Happy Boxing Day

Yo.

Thanksgiving

Thankful for jah.

Spent most of the day reconstructing the lost pairs of Christmas mix CDs that were wiped out in the crash. I can't locate the pair of burnt 2005 audio CDs and I didn't make a copy of 2008. So whatever I remake from memory won't be the original, but who cares? Outside of the one Secret Santa from last year, I don't think anyone is going to care/notice. This is mostly something I do for myself to help get through the holiday season.

Growing unlikelihood of a Pulp update tomorrow but we'll see. Happy Thanksgiving.

Dayjob

Ended up at a temp assignment that has Severe Security blocking me from the internet, which is a complete 180 from what I'm used to. Ergo, the lack of updates to this site as well as a general ennui towards anything after the bus/hike back home. Not that I'm complaining, mind you. Just telling you what's going down.

Man, we'll see if I can get anything up for Wednesday/Friday. Can't be much of a man to say that anything else will happen besides that. Don't want to be a Dude.

Pulp 006

Bonnie of the blue eyes, standing at the end of her world overlooking ours; a girl who carries around in her pocket a life without scars, crime, hunger or pain.  I stand beside her, close enough for the ocean to smell not of wretched sewage but of the clear waters I swam as a boy. Bonnie is a special chest in a Grandmother’s attic, unlocked and full of all treasures and happy photographs. Bonnie’s eyes see magic things and when she’s around, that magic comes out. Always welcomed into house and home, always given a special seat at the bar for the drink will be crisp and the food that more tasty. Bonnie, ah. What turned you away from this world? What pain was so strong that it spurred you from us and into a world where you are never weighted down by sorrow? And if ever that answer revealed, will this world disappear, no more than a bubble or a drop of dew in the sun?

“Yours is a face that brings the lame to dance,” I say. “And now I see it sullen and your hands full of flowers.”

She looks at me. The smile is there but it’s struggling. How I came privy to know her to be bound to this duty is a story for another day. But she is a Maiden who must cast her flowers out to sea when the last call is made and the only taxi in service is that one black cab driven by good Ol’ Sam. Death, sweet charity. Death has come and here stands Bonnie, hands full of white blossoms kissed at the tips with a star of red.

She turns and tends to her duties, he end of that bargain made. I ask her who the flowers are for.
“Michael Tanner.”
“Mikey?” The name’s a crashing thunderbolt to the mind and I see that old coot Mikey slapping his knee with face blushed by beer and bawdy joke. “Mikey Tanner? Mikey Tanner's dead?”

She doesn’t nod. She watches the slow parade progress out towards the cut-off of the point, to waters full of dragons and angels alike.

“He will be, Waylon. But not for a long, long while.” She hooks her gaze onto me. “He’s in trouble, Waylon.”

“What do you mean?”

In her outstretched palm, she presents me a flower. “Find where these grow, and you’ll find him.”

Grinding

Taking the week off to adjust to the new dayjob. Will return this Friday where there will be a Pulp update.

Duck!

Personal Philosophy

Significant Objects

I missed the announcement of the Slate Significant Objects contest. One of the more wittier historical fiction pieces won, and subsequently, brought in fifty-four dollars for the knickknack on eBay. Pretty good. Congrats to Matthew Wells and the runners up.

Below the cut is my entry. I haven't read it since I submitted it so it is reproduced in full, possible hidden errors and what not. 

Oh NoNo 02

I figured this would happen - puttering out shortly after starting. Really, haven't written jack after the first two days. Instead, I've been distracted or my attention has been required elsewhere than belting out the wordcount on a novel that I just decided to write at the last minute.

Makes sense why some folk decide to plan in October. As a cynic, I would ask 'Why do they need November to write that novel? Why not do it any other time?' which is keen to asking 'Why do we celebrate Halloween in October? Why not some other day?' The answer is that anyone can write a novel any time they want, and people do. Everyone who writes a novel sets aside a month or longer to writing it. This organized effort into turning November into a National Writing Month is just some way to help those with less discipline (e.g. me) into actually writing the damned thing. Though, as I said, it's not really working.

