But There's One Thing I'm Prepared To Do, To Make This Cesspool As Good As New, I'll Get My Guns& Both Of My Friends, We'll Make Some Righteous Amends

--"Cesspool (live)", Blake Babies

just to complete the Blake Babies trifecta...

It takes a lot of vanity to create something. It requires a sense of self-absorption that nearly borders on delusion. Most individuals, when faces with a blank page, a blank canvas, or an appealing slab of clay can only think about how much they would fail at any endeavor requiring them to mold something, to craft something seemingly out of thin air. It takes a real son-of-a-bitch to say, you know what, I can do something with this. I can make something great and grand and glorious all by the virtue of my sheer will.

That's what creating art is all about, imposing your will on the nothingness and hammering out something new. And it isn't something that you do because you're bored or because you think it might be a fun idea. You do it because you have to, because you don't what else you can do but pour something out of yourself into your chosen media.

I see blogs come and go. I see photo sites be put up one month, where the owner says she plans to keep it updated everyday, only to be abandoned a few months later. I see dozens of people who think they are something just because they have a passing fancy of being good at it. And while I would never claim to be the world's biggest authority in what makes an artist and what doesn't, I know being someone considered dedicated to his craft means sticking by it more than a few months, means grinding it out year in and year out. It really pains me to discover a new writer, writing something that I really care about, only to see them wither on the vine and stop writing for the public a year or two later. As Breanne once described it, it's like planting a seed and watching it grow almost to full bloom, but never reaching its full potential before dying off.

I don't know--writing's never been something I've done for fun. Yes, there are a lot of times when I have fun doing it, but, in the end, it comes down to the fact that this is the only way I know of getting ideas, memories, and general meanderings out without going crazy. Sure, I'd like to make some money doing this someday, but I don't really see myself stopping writing here or wherever for anything short of the Apocalypse. Believe me, there's been days where I couldn't think of anything decent to write and I still came onto here because I couldn't sleep otherwise. Having to choose between putting something to paper (or keyboard) that was only half-baked or letting the site lie fallow more than a few days, I've always chosen to post something up. If Breanne is busy, if Toby can't cover it, it always falls to me to make sure that this site keeps chugging along.

And, let's face it, it's not like I have brilliant ideas every day. I wrote a post about Capri Sun just the other week, for chrissakes. But that's just my personality. I always need to be writing something. Back in high school and college it was writing letters. I couldn't get enough of writing huge letters--usually to Jina--and I couldn't wait to get back replies from the twenty or so people I was writing to at the time. With the advent of the internet, it became a daily routine to write e-mails to everyone--long, blasted e-mails that basically served the same purpose as my letters, only with a faster response time. However, it wasn't until I discovered the old 5ilver.net and, of course, sdfsdfwox.org, that I truly found an outlet that could keep up with my production timetable. I've always thought I'd make a decent comic stip writer... if I knew how to draw. Or I've always thought I'd make a decent columnist, if I really cared about to write about any one particular subject outside of myself. But to me the topic I always fall back on is just plain simple throwing out into the world everything about me, guts and all, which, sure, people have written columns about. Yet those columns are almost always filled with humor, which makes them easier to digest, while my "columns" here, I guess, tend to swing towards the more emotional cesspool side of the spectrum. That doesn't make for a series that people could really stomach day after day.

And yet, come September 1st of this year, it will officially be FIVE FUCKING YEARS since I started writing this humble blog. And in about one hundred more posts the three of us will have combined for A FUCKING THOUSAND POSTS on this humble blog. That's not something you do because you're interested in getting read by millions of people. Yes, the few faithful followers we have here are nice, but I've been doing this for five years more to write something than to have somebody else read me. I would have written all the same posts in a real journal if A) my handwriting weren't atrocious and B) if it wasn't so much darn faster to type than it was to handwrite everything. Some have even suggested that I could have just written Word Documents detailing my posts, but I figured since I would be typing them up anyway, there wouldn't be that huge of a difference of posting them up for the whole universe to see. It's not like I'd write any more guardedly if I knew everyone and their dog would be reading this. In the end, I really don't care or mind who stumbles across my site.

I told myself (and I told the girls) that this site is never going to be a friends-only clubhouse. What's the fun in only giving away the stories my friends have already heard and been a part of?

I told myself that this site is never going to be about flashy graphics or writing about topics only to draw traffic. We're not putting on a show for audience as much as we're exhibiting a gallery. I'm not in it for the instantaneous response. I'm kind of glad that the bulk of the people who read here don't bother to comment because that would only lead to me trying to incorporate their ideas and suggestions more. I just want to hang something here permanently (or as permanently as posting to the internet is these day) and not stick around for the review or commentary. I did my job, let the critics fight out what it all means.

Come to think of it, that's a Deist philosophy if I've ever heard one. A person creating a piece of art, getting it to work, and then walking away once the project's finished and before it can fall apart on him? I think I've read that book before.

Truth be told, there are days when all I got going into a post is a line from a song. All I have to work with is a few lyrics and time enough to mold something into shape. I don't know what I'm going to write about. I don't know where it's going to head. But because I know myself and I know what I'm capable of, I put something up that speaks the truth about what I believe and what I remember. Because I know the thought of putting something out there into the world that isn't always prime choice; it allows me to put the table scraps and still call it a nourishing meal.

And, yes, because I have the nerve to think that what I have to say matters, I can look into the nothing... like tonight.. and actually write a good three or four pages that I think are worth reading. I may not be able to write a tune and looking out from behind a camera makes me feel like I'm a child playing with the grownups' toys, but I've always had a fearless heart when it came to writing. I've always felt that there is no assignment or topic somebody could give me that I'd feel apprehensive about writing about.


maybe we'll start a trend

That's what this blog's really about, imposing my sheer will over the fear that what I have to say isn't of any import whatsoever.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers