The unbearable lightness of Neil
Category: Music

Among the many things flitting through one's mind during the course of a day—recalling what time practice starts, remembering a joke you heard in high school, trying to decide if the woman at the gym was smiling your way or if her underwear was merely riding up—is often found a particular song, set on infinite repeat, that refuses to go away. Everyone gets songs stuck in their heads from time to time; some are more vulnerable to it than others, but it happens to us all. (Scientists call these songs "earworms", apparently not satisfied that the phenomenon is making us squirm with discomfort enough already.) It varies in its annoyance level, but it only becomes dangerous if you suddenly realize that your own brain has turned on you and declared you its enemy, as is currently the case with me.

My problem began several days ago. I was outdoors, moving heavy pieces of furniture from a storage area into a truck, so that they could then be unloaded and moved into an other, different storage space.

Some songs that get stuck in your head are welcome: snappy tracks that alight in your mind like a fun little elf and play a soundtrack for your day. Instead, what I got buzzed in like a horsefly and bit into my scalp like a match being struck upon the inner surface of my skull. Out of the blue, my braincase was suddenly, maddeningly and unignorably invaded by Neil Diamond's E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial -inspired 1980s ballad, "Heartlight". It just happened. One moment, my only thought was about how a nice frosty lemonade would sure not go amiss right now. The next moment, the treacly power refrain "Tuhn on ya haahht-li-agh-tah!" (Seriously, he somehow makes the word "light" have, like, ten syllables.) was pounding my thoughts like a rubber mallet to the cerebellum.

It's important for you to understand that at the time I was not listening to any music at all, let alone Neil's; nor was anyone in my vicinity, and nor had anyone done so recently. Further, I'm not what you'd call a fan, though I realize that as a native of Boston—where "Sweet Caroline" is played before the eighth inning of every Red Sox game and there seems to be a disturbingly disproportionate fan base—I might be considered an outcast. In fact, I'm pretty sure I hadn't even heard that song in a good decade or so. Only my own brain can be responsible, and its motives are clear.

My usual course of action in the case of an earworm (ew...sorry, I won't do that again) is to just listen to the song when I get a chance. This always seems to work as a kind of catharsis, satisfying whatever strange synaptic short circuit that's causing the song to repeat itself. However, I of course do not exactly keep the Neil Diamond catalog handy. Moreover, I just didn't want to listen to that horrid little ingot of mellow gold. I wanted it to go away, period.

Of course it didn't, and the song continued to peck away at my soul for the remainder of the afternoon, reminding me just in case I'd forgotten during the past five minutes to let my heart light make a happy glow for all the world to see. I tried listening to music I like, each song a wad of musical steel wool with which I tried fruitlessly to scour the palate. My beleaguered head would not be appeased. That night, a broken man, I was forced finally to download the track. The whole time, my most desperate wish was that I wouldn't die before I finished, leaving this last act of my life for all to witness when they found me in my chair, clouded eyes unblinking. The download finished, and I played the song back a good half dozen times in one sitting. Tears streamed down my cheeks, whether from the touching tale of Elliott and his alien friend or from abject suffering I knew not. But when I finally stopped for the night and I'd put eight hours of sleep between myself and Neil, it was all mercifully over.

Or so I thought. Hoped. Prayed. Neil Diamond and his abomination did not return the next day, to be sure. But in their place, my foul sponge of a brain gifted me with a new horror: Carly Simon's Bond theme, "Nobody Does It Better". In similar fashion, this song wrapped its tentacles around my every thought and refused to leave, all day. In similar fashion, I hadn't even heard that song in years. Only my besotted cranium can be responsible, training its malevolent purposes upon me in full.

But surely this pattern can't last? We all get songs we don't like stuck in our heads now and then, driving us a little crazy. It's no great revelation in my case, you're perfectly correct in answering. I'm not so sure. For today, while in my car—a car which, it should be made plain, has a twisted tassel of severed wires where a radio would be—I was struck a third time, harder and with more malice than ever, with Kenny Rogers' "The Gambler". My entire trip, and the bulk of the afternoon, were spent in time-tested reflections on when it is appropriate to "hold 'em" and when to "fold 'em".

