Five Ways to Ensure You Absolutely Will Not Be Featured on Freshly Pressed.

•

Does the photo above have anything to do with this article? No. But I do own it.

•

Each weekday, WordPress selects about ten new blog posts for the Freshly Pressed section of the WordPress.com homepage. These posts represent how WordPress can be used to entertain, enlighten, or inspire.

Getting promoted to Freshly Pressed is a major traffic win because WordPress.com receives a high volume of page views.

So, by now you might be wondering how to get featured. Well, it’s all about the content. Here are five bits o’ advice that will increase your chances of landing on the homepage:

1. Write unique content that’s free of bad stuff. Just about everything up to this point was copied and pasted from the WordPress blog, so that can’t be a good start. (What gave it away? Was it the devil-may-care use of the jaunty o’?) Anyway, for some reason they seem to prefer original content. In their own words (there I go again): “Bad stuff includes but isn’t limited to plagiarism, hate speech, fear-mongering, adult/mature content, improperly used images that belong to someone else, spam or content that is primarily advertorial.” Okay, let’s see. I’m pretty much guilty of… all of it. (Aside from hate speech, of course. And the advertorial thing. I’ve got enough of that in my day job.)

2. Include images or other visuals. I love including pictures in my posts. Occasionally even ones that I own. I should probably stop that. (See above.) WordPress seems to like video, too, and I have some really good ones (though no idea how to actually post them). The WordPress people say that if they like my writing, I might get a request to add an image or video. Or in this case, a cease-and-desist.

3. Add tags. I do tags. I do good tags. Are they random, rude, and riddled with obscenities? Yes. You act like that’s a bad thing.

4. Aim for typo-free content. Sorry, my bag.

5. Cap off your post with a compelling headline. My headline needs to stand out? Check. Avoid swear words? Most-times-check. Don’t use excessive punctuation? Check. Wait, does incorrect count as excessive?

•

Well, now I’ve got something to shoot for. And if someday they come up with a Tip Number Six about run-on sentences and made-up words and over-gratuitous use of dashes and non-sequiturs that make the reader think he must be having a stroke, I think I’ve got a shot.

Wish me luck.

NataliePortmanteauJam

–noun   • a blend of two (or more) words or morphemes and their meanings into one new word who was in one of those Star Wars movies.

More photographic evidence.

The gate is open!

This is your chance to escape. Shake the leash, break the chain. Run, fly. Explore the world. And live life. Go for it! I’ll just be back here looking for a stick or something to jam in the latch so that shit doesn’t happen again.

A day in the life I really don’t deserve.

 

7:30AM
DAD: “Ugh, I look so unattractive in this shirt.”
SON: “It’s okay, Dad. You’re already married.”

9AM
DAUGHTER: “Dad, I wish you were a dog.”
DAD: “Why’s that?”
DAUGHTER: “Because then I’d have a dog.”

1PM
DAD: “I wanted to put a big peace sign on the side of the house, but Mom vetoed it.”
SON: “Good. We’re not hippies, Dad.”

4PM
DAUGHTER: “In 1978, God hadn’t made me yet. I was still a cloud.”

5:30PM
DAD: “Do you know where Mom keeps that black pot we use to steam vegetables?”
SON: “You mean the one I used to throw up in?”
DAD: “Nevermind.”

8PM
DAD: “… and that’s the moral behind the Wizard of Oz. Nothing’s more important than home.”
DAUGHTER: “Not even sunscreen?”

8:45PM
DAD: “Goodnight, you Prince of Rhode Island.”
SON: “Goodnight, you King of New England.”

 

 

Lyle Lovett sang, “If I were the man you wanted, I would not be the man that I am.” Unfortunately, in the spirit of full disclosure, THIS is the man that I am:

1. I am lactose intolerant.
2. I am also intolerant of: creamy things, most vegetables and New Yorkers.
3. I am opinionated.
4. I am 5’10,” though I claim to be 5’11″. Often. And loudly.
5. And yes, I am going to wear that rollneck sweater again.
6. I use way too many condiments, often enjoying my first bite only after others have cleared the table and moved on to the other room where they are already deep into the Double Jeopardy round.
7. I am going to make you kill the spider. I will be over there in that other room. Call me when it’s dead. And flushed. And floating out to sea.
8. I am half Portuguese, one-quarter English, one-quarter Irish and one-quarter really bad at math.
9. I am not totally confident when it comes to proper hyphen-usage.
10. At any one time, I have between three and fourteen-hundred Post-It® Notes in my pocket.
11. I am getting old.
12. I am starting to walk down stairs sideways.
13. I have no idea where my keys are.
14. What was I saying again?
15. I cry at movies. And commercials.
16. I have the highly discerning gastronomic tastes of a twelve year old boy.
17. I have the attention span of his younger sister.
18. I absolutely cannot make a bed. (I don’t mean just the hospital corners thing.) And while I’d like to admit that my incompetence is actually an elaborate rouse designed to get me out of said bed-making, I am not that smart.
19. I am not that smart.

