It's better than good, it's Boffo!

While I'm thinking of something to type, I'll get started. I promise to take my time and get most of the words right until I start warming up and then I can go faster. You can see how well I'm doing, can't you? Oh yeah, I'm burning it up now.

So I was disappointed in my night's sleep again. That's not really news. Just can't seem to nail it. I guess I should find some other arrangement. Maybe a sleeping chair in the bathroom or something. I just don't sleep well until the morning. No matter what I do. It's getting very old.

I'm also no closer to a new story. I'm not liking the one about the happy guy so much anymore. I guess I don't feel as happy.

I need to go on a story hunt. Go through some pictures online, the news, etc. See if I can spot any stories in them. There's just nothing going on up there. I don't know why it isn't working. I need a story.

A guy is supposed to write a story and it needs to be done in 5 days and be 10,000 words. In other words, a short story. He hasn't started it yet because he has no ideas at all. He's blank. He sits in his office and thinks constantly about what the story should be about. But so far he hasn't even come up with a good enough story to reject.

A man climbs a ladder to change a light in a ceiling fixture. But when he gets up there gets dizzzy and so he climbs back down. How about that? A guy and his dog are walking down the sidewalk to go to the store. It's a busy day and cars are going by him. The dog keeps running around him to the side away from the street because he's scared of the cars. There you go. That'll work.

OK let's try again. Two guys decide to go skydiving. So they pool their money and go out to the airport and walk into the skydiving place and arrange to go skydiving. They go up in the plane and they're flying along and looking out the window. The skydiving man says that they should jump out of the door when he gives them the signal which is like pointing at them and waving goodbye, and he opens the door. Then he waves at them and they both jump out the door and a long line automatically pulls their ripcords and makes their parachutes come out and they float down the to the ground. They both agree that was a lot of fun and decide to go again someday and they shake hands.

As they're leaving the airport they look back to see the skydiving plane taking off again with some new customers and just as it gets airborne, something goes wrong and the plane heels over and crashes next to the runway, bursting into flames. Sirens sound and the firetrucks and ground crew rush out to the site of the crash. They start putting out the fire and trying to find the people inside.

The two friends stand and watch all of this and are awestruck. They feel helpless but there's really nothing they can do to help. They both think about the pilot and the skydiving guy that they just met.

One guy starts to cry because he remembers the pictures of the little kids that the pilot had stuck up around his cockpit. They must have been his children.

The other guy turns to him and says, "This is the best story you can come up with? I can't write this story. The characters are two-dimensional and pointless. The whole skydiving thing seems put-up and unbelievable. Plus it goes nowhere. What kind of shit story is this? I've had it with you. You have no talent. Worse, you have no imagination! You're not a writer, you're a daydreamer, and not an interesting one at that."

The other guy wipes the tears from his eyes and looks back at the first guy with disbelief. "Fuck you. I'm trying to inject a little emotion into this situation. I'm not the one that wanted to do a skydiving story. You are. I wanted to do the story of the dizzy guy on the ladder, which, by the way, was a methaphor for a fear of success felt by most lower income people graduating from college."

"It's a metaphor for shit. That's what it's a metaphor for. You think everything's a metaphor or an analogy or a simile or a synecdoche. You read a pamphlet about an English lit course and you think you're ... some ... goddam writer ... famous writer. I don't know. Your ideas suck! How about that?"

"OK. Have it your way. Five days to finish the piece, good luck. Good fucking luck! You just want to spend the whole time criticizing me and then blame me because you can't write for shit."

"Oh. Nice language! Why don't you go write for the Shitty Shit Shit Times of Shitsburg Sunday Supplement? They're looking for talent."

"What are you? Eight years old?"

"What are you? Eight years old?" Mocking, in snooty, cartoon voice.

They both stalk off in different directions.

Cut! Print it. I lllove it. It's Boffo!

More later,