No News is Good News at Jordan's Room

Patrick and Molly and all the small posters...

2010-05-19T00:08:00.000-07:00

Patrick and Molly.........porcupine (EP.12)

2010-04-22T22:16:00.000-07:00

Molly abandons Patrick. Patrick retaliates.

Patrick and Molly.........meteroid (EP.11)

2010-04-22T22:14:00.000-07:00

Molly gets her hands dirty.

Patrick and Molly.........nudie photos (EP.10)

2010-04-07T16:49:00.000-07:00

This week, Patrick flexes his creative muscle.

Debbie-Duz

2010-04-05T22:17:00.000-07:00

She is the Debbie-Duz.

The Debbie-Duz dishes.

The Debbie-Duz dirty laundry.

The Debbie-Duz dinner.

What else does the Debbie-Do? All this and more to be answered soon...

In high school all of my friends got excited about the weekends because it was free time to go out and drink and party. I wasn't into that whole scene. I got my rocks off staying up late, alone. I'd make Rice-a-Roni and coffee. I'd dump some frozen corn into the rice, dump some vanilla into the coffee, cover the roni in too much soy sauce and plant myself down on the couch.

Around 2am the parties would start wrapping up and people would begin finding their way home, back to their beds and spinning rooms......but my night was just starting. I would've just finished the first film in a double feature on USA Up All Night and would spend the next two hours flipping between Ronda or Gilbert Godfriend and a struggling actor X trying to sell me products that I knew I'd need once I moved out on my own. The infomercial. The Egg-Wow. The Sham-Wow. The Magic Bullet. The Snuggie. These are all inventions of the last few years, but have been preceded by the things that my dreams are made of.

Long story short - I made a parody infomercial and what follows are the photos from the shoot.

This is Sean Murphy, our A cam operator. Look at me just staring at that enormous towering inferno of hair.

Sean says, "I think we gotta shoot it from this angle. The light looks so good and I can get the camera at such a better angle - this counter is really busting my balls - what are your thoughts?"

Inside my head, where only I can hear, I say, "Look at that frigging sweet hair. It's so incredible, so....TALL. I wonder if it's soft. It's like he's LITERALLY growing cotton from his scalp. I'm so jeal -" internal monologue is cut short as I realize Sean is staring at me, waiting for me to answer a question.

Cue Jonathan Mariande.

I remember the first time I hung out with this guy. He shows up at our house for headshots via Jade. Dude presents himself in a nice sports coat and I'm thinking that he out classes me by about 30 experience points BUT THEN he says, "Do you mind?"

He reaches into his coat pocket and pulls out two little sample bottles of Jack Daniels. He twists them open, slams them both in quick succession and says, "Let's do this".

I knew immediately that I had misjudged him.

Everyone has one question that they're constantly asking themselves. "Am I a good enough person?" "Will I find success at my new job?" "Does this girl like me?" The question my brother-in-law Jarod (pictured below, back and center) is forever being forced to ask himself is, "Why does my family keep giving me such horrible nicknames? Why do they call me Rodney, Rod, Hotrod and, most recently, J.T. Penney?"

...The world may never know.........REGARDLESS, he was in town over his spring break, visiting the missus and myself and was able to help us out with a few shots.

Here he is playing an imaginary game of poker with a very real Jonathan and a very tattooed Jeremy Thompson. Jeremy MF Thompson (it does not stand for Mommy Friendly) is Sean Murphy's right hand man and was operating B cam. JMFT is also a director. Here's a little video he recently did with Sean called, "Drinking Year Round".

Check it out if you get a minute.

http://vimeo.com/9928740

We had a rotisserie chicken on set. I needed it for two shots. We do the first shot and I tell Jade to put it in the fridge. A few hours later I tell Jade to fetch the chicken for its' second shot - Jarod eating it. The words are barely out of my mouth when Pat Murphy - Sean's brother and the home owner - looks at me and says, totally straight faced, "Dude, I ate that thing. Was it in the fridge? Yeah, I ate that thing. I thought you were done with it....and you know what? I don't even feel sorry. It was so good."

And with that he walked away.

We use cereal and toast for the shot instead.

Dan Lassen - in the middle - is some sort of world class fighter and professional stuntman. Half this, half that, he's a total mystery to me and 99% genius.

Jade came home the other day and said, "Dan was doing one-armed pull-ups with cinder blocks (plural) chained to his feet at the office."

He's definitely got some aces up his sleeve. He told me a story about how he threw a man to the ground and was preparing to stomp on his throat when he decided to show mercy.

FINISH HIM!!!

FATALITY!!!

Below, Jeremy Thompson demonstrates that sexy and creepy are sometimes interchangeable.

Sean showing me something. Me looking at the reflection of his hair in the camera screen. Personally I think Sean wears his hair so tall so he can get on certain rides at the fair...

I put the blanket on Dan and he says, "The window is open," and I say, "Yeah?" and he says, "Well, this guy - this guy I'm playing - he must have one serious attitude problem. I mean, the window is open and he's cold. He doesn't close the window. He gets a blanket and leaves the window open. He's got an obvious attitude and maybe even a few screws loose, huh?"

The beautiful Raphye Alexius pretending to be the real life girlfriend of Jonathan Mariande. in real life, Raphye is not the girlfriend of Jonathan. She is the real girlfriend of the real Sean Murphy.

Raphye is a photographer but used to deliver pizzas. One day a lady tipped her poorly and Raphye casually explained to her the importance of good tipping. The lady complained. Raphye was fired.

I don't know Raphye very well but that story made me like her instantly and that, friend of friends, is a truth.

Angelina Butera sends Jarod through make-up. Angelina did our make-up for Patrick and Molly and has also helped Jade on some headshot work.

She has a boat.

I tell Jarod it's not faggy to have make-up on for a movie. I tell him it's only faggy if the movie is Brokeback Mountain.

I say the word "faggy" twice more in my head and try to decide if I'd be offended by it if I were more faggy myself.

I finally decide that my brother-in-law calling me Eunice as a nickname for me being a eunich post cancer does not offend me and thus confirms my suspicions that faggy people are okay with their eponymous term.

Jarod's inner monologue: "I'm not an actor. I'm not an actor. What am I doing here? I'm going to blow this. I'm going to blow this whole thing. Be cool. Be cool. Be cool."

Sean, "The sun looks good here. Let's do this. Oh, and by the way, my fingertips smell delicious."

My inner monologue: "They both have stunning hair. I'm surrounded by people with full and luscious heads of hair. Why does my beard look like somebody Elmer glued pubes to my face?

I have nothing catchy or funny to say about the following photo.

I have no anecdotes.

I have no stories.

I have no captions.

It's just boat ownin' Angelina adjusting Debbie-Duz and Sean shooting it.

For the most part everything went really well. Sean and Jeremy locked everything up on set and Jade was awesome as usual pulling the strings behind the curtain.

Me?

I'm given just enough rope to hang myself with.

If you've haven't subscribed to our YouTube channel yet, come on over and check it out. We are username: JordansRoom. On our channel we have all of our (so far) Patrick and Molly episodes (with six more unreleased) all of our Easter promo videos, our short and ugly series and soon-soon-just-like-a-baboon, Debbie-Duz will be joining the ranks of the mediocre elite.

In the meantime I'll leave you with this little gem. It's both predictable and ridiculous but those two things are often my favorite traits in both movies and people.

Patrick and Molly.........dreams (EP.9)

2010-03-30T09:34:00.000-07:00

PATRICK AND MOLLY ARE FINALLY BACK!!!

In this episode, the couple share their dreams...

Written and Directed by John Brookbank
Produced by Jade Brookbank
Shot by Matt Wafaie

Featuring Ryan Reyes and Nellie Barnett

EGG HEADS

2010-03-23T23:15:00.000-07:00

FINAL WARNING!!!!

Easter @ Oasis is April 4. Oasis church is located at 5100 Wilshire Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90036 (between Highland and La Brea)

BROWN BUNNY

2010-03-15T23:12:00.000-07:00

A few buddies and I were asked to make some Easter promo videos for the church we attend. This is the second in a series of three.

Easter @ Oasis is April 4. Oasis church is located at 5100 Wilshire Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90036 (between Highland and La Brea)

PEEP ARMY

2010-03-15T23:10:00.000-07:00

A few buddies and I were asked to make some Easter promo videos for the church we attend. This is the first in a series of three.

Easter @ Oasis is April 4. Oasis church is located at 5100 Wilshire Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90036 (between Highland and La Brea)

Death and Taxes

2010-02-23T12:33:00.000-08:00

I was recently given the opportunity to speak at my church regarding my experience with cancer and and how my wife and I survived the financial onslaught of $65,000 worth of medical bills.

Behold my beautiful face...

THINGS MY NEIGHBOR MILLY SAYS

2010-02-20T13:07:00.001-08:00

That's stupid. Why are you so stupid? You're stupid. Why are you walking away?

THINGS MY NEIGHBOR MILLY SAYS

2010-02-18T23:37:00.001-08:00

Do you know what I'm saying or am I just on a meatball high?

THINGS MY NEIGHBOR MILLY SAYS

2010-02-18T23:36:00.000-08:00

Trust me, YOU are the stupid one here.

Patrick and Molly and all the small things.........make-a-wish

2010-02-14T21:43:00.000-08:00

We are now unofficially halfway through the season. Get ready for seven more episodes that are way better than this one!

FOR MORE PATRICK AND MOLLY VISIT:

WWW.Youtube.com/JordansRoom

THINGS MY NEIGHBOR MILLY SAYS

2010-02-14T21:42:00.000-08:00

ME: It's interesting how Pagan traditions have influenced modern day holidays.

MILLY: Like Easter.

ME: And Christmas.

MILLY: And New Years.

ME: What do you mean?

MILLY: The ball dropping...

THINGS MY NEIGHBOR MILLY SAYS

2010-02-14T21:41:00.000-08:00

Hey, someone ran over some dog shit. Heh. Heh. Heh.

