Monthly Archives: August 2009

It was a dark and stormy night…

I admit it. I love that opening line, tired and dragged out and rode-to-death as it is. Sue me, sue me, shoot arrows through me. But it’s also the first line of the round robin (very) short story we’re going to write; me, and yous — you game? Aw, come on.

There are several – many, actually – fine writers who read RtB on a (hopefully) somewhat regular basis. Ross has already guest-posted for us (any other takers?), and I know other good writers on a personal, face-to-face basis. You know who you are. Don’t make me name you.

Anyway, I’m interested to see what direction our little tale would go (although, knowing most of you, I have a clue). So let’s do it.

Rules of the Game

  1. Only add a few sentences at a time — but you can add on to the story as many different times as you like.
  2. Don’t click the “Reply” link. Just start a new comment altogether. That way, the story will read down the page, and we won’t nest ourselves into a 1-centimeter-wide column.
  3. The Fink gets the last line of the story. Because Kody will simply write, “Everyone died. The End.”

:P

When the tale is told, I’ll write The End and close the comments. Ready? I’ll start.

It was a dark and stormy night.

Too much undone

13 Replies

Boo hoo.

As I sit here drinking coffee and reading news, I realize that in 48 hours, I’ll be driving to school for my contract day — and there’s a whole lot I didn’t get done this summer.

I know — I’m fortunate to have a summer break at all (such as it was). That’s the upside of choosing a career that pays lower than any other in which a majority of the workforce possess graduate degrees. No ax to grind here; just sayin. Still, there was so much I wanted to accomplish, but didn’t. Behold the loose ends:

I Did Not…

  1. Replant the gardens
  2. Lose 15 lbs. (actually, over the last week, I’ve gained six – ugh)
  3. Totally rearrange my classroom
  4. Finish that arrangement of Say Hey (it’s almost done, however)
  5. Save more money for next summer’s vacations to Florida and Texas
  6. Get any choreography done for the fall musical
  7. Remodel the last of our three guest bedrooms
  8. Do the heavy spring cleaning I didn’t do back in April
  9. Get the air conditioning fixed on my truck
  10. Cook a bunch of meals and freeze them

Other than that, it was quite the productive summer.

Seriously though, the best part was getting to spend time with family — something I have not done for several years because of coursework. Feels good to be (almost) free of the “I’m a student” ball and chain. On 2 September, I start the last graduate course I will ever take, for as long as I live. That makes me happy.

I got really, really sidetracked last spring, but now I’m back on the horse, and for good. I’m “in it for the long haul,” as I’ve heard it said. La vida es buena.

So…why so serious? I shouldn’t worry about my list of undones, so I won’t. I’ll worry about yours. What all didn’t you pull the trigger on this summer?

Fink out (of vacation time).

If and how and where

8 Replies

If you wanted to disappear in this highly technological age, when almost anything and anyone can be found, how would you do it? Where would you go?

Well, first thing I’d do is ask Osama bin Laden for some expertise on the subject. Thasswhat I’d do. But since I wouldn’t actually be able to find him, I’d probably just experiment. Like Evan.

Evan Ratliff is a freelance writer who decided to test the system after writing a story for Wired on the guy in Arkansas who faked his own death and disappeared. But this time, there’s fun and cash involved for the searchers, as opposed to the escapee.

Wired has offered 5,000 semolians to the first person to Find Evan Ratliff. That is actually quite cool. It’s like a cross between The Amazing Race and Where’s Waldo? As the article explains, Evan disappeared and left his credit card and other personal, trackable information with someone at the magazine. Clues are given out on the site each day.

If I had the time and the ambition (both in reeeeeally short supply at the moment), I’d get my sleuth on and try to participate. Sounds like fun.

But so does a nap. *yawn*

Fink out. (You’re yawning right now, aren’t you.)

RNF XXV

15 Replies

Random Neuron Firings

I did not know there has been a tiger shelter operating in my town for the last 10 years. Odd.

Good Monday to you – I hope your weekend was delightful! Before I get to my day, which largely consists of being chained to this box, updating tour accounts, some RNFs:

So yeah, Mad Men. What a great opening episode last night. Full of symbolic dialogue and images (as usual), with a couple of surprises thrown in.

One of my favorite characters in the show is Sal, the closeted gay art director: completely Manhattan-Italian-hip, smooth, debonair, and hopelessly unhappy and repressed (read: married). He represents to me the whole of the cast — a bunch of upwardly-mobile, complicated, successful people, trying desperately to be someone else at all costs. It’s a fascinating look at human nature. I luv it.

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

The Thriller officially starts his graduate education today. From 9 until 2, he’s at the seminary for orientation for the Licensed Clinical Counselor program. I am excited for him! Here he is, just before leaving this morning. I had to take a picture, you know, like your mom did when you left for your first day of school.

All he’s missing is the backpack and the lunch.

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

Off to my day at the box. Stuck doing update work. Boring, but at least I’m air-conditioned. (Nasty hot/humid today.)

FO

Photo credit: AMC

Cuts both ways

11 Replies

It’s no secret to my family and friends that I possess slightly more than a passing interest in the Beatles, to include their history, their influence on popular culture, what inspired them, and the occasional darkness that fed their collective genius.

However, this decades-long quest has also revealed some uncomfortable truths about them. Shouldn’t surprise me; everyone has their unlovely side. But John Lennon’s was of such an unappealing variety (to me, anyway), I have trouble reconciling my scream-till-I’m-hoarse, gaga teenage dreamy picture of him with the man he actually was. Unfair of me, really.

Quite possibly the most compendious — and most difficult to prosaically read — of any Lennon book I’ve read has to be the latest from Philip Norman: John Lennon: The Life.

[This was one of the best pictures ever taken of him. Home run on the cover, Phil.]

I’m about two-thirds through the book. It’s a fascinating, yet difficult, read. Very heavy, stodgy British writing. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. It’s just a different way of telling a tale and I’ve had to get accustomed to it. The double edge lies in the recounting of the ease with which Lennon dealt out cruelty to the people who loved him the most: his wife Cynthia, his son Julian, his manager (and secret admirer) Brian Epstein, and his close friends.

He could be at one moment compassionate, giving and kind, and at another, unmercifully vicious. He often berated his closest friends, insulting and humiliating them in public. Epstein was the recipient of many of Lennon’s one-line zingers, and he habitually absorbed them with silence and compliance. When Brian made a rare suggestion in the studio one day, John snapped back at the crowded control room with, “We’ll handle the music, Brian. You just worry about your 10 percent.” He incessantly and openly mocked Epstein for being a Jew and a homosexual.

Explosive and reactionary, he was heard to tell 5-year-old Julian, “No, I’m not going to fix your f*****g bicycle!”

He also had a bizarre need to make fun of the physically and mentally handicapped. Old TV footage bears this out. I have often seen him on film, pretending to be crippled or making faces that suggest he is a palsy victim. I have countless pictures in scads of books that show it as well. Bizarre. Traceable in cause and nature, but still bizarre.

The man was human. I’m not indicting him for being a) an insecure artist, b) something other than an angel, or c) a product of his environment and upbringing, which we all are. I’m not indicting him at all, actually. I’m just stewing in my kettle of realization that our idols put on their socks the same way we do. And that we’re all paradoxical in our own fashion. It’s all good.