Ever since being named a Blog Of Note, I've been getting something like six gazillion hits a day. Previously, I was getting about 200 (which was swell, and appreciated, but not as nice as being Very Obviously Important & Famous.)
While I dig the added notoriety, it has put an undue strain upon me. Before, I could slack off and expect to keep most of my audience until I got my ass in gear again. Now, I have to come up with new and entertaining stuff every couple of days or else I'll lose all of the newer readers. But, while my numbers have changed for the better, I haven't. I'm still a slug. No matter how much pressure is put on me, I'm always inclined to recline. I think I've hit upon a temporary solution, though.
I now have a brand new audience upon which to foist re-runs. And that's just what I'm going to do. You're new. You won't know any better.
(Except that I've told you up front what my underhanded plan is. Other than that, it was pure evil genius...)
OK, enough semi-funny introductory material. Here's a whole bunch of stuff to keep you busy until I write something new and exciting (which I don't know if I've ever done that, so it may be a while.) It is a selection of what I consider the best things I've ever written. Since my judgment is unfailingly hideous, you'd probably be better off reading everything else I've ever written, instead of this junk.
(The photo above has nothing to do with what follows. I've placed it here to engender your sympathy. Look at that cute kid! He wrote this stuff, you know. Of course, he had no idea that 44 years from the time of that picture being taken his Ronnie-Howard-like visage would be adorning this pile of crap. Pity him!)
THE 23 BEST THINGS I'VE EVER WRITTEN!
The more attentive among you might notice that there are 24 entries below, not 23. That's because one of them is a two-parter, and I listed both parts separately. More important, though - Get A Life! I love you and all that, but counting the entries here means that you've got nothing better to do than check my math. That's just pitiful.
Anyway, here's what a jerkwad like me is relatively proud to have written. None of my relatives are, though.
A Day (5 Of Them, Actually - All Saturdays) In The Life
My life, condensed. If somebody held a gun to my head and told me to choose the best piece of writing I've ever done, I'd probably say that this is it. However, I'd have to assume their gun was carved out of turkish taffy. How deranged would a person have to be to put a gun to someone's head just to ask that question?
Moo
A whole bunch of it, too!
Return To Caddy Road
The story of my return to the neighborhood I lived in for almost 37 years. It is one of the best things I've ever written. Of course, I didn't really need to tell you that. The title of this piece is "The 23 Best Things I've Ever Written". I'm not going to give it a title like that and then fill it up with my worst stuff. MY WIFE would tell you that the reason this is one of the best things I've ever written is because it's one of the few things I've written wherein I'm not, for even a single moment, a wise-ass. Yeah, like she has taste. She married me.
My Happiest Moment In The Subway
Which has nothing whatsoever to do with the subway, at least until you read...
My Happiest Moment In The Subway, Part Two
Which does have something to do with the subway, except it's about the elevated, and before then you have to read all about my experiences as a lead singer in a truly bad band, which is what the first part is about, also, so you may as well start there.
(By the way, if you live in the Northeast of the United States, the weather right now approximates that mentioned here in part two of this tale. I suggest printing it out and reading it outside to get the right feel for it.)
The Gift
A Christmas story. I re-post this every year in the week leading up to Christmas, so you could just wait until then to read it. It's probably better when the actual season is upon us, anyway.
100 Years Old Today
Written on the occasion of my grandmother's 100th birthday (and re-printed on her 101st, 102nd, 103rd, 104th, and 105th.) 100% (and maybe 101%, 102%, 103%, 104%, and 105%) sarcasm-free content.
Smokes
The story of my first cigarette, of approximately a quarter-million thus far. And, if Ricky Feeley is reading this? He should avoid my Mom at all costs.
My First Kiss
The story of (duh!) my first kiss, of approximately a quarter-million thus far. And, if Ricky Feeley is reading this? Not a damned thing to worry about.
All Gone
Pointless nostalgia. Have a couple of shots of Old Granddad and join me in some melancholia.
