Manny Stiles is Dead! (or, How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love ekom)
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by user Ekom
O!F Manny Stiles is dead! Dead tired of sports journalism that sucks. Dead set on changing things as we know them. Deadlined by a deadline.
Today, June 29 marks the one year anniversary of the Voluminous Wiles o' Manny Stiles here at ArmchairGM.com "All Sports, All You". It also marks the day that Manny Stiles OD'd on Spelloids and Alpha-bits... and choked to death on his own vomit eating a bowl of his favorite side dish, grantland rice... while simultaneously having a stroke, freeking out that the Suns kept a draft pick for once... letters strewn all over the place in a sure sign of 'Loid rage... Manny Stiles, dead at the same age as Jesus died, go figure! Good thing for reincarnations... but let's rewind:
After toiling on a blogspot sports-themed site at random occasion, DNL perused it one day, e-mailed me and invited me to ACGM. Once I found out that no money was involved, I HAD to look into it. When I saw the site, I realized I had come across it before... I pondered everything for less than a moment: Could I really do this? "Shit yeah..." I mutteringly cussed to myself and signed up.
My first attempt was a putrid effort to show my shameless Rusty Kuntz love, even if I was a short-time reader, first-time poster. But before I knew it, I was hooked. I was stirring controversy and irritating members (I miss my buddy, WTT) and I couldn't stop commenting. You gotta understand, I have a take on EVERYTHING. It's the way I am wired. I have opinions on things most people will never ever stop to consider or realize as possible (what if gravity changed like weather?). I can't stop thinking, it's my curse. On top of it, I have loved sports for a long time...
"Manny Stiles" was never meant to be a sports journalist. Manny is a songwriter. I might call myself a 'rapper', a 'producer' or a 'recording artist' and while all of those things are technically true, deep inside this charade, my true talent is as a writer. A songwriter when it comes to music. I never calls myself a musician (I think everyone that can willingly make a noise of any kind is a musician) even though I play an array of instruments. The instruments in songwriting are like my fonts in letter writing. I have very simple approaches to most things in life. To me songwriting, or any creative construct is fairly similar. It's like cooking a meal. You have ingredients, a set of processes and vocabularies and all you need is the experiences or the vision to make something interesting out of it. Simple!
I have always been entertaining in person and an accomplished smart-ass, bu it was through an online fantasy football league that I first translated my mental issues into hilarious keyboard-stompin' shit-talking for the benefit of anonymous entertainment. In a twelve person league (I finished third), ten people thought I was hilarious and the other one (who knew nothing about me) wanted to fly to Arizona from Oregon to fight me (until he found out how big I am)! But the seeds of electronic journalism were sewn. I wanted to continue my madness online...
My first foray into "blogging" was simple: to rid the world of the word "Blog" and to talk about songwriting. Then I drifted to scriptwriting and interviewing dead people and fail-proof diet tips and giving away my World's Best Fire-Roasted Salsa recipe. But people get weary of "Take this quiz on my blog"...
My wife who loves sports deeply and talks about sports all the time with me suggested to me one day that I try sports writing on top of my other literary pursuits - "You won't shut up about sports, WHY don't you write about them?" she wifed at me...
I informed her that sports and writing would lead to displays of my OCDness and would probably sour her view on sports. She said "it's your bliss, follow it", so I have - but only to certain extent. It's time to pull up my inner Kesey and go Further!
Get to the point, Erik...
Firstly, this irks me. When Manny Stiles is in the top 10 in anything, it's a bad sign. How many times has the message been given? "Ban Manny Stiles from ALL things credible"? (of course, all that's left is things that are "incredible") But you don't listen...
Maybe it's fun for you, but I do not want to be ranked nor do I care for points or ratings. I don't have a way to correlate a value on such things. Beat me all you want, all you can, I encourage you to. I can't cash points in for stuff I can use, and besides - I just want to write. That's all. I want to keep track of things using words. I want to journalize. So in an attempt to keep realms of time separate, if you haven't noticed by my lackadaisical efforts lately. I will basically stall out Mr Manny Q. Stiles' user name for a while. Give the rest of y'all a nice high bar to surpass. And I didn't want to go the Roman Numeral route... Manny Stiles II? Uh...no.
