The Cuban-American Misfits Review: Of Dead Blogs and Other Irrelevancies

Today I was going to revise my Fraternal Blogroll, for at least three of the links are now dead. Two of these were founded after mine and were very short-lived; one in particular, The Cuban-American Misfits Review, is a sensible loss to me; for it was the first (but not the last) homage blog dedicated to me. I do not call it a parody blog because humor, in any form, was in short supply there. Orthography, syntax and style didn't fare too well, either. Still, it was an earnest and sustained effort, with more than 40 posts before it folded under the weight of its own dullness. Its birth certainly boded well for it. Its godfather, Val Prieto, who is also the godfather of this blog though not quite in the same way, even devoted one of his asinine posts to publicizing it on Babalú and took a big chance doing so, since those unaquainted with the joke discovered there the existence of the Review of Cuban-American Blogs and migrated here, where they have moored ever since (along with Val and the whole Babalunian crew). I myself welcomed the Misfits Review in a post and also linked it immediately, realizing that this was something that could only rebound to my favor. I suppose fantomas and Val realized it, too, eventually, and shut it down. Too bad. Its consistent lack of humor, unwavering focus on me and, most of all, its obsession with my superiority in all things, which its author appeared to accept and confirm in all his scribblings, was a kind of joke to me, at least, which, though pathetic rather than bathetic, nevertheless amused me with its unsupported pretensions. You know that you have really failed to wound or even annoy if the target of your "humor" recommends and links you and then forgets about you. Just as, conversely, you can be sure you have hit a raw nerve if the object of your humor is too afraid even to acknowledge the existence of a blog that to some extent revolves around him. Now that is fear, raw and pure, and the greatest satisfaction that a critic can ever enjoy at the expense of his subject.

There was a second blog devoted to me which I have recently discovered entitled Review of the Review of Cuban-American Blogs. It is a title which fantomas first suggested here, but which would have suggested itself to anyone if it suggested itself to fantomas. But fantomas did not act quickly enough and "Manuel A. Chechechea" beat him to it. A much better writer by far than fantomas, he did not have fantomas' staying power. This personal effort Val did not promote on Babalú as he had fantomas' Misfits Review. It elicited only one post, better than anything that fantomas, the proverbial monkey sitting at the typewriter for one million years, could ever write, but still just one single and solitary post. This blog, obviously, was born in a moment of anger (which are the best moments for humor) but then quickly abandoned but not erased. I invite you to visit it. Maybe you can encourage its author to re-start it by leaving your comments. I will always do everything in my power to encourage the efforts of my self-styled enemies, because without them, where would I be? Where they still are, God forbid!

The funniest thing that my esteemed tocayo "Manuel A. Chechechea" ever created was not his superannuated parody blog, but his (mine) Blogger Profile, which I reproduce here before it disappears without a trace (as "Chechechea" himself already has):

Manuel A.Chechechea

•Industry: Communications or Media
•Occupation: Know-it-all
•Location: Union City : New Jersey : United States

About Me:
I think and I write and I lay bare the folly of anyone who does not agree with me, the greatest mind and most original thinker in the history of the world. In anything I write, the wisdom of the ages is distilled for all lesser beings to marvel at. Read and be dismayed at your smallness in the presence of my intellect.

Interests:
Me. Myself. I.

Favorite Movies:
None. No one can make a movie about the greatest man and do me justice. I would be the greatest subject for a motion picture in the history of motion pictures. The Hollywood worms do not know what they are missing in telling my life story.

Favorite Music:
None. No one can play and compose like me (even though I am not a musician).

Favorite Books
None. Except what I write. I am the greatest writer that has ever lived.

If everybody thought about me as highly as Val does I wouldn't have to write those checks.

BTW, I've decided to leave my "Fraternal Blogroll" exactly as it is, as a tribute to those departed blogs: Ya No Más; Cuba: Island Paradise, Island Prison; and the Cuban-American Misfits Review. You have made poor Tocororo's mistake by deleting your blogs. I hope you do not regret it.

This one still lives but barely:

http://reviewofthereview.blogspot.com/