Influence peddler

Five hundred hashmarks, it turns out, takes a very long time to make.

This is blog post No. 500.

High time, then, to examine how I've done in changing the world from my little virtual outpost these last five years.

Not all of these posts have been phoned in. Not even most. Oh, they comprise so much navel gazing, of course, but almost always in thoughtful consideration of the fuzz therein. Occasionally I have looked beyond myself, out into the crazy beautiful stinking tragic foregone world, rolled this blog into a megaphone and used it to shout at the world: Hey, fix that!

And how did that turn out?

Let us review: I, in chronological order:

• Got Jerry Brown elected governor. That has turned out rather well, especially considering the Schwarzenator he replaced. Third time being the charm, Brown is the older crank caretaker who doesn't really care what you or I think. He loves high-speed rail despite the cost, wants to build tunnels shoveling precious water to Southern California with greater ease, and could possibly be on the new Bay Bridge when its corroded cables snap in a massive CG effect gone real, but other than that, a nice change of pace. The guy who'd rather live in an unfurnished apartment his first time around now will move into the old haunted governor's mansion in which he was raised, remodeled with oodles of high-end restaurant-style kitchen appliances, but we'll give him his due.
  
• Stopped our sycophantic Yankee adoration of the British royal family. We only pay attention to Queen Elizabeth and her kith and kin now when one of them has a baby. Or gets engaged. Or married. Or breaks off the engagement. Or divorces. Or says something inappropriate. Or breathes.
  
  Of course, I showed the world how to make money off it all.
  
• Exposed the great wine fraud. It all comes from one source, and "winemakers" use the power of suggestion to get you to believe different "wine" "varieties" taste different from others. Again, you're welcome.
  
• Ended war in our time.
  
• Sustained the Occupy Wall Street movement by sheer force of will, and reduced the owners of our money to the petty government-sponsored thieves that they are. Our political landscape is forever changed. You're welcome, once more.
  
• Gave veterans and public education all the resources they need.
  
• Finally saw the light and heard the screams, and stopped war in Syria. ("Ending war in our time" still results in stubborn little skirmishes, like spot fires). Oh, and turned the tide for equality in marriage. Apathy is over!
  
  Though — funny thing! — war was harder to end than I had given it credit. But I finally made our leaders tell the truth. President Obama thanked me for making it so, which was nice.
  
• Changed Scouting policy to include Scouts who are gay.
  
  All attempts at facetious self-deprecation aside, I feel like I was on the "right side of history" on this subject, or at least in the right place at the right time. It's one of the few issues for which I can speak from the heart, about which I know more than a little.
  
  Of course, I don't really expect to move anyone's thinking on anything I write here, just to turn my own thoughts to concrete. Part of me — the ego part — couldn't help but wonder if I could, somehow, compel someone to see another side of an issue. Maybe that's why I wrote, and wrote, and wrote, and wrote — and wrote — on the matter.
  
• Stole Christmas. And good riddance!
  
• Ended gun violence … stopped the unbelievable tragedy … before it could get any worse … mopped up the blood … so much blood … really, a lot of blood. But now it's mopped up. All is well.
  
• Made government transparent. And not just that thing President Obama did, where he said his government is transparent when he meant, no, it is not. Now our overseers are exposed to daylight.
  
• Shortly after, brought peace and common sense to our government.
  
• Sorted out our official religion, the National Football League. Now we play nice.
  
• Set our minds free.
  
• Ended drought in California. Taught homeowners the error of their false bounty.
  
• Trumped presidential aspirations, for the good of the country.

It stands to reason all this saving the world stuff can be overwhelming to process, which is why I peppered the blog with bits about swimming and Giants baseball and paid doodles.

Now, if you'll excuse me, time to work on No. 501. But really, what problem could possibly be left to solve?

That is, except for determining if this counts as a blog post.

Undone

Detritus defines me.

Though the space in front of me, the path ahead, is always clear, it's only because I've pushed aside so much miscellany into piles that teeter beside me.

Literally.

It's true of the desk where I'm writing now, my desk at work, and this blog.

