This week's excerpt comes from a screenplay I have been working on since the summer of 2003. It has gone through several versions, and this excerpt is from the most recent, in which I have removed the specific music titles and done some dialogue clean-up. I now have to go through and relinquish my shot descriptions, as industry standards dictate shots are up to the director, the assistant directors, the photographic directors, and NOT the screenwriter unless you happen to be a well-established and respected screenwriter. Even then, it's tricky. But that's a project for another day.
===
from Theft is Property (working title) 2003-2007
COLIN (V.O.)
I'm not entirely sure how it all managed to spiral completely out of control in the particular way that it did. But, the fact remains, that it did in fact spiral completely out of control in a particularly terrifying way.
FADE IN:
INT BROOKE'S APARTMENT - MORNING
We hear soft piano music.
BROOKE is wearing jeans and a bra. COLIN is laying in bed looking at her. She is fixing her hair in her mirror. She reaches into a bag at her feet and picks up a black t-shirt.
COLIN (V.O.)
Brooke and I had been dating for two years, ever since we met at graduation. We both graduated from the journalism program at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, and because the school was so big, the first time we met was standing next to each other at graduation.
BROOKE
Can I borrow this shirt?
CUT TO:
EXT NORTHRUP AUDITORIUM ON U OF M CAMPUS - DAY
Pomp and Circumstance is playing.
Brooke stands in front of Colin. They are in a large group of people. They are dressed in robes. Colin's is open at the front, showing a black t-shirt with the IRON CHEF logo in red. Brooke turns to look at him and winces.
COLIN (V.O.)
It's what I was wearing when she met me.
BROOKE
Shouldn't you be taking some pride in graduating from college?
COLIN
Excuse me?
BROOKE
Every other guy here is wearing a nice shirt and a tie.
COLIN
And you are who, the graduation fashion police?
BROOKE
No, I just think you should be respectable, especially if you want to be taken seriously in this field.
COLIN
Well then, in all seriousness, it's a wonder I even got out of bed for this glorified cow-trot. I'll make sure to wave and smile at my parents. Or, maybe, since they're not here, you can point yours out and then I can borrow the video tape and mail it to Mom and Dad and the little brother who looks up to me. Who are you again?
BROOKE
Forget it.
Brooke turns back around and Colin has a good chuckle.
CUT TO:
INT COLIN'S OLD APARTMENT - NIGHT
Back to soft piano music.
Colin is getting dressed to go out when his phone rings. He picks it up.
COLIN
Hello?
INTERCUT BROOKE'S APARTMENT
Brooke speaks to Colin on the phone.
BROOKE
Hi, this is Brooke Fairman. I stood in front of you in line at graduation today.
COLIN
Who?
BROOKE
Brooke Fairman. Is this Colin Fairmount?
COLIN
Right, the girl who turned away when I was being exceedingly charming.
BROOKE
Listen...do you want to meet me somewhere for drinks?
BACK TO:
INT BROOKE'S APARTMENT - MORNING
Brooke is still holding the shirt. We see that it is the same IRON CHEF shirt.
COLIN (V.O.)
Two years go by, and there we were, practically living with each other in her apartment one month and mine the next, and things were going great. But that's not the issue. Pay attention here, this is important.
BROOKE
Please?
COLIN
Sure thing.
Brooke puts it on, then turns around to look into the mirror again.
BROOKE
Thanks Colin. Now, get up, or we'll be late.
Brooke opens a drawer and pulls out a sweater, which she puts on over the shirt.
COLIN (V.O.)
Did you see it? Here it is again.
REWIND EFFECT BACK TO:
INT BROOKE'S APARTMENT - MOMENTS EARLIER
Brooke is holding the shirt.
BROOKE
Please?
COLIN
Sure thing.
COLIN (V.O.) (CONT'D)
Okay, here it is, watch as she puts it on, then turns around.
BROOKE
Thanks, Colin. Now, get up, or we'll be late.
Colin describes the action.
COLIN (V.O.)
Okay, see this? She opens the drawer, pulls out the sweater I gave her for our first Valentine's Day, and puts it on. And freeze!
The frame freezes on Brooke pulling the bottom of the sweater down to the top of her jeans. The music stops.
COLIN (V.O.) (CONT'D)
There it is, the last time I ever saw that t-shirt. Coincidentally, it's the first time since I gave her the sweater that I ever saw it. The irony of this wouldn't hit me until much later. Like I said, I never saw that shirt again. But I saw her practically every day for the next six months after this. In fact, most of that time I spent at her apartment because I was living with my best friend James and she wouldn't stay there. So I was sleeping, eating, and living in extremely close proximity of this, my most valued shirt ever, and she tucked it away where I could never find it. It's not like I went snooping for it. I figured every day that she was more likely to wear it than the day before. When I sensed the doom of the relationship and I gave her back her favorite bracelet, I thought I'd get my favorite shirt back. I never did.
CUT TO:
INT COLIN'S APARTMENT - NIGHT
Start music again.
JAMES, ANGELA and Colin are going through some pictures. James picks one out of the stack and hides it so Colin won't look at it.
COLIN
What, James?
JAMES
Nothing.
COLIN
No, what. Angela, what?
James hands the picture to Angela behind his back. Angela looks at it.
ANGELA
Nothing, Colin.
Colin grabs for it and gets it.
CLOSE UP OF PICTURE
It is a picture of Brooke and TOM. She is wearing the infamous shirt.
COLIN (V.O.)
Okay, so this is the closest I ever came to seeing my shirt again. I vowed to get it back at that moment. I never thought it would end up with me here.
Fade music softer.
CUT TO:
INT DARK ROOM - DOESN'T MATTER
Colin is sitting behind a table, looking distressed and dressed in a wrinkled shirt, unshaven. He has probably just been woken up. There is a gun pressed to his temple. The gun is being held there by RAGS, a tough looking guy with scars on his face. Sitting across the table from Colin is FRAN, a fat balding man who is sweating profusely.
COLIN (V.O.)
This fat guy is Fran, a mob kingpin. And the guy with the gun is Rags. Fran tells me that Rags has a very itchy trigger finger. He told me not to make any sudden movements, as it might upset Rags.
Rags jams the gun into Colin's temple even more. Colin winces but doesn't move his head.
COLIN (V.O.) (CONT'D)
Really, this is Mike's fault. But, it wouldn't have been his fault if I had just done what everyone suggested in the first place.
BACK TO:
INT COLIN'S APARTMENT - NIGHT
James takes the picture back from Colin.
JAMES
We didn't want you to see that.
COLIN
Oh, please. I'm over her, you know that.
JAMES
Well, we just weren't sure.
COLIN
All I want is my damn shirt back.
JAMES
Why don't you just buy a new one? They still sell them through the website...
Angela nods in agreement.
COLIN
That's not the issue. I've got to get that shirt back.
BACK TO:
INT DARK ROOM -DOESN'T MATTER
COLIN (V.O.)
Rags was making me wish I had listened. Maybe if I just told him the whole story, he'd give me the same advice and I could go home.
COLIN (CONT'D)
Could I just--
(Rags jams the gun harder into Colin's temple)
COLIN (V.O.) (CONT'D)
Or, I could sit here and listen to Fran. But I'm getting ahead of myself here. I just want to set the record straight.
FADE TO BLACK
===
Just pretty much the introduction there, prior to the opening credits. Later, you actually meet Brooke, and the infamous Mike Colin mentions, and Tom, the boyfriend from the picture. And more of Fran, and some other people. I skipped over the very beginning, which introduces you to two more characters, one of whom gets shot and killed within the first minute. But I assure you, it's a comedy.
In addition to my Tuesday Excerpt, I would also like to announce that I got a call back from MasterFile and I got the job! I start next Tuesday with my training, then continue with it the following Tuesday, after which my Target schedule should be rearranged so I can work the full schedule at MasterFile. Yay! More money! Less boredom! More Freedom!
I've been a bad blogger, but I don't intend on apologizing because I have been a consistent blogger, which is a vast improvement over the past. Just check it; I've probably blogged more in the past month than I had in the year leading up to the past month. Just check. If this is not the case, then at least it's close.
More tomorrow, but just a head's up; I will not be soliciting suggestions for Free Write Fridays tomorrow, but I will be doing so on Thursday. Friends, you've been warned.
A writer is someone who can make a riddle out of an answer. -Karl Kraus
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Monday, June 18, 2007
Like Christmas in July...Free Write Friday on a Monday
[Insert Long List of Excuses Here]
[Insert Witty Comments to Lighten Situation Here]
This week, in honor of Father's Day (which would have been upcoming if I had done this on the right day), I am choosing notawritersfather's suggestion:
Here is the idea I gave Elliot, with which he in turn teased you:
A late middle-aged guy suddenly discovers he has amazing super powers, but he is just too darned tired and jaded to employ them.
notawritersfather wins brunch with me yesterday, and a Schlafly 12 pack sampler which includes three bottles of their signature Pale Ale, three bottles of their smooth Hefeweizen, and three bottles of their current seasonal brew, which I can only assume right now is their Summer Kölsch, and not their Oktoberfest or Coffee Stout.
I, unfortunately, do not recieve any funding for Schlafly Beer. The only thing I do recieve is a feeling of satisfaction, light-headedness, and the rare hangover.
===
June 18th (but it should have been the 15th...) 2007
"He's opening his eyes."
"Are you sure?"
"Look!"
"He shouldn't be here, I mean, he should be..."
"Yeah, I know."
The two voices sounded eerily fraught, which didn't bode well in the mind of Eric Weldon. That is, he reflected, if he even had a mind anymore. He wasn't sure what happened when you died, because this was the first time he had ever done it. And he had done it on purpose, had timed his fall just right so that even if the fall didn't kill him, the convoy of trucks running down the highway to the overpass would surely not have missed. He had blacked out on impact and was only coming around now because he heard voices. He opened his eyes and saw a bright light, in front of which he swore he saw two angels. "Well," he thought, "at least I made it to the doorstep. Even if they do send me down, which they surely will, maybe I can at least get a glimpse of happiness before an eternity of damnation and toil."
He figured, after nearly forty years of unhappy toil, an eternity of more of the same didn't sound too bad. That's why he had jumped, why he had left his keys in plain view in his locked, double-parked car two blocks away. As a final insult to the world, though, he had taken the faceplate from his radio and put it in his front pocket. Somebody could steal his worthless car, but they'd have to break the window to get in and find that there was nothing worth stealing in it. Fuck you, world, take my car. You took everything else.
"Oh, thank God, the authorities are here," Eric heard one of the angels say; he was still having a bit of trouble making them out, and he wasn't sure if that was the brightness of the heavenly light or if it was just that he had jostled his head so badly when he fell. But upon reflection, he realized that it must be the light because his head didn't hurt and that made plenty of sense; in Heaven, you feel no pain. Only joy. He took joy in the thought that he might get a few moments of joy for his soul before being looked over by St. Peter or whoever the authority turned out to be, and sent straight to Hell.
"Right over here," the second voice called. "He just came out of nowhere, landed right in front of me...I ran the bastard over, but it looks like he's coming around!"
A third angel arrived, but now that Eric's vision was clearing up a little, he wasn't sure that they were angels per se. Maybe they were just citizens of heaven...or at least, the first two were. This third one was altogether darker and looked to be wearing some sort of official uniform; this struck Eric harder than he had struck the ground just minutes before. He blinked a few times to try and get a clearer picture.
The light was really preventing him from getting a clear picture, and what's more, the light was starting to hurt his eyes, so he sat up.
"Easy, easy," the darker shadow commanded, a strong hand landing on Eric's shoulder.
"Where am I?" Eric asked, startled that his voice sounded exactly the way he remembered it when he was alive.
"You're on 1-55, right by the Arsenal overpass, and the question I have to ask you is why are you here?" the darker figure asked. Eric's eyes were becoming accustomed to the light and he saw that the dark figure was wearing what looked unquestioningly like a police uniform.
Eric listened and heard the noise of slow moving traffic, smelled exhaust and also the brewery. He looked for the other two angels and saw that one was a rather large shirtless man covered in tattoos, the other wearing a Fed-Ex uniform and hat. The image of a Fed-Ex truck speeding towards the bridge just before he jumped came back to him. "Shit," he said.
"Shit?" the shirtless man asked, spitting on the ground. "You jumped off a bridge into oncoming traffic and all you can say is 'Shit'? You got run over by a big rig and my F-350 and a horse trailer and that's all you gotta say? Well...Shit!"
"It didn't work," Eric said, struggling to get up.
"Easy," the police officer said again, but Eric very easily stood and began to walk under the overpass.
He turned back to look at the spot where he had landed, saw no blood, just a few cracks and some tire marks. He looked down at his body and saw the only signs of damage; his shirt and pants were ripped and had matching tire marks. He screamed the only word he could think of to sum up his feelings before running back in the direction he came, intent on running all the way to the nearest bridge over the river, so he could plunge in and end his life for good.
"Whoa, whoa there," the police man said, restraining Eric with the help of the shirtless spitter and the Fed-Ex driver. "I think you should come with me." By this time the ambulance had arrived and the paramedics were approaching with a gurny. The lead man asked Eric where the victim was.
Eric pointed at himself, and the paramedic became furious. "This is no time for joking around, asshole! Where's the guy that jumped?"
"You're talking to him!" Eric screamed at the man. "I jumped. And I'm fine! And I want to die!" He turned to the cop. "What's the penalty for attempted murder?"
The police officer bristled. "You tried to kill somebody?" Eric nodded. "And it didn't work?" Eric nodded. "That could get you life, buddy."
"Not death?"
"No. Maybe in Texas. But if you tried to kill somebody and it didn't work...have they recieved medical attention?" Eric shook his head no. "You better take me right to him, and then straight downtown." The police officer got on his walkie and called in the attempted homicide. Eric slapped him.
"It's me, asshole! I tried to kill myself and it didn't work! What's the penalty for attempted suicide?"
Stunned, the police officer cancelled the call, took a step towards Eric and grabbed him by his hands. He pushed him across a lane and a half and smack up against the idling ambulance.
"Now I gotcha for attempted suicide, disrupting the peace, and assaulting an officer. You want to try for resisting arrest, too?"
"Can I get the death penalty for any of those things?"
It was several hours later, and Eric had point blank refused to talk to any lawyers. He kept making demands to see Jack Kevourkian, his mother or "the perfect woman." When Dr. Freidman finally arrived, Eric had settled into a silence the police officers deemed impenetrable. It was the arresting officer's opinion that the man should be wrapped in a straight jacket inside a padded room, inside a padded building, inside a heavily guarded and also padded country.
"Mr. Weldon," Dr. Freidman said, "My name is Sydney." He was tall, angular, with a bushy mustache and tight, curly hair, and carried himself with an almost lazy confidence; he looked, in many ways, like Eric himself, except Eric's hair was straight, he wore no facial hair aside from thinning sideburns and he carried himself with a slump; the weight of his troubles was enough to make him appear four inches shorter than he really was.
"Doctor," Eric said.
"Good," Sydney said, "I got you to talk. The chief owes me a twenty if I can just get one more word out of you. What do you say to that?"
Eric pondered this for a moment. He stood up, walked over to where Sydney was standing and pointed at Sydney's breast pocket. "You want my pen?" Eric shook his head yes, and Sydney gave him the pen and also one of his business cards. Eric wrote, "Cut me in for half and we've got a deal" on the back of the business card. Sydney reached into his pocket and handed over a ten dollar bill.
"Thanks," Eric said, handing back the pen and returning to his seat. "I'm going to need all the cash I can get, seeing as how I'm alive and jobless. And also, I got a parking ticket."
"Did you? Is that why you tried to kill yourself?"
"No. I got it while I was trying to kill myself. That was not my intention."
"What was your intention?" Sydney took a seat across the table, leaning comfortably back without looking bored or disinterested, in the kind of trick they must teach you when you become an analyst.
"To have somebody steal my car. And also to actually die. So far, I'm 0 for 2 today."
"I see."
"Also," Eric continued, "I had my faceplate in my pocket, and even though I came out of it in one piece, I can't say the same for the faceplate. So, if I do get out of here, and get my car, I can't even listen to music."
"That is a shame," Sydney said. "Eric, let me tell you why I'm here."
"I know why you're here. You're here to ask me why I tried to kill myself."
Sydney rifled through some papers in his briefcase. "Oh, no, I think I have that figured out." He looked down at a sheet of paper. "Let's see...you just turned 40 and you also just got fired from the same job and same position you were in when you turned 30, making almost the same amount, I might add. Your wife just left with the kids for Davenport, to stay with her mother until she, in her words, 'figures things out,' she drained your bank account, alienated you from all of your friends, your mortgage is past due because she hasn't been paying bills for five months so you're about to have your house repossessed, your parents' nursing home just burnt to the ground with all of their posessions and the insurance money won't cover any of it, and to top it all off, last night you came home and there was a man in your house you didn't know who was looking for your wife whom he called, what was it..." Sydney looked up into Eric's eyes. "Fucky Kitten, was it?"
Eric took several deep breaths. "You forgot something," he finally said.
"What's that?"
"My goldfish died last week."
"Ah, but that was actually your daughter's gold fish."
"Same difference. So, why are you here?"
Sydney shut his briefcase and leaned forward, earnestly. "I'm Dr. Sydney Freidman, and I work for the Rand Corporation and the United States Government. I'm a psychiatrist and also a researcher interested in paranatural phenomena."
There was a long pause before Eric finally spoke. "Para what?"
"Paranatural."
"Why not paranormal or supernatural?"
"Because people think they know what those mean nowadays. No, what I have to say is this: We have several eyewitnesses who saw you fall from the bridge."
"I didn't fall. Falling implies it was an accident. I jumped."
"Jumped, fell, whatever. People saw you. And then, you got run over by several tons of machinery moving at speeds in excess of seventy miles per hour."
"What's your point? That I can't do anything right, not even killing myself?"
Sydney got a weird smile on his face. "Simply put, Eric; you can't kill yourself." This remark was followed by a ridiculous giggle on Sydney's part.
Sydney's giggle, however, was merely met with Eric's face as it fell slowly further into depression. "What?"
"You can't die, at least not by physical trauma."
"Are you telling me that I'm like that guy in Unbreakable?"
"It's exciting. You know, there are actually quite a few people with these paranatural abilities. And we've found many of them. They work special detail in some of the worse places in the world."
"What?"
