More About Me and Writing

For many years I forgot how to write. Illiteracy or early Alzheimer’s was not to blame. Just a lengthy time spent in a creative wilderness, a left-brained haze of exams, classes and the beginning of a career. Only recently have I returned to the sense of wordplay, expression and storytelling that were a large part of my childhood.

At age seven, I wanted to make my own version of Mad magazine. This led to writing and drawing comic books where I would satirize current movies and songs, making them about people in my life: my sister, the weird kids at school and the Mormon neighbors to name a few. Then at 13, I wrote a sequel to “The Terminator,” which conveniently had a role for a pre-teen cyborg, which I thought could be me once the film rights were sold. This was 1986, long before we had a computer or the actual sequels to “The Terminator.” I used an early word processor with whiteout error corrections and mailed it into the film’s distributor. I never heard a word from them. I also crafted a Soap Opera (“Briggs Garden, USA”) with 20 years of potential plotlines and confusing family trees, and later forged an attempt at the absurdist whimsy of “Monty Python” or “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.”

Then after age 15, there was nothing. Just assigned writings from classes. I read a lot though. I learned to feel words and to respect great authors, and even dreamt of being one, but felt no urge to get started right away. That was either laziness or pot. But I have shaken off the cobwebs and through several writing courses and last year the creation of Culture Drift, I am writing again.

I like fiction writing and journalism and want a future for myself in both: Articles and books about trends, pop culture and human nature, but with the occasional zippy bit of fiction that is either highly-stylized or slightly strange. Time will tell.

Getting bloggy

Welcome to Culture Drift, the blogspot version. I run a Web site that provides analysis and information on trends, pop culture and entertainment. Sort of like a "Daily Show" version of Trendcentral, Daily Candy and Billboard. Some sites that acted as inspiration for the site were Slate, Salon, SFGate (the San Francisco newspaper site) Entertainment pages and to a lesser degree Rolling Stone.com.

My site is not written like a blog and there are no random, stream-of-consciousness thoughts or musings about my day or life. This blog can suffice for that.

Each month I put together a mix CD and publish the list. I am pretty good at predicting a future hit or single, as well as reflecting what is hot now while still showing some love for an old song that will get your retro gear kicking. I also preview upcoming CDs and keep track of Billboard album, singles and ringtone charts, the weekend movie box office and weekly TV ratings. I like to write movie and CD reviews and forecast what will be big in future months.

Since the site is called Culture Drift, I spend a lot of time writing about society: it's fads, trends, slang, gossip, norms and the strange things we do but don't often think about. I hope you enjoy the site and this blog!

www.culturedrift.com