Pocono NASCAR Cesspool
This weeks first Cesspool entry should upset more than a few Earnhardt Jr. fans, even those that won’t even acknowledge there was a [avatar:http://cranialcavity.net/files/cup.jpg]NEXTEL Cup[/avatar] event this past weekend. Which raises a question, are you a NASCAR fan if you post about TV shows and Lance Armstrong and completly ignore the NASCAR results in your “NASCAR” blog? I Guess the answer is pretty evident isn’t it and can be summed up in the term, frontrunner! And while I’m on this subject hats off to Jaynelle who is at least honest enough to question herself about being a NASCAR fan or just a partisan of Jeff Gordon.
Be that as it may, this week starts off with the Cesspool’s first ever double [avatar:http://cranialcavity.net/files/dunce.jpg]Dunce[/avatar] award given to Dale Earnhardt Jr. The first [avatar:http://cranialcavity.net/files/dunce.jpg]award[/avatar] is by virtue of a lap 49 pitstop that saw Jr. caught by a [avatar:http://cranialcavity.net/files/caution.jpg]caution[/avatar] for debris on the track. In an effort to remain on the lead lap Jr. decided to do an imitation of Speed Racer and was caught by the NASCAR speeding police exiting pitroad at the astounding velocity of 143 mph! It also led to this radio exchange:
Dale Jr.:
Dear Marc,
First of all, you have a very good blog. Excellent in fact. But, you don’t need me to tell you that. What concerns me is in spite of a great blog, you have an issue with other bloggers it seems, most notably the Rantville Blog http://blogs.thatsracin.com/rantville/
Jimmy is a fellow Texan and I consider him a friend. I just find it saddening that you have a great blog and you really don’t need to cheapen it with the negative remarks about another blog out of no telling how many thousands of sports blogs.
In the name of “professionalism” even though we bloggers don’t get paid to blog, don’t you think if you have an issue with Jimmy it should be done privately? Just as a courtesy?
Again, I like your blog, and I like Rantville also. You have a great blog….it just seems like the negative stuff is unneccessary.
Lew
Your use of the word
Marc,
I hear your concerns. They sound very valid. But my Mom always told me to not get in the middle of a fight.
I have a proposition for the both of you. I would like to offer a way for you and Jimmy to air this out. You guys both have lots to offer. My only response is something has gone really bad.
Would you be in favor of perhaps “airing” this thing out in a private setting? I don’t know how I could do it…maybe in a group chat for three or some way to get you guys to talk? I’m just trying to offer a solution here. I will make the same offer to Jimmy.
I would like to offer this in the hopes of a resolution. What do you think?
Mayor’s blog is more often than not, rather obtuse in nature. That being said, Mayor has stated plainly that while his blog has Nascar content, its overall purpose is really just to spew whatever inane thoughts are stimulated by his environment and current alcoholic beverage. Quite frankly, the difference between this blog and Mayor’s blog is so stark that it is rather insulting to even compare the two.
Despite the fact that your comments with regard to this particular post are spot-on, it really does you no good to even mention rantville, as it has nothing to offer but vitriol and insult for anybody but the most rabid Jr/Republican fan.
I, too, have contacted thatsracin.com editors with regards to their selection of rantville as a sponsored blogger; I received absolutely no acknowledgement, but then again, who am I but a pissant nascar fan.
In summary, I agree with Lew, only for different reasons. Don’t insult Mayor’s blog; it’s akin to a grownup insulting the painting of a 5 year old. He’s not even worth your time.
Sorry Lew, your suggestion has merit but Jimmy is beyond help. That should have come from his legal guardians at an earlier age not at this late date and not by me. He has refused suggestion for improvement (a published comment policy and enforcement) yet readily admits a serious problem by the need to close his comments on numerous occasions. Either at the published date because he knew what he wrote was bait for a string of hate and discontent, or they were closed after the amount of personnel attacks reached such a level even he admitted defeat in the face of it. And BTW that only started after I had contacted his boss, maybe just a coincidence, maybe not.
BTW, to correct a point in my narrative above I did actually receive a response from That’s Racing’s editor. It came on a Friday with a promise to address my concerns the next week. The same coorespondence was sent the the publisher Knight-Ridder with the same result. A form letter thanking me for “participation.” Also not surprising given they take great “pride” in being a member of the MSM and mimic it’s habits of putting out straight news stories that omit facts unsupportive of their editorial stance or flat out lie in coverage of the story.
The editors promised response never happened and after 6 weeks he had the unmittagated gaul to ask if I would write for the trash heap he oversees. What I find strange is overall That’s Racin if one of the better NASCAR sites on the web in both content and most of it colunmists. Yet when they jumped on the blog bandwagon Jimmy was chosen as one of the contributors. That’s not to say he isn’t popular, his comment sections are normally very long. But that’s also a symptum of today’s media, sacrifice quality for readership.
Brian thanks for the kind words and appropriate use of the term obtuse I should think. It’s hardly surprising you also have been ignored by those in charge over there, by my count that’s 5 people, including myself, that have expressed the same complaints with the same result.
