Nadolig Llawen!!

As I hit the bed, I realised that I was a little thirsty but found myself too weary to leave the room and look for a vending machine. What to do? Well there’s always the bathroom sink.. water is water right? I gulped down three little plastic cups of mediocre tasting water but to my beleaguered body it was as good as the finest mineral juice!

I woke up feeling a little odd at around 9am and decided to skip the much vaunted free breakfast on offer and instead get the shuttle to the airport and wait. I wasn’t about to miss another flight! I made it to the terminal, checked in and settled down to a mere hours wait until boarding commenced. This was it! Finally I was going to get out of this frozen wasteland and be on my way. The rest of the departure lounge was suitably crowded and all was serene… and then it my stomach started to gurgle and lurch very alarmingly. The grumbling was loud enough to attract the attention of the guy sitting next to me who was reading a paper. I gave him my best humble grin and tightly folded my arms across my stomach in the hope of stemming some of the noise.
Within a few minutes of this self squeezing I began to have the irresistible urge to break wind. Hmmm.. never good to let rip when surrounded within a reasonably enclosed space methinks, – so I thought that I may employ some extra muscular control and sort of ease a tiny bit of pressure out without drawing any more attention.
So I set my jaw, narrowed my eyes and pushed as subtly as I could. Just a little bit, I thought, just enough to ease the pressure, no one will know, it’ll be quiet, unobtrusive.
Unfortunately for me, it was anything but!
You have no idea of the feeling of total horror that overcame me as the mere hint of a push produced an uncomfortably familiar wet, warm feeling in the seat of my jeans. I quickly realised that the flow was not stopping despite my rapid squirming to try to halt the spread of the warmth. I think I must have gone very pale indeed as utter despair ran into the departure lounge and slapped me squarely on the face.

For a few seconds all I could do was sit very still indeed and try to assimilate what had just happened. I tried very hard to will myself into believing that it was all some terrible hallucination, a cruel trick played upon my exhausted senses – but no, for soon after, a growing aroma joined the party of sensation and I knew I was well and truly doomed.
The man next to me, started to sniff the air and also his paper before settling his puzzled gaze upon my sad and now perfectly motionless figure.
All I could do was smile rather pathetically at him. I couldn’t even find any words to say in my defence.
By now, I was pretty certain without looking that I had extra material at least as far as the backs of my thighs. How was I going to deal with this? I carefully extricated myself from my jacket and as deftly as I could, tied it around my waist without even getting up out of the chair.

Every thought screamed for flight as far away as possible but I was quite certain that any sudden movement would unleash further fury, so like a mannequin that has just discovered life, I awkwardly and very slowly rose to my feet and half limped and half stumbled out of the departure lounge for the nearest toilet. Now at this point, you’d think that fate had done enough to me but no, for there was better to come as I discovered the first set of bathrooms were OUT OF ORDER and sealed off! So there I am in the middle of hordes of people, one had pressed against my backside, the other gesticulating wildly as if to help my eyes find another restroom sign. I must have looked insane! I staggered very slowly to the next set of toilets which were certainly not as close as they had seemed only to discover a large and long line of men waiting to avail themselves of the same facilities due to the others being out of use.

