Oh, who will stand up for the poor blogger, lampooned in the newspapers and on the cable news talking head shows? Yes, I occasionally post while wearing my pajamas. Yes, I am a seething mass of pedantic rage. Yes, there are better things that I could be doing with my time. But must the mainstream media always steal my best ideas?
Case in point: This Slate article about the foreskin of Christ, dated to December 16th, 2006, months after my brilliant excursis on the matter.
Case the second: This headline at an obscure British online humor magazine The Spoof: “Britney Spears’ Vagina Has Legs.” It’s a shameless ripoff of this site’s unofficial mascot, Jaunty, the ambulatory vagina.*
And the most gratuitous of them all: this article just published in the online version of Eastern Michigan University’s student newspaper that compares Optimus Prime to Joan of Arc. Yes, I’ve fallen down on the 80’s reference job lately, but I did recently patent the use of 80’s pop references in conjunction with medieval history.
There’s even a web show on Comedy Central’s Motherload called “All Access Middle Ages“now. I prefer the creators’ much funnier “I Love the 30’s,” but for webisodic humor with a medieval theme, there’s not much better. But it’s still a blatant rip-off of my idea. This equation may clear things up for those of you who don’t see the connection:
Medieval + funny = pay Got Medieval blogger cash
I can only take solace in knowing that the way I feel whenever I read Geoffrey Chaucer Hath a Something-or-Other must be exactly the same way that Gertrude Stein felt when she read The Sun Also Rises. Ah, to be so eclipsed by those that I nurtured and inspired. It’s hard being the web’s seminal medieval humor source, but Gertie and I are made of strong stuff. We will endure.
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*Sorry, egg-laying man, your sun has set.