“It’s better to be dead and cool than alive and uncool.”
Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man, screenplay by Don Michael Paul
Writing a newspaper column is difficult for some writers, but I rarely have any problems. However, it does happen occasionally, especially during cosmic catastrophes.
It was just the other day, and I was trying to help a young shortstop improve his hitting skills. This young man had a great glove but couldn’t hit a ball with a boat oar, as my daddy used to say. So, in desperation, I decided to try something new. I put a ceramic plant pot on his head and told him to stand in the batting cage while I engaged the pitching machine.
“But how will I see the ball with the pot on my head,” he whined.
“You must learn to use The Force, Luke,” I said.
“My name isn’t Luke,” he countered.
“Humor me,” I answered. “This is my column. Once you learn the ways of The Force, you will get on base. You must feel The Force surrounding you; here, between you, me, the bat, the ball, the pot on your head.”
So, he shrugged his shoulders, walked into the batting cage, and stood right on top of home plate.
Good thing I put that plant pot on his head, or else the force of the ball striking his skull would have rendered him a lifelong Democrat for sure, perhaps even a future Senate majority leader. And I didn’t want to be responsible for that.
So, we put away the ancient Jedi religion for the time being.
But just as I was leaving the batting cage, I suddenly felt a great disturbance in The Force, as if millions of Braves fans suddenly cried out in terror and Bryce Harper was laughing at them.
I learned later that Ronald Acuna Jr. had torn his ACL and would be lost for the remainder of the season. The melancholy that settled over me made me want to write a lament, an elegy, a dirge, a requiem mass. Indeed, it is not a light and playful newspaper column.
To do that, I would need supernatural assistance, perhaps a talisman of some sort. So, I decided to see if one of my lucky hats might help me engage the part of my brain that does the column writing.
First, I tried my column writing visor – a trick I learned from Hunter S. Thompson –. Still, after wearing it for a few minutes, I threw it on the ground. I started writing about how much I'm not too fond of the Georgia Bulldogs, which I discarded because quite a few of my newspaper colleagues graduated from UGA.
Later, I dusted off my houndstooth fedora, but it only inspired me to haul out my guitar and write a song called “Crimson and Fescue.” We’ll do it in the key of “E” with lots of tremolo. Sing along if you know the old Tommy James and the Shondells tune.
Crimson and fescue, Bribes we’ll confess to. Crimson and fescue, Dogs don’t impress you. Crimson and Fescue, Refs to the rescue. Well, that’s about enough of that!
Almost to the point of desperation, I tried my column writing sombrero, but that made me write with a clumsy Spanish accent. I didn’t think our editors and proofreaders would be amused by my taking such liberties with the language.
So, I put on a headband and forged ahead. The hair was successfully pulled away from my eyes. I put my hands over the keyboard, expecting a surge of brilliance to surge from my fingers and onto the page like always.
Not this time, buddy! Instead I experienced a case of writer’s block as daunting as the frustration you feel trying to get out of the Hwy 44 Publix parking lot on a Friday afternoon at 5 p.m.
But I refused to be a victim.
So, I did the only thing I knew how to do in such circumstances. I decided to become a villain, or at least a varmint. I put the visor back on and gave in to the impulse to write an ode to Steve Spurrier, celebrating the 52-17 shellacking Florida put on Georgia in 1995. I signed it, George P. Burdell, just to drive the knife in a little deeper. Hey, a villain must have no heart.
Then, I put my houndstooth fedora back on, took the Telecaster out of its case and wrote a song called, “I’m a Ramblin’ Wreck named Carson Beck and a hell of an engineer.”
After this column appeared in the newspaper, I put on my sombrero to write the next one, but all I could think about was chips and salsa, so I walked down the hill to Jalisco and had some.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you defeat writer’s block.
Selah.