Month: December 2022 | the Wakefield Doctrine

Six Sentence Story -the Wakefield Doctrine- [an Ian Devereaux Six]

December 15, 2022 By clarkscottroger

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

This is our weekly contribution to the Six Sentence Story bloghop.

Hosted by Denise every Wednesday.

This Six is a continuation of last week’s, so allow us: Previously in this story...

This week’s prompt word:

VAULT

“Goes by the name, ‘the Sophomore’; long hair, quiet-type, dresses la maison de Salvation Armee, kinda mumbles when he talks, but funny; you did say you knew where I can find him, right?”

While not quite like when you wake up from a particularly intense daydream, the source of the jolt in my stomach was a toss-up between: when my passenger got in my car just outside of Boston city limits, the sun made her longish hair seem more white than blonde, in contrast to the brunette hair that was cut short enough to serve to frame eyes darker than the night-sky and the fact I was currently at the bottom of the off-ramp, five minutes from my office.

“Can’t say I know the guy personally,” I sensed an angry withdrawal from my passenger, like those demonstrations of inertia, where a balloon is tied to the center console of a car speeding along a road and, when the brakes are applied, the balloon moves, counter-intuitively, towards the backseat rather than the windshield, “But I have heard that name from a guy I know who is one of the owners of a place called the Six Sentence Café & Bistro, it’s not that far from my office, I can drop you off there”.

Praying for green lights, I drove past my office building; not that there would be anyone in the waiting room of Devereaux Investigations and Conflict Resolutions LLC, as the city was wrapped in night and the only pedestrians, at least in the part of the city we were driving through, were people who were lost, or those hoping to become so.

“You know, it’s late, why don’t I give a call ahead, maybe this guy you’re looking for has, I don’t know, left for the day?”

As we drove through a sodium-light waterfall at the intersection between the Superior Court building and the DMV, my hitchhiker finger-combed her short dark hair and adjusted the lapels of the pin-stripe business suit that made the blue ambient lighting pretty much surrender, she smiled while reaching into the back seat,

“Don’t fuck with me, you so much as think about warning your friend at this Bistro place, I will stop you like a bank vault door.”

Filed Under: Featured, Psychology, the Wakefield Doctrine Tagged With: Six Sentence Story, the Wakefield Doctrine

Wednesday -the Wakefield Doctrine-

December 14, 2022 By clarkscottroger

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

A little bit of the ‘Hey, you know, we’re still wanting to do interviews of interesting people and such, just like they do in the ‘real’ world. Let’s go find one to reprint today! (ed. All kinds of appropriate content this morning, seeing how we’re trying to get something together for the Six Sentence Story bloghop, what has a submission deadline of today at six o’clock. And all. yeah, the formatting/spacing is a little clunky but I’m running out of time… so, consider it a touch of the patois, you know, the authentic artifact… same reason there’s a large segment of the audiophile demographic who buy vinyl records. lol)

Here’s something we found.

Our first online interview post. It was with Mel, one of the first Friends of the Doctrine (blogroll-istically speaking). His blog, ‘Spatula in the Wilderness’ was a most excellent read. And… and! Mel was one of the first to show up in these pages wearing a Wakefield Doctrine hat (‘on his damn head’).

Strong of heart and true to her name

May 18, 2010

We have a treat today, an Interview with (Friend of the Doctrine), Mel Thompson, creator of the Spatula in the Wilderness! (…cough…cough…) who has taken time out of his busy schedule to talk with us…(…I have a question!!… ) As everyone knows, the Spatula was the first blog to put the Doctrine on it’s blogroll and certainly has helped our efforts to bring the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers to the world. (…ahem…they can see me…even if you don’t… ).

After having consulted with the Progenitors and DownSprings, what we have today is (…imaginary?…define imaginary! hey this guy has a whole staff with…no, I do not intend to sit down and listen…well alright…since you ask.. )…what harm can it do?…alright Miss Sullivan, here are the questions….yes, you can leave the parentheses at your desk and come up here…(…what?, ok I’ll stay in brackets…please…now if you will, the Readers are waiting….)

CSR: Hello Mr. Mel. Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers). We appreciate your ‘coming by’ and talking to us about blogs and such things.

