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Thursday, July 31, 2003

i've noticed these "100 Things" lists on other sites and i like to read them. i'm a sucker for lists (and concept albums) so i thought i'd fire one off too.


100+ Things About Me:


1. i am obsessed with the number 3.

3. this is why i skipped to number 3.

2. i have two cats and one leopard gecko.

4. i bought my lizard because i saw it bite one of the employees in the pet store who was feeding it. she seemed irritated when i did that.

5. i have had over 30 jobs

6. i have been fired 5 times. i think.

7. the job i kept longest was lifeguarding.

8. the only rescue i got to do was a kid who could have stood up in the water if he’d stopped thrashing around.

9. i used zero of my training for that rescue and simply pulled him up by his head.

10. the smallest girl i worked with at the quarry rescued the most kids.

11. i dated her for this reason and never told her.

12. the other guy at the quarry who was never lucky enough to get a real rescue either teamed up with me to pull in a barrell raft that had broken loose from it’s anchor.

13. we made shirts to brag about our raft rescue.

14. i shaved my head after seeing Fight Club claiming i was being ironic about missing the point. now i’m addicted to it.

15. Fight Club is the only movie i believe is better than the source novel.

16. i once bought 12 black t-shirts and 6 gray t-shirts so i'd spend a minimum amount of time choosing clothes. i learned this from the movie The Fly. now i rarely wear them at all.

17. the hypocracy of all religions makes me extremely angry.

18. i think logic demands that aliens exist somewhere.

19. i write at least 3 pages a day. sometimes 50.

20. i have written thousands of pages. 25 short stories, one and a half screenplays and one novel.

21. i have yet to get anything published.

22. i only send out the stories and scripts, even though i believe the novel will shake the literary world to it’s core.

23. my favorite color is green.

24. i belive that the Grand Theft Auto series is the most important achievement of our lifetime.

25. i have been in 3 car wrecks. i probably would have crashed the 3rd time on purpose if it hadn’t have happened naturally, cause 3 always sounds better than 2.

26. i am extremely interested in driving but not really into cars.

27. i have been in 9 fist-fights, mostly in college. my record is 7-1-1. the only one i started, i lost.

28. when confronted by a drunk asshole, i believe in apologizing, buying him a beer if he’ll have one, then, hours later, hitting him in the back of the head.

29. i own a book called “101 Suckerpunches.”

30. the only time i got my ass kicked was over a girl.

31. swimming makes me very happy.

32. i worry about my sister daily but i don’t tell her this. instead i pretend i’m calling to check on my cats.

33. i rarely get along with other writers. i usually find them to be very self-centered and weak. there are exceptions.

34. i believe that reality-based programming is a good thing. even though it seems to be the harbinger of doom and the twilight of intelligence on TV, these are the only shows that i remember to watch.

35. i think writers should enjoy these shows because it’s the same as listening to other people's conversations. even though they're acting, i think acting like you're not acting is real enough for me.

36. one day someone will die on camera on one of these shows and i will be fucking front row, baby!

37. i think hatred can be healthy, even though it gives me chest pains.

38. i am haunted by a rabbit’s nest i accidentaly mowed over as a child.

39. i am even more haunted by a strange ant i dropped into my ant farm when i was little. it killed most of the other ants.

40. i am haunted by that time i forced another kid to drink dog shit in milk. this was last Thursday. just kidding. i was in second grade. if this person remembers this incident and kills me one day, you heard it here first. i will have deserved it.

41. when i was 9 i thought the world was going to end because i heard the tornado sirens and i ran off down the street.

42. i cannot eat peas.

43. i ate a cricket on a dare for 5$.

44. in elementary school i won just about every award there was for drawing.

45. i stopped drawing in 6th grade when i realized i wasn’t the best.

46. my little sister is better at drawing than i was.

47. the first book i remember reading was my dad’s copy of Firestarter when i was in 3rd grade. to this day i remember many specific lines. example; "it rammed through his throat with a wet punching sound that i never forgot..." me neither Steve.

48. i tried to collect all the “Choose Your Own Adventure” books when i was young.

49. i made my own version with no happy endings.

50. in high school i dragged my friend Dan on a 2 hour drive to Shipshawwannie (?) Indiana to find some Amish people who would let us help them build a barn. i had just seen the movie "Witness."

51. we had to settle on eating tuna sandwiches made in an Amish owned diner.

52. in this diner was a fake silver dollar nailed to the floor. i always wondered if this was to make fun of tourists. i am sorry i didn’t call them out on that bullshit since they shouldn't be using electricty to toast my sandwich, let alone owning diners.

53. about a year ago i dragged 3 friends on a 3 hour drive to do charcoal rubbings of James Dean’s grave to sell on Ebay.

54. this get-rich-quick scheme cost me $1.30 in Ebay charges. not including gas and supplies.

55. i dragged 3 friends to Canada to compare the Candadian Burger King with the one in Bowling Green Ohio.

56. we were stopped at the bridge and i was detained in a room for being a smart-ass to the border patrol. my car was searched and i was lectured by some serious government types. i thanked their country for producing the song "Tom Sawyer."

57. i drove to New York with 2 friends and 80 bucks. we lucked out and stayed for free with some kids at some Nyack bible college. they turned out to be idiots who thought everyone was a devil worshipper. they took us to their devil worshippers' caves where we found gasp! red grafitti.

58. lightning once hit my shovel (or very close by) while i was working a landscaping job. when i told the crew they locked me out of the truck and called me “Thor” from then on.

59. my favorite flavor is cinnamon.

60. my favorite food is spaghetti.

61. cinnamon on spaghettit tastes bad.

62. i once had a pet praying mantis named Mr. Orange.

63. i used to bury things in our back yard and draw maps for my sister to dig them up.

64. i hate all things Star Wars.

65. i like Lord of the Rings and hope it finally brings Star Wars fans to their senses. however, LOTR fans usually annoy me.

66. i enjoy reading genre fiction but can’t seem to write it myself.

67. Lord of the Flies gets better every time i read it.

68. i packed up all my cds and dvds so i wouldn’t be distracted.

69. i bought an MP3 player and started downloading the same things i had packed away.

70. i love zombie movies.

71. i am obsessed with apocalyptic Mad Max type movies. i dream of fighting for survival as the world ends.

72. i believe in the Loch Ness Monster but not Bigfoot.

73. i excercise every other day and feel like shit if i skip it.

74. i always mix cereal together and am disappointed if i’m down to one kind.

75. i have a mix cassette with both Slipknot and Marvin Gaye on it.

76. i think Nick Cave’s songwriting skills will never be topped.

77. the last concert i saw was Social Distortion with my sister in Columbus.

78. my favorite band is Korn. my ears find their bass-slapping and monkey noises very pleasing.

79. i have a vast collection of movies. over 600 not counting recorded.

80. i go through keyboards like they’re made out of wet paper towels.

81. my new keyboard is black although my computer is white. this keyboard promises “10 million keystrokes.” translation: “one week”

82. i enjoy contradictions in ficitonal characters and in my friends.

83. i used to jump on contradicitons and character flaws like i’d solved a crime. i’ve stopped doing that.

