When I was writing music reviewsI preferred not to let people know
I was writing about them
so they could come up upon the content
out in the world, like a surprise,
like we weren’t all part of an insular
tiny community of artists who all knew each other.

I usually wrote positive reviews
because what was the point of making the effort
to produce the content just to criticize?
There’s so much art out there:
why waste the inches to promote
just to hurt somebody
– unless there was a serious risk
someone would invest in the art.
Like what if Lou Reed has just released
a steam pile and the world needed to be warned?
Then it makes sense to send out a public release
to get the word out before anyone made a mistake!

Normally though, I wanted people
to get the mild shock of seeing themselves in print
(or more likely) in digital view.

I wrote a fan letter/career review
a few years back
after I had stopped doing regular writing of this sort.
It was well after I had been doing research on my subjects,
even one I had known so well as Ms. Scott.
Except I didn’t know Ms. Scott so well
since I made so many mistakes in my article
mistakes she felt obliged to call me on
after it was published.

I felt so sure of the facts beforehand
but these were things that were easily verifiable
that I had failed to do.
If I had reached out to her to ask
all would have been so much easier.
Had I written a responsible article
done reasonable reportage
everything would have gone off well.

Even after the fact
I should have reported the errors to the publication.
I don’t know why I didn’t.
I don’t know if it even occurred to me.
Ms. Scott deserved better – especially from a fan.

I can’t understand how I did such a pisspoor job at first
and why I didn’t understand how to make restitution afterwards
– she gave me the means. .
As one who explores his own navel so frequently
there is so little I get
about myself.
Maybe it’s time
to crawl up my own asshole for a while

and see what I can find.