Once upon a time

Wolf DeVoon

By Wolf DeVoon
in Creative Writing

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Wolf DeVoon Newbie

Wolf DeVoon

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About a hundred years ago when digital referred exclusively to fingers and radio tubes got hot, I was at my desk in another fellow's office, slowly considering the nicest possible way to ghostwrite a speech. The chairman of a grocery chain had to explain why his empire was underperforming by a factor of thirty and that everything would be better next quarter, when the phone rang. Back in those days, telephones had bells and curlicue cords that ended in a handset heavy enough to kill an intruder if he happened to intrude within three or four feet of the desk.

My girlfriend was crying, in a desperate state, convinced she was having a heart attack. I sighed, turned off the switch on my noisy Selectric II typewriter and inquired with suitable patience and sympathy whatever was wrong, dear? "I can't breathe," she gasped. "My chest is pounding. I've been try to write a script and I can't do anything without getting confused and I keep making mistakes and wasting paper and I can't do this! Do you think I'm having a heart attack?"

"No, darling," I affirmed. "You're having an art attack."

"Oh, no!" she wailed, as if that was worse. "What's an art attack?"

I thereupon improvised the following nonsense, because I wanted this interruption ended as quickly as possible. I'm capable of many heroisms, but ghostwriting a pack of lies for a grocery store magnate is not the sort of thing I can do in fits and spurts. Connected, logical-sounding horsefeathers are a delicate chore. "Okay, let me see if I understand the situation. You type a few words or a couple lines, and then it all looks like garbage, right?"

"Yes!" she exclaimed. "I'm writing garbage! I can't even spell anything right!"

"Look, honey, you need to understand what Art is. Art is leaning over your shoulder, watching everything you do. You're self-conscious and upset and hyperventilating because Art keeps telling you that you're writing garbage, right?"

"Uh... yeah I guess so, metaphorically or something."

"Okay, pay attention. This is important. Art is a garbage collector. He's a big fat guy wearing a smelly old T-shirt that has holes in it, he's smoking the stub of a cigar and he has no aesthetic judgment or sympathy. He's there bugging you and making you miserable because he's thinks you're a writer and that all writers write garbage. All he wants is the garbage. Put a fresh piece of paper in the machine, type a bunch of garbage, gibberish, anything, then rip it out, ball it up and throw it over your shoulder to Art. He'll have some garbage and he'll go away and leave you alone, so you can relax and write."

She did as I asked, somewhat skeptically, typed some awful crap with abundant misspellings, ripped it from her typewriter, balled it up and tossed it over her shoulder. She affirmed that Art the Garbage Collector was duly assuaged and indeed had left the apartment. She was very appreciative and had a nice new comedy script for me to giggle at over dinner that evening.

Cut to Hollywood a dozen years later. My girlfriend was given an important introduction to one of Tinsel Town's oldest, most respected and successful television distributors, the late Arthur Greenfield. She came back from Greenfield's Wilshire Boulevard office looking like a dazed survivor. I asked how it went?

"You're not going to believe this," she said solemnly. "The secretary was at lunch and his office door was open. He said 'come on in, sweetie! I been expectin ya' and I walked into his office. He had enormous floor-to-ceiling bookshelves on both walls, like a library, thousands of reels of videotape masters. Lassie, My Three Sons, the old Max Fleischer Popeye series, What's My Line, Charlie's Angels, almost every off-network series I've ever heard of. Art Greenfield was sitting behind a big desk, smoking a cigar. He had a T-shirt with holes in it. He waved his hand at the shelves and said -- you're not gonna believe this, Wolf -- he said: 'See all this? Garbage! - all garbage!'

"I met Art," she whispered with awe. "You were right. He's a garbage collector."

True story I swear.

:rolleyes:

Edited by Wolf DeVoon
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  • 1 year later...

Selene Newbie

Selene

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Here comes Summer by the song of the same name!

Welcome. You have some phenomenal music on your my space page.

I think you will find this an excellent place to flex your mind.

Adam

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Summer Newbie

Summer

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I think Summer's avatar is by Chesley Bonestell...

I honestly wouldn't know... I found it online and thought it was so goregous and expressive (to me, purple is a very passionate color: as my profile default clearly declares), that I had to grab it.

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Selene Newbie

Selene

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I think Summer's avatar is by Chesley Bonestell...

I honestly wouldn't know... I found it online and thought it was so goregous and expressive (to me, purple is a very passionate color: as my profile default clearly declares), that I had to grab it.

Ms. S:

Women and purple - has to be in the top two or three favorite colors for females.

Adam

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