More Like A Quarter Pound of Splenda

First of all, I am fucking pissed off that this review got deleted and now I have to write another, and I've forgotten most of my jokes and links, which are now probably hovering nervously over one of the gimpier, glibbier internet sectors that probably has pictures of cats speaking like twits, and my words are all, "O Shiner, why have you forsaken me" and I'm all "if you love something set it free" blah blah "come back here."  Everyone gets that quote wrong anyway.

Everyone including Tinker Belle (in a post I linked before but totally don't feel like finding), our young author of Confessions of a Twenty-Something Drama Queen, the most redundant blog title ever, who rightly admits in her blog-blurb-beneath-the-title-thinger that her blog is about "Nothing, really. Just a walk through the world I exist in and observations of the people around. All with a little pinch of salt." I'm not sure if the salt was a late addition to the description, but it's definitely a late addition to the blog.

It's as if she wrote for two years with saccharine, chemically-sweet sentiments, actually read her own damp writing, realized she sounded like a fucking fifteen-year-old Twihard, started to try hard, and just salted the shit out of everything, instantly making things a little more delicious.

The best thing about this blog, by far, is watching Tinker Belle grow up. In the beginning, she's just another girl who uses too many exclamation points, wants a boyfriend, like, really bad, and everything is I'm-so-different-and-special, fanfic-styled stories, I'm-so-deep-because-you're-so-shallow, posts with nothing but soft-focus romancey pictures and horrible song lyrics, bad poetry, and emo heavily detailed updates about cleaning supplies. 

But Tinker Belle's growth as a writer and a person becomes obvious as she slowly evolves from a boring, whiny, insecure, hopeless romantic to a layered, confident, honest, hopeless romantic.  She turns her feelings into a story.  Sometimes it can come across as cheeseball drama, but it works.  She's trying new things with her writing, some good and some bad, but interesting. 

Although I really fucking hate the posts that are just bad music videos and lyrics, one eye-rolling line about Tinker feeling sorry for herself, and her ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY EIGHT LABELS.  I would lose those lame posts because they're awful and stupid, but I know she likes them, and if I were her I would tell me to fuck off. 

Seriously, though.  How many labels does one need?  I can understand having a great deal of labels if you're like, using them ironically instead of tagging posts with a new celebrity whenever you drop a name, which is the blog equivalent of a Tiger Beat locker collage.  Don't put them on your blog at all.  Get fucking rid of them.  I'm not a big fan of the orange-on-rainy-window template - but just using a color other than orange would fix that.  Try to let readers view more than one post at a time.  Create an "About" page.  And please, please, please change the title.  Maybe "The Confessional" or "Emotional Salt" or something. Because yes, she does confess things.  Yes, she's in her twenties.  But she ain't no drama queen. 


   

It's Out There Now, Lurking Like a Big Hairy Rapist at a Coach Station.

I've never been political.  Sure, I feel strongly about certain issues, vote with my fists and fight people when they disagree with me, but that's just who I am by nature.  Really has nothing to do with politics.  Okay, well, so by strict definition you could say my life is only politics, just outside the realm of Big-G-Government.  Modern political discourse gives me fucking indigestion.  Some dumbfuck mentions Glenn Beck or Michael Moore and I need wintergreen Pepto-Bismol with a burning, clenched Pavlovian fervor - seriously, right now anyone who glances my way probably thinks I haven't shat in a week. 

Still, I'm reviewing the blog of a twenty-year old, bright, impassioned British boy who plays for the conservatives.  Being a self-absorbed American with no party affiliation and a limited exposure to British politics that includes getting hammered and watching a shit-ton of C-Span 3 archived House of Commons videos in 2001 and salivating over Malcolm Tucker insults from In the Loop, I figured I'm about as qualified to review Richard's blog as anyone else.


Like I said, Richard is bright. At the wee age of twenty, he easily understands more about politics than the last American President, littered with the proper astringentositinessery of defensive youth (I make up words).  He recently chose to forego university, a decision I fully support (I hate that college is becoming a requirement instead of a compliment) but he seems to be bitter as fuck about it.

In fact, that's really the only thing I like about him:  it's hilariously frustrating watching him temper with rationality while he's obviously whipping his personal rage into submission and trying to squeeze it out into logic, but that fury seeps into the cracks and we know, we can tell, this Type A boy is fucking struggling to be a sensible, model citizen. 

Richard, you fucking puritan:  chill out.  Take a deep breath.  Go get yourself into some good, clean mischief, because boy, you are wound tight.  Are you this serious about everything you do? You're even serious about Doctor Who and World of Warcraft.  Take a lesson from Tenant's incarnation:  life, like time, is like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey-stuff.  Nothing is certain, progress is never linear, and retaining your humanity does not mean rein in, repress, and repeat, it means allowing yourself to feel all the colors on the spectrum with zeal and triumphing out of the sheer love of existence and a fascination with and mad respect for the world that allows you to exist in the first place.

You are an intelligent, passionate boy and your blog is informative and formal and I feel like you're choking the life out of your writing when you should be choking the life out of your dick.  I think this blog is important to you and you want to keep it professional.  That's fine.  But you're fucking twenty years old and this is boring as shit.  You're a "good writer."  But all that means is you're grammatically accurate and have average-to-above average word choice.  You aren't afraid to tell us your opinion, but you're afraid to put yourself into it.  Maybe you're going for textbook, informative opinion pieces and that's fine.  If that's what you're going for.  It's...you know.  Fine. It's not for me.

But here's what I want you to do. 

1.  Start anonymous blog.
2.  Go to video store that has porn.
3.  Rent some porn.
4.  Overcome your shame of facing the clerk.  
5.  Pay for porn in all small coins. 
6.  Go home.
7.  Watch porn.
8.  Jack off.
9.  Review porn on new blog.

How Dare You?

Dearest Mongolian Girl, would you write a review for us? Because there's all this sex I've been having, and I forgot how to read. Thank you kindly, you are the tele to my vision. LYLAS.

In 1976 I was in 5th grade and my teacher, Mrs. Lowrey, took time to explain how the election of a US President happens. She then broke us up into ‘Camp Carter’ and ‘Camp Ford’ and explained how to campaign for our candidate. I was the ‘Camp Ford’ campaign manager. I organized my team, created posters, talked about the benefits of Candidate Gerald Ford to any elementary school kid who would listen, and did my best to inspire ‘Camp Ford’ to generate a Ford voting frenzy on the day of the election.

Everyone should vote! It’s your right to do so! Exercise your power by casting your vote! I won’t understand it if you don’t vote! I once had a fight with one of my Aunts because she doesn’t vote! Who doesn’t vote!? It’s crazy!

The end!!! (I think this little blurb was confusing, but am posting it anyway. Hope you don’t mind. Sorry about that.)

See how that works? See how I did that?

