It Never Rains in Southern California

In 1972, when I was graduating from 8th grade and going on to high school, the song “It Never Rains in Southern California” came out. Four years earlier, the song “Little Green Apples” stated that “it don’t rain in Indianapolis in the summertime.” As a child, these songs puzzled me. I grew up in Indianapolis and knew for a fact that it DID rain in the summertime. I figured it rained in Southern California, too, though I had never been there. Why, I wondered, would people sing about things that simply weren’t true?

Heavy rain in Indianapolis in the summertime!

“Seems it never rains in southern California/Seems I've often heard that kind of talk before

 It never rains in California/But girl, don't they warn ya/It pours, man, it pours

“ God don’t make little green apples, and it don’t rain in Indianapolis in the summertime..”

God actually made little green apples, no matter what the song said…

There is a lot to learn about life when you’re a kid, and some of us never learn. Imagination may be the most important thing to learn of all. Only humans can imagine things. Why would other animals waste time imagining things, when their first imperative is to survive and not be eaten by predators?

Why do we have imagination? And why is my imagination so active? What purpose does it serve? My imagination mostly got me in trouble as a kid in grade school. Teachers reported me to the principal for daydreaming. Well, why shouldn’t I daydream? Reality was boring and unfriendly to a kid like me.

Fast forward to 2021. I finally decided to write the book that was living in my head. I had run out of excuses. I couldn’t cycle anymore after a bad crash. I wasn’t working due to COVID. I tried to start a business, but I proved to be a terrible businessman. The book was burning a hole in my brain, and I figured if I did not write it, my head might explode. But everyone said that I would never succeed.

I was afraid my head might explode if I did not write the book….

Yes, I thought to myself, I might never succeed. God didn’t make little green apples, and it don’t rain in Indianapolis in the summertime. It never rains in Southern California, but it pours, man it pours. So, I wrote the book. The designer is almost done with it now. It should be ready by the end of March.

Then what? Surely, the doubters are thinking, surely I will fail, utterly and miserably,; then I will learn my lesson. I will be forced to abandon the crazy idea of doing a national book tour in a campervan with my dog, Mr. Bones. I will have to resume living in a house that doesn’t move, like a normal person. I will wake up every day on the same street and same neighborhood, until I die.

Which is worse - chasing a dream or dying of boredom?

Or something like that. Just kill me now.

The world wants dreamers to fail. Why? Because dreamers dare to pursue their dreams, while everyone else goes to the office or shows up at the factory and does the same daily routine. The naysayers usually get the last laugh, because very few dreamers ever make it big. Hollywood is brutal, as the song about Southern California suggests. But a few oddballs succeed. A man who is 4’10” tall, Danny DeVito, inexplicably became a movie star. So did an Austrian bodybuilder with a comically-heavy German accent.

Danny Devito and Arnold actually made a movie TOGETHER. Crazy.

Authors sometimes defy the odds and succeed, though the vast majority do fail. A mathematician named Lewis Carroll wrote a ridiculous fantasy called Alice in Wonderland; children still read it. A Brit named Richard Adams wrote a book at age 52 about rabbits, Watership Down. Frank McCourt wrote Angela’s Ashes at age 66. Anthony Burgess wrote the dystopian hit book, A Clockwork Orange. So why shouldn’t a guy from Indiana be able to write a book about spending his adult life in Africa?

Early illustration of Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

The online experts tell you the following: You will never find an agent; without an agent, you will never get a publisher; without a publisher, no one will review your book; without flattering reviews, no one will ever read your book. You are inexorably defeated before you have even written the first word. Yet other authors wrote for years, and persisted until they achieve ultimate success. J. K. Rowling was an impoverished single mother waiting tables until Harry Potter made her a billionaire.

J.K. Rowling in her younger days before she got herself in trouble

And so on. The dilemma is unsolvable. You can never succeed if you don’t try, yet the statistics tell you that the odds against you are at least a million to one. You will almost certainly fail, and when you do, the doubters will be there waiting to say, “I told you so.” They will gloat at your final defeat.

Yet somehow, someone succeeds. Danny DeVito did the impossible. Arnold Schwarzenegger not only became a movie star, he also became the governor of California. Someone has to believe in their dream, and has to persist against all the odds, until they ultimately succeed, and then everyone pats their back.

My plan is this: I am endowed not only with a relentless imagination, and a totally unreal belief in my book and myself, but also with a strong sense of the delicious irony of my situation. I know people are laughing at me behind my back. I snigger at critics who sit home, while I roam the country. I can laugh at my own predicament. I am willing to assume all the risks and then to fail.

I am an ornery old cuss. I will be damned if I will let people shame me into quitting my book tour when I am still able to drive, or give up on the book while I can still stand on my own two feet and talk about it to anyone who will listen. If you took away one foot or both, I could still talk about it.

I believe in myths and miracles. The phoenix can rise from the ashes, and Jesus rose from the dead. It’s not raining in Southern California today. God made little green apples. I may get the last laugh.

The phoenix rising from the ashes. Myth or reality?

Stand by.