Using The Tools That Are Available

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Tucson Weather Today

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While searching for an elusive fact using Google somewhere around five o'clock this morning I was suddenly distressed to find that once again my FREE Wi-Fi connection had failed and was no longer available to me. Yes, after less than one day of its restoration after a previous two-day failure, Wi-Fi had abandoned me and once again I was utterly and helplessly offline.

It is now 5:35 a.m. which is usually my most productive time for online work, and now I am faced with waiting until 10:00 when the office opens before I can report the Wi-Fi failure... again. And even then, of course, the office will have to notify the technician who will have to drive to the router's location and reset the downed equipment.

FREE Wi-Fi... I am reminded of the cliche so often quoted by a fellow member of my writer's group, Mr. Anthony Dauer, who is fond of (gleefully?) repeating: "You get what you pay for."

I have no idea when I will be able to upload this blog entry, but whenever that is, please note that it was written before six a.m. on Tuesday, April 19 in the year 2011, which is surely much earlier than it is now being read, by you or anyone else.

'Drat!'

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I was reading earlier an article about the creation of memorable sentences, and was struck by a short poetic piece written by Kenneth Koch.

One day the Nouns were clustered in the street.
An Adjective walked by, in her dark beauty.
The Nouns were struck, moved, changed.
The next day a Verb drove up and created the Sentence.

Isn't that charming?

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Three pieces of string go into a bar. The first one orders drinks and the barman says, "We don't serve strings in here." The second piece of string fares no better. The third piece fluffs out his ends and saunters up to the bar, shouts, "Three beers and make it snappy!" The barman looks at him and says. "You're a string, aren't you?"

The string says, "No, I'm a frayed knot!"

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I just heard on NPR that the losing prosecutor on the O.J. Simpson trial (ancient history?) Marcia Clark, is now a mystery writer. I was going to look up the details concerning her upcoming novel... but then I remembered that I have no Internet connection.

'Drat!'

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There is an advantage, though, to being helplessly without an Internet connection; I am unable to be distracted from creative composition by the perceived necessity of checking my email, Googling for suddenly needed fact-checks, and anything else available online that will take me away from the hard, hard work of writing fiction.

I suppose one could call that an advantage.

Even though I am offline there are other ways of distracting myself... I can always slip one of my old DVDs into the computer and watch a John Wayne movie, an episode of the old Dick Van Dyke Show, or some of the wonderful skits performed by good old Red Skelton.

See how creative I can be?

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A couple hours ago, since the office was not yet open, I left a note at their drop-box regarding the Wi-Fi situation. Then I embarked upon a long walk. Went to Fry's (formerly Kroger) Supermarket and bought some bananas and apples. They had Organic Gala apples on sale for 99-cents per pound. That's amazing. I bought seven apples, two and a half pounds for a total of $2.47. Wow! Now that's a real-deal.

It's now almost 10:00 a.m. and I am back home -- and now I have Wi-Fi again. That's what I call efficiency.

Thank you, Sallie.

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In all affairs it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted.
--Bertrand Russell

To Heck With Titles

I managed to retain a few sentences from the mixed bag of pseudo-sensible nonsense that clicked and clacked from my keyboard at various intervals yesterday. Just exactly how long they will remain intact in my 'current' file is questionable, but my avowed intention is to keep (and not delete) the entire contents of this file until selected items can be incorporated into what--for lack of a better name--I have been calling my novel.

Here is one of those sentences:

Of course one man can make a difference; Adolph Hitler made a difference.

Here is another:

Sometimes as a last resort you just have to split yourself into two distinct entities and become both Strong Guy and Weak Guy; Strong Guy constantly reassures Weak Guy that Strong Guy will always watch out for, care for, and sustain Weak Guy.

. . .

Last night on the Writer's Almanac website I read a poem that I really liked, titled:
two nights before my 72nd birthday
by Charles Bukowski

It's the last link on the above marked site's list of his poems.

Maybe the reason that I liked it is because next year my own 72nd birthday will occur.

Maybe.

Another poem on that list -- a place in Philly -- might be of interest to at least one of my readers.

Or not.


Charles Bukowski reportedly said (or wrote). "The nine-to-five is one of the greatest atrocities sprung upon mankind. You give your life away to a function that doesn't interest you. This situation so repelled me that I was driven to drink, starvation, and mad females, simply as an alternative."

Imagine that.

. . .

The lyrics of an old song titled Don't Fence Me In have been bouncing in and out of my consciousness for the last couple of weeks. If my memory is correct, this song was the very first one I ever heard, from the very first record, played on the first record player my parents ever owned, back in the early 1940s. Here are those maddeningly-repeating lyrics:

“Let me be by myself in the evenin’ breeze
And listen to the murmur of the cottonwood trees
Send me off forever but I ask you please
Don’t fence me in."

--Cole Porter

Click HERE to hear Bing Crosby and The Andrews Sisters sing the complete song.

Or, if you prefer, Willy Nelson sings it HERE.

And Ella Fitzgerald sings it HERE.

Additionally, Louis Armstrong and his All-Stars perform it HERE.

I heartily recommend that you listen to all of these, especially those of you who are under 21 years old and not yet overly cynical, and also those older than 50. who have probably progressed beyond the bonds of pompous cynicism.

. . .

You have a great day now... ya' hear?