It turns out maintaining a blog while taking on increasing responsibilities at work and trying to finish my Masters degree and trying to maintain some semblance of a personal life is a bit tricky. Plus, I think Facebook statuses suck up an alarming amount of my wit (or potential wit). But before I throw in the towel and start a Twitter, I’m going to try my hand at one of those lazy Larry King round-ups of commentary, reviews and “observations.” (Actually, I’ve never really seen a full installment of Mr. Suspenders’ program, so I’m really just aping those even lazier parodic send-ups of Larry King.) Either these are placeholders for bigger, better posts or else they are the aborted remains of very promising ideas.

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There’s a certain poignancy in that moment of steeling oneself at the front door for a charging dog who will never again slam his 90 pound body into your knees. Or how a leash, brush and bowl in a plastic supermarket bag can require the same negotiation as a chest full of heirloom jewels at the reading of a will. And when does dropping little bits of food on the ground cease being nice, and start being rude?

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Upon third listening, the new Spoon record (a sleeper, like all others before it) sounds like a new, incredible advance. Like many of “Transference’s” reviewers, I’m attracted by the idea of Britt Daniel & Co. fully embracing the bombast that they have spent four successive records stripping to the bone. But the more that the band breaks down their songs to the most spare and elemental, the more I enjoy following them on their journey. I’m ready for their next record, comprising the sounds of Daniels’ pencil scratching paper while Jim Eno tunes his snare.

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How hard is it to find a good coffee table?! I realize that furniture is particularly subjective to taste (and there are few people more particular than me), but sheesh. If it’s not one thing, it’s the color. Black, for the record, is not tobacco, not coffee and certainly not mahogany. It seems like everything out there alternates between the extremely baroque or the post-post-modern. Gahd forbid you want to protect the wood finish with a little bit of glass. Oh, no. If you want a glass-top coffee table, the glass will be held aloft by skinny angular metal, positive vibes and pixie dust.

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Having as many obituaries on my site as I do, I’ve grown accustomed to estranged friends of the deceased learning the bad news by stumbling upon my blarg via Gooooooogle searches. It is somewhat dispiriting to see how long it can take before a good college buddy, former comrade or ex-girlfriend decides to investigate a bounced email or missing Christmas card. The responses to one particular comrade’s death (no names, comrades) are notable for their extreme sadness and their extreme tardiness. Did he make deep, profound connections with his friends and then retreat into his own private world? Am I doomed to do the same?

I’m reminded of the outlaw country singer / mystery writer Kinky Friedman, who writes of his shared fear of dying in his apartment and being devoured by his hungry cat before anyone notices. In his novels, Kinky writes of the “M.I.T. System.” The idea is quite simple. “M.I.T.” stands for Man In Trouble, and the point is to establish a reciprocal understanding with a friend that every few days each will call the other and say nothing more than, “M.I.T., M.I.T., M.I.T.” (Because, really, who wants to force small talk every two or three days?) If you don’t receive an “M.I.T.” call from your friend after three days, convince his Super to let you into the apartment to search for his half-eaten corpse and lay some kibble out for the ravenous cat.

I’ve made “M.I.T.” arrangements with a handful of friends over the years and, come to think of it, I have not received a “M.I.T.” call from any of them, nor they from I, in a long while. Better start Goooooogling.

Presented without commentary:

big rats
selective service letter
allen sessoms
gastonia strike,1929
“mary loritz”
red strawberry shoelace licorice
umass ula program
red scare political cartoon
shaun richman
finska black licorice
“federation of union representatives”
old fashioned licorice laces not twirler
cat abortificant
“shaun richman” jew
shaun richman aft national staff

I’m pleased as punch to finally be able to acknowledge someone who has been instrumental in keeping me on the dubya dubya dubya dot org all these years. I’ve worked with Josh Handle (Handle is a “handle,” dig?) on a number of socialist websites (including Ypsl’s and others) over the years, most of which he designed as I barked orders for how it should look. For my own dot org, he’s been an indispensable resource for coaching me through Blosxom, WordPress, PhP and other techno-gibberish that I would not otherwise understand.