Friends, I am under attack. My own mind, my only ally through so many of my adventures, has turned against me, and I'm at a total loss for what I can possibly do about it. I'm open to ideas. If you have none to offer, at least do me this favor: pray for me that tomorrow doesn't bring Barry Manilow with it.

8:10 AM - 10 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

I pick frills (and so can you)
Category: Life

Not very long ago, I dined out with people at Bugaboo Creek. (For those unfamiliar, it’s one of those well-meaning theme restaurants which measures its level of atmosphere in terms of the number of fake antiques mounted on every available inch of wall space, except that some of them flop around and/or tell corny jokes.) Like a stake through its cruel 100% Black Angus heart, the kitchen had lanced my hamburger with this object:

1:40 AM - 6 Comments - 10 Kudos - Add Comment

Spoiler alert
Category: Life

It is my feeling that the biggest way in which the internet has changed us as a society has been to turn us into a bunch of obnoxious jerks. A wealth of information has made us think we know it all, and anonymity has made us unafraid to say so. Bring up any topic at all with someone online and they'll flash their opinion like a business card, whether or not it was asked for...and whether or not they actually know what they're talking about. Rarely do these opinions arise from real expertise or, failing that, a reasoned, dispassionate assessment of the matter. Even the ability to form an opinion like that has become a lost art...but then again, so has knowing the difference, or that there even is a difference. We've been taught that we all have a voice, but not any temperance in using that voice.

Instead, people default to being cynical and caustic, because it's easier and more fun to (try to) be clever when one is bashing something. Everything sucks; nothing is good enough. If it used to be good, then it's come so far downhill. And if you like it, you deserve ridicule and embarassment, which in turn it is those other people's job to dispense.

I don't know why the free exchange of ideas on the internet gave rise to this smugness, this constant need to feel superior to everyone and everything and to make that superiority loud and clear to anyone who will listen. A kind of deep-seated insecurity, I'd guess. I do know that we're seeing a damning example of it this very week.

Tomorrow sees the release of the seventh and final novel in That Series About The Boy Magician. My handful of longtime readers may remember my previous adventure two years ago in this area, which I will be repeating this time around, having made my peace with being out-geeked by the Potter crowd. I will be there to obtain the book only, and will not be participating in any of the in-store festivities. And in spite of the best efforts of certain people online, the ending is still a mystery to me. So far.

On the internet, the ending of the final Harry Potter novel before its official release is a worse-kept secret than the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden, in spite of a larger and more expensive mobilization trying to keep people in the dark. Hey, no big deal: in spite of the publisher's best efforts, the book was going to leak, websites would publish the secrets and spoil the finale. We all knew this, and it's anything but a surprise.

But this is where we wrap back around to my original point, and where this story intersects with the obnoxious know-it-alls. Many of those who have not been swept up in Potter fandom simply don't understand why it's so important to fans that they unwrap the story's secrets with their own fingers. But for some, this lack of understanding breeds contempt, and this in turn leads these people, in all their sneering self-satisfaction, to feel it is their duty to spoil the fun for the fans they regard with such derision.

So, instead of a few out-of-the-way websites containing easily avoided spoilers, we have a roving gang of cackling assholes fanning out across the web, posting story information, photographed pages from the book, and of course the ending itself in public areas where unsuspecting fans will stumble across them without warning and have the surprise ruined for them. Why do these people do this? Because in some moist, rank chasm of their empty personalities it reaffirms their sense of self-superiority. So they just think it's funny, and their own entertainment is all they care about.

This has resulted in Potter readers fleeing the web in droves until they've finished the book, lest they encounter spoilers there they least expect them. For my own part, I can't ever bring myself to go entirely offline, but I did curtail my loitering in various public forums, just in case.

When I think about the practice of slowly inserting drywall screws underneath a person's fingernails, I think about two things: how much agony it would cause, and how much I would enjoy for these Potter-spoiling goons to feel it, even if only for a few minutes. That's my primal reaction to what these people are doing, but when I really stop and consider objectively (practice what you preach, after all), I really just feel bad for them.

