..:S...P...I...D...E...R...B...I...T...E...S:..

Friday, August 29, 2003

"To this day, some people still find pool balls in the mixed sand and mud of the riverbanks along here. The wooden sticks, of course, decayed long ago."
-Nothing Burns In Hell

Haven't felt much like writing anything lately so i thought i try to jump start the urge with a good quote from the stack of books i'm currently reading. and that IS a good quote, problem is, i don't think i can do much better than that.

conjures up all sorts of images though don't it? pool balls on the beach? a cue ball in a turtle nest, a tiny 8-ball in an oyster. i used to have an 8-ball thing. i know that's about as common as a housewife's salt-shaker collection but what can you do. i've bought a bunch of magic 8-balls, cracked a couple open. had a couple 8-ball keychains. was going to buy those infinity ball-chime things from that new age story about a month back just because they looked like 8-balls. at one point i wanted to have a pile of 8-balls to make a sculpture or take a picture of or something so i took a couple off the pool tables in bars. of course you got to do that during someone else's game or else they a.) have your license at the bar until you return them or worse b.) you're out $1.50 in quarters from fucking up your own game. OR...you can dare your friend to steal one. i did that a couple times. got about 3 that way. one of the 3 Nicks i know drank until he got the courage to snag one from an intense game being played by some big loud dudes and after, in the car, i actually complained about how yellow the number 8 was when he proudly dropped it into my hand. i still have it in my car, figuring i could throw it at a truck if i ever get into another road rage incident.

might seem like a bad idea but here's the worst case scenario: the 8-ball shatters a windshield, the car flips twice, bursts into flame and takes out three lanes of traffic below and i STILL would get to see an burnt 8-ball in a plastic bag in court with "evidence" written on it, held at arms-length like it was still dangerous as the prosecuter slowly turned on his heels to give the jury and the press cameras a good long look. see what i saying? it's a no-lose situation. of course i haven't been abused by any drivers lately so the 8-ball just sits in the cup holder, the number getting more and more yellow. so i wrote a story about throwing it at a truck instead. "Eight Balls Bleeding" it was called. i'd post the story but i don't think it's in the computer and i'd have to type it out. i know i type faster than Superman masturbating but it would just make me want to revise the story (like i just corrected the spelling on "masterbating") and i'd get depressed at all the things i thought sucked (even though i was like Amadeus when i wrote it, declaring the story "the best yet written!") if i sat down and started reading it again.

okay, Tim pointed this out so it raises a very important question: what's worse? chronically masturbating or chronically misspelling "masturbating?"

Once Upon a Time in Mexico. Sept 12th. who's with me? first i saw a preview with Bandaras cocking a guitar like a shotgun and i stood up (best idea i wished i'd thought of since the football player brought the gun into the game in "Last Boy Scout") but now i just saw a new preview with Johnny Depp snapping a tight rubber glove onto his hand (?!) and also wearing a T-shirt that says "I'm With Stupid." now i'm thinking this may be the most important film of our lifetime. see you there.

okay, to jump start myself into writing more and not playing The Thing for PS2 i'm going to use the words under the title of my blog up there for inspiration. i figured i would need to do this at some point which is why i keep adding words to it. here we go-

1.) fiction:
"he slowed his car at the bottom of the hill and turned to watch a group of children on the side of the road fighting for the highest point on a huge pile of sand. The sign below them read 'Runaway Truck Ramp.'"
-from my story "Ride" i'm working on tonight. little teaser, little taste of the new shit...

2.) journal:
August 29th, 11:00 pm. i chewed on an ice cube and watched the rain and bugs hitting the light outside my window.

3.) essays:
Guns 'N Roses doesn't exist without Slash. Agree or disagree?

4.) movies:
Formula 51. could have been a lot worse. basically it's a poor man's "Snatch" and that right there is enough to see it. you should go see anything described as "A poor man's Snatch!" also extra points for putting Shaft in a skirt and having Meatloaf as an exploding drug lord named "The Lizard." i have a lizard so i just like the word lizard, you know? almost as much as i love links! also HUGE points for the use of House of Pain's masterpiece "Boom Shalock Lock Boom" in the opening credits. i forgave Daredevil's sins for their inspired use of House of Pain's "Top O' The Morning To Ya" so i have to pardon thee and thine.

5.) books:
Al Franken tears Ann Coulter a new ass in his new book "Lies and the Lying Liars..." about time. i've hated that stupid bitch since i made the mistake of turning on Fox "News" once a long time ago (the quotes around "News" similar to the sarcastic quotation mark technique used by the author of the book Nazi "Doctors") and someone on one of their piece o' shit shows was talking about loss of privacy with some new legislation (this person was making sense because they were only in the Fox studios to be set up and insulted by the right wing fucks hosting) and this person said, "but we aren't at war with Iraq" (we weren't yet) and that halfwit bitch pipes up, "we've been at war with them since 9-11!" just going to show that all the proof of an Iraqi/Al Queda connection that our goverment is still struggling with today isn't even necessary when stupid cunts like her make the leap all by themselves without the burden of any information at all. needs a fucking beating. now i wouldn't punch that fucking moron because i'm a gentleman but i'd get one of my female friends to do it and piss on her when she's down.

6.) music:
last night on the MTV Video Music Awards, Britney and Madonna stage one of those tiresome fake lesbian kisses that make me furious. see numbers 12-14 on my drunken rambling list.

7.) rants:
why the fuck aren't keyboards in alphabetical order? i'll tell you why. because then i'd type so fast that the computers in Norad would get confused and put our country at Def-Con One. they had to slow me down somehow.

8.) reviews:
Open Range has fifteen minutes of good western in about 2 and half hours of movie.

9.) confessions:
i'm currently writing a western script with my dad. bonus confession: i sent O'Reilly that email that made his show put up a "technical difficulties" sign. maybe not. someday though. p.s. this and number 5 up there are why i refuse to engage in political discussions.

10.) threats:
my hearts not in it so fill in the blanks: if anyone ever _________ then i will __________ until they are unconscious and bleeding out their ass.

11.) lies:
"baby, i'm sorry i wasted 90 minutes you'll never get back taking you to see 'Species,' i thought it would be decent with Giger's design work..." see, that wasn't true. i actually wasted 180 minutes I'll never get back by sneaking off to see it that morning.

12.) dreams:
last night i dreamed of mundane detail involving my new job. now THAT'S wasting minutes. no dreams of straddling harpoon guns or cheerleaders sliding down fireman poles. sigh.

13.) flashbacks:
at my old plumbing job, we were doing some wiring in a house it a VERY poor part of town and there was a kid who would show up every day to carry wood for a quick five bucks from my boss (more on him someday) and at one point i gave this kid a bubblegum machine toy and he started showing up with bubblegum toys to give me instead. but all he would give me were Homies. ever see those? little gang figures? little disturbing. he gave me the one in the wheelchair because he already had three (i think he was giving me all the ones he had duplicates of to complete his collection and that's fine) and i asked him what he thought about that (since clearly this Homie has been shot in the spine. nice toy eh?) and the kid thought that the chair was just a throne or something and that he was obviously "their leader, that's why he's sitting down." and i just didn't want to tell him that the Homie was shot. i don't know if i didn't want to spoil the innocence of the toy for him or my perception of him. as if i was afraid he might like them even more if he knew they were gang related. anyway. now i think i should have told him that his Homie had a tiny imaginary bullet in his back.

14.) taunts:
"You want this script Affleck?" I dangling it out in front of me. "Too bad!" I jerk it away as he reaches for it and falls face-first into a pile of dogshit that i hadn't even noticed. Wow! What were the chances of that? happening?

15.) tantrums:
the reviews are coming back on Affleck's Project Greelight "Battle of Shaker Heights" (thanks for the tip from my old bookstore peeps and hey Sandra thanks for reading! sorry about the aquarium-water-drinking trick! number 85 on my drunken rambling list. i forgot how much crap i put on there but you remembered! so yeah, i was in charge of maintaining the fish tank and there was a problem with the filter than had to get syphon-started by me sucking on a hose so i figured i shouldn't bee the only one with a mouthful of scales and fish shit. call her over at lunch and ask "does this water taste strange to you?" she drinks the gray water in the innocent looking Dasani bottle, frowns and says, "it tastes a little flat" then her reaction starts to change because i look guilty of something. then i run away like i'm nine. running away = funny!) anyway yep, the verdict is in...Shaker Heights sucks! HA! should have done my script you visionless fucker! all the reviews for their new movie have words like "inoffensive," "trite," "harmless," "pointless," "forgettable." one word from me: exactly.

16.) tirades:
how come the keys on this computer are so close together. i'll tell you why...blah blah blah.

17.) midnight ramblings:
is it midnight yet? crap. i looked at the clock. i never do that. told you, my heart ain't in it lately.

::: david - 10:42 PM [+] :::
...

"Wisdom is a crime against nature."
-Nietzsche

back at work. not sure how i feel about that. car problems too. "Aliens" is on cable, maybe that will brighten things up a bit. also, i'm trying to come up with some good Interview Game questions for fishfry by creeping around her website. i should have some good ones by tonight. maybe not some Lector/Clarice quality questions but at least some Lector/Graham quality questions. hey, wouldn't it have been funnier if Lector just kept asking stupid-ass questions in those movies:

"Clarice...tell me about your breakfast..."
"Corn flakes doctor, now can we talk about the last killing in..."
"And they were screaming weren't they? you poured more and more milk to drown their tiny voices and the milk washed over the sides of the bowl onto the floor but you couldn't stop them from screaming..."
"No. Not really."

that's what we need, more Silence of the Lambs parodies, 10 years after they were funny. that's my job! speaking of jobs, just talked to my sister on the phone back in Toledo. i guess she was driving by the old videostore where i used to work and it was boarded up with "eat shit" graffiti on the walls and she was depressed about it. she said she remembered running around the shelves with all the worst movies at her eye level and she was telling me all the boxes she remembered. The artwork for "Critters" seemed to have had the biggerst impact. i got two words for her: "apple didn't fall far from the tree!" okay, that's more than two words but it looks like she inherited her brothers tendancy to think about things like that way too much.

p.s. okay, because you wanted him, he's back! sort of. only now...he's on a mission and he won't stop searching until he finds the car that ran him over...

not really. he's still just laying there with a tire track on his fuzzy head. It's Frankenbunny!