The Beer Train
A comic look at juvenile delinquency. Oh, boy! My recounting of one of the stupidest things I've ever done - and that covers an awful lot of ground, so you know it has to be really moronic.
Uncle Roy's Wake
A really good actual true story. Really.
Uncle Jimmy And The Puzzle
The story of... well, my Uncle Jimmy and a puzzle. Aside from being a decent tale, it is also an excellent example of how far back my goldbricking slugabededness goes. The stars of the story are my Uncle Jimmy and My Dad, but I can be seen lurking in the background watching TV and otherwise not earning a living.
Dinosaurs, Living Room Basketball, And The Pre-History Of Television
Just like it says. What are you, dense?
The Morning Of The Last Day Of My Mini-Vacation
Wherein MY WIFE is the unwitting star, much as she is in my life overall.
A Recipe
For Disaster!!!
No, just some general goofiness, per usual.
You Are Reading Suldog-O-Rama
Social commentary undertaken with the deftness of a chimpanzee wielding a ball peen hammer.
(Which brings to mind a question: Is there a ball peen anything else besides a hammer? However, I digress.)
Note the title: That was the name of this blog (Suldog-O-Rama) when I first started writing it. Some folks still have me listed that way on their sidebars. Obviously, those folks aren't paying attention. That's OK. They can call me "Ol' Stinky Drawers" so long as they link to me.
Welcome To The WDUH News
More heavy-handed social commentary, with the added swellness of being about three years outdated concerning the politics.
Mr. Suldog's Wild Ride
Wheeeeeeeeee!
Blood, Sweat, No Tears
How the softball season of my 49th year ended, which was one of the many good reasons why I decided to retire after the following year.
(And then I had a really good year. My final games I went 6 for 8, which was certainly a good taste in the mouth to leave on. So, what did I do? I played again the next year, disgracing myself in ways I never had before. AND then I had to play again, in 2009, because I refused to retire after a season as crummy as the one I played in 2008. And by 2010, I had resigned myself to being a softball lifer, even if my skills deteriorate to where I disgrace myself every game and cost my teams any chance of winning. If God has any brains - and I've heard tell He does - He'll smote me with a lightning bolt the first time I step on the field this coming April, saving everybody else a whole bunch of time.)
Solomon The Milkman
My paternal grandfather's adventures as a temporary Jew.
Everything Gets Better
Morale uplift, for those who need it. For those who don't buy it, a whole bunch of hogwash. But, those people are wrong. Everything DOES Get Better (except my writing, but that's just the exception that proves the rule.)
How NOT To Write A Cover Letter
Considering the source (me) this is actually good advice.
Coalie & Tigger
Just some stories about cats. If you like cats, you'll probably like this. If you don't like cats, you're probably a miserable no-good rotten son of a bitch who can't stand anything or anyone who doesn't conform to your priggish standards.
(But I thank you for being here, anyway.)
And that's that. If you haven't read any of these before? No time like the present! If you've read them all before? Read them again! They get better with age, just like cheese!
Soon, with more better stuff.
51 comments:
Didn't I say it was gonna get crowded around here?
It's a good thing you've got a deep reserve of stuff to re-post.
Oh, wait a minute. You didn't re-post. You only posted links. If someone hadn't already said you're a lazy slug....
Wow, you have...like, real live followers? Coooooool.
I'm gonna git me some of those some day.
Did you realize if you misspell followers badly enough it becomes flowers?
That said, you could open a nursery now.
@ Jane: Yeah, you'll get them because you post good stuff.
You'll have to come up with the best 50 soon. I do recall your time at jury duty with Mr. French and the other nutball. A very entertaining rendition of our legal system :)
Well done on getting the Blog of Note - that's how I came to be here - I'll need to try and catch up now
Michelle - I tried to keep this limited to shorter posts, less than multi-parts. I failed in one instance (but, as noted, I listed both parts separately.) The main reason is that, when I run out of things to say (which will be soon enough) I can fill an entire week with re-posts of the multi-parters! :-)
Wow. . . One of us is makin' it bigtime. Do remember the Little People, when we occur to your memory. . . I hope I never become a Blogger of Note; I don't think I could handle the responsibility. . .
