The Writer's Poke

For Writers: Any hack will tell you that writing is hard work, and maybe it is. But for those of us that call ourselves "writers," you'd think that we'd enjoy stringing the sentences together. Most of the time, we probably do. For whatever reason, though, there are days, weeks, even years, when we'd rather be watching Infomercials on TV, cleaning out the kitty litter, or counting the popcorn sparkles on the ceiling. In other words, there are times when we'd rather be doing anything and everything other than sitting down to write. Sitting down, for some reason, is always the hardest part. Generally speaking, I find it more difficult to write when I actually have the time. When I don't have the time to write, that's when my motivation is highest. If only I had the time, I have often thought to myself, I would be writing. Then when I have the time, the motivation isn't there. I just don't wanna. If you want to be a writer, you have to learn how to...

For Writers: Do you remember Coed Naked T-shirts? They made them from 1990 through 2005, and they were quite popular my senior year in high school. The basic premise behind Coed Naked t-shirts was the "innocent" slogan that related to the sport or activity depicted on the shirt. No one, such as a parent or school official, could get mad at you for wearing the shirt, because if they thought the shirt's message was lewd, well, then it was just them reading their own deviance into the shirt's perfectly upbeat and positive message. I personally wore the Coed Naked Volleyball t-shirt, and the slogan was: "You score on the floor." My all-time personal favorite was probably the Coed Naked Pool t-shirt. The slogan for that one was: "Get felt on the table." Why did the manufacturer discontinue making the shirts in 2005? Maybe it was just the end of an era. In honor of the t-shirt that was a part of my formative years, I'm thinking of coming out with a...

FCC Okays Nudity On TV If It�s Alyson Hannigan An interesting explanation by the FCC this week...

Some silliness with Octavia and my wife and my new MacBook.

Which is more real: the Bible or a comic book? Trick question?? (Click on the comic for a bigger view.)

For Writers: According to http://www.livescience.com/ , on the list of the "Top 10 Bad Things That Are Good for You," chocolate came in at #2 and sex was #1: http://www.livescience.com/health/top_10_badthings_good-1.html This sparked the thought: would it be easier to live without chocolate, or to live without sex? I don't know that I have a ready-made answer for that, but as I reviewed the other items on the list, I don't think it would be too difficult to live without most of the rest. Beer? Yep, I could do that. Anger? I wish I could do that. Coffee? Sure. LSD? Never tried it, never will. Sunlight? Have you seen how pale I am? I mean, come on! Maggots? Not a Bret favorite. Marijuana? I don't inhale. Red wine? Not my scene. But giving up chocolate or sex? That would be tough! If you had to give up chocolate or sex for the rest of your life, would it be a difficult choice? Explain. Is there anything else on the list that you simply could not imagine living witho...

For Writers: Call me naive, but I was 35 before I realized that friendships aren't naturally supposed to last forever. The first time it happened, I thought that I then knew what a divorce felt like, and I chalked it up to "irreconcilable differences." We were 14 and I still liked Hulk Hogan; Greg, however, had moved on to the pursuit of tail. Maybe he made the right choice, and it must have seemed to him that me dropping the elbow on him in the hallway was a public liability to the new image he was working. To this day, I still think about other friendships that have ended, wondering what, if anything, went wrong. There had to be more to it than physical distance, for example. So what if I moved 1000 miles away? So what if my friend joined the Navy? Aren't long distance relationships possible? Sure, there are the friends that you call up after a six month period of "radio silence," and you go on like no time had passed. Other friends from the past, though, ...

For Writers: Benny had fewer friends than a hermit, but he liked to play basketball. Most of the guys played baseball during recess, but I wasn't interested in that. So that's how Benny and I started playing basketball together. We couldn't be friends. I was still the new kid at school, and I didn't want to kill my chances at popularity by befriending an outcast. Looking back at it now, there really wasn't anything wrong with Benny. He was simply a bit small and perhaps a bit immature for his age. Economically, he certainly dressed as though he was poor, and while on the court I would learn that his home life wasn't the best. His father was an alcoholic and didn't spend much time around the house. Benny decided it would be cool to invite himself over to stay the night. I say that, but the truth is, I probably invited him. Whatever the case, I immediately tried my best renege on the invitation, fearing that others would learn that Benny was staying over at my...

Everything dies, but at least the comedy lives on. I had the chance to see Carlin in Las Vegas a couple of years ago. Some might have argued that the older Carlin had lost a step or two, but even if he had, he was still far ahead of the pack. The man was brilliant. Yes, he was a tad bit political, and he didn't care what "comfort zone" you had -- religion or politics or whatever. He stepped into the zone and made you uncomfortable. More importantly, he made you think. What an amazing thing for a comedian to do, but actually, that's what all the great ones do. Humor with purpose.

