WWMD

Apparently there has been some talk of the perfect tee shirt for sale at Bump. Normally I don’t put much truck in the idea of debate merchandise, but in this case I’ll make an exception:

So far in order to acquire one of these shirts you have to send all the money you have to the chez, at which point your general worthiness will be contemplated and we may or may not send you a shirt by return mail. Realistically speaking, it’s unlikely that a spalpeen like you will make the grade, but don’t let that deter you from sending cash, checks or money orders.

Actually, this did come up at Tuesday night’s meeting (thus setting a record for strange topics that even CatNats is unlikely ever to top). For reasons that elude me, there are some debaters out there whom I shock and awe. I am the George W. Bush to their Iraqi army, so to speak. How bizarre is that? According to Emily, there are also strange adulatory remarks about Lingo on Amazon. I remember going there years ago, when they allowed the authors to post their own comments, and announcing that I’d give a win and 30 points to any debater carrying my book into any round that I was judging. Not one person took me up on it, although the book did have some notoriety in forensician circles. This is to be expected, as few are the novelists who actually schlep debate teams to, for instance, Newark, New Jersey. But aside from requiring the discipline of two Spartan armies and a monastery full of Benedictine monks combined, putting out a novel really only boiled down to the fact that I like to write; you’ve probably already figured that out by now without need of any evidence from your local bookseller. I also did some how-to-program books once upon a time, not because I was such a great programmer, but because I enjoyed the exegesis (which is my word for the week, right after aleatory). There are other forensician writers, by the way. I know that both Catholic Charlie and the Good Doctor (figure that one out for yourself) have both put pen to page, or electron to printer, or whatever, and found publishers willing to take a flyer on them. And of course there’s always Jules and the Mite, who wrote probably the longest debate epic (and probably the only debate epic) on record yet remain mostly unheralded. I have been recording their work faithfully nevertheless, putting up a new podcast episode every week or so with fair regularity, and also republishing the text files. They never found a publisher for Nostrum, when all was said and done, but they did find me. A marriage made in heaven, that, except, of course, they never made a dime for all their effort. Dr. Johnson would not applaud their efforts, nor mine in continuing them—"No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money" is the appropriate quotation.

Tuesday’s meeting, as I indicated yesterday, will probably be the last as such. Once it’s over, it’s over, and we’ve all earned a rest. I do plan a few chezzes, though, to prep first the Statesmen and then the CatNatter. I hate the thought of sending people off totally unguided when I have an opportunity to inspire them with some “Win This One for the Gipper” speeches first (and, maybe, sell them a couple of tee shirts for the trip). But that doesn’t really count as meetings. It’s more just sitting around chewing the rag, as we used to say. (Or maybe it was someone else who used to say that. I’m not sure; age and infirmity will do that to you.) At this final meeting we mostly talked about 1ARs, but there was lots of general nonsense as well. Termite likes to tell us about this round he once had where the guy was running some nonsense or other—I never actually know what Termite is talking about—so there was some discussion about that for about the 80th time, and then there was the recommendation of a good book on the notorious Hen Hud English reading list (Brave New World took the honors), then some talk about the forensic summer reading list (I sort of pushed the Alderman/Kennedy titles), and a suggestion from Peanuts that I allow him to kidnap two of next year’s novices so that he can tie them up in his basement and turn them into Pfffters. Which really does give off that “once it’s over, it’s over” sense to the proceedings. We’ll carry on here, however. After all, I’ve got tee shirts to sell!