Inspired by my buddy Chris' latest blog about the best of the U of M, I thought it would be a fun exercise to do a similar assessment of Webster University because I know Sports Illustrated ain't gonna do it. So, with all the best-ofs they have on their list (and subsequently, Chris has on his), I will do the exact same list about my school.
Best Sports Arena
Grant Gymnasium. Actually, it's the closest thing we have to a stadium. Imagine the gym at your local YMCA. Now imagine it with twice as many seats. Actually, I think Roberts Gym at my old high school is bigger, and it's right across the street. The high school already uses our pool, and we're already using their classrooms, so why don't we just use their gym? I'm sure there's room for us amongst their championship banner they just got to hang.
Best Pizza Shop
Imo's Pizza. While Racanellis is fine pizza, when in Rome, do as the Romans do, and not as the New Yorkers do. But New Yorkers will tell you that Racanellis is not real NY style pizza. But Imos is real St. Louis style pizza. It is thin. It is greasy. It is cut in squares. It's covered with Provel cheese (not mozzerella or provelone). Now, if only Fortell's would open a location in Webster, we'd be set.
Best Outdoor Studying Area
Well, gee, I guess that depends. If you're a philosophy or English student, the best spot is either in the ivy garden outside Pearson House, or the grotto-like area behind Priest House. If you're in Music or the Conservatory, you probably like Loretto Commons, that area outside the Loretto Hilton center that always gets covered with tents and tables when the Opera Theatre opens up in May. And if you're any other student, you don't like to study outside, you study in the Jazzman cafe and drink expensive coffee, and then when you're done you go out to the Library Quad and play touch football or, if you're lazy enough and nobody's already there with a pigskin looking to put together a pickup game, you can throw the frisbee around.
Best Bar
I guess really there are no bars on campus, but there's a couple nearby. Most of them are the hoity-toity Webster Groves bars for the people who live in the WG, not for the people who go to school there. There's the RoadHouse, but that used to be Ellie Frizelli's and before that JP Fields and before that Streetside Records, so confirming that place as the best bar would be silly because it'll be gone in three years. I'd say the best bar near campus is Cousin Hugo's. Great, cheap burgers and fairly inexpensive drinks. If you go there for lunch on a nice enough day, you can get some of their BBQ which always smells tantalizingly good on my way by it if I happen to be headed that way in the middle of the day.
Best Spot for Weekend Breakfast
Einstein's Bagels. They do breakfast okay, but I hate their lunch. But their breakfast is pretty good. Or, failing that, use your meal plan at Marletto's. If you dare.
Best Laid-Back Student Hang Out
Well...there's really only the one student center, and it's being encroached upon by the small but noticeably growing Jockocracy that infests that side of campus. But I guess that'd be the place, the Student Center. They have a Blimpie and a place to get smoothies, and a giant television, and computer terminals and comfy couches. Sure. Why not.
Best Student Section
Um...let me see...student section? I guess by Chris' blog that's defined as the section at a sporting venue where the students sit. Hmm...um...Webster students go to games?
Best Pre-Game Spot
Okay...I know this list was made by Sports Illustrated, but come on! Pregame spot? We don't even have a game spot!
Biggest Reason For Excitement on Campus
Surfacing. Definitely Surfacing. Also, the Roots are coming for Springfest. Last year we had, like, Edwyn McCain or someone like that.
Best Week To Visit Campus
The week that Surfacing is happening. Or, failing that, Springfest. Nothing like the drunken debauchery that is the U of M's Spring Jam, we have a mild buzz all week from the imported beer we drink and a contact high from the smoke drifting out of the art building, and we groove to some music and forget to do our homework on Wednesday night, but other than that, it's pretty calm. Unless you're a member of the Jockocracy. Nobody can explain it, but they get super excited about Springfest and drink lots of Bud Light, and then run around the campus yelling, "Damn!" It's a little weird.
Best Off-Campus Hangouts
The aforementioned Hugos, and also Coffee Cartel in the Central West End is kind of the meeting place for all the cool kids from Webster U, Washington U and St. Louis U to gather and make fun of all the Lindenwood U, Fontbonne U and UMSL kids who are afraid they'll get mugged and run into the Starbucks across the street. The Loop is always worth a stop, and Maplewood is a happening place with new clubs and stuff. Washington Avenue is nice, if you're in that financial league. But if you're a freshman and you don't know much about St. Louis, just stick to walking to Old Orchard and going to McDonalds. Trust me. Woo yeah.
Friday, March 14, 2008
Saturday, March 01, 2008
Surfacing Update and A New Link!
For those who were wanting it, here's an update on the play. Our first casting session was very disappointing. We only had ten people show up, and of those ten, only four struck me as right for any of the roles in my play. One of the guys, and three of the girls, two of which would have been great in the role of Edna (the old lady), and one of which would have been great for Melissa...until she said she was not comfortable reading a bit of dialogue (the bit that made me want to cast her in the role of course...) because that part is, um...have you ever seen When Harry Met Sally, most specifically, the scene in the deli, where Rob Reiner's mother says "I'll have what she's having"? Yeah. It's kinda like that.
And then, our second session got cancelled due to bad weather. So we had to wait a week, and then we had to contend with a basketball game.
Since when do students at Webster University care about/go to basketball games? I mean...the type of people who would audition for surfacing? It's just weird. To me, anyway. Maybe not to you.
But, we got enough people to cast all six plays (only one person doubled up on roles, the guy I wanted from the first night). We didn't get the exact cast we wanted, but we got the Edna, Delivery Man and Melissa I wanted. We got our third choice for Ben, but that's because our first choice for Ben was everybody's first choice for something. So, should be good. Rehearsals start after spring break. The show is April 18, 19 and 20 at the Loretto Hilton theater, downstairs in the black box theatre (possibly set up as a theatre in the round, which could cause problems for some of the shows but we'll work around it).
Okay, so, there's your update. And now, let me point out some new stuff. First off, I removed a couple of links from my list, most notably Memory Machine's Urban Exploration blog and Alan's Sports blog, because neither of them had been updated in quite some time. I set up a new poll so you can all help me shape my spring break plans. And I added a new link: Whiskey Tastes Better When You Have Problems. Written by my old room mate Chris, it's got all your information on Gopher Football and the daily life of an unemployed Minnesotan you could desire. Go check him out. Tell him Elliot sent ya.
It's 60 here. Last week, it was ice storming. Go figure.
And then, our second session got cancelled due to bad weather. So we had to wait a week, and then we had to contend with a basketball game.
Since when do students at Webster University care about/go to basketball games? I mean...the type of people who would audition for surfacing? It's just weird. To me, anyway. Maybe not to you.
But, we got enough people to cast all six plays (only one person doubled up on roles, the guy I wanted from the first night). We didn't get the exact cast we wanted, but we got the Edna, Delivery Man and Melissa I wanted. We got our third choice for Ben, but that's because our first choice for Ben was everybody's first choice for something. So, should be good. Rehearsals start after spring break. The show is April 18, 19 and 20 at the Loretto Hilton theater, downstairs in the black box theatre (possibly set up as a theatre in the round, which could cause problems for some of the shows but we'll work around it).
Okay, so, there's your update. And now, let me point out some new stuff. First off, I removed a couple of links from my list, most notably Memory Machine's Urban Exploration blog and Alan's Sports blog, because neither of them had been updated in quite some time. I set up a new poll so you can all help me shape my spring break plans. And I added a new link: Whiskey Tastes Better When You Have Problems. Written by my old room mate Chris, it's got all your information on Gopher Football and the daily life of an unemployed Minnesotan you could desire. Go check him out. Tell him Elliot sent ya.
It's 60 here. Last week, it was ice storming. Go figure.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Laying it On The Line
I am back on anti-depressants.
Some of you may not know that I was ever on them in the first place. Well, not in the first place. The first place was an apartment on Dale Avenue, and we moved out when I was three months old.
No no, I went on anti-depressants when I was nineteen and in danger of flunking out of college (which, eventually, did happen), and at the time I was willing to try them. It worked a bit. It helped. But after a while, I didn't like how I felt. My range of emotion was diminished. In the depths (but I don't want it to sound like they were very deep depths, because my depression was classified as "subclinical"), I was churning out between two and eight pages of writing a day. And looking back on some of it, it was emotionally raw and laced with irony and pessimism. Anger, too. Baffled confusion at a world gone mad, and me without a place in it. The medication killed the feelings. And the pages.
This time, I have not been very prolific in my pages leading up to this moment, this opening of the container and washing down the first pill moment. I've just been stressed and unhappy, but erratically so. Manic, they used to call it. Bipolar some people would say. No. Not that far. I went to the same doctor. He didn't remember me, and I remember his accent being not quite as thick. He classified me again as "Subclinical" which is a term for depression that is borderline, easily manageable but often more disruptive than full blown depression. I think last time he hit, this time he may have missed. Maybe he hit, just less solidly.
Why would I tell everybody something so personal?
A year ago last week, a good man died. He once said "There's no freedom unless you're vulnerable first." This is me being vulnerable. Being free. I just took my third pill (no no, no...I didn't just take three in a row, I got them on Monday), washed it down with the last of the Tropicana OJ, the healthy heart with Omega 3 (so I don't have to take fish oil pills), and sat down to compose this post. My cat is drinking water from his bowl, and it's time to feed him for the evening, take the trash out, and settle into bed for a little Silverblatt Chapters 10-11, Media Literacy worksheet, cuddling, and eventually, sleep. The most sought-after side-effect that I remember having from taking these the first time was that I could sleep at night. I'm looking forward to that. That's about it though.
I keep my antidepressants together; in fact, the first pill I took on Monday got washed down with my other antidepressant. I keep the pills behind the canister my coffee beans are in. I find it hilarious, the juxtaposition of these two things, but yet the power. My coffee is whole bean, organic, fair-trade. Grind it up, brew it, drink it. My pills are processed to the hilt. Developed and manufactured in a lab. Do not crush. Take whole. Yes, I started drinking coffee. A habit I am comfortable picking up. I tried smoking again. Go ahead, Mom. Call me out on it. I already called myself out. Stupid thing to do. Won't happen again. Coffee I can handle. Cigarettes belong in a fantasy version of me, the one that gets to stand in Humphrey Bogart's trench coat and punch Peter Lorre in the face with his own gun. Coffee I can handle. I have a flask. I've never used it. I don't plan on it. Cigarettes give you a light-headed buzz because they deprive you of oxygen. Alcohol impairs your ability to drive, rationalize, think, and is also a depressant. Seems like a bad idea to supplement antidepressants with booze. The drowsy eye alcohol warning should not be misconstrued as a winking eye alcohol suggestion (anyone? anyone? reference?). But coffee...coffee makes you jittery and gives you energy. It elevates the heart rate in an overabundant quantity, which I have not done since the day I found out the coffee stand in the St. Paul student center accepted flex dine (I drank FIVE chai tea lattes that day. the big ones). It is a vice that is acceptable. And, like the alcohol I restrict myself to (mostly), I have standards. That is why my coffee is organic, fair trade, whole bean. It meant I had to buy a grinder. It means I will eventually want to buy a new coffee maker. But it's there. And I use it.
To close, I will give you the lyrics to a favorite song of mine.
My antidepressant
Hope-giving Holy Mud.
If I only, if I
I
Only drink enough!
I can see clear my escape,
I can see into another
Into another state.
From Coffee Girl by MK Ultra (you should totally check them out, along with John Vanderslice)
Some of you may not know that I was ever on them in the first place. Well, not in the first place. The first place was an apartment on Dale Avenue, and we moved out when I was three months old.
No no, I went on anti-depressants when I was nineteen and in danger of flunking out of college (which, eventually, did happen), and at the time I was willing to try them. It worked a bit. It helped. But after a while, I didn't like how I felt. My range of emotion was diminished. In the depths (but I don't want it to sound like they were very deep depths, because my depression was classified as "subclinical"), I was churning out between two and eight pages of writing a day. And looking back on some of it, it was emotionally raw and laced with irony and pessimism. Anger, too. Baffled confusion at a world gone mad, and me without a place in it. The medication killed the feelings. And the pages.
This time, I have not been very prolific in my pages leading up to this moment, this opening of the container and washing down the first pill moment. I've just been stressed and unhappy, but erratically so. Manic, they used to call it. Bipolar some people would say. No. Not that far. I went to the same doctor. He didn't remember me, and I remember his accent being not quite as thick. He classified me again as "Subclinical" which is a term for depression that is borderline, easily manageable but often more disruptive than full blown depression. I think last time he hit, this time he may have missed. Maybe he hit, just less solidly.
Why would I tell everybody something so personal?
A year ago last week, a good man died. He once said "There's no freedom unless you're vulnerable first." This is me being vulnerable. Being free. I just took my third pill (no no, no...I didn't just take three in a row, I got them on Monday), washed it down with the last of the Tropicana OJ, the healthy heart with Omega 3 (so I don't have to take fish oil pills), and sat down to compose this post. My cat is drinking water from his bowl, and it's time to feed him for the evening, take the trash out, and settle into bed for a little Silverblatt Chapters 10-11, Media Literacy worksheet, cuddling, and eventually, sleep. The most sought-after side-effect that I remember having from taking these the first time was that I could sleep at night. I'm looking forward to that. That's about it though.
I keep my antidepressants together; in fact, the first pill I took on Monday got washed down with my other antidepressant. I keep the pills behind the canister my coffee beans are in. I find it hilarious, the juxtaposition of these two things, but yet the power. My coffee is whole bean, organic, fair-trade. Grind it up, brew it, drink it. My pills are processed to the hilt. Developed and manufactured in a lab. Do not crush. Take whole. Yes, I started drinking coffee. A habit I am comfortable picking up. I tried smoking again. Go ahead, Mom. Call me out on it. I already called myself out. Stupid thing to do. Won't happen again. Coffee I can handle. Cigarettes belong in a fantasy version of me, the one that gets to stand in Humphrey Bogart's trench coat and punch Peter Lorre in the face with his own gun. Coffee I can handle. I have a flask. I've never used it. I don't plan on it. Cigarettes give you a light-headed buzz because they deprive you of oxygen. Alcohol impairs your ability to drive, rationalize, think, and is also a depressant. Seems like a bad idea to supplement antidepressants with booze. The drowsy eye alcohol warning should not be misconstrued as a winking eye alcohol suggestion (anyone? anyone? reference?). But coffee...coffee makes you jittery and gives you energy. It elevates the heart rate in an overabundant quantity, which I have not done since the day I found out the coffee stand in the St. Paul student center accepted flex dine (I drank FIVE chai tea lattes that day. the big ones). It is a vice that is acceptable. And, like the alcohol I restrict myself to (mostly), I have standards. That is why my coffee is organic, fair trade, whole bean. It meant I had to buy a grinder. It means I will eventually want to buy a new coffee maker. But it's there. And I use it.
To close, I will give you the lyrics to a favorite song of mine.
My antidepressant
Hope-giving Holy Mud.
If I only, if I
I
Only drink enough!
I can see clear my escape,
I can see into another
Into another state.
From Coffee Girl by MK Ultra (you should totally check them out, along with John Vanderslice)
Monday, February 11, 2008
Hmm...
Well, aside from the positive response from The Murder Hour and Molly, my big announcement about actually being a writer has been met with a resounding silence. Apparently, I should stick to politics.
Saturday, February 09, 2008
The Unfinished (and also unstarted) Play
I was super excited when I started school at Webster in the fall of 2006: It was the right size, I liked the people, it was close, it was quaint. It was fun. The classes were awesome. And I found out there was a one-act play festival called Surfacing. So I wrote a play and submitted it, and it was not picked.
But, I was friends with one of the readers/directors and the assistant artistic director as well, and they both said they liked my play, but that it was passed over for casting reasons (and apparently, one of the other directors was so upset it wasn't picked, he almost quit). But I didn't actually know the extent of all of that until last night.
But before I get there, let me just explain about this year. I took two semesters' worth of playwriting classes so I would have a nice selection of work to submit to Surfacing for this year. And when it came down to it, the only one I wanted to submit was too long. So I set about to write a new play, only I started too late and my idea was too grandiose and I missed the deadline.
Well, life goes on, right? I have another year to craft a play.
Only Thursday, which was already shaping up to be kind of a lousy day for various reasons, I got an e-mail from the Artistic Director (last year's assistand AD), and she asked me to write a play for her to direct for Surfacing.
!!
So, I met with her last night after work at Jimmy Johns in Maplehood, and we discussed what she wants. And what she wants is a new play by Elliot M. Rauscher. Sweet!
Only, I have a week and a half to get enough of a rough draft to cast from. So, okay, I've got a deadline.
But this is exciting! I actually got commissioned to write a play. Somebody likes my work so much that they will, sight unseen, agree to produce one of my plays. Guys, get this...Elliot IS a Writer! Yeah!
If it comes down to being a writer or running for president, I guess I'll be a writer. But I think I can handle both. I mean, actually, being a writer is a good thing in a president; don't we all want a literate president? I know I do.
Anyway, I just thought I would give you all the good news. I'll post more about when the festival is so you can come see my play. It'll be in April some time. It's exciting! Oh, and don't expect to see any excerpts from it on here...it will be all fresh and new for you in April. And if you can't make it, well, that's your own fault. For reals.
Music to blog by: Rufus Wainwright - The Art Teacher
But, I was friends with one of the readers/directors and the assistant artistic director as well, and they both said they liked my play, but that it was passed over for casting reasons (and apparently, one of the other directors was so upset it wasn't picked, he almost quit). But I didn't actually know the extent of all of that until last night.
But before I get there, let me just explain about this year. I took two semesters' worth of playwriting classes so I would have a nice selection of work to submit to Surfacing for this year. And when it came down to it, the only one I wanted to submit was too long. So I set about to write a new play, only I started too late and my idea was too grandiose and I missed the deadline.
Well, life goes on, right? I have another year to craft a play.
Only Thursday, which was already shaping up to be kind of a lousy day for various reasons, I got an e-mail from the Artistic Director (last year's assistand AD), and she asked me to write a play for her to direct for Surfacing.
!!
So, I met with her last night after work at Jimmy Johns in Maplehood, and we discussed what she wants. And what she wants is a new play by Elliot M. Rauscher. Sweet!
Only, I have a week and a half to get enough of a rough draft to cast from. So, okay, I've got a deadline.
But this is exciting! I actually got commissioned to write a play. Somebody likes my work so much that they will, sight unseen, agree to produce one of my plays. Guys, get this...Elliot IS a Writer! Yeah!
If it comes down to being a writer or running for president, I guess I'll be a writer. But I think I can handle both. I mean, actually, being a writer is a good thing in a president; don't we all want a literate president? I know I do.
Anyway, I just thought I would give you all the good news. I'll post more about when the festival is so you can come see my play. It'll be in April some time. It's exciting! Oh, and don't expect to see any excerpts from it on here...it will be all fresh and new for you in April. And if you can't make it, well, that's your own fault. For reals.
Music to blog by: Rufus Wainwright - The Art Teacher
Tuesday, February 05, 2008
Further Policy Information
A couple of questions were asked, and I feel I should address them quickly, though they address among the more controversial issues...abortion and gay marriage.