One of my writing partners says she needs twenty-one days of momentum to really get going so that's my goal at the moment. I start a new daily job on Tuesday so my spare time will be reduced (probably for the better.) I've been on a 101-day weekend. Time to go back to work. With the reduced idleness, hell. I might get more done.

Pulp 005

     Sunlight. A second morning. A short turn left and the outside world is visible, perhaps a hundred yards. My guide shies away. This is as far as he goes. I rifle through my pockets and come up with the stale bread wrapped in a clean handkerchief. 

     “I thank you.” The bread is held out and the boy feels it in his hand. He breaks off half and returns the rest to me. I watch him take a few steps back towards his world. It’s a world of night and gas-lights, of swamps and deadly things unfit for the surface. This might be as close as he comes to seeing the sky, this cavern leading out to a world so white and blue.

He’s gone forever before I turn around and make my way to the day. Air weighted with humid spray and the tinge of salt hits my face and I know I’m out near the ocean. It’s a far peak that this drain pipe leads me to, nowhere near beaches or boardwalks.

     “I’ll have to catch a train back,” I catch myself thinking before reminding myself that there is no ‘back.’ Bloody Ben’s visit didn’t rob me of a home, only clued me in to what I already knew. It was time to move on. There’s no settling down for me.
 
     I swat at nothing, bumbling out a bad curse too dumb to fly in this air. Too heavy. Too weak. I start to climb around the pipe and down to the rocks near the water. Slippery rocks for a fool’s foot. Charity! I nearly crack my skull with a poor decision, stepping on a rock that moved! A stone crab that would like to snip-snip away one of my toes. Not today!
 
     My feet sink slightly on the strait of sand leading from the drain pip back to civilization. The embankment is low enough that after a few long stretches of my legs, I can see over and find only roads and grass. It’ll be a long walk back so I’d rather take my stroll seaside.

     It’s the first moment to rest and relax, the first time to feel warm. Really, the first time I can breathe, really breathe. It’s good, real good. It’s my favorite feeling, to slap my chest and stare out into this wild world. If I had a laugh within me, I’d toss it out, a long net of joy cast out to the sea, caring not what I may or may not haul back.

     I gnaw on a corner of the bread, hard as it may be, to quell the grumble from my gut. I pick up a stone to skip across the water and count how many wishes will be granted today but stop. A woman stands by the tide-line, in a tangle of flowers in her hands. She might appear young in appearance but goodness, how old is she really?

     “Walyon,” she says without looking at me when I come up to her.
     “Hello Bonnie.” The heaviness is back in my shoulders. I could use that laugh now. In her hands are the white flowers from a funeral’s mourning. “If you're casting your flowers out to sea, means somebody isn't with us anymore. Tell me, who's had died?”
     "He isn't dead," she says, turning her head to look me dead-on. "But soon he will be."

Duck

In lieu of an update, I shall give you a duck.

Small Gift

Here's a bit of a cop-out for today's essay, but with Halloween now gone, Christmas has invaded. Might as well jump on the bandwagon lest get run over by it. 

Zerks Log 05

Here is another episode of 'Zerks Log,' the premier project from StoryForge Labs.

You can see 'Zerks Log,' in its entirely, at www.Zerkslog.com, where you can watch in high quality, subscribe to it on iTunes and see some behind the scenes material. Feel free if you want to skip ahead and watch all episodes.

Zerks Log 04

Here is another episode of 'Zerks Log,' the premier project from StoryForge Labs.

You can see 'Zerks Log,' in its entirely, at www.Zerkslog.com, where you can watch in high quality, subscribe to it on iTunes and see some behind the scenes material. Feel free if you want to skip ahead and watch all episodes.

