4 + 4 = 233

Courtney sent a book from Colorado, called Love is a Mix Tape. She said it reminded her of me, probably because I used to make a lot of mix CD's, even back before there were torrent sites. I would make them with clever themes, usually involving some kind of wordplay, but the atmospheric impact of the mix usually suffered because I was trying so hard to be clever. Nowadays I do a little better. The work I'm most proud of is a four-CD set on the seasons, because I think it relies on atmosphere instead of inventiveness. I want to make more like those. The most recent one I did was a mix about time, but it really gets me down. Most songs about time are about time passing you by. Right now it hits a little too close to home.

Yesterday was the fourth Fourth of July I've spent in Kirksville. Every one was different, which is unusual for a holiday. Some things have been consistent, like fireworks. Our country was founded on the principles of blowing shit up, and it is a tradition that I am proud to uphold. The first year we went to a park and watched the city's show, and Joe's friend--for the life of me I can't recall her name, but she had big red hair--gave me a beer. On the second we snuck our way up the roof of an auditorium, where we could watch fireworks from every part of town. That was the summer we drank our way through the alphabet, and we were on G and H that night, with 'good doctors' and 'honey lagers'. We got the girls to flash us. At one point I peed off the roof. That's right, I admit it. Catch me if you can. The third year we went back to the park with vodka, and fireworks of our own. And last night, we all went to Ron's house for a barbecue and a fireworks show. We each brought a side dish and an explosive worth at least five dollars. I made pasta salad. I had never made it before, but from what I remembered from how it's supposed to taste, I knew that the main ingredients were rotini and Italian dressing. And I added black olives, red peppers, tomatoes, mushrooms, and parmesan and romano cheese. So basically I invented pasta salad. I told everyone it was an old family recipe. I also got an idea--bear with me here--for an unconventional hamburger topping: strawberries. I know that sounds crazy at first, but really, just think about how it would taste. I must give it a try sometime.

There was a point at the party where most of the people were playing a game in the backyard with PVC pipes and golfballs on string; I don't know the name of it but I've played it before, years ago. I was sitting on a bench watching them, with a little whiskey and a cigarette. It was cloudy, and there was a fine mist all evening, and these trees and the background had very faint, desaturated leaves, and there was a chainlink fence and a dog running around and folk rock music drifting out from the house, and I was quite moved by the scene. It was absolutely idyllic, one of those "guys this is going to be a great summer" movie moments. I'm not ashamed to say that it reminded me of a scene in The Perks of Being a Wallflower, which is a book that Courtney loaned me once.

The Amityville Slumber

I just woke up from the strangest dream. The most unusual thing about it was that it was extremely linear, with only one major error in continuity. The part of the brain responsible for short-term memory does not function properly during REM sleep, which is why dreams usually bounce around from place to place and theme to theme without you realizing it at the time. This is also why your ability to recall dreams wanes so quickly upon waking, and why it has been suggested that REM is used to free up RAM in your brain. In any case it is rare for dreams to have such a consistent, linear plot. Mine had two acts.

It was about an evil, sentient house, sort of like the one in Amityville Horror, but this one was a sprawling mansion, old as the hills, decaying, and overgrown with vegetation. I was living in the house, and it was compelling me to commit brutal murders. I was a serial killer, basically, and for some reason I had to follow a very special diet: I could not eat gluten products and I also had to eat copious amounts of sweets and taffys. You could say I was a stranger with candy. There was a young, borderline-autistic boy who would follow me around on my el-train ride home every evening. He had an obsession with legos and toys that come out of cereal boxes, especially a painted aluminum olympic gold medal, which he had actually mailed in for. He developed an attachment to me. Eventually, he followed me home. The house wanted me to kill him. The house tried to kill him itself. Through strength of will, I overcame the murderous compulsions in order to save the boy, and with improvised weapons and several gallons of gasoline, I defeated the house. The house manifested itself into a man, who attacked me. We struggled, and eventually he surrendered. But I was not satisfied. He didn't struggle as I slowly tried to break his neck. He gave me pointers. Once he was dead, I realized that I had been obliquely compelled into yet another murder. I could not have allowed the houseman to live; he may have returned, and compelled me again. But in killing him, I was given a taste for independent murder. I was now addicted to it, as much as I was addicted to sweets. There had been no way to win.

