Flipping Monkeys With The Rev

The email came. What the hell have I done? Agreed to review a blog, apparently. How cool, and how timely. I spent most of yesterday in court and then was in the office until 9:30 last night. I teach five classes today. Like you want to hear any of that. It’s my review, though, and this is my preface – or my excuse if the review does not meet your expectations. Like I want to hear any of that.

The email directed me to review the Greg Beck’s blog. I may have hoped I was going to be the lucky but unworthy soul to review Beck’s blog. I am that unworthy, not that lucky. Well, then maybe I will have loads of fun criticizing reviewing that loud radio talker. No, that’s GLENN Beck. Who the hell is Greg Beck?

Before checking his profile, I thought him to be a wrestler because of the header. The blog title didn’t squelch that thought, as “Death’s Door, The View from the Spanish Announcers Table” refers to the table most often used in wrestling when the show needs someone to appear crazy-mad enough to hurl someone else into a table located terrifyingly close to the speculators… um, spectators. To his credit, he includes a link to his profile. There, I get the dish he desires to feed us. He was a bouncer for many years – ok, wrestler analogies beat the hell out of a picture of Patrick Swayze in Roadhouse.

He’s been shot at and stabbed, and he’s worked in liquor and music stores. He misses spandex and strippers and the needle, and he loves tits – I mean, cha-chas, hoohas, knockers. He’s an ordained minister. He works for… what? Nevermind. It’s all about the blog. It’s all about the blog. So let’s step back and get a good look at the template. Header is huge. Fuckin’ huge, but he wears glasses. Besides, lots of people tell me to increase my font size. One day I’ll wear glasses, or so they tell me. Indeed, I can step back from this blog and still read it. That’s not a bad thing, but I am not sure it’s a good thing, either. Beyond that, the template is the basic black. I don’t mind the basic black. I used it for awhile, and I sometimes think of going back to it. The header needs work, though. It is an attention-grabbing, creative wanna-be. The sidebar is long. Dig-to-China long. Again, I have never felt that drop-down menus were the new sliced bread, but geez. This sidebar is long. I can read the large font, though.

The good reverend does provide us with content. You know, I just had to get assigned a blog that has a history dating to November 2002. His first post is over 6,000 words and mentions Tarzan, Oprah, fast food, sex, ass cramps, a mashed finger, wrestling, Paul Harvey, a goth chick, his mother, Batman, The Vampire Slayer, the Enterprise… It appears to be a series of vignettes he’d been writing, and he cut and pasted them all for his first post. His writing is not bad, although grammarian that I am, it’s good that I couldn’t put the blog in edit mode. Failure to adhere to basic spelling and grammar rules causes me to be more judgmental than I usually am, and things of that ilk disgusts me. I’m just saying. Also, he uses certain words and phrases much more than necessary. For instance “of his ilk” is a phrase that irks me if used regularly. This, however, probably has more to do with a certain professor I once loathed than anything to do with Greg Beck.

The reverend’s more recent posts run the gamut of subjects and emotions. In this post he relates a fairly funny tale explaining why he doesn’t visit strip clubs anymore. He and I are on the same page, or at least in the same book, when it comes to the famous and their penchant for adopting babies from other countries. His view is here. Finally, his post about being an accidental terrorist is touching for what it doesn’t try to say.

Overall, Beck’s writing is very readable, even enjoyable. He occasionally lapses into a stream of consciousness that seems too self-important, but it is HIS blog, which he is writing only for himself. In almost every post, though, I found a turn of phrase, an analogy, or some clever use of words that made me realize that he has skills enough to sit at the Spanish Announcer’s Table and write what he sees. If the table crashes every other day, then cool.

I give it because he posts regularly and writes reasonably entertaining crap.

I give him one for the template, the font, and the monkey flipping switches at the end of every post.

I give him a for his consistency… and for the monkey flipping switches.

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