Because What's a Blog Without a Preamble Post and Acknowledging It

I've tried blogging a few times on a few platforms. Mustaches and weight loss preoccupied me mostly then, as they do now. I quit each time, disenchanted with the process of doing this, worrying about finding time to do it, and because I don't really find what I have to say required reading for anybody. I'm not a budding memoirist, nor do I feel compelled to share things about my uninteresting days because, frankly, they are uninteresting to me as well.

But I'm caught in this modern era of constant sharing combined with our own inflated sense of self, and also a desperate need to get some shit off my chest. So here I am.

As the title says, I'm here in Madison, Wisconsin, living through all the hoopla, upheaval, disappointment, disgust and joy of the protests here. By my reckoning, I've attended around 100 days worth of protesting. Carrying signs, taking pictures, taking videos. Screamed "Fox News lies!" as loud as I could during a live remote done by that propaganda machine. God help me, I own and operate a vuvuzela. I've collected recall signatures. I've phone banked. I've done it all save for sleeping in the capitol & the Walkervilles (yes, there were two).

However, I'm not all sunshine and lollipops about the protests, the movement or what have you. That's why I'm writing here, mostly. I'm trying to figure out why and what's keeping me from being some pinko socialist because, frankly, at times I feel like that's what I identify most anymore, and that in and of itself I find interesting because socialists I've seen and felt shamed into buying newspapers from make me uncomfortable (except John Nichols, he's all right). I've been radicalized by all the goings on in Madison, yet I'm only partly committed to my radical ways. The typical Christmas-and-Easter type of socialist you could say.

There's all that, plus, recently I went to a wedding. Yes, this will make sense. Not logical sense to you, but me, maybe, anyway, hang with this, a wedding was attended. During that time, I got to bro down with a couple friends I don't see often enough and we just bullshit pretty much non-stop about all kinds of useless stuff, but it was a blast. Like we talked for 15 minutes about why would Doc Ock, from the Spiderman comics, even create metal tentacles with the ability to go bananas, possess you and turn you into a super-villain man-robo octopus. Wouldn't you not program that into the thing? Seems like something you would, could and most definitely should avoid. So there will probably be a dose of that here (and some loving odes to bad music on Sundays), probably even some diversions into literature as well in between working shit out about the aforementioned political concerns (though hopefully that's not all I'll be doing)

To sum up, let me steal a line from Todd Snider to really encapsulate this current blogging venture: I didn't come down here to change any of your minds about anything, I come down here to ease my own mind about everything. Cheers, all.

viva wisco

Special note on my hypocrisy: Notice how in the first couple paragraphs I take a swipe at this current need to overshare and entitlement & enshrinement of our opinions...do you see how often I used the pronoun "I" in this whole post? Just noticed that myself...