Back Soon

Sorry for the few days off here. I do plan more commentary and more installments of the novel, but have had several intersecting deadlines. Plus, I took Little Girl Blue out for several hours today to enjoy the thrill (for a child) that is 100 tokens and endless lemonade refills at Chuck E. Cheese.

Should be back in action by Thursday at the latest.

Getting Back in the Game

Been slowed up by a family of sickies and my own workload, but will be back soon (tonight or tomorrow) with new postings.

On the way soon:

• A meditation on whether Jesus called us to Christianity or not.
• An update/summary of my novel, for those who’ve stuck with me for a while but are forgetting some of the earlier events, especially with the sometimes long stretches between new installments.
• The return of the Hummus Idol
• More installments of the Cleansed By Fire novel (and hopefully more frequent)

Oh How the Mighty Have Fallen

Now, on top of outing myself around here with my real name, I’ve joined Twitter (my handle is: thedeaconblue).

I swore I’d never join Twitter, but I’ve come to realize it’s probably a necessary evil for my marketing and promotional efforts. I have a Twitter feed in my sidebar at the right.

So, on a semi-regular basis, I’ll be a twit…

I mean, twat…

I mean, tweeter.

A Whole Old Me

Thought about given this the title “A Whole New Me” but that isn’t really accurate, is it?

After all, I’ve been Jeff Bouley longer than I’ve been Deacon Blue.

Anyway, most of the changes I’m making around here have been made. If you want to know more, got up to the links under the page banner, and click on “what the hell is this?” and “who is deacon blue?” and click on any sublinks on those pages, and you’ll get about as complete a story as you’re going to get (or want, for that matter).

You might also have noted the slight change in title for the blog from “Holy Shit from Deacon Blue” to “Holy Sh!+ by Deacon Blue.” I will still swear at times around here, but I figured that as a point of professionalism, I could at least be a little less in-your-face about it, while still making it pretty clear that things sometimes get salty around here.

This blog will continue much as it always has, though I will be more cautious about how I approach subjects related to work I currently do, and I will probably take the opportunity to pimp myself out a bit more so that I can drum up new and interesting work for myself (I hope).

Let me know what you think, and if you have any suggestions, I’ll be glad to take them in the comments section.

Pulling Off the Helmet

OK, it looks like there will be some changes around here, and mulling over them, as well as getting ready to make them, will probably mean an extra day or two before I get to regular posting (i.e. more installments of the novel and making occasional spiritual/political observations).

Why? Because it looks like I’m about to “unmask” myself, and I have to consider the ways in which this blog will change (probably minor ones overall) and how I will use it in my life (which might be the bigger change).

For a long time, I have zealously guarded my anonymity here, and let only a handful of people outside immediate family and longtime friends know anything about who Deacon Blue really is.

I have done so in part because being new to blogging when I started this thing, I wasn’t certain if it was “safe” to let this information be known. I wasn’t sure if my subject matter and approach to it might attract violent people to threaten me. Sure, that might seem as melodramatic to you as it does to me now in hindsight, but I didn’t recall seeing any other foul-mouthed, opinionated deacons blogging, so I wasn’t sure, and my family’s safety comes first.

Also, as freelance writer and editor, I’ve been worried that my opinions here might turn people off from giving me work. Would my religious beliefs be a turn-off? Would people look at my attitudes and opinions here and decide I couldn’t be a proper “impartial” journalist? But it has also become clear that the economy has been my biggest enemy in terms of me losing clients and failing to replace them. That, and the whole nature of the new media. In short, the world has changed thanks to social media, the Internet, blogs and everything else digital out there that we now rely on. I can’t worry that this blog might lose me business; I have to find ways that it can help me become more marketable and employable.

I have to adapt, or I have to find a new career. So I am going the embrace the new media and try to figure out how to make it work better for me. That means making better use of Facebook and LinkedIn. That means joining Twitter, which is something I swore I’d never do. That means finding ways both to promote myself online and to find work through various online media.

That also means it’s time for me to be more complete and honest about who I am. It’s something I already have begun to realize, and a recent post by Chez over at Deus Ex Malcontent, along with long talks with my wife about my future, have pretty much pushed me over the edge on this.

I can keep hovering way back from the edge of the cliff, or I can get close enough to catch a nice view. And, if I’m daring enough and smart enough, maybe I can make some impressive dives into the water below and make a name for myself.

Who the hell knows?

In any case, you’ll be finding out who I am very soon. Not that my name or face will be anything special unless you happened to go to school with me, worked with me or are related to me. I will still be “Deacon Blue” here, but at the same time, my birth name, my background, and my life will be a more open book, and easily accessible from the sidebar sometime within the next day or two.

