Yawning to Byzantium

Yawn.

Blah-blah-blah. Blogosphere.

It's time to put this lame attempt at blogging on hiatus. I guess I'm not sure what to get out of this or how to go about getting something out of it -- or helping any of you get anything out of it.

When an old buddy/former coworker pointed me to the blogging experiment he'd started with similar misgivings about its direction and ultimate purpose, I thought I'd join in. But, why?

I carved out a few entries over time. But, I never even told anybody I was doing it, for a while. So, any readers would've been passers-by who happened upon it via that little random NEXT BLOG button at the top of your screen.

There's an aura of faux-anonymity instituted by an unspoken rule that becomes ludicrous when combined with the fact that the only readers I eventually conjured up are people that know me (and, for the most part, are people I told to come and read this): the guy that brought me here, a handful of former coworkers, an old army buddy I found online, and a childhood pal. Oh, and the people that they told about it.

Here's the deal. I think, in a great many instances, diaries/journals/blogs tend to default to someone seizing an outlet for their disappointments, anger, and dislikes. Then, years down the road, what is documented for posterity is merely negativity and ranting. Surely, that doesn't really reflect any given person. I mean, there's more to their lives than their rants, right?

But, maybe that's what some people need. That process of thought ought to be therapeutic on some level. In an online journal, though? Doesn't feel right.

Some people blog to essentially create an autobiography. That's okay for them. But, it's not what I wanna do. I can’t see that there's anything gained from doing that here.

I think celebrities and pundits blog to keep themselves connected to their "fans" and their constituency. That seems to provide a purpose.

Also, some blogs I've read serve as daily devotionals or a centralized site for a given group to disseminate information to their members. Again, purposeful.

Then, there are the wacky, zany bloggers who do it for entertainment. They are the SNAKES ON A BLOG folk who get silly and are good at it.

And we can't discount the other side of the blogging experience: the readers. They have a variety of different types, too. Some read for entertainment, or to keep track of a friend. Some will read just speculate on what they make of it in their own minds.

Whatever the case, this blog has sort of expired of its own lack of fuel.

I don't wanna delete it, though. There may be a time when I find an answer to those questions about what to do with this blog, about who the audience is or should be, about what it can do for me, if anything. So, I may wanna come back to it someday and revive it without having lost the entries that have gone before.

Hollywood & Hope for Humanity

I was standing on Hollywood Boulevard for a few hours.

A buddy of mine moved to California, and I helped drive the truckload of his life out west. As the movers unloaded my friend's rental truck and hauled his possessions upstairs to his new apartment, it was my duty to guard the truck, or more specifically, its contents.

To my right was Little Armenia, and to my left was the liveliness of H&H (Hollywood & Highland), the Walk of Fame, Graumann's, and the Capitol Records Tower poking its spire over the other buildings. The famed Hollywood sign floated overhead somewhere, overseeing the proceedings. But, I didn't have line-of-sight for it unless I was on the nicely appointed roof deck of my friend's apartment building.

Sometimes, the traffic light that served as the gateway to Little Armenia would back up traffic where cars were stopped in front of me. Occasionally, I got the sense that some of these passers-by were wondering why some chubby guy was standing in front of a building reading a book in the relentless and atypical heat. Perhaps the motorists magically discerned I was a Texan and glared at me accusatorily for bringing the heat with me.

"Hey!" Someone was yelling. "Do you need some food?"

Oh, great. Heckle the fatboy. Geez.

But, when I looked up, I saw that the woman shouting was doing so at the two pedestrians that had just passed me. The pedestrians were dirty and carrying lots of their belongings (at least I guess the belongings were theirs and not my friend's, as I'm uncertain since I was reading) in a manner that suggested they were down on their luck and possibly homeless.

Shouting Woman hopped out of the passenger side of the banged-up, '70s model truck and pulled two large bags from a pile of similar bags in the truck bed. She tossed them to the pedestrians. "There's lots of really good food in here. Enjoy it. And have a good day."

Well, I don't really think she said "have a good day" as she climbed back into the truck. Perhaps it was "keep up the fight." Whatever the phrase, it intimated her understanding of what they were going through and encouraged them to remain strong in their life-journey and know that there were people that cared about them.

Shouting Woman and the man driving the food-dispensing truck both appeared to be people who were dealing with difficult times, much like the two pedestrians. They could've easily been the two recipients of that scenario on some previous day. (And I like to think that's the case, because it belies some compassionate cycle of life.) I presumed that Shouting Woman and her cohort were probably volunteering to distribute the large food bags via some shelter or civic program that had likely helped them, too.

The whole scene left me infused with hope for humanity. People helping people is a good thing. People trying to assert their own sense of superiority by subjugating people that are unlike them with legislated bigotry or social bullying is a bad thing.

I'm just saying.

Ten Things I Believe

1.) I believe the life of a professional musician seems romantic and exciting. But, I believe I could never do that -- even if I was talented enough.

2.) I believe German chocolate ice cream is superior to all other flavors of ice cream.

3.) I believe in make-believe.

4.) I believe attending an opening day major league baseball game is thrilling and exciting, provided you are there with good friends -- even if you don't like baseball.

5.) I believe that bad people exist, and they don't always get what they deserve. Good people don't always get what they deserve, either.

6.) I believe solitude is a necessary function of soul and sanity. But, solitude should be a result of intent rather than circumstance.

7.) I believe in the Holy Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

8.) I believe constitutionalized discrimination desecrates the foundations of freedom in the manner that slavery dehumanized black people and the inability to vote marginalized the worth of women.

9.) I believe you have the capacity to realize your dreams, but I fear you will never truly believe it.

10.) I believe most people will never understand that Springsteen's Nebraska is an aural, poetic, spiritual masterpiece.