Welcome to the 4077th Wounded Duck Studios, where the golf is unpredictable, the weather is hostile, the surgery is scheduled, and somebody is always yelling “incoming.” This week the chopper on the horizon is carrying me, which is a new and unwelcome development. Mostly I am fine. Mostly. I'd say I'm holding up about as well as a field hospital held together with duct tape, sarcasm, and one guy who keeps trying to get discharged by wearing a dress.
Golf: score roulette and the Mumbai drainage ditch
My golf game has achieved a level of randomness usually reserved for dice. One day I shoot 100 and feel like I should be signing autographs. The next day I shoot 130 and feel like I should be signing a confession. Same clubs. Same swing. Same duck. Completely different universe. There is no trend line. There is no improvement curve. There is only the coin flip, and the coin is apparently drunk.
Rain makes it worse, which is a sentence that should surprise nobody. After a wet round my clubs do not look like sporting equipment. They look like I have been digging a drainage ditch in Mumbai with them, by hand, for a municipal contract I never signed. The grooves are packed. The bag is packed. My shoes are packed. If you shook my golf bag over a flower pot you could grow tomatoes.
Honestly, it's meatball golf. You don't fix it, you just get it stable enough to survive the back nine and move it along to the next hole. Somewhere out there a proper instructor is doing careful, precise work. I am out here with a seven iron and a prayer, patching things up and hoping nobody looks too closely at the scorecard.
Music: Under The Influence, Saturday 9/26
The good news: Under The Influence plays Saturday, September 26th. Rehearsals have gone well, which in band terms means we all showed up, nobody argued about tempo for more than twenty minutes, and the set list only changed four times. That's practically military precision. Colonel Potter would approve, or at least he wouldn't throw anything.
My job is the same as always: hold down the keys, resist the urge to solo over everything, and make the keytar look like a deliberate choice rather than a cry for help. If you're local, come out. There will be loud music, questionable lighting, and at least one moment where the whole room locks in and you remember why anybody bothers doing this.
A "minor procedure," because of course
Next week, I go in for what the professionals are calling a “minor procedure.” I want to note that “minor procedure” is doctor for “this will be minor for me.” I asked if it was serious. They said no. Hawkeye would have said the same thing, right before making a martini joke and handing me a clipboard.
A wounded duck getting wounded is, I admit, on brand. I built an entire studio around the name and the universe decided to check my work. Fine. I'll be the guy on the gurney with the sarcastic thumbs up. If they let me pick the soundtrack for the ride in, it's going to be a slow instrumental with a suspiciously familiar melody about painlessness. You know the one.
Expect a short pause in video production. Not a long one. I'm stubborn, and the editing timeline doesn't care how I feel.
Home front: Mrs. Duck abroad, and the support unit
Naturally, all of this lines up with Mrs. Duck traveling. She'll be in some far-flung corner of Europe for a week, which means the home unit is running on a skeleton crew. No Radar quietly handing me the thing I needed before I asked for it. No Hot Lips enforcing standards. Just me, the recliner, and whatever I can reach without standing up.
Fortunately I have staff. My son Sparky is on duty, and Apollo, The Amazing Wonder Dog, is handling morale, security, and the strategic redistribution of snacks. Apollo takes the job seriously. He has never once left my side during a medically significant event, mostly because that's where the food ends up.
And this weekend, reinforcements: my daughter, Princess Sparkleberry, The Eternally Cute One, is coming over. She outranks everyone, including the dog, and her orders are not subject to appeal. I plan to be fully outvoted on what we watch and what we eat, and I plan to enjoy every minute of it.
What comes next
After Saturday's gig and Tuesday's adventure in hospitality, I'll be back to the usual rotation: more scam-warning videos, more music, and the long-running campaign to close the taco deficit. It's a goal. It's measurable. It's the one part of my life that responds reliably to effort.
If the golf, the weather, the surgery, and the travel schedule all conspire at once, so be it. The 4077th never had a quiet week either, and they still got the job done. Usually while complaining. That part I've already mastered.