Aaargh, its Sunday afternoon, Jimmy needs a 600 word column in a couple of hours and my muse took off for Puerto Vallarta with her poolboy. I’m left here with Good Dog Henry, who keeps barking at stuff that isn’t there, and a blank sheet of paper staring at me mockingly.
Normally, I’d write about the Wyoming GOP and their shenanigans. They’re usually rant-worthy and good for a chuckle. But they seem to be taking a siesta just when I have a deadline, and I’m left scratching my noggin for a topic.
I suppose I could always resort to gossip and innuendo. As in, “Is Wyoming’s MAGA power couple going through a rough patch because he’s been seen out on the town (albeit briefly) with a newer, younger handmaiden? You heard it here first…sotto voce, on the Q.T. and very hush hush.”
But that’s not my style, so I won’t go there.
I guess that I could opine about our last two presidents, one who saluted a North Korean General and the other who fist-bumped a murderous Saudi Crown Prince. But if I delved into that morass, I’d just become wistfully nostalgic for Barry Goldwater.
And nobody wants to listen to a columnist whine.
The Wyoming Legislature has been stalwart in providing me column fodder from time to time, but they seem to be in the doldrums these days. That is, if you define doldrums as cobbling together legislative brainstorms in interim committees that will fall apart when the gavel drops and the sun shines in.
That ain’t gonna help me with my deadline, though.
Even the Stupid Tourists are failing me! They seem to be content with the occasional bison tossing, grizzly tag and the thermal pool surfing incident. They, as a demographic, appear unwilling to up their game and push National Park idiocy to a higher, more newsworthy plane.
Nobody wants to read about median-level stupidity, and I sure don’t want to write about it.
Frontier Days signs are already up in Cheyenne, but that’s a definite yawn. I’ll consider penning a stirring column about the Daddy of ‘Em All when the Committee creates a new event, The Wild Grizzly Race. I’d opine the hell out of an event where three-person teams of tourists from the Heartland mug, saddle and ride a silvertip completely around the arena, competing for mounds of cash and fabulous prizes!
Until that happens, enjoy your Brooks & Dunn and funnel cakes. Call me when things get weird enough.
Crap! That’s only 431 words. Writer’s block sucks!
To top it off, Henry has barked at the door and raised hell twice since I started writing. I have to drop what I’m doing and rush to the door only to find absolutely nothing there. No mailman, no grizzly bear no Meal Team Six come to ask about my reading habits. Nothing. Zip. Nada.
Just as I’m about to crack open a bottle of absinthe to see if I can find some inspiration, it dawns on me! Good Dog Henry is helping me write this column! And it is about politics!
Every time I try to get back into writing, Henry barks and howls and jumps up and down, pitching a fit and whining at the door. I expect to see ISIS on my porch, but when I open the door…..you guessed it. Nothing.
He is mimicking the behavior of one of our GOP candidates for Secretary of State who has raised barking at non-existent election fraud to an art form. Good Dog Henry is channeling Chuck Gray!
There! 600 words! Take that, writer’s block!
