My biggest fans often ask me, "Hey Paul, is writing your fantastically creative and brilliantly fluffy and funny articles, that are just deep enough with useful information that I say to myself, 'hey, reading that was better than brushing my teeth with a miter saw', a lonely endeavour?"
I love these kinds of fans. As I've said before, when I'm on the street, crowds of one or two people will swarm me, creating this capacious mosh pit, and chant my name. I guess mosh pit is a bit hyperbolic. There's no moshing, although one of my fans, high on bug spray, was jerking around my body and kept calling me Kenny G. That really hurt. At least confuse me with an artist who's tough, like Hemingway, who had the balls to end his career fellating his shotgun. Honourable, but that method isn't for me. I'll probably get cozy in a bed and listen to Kenny G for a week straight. They don't call it the Big Sleep for nothing.
Then my fans will spray paint some of my best lines on the sides of buildings. Unfortunately I've had to tell a few overzealous fans not to quote me directly, using my name. Hemingway would be a good substitute name.
And certainly don't draw my face using black spray paint. First of all, I've copyrighted my face. At first, the lawyers said the © symbol had to clearly appear on my face, one inch below my hairline (which drifts every day, much like the continents do) and be at least the size of a beer bottle cap.
One day, the lawyers showed up for an urgent meeting while I was in the shower. A female lawyer glanced at my bum (can you blame her?) and noticed similarities to my face. That's when they decided the © could legally appear on my bum.
On a side note, I certainly don't call myself a genius. Clever, I guess, like a chimp that can learn a slew of symbols. Oh, those chimps and that Paul, so much more clever than we ever thought. But do you know what the keyboard shortcut for the copyright symbol on a MAC keyboard is? Option-C, right? You know, the first letter of copyright. That's what I would have done. I mean if I were as talented as Kenny G.
No. It's Option-G, like the G in Kenny G. From those clever folks in Cupertino.
I ramble.
Back to my fans, armed with spray paint. As I said, they will spray entire articles of mine on buildings. Have you ever had to remove a whole article of graffiti from a brick wall with your bare muscles? A year ago I had to remove just that off the Brass Rail's front facade. I run into fans at the Rail all the time. How embarrassing.
Why can't writing be a group activity, like playing Bridge, or Croquet? Hey, my word trumps yours. Remember to hit the reader over the head with a mallet, to get your theme across.
Instead I feel like Dustin Hoffman from that running scene in The Marathon Man. All alone, frantic and sweaty. Then I ask someone to edit or comment on my work, and suddenly Olivier shows up as a dentist, asking "Is it safe?". "Is it readable?". There are holes all over your plot, as well as in your teeth.
I'm not sure why, but every time I start writing, my craving for Chinese food goes up 1000 percent. I load up on MSG, check out what I've written, and love it. Half an hour later, I hate it. Damn, that!
Great writing should be like Chinese food, shouldn't it? Half an hour later I need to read more.
I can't write a new blog every half hour. Pick another food, I'm still writing. Try Indian. I've eaten Indian and spent hours in the WC. I also like Indian because you can put it in a blender and it still looks and tastes the same, only easier to eat.
The real tragedy about my writing career is that I have no time to be a helicopter parent to my daughter. I'm not even a broken down Escalade parent. I'm more like one of those retro wooden wagon parents. Wagon Wheels for dinner. Eat your broccoli.
Are these the things that tortured Hemingway? Am I a real writer or a nyquil-fuelled ranter? Will my fans accept more serious work from me or opine for the earlier, funnier stuff?
You try wrestling with all this every day.
HELLOOOO NEWMAN: Laughter is your sixth sense
