Michael Gerber
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1-the-beatles-1965-granger

Hey folks! As you might have noticed, Dullblog’s content flow has been lighter over this last month or so. Nancy and Devin do what they can, but they have day jobs, bless ’em, and my new gig (I’m writing for The Huffington Post’s new weekly satire show) makes it impossible for me to spew as prolifically as I have in the past.

So: lemons. But we here at Hey Dullblog would like to make some lemonade. We are, for the first time in the seven-odd years of the site, officially calling for submissions. Any of you who would like to write a post, or draw a cartoon, or present a bunch of photos, or or or — just pitch us the idea via the button above. If we think it would work with the rest of the site, we’ll get in touch and discuss next steps. If not, don’t take it personally, please; we’re each of us editors, just doing what editors do. It’s not a reflection on you or your work, only a reflection on the site and our ever-inchoate vision for it.

You know what Hey Dullblog’s like, but here are a few potential directions to get your minds a-humming:

    Brief reviews of Beatles-related events, books, etc.
    Interviews with people who are doing Beatles-related things
    Piece on your favorite Beatles album / favorite solo album
    Piece by someone who performs the Beatles music about that experience
    And here’s a leg-up for anyone looking for one: Both Devin and Nancy have mentioned they’d like to see George- and Ringo-focused content.

I know many of Dullblog’s readers are professional creatives — I’d like to think that our editorial standards, outlook, and taste have had something to do with the wonderful group of commenters and silent readers that has nourished the site from the beginning — but I suspect it’s rather more likely that there was a need in Beatlefandom which we, in our genial and thoughtful way, stumbled into. Especially in the post-Anthology era, Beatles fans want to see their passion addressed with scope and intellect and humor, and there are more and more writers and thinkers able and willing to do it. That need is not getting smaller; I wouldn’t be surprised if Hey Dullblog becomes a one-stop shop for all of that, a vast bazaar of Beatle-thought with the only common threads being deep knowledge, precision of communication and irreverent love.

As The Beatles pass inevitably out of popular memory and into history, with commercial and legal entities increasingly in control of their legacy, it will fall to Beatlefans themselves to make sure that who they were and what they did together is addressed in all its glorious messiness, comedy, grace and pain. The Beatles are too important — still too foundational to modern popular culture — to be left to marketers and academics. What Dullblog has done, and what we hope to continue to do, is becoming more essential, not less.

We have the smartest group of commenters and readers I’ve ever seen, and we can’t wait to see what people propose. Write if you have questions.
Love,
Mike, Devin, Nancy, Ed, Mollie, et al.

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