Oh NoNo 01

I wouldn't be so tired after 2k words if the fuzzy-four legged alarm clock didn't ignore the switch to Standard Time. It's been a long time since I got up at 6am, especially on a Sunday. After taking care of the loudmouth's breakfast, I got a head start on the usual b.s. that I do before sitting down to write. I'm done with the daily quota and if I am awake enough, I'll add a little to it. 14k is due by next Sunday so whatever headway I can get on, I'll do what I can.

I like what I've written so far. Not going to talk shop until the revision process. I've made that mistake before. Never discuss the pie until it's done cooking or some ridiculous saying. Quick, somebody get a Farmer's Almanac. Somebody get me a pillow. I'm going to take a nap.

Happy Halloween

Go out and get some candy. Come back tomorrow for the start of that NaNo thing and we'll talk about your haul.

Pulp 004

By the time the endorphins and adrenalines settle—big words meaning the chemicals and humors that keep my lungs breathing and legs moving—I start to feel the dig on my leg and the sting on my side. I’m well into the caverns under this edge of the City. I also start to think, my body slowing down for my thoughts to catch up.

I’m far from the hovel now. If Bloody Ben followed me down into the sewer, either I lost him with the many twists and turns I took to wind me up in this knotted mass of brick and scumwater; or he is toying with me. But that’s not his style. Ben’s a killer but he’s not a fiend. I don’t think my blockhead is sharp enough to lose Ben, but if he was going to pull the knife on me, he would have done it by now. I can rest on that.

But now I’m lost. In the millions of miles down here, a man can easily slip and be taken by the poisons and fangs that grow up from the dank. I keep my eyes open, accustomed to what little light there is, passing with caution at the sight of a possible nest of pit vipers and with trepidations around a hive of arch-spiders that looks empty but damned if I go in to find out.

There’s the rustle of movement and the nearby air suddenly carries a warm scent of living bodies. There’s a faint sound of feet on stone, no louder than a scampering rat. I turn, raising my hands up to fight off my attacker–Is it Ben? No! I see only three children, two boys and a girl, each in dirty clothes and uncut hair. They huddle behind the legs of the teenager that has stepped out from one of the side archways, putting him in them and me. His shoulders rise and his fists clench. Gaunt and lean, his arms are longer than they normally should be, and his fingers seem to extend two inches longer than they should. He is a product of his diet, the food naturally harvested from the soil contaminated by toxic runoff from municipal waste sites. The pinhole pupils and fair green luminescence from his skin, I knew him and his wards to be of the Lost Family.
 
I lower my hands. They keep their distance. There is an exhaled breath between me and them before I speak. 

“I am Old Waylon and mean no harm.” My voice is the loudest sound this part of the world has ever heard. “I am friend of the Lost, of the Great Grandmother and her rat children, of the One’o’clock Hand Brothers and the mouths they feed.”  

The oldest nods very slowly. He sets himself at ease. The three children peer around his legs, one of the boys getting brave enough to walk up to look at me. I am friend to the Lost Family. They once sought me out four years ago when Snapscale of the Gator Clan saw himself a king, even if it was King of the dregs and drowned. I fought back the invading jaws with a fierce club that would grow lilies, watered by the blood of Snapscale and his men. The name ‘Old Waylon’ is recognized by the older boy, who must have been just a waif at that time. He smiles and doesn’t speak, but the Lost Family is mute to outsiders.

“I have lost the way,” I said, knowing what words I must speak if I am to call upon this youth for help. “Can you show me back?”

The teenage boy nods and turns to the three behind him. The unspoken language of his blood instructs them to go back through the passage. When my new guide steps in front of me, I start to follow after giving a look over my shoulder. Two pairs of lingering eyes watch me. If we are lucky, this might be the only time we ever see each other, these children and I. This is not my world and I know that. The Lost will always will be helpful but there is only a handful of hospitality that they can afford me or anyone. There are warm meals and days full of sun in my future. For these children, it is a life of midnights and small bellies, of running lean until they can’t run any more. I don’t wave good-bye. I simply turn my head back and follow my guide out.