My heart which was already pretty low, sank to the ground with an almost audible thud. I had no choice but to join the line and wait, all the while smiling weakly as the foul stench that pervaded my space wafted gently toward anyone within a few inches of me. It was at this point that I discovered that there is no limit to how embarrassed one can feel. If someone could have opened up a bottomless pit below me, I would have happily jumped into it.
After what seemed an eternity later.. I finally had a cubicle where I could inspect the damage and evacuate whatever else was now attempting to bypass the little bodily control I had left. I must have sounded like I was dying because at least two patrons knocked on the door to ask if everything was okay. I wanted to tell them that, no, things were bloody well not okay but all I could muster was some pathetic groaning and gurgling. You have no idea, dear reader of the foulness of the interior of that cubicle by the time I had safely divested myself of my problem.. safe to say that if I had to be the janitor of that establishment, I would have set fire to the whole thing and walked away.
I sat there for a moment, still taking stock of the situation. My underwear was a complete disaster area and my jeans had acquired an unwelcome palomino pattern from the seat of the pants to the mid section of the back of the thigh area. Under better circumstances, one would suppose that a fresh pair of pants would be n order but no, these were not better circumstances and I had stupidly sent my methods of purchase to Holland.. so what to do?
Several rounds of toilet paper later, some discarded and tarnished underwear cast aside, I emptied the deodorant I still had onto every last stitch of clothing I wore and sheepishly left the cubicle trying hard to avoid the stares of the other occupants. I made my way gingerly back to the departure lounge only to find the flight already boarding. I got into line all the time aware that I now smelled like a perfumed turd.
As I reached the gate, one of the crew informed me cheerily that I had been upgraded to First Class to make up for the hassle they had put me through. If only they knew!
Now, as I said before, First Class is great, more room etc etc.. but when you are wearing freshly manured clothes and smell of poop and perfume in equal measure, it is the worst place to find oneself. I found myself sat next to a nice but very posh Swiss Doctor who could barely hide his displeasure at finding himself sat next to my stinky ass for 9 long hours.

It was not a journey I shall ever forget as I stayed awake & very still in my seat the entire flight for fear of a repeat performance from my bowels.
It was with great relief that I finally got to Schipol airport but that relief was short lived indeed as I was then informed that due to my very late arrival, they had no seat on any of the next 5 outgoing flights to Cardiff and I would have to wait until there was one. So wait I did, for another 6 hours, slowly stewing in my decay and wondering of this was what hell must be like!
The short journey to Cardiff was in a plane only big enough to carry 16 people, it was the final nail in the coffin of my utter humiliation as the rest of the passengers coughed and made barely hidden gagging sounds the whole way there. I could have beaten the Pope for a bit of ground kissing when I got to Welsh soil once more.
My father, who gamely waited for me the entire time, took one look at me, and shook his head. All I could do was smile very weakly and ask to go to the nearest clothing store.

There ends one of my many tales of travel woe.. worse things have happened to me but for utter shame that one stands atop the rest!

Having had some experience on the periphery of edges of Hollywood(film school and  multiple unpurchased spec scripts, followed by writers block and an unvarnished hatred for all people incapable of speaking directly), I was asked to comment on

Why has Hollywood not produced any original product lately?

The answer is actually quite simple really:  It’s a business.  Profit must be made in order to ensure the ability to make new product.  All business decisions that come out of the American motion picture industry(hereafter known as Hollywood, even though its technically inaccurate) can all be attributed to profit demands—even (gasp!) independent filmmakers.  For those of you who know the business, this answer is self-evident and needs no clarification.  For the rest of you, I’ll attempt to clarify how things work.

There are perhaps 200-300 motion pictures made for distribution in a given year in the US–usually less.  Most production companies plan to make 2-4 big budget or “tent-pole” movies and 2-4 smaller or “Oscar-bait” movies.  There are basically 3 paths by which an idea can get presented to a production company for consideration to be one of these productions (this is called a pitch).

1. 1.       As an original idea:  This would come from somewhere external to the production company.

             a.       Spec script.  You need an agent to go this route.  If based on an original idea, a writer will obtain an agent to represent him, who will then attempt to get a reader that represents either a script agency, a Hollywood player, or production company to read it. 

An understanding of the 3 act structure applies here.  In the first act, the central question or conflict is described and whatever players or forces that will be contesting resolution are introduced.   A first act can last anywhere between 1 and 22 pages. Industry standard hovers around 17 pages.   Most readers have to process tens of thousands of scripts yearly.  If your first act sucks, they will read no further.   Granted, if your first act is good they probably won’t read any further either, but maybe they’ll send it to legal to see if they can option your idea before they re-write the life out of it.

              b.      Treatment.   This is a basically a brief version of the story you want to produce.  It is usually one to four pages, double spaced, and it may or may not contain actual script.  A successful treatment can either tell the full story or the first act.  This often serves as a substitute for those individuals who don’t have time to read the whole first act in a sitting.  In fact, most agents won’t accept unsolicited scripts at all. Very few will accept unsolicited treatments.   Occasionally, a treatment is written at a studios request.  This usually happens if you have worked for them before and they want to see how you would approach an idea that either they have or that you have discussed with someone in the company.  If they like it, often this will generate a contract to write a spec script based on the ideas presented therein and whatever notes they have.

