In the Begining, there was Blogging...and it was Good in the Site of The Gawd & The All Mighties....

     At the risk of being blasphemous and possibly being struck by lightening in my tiny, ill-lit, ill-ventilated 386 square foot apartment, I will start out my blog with the above title.* 

     I've written and notarized my will, so I should be good to go. [Insert laugh here]

     I've been planning on doing this for about a year now, but a very recent comment on yet another comment of mine in a FaceBook thread about the very recent demise of a purple rock star, spurred me to take the plunge and start this writing behavior. What the commentor about my comments about Prince who has been much commented on since he did his disappearing act in the elevator of Paisley Park Studios, what was said was, "Your words were beautiful and touched my soul." What I heard in my head was, "You're an incredibly talented wordsmith and you should drop everything and write, write, write about anything, everything, about the breakfast you had this morning, about how you slept the night before, because that will save the World from the imminent self-destruction it is currently faced with...." Ah, the happy little Ego gets a jolt from out of the blue! Hoorah! So here goes....

     I wanna be a writer. I've wanted that for as long as I can remember, probably for as long as I've been a reader, because that quite obviously is the purpose of being a writer, to create something for people to read. And reading, in my not-too-humble opinion, is the Reason For Life. To get lost in a book, to have that vicarious life, to pretend to say those clever things, to imagine behaving in those calm and mature ways, to have those moments of absolute clarity hit us right between the eyes, and to be that slim and beautiful - that's a Dream that can only be achieved by reading. You can finally be more like what you hope you could be like and less like what you actually turned out to be.

     The purpose of this web log is to get that out of my system. What 'that' is, I've no idea. The hope of this blog is to entertain you. Whether or not you like my sense of humor, I've no idea either. But I can't back out now, I really have to keep going forward. I really gotta write something down or I'm a-gonna bust.

     To be a Writer, methinks, is to love failure on such a level that History will think you're nuttier than squirrel poo. To be a Writer means you chase after an utterly useless and rather expensive college degree that probably won't ever help you get a job, but sounds kinda impressive when you're slurring your words over a martini. "I (HIC!) wanna be a wordsmith (HIC!) just like Mister Shakes A Speare (HIC!)" Or any of the other writers, poets, novelists or playwrights that might possibly be impressive enough for one of your listeners to buy you another drink.  In actual fact, to want to be a writer is not at all a way to avoid doing a decent days work, even though my family seems to think that's what it's all about. I've tried over the past five decades I've been on this lovely planet, to help them understand that my bleeding bloody bollocking brain never shuts off, I am always and forever writing something in my head, there is and always has been and always will be a drama or tragedy or comedy or some-such going on behind my eyeballs, even when I'm asleep. But I've never succeeded in expressing it well enough for them to understand. It's always been a failed attempt. So I stopped trying. Quite a while ago, actually, I stopped trying to help them understand.

     What's important is to go forward with this mess that's in my brains and try to pull something out of it that's really worth reading. That's what it's all about. I just wanna write something that's worth reading, that's worth leaving with you, with Humanity, that might help someone, or soothe someone, or make someone smile. That's really all it is. That's what it's about. Simple as that.

    

    And to that end, I am pleased to launch this blog. At the same time I am self-publishing a collection of my short stories, due out in a few weeks. I might also publish some of my poetry. And in time, I might also get that novel that I wrote last year all proofed and ready to publish, too.  Who knows what might happen. All I know is, the point - the purpose - the Meaning of Life changes as we age, and right now, at my age (54) I need to be grateful I've survived up to this point, enjoy what I've earned and learned, and look at future projects not as something that will take decades to get started on, but will be launched very very soon.

     That's my plan and I'm sticking to it. Watch this space! PLEASE!

*Please be advised The Gawd and The All Mighties is a Reggae band from Lodi that I did some public relations work for, once upon a time a long time ago, when I was trying to be a Music Publicist, and has nothing whatsoever to do with a belief system....