‘The Blogfather Guitar’ by Frank A Hilario

The Blogfather I’m Looking For

After I registered ‘The BlogFather’ as my newest blogsite and posted one blog (see below), I decided to search the blogsphere (blogosphere sounds awkward to me) using Technorati and Google Blog Search. This is what I found from among the few hundred pages I scanned and looked into:

There is The BlogFather (blogfather.net/) – it’s a free blog service, and that’s all I’m going to say about it.

There’s a funny The BlogFather – go visit (blog.diecast-dude.com/). It’s worth your time.

Tony Pierce (kidicarus222.blogspot.com/) is trying to be The Blogfather by going for the Guinness Book of World Record for the most number of bloggers linked to his site: 2,008. I’ll leave him alone.

Ni Howdy (nihowdy.blogspot.com/) calls Professor Michael Turton ‘Taiwan Blogfather’ because ‘If anyone knows, he (does). He blogs on it all, what volume!’ Okay, but The Blogfather I’m looking for is not only a keeper of knowledge or a counter of blogs.

BabyBlue (babybluecafe.blogspot.com/) argues that Thomas Paine, the Yankee patriot, is ‘the original Blogfather because he was ‘a radical pamphleteer’ (Wikipedia), and that, BB says, is 18^th Century English for ‘Blogger,’ as ‘Thomas Paine anticipated and helped foment the American Revolution through his powerful writings, most notably Common Sense, an incendiary pamphlet’ and that BB says equals ‘blog.’ Be that as it may, I’m looking for a Blogfather whose blogs are radical but not incendiary. If blogging is nothing but being inflammatory, God bless blogging! God bless the Internet!

Jane Perrone (blogs.guardian.co.uk/) calls Hossein Derakhshan ‘the father of the Persian blogosphere’ because as he himself writes (hoder.com/), ‘the movement I started in November 2001 has become so mainstream …’ That’s more of quantity blogging. I’m looking for more of quality blogging with a leader who would deserve the title The Blogfather.

EL says (elingo.wordpress.com/) ‘Because of his long-standing prominence in the political blogosphere and his efforts to encourage new bloggers, Glenn Reynolds is ‘sometimes called the BlogFather.’ Yes, but what about encouraging the old bloggers?

Carolyn Barta says (dallasblog.com/) Jerome Armstrong is sometimes called the Blogfather ‘for having mentored other bloggers.’ Henry Gomez says (cubanamericanpundits.blogspot.com/): ‘We call Val (Prieto) the Blogfather because he was really the first Cuban-American blogger and he inspired a proliferation of such blogs that includes this one.’

Yes, we need a Blogfather who mentors, who inspires, and who does more.

Dave Winer (52) has the best claim for being The Blogfather (scripting.com/) because he ‘pioneered the development of weblogs, syndication (RSS), podcasting, outlining, and web content management.’ But he’s not him I’m looking at as The Blogfather. The Blogfather in my mind is more than a pioneer; indeed, he need not be a pioneer.

TUT (uselesstree.typepad.com/) calls Marc Lynch Blogfather and describes him ‘an excellent teacher, an extraordinary writer, and a helpful colleague.’ I like that. I’m looking for a Blogfather like that, and more than that: a creative thinker, one with sky-high standards and ground-level heart, above all one who has a passion for blogging and a heart for family. And he will have to be rich, very rich.

RSSP (rsspieces.com/) refers to Technorati as The Blogfather. That is not my idea of The Blogfather at all. An inanimate object or something cannot be an excellent teacher, an extraordinary writer, and a helpful colleague.

The moment I saw the one I’m now calling ‘The Blogfather Guitar,’ I shot it (14 february 2007); I fell in love with it. I imagine The Blogfather would be so creative he can find music – and blog about it – in a harsh, unlikely window that everyone passes by and ignores. Music cannot come from an unwhole guitar – it can come only from a whole heart.

I haven’t found him yet, so I’ll continue on my quest for The Blogfather for All Seasons. In the meantime, I’m content to be able to invent him in my mind.