This essay is the classic example of just how frustrating trying to accomplish my dream of becoming a full-time freelance writer/novelist has become. I wrote the essay back around the middle of last month, and submitted it to an Internet operation in San Francisco that specializes in short, humorous/satirical, essays. Two days before this missive would’ve become irrelevant (June 25), the editor contacted me via email to say the essay had been rejected, and one of the justifications he used is that it reads too much like an essay?

Oh well, I’ve developed a very thick skin, and once again my mantra kicks in, “Don’t get bitter, get better.”I’ve been doing this writing stuff for too long to let this latest rejection bother me. Pretty much got over it right after I read the email. The response I wrote back to the organization?“Thank you for your consideration.” Just keep trying to get better, which is basically the only thing I can do.

Word Count: 782

Georgy Boy’s Birthday

Here in America, we celebrate just about every conceivable occasion that takes place throughout the year. You’re probably thinking the author has got to be kidding, but I’m not. The North American Tidily-Winks Championship is a perfect example of this. National Popcorn Day? Obviously, every red-blooded American enthusiastically celebrates the invention of this most wonderful confection. January 19th(National Movie Theatre Buttered Confection Day) should be considered one of the most important 24-hour periods in the otherwise mundane existence of most people.

This brings up the birthday of a great American literary giant; the one, the only, the visionary notable, Mr. George Orwell. Why shouldn’t we glorify the day this incredible individual graced us with his presence upon this earth?

Let’s take it one step further. What about a full-blown National holiday on June 25^thto commemorate the occasion? Hopefully, this won’t allow people to celebrate their day off from their labors at the salt mine in the same way a lot of us do on President’s Day, February 19^th. Sleeping in till 11:00 in the morning, eating an entire bag of salted/fried food, and a tub of ice cream accompanied by drinking every drop of a 2-liter bottle of carbonated soda in a single sitting. Then, you spend 3/4rd of the next hour channel surfing with the TV remote, and fill out the remainder of your day by watching endless cat videos on YouTube.

The impact George Orwellhad on society cannot be over-looked. This was the first individual to write of, and theorize about the concept of a Memory Hole. What is a Memory Hole?

Actually, Memory Holes are convenient receptacles for eliminating those unnecessary and embarrassing documents and/or transcripts allowing you to give people the impression that something never happened. What a concept, this is almost too cool?

That failing grade sitting on your college records for Freshman Calculus? Should it be your fault the class happened at the un-godly hour of 8:00 am in the morning, no. This inconvenient starting time had you missing class 85% of the semester. Of course, it also didn’t help matters that you attended numerous Fraternity Keggers throughout the term, as well as coming to the iron-clad conclusion that the entire mathematical concept of Calculus is a plot created by some sort of un-American organization.

A convenient Memory Hole allows you to eliminate that F+ on your college transcripts. Imagine that? Actually, don’t imagine that, since your Facebookfrenemies (the result of de-friending) might also break into the records department of your under-grad. institution of higher education and alter your grades. Making it look like you should never have been allowed to graduate in the first place. The results of their handiwork could be a record of ineptitude that’s so profound it’s assumed you might’ve graduated, but it was probably part of the fifteen-year plan.

George Orwell also wrote about “Room 101”in the novel, 1984. Everyone who knows anything about the man can tell you that Room 101 was a mythical, non-Shangri-La space that Winston Smithand various other unfortunate characters in 1984dreaded having to be subjected to. One character even commenting that he’d rather witness his wife and children having their throats cut than be subjected to the torture that is Room 101.

It’s been pointed out that Mr. Orwell based the concept of Room 101 on the fact that he had to sit through a number of excruciatingly boring meetings. Is it a coincidence that room #101 bore a striking resemblance to the BBC London conference meeting room of his earlier slave labor days? No. We also know this; everyone who works and been forced to sit through a board meeting, has a space such as Room 101in their lives.

It might’ve been the broom closet you got intimate with during all those time-outs of your toddler years. Quite possibly it’s the staff lounge where you keep running into your nemesis every day at lunch. Maybe it’s the laundry room where you found yourself bumping into your now-ex-wife while in transit to a much-needed respite in the basement man-cave. Whatever it is, room 101 does exist, and we should thank George Orwell for this.

We could go on and on about the virtues of Mr. Orwell and all the fantastic things he’s written about as a journalist, in his essays, and novels. We won’t, specifically because doing this may be looked at by some people as a similar form of torture to being sent a Room 101 type predicament. Let’s celebrate June 25^th, or at least erect a statue that will be subjected to possible removal twenty or thirty years from now.