Sunday, April 17, 2011

He’s Ba-aaack!

If you followed a link from twitter or facebook to this piece, there is an excellent chance you have no idea what the above title refers to. And that’s okay. My fault, really. You’re not the lazy ass that constantly abandons blogs.

You see, this place is where it all began for me. On December 10th, 2005, on my way to my parents’ house for breakfast, I ran out of gas and had to call my dad to come get me. I was pissed, of course, but in some detached portion of my brain, I was laughing at myself hysterically. I decided I had to share the experience somehow. And since I was (and still am) such a fan of Dave Barry’s humor columns, I decided to open up a Blogger account and post my first-ever humor column on the experience.

It got a tremendous response. And by “tremendous response” I mean that nobody read it. I had to beg people to go to my blog. I had several phone conversations like this:

My sister Lori: Hello?

Me: Hey sis. I started a blog, and wrote an essay I’m really proud of. Could you take a look at it?

Lori: Sure! No problem. I’ll get right to it.

Me: No, I mean, right now.

Lori: Oh, look, I have another call…

But, amazingly enough, in time I built up a pretty strong readership, with several hundred hits every time I posted a new blog. So I made sure to leverage that popularity in the only I way I knew how: abandonment. It was amazingly stupid, because getting a following is difficult, but I guess I just felt so much pressure to be funny that I had to step away.

Since that time, I’ve had two MySpace blogs, a Tumblr blog, and a standup comedy career begin to blossom. I decided a few weeks ago I really need to start blogging again just to keep my wit sharp, and, of course, to update my friends and fans as to how everything is going. So, what better place than my original blog?

So here I am. I’m not exactly sure how this is going to go, but I can give you an educated guess. My initial instinct is to blog rather consistently, like 3-4 times per week, but instead of long humor essays like I used to, I’ll be posting shorter updates, based heavily on my standup. Of course, I know myself. The updates will probably turn into long essays. But if that happens, it happens. At least it will be good, funny content.

It feels good to be home.

11 comments:

  1. i enjoyed it, Joe...i'll be a regular
    reader of your blog, no matter how long
    it is.. GREAT JOB, JOE!!...i'll be a regular reader, so let me know when you post it each time...i think you're funny whether anybody else does....keep it going...if you ever get to jacksonville's Comedy Zone, let me know and i'll be in the front row!...good luck with your blog...

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  2. Hey Joe,

    This is one of the things you are really good at, in my humble opinion. Unfortunately I will probably never be able to come to one of your stand-up gigs, so this is it for me. :-) Hope you will try to find some of that 'old' Joe, better than fb and tweets.

    Can't wait. Good luck!

    Janneke

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  3. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  4. Please keep things down to 140 characters. I have a short attention span.

    P.S. I like cheeseburgers.

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  5. i enjoyed it, Joe...i'll be a regular
    reader of your blog, no matter how long
    it is.. GREAT JOB, JOE!!...i'll be a regular reader, so let me know when you post it each time...i think you're funny whether anybody else does....keep it going...if you ever get to jacksonville's Comedy Zone, let me know and i'll be in the front row!...good luck with your blog...

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  6. Me too. With Ranch Dressing.

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  7. I just hope like hell I get this website/blog done before I drive myself to suicide. Once I get it all cleaned up I'll focus on just writing. Thanks!

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  8. Thanks, Cindy. I've been promising quite a few people I'll get to Jax one of these days.

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  9. This is more or less a test comment.

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  10. This is also a test comment.

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  11. JOOOEE!!! Yay. I'm very excited and (presumptuous me) taking some small fraction of responsibility for the inspiration. If you don't know what I'm referring to, I'm not gonna remind you. I'm just going to pout and be hurt. I find that very effective from across the continent. I know how essential I am to your fan base. Anyway....where was I?

    Oh. Funny~ You. Are. A. Funny. Human. I was serious about you being my "unofficial" humor writing guru. Cuz (and this might surprise you) I don't write funny. I know, I know... I hope you still like me in that lukewarm tepid fashion I've come to rely on. But I want to write funny, because dude, I am fucking HILARIOUS in person. I think it's about time it translated.

    It is my goal in life to make Joe Simmons LOL.
    But how will I know if you keep hatin on the LOL??? I remain naively hopeful.

    Sometimes it's important to step away, find a new footing and come back from there. Welcome home, Joe. I'm so glad to see you here!

    ps: I'm still disgusted with my humor slut self~ thank you very much for making her impossible to ignore. In the absence of any apparent ability to develop standards, I've abandoned hope and jumped into the crab pot with you and the plethora of illustrious loserists humorists. It's warm here. And pinchy.

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