1. As an option.  Obtain permission to base a production on someone else’s original idea or work.  This would usually apply to books, plays, TV shows, and comic books.  Options are done by production companies.  An individual can do this, but rarely does that result in a successful production.
2. As a sequel.  A project has done so well for the production company that they want to attempt to duplicate it and its results.  Production companies often do unofficial sequels to other company’s successful products.   Witness the plethora of children orientated fantasy movies after the success of Harry Potter as just one example.

Production companies like sequels the best.  These represent the least risk. They know that they are guaranteed to get seventy-five percent of the return that the original made.  So, they tend to give the film-makers seventy-five percent of the production cost to make the sequel.   One way to save production costs on a sequel is to double up: this basically means they shoot both sequels (to make a trilogy) at the same time.  This ends up saving the company so much money that production quality doesn’t have to be compromised by very much, as long as the original movie is strong enough to have the investors to cover the production cost.   However, unless these movies do phenomenally well, most of the production cost won’t be regained until the release of the third movie, which, with few exceptions, is traditionally the least profitable.  If this is a new product, even if it’s written as a trilogy, it only gets “green lit” after the first one does well.

Remember, the sequel category also includes any “clone products” of their competitors.  Sometimes, if a product they have is particularly hot, they will flood the market with clones of their own products—each clone having less investment to match its corresponding profit projections.   Obviously, this kind of marketing plan ends with market saturation and an inferior product.   Then, the product gets shelved for a cooling off period.   Witness the excess of the Star Trek (and the assorted product clones)product in the nineties .   There was a good 5 year period where no one wanted to touch a big budget space opera.

Optioning another already successful product for film production allows the production company a good chance of translating that success into more money.  It guarantees a certain amount of ticket sales.  Also, assuming the product itself is still out there, it serves as a built-in advertising tool.  All of these seem to guarantee to a production company a high degree of profit with a low degree of risk.  The risk here is significantly higher though.  There is a strong possibility that the producers and the filmmakers, in the attempt to clone the products success, are unable to translate or duplicate the essence of what made the original product a success.  

Using an original idea is the least favorite avenue for a film production company to take.  There are many reasons for this.  Original ideas usually come from young and untried sources.   A movie studio would rather invest money in a bad script from a known scriptwriter than a good script from an unknown. Why? Because the name recognition guarantees a certain amount of investor backing and tickets sold.   Also, truly new ideas are notoriously difficult to conceptualize, let alone evaluate as either good or bad.  Many ideas that seemed brilliant on paper turn out to be garbage when you attempt to translate them to film.  

Filming from an original idea not only has its own weaknesses, it has all the weaknesses of the other categories as well.  If you have a brilliant original screenplay,  and if it will actually translate to screen as well as it reads on paper, and if you  find a production crew that will be able to capture that and do the work of putting it on screen, then you might succeed in making a good movie.   But here’s the thing, having done all that, if you truly have an original idea, you now have to educate (advertise) the public to embrace it.   The truth is, it doesn’t matter how good the product is.  What matter are the ticket sales.  Negligible tickets sales means a loss of investment.  Many a career in Hollywood has been ruined by a great movie that no one saw.

Because of their built-in risks, for an original concept or story to be produced, it needs a high level champion.  This could either be a writer who has written several successful screenplays, an actor with good contacts and a high ticket value, a director who has a consistent track record with original material, or a producer that is willing to gamble on it.  

You would think that when our economy enters hard times then smaller budgeted original films would be produced more often. The opposite is true.  When there is less money going around, the output of the independent film market, and even the departments of the major film companies that produce these, shrinks to non-existence.  Almost all money is sunk into big budget movies with minimal projected loss.   Small budget original ideas are considered high risk.  Sometimes these pay off.  Usually, they don’t.   Therefore, most studios will only risk money on original work that is likely to be considered for Oscar nomination.

