Hey kids, its Gavin's “Mediocre Storytime.” Don't worry, there's nothing profound here.

--- So back in November I'm sitting down and having some kind of strange salad thing a friend whipped up for me, and she says “you know, that blog of yours is interesting.” To which I, in the usual manner I end up talking about it immediately said “It is? Huh.” Then she kicked me in the shin with her heel because she doesn't enjoy sarcasm flying over her food. She then pointed out the fact that most regularly updated blogs don't make it past the first year, even when they have plenty of outside content to keep it running. And the few that do must have something special going on or else people wouldn't keep reading it. So of course I said “wait... you're reading it?” She smiled and said “yes, I do.” Then I did a little fist pump and declared “Yeah! I'm up to 37 readers!” ...She kicked me in the other shin.

I honestly didn't put to much thought into the idea of surviving a second whole year. The only real reason I made such a big deal about last year was because the original location had drama behind its existence that I thought was pure nonsense. It was funny to watch people squirm over the idea that this entity they viewed as “too obscene” in content was still around. Not to mention it was the first year so it was some kind of milestone that deserved a little bit of celebration over. But I hadn't given much thought that this whole thing was actually going to make it two years until last month.

Some very strange turns along the way this year. SLUG's 20^th Anniversary was fun, I got told off by God's Revolver, earned a Best Of Utah award, had some random anonymous dude call me a “typist”, quickly learned that beer makers are the happiest people around, competed in a film festival, photographed Sonic Youth, got invited into the Big Shiny Robot collective, had someone threaten to fight me if I didn't cover their MMA group, got nominated for a Weblog Award, donated $50 to fail at Rock Band, not to mention getting to talk to a lot of talented people along the way. And of course the most prolific mention... this blog got a new home! I'd expand on that, but let's be honest, that'd be tacky and whorish on my part. I like to believe the staff of City Weekly know how I feel about it as a whole. ...If you're part of the staff and you don't know you should probably ask me sometime.

In the process of moving I brought along all the posts of the prior 17 months with me from the last site. Which on the plus side meant that all the old stories were now available for your reading pleasure, but the downside was that they came with errors, mostly in the photos. So much like last year where my project for 2009 was that I cleaned up older posts and made them look better, this year I'll be doing my best to go week by week and fix all the older posts that came with me. Which includes updating the photos again as well as UNCENSORING all the material from back when I had restrictions. Now you'll finally get to read those posts as they were meant to be. Full of cursing and slams against Club 600. Those updates will hopefully be coming at one month per week, starting this week where all the posts from January 2008 have been fixed.

Also making their return from last year, the half-assed collages I've been building. If you've been to any local events at all, then more than likely some of this stuff is sitting in your place right now, if not your back pocket. Postcards, business cards, adslips, press passes, ID cards, stickers, programs and other random material from the past year all thrown together into portraits that are now hanging on my wall. A nice reminder of things gone by while still looking ahead at what's to come, here for you to check out.

As for what really is to come, interviews from a New Year's show, talking fashion of the miscellaneous, as well as a decorated outdoor artist, revitalizing an old record label and a place for their records to be reviewed, plus a chat with a poet. But who really knows what lies ahead, quite honestly if I knew I'd be here to see a second year I would have interviewed a strip club by now. ...Hmmm, let me make a note of that, I think Bill would love it! But we'll see what happens.