Fun Facts About This Blog

1) I published my first post about Michael Paulkovich on the 29th of September, 2014, and my first post about Justin Bieber on the 19th of March, 2015. In the first 48 hours after they were published, the post on Michael Paulkovich received more than 100 times as many pageviews as the post on Justin Bieber.

2) On the 28th of March, 2011, I made an experiment to see if I could get more traffic on the blog by pandering to mass tastes than by doing what I usually do, with a post entitled Cute Baby Animal Pictures! whose texts begins: "In this post I'm going to pander to mass tastes." and after that consists mostly of baby-talk, like: "Widgiewidgiewidgiewidgie! Who's a pwecious liddle fing? Who's my liddle pwecious?" interspersed among 6 photos of baby animals, 4 of which have disappeared. The photos were linked from the web rather than uploaded by me.

"Cute Baby Animal Pictures!" has received about 40 times as many pageviews as the average Wrong Monkey post, second all-time on this blog only to my aforementioned first post on Michael Paulkovich. It continues to be one of The Wrong Monkey's most popular posts week-in and week-out, despite the missing photos. But it was the only such attempt I have made to pander to mass tastes. This blog's lowered potential commercial success has been literature's gain -- or it has been literature's loss if you prefer to look at it that way. I'm just glad you're reading my blog, I'm not going to try to tell you what to think of it.

3) One of The Wrong Monkey's all-time most popular posts has been the ironically-entitled Why I Stopped Reading The Watch Snob, and I have no idea why so many people have viewed it. Nobody has commented on it, so I've gotten no clues that way about what's aroused people's interest. I haven't been able to find it linked anywhere. I repeat, this post is ironically-titled. I haven't stopped reading The Watch Snob, I think it's a good column, I actually learn things by reading it. Also, it's witty. Also, as I've mentioned on that post, The Watch Snob and The Wrong Monkey sound like a pair of super-villains teamed up to thwart Batman & Robin.

But I don't know why people are reading that post. For all I know, the Watch Snob's online presence might be popular beyond my wildest imagination, and people find my post just by mistake. For all I know, people who dislike the Watch Snob surf to my post thinking I'm a kindred spirit. Sorry about that, if that's the case.

4) I'd very much like it if each and every one of you would talk me up for the 2015 Nobel Prize in Literature. That's a stone-cold fact: I'd appreciate it very much indeed! Especially if you happen to know -- or be -- extremely-influential people in the worlds of publishing and literature. I want that Prize, I want it bad. That's a fact. You know how Roger Daltrey sings on "Magic Bus," "I waaaant it, I waaaant it, I waaaant it[...]" That's how I feel, it's how I am all the time. Fame? I waaaant it. Fortune? I waaaaant it. That Prize? I waaaaant it. A date with Reese Witherspoon, if she's single? I waaaaant it. A platinum Daytona with an ice-blue dial? Why yes, thank you, in fact I'll take two of those! Yeah. Yeah! I want a whole bunch of all of that! Desire makes me strong and improves my posture.



5) In "Him With His Foot In His Mouth" by Saul Bellow, the title character and narrator, who realizes that on many occasions in his life he has been more candid than was either prudent or kind, says to one character whom he hopes will give his university a grant, who at a banquet has been telling him for hours on end about all of the money she has given to artists and other deserving people, when she mentions that she plans to write her memoirs, asks her: "Do you plan to use a typewriter or an adding machine?" and says to a family member attempting to involve him in a court case which he regards as nothing better than rank extortion, and who says to him, the narrator, the artsy, literate one in the rough-and-tumble family: "You're the one with the words" -- Ah say Ah say this one wit his foot in his mout, this artsy one, he replies: "And you're the whore with nine cunts!" But it's a fact that Bellow wrote this high-minded piece of frankness after he'd published several huge bestsellers AND won that great big Nobel Prize -- the very same one. That's a fact. So if his ghost or his fans want to look down their noses at me for wanting a whole bunch of stuff they can, pardon my French but they can all go sit on it!!! That's a fact, that's exactly what they can do! ("Him With His Foot In His Mouth" is a great story, the title story of a great volume of stories. I don't know what to do with the fact that such a beautiful writer let himself be politically seduced by the neocon Mephistofeles.)

I (Intentionally) Listened To Justin Bieber For The 1st time Today, And He Sounds A Lot Better Than --

-- Steppenwolf, Peter, Paul & Mary, Miley Cyrus, Madonna, Molly Hatchett, Foghat, Free and Bad Company, Robert Plant, Kylie Minogue, BJ Thomas, John (Cougar) Mellencamp, Roberta Flack, Elvis Presley, Pat Boone, Bing Crosby, Foreigner, Olivia Newton-John, Wild Cherry, Grand Funk Railroad, One Direction, Quiet Riot, Chubby Checker, Duran Duran, The Archies, The Monkees, Paula Abdul, the 5th Dimension, Ace of Base, Kenny Rogers, Whitney Houston, Poison, Tommy Edwards, Johnny Mathis, Alice Cooper, Tony Orlando & Dawn, Nickleback, Irene Cara, Survivor, Bryan Adams, Jewel, Debby Boone and a lot of other recording artists who have had huge hits with records that sound really, really bad. Not merely mediocre, but brutally offensive to the human ear. Sonic crimes. Noise pollution. Sickening.

Let me make it clear what I'm saying: "Baby" and some other records by the Biebster, which I intentionally listened to for the first time today (I'd already heard snippets of "Baby" as background music somewhere on the tube, without knowing who the artist was), sound MUCH better than THE BEST of the crappy records made by ANYBODY I just listed off. And that list was just off the top of my head.

If I had included all the recording artists whose WORST huge hit records sound much worse than "Baby" (which is really catchy and nice), I would have had to list the Beatles ("Hey Jude" plus a lot more crap from McCarthy, but "Hey Jude" is just unbelievably awful), the Rolling Stones ("Angie"), the Pretenders ("Don't Get Me Wrong"), Paul McCartney & Wings (At least half of their hit singles. At least half. Paul, John carried you), Lionel Richie ("Hello," "Endless Love" and others both with the Commodores and solo), Michael Jackson (Remember when people were claiming that Michael was making Quincy Jones sound great, and not the other way around?) and a lot of others who sound good part of the time.

So if you're compiling a list of the millions or billions of Bieber h8ers, please make sure my name's not on there. His stuff reminds of what we used to call "bubblegum" back in the 1970's. I should say: it reminds me of some of the better bubblegum. A lot of it was crap, but on the other hand, "Go All The Way" by the Raspberries still sounds good to me 40 years later.



Also, understand, this is just about the music, and not about whether I think they're nice people (Like Peter, Paul & Mary, who've raised bazillions of dollars for good causes in endless benefit concerts), or if they've made videos which are good with the sound off (like Madonna and Miley Cyrus and Kylie Minogue). After finally listening to Bieber's music, finally trying to find out for myself what all the fuss is about amongst all those people who think he's so awful, I have to conclude that the fuss has never been about the music, because his music isn't all that bad at all, and a lot of the biggest hit records have always been just excruciatingly awful.

So anyway. I hope the young man gets his shit together and has a long and productive career. And all you h8ers: l8er!

PS: Okay: "No More Mr Nice Guy" by Alice Cooper is a really good record. You know how good it is? So good that for a lot of years I assumed that it was a record by The Who, and when I found out it was by Alice Cooper I was amazed, and I still am. That good. Take away that one single and Alice belongs on that list 100%. But "No More Mr Nice Guy" kicks ass.