"We find them, we employ them, and we give their lives meaning. For instance, in your case, you are ready to die. But think of it; with a word, I could stop the foreclosure process on your house. Hell, you could buy five times the house. You wouldn't have to worry about scrounging up for that parking ticket, because it's done, taken care of, and as for the radio, you'd get yourself a free car. Whatever you wanted. Of course, you'd have to go where we tell you, do what we tell you, but you'd never be in any danger at all. Because there's nothing out there that's dangerous enough to hurt you."
"What about bullets?"
Sydney stood up, removed a gun from a holster Eric hadn't seen before, and shot Eric in the chest. Eric stood too late, reeled, flew backwards over his chair and landed hard, breaking the backrest off the chair, and panting on the ground. He had a momentary pain in his chest which dissipated almost as quick as the gunshot had been.
Eric stood up, looking at the mark left on his shirt. "Fuck. I can't even shoot myself to death! Damn it! What about poisons? Drowning myself? Exposure to the Ebola virus?"
Sydney shook his head, returning the gun to the holster. The door opened and three officers came charging in, but Sydney put up his hand. "It's fine. I told you who I am. Get lost." The police officers backed slowly out of the room, the last lingering long enough to glance at Eric, brushing himself down and picking up the mangled chair before throwing it back to the ground. The door closed.
"Mr. Weldon," Sydney said, opening his briefcase again, "medical records are the first indication we have of who has these abilities. Unfortunately, even under the current administration's lax regulatory stance, we are still unable to create situations that can draw these characteristics out. If somebody notices on their own, they usually tell their doctors, we see the records, we can approach them, but we need hard evidnce. Something like surviving a suicide attempt. Although, we wondered; do you remember in fourth grade?"
Eric thought. "What about it?"
"Your two best friends; one got menangitis and nearly died. The other got it, as well, but it was caught early and treated. They never found a trace in your body, but they gave you the medication anyway."
"The doctors said sometimes it can take a while to show up, they were being-"
"College, sophomore year. The girl you were dating, yes?"
"Eliza?"
"You're aware that she had mono, correct?"
"Yeah."
"And you never got it, even though by your accounts to your friends you 'fucked like crazy,' correct?"
"Why do you have that on record?"
"Are you also aware that she had herpes?"
Eric was silent for a long second. "What?"
"Yes. She didn't know it at the time, but she had already contracted it prior to your relationship. And she continued a sexual relationship with the person she had contracted it from while she was with you."
Eric's face fell again. "Eliza was cheating on me? I should have tried to kill myself years ago..."
Sydney snapped his briefcase shut again. "But it wouldn't have been any different then, Mr. Weldon. Here." He handed him a manilla envelope.
"What's this?"
"Information. About our program. Training materials. It's classified, so you are under the strictest penalty not to divulge this information to anyone."
"So...you'd kill me if I told my neighbors?"
"Mr. Weldon, you can't-"
"Then why even bother, I suppose." Eric perused the outside of the envelope. "What happens to the people who don't want to sign up?"
Sydney shifted uncomfortably. "It happens. Some sort of...go into what you'd call private contracting."
"What? They become local superheroes?" Eric laughed at the thought. But the sheepish look on Sydney's face cut off the laugh. "Really?"
"Well, in a manner of speaking, yes, but Mr. Weldon, I urge you-"
"Urge nothing. I have the urge to do nothing." He sighed, handed the envelope back to Sydney. "I can't do anything right, Doctor. Nothing. I can't even kill myself correctly. So thanks, but no thanks. I don't want these powers. For you, it's something exciting. For me, it's just another thing wrong with my life."
"What's wrong with it?"
"It's preventing me from achieving my life's goal?"
"And what's that?"
Eric stood, looked out of the lone window. "Death. Ending it all. I just...don't care. I'd screw it up. The people I'm supposed to save? They'd die. I'd get captured and sentenced to death in the jungles of Burma, and they'd try to kill me every day, and they'd never succeed. It would be...well, honestly, it would be what I was expecting this morning when I jumped. It would be Hell. But I was going to Hell on my terms; I don't want to stay in this Hell on your terms. No thank you," he turned around, "Doctor Freidman, but I'll just keep trying to end my life after my own fashion."
Eric sat back down, and lapsed into a silence to match his earlier one. Sydney stood, silent for five minutes, looking into the half-lidded eyes of Eric. Finally, he left the business card Eric had given him back, with "Cut me in for half and we have a deal" scrawled across the back, packed up the briefcase again, turned and walked out the door.
Across the country, deep in a labyrynthine maze of code-entry corridors, under a thousand tons of rock and soil, a man sat staring at the image of Sydney as he left Eric alone in the small room. The man moved a joystick and the image of Eric grew larger, his hopeless face filling more and more of the screen. A phone rang to the man's right and he answered it.
"Yes, I saw the whole thing. Well played, Doctor. You are right; he is the perfect candidate for our program. Proceed as planned. Keep me posted."
The man hung up and watched as on the screen Eric picked up Sydney's business card and put it in his pocket.
===
And that man's name was neither Lex Luthor, Doctor Ochs, Magneto or even Stan Lee. That's all you get out of me for this one. It was long to make up for it's lateness.
I am off to the Cardinals game.
[Insert Witty Comments to Lighten Situation Here]
This week, in honor of Father's Day (which would have been upcoming if I had done this on the right day), I am choosing notawritersfather's suggestion:
Here is the idea I gave Elliot, with which he in turn teased you:
A late middle-aged guy suddenly discovers he has amazing super powers, but he is just too darned tired and jaded to employ them.
notawritersfather wins brunch with me yesterday, and a Schlafly 12 pack sampler which includes three bottles of their signature Pale Ale, three bottles of their smooth Hefeweizen, and three bottles of their current seasonal brew, which I can only assume right now is their Summer Kölsch, and not their Oktoberfest or Coffee Stout.
I, unfortunately, do not recieve any funding for Schlafly Beer. The only thing I do recieve is a feeling of satisfaction, light-headedness, and the rare hangover.
===
June 18th (but it should have been the 15th...) 2007
"He's opening his eyes."
"Are you sure?"
"Look!"
"He shouldn't be here, I mean, he should be..."
"Yeah, I know."
The two voices sounded eerily fraught, which didn't bode well in the mind of Eric Weldon. That is, he reflected, if he even had a mind anymore. He wasn't sure what happened when you died, because this was the first time he had ever done it. And he had done it on purpose, had timed his fall just right so that even if the fall didn't kill him, the convoy of trucks running down the highway to the overpass would surely not have missed. He had blacked out on impact and was only coming around now because he heard voices. He opened his eyes and saw a bright light, in front of which he swore he saw two angels. "Well," he thought, "at least I made it to the doorstep. Even if they do send me down, which they surely will, maybe I can at least get a glimpse of happiness before an eternity of damnation and toil."
He figured, after nearly forty years of unhappy toil, an eternity of more of the same didn't sound too bad. That's why he had jumped, why he had left his keys in plain view in his locked, double-parked car two blocks away. As a final insult to the world, though, he had taken the faceplate from his radio and put it in his front pocket. Somebody could steal his worthless car, but they'd have to break the window to get in and find that there was nothing worth stealing in it. Fuck you, world, take my car. You took everything else.
"Oh, thank God, the authorities are here," Eric heard one of the angels say; he was still having a bit of trouble making them out, and he wasn't sure if that was the brightness of the heavenly light or if it was just that he had jostled his head so badly when he fell. But upon reflection, he realized that it must be the light because his head didn't hurt and that made plenty of sense; in Heaven, you feel no pain. Only joy. He took joy in the thought that he might get a few moments of joy for his soul before being looked over by St. Peter or whoever the authority turned out to be, and sent straight to Hell.
"Right over here," the second voice called. "He just came out of nowhere, landed right in front of me...I ran the bastard over, but it looks like he's coming around!"
A third angel arrived, but now that Eric's vision was clearing up a little, he wasn't sure that they were angels per se. Maybe they were just citizens of heaven...or at least, the first two were. This third one was altogether darker and looked to be wearing some sort of official uniform; this struck Eric harder than he had struck the ground just minutes before. He blinked a few times to try and get a clearer picture.
The light was really preventing him from getting a clear picture, and what's more, the light was starting to hurt his eyes, so he sat up.
"Easy, easy," the darker shadow commanded, a strong hand landing on Eric's shoulder.
"Where am I?" Eric asked, startled that his voice sounded exactly the way he remembered it when he was alive.
"You're on 1-55, right by the Arsenal overpass, and the question I have to ask you is why are you here?" the darker figure asked. Eric's eyes were becoming accustomed to the light and he saw that the dark figure was wearing what looked unquestioningly like a police uniform.
Eric listened and heard the noise of slow moving traffic, smelled exhaust and also the brewery. He looked for the other two angels and saw that one was a rather large shirtless man covered in tattoos, the other wearing a Fed-Ex uniform and hat. The image of a Fed-Ex truck speeding towards the bridge just before he jumped came back to him. "Shit," he said.
"Shit?" the shirtless man asked, spitting on the ground. "You jumped off a bridge into oncoming traffic and all you can say is 'Shit'? You got run over by a big rig and my F-350 and a horse trailer and that's all you gotta say? Well...Shit!"
"It didn't work," Eric said, struggling to get up.
"Easy," the police officer said again, but Eric very easily stood and began to walk under the overpass.
He turned back to look at the spot where he had landed, saw no blood, just a few cracks and some tire marks. He looked down at his body and saw the only signs of damage; his shirt and pants were ripped and had matching tire marks. He screamed the only word he could think of to sum up his feelings before running back in the direction he came, intent on running all the way to the nearest bridge over the river, so he could plunge in and end his life for good.
"Whoa, whoa there," the police man said, restraining Eric with the help of the shirtless spitter and the Fed-Ex driver. "I think you should come with me." By this time the ambulance had arrived and the paramedics were approaching with a gurny. The lead man asked Eric where the victim was.
Eric pointed at himself, and the paramedic became furious. "This is no time for joking around, asshole! Where's the guy that jumped?"
"You're talking to him!" Eric screamed at the man. "I jumped. And I'm fine! And I want to die!" He turned to the cop. "What's the penalty for attempted murder?"
The police officer bristled. "You tried to kill somebody?" Eric nodded. "And it didn't work?" Eric nodded. "That could get you life, buddy."
"Not death?"
"No. Maybe in Texas. But if you tried to kill somebody and it didn't work...have they recieved medical attention?" Eric shook his head no. "You better take me right to him, and then straight downtown." The police officer got on his walkie and called in the attempted homicide. Eric slapped him.
"It's me, asshole! I tried to kill myself and it didn't work! What's the penalty for attempted suicide?"
Stunned, the police officer cancelled the call, took a step towards Eric and grabbed him by his hands. He pushed him across a lane and a half and smack up against the idling ambulance.
"Now I gotcha for attempted suicide, disrupting the peace, and assaulting an officer. You want to try for resisting arrest, too?"
"Can I get the death penalty for any of those things?"
It was several hours later, and Eric had point blank refused to talk to any lawyers. He kept making demands to see Jack Kevourkian, his mother or "the perfect woman." When Dr. Freidman finally arrived, Eric had settled into a silence the police officers deemed impenetrable. It was the arresting officer's opinion that the man should be wrapped in a straight jacket inside a padded room, inside a padded building, inside a heavily guarded and also padded country.
"Mr. Weldon," Dr. Freidman said, "My name is Sydney." He was tall, angular, with a bushy mustache and tight, curly hair, and carried himself with an almost lazy confidence; he looked, in many ways, like Eric himself, except Eric's hair was straight, he wore no facial hair aside from thinning sideburns and he carried himself with a slump; the weight of his troubles was enough to make him appear four inches shorter than he really was.
"Doctor," Eric said.
"Good," Sydney said, "I got you to talk. The chief owes me a twenty if I can just get one more word out of you. What do you say to that?"
Eric pondered this for a moment. He stood up, walked over to where Sydney was standing and pointed at Sydney's breast pocket. "You want my pen?" Eric shook his head yes, and Sydney gave him the pen and also one of his business cards. Eric wrote, "Cut me in for half and we've got a deal" on the back of the business card. Sydney reached into his pocket and handed over a ten dollar bill.
"Thanks," Eric said, handing back the pen and returning to his seat. "I'm going to need all the cash I can get, seeing as how I'm alive and jobless. And also, I got a parking ticket."
"Did you? Is that why you tried to kill yourself?"
"No. I got it while I was trying to kill myself. That was not my intention."
"What was your intention?" Sydney took a seat across the table, leaning comfortably back without looking bored or disinterested, in the kind of trick they must teach you when you become an analyst.
"To have somebody steal my car. And also to actually die. So far, I'm 0 for 2 today."
"I see."
"Also," Eric continued, "I had my faceplate in my pocket, and even though I came out of it in one piece, I can't say the same for the faceplate. So, if I do get out of here, and get my car, I can't even listen to music."
"That is a shame," Sydney said. "Eric, let me tell you why I'm here."
"I know why you're here. You're here to ask me why I tried to kill myself."
Sydney rifled through some papers in his briefcase. "Oh, no, I think I have that figured out." He looked down at a sheet of paper. "Let's see...you just turned 40 and you also just got fired from the same job and same position you were in when you turned 30, making almost the same amount, I might add. Your wife just left with the kids for Davenport, to stay with her mother until she, in her words, 'figures things out,' she drained your bank account, alienated you from all of your friends, your mortgage is past due because she hasn't been paying bills for five months so you're about to have your house repossessed, your parents' nursing home just burnt to the ground with all of their posessions and the insurance money won't cover any of it, and to top it all off, last night you came home and there was a man in your house you didn't know who was looking for your wife whom he called, what was it..." Sydney looked up into Eric's eyes. "Fucky Kitten, was it?"
Eric took several deep breaths. "You forgot something," he finally said.
"What's that?"
"My goldfish died last week."
"Ah, but that was actually your daughter's gold fish."
"Same difference. So, why are you here?"
Sydney shut his briefcase and leaned forward, earnestly. "I'm Dr. Sydney Freidman, and I work for the Rand Corporation and the United States Government. I'm a psychiatrist and also a researcher interested in paranatural phenomena."
There was a long pause before Eric finally spoke. "Para what?"
"Paranatural."
"Why not paranormal or supernatural?"
"Because people think they know what those mean nowadays. No, what I have to say is this: We have several eyewitnesses who saw you fall from the bridge."
"I didn't fall. Falling implies it was an accident. I jumped."
"Jumped, fell, whatever. People saw you. And then, you got run over by several tons of machinery moving at speeds in excess of seventy miles per hour."
"What's your point? That I can't do anything right, not even killing myself?"
Sydney got a weird smile on his face. "Simply put, Eric; you can't kill yourself." This remark was followed by a ridiculous giggle on Sydney's part.
Sydney's giggle, however, was merely met with Eric's face as it fell slowly further into depression. "What?"
"You can't die, at least not by physical trauma."
"Are you telling me that I'm like that guy in Unbreakable?"
"It's exciting. You know, there are actually quite a few people with these paranatural abilities. And we've found many of them. They work special detail in some of the worse places in the world."
"What?"
"We find them, we employ them, and we give their lives meaning. For instance, in your case, you are ready to die. But think of it; with a word, I could stop the foreclosure process on your house. Hell, you could buy five times the house. You wouldn't have to worry about scrounging up for that parking ticket, because it's done, taken care of, and as for the radio, you'd get yourself a free car. Whatever you wanted. Of course, you'd have to go where we tell you, do what we tell you, but you'd never be in any danger at all. Because there's nothing out there that's dangerous enough to hurt you."
"What about bullets?"
Sydney stood up, removed a gun from a holster Eric hadn't seen before, and shot Eric in the chest. Eric stood too late, reeled, flew backwards over his chair and landed hard, breaking the backrest off the chair, and panting on the ground. He had a momentary pain in his chest which dissipated almost as quick as the gunshot had been.
Eric stood up, looking at the mark left on his shirt. "Fuck. I can't even shoot myself to death! Damn it! What about poisons? Drowning myself? Exposure to the Ebola virus?"
Sydney shook his head, returning the gun to the holster. The door opened and three officers came charging in, but Sydney put up his hand. "It's fine. I told you who I am. Get lost." The police officers backed slowly out of the room, the last lingering long enough to glance at Eric, brushing himself down and picking up the mangled chair before throwing it back to the ground. The door closed.
"Mr. Weldon," Sydney said, opening his briefcase again, "medical records are the first indication we have of who has these abilities. Unfortunately, even under the current administration's lax regulatory stance, we are still unable to create situations that can draw these characteristics out. If somebody notices on their own, they usually tell their doctors, we see the records, we can approach them, but we need hard evidnce. Something like surviving a suicide attempt. Although, we wondered; do you remember in fourth grade?"
Eric thought. "What about it?"
"Your two best friends; one got menangitis and nearly died. The other got it, as well, but it was caught early and treated. They never found a trace in your body, but they gave you the medication anyway."
"The doctors said sometimes it can take a while to show up, they were being-"
"College, sophomore year. The girl you were dating, yes?"
"Eliza?"
"You're aware that she had mono, correct?"
"Yeah."
"And you never got it, even though by your accounts to your friends you 'fucked like crazy,' correct?"
"Why do you have that on record?"
"Are you also aware that she had herpes?"
Eric was silent for a long second. "What?"
"Yes. She didn't know it at the time, but she had already contracted it prior to your relationship. And she continued a sexual relationship with the person she had contracted it from while she was with you."
Eric's face fell again. "Eliza was cheating on me? I should have tried to kill myself years ago..."
Sydney snapped his briefcase shut again. "But it wouldn't have been any different then, Mr. Weldon. Here." He handed him a manilla envelope.
"What's this?"
"Information. About our program. Training materials. It's classified, so you are under the strictest penalty not to divulge this information to anyone."
"So...you'd kill me if I told my neighbors?"
"Mr. Weldon, you can't-"
"Then why even bother, I suppose." Eric perused the outside of the envelope. "What happens to the people who don't want to sign up?"
Sydney shifted uncomfortably. "It happens. Some sort of...go into what you'd call private contracting."
"What? They become local superheroes?" Eric laughed at the thought. But the sheepish look on Sydney's face cut off the laugh. "Really?"
