Yeah, okay, so apparently it's futile to even hope for comments on this blog these days. A stauncher fellow would keep on soldiering, ignoring the near infinitude of inferior blogs whose comment threads oft times stretch into three digits. A more resolute individual would reflect that SuperWife has hit a similar comments drought on her blog, and she's a better blogger than I am, that Mike Norton has lately had no one commenting on either of his blogs but me or SuperWife, and his blogs are excellent when he troubles to update them. A better man might well simply shrug and say that the act of blogging is something one does primarily for oneself, anyway, so who cares if anyone else notices?
But you come through your 46th birthday and nobody out there in the vast blogospheric echo chamber much seems to even care. You send out links to your work to other bloggers you like and your statcounter reflects that they actually showed up and checked out your blog... for all of 17 seconds. And, speaking of statcounters, yes, this blog gets very few hits, but, still, it's getting some, from some interesting places, by people who are sticking around for minutes or even hours... long enough to read stuff, but... still not bothering to leave comments.
It just makes it all seem very futile. And with the holidays coming on, and SuperWife down with some bug, and a crappy crappy job whose daily humiliations and exasperations could only be further exacerbated by their abrupt and total cessation (something I slog into work every weekday with no assurance won't occur on any given second of every minute I spend there)... you know what? I have enough shit on my plate without dealing with whoever the fuck YOU are, dropping by to read this without in any way acknowledging the time and effort it takes me to write and post it.
I'm not talking to my very few friends and family members, now. I'm talking to YOU, you gutless lurking bitch. Whoever you may be.
I may be back here sometime in 2008. Or, you know, not.
I'll see you in hell, Banzai.
Later: Nrrrrm.
As Bill Murray might say in this context: "Don't blog angry. Don't blog angry."
I'd take down the genuinely embarrassing display of petulant self pity above, but, well, then I'd lose the comments (which I appreciate), plus, well, the above is an accurate reflection of how I am, sometimes. Thankfully, not all the time, but, still, sometimes.
Self pity is never fun to look at, and it's especially stupid in me these days, given how lucky I am as regards my personal life. But... you know... we all live for attention, and I think I'm a pretty decent writer and a pretty entertaining guy, and it just aggravates the crap out of me sometimes that I can't even get an intelligent conversation going, when so many other inferior bloggers have...
Well, I said all that already.
I love my personal life, I really do. But there are so many subjects I'd like to discuss... not simply voice an opinion on, but have some sort of intelligent, or at least, interesting, discussion in regard to. I don't want to argue, I don't want to shout or scream, I don't want to hurl invective or bellow insults into the cyberwind... and I certainly don't want to have a bunch of sycophants lining up to kiss my ass, as seems to inevitably happen to any other blogger who attains the remotest scrap of real world success.
I'd just like to know there are people out there reading my stuff, and that maybe it provokes a an interesting response from them.
So, I guess I will not be stopping. But I may lay back for a while, if for no other reason than that I'm a little embarrassed at making such an ass of myself at the moment.
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So this Boy Scout, couldn't have been older than eleven, is holding up this kinda chubby looking Scotch Pine. It was.... ehhhh... okay...
I think Mercury is in retrograde, bunny man, for I'm not getting too many hits on my site either (although I haven't been writing too much lately).
ReplyDeleteStill, I hope you don't stop.
And if you would like any constructive criticism, I'd say that you might get more hits and comments if your posts were a little shorter, as those of us who no longer have 20-year-old eyes find it a bit hard to read a lot of text on the screen. Not that what you write isn't worth the reading - just that fewer and fewer people have the attention span. I hope you don't take this the wrong way.
You're a very good writer.
And I hope the bugs and the malaise over Castle Anthrax ends soon.
I don't mind the longer posts. I can count on MAotE to provide the meat to sink into.
ReplyDeleteI get the updates via a reader. That would explain the drop in hits. Otherwise I'd keep coming by several times a day to see if there's anything new.
Tony C.
http://mahtwocents.blogharbor.com
[Lurk mode off]
ReplyDeleteRemember earlier this year when you wrote of another blogger something like "He's worth listening to but not so great to talk to"?
If I don't comment, you won't flame me-- life's too short.
Why should I go to the trouble when I might get punished for it? I fully expect to get spanked for writing this much.
Love you man, love your stuff, but you're a tough guy to get along with. Life's too short.