And, just for the sake of sayin' so, I never thought of counting my kisses. A quarter-million is a pretty impressive number - that's more than a dozen a day every day of your life ('course, if we're countin' kisses from Mom and Auntie and Grandma, those could add up). Or 17 a day since you were 14 or so. Or around 35 a day since you've been married. So yeah - that's a lot of kissin'. . . (Yeah, I was one of those obnoxious guys when Wilt Chamberlain made his claim for 20,000 women. . .)
My favorite is still The Gift. But all of these are wonderful!
People follow you? Stalkers?
Craig - Well, I figure I've been kissed, on average, about as often as I've smoked a cigarette, at least since the age of 13 or 14. The kisses have come in unsteady bunches, with large lonely gaps between, while the cigs have been like clockwork. I actually did the math to get the cig figure, and relied on (perhaps overly-fond) memories for the other.
Daryl - Yes. I figure if I give them something to read, maybe I can ditch them.
Ah, of course - the correspondence between kisses and cigarettes. . . ;)
If you don't like cats, you're probably a miserable no-good rotten son of a bitch who can't stand anything or anyone who doesn't conform to your priggish standards.
An astoundingly remarkable observation, considering we've never actually broken bread together, or broken anything else, for that matter. Like, in person. How do you DO these sorts of things?
And it must be said: my standards may be priggish, but they are HIGH-priggish.
"remarkable" should be "accurate"
I suck at editing.
Surely people can wait a few days longer? Who said you had to produce a work of art every day?
Maggie X
Nuts in May
Well, clearly I haven't read all of those since landing on your page just now, but I just read '100 years old today' and it's a lovely post. Just lovely. I imagine that my mother might identify with quite a lot of what you say about your grandmother's life as a child, because though she is 'only' 90 years old, things changed at a slower rate in those days!
Many of the others look most interesting, so I'll be back!
Dear All You Suldog Newbies:
I'D TURN BACK IF I WERE YOU.
Nah, just kidding. Of course, now ol' Sully's catering his material to the late arrivals rather than stepping up his game to satisfy his long-time readers . . . which I guess makes him the, ah, the hell with it, I can't come up with a good analogy.
Anyway, you won't be sorry, and if you might take a suggestion from the President of his fan club, look up his post called "The Beer Train." My personal favorite.
And then come over to www.knuckleheadhumor.com
That's right, I'm not too proud to poach followers.
You are precious, Suldog ... even your reruns are wonderful : )
Well done on the blog of note, now just like a school teacher give us newbies some 'busy' work so we will keep our heads down and busy. You can put yer feet up on the desk and create more legendary banter.
The bell rings at 3....
Wow, I didn't expect to read through half of those. THANKS A LOT SULDOG, I HAVE SO MUCH HW TO DO AND SO LITTLE TIME TO DO IT.
I remember quite a few of these and vouch for how wonderful they are. I think I'll keep a link to this post and go back to read the others from time to time.
It would make a good book if compiled, The Life and Times of Jim (Suldog) Sullivan.
I must re-read The Beer Train and The Gift.
whoa jim, its kinda gone mad here i note, blog of note sir!!
you must be bemused.....l know how you are with these things, not so many insults i read...lol
great second roasting too..thanks for the mention...my cup runneth over sir!!
luv ya
saz x
It may take me a while, but your stuff is good enough that i will get to it all. Sooner or later. I hope sooner.
it may be re-runs but OY! putting all these links and summaries together is not at all sluggish
well done
You mean there's a genetic chance that you might live to be 100?! Wonderful, but how will I ever keep up with all the reading? Hmmm, how many more times can you post reruns?
BELLYBUTTONS & GRAVESTONES
You leave behind the only world that you have ever known
and blindly enter into another totally different one when you are born.
