A Disgusting Appeal for Attention

  It’s true, I’m going into self-promotion mode and I’m doing it with my usual “style.” The blog is about to pass 750,000 lifetime hits and, at this pace, might hit 1,000,000 by the end of the year. I missed commemorating the 500,000 milestone late last year, so I’m compensating.

Since I’m retired, old, lazy, and desperate for attention and a little side income, I’ve decided to actually try to promote this website/blog. However, I am not willing to put actual money into this promotion; at least no noticeable ore regrettable amount of money. Even more disgusting, my promotion is going to be totally self-serving, unscientific, and as alienating as possible. I may not learn from actual smart people, but I figure if I take the tactics of huge, horribly managed, completely incompetent corporations (like Volkswagen and Chrysler and Bank of America) what can go wrong?

So, here’s the promotion.

Very soon, I’m going to start posting occasional book reviews. When the book review goes on line, I’m going to be watching your comments and the comment/commenter that/who makes me laugh the hardest is going to get a copy (the one I reviewed) of the book reviewed in the blog. Because I’m going to be motivated to keep the personal possessions pile small, the decision will come within a week or two (no pressure on me to meet a schedule) after I post the review so that I’m not tempted to put the book on a shelf. To keep this who promotion on the disgusting level with which I generally live and am comfortable, the first book “reviewed” will be a copout: Hell on Wheels: An Illustrated History of Outlaw Motorcycle Clubs. It’s not going to be much of a review, as you might imagine my interest in the subject is . . . non-existent. Really non-existent. The best I could do was a single speed-reading scan of the “text” and brainless quotes and there is nothing in my opinions and observations that any magazine on earth would be willing to print. If I thought my blog were printed, I might not even submit these mindless words to my own blog.

Regardless, it’s a free book. I’m paying for the packaging and shipping and the publisher paid for the book. It will be in near-new condition, since I will have been the only person who read the book. The way, in the past or future, you’ll be able to tell that there is a free book involved will be that my brand new, stolen from a professional motto (at right) will be randomly included in the review. There will, I hope, be some other book reviews posted here that won’t include book giveaways because the author sent me a copy and they contain a personal note. So if the smartass “pissing everyone off is a piece of cake” stamp of disapproval is not included, either is the contest. For now, don’t worry about it. I have two more books in the mill that will be of interest to someone: Greg Frazier’s Down and Out in Patagonia, Kamchatka, and Timbuktu and Ian Falloon’s The Art of Ducati. Depending on who gives me what to review, there might be other sorts of products in this promotion in the near future, too.

Bring it on and feel free to be angry, disappointed, disgusted, and/or pissed off at my decisions.

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