Seducing The Muse. …more like a desperate plea.

Did you miss me? Well I missed you too!

Sorry for my absence. I promise I have a good excuse though. Well, it’s mostly a good excuse. I’ve been fighting the forces of evil with a couple of groovy friends, a stoner, and a talking dog. What? What do you mean you don’t believe me? Yeah, well it sounded good in my head.

The truth is rather boring. I’ve been having technical difficulties.

The good news is that, after scrimping and saving, and doing more research than an undergrad studying for his finals, I bought a new laptop. Yay!

The bad news is that, a few hours after finishing the final draft of “What’s Going On“, my wandering rant about race in America, my two month old laptop got the dreaded ‘blue screen’.– NOOO! Not my baby! — Needless to say I was heartbroken. Fortunately, the remedy was relatively painless. Customer service could not have handled the situation better. The woman on the phone was able to remotely diagnose the trouble. I sent the laptop to the Texas care center on the Friday before Labor Day and received it back ten days later.

Yeah. I was surprised too.

The whole reason for the laptop was to encourage me to write more. I’m one of those people that have ideas flying through my head all day long but the moment I sit down in front of the computer… nothing. Then there’s the issue of my grammar, which needs improvement. I live in constant fear of the run-on sentence so I tend to drop commas every few words in the hope that a few land in their proper place.– Even a broken clock is correct twice a day. — The point is that I wanted to start putting thoughts to paper (screen?) and thought a laptop might make it a little easier.

In high school I loved creative writing. Of course, in high school, I had English teachers who gave us direction and deadlines and… Dickens! — Sorry. Then in tech school I got to let my imagination run free. Tech school was essentially an introduction to communications. We covered the basics of radio and television. The idea was to give you enough knowledge that upon graduation you could easily find an interning position or continue your education. My dream was editing for television so that’s where I focused my energy. My specialty was short subjects. I wrote a lot of commercials. My magnum opus was a hidden camera short where I pranked our instructor. The poor guy was the target of much of our humor. He was a good sport though. He never asked us to compromise our creativity, no matter how ill conceived our ideas. Our world would be a much better place if we had more teachers like Ed Gannon.

There’s truth to the old adage, “If you don’t use it you’ll lose it”.

It’s been a long while since I’ve had to engage my imagination on a regular basis. I’ve been so preoccupied with writing big and brilliant that I forgot a few basic rules. Write, write what you know, write some more and, for God’s sake, Keep It Simple Stupid! — KISS for short.

So, for me, the trick is to try to get in the habit of writing again. That’s what this meandering mess is: an exercise to get the juices flowing, an attempt to seduce my elusive muse, to just write whatever pops into my head at this particular moment. — Even if it means boring you all to death. 😉

It’s Been A Rough Week, So…

I thought I’d share a cute video by Steve J Boyle called “I Hit Send, or Modern Meltdown“. It’s a poetry reading about Steven’s first crush, post-coming-out.

Some of the language may not be appropriate for all audiences, but it’s adorably funny.

I figured a little light humor would be good thing after such an unbelievably bad week.

Enjoy!

Interpretation

Remember this song? I maintain that it is not about sailing on the open water at all.

Bear with me…

Take this verse, for instance.

It’s not far to Never Never Land

No reason to pretend
And if the wind is right you can find the joy

Of innocence again

The canvas can do miracles

Just you wait and see

It’s not far to Never Never Land

1- According to Wikipedia…

Neverland (also spelled Never Land or expanded as Never Never Land) is a fictional place featured in the works of J. M. Barrie and those based on them. It is the dwelling place of Peter Pan, Tinker Bell, the Lost Boys and others. Although not all people in Neverland cease to age, its best known resident famously refused to grow up, and it is often used as a metaphor for eternal childhood (and childishness), immortality, and escapism.

The operative word here is “escapism” – as in losing oneself in dreams. …or art.

The canvas can do miracles

2- They don’t use canvas as sails. They use lighter, man made fabrics, like nylon or polyester. They DO however, use canvas for art.

Of course, I could be wrong. 🙂

Language Is A Virus From Outer Space

From William S. Burroughs to Laurie Anderson. …or was that Louie Anderson?

As someone who enjoys the English language, you’d think I’d write a lot more than I do. Don’t get me wrong, I am not short on inspiration. The ideas come, but they come when I’m doing other things. By the time I get to a keyboard, the words are either gone or I’ve elaborated and embellished them to the point where I no longer recognize the original thought.

I love words. I love that the English language has so many ways to express a thought. I keep a shortcut to Dictionary.com on my desktop just so I can find the right word.

About WordPress…

I’ve been doing Tumblr for a while. I originally intended to use it as a writing tool. But tumblr is mostly pictures and politics. While I do plenty of both, I wanted to see if I could do some writing that wasn’t necessarily ranting. Who knows? Maybe I do rant better than write.

But what does all this have to do with Bill Burroughs or either of the Andersons?

See what I mean about losing the topic? When I started this entry, I had planned to show how instrumental popular culture is in exposing me to words and authors. Long before I gave serious thought to William S. Burroughs or the beat movement, I was a fan of Laurie Anderson. Very often I’ll see, read, or hear an artist say something that will lead me to explore other topics more thoroughly.

In the words of Number Five, “Input. More INPUT!”