I have been an author, blogger, and syndicated columnist since 2000, and a writer even longer than that. I write because I enjoy it, not because of an overwhelming desire to be remembered as a literary heavyweight. Don't get me wrong, a little fame and fortune wouldn't be bad, but all in due time, I guess.
Over the course of my writing career, I have written some pieces that were well-received, and at the same time, I have written some things that have racked up a few complaints (or worse) here and there. Whether or not those complaints were the result of some stance I had taken, some off-the-wall remark I made about something, somebody, or some place, or because quite simply, the reader didn't like me. Like I give a damn at any rate. Love it, hate it, at least they read it, regardless of what they ultimately took home from the experience.
This commentary is not about fan mail, hate mail, or my other honors, dubious or otherwise, that I have earned. Writing for websites over the course of the past eight or nine years, I have encountered obvious differences from site to site. Not overly hard to figure out, folks. Whether it's content guidelines, submission guidelines, pay rates, or royalties (if any), every web site and webmaster has their own way of doing things.
I understand that. I can respect that. That's how things worked when I acted as an editor in the past, even when things seemed just a shade of gray past flat ridiculous. From 2000-2001, I contributed a variety of opinion pieces to the now-defunct Themestream.com, including my first two syndicated columns. They were an easy enough website to work with, in spite of some essential flaws, which in part led to their demise, not the least of which was the site's filters.
Don't get me wrong. I do not disagree with the concept of having filters on websites with a large pool of writers. I'm someone who can just as easily get my point across without having to resort to profanity, I just happen to enjoy using profanity. If you have never heard the saying "write like you speak," then now you have. And get out more, while you're at it.
My problem with Themestream's filtering was that I was censored for use of the word "honky." Yep, as in honky tonk music, honky tonk bar, and in the case I used the word, writing about professional wrestler The Honky Tonk Man. Simply ludicrous, I thought, as did my co-writer of the wrestling column affected. Needless to say, we didn't contribute many more pieces to Themestream, which was good, I guess, as they weren't around much longer after that, another chalk outline in cyberspace.
Fast forward to 2007, when I debuted my weekly radio talk show,
Probably Uncalled For, on Blog Talk Radio, a website not even a year old then. While I'm free to say whatever I want on the air while hosting the show, there is a filter on the site's blog feature. No biggie. I think we have already established that by this point in the column. There are, however, limits to everything, and one would think by the year 2008, where celebrity sex tapes are almost everyday business and the mainstream media (for the most part) ignores shouts of "kill him" at political rallies (in the United States, no less), some common sense would have managed to seep in through the cracks.
Well, as Blog Talk Radio has finally proven to me, one would have thought different. I have posted many works on my show's blog on Blog Talk Radio, and all profanities have been censored, by myself, with two asterisks to dumb it down a bit.
So, what's my problem? Glad you asked. On October 16, I published a post,
Palin's reflection of herself? Yeah, don't stare too long, on my production company's blog, my blog on MySpace, the radio show's blog on MySpace, the writing community TIBU, and the show's blog on its Blog Talk Radio page. The column critiqued syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker's October 15 column on Sarah Palin and her supporters.
It has been fairly well-received thus far, no negative comments and a handful of positive feedback. Nothing in the column itself that could be considered overly controversial, nothing that would earn shouts demanding my head at the next Palin rally (at least I hope not, them peoples is nuts), and bottom line- no profanity.
Yet, when I clicked the button to publish to our blog on Blog Talk Radio, I was greeted with the occasionally familiar sentence, in red print, informing me that I "had entered a word the blog that may offend some readers." Facepalming briefly, I combed through the column to see if, somehow, an errant curse word had slipped in under the radar. I mean, I knew I hadn't but I've seen weirder things happen.
There it was, in black and white. The word cocktail. The word was used in the context of saying that any glibness Palin might possess may be good fodder for a cocktail party, but assuredly not for the White House.
I know. How dare I? No, not how dare I question Sarah Palin's qualifications, intelligence, grasp on reality, or her glaring lack of all of the aforementioned, but rather, how dare I use the word cocktail. I suppose I could have used the phrase friends or colleagues discussing current events over drinks, or simply just said at a party, but nope, I took the chance of offending someone by using the phrase cocktail party. Seriously? I would say I feel ashamed, but I fear someone may actually take me seriously on that.
I enjoy very much producing and hosting
Probably Uncalled For on Blog Talk Radio, as I have done virtually every week for nearly a year and a half now, and I appreciate greatly that Blog Talk Radio exists in the format it does, allowing anyone with a phone and an Internet connection to throw themselves into the mix. It is, however, situations like this, more laughable than tragic, that lead me to question whether or not to keep publishing my posts on the Blog Talk Radio end of my network of websites, or to simply try and point my listeners to my other websites and hope for the best.
As ridiculous as this may sound to some, it's a bit @$#&ing easier than having to go back through my columns and inserting four dozen asterisks to replace words like c**ktail or possibly even insertion, although I'm personally baffled as how to mask that with a pair of asterisks.
