The smell
The first time I drove through Nebraska during the summer, my olfactory center suddenly seized up like a Boy Scout official stumbling into a Gay Pride Parade. Turns out we had just passed a pig farm/slaughterhouse.
After I mentally retched, My Love told me what her Cornhusker grandfather would say when one of his brood whined about this particular odor: “Smells like money.”
If the men who attend BlogHer are a pathetic lot,
you should see the ones who attend internet porn conventions.
- James Griffioen, Sweet Juniper
* * *
The social media world is buzzing -- or in hipper circles, Google +ing -- about BlogHer ‘11 scheduled to take place in San Diego August 4 to 6.
(NOTE #1: I say '”scheduled” because I learned to always hedge your words against postponement due to plane crash, tsunami or outbreak of cold sores.)
“What parties are you attending?”
“Did you buy any cute new shoes?”
“Can you believe they picked her as a Voice of the Year and not moi?”
Gossipsnipesqueeeeeeeelbitchsqueeeeeel!!
And that’s just the men who are going.
Men?!
MEN!!??
(Interlude: DramaDramaDramaDrama)
First, thanks for recognizing vaginally challenged BlogHer attendees as “men.” Tiny gestures like that matter.
(NOTE #2: Don’t refer to that particular defining feature as “his tiny gesture.” Least not within ear shot.)
For you newbies and don’t-really-cares, every year a handful of the penile-impaired brave the unpredictable sea of estrogen known as the BlogHer blogging conference. On occasion, these men cause a stir either purposefully or by others overtly fawning over their dangling bits.
Having been at BlogHer ‘10 in NYC last year, and being what some loosely call a “man,” though the record shows I’m clearly more just “a guy,” I have reached the following conclusion on this controversy:
Ladies and dudes, get over yourselves.
It’s a blogging conference.
Not Middle East peace negotiations.
Not the G7 Summit.
Definitely not Charlie Sheen’s mansion despite the abundance of goddesses from the writing and professional world all about.
What BlogHer boils down to, for all its “let’s chant ‘female empowerment rah rah rah’ until it is totally meaningless” foundations, is a social and networking event.
Just a big-assed one.
(NOTE #3: The phrase “big assed” shouldn’t be used anywhere near BlogHer or its attendees. I seriously don’t have to explain why.)
That’s how I viewed BlogHer ‘10 when I attended as one of the few and proud Members with a Member Brigade.
I went to meet new people, connect with others I already knew online, listen to what attendees and speakers had to say and have a good time. I also had a mission to spread the word about a good cause that needed people’s help, but that’s my burden in life.
Yeah, yeah -- the target audience is women and I’m not one.
However, I don’t kid myself. My blog subject matter and reader demographics (as well as my friendships and this sexy at-home lifestyle I lead) tends to overlap with this crowd.
Besides, I always stay up to date on my Cootie shots.
Anyway, I came (no, My Love, no! I “went” – I definitely only “went”!), I saw, I mingled and BlogHer well met my expectations.
With the exception of the “women and humor writing” panel, which turned into a Comedy Central Roast of oppressive honky dinosaurs (and that Polite Fictions guy who risked his balding melon to ask a respectful question), nearly every panel I attended and discussion I had with attendees about blogging, writing and life applied as easily to men, dads and humanistic space aliens as well as women.
That’s not pathetic. That’s good bang for the buck.
(NOTE #4: Banging in exchange for bucks, extra Mr. Potato Head doll swag or other forms of currency, even Canadian, did not take place at BlogHer ‘10 to the best of my knowledge. I’m also sure the conference organizers neither encourage nor endorse such things.)
I won’t be at BlogHer this year. Opposite side of the country, cash flow issues, Thing 1 has a JM doc appointment, etc. However, if you are going, let me offer one piece of advice:
Have fun, but act like a grown-up not an asshat.
That applies regardless of your Klout score, page views or your gender.
Let’s talk sex.
Gender, actually. (I know. I’m disappointed, too.)
When I was making the rounds at BlogHer ‘10, handing out Pepsi Refresh / Cure JM voting cards and stepping through the throngs of fawning females treating me like I was a stray puppy, I met a woman.
A woman who worked for the federal government.
The “federal government source for women’s health information,” to be precise.
And she wanted to interview … me?
“Dude – I mean, Ms. – I’m a dude,” I said. “Really.”
Thankfully, didn’t I get mad, go into a rage and DM her proof of that fact on Twitter. That can cause a heap of problems these days.
(And, really, guys: distributing unsolicited photos of your shortcomings is plainly not cool. Ever. Distributing solicited ones generally isn’t smart either, doofuses. Not even to your spouse or significant other.)
No, she said, even though I was a man politely navigating my way around a den of Self-Empowered XX Chromosomes, I had a unique perspective and information about a health issue that affects young females significantly more than young males.
