So Here's The Deal
I've been hired to blog at Parents.com. Please stop mocking me, right now. I realize that it's a little strange that "Alternadad," the former "Bad Sex" columnist for Nerve, who once published a satirical piece featuring Dick Cheney sodomizing Lynne Cheney, someone who has openly written about his odd quasi-sexual relationship with his dead cat, is now writing for the website of Family Circle magazine.
I realize this.
But they've been very nice. And they're paying me.
They've given me three stipulations: No porn, no writing about anything "illegal," and no making fun of the parent company, the glorious Meredith Corporation. Long live the glorious Meredith Corporation. So in this space, I will continue to write about masturbating while using my Silver Surfer to get high.
Also, in August, I'm going to begin blogging for Epicurious, the food website of Conde Nast. They will get my food-related Elijah posts, and Parents.com will get everything else. The content will be, more or less, the same as what you've had here.
I beg of you, my readers, to stay with me through this temporary period of employment. I realize that the "Alternadad" column on Parents.com now has a pink flowery background and that a Johnson's Baby Shampoo ad sometimes creeps across the page when you don't want it, and also that in order to register for comments, you have to get on a Ladies Home Journal mailing list.
So go there, hold your breath, read the content, and then come back here to comment. I'll continually link to my posts here. Let's keep it lively here, OK?
So here are the first six posts. They will update you on my family's summer. Enjoy them and then return here to the living room. Also, don't forget my column on Offsprung.
The Meredith Corporation rules!
NP
Comments
Did the devil kick in a fiddle or anything in this deal?
Welcome to the wonderful world of professional blogging: parent edition.
Posted by: whit | July 18, 2007 11:23 AM
i love that you sold out. i think cool people should make money, if only to deny it later to their children's petty "but daddy, i want a _______" desires.
Posted by: Kevin | July 18, 2007 11:49 AM
You suck. Thank God '03 was the last time I crossed state lines to see your crappy band. And I want my $10 back!
Posted by: Pat | July 18, 2007 12:58 PM
This is good news for everyone. I'll just add another two RSS feeds in my "dad" tab.
Posted by: floss | July 18, 2007 3:24 PM
I hope you're only prostrating yourself at the foot of commercial corporate whoredom so that Regina doesn't have to compromise her artistic efforts as well. Or is she already working for Martha Stewart Omnimedia?
Enjoy the dong work for Yuda. And keep it greasy so it will go down easy.
Posted by: PhillyD | July 18, 2007 4:01 PM
OMG, ur a total sellout loser. How could you?
Posted by: Lindsay | July 18, 2007 8:16 PM
Well, Neal pal, I'd hate to say it, but sometimes sellin' out goes with the daddy territory too. You're still cool with me.
I just finished Alternadad tonight, it was brilliant. You more or less summed up the last 4 years of my life in that book. I think the readers of Parenting probably need a little more Neal in their lives ;)
Posted by: Chris | July 18, 2007 9:48 PM
screw anyone who hangs the sellout tag on you...I'd much rather you have the money instead of (are we allowed to crack on them here?) M.C.?
Posted by: Matt | July 18, 2007 11:12 PM
A family's got to eat.
I love your selling out, and your subsequent introspection about it.
Anyone who disagrees has their priorities screwed up. I will click on your links twice to compensate for them.
Posted by: ANV | July 19, 2007 8:12 AM
Now, if Fugazi signed with sony and played at american idol I'd call that a sellout. This? Hmmmm. Whoring?
Posted by: Tim | July 19, 2007 9:43 AM
Whoring is fine. Thanks for your support, everyone, except for you, Pat. I cashed your check long ago, sucker.
Posted by: Neal Pollack | July 19, 2007 10:46 AM
I don't see how one can sell out at parenting...unless you sell your kids to slavers or something.
Congrats on your continued success.
