Featured Writer of the Month – April-2013

We are back with Featured Writer of the Month. The reason we missed March was because Donna forgot. Yep, it’s that simple; Donna screwed up.  Anyway, Larry Beck or LB Woodgate (his pen name) is our writer of the month. He is smart, funny, political (progressive if you couldn’t figure that out from his work) and a very nice person!  Enjoy his interview!

1. Tell us about Larry Beck or LB Woodgate .  Where were you born and raised, are you married ( I know you are  – just giving readers a feel for your life)  and what did you do before retiring and what do you do now?

Born & raised in Dallas.   Dropped out of high school in my junior year to join the Marine Corps at 17 but attended classes to get my  GED.  After leaving the Corps at a ripe old age of 20 I worked in shipping and receiving for several years before deciding to attend college.  Attended classes at North Texas State University (now Univ. of North Texas) and received a B.A. Degree in Sociology with a Pol Sci minor.  Met my wife in my senior year while she was attending nursing school at nearby Texas Woman’s University.  We married in August, 1976 and have two children, Eric and Eileen

2. You are our resident progressive writer. Were you always on the liberal side or were you knocked unconscious, drugged and made to be liberal? I’m sorry. I think Rush Limbaugh hijacked this interview.

Being born and raised anywhere in Texas automatically handicaps you as a political troglodyte.  Only by sheer will can you escape your fate as a meathead who thinks Texas is somehow God’s gift to the world.  There was a time when Texas had a more populist aspect to its politics.  Had it not been for the likes of Texas liberals like Molly Ivins, Ann Richards, Bill Moyers, Jim Hightower and Ralph Yarborough, I might have thought there was no other way of thinking outside of a mindset that still thinks “the South will rise again”.

It’s only because the McCarthyites and John Birchers who fled the more liberal states of California and the NorthEast for the state they felt more comfortable raising their anti-gay, anti-socialist kids, did Texas become the contender to rob Mississippi of its ranking as the worst state in the union in just about every field measurable.

3.Your life has taken so many paths. Which have had the most influence upon you?

My time in the Marines was perhaps the first great influence on me.   A tour of duty in Vietnam at the height the Tet offensive in 1968 was an eye-opener about how Hollywood up to that time had romanticized war.  It was a maturing experience and the adventures I was part of will last forever but to have made a career out of it would have validated that I was truly brain-damaged at birth.  The camaraderie was great but not enough to justify having to sleep in a barracks with other horny men every night to earn a twenty year retirement pension.

4. What do you hope to achieve with your writing? Is it discourse or do you hope to change a few political minds?

Like most people, there is a writer in all of us that is trying to escape.  We all think we have something of value to offer the rest of the world and until we put ourselves out there to test our mettle we will never know if that urge to write was a warning not to quit our real jobs or not.

Starting late as I did I have discovered this is something I like doing more as a hobby than any serious attempt to get published and have people idolize me at book signings.  I don’t try to change anyone’s political views.  I just want them to see a side that doesn’t develop from living in a cave too long.  Liberals are not always right but at least from my view point, they’re not flat earthers like most non-liberals today.

5. Do you like any conservatives?   OR, do you dislike any liberals? (Don’t panic readers. I asked this in a humorous way)

Real conservatives are a rarity these days but when you do find them they are indeed likable, just not necessarily aimed in the right direction, if you know what I mean.  Actually I have some conservative leanings myself but I try to keep them in check as best I can.  It’s hard not to want to pretend your superior to everyone else and look down on them so you can feel good about yourself but then I think, “What would Martin Luther King say?”

6. Have you found it harder to have political discourse with people now than you did 10 years ago? If so why?

Are you kidding?  I love a good knock down, drag out give and take on the issues.  Again, I’m not trying to change anyone’s narrow-minded views of society.  I just want them to show me and anyone else who is listening how dedicated some people truly are to real stupidity.

7. I love how you always blend humor into your writing no matter what the topic. Why is that important to you?

I blend humor into to my writing?  Are you mocking me?  Actually,  the humor often comes from simply exposing the stupidity in others.  If you’re a fan of George Carlin like I am, you discover how you can have a crowd rolling in the aisles just by showing them how people who take themselves too seriously behave.

8. Tell us about your blog Woodgate’s View

Woodgate’s View is something that evolved after writing for a couple of years with writer sites like Helium and AC Content.  I just felt like I wasn’t reaching enough people in those venues and had less options for demonstrating my writing with certain visuals that I wanted to.  The blog is meant to serve as much as a platform for me to lay my thoughts out in some coherent form that are often in a chaotic state in my mind as it is to approach and share my views  with other like-minded people.

Woodgate’s View is taken from my pen name of LB Woodgate which itself had a senseless beginning.  When looking for a screen name years ago that cutely utilized both alpha and numeric figures I came up with woodg8.  Simplistic?  Retarded is more like it.  But hey!  It served its purpose and by naming the blog with this simplicity I created something a bit more deeper for it, something you could measure with a micrometer.   Okay, nothing more to see here.  Move along.  Move along.

9. Is there anything else you still want to accomplish that is on your wish list or have you done it all?

I’d love to go to Italy and eat real Italian food with the real atmosphere of that country.  I’ve been able to experience my other food taste delights, Mexican and Cajun cuisine,  because of Texas’ close proximity to Mexico and Louisiana.  Italy unfortunately requires an expensive airline ticket and hotel reservations. That’s something this retiree has been unable to save for because Bush and other conservatives have fucked up the economy over the last 30 years and left people like me in the 47% group waiting for all that opportunity to trickle down so we could put some away for retirement.

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