I’m embarrassed. I don’t know what to write. Is it possible to have writer’s block after
only 13 columns? Steven King comes up with a bestseller while going out to get the paper in
the morning and I’m stumped. George Will has written a column every week for years.
And he actually has to check his facts!
I never knew it was so hard to be glib and falsely high minded. I have nothing. It’s a poor excuse,
but I’ve been really preoccupied this last week with my stand up act and the new design of
Comicgold.com. The website that reaches and informs sometimes six or seven people a week.
No column? How can I not have a column? Every time I see a movie, I have a better idea for an
ending and now when I really need it. Nothing. Actually, from now on, I’m referring to these A
Dogs Lunch columns as essays. Liz, who designed the new high falutin look of my website,
suggested it and I like it. Actually her father did, but I like the elegance it connotes. If elegance
can actually applied to a series of essays that seem to mention beer and pornography a lot more
than they mention Benjamin Franklin or true love.
So here’s what I’m going to do. In the absence of creativity, I’m going to fall back on truth. True
stories that are more subtle and entertaining than almost anything I can make up.
It’s NCAA tournament time so I was thinking back to the week Indiana Hoosiers coach Bobby
Knight was finally fired last fall. He’d accosted, maybe that’s too strong a word, an Indiana
University student who passed him on his way out of the gym. He grabbed the kid to lecture him
on civility. Bobby Knight, who’s bullied and humiliated people for years, lecturing on civility.
How beautiful is that? Next Puffy Combs is going to teach a course on handgun safety. The
funniest scene surrounding the firing was Knight standing at a chalkboard, wearing shorts, and
diagramming his “meeting” with the young student. He even brought an assistant coach in to add
to his bizarre press conference. That coach usually breaks down the other team’s offense. That
day he broke down Knight’s breakdown. When you’re standing in front of a bunch of grown ups,
drawing X’s and O’s to represent your altercation with some undergrad who’s not old enough to
have beer in his dorm room, instead of zone defenses, you need to realize how really
embarrassingly out of control you really are.
Awhile ago, the city of Richmond decided to honor it’s native son Arthur Ashe, a man who
personified dignity and open-mindedness. How to honor him? How about a statue? Good idea,
but where did they put the statue? Right beside the statues commemorating heroes of the
confederacy during the Civil War. Am I the only one who thinks around here? It’s not that hard.
You don’t put the memorial to a civil rights leader beside the memorials to uncivil rights leaders.
Now I got a great one for you. This is the silliest story I think I’ve ever read. This baby proves
that G-d has a sense of humor and perfectly sums up the depth of bigotry and irony in the world.
After Israel left their security zone in southern Lebanon and returned to its own borders, some
Israeli cows continued to innocently cross the border to graze on Lebanese land. The Lebanese,
never ones to miss an opportunity to complain about Israeli arrogance, alerted the local UN
peacekeepers of the encroachment of the “Zionist” Israeli cattle. Can’t get any sillier right? Here’s
what really makes this story a gem. The peacekeepers they complained to are from the Indian army. They’re Indian. They’re Indian so they revere cattle, and they wouldn’t dream of touching
the cattle let alone herding them back across the border.
Sometimes the truth is so entertaining, clearer and more lyrical than anything we can think up.
Maybe I shouldn’t apologize for being stumped this week. Who needs creativity with stories like
these?