Memoir Writing And How Blogging Prepared Me
This story is part of the real-life experience behind my rock and roll memoir—drawn from the years when the business, the personalities, and the stakes were all colliding at once.
There’s a line in my memoir, Once A King, Now A Prince, that led me to write this post. Since this is the first new piece I’ve published since launching the site, it felt right to explain where my writing comes from—and how blogging played a role in shaping it.
On my “About” page, I mention that I spent over two decades writing as a blogger, with one of my blogs featured by The Times of Israel. That experience matters, because it wasn’t just writing—it was learning how to think, how to structure a story, and how to hold a reader’s attention without losing the thread. I’ll be the first to admit I haven’t mastered everything. Typos still sneak in, and grammar occasionally keeps me humble. But over time, something more important developed.
Like a good song, writing needs structure. A beginning that grabs you, a middle that keeps you in it, and an ending that delivers. That rhythm carried over into this music memoir, because storytelling—whether on a stage or on a page—lives or dies by how it moves.
I also learned how to tell a story in my own voice. I like words, I like wordplay, and I like humor. My humor tends to lean New York Jewish—dry, a little sarcastic, and sometimes right on the edge. You’ll find that throughout Once A King, Now A Prince, because it’s part of how I see the world.
What blogging really gave me, though, was something beyond technique. It gave me the ability to write in real time, without overthinking every sentence, and to capture moments as they felt—not just how they looked afterward. That instinct became essential in what is also a music business memoir, because so much of that world depended on timing, judgment, and decisions made before anyone knew how things would turn out.
Below is one of those earlier pieces, exactly as it was published by The Times of Israel. It hasn’t been rewritten or polished. It stands as it was—warts and all—because that’s part of the process, and part of the journey from blogging to memoir.
From My Memoir, Once A King, Now A Prince:
“Don’t Cry For Me Palestina” (or the myth of Palestine)
Sep 23, 2014, 7:27 PM
A long time ago in a memory far, far away existed a Mandate called Original land for Israel per Balfour Declaration.
Palestine, by the western victors of World War 2 and comprised of an area that heretofore was Ottoman Turkey. The Mandate called for the establishment of Palestine as a Jewish homeland. This was hardly “Palestinian” land as the word is today used. The Turks first conquered the land in the 7th Century, It was conquered by Egypt in 1830 and it became a place where many Egyptian soldiers settled. Egypt later gave it back to the Turks in 1838. Along the way many other invaders conquered the land, including the
Mongols. Still there were not “Palestinians” claiming that land as theirs.
Following the Balfour Declaration of 1917, wherein Palestine was promised to the Jews, land was “purchased” rather than conquered and farms and communities were built. Throughout the 20’s, 30’s and into the 40’s the Arabs would regularly attack the Jewish settlements, as in the Russian Pogroms in pre Soviet times. Their religion dictated that they could live with the “infidel” but the “infidel” must be subjugated to the Moslem. Seeing the success of the Jewish communities and their well run farms, the Arabs felt that this was “out of place” and that the Jews were not to outdo them and thus they began attacking their settlements. Please note, that nobody hear needed to “cry” that the Jews had taken Arab homeland or that the Jews would not allow them to return to “Palestine”, as they did not need any modern day excuse to “persecute the infidel” for showing them up.
So, the common mistake folks make about “Palestinian” land is not reality. Would someone kindly tell Mr. Obama this, as his starting point for a peace is not historically sound. The second fact here is that the 1967 border, was won by war, with Israel being the victim of the Arabs, who had been attacking them since the 20’s in earnest. Now if it were anyone else on the face of the earth but Jews who won land by war, no one would by crying that they should give it back. In fact, after much “crying by the Pelestina”, (pardon my play on words) the British gave in and “split” the land promised to the Jews, in a less than equal way than King Solomon split the baby, and gave not only three quarters of the land to the Arabs, to form what was to be “their Palestine”, but the arable land as well, leaving the Jews with desert.
The land given the Jews was what is roughly what Israel consists of today and went up to the Jordan River, and included “West Bank” towns of Nazareth, Nablus, all of Jerusalem and Gaza. Hello, Mr. President??? The large plot of arable land became Trans-Jordan, or Jordan, as it is called today. Here is the Rub, when Israel was declared a state in 1947 and was attacked by Arab nations on all sides, they won the war, but the Arabs kept much of the land. Here it seems to be just fine for the world not to ask the Arabs to return to the 1947 borders, let alone the right of return by the Jews to their lands, homes and wealth, which were lost when kicked out of the Arab countries in 1947. No justice here!
Note: The image above shows the land of Palestine as it was to become Israel at the onset.
The second image below shows the final land grant after the Arab nations vociferously complained and thus all of the quality land was given to the Arabs, with the Jews being given the desert lands.
Further note that the land referred to on the second map as Transjordan, was to be the home for the Palestinians.
About the Author
College graduate, business owner, history reader and thinker. I am a registered Independent in America.
Writing My Memoir, Of Once A King, Now A Prince Has Progressed
I noticed two things about the blog in Times of Israel. 1- They did not edit it for grammar or spelling. 2-My skills have improved since 2014. So, as I have linked directly to The Times of Israel’s original publication of my blog, my warts and all would have been shown anyway.
Audio Link To The Times Of Israel Original Blog
https://trinitymedia.ai/player/share/655a321e73b7126ccf5baac04b81d680eca8
My Reading Of The Blog
Explore more stories from the memoir here.