In the second act of my dream, the previous story was revealed to be merely a play I had written. I was surrounded by the aftermath, the whirlwind of people's reactions to the story. One woman had fallen in love with the story, and with me, but she was upset by the dark and horrifying ending of the play. Others were merely bored by it. After the run of the play, I was on a train, headed to a family gathering, and I met a boy who looked very much like the one in my play. He gave me a painted aluminum olympic gold medal, in a sealed plastic bag. He followed me into my family reunion. Soon I began craving sweets. And little by little more elements of the play began appearing, and the lines between realities blurred until I was back in the house, just as it had been before, and the story was no longer a play. Suddenly, just as I had known I would, I was ready to go through the motions again, at which point, I awoke.

Also, periodically throughout both acts, there was a ghost horse, whose significance is questionable.

The most interesting thing is that many of the elements and themes of that dream are present in the play I have been working on (although the plot is very, very different). I wonder what the connection could be. Is it because the play was simply "on my mind" when I went to sleep? Or could it be that the play is coming out of the same deep subconscious place that gives birth to my dreams?

Gaaahhhh!!! GHOST HORSE!!!

A Study in Wolverine Gray

In an attempt to make some Intercash, I tried to start a website, like a real one, a few days ago. The idea was to do movie reviews in the form of cartoons, and cartoons in the form of MS Paint. I have several irreverent Paint cartoons on my Facebook page, but if you really want to pull in viewers, you have to fulfill a niche, you know. As far as I know, nobody else was doing supercondensed satrirical MS Paint cartoon movie reviews. I made one for each of the movies that had come out so far this summer, with the plan to do reviews of films both new and old, and the problem was that I hated myself for doing it. I felt like a sniper, taking potshots at movies. For personal gain. I love movies. There are some that deserve to be made fun of, sure, but I don't want to suck the joy out of an entire film for the sake of a cheap laugh and a couple of cents from a banner ad. There is no artistic satisfaction in that. It's piggybacking and it's bastardization and I'm sorry I ever thought it was a good idea. From now on, if I have an idea for a drawing, it will be my own idea--not just an idea of how to shoot down someone else's ideas. That's not my style.

Another reason is, that Google reviewed the site and decided they didn't want to put ads on it, so, no money anyway. The reason was because the site was down temporarily because it was in utero, being transferred to a proper domain name, and they don't put ads on dysfunctional addresses. Regardless, the fact that I got an e-mail from the corporation I paid for the domain saying, basically, "we're not even willing to put our advertisements on your website" was pretty disheartening.

I have very deliberately never taken an art class, because drawing is the only art form that I take purely as a hobby for myself, and I knew that if I did it with constraints or for a grade, it would suck all the fun out of it. Doing it for cash is not so different. There may come a time when I do MS Paintings, or real paintings, for money, but it will not be at the expense of others' artistic endeavors. I will not be a parasite, not for all the money in the world.

Well, maybe I would, for all the money, but, that's awfully unlikely.

Kirksville Summer '09: A Summary

Sadly, there was to be no Bruce Campbell's Birthday party this year.

Lemons Win Again

I am going to have even more free time, starting immediately. I got laid off this afternoon. The managers specifically told me that I was not "fired," and that they would be happy to provide a reference or glowing review for me. (This feels exactly the same as getting fired.) Their only criticisms of my performance were that I didn't smile enough, and sometimes I forgot to do sidework, like cutting lemons and things. "But you're good at drawing," they added. Basically, they found out yesterday that I would be leaving at the end of the summer, and today they decided they might as well let me go now, rather than spend two months of (less than minimum) wages on a temporary fixture, when there are other servers clamoring for hours who can promise to work indefinitely. I have been working there for over a year. It was a good job. My only regret is doing so many favors for the manager, Kim.

I had actually been considering quitting recently, to focus on more creative endeavors, and also because, honestly, I was making very little money there anyway. The hours were becoming fewer and farther between, and ditto for the customers. But very little money is better than no money at all, and I can't leave Kirksville on a plane made out of happy thoughts and rainbows. I don't have anything left to sell. I will either have to move sooner than I intended, or try to find a new job, which is almost impossible at the moment. You can ask anyone who's living here now. Not even Maritz is hiring, though they have a high turnover rate.

I now have every incentive to leave as soon as possible.

