Frank Leyland:
The origin of this non-physical exercise (due to my "co-authors" tiny lung capacity) stems from many late night/early morning discussions and the advent of 'Google'. Ever since joining my cousin at the prestigious (for drinking), and gorgeous (because it is in the middle of nowhere, and hence the avid drinking) Penn State, we have argued incessantly about everything. These discussions have annoyed nearly everyone around us; roommates, friends, soon to be burglars, soon to be women we blew a chance at hooking up with, etc, for three main reasons:
- We often have no idea what we are talking about.
- We spend half of the time googling the topic so we can actually make coherent arguments
- The discussion almost always devolves into us shouting over each other.
Now if you have ever worked in, observed, or even grasp the general notion of broadcasting you will probably come to the conclusion that the above issues leave a lot of 'dead air', making for a horrible podcast. Fortunately for you we came to the same conclusion (that and neither of us currently have enough money to set up a proper recording, a voice that sounds 'good', nor the drive to actually leave our own homes and travel the 5 miles to the others house).
However, I feel that our conversations are both funny and interesting, and thus deserved to be shared with more people than just my poor wife, my poor dog, and anyone else lucky enough to be trapped in the room. The idea is simple. We will argue, via emails, any topic that we find interesting, and then post our discussion 'as-is’. The first interesting topic is, of course: What is this, and will it work? I say yes. You?
Name:
We will need to edit these chains before we can publish them. Our conversations are not so pure that we can unleash them to publication without proofing and modification.
I will be writing as Censored. I’ve wanted to get this pen name out there for a while.
No, you may not call me Censored.
I think that you need to modify your voice. Rather than addressing the audience, we should directly address each other, as if the audience does not exist, even to the point that we can discuss the audience in the third person when appropriate/desired (ex: Is there a way to trick people into downloading this page? I don't really care if they read it).
Being that this is a blog, I think that we should try to distinguish it by calling it an Internet periodical - we should make a rule that we never call it a blog. There are plenty of blogs about nothing; however, I don't currently subscribe to any internet periodicals. Weekly/bimonthly publishing is recommended. I think that your main idea would be something like a headline, or primary topics, but I think that we need 5-7 side topics that are reoccurring. I suggest beer of the week as one. I also think that a fantasy sports corner would be good as well. Maybe a YouTube clip of the week and a Product of the week/month (new and antique/retro).
We should also work on a parenthetical title/description for the magazine, something that gives a taste of the flavor and a quick description.
Also, how will we publish this?
Name:
This idea could work. I consider it an internet periodical. We need a main discussion section, and some reoccurring topics that are regularly updated. The big questions that I see are what do we call our periodical and what topics do we start with?
As for names I'm not coming up with much.
I'm a little better on topics. I think that we should have:
A beer of the week.
A YouTube clip of the week.
A product of the week/month (new and retro/antique)
A sports section
A fantasy sports section
What are your thoughts?
Frank Leyland:
Rule #1: You can't post two emails back to back. I was in the middle of a response and now I have to cut and paste into a new draft, and then figure out where to add my comments to your second email... arguing with you is work enough without these added difficulties.
The parenthesis around as-is was meant to imply that they would not be exactly as originally written. That being said, I think that over editing will remove the conversational writing, which, I believe, is our nitch. In fact, my sole goal in these periodicals will be to anger you enough that you prattle off incoherent rants, which will, no doubt, be funnier than anything you spend any amount of time thinking about before you write. This is your charm.
Your comment does bring up a good point though. My humor is so dry that I think I need to come up with a way to identify when I'm am being sarcastic. I vote italics.
I refuse to call you Censored. Why don't you just go by Censored, it is your real name after all.
As far as my voice goes, I will talk to whomever I want, whenever I like. Right now I'm talking to you Cheese. Later, I might be engaging the readers, or have a personal moment with Keanu Reaves.
Love the periodical i.e. the anti-blog, and I think we need to get a website in order to 'publish' it (maybe we should have done that before having this discussion).
For side topics, I agree, but I don't think this all needs to happen at once. Let's figure out if we can actually argue interestingly via emails before we try to promote things.
We need a name...
"Two dudes, one blog"
"Two guys argue about random shit"
"The question guys"
"Are tomatoes fruits? and other things you never knew you wanted to know"
Name:
1. It is a periodical. Each email chain would be a topic.
2. Why won't you call me by my name? Do you have a problem with Censored?
Name:
I'm not so sure that I'm buying any of these names. Three of your proposed titles sound like John Candy movie titles. The other one is clearly better suited for an article than for the entire thing.
I still don't have a good idea for the name. I'm trying to think but the word "non-blog" keeps interrupting my train of thoughts. Terrible.
Rather than give any ideas, I'm just going to state that a two or three word title with alliteration would be best. You can attempt some new names.
Name:
What about “Leyland and Censored” as a name?
Frank Leyland:
First. That name alliterates to LA?, which is horrible. Sounds like a blog about two old ladies discussing quilting.
Second, Censored... seriously. I really hope you are kidding about a pen name.
More proposed names:
“Bread and butter”
“I'm just saying”
“That's not a Flashlight, it’s a...”
Name:
Well, not really, what's wrong with a pen name?
Alliteration is not making a new word out of the first letter of each word; it's using words that have similar consonant sounds. Like Sally sells sea shells.
I'm having second thoughts about this. Do you know anyone who wants to read this?
Frank Leyland:
Well that is the first funny thing you said all day. Perhaps the issue is with the lame topic. Picking a name is inherently boring.
You use a pen name when you are in a porno or writing a romance novel, not when you are attempting to start a writing career. Plus how can we convince readers that we are honestly discussing a topic when you are using a fake name.
Name:
How will anyone else know that my name isn't Censored? Also, once we have this figured out, I don't think that we should publish this topic.
If you want your name to be Tommy Thompson, I have no problem with that.
Frank Leyland:
This one needs some serious editing. Also needs a more defined and narrow topic. There are some good moments in here though (mostly mine). See you at the library.
Name:
See you there. We need a real first topic. This is something a few leagues lower than Busch league.
Frank Leyland:
Old German league?
Name:
More like Gold Crown.
Frank Leyland:
Defiantly 'Brew City' league (tastes like meat).
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