Author: wdfyfe

Before WD called himself a writer, he worked at a number of different jobs from stacking lumber to interior design. He studied English at UBC and creative writing at ASU where one of his teachers, Rita Dove, taught him the importance of the tale. He has written for radio, magazines and newspapers, but never television. He’s published both fiction and nonfiction in Great Britain and the US. He reads French passably and speaks enough Spanish to get from A to B and find the toilet. He has interviewed John Cleese, Peter Ustinov, Margaret Drabble, Kenneth Branagh and enough other famous people to make him a hopeless name dropper. His not-so-secret passions are history and trivia, and he has never lost a game of Trivial Pursuit — although he did come 4th one drunken Quiz Night at the Uxbridge in Notting Hill. He lives on the Pacific Ocean, although, not close enough to see, so he spends his days looking at a computer screen. It’s a wonderful life and he has only one regret: he can’t type faster.

Oscar is a Grouch (2016)

hollywoodOnly an idiot would get involved in Hollywood’s current Oscar controversy, and my mom didn’t raise any dummies.  It’s been my experience that when a bunch of millionaires are lining up to do battle, we common folk better head for the exits.  However, when entertainers try to be serious, there’s always the opportunity for some serious entertainment.

Some people say (but I’m not one of them) that this entire Oscar debacle started when Will Smith didn’t get a Best Actor nomination for Concussion.  When you’re one of the coolest people on the planet (and a billion-dollar box office asset) you normally get what you want — whenever you want it — so it’s understandable that when Oscar said to Will, “Sorry, not this year,” his response was “WTF?”  Unfortunately, when your carefully crafted image is one of the coolest people on the planet, you can’t actually say WTF out loud — ya gotta dress it up a little bit.  So the reason the Oscar grapes are sour is ’cause they’re just too damn monochromatic, and apparently nobody noticed that before (including both times Will Smith was nominated for an Oscar in the past.)  Anyway, the entire entertainment community is now in a politically correct conundrum — and it’s not pretty.  What to do?  What to do?

Lucky for us, movie stars are smart.  (After all, what would the world do without their wise and thoughtful political insights?)  The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will find a way out of this mess — the show must go on.

However, should they need some help … some people (but I’m not one of them) have offered this solution.  Raise the stakes, up the ante, show some muscle and invite Caitlyn Jenner to Oscar night.  Who in their wildest politically correct nightmare would boycott that?  Plus, and this is where the bike helmet meets the pavement, have her present the Oscar for Best Actor.  After all, Eddie Redmayne’s going to win for The Danish Girl.  Let’s face it, folks: this is definitely not going to be Leonardo DiCaprio’s year.  Even with his politically correct crocodile tears over climate change, the guy is just like so-o-o white, he’s blue.  (This is in no way an insensitive reference to DiCaprio’s death scene in Titanic, nor to the number of times he would have died of hypothermia if The Revenant was real.)

Some people (but I’m not one of them) think it’s hilarious that the politically correct Hollywood Hydra is now eating its own tail.  It’s a good thing I’m not involved, or I’d be laughing my ass off right now.

Disclaimer!  The politically incorrect views and opinions expressed in this blog are those of “some people” and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views or opinions held by WD Fyfe.
All characters and events in this blog — even those based on real people — are entirely fictional.  Any resemblance to persons living or dead is only in their own minds.
No actors were injured in the writing of this blog.

I Have An Evil Twin

twinMany years ago, I discovered I have an evil twin.  He lives on the edge of reality so he can occasionally come marauding though my life, break something, and then disappear without a trace — leaving me holding the bag.  However, despite the fact he’s a total asshole, I’ve grown to appreciate his presence and, on occasion, I actually like the guy.  Over the years, he’s dropped me in enough crap to fill the Augean Stables, but without him, I wouldn’t have learned some pretty serious survival skills.

My earliest memory of him is watching a smartass kid (who looked exactly like me) shouting insults in a nose-to-nose disagreement with some very big boys.  The situation deteriorated, my evil twin disappeared and I discovered the humiliating power of the public four-man wedgie!  Lesson learned: the personal simile is not the best strategy when dealing with unreasonable people.

