Thursday, October 2, 2008

Localized Irritant - Prologue

(written 13 September 2007. This was the beginning of a series, which I'll probably revisit here at the new site.)

All right, so I'm going to try and make this a more regular thing. I've been trying to figure out what I can sit down and write about in a weblog forum that's going to fulfill a couple of requirements: a) it's something I actually want to say, b) it's marginally creative, c) it amuses me, and d) it amuses others. So I did some thinking, and I realized that the answer was right in front of me the whole time.

I'm not the most content guy in the world; a lot of stuff that I see around me every day, both in the news and personally, infuriates the shit out of me. The context doesn't really matter; I see things worthy of my intense hostility everywhere in the public sphere, and certainly in my day-to-day life. But the problem I have is that people, by and large, don't want to be exposed to the kind of "negative energy" I seem to radiate when I try and talk about the things that are bugging me about the world. There are a select few people that enjoy my half-lecture, half-rant pseudo-polysci diatribes, but for the most part people seem to view me as a pretty intense and easily-wired kind of guy, and honestly I get the sense that the majority of people just don't like to think too much on the subjects that preoccupy me, because in fairness it is kind of depressing and it's hard to think when there are so many ways to just forget about stuff and let it all slide.

Unfortunately, I can't bring myself to do that - partly because I feel like we should be talking about everything that goes on around us, like it's our duty to do so, and partly because it's just so overriding in my head that I have to get it out somewhere or risk giving myself brain cancer or something. So in the interest of maintaining what semblance I have of a social life and structure of friendships (and sanity), I've decided to start expelling the kind of bile I stockpile every time I turn on the television or read the news or leave the house, by doing what the rest of Middle America seems to do with the minutiae of their mediocre lives that nobody really cares about: post it in a weblog. Every time I post on one of these potentially spiteful and vindictive subjects, it will be titled under the name "Localized Irritant", more as a gesture of forewarning to the five people that actually follow my seldom-updated weblog than because of any intentions to make up a clever or marketable name.

I can't make any guarantees that all of these posts will be particularly funny - the one that will follow this post likely won't make anybody's comedy routine anytime soon - so if you're looking for a laugh-a-minute "Big Al" story, you run the risk of being disappointed. But if you're looking, as a hero of mine says, to "prolong your life by keeping your blood thin with rage", then I'll do what I can to dole out some serious white-hot hate on all the things that make us want to ram tuning forks through our ears. Join the fun, won't you?

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