Mel: Thanks so much for ‘having me over’ to talk about blogs. I also would like to thank all of you for the kind words regarding the firstaversary (nice term you’ve coined with that one) of Spatula and for mentioning my blog in your post The Wakefield Doctrine (…”The Time Has Come,” the Walrus said, “To Talk of Many Things”). You’ve been extremely supportive of Spatula over the past year and I really am grateful to you and your readers for all of the visits and great comments.

CSR: So, If I may start by saying am a big fan of Spatula in the Wilderness. Is this your first blog?

Mel: Again, thank you. This is actually not my first blog. Five years ago I started a blog which took off too quickly for my own good and I pulled the plug on it. In my naivety, I fired off an e-mail to the administrators at the Big Friendly Corporate Entity asking them to promote my blog after the first week. To my surprise, the site advertised the blog generously (more importantly, at no cost to me). I busied myself with the running of the blog and stopped composing quality posts. Live, and/or learn, I guess.

CSR: Are you working on your own there? (other than Otto and them)…and just where is there (geographically speaking)

Mel: Cue Eric Carmen’s All By Myself. The imaginary chimp typing pool and inflatable editor aside, the blog is just me. When anything with the blog goes wrong, I’d love to be unaccountable and pass the buck, but I am responsible for the whole shebang. Geographically, I’m writing from the Southwest corner of Michigan. I live and work about 20 minutes from the lovely campus of Notre Dame University and a little over an hour East of Chicago. Saint Joseph, the lakeside community I call home, is situated adjacent to the tough little town of Benton Harbor (the strained relationship is portrayed in Alex Kotlowitz’ book The Other Side of The River).

CSR: (I gotta ask)…Where/how do you get your ideas (lol) We have mentioned it in the past Posts, the volume of your work is rather impressive.

Mel: Oddly enough, there is a process to writing the Spatula. I usually trundle over to the computer shortly after 5:00 in the morning and sift through headlines on The Times, The Washington Post, NPR, and maybe a few minutes of Morning Joe. Usually, I let ideas rattle around for a day, or so, unless there is some story that feels immediate. Many times, I put the topics on a whiteboard and just walk by them until something clicks. NPR ran a story the other day about a guy who’d been run over in a cross walk and the name on his driver’s license was Lord Jesus Christ. While it would have been fun to riff on that for 500 words, I am learning not just to shoot fish in a barrel. Most days, personal pondering and my befuddlement with the world trumps anything in the news cycle, anyway.

CSR: (the Progenitor roger is working on a semi-solo project, a ‘written in installments’ novel/story thing (contributions on a rotating basis by other DownSprings and Progenitors) and he asked me to extend an invitation to you to join in on one or more chapters or segments. I will get more info if you think you might want to join in the fun…(work in progress, I have it in the Features Column as Chronicles of roger (working title)…

Mel: I’d love to be involved with contributing to roger’s solo project and it would be a lot of fun to add pieces. ‘Looking forward to hearing the details.

CSR: You work alone?…that sounds so relaxing (relative to working with, say…Progenitors and DownSprings)…(if ever you would like to borrow one or two…just ask..)

Mel: Writing alone can be cathartic and helps clear the board if I’m extremely vexed. Having said that, I am working out a way to take on contributors this year (details to follow and invitations will be forthcoming). I would love to keep on with a pace of three to four posts per week, but I think the blog suffers a bit. It will be exciting to post quality writing by others that fits into the Spatula cannon.

CSR: Do you get much culinary related emails? From what I see out there food is a popular topic for blog writers…
Mel: I still write often about ‘food porn’ and the industry’s push to sell unhealthy products at any cost. Those posts generate some mail and I’d like to keep going with the theme. When I started last year, the idea was to write a cooking and recipe related blog, but I squashed the idea. This was at the time when Julie Powell’s success had a Sgt. Pepper effect on blogging. Becoming a chef and writing the next food masterpiece were just a mouse click away, and there seems to be a renaissance of food writing on the internet. I respect the recipe bloggers tremendously, but it does present an unrealistic vision of the restaurant and hospitality industry. It’s a joy to see someone’s elaborately produced dish on a website, but I always want to ask if they can produce it 25 times a night exactly the same for months on end. I always refer anybody who is serious about cooking to Bill Buford’s book Heat and Anthony Boudain’s Kitchen Confidential.

CSR: One of my favorite Posts at the Spatula (which sounds awful now that I see it in print), was “Wedded Bliss” (loved your answer to the question (paraphrasing here) about favorite marriage related movies: being Burning Bed.) Did you get much mail on that one?