You will repeat this remarkable process again when you die!
In the last and final act of separation from the only world that you have ever known, a cord is cut and the life support system that has sustained you since your beginning completely shuts down. Incredibly, an entirely new life support system takes over and you find a way to breathe by catching a new breath. All of this should be familiar territory to you but it's no wonder that you can't remember dieing. Your mind lost consciousness in order to survive the trauma, just like it does during a bad accident. Your throat was sliced, when the surgeon cut the umbilical cord that had sustained you, since your conception. Birth actually seems like death to the one who is about to be born because in childbearing; there are many that do not survive. For them, birth is death. Your Bellybutton is living proof that you had to survive death in order to get here... and there you were thinking, that your Bellybutton was nothing more than a dust collector.
MOTHER NATURE GAVE YOU A BELLY BUTTON ON YOUR BIRTHDAY. A Bellybutton is an odd gift indeed but it was given to you, on your very first birthday, so that you would never forget just how remarkable you are. You have already survived death once and you even have the scar to prove it! Your Bellybutton is a symbol of "your past life" and the mark of an extraordinary survivor. Coincidentally, the word "GRAVE" means; to mark, or engrave. Gravestones are "Marking Stones". Bellybuttons and Gravestones are marks that are left behind after a passing.
As strange as it may seem, human bodies are transportation devices. You came out of your mother's body when you were born, and you will come out of your own body when you die. A human body brought you into this world and a human body will release you from it. Dying and being born are the very same thing but it's the outcome of the act that determines how we choose to use the words.
Human beings are truly remarkable and that is why, we use two words instead of only one, to describe ourselves as a species. We use the term "Human Being" to describe ourselves because there are two separate parts to our nature. The "Human" part of your nature is your Visible Outer Person (VOP). The "Being" part of your nature is your Invisible Inner Person (IIP)... or otherwise known as, your inner person(ality). Your Outer Person(OP) is made of physical matter but your Inner Personality (IP) is not. A doctor cannot find your personality with a scalpel or a microscope and that's too bad... because your personality was essentially created from two other personalities (mother/father), therefore you were born with a "split personality". Your purpose in life is to develop the split-minded personality that you were born with into a "single-minded one, before you die..
Your personality is growing inside of you just like a baby in a womb. It's developing and changing during every minute of every day. In fact, you are not the same person today that you were yesterday, or for that matter... ten minutes ago. Personality growth ends when death begins. Death separates the non-physical part of your nature from the physical part. If your personality is strong enough to survive death... then once again, you will be born into another new life. Where else would newborns for the next life come from?
You faced death once before and found out that there was life beyond the womb and, if your personality is strong enough, when you die... YOU WILL ALSO FIND OUT; THAT THERE IS LIFE BEYOND THE TOMB.
COPYRIGHT: CONSULTING WITH THE SPIRITUAL HOBO / ED BULEY 1998
Note To All - In General, I don't mind wordy comments. Do go on. However, in most instances, something like the above will be obliterated. It is interesting, yes, and I probably agree with a bunch of it, surprisingly, but it has little to do with anything I wrote here. I'm leaving this one up as an example of what NOT to do in future. Thanks!
Blog of Note? Nope. Didn't even know that 'cause I saw your blog on Lisa's 'That's Why" sidebar and I wandered over and liked your stuff. But, hey, good for you. Doesn't BoN come with prize money or a new car? I'd realist old stuff too if I got a new car. So out of here, ya know.
OK, you got me. Who's Lisa, and where do I go to thank her for pimping me?
...something like the above will be obliterated.
You are FAR kinder and gentler than I, Jim. The krep you left as a warning would have been gone in seconds, were these my comments. But I see your point.
Did you really just write "23 best things". Why not 24? Or 22? :)
You're too funny.
