Bulwer-Lytton Revisited

I've been told I'm egotistical...well, by one person...who lives in my house who shall remain nameless. I've also been told that the only way to get anyplace is to promote yourself. So, I tend to believe the latter as they say there's no such thing as bad press. Well, undoubtedly there have been some people who had bad press...and they aren't around anymore...but it certainly didn't hurt a lot of careers they said it was going to. Yeah, Hugh Grant certainly is hurting nowadays I'm sure. So is Paris Hilton...yep, whoa boy, she hasn't been heard from in nearly minutes.

So the topic of this blog will center around me...as they say you should write what you know. "They" talk a lot by the way...and I bet they rewrote a lot, too. I tend not to rewrite a lot...could you possibly tell? Well, it did get me somewhere once...I might have mentioned once or twice before...but I won a little contest back in 2003 called "The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest"...which, if you are good enough at writing bad enough...on purpose, mind you...you just might get praised for it. One night, after being told about the contest, I awoke and penned down my immortal entry, changed one word, and sent it off to the contest months later. Well, I decided to try my hand at it again this year...again, without rewriting...I sent off my solitary entry (okay, this time I did send in two...but I don't think the second one counted as I turned it in literally right before they announced the winners...so for technical and embellishment purposes, I'm going to stick to my claim)...and I was picked for a "Miscellaneous Dishonorable Mention". Don't let the title fool you, it's actually quite an accolade...granted not quite the accomplishment as the overall grand prize, but I really didn't think they'd pick me twice for that.

After reading the overall winner Tuesday, I scanned the rest of them...fervently scrolling, scrolling to see if my name popped up anywhere. Yes, I know I could have easily done a "find"...but that wouldn't have had the same effect...that 38 seconds of excruciating agony and anticipation as each passing name went by...was well worth it when I found mine...down near the very end of the list...where I've convinced myself they put all the "really good ones".

So, after I got picked this time around I got to thinking...what are the odds that a previous winner would enter knowing pretty much full well there is no place to go than down...and if I did get mentioned at all, could I handle the "shame" of it...and most importantly...could I parlay it into a few more minutes of fame? Well, let's find out! (Oh, after this I am so not going to get picked a third time.)

The first thing I did was harken back to my "glory days"...and how much I loved the press attention...and how much I thought my CNN Live interview was going to award me with the riches I so fully deserved...you know, the multi-book writing contract, Letterman's people calling me countering the offer from Leno's...who were also countering SNL's. You know...all that stuff that was now rightfully mine for the taking...only there was one catch...how to go about taking something that you aren't given. I still haven't been able to figure that one out exactly...but I had someone who played my HumorMeOnline site that knew someone who knew someone or something like that...at Conan O'Brien's show. Okay, I'm no fan of Conan's...but hell...I'll be his number one fan if I end up on his show. So, off I whisked my CNN videotape, with a little picture of Alabama with the arrow pointing to Wetumpka, apparently representing me as I wasn't in a studio at the time...only to hear back from Conan's people that "they weren't sure I could fill up a whole six minutes". Oh, right...I could fill up six hours...and still not be done saying what I came to say...Jimmy Stewart's portrayal of Mr. Smith in DC has nothing on me. Of course it remains to be seen if I am as interesting in others' minds as I am in my own...altho CNN's, David Lawrence Show's, and some other show's people assured me I was.

To best be the judge of this, I think I should be interviewed some more...that is why I got up this morning and rattled off an email to Craig Ferguson's show...explaining that since he wasn't around in 2003 when I first won...perhaps now they'd like to get around to it since I kinda "won" again. Tomorrow I write to Dave...Letterman that is...and certainly he won't pass this up...c'mon he's had a guy on the show who nail-gunned a nail into his own head...how many minutes can that take to go into detail about? How much could the guy remember afterwards? He had a friggen nail stuck in his head after all!

This brilliant idea of mine is surely going to get me all those perks I missed out on the first time around...or at the very least another interview with the Montgomery Advertiser people...they DO read this blog...right?