Blogging Spotlight on Lisa T and the Office Monkey Blog

While the cliche of the bored and frustrated office worker is pretty well worn territory (mostly by the great movie "Office Space"), there are a few sources that still present a fresh voice for those laboring at the copy machine and the multi-line phone. One such source is the blog "Office Monkey" (http://being_lisa_t.blogspot.com/), which criticizes the foibles of pop culture icons on behalf of young office workers nationwide. The author of this blog, Lisa T., conducts this wonderfully sharp orchestra of pop culture criticism, on top of her work as a comedy writer and contributor to the blog A Socialite's Life. I spoke with Lisa about the importance of being honest in blogging and having diverse outlets for creative energy.

Nicholas Katers- When did you begin blogging? What was your motivating force for beginning your own blog?

Lisa T.- I first started blogging on Office Monkey Blog a little over a year ago and about 6 months or so before that, I had my own little website I created, which I called Lisa Land. It was really simple - all basic HTML - and was a total rip-off of The Onion, but a little bit more personalized since I had a photo gallery of personal pictures, favorite links and a little bio. But then I figured out that it was so much easier to use a blog, instead of having to redesign the site every time I added something new. That's when I started Office Monkey Blog.

The reason I started writing on Lisa Land and eventually on Office Monkey Blog is because I was bored with my desk job. In fact, that's where the title of Office Monkey originates. The whole reason I moved out to L.A. was to become a comedy writer, but of course, that's exceedingly hard to break into and until I could do that, I wanted to have a creative outlet that I could sneakily use during my down time at my day job. And it seemed like a more productive hobby than playing Tetris at my desk.

Professionally, I've been blogging for A Socialite's Life for only about four months now - although now that I feel like I'm in the groove of things, it definitely feels like I've been doing this longer than I have.

NK- I saw a post that you put up on Office Monkey about a role you had in a performance piece called "Julie's Sixteenth Birthday." What is your background in the arts and in writing? What aspirations do you have in the arts and in writing? Does this background influence your blogging experience?

LT- "Julie's Sixteenth Birthday" was a performance of the sketch comedy troupe, Employee of the Month, of which I am a member. ( http://www.employeecomedy.com). As I mentioned earlier, my goal is to become a comedy writer and in terms of writing, sketch comedy is probably the type of writing which comes most naturally to me. In college, I was a member of a sketch comedy troupe and I first became involved in Employee of the Month some time in the Spring of this year. Even though I perform and write for the show, it's the writing part that's my favorite.

And this is also pretty true of my involvement in A Socialite's Life. Since I'm trying to present myself as the face and voice as that of the site itself, I'm having to be a little more in front of the camera, so to speak, than I usually would be. Writing for ASL is such a great opportunity and unique in the sense that I really get a wide range of creative control in terms of the content I'm generating, as well as how I choose to present myself, that I feel like my role as editor encompasses both my "on-air" personality, as well as my writing itself.

NK- Your Office Monkey blog is devoted to skewering popular culture icons like Jessica Simpson, who are made iconic by some strange, circuitous media machine that brings people up and breaks them down by exposing their dearth of talent. Since there are a lot of blogs and web sites devoted to this, how do you keep your blog unique? How did your blogging voice develop? What type of editorial process do you use in determining what material goes up on your blog?

LT- I think the best way that I know to keep my voice unique and keep me from being lost in the fray is simply by being honest. I'm not trying to make up opinions to either be controversial or more interesting - I really just try to stay true to my real voice. And this leads me to the explanation of how my blogging voice developed. In all honestly, I write almost exactly how I speak. I'm pretty conversational and have some favorite words that I'm sure any seasoned ASL reader can quickly point out (bitches, bonkers, yo). Before we had log lines included in the various posts (because there are several writers who contribute to the site), my mother tells me she could still recognize mine because they so distinctly mirrored the way I talk. And the blog takes a very distinct point of view - that of a glamorous socialite who has chosen to sit next to you and dish on the silly celebs she bumps into at parties. I try to stay true to that character, but within the confines of my own voice.

As for what goes up on the site, we really just try to stay current with all pop-culture happenings and are probably going to be posting what we believe are the most popular stories of the day - but also want to include ones that might be less on the pop-culture radar, but are more like weird human interest stories that really stand out.

