Voodoologic.org began as a relatively innocent suggestion made one evening not too long ago while wandering around Newfarm Park, here in Brisbane.

“Hey,” I said to my companion, who was at that point scurrying from tree to tree because he’d become convinced that the park was infested with vampire bats, “what do you think about the idea of co-writing a collaborative blog?”

“That one almost got me!” he screamed in reply, throwing himself headlong into some bushes; and thus Voodoologic.org was born.

You see, I have this friend. His name is Darren.

***

Every story has a beginning, and this one has several. I first met Darren [1] in 6th grade, but he was only at my school for a few weeks before disappearing again, leaving behind nothing more than a fading memory of a nutbag kid who yelled, “I’m craaa-a-zy!” whenever the teacher asked him a question. Or, in fact, whenever anyone else asked him a question, too.

2 years later, Darren and I ended up at the same high school. Between 6th and 8th grade he’d dropped the snorting, frothing-at-the-mouth, fondling-his-own-bellybutton thing, had discovered girls, and was on his way to becoming a damn interesting kid.

And yet, Darren and I didn’t become real friends until, purely by accident, we ended up stranded on the same deserted island for 2 hellish weeks when we were 12. Yes, I know this sounds suspiciously like something out of Lord Of The Flies, but it actually did happen.

***

It was one of those camping trips that parents send their kids on during the summer holidays – partly because they’re supposed to be ‘character building’, but mostly because if they don’t get the kids out of the house for a while they’ll probably climb into a church tower with a rifle and start taking potshots at pedestrians.

26 years later, I remember 3 things about that camp:

1. The island had 4 trees. 4 of them. We were there for 2 weeks, so we had a lot of time to cross-check our tree-counting efforts.
2. We ran out of food after the first week. A supply boat was supposed to drop off more food halfway through our torture fun time on the island, but for some reason never showed up. As a result, we lived for a week on peanuts. Literally, we had this huge chest of peanuts, and that was what we ate for an entire week.
3. There was this kid from my school. His parents had neglected to read the fine print in the brochure about the camp, and so they hadn’t realised that the kids were supposed to bring along enough money to buy their own meals for the two days we spent in a bus while being shipped to and from our island prison. His name was Darren.

So, I shared my money with the freaky starving kid – and learned along the way that he got a whole lot freakier when he was hungry – and we lived for two days off these icecreams called King Sandwiches. You can’t buy them anymore, but damnit I wish you still could.

And that was how Darren and I became friends.

***

All of this has been a painfully long introduction to the real topic of this first post: the process by which Darren and I arrived at writing a blog together, and why it’s called ‘Voodoo Logic’; instead of, as Darren kept suggesting, ‘PurpleGrapesAreAPowerfulSymbolOfDecadence.com’.

After almost 3 decades of knowing Darren – during quite a bit of which we have been friends, excepting the occasional year here and there in which we were trying to kill eachother – I should have known that simple suggestions usually lead to complicated outcomes.

I should have known.

But, like the dumb bunny I all-too-frequently can be, I set out on the process of building a collaborative blog with Darren with an optimism that, in retrospect, bordered on suicidal mania.

I won’t go into the nitty gritty of how we finally arrived at a name for this site that we could both live with. Even now, thinking about it, I’m breaking out into a cold sweat.

I will say this: if I never see another email that says ‘What about PurpleGrapePurpleGrapePurpleGrapeDecadence.com?’, I will count myself a lucky man. Sweet Jesus On A Lightly Buttered Raisin Bagel, please never let me see another email like that again.

***

Darren is, without doubt, the funniest man I know. In a way, his fractured way of looking at the world and his random sense of humour are the embodiment of Voodoo Logic.

God only knows if his personality will translate into the blogging experience, but I have this suspicion that the blogoverse is about to get well-and-truly shafted turned on its head.

Me? I’m just coming along for the ride. Who knows where this whole thing will end up but – you know what? – I truly want to find out.

***

Welcome to Voodoo Logic.

There will be changes.

Now, pardon me while I scream until I can’t scream no more.