With all of the travel shows that dominate my PBS station and the fact that cable even has some travel channels, why is it that we are limited to the here and now? I guess Doctor Who is supposed to be our time travel show, but that show always has aliens and everyone knows that aliens only started "hanging out" in the 1980s (kind of explains leg warmers, Boy George and Karma Chameleon (You come and go, come and goOoOoOo - obviously an alien reference)).
Anyways, in response to the lack of a true exploration of time, I'm going to continue to share some of my time travel exploits here.
Recently, on a boring Saturday morning, I decided to jump into my space time continuum vessel, and visit my old friend Artie Doyle. Since we're both bored, we decide to work on a new character for him, some fellow named Sherlock Holmes.
Now, Artie is convinced that this Holmes character is based on me because I'm so clever and sleuthy, but he forgets that there is a real Holmes that we both hang out with. I already expounded on Holmes in an earlier post. But this post isn't about Holmes as much as it's about Artie Doyle who forgets Holmes for two reasons. One, Holmes is a pretty boring guy and even after you get to know him and his eccentricities, he only becomes a little less boring. To be so uninteresting, you're sure to be forgotten by Artie. The second reason that Artie forgets Holmes the man, instead of Holmes the character, is because Artie is a bit of an alcoholic, and by "a bit" I mean raging, with a continuous amount of alcohol in his system which registers his blood at 90% alcohol content (How is that possible? I don't know, ask a 19th century scientist). Anyways, with the blase feelings about Holmes the man, and the alcohol essentially living in his veins, Artie is forgetful. So we spend a few hours working on Holmes, the detective, and laugh about good times; like the dozen or so times that the doctor at the scene of a crime was familiar with Artie's blood alcohol content (or just alcohol content since the blood was pretty much non-existent) and thought that he could use Artie's blood on a victim as antiseptic because he didn't believe in blood pathogens - remembering this still makes us laugh until tears come to our eyes. Oh how many people probably died from using his blood to save their lives, good times.
Anyways, we originally wrote Holmes the character as a bumbling fussbucket but Artie got sentimental and made him into the best sleuth ever and when I accused him of trying to live precariously through Holmes he got mad and insisted that that is what every writer does.
"Create something wonderful to make up for your failings, build a character that you can live through so you don't have to live your own pathetic life," he said, or something along those lines.
I could see that his tiny speech had exhausted him along with our hours of work so as he fell asleep by the fire I tucked the Holmes manuscripts away for him to find on a more sober day and I returned home to my own bed and my own dreams.
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