tuesday january 5, 2010

It's the middle of winter and the start of a new decade and i've decided to start writing a blog. why now, why here and what is this blog going to be about you ask.
Well, my understanding of what a blog is is as foggy as everyone else. It is an amorphous blob of writing that people with too much time on their hands do, covering everything and nothing at the same time while personalizing it until it resembles an op-ed piece for the internet masses. For me, blogging is going to be my effort to squeeze the creative juices out of the orange that is my brain/imagination. I don't know what I'll be writing from one day to the next, nor when I will be writing it, but I do know that it will cover the musings, the misgivings, and the wanderings of a forty something male living in a new city (Portland, Oregon) with an ear to the ground and an eye on the approaching traffic. It will only be slightly edited, opinionated, and rationalized in my own unique way.
When Sam and I were heading north on I-5 from the California and Midwest holidaze we had just finished, it occurred to me that I needed an outlet, a release valve from which could escape the thoughts in my head. I wanted a place with no boundaries, no rules, no judgments, a place where I could scribble outside of the lines in a free forum that might eventually lead me into bigger and better places where my journaling would be exposed to the masses. Basically, I'm going to expose myself, and if you are reading this now, consider yourself tainted. Of course, being unemployed will definitely help my cause as my day truly consists of little more than walking/pooping Abby the dog and finding constructive days to kill time until cocktail hour arrives, or until Sam gets home and i put on an apron and become chef boy-r-geek.
Idle hands are the devil's to use in creative ways, be it painting, writing, working on new recipes, woodworking, playing music or just causing trouble. Most if not all of history's influential left brainers (those we call artists) were devilishly influenced in some ways as very few of them had actual real jobs. What did Hemingway do before he got published? Miles before the trumpet? Batali, Bourdain, Ducasse or Adria?
What I'm getting at is that nobody remembers the mundane, the day to day, or the ordinary...what they remember and what is the most fun, is when artists go out on a limb and perform like no one is watching, dance like there is no audience, sing in the shower when nobody is home and create our own masterpieces.
That is why we paint, write, carve, sing, play...
and that is why I want to expose myself to the world.