A Chip Off The Old Writer's Block

By Stephen Lautens

Stephen Lautens proves that the nut doesn’t fall far from the tree in this hilarious collection of his best columns about a day to day world that often refuses to make sense. Plus there’s the joys of parenthood and you’ll also finally discover the differences between men and women (hint - it’s all about flashlights, home surgery and how you feel about finding bulk toilet paper on sale).

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stephen Lautens
• Release date: Nov 29, 2010
• ISBN: 9780986812705

Stephen Lautens

Stephen Lautens has been a national newspaper columnist appearing weekly in the Calgary Sun for over 16 years. His weekly column has also appeared in the Winnipeg Sun, National Post, London Free Press and Toronto Sun. His writing has also been published in the enormously popular "Chicken Soup For The Soul" series.A collection of some of Stephen's most popular columns - "A Chip Off the Old Writer's Block" - is now an eBook. His novel - "The Last Blitzkrieg" - a fast-paced thriller set in the chaotic closing days of World War II, is also now available as an eBook.Stephen was a Governor of the National Newspaper Awards for 7 years and is Past President of the Toronto Press Club. He has been the guest speaker at many events, including the Stephen Leacock Festival.During the day Stephen is a mild-mannered lawyer and business consultant, although he still has trouble explaining to his mother exactly what it is he does for a living.He has two other novels in progress, including a murder thriller set during the 1936 Berlin Olympics and an alternate version of the Garden of Eden story in The Book of Genesis from the perspective of one of its overlooked and under-appreciated characters.Stephen lives in Toronto, Canada with his wife and very busy son.

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A Chip Off The Old Writer’s Block

by Stephen Lautens

Copyright © Stephen Lautens 2005

Smashwords Edition © 2010

All rights reserved

Smashwords Edition, License Notes:

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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INTRODUCTION

I never thought I’d ever have a book like this.

When I started writing a weekly column for the first time in 1992 I had no idea how long it would last – and I was right to be pessimistic. Less than a year later my paper cut all the freelancers to save costs and make room for more stereo ads, and I was back to working for a living. In fact, I never stopped working for a living, because being a freelance writer – even if you’re lucky enough to be in the big papers – is not the ticket to fame or fortune in Canada. Especially the fortune part. It’s something you do because you love it.

In 1997 I got a call from my former Toronto Sun publisher, Les Pyette, about whom you’ll hear more later. He was then at the Calgary Sun and asked me if I wanted to try my hand at writing a weekly column again. I said sure, and I’ve been appearing there every week ever since – which brings me back to this collection of columns.

After almost eight years I found I had close to 500 columns sitting on my hard drive. Five or six of them were actually pretty good. Many of them were up on my website where freeloaders – I mean my faithful readers – could read them, and so I could reach a larger audience. I was surprised to hear from a little group of fans in Scotland that runs off my column and passes it around each week. The Internet is great, but I still had a lot of people (okay, three or four) ask me if my columns were available on good old fashioned paper. That was all the encouragement I needed for this book. Plus I’m not sure this Internet thing is ever going to catch on.

I also find I’m a bad judge of my own work. Some of the columns my readers liked the best I frankly thought stunk and were whipped off at midnight after a hard day at my real job and an evening of wrestling with an insomniac toddler my lovely wife Rhea valiantly but unsuccessfully tried to keep out of my home office. Other columns that were carefully crafted and made me chuckle to myself at how clever I thought I was, were greeted by yawns. So I warn you right now the columns here are ones I liked, plus a few that were inexplicably (to me anyway) popular.

Before we get down to business, I should point out that almost all of these columns originally appeared in the Calgary Sun. The Calgary Sun has been incredibly good to me, and so have the great people of Calgary. I have been lucky enough to have worked for some great editors at The Calgary Sun who have given me the freedom and encouragement to write whatever pops into my head, and publishing it on a weekly basis. It is a luxury I know very few writers enjoy, and I am fortunate to work for some of the nicest people in journalism. Particular thanks go to Roy Clancy and Licia Corbella.

When the Winnipeg Sun was relaunched, they asked to make my column a regular feature there too. I’d like to thank John Gleeson and Lyn Cockburn who have looked after me there from day one. While I was appearing in the Toronto Sun, Lifestyle Editor Rita DeMontis was a great friend and champion.