Alright, well...idealistically, I am pro life. This not only means I do not condone abortion, I also do not condone the death penalty. But that's just idealistically. I don't openly oppose abortion. There are situations (rape, incest, date-rape, etc) where abortion is quite understandable. But using abortion as a means of contraception is right out. I think education is important. Oh, yeah, that reminds me, get rid of abstinence-only education. But, don't stop teaching abstinence. Let young people (and some older folks could use with a refresher course probably) know that the only way to truly prevent STDs and unwanted pregnancies is to (surprise surprise) not have sex. But remember that people are going to make decisions based on what they may want at a particular moment in time, so it's best for them to be armed with the knowledge that there are consequences to their actions, and that they can take steps to minimize these consequences. But that's sort of a different topic. Back to the issue at hand. But no, education is important there, too. And support. Alternatives should be looked at, advised; adoption is a big one, of course. So...idealistically pro-life, but politically pro-choice.
And so to Gay Marriage. Right, look...if two men (or women) want to have sex with each other (again, being responsible people who take precautions when necessary), how does that hurt me? I mean, unless they decide to do it on my couch while I'm trying to sit on it, chances are it will have no negative effect on me. In fact, if anything, it will make both of those people happy, they will feel more fulfilled, they will spread their joy through kindness, and it might trickle on over to me. I know, I know...some people experience joy through killing other people. Well, that's different, isn't it? Killing somebody is actually hurting somebody. It's, well...it's killing them, right? So there's that issue right there. Alright, fine, let them have sex, you may say, but why should they get to enjoy the same rights as a married man and woman? Well...why shouldn't they? I mean, if they're happy, healthy members who contribute to society, well...it might make them happier if they could have the same benefits as men and women. And I don't just mean civil unions, but that's a start. Right, see, two men living together in a happy, monogomaus relationship can't file their taxes jointly. If one gets sick and is put in the hospital, and is unresponsive, unless the other is listed in a legal document as having Power of Attorney, the hospital will refuse the other entrance or any legal right in the decision making process. How is this even remotely fair?
Okay, that was just a basic, preliminary run down. These are complex issues, as complex as the economy, defense, education and foreign policy, but even moreso because they are both divisive issues. Face it: nothing is more politically divisive than abortion. But I heard it summed up best on NPR last week; given the choice between a pro-life candidate and a pro-choice candidate, the pro-choice voter is more likely to weigh other factors before casting their vote, while the pro-life voter is more likely to cast their vote on that single issue.
All that aside, the Republican party will most likely never make a strong effort to overturn Roe v. Wade. They may promise it, and they may run on a strong Pro-Life platform (like our current president, who executed more inmates in Texas than the rest of the country combined over his term as Governer), but successfully overturning the Supreme Court decision means they lost their largest swath of single issue voters.
Last week, on ABC's show Boston Legal, James Spader's character suggested that perhaps the nation should vote on Abortion, that the issue should become less of a political football for the candidates to fumble around with and be put into the hands of the American People. I think that's a tremendously great idea myself. This is a democracy, let the people decide. Take one issue away from the candidates so they can focus on the business of running the country. You know?
This is all just slip-shod and unfounded political rant at this point, but I am going to tell you the truth, an average American should be able to run for president. So hell, it actually started as a joke, but I mean it. I'm running in twelve years. Watch for me.
Oh, and I've had two people request to be my running mate. Unfortunately, I'm still waiting to hear from my original invitee, Jerry. But keep throwing your hats in the ring. Annie, you show promise, you could provide a nice Liberal/Conservative balance to my Raging Liberal/Moderate Liberal political stance. And Lisa...sorry, but I already have a job for you: Speech Writer.
Oh, and one more thing: I hope you went out and voted today (if, you know, your state had an election). I know I did. And while I care who you vote for a little bit, it is actually more important that you do vote. I'd rather disagree with your vote than disagree with you for staying at home.
Alright, well...idealistically, I am pro life. This not only means I do not condone abortion, I also do not condone the death penalty. But that's just idealistically. I don't openly oppose abortion. There are situations (rape, incest, date-rape, etc) where abortion is quite understandable. But using abortion as a means of contraception is right out. I think education is important. Oh, yeah, that reminds me, get rid of abstinence-only education. But, don't stop teaching abstinence. Let young people (and some older folks could use with a refresher course probably) know that the only way to truly prevent STDs and unwanted pregnancies is to (surprise surprise) not have sex. But remember that people are going to make decisions based on what they may want at a particular moment in time, so it's best for them to be armed with the knowledge that there are consequences to their actions, and that they can take steps to minimize these consequences. But that's sort of a different topic. Back to the issue at hand. But no, education is important there, too. And support. Alternatives should be looked at, advised; adoption is a big one, of course. So...idealistically pro-life, but politically pro-choice.
And so to Gay Marriage. Right, look...if two men (or women) want to have sex with each other (again, being responsible people who take precautions when necessary), how does that hurt me? I mean, unless they decide to do it on my couch while I'm trying to sit on it, chances are it will have no negative effect on me. In fact, if anything, it will make both of those people happy, they will feel more fulfilled, they will spread their joy through kindness, and it might trickle on over to me. I know, I know...some people experience joy through killing other people. Well, that's different, isn't it? Killing somebody is actually hurting somebody. It's, well...it's killing them, right? So there's that issue right there. Alright, fine, let them have sex, you may say, but why should they get to enjoy the same rights as a married man and woman? Well...why shouldn't they? I mean, if they're happy, healthy members who contribute to society, well...it might make them happier if they could have the same benefits as men and women. And I don't just mean civil unions, but that's a start. Right, see, two men living together in a happy, monogomaus relationship can't file their taxes jointly. If one gets sick and is put in the hospital, and is unresponsive, unless the other is listed in a legal document as having Power of Attorney, the hospital will refuse the other entrance or any legal right in the decision making process. How is this even remotely fair?
Okay, that was just a basic, preliminary run down. These are complex issues, as complex as the economy, defense, education and foreign policy, but even moreso because they are both divisive issues. Face it: nothing is more politically divisive than abortion. But I heard it summed up best on NPR last week; given the choice between a pro-life candidate and a pro-choice candidate, the pro-choice voter is more likely to weigh other factors before casting their vote, while the pro-life voter is more likely to cast their vote on that single issue.
All that aside, the Republican party will most likely never make a strong effort to overturn Roe v. Wade. They may promise it, and they may run on a strong Pro-Life platform (like our current president, who executed more inmates in Texas than the rest of the country combined over his term as Governer), but successfully overturning the Supreme Court decision means they lost their largest swath of single issue voters.
Last week, on ABC's show Boston Legal, James Spader's character suggested that perhaps the nation should vote on Abortion, that the issue should become less of a political football for the candidates to fumble around with and be put into the hands of the American People. I think that's a tremendously great idea myself. This is a democracy, let the people decide. Take one issue away from the candidates so they can focus on the business of running the country. You know?
This is all just slip-shod and unfounded political rant at this point, but I am going to tell you the truth, an average American should be able to run for president. So hell, it actually started as a joke, but I mean it. I'm running in twelve years. Watch for me.
Oh, and I've had two people request to be my running mate. Unfortunately, I'm still waiting to hear from my original invitee, Jerry. But keep throwing your hats in the ring. Annie, you show promise, you could provide a nice Liberal/Conservative balance to my Raging Liberal/Moderate Liberal political stance. And Lisa...sorry, but I already have a job for you: Speech Writer.
Oh, and one more thing: I hope you went out and voted today (if, you know, your state had an election). I know I did. And while I care who you vote for a little bit, it is actually more important that you do vote. I'd rather disagree with your vote than disagree with you for staying at home.
Sunday, February 03, 2008
Addressing the Issues
My environmental stance is pretty easy to understand; invest in alternative fuel sources accross the board. I'm tired of people saying Solar is too unreliable, wind is too unreliable, etc. Here's what you do, see: Where it's windy, you put turbines. Where it's sunny, you put solar panels. Oh, and put solar panels on the turbines. Geothermal? Hell yes. Water? Well...I don't want to build any more dams, because there's really no way to do it without incurring a little bit of environmental damage. But we can utilize what we've got in place. I don't think we should build any more coal plants myself, and I thought that even why Kathy's paycheck depended on new coal plants. As for oil, we need to invest in better public transit systems in metropolitan areas. St. Louis' Metrolink is, since the addition of the cross county line, little better than a joke. I know we don't have the large population or urban acreage that cities like Chicago, Boston and NYC have, but that doesn't mean we don't need to build a better mass transit infrastructure. And also, as part of that, we should make our cities more bicycle and pedestrian friendly. And locally grown food? Yeah, it should be cheaper and not more expensive. Tax incentives for those who power their homes with wind or solar, who buy cars with a certain EPA MPG estimate. Oh, and we need to increase the MPG standard. 33 mpg standard? Okay, fine, but that's shy of Europe, and they seem to be doing just fine over there. So...incentives for cities and individuals who take steps themselves, and government mandates and higher standards.
Strengthening the dollar? First off, improve the economy, but really, we should cut back on defecit spending. You see, state governments have to balance their budget every year, but the federal government can just keep borrowing from China? Right...like where are we getting all of this money for the economic stimulus package? We're borrowing it. And, considering the sub-prime lending crisis helped put the economy in the tank this time around, I think borrowing money to fix it is laced with a fair enough amount of irony already. The irony will be complete if we're borrowing with an adjustable interest rate. Which, when you think about it, we are; with the falling dollar value, borrowing a billion dollars from China now may mean paying them back seven billion later, or more. We just need to pull the American economy back to America. I'm not saying we shouldn't trade with other nations, or that we shouldn't help other nations with their finances. But...it's like building bridges, schools, and hospitals in Iraq. Shouldn't we tend our own garden first? Trade is good, I'm not saying that. But we need to remember that a good measure of an economy is looking at how many exports vs imports. You want more exports. Just look at the labels at your local Wal Mart. Most of it was made where? China! Great. But that means the money doesn't stay here. It goes there.
You see, the economic stimulus package will take...borrow...money from China, and give it to the people of this country. They will take that money and they will likely NOT save it. They will pay down their high interest credit cards, just so they can then put more on the credit card and max it out again. And what will they buy? Stuff made in China. Which means all that money goes back to China, twice. Once now when we buy their stuff, and again when we get around to paying them back the loan. This is a terrible system upon which to base what should be the strongest economy in the world.
Anyway...turns out, I actually am too young to run for president, by ten years. So I can't actually run until the 2020 election, during which I will be thirty-seven years old. But hey, I've got twelve years to put together a stellar campaign. So let's get going on it folks! Rauscher for President in 2020!
Strengthening the dollar? First off, improve the economy, but really, we should cut back on defecit spending. You see, state governments have to balance their budget every year, but the federal government can just keep borrowing from China? Right...like where are we getting all of this money for the economic stimulus package? We're borrowing it. And, considering the sub-prime lending crisis helped put the economy in the tank this time around, I think borrowing money to fix it is laced with a fair enough amount of irony already. The irony will be complete if we're borrowing with an adjustable interest rate. Which, when you think about it, we are; with the falling dollar value, borrowing a billion dollars from China now may mean paying them back seven billion later, or more. We just need to pull the American economy back to America. I'm not saying we shouldn't trade with other nations, or that we shouldn't help other nations with their finances. But...it's like building bridges, schools, and hospitals in Iraq. Shouldn't we tend our own garden first? Trade is good, I'm not saying that. But we need to remember that a good measure of an economy is looking at how many exports vs imports. You want more exports. Just look at the labels at your local Wal Mart. Most of it was made where? China! Great. But that means the money doesn't stay here. It goes there.
You see, the economic stimulus package will take...borrow...money from China, and give it to the people of this country. They will take that money and they will likely NOT save it. They will pay down their high interest credit cards, just so they can then put more on the credit card and max it out again. And what will they buy? Stuff made in China. Which means all that money goes back to China, twice. Once now when we buy their stuff, and again when we get around to paying them back the loan. This is a terrible system upon which to base what should be the strongest economy in the world.
Anyway...turns out, I actually am too young to run for president, by ten years. So I can't actually run until the 2020 election, during which I will be thirty-seven years old. But hey, I've got twelve years to put together a stellar campaign. So let's get going on it folks! Rauscher for President in 2020!
Saturday, February 02, 2008
An Announcement
I am launching an exploratory committe to begin my campaign for the Presidency of the United States. I will be accepting contributions in person. I take checks, cash, spare change, or money orders.
You want my stance on issues? Just ask. I'm here to answer America's needs. But a brief run down:
The Economy-
Trickle down doesn't work. At all. Giving the rich people more money so they can spend it in the hopes that it stimulates the economy enough to create low-wage jobs for currently unemployed people living below the poverty line? Reaganomics. If it really worked, things wouldn't be so grim. My idea? Trickle up economics! Just think of trickle down economics reversed.
Health Care-
Single Payer. Government sponsored. "Oh my God, Elliot's a COMMUNIST! GET HIM!" No. Socialized medical care is not communism. Nor will it lead to communism. What it will lead to is healthy people living in America. Yeah. Good idea, huh?
Immigration-
Amnesty for those who are gainfully employed or attending an institution of higher learning. Children under 16 and under automatically granted amnesty if their parents have been granted amnesty. If not, there should be a process that allows them to stay with a relative or other trusted guardian so they can complete school. If they're 17 or 18 and enrolled in high school, the same applies to them. And if you want to come to America, there should be less beaurocracy. Basically, I want to de-Vogonize certain aspects of the government. Cut through the red tape.
Education-
See Health Care. I mean, come on! Education should be available to everybody! We're getting to a point in our country where the only people who can go to school are the very rich (because they can afford it) or the very poor (because they'll get grants, scholarships and loans that will cover it all), leaving the middle class far behind. For instance, my parents had two children in college at one point, and they were helping us pay. We'd fill out our FAFSAs and the government would look and say, "Well, you make X per year, so you can afford Y per year." Well, but what the government didn't take into account was that while they could afford Y per year, they couldn't afford Y x 2 per year. So, like health care, education should be accessible.
Foreign Policy-
I think I'd just apologize profusely to Europe in general, never use the phrase "Coalition of the Willing" again, and then dance the Charleston on top of the Statue of Liberty until everybody was satisfied that we're not so bad. Then I'd pull the troops out of Iraq, try and actually find Bin Laden (remember that guy? Yeah, he attacked us. Saddam never did. Really), and then I'd make Bono from U2 my secretary of state. He could totally get things going.
Other Miscellaneous Things-
Make sure arts get more funding in schools and communities. For example, it'd be nice if a school district pumped the same amount of money into the Football program and the Marching Band program. Both are physically demanding. Both help develop cooperation, leadership, and stuff like that. I'm not saying increase the funding for band to match that of football, or decrease football to match band, but to even them out. That way, the band won't have to sell so much candy to buy new uniforms, but the football team will have to get out and hustle a little for new helmets. Get it? Also, a municipality should not spend millions of dollars on a new baseball stadium without considering how much it's spending on things like the local professional symphony. Seriously. Why is St. Louis City (and county) paying for The New Busch Stadium? Well, because it will generate revenue and people will enjoy it. But try telling the people that the city is spending even one fourth of that amount on renovating Powell Symphony Hall. There would be an outcry! Why can't the Symphony fot the bill? Well, why couldn't the Cardinals foot the bill? Clearly, they're a very well run business; and that's what they are, a business. And so is the Symphony. And don't get me wrong, I LOVE baseball. Baseball is, in my mind, America. And while the steroid scandal shames America, I still love baseball. but that's another story. I'm getting way off base here. Another thing I would do as president is give all of my friends cushy cabinet posts. Get your requests in now! I've already got a speech writer and a Secretary of the Interior in mind. And remember, Secretary of State is going to U2's Bono. I also have a lock for Ambassador to New Zealand.
Anyway...so, yeah. The field was looking kinda thin, and Jerry's looking for a candidate (Jerry? Running mate? Eh?), so I thought, why not?
My fellow Americans....elect me, your pal, Elliot M. Rauscher. I will bring dignity to an office that is in desperate need of it. I will bring opportunity where there is none. And I will bring my cat to the White House, where he will likely hiss at every visiting dignitary. And, also, I will bring my large television and have seriously awesome movie nights for all of my staff. What do you say, America? Are you with me?
Oh, one more thing...I pledge to end the writers' strike once and for all. I will force the production companies to come to terms the guild agrees with wholeheartedly. And then, we can finally get back to watching new episodes of The Office.
You want my stance on issues? Just ask. I'm here to answer America's needs. But a brief run down:
The Economy-
Trickle down doesn't work. At all. Giving the rich people more money so they can spend it in the hopes that it stimulates the economy enough to create low-wage jobs for currently unemployed people living below the poverty line? Reaganomics. If it really worked, things wouldn't be so grim. My idea? Trickle up economics! Just think of trickle down economics reversed.
Health Care-
Single Payer. Government sponsored. "Oh my God, Elliot's a COMMUNIST! GET HIM!" No. Socialized medical care is not communism. Nor will it lead to communism. What it will lead to is healthy people living in America. Yeah. Good idea, huh?
Immigration-
Amnesty for those who are gainfully employed or attending an institution of higher learning. Children under 16 and under automatically granted amnesty if their parents have been granted amnesty. If not, there should be a process that allows them to stay with a relative or other trusted guardian so they can complete school. If they're 17 or 18 and enrolled in high school, the same applies to them. And if you want to come to America, there should be less beaurocracy. Basically, I want to de-Vogonize certain aspects of the government. Cut through the red tape.
Education-
See Health Care. I mean, come on! Education should be available to everybody! We're getting to a point in our country where the only people who can go to school are the very rich (because they can afford it) or the very poor (because they'll get grants, scholarships and loans that will cover it all), leaving the middle class far behind. For instance, my parents had two children in college at one point, and they were helping us pay. We'd fill out our FAFSAs and the government would look and say, "Well, you make X per year, so you can afford Y per year." Well, but what the government didn't take into account was that while they could afford Y per year, they couldn't afford Y x 2 per year. So, like health care, education should be accessible.
Foreign Policy-
I think I'd just apologize profusely to Europe in general, never use the phrase "Coalition of the Willing" again, and then dance the Charleston on top of the Statue of Liberty until everybody was satisfied that we're not so bad. Then I'd pull the troops out of Iraq, try and actually find Bin Laden (remember that guy? Yeah, he attacked us. Saddam never did. Really), and then I'd make Bono from U2 my secretary of state. He could totally get things going.
Other Miscellaneous Things-
Make sure arts get more funding in schools and communities. For example, it'd be nice if a school district pumped the same amount of money into the Football program and the Marching Band program. Both are physically demanding. Both help develop cooperation, leadership, and stuff like that. I'm not saying increase the funding for band to match that of football, or decrease football to match band, but to even them out. That way, the band won't have to sell so much candy to buy new uniforms, but the football team will have to get out and hustle a little for new helmets. Get it? Also, a municipality should not spend millions of dollars on a new baseball stadium without considering how much it's spending on things like the local professional symphony. Seriously. Why is St. Louis City (and county) paying for The New Busch Stadium? Well, because it will generate revenue and people will enjoy it. But try telling the people that the city is spending even one fourth of that amount on renovating Powell Symphony Hall. There would be an outcry! Why can't the Symphony fot the bill? Well, why couldn't the Cardinals foot the bill? Clearly, they're a very well run business; and that's what they are, a business. And so is the Symphony. And don't get me wrong, I LOVE baseball. Baseball is, in my mind, America. And while the steroid scandal shames America, I still love baseball. but that's another story. I'm getting way off base here. Another thing I would do as president is give all of my friends cushy cabinet posts. Get your requests in now! I've already got a speech writer and a Secretary of the Interior in mind. And remember, Secretary of State is going to U2's Bono. I also have a lock for Ambassador to New Zealand.
Anyway...so, yeah. The field was looking kinda thin, and Jerry's looking for a candidate (Jerry? Running mate? Eh?), so I thought, why not?
