If you've taken my advice and carefully studied the comments to these posts, you might note that Bill Walsh knows a lot about guns. In fact, I'd like to appoint him the official "Learning to Fight" firearms authority. Bill, would you accept?
I would hate for anyone to conclude that Bill is merely some kind of creepy gun obsessive, however. He is in fact an expert on everything. I explained this in the acknowledgments to one of my novels.
Moving right along, there’s my email friend Bill Walsh. I have never met him! But I do believe he’s the smartest man alive. Bill read the manuscript and kindly pointed out the spelling errors not only in my Turkish, Persian, Arabic, Russian, German, Hungarian, Spanish and my French, but in my English (that’s right, my own native language), my Chinese and – I kid you not! – my Kyrgyz. No lie.
Mischa says: He speaks Chinese and Kyrgyz too?
Claire says: Wild, huh?
Mischa says: That’s insane! Could he just be making it all up?
Claire says: No. Every time I check the Internet, I see he’s right. Every time. Not just most of the time, not just “you could argue it both ways,” but every time.
Mischa says: That’s super amazing. Where did he learn so much?
Claire says: Don’t know. He’s also an expert on lots of other things.
Mischa says: Like what?
Claire says: Military small arms. He was one of the many people who wrote to me about the recoil on an M16, or lack thereof, after Loose Lips came out.
Mischa says: Wow.
Claire says: So, if this were a novel, all the clues would be pointing in one and only one direction: Dude’s a spy. But as I say in the novel, no one really thinks that way.
Mischa says: You think he’s trying to recruit you?
Claire says: Why would he bother? I’m a novelist.
Mischa says: Yes, but he thinks your a spy! Claire! What a great idea for a novel!
Claire says: Who would believe something as idiotic as that?
Mischa says: I guess you’re right. It’s totally improbable
Claire says: Totally dumb.
Oh, Bill also caught innumerable embarrassing mistakes in my Ottoman history. And my Persian history. And my European history. If Bill’s not a spy, he should be. Ladies and Gentlemen: Write to your congressmen today and tell them the CIA needs to draft this man. He’s our only hope.
This video can certainly inspire all the musicians I know (who regular face admiring crowds) to learn self-defense skills - we may need to defend ourselves from overly enthusiastic audiences......
ReplyDeleteClaire,
ReplyDeleteSure, I'm in. Kiss kiss bang bang.
Oh, and estağfurullah.
Bill
P.S. Gun obsessives are nearly as quarrelsome as martial artists seem to be. I may need an extra bottle of Excedrin.