These piles of stuff are important, I reason — I have always reasoned — yet not important enough, too vague, to put somewhere safe. There the junk sits, beneath my elbows, in case I need it.
I never do.

It's a problem that will remain with me for life, a problem that plagues those around me by association. Though I can't seem to do much with the real piles, I can dispatch the virtual, starting now.

Out of the 532 posts I have written since the end of 2010, 41 are drafts. They are aborted starts, malformed bits of anger and angst, or whole rants that served their purpose in the writing of them, but then seemed not worth giving daylight.

I present them to you, in the briefest form, and then purge them from my hard drive and my life.

In chronological order:

The first known corruption of the
beloved shawn turner illustration brand

• "Let us now praise a fantastic consultant," was going to be about a great guy and the savior of all things computer, Michael Zolen. I drew a really cool caricature/logo of him, but he didn't want it published once he saw it. So you'll never see it. But it's really cool. And he is a great guy. (Jan. 25, 2011)
• "Why I hate iFreelance" (March 15, 2011) was my diatribe against one particular online freelancing site, but I suppose it applies to all. I had just resumed my freelancing career, tried to be like all the cool kids and market myself through social media.
  
  iFreelance is like a casino, except the house always wins. Always. It's supposed to be a marketplace for freelance illustrators and designers, which sounds reasonable, but it's literally a global market: You pay to be able to bid … someone asks for a bid on a project, proposing an unlivable fee and ridiculous timeframe, and no rights to the creator, and the world's illustrators and designers bid on the project. Oh, do they bid! Artists in the United Kingdom see the bids hours before their American counterparts, and make their pitches way ahead of time. Even with an early start to the day, scanning the list of bids, I'd find many of jobs already won by UK.
  
  I'm not sure how logo designers created their marks in a day, except by combining existing shapes with type and calling it good.
  
  I didn't post the rant because, believe it or not, I got a job off the site. It was a fun job, but the client never responded to my followups for additional jobs. Probably he found someone far, far cheaper.
• "Rogue's Gallery: Logos I don't like" (July 29, 2011) was about the Washington State Cougars logo (just abominable!). I ran out of steam being snarky. Better you shouldn't see it.
  
  The same with "Logos only a mother could love" (Aug. 4, 2011) in which I didn't get very far tearing down someone else's work. The particular kind of contempt wears on a person.
• "The hour that the morning comes" (Dec. 7, 2011) came from a James Taylor song, and appeared to be some kind of reminiscence about swimming in the early morning during the time I was a teacher. It was probably going to go somewhere else entirely, but I don't know where.
• "Ghosts of Christmas Past" (Dec. 8, 2011) was merely an excuse to post one of my old editorial cartoons. I get so few legitimate windows to run these cartoons, which cover the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations (and, in California, the George Deukmejian/Pete Wilson era). Even this excuse seemed flimsy. Here 'tis:
  
  
• "The darker side of comic strips" (Dec. 8, 2011) meant to explore the work of Stephen Pastis, creator of the strip "Pearls Before Swine," and Francesco Marciuliano, artist for the strip "Sally Forth," because I had come upon Pastis' blog and Marciuliano's alternate work, which fascinated me for its bitter and bizarre views that don't appear in family comics. Except I didn't have anything to add except, "Look how weird these guys are!"
• "No no, Noriega" was another thin attempt to post an old cartoon. Former Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega had made the news, having been returned to Panama. It was Christmas time (Dec. 30, 2011), I got lazy and didn't finish the post; here's the toon:
  
• "Did not … see that coming …" (Oct. 30, 2012) was a totally wrong synopsis of my beloved San Francisco Giants, whom I wrote off shortly before they won their second World Series in three years. So you won't see it.
• "All aglow" is an upbeat showcase of work I had done, except the client didn't want me telling the world it spends money on such frivolity as holiday cards (Dec. 12, 2012), so I didn't run it, and you won't see it. It's nice work, if I do say so myself. Merry Christmas.
• "Anatomy of a swim" is a pictorial story of my regular open-water swims, which I'd still really, really love to do, but it's ambitious and since Jan. 13, 2013, I still haven't figured out how to make it happen.
• "Where are they now?" was going to be a glowing report on people I knew in high school and the amazing things they do now, and how I knew them. Really interesting to me, perhaps, but an unwarranted invasion of privacy, so I didn't get far. I still am amazed at what people grew up to become (Feb. 22, 2013).
• "Someone else's shoes" (March 11, 2013) was going to be about Aaron Swartz, a young brilliant man, a computer programmer and Internet freedom activist who killed himself when the federal government indicted him for data theft and his backers said the government was trying to prosecute him into silence.
  
