Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)

(From October 2011)

There is an old saying,  ”the first 2 things you say about a person (or an idea),  are actually  the least important thing and it is, in fact,  the  3rd  thing that you say that  is at the heart of how you feel” (about an idea..or a person).

(From October 10 2009

…seeing how the age-vector demographic of this blog is shrinking faster than an octogenarian at a New Year’s Day Polar Bear Plunge, I should stick an image of the cover of National Lampoon that was my ‘prompt’ for this Post. In the interest of full disclosure, the image is the property of whatever multinational corporate entity that owns the rights, I would like to say, for the record,  that I bought this very magazine when it when originally published. Unfortunately, it’s long since lost in one of the moves from college dorm to graduate school apartment in 3rd floor walk-up to suburban apartment to our house here where Ola is buried and we’re trying to grow a front lawn.  So, anyway, the following image is from wikipedia and does not imply any claim to rights or ownership, etc.   OK, …the Post, as it appeared in this blog back in the first year of the Wakefield Doctrine.)

‘time for another Post already?!  oh man, no f*ckin way can I keep this up’

OK. I have it together now. No need to get excited. Just sit here, clear the mind, the content is in there. Just relax.

My compliments to any of you out there who have maintained an active blog for more than 3 months. Jesus, this coming up with Posts all the time is not as easy as it looks. And this from the perspective of  ‘as long as there is a new Post once a week’  blogholder. But no one is holding a gun to my head… (‘hey theres an idea for a Post!)

SOMEONE IS HOLDING A GUN TO MY….

Sorry, forget it. Sure, one of the 103,000,000 blog authors in the world today has already done the definitive, ‘Someone is holding a gun to my head’ treatment. Maybe there are some studies that I can cut and paste and fill up some of this white space and then I can call it a day and get back to my real life!

Alright, seriously now. I do mean my compliment to those of you who have the ability and talent, (acquired or learned), to write something new and different and sometimes, even interesting, Post after Post after Post/blog after blog after blog. Not bad. But since I am not ready to give up on this little blog of mine, I had better t t try to get it together and come up with a Post that will keep the crowdlette coming back for more.

Being that this is the Wakefield Doctrine (aka the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers) I would do well to keep to the subject that I know best. (See? Right there! I don’t know much about grammar and good writing and all, but that last sentence had at least two tenses, and easily three pulperfects in it. Man, this is worse than the first time I recorded myself playing guitar along with Jimi Hendrix. Suffice it to say, if you were there you would not have had too much trouble telling us apart.)

This writing and grammar thing is really starting to annoy me. It is bad enough that I regret now that I did not take a typing class when I was in high school. (At my current age, in my high school years Typing Class was for people taking a Business curriculum, which meant you were going to be a secretary which meant you were a girl. That simple, end of cultural subtext). But with this damn blogging thing, I am being forced to confront the fact that I do not have mad writing skills.  I should have paid attention in my English classes. (Look, it was the 60s when I was in high school, how cool is that?) But the inescapable fact remains, that the skill set I would value the most this October morning is not how to play the opening riff of ‘Sunshine of Your Love’. Its funny about how people, at least in the current (american) culture, we seem to have an expectation to be able to do certain things well, just because we think we can do them at all. By this I mean singing and writing. Most of us know that we can sing our favorite song in the car, on the way to work, therefore, I think we all equate that with being a singer. Writing, the same. I can, with the help of spellcheck and a lot of proof reading, write a report at work, so how hard can it be to be a writer?

(I have resisted the impulse to hit Preview to see if I’m down far enough on this page to call it a day.) But anyway, you are here because you want to know all about the Wakefield Doctrine. Right?

The Wakefield Doctrine will cause you to see the world in a slightly different manner. Nothing earth-shaking, no flashes of light; ‘oh my god I understand now’ will not be on your lips. What will happen if you read most of this blog and the associated pages will be that you might find yourself saying, ‘that person is such a roger‘, or you might find yourself thinking, ‘here comes so-an-so what a scott he is’ or you could think, ‘shit, I’ll bet I’m one of those clarks the Doctrine is talking about.’

If this happens to you, I have succeeded. If it does not then I have failed. If you have a question about the Doctrine, leave a Comment or email or whatever the hell people do around here. I will get back to you as soon as I finish my Adult Education class, “You too Can Write Like The Prose’, that I am taking at my little local high school.

No, since you mention it, I did not, apparently,  know what a ‘contraction’ was…  lol