Thanking Viacom

I would like to thank the industrious surveillance staff at Viacom for responding so quickly to my frustrated appeal to John Hodgman for the return of my overdue fifteen minutes of fame.


Note: If you want Viacom to read your blog, create labels like the ones I have below. Depending on your traffic, it's a good bet that within 24 hours, you'll get a few hits from Viacom's IP.


To Viacom: There are no videos on this blog. There never have been. But I have great ideas for content- send my people an email. We'll do lunch.

Dear John

John Hodgman has hurt my feelings. Deeply.

He didn't bother to notify me that he has a "blog". Mr. Hodgman is an expert in organic and electronic message-sending , so I can only take this oversight on his part as the emotionally devastating personal attack that it so clearly is.

I have feelings, you know. Or you would if you were really the expert you claim to be. John.



Back at the end of 2005, I recorded a radio interview with Mr. Hodgman and his book-tour partners , David Rees and Jonathon Coulton.

We were upstairs at the bookshop where the traveling trio was giving a performance and I (who, like most people at that time, had no idea who this "Hodgman" character was) started leafing through his book. Hodgman and Rees were embroiled in an incoherent imbroglio with the store owner about the number of backstage lavatories and something about a contract rider... jesus, these dudes are worse than a thousand guitarists, I thought, thumbing Hodgman's tome as the argument gradually lurched into an interview.

Hmmm... HMM! I reached over and clicked the voice recorder off.

"Cut."

"Wha... huh?" Hodgman looked puzzled. Rees and Coulton looked for a bar.

"You stole my idea."

"I did what?", asked the Man Who Would Be PC.

"You stole my idea. I invented the idea of being an expert on everything. I even have a blog about it. I make stuff up and people believe it. I am the expert expert. You are stealing my fame."

Hodgman tried using facts , copyright notices and expert opinions to prove that I was wrong, which only served to make my case because, as we both knew, an expert is someone who makes stuff up.
And he, said I, was making stuff up . The internet just wasn't big enough for two experts. What could be done?

Secrecy ensued. Whispers were shouted.

We reached an agreement. A magical ritual was devised.
I would give Hodgman 15 minutes of my Fame, and in return , he would deface a copy of his book, crossing out his name and replacing it with my own. After a suitable period of time ( six to eight weeks was our verbal agreement) had elapsed, the Fame I had loaned to Hodgman would return to me seven-fold, giving me nearly two hours return for my 15 minute investment.

That was in 2005.

I see Hodgman everywhere.
He lies to John Stewart on TV.
He's a celebrity punching-bag for some trendy kid named Mac.
He's even showing up on the Internet.

OK. He's had his fifteen minutes. Where is my two hours?

We had a deal.

So I dug out the book that we had used to seal our negotiations.

To my shock and horror, his name had mysteriously appeared where mine used to be. It was a Dorian Grey moment of clarity.



I should have known better than to make deals with a gentleman who is an expert on "common short and long cons" (pg. 148)

I'm not famous and my book is ruined. Some deal.

Stay Out

Three radio shows this weekend- details in the sidebar--->

Local legends The Cashmere Jungle Lords will be interviewed during the second show- back in the 1990's I used to play in a band called Mr. Sensitive with the Jungle Lord's drummer- it'll be nice seeing those guys again.
I found an old Mr. Sensitive cassette from 1997 a while back and just finished transferring the songs to my computer. I can barely remember playing or recording this stuff- that's how wasted I was- in one of the songs I sing:

I wish I could get up
off of the ground
and wipe the yellow foam
off of my mouth
how come nobody told me
this is all there was
I'm floating up
throwing up
toilets full of blood

I wrote that in the mid 1990's.
In September of 2005 it came true.

Not only was my toilet full of blood; my tub, sink and floors were all generously coated. I was projectile vomiting little bits of my esophagus and upper GI across my bathroom walls.
I had drank myself to shreds and was bleeding into myself.
Badly.
I drove myself to hospital and fainted in the ER.
They let me out a week later.

Hearing myself singing about my own future death really freaks me out. It's as if I knew what I was doing to myself and I knew exactly what the consequences were, yet I kept going.
And going.
And going.
Until I had nowhere left to go but death.

I had to decide if I wanted to live, which meant a lot of work- harder work than I'd ever done in my life- and I'm a freekin' ant when it comes to work...

OR

I could grab a 12-pack and a 1.75 of Vodka and be dead inside a week.


I haven't had a drink in eighteen months.

Listening to that old song reminds me what alcohol has to offer. That it's never going to fully go away.

It's not coming back into my life. I have too much to do.