THINGS MY NEIGHBOR MILLY SAYS

2010-02-14T11:31:00.000-08:00

(Talking to one of her many cats)

You smell like piss...Don't lick your ass while I'm talking to you!

THINGS MY NEIGHBOR MILLY SAYS

2010-02-10T16:51:00.000-08:00

Before you adopt you really have to ask yourself if you're ready for the responsibility of raising a colored child.

THINGS MY NEIGHBOR MILLY SAYS

2010-02-09T21:36:00.001-08:00

If I wanted my kids to write in ebonics, I'd have the neighbors teach them.

THINGS MY NEIGHBOR MILLY SAYS

2010-02-09T21:35:00.001-08:00

That monkey is ugly.

Patrick and Molly.........hairspray

2010-02-01T08:11:00.000-08:00

Patrick takes one for the team.

FOR MORE EPISODES, VISIT www.YouTube.com/JordansRoom

THINGS MY NEIGHBOR MILLY SAYS

2010-01-31T18:45:00.001-08:00

Sour Patch Kids are still relevant today.

THINGS MY NEIGHBOR MILLY SAYS

2010-01-27T21:57:00.000-08:00

Stepped outside to take the trash out today and heard Milly speaking to her mother on the phone....

"I don't care, Mom. I don't want Grandma sticking tubes in my kids' butt!......NO! SHE'S ENEMA CRAZY!!!!"

Patrick and Molly and all the small things.........big ass

2010-01-24T22:40:00.000-08:00

EPISODE 6 OF PATRICK AND MOLLY FEATURES A SPECIAL GUEST APPEARANCE BY MARIO OF SUPER MARIO BROTHERS FAME!!!

FOR MORE EPISODES, YOUTUBE SEARCH "PATRICK AND MOLLY" OR FOLLOW THIS LINK:

WWW.YOUTUBE.COM/JORDANSROOM

THINGS MY NEIGHBOR MILLY SAYS

2010-01-24T22:39:00.000-08:00

MILLY: I want something sweet.

ME: I've got some Butterfinger ice cream inside.

MILLY: I don't like Butterfingers. I'm not Bart Simpson.

THINGS MY NEIGHBOR MILLY SAYS

2010-01-19T12:29:00.000-08:00

AH-CHOO!...ug....you know you're getting old when you pee your pants when you sneeze...

Patrick and Molly and all the small things.........broken laptop

2010-01-18T08:33:00.001-08:00

START YOUR WEEK OFF WRONG WITH THE HIGHLY UNANTICIPATED FIFTH INSTALLMENT OF PATRICK AND MOLLY!

FOR MORE EPISODES YOUTUBE SEACH "PATRICK AND MOLLY" OR JUST SCROLL DOWN AND SEARCH AROUND ON THIS UNFORTUNATE BLOG!!!

THINGS MY NEIGHBOR MILLY SAYS

2010-01-15T16:49:00.000-08:00

ME: Hey Milly, I'll be right back, I've gotta run to the bathroom.

MILLY: Pee or poop?

SPEC SPOT

2010-01-11T00:50:00.000-08:00

Just wrapped up post on another spec spot.

Feast your eyes on it.

Souldier

2010-01-04T00:10:00.001-08:00

Just finished directing this spec spot for a Chicago based company that makes custom guitar straps, belts, camera straps, etc.

For more of our videos, check out and subscribe to:

www.youtube.com/user/jordansroom

For Souldier's site, check out:

www.Souldier.us

Until next week.....

Patrick and Molly.........i love ewe

2009-12-28T08:37:00.000-08:00

Start your week off wrong with Patrick and Molly and all the small things...

For more episodes, visit our channel:

http://www.youtube.com/user/jordansroom

THINGS MY NEIGHBOR MILLY SAYS

2009-12-27T13:59:00.001-08:00

I wonder if I could knit with chopsticks...

Patrick and Molly and all the small things.........secrets

2009-12-23T17:29:00.000-08:00

Patrick tells a secret.

Hobotus Hobitual

2009-12-23T15:11:00.001-08:00

Master Chief and I went on an excursion to Chipotle's Mexican grill today. Now, as far as Latino establishments go, this one is livin' la vida loca. Generally, when arriving at this particular eatery in this particular part of town the line is up the butt backed to the door, usually by lots of little Asians and, if you know Asians, you know that they're tiny and you can fit lots of them into small areas. This was not the case today. Today we walked in and went right to the front where only four people stood, two of which were a pair of sexless hobos that seemed to have made quite a nice living for themselves as they were plumper than the Thanksgiving turkeys that they undoubtedly missed out on. I am forever interested in the homeless and can usually be found reading a book on their species. Finding two of them together INSIDE a civilized establishment was like stumbling upon a hummingbird in your backyard garden - you want to just hold a safe distance and appreciate it's beauty. Get too close and it darts.

This last part, unfortunately turned out to be too true. I'll call it "The Female" only so we can separate them one from another but understand that to say this was a woman was like trying to decide the sex of a charging rhino.

"The man" attempted to follow his "mate" but seemed confused and disoriented. He kept mumbling incoherently to himself, "Gotta do dat....scuzie me...movin' on out...gotta eat...less you wanna buy me sumpin'...some lunch....gotta eat..."

I have a little experience with this genus of animal and knew mostly what to do from my textbook research. I was excited about this opportunity to test my smarts out in a real life situation. I moved slowly and tried not to make the initial eye contact. As it shuffled past me I heard it say something about purchasing it lunch. I immediately leapt through the doorway that had opened for me and blurted out, perhaps with a little too much gusto, "Yes. Yes, I'll buy you lunch". It stopped and watched it's wife / life partner disappear out the door without saying another word to her / it. The strange things about the Hobotus Hobitual species is that they are monogamous creatures by nature but when food is involved it becomes a free for all. In this sense they are very similar to the hamster clan.
This particular hobo spoke some brand of broken English so we (myself and my wife / science partner) were able to communicate with it. It said, "I'm homeless....pretty hungry...." I asked, perhaps a little foolishly, "Where do you live?" and as soon as it was out of my mouth I felt sheepish, although, now that I'd laid it out, I was very excited for his response. I wondered if there were hobo hot spots and clubs I'd driven past a million times and had never noticed. Would he let me in on the secrets of his almost mythical subculture? "Have you ever seen that bridge down First?" I imagined him saying, "We have a small town under it. It's called Hobbiton. There are about two hundred of us. Our economy is booming". I wiggled my eyebrows in anticipation, began grinding my teeth in excitement. I looked at Jade and she seemed to be inching away from it, possibly afraid that it might suddenly lash out and maul her face or try to bite her. She's heard stories about them sweeping wallets from your hand and shouting frightening obscenities.

The hobo spoke and it said, "I ain't got no home...I'm homeless...and I ain't got no shoes". It looked down at it's feet and I followed it's gaze to two gray socks with surprisingly few holes in them and then, as if waiting for approval, he wiggled his toes. I locked eyes with it again and asked, "Where are your shoes?" and again I was hoping for a tale of desperation and addiction, "You see, I wanted to keep them but I had to give them to Maurice because I needed a hit". No. Nothing like this. He tells me, "They're in the bathroom," and then he points to the Chipotle's bathroom. I wonder WHICH bathroom they are in (male or female) before I say, "What are they doing in the bathroom?" and he says, "Will you go get them for me?" and without hesitating I say, "No. You should go get your own shoes." I'm hoping this will send it towards the bathroom and I can use this to discover it's hidden sex. It mumbles something and then says that it's got to get to Lancaster. It actually says, "I need...I need to get down Lancaster....somehow...."and then it's eyes meet mine again and I understand that it's asking for a ride. I don't comply on purpose. Instead I say, "oh yeah?" and then shrug but it persists. It says, "I need a ride...down to Lancaster...got family...you wanna give me a ride?" and I say, without hesitation, "No," and then, speaking up, piping up from behind the scenes, coming in to save the day, Jade says, "BUT WE'LL BUY YA LUNCH, FELLA!"

The bum mumbles something, asks for a couple dollars, at which I shake my head and then it turns and leaves, following in the track of it's life mate, without shoes or burrito.
Jade and I sat down, ate lunch until we had to loosen our belts and then exited back into the strip mall cluttered with people staying in town for the holidays. As we made our way back towards the parking structure, we saw "the female" heading into a Coldstone Creamery and I couldn't help but wonder if she'd ever cross paths with her partner again.

Interview Correspondance

2009-12-14T17:45:00.000-08:00

I regularly seek editing jobs on a classified website called Mandy.com

I found a particularly enticing piece and decided to apply for it. My contact was a person named Csprinkle@email.com.

Here is my cover letter:

Hello Csprinkle,
Is your last name really Sprinkle? I am jealous of your last name. I wish MY last name was Sprinkle. It's not. My last name is Brookbank. People often say "Bookbag", "Brokeback", "Brookbrag" and the like. People also have a really difficult time spelling it.

Came across your job listing on Mandy and thought I'd send over a link to my online reel:

www.JohnBrookbank.com

Hope to hear back from you,
John Brookbank

Here is the letter I received back today:

John,

The rate is $***/week, but it comes with very nice benefits and could last indefinitely. If you're still interested, are you available to come in on Wednesday at 10:30am?

And yes, my last name is really Sprinkle. I have to admit I am mostly having you come in because you had the audacity to write such a bizarre cover letter. Needless to say, it was memorable.

Patrick and Molly and all the small things.........testosteroni

2009-12-14T00:14:00.000-08:00

Patrick takes his vitamins.

THINGS MY NEIGHBOR MILLY SAYS

2009-12-13T20:51:00.001-08:00

Does my coat smell like sweat?

Patrick and Molly and all the small things.........werewolves

2009-12-07T22:53:00.000-08:00

Every Monday start your week off wrong with Patrick and Molly and all the smalls things.