Her audience, she said, could learn something and they’d appreciate hearing my point of view.
Sure, she could have held out to talk to My Love, the woman who leads the foundation seeking a cure for the disease and the mastermind of our ambitious agenda to make the public aware of the need to make juvenile myositis a memory.
But face it, could you resist a stray puppy? Could you?
(There’s your Day 3 Movember moustache update! Please support me and the DadCentric crew as we grow ‘em to show ‘em our support for men’s health issues.)
So we exchanged business cards, and later we exchanged questions and answers. I think it was a win-win. Please read the interview.
* * *
Much of the above is my tongue-in-cheekiness about a recent public debate I’ve been in this week about men at “women’s conferences” with one blogger that carried over to another blogger who discussed the need for homogenous groups to occasionally rally together, celebrate themselves and support each other. I respect their opinions even though I don’t fully agree with some of the arguments. Please read them and weigh in (I have comments included at the end of each of their posts.)
Given that, I feel compelled to highlight one gender role question from my interview and response that probably doesn’t add to the debate, but at least may make you smile:
Q. What about other stay-at-home moms, do you think they ever treat you differently?
ME: Some seem a little wary of me, and I think it is somewhat understandable. I'm invading what has been traditionally been their territory, so obviously they are going to a bit suspicious of a guy volunteering at a bake sale in the middle of a school day or hanging around the ballet school on a Saturday morning. But if you let that bother you constantly then you're probably not cut out to be an at-home dad. You need to either: 1) smile, introduce yourself and try to be a constructive part of the group; 2) suck it up and carry on; or 3) make alternative arrangements. That said, I've also met many stay-at-home moms and work-at-home moms who think it is the greatest thing in the world that I do what they do. Of course, that may be some sort of revenge thing.
Cheers … and peace. We all need each other these days.
As My Love buckled herself into the passenger seat at about 4 o’clock last Tuesday afternoon, I told her to relax.
We had bought tickets to the U.S. Open tennis matches months before our lives had turned upside down. She should enjoy the night out.
Besides, no matter what happened to Cure JM in the Pepsi Refresh contest, this day had already been a momentous one.
“The electrician showed up this morning,” I said. “He put a new cover on the thermostat to replace the one he lost while relocating it four months ago.”
“You mean …”
“Yes. Our master bathroom renovation is finally complete.”
She laughed.
“Oh, good,” My Love said. Then she disappeared, lost in her iPhone on yet another call to rally the troops.
That’s how August went for us.
Me, interrupting strangers – online, at a conference in Manhattan, on a ferry dock in North Carolina, at an amusement park in Westchester County, N.Y. – begging for votes to win the nonprofit organization funding research into a cure for our daughter’s juvenile myositis a $250,000 grant.
My Love, ear attached to her phone while simultaneously working her laptop, trying to build, hold together or simply calm down voting coalitions of other worthy children’s causes all vying for free money.
Yet I hate sales. And she hates Survivor.
Just before 10 p.m., someone squeaked an e-mail through to us. Cure JM had just dropped out of the money. Again.
“Give me your phone,” I said. “I need to send out a message.”
I punched this into Twitter:
“RED ALERT ... Back down at 3. Please help!”
Then I left, in the middle of Rafael Nadal’s first-round match, to hit up people at the concession stands one last time for text votes. In short, the Ben & Jerry’s line was very, very good to Cure JM.
The next update we managed to get came through about 11:35 p.m. We were about halfway back to our house, slicing through the parkway darkness, the Things asleep in the middle row.
“Do you want to know?” My Love asked.
“Only if it’s good,” I said. “I’m too tired for bad news.”
This is where she should have paused for dramatic effect.
Instead, she calmly said: “Cure JM is No. 1.”
About 10 miles later, we realized we had driven well past our exit.
* * *
It’s been a week since then. Yesterday was the first day that neither My Love nor I felt the need for a midday nap or a triple espresso. We lived on adrenaline and pipe dreams those final 72 hours until the clock struck midnight, ushering in September. The next 72 hours we were walking zombies.
Happy, grateful zombies but zombies nonetheless.
We have a few more weeks to wait for Pepsi to verify that Cure JM is a real organization with a real plan before it gets the $250,000.
That’s the quick and easy part.
