Tryptophan V

That V up there is a roman numeral. This is the fifth year in a row I'm writing on Thanksgiving because I have to. I'm obligated. I made the rules, and I'm following them—BLOGGING EVERY DAY, NO REST. I didn't remember that this was the fifth year, I had to look it up. You don't have to look it up, though. The other four blog posts are pretty inessential. That's kind of the point. Write something inessential, dip in and then dip out, check the box and then move onto the big meal; no one is reading today anyway. Today is the 1213rd day in a row that Puke on Your Birthday is giving you content. No one ever said it was gonna be good content.

Here's an idle thought, one that I thought might be nice to spend ten minutes on before we close up shop for the holiday. Is there anything that I, editor in chief of Puke on Your Birthday, would refuse to publish?

I made a joke a long time ago that there were certain subjects that I was "never" going to write about. I remember writing this dumb blog post in the Connelly Library as an undergrad, so that should show you how long ago and how immature that shit is. And then the short-lived "Don't Tell Me What I Can't Do" column, a response to that original post in which I went through each subject that I "wasn't allowed to write about," and wrote about them, also seems like a thousand years ago. But no, that thing only wrapped up in 2021.

Very occasionally since then, I've tossed around the idea of putting together a second list of "things that will never be written about on PoYB" and then of course writing about each of those things as well. But I would probably struggle with coming up with enough "banned" subjects to make that idea worth trying.

That partially has to do with the fact that most of what would be theoretically refused publication would be hate speech. PoYB is technically public, but it is for all intents and purposes actually pretty private. Anyone who might engage in that type of hateful rhetoric for the most part has no idea PoYB exists. It's not a perfect system, but it's what we have.

Hypothetically, say one of our pals here falls down the rabbit hole of ignorance and hate, and emerges ready to spew that hate on the public pages of Puke on Your Birthday, and, in lieu of a Blaqbonez review, sends me some white supremacy shit, and requests that it be published. I think there's a scenario in which those words still end up on the blog, but that scenario is extremely specific. First, I'm responding privately via email, saying that I do not agree with what is being said. If they still want it published, then I'd say that the only way it's going up is if they let me add my owns words to it, in the same blog post. If they say okay, then the words I'm including would be making the point of "hey, these words are from [insert name here], and it's some ignorant shit that I don't agree with, but they insisted, so I want you to see the hate directly from [insert name here], and make the judgment for yourself that this is the face of hatred and ignorance." And then argue with their points in real time, within that post. Something like that.

But that's not going to happen. That would be outlandish. Why would I be interacting with such a person? I guess it possible, but it seems so damn unlikely at this point in my life. I've known many of my friends for too long. If divides occur in our beliefs, then that divide grows slowly, not all at once.

There's been plenty of art created by hateful people (or worse) that is then found on this blog in one form or another. Most of that has been known miscreants whose art is, according to people who are not me, important enough that it should be featured here, despite the allegations against or even known crimes committed by those artists. I have voiced my displeasure at these decisions, but as editor, I have not censored anything. The worst I'll do is embed an unofficial copy of the video instead of the video from the official account, in a limp-dick attempt to prevent the artist from getting money. If the title of the art has explicit hate speech in it, I might censor the word itself, but that's only happened maybe once, and that was with the author of the blog post's permission.

I don't know if I've said this on the blog—probably—or just in private emails—definitely—but the general understanding is that I will publish anything, but with the understanding that I will hop into the comment section if it's something I disagree with. And that's also assuming that the author of the thing I disagree with signs their name, because I don't have arguments with Anonymous.

The reason I've been thinking about all this is that I've accidentally stumbled upon something that I don't ever want to publish and is separate from everything that I've written about so far. And I haven't officially censored it yet, it's mostly been implied, but I am going to use the rest of this space to briefly explain this thing, and officially state now that it is BANNED from Puke on Your Birthday.

Here it is: You are not allowed to write about Reba episodes 1 through 99 and also episodes 101 through 127. Episode 100, "Grannies Gone Wild," is fair game.

This is in service of the joke that I've only grown more protective of the further we move past the summer of 2022. The joke is that I know everything about one specific episode of some dumb sitcom and literally nothing about any other episode of that same sitcom. It's a gag that continues to pay dividends, and I don't ever want it to be spoiled. I don't want to know about any other episode. That just wouldn't be as fun. It would ruin the mystique of S05E08. I'm trying to protect "Grannies Gone Wild" (the episode) and Grannies Gone Wild (the blog series) here. 

And it's all fun and games, but I really will be upset if you try to turn this joke on its head and secretly try to send me an email with spoilers or randomly embed the plot of S03E19 "The Big Fix Up" into a Record Club review or something. I know you'll be joking, but I probably won't be laughing, because that would be a cheap joke designed to take a shot at the really, really big and important joke that I've spent a lot of time building up on this blog. I personally wouldn't consider it fun. If you wanna watch the other 126 episodes, do so in private, away from Puke on Your Birthday.

But yeah, man, other than that, go wild. Write whatever you want. Just maybe not today, on this particular holiday.

Happy Thanksgiving, Puke on Your Birthday family!!!