is a blog by Brendan
Saw Spider-Man (who needs links anyway?). Good; fun; could have been better. Tobey Maguire kicks the appropriate amount of ass, but it’s that infernal Koepp at the dialogue controls again. I kind of hope he dies.
And again, courtesy of Ken and Yahoo! News, comes a brilliant “What’s Wrong With This Picture” (click for a bigger version):
Look carefully. Well, not too carefully. Full article is here. And now I have to go close out a play.
Yesterday morning, my uncle John got up at some ridiculous hour and ran fifty kilometers. Fifty kilometers. Then he kept walking until he had done fifty miles. Then he went home, had something to eat and went to an unusual retrospective of his work.
Uncle John makes custom birthday cards, and has done so since he was a teenager. A few weeks ago, my aunt Dana started sending letters to friends and family asking to borrow any cards we might have saved. Of course, everybody had saved everything–you don’t get a personal work of art in the mail and throw it away when you’re done.
They got enough cards to fill four rooms full of shelves (and they had leftovers). During the day it was an exhibition for clients; that night, when I got there, it was food and a jazz band and my uncle’s fiftieth birthday party.
It was one of the best gallery shows I’ve ever seen. The sheer volume of work and creativity and originality was humbling and inspiring and it still stuns me a little to think that I own at least a dozen of those original pieces myself.
I think it was my tenth birthday when I got the foldout card. It was a huge battle scene my uncle had drawn and then left half-empty, inviting me to fill in the rest. It was perfect. It was one of the best presents I’ve ever received, and I could probably redraw it from memory.
I was a weird little kid, and if I’d been born to different parents I probably would have been a Ritalin poster child.The only things that could get me to sit still for ten minutes were a big fat fantasy book or a chance to draw with my uncle. I didn’t quite get all the genes that give him his talent, or maybe his dedication–he did better stuff at fifteen than I can hope for now–but everything I love about sequential art comes from trading panels with him on “Captain Zero” and “The Adventures of Petey.” That this site exists as more than a blog is due to him.
A dozen cards, a million comic strips. Happy birthday, Uncle John, and thanks for all my presents.
Angie–it was just him and his drummer (Derek?)–played for at least two hours, sans set list, taking requests from the crowd. About two of us, as I recall, were actually from Cincinatti; most of the rest were apparently just following him along the Ohio River. And then there were the four college students sitting on the floor two feet from the stage, grinning like idiots. We would have danced, but then the people behind us wouldn’t have been able to see.
So yeah, basically they played whatever we asked for–all but two tracks on this album, plus good chunks of his first indie CD (seen above, autographed) and his new covers album. And it was great. It was incredible. They got the fullest sound out of one guitar and a Junior Miss drum kit I’ve ever heard. Angie was wearing a Ramones t-shirt, which was kind of (situationally) ironic,because… Well. Bono always says the reason he started U2 was because he saw the Ramones and wanted to be in a rock band. I saw Angie Aparo, and now I want nothing more than to pack up my drums and piano and move into a van and play in a club every night for a hundred years.
(No worries, Mom. I can’t drive a van yet.)
Two guys are driving past a field populated by a large number of cows. One of the guys turns to the other and says”What a big herd of cows! How many do you think there are?”
“Eighty-four,” says the second guy.
“Wow!” says the first guy, stunned. “How’d you figure that out so fast?”
“Easy,” says the second guy, “I counted their legs and divided by four.”
This is my Discrete professor’s idea of a joke.
Somebody’s been searching a lot for “xorph.com” on Yahoo, repeatedly and regularly–like twenty times in less than amonth. A fine thing, in my opinion, but how long is it going to take him or her to figure out the address bar? Also,somebody found this site by searching for “elephant dildo” the other day. Believe it or not, that exact phrase has cropped up in here before. All the same, I’m hoping it was one of my friends who’s in on that particular joke; if not, I hope it was someone who’s going to get help soon.
Speaking of help:
So, um, this looks a little different. In case you didn’t notice.
Short Story rode (rode) again last night, for the first time since, um, last May. It was impromptu, and it wasn’t all of us–Darren was tutoring and Garret was in this “other city”–but we picked up instruments together for the first time in almost a year, and we sounded fine.The MC girl called for a second round of applause, and later that night there was a post clamoring for a Short Storyreturn on the Centre phorums. I think people liked it.
The thing is, though, that’s not what felt best about it. I’ve tried my hands at a lot of different ways of making music–choir, piano lessons, snare–and the fact is I’m not a natural. I accept that. But within what ability I have, it’s about the best high I can get. Saying “I play bongos” sounds a bit silly, which is why I try to class it up by saying “percussion,” but either way it’s raw and visceral and soulful and cool. I love acting because it entertains people. I love writing code when it’s for designs like this, or for games, because they entertain people too. But beating the hell out of my hands on rawhide is something I could just do forever, for no audience but four other guys on guitars.