::: david - 9:35 PM [+] :::
...

"She told me herself that she had no morality-and I thought she had, like myself, a more severe morality than anybody."
-Nietzsche


THE INTERVIEW GAME

The Rules:
1. Leave a comment, saying you want to be interviewed.
2. I will respond; I'll ask you five questions.
3. You'll update your website with my five questions, and your five answers.
4. You'll include this explanation.
5. You'll ask other people five questions when they want to be interviewed.


From FridayNightFishfryForeverandeverandeverandeverandeverandeverand....

her questions:

1) Do you have any recurring dreams? if yes, please describe and what you think they mean.
2) How did you feel about your childhood stuffed animals, and what happened to them?
3) If people are infinitely more interesting on their own, does that mean you are willing to become less interesting someday?
4) Have you ever dated a girl who didn't call you "weird"? If so, how did this affect the relationship?
5) What is it about car chases, anyway?


my answers:

1.) this is going to sound all dramatic but I dream of dying all the time. My heart stops, my breathing stops. The main recurring dream i'd get was when I thought I’d wake up and I couldn’t move. I did some research on that waking-up-paralized or “night terrors” thing for a couple years back and i used to set two alarm clocks because it usually happened when I woke up fine the first time, then fell back asleep and dreamed i woke up again, frozen on the bed. in my "dream" I could open my eyes but not move and I’d be straining to move an arm and then, several times I’d see someone walk into the room towards me very fast and then I’d finally wake up. It freaked me out kinda bad for awhile but I haven’t had one in a couple years. Always when I’m living on my own.

2.) it’s funny you asked this because I wrote about 30 pages once about some obscene uses for stuffed animals. okay let’s see, as I kid I had a Curious George (and the books) and a ratty teddy bear that I would walk around with over my shoulder. I would walk around shirtless (I remember this vividly) and let the teddy bear pat me in the back while I wandered the house sucking my thumb. I remember that it felt good bouncing off my back. I wrote about it (sort of) in my book “Sport” but instead the kid lays on his stomache in front of the TV with a baseball rolling around the small of his back. in the book the kid imagines the baseball is someone’s hand showing affection, but the teddy bear slapping my back just felt like an animal trying to gently crawl over me. the teddy bear, I don’t know what happended to it. Curious George is in a box in my mom’s basement with most of my books. no wait, I think I gave him to someone. hold on. I’m making a phone call…yep, my sister has him. right now though I do have one! last year I saw a stuffed rabbit in the street, in heavy traffic all covered in tired tracks and I went back and rescued it. it turned out it was a stuffed rabbit....with rabbit feet! I kept it in my trunk for a while, intending to wash it at some point but friends said that would make me look like a psycho if I ever got pulled over. that combined with the dog pile of bones I’d found under a house while doing some electrical work really looked suspicious in the trunk. the bones were just pig and chicken bones but I got all excited whn I dug them up. both together in my trunk though? creepy huh? cop pulls me over, “can I search your trunk sir?” “uhhhhh.” “what the…STEP AWAY FROM THE CAR! actually I was hoping I got pulled over so I could tell all this to a cop one day. my friend Rachel actually took some pictures of both the stuffed rabbit and the bones together. she wouldn't touch it because it looked so dirty she thought it was full of spiders. can you imagine that? stuffed rabbit full of spiders??? what an image. too good to be true. anyway, check it out, we called it the Cave Bunny photo session.

3.) hmm. well, when I said (say) that, and I say it a lot, I guess I’m saying they’re more interesting “to me.” couples are probably perfectly interesting to each other with their couple bullshit, but I believe the rest of the world cuts them loose. is there anything more tiresome than a couple's public display of affection? at some point I will probably be a half of the couple thing again, but I know I’ll be the same individual because I swear I don’t change in relationships like everyone else but most of all because (and this is something else I say a lot) when I make a big sweeping statement like that: whatever i say...it never applies to me! another example: I hate people who instantly have fierce opinions with little or no information. hello!

4.) I guess about half of the girls I dated busted out the “you’re weird!” at some point or another. back in high school it didn’t bother me that much, I thought it was a compliment, and after i heard it i'd try hard to be even weirder, but in college (the first 7 years) I started to realize that the people who said it didn’t think I was fascinating or anything, they just didn’t know what the hell I was talking about. I slowly got more and more irritated every time I heard it and i started hearing them admitting “I’m stupid!” instead. they always say it after something I say, never something I do. (except for the stuffed rabbit rescue) it’s apparently vocalizing my thoughts that got that response so much. but I’ve only been dwelling on it so much lately because, like a dunce, I recently dated several girls that were too young and when they stopped bouncing off the walls to listen for a second, they didn’t know what the hell to make of me. I’ve made a bit of an effort to be more extreme with my opinions on this blog because of the freedom and anonymity it allows you, but I actually CAN interact with humans, as much as I hate to admit it. I’ve had about 5 long relationships that were with similar creatures that never once said "you’re weird.” one in particular appreciated a pitch black sense of humor and understood that arguing opinions should be fun and not miserable and I’d probably still be with her if he’d hadn’t turned out to be such a jealous freak. she was convinced I cheated on her but I never did. in fact, the only lie I told her was when I wanted to take her to see a movie opening day and I swore I’d wait and go with her that night, but then I got restless and sneaked off and went with a friend early in the day while she was at work, convinced the movie would be SO good that I wouldn’t mind seeing it twice. well, it turned out the movie sucked and I had to take her to it that night and not only sit through that shit movie again, I had to pretend like I had never seen it. a couple times I was tempted to act like I was psychic and say some dialogue right before they said it onscreen to freak her out, but mostly I just felt VERY guilty for what I was doing. I acted disappointed with the movie all over again, trying to remember at what point during the flick I started sighing that morning when i hated it, so that I could do it just right the second time around. and I was thinking the whole time, “damn, I’ll have to cover this lie for as long as I know this girl” I even called the guy I'd sneaked off to the flick with and said, “sorry dude but I might have to bury you in the woods to cover my ass” seriously though, I never told her about that and I know it’s goofy but I still feel kind of bad to this day.

5.) the car chase. I could write ten books on My Love For The Car Chase (scroll down to the 5/21 post, under the fly-leashing story), I’ll try not to do that here though. there’s just something pure about it in films. the characters can’t talk during a chase (at least they shouldn’t) and that and a fist fight are maybe the only two things I think a movie can do better than a book. it doesn’t have to be a fast chase either. some of my all time favorite chases (like "Wages of Fear," "Way of the Gun" and "Sorceror") involved vehicles moving no faster than a man. to quote Ballard in "Crash" when he's watching crash test dummies contorting in slow-motion, "i can't explain it, there's just something very satisfying about it". and the car chase + my apocalypse movie fetish = the desert chase! (Mad Max will never be equalled) a long desert chase in a movie is my idea of pure fucking bliss. i'll try to find a flashback that fits: In high school I got in trouble for skipping school (almost got taken to court over lack of days attended, I didn’t know they could do that either) but when cornered I found it hard to explain that I’d get up on time, drive to the school…and just keep going. My mission was to find out where all the roads ended out in Millbury. I drove for hours, listening to crappy music and I loved it. sometimes I’d talk into this little tape recorder about who I wanted to fuck or who’s ass I wanted to kick (good thing I didn’t get the two confused!) but I barely remember those people at all. I do remember Lemoyne Road and Woodville Road and Curtice Road and Latcha Road and Wales Road and Coy Road and Brown Road and Pickle Road and Bradner Road and Pemberville Road. those were the long roads, the ones I liked best. but I wasn’t chasing anyone so what’s the connection? well, maybe I was.

::: david - 2:55 AM [+] :::
...

"For anger slays the foolish man and jealousy kills the simple."
-Job 5:2


Just got an email from Project Greenlight urging me to see their new partial-birth abortion titled “The Battle of Shaker Heights.” Wait a minute. Where’s the apology from the Good Will Hunting boys, eh? Where’s the “sorry dude, I lack vision and he lacks balls, thought you should know…” message I’ve been waiting on? Inspired by this announcement, I gritted my teeth and started diggin through old emails again and found my feedback from last year’s heartbreaking fiasco! Project friggin Greenlight. Grrrrr. Now, let me first preface this by saying…I lost.

Did anyone see the movie that won last year? “Stolen Summer?” that wasn’t me. It should have been called “Stolen $8.50” cause that movie SUCKED. What a simpering, obvious, phony, humorless, talentless, childish, floating chunk of fecal that movie was. Clearly it was chosen because it’s percieved as harmless and easy money and a shortcut to thinkin’ and that’s exactly why Ben Asslick, Damon and their toadies are such visionless dumbshits. It makes sense if you look at everything they’ve been in since they hit. Turns out those edgy indie films weren’t where their hearts were. Inside they were always these dull ass Hollywood chumps. I thought the whole point of this contest was that it was taking a chance? Looking for something new? So they go and greenlight something that MOST RESEMBLED EVERY PIECE OF CLICHÉ RIDDEN GUNGE OUT THERE AND THEY DON’T UNDERSTAND WHY THIS CONTEST IS FUCKED AT BIRTH?!?!?!

However, I’m not bitter (yeah right). you know why it's called Project Greenlight? cause i'm fucking jealous. but i don't care cause my script was the shit and even though these six clowns that reviewed it a.) missed the point b.) didn’t get the joke c.) were sigh easily offended and d.) tragically couldn’t embrace the new shit, I love em anyway (except the fuck who called me a racist) simply because I think they actually read it. I’ll comment as I go through it again.

=============================================
To: David J. Keaton
------

Your Screenplay Title: Brickhouse (I chose this title not just for the song, but because of my genius prison/3Little Pigs allegory throughout)

SCREENPLAY CONTEST - View Coverage There have been 6 reviews and evaluations done on this screenplay.

