It's official. I declare war on the other Michael Hurts on the web. My intention is to reclaim "myself" from the nether regions of the Google stack to become the #1 Michael Hurt in virtual existence.
THE "PROBLEM"
To explain, let me say that just a few years ago, when I was a beleaguered grad student at Berkeley, I googled myself to find out – to my great shock – that I was a p*rn star. Well, not actually, of course, but I found out that the Michael Hurt who had made the biggest name for "ourselves" was a p*rn star who has appeared in what appears to be several dozen naughty videos. He has made the biggest splash – take that any way you like – of any Michael Hurt on the web, which kind of irks me, since this fact came up, albeit in jest, when an old friend jokingly mentioned – at an alumni function, no less – his fleeting suspicion that I had perhaps actually been actively enjoying the special perks offered by such a "unique and rewarding" field.
At the time, I felt the urge to shout it out – I am not a frickin' p*rn star!
And if I had actually gone down that career track, surely I would've chosen a name a little more glam, bam, thank-you-ma'am than "Michael Hurt." If I had taken the not-so-creative, play-on-the-name route, I certainly would have come up with a winner such as "Michael Spurt" or somesuch; or, I could have actually embraced the pain of the occasional, smirking query as to whether my name is actually "Michael Hunt" (an occasional misunderstanding caused by the overzealous arch I give to my handwritten R's) – shorten my given name to the common, four-letter "Mike" and add the misread version of my last name and you can understand the origins of the sophomoric snorts I occasionally get from part-time registrar workers and other front-counter minions. "No, it's 'Hurt,' actually," I usually reply, a bit coldly. "Oh," goes the usual response to my clear signal that I don't think my name to be too funny, even if "Hunt" had actually been the moniker passed down through my forefathers.
But now, I don't have to think even dwell on why the p*ornorific Michael Hurt did not seem to be interested in a more compelling p•rn name. I will simply wage my war of web pages by continuing to make more and more of them, until this Michael Hurt – the one writing before you – defeats the others by sheer attrition. This blog has already upped my Google value, and it will continue to rise the more posts I make and the more links and trackbacks you all make to those posts.
So I shall assail the other Michael Hurts with the sheer force of my creative and expressive impulses, such that someday, on a burnt and barren battlefield, seen through a glowing screen of the future, the Michael Hurt that is me – not the one that has risen to the height of possible penile preeminence – will occupy the first entry returned after typing my name in as a Google search string, and not a list of that other Michael Hurt's DVD's and videos.
To that end, as well as others, I make the following resolution to myself and promise to my readers:
THE PLEDGE
I will henceforth strive to maintain a daily blog barrage, instead of merely nursing a single, monster essay posted every several days. By doing so, I will be filling cyberspace with more of this Michael Hurt and not the others, while also giving you, dear readers, something regular to check everyday, rather than remaining a mostly-static entry in your Firefox™ bookmarks. (You ARE using Firefox as your browser, aren't you? If not, don't just sit there – run to get it as fast as humanly possible!)
This will hopefully make my blog had a bit more weight, both on the web and in my dear readers' heart of hearts. Also, look forward to more, regular, and better podcasts that will have defined content and show segments, while still maintaining the freedom and flow of my inevitably haphazard and disorganized style. I hope to strike a sweet balance of both eclectic play and organized structure, one that ya'll will benefit from.
THE "PERVERSION"
Also, I'll make my last comment about the ironic fact that I continue to get all kinds of inbound traffic from the strangest of search strings. I guess I can't control the web, how search engine spiders index my site, nor the secret, carnal urges that get expressed through furtive, search string stabs in the virtual dark of Internet anonymity. What with the photographic, Freudian topics I tend to touch on, I can't be too surprised.
So I won't pooh-pooh where I get my readers from; I am certainly not one of the ranks of the Holy Pure and Few who has never typed in a search string or two that would raise the eyebrows of polite company. So to all my readers, wherever you're coming in from, you're appreciated. Just don't go about accusing me of an alleged pervertedness that is actually a projection of your own, knowuddamean?
I see ya'll coming in on my web stats page, so acting all pure and proper just because I wrote a few photo columns that focused on women, sex, and fetish doesn't seem to really make much sense. I may have made some posts that linked a few keywords out of direct context, but I certainly ain't the ones entering them serially and purposefully into the search engines, now am I, boys?
And with that, I will leave you. Here's to a bigger, badder, bloggier 2006.
See ya'll 'round this site real soon, now, ya hear?
