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Boudreau's Curse

Whenever I plan on asking an offbeat question at a press conference after the Capitals game, I have to be really careful, especially with the timing and tone.

This time, I asked permission, and was told to wait toward the end of the press conference.

After the Caps’ 5-3 preseason win, the coach had a big smile on his face when I saw him downstairs. The press conference was a breeze, no hard questions, and Bruce was in a good mood.

When there was a break in the questions, I made my move.

“Coach, there’s been a lot of new commercials lately,” I began.

“Oh, shit,” he said, and the journalists started laughing (this isn’t the first time I’ve asked a question that led to an interruption of laughter).

I asked whose commercials were funnier and he sheepishly said Ovechkin is better at everything than him.

“But he hasn’t done bird calls,” Jill Sorenson of CSN said (I think it was her).

I thought it was hilarious, and I did get what I needed for my article. The photo is a screengrab from the video at the exact moment I mentioned ‘commercial.’

Sorry, Bruce, but if you’re going to make bird calls for Mercedes and dance on stage in sweats with Ryan Zimmerman, I’m going to ask you about it.

So long as you’re in a good mood.

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The Lure of Song Lists

One of the things I’ve learned about people’s search habits on the Internet is that they often search for lists of songs about certain subjects, and I’ve taken this into consideration when writing articles for Gunaxin. Several of my articles routinely appear near the top of Google search results when people search for ‘songs about…’ However, writing an article based solely on search behavior is secondary to my own interest in these song lists, which isn’t so unusual considering the number of people who are also searching for these lists.

Sad subject, I’ll admit, but anyone who searches for ‘songs about suicide’ (hundreds of searches a day, at least) will see my article “Top Ten Songs About Suicide” near the top of Google results (also a search for ‘suicide songs’ does it). Tens of thousands of people have stumbled upon this article in the past year. It’s just a ranked list of songs that I picked about the subject.

The next big song list that frequently gets search results is “Top Ten Songs to Fight To.” I’m actually surprised this one has done so well over the past year, but apparently more people Google ‘Fighting Songs’ than I thought. Unlike the suicide songs list, the fighting songs are just ten tunes I found that are high-energy and would make a good soundtrack to an old fashioned fist fight. The list could be much longer but who has time for that? Regardless, I’m glad it’s frequently accessed.

The next most frequently searched list is for ‘gay songs.’ After my brother bought a Subaru Forester more than a year ago, he told me it was the top selling car for lesbians. That gave me an idea. I could write an article about the top selling gay and lesbian cars, so I Googled it. Too late. Everyone already wrote that article. Having already written other frequently searched song lists, I then Googled ‘gay songs’ and came up with some very lame results. Finally I found a very good list, from some Australian magazine, but the list was hard to find and the article was paginated. So what did I do? I grabbed the info, wrote and article, and credited them with a link. This is not recommended, and I’m not happy I did it, but at the same time, their information was very hard to find, which is obviously not ideal for people who are searching for it. Next, the Gunaxin article, “Top 50 Gay Songs – Which Do You Own?” rose near the top of search results for ‘gay songs.’ My ‘Gunaxin’ spin was to tell people to count the number of songs they own to see how ‘gay’ they are. Ridiculous, obviously, and some people took it seriously and blasted me for it, failing to note the sarcasm. The article got tens of thousands of page views, but I felt bad because it was just a list from another source. But what I also realized was that this article could be an entire website of LGBT songs and artists. Seizing the search engine opportunity, Gunaxin launched a new website, topgaysongs.com (though none of us are gay). Via Craigslist ads, I recruited a few writers who are passionate about the subject and wrote some articles. The site is virtually maintenance free and gets more than 5,000 page views a month. It makes revenue off of Google ads and Amazon associate links. It hasn’t made us rich, yet, but the number of page views are nothing to throw away. Now only if I can find someone to run it who actually likes those songs, because I certainly don’t. (Also, I briefly thought about launching other sites ‘TopSuicideSongs.com’ and ‘TopFightingSongs.com’ but didn’t see much potential beyond the single song lists.)

