...but first, an introduction.

Now that you are here, most likely by some cosmic shift in the global blogosphere, I bid you welcome. My presence in this dusty corner of the big ole "w-w-w" is an attempt to produce a viable blog, navigating the chasm between the rational and demented. I've jockeyed around the net, rifled through enough blogs (or WEblogs ... whatev) to realize just how mundane the word and idea have become. The concept of a man or woman dispatching opinion and commentary on the net - swimming in a sea of opinion/commentary (fair and balanced ... most likely otherwise) - bores me, frankly. Dissections of political climate, social agenda, and the cannibalism of religious freedoms should probably be left in the hands of a capable analyst. Otherwise our collective opinion is absorbed and scattered throughout the web ... for anyone to read, but few to find.

So I humbly offer up this blog to the great digital yonder. Am I to be just another long-winded blogger with little to offer besides conjecture and uninformed opinion? Yeah, probably. But my design is something different ... nothing extraordinary, but my aim is lofty.


Not even sure where I'm going with this ... except to say that I'd like to author a blog in which style and substance entwine ... offering intellectual and pop culture penetration, refracted through a deep-focused lens of art, philosophy, and Christian faith. My ideas for this here blog aren't at all tangible yet, but I've never been a "big picture" kind of guy. I'm often swept up in the tiny details of any job I work on. This blog will probably be no exception. But it should be interesting to see how it works out.
"14 Seconds To Hell" is a title I didn't originate, but one I think most clearly 
exemplifies the tone of this blog (or once again, my intention). It was the title of a pulpy (and somewhat trashy) American spy novel first printed in 1968, as part of the "Nick Carter, Killmaster" line of espionage paperbacks to come out of the 1960s and 70s. Printed on cheap paper stock and sold off paperback racks in American drug stores from sea to shining sea, the Nick Carter line was directly inspired by the international success of Ian Fleming's superspy, James Bond. Featured in bold print on the spines of nearly all the early Carter novels was the inscription: "Another Killmaster Chiller ... Out-Bonds James Bond!" This simple bit of marketing proved effective, generating the sales of several million copies of each paperback. Indeed, each Nick Carter adventure is a thrilling and mildly compelling read, despite the dated Cold War storylines and politically incorrect treatment of women and ethnicities in general. These novels were the last bastion of the "men's adventure" magazines and novels that, at their beginning, perfectly reflected America's exhausted mistrust and loss of innocence in the wake of World War II. These novels were lean and mean, not wasting a word in favor of telling a story at the speed of a freshly dispersed bullet. Violence and sex, though tame by modern literary standards, seeped through the pages like condensation from a glass of ice water. Unlike Bond, Carter didn't rely on gadgets and pie-in-the-sky technology to help accomplish his mission. His gun, nicknamed Wilhelmina, a stripped down German luger, and his knife, Hugo, a pearl-handled stiletto, were his only resources from mission to mission ... though a great deal of luck and the frequent incompetence of his antagonists often played large roles in Carter making it through intact. 

Interestingly, Nick Carter, Killmaster was the reincarnation of another literary figure to first emerge in the U.K. After Arthur Conan Doyle first premiered his master sleuth Sherlock Holmes, American magazines scrambled to jump on the trend. By far the most popular and bestselling was "Nick Carter, Master Detective," published by Street & Smith's Detective Story Magazine. Carter appeared and reappeared from novel to novel until the early 1950s, and was known for his creative, if cumbersome, methodology in capturing ne'r-do-wells. He often wore disguises to "get his man," sometimes resorting to dressing in drag. Later in the series (and even in a short-lived radio show), Carter relied less on his cunning deductive skills, applying intimidation and often brute force.


Anyhow ... "14 Seconds To Hell" was probably the most outlandish of all the Killmaster paperbacks. I remember reading it during my last semester in college, probably within the space of just a few hours. For the life of me, I can't recall the meaning behind the title. To me, it's eye-catching and somewhat repellent. It's a title that's clumsy in its verbiage, but compelling, wrapped up nicely with the promise of, if nothing else, explosive action.


Though I don't promise action or adventure, I fully intend this blog to be straight-and-narrow in its preaching and meandering in its conjecture. I want to be serious and speculative in equal measure. But if nothing else, I want it to be an accurate reflection of who I am, what I believe, and where I wish to go. Makes no sense, does it? It's cool ... I'm just as lost as you. We'll make it, though. With flashlight in hand, we venture forward, cuttling like a machete through the tangled amazon of idle chatter in the blogosphere.