A blog? Really?

I've resisted blogging for so long.


First of all, I never like to do anything that "everyone"  is doing -- even if it's a good idea.  The only reason I brush my teeth regularly is that I'm positive most people don't.  I used to ride the bus a lot.  Secondly, I never do anything that will require me to do that thing on a regular basis.  I start a blog; I write something witty;  I tell all my friends, who tell all their friends, etc..  Then what?  I don't need the pressure.


Then there's the question of what one should blog about.   I have to have a theme, a point of view, a 'hook.'


I could blog about food.  I like food.  I know a little bit about cooking.  I know more about eating.  Yeah, that's it.  I guess I could do food reviews.  But then I'd have to go out and eat at a lot of restaurants and nobody wants to read anyone's opinion about a taco place that's changed names six times in the last five years or the local Cocoa's.  So you've got to review the really good restaurants and they can be pricey for an old guy on a fixed income.  Besides, everybody is a freakin' food blogger.  You can't throw an empty coffee cup into the middle of any crowded restaurant without hitting a blogger.  Believe me, I know.  They're everywhere.


I was in a restaurant in Sienna, Italy, where this guy -- young, tech worker/finance guy/Portuguese translator sort, and his wife -- yin to his yang (She might actually be yang to his yin.  Who am I to judge?) -- walked in and sat down at the table next to ours, upon which lay two identically-folded napkins, shaped into two little white, linen tuxedo jackets, lapels and all, in the neckline of which was placed a piece of dry black bow-tie pasta.  Simultaneously and wordlessly, the two stood at their places, stared down at the napkin artistry for a moment, then exchanged wide-eyed, hot, pre-orgasmic looks, smiled, and nodded; the gentleman took a small, flat, compact camera out of his pocket, flashed a picture of the tiny tuxedo before him and sat down with a look of boyish anticipation.


My rabbit was dry (but isn't it always?) and I found the polenta grainy.


I could write movie reviews.  I am actually immensely qualified.  I was an actor who starred in two films -- one written and directed by a non-English-speaking, gay, Korean lunatic and purportedly financed with Korean Mafia money, the other directed by a dentist who's large-breasted, small-brained girlfriend played the ingénue biker chick.  I also appeared in fifty plus television shows, delivering such memorable lines as,

"Will you be having wine this evening?" or


"We have, Your Honor," or


The unforgettable, gripping, "No." 

I co-wrote the story for an episode of 'Star Trek The Next Generation,' as well as a stunningly "B" suspense film and a western script that has been under continuous option since 1984, but has never been made.  I've written educational and industrial films, student films, infomercials and even porn.


Yes, my children, there was a time which we now know as the 'Late Hypocritical Period,' when porn producers and the courts did battle in the fields of reality.  The pornographers pretended their products had value beyond pure titillation and the judges feigned horror at what they beheld, whilst jerking themselves off under their black robes.  And in those times, there were writers and characters and plots.


On the other hand, there are plenty of people, both qualified and not so, who write movie reviews and I think, for the most part, they are read and ignored, as they probably should be.   Here's my advice on movies:

Listen to the people you know who have good taste in movies.  If you're not sure which of your friends have good taste, just ask them, "Do you think 'Titanic' was a good movie?"  If they hesitate at all, pay no attention to anything they have to say.  If they answer in the affirmative, never speak to them again about movies or anything else.  If they make retching noises or spit, find out what movies they like.  For me, this is the cinematographic litmus test. 

I could write a political blog.  I have politics in my background.   In 1977, The San Diego Reader identified me as one of the top twenty political "movers and shakers" in San Diego because of my work with . . . guess!  No, really.  Guess!  I'll give you a moment.

The poor?     Huh? 


Fair housing?     You're killing me. 


Save our Libraries?     Who reads anymore? 


Tree planting?    I don't garden.

 No.  All wrong. 

Nude Beaches.  I was the President of the Nude Beaches Committee in San Diego for six years.  I was the go-to guy in California for nude politicking.  I appeared on radio and television shows and I was asked to judge beauty contests at nudist camps.  You might ask yourself why I chose that particular issue upon which to bestow all my creative political energy.  It's simple really.  

I like naked! 

My political life didn't exactly end there, but it has consumed a lot less time than it did in the day.  I now get political in short bursts.  In 2008, I walked the grim and grimy streets of wrong-side Las Vegas in ninety degree heat for five days on behalf of Barack Obama, and will do it again, if necessary (Please, god, don't let it be necessary!), in 2012.

But still, the political blog might be a good idea.  If I wrote a political blog I might even end up as a talking head on one of the twenty-four hour news channels.  It doesn't seem that hard to get a gig.

CUT TO:

INT. CNN SET - MORNING

An attractive, thirtyish, half-Asian, half-African-American woman, ANTWANET SHANG TSU, sits in the broadcaster's seat and addresses Camera 1.  As she does, JANET WHITTLEY, overweight, middle-aged and dazed, fiddles with her earpiece and checks for stray nose hairs in her reflection in the camera lens.

                                                            GABRIELA
We're talking today with Janet Whitley, who not only writes a political blog called "Death to Politicians," but among other things, was once a political consultant to Clyde Balluga when he campaigned for mayor in Orville, Kentucky.
                                                (then, to Janet's image)
Janet, how do you think the economic crisis in Greece might affect President Obama's chances for re-election?

Still, the political blog thing is just not a good idea for me. I have only one opinion about the nation's problems and, for that matter, the world's problems: 

Republicans suck!

And if I wrote a political blog, my answer to everything would be the same.  I can't think of any problem that can't, with a little clear thinking and analysis, be laid at the foot of some Republican, somewhere. or all of them everywhere.  So, my political blog would get boring.

I could write a travel blog.  In fact, the reason this blog got started is because I wrote a bunch of emails while traveling in Italy recently.  They were generally well-received and I heard repeatedly that I should be blogging.  But, maybe the encouraging, "You know, you really should be blogging,"  is just the latter day equivalent of one of Bertha's party guests telling her, "That was some pot roast.  You really should open a restaurant."   And we know how that turns out:

Gordon Ramsey is trying to talk Bertha off the roof of the quaint Drop on Inn!, where she's got her former dinner guest bent over an air vent, pants down at shoe level, the nozzle of a sausage-making machine anally enshrined, and she's cramming large pieces of cooked, grey beef into the grinder, and screaming:

"How do you like that pot roast now, bitch!?

I could write a travel blog, I guess.  But I'd have to travel a lot and, while I generally enjoy seeing different things in other places and meeting new people, who wants a hobby where you're continuously packing and unpacking your shit and hanging out in airports with Nazi customs officials, humorless (and I know this from experience) TSA rent-a-cops, and 10,000 bored, cranky, jet-lagged, nicotine-deprived, frightened (Nobody gets on a fucking airplane without thinking -- if only for a millisecond -- "This plane could go down.") and I might add, often smelly, people just like yourself?

Consequently, this is a blog about nothing.

Welcome.