I got e-mail from a good friend and long-time advertiser that said, "You need to hire some help."
 He sent some money and a new ad for me to run and it just went right by me.

 He's right.

 This whole bartcop "operation" is waaaay out of control.
 I need a dozen people working full-time - inside my house, which isn't practical.

 I need at least two people to do nothing but handle the mail.
 Sam does great work, but I can't keep up with her "best of e-mail" forwardings.

 I need a full-time tech person to just keep things working.
 Wiping my C drive clean every 90 days is very taxing and time-consuming.

 I need a person to handle subscriptions and to help the subscribers who are locked out.
 I need a details person from whom I can get quick facts via phone or IM - my last two died.

 Sidebar:
 Attempting to find humor in tragedy,
 I feel like I'm in Spinal Tap, advertising for a drummer.

 I need a news manager - there are hundreds of stories I just can't get to each week.
   (I feel like Spock in "City of Forever" - all this information races by - and I miss most of it)

 Right now, people are asking why I don't run the AARP story.
 I don't even know what that is, unless it's the bill Tom Delay sold us out on and got behind.
 Or was that the energy bill he sold us out on?  I can't keep up with all the Demo sellouts
 because they constantly sell us out to the B.F.E.E. every f-ing day, it seems.

 I need a secretary of Democratic backstabs and cave-ins.

 I need a secretary of follow-up - there are so many things that get started that never get finished.
   (I've lost friends over broken promises, broken arrangements, forgotten rendezvous)
 There are ditto-monkeys saying I chickened out of a debate because I forgot to show up.

 I need a corrections manager just to be sure the right links go to the proper ads stories.
   (Ads would be fewer if I got it right the first time.)

 I need an advertising manager to keep up with who-paid-for-how-many ads.
   (Some call me a ripoff - because they paid for four, and got only three... I need heeeeeeelp)

 I need a celebrity interviewer - you can't imagine how many interviews with famous people
 (even some liberal icons and presidential candidates)  I've had to decline doing those interviews
 because I don't have time to read their book or set up the interview or know what their positions are
 so I can ask intelligent questions. I refuse to insult them by acting like the people who've interviewed me.)
 Each time I see a celebrity interview on Buzzflash I'm reminded of what's slipping thru my fingers.
 
 I need an on-site radio publicist who can tell me again and again that I don't sound that stupid.
 I need a personal assistant - young, female, exotic, who can give a morning massage - with release.
(That's a joke Jon Stewart wrote - it's just a joke!)

 I need a Master Overlord to interview, hire and corral the other managers.
 I need a staff.
 I lost control years ago, probably in 1998.
 All this is coasting on fumes and the mountains of unrealized potential saddens me.

 My super-ego tells me we have semi-dynamite on out hands and all we need is the fuse.
 An operation this size ought to have adequate funding, but we're still on nickles and dimes.
 I can't afford to hire even one person, and at least a dozen are needed.

 (While I'm at it - a shot of Chinaco for Sam Dent.
 She's become my right hand, and she's putting in many hours a day and about all I can do for her in return
 is pay her dial-up costs, but I haven't even gotten to that because I have to call Mindspring and set that up
 with my credit card and I just know that will take a full day that I don't have - Sam, remind me.
 Another a shot of Chinaco for Zendaba.   He's been doing a lot of behind the scenes stuff,
 including the new page design. ( Applause)  He's also in charge of business management and triage coordination.
 I'd be triple lost without Sam and Zendaba. With them, I'm merely lost.

 Time continues to fly by at an amazing rate. Most days, I wake up at 8, check the mail, thank my subscribers,
(there aren't that many) and now it's Noon.  I write a little, I hit "send." but then Mrs Bart walks in because it's 6 PM.

 The whole day seems like an hour.
 It seems like Joan of Arcadia is on every night of the damn week, which isn't all bad,
 but I remember when I was a kid, time moved ever soooo slowwwww.

 No matter how old you are, you should heed these words:
 As you get older, time gets faster and faster.

 You get a hair cut.
 You get a hair cut again.
 You ask yourself, why did I get my haircut two days in a row?
 Because it's been six weeks, Moron!

 That's the BIG curse about getting old that nobody tells you about.
 On top of that, if you have a good time every day, things move faster, still.

