Monday, April 6, 2009

presenting a bold new strategic paradigm!!!!!

I have learned a thing or two during my time among you earth people, and not the least of this information has concerned successful blogging. This weekend, I carefully synthesized my blogging info, or ‘blogfo’ and came to a startling conclusion. Namely, I--Bad Sandwich Chronicles can never be popular/a book/recognized as some sort of harbinger of some cultural zeitgeist as I/it currently operate(s). It’s a real shame. I’ll pause for a second to let this settle in.

Okay, everyone recovered? Here’s the thing. Famous blogs (which is such a stupid category of things, by the way. It’s like ‘great surf spots in the Midwest’ or ‘sexiest corpse’) all have themes. “things white people like” or ‘passive aggressive notes” or the one where that asshole talks about all the chicks he fucks, or guess her muff. Hot chicks with douchebags. Cats saying misspelled shit. THIS is the precipice of hip blog success. You need a concept, man. All this sitting around and waxing poetic about your friends and the nature of art and bitching about your job, that’s livejournal shit, man. This is the big leagues. BLOGSPOT, where book deals are forged, where souls are scooped from the masses of teeming filthy schlongs and placed on glimmering pedestals made of crystal and bronze for…listen, you get the idea, right? You need a gimmick these days. Actually, this isn’t just the case with blogging, believe it or not.
A person can be very smart on their own, but PEOPLE are idiots. This is important for two completely opposite reasons. First, these dummies aren’t going to take the time to sift through all the bullshit to find something they like, they need to be handed something with a big, tangible reason to like it printed right on it. For example: “dude, have you heard this band, Gogol Bordello? They’re awesome! It’s like, a bunch of gypsies playing punk music!”
“Wow. That’s a novel idea. I think I like the idea so much, that the band probably doesn’t have to be particularly good…It’s enough that they came up with the idea. As long as I get to tell the next dude about them, I’m down.”
This isn’t necessarily terrible because of the second reason, namely, since people are stupid, most of the shit they make is also stupid, so there’s no point in sifting through a zillion different blogs, bands, painters, tv shows…it’s about ninety nine percent terrible as is…It’s maybe best to wait for someone to come up with a novel take on the already well tread concept and then, decide from there if it’s worth giving a shit about.
Pretty simple. So why do people try to market gimmick free things?
Because they’re stupid. I JUST got finished talking about how stupid people are, you stupid, dumb stupid. Don’t you listen? But listen, trying to market something with no gimmick, it can be a great thing, but it’s never gonna work. Even shit that supposedly has no gimmick, THAT right there is a gimmick, and don’t ever for a second think it isn’t. Who’s an example of a ‘gimmick free’ artist? Just jeans, tshirts, keeping it real? No fancy, obvious thing, like masks or trumpets? Uh…who cares? They’re as full of shit as anyone else. Mark my words.
SO, back to the issue at hand. I have this blog. According to my little counter thingy I’ve got a few hundred subscribers, and presumably some of you out there read this thing without being subscribers, probably most of you, actually, so there’s a tiny groundswell of support, but I’m never gonna push it to that next level, the big show, the tucker max or the Hot Girls with Douchebags level--the stratosphere/blogosphere/coffee table book/blurb in the onion level without some sort of gimmick. Fuck, I’ve wasted all our time for a while. I mean, this is the one hundred seventy sixth post and I have, from what I can tell, NO intertwining theme (felching does not count. A word is not a theme. Jesus, people). What the fuck am I gonna do?
Well, thankfully, I’ve got an idea. Actually, more to the point, I’m stealing one. I’ve noticed something in this world. In fact, you may say that in my time amongst you earth people I’ve learned a thing or two, not the least of which concerns stealing ideas. It’s the way to go. Picasso said something to the effect of “brilliant minds create. Geniuses steal” and his authority is good enough for me. Look at pepsi, Popeyes, Batman, Canada, Jerry Springer, facebook. They’re all just knock offs of already tried and true successes. That’s fucking brilliant. The heavy lifting is done, just step in and improve what’s there, or fuck it, do it worse…it doesn’t matter. Why? Come on dummy. People are stupid.
So I read this article this weekend. Toby forwarded it to me (he gets his pussylips all tangled if I neglect to credit him for things) with some snide note to the effect of “now THIS is a blog worth reading.” It was, actually, not a blog at all, but rather an article from Seattle’s finest free paper, The Stranger. It is this:

