A PSA for B@J's

To quote the great Usher, this is my confession. Well, it's not really a confession, more like an explanation? Eh. A general understanding? Alright, alright now I'm getting further from whatever it is I'm trying to do here. For some time now I've been at a loss of what to blog about. It's not so much a time thing, or a question of if I still have my writing fastball, but its really more of what the hell can I blog about these days?

I started this blog back in 2009 because I couldn't fall asleep at night. Pecking away at a keyboard was like one of those rainmakers that help make you fall asleep at night. For clarification, I'm not talking about the Pacman Jones at a strip club type of rainmaker.

 Maybe it was being in college then versus being 27 now, but life was just simpler back then. In a way there was more quality material to work with, and fewer people watering things down. Jersey Shore was a fucking goldmine of blog material back when it came out. I can still remember people staying in to watch Jersey Shore on MTV (those bastards) before going to bars on Thursday nights (dollar drink night!) my sophomore year. We survived without opening Instagram and a hundred different meme accounts making the same joke with the same picture of Snooki making the boardwalk of shame, with each meme account taking credit for it. Get what I'm saying? There's a bit of overexposure that kind of takes away the creative juices to blog.

A gift to us all.

I've never really treated this thing too seriously. In fact, I'd even say most of it was plain stoopid, but it always made me pleased as punch when someone would tell me they enjoyed a post, got pissed over a post, or most importantly, laughed at a post. My senior year some junior who I had never met bought me a Bud light at a now defunct college hole-in-the-wall bar because he had stumbled across this thing and said it was funny. At that point, it was my greatest accomplishment from this thing. I had approximately 0 goals for this thing, and I had received a $3 Bud light out of it, so it was a real win for me. Fast forward a few years and it's kind of in a no man's land in the blogosphere. The motivation just hasn't really been there.

I did some spring cleaning today and stumbled across my big print debut for DOJO zine. I was on cloud nine when this dude Dylan generously agreed to my email request about wanting to write a music piece for him, and when I saw it up on a website and later in a magazine that you could physically hold (even with Kirwan misspelled) it really sank in that this might be something to chase after. After that, I toiled away writing for free for some British music site that seemed to be a rudderless ship. After a number of broken promises, despite me always living up to my end various bargains, I finally said it wasn't worth it and stopped writing for them. I know this is going to really make me sound like a total badass (I'm joking, because in today's day and age, someone will take that line seriously), but it fucking sucked being edited and getting my work turned into plain, ordinary, bland stuff. Who the hell likes bland? I fought the good fight for myself and told them that what I had written was good (it was, I swear) and that I have faith in my style, while they wanted it to be more 'professional', which really sucked the fun out of the whole thing. You compare one song favorably with an ADHD joke and suddenly you're being scolded. Jesus. It wasn't like I was getting paid for it. Personally, I believe in my writing style. I think it's kinda unique. I don't want to be the AP or using some cookie cutter format for how I write an album review. How incredibly boring. I liked my writing to be like how I enjoy my margaritas: with a hint of spice. That sounded much better in my head.

Many of my heroes have been able to take the boring and turn it into exciting. My Grandpa Kenny had the unique capability to somehow turn any situation into a fun time. I swear he never had a bad day or a boring moment in his 91 years, he was just one of those guys. It mystifies me to this very day how he could make things like long, hot car trips to southern Rhode Island  (insert joke here) exciting and funny. I'm saying this not only by going back in my childhood, but even still in my 20's. Things were always interesting when he was around. One of my favorite writers is Charles Bukowski. I love his writing because he's able to paint a picture without any flowery language. He just called it like he saw it, didn't bullshit anything, and it worked out for him beautifully. He could take a bar scene in a story and get 15 pages without using a single SAT word, and it would be interesting. Was he a dirty old man that drank waaaay too much? Absolutely! Was he an interesting character? You butter believe it. I hope to be able to take the boring and try to get a rise out of things.

These days, between everyone being pissed off at everything and everyone else in general, it feels like you have to walk on eggshells wherever you go. No one can say anything, no one can assume anything, no one is ever on the same page. I blame social media for this, but that's just the world we live in. Twitter was fantastic when it first took off. Tweet about a show, crack a joke about Madonna, tell a hockey player he sucks and he might just reply back saying that you suck. Now I open up Twitter and I'll see some recycled joke followed by a retweet of a report about something shitty that Trump did, then fake rumor about Tom Brady and these will be sandwiched between a tweet calling the Kardashians #goals and a tweet from someone thinking that Lil Uzi Vert is actually good. It sucks the life out of us mere mortals. Are we allowed to be funny anymore? It hit me about an hour ago that this is sort of a challenge. Why the hell not try to find things to make fun of still, like the glory days (?) of this blog. Coachella sucks these days, why not make fun of that? I think I can have some fun making fun of those flower crown wearing assholes who go to a desert to watch the Weeknd lipsynch in hopes of getting their likes on Instagram in the triple digits. Shit, I should write the rest of this rant in a new tab. Twitter may be a lost cause but I can still have fun on here, right?! RIGHT!?

seriously, what happened to Coachella?

Over the years on this blog I've covered head-scratching one hit wonders from Asher Roth's 'I Love College' to Rebecca Black's 'Friday' (still my personal favorite blog). I have done Pop Culture March Madness brackets, I gave out a Man of the Year award once (Bruce Jenner in 2010, by the way. Little did we know!), had a 3 blog installment on why Catholic School Girls Rock, wrote about my love for Carly Rae Jepsen when 'Call Me Maybe' swept the nation, tried finding my buddy Tyler a Valentine, somehow got 172,421 views on a parody interview about wigs, and shared with you all my pure, utter hatred for the Christmas Shoes song which resulted in an argument with my grandmother during Christmas one year. I've had some fun with this thing.

I admit, these days I've been focusing on a bunch of short stories and a screenplay (ambitious!), so the blogging has taken a backseat, but I oddly have a new ambition to make fun of things in pop culture again. Maybe it is due to the jinx removal Voodoo doll I just bought in New Orleans, or maybe it was the aforementioned spring cleaning that inspired me, but I'm going to really try to get this thing rolling again. There have been hits and misses over the years, and there certainly will be more of both to come, but why not give it another whirl? Maybe I'll even get another Bud light out of it.

He really pulls the room together.

All I know is, I'm gonna write what I want, how I want and just hope it works. With Voodoo on my side, how can I fail?