THINGS MY NEIGHBOR MILLY SAYS

2009-12-05T21:55:00.000-08:00

ME: Hey, Milly. You like my new sunglasses?"

MILLY: I actually hate the way you dress.

THINGS MY NEIGHBOR MILLY SAYS

2009-12-03T17:50:00.001-08:00

I just burped up some chili.

THINGS MY NEIGHBOR MILLY SAYS

2009-11-28T13:26:00.001-08:00

I think I could be a really attractive man.

THINGS MY NEIGHBOR MILLY SAYS

2009-11-25T20:18:00.000-08:00

Today Milly shouted at me from her apartment window. Since she doesn't own a computer I can only assume she was writing a letter or a book.

MILLY: How do you spell "shucks"?

ME: S-H-U-C-K-S

MILLY: How do you spell "awe"

ME: A-W-E if you're in awe or A-H-H-H-H-H with an exclamation point if you're screaming.

MILLY: How do you spell "Swayze"?

ME: Swayze? Like Patrick Swayze? S-W-A-Y-Z-E

MILLY: How do you spell "hidey-ho"?

ME: What are you doing?

Milly promptly shut her blinds.

THINGS MY NEIGHBOR MILLY SAYS

2009-11-25T16:55:00.000-08:00

There was a little lizard in my kitchen......a lizard or a baby alligator.

THINGS MY NEIGHBOR MILLY SAYS

2009-11-24T09:53:00.000-08:00

You should never trust me.......I'm shady.

THINGS MY NEIGHBOR MILLY SAYS

2009-11-22T13:58:00.001-08:00

I don't say bad things about ethnic people.

THINGS MY NEIGHBOR MILLY SAYS

2009-11-22T10:20:00.001-08:00

Can I borrow your fire pit? My garbage can is full and I need to burn some of my trash...

THINGS MY NEIGHBOR MILLY SAYS

2009-11-22T10:18:00.000-08:00

You look just like that lumbering retard from the back.

THINGS MY NEIGHBOR MILLY SAYS

2009-11-15T13:52:00.000-08:00

I've never had a manicure. Why would I pay a hundred dollars to have some Asian lady cut my toenails when I can bite them off for free?

THINGS MY NEIGHBOR MILLY SAYS

2009-11-15T11:34:00.000-08:00

Is that bum sunbathing?

THINGS MY NEIGHBOR MILLY SAYS

2009-11-12T01:35:00.000-08:00

I'm goin' psycho. Like psycho-psycho.

THINGS MY NEIGHBOR MILLY SAYS

2009-11-12T01:33:00.000-08:00

MILLY: What are those desks called?

ME: Desks.

MILLY: The ones you had in elementary school?

ME: Desks.

MILLY: The ones with the chairs?

ME: Desks.

THINGS MY NEIGHBOR MILLY SAYS

2009-11-04T14:47:00.001-08:00

I don't eat at Taco Bell. I don't eat anything from third world countries.

THINGS MY NEIGHBOR MILLY SAYS

2009-11-01T23:19:00.001-08:00

ME: "Hey, Milly, if you had Siamese twins would you separate them?"

MILLY: "I'd probably abort them."

THINGS MY NEIGHBOR MILLY SAYS

2009-11-01T18:43:00.001-08:00

"Drive faster. You just got passed by a Chinese grandpa."

THINGS MY NEIGHBOR MILLY SAYS

2009-11-01T18:42:00.001-08:00

"I hate my house, it's just walls."

We're back, back, like a heart attack

2009-10-09T09:28:00.000-07:00

LA, Tuba City, Denver, Ft. Collins, Severance, Sioux City, Sioux Falls, Mitchell, Billings, Butte, Death Valley, LA.

You know when old people take out the photo album and show you their trip? We're about to spend the next few blogs doing just that.

Stay tuned.

T minus five seconds to take off!

T minus four - WAIT! I fogetted my seatbelt!

Gwavity bad!!!

MY FACE FEEL FUNNY!

AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

Pistol Pete and all his famous friends

2009-10-07T14:08:00.001-07:00

There are three types of people that attend film school. They are, in no particular order, A.) Legitimate artists and filmmakers, skilled and serious about their craft. B.) Kids who want to make movies but lack any sort of creative intellect and finally, C.) The recently graduated who didn't want to join the military. Pistol Pete was of the latter.

I'd been living in the dorms / converted air force barracks for roughly a year and a half and was feeling morose about seeing my time there coming to such an abrupt end. The CCA populous was a motley crew, not by choice but just by nature. We were atoms reacting and responding to one another, the island of misfit toys, broken and stupid and usually drunk. Jones was of Korean descent and his mother spoke no English. Having been born and raised in The States he spoke no Korean. At home and at Christmas he would sign to his mother, "going to bed", "I'm hungry" and "goodbye". Pink was a heavy kid from somewhere in northern Colorado and had been raised in a coal mine. Every summer, when school would end, he'd sadly crawl into his mom's car and drive back to The Black Lung where he would spend his days in a dark cave, slamming a pick ax into the ground, a little flashlight helmut covering his head. Self proclaimed "Uncle Stevie" was dabbling in alcoholism and could be found at any given moment tumbling through the halls or picking cigarette butts from the outdoor ashtrays. He had a girlfriend of Greek descent named Roxy who's father was on the Olympic weightlifting team once upon a time. Lauren looked like the third Olsen twin and was bisexual. This meant she could have had any guy in the place of her choosing and with a 10 to 1 male / female ratio, the battle was on. She was raw meat thrown to the vultures. Some of us would have stood a chance had we not all been jobless, carless, drunks; something we quickly discovered women considered to be negative attributes.

For Thanksgiving, Jade and I invited Lauren to spend the holidays in the mountains with ourselves and the parental units. She complied and I would bet that any guy in the building would have given his left nut to have been in my position. I was excited to see who Lauren was outside of the big crowd, who she was face to face. So far I had just seen her as the pornography crazed, pierced clitori aficionado. When there was no one to impress would she be intelligent? Tasteful? Taciturn? Upon arrival on the mountain top the three of us partook in a jolly good snowball fight. Jade was snapping photos of us during our playful rendezvous while Lauren kept removing pieces of her outer garments, complaining about the heat. Although there was snow on the ground, it was a warm winter, but that was the least of my concerns. My girlfriend had a camera. This hot bisexual was removing her coat, hat, mittens.....no....leave the mittens on you......bad girl.......I was sure I'd seen adult films begin this way. Sadly, before I could begin segueing the conversation towards pinker territory, we were called in by Jade's mom for dinner.

We eat turkey and we eat cranberries and we eat stuffing and we eat pumpkin pie and afterwards we all retire to our bedrooms, wishing we were dead, our poor bellies bloated to Ripley's Believe it or Not proportions. As I lie in bed, reading a book, Lauren pokes her head into the room. I act casual. I act like I don't have a plan up my sleeve involving her touching my girlfriend's boobs. "Howdy". She smiles and says, "Is there a bathroom up here?" and I say, "er.....yeah.....right down the - down the hall," and she disappears for I don't know how long. I actually lose track of time she's been in there for such a lengthy period. I read a chapter, I read a second chapter, I'm well into my third chapter (20? 30 pages later?) when I hear the door open and remember that I'd forgotten that she had excused herself. I pretend not to notice the squeaky hinges and her gentle footsteps down the hall. She's only human and we ALL ate a pretty hefty meal. Sometimes you gotta drop the deuce and it's all very natural and that's just fine but I try not to picture it, her, doing it. While not trying to picture it, I picture it. She sits squarely on the toilet, her knees bent just slightly in towards one another, her tight jeans and red thong in a little bunch around her ankles. It's actually sort of a cute image in a very strange way until I imagine her gripping the sink, gripping the shower door, a towel pinched between her teeth, her face as red as her thong as she tries not to scream through her butt birth. I try to shake the image away but only manage to burn it further into my mind. Lauren peaks her head into my room just as I'm rubbing my eyes, scratching the vision from my retinas. "Hey," she says and I try to play it cool, extra cool, super cool, "hey", I say. Jade walks into the room and sits down on the bed. Lauren says, "we should get a plunger in that bathroom. There's no plunger. I just.....hahaha, I just clogged up the toilet BIG TIME and couldn't figure out how to flush it down so I just used my hands to sort it out," and I stare at her, the image in my mind changing, morphing to one of Lauren on her knees, her pants and thong still pushed down around her ankles. She's bent over the toilet and covered in sweat. She's elbow deep in her own muck and she wipes her perspiration from her brow with her forearm. I pray to God that he gives me the old image back, the clutching, straining one. Anything for this. My kingdom for a new memory! Jade laughs and asks her why she didn't just ask for a plunger and Lauren pauses, stares at us as if we're mad and says, "How embarrassing would THAT be". Brains and beauty. You rarely get both.

The next day we all go to a movie, something called Time Line or Time Zone. It's starring, who my girlfriends refers to as, "The Dreamy Paul Walker". The four of us (Jade, Jade's mom, Lauren and myself) get two bags of popcorn and share, two for two. Lauren sits down next to me and at first, nothing registers. The alarms are not yet going off, not yet screaming. I reach my hand into the buttery brown bag and pull out some fluffy, golden kernels and shove them in my mouth. On the screen Paul Walker says something dreamy. Lauren smiles and I turn to look at her, instinctively. It is then that I notice her shoulder, her arm, her hand. It's stretched across the seat, hovering inches above my man dong, stuffed in the bag of popcorn. She is gripping and grabbing at pieces of the stuff, hungry for it's salty goodness. She pulls her hand from the bag and shoves a fistful of the good stuff in her mouth, campaigning to fit every morsel and tidbit of Mr. Reddenbacher into her gab. When she goes back for more it is then that I realize, licking my fingers, covered in popcorn juices, a handful of the tainted stuff already in my mouth, that she is digging through my movie treats with the same hands that she was, just yesterday, digging through her own dukey like some troubled chimp. Surely she washed her hands. Surely she washed them twice right after the incident and a few times since then, but still, there is principal. I am, what some would consider, a germiphobe. In high school I washed my hands so frequently and so repeatedly that they actually began to chafe and peel, raw and red. I flush toilets with my sneaker and I never ever under ANY circumstance touch a door handle that is not in my own home. If food drops on the floor, it is out. No five second rule. No ten second rule. There is only the It's-On-The-Floor-And-Is-Now-Garbage Rule. My mouth filled with flying fecal matter, I grimace, try to hold back the gag, roll my tongue away from the mush and just try to force it down the hole in my throat without making a scene. Through the rest of the movie I continue to hold the bag of popcorn and I continue to pretend to eat the popcorn but I do not touch the popcorn. Instead I just reach into the bag, grabbing imaginary handfuls and shoving them falsely into my mouth. Lauren finishes the bag alone.

