The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind.
Filed under cartoon by author, CarToonsday
Getting less for more. Sometimes its hard to please any reader.
While at a book signing the other day, I overheard one person say to the other as they walked by my table: “He makes me wish I had a lower IQ so I could enjoy his book.”
Filed under no respect
The blathering idiot stood outside, behind a table with a few bumper stickers, buttons, and other items, including some holiday decorations. It was cool autumn morning. Leaves were falling. He could almost hear them. He turned toward Lydia at the table next to his. All three tables together formed a shallow U.
“Is this how it’s done?” he asked.
She smiled at him. “We are a small party with only a small name recognition. Until we become more well known, we won’t get the big money donors like the other parties have.”
The blathering idiot turned and looked at Xenia, his young assistant and the daughter of his off again, on again girlfriend. She was standing at a shorter table to his right. This was the fourth such event they had both been a part of this week. At none of the events did they seem to have much success.
She smiled at him, and then shrugged her shoulders. There were a few things on her table. She was actually selling more than he was.
He looked back at Lydia. “How much money do we have to raise today?”
“More than yesterday.”
“And how much did we raise yesterday?”
“Not enough.”
“That’s what you said yesterday when I asked about the day before.”
“And it was true then and it’s true now. These days, with outside groups being able to buy and run all kinds of ads on their own, campaigns need a lot of money just to get going, and to keep them going requires even more.”
“Like a corporate sponsor?” the blathering idiot asked.
“Not quite,” Lydia said.
“Like maybe we could get a sponsor to put their logo on the side of the campaign truck? ‘This campaign sponsored by Deep Fried Fritters,’” Xenia said. “’Deep fried fritters, just the thing to warm you up on a cool fall morning.’”
Xenia did her best to put an announcer’s voice into her mock advertisement.
“I don’t think that would fit on the side of the truck,” the blathering idiot said.
“And that’s not what this is about.” Lydia scowled at Xenia.
“Then what is this about?” the blathering idiot asked.
“It’s about name recognition,” Lydia said
“Then maybe we should sponsor something.”
“But we don’t have the money.”
“And that’s why we’re out here.”
“Yes.”
“And that’s why we’ve been doing this for four days?”
“Yes.”
“And how many more days will we be outside like this?” Xenia asked.
“Until we raise enough money,” Lydia said.
“To sponsor something?” the blathering idiot asked.
Lydia scowled at him. “The Pro-Accordion Party is already sponsoring you. This yard sale and all the other ones is about raising money to get you elected to the highest office in the land. Pro-Accordion members donated all this junk so you might get elected!”
Just then two people came through the gate into the yard. They heard the word junk, looked disappointed and even a little angry (The blathering idiot thought he saw a scowl forming on the man’s face.), immediately turned around and left.
“I guess he won’t be sponsoring us,” Xenia said.
This time Lydia glared at her.
Sometimes it’s hard to get the people who are selling to buy into what you are selling.
Filed under blathering idiot, Photo by author, Pro-Accordion Party
There once was a man from Bengal
who met a woman through a business phone call.
They arranged to meet;
she was soon sitting on his seat
because his chairs had been part of her recall.
Filed under Freeform Friday
Sky touches nothing
yet still caresses the Earth’s
all-embracing beauty.
Filed under Haiku to You Thursday, poetry by author
“I write for the same reason I breathe — because if I didn’t, I would die.”
–Isaac Asimov
So, take a deep breath and plunge on into it. Even if you don’t know exactly what you’re doing, splash a few words around and see what happens. Think of the blank sheet of paper or the blank screen as a scene waiting to be discovered.
You might just have a masterpiece within you. Remember that Michelangelo took a block of marble rejected by his contemporaries and saw the statue ‘David’ within it. All he had to do, he said, was chip away the pieces not needed in order to create his masterpiece.
Many times a writer has to do the same thing. The block of marble is the first draft. The subsequent drafts are chipping away at that marble, removing the pieces you don’t need. Easy? No. But from a rejected pile of words can come your masterpiece. You have to be honest with yourself and hold true to your vision of the story and commit to it with confidence … and write as if you were breathing.
Even out of ruined or rejected scenes can come your masterpiece.
Filed under Photo by author, Writing Tip Wednesday
Crash courses available.
Filed under cartoon by author, CarToonsday
The other day a young man approached me. He said he had a sure-fire mathematical way of understanding Mitt Romney. And that it would prove he was the best man for the job.
At first I wanted nothing to do with this, but he seemed earnest and so since we both waiting for the rain to stop, I said, “Okay, tell me.”
He asked, “What number in the alphabet is the letter ‘R’?”
I hesitated while I did a quick counting in my head. “Eighteen?”
“Right. And 1 plus 8 is 9 and 9 is an upside down 6. And the ‘O’ in Obama is the fifteenth letter of the alphabet and 1 plus 5 is 6, which is the number of the beast in the Bible. See?”
I wasn’t sure I saw anything, but after a pause said, “But I thought the number of the beast is 6-6-6.”
He looked at me as if I were about to trick him. “So?”
“So, what’s 6 plus 6 plus 6?”
“Eighteen.” He said it slowly as if it was new math or old math brought back to torment him.
And maybe the R-R-R is just a 6-6-6 in disguise.
“And eighteen is 1 and 8, and 1 plus 8 is 9. The same number as the ‘R’ in Romney or Ryan. And there are three R’s is front of Romney’s name – a blue one, a white one, and a red one – in his yard sign, just like there are three six’s in the number of the beast. And what’s more, 18 plus 18 plus 18 equals 54 and 5 plus 4 is also 9. Freaky, don’t you think? Maybe it means Romney is secretly the beast in disguise and if elected it will be the beginning of the End Times.”
