Bloggy Bit about Nothing

This one is for Ara Topouzian.  He is always commenting that I write about nothing.  Actually, he does no use the word write but rather ramble.  He is always commenting on this piece or that saying things like “wow, you will write about anything that comes to your mind.”  Or if we are just chit-chatting, he will add “hey, you oughta blog about this.”  I wish he would say that I just write a lot about nothing.   If he had said that I would have actually been honored.  Hearing that would have been a compliment for it would have reference Seinfeld.  I love that show as does Ara. 

One of the Seinfeld themes was a show within a show.  This theme ran an entire season.  George and Jerry got the opportunity to develop a sitcom pilot for NBC;  NBC was the same network that aired the Seinfeld show.   In the series, George and Jerry tried to work on the pilot but never made progress.  They got diverted by the everyday things they loved to do like going to the diner, to a movie, or just hanging out.  When they were adamant about working, they would make no progress and revert to their comfortable habits.  When the time came to pitch the theme of their pilot, they had nothing to go with.  So, George proposed “a show about nothing.”  As he went on to explain this show about noting concept, he kept referring to vignettes in the Seinfeld show itself.  Seinfeld was indeed a show about nothing that was cleverly and hilariously done.  Probably the reason Ara did not use the Seinfeldian phrase is most likely because my bloggy bits in this vein are simply not clever nor hilarious enough.

I have always thought that the best sitcoms were shows about nothing.  They started out as everyday normal activities that through happenstance became outrageously funny.  Seinfeld was kind of a 1990s recreation, in my view, of The Jack Benny Show which was the original show about nothing.  It is all summed up nicely on the official Seinfeld website::

With its inimitable take on life's most mundane moments, Seinfeld --ubiquitously and ironically referred to as "the show about nothing"-garnered countless accolades, initiated a string of words and terms into America's pop culture lexicon... and continues to draw network-sized audiences into its uniquely comic world.

Here is why I am writing about this today.  This morning, I had an idea to blog about today.  It was a little odd as some of my themes are but I thought it was something that I could develop into a 500 worder or so.  As usual, I did not jot this idea down.  I made a mental note of it.  The problem with my mental notes is the same problem George had with using a label maker on the series; the glue is unreliable.  The glue doesn’t stick.  My mental notes are post-its do not always stick.  Somewhere in the dark corners of my mind, are a pile of dusty old post-its with ideas I have had and tasks that my wife asked me to do that I simply have no recall of. 

Therefore, I have no clue as of this writing what my idea is.   So, I am writing this blog about nothing. 

The one thing I remember about the idea was thinking it was an idea about nothing kind of piece that my friend Ara would have a field day with.  It was an idea about nothing that evaporated into nothingness.  It was an idea about nothing that convoluted and collapsed into nothing.  It was a wisp of nothing that floated away on an ether breeze.  I may have to call Ara and see if it wafted his way.  On second thought, I will not have to call Ara.  He will call me the moment he reads this piece.   We will then have a little George and Jerry dialogue. 

I am waiting George… er… I mean Ara.