1. I’ve got a little story I want to tell you
2. The way I write this little story wouldn’t know depth if depth back handed it in the face with a crow bar
3. Since I know the way I’m presenting my story has no depth, I’m going to get all lazy and try to make my point by highlighting the shit out of my point with bold-ness and italic-ness
4. Also, I’m going to highlight my point even more by telling you I’m willing to fight with my Aunt about it
5. And then I’m going to let myself off the hook for posting my little depth-free story by saying I’m confused, saying I’m sorry, and asking for your forgiveness
   

Whatever happened to writing that tells the truth - gets down into the guts of it? The truth is that my 5th grade teacher, Mrs. Lowrey, was a tyrant that often had scotch for breakfast and had exactly 10 polyester pant suits that smelled so deeply of cat piss, scotch and cigarette smoke that, to this day, I can close my eyes and catch a whiff of it. It is also the truth that my rise to campaign manager of ‘Camp Ford’ was one of the first times in my young life that I was fully aware I was degrading myself by doing well at something I did not believe in. The fact is that I was a huge fan of Jimmy Carter but was afraid to say it after having done so once and getting a quick slap in the face from my mother as she yelled the word ‘stupid’ in a way that seemed to stab the four walls of the living room we were standing in.

Cee Kay is the author of “My Two Cents: Take it….. Or Leave It!!”. Even her description of herself leaves me wanting. She calls herself an optimist and opportunist and tries to back her claims by describing life handing her lemons and not only making lemonade, but also selling the lemonade and making air freshener from the lemon peels. Color me utterly unimpressed, uninspired, uniformed about who she is and bored silly.

Throughout her blog I found myself consistently thinking, “How dare you?” Honestly, Cee Kay, how dare you? How dare you bring to the fore such intricate, important, deep, and even bewildering topics and then lambast us with some kind of exercise in your ability to use the bold and italic features of your word processor.

From what I can gather (though it’s nearly impossible to be sure), Cee Kay and her husband and two daughters are from India but live in the US. She manages to make it clear that she is consistently negotiating and considering the fact that she is straddling two cultures, two generations and two realities. She describes the worthlessness afforded Indian women here and here, but then dissolves into some sort of finger wagging bravado that carries no weight. She doesn’t even bother to tell us how painful it must have been to realize the seriousness of what she is dealing with; how mind numbing and crushing it must have been when she first realized she was in disagreement with an entire culture.

Did you read that, Cee Kay?

Let me put it into language you seem to understand:

You tell us you are in disagreement with an entire culture, but the way you write about it DOES NOT inspire, inform or impress.

Let’s get to that letter you wrote to your daughters as a place to start – to see if we can’t rattle your cage a little bit. I actually kind of like that letter. It has some good points, but reads like one of those little books of inspiring quotes I pick up at the corner convenience store when I need a birthday present on the quick for someone I don’t know very well. (I swear, by the time I’m 70 I hope I’ve lost enough of this proper shit I go through on birthdays and spend one year buying everyone I know a giant dildo and some lube as a present.)

Your kids are cute as the dickens. And I know you love them and want to do well as a mother. But what is that letter going to actually do for them? What is it doing for you? I propose it does nothing in either case. It’s a bunch of empty, albeit well intentioned, gibberish about ‘Stand up for yourself’ and ‘Don’t take any shit’ and ‘Respect yourself’ that includes nothing about what it’s like to actually do those things when it’s the hardest thing in the world.

What would it be like if you revisited that letter and wrote about each of those things from the perspective of making them happen even when you’ve been alone, filled with rage, just been betrayed by someone you love and want to give up? What if you wrote about respecting and standing up for yourself even when you’re in the middle of an entire culture that completely disagrees with you? And please, if you intend to respond with some more of that tripe about making lemonade out of lemons, don’t bother. Just keep writing in capital letters and practicing being able to use your word processor’s bold and italic features.

I suppose this is a dare, but I’m not sure if I care to really make it. So many bloggers submit to AAYSR and then thank us for encouraging them to dig deeper; making grand statements of turning over a new leaf and then go on blogging with their half-witted, uninspiring drivel as if the whole thing never happened.

Maybe, Cee Kay, you will be different. Goodness knows you have enough grist for the mill.

Whether you do it or not, I promise I will be contemplating being 70 and buying everyone I know a dildo and lube on their birthday.



for knowing what you're dealing with.





for not having the guts to really write about it.

Carrying Your Emotional Shit Is Hard

So there's this blog that I'm reviewing right now. Like literally right now. It's called The Semi-Sane Life of The Demigoddess, a title that belongs on the cover of an unpublished novel next to the anonymous slim, starved figure of a woman in scarlet, seen from the shoulders down, crossed arms and manicured nails suggesting "beautiful and successful and looking for love, but stubbornly so!"

Angel is a chronic dater, a 27-year-old divorcee in the Philippines whose boyfriend just up and left for Sweden. And she's...she's growing.

It's always frustrating when someone confuses having a "strong character" with hotheaded arrogance. Strong characters and personalities exercise a great deal of dimensional and emotional weight, and they can be arrogant, of course. But they exist because of that weight, not in spite of it.

With that in mind, I'm debating how to proceed. Angel's blog is a progression of self, and it's not because she's fickle. It's because she's trying very hard to squeeze herself into a Niche, any Niche, but it's not working. She doesn't feel it. At least she hasn't felt it, she hasn't really given us an inkling of actual awareness of self. Not until like last week.

She blogs bullshit for a full year, kind of end-of-the-week-reflect-on-your-reading-assignment essays, and these posts are just completely lame. It's forced, strained, obnoxious self-help liturgy, composed completely in formal cliches, and I hate it.

I discovered my interest and love for writing when I was very young. In many ways, writing has helped me cope through the darkest, most painful chapters and preserved the most beautiful memories of my life.

That sentence is not real. It's processed.

And then she shifts, as if she found some drunken, slutty muse that she wishes she could be, but writes with that faux sassy malarkey that we love so much around here. Suddenly everything is loose and slang and there are all these fucking acronyms and dildo talks. It's better than before, but it still feels contrived.

Sprinkled throughout, though, is THIS:

On my wedding day, while I cried in my daddy's arms, all he ever said to me was, "We never practiced this dance. I'm sorry if I step on your toes."

When she loosens up and stops writing the crap that she thinks people want to hear she's on fire. When she's honest, it's hopelessly compelling. And that's not because there are sexy lesbian stories, it's because she's out of hiding. Her writing becomes bold and true because it feels that way, not because she's telling us about how bold and true she is. I'm a big fan of that.

The first half of her blog was a fucking chore.







The second half was a little cheap, written well enough, and slightly annoying. It lived up to that hypothetical cover of a book about a "strong woman" that I would never want to read.



