It seems to me lately that a lot of the discussion among the inhabitants of that distant place, the “real estate blogging community”, has been about the effort to try to normalize, document, and promote what they’re doing.

There are real estate blogging coaches now, with a really fuzzy and indistinct line between those who make a living heping real estate bloggers and those who just say they’re real estate blogging coaches. Meaning no disrespect to the blogging coaches who actually are pretty good and make their living at, I suppose that to the extent you tell someone that a capital letter goes at the beginning and a period at the end, or whatever you tell them, that makes you a coach.

Also noteworthy is a growing body of rules, which is quite a challenge for those of us who have to keep up with the daunting task of breaking them as soon as they come up. This paragraph is a case in point, since the first rule of real estate blogging fight club is that we deny the existence of rules governing real estate blogging fight club.

On the promotion front, you’ll be pleased to know that if your public has yet to be lured into the brilliant circle of light that shines through your prose, for a mere three hundred bucks you can get your head on the back of the blogobus, thereby letting your public know that you’re a new face of real estate and leading the way and so forth.

There’s probably no other profession in any species on any planet in the visible portion of the universe that loves vanity ads the way human Realtors® love our vanity ads.

“Look at me. My head’s on a bus.”

Don’t get me wrong, Sellsius. I admire your ability to get paid for this.

One thing I don’t get, though: Aren’t there two of you, and if so, are there two of you in one Sellsius, a sort of alchemical binary, or is there only really one Sellsius, and if so, which one gets the head that’s not his on the bus? I came in late.

What I Really Think About Poor People

I didn’t react skillfully to the beginning of the whole charity thread, days ago, before we knew anyone was going to get ahead on a bus.

The truth of the matter is I was bitter about my experience raising exactly zero dollars from the real estate blogging non-community for the winter blogathon, and getting blamed for it into the process. Also on some level, I couldn’t bear to look while it happened like deja vu all over again, with the punditocracy donning their callous indiference as though it were the fine silk of virtue. I didn’t have to wait long, either. It took about a minute, and came precisely from the expected direction, right on time, with all the annoying precision of an off-key song.

So for being a dope to Sellsius, I apologize. Twice if there’s two of you.

But seriously though, where’s my beach?

I’ve been looking at how well the blogathon isn’t doing, and giving it a lot of thought. Actually it’s more correct to say that it’s had my attention, nagging at me as though the mere fact of explaining it would make its almost utter failure less palpable.

Sure, we’re only four out of fourteen days into it, so maybe the only problem is that the blue fairy godmother of fate has yet to turn on the matter, converting the coarse sow’s ear of this desperate flop into the fine oriental silk of philanthropic victory. Or maybe the blue fairy godmother of fate is just not that into Hunger Blogathons, in which case I could be sitting here waiting for my date to show up until the fifteenth.

Maybe this blog doesn’t have enough reach yet to be credible, so my esteemed colleagues take one look at the PR meter on their Google toolbars and calculate their return as being not worth their time. Blogosphere my eye, more like desperately betting verbiage against the alogorithm in hopes of more escrows. Osphere.

Or maybe it’s just instant karma burning away the unworthy desire to grow this blog. Poetic justice that I didn’t do this blogathon on my more well publicized — and perhaps closer to a lot of hungry people — Sacramento blog.

The other day I was giving the younger of my dogs, Molly, a fairly large pig ear. I thought it was Molly’s turn for the big one, but Molly just turned up her nose at it, so I gave the big one to my older dog, Lucy, and Molly then happily took the smaller treat.

My dogs, it would seem, get it.

So there we are at the heart of the matter at last, I suspect. The elegant superstructure of Web 2.0 is built finally on the flimsiest of foundations imaginable: Human Being 1.0. So-so apes. Gansta rappas. Planet killers. I want my S.U.V.

So here I sit, taking my little place among the hoards of my fellow vacuous, narcissistic scribblers. Monkeys throw their shit on the walls to see what sticks. The twenty-first century calls that activity “Content SEO.”