Two Wrongs Don’t Make a Writer

Some of my friends think too much. One pointed out that my humor seems to have a subtle edge that is hidden beneath a veil of sarcasm and observational levity that belies the truth that I am compensating for some hidden pain by making light of serious situations to deflect attention away from the turmoil within. I have no clue what she was talking about because I was just making a joke.

As soon as I got out my dictionary, a psychological text book, and consulted three therapists, figured out what she was talking about. She was accusing me of hiding my pain behind humor. Some of the best writers and funniest comedians are able to derive humor from pain. Having been maliciously accused of having depth to my writing, going beyond the surface to reveal something about myself, all I can say is: “Oh yeah?” See, I’m not that deep. I’m so shallow you could wade across me.

That’s not totally true. There has been pain in my life. There have been sprained ankles, a couple of broken bones, two surgeries and numerous concussions in my past. You are nodding thinking that the concussions explain a lot, aren’t you? Just yesterday, I suffered physical pain beyond what I thought possible. While stacking paper that came out of my printer, (those of you who are squeamish may want to skip to the next paragraph) I got a nasty paper cut. It bled for almost ten second. I thought was going to pass out from exsanguination. Weeping and wailing, I dabbed it with liquid bandage. That is stuff that is supposed to seal a wound, preventing bleeding and infection. It also contains a chemical (I think it was sulfuric acid) that kills germs and makes a grown man scream like his finger is on fire and beg for his mommy. You see, I do know pain. (Excuse me while I wipe tears off the keyboard)

There is also the emotional traumas through which many writers must struggle for their art. I could tell you about divorce, lost loves, betrayals and jobs that I hated; however, the real psychological and emotional abuse comes from drivers. Last week, while minding my own business on the Interstate, I encountered a car that was driving the speed limit. I know, right? What kind of moron drives 55 on a five-lane highway in one of the left lanes? Can you believe the nerve of that eighty-five-year-old lady? Even though I wanted to draft behind her and honk my horn until I had a good place to put her into the wall, I showed restraint. I suffered in silence, knowing that emotional suffering is part of being a writer. Also, I knew it would make a good paragraph for a blog someday.

With these great trials and tribulations in my life, it makes sense that I’m a writer. It also proves that I’m really not that complicated. Eccentric, odd, and unusual; but not complicated.

Cabin Fever

One of my favorite writers is Patrick McManus. For those of you who have not read his work, what’s wrong with you? He is one of the funniest outdoor humor writers I have ever read. Okay, he is the only outdoor humor writer I’ve ever read, but he is still hilarious. He wrote a short story about Cabin Fever he experienced as a child snowed in among the backwoods of Idaho. I don’t want to give away the ending, but I will tell you it involved white haired gnomes. See why I like his stories?

The reason I bring it up is the snow. We got some snow last night. By some I mean a butt-load of snow. For East Tennessee five inches of snow is a butt-load. Now before any of you people in places like Minnesota or New England start laughing at me… you already are, aren’t you? Anyway, there are a few things you have going for you that we don’t. You have little things like snow plows and drivers who know what they are doing. We don’t have those luxuries in the South. It’s supposed to be warmer down here.

Since it is not safe on the roads, I stay inside when we have horrendous, polar-vortex blizzards that leave us with a big, bad five inches of snow. That can lead to cabin fever. Now let me explain how this works. You can’t go outside for fear of falls, frostbite and getting run over on the second floor of the mall by Knoxvillians trying to drive in the snow. Yes, it is that bad. So you stay in and enjoy the companionship of your loved ones. Sounds good, doesn’t it?

All is well until the cable goes out due to the weather. So you check online to see what’s happening with your 500 Facebook friends whom you have never met in real life. That works for five minutes until your internet is taken out by a malicious icicle on the lines two blocks over. That’s okay because you have over 100 DVDs with movies you haven’t watched in months or years. Just as you are sliding the movie into the player, a tree limb becomes overloaded by the snow and hits the power line coming into the apartment complex. That’s not a problem because your laptop can play a couple of movies on a full charge. Well, it wouldn’t have been a problem if your son hadn’t used it to play World of Warcraft last night and forgot to plug it in after defeating a really nasty troll. Twenty-eight seconds into Spider-Man 2, your computer shuts down.

No TV. No internet. No power. No movies. No computer. And it’s all Al Gore’s fault for inventing global warming which is somehow responsible for colder winters, too. Don’t ask me, I don’t get it either. I just blame Gore. All that is left are books. As a writer, I think this is a good thing. My state of mind is not the best since everything I have tried seems to end in failure. Closing my eyes, I choose a random book. The complete works of Edgar Allen Poe. What could possibly go wrong reading stories of death and horror while stuck inside with nothing working while hanging out with family? I opened the book at random and began dramatically reading The Tell Tale Heart out loud so all could enjoy:

“TRUE! – nervous – very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses – not destroyed – not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad? Hearken! and observe how healthily – how calmly I can tell you the whole story.”