Once, in the heat of the moment and, against the advice of friends and a vast body of empirical evidence, he decided we should have sex with a notorious psycho.  Sometime between round three and daylight, my evil twin wandered off, and I woke up with a crazy woman who thought we’d mated for life.  Three months, 4 letters (no texts in those days) 25 phone calls and 6 stalking visits later, she finally got the message.  Lesson learned: never think with your dick.

As a sophomore in university, he thought it would be great fun if we knocked the pompous off a particularly pompous tenured professor.  The whole semester was witty and precocious and even developed into a bit of a swagger across the English Department.  Unfortunately, just before finals, my evil twin vanished, and I was informed that “although I had considerable talent I had not demonstrated any respect for serious scholarship and my grade, therefore, would be adjusted accordingly”  Lesson learned: pompous and vindictive are pretty much the same thing, and pick your targets ’cause karma’s a bitch.

Every once in a while, my evil twin still shows up, but he has grown older and wiser.  Now, he just eats the last cookie and puts the empty box back in the cupboard, shouts at the wrong people when he’s angry, and tends to forget the importance of family and friends.  So, basically, if I’ve pissed you off in recent history, cut me some slack: it’s probably my evil twin.

Conspiracy Theories

conspiracyThe world is full of conspiracy theories and they’re all bullshit.  The Masons didn’t start World War I.  Rockefeller and the Rothchilds didn’t organize the Stock Market Crash in 1929.  Aliens didn’t land in Roswell, New Mexico.  The Mafia didn’t kill Kennedy.  Neil Armstrong did walk on the moon, and — for God’s sake — Dick Cheney didn’t take down the Twin Towers on 9/11 for Haliburton or anyone else.  What a boatload of nonsense!

I have a friend who loves these conspiracies.  He saves them up to vex me.  He’s one of the smartest people I know, but he’s absolutely convinced that we’re being lied to by any number of secret societies and/or government agencies.  To be fair, in the age of Julian Assange and Edward Snowden, he’s got a point.  However, it’s a huge stretch from the Ministry of Finance fudging the unemployment numbers to the Illuminati keeping aliens in the basement of the White House.

Everybody knows that conspiracy theories can be a lot of fun when you’ve opened that second bottle of wine after dinner, but the next morning?  Please!  Here’s the deal.  Every single conspiracy theory works on the same set of assumptions.  So let me put them to rest.

1 — One doesn’t not find overwhelming scientific evidence on The Discovery Channel, A&E, Facebook, Twitter or some out-of-print book you bought at Goodwill.  Sorry!  Overwhelming scientific evidence is that mountain of totally boring crap that the world’s scientific community generally agrees on.  In any reasonable discussion, it is their expertise that takes precedence — not some guy on YouTube, who claims to be an eye witness.  And, BTW, just because you and your girlfriend agree it’s a scientific fact, that doesn’t make it so.  Actually, without serious documentation it isn’t even a fact.

2 — The mainstream media has not been either cowed or coerced into ignoring some of the greatest news stories of all time.  Use your head!  Kim Kardashian flashes her North West Passage on Instagram, and every news outlet from Malibu to Mars covers it.  The reason Fox, CNN, MSNBC, BBC and Al Jazeera aren’t going wall-to-wall on the Alien Autopsy is because there never was one.

3 — It’s not reasonable to believe that a secret society and/or government agency capable of harnessing the huge resources needed to perpetrate a vast, worldwide conspiracy will then make a series of stupid mistakes that point directly to their nefarious purpose – errors so glaring that a teenager with a Pause button can figure them out in less than an hour.  Or even worse, why would a secret society and/or government agency ever leave an array of clues which actually reveal their cunning plan?  That kinda defeats the whole purpose of having a conspiracy in the first place.

4 — Likewise, in the army of people needed to pull off even the simplest cover-up — from the original planners to the guy who makes the sandwiches — it beggars belief that not one person, in not one conspiracy, ever had a crisis of conscience and suddenly confessed.  The laws of anti-chance alone dictate that somebody, somewhere, got drunk one night and told their lover – or their mother what they’re doing in Area 51.  Imagine, the joint custody dad in the messy divorce, “Look kids, aliens!  Betcha mom and her fancy man can’t do that?  Who’s the coolest dad EVER!”

I could go on for pages, documenting every conspiracy theory ever known for the hopeless Swiss cheese it is, but a picture is worth a thousand words.  Check out this very short Ted Talks video from Rives.  It is the ultimate mini-documentary on conspiracy theories.