i have known people who were chronic Deleters.

while on one hand it’s perfectly fine to change one’s mind, on the other hand its a foolish attempt at control.

you don’t control anything when you delete things on the web. it’s a web, what you put out there sticks. people screenshot it, people cache it. the web caches it.

but most importantly people remember.

and deleting things helps them remember because it brings more attention to it.

i loved a girl a while ago who started blogs, twitter accounts, facebooks, and would regularly delete them. turned out she was bipolar and refused to treat her condition.

it also turned out she was not being totally honest with the people in her life and her digital footprint often outted her for being less than truthful with some who trusted her.

from that experience i concluded several things, top of which was people who chronically delete things should probably seek professional help because their vain attempt at control is a symptom of something much deeper rooted in mental health.

the good news is these things can be treated.

the bad news is the catch 22: most people with mental health issues don’t realize the depths of their own illness and will fight against the very treatment they would benefit from.

so the best we can do is pray for them and constantly nudge them in the right direction.

sometimes it does truly take a village. so if you care about the village, do your part and nudge your loved ones.

Lana asks, “No offense but, does it make you feel good your blog about nothing gets you jobs and dates and not REAL merit? Just popularity?”

Firstly my blog is about Everything: sex, drugs, rock, religion, politics, Hollywood, Uber, Lyft, movies, Isla Vista, journalism, blogging, writing, the secretive xbi, doubting, art, magic, and love. You should read it.

Now, does it make me feel good that it has gotten me jobs? I can’t believe it did get me jobs.

Not just any jobs but amazing jobs. Jobs I never thought I’d ever get. Jobs so magical a few don’t even exist any more. Low paying jobs, high paying jobs, middle paying jobs.

All because I clack clack clacked on a keyboard, added an image and hit Publish 15 years ago.

It makes me feel good because this blog got attention not because i was some long legged long haired curvy young lady with an LA face and an Oakland booty, but because the words i typed connected with people in a special way – which is quite an achievement in this cluttered space called the web.

No one reached down from Above and said, listen everyone you MUST read the busblog (actually many did) (which also made me feel all warm and loved inside) but most of those people were not hugely influential massive bloggers.

Some were, which was lovely, but what I am saying is CNN didn’t put me on their homepage week after week with a direct link here and a headline that said OMG TONY YES!

The so-called popularity that you seem to have an issue with was entirely organic, natural, and beautiful. Which is probably why it sustained for so long.

Did it make me feel good that lovely ladies from around the world wanted to go on “dates” with me because of the things I wrote?

No. I wanted them to want me for my body, not my mind.

Which brings us to “REAL merit”.

There are only three people who matter to me, merit-wise, in regards to my blogging here on the busblog.

1. My dear mother
2. Jesus
3. All the ladies out there who secretly want me

If I can warm the hearts of all three of these very important people in my life then that is Real merit to me.

And let me tell you, trying to hit the center of that Venn diagram is not as easy as it looks. My mom doesn’t like swear words, even though I study the bible regularly I’m still unsure what Jesus would find wonderful in this blog, and I am even more clueless about the third group. So I just try to keep it real and come from a place of Goodness and see what happens.

With that said we are here to rock. Every car has a gas pedal and a brake. My old sink has a hot And a cold faucet. And as a red blooded American single man I have a ying AND a very much alert yang.

All of my favorite writers (Bukowski, Twain, Moses, etc) kept it real.

I feel the most satisfied inside immediately after I have finished a blog post where I feel like I have kept it really real and the words sang in a way. To me that is real merit.

But then there’s the bigger picture. The less selfish one: how did what I write or say help others?

If my blogging (or Blog Editing) helped people express themselves or get jobs or dates or whatever they were looking for, then that gives me even more satisfaction. That might be harder for you, an outsider, to see, but when I ran the great LA blog, LAist, or the dozens of blogs at the LA Times, I was able to be with people in a way that hopefully was beneficial to them. And that interaction was rooted, weirdly, in my personal experiences of writing the world famous.

So to answer your question, does it make me feel good that blah blah blah not real merit just popularity?

The only time I feel really good is when someone surprises me with a nude on snapchat, when my momma tells me she liked what I wrote, when the Cubs win the World Series, when my bosses tell me fucking a great job tony, or when the girl in my bedroom says “i just Postmated some Poutine, whatever will we do for twenty minutes?”

the rest of the time i’m a bawling mess alone in my messy room desperately searching for the approval from others.

my snapchat is Tsarfan 

you mean like if i won the lottery? because if i won the lottery id buy mom mom a house with a giant garden

in the garden would be incredible bubbling ponds and tiny volcanoes.

the volcanoes would errupt right before winter so the soil would be the richest it could be right before the snow

all around the garden would be peach trees and pecan trees and banana trees.

no tony what would you do if you could do anything, not buy anything.

i would be a fantastic photographer. but not one with a lot of equipment.

i would want to be known as the guy who has like three lenses and one camera, who never uses flash

but best of all, who never uses photoshop.

maybe my assistants behind my back touch things up but im off to the next thing.

i would go to school for it if i ever had any free time.

dont you know great photographers?

yes but i would never ask them.

but arent some of your friends great photographers?

yes but i would want to be – didnt you hear me – i would want to be the greatest photographer ever. which would mean that i would be better than they are. i dont wanna learn from them and then beat them. thats rude.

is that what happened with writing? did you learn from your friends and then beat them?

no. some of my friends are better writers than me.

but theyre not better bloggers.

ahahaha true. but only because they all grew up and got married and had kids and junk.

its basically impossible to be a good parent and an everyday blogger. you gotta pick one.

and for some reason the future of america is more important than the http