"Well, in a manner of speaking, yes, but Mr. Weldon, I urge you-"
"Urge nothing. I have the urge to do nothing." He sighed, handed the envelope back to Sydney. "I can't do anything right, Doctor. Nothing. I can't even kill myself correctly. So thanks, but no thanks. I don't want these powers. For you, it's something exciting. For me, it's just another thing wrong with my life."
"What's wrong with it?"
"It's preventing me from achieving my life's goal?"
"And what's that?"
Eric stood, looked out of the lone window. "Death. Ending it all. I just...don't care. I'd screw it up. The people I'm supposed to save? They'd die. I'd get captured and sentenced to death in the jungles of Burma, and they'd try to kill me every day, and they'd never succeed. It would be...well, honestly, it would be what I was expecting this morning when I jumped. It would be Hell. But I was going to Hell on my terms; I don't want to stay in this Hell on your terms. No thank you," he turned around, "Doctor Freidman, but I'll just keep trying to end my life after my own fashion."
Eric sat back down, and lapsed into a silence to match his earlier one. Sydney stood, silent for five minutes, looking into the half-lidded eyes of Eric. Finally, he left the business card Eric had given him back, with "Cut me in for half and we have a deal" scrawled across the back, packed up the briefcase again, turned and walked out the door.
Across the country, deep in a labyrynthine maze of code-entry corridors, under a thousand tons of rock and soil, a man sat staring at the image of Sydney as he left Eric alone in the small room. The man moved a joystick and the image of Eric grew larger, his hopeless face filling more and more of the screen. A phone rang to the man's right and he answered it.
"Yes, I saw the whole thing. Well played, Doctor. You are right; he is the perfect candidate for our program. Proceed as planned. Keep me posted."
The man hung up and watched as on the screen Eric picked up Sydney's business card and put it in his pocket.
===
And that man's name was neither Lex Luthor, Doctor Ochs, Magneto or even Stan Lee. That's all you get out of me for this one. It was long to make up for it's lateness.
I am off to the Cardinals game.
Friday, June 15, 2007
Free Write Friday...um, later this weekend...
I do apologize. I have less than an hour left on a Friday and have just now got around to the blog. I had trouble sleeping last night, went to work an hour early and stayed an hour late, came home and just kinda...crashed. Then I went to Shakespeare in the Park down in Forest Park. Their rendition of Much Ado was unique with an 1890's western theme, and I don't mean that in a bad way. Anyway, so I just got back to it, and as it is 11:11 pm, I am going to forgoe the regular Free Write Friday for now and just postpone it until tomorrow or Sunday, whenever I get the time.
I will also not announce this week's winner, but I would like to thank those people who gave their suggestions. A good crop this week, as always, but I got some new people suggesting which is great. Remember; if I don't pick you this week, keep suggesting. I'll even let you suggest the same thing over and over until I pick it if you would like. Just keep 'em coming!
To sum up; apology, lame reason, tangent, tease, sycophantic praise for audience, summary.
That is all.
I will also not announce this week's winner, but I would like to thank those people who gave their suggestions. A good crop this week, as always, but I got some new people suggesting which is great. Remember; if I don't pick you this week, keep suggesting. I'll even let you suggest the same thing over and over until I pick it if you would like. Just keep 'em coming!
To sum up; apology, lame reason, tangent, tease, sycophantic praise for audience, summary.
That is all.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
The Definition of Conservative, and I Am Surrounded By Writers
This first bit hearkens back to a conversation I had earlier today. I will spare you the details and specifics, but it ended with me getting a dictionary to prove a point.
Generally, I was once again derisively called a "Liberal," this time because I was angry that even though I put a recycling bin in the break room at work specifically for soda cans (complete with signs directing people to deposit their cans in the bin rather than in the trash), I was angrily complaining about the fact that people had thrown their soda cans in the trash along with their half-eaten lunches...but I'll let the half eaten lunches rest for now...and so, yes, somebody in the break room decided that they would share their view that recycling is worthless, and that only tree hugging liberals cared about it. This person said he did not care about the environment enough to walk the two feet out of his way to put his diet coke can in the recycling.
An argument ensued, because I asked him if his parents (not him, but his parents, because this person is still young and probably still has his political ideologies running parallel to his parents') were Republicans. He said, "Yes. Aren't yours?" Then he added, "No, probably not, since you're like 22 and trying to recycle." First off, I'm 24. But I let that slide. He added again, derisively, that I am a "Liberal." Yes. I am politically Liberal, with a capital L. Environmentally conservative, though, with a lowercase c. He argued I couldn't be conservative at all, since Conservatives know that recycling is for, in his words, "cry-babies." I went out to the floor to get a dictionary.
I was disappointed to find that the majority of the definitions for conservative now deal with a capital C. I guess that's just what the word has come to mean, however, I checked the root word, conserve, which gave me a much better footing for my argument with this person. Conserving is, of course, saving. Now, political Conservatives want to save things like the status quo, and money for them that's got. They want to preserve family values and so forth. It is clear to me from the actions of certain people that political Conservatism has little to do with saving money for the good of the majority, or lives, or the planet on which we live (and by that I mean to natural portion of it, not just the lump of rock, which it appears is how some people see the Earth). Now, I am a conservative with a lowercase c, in that I would like to save money, and lives, and resources. So, yes, I recycle. And I liked that the definition of conservative did say that the root word was conserve, the definition of which has not been infiltrated by a capital C.
Now, let me get down off of my soap box and get to some good ol' fashioned elliotisnotawriter bloggin.
I am not a master of the off-the-cuff comment. Most of the time, I've got a heavy supply of "oh yeah?"s and "Your Mom!"s. But every once in a great while, I come up with something. My father has a problem with his jaw at the moment, and it's been a recurring problem for a few years. He has trouble opening his mouth all the way and eating hard foods, so a few years ago his doctor suggested that when it flares up (like it is doing now), he should put himself on a diet of soft foods. Foods, as the doctor said, "Like pie." So, it's dad's pie diet, as we like to call it. "Back on the pie diet?" "Yeah. It's pretty sweet." No pun intended, really, because remember that there is more than just fruit pies; there's things like chicken-pot pie and quiche is considered a pie. But, so, yes, he is back on his pie diet. And this evening, as we sat in the living room at my parents' house, keeping them company, he made a comment suggesting he had made a mistake several years in his past. "I'm not saying it was fair, but I obviously did something wrong." It was quiet for a second, and I said, "So, back on the pie diet. Tell me, how's that humble pie tasting?"
Score one for me. Of course, as creative as everybody seems to be in my family, I was soon outdone by my mother's lament. I was in the middle of telling the recycling story, when my mother croaked in a voice of desperation, "I just don't think I can take it." When questioned what it was she couldn't take, she responded, "There isn't any cake in the house."
My dad and I, in order to stop laughing so uncontrollably, went to the grocery store to buy cheese cake. Behold the power of words!
But it's not just me and my mother who can spontaneously compose something worthy of going into print; my father has been writing his life story for years, and just yesterday gave me a suggestion for free write Fridays (that I hope he posts on here so you can all see it, otherwise I'll look like an enormous tease). My wife, as you have seen, can come up with an idea that's unique and full of potential, but there is one thing she once wrote to me in an e-mail that I have never forgotten, even if I lost the e-mail. I'm about to get a little personal here, so, be forewarned.
When she and I were dating, we found that when we laid together, her head fit perfectly in the crook of my left shoulder, pretty much like they were made to connect. This was all cute and grossed out our friends, but she once wrote me an e-mail when we were living in different cities, telling me that she loved how she "fits into the shoulder" of my life. Sweetheart, that's poetry. And she says she's not a good writer. P'shaw!
Around the same time, my sister wrote me an e-mail as well. It was about four years ago now, when I went to my first Weier Family Wedding (the second would be my own), up in Davenport, IA, where Kathy's brother Dave lives. The same weekend, my sister was heading to Memphis for a short vacation. When I got home after the weekend, she had sent me an e-mail about her trip, but all she talked about was how she felt on the drive down. "I realized I was heading due south at 80 miles an hour. I was traveling at 80 miles an hour away from the people I loved the most. And then I realized that you were on your way to Davenport, in the exact opposite direction, and I did the math and realized that if you were driving at 80 miles an hour, you and I were travelling away from each other at 160 miles an hour! And that's just too fast!" It just kindled something in me, this little spark of...I don't know what, but it made me call her on the spot. That is too fast to be travelling away from the ones you love. And I wondered then, and I still wonder now, if anybody else has ever thought of that situation like that.
What I am trying to say through layers of cheese and sniffles and "John! Martha!" sort of back-and-forth drivel, is that if I am surrounded by writers, you should probably take a look at the people in your life, and listen to what they say. Read what they write. Even people who aren't writers the way that I am a writer probably have something profound to say at some point, and they will most likely find some very unique way to say it. Cherish that. And, if you are a writer like me, poach it and use it in a story. And make sure you get it copyrighted.
I know there are a few of you out there in the Blogniverse (DOWN WITH THE BLOGOSPHERE!) that are patiently (and kindly) reading through this longer-than-War-and-Peace-styled post in the hopes that at the end I will ask for suggestions for this week's Free Write Friday. And I hate to disappoint you all.
But I think I will anyway, and instead of asking for them now, I'll ask for them tomorrow.
But, now that I think about it, that's no good, especially considering how late I've been blogging this week; I mean, it's almost 11, the day is almost up, I am almost out of time to get my Wednesday blog in. Plus, I don't usually blog on Thursdays.
Thursday was an Emo band.
It's also the day I can't ever seem to get a hang of. Thursdays. Hmm.
Alright, then. Suggest away for this week's Free Write Friday.
Generally, I was once again derisively called a "Liberal," this time because I was angry that even though I put a recycling bin in the break room at work specifically for soda cans (complete with signs directing people to deposit their cans in the bin rather than in the trash), I was angrily complaining about the fact that people had thrown their soda cans in the trash along with their half-eaten lunches...but I'll let the half eaten lunches rest for now...and so, yes, somebody in the break room decided that they would share their view that recycling is worthless, and that only tree hugging liberals cared about it. This person said he did not care about the environment enough to walk the two feet out of his way to put his diet coke can in the recycling.
An argument ensued, because I asked him if his parents (not him, but his parents, because this person is still young and probably still has his political ideologies running parallel to his parents') were Republicans. He said, "Yes. Aren't yours?" Then he added, "No, probably not, since you're like 22 and trying to recycle." First off, I'm 24. But I let that slide. He added again, derisively, that I am a "Liberal." Yes. I am politically Liberal, with a capital L. Environmentally conservative, though, with a lowercase c. He argued I couldn't be conservative at all, since Conservatives know that recycling is for, in his words, "cry-babies." I went out to the floor to get a dictionary.
I was disappointed to find that the majority of the definitions for conservative now deal with a capital C. I guess that's just what the word has come to mean, however, I checked the root word, conserve, which gave me a much better footing for my argument with this person. Conserving is, of course, saving. Now, political Conservatives want to save things like the status quo, and money for them that's got. They want to preserve family values and so forth. It is clear to me from the actions of certain people that political Conservatism has little to do with saving money for the good of the majority, or lives, or the planet on which we live (and by that I mean to natural portion of it, not just the lump of rock, which it appears is how some people see the Earth). Now, I am a conservative with a lowercase c, in that I would like to save money, and lives, and resources. So, yes, I recycle. And I liked that the definition of conservative did say that the root word was conserve, the definition of which has not been infiltrated by a capital C.
Now, let me get down off of my soap box and get to some good ol' fashioned elliotisnotawriter bloggin.
I am not a master of the off-the-cuff comment. Most of the time, I've got a heavy supply of "oh yeah?"s and "Your Mom!"s. But every once in a great while, I come up with something. My father has a problem with his jaw at the moment, and it's been a recurring problem for a few years. He has trouble opening his mouth all the way and eating hard foods, so a few years ago his doctor suggested that when it flares up (like it is doing now), he should put himself on a diet of soft foods. Foods, as the doctor said, "Like pie." So, it's dad's pie diet, as we like to call it. "Back on the pie diet?" "Yeah. It's pretty sweet." No pun intended, really, because remember that there is more than just fruit pies; there's things like chicken-pot pie and quiche is considered a pie. But, so, yes, he is back on his pie diet. And this evening, as we sat in the living room at my parents' house, keeping them company, he made a comment suggesting he had made a mistake several years in his past. "I'm not saying it was fair, but I obviously did something wrong." It was quiet for a second, and I said, "So, back on the pie diet. Tell me, how's that humble pie tasting?"
Score one for me. Of course, as creative as everybody seems to be in my family, I was soon outdone by my mother's lament. I was in the middle of telling the recycling story, when my mother croaked in a voice of desperation, "I just don't think I can take it." When questioned what it was she couldn't take, she responded, "There isn't any cake in the house."
My dad and I, in order to stop laughing so uncontrollably, went to the grocery store to buy cheese cake. Behold the power of words!
But it's not just me and my mother who can spontaneously compose something worthy of going into print; my father has been writing his life story for years, and just yesterday gave me a suggestion for free write Fridays (that I hope he posts on here so you can all see it, otherwise I'll look like an enormous tease). My wife, as you have seen, can come up with an idea that's unique and full of potential, but there is one thing she once wrote to me in an e-mail that I have never forgotten, even if I lost the e-mail. I'm about to get a little personal here, so, be forewarned.
When she and I were dating, we found that when we laid together, her head fit perfectly in the crook of my left shoulder, pretty much like they were made to connect. This was all cute and grossed out our friends, but she once wrote me an e-mail when we were living in different cities, telling me that she loved how she "fits into the shoulder" of my life. Sweetheart, that's poetry. And she says she's not a good writer. P'shaw!
Around the same time, my sister wrote me an e-mail as well. It was about four years ago now, when I went to my first Weier Family Wedding (the second would be my own), up in Davenport, IA, where Kathy's brother Dave lives. The same weekend, my sister was heading to Memphis for a short vacation. When I got home after the weekend, she had sent me an e-mail about her trip, but all she talked about was how she felt on the drive down. "I realized I was heading due south at 80 miles an hour. I was traveling at 80 miles an hour away from the people I loved the most. And then I realized that you were on your way to Davenport, in the exact opposite direction, and I did the math and realized that if you were driving at 80 miles an hour, you and I were travelling away from each other at 160 miles an hour! And that's just too fast!" It just kindled something in me, this little spark of...I don't know what, but it made me call her on the spot. That is too fast to be travelling away from the ones you love. And I wondered then, and I still wonder now, if anybody else has ever thought of that situation like that.
What I am trying to say through layers of cheese and sniffles and "John! Martha!" sort of back-and-forth drivel, is that if I am surrounded by writers, you should probably take a look at the people in your life, and listen to what they say. Read what they write. Even people who aren't writers the way that I am a writer probably have something profound to say at some point, and they will most likely find some very unique way to say it. Cherish that. And, if you are a writer like me, poach it and use it in a story. And make sure you get it copyrighted.
I know there are a few of you out there in the Blogniverse (DOWN WITH THE BLOGOSPHERE!) that are patiently (and kindly) reading through this longer-than-War-and-Peace-styled post in the hopes that at the end I will ask for suggestions for this week's Free Write Friday. And I hate to disappoint you all.
But I think I will anyway, and instead of asking for them now, I'll ask for them tomorrow.
But, now that I think about it, that's no good, especially considering how late I've been blogging this week; I mean, it's almost 11, the day is almost up, I am almost out of time to get my Wednesday blog in. Plus, I don't usually blog on Thursdays.
Thursday was an Emo band.
It's also the day I can't ever seem to get a hang of. Thursdays. Hmm.
Alright, then. Suggest away for this week's Free Write Friday.
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Tuesday Excerpts
Welcome back to my fifth consecutive Tuesday Excerpt Post!
YAY! Five in a row! I wasn't lying when I said I was going to actually start blogging for real! I rock.
Alrighty, let's get this train wreck a rollin.
For this week, I'm excerpting a bit from the very third bit I wrote for my playwriting class. We were given the exercise to write a dialogue about two people trapped together. I chose the trap to be less mental and also less physical; it's just two people at a nearly empty bus station four hours before their bus is supposed to leave. Enjoy!
===
from Trapped Exercise, January 07
SETTING: A bench at a bus terminal.
AT RISE: Mike and Ellen sit on the bench surrounded by their luggage.
MIKE
Obviously, not that many people traveling to Chicago on Greyhound this morning.
ELLEN
Still the astute observer, huh Mike?
(She digs in her backpack and brings out her ticket)
MIKE
(overly emphatic)
This will be a fun trip, won’t it?
ELLEN
(looking at her ticket)
Hey, Mike, what time does the bus leave?
MIKE
Six sharp, I think.
(checks watch)
ELLEN
You think? Six sharp, you think? Master of details, you are not.
(hands him her ticket, keeping her finger on a part of it. she taps.)
MIKE
What?
(she taps)
What am I supposed to be looking at?
(she taps)
Use your words, Ellen.
ELLEN
(snatching back the ticket)
Ten o’clock. You got me out of bed at this ungodly hour to sit around a bus terminal for four hours? As if facing a fourteen hour bus trip wasn’t enough time to spend with each other?
MIKE
(reaching into his coat pocket for his ticket)
I honestly must have read it wrong.
(scrutinizes his ticket)
Okay, yes, I read it wrong. I apologize.
ELLEN
You read everything wrong, Michael.
MIKE
Ellen-
ELLEN
Perfect.
(she gets up and paces in front of the bench, removing her coat and placing it over her bags)
Perfect.
MIKE
Honest mistake.
ELLEN
Just like forgetting to keep a reading journal in your lit class was an honest mistake? Just like forgetting my fucking birthday was an honest mistake? Just like-
MIKE
(irritated)
I get your point.
ELLEN
Oh, you’re a very honest man, Mike. If it weren’t for so many of your little honest mistakes, you wouldn’t be on academic probation, I could have slept in--I was up until one packing, I almost got three hours of sleep--and maybe you wouldn’t be sitting in a freezing bus station at 6 in the morning with your ex-girlfriend.
(she turns away from him and picks her coat back up, puts it on)
MIKE
Yeah. About that; I was hoping that, while we’re back home, we could maybe--
ELLEN
Fat chance.
MIKE
--give ourselves a chance to--
ELLEN
Fat. Chance.
MIKE
--work things out.
ELLEN
(turns to face him)
Fat. Chance.
MIKE
You want to go back to the dorms? Go.
ELLEN
Yeah, what, if we call your roommate, will he come pick us up? Should I call a cab? Walk the seven miles back in the snow?