Zerks Log 03

Here is another episode of 'Zerks Log,' the premier project from StoryForge Labs.

You can see 'Zerks Log,' in its entirely, at www.Zerkslog.com, where you can watch in high quality, subscribe to it on iTunes and see some behind the scenes material. Feel free if you want to skip ahead and watch all episodes.

Eventually, I think these will end up on a DVD with director, cast and crew commentaries. The notes I write (under the Read More break) concern the writing/creating process than anything that happened on the shoot. I’ll keep you updated if and when StoryForge puts something together.

Trick or Treat

     The lightest bit of snow starts to waft from a night without stars. I’m young, eleven or twelve years old. The few flakes on my glasses kaleidoscope the beams from oncoming headlights. I’m wearing a coat but underneath, I’m dressed as my favorite cartoon character in a homemade costume. My sister, age seven, is a fairy princess. It’s late and she’s tired. She leaves her wand in the car with Dad when we go up to the house.  
     “Trick or Treat!” 

Zerks Log 02

Here is another episode of 'Zerks Log,' the premier project from StoryForge Labs.

You can see 'Zerks Log,' in its entirely, at www.Zerkslog.com, where you can watch in high quality, subscribe to it on iTunes and see some behind the scenes material. Feel free if you want to skip ahead and watch all episodes.

Zerks Log 01

In 2008, I worked with StoryForge Labs on their premier project, 'Zerks Log.' I was brought on as a co-writer with Patty Pino to help develop a online series detailing a spaceship's captain video log. After a few months of working in tandem with Ms. Pino to develop the scripts, SFL had its first shoot in November/December. After some post-production in early 2009, 'Zerks Log' was released to the Internet.

Since this was my first time working on a legitimate film shoot and ultimately, the first time I would see and hear something that I wrote come to be, I would like to go over Zerks here at the site. Each entry will have a few notes detailing the writing process, what happened and what I learned from it (click 'Read More' for them.)

You can see 'Zerks Log' in its entirely, is available at www.Zerkslog.com, where you can watch in high quality, subscribe to it on iTunes and see some behind the scenes material. Feel free if you want to skip ahead and watch all episodes.

Pulp 003

I don’t hear the floorboards snap or the wood crack under my weight as I crash through the first floor and fall down the cellar. I only hear the wretched lot waiting for me in Hell using what air their damned lungs can pump for laughter at my buffoonery. It might be the first laugh that Hell’s had in a long, long time and I would be the first to say I earned it.  How foolish—leaping my way at Bloody Ben, only to have him set to the side and have me fall feet-first through the floor. Lucky for me, though. Fate and his loaded dice would have snapped my neck instead of the dried out wood if I dove any other way.

I roll with the fall since a snapped ankle won’t do me any favors now. The light pouring in from above splashes around the cellar. I look up to see Ben leaning over the newly made holes, an inquisitive glance I’d see in the eye of a farm crow, patiently waiting to see whether a wounded animal yet stopped the struggle and has finally laid down to die.

But Ben knows it takes more than a fall like that to put me down for good. I quickly move away from his sight and start a fast search. There’s two ways into the cellar, through the new entryway above or down the stairs.

A weapon. I need a weapon. Ben will have to come down here and if I can get one good swing with something heavy in my hands, I might be able to escape. There’s a hollow echo to one of my steps and I turn quickly to see I’ve walked across a centuries old manhole cover. The memory of its first discovery hits me, from when I drove out the rats and addicts from this building to make it my shelter from the outside. I used an old length of discarded rebar found in one of the basement’s darker corners to force the cover off, finding a forgotten passage to the city’s sewers.

It’s a dangerous risk but my chances with the unknown horrors blanketed in the forever-night below are better than with the devil I know is upstairs waiting for me. With that seal of decades’ rust already broken, it now only takes my fingers and one good heave to move the cover. By my next heartbeat, I’ve gone under. 

