Tuesday, February 24, 2009

That's whack

So, you're strolling around your local mega-bookstore, sipping your chai (or whatever, your call), contemplating a biscotti later, enjoying the pleasantly erudite and learned environment, and perusing the aisles, looking for that next great read. A book catches your eye with its bright colors and shiny lettering and the word "smegma" in the title, and you pick it up. After you realize it was "Smuggler" and your dirty mind has run away from you again, you put it back, but because you're gripping your super hot but delicious chai, you fumble a little and the book next to it falls out. Great. Putting your chai down, you pick up the fallen book because you're polite and tidy and don't want to be observed walking away from your messes, which was your first -- though brief -- inclination. The book has a subdued gray cover, smallish type, and looks to be about the lives of insurance salesmen. Or an examination of funeral home decor. Possibly an exegesis of the uses for fabric softener. Or something. But the name of the author rings a bell, and the blurbs on the back actually look promising: something about hippies and skinny dipping and metalheads and study abroad and vodka. So you think, well, I've got this 25% off coupon, and I think I've heard this guy somewhere before. You buy it.

Later that night your significant other, or your cat, or your gimp finds you sprawled helpless and drooling in an armchair because your new purchase has, three pages in, put you into a coma-like sleep the likes of which neither Ambien nor Ativan can touch.

Welcome to the world of Dick Whackman.

I'm not a fan of the design, but it's not atrocious. Just boring. Like a site for dentists. Or actuaries. Definitely don't need three columns, Dick. You don't need the calendar AND the archives, and you don't need categories AND tags. Roll up your archives and your categories and you can retain the tags if you want, but otherwise it's just redundant. And would it kill you to have a header image of some sort?

Let it Blurt promises to be the wildest, wackiest place on the web! I call bullshit. Nice try, but I think I know a site that already claims that honor.

Dick doesn't tell us much about himself. It's not until four months into his blogging gig that we even find out he has children. Hell, he doesn't mention his age or marital status until a month after that. Whackjob, you need to put this post in your About section, otherwise we've got no background to go on. But edit it. A lot. Because, damn, you do go on. Do you talk like this? If so, do people often nod off in your company?

If I were to believe the about page, I would expect someone else besides Whackman blogging in tandem. But the other dude (Jay) only has a handful of posts. None very good. He's not so much a contributor as a shady co-conspiritor. Or a figment of Dick's imagination. No, seriously. He has those. Enter his imaginary twin brother, Charles, with violent mental illness. Who is actually much funnier than Richard.

The writing is strangely stiff and formal ("By listening to others make these sounds I acheive [sic] a catharsis.") with a why are you reading this, nobody cares mentality. There's potential in these stories, but he treats them so flatly, with no color or oomph or personality. I mean, come on! Hippie commune? Clothing optional? This should be intriguing stuff. But it's not.

Your posts are looooooooooooong. Seriously. This is a post about napping. Why all the words? You struggle with what to say, how much to "blurt," and in the end you don't say much at all, and you certainly don't let us in.

To be fair, he has some good stuff, like this.

Except these? Dude. Not funny. Like, Mr. Yunoshi unfunny. There's a very fine line for racial comedy, and I don't think you can walk it. Family Guy can, but you? Sorry.

If you're going to write, in the sense that you're impelled to blog, loosen up. Take your own advice. You knew this was coming. Hell, you even knew what I was going to say. But you don't do anything to improve, you don't spice it up or get real or edit or any of the shit you know you should do. What makes you think me telling you the same damn thing is going to make a difference? You're basically wasting my time, since you recognize this stuff, but, fuck, you asked for it.

Dick, you do these little intros to each of your posts, a paragraph of lead in. Stop. Just get to the meat. Like this one. Read it again, but leave out the first paragraph. See what I mean? I do lead ins, too, but mine are awesome. Clearly.

You're a smart dude, and you've had an interesting life, and you admit writing was never your thing. I can tell. It's not that you're a bad writer, you're just an unpolished one. You have stories to tell that could be downright riveting, but you bog them down in words, words, words. Words that need to be excised out with razor sharp precision. And my guess is you just don't have the experience yet to know what needs to be cut.

