I thought my last post was pretty good. It had lots of great ingredients including a bubble-headed newscaster, Lady Gaga, Academy Awards and racial slurs. In my book, that’s a can’t-lose recipe. I tossed that crap in my handy WordPress Lazy Blogger Crock Pot®, set the timer and toddled off to work. Eight hours later, I’d open the front door and be greeted by the savory aroma of delicious comments and a bountiful platter of steaming “likes”. I knew better than to hope for any Freshly Pressed action – this post was discomfort food, not French-Asian fusion cuisine featuring fair-trade organic lemongrass and sustainable free-range snails [Food analogies inserted to whet the readers’ appetites and make blog writing seem as effortless for me as slow cooking. Analogy of Freshly Pressed as some sort of trendy, politically-correct restaurant is due to my being a bitter man who can’t get a reservation]
I followed the instructions to the letter, adding a little extra salt and a pinch of cayenne, then left for my day of toiling making the world a better place for special-needs youngsters [Shameless self-promotion inserted to make people feel crappy for not reading my last post]
I trudged through the door that night and rushed to turn on the laptop. I was greeted with a mere four likes and a handful of comments from a few of my more ardent supporters. Four likes?! A fifth like showed up later, but it was clearly a “sympathy like” at best. I responded to each and every comment, and waited patiently for the momentum to pick back up. I jiggled the cord to make sure it was plugged in and touched the side to see if it had warmed up [Appliance malfunction analogy inserted to hint at my disappointment and grumbling stomach. Grumbling stomach analogy inserted into aside to imply that I’ll starve without positive reinforcement. Rushing to my laptop involved ignoring the greetings of both my long-suffering wife and gimpy-but-faithful dog]
It’s been too long now, there may be more likes trickling in and possibly a comment or two, but by this point, the post is buried and the expiration date on the topics has come and gone. My post before that one was over at The Nudge Wink Report. It had just a few words and was mostly comprised of cut-n-paste images of Kim Kardashian and her ample tushy being put in a bunch of silly places. It was far from my best work and I was fully prepared to be accused of having “smart-phoned it in”. Despite my doubts about the quality, the post got a butt-load of likes and a bumper crop of comments! Mrs. Kanye West’s ass pasted onto my dog’s nose is apparently blog gold. [Kim and Kanye reference inserted to allow me to put them in my tags for this post with a clear conscience – thus increasing my hits exponentially. Choice of using the words “butt load” and “bumper crop” in reference to ass-themed post responses was entirely intentional]
My first instinct, as a born pleaser, was to try to figure out what I’d done wrong. Surely there were errors in my less successful post and some sort of mysterious appeal to the more popular one. This is far from the first time I’d wondered what I’d done to displease the masses. [Self-reflection reference inserted to paint the author as being a little deeper than someone with an apparent fascination with Kim’s sizeable fanny might otherwise appear]
The bigger question eventually rises to the surface and sits there waiting to be acknowledged, like a turd in the punch bowl which can’t be ignored any longer. Here it is; Who exactly am I writing for? [Rhetorical question inserted in hopes of eliciting cries of “Me, Dave! You’re writing for me – I simply can’t get enough of your snarky brilliance!”. Turd in the punch bowl analogy inserted because, you know…poop humor]
I’ll be the first to admit that most of my blog posts are not exactly the stuff of literary artistry. I have written a handful of serious posts and some marginally humorous fiction in the past, but my blog identity is largely that of a smart-ass commenting on the news and/or the idiocy of the world. I enjoy making people laugh or even just smile. I like the thought of being the sarcastic voice of people who are annoyed or amused by the goofiness of our world. [As if to imply that most folk simply can’t read news stories and shake their heads in amazement without checking for my two cents first. You really should be insulted]
If I’ve learned nothing else from drawing and writing, it’s that people are going to like what they like, and not necessarily what I find appealing. The differing tastes and opinions of people is part of what makes the world go ’round. [Reference to my occasional drawing inserted to portray myself as something of a renaissance man, albeit one who had to try three times before finally spelling “renaissance” correctly. Reference to “making the world go ’round” is a bold-faced lie – we all know damn well that people with poor taste should not be tolerated, and couldn’t have less to do with the rotation of a planet]
Please don’t think this is some kind of a “Read my blog or I’m gonna quit” threat-fest. [Actually, that’s exactly what this is – you damn people better start coddling me a little or I’m going to take my mad writing skills over to the “Rants and Raves” section of the local Craigslist and hang out with the illiterate crowd. They’ll appreciate me even less, but there’s no like button there, so I won’t know]
Here are a few links to some of the posts I mentioned – no obligation, I’m just happy you actually got to the end of the post:
Nudge Wink Kardashian cut-n-paste post
1pointperspective 