Daily Loaf

Every now and then in class, I mention “the library” and look out to see rows of blank faces. Time to explain myself again.

“It’s like the Internet, only it’s printed out,” I tell my students. “It’s this big building across campus . . . surely you’ve seen it? Has a million or so books?”

Blank stares again. “Books! You know, sort of like a blog that’s been printed out?”

There are a couple of Florida writers, longtime bloggers, whose work has now been preserved the old fashioned way: in books. It’s probably not much different than the old days when writers serialized their work in popular magazines like the Saturday Evening Post and Collier’s.

But for a semi-old fashioned guy like me, it’s so much handier – and more handsome – to tote around books, rather than carrying a laptop. Because this is the kind of writing you want to read aloud to friends and a book is a lot easier than saying, “Hey, hang on. As soon as I open my laptop and link to the network and type in the URL, I got some really funny shit for you.”

In this case, the really funny shit comes from two Florida writers, both in their early 40s, with connections to the Bay Area – Lance Carbuncle from Tampa and Patrick Hughes (at left, in his younger days) from Gainesville by way of (long ago) Tarpon Springs.

Let’s start with Hughes, because his wonderful book, Diary of Indignities (MPress Books, $14.95) has been out for some time.

It’s basically his life story, from his blog, Bad News Hughes. He’s since put that blog into hibernation and now maintains The Domesticated Shithead. The change reflects Hughes’s life, so his Diary is sort of like Pat Hughes: The Early Years. Indeed, from the cover —  a disturbing photobooth portrait of Hughes at 8 (an estimate) — we see the whole catastrophe of his life laid bare.

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I’m a frequent reader of secret blog sites.  I love knowing what other people are hiding, the secrets dieing to be told, and professing my own secrets from time to time.  I came across a particular secret, or maybe better described as a desire on a site called cavecanum.  The author suggested that there should be a symbol for finding someone willing to engage in oral sex with a stranger, kind of like the handkerchief code for gay men. The writer of secret #80903 says Read the rest of this entry »

Like Clay Aiken, except, you know, cool.

Sex and American Idol may not be synonymous, but this year things are a little different.  Enigmatic performer Adam Lambert is very close to taking the crown.  But sadly it seems many people aren’t as focused on his talent as they are on whether he’ll wear it as king…or queen.

(Video and
intrigue after the jump)

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What I’m pissed off about this morning today:

That it’s Heart Attack Monday. Which means I feel like I’m having a nine-hour-long heart attack. And that I couldn’t get this post up sooner.

How the tables have turned: Remember a few years back when old-guard journalists dismissed bloggers as “guys in pajamas,” i.e., cranky assholes with an ax to grind against the liberal media? I do, because I was attending grad school around that time at USF St. Pete’s Department of Journalism.
Fast forward four years: I’m sitting in my pajamas as I type this. In fact, with our “digital or die” dictate from on high, a good portion of my weekends are spent in my pj’s, working ahead on blog posts or figuring out how to keep feeding the beast. Hmm, maybe this isn’t so bad after all …

The insufferably cutesy Point After by Gary Shelton and John Romano.

ESPN writers not named Gregg Easterbrook or Bill Simmons who think they can write funny.

That the Cowboys couldn’t cover the spread against the Bengals.