Show-offy. It's a term movie critics use when a movie is over stylized. Flashy. Think Kung Fu Hustle (Which I didn't care for). It's a movie that 'tried too hard' either to be cool or to say, 'Hey! Look what I learned in film school!' My personal beef with critcs is that I really don't know what's so wrong about that?
Movies are entertainment, at least they're supposed to be, yet most independent movies have sad sack protagonists that putter through life, have an experience or two, and then end the movie staring off into the distance...understanding. But what exactly? Who knows, the smarmy critics probably know. Remember the rotting apple in the background of the first scene? Hello! His soul! Oh, right. Because in the Godfather movies oranges = death, right? Maybe?
Sometimes I wonder if I made a movie and just threw shit against a wall and put as little dialogue as possible, would it be heralded as brilliant? Sort of worked for Lost in Translation.
Some show offy movies actually get some love. Kill Bill gets love, but that's because Tarantino has established himself as someone that makes movies that are simply a collection of great scenes. If anyone does it now, it's a Tarantino ripoff. But in certain cases, are we not entertained?
I can even appreciate a "bad" movie that has a visual flair and keeps your eyes on the screen. A Life Less Ordinary was a bomb but I love it because everyone is over acting beyond reason, but it's clearly on purpose. Yet, any review you read has something in it about Holly Hunter being over the top. That was kind of the point. Ian Holm was over the top too. Pretty much everyone was. It was a movie about angels that 'work' in a police department-like office helping humans with fate issues. Did we need Judy Davis in the movie to bring subtle nuance? The hero got "shot" with a "bullet of love" in the heart, and that was the resolution. So what? The movie was incredibly fun. It didn't give a fuck. How else do you explain the claymation credit sequence to Oasis' "Round Are Way" (not a typo).
The Rules of Attraction isn't a great movie, but it employs every visual trick in the book and it tries so hard for you to love it - and when it's on TV, I never miss it. It's got split screen scenes that morph into one (a pretty cool trick), scenes played out in reverse, that Shalaylee Shalonamom (not her real name) chick that was in every early 2000 movie, and tons of overacting. I mean, like boozy old ladies choking on their wine out of shock type overacting. To not even mention that totally random hospital scene where a kid mildly overdoses and the attending hilariously tells his friends the clearly alert boy is dead:
Dr. Phibes, Waiting Room Doctor: Harry's gone bye-bye, he's gone to the big bye-bye. He's got his name in the papers on the back side. It's "Toe Tag Time in Teenville Tonight". Again. Should've just said no, Harry. Harry: I'm not dead am I? Dr. Phibes, Waiting Room Doctor: Actually, you don't have a pulse. I think you're dead.
Come on, that's good fun. The movie's a little cruel and soulless (to the untrained eye) but it is based on a Bret Easton Ellis book so...
One of my favorite movies of all time is Oldboy. It's amazing. It's so much fun to watch. And it's patentedly outlandish and insane (Think a Saw ending only more unrealistic, and without the seizure inducing montage of 1/4 second clips). I don't know why certain movies are allowed to be unbelievable and some aren't. My grandfather always thought Gremlins was good fun, yet it really pissed him off that one kid and Louis Gossett Jr could singlehandedly execute an air strike in Iron Eagle.
Oldboy has amazing action sequences, visual flair, a techno-ish soundtrack (the only place techno music belongs is carefully placed in movie sequences, otherwise it should be buried with Moby's still conscious body).
Oh, and it also has a really cool twist, which allowed a lot of people to cut it some slack, call it the Fight Club clause.
A lot of people don't like David Lynch movies because they're weird and don't make sense. Let me tell you all something...Inland Empire...makes NO SENSE AT ALL. However, I can talk for hours about what Lost Highway, or Mulholland Drive, or Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, or Blue Velvet means. Those movies with someone else's name on them would be called over-directed, but since it's him, either it's brilliant or it's awful.
