Six years ago today, SBBN opened its virtual doors. Featuring short articles with small pictures and misspelled words, the early days were heady and volatile, with fewer blogs, far less film sites, and everybody wasn’t on Twitter all damn day. A simpler time.
I generally don’t spill the spleen about personal matters like this on SBBN, but I felt the frequent dead air accompanied with “not feeling well, please stay tuned” posts just weren’t cutting it anymore, and a more detailed explanation was due. Since it ties into why I created this blog in the first place, now is as good a time as any.
When I started She Blogged By Night — oh, before I begin, someone cue up the meedle-dee-meedle-dee flashback music and the wavy psychedelic film effects, please? Thanks.
Back when I started the blog, writing about film was an almost random decision. I was only looking for something to do, a hobby to get my mind off of what I called a “mystery illness.” I was in the midst of string of bad doctors, skewed Midwestern faux Judeochristian sexist quacks I was stuck with because no clinics that accepted my insurance were taking new patients. It was an exceptionally rough time for me, because I was ill to the point of not being able to do much of anything, but no doctor would believe me. Watching a movie and blogging about it was a low-impact kind of thing that kept me occupied and connected to others.
Eventually, I found a terrific doctor completely by accident, after my thousandth panicky flip through the yellow pages. He didn’t even consider that I was making anything up, but immediately set to diagnosing me; my “mystery illness” was actually multiple minor health problems, now managed, but not the kind of thing you can ever really cure.
When I go weeks at a time without posting, it’s because something has flared up, and all my energy has to go toward my semi-professional gigs and my home life first, usually leaving nothing for the blog. But I have improved immensely, and continue to improve, and can hold down writing gigs despite flare-ups, which is such a huge improvement over how things were six years ago I sometimes can’t even believe it. I consider myself incredibly lucky in a lot of ways, most especially for having such terrific readers who kept me blogging back when I still wasn’t sure I even wanted to do it. Thank you all!
To a more current topic: The reason my weekly serial posts haven’t yet begun is because I developed of one of my hilarious every coupla years sinus infections — a vast improvement over the three-times-a-year infections of the past, but still icky. The infection cleared up just in time for me to have about eight things due for two websites. Also, I couldn’t find all of the movies I had planned on doing for the weekly series I mentioned a few weeks ago, so my backup plan had to be deployed: the cinematic atrocity known as The Monster and the Ape. I’ve started watching it, it’s so awful it makes me cry, and I’m already questioning the wisdom of my choice, so this should make for some entertaining posts, if you count “irritating Stacia to no end” as entertaining, and most people do. I don’t know if I can start posting on the 26th, but I hope to by October 3rd at the latest.
That’s where SBBN has been; if you ask me where it’s going, though, I couldn’t tell you. Writing for other outlets is my first priority right now, though. I love this blog and will keep it up unless some bizarre circumstance forces me to get rid of it, and I do have plans. But since my plans so frequently fall through, I’m loathe to mention anything more than my desire to make SBBN active again, primarily with Warner Archive DVD reviews, weekly serial posts, Bette Davis project posts (I have a ton of posts in rough draft form that I just need to sit down and finish), and maybe new release reviews. The new blog layout is in anticipation of all this, and though I know it looks pretty frantic right now, once I’m done tweaking I think the blog will look more like a modern webpage, which is what I’m going for. The blog should be finished in a week or so, and I’ll have another update then.
And now, on to the fun part. In the grand tradition of the last five blogiversaries, here is a small collection of some of my favorite pictures, one of which is a Leonard Part 6 pun to match the title of this post, and another photo is a repeat from a previous blogiversary. Collect ’em all!
Marie Prevost in A Small Town Idol (1921)
Bette Davis
Edward D. Wood, Jr.
El Brendel
Boris Karloff behind the scenes of The Mummy (1932)
Cat; Joe Don Baker
Dick Schaal, Severn Darden and Del Close of Second City.
Stacia, all of us here at Team Bartilucci HQ hope your new doctor continues to be a vast improvement over those other quacks! Our family has had similar health-related experiences, so we can totally sympathize with you. We hope things will continue to get increasingly better for you in every way. Also, my hubby Vinnie and I love Second City; Severn Darden has always been one of our particular faves, but hey, they’re all good! We’re rooting for you, big-time!
Thanks Dorian! I love knowing I have Team Bartilucci HQ behind me!
Severn has been one of my favorite people since I saw him in The President’s Analyst. He was also on a TV show I saw as a kid called “Take Five,” a summer replacement show for Mike Hammer, which we always watched. I had just started getting into Take Five when it disappeared. That was probably the first time I saw him!
Health is all smoke and mirrors — I smoke too much, and the mirrors show me that I have no health…………. my blog will tell you a similar story over the years, Stacia, not all to do with cigs either. Keep goin’ or Ivan will drop a piano on you…. no, that’s if you try to win the Tex Avery contest … but I’ll bet he would do that to you, too. By the way, one of your pictures is my favorite pic from Glen or Glenda! Love it!
Thanks Becky, I appreciate it!
Yes, Ivan probably would throw something heavy and hilarious at me, and it wouldn’t take much convincing to get him to do it, either.
I love Glen or Glenda! And I really enjoy Ed Wood, too. It makes no sense to me to call him the worst director ever, not in a world with Colman Francis.
I started blogging six years ago too (Oct. 7, 2007), and have dropped in on SBBN every so often; tho I was off the blogosphere for almost a couple years, I’m loving being back and delighted you are still here–thanks for keeping it going!
I love when you (and other bloggers) write about writing/blogging.
Is that a hair-dryer trained on the Mummy?
We almost share a blogiversary! Glad to see you’re back!
That is a hair dryer, one of those vintage metal ones that look so awesome but probably burned a lot of women’s hands.
“Drink the tea, Karloff, or I’ll SHOOT YOU IN THE CROTCH!”
Congratulations on six years! I have some idea of what it’s like to blog through pain and exhaustion, so I not only enjoy, but applaud your productivity, and I’m grateful that unlike some bloggers who get paying gigs elsewhere, you haven’t waved a kid-gloved hand and chirped a departing, “So long, Screwy! See you in St. Louie!”
And yes, I admit it — “irritating Stacia no end” is still your best entertainment dollar.
Thanks Scott! I wish the gigs were paying but for the most part, they are not. Well, I have made a little money this year and thus get to put “film critic” on my taxes, which is hilario. And I get free DVD rentals and books. 12-year-old me would be ecstatic.
There was a comic book blog I read and loved a few years ago, but once the guy got a paying gig, he left and turned into a sort of humorless dinkerplatz. “Not being that guy” has been a mantra of mine for a while now.
Stacia, I never knew your backstory, but I’ve had loved ones who spent too many years gritting their teeth in the face of the same medical cluelessness you describe; my late wife worked a mind-numbing day job and kept up her professional writing career at night for years while enduring terrible chronic pain. You have my sympathy and my admiration not only for hanging in there but for doing such an entertaining and interesting job of it.
I’ve been mired in some major domestic disasters for most of the summer and haven’t posted anything for weeks. I figure people will either understand or not, but either way, it won’t buy me any more hours in the day. Whenever you can manage to send something our way, it’ll be gratefully accepted.
James, I’m so sorry about your wife, I never knew what she went through. And I really hope this summer’s disasters have abated and things are going well for you again! It’s always a treat to see you here!