For Our Amusement

Sometimes when I'm writing a new script, creating that brand new world, and filling it (hopefully) with real-ish, three dimensional characters, I must do what every writer secretly or not-so-secretly loves to do... research. 

Not the boring, clinical, reams and reams of unreadable technical jargon kind of research, I mean stuff like watching a movie that might be similar to the one I'm writing (don't want to be repeaty or reinvent the wheel here people), or read a book, or troll the internet for fun facts like hip restaurants that you might want your character to go to in her hometown of New York City. You choose New York City because obviously you've always wanted to live there and writing about someone else's fantastic adventures there, albeit fictional, makes you feel just that little bit closer to your dream. You don't? That's only me? Okay never mind.

What I am trying to say is that the kind of research I often get to do is fun, I enjoy it, and... it allows me to put off the writing for just a few more minutes. Yeah, there it is, the naked truth. So here we are.

I was doing exactly that, "research" when I came to the end of an episode of a Chuck Lorre Production. Now for those of you who don't know who Chuck Lorre is, shame on you! Just kidding, no shaming here. He is an American television writer, director, producer, composer, he's just basically TV God, okay? Was this how you pictured God?? Me either, thought the beard would be longer and whiter.

Anyway... He's done shows like The Big Bang Theory, Two and a Half Men, Mom, Cybill and Grace Under Fire (that last one's a personal fave!!!) In any case at the end of each episode he writes a random blurb, a thought,  or commentary. They are hilarious and brilliant and nutty and wild. I love them.

So as I further my daily writing procrastination, I thought I'd pop 'round here to share: 

Chuck Lorre Production #424 

Sometimes when I had a particularly bad golf shot I find myself looking for the ball where I want it to be rather then where it most likely is. On a personal level this could be written off as a heartless bit of wishful thinking but on a macro level, it reveals an evolutionary character flaw that has Darwinian implications. What are the long-term survival chances of a species that is unwilling to see things as they are when "as they are" is not how it wants them to be? The answer, of course, is slim to woolly mammoth. In fact, it's a hop, skip, and jump from a missing Titleist to mass extinction.

We want to believe that nuclear weapons will not fall into psychotic hands or that if they do, heroes will stop them. We want to believe that catastrophic climate change won't upset our plans for the weekend. And if it does, scientists will build space stations where a select few of us will live happily ever after (and they'll need middle-age sitcom Raiders with bronchitis.) 

We want to believe that medicine will make amazing strides before we die, and we won't die. And if we do, spiritual forces will usher us into a better world. We want to believe our ball is not in the pond. And if it is, we will knock the next shot stiff and make no worse than a bogey. We want to believe there's a flash of insight at the end of this vanity card. And if there's not, we can keep writing until we somehow twist the golf metaphor into something mildly amusing.

Hope you enjoyed that as much as I did. Thanks Chuck!

You sick of me yet? Third post in a week, good lord somebody stop me!
xo
Shan