Whoring for fun and profit

I used to be a quiet, self-effacing boy who wouldn’t put myself for­ward for any­thing, who wouldn’t say boo to a goose. Who wouldn’t even goose a goose, quite frankly. Yet maybe as a con­sequence of hav­ing a rather dif­fi­cult year in 2006, and now hav­ing too much time on my hands and not enough time on my leg(s), I have turned into a black-hearted fig­ure of self-hatred. I used to have prin­ciples. I did. Even as recently as a couple of weeks ago, there were levels I would simply not sink to when it came to pros­ti­tut­ing myself. I refused to debase my (cough) art. No more, though.

Deep breath.

okay so there is a web­log awards thing­ummy­bob going on some­where on the world wide web and I would be ever so grate­ful if you would con­sider vot­ing for me in any of the cat­egor­ies you feel most appro­pri­ate like best writ­ten that one would make me very happy because all I care about is the writ­ing after all but then again there is best kept secret because no one has heard of me or best in the UK because I live in the UK how­ever I am not going to link to the site because I want to try and keep hold of some of my fast dis­solv­ing stand­ards oh god I hate myself and I want to die because I swore I would never do this but thank you if you decide to vote for me and thank you even if you don’t because it’s not the win­ning that counts it’s the tak­ing part and isn’t that the biggest load of rub­bish you’ve ever heard I don’t know when I star­ted to need the adu­la­tion and approval of my peers but I’ve always had self-confidence and self-esteem issues don’t worry though because I have often talked about thorny sub­ject with a nice woman who wears spec­tacles looks pens­ive and sits in a book-lined room and she assures me that it’s entirely nor­mal for a screw-up such as me

Yes­ter­day, in cer­tain social circles, I was call­ing myself a Com­plete and Utter Web Tart. It was poin­ted out to me, with some relief, how lucky it was that I hadn’t instead chosen the title of Com­plete and Utter Net Tart. But that’s what I am. A Com­plete and Utter Net Tart. If I had the nerve, I have no doubt that I would adapt this site so that when a vis­itor first landed on these pages, a huge pop-up win­dow would appear con­tain­ing the logo for the awards that dare not speak their name, accom­pan­ied by a blar­ing trum­pet vol­un­tary and a flash­ing mar­quee pro­clam­ing “VOTE FOR ME! VOTE FOR ME! VOTE FOR ME!” I would prob­ably stick a few anim­ated gifs of dan­cing squir­rels in there for good meas­ure too, simply to ham­mer the point home fur­ther. For­tu­nately for all of us, I have yet to reach such sick­en­ing depths, though it can only be a mat­ter of time.

If I’m bru­tally hon­est with myself, this is prob­ably not the moment to come grov­el­ling for your love, because I only tend to foul up the whole plan some­where else. Last night, for instance, con­sumed by a bout of insom­nia, I wrote an entry about Jesus rid­ing a bicycle up and down the main cor­ridor of my flat. I sense that such a post will be greeted with a bewildered silence by all but the most equally bewildered few. But if web­logs are about any­thing, they’re about unique­ness. Aren’t they? And I am as unique as every­one else. Indeed, when it comes to being unique, we’re all exactly the same. I love blog­ging, I do, with a pas­sion bor­der­ing on insan­ity and violence.

I am cur­rently run­ning a sweepstake as to how long this post will remain here before I quietly creep back, embar­rassed and shame-faced, and delete the whole bloody thing. For now, though, I am merely going to crawl away under a rock and hide, whilst gnaw­ing at my fists and weep­ing salty, sting­ing tears of self-loathing.

Comments: 22

    I would never delete one of my posts.

    andre | 01.05.07, 15:43

    There is noth­ing wrong with dan­cing squirrels.

    Tickle | 01.05.07, 15:58

    Remem­ber there is no dele­tion.
    Eras­ure is merely the additon of silence.

    blatherskite | 01.05.07, 16:12

    here’s the ‘i’ that’s the addi­tion to the above !
    Sloppy me.

    blatherskite | 01.05.07, 16:26

    Et tu, Wit­ness? My God, but the blatant Bloggie-pimping that’s going on every­where is of a whole dif­fer­ent order to pre­vi­ous years. Some of us just quietly add a dis­creet link to our side­bars and hope for the best!

