The February 29th Manifesto

Ever since I retired my old newspaper column, people have been pestering me to start a blog. But I have not done it, because I have always known that doing so would inevitably trigger some kind of revolution.

And you know, revolutions take work. A lot of work. Initially you have to overcome considerable resistance, and if you succeed, you have to spend the rest of your life defending against insurrections, insurgencies, and the inevitable counter-revolutionary movements.

A revolution, you see, is more than a full-time job. It is a lifetime job.

And I knew I was not ready. Perhaps I was not old enough, or wise enough, or courageous enough to do what I knew I must. And so, for almost six years, I put it off.

But today, February 29 2008, I am putting it on. I am, after all, a Callender, and it would be unbecoming of me to not take a leap on this auspicious day.

So take my hand, dear reader, and leap with me to the next level of blogdom. Soon you shall forget all those bloggers who merely put themselves under a microscope, because I am the first and only blogger who is willing to put himself under a telescope. And what’s more, I have the courage to gaze into the wrong end of that telescope, and write unflinchingly about what I see.

Now, I know what you are thinking:

“Glen, I’m frightened. I’m not sure I’m ready to take this leap with you. Maybe I should stay behind, stick my head in the sand and be crushed by your revolution when it comes.”

Well, that is your decision. And if you do stay behind you shall play an essential role, as every revolution needs to crush someone. But I urge you to join me, even though this journey will not be easy.

All of you, be warned! Undertake this blog and, like the tanners and dyers of yore, you will surely find yourself standing crotch-deep in a vat of nauseating, yet intoxicating, excrement.

But do not despair, for you shall look down and see diamonds of obscene beauty in the waste, sublimely flashing like a school of silver fish catching the sun in the turbulent depths of a black forest stream. And you will know that it has all been worth it.

Verily, this shall be a blog like no other. For this is the blog that straddles the dodgy sheep-fence that separates our shared outer world from the private inner world of me, Glen Callender. Soon that fence shall collapse under the weight of this blog’s sheer importance, and my reality will seep out and infect our reality.

And that, my friends, shall be the Revolution.

Until that day, I shall keep you posted about what is going on in my head. When my view of our species shifts from a sort of dread-laced, cautiously-optimistic misanthropy to a sort of apathetic, crypto-hypocritical humanism, you shall be the first to know.

When I find True Religion at the bottom of a greasy cardboard box of deep-fried tiger prawns from a Punjabi-owned-and-operated Chinese restaurant, you shall be the first people I convert.

And when I get an earache, I shall take you deep inside my auditory canal for a stunning, 3-D virtual tour of my inflamed cochlea.

My god, you have no idea how fucking great this blog is going to be.

And honestly, neither do I.

Let us find out together, shall we?

Dear reader, welcome to First Person Omniscient. Let the games begin!