Egods, people. What do you want
for a Welcome?
So, Hello.
Wait . . . You deserve more, just for showing up. In response, there’s this. An “About” page:
About
Make that . . . collection of loose paragraphs. About me. Now there’s a topic for discussion among the weak and delirious. I (a pronoun you’ll become accustomed to) consider myself a grateful, practicing OCD neurotic. This website is a reflection of that description. Let’s start with me.
I’m somewhere around 75-years-old. That would put me alive while Franklin Delano Roosevelt was President, the end of World War II was heating up, and bebop was establishing a secure foothold in music dominated by big band jazz. In this sense, my age is a source of pride, a category less populated than I’d like to think. First the bad news. It will stick with you during the short span of the good that follows.
In the service, hey, there’s a euphemism, during the four years I spent in the Coast Guard starting in 1968, my personality, hovering close to charmless boyishness, became outgoing, though not bordering on the obnoxious, through the use of the miracle drug known as alcohol. And, I began smoking, And I found my way out of virginity. And I learned and honed my skill in the social necessity of swearing. Swearing was close to a language in itself. Easier than Spanish with complete fluency being achieved in a matter of months. The “f” word rolled out of my mouth as easily as “Hey, what’s up?”
Following my discharge in 1972, I started down the long road of poverty, which, with the help of that miracle drug, has led me to the high tech hovel I presently call home: a rental duplex built in 1947. It’s scattered with two-pronged wall sockets, thin Venetian blinds bent into unusable patterns, tiles that are loose enough to kick across the floor, and a wiring system that, if reported, would condemn the structure. No one reports it. I live on a small pension and social security that allow me expendable income to buy items which only an eccentric could appreciate. Examples: my middle eastern darbuka drum, a set of wood working tools that cost more that the items I make, subscriptions to computer services only a geeky neurotic would enjoy, cooking implements for dishes never cooked — an egg poacher, a bundt pan, an expensive juicer (I rarely buy fruit), a doughnut-maker, and a deluxe crock pot for nice cuts of beef I only see in ads. I didn’t mention my collection of 3500 DVD movies, mostly copied (disclaimer: for personal use), half of which I haven’t seen and probably never will.
No church. My spiritual enlightenment comes from dog-eared copies of Alan Watts books on Zen, that and sitting on my patio watching the huge tree pushing into the roof of my kitchen as I contemplate how long it will be before the property is zoned commercial, the house bulldozed, and a Chick Filet appears. That would soon close to be replaced by an exotic bead shop. This kind of thinking keeps my mind sharp.
Friends. It seems that at a mature age most settle into a state of resolution, not so much decay as developmental ossification. I used to say that one becomes old on seeing himself unchanged for what remains of life. This precludes social expansion, unaccustomed activities, most learning, and thoughts out of the comfort zone. Result? A zombie-esque stability. It’s difficult to communicate with such people. The “Hey, man, dig this,” to slip into an ancient colloquialism, that made for excitement much of my life is no where to be heard, a relic phrase out of what now seems a golden age. Gone, too, from most minds, is any sense of mystery. Too troublesome to explore ill-fitting ideas into a life that has retired from itself. So, friendships can only be found that were established long ago, providing these folks are still living and they care to know you now, a long shot at best.
Let’s see, that covers bad habits, poverty, and a mostly solemn path. So, now the good. My “good” is tempered by my skewed definition. Take this website, for example. Some would think it nice, a worthy effort. In effect, the whole place is an ego trip. If anyone finds an area of interest here, believe me, that’s further proof of coincidence. This website is my version of the Voyager gold record. Smitten with obscure movie clips, out-there music tracks, family quotations that you’d have to be there to appreciate, photos I’ve taken to show off what one can do with a modest eye, no models, no locations, and low end equipment. Then there’s the list of noir movies I’ve seen, surely a crowd-pleasing addition to the tens of thousands of lists others have posted on line. And the jewel in the crown of good-wannbe-ness, the writing posts. Compiled over years of inspirations committed to articles that wore down into sentence scraps at about fifteen hundred words. What am I saying? This place is nothing more than an attempt to convince me of my self-worth.
And there you have it. My “About” page. Hope you enjoyed the experience.