Josh shares that democratizing impulse for the internet on his own blog, Open Source Society. It’s a good resource, and probably about as readable as this geek talk can be. If you need more hand holding, he’s offering his services for a fee for web design. His web design work, and, more importantly, his availability and cooperativeness, get the strongest endorsement from me. Plus, it’s for a good cause. Comrade’s got a lot of babies to feed.

I’m getting more comfortable with the Word Press software that powers this Blarg, so I’ve been stretching out and enjoying some of its features. First off, comment is now free. I’ve disabled the requirement that a reader must register before posting a comment, but I’ve increased the scrutiny of the spam filter. So, please, do leave comments on these posts but try to avoid writing about viagra or mortgage refinancing, or else your comments might be deleted unread. Secondly, I have now deigned to accept your direct e-mail correspondence, in the Pen Pal link to the left. Thanks to Frieda Gerson for pestering me to finally set up a contact form, and to Shannon Hammock for actually writing lonesome me.

Finally, I can now peep the peepers, using a tool that shows what search engine terms are directing people to this website. To the young men who are searching this week for “FAFSA and Conscientious Objector status,” I’m glad I could offer some useful advice. To those of you who are googling Allen Sessoms, yes he was a dick when he was Queens College’s President, too. To those of you who are searching for “New York Mets Choke,” I don’t know what’s bringing you here, but you don’t have to rub it in, assholes. To those of you who are googling Sarah Stefanko (her parents?), you won’t find any dirt on this Blarg. I’m taking her secrets to my grave. And, finally, to those of you who are searching for “shaun richman,” you found me hiding in plain sight. And to the one odd duck who searched for “‘shaun richman’ + sex,” please write me right away.

It is with no small amount of pride that I note today’s second anniversary of this Blarg. When I started writing, I kept it a secret because I was unsure how long I would keep at it, for there are few things sadder than a failed blogger. To a certain extent, I still keep this blarg a secret. I don’t publicize it much. I’ve even stopped pressuring my friends to read it. Perhaps my only readers are the eager salesmen of “herbal Viagra” who post so many comments, and misguided fans of Natalie Portman’s butt.

I recently overhauled this website, with completely new software that requires registration in order to post comments. I used to get an occasional comment from a friend or a colleague or a complete stranger, in the midst of the tens of thousands of spam messages that ultimately crashed the site and necessitated the switch. I don’t know if it’s an aversion to registration that’s keeping people from posting comments, but I’d sure like to hear from you, dear readers. All eight of you.

I’m in the process of switching the blarg from Blosxom software to WordPress, which might involve a radical overhaul of the ancient content on the dot org. To prepare, just in case, I’m posting some older writing on the blarg, so that it can be archived here, instead of as dusty old html.

First up is my oft-reproduced Marxist analysis of the film “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.” The article began life as a term paper for my Labor Studies 101 course when I was a wee little snot (I got an A). It was shortly thereafter published in the awesome zine, Lumpen. David Raffin has also published it in Vision?Nary!

Please excuse our appearance during renovations. We are still open to the public!

The website is undergoing some technical problems. The server, which I like to picture as a little old computer sitting in Don Doumakes‘ closet, needs some hardware and software upgrades and will be back to its sprightly self in a few weeks. When the website is here, the Blarg has not been. Excessive comment spam (hundreds and thousands of posts about boner pills and online gambling) were overwhelming the server, resulting in error messages. Regrettably, I have had to turn comments off. If you have any knowledge and ability in Blosxom and can help me install an anti-spam plug-in to the server, please let me know.

I posted my first blarg article one year ago, on February 2, 2005. This website has been a wonderful outlet, and I thank all of you who have joined as readers. The frequency of my postings has declined as of late. I’ve been a bit sidetracked by duck and the floozies, computer problems, an organizing campaign that’s heating up and my studies.

I find my two research projects, in particular, very exciting, and will try to keep you updated on them, in between my usual blatherings.

I trust you prefer longer periods of silence to pointless surveys and repetitive forwards…?

I have neglected to write about the Socialist Party’s National Convention, which I attended a month ago. There was much to be frustrated by, but also some reason to be optimistic. I’m not going analyze it too much. I’m just going to focus on publishing the best damn bi-monthly 16-page socialist magazine that I can, and continuing to build a network with the good guys.