NK- An underlying part of Office Monkey (if that is possible with such a name) is the drudgery of working as an "office monkey," doing mundane office work to get by. Do you think that criticizing spoiled celebrities and trumped up public figures goes hand in hand with the mundane culture of office work? Is it a way to vent a certain frustration with popular
culture or just a way to kill time in between errands? Does blogging help democratize popular culture by giving more people the opportunity to get their piece of the spotlight, no matter how dim that spotlight is?

LT- I definitely believe that the monotonous landscape of the office culture, as you called it, lends to the bitterness of those trapped inside it. And with that bitterness comes a (at least for me) a certain envy of those people who seem to get richer and more famous for being rich and famous and who seem to spend all their time traipsing from one party to the next, never needing to learn how to fill out a time sheet because they will never have to work a "9 to 5." And when we see them on the TV and Internet, there's a certain satisfaction of getting to witness the mighty fall. Especially for my peers and someone like myself, because we're all clamoring for creative jobs in the entertainment industry and to see someone like Paris Hilton get the opportunities she's been afforded simply based on her notoriety rather than talent, makes a lot of us feel like life just isn't fair.

The thing I love most about blogging is that it gives those of us who are just burning to be published in one way or another in order to get our creative and (hopefully) funny thoughts out to the masses, a way to do just that. And the harder you work to publicize yourself and get your name and URL out there, the wider your audience becomes and the consequently more relevant your voice becomes. People start to take you seriously - and ask you for interviews like this one, because what you have to say has at least some kind of impact on the people you're trying to entertain. Definitely, there are people who are less concerned with being creative and more interested in becoming famous, but the beauty of blogging is that there's room for both.

NK- I have read a few of your entries on A Socialite's Life (http://www.socialitelife.com/) and liked them because they seem slightly more concise than your Office Monkey work. How do you feel your work on this blog differ from your work on Office Monkey? Does diversifying your blogging presence make it more interesting or fun or is it a way to get your views on pop culture to more computer screens?

LT- Since I write a higher volume of entries for ASL and it's such a specific subject matter, I really have had to learn how to hone my writing to a pretty recognizable formula. I've taken a few comedy writing classes since moving to L.A., one of which dealt with writing for a talk show. And if you're familiar with late night talk show format, you'll see that all I'm really doing is writing extended two-liner jokes most of the time. Sort of like what the Weekend Update on Saturday Night Live does. How successful I am at delivering a good punchline within any given entry probably most likely depends on how much sleep I managed to get the night prior.

At this point, Office Monkey Blog really just exists as a strictly creative endeavor. There's no real pressure to be funny or relevant or even consistent since it's mainly just a personal outlet. I let myself ramble and talk about whatever pops into my head.

NK- What do you think the most rewarding quality of blogging is?

LT- The most rewarding quality is getting to work from home. I love the freedom of that and don't take it for granted for a moment. I know what it feels like to be stuck in an office and am so thankful that I seem to have escaped for the time being. Also, knowing that my writing is being read by people who are still stuck at a desk like I used to be and that I'm amusing at least some of them, really makes me happy.

NK- Conversely, what do you think the most frustrating quality of blogging is?

LT- The only thing that frustrates me about blogging is when people get so caught up in the medium, they don't notice the content. Right now, it's such a "buzz word" and honestly, I keep thinking of that phrase, "It's the content, stupid." Like I love saying, getting excited about blogging is like going nuts over the invention of the typewriter. Yes, it's great, but the typewriter's not going to write a novel or a groundbreaking play, the person using it is. Wow, that was quite a rant.

NK- What are your future plans for the Office Monkey blog?

LT- I'm definitely making a more concerted effort to contribute to Office Monkey Blog more regularly in the future, since I've been a little behind as of late. But more than that, I'm focused on my podcast (which is a sort of ASL/Office Monkey Blog co-production) called Liquid Lunch. ( http://liquidlunchpodcast.com). I'm branching out into the world of podcasting and the inital response has been much stronger than my partner in the podcast, Wayne Ford, and I ever would have anticipated. I'm also going to be writing a lot more for ASL and taking on more editorial responsibilities, now that I've got my sea legs, so to speak.