But for the tasty, shameful spiral she pulls the reader through, I'm giving her more. She made me curious, she made me interested in her story, she made me feel. It just took her awhile to get there, probably because of all that emotional weight she's carrying with her and trying to hide.

This is not your review. This is me blogging about blogging about blogging when I'd rather be blogging about blogging about something

Imagine a friend wants to meet you for coffee because she wants to have a serious talk with you. Your curiosity is piqued and you await your friend eagerly at a coffee shop, wondering what on earth is going on in her life that she wants to tell you about. She walks in, sits down and proceeds to tell you what is on her mind:

"I wanted to meet with you today for coffee to have a talk. So I am going to sip my coffee now and then now I'm setting it down. Now, what I'm doing right now is I'm opening my mouth and closing it in an organized way that I learned by watching others when I was a child and there is this sound that comes out of varying acoustical properties. My mouth opens and closes and what I'm doing is I'm vocalizing, see. It's really quite something. By moving my mouth and folding and clicking my tongue, I'm essentially creating all these sounds and my teeth are involved somehow. Those sounds that you hear are these speech things I'm making which you then comprehend and these are words and with said words I make sentences that have meaning and it's all very syntactical. My goal at this point is to say ten more words. Do you think I can manage? Do you want to bet that I can say ten more words after this? Did you notice how I raised the intonation at the end of the last sentence? So you see, this was the important thing I wanted to talk to you about and so that's why I decided to ask you to meet me for a coffee."

How can you possibly respond to this person?

You see, this is exactly what it's like to read someone's blog when they constantly blog about blogging: what they thought about posting, how they feel about what they decided to post, what they are doing to generate traffic, the contests they are thinking of doing, how many followers they have, how many followers they hope to have by the end of the year, what they read about in their book about blogging, when their two month blogging anniversary is, conversations they've had with others about blogging, reflections on how certain followers have found their blog, ideas about blogging that they got by twittering and on facebook, etc., etc., etc.

I can't do it. It gives me a splitting headache and it confuses me because it makes me feel like space itself has curled inward and all I am is a person staring into a mirror of redundancy and I no longer know if I am really standing here at all or if I'm just one more of the reflective images and it's all infinity forever and ever collapsing around on itself and suddenly I live in a world where painters paint paintings of themselves painting paintings of themselves painting paintings and people are only allowed to talk about talking and books only contain essays on how to write books and shows are always about shows(*) and everything is a double helical shaped hermeneutical circle that devours itself in nothingness and the universe is all just reflections of reflections and copies of copies and I begin to feel immensely uncomfortable and begin to doubt that there's any point to any of it EVER. This philosophically FUCKS with me, because I'm not a nihilist. Or maybe I am. I don't know, but dammit, I don't want to be one.

Carmen, you're a well read film buff with a great sense of humor and I know you have a million real stories to tell that are funny and heart warming and heartbreaking and inspirational and thought provoking and that could pull readers to you like a magnet if you wanted. But you aren't telling those stories because you have not stopped talking about talking long enough to actually say anything at all. I could not to weed through the blogging about blogging to find the stuff that comes from the heart that was not wrapped in bloggerwocky. And I really desperately want to see that heart that I know you have. I want to know what it was about the baby and the dog that you sat near in church that made you happy. I do not care what it is like, as a 40 something diagnosed schizophrenic named Carmen, to experience facebook, twitter, and blogging and I really don't think anyone does. I am, however, dying to know what it is like, as a 40 something diagnosed schizophrenic named Carmen to experience life, in the world where painters paint paintings of flowers and windmills and dogs, and people write books about pirates and aliens and secret societies, and people talk about sex and food and rollercoasters. YOU HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY, CARMEN, THAT IS WHY YOU WERE DRAWN TO BLOGGING IN THE FIRST PLACE.

My advice is: stop blogging about blogging. COMPLETELY. I realize that eliminating all of the blog talk would leave you with the problem of having to figure out what to fill the gap with (Welcome to my world of posting less frequently than I want to. Of course, to embrace this, you have to fully give up on obsessing about followers, how many comments you get, traffic, etc. and just blog when you have something interesting to write about). While you're eliminating, go ahead and shave off the part that is completely uninteresting to anyone, including people who know you personally (advice which you've already read about in blogging books, i.e. not to blog on what you had for lunch). Then eliminate information that could be interesting ONLY to people that know you personally (unless you only want to blog for those people, in which case, have at it. But since you submitted here, I assume you want a take on what the random blogger would be looking for). You are now left with what could be a pile of shiny gold, or it could be a pile of bland white rice and people will either connect with it or they won't, but whatever it is, it will be authentic and it will be all you and will hold intrinsic value just because of that. The truth is, I cannot even speculate on what that kind of content would be like or is, because I never found it on your blog. If it's there and I missed it, it's because I gave up before I found it, which I can only believe would be what a typical random reader would do.

Focus now on real content, real you from the heart, then resubmit your blog in a few months so that we can at least review what is really you. For now I can't do this review, that's why I haven't even linked to anything. And I can't give you a rating either, because none of them are appropriate.

But i will show you a little inspirational poster I like to look at whenever I'm tempted to blog about blogging.
















(*) Seinfeld managed to pull this off. But you know, it was Seinfeld.

That's why her hair is so big: it's full of secrets.

As any regular readers can tell, I don't shy away from swearing. Identifying myself as a person who clutters her speech with extravagant curses is like working for the Department of Redundancy Department. You people can deduce my fondness for profanity on your own because you aren't fucking goldfish.

Of course, some bloggers, like One Crazy Brunette Chick, find it necessary to shock and tug us in specified direction by grabbing our ears and thrusting obscenities down our throats. No regard for foreplay or discipline, it's just, "I SAY FUCK A LOT!!! FUCKINDEALWITHIT!! LIFE SUCKS, CUNTS!!!" as if we'll recoil at the impiety or something.

CB, lady, that shit is tired. Everyone says fuck a lot. It's not shocking, it's not revolutionary, it's the way a million bajillion people speak all the time, and the fact that a grown woman is shilling it as some sort of slutty rebellion is a bit fatigued. We get it. You're so bad. You wear stilettos and swear. The dichotomy is mind-blowing. Fuckin' hooray.

Honestly, I find the whole thing quite boring.

Cursing and exclamation points and a faux sociopathic surface don't make bloggers more interesting, just more widespread and demanding. You wanna fucking prove you're a fucking bad ass by fucking having a verbal fucking fuckathon? BRING IT.

See, I can throw sporadic fucks around too, but that doesn't make my writing any better. Too much vulgarity is one-dimensional and boring, unless it compliments the story. I feel like you're blogging just to remind everyone you know how to run your fucking mouth. Apparently your life is full of internet drama that I don't understand, since I run in a different pack of bloggers - you know, the ones that write because they have to write, not because they want to shit-talk. Which is odd to think about, since I write here.