That’s what felt good last night, down in the basement, guessing at how to play “Psycho Killer” and doing it live ten minutes later. The pretty girls in the dark didn’t matter. The applause didn’t matter. What mattered was that playing with my band still feels like dancing and knowing how.
So I’m watching this commercial for a wondrous new cooking gadget and a few things strike me. First of all, why do allthe cooking gadgets for our generation suck so hard? Does anybody remember seeing cooking gadget ads in the earlyEighties? There was nothing they couldn’t do! No commercial was complete without a list of “it slices! It dices! Itgrates! It files! It sorts socks! It eats your children!” There are yellowing reams of comedy writing devoted entirelyto making fun of this phenomenon, and now it’s gone. What do we get instead? Vacuum-sealers–which were stupid before Iwas born–and that “Egg Fucker” or whatever it’s called, the thing that takes delicious, ordinary fried eggs and makesthem into perfect little circles of horror. I hate that thing.
Also! Have you ever noticed that every cable commercial trying to sell a new and purportedly brilliant gadget has thesame guy doing the voice-over? How old is he? I remember hearing his voice in the late Eighties, and it hasn’t changeda whit. Maybe there are actually dozens of guys who all grew up listening to the original, and they have formed a corpsdevoted entirely to sounding exactly like him, renting themselves out for cheap commercial voice-overs. What would theycall themselves? How would you know where to find them? What kind of horrible things must they do to themselves, orhave done to them, to be able to get that enthused about (I am not making this up) a batter dispenser?
| Announcer: | And that’s not all! You’ll also get– | ||
| Director: | Not good enough. Back in the Eel Chamber. | ||
| Announcer: | No! NO! And that’s not all you also get AAAGH SWEET JESUS NOW AVAILABLE IN HARVEST GOLD |
Glorious, hellish, surprising, panicked, funny, awful, done. Except not really surprising at all. I’m starting to recognize that there’s a reason people rave about this kind of timed project–the artificial limits bring out ability you otherwise have no reason to use. Anyway, it was worth it, and this is what I got.
That’s there to read only if you’re well beyond “bored” into “catatonic.” This is not to say it wasn’t entertaining; I was lucky to be assigned an incredible director and a great cast who made the play into more than I could have hoped for.
There is a full account of the whole process that led to the play, but it’s freakishly long and boring. I wrote that and I’m keeping it for myself; I don’t recommend it for human consumption. I just wanted to have a good record by which to measure all future periods of stress (“Rescuing my pregnant sister from a burning house with my arm broken in three places? I give it .6 Playfests”).
Also, my stomach’s all better now.
The past 48 hours have been the longest, well, 48 hours I have ever lived. In fact, I’m recounting on my fingers right now to make sure I’m numbering them right–it feels like it’s been at least a week since I wrote my last journal entry. Which, coincidentally, is where the whole thing starts. To help me keep things straight, all times are in military.
Shortly after I finished fiddling with the idiotcam©, Ken asked if I wanted to go out somewhere for dinner. Certainly! I said, but as I was flat broke it seemed the possibilities were limited. But wait! I had the free pizza I’d won from Little Caesar’s, didn’t I? Problem solved!
Unfortunately, the bastards at said pizza joint were apparently resentful of having to give away anything at all, and so laced my double slice with a hearty dose of poison. The rest of that night was entertaining, to say the least (which I will), and the fact that I was slinging together an entire toon from script to finish didn’t exactly make things easier. I finally trudged to bed around hour 0100 hours, to begin a series of short naps interrupted by–well, fill in the blanks yourself.
After one such nap, I awoke not long before my alarm was due, and decided to turn it off so it wouldn’t wake up my poor roommates. I then forgot about said precaution and crawled back under the covers. In the words of The Spleen, “Big mistake!” Jon finally woke me up himself when he noticed that it was a good half hour after my planned wakeup call, and while I engaged in The World’s Fastest Shower© David was calling my room to see where, exactly, the hell I was.
We got into Henry’s car only running about the aforementioned half hour behind (but let us not forget that my body was just beginning to make me pay for the pizza). We got to the airport around 0815. I was writing Henry a check of appreciation for the ride when it became clear that yes, in fact, my pen had exploded all over my hand and made me look like some kind of squid molester.
I think it’s to my credit that only then did I start making signs against the Evil Eye.
I set off the beeper at the security checkpoint, of course (foolish, foolish zipper!), but even with all the delays it turned out not to matter–our flight was late and we were routed onto a different jet, an hour behind schedule. Having removed most of the ink evidence from my hand, I covered myself in my coat, shivered and began the practice I’d cite to Matthew repeatedly (and weakly) whenever he checked up on me over the next six hours: hanging tough.
