Steven Rubio's Online Life

five years ago today

From a “friday random ten” post on January 6, 2006:

6. Ice Cube, "Fuck Dying." That's a title I can get behind.

one reason to keep blogging

I’m going to need a lot more than 140 characters when Barry Bonds doesn’t make the Hall of Fame.

happy birthday, steven rubio’s online life

It was nine years ago today that I started this blog. I have no idea why it’s still here. I still don’t know who my audience is, and thus I don’t know for whom I am writing. As I noted in a post a couple of days ago, my readership has increased solely because I cross-post to Facebook, which is the template in 2011 for the Place We Expose Ourselves.

From Day One, I have tried to be true to this blog’s Pauline Kael pull quote, “I’m frequently asked why I don’t write my memoirs. I think I have.” If you look at the “category cloud” on the left side of the blog, you’ll see that yes, many of my posts are personal, but the most frequent categories are music and television and sports, and film and current affairs are about as frequent as “personal” as well. In short, I believe this blog is my memoir, not because I write directly about personal things, but because I write about myself when I write about music and television and sport and film and current affairs.

Nine years in, there is no escaping the reality of the situation: Steven Rubio’s Online Life is a vanity-press production. The existence of this blog proves the existence of Steven Rubio. I appreciate all of my readers, even the Carpenters fans who hate me, even the Facebook readers who never get past the first paragraph, even the people who come here via search engines and leave as quickly as they arrive once they find I have no nude pictures of Christina Hendricks or Kristin Proctor. As long as I think one person is reading, then I can imagine an audience. And so I suppose I’ll do this for another year.

blog highlights, 2010, or, adebisi, kristin proctor, and uncle miltie

Time to check out the Google Analytics report for this blog, covering January 1 through today. My favorite thing to check is the search terms people used to find the blog … this doesn’t count people who check in everyday via a bookmark, but is instead for people who come here from a search engine.

The top search term for the year was “klee irwin.” This is more impressive than you might think, for #6 was “klee irwin fraud” and #11 was “klee irwin scam” and #66 was “klee irwin dual action cleanse” … #120 was “klee irwin” in quote marks, #179 was “klee irwin health program,” #231 was “who is klee irwin,” and #352 was “irwin klee.” The primary blog post that attracted folks was “klee irwin piece of shit motherfucking rip-off scam artists,” which was not my most subtle post title.

I love my brother, but I have no idea why the #2 search term of the year was “geoff rubio.” If you include all of the variants, my own name passes his, but still, a tip of the cap to ya, bro.

The inevitable “tony peluso” came in at #4, just behind the first version of my name. Other variants of his name, many related to his unfortunate passing, came in at: 51, 55, 84, 92, 140, 159, 225, 235, 389, 496, and more. All well-deserved … rest in peace, Tony.

#7 (again, some of the gaps are due to multiple variants on the above) was “big love season finale,” which also came in at #29 and #35 in other variants.

One of the most delightful returnees is the wonderful “adebisi hat” at #8. Variants at 17, 59, 96 (“how does adebisi’s hat stay on”), 130, 201, 237, 238, and 312. Oz has been off the air for almost eight years, and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje has not only been in several movies since that show, but he was also the key figure of Mr. Eko in Lost. Yet to this day, people still want to know about Adebisi’s hat.

At #9 we have “rubicon finale.” Rubicon makes 8 more appearances on the list, which suggests more people read about it on my blog than actually watched the show.

Finally, #10 is “glee autotune,” which needs no explanation.

There are two searches that show up every year. First is what I’d call the “naked lady” search … people looking to see nude photos of their favorite actresses (or, rarely, actors). There are no such pictures on this blog, but that doesn’t stop people from trying. The highest-ranking such search term is Naked Lady Search Hall of Famer Kristin Proctor … here’s a list of everyone who got at least three visits from people looking for nudity:

Kristin Proctor, Christina Hendricks, Robin Weigert, Jenny Agutter, Henry Simmons, Polly Walker, Huey Lewis, Marianne Faithfull, Milton Berle, and Silas Botwin.

A few notes … the list is shorter than usual, there are more men on the list than usual, and despite her, to my knowledge, only nude scene occurring almost 8 years ago (a few seconds in one episode of The Wire), Kristin Proctor totally rules this list, not only as the highest-ranked celebrity, but also because she appears a total of 18 times in various search attempts.

The other annual search term is, of course, Milton Berle and his legendary penis. Uncle Miltie turns up 13 times, as “how big was milton berle,” “milton berle penis,” “milton berle penis photo,” “milton berle legend,” “milton berle big,” “milton berle’s penis,” “milton berle how big,” “milton berle penis pictures,” “pictures of milton berle penis,” “milton berle nude,” “milton berle penis pics,” “milton berle’s cock,” and “pictures of milton berle’s penis.” The man’s been dead since 2002 … clearly, his organ is longer lasting than even Adebisi’s hat or Kristin Proctor’s bosom.

first new post to world cup blog

And we’re off!

Ten Reasons We Should Be Excited About World Cup 2010

at this rate, i might get 16 minutes of fame

The Angry Greek is at it again, mentioning me on her blog in a post titled “Stupid Me.” She called me a “pop-culture enthusiast” … she also called me “awesome,” but the former is probably closer to the truth than the latter.