Outside, after the film, we're all crawling into the suburban, taking part in the time honored tradition of reviewing the movie. Mostly it was good, we all agree, but sometimes it was bad and we all agree on that and Lauren is about to say something when, instead of a word, a burp comes out and then she covers her mouth and then she heaves and vomit comes out and it is mostly all yellow popcorn that resembles creamed corn. It spills through her fingers and into her lap and I have to reach across her, open the door and let her out. She drops her hands and the mess spills everywhere, splattering over her pink sneakers. She heaves, once, twice, three times and buckets of mucous and bile and golden barf slip past her lips, lips that have kissed both sexes' organs and I will never think of Lauren the same way again. She gets back in the car and says, "I'm better now," and we drive off.

Lauren is strange and Jones is strange and Pink is strange and Eric, who tries growing mold on Starburst candies because he heard you can smoke it, is strange. But through all this, through all these people, none are as strange as the aforementioned Pistol Pete. The first day he shows up he enthusiastically introduces himself with the line we will all become familiar with, "Hey. I'm Pistol Pete. I rap. You wanna hear me spit a few rhymes......for you?" He would talk like this, sort of pausing out his words at strange intervals while his eyes seemed to look right through you. He had a head shaped like an egg and his peepers were big and round. Later on in life I would meet a girl who claimed that you should never trust a person upon whom you could see the tops of their irises. Most people, if you look them in the eyes, you'll just catch a hint of the bottom. The Crazies, The Whackos? The REAL ones? Not just the run-of-the-mill loonies but the Psychopaths (capital P) the ones who torture animals and burn themselves? It's on these guys that you'll see the tops of the irises. You'll stare them in the face, not quite sure what's wrong with their features but registering that something isn't quite right and then one day you'll come home and your dog will be skinned, still alive, wandering around your house with staples shot into it's face and you will find a note from your Oddly Irised Friend, written in their own blood and feces, scribbled roughly upon your ceiling.

Had I known The Iris Rule a few years earlier I may have been able to help him. I may have been able to help all of us. Pistol Pete's irises rested like fat dinner plates at the bottom of his sloping eye wells, the tops completely and utterly exposed, staring into you, wondering what your small intestine looked like. As far as crazy went, Pistol Pete took the taco grande.

He got his hands on some ecstasy a few weeks after he'd been on campus and, after taking a few tabs by himself, decided to sit on the front steps and accost the passing females. They would walk by him on their way to class or just meandering off to run errands and he'd say, "Yo yo yo! What's up! Hey, beautiful! C'mere - c'mere for a second.....". The girls would offer a single glance back before hustling it double time to their bicycles and automobiles. Another girl. "Yo yo yo! Hey, cutie! Hey there! Hey! C'mere! I just......wanna talk". The way he'd say, "wanna talk" made it sound like he meant "wanna rape" and I imagined him doing it more for the violent thrill and less for the physical release. When his gentle prodding towards conversation didn't work he moved onto what I'm sure he would call The Compliment. "Yo yo yo! Hey, you! Blondie! Yeah......you.....I like your hair. Hey! I said your hair is pretty!". And this is how I found him while heading to my camera tech class. He was slouched on the front steps, almost lying on them, one hand in his pocket, probably stroking his drugged out boner and his other hand propped behind his head. When he sees me he pops a cigarette in his mouth and says, "Yo yo yo! Justin! What's up!?" and I say, "did you just call me Justin?" and instead of answering the question he throws his attention to a girl who's walking by. "Yo yo yo! Hey! Hey you! Nice........" he seems to be struggling for something, ".........JEANS! Hey! I SAID YOU'VE GOT REALLY NICE JEANS!!!". When the girl doesn't respond he looks at me and says, "I don't know what is with these bitches. I sit out here complimenting them all damn day and they don't even SMILE at me. A SMILE! That's all I'm talkin'.........about." When I ask him what he's doing out here he tells me that's he's "rolling" and when I ask him what rolling means he looks at me, the podunk from South Dakota and says, "it means I ate some ecstasy. I'm rollin' on ecstasy. YO YO YO!!!" Another girl walks out and I move along to the school.

After class I find my girlfriend in the parking lot with Lauren, the too-cute, vomiting, toilet clogging, turd excavating bisexual. The three of us make our way slowly back towards the dorms, talking about uncircumcised men. I tell them that I knew a kid growing up who said he had to peel his foreskin back before he peed otherwise the urine was likely to spray around all willy-nilly like a sprinkler system. Just as I finish, what I'm sure the ladies consider to be a spellbinding anecdote, I notice Pistol Pete in the same position as he was two hours prior, still on the steps. A girl walks past him, entering back into the dorms, and he says, shouts, "Yo yo yo! What's your problem? I told you I liked your ass when you left and you just ignored me! Don't you know how to take a compliment?" When the girl walks inside, not acknowledging his presence, he mumbles under his breath, "bitch". When asked if he'd moved since I saw him last he just shakes his head. "Nah, I been out here scamming on hottites all day, but tell you what - these girls are some PRUDES". Another girl exits. "Hey. My name's Pistol Pete. I rap. You wanna hear - no, nothin'? Okay. Hey! Nice jeans! I LIKE YOUR JEANS! NICE FUCKING JEANS!". This was a man desperate for something. Perhaps sobriety. He watches the girl go and then notices the two females flanking me. He turns his attention to hire grounds, "Yo yo yo. What's up ladies?" Jade and Lauren both nod and mumble hellos. He says, "those are some nice jeans," and Lauren says "ooooh, thank you." She coos over his compliment and this is just a big mistake, egging him on like that, encouraging his behavior. He says, "you both have the most gorgeous.........blue eyes I have ever seen," and Lauren scrunches up her lips and says, "my eyes are green," and Jade says, "my eyes are hazel," and Pistol stares at them and says, "well shit, at least they ain't brown." I ruffle his hair and the three of us go inside.

The next time I see him is a few days later at the dinner table. He enters the cafeteria with noticeably more energy than when he was "rolling". Strolling across the large hall, glancing over his shoulder every few steps, he finally sits down next to me and stares into the back of my brain with those bizarre eyes and says, "I just took a couple to the noggin' and I am feelin' goooood". When I inquire about what he means he says he's just slammed three beers as fast as he could, in his room, alone. He cocks his head around, trying to see everyone at once. He leans into me and says, "This girl just crawled out of my tv.....just before dinner and I had sex with her. i did it all. When we were done she crawled back into the tv and I shut it off." I nod and take a drink of my milk. Pete straightens up and announces to those around him, "yo yo yo, I got some pills. Anyone wanna........buy some? They're......purple". I shake my head and take a bite out of my chicken sandwich, wondering just where it was that they bought this meat. It was delicious. Eric picks up his tray and says that he might want some. Pistol looks at him and says, "alright, Adam. I knew I could count on you".

A few days pass without incidence and then Pistol Pete is gone. He's nowhere to be found. Vanished. Two days, three days, a week passes. Some people notice and some people are thankful but mostly nobody cares. Around noon, between two of my classes I get a phone call. It's Pete. I ask him where he is and he hesitates to tell me. I ask him if he's in jail and he says, "not.......exactly". He says, "So my pops calls me the other day and asks me if he can come up, just wantsta, y'know, come by and chill. See where I'm at - all that. So I say okay and he comes by and he asks me if I want to get some ice cream and I say, 'hell YEAH I wanna get some ice cream' and when we leave he drives me to a crazy house and I TOTALLY didn't see that comin'". I ask him to repeat this last part. I say, "did you say you're in an asylum?" And he says, "yes. I didn't see it coming, either. BUT" he assures me, "don't worry. I'm in here with some really cool and famous people. Johnny Depp says hello," and then he hangs up, leaving me listening to a dial tone, wondering if I'm dreaming.

A month, a month and a half later, while Jade and I are watching an episode of Roseanne, my doorknob begins to shake violently, as though possessed by an angry spirit. After I pull the dead bolt and open the door I find Pistol standing on the other side. He stares into my soul with eyes like flying saucers visiting from other worlds and says, "man, why you lockin' your door?" I shrug and he enters and sees Jade. He punches his elbow into my side and says, "OH! I get it! Did I just, like, disturb you two? Were you just gettin' lucky?" Jade winces at his idiocy and I smile because she's uncomfortable. I say, "yeah, we were just foolin' around a little bit. Mostly just pinching each other's nipples but....you know how it is". Jade shakes her head and then laughs as Roseanne says something humorous in regards to dieting. Pete lifts up his hand and I see he's clutching a piece of white cloth in it. A security blanket? A Klan mask? The Shroud of Turin? It's hard to say with this kid. He tells me it's a gift. He tells me he's been working on it the whole time he's been away. He tells me I get it because I'm the only one that talked to him on the phone while he was gone. He undrapes the cloth and I see that it's a white t-shirt with words printed all over it. Upon closer examination I realize that they are all names. Famous names. Celebrity names. Pistol says, "It's signed by all the famous people I was in the nut house with. Here's Johnny Depp. Here's Robert DeNiro. Here's Tupac." I'm about to tell him that Tupac is dead when he says, "Here's God's signature. He signed it twice, just in case". I'm about to ask "just in case what?" when he twists the shirt around, revealing God's dual signature on front and back. He had not signed it as Yahweh or Jehova or Jesus. He merely printed the word GOD in a sloppy green scrawl, so unlike the tidy cursive I imagined him to have.

