Hi There
I just thought I would take a minute or two, well probably longer, because I am actually writing it rather than speaking. Sometimes it is easier speaking, especially with my grammar. I wanted to talk today about the blog and the radio show. Thanks to all of you who have sent me e-mails and messages on Facebook.
This might take awhile, so if you have some lunch you want to make, you can probably go put it in the microwave and come back and I will still be here typing.
Way back in November 2006 when I started this blog, I did it because I was bored at work one day and had just read a blog and said, "I can do that." I wrote something and the next day I wrote again and it kept on going like that for awhile and then that whole MV thing hit, and the rest is history.
Despite what many people may think, or believe, the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth is that it has been me since day 1 writing this blog. If anyone has ever contributed to the site they have been given credit, whether it was for a movie review or giving me a link. Everything else has been me. No team of writers, no switching between people. It has just been me. Whether you want to believe I am a lawyer or not is up to you, but since I have started this blog, I met with the then managing editor of Defamer (I miss them) and showed him my bar card. I have also met with people from The National Enquirer, US Weekly and Life & Style and done the same.
Many of you over the years have asked the question, how does a lawyer find the time to write a blog and work a schedule as busy as a lawyer would have. The answer is that it has been very hard at times. I will give you an idea of my daily schedule for the past almost five years. Wake up. Eat enough food for five people and go to work. Spend the next five hours juggling working, phone calls, meetings and blogging. Eat enough lunch for five people. I then work until about 8 or 9 at night every night to make up for the time I spent blogging in the morning. I do this every day. Just me.
If I have a trial that is going to last all day, I wake up early and blog the entire day ahead of time. Until Blogger made it possible to post ahead, I would wake up and post a whole bunch of things at 5am. If you go back and look at old posts before they allowed this feature, you will see this being done. If I have a calendar call at court, I try and guess how long it will take and post enough to get me back to work. Often you will see a large gap after say 10am because I guessed wrong and you will see a flurry of posts after 11am.
I have not had a vacation for five years. Oh sure, I have gone out of town and even been out of the country many times over the past five years, but I have never had a vacation. Imagine that you and your family went to Europe or something like that. Imagine that during the middle of each day, you told them all that you needed a four hour break so you can blog. To give you some examples over the past five years, I have done the blog from a hotel room while I suffered the worst case of food poisoning that any human has ever experienced. Bathroom then post. Repeat. I was in a third world country two years ago during reveals week and could not get an internet connection to save my life. To get the reveals posted, I had to blog from 1am to 5am so I would be the only guest using the internet. If more than one guest used it, the entire thing would shut down. Through all of this time, I have blogged the past five years as a hobby. There is really no money in it for me because I have not really tried to get money. I have some ads from time to time and they pay all the incidentals, but I do not actively try to get rich. I have had offers to do television or roundtables, and have been offered hosting gigs at parties, but my anonymity was the most important thing, and the other was it is just a hobby and I do these things everyday because I enjoy allowing you to take a break from your day, your schedule, and your life.
I have good days and I have bad days. My moods vary just like yours. Somedays I really feel like writing a lot and somedays it is a struggle to get through, but I am here everyday writing away. It has always been funny to me and to my closest group of friends who know I write this, when speculation runs rampant about how someone else is writing the blog now or the tone has changed. It has been five years. No one is the same. It has evolved. The personal things I used to write about, I cannot write about as much anymore because it would be too easy to out me.
In December, the firm I work for, started monitoring every page we go to on the internet. At that point, I could no longer do the blog on any work computer so have been forced to bring in a laptop and do it covertly. This has made everything much more difficult because I have to keep hiding and then dragging out my laptop. Over the past month, I had some days where I just wanted to give up. There have been lots of days over the past five years where I have wanted to give up. It is easy to criticize and to comment from afar, but I challenge each of you to do what I have done for five years for five hours a day and see if you are able to juggle everything in your life to make it happen.
As for the radio show, Carli and I have always wanted to do a radio show. So, we decided what the heck, lets give it a shot. What we did not take into consideration was the fact we would be giving up every Saturday morning for eternity to do the show. It is one thing to blog from almost anywhere, but for now the radio show would require us to be in one fixed place every Saturday morning.
Considering I was already giving five days a week to the site, Saturday's were going to be another day I would have to give up. Do not get me wrong, I have no greater joy in the world than doing that radio show. I makes me happier than I get all week and I love every second of it. The logistics of it are very difficult though and imagine trying to find guests, calling them, e-mailing them, while remaining anonymous and doing this during an already packed week. The radio show is not done or over. Carli and I just need to find a happy medium. I think it will eventually boil down to once a month for three hours or so and be more interactive with your calls and be more a reflection of the site than just a straight interview radio show. It is much easier to commit to once a month than every week. Plus, we are working on a way we can do it without having to be at a fixed place.
I realize that I should have given you more updates about what is going on and the the things that are going on in my life. The thing is there are lots of things going on in my life, as I am sure you do too. They interfere with not only the blog, but everything else. What is going on in my life is important to me and is very time consuming right now. That is still not an excuse for not keeping you, the people who have been with me for so long, updated and informed, but I do wish to say I am sorry.
I also decided in the past week or so that if everyone did stop reading the site, I would still keep plugging away and writing and posting photos because I love doing it. Despite everything I wrote above, I do love it or I would have stopped a long time ago. I do it for all of you and I appreciate and respect all of you. I value your opinions whether you like me, love me or hate me. I have never ever deleted a comment except those which are vulgar. Without all of you reading and commenting, the site would be much less interesting. Anyway, I will let all of you get back to your day or nights. Pictures to come in a bit.