Something else the studio likes to look at is audience demographics.   G- rated allows everyone admittance, and therefore has the greatest potential in ticket sales.   R- rated has the lowest direct potential for profit because the lowest percentage of the population can gain entrance.   There is some argument about this.  Some maintain that the target demo for maximum ticket sales should include only actual ticket buyers. This pushes the demo more toward PG.  Average intelligence of the audience is usually considered at an eighth grade level.   Other factors to consider are the age demographic and how it applies to the movie content.  This sounds elementary, but a family movie about talking dogs simply cannot have sex.  Just as a high octane r-rated film should not have a whole lot of family stuff going on. 

There are exceptions to every rule, of course.   For example, a truly brutal r-rated revenge plot NEEDS to have a strong family component that has been assaulted in some way.  But let’s not talk about exceptions.  That misses the point. The point is, most producers are looking for the perfect formula.  They want to be able to plug in components a, b, and c and have it equal a profit.  If you are a producer following a demographic formula, then you will be removing any sex; extreme violence; anything that confuses an eight year old; any scenes that last more than 3 minutes; any scenes that don’t have dialogue; any scenes that don’t have color; and anything else that offends, bores or bothers the audience.   Then you do a private screening followed by a survey so that you can rip out anything else you missed.

Most importantly, if you are this kind of producer, and most of you are, you won’t go near an original idea; unless you can rewrite it to clone someone else’s successful idea, and you won’t ever make a film worth remembering for an hour or a week.  But hey, it pays the bills doesn’t it?

Greg Tripodi – Aug 09

It’s been a while since my initial musings upon this very subject, so here’s the terribly late Part 2.

I’ve been thinking a lot recently as to why the face of Xtianity here in the US is such an ugly one in particular.

Let me clarify a little as to why I refer to it as ugly.

In this country, my adopted home, religion seems to have been inextricably interwoven into the everyday lives of the majority of the citizens, and has even wound its insidious way into the very political sanctums that the founders stipulated should be exempt from such dogma.  As a European from a non Catholic country, I find this both terrifying and heartbreaking.  The fuzzy thinking of the tiny, narrow Xtian worldview has no place in a democratic process.  For anyone to try to influence policy or make laws that are even slightly influenced by the mythology of a Bronze Age deity is, to me at least, totally reprehensible.

Perhaps it is the lack of international travel that drives these people to assume (quite wrongly) that we all come from some sort of “Happy Clappy” Xtian unity?  “We” don’t.  We, meaning those of us with a good education and a more diverse history,  have a much healthier perspective, one that isn’t riddled with the ancient superstitions that grip even the most powerful in this land.  The Queen, it is true, is “Defender Of The Faith” but that’s just a constitutional role borne out of tradition. She has no real power or even great influence, and is even less likely to petition our government to change any laws that may not suit her private religious point of view.

Yet here, you have politicians who openly profess to believe in the Genesis myth; hook, line, and sinker! Is this a political ploy on their part? Maybe they don’t believe when the doors are closed, but they feed the fire of the true believers:  the slavish, ignorant, bigoted, and embittered; all of those, in this land, who would like nothing better than some kind of Xtian Taliban.  If this could come to pass, then it would be a far worse land than anything the Mohammedans could envision for themselves.    We can see elements of this dark possible future all the time on the news.  Placard waving hate mongers.  Busy bodies that decry this or that; often without ever examining the case beforehand.  The worst these being the crazed anti-abortionists:   those who are willing to kill to prove their point!  Can someone explain to me how that is representative of a loving and forgiving deity?

Yes it’s ugly.  Very ugly.  I will NEVER understand that part of it.  I can grasp the concept of wanting to belong to a larger community of like-minded people; for the closeness, the group hug, and whatever other fraternal benefits.   However, these same Xtians churches exhibit a disturbing amount of hatred, rage, and ignorance.  To openly be an atheist or even an agnostic here can be a tremendous challenge in the US.  That one should be so demonized for having a differing opinion in a land that is supposedly built upon the concept of “free speech” is saddening in the extreme.

