First person: Looking into the evil 'I'

Today, I did my bit for the environment. Called the city and ratted out the managers of the apartment building that overlooks my house.

They'd gifted me with a giant nasty mattress, one that an outgoing tenant left behind. The building's carpet cleaner came late Friday. He did his thing and left. About the same nanosecond, the giant nasty mattress mysteriously appeared up against my garage wall. The neighbors to the south had a similar gift, a grotty twin-bed mattress.

(Today is blog for the environment day. Please don't be gross when you move. End of PSA.)

"Can you at least make the building pay for the pickup?" I asked the city worker. The heinous act was good for a $1,000 fine, she told me. But ... did you see the guy leave the mattress there? Well, no, I stammered: He was there, he left, minutes later I saw the giant nasty mattress. Sorry, she said. Circumstantial evidence won't cut it.

Evidence is on my mind because I just left the downtown courthouse, where I'd been a juror until this morning's mistrial (crazy plaintiff). Last Wednesday morning, when this legal adventure started, I found myself on the pavement thinking about the government. 7:30 a.m.-5 p.m. jury duty in beautiful downtown L.A. Then, that evening, the thrilling conclusion of my 12-hour traffic school -- all of which ...

OK, enough. Next topic, please.

Still with me? Most of you are long gone. To me, those opening paragraphs are great stuff, the big news out of my day-to-day. To many readers, those sentences are worthless. The stuff of bad blogs.

Journalism teachers always said leave yourself out of the story. In the 1970s, the "new journalists" (Hunter Thompson, Tom Wolfe) smashed that longstanding rule with a great and gaudy glee. But their would-be successors in the newspaper biz did so many pratfalls that first-person was ushered back to its rightful place in columns and on the op-ed pages.

Writing in the first person is tough duty. Intimidating. Until I started blogging, I never dared compose in the first person. During a long stretch of reviewing DVDs for print, I would do whatever it took to avoid the evil "I" -- even if the content suffered because of that linguistic limbo dance.

Now, after a year or so of blogging, first person feels pretty good. I can slip in and out of it without setting off the burglar alarm.

Some writers -- such as the mighty she-blogger Dooce -- are great at handling first person. That's their natural voice. If you're not so blessed, at least give some thought to how often you open the "I."

I just read an interesting post from Raj Dash called "41 Reasons Why Your Blog Probably Sucks." Reason No. 8: Too personal.

Every time I tell potential clients that blogs can be great for business, they squint and say something like, "Aren't they just for college kids writing about their stupid lives?" (I deal with a tough bunch.) First-person content, done poorly, is about as popular as giant nasty mattresses.

My new rule: If first person makes sense and helps make the point, you'll hear from Me. If not, the writing is all straight-up.