Even though the rain hadn’t stopped, the young man decided to walk out in it. A flash of lightning and a clap of thunder greeted him.
I never knew math could be so much fun. Maybe with the next one I can talk about science.
Filed under political humor
The blathering idiot was in a fourth grade class. Why he was in a fourth grade class, he wasn’t sure, except that Lydia had told him they were studying about the civic process of getting elected to office and that she knew the teacher and had told the teacher she was working with a candidate for the highest office in the land, and the teacher asked if the candidate might be available to speak to her class, and Lydia had said sure, and so here he was.
They were standing in the school, a small old house actually that had been converted to a full time school many years ago.
The blathering idiot looked up the stairway leading to the second floor. The fourth grade was immediately to his right at the top of the stairs. He felt butterflies and breakfast churning in his stomach. He wasn’t ready for this. He was sure of it. And they were late. The teacher would rap his knuckles for being late now just like she did when he was in the fourth grade. It didn’t matter that it was a different school in a different city with a different teacher. There was a quantum connection among all fourth grade teachers and they universally want to rap your knuckles for being late to class, no matter the excuse. No excuse was ever good enough to overcome the quantum connection.
Climbing the stairway back to fourth grade. “I don’t want to do this,” he said.
“I don’t want to do this,” he said.
Wasn’t there a show about being smarter than a fifth grader? Maybe this was a prelude to talking to fifth graders.
“Think of it as practice for when you get on the road and are campaigning.”
Fifth graders for sure, he thought.
“She’ll wrap my knuckles,” he said.
“What?” Lydia asked.
He looked at her. He couldn’t disguise the fear. “We’re late and she wants to wrap my knuckles!”
The first grade teacher leaned out of the door to her room and pointed a ruler at them. “Quiet, please.”
She looked younger than he remembered his first grade teacher looking. Prettier, too. His stomach calmed slightly. Then he noticed the ruler and his stomach started fluttering again.
“Wait here,” Lydia said.
Before he could say anything, she was up the stairs and knocking on the fourth grade teacher’s door. Then she disappeared inside the room and the blathering idiot’s stomach started fluttering again.
It was probably only a few minutes, but to the blathering idiot it felt like a few hours. Then the door to the fourth grade classroom opened, Lydia poked her head out, and she waved the blathering idiot upstairs.
Slowly he trudged up the stairs. It felt like school all over again.
When he reached the top, the fourth grade teacher opened the door and invited him in. She smiled and her face looked more kind than stern. The blathering idiot looked at her hand. She was not holding a ruler.
He shrugged and trudged into the room.
Lydia introduced him as a candidate running for the highest office in the land and the fourth graders looked at him oddly.
“For real?” one boy with red hair asked.
“For real,” Lydia said.
“Now, Jeffry,” the teacher said, “Remember to raise your hand first and wait to be called on before asking a question.”
The blathering idiot glanced over at her. He still saw no ruler. But he had a sudden urge for his sock monkey, the one he had when he was five and kept with him up to the fourth grade, where a couple of the boys tugged it away from him and tore it apart.
Every kid in the classroom raised a hand.
The teacher pointed at a little girl in the back of the room. She looked small for a fourth grader and she wore very large glasses.
“Yes, Abigail, you can ask your question.”
Abigail stood up beside her desk, but didn’t look any taller than when she was sitting in it. In fact, she looked a little shorter.
The blathering idiot leaned slightly toward as if he anticipated her voice to be as small as she was.
Instead, the room filled with a large, loud, high-pitched squeal as she asked her question: “And why are you running for this office, anyway?”
He looked over at Lydia and he felt his face getting hot. Would a small fourth grader with big glasses understand running for the highest office in the land to make your on again, off again girl friend jealous, prove her wrong that you would never amount to anything? Would a fourth grader understand that he was running because he now wanted to spend more time with Lydia, though she had never indicated more than a professional interest in him? Would a school kid understand that within him as probably within many grown men, there is a desire to better at something than anybody else, to prove he was unique, one-of-a-kind, just like his parents had always told him he was growing up.
He remembered his own sock monkey, torn apart in the fourth grade, where the teacher rapped his knuckles for being late.
He stared at the exaggerated eyes of the little girl and he remembered what the consultant had told him: keep his answers brief and keep his answers on the level of the person asking the question.
So, instead of trying to explain all his true jumble of thoughts and feelings, he said, “Because I thought it would be fun to be elected to the highest office in the land. Maybe some day you’ll want to, too.”
The little girl shook her head so vigorously, her shoulders and torso moved. “No. I want to be a veterinarian. I think that would be more fun. Don’t you?”
The blathering idiot felt his knuckles sting as if they had just been smacked by a ruler. He was sure he wasn’t ready for fifth grade … and he wanted his sock monkey.
I feel lightheaded
The things I’ve dreaded
have floated away.
I see the stars
but not the cars
I’m too far away.
The lines are bleary
between countries, but surely
they’re still there.
But from where I sit
this is just not it
for me to care.
The heavens beyond me
Inspire a song from me
but who would listen?
The earth recedes
and all my needs
I’m no longer missing.
Into the long night
my hope takes flight
and the stars do glisten.
All systems are go
I’m going with the flow
and forgetting my plight.
Though I have no air
I do not care.
I do not put up a fight.
The ellipse of my orbit
will allow me to see more of it
of this … of this good night.
The heavens beyond me….
Filed under Freeform Friday, poetry by author, rhyming poetry
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