Your stiffness creates a barrier between you and your reader. It's like you're writing to sound like someone else, to sound, well, learned and erudite, to pull from my intro. But that shit's boring. Or it is the way you do it. I suspect your writing lacks humor because you're too buttoned up when you think about your audience. Because when you're "Charles," you're much less formal, much less regimented and "I'm going to write this way because it's how I've seen it done and it seems to work for them." No. Find your own voice. Or find Charles' and pull it into yours because he's a damn sight more readable.

Look, I like you. I think you're probably an interesting guy. And the comments you've left here have been vastly more enjoyable than your blog was. Edit yourself. Give yourself a word limit on a couple of posts and see what you do with that restriction on rambling on and on forever and ever amen (and I should know -- I'm a wordy little tart, myself). Write how you talk, not how you think you should sound. It's a blog, not a research paper. And if this is how you talk, well, shit. I'm sorry.

67 comments:

  1. AAAAAAAYYYYY! BISCOTTI!

    Oh, and Cal (giggle) you should see what my stiffness creates.

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  2. I think it probably creates a moistness in the Hooker.

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  3. It moistens my slick heat.

    Other things that moisten my slick heat:

    Canadians

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  4. This blog review also moistens my slick heat.

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  5. I think my stiffness is going to create Canadian orgasms.

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  6. Dear Calamity,

    Thank you for allowing me to waste your precious time. Of course you must want to have your time wasted, at least on some level, otherwise you wouldn't be offering this free service.

    I agree that I'm stiff, and not in the right places. In fact, I often bore myself and wish I could loosen up. I suspect that you like my brother's comments because he's dripping with hostility and sarcasm and this is something you can relate to deeply. The comments I leave are usually all about trying to make some kind of dumb joke, while I take myself a lot more seriously. Like a research paper, as you say.

    Well, I don't want to take up too much more of your time, so let me respond in a way that might just raise a smile in your S+M tinted soul:

    Fuck off, you stupid cunt! Why ever did I think you were capable of telling me anything I didn't know already? Could it be because you're so full of yourself and impressed with your sense of humor that I was taken in by all the false confidence? Go ahead and pour contempt on everyone else who isn't a born writer - I hope it makes you feel superior to all those who aren't snarky enough for your taste.

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  7. My Dear Friend Calamity,

    Please disregard my brother's insane and wrong-headed remarks. As you well know, he's completely and totally full of shit. Your review is the best thing that's happened to him in almost a year, as you're the first to give him any kind of real honesty and truth about his deathly boring blog.

    I've begged him from the beginning not to do this. Please help me convince him to give up this embarrassing charade by leaving contemptous comments on his posts. I can help you by pointing out all the hypocrisy and lies he bandies about - presenting this fake image to the world that has nothing to do with who he really is. Trust me, he's 10 times worse in person.

    You don't really like him at all, do you? How could you like a stiff like him who wastes your time like that?

    I doubt you'll join me in my crusade, but I thank you just the same for giving him the kick in the pants he needs. He thinks he's so fucking cool and funny but he's just another asshole pretending that he knows how to write.

    Love and kisses,

    Charles.

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  8. What were your parents thinking when they named you two? Chuck and Dick? Do you have a sister named Areloa?

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  9. Dirty Pirate Hooker,

    I've long suspected that my self-help meditations and college road trip stories wouldn't be at all interesting to anyone but myself. I guess I just needed some confirmation that I was right. I'll have to stick to celebrity gossip or start a sex blog if I want to convince people I'm a fascinating guy. My sex blog would be called When the Dick Rules the Mind, by the way. But I don't want to create a writen record of that shit.

    Thanks for the honesty.

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  10. No, but we have an older brother named Jack.

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  11. Wow, I really liked this Dick until he manifested his split personality today.

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  12. In all seriousness, I can't decide if Dick's blog is a brilliant and hilarious parody of the standard boring blog, or if it's just a standard boring blog.

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  13. Well, Charles, it looks like you're posting as me now.

