Examiner Affair

This is not my only column. While this column aspires to be literary, I also write something on the down low-- a monthly celebrity legal issues column for Examiner.com. No, I won't even give you the link.

My Examiner column started with high intentions. A travel writer suggested that I start writing for the Examiner on the side. I wanted to call it Rattlesnake Lawyer, but they suggested Celebrity Legal Issues. I hoped that I could be a straight Perez Hilton with a brain and a bar card.

I had some good moments starting out. A column about a football player who died in  car accident was read by over 10,000 people. At roughly a penny a hit, I made a hundred dollars in a day. During the height of the Amanda Knox trial, my column became on the required reading list and was receiving hundreds of hits a day. I started several comments wars. The highlight of my examiner career was when the site was a feature on ABC's Good Morning America on Examiner. Not on me, but you could clearly see one of my columns in the background.

I expected my numbers to rise to infinity. I was wrong. Soon, I was busting my tail to get a hundred hits or a dollar a day.

Some of the columns for Examiner are superb, and as good as anything you see on Salon or Slate. The authors use their computer skills to make a multimedia package and manage to get linked to the Huffington Post. If you are budding young writer, or an older one with an itch to scratch, I heartily recommend the Examiner.

If you understand computers and internet marketing, you can actually make a living from it.
I don't understand either.

Comments promote discussion and that promotes hits. I considered stopping comments after I discussed a local legal issue in New Mexico and received some posts that were a little bit scary. That was nothing compared to what happened when I posted a column about a certain Canadian singer. I wouldn't say I received death threats, but I didn't like being called a moron in five different languages. I then put comments space clicked on "closed" and kept it there ever since.

I suppose that was the beginning of the end. A column isn't worth dying for.

About once a month, I get an email telling me I haven't written anything so I still crank out a few paragraphs of latest celebrity gossip, quite often about Lindsay Lohan. No one will give you a death threat over Lindsay Lohan.

I don't know how much longer I will keep doing my monthly column for Examiner. I would rather blog about myself than a celebrity.