You claim to have a number of enhancing characteristics:

...it takes a considerable amount of FABulous to be a crazy ass, eccentric, dramatic, charming, and classy lady like myself.

but you've got the charm of a condom, and let's be honest here: condoms are the least sexy thing about doin' it. No one fantasizes about dirty, sultry prophylactic-time (well now they do, Rule 34). We want it passionate and urgently momentous in its raw, honest, unprotected glory.

And what do we get? Fucking latex, a protective sheath. You're better than that, and I know it. Your tattoos say more about you than your blog. You're mixing a shot of impulsiveness and youth, beauty, love and regret, then choking it down, smashing the glass and dancing in its shards, with a flippant "I'm a dumb bitch" dismissal and a change of subject.

I want to hear about Ryan and Justin. I want to hear about the hasty girl of your past that morphed into this eyebrowless, very hot mother of two who chainsmokes and clouds herself in blasphemy and kitten rage. Prove you're eccentric by giving me ideas and perspectives I've never heard before. As of right now, after rummaging through all the "skanks" and "cunts," it's crystal to me: you're afraid of having no personality, and you cover it up by littering your posts with insults and curses.

Stop cocking around. Every once in awhile you show us a smidge of wisdom, a speck of uniqueness, but this bawdy, brash brat routine is old. As a society we've been watching ignorant, self-obsessed TV mutants get drunk and swear and slap each other over shitty lovers. Please don't add another lamewad to the mix. I get it though, because you're in it for the clicks. The internet is obviously a popularity contest for you and nothing else.

Those rare times you seem intelligent and hilariously creative, I smile in satisfaction. See, details are good, like calling your daughter 'Ladybug' in a line of dialogue instead of braying, "I call my daughter 'Ladybug!' I fucking rock!" You show that you have quirkish stories to tell. But then? Then you purposely cover it up with a spree of exclamations and pointless asides, which turns your writing into just about the most boringest thing ever.

As far as the template is concerned, I definitely like this header better than the mudflaps girl you sported a month ago, but I think you should minimize it and destroy the "click here to share" links. They're a trashy, whorish distraction, they take lightyears to load, and I have important cartoons to watch. And I can't deal with that crawling, epileptic banner circus, could you please do something about that?

Don't center the text of your posts. They're far easier to read earlier on in your blog when it's all flush left. Remember, some people are old. Of course I'm not, I'm an angry twenty-something who loves deadpan satire, loathes Nickelback (CB, you have the shittiest music taste ever - luvyabetch!) and slacks off at work to review blogs that want it from me and want it bad, but your sidebar hurts behind my eyes, like the entire eyeball and all the stringy nerves behind it are throbbing because there is so much fucking widgetty bannery stuff.

I gotta say though, I love how the 'Click Your Heels' button sends you home. Brilliant. Hopefully someday the other links will lead to relevant entries and maybe a personal profile instead of noxious self-promotion.

A matter of taste

In my line of work, I have to do a lot of reading. I read strategic educational planning reports, budgetary requests, grant applications, teacher induction guidelines, etc. I spend my day buried in this shit.

I can safely say that 99 per cent of what is piled in manila folder after manila folder on my desk awaiting my signature is well written. Punctuation has been used following stringent style guidelines, proper past participles have been applied and subjects and verbs are in harmony like ebony and goddamn ivory.

That doesn't mean that I want to put on my silk negligee, curl up in my cashmere throw with a hot toddy and pull out a copy of the State Board Standards and Rubrics for School Improvement.

I read that shit because I bloody have to.

I have a similar approach to blogging. You can have a PhD in semiotics and another in 18th century English literature and that doesn't get your ass into my reader. To get into my reader, your funny has to hurt my abs, your sexy has to disintegrate my underwear and your frustration has to stick to my throat long after I've marked your posts as read. In other words, whatever the hell you purport to be, you had better be oozing with it and you'd better make me want to lick it up.

And the licking part is where it gets personal. I like to lick what I like to lick. What can I say?

And because I'm used to seeing so much syntactical and grammatical jackassery around this joint, I'm thrown off a bit when I find someone that can actually write; not just sentences, but entire posts that follow the same line of thought without filibustering my face off with random, disconnected, poorly thought out brain turdlings.

Zen Mama knows how to pull a post together. She thinks about what she writes in advance. Not only that, she can write a series related posts and actually retain my interest. Zen Mama tells her story without holding back: the story of a thrice divorced 46 year old mother and professional. She is brave enough to call a spade a spade and a skeleton in the closet a pile of bones. I respect and admire that in a blogger. Her posts can tend to lean towards too long at times, but in general, they have a good pace and she always tries to reveal things about herself through her writing. She believes she's a writer and she acts like it.

But back to the licking.

Here is where I have to put into words why I don't fucking love Zen Mama and only like her. This is where it gets entirely personal. And I'm finding this discussion near impossible without touching my toes into the tumultuous, I'm-gonna-get-ma-fuckin-foot-electrocuted waters of feminism and what it means to me.

Even thinking about this irritates me because I don't want to be non-solidarity-like. I know that we women need solidarity. I know our salaries are still crap compared to men. I know the number of the hours men spend per week on childcare and housework pales in comparison to ours. They enjoy more money, more prestige, more free time, even most of the egalitarian, self-proclaimed Feminist ones do. I'm right here in the boxing ring, throwing my best punches with the same feelings of betrayal in the realization that I'm not just one of the guys anymore and I am always the one to do the fucking laundry.

It's just that I don't buy into the brand of feminism that is all girl-powery, women unite in a huddled mass of chocolate and tears, singing 'I Will Survive' at the top of our lungs, and rise up against men who are all a series of Mr. Dependables, Mr. Idiots, Mr. Perfections, Mr. Whatever-- random, faceless dudes in random suits who are nothing but the prototype of 'man' that we have in our collective heads. That particular brand of feminism with which I have never been able to identify smacks of oversimplification and leaves a weird flavor in my mouth that tastes a lot like regression. I'm not afraid of femininity. But I find that I like women when their strongest characteristics aren't their overriding girliness in the same way that the men I like are not oozing with masculinity. I like my peeps adrodgynous. There is something that doesn't sit right with me when women pat themselves on the back for doing shit despite being women, and maybe it's just that it pisses me off that things are to a state that we require a back pat for living. I want women and men to see society and their position with respect to the opposite gender as being seamless, homogeneous, even if that's naively idealistic of them. I don't claim that men and women are not by nature different and that their differences shouldn't at times be celebrated. But I think we are a hell of a lot more alike than we are different. The variations between us as individuals are much, much greater than they are between the two gender groups as a whole.

