Born to hardscrabble coalminers in the plains of rural Oregon, Sparticus “Sparky” Glencove, the man who would one day be known to his readers as Chutney, found himself split between the demands of a latter day fundamentalist sect known now as the United Monrovian Brethren of God, Reformed, and his passion for fishing for miniature crappie in the icy mountain streams that dotted the family’s back hectare like so many geese without nests. The Monrovians frowned upon mountain streams, and, in the fullness of time, Sparky set to the road in search of mountain streams absent Monrovians but found only mountain streams absent miniature croppie.

It was at this time that, while confronted in Wichita by a gaggle of angry white ethnic hooligans for his Monrovian accent, Sparky met the lovely and resolute Whiski Tufmussels, who roundly ran off the unruly ne’er-do-wells with one of her haymakers. The two would later marry, after Sparky’s study tour of the great capitols of northeastern Europe.

Europe was unkind to Sparky. He found that he did not care for vodka—or perhaps that it did not care for him—and that, though the Peace Corps could provide meaningful work teaching lead-poisoned orphans to read, he could not abide the arora borealis, which excited his excema, a family condition. He left Europe a year early. 

Sparky returned to Wichita, made Whiski his wife, and found work repairing shoes for an expatriot Oregonian couple who were, coincidentally, raised in the United Monrovian Brethren of God (not Reformed) just three valleys away from Sparky’s family stead. In spite of the awkward culture gap, Sparky soon found himself at ease with the older couple and settled into a predictable yet satisfying life playing second-hand cobbler to the merely heeled of south central Kansas.

But it was not to last. His benefactors died in a gruesome cobbling mishap, and their estranged son swept into Wichita, sold the shoe shop for scraps, and threw Sparky out on his ear. Work for journeyman cobblers was scarce in those days. Sparky fashioned himself Whisky’s road manager, but the semi-professional women’s prizefighting circuit in Kansas was in almost as dire straights as cobbling, and the two set out for Chattanooga in search of work after her second failed attempt to sieze the bantam weight belt from one Daisy “Spitfire” Rodriquez.

Whisky soon found work as a pit pitcher in one of the city’s many peach plants. Sparky’s irrascible temperament, however, kept him from consistent employment, and he grew depressed. He began to teach himself HTML by testing handwritten webpages on the sly on the computer in the neighborhood coffee shop until he was able to earn enough money selling plasma to buy a second hand Amiga he found in the Thrifty Nickel. He learned how to mooch off his upstair neighbor’s wi-fi connection. Blogging was soon to follow.

Lacking both his youthful ambition and a way to fill his days, Sparky fashioned himself a blogging Unitarian, taking the moniker Chutney to remind him of earlier, happier days of caper crusted-crusted crappie, basmati rice, and a light curry cream sauce with mixed vegetables. A writer was born.

In time, Sparky found work as a bar back, and Whiski advanced to the position of assistant pit pitching foreman. Things were looking up. Sparky hoped that, soon, he would be able to drop the sleepy Chutney persona and blog under his own name, proudly and defiantly. But Whiski still had dreams of returning to the ring, and they could not risk exposure.

In four year’s time, the semi-professional women’s prizefighting circuit collapsed following a corruption scandal, as they had feared and expected. Prizefighting was no longer in the cards. Soon thereafter, Whisky’s supervisor, and beloved mentor, died in a tragic pitting accident. Whisky was promoted. Sparky also made a career transition, from bar backing to graduate study, where he would write his thesis on the history of the early Monrovian movement, united, reformed, and otherwise.

The time was right. No more secrets. No more lies. Bloggers want to be free.

And so I present myself as the voice of this blog. I am Sparticus Glencove. I am a blogger. And I make Chutney.