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Let me say right off that I’m an avid admirer of WC Fields, who, in fact, is the inspiration for Colonel Duckenfield, the amiable but drunken calculus teacher in my novel Today, Oh Boy.^[1]

Here he is in action:

Colonel Dukenfield has charged his minions with two in-class problems using the squeeze principle, so he has excused himself, ostensibly to use the restroom. A huge veined bulbous nose dominates his round, puffy, flushed face, though there’s still a gleam in his squinty blue eyes, especially when he’s talking to a pretty lady. His knees, though, are killing him, along with his corn-riddled toes stuffed into a pair of scuffed wingtips, the only dress shoes he owns. Once he reaches the faculty men’s room, he closes the door and takes out the pewter flask that bears his name and the name of his plane, the Flying Fortress, etched handsomely in ornate, old-fashioned cursive. He sloshes the Jameson’s whiskey around before taking a long, hard draw. Carefully, he screws the cap back on and places the flask in the right pocket of his blazer.

I mean, what’s not to love?

So I don’t intend any disrespect to Field’s surviving progeny (his great granddaughter’s wedding picture appeared in the Santa Cruz Sentinel in 2018) when I suggest that Lindsey Graham could be plausibly cast as an older Fields in a biopic once his political career is over, which may be sooner rather than later, given that he could get primaried on the one hand, and the country is on the road to economic and geopolitical ruin under our unhinged Dear Leader on the other.

What a great pairing of buffoons, Fields’ cinematic persona with Graham’s real life personality!

I know you might be thinking that Graham’s a little long in the tooth at 69 to embark on a new career; however, look at me at 72, getting ready to make a cameo in an upcoming short feature based on a chapter from Today, Oh Boy.^[2]

So, Lindsey, see, it’s never too late to segue into something new. Look, man, you’re addicted to the limelight, and look, even if there’s not a Fields biopic on the horizon, maybe some enterprising filmmaker will buy the rights to Today, Oh Boy, and you can end up playing the Colonel himself.

As my wife Caroline says, “We can hope. We can dream.”

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^[1] You can read a review and purchase it here.

^[2] I’ll be sitting at a bar, sipping a PBR, a role that I was born to play.