I, for one, have no real axe to grind if someone professes religious belief.  That’s fine; whatever gets you through your day.  Go to your churches, your chapels, your tabernacles, if that’s what you want to do, but don’t try to enforce those views upon me.  I don’t want my life tainted by laws that are based in religion; I do not want your dogma or “higher ideals”; and I refuse to lie down and let you use them to beat on me philosophically or otherwise.

It’s all so painfully small and transparently human in its circumference.  Most religions are.  The Xtian flavour is even more so.  After all, it’s based on a creator deity who makes man after his own image.  Right.   Let’s examine this.   This presumes you have a vaguely human deity:  with eyes, nose, two arms, two legs, etc.  If, as the masses are told, this being is unique, and the only one of its androgynous kind, what use would it have for our physiology?  As a design concept, it’s pretty damn poor, and no engineering student would countenance putting together this chassis with enough time to really think about how best to go about it.  Why would this being need arms, legs, a nose, etc?  Is it really nothing more than a big human?  I’m afraid so.  It’s that simple.  Early man had not the imagination to come up with anything more astounding than what he could conjure up:  another man, just larger with some special powers but still quite clearly possessed with all the bigotry and ignorance inherent in that type of society.  That’s the best they could do.  It is so fundamentally flawed that it’s a joke.  Even the punishments and miracles are so very mundane; there is NOTHING in any of the writings that smacks of wonder or true fantastical accomplishment.  This same all powerful being, knows nothing of even the most basic natural laws and forces of nature, and, is seemingly without any sense of theatre and spectacle.  It’s so very small, petty, and narrow.

Where’s the uniqueness here?  There is none.  Later fables, including the NT, borrow substantially from other mythologies, and then, as if to hammer home the point, the early Xtians adopted the myriad beliefs of other cultures that they encountered in a forlorn bid to attract more followers to their cult!  The Catholic Church as the Borg; so to speak.

I often get the pitying expression from believers when I invariably state my philosophy.  I hear, “We feel sorry for you!” or, the classic, “You think you’re smarter than us?”

Well guess what, I AM smarter than you.  I don’t state this as evidence of any braggado, and I don’t really feel any more superior for saying it, but it’s true.  I can step back and see the box of tricks and smoke and mirrors for what it is: it’s entirely too simple.  As for the pity part?  Well, pity me all you want.   I don’t mind.  It doesn’t irk me in the slightest.  You think the universe was conjured by some genie?  I don’t.   Yet, the world is no less full of wonder for this, and my ability to appreciate the sheer grace of the universe is unimpaired.

Morality outside of a religious structure, is it possible? I believe so.

