I’m having a hard time articulating this blog entry. It’s hard, because I’ve made a decision to not be involved with the Los Angeles Podcasters Group’s (LAPG) booth at the Podcast & Portable Media Expo in a month and a half, and the decision is based on a combination of ethical, personal, and purely gut reasons.

So it’s hard to explain it, and yet I feel the need to blog about it. It’s hard to explain, because I don’t particularly want to get into the personal reasons (I sense that bad feelings and perhaps some flared tempers would result.) Let’s just say I don’t mesh with some of the participants, and the perceived motivations that seem to drive their actions.

I wrote a post on the LA Podcasters’ forum to, more or less, state my reasons. Read that, if you want. It explains most of it. I guess it’s enough to say that I want to meet people, and interact, and network, and build relationships, and all of that… I don’t want to stand around in a convention hall and wait for people to come to me and my Los Angeles comrades.

See, I long for community, and I don’t think we live in a world where community is, or should be, geographically based. Community should be built around shared ethics, passions, interests, and goals… and let the threads be stretched across the globe. Let participation be defined by those who speak, not by who’s sitting at the literal table.

Yeah, some might feel I’ve changed my tune. In fact, I’m steering back on course. I veered off at the thought of the LAPG booth, and the hint of media involvement, and the potential exposure to hundreds and hundreds of people.

I let myself forget: what’s important is reaching fewer people who care deeply, not many people who may not care enough. I strayed from my own personal DIY ethic, and now I’m back.

I want to get the most I can out of this conference — I’ll still be there, baby, both days, with bells on, morning on into night. I’ll be in a different session every freakin’ hour, soaking it up and participating when I can. Interacting.

I’m not there to put on a show. I’m certainly not interested in podcasting live from the booth — I recall Curry’s keynote-turned-podcast recording session and how it turned my stomach. I’m not there to stand in a booth, as in “Here I am, a podcaster, and here you are, a conventioneer.” Putting walls around the creators of content, separating them from the folks who consume the content, is so last century, even if those walls are just temporary partitions or faux velvet curtains.

Quotin’ Dave, “We’re all just folks,” and that’s exactly what I want to be. One of the folks, With the folks. All the folks.

Okay. Between this and that, I think I’ve said it.