Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

krisis

Krisis has been creating Crushing Krisis since 2000, writing songs since 1996, and reading comics since 1991. He is a Customer Success and Digital Brand Strategy executive, serial organizer, parent, and feminist, among other things. Based in Philly through 2017, he now resides in Wellington, NZ.

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Song #2 (below) can’t seem to decide where it wants to go. I started writing it simply as a song in the second person that had nothing to do with “relationships” in the sense i usually write about them. Quickly, the puzzle became figuring out what the “tiny trouble” in the first verse was, and why she took the car out. By the time i got out to the bridge (notice the borrowed line from Tori while i work out what’s actually going to fit in there) i knew she was hiding something from her family and she had tried to tell her boyfriend but was hung up on (in the first chorus). The song seemed to be leaning towards her being pregnant (“nest in your heart,” “too early for children to be appreciated,” “feel the kick of that tiny answer”), but i’m not sure that’s where i was leaning. But, what do you hide from your family and get shut down by your lover about if your not pregnant? What wakes you up with the sun just so you can drive around deserted streets just waiting for something to catch you eyes. Maybe she’s dying? But, it was all in the letter, and she tore it up so she could manage to go back to sleep with the tiny pieces littering the floor around her bed. But that tiny trouble has gotten the best of her, and she can’t just sleep that off.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/05/3835246/

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I have some links to blog. Run for the hills.

Track4 is a solidly constructed music review site run by SpaceKitten on her Uprush domain, and i don’t even think i knew it was there (smooth one, huh?). I Am Generic is a really nicely designed site without too much flash-bang, which is my favourite kind of design (via MuffBlog). And, speaking of people with patience and rock solid design skills (of which i possess neither), Zannah still has the same basic layout as she did when i first saw her page nearly a year ago. Maybe there were some inbetween steps that i missed, but colour me impressed. With a shade less patience, but with tons of primary color design skillz, perennial favourite Wockerjabby just got a massive redesign that you should lay your eyes on. And, finally, i dragged my lazy self over to Ahx this morning after a nearly week-long lapse in my reading to find him doing some damned great writing (compliments of me nonwithstanding, of course). More people should be hearing what he has to say.

Well, there you go. That’s enough excuses not to read me for a couple of hours, right? Good. Off you go.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/05/3830588/

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Of all the beloved sites i’ve ever seen shut down, it’s always been the decision of the site administrator(s). Regular readers can leave and staff members can be bitchy and unhappy, but ultimately the admin makes the decision to pull the plug on the main page leaving everyone scrambling to talk to each other on the message boards before those too fade away or become completely irrelevant.

What is it about being the admin of a site that makes it so easy to shut everything down rather than just make a change? Is it that you’re tied to what the site was and not what it will be? Or, is it that you just get tired of making little fixes to what seems to you a large overall problem. Pulling the plug on a site, whether it be a treasured monument to e/n or the best Ani DiFranco site on the internet, seems like a hopelessly selfish choice. However, i suppose if you take on all the weight of maintaining a page yourself then you’re entitled to be selfish about it’s dissolution.

Bearing that in mind, is the solution to distribute both the joys of being a successful administrator as well as the sorrows? Does having a solid support staff make the difference between giving up on a page or just taking a much needed breather? Of course, having support staff presents nearly the same problem, as their collective vision sometimes strays from yours, leaving you either useless or annoyed. So, what’s the best formula for keeping a site going long enough that it becomes a mainstay in a community and not just a blip?

It seems to me that the easy answer is staying involved in the flow of your site, which is why so many solo blog-projects have become so consistent and venerable. It’s also why so many of them burn out and fail. If you don’t stay involved emotionally or scientifically or anything with your own writing, eventually what you’re creating means nothing and your page is just like the impression your head leaves on a pillow rather than a pillow with a real head on it. The same holds true for a group site … if you let yourself stray slowly from being an active poster to being a distanced administrator, your idea of fun is only based on reading the page as opposed to the real fun of writing it. This is not to say every administrator should be the center of attention – primadonna in their own specially constructed showcase. Instead, the point is that you have to occupy all of the positions at once: admin, staff, writer, and most importantly, fan.

Remind me about this post if i ever start bitching about any of this, if you would be so kind..

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/05/3829478/

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So, this morning Shafted.org finally gave up the ghost. You can go to read the final message of apathy and disinterest if you’d like, but i’ll spare you the link.


Sometimes bands break up because their overall creative urge started to diverge, and sometimes the various members of those bands go on to do beautiful things. Rather than use the obvious example of the Beatles, take a look at Ben Folds Five: they recently broke up because as a band they weren’t functioning properly, but Ben Folds has a new solo album coming out in a matter of months picking up where his creativity left off. I hope Robert and Darren have similar projects up their sleeves…

Anyhow, my point is that despite the old administration of Shafted losing interest in the interactions therein, those of us doing the majority of the interacting remain engrossed. As a result, today i uploaded the very basics of Repulsed using Noah Grey‘s spectacular GreyMatter as the backend. Only time will tell if we still have anything interesting to say, but at least now we have somewhere to say it.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/05/3820815/