Thursday, May 27, 2004
 sharp-eyed reader rick rock was correct in noticing that the paper of record didnt mention my age in today's article on bloggers.
did they ask me my age? yes.
did they ask several times over several phone calls? yes.
did i ever give them my actual age? hell no.
if i havent told you, my dear readers, why would i tell strangers just because theyre being persistant?
i dont give my age on the blog for lots of reasons, and I told the NY Times, who i respect and admire.
the first being that age is rarely relevant in any discussion that doesnt have to do with statutory rape, bilking social security, or underage drinking.
but mostly i am interested in having my stories and my writings judged solely on the tales and the storytelling.
age only allows for generalizations and discriminations that arent necessarilly the truth. when i say that im 110 years old, im saying that im old. isnt that enough?
we live in a time where youth is foolishly glamourized and idealized and allowed special treatment despite the fact that even though some kids are incredible, most are dumbassed twits who look good in miniskirts because they're, well, young.
for example, if youre a marginal singer and youre 16 years old, you can be the runner-up for American Idol. but if youre a dynamite singer and over 25 you cant even audition. thats fucked up, particuliarly because i just saw Prince, who is no longer a teenager, kick everyones ass, of any age, several times over.
why cant the media figure out a way to get him in front of 50 million tv viewers?
because the media has a hardon for the "next big thing" and they turn their backs on established stars the minute they drop out of the top 40.
the media's obsession with youth is no different than other forms of agism that i have to battle on the daily.
for example, if a young woman wants to make out with a 110 year old blogger suddenly everyone claims that shes being taken advantage of, and the blogger is branded as some sexcrazed cradlerobber-- even if the dirty old man is far cooler and takes better care of her than some pimplefaced freak with a slipknot tshirt, herpes, and a permanant boner.
my stupid age in relation to a fluff peice about obsessive blogging has absolutely nothing to do with the story, and the exclusion of my age subracted zero from the tale being spun.
the habit that the NYT and other papers and magazines have of including ages in the descriptions of their subjects is lazy journalism that distorts the story in more cases than adding to them.
 who cares that "joe schmoe, 57, owner of Local Icecream Shop" who got robbed tuesday is 57 years old? it's only useful information if joe was 157 or 15, because then it would possibly be the cause of the robbery. and thats why i call the blanket use of ages lazy journalism.
i have great respect for the new york times. far more respect than i have for the la times, my local rag. but not everything they do is perfect.
i dont have a girlfriend. i never said to the reporter that i had a girlfriend. i told a perfect antedote about how my obsessive blogging lead to strife with a girl who had spent the night at my house.
i said that she heard me wake up at 6am, and asked me to wake her up at 7:30am so we could be on time for work.
what happened was i blogged until 8:10am and woke her up after i was done and that led us to being late which re-started a long going little arguement that she has with me that i should spend the night more often at her house, so that we wouldnt be so late in the mornings.
but because i dont like her setup as it irritates the carpel tunnel that i fight with BECAUSE of my obsessive blogging, and because i dont like using iMacs, oftentimes she spends the night at my house.
but in this world where writers want everything to fit in a perfect box of "girlfriends" "age 111" and "scheduler" you miss out on the fine details of human experience, and in this case, in an interesting tale.
for the record i didnt even bother to tell them that i was an undercover agent in the xbi and i told them the one lie that i tell all reporters, that i am a scheduler for a large entertainment company.
to which they say cool and go back to trying to get me to reveal my age.
which matters less than where i work and what astrological sign i am.
and yes, this might be the last interview that i grant the press because these things never turn out the way i hope they will. which is "Fucking A: Tony Pierce the Man!"
but at least today my mom will be proud that her son is in a fancy ass paper for mostly good reasons.
and im very suprised and grateful that they linked me directly in their electronic version.
grateful because no i can invite the thousands of hits that they sent me to one of my all-time favorite "obsessive" bloggers, jay mccarthy, whose home burned down the other day and is now feeling gulity that his blog-reading is falling behind. thats the sort of guy he is.
jay's site, makeoutcity.com, is the epitome of a good blogger who appreciates the blogs and spends a great amount of time reading and writing about the whole whateverthisis.
# | |
Previously on busblog...
|
