Maybe It's Not My Pwoblem, But...

Like many bloggers, I occasionally check to see how people find my site and what search terms they used to get here. I don't have any salacious search combinations to pass along; sorry. But this post of mine seems to have attracted a lot of attention, because many of the search terms used are obviously intended to bring up that one article.

In particular, somebody out there seems to be trying to find out about track 12, 'Maybe Dat's Your Pwoblem Too' by James W. Hall. For months now I've been coming across combinations of search terms like 'dat's your pwoblem james hall spiderman' and 'maybe dat's your pwoblem jim hall audio' and so on and so on.

All I can think when I see all these is, buddy, there's an e-mail link in my sidebar; why don't you just ask me for help with... whatever you're after?

But nobody did. So I'm posting this instead. 'Maybe Dat's Your Pwoblem Too' was sent to me on a mix CD by a fellow member of a mix CD club I used to belong to, same CD I mentioned at the start of that article I wrote. I just e-mailed the Intrepid Correspondent who sent it to me (same guy who's responsible for this, as it happens) to ask him where he came across the audio file, and he (very considerately, helpfully, and promptly) responded, and told me that it was an internet-only bonus for a show This American Life did on Superpowers (http://thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=178). Apparently the website has been changed around, though, and the file has been taken down. But anyone who wants it should probably get in touch with This American Life and ask them.

A transcript of the poem 'Maybe Dat's Your Pwoblem Too' is available on James W. Hall's website; I imagine that anyone interested in the poem has already gotten that far themselves. But the one thing the audio track has that the poem doesn't is the part at the end where the radio host kind of reluctantly geeks out on James W. Hall, to his considerable delight. The conversation (read the poem first to see what they're talking about):

Radio Guy: James Hall, um, one of my producers, Alex Blumberg, a comic book fan [pauses, steels himself for what is to come] asked me to point out to you that you have the facts of Spider-Man all wrong.
James W. Hall: [laughs] Well, I... That's, uh... Yes, I'm sure I do. Um...
RG: He was quite insistent on this point.
JWH: [laughs]
RG: There's no governor in Spider-Man.
JWH: I'm sure there's not. Yeah. There should be, though. Um, yeah. Oh, I know. And I didn't get, uh, the little cool thing he has over his face, that you can't... his mask, kind of thing, that he wears...
RG: Alex... Alex was actually kind of outraged. He was... [JWH: laughing]... walking around the office saying, like, "He's thinking of Batman, and it's not the governor in Batman, it's the commissioner," and Alex is like, "and if you think about it, it wouldn't make any sense for it to be the governor, because it's not really a state matter."
JWH: [laughs] Oh, gosh. Well. I'm glad somebody thinks those thoughts. It's just not I, that thinks that way.

Okay? Mysterious internet visitor, does that help? If not, just leave a comment or e-mail me or something; you can always come to me with these little problems.