Review #1 reviewed on October 06, 2002
Review #2 reviewed on October 08, 2002
Review #3 reviewed on October 09, 2002
Review #4 reviewed on October 14, 2002
Review #5 reviewed on October 16, 2002
Review #6 reviewed on October 21, 2002


==============================================
Review #1


1. Genre: Choose up to three that apply:
Drama
Action
Horror
Sci-Fi (huh? ok, I don’t know where the hell they got that. The dialogue is bizarre but there’s nothing supernatural going on. If some asshole in a movie says the words “bigfoot” that doesn’t mean it’s sci-fi. Words don’t dictate the genre scrot)


2. Enter the major settings and the different physical places where the story primarily takes place, i.e. street corner, England, subway, apartment:
prison yard
prison cells
prison cafeteria
prison recreaton room
prison halls
bus interior
house (of Pain!)
Bishop's garage during flashbacks
prison visiting quarters
dessert (I hope he meant “desert” because, as much as I wanted to, I resisted the urge to have most of this movie take place in some guy’s fruit salad)

3. Number of Locations. From a production standpoint, how many unique locations would a film crew have to go to shoot this film?
1-7

4. Circa (Select the time period in which the story is set. Select all that reply:
Near Future (? Again, this sounds like it’s sci-fri nonsense when you say “near future” and that irritates me)

5. Number of Roles (Estimate the number of roles including lead, supporting and "bit" characters):
16-24 (not including the slots I’ll create for everyone I’ve ever known! Be in my posse yo!)

6.Number of lead and supporting characters (consider only those characters who have significant roles, i.e. multiple scenes, ample dialogue, impact on the story):
5

7. Fill in the information below for each character.
Character 1:
Name: Bill Bishop (a lot of alliteration in my names! See I went to school!)
Gender: Male
Age : Middle Age (like Excalibur?)


18. Brief Synopsis (please provide a summary of the screenplay you reviewed, maximum 1000 characters, roughly 200 words):
Bill Bishop is sent to prison for murder, where he encounters segregation from the strange prisoners, an over-the-top prison guard (possibly John Wayne's bastard son?), and other curiousities like talking through the toilets and mysterious toy airplanes flying overhead. (I actually like how this person summed my shit up)

19. Brief Comments: (optional: please provide a few general comments on the screenplay, maximum 1000 characters, roughly 200 words):
The story has potential for more unique ideas and unexplainable happenings, but we are mostly told and not shown the elements that might create stronger intrigue. (I have to tell, not show Mcdouche, unless you want me to come over and act it out with puppets)

20. Similar Films: (optional)
----none---- (I liked this answer a lot)

33. Rate the length of the screenplay:
Too long (I’ll have to concede this point. most screenplays are supposed to be 110 pages with a minute of screentime per page. Mine was 180. Oops.)

34. Check all that apply (this is a list of the ones they checked):
Funny (funny how? Am I clown to you?)
Confusing (would you have fogiven the 12 endings i crammed in if it turned out it "was all a dream!")
Offensive (like this thing i'm doing with my thumb?)
Ordinary (take that shit back. no need to get insulting)
Suspenseful (insert Friday the 13th noises)
Slow (caution Slow Children At Play)
Pretentious (but it's about....society!)
Gross (like what i'm doing with your thumb?)
Too Much Violence (is that possible? Never heard those 3 words used like that, with that combination)
Cool (like Fonzie!)
Stereotypical
Interesting

35. Roughly, in what kind of budget range would you put this movie?
Low Budget (manageable locations and could be shot with a standard film crew. $1 million or less)

36. Which of these elements (if any) would play a central role in the story? Check all that apply:
Explosions (?)
Make up F/X
Visual F/X
Stunts (uh okay. if smashing an Ant Farm and punching someone in the face is considered a stunt. We’ll need Matrix wire-training for that)
Crowds (lined up to see my movie beee-atch!)

37. Would you pay to see this movie?
I'd consider renting this movie. (you’d consider it eh? My fucking hero. Well, you can’t rent it now because Asslick got scared and pulled the plug. Insert power-outage turbine noise here)

38. What rating would this movie receive?
R (R stands for “wringing my hands in frustration”)

39. Was this movie too much like another movie? If yes, enter the movie's name
----none---- (and never will be)

40. Any additional comments?
The dialogue is difficult to distinguish from character to character and reveals too much too soon. (listen slapjack. You say I reveal too much too soon and back there you said the script was confusing. Pick one and go with it.)

============================================
Review #2


(I chopped the first questions and answers off the rest of the reviews because the answers are pretty much the same. I’ll start the rest on #18)

18. Brief Synopsis (please provide a summary of the screenplay, maximum 1000 characters, roughly 200 words):
A group of men in prison notice that the prison population is shrinking even as more inmates are being admitted. They believe that someone, or thing, is killing them off. Each man has his own theory, from monsters (monsters? Yeah Yetis eat cons like popcorn!) to the warden. Ends up possibly being a man who sneaks IN to the prison is killing the prisoners. It isn’t fully explained.

19. Brief Comments: (optional: please provide a few general comments on the screenplay, maximum 1000 characters, roughly 200 words):
VERY original story. Good flow. Kept me interested. Just the right length. Colorful writing, good descriptions. I feel like I just watched the movie. Well Done! (this person is clearly an intelligent, thoughful individual. Here’s to ya!)
33. Rate the length of the screenplay:
Just Right (sweet, this person ain’t afraid of a little reading either! Or a 4 hour movie)

34. Check all that apply:
Funny (funny how? Do I amuse you…nooge.)
Unpredictable (hell yeah. No telling what I’ll do next$ see that? I just ended a sentence with a dollar sign. I’m crazy I tell you!)
Exciting (watch out for that banana peel!)
Suspenseful (boo!)
Original (like the Pancake House)
Unique (joke: how do you catch a unique rabbit? Answer: Unique up on him! Get it!)
Entertaining (how do you catch a tame rabbit? Tame way! thanks, i'll be here all week.)
Interesting (you want to hear something else that's interesting? did you know that i have hairs growing down to the end of my dick?)

35. Roughly, in what kind of budget range would you put this movie?
Somewhere in the middle. 3-10 million.

36. Which of these elements (if any) would play a central role in the story? Check all that apply:
Crowds (wanting me to autograph their ass)

37. Would you pay to see this movie?
I'd pay to see this movie (you won’t have to! cause of your superior evaluation skills, you got VIP seats for every show)

8. What rating would this movie receive?
R (R stands for GRRRRRRR-reat!)

==========================
Review #3


18. Brief Synopsis (please provide a summary of the screenplay, maximum 1000 characters, roughly 200 words):
An ordinary man, Bishop, is sent to jail for the murder of his wife. In prison, he encounters various mysteries including the disappearances of many prisoners (particularly of the African American race.) Bishop thinks that Duke, a tough guard, is killing the black prisoners and decides to do "something" about it. The children of the prisoners smuggle in gun parts by their toys. The prisoners assemble the guns but they do not have a bullet. At the end, a showdown occurs between Duke and another warden...then Duke and 6 or so prisoners which one prisoner has the real gun and the others have toy guns, then Bishop, the prisoner with the real gun that has a bullet given by the warden that first faced off with Duke, and then the twist of Bishop and another prisoner who was introduced in the beginning of the screenplay. Bishop is killed in the end. (whoa there. why don’t you spoil it for everyone else. and don't steal my shit cause i dropped 30 bucks copyrighting it)

19. Brief Comments: (optional: please provide a few general comments on the screenplay, maximum 1000 characters, roughly 200 words):
I found this script to be confusing and extremely racist. (??? Okay, this fuck has no idea what is racist. Clearly a prison (a place that is 80% black) is going to have masssive racial conflict when a main character is white. Like all those people I have NO TOLERANCE FOR, he confuses the work with the author)

33. Rate the length of the screenplay:
Too Long. (fuck you. You’re too long. Whatever that means)

34. Check all that apply:
Confusing
Offensive (fuck you with that offensive shit. I’d show you offensive if I had your email address and about 3 minutes to spare. Typical no-vision piece of shite)
Boring
Gross (like what i'm doing with that other dude's thumb?)
Not My Taste (his taste being a taste in elementary school ass)
Unrealistic
Stereotypical (impossible. that's all i got to say here. two words: im. possible)

35. Roughly, in what kind of budget range would you put this movie?
Low Budget (manageable locations and could be shot with a standard film crew. $1 million or less)

36. Which of these elements (if any) would play a central role in the story? Check all that apply:
Explosions (huh? Maybe an explosion…of ideas!)

37. Would you pay to see this movie?
No thanks. (you’re welcome)

38. What rating would this movie receive?
R (R stands for “reaching down to eagerly fellate Mirimax")

=============================
Review #4


18. Brief Synopsis (please provide a summary of the screenplay, maximum 1000 characters, roughly 200 words):
Bishop is sent to Prison in Nevada. While there he notices that many of the black prisoners begin to disapear. He suspects that The Duke is killing them. The inmates agree and begin looking for a way to get rid of the Duke before they are next. (that's the tip of the iceburg. that's like saying, "in Scarface, Tony sold some drugs")

19. Brief Comments: (optional: please provide a few general comments on the screenplay, maximum 1000 characters, roughly 200 words):
Nice set up, but it lost me at the end. Not really believable. (you want realism, watch Life Unscripted)

20. Similar Films: (optional)
----none---- (bickity bam!)

33. Rate the length of the screenplay:
Just Right 34. Check all that apply:
Offensive (I don’t mind being called offensive by this person because they didn’t call me a fucking racist)
Unrealistic

35. Roughly, in what kind of budget range would you put this movie?
High Budget (Lots of effects, big scenes that require a large crew and lots of prep. Over $30 million)
(slow down there Spielberg. you don’t need that much prep, all you need is a prison and inmates that promise not to rape the crew)

36. Which of these elements (if any) would play a central role in the story? Check all that apply:
Explosions (what are they talking about?? I’m going to have to read my script again. I honestly can’t remember “explosions”)
Numerous Sets
Stunts (maybe involving toys.)
Crowds (that will do whatever i say, "get em up against the wall!")