Just to be clear on my personal stance; although I have studied and participated in many religions, I currently do not practice in any organized religion. Also, I neither emphatically believe nor disbelieve in the existence of a God or Gods. They might be there, or they might not. Besides which, and I seriously doubt the existence of a god, but if there is an all powerful presence out there that is capable of creating or destroying the universe with a thought, I’d prefer not to have his attention.
My world view is distinctly idiocentric. I am the center of my universe. My universe consists of the concentric spheres of my influence. Those things, ideas, and people which are so important to me that I consider them to be part of myself are in my closest, or center, sphere. This is the sphere that I maintain with all of the ferocity and strength that I can bring to bear. Spheres that are less immediate reduce in importance correspondent to their proximity to myself. As life progresses, the spheres of other people; historical facts and movements; arts and ideas; all move past or touch our spheres. Sometimes these things are incorporated, sometimes they are rejected completely. This is how we evaluate the world around ourselves. This is how we grow.
Since I see life as a flow of ideas, the only things constant being myself and change, morality is mutable. Good is defined as that which is good for me and mine, at any given time, and Evil as that which is bad for me and mine.
Once you embrace this world view you will soon realize the rules have changed. The fewer items in your inner circle that you must defend, the stronger a personality you will have, since you have less to lose. This however, is balanced by a corresponding lose of humanity. The lone cowboy who rides into the sunset instead of taking the damsel in distress he desires is stronger than the average man, but he has also sacrificed (or lost) more of his humanity in order to become so.
This is not a new concept. Buddhism relies heavily on the idea of disconnecting yourself from the material world in order to make your spiritual self stronger, with the ultimate goal being a total disconnect, at which time the spirit no longer needs the flesh. The spirit then moves into a god-like state called Nirvana. Unfortunately, when the spirit leaves the flesh, the flesh dies. This makes it notoriously difficult to tell if a monk has reached Nirvana or simply dropped dead from malnutrition. According to sacred texts, The Buddha returned briefly, in a Christ-like manner, to speak with his followers, but there have been no reliable reports of any other returns from the Nirvana-state.
The problem with Buddhist principles is not that they don’t work. Granted, the very existence of Nirvana is more myth than fact, but the truth is, these principles, and other similar ascetic practices, serve little more purpose in their extreme forms, than the alienation of the practitioner. It is important to acknowledge that extreme asceticism is little more than the opposite of extreme hedonism. The extreme hedonist has no compassion for others in his quest for sensation. On a whim, he will eat, have sex, or kill anything, if it pleases him. Notice that neither extreme has any real connection to the world.
For someone who is of a healthy and sound mind, with a clear ability for self evaluation and goal-setting, it is, however, quite easy to maintain a balance. Note that this does not describe everyone. It may even describe a very small segment of the population. I would be the first to admit that the “lone wolf” syndrome that an idiocentric world view encourages is the key in creating the psyche of an assassin or any other dangerous, borderline-type personality.
Still, and regardless of it’s the dangers, I still advocate this system. Why? Society needs the type of minds that are drawn to it. Those who see the world as an extension of themselves, and whose morality has either shifted dramatically or been subsumed by this world view think differently, and it is those who “think different” that are our innovators. These individuals push us forward in all areas of science, mathematics, and the arts. These are the individuals that see the universe around them with little or no filters or preconceptions have the strength of will not to be suppressed, and have a strong enough sense of worth and purpose to keep moving toward their goals even if everyone around them considers them strange or criminally insane. I speak of: scientists such as Galileo and Isaac Newton; painters such as Picasso and Dali; and musicians such as Elvis Presley and David Bowie, just to name a few individuals.
Almost everyone has heard the story of how Albert Einstein was virtually a dropout in High School mathematics. Did you know that the reason why he stumbled so much in high school was because, instead of solving the questions as asked, his mind was much more interested in finding other ways to solve those problems. Discarding the formulas given to him, he would write new ones and still come up with the correct answers. All of these “useless” new formulae are lost forever, forgotten even by Einstein by the time he left for college, but one can’t help but wonder. Did you know that towards the end of his life Albert Einstein had 20 sets of gray suits made for him—all identical—down to the shoes and undergarments. This allowed him to invest the absolute minimum thought in getting dressed. Einstein was a genius, but let’s face it, that was not his value. His worth was that he saw the universe in ways that no man had ever done so before, and that he had the ability to articulate what he saw to others by using formulae.
Morality outside of a religious structure is not only possible, it is necessary for a society’s advancement and survival.

