I just can’t decide

Help me pick!

Image by Tumisu from Pixabay

(N.B. — someone told me this didn’t get sent this morning — apologies! Resending now.)

Hey guys, I need some advice. This is the time of year when I have to submit to the Jon Swift Roundup. “Jon Swift” was actually a fellow named Al Weisel who blogged under that name back in the days before Twitter and Substack. He was from all accounts a good guy, but I only knew him through the screen as one of the fiercely eloquent and frequently funny people who represented the best of that stupid medium: that is, an observant person without journamalistic cred who nonetheless had more right and made more sense commenting on the passing cultural and political scene than nearly all the big masthead gargoyles. Like some other greats (Jim Capozzola of the Rittenhouse Review, Steve Gilliard, and Doghouse Riley come to mind), Swift passed away far too soon. Here’s his old blog archive, and here’s a good obit from Tom Watson (who’s still with us, fortunately).

Someday we’ll have to sit on the ground and tell sad stories of the death of blogs. But today is all about me, me, me! One of the remaining blog O.G.s, Batocchio, interrupts his own (excellent and too infrequent) postings at his Vagabond Scholar site to run the Round-Up, wherein a bunch of us who still publish our own guff submit what we think is our best item of the year to be added to the List. As you can see from the last one, it’s a solid crew and their entries make for good reading.

Batocchio has been kind enough to let me submit both from alicublog and from REBID. Usually I flip through the archive until, absolutely sick of myself, I just grab one that I know at least has some jokes in it and send it in. But this year I want you to help me pick. I mean, if I were a better judge of my own worth it’s a cinch I’d have risen much higher in life. Some men need help!

Here are a few I like from 2021, but if you have other choices, don’t be shy, LMK in comments.

Bari among the People, Jan. 13. Among the last of my “Trump Winter White House in Gulchville, Kentucky” episodes. Maybe you’re not as fond as I am of my redneck dialect humor or my portrayal of the disgusting relationship of Don Jr. and local gal Benzedrine. Well, takes all kinds. Plus it has Bari Weiss who’s always good for a laugh.

Small Time Secessionists, Feb. 24. One of my more serious efforts, about the newspaper publicity stunt roots of state-based secession movements in the 20th Century and how the contemporary versions are still stunts but with a more sinister purpose.

Solving the World’s Problems, March 30. Another of my bigoted dialect humor pieces, set at The Rectory where prominent tradcaths take the sacrament. Special appearances by Rod Dreher and Miz Noonan!

The East is Rod, June 3. Speaking of Dreher, I thought if he found so much to admire in Viktor Orbán’s Hungary, he’d be really inspired by a season in Kim Jong-un’s North Korea.

The Loyal Opposition, Aug. 2. Remember when Obama had a bunch of wingnut columnists to lunch as a form of outreach? Sadly I wasn’t writing sketch humor then, but I think Biden hosting Andrew Sullivan, Ross Douthat, and Peggy Noonan is still pretty surefire material. Also has vomit!

Cowboy Junkies, Aug. 6. The idea of 90-year-old Clint Eastwood as a Western movie hero just gave me the giggles.

History Lessen, Sept. 9. The story of the Civil War as imagined by that great anti-CRT historiographer Donald Trump.

Operation Overlord, Nov. 11. The latest round of publicity for Time Man of the Year Elon Musk — including his incredibly stupid tweets berating Elizabeth Warren for being a mean tax mommy — have convinced me that I’m right about this: Musk will run for president and be supported by the weird belligerent incel gamer creeps the Republican base is swiftly devolving into.

Family Style, Dec. 15. Gotta have one of the Mar-a-Lago Throne Room scenes in there, right?

Thanks in advance and good weekend!