MIKE
Well, then, think of something else to do.
ELLEN
You just take whatever comes, roll with the punches, fly by the seat of your pants, and whatever other cliches come your way, huh?
MIKE
You knew that.
(reaches into his other coat pocket and removes a piece of paper)
You used to like it.
ELLEN
Bullshit.
MIKE
(reading)
“Mike, I can’t tell you how much fun I had over fall break. I can’t believe we’ve lived within four miles of each other our entire lives, but we had to move to Boston to find each other.”
ELLEN
What?
MIKE
(continuing)
“Utah was breath-taking. And to think I was going to spend the week watching movies in my dorm. I’ve never been very spontaneous, and I’m glad you forced it on me.”
ELLEN
There’s a big difference between spontaneity and irresponsibility.
MIKE
(looking up from the paper)
Really?
(reading)
“I always thought it was just irresponsibility that made people neglect the status quo for something that seemed on the surface more glamorous, but now I know that it’s better to put life on hold long enough to actually live.”
ELLEN
Let me see that!
(she snatches the paper from him and scans it)
Ah! Nice selective editing.
(reading)
“I always thought it was just irresponsibility that made people neglect the status quo for something that seemed on the surface more glamorous, but now I know that sometimes it’s better to put life on hold long enough to actually live for a moment before returning to our obligations.”
(she tosses the note back at him)
MIKE
It was worth a shot.
===
There you go, another Tuesday, another excerpt. And another missed Monday, for which I apologize. I barely got any sleep Sunday night, just could not fall asleep for whatever reason, and after staying super late at work Monday, I just couldn't keep my eyes open. For real. So, I missed a day. But I had my interview at MasterFile today, and my potential boss is the son of one of the counselors at my old high school. I'm not sure if that helps completely, but hey, it's something, right?
Proofread carefully to see if you any words out. -Author Unknown
YAY! Five in a row! I wasn't lying when I said I was going to actually start blogging for real! I rock.
Alrighty, let's get this train wreck a rollin.
For this week, I'm excerpting a bit from the very third bit I wrote for my playwriting class. We were given the exercise to write a dialogue about two people trapped together. I chose the trap to be less mental and also less physical; it's just two people at a nearly empty bus station four hours before their bus is supposed to leave. Enjoy!
===
from Trapped Exercise, January 07
SETTING: A bench at a bus terminal.
AT RISE: Mike and Ellen sit on the bench surrounded by their luggage.
MIKE
Obviously, not that many people traveling to Chicago on Greyhound this morning.
ELLEN
Still the astute observer, huh Mike?
(She digs in her backpack and brings out her ticket)
MIKE
(overly emphatic)
This will be a fun trip, won’t it?
ELLEN
(looking at her ticket)
Hey, Mike, what time does the bus leave?
MIKE
Six sharp, I think.
(checks watch)
ELLEN
You think? Six sharp, you think? Master of details, you are not.
(hands him her ticket, keeping her finger on a part of it. she taps.)
MIKE
What?
(she taps)
What am I supposed to be looking at?
(she taps)
Use your words, Ellen.
ELLEN
(snatching back the ticket)
Ten o’clock. You got me out of bed at this ungodly hour to sit around a bus terminal for four hours? As if facing a fourteen hour bus trip wasn’t enough time to spend with each other?
MIKE
(reaching into his coat pocket for his ticket)
I honestly must have read it wrong.
(scrutinizes his ticket)
Okay, yes, I read it wrong. I apologize.
ELLEN
You read everything wrong, Michael.
MIKE
Ellen-
ELLEN
Perfect.
(she gets up and paces in front of the bench, removing her coat and placing it over her bags)
Perfect.
MIKE
Honest mistake.
ELLEN
Just like forgetting to keep a reading journal in your lit class was an honest mistake? Just like forgetting my fucking birthday was an honest mistake? Just like-
MIKE
(irritated)
I get your point.
ELLEN
Oh, you’re a very honest man, Mike. If it weren’t for so many of your little honest mistakes, you wouldn’t be on academic probation, I could have slept in--I was up until one packing, I almost got three hours of sleep--and maybe you wouldn’t be sitting in a freezing bus station at 6 in the morning with your ex-girlfriend.
(she turns away from him and picks her coat back up, puts it on)
MIKE
Yeah. About that; I was hoping that, while we’re back home, we could maybe--
ELLEN
Fat chance.
MIKE
--give ourselves a chance to--
ELLEN
Fat. Chance.
MIKE
--work things out.
ELLEN
(turns to face him)
Fat. Chance.
MIKE
You want to go back to the dorms? Go.
ELLEN
Yeah, what, if we call your roommate, will he come pick us up? Should I call a cab? Walk the seven miles back in the snow?
MIKE
Well, then, think of something else to do.
ELLEN
You just take whatever comes, roll with the punches, fly by the seat of your pants, and whatever other cliches come your way, huh?
MIKE
You knew that.
(reaches into his other coat pocket and removes a piece of paper)
You used to like it.
ELLEN
Bullshit.
MIKE
(reading)
“Mike, I can’t tell you how much fun I had over fall break. I can’t believe we’ve lived within four miles of each other our entire lives, but we had to move to Boston to find each other.”
ELLEN
What?
MIKE
(continuing)
“Utah was breath-taking. And to think I was going to spend the week watching movies in my dorm. I’ve never been very spontaneous, and I’m glad you forced it on me.”
ELLEN
There’s a big difference between spontaneity and irresponsibility.
MIKE
(looking up from the paper)
Really?
(reading)
“I always thought it was just irresponsibility that made people neglect the status quo for something that seemed on the surface more glamorous, but now I know that it’s better to put life on hold long enough to actually live.”
ELLEN
Let me see that!
(she snatches the paper from him and scans it)
Ah! Nice selective editing.
(reading)
“I always thought it was just irresponsibility that made people neglect the status quo for something that seemed on the surface more glamorous, but now I know that sometimes it’s better to put life on hold long enough to actually live for a moment before returning to our obligations.”
(she tosses the note back at him)
MIKE
It was worth a shot.
===
There you go, another Tuesday, another excerpt. And another missed Monday, for which I apologize. I barely got any sleep Sunday night, just could not fall asleep for whatever reason, and after staying super late at work Monday, I just couldn't keep my eyes open. For real. So, I missed a day. But I had my interview at MasterFile today, and my potential boss is the son of one of the counselors at my old high school. I'm not sure if that helps completely, but hey, it's something, right?
Proofread carefully to see if you any words out. -Author Unknown
Friday, June 08, 2007
Free Write Fridays
Sorry to leave everybody hanging...it was a long day at work and I just had to catch a little nap, which turned into going through the bill drawer to file a backlog of stuff that needed to be filed (we're talking maybe 6 months' worth of stuff...) and that turned into eating.
And also, I tried to stick to my guns and pick a suggestion from Wednesday's blog, but the suggestion I got on Tuesday seemed like the best one for a Free Write Friday. I will certainly take notes and jot some ideas down for other suggestions, particularly Grammar Enhancing drugs and why a guy would not tell his deep love of Star Trek...er...deepest darkest secrets until Kathy and I...uh...he and his new wife were on the way from the wedding to the reception. Also, a vanilla flavored jelly bean with a fear of being eaten sounds too complex to be anything less than a feature length screen play. So, with that in mind, here I go.
The Winning Suggestion this week comes from molly:
Short story (b/c I find reading plays annoying)
Joe "Doobie" Dubinsky - 34 y/o male
Wedding band gigs are diminishing and he's contemplating next move.
molly wins a free dinner with me this Sunday.
===
June 8th, 2007
Aaron called Joe Dubinsky from across the stage, as he had so many other nights, to kick off Proud Mary. "Doobie," he said, same inflection, the snare drum catching his voice and making it buzz. "Where've you been? I heard you moved to the citay!" As the vocalist in the band, Aaron pronounced the word 'city' that way whenever he said it or sang it, except when the band played Journey. It registered with Joe, but he didn't care, not like Vanessa, the keyboard player and lead female vocalist. It drove her nuts, and Joe suspected Aaron knew this, and did it intentionally. She ran the band, even though it had been Aaron and Joe who started it, with the help of Greg on guitar and their original drummer, also named Joe. Joe Casmus. He went by the nickname 'Skins' and had left the band all those years ago-Joe tried to remember the intervening sixteen years-just after high school, had gone on to music school, was now playing drums for Chris Isaak's tour. He had actually made it, achieved the dream to a point, even if it was playing in the shadows. Joe Dubinsky would give anything to be playing in those same shadows, even trade playing in the harsh light of the American Legion hall in...somewhere just outside of Minneapolis.
"Me? Yeah, I was in the city," Aaron responded. Greg played the progression, slowly, Vanessa accompanying on keyboard after the first phrase. This was one of the songs that she had fought desperately hard to sing, but in the end had conceded that it belonged to Joe. Not even Aaron would sing it the last time Joe had lost his voice. "I was in the city, but I just couldn't take it." This is not, Joe believed, where Tainted Batteries belonged. That had been the band's name, back in high school, and they played some battles and local hangouts, and when Skins left, they lost their conduit through which they got their gigs. Tainted Batteries had been Aaron, Doobie, Greg and Skins to the outside world, but Skins was all there was to the band on the inside of club politics. How much did the band want to get paid? Ask Skins. Where were they playing next weekend? Ask Skins. You wanted to know what the chord progression was, ask Greg. Lyrical question? Ask Aaron. Doobie stood and rocked back and forth, playing his bass. Don't ask him any questions. Anything else, ask Skins. Skins left, and the band nearly fell apart.
It was Greg who brought in Vanessa, the new found love of his life. Her brother filled in on drums, Pete, until he volunteered for the Peace Corps. They went through drummers like Spinal Tap these days. These days that had been going for fourteen years, when Tainted Batteries billed themselves as Heart Beat, a cover band that you wouldn't feel insecure announcing at a wedding. Just as a side gig, so they practiced all the standards, anything any of them could ever remember hearing at a wedding, but they kept playing their original tunes; Killed by Kind Words, Fishnets and Booze, Chronicles of the Loyal Frontiersman, just to name a few. Ask any of them to remember how those songs went, and only Skins could tell you, probably. Aaron, Doobie and Greg had long since given up hope, had put Tainted Batteries to rest. Vanessa had always added little to their existing repertoire, but had contributed a flagship gem, The Pocket Glove, which they had only played once live before the band became a strict wedding band. Now, each had separate lives and worlds in which they lived. Aaron, Greg, Doobie and Skins had lived for the band. Had lived by the band. Now Greg balanced a career in retail management with a precarious family life, including a fifteen year old daughter in trouble with the law. Aaron was a software engineer and stayed in Heart Beat out of sentiment. Doobie waited tables six nights a week and stocked shelves at a grocery store five days a week.
Doobie kicked in his bass, their drummer (their previous drummer's seventeen year old son who had a knack for rhythm but no dynamic range other than extra loud) started in with the repetitive 'chk-chk-chk-chk' of the hi-hats and the slap of rim knocks. "What are you going to do now, Doob?" Aaron asked, cradling the tambourine behind his back. Doobie began singing. "Left a good job in the city, workin' for the man every night and day..."
Aaron added his low "Rollin'" when required to, the song came to a slow halt, and the drummer did the kick in a way that would have made Skins cringe; too loud, too fast, too sloppy, too predictable. Doobie could hear Skins saying this in his mind. The band jumped in perfectly, the sync-unit that had at one time been Tainted Batteries needing little practice to maintain locked in to each other, and the song got into it's groove. This song kills at a wedding reception.
They always took a break after this song, and while Greg kept an eye on the number of trips their drummer took to the open bar, Aaron, with two open beers in hand, approached Doobie as he sat eating his lukewarm chicken dinner.
"Good set tonight, Joe." He sat down.
"Yeah. I guess." Joe toyed with his chicken, not wanting to starve and not wanting to eat it either.
"Everything alright, man? You're playing well and everything, but your eyes, man...it's like they're looking at something on the other side of the wall." Aaron handed over a bottle, and Joe took it without taking a sip.
"I got a letter from Skins," Joe said.
"Who?" Aaron asked, idly perusing the youngest bridesmaid, easily no older than 19.
"Joe Casmus. Remember, the drummer for Tainted Batteries?"
"Oh, shit, Skins! Wow. I haven't called him that...well, I haven't seen him since he graduated from Berklee or wherever he went."
"Berklee, yeah."
"Yeah. How is he?"
"On tour with Chris Isaak. He says their bass player isn't working out, and that they're coming through Minneapolis in a couple weeks. The fourteenth, I think. He sent me three tickets, wanted me to invite you and Greg."
Aaron mused on this thought. "Don't we have a gig?"
"This is our first gig in two months, man. Look, I know you and Greg are doing alright, but this gig money is pretty much how I keep gas in my car and food in my stomach. I've eaten nothing but Ramen and leftover baked potatoes from the restaurant for the last three weeks. I don't have money to go to concerts, and we don't have gigs to interfere. They're backstage passes and the price is right. Let's go see our old friend."
Aaron gave Joe a hard look. "Why did he tell you the bass player isn't working out?"
"He wants me to try out!"
"Did he say that? In his letter?"
Joe faltered. "Well, no, he didn't...look, it's a longshot but..."
"But nothing, Joe." Onstage he was Doobie, but it had been years since Aaron had used the nickname in public. "Didn't you respond to an ad last year in the City Pages for a musician wanted thing?"
"Yeah," Joe put up his defenses, knew what was coming.
"And didn't you pretty much make a fool of yourself?"
It was true; fourteen years as a wedding band musician had pushed the creativity and flexibility from his fingers. He went to the audition, played a few tunes for the band, was asked to jam and fell into the bass riff for We Are Family. He pushed the thought from his mind with a heavy sip of beer. "I didn't know those guys. I know Joe. It's Skins, man...you remember how it used to be? He and I could just jam for hours, start with one thing, take it in a dozen directions over the course of two hours, and come right back where we started, full blast, no need to review what we had done, and just power through. Man it was...electric. It was...awesome. Dare I say, phenomenal. I should have gone with him, think of the team we'd be today. We'd be...unstoppable!"
Aaron frowned, downed the rest of his beer. Vanessa was already back on stage, beckoning Greg and the drummer from the bar, where Greg was arguing with the bartender to take it easy on the kid. Their break would be over as soon as their CD they had piped into the PA system got through Paradise by the Dashboard Lights. "Do you really think that Joe Casmus, the backing drummer, is going to have that much say about who gets to play bass for Damien Rice."
"Chris Isaak."
"Whoever." The back-and-forth was playing, the speakers announcing that it was long ago and far away and so much better than it is today, and that it never felt so good, it never felt so right. Aaron stood. "Come on, we'd better get back up there."
"Not unless you promise me you'll go to the concert. Come on...he's our friend."
"No. He's our old bandmate. The one that got out and does it for a living. The one we haven't heard from in twelve years, until now that he's able to flaunt it back in his hometown he's going to rub it in our faces." With that, Aaron marched to the stage.
Joe sat there for a few minutes more, while Greg tuned up and the drummer fiddled, playing louder now than he had behind the band. Vanessa was quiet, and Joe knew that if he looked she would be boring holes into his skull with her eyes. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the letter from Skins, the letter he had been carrying for three days, and read the sentence he had underlined.
"I think we're about to fire our bass player, but other than that, the tour is going really well, and I think you should definitely come to the concert when we're playing the Excel Energy Center on July 14th." Joe put the letter back in his pocket and turned to the stage, walking up the short steps and strapping his bass to his body.
"Well gee, Doobie, I thought you weren't coming back there!" Aaron said, and the reception guests laughed politely. The bride and groom were nowhere to be seen, long gone and probably already upstairs in their hotel room. "This one's an important tune," Aaron spoke to the audience now. "Grab somebody special, pull them in close and do what the music tells you." While the people scrambled in pairs to the dance floor, the band prepared to launch themselves once more. Doobie reached into his pocket one last time, and clenched the letter, removing his hand and placing it on his fretboard at the last possible moment before Aaron said what Doobie really wanted to.
"You know you make me wanna SHOUT!"
===
Oh man, that was fun! Let's do it again! Let's do it again!
Actually, I would like to dedicate this to the Best Man at my wedding, Zach Hartwig. We were that rhythm section once, the interlocked bass and drums. And this was kind of a cathartic sort of emotional release. Also, to Will Wilcox, who came closer to making it than any of the rest of us...well, you guys both rock, and I'm glad we got to make some music together. And I'm very glad we didn't turn into Heart Beat.
And also, I tried to stick to my guns and pick a suggestion from Wednesday's blog, but the suggestion I got on Tuesday seemed like the best one for a Free Write Friday. I will certainly take notes and jot some ideas down for other suggestions, particularly Grammar Enhancing drugs and why a guy would not tell his deep love of Star Trek...er...deepest darkest secrets until Kathy and I...uh...he and his new wife were on the way from the wedding to the reception. Also, a vanilla flavored jelly bean with a fear of being eaten sounds too complex to be anything less than a feature length screen play. So, with that in mind, here I go.
The Winning Suggestion this week comes from molly:
Short story (b/c I find reading plays annoying)
Joe "Doobie" Dubinsky - 34 y/o male
Wedding band gigs are diminishing and he's contemplating next move.
molly wins a free dinner with me this Sunday.
===
June 8th, 2007
Aaron called Joe Dubinsky from across the stage, as he had so many other nights, to kick off Proud Mary. "Doobie," he said, same inflection, the snare drum catching his voice and making it buzz. "Where've you been? I heard you moved to the citay!" As the vocalist in the band, Aaron pronounced the word 'city' that way whenever he said it or sang it, except when the band played Journey. It registered with Joe, but he didn't care, not like Vanessa, the keyboard player and lead female vocalist. It drove her nuts, and Joe suspected Aaron knew this, and did it intentionally. She ran the band, even though it had been Aaron and Joe who started it, with the help of Greg on guitar and their original drummer, also named Joe. Joe Casmus. He went by the nickname 'Skins' and had left the band all those years ago-Joe tried to remember the intervening sixteen years-just after high school, had gone on to music school, was now playing drums for Chris Isaak's tour. He had actually made it, achieved the dream to a point, even if it was playing in the shadows. Joe Dubinsky would give anything to be playing in those same shadows, even trade playing in the harsh light of the American Legion hall in...somewhere just outside of Minneapolis.
