I really wish I could just write what I feel like writing, when I feel like writing it, and if I had a patron who supported me as so many artists did in pre-industrial times, I would do exactly that. But I don’t, so I can’t. Of course, many online personalities carry advertising, and one of these days I may be forced to do that as well. But I grew up reading MAD magazine, and share their philosophy on ads: they “pay the bills, but…are distracting and annoying, and readers have good reason to suspect that any publication which carries them will be biased against offending those advertisers.” On top of that, I am not a hypocrite; I don’t really want to carry ads because:
I really hate advertising. I hate watching it, I hate advertisers trying to irritate me to get my attention, and back when I used to watch a lot of PBS (’70s to ’90s) I hated those damned pledge drives. Some of y’all may even remember that one of the reasons I semi-retired is because I had it up to here {puts hand as far above head as I can reach} with dealing with buying, keeping up with, writing, and jumping through the stupid censor-demanded hoops of escort advertising. So obviously I don’t want to subject y’all to it, either…
I really wouldn’t mind so much having a sponsor like in ’50s television, where I could put a well-behaved static banner at the bottom saying that this blog was sponsored by Alcoa Aluminum, or Joy Dishwashing Liquid, or General Mills breakfast cereals. Or a tagline saying that my blog was made possible by a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. But unfortunately, none of those folks want to be associated with harlots (retired or otherwise), so all I have is “viewers like you”. I try not to bother y’all too often; aside from the little notices at the bottom of news & links columns, the only thing I’ve said about it this year was a little note at the bottom of this column in May. So if you’re a regular reader but not a subscriber yet, would you please consider changing that? The regular levels are in the right-hand column, and the superstar levels are here. Give it a thought, would you? Thank you!