    Any­way, it’s all too late. I *might* have nom­in­ated you, had I been aware of this volte-face — but in fact I delib­er­ately ruled you out, purely on the grounds that you hated blog­ging awards and hence would wel­come the expos­ure. Sheesh, one *tries* to do the right thing…

    mike | 01.05.07, 16:28

    For “wel­come” in the pre­vi­ous com­ment, please sub­sti­tute “abhor”. Sorry. Girls Aloud are play­ing very loudly in my ears and my thoughts are get­ting scrambled.

    mike | 01.05.07, 16:30

    Yax­lich has already voted for you and would have done so without the whor­ing bit.

    Yaxlich | 01.05.07, 16:54

    oh I vote for you every year … but then you know this

    andre | 01.05.07, 17:15

    you have my vote, but answer me this — do you have to vote in every cat­egory (Best Asian web­log, best applic­a­tion, etc etc) or can you just vote for the cat­egor­ies you like?

    annie | 01.05.07, 18:18

    Thank you, Annie. I am a tart. I accept this fact now. I have accep­ted my tart­ness. I have no moral scruples.

    As to your ques­tion, I think if you look care­fully you will find that I not only the Best Asian Web­log, but also the best applic­a­tion for web­logs. Except I’m not. Obvi­ously. I believe you don’t have to vote under every cat­egory — indeed, I think you can just vote in one if you want.

    Best wishes from your friendly neigh­bour­hood tart.

    An Unreliable Witness | 01.05.07, 18:33

    So dies the ideal of art for art’s sake. Art for profit, okay; we all need to eat dry toast and heat our cramped gar­retts. But art for purely com­pet­it­ive pur­poses, for the sat­is­fac­tion of hav­ing attrac­ted more click-happy read­ers than the other guy? Per­son­ally, I worry that I’ve sold out if I get more than three hits a day from read­ers not search­ing for wilde­beest sex (for which I cur­rently rank #4 on Google).

    But it’s you. So of course I’ll do it. It was Best Latin Amer­ican Web­log Award you were after, wasn’t it? Now, wipe away those tears of shame, pull your­self together and set about train­ing those squirrels.

    The Goldfish | 01.05.07, 18:36

    Yes, it’s true, my dearest Gold­fish. I am tem­por­ar­ily hid­ing my ideals under a large bushel. Shame on me. Because I do feel ashamed. *Sigh*

    Hav­ing said that, yes, best Latin Amer­ican web­log. And best web­log about sport. I once wrote an entry about Curl­ing, allegedly.

    The squir­rels are now highly trained kami­kaze ninjas. They don’t take no crap from no one (sic).

    An Unreliable Witness | 01.05.07, 18:39

    Wow, hell has well and truly frozen over, never thought I’d see the day etc etc. You’ll be on MySpace before you know it!

    Good luck, though.

    Vicky | 01.05.07, 19:26

    I did all my nom­in­at­ing on Wed­nes­day. I nom­in­ated you for Best Writ­ten and Best Kept Secret. So there.

    asta | 01.05.07, 19:51

    I wear spec­tacles, you know…

    Oh yes: I love you.

    I have given up on sens­ible (they were ever sens­ible?) com­ments and decided upon declar­a­tions of love for the time being. After all, aren’t all com­ments and nom­in­a­tions declar­a­tions of love really anyhow?

    Cheerful One | 01.06.07, 09:41

    Noth­ing wrong with whor­ing your­self, in fact I think more people should do it.

    By ‘people’ I am talk­ing nubile 20 some­thing females of course.

    Mr Angry | 01.06.07, 10:51

    I am think­ing of fol­low­ing Mr Angry’s advice. Only I’m not nubile. Or 20, come to that. Female, though — does it count?

    Oh, and I’ve voted for you. The squir­rels scare me.

    Silver Lining | 01.06.07, 18:30

    but i voted for you, for best writ­ten blog, even if you don’t know me and have only dis­covered you recently, so don’t be shy.

    poppycock | 01.06.07, 22:12

    I thought the Jesus entry was fuck­ing ace.

    I don’t think there’s any­thing wrong in ask­ing people to nom­in­ate you, vote for you, etc. But you know that if you don’t get short­l­is­ted or win any­thing that this means NOTHING about your writ­ing tal­ent, right?

    Because it really doesn’t. You are a good writer. End of.

    Clare | 01.07.07, 13:31

    I have voted for you cos you write lovely things. And Angry cos he writes funny things. But not Andre cos, although he writes and doodles the sweetest things, I believe he’s shy.

    Fussy Bitch | 01.07.07, 19:02

    ha ha ha ha ha ha.

    I am shy.

    andre | 01.07.07, 21:32

Leave a comment