Don't get me wrong, Askers. Zen Mama's blog is not a blog that gets all First Wave on our asses in every post or that even seems to be intentionally about any brand of feminism at all. There is just a tone I perceived throughout her blog, and the fairies in the sidebar continuously reminded me of it. And I feel like that has stopped me from being able to Fucking Love her, because I think we differ philosophically. But I have these same issues with my girlfriends in the real world and argue with them about why I think always having Girl's Night Out every goddamn time we get together is retarded.

I give three stars to Zen Mama for knowing how to tell a proper story and for being one of the good ones in the blogosphere. I suppose if Zen Mama was able to transmit anything about herself philosophically through writing and to stir the reader to examine themselves in any way, as far as blogging goes, she's got the right idea.






By the way, I love the blog name and wish I had thought of it.

You Would Never Survive in the Wide, Windless Sargasso

A guest review by Rassles:

There are some trends I’ve never fully climbed aboard. Sniffed out and left for rotten scavengers, yes, but I’m way too preoccupied pretending I’m unique to feel their appeal. Two of these trends, which concern the blog in review, are online dating and…well…pirates. Aye, landlubbers, beware: I’ve no inclination to identify with fearsome buccaneers or use the interwebs to find love. But! I do own Captain Blood on VHS and a friend of mine met her husband on Match Dot Com.

So here we have a self-proclaimed saucy pirate wench Swashbuckling Through the Murky Waters of On-Line Dating. A long title, yes, but cute and piratey, promising a narrative goody bag full of Oedipal greasy-haired assholes with over-inflated sexual egos who leave toenail clippings in shag carpets and keep secret wives. Right? Why else would we read an online dating blog?

The template is standard white-on-black Blogger, stained with thick, blazing purple links that offend the backs of my eyes after just a quick scan. I never really know what to say about templates. As long as you smell okay and you didn’t buy your shirt from Spencer’s, I don’t give a shit what you wear (let’s face it, “one tequila, two tequila, three tequila floor” was kind of funny for about ten seconds when I was thirteen, and more importantly what kind of freckle-faced scallywag can’t hang after only three shots of tequila?).

But Leslie, my friend, those purple links are a cheap, ugly distraction. Do you buy your steaks from Walgreens? No? Your template suggests otherwise.

Firstly, this blog, as I was led to believe based upon a short profile and header sentence, is not about perilous dates, mutinous sexual trysts, or a collection of hilarious critiques and conversations between a formidable provost barking insults at the dirty, rotten, scurvy dogs of dating. So I’ma gonna keelhaul a bitch.

It’s a fuckjumble of poseur posts, where Leslie pirates a man’s personal ad and a picture from nonspecific dating websites and offers her opinions, which are usually painfully obvious insults with semi-clever name-calling pawned from Urban Dictionary. I know this because she links Urban Dictionary. Constantly. She links youtube videos that loosely relate to her topic and random websites detailing household namedrops everyone already knows about, like Sixteen Candles and Lorena Bobbit. She’s a big fat stump-legged linker.

Now Leslie, how about swinging your fucking cutlass like a real bad ass to strengthen those lame, tired jabs of yours? Sharpen your insults. Fire more pirate words. If you are going to be a pirate, Be A Fucking Pirate. Y’en’t bucklin’ no swash, lass. L’est not in my good eye. You already plunder the faux dignity of men directly from their online dating profiles, even post their actual pictures (I think) which is a total dick move, especially if these guys are paying for private profiles on whatever dating site. Sail smartly. Thar be sea demons.

I would link examples of non-hilarity and tortuously weak insults, but seeing as every post is basically the exact same thing it’s totally pointless.

You sound bitter, wounded, and painfully desperate to appear sassy and strong. We can smell our own. Your words reveal much more about you than the jerks you ridicule, but I don’t think that’s your intention, and it pisses me off. It would be better if you weren’t hiding behind trying to be a fucking pirate.

Oh, and what gave you the addled idea that you needed to create a new tag for all them posts you shot up in that there blog? Bitch, you know what tags are for? Two things: (1) categorically linking your posts, and (2) my fucking peace of mind. Yours offer neither. How am I supposed to draw comparisons between “Douchebags of the Week” if you’re making me sail all over creation? There is no uniting concept between these topics. I don’t even think you could *define douchebag in the first place.

More importantly, you have, and I fucking counted, on my fingers no less, thirteen different “of the week” themes for thirty-nine posts, and seven of those themes have an example of ONE. Themes, by nature, are recurring. Remember that.

If you insist on this “of the week” stuff, with richly diverse categories like “What Not To Do While On-Line Dating” and “What Not To Put On Your On-Line Dating Profile” and have no cohesive elements to pull things together other than the thin veil of piracy, play with it. Make them “Freak of the Week #37” and “On-Line Dating Experiment #242.” Rally up your posts and restrategize, because this shit ain’t working.

The only posts that are worth reading at all are your status updates. They prove that you can be conversational, honest and observant, with definitive smirk, although they do fall slightly flat. Still, they're way more productive than resorting to making fun of mullets and mid-life crisis-es. Avast, ye strumpet! These are classic topics for humor, but if you’re not going to offer anything substantive to the already extensive inventory of Hilarious-Shit-To-Say-About-Things-That-Are-Obviously-Pathetic, then don’t say anything at all. Also, stop raping your words with unnecessary hyphens. Do you get a nickel per hyphen? That is a fuckload of nickels.

Tighten up your business. You are better than this. Fucking act like it. I would ask you to edit, but seeing as your short posts are unenlightening as they are, I think you should stop trying to be something and just write whatever’s in your blood, not what you wish was there.


For being annoying:






For sucking at insults and wishing you were cool:








* Okay people: a douchebag is a person with an illogical, amped up value of self-worth, unintentionally resulting in extreme worthlessness and obnoxery. See, the point of the term is to compare a person’s ego with a vaginal cleaning pump that really does more harm than good. Get it? Use it correctly. It’s like, okay: the monster’s name is not Frankenstein. The doctor’s name is Frankenstein. Drives me fucking nuts.

The Subtle Art of Blogging

Dear sweet lady from the UK or Australia,

Why on earth did you submit your blog to us? You have to know that we are not fond of mommy-blogs, as a genre, and we're very, very bitchy and demanding. We are not your target audience, and you are definitely not going to be happy with anything I have to say to you today.

You write:

I started this blog in January 2008 with the following aims:

1. To improve my photography
2. To learn a new skill (the subtle art of blogging)
3. To have a pictorial record to look back on at the end of the year.
4. To prove to myself that once I’ve started something I can jolly well finish it!!

You've accomplished your goals, at least to your own satisfaction, so you really don't need us. And, I have a feeling that honest criticism is going to cut you like a knife. So, here's a backpat for keeping a chronicle of your kids' growing up years, and taking plenty of pictures, and it appears, being a very good mommy.

If you can't handle sharp feedback, STOP READING NOW. This warning is for your own good.