 Sometimes, I think the only way I'd be happy is if I was married to Nancy Grace.
 Nobody can make time move slower than Nancy Grace!
 If I was married to her, each day would seem like an eternity.

 Does a shot...

 I don't get a chance to read MWO, Buzzflash or the British paper web sites.
 That's sad, because if I was better read, I would've known who Noam Chomsky was.

 Hell, I haven't been able to read  bartcop.com  since mid-1998.
 I figure I'll catch up when I'm in the Old Folk's home.

 I wanted to do something for Veteran's Day, but it flew past me at the speed of light.
 You also might've noticed some weeks I'm only doing five issues. That extra day has been
 used to read and answer mail, thank individual contributors, run errands and stuff like that.
 Crazy as it sounds, it seems like I had more time when I was at the car lot.

\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
 Wait, I can hear people asking, "So, .....how do you have time to watch all those TV shows?"
 When Mrs. Bart gets home, the TV changes from CNN or FOX Whores to whatever she wants to watch.

 Mrs. Bart is the very best - she never says, "You don't spend enough time with me!
 When will you step away from your precious computer and pay more attention to me?!"

 ha ha

 No, .....instead, she'll quietly ask, "Do you maybe want to watch a movie?" and I get the hint.
//////////////////////////////////

 I recently filled out a credit application - my first since being self-employeed.
 One of the questions was, "What is your business worth?"
 Damn, who knows?
 I wrote down $50K, because it was a loan application so it's my duty to lie.

 Sidebar:
 Trust me, besides the nightclubs, I've been in credit since 1978.
 Don't you never let me catch you telling the truth on a credit app.
 If the loan manager wants to prove bartcop.com is not worth $50K, let him try.
 
 Financially it's worth nothing, but the "blue sky" of having dozens of dozens of dozens of Democrats
 meeting daily in the Forum, the chat rooms, reading the page etc. is a tangible asset, but without some
 efficient management, its value could drop faster than Ann Coulter's panties on the first date.

 What would fix this?
 A ton of money, a mega-ton, I guess.

 Someday, when I'm 75 or 80 and I'm too crippled to move, I'll get an e-mail saying,
"Here's a million dollars so you can get bartcop.com going and turn it into a powerhouse."
 That'll be great if and when it happens, but will I still have the energy to fight thirty years from now?

 So if there's some rich person reading this who plans to someday send a big-ass donation, the time to get
 involved is right away, not some time far in the future. It would be nice to be able to hire just one person.
 Volunteers are great, but working for free, I can't ask them to put in the hours needed to be a big help.

 If one-fourth of the potential of the website could be realized, we could grow a helluva a lot faster than we are.
 It would also be nice to have enough power that we could actually contact senators and representatives
 and insist that they take some action against the crooked son of a bitch that some call "Mr President."

 Does a shot...

 I wrote this "whinefest" a few weeks ago, and posted it in the members section to go up the next day, but it sounded
 like a punk-ass whiner feeling sorry for himself so I pulled it down.  Since then, I've pissed off several more people
 who counted on me to handle something or remember the details of something and I just keep fumbling the ball.

 Sidebar:
 Always remember, besides swimming against the extra-fast river current, I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer.
 Usually, when someone sends a banner or a cartoon or a column to post, they name it "bartcop," so I end up with
 a few dozen files named "bartcop.htm," "bartcop.jpg" and "bartcop.mp3" and I just blankly stare at the screen.
 Then they write, using a different address and different nick and ask why I didn't post their stuff.

 Each time anybody writes about anything, assume I'm a total moron who has to have everything explained to him
 each and every time you write because it's the truth, mostly. Sometimes I get business mail that says,
"OK, it looks like we have a deal," and I always wonder what it is that I've agreed to.

 Sometimes I wonder where this bartcop "operation" would be if help was available - if it was done right.

 So if some rich Hollywood liberal needs to show a BIG LOSS on their taxes this year
 and wants to see a bigger, better hammer pounding that bastard in the White House -  Click  Here
 

 OK, I'm done now.

 
 PS. I'm not saying I deserve a million dollars, but if I had a budget and a staff,
        we might turn  bartcop.com  into something bigger than a whistling wind treehouse

  back to  bartcop.com