Wednesday was the official 5th birthday of Swan Fungus. The celebration and State Of The Blog address will occur on Sunday, March 14th. We’ll all congregate right here, in cyberspace, for cupcakes and soda. Maybe at like 8pm PST? Sorry East Coasters, most of my audience is here on this coast now. Don’t worry, we’ll roofie your drinks to help you feel more intoxicated faster, that way you can go to bed early and still feel like you partied your ass off with the rest of us.
So, yeah. Some of you have been reading this website for five years now. You might be aware of my top ten lists. I write a new one pretty much every Friday. I’ve been doing this pretty much since the week I started blogging. I think the first one was called “The Ten Steps For Bedding A Hilton Sister.” The most recent list was called “The Top Ten Theme Party Ideas.” I’ve come a long way since 2005, and now I’m getting to the point where it’s a challenge to think of a funny list on my own. Thankfully, Jack sent me an off-the-cuff e-mail this week pointing me to a bunch of related-but-unrelated blogs, and it seemed like great fodder for a top ten list. If you don’t like this week’s installment, blame Jack.
The Top Ten Levines Who Blog
My name is [redacted]. These people spell our last name Levine because they are not as refined as I. They are but serfs, and I am their lord. That is why my ancestors chose to arbitrarily capitalize a consonant in the middle of our surname. It was more…regal. Still, I feel some sense of kinship with those unattractive, pitiful Levines running around the Internet trying to make a name for themselves. Especially the Jew-for-Jesus musician with whom I share a name (Google it, you’ll see what I mean). Here’s my attempt at understanding the puny minds of ten other people who share a variation of my family name and who also blog.
10. Jenny Levine – “The Shifted Librarian” – I don’t understand how this is a blog. I see a lot of Twitter feeds and blog posts by people who aren’t even named Levine. Is this someone’s idea of a cybernetic various artist compilation consisting of blog posts by random strangers? I want to read the thoughts of Jenny Levine, not the collected thoughts of some people she discovered on the Internet. This is a bad, bad idea for a website. It’s dumb, it’s impossible for me to nagivate, and what’s more — I don’t even care enough to try and learn how. Boo to you, Miss Jenny. Boo!
09. Peter Levine – “Peter Levine” – Do not — I repeat, DO NOT — cast aspersions on this fellow just because his header image screams “Gay History Professor”. Peter Levine is none of those things. In fact, if you read this published author’s website, you will learn that he not only cares about politics but also literature. This doesn’t sound to me like someone who wants to kick ass and call preening indie rockers “fags.” This sounds like someone who wants to fix the schools. Peter Levine, you’re dead to me.
08. Steve LeVine – “The Oil And The Glory” – Theoretically I should love this guy. He spells his name just like I do. Except for the fact that his first name is spelled S-t-e-v-e and mine is spelled E-v-a-n. Instead, I kind of hate him. His most recent blog post is a book review about a KGB book about poisonings and assassinations. First of all, who the hell cares about the KGB in 2010? Aren’t they about as relevant as Oasis is in this modern era? I don’t know, I skimmed a few other posts and it looks like all this guy does is copy news stories from other sources and then write his own abstracts before copying and pasting the full text into his blog. Isn’t that cheating? I mean, I do that once or twice a week with my album downloads but whether or not I explicitly write something about how cool the album is, or if someone else does it, that’s not going to be the difference between your choosing to download it or not. You’re going to download it because it’s free and it’s right here. You could care less what I have to say about an album. So why should I bother putting in the effort. Wait a minute, maybe I have more in common with Steve LeVine than I thought!
07. Ken Levine – “By Ken Levine” – Anyone who still uses Blogger is kind of a loser. Especially in light of the sweeping reform that targeted music bloggers in recent months. Blogger deleted entire accounts due to copyright infringement that wasn’t actually infringement. The blogs were simply posting materials they were offered by labels and PR firms. If you choose to use Blogger as your blog hosting service, you’re basically saying you don’t care about basic human rights as they related to disseminating information and intellectual property on the Internet. I mean — is there a more obvious, easy to understand concept than what constitutes a blogger being guilty of copyright infringement? The answer is “No.” None of us are guilty, we’re offering free promotion and creating potential revenue streams that wouldn’t otherwise exist. Ken Levine blogs about shitty television shows.
06. Shira Levine – “Blog Posts By Shira Levine” – When I hear the name Shira Levine the image that comes to mind is that of an olive-skinned, raven haired, filthy cum-slut with a barely-too-big nose and long, expensive fake nails. I guess I’m thinking of a girl I might have gone to high school with who wouldn’t give me a blow job in the woods adjacent to school property. I could care less about how she blogs, I’d rather sit here and curse all the dumb Jewish girls I went to high school with that wouldn’t suck my dick. If you must know, her blog consists of little blurbs about pop culture stuff. Typical shit only a self-absorbed Jewish girl would find interesting.
05. Alan Levine – “Alan Levine’s space for barking about and playing with technology” – Alan’s already done a fine job of explaining exactly what his website is, so I don’t feel I have to expand further. Could you imagine if I called Swan Fungus “[redacted]’s space for barking about stupid indie rockers, LOST, embarrassing dating stories, baseball, beer, how much I hate Bono, stupid record nerd fetishes, concerts, travel stories, annoying letters to multi-national corporations, world news and fancy foods”? I would expect you all to beat the shit out of me for being such a dork. The only thing I’ll say about Alan’s website is that as a first time visitor I wondered whether or not Alan was a dog, or if he was trying to write from the perspective of a dog. I really don’t get the dog imagery.
04. Leslie Levine – “Leslie Levine | Business solutions from AllBusiness.com” – Uh, last I checked, “women” and “business” went together like “Africans” and “voting”. It’s just un-American. Oh well, for the sake of being not sexist I’ll state that Leslie is a fine blogger and probably a very professional lady. I bet she wears a lot of pant suits and shoulder pads. She probably chain smokes and wears bad perfume. She uses a lot of hair spray. I’d eat shit if she drives a Toyota. Leslie strikes as more of a BMW or Benz lady. She’s also probably a dyke. Aren’t all female businessmen dykes?
03. Judith Levine – “Judith’s Blog | Judith Levine | What’s New” – I’m not really sure you can call this a blog. Her most recent entry just says, “Martha Coakley is a leading light among sex-crimes witch-hunters. Why do her liberal supporters keep this record under wraps?” I’m thinking about making tomorrow’s blog post read, “Judith Levine is a female blogger writing very short blog posts. What is she hiding by not responding to allegations that as a liberal feminist she may have raped and murdered a guy in 1990?”
02. Becky Levine – “Becky Levine” – Okay, I don’t know this bitch writes about, but I’m starting to think that maybe she’s the most popular Levine on the Internet because her posts elicit far more comments than mine do. Maybe I’m not being honest enough about how much I hate things and people. That’s the only way I can think of to make more people leave comments. Surely they won’t flock to this website if I write meaningful and insightful posts. Just like “Field of Dreams,” my motto has always been, “If you slag on it, they will come.”
01. Irine Levine – “The Friendship Blog” – I’m not really sure what the point of Irine’s blog is. I mean, she describes it as a place to “[explore] the nature, meaning, and depth of female friendships,” but it seems so much more painful to read than that. So much so, I’d rather not even begin to read an entry. I’ll let you do that. Also, it’s getting really late and I have things to do in the morning. I have a life you know. No, really…I swear. I have a life. WHY ARE YOU LOOKING AT EACH OTHER LIKE THAT!? I’M TELLING THE TRUTH!