Also, I tried riding a bicycle this afternoon, for the first time since middle school. On my first attempt, I could not balance. On my second, I could not steer. I did not make a third attempt.

"On Cool" --a book by Morgan Freeman

Summertime means slow business here, so the restaurant is cutting back everyone's hours, including mine. During the school year I was working seven days a week. Now I've got myself a little three day vacation, followed by a day of work, and then a well-earned, relaxing day off. So, I've got some time on my hands.

I finally watched The Dark Knight this afternoon, which means it is now official that every living person has seen The Dark Knight. There were a lot of things that I liked about it, and other things that I did not like about it, but the most important thing is that I am now able to bring you the Drinking Game Version. There are only two or three rules.

Drink, whenever someone is thrown out of a tall building.
(This is Batman's favorite thing to do. He uses this technique to capture people, to save people, to extort information, for fun, and to defeat his enemies, allies, and at least three rottweilers. On more than one occasion, he throws himself out of a tall building. His personal training program is varied and intensive, but he obviously puts the most practice into zen defenestration. Oddly, the notoriously overused Wilhelm-scream-of-action-one-liners, "Have a nice trip--see you next fall!" was in this movie, but it was not uttered by Batman or even to a character that had physically tripped or fallen.)

Drink, whenever a character has to choose between someone's death and someone else's death.
(For a criminal renowned for his creativity, all of the Joker's plans ultimately come to this same conclusion. Let me kill Batman or I'll kill random people. If you want to be in my gang, you have to fight each other with a broken pool cue, Star Trek style. Choose between someone you love and someone you need. Choose between a man and a hospital. Choose between a boat and a boat. With so many impossible decisions, it's no wonder Dent turned to coin-tossing...and then went on to make Gordon choose between someone he loved and someone he loved and someone he loved.)

Waterfall (optional) during philosophical monologues about the duality of man.

Mom They're Not Playing Fair Come On Play Fair

I wonder if anybody else is frightened by North Korea's reaction to the U.N.'s latest resolution. No one seems to be talking about it or giving it much thought. I don't really follow the news but even I think this is pretty serious.

For those of you who only know Kim Jong-il as the puppet from Team America, this is what has been going on:

1) North Korea builds and successfully tests nuclear weapons.
2) U.N. says, "You can't do that. You signed a treaty saying you wouldn't do that."
3) North Korea withdraws from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
4) U.N. says, "We have decided that you have to, uh, un-withdraw. And none of our countries are going to give money to your government anymore, and we're banning weapon imports and exports in your country, and you have to stop making nukes, that's the most important thing, and also, we get to search your stuff."
5) North Korea says, "Fuck you." They announce their intentions to weaponize all of their plutonium, so there, and if the U.N. tries just one more sanction they will consider it a declaration of war.

This is a map of the countries that have signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which limits the spread of non-peaceful nuclear technology, with the long-term goal of complete disarmament.

The green countries are the ones that have signed the treaty. You'll notice that's almost the whole world. Those big red ones are India and Pakistan, which didn't sign because they are in a small cold war with each other, so they think it is a very inconvenient time for them to stop making nukes. The teensy red one enjoying a view of the Mediterranean Sea, that's Israel, they want them for defense. And that one orange bastard in the corner is North Korea, the only country that has actually withdrawn from the treaty. They haven't been completely clear about what they want nuclear weapons for, but they are really only good for one thing.

So, basically, it's them v. world. Soon it will be them, and any country supplying them with weapons resources v. world. And several countries versus several other countries equals a world war. With nukes.

North Korea has the fifth-largest army in the world, by the way. Partly because governmental control of the media is even more effective than an "I Want You" poster. And that doesn't just mean news. They control the theaters and the cinemas and the literature and the T.V. sets and radios in their homes too. The penalty for subversive activity is a trip to a "re-education" camp. Re-education students who do not receive a passing grade are sent to a special school called a "death" camp.

The freedom to dislike the government if I want to is the thing I like most about our government. The thing I like second-most is that I don't have to let redcoats sleep in my house. Third-most is that if a redcoat tries to sleep in my house, I get to shoot him. I probably wouldn't though. However I would not excercise the freedom to make him tea, not even if he asked for it. And he would certainly ask for it.