You might not have noticed, but I decided to change the name of my writing prompts from "Invitation to Write" to "Poke." I figured that people like pokes better than they like invitations. Invitations are just to easy to ignore, too. When you're poked, you naturally respond. :)

For Writers: Time magazine broke a story about seventeen high school students in Massachusetts who made a pact to become pregnant. Have you ever noticed that entering into pacts never causes anything but trouble? For you historians out there, just think about all the entangling alliances and pacts that brought multiple countries into war over the last two hundred years -- most notably, World War I. I was glad to hear that most of the girls decided to use their own boyfriends as the studs, but I wonder how many of them bothered to tell the guys that they planned to bring "new life" to their relationship. Probably not many, if any, but hey, I totally understand. Talk about a mood killer! Such a pity that the pleasure of sex has to be linked to the pain of the intended biological consequence, don't you agree? One girl in the pact apparently did not have a boyfriend, or perhaps she was the one girl that shared her plan with her sweetie, only to see him galloping off on his h...

For Writers: KISS recorded a song called "Read My Body," and you can find it on their 1989 album Hot in the Shade . In what are arguably the most inspired song lyrics of all time, the chorus goes: Read my body Are the letters big enough? Read my body Do you like the book of my love? Read my body Turn the page, get to the good stuff Okay, so while the Beatles have somehow managed to find inclusion in poetry anthologies, you will probably never find KISS in a Norton any time soon; but it's a fun song, and I think it asks playful questions. Reading someone's body doesn't have to be a sexual act as suggested above. Body language, otherwise known as nonverbal communication, actually accounts for 55% of the message we convey to others, whereas the actual words we use to communicate, if you can believe it, only convey 7%. The remaining 38% of message conveyed, by the way, occurs through voice tone and quality. So don't ignore the body. Read it. Start listening more w...

McCain Vows To Replace Secret Service With His Own Bare Fists Do you feel luck, punk? Well, do you?

New Wearable Feedbags Let Americans Eat More, Move Less Would you wear one?

Good stuff. :)

For Writers: In grade school, I was, shall we say, "socially awkward." Of the 60 kids in the two 5th grade classes at Hawthorne, only 4 were ever considered to be "dating." Dating in grade school typically meant just hanging out, and maybe kissing on the swings after school. Shelley was one of the two girls that "dated," and in one of the periods that she was single, I tried to figure out ways to steal her from her on again, off again boyfriend. The one ace in the hole I had was my prized collection of stickers. Specifically, I had puffy Garfield stickers, and I knew that she liked both stickers and Garfield. It was perfect. Unfortunately, there was never a right moment to give her my stickers. And, I had a big speech all planned out, too. I was actually going to say something like, "Shelley, as a token of my esteem, please allow me to present you with these puffy Garfield stickers." Yes, I actually thought like that in 5th grade, and I more or l...

For Writers: In 1933, FDR uttered these famous words: "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." Fear of fear, otherwise known as “phobophobia,” is a rather silly fear, don’t you think? And apparently Mr. Roosevelt never visited “The Phobia List” web site: http://www.phobialist.com/ . That web site lists just about every phobia under the sun, including “heliophobia,” or fear of the sun. I’m sure that Roosevelt meant well. Americans were dealing with the Great Depression and all that, and I'm sure he wanted to send out a positive message of hope; however, he should have distinguished, as Buddhists do, between healthy and unhealthy fears. Admittedly, saying “The only thing we have to fear is unhealthy fears” doesn’t quite have the same ring to it. Healthy fears, however, should be recognized as useful. In an evolutionary sense, fear is what has gotten us to where we are as a species today, and I mean that in a positive way. Today, consult “The Phobia List” web site. P...

If these are the lighthouses, then what must the "Gummi Ships" look like??

An idea whose time has come? I can just imagine these booths popping up everywhere. At the mall, downtown areas, assorted tourist attractions, Utah, etc. :)

For Writers: Elevators don't have a floor thirteen; opening an umbrella inside brings bad luck, as does walking under a ladder and breaking a mirror. In some Asian cultures, the number four is equated with death. Where exactly do superstitions come from, and why do we still acknowledge them? Take Friday the 13 th as an example. Apparently the U.S. Navy will not even launch a ship on Friday the 13 th , and the Stress Management and Phobia Institute report that fear of this date affects as many as 20 million people in the United States alone. Has anything bad ever happened to you on Friday the 13 th ? To me, the power of Friday trumps 13 anyway. Some superstitions are more cute than sinister. A lot of sports superstars have superstitions, such as Michael Jordan wearing his University of North Carolina shorts under his Chicago Bulls game shorts. Such a superstition is nostalgic, but by no means harmful, whereas some superstitions can be down right debilitating. Today, create a new su...