84. i designed a tattoo for myself but never got one.

85. as popular as Hitchcock is, i still believe he’s underrated.

86. i don’t trust anyone who doesn’t have any favorite things.

87. i don’t trust anyone who has too many favorite things.

88. i’ve run out of gas in every car i’ve owned.

89. when i was in 4th grade me and my friend Jeff tried to make beer. we hid the experiment in a Cool Whip container in the woods to ferment (it was water, yeast packets, i don't remember exactly what else was in it). a week later Jeff took a drink and puked all over himself.

90. later that same summer, Jeff’s mom ran over my 10-speed with her truck. she said it was “an accident.”

91. morning DJs make me homicidal.

92. the cds in my car right now are Muse, “Showbiz,” the soundtrack to the movie “Friday” and Cypress Hill "Stoned Raiders."

93. i think they should have had the courage to call the sequel “Saturday” instead of “Next Friday.” it still sucked.

94. i think the title “I Still Know What You Did Last Summer” is idiotic considering they are talking about “The Summer Before Last.” both those movies sucked too.

95. i only wached the first “Last Summer” movie because it opened with Type O Negative singing “Summer Breeze” in the credits. it was downhill from there.

96. the last truly great film i saw was Amores Perros.

97. people who translate the title as “Love is a Bitch” are wrong. it means “Dog Love” according to the mexican dude that rented it from me last year.

98. Project Greenlight is rigged. i know this because i didn’t win.

99. i can’t seem to finish “The Thing” for PS2. i suspect it doesn’t end.

100. hunters are pussies.

101. except for my old college roommate Gary who would bring deer meat to our dorm.

102. i think hunters should only hunt with hammers.

103. i am very productive and happy when the seasons change to cold.

104. i eat ice cubes.

105. i used to freeze my Star Wars figures in cups of water then smash them.

106. my friend Holly’s dad built a full-size airplane in his basement.

107. my first car was a stick-shift and sometimes my hand wanders over to shift in automatic cars.

108. as a boy i once spray-painted a favorite book black because i didn’t like the cover.

109. my dad has eight brothers.

110. i have one brother.

111. he was better at sports than i was.

112. i hate sexists.

113. the only thing i hate more are dumb bitches. slowed you down, didn’t it? hey, that’s what you get for skimmin’ my shit.

114. in jr. high i had maps on my walls. they were of the ocean floors.

115. in high school they turned into Peter Gabriel lyrics.

116. i have a metal pin in the 3rd finger on my right hand.

117. i wish it was the middle one.

118. i broke that finger during a football game when i punched someone in the helmet. he laughed at me after i did that.

119. i tried every sport at least once. i lettered freshman year, however...(see 110-111)

120. i accidentally chipped my brother’s tooth by throwing a nerf football at him when he was using an Etch-A-Sketch.

121. i’ve taken apart an Etch-A-Sketch. it stops working after that.

122. when i was little i tried to crack open a paint can to get the metal ball out. my dad ran into the garage and knocked me down before i cranked the vise tight enough for it to explode in my face.

123. i have vanilla air-fresheners in my car.

124. if i have quarters when i come out of the grocery store, i buy a bubble gum machine toy and i leave it on top of the machine for some kid to find.

125. if it’s a really good toy, i keep the motherfucker.


that's enough for now, time to eat. i could do this shit forever.

::: david - 5:54 PM [+] :::
...

"That's the way that it goes, when you're down here with the rest of us..."
-Social Distortion


or, as the dumb shit who labeled the MP3, "Socal" Distortion. apparently, this is a very popular Southern California cover band that's sounds EXACTLY like the real thing! who'd have guessed? i'm mean, at first i just figured they were fucking up the spelling, but after my fifth "Socal" Distortion song from five different sources, i realized that "socal" is what the hip kids call that stretch of beach, so it must be on purpose right? wrong. here's the deal, if you're one of the people that doesn't take the time to label your MP3s correctly, you need to NOT put them up on the internet for me to see. okay? i cannot deal with misspellings scrolling through the window of my player and that means i waste my precious time loading them onto my desktop and changing the tags. if you can't be bothered with labeling them correctly, just keep them to yourself, along with your Nick Crave, Bruce Springsteem and Limp Bisquick files. okay, the last one was probably on purpose.

so i sort of fucked up my ankle today. i have this chin-up bar that i attach to doorjams to exercise on, and there really isn't a doorway that's the right size around here so i hit the woods like Tarzan and tried to find a good branch. i seem to remember climbing trees all through childhood but it took a half hour to find one with a branch low enough that i could reach. now, on the chin-up bar contraption, i can do every exercise i want. regular chin-ups to hit the biceps, turn my hands like i'm hanging from a steering wheel to hit the triceps. and if you imagine yourself hanging from a steering wheel out a wreck off the edge of a cliff, like i do, you can keep going way past exhaustion. dude. if i ever was in that situation, any by-standers would be amazed at my stamina. they'd be all like "holy shit. i thought he was pulling himself up but look...he's exercising!" anyway, turn my hands again, like you're gripping handlebars, and i hit the forearms. then there's the behind the head for my back, leg raises for my stomache etc. i've gotten in better shape on this than i ever did with free weights so i HAD to find the right branch. after i'm tired of crashing around the woods, i settle for one i think will work and it's on an angle and i'm trying to use it anyway and i realize that, because of the strange slant i'm hanging at, i'm working a new muscle between my bicep and forearm. only it's just on my right arm. i think what the hell, and keep doing it, watching as the tendons and blood in my joint bulge in a way i've never seen before. so while i'm doing this i start thinking that, when dude's work out, it's just to impress females, so wouldn't someone be equally impressed if they discovered a new muscle? i mean, what if you could take a tiny barbell and give yourself one giant finger. shouldn't that make the ladies fuckin' swoon? hell, anyone can get the traditional muscles in shape, it takes a special kind of endurance to work on something new, especially if it serves no purpose except to inflate a body part with blood, much like a lizard will inflate the red pouch under it's head and-CRACK! branch snapped and i hit the ground. it was only about 3 feet down but my legs were crossed behind me so i could get lower with the chin-ups and i couldn't unfold them in time to land on my feet square. it was like that gasp at the Olympics when some 12-year old does a faceplant off the parallel bars.
foot's not that bad though. just hurts. the story is more interesting than the injury. it's usually the other way around.

godDAMN did anyone catch the trailer for "Once Upon A Time in Mexico?" that movie looks like the fuckin SHIT. i'm a huge fan of El Mariachi and Desperado and was a proud owner of Ramirez independent filmmaking guide (until i gave it to my sister's boyfriend and then they broke up) so it's great to see him off that Spy Kids nonsense and back to the kind of bloodbath he does so well. course Spy Kids probably paid for this movie so i shouldn't complain. that preview looks sweeeeeet! be nice to actually want to see something again. last good movie was 28 Days Later and now they're talking about how it's got a new ending on it? what up with that shit? i had to drive an hour from Toledo to Ann Arbor to see that bitch and i have no idea where movies are playing around here so i guess i'll have to wait for dvd. it took way to long to finally find some mom and pop video store just to rent something tonight. luckily i made it out of there WITHOUT A JOB (i'm a sucker for wanting to work in videostores, i love to see what crap people rent) but i did come home with Daredevil. i guess that's what i was looking for. i know it's going to suck real hard, aspecially with Asslick as the lead, but me and my friends used to read those comics back in the little league days so i'm curious enough to take the bullet.

in other news: got a bite on my screenplay. i got an answer to one of my letters and they requested the entire manuscript so we'll see. i've been through this once before so this means i'm walking around cocky and invincible for a couple weeks, then doubts starts to creep in, then the letter with the "however..." i'm thinking that these people would hesitate to fire off these rejection notices if they knew i taped them to the wall to piss on while i did chin-ups. okay, that was an exaggeration, but i remember the names. their lack of vision might cost them their lives if they're ever stuck under something heavy and i'm the only one around. if i come across a burning wreck and hear screams, i'll need to see their license and check my shit-list before the rescue. of course i'd excercise off their steering wheel first.

