Before I delve into my right -sided brain there are three basic questions I'd like to answer having to do with this whole 'idiotic' subject.
1.Is there such a thing as a young idiot?
2.How do you know you're an idiot?
3.Why are idiots mostly men?
Number 1, the truth is we are all idiots when we are young. Kids are idiots; adolescents are idiots, boys and girls. That's pretty obvious. And since we all are, we don't call ourselves such so therefore we are not. What I mean is, we are just kids (we could start with babies, but babies are never idiots even though they don't know much and poop their pants) and then we are just adolescents, we just are. If that sounds kind of Buddha like, (babies look like Buddha's, right) so be it.
I'll explain by answering the second and third questions, you can't really be an idiot until your an adult and since you do not know you're an idiot till some one calls you one and since the only one who would call you one is your now or future wife, you can't be a true idiot until you're married. And finally since for the most part only men have wives only men are truly real idiots. Any more idiotic questions? Good.
Some idiocies are universal like looking at yourself naked and trying to invent a way to make it look bigger before you go out on/ looking for a date. Some are unique like our current peerless leader. My thing was always the right brain tissue issue. My abilities have always lied in the artistic vein whether writing of some kind or my stupendous useless knowledge pertaining to rock bands of the late sixties, early seventies era. I still know the names of all the members and what they played of most of the big or small bands of that time. Things like the connection between The Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, Loggins and Messina, Poco, The Hollies, CS&N, CSN&Y, Crazy Horse and Manassas, which I believe many are privy too and scarier things like about Tommy Bolin who played guitar for Zephyr (who had a female lead singer and recorded one album with a graffiti filled bathroom on the cover) then for Deep Purple (after and before Ritchie Blackmore) then James Gang (when Joe Walsh left) then went solo and died on stage in Colorado in 1976 not to be confused with Marc Bolan who was the main half of T Rex, influenced Bowie, had the hit 'Bang a Gong', made an album with Leon Russell and died in a car crash in 1975. Scarier yet is the fact that when I hear some obscure one hit wonder song on the 'oldies station' (as if that isn't scary enough) the name of the group pops into my right-sided "98.6" 'Keith', "96 Tears" 'Question Mark and the Mysterions', organ playing brain. A brain others my age used 'simply' to buy and fix their own cars so they could go out on dates. My brain didn't understand what made a car actually go and so interfered with me having the confidence to actually drive one.
There's a story I tell in the first chapter of my e-book (more shameless plugging) about the differences between my friend Mike and myself that helps to explain my dilemma. Mike and I took a couple trips out west in the late 70's, had many adventures, picked up and connected with many hitch-hikers and… (You'll have to purchase the e-book to find out more). In the first chapter I talk about this body shop we worked at before we left on our first trip. Mike was very good at body shop- mechanical type work; he'd grown up with that kind of thing. He learned it from his Dad & older brothers I guess, my Dad was a music teacher and didn't do cars and I was the oldest but I've come to believe that it's more than a learned behavior. It's simply (and that's the key word) a matter of understanding how and why something works. He understood it. I didn't. My right-sided brain could only complicate things. One thing that Mike did a lot was to use this electric sander type 'thing' on the cars and when I think about it now I believe I understand. It's simply that the car has to have all the old paint off as smoothly as possible so that the new paint will go on and you don't want gouges or dents but at the time I couldn't SEE that. So I tried and relate it to something I understood, SEE it in some kind of artistic way and it seemed that Mike was making designs of some kind on the cars so…. I made these little pictures of islands or clouds, the few times, the very few times I got to use the sander 'thing'. For the most part though I was just there to hand Mike the wrong tool right when he didn't need it.
Now that explains a lot. Here are a few other things that I can think of that I did not know though I do know there are many more.
I never knew you had to wash vegetables before you sliced or ate them, should not re-freeze meat or use a wire scrubber on a Teflon pan, that you do need to remove lint from a dryer & not put half a box of detergent or too many clothes in the washer, you really do need to put oil in the car and in the right place just like I never knew you should put the peanuts in a bag before you weigh them and therefore did not know I was an idiot until I met and married my wonderful wife and she told me so. So now I know and I also know I wouldn't have it any other way. More idiotic questions like why dishes will not wash themselves or pets not feed them-selves will be answered when next I speak and you read again.
Idiots unite. Stand proud.
