Month: July 2011

 

Brother, can you spare a Loafie?

Dear Creative Loafing,

Look, I’m not the most interesting guy out there. Just go through the archives here  (which stretch back to 2002) and you can find plenty of boring, personal, and petty drivel. I’m not flashy, but I have been involved with the sites and people that your independent newspaper has honored again and again — such as helping Tommy Duncan run Sticks of Fire from 2005-2007, or aiding CL columnist Catherine Durkin Robinson with her blog as well as editing one of her books. I’m online buddies with one of Tampa Bay’s most popular Twitter personalities in Clark Brooks (oh, yeah, he also writes for me on Raw Charge).

I’ve been blogging for nearly a decade, I am one of the longest tenured hockey bloggers in the sport (having started on Boltsmag.com in 2004). And I’m the only local net personality who has not only been threatened with litigation from the most popular pop group of the 20th century, but I’ve been in USA Today and quoted between the likes of Tony LaRussa and “Crash” Davis.

My point is, how about throwing a little recognition my way in your upcoming 2011 Best Of The Bay awards? I’m not as trendy and attractive as former Interbay Superstar Rachel Moran, nor am I as social as other personalities who’ve won accolades through their net presence…

But I have been around a while, and I’ve been the guy keeping things running for some of your favorites in the past. A hat tip to the mysterious online producer isn’t much to ask, is it?

A word’s worth is subjective

Last night I started mucking around with a challenge that I had not partaken in for quite some time. Not a challenge, per se, but an investment in my thoughts and creativity that I have dedicated elsewhere for a while.

I wrote a poem. Actually, two poems, but that’s besides the point. The last poem I had written was back in March or April. Before that? January. And before that? I can’t recall.

And yet, getting through the words, stringing things together and painting a picture of thought and emotion… well, I had doubts… Doubts that I’d done the job, doubts that I veiled things enough to not seem obvious, doubts that I had crafted a narrative that made sense in constructing a scene and building a message.
Doubts that I could get a reaction from anyone I shared this with.

A gun-shy poet. That’ll never work.

What it’s worth is purely subjective, as the poem itself will say. That applies to more than just writing, but people and things.

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A new member joins the Stupid Club fraternity

A new member joins the Stupid Club fraternity

A new member joins the Stupid Club fraternity

Amy Winehouse has been found dead. Not a surprise, not in the slightest. She officially becomes another member of the Stupid Club, whose members the pop-culture have immortalized for members contributions to entertainment, as well as their over-indulgence and untimely demises.

A consortium of famous musicians and entertainment industry personalities who died at 27/28 years old.

The journey of the write

When was the last time you sent a letter to someone? I don’t mean a card, I don’t mean paying a bill, I mean a letter. Taking yoru time to write out something — or even print it out — and sticking it in an envelope and sending it out?

I’ve been sending out letters, from time to time, for ages.  Usually typed up, which does dampen the personality of the correspondence…  But there’s something about a letter in the mail that exceeds electronic correspondence – even if Email, instant messages, social network communication, and even a telephone call are more instantly gratifying.

You take the time, you take the effort, you take the energy to convey what you are thinking – maybe it’s business, maybe it’s personal… Heck, maybe it’s intimate (think about it, guys and girls).  It’s something we forget when we greedily rip open a letter and read it’s contents…  Unless the letter itself is long and winding.

But here’s another piece to think about with a letter: The actual journey.  Did you ever take the time to think about what your correspondence goes through, where it travels, on it’s way to its destination?

I’ve had envelopes sitting on my desk from time to time in the last few days and months…  They’ve looked rather monotonous with an address label and return address label stuck on them, the only distinguishing characteristic on them being a number I scrawled on the back of each.  I’ve had them all ready to go, and then it’s hit me: just what is in store for these things as they travel?  They weren’t just being sent locally or nationally, but overseas…

A little envelope, a folded and glued piece of paper, containing other pieces of paper,  due to travel some 5,000 miles or more.  How many lives touch it?  How many people see it?  What does it experience on it’s journey?  And just what does the recipient think or feel when it arrives?  How do they react?

This doesn’t tell the whole story of what I am thinking, but it does give some more of an idea what a letter in the mail goes through at sort facilities:

Waiting for Her Word

It’s been months since I posted anything on my personal blog here.  Where am I? Is this sitei site dead?

I’m busy more often than not, and no – the Stonegauge is not dead.  Just dormant.  When I have been writing lately, it’s been personal and it’s been in the mail (didn’t I once say that it’s great getting letters in the mail?)…  That or I am doing hockey stuff.

This off-season has afforded me more time for myself (which has been a good and bad thing).  I’ve found escape in writing, an ability to immerse myself in a thought or idea, or a feeling and a story.  It’s like a release, as it used to be when I would write a real good poem that conveyed something creatively.

Oh, I’m still doing poetry too.  Just not much of it, thanks.  That’s what this post is – a poem.  Something I wrote a few months ago for an absent face.

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