Mel: Wedded Bliss was one of the only times that I post-scripted a blog with a retraction the next day. My wife Lori was really ticked at the time, because I made fun of the class. When I said the line about Burning Bed and Kramer Vs. Kramer, my friend, a local morning hard rock deejay, was sitting beside me in class and afterward said “Dude, I wouldn’t have even gone there.” I squeaked out of that blog post without too much negativity and got out of the doghouse at home fairly quickly.

CSR: Speaking of real life, how is it for your friends and family in terms of support for your work…(‘clark! can you complete a single sentence without the words Doctrine or gottafinishthisPost, is often heard around my house…)

Mel: I go through the same issues at home. For instance, what led to the birth of ‘Daisy’ started with one of those conversations involving “You love your blog more than us.” Overall, though, I’ve had a lot of support from my wife and her family, my little group of friends in the community and friends from high school and college on Facebook.

CSR: Well, thank you very much for coming by! We are still working on the fashion center and we look forward to adding any Spatula Fashion if that is possible.

(oh!, oh! sorry, DownSpring#1 wants to know if you want a hat (for your damn head) and she says “yes, you do have to pick one of the three”)

Mel: Oh, I absolutely want a hat! The hats (I dig the #3 headwear) are great and I totally want to wear, with pride, some Wakefield Doctrine swag! I will send along shirts when they are ready mid-summer. Again, I appreciate you having me here and your questions.

CSR: Any parting advice or tips to any or the Readers out there (can translate to Slovenian if necessary) on blog writing, life, cooking or all of the above?

Mel: On blog writing, I can only repeat some good advice I got several months ago and that’s to just write often about whatever moves you on a particular day. The response from others is often surprising. Life boils down to what one of my college professors was famous for saying: “You’ll have a good day, whether you know it, or not.” Stay positive, and don’t let negativity rule your existence. Finally, as for cooking, go with medium heat. Turn the dial down and let the food cook. See you around the Doctrine!

…

Filed Under: Featured, Psychology, the Wakefield Doctrine Tagged With: relationships, Six Sentence Story, the Wakefield Doctrine

Tuesday -the Wakefield Doctrine-

December 13, 2022 By clarkscottroger

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

Lets get all ‘old school’ on this post.

… so, yesterday afternoon we were working on our Instagram presence, (clarkfarley.csr) and needed to look up a reference to the use of the term, ‘junction’, as it applies to road design and highway planning. No sooner did I hit return than, you guessed it!

I fear for the efficacy of my efforts to become an Instagram monsta. (Instagram motto: ‘By the time you get around to paying attention, this (or any other social media app is as current as those round-plastic-insert-things-for-playing-45rpm-on-your-two-speaker-stereo’)

Anyway.

Where were we?

oh yeah Stream-of-Con…

Back in the day, easily half the posts here were written with early-morning-fingers jittering over the keyboard like a 1780s typist in a Bologna, Italy steno pool. The Wakefield Doctrine blog was new, and, more importantly, we were not hampered by self-consciousness. Especially in regards to the level of sophistication, (rhymes with ‘competency’), of the writing on display daily. Everything in our world, from work and recreation to the label on a jar of pickles*, was elbow-jabbing everything else for the opportunity to the subject, if not the seed, of the next Wakefield Doctrine post.

* true story: we were inspired by a slogan on the label of a jar of pickles in the refrigerator. worse? We don’t even like pickles. Don’t believe us?

Here

the Wakefield Doctrine ‘Always Chilled…Never Heated’

May 3, 2013

Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)Finish the Sentence Friday.

(a ‘blog hop’ that is being: sponsored, promoted, hosted by, enticed-into-by-the-charms-of, held-in-a-metaphorical-gymnasium-on-a-Friday-night, on-the-list-of-charming-old-homes-to-tour, the central feature of the blogosphere and experienced as the high point of the week at the BB&G, courtesy of the Doctrine’s three favorite Bloggarini : Janine ( Confessions of a Mommyaholic), Kate (Can I have another bottle of Whine…), Stephanie (Mommy, for real) and Dawn (Dawn’s Disaster)

(…be still, my dog(s) of war…just walk away”)

“If I were stuck on an island, I would like to have…”

the following in no particular order or emphasis:

