Travis Barker acting like the rock star he is for Workday commercial
I ignored the Kardashians until they reached into my life.
On Nov. 6, 2023 I received an e-mail from James Vituscka, U.S. show business reporter for London’s Daily Mail.
“This is random, but have you been contacted by the Kardashian family to sell your website name rockybarker.com?” He wrote from New York.
Why would I be contacted by one of celebrity culture’s most exposed, and sometimes overexposed families? James explained it to me.
“Travis Barker and Kourtney Kardashian named their child Rocky (last name Barker) … would be interesting to find out if they tried getting you to sell,” he wrote. “If they haven’t, they surely will eventually.”
The timing was amazing. Only days before I had closed my website account. I first published it in 1995, very early in the internet. It had long been a major part of my identity. My son David, now software engineer, had taught me how to write HTML. I used it to promote my writing, my books and even my movie.
But now retired, it was clearly dated. I had forgotten how to manage it. It seemed to be time to move on.
Suddenly, James Vituscka revealed rockybarker.com still had value. But who was Travis Barker and Kourtney Kardashian?
Travis Barker is the drummer for the southern California Generation X band Blink 182. I knew the band, but I didn’t know Travis from Adam. We are not related, at least not closely.
Kourtney Kardashian is the oldest of the three Kardashian sisters. She became famous after her father Robert defended O.J. Simpson as an attorney, after her sister Kim’s sex tape went viral and when her mother Kris started the reality series; Keeping Up with the Kardashians. The birth of their son, Rocky Barker, got my attention along with their millions of fans.
Arguably the Kardashians have created more wealth from promoting their own lives than any other family. They have successful clothing lines, fragrances, and endorsements. They are reportedly paid between $75,000 and $300,000 per post on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, CBC reported in 2016.
Needless to say I quickly reversed my decision to kill my web page and got serious again. I republished on Wix, which was much easier than my old web server. And I hired a professional to build my web page. I started up my blog, Letters of the West, the same name as my columns in the Idaho Falls Post Register and the Idaho Statesman.
So I owe Travis, Kourtney and their son a debt of gratitude for getting me back into my regular column writing.
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