My fellow Americans....elect me, your pal, Elliot M. Rauscher. I will bring dignity to an office that is in desperate need of it. I will bring opportunity where there is none. And I will bring my cat to the White House, where he will likely hiss at every visiting dignitary. And, also, I will bring my large television and have seriously awesome movie nights for all of my staff. What do you say, America? Are you with me?
Oh, one more thing...I pledge to end the writers' strike once and for all. I will force the production companies to come to terms the guild agrees with wholeheartedly. And then, we can finally get back to watching new episodes of The Office.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
In Response to The Most Recent Poll On My Blog
Seeing as I only got five votes in, that makes me sad about the number of people reading my blog. But then I remember that for people to want to read your blog, you have to update it, and that's something I've been doing sporadically at best. That having been said, I want to point out something interesting about the poll:
There were six options listed, and one of them was clearly a joke. No, not Creative Writing: Advanced Fiction. That's for reals, yo. Underwater Basket Weaving? Not so much.
I got five votes, and each for a different class. And the one that didn't get any votes? Media Literacy. While that scares me for certain reasons that I will enumerate below, there's something far more interesting about the poll results I wish to discuss first.
The question was, which class sounds the most interesting? And nobody thought Media Literacy would be the most interesting. People picked politics, film, and sex over Media Literacy (hilarious because politics is covered in the media, and film is a medium, and media is full of sex, but that's more an afterthought than anything), and while I haven't had the politics or the films yet, so far Media Literacy is the most interesting of the classes I'm taking. I like the people and the teacher and the material and the workload.
The writing and the sex? Yeah, well, I never thought the workload in a class about sex would be too much to handle. But it is. And as I have mentioned earlier, my creative writing prof is a little, uh...well, you read what I said before. Or at least you should have.
No, okay, so, nobody's interested in media literacy? Come ON! Here's why you should be interested: Think of how pervasive the media is. You are consuming it RIGHT NOW! Yes, that's right, my blog is considered media. But not just that...are you listening to music while you read my blog (I suggest Ray LaMontagne for a mellow mood, Buddy Rich for something to replace any caffiene addiction you may have, The Mars Volta to completely blow your mind or The Postal Service if you happen to be a hopeless romantic)? Watching television or a movie? Checking other websites? Listening to the radio? Reading a book or magazine? Driving down the highway looking at billboards (elliotisnotawriter does not advocate this activity)? You are consuming media almost constantly. Does it have an effect on you?
85% of people say it has absolutely no effect on them. And but almost all of those people who claim media has no effect on them at all also claim that it has a tremendous effect on everybody else. Say what? That's a huge chunk of people to make up for somewhere.
So what media literacy is doing for me is making me more aware of what media I consume, and making me aware that the messages I get are being filtered from reality through the person/entity through which the message is being delivered. Think about a story about Barrack Obama on a Clear Channel talk radio station vs. one on NPR. I'd like to say that NPR is more fair (and they are more apt to be) but there is a distinctive liberal bias...though not as much as Clear Channel's conservative lean. Which is, of course, pale in comparison to Fox News'. The point is, people, pay attention to where your information is coming from. I mean, just think what would happen if everybody got their news from me and Jerry. I mean, sure, the world would be a tremendously happy place to live, but...no. Wait. I like this idea. Forget I said anything else. The last sentence should read "Everybody should get their news from me and Jerry."
There were six options listed, and one of them was clearly a joke. No, not Creative Writing: Advanced Fiction. That's for reals, yo. Underwater Basket Weaving? Not so much.
I got five votes, and each for a different class. And the one that didn't get any votes? Media Literacy. While that scares me for certain reasons that I will enumerate below, there's something far more interesting about the poll results I wish to discuss first.
The question was, which class sounds the most interesting? And nobody thought Media Literacy would be the most interesting. People picked politics, film, and sex over Media Literacy (hilarious because politics is covered in the media, and film is a medium, and media is full of sex, but that's more an afterthought than anything), and while I haven't had the politics or the films yet, so far Media Literacy is the most interesting of the classes I'm taking. I like the people and the teacher and the material and the workload.
The writing and the sex? Yeah, well, I never thought the workload in a class about sex would be too much to handle. But it is. And as I have mentioned earlier, my creative writing prof is a little, uh...well, you read what I said before. Or at least you should have.
No, okay, so, nobody's interested in media literacy? Come ON! Here's why you should be interested: Think of how pervasive the media is. You are consuming it RIGHT NOW! Yes, that's right, my blog is considered media. But not just that...are you listening to music while you read my blog (I suggest Ray LaMontagne for a mellow mood, Buddy Rich for something to replace any caffiene addiction you may have, The Mars Volta to completely blow your mind or The Postal Service if you happen to be a hopeless romantic)? Watching television or a movie? Checking other websites? Listening to the radio? Reading a book or magazine? Driving down the highway looking at billboards (elliotisnotawriter does not advocate this activity)? You are consuming media almost constantly. Does it have an effect on you?
85% of people say it has absolutely no effect on them. And but almost all of those people who claim media has no effect on them at all also claim that it has a tremendous effect on everybody else. Say what? That's a huge chunk of people to make up for somewhere.
So what media literacy is doing for me is making me more aware of what media I consume, and making me aware that the messages I get are being filtered from reality through the person/entity through which the message is being delivered. Think about a story about Barrack Obama on a Clear Channel talk radio station vs. one on NPR. I'd like to say that NPR is more fair (and they are more apt to be) but there is a distinctive liberal bias...though not as much as Clear Channel's conservative lean. Which is, of course, pale in comparison to Fox News'. The point is, people, pay attention to where your information is coming from. I mean, just think what would happen if everybody got their news from me and Jerry. I mean, sure, the world would be a tremendously happy place to live, but...no. Wait. I like this idea. Forget I said anything else. The last sentence should read "Everybody should get their news from me and Jerry."
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Hey, Elliot, Are You a Blog Lurker? How Come You Don't Comment on My Blog Ever?
Well, the thing about that is I've been using Google Reader to read all of the blogs I check on a regular basis. It's all there in one handy user interface. The only problem is that if I want to comment on the blog, I have to go to the actual blog to do so, and sometimes I'm not done reading all the others. Sorry gang. Especially Mo, whom I know is accusing me behind my back of being a blog lurker. Apologies.
Yeah, I Know...
But I've been very busy. Very busy. But there's a few things I'd like to talk about.
I don't know if I've mentioned this yet, but last fall we bought a ginormous television. Fifty inches. Plasma. Yes, HD. Of course, with it, we had to get more on top of things. Like our DVD player, for instance. Initiating technical babble. I had a standard DVD player with component video and composite audio running into the television. I was getting the best picture I could with what I had. But I wanted more. So, the other night, we bought a new DVD player. It's not an HD or BluRay, ut it's an upconverter. So it scales standard definition DVDs to near Hi-Def. And we got a good deal, too. It's a Sony. It's a 5 disc. But it didn't come with a remote or a manual because it was the floor model. But whatever, our TV remote works for it just fine. And of course, to get the best picture possible, I went with the HDMI cable. Yes. I am a nerd. I have already watched The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in all its glory, plus the first twenty minutes or so of Revenge of the Sith. Very cool.
Pandora Internet Radio. Best thing ever. Click Here.
School is going um...okay. The thing is, that with school, mostly I like history classes outside of my major and minor, and I like the practical classes inside my major and minor. I'm not so much into the theory classes in my minor. But right now, the only class I like is my Media Literacy class. I mean, I like the people in my history class and my creative writing class, but the history class is like pulling teeth at times, and I think the professor in my creative writing class is a little...um...I don't know how to write it out. Imagine me making a noise and hand movement indicating that he may have recently lost his mind a bit.
And I found something about my job I'm NOT fond of. Jefferson County. Mostly, the searches I have been doing down there, which leave me tired and groggy and (no joke), in a small amount of pain because I barely get to sit down as I sift through 86 years' worth of musty deed indexes and microfilm. Musty deed indexes with some gaping holes in the records. Boo hiss.
Anyway...I should go to bed. Class in the morning. Work in the day. Class in the evening. Homework at night. Maybe sleep. Eventually. Maybe.
So last Wednesday, I had a surreal night. Remember Hugo's? Of course not. Jesse's older brother Matt used to work there (Jesse was my best friend in my pre-middle school days), and we used to go get free food. I went in there Wednesday night after class with some people from class. We talked, had some drinks, some of them smoked (and I got all stinky), and it was nice. We talked about things like music, literature and politics and professors (including the one that walked in around 9:15, and sat at the bar until after we had all left), and after-graduation plans (a diverse group, from sophomores up to second year seniors up to 25 year old juniors), and as I was talking with a friend with whom I have had a couple classes already, she up and said I sounded unhappy.
How's somebody gonna come right out and say that? I mean, even if it might be true, why would you bring it up? I mean, I wasn't going to say "And it's clear you want to jump Mark six ways from Sunday but you're too scared to say anything." No. Ridiculous.
Anyway...I was there, in this restaurant, scene of some of my youthful exploits (they used to have a cigarette machine...), and being told I'm unhappy by a person with whom I had been having a tremendous time with. Well, not that I was having a good time with just her, but the whole group. Anyway...not important I guess.
Really...I should go to bed. Now.
I don't know if I've mentioned this yet, but last fall we bought a ginormous television. Fifty inches. Plasma. Yes, HD. Of course, with it, we had to get more on top of things. Like our DVD player, for instance. Initiating technical babble. I had a standard DVD player with component video and composite audio running into the television. I was getting the best picture I could with what I had. But I wanted more. So, the other night, we bought a new DVD player. It's not an HD or BluRay, ut it's an upconverter. So it scales standard definition DVDs to near Hi-Def. And we got a good deal, too. It's a Sony. It's a 5 disc. But it didn't come with a remote or a manual because it was the floor model. But whatever, our TV remote works for it just fine. And of course, to get the best picture possible, I went with the HDMI cable. Yes. I am a nerd. I have already watched The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in all its glory, plus the first twenty minutes or so of Revenge of the Sith. Very cool.
Pandora Internet Radio. Best thing ever. Click Here.
School is going um...okay. The thing is, that with school, mostly I like history classes outside of my major and minor, and I like the practical classes inside my major and minor. I'm not so much into the theory classes in my minor. But right now, the only class I like is my Media Literacy class. I mean, I like the people in my history class and my creative writing class, but the history class is like pulling teeth at times, and I think the professor in my creative writing class is a little...um...I don't know how to write it out. Imagine me making a noise and hand movement indicating that he may have recently lost his mind a bit.
And I found something about my job I'm NOT fond of. Jefferson County. Mostly, the searches I have been doing down there, which leave me tired and groggy and (no joke), in a small amount of pain because I barely get to sit down as I sift through 86 years' worth of musty deed indexes and microfilm. Musty deed indexes with some gaping holes in the records. Boo hiss.
Anyway...I should go to bed. Class in the morning. Work in the day. Class in the evening. Homework at night. Maybe sleep. Eventually. Maybe.
So last Wednesday, I had a surreal night. Remember Hugo's? Of course not. Jesse's older brother Matt used to work there (Jesse was my best friend in my pre-middle school days), and we used to go get free food. I went in there Wednesday night after class with some people from class. We talked, had some drinks, some of them smoked (and I got all stinky), and it was nice. We talked about things like music, literature and politics and professors (including the one that walked in around 9:15, and sat at the bar until after we had all left), and after-graduation plans (a diverse group, from sophomores up to second year seniors up to 25 year old juniors), and as I was talking with a friend with whom I have had a couple classes already, she up and said I sounded unhappy.
How's somebody gonna come right out and say that? I mean, even if it might be true, why would you bring it up? I mean, I wasn't going to say "And it's clear you want to jump Mark six ways from Sunday but you're too scared to say anything." No. Ridiculous.
Anyway...I was there, in this restaurant, scene of some of my youthful exploits (they used to have a cigarette machine...), and being told I'm unhappy by a person with whom I had been having a tremendous time with. Well, not that I was having a good time with just her, but the whole group. Anyway...not important I guess.
Really...I should go to bed. Now.
Monday, January 14, 2008
Post 130
Well, the e-mail came out with the 2007 Three Day Novel Winners.
I am happy with what I submitted.
I did no win.
Nor did I even make it onto the short list.
Or the honorable mentions.
But I am happy with it anyway. The last time I went through this, I was more upset with the verdict. And then I read my submission and was mortified that I had let anybody else read it.
I guess I can't say I'm happy that I didn't win, because I'm not. But I have to remember that I didn't read any of the other submissions. Nor should I, at least not with an eye for judgement. It's hard to stay impartial, really. Only, no, I can tell when a work of fiction is a better one than I turned out.
Oh well. This just means that I can actually discuss it a little more freely now. So look forward to some of that.
Well, school is starting up for me tomorrow. Well, it started today, but I don't have any Monday classes until after spring break, so it officially starts for me tomorrow morning at 8:30. Media Literacy, here I come!
Well, folks, that about wraps it up for now. I'ma go crawl into bed.
I am happy with what I submitted.
I did no win.
Nor did I even make it onto the short list.
Or the honorable mentions.
But I am happy with it anyway. The last time I went through this, I was more upset with the verdict. And then I read my submission and was mortified that I had let anybody else read it.
I guess I can't say I'm happy that I didn't win, because I'm not. But I have to remember that I didn't read any of the other submissions. Nor should I, at least not with an eye for judgement. It's hard to stay impartial, really. Only, no, I can tell when a work of fiction is a better one than I turned out.
Oh well. This just means that I can actually discuss it a little more freely now. So look forward to some of that.
Well, school is starting up for me tomorrow. Well, it started today, but I don't have any Monday classes until after spring break, so it officially starts for me tomorrow morning at 8:30. Media Literacy, here I come!
Well, folks, that about wraps it up for now. I'ma go crawl into bed.
Wednesday, January 09, 2008
More on the Strike
Today's topic: Strike Beards.
I don't know if any of you have been watching late night television since it returned, but if you have, you know what I mean when I say Strike Beard.
Letterman returned last week with a strike beard, but has since shaved it off. Rather, he had some National Guard members come and shave it off on his show. But Conan still has the beard going in full force. In fact, it's really creepy.
The idea of a strike beard is just one of those guy things. If a guy wants to grow facial hair, all he has to do is formulate a valid excuse. And, in the eyes of other guys, almost any excuse is valid. "Facial Hair February"? Of course it's valid, Facial and February both start with F. Cinco de Moustache? Hilariousness ensues! Jerry has been known to grow a hockey playoff beard, only to shave it off the day the Stanley Cup finals are over, whereupon he begins growing his offseason beard. This sticks around until the season starts, then he's baby faced again until he decides to start his regular season beard. Okay, I may be exaggerating, but you get my point.
I guess the reason that Letterman shaved his beard is because in his world (Worldwide Pants, that is), the Writer's Strike is over. His company has independently signed a deal with the WGA, so he gets to have scripted comedy bits, a regular monologue, the Top Ten list, actual real celebrities, and a smooth baby face. Conan, on the other hand, has taken to wasting time with visual gags, unscripted off the cuff commentary (which he is usually good at when he's got enough scripted material to pad out the rest of his show...), he's stuck with people who aren't technically crossing the picket line to be there (like politicians and sports stars but no actors), and he's got this creepy Irish Man beard.
Now, why even bring up the strike beard? Well, because those who know me might remember that I have this very strange facial hair growth pattern which has truly scared me off from going too long without shaving. I went for two weeks in January of 2006, and on me, a beard just looks...um...I guess terrible is the right word. So I have not been showing my support for the WGA with a beard. In fact, when I really think about it, I haven't so much been showing support to them, other than joining a facebook group and mentioning it in my last post.
So what? The strike has been going on for two months and then some, right? Well, fair reader(s) (oh, and any unfair readers I may have), the point is that while I know the basics of why the writers are striking, I want to dig a little deeper. And what better way to dig than to post what I find on my blog?
So, if you know nothing of the strike at this point, or a little bit, and want to know more, stay tuned. I'm sure for some of you it will be a delicious change of pace from my political ranting or my mundane lapse in posting.
So for now, I say farewell, I'm back to work (now that I am done with lunch), and in my spare time, I will pursue the facts of the WGA strike. And you'll be the next to know. Until then...
Write On.
I don't know if any of you have been watching late night television since it returned, but if you have, you know what I mean when I say Strike Beard.
Letterman returned last week with a strike beard, but has since shaved it off. Rather, he had some National Guard members come and shave it off on his show. But Conan still has the beard going in full force. In fact, it's really creepy.
The idea of a strike beard is just one of those guy things. If a guy wants to grow facial hair, all he has to do is formulate a valid excuse. And, in the eyes of other guys, almost any excuse is valid. "Facial Hair February"? Of course it's valid, Facial and February both start with F. Cinco de Moustache? Hilariousness ensues! Jerry has been known to grow a hockey playoff beard, only to shave it off the day the Stanley Cup finals are over, whereupon he begins growing his offseason beard. This sticks around until the season starts, then he's baby faced again until he decides to start his regular season beard. Okay, I may be exaggerating, but you get my point.
I guess the reason that Letterman shaved his beard is because in his world (Worldwide Pants, that is), the Writer's Strike is over. His company has independently signed a deal with the WGA, so he gets to have scripted comedy bits, a regular monologue, the Top Ten list, actual real celebrities, and a smooth baby face. Conan, on the other hand, has taken to wasting time with visual gags, unscripted off the cuff commentary (which he is usually good at when he's got enough scripted material to pad out the rest of his show...), he's stuck with people who aren't technically crossing the picket line to be there (like politicians and sports stars but no actors), and he's got this creepy Irish Man beard.
Now, why even bring up the strike beard? Well, because those who know me might remember that I have this very strange facial hair growth pattern which has truly scared me off from going too long without shaving. I went for two weeks in January of 2006, and on me, a beard just looks...um...I guess terrible is the right word. So I have not been showing my support for the WGA with a beard. In fact, when I really think about it, I haven't so much been showing support to them, other than joining a facebook group and mentioning it in my last post.
So what? The strike has been going on for two months and then some, right? Well, fair reader(s) (oh, and any unfair readers I may have), the point is that while I know the basics of why the writers are striking, I want to dig a little deeper. And what better way to dig than to post what I find on my blog?
So, if you know nothing of the strike at this point, or a little bit, and want to know more, stay tuned. I'm sure for some of you it will be a delicious change of pace from my political ranting or my mundane lapse in posting.
So for now, I say farewell, I'm back to work (now that I am done with lunch), and in my spare time, I will pursue the facts of the WGA strike. And you'll be the next to know. Until then...
Write On.
Friday, January 04, 2008
Why I Haven't Been Blogging
Haven't you heard? There's a writer's strike on. I can't be considered a scab, can I?
Yeah, I know, my professors didn't think it was a good excuse either.
But I did read This article on MSN today that I completely agree with. I've heard a lot of people griping like this, but none so eloquently/hilariously. I've also heard a smattering of anger aimed at the writers, but I don't take heed. The people who blame the writers for the strike clearly have no concept of the matter at hand. Striking writers, sure, they want more money, but not every TV and Hollywood writer is a multimillionaire so this is understandable. Actually, while most writers who work in film and television can bring in one single paycheck that is two or three times the size of mine, I get twenty four paychecks a year and they may only get two or three. So...you do the math.
So, there we go. Solidarity with the striking WGA. I salute you folks. Even if I'm not yet a member (although that's only because I hadn't gotten around to joining yet...)
Yeah, I know, my professors didn't think it was a good excuse either.