[Lurk mode on]
Opus,
ReplyDeleteSee the addendum I'll be adding to the above post soon. And, thanks for your continual support.
Tony,
Um... pretty much what I just said to L.
Anonymous,
The occasional "love your stuff, man" would go a long long way towards making me feel like I'm not shouting into a void.
I believe the blogger I was talking about in that post about 'good to read, not so great to talk to' was John Rogers. I specifically said that in the context of how poorly Rogers takes anything remotely like disagreement, even (or especially) when you're not actually disagreeing with him, simply trying to be humorous. (I'm a funny guy, and while I certainly understand that other people may not get my little jokes, Rogers is a former pro comedian and gives himself airs as being some kind of master wizard of all that is funny, so I honestly didn't expect that HE wouldn't get my irony/sarcasm and realize I was kidding.)
I may well be blind to my own flaws (nearly everyone is) but I don't think I flame anyone who is respectful. Anyone can disagree with me about anything; all I ask for is civility. Now, if you feel you have posted a civil comment in the past (or you feel you've seen someone else do so) and I've flamed you (or them) for it, well, I'd ask for an example, because I honestly don't think I do that (and if I do, I'd welcome the enlightenment).
As best I can remember, the only time I've emptied my silos at anyone in the past, I dunno, six years?... something like that... is when the occasional troll has dropped by to insult either me or my significant other or my kids or someone else dear to me. Such people WILL certainly earn my ire, but, well, nowadays, I tend to just let such comments bounce off the moderation buffer.
So, by all means, if you're as articulate and polite as you seem to be in your above comment, please, feel free to interact.
And why in the world would I 'spank' you, or anyone else, for 'writing this much'? Jesus Christ, I've got my very first girlfriend EVER at the top of this comment thread chiding me for the length of my entries. What kind of hypocrite would I have to be, to bitch at someone else for the length of their responses?
Oh, and L... sorry, I cannot be more concise. My entries are exactly as long as I need them to be. I realize that alienates many, but they will have to deal... and hey, you yourself aren't exactly doing the Reader's Digest version of a blog, either. ;)
[Lurk mode off]
ReplyDeleteWell, so far, so good...
Given this reasonable response, I'll try to comment in the future when something catches my interest.
-Just remember Kurt Vonnegut's words "Love may fail, but courtesy shall prevail." I'm not out to piss you off, but if I say much, I fear it's inevitable. Hope you won't post mad.
...So, whadda you think about the original Superman being beaten to death?
-X
"It's Christmastime. Everyone's uptight."
ReplyDeleteI try to comment when I can, but part of the problem is that your blog entries are usually interesting enough and thought-provoking enough that simply leaving a short "yeah, what YOU said" seems insufficient.
Of course, my infrequent longer posts usually seem insufficient as well...
Anyway...love your stuff, Bunnyman. I hope you keep doing it.
X,
ReplyDeleteI presume you mean the death of the Golden Age Superman back in INFINITE CRISIS. In all honesty, my emotions were far more engaged by the death of the primal Lois Lane than of Kal-L. I mean, for some reason, Kal-L's death seemed predictable and inevitable, and I suppose by that same token Lois' was as well, but, still, it seemed far more 'end of an era' to me when the originator of the 'plucky girl reporter' icon bit the big one than when Superman did.
Rationally that makes no sense... the first Superman was the originator of a far bigger archetype than Lois was... yet, again, for whatever reason, his death seemed a matter of course, while hers really moved me.
Kal-L dying at the hands of that punk Earth Prime Superboy seems... a bit irritating. It would have been nice if he and his version of Lex Luthor could have mutually annihilated each other. Still, none of it bothered me as much as every panel of CIVIL WAR, or the death of Captain America.
Thinking about it further, I suspect the death of the GA Lois Lane seemed much more significant to me because the Golden Age Lois Lane is a character very very different from her Modern Age counterpart, or even her Silver Age counterpart. Whereas, on the other hand, the Modern Age Superman, Silver Age Superman, and Golden Age Superman seem very much to be the same person to me... albeit, I grant you, the Modern Age guy often seems to be a rather faded third generation Xerox.
ReplyDeleteSo when the primal Lois Lane went away, we lost someone who was entirely unique. When Kal-L bit the dust, well, hell, Supreme is still around... I realize that seems unfair, but the Golden Age Lois really has no modern day counterpart, while the Golden Age Superman seems to me to have several.
