Pissing in the Wind: Death of a Cliche Title

So, Arthur Miller is dead, huh? Too bad. The Crucible was good, and I thought Death of a Salesman was pretty interesting. I liked the part when Biff went postal and started shooting SCUD missiles at his office building from atop a grassy knoll, screaming "Say 'ello to my little friend" with guns ablaze, and his shirt torn open, exposing a "Thug Life" tattoo across his chiseled abs. Good times, good times.

I'm going to level with you here: I know very little about Arthur Miller and his work. To be perfectly honest, when news reports went out saying "Arthur Miller is dead," my first reaction was, "Arthur Miller was alive?" And apparently he was, and apparently now, he's not. Frankly, I was more concerned with the death of Rick James than of Arthur Miller. Not to mention ODB. At least with those you were just waiting for the autopsies of those drug-bloated corpses.

This might strike some readers of The Enfranchised as strange, since the writings and topics of choice for this blog tend to be literary, with the founders' scientific backgrounds sometimes creeping through. But since I consider myself more of a houseguest than a tenant (think the Kato Kalin of blogs), I'm sort of the odd man out. This is especially so with regards to the overall voice at The Enfranchised. As the name might suggest, the blog could be thought of as the voice of an oppressed majority. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your point of view), the postings never really reflect that. And in my opinion, that's a good thing. I'd much rather read a collection of rants and articles not tied down to any ideology or common voice for that matter. And in my own, liberal-guiltish way, I find the latter preferable. Granted I'm a white male, from a middle-class suburb, educated in a New England private school, but that's about all I have in common with WASP culture. Plus I'm a gay, communist amputee. Power to the people.

But enough disclaimers. Baron von Foster touched on an interesting topic in his turn at upwind urination, namely, the role of blogs. Thanks to the internet--and kudos to Al Gore--it seems that everyone has a blog nowadays. Dan & Dan have one (of which I am a proud contributor). I have one. Even the Prime Minister of Ukraine has a freaking blog. In short, blogs are going the way of assholes--everyone has them, and mostly they smell like shit.

I could be an aspiring author and write the wittiest, most well-written (or is it best written? Obviously this is hypothetical) essays in my blog and no one could read it. I could write salacious lies about elected officials and world leaders, and I bet people would probably read it then (and believe it). For example: the Pope is actually dead. Has been for years. It's like Weekend at Bernie's in the Vatican. That, and Dick Cheney is gay.

Someone searching in google for "Dick Cheney gay" or "Pope Bernie" might come to this blog, and if I wrote an entire expose about Cheney's gayness, or the Pope's deadness, who's to stop me? My editor? My sponsors? My (laugh) sense of decency? It's sort of a double edged sword: freedom of speech, but a little too free... Or as my gay friend Dick Cheney might say when speaking Pope-like zombie-talk, "must...stifle...dissent..."

So in an internet full of blogs, how do you get your readers? Put metaphorically, if a blog falls in the forest, would anyone hear it? Put succinctly, who the fuck cares what I/we write? And should we even care if anyone does? Hence, comrade Bentley's google ad about Arthur Miller.

Maybe some people were directed to this blog and found it interesting. Perhaps more found it ungrammatical drivel and puked on their keyboards. (me no see why). Probably, a lot are wondering about the necessity for all this self-indulgent introspection. Either way, I'd hope no one would come here expecting a blog devoted entirely to Arthur Miller. What would that be like anyway? "Update: he's still dead." "Further update: Arthur Miller rocks!" "Breaking news: his fingernails have grown. Arthur Miller lives!"

So basically what I'm saying is that Arthur Miller is dead, and unless some literary psycho wants to go papal on his ass, he's going to stay that way. You should probably go read one of his plays, that way you can commiserate with the cultured community, and talk about the great scene where John Proctor throws miniature crucibles at the undead to stop them from eating all of Salem's candy. And thus, Halloween was born.