What you have here is an attempt to blog my memoirs. I tried to get them published but it soon became obvious that today’s publishers fall into three rough categories:

1. Those that do publish but tell new writers they “do not accept unsolicited or unagented material.” (Elsewhere on their websites they tell you what they do accept: hefty government grants.)

2. Vanity Press. They are eager to publish your scribblings – for a price. I have met sheepish people with two-car garages full of their products.

3. Plucky but shaky little companies that are still too proud or too small to fit either of the two above-mentioned categories.

“Ramblings of An Also-Ran” is in frank imitation of “And Now . . . Here’s Max,” by the iconic Canadian broadcaster, Max Ferguson. It was originally published by MacMillan in 1967 and was reprinted by HarperCollinsCanada in 1980.

Just as there will never be another Max Ferguson, there will never be another “And Now . . . Here’s Max.” The book is simply hilarious: it won Canada’s premiere award for humor writing in 1968. And for people in the business, it still stands as one of the best and most accurate chronicles of a unique era in Canadian broadcasting.

Max Ferguson’s broken-down cowboy, Rawhide, was riding high on the Canadian airwaves the year I started in radio. And when ol’ Rawhide hung up his saddle for keeps, I was still in the field – thoroughly bloodied but not unbowed.

I like to think that “Ramblings Of An Also-Ran” picks up where “And Now . . . Here’s Max” leaves off. It may even add a few details and a Western Canadian perspective.

To start reading my “Ramblings,” please go to the right of your screen to click on ‘Foreword.’

But please – oh, please! – let me know how it strikes you.