Wow...that was a fine blog to stumble onto! I felt really guilty and just BAD for not posting even tho it is my first time here. *chuckles* I followed the political blog to this one. I rarely ever check out that blog cause politics cause comas, but you do write well and when your humor is present I find it witty and sarcastic as well. But then I admire and like dry humor. I will bookmark this blog and make an attempt to be a sort of regular who sometimes posts. ;-)
ReplyDeleteKal-L dying at the hands of that punk Earth Prime Superboy seems... a bit irritating.
ReplyDeleteIs Earth Prime Superboy a silver age character?
Upon first reading of INFINITE CRISIS, that part of the story (the Golden Age Superman getting beaten to death by the (silver age?) Earth Prime Superboy seemed like Geoff John's giving a symbolic middle finger to golden age (and silver age) comic buffs -guys who think that the modern age is full of ugly unappealing grim n gritty characters.
You know, kinda like you and me, Bunnyman.
And what is with Johns' fetish with decapitation and dismemberment? Between IC and 52, I swear like a dozen people got their heads or other body parts ripped off. Yecchhh.
Well, everybody knows Cap is going to get better eventually. He's probably beating up death right now. Superman looks like he'll stay dead.
ReplyDeleteStill, that the two greatest paragons of Truth, Justice, and the American way comis will likely ever produce were murdered in short order seem somehow metatextually appropriate, given the facist trend this country is in. It would be amusing to see both gentlemen spring back to life in late January of 2009...
-X
Is Earth Prime Superboy a silver age character?
ReplyDeleteIt depends on how you define 'Silver Age'. By my standards, any concept linked with 'Earth Prime' is necessarily Silver Age, because I believe DC's Silver Age ended with the first CRISIS, which did away with the very concept of 'Earth Prime'. (The concept of 'Earth Prime' certainly originated in the Silver Age -- I believe it was first come up with as a kind of tribute to Julius Schwartz, so someone could write a story in which Superman visited Julius Schwartz at his DC office, to commemorate one of Schwartz's anniversaries, and have that story 'really happen', not be just an Imaginary Story.)
Upon first reading of INFINITE CRISIS, that part of the story (the Golden Age Superman getting beaten to death by the (silver age?) Earth Prime Superboy seemed like Geoff John's giving a symbolic middle finger to golden age (and silver age) comic buffs -guys who think that the modern age is full of ugly unappealing grim n gritty characters.
I think Johns genuinely loves the Silver Age and has a great deal of respect for the Golden Age. I'm also of the opinion that INFINITE CRISIS started out great and progressively slid in quality with each successive chapter. But Johns was most likely overstretched; his first issue of the JSA reboot was wretched, too.
And what is with Johns' fetish with decapitation and dismemberment? Between IC and 52, I swear like a dozen people got their heads or other body parts ripped off. Yecchhh.
It ain't just Johns, it's the entire superhero mainstream.
I think it's just a consequence of what happens when a taboo is finally conquered. As soon as the Comics Code was revised back in the early 80s to allow stories that depicted divorce, Jim Shooter had to do a divorce story (and unfortunately, he decided to break up one of comics' best couples, Hank and Jan Pym, instead of doing it to some other relationship where it would have made more sense, like Quicksilver and Crystal). After Shooter did it, though, comics was full of divorce stories for a while.
Similarly, for a long time, you couldn't depict graphic violence in mainstream superhero comics. Sometime in the last two years, though, that taboo seems to have gone out the window, so, for the last two years or so, we've seen graphic violence (disembowelment, decapitation, impalement, dismemberment) nearly everywhere. It's a very visual embodiment of the whole "lost innocence" of the superhero genre.
It's not entirely new; I'm pretty sure Kid Miracleman was dismembering, disemboweling, impaling, and decapitating people just for kicks way back in the late 80s/early 90s (certainly he was flaying them). But MIRACLEMAN was never exactly a mainstream comic. Now, stuff that was once 'adults only' has made its way out from behind the counter and onto the general access spinner rack.
I suppose it's progress... of one sort or another... just as grisly evil shit like SAW and HOSTEL and THE DEVIL'S REJECTS, which would have gotten an X rating ten or fifteen years ago, are now getting Rs, while stuff that would once have gotten an R is slapped with a PG-13. Culture as a whole gets desensitized. The original DAWN OF THE DEAD is now considered corny; once upon a time, audience members were puking in the aisles.