::: david - 1:24 AM [+] :::
...

"I don't exist when you don't see me."
-Sisters of Mercy



FICTION:



Shades



Nikki was sure that one of them was watching her.

Even when she looked up as fast as she could, they were always looking down. She wondered what the odds were that they'd all be looking down. Wouldn't someone that wasn't watching her be looking at her now? Maybe they thought all her head-jerking was from sharp turns on the tracks. She missed her sunglasses. She knew that this wouldn't be happening if she had her sunglasses. She never should have gotten onto the subway without them, even if that had meant reaching into the toilet after them and letting that nasty water drip down her nose on her way out the door. She was amazed she'd never dropped them in there before, she was always moving so fast in the morning, it seemed like they always stayed on the top of her head through everything. Even when she bent down to flush, even when she bent down to shut the lid, even when she bent down to blow her nose into the water when she was out of tissues, even when she bent down real fast whenever she thought she saw something swimming around in it, they always stayed nested safely on the top over her head. Not today.

I'd rather be running around down here without shoes, instead of without my sunglasses, she thought. A little homeless piss between my toes, a little flinch whenever I put out someone's cigarette butt for them. You know, crushing a bug, even a bee, with your bare foot wouldn't be the worst thing you could step on down here. And maybe if I could get two bottle-caps to stick in my heels, the clicking would make people think I had shoes on anyway. No one ever looks down, not down here, except these fuckers . . .

She looked up so fast something in her neck popped. Every one of them was still looking down. Seven men - all sizes, most colors - lining the row across from her. She was alone. They seemed to be together. And even though she could only see around this one subway car, she was sure that there wasn't another girl on her side throughout this whole fucking train.

Nikki had an idea. She decided to yawn. A big long yawn, she'd hang it out there in the air with her eyes pinched shut. Anyone who was watching her wouldn't be able to resist it. He could be looking down all he wanted after she did it. It didn't matter, she'd see him yawn anyway, or, at least, trying not to. She'd see something, a muscle jumping on a jaw, a vein stand out on a throat, or maybe she'd even hear that seashell sound coming from him, the same sound that was always so loud in her own ears when she did it, maybe she'd hear something when he held it in. There would be something. And it would be her turn to stare at him. His eyes would have to be closed too.

No one yawns with their eyes open, do they? If they did, the eyes would be dead, looking nowhere. . .

She closed hers tight and opened up wide. For a crazy second she worried about how the spit looked when she felt some hanging from the roof of her mouth. She had to fake it for a moment, then the yawn went deep and opened up her throat and it turned into a real one. The seashell roar of the yawn in her head seemed so loud that she almost brought both her hands up to cover her ears. She cut it short, snapped her lips shut, and leaned back to count out some seconds in her head. Then she opened her eyes to see what she'd caught. And when she saw, her heart skipped and she almost ran right then.

Seven mouths stared back at her. Wide open and nasty. Baby birds waiting for her to vomit or drop bugs into them. She couldn't help herself, she went mouth to mouth, studying the insides while trying to slow her heart back down. Her watering eyes saw a long tongue yawning cat-style, some black cavities, some flashes of metal, the wrong color on one of the tongues, a neck flexing trying to keep his mouth closed, perfect teeth in one, "summer" teeth in another (some were here, some were there), extra teeth, shark teeth (so crooked they seemed to have two extra rows), a tattoo along the inside of the cheek? No, just an infection. Then she looked for the eyes.

One of them wasn't really yawning. His mouth was open and straining, blood raised in a pulsing vein in his neck, tongue creeping back, tonsils flexing, yet his eyes were still wide and aware, without that faraway look a yawn should have.

His eyes should have that cat-taking-a-shit look, she thought, That's what a yawn looks like. That's what his eyes are supposed to look like . Not like this . . .

He was watching her. She realized he was forcing his yawn too, he couldn't get a real one started no matter how hard he tried. She wasn't scared of him, she just suddenly needed to know why he was doing that. Why he thought she was doing that. She forgot about the rest of them, in her mind, they weren't all together anymore. Then the train jerked them all to one side as it stopped, and he was up and out the door first. He was up so fast, he moved faster than she ever did, even in the morning. It was just her and the baby birds trying to squeeze off the subway together. Once she was out and moving with the flow of bodies, another thought scared her even more than that row of desperate yearning mouths. She was suddenly sure that no one saw anything that she'd done, or worse, anything that she'd seen. She couldn't imagine what the odds were that they would all open their mouths at the same time. She tried to remember if there had been cameras on the train. She thought she'd heard somewhere that there were. Even if the cameras were watching everything, she imagined that the men were watching the screens, or the tapes, or looking through the mirrors, watching what happened on her train. They probably thought all the men were laughing from a joke she’d told. She wondered if the man who wasn’t laughing, the one who she knew wasn't really yawning, even showed up on their videotape.

Where did he go? She tried to move faster than the rest of the passengers. They seemed to notice her pushing and closed ranks. She used all her tricks, she got lower to the ground and got between everyone the same way she'd get out that door in time every morning without knocking everything over. Sometimes touching nothing except her key when she locked up and got out without looking, her momentum slamming the door behind her, no part of her body anywhere near it. She covered her eyes with her hand, squinting through her fingers, smelling the sweat and rubber from the long sticky train seat. There was finally some light coming down the tunnel to reach her. Even though she was still underground, Nikki could see a burning slice of the sun itself up there on the street, creeping between concrete and cars and dogs and the elbows and knees of everyone still under the road with her.

Away from the train, she ran for the sun.

Up on the street, she eventually slowed down when her legs got tired and her feet started slapping and she’d ran past the building where she worked. A “Don’t Walk” sign was flashing it’s warning across the street. It should say “Don’t Run” or “Run” in this city, she thought as she stood at the edge of the sidewalk, studying the mob waiting for the signal to cross. The girl in front of her had a tattoo on the small of her back. It peeked out at Nikki over a beltloop and she leaned in closer to read it. She told herself that, if the ink said, “Kilroy Was Here,” she was going to follow the girl to see where she went. Something to do to calm her down. Then the sign changed and the girl’s jeans flexed as she stepped onto the road and Nikki made out the words: “Lucky You.”