Posted by: Gary | July 20, 2007 5:47 AM
hi i read your posts and book. they're amusing. but don't you worry about your son when he gets to be a bit older? you are making money now, but he will have bullies at his school who know things about him that he probably would rather that they did not know. things like nipple pinching and animal humping. or is he cool with it? the internet doesn't seem to be a forgiving place. what is the price of your success?
Posted by: franklin | July 20, 2007 10:09 AM
Thank you for your concern, Franklin. Really, it's nice to know guys like you are out there thinking about the important things, like whether or not 10-year-old playground bullies will have read a blog from six years before. The price of my "success" is that I can actually pay my rent.
Posted by: Neal Pollack | July 20, 2007 12:51 PM
Working in an elementary school, cyberbullying is a problem. Mainly it's kids spreading rumors in chatrooms or various sites. So far, I haven't heard- "Dude, his dad does a parenting blog and mentioned that he pulled his nips 6 years ago". But, if any kid pulls his nips in 5th grade, I say they deserve what's coming.
Posted by: Anonymous | July 20, 2007 1:42 PM
well, jeez, ask a serious question and get snarked. i guess when kids google "elijah pollack" in five years and pull up some of these stories, it will be all good for him. i'll stick to worrying about the important things. i just hope you've got a few bucks tucked into a therapy jar for elijah.
Posted by: franklin | July 22, 2007 6:52 AM
Hey Neal, I also just finished your book. It was fantastic! I could relate to you in so many ways it was scary.... or maybe I could relate to Regina in so many ways it was scary. Our daughter was also born Halloween '02, very similar temperment... must have been the moon or some such thing. Good luck with all your endeavors!
Posted by: Mrs Furious | July 22, 2007 8:14 PM
Does anyone think school bullies are all that research-based in their bullying efforts? Speaking as a parent of school-age kids, I'd suggest that if somehow, some bully is so resourceful as to read in print or online that Elijah did funny things as a preschooler and use it as bullying fodder, the impact would probably be that Elijah would learn some valuable lessons about shrugging off the misplaced attacks of fools.
(You know, the same talent Neal employed above in response to the accusation that his writings may come back to haunt his son...)
Posted by: James in PDX | July 23, 2007 2:39 PM
OK, I'm interrupting our regularly scheduled Elijathon to ask: "Yo Neal! It's official: your Suns got screwed out of 2007 Championship by crooked ref! Your reaction?"
Sorry, sometimes I just miss the splenetic Neal...
Posted by: minnesotaj | July 23, 2007 2:42 PM
MinnesotaJ beat me to it. No reaction about the Suns?
Posted by: david | July 24, 2007 3:58 AM
I don't know if this qualifies you as a sell-out or not. But what's important is that you're not become a different person or writer. Your posts there look like any you'd have here or at Offsprung. And the Meredith Corporation, while corporate media, isn't the force of the dark side. Parents magazine actually has some good stuff in it. (Versus that piece of shit ParentING magazine which is condescending as all hell.)
Posted by: Derek | July 24, 2007 8:37 AM
I can affirm that Neal is gloating over the FACT that the Suns were indeed screwed out of their title. Of course, it's also opened a barely closed wound, and now I have to listen - again- to rants about the FACT that the Suns were indeed screwed out of their title.
Posted by: Regina | July 27, 2007 9:48 PM
Hey isn't there already product placement on this site, or did you mean for that method ad to appear on the left sidebar of your Alternadad blog?
I visited parents.com. I think it's a great site. Pink flowers and baby shampoo be damned, welcome to a new era of parenthood. Glad you're part of it.
Posted by: K | August 15, 2007 10:17 PM
franklin, i just googled elijah pollack... your post comes up second. you do realize the hardships you've created by your comment, right? nice job.
Posted by: jc | August 17, 2007 9:54 AM
Very good post and nice picture as well.
Posted by: Bad credit payday loans | August 23, 2007 10:23 PM
Meredith is evil. They like to conduct periodic purges. Neal, I hope you don't mind being found face-down in the snow with a bullet in your head.
Posted by: J. Iceberg | December 17, 2007 7:25 AM