So I guess, in the end, it’s better that I just be the man you wanted.

Someone recently found my blog by googling, “James Belushi Porn.” I guess I should be happy it wasn’t, “James Belushi Funny.”

 

I need an agent like this. Actually, I need an agent. Actually, I need talent.

THE REVIEWS ARE IN. (WHY ANYONE WOULD BOTHER REVIEWING THIS COLLECTION OF NONSENSE IS A WHOLE NOTHER THING. AND YES, ATLANTIC MONTHLY, I DO REALIZE “NOTHER” ISN’T A WORD.)

“The language is atrocious, the grammar, deplorable, and I’m pretty sure were it not for Microsoft and the red squiggly underline thing, he would have no idea how to spell either atrocious or deplorable. E.B. White is spinning in his grave. He is dead, right? I’m new here.” - Alistaire Kaywa, Editor, The New Yorker

“I am quite certain J.D. Salinger was murdered. Probably by something this man wrote.” - Ingrid Dthomzig, Editor at Large, Carpe Articulum Literary Review and The Bitter Oleander, among others

“Aside from the Onion parody and maybe the Fran Tarkenton thing, it’s not his best work. Or anyone’s, really.” - Bono Vox, Famous Musician, Humanitarian and Personal Friend

“As the Associate Publisher of a quarterly dedicated to model railroaders whose rails are more than 7 inches apart – formerly The 7-Plus Narrow Gauger – I am unsure as to why I would be reviewing Mr. Silvia’s writing in the first place. That said, back issues are available upon request. Thank you.” - James David Schtekel, Associate Publisher, 7-Plus Model Railroad Enthusiast Quarterly

“Personally, I was disappointed by the glaring omission of Alone Again (Naturally) in his ‘Ten Songs You Need to Know.’ Probably revenge for my making Clair available on iTunes only as part of the Margot at the Wedding soundtrack. Touché.” - Gilbert O’Sullivan

“There are some halfway decent – I use the term loosely – ideas in there, like the whole fake reviews thing. Although it did go on a little long. Why not lose the Bono review? Yes, we know, you are friends with a famous person. Good for you. We also know about the fucking Fran Tarkenton toy. Enough.) In the end, the whole thing is a colossal waste of time that has not once sniffed the likes of Messrs. Strunk and/or White. And then he goes and uses two E.B. White references in the same fucking entry? What the fuck? - Atlantic Monthly (And no, not just some individual editor, all of us. The entire publication. That’s how thoroughly offended we are.)

IF A MAN CAN’T SIT AND HAVE A CRY OVER A GIGANTIC DR PEPPER AND TWELVE DOLLAR VAT OF POPCORN THEN I JUST DON’T KNOW.

I loved Out of Africa. Especially that time when Robert Redford was all, “I love you,” and Meryl Streep was all, “But I love him,” and I was all, “Go with him! Get out of that pickup truck right now and run to him with all your heart because your son is actually his son and the two of them should be playing catch in a field of wheat near a covered bridge while fly fishing off the front of the Titanic with that guy from Thelma and Louise.”

Yeah, that was awesome.

And no, I’ve never actually seen Out of Africa, but maybe I do have a movie problem.

Legends of the Fall. Joy Luck Club. Terms of Endearment. Love Actually. Even Notting Hill and the whole whoopsie daisies thing that I can’t believe I’m actually typing out loud.

See, I just don’t like “guy” movies much. I’ve seen a total of no Rambos, zero X-Men and only parts of one Terminator. I don’t get that Lord of the Things, I think Something About Mary is stupid, I can’t quote The Godfather and I swear to God I have yet to see any of the Star Wars’es. Not even the first one.

Now that I think about it, even the bad-ass stuff I do like is all Brad-Pitt-Pretty. Fight Club? Snatch?

I need help.

I’m just saying.

Proud to have the 549th most-sent birthday e-card of all time – only sixty or so behind the timeless classic, “Happy Birthday, Fag.”