37. Would you pay to see this movie?
No thank you. (so polite!)

38. What rating would this movie receive?
R (R stands for “Read this Really fast and nothing sank in”)

=======================================
Review #5


18. Brief Synopsis (please provide a summary of the screenplay, maximum 1000 characters, roughly 200 words):
In a prison in the desert that cons are constantly repopulating, the prison gradually gets emptier and emptier, even though no one is ever let out. A string of ethnically diverse prisoners band together to figure out and stop the prison's deadly secret. (this dude sounds like a poster tagline or something…”in a time without heroes, one man….”)

19. Brief Comments: (optional: please provide a few general comments on the screenplay, maximum 1000 characters, roughly 200 words):
It seemed that the dialogue was forced and the monlogues were way too long. (they got a point, I never know when to stop typing.) Never quite cared about Bishop enough either. It didn't seem like a real prison (he’s NOT genuis). Guards don't generally speak to prisoners at length. The story needed more action as well. The whole story said prisoners were disappearing but we never saw it, they were just gone. Maybe a prisoner being dragged away in the dark screaming, or anything to add some action (this ain’t Halloween). I couldn't believe the toilet phones either, I don't think you can talk through water (don’t knock it till you try it!)

20. Similar Films: (optional)
Lock up
The Glass House (I watched this crap movie because this person listed it here and I still don’t know what the frig they were talking about. Maybe ALL movies remind them of “Glass House”)

33. Rate the length of the screenplay:
Just Right (yeah! Another reader. Seems like I forgive everything they say is they put “just right” on this line. It’s like Goldielocks tasting the porridge!)

34. Check all that apply:
Confusing
Offensive (sigh.)
Unrealistic

35. Roughly, in what kind of budget range would you put this movie?
Low Budget (manageable locations and could be shot with a standard film crew. $1 million or less)

36. Which of these elements (if any) would play a central role in the story? Check all that apply:
Explosions (okay, they all keep saying “explosions” and i just went back and checked and all I do is blow up a freakin' toy airplane. buy one firecracker. there, i bought one for you. F/X budget is in the black. let's move on. I swear i think these punks were skimming)

37. Would you pay to see this movie?
No. (would you pay to keep my keys off the side your car?)

38. What rating would this movie receive?
NC-17

39. Was this movie too much like another movie? If yes, enter the movie's name
----none---- (damn straight)

40. Any additional comments?
If the script had a supernatural element, prisoners were being killed by a supernatural force, or that the government was weeding out prisoners that would not be missed, you may have something. (this ain’t X-Files bitch) Also I can't beleive that Jones would speak to Jenny that way in the last scene, with the vulgarness, Even the most hardened con would have some etiquette. If he is semi-noble, make him that. (this ain’t Shawshank bitch) Good luck! (don’t wish me luck. this ain’t Vegas bitch.)

============================
Review #6


18. Brief Synopsis (please provide a summary of the screenplay, maximum 1000 characters, roughly 200 words):
About a mysterious jail, the inmates notice other inmates always being dropped off. But none are ever leaving. (okay, you read the first 3 pages, but what happens after that. This is just one of about 250 ideas I crammed in this sucker)

19. Brief Comments: (optional: please provide a few general comments on the screenplay, maximum 1000 characters, roughly 200 words):
----none---- (hello? that's a little too brief. Get you out of bed? i'm sorry. Speak bitch!)

20. Similar Films: (optional)
----none---- (that’s right! Boo-Ya!)

33. Rate the length of the screenplay:
Too Long (like my dick)

34. Check all that apply:
Boring
Unrealistic (like my dick)

35. Roughly, in what kind of budget range would you put this movie?
Low Budget (manageable locations and could be shot with a standard film crew. $1 million or less)

37. Would you pay to see this movie?
Yes.

38. What rating would this movie receive?
G (HA! Check out the smart ass. He picked “G” to be funny. A sense of humor from this clown. I tip my hat)

39. Was this movie too much like another movie? If yes, enter the movie's name
----none----

40. Any additional comments?
I thought the movie could have been a little better, had a good plot going.
Also the dialague killed it. (i'm working on that. i like speeches though)

========================================

(and now here’s the ones that did make the next round. Check out these fucking titles. If you read them all fast without stopping something strange starts to happen. the way all the "verbing the noun" titles blend into a simmering stagnant pile of nonsense sort of sums up how my head spins when i read the movie listings in the paper and realize that shit gets made and my shit don't)

TOP 250 Screenplays:
------------------------------

...Still Breathing 9 Ways To Someday A Bright Tomorrow A Mile High A Safe Place A Woman's Place Absolution Act of Contrition Aftermath Alibi-Guy.com Amberfield AMBITION An Ounce Of Hope Angry Hearts Anyone But You Assumed Identity Autobiography of Nice Guy X Awaiting Hope Bad Boyfriends Bad Habits Beneath the Badge Billy Kitsch Blood Brothers Blue Girl Boathouse Drums Botticelli Girl Bountiful Joy Brian's Angel BridgeLip Suckers Broken But, Wait... There's More! CANTON Cape of Dreams Cedar Creek CHANCE Charlie's Deal Cheeks CHEMISTRY China Girl Christmas Tree Quest CHRISTMAS, FL COLORBLIND CONVICTION COOL AS HELL Crowe's Nest CURTIS LIONHEART DARIAN'S POINT DARK ECHOES Day of the Dead Deborah Samson Descent Die Laughing Digging Home DISTORTION Dogman Don't Cry Donuts At Dawn DOTSBURG Elegy Eleven Months of Autumn Elucia Smallberry Empathy End Games Exile Exit 101 Eyewitness Fake Your Own Death, Inc. Family Function (a.k.a. Zoe Goldfarb's Turkey Dinner) Family Portrait Family Tree Father Figure Fig Nefarious FILLERS Final Weekend Finals Week First Fame Fish Out of Water For the Love of Cecilia FOREVER YOURS Friend of the Devil Getting It Right Good Food Good Intentions Gravity Lets Go Heartsick HENRY'S HOUSE Hollywood HostageBRICKHOUSE! (should have been in here. Sniff. maybe if i would have called it Bricking the House?)Home Base HOMER Hunkies HURLING MEDAL I Woke Up (In Love This Morning) IN THE HANDS OF THE ENEMY In the stars Individual Results May Vary Inside the Gingerbread House Inventing My Life ironbound Isle of Shadows IVY Jacked Jefferson Palmer Volunteers JUST A GIRL Just a Phone Call Away Just Another New Year's Eve Karl Marx was Framed Kill Devil Hills Killer Instinct Kind of a Baldwin Kit & Kaboodle La Migra Landon's Lapdogs of Luxury Last Words LET'S KILL LARRY Letters From Nicky Life Weight Living Life's Itinerary Logic of Being Loomis Lost in Tinseltown! Lottery Society Love by the Book MAESTRO, MAESTRO Makin' Love MANTECA MATFIELD GREEN Mean Dean Mectl Memory of Family Miles From St. Louis Mirage at the Desert Chateau Miss Chevious Modern Logic Dictates... Mountains of the Moon Mr. Right Before My Brother Jim Near Birth Experience Nectar nevermore Nightingale Nothing but Blues and Elvis Now and Again NUNLEY Odd Jobs Of Fate And Fortune Of Slings and Arrows OMAHA One Night Destiny Only in L.A. Open To Be Order of the Dragon Other Peoples Shoes Ozark Mile Padre's Cub PASSING THROUGH Penance by Proxy Perhaps ... PIANO MAN Pick Up Playland Poetry of Survival Pontchartrain Beach Poor Dad President's Day Prince Michael PRISONER Private Wars Purple Hearts RAINBOW HAVEN Raining Again Ramblings of a Born-Again Raver Rear View Mirror Red Eyed Rats Renaissance RETRIBUTION Righteous Act ROCCO COSTELLO Ronald's Mom is Clairvoyant Round Trip Running Man Rusty Dreams SAFE SEX IN THE GARDEN Sand Hill Saturday Night Special Scrum - aka: Fug Tup No Teefus Second Time Around SECTION X Serial Murder and The Single Guy Shadow Healer Shandy's Last Ride SHARING THE DRIVE Sidewalk Story Sigils Silent Partners Sins of the Father Skeletons SON DANCE Spanish Accent Splendor in the Waste Stand Off Still Life Still Life Stone Free Surrendering Siobhan TAKE-DOWN Temporary Insanity TEN DAYS LAST FALL The Achievers The Ascot Fall The Badianus Manuscript The Bank The Battle of Shaker Heights The Benny Factor The Blind Midget Clown Puzzles The Caseworker The Child Carrier The Cricket Cage The Diagnosis The Dogs of Love The Gloria Williams Life THE GOD SIGNATURE The Golden Age of Linda Ronstadt The Great Dancer The Groomsmen The Hungarian The King of New Orleans THE LINE-UP GUY The Making of Martyrs The Marriage Contract THE MICHAELS The Motherless Nanny THE MYSTERY OF SONNY HANOVER The Mystic The Perfect Martini The Precipice The Rebound Guy The Rhythm Methodist The Rivalry The Road to Damascus The Seasons of Saul The Sixth Chamber The State The Sumptuous Donut of the Mind The Task Manual THE THEORY OF ABSENCE The Track The Trinity of Argentina The Twist The Voice of the City The Wait: Smoking or Non-Smoking THE WAY THINGS TURN These Dreams Three of a Kind Three-Sided Coins Timing and Circumstance To Forgive Is Divine Today's Special Value Tubby's Block Turnabout Unmasking Moretto Up The Chimney Vampyreville Viagra Highway Vices Wade In the Water Waking Up Dead Wanna Bet? Wearing Sweatpants Wedlock Wolves At Bay Xela Yard Sale Yellow Man Your Happy Ass

(of course, they don't deserve my spite. they just wrote something like i did. hate the game, not the playas, right? like I said, I ain’t bitter. i ain't bitter? who's ever said those 3 words without a certain tone in their voice? about the same number of people who say "are you jealous" and ain't hoping that you are. that's right. zero.)

