A tribute to "The BUFFALOg"

As you all know, I have a soft spot in my heart for the city of Buffalo...and the animal called "buffalo"...and buffalo wing sauce...and the act of buffaloing. As most of you probably also know, there is another well-respected and highly-trafficked blog about Buffalo called "The BUFFALOg," written by Craig Howard, a real unsung everyday hero and true man of the people.

The fact is that blogging is a tough business and you are bound to make some friends and enemies along the way. The Buffalo Master, after repeatedly refusing my brilliant contributions to the science of the buffalo phenomenon, has now earned himself a rightful spot on the "enemies" list. I am rarely hostile, however - when I first contact a fellow blogger, I will generally extend the olive branch, attempt to create a peaceful and mutually beneficial rapport, and of course shamelessly self-promote in their "comments" section.

Now Craig Howard and I are "brothas from anotha motha," which is something we say in the ghetto that means "similar people." Craig is a celebrity who blogs about Buffalo. I am a celebrity who blogs about Buffalo (and buffalo and buffalo and buffalo). Craig lives in Buffalo. I have been to Buffalo once, have watched the Buffalo Bills on TV a few times, and enjoy buffalo wings. We roll with the same crew, more or less.

I attempted to contact Craig a couple months ago about promoting each other's blogs. Craig's lack of response indicated to me that he found this proposal unsuitable. Maybe he didn't think I had it in me to keep posting quality content. Maybe he thought I spazzed out a little too much when I first realized what a gigantic celebrity this blog had made me. Maybe he just doesn't think I'm Buffalo enough.

So, to show my support for "The BUFFALOg" and all that it stands for, I have added it to my highly exclusive blogroll (on right side of page) and will now comment on a few of Craig's highly informative and thought-provoking posts:

Dishonesty For Ideology's Sake: I wholeheartedly agree with Craig on this one. Dickipedia is not to be trusted. Its article on the buffalo phenomenon is an embarrassing disgrace to humanity and is misleading to the point where it is corrupting the fragile minds of our nation's youth. Shame on them.

Meaningless Rankings: Now here's a great one. Craig presents an excellent rebuttal to some douchebag's claim that "Buffalo is the second poorest city in America." He concedes that it is in fact true that Buffalo has roughly the same number of poor people as Boston, a much larger city, making Buffalo about 30% "poor" and Boston only about 13% "poor." Then he says that the reason Buffalo is considered so poor is not because there are too many poor people there, but rather that there are not enough non-poor people there. So all you non-poor people: move to Buffalo now! The city needs you! Think of all the delicious wings you could be eating!

In case the non-poor people are too selfish to move to Buffalo to bring that number down, I have another solution: simply redraw the city limits to remove some of the poorer areas of Buffalo and include some of the richer outlying areas. Take this, for example:

Problem solved.

A Strange Tern Of Events (Sorry, I Couldn't Resist): This is a fascinating post that explores some important controversial topics while also making clever puns such as "tern" (the bird) instead of "turn." Quite the masterpiece. Let me just state on the record that I have no idea what a "petard" is, and I would have no clue what "schadenfreude" was either if a lady friend of mine hadn't dragged me to watch Avenue Q, which surprisingly wasn't not too unbad (I worded it that way because I'm a real man and would never admit that I actually enjoyed a musical theater production). So while the masterful use of vocabulary used in this post probably confuses 99% of Craig's audience, he brings up an important point: we might as well say "F*** it," because there will never be peace between the U.S. and Canada, and hell, none of us even want to go up and visit that country anyway. Freezing cold, rampant moose-humping, fries with gravy, and Celine Dion, all in one place? No thanks. Buffalo doesn't need any "Peace Bridge" - let the war rage on!

So there it is, Craig. Even though I currently set up shop in the Bay Area, rest assured that I BLEED BUFFALO BROWN!!! The history books will remember you and me as heroes from the same mold: tireless crusaders willing to sacrifice everything we have for the glory of Buffalo. The fact is that in this business you're either with someone or against them. Pick the right side here, buddy - if you don't do it for me, do it for Buffalo!

