Free Republic Quasi-Official Blog Concept and Nomination Thread

I know that some people here are fans of Blogs. I am one as well. I had a brainstorm for something new here at FR, and Jim gave me the go-ahead to give it a whirl. The idea is for a quasi~official blog. The Freeper Island Blog.

Why Freeper Island? Because like Survivor, a blogger can be voted off the island.

Basically what I am imagining is that we will have a dozen people who are the designated inhabitants of the Freeper Island Blog. There will be a blog thread each day, and any of the twelve can add items to the blog (it would go in the article section of the thread. How we will handle updating it I need to work out. I have an idea but I need to talk to someone about it first). Anyone could reply to the thread, but only the twelve bloggers could add things to the article/blog portion of the thread. Each time an entry gets added to the blog portion of the thread, it would get bumped back to the top of either the Extended News or Editorial sidebar (this needs to be decided). The 12 islanders would have a month long term.

As the end of the month approaches, we would have a thread for voting for your favorite bloggers (all voting done publically). The 10 who get the most votes stay on (if they are willing).

Who gets to replace the two who didn't get enough support? We would also have a thread where people could nominate themselves (and give reasons why they should be voted on the island). And then a vote- again done publically on the thread. The two highest vote getters get a month on the island.

Who would be the original twelve? They would be picked by the same method- a nominating thread followed by a vote. Any replacements needed for emerging reasons would also be determined in this way.

Who gets to vote? To avoid problems, only Freepers with at least three months and at least 100 replies under their belt would be allowed to vote (or run).

These are my ideas for it. I figure we will give it a shot, and if it turns into a good feature we keep it and if not we won't.

Anyway, feel free to make additional suggestions, or if you are interested in being one of the first twelve, write up a nomination. I'll arbitrarily set Sunday at midnight as the cutoff for nominations, and will post a voting thread for Monday with each of the nomination writeups on it (order determined at random), with 24 hours for voting. You can nominate anyone, but only those who post to this thread saying they want to do it and why will actually make the ballot.

It is the album cover from Quadrophenia.

http://www.examiner.com/ex_files/default.jsp?story=X0601QUADROPHEN1

For some reason, The Who's music has provided great fodder for movie soundtracks. Tunes like "Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere" and "My Generation" pulse with aggressive energy, and songs like "Won't Get Fooled Again" soar with an almost operatic, dramatic power. Recent movies that have benefited from a shot of The Who include: "GoodFellas," "Jerry Maguire," "Rushmore," "The Limey," "American Beauty" and "Bringing Out the Dead."

The Who recorded two concept albums that served as the basis of movies. The 1969 album "Tommy" was made into a dreadful 1975 film by director Ken Russell; but the second time was the charm when the 1973 album "Quadrophenia" hit the big screen in 1979.

Directed by Franc Roddam (in his directorial debut), "Quadrophenia" takes place in 1964 England, when the Mods and the Rockers went at each other like cowboys and Indians, like frat boys and computer geeks. Phil Daniels stars as Jimmy, the smallest and most troubled of his band of Mods. His troubles begin when he runs into an old friend newly released from prison, only to discover that he's become a Rocker.

The Mods travel to the quaint beachside town of Brighton to fight the Rockers, and the brawls get bigger and bigger. After one such enormous fracas (which features the famous chant, "We are the mods, we are the mods, mods, mods!") Jimmy begins to lose his hold on life. His girlfriend flits off with one of his friends, his parents discover his stash of "blues" (i.e. little blue valium pills, I'm told) and a mail truck runs over his motorbike.

At the same time, a Mod named Ace (played by Sting, still with The Police just after the hit "Roxanne") whom Jimmy has come to admire, takes a job as a bellboy, jumping at the command of snooty rich tourists. And Jimmy can't take any more.

"Quadrophenia" succeeds through its devil-may-care attitude and energy. It feels like a low-budget homemade movie from the period (except that a movie marquee advertises Warren Beatty's "Heaven Can Wait" at one point). Plot doesn't matter much. At one point one of the Mods declares that he'd like to get himself a gun. I immediately thought about where the movie would go if it were made today, a cautionary tale about angry youths and guns, but the line was just a throwaway, part of the normal beat of life.

These kids spend their time and energy rebelling in every way they know how, and Jimmy's helpless anger and frustration in particular rings completely genuine. Certain scenes reminded me of my own "rebel" years (such as they were), even though the clothes and songs were different. In truth, every generation believes themselves to be more outrageous than the one before it, but everything remains essentially the same. This universality makes "Quadrophenia" seem relevant today.

When The Who's music kicks in, though, the movie jumps another level. When "The Real Me," or "Love Reign O'er Me," or "5:15" soar over the images, our minds and spirits soar with them. Unlike "Tommy," director Roddam has managed to make the music secondary to the story, but essential all the same. The songs enhance the already-strong images, and in surprising and non-obvious ways. It's not a traditional musical by any stretch.

I somehow missed "Quadrophenia" in my youthful search for cult videos to enjoy with my friends, but I'm glad I finally caught up to it. It would have made a fine companion piece to "Repo Man" and other rebellious favorites. It still does.

Maybe instead of a set number of designated bloggers, a central blog-thread in which the best of FR is pulled from the daily pages and added to the blog-thread.

Who does the adding? Admin, of course.

And where do they get their input? From us. We nominate specific posts --- or series of posts --- to get added to the central blog.

This will tend to encourage longer and more thoughtful pieces being written (since many will want their post nominated for inclusion). At the same time, it might be worth noting that some of the best of FR is not in the longer paragraphs but often in the shorter stuff, especially a series of shorts in which members "get on a roll" and really hammer out a humorous response to an idea.

So what might make it into the blog sometimes is not just single well-written pieces, but some of the more delightfully witty chains of irreverant humor that are so common here.

One problem in this idea is the amount of work in culling the nominations. Each day there will be a lot of nominations. Maybe add a new button and maybe allow each freeper (or each long-time, multi-posted freeper) to use the button only once a day, after which it disappears from his/her screen until tomorrow.

Anyway, just rambling here.

I like the idea of a central thread (or maybe more than one) because one of the problems here is the fragmentation. There's just too much stuff to read, too many places to go, with stuff scattered too far and wide.

So however it's done, I'm for the idea.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.