She turned another corner to keep moving. The sun that she’d ran so hard to find was in her eyes now, she needed a new street to get a new angle. She felt the burn and imagined a runner number on her forehead, climbing as her body temperature rose. She wondered if the sunlight traveled any faster through the eyes. She took a thick breath through her mouth and pinched her eyelids. She couldn’t recall sweating this early in the morning before today. She locked onto a man on the corner she was approaching. She walked up and looked down at what he was selling and then she remembered. She had weaved her way through his minefield of junk and boxes on other mornings, she’d just never looked up to see the man standing over them. Today she squinted at his black and gray beard that seemed to start just under his green eyes, and the stretched neck of his T-shirt hanging comfortably under his huge white smile and she decided to stop moving for a second and buy something.

What’s the odds of him selling sunglasses today? Or a Halloween mask would work. . .

First, there was a box full of phones. Not cell phones, or any part of a telephone that still had numbers, dials or buttons. Just loose receivers, ripped from their cradles or yanked off a payphone, all colors, all training frayed umbilical cords behind them. She picked one up and wiped at the mouthpiece with her thumb. She realizing that here were so many colors to choose from because he’d just painted them with a shell of thick latex paint, covering all the holes for the speakers and microphones. Maybe to smother a voice better than a secret whispered over the heel of any hand could. She laughed and dangled one in front of the man’s face as if he had a phone call. He explained that they could be used as candle-holders or conversation pieces, that they simply weren’t phones anymore. He told her that ninety-nine percent of those broken receivers were the end result of an argument during a phone call. He said that he could always tell when one was going to get ripped loose. He leaned in and told her that there was something in the voice at the end of the argument, when the caller wasn’t talking to the one on the line anymore, and they were shouting their last words for everyone to hear and that’s when the payphones got broke. And that’s where he’d come in. He said that, if she bought one, she could set one on top of her TV for someone to see, and make that story her own.

She nodded and frowned, believing his story until his last line. She hooded her eyes with her hand and turned from the sun. She’d ran to catch the damn thing just minutes earlier, and now she was wishing there was a hole and a ladder at her feet so she could get back underground. She’d rode the subway past her job before (blamed being late on the train and just worked half a day) just so she could watch everyone who got on and off. Of course, when she did that, she’d had the proper gear to cover her eyes.

She rattled another one of his boxes. She would have never considered buying sunglasses off a street corner before today. She decided that, if he actually had some ratty shades at the bottom or one of these boxes, even if he rambled some story about spray-painting the broken lenses after retrieving them from a lover’s quarrel, she would slap down a dollar bill and lock them back behind her ears anyway. Then she’d run back to the train that scared her out of the rabbit hole. The man noticed her hand over her eyes and returned the salute, snapping his heels together when he finished. He asked if she be interested in the speakers to a car stereo. She said that she didn’t have a car or the stereo to go with them. He said that she could carry all these things in her hands as she walked. He said it would keep strangers from talking to her, or from looking at her. Just like walking and reading a book, he decided. If you could do such a thing.

She froze for a moment and thought about what he’d just said. Then she shook it off and picked up a rain-soaked box next to her leg and watched the bottom split open. She jumped back as a pile of cracked and gutted videotapes spilled onto the sidewalk. She shook her head and asked the man why he’d bother to sell busted movies that no one could ever watch. She was sorry she asked that question before the last words even left her mouth. As he told another story, she rotated her body a quarter inch on her heels, to keep the sun’s glare directly on the back of her neck. And every few seconds, she scratched herself hard, over her shoulder and down her spine, where it was hardest to reach. She hated it when rolling sweat felt just like bugs back there. Sometimes she thought it was both. Or maybe bugs that were sweating right along with her.

He explained to her that there was a cockroach problem last summer, and none of the exterminators could figure out how to stop it. He swore that, on this block, none of the professionals, none of the government roach-killers that were flown in could do anything to stop the infestation. He told her that they would smoke-bomb the buildings, and the bugs would be gone for a while. Then, a couple weeks later, the roaches were back and drinking from the toilets again, like they’d never even left. He asked her if she knew who finally saved the day. She sighed and guessed it was him. Then she tuned another quarter inch away from the man and into the sun.

Impossible, she thought as she glared at the sky.

Her temperature rose and she felt a headache rooting in behind her eyes. How did the sun get over there. . .when it was just over there?

He agreed and took a little bow and admitted that yes, he was the hero. He said that he solved the mystery when he rented a certain tape from the neighborhood videostore, and it got stuck in his VCR. He said he returned the movie and never gave it another thought. Until the next day, when he heard a tiny rattle inside the machine and he hit the eject button and watched a roach run out. He said that he went back and rented that same movie again and then carefully took it apart with a hammer when he got home. He leaned forward and explained that the videotape wasn’t just crawling with roaches. He said that it was full of eggs too. Breeding all up and down the length of the movie, so they could be fed into someone else’s machine, slowly and carefully for th duration of a typical film’s hour and a half running time. He said it was a very popular action movie, with a twist at the end that people liked to watch over and over. And that explained how quickly the infestation would return.

She sighed loud for his benefit and said that she had to get going. Then she asked him to tell her, in ten words or less, to just answer her original question. Why did he think anyone would buy broken videotapes from him on a street corner? Before or after a story like that.

He shrugged and laughed and this time she saw bits of food in that wide white smile. He explained that she could use the parts and shells of the videotapes he was selling to make sure her movie rentals weren’t infected. He said that she could simply do a movie transplant before she took any strange tape into her house.

She could switch hearts, he said. He insisted that it was easy, that all she had to do was crack them open with a hammer and transfer the wheels from one movie to the other.

She said there were no houses in the city. Then she asked him how that would do any good, if the roach eggs were sprinkled along the movie tape itself. And she asked how anyone could do delicate surgery on a movie in street, and still have it play, without the proper tools. Like his hammer. He laughed and said those were all good points. He said that the cockroach story was actually someone else’s and that this pile of broken movies were actually porno films and then he asked if maybe she knew how to fix them. She sighed again, loud enough to cough at the end of it and started to walk away. She kicked over another wet box and a pile of headphones rolled over her shoes. Bent headsets trailing frayed copper with no machine or music attached. She kicked at the tumbleweed of wires to get loose and finally had to sit down and untangle her shoe. While she unwrapped her foot, she suddenly had an idea.

She interrupted the story he’d started telling (something about stumbling on a lost plane crash on his snowmoble, something about how all those headphones had miraculously survived and waited for him to find them, still attached to ears in a black long-dead cornfield of loose heads) and she asked him how much he wanted for the ones she was pulling off her foot like a lonely puppy at a pet store. He said three dollars. She said sold. Nikki blew the spiderwebs off the circles of foam and slid them up over her ears as she left the man behind. His story was smothered under the earphones, then gone as she walked on, letting the sun warm the side of her face. She’d stopped sweating.

Just like walking and reading a book, if you could do such a thing.

After a while, she passed a girl wearing a T-shirt that said, “Tell Your Boyfriend I Said Hello.” Nikki looked down at the baby she was carrying.

She should have a tattoo that says, “Killjoy Was Here” instead. Or “Lucky Me.” How come tattoos are never sarcastic? she thought as she caught the girls eyes. Then the girl turned away a spilt second before Nikki almost laughed in her face, or told her to turn that shirt inside out.

