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GEORGE
The first time you meet George and spend a few minutes with him,
you come away with conflicting impressions.
He's brilliant.
He's almost got sincerity down pat.
He talks big money,
but he has scotch tape holding his glasses together,
and has to push his car to start it.
He knows a lot about everything.
He has some good sounding ideas.
He can create excitement and mistrust at the same time,
and the oddest part is this: You kinda like him.
His idea the day we met him was a chain of restaurants
called "Misty and Jack's Family Picnic".
We had the name value at that time,
and had been looking around for a way to exploit it.
Of course George had that all figured out ahead of time.
He knew what buttons to push.
The decor would have white trellises,
with artificial climbing vines, picket fences, flowers, etc..
He told us the seats should just be comfortable enough,
but not so comfortable that people would sit around all day
taking up tables.
He had invented a way to make pizza in a microwave
and have it come out just like oven baked.
Naturally I came up with my usual type of suggestions,
like a chicken place called "Chicken In A Casket".
We could serve them on their backs
in black cardboard caskets with a red lining.
We could have plastic toothpicks
made in the shape of little white crosses,
and stick them in the top of the chicken for decoration.
Unlike most mental cases, George had a sense of humor.
He got the jokes.
He had us set up a dinner party at our house
to meet a potential investor,
who just by accident was a psychiatrist.
A high profile local shrink.
The psychiatrist was nuts, too.
All through dinner he psychoanalyzed me in front of everybody.
He told me everything he thought I did wrong in my life, and why.
He ruined the party showing off his shrink ability at my expense.
I kept my cool for the sake of everybody else,
but as the guests were filing out the door,
I said to him: "I bet you don't get invited back to many parties".
He was shocked,
and asked me why I would say something like that.
I told him how he had behaved,
and he said a real shrink thing to me.
He said: "You handle your hostilities well".
I felt like pulling his lower lip up over his head.
George was a loud talker.
He'd be sitting with us at a restaurant table,
conversing at a level that could reach everybody in the room...
an actor playing to the back row.
He used a lot of phrases like: My people...
My people are loyal...
We've leased the entire top floor for our offices, etc..
His office was a twenty year old Chevy.
There was a recently divorced waitress working in our club,
who talked a lot about marrying a rich guy.
She was going to find one, you just watch.
Goldie was money hungry a little more than most of us.
She could hear George talking about his people
and his big deals all the time.
A month later they were married
and moved into the most expensive penthouse in town.
The marriage lasted about a month,
until Goldie and the landlord realized
that the rent check was going to bounce.
George could discuss any subject like an expert.
I'm sure his IQ was off the chart,
but his IQ wasn't running the show.
I wanted brochures:
He knew the name of every fancy type font.
He sent what he called a rough contract to me in Nashville.
I took it to a friend, who was a law professor at Vanderbilt.
He said the contract was excellent legal work.
We didn't see George for a few years
and then one night he was on the Channel 9 News.
They interviewed him as a scientist
who had invented a coffee substitute.
I said to Misty, "I think that's Postum".
Another year or two, and there he was,
being interviewed on Channel 9 again.
He was wearing a white lab coat,
and was introduced as a local scientist
who had discovered a particle smaller than an atom!
They asked him how he had done it when nobody else could,
and he said something so stupid
I thought a hook would come out and pull him off.
He said: "Nobody else was looking for anything that small."
The reporter said, "That's amazing!"
I ran into that psychiatrist a while later
and asked if he knew what George was up to lately,
and he said: "He's a pathological liar".
Yeah, but we liked the liar better than the doctor.
Jack Blanchard
Jack Blanchard & Misty Morgan..
Videos: https://www.youtube.com/user/jackandmisty.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jackandmisty
Billboard Duet of the Year, Grammy and CMA Finalists.
Home Page: http://www.jackandmisty.net
© Jack Blanchard, 2020
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