But I did read This article on MSN today that I completely agree with. I've heard a lot of people griping like this, but none so eloquently/hilariously. I've also heard a smattering of anger aimed at the writers, but I don't take heed. The people who blame the writers for the strike clearly have no concept of the matter at hand. Striking writers, sure, they want more money, but not every TV and Hollywood writer is a multimillionaire so this is understandable. Actually, while most writers who work in film and television can bring in one single paycheck that is two or three times the size of mine, I get twenty four paychecks a year and they may only get two or three. So...you do the math.
So, there we go. Solidarity with the striking WGA. I salute you folks. Even if I'm not yet a member (although that's only because I hadn't gotten around to joining yet...)
Friday, December 28, 2007
Year End Round-Up...Coming Soon...
Well, it's been my most prolific year yet on the blog, which is not quite the accomplishment it sounds like when you consider the gaping month long + black holes of blogging, and the fact that my blog is only a little under two years old. But, the record stands for me to defeat next year. There we have it.
But that's not really what this is about. This is about something else entirely. Brace yourself, Kathy...it's a political rant on a Friday. I know, I know...those are supposed to happen on Mondays or Wednesdays, Fridays are supposed to be for free writing. But, well, such is life.
I've noticed a lot of hooplah over a woman's ability to govern. Or a black person's ability to govern. Whatever. This post has been sparked by a recent feature I've noticed on facebook. They present you with a topic on which you can choose a stance, and you can leave a reason for your stance. For instance, Should Waterboarding be allowed as a means to extract information from terror suspects (short answer no, long answer is also no but involves a rather lengthy explanation, which is a tangent I do not want to go off on). Or...Should a politician's religious beliefs play a major part in their decision making process? Well, I mean, I suppose so, yes...but I think morals and ethics are more important, but since most religions do put a heavy emphasis on ethical treatment of your fellow human and stromg moral convictions, then, yes. Fine. Whatever.
But most recently, I saw one that asked the following: Do you think a woman can be as effective a president as a man?
Duh! This is just about the stupidest question I've ever heard! This is like asking if a silver car gets better mileage than a white car. Yes, I suppose it could. Or not. The question should really be does a Silver Toyota Yaris get better mileage than a white Chevy Suburban. Yes. Yes it can.
The point is, you can't make a generalization like that! I know that the question is really a thinly veiled attempt at asking if Hilary could be as effective as...well, I guess there's no real implication as to who the male is. As Hilary is the most successful female politician to vie for the highest political office in the country to date, though, the question implies that she is the woman. And so some people may read that question but read it as "Do you think Hilary Clinton can be as effective a president as George W. Bush?" To which the answer for me is, yes, but so could an untrained monkey. Could she make as effective a president as Mitt Romney? Yes. Better, even. Could she make as effective a president as Dennis Kucinich? Well, I'm not saying I have a man crush on Dennis Kucinich like Jerry does, but I'd say no, Dennis would be more effective. Not because he's a man and she's a woman, but because for the America I want to see, he's got a better vision.
Be wary, dear readers. There will be a lot of this in the upcoming months. Can a Black Man run the Country? Can a Mormon hold the highest office? Should a Woman be put in the position of Commander in Chief? Is America ready for a crossdressing Supreme Court Justice? Do we want Bill Clinton as the very first "First Husband?" Can you imagine him in the parlor with Mrs. Gordon Brown and Madame Sarkozy while Hilary, Gordon and Nicholas discuss NATO plans in the oval office? That would be hilarious, actually. Sure, a Hobbit can save Middle Earth and become a Senator and marry a supermodel who is way out of his league (and two feet taller), but can he be President?
Personally, I think we should consider the following when choosing our next leader: How funny can the editorial cartoonists draw them? Clearly, a short man with big ears always has a lot of hilarious potential, moreso than a former Mayor who faints or a lethargic actor or a young, charismatic junior senator. I mean...come on!
But that's not really what this is about. This is about something else entirely. Brace yourself, Kathy...it's a political rant on a Friday. I know, I know...those are supposed to happen on Mondays or Wednesdays, Fridays are supposed to be for free writing. But, well, such is life.
I've noticed a lot of hooplah over a woman's ability to govern. Or a black person's ability to govern. Whatever. This post has been sparked by a recent feature I've noticed on facebook. They present you with a topic on which you can choose a stance, and you can leave a reason for your stance. For instance, Should Waterboarding be allowed as a means to extract information from terror suspects (short answer no, long answer is also no but involves a rather lengthy explanation, which is a tangent I do not want to go off on). Or...Should a politician's religious beliefs play a major part in their decision making process? Well, I mean, I suppose so, yes...but I think morals and ethics are more important, but since most religions do put a heavy emphasis on ethical treatment of your fellow human and stromg moral convictions, then, yes. Fine. Whatever.
But most recently, I saw one that asked the following: Do you think a woman can be as effective a president as a man?
Duh! This is just about the stupidest question I've ever heard! This is like asking if a silver car gets better mileage than a white car. Yes, I suppose it could. Or not. The question should really be does a Silver Toyota Yaris get better mileage than a white Chevy Suburban. Yes. Yes it can.
The point is, you can't make a generalization like that! I know that the question is really a thinly veiled attempt at asking if Hilary could be as effective as...well, I guess there's no real implication as to who the male is. As Hilary is the most successful female politician to vie for the highest political office in the country to date, though, the question implies that she is the woman. And so some people may read that question but read it as "Do you think Hilary Clinton can be as effective a president as George W. Bush?" To which the answer for me is, yes, but so could an untrained monkey. Could she make as effective a president as Mitt Romney? Yes. Better, even. Could she make as effective a president as Dennis Kucinich? Well, I'm not saying I have a man crush on Dennis Kucinich like Jerry does, but I'd say no, Dennis would be more effective. Not because he's a man and she's a woman, but because for the America I want to see, he's got a better vision.
Be wary, dear readers. There will be a lot of this in the upcoming months. Can a Black Man run the Country? Can a Mormon hold the highest office? Should a Woman be put in the position of Commander in Chief? Is America ready for a crossdressing Supreme Court Justice? Do we want Bill Clinton as the very first "First Husband?" Can you imagine him in the parlor with Mrs. Gordon Brown and Madame Sarkozy while Hilary, Gordon and Nicholas discuss NATO plans in the oval office? That would be hilarious, actually. Sure, a Hobbit can save Middle Earth and become a Senator and marry a supermodel who is way out of his league (and two feet taller), but can he be President?
Personally, I think we should consider the following when choosing our next leader: How funny can the editorial cartoonists draw them? Clearly, a short man with big ears always has a lot of hilarious potential, moreso than a former Mayor who faints or a lethargic actor or a young, charismatic junior senator. I mean...come on!
Thursday, December 13, 2007
I Promise A Real Update Soon, But In The Meantime...
O Holy Crap!
I mean...
Happy Holidays!
Enjoy Straight No Chaser and their awesome rendition of The Twelve Days of Christmas:
I mean...
Happy Holidays!
Enjoy Straight No Chaser and their awesome rendition of The Twelve Days of Christmas:
Wednesday, December 05, 2007
Elliot's Poetry Corner
I never ever ever ever ever ever post poetry. Well, no, I think I did once. LONG ago. But I'm about to again. In lieu of a real Tuesday Excerpt (and being that it's after midnight and therefore Wednesday) I will post a few. Here goes:
===
The following poems were written between August and December of 2005
This Is My Favorite Poem
I wrote this poem,
so I can love it if I want.
And maybe I will;
I’ll take it to the park,
go on long walks,
perhaps pick up some snacks.
I hope it likes me, too,
that it won’t hate me, start biting me or
try and run away.
Or maybe,
it’s just a poem,
and so long as I am writing it,
I can choose to end it
before it turns on me.
____________________________________
Closing Time
For the past two months, I’ve signed my name-
-on lines at the bottom of different pages-
what feels by now like thousands of times.
I sign again and again,
and I write the date beside my name.
At least that changes.
My signature, never beautiful is now
an awful mess.
The bank must ask,
“What does that say?”
when they see it.
The keys sit on the table, waiting for me.
One last signature, smeared by the sweat from my palms;
the large number on the last page frightened me.
With this last initial, I can finally go home.
__________________________________________________________
Labor Day Weekend
I stayed up Friday night,
drinking whiskey and writing a novel
which I promptly scrapped Saturday morning.
Sweat pooled on my desk as it poured off my forehead.
I worked for eighteen straight hours then left,
thinking fresh air would revitalize my ambitions.
My wife complained the clacking keys kept her awake,
as my characters found themselves at last.
I slept through daylight and woke in time for dinner.
Through conflict I typed, into resolution,
composing a lie of a life that never was.
The throaty call of “Are you done yet?” turned to
“Oh good, you’re done, get some sleep.”
Long since abandoning whiskey for tea, I read my work.
Sitting back and smiling for the first time in three days.
===
Now...clearly, the three day novel has been discussed. And Closing Time was written in the midst of buying the house. But that first one, well...I think it's possibly the only poem I've ever written that I enjoy reading, to be perfectly honest. I mean, I think if I were to ever forget that I wrote this poem, and then somebody read it to me, I'd think it was early Billy Collins. And no, I'm not just being an egomaniac...this actually happened. I wrote this two years ago, and a month ago I stumbled upon it in a folder from school. It had no name on it, and it was not unusual for my teacher to type out a play instead of copying it from a book so we could read it. So I saw it, read it, and thought to mysel, "This kind of smacks of Billy Collins. You know, before he got really good." Then I found it on my back-up discs when I got my old laptop's hard drive recovered...with my name on it. Two separate drafts, even. I guess I did write it. Anyway, I'll take credit. I sort of remember writing it anyway.
===
The following poems were written between August and December of 2005
This Is My Favorite Poem
I wrote this poem,
so I can love it if I want.
And maybe I will;
I’ll take it to the park,
go on long walks,
perhaps pick up some snacks.
I hope it likes me, too,
that it won’t hate me, start biting me or
try and run away.
Or maybe,
it’s just a poem,
and so long as I am writing it,
I can choose to end it
before it turns on me.
____________________________________
Closing Time
For the past two months, I’ve signed my name-
-on lines at the bottom of different pages-
what feels by now like thousands of times.
I sign again and again,
and I write the date beside my name.
At least that changes.
My signature, never beautiful is now
an awful mess.
The bank must ask,
“What does that say?”
when they see it.
The keys sit on the table, waiting for me.
One last signature, smeared by the sweat from my palms;
the large number on the last page frightened me.
With this last initial, I can finally go home.
__________________________________________________________
Labor Day Weekend
I stayed up Friday night,
drinking whiskey and writing a novel
which I promptly scrapped Saturday morning.
Sweat pooled on my desk as it poured off my forehead.
I worked for eighteen straight hours then left,
thinking fresh air would revitalize my ambitions.
My wife complained the clacking keys kept her awake,
as my characters found themselves at last.
I slept through daylight and woke in time for dinner.
Through conflict I typed, into resolution,
composing a lie of a life that never was.
The throaty call of “Are you done yet?” turned to
“Oh good, you’re done, get some sleep.”
Long since abandoning whiskey for tea, I read my work.
Sitting back and smiling for the first time in three days.
===
Now...clearly, the three day novel has been discussed. And Closing Time was written in the midst of buying the house. But that first one, well...I think it's possibly the only poem I've ever written that I enjoy reading, to be perfectly honest. I mean, I think if I were to ever forget that I wrote this poem, and then somebody read it to me, I'd think it was early Billy Collins. And no, I'm not just being an egomaniac...this actually happened. I wrote this two years ago, and a month ago I stumbled upon it in a folder from school. It had no name on it, and it was not unusual for my teacher to type out a play instead of copying it from a book so we could read it. So I saw it, read it, and thought to mysel, "This kind of smacks of Billy Collins. You know, before he got really good." Then I found it on my back-up discs when I got my old laptop's hard drive recovered...with my name on it. Two separate drafts, even. I guess I did write it. Anyway, I'll take credit. I sort of remember writing it anyway.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Blurb
Yeah yeah, I know, but it's been crazy with being out of town and decorating the house and decorating the parents' house and school and being slightly sick.
To readers of my blog who have not been made aware of such plans, this Sunday evening at 8 pm, feel free to drop by Ted Drewes on ChippeWatson for Extreme Ice Cream Club's Happy (Belated) Birthday to Me.
Yes, if you are reading this, you are invited. If you can't come (have other plans/don't live in or near St. Louis) that is too bad because it will be the greatest time ever. On a Sunday. In December. In 2007. Totally.
To readers of my blog who have not been made aware of such plans, this Sunday evening at 8 pm, feel free to drop by Ted Drewes on ChippeWatson for Extreme Ice Cream Club's Happy (Belated) Birthday to Me.
Yes, if you are reading this, you are invited. If you can't come (have other plans/don't live in or near St. Louis) that is too bad because it will be the greatest time ever. On a Sunday. In December. In 2007. Totally.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Lord, I Was Born a Ramblin' Man (And a Tuesday Excerptin' One, Too)
Alright, so, I've got a bit to get through.
I am going out of town tomorrow after work. I will be going to Davenport (to visit my brother-in-law Dave. Wow, Dave, Davenport...I think I will start calling it Dave 'n Port), spending the night, then Kathy, Dave, Cakelyn (Dave's daughter, see prior post about getting stuck in the middle of Iowa from the early days of my blog), and I will be heading even further North to Rochester, MN on Thursday for a Thanksgiving Feast.
But what's most important about tomorrow is that I will be turning 25. A quarter of a century. That scares me. It scares me mostly because when I turned 15, I could barely remember being five, but now I have vivid memories of being 15 (although, my Tuesday Excerpt below will refute that, but you will have to discern where I've taken poetic license and where I haven't). Fifteen was big; first year of high school, Jon Roundy joined The Hitchhikers and we actually had a singer, then we went into a recording studio. I made friends with Monica, and we're still friends today, so it was a year when good things happened. But what happened to five? Well, clearly, it was twenty years ago. And who can remember what happened twenty years ago?
I guess it's just my "getting older" syndrome I feel so acutely. Not so much at work, you know...I'm one of the youngest at work, but at school, no so much. Granted, I take a few night classes, so I don't feel like the absolute oldest, but even still I feel old. You see, even though I can't recall specific things about myself when I was five, I do recall many things about the 1980's. And the current class of freshmen know nothing of the 80's. I spent eight years stuck in the 1980's. I even went through an 80's revival phase in high school (spurred on by my physics/astronomy teacher, Mr. Yates...in conjunction with a campaign to bring back the ultimate power snack; Moon Pies and RC Cola. Oh, more on Moon Pies later...). A couple weeks ago, when one of my teachers asked if anybody in class remembered the Chrysler K car, three people raised hands...two ladies who have children old enough to be in college, and myself. The teacher looked at me and said, "Whatever, you are too young to remember the K car, those haven't been around since, like 1989. You were probably two then." I said, "Nope...seven. And a neighbor on my street had one until sometime in the mid-90's." Then, of course, inevitably, somebody did math and said, "No way! That would make you, like...twenty-five. No way you're that old?" To which my reply was, "Since when did 25 become old?"
Well, actually, earlier that same day, we were talking about the business of writing for money in my playwriting class. And the general gist was that if you haven't made an impact as a playwright or as a screenwriter by the age of 30, your chances go way down. They want young people. I have five years left until I'm 30. That's half of ten...and I can remember things from ten years ago like they were yesterday. So that's not a lot of time...
Back to the Moon Pies...I do like me some Moon Pies. My sister's husband, Kevin, works at a grocery store that sells Moon Pies (the big stores around here, for some reason, don't, but the smaller ones do...no one can quite understand or explain this phenomenon), so occasionally I get the token Moon Pie. For my birthday (we celebrated this Sunday with my family, because I will be out of town, plus my dad's birthday was last Tuesday, we normally celebrate the Sunday in between with dinner at my parents'), Mo and Kevin bought me a carton of ice cream...Prairie Farms Moon Pie Ice Cream.
The verdict? It's yummy, actually. I mean, ice cream is good, Moon Pies are good, makes a certain amount of sense that Moon Pie Ice Cream would be good, but...jelly beans are good, buttered popcorn is good, but buttered popcorn flavored jelly beans are quite possibly the nastiest thing a person could ever desire to eat an entire box of (and trust me, they sell entire theater-candy style boxes of Jelly Belly Buttered Popcorn flavored beans, I know, I used to have to put ad sings up for them every few weeks at Target). But no, I mean, this ice cream is really good. But you probably already have to like Moon Pies to appreciate it.
Another consequense of getting older is that (first time admitting this in a public forum) I can't eat the way I used to. Well, no, I can still eat the way I used to, it's just that now I actually show it. Not tremendously, just...enough that it's noticeable. After a week of particularly uninhibited scarfing down of every morsel in sight (and after a very heavy dinner of biscuits, pork-sausage gravy and scrambled eggs with cheddar followed by a dessert of apple pie...), I went to Ted Drewes Frozen Custard for another dessert (the Extreme Ice Cream Club), and a friend of mine I hadn't seen since just after I started my new job showed up. His first comment? "Hey...Elliot. Wow. You got fat."
So, let's recap; so far in the last couple months, I've been called Fat and Old by my peers, plus people are giving me food (the ice cream and half of my birthday cake came home with me from my parents' house, and Kathy won't eat it because she doesn't like spice cake). So, imagine how well my birthday is being handled.
On the upside of all of this, I can actually take time to ride my bike this summer, because I won't be worn out from working ungodly hours at Target, and I won't have homework, so I can get back in shape. For the time being, though, I have to buckle down, squeeze in a few crunches here and there, and remind mysel that even though I used to be able to order twenty dollars worth of Taco Bell, eat it in one sitting and still manage to lose a pound (no joke, it's happened to me in the past), I can do this no longer. So I shouldn't order that much. Or eat it if I do. At least, not in one sitting.
But then again, Taco Bell really doesn't keep well...
Okay, so, now to the last thing...and no, not "The Last Thing..." which I posted last week. I'm still working on that one. I kind of stalled...scene 2 is erratic right now and needs an amount of work. Then, of course, there's the rest of the play to write...
I digress. Actually, twice. First thing of the last two things; I really really want to take off from Rochester on Friday and head to the Twin Cities. If I had planned better, I'd totally do it, but right now, I don't think it's feasible. Maybe I'll call some folks tomorrow and bounce the idea off of them, see if they'll even be there. That's the real crux of the situation.
But now, truly, the last part of this evening's blog; the Tuesday Excerpt. This one goes out to my sister-in-law Lori, who is currently plowing through college applications. This is the application essay I wrote for Webster University, which netted me smiles from my admissions advisor, a laugh from my academic advisor, and $4000/year I will never have to pay back.
===
"Webster University General Application Essay" 2006"
I can remember my senior year of high school. This should come as no shock; I was what, seventeen and eighteen, and now I’m only twenty-three. I suppose that’s longer ago than it seems to me, but it’s so vivid to me still for some reason. Now freshman year of high school, I remember maybe three or four major events and those are, in no particular order; doing over five hundred push-ups during marching band camp, getting called out by Anne Lutjens for staring at her legs during academic lab (a glorified study hall), my band The Hitchhikers getting picked for a huge battle of the bands a week after our singer went to Germany for a month, and my sister graduating and going off to college. A whole nine months, and that’s about all I have. But senior year, I had everybody breathing down my neck.
I borrowed books about college essay preparation. I asked all of my older friends if I could read their essays to see what they said. I asked teachers, guidance counselors, friends, family, co-workers, a girl at Starbucks, and tried to find some help on the internet. In the end, I wrote and subsequently directed a one-act play about a guy attempting to write his college application essay. His friend distracts him, and in an entire weekend he manages to write three sentences. That’s a whole three sentences more than I got. Of course, that didn’t stop people from asking where I was going to school. The answer was simple.
