[Previous entry: "Sports Wrap"] [Next entry: "To Hell With Driver's Licenses - Time to License Parenting!"]

07/25/2006: "Snark is Not Easy"

I've been at this blog thing for about two months now, so you'd think I'd have it mastered, wouldn't you.

Wrong.

I face a real challenge here at SCMO. I'm the sole author of everything you find here - Numero Uno; the Big Guy, the Head Cheese. It's not for lack of trying to find other authors, mind you (and if you want to write something, please let me know ... please!)

The biggest problem is that I have to use different "voices" for different sections. In the Marlin Tutorial, I'm the sage professor. At the Marlin Club, I'm the even-tempered moderator. For the Fishing News, I'm the professional journalist. And for the MarlinBlog, I'm the wiseass observational comic. Imagine the therapy time this is going to cost me ...

Unfortunately, at times I get confused and use the wrong voice in the wrong place. Man, can that be a kick in the balls!

I got a real good example yesterday. A posting was made in the Marlin Club about an mate who was inadvertantly speared by a 800-lb marlin. You probably heard about it - it was all over the news.

In the original posting, the poster talked about the circumstances of the incident, including the fact that the anglers had intended to take the marlin for the tourney they were in. Now, I could have taken the time to research the incident, or even waited to let the magnitude of the accident set in. But no, I just focused on the dead fish. It's red cloth in front of the bull for me. And rather than talk about the lessons we could learn from this, or talk about how fortunate he was, I chose to make a snarky comment about "karma being a bitch". Bad move.

I got my ass handed to me - and rightly so - by some of the most respected marlin anglers in the world, not to mention personal friends of the victim. Now, I'd love to take my comments back, but I can't, so all I can do is take it like a man.

Respect is a hard-won commodity, and I have gained my share over ten years at SCMO. But as the man said, one "oh shit" trumps a thousand "attaboys", and I'm paying a high price from my respect reserve today ...

UPDATE: For what it's worth, I'm not the only guy fucking up in this fashion - Ken Jennings tried to be funny about Jeopardy in his web blog and it went over about like you'd expect. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you ...

Replies: 2 Comments

On Tuesday, July 25th, Steve Mras said:

Stan, you're hearing voices!

On Thursday, July 27th, RavellingTangler said:

I enjoyed that throwaway comment (which is not to say it wouldn't hurt if I'd been a close friend of Ian).

I think the top captains who criticised you were "oversensitive" or being politically-correct to slight excess.

However, from their point of view (bear in mind this sort of risk is in the back of their thoughts every time they are out fishing) such a happening is (perhaps can only be ?) no joke.

I like to think that if I got "pronged", provided I could not blame anyone for it, I'd put it down to karma and feel the World was a bit more balanced.

In reality, what with the shock, fear and pain I'd most probably be cursing like an old thruddock and blaming everyone and everything - including the fish.