::: david - 12:13 AM [+] :::
...

"well he puts his cigar out in your face just for kicks, and his bedroom window is made outta bricks..."
-Maggie's Farm

damn the Rage Against the Machine version of that song fucking smokes.
i've been staring out my bedroom window and downloading songs again and i got bored and decided to get all versions of that song. so far found 5. the Grateful Dead version is a typical noodling snoozefest.

then i got even more bored and, since it's been on cable all week, i decided to make some Donnie Darko soundtracks. yep, i be a fan. here's me at Halloween last October. i even tried to do his blank stare and tard voice when he talked to Frank. and i carried around a filthy stuffed rabbit.

thing is, they only sell the score and not the soundtrack so i started to download all the tunes from the movie. but apparently there's some controversy about what was in the movie's first cut (also saw the HUGE Watership Down influence acknowledged) because they realized they couldn't afford THOSE songs and went with the current version. so i put those on there too as alternates. they're listed as "tangent universe" songs. that's right. who's the fuckin' doorknob? (raising my hand) then i started finding all these different versions of those songs, so those had to be on there too. THEN i didn't want to put the cheese-metal song "Proud To Be Loud" by Keel (?) on it because you know the only reason they played that was because they needed an 80's "party" song to open that scene and it didn't really mean anything like the rest of the songs. so i replaced it with the cheese-metal song i always heard at my high school parties. then i moved shit around to sound better when you spin it. so here's the soundtrack i'll be burning. anyone want one i'll hook you up:

Donnie Darko (aka "Watership Dork")

1.) The Killing Moon - Echo & the Bunnymen
2.) Mad World - Tears For Fears (original version because clearly this inspired a lot of the flick)
3.) Never Tear Us Apart - (tangent) according to director, this was the opening song at the first screenings, until they realized they couldn't afford the rights to it. the lyrics fit better but i can't imagine anything except Killing Moon starting the movie.
4.) Head Over Heels - Tears For Fears
5.) Notorious - Duran Duran
6.) West End Girls - Pet Shop Boys (tangent) this was the song used for Sparkle Motions' scene but again it was too expensive. this is what they're actually dancing too. Notorious fits pretty good with their movements though.
7.) In The Still Of The Night - Whitesnake (tangent) this is where "Proud to be Loud" would be but i've inserted the song that reminds me of MY high school parties. "my heart beatin heavy, tellin' me you wanna have mo- or -or!"
8.) Everybody Wants to Rule The World - Tears For Fears (tangent) this was originally supposed to be the slo-mo high school hallway song but again money was an issue. what up with his Tears for Fears obsession? and i was ashamed of my Asia collection?
9.) Love Will Tear Us Apart - Joy Division
10.) Just Like Heaven - The Cure (tangent?) this one i'm not sure of. some websites claim that this song was played over the party/sex scene at the Toronto film festival but then changed later.
11.) Under The Milky Way - The Church
12.) Mad World - Gary Jules remake
13.) Shout 2000 - Disturbed (i thought this would be funny since this director was so far up Tears For Fears' sphinct. this ham-fisted remake signals the end of the legit soundtrack and the beginning of the remixes and cover versions.
14.) The Killing Moon (allnight version) - Echo & the Bunnymen (do they mean dance "all night" or ride around on your bike with your spooky imaginary rabbit "all night?")
15.) Mad World (12" remix) - Tears For Fears
16.) The Killing Moon - Pavement
17.) Mad World (remix) - Gary Jules (this was a tough call. apparently they tarted up an already perfect remake with some drums and synth noises. it reminds me of that "In The Air Tonight" remix abomination that was out in the 90's.
it robbed it of it's power. i've included it for obsessive compulsive reasons only.
18.) Shout 2000 (nu-metal mix) - now this is a complete horrorshow. The Disturbed version of Shout combined with a medley of DMX, Limp Bisquick, that overplayed Butterfly song, Linkin Park and some other jockrockers. it's an obscene meathead compilation like if "We Are The World" was done by Korn. and i love the piece of shit.
19.) Mad World - Finch (this was a strange find. i like the Finch cd and was happy to discover this little acoustic throwaway version to tack on the end.

there you go. the never-before-seen official unofficial Donnie Darko soundtrack. i should get paid for the research i did on this bitch.

::: david - 10:44 PM [+] :::
...

"I find it kind of funny, I find it kind of sad
the dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had..."
- Tears For Fears/Gary Jules



FICTION:



Overtime



Vicki wanted to be alone.

She ran through the huge double doors, the heels of her hands tearing down the tournament schedule, the directions to a garage sale, and a child's drawing of a lost cat.

So what? She thought in disgust. How the hell would someone find that cat anyway? From a drawing with three eyes, three legs and no ears? It should be easy, if the cat really is green. Of course then you wouldn't need the drawing. . .

The doors rattled the screws on their hinges, trying to get out of her way. One of them rebounded against the wall of the sports arena too fast and she stumbled and ended up on the ground trying to get out of the door’s way instead. She sat there for a second, still hearing the sounds of the crowd and the fight on the ice coming out in waves from under the doors. She'd just done something to start that fight and she thought that was funny. For some reason it wasn't funny to anyone else, especially her father. She was outside to get away from him.

Thinking about it now, there was one thing about her father that always confused her. She couldn't understand how a fight always made her daddy smile, before he could think about it and get mad. However she always made him mad, before he could think about it and smile.

She looked around, starting to wonder if someone had seen her fall down. Maybe someone driving by saw it and thought she'd just been thrown out. Suddenly she slapped the ground hard, to stop that kind of thinking. That's not why she was outside. She stood up straight, kicked a cigarette butt loose from her shoelace, and walked out to the cars.

She worked her way through the sleeping metal monsters, twisting her body so nothing touched her, alert for signs of life, hoping she wouldn't find any. She stopped at the booth where she and her father had come in, where some boys had been taking money for parking. When she stepped inside, she saw the orange jumpsuits they'd been wearing and the flashlights they'd used to line up all the cars. The jumpsuits were spread out on the floor of the shack, stretched into orange stars, arms and legs straight like snow-angels. The flashlights were where the hands
would have been and they were still on.

Vicki decided that she would be the last girl alive. She had an hour left before the game was over, depending on the penalties, even longer if there was a shoot-out. There wasn't overtime in this small-town shit league. Overtime, undertime, waste of time, she thought. That meant that she would only have an hour to be the last girl on Doomsday. She could make it look like the end of the world though. She already had an idea that would be perfect.

She ran through the cars, looking for the end of them, looking for the last place to park, for the ones who came late. She found it. Down by the river, where the parking lot ran out of concrete and white lines, and broken pieces of a road pointing in every direction, piled high and slowly sliding into the water. Black grease-covered cattails and dead grass surrounded the scene. Pools of water swirling with oil-slick rainbows found their way onto land, while islands of gravel and garbage passed by them on their way into the river. Vicki remembered how mad her daddy had been when they came late to a game once, and he had to park down there; she'd thought it was beautiful. She stopped and stared at all the cars on the slope. Lots of cars had come late. This town loved the games, and if you got to the sports arena after they dropped the puck, the orange boys wouldn't be out there any more to wave you into a safe spot. You just had to leave your car on the slope, tell it to "stay," and run like hell to get a seat. Vicki tilted her head and got down on one knee. It was still beautiful. Cars up and down the river's edge, cars parked so random they were starting a chaos spiral, cars blocking each other in so many layers deep that she felt like an ant navigating the rings on a tree stump, cars ready to roll over if a squirrel bumped into one, cars with a wheel already in the water, cars on such an angle that she imagined their emergency brakes handles popping out and glowing red under the dashboards. Almost perfect, she thought. With these cars, it could be the end of the world. The scene . . . it just needs one more thing . . .

She pulled a bag of peanuts out of her jacket. Her daddy had brought them back for her between periods. It wasn't opened. She hated peanuts, maybe from watching her daddy eat them shells and all ("For the salt!" he said). She knew who else liked them like that though. She looked up. There they were, already rustling on the power lines, pushing their way through the trees to see what she had, she even heard some creeping around under the tires. Crows. The only things that liked hockey season as much as the people around there. The "Riverdome" (the townies had given their arena an impressive name, even though the ice in the rink was ten feet shorter than regulation on all sides) had always been plagued by crows, looking for the steady stream of popcorn and peanuts and sticky cotton-candy spines that the stinky smoky rivers of fans used to find their way from the cars to the games . . . from the games to the cars . . .

She'd been fascinated by the birds in her town before. When she was little, there were those seagulls that Vicki watched following the trail of mulch behind her uncle's plow (and the one that came through the machine alive and even managed to stand up on twisted legs and look around when her uncle got ready to crush its head, he said it did that to "show a predator it wasn't really hurt, amazing huh?" then he twisted his heel and said he was "putting its head out like a smoke!"), or those robins that circled the movie theater (and the way people noticed them depending on the kind of movie they just watched), or those pigeons outside the windows in the big buildings (and the one that the wind knocked off the ledge while it was sleeping, and the way it woke up and returned to its spot with ease, and the way her stomach flipped when she saw that happen on the other side of the glass, saw it not worried about the fall, even stretching a little before it spread it's wings), or those ducks down at the pond (and the big duck that kept stealing all her potato chips from the little ducks, and the way her daddy looked at her when she hit it with the rock, how she was sure the anger in his eyes turned to pride when he saw the accuracy of her throw), she always noticed things about the birds in this town, things that no one else ever could see.

These crows were different too. Maybe it was because she never saw anyone notice them, even point to one. They were hard to see (there was no light outside the stadium) and once you did see one, and you realized how big crows could get living on stadium garbage, then you started to wonder if everyone was really running inside just so they wouldn't miss the first fight. No one had been attacked though, at least not that Vicki had heard. She wondered why not. These things seemed huge, fearless, not really hiding. Not stalking, just watching.

