My dog Jade
While walking the dog yesterday, we struck up a conversation about writing and being a writer that proved once and for all that DOGS REALLY DON’T KNOW HOW TO WRITE!
She turned around on the end of her leash and looked at me with that woeful you-don’t-feed-me-enough look on her little well-fed face. “You know, I was reading your blog today, and I think I know how to make you a well-known writer and best-selling author.”
“Oh, really?” I said. “Since when do you know anything about being a writer or marketing fiction?”
“Well, you do remember that I wrote a couple of blog posts for you already.”
“True. But I can’t afford to do that again. You type with your tongue and it leaves the keyboard all sticky. I haven’t gotten it truly clean and working properly again since that last time. If you are asking to write another post, you can forget it.”
“Well, sorry about that. But I do think I know how to make your writing more popular with a bigger audience.”.
“Oh? How could you possibly know that?”
“Hey, talking dog here! That has to count for something, doesn’t it? Don’t you think people would be amazed to learn about things from a dog’s perspective?”
“Nobody’s going to believe I have a talking dog. That isn’t something within the realm of what is normal. They are all going to think I am just a crazy old man.”
“Well, you are a crazy old man. I can’t help that. But what if you told stories from a dog’s perspective? You know, things that only a dog could’ve come up with?”
“Oh, like what, for instance?”
Why does the neighbor’s dog always smell like burritos?
“Well, you know that more than half of what a dog perceives about the world she gets through her sense of smell?”
“Okay…”
“Like that spot on the grass over there. Boy dog. Handsome border collie… ate three hotdogs about four days ago. Ooh! He smells perfect!”
“You’re talking about poop smells again, aren’t you?”
“Well, yes. But I can also tell you about the pigeons that were in that live oak tree there yesterday.”
“Oh? What color were they?”
“I don’t know… gray maybe?”
“Bird doo. You are smelling old bird poop! You want me to write about poop more?”
“Well, no… not exactly. But if you could tell your stories through the sense of smell more… that would be unique and different. People would like that a lot because it’s never really been done before.”
“You do understand that I can’t use my laptop to write smells? There are no words I could use that will automatically put smells into the reader’s nose.”
“Well, but if you could invent one…”
“According to you, it would be mostly poop smells anyway. Who wants to sniff that?”
“It would make your blog more popular with dogs.”
“But dogs don’t read!”
“How do you know for sure? You believed me when I said I read your blog today.”
“Well, you certainly got me there. Now, don’t we have some important business to take care of?”
“Yes, but… You see that squirrel over there?”
“Yes, so?”
“So one day soon, I’m gonna eat him!”
During my middle-school teaching years I also bought and read copies of The Prince and the Pauper, Roughing It, and Life on the Mississippi. I would later use a selection from Roughing It as part of a thematic unit on Mark Twain where I used Will Vinton’s glorious claymation movie, The Adventures of Mark Twain as a way to painlessly introduce my kids to the notion that Mark Twain was funny and complex and wise.
Catch a Falling Star 
I Love to Laugh
“Mickey, why can’t you be more serious the way smart people are?”
“Well, now, my dear, I think I take humor very seriously.”
“How can you say that? You never seem to be serious for more than a few seconds in a row.”
“I can say it in a high, squeaky, falsetto voice so I sound like Mickey Mouse.”
“You know that’s not what I mean.”
“I can also burp it… well, maybe not so much since I was in junior high.”
“I distinctly remember getting in trouble in Mrs. Mennenga’s third grade class in school for pantomiming pulling my beating heart out of my chest and accidentally dropping it on the floor. She lectured me about being more studious. But I made Alicia sitting in the row beside me laugh. It was all worth it. And the teacher was right. I don’t remember anything from the lesson on adding fractions we were supposed to be doing. But I remember that laugh. It is one precious piece of the golden treasure I put in the treasure chest of memories I keep stored in my heart.”
“I always listened to the words Groucho Marx was saying, even though he said them awfully fast and sneaky-like. I listened to the words. Other characters didn’t seem to listen to him. He didn’t seem to listen to them. Yet, how could he respond like he did if he really wasn’t listening? In his answers were always golden bits of wisdom. Other people laughed at his jokes when the laugh track told them to. I laughed when I understood the wisdom.”
“Laughing is a way of showing understanding. Laughing is a way of making yourself feel good. Laughing is good for your brain and your heart and your soul. So, I want to laugh more. I need to laugh more. I love to laugh.”
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Filed under autobiography, comedians, commentary, goofiness, goofy thoughts, humor, irony, Paffooney, strange and wonderful ideas about life, wisdom
Tagged as books, commentary, Ed Wynn, Groucho Marx, Moe Howard, procrastination, reviews, therapy