In Response

Hey gang, I'm back from my trip to New York City, which maybe you'll get to hear about later. (It involves Drunken Swedes and Phone Booth Urination. Superkeen!)

This entry is in response to the final comment posted on the AICN retaliation entry down below. Read it if you want, it really doesn't make much difference.

I wrote the American Dreamz review as a way of purging myself of the genuine frustration I felt at having wasted my night sitting through such a disappointing film, a movie that could have hit the mark numerous times and failed miserably. I wrote that review for me, and posted it on my blog as usual so that my friends could read it. The only thing that urged me to send it to AICN was the hope that I could prevent other people from having to see it, forgetting that the base core of AICN talkbackers are exceptionally rabid about their opinions, even to the point of furiously scribing on things that could barely impact their lives in any way (reviews of a review? come the fuck on!). I really didn't expect anyone to care about how hastily I'd thrown the review together or how purposefully vulgar I'd made it. I figured that since even the webmaster on AICN writes his reviews like a rambling Catholic priest delivering a 3-hour Easter sermon, it wouldn't matter if I'd drafted this shit or not.
The truth is, it doesn't, either way.
I don't care whether you like my review or my blog. When I call my shit "The Worst of Me," you should get a clear indication of the quality of material I think people on the internet who regularly read blogs deserve. I write because its a good exercise to do so frequently, and I treat my blog like freewriting. If I hit on something that works, so be it, maybe it'll get life again in a form that matters. In holding expectations for my blog against other blogs as a form of public entertainment, the same type of writing you'd get in an actual published work, you're doing both yourself and blogs in general a disservice. These things are intrinsically tied to the people and motives behind them, and giving base rules for quality across the board isn't always going to help you in your enjoyment of them. Sometimes you have to accept the format for what it is: kind of a joke. Even popular internet writers like Seanbaby and Maddox don't really hold up to legitimate writers on page when it comes to the quality of the material they output. The fact remains, that they don't need to, and shouldn't be expected to. It'd be wonderful if everyone on the internet could structure their shit like Dave Barry or David Sedaris (or Dave Foley? he's pretty sweet) and had the time to edit and construct masterful pieces for our entertainment. But most people need to make money somehow. It's true that you can impress people by sheer quality of your work, and some people even land jobs because of it, but these success stories are few and far between. My friend Tim made it happen, and he consistently outputs entertaining material, and through his skillful mastery of both comedy writing and internet publishing he's managed to secure a really choice fanbase. I think that's fantastic, and would love to be able to do something like that someday, but I also know it's not my focus right now, and if I really wanted people to like my shit, I'd have to make some major time commitments that I don't have room for at the moment.
Recently I was just offered a position writing for a website another friend of mine is putting together, based on her knowledge of my writings and stand-up. That's the reason this stuff is out there, to give people a glimpse into what makes me me, some raw, unpolished material that they can draw their own conclusions from while simultaneously letting me stumble across some new jokes. I honestly wish I had the time to make things better, but until I do, deal with what you get, and stop bitching. I'm offering a service, and if you don't like it, feel free to eat it. Sending me an e-mail or posting a negative comment is not going to change the fact that I do this blog or make me rethink how I do it. Unless I personally know you, your input means nothing to me. If you believe one review, you have to believe all of them, and since this is the internet, I choose to believe none of them.
It's this kind of ridiculous, idealistic faith in the societal advancements to be achieved through the internet that makes people believe in Wikipedia over an actual encyclopedia. Buy a fucking clue. When your material is a product of the same dumbfucks you see on an everyday basis, pissing on toilet seats and cutting you off on the highway, you have to accept that most people (myself included) are self-promoting assholes who just want another medium to talk about themselves with as little censorship as possible. It's part of the Garden State-esque "God, I'm so important but why doesn't anyone understand me" sentiment of the generation. My blog began as a way of avoiding talking about myself, but there's no way to do that fully. Funny things happen to me and sometimes I want to share them. I don't feel like a hypocrite for knowing what I like and don't like. I honestly don't consider bloggers and talkbackers to be the same definitive type of internet personality. Blogs are about creating something regardless of quality, and message boards are about analyzing, deconstructing and often, tearing apart something someone else has created. It's the basic difference between additive and subtractive forms of art, not that I'd really qualify either as an artform.
In conclusion, I'm going to keep doing this, regardless of criticism. I'm writing this to point out two things: (1.) Everything I write is invariably meaningless, because it's written on the internet. (2.) Everything you write in critique of what I'm blogging falls into some ridiculous sub-category of meaninglessness, devoid of entertainment value or creative worth. My shit may be pointless, but at least I'm making a few people laugh. What're you doing?

Thanks to all my friends and fans who read my shit and laugh, even when it is poorly written and underdrafted. You guys deserve more for sticking with me, even in the low points. The problem with internet publishing is that in its immediacy, the direct connection between publisher and audience, there comes a remarkable neediness in certain fans for the quality of the work to be consistently brilliant every time. Gabe and Tycho hit slumps all the time. Some strips are considerably funnier than others. But I'll be damned if they haven't created one of the greatest webcomics---fuck it, comics in any format-- in Penny Arcade.

They can't all be winners, folks. And until you develop the ability to discern the difference between a writer's affected persona and the reality of the person, you're going to end up being pissed at a lot of people who don't know or care you exist.