Some, I suspect, may be thinking, "Oh, how cute! You have a blog.* That's so 2002!" And I don't doubt or disparage that sentiment in the least. After all, just the other night I had a rare, chance encounter with mainstream television programming, where I was enlightened by a primetime reporter that GIFS have become the predominant shorthand for thought in human expression and interaction, while emoji-speak is eating its way through eons of language development ass to emerge as what may well be the new gold standard in global communication. The deathmatch of words is real, so why the fuck isn't this just a Tumblr account permanently set to spin cycle?
Well, I've never gone about things the right way, and if I had to look back and try to pinpoint where it all started to go wrong for me it was probably when I first watched Logan's Run as an impressionable young sponge. This was during the golden age of sci-fi dystopian fantasies—the low-budget lot of which I religiously scoured the late-night listings in TV Guide—but Logan's Run was the one to scar me for life: the Carousel scenes, in particular, where all residents of this 23rd century-based society submitted themselves to a ritual ceremony of supposed reincarnation at the age of 30, when, in fact, they were simply being killed off to prevent overpopulation. Logan, of the title, was a Sandman by trade, whose primary function was to ice anyone who got a survivalist hair up their ass to avoid elimination via Carousel and instead make a run for it to seek out this mythical place called Sanctuary where people could live out the rest of their lives to a death of natural consequences.
Although I didn't comprehend it at the time, this concept seeped into my subconscious to become a corrosive metaphor for adulthood. I was bound and determined to "run" from any such thing that would lead to said grown-up state, often to my own social detriment and derision, as I persisted in avidly reading and drawing comics while my peers were getting white-wasted on their parents' peppermint schnapps and participating in such queer coming-of-age rituals as "Homecoming" and "Prom."
Small town midwestern circumstances may have eventually gotten their hooks into me during my last year of high school, but that's precisely when I discovered skateboarding and, to a lesser but still very associated extent, punk music. Now, finally, no one wanted anything at all to do with me, teachers wrote me off as a lost cause, and I was pushed to even further societal fringes than I'd previously ever fringed upon. And, honestly, I couldn't have been happier. Acceptance? Who gives a shit! My running had not only lead me to Sanctuary, but the mythical Fountain of Youth itself. Like any good Ponce de Leon, I drank deep from the four-wheeled well, and I'll be damned if Lady Fortune didn't show favor in my outcast bravery… or petulant pissantry, who knows. It really was a toss-up back then.**
Anyway, unlike Forrest, I never stopped running. I did, however, eventually have to entertain and shoulder the mantle of adulthood while doing so, but at least I was afforded the opportunity to do so from under my own pup tent of arrested development—the latest devised erection of which is now pitched on the ground zero of StrangeLove, where if we aren't doing everything wrong, then we're not doing anything right. —Sean Cliver
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* Kevin Wilkins was the first to introduce me to the term "blog," and I've never been able to say the word with a straight, unflinching face. Heck, the mere sound of the word to my ears is like a school of candiru swimming frantically up my urethra. That said, despite my apparent affinity for the feature and a penchant to spew dumb words ad infinitum, I still firmly believe it's no different than taking an afternoon dump in Central Park and stand screaming at any passerby, "Look! I did that! That's my shit! Smell it! I did that!" And, of course, only to then become upset once the crap is criticized for being too small, not smelly enough, or be of general poor consistency overall.
** The fine print (because you should always read the fine print): Everything you've just read is overly-romanticized, trumped-up, horseshit-hued tripe—aside from the near pathological fascination with Logan's Run and a legitimately crippling desire to never grow up. The past, when used in personal retrospect, is simply a paper doll that the mind takes, rapes, and remakes to fit any presentable situation; or, in other words, please see the dictionary definition for "blog."
Blogs aren’t so old, it’s awesome to hear your ramblings and as a collector of your decks over the years I can’t wait to see what other awesome stuff you have in the works!
“‘there are no adults” a friend told me some guy said once…….we’ll….that’s it.