David got the window seat on the way to Atlanta, the bastard.
We’d missed our connection, of course, but things actually began to look up at this point. They put us on the next jet to Mobile–only an hour and a half behind–and meanwhile I bravely consumed a Sprite and four peanut butter crackers. I didn’t actually think I was going to get on the flight, as they waited until roughly every single passenger was on before assigning me a seat. As it turned out, though, that meant I got the window seat in the very first row of the plane.
Allow me to state, for the record, that flying up front–even on a one-hour flight, and especially when you’re slightly feverish–is a very weird thing. I think the stewardess spotted me as a first-time first-class passenger, though I can’t imagine how my ratty khakis and bewildered expression would have given me away. She was even courteous enough to help me stow my carry-ons, and to smile, and to get me a lemonade from the back when first-class passengers were supposed to get soft drinks. I believe I will love her until the day I die.
The fact that our luggage was actually in Mobile can only have been a huge mistake on the part of our airline. I fully expect to have the repercussions hit on our return trip, and it only remains to be seen whether we’ll accidentally be flown to Norway or just get sucked out through the toilet at 29,000 feet.
The three-hour nap David and I got at the hotel was up there with turkey sandwiches as the best thing. Ever.
We registered (David had problems), we ate (I had problems), we went back to the room to unpack our snazzy borrowed laptops, and we arrived at the ballroom just in time for auditions to start.
Yes, This Is Still Going, I Warned You
Auditions were the most heinous display of “AC-ting!” I’d seen since I volunteered to time qualifier auditions, but there was promise here and there. I took notes like “sycophant elephant” and “you can’t kill a roach with a rolled-up newspaper” in hopes of inspiration, which were almost as helpful as they look. Finally, around 2330 hours (central!), they cleared the place out and told the chosen six of us to get to work.
It should be noted that we were all guys, and fate is cruel.
There has been plenty of “well it has been interesting!” content already, I think. The next seven and a half hours, though, take the proverbial cake as the longest stretch of time ever measured by human experience. Let’s recap: I had slept no longer than three hours at a stretch out of the last twenty-four; my digestive system had yet to even apologize for the things it had put me through; the only idea I had was for a zany cross-dressing comedy that involved a baseball cap and a wedding veil; and as I am me I was of course unable to get anything useful accomplished until way behind deadline.
After about five false starts, I finally started on something promising around 0100 hours; the first draft was due for a group read-through at 0300, but when that rolled around I had three pages out of a required ten, and no idea where I was going next with it. The waning half of the night followed a fairly standard cycle: I would write one line, stare at the screen, and get up to walk around for a while to wake up. I couldn’t recite much of the dialogue from my script if I tried, but let me tell you, I could find my way around the second floor blindfolded.
The scripts were due at 0700, and at 0600 I had six pages. By well-established Brendan habit, of course, I finally got down to work when it was clear I wasn’t going to make it, and at 0659 I was done and casting about desperately for a title. David (who had finished at like 0400, the bastard) gave me the nudge I needed, and at 0705 I was hand-numbering the pages of the finished product.
They gave us a break just long enough to lug our bags back to the hotel room, and at the final read-through with the directors I finally came up with a much better title, which I naturally made everybody write in on their own copies. It got a good response, and I got assigned a very funny director, and David and I finally got to go back and get four hours of sleep, and now I’m sitting here finishing the longest journal entry I have ever written before we go to dinner. The performances start at 2200, and even though my script has to go first I am looking forward to this more than I expected. My hands are off–it’s their baby now. And no matter what happens, it’s going to be fun.
That’s all.
Oh, unless you saw my other play and recognize that I recycled like an eco-bandit. In which case: shush.
I’m going to be on a plane very soon. This hasn’t quite settled in my brain yet. I love flying, probably because I get to do it so rarely–the last time I was in a plane was on my way back from Brazil, summer after senior year, when I was exhausted and homesick and weighing 120 pounds. That wasn’t the best flight, actually. But the way down, six weeks earlier, well… of the roughly fourteen hours we spent over ocean and rainforest and cloud, I’d say I spent at least thirteen just looking out the window.
I’m going to be crazy far behind in my classes when we get back late Sunday night, and I’m probably going to be bored once the sound and fury have settled down, and most everyone but Ian and I are going to be drinking heavily at night, and I’m going to miss the chance to copy edit for the paper this week (for which transgression someone has already beaten me severely). Even so, I’m looking forward to this. I keep getting asked if it’s a competition, but if it were I doubt I’d be going. We’re going to be half-killing ourselves just because it’s never been done before, and that gives me kind of shivers I imagine mountain climbers must get.
I need to figure out what books to bring, and also how the hell I’m going to get to the airport. Wish me luck.
