The summer — endless summer — is what I live for. The rich, blue hue of the Florida sky, swollen with white clouds, dense with sundrop moisture, the perfume of orange blossoms on the warm breeze — that’s the shimmering horizon in my mind’s eye.

Ragtop Days, Cabernet Nights, my first blog, barely touched on the things I love. But it was a start. And then it accidentally imploded due to operator error (read that as: I really screwed things up with the settings and had to start over from scratch).

Once Upon a Hot Summer Night came next, and came close — real close — to capturing my interests and concerns; yet I always felt that half the posts were trivial, and even though they were things I liked, they weren’t really about anything. Then, when they were about something, they caused trouble.

Hell, I’m no stranger to trouble. Some would say it’s my middle name — although really, my middle name is Franklin. Which, backwards, is Nilknarf.

I digress.

Cynic. Opinionated. Rebellious. Uncontrollable. Trouble. That’s me, I guess. And with this, my third blog, I’ll do the same things as I have done before, with one difference: I’ll try to be less trivial. Sure, I’ll still mix things up with the occasional cartoon or video, but I’ll try to have something to say about it, too (even though, sometimes, I’ll let the stories do the talking for me). I’ll try to concentrate on the feelings and images that the titles of my previous blogs — and this one — meant to convey: the warm, free feeling of riding in a convertible to the beach; the lush taste of a fine Cabernet sipped in the moonlight; dreams we once wished upon a star; stories and imaginings, of this world and others, and of writing those tales straight on till morning; and the occasional essay, wherein this humble blogger will probably, in the terms of Oliver Stone, “Stir up a shitstorm.” At least, I’ll try.

So every now and then you’ll get an essay of mine like “The Death of the Times-Dispatch;” and every now and then you’ll get links to other pieces on the web, written by better writers and essayists than I; sometimes you’ll get weird shit. But this time around, you won’t get anything explicit or NSFW — sorry, I’m trying to be at least a little responsible with this blog — and eventually, even though you and I may never meet (assuming that anyone other than my tiny little circle of friends will read my incessant flow of b.s. — well-informed b.s., but b.s. nevertheless), I hope you’ll somehow get to know who I am, and if I can be trusted, or if I’m an idiot, or a left- or a right-wing megalomaniac with delusions of grandeur . . .

. . . or if I’m just trouble.

The better posts from Once Upon a Hot Summer Night have been imported here, so feel free to peruse the library. When you’re finished, come back into the lounge. I’m on Facebook, if you want to make friends, and on Linked In. Say hi, tell me what you think, and let’s go grab a brew or two. It’s summer, eternal summer, here in Rusty’s Tiki Bar — and as long as the beer is cold and the night is hot, I’m there.