  I try to have something intelligent to say about topics, or at least arrange words just so to appear smart, but this man and this matter were too much for me to say anything smart about.
• "Drunk with ideas" (March 25, 2013) would have been a long showcase of work I had done for a chain of brewing magazines, but I decided later to publish the work in small batches. Get it? Batches?
• "How different is your loving life?" was my first attempt to demonstrate the ridiculous emails I get. The title of one from May 22, 2013 comes from a sexual come-on that appears to have originated in a language other than English. I eventually wrote one or two posts about the same thing.
• "Water floods my dreams now" is not really the title of this Aug. 14, 2013 post, because I never came up with one for this reminiscence about open-water swimming. You will probably agree I have written quite enough about open-water swimming, and it was OK to let this one drop.
• "Tell me more!" from Aug. 20, 2013 was another attempt to rant about my emails. Eventually I wrote an actual and complete rant or two.
• "Swim post" was me making fun of swimmers, always bad form. Be glad you didn't see it, on Aug. 25, 2013 or any other day.
• "Great moments in television" was going to be an Aug. 25, 2013 remembrance of the wonder of TV I felt as a kid. True wonder and excitement, when I wasn't jaded. I might still write this one someday.
• "So round, so firm, so fully packed, so free and easy on the draw," was a half-baked examination advertising and the lying liars to make it, Oct. 3, 2013.
• "Nejib Belhidi" was about a Tunisian long-distance swimmer who likes to organize global swims for peace. I just didn't have anything thoughtful to add on Oct. 29, 2013.
• "You just missed him" was about a young nephew who died tragically and suddenly in a motorcycle accident. For many reasons, it felt false for me to talk about it; though I will tell you, he seemed like a great kid, and he had many friends who grieved for him. March 4, 2014.
• "First-world Pet Peeves 2" was a sequel about me whining. Who needs that?! Not you. May 6, 2014.
• "Whither logoest thou?" is really a placeholder for some logos I had done for a client. I may still come back and write it, May 7, 2014.
• "Art in Everyday Life," is the title of a book I found in a community center, and was going to be an examination of public art that's all but hidden away in a part of my city I don't normally, and wouldn't normally go. But I felt myself too strange in this strange land, and had no business writing about the artwork and the people who make it. Amazing, though, what hides behind walls most people will never see. May 28, 2014.
• "Cosmosis" was going to be me talking about Neil deGrasse Tyson, the rock star astronomer. Like he needed more publicity from me. I had nothing. June 2, 2014.
• "Baseball leavins," was just more hand wringing about my Giants. Better I should spare you. July 5, 2014.
• "Vocal fry" was going to be my take on the peculiar way I hear some people talk. It's a thing, look it up. But I realized, after reading more about it, I didn't know what I was talking about, and no amount of typing was going to make it any better. July 18, 2014.
• "Owned" is still one I'll finish about our dog. I'm still taking notes. July 21, 2014.
• "Mother tongue" is about language nowdays. I'm still working on this one from Aug. 19, 2014.
• "Veterans Day Redux" was to be about Veterans and how they're treated, but not being a Veteran, I shut my own mouth Nov. 20, 2014.
• "Who is this Shawn Turner you speak of?" is yet more examination of my strange emails, of which I have waxed on plenty. Dec. 11, 2014.
• "Charlie Hebdo fallout" was not the post I wanted to write about the killings of cartoonists and editors by terrorists at the French satirical weekly. So I didn't post it Jan. 12, 2015.
• "Playing possum" was simply a false start for another illustration post I eventually completed. Feb. 27, 2015.
• "This is the day!" I was going to say something April 2, 2015 about Trevor Noah, the new host of The Daily Show taking over for Jon Stewart. Like I was going to say something no one else had already said.
• "Named by a poet" was a swimming blog post that became something better later. My opinion anyway. May 3, 2015.
• "Places I remember" and "I've got mail," July 27 and 28, 2015, were false starts to other posts I wrote. "I've got mail" was another rant over email, and began with one of those fake threats I get from people who want me to open the attached document so the document can create some kind of trojan-horse havoc on my computer. The threat went like this:
  

