Look, you can see right up his kilts.

 

So, my new book is out. It’s available as a Kindle at Amazon.com : Angus McHaggis and the Bashful Sasquatch.

Very soon the paperback will also be up and for sale.

After my wife set me up with a wonderful writing space in a corner of our living room where I enjoyed tons of sunlight and kept my SADDs at bay, I managed to turn the Covid pandemic isolation into a full-length novel, with chapters and everything.

So, I’ll take questions now. You, in the back, there, Nurmish. What would you like to ask?

Nurmish: So how is it your wife Carolyn Rose has written or co-written more than 20 books in the time it’s taken you to write 7?

Good question. And I’m sure you’ll be able to hear the entire answer before you’re escorted all the way out of the room. It has to do with how different people channel their creativity and how long it takes some people to nurture their ideas before putting them on paper. But honestly, the short answer is much simpler. She’s an industrious get-er-done driven human being and I’m a lazy sod. Next question? Yes, Glycemia?

Glycemia: Where did the idea come from? A retired professional wrestler private detective? A sidekick, also a retired wrestler of the little-person persuasion? A legendary cryptid who’s being pursued by a missing Sasquatch hunter? I mean, that’s really out there.

It started a year or so back during an acid flashback. (chuckles) No, not really. Its roots are in an ongoing debate between my wife and I about the existence of Bigfoot. She believes it’s possible and I’m a “get the hell out of town with that B.S.” kind-o-guy. Add in a conversation I had with a friend about professional wrestling in the Pacific Northwest in the “good old days” and I employed my usual approach of “throw it up on the wall and see what sticks” and I had the bones of a story. We’ve got time for one more question. Nurmish? How’d you get back in the room?

Nurmish  Fire door. So are you planning a sequel?

Possibly. But you’ve hit the nail on the head with several of the problems. First of all, planning. Carolyn is the planner in the family. I’m the “Get up, have three cups of coffee and see what happens” kind of person. The second issue is with the word “sequel.” That implies I’d have to sit in front of the computer and write another book. As I said earlier, the creative process germinates differently in different human beings. Plus, I’m a lazy sod.

If there are no more questions, I’ll be sprawled on my recliner, munching some jerky and playing online cribbage.

I DON’T DO MORNINGS

 Mike Nettleton

 I’m not a morning person. That’s a shoo-in for the understatement hall-of-fame. It would be inducted in the same ceremony as “Mitch McConnell looks constipated,” and “pumpkin spice in coffee is an abomination.”

I’m more of a late-mid-morning-creeping-up-on-lunchtime person. I require processing time before I lay claim to human being status.

Oh, I still get up early. Years of performing morning radio stripped the gears on my body clock. Sleeping in means pillow wrestling until 6:15. But opening bloodshot eyes doesn’t translate to sharply honed reality coping skills.

M’lady is a morning person. By the time I drag my rear end down the hall to the breakfast table, Carolyn has likely started a load of laundry, received and answered half a dozen texts, checked her e-mail, eaten breakfast, read the paper, written three pages in her current book, and installed a new carburetor in the neighbor’s Plymouth. (Okay, I made that last one up, but it wouldn’t surprise me.) I, on the other hand, can almost manage nuking water for instant coffee and tossing a slice of wheat bread in the toaster oven. Remembering I have to turn the little knobby thing to create heat takes a little longer. 

“Good morning, sweetheart!” She chirps, smiling and patting my arm. “How’d you sleep?” 

“Bmurfbgle,” is my witty and urbane response.

“Good,” she beams. “Wipe the drool off your chin, dear.”

She consults her handwritten list and recites her plans for the day, several of which involve me standing upright and exhibiting some semblance of muscle memory. I nod, knowing any indication of resistance will end badly. My personal mental to-do list begins and ends with deciding if I’ll stir in the coffee creamer clockwise or counterclockwise. I listen for the smoke alarm to signal my toast is ready and calculate the time until my afternoon nap. Who says I can’t multi-task?

My body clock issues began when, out of economic desperation, I accepted an offer to host a misnamed wake-up radio show in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Until then I was strictly a graveyard shift or late afternoon kind of pronounciator.

In pursuit of a paycheck, I found myself driving to work at 4:00 a.m. with frigid wind blowing in wide-open car windows, singing at the top of my lungs. This training regimen not only helped get my blood pumping but led to several interesting one-on-one encounters with Albuquerque police officers. My backfiring Mazda misbehaving as APD was keeping an eye out for an armed robber led to me being sprawled across the hood of my car and being groped by the head-frisker-directly-in-charge.

Arriving at work, I’d scrape the ice off my mustache, swill the first of multiple cups of toxic metal urn coffee, and doze at my desk. At a few minutes before 6:00, my on-air partner would zap me with a cattle prod and away we’d go to the studio.

There, I’d drain my seventh coffee, take a deep breath, and start my snappy deejay patter.  “Bmurfbgle,” I’d tell my vast listening audience. (Or perhaps my listening audience was only half vast. I don’t quite remember.) “Mmmkrffuffmub.”

Getting in the swing of things, I’d then mentally assemble several coherent sentences. “6:05 in the Land of Enchantment. 37 degrees. Let’s get things going with the Bee Gees. Oh, and don’t forget to Nyaaaarlgurg.” I’d meant to say “boogie down,” but hey, it was early.

I’m retired now, so this particular morning I rescue my toast without a visit from the fire department and swig my caffeine delivery liquid. My head begins to clear, and I gather my wits to speak my first complete sentence of the day. Carolyn smiles, awaiting the dropping of a pearl of wisdom.

“Have you . . . Have you . . .?”

“Have I what, dear?” she asks. “Made the bed? Yes. Ten seconds after you were out of it. Swept out the garage? An hour ago. Made banana bread? Next on my list.”

“No.” I scold, then stab the newspaper with my finger. “Have you read the obituaries?”

She gets that puzzled look on her face I adore so much. “Right after the comics. Why do you ask?”

“Just wondered,” I mumble, “if mine is in there this morning.”

“No,” she says. “But if you don’t get moving, I’ll start writing one for them to run tomorrow.”