I Write. You Read.

I was born a poor black child… Well, I wasn’t, but Steve Martin’s character in The Jerk was. Actually, he wasn’t either, he just thought he was. The world that surrounded him was all he knew, so that’s how he identified himself.

I wasn’t steeped from birth in the teachings of Aristotle or the great literary works of Tolstoy and Thoreau. Some of my earliest memories are of hearing how they took the Chevy to the levee, loved Peggy Sue and held meetings in Fonzie’s office while Scooby and the gang foiled Old Man Winters. I’m not at all sure that I could tell the difference between a sonata and a concerto, but ask me about graphic novels and trade paperback collections and I could talk for hours. I tend to identify myself in terms of the culture which pervades my everyday life.

I’m not going to try to define culture, but I know what I like and I don’t think your run-of-the-mill operas or symphonies will make the cut. I can only watch MacBeth so many times before I start to wonder what it would be like if MacBeth was a drug lord fighting for dominance in the ‘hood, and how about Sharon Stone for Lady MacBeth? Is she available? I do think culture should be defined by the people that own it. I think kids in school be discussing Spider-Man and Harry Potter alongside Oedipus and Caesar.

This blog (how long until there’s a movie about a blogger being chased by the government because he knows too much?) is meant to be your window into my particular view of the world. We can head out together across this Damnation Alley in our flying vintage automobile to chart the landscape and sail the seas of cheese called “pop culture.”

Atomic batteries to power, right turn, Clyde and punch it, Margaret. This is going to be fun.