http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/the-different-kinds-ofpeople-that-there-are/Content?oid=1206006

and it’s funny. It’s a guide to all the different kinds of people in this world. And sure, near the end, it gets a little stupid and defensive and there’s some part about people who have been turned into animals that’s a little bit precious for my taste, but you know what? It’s a GREAT idea and a great article. SO, from now on, here at bad sandwich chronicles, along with my daily tales of woe, I’m going to be stealing from miss West…Well, no. You can’t say that, right? I need to say that “yeah, my idea is similar, sure, but there are a lot of ideas in the ether, man. And similar is not same. After all, I’m a male, she’s a female. That gives us different perspectives. Besides, miss West, you, better than anyone should know that we fall into different categories of people, right? Huh? Huh?’
See what I did there? I love being creative. It’s so freeing and whimsical. Okay, gotta go. I’m heating up some baloney in the microwave to line the hole in the couch with and fuck, and it just beeped. Bye.

Oh right…people, the guide…Uh, Bikers-Big dudes with mustaches and crystal meth in the pockets of their vests. Moles, sunglasses, you get the idea. Like Lemmy, but not successful…Also black dudes with monochromatic outfits and dads with leather saddlebags full of Viagra and entirely too many denim buttonups. WooooooHoooO!
Pretty good. Wait, I don’t think I’m doing this right…fuck man. Back to the lab. See you all tomorrow.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm stuck on the idea of using your level of fame to sell your book. This could be something like writing a shitty book about how to write songs or something or maybe a memoir - and then using that book to get in the door to publish the actual book you want published. However, the other thing is to use your connections (whatever they may be) to get your book published. I don't have a clue if you know Dr. Frank, but I say get in good with him and convince him to help you get your book published since he is on his second. Or get Tom Gabel, Dan Andriano, or some one of that level of fame to publish a book so they can help you get your book published.

Anonymous said...

If you write a book, then you are a sell out to all the pretenious white hipsters that read you in the first place.

(Who else really cares enough to read a blog?)

You are damned if you do, damned if you dont.

But with a blog you can keep RIGHT on in the middle. Its why they are so successful.

kylewagoner said...

Did you get Off With Their Heads' message via bulletin to you and Fletcher on MySpace? It was something to the effect of "Wow, Brokencyde. Yeah...whoa..."

And uh...when I think "no gimmick," I think D4 or Propagandhi, but D4 are known for being ugly and Propagandhi automatically have the gimmick of being Canadians. It's not like a subtle Simple Plan/Sum 41/Avril Canadian "hide-your-'ethnicity'" bullshit. It's like "Keep on truckin, eh?" So I guess you're right. Gimmick, gimmick,gimmick. Alkaline Trio has the right idea for a gimmick though (just glad they got rid of the makeup): being miserable and wanting to die is fun.

kylewagoner said...

Oh, and your little Falcon band has that "The Lawrence Arms suck" gimmick. That's an original one. Why do you think I listen to The Falcon anyway? It's all about the t-shirts, nothing about the music. And how is this "Look like a scene asshole" gimmick working for like 3,000 different bands? I'm gonna blog about this maybe, since I've more than a few thoughts on this topic.

Manny Los Gatos said...

I read the Lindy West article, I was disappointed. I hate that type of smarmy holier-than-thou shit. Give some truth, all I want is some truth. That's why I come to BSC. Somebody once said, "Writing is easy, all you gotta do is open a vein." That's why I'll take BSC over Lindy West any day.

Ryan said...

Is the boss' gimmick that he has no gimmick, and could gaslight's gimmick be that they have a big boss influence?