The Blogger As Superstar...

"The lunatic, the lover, and the poet
Are of imagination all compact..."
- Shakespeare, A Midsumer's Night's Dream

By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
The Paz Files

BROWNSVILLE, Texas - When I was working as a reporter, it seemed okay to say I worked for this or that newspaper or magazine. There was some connection with reality, with the idea that I was doing something somewhat meaningful, perhaps even needed. Writing books allowed me to say my craft had segued onto another stage, had followed a professional progression of sorts.

Blogging? It is a low form of communication, a world inhabited by fattened egos and astonishing laziness. It is writing, but it is the sort of writing to be equated with publishing those thoughts that rise in the company of a pencil inside an outhouse or bus station bathroom stall. I wish I could say that my blogging is anything exceptional. It is better than some, but still a childish undertaking. I say that because I seem to laugh too much while doing it.

Here, "news" is my redwood hat rack. This blog rolls down an unpaved trail offering tidbits and nuggets and factoids related to ongoing events, local and far-flung. I don't profess to know everything, nor do I invent out of thin air. My sources for stories found here are usually other sources, from television to radio to newspapers and magazines. Sometimes a rumor or conversation gets me thinking and so I'll write something about it. But it's no great shakes. Blogs are the smallest stage for writers, just a tad better than scribbling on restaurant table napkins. You should know, of course, that there are now almost a billion blogs on the Internet. One more, or one less, matters little. It's all crap, really - guys like me who are able to put coherent sentences together to express a thought and guys like those others who merely sit down to copy & paste a freakin' press release to feel something or another.

The venue is not only cheap, but it is a mirage. They may look like sites for news organizations, but they're just electronic pages for zealots and malcontents to push their dogma. Do any of them gain traction as being credible? Perhaps some, but not the larger majority. Some are parodies, some are outright jokes and some are advocacy vehicles; that is, they are there to push the agendas of someone who'll pay pennies to have some word-monkey do it for them. Prostitution has a veritable history; blogs are just newcomer sluts.

So the next time you come here thinking this is a "News" site, well, boys and girls, take that societal scowl off your face when you enter this room. News is only a part of it. This blog explores the world of writing. When I write about my ally Jerry McHale, I am writing about the character I know as Jerry McHale. When I write as Junior Bonner, or Rudolf Von Bulow or Bob Veracruz or Ricardo Klement, it is acting out the movie in my head, frame by frame, by way of dialogue and characterization, nothing more.

Blogging has served me well as a laboratory, as a place where I can come unload crap in my brain. It is usually useless slop that needs to be out of there. I have no interest in being anyone's principal informer, nor do I have any interest in the people or places I write about. Everyone is a character, everyplace is a setting for my characters. And you'd know it if you knew that I whip these posts out in 20 minutes or so, much of the time being consumed by my search for an appropriate kicker quote and photograph.

There, that goes out to all of you who think I like to lump it on Brownsville and Harlingen and the Rio Grande Valley as a whole. Really? It's just a guy writing paragraphs that are partly-truth and partly-fiction. I've said it before, but here it is again - Blogging is an inexpensive date, a way to get your jollies while spending nothing, a way to joke around, and a way to stay in touch. I don't hate anyone or anyplace. Life is good. The sun's out this morning and the day's outing is planned. There's enough gasoline in the car to get me here and there, enough cash in my wallet to get a bite or a shirt somewhere. Things could be worse. But, no, I'm not the the kind of guy who holds grudges or bothers with someone else's millstones. I'm a Scorpio, for God's sake.

So come here to be with me, not to follow me...

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