me: “So. How’s it hanging?”
wreath:
me: “Get it? How’s it hanging?”
wreath:
me: “Well, I thought it was clever –”
wreath: “– Look, Jewboy. It’s bad enough I have to spend Christmas strapped to the door of a non-believer. But for $14.99 I ain’t about to laugh at your lame-ass jokes, too. That’s what those $149 Pottery Barn ‘oversized magnolia garlands’ are for. They’re the high-priced hookers of the Holiday trade—for a price, they’ll giggle non-stop like naughty Catholic school girls on a X.”
wreath: “Of course, you being a Jew and all, you went with a cheap, seasoned street whore like me. Which, let’s face it: I can’t say I’m really surprised by that. Can you?”
Must have been one of those mean Wal-Mart wreaths. That place is cranky, especiely this time of year.
How can you identify the Reformed synagogue in a neighborhood?
It’s the church with a Christmas creche in front of it during December.
Here’s a question for what’s left of my readership. If I come back, should I come back like Ace? Allah? Malkin? Reynolds?
I can do the “get some traffic” thing, but it takes networking and patience, and leaving for a few months seems to have placed me decidedly outside the loop. So I’ll have to rebuild, using a grassroots campaign.
Or should I come back as, like, some “good” wrestler who’s suddenly switched allegiances.
You know—Andrew Sullivan without the gay thing.
Thoughts?
Who is this Jeff Golstein? And why is his name on this blog?
“If”? I sincerely hope you meant “when”.
I think your traffic will ramp up once you start posting regularly again. I suspect a good portion of your pre-hiatus traffic was from leftards looking to capitalize on Atrios’ “paste-eater” meme, and they’ll show up when you’re back in force.
Just don’t do the unretired athlete thing. It’s embarassing.
And you might start by fixing the fookin clock.
It’s like in Australia or sumpin.
Jeff, just come back. See, the difference between those others and PW is kind of a Leno/Letterman thing. In the former, people watch for the guests and outside information. In the latter, people watch for Dave and Jeff.
Now where the hell is my pie?
Jeff – Come back as the “bad” Hulk Hogan!
It’s been hell around here. I understand damn near all the vocabulary and the sentence structure has been user friendly too. I’m tired of being a pedestrian.
There’s no such animal.
Just come back, however you choose. But bring Anna Nichole with you. It’s just not Christmas without her sloppy, slurring, sluttish holiday greetings!
I’m not sure we want you back, with your anti-Semitic Christmas decorations and all. Maybe you should ask your new “friends” to wait out in the car, or something.
Just be yourself, baby.
Can’t be- don’t you know where those Wal-Mart wreaths are made?
They would sound more like this, “ching chong, Jewboy. Ching ching chong Christmas ching chon non-believer. Ching chong yuan ching chong lame-ass ching.”
Ooooooh..bonus points for MayBee for topicality…….
I’m curious…did you put up a “Hanukkah bush”?
That wreath has a serious attitude problem. Probably a really nasty drunk.
As far as the comeback goes, how about just like you were before? Once the lameass guest posters are thrown out, you’ll get your readers back. In fact, I’ll bet you get a traffic boost from other blogs sending people your way with the announcement of your return.
Is that too ass-kissy? Probably. Oh well.
If you write it, they will come. It’s the combination of the thoughtful and learned along with the absurd that made you the blogger you are today. Just write it, baby!
And if they don’t come, just start a blogwar or three. That always gets the counter ticking!
The wreath sounds like it’s a big Christmas asshole. Secular, I’m guessing.
JG: From what I have actually seen, I would continue the mix of off the wall posts and sardonic commentary on the news. That’s sufficient.
Obviously blogging takes a lot of time. You don’t want to go link crazy or You Tube crazy the way Andrew does. I for one could never do daily blogging. Too much going on.
What you might want to do is write some conceptual pieces, and that will help you decide how to structure. By conceptual pieces I mean such as the stuff Neo-Neocon wrote when she was getting started on her blog. Then post that as an entre to your blog (sidebar it), and add to it from time to time. Then the heavier stuff will stay on its own, just to show that you can actually handle big themes ‘n’ shit.
I would recommend making the main page longer (a la Sullivan.)
Come now. We figured out a long time ago that these “guest posters” are just different sides of your personality come out to play.
You should come back as yourself. You know, a ‘dillo dressed in a cheap green polyester sports jacket and a knowing look. Maybe add a fashionably long cigarette holder and white patent leather shoes.. Oh, wait, that’s starting to sound too much like my insurance agent. Nevermind then.
Jeff,
Just come back. If I could make time to read you while in Afghanistan or at NAS New Orleans (post-Katrina) I think there was a really damned good reason …
Oh, and I wouldn’t take any guff from that wreath… but I must admit
was pretty funny.
Did you say Cranky Lee? Was that you next to me at the L.E.D. flashlight (complete with crank, FM radio and cell phone charger) display?
Yes, it was dull light, short-lived and heavy crankiness was required. I left, and it stayed on its display rack—destined for the dollar store in January
I had one of those high-brow wreaths from Pottery Barn and now it hurts to pee.
Some other things to do and not to do:
Don’t write posts about the Iraq War every fucking day. That’s Neo’s main drawback. There’s a big world out there, and you are an intellectual.