Okay, here comes the rending.

Goal 1 - Pictures: Your photos are poorly focused and have zero emphasis on composition. You need to do your homework. There is more to photography than point and shoot. Do some research, read up on how to properly frame a subject, and really WORK at it. These times will pass quite quickly and at this point, all you have to show for your efforts are some blurry, smeary, not very interesting shots.

Here's a good place to start.

Goal 2 - The Subtle Art of Blogging: You've put words on a page, on a regular basis, that much is true, but you haven't learned to blog. Blogging, at its essence, is telling stories. It isn't keeping a journal. It's writing, FOR AN AUDIENCE. Even if that audience is only family members (only), they do not deserve to want a bullet in their head after reading something like this.

Barbara, congrats. You've turned the miracle of birth into a scientific manual slash middle school girl's diary. Holy fuck. No one wants to read this. It's painfully dull.

A story is not "I went here." "I did this." "I saw this."

Go here. This is blogging. It takes more time than just regurgitating, "and then we bounced on trampolines" onto a page, but it's also clearly BETTER. It's something that people actually WANT to read, even though it involves sucking a bird's guts into a vacuum cleaner (and the word protein is misspelled). That's the SUBTLE ART part. And, that's what your blog is lacking at present. A good blogger can make getting blood drawn interesting. A bad blogger can make childbirth dull.

It's good to write, but it's better to be a writer, and actually THINK about the words you are writing.

Your blog at present:

This isn’t a great picture (I still haven’t got around to reading the manual on photography in low light) but the girl saw it and immediately said “I look great in a smile and a pink plait, don’t I”.

(note grammatical errors and boring introductory sentence)

What your blog COULD BE, if you worked at it:

I didn’t see it at first. I was talking to husband about his day and was walking from the living room to the kitchen.

There it was. A pile of feathers on the carpet–all that was left of the cat’s lunch.

Crap.

“Your cat did that,” he said. I just sighed and went to find the vacuum cleaner.

Do you see the difference, how the first few sentences suck you in, and make you WANT to read the story? How it's clear that this IS a story? Even this example could use more editing, but the beginning is GREAT. It takes work, that. But you COULD do it, if you tried.

Here's an example of how the pink plait could be reframed:

When she saw the photograph, the girl said “I look great in a smile and a pink plait, don’t I?”

I agree, she does.

Do you see the difference? You could then go on and talk about how the photo could be improved, how use of the manual might allow you to properly focus the lens, how you wish you were improving faster. But the focus is on the PHOTOGRAPH and the girl, not you.

Obviously, your voice is going to be different than Franklin's or mine. But, primarily, the subtle art of blogging consists of GETTING OUT OF THE WAY of your story and telling it in a way that is visual, stimulating, and engaging.

Also, you selfish cow. Why, oh why, would you tell us about making a Christmas cake (nut-free, no less), and not provide a recipe? That's just evil and wrong. You did the same damn thing with your mincemeat post, which means you are not only selfish, but you have selfish tendencies. You should share. That's all I'm saying.

So, move. Get out of the way. Tell the story. Focus on the subjects of the story. Make it come to life. Use interesting words. Think about whose eyes are seeing the story happen, and how THEY would tell the story. Use their perspective, not just yours.

That's blogging.

And you, my dear, are not yet a blogger.

But you could be.

I give you

Random is Dead.

An old nemesis of ours, random, died recently. He was stabbed to death, repeatedly, by the blogosphere. He is survived by his loving wife, miscellaneous, and his children mundane, slapdash, incidental, and indiscriminate. Donations should be sent to thesaurus.com.

Say it together, out loud: RANDOM IS DEAD. You put a knife into random when you put exactly zero thought into your blog. You gave random a kick that fractured his orbital bone when you showed you didn't care. You put random into permanent kidney failure because of your thoughtless, slipshod, disorganized writing.

You, and you, and you, you all killed random. You're all fucking murderers, every single one of you who misused and abused poor random, and made him your bitch.

This message particularly applies to today's reviewee. I have ADD and reading this blog is actually painful for me. It bings from one subject to another, zooming headlong from an interview with Nelson Mandela to stories about flatmates.

I don't get it. I don't think you will, either.

At a minimum, this site needs to:

1) Create an about me. Who are you, and why in the fuck are you polluting the blogosphere with your random bullshit? This is how poorly explicated your blog is: I read for 30 minutes and STILL don't know your gender. Are you a he or a she?

2) Get rid of the ugly ads. You don't need 3 columns. You especially don't need a 2-column wide ad. I doubt you have more than 10 readers at this point. Who is buying this ugly shit you're advertising? No one.

3) Figure out who you are and what you are writing. See item #1.

I'm going to repeat myself from a previous review because some of you aren't paying attention:

Knock off the shtick, and learn to tell a story without killing it.

Ultimately, blogging is a simple thing. If you write it, they will come. It doesn't have to look good (note: I once gave an ifuckingloveyou to a blog on myspace). You don't have to promote it. You don't have to get on everyone's blogroll. You don't have to join humorblogs.com and ten million other blog promotional pyramid schemes to promote your blog.

You just have to do one thing, and do it well:

Write.

I give you a short bus. This blog, in its present state, has all the wit and sparkling charm of a coma patient.

And fucking put Random to rest, in the cemetary, where he belongs. He's starting to smell.

Mother and Child Reunion

In Mother and Child Reunion, a tune penned by Paul Simon, lyrics mention "a strange and mournful day" and "I can't for the life of me remember a sadder day". This was all fans needed to speculate as to possible meanings. Perhaps the song referenced a child given up for adoption about to meet his or her mother. Maybe the mother or child had passed and now the one was joining the other in death.

When asked about the song, Paul Simon related that the title, Mother and Child Reunion, was lifted straight off a New York Chinese restaurant menu where it was used to reference a chicken and egg dish. Get it? Mother and child reunion? I thought it was clever because rather than be deep, the title referred to something that couldn't be more fleeting, Chinese food.

Anyhow, I'll allow you a brief peek into the twisted thought processes of Miss Missives. Thoughts of Mother and Child Reunion led me to thoughts of the chicken and the egg which led me to the classic dilemma of which came first. This in turn made me think of the Chinese dish, which made me think again of the Paul Simon song, which led me to ponder, which came first, the mother or the child? In this case it is clearly the mother which very circuitously leads me to my main point(yes there is one). The mother came first and with or without the child, the mother is still a woman, or a chicken or something.

My gripe is that so many women become mothers at the loss of nearly everything else. Jesus, no wonder so many women go through empty nest syndrome(see another chicken reference), because they all too frequently define themselves by motherhood alone. If I hear one more person(because yes, we are still people) refer to herself as a mommy to anyone other than her children, I will take needles and shove them in my eyeballs.