A franchise so well crafted as Harry Potter is a thing that fills the sails of a healthy imagination and sends it gliding to new places, but those sails must be open. That smug sort of person who has to constantly bash what they don't understand, and who can't respect the desire of its fans to unravel its secrets the way they were meant to be unraveled, is a person with a dead imagination. I feel that's a far worse thing to live with than those drywall screws.


Click here for a permanent link to this blog.

5:44 PM - 10 Comments - 12 Kudos - Add Comment

Eat your heart out, Darwin
Category: Web, HTML, Tech

For anyone reading this, spam email is something that has its tentacles wrapped so securely around his or her life online that it's barely worth mentioning anymore. In recent years I've noticed a trend taking place, and I've come to some startling conclusions that may well shake up our understanding of humanity.

Those of us who have been jacked into the web since the mid 90s (back when Hollywood movies made being on the internet seem exactly as deviant as I just made it sound) are used to thinking of spam as a tactic whose goal has always been clear: they want to sell us things. Annoying though it was, you always knew what they were trying to do. Occasionally something that even flirted with actual cleverness would come along, such as the following message I received at Thanksgiving in 1998 (still among my favorites):

From: CATERING@stuffing.com
Date: Thu, 26 Nov 98 05:00:58 EST
To: stuffing@dinner.com
Subject: THANKSGIVING TURKEY DINNER!

SEE WHAT'S ON OUR MENU!

LARGE FIRM TENDER BREAST!

WHITE MEAT AND DARK FOR THOSE WHO PREFER!

LOTS OF HOT STUFFING!

GOT YOUR MOUTH WATERING YET??

1 FREE WEEK JUST FOR YOU TO SEE FOR YOUR EYES ONLY!

COME ON IN . WE'RE WAITING TO PLEASE YOU!

1:53 AM - 18 Comments - 16 Kudos - Add Comment

You're hot, I'm not...wanna do it?
Category: Romance and Relationships

At least half of the world's population knows that guys are not very bright. Even if one is a guy—and I have been said to take on the mantle—it's very difficult to argue the point, as one observes his gendermates spitting, jeering, belching and catcalling a path through the crowd. To be sure, I am not setting myself entirely apart: at times I'll find myself grunting for no reason whatsoever and then jolt upright, staring down at myself in surprise. Even the most refined among us are subject to frequent spills off the testosterone wagon. However, I don't think I will ever identify with my fellow males when it comes to the way we talk (when that term can be applied) to girls.

Based on what I've seen and heard, a number of guys believe that the reason women buy internet service, pay their bills, sign up on social networking sites, and spend time meticulously crafting personal profiles that project their individuality, is that they are looking for guys to talk dirty to them. Forget about making new friends, catching up with lost acquaintances and maybe even meeting some cool guys for good conversation: what she's really looking for is to meet up with an anonymous man she's talked to for three minutes so he can drill her mercilessly with his penis, and all she requires to get this arrangement going is a clever invitation.

The only part of that sentence that can even be called an exaggeration is "clever".

The story is the same from a number of the women I'm friends with: wherever they go online, whether it's a social site like MySpace or Facebook or standard IMs, they are met early and often by strange guys hitting on them, with widely varying degrees of creativity and crudity.

Sometimes the attempts make efforts at romance, like the guy who wrote to a friend of mine an email with no subject and simply the message, "something about your eyes...". Most do not bother with even this level of subterfuge. Generally they take the form of "hey ur sexy, msg me back hun". Some are far more bold, like the message another friend got asking if she'd like someone to "make her scream louder than a drunk uncle". A few are even fetishistic, such as the guy who wrote, "Are your feet as cute as your face? Because I'd really love to suck your toes." And at the bottom rung of the taste ladder, there's the guy who skips out on words entirely and just sends girls a picture of his sallow member, evidently counting on it to do all the talking for him in the same way it already does all the thinking for him.

To all the guys who have ever sent a message like this: why?

As far as I can gather, the number of times this has ever worked on a woman is zero. I have never heard of a single girl accepting such a proposal. Yet, in spite of the fact that this sort of attempt is met with near-universal rejection and blocking of the guy (or perhaps because of this fact), one has to assume that it worked for at least one guy at some point in history, and that's why these others keep trying it. No one has ever met this man, but that could be just because, right about now, the odds place him in jail somewhere for skipping out on child support.