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  14. Chuckdick: great concept, poor execution. Stick with being Chuck if you can.

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  15. Love Bites - Believe me, IT IS A STANDARD BORING BLOG. Why in world would anyone want to read a story about someone's Grandfather, to give just one example, when you he hasn't even told you much of anything about himself and you don't even know the guy!

    Could you people please do me a favor and find a way to delete Let it Blurt and ban my brother from the internet? Please?

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  16. Well we all need someone we can blurt on...

    And if you want to baby, why you can blurt on me.

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  17. My dear friends at Ask and Ye Shall Receive,

    I must apologize for my limp-Dicked brother. As you know, I've been begging him from the start to please not do this, to please not drag the Whackman name through the dirt by revealing his embarrassingly ordinary, flat, and depressingly conventional life. That he thinks anyone could possibly think he has anything interesting to say only demonstrates his egotism and disconnection from reality.

    And by the way, yes it would kill him to change the sidebar because he doesn't know how to do it and is too lazy to even try to figure it out.

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  18. Something tells me we need gap and her mobile pharmaceuticals.

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  19. Warren - Believe me, your instincts served you well - the blog is a total dissapointment. There's no such thing as a "help sex" post because my moronic brother can't even be honest about his sex life, or anything else for that matter. If he were, things might just start to get a tad interesting, but as Calamity said, he just won't let us in. He has this crazy idea that by creating a written record of nasty things he'll get caught.

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  20. So what are you saying, Chuck? That I should detail my latest whack-off sessions on my blog?

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  21. I guess I should just write all my stuff on my word processor and print it out for my kids to read when they grow up. You know that's one of the main reasons I started my blog - so that if I drop dead my kids will have a way of knowing more about me.

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  22. I don't know, that's kinda hitting below the belt, Chuck.

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  23. I'm starting to feel as extraneous as a midget porn star at a gathering of marines.

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  24. You know full well that your own wife doesn't even read your blog because she knows what everyone but you knows - it's a total snore. A snoozefest. A pretentious, college research paper, formal, distant, we all wanna shove it up your insurance salesman's ass failure.

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  25. Actually, she doesn't read it because it'll remind her of what a jerk she's married to.

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  26. Exactly! You're finally starting to see the light. Please promise us that you'll at least consider ending this sinkhole of total mediocrity on the one year anniversary, which is coming up soon.

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  27. Awesome, LB! I'll make sure that I have a midget porn star at my batchelor party.

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  28. I don't know, I'd go insane if I didn't have it as an outlet.

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  29. Snooooooooore...

    Wa? What? Oh, I was sleeping, just like everyone else you try to talk to.

    You're already insane, Dick, and you know it. Don't drag the rest of us down with you.

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  30. Snooooooooore...

    Wa? What? Oh, I was sleeping, just like everyone else you try to talk to.

    You're already insane, Dick, and you know it. Don't drag the rest of us down with you.

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  31. Is there a shrink in the house?
    Does whackerboy like biscotti?

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  32. It could be worse.

    I've got sixteen different personalities competing for eyeballs on my blog.

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  33. This blog is the one that lulls you off to sleep like the whack of an axe on your neck.

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  34. I'm starting to feel my inner Sybil emerge. It's not fun. Shoe-button hook!!

    Dick/Chuck, I never suggested you should give up. Just get better. I'd like to read about your grandfather, if you pared things down and got to the good stuff. Hell, the one about your crazy uncle was my favorite post.

    Writing for the kids or for posterity is all well and good, but as I've said before, don't expect the rest of the world to care unless you write for us, too.

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  35. Shame on you all for not pointing out that I misspelled "dentist." I should have my credentials stripped. Wait, I don't have any. Never mind.

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  36. Cal: feeling blue? Here, have a biscotti.

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  37. If the Chuck/Dick-apalooza doesn't stop, I swear I'll dig my own eyeballs out. (Possibly with a nice biscotti. I'm not sure.)

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  38. PTD, yeah this whole Chuck/Dick thing is like some weird email between the two of them and the rest of us aren't even here.