A fall through two stories and I’m left with a one or two bruises, a small gash on my leg, a surface cut from Bloody Ben’s blade on my left side and some splinters. A man learns to be grateful from moments like this. But I have no time to for gratitude. Bloody Ben can track a cold body in winter. And though only the tip of his blade scratched lightly through the top of my skin, I am surrounded by shadows that smell blood and have no need for the concept of ‘mercy.’ Until I am safe, if ever I am to be again, my feet must forget how to stay still.

George

It might have been a golden retriever. Or a Labrador. Or a German Shepherd. I couldn’t really tell. It wasn’t one of the neighbor’s dogs. It wasn’t our dog, thank god. A relief, since this dog was dead.

The dog had short yellowish fur and black paws. I don’t remember its face, the length of its snout or if the dog’s eyes were open.

It was late January in Upstate New York. The roadside snowbanks were three and a half feet high, piled up by the snowplows and stained charcoal gray from their salt. Low hanging clouds in a miserable sky were starting to unload a late afternoon flurry.Not like the dog had a choice in the matter, but I thought it was a crummy day to die.


When I told my Mom about the dog, she said “Better call George Signor.”

Saturday Matinee

The first two Evil Dead movies, the new Monty Python at 40 documentary and whatever else I can dig up. I think I've watched more documentaries than fictional film works over the last four months. With the way this year has gone, the penchant for fantasy has dried up and died. Unreality, not fantasy.

And yet, I'm watching some horror/splatter movies today. If I contradict myself, very well then. I contradict myself. I am large. I contain multitudes.

You reading this? What are you doing today?

Pulp 002

Charity save me, it is! “Bloody Ben!” I bellow.

I push him back and hold that wooden board up to keep that few feet of distance between us. Bloody Ben, a devil’s laugh wrapped up in the flesh of a man. His cold glee heard in the rattle of his voice.  It’s the last voice heard by the living and the first heard by the dead. Boogey man of children’s rhyme - ‘The blade that cooled a thousand men warms the hand of Bloody Ben.’

“Ben!” I shout as we pace the room, my swipes with the board keeping this grinning fiend away. “Ben, you bastard deal-maker, signing your name in his book with the blood from your own heart, contracted to collect those reaper refuses to take! Have you finally come for me?” Is this the day that Charity runs out for my weathered shoulders and dirty hands?

“Heh.” It’s all he says, that rocky snicker. What words does he to say need when his knife sings, when that blade screams from Hell’s mouth and collects all the air of a millions words. What countless lives worth of talk have crossed that edge?

He swings his blade at me once more and I parry the blow with to board and step back. Even with a stomach full of fire and ten years given back from Grandfather Time’s pocket watch, I would struggle against the ungodly grace of Ben. Nimble as a cat’s shadow, merciless as the nine-day-fall. I feel the space leaking out of the room. Soon I will be trapped.

Ben guards the door out of the room. If I leap towards the broken boards, the blade will surely find my side. A twist of Ben’s wrist and I will be another cold massed, laid out at his feet.

The walls might be thin enough to bash through, though I’d leave with broken bones. Better a broken bone than a lifeless body, I think. But this is the second story of the building and there is only hard concrete down below.

His dire grin and that hissing cough of a laugh that presses out through his teeth fill my head. I run on instinct. He lunges forward and I leap at him. Better to face the blade like a man! There is the unforgettable dig of metal on flesh that cuts at my shoulder, Ben’s agile body sidestepping my pounce. But in my foolhardy attempts at that death with glory, Charity forgive me, I forgot of the room and its weaknesses. I am aware of my dumb mistake too late to do anything. My landing bursts through the broken spot. There is the loud crack of wood and the crash of a poor, stupid fool’s body plummeting down.

