I sent out a notice to my Facebook friends last night that I was leaving Facebook. There are many factors concerning this decision, and I’m going to try to explain them here. First off the statistics. For all the hoopla generated by Zuckerberg and company, for me Facebook is virtually worthless. I place articles in dozens of groups and get, mmmm, maybe twenty reads a day. Compare that with the Tea Party Tribune, Patriotic Warriors, Raging Elephants, the Dam Good Times, MY blogs, and Twitter. Twitter alone gave me 13,000 reaches just since midnight last night. (Zuck you Zuckerberg!)
Another problem is my drinking habits. I like Jim Beam and Martinis. Both I take straight. When I see some girly-man pour Coke in a shot of Beam I wonder why he’s drinking at all. Same with my writing. When I put something on Facebook I have to include two shots of water to dumb it down for the Facebook police. Now, I’m not going harp on that old “freedom of speech” argument. It’s their little sex site and they have a right to run it as they see fit. I mean, I’m not a communist. But, when I have to edit every other line for political correctness so as not to offend some freaky looking school kid that got lucky on the internet I just get madder, and madder, and madder.
And, if you are white, and Christian the rules change all the time. You never know if you’re in-house, or out-house. One day you can post a Richard Pryor joke and it’s all cool, and the next to type the word “Muslim,” and you do ten days in Facebook jail! And I’m not even a good Christian! If I get into heaven it’ll be because Saint Peter fell asleep at the gate. As you might imagine, all this is extremely perplexing to a political satirist who used to write adult country comedy in Nashville. Oh, did I mention that I like women? That’s a Facebook No No, too. You gotta be gay. Heterosexuality is the new black. That and baby killing. And if you’re gay and pro-choice? Shut the front door! So you got two sets of rules. If you’re a liberal leftist with a same sex friend you can post most anything you want. Just call yourself Muslim, and , well, shucks. . . over coffee a week ago I got to look at a picture of a formerly lovely young lady who championed the cause of the refugees in Sweden. Well, she has looked better. The picture I saw was her body on some rocks, naked, with her head bashed in and her legs spread like a baked chicken. But Facebook is offended by Leatherface waving his chainsaw.
So, here I am stepping gingerly through Facebook barbed wire, trying to water down my stuff enough to not get slammed and getting about twenty or thirty consistent reads. That’s like the girl that loads up your Visa and takes the bartender home. Now, before you think I am an unsuspecting victim I baited Facebook, ok? Last night I kept pushing the envelope until they popped. To be honest, I’m not totally leaving. I will maintain contact with some friends, and my granddaughter who reads my stuff on her iPhone while in college. I began the migration away from Facebook about a year ago. I didn’t rely on it for any distribution of merit.
I have several places that I can be found. Google is one. Now I don’t understand Google. I’m everywhere there. I started several blogs. At one point each article was a separate blog. I wrote for Angel Eyes Over Texas for a while (still do) so you can find old stuff that I don’t even remember writing. There is a subscribe button, and you can click it and get that blog emailed to you as it updates. WordPress is my workhorse. Even the Tea Party Tribune uses it as a foundation. Actually, I was coming out of the Tribune and most of what went to Facebook was links back to that publication. Its sister site, Patriotic Warriors, gets mirror images of the articles. The Dam Good Times is my brick and mortar. I’m there monthly in a section called “Wilbur’s Corner.” Crystal Lee Larimore runs that, and she’s nice to me so long as I don’t cuss. You might want to consider subscribing that that paper. GoodTexas stuff that you won’t find anywhere else. Then there is Raging Elephants Radio. Doc Greene made me what I am today. You can go there, but you can also get the station on theTuneIn App on your smartphone. On the site there is a chatroom where you can interact with the hosts (and yes, they will really chat with you) and express your ideas.
My articles go worldwide. Just like my books, I get copied, and distributed by people I never met, and will never know. I’m not hard to find. What I realized was that I was short changing all of these outlets by licking the boots of Facebook, and that’s why I made the decision to move away from that medium. I submit to two other quite well known talk show hosts, but I won’t name drop here, suffice to say my move will not affect that in any way. Both men have had issues with Facebook themselves, and who knows, I may start something here.
Ok, publicity! Ring the bell, school’s in. Yesterday I did an article about little Ahmed the watch maker up in Irving. Now, you have to understand, I’m sixty-four, on a back porch in Hotterthanhell, Texas, over my first cup of coffee and a cigarette. I check the news and here’s this story about this kid bringing a clock to school and gets jacked up by the cops. Well, I am leery of cops, and I really don’t like school teachers so here I go. Then I published it, and then I had a second cup of coffee and began to peel the onion. Do you know how hard it is to get publicity? You could set a puppy on fire on main street and get maybe thirty-five views on YouTube. You could write an article proving the existence of God, and have photographs of the Big Bang and if you’re lucky your mother might read it. Sooooooo, little Ahmed brings his contraption to school and the east and west coasts light up. Now just how do you suppose that happened? Could there be some organization with an agenda lurking behind the scenes? You betcha. It’s called CAIR. CAIR is the organization that supposedly tries to reconcile Islam with USlam, by putting the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders in Burqas. Ok, students, there are two kinds of Muslims in the world. The radical Muslims who want to kill you, and the moderate Muslims who want the radical Muslims to kill you. On the surface some kid getting slapped for a clock seems harmless enough. What about the next clock? See how that works. Ever wonder why all those guys getting their heads cut off on the ISIS show seem so calm. That’s because they’ve been put in that position so many time they think it’s just another dry run. In every science fair I ever saw in school the students were assigned a project by the teacher. The teacher was fully aware of what was being done, indeed, maybe even assisting the kid along the way. Then along comes Ahmed with this briefcase sized “clock” and walks in with the digital display running. If this punk was so smart, why didn’t he redesign the Apple Watch?
Anyway, I am constructing an alternative to Facebook. That’s the plan. I will tweak things along the way, and invite advice from everyone. I have to figure a way to sell my latest book, A Simple Ol’ Boy From Austin. I have another I’m working on, “I Crappith Thee NOT!” I live in Texas, so I don’t have to make much money, that’s why the book is so cheap. I have one thing I like to do that costs a bit, and that’s trips to California to drink wine and watch girls swim in the ocean. The view is free, but the wine is a bit pricey. Thank you all for your support, and I will continue to attack liberals with the jawbone of an ass.
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