Kenny Williams Should Run For President

You know, I've been under the impression the last few months that I'm not the only angry White Sox fan in this city. Whether I'm having conversations with friends, listening to local radio, reading comments here or at FanHouse, the theme has always been the same: DAMN YOU, KENNY WILLIAMS!! DAMN YOU TO HELL!!!

A little over the top, sure, but sports fans have never really been known for their subtleties.

So when SoxFest took place over the weekend, I figured it was probably going to be the longest three days of Kenny Williams life. Sox fan after Sox fan was going to line up and hurl insults, and maybe even some rotten tomatoes at the embattled White Sox general manager.

I didn't go to SoxFest, as my head currently feels as though it's in a vice, and if I stand up and walk for more than 10 seconds right now I start getting dizzy. From all accounts that I read over the weekend though, there was no animosity. Sure, there were a few questions directed at Kenny that were along the lines of "How many drugs did you take before you made the comment that you thought the Sox could match up with Detroit?" Other than that though, Sox fans were pretty tame.

Hell, by the time Kenny was done talking, he got a standing ovation. Seriously. It seems other Sox fans know something about Carlos Quentin that I don't.

Foul Balls

I've Been Saying This For Years - So you're sitting at your desk right now reading this, and you probably think I have the easiest job in the world. I mean, all I have to do is wake up in the morning and start typing. I don't have to shower, I don't have to get dressed, I don't even have to leave my bedroom.

But it isn't easy. Do you know how hard it is to find something that interests you enough to write a few thousand words a day on? Especially at this time of year where there isn't a god damn thing happening in sports that really matters.

Well, Deadspin's Will Leitch recently wrote a book (Did you know that? I'm not sure anybody's mentioned it.) and in a column over at Publisher's Weekly, he wrote something I've known for some time now.

It's easier to write a book than be a blogger.

Much has been written about the relative lack of sales success for books written by bloggers, as if bloggers were an ethnic group, or some sort of easily charted genre. Every blogger is different from the others; I can't think of a single shared characteristic among bloggers, save for lack of a tan. The one thing we do do, however, is write. A lot. I've worked for newspapers, magazines, television stations, doctor's offices, you name it, and no job requires more daily effort than being a professional blogger. If people have a slow day at the office and do a little less work than usual, hardly anyone notices. If I have a slow day, every commenter on my site lets me know immediately.

I once worked at a paper factory, piling magazine pages into a sorter, and if I fell behind for as few as 120 seconds, a red light would go off above my workstation and the entire machine would stop. Professional bloggers have that red light looming over their heads every day. Blogging is not a job for those who are afraid of writing, and it forces you to let go of all those niggling bad habits you had when people weren't waiting for your next post all day.

This is my third book; I'm proud of it, and I hope it does well, but if it doesn't, I will not shrivel up and die. I'll just write another one. (Okay, I might cry a little, but I'm sensitive.) This is how those who have mastered the art of online writing—where every minute is another deadline, when you have to bring your best game every day—have been trained. We are not looking at a blank page and trying to fill it; we are looking at yesterday's work and realizing it means nothing. The next thing you do is all that matters; every day—every minute—is a test to grab eyeballs with something fresh and inspiring. You write because that's your job; you won't hear a blogger ever say they're “blocked.” Writer's block is the luxury of those who have no one expecting to hear from them today.

Preach on, brother!

I'll be totally honest with you right now. I didn't want to write today. As I've mentioned 15 times already in a desperate plea for sympathy, I'm sick as a fucking dog right now. I can hardly breathe, let alone think of something intelligent to say. (So what's my excuse for every other day?) But I'm here anyway, slapping away at these lettered buttons on my laptop. Why? Because for some reason I would feel bad if I didn't. If you came here this morning, and there was nothing new on the site, I feel as though I'd have let all six of you readers down.

That and there's nothing on television on Monday morning to watch instead.

This Kid Is Special - I have no idea what point this kid is trying to make here, but I'm captivated by his waving arms and feel the need to post this. I should mention though, that even though Leitch is correct in saying bloggers can't have writer's block because they have to put something out every day, we do have a resource that somebody writing a book doesn't.

We have YouTube.



Thanks to Shoals for the video.