The Importance of Being Less Earnest

“Hail to thee, blithe spirit!
Bird thou never wert….” – Shelley, “To A Skylark”

I arose this morning to greet the rosy-fingered dawn with a song on my lips and a tongue in my cheek. After dressing, pulling my sandals onto my comely feet and girding myself with my rapier wit, I left my room looking like an immortal god.

“What can I do today to make the world a better place for all creatures great and small?” I asked myself as I strode confidently out into the new day. “I’m pretty crispy with two-fisted justice meting; perhaps I can think of something else that would serve as well.”

Consequently, I arrived at the coffee shop this beautiful Monday morning brimming with energy and full of determination to somehow enhance the American zeitgeist (as if that were possible). “How can I accomplish this glorious mission?” I pondered. “Perhaps I can pursue my avid interest in neurosurgery and lobotomize some of the freaks in this café so that the rest of the patrons can actually read the newspaper in peace.” After looking into it further, however, I realized that this was not feasible. Due to some management oversight, the coffee shop in question did not have a skull saw or surgical gloves available to its patrons.

My next thought was to distribute alms to the poor. Then I recalled overhearing about “Dutch Alm Disease”, which I assumed was something that first reared its ugly head in the Netherlands, afflicting those unfortunate souls who were unlucky enough to have their entire lifestyle supported by the government with no need to work whatsoever. I would not wish this upon the poor of our country; besides which I’m poor and seem to be between alms right now.

As a last result, I decided I would create a brand-new web log on the Internet dedicated to promulgating sweetness, light, charity and good will towards men (and men-like people). “There can’t be anything like that already,” I confidently thought to myself, as I clambered aboard the 54 Mbps express train to the wonderful world of blogging.

Boy, was I wrong. It seems the blogverse abounds with sincere, earnest and well-intentioned middle-aged Christian white women (with cats) who have created blogs dedicated to turning all the rest of us into sincere, earnest and well-intentioned Christians (of any age or race) who are just happy as hell all of the time and skip about through life doing good deeds and praying for people’s immortal souls. The saccharine tenor of these web logs makes the Reader’s Digest seem like Satan’s own tool on Earth.

It’s then that it struck me: the good deed I can do is to give these poor fuckers some marketing advice. The problem with nearly all these sites is that the only people who would possibly read anything on them (besides me, of course) are people who are already identical in nature and intellect to the people writing the blogs. I imagine what results is sort of a “sweetness and light” competition, with each blogger trying to outdo the next in syrupy sayings and Holly Hobby images. What they really need, if they want to make a difference in the world with their efforts, is to lure the profligate and the profane (like me, of course) to their web logs so that they can make someone “have a nice life” who really needs it.

I propose that these people start writing blog entries like “Anal Sex the Right Way” and “Fellatio Techniques of the Ancients”. Once they sucker us in, after a few lurid sentences they can start inserting things like “nice girls don’t get fucked in the ass” and “no matter what your boyfriend says, Jesus doesn’t really want you to swallow.” By the time we realize that we’ve been had, it will be too late. We will have been exposed to the lily-white values of better people than us, and we might just start to question our lifestyles and turn into smugly self-righteous pantywaists ourselves. “Should I really go with this drunken, horny and voluptuous 27-year-old brunette to the bar parking lot and screw her to within an inch of her life, or should I just leave this den of iniquity and go home and listen to ‘Ultimate Yanni’ and drink chai?” you may find yourself asking. “Maybe I’m not really cut out to be a crack whore”, you’ll think to yourself. “Perhaps I’ll start doing good works for the Lord and collecting ‘Hello Kitty’ figurines instead.” Just think of all the lives that can be turned around if my marketing suggestions are implemented.

So get on it, you blogging Christian zealots. You can make a difference after all. And if it turns out that my advice indeed proves useful, you can throw money at me via the email address in my blog bio section. How much? Let your conscience be your guide.

- Hulles