“Nowhere.”
Except I did go to college, at the University of Minnesota. Only, I didn’t take it very seriously that first semester, spring of 2002. I was under the impression that college was about drinking and having fun, so much so that I forgot that it was also a little bit about school. So, I went on academic probation. Then I got mono fall semester, and my motivation gave out on me. Basically, I flunked out and came home to St. Louis.
That’s when I went to community college. This was in 2003 (a full two years after I graduated from high school). I went for one whole semester and then dropped halfway through the next because something had happened while I was academically probated and getting dangerously sick; I fell in love with and proposed marriage to a girl, and I had no money because I was only working enough to keep gas in my car so I could continue driving to and from school and work. I buckled down at work, went full time. I got married July 17th, 2004. Best day of my life thus far. If you haven’t fallen in love and gotten married, I would recommend it. I enjoy it immensely.
Of course, I spent the next year not going to school, which led my wife to deliver the gentle but firm statement “if you don’t go back to school, I don’t know if I can stay with you.”
You see, silly me, the spring leading up to the summer we were married, all she wanted to do was drop out of school. I had told her not to, because she was nearly done with her degree. So, on my advice, and threats of not staying with her, she finished school. Ah, how the tables had turned! So, summer 2005, I decided to sign up for another class at community college.
“Another class” turned into a ten-credit summer session, while still working full time, which basically meant I had either enough time to sleep or enough time to eat and, most often, chose eating because, if you knew me, that’s just the kind of thing you would expect. So when it came time to sign up for fall semester, I opted to pull back a little.
“Pulling back” turned into eleven credits. Still working full time. Oh, and my wife and I bought a house. So, you can see how well pulling back worked.
The upshot of all of this is that I am finally, after four and a half years out of high school, a sophomore in college and I just decided I would much rather spend the next few chapters of my academic life at a school I am excited to attend, even though I may have been afraid of it at one time.
Why was I afraid of Webster University my senior year of high school? Because I could see Webster’s campus from the parking lot of my high school. I didn’t want to travel only that far, I wanted to go somewhere. Hence Minnesota.
Now that I consider things, though, how far have I come since then? Well, aside from marriage and home ownership and about six thousand miles logged on a bike that is worth more than my car, academically I’ve achieved in four and a half years what it should have, by all counts, taken me nine months to accomplish. And I can’t let the next three academic years take me into my thirties, forties, or beyond. Why wait? My friends, family, and especially my wife will tell you that I put the “pro” in procrastination; I’ve taken it to a whole new level. I just think it’s time to let certain skills die and sharpen others that are much more useful.
It is time to move forward and actually go somewhere.
===
"Finishing a book is just like you took a child out in the back yard and shot it." -Truman Capote
I am going out of town tomorrow after work. I will be going to Davenport (to visit my brother-in-law Dave. Wow, Dave, Davenport...I think I will start calling it Dave 'n Port), spending the night, then Kathy, Dave, Cakelyn (Dave's daughter, see prior post about getting stuck in the middle of Iowa from the early days of my blog), and I will be heading even further North to Rochester, MN on Thursday for a Thanksgiving Feast.
But what's most important about tomorrow is that I will be turning 25. A quarter of a century. That scares me. It scares me mostly because when I turned 15, I could barely remember being five, but now I have vivid memories of being 15 (although, my Tuesday Excerpt below will refute that, but you will have to discern where I've taken poetic license and where I haven't). Fifteen was big; first year of high school, Jon Roundy joined The Hitchhikers and we actually had a singer, then we went into a recording studio. I made friends with Monica, and we're still friends today, so it was a year when good things happened. But what happened to five? Well, clearly, it was twenty years ago. And who can remember what happened twenty years ago?
I guess it's just my "getting older" syndrome I feel so acutely. Not so much at work, you know...I'm one of the youngest at work, but at school, no so much. Granted, I take a few night classes, so I don't feel like the absolute oldest, but even still I feel old. You see, even though I can't recall specific things about myself when I was five, I do recall many things about the 1980's. And the current class of freshmen know nothing of the 80's. I spent eight years stuck in the 1980's. I even went through an 80's revival phase in high school (spurred on by my physics/astronomy teacher, Mr. Yates...in conjunction with a campaign to bring back the ultimate power snack; Moon Pies and RC Cola. Oh, more on Moon Pies later...). A couple weeks ago, when one of my teachers asked if anybody in class remembered the Chrysler K car, three people raised hands...two ladies who have children old enough to be in college, and myself. The teacher looked at me and said, "Whatever, you are too young to remember the K car, those haven't been around since, like 1989. You were probably two then." I said, "Nope...seven. And a neighbor on my street had one until sometime in the mid-90's." Then, of course, inevitably, somebody did math and said, "No way! That would make you, like...twenty-five. No way you're that old?" To which my reply was, "Since when did 25 become old?"
Well, actually, earlier that same day, we were talking about the business of writing for money in my playwriting class. And the general gist was that if you haven't made an impact as a playwright or as a screenwriter by the age of 30, your chances go way down. They want young people. I have five years left until I'm 30. That's half of ten...and I can remember things from ten years ago like they were yesterday. So that's not a lot of time...
Back to the Moon Pies...I do like me some Moon Pies. My sister's husband, Kevin, works at a grocery store that sells Moon Pies (the big stores around here, for some reason, don't, but the smaller ones do...no one can quite understand or explain this phenomenon), so occasionally I get the token Moon Pie. For my birthday (we celebrated this Sunday with my family, because I will be out of town, plus my dad's birthday was last Tuesday, we normally celebrate the Sunday in between with dinner at my parents'), Mo and Kevin bought me a carton of ice cream...Prairie Farms Moon Pie Ice Cream.
The verdict? It's yummy, actually. I mean, ice cream is good, Moon Pies are good, makes a certain amount of sense that Moon Pie Ice Cream would be good, but...jelly beans are good, buttered popcorn is good, but buttered popcorn flavored jelly beans are quite possibly the nastiest thing a person could ever desire to eat an entire box of (and trust me, they sell entire theater-candy style boxes of Jelly Belly Buttered Popcorn flavored beans, I know, I used to have to put ad sings up for them every few weeks at Target). But no, I mean, this ice cream is really good. But you probably already have to like Moon Pies to appreciate it.
Another consequense of getting older is that (first time admitting this in a public forum) I can't eat the way I used to. Well, no, I can still eat the way I used to, it's just that now I actually show it. Not tremendously, just...enough that it's noticeable. After a week of particularly uninhibited scarfing down of every morsel in sight (and after a very heavy dinner of biscuits, pork-sausage gravy and scrambled eggs with cheddar followed by a dessert of apple pie...), I went to Ted Drewes Frozen Custard for another dessert (the Extreme Ice Cream Club), and a friend of mine I hadn't seen since just after I started my new job showed up. His first comment? "Hey...Elliot. Wow. You got fat."
So, let's recap; so far in the last couple months, I've been called Fat and Old by my peers, plus people are giving me food (the ice cream and half of my birthday cake came home with me from my parents' house, and Kathy won't eat it because she doesn't like spice cake). So, imagine how well my birthday is being handled.
On the upside of all of this, I can actually take time to ride my bike this summer, because I won't be worn out from working ungodly hours at Target, and I won't have homework, so I can get back in shape. For the time being, though, I have to buckle down, squeeze in a few crunches here and there, and remind mysel that even though I used to be able to order twenty dollars worth of Taco Bell, eat it in one sitting and still manage to lose a pound (no joke, it's happened to me in the past), I can do this no longer. So I shouldn't order that much. Or eat it if I do. At least, not in one sitting.
But then again, Taco Bell really doesn't keep well...
Okay, so, now to the last thing...and no, not "The Last Thing..." which I posted last week. I'm still working on that one. I kind of stalled...scene 2 is erratic right now and needs an amount of work. Then, of course, there's the rest of the play to write...
I digress. Actually, twice. First thing of the last two things; I really really want to take off from Rochester on Friday and head to the Twin Cities. If I had planned better, I'd totally do it, but right now, I don't think it's feasible. Maybe I'll call some folks tomorrow and bounce the idea off of them, see if they'll even be there. That's the real crux of the situation.
But now, truly, the last part of this evening's blog; the Tuesday Excerpt. This one goes out to my sister-in-law Lori, who is currently plowing through college applications. This is the application essay I wrote for Webster University, which netted me smiles from my admissions advisor, a laugh from my academic advisor, and $4000/year I will never have to pay back.
===
"Webster University General Application Essay" 2006"
I can remember my senior year of high school. This should come as no shock; I was what, seventeen and eighteen, and now I’m only twenty-three. I suppose that’s longer ago than it seems to me, but it’s so vivid to me still for some reason. Now freshman year of high school, I remember maybe three or four major events and those are, in no particular order; doing over five hundred push-ups during marching band camp, getting called out by Anne Lutjens for staring at her legs during academic lab (a glorified study hall), my band The Hitchhikers getting picked for a huge battle of the bands a week after our singer went to Germany for a month, and my sister graduating and going off to college. A whole nine months, and that’s about all I have. But senior year, I had everybody breathing down my neck.
I borrowed books about college essay preparation. I asked all of my older friends if I could read their essays to see what they said. I asked teachers, guidance counselors, friends, family, co-workers, a girl at Starbucks, and tried to find some help on the internet. In the end, I wrote and subsequently directed a one-act play about a guy attempting to write his college application essay. His friend distracts him, and in an entire weekend he manages to write three sentences. That’s a whole three sentences more than I got. Of course, that didn’t stop people from asking where I was going to school. The answer was simple.
“Nowhere.”
Except I did go to college, at the University of Minnesota. Only, I didn’t take it very seriously that first semester, spring of 2002. I was under the impression that college was about drinking and having fun, so much so that I forgot that it was also a little bit about school. So, I went on academic probation. Then I got mono fall semester, and my motivation gave out on me. Basically, I flunked out and came home to St. Louis.
That’s when I went to community college. This was in 2003 (a full two years after I graduated from high school). I went for one whole semester and then dropped halfway through the next because something had happened while I was academically probated and getting dangerously sick; I fell in love with and proposed marriage to a girl, and I had no money because I was only working enough to keep gas in my car so I could continue driving to and from school and work. I buckled down at work, went full time. I got married July 17th, 2004. Best day of my life thus far. If you haven’t fallen in love and gotten married, I would recommend it. I enjoy it immensely.
Of course, I spent the next year not going to school, which led my wife to deliver the gentle but firm statement “if you don’t go back to school, I don’t know if I can stay with you.”
You see, silly me, the spring leading up to the summer we were married, all she wanted to do was drop out of school. I had told her not to, because she was nearly done with her degree. So, on my advice, and threats of not staying with her, she finished school. Ah, how the tables had turned! So, summer 2005, I decided to sign up for another class at community college.
“Another class” turned into a ten-credit summer session, while still working full time, which basically meant I had either enough time to sleep or enough time to eat and, most often, chose eating because, if you knew me, that’s just the kind of thing you would expect. So when it came time to sign up for fall semester, I opted to pull back a little.
“Pulling back” turned into eleven credits. Still working full time. Oh, and my wife and I bought a house. So, you can see how well pulling back worked.
The upshot of all of this is that I am finally, after four and a half years out of high school, a sophomore in college and I just decided I would much rather spend the next few chapters of my academic life at a school I am excited to attend, even though I may have been afraid of it at one time.
Why was I afraid of Webster University my senior year of high school? Because I could see Webster’s campus from the parking lot of my high school. I didn’t want to travel only that far, I wanted to go somewhere. Hence Minnesota.
Now that I consider things, though, how far have I come since then? Well, aside from marriage and home ownership and about six thousand miles logged on a bike that is worth more than my car, academically I’ve achieved in four and a half years what it should have, by all counts, taken me nine months to accomplish. And I can’t let the next three academic years take me into my thirties, forties, or beyond. Why wait? My friends, family, and especially my wife will tell you that I put the “pro” in procrastination; I’ve taken it to a whole new level. I just think it’s time to let certain skills die and sharpen others that are much more useful.
It is time to move forward and actually go somewhere.
===
"Finishing a book is just like you took a child out in the back yard and shot it." -Truman Capote
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Well...
Sorry gang. Life gets in the way of plans sometimes I guess. So does death.
My wife's friend's father has been very sick, and he passed away this week. Tomorrow evening, we are going to the visitation. What this means for you, my audience, is that I will not be Free-Writing tomorrow. It may be two weeks, then, before I get back to it, as next week internet access may be questionable as I will be in Minnesota for Thanksgiving.
But, fear not, I will leave you with this to read, ruminate upon, and so forth.
My first "year of college" spanned several calender years. It began in the spring of 2002 and lasted until the spring of 2006, really. I mean, it didn't actually take me that long to become a sophomore, in fact I was a sophomore at the end of the fall 2005 semester, a sophomore by about six credit hours. But that's not the point. I didn't full-on start a sophomore year until I transferred to Webster in the fall of 2006.
I have attended three schools in my college career. The first of these, many of you know, was the University of Minnesota. I was not a conscientious student. I was barely a conscious student. It was a place to make friends and eat pizza and get drunk for me. And I did that very well. But what I have left from there is friendship, my wife, and a learning experience I could not have otherwise obtained if I had just buckled down and played the role of the usual college student.
Regardless, each school has provided for me friendship with people who have meant a great deal to me, many of whom still do. And actually, in the interim, when I wasn't in school during that five and a half year period that encompassed my "freshman year," I worked at Target, which in itself was a learning experience. I met a lot of wonderful people there, as well, who helped me grow as a person.
I could list all of these people. I should list all of them. But I hope you know who you are, because otherwise, this post will get ridiculously long. And we all know how much Molly loves my ridiculously long posts. And this one is already promising to be plenty long. But I do want to talk about somebody who had a profound effect on me. A lasting impression that I can't shake. And it's sad, really, to think about him, because I barely knew him. And I'll never get the chance to.
And I'm talking about a guy named Chase Korte. He was one of those guys that was known to pretty much everybody. Not that he wanted to be known, he just wanted to know everybody, and he was good at it. The first time I met him was on the bus from East Bank to St. Paul, and he quoted a line from Fight Club at me. And I recited the follow up perfectly. He invited me up to his room that night and we watched the film. It was a Wednesday. And then, not every Wednesday, but a lot of them, we would watch movies with a group of people. It was nice. It was a pleasant routine. It was, probably, the most consistent meeting I ever attended at the U of M that semester (my grades will reflect this).
He was a writer, an actor, a comedian. He was unique in a unique way. A run-in with Chase Korte always proved to be a memorable one.
He was killed in a car accident in February of 2007. About halfway through my sophomore year. Only I didn't hear about it right away. And I blamed some of my friends who knew him. I thought they had a responsibility to tell me about Chase's death. I felt forgotten and betrayed.
And then it hit me that none of them were even aware that I knew him. Because in the time it took them to finish college, I was still working through my freshman year. It wasn't that they didn't think I wouldn't care...it's that it had been so long since I had seen any of them, and even longer since I had seen Chase, that perhaps our friendships had never crossed paths. I think back, and I can remember a few instances when other friends from Minnesota, those still have contact with, were present on a Wednesday night. But there were no regulars at the Wednesday Night Movie Club, other than me and Chase. And it was the only thing we did together. Of course nobody thought to tell me.
And the more I got to think about it, the more the memory of Chase kind of haunted me. I liked this guy, I considered him a friend, but I never once bothered to maintain contact with him. Nevermind laying any blame on him, because I never got the sense that he wouldn't have kept in touch. More than once my second semester at the U of M, I would be well on my way to passing another face in the crowd when that face would call my name and resolve itself into Chase Korte, asking me if I was free that Wednesday night for a showing of Pi, or The Big Lebowski, or Breaking Away. We just lost touch, as people do.
So the reason I bring this up at all, is because I have been thinking about some way to celebrate his memory. Facebook groups are out, because there are two of them already, created by people who hadn't lost touch. I wrote my first three day novel about the Wednesday Night Movie Club, but I discount that as a work of pure crap. But I felt I needed to do something, something for a friend I lost touch with. This idea began sometime in April, when I found out about his death. But I just couldn't decide what to do.
I had planned, for the second half of the semester project in playwriting, to write a comedy about an elevated terror level forcing Dick Cheney to move to an undisclosed location, and having that location be the basement of a suburban family comprised of a staunchly liberal woman, her politically aloof husband and their angst-ridden teenage son. It was going to open with Dick Cheney singing Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" in the basement as the teenage son got home (high, of course, having scored drugs from a friend), and let it go from there. But then I got to thinking about Chase again, which I hadn't done for a while, and then it occured to me what I should do. And so I present to you, in my standard "Tuesday Excerpt" format (on a Thursday evening), the first scene of my play.
===
from The Last Thing... October/November, 2007
Characters:
Robert Forsyth, 25, tall and thin
Dexter MacKenzie, 24, very handsome
Setting:
The living room of a one bedroom apartment in the Central West End of St. Louis. Hardwood floors, high ceilings. A kitchen through a large open doorway upstage left. The decorations have a distinctive Artsy-20-something feel; black and white photos, Toulouse Lautrec posters. A metal and black-glass coffee table center. Ikea furnishings. A modestly sized television. Loveseat, armchair. The table is a mess of opened mail.
An all-night coffee shop on the corner of Euclid and Laclede.
Scene 1
A dark stage. A knock on a door. Barely seen, dressed in flannel pants and a white tee, Robert Forsyth enters from stage right and runs into an unseen coffee table, grunting. He grabs at items on the table and comes up with a cell phone, which he opens. It illuminates the stage very little. Another knock.
ROBERT
Just a minute.
He walks over to the door stage left, and flips a light switch. The lights come up. He shuts the cell phone and opens the door. Enter Dexter MacKenzie, dressed like Brad Pitt from Fight Club.
DEXTER
Forsyth! What is up my lanky friend?
(bear hugs Robert)
ROBERT
Dexter?
(pulls away, looks quizzically at Dexter, shuts the door)
Where did you come from?
DEXTER
Ah, you know how it is...you go and you struggle and you struggle...and you struggle...
ROBERT
Acting?
DEXTER
No, I’m for real here. You struggle and finally, you catch that big break...contract...can I sit down?
ROBERT
(rubbing the sleep from his eyes)
Yeah, take a seat. Um...
DEXTER
Sorry, I know, out of the blue.
(sits on the loveseat)
Bet you didn’t expect this!
ROBERT
It’s Wednesday night, Dexter...I work, you know.
DEXTER
Not tomorrow, man. Call in sick, something.
ROBERT
I don’t-
DEXTER
You do.
ROBERT
No, I...
(beat)
Dexter...
(he sits in the armchair)
It’s been, what...
DEXTER
Three years. Three looonnng years. Since Brussell’s party. Oh, hey, how is Brussell? That was the last time I saw him, too.
ROBERT
I don’t know...I haven’t talked to him in-
DEXTER
I’ll hit him up next. I mean, when I’m done here, I should just go to Minnesota. I probably should have gone there first, but, you know, whatever.
ROBERT
I’m...dreaming. I am still sleeping. Dexter MacKenzie is not in my living room.
(Dexter grabs the television remote from the cushion next to him and chucks it right at Robert)
Ow, fucker!
(beat)
Sorry, you come all this way and I cuss you out.
(Robert holds the remote)
Wait, I’m apologizing to you? You threw a remote at me.
DEXTER
Had to be done, Robert. I...
(looking around)
A girl lives here.
