People and Blogs: Marty Day

Let's start from the basics: can you introduce yourself?

Hi! I’m Marty Day, and I run blast-o-rama.com. I’ve been blogging since February 2008 (though maybe 2001, if we count LiveJournal, where I rambled about a lot of the same things as a teen). I live in Baltimore, Maryland, with my wife Sam, and our cats Riley, Oliver, and Flynn.

In addition to the blog, I’m part owner of, producer of, and live event host for Super Art Fight, The Greatest Live Art Competition in the Known Universe (think Pro Wrestling meets Pictionary), and I co-host The Rough House Podcast, a pro wrestling podcast with my buddy Chris.

What's the story behind your blog?

Back in 2006, my buddy Nick and I created a webcomic, Dead of Summer. Between our thrice-weekly posting of pages of the comic, I’d often write about my interests — movies, comics, music, toys, terrible fast food, etc.

In a funk after a pretty rotten breakup, I decided that I wanted my own piece of the web. I went to Dreamhost, did an install of WordPress, and the rest is history.

blast-o-rama. has had a few different versions of the years, not just visually, but in terms of scope — I had a period where I opened it up to some friends to blog in my stead, to see what we could generate ad revenue wise, but eventually, I pulled the plug and made it solely mine again.

Earlier this year, I moved everything to Micro.blog, both for ease of maintenance, and for lower costs versus what I’d been paying for hosting.

As for the name, it comes from the White Zombie song “El Phantasmo and the Chicken Run Blast-O-Rama”. I can’t say I’m particularly a big fan of White Zombie (who of my age group didn’t spend countless hours playing video games with “Dragula” on the soundtrack?), but ever since I read the name of the song, the phrase Blast-O-Rama stuck with me.

I’m a really big fan of retro sci-fi, big chunky robots, stylish rocket ships, blue sky thinking, and for some reason, that came to mind with the phrase “Blast-O-Rama”, and lo, it was kismet. That said, I wish the price of blastorama.com would go down, so I could have that under lock and key too…

What does your creative process look like when it comes to blogging?

Oh boy, it’s kind of a multi-headed hydra, especially now that I’ve ported my microblogging onto the blog, with cross-posts to my Mastodon and my BlueSky accounts. In the case of those brain farts, I usually just dump words into Drafts and send it over to Micro.blog.

For longer form work — like this Q&A! — I use Ulysses. I find it a great place to just focus and write. Sure, there are some longer drafts in there which have lingered (shout out to this post that I tried to make myself accountable to finish).

In terms of inspiration, I’m an avid RSS completionist, so I dig through my feeds on Reeder (by way of Feedbin), and whatever grabs my eye to write about, have a take on, etc., I star it for later and then come back to write later. It helps that the main purpose of my blog is to share my enthusiasm, so it’s easier to write quickly through the excitement to share with the rest of the internet.

Usually it’s a very quick draft-to-publish mindset, but with longer pieces I’ve been known to give it a once over or three to catch grammatical or spelling errors.

Do you have an ideal creative environment? Also do you believe the physical space influences your creativity?

I definitely believe that physical space can influence your creativity, but really, it’s more vibes than anything.

I could have the perfect writing music in my headphones, be in my comfy desk chair, checking out my writing on my external monitor, and that may pale in comparison to just bashing things out on my MacBook on the couch (as I’m doing here after watching tonight’s O’s game. Go O’s!)

You have to feel right mentally, you have to feel right physically, and while I believe in the idea of just getting the words on paper in the right order or format and then making it “good” after (as *Simpsons* legend John Swartzwelder likes to push), if you’re off, you’re off.

A question for the techie readers: can you run us through your tech stack?

Well, right now it’s all on Micro.blog. So it’s simple, and I don’t need to think about it! Manton can probably tell you far far more.

Given your experience, if you were to start a blog today, would you do anything differently?

I see how people use GitHub Pages and Eleventy and wonder if that might be for me. But…I’m also getting older and I don’t have the time to tinker as much. Maybe if I was a teenager now, I’d be inclined to dig in more. All and all, I have zero regrets about owning my own corner of the Internet.

I’ll say this: I’m very interested to see what Adam Newbold / Neatnik (they of omg.lol fame) have in mind for Neato.

Financial question since the Web is obsessed with money: how much does it cost to run your blog? Is it just a cost, or does it generate some revenue? And what's your position on people monetising personal blogs?

OK, so…

• $5/mo for micro.blog = $60/yr
• Ulysses is $40/yr
• Drafts is $20/yr

So…$120 a year?

I have no ads, and for the better part of the last decade, I worked in affiliate marketing technology, so using affiliate links felt like a pretty big no-no. Now, though? I might start using them again.

I’m all for people monetizing what they create. I feel like that across the board we’ve undervalued art, undervalued creation, and for those willing to say “I’d like money for my efforts”, I applaud you.

But right now, this is all just a fun hobby of mine.

Time for some recommendations: any blog you think is worth checking out? And also, who do you think I should be interviewing next?

Gosh, I know I’m going to forget a bunch of people, so I’m going to toss out two off the top of my head:

Robb Knight: His blog is kind of everything I wish I could do with blast-o-rama. One stop shop of owning and logging their entire digital existence. I just see everything he makes and I am in awe of it. And I stand with his efforts to turn the screws back on the AI bots.

Keenan: Talk about a hell of a writer. Everything they write is just so damned enthralling, real, raw, and engaging. They make me want to be so much better at the written word, and open with who I am, and much like with Robb, I see their latest efforts and I’m just in awe. I recommend their writing on the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s song “Maps” or their hilariously scathing post about efficiency and art, “It’s ok if we don’t consume all of the world’s information before we die”

Final question: is there anything you want to share with us?

Just some parting thoughts:

• The “small” web is, was, and will always be cooler than the rest of the web.
• Everyone should make their own website, at least once.
• Your failures can be cooler than some people’s entire list of accolades.