As I sent emails to Boomer blogs suggesting that the Hey Jerrie video was something fun that should be shared with their readers, I ran into a total asshole.
Boomercafe.com is not a site I visit. But I had them in my blogroll and this seemed right up their alley. So here’s what I wrote:
I hope you can find a way to help give this some video some buzz.
http://goinglikesixty.com/2009/02/05/rock-out-with-your-tank-out/
Allee Willis is a boomer – superstar song writer – she has a friend, Jerrie, who has lead all-girl bands for 60 years. Jerrie now needs oxygen. Allee helped Jerrie embrace the tank by making a music video of her and for her.
She asked me to help get the buzz.
I will re-write an original post for your site if this is your preference.
I got this back.
Mark, we would certainly like to look at what you’d write as an original post. Please take a look at our “submission guidelines” from boomercafe’s home page; it is important to conform to them. And although I didn’t look closely, I did look at your site and did not see your last name. We’ll need that of course if we run a piece you write.
Thanks.
Greg Dobbs, Executive Editor
BoomerCafé.com
I wrote a post for them based on their published guidelines and met all the criteria. Original content, pictures and of course the video.
Greg Dobbs, Boomercafe:
Mark, thanks, but it’s going to need more than a cut and paste. Need you to tell the story of Jerrie but from the outset focus on boomers, not on Jerrie; open it about boomers, and expand on that theme for at least the first graph. It’s about what boomers do. That’s what we run. And it needs some proofing too, which we need you to do before we do it again please. And a little longer— give us a little more fabric, a little more color. Also, if we run the final product, we’ll come back to you and ask you to choose photos and resend the video link etc. Finally, I’m afraid we would run your whole name. So let me know if you want to go on. Thanks.
GoingLikeSixty:
Nah, not today. Too much trouble.
Thanks anyway.
Mark
Greg Dobbs, Boomercafe:
If I didn’t think from your initial interest that you wanted to go to the trouble, I wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of laying out what’s needed to produce a publishable piece. Sorry it’s too much trouble to get it posted.
GoingLikeSixty:
And if you call my original stuff “cut and paste” your standards are WAY to high for free content for your site. Blog posts by their nature are short – and refer to other blogs.
By the time I get done writing for you, I can have this posted on a dozen other blogs.
Greg Dobbs, Boomercafe:
Geez, sorry we have standards. Silly us. Maybe that’s why we’re the most viewed boomer site on the web. Do what you want elsewhere; I could care less. G’bye for good.
Check it out: A chart measuring their unique visitors last month vs. Going Like Sixty.com
(Going Like Sixty is the top line)
Did I mention that they do not pay their writers? They want us to give them content so they can serve up AdSense ads and make money.
Greg Dobbs, Boomercafe:
The word you want, being such a great writer, is “lose,” not “loose.” Learn English, proofread the crap you send, maybe you’ll get further.
As for free stuff, we don’t run this to make money; we run it to give boomer writers a place to be. That’s why it’s free. And if I wanted your “great story” in my lap, I’d have run it as is, but as I already told you, in its present form for our ezine it stinks. So do you. Last reply. Go waste someone else’s time on those dozen other blogs. Goodbye.
I really miss being a younger man. It’s when I get in pissing contest like this that I miss having the pressure I used to have. I could knock a bee off a rose petal at three yards.
Obviously they need my help. So I will leave them in my blogroll and let them reap the vast traffic that I send their way monthly.
Greg Dobbs, Executive Editor of Boomspeak.com, worker-drone at Newslike Productions, professed expert in marketing to Boomers, is a for real guy. He has chops. I think we could have had some real fun together. But he chose otherwise.
He’s still firing, in response to this by me:
Yep, when writing emails, I don’t spell check. You are far superior to me. But you can’t argue the facts. My blog is far superior to yours.
This is war.
(If you were smart, you would recognize me baiting you to benefit me.)
Thanks for giving me material for great blog post.
Greg Dobbs, Boomercafe:
You really are a jerk. “This is war?” What kind of childish mind do you possess? The only reason I’m writing back is to point out to you that your vaunted compete.com is pay for play. You register and pay; we don’t. We don’t have to. As for proofreading, you’ve got mistakes in the lousy piece you sent, not just your email messages. But sorry, someone superior like you doesn’t have to worry about being smart, or efficient, or accurate. You just have to worry about being a pain. You succeed. Now, really, crawl back into your hole and give someone else the misery of your company.
Actually Greg, I’m a smart-ass. My blog let’s me release my inner smart-ass. And as far as this being a “great blog post” I was wrong. It’s a really crappy blog post. But it will do for a Friday afternoon.
I hope Greg Dobbs next colonoscopy is done with a Roto-rooter to get the cob out of his ass.
Boomer and a Half 