ROBERT
What?
DEXTER
I’m here. That’s what’s important.
(beat)
I can tell. There’s a feminine touch about the place.
(gets up, inspects the place)
Hmm...
ROBERT
Aren’t you supposed to be in LA?
DEXTER
Thought you were coming out there, with your pages of scripts and your keen wit.
(continues his examination)
ROBERT
(uncomfortable)
I got sidetracked.
DEXTER
Not me.
(his eyes rest on the table)
Ah, but she’s not here, is she?
ROBERT
What?
DEXTER
The girl who lives here. She’s not here.
ROBERT
She doesn’t live here. I mean, not yet. I mean, she’s still tied up in her lease, but...
DEXTER
Have a fight? She in Chicago?
ROBERT
No, she’s...yeah. How did you know?
DEXTER
(points to a picture on the wall; a street scene)
There’s you and some guy, he’s got his arm around some girl, and that’s Daly Plaza behind you.
ROBERT
That’s...yeah, that’s, it’s...um...her name is Molly and his name is...um...shit, it’s something like Jack or something. I don’t know. But yes, she is in Chicago visiting Molly and Jack. It’s...it’s not important, really. She’ll be home...Friday? Evening.
DEXTER
So she does live here. Or she calls this place home, at least.
ROBERT
What are you doing here.
DEXTER
I’ll tell you what I’m doing here.
(sits back on the couch, stares intently at Robert for a long, silent minute)
Getting thirsty. Please tell me you’ve got one of those pretentious microbrews you used to drag on about.
ROBERT
Yeah, I think I’ve got something. Maybe. I dunno.
DEXTER
Your authoritative stance on the issue is reassuring to say the least.
(leans forward, peers intently at Robert)
You okay?
ROBERT
I’m tired. It’s...what time is it? East Jesus o’clock in the morning. This late, when I’m this tired, time has no meaning. It just passes too quickly. All of a sudden, it’s dawn, the birds are chirping, the traffic picks up, the restaurant downstairs makes coffee, it’s time to go to work and I spend the rest of the day like a zombie.
DEXTER
(very serious)
Living dead, eh? That bad? You’re sure about that?
ROBERT
Dexter, what are you doing here?
DEXTER
I got the big call, man. My career; on the way up. You know? Trust me. I mean, the director and I had some creative differences, it was a real tough film.
ROBERT
So you actually made a film?
DEXTER
Give me back that remote.
(Robert tosses the remote back to Dexter)
Thanks.
(Dexter chucks it back at Robert)
ROBERT
Ow, Christ...Dexter!
DEXTER
Don’t say that like you’re surprised. You knew I had it in me. Destined for great things. Right?
ROBERT
Yeah, right, okay. Just stop throwing shit at me. What’s the film?
DEXTER
It’s called Peace Walker. I played a guy who’s got this brother.
ROBERT
Sounds deep.
DEXTER
No, no, listen. This brother goes off to fight in Iraq, right? And...what’s her name, by the way?
ROBERT
Who? The brother?
DEXTER
No...your live-in. The, what do you call her? Roommate? Girlfriend? Future Mrs. Robert Forsyth? What’s her name.
ROBERT
Andrea. She’s my girlfriend.
DEXTER
Gotcha. Did you check on the beer?
ROBERT
What? No, I...
DEXTER
(getting up)
I got it.
(exits to kitchen, from offstage)
So, the brother, he goes to Iraq, and before he goes, he and I have this big argument about why he’s going. It’s all very political. Oktoberfest beer?
(re-enters carrying two bottles of beer)
ROBERT
Yeah, so?
DEXTER
So it’s May.
ROBERT
I fail to see the problem. It’s cold. It’s never been opened. It’s been in the fridge for seven months. I don’t let beer get warm once it’s cold. I had one last week. It tastes better than it did in October.
DEXTER
(wary)
Okay. Bottle opener?
ROBERT
Above the trash can, on the wall in the kitchen.
DEXTER
Thanks.
(exits to kitchen again, from offstage)
So, he tells me why he’s going, and then, well, you can predict this, he dies.
ROBERT
I think I’ve seen this movie. Except it was about Vietnam.
DEXTER
(enters)
Ah, but this is just the first twenty minutes of the film.
ROBERT
Hm.
(Dexter hands Robert a beer and sits back down on the loveseat)
DEXTER
So, it’s the day of the funeral, and I remember that my brother always wanted to go to Ireland, to visit the land where our mother’s father came from, but I hated my mother’s side of the family. And-
ROBERT
Sorry...
(beat)
You get all of that in the first twenty minutes?
DEXTER
Roughly, it’s not really finished. So, I decide to visit Ireland, and walk from one end to the other and talk about peace.
(long pause)
ROBERT
That’s it?
DEXTER
Only I actually walked from like the Northern most part of Ireland to the Southern most part.
ROBERT
In the movie?
DEXTER
In real life!
ROBERT
For the movie?
DEXTER
The camera man quit. Most of the crew quit. Actually, in the end, it was just me and the director. Pretty fucking sweet, huh?
ROBERT
I guess I’ll have to see it.
DEXTER
Right. So, okay, so this...big. I mean...
(beat)
Okay. This somewhat monumental thing happened to me. And before it all comes out, I mean...I wanted to precede the news, you know? And kind of...do a tour. A kind of “Dexter MacKenzie, This is Your Life” sort of thing. Only...well, you know?
ROBERT
No. All I know is that you woke me up in the middle of the night. I mean, hell, I’m glad to see you. You look great for whatever ungodly hour it happens to be. I mean...
(beat)
...I mean, you look like a million bucks is what. Jesus, aren’t you tired?
DEXTER
No. Come on, put some clothes on. I saw a coffee shop that was open a few blocks away. Throw on some shoes and a jacket, and when the time comes, call your boss and say you’ve got a terrible cold. Or, umm...does anybody you work with have small children?
ROBERT
What? Well, my boss does, but...
DEXTER
Great. I’ve noticed that people with small children will force you to stay home if you have a fever. Say you have a fever.
ROBERT
(contemplating)
Okay.
DEXTER
Say it!
ROBERT
Okay!
DEXTER
No, say it! Say it now!
ROBERT
What?
(beat, Dexter looks menacing)
Okay, alright. I have a fever.
DEXTER
Louder!
ROBERT
(louder)
I...I have a fever.
DEXTER
Can’t hear you!
ROBERT
(very loud)
I have a fever!
DEXTER
Thank you! Now...
(dramatically)
Let’s finish our beers and go get coffee.
(lights out)
===
"The last thing I want to be is forgettable."
"...there's no freedom unless you're vulnerable first."
-both attributed to Chase Korte, 1982-2007
My wife's friend's father has been very sick, and he passed away this week. Tomorrow evening, we are going to the visitation. What this means for you, my audience, is that I will not be Free-Writing tomorrow. It may be two weeks, then, before I get back to it, as next week internet access may be questionable as I will be in Minnesota for Thanksgiving.
But, fear not, I will leave you with this to read, ruminate upon, and so forth.
My first "year of college" spanned several calender years. It began in the spring of 2002 and lasted until the spring of 2006, really. I mean, it didn't actually take me that long to become a sophomore, in fact I was a sophomore at the end of the fall 2005 semester, a sophomore by about six credit hours. But that's not the point. I didn't full-on start a sophomore year until I transferred to Webster in the fall of 2006.
I have attended three schools in my college career. The first of these, many of you know, was the University of Minnesota. I was not a conscientious student. I was barely a conscious student. It was a place to make friends and eat pizza and get drunk for me. And I did that very well. But what I have left from there is friendship, my wife, and a learning experience I could not have otherwise obtained if I had just buckled down and played the role of the usual college student.
Regardless, each school has provided for me friendship with people who have meant a great deal to me, many of whom still do. And actually, in the interim, when I wasn't in school during that five and a half year period that encompassed my "freshman year," I worked at Target, which in itself was a learning experience. I met a lot of wonderful people there, as well, who helped me grow as a person.
I could list all of these people. I should list all of them. But I hope you know who you are, because otherwise, this post will get ridiculously long. And we all know how much Molly loves my ridiculously long posts. And this one is already promising to be plenty long. But I do want to talk about somebody who had a profound effect on me. A lasting impression that I can't shake. And it's sad, really, to think about him, because I barely knew him. And I'll never get the chance to.
And I'm talking about a guy named Chase Korte. He was one of those guys that was known to pretty much everybody. Not that he wanted to be known, he just wanted to know everybody, and he was good at it. The first time I met him was on the bus from East Bank to St. Paul, and he quoted a line from Fight Club at me. And I recited the follow up perfectly. He invited me up to his room that night and we watched the film. It was a Wednesday. And then, not every Wednesday, but a lot of them, we would watch movies with a group of people. It was nice. It was a pleasant routine. It was, probably, the most consistent meeting I ever attended at the U of M that semester (my grades will reflect this).
He was a writer, an actor, a comedian. He was unique in a unique way. A run-in with Chase Korte always proved to be a memorable one.
He was killed in a car accident in February of 2007. About halfway through my sophomore year. Only I didn't hear about it right away. And I blamed some of my friends who knew him. I thought they had a responsibility to tell me about Chase's death. I felt forgotten and betrayed.
And then it hit me that none of them were even aware that I knew him. Because in the time it took them to finish college, I was still working through my freshman year. It wasn't that they didn't think I wouldn't care...it's that it had been so long since I had seen any of them, and even longer since I had seen Chase, that perhaps our friendships had never crossed paths. I think back, and I can remember a few instances when other friends from Minnesota, those still have contact with, were present on a Wednesday night. But there were no regulars at the Wednesday Night Movie Club, other than me and Chase. And it was the only thing we did together. Of course nobody thought to tell me.
And the more I got to think about it, the more the memory of Chase kind of haunted me. I liked this guy, I considered him a friend, but I never once bothered to maintain contact with him. Nevermind laying any blame on him, because I never got the sense that he wouldn't have kept in touch. More than once my second semester at the U of M, I would be well on my way to passing another face in the crowd when that face would call my name and resolve itself into Chase Korte, asking me if I was free that Wednesday night for a showing of Pi, or The Big Lebowski, or Breaking Away. We just lost touch, as people do.
So the reason I bring this up at all, is because I have been thinking about some way to celebrate his memory. Facebook groups are out, because there are two of them already, created by people who hadn't lost touch. I wrote my first three day novel about the Wednesday Night Movie Club, but I discount that as a work of pure crap. But I felt I needed to do something, something for a friend I lost touch with. This idea began sometime in April, when I found out about his death. But I just couldn't decide what to do.
I had planned, for the second half of the semester project in playwriting, to write a comedy about an elevated terror level forcing Dick Cheney to move to an undisclosed location, and having that location be the basement of a suburban family comprised of a staunchly liberal woman, her politically aloof husband and their angst-ridden teenage son. It was going to open with Dick Cheney singing Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" in the basement as the teenage son got home (high, of course, having scored drugs from a friend), and let it go from there. But then I got to thinking about Chase again, which I hadn't done for a while, and then it occured to me what I should do. And so I present to you, in my standard "Tuesday Excerpt" format (on a Thursday evening), the first scene of my play.
===
from The Last Thing... October/November, 2007
Characters:
Robert Forsyth, 25, tall and thin
Dexter MacKenzie, 24, very handsome
Setting:
The living room of a one bedroom apartment in the Central West End of St. Louis. Hardwood floors, high ceilings. A kitchen through a large open doorway upstage left. The decorations have a distinctive Artsy-20-something feel; black and white photos, Toulouse Lautrec posters. A metal and black-glass coffee table center. Ikea furnishings. A modestly sized television. Loveseat, armchair. The table is a mess of opened mail.
An all-night coffee shop on the corner of Euclid and Laclede.
Scene 1
A dark stage. A knock on a door. Barely seen, dressed in flannel pants and a white tee, Robert Forsyth enters from stage right and runs into an unseen coffee table, grunting. He grabs at items on the table and comes up with a cell phone, which he opens. It illuminates the stage very little. Another knock.
ROBERT
Just a minute.
He walks over to the door stage left, and flips a light switch. The lights come up. He shuts the cell phone and opens the door. Enter Dexter MacKenzie, dressed like Brad Pitt from Fight Club.
DEXTER
Forsyth! What is up my lanky friend?
(bear hugs Robert)
ROBERT
Dexter?
(pulls away, looks quizzically at Dexter, shuts the door)
Where did you come from?
DEXTER
Ah, you know how it is...you go and you struggle and you struggle...and you struggle...
ROBERT
Acting?
DEXTER
No, I’m for real here. You struggle and finally, you catch that big break...contract...can I sit down?
ROBERT
(rubbing the sleep from his eyes)
Yeah, take a seat. Um...
DEXTER
Sorry, I know, out of the blue.
(sits on the loveseat)
Bet you didn’t expect this!
ROBERT
It’s Wednesday night, Dexter...I work, you know.
DEXTER
Not tomorrow, man. Call in sick, something.
ROBERT
I don’t-
DEXTER
You do.
ROBERT
No, I...
(beat)
Dexter...
(he sits in the armchair)
It’s been, what...
DEXTER
Three years. Three looonnng years. Since Brussell’s party. Oh, hey, how is Brussell? That was the last time I saw him, too.
ROBERT
I don’t know...I haven’t talked to him in-
DEXTER
I’ll hit him up next. I mean, when I’m done here, I should just go to Minnesota. I probably should have gone there first, but, you know, whatever.
ROBERT
I’m...dreaming. I am still sleeping. Dexter MacKenzie is not in my living room.
(Dexter grabs the television remote from the cushion next to him and chucks it right at Robert)
Ow, fucker!
(beat)
Sorry, you come all this way and I cuss you out.
(Robert holds the remote)
Wait, I’m apologizing to you? You threw a remote at me.
DEXTER
Had to be done, Robert. I...
(looking around)
A girl lives here.
ROBERT
What?
DEXTER
I’m here. That’s what’s important.
(beat)
I can tell. There’s a feminine touch about the place.
(gets up, inspects the place)
Hmm...
ROBERT
Aren’t you supposed to be in LA?
DEXTER
Thought you were coming out there, with your pages of scripts and your keen wit.
(continues his examination)
ROBERT
(uncomfortable)
I got sidetracked.
DEXTER
Not me.
(his eyes rest on the table)
Ah, but she’s not here, is she?
ROBERT
What?
DEXTER
The girl who lives here. She’s not here.
ROBERT
She doesn’t live here. I mean, not yet. I mean, she’s still tied up in her lease, but...
DEXTER
Have a fight? She in Chicago?
ROBERT
No, she’s...yeah. How did you know?
DEXTER
(points to a picture on the wall; a street scene)
There’s you and some guy, he’s got his arm around some girl, and that’s Daly Plaza behind you.
ROBERT
That’s...yeah, that’s, it’s...um...her name is Molly and his name is...um...shit, it’s something like Jack or something. I don’t know. But yes, she is in Chicago visiting Molly and Jack. It’s...it’s not important, really. She’ll be home...Friday? Evening.
DEXTER
So she does live here. Or she calls this place home, at least.
ROBERT
What are you doing here.
DEXTER
I’ll tell you what I’m doing here.
(sits back on the couch, stares intently at Robert for a long, silent minute)
Getting thirsty. Please tell me you’ve got one of those pretentious microbrews you used to drag on about.
ROBERT
Yeah, I think I’ve got something. Maybe. I dunno.
DEXTER
Your authoritative stance on the issue is reassuring to say the least.
(leans forward, peers intently at Robert)
You okay?
ROBERT
I’m tired. It’s...what time is it? East Jesus o’clock in the morning. This late, when I’m this tired, time has no meaning. It just passes too quickly. All of a sudden, it’s dawn, the birds are chirping, the traffic picks up, the restaurant downstairs makes coffee, it’s time to go to work and I spend the rest of the day like a zombie.
DEXTER
(very serious)
Living dead, eh? That bad? You’re sure about that?
ROBERT
Dexter, what are you doing here?
DEXTER
I got the big call, man. My career; on the way up. You know? Trust me. I mean, the director and I had some creative differences, it was a real tough film.
ROBERT
So you actually made a film?
DEXTER
Give me back that remote.
(Robert tosses the remote back to Dexter)
Thanks.
(Dexter chucks it back at Robert)
ROBERT
Ow, Christ...Dexter!
DEXTER
Don’t say that like you’re surprised. You knew I had it in me. Destined for great things. Right?
ROBERT
Yeah, right, okay. Just stop throwing shit at me. What’s the film?
DEXTER
It’s called Peace Walker. I played a guy who’s got this brother.
ROBERT
Sounds deep.
DEXTER
No, no, listen. This brother goes off to fight in Iraq, right? And...what’s her name, by the way?
ROBERT
Who? The brother?
DEXTER
No...your live-in. The, what do you call her? Roommate? Girlfriend? Future Mrs. Robert Forsyth? What’s her name.
ROBERT
Andrea. She’s my girlfriend.
DEXTER
Gotcha. Did you check on the beer?
ROBERT
What? No, I...
DEXTER
(getting up)
I got it.
(exits to kitchen, from offstage)
So, the brother, he goes to Iraq, and before he goes, he and I have this big argument about why he’s going. It’s all very political. Oktoberfest beer?
(re-enters carrying two bottles of beer)
ROBERT
Yeah, so?
DEXTER
So it’s May.
ROBERT
I fail to see the problem. It’s cold. It’s never been opened. It’s been in the fridge for seven months. I don’t let beer get warm once it’s cold. I had one last week. It tastes better than it did in October.
DEXTER
(wary)
Okay. Bottle opener?
ROBERT
Above the trash can, on the wall in the kitchen.
DEXTER
Thanks.
(exits to kitchen again, from offstage)
So, he tells me why he’s going, and then, well, you can predict this, he dies.
ROBERT
I think I’ve seen this movie. Except it was about Vietnam.
DEXTER
(enters)
Ah, but this is just the first twenty minutes of the film.
ROBERT
Hm.
(Dexter hands Robert a beer and sits back down on the loveseat)
DEXTER
So, it’s the day of the funeral, and I remember that my brother always wanted to go to Ireland, to visit the land where our mother’s father came from, but I hated my mother’s side of the family. And-
ROBERT
Sorry...
(beat)
You get all of that in the first twenty minutes?
DEXTER
Roughly, it’s not really finished. So, I decide to visit Ireland, and walk from one end to the other and talk about peace.
(long pause)
ROBERT
That’s it?
DEXTER
Only I actually walked from like the Northern most part of Ireland to the Southern most part.
ROBERT
In the movie?
DEXTER
In real life!
ROBERT
For the movie?
DEXTER
The camera man quit. Most of the crew quit. Actually, in the end, it was just me and the director. Pretty fucking sweet, huh?
ROBERT
I guess I’ll have to see it.
DEXTER
Right. So, okay, so this...big. I mean...
(beat)
Okay. This somewhat monumental thing happened to me. And before it all comes out, I mean...I wanted to precede the news, you know? And kind of...do a tour. A kind of “Dexter MacKenzie, This is Your Life” sort of thing. Only...well, you know?
ROBERT
No. All I know is that you woke me up in the middle of the night. I mean, hell, I’m glad to see you. You look great for whatever ungodly hour it happens to be. I mean...
(beat)
...I mean, you look like a million bucks is what. Jesus, aren’t you tired?
DEXTER
No. Come on, put some clothes on. I saw a coffee shop that was open a few blocks away. Throw on some shoes and a jacket, and when the time comes, call your boss and say you’ve got a terrible cold. Or, umm...does anybody you work with have small children?
ROBERT
What? Well, my boss does, but...