She thought about the first time she walked through those boxes on that corner. The man had been trying to sell her a broken garage door opener. He’d had a pile of them in a pillowcase, all shapes and colors. She wanted to ask how he could be selling those with out the garage doors to go with them. There was no way to ask the question, and to keep walking at the same time, so she slapped it out of the hand that was blocking her way and stopped him in the middle of his story and kicked the battery in front of her two more times as she walked.

Now she was thinking that it would be easy to sell one of those to a stranger. All she’d have to do is explain that all the remote controls actually work on all the garage doors in the world, and that’s the big secret that no one knows. They just make them look different around the same bundle of wires inside. She’d say that those things aren’t like a key at all. She thought back to when she was a little girl, riding the bus to school, and she was playing with the garage door opener her mother had given her in place of a house key. She was one of the first kids picked up in the morning and she’d always get bored fast. One day she started to point it out the window as they cruised the neighborhood. She’d squint her eyes so the other children thought she was sleeping, and click the button over and over and watched to see if any of the houses opened their garage doors and yawned when the bus went by. They never did. She always thought of the garage door as the mouth of the house. Once, after she’d given up trying, she did manage to send a yawn down the length of the bus. She waited until all the kids were on board and then faked a big one. She watched them watching her in the mirror over the driver’s head. She watched them trying not to do it, the muscles in some of their necks popping as they strained to keep their mouths shut. One day, it even went all the way to the back and too the front and even caught the driver off-guard. That’s when she forgot to stop the bus at a railroad crossing and Nikki was too scared to try that again. Sometimes she wondered if a carefully timed yawn, from a little girl in a back seat during heavy traffic would keep crossing the lanes back and forth and hover over the same spot for hours. She forgot to try that one.

Hell, I could sell garage door openers real easy. Just tell someone that, even if you live in the city, with no garage doors in sight, you could push the button up at the sky and imagine you’re opening up someone’s home. Or turning down the sunshine. Or, at least, changing the channel on their TV. Was he selling all these things back there?

She felt stronger somehow, with the metal ring of the headphones squeezing her head tighter than the sunglasses ever had. She tucked the end of the wire behind a button on her chest and walked faster. After crossing two more streets, she’d locked eyes with at least five people and they looked away first. She flinched as the gold metal flower at the end of the wire stung her chest. She looked for a subway sign and ran towards it with her hand over her ears. She felt the wire against her skin bite her again and she smiled. She imagined it was the sting of an insect trapped inside her sweat as it dried.



-© 2003 david james keaton

::: david - 3:54 PM [+] :::
...

"Watch the children."
-road sign in Moon Township, Pennsylvania


ain't that a strange sign? i mean, i've seen "watch for children" just never "watch THE children." that has more of an ominous tone to it. got this Children of the Corn, Lord of the Flies vibe to it. like it saying, "you better keep one eye on the road, and one eye on the children, they're up to something." i took a picture of this sign and plan on posting it at some point as soon as i get my scanner hooked up and locate a flim lab and all that. i started one of those picture things (inspired by the snapshots of my online peers) and at some point i'll some up.

so last night i take some tables and TV and stuff to my sister's new apartment (about 4 hours away) and i had to take all the tables apart to get them all there in one trip. and when i get there she's throwing a house-warming party with shitload of her little friends. they're watching Nosfuratu and playing with lighters and doing whatever 18-and-unders do. one little dude plinking on a keyboard in the corner. so i have to herd them all towards the walls to try to assemble these tables during her party in record time. a couple of the Sum 41 dudes crawl over to help, and the girls, inspired by this display of skill from the boys, decide they're going to cook spaghetti. it was like some sort of social experiment where kids are playing house in a controller laboratory setting. spaghetti burned to the bottom of the pan, stinking up the room, screws and washers sticking to toes, fingers fumbling with tools. it was kind of funny. it would have been funnier if it would have been hot as fuck in there. anyway. hope she stays there longer than she did in Chicago. i wish she would have stayed in art school up there. although, she was downtown and i'm kind of glad she's living above that street. i was getting tired of worrying about her whenever i stopped to think about it.

now, in honor of the last short story that got bounced back in the mail like a fucking boomerang, i going to post it right here. at least some strangers (and friends) will read it, and isn't that all i really wanted? it's a revised version of a story i submitted twice before. it's had three endings and the same reaction for each new version from every magazine i've sent it to, "good writing, however..." however this, you visionless fucks.

anyway, check it out. i'll post it right now. any comments or feedback would be like gold and much appreciated and i'd put your name in my next story if you take the time to read my shit. hey! maybe that's what i should be saying in the query letters: "Dear sirs, how would you like to get your name in some stranger's angst-ridden fiction! well, happy fucking birthday cause i'm your man!"

okay, here ya go, i'm pasting it in there now. this blogger thing will probably scramble it a bit and drop all the italics and special effects. i just changed the ending again too so beware the typos. although it's based on several people i've known, and things i've been thinking about lately, there's a large piece of my little sister in there, as i worried about her riding the subways in Chicago.

::: david - 3:33 PM [+] :::
...

"The day after graduating from college, I found fifty dollars in the foyer of my Chicago apartment building...it occurred to me that if i played my cards right, I migh never have to find a job, people lost things all the time...the day after that I found a peanut. It was then that I started to worry."
-David Sedaris, "Naked"

"These leads are gold, and you can't have them. Because giving them to you, would be like throwing them away."
-Glengarry Glen Ross

"Meet the new shit. Same as the old shit..."
-"Won't Get Fooled Again" -as sung by a drunk Who cover band


i don't want to sound bitter here but i've got a real problem with the feedback i'm getting on my fiction submissions. people keep saying, "don't get discouraged, you have to be confident and keep sending things out!" as if i'm going to lose faith in my own work and start to doubt my skills.

see, that's not the problem. i'm doubting the skills of the people that are skimming the first sentence of my stuff and rejecting it. clearly they cannot recognize quality. i look at what is published in the same rags that reject me and these fuckers won't take a chance on anything. even supposed experimental literary magazines keep publishing inspirational toilet reading. mind-numbing Readers Digest stories that say the same fucking thing over and over. it is obvious that the people that dig through the piles of submissions cannot recognize good writing. i mean, who the fuck are they? failed writers? prison work release? worse? okay, it's understandable that you'll be jaded and impatient with any job so you know they're just dropping shit in the trash. the people above them though, they have no excuse. they're the ones who chose this field because of a love for literature, because of excitement over making a new discovery, and they're content to have that line of defense screening the submissions? don't they badly want to see the new shit themselves? don't they get it? do i have to smack them in the fucking head with it myself? i am writing THE NEW SHIT. this is THE. NEW. SHIT. i have no interest in Raymond Carver knock-offs and Junot Diaz imitations. my shit is NEW. i am doing something that has never been done before. it is the dawn of the new shit. why would anyone fuck around with anything else?

this is my new query letter i'm going to start sending out: "listen. this is the new shit. grow some fuckin balls and publish it. Trains leaving."

