Gloucester Responds to The Clam

So, we’ve been up for just a few days and already more than 12 thousand hits. This is more than can be accounted for just by a simple batch of bad meth causing people to mash their keyboards uncontrollably and unintentionally landing on our URL, which was our original hypotheses. It seems folks really want the voice that is “The Clam” in the Gloucester mix.

No one has ever accused us of being a sensible people, I guess.

Looking at our frankly unbelievable site stats we see that global citizens have linked to The Clam from over 20 countries, including almost the entire English speaking world (Screw you, New Zealand!) and we’ve received tons of feedback:

I don’t think I get it

Clams live in muck and feed on filth

Howard Blackburn was NOT married to Ann Landers

I find the crude language to be distasteful

I wish that horse would stop yelling

Cpt. Blackburn giving us the finger

Cpt. Blackburn giving us the finger

There has been incredibly positive feedback as well. Our tires have yet to be slashed, for instance so we’re taking that as a good sign.

We’ve got a lot planned, suggestions are pouring in. We did a podcast with Joey over at Good Morning Gloucester at like seven this morning because Joey apparently never sleeps which was hilarious for us and sort of a Gloucester bucket list check-off. People are stopping us on the street and on the train and our Facebook page has been growing steadily.

click for half an hour of two dudes talking about  blogging if you have no life

click for half an hour of two dudes talking about blogging if you have no life

All in all, things in the nascent Clam media empire are taking off and this is all due to the folks who’ve read, forwarded, shared, pondered and laughed along with our introductory pieces. We can’t thank you all enough and hopefully we can continue to be a voice that people want in the mix.

Oh, also we have an Ann Landers Cpt. Blackburn erotica site in the works. Working title: “Codpiece”

Clammers, out  –KT, JD, soon to be others

Look what you made us do

We have resisted blogging about Gloucester for a couple of reasons. First, Gloucester was previously covered by an actual newspaper, the Gloucester Daily Times [paywall. Seriously!] Sadly, the GDT has suffered in quality of late. Oh, let’s not sugar coat it, they are awful. Like ‘painful groin rash’ wretched. In our opinion Gloucester essentially has no functioning newspaper now, and certainly not one with a useful online presence. This means a lot of Gloucester viewpoints are not being heard.

It stinks from the head

It stinks from the head

Cape Ann Online has great discussions along with a bunch of trolling. It’s a great forum for short-form stuff. But it’s forum-style.

Of course Joey Ciaramitaro runs a pretty boss blog Good Morning Gloucester. He covers events, food, art, the highly clickworthy winter bikini volleyball beat and now even weather and waterfront. The man has heat, but he’s crystal clear about one thing: He does not want to cover anything that could remotely be considered “political”. This is his right and his is blog is just that. It’s great the way it is and he wants to keep it that way.

GMG is like a really good party, and you don't talk politics at a party. Especially in a cape.

GMG is like a really good party, and you don’t talk politics at a party. Especially in a cape.

We ourselves would rather blog about bikes or hipsters or androids, but for some reason people keep frigging insisting we discuss local politics with them. This is how bad it’s gotten, folks are so desperate for factual information about things like the Fuller School that in the fall we had to take time off of being funny on Facebook to send around the actual architects’ report that The Times never got around to summarizing or even like, reading, apparently. We did not like this. Not at all.

So desperate times call for desperate means and thus you all are now are so information deprived you’ll turn to a news source that isn’t afraid to use the term ‘fucktacular’ to describe a particularly good sandwich. So in between some good-ole-fashioned tomfooolery, we’re going to talk about actual issues from our perspective.

Hey, you asked for it.

We’re going to try and cover some of the stuff that’s being ignored and report on the Gloucester we see in all its glory and its idiocy. We’re going to try, in our own style, to summarize a few of the issues. We’re going to give our take to the best of our ability and also hit the fun and wacky side of Gloucester as well. We’re not journalists, we’re bloggers, whatever that means.

Drink up, people. It’s going to be a fun ride.

Image

Whatever, rock