"Me? Yeah, I was in the city," Aaron responded. Greg played the progression, slowly, Vanessa accompanying on keyboard after the first phrase. This was one of the songs that she had fought desperately hard to sing, but in the end had conceded that it belonged to Joe. Not even Aaron would sing it the last time Joe had lost his voice. "I was in the city, but I just couldn't take it." This is not, Joe believed, where Tainted Batteries belonged. That had been the band's name, back in high school, and they played some battles and local hangouts, and when Skins left, they lost their conduit through which they got their gigs. Tainted Batteries had been Aaron, Doobie, Greg and Skins to the outside world, but Skins was all there was to the band on the inside of club politics. How much did the band want to get paid? Ask Skins. Where were they playing next weekend? Ask Skins. You wanted to know what the chord progression was, ask Greg. Lyrical question? Ask Aaron. Doobie stood and rocked back and forth, playing his bass. Don't ask him any questions. Anything else, ask Skins. Skins left, and the band nearly fell apart.
It was Greg who brought in Vanessa, the new found love of his life. Her brother filled in on drums, Pete, until he volunteered for the Peace Corps. They went through drummers like Spinal Tap these days. These days that had been going for fourteen years, when Tainted Batteries billed themselves as Heart Beat, a cover band that you wouldn't feel insecure announcing at a wedding. Just as a side gig, so they practiced all the standards, anything any of them could ever remember hearing at a wedding, but they kept playing their original tunes; Killed by Kind Words, Fishnets and Booze, Chronicles of the Loyal Frontiersman, just to name a few. Ask any of them to remember how those songs went, and only Skins could tell you, probably. Aaron, Doobie and Greg had long since given up hope, had put Tainted Batteries to rest. Vanessa had always added little to their existing repertoire, but had contributed a flagship gem, The Pocket Glove, which they had only played once live before the band became a strict wedding band. Now, each had separate lives and worlds in which they lived. Aaron, Greg, Doobie and Skins had lived for the band. Had lived by the band. Now Greg balanced a career in retail management with a precarious family life, including a fifteen year old daughter in trouble with the law. Aaron was a software engineer and stayed in Heart Beat out of sentiment. Doobie waited tables six nights a week and stocked shelves at a grocery store five days a week.
Doobie kicked in his bass, their drummer (their previous drummer's seventeen year old son who had a knack for rhythm but no dynamic range other than extra loud) started in with the repetitive 'chk-chk-chk-chk' of the hi-hats and the slap of rim knocks. "What are you going to do now, Doob?" Aaron asked, cradling the tambourine behind his back. Doobie began singing. "Left a good job in the city, workin' for the man every night and day..."
Aaron added his low "Rollin'" when required to, the song came to a slow halt, and the drummer did the kick in a way that would have made Skins cringe; too loud, too fast, too sloppy, too predictable. Doobie could hear Skins saying this in his mind. The band jumped in perfectly, the sync-unit that had at one time been Tainted Batteries needing little practice to maintain locked in to each other, and the song got into it's groove. This song kills at a wedding reception.
They always took a break after this song, and while Greg kept an eye on the number of trips their drummer took to the open bar, Aaron, with two open beers in hand, approached Doobie as he sat eating his lukewarm chicken dinner.
"Good set tonight, Joe." He sat down.
"Yeah. I guess." Joe toyed with his chicken, not wanting to starve and not wanting to eat it either.
"Everything alright, man? You're playing well and everything, but your eyes, man...it's like they're looking at something on the other side of the wall." Aaron handed over a bottle, and Joe took it without taking a sip.
"I got a letter from Skins," Joe said.
"Who?" Aaron asked, idly perusing the youngest bridesmaid, easily no older than 19.
"Joe Casmus. Remember, the drummer for Tainted Batteries?"
"Oh, shit, Skins! Wow. I haven't called him that...well, I haven't seen him since he graduated from Berklee or wherever he went."
"Berklee, yeah."
"Yeah. How is he?"
"On tour with Chris Isaak. He says their bass player isn't working out, and that they're coming through Minneapolis in a couple weeks. The fourteenth, I think. He sent me three tickets, wanted me to invite you and Greg."
Aaron mused on this thought. "Don't we have a gig?"
"This is our first gig in two months, man. Look, I know you and Greg are doing alright, but this gig money is pretty much how I keep gas in my car and food in my stomach. I've eaten nothing but Ramen and leftover baked potatoes from the restaurant for the last three weeks. I don't have money to go to concerts, and we don't have gigs to interfere. They're backstage passes and the price is right. Let's go see our old friend."
Aaron gave Joe a hard look. "Why did he tell you the bass player isn't working out?"
"He wants me to try out!"
"Did he say that? In his letter?"
Joe faltered. "Well, no, he didn't...look, it's a longshot but..."
"But nothing, Joe." Onstage he was Doobie, but it had been years since Aaron had used the nickname in public. "Didn't you respond to an ad last year in the City Pages for a musician wanted thing?"
"Yeah," Joe put up his defenses, knew what was coming.
"And didn't you pretty much make a fool of yourself?"
It was true; fourteen years as a wedding band musician had pushed the creativity and flexibility from his fingers. He went to the audition, played a few tunes for the band, was asked to jam and fell into the bass riff for We Are Family. He pushed the thought from his mind with a heavy sip of beer. "I didn't know those guys. I know Joe. It's Skins, man...you remember how it used to be? He and I could just jam for hours, start with one thing, take it in a dozen directions over the course of two hours, and come right back where we started, full blast, no need to review what we had done, and just power through. Man it was...electric. It was...awesome. Dare I say, phenomenal. I should have gone with him, think of the team we'd be today. We'd be...unstoppable!"
Aaron frowned, downed the rest of his beer. Vanessa was already back on stage, beckoning Greg and the drummer from the bar, where Greg was arguing with the bartender to take it easy on the kid. Their break would be over as soon as their CD they had piped into the PA system got through Paradise by the Dashboard Lights. "Do you really think that Joe Casmus, the backing drummer, is going to have that much say about who gets to play bass for Damien Rice."
"Chris Isaak."
"Whoever." The back-and-forth was playing, the speakers announcing that it was long ago and far away and so much better than it is today, and that it never felt so good, it never felt so right. Aaron stood. "Come on, we'd better get back up there."
"Not unless you promise me you'll go to the concert. Come on...he's our friend."
"No. He's our old bandmate. The one that got out and does it for a living. The one we haven't heard from in twelve years, until now that he's able to flaunt it back in his hometown he's going to rub it in our faces." With that, Aaron marched to the stage.
Joe sat there for a few minutes more, while Greg tuned up and the drummer fiddled, playing louder now than he had behind the band. Vanessa was quiet, and Joe knew that if he looked she would be boring holes into his skull with her eyes. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the letter from Skins, the letter he had been carrying for three days, and read the sentence he had underlined.
"I think we're about to fire our bass player, but other than that, the tour is going really well, and I think you should definitely come to the concert when we're playing the Excel Energy Center on July 14th." Joe put the letter back in his pocket and turned to the stage, walking up the short steps and strapping his bass to his body.
"Well gee, Doobie, I thought you weren't coming back there!" Aaron said, and the reception guests laughed politely. The bride and groom were nowhere to be seen, long gone and probably already upstairs in their hotel room. "This one's an important tune," Aaron spoke to the audience now. "Grab somebody special, pull them in close and do what the music tells you." While the people scrambled in pairs to the dance floor, the band prepared to launch themselves once more. Doobie reached into his pocket one last time, and clenched the letter, removing his hand and placing it on his fretboard at the last possible moment before Aaron said what Doobie really wanted to.
"You know you make me wanna SHOUT!"
===
Oh man, that was fun! Let's do it again! Let's do it again!
Actually, I would like to dedicate this to the Best Man at my wedding, Zach Hartwig. We were that rhythm section once, the interlocked bass and drums. And this was kind of a cathartic sort of emotional release. Also, to Will Wilcox, who came closer to making it than any of the rest of us...well, you guys both rock, and I'm glad we got to make some music together. And I'm very glad we didn't turn into Heart Beat.
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
Call For Submissions!
Ahem...I would like to ask my readers to begin contributing for this week's Free Write Fridays.
There seems to be a bit of confusion about this, so let me just explain:
I will post on Wednesdays, usually doing something other than explaining the procedures like I'm doing now...you know, like a "This is how revising works" or a "boy, editors can go screw themselves" or a "Hey, sa-weet, I got an interview at Master File on Tuesday morning, it's sounding promising and like it may work well with my school schedule next semester, tan-fastic!" followed by an explanation, rounding off with a concluding statement, then a PS in which I will ask for suggestions for that week's Free Write Friday.
Understand that at some point I intend to recieve several more than three suggestions per week, and I would like to be able to go to one place to find them, rather than to the comments sections for a couple of different posts for the suggestions.
Basically, what I am saying is, hold your suggestions until I ask for them. It may even come to pass that there will come a week in which I will not be doing a Free Write Friday (I'm looking at the last weekend in June, which may be free of all regular blog features...I'll do a clip show or rerun a classic or something), so don't jump the gun...MOTHER...although I liked your suggestion.
So yes. That is how things work around here, and I apologize, I should have made that more clear.
Hey, Steve from Master File called me today and I've got an interview scheduled for Tuesday Morning. Woot!
Please leave your FWF suggestions on this post.
So Long, and Thanks!
There seems to be a bit of confusion about this, so let me just explain:
I will post on Wednesdays, usually doing something other than explaining the procedures like I'm doing now...you know, like a "This is how revising works" or a "boy, editors can go screw themselves" or a "Hey, sa-weet, I got an interview at Master File on Tuesday morning, it's sounding promising and like it may work well with my school schedule next semester, tan-fastic!" followed by an explanation, rounding off with a concluding statement, then a PS in which I will ask for suggestions for that week's Free Write Friday.
Understand that at some point I intend to recieve several more than three suggestions per week, and I would like to be able to go to one place to find them, rather than to the comments sections for a couple of different posts for the suggestions.
Basically, what I am saying is, hold your suggestions until I ask for them. It may even come to pass that there will come a week in which I will not be doing a Free Write Friday (I'm looking at the last weekend in June, which may be free of all regular blog features...I'll do a clip show or rerun a classic or something), so don't jump the gun...MOTHER...although I liked your suggestion.
So yes. That is how things work around here, and I apologize, I should have made that more clear.
Hey, Steve from Master File called me today and I've got an interview scheduled for Tuesday Morning. Woot!
Please leave your FWF suggestions on this post.
So Long, and Thanks!
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
Tuesday Excerpts
Hello loyal reader(s), and welcome to another edition of Tuesday Excerpts.
Today, I am going to do two things I probably won't do very often on Tuesdays. Instead of posting just an excerpt, I am going to post the whole thing...and instead of posting a work of pure creative writing, I am going to post something I wrote for my media production class.
You may remember my Shoe Thief video...that was made in this class. It also sparked a nice long blog dry spell, so we'll mention it no more. But no, for the class I had to go see one of the Webster University Film Series shows, and since the Schlafly Bottleworks Film series is part of that, that's where I went, and this is what I wrote...and how I got an A.
===
Ladies and Gentlemen: The Rutles!
Having considered myself not the typical American moviegoer for all of my natural life, it is fair to assume that I am among those few (yet yearly growing) folks in this country that doesn’t mind good British humor, especially if that humor is coming from a Monty Python Alum, such as the inscrutable Eric Idle. That having been said, this was my first full, start-to-finish, not-on-Comedy-Central viewing of his Mockumentary The Rutles: All You Need is Cash. I’m not proud.
But the lure of the best beer (yes, the BEST BEER) brewed in St. Louis was more than enough to get me out to the Schlafly Bottleworks Wednesday, February 7th to attend the Strange Brew: Cult Films festival. Originally tempted by beer and the MacKenzie Brothers, I was not disappointed.
The approach used for The Rutles is a distinctive dry British take on the documentary genre. While the basic idea behind such similar films as This Is Spinal Tap! and A Mighty Wind has been to make fun on the screen but not fun of the screen, within the first five minutes Eric Idle is chasing his cameraman down the street while still delivering the back story of the film’s ultimately ill-fated heroes. From the deadpan interjections of Idle as the narrator to the eerily familiar mockery of The Beatles’ rise and fall, the film is ultimately more serious and sillier than anything else like it.
Interspersed amongst these fabricated antics are included several pieces of archival footage, most notably of Ed Sullivan announcing The Beatles as they appeared on his television program for the first time; however (and this is where we have to remember that this film was produced in 1978 and not 2007) an awful job is done overdubbing “The Rutles” over “The Beatles.” Another problem with this use of archival footage is the continuity; we are led to believe that the shots of fan reaction (taken from Beatles concerts) and the shots of the band performing (Idle again, playing the Paul McCartney figure known as Dirk McQuickly along with fellow fake-band mates) are to be continuous, but the quality of film is noticeably incongruent. Idle had this cleaned up by the supposed 1965 footage of the Rutles concert at “Che” Stadium (the name of which the narrator attributes to the famous South American revolutionary Che Stadium), which uses footage from the Beatles Shea Stadium performance of the same year.
There is not much technically fancy to look at in this film; it was produced for the small screen, and truly all that works on the big screen are the jokes. Still, as we all know who The Beatles are, I now know who The Rutles were. Fans of The Beatles were, it seems, dismayed at this film when it was first released. The songs performed by The Rutles are fraternal twins to songs we all know by The Beatles, and the story arc of their rise and fall is a hilarious send-up: The Rutles were signed because they wore tight trousers, got in trouble for claiming to be better than God (McQuickly insists he meant Rod Stewart, who would not become popular for nearly ten years after the supposed remark), excessive Tea use and personal and creative tensions within the band, thrown into conflict by the sudden and unexpected removal of their manager to a teaching position in Australia (bigger than Jesus? Drug use? Manager suicide?). I do not think the filmmakers had any ill intent, but rather with their treatment of the story they seem to pay homage to The Beatles.
Cameos included Mick Jagger speaking of how bad The Rutles were and how much he wished his band were as big as they were and Paul Simon discussing how he was influenced by The Rutles (meaning, how he used to get stoned and listen to “Sgt. Rutter’s Only Darts Club Band”).
It’s a good enough film for sitting around and drinking a few beers on a Wednesday night. It may not have the draw for an American audience that a film like This is Spinal Tap or even Stuck on You for that matter because the humor is just different, but I found it satisfying. Or maybe that was just the beer.
===
A metaphor is like a simile. -Author Unknown
Today, I am going to do two things I probably won't do very often on Tuesdays. Instead of posting just an excerpt, I am going to post the whole thing...and instead of posting a work of pure creative writing, I am going to post something I wrote for my media production class.
You may remember my Shoe Thief video...that was made in this class. It also sparked a nice long blog dry spell, so we'll mention it no more. But no, for the class I had to go see one of the Webster University Film Series shows, and since the Schlafly Bottleworks Film series is part of that, that's where I went, and this is what I wrote...and how I got an A.
===
Ladies and Gentlemen: The Rutles!
Having considered myself not the typical American moviegoer for all of my natural life, it is fair to assume that I am among those few (yet yearly growing) folks in this country that doesn’t mind good British humor, especially if that humor is coming from a Monty Python Alum, such as the inscrutable Eric Idle. That having been said, this was my first full, start-to-finish, not-on-Comedy-Central viewing of his Mockumentary The Rutles: All You Need is Cash. I’m not proud.
But the lure of the best beer (yes, the BEST BEER) brewed in St. Louis was more than enough to get me out to the Schlafly Bottleworks Wednesday, February 7th to attend the Strange Brew: Cult Films festival. Originally tempted by beer and the MacKenzie Brothers, I was not disappointed.
The approach used for The Rutles is a distinctive dry British take on the documentary genre. While the basic idea behind such similar films as This Is Spinal Tap! and A Mighty Wind has been to make fun on the screen but not fun of the screen, within the first five minutes Eric Idle is chasing his cameraman down the street while still delivering the back story of the film’s ultimately ill-fated heroes. From the deadpan interjections of Idle as the narrator to the eerily familiar mockery of The Beatles’ rise and fall, the film is ultimately more serious and sillier than anything else like it.
Interspersed amongst these fabricated antics are included several pieces of archival footage, most notably of Ed Sullivan announcing The Beatles as they appeared on his television program for the first time; however (and this is where we have to remember that this film was produced in 1978 and not 2007) an awful job is done overdubbing “The Rutles” over “The Beatles.” Another problem with this use of archival footage is the continuity; we are led to believe that the shots of fan reaction (taken from Beatles concerts) and the shots of the band performing (Idle again, playing the Paul McCartney figure known as Dirk McQuickly along with fellow fake-band mates) are to be continuous, but the quality of film is noticeably incongruent. Idle had this cleaned up by the supposed 1965 footage of the Rutles concert at “Che” Stadium (the name of which the narrator attributes to the famous South American revolutionary Che Stadium), which uses footage from the Beatles Shea Stadium performance of the same year.
There is not much technically fancy to look at in this film; it was produced for the small screen, and truly all that works on the big screen are the jokes. Still, as we all know who The Beatles are, I now know who The Rutles were. Fans of The Beatles were, it seems, dismayed at this film when it was first released. The songs performed by The Rutles are fraternal twins to songs we all know by The Beatles, and the story arc of their rise and fall is a hilarious send-up: The Rutles were signed because they wore tight trousers, got in trouble for claiming to be better than God (McQuickly insists he meant Rod Stewart, who would not become popular for nearly ten years after the supposed remark), excessive Tea use and personal and creative tensions within the band, thrown into conflict by the sudden and unexpected removal of their manager to a teaching position in Australia (bigger than Jesus? Drug use? Manager suicide?). I do not think the filmmakers had any ill intent, but rather with their treatment of the story they seem to pay homage to The Beatles.
Cameos included Mick Jagger speaking of how bad The Rutles were and how much he wished his band were as big as they were and Paul Simon discussing how he was influenced by The Rutles (meaning, how he used to get stoned and listen to “Sgt. Rutter’s Only Darts Club Band”).
It’s a good enough film for sitting around and drinking a few beers on a Wednesday night. It may not have the draw for an American audience that a film like This is Spinal Tap or even Stuck on You for that matter because the humor is just different, but I found it satisfying. Or maybe that was just the beer.
