Stars of the Internet: Bobby Convict

I've been remiss in my duty to cover the full range of the Internet. Though they are the bread and butter of this ridiculous place, I have covered only a scant few blogs here. Granted, most blogs are terminally boring, a sort of mayonnaise on the sandwich of stupidity that is online self-indulgence. Blogs require more commitment than ready-made inanity generators like Twitter (which is also in my sights, worry not), but many are also free from the monetary expenses and overall effort of full-blown websites. While blogs like Net Insanity are paragons of new media intellectualism maintained by respectable professionals who definitely don't write their articles in their underwear while drinking cheap bourbon, the Net is currently choked with lesser varieties that seemingly exist for the sole purpose of exploring whatever ridiculous frame of mind the author may occupy at the time.

I stumbled upon Bobby Convict's blog while doing my usual rounds on craigslist. He was looking for someone to novelize his life story, the key details of which can be found in one long, rambling post on a free Google-based Blogger page. The story reads less like a narrative and more like the notes of an interviewer outlining the most unlikely true crime article in history. Taken as a whole, it's just unoriginal hackery. But pick out the gems and it's actually pretty entertaining.

For example, Bobby spent many a day as a six-year-old boy playing in a local junkyard. It wasn't just any junkyard though. It was conveniently located between his childhood home and his school, and was apparently operated by the most literate scumbag in Alaska (my very favorite state in this fetid union of ours). The guard dogs at the junkyard were named Caesar and Brutus. Both were frequently hungry for the flesh of police officers.

The grand fantasy continues as Bobby reaches his pinnacle in high school. He parties like a madman and improbably drives both a motorcycle and a model of car that is similar, but not identical, to the one on The Dukes of Hazzard. Also, Bobby's uncle was some sort of Boss Daley-lite mayor of Vague Town, Alaska who kept his troublemaking nephew out of jail.

At this point in the blog, Bobby loses any pretense at originality. He had not one, but two drunk, abusive parents who owned bars. He dated a cheerleader whom he promptly impregnated. Then he graduated from Good Times High and became a struggling grease monkey, the mysterious wealth that had gotten him a motorcycle and a sports car having suddenly dried up.

Bobby also claims to be a hardcore drug user, but his knowledge of what drugs actually do to a person is so backward that it's like listening to a virgin talk about sexual conquests. He claims that taking cocaine "slowed me down" and helped him concentrate. Because if there's one thing you can say for coke fiends, it's that they're focused, productive people.

At this point, Bobby's story falls apart completely. He hasn't even become a convict yet, but his sense of this ridiculous plot is already shot. The action inexplicably moves from Alaska to Idaho, then to the oil fields of Montana. Bobby gets in good with a biker gang, has a small drug war and participates in a highly cinematic bar fight with his no-good boss at the rigs.

That's pretty much how the whole thing goes. Bobby has a series of movie-inspired adventures, takes on an incongruous variety of careers, then lands in prison for somehow stealing drugs from the DEA itself in a scene that can best be described as "madcap". He becomes friends with famous mobsters, etc, etc.

Amount of Time Likely to be Wasted: 30 minutes, give or take. The story is worth plenty of laughs, but you might spend some more time drunkenly penning the script for "The Bobby Convict Story" with your friends.

Likelihood to Result in Arrest in Real Life: Not at all. It's obvious that Bobby has never done anything illegal, ever.

MCDR: Remember that movie Blow with Johnny Depp? Watch that, because it really is based on a true story.

Internet Depth by Preposition: On. The world is full of people who spin ridiculous yarns. There's nothing special about this other than the fact that it's nominally published.