There are two other people I’d like to single out for thanks.

The first is Les Pyette. Les is a veteran journalist, newspaper editor and publisher. When I first thought about writing a newspaper column I packed some samples off to the Toronto Star where my family had a long history. The Star eventually passed, and so I decided to send the same package to The Toronto Sun where I knew no one. I called their front desk and asked who I should send them to. The answer came back – Les Pyette.

Within three days of sending it, Les called and said he liked my columns and would I start that same Sunday. That was in 1992. After that Les was reassigned to a number of papers in the Sun chain, and wherever he went I would soon get a phone call from him asking if I’d like to write for that paper too. So I also ended up in the London Free Press, the Calgary Sun and the Winnipeg Sun. Les’s latest appointment was as publisher of the National Post, and sure enough within a month or two I was writing for them too. Every writer should be so lucky as to have a fan, patron and friend like Les, and I cannot express enough gratitude to him. Without him you wouldn’t be reading any of this. Feel free to send any complaints directly to him.

The other person I have to thank is my late father, Gary Lautens. Before his premature death in 1992, Dad wrote more than 10,000 columns and still was never sure anyone ever read them. He was wrong. With my own column I now hear from many of Dad’s former readers who are only too willing to share with me how much they enjoyed and miss him too. I never get tired of hearing from his fans and how they keep his memory alive. He was very special to me and I was a great fan – and being in the writing biz has only deepened my admiration for him and his work. He had a gentle, down to earth sense of humor, and I am flattered whenever my readers see a little of him in my columns. Although I never try to imitate, I often feel him on my shoulder when I write. He gets a lot of the credit for anything you read here that tickles you.

Whatever is left over is mine, for better or worse.

Stephen Lautens

July, 2005

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CHAPTER 1: IT'S A GUY THING

BUDDY CAN YOU SPARE SOME BRAINS?

Last week Danish researchers announced a startling find.

Men have on average 4 billion more brain cells than women.

After sticking 94 cadavers in the cuisinart and then counting their brain cells, they found that women have an average of 19 billion brain cells and men have 23 billion of the little gray suckers.

Before we men start lording our brain cell superiority over the fairer sex, the researchers were quick to point out that our 4 billion extra do not make us smarter.

Scientists were asked what men do with our brainy surplus.

‘Right now,’ said Dr. Bente Pakkenberg, ‘it’s a mystery.’

So once again it is up to us columnists to step in where the highly educated fear to tread.

There are many things those extra brain cells allow men to do, none of which I might add makes us any smarter:

1. Drink beer. Of the 4 billion extra brain cells, you have to figure we kill at least half on Saturday nights and at stags. The surplus is nature’s way of making sure men don’t lose the power of speech (at least permanently).

2. Commit to memory reams of baseball and hockey statistics. Useful in the office sports pools, nowhere else.

3. Allow us to watch up to five television channels simultaneously. This has resulted in much TV converter envy among our less brainy female companions, not to mention domestic violence and divorce.

4. Be able to figure out instinctively which of the many suspects will be arrested and hauled off to jail on the TV show COPS. (Hint: keep your eyes on the guy wearing a baseball hat but no shirt.)

5. Memorize every episode of the Three Stooges, The Simpsons, and Monty Python. It might come in handy. What if aliens arrive and threaten to blow up the Earth unless we know all the words to the Dead Parrot Sketch?

6. It’s where we store our vast knowledge of how to do things without using any of the proper tools. Women always want to open a can using a can opener. Men can improvise with anything that is handy - a rock, shoe, shotgun, Buick. That’s what separates us from the beasts. (Particularly the less bright ones).

7. Remember the engine sizes of all Ford products since the 1920s. Like sports, men have an almost infinite ability to store arcane car trivia.

8. The ability to navigate without consulting a map. Men are never lost. Sometimes roads aren’t where they should be.

9. Hide our true feelings. It only seems like men are insensitive blobs. We in fact have deep feelings. For example, just the other day, I felt hungry.

10. And finally, we men devote that extra 4 billion brain cells to better understanding and appreciating women.

If you ever needed proof that more brains doesn’t make us any smarter, there it is.

Mystery solved.