After one paragraph my son informed me I was reading with too much emotion – almost like I was really feeling what I read. He took Poe away and handed me The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy instead. I think the snow is getting to him.

Olympic Games That Need to Be Added

You may not have noticed, but the Winter Olympics are on. (Yes, that was sarcasm.) You may love the Olympics. You may like the Olympics. You may not care about them. But, if you have not noticed them then you must not own a TV. They are everywhere! I even went so far as to look on the map to find out where in Russia is Sochi. It’s in the southern part of the country which tells me the northern parts must be too cold for the WINTER Olympics. Time to stop complaining about when it dips below the 50s here in Tennessee.

My favorite part of the Olympics are the unusual evens. Enjoy the skiing and skating. I’m watching the skeleton. Anyone who belly-flops onto a tiny sled, flying down a bobsled run face first with no brakes, is someone I want to buy a beer. That assumes they do not put the straight jacket back on him when the run is over. If that is too extreme for you, then you can watch the luge. It is the same thing as skeleton but the person is laying down, feet first down the bobsled run. What a bunch of wimps the luge guys are! I will admit I tried to get on the mixed doubles luge team, but I couldn’t talk Ashley Judd into being my teammate.

There are some games that I think should be added to the Olympic event list that have been overlooked.

• Ice Diving. Imagine the combination of the spectacular beauty and grace of diving with the insanity of ice fishing. You get on a diving board, bounce, flip, dive and try to make it through a tiny hole in the ice. That ice-hole is important. Without the ice-hole you can’t get back out after surviving the dive. One way in, one way out. Kind of makes the skeleton run seem safe, doesn’t it?

 

• Snow Polo. Do you have a horse you don’t really like that much? I’m thinking of the pony I rode as a kid that enjoyed scraping kids off its back using steel buildings to force children to choose between keeping a leg and riding a pony. If you have that kind of beast of burden, then snow polo is your sport. You play it just like regular polo – field hockey on horseback – but you play it in the snow. Now the risk of broken bones, falls, sprains and frostbite are very real dangers. But those happen to the horse you don’t like.

 

• Shovel Racing. I am shocked that this one isn’t in the games! You take a snow shovel, tie it to that horse you don’t mind shooting when it breaks it leg in the snow, then sit on the shovel while someone rides the horse as fast as it will go in the snow. Yeah, I want to try this one, too.

 

• Skijoring. Think shovel racing on skis. That is my kind of cross-country skiing. I think we should do it with snowmobiles instead of horses though. You can avoid injuries, temperamental steeds, and horse poop.

I hope these will be added to the list of games for Pyeongchang in 2018. Do you think the South Koreans will go for it?

Artsy Partsy

If you want to see some very interesting works of art, allow me to recommend my favorite coffee shop – Old City Java in Knoxville. It is in one of my favorite parts of an old part of town. With a name like Old City Java, who would have guessed that one? As I sit here, enjoying a cup of fresh java (the coffee is fresh even if the city is old) the art on the walls captured my attention deficit dominated brain. For almost a minute, I looked around and pondered the meanings behind the art and gave them new names that seemed to better match what was on the canvas.

The first piece of art that jumped out at me, other than the ceiling painted like Van Gough’s Starry Night, was the dear head on the wall. You are probably wondering why a trendy place like Knoxville would have the redneck décor of a mounted animal head. If you are really wondering that, you have never been to Knoxville. This place is – believe it or not – a trendy place for Knoxville. The deer head on the wall is at artist’s interpretation of a deer head. I would not have chosen Play-Doh for my medium, but what do I know? I call it “Deer DOH!”

Glancing to my left, I see art that is reminiscent of absolutely nothing. It is the body of a runner and the head of double-trunked wooly mammoth riding on a skeletal three-headed dog that looks cranky. I have entitled this one, “Never Eat Tai Food Before Bed”.

There is another one that I call “Lines” that can best be described as a bunch of lines on a piece of paper. Did you notice that I never claimed my titles were creative? There is likely a deeper meaning related to the angst of the artist expressed in the intersecting of the lines which represents the cutting off of the creative process by the incorporation and commercialization of the art world thereby relegating the true artists to the coffee shops while the politically savvy artists can make lots of money. Either that or someone had a straight edge, a bunch of colored pencils and too much time on their hands. “Lines” seems like a good title regardless.

The last art I noticed looks like two funnels that are attached at the small ends that are sitting up making them look like filled in hourglasses. These orange sculptures are topped with a flat surface and are interspersed around the room. It feels like they are surrounding you, they are everywhere you look! I named them “Orange Invasion”. Those were really bugging me so I asked the guy who made my coffee what he calls them. He looked me in the eye, with a straight face said, “We call them ‘coffee tables’.” I like “Orange Invasion” better.