Speaking of good guys, I finally met Wayne Rossi at the convention. Wayne was a voice of reason in committee and on the floor, an efficient timekeeper and a pretty astute political observer. His blog has switched servers and now has a new name and address: Beneath the Red Flag.

It was also good to meet and party with the comrades from Michigan, with whom the SP of NYC was previously engaged in a ridiculous grudge match. Ben Burgis, from Kalamazoo, publishes a very witty and accessible blog, the Debsian, on Red TV.

Steve Sears was not at the convention, although he managed to win election to the party’s National Committee by virtue of his rational and pragmatic e-mail posts. His blog, Sun – Surf – Socialism, is rarely updated and probably needs a new title now that he left Florida to organize nurses in Wisconsin.

I’ve noticed that MySpace “blogs” and LiveJournals abound among the comrades in YPSL. They tend to be much more personal in nature and are awash in the “OMG WTF LOL” internet shorthand that’s destroying this generation’s adult literacy rates. Amusingly, one comrade broke up the monotony of her totally emo dating drama angst with the occasional blistering ad hominem political attack. Unfortunately, nobody explained to her the importance of those cutesy internet monikers (like, say, “the red-bearded bastard from queens”) in maintaining a degree of anonymity. Full legal names turn up in Google searches, y’see. The diary has since been mercifully made private.

If you are one of those LiveJournal kids, this Blarg is syndicated on the service. Help expand my media empire.

Richard Winger, the stalwart defender of independent and third party ballot access rights, and the man who has kept the Coalition for Free and Open Elections going, has put the Ballot Access News online as a blog. It is a tremendous resource for news and information about legal challenges to this country’s various draconian ballot access laws, as well as occasional success stories from third parties.

The Drum Major Institute, the non-partisan, non-profit progressive think tank, has launched a new blog. My friends Elana Levin and Amy Traub work for DMI and are among the contributers.

I have updated my Links page to include some lefty blogs that I read.

Tom-A-Thon.com is the website of my comrade in Staten Island, Tommy Miles. It’s all Tom, all the time, with lots of space for socialism and futbol. Former Socialist Party Chairman, and eternal anti-spam crusader, Don Doumakes writes Another Socialist Blog, while New Jersey’s Wayne Rossi presents minitrue, another good source for socialist information and commentary. The Great Plains heretic Jim Hurd (he left the Socialist Party for the Communist Party so that he could run for office as a Democratic Party candidate – yes, the left is funny that way) hosts the Wizard of Laughery Creek, which keeps the tone light and entertaining. Finally, there’s a blog whose author I don’t know in at least some superficial way: former National Writers Union President Jonathan Tasini presents the always-informative Working Life. He gets a lot of Deep Throat action on 16th street…er, which is to say that his blog is a great source of labor movement gossip.

If you’re a reader of my humble budding media empire and have linked to me, please let me know, and I’ll add a link to your website (if it doesn’t suck).

While I was updating my site, I added a few new songs to the Rock! section of the site. Download and enjoy, or crawl into a hole and die.

In my continuing effort to expand my media empire, the Blarg is now syndicated on LiveJournal. If you have an LJ account, you can add my Blarg to your “friends” list by going here.

I’m trying to solve the mystery of why all posts are given the same date and time as the last article posted. I’m running Blosxom. If you can provide any help, I’d greatly appreciate it. Otherwise, I’m going to keep tinkering with plug-ins until this fucking thing works the way I want.

It’s my birthday. I’m 26. I’m feeling strangely okay about this.

The server has almost fully recovered from last week’s attack. My e-mail is back up and running, so I’m once again receiving all those helpful e-mails about Rolex watches, bigger penises, larger cumloads and moms I’d like to fuck (all of which, coincidentally, can be found on my birthday present wish list).

Actually, there are two new spams I’ve gotten that are pretty amusing. One is some sort of spray can that promises to make your license plate invisible to those traffic cameras that catch you running red lights. It’s the sort of product that causes one to marvel at the ingenuity of capitalism. The other is software that will help you vote as many times as you want for “American Idol.” I, for one, am encouraged by the youth of today’s zeal for participatory democracy.

I’ll be at Botanica (Houston and Mulberry) tonight, “celebrating.” Please, no autographs.