===
A metaphor is like a simile. -Author Unknown
Monday, June 04, 2007
Teach Him To Play Monopoly, Not to Sing In The Rain: or; I Run, I Run So Far Away, I Run, I Run Both Night And Day
So the second title for today's blog is the more pertinent to the topic, but I am currently listening to Thick As a Brick by Jethro Tull (not the Agricultural Revolutionary but the Flute Rock Band) and I knew my mother would be more apt to read this if she recognized the enigmatic lyric.
No, really, I ran. Yesterday, I mean. For those of you who have kept up with me (or have spent any amount of time with me at all), you know that I don't so much run as I Ride My Bicycle. But yesterday was a fluke (not to be confused with a flute, see Jethro Tull above).
I work overnight every other Saturday, superficially to set the ad signs but pragmatically to earn an extra dollar per hour for an 8+ hour shift. It's a trade-off...I can work for a dollar extra during a shift without people shopping in the store, but I have to stay up all night to do it. Anyway, so, worked overnight, came home and slept for a few hours, then finally Kathy got me up out of bed and out the door to do some shopping...you know, the boring, every day kind, the "Hey, I'm out of deoderant and razor blades and also I think we need a new furnace filter" variety of shopping. The standard kind of shopping that becomes routine when you settle down, get married, buy a house, and decide you can't go spend money on things like a new car or a dozen DVDs in one fell swoop.
When we were done shopping, we had almost two hours before dinner with my parents, a weekly Sunday tradition. So what did we do? Nap? Shave and make ourselves smell good? Nope. Kathy wanted to do something active, and I felt lethargic enough to agree, so we were going to go for a walk along Grant's Trail. Well, except, Kathy threw on her rollerblades. I do not have any of those, and putting the bike rack on my car would have been a lengthier process than normal because I haven't actually sized it to fit on the Jetta, especially since we bought those dozen movies last weekend and have spent all our free time watching those.
So, instead, I jumped into a pair of running shorts, white tee, and the closest thing to running shoes I have. And I ran a mile.
Today, I have a dull pain in my right shin, and my Osgood Schlatter's in my knees feels like it never went away...but other than that, hell, I ran a mile! You know when the last time I ran a mile was? 9th grade, when I did that four hour workout for the track team before going to New Orleans. And when I got to N'Awlins, I couldn't hardly walk around the French Quarter because my knees hurt so bad. That's when I found out I had Osgood Schlatters, and also just about the time I decided riding a bike was more my thing.
But the fact remains that I ran, and that is something those who have known me for a long time will find shocking. My bike, sitting in my garage collecting dust, while I am yet out doing something active. Wha?
Thanks to Melissa and Molly for their F.W.F. suggestions. I'll ask for new ones Wednesday or Thursday and I hope I just get more and more. This blog is actually starting to take off!
I should think of some unique way to sign off my blog every day. You know, like Edward Murrow's "Good Night, and Good Luck," or "From New York, I'm Tom Brokaw," or "Stay Tuned for Last Call With Carson Daly Bye Everybody BYE!"
Yeah. Something cool.
No, really, I ran. Yesterday, I mean. For those of you who have kept up with me (or have spent any amount of time with me at all), you know that I don't so much run as I Ride My Bicycle. But yesterday was a fluke (not to be confused with a flute, see Jethro Tull above).
I work overnight every other Saturday, superficially to set the ad signs but pragmatically to earn an extra dollar per hour for an 8+ hour shift. It's a trade-off...I can work for a dollar extra during a shift without people shopping in the store, but I have to stay up all night to do it. Anyway, so, worked overnight, came home and slept for a few hours, then finally Kathy got me up out of bed and out the door to do some shopping...you know, the boring, every day kind, the "Hey, I'm out of deoderant and razor blades and also I think we need a new furnace filter" variety of shopping. The standard kind of shopping that becomes routine when you settle down, get married, buy a house, and decide you can't go spend money on things like a new car or a dozen DVDs in one fell swoop.
When we were done shopping, we had almost two hours before dinner with my parents, a weekly Sunday tradition. So what did we do? Nap? Shave and make ourselves smell good? Nope. Kathy wanted to do something active, and I felt lethargic enough to agree, so we were going to go for a walk along Grant's Trail. Well, except, Kathy threw on her rollerblades. I do not have any of those, and putting the bike rack on my car would have been a lengthier process than normal because I haven't actually sized it to fit on the Jetta, especially since we bought those dozen movies last weekend and have spent all our free time watching those.
So, instead, I jumped into a pair of running shorts, white tee, and the closest thing to running shoes I have. And I ran a mile.
Today, I have a dull pain in my right shin, and my Osgood Schlatter's in my knees feels like it never went away...but other than that, hell, I ran a mile! You know when the last time I ran a mile was? 9th grade, when I did that four hour workout for the track team before going to New Orleans. And when I got to N'Awlins, I couldn't hardly walk around the French Quarter because my knees hurt so bad. That's when I found out I had Osgood Schlatters, and also just about the time I decided riding a bike was more my thing.
But the fact remains that I ran, and that is something those who have known me for a long time will find shocking. My bike, sitting in my garage collecting dust, while I am yet out doing something active. Wha?
Thanks to Melissa and Molly for their F.W.F. suggestions. I'll ask for new ones Wednesday or Thursday and I hope I just get more and more. This blog is actually starting to take off!
I should think of some unique way to sign off my blog every day. You know, like Edward Murrow's "Good Night, and Good Luck," or "From New York, I'm Tom Brokaw," or "Stay Tuned for Last Call With Carson Daly Bye Everybody BYE!"
Yeah. Something cool.
Friday, June 01, 2007
Free-Write Fridays
Alright. Keep in mind this is my first try...and while Melissa's suggestion was exactly what I was looking for, my mother's suggestions were either humiliatingly useless because I already used it for real, or intensely grotesque (can any one say "Psychic Stick?"), so, having been rattled by that one, I'm going to attempt my first Free Write Friday. Maybe some day I will come up with a prize for if I pick your suggestion. Like, I'll help you load an old softlines rack into your Saturn. That sounds like a good prize for this week.
This week's winning suggestion comes from Melissa:
Short story, an older man, is afraid (I'll let your creativity come up with a reason why!) of his Nintendo Funbox.
Melissa wins the aforementioned help loading a softlines rack into a Saturn Vue.
===
June 2007
It sat there, this little white rectangular wedge, and it perturbed him to no end. It wasn't that he was afraid of technology; not by a long shot. Even at 70, Pat McGinley was no stranger to the modern world. In an era when his grandkids were teaching his own kids how to work their PCs, he was upgrading hardware and software for the software at City Hall. He was an alderman, had been for years, and had noticed in the last two decades that as his peers moved to Florida, into homes or died out, they were replaced by younger people, not unlike he had replaced some old town elder, been on the cutting edge. He was the first on his block to own a color television, and he continued the trend long after his beloved Margaret died of cancer; he was the first to throw out his old analog television for a brand new Sony Hi-def.
No, it wasn't the technology that scared him. Nor was it the price; had he not shelled out over $2000 for the new Xbox 360 just a year before, buying one each for his children and one for himself so the grandkids had something to do when they visited? The week before, he had debated dropping a considerably larger sum on the PS3, but the man at the counter had advised him to wait.
"Come back when we launch the Nintendo," the loud youth with a buzz cut had said. "That's the one you want. I mean, the PS3 is impressive, and the graphics are a sight better than the old PS2, and even tweaked a bit over the 360, but the gameplay hasn't changed since the days of the N64, really."
"Or the Sega Saturn," Pat added, wanting to show that here was no meer old codger; here was a man who knew what it was like. His guilty pleasures had always included an engrossing foray into video gaming since the days of the Atari. Even now, his favorite thing to do after Church on a Sunday was to rip through a couple levels of Grand Theft Auto to blow off some steam.
"But the Wii," continued the clerk at the electronics counter, "is going to revolutionize the way games are played." He went on to explain the innovative new controllers, the ever present online connection, the ability to play your existing Gamecube library (Pat's granddaughter Abby loved Mario Party 6), the capability to download and play games from every Nintendo and Sega system since the NES. This pushed Pat over the brink; his Genesis had broken and he dearly missed Toejam and Earl. He thanked the man and found himself waiting overnight in front of a retailer just to buy this small, innovative device, purchased extra remotes and enough nunchuck attachments, a Wii points card and four classic controllers. He told himself he would not buy them for his grandchildren, yet. They hadn't yet gotten a full year out of the last system he gave them; no, this would be something for him, a novelty to entice his grandchildren, to make them plead, "Mommy, Daddy...let's go to Grandpa's, please?"
He had connected it, he had iserted the provided free game, and had started to play it when something started to nag at him. The people depicted on the screen, the way they were mere triangles stacked on top of each other, with bland, angular features; it wasn't the drop in quality that bothered him. He had seen the video game evolve from Pong to Gears of War and everything in between, but the people in the Wii Sports game started haunting his nightmares more than Mr. Blinky, Bowser or Covenant Death Squads ever could. He woke up in cold sweats, fearing the triangular wrath of his bowling avatar. He just couldn't get the hang of it. His golf skills, which he hadn't used on a real golf course since the release of the Sega Dreamcast, couldn't transfer to the Wii. In high school he had once bowled back-to-back 300 games, but with the remote in his hand he couldn't break 40. It consumed his days. It began to consume his nights.
When his family found him, passed out and dehydrated after four days without having seen hide nor hair of him, they took him to the home, or Florida, or buried him, and into his house moved another family, brash, young, lives stretching out ahead of them...a man and a woman and their six year old girl, all of whom could bowl perfect back-to-back 300 games with a remote in their hand.
===
Alright, that felt good. Not gonna lie. Take that, Nintendo!
...now, somebody buy me a Wii.
Also...I updated my cycling blog for the first time in forever. It's a puny update, really...but puny is exactly how I feel about cycling right now.
This week's winning suggestion comes from Melissa:
Short story, an older man, is afraid (I'll let your creativity come up with a reason why!) of his Nintendo Funbox.
Melissa wins the aforementioned help loading a softlines rack into a Saturn Vue.
===
June 2007
It sat there, this little white rectangular wedge, and it perturbed him to no end. It wasn't that he was afraid of technology; not by a long shot. Even at 70, Pat McGinley was no stranger to the modern world. In an era when his grandkids were teaching his own kids how to work their PCs, he was upgrading hardware and software for the software at City Hall. He was an alderman, had been for years, and had noticed in the last two decades that as his peers moved to Florida, into homes or died out, they were replaced by younger people, not unlike he had replaced some old town elder, been on the cutting edge. He was the first on his block to own a color television, and he continued the trend long after his beloved Margaret died of cancer; he was the first to throw out his old analog television for a brand new Sony Hi-def.
No, it wasn't the technology that scared him. Nor was it the price; had he not shelled out over $2000 for the new Xbox 360 just a year before, buying one each for his children and one for himself so the grandkids had something to do when they visited? The week before, he had debated dropping a considerably larger sum on the PS3, but the man at the counter had advised him to wait.
"Come back when we launch the Nintendo," the loud youth with a buzz cut had said. "That's the one you want. I mean, the PS3 is impressive, and the graphics are a sight better than the old PS2, and even tweaked a bit over the 360, but the gameplay hasn't changed since the days of the N64, really."
"Or the Sega Saturn," Pat added, wanting to show that here was no meer old codger; here was a man who knew what it was like. His guilty pleasures had always included an engrossing foray into video gaming since the days of the Atari. Even now, his favorite thing to do after Church on a Sunday was to rip through a couple levels of Grand Theft Auto to blow off some steam.
"But the Wii," continued the clerk at the electronics counter, "is going to revolutionize the way games are played." He went on to explain the innovative new controllers, the ever present online connection, the ability to play your existing Gamecube library (Pat's granddaughter Abby loved Mario Party 6), the capability to download and play games from every Nintendo and Sega system since the NES. This pushed Pat over the brink; his Genesis had broken and he dearly missed Toejam and Earl. He thanked the man and found himself waiting overnight in front of a retailer just to buy this small, innovative device, purchased extra remotes and enough nunchuck attachments, a Wii points card and four classic controllers. He told himself he would not buy them for his grandchildren, yet. They hadn't yet gotten a full year out of the last system he gave them; no, this would be something for him, a novelty to entice his grandchildren, to make them plead, "Mommy, Daddy...let's go to Grandpa's, please?"
He had connected it, he had iserted the provided free game, and had started to play it when something started to nag at him. The people depicted on the screen, the way they were mere triangles stacked on top of each other, with bland, angular features; it wasn't the drop in quality that bothered him. He had seen the video game evolve from Pong to Gears of War and everything in between, but the people in the Wii Sports game started haunting his nightmares more than Mr. Blinky, Bowser or Covenant Death Squads ever could. He woke up in cold sweats, fearing the triangular wrath of his bowling avatar. He just couldn't get the hang of it. His golf skills, which he hadn't used on a real golf course since the release of the Sega Dreamcast, couldn't transfer to the Wii. In high school he had once bowled back-to-back 300 games, but with the remote in his hand he couldn't break 40. It consumed his days. It began to consume his nights.
When his family found him, passed out and dehydrated after four days without having seen hide nor hair of him, they took him to the home, or Florida, or buried him, and into his house moved another family, brash, young, lives stretching out ahead of them...a man and a woman and their six year old girl, all of whom could bowl perfect back-to-back 300 games with a remote in their hand.
===
Alright, that felt good. Not gonna lie. Take that, Nintendo!
...now, somebody buy me a Wii.
Also...I updated my cycling blog for the first time in forever. It's a puny update, really...but puny is exactly how I feel about cycling right now.
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
An Update on Some Things and a Preview of a Couple New Features!
Well, Friday I e-mailed the president of Master File St. Louis, which as far as I can tell is a legal document service based in Clayton. They need a person to do a bit of research and deliver court documents, and yesterday he e-mailed me back and today I sent him my resume. Check it out! I said I would look for a new job and I'm on it! Go me! Granted, I still have not gotten a new job, nor have I rode my bicycle once since that last [20] time[s] I said I would, but it's only been a [few dozen] week[s] so I don't feel too bad.
I feel just a little uneasy about having sent him an e-mail telling him how detail oriented I can be, then thirty seconds later having to send him another one because I forgot to attach my resume like I said I was going to. Oops. And yes, I am aware of how ironic that was, please stop pointing it out.
Alright, so, from now on I will announce on my blog when I start reading a new book I haven't read before, and the first weekend after I finish it, I will post a review. This is just a way of keeping myself reading as well as flexing my undeveloped and rusty journalism skills. Or, Skeelz, as some people call them. I still call them skills, though.
Another feature I would like to add, though I am not sure how this will work, is something I would like to call Free Write Fridays. I think what I'll do is at some time during the week, I will call for suggestions, and readers can post suggestions as comments on that post. Then, on Friday, I will select one of those suggestions and do a half hour to hour long freewrite right into the blog. We'll see how that works out. So, I'll go ahead and call for the first suggestions for Free Write Fridays!
Some guidelines:
Your suggestions should consist of three parts; type of writing, one character, and a situation. For instance:
Short story, Bob Jones, Lost his wedding ring.
...or...
Play, a UPS delivery man, a suburban hostage situation
...or...
Film script, BBQ master Bobby Slay, getting his ass handed to him by Iron Chef Japanese Masaharu Morimoto
Something along those lines. Okay. suggestion box is opened. And...GO!
I feel just a little uneasy about having sent him an e-mail telling him how detail oriented I can be, then thirty seconds later having to send him another one because I forgot to attach my resume like I said I was going to. Oops. And yes, I am aware of how ironic that was, please stop pointing it out.
Alright, so, from now on I will announce on my blog when I start reading a new book I haven't read before, and the first weekend after I finish it, I will post a review. This is just a way of keeping myself reading as well as flexing my undeveloped and rusty journalism skills. Or, Skeelz, as some people call them. I still call them skills, though.
Another feature I would like to add, though I am not sure how this will work, is something I would like to call Free Write Fridays. I think what I'll do is at some time during the week, I will call for suggestions, and readers can post suggestions as comments on that post. Then, on Friday, I will select one of those suggestions and do a half hour to hour long freewrite right into the blog. We'll see how that works out. So, I'll go ahead and call for the first suggestions for Free Write Fridays!
Some guidelines:
Your suggestions should consist of three parts; type of writing, one character, and a situation. For instance:
Short story, Bob Jones, Lost his wedding ring.
...or...
Play, a UPS delivery man, a suburban hostage situation
...or...
Film script, BBQ master Bobby Slay, getting his ass handed to him by Iron Chef Japanese Masaharu Morimoto
Something along those lines. Okay. suggestion box is opened. And...GO!
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Tuesday Excerpts
I had this bizarre dream last night, that I was at a modern art gallery/mall with two guys from my playwriting class, and that we were there meeting with the devil and an ambassador of heaven to discuss terms of selling our souls for success as writers. The devil was willing to give us everything on our list but, obviously, he wanted to take our souls into hell for all eternity. God, it seems, was willing to offer us eternal salvation but little else on our list of demands, so we left without committing to either offer. Odd, I know...partly it's because I was sleeping on my back (due to Acrodyl lying across my stomach) and when I sleep on my back I always have either really strange or really scary dreams. This falls into the strange category. Anyway, I wrote a thirteen page play dialogue, and it's really rough and terribly unfinished at the moment, but nevertheless, I am giving you the opening as today's Tuesday Excerpt.
===
from an Untitled Play, may 2007
PAT, 21, wearing a corduroy jacket, button up white shirt un-tucked and jeans
JOHN, 22, wearing jeans and a Van Halen tee shirt, carries a pen and small notebook in his pocket
ELLIOT, 24, wearing jeans and a black sweater over a pink button down shirt, carries a messenger bag and an open box of chocolates
BUB, the devil
VOG, the Voice of God
Scene opens in a modern art gallery attached to a busy pedestrian mall. Three young men stand alone in the gallery, staring idly at a strangely grotesque sculpture depicting nothing in particular but doing so with definite human forms.
PAT
(glancing at his watch)
When did he say he’d be here?
JOHN
I don’t know, five or so?
PAT
Well it’s almost five thirty now, where the hell is he?
ELLIOT
(picking a chocolate from a Whitman’s Sampler box)
Ha. Good one, Pat.
(John and Pat look at him)
Chocolates?
(offers the box)
PAT
(taking one)
Sure, thanks Elliot.
(pops it into his mouth)
These are damn good. I wonder where he got them?
JOHN
Knowing him, he probably stole them from Straubs.
