There are a lot of posts out there with these types of titles. Usually lists of stupid things people do on Twitter which cause the author to roll their eyeballs and not respond. You’ve seen these kind of posts before. There’s talk of Twitter etiquette and being courteous and not doing anything troll-like because we all know that blog authors are really important entities and are not to be fucked with.

This isn’t one of those kind of articles.

Because of the nature of my Twitter account, I submit a lot of jokes and one-liners. Probably three to five a day. I’m a decent joke writer so most of them hit and I receive a healthy amount of retweets and favorites. Some fall flat like this one that I just fired out while sitting on the toilet. I found it hilarious. Nobody else did.

Usually I get around ten to twenty responses per tweet. These are often attempts to best my own joke. Many times they do. I almost never respond, though.

Am I a colossal dick whose ego is so fragile he can’t accept someone being funnier than himself?

The truth is that I LOVE when a reader outwits me. It’s a highlight of my day. In a mildly-sick way I sort of use it to congratulate myself. I actually think, “I prompted that person to make a funny! I DID THAT.” It’s sort of messed up that I take credit for the genesis of someone else’s genius. I’ll bring it up with a shrink.

Aside from self-congratulation I dig your jokes because I, well, love to laugh. A good one-liner is not easy to craft. I am constantly amazed how many of you are truly funny people. Seriously, it’s inspiring. I can’t tell you how many times someone has written something that kicked me in the ass to produce better quality content. Not that everything I write is funny. But when you let me know that I’m not the most hilarious guy on the block, that drives me to write better stuff.

So, why don’t I reply to your tweets?

Whether this is a good idea or not, I have decided that most of the time I shouldn’t. Let me explain.

A few years ago I had a massive crush (still do) on Adam Carolla newsgirl Alison Rosen. She was relatively new to Twitter and I sent her a few tweets. The first two she didn’t respond to, but then the third one she did. It was a highlight of my online life. I figured we were tight and that this would blossom into a beautiful friendship. It didn’t. In a weird way I was really bummed out. I think I tweeted her a few more times and never heard back.

I’m sure it wasn’t personal. She has 58k Twitter followers. But I did take it personal. Yes, I’m nuts.

I’m coming up on 80k followers and there is one sad downside to having this number. Yes, it’s cool to get all sorts of great responses. As I mentioned earlier, I literally read them all (no foolin’), and more often than not, I laugh like a bastard.

But if I respond to one person somebody writes me a personal message (or in public) with “you never respond to my stuff!” Good point. That would piss me off, too. I’m sure I’ve lost a lot of followers over the years who have written me dozens of jokes and I never wrote back. I know I’ve upset people because they tell me and then I never hear from them again. They’re gone. Can’t blame ’em.

So, I don’t want some people to feel like I only reply to others but not them. The only fair thing I know how to do is to just not respond to anyone. I mean, once in awhile I do. But rarely.

The other piece is I don’t want to clog up my tweet stream with replies. You read my tweets because you dig my humor or whatever. You don’t want to read me saying, “Good one!” fifty times a day.

So, it’s an unfair and shitty policy. In order to protect my precious tweet stream and not to piss everyone off, I don’t respond. In doing so I piss people off who think I’m so high and mighty I don’t reply to their tweets. It sucks and I can own that. I’m sorry.

But here’s what I can and will do – respond to most (if not all) blog comments. Sometimes I fall behind (currently I’m a few hundred comments behind – ugh), but I’m grateful people read these posts, watch my videos, and listen to my podcasts.  I owe it to let you know I appreciate your comments. Less than 1% of you comment, so at this point in the blog it’s something I can still do.

I look at Twitter as a never-ending commercial where I broadcast one-liner humor. Here is where I can engage and thank you in person. If you have great Twitter jokes, I hope you keep replying and sending them over. I love it so much. But it’s a selfish love.

Here I will reply to you. Maybe not the same day – but I will. I promise.

Due to his “condition,” Micah was sent on an extended visit to his grandparents’ in Palatka, Florida. And if there’s one thing worse than chlamydia, it’s Florida.

If you haven’t seen the movie, please do.  One of the funniest films in years.

If you listen to Adam Carolla’s podcast he routinely has a feature called “Germany or Florida.”  They pick some insane and depraved story (often somebody on drugs killing livestock, making love to livestock, or battering livestock) and the crew has to guess whether it happened in Germany or Florida.

Florida, as a whole, sucks.  We’re all on the same page about this one.  Yes, there are nice pockets.  I happened to be in one this past weekend.

Visiting my girlfriend’s extended family in Inverness, Florida – a six hour drive from Atlanta.  When we got down to south Georgia and eventually northern Florida, all of a sudden the signage changed.  Gone were the Georgia peaches and pecan rolls, and up were roadside orange stands, and billboards about homosexuality and abortion (they are  against both, by the way).

Inverness is a smallish town about an hour outside of Tampa and a hundred miles from Orlando.  Each home seems to sit on a dozen or more acres, and Spanish Moss grows down each canopy oak tree that populate the yards.  The accents are thick, but the people are nice.  There are a lot of boaters, hunters, and for some reason, recumbent bicyclists.  Also, 70% of the population is retired.  It’s an odd mix of people and you want so badly to dismiss them as rednecks, but they’re kind of not.

I was shooting pool with a 13 year old cousin, and he answered every question I posed with a “Yes, sir,” or “No, sir.”  I was so impressed I told his mother that he was the most polite boy I had ever met.  I’m definitely teaching my children (once I accidentally have some), that they’re going to do that yes-sir crap.  It’s so cute.

I will say this – teeth.  Lots of bad teeth in Florida.  But hey, there’s a lot of shit-awful teeth in the UK, too, and those people have better television programming than us.

I did hear a lot of stories that began with, “Did you hear about what happened to so and so?”  Those stories never concluded with a VP position at Xerox.  But I didn’t meet any of those people.

So, I’m revamping my sweeping generalization about Florida being a wasteland of idiocy.  Nice people there, and I’d go back.  I mean, I’d visit 100 other places in the U.S. first, but, you know, eventually.

If all you know about the Aceman is The Man Show or his short stint on Dancing With The Stars, you’re probably missing this fact…

He’s one of the funniest men on the planet.

Don’t take my word for it – check out his daily podcast, currently number one on Itunes for comedy.

Or watch his movie, The Hammer, and you’ll find out it’s one of the best romantic comedies of the past decade.

So, yes, I suppose I’m a Superfan.

But I’m not THE Superfan.

That title belongs to Giovanni, and if you’re a regular Carolla listener, you already know of him.

He has cataloged everything Ace has done since the early days of Loveline.

He’s a regular on The Adam Carolla Show, and a mini-celebrity in his own right.   (Among Carolla fans like me, he is a God).

For example, I have a massive crush on Adam Carolla newsgirl Alison Rosen.

If I wanted to meet her, I bet Giovanni could make that happen.

When I met the G-Man at a live Carolla show, we hit it off.   He invited me to be on his podcast, which of course, is a tribute to the man we both love.

This particular podcast episode probably won’t appeal to many, as I’m not telling jokes or being funny.     Discussing the minutiae of Adam Carolla’s words is very serious business.

Click Here To Listen to G.I.O. Podcast, Episode 91

Anyway, I’m glad to be a guest.   Thanks, Giovanni.

And seriously, introduce me to Alison Rosen.   I love her.

“Adam Carolla looks like a retarded Pete Sampras” – Jimmy Kimmel