"And then one day you find. Ten Years Have Got Behind You." -Pink Floyd, "Time"
That quote doesn't exactly reflect my mentality at the jumping-off point of this life-observation blog, or explain why I'm titling it "The Easy Outsider." But it has been 10 years since I wrote a short-lived column for The Michigan Daily called "The Outsider," and it is the song that played through my head when I decided to (kind of) rebirth it.
Ten years ago, I was a die-hard Penn State athletics (and mythos) fan writing a sports column for The University of Michigan student newspaper, a fairly unusual perspective for critiquing the mertis of Brian Ellerbe's basketball coaching. Today I'm an Americana-loving pop culture/social media semi-guru, and within a few hours I'll leave D.C. to take my talents to the United Arab Emirates indefinitely. Another odd place to be going, considering who I am.
I have no clue what I'm going to see, do or be in Abu Dhabi, but I'm excited to write from an outsider's perspective again. I have always been someone who cherishes all the little details that come with a comfortable, nesty home, but I also love the experience of exploring far away from it.
Roger Waters and Co. weren't cryptic, and "Time" is clearly about opportunities that slowly-but-quickly slipped away. That's not how I'm feeling at all - I don't have much to complain about my life's path, especially in the last 10 years. However, I did always love getting to write from a very personal, observational, opinionated perspective - I idolize Hunter S. Thompson as much as the next egotist. I also probably let plenty of opportunities pass by over the years to share that voice again. As I set off to be more of a stranger in a strange land than ever, I think it should be easy to fill this blog with some regular content.
Hopefully you'll like it, you won't mind the hard PG-13 or soft R tone I plan on taking, and you'll forgive any grammar, spelling or factual errors.
Dan,
ReplyDeletePretty dang cool to look down on that. What's the temp like for those soccer players. Now all you need is a nice deck and a cool one or two to be able to sit out and enjoy.....again, depending on what the temperature is. Hey, I have to tell you....I wrote you a comment after your first blog entry. But the "select profile was my downfall as I picked "word press" as I recalled that from Jodi's Israel blog.....and I lost everything. So, I'll try to write it over again. Last Thursday,we took all our 8th graders on a tour of local colleges. Each student picked his choice of where to visit locally here in Richmond. My group was going to VCU. This was the day the team was to leave for Houston and their spot in the final four. To say the campus was a bit excited is an understatement. My group contained four boys who everytime our guide would stop talking and ask if anyone had an questions, one of them would ask "do you ever see Joey Rodriquez on campus?" .........or the next time the guide asked for questions, it was "do you ever see Jamie Skeen?" Yes, there was a college there. But my boys had other interests. About 10 minutes later, we were walking down one of the main drags of the campus, and coming right toward us, I recognized Brandon Rozelle (excellent 3 pt. shooter for VCU)and Joey Rodriquez. My boys recognized both of them and went nuts. You couldn't have done anything better for those boys that day. All our kids really had a good experience on their field trip. Great idea for our 8th graders. I look forward to keeping up with your blog, Dan.