Have a Happy New Year!
Written on December 27, 2011 at 9PM, via iPhone —
Well, I guess it is that time of year again when we all write our 2011 yearly recaps.
Let me just say for the record, that 2011 ROCKED MY SOCKS OFF!
I know some of you downers are going to write blog posts complaining about your year. “Boo-hoo, my year sucked.” “My poor hubby lost his job.” “My cat died.” “My father is in a coma.” Hey, if you want to be negative, that’s your problem. It doesn’t mean that I have to hang around letting your sour grapes pucker my mouth.
2011 was the greatest year of my life.
Of course, even the best of years has its ups and downs.
After my three novels were published in February 2011, sudden fame and fortune proved to be overwhelming. In my post “Do You Really Love Me?” I wrote —
“People who previously ignored me, or unfollowed me on Twitter, suddenly wanted to be my best friend. Do they like me for being awesome, or am I only awesome because I am so successful? Being so successful is confusing! Eh, why let it bother me? As long as they love me, right? And I love being me because I am so successful! That’s what is MOST important!”
In March 2011, I explored the sudden explosion of good fortune in my love life, in my very popular post, “24 Hour F*cking” —
“F*cking three women a night, while the ultimate male fantasy, is actually — in reality — quite tiring. If I knew this, I would have spent more time in the gym. After f*cking the second woman, I just wanted to relax and watch the Daily Show. But I didn’t want any hurt feelings, so I went down on the third woman to give her an orgasm. The next day, I slept until noon.”
I got to travel a lot in 2011, and that was very exciting. In April 2011, I did a month-long tour of the Middle East, thanks to the aftermath of a small little blog post I wrote on March 15, 2011. As we all know, it is the little posts that garner the most attention. But never in a million years did I expect my quickly written post, “The Hot Muslim Chick,” to become such an international hit, with 26 million page views —
“I’ll have a shwarma sandwich,” I told the owner of the Flushing, Queens cafe. A large sign was on the wall that read “Halal” in bright red letters. Under the sign sat a woman with bright green eyes. She looked up from her falafel plate, directly at me, and I was immediately smitten.”
Not only was this post a literary success, and got my name in the New York Times, but the political repercussions were astounding. I wrote about what happened in a follow-up post two weeks later, titled, “Blogging IS a Radical Act!” —
“How influential was my blog post? You all know the answer. Because of my storytelling in that post, Al-Qaeda decided to change their goals, deciding that terrorism was evil and that they would rather help orphaned pets be adopted by good homes across the Middle East. The Arab world and Israel finally accepted peace, as the President of Egypt said, “because we were all swayed by the passions of the two lovers in Neilochka’s blog post.” Even the Pope said the story was his inspiration for his world-famous “Easter Sermon” in which he stated, “Gay marriage is OK with me. And you know what, I’ll admit it too — I’m gay.”
Of course, 2011 had a few sad moments — well not really sad, only slightly more bittersweet than some of the other events. My mother decided to stay in Boca Raton rather than returning to New York in the spring of 2011. While I knew I would miss her gentle smile if she stayed in Florida, I supported her political aspirations. After all, she was always there for me. I wrote about this heart-warming mother-son moment in my April 2011 post, “Madam Governor” —
“There were tears in my eyes during the swearing-in ceremony of my mother as the next governor of the State of Florida. It was so delightful that all of her friends from Century Village came to the post inaugural ball, where they were entertained by Tom Jones — not the imitation Tom Jones that performed for them in 2010 — but the actual Tom Jones, direct from Las Vegas!  Oh yeah, she also moved the State Capitol to Fort Lauderdale, correctly arguing that “what kind of New York Jew wants to live in a goyish place like Tallahasse? Let’s just move the freakin’ capitol to South Florida!”
Was I just lucky in 2011? I’m sure that is what many of you think. But I don’t believe in luck. I believe my success this year was due to the vision board that I created before the year began. I revealed many of my “success” secrets in my May 2011 post, “Why I am So Awesome” —
“At the end of last year, in December, I wrote a post inspired by a Reverb prompt in which I was asked to come up with one word to associate with the upcoming year. I chose the word,”Money.”
