So... welcome to my blog!
Some of you may be asking: who cares?
You know what? So am I.
There are a lot of people out there who come at you daily with their “I thinks…” and their “You should care abouts…” and I have never been one to assume that my thoughts mean anything to anyone or my opinions should be adopted by another. Until recently I assumed that the blog was born out of the self-importance that comes from the shrinking of our world, the just because I can tell you how I feel, I should. Blog: Bellowing Loudly On Garbage. I have been unfair—at least for the most part.
There are some very helpful blogs out there focused on various trades, several that have helped me compile my short stories into a collection to self-publish, and many others that have helped me stay self-sufficient in the publishing process. These blogs are a bit easier to wrap my head around; they are by knowledgeable people with the urge to help their fellow (fill in tradesmen) fulfill their goals and dreams. On the other end there are the keeping up with (fill in obnoxious celebrity) blogs that make me want to lock myself in a dark closet, go fetal, and await whosever’s apocalypse is coming (I’m betting on the Pastafarian). I’ll certainly have more to say about celebrities and the role they play in the destruction of the human race later, but needless to say, from hyperbole dripping off the beginning of this sentence, I got some issues about our star worshipping tendencies. There are two blogs planted roughly in the middle of these two extremes that have helped me see both the usefulness and value in the “here’s what I’m thinking” format.
The first is more of a (depending on who you talk to) pseudo-blog that was created out of the intelligent design debate. A wondrously complex satire on religion in schools, Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is a brilliant piece of work. Irritated by the Kansas School Board’s attempt to included the teaching of intelligent design in schools, Bobby Henderson, a concerned citizen, sent this letter to the board. The long and short of it: he had no problem with the teaching of intelligent design, but what he did object to is the exclusion of other intelligent design beliefs not based on the Christian mythos. He claimed that he “and many others around the world are of the strong belief that the universe was created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster.” And from that letter, which also drew a correlation between global warming and the decreasing number of pirates in the world, a new, very clever blog was born charting the successes of this new religion and the hate mail they received. It was a brave stand and shows clearly that someone’s “here’s what I’m thinking” can make a difference. Check the site out; it’s pretty amazing.
The other blog is a recent find and one by a friend I have gone far too long without seeing. The blog is called ActTortured (brilliant) by the really, really, really talented Rob Pedini and is about one actor’s experiences trying to be the colorful stand-out fish in an ocean of gigantic fish with big, sharp, pointy teeth. He lays down the often difficult truths about an artist’s life in NYC, blemishes and all, and does so with wit, charm, and sometimes a sledgehammer. He often recounts painful, personal realities, but does so under a microscope, looking for the universal truths in his experiences. Granted a lot of those explorations wind up where most of our own do, with him saying, “Fuck it”, but he’s a good man trying to stay good while struggling through a rough and tumble city. One of the other reasons I like it so much is that we are both big nerds for Twin Peaks, Black Adder, MST3K, Looney Tunes, and countless other bits of entertainment genius past and present; we are certainly brothers in the best of pop-culture and it looks like we’ve both developed a hatred for the reality TV monster that is eating out our brains. It’s a good read written very well.
I’m not going to try and change anyone’s mind and ask you WWFSMD and I’m not going to share too many insights on my family and the inner workings of my psyche, but I will share things that I love, things that I loathe, and things that get my dander up. I’m not sure how often I’ll throw these insights atcha, but I’m going to shoot for once a week.
Oh, yeah… nearly forgot… I wrote a book: A Sudden Dominance of Shadows—a collection of short stories written by yours truly. I’ll talk about it more in my next blog post.