This is not exclusively directed at today's reviewee. Lolly, I get it, you're in the first year. That first year is very difficult and balance can be nonexistent. I know it can be hard to define yourself by much else when you are enmeshed in new babydom, but I know plenty of women with babies who still talk about other things.

Mommy Is Rock 'N Roll is your garden variety snoozefest, the quintessential mommyblog where the new baby is all encompassing. I can't sugarcoat it, there is very little here. Lolly has the same excitement of most new moms, figure woes, internal debates, sleep deprivation but her writing skills are not enough to lift this common experience up to a place where others can relate to it.

Lolly, like so many other moms, you are a thoughtful mother with a beautiful baby and almost nothing to say. If you want people to read what you write, you have to vary it a little. It's not that you cannot write about your daughter, or breastfeeding or slings or the things prolonged sleep deprivation does to a person. You can, but you need to pick out anecdotes, funny stories, unexpected things and throw in some stuff completely unrelated to Lolly the mom.

My best piece of advice? Go read great mom blogs and figure out why you like them. Are they funny, confessional, snarky, all out crazy? Figure out what they are doing right and emulate. I'm not saying copy or try to be them but it's okay to use these engaging blogs as a lesson on how to make yours more engaging.

As for the specifics, the template hurts my eyes. I don't like faux animal print. I didn't like it when Dolce and Gabbana used it, I certainly don't like it when it's splashed up on a page I am expected to read. I don't like pink font on black background but thank you for a font large enough to read without inciting some kind of violent head pounding. The sidebar could be cleaned up but it's not out of control. Get the Google ads off your site, the seventeen cents you are making a week isn't worth it. Pare down your blogroll or move it off the main page. If your blogroll is in excess of fifty blogs, it no longer means anything.

Lolly, Ask is a site that will definitely pants* you with no remorse. The reviewers here write and read and I'm not talking about Christmas newsletters or thank-you notes. While we complain about clutter and design and even grammar, you'll notice that people who can really tell a story generally get a pass. The reality, however, is that most people cannot tell a good story. Even if Princess Di and Michael Jackson came from beyond the grave to take them out to lunch, they'd still find a way to screw it up. So to turn around and write about the naturally mundane, like motherhood, is the equivalent of five Ambien and a Gin and Tonic.

Still, don't despair because the good thing about children and motherhood is everyone's baby is beautiful to them and your blog is your baby. So if Mommy Is Rock 'N Roll is what you want it to be, and you can look back over your old posts excited to read how you felt or where the baby was at that moment, then I suggest you pull your pants up and don't look back.














*d.Verb. American. To overpower someone and remove his trousers by force as a humiliation. Equivalent to the British debag. Usually only done to males as removal of the pants, the traditional male garment, is a symbolic emasculation. Pantsing in this sense may be used as an initiation rite, a punishment, or just done for fun.

May I Soliloquise Whilst Kicking Your Shins?

Sigh.

I imagine that today's reviewee does that a lot. Sighs. Without an 'About Me' I had to wade through pages and pages to try to piece together who this person is. The very first post will have to do by way of explanation:

Recently, whilst speaking to a friend about being bored, she suggested that I should start an online journal where I could soliloquise about whatever subject I wanted without having to worry if anyone was interested. So here I am, writing the first entry in what will, no doubt, become an epic collection of my various ramblings and opinions.

For Christmas I was given a fridge magnet that read: ‘Everyone is entitled to my opinion’, which I took to be an indication that, at least in my family’s eyes, I am a highly opinionated person, with no interest in keeping my ideas to myself. So perhaps this journal will not only serve to alleviate my boredom, but also that of anyone who may otherwise have been at the end of one of my rants.

So, let us begin…

Well now, isn't that just dripping with sneering and pretentious use of the English language? Having a strong command of written language is something of a novelty these days, which after having it kicked into my front teeth by the combat boots I suspect this blog wears, I might just be okay with that. I don't know what kind of footwear the actual author wears, but I do know it is not high heels. She's made that clear.

The template is drab and dreary, which is actually suiting. The font is tiny and does not encourage a painstaking wading-through of the reviewee's seemingly self-important views on the world. All of which come across as if they were conceived while sitting in front of her computer, maybe even while looking out an open window. I just had a recurring feeling that this person prefers to sit and form opinions about life rather than going outside to actually live it. She studies the world rather than taking an active part in it.

While, it may be unfair for me to make such a sweeping generalization about this person, I don't feel badly for it, because I read page after page and I still feel like calling you 'this person'. I know all about every minute detail of how you feel about all things feminist, and your bantering conversation style, but I still don't feel like I know YOU. It all comes across as being cold and robotic. And yet, I think that might just be who you really are. I just hope that's not the case.

I do believe the friend that suggested you start a blog was right to do so, and probably had very good reason. However, asking us to review it is just mean. It's mean, because you see, I feel it's necessary to sit here and read rant after rant. Why? Because that is how I produce a fair review. Now, given that you realize that not everyone wants to be privy to your ramblings, why the hell did you do this to me? I suspect it's because you are selfish, egotistical, smug, inherently full of yourself and perhaps even a tad cheeky. That is how it all comes across to your reader. Did you really want someone else's opinion? It appears as if you only value your own.

You are writing for all the right reasons, but you might consider keeping it to yourself. After all, you probably ARE the only one intelligent enough to understand all the minutiae that composes your thoughts and opinions.








I wanted to award you the Abercombie Poser rating, but you mean it, you really mean all of it. You 'fun sucked' my day.

Middlesex

Miss Missives has a general love for the odd, disenfranchised, different, marginalized, and fringe elements of society. Selfishly, I gravitate toward these people because they have some of the most fascinating stories to tell, stories you will never hear from the soccer mom or the angsty teen. They often tell tales that rather than be relatable, grab you for the very fact that they show a part of life you could never see on your own. Sometimes it's just another door to peak in through and sometimes it's a bridge to seeing someone's humanity.

So when I read that my reviewee was a

BDSM loving, dyslexic transsexual

I poured myself a big glass of cheap red and hunkered down expecting quite the read. Michelle, do you want the good news or the bad news first? The bad news is I didn't get the read I expected. The good news is, you are indeed just like everyone else.

It is probably a tad unfair that I judge a blog by what I want it to be, by what I know it could be, by what I know would draw people in and make them come back for more. Michelle's blog is her own and not a Choose Your Own Adventure where I get to pick the direction she goes next. Still, there's so much I want to know, and yes, much of it is her life as a transsexual but not for the prurient reasons you might think. Now after a little digging, I did come across some of her BDSM photos and got my first look at the cha-cha of a post-surgical transsexual--so, okay, a little prurient(it looks just like any other happy cha). Michelle does put herself out there but there is also so much she holds back.

In one post she says

the short time I spent on some psychiatric wards was among the more humorous and enlightening times of my life.