Another possible explanation for guys that relentlessly use this method is that they're following the example of email spammers, using the carpet-bombing technique to try to get a bite. If your pick-up attempts are so bad that they've got a one in a million shot of ever working, all you have to do is use them on a million girls. 999,999 nos means one yes, after all. And even though that one girl who goes for his cheap come-ons is probably a shivering husk of desperation and low self-esteem, he'll probably just brag to his friends that the reason she started sobbing uncontrollably when they did the deed was that "he was too much man for her".

Don't get me wrong: there are many guys out there who have a sincere wish to actually get to know a girl, to have a conversation and make a connection. These courageous souls are not our subject for today, so don't give up on all of us, ladies. Still, the losers described above need to somehow be made to feel the sting of that slap their actions would earn them in a real life setting.

And so we come to another of my ideas which I offer up on a plate for some enterprising soul, because I'm too lazy to ever implement it myself: www.drinkintheface.com. Sign up on this site, and let them install their software to interact with your web browser and all your IM clients. Whenever some shithead makes a crass and unwelcome pick-up attempt online, click the button that appears next to his message. This will transmit a signal to the guy's computer and activate a device included standard on all new PCs, which throws a drink in the guy's face and down the front of him. The drink would of course be kept ice cold within the device, so that as it seeps down the guy's pants, the resulting shriveling effect will preclude the possibility of any more "commando shots" for the time being.

I feel that with this service, we could make real inroads toward a kinder, less annoying internet, where ladies can browse and meet people they identify with, and all guys don't get a bad rap. And if it doesn't work? There's always plan B: www.rippedbouncerwithalatexgloveandahangover.com.


Click here for a permanent link to this blog.

2:39 AM - 23 Comments - 22 Kudos - Add Comment

Manufactured outrage
Category: News and Politics

It is not generally my habit to comment on the Important Issues of the Day. Since the major planets in the blogosphere typically revolve around such concerns as Enriching One's Life, or That Celebrity Who Died, those are issues which are exhaustively covered should one wish to gain perspective on them. No, my dealings are in matters like pretend bisexuals and flash game-ads: you know, issues you really care about. However, every so often I feel compelled to dip my toe into the gamy pool of pop culture commentary—a pool already boiling with the flamboyant splashing of other swimmers—and today is one of those days.

I'm referring to the Don Imus fiasco. I hardly feel it necessary to recap the much publicized chain of events for those reading in the here and now, but for posterity's sake: Imus has been a radio broadcaster for thirty years, and is considered the first radio host whose appeal was chiefly in his off-color humor and cringe-worthy antics (no, I will not employ the loathsome popular term), in spite of Howard Stern's oft-repeated declarations that he was the first to do everything and was, in fact, ripped off by Marconi. Last week he and a producer were chatting about the women's college basketball team from Rutgers and their tough appearance, when Imus said of them, "Those are some nappy-headed hos, I'm going to tell you that." As is to be expected, this provoked a tremendous outcry from the black community, led by Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, demanding that Imus be fired. Imus, for his part, spent the following week apologizing on air, both on his own show and on Sharpton's, as well as planning a visit with the Rutgers team to offer his apologies in person. In spite of these overtures, Imus was dropped first by advertisers, then by his MSNBC simulcasters, then by his radio employers themselves.

Let me begin the commentary phase by asserting that I do not listen, nor have I ever listened, to Imus in the Morning. I know of his humor only via association with similar shows. So I'm certainly not a fan by any stretch of the imagination. The comment—even in the context of his job—was callous, ignorant and disrespectful. It certainly deserves to be held to public scrutiny and debate, and the apology on Imus' part was certainly warranted.

But the apology wasn't enough. It wasn't enough that he went on the air and apologized multiple times for the comment. It wasn't enough that he went on Sharpton's radio show, looked him square in the eye, and delivered further apologies to him and to his base of listeners: an act that had to require some degree of courage. It wasn't enough that he pledged to visit the Rutgers team face to face and give his apology in person, an act of taking responsibility for one's actions that is seldom seen nowadays. No, even after all of that, Sharpton and Jackson and others would be satisfied with nothing less than the end of his career, claiming the hope that it will lead to social dialogue and "change".

