Maybe I am not as funny as I think I am...

http://www.nathanielturner.com/poorpoetryrichdeceit.htm
Now, for no apparent reason I googled one of the "poets" listed a couple days ago in my "You are Lucky to Know Me" rambling. Much to my surprise...they all exist and are, indeed, well known. Not by me of course...the last poetry I enjoyed was by Shel Silverstein. But yeah...they actually are known and renowned people.
Well, as you know if you read those pieces I was essentially continuing my longstanding running joke of braggin about my "accomplishments"...internationally published poet, award winning author, radio personality, singer, etc....
Part of the humor of the piece, if there was actually any humor in it, was the tacit admission that anyone who purchases one of the books is either an egomaniac, desperate to see their name in print, or...to be brutally honest...just plain an idiot.
Let's face it. The only way a place like poetry.com makes money is because a certain number of people wants to be published. It certainly costs less to buy a book of bad poetry than to fill a book yourself and find someone to print it up. So it is actually not that surprising that a few people purchase the book...and if they are that into being published, perhaps a few of those books.
However, you have to be worse than incompetent to think that letter that says you are nominated and might have won is any more pormising than the 3,476 letters you get in a year from the Publishers Clearing House are...really, when you get one, do you really believe you won? Only if oyu are illiterate or brain dead.
Frankly, people who pay the over-charged rates to go to the poetry conference deserve what they get. If you don't know going in they are making money off talentless hacks. Well, okay, making money off stupid talentless hacks. I am a talentless hack when it comes to poetry but they did not make money off me because I did not purchase the book. Now the cd, that is another matter...
Well, if you read the link at the beginning, you note a Nigerian complaining about the scam of poetry.com. Huh? First off, you have to figure that most people are smart enough to realize money has to come from somewhere...and a dot com makes money from advertising or selling stuff. In this case, they are obviously selling books and convention trips. If you can't figure that out you should not be online anyway because you are getting taken for a ride.
It is even funnier it is a Nigerian complaining about it. Just this morning I deleted about 6 letters from people in Nigeria claiming I have been given millions of dollars and they need my contact info...name, address, telephone number, ss#...so they can transfer these millions of dollars to me.
I assumed noone would be stupid enough to believe that...until I did a few minutes research. Yeah, Nigeria is famous for that...and a couple days ago MSN had an article on their online dating scams.
Well, I suppose I should apologize to any morons I offended with my making light of their financial mishaps in regard to the honors accorded those of us nominated International Poets of the Year. I am sorry you don;t have the intellect of a pineapple core and that you were taken in by this scam. If you will only send me 59.95 + 5.95 shipping handle I will send you a kit teaching you how to avoid online scams. Be sure to include your name, birthdate, address, and credit card number...oh, and your name as it appears on the card.