
Count me IN on the Fundraising game.
No lie, a buck apiece. I am nigh upon the three-year mark of wielding my metaphorical sword of astute observation serrated by rapier wit. In the manner of chumps throughout history, I have been doing for no money but a Good Cause. In the manner of a lapsed Catholic recovering alcoholic, I’ll see yer Stupidity and raise ya Martyrdom. I am PAYING to play the game.
To quote a once-upon-a-time Rooomie, “Fuck that for a laugh.” British. Starving Artist Daze. Fun fun fun, ’til they weren’t. People need to get out more when they’re younger — meet people, see the world, get smart. Oldsters should be doin’ the office holding . . . with all the glamor of jury duty. And for the same price, with a beats-sittin’-at-home cheerfulness. My considered opinion.
That should be a given, yes? That I speak MY mind, MY Truth. There are VERY few Inarguables. I grant 2 + 2 = 4, and all that follows provably by equation. I grant certain Laws of Science, eh? Otherwise I’d be a European Monarchical Nincompoop who would refuse to fund Christopher Columbus’s adventuring on certainty that the world was flat. I have crossed the mid-century mark. I have only to look at my own face and body to know that Gravity is Fact. I grant that which follows provably from Fact. Otherwise electricity would scare the bejeezus out of me, and a camera would steal my soul.
After that, it’s a marketplace of Ideas. I am noticing some strong arming of competition, by the by. When Bad Guys freewheel with impunity, Bullies can be relied to come out to play. Like looters after a natural disaster.
Even if I were positioned to continue to work/live “for free,” which I am not — thanks every bit as much to freewheeling Bad Guys as to my perversity for gravitating to them — I see clearly and feel strongly that working “for free” is corrosive to Capitalism. I see clearly and feel strongly that Capitalism is the best economic system thus far sort of defined by sustained application REALLY SORT OF principles. Peek-a-boo principles, that’s what we have.
Too, I already put in my time working for free — and got kicked in the teeth for it. Life is not for Sissies. Or it’s COMPLETELY for Sissies, which is the path on which this Effete Elite Administration, like the previous Effete Elite Administration, has us skating wildly along. Look Ma, no hands! LOOK MA, NO BRAKES!!
A bona fide well-wisher said to me lately, in an I-love-how-you-are-but-perhaps-you-should-change way, that I have no brakes.
I’m taking advice to heart, believe you me. I have also put in my time banging my head against a brick wall.
Brakes. Here. Me. Now.
It takes a lot of discipline to be free, I’ve learned that.
People will pay me to write online — “for free,” instead of selling books — or I will find something else to do that DOES cause money to flow through my coffers as needed.
If I make you laugh even once in awhile, it’s work a dollar. That’s what I’m going for, tiny amounts in staggering number. Laughs are hard to come by. So is honesty. I’m bringing both to the table, plus an uncommon flair with the English language.
The CoughUp button in the right-hand menu opens a PayPal page. Yeah, I know. It scared me too and kinda still does. You don’t have to open a PayPal account. You can use other credit cards. But I GET IT about not wanting to use credit cards online. Or at all. The matter of my not writing online for free remains. Decisions, decisions. I need to make a decision that is contingent on the decision of others. Is my musing/writing/blogging online — without advertising and absent affiliation, it bears mention — worth one dollar to enough people to make it economically viable? If not, there are alternative and better ways to focus myself and direct my resources, such as they are. Talk about the School Of Hard Knocks, eh?
But MUCH better all the way around if you would be so kind as to SEND one dollar . . . one increasingly worthless Federal Reserve Note . . .to the address below. I appreciate that between envelope and stamp and time, this is more like a two-dollar commitment. But when the going gets tough, desperate times call for measure of improvisation that celebrate the present as the start of the rest of your life, which is unfair. Something like that.
Implausible Endeavors LLC
8306 Wilshire Blvd. PMB 46
Beverly Hills, CA 90211
You won’t like everything I say, but I think you will never suspect me of pulling punches, covering up or side stepping. I’m irritating, like your conscience, but I’m honest. Trust me on this, cash and honesty will send the IRS into what my CPA father used to call CONNIPTION FITS.
That alone is worth a buck.