I apologize in advance. If it provides any solace, I’m not any happier about this than you. But, nevertheless, here we go.
Seriously though: why?
What can I say? I enjoy writing.
But that’s not OUR fault. And don’t you do enough of that already?
One would think. And yet.
For those who are unfamiliar — which, good call — I do 99% of my personal writing in two places. First, I tweet. This is always a mistake, and one that Elon Musk is rapidly if unintentionally trying to remedy. Though while art is subjective, curating 280 characters at a time isn’t really “writing.”
Second, I write a couple of weekly word-piles over at MGoBlog during football season: Opponent Watch, in which I discuss Michigan’s past and future opponents using anecdotes, obscure metaphors, and poop jokes, and Punt-Counterpunt, where Internet Raj and I preview that day’s Michigan Football opponent using… well, using anecdotes, obscure metaphors, and poop jokes.
But football season is only four months long, and MGoBlog isn’t my own personal playground for dumb musings (other than the designated dumb musings). And as much as I enjoy writing Opponent Watch, it’s cheap heat. It’s a predetermined format for an audience who, at least with respect to the subject matter, I know extremely well, and who are generally familiar with my particular brand of insanity. I don’t have to explain why I’m making fun of Iowa’s offense or October Maryland. Everyone is already up on the lore and in on the running gags. It’s also pretty low-risk; when you string together two dozen jokes in a piece, there is an expectation that some of them are going to bomb. I’m a volume shooter.
So what is this going to be?
I dunno. At this point, I’m just creating a platform — more like a rickety card table at a garage sale — onto which I can pile my wares. You are welcome to peruse them at your leisure. As of today, these are my expectations:
Topics, lengths, and formats will probably vary quite a bit. It’ll probably be the stuff that makes me say, “ooh, I have THOUGHTS on that,” which usually involves sports, legal stuff, pop culture (or at least the stuff that was ‘pop’ on or before January 1, 2003), Dad hobbies, and the ***occasional*** political story.
There will be many metaphors. And the occasional poop joke. I haven’t forgotten my roots.
This newsletter will go out precisely as often as it goes out, which is probably somewhere in the “once every week or two or three” range. I’m not going to bombard your mailbox, I promise.
Relatedly, I’m not doing any sort of paid/premium content at this point, and I have a hard time envisioning a world in which that’ll happen. Asking you for money for the stuff I produce seems questionable in the best of times, and I certainly can’t justify it if I can’t commit to delivering the damn thing on a reliable basis. Maybe I’ll throw a tip jar up or something. Or y’all can just donate money to a local charity or overtip a waiter or form a neighborhood tontine or something. It’s your money. Go nuts.
So what are you asking of people, other than constant validation
Type your email address into the thingy:
I promise not to abuse your trust here; you’re far more likely to get nothing than to get too much.
This thing needs a name. If I have to call this the Bryan Mac Substack Attack, I’m blaming you.
I have yet to hear a compelling reason to burden the world with another newsletter
Then don’t think of it as a newsletter. Think of it as a Bespoke Online Semi-regular Old-Man-Yelling-At-Cloud Venue.
Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter. Actually, I already did, but you can't ruin a fantastic quote like that. Looking forward to reading more. Thanks for sharing.
Name: Bryan's Laughable and Umbrageous Essays (BLUE)
Looking forward to this.