Wha? Internet? You mean they've built a machine where people can spend hours of their lives chattering inanely to one another, self-publishing their moronic pronouncements and playing Texas Hold 'Em? Seriously? Well, whenever I see human beings behaving with heroic stupidity I say to myself "I gotta get me some of that action!"

Therefore, I have started this blog.

In order to maintain a tissue-like veil of anonymity (as opposed to veil of ignorance), I have chosen to call myself Sunset Shazz. This was a name given to me by Double Barrel after I began spending a lot of time on the Sunset Strip leeching off the likes of Hef and P Hilt. Those were the days, eh.

Anyway, it shouldn't be that tough for you not to use my real name. Until I was nineteen years old, the only person who ever used my real name was Mrs. Armstrong, my high school business studies teacher. And she used it sneeringly, the bitch. Told me I'd never amount to anything. WHO'S THE LOSER NOW, EH?!!

Er, sorry about that. Anyway, the point is that not even my mother uses my real name. The pseudonym Shazz is in fact a contraction of Shazzy, which was a monicker given to me by my cousin Shmuckbottom when I lived in London. One drizzly day we were walking in Leicester Square when an African mother said to her little son "come here, Shazzy!", and Shmuckbottom looked at me and pronounced "henceforth, you shall be known as MC Shazzy D, the lyrical gangster." Years later, when a whole circle of friends in San Francisco (Double Barrel, Sammy Dub, Iceman, TDC inter alia) would routinely call me Shazzy, I once asked them "do you even know why you call me this?" Of course, they didn't, which is a wonderful example of what Richard Dawkins would call a "meme", or what my dad Dr. Diamond would call "bloody nonsense".

Well, had I followed my initial hair-brained scheme and moved to LA, I would properly be Sunset Shazz. Instead, I'm following a hairier-brained scheme by moving to Istanbul and Double Barrel hasn't yet thought of the appropriate nickname for this period of my life. Which brings me to the real reason I'm starting this thing: I will miss many of you (others I won't; you know who you are, respectively) and this seems to be the most efficient way to maintain contact.

Please understand that my mother reads this, hence it won't read like some of the stories I have sent out in past (The Vegas Chronicles, The Time We All Got Arrested At Faisal's Bachelor Party, etc.) But it should provide a modicum of entertainment as I often find myself in the sorts of escapades where hilarity tends to ensue.

One last point: "Taken At The Flood" was the name of a column I wrote for the short-lived and sadly defunct whatbubble.com. I shall post those columns when I have a moment.

- Sunset