why am i trying to convince someone to understand what i'm writing? let alone buy it? i can't do this query letters by the formula. i'm not a fucking salesman. who would ever want to read something written by someone who was a fucking saleman. who would ever want to read fiction, or see a movie, writting by someone who was good at writing letters to strangers to buy their shit. Glengarry Glen Ross is the exception that proves the rules. the only reason that is interesting is because the ass-licking and debasement of salesmen is fascinating JUST ONCE. seriously. why am i trying to talk someone into anything??? You don't do that with art. that's not my fucking job. for fuck's sake just read my fucking shit. that's my new T-shirt slogan right there. and how do i get published or sell a script? well, the best case scenario is i try to imitate what they've already published or produced that year so i can get in their magazine or get on the screen? fuck that. will not happen. i'm not a fucking salesman and i'm wasting time trying to anticipate what some stranger is thinking. i cannot and will not do it (until tommorrow, i'm out of stamps).

other things i can't do anymore:
waste time trying to explain that i'm not "weird" to stupid girlfriends. sound familiar to anyone? i see a girl, fall into the Darwin trap because she's cute (and what's that all about? i'm drawn to approach and spend time and effort to impress a stranger based on nothing but the position of her eyes and nose and mouth? why? because deep down inside the unevolved part wants good-looking kids? so then i try to make shit work in spite of the fact that she admits to "not really watching movies" and i let some of the more inexcusable things that come out of her mouth slide by trying to balance them out with the good things. and i waste more time. it can't work. intelligence and sense of humor are the only things i can be looking for anymore. i'm not going to spend another 6 months with some girl because she's attractive and constantly re-assure her that i'm not "weird" because she can't understand, or makes no effort to understand, half the things i fucking say. when a girl gets that glassy-eyed look and says "you're weird" because i spent 10 minutes explaining about how something on the TV makes me angry, i will get a pencil and paper and write down the day, hour, minute and second that the relationship will end. usually about 2 weeks after those two words.

other things that make me angry today:
the anti-smoking "Truth" ads. i hate smoking but i hate these ads more. i just commented about that crap on my friend Holly's website. she's trying to get her name on the California ballot for governor, check it out, show her some online love. anyway, i'll cut that rant short. let's just say, you can't stop smoking by convincing smokers that the company is evil. that just shows how fucking stupid and melodramatic the kids are that are making those ads. like someone's going to start to light up, then stop because some corporate fuck sent an offensive memo? that's like saying a heroin addict is going to hesititate because he thinks his dealer might be corrupt. are they trying to make cigarrettes illegal? are these people that fucking idiotic? or do they just think their "edgy" commercials, where they mock a woman who checks on what seemed to be an abandoned baby, are dramatic? just sell T-shirts that say "smoking smells like ass" and you'll have more impact. i'm telling you, those commercials? it's Jackass without the jokes. just smug fucking cocksuckers who-forget it. i could go on about that forever.

how bout this though? you know one of these: what is up with the guy or girl who's cool and can hang and seems to have alot of interesting opinions and that awareness that's so rare, then suddenly he/she finds a boyfriend or girlfriend and magically turns onto every other nameless couple out there. i've said this before and i'll say it again:
people are infinitly more interesting on their own.

anyway, back to complaining about my rejection letters (i know this ain't that interesting to many people but please just quietly shut the door on your way out, i'm going to keep yapping). these publishers, or the staff that reads for these publishers, have a problem. their taste is in their ass. they should be forced to wear a shirt that lists their three favorite movies so that no one will be fooled by their lack of sense (can't be books on these shirts cause they don't read but eventually an idiot will wander lost into a movie and sit down). and the shirts will say "Days of Thunder/Joe Dirt/Dr. Detroit and you'll be able to save a lot of time. it's sad really. they just have no fucking vision and someday i might get hit by a truck and POW! no one gets to read the new shit. the literary and film world WON'T get turned upside down as they scramble to keep up. you got to have courage to greenlight my skills and they ain't got it. it's like that movie Wargames when the two guys at the beginning didn't have the nerve to push the buttons and launch the missiles. they were replaced with "electronic relays" (actually just these big red ominous LED numbers cycling like an evil slot machine) because they didn't have the guts to make a decision. that's what they need at these magazine offices and publishing houses. a giant pulsing 80's computer that sorts the mail. i'm talking huge, with the spinning tape-reels and christmas-tree lights and some guy who has to keep hosing it down because of the heat coming off of it. couple of those and boom, problem solved. they simply replace that spitefull, player-hating first line of defense with electronic relays. take the sensitive humans OUT OF THE LOOP. just a creepy computer voice that counts swear words or disturbing or thought provoking imagery (it can be a simple formula: any time the words "sphinct", "nosebleed" and "existential" are on the same page, the computer flags that motherfucker) then the Wargames computer makes some clicking and beeping noises and sends my shit on through! no time for some sulking grad student to get offended by what i write, or decide that their opinion, or whatever happened to them that day, is going to stand in the way of my right to be fucking read by as many people as possible.

hey, at least the rejection notices for my screenplay are funny. agents send the same bullshit form letter as book publishers ("we won't take new clients unless you're referred by someone we know" don't get me started on the logic in that. the only people they think might have skill would have to already know someone who's successful. lazy fuckheads. do some reading. of course, they don't read. they are like business major types with no love or interest in the area that they're working) HOWEVER, studios send out some classic rejection notices. it's hard to get as angry and self-righteous with those. their rejections are more personal and usually they have a hilarious alternate plan for you instead. like, "sorry, we don't have any producers interested in a prison movie, but what we really need is a sci-fi western porno for the foreign market" true story. i've never entertained the thought to pimp my skills by writing schlock like that, but when i get a letter like that i can't help but smile and i'm this close (fingers about an inch and a half apart) to typing out: "it was a dark and stormy night, the horses panicked when they saw the strange object in the sky. not the flying saucer, they'd seen those before. it was the man in the tree trying to suck his own dick..."

i think the moral of the story is this: something about rejection. something about salesmen. something about wasting time. something about publishers and girlfriends lacking the vision to embrace the new shit.

::: david - 7:13 PM [+] :::
...