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  39. They do, however, say, "Pinchers of Peril!"

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  40. Of course it's a monologue, and a wordy one at that.

    Dick: I'm going to be a know-it all here. Try writing a post and eliminating any use of have, has, been, or be. And from now on, you're only allowed to use "as" three times per post. Maximum. That'll clean things up and force you to structure things with a quicker pace. You have good stories riddled with extras. Like when there were too many characters on Heroes, and they had to kill half of them off without dragging the story.

    And now I shall follow my own advice.

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  41. This comment section turned into a Whack Dickman blog for a second, and it wasn't so great.

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  42. This si reminding me of Adaptation with Charlie Kaufman and his imaginary evil twin. Except in that movie, the guy can write.

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  43. Dick clearly doesn't understand how this commenty thing works. He thinks that whacking is something he does to HIMSELF, when really, when everything works right, it's something WE do to HIM.

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  44. Dear friends - Thank you for the hostility. The world needs more of it, and you can do it in this format without fear of consequence, which makes you all very brave. Dick doesn't even understand what you're getting at when you talk about putting a restriction on words like has or have. But I can tell you that his writing style even bores him sometimes.

    You do realize this review is the closest thing he'll ever get to his 15 minutes of fame, don't you?

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  45. Love Bites,

    That's because I'm not sure I'm important enough to warrant anyone doing that TO me. At least without paying them.

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  46. Barely 15 minutes. We don't have great attention spans, and, after all, we'll have another reviewee to rip apart like slavering hyenas tomorrow.

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  47. My neighbor's dog looks like a dingo.

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  48. Well that's funny, because my neighbors dingo looks like a dachshund.

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  49. That is funny, Rass. Here's something that isn't: feline leukemia.

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  50. Sure, the lion is said to be "The King of Beasts". But a pack of willful hyenas can bring one down.

    That is in no way meant to be a metaphor.

    And there is nothing I'd like to see more than a pack of Dachshunds attempting to bring down a lion.

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  51. You're no fun anymore.

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  52. You can bet that if I am having fun, those near me probably aren't.

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  53. Ambien can touch anything. There isn't a place known to mankind Ambien cannot reach.

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  54. Personally, I think all blogs would benefit from at least one detailed whack-off session.

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  55. Dear Calamity,

    In all seriousness, I'd like to thank you for taking the time to review my blog. It's true that I have an overly formal, college research paper-type voice. That pole is shoved so far up my ass that I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to change my style. On the other hand, my joking around-type voice isn't anything like what I sound like in real life either. All of this bugs me too.

    The only thing that you got completely wrong is your impression that I've lived an interesting life. I've made it sound that way on my blog but it's acutally been quite ordinary. Anyway, it's nice to be able to drone on about myself. I'll try to leave some wise-ass comments around here in the future that may prove mildly funny.

    Regards,

    -R.W.

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  56. RW:

    Most of the people I read are in no way exceptional. They are ordinary people, living ordinary lives, who let me briefly hang around on the inside of their heads, thinking what they thinking, seeing the view from inside.

    You could do that, too. But first, you have to believe there is something to see. Maybe YOU are the one who needs to start seeing the little joys in your life, not us.

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  57. Congratulations! Your attempts at giving me advice have born fruit - I've completely changed my "about" section in a way that might be slightly more up to your high standards. Then again, maybe I've violated your rule about not trying to write what I think people want to read. Anyway, there's no doubt that it's an improvement over the last version, which was based on the faulty assumption that all sorts of people would come by and start joking around with me just because I'm there.

    LOVE BITESME - I do try to see the little joys in life, but I guess I come across as a miserable cunt anyway, at least to you. As I'm sure you can tell, I need all the help I can get.

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  58. GOK - Well, there are certainly times I feel like one, but occasionally feeling like one and being one are two different things. Miserable cunt is a term that's thrown around fairly often in England, by the way. I'll take your remark as a compliment, although I'm not sure it's meant that way.

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  59. Many institutions limit access to their online information. Making this information available will be an asset to all.

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  60. I appreciate the work of all people who share information with others.

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Grow a pair.