How to get the most out of this blog
or
why I do what I do?
or
How I practice psycho blogging
One of my rules is it's easier to explain why I find something interesting than it is to figure out what other people find interesting.
A lot of the time I will write a short blurb in red italics signed by me then give you the link and the piece I am drawing your attention to in the color that it came in from the web page. In that
blurb I often make the case to as why should you care even if the topic may not be your bag of tea. If I will write something that will only appeal to a hard-core baseball fan or someone who is really into jazz, I will usually say up front. But most of the time I write so that anyone
who will read can somewhat understand regardless of their personal tastes.
You may notice it seems like I write a lot about sports. I will rarely do something like an Associated Press objective summary of a game. I actually write a lot about people involved in sports. High level sports usually attracts interesting characters. Characters who would be just as interesting if they were cab drivers or antique dealers. But that's why I have always read sports books because any coach never stops learning and never stops teaching. We can all learn from that process. A smart coach wants their players always improving. The best way to teach and lead is by example so logically the coach him or herself should always be improving. So even if I write about sports , anyone who is a fan of human behavior
will eventually get something out it regardless of how little sports you know. Behind every athlete and coach is a person trying to succeed in an ultra competitive endeavor.So aren't they a little like us? Can't we all learn something from that?
Not only do I write about the individuals who compete in sports but also about their governing bodies and what they do and what I think of what they are trying to do. At least from where I sit. Yes , in case you did not know there is politics in all significant sports. One of the few of that ilk that I am proud of is here.
One topic I will visit time and time again is Nationalism, how I view it and how I see others exercise their view of it. Some of the ones I have written are : 1 2 3
I said this is a previous blog entry, it is virtually impossible to find local examples to spotlight because all that we see are artistas and politicians and heaven knows we can't use them as role models. Yet many people do. I will not.
The weirdest things trigger the instinct in me to blog about it. The thing is I try to explain that spark when it comes.I have no formula. Thoughts come to me and sometimes you see them
here. Other thoughts get claimed by senior moments. I can be very goofy with my pieces or I can be very serious. The opening paragraph and the tags should give you an idea what mood I am trying to invoke.
The beauty of blogs is people from anywhere in the world can read your stuff five seconds after you release it and you can also read theirs. It is not a one way process. Another beauty of the blog medium is you can make your points with pictures, links, videos and
songs. I can spend 45 minutes writing why I enjoy a song and what it meant to me before and give links to artist information then in the end you have the option of downloading the actual song after I build it up in your mind. Two examples complete with the songs themselves:
2
I like to have my fun with the movies :
For better or for worse my output in this blog is a product of my inputs. I will always reference my inputs but don't blame them for me.
The one thing I can do best in the the world is be me. In this blog you get me. Sometimes it's impulsive. I am the Jedi reject who can not control his passions sometimes. Sometimes I will compromise tact to make a point. My philosophy is nobody is reading anyway.
John Molson ( Canadian National Hero) once said an honest brew makes it's own friends. I would like to think an honest blog that did not pander to trends or to the lowest common denominator makes it's own friends. If some entries might seem way too weird, well there are 340 hundred plus other entries. To keep my interest I have to be me. I have to always be developing. Development is not always steady. There are growing pains. To quote another contributor to culture as we know it:
In "It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown," Linus is the sole prophet and devotee for the Great Pumpkin. Instead of trick-or-treating on Halloween, believers in the Great Pumpkin sit in a pumpkin patch all night waiting for the Great Pumpkin to rise. Linus tells everybody, "Every Halloween night, the Great Pumpkin rises from the pumpkin-patch he thinks is most sincere, and flies through the air giving toys to good boys and girls."
video
herehttp://cornholiogogs.multiply.com/video/item/6/Not_a_Bad_Ideal_to_Live_Up_To
What always got me was Linus' values. He did not believe the pumpkin patch's raison d'etre was to be extravagant or well produced or vain or flashy. The goal was sincerity. Which for me is the opposite . A phrase I have adopted recently from listening to ESPN a lot is "All Icing No Cake". Linus' ideal pumpkin patch is all cake no icing. There are a few role models in the sincerity department that I have in this blog , here are two : 1 2
I will give you moments of weakness . I will show you some of the many flaws I have. Because you can get PR fluff anywhere. But life is battling through your flaws and always learning something new. One of my favorite books is a book called Season on the Brink. written by John Feinstein. the reason why it resonates with me is because it's WYSIWYG book. What You See Is What You Get. Warts and all. That way when you do hear the good stuff, it's more believable.
I will write a little bit about the books I am reading. Logic being if I internalize enough to explain it to you guys , I will most likely understand it better. It's a concept Steven Covey talks about. The best way to learn something is to treat it like you have to teach it. And yes ask me questions or better yet tell me if what I say makes you want to read more.
The more I read throughout my life, the more I fantasized about being the one doing the writing. Maybe it started when my dad and I watched Andy Rooney at the tail end of 60 Minutes. The guy wrote about anything. I want to thank all these blog sites and of course all of you for reading for allowing me to be a microscopic Andy Rooney. The two forms of writing I fantasized about most were 1) sports columnist and 2) comedy writer (the guys who wrote Letterman's bits in the NBC days)
Like some of you, a blog can be good venting. Also if my opinion on a topic can be extreme during the venting then that's the price I pay for not being politically correct. Don't worry, I don't intend on writing a shock blog anytime soon. I am not good at it. Although the controversial posts are there if you look hard enough.
I can honestly put down writing as a hobby. Now I never said my hobby was quality writing.
There are different ways you can be reading this.
1) Checking your multiply inbox
2) Checking your normal email (emailed by multiply to your gmail, yahoo, hotmail, ISP mail or work mail)
3) Checking my url (s)
a) http://cornholiogogs.multiply.com/ (no membership required)
b) Checking my blog spot (Google Blog) (no membership required)
http://edrlopez.blogspot.com/
c) Checking my livejournal (MS Blog) http://cornholiogogs.livejournal.com/ (no membership required)
4) You could have googled (or yahooed or whatever search engine) "edrlopez" and something would have showed up.
Point is Multiply does all the work. I enter it there and it shoots it off to all the various avenues .
Word got around to a cousin of a cousin that I blog about sports, so it peaked his interest. He wanted to look at the blog and one way of getting it to him was by sending it to the facebook of his wife. The wife heard about it beforehand and in her head it's a sports blog and since she is not a sports type of person , she assumed there will be nothing in there for her. But I would like to argue that there is. Topics are varied enough I hope.
One way of finding something you might like is to go to the home page
http://cornholiogogs.multiply.com/
and look up the different "tags" in the home page . There is something in there for everybody. Good way to weed out the sports entries or the music entries. Still some of them can be beneficial if given a chance because my sports blogs ultimately end up being about human or organizational behavior. No matter what the topic I try to humanize it and say what it means to me. I might put in a personal experience or two. At my age I sure have a few of those.
One of my central themes has always been what is good is good. What I mean by that is the combined quality movies and music of the sixties will easily outweigh the quality movies and music of 2007 and 2008 . I do my best to catch up or revisit the classics. Over the course of my life I get lead to something that is good that may not be extremely popular by reading other people write about movies,books and music . Some things get exposed by "word of mouth". I hope I can be part of your "word of mouth".
This entry has been months in the making and I hope I can get you to appreciate what I am trying to do. God bless you for having read this far and let me know what you think.
Ed
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