Cliff

I’m an unapologetic narcissist, as most of my writing here will attest. I write mostly about myself and my experiences. Yet for a long while I’ve thought it would be a good idea to write a bit about other people, perhaps as a regular exercise. When I say “good idea,” I mean good for me; I don’t delude myself that I’d be doing my subjects any big favor. I’m not sure I’ll be able to follow through with it, but I’m going to try.

I thought I’d start with someone easy, namely, Cliff.

I say Cliff’s “easy” not as some kind of commentary on his moral stature, but because he’s a blogger. That makes it extremely easy for me to write this. All I really have to do is point to his blog: Cliff’s Crib. Go on, check it out, and you will learn far more about Cliff than I could ever tell you. You’ll also learn a good deal more about the current state of New Orleans than you’ll learn here. He writes in a highly personable, engaging and entertaining style, but most importantly he write from the heart, and that comes through in every line.

I know I’m not the only one who feels this way. Cliff won the Ashley Morris Award at Rising Tide 5. He mentioned getting comments from a guy who gave him encouragement and offered to get together and smoke a cigar with him. I gathered that was Ashley himself. I’m not sure if they ever did hang out together, but I can testify that on reading some of Cliff’s posts I’ve wanted to go have a brandy with him. There’s something about his online voice that inspires that sort of response.

I think of Cliff as a friend even though we don’t really know each other except through this medium of writing. That’s odd, but I have my share of people who regard me as a friend because I come into their living rooms via that TV show. Only rarely have we rubbed elbows in real life. I guess I’m really more of a fan. I’ve invited Cliff to participate in two panels here at the University, and he contributed greatly to both. I’m not sure when I first became aware of his blog, but that first panel was in October of 2007, so it must have been some time before then.

I see I’ve manged to turn this into being “all about me” after all. Old habits die hard. So let me just finish by repeating my exhortation to check out Cliff’s Crib.