Well, as of this evening the link to Rantville was no longer on That’s Racin’, although the blog itself is still there if you go to it directly. Also, the original blog at http://www.welcometorantville.com/ was offline this evening, although it was up and running this morning. Interesting. Perhaps he really has pulled the plug, as he said he was considering in his most recent post.
There’s no doubt he’s gone. In a way it’s sad. In a comment I left on his last post I noted he had a viewpoint that is popular and he did have relavant things to say.
But much like NASCAR has had to tone down some of it’s drivers because of the much wider audience it now enjoys Jimmy didn’t grow out of the little echo chamber he had on “Classic Rantville” as he called it. What he got away with there didn’t and never would be acceptable under the banner of That’s Racin’ and all the traffic that drives to those blogs.
And that’s where Bob Henry and “the female whose name escapes me” failed miserably. They both knew what Jimmy was and would do when given a larger audience. They both blew it off, or Jimmy screwed them over by not following up on a promise to clean up his act. And given the “act” lasted six months I vote the first scenario as the closest to reality.
You don’t think this is what Bob Henry actually wanted? His damning with faint praise post concerning Rantville’s departure says much, especially with the majority of the post touting how a couple of “real” writers (or at least real race people) are now entering TR’s blogging area.
There is nothing more the MSM loves than to have living proof how bloggers aren’t worth the sweat on a warthog’s butt pimple compared to the professionals, and Rantville offered that in spades. Look for the other amateur blogger on TR to be eased out in favor of any other pro who actually knows racing that Henry can find, this time without the assistance of Lisa Stone (the woman whose name you can’t recall).
All bloggers are best advised to stick with their own and grow their own. The MSM will never accept you as an equal, no matter the quality of your writing. So why bother? Get back to the spirit of blogging — one person, one voice. If you genuinely have something to say, saying it well and with consistent persistence, you’ll gather the audience you deserve. If you have nothing to say, you will also gather the audience you deserve. Same with those who spew garbage.
This is my favorite section of Henry’s little goodby to Jimmy.
“He sometimes reminded me of guys on the college newspaper, trying to slip foul language past the student editor and the faculty adviser, meanwhile forgetting what the story was supposed to be about. But that didn’t bother me all that much.”
Isn’t that a self admission Henry had less influence as “EDITOR” of That’s Racin’ than one foul mouthed “blogger” who consistently trampled over the line of good taste and civility?
I think the fact Jimmy’s antics didn’t “bother” him “all that much” is a result of not wanting to offend Stone (I like my references to her better BTW) who was responsibile for his selection in the first place and not wanting to admit he failed doing his job.
I would love to see the click through rate of the ads that were on Rantville. Dollars to donuts although Jimmy produced many “fans” and comments the rate at which his minions clicked on banner ads was below average.
Many studies I have read show as age goes up a person is more likely to visit an advertiser through a banner ad than people that are under the age of 25.
R.I.P. Jimmy, nice knowing ya, but good riddence
Careful there, Marc…
you might make Lew cry.
NOTE: Edited to provide space between lines so the formatting doesn’t break - ed.
I’m not worried about Lew, he’s a big boy.
But I wonder if he didn’t invite trouble in Jimmy’s bye-bye thread. He mentioned he had sent a bunch of emails to some of Jimmy’s readers with a link to his blog. If some of the more reasonable people like follow him to Lews, OK. But if he shotgunned his addy to a small part of the wrong crowd it’s trouble with a capital “T.”
I had a couple follow me over here, most just dropped their little turds of wisdom and left and wern’t too offensive. One, Mike Daly, hung around for about 2-3 weeks mostly argueing with nothing to back up what he called “facts,” but in reality were his opinion.
He finally said something mildly offensive so I gently warned him and pointed him in the direction of my comment policy, with the promise another occurence would result in his IP and Email addy being banned.
A day of two later I get an Email from him crying censorship and why he couldn’t post a comment. I checked and he had two comments on the same thread time stamped within one miniute of each other and they were about 5 miniutes after the email time. He noted when posting he received “gobbly-gook” and jumbled text.
I explained it was a software glitch and he wasn’t then or never was banned. That resulted in Daly calling me a liar that he “just knew” he had been banned.
After the liar deal he was banned, forever. And note, in his blog on blogspot he has two links in his sidebar. Both are nothing more than notes to himself on how to hyprlink text within the body of his blog.
A real genius, but he “just knew” I had banned him!
Moron.
Not to be overly disrespectful of another blogger, but the vast majority of Lew’s blog consists of cutting and pasting news stories. Not much of a point to it. Why bother with a site that offers nothing but duplications of existing material? I can read ESPN and other online sports news sites myself, thank you.
That could be true and I find myself falling into that trap many times.
IT’s the downside of trying to cover more than one area of the sport. Some weekends when Cup, Craftman truck, Busch, IRL, F1 and Champ Car are all running I just don’t have the time to do anything but cut and paste certain stories.
Sometimes you’re better off letting certain topics go. If you try to cover every everything, you’re going to spread yourself too thin.