The Streams of Unconsciousness office is always busy
Never visited my blog before? Welcome!
It’s odd that this is your first visit, I’ve been here since May 2008. That’s seventeen-and-a-half years of blog posts. Close to 1,700 posts. In the early years of the blog I focused on writing about movies and if you look at recent posts you’ll note I still frequently write about films. I am a cinephile. Among my favorite types of motion pictures are those of such directors as Ingmar Bergman, Woody Allen, John Ford, Andrei Tarkovsky, Howard Hawks, Luis Buñuel, Aki Kaurismäki, Preston Sturges, Alfred Hitchcock, Joel and Ethan Coen, Federico Fellini, Stanley Kubrick, Charles Chaplin, Roberto Rossellini, Akira Kurosawa, Martin Scorsese, Hal Ashby and Louis Malle. That’s to name a few. I also like American films from the 1970s and 1930s and early ‘40s. Many of my favorites movies are foreign films from the 1950s and 1960s. I’m not so keen on recent cinema although there are always good movies coming out. One of the best years in film was as recent as 2023. That’s an exception though. You’ll not see much here about the big blockbusters that blast their way through theaters in the Summer. I abhor “movies” from the Marvel Universe and virtually all fantasy/sci fi/superhero pictures. Not fond of about 99% of the horror movies ever made. The vast majority of recent romcoms do not interest me either. If one were to call me a film snob I’d plead guilty.
What else do I write about here? A fair amount about mental health issues having suffered them most of my life. Depression, anxiety, PTSD, addiction are all topics I explore, usually based on personal experience. I always hope that those posts find an audience that needs it, people who need to know that they are not alone. I often include suggestions on how to cope with various emotional pains. Depression is a tough one, but there are ways to mitigate its pain.
I also share stories from my life. I’ve been around for a long time (long enough to remember the Kennedy assassination) that I have tales to tell. These can include yarns from my youth and college days. I write about friends. I write about my parents. My father was a great Dad. My mother was a paranoid schizophrenic and thus not the greatest of moms, indeed as bad as one can get. I often reference my wife and only in the most glowing of terms. She’s an incredible woman and the fact that she’s my mate is a clear indication of how lucky a man I am. I’ll also make reference to my lovely daughters who I’m enormously proud of. One is getting married next month and I’m quite pleased.
I’ve been a teacher for nearly forty years so inevitably I have much to say about the profession. I’ve written many a post offering advice and words of wisdom to new and aspiring teachers. I’ve heard good things about some of those posts.
It’s not unusual for me to write about politics. I have strong opinions (seems everyone does these days). I would describe my political views as to the left of Bernie Sanders. I’m an old Sixties radical with little faith in capitalism to offer anything but greed. We are today seeing the very rich compounding their wealth while the very poor continue to suffer. That’s an example of capitalism in it’s purest form. Speaking of the Sixties I write a lot about that time period too, having lived through it, studied it and written a novel set then. Yes, I’ve written novels. Five so far. Two of which I’ve self-published, the third — the one set in the Sixties — I’m currently trying to find an agent for. The other two are waiting their turn. A sixth is in progress.
You’ll also find humor pieces here. Some of them are actually funny. Others maybe not so much but they all serve to amuse me and you might like them too. All my life I’ve been known for my keen wit. Was always the class clown in school.
I also share short fiction on the blog. There isn’t one kind of story I write. Some of them have angels or aliens, many are dramas, slice of life type pieces. Some are unquestionably quite good and others are okay.
A good way to sample the blog is to look at the labels on the right. They’re not one hundred per cent accurate. I often forget to use particular ones but they’re a good guide. Among the labels are “favorite posts” which as you can imagine are what I consider my better writings. Why not sample them? I’ve also labeled some “favorite fiction” these are the stories that I think most people would like.
I’d like to recommend my travel posts which were written on trips to Europe or back east (I live in Berkeley, California). You might learn a bit about a particular place from them.
You’ll also note that among the labels I have one for my top 100 films of all time. That’ll tell you as much as you need to know about my taste in films.
Also among the labels are many of my favorite directors and a few of my favorite actors/actresses. You might learn a thing or two about movies from my blog. I hope that some of my posts steer people towards particular films, or directors or genres or time periods.
I also write a fair amount about words and language. I get persnickety about the misuse and overuse of certain words — don’t get me started.
So I hope you find something you like and come back. Tell your friends, relatives, neighbors, acquaintances, co-workers, cellmates, customers, clients, patients, care providers, students, teachers, employers, employees, teammates, flatmates, tenants, landlords, congresspeople, higher ups, underlings, proteges, mentors, mentees, tutors, tutees, coaches, therapists, physicians, trainers, babysitters, lovers, fellow gang members, affiliates, associates, bandmates, sponsors, dealers, advisors, professors, lodge brothers and sisters, in-laws, manicurists, hair stylists, tailors, baristas, ITs, milkmen, stalkers, rivals, paramours, officers, elevator operators and alchemists.