As a supposed step toward social change, this reaction is entirely misplaced. It's hard to envision a realistic scenario where the "healing" from this incident is somehow made better by Imus' firing than it would have been with the apologies alone. People like Al Sharpton appear on TV full of bluster and manufactured anger, demanding heads on platters whenever someone speaks out of line. Does he really believe that Imus' stupid off-color remark somehow lies near the heart of America's racial inequalities, and that stamping him out will have any kind of positive result for the long term cause of race relations? Where are his press sermons full of righteous indignation when it comes to the real obstacles minorities face, such as not enough money being spent on inner city schools, and not enough tolerance being taught to all children at a young age, when their ideas about each other are being formed? Does he really think that this mobilization of a media army destroyed an important target? Is he so lacking in perspective? Of course not.

In another side to this issue, the right wing moral crusaders of America are tingly with joy at the fresh opportunity to attack the principle of free speech. These people—the products of America's puritanical heritage, who fancy themselves the moral compass for the nation, and whose least favorite piece of literature of the past three centuries is the Bill of Rights—have taken upon themselves as their sworn duty the task of cleansing our culture of all the elements they find personally distasteful: particularly if there is some obscure interpretation of a stray passage in the Bible which, taken out of context, makes those elements appear to be unfavorable to God. They are beside themselves with glee at any opportunity to rally sympathetic Americans under the banner of moral outrage and get the movies, music, television and video games they either don't like or don't understand (same thing more or less) wiped off the map. There's already been talk from some conservatives who could barely contain their smiles of "cracking down" on indecency, as they attempt to parley the anger over Imus' mistake into a more wholesale elimination of the edgier forms of entertainment.

It won't last, of course, as it never does. The public becomes temporarily disenchanted after the slip of this tongue or the flash of that nipple, there's a momentary tightening of the rules, and then people decide they want their risquée TV, radio and games back and the whole movement is sloughed off again. The fact of life that none of these moral zealots ever seem to grasp is that many people seek out avenues of entertainment that they know they "shouldn't" be entertained by, because they know they "shouldn't" be entertained by them. The harder the crusaders squeeze, the more of a backlash there is. Every time they campaign against so-called indecency, they generate greater interest in it. It is a truth unerring and eternal.

Both Sharpton and Jackson also happen to belong to this group of morality police, and that's what this is really about. Their true target is not racism, as I don't think anybody seriously believes that silencing Don Imus in front of a league of already sympathetic fans is anywhere near the top of the list of acts that will create greater interracial understanding and brotherhood. Imus himself and his long history of charitable work are certainly not the targets, either. No, the ones they are actually trying to punish are Imus' audience and the audiences of anyone like Imus, along with anyone who exhibits any kind of counter-Christian tendencies in their choices of entertainment. They saw the opportunity to pick off a subversive cultural influence and jumped all over it, apologies (and the acceptance of those apologies by those involved) be damned...literally.

Believe me, I am not at all unsympathetic to the hurt Imus' ignorant comment caused to black people, nor am I in any way attempting to let him off the hook for it. It merits punishment and an apology to all black people, both of which were delivered before the axe fell on Imus' radio career. But no additional justice was served by bringing the response to that endpoint. The reaction to an ugly social incident must be measured, and balanced in proportion to the incident itself.

Imus himself, after a weary week of apologies to deaf-eared moral crusaders who were out for blood (and TV facetime), said indignantly that he had "apologized enough" after expressing his personal regret in person to the Rutgers women themselves, considering his penance paid. It's a shame men like Sharpton don't have the same sense for when enough is enough. Take moral outrage too far, and it can and will blow up in your face.


Click here for a permanent link to this blog.

7:59 PM - 18 Comments - 14 Kudos - Add Comment

The Bigman Chronicles
Category: Life

As my body makes progress in its defiant march toward oldness, I've experienced more and more of the phenomenon I call "sudden memories". What is happening is that my advancing age is dragging along behind it the range of years across which my memory is viable, and pulling that range beyond the point where it covered basically my whole adult life. So, much to my dismay, there are various occurrences from my adult past which are now deeply back-catalogued in my brain. Occasionally, however, something bubbles up to the surface, where it lingers a moment before bursting out into my consciousness with a soapy, almost audible pop. "Oh yeah! That thing!" I'll exclaim aloud to the room or to my cat, whichever is paying more attention. That's a sudden memory.

