Tuesday, February 21, 2006

The Art of Self-Deprecation

Good morning, more than five.
I do realize more than five readers have been here. I have evidence in the comments. However, I refuse to believe more than five people check here everyday hoping I've exercised my captivating wit, and more than five people are somewhat dissapointed to find that I update at inconstant intervals. I refuse this idea simply because it's bad for my writing. If I found out I had legions of readers, I'd get way too nervous and either update every day in a desperate attempt to please them and end of churning out crap and interrupting my social life, or I would stop updating completely out of fear of offending or wasting your time.
See, internet popularity is not my shtick. Self-deprecation, that's where I'm at. I was going through my own entries the other night, and I realized in the beginning I was writing like, well, an asshole. Maybe I figured if I wrote like I was confident and had legions of adoring fans, I would get them? Anyway, I'm glad I quickly went the self-deprecation route. Every comedian I admire is at least somewhat self-depreciating. By the way, I'm quite into comedians. Not as much as I'm into, hmm, musicals, but moreso than I'm into, say, cars or food or music. Not to say I don't utilize cars, food, and music; I'd just choose comedy over them. I love Eddie Izzard for his habit of self-deprecation, along with his enourmous wit and impeccable style. Confidence is great, but at some point, you have to admit you're as pointless as anyone else.

I bring all of this up because of two things that came to my attention the other day. First of all, I realized my entry on the Inspiration episode had been linked to not once, but twice. By the way, those not links not safe for work, school or small children.
They're the same piece in different places, but still. How did they find me? Do they read me regularly? Am I popular on the internet? (By the way, that's a dumb flash cartoon, I just felt it was appropriate. Also, probably more disturbing to small children than Fleshbot or This Week in Porn.)
Last night, when I explained my realization that the girl's board proclaiming "I LOVE RED", "I MISS U" and "I LOVE REDMAN" were probably messages from Kara to her red-headed fiance, I dropped a link to here to explain my uncommon obsession. Someone replied telling me that she not only read my blog, she RSS read it. Not kidding: I was immediately sure it was a typo. I didn't think that was possible. Honestly, I wasn't even sure exactly what that meant.
Look, if you and all of your friends check my blog every morning, I think that's great, keep it up- just don't let me know about it. Keep me in the illusion that I have a dozen or less loyal readers wandering over from BPR that I am aiming to entertain. Otherwise, you all might miss my upcoming tribute to Miss Piggy, and gosh, how would you go on?

In more relevant news, I'm going to Ithaca, New York this week to visit the boy and have an interview at Ithaca College. I'm leaving on Thursday. Which means my comments on the reunion (and I'm sure I'll have some gushing ones for my old underdogs) might not get up until I come back, on Monday. I'll try to slap something up on Thursday, but no promises. Don't worry, I'll come back with pictures, and maybe even some amusing anecdotes.

Oh, one more thing: I dropped the link to The Weekly Asshole, because D.Wils and I are too time-consumed to get really angry at someone every Monday. If our rage resurfaces, I'll put the link back up. I replaced it with a link to Queerty, following in the theme of "other blogs I actually read".

edit: yes, I misused "self-depreciation" rather than "self-deprecation". I had the latter originally, but fear of mispellings led me to online dictionaries, which only further confounded me.