ROBIN WILLIAMS

I'm not feeling at all clever this morning.  I slept well.  I had my morning coffee.  I'm awake.  I feel good.  Everything, as far as I can tell, is as it should be but...I'm not feeling clever.  Does this ever happen to you or is cleverness not one of your particular priorities?

For me it is a question of mental agility.  You know, the ability to see the odd, the skewed, the usually unnoticed, and especially the funny.  Where would life be without the funny?  (Nowhere I want to go, that's for sure.)  And maybe that's it, my lack of cleverness this morning. The funniest man on the planet, Robin Williams, is gone and I and the planet are feeling his absence.  What a loss.  He was 63.  We should have had at least another decade of laughter from him. 
 
So I'll pass this day clever-less and maybe a couple more as well.  I'll just enjoy the many clips of Robin's brilliance that are certain to be aired and put aside my small bits of funny to appreciate those of a true master.  I will miss you Robin and so will a world that needs laughter more than ever.

Rest in peace. 


 

 

Addicted !

When I read writing that is better than mine, which is everything I read, because I won't read anything that isn't good, I wonder why I write at all and yet... I persist.  Clearly, my inner psychiatrist suggests, I have an addiction. 


Alrighty then, what to do?  

My first thought was to quit cold turkey.  I abandoned that line of reasoning almost immediately when the phrase "cold turkey" led me down an imaginary failed Thanksgiving dinner that I knew I would have to write if I lingered long on why the turkey was cold.  If I went to the expanded phrase, "quitting cold turkey," leftover and deli sandwiches would come into play for that is where cold turkey most often appears and I would be hard pressed to do much with that subject.  I also wondered why "cold turkey" was used to describe a way of ridding oneself of an addiction by applying  will power and no other aids. What the hell do turkeys have to do with that, let alone cold ones?

Tapering off didn't work either.  Watch I'll show you:  Tapering off doesn't work either. See I'm still writing.

I was left with only one choice, WA, Writers Anonymous.

Hello, my name is Doc Walton and I am a writeaholic.   I spend hours a day getting into a numbed out, trance-like state in which I ignore the reality around me.  The damage to myself, my friends and family is incalculable.  I know this as I once tried to calculate it and came up with twelve and I have no idea what that signifies because we writeaholics don't do well with numbers. What's that you say?  Twelve is the number of steps it takes to complete the program?  Okay, then. I'm clearly in the right place. What exactly is the first step?  Get rid of my blog!  You people are Effing Crazy?!

I'm outa here! 



 

DIAMOND IN THE ROUGH

During yesterday's PGA golf tournament Sergio Garcia hit a shot that went awry and clipped the hand of a woman spectator.  The woman was unhurt  but the golf ball knocked her engagement diamond from her ring. When a subsequent search failed to discover the ring, Sergio told his caddy to get the woman's name and address and he would buy her another diamond.  

Classy.
 
 Woowoo Charly suggested to me that here was story potential.  Her view was that a fictional golfer experiences the same situation and upon meeting the woman at an agreed upon jewelry store the two are attracted to each other and shuffle off to a nearby place for lunch and cocktails. From there, of course, they fall in love and the golfer ends up buying two rings, one to return to the woman's former fiancee and one to give to his new love. 

A decent plot line but not exactly one that is up my alley.  Up my alley there are weirdos and winos, some of whom may or may not be golfers, and either humor or horror is about to be afoot, at hand, at arms reach, or some other close body part of your choice.  Romance is less likely but not out of the question if you pose the question properly as in, "So Doc, any chance of a love affair in your story of an alcoholic werewolf who only savages people named Jack Daniels?"  The answer right off the cuff and other parts of my clothing would be no, but it would give me pause later, because there is something in the word pause that if spelled differently could lead to a sexually titillating scene and that is a scene I might be inclined to write. (I have learned that writing from an inclined position causes blood to flow away from the brain making that organ less functional which, as it turns out in my case, is usually a good thing.)

So anyway, back in real life where I occassionally but seldom willingly live, the woman's diamond was eventually found in the rough bordering the fairway, hence the title of this blog.  The discovery of the rock ended any chance for a romantic liason between Sergio and the woman which is too bad. Had the stone not been found the woman might have been bitten by a wolf, turned to drink and, well, you know the rest of the story.