Please Sir, May I Have Some More?

I started this Substack about a year ago with the intention of having a new home to post various thoughts, arguments, essays, and assorted minutiae. At the time, I thought I would do mostly unpaid content and some paid, but as soon as I put up one paid thing (a recipe for anchovy toast: delicious!), I felt icky about it. Afterwards, I decided to make all of my posts free, hoping that enough of you would choose to become paid subscribers to make this a marginally profitable enterprise.

And marginally profitable it has become! As somebody whose acting career has collapsed in recent years for reasons that may or may not have something to do with show biz finally figuring out that I’m not a “good” actor, the small income boost I get from Substack is a help.

About 5% of my readership is paid. Not terrible! Not great, but not terrible. I would, however, love to get that number up a bit, which is why I am writing my one and only appeal letter for the year.

If you find yourself reading this Substack with some regularity and find some value in what I have to say about panda bears, UFOs, existential angst, slightly warmed-over political takes, TV shows I am currently digesting, and the aforementioned assorted minutiae, won’t you consider upgrading your free subscription?

Pathetic.

I’ll be honest, five bucks a month is more than I would pay for me, but please keep in mind, I am forced to live with myself 24/7. That five bucks is worth the price simply for the privilege of not being me.

Maybe you’re weighing the pros and cons of upgrading. I’ll lay it out for you.

Some benefits of doing nothing and remaining a free subscriber: you will continue to receive all the same high quality, typo-prone essays on a too-often basis from yours truly.

Some benefits of benefits of becoming a paid subscription: I can think of none other than the satisfaction of having boosted the spirits of a handsome young man (me). Just like I did when Radiohead released their “pay what you want” album and I gave them the actual retail price of a CD. In doing so, I like to think I helped focus Thom Yorke’s lazy eye for one bright and beautiful moment.

Look, the math for you to subscribe obviously doesn’t check out. But neither does the math check out for subscribing to your local NPR station. Yet you do it, anyway! Or, if you are like me, you do not. Which is not to say I have never subscribed to my local NPR station, but having moved to Savannah a few years ago, I’m not sure I know what my local NPR station is.

Is NPR even allowed in the South?

Also, consider the fact that your dollar goes so much further when you give it to me than when you donate to those godless communists at NPR. They have facilities and audio equipment and lord knows what Lakshmi Singh charges to read the news headlines.

Whereas with me, the only costs are English breakfast tea and cocaine.

So that’s it. I’ll leave my first-annual appeal letter short and sweet. I may not provide the same level of service of NPR, or even NPH (Neil Patrick Harris), but what I lack in quality, I more than make up for in quantity.

Who else is putting out this much content?

It’s just me, the historian Heather Cox Richardson, and former Labor Secretary Robert Reich out here slinging these hot Substack takes day after day. And those guys have support staffs and researchers and whole teams behind them churning their stuff out whereas I just have me and a few unpaid Bangladeshi interns.

(Also, to be clear, I have no idea if Heather Cox Richardson or Robert Reich have anybody helping them but I like to make it as us vs. them thing whenever possible because if we can’t rally against the elites, what’s the goddamned point? Also, to be doubly clear, I have no unpaid Bangladeshi interns, but I do have two dogs who contribute almost nothing to the crafting of these posts.)

Most unhelpful.

Whether you choose to upgrade or not, thank you so much for reading and for your frequent comments. I read them all. Writing these posts has given me a place to direct my scattershot thoughts and I think I’m becoming a better writer as a result. So, again, thank you.