In Lost Highway there is a scene where a "Mystery Man" with a pale white face confronts a man by telling him they've met before...at his house...and as a matter of fact, he's there right now. He even pulls out a cell phone and tells him to give him a ring. When the guy calls and the "Mystery Man" answers on the other end, the "Mystery Man" in front of him chuckles. Then the best line of the movie: the "Mystery Man" on the phone tells the man, "Give me back my phone." Awesome. That scene right there does not exist when the director is thinking inside the lines.
There are few things that I can watch and literally get chills. Yet, when I watch Twin Peaks (the TV show), the episode where you find out who killed Laura Palmer (directed by David Lynch), I get chills every time. I was 12 the first time I saw it, but even now it's horrific. You can't even imagine it was on ABC in 1990. A brutal murder takes place and the scene alternates between the man killing in reality and the demon inside of him responsible. When the demon is killing, everything is slowed down, a giant spotlight tracks their every move, and the killer and the victim's voices become extremely disturbing (It makes the phrase "Somebody - help - me!" sound even scarier, much scarier). All the while, in the background audio you hear the sound of a record player that is stuck at the end of an album.
On top of that, if you watched the show as many times as I did, you'd recall the killer using the record player early on in the series and dancing around in a circle in the room with a picture of Laura Palmer. Now, he's circling the same room with his new victim in the same way as the same record player has run out of music. Also, if you consider the dream the FBI agent on the case has early on in the series where a "little man in a red room" tells him where they come from "there's always music in the air", you go..."Oh, always music...and the record player...not playing any...mmm hmmm..." And when it takes you ten years to figure this all out, it's equally rewarding and embarrassing.
The reason I brought up Twin Peaks, the TV show, is because it had many directors, and most of them were show-offy in a bad way. Where David Lynch would show an imagine of a white horse with a spotlight on it in a living room for about ten specific reasons (the spotlight would return, the white horse was 'code' for drugs - or being drugged, etc), you'd have a horrible director like actress Diane Keaton, who just did weird shit for no specific reason at all. That's show offy and over directed, and when you see the two, you can tell the difference. Unless of course you're a critic.
GOTCHA!: An Open Letter to the Liberal Media Elite
Please, media elite, do not ask Sarah Palin questions anymore. I think we, the public, are sick and tired of your cornering tactics and Gotcha! questions. She's not a defenseless deer in a helicopter flyover zone. Who am I or you to say that having a narrow maritime border with another country does not give you foreign policy experience? I may be a brilliant savant when it comes to Block Island politics for all I know, I've just never thought about it since I don't live on the shore, I don't own binoculars, and I can't see it from my home. I'm landlocked...dammit!
I think it's the definition of sexist to question a vice presidential candidate on their qualifications. I believe that Sarah Palin needs, and John McCain clearly felt she deserved, a free ride with the media. Beyond question. In other words, you were supposed to treat her like Obama. So you don't want to look racist by treating Obama the same way you would anyone else, but you won't let her slide on anything she says? For shame.
How can you sleep at night asking her questions about such things as the Bush Doctrine or a current financial crisis? So what if she said we could still save Fannie May but it's sadly too late for Bernie Mac? She'll be the vice president, her biggest issue will probably be decorating the secure location and baby proofing it for her daughter's fiance, the ass kickin' hockey player whose MySpace said "I don't want kids." Too bad Alaska has no birth control education, he thought pulling out and ejaculating on a polar bear was his only alternative to abstaining.
Good for John McCain giving it to Katie Couric for her Gotcha! questions. He became the protective dad for Palin, or at least the guy at a bar that wants any excuse to sidle up and ask a girl he likes if "this guy [is] bothering [you]?" And Katie...I don't know if you know this but you have lady parts! Woman on woman crime is not cool, it's erotic, but not cool.
I think we all agree we want our two top leaders to not be necessarily smart or qualified, we want them relatable and good people to have a beer with. A good guest spot on Saturday Night Live will get my vote faster than years of experience ever will. We want less government! Wait...or more...which one is the one we want? Are we supposed to regulate or deregulate? Damn, I just Gotcha-ed! myself. Oh wait, I'm male, middle class, and white. Never mind.