The next big article I wrote that I’m hoping will gain a top spot in the search engines is “Songs About Abortion – Pro-Life Edition.” I don’t know how many people search for ‘songs about abortion’ but with any luck, it, too, will rise to the top of Google.

Now, off to write more song lists, because the public is definitely looking for them!

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Books We Should Be Burning

There is a lot of talk about book burning these days because a Gainesville pastor wanted to burn the Koran on Sept. 11. The German poet Heinrich Heine once wrote, “Where they burn books, they will also, in the end, burn humans.”

While I completely agree with this (considering it was a response to the Nazis burning books and later murdering millions), I do believe this message isn’t taking a few points into account.

Listverse.com came up with a remarkable list of ten books that screwed up the world, books that were filled with lies, racism, and sparked murder. These include Malleus Maleficarum, the manual for witch hunting, The Pivot of Civilization, which advocates eugenics and was written by the founder of Planned Parenthood, and of course Mein Kampf. I’d venture to say if these books hadn’t have been published, or were burned, the world would be a slightly better place today.

But I want to take a different route, and focus on books that should be burned for reasons that Heine didn’t consider. Burning these books will not lead to burning humans. These are books that are constantly lining the shelves of book stores, selling relatively well, but routinely getting awful reviews.

Yes, folks, I’m talking about the collected works of James Patterson.

I used to read and enjoy Patterson’s books from the ’90s and earlier in the 2000s, back in the early days of Alex Cross. That was when only Patterson’s name was listed as the author. But since then, Patterson has created an assembly line for his publishing house, cranking out a new one every couple of months, and stamping his name alongside some hack writer who wouldn’t sell half as many copies without King James.

These books take up all that space at the airport bookstore, in place of good books by talented authors. Morons buy them, then go to Amazon and give them a poor rating.

Tell me, what purpose do any of these books serve? They’re poorly reviewed, they’re poorly written (even Patterson admits that polished writing isn’t important to his book-writing techniques), and there’s no end in sight:

The only purpose they serve is to feed money to Patterson, the publisher, the book store, and the co-author. They likely take money out of the pockets of more talented writers who can’t get space on the shelf, or can’t get published, because Witch & Wizard: Battle for Shadowland is in the way.

(Granted, if someone could sell their turds, and people kept buying them despite the lousy reviews, that’s just the free market at work, so I understand why Patterson keeps selling these.)

So there you have it, folks. Books that should be burned. Either that, or books WE SHOULD NO LONGER BE BUYING. Patterson may continue writing, but we kindly ask him to actually try, and to get better reviews.

I would also like to report that there is a Facebook group for All Twilight Books to be Burned.

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I Feel Right at Home

Back when I was in high school and college, I went through a phase where I wanted to write very controversial things to spark debate and generate feedback.

It’s been 13 years since I last wrote for University of Maryland’s Diamondback, where I simultaneously earned some of the best compliments I’ve ever gotten and heard the worst insults – over the same article.

With Gunaxin, I don’t have the same type of forum or audience, but my ability to draw vocal, obnoxious feedback continues. While silly top tens lists are bound to get feedback, finding other ways to strike a nerve, while generating huge number of page views, is the jackpot for a blogger.

This time, it was for my article “Ten Wars That Will Happen in Our Lifetime.” Huge web traffic. It cracked the code of the new Digg. The comments?

Some of the funniest I’ve ever seen. By that I mean anonymous, obnoxious Internet dorks who feel this was the worst article ever written and I am a complete moron and should die in a fire. Seriously? That’s their contribution to the comments? I mean, at the very least refute some of my points (which VERY few people actually did).

Coming up with that list wasn’t too hard. We all know India and Pakistan will go at it again. Israel will fight Hezbollah. U.S. vs. Iran. U.S. vs. Iraq again. Afghanistan civil war. Capping it off with World War III was silly, but hardly the spark that set many people off. I think what may have upset people were saying things like India will nuke Pakistan, and other sensitive things. But ultimately, I prefixed the article by saying that this is a humor blog, not Time magazine.

Moving on.