Of course, anyone who knows MEK knows I have a million different personas in my head/being and "Manny Stiles" was more or less the company the personas all worked for. But why ekom? It is smoke backwards with no ess. There, Reason enough.
I've said many times that I wouldn't stay here long. In fact, This was my 100th article. No I'm not going to quit again (again). But I am shutting the User name down to a trickle.
I don't want 9000 comments in my second season too. In fact, I am aiming for A LOT less than that. My points are all B.S. because I have something good to say about everything and people + me. I just want to focus on the writing aspect of things. I want to push the creative envelope further and move the 'chair in the direction of leading the Wave of the Future, not just riding it...
What does this mean?
Expect many different styles. But just one Stile at a time from now on!
While I have never been a victim of writer's block, I have long endured from editor's block. So I am focusing on tightening my 5000 word diatribes into 4900 symbols of eloquence. And I hired an agent. She figured that while commenting quickly and wittily may be a strength of mine, it isn't going to get me anywhere but into troll wars and making people misunderstand my context when it comes to the articles.
Being the #1 promoted article writer on this site as well as the #1 commentor also made me realize I have to choose one or the other - I chose writing articles. (anyone can critique them)
My agent sat down with me, we laid everything out and it simply came down to "moving forward".
No matter how many great and funny articles I've written already, today is merely the begining of tomorrow... so we created "character types" or archetypes for a variety of Stilish musings but focusing from one angle at a time instead of mashing it all together. Yes, I know I am messed up...
| #694 | BAN Manny Stiles from ALL things credible. |
What's going to happen?
I'm basically not commenting on articles anymore. Yeah, I've said it before but I understand what is at stake now. I'm basically shutting up to whom I consider the "media" - you emephers!
You wanna get my take or opinion on things? Read my effing articles. You got questions for me? There's a time and place for that.
Here's another thing: NEW ideas!!! Lots of them... Ok, maybe some of these ideas are borrowed, altered, seasoned to taste or just plain stolen, but they will be new to the 'chair and consist of less than 10% pirated material from now on!
No more hi-jacked photos (without credit), and more REAL photography! Less blah-blah-blah and more "See for yourself!" and less font and more Audio-Visual... meaning songs.
The future is now, my budget is non-existant and my creativity is stifled by commenting on too many articles (and too many Manny articles). So for the most part, I ain't reading ALL the articles anymore. I can't do it. I read the articles and I just HAVE to make comments. Every opinion seems to be a right-wrong conversation and I always feel inclined to see a third, alternate view (the edge of the coin vs. heads or tails). I don't believe in dualism, sorry.
You might think I'm weird, but my friends think the only weird thing about me is writing on Armchair! Despite my zero output, recruiting has been excellent lately - Kudos!
This doesn't mean Manny Stiles is gone forever - there is the Zodiac Showdown to do yet! And more Tampa Bay Rays articles, for sure... maybe some more radio and TV spots??? Plus Joey Chesnut is making Kobayashi's jaw nervous!
So expect less AND more
Less Live Blogging of Arizona Sports teams - unless I want them to lose. More not garbaging people's articles with my self-loving witticisms Less of Not Editing More bios, events, encyclopedia entries... seriously - and interviews Less Rah-Rah Armchair Articles More Sporting Event coverage - Gonzo Journalism Less words words words more other, other, and other
More Sports Sports Sports!
Isn't that why we're all here (not this particular post), afterall?
so Slap #694 up on the rafters and enjoy watching me avoid the Sophmore Jinx! We've come a long way together in the last year, time to go further!
Peace and good tidings, thanks for patiently enduring Dr. Commento, aka Manny Stiles.
please welcome ekom without preciosities.
and write HARD, ya bastards!
Ooops! Don't forget the cheeseball Memorial Tribute
Every good pseudo-celebrity pseudo-death has one of those - mine just happens to have a touching tribute song too... by Manny Stiles!
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