The quality blogger scene in Hong Kong continues to decline. First it was the infamous Simon World, where Simon spent an incredible amount of time to organize an Asian blogger contest each year. Then he just disappeared without a word, and never responded to my inquiries.
And today I learned that Geocities had finally bitten the dust, taking down Hemlock in the process. Hemlock's final words:
"A date which will live in infamy”
Geocities, the evil multinational conglomerate that produces its shoddy and environmentally destructive Internet services in Dickensian sweatshops in its ruthless quest for profit, saw fit – as part of its imminent closure – to bar me, wild American friend Odell, the Big Boss and delectable Administrative Officer Winky Ip from our very own home from the middle of last week. They have let me back in briefly in order to retrieve a few essentials, but otherwise this is it. Cast out into the wilderness with maximum prejudice aforethought.
Souvenir hunters, the nostalgic, and the terminally bored are welcome to poke around here – the lights go out permanently at Geocities around the end of October.
I will be heartily recommending what I suspect will be a rather common-looking ‘blog’ written by my acquaintance D. The link is…
http://biglychee.com
He is not the most interesting of people, but there is a possibility – I’d give it a 30-40% chance – that some of his scribblings will be worth reading. To quote Steve Earle, “I remember when we was both out on the boulevard, talkin’ revolution and singin’ the blues. Nowadays it’s letters to the editor and cheatin’ on our taxes – it’s the best that we can do.”
And it struck me that Spike had lost both of his jobs in Hong Kong, and might be forced to flee the colonies to other points in Asia. His night gig is to write twice monthly columns for BC magazine, but his real day job is as an IT guy at a media company, Disney I think. He's been doing that computer stuff for 40 years, so his qualifications are excellent and he still loves rock n roll. If you're hiring in HK or elsewhere in Asia, contact him at his Laowai Blog.
You can read Spike's most recent column here.
I lost my job. No, I didn’t really lose my job. I know where my job is. It’s just, when I go there, there’s this other guy doing it.’ That’s Bobcat Goldthwait speaking, back in the days when he was a stand-up comedian. He was actually quite good at that job, but he was the kind of comedian mostly appreciated by other comedians and the public mostly knows him, if they know him at all, from his roles in three of the Police Academy films. (‘I did Police Academy 3 and 4 because there were so many unanswered questions from Police Academy 2.’) At any rate, he got a new job, writing and directing quirky comedy films and directing the Jimmy Kimmel Live! TV series.
I lost my job, too. I take small comfort in the knowledge that a lot of other people also lost their jobs in the past year. Actually, it sucks because now I’m just one of tens of thousands out there pounding the pavement, resume in hand, knocking on doors, trying to find out if I’m qualified to sell fishballs at 7-Eleven. (Apparently I’m not.)
When people find out that I’m about to be out of work, often the first question they ask is, ‘bc magazine fired you?’ These people, many of them working in the legal or accounting profession, seem to believe that my entire employment up until now has consisted of cranking out 1,000 words twice a month for this esteemed publication. And while it’s true that I agonize over every one of those 2,000 words (because, dear reader, you’re worth it), the sad fact is that the remuneration I receive from bc isn’t enough to pay for the monthly supply of rare ocelot spleen extract that keeps me alive, let alone my rent. (Hey, I got a guy, he knows how to get stuff – he’s got a shop in a sub-basement of the Lo Wu mall. Tell him Squeaky Fromme sent you.)
Yes, that’s right, Spike has a day job. Or, um, well, he had one. It was a pretty good one, too, enough to keep me in CDs, DVDs and things that plug in and light up as well as steady travel to glamorous spots throughout the Asia Pacific region. Often places where decent bakeries and movie theatres are larger than my living room.
See, he's a very funny guy.
Oh, I almost forgot. Rupert Murdock has announced that he's closing down the Far Eastern Economic Review. The WSJ story is here.
Dow Jones & Co. said it plans to close the Far Eastern Economic Review, bringing down the curtain on the 63-year-old magazine as the company redirects resources to its other news outlets in Asia.
Dow Jones previously cut the staff and publishing schedule of the Hong Kong-based magazine, which has chronicled business and politics in the region in the tumultuous decades since World War II. The company overhauled the Review five years ago, transforming it from a staff-written weekly to a monthly with essays and analysis from political, academic and business experts. The move cut about 80 positions, or nearly all the magazine's staff.
The publication has struggled with losses amid the proliferation of global news outlets and the migration of readers to the Web. Dow Jones said in a statement Monday that the situation was unsustainable. The closure is planned for December.
Dow Jones said the Review's remaining six editorial employees will be offered positions elsewhere at the company. Dow Jones is owned by News Corp., which also publishes The Wall Street Journal. Hugo Restall, the Review's editor since 2004, remains a member of the Journal's editorial board.
The Review debuted in 1946 as Asia emerged from the war, and became one of the most aggressive news organizations in the region. Its coverage made it the target of lawsuits in places like Singapore, where it was ultimately banned.
Until late 1986, Dow Jones shared ownership of the Review with the publisher of the South China Morning Post, an English-language newspaper based in Hong Kong. Dow Jones took over full ownership in a deal with News Corp., which had acquired a controlling interest in the Post. News Corp. bought Dow Jones in 2007.
With the closure of the Review, Dow Jones said it will focus its Asia coverage in other publications, including the Journal, its Chinese-language Web site, a planned Japanese-language Web site and new mobile services. Rupert Murdoch, News Corp.'s chairman and chief executive, has said India and other fast-growing Asian nations are a growth opportunity for the company's entertainment and news businesses.
The Review becomes the latest English-language publication to close in Asia. In 2001, Time Warner Inc.'s Time Inc. unit stopped publishing Asiaweek magazine, a competitor of the Review.
So there you have it. FEER soon gone. Simon World folded several years ago. Goodbye Hemlock. And Spike is in the danger zone.
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