I’ve been an active blog-maker since August 5, 2005, initially at Blogger squaring off Biff! Bang! Pow! (Vol. 1) for fifteen years. My lead post, which likely took a month to write and another few days to publish, is an explanation to no one about why I was posting at all:

So I’m a blogger
It’s about time, too, since I set this account up two months ago after enjoying Paul Shirley’s fun NBA.com blog and deciding to jump in. I’ve never kept a journal or anything so my first goal will be to write in my own voice and not one resembling Shirley’s (or Bill Simmons’s, Ken Tremendous’s or Jason Josephes’s) (S apostrophe S is correct in all instances). In general these things are about reaction instead of debate, preferably well written though mostly unimportant, and if you can’t speak for yourself then why bother? We’ll see how it goes.

“Biff, Bang, Pow” is the title of a Creation B-side from 1967 as well as a repeated lyric from a Make-Up B-side (“Pow! to the People”) from 1998, so there you go, the perfect marriage. (I guess it’s also the name of an eighties English band but that doesn’t concern me.) As a result (and as a recovering music snob) I’ll try to make some song or album recommendation from time to time, in keeping with a “theme.” And who knows what else? Sports? Television? International debt? Don’t be so gullible, McFly.

I do like my plain-Jane design—clean lines and squared corners forever! The only thing more powerful than my words will be a zealous approach to minimalism and proper grammar, qualities at which people often stare blankly or roll their eyes but that I find to be intellectually stimulating. Sorry ladies, I have a girlfriend.

Thank you for reading post number one.

“My first goal will be to write in my own voice and not one resembling these four other guys I’m plainly copying.” Beyond this, the site’s best moments were rebranded in abbreviated/revised form for… accountability? Some people baked bread during the pandemic, I proofread years-old sizzle.

Results were and are mixed (and redundant)—sure, I earn a few likes whenever slumming in daily-prompt data mining exercises, but I did have “Blogger friends” in the days before, you know, I finished art school, re-established a respectable professional identity, got married, moved to the suburbs, had a daughter, bought an orange car, lost Chloe the cat, moved farther north, welcomed Rosie the guinea pig, transitioned to WordPress, got laid off, discovered Peter Brötzmann, re-established an improved professional identity, lost Rosie, moved farther north and welcomed Jazzy the cat. Zero readers? Approving my own pings is satisfaction enough.

Meanwhile, as Blogger somehow endures, intermittent Google Search Console emails inform me that:

New reasons prevent pages from being indexed on the site bbpow.blogspot.com.

That’s OK. Everyone’s flaw is a certainty that others give a shit. And I’ll always have “motherfucker.”

By coincidence, in August I read Shirley’s Can I Keep My Jersey? Eleven Teams, Five Countries and Four Years in My Life As a Basketball Vagabond after picking it up at the town’s library book sale in the spring. It was a terrible goddamn slog despite second-star-earning insight into the life of a professional athlete who barely earns professional status. Racist, narcissistic sociopath who thinks he’s smarter than everyone? It must be an election year! Throw another shitty book on the pile—just look at these Goodreads reviews:

“If I learned one thing from this book it’s that Paul Shirley is a jerk.”

“God, Paul Shirley is an asshole.”

“Paul Shirley is a spoiled, entitled, self-centered, racist, upper-middle-class white asshole.”

“Shirley is narcissistic to the point of absurdity, and all of the self-conscious self-deprecation makes it worse.”

“[Shirley] seems self-centered and arrogant. And his book sucks.”

The library is accepting donations this weekend ahead of another fundraising sale. Sorry, future dollar spender, but this prick’s for you.