Good Intentions, Unfinished Projects, and Jeff Bridges

The road to Christmas is paved with good intentions.

Well, supposedly the road to hell is paved with good intentions—that was according to Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, an abbot, mystic, co-founder of the Knights Templar, and a guy who walked around with a small wooden barrel of booze around his neck. Or maybe I’m thinking of someone else. Actually, I’d agree with Stephen King that the road to hell is paved with adverbs. Christmas, on the other hand, is paved with good intentions. Or for me, life in general.

I had planned a fun, sweet short comic story to post for the season, inspired loosely by Woody Allen’s play Death Knocks, but not as brilliant and somewhat less entertaining, I’m sure. I was bringing back an old character of mine from the eighties and nineties called Rupert the Pig—an anthropomorphic, ill-tempered, aspiring writer who was my porcine version of Howard the Duck. Although he doesn’t seem as ill-tempered as he once was. Maybe because I’ve mellowed a bit myself with age.

In my story, Santa mistakenly crashes through Rupert’s window (occupational hazard) and has a hard time convincing Rupert that he is who he says he is. I cast Jeff Bridges as my Santa Claus because I couldn’t resist the idea of The Big Lebowski as the jolly old elf. The Dude in a red suit. Couldn’t resist.

I wrote the story back in October, along with a Halloween story that I failed to finish before Halloween. I see a pattern here.

I actually wrote five short comic scripts, an outline for a children’s novel in the vein of C.S. Lewis meets Beatrix Potter, and a synopsis for a sci-fi-western screenplay in a whirlwind writing marathon after I returned from drawing at a county fair in Georgia. But close only counts in horseshoes. That’s the second or third cliché of this post, but I’ve stopped counting.

The Pattern

It seems to be the pattern of my entire year—unfinished projects, that is, not clichés. I’ve been trying for a year to put the final touches on my traveling caricature operation, which currently doesn’t exist because I haven’t put the final touches on it. My hope was to travel around Florida doing small fairs and festivals so I could possibly escape Theme Park World, which is slowly beating this old man down. Yet I’m basically where I was this time last year. Same spot. Same intentions. Different calendar.

It’s getting harder to do all the things I need to do with family responsibilities, the daily struggles of making a living and my ongoing battle with a brain that has no executive function. Still, I remain hopeful that I can get things done one day, somehow. I’m wrecking the curve on B.F. Skinner’s learned helplessness experiment, and the rest of the dogs in my class hate me for it.

But don’t mistake my hopefulness for optimism. I wouldn’t necessarily call myself an optimist, nor am I a pessimist. I’ve always liked to think of myself as an optimistic-pessimist—someone who hopes things will work out but knows they probably won’t. It’s a comfortable place to live, low expectations with a pleasant view.

The Non-Gift

So for now it’s Christmas and I don’t have a gift for you. No comic story for the season. Not even a thoughtful gift card to the place you never go.

But I will wish you a Merry Christmas, a hopeful New Year, and offer you a few sketches of Jeff Bridges as Santa Claus. The Dude abides. Even at the North Pole.

Consider it a promissory note for future content. I’m good for it. Probably.

Merry Christmas.

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