Beautiful Handcrafted Animals

As the title clearly indicates, this is a dignified, sophisticated post.  I started writing it earlier today, describing how I spent Sunday driving in and out of New York City, how I saw the uncovered pool at the house I’m buying for the first time, how Jack The Dog had a nice walk on Saturday before it got too hot.

Nice, huh?  Sounds really family friendly and all that.  I might have even worked in some bit about how, “spending a day running around, interestingly enough, lets the deep-down part of a writer’s brain work some stuff out while you’re not concentrating on it.”  Then I could tell you some plot development I came up with.  Allude to it in such a way as to not “spoil” it, should the book ever see the light of day.

Instead, I’m going to tell you about the UroClub.

What is the UroClub?  Well, I’ll tell you: it’s a faux golf club you bring out on the course with you TO PEE INTO.

Take a moment and digest that.

Yes, it looks like a golf club, “like a standard 7 iron”, the site says, in describing length, only it’s hollow AND YOU PEE INTO IT.

Presumably, you then carry it around with you FILLED WITH PEE while you play golf for three to five hours.

Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever been out on a golf course (hell, I don’t even know if you exist — I could be telling this story just for myself), but if you have, there’s one overriding detail common to EVERY golf course in the world . . . plenty of things you can pee on.

Seriously.  Desert courses are nothing but sand and brush and more sand.  You can pee on sand.

Grassy courses have . . . grass.  We’re allowed to pee on grass, right?

Some courses even have, oh, I don’t know, bathrooms.  You can pee in a bathroom, can’t you?

I picture someone getting this as a gag-gift and bringing it out to the course.  It’s a laugh and all that, but then, after a few holes and a few beers, it’s time to give back the rental beverages.   As is likely to happen, the other three members of the party have to pee, too.

So they go to the bathroom (or pee off to the side of the course on sand / grass / whatever).

But not our boy.  See, he showed everyone his silly UroClub and now they want him to use it.  They tease him about it.  So, okay, what the hell, he laughs, and he goes off to the side (probably where they went) and he drapes the little, attached towel across the front of his pants, and he does his business.

And now he gets to either (a) carry his faux golf club filled with pee around with him all day, or (b) pour the pee on the ground.

Neither option is great.  In the first one, well, that pee’s going to get pretty warm as they keep playing.  It’s not going to smell very nice when he gets home.  Baked-in pee doesn’t clean off very well.  I’d say his wife’s going to “accidentally” toss that out when he sheepishly hands it to her to clean (c’mon, fellas, don’t pretend).

Or, he’s going to pour the pee out but, well, here’s the thing.  It’s not like he’s got a hose handy to rinse the inside of the club, right?  So there’s still going to be some pee.  Oh, it won’t be sloshing about, but it’ll be there.  And now it’s even worse, because maybe he doesn’t give the club to his wife when he gets home.  Maybe he figures, “it’s clean, I poured it out” when he got home and left it in his bag.

Left it for the next time he plays.

Left it sit.  Baked-in pee and all.

I daresay that’s going to be a worse smell, eh?

I’m going to steal some bandwidth here and link from their site.  If it gets pulled I’ll download it and then upload it to my server here, but I figure some stuff you HAVE to share:

This is what it looks like when you unscrew the top to PEE into it:

Verrrrry Sophisticated.  No one would ever guess . . .

Well, like I said, it’s a very dignified, sophisticated post.  Next time we might have to get a little low-brow with ourselves.

Just like the title says, I’m a lazy bastard. Blogging, it turns out, is something I’m only good at in the abstract. See, I feel like I should have something interesting to say if I’m blogging and lately . . . well, not so much.

Okay, so we’ve seen a couple movies, so that’s something.

And I started writing a new book. I figure that’s something, too.

Movies first, then? We haven’t seen anything surprising, I’m afraid. Iron Man was uniformly excellent. If you actually cared, though, you’d have already seen it, and made up your mind for yourself.

The new Indiana Jones movie was uniformly not excellent. The most enthusiastic reviews you’ll find online or in print sound like nothing so much as rationalizations or apologies. People reach to emphasize the stuff that worked for them (like hearing Harrison Ford talk “as Indy” again, or the swell of John Williams’ score). Others — like me — just can’t get past the crap.

Here’s my one sentence review of Indy IV. Do with it as you will: “In Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, we’ve got the “Star Wars Prequel” effect in full force; bits and pieces are good, but overall it feels like the storytellers are talking down to us, explaining where no explanations are necessary, and making us feel, not the joy of youth, but the, “don’t talk down to me” feeling so many kids have.”

Also, I’m going to start using, “Nuked The Fridge” from here on in when describing entertainment which has moved, ahem, past its freshness date. Used to be, “Jumped the Shark,” but in my opinion, that phrase has, heh, nuked the fridge.

Other stuff? I’ve read a couple books, re-read a couple old favorites. I wish more Robert A. Heinlein was available for my Amazon Kindle. Suppose that’s just a matter of time.

Oh, and the book. Yeaaaah, that . . . okay. Beautiful Handcrafted Animals is right where we last visited it: resting. First draft is done, or all-but done, which is really the same thing. The next words I’ll type for that beast will be for the Second draft which, hey, let’s all keep our fingers crossed that’ll be the Final Draft, eh?

But.

But I had another idea. More to say, it’s an old, old idea which I’ve been tossing around for a long, long time. Out of the blue, all of a sudden, boom, I had an idea which I like very much pop into my head. So I’m playing with it. One of the nice things about being an unpublished novelist is you can sort of flit here and there at will. Nobody’s breathing down my neck to finish finish finish by a certain date. So if I want to monkey about, I’m free to.

What’s the story with the new book?

The title, and some folks are going to start getting the idea I have a thing for weird book titles, should be, “Lions Together Are Called A Pride.” I’ll be referring to it internally as, “Lions Together”, mostly because it’s less to type.

What’s it about? Hmm, another one that’s hard to sum up. Essentially, it’s the story of a woman who experiences something extraordinary. Possibly she’ll learn something about herself, even though I’m not really a big fan of self-discovery.

If that seems vague, it’s purposely so. To explain what the, “something extraordinary” is, or what she takes away from it would be to give the whole thing away. Suffice it to say, I think it’s an interesting idea and, more importantly, an interesting character to write about.

Her name is Nicola, “Nikki” Arlen. Not that it matters. But if you see me talking about Nikki, you should know who I’m talking about.

I’d tell you about the other characters in the book, but so far they’re all dead. You’d be amazed how hard it is to write for dead people . . .

Oh, and for a final move, as far as, “what’s up now?” the answer is . . . stuff. Writing. Reading. We’re moving to a new house towards the back half of the Summer months. Things are good, and feeling good.

I’m going to work on posting here more regularly. That seems to spur me to write more regularly, which is, of course, a good thing.

So, there you go.