Thanking all the people who helped it happen … that may take a while. But I’ll give it a shot:
To every one of you who like blogged about our effort even though it cost you comments and traffic;
To every one of you who linked to the Cure JM Pepsi Refresh page or one of my posts on Facebook;
To every one of you who Tweeted and re-Tweeted, especially in those last frantic hours, in particular those of you who never before knew of me or juvenile myositis but simply carried our flag into battle because you believe every kid deserves a chance to be healthy;
To every one of you who on our behalf spammed their address books or their school PTA’s e-mail list or may have “borrowed” a stranger’s cell phone (or tried all the demos at the Apple Store) to send a text vote;
To every one of you who didn’t tell me to bugger off and put up with me and my voting cards, handbills, e-mails, postings and in-person pleadings;
To every one of you who took matters into your own hands, such as Jett who figured the blogosphere was well covered those last few days so she petitioned the members of her church for votes or my brother-in-law who spent the final hours of the contest getting every Mafia Wars player on Facebook he could to stop performing virtual crimes and start helping sick kids;
To all the security officers and the vendors at Arthur Ashe Stadium, especially the two who sold me that last Heineken then tried to get me to take back my tip (I didn’t) after they text voted for us;
To the woman I meet outside the log flume ride at Playland Amusement Park who took a voting card and said she’d get her entire office to vote for us;
To the guy waiting for the ferry at Hatteras dock in North Carolina who convinced his friend, who kept trying to give me $5 to leave him alone, that all he needed to do was send “a f****ing text, dude! You know how to text!”;
To the ferry workers who jumped our car battery after it died from running the A/C, the Things’ Nintendos and the radio while My Love and I handed out cards and fliers on the docks; and finally,
To every single one of you who put up with the quirks and frustration of the online voting system or learned to text, even if it was just to give us a single vote:
Cure JM, my family and every family touched by juvenile myositis thanks you.
Now, somebody -- cue the horn section.
Video: “I Thank You,” Sam & Dave
Only a handful of women directly addressed the elephant in the room (actually, the penis in the elevator) at BlogHer ‘10 this past weekend by asking me: “Why are you here at a conference for women?”
More surprisingly, only one of them inserted an emphatic “the hell” into that question but it was in her eyes, not her words.
But that wasn’t the real controversy surrounding my appearance among the 2,400 women gathered in New York City. No, not by a long shot.
It was: How did I -- a man who once wore a paper doily as underwear, who can barely hang self-adhesive wallpaper borders -- get invited to a Martha Stewart party instead of some of them?
Answer: Martha knows I need FAR more help than you.
(Actual conversation that happened not once, but twice with Omnimedia employees at the party:
MARTHA MINION: And what’s the name of the blog you write?
ME: Always Home and Uncool.
MARTHA MINION: Oh, yes! We know you. YOU’RE the daddy blogger.)
Martha obviously wants to broaden her appeal to folks like me, the domestic doofus demographic. One swag bag her folks distributed contained fudge-covered mint Oreos, Kraft Homestyle Mac ‘n’ Cheese and, honestly, Miracle Whip. It only lacked a warning label:
“DANGER! Eating these three items in one sitting might cause heart attack, diabetes or terminal SuburbanWhiteBoyism!”
I only had one moment of true testosterone discomfort during all three days. Oddly, it did not occur while entering a women’s bathroom Thursday night to pay my respects to Jenny the Bloggess. That I expected.
My man shame occurred during the conference’s panel on humor writing. Comedienne and The Daily Show co-creator Lizz Winstead described her need to rally the world against white, male … um, excrement egresses. Oh, how the sea of women around me laaaaaughed and laaaaaughed and … *sniff sniff* … do I smell boiling tar?
Then I remembered.
Lizz wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for me.
That’s right.
Not “guys like me.” But me, in particular. So there, Lizz Winstead: You. Owe. Moi.
She passed me, TwoBusy and Kristine in the hall right before the panel started and asked where the room was. I’m positive I pointed first.
In all seriousness, everyone I meet – male and female – were as gracious as they could be to me or at least faked it convincingly. Here are some thanks and memories worth sharing:
To TwoBusy, my roommate and safety net. I’m especially grateful you never kidney punched me for endlessly begging and pleading with people to support Cure JM’s efforts to win that $250,000 Pepsi Refresh grant. You are a gentleman and I owe you. No kidding, what’s my half of the hotel bill?
To the dynamic duo of Ms. Picket and Carolyn Online. For you, I’ll make an exception to my rules on drinking light beer. Not at the $10 a pop the hotel bar was charging, mind you, but definitely up to $7.75. Sans tax and tip.
To Momo Fali: I am not your stalker. It was aaaaaall an Ambien-induced hallucination.
To Bossy: I am your stalker. I just made it seem like you kept bumping into me around the hotel bar because I’m that good.
To Pop and Ice, Dr. Snarky and, especially their lovely daughter who likes to grill cab drivers and waiters about their hopes and dreams. I wish I still had her sense of curiosity and wonder.
To Verdant Dude and Avitable’s (mostly) Florida mafia for welcoming me into the city, but not for making me sweat my ever-lovin’ man sack off in that Belgium bar. Don’t you get enough humidity back home?
To Out-Numbered for letting me surf in his wake while he hobnobbed with the post-breakfast crowd Friday morning.
