I had noticed that my blog stats were creeping up to the 10,000 page views level last month and even as late as last week, I thought it would happen a week or two later, but the blog has seen a huge spike in activity in the last several days which have seen my stats peak to near record levels. This I attribute to comments made on other sites, particular surrounding the PPM “hot topic” of the current Simple Minds “X5” tour and subsequent boxed set of remastered CDs. When I see chatter on this topic I just can’t help but chime in with my two cents, since I feel so strongly about this band in that period of their career. Some days I even think this is my perfect music that I can listen to forever.

Nevertheless, the page views resonate with me since sometimes I’d wonder if anyone was connecting with the blog, seeing as to how I am invisible to search engine spiders… by choice. Looooooooooooooong time readers might remember that I began blogging on Blogger in June of 2010 after resisting the pull of spouting off on New Wave for years. At the time, I thought that since I am deskbound for my lunch hour at work, that would be the perfect time to get something productive and fun like a blog going. Depending on the topic, I can crank out as much as 1200-1500 words on topics I’m really passionate about in the 45 minutes following my actual ingesting of foodstuffs.

Of course, Google®, the owners of Blogger, made their first moves to rile me up with their statements issued at that time with Verizon on the viability of a “fast-lane” internet for mobile platforms, “separate but equal” to desktop broadband. I quickly jumped ship to WordPress and haven’t regretted a second of it! Since then, Google® have annoyed me considerably with their business moves that have each and every one of us as the product, which are in turn sold to their customers, advertisers. I’ve gone Google®-free in all aspects of my life since then to the point of making this blog invisible to their spiders. For the layperson, that means that you can’t search on a phrase like… “NWOBJP,” and get a result pointing back to my blog, where the phrase [meaning New Wave Of British Jazz pop, but of course, you already knew that] is the sole point of origin.

Every search that might be covered by text on my website will not generate results on Google® [or Bing® for that matter] which is how I like it. Every web search that I might be providing results for also serves advertising to the searcher on their desktop. And Google® makes their money from these substantial transactions. Well, not on my back! If I have a fraction of the readership that I could have, so be it. At least I’m not feeding Google’s® business plan like a slave! I didn’t mind Google® until they crossed a line in my mind that’s long since been crossed. They view me [and you] as chattel and it irritates me. Especially when they are clearly lobbing against the public’s interest in a free and open internet.

So in a roundabout way, think of this posting as a thank you letter from me personally to each one of you who take the time to read my blatherings. Sure, I could be working that action and have a higher readership, but it’s not about money or ego here at the PPM. It’s about the music, maaaaaan. I like the cliquey, personal feel that we foster here. I think a lot about music, even when I am prevented from listening to it to the best of my ability by my circumstances. It helps me to express these thoughts via Post-Punk Monk. The last 18 months have seen my ability to create the kinds of CDs I can never buy commercially trail off to nothing due to my overly full dance card, but recent lifestyle changes have occurred that will see me having a personal life [apart from my lunch hour] once again!

So here’s a shout out to ronkanefiles, Echorich, Tim, Taffy, Brian Ware, Chas_M, and anyone else who’s gotten a great dialogue going in the vibrant comment section on these posts. If you pass up the comments, you’re missing out on a lot of cogent supplemental material for the main posts themselves. Sometimes, those threads easily eclipse the posts that inspired them! Finally, thanks are due to Mr. Vinny Vero, a saint in this fallen insdustry, for providing a steady stream of visitors over the time I’ve been writing this blog from his own must-read platform. It’s not enough that his professional achievements over the last 20 years are so admirable, but he’s a scholar and gentleman besides.

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