Where would the edmontonian be without our many contributors, collaborators, and commenters?

Sally and I never set out to make the edmontonian our blog. Sure, we had our names all over it editing submissions and authoring a majority of items, but the edmontonian was always supposed to be a community blog. Jeff and Sally could always go get their own damn vlog.

Whether it was a conversation about A Taste of Edmonton and deep-fried foods that spawned its own video, photos that made up many of our quirky looks at the city, writers that posted items here when they certainly had plenty of other good stuff going on, or collaborating with Edmonton’s online content generatOne year of thanksors, it was joining forces and cross-posting that took the edmontonian from a blog belonging to two people to a true community news source.

Some contributors wrote one post, others became synonymous with the site. Some of our same website contributors made appearances on our ShawTV show, but new friends helped on that too. And we always had a steady crew of commenters (and we consider them part of the overall Edmonton conversation).

Together, that group of people is what made the edmontonian such a good time.

(Photos are deep frying and democracy. Two things we take very seriously.)

For the last two years, we’ve done our best to be supporters of local music.

Let’s be honest, this was partially because for part of the run of the edmontonian, I was in a band myself, and consequently knew a lot of local musicians that I thought deserved some attention. But while these stories were all around me, we didn’t cover local music because it was convenient.

We did it because when my band began playing live, I was absolutely shocked at the calibre of artists we were meeting and playing alongside. Prior to that, I had often wondered how to really follow the local music scene, and was so surprised and so psyched about what I found within it, I wanted to share some of my discoveries with you guys (FYI, if you want a primer, check out Samsonow’s painstaking list of all the music we used in the edmontonian presents. And full disclosure, we don’t make any money off the iTunes playlist).

We’ve been really thrilled to be able to feature all kinds of artists in all kinds of ways, given that there aren’t a lot of places you can go to find a regular aggregator of Edmonton music. Or, at least, there weren’t when we started. Now, we’re happy to hand the Edmonton music torch over to those young Whippersnappers at VoidTV, who are doing more than just writing about bands – they’re actually shooting interviews and performances that can be found on their website (and watch for their big launch party at Wunderbar on October 1). The fine folks at GigCity also do a lot of music coverage, and you can find local events aggregated over at yeglive.ca.  And there is, of course, CJSR, including our handsome and charming pals Chad and Colin over at Makin’ Whoopee. So, I guess I’m saying, there’s plenty going on, and we’re obsolete – so let the kids take over!

Jokes about my old age aside, Jeff and I are terrifically proud of any platform we were able to give local artists, labels or performers – especially given how generous those folks have always been with their time, music and attention. Being in a band looks cool, but it’s often a thankless, pricey, difficult task that makes you wonder why the hell you’re stupid enough to be putting all this time, money and energy into it in the first place. It is for that reason that I want to say explicitly: while it may sound fancy-pants for us to say that we featured more artists on our website, in our livecasts, and during the 6 episode run of our show on ShawTV than we can count, what is TRULY remarkable is that all those folks trusted us enough to let us use their music without asking for anything in return.

Seriously, guys, what an honour.

I dare you to find a local news blog with a better soundtrack.

The video above is one I shot of our friends Brazilian Money, who were gracious enough to let us use their song Ghetto Lung as our theme for the edmontonian presents. I highly recommend downloading their newest, highly excellent release.

I particularly enjoyed 2009′s Southgate Mall rebrand, because it was a triumph of the internet!

We could all get together online and make smart ass-y jokes about the big glittery August 5th signs, and then “cover” the event by getting our mall opening bureau chief (read=our friend) @egranado -who is no longer at that twitter handle, BTW – to tweet us pictures from inside the launch.

INTERNET NEWS FTW!

One of my favorite series of posts was Doorwatch ’09 – a string of posts about the broken door at downtown shopping centre Commerce Place.

Out of order for a year or better by the time I wrote about it, the posts about the Commerce Place door rank among my favorites for a few reasons: first, they gave me a means to vent my unholy fury about how much I hated the fact that no one cared enough to fix the door.

Second, I was fortunate enough to be able to find a lot of other people who had just as much of a deathwish for that door as I did. It’s a powerful thing to experience, a whole group of people saying “You are not taking crazy pills, and we feel your pain” – even if your pain is as inane as the mild inconvenience of having to walk a half-block out of your way to get to work.

When I learned that other people found Commerce Place to be just as hilariously frustrating as I did, I realized something that I hadn’t during my days working in “real news” – that stories don’t have to be big or dramatic or tragic to matter.  I think it’s easy to forget, in a world with so much tabloid journalism, celebrity culture and the pervasive attitude that “if it bleeds, it leads!” – but what you do, what you experience, and who you are matters .   Your story is important – even if isn’t dramatic, or glamourous or likely to be made into a W Network movie of the week (p.s. watch for Barbara Hershey in “SALLY’S DOOR: A WOMAN’S JOURNEY OUT OF COMMERCE PLACE” next fall).

There are no small stories. Thanks for teaching me that.

Bad news, gang. Jeff is out of commission today! We spent an evening in the ER (don’t worry, he’ll be keeping all his digits. And even I lobbied hard for him to be given a few extras, to increase his BLOGGING POWER)!

He’s a-ok, but needs a day off from filling up your INTERNETS with BLOGS. You’ll find him back at the same bat time, on the same bat channel, on Wednesday morning.  And in the meantime, feel free to head to the comments and guess what ailment landed him in the ER.  (My hope is that we can spawn an urban legend of a man who gained superhuman strength after being bitten by a radioactive otter).