Puppies, Kids and Katz
Puppies, Kids and ‘Katz' It’s hard to work out why I write.
If I ever submitted myself to a psychoanalyst we could together, with very little effort and some revealing light hypnosis, arrive at the happy conclusion that I was born to write.
'You have a deep Freudian need to express yourself Tom, an undiscovered brilliance and well, something about a desire for creative cathartic expression.’ he’d say.
I would of course sit there modestly, slowly shaking my head and holding up my palms in faux embarrassment. ‘I guess so doc’ I’d say bashfullly ’That must be it. It's in my soul’ I’d leave his office to cheers from an adoring public and immediately order a taxi to Hay on Wye.
At least that’s how if plays out in my head. But what if? Imagine, if having foolishly paid in advance, I discover that my imaginary psychoanalyst is now standing above me as I recline on his itchy sofa, clutching his spectacles in one hand and his hippocratic certificate in the other. He is no longer smiling and appears to lost the motivation to flatter. The room appears much darker. He fixes me with a disturbingly serious and professional stare and goes off script.
He starts probing a little deeper. I imagine him having some kind of malevolent Eastern European accent, the type Larry Olivier had in the Boys from Brazil and him saying slowly ‘Now tell me this Tom…. is the need to express yourself fundamental do you think, or do you just have a need to be noticed and gain subscribers?
' I am not really sure what I’d say. Maybe, eventually, the latter if I’m honest. I would of course put up a bit of a fight first. I’d wave quotes from John Lennon at him telling him that I write solely for my own pleasure and if the world should choose to stay deaf and blind to my brilliance, then so be it.
I’d google and then produce some off the cuff clever observation from Voltaire about the nature of man and then I might peer at the psychoanalyst over my glasses and talk slowly about trees falling in forests.
My imaginary councillor, with his newly acquired ear for nonsense would of course cut me off with a well manicured hand and say ‘No no no. It’s actually more important to you that people read what you write and the quantity of the subsequent interaction than the quality of what you post’ You just want subscribers and followers. Is that not right’?
He sounds much more aggressive than he should for a medical man.‘Maybe, maybe'. I’d finally concede. And I'd swing my legs off his couch and sit, hunched over, staring at the floor whilst questioning all the years I’d devoted to writing poetry and revealing my innermost thoughts to a disinterested public and wondering whether I’d have been far better off learning a musical instrument or a language.
Suddenly, through the fog I’d hear the word ‘Katz’. I’m sorry? I’d ask. ‘Katz’ he’d repeat whilst simultaneously writing out a prescription. ' Katz is where you need to start, maybe Katz playing the piano, dogs doing strange things, cute dogs, weird dogs, then maybe move onto kids falling into paddling pools.
And do not write. I cannot emphasise this enough. Do not write. Do the video and the photo thing.
I mean who has the time to read anything these days.
Also. You need to pick a better handle. Tom is a bit dull isn’t it. Why not go for something like Mr T.
”'Are you a real doctor?’ I’d ask in wonder and he would recede into the shadows like Marleys ghost muttering something about
‘Its 2025. We’re living in a visual age Mr T…"So here we go. A new era. Mr T does cute cats and puppies on Substack
