So long, Cami

(CLICK TO ENLARGE)

It's 6:30 a.m. and my six year old daughter is shaking me out of bed. "Where's Camille leaving to?" she says. I have no idea how she knows Camille is going anywhere. Maybe she read the Great Scott calendar like everyone else.

She got a job in New York, I yawn. 

"She's moving away to go work there?"

Yes.

"Is she the girl with the ice cream cones at her desk?"

Yes, that's her. Camille's desk is piled with back issues of High Times and books and booze and sneakers and weird swag; there's her old computer, unhooked and dusty, that's been sitting there for a year; a couple of clipped photos pinned to gray felt. And plastic ice cream cones.

---  

I can't really remember how it came up. I think we were reading Catchdubs or Teaching the Indie Kids To Dance Again or something. Camille said, "We should do an mp3 blog." I said, "Yeah. I don't have time." She said, "Neither do I." Then we went ahead and did it anyway. Secretly, at first, on a free Blogger account. Told a few friends. Linked to our favorites. Met Catchdubs, and Lemon-Red, and Sylvester. They linked to us. It felt . . . not like writing. Writing's like this: you show up, tunnel backwards into yr skull, and dig for inspiration until an editor grabs you by the throat and makes you turn your shit in. OTD is like smoking in the boys' room. After writing about music professionally for more than a decade, I was burned to a crisp. OTD is the most fun I've had since, oh, probably the Monoman episode. In any case, the important thing to remember is that when it comes to OTD -- the pawrty recaps and the Juelz Santana interviews and the local-miniceleb separated at births -- the whole thing was Camille's idea.

Next week she'll be launching a new music blog at the Village Voice.

--

From Camille's "Why I Write" essay (the one that Gawker quoted in officially welcoming her to NY's media shitstorm):

I like to think about throwing a huge party and putting everyone I’ve ever written about on the guest list. I imagine the anarchists debating unions with the manager of the Glass Slipper. The Assman trying to slap one of his stickers on the Jesus Guy’s sandwich board. The cosmetology-school girls screaming at each other and playing Guitar Hero in Second Life. Darkclouds stickering the fridge. The ex-con sneakerhead trying to get some play from Boston’s first SuicideGirl. The Best Thing Ever covering “Big Poppa” in the bathtub. Perhaps that’s how I know when I’ve found somebody worth writing about: I immediately want them there.

In case you haven't figured this out yet, we're havnig a hard time saying goodbye. But you're welcome to come by tonight and watch us get drunk and try. The party described above is in fact happening, they've all been invited. As are you. We can't guarantee there won't be a fight, but the flickr pix are gonna be awesome.

IF YOU GO:

Camille's going-away party
Feat. DJ RNDM, VJ Robotkid, Los Wunder Twins del Rap, Life of the Mind (some old friend of Cami's reading extraordinarily bad poetry), and special surprise guests...
Great Scott, 1222 Comm Ave, Allston
9 pm, $5