Monday, February 27, 2006

My Other Blog Is... Non-Existent!




Why blog? Why bother? I don't know, shut up!

I imagine people blog for a variety of reasons, commercial, esthetic, whatever. Me, I do it for ART, no wait, for LOVE. Yeah, I want to feel like I belong somewhere, amidst the innumerable binary strands which comprise our virtual beings. That's me (so comment, you cruel bastards, before my meds bill bankrupts this family!).

Recently, Mo-wo said to me: I think it's time you got your own blog... (It's not you, it's me.) Then I reviewed a recent post on some blog-thing wherein the author asked: why do you blog? Mo- had commented, he replied, I couldn't keep pace with all this heady repartee. I needed to slow down, type a post with my index fingers... and spleen!

The author in question casts about what would be some serious fucking loot-generating figures from some blog-ashram type thing where blog humans I enjoy and enjoy disliking apparently write about shit that interests them; they attract readers, and even attract the holiest grail-Advertisers. Anyway, lots of money is being made by bloggers and fuck it if I am not seeing a dime of it. Which is to say: I am not seeing a dime of it. Does this mean I am too pure to blog for boodle - no!

It could mean I am neither good enough or peopled enough to join some blog-corp. which enables its contributors to make some spare change, or quit their jobs and move to Vail, or Monaco, or Lichtenstein. Am I green with envy? Of course! I want the loot, but without the inconvenience of the third set of revisions, the really clever blog-linkage, the meeting and enduring of, mmm, people. Let me know if there is a misanthropic blog group somewhere, that isn't fueled by radicalism of any stripe, which pays some big coin for lazily-crafted postings with very few references. Like this one, and unlike this other I read the other day, which was like peeling an onion while reading Foucault's Pendulum (which is to say, the author's cleverations compounded, names were dropping, concepts flying, tears streaming from my eyes as I went from one layer of meaning to the next to the next, blinded by the shiny white pages of the classical-Greek/English dictionary I needed to trudge through the post) which was produced by a writer who is on his game. Nauseating, really, all this cleverness. Those that can, do, I suppose, gathering nuts in May and all that. This author, and now several others in the 'we are dads' group, have joined or started another blog, or other BLOGS... there appears to be an ever-increasing number of poly-bloggers out there, smartening up the blogoverse. What gives? I can barely post twice a week, make it to work on time, and remember to wax those annoying palm-hairs, let alone consider seriously being a part of some other blog. Let alone some commercial enterprise blog with an actual budget. (Don't sentences require verbs?)

But who cares. If you're out there, looking for a feckless contributor, I'm your guy. Don't expect me to prove my worth- I won't. I, on the other hand, will expect you to be brimming over with initiative, patience, and americanos. I just want to say "my other blog is..." or "P-man's paying job is.." or even "Come have your scrotum blowtorched on...". Is that too much to ask? It isn't that we here at Chez Wo are flat broke, but we have another human on the way, and basically I am greedy. I want the money, people!

By way of CV, because the attributes I note above are tantalizingly few, I am of average height and build, except maybe in one crucial area which accounts for all the anger. I have two degrees from an accredited university, neither of which involved the learning of foreign languages, math, or dissecting house pets (except maybe as part of invoking some nasty deity on a former fine arts professor who suggested that I should like, try writing some modern poems, I mean, poems that don't rhyme, or whatever it was... appalling!). I am paid to be an obsessive-compulsive prick and I really like my job. I could go on about my lack of virtue, in fact, I am warming to the subject. I am a little teary...

In any event, this writer replied to Mo-, saying something like he was blogging for some kind of good reason, I don't remember what it was, I don't care; he pointed out he is not 'pure', he has some ads, but the money is not the point: he could get $2 per hour some other way... and of course he could, like if he was an illegal alien, but he isn't, he is a blog-guy and he is counting the coins. Anyone would tell you, you start at $2/hr., and you work your way up, bloggingbloggingblogging until you are firmly ensconced in mormon hearttland, living in a bunker next to the Armstrongs. Keep on typing, baby!

And if you are out there, you curmudgeonly blog-collective, and you have advertising for shit like movies, or joysticks, or some other crap people can buy at a national chain store, please sign me up. I'll be mean for money, honest.

