Ask Big Daddy

Hey Big Daddy,

You’re kind of a blogger. You sit back and expound, then the results appear on the Web. Are you going to register with the Capitol Correspondents’ Association?

–CAPitol NsidR

Dear Shortz PekRD sonObitch,

How dare you lump me in with the California Maviglio Report and Bill “Exchange of Pleasantries” Bradley. I was the biggest, baddest, legislatin’ist mothermaker this cow town has ever seen. Arnold’s a droopy cigar compared to me.

Ah hell, we all know I’m just some anonymous schmuck pretending to be all that. So, point taken.

Still, I ain’t no blogger, and I’ll tell you why. Bloggers often claim to be high-minded, policy-oriented commentators who want to make the world a better place. This usually lasts until three seconds after someone criticizes them on their comments section, when it all devolves into snarky insults and extended soliloquies about the writer’s genetic history.

I just make snarky comments and don’t claim high-minded anything. So even behind my wall of secrecy, I’m more honest.

Then there’s that word. A blog sounds like something you step in. Come to think of it, that’s pretty accurate.

I know that blogs already have become an accepted part of daily political life. I hear there’s even a plan to make a Blogspot address part of the severance package for state jobs. And I’m sure lots of important information, like how incredible freakin’ stupid everybody is, never would have gotten out without blogs. Still, I’m an old-fashioned guy. If I tree didn’t die in the transmission process, it ain’t news.

Anyhow, to register with the overpriced lunch series and hideous photo club, you gotta get some percentage of your income from your blog. Now I ain’t smart enough to divide by zero. Let’s just say the Capitol Weekly hired a dead guy to write this column because they couldn’t find a living person willing to pay for the privilege.

Now let’s say I was able to overcome my corporeal problem by inhabiting somebody’s body (I’d choose Karen Hanretty, except she’d start making sense and people would get real suspicious). (Crap, I think I just blogged.) Then I might be able to talk Capitol Weekly into getting me a real press credential, like other papers do for their “bloggers.”

Of course, when a paper says their going to launch a blog, I can’t help but picture an MBA with zero real world experience, locked in a room thinking of ways to slash the editing payroll. Though that young MBA may be onto something–in this era of the insult-driven news cycle, a couple of bile-spewing ex-employees can only help. Someone oughta blog about that.