599 blogs and counting

Well we are counting down quickly to the start of the Gregorian New Year and also nearing the always magic 600 blog mark on the blog. Or is it more properly 600 posts, what the hell is a blog anyway? The whole enchilada or the individual kernels?   Whew. Anyway, apparently I just can't or  won't shut up.  Can I keep it going? We'll see. 

You know, I want to thank those of you who read faithfully and all those steady commenters - Grumpy, NYStan, PWTT, Segue, Ricardo, Mike Reardon, WAP when I'm lucky and the always lovable Millard Fillmore. Thanks again, sincerely. 

I know it's an acquired taste. Some of my friends like John Morris speak of the blog with a sort of Scarsdalian acrid disdain, many have stopped opening it, my friend Bill L. says he can lose an hour of his life if he opens it, which I definitely take as a compliment. Keith looks forward to it as he did the new issue of Mad Magazine when he was a kid, another big compliment.  I appreciate that so many of my conservative friends will check it out and still speak to me or at least respectfully disagree.

Even my Pentecostal minister friend Roger reads it as do several of my more open minded Christian friends.  My international traffic is unfortunately heavily weighted to those who think it's a porn site, owing to my unfortunate titling of an early post Grannies Gone Bad, a monicker that has apparently titillated half of the near asian world.  Hot poodles getting spanked is another one of my titles that should go down in history as another sign of my heretofore unrecognized brilliance.

Anyway, this has been an excellent way for me to communicate, to show off my mad photographic skills and also to get into the habit and discipline of writing nearly every day. I am never short of an opinion, no matter how fundamentally wrongheaded and misguided.  Some people can make music, I spiel.

Many do tell me that they check out the blog for the music, which makes me feel good, there are so many gems out there.  Finding lots of great old blues lately, thankfully I'm off the bad seventies kitsch.  The Carpenters thing just about sent me running to the pharmacy.  Dark and Evil.  Thought about Conway Twitty tonight and passed.

I think its cool that my brother in Spokane reads me, he who bared his soul after his layoff so eloquently and also my brilliant sister in Virginia, who misdirected me into the pinko vermin I eventually became but has not deigned the time yet right to actually contribute to this screed. A unix priestess and real genius who was a pioneer in this computer stuff when most of us were dragging our knuckles on the floors of our caves.  Who helped instill my early love for science fiction and psychedelic rock.  To my sister in Florida who won't read because it's not about her, but has kept my family together through thick and thin, emotionally and financially.  To my great brother in Toronto who we had such a warm Rosh Hoshana with.  

Kerry in Arizona has been my greatest supporter, he wants me to put ads up on the site and go commercial and get real credibility.  I thought I wanted to be discovered by Harpers but started reading it and realized it's too intellectual for me, you have to be able to casually throw around words like epistemological and sesquipedalian like you're George Will. It's just not me.  Some of you already tell me that you read the blog at night with your spouses and a dictionary. By the way, the smart ones aren't the ones with the dexisyllabic  vocabulary, they're the scrabble players who have memorized all 30,00 of the 2 and 3 letter words in the entire dictionary.  

I hope that you all stay well and gainfully employed and that everything gets turned around and we stop this indefinite war and get our civil liberties and our respect for the same back. That Alito, Thomas, Scalia and Roberts decide to give up their day gigs and join the circus.

I thank god for my wonderful wife for sticking with me.  And wish you all the best.  Hopefully we'll get skinnier and smarter and nicer and be free of cavities.  Stay in touch. Tell those that you love that you love them at every opportunity - you don't want to miss a chance.

Peace,