Quite frankly, I’m boring as hell.
People like me should not have blogs. I have few opinions. I let my life wash over me like an incomprehensible existential nightmare. I aspire to make shit up for a living. I’m a comfortable white guy living an easy life, and there is very little about me that is controversial or thought-provoking. Unless a fleshy mid-thirties guy drinking whiskey and reading a lot of books is your idea of thought-provoking, which it shouldn’t be, especially since I forget about 95% of what I read in those books. I’m like the guy from that movie Memento, except without the angst. And the dead wife.
Good blogs, blogs that I actually heave myself off of my digital ass to read, have one of two things going for them, I think: Either they have a central point, a subject to focus on in which the blogger is at least a self-styled expert, or they have an attitude–you know, blogs that exist just to stir shit up. Either way once you get some Technorati traction you start getting traffic, and then fights break out in your comments section, and all is good in the world. Then, one glorious day, one of your posts is greeted with a comment that reads, in full, “first!” and you know you have arrived.
Sadly, I am none of these things. I am an expert in nothing–I am your classic, classic Jack of All Trades and Master of None. My bizarre attention span has led me to become vaguely acquainted with any number of skills–baseball, French, chess, computer programming, guitar–before wandering off to do something else, usually involving whiskey. I can write authoritatively about nothing that does not personally involve me, so I don’t do it, for fear of being mocked. Your mockery wounds me.
I’m also not much of a shit-stirrer, largely for the same reason. When you recognize your vast ignorance and lack of life-mastery, it undermines the confidence, which makes it difficult to flatly call other people morons. It’s too bad; angering thousands of people would do wonders for my traffic. If anyone out there wants to be my personal shit-stirrer, posting terrible things under my name in order to drum up attention, please contact me. The pay is terrible, but I’ll buy you beers.
*Name that reference and I will send you a cookie.**
**No cookies will actually be sent.
If you would like, I can comment on a bunch of blogs and post on mine that I was in a bar in Hoboken last night and a guy named Jeff Somers bought a round for the whole bar and was celebrating the death of Jerry Falwell.
I would be more than happy to watch the headlines and invent monstrous things about you centered around the days top stories.
I only work for real cookies though – so this may be a deal breaker.
Jason,
That would be excellent. Except no one would believe I was *buying* the drinks. If you said, “Some guy named Jeff Somers was stumbling around finishing the dregs in glasses left behind on tables and then his pants fell down and everyone laughed at him while he did a little dance and sang gibberish” then it would be believable.
As far as inventing monstrous things, you’re hired as my anti-PR guy. What kind of cookies do you like? I will have to owe you the first 300 or so. Things are a little tight until the book becomes an international bestseller and gets optioned as a movie by Daniel Baldwin.
I feel the same as you, that I don’t really have much to talk about that would inspire lively debate, unless I when I defend children whose parents hit them. You should see the shit storm then!
James Lileks has a pretty cool blog. The pull is not his world view, which he does have and has a separate blog for, but his writing style is so witty, that even when he talks about raising his little girl, or going to the grocery store, it has huge potential.
Your writing is funny. Even if you really aren’t saying much, it still comes off as interesting. So keep plugging.
Rum raisin – minus the raisins, minus the eggs, flour, sugar, and milk.
Scott–thanks for the compliment. And you know what, I *am* a jackass quite frequently, so hopefully I’ll say something totally ignorant and infuriating someday and it’ll get national exposure. I’ll be pilloried, and the books will fly off the shelves!
Jason–we are of the same mind. Although you’d have to substitute Scotch for Rum. Otherwise, rock oN! See you in rehab!
Hi all!
I can’t be bothered with anything these days, but shrug. I just don’t have anything to say recently.
G’night