A little over three years ago, I decided that I wanted to be an internet humorist. Never mind that I had no experience writing comedy. Never mind that the only person who happened to find me hysterical was a family member. Never mind that I hadn’t seriously written anything of my own free will since I was a junior in high school. Never mind all of that–I wanted to be a humorist.
People were always telling me that I should be a stand-up comedian. It’s no surprise, then, that I took to calling people mental defectives. Or more specifically, fucktards. I was not made for stand-up comedy, as evidenced by my inability to think while standing, nor was I made for comedy alone, as evdenced by my desire to make people cry. I’m a serious “literary” writer foremost, with the “humor” coming in at a close second.
As I was saying, I set about becoming an internet humorist. Drawing inspiration from personal heroes like Jay Pinkerton, John Cheese, and David Wong, I began toiling away, fashioning masterpieces like afterthoughts. I was ready to take on and usurp Pinkerton’s throne, overthrow the kingdom, and have all the people of the land flogged. My first action in that plan was to electronically assault any and all media outlets on the internet with all of my throbing masterworks.
The next step, I’m sure you know, was to fail miserably.
For months on end, I was crotch-punched by every conceivable website. “We’re sorry, but your style of humor is not appropriate for our publication,” said Woman’s Day. it was a hard thing to go through, all that rejection. Sending out one article to a large group of different publishers is like being turned down by a really beautiful girl who then follows you around for the rest of the day, repeating “No, I will not go out with you, you talentless waste of viable organs.” Yes. Almost exactly like that.
I didn’t give up, though. I harassed amd cajoled until I was blue in the face. I kept my abilities sharp by writing on my MySpace blog almost every day, which eventually led to the birth of this abomination unto the written word. I kept reading , kept writing, kept sending in unsolicited articles and essays to my main target, the venerable CRACKED dot COM. Eventually, a plum fell. A three-part article I did was picked up by some obscure online magazine that didn’t pay me anything, didn’t format the article at all, and who sent me the longest fucking contract in freelance history.
After that, well, things remained as they had been for the uncounted preceding months: in short, I got nothin’. As time passed, I became a little more mature, and so did my writing. I met Kelly, who inspired my first bit of serious poetry that has now been published in print a total of five times. I created an idiotic adventurer whose insane shenanigans became a minute sensation among a very specific group of people (my family). Then, one day a mild-mannered little humor site called Yankee Pot Roast decided to dust off their backlog of emails and read the story I sent them. Three days later, Dickerson P. Cockley’s Because I Wrestle Alligators hit their front page.
Lest I drag this on too long, let me summarize:
- Dickerson was then published again at YPR.
- I became a professional essayist and researcher.
- Dickerson was published in print, in India.
- David Wong became Editor of Cracked’s website
- Another poem was published in print, this one also about Kelly.
- I started doing comics for John Cheese’s site.
- I wrote an erotic novel that may still get published.
- I moved to San Marcos
And now we come to today. Batman has been in theaters for nearly a month, far and away the greatest superhero movie of all time. I pitched an artilce idea to Cracked.com about real-life vigilantes. It received warm reviews and was moved to the thread where potential articles are kept for editing and critique. Then, just two short days ago, I logged in to find my article missing from the “considered” thread.
Wong had moved it to the thread reserved for articles that have been ACCEPTED by the editorial staff. Now, I just have to wait and listen to whatever the editors request of me. Either way, I get fifty bucks and a chance at website traffic bonuses.
What’s more is that–after three years of trying, during which time Jay Pinkerton was let go from quit Cracked to become a sexy adventurer/writer of sexy adventure video games, Pointless Waste of Time became Cracked’s messageboards, and David Wong took over as Editor of the site–an article of mine is finally going to be published on a big-name website. Not only that, but I’m finally going to get paid for my non-professional writing.
Three years is a long time to wait, buddy. What’s even worse is being rejected for that entire time and not ever really knowing how to remedy the situation. Oh well.
Oh, one more thing: for those of you out there who are just aching for another DIckerson story–get ready. This new one is going to rock your houses.