ELLIOT
He probably gets them for free. Big, influential guy like him. He probably is responsible for the success of the Whitman’s Sampler. He probably came up with the idea of the chocolate box map.
PAT
Now you mention it, probably.
(silence)
This was kind of a strange place to want to meet us, huh?
JOHN
Well, yeah, but don’t let it get to you. I mean, you know why he did it, right? To intimidate us. It’s the kind of thing I would do.
(fond smile)
So like him.
PAT
Hey, John; did you hear Ace of Bass might reuinite?
JOHN
(distracted from his reverie)
So?
PAT
(put off)
I thought you liked them.
JOHN
Just a play, Patrick. Just a play.
PAT
But your title was “This Really Happened.”
ELLIOT
Well, only you and I actually wrote plays that actually happened. And you peed your pants.
PAT
(checking his jeans)
Again?
(silence from both John and Elliot)
JOHN
(closing his eyes in obvious pain)
No, in your play.
ELLIOT
Brilliant.
(enter Bub, unseen by our three heroes)
PAT
(relieved)
Oh, thank God!
BUB
God? God, did you say?
(the three heroes jump, startled, Pat checks the front of his jeans again)
What has God got to do with anything tonight? Surely you don’t intend on letting Him know you’re meeting me?
PAT
Don’t sneak up on a brother like that, Bub!
JOHN
Yeah, that was pretty low and sneaky. And you’re about forty minutes late.
ELLIOT
But thanks for the chocolates.
(lifts up the tray)
I mean...you’ve got to have had something to do with this...there’s a whole other layer of ‘em down here! Nobody came up with that on their own.
BUB
Thank you, yes, that was me. Unfortunately, you know, when other companies caught on, there was no legal recourse for me to stop them from using my ideas...nothing I could do to reap any of their benefit. No, I’m afraid the only person I collected from on that one was my original partner...which is why I started enlisting every lawyer that came across my doorstep to help draft my contracts. Now...gentlemen, shall we get down to business? I’ve rather a busy schedule this evening.
ELLIOT
Contracts, yeah, that’s just what we wanted to talk about. Look, I understand the whole idea and everything, right?
(looks to his friends)
JOHN
Oh, yeah, quite simple in theory, we want success and fortune and only a little bit of fame-
PAT
Don’t forget the women, John. Can’t forget the women.
(wistful look in his eyes)
All the women we could want.
ELLIOT
(impatient)
Hear hear...
JOHN
-and the women, and we get all that in return for our eternal souls, right. But, there’s just a couple of concerns.
ELLIOT
Let’s talk terms and conditions.
JOHN
Let’s talk a service plan.
PAT
Full coverage, like they got on all the new Hyundais.
JOHN
Only way more than one hundred thousand miles.
ELLIOT
Or ten years.
BUB
My friends-
ELLIOT
Just listen, you want our souls or not?
BUB
Of course, but I don’t think you’re really in a position to-
JOHN
To what? Bargain? Like you’re the only person in all of Heaven and Earth interested in collecting souls?
BUB
Well...actually, all of the people in all of Heaven and Earth doesn’t really include me, does it?
PAT
Wait...let me...
(thinks about that one)
My brain hurts.
ELLIOT
Chocolates?
(offers box to Pat)
PAT
Are there any Orange Cremes left?
(takes box, roots around)
===
And there you have it.
Substitute "damn" every time you're inclined to write "very;" your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be. -Mark Twain
===
from an Untitled Play, may 2007
PAT, 21, wearing a corduroy jacket, button up white shirt un-tucked and jeans
JOHN, 22, wearing jeans and a Van Halen tee shirt, carries a pen and small notebook in his pocket
ELLIOT, 24, wearing jeans and a black sweater over a pink button down shirt, carries a messenger bag and an open box of chocolates
BUB, the devil
VOG, the Voice of God
Scene opens in a modern art gallery attached to a busy pedestrian mall. Three young men stand alone in the gallery, staring idly at a strangely grotesque sculpture depicting nothing in particular but doing so with definite human forms.
PAT
(glancing at his watch)
When did he say he’d be here?
JOHN
I don’t know, five or so?
PAT
Well it’s almost five thirty now, where the hell is he?
ELLIOT
(picking a chocolate from a Whitman’s Sampler box)
Ha. Good one, Pat.
(John and Pat look at him)
Chocolates?
(offers the box)
PAT
(taking one)
Sure, thanks Elliot.
(pops it into his mouth)
These are damn good. I wonder where he got them?
JOHN
Knowing him, he probably stole them from Straubs.
ELLIOT
He probably gets them for free. Big, influential guy like him. He probably is responsible for the success of the Whitman’s Sampler. He probably came up with the idea of the chocolate box map.
PAT
Now you mention it, probably.
(silence)
This was kind of a strange place to want to meet us, huh?
JOHN
Well, yeah, but don’t let it get to you. I mean, you know why he did it, right? To intimidate us. It’s the kind of thing I would do.
(fond smile)
So like him.
PAT
Hey, John; did you hear Ace of Bass might reuinite?
JOHN
(distracted from his reverie)
So?
PAT
(put off)
I thought you liked them.
JOHN
Just a play, Patrick. Just a play.
PAT
But your title was “This Really Happened.”
ELLIOT
Well, only you and I actually wrote plays that actually happened. And you peed your pants.
PAT
(checking his jeans)
Again?
(silence from both John and Elliot)
JOHN
(closing his eyes in obvious pain)
No, in your play.
ELLIOT
Brilliant.
(enter Bub, unseen by our three heroes)
PAT
(relieved)
Oh, thank God!
BUB
God? God, did you say?
(the three heroes jump, startled, Pat checks the front of his jeans again)
What has God got to do with anything tonight? Surely you don’t intend on letting Him know you’re meeting me?
PAT
Don’t sneak up on a brother like that, Bub!
JOHN
Yeah, that was pretty low and sneaky. And you’re about forty minutes late.
ELLIOT
But thanks for the chocolates.
(lifts up the tray)
I mean...you’ve got to have had something to do with this...there’s a whole other layer of ‘em down here! Nobody came up with that on their own.
BUB
Thank you, yes, that was me. Unfortunately, you know, when other companies caught on, there was no legal recourse for me to stop them from using my ideas...nothing I could do to reap any of their benefit. No, I’m afraid the only person I collected from on that one was my original partner...which is why I started enlisting every lawyer that came across my doorstep to help draft my contracts. Now...gentlemen, shall we get down to business? I’ve rather a busy schedule this evening.
ELLIOT
Contracts, yeah, that’s just what we wanted to talk about. Look, I understand the whole idea and everything, right?
(looks to his friends)
JOHN
Oh, yeah, quite simple in theory, we want success and fortune and only a little bit of fame-
PAT
Don’t forget the women, John. Can’t forget the women.
(wistful look in his eyes)
All the women we could want.
ELLIOT
(impatient)
Hear hear...
JOHN
-and the women, and we get all that in return for our eternal souls, right. But, there’s just a couple of concerns.
ELLIOT
Let’s talk terms and conditions.
JOHN
Let’s talk a service plan.
PAT
Full coverage, like they got on all the new Hyundais.
JOHN
Only way more than one hundred thousand miles.
ELLIOT
Or ten years.
BUB
My friends-
ELLIOT
Just listen, you want our souls or not?
BUB
Of course, but I don’t think you’re really in a position to-
JOHN
To what? Bargain? Like you’re the only person in all of Heaven and Earth interested in collecting souls?
BUB
Well...actually, all of the people in all of Heaven and Earth doesn’t really include me, does it?
PAT
Wait...let me...
(thinks about that one)
My brain hurts.
ELLIOT
Chocolates?
(offers box to Pat)
PAT
Are there any Orange Cremes left?
(takes box, roots around)
===
And there you have it.
Substitute "damn" every time you're inclined to write "very;" your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be. -Mark Twain
Thursday, May 24, 2007
I Am Also Not a Chef
But I really mean it. I am not a chef, I'm just kind of a cooking enthusiast. It should say something that my favorite television shows are Arrested Development, Boston Legal, The Simpsons, M*A*S*H and Iron Chef (the original, not Iron Chef America). All these funny, sometimes poignant shows with great writing, great character development, great gags, and...Iron Chef. A cooking competition.
Actually, right now, I am cooking. Well, not right now, really, but I am getting ready to. I'm melting butter to make a cream sauce. But that's not what's important. What's really important is my most favorite room in the house.
It could be the downstairs room, where all the books, and movies are, and the television, and the ping-pong table we never use, and the desk where the desktop computer sits. But it's not. If my favorite room revolved around the computer, my favorite room would change because I am sitting in the dining room writing this, while yesterday's was written from the living room couch, and the previous one from the comfort of my bed. Laptops and wireless internet are two great inventions.
Nor is it the dining room or the bedroom, and not the upstairs living room. Not the guest bedroom either, though the new hardwood floors look great. It is quite definitely not the bathroom. It's not the laundry room, empty/drum/litterbox room, or the garage where I keep my bike.
It's the kitchen. My friend Jenn tells me it's a yuppy kitchen. I call it classic. From the black and white checkered floor to the checkered splashback tile, the glass block window...mm. I love it. Because I love to cook. Which is why today's post is ending so abruptly; butter is melted and cream sauce is waiting to be made.
Discussed in this post:
Actually, right now, I am cooking. Well, not right now, really, but I am getting ready to. I'm melting butter to make a cream sauce. But that's not what's important. What's really important is my most favorite room in the house.
It could be the downstairs room, where all the books, and movies are, and the television, and the ping-pong table we never use, and the desk where the desktop computer sits. But it's not. If my favorite room revolved around the computer, my favorite room would change because I am sitting in the dining room writing this, while yesterday's was written from the living room couch, and the previous one from the comfort of my bed. Laptops and wireless internet are two great inventions.
Nor is it the dining room or the bedroom, and not the upstairs living room. Not the guest bedroom either, though the new hardwood floors look great. It is quite definitely not the bathroom. It's not the laundry room, empty/drum/litterbox room, or the garage where I keep my bike.
It's the kitchen. My friend Jenn tells me it's a yuppy kitchen. I call it classic. From the black and white checkered floor to the checkered splashback tile, the glass block window...mm. I love it. Because I love to cook. Which is why today's post is ending so abruptly; butter is melted and cream sauce is waiting to be made.
Discussed in this post:
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Revising
It has been said that writing is easy, but that rewriting is hard. This is true.
One of the tricks I've picked up actually has roots in one of the problems I encountered in my writing process.
When I would sit down to write something, it would flow out of me. Words would literally rush from my pen (or fingertips if I was typing), faster than I could even think of what was going on the page. That's how I'd get a rough draft, then a real first draft would come when I'd read it through and make sure it was coherent. It was on the next revision that the problem came in.
When a sentence is sitting there on your computer screen, and you see something wrong with it, it is very easy to delete the problem and correct it. This is the marvel of modern technology. As Martha Stewart would say (if she were a prolific writer), it's a good thing.
But actually, it's not. And here is why. When you start revising like that, a story (or a play, screenplay, novel, even an academic paper of some kind) can take on a choppy sort of a feeling. It's tantamount to a film director shooting the entire film and taking the worst scenes and reshooting them to make the best scenes. The problem arises in the difference in calibre from one section to another. You have, in essence, draft 1.5 instead of draft 2. How does one avoid this pitfall? Actually, I hated the suggestion the first time I heard it. But then I was stuck revising my short story "Momentum" and as a last ditch effort, acted on the suggestion. The suggestion itself? Well...
Take your most current draft and print out a fresh copy of it. Have this copy and any other copies you or any of your peers may have made notations on (I highly reccommend workshopping anyway, for any work of creative writing, because it helps you see and hear your work through another person's eyes and ears), and lay all of them out in front of you. Maybe not all of them...but the ones with the most helpful comments (which does not always include any comments you yourself have made). Open a fresh document (load a fresh sheet in the typewriter/get a fresh pen and some looseleaf (does anybody actually do that anymore (wait, I write in a notebook all the time))), and start writing again from the top. Make the changes as you go. In this way, the revision becomes not just a revision but a rewrite, in both the abstract and physical way. This forces you to iron out any complications that may arise before a problem that add to it, in addition to helping you find any problems you may have otherwise missed by just dropping in and fixing those you saw as glaring.
This isn't always the most time-efficient method of rewriting, but the result is worth the patience. Who knew Mothers were right when they said things like, "Patience is a virtue"? Of course, in some cases, this message came mixed with the image of the mother tearing into a package of Pinwheel cookies on the way home from the grocery store when all you wanted was a handful of Cheez-Its to tide you over until lunch.
And sometimes, you really wish you could rewrite something before somebody reads it.
One of the tricks I've picked up actually has roots in one of the problems I encountered in my writing process.
When I would sit down to write something, it would flow out of me. Words would literally rush from my pen (or fingertips if I was typing), faster than I could even think of what was going on the page. That's how I'd get a rough draft, then a real first draft would come when I'd read it through and make sure it was coherent. It was on the next revision that the problem came in.
When a sentence is sitting there on your computer screen, and you see something wrong with it, it is very easy to delete the problem and correct it. This is the marvel of modern technology. As Martha Stewart would say (if she were a prolific writer), it's a good thing.
But actually, it's not. And here is why. When you start revising like that, a story (or a play, screenplay, novel, even an academic paper of some kind) can take on a choppy sort of a feeling. It's tantamount to a film director shooting the entire film and taking the worst scenes and reshooting them to make the best scenes. The problem arises in the difference in calibre from one section to another. You have, in essence, draft 1.5 instead of draft 2. How does one avoid this pitfall? Actually, I hated the suggestion the first time I heard it. But then I was stuck revising my short story "Momentum" and as a last ditch effort, acted on the suggestion. The suggestion itself? Well...
Take your most current draft and print out a fresh copy of it. Have this copy and any other copies you or any of your peers may have made notations on (I highly reccommend workshopping anyway, for any work of creative writing, because it helps you see and hear your work through another person's eyes and ears), and lay all of them out in front of you. Maybe not all of them...but the ones with the most helpful comments (which does not always include any comments you yourself have made). Open a fresh document (load a fresh sheet in the typewriter/get a fresh pen and some looseleaf (does anybody actually do that anymore (wait, I write in a notebook all the time))), and start writing again from the top. Make the changes as you go. In this way, the revision becomes not just a revision but a rewrite, in both the abstract and physical way. This forces you to iron out any complications that may arise before a problem that add to it, in addition to helping you find any problems you may have otherwise missed by just dropping in and fixing those you saw as glaring.
This isn't always the most time-efficient method of rewriting, but the result is worth the patience. Who knew Mothers were right when they said things like, "Patience is a virtue"? Of course, in some cases, this message came mixed with the image of the mother tearing into a package of Pinwheel cookies on the way home from the grocery store when all you wanted was a handful of Cheez-Its to tide you over until lunch.
And sometimes, you really wish you could rewrite something before somebody reads it.
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Tuesday Excerpts
You should all punish me mercilessly for skipping my Monday blog. Seriously.
This excerpt is from a story I wrote fall '05 for my Creative Writing class at Meramec. Based partially in fact, in that I did get pulled over for having a headlight out...twice in the same night, actually...and also there is a guy I went to high school with who got fired from a retail store for stealing lots of stuff. Actually, this is from the story I want to frame and hang (refer to the post about Art from February 17th).
===
from "Headlight" 2005
He was lying on the bench with his face to the wall when I was unceremoniously ushered into the cell. The officer shut the bars with the trademark clang and barked, “You get one phone call. I’ll be right back.”
I sat down on the bench opposite the young man and inhaled the smell of fresh paint. The cell gleamed, and the walls were cool to the touch. I looked out the small window and saw a searing orange street lamp blazing, the light strangely out of place in this clean prison. It looked exactly like prison movie jail cells don’t.
He turned over and glanced at me once, then turned back to the wall. After a few silent seconds, he turned back to me and squinted.
“Colin? Is that you?”
I looked back at him, this short dark haired kid, and recognition dawned on me. “Alex?”
A sly smile crossed his face. He got up from his bench and held out his hand to me. I took it and he attempted an elaborate handshake I couldn’t quite get the hang of on such short notice. He sat down next to me and clapped his hand on my back. “What are you doing here?” he asked. He began cracking the knuckles one by one on his left hand.
I shrugged. “That’s a good question. I got pulled over for having a headlight out and when the guy ran my license plate through, he asked me to come with him. Cuffs, back of the car, it was unpleasant. What are you doing here?”
He raised his eyebrows excitedly, cracked his right-hand knuckles and shook his head quickly. I looked him over; he was wearing khaki pants and a red polo shirt. “Stealing,” he said, “from work. They finally nailed me today with a DVD player in my cart.”
“I vaguely remember you working at some retail store. What was it?”
“Target.”
“Right. Stealing a DVD player?” At that moment, I remembered helping him with geometry when he was a freshman, how he struggled with sine and cosine.
“It’s so easy,” he said, jumping up and walking to the cell door. He walked purposefully, with his head high. He reached the bars and looked out in every direction. A smile blazed across his face as he turned back to face me. “You wouldn’t believe the stuff I walked out of there with. The secret is to pile cardboard on top of it, tell them you need boxes to move into a new place or something,” he said in a low voice.
I got up and walked to the back of the cell, facing away from him. I tried to think of something else, something other than how hard he worked on that geometry, trying not to draw a comparison to how hard he seemed to have worked on stealing from his employer. I had to steer the conversation in another direction. This purposeful gait, this bragging about why he was here didn’t sit well. “How’s school?” I asked. I turned to look at him.
“I’ve kind of stopped going last semester. I just got fed up with my bio teacher and really, school interferes with my social agenda.” Alex chuckled lightly, raising his eyebrows suggestively.
===
There you have it, Tuesday Excerpt number 2. Occasionally, I revist something I've written in the past, and give it a quick revision. I'm thinking that will be a good project for the summer, and I may start with this one. Revisions always tend to make me want to write something completely different, just so I don't have to be revising, so that will certainly help get the creative juices a-flowing.
"Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia." -E.L. Doctorow
This excerpt is from a story I wrote fall '05 for my Creative Writing class at Meramec. Based partially in fact, in that I did get pulled over for having a headlight out...twice in the same night, actually...and also there is a guy I went to high school with who got fired from a retail store for stealing lots of stuff. Actually, this is from the story I want to frame and hang (refer to the post about Art from February 17th).