To give an example, a few days ago I was relaxing on my couch, playing a video game called Puzzle Quest. This was an activity which involved neither daughters nor people named Scott, so far as I could tell. Yet just as I was about to clear a row of blocks that stood in the way of my quest, I sat bolt upright and declared emphatically, "Scott's daughter!"

Years ago, when I worked my first job at a McDonald's in my hometown, my manager was a thin, mustached and pleasant man named—wait for it—Scott. A better boss one could not ask for, unless it were a boss at pretty much any other job. He and his wife juggled a three year old—here it comes—daughter, whose name, sadly, evades me now. Every so often when there was no other choice, Scott would bring his daughter to work with him. She was one of those rare jewels of a child who seemed never to cry, but would merely walk around with a tremendous smile permanently affixed to her lips, and jump up and down out of joy for just being alive. She had her dad's eyes.

Most of the time she would sit in the break room, passively coloring placemats or watching fuzzy videotapes (Salt the Fries! was among her favorites). On the occasions when she would not be content with such unobtrusive activities, she'd hang out with her dad and me near the front of the store (well clear of anything dangerous). One time I had her hand someone's bag of food out the drive-thru window to them, and in response to the person's mortified stare I said conversationally, "They just hire them younger and younger at these places every year, don't they?" The person simply glared at me and drove away.

Scott's daughter called me "Bigman". She was offered my real name by her father many times, but Bigman was what stuck. I wasn't particularly large, so I can only assume that Scott, who was rather lanky, was the template based on which his young daughter viewed and categorized all men. "Is Bigman going to be there?" Scott informed me his daughter would ask when told she'd be escorting him to work. "Bye bye Bigman!!" she'd proclaim on her way out the door at the end of the day. "His name is Andy. A-n-d-y. Now what's his name?" "Bigman!" I like to spell "Bigman" as one word because it makes me feel like a superhero, like Batman, rather than just a person of considerable dimensions.

The sudden memory that broke out into my thoughts this week was of one particular visit by Scott's daughter. "Hi Bigman!" she greeted as I came in the door for work.

Out of her earshot Scott joked to me, "Andy, what are you showing my daughter when I'm not looking, that she calls you Bigman?"

Laughing, I replied, "Let's see if you still have that same sense of humor about it ten years from now when she's a teenager." He solemnly agreed that yes, he'd probably have a different perspective then.

So I sat, my forgotten video game dangling from my hands, smiling delightedly at having reclaimed this moment from my past, like an excellent line of dialogue in a book you haven't read in years and had forgotten about until now.

Then, grim realization broke upon me like a bitter Atlantic wave: That WAS ten years ago. "Then", from back then, is now "now". Somewhere, that little giggling girl with the huge grin and the crayons is now thirteen...maybe fourteen. She could be in high school. This very minute she could be fighting with Scott over knocking before he enters her room or setting too early of a curfew. People I once thought of as babies are nearing adulthood themselves. It's just too crazy. Something I felt a glimmer of at my last birthday came flooding back: Where Is The Time Going?

For those of you who are somewhere around my age and would remember the same things I do, here are some more revelations about just how quickly the years are slipping away:

• It's been over five years already since the September 11 attacks.


• The first Austin Powers movie came out almost ten years ago. So did Titanic. That's a decade already.


• The OJ Simpson murders and Kurt Cobain's suicide happened thirteen years ago. That's also how long it's been since Cheers and Star Trek: The Next Generation were showing new episodes.


• The first album by Pearl Jam and the last album by the Pixies came out in 1991: sixteen years ago.


• Back to the Future? Twenty-two years ago, my friend. We're closer now to their fictional "future" than we are to the "present" of that film. Still no flying cars though.

1:54 AM - 22 Comments - 18 Kudos - Add Comment

Sucker-punched by irony
Category: Web, HTML, Tech

Hello friends. I have no long-winded narratives for you today, but I received the following email in my Yahoo Mail inbox, found it amusing, and thought you might as well.