As I stared at the shirt, debating how much I could sell this for on Ebay, I began to wonder if A.) Pistol believed these people to be famous, B.) these people believed themselves to be famous or C.) Pete had actually just scribbled different names down on a shirt in different handwritings. I was sure that the only person who knew would certainly never tell. I look up from the shirt to find his bulging, multi-dimensional eyes staring at me, surely sucking the life essence out of me. He seems hungry for approval so I say, "this is VERY cool. This is.....this is actually pretty unbelievable that you.......got these........so were all these famous people just sitting in there with you or what?" and he looks at me, very serious, and says, "Listen, Justin. I know your secret. I know you're famous. I know that everyone in this place is a famous person and that you're all pretending to be normal people so you can escape the limelight. I know your girlfriend is Kate Winslet and that her fake name is Jade. I know that John Goodman lives right down the hall and I KNOW, I KNOW, that Eminem is in room 104. I've already spoken with him and he's going to help me get a record deal". I stare at him and nod and I am suddenly starting to see the true boundaries of his sickness. He turns away from me and walks over to Jade / Kate, sits down next to her. He says, "Yo yo yo. Look at me. Listen. I want to tell you something". Jade mutes the real John Goodman on the TV and turns to Pete, fluttering her eyelashes. She does this when she thinks that what you are about to say is going to be completely asinine and that she is only listening to make you feel important, wanting to take no interest in the actual conversation. Pete says, "I want to thank you," and then Jade gets a littler more serious and says, "well....you're welcome. For what?" and he says, "you gave me the best blowjobs I've ever had while I was locked up. You lived in my brain and we had the craziest sex every single night and you helped me get through it. Let me tell you something.......you're really good".

I'm punching in the final thumb tack, leaving the nut house celebrity t-shirt to display itself in my bathroom among posters of b-movie monsters and torn off beer labels when I hear Pistol professing his lust for my girlfriend. I step back into the room to make sure he's "just chatting" and not "face raping" her when there's a knock at the door. It is now, at these moments, when you truly, truly believe that things could not become stranger that they most often do. Once that snowball starts rolling downhill, there is no stopping it. It just continues to grow, gathering speed, destroying skiers and smashing villages in it's abominable journey.

I don't recognize the knock, however, I DO recognize that there is a strange sense of authority in it. Pistol's head spins on his shoulders and he says, "don't answer that," and I stand there for a moment before realizing that I'm taking orders from a man that has had tea with all four Golden Girls, probably while enjoying the snug fit of a straight jacket. I reach for the handle and hesitantly open the door, half expecting The Ghost of Christmas Past. As I swing it open though, it only reveals a small black haired man who resembles Casey Affleck. I immediately notice his lazy eye and then realize that I'm staring directly into it. I quickly look at his other eye but it appears to be off center as well. I become confused and can't seem to find myself. I can see the top of only one of his irises. What does this mean? Half crazy? Perhaps. Are his eyes two different colors? Who is this man? Is he talking to me? I don't know where to look. I decide to just stare at the bridge of his nose, splitting the difference between Lazy Eye Option A and Lazy Eye Option B.

He introduces himself as, ironically, "Casey". He says he is Peter's guardian and tells me that he is here to pick him up. I open the door further and Pistol says, "Yo yo yo! I TOLD you I'd be right down. Why you gotta be bustin' my balls all the time? Gimmie one......SECOND!" and Casey says, "C'mon" and holds out his hand. Pistol reluctantly stands up, leaving Jade on the couch alone and steps outside with the (cross-eyed?) man. Casey asks me if I'd like to walk with them to the car and I say "yes". I walk with them down the hall. Pistol turns to Casey and says, "Casey. This is Justin........Timberlake. Are you pretty excited that I'm friends with him?" and I laugh and say, "that's right. Justin Timberlake," and Casey stops walking and looks at me with disgust and says, "tell him the truth" and I say "what?" and he says, "tell him the truth. Tell him you are not Justin Timerlake. Tell him your real name" and Pistol stares at me. His forehead wrinkles into folded terrain and he cocks his head. Never before or after have I seen such strange eyes as Pistol Pete's and on that day I saw something in them that made me cringe. It was the look of a man who's reality is crumbling down around him, being broken, shattered and smashed. The things he knows or thought he knew and loved about everyone were all lies. He waits for it. He waits for me to talk. I say, feeling a little silly, "I'm......not.......I'm not really Justin.....Timberlake. My name is........John Brookbank" and Pistol pauses and the look is gone. He seems fine and I think that it was easier than I was anticipating. Pete winks at me and says, "oh......riiiiiiiight" and Casey tells me to say it again. People are starting to gather in the halls. Class is out and lunch is beginning and why are the walls closing in on me? Why are all these people looking at me? I glance over my shoulder nervously and shuffle my feet. I stick my hands in my pockets. The audience is sensing something in the wind. They smell it and they are hungry for gossip. I say, "I am not......Justin Timberlake. I am not Justin Timberlake. I am John Brookbank" and I'm imagining all these people thinking that I'm the crazy one. They're watching me trying to grasp my identity. "I'm JOHN. I'm JOHN Brookbank. My name is JOHN Brookbank. I am NOT Justin Timberlake. My name is JOHN Brookbank". Casey says, "Peter is sick. Peter is schizophrenic and has been selling his medication. We're taking him away," and I say, "when will he be back?" and Casey says, "I don't know" as he begins pulling him away, down the hall. I stand and watch as they disappear around the corner. Eric pokes his head out from his door to see what all the commotion is just as Pete shouts at him, "Adam Sandler! Adam Sandler! Please help me!"

Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dweller

2009-10-05T09:17:00.000-07:00

The biggest problem growing up in a town who's greatest past time for the rascally youth is the roller skating arena is the pension for those children to go out and find their own brand of trouble. While most of my friends turned to cigarettes, marijuana and beer at an early age, I decided to just say no and instead focused my attentions to the slightly more creative arts of theft, vandalism and general adolescent naughtiness. In elementary school I began sneaking out of my house in the middle of the night to meet up with my equally juvenile friends. We'd prowl the neighborhood, lurking from shadow to shadow, hiding from passing cars and dodging motion sensors. Initially, the simple thrill of just being out and meandering the block at midnight was enough to tide us over but it quickly became apparent that it would not satiate our pubescent urges for long. As with all things, the newness of the situation rapidly faded and we needed to move on, expand our horizons, chase down unexplored territory. We began experimenting with toilet papering homes, garages, cars and trees, which turned into putting whipped cream messages on people's automobiles (sometimes our parents') "F U!" "EAT MY DICK" and the apocalyptic epitome "PENIS" were among some of my favorites to etch, usually in print as cursive was not yet my strong point. If you're going to send someone a message, they may as well be able to read (and appreciate) it. The whip cream was just a small step for mankind to eggs and the eggs easily segued to rocks. We would pick up stones from the alleyways that ran between the rows of Craftsman homes and we would chuck them as hard and accurately as possible towards the glass targets that served as garage windows. There is no sound in the world as thrilling and exhilarating to a young boy as the sound of shattering glass. We would disappear down the block, trying to suppress our laughter and glee at another fine mission complete. What were we aiming for? What was our purpose? Were we not concerned for the property and assets of those around us? These questions are out of reach of the common vandal, especially one that is barely a decade old. Cheap thrills. Adrenaline. The MOMENT. Like a junkie seeking his next hit, we were only concerned about the result. We didn't care who got hurt along the way; our family, our neighbors, ourselves. We would steal fluorescent bulbs from behind stores (whether they were functioning or not we cared little). We would retreat to our secret spots - the woods, the bike trail, the creek, the railroad tracks - and we would smash them one after another, watching in amazement, all of us glossy eyed and locked in like stoners experiencing their zen moment as the glass seemed to evaporate into dust before our very beings.

In the woods, under cover of leaves and disguised by trash, we had our collection of pornography; things we'd stolen from our parents and from the local book stores. We discussed the best times and days to steal our beloved nudie magazines; we had meetings, plans and blue prints. Two of us, maybe three of us would enter the bookstore at a time, the first heading to the front desk where, after a moment of silence the old woman would look up and address us, not with "hello" or "how can I help you?" but merely a cocked eyebrow. We were children and as such didn't deserve to be treated with respect and humanity. Truth be told, we were monsters, thieves and liars and got just what we had earned. We would ask for a book, something she'd never heard of, something that would get her to leave the desk and focus her attention on the shelves. "I'm looking for........something about werewolves.......". She would lead the decoy to a far corner where, nearby, the second of us would be glancing over books about Dungeons and Dragons even though none of us played. This just served as a distraction. A full store is a hard store to watch.

The third kid, usually played by a boy who was about three years my senior, would enter in a zipped up army jacket. His left hand would swing freely at his side while his right would appear to be tucked into his jacket pocket. Allegedly tucked into his jacket pocket. In actuality, in reality, it would be inside his coat, curled against his body. He would approach the stand that contained comics on the bottom shelf (kid height) and magazines about wrestling, cars and hunting on the top shelf (adult height). Behind all these worthless magazines resided The Good Stuff, our City of Gold; Playboy, Penthouse, Hustler and Club Confidential. The ones with the censored covers were the best because if THAT'S what they put on the OUTSIDE, boy oh boy, could you just imagine what they put on the inside??? The army clad crook would slip down his camo zipper just enough to enable him to reach his hand out the top of the jacket, snag a handful of adult literature and gently float them back into his coat and then, just as quickly as he had come, he would go. I would follow out a few seconds later, leaving my guard post at the D&D rack and the decoy would never find the book on werewolves he was looking for.

