What's up with the blog name?

I spent a lot of years doing jobs that skinned my knuckles and tested my patience and endurance. Many of those years were spent driving nails and making sawdust. I hate working for anyone and I hate being anybody’s boss. Consequently, I’ve had only a few carpenters I’ve worked with over the years. Guys whose skills and personality complimented my own. In those days when I thought I could successfully run a business—I can’t—I partnered with carpenter named Jeff.

Like many of us stiffs looking up at the bottom rung of the ladder of success, Jeff kept a roof over his head and food on the table by working with his hands. He is a skilled and careful carpenter. Careful because he needed to stay in the category of ten-fingered carpenters to engage in his real love, music. Jeff is a fine base player and song writer. He was a member of a very successful regional pop band. Though not in his nature to be hyper-ambitious, he did chase the mirage of fame and fortune for a while. Then he realized he really only wanted the fortune part. Base players edge toward the back of the stage for a reason.

Jeff was in on the very early stages of my transformation from over-educated construction worker to struggling author who still has to work. We fantasized to each other about becoming rich and famous. Our running joke was that the first one to become rich would buy the other the motorcycle of his choice. When I sent him an e-mail that my first novel was out, he replied that I was in the lead. He is pre-shopping for his bike even now. I told him not to put down a deposit just yet.

Well, that accounts for the name of the blog. It is not easy for me to promote myself or what I do. Feels too much like bragging to a redneck kid. But if it will help my friend Jeff get his motorcycle, I’ll do it, and put my goal right up front. All the stuff behind it is just me scratching and clawing, ranting and bitching and striving. If I’m lucky, I still have a lot of time to kill before that first shovel-full of dirt hits me in the face.