Followed this wiki,
http://wiki.contextgarden.net/ConTeXt_Minimals
 installed in my personal directory.

Now for the most elementary quetsion: Given the file 
foo.tex how do I actually run mkiv context on it?
I tried 
mtxrun template.tex
and I get the error:
./template.tex:1: unexpected symbol near '\'

template.tex is an outline of a Context file:
---------------------------

-- 
John Culleton

"Death Wore Black" Police procedural: 
http://www.deathworeblack.com/

"Create Book Covers with Scribus"
http://booklocker.com/books/4055.html