I invented the piano key necktie... I INVENTED IT

I haven't said anything about this because I don't feel like "starting something," or "filing a lawsuit," but I created a character awhile back, and it was stolen from me and used on a television program that is quite popular these days (what is it, like 1998 or something?).

A couple years ago, I had a decent working relationship with this guy David Shore. Some might tell you he wanted to take it to another level with me. Some would be wrong. However, we used to drink like, five or six pint glasses of tequila every day and just share our thoughts. Sometimes we would share our dreams, sometimes we would pretend to be chickens. This is really neither here nor there. But getting that drunk causes me to open up to the Shoredog in ways that I never would sober. I confessed to him that I had an excellent idea for a recurring character in a novel. A doc that would walk with a cane, eat vicodin like tictacs and define the word SNARK. Witty and brilliant but mean as hell. He could diagnose diseases like no one's business. And he was also a superhero on the side, he could fly but only between the hours of 2 and 3 am, and he could light people on fire but that would require a lot of concentration so he wouldn't do it that much (maybe once per novel). His name would be Alan Home.

A good idea, right? The Shoredog thought so, and he encouraged me to pitch my idea all over town (we were in Wichita, Kansas at the time). A few weeks later, we parted ways, promising to write each other a handwritten postcard each week we were apart. We did, for awhile, but then the postcards became few and far between, and the Shorester became a distant memory. Sad, but gave me the opportunity to ask myself, "Wonder what that old bastard David Shore is up to these days." I always did want to say that.

Imagine my surprise when, a couple years later, a new show on Fox features, yes, the character that I created. And who is listed as the creator of the show, but the freakin Shoredog! I kid you not. And the idiot left off all the best parts (superhero, flying, fire), and then changed the guy's name to Greg House. And while Shorey McGee is now rich and powerful (I think he bought a third world nation or something), I am poor and homeless... still clinging to an imaginary Alan Home every night when I curl up in my cardboard box. THANKS A LOT DAVID SHORE.