It's a spam email sent to my Yahoo address, from a Yahoo address. And appended to it by Yahoo themselves is an advertisement for Yahoo Mail and its excellent spam protection:

11:08 AM - 19 Comments - 19 Kudos - Add Comment

Give me site beyond site
Category: Web, HTML, Tech

While most of my readers have become acquainted with me and my random neural firings on MySpace—the site that promises its users more broken features than anyone else—my blog began with a personal website I constructed myself. Actually, I've been building web pages for myself since I first got onto the internet in 1994, when I constructed my own version of the drab pages that existed at the time. Anyone who was online back then knows what I'm talking about: flat grey background, Times font everywhere, and if you really knew what you were doing, a transparent gif or two. This was even before the advent of the spinning skull gif that revolutionized web design as we know it.

Actually, I think most sites back then were still "Under Construction".

While sites like MySpace provide all I need for blogging for the most part and I don't strictly need my own web space for it, I like having my own corner of the web anyway. I can change whatever I wish to on a whim, and if there's a feature I want, I can add it myself rather than being subject to the dark caprices of a team of I.T. goons. I needn't censor myself, or give a thought to whether the subject of my writing could potentially get my account irretrievably extinguished by some faceless, trigger-happy moderator. Finally, what rewards there are to be reaped from the traffic my work generates are mine and mine alone.

Of course, that assumes—perhaps vainly—that my site receives that traffic. Recently I redesigned my site, in the process making it cleaner and more in line with the kind of effortless navigability that people expect from a website today, as well as giving the blog itself a greater place of prominence on the front page. While it wasn't exactly a colossal project (it went from a crude pencil-drawn layout in my sketchbook to a fully functional website in only four days), a great deal of care went into making it the sort of place to which people would like to make repeat visits. So naturally, with that kind of psychological investment in play, I'd like to see it do well.

As the site's first hours and days of operation strolled by, and the Google Analytics hit counter sat on its ass and went nowhere, I began thinking of ways to boost traffic. I submitted a link to my site to every major search engine as well as to blog aggregators such as Blogline and Technorati, and some recommendations at StumbleUpon helped a bit, but still the numbers seemed a bit disappointing to someone who'd just put so much effort into building himself an attractive home on the web.

My thoughts again drifted to MySpace, where my blog has some kind of audience. Could this following somehow be translated into visits to my own site? Could I perhaps publish blog entries only partially on MySpace and then insert a "jump" link to the remainder of the article on my own site? Should I follow the example of others and write articles available only on my own site to lure my existing readers in? Does anyone like my writing enough to tolerate that kind of bait-and-switch trickery, or would they get fed up and stop reading?

Some of the more prominent bloggers have started up sites of their own, where they publish "exclusive blogs" and use their popularity on MySpace to lure traffic. Some fellow bloggers are fans of this concept, while others are soured by what some of them see as an exercise in vanity and self-indulgence...particularly since the quality of a few of those blogs (admittedly subject to differences in taste) could be brought into question.

While I see where those people are coming from, I can also understand the desire to make one's own writing work for oneself, rather than for some rich company. When it comes down to it, your writing is yours: it is your art, and a product of your own creativity. And when your creation is viewed and appreciated by others, that makes it valuable.

However, if you blog on a major blogging site like MySpace, they're the ones who enjoy the rewards. They get the revenue from the dizzying array of flash ads that people are seeing because of your blog. They get the money from those Google Adwords banners that cluster in every white space on a page. They even get referral money when you use their handy posting tools to insert what books you're currently reading or which music you're listening to, which link conveniently to Amazon or similar sites. In essence, your skillful creations are helping to stuff Rupert Murdoch's pockets. Who can blame some bloggers for hesitating to make rich people richer, and for deciding that this cash rightfully belongs to them?

I understand that the system is not without its rewards: you get wide exposure and a marvelous community that can spring up eagerly around your writing like new spring grass, and these are nothing to take for granted. I also realize that all this talk of profit may seem distastefully materialistic, and to lose sight of the true purpose for writing blogs in the first place.

Trust me, I'm not doing this to make money. I write because I need to; because the cells of my body hum with purpose and delight whenever I set my thoughts down. For this reason as well as out of fear of angering the readers I have, I've decided for now to continue posting what I write to MySpace in its entirety. Still, I can not help noticing that the money is there being generated by my writing whether I had that in mind or not, and that it makes more sense for me to get it than Them.