So, you’ve been wondering what I look like and who I am? Well, it won’t happen right away, because the helmet’s been on a while, but let me work at the catches on this helmet a bit…

Getting Back to Business

OK, long holiday weekend is over…a couple of looming deadlines have been met…I will be back to writing installments of my novel, and perhaps posting something non-novel related at least once a week, starting imminently.

And Miz Pink will continue to try to fill the gaps, I’m sure.

Changes Around Here

So, the wife and I had a serious discussion about some stuff the other day, and for a variety of reasons (that included) I am re-evaluating how I spend my limited time and finding myself with a growing commitment to go in certain directions and put others aside for a season.

Right now, between my other blog and the novel I am in the midst of writing in first-draft form at this blog, I am quite focused on fiction. Whether more carnal fiction or the intellectual/action-oriented stuff, I want to remain in that groove right now and let the creative juices flow.

At the same time, Miz Pink has been feeling bad about not posting much lately hereself, and is feeling the blogging bug biting at her fingertips again.

So, for a while at least, I will probably post almost nothing but novel updates myself, unless something just really strikes my fancy spiritually speaking or regarding current events and social issues. I’m just a bit burned out on those fronts right now and need to recharge.

Meanwhile, Miz Pink will pop in here probably at least a couple times a week with insights, rantings, ravings or what-have-you to fill in the gaps I am leaving by focusing on my novel.

That’s about it. Carry on.

The Next Month

So, I just posted a little rambling philosophical/spiritual post earlier tonight (“Why Must We Go Through This”), and just a day or so ago, a long-overdue new installment of my novel. And, in general, things have been a bit sporadic around these parts since I started up a second blog. So, I thought I might give you a sense of what the next month or so will likely bring.

First of all, hopefully a lot more frequent updates to the novel, perhaps a new one every other day or every third day if I can manage it. For those not enamored of my novel, or science fiction in general, my apologies.

I will continue to post other ramblings on relationship stuff, current events, sex, religion, spirituality, etc. as the moods strike me, but I will admit I haven’t been as inspired on those fronts these days as I’d like, and I probably need to recharge a bit. I don’t want to repeat things I’ve already talked about, and I don’t want to just pick at the low-lying fruit in the news these days, like those birther maniacs who have now turned to forging birth certificates to “prove” President Obama isn’t really U.S.-born. It’s just too easy.

So, novel installments will go up, but my other posts will probably continue at their current lazy pace for a while. Hopefully, y’all will stick with me during my quasi-slump…and I’ll see if I can lure Miz Pink back here for some more posting…though I’m not sure my powers of persuasion can win against the sweet baby breath of Mini Pink Model 3.

Random Silliness

As I work to get some more installments of the “Cleansed By Fire” novel finished and try to charge up my brain to tackle various issues and try to at least blog every other day around here, I thought I’d provide a little filler, courtesy of some of the spam messages that try to get past the filter and into my comments around this blog. Here, then, are some excerpts from the most recent batch that I’ve purged from the spam queue:

Good time. , teen lesbians fingering, teen lesbians fingering is teen lesbians fingering, horny sluts fucking

URLs deleted from the above message. Not because I have anything against porn but because I doubt the sites deserve any promotional efforts nor are worthy of your time. But anyway, I see a lot of focus there on “teen lesbians fingering.” Call me old-fashioned, but I guess if I wanted to see them, I’d want to see a bit more action than just fingering. More importantly, why do the “horny sluts” get so much less promotion, and what have they got against a little fingering?

What is tiger airlines friends fly free was above which airline crate dog

I’ve seen better translations on fortune cookie messages and in my assembly instructions for cheap furniture from Asian or Eastern European sweat shops.

I dare you to read that line out loud, five times in a row, without needing some sort of surgery on your tongue afterward.

What your name? , hot tub pictures

If you’re asking for my name, shouldn’t you be inviting me to your hot tub, not just trying to get me to look at pictures of them?

And are there any teen lesbians in those hot tubs fingering some horny sluts?

Checking In

I don’t have much to say today. I’m trying to avoid yammering about crap around the Michael Jackson tribute and trying not to give Sarah Palin any more exposure than she’s already getting for her nonsense.

And yet those are the two biggest things floating around right now.

There are no spiritual topics weighing on my mind at the moment.

The state I grew up in can’t afford to pay its bills and has the Terminator as governor, but that’s old news. Only thing making it new is Ah-nuld threatening to sell off famous landmarks to raise money and offering to take any stimulus money that other idiot GOP governors are declining.

The Northeastern U.S. is wetter than a nympho at a Naval bar and we’re wondering where the hell summer is.

In short, I don’t have much on my mind that any of y’all care about at the moment, but I’ll try to change that by tomorrow so that Miz Pink can’t make any more fun of me.