August 31, 2005

Three Seconds of Fame As

Three Seconds of Fame

As is well known among the culturally literate, Andy Warhol once mentioned that everyone got his “fifteen minutes of fame.” Unfortunately, as is also well known among the culturally literate, Mr. Warhol was personally allotted more than fifteen minutes. If you have seen the Warhol film appropriately titled Bad, you know that this deranged shock-artist didn’t deserve more than ten minutes, tops.

Anyway, dear reader, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quartelry,” had reason to pause and reflect on Mr. Warhol’s bon mot just the other day.

Naturally, you are wondering why we furrowed our collective brows and pondered the nature of fame. Have we somehow received an Instalaunch? Has our humble “weblog” been discussed on CNN? Did we just rob a bank?

The answer to these fine queries is a resounding No. Even still, dear reader, something peculiar occurred the other day that erroneously compelled us to believe that we, like Peter Gabriel, were making it big time.

Fans of Al Gore’s World-Wide Web may know of a curious “website” called the Truth Laid Bear. Along with some other goodies on said “site,” there is a ranking of sundry “weblogs” in the order of their popularity.

For as long as we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” can remember, our humble “weblog” has been assigned to the “Marauding Marsupials” category of this ranking system. In essence, this means that this “weblog,” is vaguely popular. It’s read by more people than your Aunt Phyllis, but it ain’t exactly Andrew Sullivan’s Daily Dish.

Imagine our collective surprise, when just the other day a seeming miracle occurred. A small miracle, perhaps, but a miracle nonetheless. Although our “website” has remained dismally unpopular all summer, and although we haven’t had a big “link” in months, we suddenly were members of the far more illustrious “Large Mammals” category.

As far as we can tell, dear reader, this is the Internet’s version of the big time. “Webloggers” who are “Large Mammals” have officially arrived. They’re pretty much Gordo cool. Women want to be with them, and men want to be them. Or perhaps the other way around.

Accordingly, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” decided to throw a “Large Mammals” bash. We figured that we ought to celebrate our Internet arrival in style.

And we figured we’d invite all of our favorite “Large Mammals”: G.K. Chesterton, the Baldwin Brothers, et al. Perhaps we’d even invite Robbo and Steve-o along. You know, do the thing classy.

Just as we were putting the finishing touches on the details of our soiree, we took a gander back at our ranking, and found that we had plummeted back to the unimpressive land of the “Marauding Marsupials.” Apparently, the old Truth Laid Bear had some sort of malfunction, and we were erroneously placed in the “We’re Worth More Than a Piece of Garbage” pile.

It’s a shame, isn’t it? Now we know how the Baltimore Orioles feel.

Posted at August 31, 2005 12:01 AM | TrackBack