  do i even know you?
  why did you send me this email?
  you are full of shit.

Whew! That's over. Thanks for sticking through this, and now I can move on. Build another pile maybe. I've got time now.

As Hawkeye Pierce said, it's not much, but it's really nothing.

Trending

Let's crunch the numbers, shall we?

Oh — they don't look good at all. Not at all.

— wait — ha! —got it upside down. So Embarrassing! — OK, here we go …

No, that doesn't help. Some of these numbers look all right, but the rest …

I've succumbed — to pride, hubris, what have you. I've fallen prey, and in desire have burned my fingers — the desire to know:

Who's reading my posts?

{Point of order: I don't know who's reading my posts, so worry not. Nor do I wanna know. Although nifty fact: Two people from the Isle of Man have read my posts (not sure how many times) or one person from the Isle of Man has read two posts, or maybe one post twice. Anyway, kudos to you and the Isle of Man for getting a separate distinction in the blogger.com™© toolbox of statistics available to its users.

{I still do not know anything more about you, Isle of Man dweller(s), other than that, and would not seek any more information. Unless you dropped me a note, of course; then we could talk. I love that your coat of arms is a triskelion of legs …

{But I've lost the mooring of this post, so to speak …}

This is my 326th post — you're invited to the after-party this afternoon in the lobby — and I have to admit that every time I post a post, even though I'm writing to retard the regression of my own wits,  I check the counter blogger.com provides, the one that records in real time the number of views each one gets.

I'm doing so now, while you're reading. Creepy, right?

My closest equivalent is a stage mom pushing her trussed-up, gussied-up, tiara'd toddler onto the runway, then peeking from behind the curtain to see who oohs and ahhs and sniffles.

Through the course of days I'll refresh the counter, like leaving the kid out there long after the crowd has left and the lights have been doused and the crickets have come.

What's more pathetic, that fact or its revelation?

Over time I have been able to determine what topics generate the most views, and what the least.

I have not been able to determine what, if anything, to do about it.

When I first wrote a blog about my blog — a metablog! — a friend kindly sent to me the link to a site that would provide a comprehensive analysis of where and how my blog is being used. But I did not use it because I don't think it would tell me what I really wanted to know:

Did you enjoy reading it? Did you really read it, or just click on the link, quail at the wall or words, and resume your life? No judging here. I'm just curious.

Did I make you laugh or cry or retch? Sometimes you tell me, but most leave me to wonder.

Is there something you'd like me to write about? To stop writing about? Actually, the view counts tell that story.

I have gathered up all the posts and their data, and put them into groups. The bulk of my posts — comprising some of my artwork and backstory … rants about odd issues I care for … riffs on swimming and graphic design … is in the largest group. We'll just say the views for each number in the thousands and leave it at that. My ego's raw and exposed enough as it is.

Posts that got three times the average view count went into one small group (most popular). Posts with half the average views (least popular) into another. This post is about these posts. It's all very scientific.

Herewith, my executive summary, starting with the good news:

Put a logo in it: By far the most viewed post — twice as many as the next — is my declaration that the Monterey Bay Aquarium is the best logo ever.

Second most popular was about my declaration that the U.S. Air Force symbol is the best military logo.

(Awkward aside, I realize after all this time I misspelled "division" in the blog title. Even my most ardent proofreader missed that.)