How to be famous

As an A-list celebrity, I often have people asking me what they can do to become extremely famous like I am. The surprising fact is that it's not that difficult, you just need to know the tricks. What I am about to reveal to you are five well-kept secrets of the A-list elite that have been passed down from generation to generation. With the help of this knowledge, you can be the talk of the nation in no time.


1) Declare that you're back, even though you were never really there in the first place
This trick was flawlessly executed by the Backstreet Boys. Despite the fact that nobody had ever heard of them, they released the song "Everybody (Backstreet's Back)." At this point, everyone realized that they must have missed the Backstreet Boys their first time around, so they pretended to like them because according to the song, everybody else did. Even better, the song was addressed to "everybody," so anybody who didn't know who the Backstreet Boys were pretended that they did so they wouldn't look really clueless. A brilliant strategy.


2) Be really, really terrible at something and make sure everyone knows it
Ever hear of this guy (click on the link, dummy)? He is probably the worst singer in the history of the universe and a terrible dancer to boot. Still, everyone in America knew who he was and he got a record deal. Not everyone can be talented, but everyone can be really, really, ridiculously un-talented.

Here are a few ideas on how you might be able to execute this trick:

-Become the CEO of a major pharmaceutical corporation. Hold a press conference and state that you are "this close" (holding thumb and forefinger exactly one centimeter apart) to finding the cure for every type of cancer. Then hold another press conference a month later saying that you read the memo wrong and instead of "cancer" it said "canker sores"...and the drug has the undesirable side effect of killing everyone who takes it. Follow by saying that you project a 90% decrease in sales this quarter and expect a lot of people to sue the company because all of your products are crap. This little stunt will likely get you to the front page of the Wall Street Journal and maybe even an appearance on "The Colbert Report" if you play your cards right.

-Sign a $20 million contract with the New York Yankees and then strike out every time you get up and make at least 10 fielding errors every game for the entire season. They will have paid too much for you to be able to justify benching you. To increase your media exposure, bad-mouth your teammates at every opportunity.

-Convince the NFL to allow you to perform at the Super Bowl halftime show. Get a bad microphone that screeches like nails on a chalkboard. Sing offensively off-key. Rip off a clothing article that reveals someone's breast. Stop suddenly in the middle of a song and declare, "Whoops, I forgot the words!" People love bad performances, and 100 million or so people will be watching. Jackpot.


3) Imitate other celebrities
This really applies to any goal. Want to be a great swimmer? Easy - just do things exactly like Michael Phelps does. Imitate his form and swim the 100 meter freestyle in 47 seconds. Easy Olympic gold medal right there. Want to be a great poker player? Learn the tricks of Doyle Brunson and Johnny Chan and you'll be taking home the big World Series prize in no time. Want to be great at being famous? Just do what those who have succeeded in becoming famous do.

For example:

-Keep people guessing what you're going to do next. Rapidly gain and lose weight. Do as many different drugs as possible and check in and out of rehab at least once a month. Make sure your blood alcohol level is at least .15 every time you drive.

-Adopt a bunch of kids from all over the world and name them the most ridiculous names possible.

-Send photos of yourself walking around Hollywood or Manhattan's West Village to Us Weekly every week. Appear with other celebrities if possible.

-Drive a Prius.


4) Come up with a catch phrase
This has worked like a charm for many people in the past. Take for example "Hasta la vista, baby" (Arnold Schwarzenegger), "Suck it, Trebek!" (Sean Connery), and "It's Britney, bitch" (Britney Spears). These people would never have become famous had they not come up with these catch phrases. When deciding which catch phrase to pick, remember to keep it brief, and the more controversial or offensive, the better. Something like "Buffalo this, motherf***ers!" might be a good choice.