So liberal media elite, with your left leanings that make you look like you've never had a V8, I implore you, get the big gloves out and start tossing her a few softballs. Or at least challenge her to a game of one on one basketball, just so long as you use that smaller WNBA ball.
The 10 Most Annoying People of 2008 - Special Early Edition
The joy that is Christmas and New Years is always magnified to explosive heights by the annual 10 Most Annoying People of the Year blogs. Such past winners like the Dyson Vacuum Guy and Recumbent Bicyclists mingled with more famous winners like Tyler Perry and Lewis Black.
While watching TV last week I was struck by something...I had one for my list under my nose most of the year, and I was just so busting I could not wait until December, so without further ado...
SPECIAL SEPTEMBER PICK FOR MOST ANNOYING PEOPLE OF 2008: Lee and Ann Marie, the eHarmony couple
Lee's wrapped too tight, Ann Marie calms him, tells him to relax. You can just tell she's gonna ask him, "What's the matter, baby?" right after the first time he hauls off an punches her in a blind rage because the garage door opener isn't working.
He's got cold dead eyes, her eyes are filled with misplaced love, crazy love, for that arrogant bowler, Lee. Together they are transfixed by the other's awesomeness. Clearly Lee saying he's "intense" means, 'I blow up constantly. I have rage problems. I kick pets.' Ann Marie will be the wife that keeps walking into those door knobs which are for some reason at eye level.
OK, so I've turned these two into psychopaths trapped in a toxic relationship. True. But are you going to tell me this guy doesn't look like the dude you see in his SUV with a Bluetooth in his ear slamming on the horn and passing cars in the breakdown lane who has flashes of calmness that are strikingly incongruous with his personality as a whole? And what of crazy eyed Ann Marie? She of the unfortunate profile. She's the pretty girl that is so crazy guys can't overlook her clingy ways and shopping for wedding dresses on the first date. Tell her she's pretty and you can pretty much do what you want with her...but can you put up with her wrapping herself around your pant leg and calling you 20 times a day to inquire..."Waddaya doin', moofins?" I think not.
I'm calling it now. Less than one year, Yahoo News will have as it's last 'light news' story, eHarmony Couple Splitting Up. Or, to hedge my bets, Ann Marie will be dead by Lee's hands. Morbid. Horrible. But probably true.
Hey, there's a lot of people in eHarmony commercials, and I want you to know, it's OK to mock.
Oh, and what's up with that Hillary Swank's doppleganger doing a Match.com "It's OK to Look" ad?
I know you're divorced...but you have an Oscar! And I know you're mannish but you don't have a penis...that dude checked in that movie where you won the Oscar! Come on, you're better than that!
Last night I ran 6.25 miles. I know that sounds like a random number but I wanted to go 6 miles, and I did, then once I reached 90 minutes (yes, 90 minutes) on the treadmill I was at some weird number like 6.11 so I did what I always do and look around for the next round number or quarter mile mark. I also discovered that when I burn 1000 calories, the display rolls back to 0, not only on regular calories, but also fat calories, which had just passed 300. So basically I was running the last two minutes doing the math in my head what I had actually burned. I think it was like 1050 calories, and like 310 fat calories. Ouh those fat calories are hard to kill.
Anyway, I woke up bright and early and walked another mile in my own shoes, another man's shoes simply do not fit most times. Walking a mile takes longer. About 18 minutes. Still, it's not a bad way to start the day. I'm not super energized like I thought I may be, I am super jittery thanks to my new pot of coffee a day intake. By 3pm I can barely write with a pencil. Nice.
Basically for me, getting out of a funk always starts with insane amounts of exercise. I've always wanted to say "I run 10 miles a day" and not be lying. Imagine how healthy those people must be!