Once, she started to worry that she was the only one who knew they were there. Then, after she got over that scare, she hoped she was the only one who knew they were there. She knew her daddy never saw the crows.

Maybe when I was little, and he was bigger, she thought. Then he might have seen them, not now though.

The first time she noticed them was three seasons ago, when they were waiting in the car after the game, buried in a line, trying to get out. The car creeping and stopping, creeping and stopping. She watched him get madder and madder when someone up ahead would let a car into the line and slow them all back down. Bored, she rolled down her window and slowly dumped her whole bag of peanuts out onto the ground. He didn't notice the black shapes following the car, he didn't even notice that she hadn't eaten a single peanut, even though he'd gotten the bag for her during the opening seconds of the second face-off of the first period. She was scared and excited watching the crows behind the car, and she'd been feeding them on her way out ever since then. Now, tonight, they'd eat early. She rustled the bag and saw more black beaks peeking out of shadows and around corners. They would be perfect for the scene, only they weren't where she needed them to be. She heard a whistle come from inside the arena and looked back over her shoulder. Time was short. She went to work.

She ran from car to car, punching open peanuts in her palm, stopping only to carefully place nuts and fragments on top of them. One under the wiper blade, one in the socket of each headlight, one inside a hood ornament, three along a bug guard, one inside a broken trunk lock (that was a mistake, she heard it fall inside and rattle around, wasted), one behind a tire, one in front of a tire. That's perfect around the tires! she thought. If there are crows hopping around tires without flinching or worrying about getting run over, it would have to be the end of the world . . .

She skidded to a stop, almost falling again, and stared down at something in one of the cars. There was a baby seat, with a stuffed animal locked in tight instead. She smiled, suddenly remembering a joke she and her cousin Gary played on a neighbor once, back when they were little (and a little more cruel). They had been harassing some puppies (even though they'd both been told twice already that they were too "new" to mess with) and next door a baby had been left parked in its buggy while the mom went back into the house for something. Vicki and Gary saw it wiggling there alone and ran over as fast as they could. Little Vicki just wanted to put one of the puppies in the buggy with it but little Gary had another idea. He took the baby out and left a puppy behind instead. Then he dropped in half his candy bar so the puppy would sniff around longer and not want out too fast and ruin the joke. He threw the blue blanket over it and pulled Vicki off behind the neighbor's car to wait. Gary was crouched down, and even though he was holding the baby all wrong (like a football or an animal or something), it was still quiet. Just twisting and looking around with the other half of Gary's candy bar jammed in it's mouth. It didn't start crying until someone screamed. And not because the mommy screamed, because Gary dropped it when he ran. Vicki was left to take the blame, since she stayed behind, doubled up laughing. The baby wasn't hurt, but things seemed worse than they were since it was crying so hard it couldn't catch it's breath. Everyone was pretty crazed until the baby settled down and started breathing normally and turned back to the right color. Even looking around for the candy after a minute. Vicki had never been in that much trouble, before or since, and it was worth it. Every shake, every tear, every smack, every finger in the face that day. She just kept hearing that scream - the sound of a perfect joke. She would walk down the street, glaring and wishing people out of her way, just itching to play that joke on every baby buggy she passed. She got through crowds by playing jokes in her head. She imagined every baby switched with an animal, and the shock and the sounds when they got it home.

"Some things just aren't funny," she told a crow that was tilting its head evaluating her. "And anything that involves a baby is never funny. Bullshit. Babies turned into animals when no one is looking? That's hilarious. Creepy too, like something right out of the Bible, towards the end. The end of the world . . . "

She walked slower through the cars, because she was running out of peanuts, and because she was remembering something else. She wasn't sure how important this memory was, but she was going to let it play out in her head anyway. She had time for one more before the game ended. It was the one thing she could remember that she didn't think was funny, at least not when it happened.

It was a few years back, she'd been stepping out of the shower, foot up on the toilet with some instructions in one hand, twenty minutes after her first period. That new white string must have looked like a steak to my dog, she thought. Because before she knew what was happening, it's head darted in and jaws snapped on the string and it was off and running. She ran after the dog, not worried about her daddy seeing her naked, just worried about him seeing that. She was sliding with both fists around the dog's tail when they both turned a corner and crashed into him. He had time to get both arms out for balance and a grunt of "what the?" before his eyes squinted and saw everything there was to see. He burst into uncontrolled laughter barely getting out "don't worry about it." She just stood there, head down and mortified until he clapped her on her wet back, turned her around by her shoulders with a reassuring squeeze, and sent her sniffling on her way. You know what? she thought. Now that I think about it, that was daddy's finest hour. And he was right. I changed my mind. That is, and was, fucking funny.

She laughed so loud that a crow by her foot hopped back. She thought about getting spanked over that baby. That was funny too. And not only was it funny, there was something about that joke that just made her feel good too. One less baby to grow up to love hockey? she wondered. She heard another whistle and some low grumbling from the crowd and she quickly looked around the parking lot. She wanted to check a clock inside a car and forced herself back to work instead. She wouldn't think about the game. Not the game inside. Not until she had to. This was her time.

She knew the end of the world was almost over. The crows were on the cars though, and for now the scene was perfect. She drifted slowly around the edges of her creation, making it last, imagining the cars coughing and smoking and dying right here where they'd stopped. Then a dog slammed its nose against a windshield next to her and all the crows flew off at once.

She punched the glass furious, and the dog jumped back. Little rat thing, she thought. There was a strobe-flash of memory and she imagined it was that bizarre cat drawing off the front doors that she was looking at instead. A green cat with three legs and three eyes and no ears. A fucked up cat like could exist after the apocalypse, she decided. The drawing makes sense now. She smiled at the dog sweetly.

"Too bad there's no one left. You'll never get out of there. The world ended tonight."

The dog went insane, it seemed to understand what she'd said. She put her nose to the glass where it was snapping and snarling.

"Hey! What's red and has one eye and one ear and two legs? Half a dog! I love that joke. It can be anything you want it to be . . . " The dog tried to bite its way out. "Damn! The last time I saw someone react to the punchline like that was when it used to be 'half a baby!' I wish there would be a way to use 'half a monkey' instead, just once. Hell, that's funny even without the joke!" She moved on, she could hear the organ playing now, no more whistles.

She saw vomit on the side of another car. She remembered when she saw that once before while she was driving. It had made her mad back then, because it reminded her that someone was inside the car driving it. It was too easy to forget she wasn't alone on the road, to forget the cars had anything in them. Here the stain was perfect. Even better if the door was open though, she thought. Maybe I could say he crawled to the water before he died. Her hand dropped the empty bag and reached for the door. Some ice inside the knob cracked as she pulled it up and she hesitated. Then she pulled hard and the car alarm went off.

Now it was too loud to be the end of the world. Even though it was just one car screaming, now it sounded like all of them were alive and angry. The game was over too. A new swarm of colorful noisy creatures streaming between the vehicles, some of them moving towards her, eyes wide as they started to notice the bird shit and claw-marks and peanut shells on the newer cars. Then a hand grabbed her shoulder and squeezed. Expecting her father, she was spun around to face a security guard instead. Armed with a flashlight. Vicki laughed at him (who could take a flashlight seriously?) and said something about how "if he's not allowed to carry a gun, he should at least have a bow and arrow instead." This got her giggling until his eyes narrowed as he recognized her from her stunt that had disrupted the hockey game. She turned to ignore him, thinking, I can still work with this. It could be the scene right before the end of the world, the scene with all the noise . . .

Then her daddy was there, mad, and pulling her by her arm to the car. She thought it would be the perfect time to ask him if he saw the crows. Before she got the chance, she was distracted by a boy that was staring at her. He could see her looking at the remaining crows that were still lingering in the shadows, and since he was a little boy, he started throwing rocks at them. He was missing every shot. Boys always throw rocks at birds, she thought. It's sad, like an animal that shits itself when it sneezes. Her best friend in third grade had a mouse that did that. She thought about it in half a second. Back then, the two of them went through nine cans of spray paint making it sneeze to watch the tiny thing loose control of its bowels. Eventually they sprayed too much, too close, and they sealed it's face up green. It took a couple weeks of crying and guilt, then it was real funny to think about . . .

She could see the boy fishing around his coat pocket for something. She was trying not to look at him anymore. He'll know that I know he knows or whatever, she thought. Still, she wanted to know what he was looking for, all the bigger boys had ruined the scene anyway. Now someone was yelling at her daddy, and he was yelling back while he squeezed her arm. She was worried that the boy seemed to be the only one to realize what she'd done. He finally got his hand out of his pocket and she saw he had a hockey puck.

From the game? she wondered. Shit, to a little boy that's gold.

The boy's fingers were shaking and wiggling around it nervous and excited. She could see how tormented he was. He wanted to throw it sooo bad. Right at her head.

All the boys inside the arena must have wanted that puck when he caught it, she thought. Now he wants to throw it so bad it hurts. Look at him, he must think the puck will hit what his rocks couldn't. Back inside there, he watched it dance around the rink too much. It messed with his little head. Then, when it magically found its way into his hand, something snapped. Now he must think a puck from the game can go wherever you want, and hit whatever you want. He thinks he's only got one throw, and he doesn't want to waste it . . .

The boy threw it. Hard as he could. The daddies stopped fighting. She saw the puck coming fast in the corner of her eye and caught it in her hand. She wasn't sure if she'd ever make a catch like that again. So she made it perfect. She threw the puck over the cars, over the birds, into the river. She was still trying not to look at the boy. Then he was crying. Hard as he could. She found his eyes and stared until everything around him faded away. The scene she'd worked so hard to create, the fighting inside, the arguing outside, the screaming car and the crows and the end of the world, all gone now and forgotten, except for the boy. Now he was crying and she wanted to see him.



-© 2003 david james keaton

::: david - 11:43 PM [+] :::
...