"We got a long way to go, and a short time to get there."
-Smokey and the Bandit

"Did you know that, in some countries, pirate videos are considered a subversive act? They execute people for it. In Pittsburgh, who knows?"
-Videodrome

hey, does he mean pirate videos, or PIRATE videos? that could change the whole movie.

speaking of Sasquatches (Sasquatchi?) i hear that the next M. Night Shamalamadingdong movie is about bigfoots. not sure how i feel about that after his last snoozefest. i mean, i love bigfoots like the next guy but if it's at all possible to make a slow inspirational movie about bigfoots and loss of faith (!?!), i'm sure he's the man for the job. hell, he took a sure thing like an alien invasion and turned it into a quiet day in church. you know why they call him M. Night? because he rocks you to sleep like weed after Thanksgiving dinner. Someone must have decided that the name Mr. ZZZ was too fucking obvious.

speaking of alien invasions, anyone hear about how that Scare Tactics show is getting sued for the alien invasion prank they pulled. that shit is fucking FUNNY. they drove two marks out to the desert, then did the ole car-stalled-radio-freaking-out-light-in-the-distance-thing and had this huge dude in an alien suit (looked like one of the ones from the X-Files movie) scramble over and rip the doors off their car. i thought i was going to piss all over myself that was so goddamn funny. the guy in the back seat let out a squeal and ditched his girlfriend (ha! his true colors shining for millions to see). and she dumps her milkshake all over herself and heads for the hills. later she thought about it and decided to sue the show. not because she thought about how much she was scared, but because she thought about how stupid she looked on TV. big difference. you know, if i was doing that show, i would try to find a way to sucker her again. get her into a fake courtroom setting and have the judge tear his face off to reveal a skeleton or some shit to fuck her up some more. or have some zombies bust through the windows and then The Ghostbusters could show up to tell her she's on TV and point out the cameras. THAT would be funny. it could work. 2/3rds of the Ghostbusters aren't doing dick now anyway so they'd be available.

that Scare Tactics show though? flirting with GENIUS. think about it, where else do you get to find out how someone would react in the face of a real alien invasion, or a real bigfoot attack, or a real corpse in the fridge. okay, a lucky few might get to see a corpse in fridge someday but for the other stuff we have to take the word of pretentious fucks like Mr. Night. that's where this show comes in. instead of some preacher reflecting and flashing back on his faith and dull life-lessons in the face of killer aliens, you get some rave kids dropping a load in their shorts then running in midair like Scoobyfucking Doo.

speaking of dropping a load, i brought all my movies and cds to Pittsburgh to store them awhile and i had to rent a truck right? well, first a flashback to a lesson i learned that tested my convictions:

back in school i was late for class and was stuck in a construction bottle-neck on I75. i'm in front of a truck and behind a truck and to my left are more trucks who are all crawling along to keep the cars from being able to pass them before the highway turns into one lane. you know, i've tried to see it from their point of view whenever i start to lose my mind (maybe they do keep the traffic moving, maybe they are more frustrated with us than we are with them) but today i was boxed in like Kristofferson in Convoy and i was reaching for the AC pretending it was the flamethrower. i could see the exit i needed to get to about a half mile up ahead, so i'm trying to talk myself into just driving along the shoulder of the road to get there. now, i've been real angry when some car flies by on the right and i've smiled when someone cut them off so i'm hesitating. but then i figure, that bitch grad student who teaches my class told me that being late again would affect my grade so i figure that if i just put on my turn signal any reasonable driver will see my college sticker on my car, see the college sign at the exit and realize that i'm not trying to CHEAT and that i'll simply be one less car in this line that everyone will have to worry about. it's like i'm doing everyone a favor! the other cars should gently tap their horns and smile and wave as i head for the exit because i'm like a fucking hero in this situation.
that ain't what happened.

as soon as i head onto the shoulder of the road, the truck in front of me quickly swerves and blocks my path. fucker was QUICK, quicker than i ever would have thought possible. made me a little nervous. so i try the other way and zip! that truck whiplashes over there like a snake, blocking my path again. i start making these gestures to explain how i'm just trying to get to class and get out of everyone's way and that i will be one less car to deal with down at that blinking arrow but my shrugs and "c'mon dude" palms-up motions aren't getting through. plus, when dealing with a truck, you're only dealing with THE TRUCK. i'm a man in a windshied for all to see, but all i see in front of me is "truck." wheels and smoke and metal and hissing noises. so i can't tell if "it's" laughing or cursing because, just ask anyone in a Terminator movie, "you can't reason with a machine" anyway, this goes on for a while, me trying to get around the truck and the truck anticipating my swerving and blocking my way. it's like Riki Tiki Tavi fighting the Cobra, with my little Sunbird as the mongoose that got bit. at one point the truck is going so slow it almost stops and i jump out and walk on the road up to the cab (not knowing what i'd do if i got there, just needing to see the driver) and then it jerks and rumbles forward again. other cars honking as i run back to my car to play his game some more. finally i sucker the truck to swerve too far to the left and then gun it past him on the right. Free at last!!! i'm celebrating my victory by screaming obscenties out the sunroof and shaking my fist and swerving around the empty lanes (those trucks had cleared about three football field lengths of road in front of them with their blocking maneuvers, even though they were still a half mile from that flashing arrow. i was yelling all this shit at the trucks ("too slow motherfuckers! Victory!") and at the poor saps in the other cars ("i won't forget you! i'll send back help!") when i saw the cop behind me.

after much debate (me over-explaining things like the psychology of road rage, the history of 18-wheelers disregard for the law, the theory of the "Black Dog" from the movie of the same name, the destruction trucks caused in all twelve Smokey and the Bandit films, and the cop is just sighing and repeating, "i only saw you sir...i only saw you sir...i only saw you sir...) she ended up citing me for reckless driving and...no seat belt! i had my arms up like Chris Chelios protesting a penalty with blood on the end of his stick: "What?! Me?? I HAD to take off the seat belt to step out onto the road!" and during all this, the trucks had time to catch up and pass me again. my nemesis gave a nice big HONK! just say hello. the cop just shook her head when i said, "now, you think maybe that truck is the villain here, and it's STILL taunting me, or you think he just likes to honk at everyone you pull over?" she sighs, "I only saw you sir..."

so fast forward to me this weekend driving a yellow 20-foot rental truck from Rent-A-Wreck. i'm driving for hours and something disturbing starts to happen. maybe it's because you're higher up off the road in a truck, maybe it's because you have to use both hands on the wheel more often, maybe it's because you have to keep leaning forward to drive. i don't know. all i know is that soon i start to slip into trucker-speak when i'm arguing with Paul Harvey on the scratchy AM radio. and i didn't actually realize the change until the phone in my pocket rings and i answered it way out in front of my mouth instead of next to my ear. suddenly i was sporting a new Texas drawl and a "handle":

"this is Lemonade with a big bad bear report, we got a County-Mountie at the overpass and a Bear-In-The-Air, over! what's you're 10-40? come on back! oh. hi mom."

and i still thought (hoped) this was just some harmless goofing around on the phone to break up the long-ass drive...until i hit some construction on the turnpike. then it got serious. all my hatred for trucks was gone by the time i finally got to the exit and had to take my first wide right turn. i leaned over to see a tiny little car trying to sneak by. that's when i rolled down my window and announced to anyone who could hear:

"Hey! If you can't see my mirrors, I can't see you!"

::: david - 1:14 PM [+] :::
...