I did discover something on my own last night on the treadmill. I realized that I inhale and exhale with my stride. Meaning left foot down, inhale, right foot down, exhale. When you've bumped the treadmill speed past "Fat Burn" and you're on "Performance" mode, that's a hell of a lot of breathing. I made an effort to control my breathing, inhaling and exhaling in a slow, yoga-tastic, deliberate way, and guess what - I could run faster and longer. I'm sure this is treadmill 101 but it always escaped me for some reason. I've been told you shouldn't drink cold water when you run, but I do, I gotta, it's the only thing that keeps me going.
So in summary, I'm running again. Who knows how long it'll last, I never do, but that's where I'm at, feeling better in mind, body and soul (you know, once those creationists discover where my soul is - I told them to look for something black).
So my cousin got married Saturday to his sweetheart, and she is one, Mary. It was a church ceremony which meant I had to decide whether I was going to play Catholic or not join in. I chose to not join in. I wondered if they would do Communion and they did. I skipped it. I expected crap from mom, a hardcore "I don't go to church or subscribe to their beliefs but I will scorn those with religious beliefs that are not these" fan, but I didn't get any. It helps I was sitting next to Tracy, whom my mother most likely expects to burn up upon crossing the threshold.
Church weddings are great, but I always feel like it's a mass with a wedding shoehorned into it. I feel bad saying that, but really, it's just my opinion and it's usually discounted anyway so...
After the ceremony my uncle drove us to the reception. Being that he's a Malloy, as soon as we were out of the receiving line they wanted to bolt there. Sadly for them, I was going to the bathroom and mingling and...you know, not being so goddamned antsy.
On the way there I joked about an open bar and when we got there, I watched someone at the bar to see if he'd leave with the bill he had clutched in his hand, - he did. Bingo! Open bar.
Now here's my little trick, get drinks for a bunch of people, publically give them to the people in your party, then, next time, order all the same stuff...only this time, you're stockpiling your own booze. By the time Happy Hour was over, I was two rum and Cokes and five beers in. Now the reason I do the first time around getting other people drinks is because the younger kids who were just circling around and round in line were getting limited to two drinks each by the bartender who was on to them. A little less blatant and you're golden!
Anyway, I had a really great time at the wedding, saw my family, saw all my old co-workers from Stop and Shop, met some new people, got pretty tipsy (not drunk - borderline), and even danced a bit - although I left most of that to the younger people. I'm in wedding limbo, I'm not a young kid anymore, and I'm not one of the old people just watching at the table. I guess I'm like the guy that graduated high school three years ago but still shows up at lunch time in a Camaro hoping some young girls have never seen a car before.
Anyway, Pat and Mary are perfect for each other. The best man's speech had a Final Fantasy joke in it (I'm the one that got my cousin hooked on those tedious role playing games in the first place). I feel like an old man going, "They were all super drunk, but they're good kids! They don't hurt nobody!" Who doesn't love good natured intoxication?
So yeah, they got married at 10am, reception from 11 on, so when I got home at 5pm, I was ready for Ibuprofen, bed, air conditioning, a bag of chips, and Chiller running the miniseries It. And trust me, I know at the same time somewhere all those kids were somewhere keeping the party going while I sat in bed with a glass of soda balancing on my stomach. Ah, sweet life.
I want to throw a shot in Cindy McCain. I went her to give me free beer. I do not want her husband to be president. It scares me when my mom says he knows more about managing a war, being that he was a POW, than Obama. Frankly, I think being the big guy is all about PR. Keeping people happy. It's the people you surround yourself with that handle or mishandle the war. Obama has the charm to quiet or calm a room, McCain looks like the high school principal that will end this assembly right now! Yeah, no Navy band for you! Yeah, let the surly old guy handle foreign policy.