DEXTER
Great. I’ve noticed that people with small children will force you to stay home if you have a fever. Say you have a fever.
ROBERT
(contemplating)
Okay.
DEXTER
Say it!
ROBERT
Okay!
DEXTER
No, say it! Say it now!
ROBERT
What?
(beat, Dexter looks menacing)
Okay, alright. I have a fever.
DEXTER
Louder!
ROBERT
(louder)
I...I have a fever.
DEXTER
Can’t hear you!
ROBERT
(very loud)
I have a fever!
DEXTER
Thank you! Now...
(dramatically)
Let’s finish our beers and go get coffee.
(lights out)
===
"The last thing I want to be is forgettable."
"...there's no freedom unless you're vulnerable first."
-both attributed to Chase Korte, 1982-2007
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
The Story Behind The Madness
For our first Christmas as a married couple, Kathy bought me a brand new Sony Vaio PCG-K35 lap top. Being the smart cookie that she is, she also purchased the three year extended warranty. This is important, trust me.
About seven months later, the right speaker cut out completely and one day, the left speaker cut out as well. No sound. So, I got it fixed. For free, per the terms of the warranty.
After that, I began having trouble with the plug where it went into the computer. Only when held at a certain angle would the power cord power my computer and charge the battery. One day, it stopped working altogether, so I took it in. It was fixed per the terms of the warranty.
Less than a month later, it stopped working again. This time, the plug itself was the problem. So that was replaced, again, for free.
A few months later, the batter stopped charging...so I got the battery replaced free.
The battery was goofy, though. Sometimes, it wouldn't charge unless you took it out and put it back in. And the DVD drive was wonky, too; Sometimes, you had to open it and close it five or six times before it would read a disc. And last Monday, the battery stopped charging altogether, because the plug was no longer providing power to the lap top. So, we took it in, paid for the back-up of data, and waited.
Meanwhile, I used Kathy's ancient home-built computer which is still running Windows ME (ew) and is slower than molasses in a freezer (and that's slow!). Last night, we called for an update because we figured, you know...a week...and they told us they had junked the computer, and we had to come in and pick out a new computer to replace it. For free.
So, we did just that. I picked out another Sony because we were constrained by the terms of the warranty to replace with a similar product. I got a VGN-NR180E, which from a distance apears to be trying its best to look like an Apple, but up close it's all textured and goofy. I think the screen is not as nice as the old one, but it's got more RAM, a larger hard drive, Vista (the old one ran XP), it burns dual layers (the old one only did single-layer), and most importantly, it weighs about a third of what the old one weighed. Seriously, my old one weighed quite a bit more than a normal lap top should, it was ginormous.
So...that's the story for the hiatus. And, I've got all my docs on here, Final Draft is installed and running, so I am back in action (just as soon as I figure out all of the Vista foibles).
Alright then. A return to things as they should have been. Coming this Friday...a Free Write Friday! So, give me your suggestions, please! And...GO!
About seven months later, the right speaker cut out completely and one day, the left speaker cut out as well. No sound. So, I got it fixed. For free, per the terms of the warranty.
After that, I began having trouble with the plug where it went into the computer. Only when held at a certain angle would the power cord power my computer and charge the battery. One day, it stopped working altogether, so I took it in. It was fixed per the terms of the warranty.
Less than a month later, it stopped working again. This time, the plug itself was the problem. So that was replaced, again, for free.
A few months later, the batter stopped charging...so I got the battery replaced free.
The battery was goofy, though. Sometimes, it wouldn't charge unless you took it out and put it back in. And the DVD drive was wonky, too; Sometimes, you had to open it and close it five or six times before it would read a disc. And last Monday, the battery stopped charging altogether, because the plug was no longer providing power to the lap top. So, we took it in, paid for the back-up of data, and waited.
Meanwhile, I used Kathy's ancient home-built computer which is still running Windows ME (ew) and is slower than molasses in a freezer (and that's slow!). Last night, we called for an update because we figured, you know...a week...and they told us they had junked the computer, and we had to come in and pick out a new computer to replace it. For free.
So, we did just that. I picked out another Sony because we were constrained by the terms of the warranty to replace with a similar product. I got a VGN-NR180E, which from a distance apears to be trying its best to look like an Apple, but up close it's all textured and goofy. I think the screen is not as nice as the old one, but it's got more RAM, a larger hard drive, Vista (the old one ran XP), it burns dual layers (the old one only did single-layer), and most importantly, it weighs about a third of what the old one weighed. Seriously, my old one weighed quite a bit more than a normal lap top should, it was ginormous.
So...that's the story for the hiatus. And, I've got all my docs on here, Final Draft is installed and running, so I am back in action (just as soon as I figure out all of the Vista foibles).
Alright then. A return to things as they should have been. Coming this Friday...a Free Write Friday! So, give me your suggestions, please! And...GO!
Thursday, November 08, 2007
Sunday, November 04, 2007
Your Questions Answered, Volume 5
Sporadic and unpredictable as my blog has become, I will not neglect a first weekend of the month Q & A session.
From "Your Questions Answered Volume 4: Blogapalooza Edition" on Saturday, October 20th, 2007:
Molly asked:
Why not pictures of broken drill bits? Why not photos of other urban types carrying man-purs.... er, messenger bags? Why not photos of the latest home project? Or the Sometimes impenetrable barrier? (or whatever that was...) Why not photos of ANYTHING?
This is a writing blog. I write stuff. I don't take pictures of stuff. Well, no, I do, but posting pictures on my blog is kind of a hassle. I know, I know, Maureen does it all the time. Well, without pictures, her blog wouldn't be nearly as fun to read. I like to think that my words help you create a picture in your head. And if you want to see the latest home improvement project, just come over. You know where I live. And the sometimes impenetrable barrier to which I refer is the sliding patio door.
From "Tuesday Excerpts" on Tuesday, October 23, 2007:
Annie asked:
Does that make any sense?
Annie, since you are fairly new to reading my blog, I'll go ahead and spare you my standard ridiculous answer to a question like this. Sufficed to say, what you said makes sense to me, but in the future, my answer will probably involved a stuffed giraffe and Ross Perot.
From "Musings" on Monday, October 29th, 2007:
A asked:
How did they get those special privelages!?
Well, they had to compromise...they live in Indiana and Arizona...
mGk asked:
So where is said post aye?
Arr, what's it to ya? Also, I posted several days late...
And that's about it, folks! Happy time change, and have a good week.
From "Your Questions Answered Volume 4: Blogapalooza Edition" on Saturday, October 20th, 2007:
Molly asked:
Why not pictures of broken drill bits? Why not photos of other urban types carrying man-purs.... er, messenger bags? Why not photos of the latest home project? Or the Sometimes impenetrable barrier? (or whatever that was...) Why not photos of ANYTHING?
This is a writing blog. I write stuff. I don't take pictures of stuff. Well, no, I do, but posting pictures on my blog is kind of a hassle. I know, I know, Maureen does it all the time. Well, without pictures, her blog wouldn't be nearly as fun to read. I like to think that my words help you create a picture in your head. And if you want to see the latest home improvement project, just come over. You know where I live. And the sometimes impenetrable barrier to which I refer is the sliding patio door.
From "Tuesday Excerpts" on Tuesday, October 23, 2007:
Annie asked:
Does that make any sense?
Annie, since you are fairly new to reading my blog, I'll go ahead and spare you my standard ridiculous answer to a question like this. Sufficed to say, what you said makes sense to me, but in the future, my answer will probably involved a stuffed giraffe and Ross Perot.
From "Musings" on Monday, October 29th, 2007:
A asked:
How did they get those special privelages!?
Well, they had to compromise...they live in Indiana and Arizona...
mGk asked:
So where is said post aye?
Arr, what's it to ya? Also, I posted several days late...
And that's about it, folks! Happy time change, and have a good week.
Saturday, November 03, 2007
(Tuesday) Excerpt
...several days late.
Today's excerpt comes from a play I wrote anonymously for class. And then they all had to guess who wrote it. And I had the class fairly split. Fair warning, it's about a cannibal. But, like, not Hannibal Lecter, more like...Frank Burns (from M*A*S*H, but the film version, not the television version) if he were a cannibal.
===
from "Confessions of a Conservative Murderer" by Anonymous (but really by me)
CHARACTERS:
Aaron Michael Stevens, the titular character
Seth, a seventeen year old boy
Marie, a fifteen year old girl
SETTING:
A classic looking kitchen; black and white tile, updated appliances, pantry in upstage right corner, a counter running parallel to the front of the stage with barstools in front of it divides the kitchen in half. Present day. AARON stands with his back to the audience, looking in the refrigerator. SETH is crouched in between the barstools, unseen by AARON.
AARON
What is it with people in the suburbs not having anything ready to eat these days?
(He turns towards the audience, with a green can of parmesan cheese in one hand and a jar of pickle relish in the other)
I mean, really, it’s almost obscene.
(Seth cringes as Aaron approaches the counter and sets down the food)
You people should be ashamed of yourselves.
(he goes to the pantry and opens it, revealing Marie, tied up and with a look of fear in her eyes)
You hear me? Ashamed! Unless, I’m sorry…is this your house, or the boy’s house?
(pause)
Don’t tell me you’re brother and sister…that makes things even worse.
MARIE
(timidly)
It’s his house…his father’s house…not mine…
AARON
Oh, bacon bits!
(he pushes Marie to the side and grabs the bacon bits)
And French Fried onions!
(grabs both items, slams the door in Marie’s face, she whimpers and Seth jumps up to face Aaron, brandishing one of the barstools)
SETH
You sick fucking animal! Let her go!
AARON
Young man, you’re calling me an animal?
(Aaron calmly approaches Seth, who is noticeably quivering)
The way you were breathing when I found you, with your shirt off, and your hand down her pants…and you’re calling me an animal?
(he slams the items in his hands down on the counter, then easily wrestles the barstool from Seth’s grip)
I am not an Animal! I am a human being!
(throws the barstool to the ground, breaking it)
You are the animal, young man!
(Aaron grabs the now sobbing Seth, drags him over behind the counter, picks up a large knife from a nearby knife set, and as he slashes, Seth goes silent as the lights go out)
Lights up, same setting, a little later. Aaron is splattered with blood and fiddling behind the counter. Unless otherwise directed from here on out, Aaron’s lines are addressed directly to the audience.
AARON
Look, I know that a lot of people are going to throw out words like “insane” and “troubled” and “monster” and “death penalty” and stuff like that. They probably already do. And I know some day I’m going to get caught, but I’m doing the world a great service, here.
(he picks up the can of parmesan cheese, shakes some into his left hand, and sets it back down)
Think of it this way; law enforcement can’t enforce every law on its own, people just need to comply with some things. Well, unfortunately, not everybody does. And not everybody who doesn’t comply gets caught. If you follow me.
(he picks up the jar of bacon bits and shakes some on top of the cheese in his hand)
Well, there are some things that people just shouldn’t do, and they should get punished for it. I mean, for instance, murder of an innocent life. Yes, I’m talking about The Big One, Roe v. Wade, abortion. That’s why I killed that doctor out in Canton, Ohio. I was saving potentially hundreds of innocent lives by removing one guilty life from this world. That’s why I killed that so-called “Mother” outside the clinic in New Jersey. Sure, her blood stained my Doc Martens, but she herself was stained with the blood of the innocent. And the blood of the innocent doesn’t wash away quite so easily.
(he sniffs at the food in his hand, then adds some French fried onions to the pile)
But it’s not just that. I mean, I did a tour of VFW halls a while back. Like, ten, fifteen years ago. This is how I got started. I asked all these veterans about their experiences. And if they mentioned anything about murdering civilians in a casual tone…well, come on! That’s guilty right there. Almost the definition, worthy of Webster’s.
(produces a spoonful of pickle relish, which he drops into his hand. There is a noise from the pantry)
And that’s what got me started.
(shoves the food in his hand into his mouth, dropping a good deal, after which he cleans himself off with a napkin and then walks over to the pantry, opening the door)
Is everything alright in here? You comfortable?
MARIE
Ye..yes.
AARON
Okay then. I just have one question; were you comfortable when I found you?
(silence, aside from Marie’s quiet sobs)
I’ll let you think about that one some more.
(he slams the door, returns to the counter)
Now after a little while, I realized I was committing a sin. I was guilty of something. What could I do? Well, you see, I felt remorse. A little bit, anyway. I felt conflicted. I mean, on the one hand, I was leaving earthly remains to be found for burial, you know, to give solace to the bereaved. But what right had they to be bereaved? To mourn for a guilty soul? Please. I was guilty of waste. And you know what they say? “Waste not, want not.” And being the self-appointed Hand of God doesn’t pay very well, especially when you’re always on the move. So…
(there is a beep)
Oven’s preheated, okay. Well, the secret to cooking a teenage boy is to only cook the good parts. Luckily, this one must be a track star, because his legs are nice and meaty. Maybe a swimmer, since it seems like he shaved his entire body.
(reflecting)
Although that may have something to do with his plans for this afternoon.
(returns to the pantry, opens the door, speaks to Marie)
Was today your first time?
MARIE
N…No. He…keeps count. I think it was our seventh.
AARON
Oh, mercy. Well…do you have an answer to my first question?
MARIE
…I never…never enjoyed it. I was never comfortable.
AARON
But did you want to be doing it?
(silence, Marie shakes her head “yes”)
I was afraid of that.
(she screams, he pulls her forward, puts her head on the ground in between the door and the door frame, and slams the door several times, the last time getting splattered with a little bit more blood as her screams get silent and the lights go out)
Lights up. It is several moments later. Aaron is splattered with still more blood. Steam rises from pots on the stove, which he stirs occasionally during the final scene.
AARON
So I find that hotbeds of sin are high schools. Oh my Good Lord! Kids lying, sneaking out of school, stealing from teachers and from each other, it’s amazing! Wait ten minutes outside of a high school, and you can bet most every law has been broken once within those walls while you stood there waiting. I would love to purge an entire high school of sinners…but people would catch on and then invariably, somehow or other, I would be pegged as the bad person. But I always leave a note. I explain it. I never steal anything, other than a little bit of food. I always put everything in the dishwasher after I use it. I always clean up as best I can. Because that’s what it’s about…making things clean.
(beat)
So this afternoon, I was strolling past a high school and noticed these two young kids, a boy and a girl, hurrying away. They got into a car, the boy was driving, so I followed them as best I could and found them here. They were kissing all the way into the front door and they forgot to lock it, which was fortunate for me. And for them too, because now they’re getting their rewards. And I get to eat. I waited a few minutes, then entered, and I heard them making some noise, and I found them…well, you can imagine. And the boy, the coward, picked up the girl and threw her towards me, then rushed out of the room. Well…talk about cowardice. But I knew he hadn’t left, because I can always tell. And sometimes, in these situations, there is one willing and one unwilling participant. And it appeared that he was certainly willing, but I wasn’t sure about her. And I wanted him. So, I tied her up in the pantry, gave her the benefit of the doubt.
(pause)
Silly of me, really. I’ve seen enough to know that I have seen too much. I should have known she was a willing participant. Well, you live and you learn, I suppose. And I found him, he confronted me. Ha! But I got him! Oh, I got him.
(pause)
The secret is to cook quickly. You can’t take time to savor, especially when somebody else might walk in and find you. But I spoke to the girl for a moment, she said the boy’s father is away on business, which is why they chose this house for their, um, rendezvous. So today, I can really take the time. I’ve got the boy slow roasting, I’ve got bits of her slowly simmering in a stew…it’s such a nice day, I wish I could go outside and barbecue. But that might arouse some suspicion, and, as I said, I have to keep low. Some people don’t appreciate what I do. Some people might think I’m a monster. But I do what I have to. I’m cleaning the world and surviving. Surviving.
(dips a spoon into the largest pot, tastes the stew, then reaches over and adds French fried onions or bacon bits or pickle relish, whichever is closest, as lights fade)
End.
===
"It's grift sense; I mean, you can search high and low all day, but to no avail. Without grift sense, you're never going to find that lemon." - Murray Farish
Today's excerpt comes from a play I wrote anonymously for class. And then they all had to guess who wrote it. And I had the class fairly split. Fair warning, it's about a cannibal. But, like, not Hannibal Lecter, more like...Frank Burns (from M*A*S*H, but the film version, not the television version) if he were a cannibal.
===
from "Confessions of a Conservative Murderer" by Anonymous (but really by me)
CHARACTERS:
Aaron Michael Stevens, the titular character
Seth, a seventeen year old boy
Marie, a fifteen year old girl
SETTING:
A classic looking kitchen; black and white tile, updated appliances, pantry in upstage right corner, a counter running parallel to the front of the stage with barstools in front of it divides the kitchen in half. Present day. AARON stands with his back to the audience, looking in the refrigerator. SETH is crouched in between the barstools, unseen by AARON.
AARON
What is it with people in the suburbs not having anything ready to eat these days?
(He turns towards the audience, with a green can of parmesan cheese in one hand and a jar of pickle relish in the other)
I mean, really, it’s almost obscene.
(Seth cringes as Aaron approaches the counter and sets down the food)
You people should be ashamed of yourselves.
(he goes to the pantry and opens it, revealing Marie, tied up and with a look of fear in her eyes)
You hear me? Ashamed! Unless, I’m sorry…is this your house, or the boy’s house?
(pause)
Don’t tell me you’re brother and sister…that makes things even worse.
MARIE
(timidly)
It’s his house…his father’s house…not mine…
AARON
Oh, bacon bits!
(he pushes Marie to the side and grabs the bacon bits)
And French Fried onions!
(grabs both items, slams the door in Marie’s face, she whimpers and Seth jumps up to face Aaron, brandishing one of the barstools)
SETH
You sick fucking animal! Let her go!
AARON
Young man, you’re calling me an animal?
(Aaron calmly approaches Seth, who is noticeably quivering)
The way you were breathing when I found you, with your shirt off, and your hand down her pants…and you’re calling me an animal?
(he slams the items in his hands down on the counter, then easily wrestles the barstool from Seth’s grip)
I am not an Animal! I am a human being!
(throws the barstool to the ground, breaking it)
You are the animal, young man!
(Aaron grabs the now sobbing Seth, drags him over behind the counter, picks up a large knife from a nearby knife set, and as he slashes, Seth goes silent as the lights go out)
Lights up, same setting, a little later. Aaron is splattered with blood and fiddling behind the counter. Unless otherwise directed from here on out, Aaron’s lines are addressed directly to the audience.
AARON
Look, I know that a lot of people are going to throw out words like “insane” and “troubled” and “monster” and “death penalty” and stuff like that. They probably already do. And I know some day I’m going to get caught, but I’m doing the world a great service, here.
(he picks up the can of parmesan cheese, shakes some into his left hand, and sets it back down)
Think of it this way; law enforcement can’t enforce every law on its own, people just need to comply with some things. Well, unfortunately, not everybody does. And not everybody who doesn’t comply gets caught. If you follow me.
(he picks up the jar of bacon bits and shakes some on top of the cheese in his hand)
Well, there are some things that people just shouldn’t do, and they should get punished for it. I mean, for instance, murder of an innocent life. Yes, I’m talking about The Big One, Roe v. Wade, abortion. That’s why I killed that doctor out in Canton, Ohio. I was saving potentially hundreds of innocent lives by removing one guilty life from this world. That’s why I killed that so-called “Mother” outside the clinic in New Jersey. Sure, her blood stained my Doc Martens, but she herself was stained with the blood of the innocent. And the blood of the innocent doesn’t wash away quite so easily.
