A long time ago, in a country that feels a million miles away now, I started this stupid little website because as I was discovering that Yahoo’s freelancer program was ending, I wanted a place on the Internet where the kind of political satire I wanted to read was being published.
At the time, this site wasn’t even really primarily known for purely fake news articles like I’ve built its reputation to be over more than a decade. I guess publishing almost 6,000 pieces from myself and a bunch of talented friends of mine who were always so gracious and gave me material to share is a good way to build such a reputation. One of the many ways I’ve been blessed with this website.
I started The Political Garbage Chute mostly as a place to collect my brain drippings as I felt the need to share them. I had a burning fire in my belly to counteract, loudly and publicly, the right-wing extremism I was pumped full of quite literally from birth. Those days were fun and unpredictable in the Social Media scene.
Eventually, I started turning my focus nearly entirely to writing those aforementioned bullshit news stories. I got, I think, pretty fucking good at it. Good enough to be allowed to publish them on HuffPost for a time, which led to some rather fun Twitter Nazi interactions, let me tell you.
I always hoped someone out there would see my work on this site and decide it was good enough to pay me to stop writing here and write for them instead. But, I guess I’ll settle for Google calling me an “Internet Personality” instead. I cannot tell you how hard that makes me laugh, by the way.
Like so many plans or dreams I’ve had in my life, that just never came to fruition, and was likely built on a naive understanding of how to break through into the mainstream consciousness at large. So, I just kept plugging away at it. Over time, the ad revenues dwindled and social media platforms kept algorithmically hiding my work from everyone, so I sort of just gave it up.
After more than ten years doing it, I burned out.
I got tired of having articles go viral and getting hilariously fact-checked by major news outlets, but still not getting contacted to press or interviews and share my story/viewpoints. So I published here less and less, and then I started working on the second season of Into the Garbage Chute, my no-budget, Internet-only sketch comedy show that I’m extremely proud of. That took a year or so of my life, and I wound-up debuting the show the week I turned 44.
That timing sparked a desire to resurrect this website. I also decided I’d take it back to its roots, which is why the new tagline of the site is “Totally Bullshit News. Mostly Bullshit Opinions,” because from here on out, that’s what’s going to live here. Both our totally bullshit news stories, and our mostly bullshit opinions.
@jamesschlarmann If you’re not watching #intothegarbagechute on my LinkTree, what in the hell are you doing anyway? #sketchcomedy #comedian #funny #politicalsatire #satire #parody #intothegarbagechute #KamalaHarris
With that settled, I still feel there’s a question about all this that I can’t quite answer. Not yet anyway.
Why Am I Doing This Again?
Other than the obvious answer of “Because I want to,” I really don’t know.
Partly, I just love doing it. I love publishing, and I love writing. I know I’ll give myself any excuse to do so. Partly, it’s because I’ve taken a sufficient amount of time to write the sketch show and I’ve got renewed energy for this site. Partly, it’s because we’re once again on the precipice of a momentous election, and we could see our first female president, our first Indian American president, our first Asian American president, and someone who is in my opinion the most qualified presidential candidate in my lifetime, in the Oval Office. And I want to write about that time in history.
Beyond all that though, why am I doing this? I don’t know. But I hope I do it well enough to entice you to come back here every now and then to see what we’re up to.
And since I’ve shamelessly plugged it twice already, here’s the Season 2 Premiere of Into the Garbage Chute.
