It’s hard to have fun with something you want to make a career out of. And when you want to make a career out of a hobby, you’ll do anything to procrastinate it.

I don’t know exactly when it started, but for as long as I can remember, I always wanted to be a story teller. Even when I insisted on never reading a book for fun –which was something I didn’t actually do until I was 21, I loved telling a good story. I mean, the best feeling in the world is making a room full of people pay attention and hang on every work that comes out of my mouth and crack up at at my knock out delivery of a punchline. Problem is, I have a low, quiet monotone voice that doesn’t quite capture the attention of a room –doesn’t help that a lot of my friends have the attention span of a five year old. I have a bad habit of rambling on every detail without any point of what I was trying to say, leaving me in one of those awkward moments were a silent room stares at me blankly as they wait for why I took up 20 minutes of their time on a story about, I don’t know, being stuck in traffic. And then there’s my sense of humor whihc can described as somewhere in between Carrot Top and Sinbad.

With that said, I can confidently say that I’m a better writer than a speaker. One of the best lines of advice I ever got was actually from an old Maximum Rock ‘n Roll review for a poorly imitated Cometbus fanzine (not mine) that read how Cometbus‘ remained interesting after all these years is because Aaron Cometbus actually did interesting things –his knowledge of literature, street smarts, uncanny observations and an eccentric cast of characters around him also played a big factor in his popularity. Iggy Scam, who now goes by his real name Erick Lyle these days, didn’t have an educational background –I think he’s a high school drop out, but I could be wrong, but he’s lead a hell of an interesting life as a teenage runaway, activist, traveler, musician and constant hunger for curiosity of the world around him. Al Burian on the other hand, had a relatively stable upbringing along and is just naturally gifted writer, albeit in that neurotically over analyzing sort of way, and goddamn do I hate him for it. Still, Burn Collector is one of those rare fanzines that’s consistently good after all these years and I’m looking forward to his collection of Punk Planet/Heart AttaCk columns that’lll come out one of these years –otherwise, they’ll be lost in the vortex of out-of-print D.I.Y. publications from the mid-90s. Hell, he was the only reason why I still bought Punk Planet years after it lost its relevance.

I have no idea where this storytelling bug developed in me as no one else in my family is a writer, although I guess I do have an uncle (grandmas brother whom we haven’t seen since 1980) who self-published a book on South American politics of some sort; it’s now long out of print and last I heard, he’s a janitor somewhere in Detroit. But still, I came to the conclusion a long time ago, especially after reading Jerffery Eugenidies “Middlesex,” that I’ll never be as good of a writer as those who’ve inspired me over the years. Heck, every time I try to write something on here, I can’t help but feel like a lousy hack. It’s hard to have fun with something you want to make a career out of. And when you want to make a career out of a hobby, you’ll do anything to procrastinate it. I’m 32, I’ve been working one dead end job after another that I’ve never been fully happy with, it’s probably going to be like this for a long time and I just have to be patient. For every Jonathan Safran Foer who was 19 when he wrote “Everything is Illuminated,” there’s a Robert Frost who didn’t achieve literary recognition until he was 45. For every massively overrated Zadie Smith, there’s a John Kennedy Toole who won the Pulitzer Prize in literature for A Confederacy of Dunces 12 years after his passing.

Not that I would dare to compare myself to any of the above, and I’m sure White Teeth’s not as boring and long winded as what I’ve read while browsing through Barnes and Noble. What I’d like to do is start on a collection of dime store detective novels for inspiration, something much easier to stomach than the contemporary mystery/suspense books, or at least what I like to call “airport literature.” Hell, if Harlan Coben can be a best seller….okay, okay, let’s not get too arrogant. Start with the Chandlers, Jim Thompsons, Elmore  Leonards and see where it goes from there.