(he sniffs at the food in his hand, then adds some French fried onions to the pile)
But it’s not just that. I mean, I did a tour of VFW halls a while back. Like, ten, fifteen years ago. This is how I got started. I asked all these veterans about their experiences. And if they mentioned anything about murdering civilians in a casual tone…well, come on! That’s guilty right there. Almost the definition, worthy of Webster’s.
(produces a spoonful of pickle relish, which he drops into his hand. There is a noise from the pantry)
And that’s what got me started.
(shoves the food in his hand into his mouth, dropping a good deal, after which he cleans himself off with a napkin and then walks over to the pantry, opening the door)
Is everything alright in here? You comfortable?
MARIE
Ye..yes.
AARON
Okay then. I just have one question; were you comfortable when I found you?
(silence, aside from Marie’s quiet sobs)
I’ll let you think about that one some more.
(he slams the door, returns to the counter)
Now after a little while, I realized I was committing a sin. I was guilty of something. What could I do? Well, you see, I felt remorse. A little bit, anyway. I felt conflicted. I mean, on the one hand, I was leaving earthly remains to be found for burial, you know, to give solace to the bereaved. But what right had they to be bereaved? To mourn for a guilty soul? Please. I was guilty of waste. And you know what they say? “Waste not, want not.” And being the self-appointed Hand of God doesn’t pay very well, especially when you’re always on the move. So…
(there is a beep)
Oven’s preheated, okay. Well, the secret to cooking a teenage boy is to only cook the good parts. Luckily, this one must be a track star, because his legs are nice and meaty. Maybe a swimmer, since it seems like he shaved his entire body.
(reflecting)
Although that may have something to do with his plans for this afternoon.
(returns to the pantry, opens the door, speaks to Marie)
Was today your first time?
MARIE
N…No. He…keeps count. I think it was our seventh.
AARON
Oh, mercy. Well…do you have an answer to my first question?
MARIE
…I never…never enjoyed it. I was never comfortable.
AARON
But did you want to be doing it?
(silence, Marie shakes her head “yes”)
I was afraid of that.
(she screams, he pulls her forward, puts her head on the ground in between the door and the door frame, and slams the door several times, the last time getting splattered with a little bit more blood as her screams get silent and the lights go out)
Lights up. It is several moments later. Aaron is splattered with still more blood. Steam rises from pots on the stove, which he stirs occasionally during the final scene.
AARON
So I find that hotbeds of sin are high schools. Oh my Good Lord! Kids lying, sneaking out of school, stealing from teachers and from each other, it’s amazing! Wait ten minutes outside of a high school, and you can bet most every law has been broken once within those walls while you stood there waiting. I would love to purge an entire high school of sinners…but people would catch on and then invariably, somehow or other, I would be pegged as the bad person. But I always leave a note. I explain it. I never steal anything, other than a little bit of food. I always put everything in the dishwasher after I use it. I always clean up as best I can. Because that’s what it’s about…making things clean.
(beat)
So this afternoon, I was strolling past a high school and noticed these two young kids, a boy and a girl, hurrying away. They got into a car, the boy was driving, so I followed them as best I could and found them here. They were kissing all the way into the front door and they forgot to lock it, which was fortunate for me. And for them too, because now they’re getting their rewards. And I get to eat. I waited a few minutes, then entered, and I heard them making some noise, and I found them…well, you can imagine. And the boy, the coward, picked up the girl and threw her towards me, then rushed out of the room. Well…talk about cowardice. But I knew he hadn’t left, because I can always tell. And sometimes, in these situations, there is one willing and one unwilling participant. And it appeared that he was certainly willing, but I wasn’t sure about her. And I wanted him. So, I tied her up in the pantry, gave her the benefit of the doubt.
(pause)
Silly of me, really. I’ve seen enough to know that I have seen too much. I should have known she was a willing participant. Well, you live and you learn, I suppose. And I found him, he confronted me. Ha! But I got him! Oh, I got him.
(pause)
The secret is to cook quickly. You can’t take time to savor, especially when somebody else might walk in and find you. But I spoke to the girl for a moment, she said the boy’s father is away on business, which is why they chose this house for their, um, rendezvous. So today, I can really take the time. I’ve got the boy slow roasting, I’ve got bits of her slowly simmering in a stew…it’s such a nice day, I wish I could go outside and barbecue. But that might arouse some suspicion, and, as I said, I have to keep low. Some people don’t appreciate what I do. Some people might think I’m a monster. But I do what I have to. I’m cleaning the world and surviving. Surviving.
(dips a spoon into the largest pot, tastes the stew, then reaches over and adds French fried onions or bacon bits or pickle relish, whichever is closest, as lights fade)
End.
===
"It's grift sense; I mean, you can search high and low all day, but to no avail. Without grift sense, you're never going to find that lemon." - Murray Farish
Friday, November 02, 2007
I Knew You Guys Cared...
...but it seems that I don't.
Well, so it goes. Busy, busy busy. Busy.
No excuse, though, I'll be the first to admit. There will be a substantial blog later today, I absolutely promise, along with my Tuesday Excerpt Halloween Edition, but for now, this is all you get. For real.
Well, except that you get an addendum to my Media post of a couple weeks ago by saying that when I'm not listening to NPR, there's a station here in St. Louis I listen to called The Arch which is, like most radio, hit-or-miss but if you stick with it you get a good smattering of music. They won't repeat a song at all for a whole day, but when you listen to it, it certainly seems like there are songs they play twenty-four hours and two seconds after the last time they played it. Like stuff they've got to get in every day, you know?
But when I'm in the mood for music, and it's not time for World Cafe and The Arch isn't cutting it, and my I-Tunes playlist needs some new greenery...that's when I go for one of two sources. First, if I haven't caught the latest show I check out All Songs Considered, thus fulfilling my NPR nerdliness and listening to some cool music. Or, as is most often the case, I turn to Pandora Internet Radio (which of course I found through a story on All Things Considered), and it does the trick. My readers in foreign climes may be out of luck for checking it out, it seems that the licensing agreement makes it so that you can only listen to it if you're in the US (but how do they know? Domestic spying?), but if you live in the states, check it out. Plug in your favorite artist or song and you will be amazed at what you find. It's pretty sweet. What are you waiting for? Go now!
Okay, more to come. No Free Write Friday, sorry, I need my creative juices for class and for Surfacing, but soon...soon. Next week. Promise.
Well, so it goes. Busy, busy busy. Busy.
No excuse, though, I'll be the first to admit. There will be a substantial blog later today, I absolutely promise, along with my Tuesday Excerpt Halloween Edition, but for now, this is all you get. For real.
Well, except that you get an addendum to my Media post of a couple weeks ago by saying that when I'm not listening to NPR, there's a station here in St. Louis I listen to called The Arch which is, like most radio, hit-or-miss but if you stick with it you get a good smattering of music. They won't repeat a song at all for a whole day, but when you listen to it, it certainly seems like there are songs they play twenty-four hours and two seconds after the last time they played it. Like stuff they've got to get in every day, you know?
But when I'm in the mood for music, and it's not time for World Cafe and The Arch isn't cutting it, and my I-Tunes playlist needs some new greenery...that's when I go for one of two sources. First, if I haven't caught the latest show I check out All Songs Considered, thus fulfilling my NPR nerdliness and listening to some cool music. Or, as is most often the case, I turn to Pandora Internet Radio (which of course I found through a story on All Things Considered), and it does the trick. My readers in foreign climes may be out of luck for checking it out, it seems that the licensing agreement makes it so that you can only listen to it if you're in the US (but how do they know? Domestic spying?), but if you live in the states, check it out. Plug in your favorite artist or song and you will be amazed at what you find. It's pretty sweet. What are you waiting for? Go now!
Okay, more to come. No Free Write Friday, sorry, I need my creative juices for class and for Surfacing, but soon...soon. Next week. Promise.
Monday, October 29, 2007
Musings
So, nobody seems to have noticed/cared that I didn't blog on Friday? Even though I said I was going to?
Well, we went out of town this weekend, so we were busy shopping (unsuccessfully) for Halloween costumes and then packing/cleaning up a bit, so it slipped my mind. Sorry. Bad blogger.
I'm going to ask you all a question, and I hope I get some responses here. I wrote a short play that is very dark, disturbing, and horrific. I am debating whether or not I should post it as my excerpt tomorrow. I mean, it's Halloween time, it makes sense...but on the other hand, it may shock and disturb some of you. Well...I think I'll do it, unless I get a lot of "Don't post a horror play! No! Ah! I'll hate you forever!" answers. So, if you do or do not want to see it, let me know.
As I was driving home from Chicago Sunday, my passenger side blinker decided to go all crazy. Instead of the steady "click, clack, click, clack..." it's now become a hyperactive five year old "clickclackclickclackclickclack!!!!" Hmm. Any ideas there?
Still waiting for more answers to my question about novels. Go figure. I think I'm going to take the answers I get and if I haven't read them, put them on my "To Read" list (under the pile of plays and books for class).
So, as I mentioned earlier, we went to Chicago this weekend, had a grand time. Played some cards, finally played some Wii (I'm so-so with the bowling and terrible at golf), and sacrificed my health in the hopes of winning the McDonalds Monopoly game. I didn't. All we won is more food, which I don't want to eat any more of. Ever. Period. Again. EVER! Just to drive home the point, since I am feeling so blah about fast food right now, I should read Fast Food Nation again and then swear off fast food for life. Sounds like a good plan.
Well...it's Halloween week. What are you going to be dressed up as? I gather lots of people went to parties this past weekend...that's what I was doing in Chicago..but what's the 2007 costume? I went as The Yellow Jersey, complete with leg warmers, cycling socks, helmet, sunglasses, (no spandex shorts, those get way too uncomfortable to wear at a party, trust me), gloves, stuffed Lion (some of you know what I'm talking about there)...and some syringes. Just call me Bjarne Riis (ooh dang!). Kathy went as a 50's housewife, complete with hairnet, apron, and wooden spoon. It was all good.
I'm at work...and the work computer says it's 12:25 when it is clearly not. I hope that whoever gets elected as president in 2008 repeals the stupid Bush Daylight Savings reform. Worthless, really. It should just go away.
Well, we went out of town this weekend, so we were busy shopping (unsuccessfully) for Halloween costumes and then packing/cleaning up a bit, so it slipped my mind. Sorry. Bad blogger.
I'm going to ask you all a question, and I hope I get some responses here. I wrote a short play that is very dark, disturbing, and horrific. I am debating whether or not I should post it as my excerpt tomorrow. I mean, it's Halloween time, it makes sense...but on the other hand, it may shock and disturb some of you. Well...I think I'll do it, unless I get a lot of "Don't post a horror play! No! Ah! I'll hate you forever!" answers. So, if you do or do not want to see it, let me know.
As I was driving home from Chicago Sunday, my passenger side blinker decided to go all crazy. Instead of the steady "click, clack, click, clack..." it's now become a hyperactive five year old "clickclackclickclackclickclack!!!!" Hmm. Any ideas there?
Still waiting for more answers to my question about novels. Go figure. I think I'm going to take the answers I get and if I haven't read them, put them on my "To Read" list (under the pile of plays and books for class).
So, as I mentioned earlier, we went to Chicago this weekend, had a grand time. Played some cards, finally played some Wii (I'm so-so with the bowling and terrible at golf), and sacrificed my health in the hopes of winning the McDonalds Monopoly game. I didn't. All we won is more food, which I don't want to eat any more of. Ever. Period. Again. EVER! Just to drive home the point, since I am feeling so blah about fast food right now, I should read Fast Food Nation again and then swear off fast food for life. Sounds like a good plan.
Well...it's Halloween week. What are you going to be dressed up as? I gather lots of people went to parties this past weekend...that's what I was doing in Chicago..but what's the 2007 costume? I went as The Yellow Jersey, complete with leg warmers, cycling socks, helmet, sunglasses, (no spandex shorts, those get way too uncomfortable to wear at a party, trust me), gloves, stuffed Lion (some of you know what I'm talking about there)...and some syringes. Just call me Bjarne Riis (ooh dang!). Kathy went as a 50's housewife, complete with hairnet, apron, and wooden spoon. It was all good.
I'm at work...and the work computer says it's 12:25 when it is clearly not. I hope that whoever gets elected as president in 2008 repeals the stupid Bush Daylight Savings reform. Worthless, really. It should just go away.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Oops...
In the hub-bub of posting my excerpt and asking your favorite novels, I forgot to ask for Free Write Friday suggestions! Ah! Quick, get those in! And keep answering my "What's your favorite novel?" question. And I find it hilarious that Molly loved the book Trout Fishing in America when I can guarantee you that of all the people I know, Molly is one of the least likely to actually go trout fishing anywhere.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Tuesday Excerpts
...and the verdict? You get something else, and not my play. Because we didn't get around to reading mine today.
Today's excerpt is an entire piece for playwriting this semester. It's just a monologue, so enjoy!
===
August 2007
Scene is the bench at a softball field. It is Sunday night, and Andy, a tall 34 year old man, is watching his team play while he takes his turn at the bench. He has a Bud Select in hand.
ANDY
(yelling throughout)
Let’s go, Know Skills, let’s go! One-two-three, come on, just like they got us last inning, we can do it!
(pause)
Back, Mary, Kathy, Steve, Paul! Back up, this guy’s got power. Steve, watch that line! Watch the line!
(pause)
Good pitch there, Mark, little higher, little higher, looked good from here.
(pause, the crack of a bat)
Go! Steve, run! STEVE! STEVE!
(pause, his face gets intense)
HIT THE CUT-OFF, GO HOME GO HOME! JOE, GET OUT THERE, MARK COVER HOME, LET’S GO!
(under his breath)
Fuck.
(yelling again)
That’s okay, way to hold him at three, way to hold him. Elliot, play’s coming to you. Mark, Joe, Marybeth, check the runner at third, get the girl at first. Outfield! Move in! In! IN, STEVE, IN! PAUL, IN!
(to himself, but with a big smile)
Christ, bunch of five year olds.
(weak crack of the bat, yelling again)
Check him, Mark, check him. GET IT ELLIOT!
(pause)
HOME! HOME, ELLIOT! MARK, COVER HOME!
(pause)
Good throw, good throw, good play to first, Mark.
(to his left)
They got one, Mom. Mom, they got one. Mom, are you still keeping score? Okay, Dad, they got one.
(back to the game, top of his lungs)
LEFTY! SHIFT, OUTFIELD, SHIFT, MOVE BACK! WATCH THE LINE, KATHY!
(crack of bat, under his breath)
Fucking left field!
(shouting)
STEVE! LEFT, BACK STEVE! JOE, CUT OFF, CUT OFF! MARK, ELLIOT, SOMEBODY GET HOME!
(pause, to his left)
One more, Dad.
(back to the game)
Alright, Know Skills, one down, come on, easy out easy out! Move in outfield, move in, Elliot, play’s coming to you at first.
(crack of the bat)
BACK! BACK, MARY! BACK! WAY BACK! MARYBETH, GO OUT FOR THE CUTOFF, ELLIOT, HELP HER!
(pause)
SHE’S MOVING, SHE’S GOING HOME, GET THE BALL IN, GET IT IN!
(pause)
Way to hold her, Know Skills, shake it off.
(looks at batter approaching)
Move back, outfield! Way back. Steve, watch that line! Back! Keep going. Let’s go, Mark, make him want it!
(crack of the bat)
Mark! That’s you! Catch it!
(pause, Andy gets wild)
THROW TO THIRD! THROW TO THIRD! THROW TO THIRD! TAG THE BASE, COLLEEN, TAG IT! YEAH!
(claps wildly)
Alright team, alright. Mark, you’re up, then Kathy, then Elliot. Let’s go, Know Skills, let’s string some runs together.
(pointing as he says names)
Mark, Colleen, good play out there. Elliot, Steve, Marybeth, Kathy. Lookin’ good. Let’s have some fun.
(pause)
Well, okay, let’s win and have some fun, guys. Let’s go team! Who wants a beer?
===
You guessed it...softball! Yay! And now I have a question for all of my readers: What's your favorite novel? I will answer that same question for you all on Friday. Until then!
Pen names are masks that allow us to unmask ourselves. -C. Astrid Weber
Today's excerpt is an entire piece for playwriting this semester. It's just a monologue, so enjoy!
===
August 2007
Scene is the bench at a softball field. It is Sunday night, and Andy, a tall 34 year old man, is watching his team play while he takes his turn at the bench. He has a Bud Select in hand.
ANDY
(yelling throughout)
Let’s go, Know Skills, let’s go! One-two-three, come on, just like they got us last inning, we can do it!
(pause)
Back, Mary, Kathy, Steve, Paul! Back up, this guy’s got power. Steve, watch that line! Watch the line!
(pause)
Good pitch there, Mark, little higher, little higher, looked good from here.
(pause, the crack of a bat)
Go! Steve, run! STEVE! STEVE!
(pause, his face gets intense)
HIT THE CUT-OFF, GO HOME GO HOME! JOE, GET OUT THERE, MARK COVER HOME, LET’S GO!
(under his breath)
Fuck.
(yelling again)
That’s okay, way to hold him at three, way to hold him. Elliot, play’s coming to you. Mark, Joe, Marybeth, check the runner at third, get the girl at first. Outfield! Move in! In! IN, STEVE, IN! PAUL, IN!
(to himself, but with a big smile)
Christ, bunch of five year olds.
(weak crack of the bat, yelling again)
Check him, Mark, check him. GET IT ELLIOT!
(pause)
HOME! HOME, ELLIOT! MARK, COVER HOME!
(pause)
Good throw, good throw, good play to first, Mark.
(to his left)
They got one, Mom. Mom, they got one. Mom, are you still keeping score? Okay, Dad, they got one.
(back to the game, top of his lungs)
LEFTY! SHIFT, OUTFIELD, SHIFT, MOVE BACK! WATCH THE LINE, KATHY!
(crack of bat, under his breath)
Fucking left field!
(shouting)
STEVE! LEFT, BACK STEVE! JOE, CUT OFF, CUT OFF! MARK, ELLIOT, SOMEBODY GET HOME!
(pause, to his left)
One more, Dad.
(back to the game)
Alright, Know Skills, one down, come on, easy out easy out! Move in outfield, move in, Elliot, play’s coming to you at first.
(crack of the bat)
BACK! BACK, MARY! BACK! WAY BACK! MARYBETH, GO OUT FOR THE CUTOFF, ELLIOT, HELP HER!
(pause)
SHE’S MOVING, SHE’S GOING HOME, GET THE BALL IN, GET IT IN!
(pause)
Way to hold her, Know Skills, shake it off.
(looks at batter approaching)
Move back, outfield! Way back. Steve, watch that line! Back! Keep going. Let’s go, Mark, make him want it!
(crack of the bat)
Mark! That’s you! Catch it!
(pause, Andy gets wild)
THROW TO THIRD! THROW TO THIRD! THROW TO THIRD! TAG THE BASE, COLLEEN, TAG IT! YEAH!
(claps wildly)
Alright team, alright. Mark, you’re up, then Kathy, then Elliot. Let’s go, Know Skills, let’s string some runs together.
(pointing as he says names)
Mark, Colleen, good play out there. Elliot, Steve, Marybeth, Kathy. Lookin’ good. Let’s have some fun.
(pause)
Well, okay, let’s win and have some fun, guys. Let’s go team! Who wants a beer?
===
You guessed it...softball! Yay! And now I have a question for all of my readers: What's your favorite novel? I will answer that same question for you all on Friday. Until then!
Pen names are masks that allow us to unmask ourselves. -C. Astrid Weber
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