Now what the hell was I going to say?

What do you do when your train of thought gets derailed?

I had something in mind to write tonight. I even had a good start on writing it. But then an old friend of my brother's dropped by, drunk, and after an hour or so of dealing with a drunk I could not for the life of me remember where the hell I was going with that article. This article.

This sort of thing happens from time to time.

But I did write an opening, and I hate to waste it. I started by telling an old joke; as I recall it was the only clean one I knew that made whatever point I was trying to make, but what the hell was that point? I haven't a clue.

Still, why waste a good bad joke? Here it is:

There's an old joke:

A cop is walking down the street in New York when he sees a filthy homeless guy standing alone in the street, whistling The Star Spangled Banner. After a few verses, the homeless guy starts jumping up and down saying "Rutabaga! Rutabaga! Rutabaga!" as he frisks himself, then he starts singing I Enjoy Being a Girl as he traces strange symbols in the air with his finger. Then he stands on his head and recites Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. Then he starts whistling The Star Spangled Banner again, and repeats the whole bizarre display.

The cop goes over to the homeless guy and asks, "What the hell are you doing?"

"A secret mystical dance" the homeless guy responds. "It keeps elephants away."

"Elephants?" the cop asks. "There aren't any elephants within a thousand miles of New York!"

The homeless guy smiles knowingly and says, "You see how well it works?"

Trust me, this all has something to do with what's been happening in Lansing, Michigan. But I'll get back to that; first, some background.

The question is, what background? What was I going to say next? That last line indicates that I was going to comment on that mess in Lansing, that I was going to say something about the history of the current conflict, but I have no idea what sort of comment I wanted to make.

It's getting worse. I just began a sentence with the word "Thortand" and I have no idea what the hell "Thortand" means. I think it was a typo (I hope it was a typo) but as to what I meant to type, I haven't a clue. Actually, my typing is so bad these days that I always look forward to spell-checking my work, since I'm at my most creative when I don't know what the hell I'm doing. Usually.

It's got to be some kind of typo. I make a lot of typos. I usually love trying to make head-or-tails of my own bad spelling, but in this case your guess as to the origin of "Thortland" is as good as mine.

Wait a minute; I've got it now. I was trying to type That, and... ...um...no, I wasn't. That doesn't make any sense. I am so confused!

OK, it's obvious I'm not going to get back to whatever I was writing. Maybe I should just have a beer and relax. Waitaminute...that drunk at the door got my last beer. Damn.

Well, there is one thing I can do. I can whistle The Star Spangled Banner. I hear it keeps elephants away.

The Blues Viking

The opinions here expressed are mine and if you don’t like them you can get your own damn blog.