I wish to make an announcement. Due to the recent abdication of the Virtual Beat by the residents of the Actual Beat, I am officially laying claim to the site on behalf of the singles dorm here at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology here in Boston. This is the introduction to the new and improved BeatBlog.

The dorm is called Polemanakos Hall, after a couple Greek brothers with a typically excessively lengthy last name. I don't know what it means, but my nearest guess would be "Many Monks."

Which isn't quite accurate. The guys who live here are, for the most part, those who are hoping against hope to avoid being many monks...they all want to marry, and are all just waiting for the right Miss Perfect to throw herself at them in a perfectly innocent and modest manner. Don't ask me how that works, because it doesn't. The only time I've ever see it work is in my case, and that was only after I chased my bride-to-be for a year and a half.

But enough of that. The point is, this website is now the inner grace witnessing to the outer symbol of Polemanakos Hall. So let me introduce the cast of characters.

Seraphim Danckaert: as he once was, so he roareth now, save that his manly mane is much increased--there is nary a patch of space on his leonine face not buried at least an inch beneath a thick carpet of flaming red. He's also taken to wearing a long black dress to church.

J. Anthony Gugg: also as he once was, the once bare face again thickly be-fuzzed, the ponytail longer by the day, and also to be seen frequently in a long black dress. He recently acquired a sofa, a loveseat, a desk, a bookshelf, an apartment, much debt and will soon acquire a wife. More blessings are sure to follow, God being gracious and the crik don't rise...

John: Standing in for Sato (and possessing not a few of Jonathan Metzger's characteristics) is John, purveyor of film and lover of anime. Sato can rest assured that, even in his absence, the Gugg is still hearing the incessant praises of Trigun. Albeit from a Greek. But Vash looks Aryan anyway. Long live Vash!

Gregory: He's taking Wazoo's illustrious place. Let me explain why. He's crazy. He plays the saxaphone. He throat sings. In the shower. He sounds like a buffalo. Some of the specifics are not Wazoo-ish, but the general effect is unmistakably from the same mold. I'm not sure who broke it first, but by now it must be beyond repair.

Nebojsa: Standing in, though more vaguely, for the inimitable Prosp3ct, is Nebojsa. That's NEH-bo-sha. He's Serbian. Not Cuban, but still pretty cool. He certainly thinks so. Serbian is apparently the best language ever: it has seven noun cases and can accomodate 16 negatives in one sentence and remain intelligible.

Then there's Lou: I'm putting him in Will's place. I'm not sure why. But Lou is cool. He has a nice hair-do. One day he told me I didn't talk enough. So I asked him, "Lou, did you ever woo a Jew?" "Yes I wooed a Jew...not only one, or even two, but more than a few. In fact, I also dated a Chinese girl named Shu-shu Fu. She had quite the hair-do! I hope one day to woo some Sue with a good brew that she will spew back into my mouth with a view no longer to woo but to eschew solitude forever. But she got news of my tobacco chew and my character was thenceforth skewed--she viewed me as a rough-hewn character from a zoo." So I said, "Ooohh," with sympathy. What else could I do?

I'm sure there are analogous characters for Phil and Bjorn, but I don't have time to find them right now. It doesn't really matter anyway...in a few months, this Blog will move with me to married housing and the characters will all be replaced with whatever mice, beetles and spiders infest the future abode. When I find them, I'll post pictures.

Word to the wise...the Beat will continue to host such ludicrosities as this until the Reality Beat returns to the internet. Which is to say, come back often...they won't be here for awhile, I suspect.