5) Write an awesome blog This will rocket you straight to the top of the A-list. Trust me.

Guess who's back

Seriously, guess who it is. Any clue? Nobody? Bueller? The answer, which may come as a shock to many of you, is me.

What a satisfying four days on the Outer Banks! Just me, my entourage, and the occasional paparazzi photographer trying to snap a photo of me changing into my swim trunks. Life just doesn't get much better than that.

I may have been in Carolina, but my mind was, of course, in Buffalo the entire time.

As the old James Taylor song goes (I think):

In my mind I'm goin' to Buffalo
Can't you see the buffalo?
Can't you just taste the buffalo sauce?
Ain't it just like a buffalo of mine
To buffalo me from behind?
Yes I'm goin' to Buffalo in my mind

You were probably expecting an inspirational, breathtaking, life-altering post today. Too bad. As the old saying goes, sometimes you buffalo the buffalo and sometimes the buffalo buffaloes you. Wait til you see what I've got for you tomorrow though...

Hittin' it

Looks like a lot of people have been hittin' it recently. 100 of them to be exact.

Oh yeah!!! Being famous is awesome! 100 hits! Only 4,157 more before I break Pete Rose's record!

With hilarious and informative posts like this one, this blog is guaranteed to hit 1 million by August or so.

To celebrate this huge milestone, I'm going to provide you with some guaranteed psyche-outs for the four most popular sports in America that are guaranteed to throw your opponent off his game, without being in bad taste or offending anyone:

Wiffle ball: "It was called 'hittle ball' before you started playing!"

Badminton: "It was just called 'minton' before you started playing!"

Biathlon: "It was just called an 'athlon' before you started playing! I mean come on, dude, I know you swing both ways. Admit it already."

Midget wheelchair basketball: "It was just called 'basketball' before you gimpy little f***ers started playing!"

Fame don't buffalo me

Now that "Buffalo This" is another wayward piece of crap floating around in the almighty blogosphere, the real challenge to this business has become evident: getting people to give a shit about your blog. I started this thing with the very reasonable and practical goal of getting 1 million regular readers by the end of July 2008. I'm not going to rule anything out yet, but as of now making that goal does not look very likely. As far as I know, nobody has commented on my posts (Can't I even get some obnoxious idiot to write "FIRST!!!" on one of the comment boards? Come on!), and at last count I have one regular reader - myself - and maybe some irregular readers - people that have stumbled upon this blog from a Google search or the link to my blog on Wikipedia's Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo page that some Big Brotheresque censorship-happy douchebag keeps deleting. Once I start spreading news of this blog to friends and family by word of mouth, maybe I'll get a few more readers. But it's a long way to 1 million.

On a different note, being a celebrity has not been nearly as tough as I expected it to be. (Note to the staff of "Us Weekly": I am NOT having an affair with Scarlett Johansson or Jessica Alba. We are just friends, seriously!) I really don't get why the stars complain so much. Of course it is a little annoying having to avoid doing things like going to the club without underwear or keeping questionable photos on my cell phone. It could just be that this is so easy for me because I am not the type to be easily buffaloed by the paparazzi - maybe some of the other celebs out there who aren't as tough as I am let the 'razzi get into their dome piece more than I do. Being a celebrity does have its perks however. Being super-loaded and having millions of people who idolize you are great, but nothing is as satisfying as being able to say to yourself in the mirror every morning, "Lookin' good there chief (I call myself 'chief' a lot). People worship you. You are the f***ing man!!!" Until you're famous you have no idea how great that is. A lyric from David Bowie's song "Fame" comes closest to describing the feeling: "Fame!" That should give you a pretty clear picture of what it's like.

Let's get to 1 million! Or at least 10! Come on, anyone?

I'm famous!

All right!!! I am finally posting stuff on the Internet that everyone in the world is going to read! Yeah, dude! I'm famous!!! I'm famous!!!
I'M FAMOUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!