Ginger and Maryanne

an internet connection

the body of a 19 year old (gender optional)

the mind of my present age

1 of my childhood friends

3 of my adolescent aged friends

1 of my teenage years girlfriends (real or imagined)

my first car (1964 Chevy Bel Air station wagon in faded-to-orange-blue paint)

a contract to complete the Wakefield Doctrine book (currently in ‘pre-write’)

the physique to wear shorts without looking: a) silly, b) old or d) excessively gay (not that there’s anything wrong with being gay)

an endless supply of BLTs (despite the climate there is always magically un-adulterated mayonnaise)

a boat (just for sitting in and looking at the Island from the middle of the lagoon, with Maryanne waving and what I would swear looks like Ola in a clearing in the jungle)

Hey! Somehow I have this little darling up at the beginning of the eponymous Friday morning…. hey! don’t be afraid to call in tomorrow night (if you find yourself in a place at 8:00 pm EDT where you know where the kids are, and they seem to be happy and quiet or you have no plans and you feel like something that will challenge your beliefs and amuse you in ways that you haven’t been amused since…oh I don’t know… since, before girlfriends and boyfriends, husbands and wives, children and favorite pets became the central organizing feature of your reality. call and you might find yourself enjoying, or not who can really say for sure?

Filed Under: Featured, Psychology, the Wakefield Doctrine Tagged With: personality types, self-development, the Wakefield Doctrine

Monday -the Wakefield Doctrine- “Well, write something!’

December 12, 2022 By clarkscottroger

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

Woke up thinking, the Winter being near over*, we might take on a long avoided task of editing this here blog here.

No, not the posts! Too many of them, and they’re kinda fun, in whatever state of ability and/or skill they are executed.

Will start with the ‘About’ page and work our way down through the list.

…ok, one, short, little reprint.

Got one.

(Thanks out to Mimi and Frank the others who, with the kindest of intentions and graciousness have said, “No! Reprinting the old posts is good. They’re no different than recent posts. …ok, maybe you weren’t overly comfortable with high-end rhetoric techniques such as, well, contractions and maybe a few less parentheticals… but still, we weren’t here to read them, so they’re new to us?”)

if you insist. (Will figure how to use whatever success we achieve in our editing project and follow-up with y’all. Betcha we find a way to repackage it into a ‘new’ post.

sun don’t shine, the gods look down in anger

December 3, 2009

(Well, oh kay… interesting note to start a Post on… but stranger things have happened in and about the Wakefield Doctrine)

(…”this just in”…’clark…the seventies…were…thirty…plus…years ago’…stop…’please, stop’…)

Hey Reader! Yeah you!
Do you believe that your (personal) history defines and (pre)determines your future or what? Is there such a thing as the momentum of habit. (The ‘momentum of habit’ is the notion that what we are is simply a more elaborate form of what we have always been.) (Cheery thought, no?)

Well? Do you think it does? (Don’t you dare touch that “Back” button.)
(in a fairly creepy, sudden shift to a calm tone…)Do me a favor, (After all, you know something about us here at the Doctrine because of the information we are throwing out into the world by way of this blog.)…

…Look back on your life. Try and recollect the things you have done, the places you have lived, the people you have known, since as far back as you can.
Now, erase the names of the people, delete the addresses of the locations and take off the labels of the things you have done (job title, education, religious designations). You can still remember your life, can’t you?
Even with names and labels removed/deleted/eliminated, you know that you have been alive, with a life that is yours and yours alone. You know, even without the names, you lived in one place (or many different places), you knew some people (or a lot of people) and you spent your waking time doing this (or doing that).
Your ‘life story’ runs from the first (and often sketchy) times you remember as a child through and right up to now.

Pretty goddamn ‘straight’ line isn’t it?
(Come on roger, stop protesting. You what I mean. You are capable of this.)
Look at your life in terms of how many different interests and activities and ways of investing your time is evidenced. How different was your life when you were 7 years old compared to when you were 17 years old?(…or 27 or 77…)
(Yeah, yeah scott, I get the, ‘I gots the girlfriends/boyfriends, thing’ Does not matter. Lose the names, and they (still) are people you shared yourself and your time with, no different than a best friend in second grade or a spouse in middle age or the person in the bed next to yours in the nursing home.)
What I am trying to get across here is that the important thing is not the names of the people, places and activities that comprise(s) your life.
Rather, I am asking you to consider the question, what did they (seem) to add to your life, why did you give them your time!?