I’m not sure how you would out someone as open as The Angry Greek, but I can’t help noting that in her emails, she is not angry at all (I don’t know how Greek she is). In fact, she’s so charming that I am even more impressed by the entertaining bile of her blog, knowing that she has to work at being so pissed off.

Heather Havrilesky at Salon had this shtick she used to pull out where she channeled the speaking style of Al Swearengen:

Welcome, tender cocksuckers and the like, to this weekly fucking missive, concocted by the foul and narrow mind of an ink-stained wretch who dreams up rambling reports for finks, loafers and sad, sallow fucks, so that they might stay abreast of the latest televised entertainments, whilst perhaps saving themselves the time and concerted fucking effort of attending to such base and poorly conceived amusements themselves. That's right, my jaw is set with impatience and disgust so yours need not be!

I couldn’t pull something like this off if I sold my soul to the devil, but Havrilesky made it seem as if the stuff just rolled off her tongue, and she was pretty close to the original, as well:

I have the urge to pull a Heather on the Angry Greek, and try to write a post, Greek-style. But I couldn’t pull that off, either. Still, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Greek didn’t have some Swearengen in her family tree, as shown in this post, wherein an Olsen Twins sighting sets the Greek off until she calms herself down by thinking of her love, Amber Benson:

[T]he Trollsens were spotted in NYC yesterday looking like two tranny hookers mourning the death of disco. What does it mean when the trolls leave their buttercup cottages and dress all in black? Must be bad. Must be very bad. Methinks the end of days is near…
Trollsens, if you come near my house with that fuckery, I will beat you over the head with a broom and sweep you outside. That is what my mother did when a raccoon ran into our house when I was little. Sigh. Memories. Oh, Amber, my love…hold me…hold me…

more on david mills

David Mills’ nephew, Clifton Porter II, posts a lovely remembrance of his uncle on Mills’ essential Undercover Black Man blog:

Blowing UBM’s Cover …

David leaves so much for us to cherish and it is much deeper than his professional accomplishments. Dave never ever talked about himself. He rarely used the word "I", he hated the spotlight and always expected the best from himself. David was about excellence and exemplified it in an unassuming way.

I have the good fortune of telling my children that when they look at David Mills' life they can see what CHARACTER actually looks like. He modeled for us all how to shut up and put up, how to be the best and not talk about it. …

On behalf of UBM I want to thank you and let you know that he loved the exchange this medium provided.

my fifteen minutes of fame extended, angry greek edition

First, an update on a recent news item I posted. The Angry Greek has decided that Amber Benson is indeed the new Mrs. Angry Greek. Christina Hendricks is not taking this lying down.

More importantly, the Angry Greek has acknowledged my existence! This is like when Amber Benson tweeted about the Greek, unexpected, delightful, and, in my case I fear, undeserved. I’m humbled. And I hope I didn’t sound as if I didn’t like Amber … but my wife only allows me one celebrity crush at a time, and, as we all know, I’m getting a break since Christina counts for at least two, but I managed to sneak her in.

if

If Twitter existed in March of 1963:

Everyone says I underachieve. I wish it was summer so I could hide in my bedroom for three months.

If Twitter existed in March of 1973:

We’re engaged. Everyone says we’re too young. We’ll show those assholes.

If Twitter existed in March of 1983:

I HATE MY FUCKING JOB!

If Twitter existed in March of 1993:

I wonder if anyone will figure out I don’t belong in this English department?

If Twitter existed in March of 2003:

I guess I am an underachiever. At least I’m still married. I still hide for months at a time, too.

If Twitter existed in March of 2010:

Uh oh, I haven’t posted to my blog yet today. Better think of something before midnight.

thank you, tv tattle

I don’t have a very large readership … there are better places to hang out on the Internet. But once in awhile …

On Sunday, I posted a happy birthday message to my sister just after midnight … really, that was a Saturday post, I did it before I went to bed Saturday night. Late on Sunday evening I added two longish posts, one on Kathryn Bigelow, who had just won the Best Director Oscar, and one on Big Love, which had its season finale that night. By the time I posted that last one, it was almost midnight on the West Coast, already Monday in the rest of the country.

On that Sunday, there were 137 visitors to this blog. That’s actually a big number for me.

On Monday morning, TV Tattle, the excellent blog that collates web writing on television, offered up one of several posts on that day. Included in that post was a roundup of web writing on Big Love. The big feature of that segment linked to Alan Sepinwall, a good move … I did the same thing on this blog, Alan said what I wanted to say, only better. Also getting links in that segment were Allyssa Lee of the LA Times, and Amelie Gillette at the Onion’s AV Club site. Oh yeah, and they linked to me.

By the end of the day, I had 462 visitors. That’s nothing to most sites, but it’s a lot for me … it’s several times what I’d gotten the day before, in what I thought was a good day. TV Tattle was responsible for 106 of those visitors (Google brought about half of them, which is the norm … Google does like this blog for some reason, so googling “big love season finale” probably brought a lot of people here).

I don’t know … it’s mostly inane and pointless data. But anytime someone sends a hundred viewers to my blog, they get a tip of my cap.