The Stages of Blogging

Denial - I'm going to blog every single. Penetrating insights and witty aperçus will pour out of my fingers in an endless torrent.

Anger - Fuck, I can't think of anything to write about.

Bargaining - I'll write a blog post after this next hour of YouTube.

Depression - Nobody reads the fucking thing anyway. What's the point? Hint: there is none.

Acceptance - I'll blog sporadically when I've got something to say and an interesting manner in which to say it.

I think The Rutter Continuum has arrived at the final stage.

The Rutter Continuum - First Sequence

This was a blog post I wrote in Doha in the summer of 1999. It bore the grandiloquent title of "On the Trail of the Desert Bigfoot" and was accompanied by pictures of me in gorilla suit in the dunes of the Umm Said area of Qatar. Sadly, none of the pictures survive. I can only assume that my foremost literary influences at that time were H.P. Lovecraft and Viz.

Our story starts in mankind's oldest inhabited city, Damascus. I was in the old town, in a tea shop just to the east of the Great Omayyed mosque. It was dusk on a hot and humid July evening, the sonorous call to prayer drifted over the city's dusty, cluttered rooftops. I sipped at a small glass of hot bitter tea and looked across the table into the dark eyes of the man seated there. He had a leathery weather-beaten face with a covering of white stubble. It was a face that hinted at an untold story of unspeakable hardships endured in the desert. I deliberately broke his gaze and looked up at the towering minarets.

"So. You have the map?" I inquired softly.

Without a word he slid an ancient piece of parchment across the table toward me. His hand remained firmly on top of it.

"Inglezi. You know the nature of that which you seek? Only madness and death can result from this enterprise!" He croaked. His was a harsh guttural voice, yet he spoke refined Arabic with a Cairo accent. Silently I pushed an envelope across the table. It contained 5,000 US dollars. He stared at the envelope for thirty seconds before raising a trembling hand from the map and claiming it. Immediately standing up he looked at me as I picked up the map.

"Do not search for Al-Malyaam, Inglezi. Only evil can come of it." With that he disappeared into the heaving crowds around the mosque.

The Al-Malyaam or Desert Bigfoot is a large primate rumored to inhabit a remote region of the Rub-Al-Khali desert in the Empty Quarter of the Arabian Peninsula. No specimens have ever been found and only a few eye witness accounts exist. And after five years of laborious research in libraries and universities from Prague to Melbourne I held in my hand a map that could lead to a sighting of the Desert Bigfoot. As I travelled deeper into the desert following the ancient writings on the map my mind turned increasingly to thoughts of the curse the old man had mentioned. Yet the staff at The Rutter Continuum place little value on their sanity or personal safety when weighed in the balance against our readers' unquenchable thirst for enlightenment. On the twelfth day of my journey I spied a nugget. Not of gold, though my joy could not have been greater had it been the most precious of precious metals. No, it was a glistening brown nugget of shit. It was a fresh Desert Bigfoot dropping laden with worms and other varieties of parasites! I immediately scooped it up and inhaled deeply. Yes! There was the distinctive nauseating aroma which legend tells us is typical of Bigfoot shit.

My heart started to race I knew now that I must be close. Then, I heard the low howling wail from far across the dunes. I started to sprint across the sands desperate that my quarry should not elude me now that I was so close. As I reached the top of a large dune I looked down into a valley. There, I saw it. The Desert Bigfoot.

I sank to my knees as of tears of joy coursed down my cheeks. It was a strange and beautiful sight with its coarse black fur caked with excrement and other filth. It disappeared over the crest of the dune with a curious rolling gait. One fleeting glimpse was not enough I staggered to my feet and started to pursue this marvelous beast. I tracked it for hours across the burning sands. It was a magnificent spectacle to see this huge primate striding across the desert continually groping its genitals as it walked.
The beast knew not that I followed it for the senses of the Desert Bigfoot are reputedly very dull. But my fascination for this animal overpowered my sense of caution and I strayed too close. The shy and gentle creature began to pursue me across the dunes, screaming and gesturing wildly.

After a chase lasting many hours, the burning eye of the sun began to drop behind the shifting mountains of sand. The Desert Bigfoot grew tired of the pursuit and returned to it's filth-hole somewhere in the vast sandy desert where doubtless a litter of hungry young Bigfoot cubs waited for the return of their parent who would probably eat them.