Logged Off Logs Off So it comes down to this. Almost ten years since I started reviewing and writing on books and music, culture and its corporations, and countless interviews, press releases, phone calls and abuse letters later, we find ourselves here, as we started, with the words and the music. Alone and not. I started reviewing for the freebies. Simple enough. But I kept reviewing because I thought I had something interesting to say about interesting materials coming across my path. I realised that these books and CDs were not just products to be whored, but often years of someone's artistic and personal life invested into the art and act of communicating. Don't get me wrong - much of the shit I've dealt with wasn't. But when I set up Logged Off in 2001 it was while working in Sydney and seeing for myself exactly why it wasn't worth selling your ass to the lowest bidder just to get by. The Internet posed the best possible way to get outside the structures and strictures of publications run by, on the one hand, the demons of corporate advertising and, on the other, the demands of editors and publishers who snorted most of their profits away. Across those ten years I've worked hard for some publications I'm very proud of - being the founding editor of Qnews after Brother Sister was bankrupted by corporate excess, and, while in its national format, assuming the role of columnist and literary critic for Bent Magazine gave me the chance to introduce readers to material conventionally unconsummated by the "queer" "consumer". As columnist, reviewer and writer for Delusions of Adequacy, I've been part of a team that worked for no money and for little reward, mostly just for the chance to be doing something different to Pitchfork or Rolling Stone or Spin or Uncut. To be able to sleep at night, integrity intact, and know that I'd discussed something in a way it, and not its publicity, deserved. Self aggrandizing? Perhaps. But if you're working with music and literature, you'll understand what it's like and take your camera opps as you can. I wish I could say that I'm finishing reviewing because I think my mission is accomplished, and that across the Internet and Australian print publications there is a multiplicity of strong, critical and independent voices reflecting on areas underexposed by the mainstream presses and web sites. It's not, and more and more the egos of reviewers are taking centre stage. The commercial demands of corporations take precedence over the need for accuracy and intelligence. And, for many, the need to pay the bills means that writers aren't paid at all. That's the main reason I'm bowing/selling out. I have to focus on my Honours thesis and, ironically, my fiction writing, in the hope that I'll be able to earn a living doing something I love, in spite of my illness, in spite of my differences. And in doing so maybe I'll be able to return to reading and listening to what I love, instead of feeling fraudulent and farcical. I want to thank the bands, artists, writers, publicists, editors and readers of Logged Off & my work over the years for all they've done, to encourage, critique and support me as I have them. Who knows - one day we may meet again. I hope so - this world's too futile and fragile for like minded friends not to gather and discuss and appreciate the material that makes us feel just for a minute that maybe we're not alone.