"I was kind of insulted when the signal just shrugged me off like that so..."
"Just tell me where the signal is coming from."
"Pittsburgh"
"Pittsburgh?"
"Pittsburgh. And that's in the U.S..."
-Videodrome

offline for awhile as i drove around this crazy mountain town. i am in Pittsburgh and this place is crazy. not a straight line to be found anywhere. the city is on these cliffs and winding mountain roads and i even when i can actually see the comforting glow of the place i'm trying to get to, the street that seemed to be heading straight towards it will suddenly take me two miles around another hill. there's this place called Pizza Bella in Moon Township that's got some sweet ass subs. dude, 18 inches long. i thought i could handle that size but apparently i wasn't cut out for gay porn because i was crying for mercy after about 2 thirds. i got me a fried-eggplant on my first visit and i've been eating on it for two days. i also started to explain to anyone who would listen about how "eggplant" is a racial slur in italian (because it's purple?) and all that bit of trivia did was make people wonder about why i "really" ordered that sub. i mean, does someone really order a certain sandwhich just because they know they can give a speech about the long history of racial tension deep-fried inside? food for thought yo.

speaking of racial tension, i finally watched Gangs of New York. i thought it looked like more of a Spielburg movie instead of a Scorcese movie. except will about 5 more gallons of blood. it seemed all colorful and goofy. especially those fireman. i guess they were being historically accurate with the costumes but maybe he should have thought about making the movie black and white. except for the blood. yeah. i'm thinking that would have solved most of my problems with the movie. if they would have made it black, white and red. then they could have claimed those colors were symbolizing the racial conflict during those civil-war draft riots n shit. Bill the Butcher was a lot of fun though. he was clearly the hero right? we were rooting for him right? the movie didn't have an autopsy (one of my requirements for an instant classic) HOWEVER it did have a moment where Bill the Butcher taught Leo how to stab a man properly by hacking the hell out of a pig carcass. that almost qualifies but it really sounds better than it looked.

you know what? if i had my way, i'd have made the majority of that movie about knife practice on pig carcasses. actually, you know what they could have done? they could have had every major plot point expained to the audience on the dead pig. like that scene when they showed the "five points" of the city and explain the importance of that intersection with the image of a hand? instead they could have drawn lines on the pig and maybe had Bill the Butcher walking a little two-fingered version of himself from one hoof to the other. he'd say, "okay, laddie, dumdeedumdeedum, there's me walkin', and i turn left at the kidneys and now i'm heading towards Mullberry street, those teats represent the 8 largest gangs..."

or, when they do that lame Leo voice-over (voice-over = trouble) explaining the historical backstory and plot-points that were obviously cut (to trim the famed 4 hour version down to 2 and change)? instead they could have a puppet show, with Leo's hand up in the pig talking to a room full of dirty-faced children. he'd have to make his voice higher-pitched (if that's possible) because anyone with their hand working a dead pig's head knows that it should have a happy cartoon voice to keep from scaring the young-uns into a frenzy. Lord of the Flies taught us that.

or! when Bill was doing his knife trick with Diaz to symbolize his jealousy, he could have propped up that pig on stage instead. they we wouldn't have been so sure he wasn't going to pull a Burroughs and bury a knife between her eyes (c'mon, did anyone think for a second she was in any danger? hoping doesn't count) he 'd throw a couple knives without looking, chunk!chunk! then go, "now, my darling, step away to leave your hat on the wall. oops. guess you weren't wearing a hat."

OR! instead of showing that computer image of New York growing into the modern day skyline, some little greasy street-urchin could take a crayon and draw buildings on a stack of pigs. it could be like the voice-over at the end of the Mad Max series but instead of them looking through an old Fisher-Price Viewmaster, they'd be drawing those world trade center towers on it's stomach, then furiously scribbling them out to keep the skyline accurate.

like i said, that pig was an unopened treasure chest of ideas. question: if Bill the Butcher had a glass eye, why was it moving around in the socket? again, he needed to spin the dead pig around to face the audience and explain that one to me. "you see boyo, these's muscles here and (slice) here will continue to function, even if a madman such as myself decides blinding is the best punishment for losing a staring contest..."

okay, i'm going exploring again, i'll report back later. i'm digging all these trees though. nice change from the NW ohio flatlands. even though there's no grids to these streets, and i have a terrible sense of direction, i think navagating is possible, even without drawing a map on a pig. the trees and the hills are crazy. you can't see more than a half mile in any direction. every night i'm on Sasquatch alert, defcon 3.

::: david - 3:55 PM [+] :::
...

"helloooooooooooo..."
-Day of the Dead
-The Quiet Earth
-28 Days Later

what up funky junkies? drove away from that apartment monday. turned on the radio to see what song would forever be burned in my brain and fondly remembered as the song playing the day i drove away. leaving it up to fate and i found...Fleetwood Mac. uhhh, no. that's not going to work. hit the button and got Limp Bizkit. nope. even though it's the song i heard playing, that won't be the song i heard playing either. hit the button again and stopped on Children of the Sun. hmm. goofy song that reminds me of Arthur Clarke stories i read in jr. high but it's better than those other two songs. so i had to open my sunroof in case it really was a message meant just for me. and how could it not be?
hell, it just happened to be playing when i turned my radio on.
you can't argue with fate.

28 Days Later is everything i hoped it would be. except for the ending. and the vague zombie-esque behavior of the rage-virus infected crazies. they weren't zombies but they did stuff zombies do, and seemed to be feeding on humans like zombies do and they bit you and made you into creatures like them...like zombies do. But they weren't zombies. why not just cut out the middle man and declare them once and for all to simply be flesh-eating zombies? seemed like they were distancing themselves from the whole "undead" thing to keep it grounded in science (not that the clockwork monkey experiments were anything but the worst pulp sci-fi nonsense). reminded me of the Godzilla remake. which sucked anyway but when it came time for the big guy to breathe fire, he took a deep breath, leaned out over some traffic and...didn't really blow any fire. he sort of did. the cars exploded and the force of his blowing made a stream of fire that blew up more cars but it clearly wasn't coming from Godzilla's mouth. did they think that would be too far-fetched? the breathing fire thing? it's not like it's the single most distictive thing about fucking Godzilla or anything. but the geniuses behind Stargate (sarcasm) decided they had to be a little vague at that moment. gutless fucks, like their mutant iguana was the "realistic" version. and Danny Boy sort of did the same thing. his creatures are not really zombies, but if you had to describe the movie to a friend and needed a word, zombie would suffice since they act like 'em. they just aren't as silly. they're serious. well, i know i said i wanted a serious horror movie, but i never thought zombies were anything but serious. here's the question i ask myself daily:

if i had the choice, would i...

a.) want to be defending a farmhouse from attacking zombies with the required loose cannon, traumatized girl, father/daughter combo, and righteous black man by my side OR

b.) want to collect gasoline from wrecks by wringing out pieces of my shirt over hubcabs, as radiation-scarred nuts approach on motorcycles.

two enticing views of the future (hands doing that weighing-the-scales-motion) i'm leaning towards the Mad Max shit right now since i've got a little white line fever with all this driving but actually either one will do. not both though. that's like syrup on a candy bar. too much of a good thing. anyway. was i complaining about 28 Days Later? ignore that. that movie was fucking beautiful.

the ending teaches you that a common man (or even a skinny bike messenger) can be just as dangerous and effective as the best/worst rage-infected "zombie" when properly motivated. damn you Boyle for making me use the word zombie in quotes.
damn you...(slow motion gun being pulled from inside my trenchcoat)...to hell!
let me try that again. that didn't have the impact i wanted. ready?
"hey Boyle, i got a message for you...(slo-mo gun coming up from under my newspaper. the "break the chain" song by Fleetwood Mac playing on a distant car stereo)...from my father!"
he didn't even flinch did he?

::: david - 11:14 AM [+] :::
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