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Thursday, July 14, 2005

"He had a voice that would make a wolverine purr..."
-Anchorman

so here's a first-draft excerpt since i'm excited about being only FIVE pages from finishing my script "Spunkwater." the story this character is telling is 83% true. i'll tell you what wasn't true at the end of this post. sorry about the stupid names i'm forced to use. maybe it's just me but all names in fiction sound dumb. i wish i could just number the bastards and be done with it. George Foreman had the right idea when he named his kids. anyway, here we go. third act rambling:

---

Jacki sits down on the floor of the dark kitchen, head down, phone against her head.

RICK (V.O.)

...maybe you’re thinking that it’s too
much of a coincidence, all these things
I’m saying. I swear it’s true. This
kind of shit surrounds me. All my life
I’ve dealt with irony and coincidence
and synchronicity. You know those two
apartments that you saw? Here’s something
even stranger. One time I met this girl
and went to her apartment and we watched
some shitty movie and fucked around and,
as the sun was coming up and the alcohol
was wearing off, I looked around and
realized where I was. You know where I
was? In an apartment that I’d lived in
ten years before. How about that shit?
I knew I was in the same building when
we ended up there, I even said something
to her about it. But when I realized it
was the same place, the same corner of
the room I was sleeping in, the same
water tower that I was looking at out
the window, she wouldn’t believe me.
No one would believe me. I ended up
stealing one of her magazines from
behind her toilet to get the mailing
label off of it. Then I made a photocopy
of an old tax form and emailed them to
everyone who doubted me. Then I worried
she'd think I was stealing her mail and i
burned the magazine. Then I worried that
someone would know I was burning her
magazines so I lit a candle. And you know
what happened, after all that? Everyone started
saying that if I did live before, I must
be some kind of stalker. I would have to
be the luckiest stalker in the world I
said but people were freaking out. She
ended up breaking up with me because her
roommate thought that I was probably
stalking the apartment, waiting to hook
up with someone who lived there. Maybe
I had a stash under the radiator or some-
thing, she said. Maybe something horrible
happened there, she said. But all I ever
did was punch through a wall because an
ex-girlfriend put up a stupid Green Day
poster. I looked for the hole and they
must have filled it in with plaster because
I couldn't find it. I wasn’t stalking anyone
or anywhere. Of course now that she’s gone
I’m wondering who lives there. And maybe
it wouldn’t be too weird to figure out
a way to bump into them or get inside...

Jacki lays down on the floor and sets the phone down next to her. She closes her eyes, Rick’s fading voice still in her head.

---

here's a quick list of things that aren't true:

a.) my name isn't Rick
b.) i have no interest in who lives in the apartment now
c.) my friends didn't really doubt me, they just thought it was funny
d.) she didn't care much either. the only person who really thought it was creepy was her roommate
e.) i didn't punch through a "Green Day" poster, it was through a door and i covered up the hole with a "Mars Attacks" poster
f.) the magazine i took wasn't behind her toilet, it was on her kitchen counter
g.) i gave the magazine back the next day
h.) i kind of knew it might be my old place as soon as i stepped through the door
i.) i was hoping that it WAS my old apartment so i'd have something to talk about

p.s. as a bonus for anyone who actually read that excerpt, blogger just added this new feature so i thought i'd try it out:

here's a picture from my camping trip last Saturday. before this basketball exploded and knocked me on my ass (and sprayed my legs with little pieces of burnt rubber) i managed to get a few shots i find to be quite beautiful.

the wood wouldn't burn because it had just rained so me and Nate were like, "hmmm, what's in the trunk!" we started with a road flare, but you can't really sit around a road flare fire and stare too long.
it's kinda like looking at the sun through a telescope.
so after a minute we went back to the trunk and wondered:
"do basketballs burn?"

turns out everything burns.

just not for very long.

::: david - 9:29 PM [+] :::
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