Clams of Gratitude

You people are the best.

We started this thing six months ago on a bar bet against better judgment and even basic standards of decency and somehow, it took off. We weren’t sure we would even have enough ideas/content to run into the summer but Gloucester turned out to be a perpetual motion machine of insanity and we tried to follow along (Thank you, Demoulas family!). Other Clamtributors have stepped up and brought even more and better awesome to the table. And along the way we’ve managed to make some people laugh, piss off some folks, make a few cry and of course awoken the deep, deep crazy lurking in some highly unstable individuals who regularly send us expletive-laden emails referencing the Nazis and/or Gaza because crazy. Wow, is there a lot of crazy.

there’s synthetic alien chemicals in the groundwater!

All along it’s been amazing for us. The number of people who’ve said, “You guys are awesome!” has been astounding. People have yelled “We love The Clam” out of passing cars at us (they yell other things as well, but they’re unrepeatable). The support from surprising (and far-flung) places has been heartening. But, as we said, hosting costs money. Boosting posts so more of our facebook fans can see what we post costs money.  And there is a ton of time involved, time which our spouses have graciously awarded us for some reason (insanity probably). So we thought, “maybe we could defray that with a donation button. A few of our close friends might pitch in $10, tops, and we’ll cover the rest.”

And people donated. Do you believe that?

I mean, of course also some people emailed Joey C over at Good Morning Gloucester to complain about us asking for donations and putting up a small ad on our sidebar that was in blank space, because that is just what you do. Complain to Joey about us. He’s in charge of all blogging in the world, you know. He’ll be sure to hold a meeting about it and give us a verbal warning.

But also there were a lot of donations.

You have no idea how good that makes us feel. What’s the word? Valued. We feel valued. You might be surprised to find how seriously we and the other Clamtributors take this blog. There are long email chains, endless revisions, occasional disputes and mostly it’s people just trying to do good work. You’d love to hear some of our discussions, “Is ‘Wombat sex’ funnier than ‘duck fucking,’ what do you think?” This is not followed by peals of laughter. It’s followed by 20 minutes of serious consideration and threats against another’s person.

So we’re going to do more of that for as long as we can. More stupid, more silly, and more serious posts as well. Sometimes I think we came into being to serve as the snarky id for a whole city, saying the things that cannot be said. Poking fun but with love and dedication. Family. It sort of feels like family. Insane, infuriating, but wholly fulfilling. The Clam isn’t just a blog, it’s kind of a close-knit community now.

So, again, thanks and we look forward to living up to the faith you folks have placed in us for whatever reason.

And wombat sex is way funnier. [ed: no it is not.]

– Jim, KT, Brooke, and all the Clamtributors.