Thus Spake Alex M. Rodriguez

There's a certain sense of exposure here.
A little about me, my name is Alex Mitchell Rodriguez.
I'm a 20-year old student and aspiring writer of fiction ("20-year old" and "aspiring" are both parts subject to change if this goes according to plan), and I've lived all up and down the eastern seaboard of the United States, from New York to North Carolina.
Now, I've always thought the best way to know a person is by their honest likes.
So, here's a few of mine (in verse):

I like guitars and the stories that they tell.
I like sunshine and escapism as well.
I like channel surfing, the portraits that paints.
I like beverages that make sinners of saints.
I like poetry, how it sets people free,
And I'm a big fan of serendipity.

Yep, that's me in a nutshell.
And now, horrendously and by my own hand unpracticed, here goes my down-going into this blog.
I, myself, was for the longest a vehement despiser of most social media.
"Christ, look at the twits: fluttering around with their short-term memory loss, shoving their faces into the antithesis of books!"
Definitely a LOT of railing went on against the concept, lots of loathing.
But, as Nietzsche said:
"Love the great despisers, 
Because they are the great adorers, 
And arrows of longing for the other shore."
Nietzsche's probably not the best to quote for an excuse, but listen: if those words were true, it would then go without saying that I enjoy long walks on the beach as much as the next guy, albeit for reasons far different from that next guy.
The other shore for me is romantic and freeing, sure, all well and grand. But the other shore's also a temporally incessant momento mori I've carried with me as I've traipsed throughout this wild Arcadia of ours, the land of the free. Sometimes the sea's drawn back from the other shore and it looks beautiful...at a distance. But sometimes the sea's upon it in full force, crashing so close it snatches babes from their bathwater. Always it's there, though, and it is very likely (unless, you know, we chemically alter the inevitability of the sea and of death) that it always will be.

For now, come high water or that which is worse:  
Semper, mea anima in insulis, right here on earth.

Thus concludes my reasoning for finally breaking my social media siege and jump-starting this blog.
That's my philosophical iceberg's tip, and I'll gradually raise it from the sea, but on a lighter note: a note on the function of this, my little fief called Deadbeatland.
This blog's going to serve as a portal, more or less, for a few things, but mainly my fiction writing.
As to what fiction, well...whatever, really.
I'm not picky when it pertains to literary genre; I just sort of lie back and roll in the tide of the idea.
Whatever strikes me, though, be it crime or adventure, drenched in noir or pinot noir, will always have a sort of whimsical sting to it.
I'd like to imagine that takes the edge off.
By doing this, writing all this, I'm trying to broaden my understanding of that esoteric spiderweb, literary theory. Through my observations, the hope is that in a sort of symbiosis you and I might reach a higher ground in terms of understanding this madcap plane of existence we stroll through.
For now, welcome to Deadbeatland: a blog for all and none.

- Alex M. Rodriguez