I do not think North Korea is going to end the world. I do think that they are capable of causing a great deal of damage, now more than ever. A lot of people got upset when Afghani terrorists destroyed the twin towers and part of the pentagon and an empty field in Pennsylvania. How many stoic-bald eagle-shedding-a-single-tear posters are there going to be after an attack that destroys most of NYC itself? Or Washington? Or...well, I guess no one would really miss Kirksville. They may not necessarily target the U.S. But a nuclear attack anywhere is a threat to the entire world, especially those green countries.

North Korea has free healthcare.

Today is World Ocean Day

This is a video you need to watch. It's a promotional trailer for some kind of seahorse exhibit at the Monteray Bay Aquarium.

SEAHORSES ARE A MYSTERY

It is basically a third-grader's poem set to techno trance music, with some pictures of seahorses. It's not that the production value is low--it isn't. It's just that they're trying so hard to make seahorses seem intense. This has never been the case. On the list of Animals Likely to Appear as the Monster in a Sci-Fi Channel Original Movie, seahorses come in somewhere between dragonflies and armadilloes.

The Secret Lives of Seahorses

by Emily Buchner, Age 9

seahorses

seahorses are a mystery

mystery

are they fishes?

why do they dance?

dance

do they have relatives?

can we help them?

who has the babies--mom or dad?

babies

Conversely, they also have a video which makes feeding a great white shark seem like the dullest job in the world.

"Here is a lovely salmon steak. Only the best for our white sharks. Restaurant quality."

And then she weighs it and ties it to a pole and sticks it in the water, and the shark swims by and calmly swallows it whole without pausing or adjusting its course. "Oh, did I just eat something? Thanks, I guess." Sharks do not appreciate the cut of the salmon filet as much as they enjoy the way a salmon struggles to stay alive, rapidly bleeding to death as it courses through their gullet. Again--and I can not reiterate this enough--you don't even realize how awesome sharks are. But when you set a shark-feeding video to this cheesy synth music that sounds like it came from a 198o's traffic safety video, it creates the impression that you have to try really hard to make sharks seem awesome, and your immediate psychological response is to decide that sharks must not be awesome after all, which is sad, because this is the alternative:

Give My Regards to Norfolk

I got an e-mail today from the managing director of the 40th Street Stage in Norfolk, Virginia, concerning A Shadow in the Dark. She said that she "liked it very much," and wants to produce it, which means I am a playwright now. It's a black box style non-for-profit theatre, dedicated to bringing Art with a capital A to the second-largest city in the Commonwealth. They are paying me some money, but more importantly, they're fully producing the play, and have very generously offered to do whatever they can to bring Shadow to the attention of other theaters. I am happy to have my play in their hands. This is a big step in my endeavor to get the play published, which is a much bigger deal than that one time I got a Ruby Tuesday's gift card from the Chariton Valley Association for writing them a chautauqua. I am now officially receiving money for writing plays, which I may or may not use to buy hamburgers at Ruby Tuesday's, however I see fit.

Not to denigrate the good people of the Chariton Valley Association, to whom I would like to add that my girlfriend-at-the-time and I enjoyed our sandwiches very much, and are grateful.

I've also received some interest from the Centerstage Theatre in Baltimore, MD, and the Trinity Repertory in Providence, RI, but those are not for sure yet.

Statistically speaking, I was probaby bound to succeed with at least one theater, and there are still about forty theaters I haven't heard back from yet (that's forty potential rejections, if you're keeping score at home) but nevertheless this is something kind of big for me. I feel like more than just a drop in the bucket now, I feel like several drops at least, or a larger drop in a considerably smaller bucket. Whichever you prefer, really. I called and left my parents a message because I wanted them to be the first to know. Then I sent a message to the cast and crew of the Truman production. I almost stopped there--I was afraid to write this because I keep expecting to get another e-mail saying "Oh wait nevermind. We meant to send this to Lared Jatore, the author of A Shallot in the Park." But I wanted to thank those of you who have been reading this blog and writing notes of support or speaking to me personally with words of encouragement. You helped me a lot. Please continue to wish me luck. I still need it.

P.S. A Shallot in the Park = good title for sequel?

[PLOT HOLES] > [EXPLOSIONS] = [YOU NEED MORE EXPLOSIONS]

Went and saw the new Terminator movie. It met all of my expectations. My expectations included evil robots and explosions.