I told mom he said we could be in Iraq for 100 years and she was her usual, "No no no no no...da da da...I can't hear you..." self. She hears what she wants to hear. She is...good lord...an undecided voter. Gulp. She's a Hillary refugee without a candidate. Yeah, it took me all of one day to go, "OK, so Obama then." What else was I gonna do? Vote for T-bone Pickens, or whatever his name is, that guy with the commercials on TV, that has a plan to save our country with windmills. I wasn't listening too closely, I was too busy dreaming up a Don Quixote allusion in my head.
My mom is worried about where Obama was born. Oy. Do you think the dirty Republicans would let an non citizen get this far? Is this their ace in the hole? Obama wins and Karl Rove ascends from a hole in the ground on a giant duck (like the Penguin in Batman Returns!) telling everyone the election goes to McCain. Then everyone in the room turn their suits inside out to reveal their American flag pins. Conservatives! All of them! It's the M Night Shyamalan twist ending to the election!
Dear ol' mom reads those emails that say "this was verified by Snopes!", you know, the ones you should actually check on Snopes but don't. The ones where if you did go to Snopes you'd know that Snopes didn't verify it. So when on November 1st, she gets an email says Obama killed and ate a Jewish baby, I'm gonna have to set her straight. Actually, I'd better just lie and say it was a Muslim baby. See! He's one of us! One of us! One of us!
The college I go to had a write up in the local paper, basically about how we're super psyched a black man is running for president. It featured our affirmative action head, a vice president (we have like 25 vice presidents), and an instructor. The instructor was the token white guy, who labelled himself a "progressive voter". Based on what he said, that's "a white guy that votes for a black candidate because...isn't that what we're supposed to do? Man us white people are lame, and we dance all like this..." I would really enjoy either side to have picked a candidate because of something they believe in. Even if you're someone who goes, "What? You wanna take my gun away? Uh uh...I'm voting McCain!" At least it's not, I pick the white/black guy. Although, can't the Democrats say Obama is the white/black guy? If he had a vagina he'd have 100% of the vote! Whoa.
The Democratic National Convention: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the MSNBC
Watching the DNC on TV is mild entertainment at best. Even when a speaker came up that I wanted to hear I could barely keep from flipping over to a Sox/Yankees game.
I watched as Ted Kennedy spoke and was amazed since every clip of him I see he's either butchering a name or stammering, yet fresh from a brush with death, he's all lucid and shit.
I couldn't watch Hillary, I just couldn't. I wanted to, I tried a little, but her "stay together for the sake of the children" speech was just too much to handle. She wants to be president, and that's OK.
I did watch Bill though, because he's a suave fucker, that one. He can give a speech. So much so that I figured Joe Biden would come out and underwhelm, but in my opinion he did fine.
Now, once the speechs were over and Barack Obama came out for his "surprise" cameo, the commentators started up.
MSNBC of course declared it a home run. I could clearly see for the last few days that they were setting this up. Wondering out loud if the Clintons would be bitter about having to support Obama, as if either Clinton was going to go up there and give a speech like a petulant college kid in a speech class he's forced to take. Like Hillary was going to go, "Bring on the super delegates! I fooled you!" as the lights dim, smoke rises and her pants suit turns into a tattered red, demonic cape. Then Michelle Obama is mauled by Cerberus, the three headed dog from Hell.
Watching Bill Clinton's speech on Fox News my eyes were drawn to the "crawl", the scrolling 'facts' at the bottom of the screen. It was hilarious. They mentioned Bill Clinton's long winded DNC speech from well over a decade, they mentioned how the audience erupted in cheers when he uttered the phrase, "...in closing". It was fantastic, the fairness, the balance. Seriously, Fox News could not pass a field sobriety test to save it's life.
Also, when the convention night was wrapping up and Obama had come out, they "called them out" that all of this was staged. Britt Hume, the slowly melting Fox anchorman called it "hokum". No! Really? You mean Joe Biden knew Obama was coming? That taints the whole thing. I can't believe an aspect of politics is about showmanship!
