There's a big moon over Mount Royal tonight. And I'm sitting here staring at that little plane flying into the darkness, and wondering why blogs can't last forever.
And how sorry I am to discover that somebody has taken down Bruce McDonald's blog Canuck Attitude. Only four months after he committed suicide.
Disappointed because I won't be able to link to some of his bully stories, to illustrate the horror of homophobia, and how it can kill, long after the bullying stops.
Disappointed because now the link to the different versions of the flag he designed...
Takes you to the same dead place.
Instead of being shared with people all over the world as it was for years.
But mostly I'm sad because I thought Bruce's blog was also his memorial, a place to go to remember him, and I was planning to keep it on my blogroll forever.
I don't know why somebody took it down. I hope it wasn't because they thought it's not the kind of memorial that a "respectable" dead person should have. Because that would be so wrong.
The good news? Somebody saved some of his words.
And on the night of the big moon, his friend Rick has a great story to tell.
Although Ricky did get one thing wrong eh?
I stole Bruce's jukebox before they closed the joint down.
And tonight it played this song...
Hi...what are you doing? Writing.
Oh boy. It's going to be hard to remove Canuck Attitude from my blogroll. And maybe I never will.
But Bruce is really gone now. Time moves on like a river. A blog is just a blog.
And nothing is forever...
Recommend this post at Progressive Bloggers.
Damn you Simon, you made me cry.
ReplyDeleteAnd we're not taking Canuck Attitude down from our blog roll ever.
hi deBeauxOs...sorry about that, but it is sad isn't it. All those years of blogging, all that passion, all those songs and cartoons gone in a flash. It doesn't seem right to me. I notice that the name isn't available, so maybe it's just offline and somebody can bring it back some day. I hope so...
ReplyDeleteI was saddened to see it was taken offline a couple of weeks ago. It still comes up as the first site whenever I type the letter "c" on my keyboard in my web browser's address bar, so I found myself visiting it accidentally during moments where my motor memory overtakes my real memory.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, archive.org got some of it, but not everything; especially his most recent stuff. (http://replay.waybackmachine.org/20100811051106/http://canuctude.blogspot.com/ is the most recent catch).
Still, I can't believe that blogspot takes blogs offline so quickly. I'm assuming the account was just suspended due to inactivity and there may be a way to re-activate it... but without his login credentials, I can't guess any way to recover it.
hi Mark...you know it never crossed my mind that blogspot might have taken it down. I remember reading once that it didn't matter whether you posted once a day or once every ten years, your blog would still be there. But now that I think about it you're probably right.
ReplyDeleteOh well, whatever the reason, it's still sad...
This is so sad. I don't think it was Blogspot and inactivity. My blog has been inactive for over a year if not longer.
ReplyDeletehi Beijing...yes I must say I found it profoundly depressing. And I agree with you I can't believe Blogspot would have taken it down. Unless somebody can come up with another explanation I'm afraid his family must have taken it down. I certainly wouldn't criticize them, but it's really sad, because Bruce had nothing to hide and he wrote a lot of stuff that would have stood the test of time...
ReplyDelete