I want the Reader to consider their lives without the qualification/rationalization/justification that we all impose when we reflect on our lives.

… ‘he was a great friend, even though he was an asshole’… ‘I really liked spending time with her, but I had to because she was family’ … “of course we are happy together! We have beautiful children and a nice home’… ‘I know this is a boring job, but I will stick with it, because otherwise, what will I do?…’maybe I can still pray and maybe its not too late for me…”who will take care of me if I get sick?’…

(These little quotes barely hint at the myriad of ways that we employ to make the fact that what constitutes ‘our lives’, the essential nature and character, if you will, is the same today(as you read this blog) as it was on your very first day at school.)

So?
So what, what is wrong with that, at least I have a life that I can look at and say, ‘hey I’m not doing so bad’!

(You are correct, scott. roger you can come back in the room, we have stopped talking about life as if it were totally unpredictable and un-certain. We won’t talk about interchangeability any more.)

Well, that was fun, wasn’t it? (Yes, I am seriously getting ready to close out this Post for today.) (No, I actually don’t have a more satisfying denouement for todays Post)

(writer leaves, house lights stay off…)

Alright, alright. Seeing that we have some new visitors (from Italy and Sweden and Ghana to name a few) and, of course, Sloveniaaa is in da house!! I will try to impart or at least ‘duct tape’ some kind of coherent point to this Post.

If pressed, I would have to say the point of this (Post) is that our essential natures, (clarks, scotts and rogers), will determine how our lives are experienced and will force a consistency throughout the years (of our lives).
Having said that, I will remind everyone that the Wakefield Doctrine is predicated (yeah! he said predicated, he must be back from wherever…) on the idea that we all have the full range of potential, we are all (potentially) clarks and scotts and rogers.
And, despite how this Post reads, we always have the potential to feel, act, or think in the manner of the other two personality types. In fact, that really is the purpose of the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers).

So, if this Post doesn’t get the Progenitor roger to write another comfortable and enjoyable reading Post, I don’t know what will.

* Summer beginning, as it does most every year on the twenty-second of December

Filed Under: Featured, Psychology, the Wakefield Doctrine Tagged With: relationships, the Wakefield Doctrine

TToT -the Wakefield Doctrine-

December 11, 2022 By clarkscottroger

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

This is the Doctrine’s weekly contribution to the Ten Things of Thankful bloghop. Founded in 1834 by a now-long-lost splinter group of the Order of Lilith, the first principle was (and remains) to develop and embrace alternative perspectives and incorporate gratitude as an enhancement on day-to-day efforts. And, as an old, departed sales manager friend of ours was fond of saying, ‘(Do that), and you cain’t never go wrong’.

1) Una (is a good supervisor)

2) Phyllis (is a good Christmas tree tech)

3) the Wakefield Doctrine is one of the better additional perspectives on the world around us and the people who make it up.

4) the Six Sentence Story bloghop. a place to read flash-fiction and to practice writing flash-fiction

5) Sunday’s TwoG-and-G Livestream a forum for the kind of conversation that is usually relegated, by social tides and the host’s effort to keep the party lively and accessible to all, (try Nick’s FB page here or on the YouTube) the downstairs rumpus room or back porch, weather permitting. See you at 2:30 ET be there or assume the characteristics of a figure composed of four sides at 90 degrees to each other respectively.

6) oh yeah! almost forgot… we got another Instagram thing going. It’s prompted by suggestions at work (Grat 9 below) but, if’n you feel like following along, it might be interesting (lol… so, while somewhat surprised at how many clarks there were in social media and determined to try to keep our world separate, I went down ‘What the Heck Lane’ (at the corner of …It’s the Doctrine, they Should be Happy to Encounter Us Drive) and went with clarkfarley.csr as my identity lol

7) something something

8) the above reference occupation/business of real estate… certainly, weekly pay in exchange for flexibility in nearly all regards

9) Grat/Hypograt (dependent on how we do on today’s Livestream. Hey! Dyanne! You totally need to do a quest spot on ‘2 Guys & a Girlie’ It’d be fun!

10) Secret Rule 1.3 ‘if you have to ask, then we’ll need to see two forms of identification and a written note from your sensei…’

vids

https://youtu.be/u_PKIijUedg