Lesson learned: People really like reading about logos, I guess. Maybe it's a marriage of the visual and computer culture. The Monterey Bay Aquarium post keeps amassing view counts over time, so I picture people Googling©™ "logo" and finding the post. I wrote 56 times about logos so far, the data show.

I like logos, like looking at good and bad logos, would love to read more about how certain logos were created. Every once in a while I'll write at length about logos that enrapture or incense or baffle me.

The one declaring my allegiance to my high school's logo proved popular, as did one about some sketch-logos, really, that I did for someone's fantasy football league long ago. Even a flitting logo for the U.S. Olympics got a lot of looks.

When I trashed the old Montreal Expos© logo, viewers flocked. Ditto for the impending horror of Office Depot®™ and Office Max's™© merger creating an even worse logo, which apparently hasn't happened (the logo, anyway). Even the worst slogan ever got lookie-loos. Folks like their graphic melodrama.

Lots and lots of views, to be sure, but almost no dialogue: Even when I challenged viewers to argue with my highly subjective logo rants and raves, none did.

Get personal … but not too personal: The first I noticed the potential ripple effect of my posts — beyond the usual number of viewers — was when I wrote about my great-uncles, five of whom served on the same ship when they survived the attack on Pearl Harbor. Word of the post went beyond that first circle of viewers, apparently, to relatives, to friends of the Fahlgren brothers who served during World War II, and suddenly the viewer count soared.

The same for when I processed my feelings over the death of a popular and highly regarded high school classmate, which attracted his wide circle of friends and acquaintances … and the death of my father-in-law, drawing a breadth of family and friends.

When I wrote follow-ups for each of these posts, the added interest had died down and viewership fell to usual levels.

Personal posts aren't a given, though. The story of Nancy and me beginning our lives together attracted many viewers, but the story of meeting a half-sister for the first time a couple of years ago, not nearly so many.

Go figure.

To swim or not to swim: Records show I have written 57 times about swimming, with good results. The 24-hour swim I participated in last week grabbed viewers quickly, as did my view on Diana Nyad, who crossed 108 miles from Havana, Cuba to Key West, Fla. in a highly controversial swim.

My paean to a facebook©® page called "Did you swim today?" also attracted a great deal of viewers, many, I suspect, from the facebook®™ page.

Enough glowing and gloating. Now the bad news:

Do they know it's Christmastime?: Do not blog during the holidays, should be rule No. 1. Even if it's a heartfelt wish to any viewers out there in Viewer Land, the viewers are out there rightfully enjoying the holiday or viewing online gift sites, not my blog post. That's true year after year after year.

Even though I make it a habit to post twice a week, maybe I can lay off between Christmas and New Year's Day.

Take me out of the ballgame: Don't write about the San Francisco Giants®© (my team) either, is a fairly clear message. I wrote 36 times about the Giants in some form. Baseball is divisive (some say boring, but I don't listen to those critics), so I understand if only a subset view my Giants blogs, in bad times or good.

Although the oddest thing happened after writing about my first-ever ballgame, Giants vs. Cubs: A classmate from long ago and now far away, a physician on the opposite of the country, wrote me out of the blue about his first ballgame. So even though baseball views aren't big, they're worth the serendipitous nostalgia kick.

Conclusions

I figure I can:

1. Tag more — If I wanna drive traffic to the site, as the marketers say, I need to tag the hell out of each. Often I do. Sometimes I don't tag at all; sometimes I just want to release a post into the current and let it go where it will.

2. Tag each post with "logo," whether or not it's about logos. At least people will view each post, if that's really what I want.

3. Time releases for optimum viewership. I followed my son's advice and began releasing them in late morning Pacific Standard Time, rather than at the break of dawn. But finding the optimal time seems quixotic.

4. Market better. It's true this is a showcase for my artwork. It's also true I can't help writing about things. It's part chore, part organizer, part portfolio, part journal. I post a link to facebook and that's about it. Marketing remains a black science to me.

Some wags may whine that this whole post is just a transparent excuse to get viewers to read past posts, including my very first (also about swimming), which hasn't got a lot of viewers. To this accusation I say: well, yeah.

Or, I can stay the course and do what I've been doing.

You can guess my choice.