In the beginning, there was this...

I’ve toyed with the idea of starting a blog for the last few years. Actually, there’s an aborted three-entry fetus or two sneaking around the internet that you can only find through creative google searches or email-hacking espionage. I did it because a friend was doing it. I did it because I need to write more. I did it because for a brief minute I thought I had something important to say to the world, only to the next minute be humiliated by such a thought. Thus, in a fit of self hatred (compounded by an ongoing battle with laziness), the blogging would cease.
At some point since I’ve started at my “new media” obsessed job in “new media” obsessed Hollywood, I realized something – every douche, jerkoff, all-star, genius, sex maniac, movie geek, sport nut and their uncle has a blog these days, and most of them are better off for at least this one, critical reason – in this insanely over-caffeinated world where uber-info is at our fingertips (and where we’re pissed at how INCONVENIENCED we are when it isn’t), we’re almost DEFINED by who we are online. Facebook pages, Amazon accounts, podcasts, blogs whether whiney or witty – all of it presents to the world who we are. We do it for the reasons listed above, sure, but we also do it because if we don’t, someone else will.
Two months ago I started this job. Because I’m in a good, generally communicative relationship, I tell my fiancé about this guy I work with. A few days later, when she’s bored at work, she finds his blog. “That’s awkward,” he says when I relay the news. It is, but it isn’t. She could have found a picture of him in 8th grade glee club. THAT would be awkward. Instead, we found an insightful blog and both respect and better understand a guy I otherwise would have thought of (and thus, to some degree defined) as “gleeclub dude.”
Of course, we could have hated his blog. But that’s the chance you take, I guess. And isn’t it better knowing?
Anyway, it’s when reading an entry in this coworker’s blog (that in turn cited a posting from Seth Godin’s blog) that I decided to “define myself.” Kind of. Sort of. In a world where it may or not matter. For you to read or not read. For you to judge or not judge.
Like all writing, the best blogs have a theme. Tucker Max is an asshole. The Sports Guy is a sport guy. I don’t have a theme yet, so I’ll just write random things that define me (that is the point, right?) until a theme pops up. For now, I’ll say this:
I never really had nicknames growing up. My name was always sort of a nickname in itself. At some point last fall, a buddy of mine (heretofore known as HAVOC) decided I needed a REAL nickname. He tried on (and continues to try) a series of titles and expletives, a few of which stuck (Bheeler is a favorite…shouldn’t take much for you to figure that one out). The one I’m rambling towards derives from my initials – “Weapon of Mass Consumption.”
I think the inspiration for this first came from how bitchy and single-minded I sometimes get when I need food (disturbingly, this makes me a lot like my house cat), but I actually think it’s a pretty appropriate point for this blog. I’m a consumer, in the most American sense of the word. I consume movies, music, TV, pop culture. I consume horrible energy drinks, two tons of pizza every year and various alcoholic beverages that may or may not be worse for me than either of the first two. I consume friendships and relationships like life-sustaining meds (though I’m not a big fan of real meds). I consume hate, anger, love and affection and to that extent have earned a reputation as “emo.”
I consume time. I consume life. So I’ll write about it.
For now, that will have to do.