===
from "Headlight" 2005
He was lying on the bench with his face to the wall when I was unceremoniously ushered into the cell. The officer shut the bars with the trademark clang and barked, “You get one phone call. I’ll be right back.”
I sat down on the bench opposite the young man and inhaled the smell of fresh paint. The cell gleamed, and the walls were cool to the touch. I looked out the small window and saw a searing orange street lamp blazing, the light strangely out of place in this clean prison. It looked exactly like prison movie jail cells don’t.
He turned over and glanced at me once, then turned back to the wall. After a few silent seconds, he turned back to me and squinted.
“Colin? Is that you?”
I looked back at him, this short dark haired kid, and recognition dawned on me. “Alex?”
A sly smile crossed his face. He got up from his bench and held out his hand to me. I took it and he attempted an elaborate handshake I couldn’t quite get the hang of on such short notice. He sat down next to me and clapped his hand on my back. “What are you doing here?” he asked. He began cracking the knuckles one by one on his left hand.
I shrugged. “That’s a good question. I got pulled over for having a headlight out and when the guy ran my license plate through, he asked me to come with him. Cuffs, back of the car, it was unpleasant. What are you doing here?”
He raised his eyebrows excitedly, cracked his right-hand knuckles and shook his head quickly. I looked him over; he was wearing khaki pants and a red polo shirt. “Stealing,” he said, “from work. They finally nailed me today with a DVD player in my cart.”
“I vaguely remember you working at some retail store. What was it?”
“Target.”
“Right. Stealing a DVD player?” At that moment, I remembered helping him with geometry when he was a freshman, how he struggled with sine and cosine.
“It’s so easy,” he said, jumping up and walking to the cell door. He walked purposefully, with his head high. He reached the bars and looked out in every direction. A smile blazed across his face as he turned back to face me. “You wouldn’t believe the stuff I walked out of there with. The secret is to pile cardboard on top of it, tell them you need boxes to move into a new place or something,” he said in a low voice.
I got up and walked to the back of the cell, facing away from him. I tried to think of something else, something other than how hard he worked on that geometry, trying not to draw a comparison to how hard he seemed to have worked on stealing from his employer. I had to steer the conversation in another direction. This purposeful gait, this bragging about why he was here didn’t sit well. “How’s school?” I asked. I turned to look at him.
“I’ve kind of stopped going last semester. I just got fed up with my bio teacher and really, school interferes with my social agenda.” Alex chuckled lightly, raising his eyebrows suggestively.
===
There you have it, Tuesday Excerpt number 2. Occasionally, I revist something I've written in the past, and give it a quick revision. I'm thinking that will be a good project for the summer, and I may start with this one. Revisions always tend to make me want to write something completely different, just so I don't have to be revising, so that will certainly help get the creative juices a-flowing.
"Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia." -E.L. Doctorow
Sunday, May 20, 2007
Friday and Weekend Blog Combined...This Week Only.
I promise, I will be better about this.
I sort of ran out of time Friday, with Kari coming into town and Kathy being called back into work at 3, then going out to dinner/sightseeing and all. And then Saturday was all goofed up, because of Kari being here, the cat being a nuisance and working overnight, and today was no different, plus family dinner and celebrating Kevin's birthday a month and a half late. So, all I got is this little bit I sketched out and would have blogged overnight Saturday if I had had my computer with me at work (if there were such thing as a network to use there).
There was a time-and it doesn't feel that long ago, really, but it must be because it was before I graduated from high school and that was six years ago-when i could stay up all night. Well, let me put that in a different context, actually, because anybody can stay up all night if they just sleep all day. But that's cheating. I can still do that.
I'm thinking back to Fridays in January my senior year of high school. It's Basketball season, which is important to the story here. Prior to January of 2001, I had always gotten a ride to school with my dad. Since he had to get to work (he's a teacher in a different district) super early, and his school is a 20-40 minute drive from where I went, it was not uncommon for me to roll into school before 7 am. Amazingly, I got used to this, and often used this extra early time to catch up on reading or other homework (or going back to sleep against my locker). When my sister took an extended six month trip to Norway after the new year, she left me her car, so I could drive myself to school. Rather than taking advantage of this and sleeping in, I continued to wake up as early as 5 am to shower, eat watch the news with my dad and still leave the house at roughly the same time as he did.
So, even on a Friday, I would get to school at 6:45, almost an hour before the 7:40 bell. I'd make it through the morning in one piece, breeze through lunch and the afternoon (because I took SLACK OFF classes my senior year for sure), and take my girlfriend home, stopping on the way to pick up my paycheck from the Rep. I'd take the check to the bank, pick up some cash for the weekend, head home and eat a snack, maybe a dinner, only to be back up at school at 5:30 to set up for the pep band, of which I was the student director.
Basketball games would last until 8:30 or later, then it would be around 9 or so before the pep band equipment was all locked up. After that, it was off to Steak 'n Shake or some other such place for some food and ice cream, maybe some coffee. Then, I'd get in touch with Zach and the Penningtons, and the four of us would congregate somewhere and watch Iron Chef until one in the morning, followed by an hours-long N64 Goldeneye tournament which would only be broken when somebody realized the sun was about to come up in an hour or so. I'd run home, jump in the shower, eat some breakfast, and then high-tail it back to school where the Jazz Band was meeting up to take a three or four hour bus trip to a competition. This would usually afford me about an hour or so of restless bus-sleep, but you can't really call that sleep anyway. The competition would last until 5 in the evening, after which was another bus ride, again affording only minimal sleeping opportunities but, because it was the subdued ride home one was more likely to actually catch some sleep.
When the bus finally pulled up in front of the school, it would be a dash home, change into some more suitable clothes and right back out, usually to a late dinner in The Loop or a nice long stay at Coffee Cartel, followed by midnight Iron Chef and more Goldeneye, only this time we'd go home around 2 or 3. And finally sleep...only for me to have to wake up at 10 (at the latest) for the Matinee at the rep...during which it was either homework during the show or nap. And I always picked homework.
How did I do it? I was sitting in the office last night, working overnight setting up the ad, and I realized that even with sleeping until one o'clock on Saturday, it was only midnight and I was already crashing hard. What made me more energetic? Youth? Caffiene? Iron Chef/Goldeneye? Or did I just have a built-in filter that made me not feel so tired? Personally, I think it's probably got something to do with the fact that, at the time, I was non-stop with both the I-Gotta-Do-It stuff and the I-Wanna-Do-It stuff. I had a nice balance of work/school and social life. Unfortunately, now I have to balance work and school against each other, as opposed to grouping them on one end and counteracting it with a social life. I have a miniscule social life. Though, the past two weeks have not been so bad, in that since I am out of school that part is no longer a controlling influence, I might have time for a social life, or at least some semblance of one. Maybe that's the secret to longevity, and to limitless energy; you have to balance out activities that require energy with activities that have their own energy. Yes, that sounds like a good idea.
Comments? Thoughts? Let me know. And hey, if you want to hang out, let me know. I'll make some time for sure*.
*If you live in Boston, NYC, MN, New Zealand, or anywhere else that is not in the greater St. Louis metro vicinity, it may be hard to live up to this promise, so, offer strictly limited in those areas.
I sort of ran out of time Friday, with Kari coming into town and Kathy being called back into work at 3, then going out to dinner/sightseeing and all. And then Saturday was all goofed up, because of Kari being here, the cat being a nuisance and working overnight, and today was no different, plus family dinner and celebrating Kevin's birthday a month and a half late. So, all I got is this little bit I sketched out and would have blogged overnight Saturday if I had had my computer with me at work (if there were such thing as a network to use there).
There was a time-and it doesn't feel that long ago, really, but it must be because it was before I graduated from high school and that was six years ago-when i could stay up all night. Well, let me put that in a different context, actually, because anybody can stay up all night if they just sleep all day. But that's cheating. I can still do that.
I'm thinking back to Fridays in January my senior year of high school. It's Basketball season, which is important to the story here. Prior to January of 2001, I had always gotten a ride to school with my dad. Since he had to get to work (he's a teacher in a different district) super early, and his school is a 20-40 minute drive from where I went, it was not uncommon for me to roll into school before 7 am. Amazingly, I got used to this, and often used this extra early time to catch up on reading or other homework (or going back to sleep against my locker). When my sister took an extended six month trip to Norway after the new year, she left me her car, so I could drive myself to school. Rather than taking advantage of this and sleeping in, I continued to wake up as early as 5 am to shower, eat watch the news with my dad and still leave the house at roughly the same time as he did.
So, even on a Friday, I would get to school at 6:45, almost an hour before the 7:40 bell. I'd make it through the morning in one piece, breeze through lunch and the afternoon (because I took SLACK OFF classes my senior year for sure), and take my girlfriend home, stopping on the way to pick up my paycheck from the Rep. I'd take the check to the bank, pick up some cash for the weekend, head home and eat a snack, maybe a dinner, only to be back up at school at 5:30 to set up for the pep band, of which I was the student director.
Basketball games would last until 8:30 or later, then it would be around 9 or so before the pep band equipment was all locked up. After that, it was off to Steak 'n Shake or some other such place for some food and ice cream, maybe some coffee. Then, I'd get in touch with Zach and the Penningtons, and the four of us would congregate somewhere and watch Iron Chef until one in the morning, followed by an hours-long N64 Goldeneye tournament which would only be broken when somebody realized the sun was about to come up in an hour or so. I'd run home, jump in the shower, eat some breakfast, and then high-tail it back to school where the Jazz Band was meeting up to take a three or four hour bus trip to a competition. This would usually afford me about an hour or so of restless bus-sleep, but you can't really call that sleep anyway. The competition would last until 5 in the evening, after which was another bus ride, again affording only minimal sleeping opportunities but, because it was the subdued ride home one was more likely to actually catch some sleep.
When the bus finally pulled up in front of the school, it would be a dash home, change into some more suitable clothes and right back out, usually to a late dinner in The Loop or a nice long stay at Coffee Cartel, followed by midnight Iron Chef and more Goldeneye, only this time we'd go home around 2 or 3. And finally sleep...only for me to have to wake up at 10 (at the latest) for the Matinee at the rep...during which it was either homework during the show or nap. And I always picked homework.
How did I do it? I was sitting in the office last night, working overnight setting up the ad, and I realized that even with sleeping until one o'clock on Saturday, it was only midnight and I was already crashing hard. What made me more energetic? Youth? Caffiene? Iron Chef/Goldeneye? Or did I just have a built-in filter that made me not feel so tired? Personally, I think it's probably got something to do with the fact that, at the time, I was non-stop with both the I-Gotta-Do-It stuff and the I-Wanna-Do-It stuff. I had a nice balance of work/school and social life. Unfortunately, now I have to balance work and school against each other, as opposed to grouping them on one end and counteracting it with a social life. I have a miniscule social life. Though, the past two weeks have not been so bad, in that since I am out of school that part is no longer a controlling influence, I might have time for a social life, or at least some semblance of one. Maybe that's the secret to longevity, and to limitless energy; you have to balance out activities that require energy with activities that have their own energy. Yes, that sounds like a good idea.
Comments? Thoughts? Let me know. And hey, if you want to hang out, let me know. I'll make some time for sure*.
*If you live in Boston, NYC, MN, New Zealand, or anywhere else that is not in the greater St. Louis metro vicinity, it may be hard to live up to this promise, so, offer strictly limited in those areas.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Umm...Thursday Blog?
Alrighty, so, it being Thursday, and less than a week into my conviction to blog every day (once on weekends), here it is with two and a half hours to go and still no blog.
Well...
I would like to refer you to Monday's blog about my car.
Remember all of the little things adding up? Well, Tuesday came the straw that broke the camel's back. Or rather, the bundle of straws that broke the Toyota's back. Or, to be precisely accurate, the repair assessment that caused the Toyota's fate to be decided. Amongst the culprits:
Old battery.
Tires looking a tid bit worn.
Very dirty air filter.
Oh, and, the little problem of the exhaust leaking right into the air intake, causing exhaust to come out of the ventillation system, meaning every time I drive my car, any passengers I am carrying in addition to I myself are breathing in noxious fumes.
Problem. It would have cost around $600 to repair. And the last big repair (not the last one...the next to last one, the oil leak) cost me a lot and then it started leaking oil again, so we know what a repair to a car this old is really all about. So, Tuesday I embarked on a new mini rigid search (in addition to the rigid search to find a job-more on that tomorrow-and the overall very rigid search to find myself) to find a new vehicle. You see, this time, the issue is forced because, let's face it, a fifteen year old car with 162,xxx miles needing a $600 repair does not equal good math. So, today, after work, I officially embarked on the physical searching part of the rigid search (having done the preliminary online research Tuesday and yesterday). I was going to save a couple cars for next Tuesday, as they were 20+ miles away, but I thought I'd start with a few in-the-area curiosities. Just looking, mind you. Just looking. I started at Ackerman Toyota and from there, I was going to Lou Fusz Toyota. At Ackerman, they had a 2000 VW Golf with 115,xxx miles, sunroof, stick, and only $6000. But, upon arrival, I find that the mileage was a bit off, the car didn't sound great when I started (like, it whined at me), and it's not a stick. That in itself shouldn't be a deal breaker, but coupled with the bad start, and also the glove compartment door was falling off. Next.
I pointed my wounded Camry in the direction of Lou Fusz, hoping that they still had their 2005 Civic for $14,500. It had only 74,xxx miles. It too was listed as a stick, but I knew to be wary, and it was only a two door. But, on the way, I decided I would swing into the Dean Team in Kirkwood and see if they had any used VW's at good prices in amongst all the shiny new ones. Brian, the guy I worked with, told me he had a few in the year range I was looking for. He said he had a 2002 Jetta, but he wasn't sure if I would be interested because they were asking $16,000 for it and it was a stick.
A stick? Really? Awesome...well, okay, I figured we could take it for a test drive. That was my first mistake. It was beyond what I imagined it would be. It was...better than the Golf, for sure. He also had a 2001 GTI for $12,000, but I am not sure a tin can with a rocket launcher is the right car for me. So, whatever, we sit down to see if we can't hammer out a deal. I had low hopes.
I said, "I figure about $1000 for my trade in, no money down, what can we do? I want my payments around $200 a month. And, my wife is the boss of the money. So I may have to come back with her."
Well, they weren't about to hear that, so they said, "We'll give you $3000 for your trade-in," my eyes popped out of my head momentarily, thinking did they look at my car? really?, "And we knocked $2000 off the price, we've got you around $220 a month." Call the wife. No deal. "$210?" No deal. "$200 and we give you thirty days to get $1000 down payment?" Thank you so much for everything, really, but...it's just not a good enough deal. Then, this is the best part. The sales manager asks me if I will call my wife back so he can talk to her. And I do. And he does. And I get an extra $1200 for my trade somehow, and my payments are at $199.98 a month.
And I came home with a 2002 Jetta.
Fun fact of the day: We got $4200 trade-in for a car that I paid $3000 for four years ago. We rule.
Well...
I would like to refer you to Monday's blog about my car.
Remember all of the little things adding up? Well, Tuesday came the straw that broke the camel's back. Or rather, the bundle of straws that broke the Toyota's back. Or, to be precisely accurate, the repair assessment that caused the Toyota's fate to be decided. Amongst the culprits:
Old battery.
Tires looking a tid bit worn.
Very dirty air filter.
Oh, and, the little problem of the exhaust leaking right into the air intake, causing exhaust to come out of the ventillation system, meaning every time I drive my car, any passengers I am carrying in addition to I myself are breathing in noxious fumes.
Problem. It would have cost around $600 to repair. And the last big repair (not the last one...the next to last one, the oil leak) cost me a lot and then it started leaking oil again, so we know what a repair to a car this old is really all about. So, Tuesday I embarked on a new mini rigid search (in addition to the rigid search to find a job-more on that tomorrow-and the overall very rigid search to find myself) to find a new vehicle. You see, this time, the issue is forced because, let's face it, a fifteen year old car with 162,xxx miles needing a $600 repair does not equal good math. So, today, after work, I officially embarked on the physical searching part of the rigid search (having done the preliminary online research Tuesday and yesterday). I was going to save a couple cars for next Tuesday, as they were 20+ miles away, but I thought I'd start with a few in-the-area curiosities. Just looking, mind you. Just looking. I started at Ackerman Toyota and from there, I was going to Lou Fusz Toyota. At Ackerman, they had a 2000 VW Golf with 115,xxx miles, sunroof, stick, and only $6000. But, upon arrival, I find that the mileage was a bit off, the car didn't sound great when I started (like, it whined at me), and it's not a stick. That in itself shouldn't be a deal breaker, but coupled with the bad start, and also the glove compartment door was falling off. Next.
I pointed my wounded Camry in the direction of Lou Fusz, hoping that they still had their 2005 Civic for $14,500. It had only 74,xxx miles. It too was listed as a stick, but I knew to be wary, and it was only a two door. But, on the way, I decided I would swing into the Dean Team in Kirkwood and see if they had any used VW's at good prices in amongst all the shiny new ones. Brian, the guy I worked with, told me he had a few in the year range I was looking for. He said he had a 2002 Jetta, but he wasn't sure if I would be interested because they were asking $16,000 for it and it was a stick.
A stick? Really? Awesome...well, okay, I figured we could take it for a test drive. That was my first mistake. It was beyond what I imagined it would be. It was...better than the Golf, for sure. He also had a 2001 GTI for $12,000, but I am not sure a tin can with a rocket launcher is the right car for me. So, whatever, we sit down to see if we can't hammer out a deal. I had low hopes.
I said, "I figure about $1000 for my trade in, no money down, what can we do? I want my payments around $200 a month. And, my wife is the boss of the money. So I may have to come back with her."
Well, they weren't about to hear that, so they said, "We'll give you $3000 for your trade-in," my eyes popped out of my head momentarily, thinking did they look at my car? really?, "And we knocked $2000 off the price, we've got you around $220 a month." Call the wife. No deal. "$210?" No deal. "$200 and we give you thirty days to get $1000 down payment?" Thank you so much for everything, really, but...it's just not a good enough deal. Then, this is the best part. The sales manager asks me if I will call my wife back so he can talk to her. And I do. And he does. And I get an extra $1200 for my trade somehow, and my payments are at $199.98 a month.
And I came home with a 2002 Jetta.
Fun fact of the day: We got $4200 trade-in for a car that I paid $3000 for four years ago. We rule.
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