Some of you may recall my old e-mail column Postscript/IMHO. You may wonder “What kept you, Burchfield? Why don’t I see your name blinking across the blogosphere? Where’s that corrosive, incisive quote in Salon or Slate? What has kept Arianna Huff-puff-puffington from throwing herself at your shoes? O how we miss your vip’rous sting! You could show that there President Baby Bush a thing or thirty-two about locker room towel-snappin’! Yeah, you could!”
The short, glib answer: I like to write with clothes on.
The longer answer: I felt busy on other projects: my book (which you’ll read about in the future); my editing business . . . and my happy marriage.
Perhaps it’s the word BLOG. Say it out loud, five, ten, twenty times. BLOGGGGGGG. Nice, eh? Evokes memories of college days: long nights of pepperoni pizza, Point Beer, Cuervo Gold, all topped off with a heapin’ smokin’ bowl of Panama GolBLOGGGGGG!
Another reason: I picture most bloggers as looking like Jack Black, slumped in his cat-clawed bathrobe, his pudgy face twisted in eternal resentment; his Mom caws at him from upstairs as he plinks out prose spun out of one pungent word:
ASSHOLE!
(BTW, if you google “asshole” you’ll score 11,900,000 hits. Make that 11,900,001.)
There are RULES, I’m told (so much for that freewheeling anarchy so exuberantly promised). Blogging is supposed to be opinion writing: unthought-out opinions spouting from the top of my brain, like fresh milk dumped over an unsuspecting baby’s head. I’m s’posta to join the same strings about Baby Bush and the sins of the MSM that everyone else seems to be having, whether I care or not.
Mostly not. With me, often it’s “Mmm, what Olbermann said.” Most of the responses seem endless variations on “Me, too.” I read there are around 71,000,000 of these things. 71,000,000 voices make a big white noise. I’d be just another tiny hiss.
Yeah, I’m impatient, but here we go anyway . . . .
I’ll strive to stand out in my tiny way. I’ll fuss and worry about every word. I will eschew other alleged blog requirements: cute cat videos; photos of me on vacation at the city dump with turnips up my nose; and imgs of Stephen Colbert being ripped to shreds by bears (mmm . . . on second thought . . .).
There’ll be rules. This will be a “NO TROLL” zone. There has to be standards. I’ll enforce ‘em. “Stupid asshole” besides being far past brave, rebellious and daring, tells no one nothing about anything except the asshole who scraped his knuckles posting it. As Grandma MacMillan used to say, “Asshole is as asshole does!”. . . ok, she didn’t say that, but wouldn’t it be cool . . . ?
I won’t post everyday. My wordy ego aside, I’m not that interesting. I have a book to finish (FULL DISCLOSURE: This is, in part, a form of pre-publication marketing. “Read . . . Burchfield’s . . . blog . . . must . . . buy . . . Burchfield’s . . . book.”), a business to run, a Great Wife to dote on, an aging calico cat to look after. Life outside the blogosphere remains Real Life: forever bigger, more important, beautiful, sublime and Holy.
You’ll find my postings here usually on Sunday afternoon: up to 750 of the best words of reviews, adventures, feullitons and yes, opinion about all sorts of things, even Baby Bush. I eagerly hope it interests and entertains all who takes the time to click by especially when your head is clanging from Ann Coulter.
But whether you return or not, I am going to this pursue this policy (to paraphrase Baby Bush), even if the only readers I have are Elizabeth and Flo.
Thanks for reading . . . .
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4 comments:
I'm wise to you. Yes, I am. I know there's all that talk about old school curiosity, and making distinctions between the fake and the legitimate. But you are simply out there to ridicule and belittle the great blessings of the internet. You don't fool me. How dare you challange what is going to save us from BOOKS and all that over-thinking that goes into so-called "lasting" publication. May the wind catch that yarmulke of yours and blow it into the mosque of REAL knowledge. By the way, learn how to pray.
Welcome back Thomas.
Make hard (paper, that is) copies of anything profound or valuable that resides in your computer by no later than 12-21-12.
I was just tipped off by an oddly dressed street denizen that on that date, all electronic information storage will disappear. Although this is not exactly what Mel Gibson might expect, it is, indeed a sobering thought. I am on a computer and so are you - we exist together. End of history be damned.
HYPNOID: I have been praying. On my knees on thin layers of gravel. And every time, I hear this booming voice; "Get the hell off your knees, Burchfield! I'm sick sick sick of all this groveling like your were a Manpower employee! Go rescue a drowning kitten fer chrissakes!" "Yeah," I grumble back, "If you weren't so all-fired to throw 'em in the drink in the first place . . . . "
Re the end of the world: at last, the excuse I was looking for to move to that remote Transylvanian redoubt with the endless twisting dungeons. I'll need the dungeons for all that paper.
Well it's about time Thomas. I always thought it regrettable that you gave up the column.
By the way Thomas....next time you decide to photograph books on the TV tray upstairs, be sure to clean off the surface. I can still see
the cracker crumbs from last night.
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