It is upon the reader that I lay these questions. Should bloggers use their popularity if they can to funnel visitors to their own sites, where the hits and clicks benefit them directly? Or are they merely taking advantage or their loyal readers, and/or believing themselves and their blogs more important than they truly are? Would you follow a blogger you greatly enjoy to a different site, or would you not bother? Is it a waste to blog on one's own site when a metasite like MySpace or Blogger grants so much more visibility? And is it considered "selling out" to be concerned with monetary issues at all?

1:35 AM - 15 Comments - 18 Kudos - Add Comment

Just between you and me
Category: Movies, TV, Celebrities

Perhaps you've heard about it, swooping darkly across cyberspace—physically flying through its virtual avenues and alleys like a character in the movie Hackers—a haunting revelation that promises to rattle the foundations of our society and change each and every one of our lives for the better, if only we are smart enough to listen. What I am talking about is...The Secret.

Oh, I know. You love a good secret, and I'm right there with you. But this is not just any secret. This is the secret; the whispers-in-dark-chambers-around-the-globe, capital-S, ellipses for emphasis...Secret. It is a self-proclaimed phenomenon that insists it is sweeping the nation. It is plucking individuals one by one from their mundane lives of futility and ushering them into a world that kneels prostrate at their shoes, offering upon a lush platter its every delight for the nibbling.

...The Secret...is a book, it is a musical soundtrack, and most importantly, it is a motion picture, clips of which offer themselves obligingly on the web. The film is a sort of documentary punctuated by dramatic DaVinci Code-esque shots of shadowy figures and cult-like gatherings, all of whom have conspired throughout history to prevent people like us from learning...The Secret.

...The Secret...has allegedly been known for millennia to all of history's choicest individuals: Ben Franklin, Napoleon, Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, Tony Danza, and so forth, and has led them all to their success. We are also told that a massive conspiracy spanning centuries has kept...The Secret...from us, and that any who have tried to unveil its awesome truths before the unworthy masses have paid with their lives or, worse, by forcible viewings of Who's The Boss? episodes.

So what is...The Secret? It is this: our lives are bound by what is called the Law of Attraction: everything in the Universe is attracted to other things with a similar energy. Dust particles attract other dust particles to form pebbles, asteroids, and eventually planets and stars. It works just as well with the mind: what you focus your thoughts on is what you will receive. So if you are like most people and worry too much about everything that's going wrong, you'll get more of the same. On the other hand, if you focus exclusively on your heart's desire—be it wealth, fame or a handful of Gummi Worms—that is what you will instead attract. In other words: ...The Secret...is to think positively. And if what you wanted doesn't come, you simply need to want it more next time.

I will confess that the snippet of The Secret that I watched did excite me. As a crafter of fiction, the lurkings of mystifying underworldly conspirators and the promise of hidden things revealed mix up a cocktail that satisfies me absolutely, exactly as it was designed to do by those who crafted the video.

However, there is of course more to...The Secret than merely...The Secret, and it certainly didn't take long for the meat of this enterprise to reveal itself. From the teachers of The Secret comes: The Science of Getting Rich! This set of ten audio CDs, MP3 player loaded with further audio instructions, book, action planner, and myriad other essential tools will teach you how to use...The Secret...to make yourself rich, guaranteed! And all for the low, low investment of only $1,995.

Yes, that's a comma in that figure. Absurd, you say? Remember, you're supposed to be thinking positively! After all, what's two grand in comparison with the millions that await you as an official custodian of...The Secret? Besides, all you need to do is get two of your friends to buy the kit as well, and you'll receive a check in the mail for $2,000! See? You're already five bucks richer, for doing nothing more than thinking positively and harassing everyone you hold dear until they stop inviting you over!

As I said before, my eyes have been opened to the truth. Oh yes, my friends, I am a true believer, and now that I have joined ranks with Lincoln, Newton and Danza, I know...The Secret...to great wealth and success. It's this: Don't be a gullible fool, and don't waste your money on crap like this.


Click here for a permanent link to this blog.

1:36 PM - 14 Comments - 12 Kudos - Add Comment