Well this is tricky, I admit.

If you want to engage thoughtfully on whatever you might encounter on this site feel free. Disagreement on content is perfectly acceptable, even expected and the opportunity for comment is offered under entries. If a good, ranging debate breaks out among interested parties, then my work in this venue is, as they say, done. As for me, I’m probably going to limit myself to only a handful of discussions. Other responsibilities are always pressing and while I don’t want to be so impolite as to create a webpage with no opportunity for reply, I confess to having real doubts about what’s practical.

The lovely lady who runs the webpage will necessarily screen what comes over the transom, removing unsolicited screenplays, story ideas, job resumes, glossy actor photos, and all other professional solicitations. I can’t look at that stuff in this venue, and I won’t. I’ll never see it. Swear. If you need to contact me professionally, the production office for Treme is in New Orleans and listed, as is my representation in any of the usual industry compendiums. I’ll trust professionals to acquire the correct addresses and do what they feel needs doing through the proper channels.

The nice webmistress will also likely clear away obvious spam, as well as e-spasms of bile and rage that go not to the merits or demerits of the content displayed, but to personal grievance or provocation. If I’ve pissed you off that much in real life, then by definition we know each other well enough that you can vent directly. In such an instance, it’s even odds whether I yell back or buy you a beer, depending on the merits and passion of your jeremiad. If you don’t know me and are so angry over ideas and opinions expressed in print or on film that civility is an impossibility, we’re probably not going to advance an argument very far in any event.

There won’t be much of a personal nature here. At least nothing beyond the professional aspect. I mean, who cares really? I don’t want to hear about your first kiss or what you told your ex-wife about your new girlfriend, and no one really needs to know about me and Susan Epps on the boat dock at summer camp. Though if you really must know, send a self-addressed stamped envelope to the Baltimore Sun Metro Desk.

In short, this site — if it is anything — is little more than a bulletin board for some modest discussion of current events and other points of interest. It has some links to previous prose work, to books and television dramas, to some odds and ends that I might throw up now and then, and to charities associated with various projects. It isn’t much more. Forgive the relative indolence of this half-assed venture into the blogosphere. I’m doing what I can; if it goes bad and I can’t keep up, I’ll likely disable the commentary. That won’t be an intended statement of disrespect to any soul; it will simply mean I ran out of time.

DS