And “Money” it has been… all year.
After monetizing my blog, I realized that I was a complete idiot for not having advertising on my blog for the previous six years. I was under the impression that ad networks paid very little, but this isn’t the case when your blog is as popular as mine. I don’t like to brag, and I know that talking about money makes some people jealous, but let’s just say, depending on my taxes this year, we are talking about my blog making somewhere in the $3,000,000 range. Not bad for one year’s work, right? And this is not including all the free flights, conferences, meals, and theater tickets that come with the territory of being such an influential player.
All because of my vision board and my ONE WORD.”
I went to several blogging conferences, and spoke at most of them. I was on the fence about going to BlogHer again this year, and I probably would have NOT gone if Elisa and Lisa didn’t ask me to be the final keynote speaker, offering me a $500,000 speaking fee.
I wrote about my experiences at this year’s BlogHer in August 2011 in “BlogHer ’11” —
“Despite my initial reservations, I’m glad I went to BlogHer in San Diego. I got to see so many old friends. San Diego is perfect, the Mexican food is great, and I f*cked so many women this weekend, I hardly remember who was who. Please — f I f*cked you, but never gave you a “I F*cked Neil from Citizen of the Month at BlogHer,” t-shirt, please DM me on Twitter, and I will have one of my assistants mail you one ASAP).”
2011 was also the year where Sophia and I finally resolved most of our issues. In September 2011, she remarried, and I attended her wedding, which I wrote about in one of my most touching posts, “Sophia Wears White, Again.”
“Sophia’s new husband is a nice young Jewish man named Marc Zuckerberg, who runs the social media company, Facebook. I was her maid of honor at the wedding, and got to wear my red dress again. Not only is Sophia now completely financially secure, but her new husband thought my red dress was so cool, he gave me a 25% share of his company for being “such a joker.”
I was impressed to learn more about his company, Facebook. Can you believe that he has been reading my status updates for years, not even knowing who I was, calling them “hilarious,” and the best updates EVER written!
My new book, “Neil Kramer’s Facebook Updates,” will be published by Random House next year. I probably shouldn’t be telling you this but I met with Tom Cruise this afternoon for lunch. He is very interested in playing me in the movie version.
I am such a lucky guy, aren’t I?”
Of course, no year is complete on Citizen of the Month without the big holiday concert, in which I give back to all the “little guys” in the blogging community. This year, the concert was all sparkly and new, with a fabulous new name, “The Sixth Annual XBOX KINECT Blogger Christmalhijrahanukwanzaakah Online Holiday Concert!” It was the most profitable concert yet, thanks to me charging $1000 for each concert submission and a $25 virtual ticket price to view the concert ($15 dollars for live-streaming via the IPhone).
Thanks to XBox Kinect, I was proud of all the money I collected for charity, with 10% of all of the profits from the concert going to one of my favorite political causes, “The Re-elect Elaine Kramer for Florida Governor in 2015”
Can you see why 2011 was so awesome? I wish it could never end!
I want to thank everyone who make 2011 such a great year for me, including the losers who are still kvetching about “their bad year.” My advice to you: learn to get over yourselves!
Maggie Dammit, I miss you. Come back to blogging! Tanis, you rock! I guess my blog did become more popular than yours after all. Ha Ha! Thanks for not taking it personally. Kate, loved the pirate sequel. I’m sorry your agent dropped you when she decided to become my agent instead. Still love ya, babe!
I want to thank all my readers. I hope it was OK that I was too busy all year to read any of your blogs this year, but let’s be honest — does it really matter?
Special thanks to all the women I f*cked this year. I may not remember your names, but you will always be in my heart.
Tomorrow night, I’m flying down to Florida by private jet with Marc and Sophia Lansky Kramer Zuckerberg for a mega New Year’s party at the new Governor’s mansion in Fort Lauderdale, dubbed the Kosher Camelot. I won’t be online much until 2012.
I can’t believe how much time I spent on Twitter in 2010. I was such a loser back then. Like they say, what a difference a year makes!
Happy New Year!  I love you, all!
