Once upon a time in the blog world

Carolyn Kay, of Make Them Accountable---which is over at the top of my blog roll in the To Be Read First Thing In The Morning group, because it's one of the blogs I read first thing in the morning, and so should you---has posted a link to a post of mine from June of 2005.

This one:  A little jello wrestling, a little cheesecake, and voila!  Problem solved!

In it I was trying to suggest ways of calling more attention to the smaller blogs that were at the time being ignored by many of the A list bloggers.

Sample quote:

More cheesecake!

I think women bloggers should post lots of pictures of themselves in lingerie or swimsuits.

I think male bloggers should post lots of pictures of their wives and girlfriends in lingerie or swimsuits.

That's sexist, you say?  Why shouldn't we male bloggers also pose in our boxers and swim trunks?

Think about it.  Do you really want us to?  Seriously, if we looked good stripped down do you think we'd be spending all our time online blogging?  No way.  We'd be out there flaunting the goods and hitting on hot chicks in miniskirts, even hot chicks in miniskirts who don't have their own blogs.

Nope.  The world will be a happier, more beautiful place if we remain invisible.  But we all have attractive wives and girlfriends and we should make the most of our great and totally inexplicable good fortune.

As you can see, I was never afraid to tackle the tough issues of the day.

I appreciate the link, and many thanks to Carolyn for posting it, although I can't help wondering why she chose that one now.  A lot has changed since I wrote it, in the blog world and about this particular blog.

You'll notice that when I wrote about women whose blogs were as mainly political and as tough-minded as any of the Big Dog male bloggers I left out a few names.

Christy Hardin Smith and Jane Hamsher of Firedoglake, for instance.  Digby.  Maha.  Hilzoy. Bunches of others.

But then I don't think firedoglake was up and running yet, and very, very few people had guessed digby was a woman.  I thought she was a gay man, myself.  I don't know why.  Some I left out because they weren't blogging yet.  Others because I was still fairly ignorant about what was going on in West Blogtopia (TM Skippy) outside of my very narrow little circle.

I still don't know about as many blogs as I should, no matter the gender of their writers.

But although I can't be sure if there are more women blogging about politics nowdays, it does seem to me that some of the Big Dog bloggers are doing a much better job of linking to women bloggers'' posts.  The complaint I hear from some of my women blogger friends and colleagues is that the top tier male bloggers are still not paying attention to certain issues that are important to women.

So things have gotten a little better that way in two years.

As for the changes at this place...

Back then, I still thought I was writing for the amusement of myself, three or four friends, and the occasional accidental visitor who'd arrived looking for naked pictures of Scarlett Johansson, still one of the top Google searches luring innocent strangers here.

I was beginning to get linked to by some important big name bloggers, Mr Wolcott being the biggest and most importantest, but it hadn't sunk in that that meant serious people---people with better things to do than read my thoughts on the need for more blog babe cheesecake---were reading what I wrote.

There are days---weeks---when I still feel like I'm writing just for myself and three or four friends, minus the three or four friends---but unless my stat counter's lying to me, I may not be one of the Big Dog bloggers, but I'm far from a solitary voice shouting into the wilderness.  I'm one lucky blogger, I think.

Also, back then I was just getting to know other bloggers as friends and hadn't met any of your analog selves.  That's not the case anymore.

All this is just to say that while I'm grateful to Carolyn for the link I'm a bit embarrassed by the post itself now.

But just the cheesecake parts.

My real point is still a good one.

My other real point.

And that point is that over on our side of the bandwidth there are a great many bloggers who are also fine writers and insightful and incisive cultural critics.  It's one of our side's strengths and we don't take enough advantage of it.   Over on the Right end of the bandwidth they write about movies, TV, music, literature, comic books and graphic novels, and other things besides politics too, but they tend to do it in stupid, uninformed, historically and culturally ignorant, jejune, and, worst of all, politically correct ways.

Which is why I believe the A list bloggers would be doing all of us, and by us I mean liberals and progressives, a favor if they linked more often to non-political posts.   

For one thing, it would give us something specifically to point to when blogophobic journalists and academics working happily and comfortably in the traditional media complain that we're just a bunch of ranting, foul-mouthed, opinion-mongerers blinded by our irrational hatred of George W. Bush.

For another, our good writing, more than our good politics and thoughtful and well-considered arguments, is what is going to attract and keep the attention of people passing through and while I mean people who aren't as politically committed, or as interested in politics, as we are, I also think that we can snag a lot of conservatives too.

If they like what we have to say about movies and music and sports they might hang around to hear what we have to say about S-CHIP.

So, Big Dogs, in case you're wondering where to start linking, it's National Comedy Week and to celebrate they're still yukking it up over at newcritics.  Some funny stuff there about serious stuff and some serious stuff about funny stuff, including a post by thoughtful conservative Jon Swift who writes about his favorite Woody Allen comedy, the film Jon believes is the Woodman's all-time funniest...Interiors.

Another good place to start is Kit Stolz's thoughts on Into the Wild, both Jon Krakauer's book and the new Sean Penn-directed movie.

And, although there's no point in my recommending him because I'm sure you all read his blog every day already, there's this excellent post by Jim Wolcott on Seinfeld-envy.

As for my calender idea, well, although having met a number of bloggers, male and female, in person since then, I'm convinced we could fill all twelve months with some stunning cheese and beefcake, I think it's an idea we should just let die.  There's a rather prominent (double entendre intended) woman blogger on the Right whose blog is named after one of the worst novels ever written and she's put together and is selling on her site her own calender.  Twelves months of Objectivist pulchritude.

It's scary.

Not that the blogger looks all that bad in a bathing suit.  She's no Scarlett Johansson, but she's far from an eyesore on the beach., and of course there's nothing wrong with her wanting to have take nice photographs taken of herself or with her wanting to share them with people.  I refer to her thinking that people will gladly pay money to look at those pictures.

The fact that there is someone so unbridled in their narcissism running around loose outside of Hollywood is too terrifying to contemplate.

Better if we don't follow her into that cave.

Comments

[merciless]

My brother used to be a deejay, and he had a similar feeling, that he was just talking to himself in that little cinderblock room. So one day, as an experiment, he left off a bit of the morning farm report. Maybe the barrows, maybe the gilts, I don't remember.

Anyway, the irate phone calls he received were just the reassurance he needed that he was not alone in the world.

My reading of the big blogs is that many have plenty of non-political stuff in them. Matt Yglesias blogs about the NBA, LGM does movie reivews, and Tbogg posts cheesecake all the time (both kinds, yummy), not to mention Thursday Basset blogging. Susie Madrak gives regular astrological updates, tristero over at Digby's place blogs about all kinds of stuff, and for humor, you can't beat trex at Firedoglake.

And then there's Wolcott.

[Kevin Hayden Onassis]

Gender and sex, gender and sex. Criminy, isn't there a place left where a guy can go without being nagged?

"You never pay attention to me... unless you want some."

"I'm as smart as you, pay me the same!"

"My butt doesn't look fat in this, right? RIGHT?!!!"

They'll never be satisfied, unless you buy them something. Or learn all that laborious stuff so they can have an occasional orgasm and claim theirs are better. Yeah, right.

Aristotle Onassis was quoted saying (I paraphrase, because remembering is hard) " What's so hard to understand about women? You take them shopping. You make love. Easy."

[Linkmeister]

But, but...I thought you had to specialize if you wanted attention!

Which is why I don't get much; I'm (politely) a generalist, or (impolitely) a popinjay.