This column will answer some of the questions asked recently by its growing handful of readers.
Q.“I don’t read your column because it is too long! Can’t you shorten it a little?”
A. My answer is the same as what Mozart said when the Archduke’s music minister, Saleri, complained that Mozart’s Minuet had ‘too many notes!’: “The number of notes (words, in my case) is exactly what is needed to express the music fully. Any less would not be a worthy effort.”
Thank you, Amadeus, for telling it like it is. If a potential reader cannot spare the two minutes it takes to read my column, I would conclude that he/she is a very busy person, too distracted to stop and smell my column. Perhaps they might suffer from adult onset attention deficit disorder (AOADD) which limits their reading intake to nanoseconds. It is a pity, is it not?
Q. Is Smedley a real person or is he just you?”
A. Smedley is my alter-ego, the person who resides beneath my deteriorating facade. Smedley doesn’t give a hoot if you read him or not. He is a man of many opinions, most of them not too popular, some over-the-top. For instance, he really doesn’t care for these so-called “Presidential Debates.” Can you imagine teammates getting ready to play for the National Championship sitting in a TV press room, hammering each other? The split end is shouting at the team’s quarterback that he should throw the ball to him and not to the tight end because the tight end “can’t even catch a fever in an ebola ward, much less a football!” On the other side of the room sit the players who play Defense, glaring with contempt across the room at their teammates who play Offense. By the time the final press conference (read Debate) takes place, nobody will care even to go to the championship game (2016 Presidential Election). Perhaps the winner of this season’s Dancing with the Stars might end up taking the oath on Jan. 20, 2016!
The more these thirteen Republican guys are seen hiding behind glitzy neon podiums, the more unattractive they become – or worse, the more likely result is that the guy with the slickest stage presence will come out the winner even though his “platform planks” are totally worm-eaten.
I am even beginning to like Rand Paul as he at least makes the fewest unbelievable statements. Do you remember how close the nation got to having Ross Perot as its President and Admiral Stockade as its vice-president a few years back because of the TV debates held back then?
Won’t it be an evening’s delight to see Hilary Clinton debate Rand Paul next year with an undercard debate featuring Barney and Fiona? Maybe we can hashtag our votes by then and not bother going to a polling site.
Q. You are nearing the end of three years of writing OUT OF BOUNDS. Do you plan to continue? And if so, why, in that the encouraging feedback you get is in such short supply?
A. I admit that the longer this world class journalism gig goes on, it is getting harder it is to slough through the sea of undeserved contempt that washes over me – with the largest waves coming from my wife, no less! If it weren’t for the fact that I enjoy reading my own words, and tho I be one against 2,600 – the number of paid subscribers to the FFBNews – I will carry on. However, if the editor decides that the circulation would go up if I left, I might consider moving on to the Shirley Times. They pay real good I’m told.
Is this column about the right length?