10 Comments:

Blogger jdg said...

jesusfuckingchrist you know I wouldn't put up with all your bullshit hatin' if I didn't respect you and your fine womanly wife lady; I wouldn't be throwing links your way, etc., if I let any of it get to me.

so here's a word if you're serious: there's a very small percentage of folks who are going to be willing to trudge through your wonderfully obtuse prose. a jerkoff like myself enjoys it, but then again I'm such a jerkoff I not only read Ulysses cover to cover 4 times but I'm telling you about it. what a fucking jerkoff I am. what I'm saying is people judge a blogger's writing in a few seconds; personally I think it's great that you guys don't dumb it down at all, because most of the time I "get it." But if you want to earn $4 a story like me, you've got to compromise your literary integrity a bit. it's the difference between writing for the baffler and people magazine. that's not true. it doesn't mean you have to write poorly, but widening your audience comes at a cost.

Trust me, it makes you much more vulnerable to the criticisms of the Canadian literati.

12:19 a.m.  
Blogger mo-wo said...

Should remember you are talking to the sort of wanker who has read the Odyssey 4 times. THANKS for reading. I do promise I will get the sitemeter up eventually. It would be nice to 'know your' there.

Might make all that audience widening, moot. 'Cause face we love our readers at mo-wo, sometimes small is beautiful.

8:35 a.m.  
Blogger L. said...

I think you are definitely the "most underappreciated" of all the blogs I regularly read.... but my opinion ain`t worth crap, because either my site meter`s broken, or my own readership has dropped like Dick Cheney`s hunting companion. WUMP! DOWN!

I always say, writing (including blogging) is like dancing. Lots of people love it, a few are astoundingly good at it, but very, very few of these people will ever get rich, or even make a living, doing it -- sure, brilliance counts, but luck and timing count just as much -- or more.

3:39 p.m.  
Blogger L. said...

I just have to leave another comment, because the new word verification is "efwee," and I really want to type that.

3:41 p.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Fuckety fuck for fuck's sake! I feel so inadequate right now for so many reasons. Forget the fact that, unlike you and Dutch, I only have a single college degree. More importantly, I only made it through Ulysses ONCE and I practically got an aneurysm from it. Must have something to do with the the fact that Koreans and the Irish are too similar to ever properly understand one another.

But I digress. Like Dutch, I love the fact that you guys don't dumb it down. Your writing is so amazing that I often sit and ruminate about my inferior skills and the fact that I seem to be using wisecracks and 50 cent observations to appeal to the lowest common denominator. I only wish I had your natural proclivity with language.

That being said, I don't know anyone outside of Utah who is actually "making a living" out of blogging. But if you and Dutch want to start a parenting blog based on obscure literary references and post-modern Italian literature, I'd be honored to join you.

As always, keep up the great work.

7:48 p.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

yeah you got the time to write for ANOTHER blog now metrodad?

9:27 p.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I am only commenting in an effort to build up the comment figures to something impressive like, say, 7; that and to say the new blog will need a not-very-catchy title... Andy Partridge! No, Bloggers Anonymous, Blogging Anonymously, Ass Wednesday.
Beats me. You guys RULE!

10:08 p.m.  
Blogger L. said...

I vote for Ass Wednesday.

And I only read the whack-off chapter in Ulysses.

10:31 p.m.  
Blogger jdg said...

doesn't he wack off in every chapter in Ulysses?

12:44 p.m.  
Blogger L. said...

REALLY? Maybe I should read the rest???

I read chapter 13, in which Bloom whacks off on the beach. In fact, when I was in high school, I wrote a college paper on it, for an office friend of my mother`s who was struggling in a night class. My mother asked me to "help her" -- and I ended up writing it for her, and got an A-. The incredible part was, I didn`t realize until YEARS later that Bloom was whacking off! When I re-read it, it was obvious (the fireworks go off and the crowd says, OH!), but when I read it the first time, my sex drive had not matured to the point where I would "get it." No wonder the professor liked mine -- he probably got 50 papers about whacking off, and one about flotsam and jetsam in the ocean...

P-man, I`ve never read the Odyssey, but I saw the original "Jason and Argonauts," which was...um... different. But it was about Greece, too, y`know?

4:44 p.m.  

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