You get the picture. We’ve all heard it before especially as children. My own parents aside, it is a VERY convenient way to shut your kids up and reassure them that the world is indeed an orderly place and that no other answers are required once you familiarise yourself with your “good book” .
Let’s face it guys, if you needed an answer to an everyday question and I told you the magic fairy at the bottom of the garden did it, then you’d take me for a complete madman, and quite rightly so.
I don’t know about you, but I have read the bible several times and not just the KJ version. There is NOTHING in it that contains any more wisdom than Aesop’s Fables. It tells me nothing of our world and more about Bronze Age superstitions. The OT contains some incredible rubbish and details a deity who is callous, cruel and petty. This is a deity who condones slavery, incest & rape in equal measure, with some ingenious genocide thrown in for good measure. It’s all so very human, & unimaginative, not surprising really for something so transparently man made. The deity in the bible reflects the passions and prejudices of a population so barely educated that is laughable that any reasonably educated person can’t see through it.
The really sad thing is that those ancient prejudices are in turn propagated en masse by the adherents and used as a metaphysical stick to beat the rest of us “heathens”. I have met some lovely people who are religious adherents, but sadly they are few and far between, and it doesn’t take long in any conversation to hit that raw nerve of “judgmentalism” that runs so wide in the believer.
The question of morality often rears its ugly head in such interactions. I find it more than a little insulting that Xtians want to suppose that they somehow “own” such social conventions. Morality as a social concept is far more ancient than they would have us suppose. Without us evolving said concepts, we would never have progressed as a species. Morality is a very subjective thing. What is supposed morally superior in one society does not necessarily transfer to another: to suppose that because I do not follow the bizarre codes of the bible, that I must be inherently an immoral being is absolute nonsense.
I often hear the argument put forth that Hitler & Stalin were atheists and therefore it follows that all atheists are potential psychotic mass murderers. A more fallacious statement has never been made. Hitler was a catholic, and, far from being an atheist, he was obsessed with the occult & some of the darker points of early Xtianity. Stalin was also once a believer and was raised in the Russian Orthodox Church. Whether he was ever a “true” atheist outside of his communist beliefs is a matter of much debate.
Yes, there have been atheist murderers. The Will To Power is a strong drug, and by our very nature we are flawed, but Xtianity has had some spectacular psychotics too. Imagine if Tomas de Torquemada had the weaponry of 20th century man at his disposal? Or, for that matter, what if any of the other Old World zealots had controlled such power? Would our world even still exist? I doubt it.

More to follow .. in part 2

So, one day I discovered Twitter; primarily it must be said upon the recommendations of the great Lord Fry; and slowly, ever so slowly, it has unfurled itself like some leviathan of old and seeped into my daily routine.
A lot of people cannot see the point of it. It may be one of those things you either love or loathe. Trying to explain to the non initiated why I like it meets with looks of utter bewilderment.. they just don’t get it!

Honestly I am not sure I would or should either. I have always been, and continue to be, the proverbial square peg in a round hole. The company of strangers is something I have never deliberately sought out nor enjoyed. The Joan Lewie song “Always In The Kitchen At Parties” sums it up. I can be very awkward when confronted with groups of people I am not familiar with. In the past I have been told that first impressions of me are usually very mixed with the majority of comments leaning towards aloof or just plain dull or quiet. They are probably right. I can be a bit uncomfortable in my own skin.
Can’t say I blame them at all for resigning me to the bargain basement bin of corner dwellers that seem to inhabit every small gathering. As I get older I get more adept at situations like that but I’m still not “el alma de la fiesta” unless I am completely at ease with the other attendees.

So why does Twitter captivate me so? I think it allows me to be “me” on my own terms. I can interact if I want or sit back and watch without any of the usual pressures of social convention. Up to this point at least, I have met some extremely interesting and funny people including some who rather astonishingly seem to have similar viewpoints. It has been very liberating. Yes, there are some ego-maniacs, drama queens & kings, relentless self promoters, and social climbers; but on the whole, there are some incredibly decent people out there too!
So, in summary, why Twitter? I can’t speak for anyone else. It works for me. Outside of this virtual world I have lots of friends who I value dearly. If I find even a fraction of that in this new virtual society then it will have been worth it. It gives me my “sanity space”.
Would YOU or should YOU like it? Who knows? Give it a shot.

I think that accurately sums it all up for the course of my life up to this point.  I am sure that most people steer through life’s often rough waters with a firm hand on the rudder but, me, ..not really.

This blog is a bit of an experiment on my part to get a bit of writing practice and amuse myself long enough to actually get something out of the randomness of life in general and wrestle it down into text form.  In keeping with the nautical theme, these are uncharted waters for me and I’m looking over the bow into the deep blue yonder pondering upon the rich adventure of life in general & my life in particular.

I am both captivated and appalled by the rest of humanity in general most of the time which is, I suspect how most people view the world from the relative safety of their id.  So there it is, my first few words dropped into the ether and they will have to suffice for now until I board another train of thought…

later….