People write all sorts of blogs, some even only have pictures, not even actual writing, but the pictures have a theme, like my friend Dennis Gordon who takes pictures of abandoned and decaying industrial buildings.

I remember when he said, “Hey, I read your blog. I’ve got a blog too,” and I looked and there were pictures of empty falling-apart buildings, but no words.

I wanted to say, “That’s not a blog, there are no words,” but then I remembered the old adage A picture is worth a thousand words.

That’s debatable, but I’m not going to go into that right now. You can look at Dennis’ picture blog here.

Most picture blogs are porn blogs, and those are all on Tumblr, I think if you are interested you can find those yourself.

When I started writing my blog I started getting likes and comments from strangers, and the strangers fell into three categories: people who “Made Money Blogging,” and wanted me to pay them to show me how to do it; Christians, I don’t know why I get a lot of Born-again Christians reading and liking my blog, but I do; and finally people who just like what I have to say and want to let me know.

As I said before, my blog is simply about me. The things that happen to me or and what I do about it. Sort of an opinion blog, I tell stories and then opine on them.

I told a friend of mine, Lexie about my blog and I urged her to read it.

“I only read cancer blogs,” was her firm reply.

So there are categories, cancer, food, spirituality, health, humor, politics, music, and movies. People write about everything under the sun, and I guess so do I.

I have written about health, (The Heel Spur) about garbage,

(Dude, Where’s My Nanny?) food,

(Tomatoes, How To Cook Beans) music, (My Patti Smith Story, Crashing Iggy’s Party,

The Real Hedwig) and I’m sure if you look hard enough you’ll find humor and spirituality thrown in there somewhere; I guess the sort of spiritual ones are the ones the Christians like. Maybe I can convert them to Humanism.

I first heard that term the summer I turned 18 and was dating a girl from Bayside, Queens. She told me her father was Italian and her mother Jewish, but they had both abandoned their religious beliefs and had embraced Humanism. At 18 I could have given a shit about religion, or humanism for that matter, but I sure was in love with that girl.

I know a little more about it now, so I describe my beliefs as being closer to that than anything else. Be kind to one another. I know it’s hard, but it works better than being unkind to others. That just makes people hate you. But a lot of people hate themselves, and they don’t mind being hated, so I guess it works for them.

Wanting a theme for my blog is always in my head, and a reoccurring theme is complaining about stuff, I missed the train, the tomatoes were tasteless, the Mayor didn’t pick up the garbage, my heel hurts, you get the picture.

I thought of this: I can call my blog CRANK, and just complain about stuff.

I used to watch 60 Minutes just to see Andy Rooney complain about stuff, he was always funny; and I thought, “Hey, I can do that! I can be a professional crank.”

I have to admit I’ve had visions of being the next Andy Rooney dancing in my head for a while, at least since he died and there’s been no one to take his place.

After all, I am the right age; I think I’m as old as he was when he started that segment. And I can be very, very, cranky, just ask my wife, the lovely Danusia.

CBS, are you listening? You don’t even have to pay me as much as he got- I’m a man of modest means, it doesn’t take a lot to make me happy. But I can be a great complainer.

When I was a kid listening to the fabulous WNEW FM radio station, with Roscoe

and Jon Zacherly

and Scott Muni they would play these great public service announcements. There was one where an old man with a New York accent would intone: “You complain and you complain but nobody does nothing about it…”

And that’s just it; no one wants to hear a complainer, at least I don’t- I hate it when someone just misses a subway train after yelling: “Hold the door! Hold the door!” like they are someone special who has to have the door held for them; and as they reach the closed doors burst into a round of cursing and stomping as if that was the last train on earth that just pulled out. I hate seeing that.

But I sure did love Andy Rooney. Maybe it is because his complaining was a little cleverer, or I just identified with what he thought was bad.

My favorite Andy Rooney scene was actually on the Ali G. show, when Sacha Baron Cohen as Ali G. tries to interview Rooney and Rooney just unclips his mike and says: “You should leave now, this interview is over.” (I’m paraphrasing here, don’t hold me to an exact quote) and then Ali G. says: “Is you chucking me out ‘cause I’m Black?” (That’s an exact quote)

Rooney gives him a surprised look, his bushy eyebrows raised to the max and he says “Who’s Black? You’re not Black.” With the finality of a man who knows a little about bullshit.