The Little Voices Inside My Head

I know it's safe to write here. No one visits this blog to read my words except perverts who have Googled Miley Cyrus's crotch. Yep, that post keeps bringing them in. It's my moneymaker.

Yes, I hear voices. I hear them all of the time. Mostly they're just running dialogue, and if I were any kind of established, driven writer I'd record them somehow--write them down at my scheduled time at my writing desk or record them on this little digital recorder that I have that I think is so neat but my younger friends think is so old-school. I guess because it doesn't have an i in front of it.

But there is one little voice that, if I hear it, I know I'm in trouble. It's this little disembodied voice that wonders how I'm doing. "Are you ok?" it will ask. "Are you all right?" It's a gentle voice, like caring stranger at a bus stop or a well-meaning nurse who has broken through the crust her job has layered on her and is truly worried about me.

Are you all right? The answer is always, no. She always seems to know when it's the right time to ask.

Here's the other kicker. Sometimes she--and the voice is female of undetermined age--asks, "How bad did he die?" She's not talking to me. Who? Who is she talking to? There are obviously others in the know about me and she doesn't have all the facts about me, yet still she's concerned. That somehow relieves me, gives me comfort. But it's the question that throws me.

How badly did he die?

Is she asking, what was his death like? How much did he suffer? It seems this voice and her compatriots from the beyond know about dying. It seems as if they have intimate knowledge of it.

But then, the voices and the question seem to prove that there is "something else." That dying isn't the end, just something that has degrees of badness.

Miley Cyrus's crotch picture a big hit on the blogsphere...(PICTURE)

I was talking to my Cousin Jerry yesterday. (Yes, in some parts of the United States, people still call each other cuz, and some even have two names. Would all the stiff necks and blue bloods on the East Coast just please get over it.)

Anyway, he said that he hasn't seen any new postings here on Action Bob lately, and yes, I have to admit, a lot of my writing has been concentrated over on gather.com, where I get paid a pittance for enticing people to visit. I won't be getting rich anytime soon over there, but most writers only dream of becoming rich. They rarely realize it.

Anyway, I'm still writing about what I've always written about starting with columns in the newspaper. Basically I guess it can be summed up with I write about whatever pisses me off. Stated more clearly, I write about things that I feel passionately about, one way or another, good or bad, happy or sad.

That actually came to head yesterday during a live chat on Gather with a group of socialwriters (that's Gather parlance for paid writers) and a couple of channel managers. I cover news and politics. If I bust my hump and get lucky, one of my postings might attract a bit over 5,000 unique page views. A lot has to do with Google and search engine optimization (SEO), plus a few other variables.

What is patently obvious is that the writers covering celebrities were getting hits into the tens of thousands. One writer actually got almost 13,000 unique views for blogging about Miley Cyrus's crotch. So I write about health care or the BP oil spill, and maybe a few hundred read it. (I was actually wondering what a post about an oil spill in Miley Cyrus's crotch would attract.)

Hell yes, I'd love to have a huge readership that would convert to more dollars. But not if I have to write about some twerp's private parts. Hell, I did enough of that kind of writing while in the computer industry--writing about stuff I couldn't care less about, I mean. Not private parts. You write about what you care about, and to hell with the money. (See why writers typically aren't rich?--with an attitude like that. But ask Cousin Jerry: I've been like this all my life, rooted to my principles at to hell with the rest of the world.)

Which is the reason why I started a post yesterday like this:

You know, sometimes my job as a writer is simply to nose around and find stuff that I think people should see and know about. And the one thing about this BP oil spill that just scares the life out of me is that, like Katrina, it will simply fade into the shadows. So sometimes it's just my job to just keep barking annoyingly, saying, hey, look at this. You have to believe in the gift you given. And as it says on my guitar case, never apologize for your art.

I linked the post to some pictures and videos that two bloggers in Pensacola Beach, Florida had posted of the oil washing up on the beach there. Their backyard. And I presented a challenge. Check out the post. Check out the pictures and video, and check out my challenge.

And I'd like to hear what you have to say about all this. Do me a favor and comment on Gather. I get paid when you do.

Money or principles? What's it's going to be.

And oh, just so you get the fulfillment from this post's heading, here's the picture of Miley Cyrus's crotch. Tell the truth--was it really worth it?