Four Years of Rudeness: An Answer or Two:
In honor of the fourth anniversary of this fair and tempting blog, the Rude Pundit is answering the questions that burn in his readers like a passion that won't be filled. Or hemorrhoids. Six of one, ya know? Let the masturbatory self-reflection begin:

So far, he's received a handful of questions practical ("Can you deep throat?" asks Meegbear) and sentimental (Tracy wants to know, "Has a book ever made you cry?"). To which the Rude Pundit answers, "Only for Carl Bernstein" and "Yes. Charlotte's Web. I cry like a five-year old girl who just had her lead-painted Dora doll taken away when that goddamn spider kicks it. Oh, wait, no, I didn't mean that....The Road, yeah, The Road made me sniffle quietly like a man. Goddamn you both, E.B. White and Cormac McCarthy."

Today, the Rude Pundit tackles this one from a red stater, Nat, who writes:

"I've been a daily reader for some two years and change now, and your blog fills me with the proper amount of righteous indignation and outrage to continue on with my day, despite my own doomsday convictions and lack of faith in our species to last much longer. When Vonnegut died, I reread my favorite of his books and found myself making comparisons between the two of you (moral outrage crossed with a puerile indulgence in sex), and, consequently, found myself in the position to ask you the question I never got to ask him: Do you think any of this is working? Do you view what you do as useful not just to the people you might expect to read your column, but to anyone else outside of it? I think I am just wondering what your reasoning is for doing what you do in the way in which you do it. I mean no disrespect, nor criticism even, just having doubts, concerns and questions about the medium (the usefulness of blogging in general) and packaging (wrapped in rude paper) of the message and its intended audience (people with intact souls?)."

It's a question that plagues the practitioners of bloggery, whether it's "working" or "useful." The Rude Pundit has long subscribed to the notion that "preaching to the converted" is its own reward. Hell, it's pretty much what preachers do, with the occasional soul added to the ranks of the saved. The converted deserve to have their fires fanned and their genitals turned on. And if the Rude Pundit articulates a rage that sometimes can only come out as "Oooh, I hate those fuckers so," then all the better.

Humbled as the Rude Pundit is by the comparison to Vonnegut, every medium needs its jesters, the ones willing to thumb their noses at and fart in the faces of the powerful while trying to tell some truth. It's God's work, ya know?

Plus, sodomy jokes are funny. It may keep the Rude Pundit from appearing on the talk shows and shit for fear he'll say something oh-so-off-color. So be it. (Funny story - when he was interviewed by Calgary's version of Morning Edition, the Rude Pundit was on a several second delay so he could be dumped if necessary. It wasn't. And a splendid time was had by all. An intelligent man knows how to work with the tools he's allowed.)

Again, it's like going to church: some like the solemn ceremony of, say, an Episcopal service; others like to get their funk on while they worship. As long as there's fannies in the pews, let the services continue.

You can still send questions to rudepundit at yahoo dot com.

(The correct answer to Tracy's question is not a book. It's a short story. The end of "Sonny's Blues" by James Baldwin, when the narrator watches his brother and his band, never fails to choke up the Rude Pundit.)