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YOU may not know it, but part of my duties as publisher of The Inner Swine and webmaster of its HTML counterpart is to do extensive searches on my name. And by extensive I mean obsessive and repetitive, of course. It's weird, what the Internet can do to you. Back in 1995 I was a fresh-faced, happy-go-lucky guy with an attention span and a work ethic. Now I'm a methadone-monkey slapping at Google, looking for Russian web sites that mention me or at least my zine. There are a lot of reasons I have to search on my name, my zine's name, or otherwise scour the Internet for references to all that is Your Humble Editor. These reasons range from the ridiculous—tracking down any mention of my name anywhere just to stroke my hungry, elephantine ego—to the necessary, like tracking down image thieves who hotlink to images on my web site in their own web sites, basically using my bandwidth—which I pay for—to serve up images. Bastards! If I could, I would have them killed by a team of Ninjas. But Ninja recruiting and training takes years—who knew?—and so I must satisfy myself by simply tracking down the thieves and changing the links. If I'm feeling saucy and energetic, I'll change the linked image into something insulting—usually a simple box with the words FUCK and YOU in it—in order to strike back. But usually I'm far too lazy, and I just delete the links and forget about it. Of course, I also have to keep track of any new reviews of TIS that pop up on the 'Net. Most of the reviews I read are in print zines, still; no matter how much it might seem like the Internet is universal, a good half the country—and most of the world—has no access. But there are still occasional reviews that show up on the web, and if there's one thing you could describe as a mission in life for me—aside from drinking every type and brand of alcohol in the known universe (I'm working my way up to Plum Schnapps--shiver)--it would be making sure that every printed mention of my name or the name of my zine (which I'm contemplating having legally added to my name: Jeffrey Xavier Daniel The Inner Swine Somers) gets duly recorded and preserved for posterity. When I'm dead, no matter what else I accomplish or fail at, they will be able to say, damn, but that Jeff Somers got reviewed a lot, and here they all are, in convenient binders. Finally, and most importantly, I have to identify, locate, and destroy everyone else named Jeff Somers. This in order to clarify my historical legacy. See, there was a time when being prominent in something—say, writing, or zine-publishing, or pantslessness—meant you would long outshine anyone who shared your name. There may have been other blokes named, say, John Milton, but only one has survived the centuries to still be remembered. Now we have the Internets, and that complicates things, because anyone with enough sass and free time can make sure they are remembered, potentially forever. And as more and more of our traditional media is pushed onto the Internets, it'll be easier and easier for the teeming thousands of unknown hacks named Jeff Somers to muddy my waters. Hence, the Jeff Somers Herd Thinning Project I am starting, code-named Murderthon 2006.
Of course, I worry that the same obfuscation might result in my own accidental murder if someone confuses me with another Jeff Somers, but that's a chance I'll just have to take. As I've already noted, Ninja armies take years to assemble, so I'll have to invent other ways of disposing of my dopplegangers. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Right now the best idea I have is some sort of bounty, like fifty bucks a Jeff, but before I officially make the offer I'll have to figure out how, exactly, I plan to avoid being killed myself by some overly enthusiastic reader who doesn't check zip codes very carefully. Actually, considering the general capabilities of my readers, maybe the whole bounty idea is a non-starter. Of course, I could just change my name to something that no one else has as a name or trademark—isn't that what celebrities do? So if one day you come to this web site and find Your Humble Editor is now named Throatwarbler Mangrove. . .what, that's taken? DAMN YOU MONTY PYTHON! Jeff
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September 5, 2005
