Yahoo! I felt like a I’d discovered a hot growth stock when LA2DAY.com agreed to give me myspace on their website. But the internet’s cutting edge turns out to be a double-edged sword. The very software allowing me to post articles online is also counting my readers. [Your interest is being electronically noted right now. Thanks, Mom.] Translation: LA2DAY honchos can keep track of whose columns get read most and whose (ahem) do not. This is valuable web real estate after all, and low readership is not going to help sell herbal Viagra, home refinancing or the latest Gwen Stefani CD.

I’m not bitter like Kobe Bryant. I congratulate those Fantastic 4 or 5 writers who enjoy American Idol-like popularity. They know great deals about music downloads, LA Concerts, Live Music, Fashion, LA Restaurants, LA Clubs and Hip Hop Music. I don’t discount their abilities and I know readers aren’t looking for analysis of the War in Iraq or global warming or the defoliation of the Amazon rainforest. And on the sur facebook reviews of Best Sellers like Al Gore’s “Assault on Reason,” it seems, won’t draw readers the way Shrek 3 brings viewers to local movie theaters.

But what are the missions of California readers as they search for explicit, uncensored opinions and hot, raw lifestyle reporting? In this age of XBox, Harry Potter and poison oak treatments, how do I make my columns extremely attractive to readers and become one of the Heroes here at LA2DAY.com?

No one wants a steady diet of video games, celebrity gossip or ring tones. That’s a recipe for disaster and a prescription for failure. To me, what Lindsay Lohan did at some cheap hotel rates right up there with Sanjaya’s weight-loss secrets. And before I stoop to those levels to increase the size of my readership, I’ll check the job listings. I’d rather grind out online term papers for 50 cents a page like some of my friends who are BBWs [Burbank-based writers].

These literary Nielsen ratings are enough to madden any writer. They’re like some spider man giving us a Miss Muf fetish start off our tuffets of complacency. Before I kick the MTV generation in the shins, maybe it’s time for my graduation to more salient topics. It’s June after all. Love is in the air fares for mass transit are going up and, Jesus Christ, there must be like 800 Flowers in bloom.

When the weather gets hot amateur writing has no appeal. At this time of year, readers are more interested in Father’s Day Gifts or summer vacation spots where youtube half naked down a river than some overly clever musings on Oprah Winfrey or curing back pain. My essays aren’t going to help anyone live longer, have clearer skin, or research their family’s genealogy

Look in Wikipedia. The Bible is the #1 book of all time. The New York Yankees attract the largest crowds. And Tom Cruise is still one of America’s most bankable stars. Heck, even George W. Bush won the popular vote in the last election. My writing isn’t mainstream. And I’m not going to change it to get published in People, The Wall Street Journal or even Hustler. Like Howard Stern, Dog the Bounty Hunter and the Emmy Award Winning Simpsons, I’m happy appealing to society’s fringes.

So thank you readers – whoever you are, whatever your number – for seeking out the column less read, the road less traveled.

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Toby Muller