Two Bits

I wanted to shave my head for over three weeks by the time I finally did it in the spring of 2004. I spent twenty bucks on clipper kit and spent a Friday evening shearing away my two inch long hair in the dirty bathroom of my then one bedroom apartment in Troy, New York. In front of a small medicine cabinet’s mirror, I covered the sink and surrounding floor of cracked title with dark half circles. If I left the music on in the other room, all I heard was the constant bumblebee buzz.

Writing Contest from Slate.com

http://www.slate.com/id/2231262/

I'll post what I write after the contest is over.

Rough Night

Insomnia had me up until 4 in the morning. But now, a trip to Best Video. Hopefully, something will pop out and catch my eye (ow!)

Pulp 001

The old coat had done its best to hold in what heat it could, but the night was long and the cold is always unrelenting. Its efforts finally exhaust themselves and a chill wakes me right before that first glimpse of a rising sun passes over the cracks in walls. My first eyeful dips in a cut of light coming from the far end of the room.  host a handful of dancing, whirling dust. The shadows are still the nighttime shade of dark blue-purple, but the edges are fast receding into the thin grey morning haze.

Aye, this room I’ve made for my bed may be broken and dirty, but I say to you, it’s safe. No more rats and any dumb squatters bent on invading know they’ll lose the fight. This building knows my hands well, hands that still make the rocks shudder and can pull the marrow out of young bones.

I push myself up off the floor. There’s a deep sound, a low creek and a hollow thud rising up my gullet. Time for breakfast, I think. Shanks of light sliding through the gaps between the boards up on the windows crisscross the room. I know that soon it will be hot and uncomfortable in here.  Already, my whiskers itch, dry as they are. A long draw of cold water is called for. 

And some food. There’s another rumble when I stand up and stretch. Charity has blessed me with another day with lungs that breathe, another day with warm blood in my heart and life in my muscles. “Perhaps charity will give a fine breakfast.” One of my coat’s many pockets holds a stale heel of bread that might hold me over if need be, but dried bread is a poor reward for this waking. Perhaps Artie’s might spare a plate of something warm for a story?

I think of what tales I haven’t told the old sailor yet when there’s another creek. I stop and the hairs on the back of my arms catch a’hold of the static. A slow breath crawls past my lips. That last sound didn’t come from my old skin or hungry belly. It’s almost too late when I see the shadow pass by a boarded up window. I duck down and grab a loose plank from the part of the broken floor, pulling the wood up in time to block the swinging blow from the body that has crashed through, splintering the boards up on windows as if they weren’t even there. A glint of new light off of sharp steel nearly sets the dust on fire and then, there is no mistaking who it is. Bloody Ben!

Fourth Letter Politics

Just because I've stopped reading comic books doesn't mean you should. The fine folks over at 4th Letter will set you straight.

Herta Müller wins the Nobel.

Congrats to Herta Müller, someone who I haven't read. But hey, no surprise there. I'm American. Remember last year - Horace Engdahl said that the U.S. was "too isolated, too insular" when it comes to literature and fucker was right. Though, here's hoping that with the win, more of Herta Müller's work will get translated or inspire people (i.e. myself) to learn German.

I stopped reading comic books.

The first one was Iron Man #208. My Dad bought it for me in July 1986, one the same month my sister was born. I think he gave it to me so I wouldn’t feel left out of all the attention being given to my new baby sister.

I remember him telling me, “Iron Man was one of my favorites.” At five years old, he could have told me he liked for the Dodgers and I would have liked the Dodgers. Apin’ the old man, as it were.

The cover of that comic is a raspberry bubblegum blue sky with three missiles soaring out towards the reader. Iron Man is flying alongside, right arm outstretched as to reach the missile closest to him. In the bottom right, a box reads IF IRON MAN CAN’T CATCH THESE MISSILES, IT’S THE DEATH OF A NATION!, with the last four words in dramatic orange text. It’s a fun cover but I remember nothing of the story inside. For all purposes concerned, Iron Man doesn’t stop the missiles and a nation I didn’t know about beforehand was wiped off the face of the earth. 

First Post

First!