Back to MSNBC, Keith Olbermann, whom I love in a "He amuses me and I find him brilliant and am willing to overlook he's slightly tapped in the head" way, was saying how the Clintons are on board! Happy end! Drop the balloons!
I enjoy going back and forth between these two channels as I've mentioned before. It's great to see MSNBC cannonize Obama while Fox News gets on his ass because they didn't wing it. Did you know those speeches were on a teleprompter? Chelsea Clinton still isn't cute if you meet her in person! (You know they'd go there if they thought it'd help)
So now tomorrow Obama moves the convention to a stadium. What do the two sides think?
MSNBC: If you're a politician and you're filling stadiums...um, that's not a bad thing.
Fox: What an elitist. He needs his own venue? Puh-leeze. McCain is going to hold the RNC in an Arby's, the way Jesus would want.
Actually, McCain probably would hold it at an Arby's. The man has no idea what he's doing. Obama is in another country and he's eating at a ritzy IHOP. Oh well, at least he's got the endorsement of musician Daddy Yankee. Wait...who? That's the best he can do? How is this man hanging in there? Oh yeah, a lot of Americans don't really like black people.
If I Were More Attractive, I’d Be Funnier...Automatically
I have noticed a correlation between attractive bloggers and the degree with which blog readers find them "hilarious".
Top bloggers are mostly attractive women who spit out the same five ideas about relationships, sex, and abortion. Yet, the bigger the boobs, the more doe eyed they are, the more comments they have rained down upon them. If I used a different photo, I bet my opinion would matter more, I bet my jokes would be funnier.
There are about five good pictures of me on record and they're all in my photo section, the rest of my pictures clearly show an oft drunken Irishman making faces to mask what his real visage looks like. I don't recall this picture even being taken, but it happened, and look, I wasn't prepared. No raised eyebrow of mock sarcasm. No contorted scrunchie face. Just good ol' me, doing happy. I do not do happy well.
Oh sure, I look thin (which for some reason is seemingly always important to me) but I also look like I just got back from Gay Camp and can't wait to show everyone my merit badge for Most Sarcastic Comments Made Watching Showgirls. Even my friend Scotty stopped looking at Kerri's clearly hilarious picture to bask in the awkward glow of my hooked penis stance.
I remember on The Real World years ago back when I watched such things, there was this vanilla, boring ass mother fucker named Ace. He would bitch because the French people didn't speak English, he bitched there were no McDonalds nearby, he bitched about the sun rising in the east. At which point the editors of the show cut away from his complaining to show the token daddy-never-hugged-her blonde girl that said with no sense of irony, "Ace...is...hilarious!" Oh sure, I saw bitching and moaning from a miserable, coma inducing jackass, but I was looking too deep. Clearly his family friendly, JV soccer team looks made his comments transcend the barriers of traditional humor. No no, Ace was hilarious. Oui oui oui, Ace is fun-ny.
That's also why tall people command more respect. People with longer legs are natural born leaders. Their ideas are more succinct. That is why in the event of a national emergency I will change the channel on the TV away from the local and national news and switch over to the Style Network and await instructions from Iman. She's got a good foot or more even on Brian Williams.
Back in the 60s and 70s, you didn't have to be attractive to be a singer. You could look like Janis and still be allowed to sing. These days, she'd be on Perez Hilton with "I HEART VAG" written in Paintbrush on her shirt. Oh, and something dripping out of her mouth.
So you see, effort doesn't matter anymore. It's things out of your control. Your looks, your weight, your height, the size of your sex organs (girls with big vaginas get all the breaks - tell me I'm wrong!), these are the important things, the things that matter, the things that help you on your way.
So anyway, I leave you for now. I have to go for a drive. I just hope I don't get into a firey car crash and need plastic surgery. Who knows how many glowing comments and kudos I'll have to sift through after I become Johnny Depplicious.