There are more RPF (robots per film) than in the previous Terminator installments, however, there is far less robot screen time. The five or ten minutes where the Terminator is actually in the movie are pretty thrilling. Unfortunately, aside from that moment, it's not a very exciting movie, explosions notwithstanding. Nothing interesting happens.

The film does include another fantastic score by Danny Elfman. I have already downloaded it. Or did it download me?

Also, I would just like to say that the trailer for Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes made me literally, physically sick.

Didn't we learn our lesson from The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen movie? Or the latest remake of The Time Machine? No? Van Helsing, then? I could go on. Sooner or later, we're going to run out of Victorian literary characters to bastardize. But until then...you'd better brush up your kung-fu, Martin Chuzzlewit. You're next.

Turkey versus Dromedary

I made a little list of hours on a scrap of paper that I carried around with me for four days, and every hour that I made it without a cigarette, I would check one off. These hours were much longer than normal hours. After each one, I would think, "Great job, another one down. How can I reward myself? I know, I'll have a ci... oh." I was ready to cave after forty-eight hours, but Clint made me promise that I would keep going until at least seventy-two, and I did, and after that, I kept going. Something must have hit me on day four, though, because I just got so awfully blue that I didn't know what to do with myself. I began to think that perhaps I was robbing myself; there are so few things that I actually enjoy; must I strip them all away? I had already given up drinking (I've been saving a lot of money on that front, by the way), and I was sick of mints and coffee, the expense of which was negating the point of my quitting anyway. Maybe a cigarette wouldn't be so bad--or maybe that was just the cigarettes talking. Was there something that I could reasonably expect to replace my addiction? I made a list.

Things that I Enjoy Doing that Don't Cost Any Money
--Going on walks
--Watching spiders

Fuck that. I need something to get me through a day, and bugs are just not going to cut it. So, after ninety painstakingly-measured hours, when the physical dependency had already been purged from my system, I smoked a cigarette. It was okay.

I don't know if I've quit, or am quitting, or not. If I am, I'm going to need to come up with a better reason than "too costly" before I get to the end of this pack. Because everything is too costly, and few things are as satisfying as tobacco.

Not Meant to Be Taken Literally

This was on Wikipedia and I thought it was funny:
For other meanings of "life", see Life (disambiguation).


One other thing. A question occurred to me today:
Since he's so amazingly good at it, why doesn't Edward Scissorhands cut his own hair?

Also, have you ever considered that he must smell really, really bad. There's no way he can take off that leather S&M outfit with all of its straps and buckles. And, I'm not speaking from experience here, but I think that skintight leather would make you sweat a lot. Can he even take it off to use the toilet? His dad was an inventor; maybe there's a little scissorproof catheter tucked away in there somewhere.

The truth is, no one cares about the hands. Edward has no friends because he smells like a decade's worth of sweat and excrement. His paleness comes from septic shock.

Or Will Icebreakers Sugar-Free Mints Be My Undoing?

There has been more than one night where I had a beer, or a drink, but I haven't been drunk since the first of the month. It was easy--the only downside has been a surplus of boredom. Strangely, the drinks that I've had in this time have brought no satisfaction, no pleasure. Drinking without getting drunk is like sailing to Hawaii and stopping halfway. If you're not going anywhere, it's better to stay on dry land.

I am also trying to quit smoking. As of this minute it has been forty-four hours since my last cigarette. Yes, as a matter of fact, I am going insane.

The shaking and the sweating and the disorientation and lightheadedness have gotten a lot better since yesterday, but the main problem is that I just miss it so much.

When I am a millionaire I will start it up again, but right now I cannot justify spending five dollars a day on an unnecessary luxury. That's a hundred and fifty bucks a month that could be going into my freedom fund. Also, my new place is downtown, so when I go outside to smoke I am just lurking out on the town square, and I think that must look pretty creepy, so this is a good time to quit.

What I think is funny is when I tell people I'm quitting and they say, "Oh, but you just started!" I just started a year ago. I don't know how long you have to smoke before you're legit and you get smokers' cred, or whatever, but a year still seems like a long time to me, even if they don't seem to last quite as long as they used to. What it boils down to is that the smokers are discouraging me from quitting, and the non-smokers are discouraging me from smoking--both teams seem to want me on their side. In any case, if I don't get the hang of this soon, I'm going to have to go back to smoking, because I am up to a pack and a half of mints a day, and I am spending way more on those and coffee than I ever did on cigarettes.