Outside, the group of us would rush away, heading for the nearest safe spot; a public bathroom, a group of trees, a dumpster. We all crawl inside and the army jacket slips down and all eyes are wide and all stomachs are in knots and all toes are curling. Three magazines slip out and are distributed. I tear at the plastic covering with my fingernails, with my teeth, shredding it into so much useless garbage, more camouflaged junk in the dumpster bed. On the cover are two permed blondes, both of them naked, both of them resting their peachy bottoms upon a motorcycle sitting against a black backdrop. I caress the glossy title and stare directly into their sharp blue eyes. They appear to be twins and I wonder if there is something wrong in partaking in pornography that seems to be incestuous in nature. I decide that I will first stare at their delicate bodies and fulfill any carnal appetites I may be having before discussing my moral obligations with my conscience. I slide my finger slowly under the cover, being as delicate as can be, treating this Guide to Greater Lands with as much respect as a newly wed virgin. Two other guys peer over my shoulder and not a word is said as the first page falls open, revealing a nude redhead holding a pink guitar. What is each of us thinking? What is rolling through our heads? The answer is simple and across the board: "I gotta get me one of those".

There are two girls in a pool, one of them a brunette and one of them a blonde. Neither is wearing a swimsuit save for goggles and flippers and the things they are doing one to the other are generally considered to be traditionally untraditional but the act appeals to us nonetheless. And it is this, Ladies and Sperms, where we find our sex education. In school they tell us that having wet dreams is normal and something we should not be ashamed of. In school they say that a young boy will get 19 boners a day and that you shouldn't worry. In school they tell us that having sex with a girl on her period is frowned upon and when we ask why, genuinely inquisitive, they frown upon us. In school they do NOT tell us that an entire fist would be considered "too much" for vaginal ingestion or that a wrench doesn't offer quite the same flexibility and give that your standard phallus would. We think all girls can swallow entire bananas and so, this is what we are sent out into the world with. These are the things we are expecting. And when we present our girlfriends and wives with the "exciting proposition" to blindfold them and duct tape them to a chair and throw hot grease on them we are greeted with looks of disgust, puckered and pouty, next to divorce papers.

Back in the Love Dumpster someone says that they want to be a photographer when they grow up so they can look at boobs all day long. I correct them and explain that while the boob is wonderful, it's truly the nipple that they desire. Someone else turns away, disgusted. We look at him, this outsider, with queer wonderment. He says, "I don't get it - I'm not into chicks being with other chicks - it's not like they're gonna get with me - it's not like they're gonna be interested in me and have sex with me". I tell him that these girls are a decade older than him and live 3,000 miles away and, oh yeah, they're just on a glossy print paper, so I don't think he has anything to worry about. He shrugs and turns the page to a picture of a girl lying in a pile of hay, shoving a carrot up her butt. He says, "That's what I'm talking about!" before we crawl from the dumpster, go to the video store and steal some sodas. We rent a movie (A Nightmare of Elm Street Part 2) and after signing for it I grab the VHS and proceed over to the cooler where cases of Coca-Cola and Mountain Dew are held. I slide it open, grab a 24 pack and walk right out of the store, not hesitating for the grab, not stopping to think twice, not pausing to look back. A thief must be precise and accurate and emotionless. As I blow through the doors into the (dirt) parking lot I let out a cowboy-esque "yee-haw!" and we all jump on our Huffies and peddle down the street to watch a film my mother has forbade me from viewing.

That night I tell my mom I'm spending the night at Steve's house and Steve tells his dad he's spending the night at Aaron's house and Aaron tells his folks he's spending the night at my house and we take advantage of our parent's trust / carelessness to own the night. Mitchell is our playground and we are tiny, conniving psychopaths. We start a collection of hood ornaments; Mustang's, Ford's, Dodge's. It doesn't really matter what make or model they're from. We're not picky. We just destroy and steal, tearing off the automobile mast heads and sticking them in our deep pockets and back packs. We become familiar with the term "Car Shopping". To the standard adult, car shopping is the act of going from dealership to dealership, trying to find that diamond in the rough, seeking out the good deals and haggling them down even lower. It is a time honored tradition that most American males over the age of sixteen revel in. To a group of ten, eleven and twelve year olds living in a town where nobody locks their doors, Car Shopping is the act of rifling and pillaging in people's personals and taking what you want with the oldest coupon that exists: The Five Finger Discount. Many of us acquired our first walkman this way or a nice pair of sunglasses or a cassette tape of Michael Jackson's Thriller. From time to time you'd find some change, maybe some quarters for the arcade machine at the 711 or a couple bucks to purchase A Nightmare on Elm Street part 3 or Predator with Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Two boys are siblings and three boys are a society and four boys are a brotherhood and four we stood, all for one and one for all, robbing the rich to feed the poor and all those popular lines from famous literature that justify taking things that don't belong to us and standing up for the idiots we call our friends. A brotherhood. We ride our bicycles, our stallions, our steads, down the bike trail to a sewer pipe we've been debating on exploring. Today we come equipped with our back packs stuffed to the brim with flashlights, canteens filled with water, plastic bags plump with food as well as weapons of defense: squirt guns filled with holy water, vampire stakes and forks made from silver. The four of us duck low and enter the dark tunnel, the only noise the running water flowing in a light but steady stream between our sneakers and the sound of said sneakers tapping lightly at the rotund orifice. We walk in a straight line, the tunnel only wide enough for one of us at a time. Steve is first, our valiant hero, our brave explorer, his flashlight beam shining out eight, ten feet in front of him, exposing nothing but more darkness, more water, more tunnel and the general direction in which we are heading. The rest of us hold flashlights as well but they illuminate nothing more than the butt of the jeans of the kid in front of us. Ten minutes pass, fifteen minutes pass and we approach a room. it is perhaps twelve feet in circumference and fifteen feet high. We all stand up straight, stretching and arching our backs, sore from walking at a ninety degree angle. I reach into my pack and pull out a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Everyone follows suit. We share and exchange food, a ritual amongst boys; what's yours is mine (as long as you have something I want). The room in which we stand offers us a choice of direction. We can continue to follow our path straight through, exploring further in the same (Eastern?) direction or we can take the smaller tunnel to the left. We opt to continue straight on because, even at four foot three, the smaller tunnel is just too tight a squeeze for any of us. Eventually we find ourselves running short on food and water and decide to head back but the tunnel has not yet seen the best of us. The next day we come back with more stock and the day after we show up earlier and the day after we move faster and the day after we stop in each of the four cavernous rooms for quicker breaks and soon we are eating as we walk, not stopping at all, hungry to know where this tunnel leads. We crawl in it for thirty minutes, forty five minutes, an hour and fifteen minutes, straight through, turning where necessary and marking our way with X's written in chalk above the correct tunnel. We're running short on food and water but have heard that you can survive for at least a few DAYS without access to either. We march on, determined to discover where the tunnel comes out. Will we be led to a small river outlet? Will we uncover a pirate ship ala Goonies? Will we run into a giant antechamber where every pipe and funnel of the Mitchell populous pours out? The truth will reveal itself, we are sure of it and we plunge forth into the darkness. Fear never grips us, only the sense of adventure.