Michelle, where my dear are these stories? How did you figure out you came delivered in the wrong packaging? How did you come to terms with it? How did you tell your family? How did you evolve to the woman you are today? What did you think of Transamerica? Are these too painful, too personal perhaps, but these are the things I'd ask you over lunch and wine.

It is possible that Michelle has written more about this than I give her credit for because I couldn't read the entirety of her, as of last count, eight different blogs. Yes I'm not even joking. Miss Missives can hardly handle her own blog, reviewing duties here and a little Facebook and Michelle manages to juggle eight different sites to which she posts regularly. Who's the better woman now? Michelle is analytical and clearly likes to compartmentalize things, hence eight different blogs. There is the main site submitted for review, there is her home page, there is Linux Crusade, there is Technilife, there is the Story of L, there is her photoblog, and ShootGreen-her other photography site, and finally there is her bondage site. Oh, and she twitters too.

Michelle works in the Computer Engineering field and it reflects in her writing, technically adept, detailed, methodical but sometimes lacking the emotion and fire that I think such life experience would provide. I completely ignored the computer, photo and technical posts because I had my hands full with the more personal works. There are loads of technical posts but even her personal posts feel distanced. Maybe one has to put some space between themselves and their feelings when they have faced a hostile world for so long but I just know she has more to say.

Michelle, I'll tell you the same thing I told MongolianGirl, at least once a month, pick something you are afraid to write about and write about it anyway. I think you have stories to tell that you're not telling. These are your own words and they are right on.

What do I need? I need to shout. I need to scream. I need to take risks and feel the angry wind in my hair. I need to push my limits; to slam down the accelerator and drive like a maniac; to bear arms against the enemy and pit my wits in a battle of survival; to pilot an attack helicopter ... I need to destroy things; but in the name of good ...

You, like most everyone else need to edit, edit, edit. For example, this is very good but a little editing would give it oomph, momentum. There was a great deal of good information but even the most personal pieces often felt distant, plodding and technical. There were some things that stood out, like this and this and even this. And Michelle, you minx, you switched templates mid-review but I like the changes and your clean, uncluttered designs(yes, all 8 of them) get big gold stars.

Michelle, your blog is yours to do with what you will, and the very fact that this blog is a bit boring shows that you are a person like anyone else, and not just a personality, caricature or headline. If you want a good example of how to connect with a reader, share stories--even painful, unflattering ones, how to write about difficult and highly personal subjects, check out yesterday's reviewee. Look at this compared to something like this. One of the most amazing things about blogging is how it can connect people who might never cross paths in life outside the Internet. You have an amazing opportunity to connect with the world and show people who you are.

For having the courage to be your authentic self, you get this











For designing and managing to juggle so many blogs you get this:





For making said blogs feel like a four inch thick Linux Manual and making me trudge through so many, you get this:

Love Bites: Render, Tearer, Gnasher, Slayer

Today is not your lucky day, Travis J. Morgan, Philosopher, Artist, Poet and Musician.

Let me give you a tip: Titling yourself, in this way, gives off a strong odor of douche. The review is going to go downhill from here.

Frankly, dude, I think that you were either born in the wrong era, or had a traumatic head injury during your service (though, I do indeed salute you for serving). After listening to fingers and thumbs, I'm leaning toward the latter.

I actually think that this is the first true "hipster" blog that we've reviewed. I can visualize this guy, performing his poetry on a darkened stage in some smoky lounge, while overdressed twenty-somethings with artfully messy hair and hiphugger pants and white belts listen quietly while raising glasses of expensive beer to their lips. And if they like him, they snap their fingers, in unison.

What can you say about a guy who thinks he's coined his own phrases and wants to be quoted? You want to be quoted? That isn't a process you can force. You have to do the work on the inside, and say something real, for people to want to repeat it. Glibness isn't enough.

I'll give you this. The ink blot art is bad ass. But who paints a roll of toilet paper? Were you inspired during your last drinking binge whilst hugging the cool goodness of a porcelain bowl to sketch what you saw on your handy i-phone?

There are a few things I like. I like the site map button at the top of your page that gives us quick access to all your posts, by category.

I like the blog design, it's clean and uncluttered.

As far as your posting, though, you aren't saying anything that Henry Rollins didn't already say better, and before you even arrived on the scene.

In fact, you could learn a lot from Henry Rollins, now that I think about it. And, failing him, try Robert Ingersoll or Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Let's compare, shall we? This is you:

I am a cynic in the sense that I think that people intrinsically have underlying selfish motives whether they be conscious or unconscious. I have doubts in pure altruism, meaning that I think that most if not all acts have a selfish motive. While some acts may have been acted on in the interest of another, I doubt that those acts do not also have a selfish motive. To me, this can even be the “good” feeling you get from helping another. People will argue that when they perform such an act (which they call an “altruistic” act), they were only concerned about the others well-being. Yet, these same people have high regards for performing altruistic acts, and they get a high from attempting to do so. To me, this is yet another selfish motive that renders the act altruistic-less or at least not purely or only altruistic. - TJ Morgan

What is that, like a term paper for your ethics 101 class? Couldn't you have said that in ten words or less? Even Jesus put it in far simpler terms. I'm not a big fan of Jesus, but at least he wasn't a wordy fuck.

Compare your quote to this:

If abuses are destroyed, man must destroy them. If slaves are freed, man must free them. If new truths are discovered, man must discover them. If the naked are clothed; if the hungry are fed; if justice is done; if labor is rewarded; if superstition is driven from the mind; if the defenseless are protected and if the right finally triumphs, all must be the work of man. The grand victories of the future must be won by man, and by man alone. --Robert Ingersoll

Do you see how clean, how spare, how wonderfully unfuckedwith the prose of Robert Ingersoll is--in comparison to your thesaurus vomit?

Your blog needs two things. First, you need to lose your sense of having figured it all out, and your godawful sense of self-importance, and you need to cultivate wonder. Why are you blogging? Why do you think anyone would want to read this blog? What are you doing here? What do you hope to accomplish? Aside from feeding your huge ego, your blog doesn't do much. And, there is no wonder to it.

Secondly, you need to stop intellectualizing and start living. Start putting your flesh and blood on the fucking page, man. This calculated pose, this superficial philosophy, it sickens me. No one is going to recite a quote simply because it has big words in it.

There is nothing real on your blog. You want to be quote-worthy? Say something real. Real things resonate with all of us and are worth repeating.

Henry Rollins once said:

I think about the meaning of pain. Pain is personal. It really belongs to the one feeling it. Probably the only thing that is your own. I like mine.

See how real that is? I love that fucking quote. And it applies to you, too. Find your pain. Embrace it. Write about it. That might be worth reading about.

What you have on your blog right now--isn't.


For now, I give you for having the ability to write, but not the heart. And, for wasting my fucking time while you jacked off your brain.