Losing Elvis

Exciting announcement: So far, this blog has been just blocks of text. Sensational, inspirational (or at least readable) text, I hope, but blocks of text nonetheless. So just to entice you (and because I've finally noticed the "insert images" icon), here's the blog's first photo.

OK, it's just a 1965 Australian magazine that I recently sold on eBay for NOT NEARLY ENOUGH. (Oh why did I let that buyer get such a good deal???) But I still have the photo, so I thought I'd share it with you. After all, that's the only part of the magazine that I can share with you. (Oh why oh why oh why??!! I could hardly afford lunch in Sydney for the amount I got for this collector's item!) Elvis was pretty cool, wasn't he? Still, I've never consider myself a fan. He might have been the King, but to me, he was never in the same league as the true greats of popular music: the Beatles, Bing Crosby, Bob Dylan, Voice of the Beehive... So when I recently went through my collection of cultural souvenirs that I didn't need, this magazine was one of the first things I put on eBay - along with everything from a few 1960s Star Trek Annuals to a limited-edition Dawn of the Dead mouse mat that was sent to me when I was a film writer. (I don't know what effect it was meant to have. Did they expect me to write "This was a really good film, because the studio sent me a mouse mat"?) Now you might be thinking "How could you possibly sell such priceless artifacts?" Or perhaps you're thinking "Why did you have these in the first place?" It's funny how we keep our prize possessions, however unnecessary they are. I find myself a little too attached to some things, but I forced myself to say my sad goodbyes. I still have too many things I hold on to - convincing myself that they are useful for one reason or another. Of course, I only need a few things: air, food, water, meditation... Perhaps not the first 20 Ultimate X-Men comics (which I'll never read again), or my collection of Velvet Underground vinyl LPs (to which I probably wouldn't listen again, even if I had a turntable). Yet I still can't bear to lose them. It might take a little time... OK, perhaps I should have gone out and taken a photo of a beautiful forest or a secluded beach. Then I could have written something sweet and poetic. Maybe next time. For now, if you want to see a blog with lots of interesting photos of my adventures, you should look up my friend Alf's blog, which he calls Thousandeye for some reason. We hang out together at cafes, etc, and last weekend a few of us went to Sydney. He always had his state-of-the-art camera handy, so he has some good photos - and writes some words to go with them. Look up Thousandeye.