The Return of the Rag

This is the second incarnation of "The Corndog Rag"...and I'm guessing that it won't be the last.

Back in 96 when I first got my computer I got on some movie and book lists and would get a large amount of information...this was new to me...the internet wasn't as ubiquitious as it is now and this wealth of information was amazing.

When my inbox got too full, I would "clip" some of the items and send them to friends with similar interests. Not just forwarding it, actually clipping the items I thought were interesting and grouping them with other items I thought were similarly interesting and sending it on.

I then started adding my own opinions...list of the best movies I had seen that year or responding to some stupid thing some person in the public eye had said. It was fun, and I got responses and requests to be put on the mailing list.

Then the 96 elections came along and that was a lot of fun...I got to include my political views and be REALLY opinionated. Indeed, in several of the Rags, these screeds were a majority of the newsletter.

AND, what was really weird, is that I started getting requests to be on the mailing list from PEOPLE I DIDN'T KNOW!!! This flummoxed me no end. When you become someone's friend you pretty much take them as they are and you are generally required to listen to them when they express their opinion...if you don't want to, you can tell them to shut up, or you just ignore them...it's all part of friendship. It's the implied responsibility.

But for the first time in my life OTHER people, people I didn't know, wrote me and ASKED me to subject them to my opinions. It was wonderful.

It was also a lot of pressure.

I stopped writing so much because I didn't want to send out anything that wasn't perfect. I then started grad school and that, as they say, was that. Any free time I had for writing about movies or politics or comics or whatever was gone.

And so was the first incarnation of the Corndog Rag.

But the blog format does seem to suit what I was doing then, so I figured I'd give it another try.

Some rules:
1. No promises...I'll add as I can, it might be good, it might be tripe. I will never INTENTIONALLY post crap, but sometimes you never know...I'm sure Wesley Snipes didn't INTENTIONALLY star in Blade: Trinity knowing it was crap...but sometimes things happen and you end up sending things out that are crap.

2. It's wide open. I love popular culture and I love politics and I love books and music and comics and movies and a whole bunch of other stuff. Who knows what the topic will be. If you want just music, there are plenty of other sites out there that deal with just that; same with music. This one is open.

3. The blog format is designed for expressing opinions. I will give mine. I am unapologetically left of center...FAR left of center, but I'm not a knee-jerk liberal either. But, usually, I'll look like that much more than I'll look like anything else. I'll express those opinions without regard to who is reading. This is my blog. You want to express your own opinions? Good idea! Get your own blog.

I guess that's it.

Thanks for checking it out and I hope you enjoy it.