C’est la vie.

But in its place, for now, is something new.

An opportunity for Tucsonan’s to tell stories via blogs.

Is it journalism? I don’t know.

Certainly not what I knew journalism to be.

But I like the possibility it offers.

The Tucson Weekly calls  itself an alternative news weekly or some such thing, and I’ve never been clear what that means even though I have written for them in the past.

If you get rid of the marketing spin, the four letter words, and the ads for sex, it’s pretty much a mainstream publication with all the baggage that implies.

However, what Gannett is attempting here, giving citizens a voice to pursue stories they think are important, could prove to be the real alternative news source.

Will it work?

Again I don’t know.

But I like the idea of being part of something risky and new.

I like performing without a net.

Not to mention it’s fun and doing what I enjoy has been a theme for most of my life.

At this point you’re probably asking: “Yeah that’s great and all, but what does this have to do with cicadas?”

Hang in there, they’re coming.

By now some of you reading this may know me from my other work with www.sonicanta.com and www.glennweyant.com

If not, kindly check out those sites then come back.

I’ll wait.

Go ahead.

Ready? 

Okay.

Playing the southern border walls and fences with a cello bow and implements of mass percussion is not for everyone, and while much of my sound work is known nationally and internationally, it is pretty much underground here in Tucson.

With the introduction of SPLATT my ideas are now going alternative mainstream, and based on what I’ve seen in The Star and in my own email inbox whenever immigration is mentioned, I anticipate I may generate a few comments from time to time.

That is not my goal.

In fact I would prefer no comments.

Either take it or leave it is best, but then again everyone seems to enjoy a good love fest or car wreck.

My goal, if there is a goal with this blog, is to present some honest ideas/stories and see what happens.

You may think my ideas are inane, lame or insane, but know now they are honest.

One thing I refuse to do is post work designed solely to inflame.

As for the cicada metaphor, sit outside this time of year and you’ll see mocking birds and curve-billed thrashers zipping around with panicked, freshly molted cicadas tight within their bills.

Blogging in this forum strikes me as something similar.

You cultivate an idea, give it flight, and then see how long it survives.

So there we go: My name is Glenn Weyant. Nice to meet you. This is my blog.

I’ve droned on like a cicada in heat and hopefully it has all come full circle.

In the weeks ahead I expect SPLATT to take further shape and become increasingly defined.

Now it is just a matter of finding the time to do some writing and reporting.

 If you have any ideas or comments feel free to send them through.

As for the name SPLATT, I’ll save the explanation for another time.

It’s a long story involving a guy with a chipped tooth on Long Island in 1984, a couple of photographs by Henri Cartier-Bresson, a pack of clove cigarettes and two cases of Foster’s Beer.

But you know, SPLATT may also wind up being  the sound a cicada makes when hitting its head against a wall…

Stay tuned.
Glenn