I stare at the blank page with a whiskey in my right hand. In my left is a pen, chewed at the end and twirled between my fingers like a baton. The words will come, most of them after my second drink.

Tomorrow morning when the booze has worn off, I’ll clean up what I had written and post it to the Spur. My drunken musings are usually salvageable. It is easier to sober up prose than a person.

If there’s a how-to guide on blogging, and I’m sure there is, I’m sure that my methods would fall squarely in the “Things To Avoid” section. That said, my way of going about things works for me but if I were to write a tutorial of my own, it would come with the disclaimer, “Don’t try this at home.”

Getting the words on paper can be a challenge but it is only part of the battle. Coming up with fresh topics isn’t easy. In real life, I often repeat jokes I’ve told in the past, hoping whoever is listening is too stoned to remember. With the blog, I don’t have that luxury. Every puerile quip is part of the public record.

If Poison spur were focused on a particular area or followed current events, I wouldn’t have this problem. If I blogged about Irritable Bowel Syndrome, my readers would be itching to read anything I had to say on the topic. If I pursued a course of news punditry, I could weigh in on the Christmas maulings at the SF Zoo, coining the term “Tigergate” and being proud of myself for having done so.

Instead, I have to plumb the depths of my imagination. Ideas that seem grand when I’m three sheets to the wind are about as appealing as my hangover the next morning. For example, the other night I came up with the notion of writing a piece of LBJ strap-on erotica called, “Ladybird’s Johnson.” It will never be written and that is probably just as well. Anyone old enough to get the joke is probably too mature to appreciate it.

I manage to muddle through despite asking myself at times why I even bother. A quick look at my web stats is a grim reminder that hardly anybody reads my blog. Close friends, a few passersby, the occasional stalker, that’s about it. Where are the throngs of admirers hanging on to my every word? Where are the crates of Jameson’s being delivered to my doorstep, courtesy of the National Endowment for the Arts?

Fortunately, my bouts of self pity are brief. Do you know why I keep at it? It’s fun. I like to get a laugh out of people and I’m successful in that endeavor at least some of the time. Dear readers, no matter how many or few of you there happen to be, you are my inspiration. Gatsby had Daisy Buchanan. Hinckley had Jodie Foster. I have you, and I thank you for that.