"Why we gotta wear these monkey suits?"
"Because you play better in your suit."
-The Commitments

"It's the trees themselves!"
-Evil Dead


just got back from a job interview. i kept telling my self to remember what "Joey the Lips" said in The Commitments before their first concert, but it was still tough tying that tie this morning. i'm thinking i nailed that interview though. i'm always amazed at how normal i come across out in the world. by the way, anyone interviewing these days should be on the lookout for a new question that's popped up: "what's your favorite book?" hmmm. it's an improvment over the old stand-by "what kind of tree would you want to be?" where they look for symbolic answers about strong roots and reeds that bend with the wind. now if she would have asked me what kind of tree i'd want to be, i'd have said something like:

"the ones in Wizard of Oz that were beaning everyone with apples because-NO wait! i want to be the ones in Lord of the Rings 'cause they can move around and i might get to have a 10 foot leafy dick! NO! I want to change my answer! can i change my answer!!! who are you calling? Put down the phone. Okay okay, I want to be that tree in the movie Poltergiest! I mean Evil Dead!"

and they'd deserve it for asking such stupid-ass questions. but this book question? threw me for a second because i'm reading eight books right now and can't seem to finish any of them, and to list them it would seem like a.) i can't finish a book or b.) i'm exaggerating to seem like i read alot. and i'd have to explain all my reasons behind each selection:

"Boy's Life" (McCammon) - because i remember this author writing horror novels like "Stinger" and this looked like Tom Sawyer or something and that interested me, and it was the thickest book in the paperback section that day.

"King Suckerman" (by Pelaca-something) - the title, and the blurb on the front. and because it had a bright nuclear green cover. trivia note: did you know that comic books put purple on their covers cause little boys can't resist it?

"Naked" (Sederis) - 10 people told me to read this fucking thing. i admit it's funny. the painting essay reminded me of painting houses in Findly OH with those drunk frat-boy co-workers. you know we had a girl on the crew who was afraid of heights and would only paint the bottom of the houses? and our boss let her get away with that shit because he thought she was hot. also she'd make a big production about taking her birth control pill everyday at lunch like we gave a fuck. like she couldn't take it in the morning. i said as much to her and she got all mad.

"The Information" (Amis) - i appreciate this book but sitting down to read it is like a salt-water enema. i'm reading it because he wrote The Rachel Papers and a girl named Rachel recommended it. been reading this beast since...then (it's the 5/13 post, under the story). jesus chrysler. have i been reading this thing for three months?!?

"Filth" (Welsh) - i heard someone tell someone that his friend was so disgusted he couldn't finish it. and the tapeworm passages in it looked cool. i'm a sucker for gimicks. and concept albums.

"The Shell Collector" (Tony Doerr) - cause a friend and former teacher wrote it

"Nothing Burns In Hell" (Farmer) - because of that great title of course

"Dead Dog Blues" (can't remember the author. no one you know) - i got it because of the hot pink cover. always judge a book by it's cover. people have been screwing that little saying up for years.

see, i couldn't explain all that. i would derail the interview and i don't want them to think they've lost control already. the job sounds decent though. health, dental and all that, said my schedule could be flexible if i went to grad school, friendly intelligent woman who interviewed me. so yeah, we'll see. i got to...hold on. mail truck is here...

...sweet! Holly comes through with my grad school letters of rec.! gracias! hope you made me sound like Wile E. Coyote Super Genius! known her since 7th grade. she lives in Santa Monica now working as a producer for Sony making Playstation games (worked on Mark of Kri 2). right now she's working on a top secret game she ain't allowed to talk about. i like to pretend that she's making games for me alone to play. p.s. her dad builds planes in his basement. true story.
dooood! check out your cool Sony letterhead. now i guess i believe you. i was sure you were actually working for "Sonny's" games and just trying to talk it up! okay, what the hell was i talking about?

oh yeah. looking for a new job. now, if i get a new job i'll have to buy a cd by a person or band i've never heard before. it's a tradition. that way that music is the soundtrack for that job. get it? i'm thinking either Reverend Horton Heat because they're on Timebomb records and they do Social D AND they have a cd called "Spend a Night in the Box" and that reminds me of Cool Hand Luke. or that Magnetic Fields "69 Love Songs" (cause Sara Silverman listed that in her Maxim interview, and that sure is alot of songs) or Mars Volta because my friend Matt just sent me an email that said "they swing for the fence on this." if anyone knows that these suck, please warn me fast. the last time i did a new-job-blind-purchase like this i got Tom Waits and Devon Townsend. and sure 'nuff, Tom Waits "Heartattack and Vine" reminds me of my short stint as a plumbing apprentice and Townsend's "Ocean Machine" will always be the videostore soundtrack.

on the way home today through Moon i saw a police RV with "Caution: K-9 on board" across the back. what's up with that shit? who started that cutsey "K-9" subsitute for "canine" anyway? that's fucking stupid. is Prince behind that bullshit? do some cop cars say, "B Ware! K-9 Coming 4 U?"

::: david - 1:36 PM [+] :::
...

"You're weird."
"Sorry."
"No, that's a compliment."
-Donnie Darko


you know, there should be a lock on posts that are written after midnight so that they can only be READ by someone after midnight. since i can't do that let's just say, if the time says it was written at 3:47 am and it's full of capital letters and exclamation points...it might not make much sense when the sun in shining. in the daylight hours i tend to look back at things i wrote the night before and i'm thinking, "dude. little dramatic ain't ya?"

epilogue to last nights flashback:

i was online this morning looking for anything about that little set of playing cards to get those links (getting kinda link-happy again) i just put in my last post and i made a startling discovery. on amazon i found this.

no freakin' way. it that price accurate?!? i paid 20 bucks tops back in 93. anyone out there who's still got 'em should be dancing around and singing "it's your birthday!" at this point. there's got to be several floating around Toledo right now that i gave to friends and family. of course, my sister probably glued all the cards to the roof of her car for decoration. maybe Holly though. hey, you still got 'em around? don't be using those for coasters! i still got at least two sets myself, one sort of trashed one still sealed. i remember seeing them when i was packing up last month. i'd cash them in but i don't believe in that sort of thing. i open up everything and set in on top of my TV. collectors would squirm everytime i cracked an action figure open. the only reason the one set was still sealed was because i was saving it to give it to someone.

guess T's dad shouldn't have burned those cards in that barrell, huh? i bet he'd say something religious right about now. Like "holy fucking shit."

::: david - 12:29 PM [+] :::
...

"I don't believe in the existence of angels...but if I did I would summon them together and ask them to watch over you..."
-Nick Cave

"Holy Toledo Batman!"


well that was disturbing. i click on the computer and my website has a bunch of gibberish on it so i log into blogger and see that my template is gone. remember in the movie The Thing when the monster stole the generator to make his flying saucer and they go to see why the power is out:

"The generator? It's gone."
"Can you fix it?"
"It's GONE."

that was me. the first three lines of the template were there and the rest was erased. what the fuck? so i pulled up a cached image of a search engine result and viewed the source (not all of it came up and it didn't have any of the changes i've made) and started typin' and cuttin' and pastin.' i want to thank rose for sending me the blueprint for her template so i could dig around and try to figure stuff out. and much thanks to t-bone for offering to help too. it took a few hours and it made me think, if this shit was gone tommorrow i'd be in a bad state. i didn't realize how dependent on this blog stuff i'd gotten. i mean, i fairly new at all this computer stuff and never saw myself addicted to any internet activities but when faced with the prospect of all my shit being gone just like that...i was down and fucking OUT. i've since learned to save a copy of the template (i should have done that before but i just started this thing) and i saved all my achives for the hell of it so i'm learnin.' so THEN i hook up my MP3 player to do some pushups and exhaust myself into not thinking and the MP3 player makes this noise like a tiny toilet flushing and says "Hard Disc Error." then i go downstairs to try the desk computer to look up online manuals for the player and the light in the mouse goes out when i touch it and won't come back on. dude. i'm starting to think i'm like fucking electro-boy or something. the touch of doom. THEN, the real mail shows up. With my latest round of rejection notices. i never thought i'd need to have readers but thinking about the blog crash and the lack of published work and any script sale, i'm really starting to crave this shit.

i always told myself, i write scripts for movies i'd want to see, and i wrote that book because i wanted to write something that said shit other books wouldn't, and stories that went places where other stories would seem like they were going to go, but never quite got there. in college i had a little cult following that enjoyed reading my stuff and looked forward to the next story i'd crank out and that was enough. i could have gone on like that indefinitly. i figured if no one published anything, so what? what did that mean, publishing? a faceless person agreed it was worth reading? i already knew that. and so did some people on campus. i was doing it for me, i thought. now i'm thinking that wasn't the case, now i'm thinking it had a lot to do with them too. and not just them, anyone who stopped to read anything i wrote.

in other words, i need readers more than i want to admit and the idea that this is the only place my thoughts and ideas can be seen by anyone, and it could be erased in the blink of an eye weighs heavy on my fucking head right now.

back in the day i looked forward to those people reading my stories more than i thought and right now i miss it. i even miss when those couple students i couldn't stand would boycott class when my stories were workshopped because they were so offended. i even miss getting their evaluations (the little bastards HAD to do one to keep their straight A's) and i thought i was irritated but i couldn't wait to read what they had to say. i read theirs first to find out about what made them angry enough to stage their little protest (i'll put that story up here at some point) and i glared at em the next week but right now i think i'd give them a fucking hug.

i miss someone at a bar saying "you write anything lately" and, at the end of the night, me grabbing a 5 page story out of my car to slap into their hand. and i miss the co-workers at the bookstore who would sneak stories up by the cash register and read and comment on them while we were on the clock. and i miss Rachel, my unofficial editor, who would take her red pen and cross out whole sections between zombie movie night and i would try to argue about how i could NOT lose a single word and i'd take it out anyway. and i miss Jan my other unofficial editor who would read something, seem to forget about it, then a month later hand me five pages of handwritten comments that made me so excited i'd crank out something that night and i miss that ex-girlfriend FINALLY reading something i wrote and saying it made her sad and feel like she had a hole in her stomach and i miss that teacher in sixth grade reading that story i wrote about nuclear sand-crabs and saying "i can't put this in the school newspaper" and i miss my friend glen reading a story of mine in high school and offering only a four word critique of it on our way to see Wild At Heart, "sounds like you talking" and i miss that time that girlfriend sneaked into my apartment by lying to my roommate to get his key and then sitting in the corner to read hundreds of my pages and then left them lying on the floor. and i miss how i got mad about her getting in my stuff but secretly smiling to myself that she had the guts to do that.

