Pluggin' it Forward (or Backward)

A recent article written by a fellow Associated Content source featured, among others, yours truly, complete with links to my profile page as well as to one of my articles. Since that article was published, I have seen a marked increase in my page views and have added several new fans and subscribers. As any AC writer knows, a wider audience means more visibility to the annoying ads from our sponsors, which translates to more bucks for the big mother tit known as Associated Content and more pennies for us little guys. I don't know about you, but I've been putting my AC income into a special savings account and have calculated that my wife and I will finally be able to afford that Florida winter home we've always dreamed about in roughly 236 years. Anyway, as thanks to those of you who have helped get my byline into the consciousness of more readers by cluttering your articles with links to my crap or simply by mentioning my name, it is time for me to plug it forward-OK, it's technically backward, but you get the idea.

The article I refer to in the previous paragraph ("The Funniest Writers at Associated Content") was the work of one of my favorite AC writers, Maria Roth. In the article, Maria says she thinks of me as her "sweet, generous, perverted uncle." So in keeping with that image, let me take this opportunity to tell you that Maria reveals on her profile page that she is tall and I can see by her picture that she is kind of blondish. And what guy doesn't dig tall, kind of blondish ladies? Unfortunately, Maria is married and-as far as I know-her husband isn't one of those guys who's into loaning his woman out to other men. So sorry guys, we'll just have to settle for her writing and our own demented fantasies. And speaking of Maria's writing and demented fantasies, her poem on "How to Write Poetry for Page Views on Associated Content" is great if for no other reason than it contains the words "Britney Spears' nipples" in the very first line. I don't know how the page views turned out, but she sure got my attention.

In his article, "How to Dupe that Wiley AC Editor," the AC source known as MickeysBigMouth (real name, Mickey B. Mouth) gives a plug to yours truly mainly because he is jealous of my "silvery badge," which denotes that I am an esteemed member of the coveted Associated Content Top 1000 Club. In order to attain such a high honor, you must be among the top 1,000 writers at AC during a given year, which means you have to write a minimum number of articles during that period and prove that you are breathing. As far as I know, Mickey's breathing, so I'm pretty confident that a silvery badge is indeed in his future. To help him along, visit Mickey's bizarre world where you'll find such gems as "I Wish Our Happy Hour was as Happy as Your Happy Hour!"

If you write for AC and you don't know who Donald Pennington is, you are both lucky and apparently living in a cave. Donald is probably responsible for spreading the word about more AC writers than any other individual in our community. If you dig reading about yourself-and who doesn't?-fill out one of Donald's interview questionnaires. You won't regret it. Here is a link to the interview Donald did with me. Yep, I'm plugging myself. And while you're visiting Donald's page, read some of his articles. He writes about anything and everything, including this piece on how to deal with writer's block.

Note: As I write this piece, I have come across yet another article just published by Donald that actually has my name in the title: "What is a Frank Mucci and Where Did it Come From?" Read this article and if you can figure out what the hell he's saying, drop me a line.

The writer formerly known as Julia Bodeeb-White now goes by a symbol that looks like this (Julia Bodeeb) and means Julia Bodeeb. This AC source was one of the first to give me a plug by mentioning my name in an article called "How to Amuse Yourself at Associated Content." One good way to spend time at AC is to check out some of Julia's articles which cover a far range of topics including "Signs that You May be Dating a Psychopath." Thankfully, my wife never read this one.

Last but not least is the individual who was the first to add me as one of her favorites. Knowing someone else appreciates my work was all the encouragement I needed to keep presenting the darker regions of my mind to others. Lady Samantha also gave me my first plug when she published a piece called "More Dumb Lyrics" complete with a link to my article "Some of the Dumbest Song Lyrics Ever Written." One of my favorite Lady Sam articles is "Am I Invisible?"-a rant on dealing with idiot drivers. It's always good to see other people are as annoyed as I am by the general stupidity of Americans.

So I've given out lots of plugs to the people who have been nice enough to do the same for me. Now go out there and plug it forward (or backward)-give a shout out to those you appreciate and those who have helped you along the way. After all, no one better understands what we do than our fellow AC writers. And as a little incentive, include me in one of your articles and I'll let you spend a week with me at my Florida winter home. I'll try to keep January, 2245 open on my calendar.