To Maggie Dammit, Ann Imig, Small Town Mommy, VodkaMom and the other handful of people who literally tapped my shoulder (or in Charlie’s case, leaped over a chair and a table) to say hello. In each case, it was a strange, wonderful and wholly unexpected experience for me. There are many days I wallow silently in my feelings of worthlessness, resentment and loneliness over the belief that no one cares about what I struggle to hunt-and-peck here. You made me feel welcome in your home.
* * *
You could win an iPad by helping us win that $250,000 Pepsi grant. Go to www.CureJM.org, sign up for daily voting reminders and then vote your ass off and get your friends to do the same every day until August 31. We only give away the iPad if we finish No. 1 or 2 in the voting.
For those of you who don’t follow me on Twitter (and what’s up with that?), you missed the big announcement the other week that confirms your long-held suspicions:
I will be at the BlogHer ‘10 conference in New York City this week. This puts me among the handful of men there who will not be serving drinks, restocking the buffet or unclogging hair from the hotel sinks.
“But wait,” you say, “you can’t go to BlogHer! You have a penis!”
Hold on.
I’ve checked and, yes, I can confirm that I do indeed have a penis. But please, do not hold it against you.
I mean, against me.
I mean, don’t hold it all.
Don’t even think about my penis.
Stop it.
Stoooop iiiiit.
Good.
Why am I going to a conference so chock full of estrogen that it will make The View seem an editorial board meeting at Maxim magazine?
It’s nearby.
It’s cheap (minimal travel cost, bought my ticket early at a discount and I’m sharing a cardboard box near Rockefeller Center with a few former Lehman Brothers brokers).
It offers many networking possibilities with other bloggers and people who could possibly be conned persuaded into giving me cold hard cash to shill things on my site that I have first-hand experience with, such as feminine hygiene products and disposable underwear.
And finally, My Love said it was OK.
As long as you don’t think about … you know. That thing I have.
She seemed extremely concerned yesterday about the possibility of me being among the 10 percent of the BlogHer attendees with a Y chromosome. In particular, she was worried about me “dancing” with women hopped up on free swag and cheap booze at the BlogHer parties.
“You’ve seen me dance,” I told her, “it’s anyone within a 20-foot radius of me who should be worried, not you. Members of our wedding party still bear scars to this day.”
“Dancing,” it turns out, was a metaphor. Since it went over my head, she threw another one at me.
“It’s like driving,” she explained over a martini as big as an Octomom-Sized bucket of KFC. “It’s not you I’m worried about. It’s the other crazies on the road. I want you to practice Defense Driving.”
I’ve taken Defensive Driving at the behest of the state of Texas – twice -- so let me think … pay attention to your surroundings, maintain adequate distance, both hands on the wheel except when flipping off that idiot with the perpetually blinking left-turn signal.
Ahhhh!
Wow.
Seriously?
Anyway, if you are a woman (go ahead and check – I’ll wait) and you meet me at BlogHer, please put My Love’s mind at ease. Just treat me just like one of the girls. This means you should:
Exception to the rule: Please – no matter what the circumstance – do not invite me back to your room for a lingerie pillow fight. I’d disappoint you any way. I’m only packing my granny panties.
* * *
All kidding aside, here’s what I’m looking forward to at BlogHer:
Driving to the conference and rooming with the anonymous blue lobster known as TwoBusy, a man who can rip your heart out with his writing about his autistic son, scare you with his knowledge of The Real Housewives of New Jersey and impress you with his large, uh, music collection.
Having beers with Ms. Picket (OK, I’m having beer, she’s having Miller Lite), whose husband and I made a formidable battery back in Little League days, and discussing with her how much coaching kid soccer sucks.
Thanking, in person, some of the people who have been extremely generous with their money, time and blog/Twitter space in helping Cure JM and our fight to find a cure for Thing 1’s autoimmune disease. These include: the amazing Anna Lefler; the prolifically funny VodkaMom; my serial reTweeters Ann’s Rants, Kristine and Panic Room Ryan; the easily persuaded Maggie, Dammit and Miss Britt (sorry about begging on Sunday night) and, I hope, a cast of many others.
Passing out business cards … not mine, but ones that explain what JM is and hopefully, gets many more people to vote for us in the Pepsi Refresh contest for $250,000. (Yes, I know we dropped from No. 4 to No. 175 – the system is screwy because there are also no Nos. 1 to 97 last time I checked. Have faith.)
So, if you are at BlogHer and you see this guy:
You didn’t see me. You saw character actor Skip Hinnant dressed as The Boy from The Electric Company skit, "Love of Chair," from the early 1970s. He only plays me in my avatar and blog header.
But if you see this guy (most likely without Liz aka Mom 101 but probably with a drink):
Yep, that’s me. Be gentle, ladies. I already have one damaged X chromosome.
Good day, blogosphere, I'm Reggie Hartner -- you may remember me from last year's report on BlogHer 'o8 -- and this is a special edition of IWitless News.
