You know how a baby just babbles away at nothing, but then when you call someone up and tell the baby to “talk to so-and-so” it clams up, only to become an instant motor mouth the second you hang up?
Or when people who think you’re funny tell other people how funny you are, so when they introduce you to this new person, they say something like “This is the guy I was telling you about. He’s reeeeaallly funny! Say something funny.” And then you just stand there not saying anything because you don’t think “You are such a fucking moron” is as funny as it is true.
I bring this up because I’ll be doing a fairly long drive from Tulsa to Rawlins, Wyoming, later today. These drives can get tiresome, especially when there isn’t a CD player in the truck, or when 9 out of 10 radio stations are God stations (I’m looking at you, Kansas) and the other one is hate radio. With nothing to do but drive, my mind wanders a bit and sometimes I come up with good ideas that I later forget because I can’t write them down while driving.
So, for this trip I got a digital voice recorder to capture those ideas (and to keep me entertained) on the long drive.
What I fear is that now that I have the recorder, my brain will freeze up, and the only thing that I’ll record is me saying something like “Uhh…er, umm….crap!”
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{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
OOHH! You should stop by Utah on your way back (since you’re over on the western side of the country).
Are you going with your father-in-law?
Good luck, dude. Think brilliant thoughts!
Last time he made that trip, they had to ride a bus to Utah to catch a plane home. If he had had the time, I’m sure he would have stopped off to see you Shelley. This time they’re driving back. And yes. He’s going with Dad. Pray.
Go with god, my friend. (er … dad …)
Dude…..when you’re there….go up on I-90 to Moorcroft and see Devil’s Tower….then look up for some UFO’s.
We, of course, expect you to post the audio file here.
(Won’t Cindy’s dad think we are sort of weird talking into a recording device while he sits right next to you? Couldn’t he write down your ideas?)
Dave — The closet thing I got to seeing Devil?s Tower was ordering 4 sides of mash potatoes at a restaurant in Colby, Kansas, and shaping it to look like Devil’s Tower. When Cindy’s dad asked me what I was doing, all I could tell him was that this means something. This is important.
Limon — For the trips out (and sometimes back) we each take one truck, so for most of the trip I’m all alone in my own little space, which is when I would use the recorder. For the times when we have to drive one truck back (meaning both of us are in the same truck), I’d just put the recorder away and forget about it. Unless he’s driving, then I could note the idea myself.
But let’s say you come up with a theory that Mary Matlin died back in 1997 and had been resurrected from the grave by Dick Cheney to act as a mouthpiece for the GOP because she’s creepy-looking and smells like hobo vomit, and people will agree with anything she says because they just want her off the set. The last thing you’d want to do is turn to Cindy’s dad and say, “Here, write this down…”
I know linguists who analyze ?Uhh?er, umm?.crap!? all day. You could feel very productive by volunteering your recordings for analysis. Have fun with your digital recorder; the first one I bought from amazon didn’t work.
NOTE TO SELF!