You always, always make me laugh, except when you clearly don't mean to, and I laughed out loud at the word "swell". There's a great I Love Lucy episode in which Lucy, afraid Ricky's accent will have a negative impact on the impending Little Ricky, hires an elocution teacher, who tells them there are two words he never wants them to use: "swell", and "lousy". They solemnly promise never to use the words, and ask him what they are. This is my unecessarily wordy way of paying you that highest of Angie compliments: You're as funny as I Love Lucy. Coming soon: Angie Declares Suldog As Funny as the Marx Brothers!
I found you from Blogs of note! You're funny...I'm following you now! :)
Dee
http://bestbanglady.blogspot.com/
I like your style, you remind me of me twenty years from now. :)
I almost thought that comment you left in as an example of what NOT to do in the commentary area as being one of my comments -since I do sometimes wax quite prosetic as you know, probably all too well too! But as a loyal and devoted follower already of yours, just wanted to tell any newbies that virtually everything you put out here is a gem. Maybe not a really valuable, polished one all the time, but more than enough of 'em are pretty damned good! Wish I could say the same about my own "writings" -if you wanna call 'em that!
Suldog
Thanks for being so kind to me. I don't mind being made an example of because in one sense, it is another form of posterity. I sent my over-worded "krep" innocently. I admit to being a novice, blogging wise I mean. You'll get no more trouble out of me. If you don't mind, I would still like to follow you, as you are currently being listed as a blog of interest.Thanks for keeping me up even as I try to keep-up with you. I apologize to your readers for having disturbed any of them. I wish everyone well.
CONSULTING WITH THE SPIRITUAL HOBO
Wow! Amazing Blog :) Thanks a lot for :)
Since I'm one of those newbies, I appreciate the links!
A word of advice to Sully's newest fans and followers:
Send him an AWARD!!!
HE LOVES TO GET AWARDS!!!
Seriously.
Just try it. You'll be PROMINENTLY MENTIONED in his blog!
XO Thim :)
Ah, I see you've got the RERUNERINATOR out of the cupboard again. Must send Perry to sabotage your evil plan ;-)
A Word Of Advice: Thimbelle is a LIAR. Unless you want to be flayed and barbecued, do NOT send me an award (unless it comes with money, in which case I'll accept very graciously, thanks.)
Calling All Suldog's NEW FOLLOWERS!
Thimbelle has a great idea and she is NOT a liar LOL
Sully loves awards! Be brave like Bluelights and he will send you a wonderful cup overflowing with vitriolic venom, somthing like this:
"As for giving me awards, you are even braver than the rugbyest rugbyer with four missing front teeth, a leg that sticks out at a 30 degree angle, and his gnarled fingers that he can barely operate the remote control with in order to turn the telly over to a showing of American Football so that he can scoff at our collective pansyism. I will do what I usually do - warn you that it's all-in, no-holds-barred, and you asked for it. I have no doubt you can take it, being English and all, and I'll probably fail miserably in my attempts to get you to sob great girly tears, but I'll give it my best shot.
Oh, and thanks! :-)"
It's a little mild by his standards but go on, do it! LOL
What about *fruitcake*?
Can I send you a fruitcake for every award you get?
Maybe something, oh, I don't know... with PINEAPPLES in it?
Hmmm?
Love you! :D
Wow, I love this! Going to take me a while to get through but I think I'm going to like it!
Awards for Suldog... what a concept.
I seem to remember an expression we used when I was much younger. It goes something like, "You ain't got a hair on your @$$ if you don't [select a task here] ."
I, personally don't present awards, just bacon when someone posts something I like.
Mazel Tov!
Oh look, reruns! How unusual in January ;-)
Seriously though, you are a wonderful writer and deserved any increased attention. Congratulations on that.
Congratulations, Suldog!
We can remember reading them all. Our favorite is still Mr. Suldogs Wild Ride. Picturing you ending up in a tunnel, on the Mass Pike, with that little blinking yellow light is priceless!!
I came over from Buck's. Congratulations on the Blog of Note! I don't have as many followers as you do (nowhere even close) but I totally understand the feeling of pressure to produce!
Post a Comment