My name is Jarrard Potter. Welcome to my blog. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do, but apparently I just write…For extended periods of time. Seems to be the way of the world now, everyone who is someone is writing about something.
This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a blog.
I apologize if I don’t sound all too enthused about it. I know I should be, this is in essence a liberating experience, breaking free from the confines and trappings of the mass media and embracing a true democracy with my intellectual property, a platform to publish any whimsical thought and perverse idea that enters my pretty little grey matter. Yet, it all feels like pissing into the wind.
Don’t take that diatribe as self-loathing, I haven’t need for that. I know enough people loath me already, why waste my time doing someone else’s job for them?
I was born in the wrong era. Sitting here in my Led Zeppelin tee, behind a MacBook Pro, I can’t help but be reminded of a simpler era. A time when giants walked the Earth and were at the peak of their powers, rather than being a hip replacement and a knee op away from mere silhouettes of their former glory. A time when celebrities where famous for doing, rather than simply being. A time when a newsroom was filled with clattering typewriters and cigarette smoke being puffed by journalists straining to meet the 3pm deadline so their stories would be done before the printing presses fired up, with drunken editors abusing anyone and anything that disturbed their work. Now the newsroom soundtrack is quiet telephones ringing, the walls are no longer stained with smoke and beer cans are no longer stashed in asbestos roofing, and any abuse is through passive-aggressive emails.
But if those times were so great, why didn’t they last? They may have been the glory days, but who is to say there were the best days? If perfection was achieved in 1979, then why have we progressed so far?
It’s not my place to get nostalgic about an era I have no real conception of. These idealized fantasies of the past are a trap. I guess that’s the definition of nostalgia: fond memories of the past. It’s a failing of the human mind. Our memory tends to exaggerate the good times, despite being outnumbered three to one by the shitty times. But as time goes on, all that remains are the shining memories of joy, leading us to believe that we really did have it pretty good in the “old days”. No sympathy for the devil there my friends, He was with us the whole time and damned if I could spot him. Each person must live through their assigned placement in time and space, and I am no different.
So, where does that leave me, with my Led Zep tee and MacBook? I guess I’m here holding a torch fueled by some of the soul of past, looking to navigate on to tomorrow and beyond. I hope anyone who reads any of what I post here will be entertained and enjoy it enough to come back. Writing is just like anything else, the more one does the better one becomes. Unfortunately for me, I haven’t done a great deal for a while, so hopefully I’ll get better. Strap yourself in and lets get weird.
About me: Aspiring musician, struggling writer. Cliches exist for a reason you know. Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them. I hope to avoid all three.
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