Most people think change is bad.
We need to make some changes, so let's hope this works.
There are many things I can't keep up with - one is the mail.
I cringe when I think of the unread mail, the lost mail, the buried treasures.

Remember Bojan in Boznia?  I really enjoyed hearing from him.
He had a great sense of humor and he was either infected by  bartcop.com
or he just somehow has that same quirky sense of humor, but reading his stuff
was like reading something I wrote, but you could tell I didn't write it because
I don't know Smirk about Bosnian politics.   (Bojan, write again.)

The fellow from France who worked in Rush's house,
(You owe me some updates, Frenchie :)
was another example of mail that I was lucky to find.
He said he has more secret stuff about Rush he would share with us.

During the Olympics, we heard from our friends down under, but I may have
given them the wrong impression if they wrote and never got an answer back.

I wonder how many other buried treasures were never discovered...
This is what I'm trying to fix.

Plus, the stuff I get from BrainSmasher, Lo Phat Ham, Christian Mitchell-Livemore,
James Higdon, John Meeks, and dozens of more people I can't remember because
I'm too scatterred all the time.

Remember a while back I asked if anybody wanted to help with "stuff?"
I envisioned a compartmentalization (big word for me) of  bartcop.com  where
there could be order instead of chaos. Although, as we learned from Blazing Saddles,
Nietche said, "Out of chaos comes order," or something like that.

Well, that didn't work either, because there wasn't enough time to stop and get anything organized.
It reminded me of 1987, right after I'd lost $40,000 trying to keep the Hard Rock Island nightclub open.
When it finally closed, I was so  far in debt, I tried to file bankruptcy but I couldn't because the shithead
lawyer said he had to have $250 cash to get started and I was just too broke.

This isn't exactly the same, but it's similar in that I haven't been able to find time
to delegate anything, but now I have to because I'm missing too much.

[end of whining - start solving]

So here's the plan:

If you have something you want to see published in  bartcop.com  send it to bc_publish@yahoo.com
That's bc_publish@yahoo.com
That's an address manned by BrainSmasher.

But that's not for hate mail or fan mail.
That's for your writings, stuff like Joe Conason and Molly Ivins write.
This will go into a special section, kind of a permanant "Guest Editorial" section.
I thought about giving it a name, (maybe one of you writers could suggest one)
but I don't want to call it Vox Populi. I wouldn't mind "Voice of the People,"
but surely we can come up with a better name than that.

What are the rules for getting published?

I don't know.
I imagine length is one.
Of course, if you're onto the hottest or funniest story of the year you'd get all the
space you need, but in general, something column-sized would be best.
Short stuff works best, but "Rush Sucks" probably won't make the cut.

You can say whatever you want, but don't get carried away.
Until recently, I had a policy of printing every negative letter, but then some guy
sent me a long piece about what it must be like when Jerry Nadler takes a dump.
That's not what we need, and if you send that, I suspect BSmasher would reject it.

Reading other stuff published here gives you an idea if what would be good.

If you've sent a Guest Editorial  to  bartcop.com  that didn't get published
and it's still timely, send to to BSmasher.

Important:
You don't have to be a writer with any skill, I'm proof of that.

Don't assume I think I'm the king, granting the little people permission to speak.
I'm just trying to get more imput on the page and I can't do that myself.

And before you get upset that I'm shuffling off your work to someone else,
what I'm trying to avoid is having your note lay unread in my mailbox.
I was telling the truth a while back when I said Outlook Express said
I had about 5,000 unread messages. For all I know, one of those messages
was a love letter from Angie Harmon asking me if I was into threesomes.

These days I'm getting about 200 e-mails a day.  If I can think of more
compartmentalizations, we'll do that, because I can't read that fast.

But don't try to help by not sending any e-mail.
I'm a very boring person - we need lots of imput.

From the feedback in the chat room I know there are some
people who are disappointed that their mail has been ignored, and this might help.
Like most ideas I have this may not work, but I'll always remember that if  FLEMING

hadn't asked what that mold was on his bread, we wouldn't have pennicilin.
(I'll never forget his name as long as I live. Besides the tsunami caused by
 those disappointed by the big story that may've been the most mail I ever got.)
 

If you have written a short piece that others might enjoy, send it to bc_publish@yahoo.com
We're overdue for a lot of changes. I expected to have begun the changes by now,
but this whole Florida mess has everything up in the air.

In the coming weeks, I'd like to have different sections, sort of like a newspaper.
I'd like to have a television section, movie reviews, an better VCR Alert system etc.
I hate to get mail asking, "Did you see Carville on Letterman last night?"
Arrrrggghhhh!!!

If someone was in charge of that kind of stuff, we'd never miss anything.

Plus, maybe a sports section, maybe a minority voice or two.
I've asked Judy O' Christian if she'd run a Religious Section, and she's answered,
but I haven't found it yet - I'd better do that next.

...and we need a tequila section, or at least a "spirits" section.
Oh! and how about a UFO/X-Files deal?
I've seen the flying things at Area 51 that was waaay cool, Swear to Koresh!

I'd really like to have a section for Republican voices, too.
Does anyone know where to find a Republican?

I am especially interested in other countries, too.
If you live somewhere, you could be the voice of that country.

If you have an interest you'd like to cover for  bartcop.come-mail me (not BSmasher)
and see if we can set this up. Unlike a newspaper, you wouldn't have to page thru
all the "bad" sections to find what you want - it'll all be there on the front page
for you to click on.

Maybe you'd like to help, but you don't have a lot of time - fine.
Maybe on Friday's, for instance, you could do a "new tech things" column.
That'd only take 30 minutes a week.
You always wanted to be in show business, right?

The web cam page - you want to keep that fresh and fun?

The chat room seems to be a success.
Thanks to genslab@genslab.com for setting that up.

So, let's give this a try. I can't do it without your help, so if you'd like to run
a section of   bartcop.com  write to me and we'll set it up.

If it blows, we can fix it or go back like we are now (shudder)

Maybe change isn't so bad after all...