14 and counting

I'm afraid I owe you, the 8 loyal readers on this blog, an apology. I errantly took the opportunity to pen a pandering piece about it being my birthday yesterday. 

Truth be told, I'm not that big on birthdays. I'm fine helping others celebrate theirs. But apart from the presents, the good cheer and the chance to partake in strictly verbotten foods from the Chocolate Food group, I'd just as soon let mine go unnoticed.

Perhaps that's why I've remained 44 for so many years. 

Nevertheless, I caved and wrote a long piece about February 28. 

A special day to me, Bernadette Peters,  Frank Gehry, and Swavyyx ( rising star of Tik Tok), and a smattering of others. Why? Because as my fellow bloggers George, Jeff and other Jeff, all mishbucha btw, know, you never pass up an easy blog layup. Not when you're cranking them out 4, occasionally 5, times a week. 

Which brings us to today's blog. Another fast break, kiss off the backboard, easy two points.

You see it was 14 years ago that I started this blog. Started may not be the most appropriate word because it connotes intention. There was none. There was simply a challenge from my friend and former boss Mark Monteiro, a creative director par excellence, of whom I've never heard a bad word. A rarity in this business.

"Rich," he said congratulating me on my 51st birthday, "why don't you start a blog? It'll give you an opportunity to write in your own voice and I think you can have fun with it. Especially since you seem to have an overabundance of opinions."  

Mark is a soft spoken man who knows how to get in a good subtle dig between friends.

Little did Mark, or I, have any idea I'd be embarking on a labor of love. Or building a platform -- and a following of 8 crazy readers -- which may or may not help propel me into my next semi-vocational venture. 

And now here we are some 3000 posts later. THREE THOUSAND!

With time on my hand, perhaps I should go back and DELETE the posts that I now find embarrassing and unreadable. However, a blog with 3000 posts is lot more impressive than one with 57, maybe 58 if you include that one time I wrote about trying to gain membership at the Mara Lago Country Club.

Where will we go in the in next 14 years? Who knows? Perhaps I will channel my social-media curated voice into something else. 

If the former "president" is nominated and runs in the general election, perhaps I will redouble my efforts to discredit him and mock his zealots. Do not doubt for a second that I have exhausted that tank. If anything my hatred for that sad sack of pus has expanded exponentially since he left his stain on 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

Perhaps my burgeoning career as a senior influencer will skyrocket and RoundSeventeen will transform into All-Pimping, All The Time.

Or perhaps I will follow in the drunken footsteps of LA's own poet laureate of the streets, Mr. Bukowski.

Rich Siegel, Poet? 

Stranger things have happened. Ask the 8 loyal readers who've been here since the beginning.