and i miss that time i gave that long 60 page story to T to read. okay, wait. before i talk about that 60 page story i got to talk about something else. there's three things i think of when i remember T. the first thing, i don't feel like talking about. the second thing:

i remember how things started going bad because of her crazy religious family and how i got her little sister a birthday present that they thought was "satanic." it was a deck of playing cards that had nursery rhymes on each page of a small book and then a representation of the poem in the card, like the spades would be the markings on the backs of bees, or the diamonds were cats eyes reflected in a fish bowl etc. and there was a riddle involved with the poems that you had to figure out too. they caught my eye because there was a spider on it and they were very creative and i even bought a couple decks for myself, my friend Holly, my little sister and at least two other people. it was one of those things you see that you think is so cool that everyone should have it. and there was nothing inappopriate about them at all. but they came with this little hardcover book that started with a quote saying, "at one time playing card were thought to be an instrument of the devil..." and it went on to tell the history of cards 'n shit. anyway, apparenly T's little sister woke up crying and they saw the word "devil" in that tiny book and called me up to bitch me out about it. i got in this long debate with her dad with me saying how the whole point of that quote was to describe how people were crazy back then and did stupid shit in the name of religion and he goes on to tell me that he didn't read the whole thing because he actually burned the cards (!) in the burn barrell out back so that she could go to sleep. i fucking lost it. i was like, "you actually stood there and BURNED playing cards because you saw the word "devil?" i told him that, with that logic, he should burn his precious fucking bible because it has the word devil in it thousands of time. i told him that HE made it seem like that word was dangerous by showing his daughter that he had to destroy them with a fucking fire out in the yard for her to be safe. i told him he was a fucking idiot and a horrible parent and, even though we'd gone sky-diving together and bonded, i wasn't sure if i ever really knew what kind of person he was. so he says that we should avoid each other and i ended the conversation saying that the only thing we could agree on was our feelings for T and he thought that wasn't enough common ground to ever talk again. i said goodbye and thought "fuck that zealot, i don't need to get along with him to be with her" but shit doesn't work that way. and, when T found out about the conversation and tried to get me to see his side of the argument, well i never really forgave her for that.

and the third thing i remember about her? it was long before that incident and i don't know why i felt the need to flashback to that card burning story. it's just always on my mind when i think back to her, like i wasn't done pleading my case, as if i could convince her that her dad was wrong enough to rehash that nonsense. i don't know where she is but sometimes i feel like sending her a letter.

the third thing though? it was when i gave her that 60 page story to read. i'd spent too much time on it and it was too dramatic and too vulgar and i couldn't see that at the time and thought it was the shit. She finally strugged her way through it and finished it and handed it back one night afraid to tell me that she didn't like it. i was frustrated with her, even though i subconsciously knew the story sucked, and that night (i still can't believe i did this shit) i left my gym bag on the hood of my car like a dumbass when i was leaving her apartment. all my stuff, clothes, notebooks, pages, videos, glasses, tape recorder, they all went flying down ten miles of road while i sat under it all oblivious and drove along listening to a typically awful Toledo classic rock station. i remember slowly realizing what i'd done when i got back home and couldn't find the bag in the car. and i called her in a panic to see if maybe my bag was still at her apartment or in her parking lot. it wasn't and i tore off into the night and backtracked and punched the dashboard when i started to see the pages on the road. i jumped out and only found two or three though. i was splashing around the ditch when i saw T's headlights, coming from the other direction. she stepped out with a car load of wet pages, covered in tiretracks and gravel. we spent another hour gathering up the strays but i never found the bag. i ended up losing a good pair of glasses, some blue jeans, my mini tape recorder and the two movies i'd taken over there that night to watch. i remember the movies because i had to buy them again, "Weeds" and "Internal Affairs." and i remember there were about 12 pages i never found and spent weeks trying to recreate.

At the time, all i did was talk to her about how some stranger might have that bag and my clothes and movies and maybe they even read the couple pages that didn't fly out. but now, all i can think about is how she got up at 3am without me asking her to, and inched along the highway, stepping out into the dark to pick up pages of a story she didn't even like. she recovered most of that story off the side of the road that night and i just wish the story would have been good enough to deserve that. if i knew where she was right now, i swear the first words out of my mouth would be to thank her.

::: david - 12:15 AM [+] :::
...

template fucked up. reconstruction in progress.
beware: females walking by this reconstruction site will get whistled at and harrassed...

::: david - 4:05 PM [+] :::
...

"The external jugular vein varies in size, bearing an inverse proportion with other veins in the neck, in rare cases it is sometimes double the size."
-Gray's Anatomy

"Hello darkness my old friend..."
-Simon or Garfunkel in a choke-hold

got my reality tv fix tonight with Making the Band II aka The Thrilla in Manilla! aka Choke-Fest 2003!!! Nes and Fred fought three, count 'em THREE times. first fight Nes went for the front-on choke while Fred was mid-sentence. nice move! however, Fred dug in with his feet like a linebacker and propelled them both into the wall where HE then turned the tables (or "flipped the script" as the kids would say) and started to choke out Nes. unfortunately the other people in the studio pulled him off. then, after much stalking around, chest-puffing and one-on-one talks with the camera where they promised more violence...we finally got round 2. this starts with (if i can read the bleeps right, i need to watch this show with a deaf person) Fred thinking Nes is talking about him at the bottom of the stairs and therefore declaring Nes a "motherfuckin' punk-ass bitch" which Nes vehemently denies, sincerely believing that no, it is Fred who is said "punk-ass bitch." like Madman Munk said in Barton Fink, "well, that led to an arguement..." Fred clears out the living room and pulls his shirt up over his head to show the camera his abs (hey, this reminds me of a true story from the Toledo trenches to tell y'all another time) and Nes finally puts his cigarette out, takes off his jacket and squares up to fight. he should have taken off his pants because they're around his ankles by the time it's all over. round 2 starts off with some jabs that don't hit shit and, like all fights, it ends up on the ground with Fred again choking the hell out of him. this choking session looks borderline fatal and i almost dropped my bowl of Raisen Bran leaning forward to watch. but it's eventually broken up after some intense music and shock editing and there's some disagreement about who won ("you whipped who's ass bitch!?!") so the third time's the charm! thank fuck for the number 3! for this fight, Fred rings the bell when he sneaks up on Nes and punches him...while his sitting on the couch! Beauty! Now i can pick a side! so they start brawling in the cramped hallway much like the Morpheus/Smith fight in Matrix. or maybe more like the Cage/Goodman fight in Raising Arizona. some actual punches connect and...oh no! my boy Fred gets stuck in a reverse headlock and it looks like this could be the end for him. this time Nes won't let go and after about a year of choking, i'm expecting Fred's head to pop off and bounce down the steps. alas, Nes is pulled off, Fred stumbles away, looking out of gas (he needed more fuel!) and it seems that's going to have to be the last fight. they declare they're brothers and they'll work on "making history with the music." now, i'll never buy the cd cause they can't rap for shit and i don't think that they realize that a death on one of these show would be the best way to insure they "make history."

still, these two boys can choke like the best of 'em. i haven't seen long angry chokes like that on TV since Radio Raheem tried to strangle Sal for smashing his Public Enemy tape. dude. i'm impressed as hell with the neck strength on these kids. unless the show's producers put electric-fence collars on these guys to keep them in the house, and i just can't see them under the chains, they sure can withstand quite a squeeze.

you know, that reminds me of when me and my friend Mark (the dude who found the zombie mall first, lucky bastard) were drinking and we took the electric-fence collars off my friend Otto's cats and slowly crept towards the property line with them on our bodies. it was the poor-man's Jackass. and i'm here to say, that shit works! as i got closer to the invisible line, i started getting nervous. i wanted to stay in the yard. i tried to come up with reasons to stay in the yard. more than anything, i just wanted to stop and sit down in that yard. i almost started digging under the invisible fence to try to avoid getting that shock. now, we just had the collars on our wrists and not our neck but still, it was like when you're sticking something in the fan until is just barely touches and you stop paying attention then BZZZ! the blades knock it out of your hand. i think the night ended with us finally wrestling each other over the invisible line, i don't remember. i do remember asking Otto what was wrong with his cat's tail and him saying "i don't know, she's chewing it off for some reason." hmm, i wonder what that reason is? if i had that much internal conflict about an invisible pain-inducing force field, i'd start chewing on my dick everytime i had to venture out to get the fucking mail.

anyway, that Making the Band show is alot of fun lately. if i was producing that show? and had a little control room in the house with tvs and buttons and knobs n shit? this is what i'd do: if i saw an argument starting over the dishes i'd hit a button to turn the heat up about ten degrees. then when they got nose to nose over not picking up that sock, i'd hit another button and release the bees. then, when the crowd gathered the roof would fly off and down would come the chainsaws and hammers and silly string and it would be fucking Thunderdome time baby! release the bees! that's what those shows need. more bees in those houses.

my car is making a horrible noise. i stood over it with the hood up and rubbed my chin looking concerned but the noise didn't stop. i'm out of ideas.

The Graduate is a masterpiece. did i say that last night? perfect movie. well, it has some problems but the tone is perfect. the music is fucking spooky. like you expect Ben to suddenly suck on a .38 or climb the clock tower. it could be this light comedy but there something lurking underneath and i find that movie oddly affecting every time i watch it.

i'm reading a book called "King Suckerman." it isn't as good as the title would lead you to believe.

::: david - 11:56 PM [+] :::
...