Johnny Delicious lives in the quiet town of Somerset, Massachusetts, a town that spawned Red Sox great Jerry Remy and the woman that wrote that Cameron Diaz movie The Sweetest Thing. Sometime next week our town will be installing our very first black family. They will be encased in glass and displayed 8 - 4 Monday thru Friday. Don't tap the glass and please don't feed them. We haven't determined what they eat just yet.
I’m Surprised the Blu Blockers Rap Guy Isn’t Still Around Enchanting Us...
...with spontaneous bop prosody. It's a little known fact that this man even existed, to captivate us with his freestyle rap about sunglasses that our grandparents would accidentally think we'd want to own.
..
Still though, it makes you think that MC Dr. Geek will go to his grave being the guy that sang the Blu Blockers rap. It's not like he's even going to achieve greater fame than that. Our society won't allow it. We need our celebrities to either be 14 and highly fuckable, or chemically unbalanced and shouty.
Our tiny earth has squeezed him out to the fringes and we won't let him back him no way no how. I just hope it brings him some joy when his built in Google search on his own name finds this blog. Any man that can rhyme "hat" with "fact" deserves that much.
I'd like to do a "Where Are They Now?" feature on him, but I don't feel like depressing myself. I'll just assume he's in a gutter somewhere drinking Woolite because odds are I'm thinking on the positive tip.
If there's one thing I know, it's that an attractive face puts asses in the seats. This is perhaps why every non celebrity blogger that ranks high in the mystery-to-me MySpace ranking system seems to be some hot blonde that loves nothing more than a good blog, blog comments, blog dicking (it's a thing), kudos (redeemable for one free back rub), and replies to replies.
So let me get this straight, if I was Tammy VonHugentits, would I be a top bloggers. Could I post a blog like:
Narm! I just ate a tuna salad sammich. Yummers!
and gets millions of comments on it? Answer: Yes.
I have seen two-line blogs by people that spend way too much time with the Photoshop airbrush tool post such blogs, only to get a comment-palooza from people saying things like:
"Tuna rocks!"
"I hope it was dolphin friendly"
"Fuck the dolphins"
"Dolphins can't fuck, they have no reproductive organs, it's all osmosis"
"Yer a morun! Die of [pick a terrible disease that isn't funny to joke about]"
"Narm! I'm Six Feet Under's Nate Fisher and my brain just stopped working. Numb arm...narm!"
"Well said, SilentVixenDeadlyVixenDotCom, great blog! Wanna do somethin later maybe? I know you're in LA and I'm in Vermont but do you cam?"
...and so on and so forth.
I've found that such MySpace comments are like YouTube comments for people who like to call other people 'gay' or 'retarded'. I've gotten YouTube comments on some of my videos, most of which I've deleted. People seem compelled to point out the randomness of my videos, or how much my opinion sucks, or that no one at Mr Cecil's Dance Party can dance all that well. I get comments for people I know, so I keep those, but these random people that feel the need to give me half a star (ba-zing) probably think they hurt me.
Commenting is an art. Some people can comment. Basically you add to the conversation in a productive way. This means:
You elaborate on the original point.
You tell a relevant story about what the blog was about.
You correct errors you spot (Not grammer or spelling, please). Fuck, did I misspell 'grammer' in that incomplete sentence? Where is my head at? Oh shit, did I end on a preposition! Did that last sentence need the dynamic question mark / exclaimation point duo?
You can say the blog was funny (resist the urge to try to sound out your laugh and make it a word like BWAH!. And again, if you spit soda out laughing, I am legally not obligated to 'owe you a new keyboard'.)
You try NOT to:
Nitpick something that isn't relevant. If I say "There was like 20 people there," you should not post "Actually, it was 18, because I did a head count, so..."
Branch off other comments and turn the comments into an IM message
Tell me I'm "ghey" or "stoopid".
Tell me I'm hot, I already know, child.
So you see, there is an art to blogging and an art to commenting. I hope this was helpful.
Johnny Delicious lives in Somerset, MA with his wife and three cats. He's going to put a PayPal button on his page so he can take donations for his super terrific blogs. Daddy needs money.