A strange scraping noise suddenly rips through the dark oblivion and forces our attention to it. The sound is metal in nature, similar to a big rusty plate sliding against concrete. It grinds and scrapes and the noise echoes through the catacomb of pipes, reverberating off the curved walls. We all stop, stand stalk still, bent over at the knees. We all kill our flashlights as a unit and listen. The noise stops and then continues. A grunting noise. A man grunting...two men. We have discovered C.H.U.D. (Cannibalistic. Humanoid. Underground. Dweller.) We have found our monster. It has finally crawled from the movie screen, from our TVs and is here to claim our lives. It was not discovered in the dark of night nor in our basements or bedroom closets but here in the sewer systems and it is here to kill us and we have walked right to it's dinner table. All four of us are about to die in some dank sewer and nobody will ever discover our bodies. We will be the kids who went out to play and then were nothing more than grainy black and white photos in the newspaper. We had come into this dark hole as explorers, midget versions of Louis and Clark and we would leave as brown floating sewer waste from the monster that lived beneath our city. His (her?) skin is a dark blue, the color of choked and murdered children, pockmarked and horned. It's black eyes see nothing. Living in the dark (for years? centuries?) this creature (demon?) has evolved it's sense of smell and oh yes, it smells us, four children, sweating, hungry, thirsty and scared. This, of course, is only how I picture him (her / it) in my head. A blob, sliding through the tunnels, gobbling up nutrients from the feces that we've been dumping down our drains and toilets since the invention of modern sewage. We are only ten year olds but we stand firm. We are a brotherhood and we are a team. None of us move our feet but we all slowly reach into our bags, our knapsacks, our book bags, our Monster Hunting Packs and we each pull out something to defend ourselves with; a wooden vampire stake, a silver fork, a rusty horseshoe (this last having no kind of lore behind it for fighting monsters but makes itself useful for angry whapping).
Grind-whisk-grind.
What was the source of that noise? Did the monster have a machine? A weapon? Did it crush bone? Was the creature tightening the bars on a cage that we were to be put in? Would we meet other missing children? The Midwest versions of Hansel and Gretel? We hadn't left any bread crumbs but we had left the white X's marking our way back......our way back......that was worthless for anyone coming IN to find us and how on earth would they ever realize that we'd crawled (willingly) into the tunnel to begin with? They would first search homes and riverbeds. They would charge into the local sex offender's dwellings and scour their closets and basements, our parents simultaneously hoping and not hoping that they might find us there. The riverbeds would turn up nothing save for a pair of our glasses if they happened to be bouyant enough to flow down the sewer drain like so much gray water before them, if they happened to take the correct tunnels, marked by white X's, if they happened to not get eaten by this drainage ditch behemoth. It's dark and the air is heavy but, strangely, it has a bit of a chill to it. I can't see what's coming. I can't see the kid in front of me. I can't see my own hand with the flashlight in it. I think about flicking it on and just taking a peek but then.........no.......I would certainly give us away. If it didn't know we were here, it certainly would after a stupid act like that. I didn't want to be the guy in the horror movie who wants to investigate the noise but the urge was almost unbearable. Never again would I judge him and scream at him and call him an idiot. Instead I would sympathize with him and stand up for him when others mocked his curiosity.......if the opportunity ever arose.......if I were to get out of here alive.........if I ever saw tomorrow.
Screeeeeeeek!!!
Light. Lots of it. My pupils shriek and recoil, contracting into little pinholes. Everything is white and I can't see a thing. Sensory overload. Too much. I squint and hold my hand up in front of my face. My other hand grips the flashlight and I remember watching Stephen King's It and I remember the monster, the alien, the (demon?) floating above the children, trapped in the sewer and what is pouring from out of it's eyes, it's guts, it's very being? Light. The Deadlights. You stare into them, hypnotized and they call to you and you enter them and they eat you. I shut my eyes. I pinch them tight. I will not look. I will not look. I will not look into The Deadlights. I don't tell my friends to shut their eyes. Instead I put my hands over my lids, not wanting a speck of the prism poison to leak into my brain. I hear shuffling feet and I think, "it's all over. I am going to die down here". Either IT is coming for us or my friends, my brothers, are being pulled into The Deadlights. The boy behind me, Aaron, pushes against me and I try to stop him but he shoves past me and I fall against the wall and I hear him shout, "UNCLE STAN!!!" and I think, "NO! He is a monster of glamor and he wears many masks, Aaron! He only APPEARS to be your Uncle Stan! He goes by many names - he is Pennywise, he is Bob Grey, he is The Eater of Worlds, stay away!" but I just say, "ug..." as my hand dips into some of the water under our feet. A man's voice, "what're you guys doin' down here?" and Steve says, "uh.....just exploring" and I think "NO! He's using his glamor and is wearing the mask of the plumber!" and the man says, "c'mere - let's getchya outta there" and I hear Steve step forward. I hear Aaron step forward. The kid behind me, Steve's younger brother Shawn, says, "go" and I open my eyes to find that they have adjusted and that we are standing about five feet from another room. I enter it and look up and see two city workers staring down at me through a naked manhole. The taller and skinnier of the pair says, "climb up" and I do. The two men tell us that they were working down the road - about a mile back - when they heard our voices through the grates in the street and decided to follow us.. They ask us how we got in and we tell them of the uncovered sewer pipe by the bike trail. They laugh and the shorter, fatter one says, "that's about two and a half miles away," and we say, "REALLY???" oh so proud of our accomplishment. They tell us not to go back. They tell us that they flush out those pipes with water and that we could get caught in the flood. They tell us there is poisonous gas down there and that there are giant killer rats. They tell us we could get lost and we listen to them speak. In our heads we are not afraid. In our heads we are thinking, "Giant rats? I gotta get me one of those."

The Corn Palace

2009-10-03T17:50:00.000-07:00

I was born to Mike and Kathy Brookbank on September 17th, 1982 in Mitchell, South Dakota. The town rests towards the south eastern corner of the state and is surrounded by cows, corn and prairies. However, much like the appearance of the Virgin Mary at Fatima, you'll find that without having seen the Golden Grain Oblivion for yourself, it's nearly impossible to fathom. The yellow fields stretch on and on on, disappearing, vanishing, meeting at the horizon. The amber waves of grain stand erect and alert, an army of wheat, watching you pass them on the interstate, on the highway. They have been drafted from Wheatville by the thousands and they guard the secrets of the cucumber patch. Passing through the state, you are a little helpless boat lost in a great sea of seed. If your car dies out here, chances are, so do you. Children of the Corn, hillbilly helter skelters and rednecks in wranglers. In South Dakota, no one can hear you scream.

The population rests at around 15K which means it's just big enough to make it impossible for the standard Mitchellite to know everyone personally but is just small enough to know who's worth gossiping about. It has a lake on the outskirts of town that is filled to the brim with dead fish, broken bottles and man piss. As children, my sister and I would spend our summers swimming in it, a decision I can't imagine willfully making today without at least the consideration of a Borax shower afterwards. I would often dare myself to open my eyes beneath the water where I would see nothing but a slimy, radioactive green blur. In junior high my friend had sex in the lake and to this day I'm certain that, because of it, her vagina grew teeth, maybe even a mouth and nose. Had she come to me and asked if I would inspect a nasty itch or rash down yonder for her, I would of had to respectfully decline for fear of getting bit by the toothy Pink Taco, or worse, having it start a conversation with me regarding the writings of Kafka.

Around my junior year in high school we (Mitchell) acquired a Cabela's and that was a really, really, REALLY big deal because it meant that the local economy was about to go ka-boom. Job opportunities, tourists.......dare we hope......maybe a Wal-Mart??? When I went to college and people asked me about my hometown I would simply tell them that it was really no big deal until the Cabella's moved in. I would stand there, nodding my head and smiling while they generally just stared back at me blankly, waiting for more information. I was truly and legitimately surprised to find that 95% of the populous had no idea what I was talking about. Little did I know that that phrase would soon become the story of my life. Eventually the silence was broken when they said, "What is a Kublella's?" and I would say that "it's a place where people go to make themselves more precise killers. It's the Wal-Mart of hunting stores. If you are the Charles Manson of the animal kingdom, this is your wet dream. If you want to find arrows with GPS locators on them, infrared goggles and spray that takes away your scent, this is the place for YOU!" I would take a deep breath before continuing on, "Mitchell is also the boastful home of The World's Only Corn Palace. It is the jewel of our city." My new friends would stare at me with what I initially read as intrigue and amusement but would later find was just the look you gave when watching a mentally handicapped person trying to solve a Rubix Cube. After a brief pause and a few attempts at suppressed laughter they would say loudly, hoping to attract attention, more people to watch the dancing monkey, "What, exactly, IS it? This.....Corn Palace?" This, again, is shocking to me. This notion that they didn't know what The World Famous Corn Palace was. Just look at the name! A.) It's a Corn Palace. B.) It's World Famous - how have you not heard of this!!!??? So I tell them that it looks like a legitimate palace.......made from corn. The design and architecture is strictly Russian; the building is topped with strange acorn type spires and the outside is dressed in murals made from corn husks and corn cobs; murals of Martin Luther King, murals of Apollo 13, murals of Elvis Presley. Every year they change and every year they are more and more elaborate and intricate. Last time I visited I actually discovered that The Corn Palace had a mural of the Corn Palace on it. The Beatles, Abraham Lincoln, The Corn Palace. As you can see, it holds itself in QUITE high esteem and RIGHTLY SO (World Famous). I drive past it and I try to put myself in the position of the weary traveler, pulled from the interstate by billboards promising an "A-MAIZE-ING experience" or the oath of "To see is human, to EAR divine", obviously a reference to an ear of corn and, for those of you not familiar with the slew of different vocab for corn, 'MAIZE' is only one of many. Much like the eskimos with the word for snow, South Dakotans and Nebraskans have over seven HUNDRED names for the stuff, Yellow Gold among them. The tourists stand on the sidewalk opposite the "palace" and take pictures of it's many fine virtues. I wonder if any of them come back year after year, monitoring, observing, chronicling the changing exterior.

If I didn't know what was inside this King Cob, what would I imagine? I would think that it would be filled with art made from corn, just like the outside. Louis and Clark, made from cobs, pointing out to a vast unexplored ocean of popcorn seed, their fingers made from stiff throws of baby corn. Their pupils Old Maids (the popcorn seeds that don't pop), their ascots (Louis and Clark wear ascots in my imagination) are made from flowing yellow corn husks. Perhaps someone is selling corn cob pipes (perhaps Louis and Clark are even using them) or perhaps they have..........I DON'T KNOW! I can't think of any stupid art to make out of corn. If I was going to make a piece of art I wouldn't choose corn for my medium! You walk into the The World Famous Corn Palace (self-proclaimed) and you find that it is nothing more than a self-satisfying monument to itself. Pictures hang on the wall, pictures of The World Famous Corn Palace, year after year. In one of the photos there is an image of a swastika made out of corn, planted (get it) firmly above the front doors of the building. People say it's an Indian good luck sign and that Hitler inversed it and made it his own. People say The World Famous Corn Palace is haunted by the ghost of a deceased circus performer. People call it the world's biggest bird feeder. Pigeons from all over the region are attracted to this bird buffet. They gather and they peck and they eat George Washington's face, gouging his eyes out. They crap all over the picture of the capital building and they nest in the 2-D teepees that Crazy Horse might have dwelt in. The birds (but mainly the bird poop and the utter lack of respect the birds seem to hold for the pride of their nation) become so bad, so out of control, that the city heads gather to conspire against the pigeons, the doves and the robins. There will be an uprising and the winged rats will never see it coming. The blue jays, the sparrows, the hummingbirds, they won't know what hit 'em.

The mayor, his eyes glowing red in a dark room, a cigar hanging from his mouth, he says, "We will befriend them and we will attack from the inside out". The head of Parks and Rec smiles maliciously and nods. "Yes....yes, the plan is brilliant, your majesty". The villains, the masterminds, the mob, they purchase pallets and crates and boxes filled with corn and they purchase as many vials and jars of poison as they can. They use my taxes. They use my money. And they laugh. They poison the corn and they hire a man the bird's recognize as friend to set the food / bait out on the roof. The bird's flock down to the complimentary dinner and they feast, unaware that this is their last meal. One after another they drop from the heavens, starry eyed and incapable of flight, crashing and exploding on the sidewalk below, usually dying on impact but sometimes just breaking their wings and legs, spinning in tight circles and screaming until, finally, they just bleed to death.

