by John Pellegrini
Someone was waiting in the darkness, down at the end of the alley. Cindy knew it. She could feel its presence. Hunger. Breathing. Eyes penetrating through her. She couldn't tell whether it was human, or something else, but she knew it was Evil.
"Well," thought Cindy, "I'd better not go down there." So she hailed a passing limousine, and went to a friend's house to party.
Tragic events like this happen every day. Tragic, because nothing happens. That's pretty much the way it is with life. Nothing of any real importance ever seems to happen. Oh, sure, maybe you get in a car crash and hurt yourself real bad. But that's not important to me. That's why we create, because we don't care about you. We want people to think highly of us.
Just watch the news. Sure, there's lots of pain, suffering, and misery, as well as good things happening in the world. But if they ever reported on all the stuff that didn't happen in people's lives, it would take years just to get through one day. Gives you pause, doesn't it?
Creativity stems from our overall need to impress others. By impressing others we appeal to our sense of self worth and increase our chances of being invited to cool parties where beautiful women remove their clothing (I'm reaching here). By examining the deep dark mysteries of life, we learn to write plots for Murder She Wrote, provided that they're wholesome murders and there's a really stupid happy ending. Is it just me, or does it seem like Jessica Fletcher's family was sleeping with everybody? My God, the woman's got relatives everywhere!
Constantly digressing in the writing style that I am using will cause you to be accused of writing like Larry King. Never let anyone fool you that having a radio talk show qualifies one to write a newspaper column, although it may lead to having a voice like his, provided you smoke several cartons of cigarettes a day, and then make a public spectacle of how you quit. Money for cancer! Now that's the way to make a living!
Have you ever noticed the tremendous amount of profanity on 60 Minutes? Un-bleeped profanity? Hardly a month goes by without someone saying s**t, or bas***, or a****le. On Sunday nights, no less! Where's Donald Wildmon when you need him? Probably watching Funniest Home Videos. Now there's a show that we can do without.
Speaking of which, there's an amusing story that I recently heard. It seems there was a Hindu, a Rabbi, and a Lawyer all traveling together in a car. How that came about, I have no idea. Probably one of those mysterious ways God works in. Anyway, they were driving further into the countryside, and they began to realize that they would not make it to their destination before nightfall. So they decided to stop at a farm house. The farmer told them that they could sleep in the barn for the night. But when the Hindu went in to the barn, he immediately came out and said, "There are cows in the barn. I cannot sleep there for they are sacred to me." Then the Rabbi went in and came out and said, "There are pigs in the barn. I cannot sleep there, for the pigs are unclean." Then the Lawyer went in to the barn, and the cows and the pigs came out.
Did you know that the drum shot at the end of the joke was invented because the comedians thought we were too stupid to know when to laugh? The truth is, the damn jokes just weren't funny in the first place.
Why do we create? Why do we have backbones? Because we'd fall down if we didn't. The same holds true of creativity. Without it, our brains would melt and run out our noses. Which is how we feel when we have sinus problems, so maybe that's what is really happening. If we don't create, we get colds, and our brains run out our noses.
Coming up with ideas is difficult. Governments take years and billions of dollars in tax money to do it. We production people usually only get just a couple of hours for our ideas. Therefore, they should put me in charge of running the government. Here's my campaign strategy: Fire everybody out there, and give half of what we've been paying them to me. I'll screw it up just as bad, and we'll all save money.
Questions lead to discovery. If a tree falls down in the forest, and no one is there to see it, does it make a noise? Well, if you ask me, if no one is there to see it, then how do you know the tree exists in the first place? What would happen if you put four lepers in a hot tub? Or would you rather not think about it? Why is jazz? When is the Golden Years? Who was that old man that put me on the Merry Go Round when I was a kid?
When people believed that the earth was flat, how did they explain what happened to the water in the oceans? Would it run off the edge? And if so, how did it get replaced without drying up the source? When is that magic moment of creative inspiration when the blank sheet of paper gets filled? Is it shortly after I spill my morning cup of coffee?
There's a saying that says if you want to discover new potential, you've got to see the world through different eyes. Well, okay, but it sounds a little creepy to me. I mean, isn't grave robbing illegal? See the world through different eyes. Look at the familiar in a new way. Stand up to your neck in a pile of cow dung and you'll find a new perspective on life! Yes, that's when you'll truly know and understand the need to get away from it all!
Where do ideas come from? I don't know, but I've just given you about twenty new ones to steal. Don't spend them all in once place.
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