The pain woke me up at 3 AM and for a while I fought to try and go back to sleep.
Eventually I rolled out of bed and wandered to the bathroom cursing the alien that I was sure was trying to claw its way out of my belly.
“Come out and fight me, alien versus man.”
Minutes passed and the alien refused my invite so I cursed its cowardice and wondered what it could be if it wasn’t an alien.
By now it is almost 4 AM and my overactive imagination wonders if it is some kind of serious disease, like cancer.
There is a Frume Sarah like moment in which I spit out ptu, ptu and make a gesture like my great-grandmother might have made to ward off the evil eye.
“Don’t say or think that Josh, you’ll scare your mother.”
I nod my head and say “I take this potch and I’ll throw it away.” The five year-old boy who offered to fight his father to get out of being punished has come to visit, “If cancer shows up I’ll kick its ass.”
Stupid Liberals & The Dumb Conservatives That Love Them
In the midst of the mutiny and digestive distress I click my way around a variety of blogs, news sources and social media platform.
If I am going to be awake I might as well try to be productive.
It doesn’t take long to discover that liberals are stupid and conservatives are dumb. One suffers from mental illness and the other is too stupid to figure out they voted for a clown who is about to tweet our way into war.
I am not kidding when I say it is disappointing and disheartening to see the polarization and t0 wonder how very differently we see things.
Confession: I might have made a few people want to do more than shake their fists at me.
I was relatively aggressive in pointing out they must have slept with their civics teachers and or had parents that paid for buildings.
It is the only way I can understand how they could so completely misunderstand and misinterpret the Constitution.
That is a problem that isn’t limited to one side or the other and the net result is everyone yells at each other but no one listens.
We’re going to pay a stiff price for this and the total cost isn’t something we can calculate yet.
We Let You Think You’re The Boss
Sometimes you come across pieces of pop culture that help illustrate a point, like we let you think you are the boss. 😉
The Write Structure
I spent the first 30 minutes of the drive to Arlington listening to Howard Stern interview Jerry Seinfeld and had work not required I exit the car I would have listened to more,.
It wasn’t just fun, it was fascinating to me.
That is because Stern is one of the best interviewers in the business and Seinfeld is a master craftsman who does a fine job of telling a story.
Since becoming a better storyteller is of paramount importance to me I am very interested in listening and learning from people share their tips and tricks for developing the write structure.
That is why I’ll keep listening to the interview as it gets played and replayed on Sirius because I know there is so much I can learn from just listening to them speak.
I bet they don’t have a clue how many golden nuggets they share during their conversation about celebrities who auditioned for Seinfeld, friendship and why he still does standup.
And it leads me back to this Count Basie quote about the importance of doing things the way you do them.
Writing With Instinct & Rules
I haven’t ever made a list of people I want to discuss writing and storytelling with but if I came up with a list Stern and Seinfeld are right there with Stephen King and Bruce Springsteen.
Instinct plays a huge role in my writing/storytelling and I am guessing they would say the same but I am also certain they would talk about how many hours they have devoted to following the rules and practicing their craft.
That is part of what I appreciate and love about writing where age and experience can provide you with a significant boost whereas in sports there is usually a decline.
Your body only gives you so much for so long and then time forces you to adopt and adapt because your physical ability is diminished.
That is a hard road to walk. It is not easy to get beat on the court by guys you know you used to be able to destroy because they just didn’t have the same ability.
Writing and storytelling doesn’t have the limitations of age, hell in many ways it is something that you improve at with age.
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I can feel the lack of sleep slowing me down. This post has been a struggle to write because fatigue has made it harder to hear the words rolling around my head.
So in a moment I am going to hit publish and call it a night.
If I don’t I am going to end up deleting this thing because it doesn’t feel like there is a flow or rhythm to it and that is enough to make me wonder if it is worth keeping.
That is something I’d like to speak with the guys about. I am curious what Seinfeld does when he feels like the flow isn’t quite right.
I want to know if Springsteen battles through the moment or puts down the pen and goes a different direction hoping to catch muse elsewhere.
That would be a conversation worth having, maybe I’ll find out one day.
I am the kind of guy who believes in the far fetched and the foolish. Sometimes lightning strikes more than once, sometimes more than twice.
All you have to do is believe.