Don’t make your blog an endless bitchfest about this that or the other. That’s Michelle’s main drawback; after awhile it’s like she’s got a persecution complex. On the other hand, she’s much better looking.
Don’t overlink. Stinks.
Never write – “Read the whole thing.” It’s intellectually lazy. It’s like talking to someone about historical processes and they say, “Have you read War and Peace?”, then you say, “No”, and they say, “Read the whole thing. Then we can talk.”
Interact with your readership by agreeing or disagreeing in short comments. Avoid getting into any protracted discussion with the help. You have more important things to do. What I mean is, even the Corner will publish and/or respond to my comments once in awhile.
Find Schopenhauer’s advice on writing and follow it. I think the essays are “On Writing and Authorship” and “On Style”. They should be on the web somewhere. Briefly, write to say what you have thought about, don’t write to fill space. If you are having trouble being clear, it’s because your thinking isn’t yet clear. That sort of thing.
Write some long pieces on films you liked. Read some Manohla Dargis and find out how not to write about movies.
Never be afraid to just talk about the stuff you know. It may seem humble, but we will still learn.
Screw you guys…I just want to read more about the ‘dillo.
It’s no accident that that the words “cranky” and “Wal-Mart” appeared in the same sentence. Ever been in a Wal-Mart? Lots of skinny guys with bad teeth, and always with a fat chick. It must be some immutable law of the universe.
If you wanted more dillo stories, you should’ve given me some encouragement for the ones I wrote. Now you’ll just have to suffer.
Oops, my nasty twin was just here. Pay him no mind.
Oh, and about the clock: It’s one thing for the hour to be off, but what’s with the minutes being all wacky?
I was beginning to worry that you had come back, but you had come back like McGehee. I’m glad there are other options being explored.
When you come back, you’d better be Goldstein or I’ll never forgive you.
if? If!!?? FUCKING IF!!!!!????
I don’t give a rat’s ass if you come back dressed as Charles Nelson Rielly, singing Liza tunes. I’m tired of the 90% baking powder in my Peruvian, Bro. So get your, I’m sure, lovely wife to take care of the protoge’ and that new freakin’ manse you’ve conned some God-for-saken Bank to finance and get back to blogging. Fer Christ sake where’s my goddam free ice cream?
tw (Iack53) Like…Iack53 but I’m only 42 and I want you to start blogging regularly again, you lazy sonuvabitch. Have a nce day.
Hey, my name is David and I’m 42 as well. Are you me?
Yeah, I’m bored.
If I want to read Ace or HotAir or Pundit, I go to their sites. That’s not why I come here.
You get better stalkers anyway.
Yea more ‘dillo.
Okay, maybe just a fashionably long cigarette holder.. Because someone has to do it!
Jeff, I’ve been hopeing you would just reappear, and resume dancing to the organ grinder.
Like the good old days…
Then I would suggest coming back as a deranged former governor, drenched in maple syrup.
Seriously though, “if?” And buying a wreath is very menschy of you.
I’ll second the “just come back”, and keep writing stuff that tweaks the po-mos, mo-fos and pissed off. I’ll keep overusing commas and polluting your comments section if you do.
On the other hand, I just found an archive of streaming music from the 1980’s Philly music scene, so I might just be in my basement in red Chuck Taylors, a hard hat and a cummerbund lip-synching to bad new wave.
TW: twenty82. That thing freaks me out.
Jeff asked
Don’t come back as someone else, just come back.
Just come back.
I’ll hold my end with gross misspellings, overly long, mind numbingly pretentious rants, idiotic poetry, bad song polls, fundamentalist lunacies and hot chocolate.
On the other hand…
Hmmm, I thought Hanukkah shaved.
Come back any way you want, except as Greta Van Sustern in drag.
I’d rather be strung along about a dancing green rodent than read about Deb Frisch. Actually, I’d rather read about Jeff’s adventures in home improvement, but that is just me.
isn’t that an oxymoron?……..jumbo shrimp?
Jeff
Come back, just fng come back….And bring the dillo with you.. Merry Christmas, Happy Channukah,
Happy Kwanza or however you spell it….
Jeff:
I know it feels weird just to start up again after being gone for so long, but I’ve seen smaller-time bloggers manage it by just up and posting again on a regular basis. In your case you had a structured and well-advertised hiatus for a good reason we all feel happy about, so I really think you can just start up again cold.
You don’t need any reintroduction or change of pace, just give us more form-stretching stuff like your various Protein Wisdom Conceptual Series and your conversations with inanimate objects, mixed in with a healthy number of articles analyzing the news with the tools of philosophical (and literary) hermeneutics, and I think it will be good. In any case, your loyal readers will be happy for it.
Tim
Well, if you’re coming back “from the dead”, you could come back as Shagal. In fact, I sense a new category of pw conceptual series coming on.
Or a golem. Golems are cool.
All I ask for is more tribbing.
I’m with Percy on this one . It was always implied , of course .
Jeff,
Since you vacated the task of daily blogging I’ve stopped coming here on a daily basis, but I do check you out once every few days, just to make sure I’m here to catch your great writing when you get back.