In the words of Bongwater, I'm not trying to be ironic or sarcastic or postmodern and this is not a parody. This is it: The end of the road for #1HS.

Like I said, it's been four wonderful years. When I started out here, in July of 2002, I never imagined that this would become a daily endeavor. At the time it was just a distraction, a dalliance. I look back at those early entries and I marvel at all the shit I jibbered. Three thousand plus posts later and I'm more or less the same hooker with the heart of gold as I always was, maybe a little less funny and a lot more bitter.

At the outset, I was anonymous and wide- (and maybe pie-) eyed. I had been in NYC for four years and all of a sudden, I found I had this outlet with which I could make insouciant and silly and out-loud proclamations and a handful of people could read them. Granted, it's a wee bit larger an enterprise now. But in four paltry years, through the miracle of the internets, you've come to know (and, um, occasionally develop unhealthy obsessions with) me.

Believe me, as a narcissist I fully enjoy the attention. About a month or two ago, however, I realized that here I was, beavering away at this labor of love that I didn't love so much anymore. The funny thing is that I can't think of anything else I've ever been so steadfastly devoted to. College? (Ha.) Relationships? (Hm.) It raised an interesting question: If it wasn't a balls-to-the-wall hootenanny anymore, why continue? And then came the sad realization that I was maybe a little scared of stopping. If I quit blogging, what was I gonna do? Because blogging is that thing that I do.

But then the pragmatist in me pointed out that even admitting this fear to myself put me in the category of the kinda self-important douchebags who post videos on their websites of their nervous breakdowns.

Here is an excellent metaphor: N and I were driving on the Saw Mill Speedway. A guy in a large, late-model sedan was puttering along in front of us at five goddamned miles below the goddamned speed limit in the fucking left lane. And despite his unwillingness to relinquish that spot, he kept on drifting into the right lane, which meant that no one could get around him.

I responded the way any sane, rational driver of a 15-year-old station wagon would: I gunned the engine and flicked my highbeams at him.

"Hey, don't become the asshole that you hate," N warned.

I pointed at the guy in front of us. "This," I said, poking the air, "is the asshole that I hate."

But he had a point. And so that's when I finally decided that I should get a grip before I became the asshole that I hate.

When I floated to friends the idea of quitting, I was shocked by their overwhelming objection to it (and also their rending of garments, which trust me I appreciated). My friend Norma even suggested, ominously, "If you don't blog, do you even exist?" I think she was being facetious.

But at that point I had already resigned myself to it. And I felt strangely sanguine. So since then, I've been mentally composing this final post. (Trust me, in my mind, it was fucking eloquent.) It's reminded me of being a senior in high school, trying to pick out the quotes to accompany my yearbook photo, and it is equally as onerous and vainglorious an endeavor. (If I could go back and edit that yearbook page, I would probably replace the Burroughs and Ministry quotes and leave it, simply, as "Hell is other people." But that's not important.)

Do you see this? I'm being coy and sarcastic but really what I want to do is open my heart and let you see the kind-of real me. I guess you get the picture. So if you'll indulge me, let's pull away the curtains for a moment:

I can't believe that I can write stuff every day and that, for the most part, you respond positively to it. It gives me no small amount of joy to know this. If it weren't for this blog, I wouldn't have met a number of people I actually consider my friends, and an even larger amount of people I consider my enemies. (Kidding! Sort of.) I wouldn't have made strange, interesting, far-flung connections. And I'm fairly certain that I wouldn't have been cataloging my thoughts on a regular basis. (That this is a positive is debatable, I reckon.)

This is the part where I give thanks to Jesus. Thank you, too, to my ever-patient husband, who's been there to offer words of encouragement and occasional japes (such as "Are you done talking to your imaginary friends on the internerd, buddy?"). And also, in no particular order, I give thanks to all the dear friends who've contributed reviews to #1HS, to the people who've taken the time to email me, to all of the good folks who've liked what I have written enough to link to me, and to my real live meatspace friends--some of whom started out as the imaginary internerd variety--who've read what I've written and said nice things about it. I know I almost always sound insincere, but it's meant a whole lot. And if, in reading this, you think I'm talking about you, you know that I am.

I also want to give big, big thanks to bmarkey, who in addition to being my copilot this past year also has the dubious honor of being my oldest intarweb friend. As much as my comportment may belie this, he has kept me sane on so many occasions. I am forever in his debt.

He offers his own goodbye:
So. I guess this is it.

There are those who claim that the job of a music critic is to participate in a dialectic in which the culture at large is examined through the microcosm of music. Thankfully, I'm just a guy with a computer. While I admire such lofty goals, all I've ever really wanted to do was to steer folks toward cool music they might not otherwise have heard. Or, at the very least, to maybe point out some aspects of that music that they might not have noticed themselves.

It's not for me to say if I've accomplished that at all; if I have, however, a goodly amount of the credit goes to Dana for providing me with a larger soapbox from which to spout my gibberish. Many thanks go to her, along with much love, respect, and best wishes for her future endeavors.

Thanks also to those of you who read said gibberish. If I've put you onto something good, you're welcome. Feel free to buy me a drink if you should run into me somewhere. (Maker's, neat.) And hey, I'll still be doin' the same stupid shit at my place, The Big Green House.

I’ve taken the liberty of preparing a little going-away gift. You’ll find it here, in a zip file. The tracklist is here. I hope you enjoy it.

And now, 'til we meet again -

Adios, Au Revoir, Auf Weidersehen

G'night!

And of course I'd be completely remiss if I didn't thank the band that was the inspiration for all of this: The Minutemen. Long live D. Boon.

Because I, too, am loath to go without leaving something for all of you who've bothered to read this far, I put together a little mix. It's composed of a number of songs I've posted here over the past four years, plus some extrys. For a limited time only, you can download the zipped file here and the tracklist here.

So what is the best way to close this opus? Part of me was tempted to trot out the old internerd chestnut, "So long, and thanks for all the fish."* But then I thought back to the high school yearbook thing. There was this one quote that was favored by so many, that appeared year after year after year:

Goodbye to all my friends at home
Goodbye to people I've trusted
I've got to go out and make my way
I might get rich you know I might get busted

It has a certain resonance, n'est-ce pas?

Wish me luck,
Dana

P.S. I know that in about 45 minutes I'm going to hate what I've written here and edit the hell out of it. I am powerless over the hobgoblins of my little mind.

P.P.S. Technical notes: Don't worry, #1HS isn't going dark anytime soon. Archives will remain. Blogroll too (and please, go check those folks out when you're done here. Don't sit around waiting for the credits to finish rolling because this isn't Ferris Bueller's Day Off). And if you need to get a hold of me, my email is all over the goddamned place.

P.P.P.S. Jesus fucking Christ, there are typos in my tracklist. But I won't fix it. Oh no no no. Shut up, hobgoblins.

P.P.P.S. 8/05: I took down the .zip files but if you want 'em, email me and I'll dropload them to you.

*I was never a Douglas Adams fan, though.