{"id":17133,"date":"2013-01-12T15:28:09","date_gmt":"2013-01-12T20:28:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/?p=17133"},"modified":"2013-01-12T15:28:09","modified_gmt":"2013-01-12T20:28:09","slug":"this-is-your-6th-anniversary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/this-is-your-6th-anniversary\/","title":{"rendered":"This Is Your 6th Anniversary, Rock Town Hall: Happy Anniversary to Us!"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Pope Benedict XVI serves up MAD PROPS for Rock Town Hall’s 6th anniversary of doing the Lord’s work.<\/p><\/div>\n

Do you know what today is? It’s Rock Town Hall’s 6th Anniversary<\/strong>! Happy anniversary to us!<\/p>\n

Rock Town Hall started as a private YahooGroup in 2002. On January 12, 2007, we opened our doors to the public with this stylish, passionate, humorous, even occasionally informative interactive blog. See our Welcome post here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

We really played up last year’s 5th anniversary<\/a>, with a blog retrospective culminating in sammymaudlin<\/strong>‘s excellent introductory “sizzler reel.”<\/a> Then-relative newcomers like tonyola<\/strong> and Happiness Stan<\/strong> were regularly contributing new threads, stirring the pot right alongside trusted veteran contributors, like hrrundivbakshi<\/strong>, cdm<\/strong>,\u00a0machinery<\/strong>,\u00a0oats<\/strong>, al<\/strong>, and\u00a02000 man<\/strong>, not to mention sophomore Hall members like\u00a0misterioso<\/strong>, bostonhistorian<\/strong>, and ladymisskiroyale<\/strong>. Who among us didn’t anticipate huge things for 2012: a slew of new participants, renewed activity from veteran contributors, media coverage, and maybe even a Wikipedia page?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

It was not to be. Not yet. The ongoing story of my life continues. Where, oh where is tonyola? No joke: we care. I wrote the man a couple of times, but I never heard back.<\/p>\n

Numbers and participation were down a bit this past year, but our Facebook friends have increased substantially. Someone’s tuned in. I encourage folks to tune in and be heard. The last year has seen great participation from newcomers like Suburban Kid<\/strong> and loosehandlebars<\/strong>. That guy patrock<\/strong>, in the tradition of our founding member alexmagic<\/strong>, always comes through with a winner. These Townspeople are like Rennie Stennett<\/strong>, the old Pirates’ super-sub who often flirted with winning the batting title but struggled to get enough plate appearances to qualify.<\/p>\n

We’re in the middle of a long run of activity. We still have our moments. I still get plenty of kicks running this joint with old friends and new. There are numerous reasons why things slowed down a bit in our 6th year, probably starting with familiarity, even overuse. I’ve moaned a bit about the influence of social media sites. I think they’ve enabled us to get our rocks off in a more immediate, simple, and satisfying manner. That’s good. That’s right. I’m glad the rock chatter is out there, that people are still making efforts to earn “turn-on” points with their friends.<\/p>\n

Not all of you share my obsession with trying to build everlasting castles made of sand. Plus, I’ve been busy: with work, with family, with making music, and with trying to write a book that’s an outgrowth, in many respects, of what goes on around here. I hope to have an entire slaved-over draft completed before I hit my mid-century mark. Wish me luck and continued good health.<\/p>\n

For all my occasional bitching and moaning and whining about dashed dreams, I appreciate and enjoy this place as always. I still look forward to my weekly “planning sessions” with sammymaudlin. I still get psyched when a new person registers as a Rock Town Hall user. I still take delight in removing the second space after periods as I marvel at the intelligence and humor in any new post from HVB. I still consider people like\u00a0BigSteve<\/strong>\u00a0and SlimJade<\/strong>, two people I’ve only ever met one time each, friends. I still hold out hope that\u00a0E. Pluribus Gergely<\/strong> will stop being so stingy with his deep genius and general good will toward men. I keep on rolling\u2014and I hope you do too\u2014because it beats golf or spin class or whatever it is normal people do.<\/p>\n

I’ll leave you with the following thoughts:<\/p>\n

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This is your Rock Town Hall!<\/em><\/p>\n

If you’ve already got\u00a0Back Office<\/strong>\u00a0privileges and can initiate threads, by all means use your privileges! If you’d like to acquire such privileges, let us know. If you’ve got a\u00a0comment<\/a>\u00a0that needs to be made, what are you waiting for? If you’re just dropping in and find yourself feeling the need to scat, don’t hesitate to\u00a0register<\/a>\u00a0and post your thoughts. The world of intelligent rock discussion benefits from your participation. If nothing else, your own Mr. Moderator gets a day off from himself. It’s a good thing for you as well as me!\"\"\"\"<\/p>\n