Master of Happenstance

As a kid I didn’t know what I was going to do with my life, but I always knew I’d end up writing about it. (Aren’t you glad I don’t clean septic tanks for a living?) Instead, I run around with a TV camera on my shoulder, fashioning ninety second operas out of life’s random notes. It ain’t exactly the priesthood, but it sure beats harpooning sewer-lillies. Or does it? Some of those wastewater warriors make pretty good coin, and their services are in demand all over the planet. Me - I’m merely adept at showing up on some impromptu scene and acting like I belong there. Left to my many devices, I can skirt the perimeter and pull the trigger - all the while distilling visuals for mass consumption. It may sound exciting, but it pales in comparison to an unobstructed flush. At least from where I sit…Don’t ask.

Okay, now that the laptop’s stashed and I’m back in Viewfinder BLUES Central I can get back to the reflection at hand. Sorry, it’s just the way my noggin’ works. Fact is, I can’t go to the can without twisting a thesis out of stale magazines and air fresheners. Most aren’t worth the ether they evaporate into, but I can’t stop the monologues I my head if I wanted to - which I don’t. Rather, I willingly scribble my every impression in a battered notebook and keep them to myself until publication feels just. For every successful post I share, reams of snatched dialogue and broken song lyrics tattoo coffee-stained pages. Consider them the thwarted pick-up lines of a Gregarious Loner.

Which, if you think about it, makes my chosen role a perfect match for my particular personality disorder. Prone to scribbling missives, I could do no better than my role as professional observer. What better possible gig for the constipated scribe than that of calamity chaser? Where else could I scan pure coincidence for meaning, cull the maddening randomness of highway fatality for some kind of twisted pretzel logic -- Port-A-John Prophet? I think not. No, I’ll stay on point, thankyouverymuch - feigning a psuedo-literary stance that reflects the expression of all those lenslinging lifers clamoring at the edge…Heck, I know guys whose sole reaction at the sudden appearance of an alien spaceship overhead would be mild irritation that it was so damn backlit. That, is the attitude I hope to capture here and I implore you to stick with me during my periods of mental constipation.

Or don’t - I’ll still crank out this drivel by the truckload and pretend it’s worth its weight in human waste - even if it is just a bad case of keyboard diarrhea. By the way, you smell that?