INT. MEL'S HOME OFFICE - DAY

A saggy, delicately-jowled thirty-something dressed in a bathrobe slumps at his desk. Unshaven and hollow-eyed, he stares at the empty blog site window on the computer screen before him; contemplative, or perhaps tentative. After a moment, he begins to sloppily type at a rapid-fire clip.

MEL.
(as typed)

If we’re laying out the brass tacks, then the first mistake that many bloggers make is the hedgy belief that anybody out there has the time or predisposition to come reading their bullshit. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, in the critical sense; we’re all more or less guilty of this fundamental delusion, since it’s pretty much the pilings upon with the glory that was The Internet was founded. A nonstop economy of thread-thin attention, paid in sparing amounts to arsed-off avians, titties and the accompanying ass, and the occasional practical—nee functional—bit of recreational nothingness.

Naturally, the word-katas being utilized in this little corner of digital pissantery is nothing different. If anything, it’s simply picking up the worn reins of a bad decision made fifteen years ago; an alter-ego created by some go-nowhere kid who ran briefly with the elephants of ur-virtual industry, and who enjoyed a brief time in the shallow and phony glow of the time when pop culture commentary sites roared, and nickel-a-click banners were laid out like Burma-shave signs alongside the pitted ass-shoulder of the information superhighway.

That all feels like it was a lifetime ago, and—to be fair—it certainly fucking was. It isn’t until you try to climb back onto the carousel pony that you realized just how many hard spins you’ve let pass you by. As it turns out, age brings humility, and life… that daily knuckle-dusting that so many of us take for granted… goes from being something to be tossed out like so much stripper-side fliff, and instead transforms itself into a series of increasingly weird and desperate compromises.

Which isn’t nearly as dire as the Poey choice of words would imply… it’s just a different tint on the crude and familiar. And something which—as it turns out—might just be worth sharing, even if it’s with the voices making the laps around the inside track of my skull.

And so, for my next trick: you’ll see how a guy who did nothing of import for the first thirty years of his life, and who went nowhere and sought nothing but to left the fuck alone can become a self-mocking paean to the glorious nature of getting older, a semi-capable traveler, and a teacher of your children.

I guarantee no enlightenment or nutritional value, and management will tender no refunds… but the bar’s open late, and we’ve always got a good joke on hand. Please, enjoy your stay.

END PROLOGUE.