THE WARRIOR WITHIN

Would Genghis Khan have conquered so much of the world if he had a wife? That’s the question two Toronto researchers asked themselves, and came to the conclusion that he probably wouldn’t. They believe wars are caused by a surplus of young men and a shortage of wives.

After looking at the figures for more than 150 countries they found that the more unattached young men a country has wandering around, the more likely they are to get up to no good in their spare time. And that the more of us who take a walk down that aisle, the more peaceful we become as a country.

Well, this doesn’t come as a surprise to any of us married men. After all, who has time to invade small countries when there are china patterns to pick out and thank-you cards to address?

They point to Ireland for example, which until recently has had - statistically speaking - too many single men hanging around street corners at closing time. As the young men there get older, so the theory goes, Ireland should be in for a period of calm. Pretty soon everyone in the Emerald Isle will be settling down for a cup of milky tea and Coronation Street reruns.

So back to Genghis Khan. How would history have been different if this 13th century Mongol warrior had decided to get married young and settle down instead of bloodily carving himself an empire that stretched from Korea to Kiev?

‘Are you going out dressed like that?’

Genghis looked at himself in the hall mirror.

‘Why, what’s wrong with it?’ he asked his wife. She was clearly not happy with him going out for the second night in a row.

‘In your best fur vest? If you get one drop of blood on it, it’ll be ruined.’

‘But it makes me look tough.’ Genghis sullenly took off the vest and hung it up next to the keys to the mini-wagon.

‘And what about that hat?’ Mrs. Khan pointed at the fur-trimmed hat with a metal spike that framed Genghis’ fierce face.

‘What’s wrong with it?’ the mighty warrior roared quietly, since the kids were already in bed. ‘It’s my old one.’

‘Exactly,’ said she who must be obeyed on pain of death or at least a night on the couch. ‘I thought I told you to throw that ratty old thing out.’

Genghis sighed. She was always throwing out his favourite stuff.

‘So when will you be back?’ Her hands were on her hips.

‘When my last enemy is dead and the wails and lamentation of their womenfolk join the howls of the wind.’ Genghis slashed at the air with his blade blackened by the blood of thousands.

‘Well, you know we’re going to my sister’s wedding this weekend, so you better be back by then. Or had you forgotten?’

‘Yes dear, I remember.’ Genghis dragged his mighty sword in the dirt behind him as he shuffled out the door.

‘Since you’re going out, would it kill you to take the garbage with you? Honestly, you have time to rape and pillage with your friends, but you don’t have time to hang those blinds in the kitchen.’

‘As soon as I get back, dearest.’

‘And don’t forget to pick up a quart of yak milk on your way home.’

A SHARP GIFT

I find it difficult to think about Christmas until after the first day of December. Even though the Halloween stuff barely made it off the shelves before being muscled aside by the plastic Santas and rubber reindeers, I refuse to let the department stores dictate the beginning of the holiday season.

If they had their way, we’d have one long holiday season beginning on January 1st and ending New Years’ Eve. Eventually, we’d all spend our entire lives in greeting card stores, and still never find one we liked.

But now that December is finally here, I don’t mind hearing Christmas carols blaring out of store speakers. In fact, I’m starting to feel downright Christmassy.

And in the spirit of Christmas, I want to pass along to the ladies the secret of buying gifts for the men in your life.

It never ceases to amaze me how much soul searching women go through looking for the perfect present for the men in their lives. They try to find an after-shave that is manly yet smells good – like ‘Pizza’ by Ralph Lauren. They worry about whether he’ll wear a green shirt, or if a ratchet set is actually something a man would really use.

I’m here to tell you that there are only two presents you can guarantee a man will like - flashlights and pocket knives.

It must be genetically programmed into us. I’ve never met a man who doesn’t think a flashlight or pocket knife isn’t a great gift.

When I was best man at my friend Rene’s wedding, his present to me to remember the tender feelings of that special day was a neat boot knife. That was fifteen years ago and I still throw the knife in my bag when I head to the cottage.

My friend Rob and I exchange presents every year at what has become known as the ‘Boys’ Christmas’. We give each other all the stupid stuff no one else ever would. So we wrap up miniature bottles of booze, plastic army men and Star Trek tattoos. And every year, we each give the other a pocket knife.

Do we ever look at it and say: ‘But I already have a pocket knife’? We always say: ‘Great, another knife!’ and proceed to see if it will