Now when the tourists come they no longer see streaks of white bird turds vandalizing the face of Emelia Earnhart. Now they have to merely step around the corpses of the avian race that litter the sidewalk, the dead feathered friends that lay like fallen soldiers on the concrete battlefield. The tourists still take photos of The World Famous Corn Palace but now they crop the sidewalk out. Some people say you have to crack a few eggs to make an omelette. Maybe they're right. Maybe there is a greater good to be had here. The World Famous Corn Palace Must. Live. On.

Dedication

2009-09-27T20:56:00.000-07:00

This website is dedicated in loving memory to Abraham Lincoln.

WE APOLOGIZE ON BEHALF OF TECHNOLOGY.

2009-09-21T13:51:00.001-07:00

SERVER HAS BEEN DOWN. ANY EMAILS SENT IN THE LAST 10 DAYS HAVE NOT BEEN RECEIVED. PLEASE SEND AGAIN.

The Living Dead

2009-09-21T08:18:00.000-07:00

Many people today consider them a plague of society. They tax our time and monitor our morals. They don't hear what we say but they watch our mouths as we speak. They are not "big brother" or any form of government and we are each and every one of us eventually destined to join their ranks barring some sort of tragedy. They are old people; those humans that are 65+. They eat from the senior menus. They drive Cadillacs. They have flesh colored ear pieces and at the tender age of twenty-seven, I am becoming one of them. Everyday my friends and family are witnessing my premature transformation into one of the.......not UNdead, some zombie, but the ALMOST dead, the elderly. And I don't mean that in the traditional, philosophical essence of "we are all growing older, watch him grow, isn't he maturing nicely?". I'm speaking in the sense of My-Knees-Hurt-My-Back-Hurts-Those-Rascally-Children-Are-In-My-Yard-Again-I'm -Calling-The-Police kind of old man. I'm talking about being twenty-seven going on seventy-seven. I'm talking about The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

I don't know what happened or how it happened. Initially I thought it had crept up on me like some disease, crawling up and strangling my youth like a deadly, liver spotted vine. Monday I'm out with my friends, playing tag in my front yard. Wednesday I'm in junior high. Friday I'm in high school and by Sunday I'm in college and now what? Will I be dead by thirty? Can I stop The Change?......perhaps if I took a slew of pills...perhaps if I filled my medicine cabinets with pills and pills and pills and took them with me, took them after meals and at certain times of the day. I could get a weekly pill planner container and......no......this isn't helping.....my instincts are all wrong. It wasn't that simple. What if.......what if there was no Change? What if I really am just an old man trapped in a child's body? Have the signs always been there and I'm just starting to recognize them for what they were......

I'm in third grade and the bell rings. My classmates, my peers, my friends, put their schoolbooks away. They shove them carelessly into their desks and they run out the door. They break into the sunlight and head for the monkey bars. I stare out the window and watch them hang upside down and do penny drops. I watch them jump off the swing sets and play kickball. The teacher asks me if I'm going to join them. I pull open my desk (it's a mess but I know where everything is) and pull out a small novel. It's advanced for my reading level, but then again, so is my Inner Age. I ask the teacher if it would be okay if I just curled up in the classroom with a good book and read for a bit. I am eight years old. I am eighty years old. I am geriatric. The teacher puts a cough drop in her mouth and I jealously eyeball it, imagining the menthol burst behind my teeth, the cold heat caking my tongue. I make a note to save up my allowance to purchase some. My friends will be eating suckers and Big League Bubble Gum and I will be satiating my throat, coating it in a bitter but soothing lozenge.

I am in Junior High, making my way from the school to the street with the rest of my class. We are in gym and the teacher is a little (a lot) heavy. I don't understand why a fat man is teaching gym class. What could he possibly tell us? Would you ask a blind man to teach driver's ed? Would you ask a deaf man to teach Spanish? Would you ask a mute fellow to teach speech? The children jog along in front of me, excited to run the mile. They say they are going to beat their time from last year. They say they are going to do it in under ten minutes. I can barely hear them because I'm so far back, strolling along behind them at a snail's pace, trying to conserve my energy.

The teacher, his huge body covered in thick mats of tangled hair, fires off a gun and everyone takes off running. They are sprinting, legs pumping, sneakers slapping against the concrete. They are gasping for breath, screaming and shouting. I watch them disappear into the distance, around the corner, out of sight. I am power walking, pumping my arms at my sides while trying to regulate my breathing. "Slow and steady" I keep repeating to myself, "slow and steady wins the race. The turtle and the hare, my friend". I have to be gentle with myself, my body, step by step. Don't want to hurt the knees.

When I shuffle across the finish line, hands held high, a slight stitch in my side, I find that I am the last victor. "Last Victor" I believe, would generally denote a third place winner, not necessarily the Best Loser but I am okay with this. I'm just pleased with myself that I actually finished. I can now take "Running a Mile with No Preparation and For No Reason" off my Bucket List.

The fat girl, the kid with the limp and knee brace and the boy with the learning disability have all completed the mile at least two minutes in front of me. I look over at a boy named Brad who ran his hardest the whole way. He's breathing very heavy and his face is red and he's caked in sweat. Someone asks him if he needs to sit down. He drops to his knees and throws up in the grass. I do a lap (under cranking my power walk by a notch or two) around the group just as a bit of a cool down exercise.

Even though I finished a solid eight minutes behind Brad I am exhausted. The stitch in my side has exploded into a full blown tear while my upper back, neck and gums ache. My mouth tastes like blood and I'm caked in perspiration. More than anything I just want to take a nap. Back in the locker rooms I change without showering and lay down on a bench to catch a few ZZZs. In my life I will have two different locker room experiences. The first is this one. Some of the older boys take showers and meander around in towels. When they change they are quick and work hard at covering their tiny pink genitals. There is a bit of shyness, a bit of shamefulness, a bit of nervousness in our bodies. We want to be comfortable but are not. We cannot be. The second experience is at the YMCA where the old men are. These are my people. They shower in groups, in the nude, their gray pubic hair clinging to their lower abdomen, their thighs, falling to the wet tile floor. They put their feet up on benches and swing their giant yellow squash before you with pride, daring you to look, to peek. They dry themselves off and then peruse the place in the buff, searching for a drinking fountain, searching for a tennis partner, looking for a lost sneaker. They chat with each other, dressed in less than fig leaves, some deranged form of The Garden of Eden. I am terrified that this is what I will become in just a few short years if my transformation continues. Will I be thirty and shoving my penis into a young child's face? Asking him about snow mobiles? Asking him about Algebra? Asking him about his back swing? Aren't there laws about this sort of thing?

I'm in high school and all of my friends are having sex. They're waiting for their parents to leave the house so they can do "it". Someone does "it" in their parents bed, on their parents couches, in bowling alley parking lots. They're doing "it" in the backs of cars. Someone does "it" in a ditch next to a dirt road. A couple does "it" in the boys bathroom at the high school before getting busted and on one occasion a girl I know does it in a portapotty at a concert. They are disappearing into other rooms at parties and switching partners and partaking in three way maneuvers. A few of them are experimenting with same sex relations. They drive to the lake and do the crap out of each other in several tantric positions. "Doing the crap out of each other" is what I imagine is happening. Earth shattering, mind blowing sex. My friend earns himself the nickname Two Pump Chump from his girlfriend and my illusion becomes slightly skewed.

Old men don't have mind blowing sex. Old men don't have sex in the backseats of cars while using tantric positions and old men CERTAINLY don't have sex in dumpsters or portapotties or whatever. I drive my girlfriend down to the lake. I find a dark spot next to the water. I turn the engine off and the radio down, tuning it to some light rock. I crack the window a bit to let the warm summer breeze blow in. I turn in my seat to face my date and I ask her how her day was. I chat. She looks at me and untucks her shirt. She takes off her shoes and lets her hair down. I reach into the breast pocket of my button up and pull out some Werther Originals and offer one to her. She declines and slouches back, telling me that her day was just "okay".

I'm in college and I'm at a party in the dorms. It's taking place just down the hall from my room. People are wearing baggy clothes, backwards hats and listening to rap music. It's too loud and I can't hear what anyone is saying. I don't understand why the man on the stereo is so angry. Someone asks me if I want to play their Xbox and I say yes but just end up mashing all the buttons together, unable to understand or control the man on the screen with the multitude of knobs and levers (different sizes and colors) on the vast controller.
People carry beer bottles, beer cans and red plastic cups filled with orange juice and vodka. They drink ice tea and rum. One kid is drinking Scope because he couldn't steal anymore alcohol money from his parents. He is hopped up on codeine and groggy looking. A guy we call The Dude is sitting in the corner, alone, with a white robe on, staring at a photo of a tennis player in a magazine. He recently ate who knows how many mushrooms. He caresses the photo, looking as though he's going to start crying. Two kids are in the corner smoking pot from a glass pipe and two other kids are smoking something called Salvia Devinurum from a water bong with a butane lighter. They tell me that it's the prime way to smoke it. Something about the butane activating the plant and the water cleansing the smoke. I'm nodding my head and holding a bright green plastic cup my mom bought me filled with milk. I'm sipping it and I have a milk mustache.

Days, weeks, years later I need to go to work and have lost my keys (again). I'm looking for them when I realize that both my glasses and my wallet are on the loose as well. Jade asks me if I'm having a "senior moment". I finally borrow her keys and when I get to work a guy makes a crack about my "child bride". I've always thought this was an inside joke he made in regards to the infantile age we were when we got married but the more I mature / change / transform into this old man I'm thinking it's probably geared more towards an attack on the general idea of me being ninety-two and she being a mere twenty-five.

On Saturday afternoon Jade and I go to a matinee and tickets are twelve dollars and I say, "What!!! When I was a kid tickets were four-fifty!". The girl behind the glass (who doesn't even look old enough to have a job) just shrugs. I'm wearing loafers and cordoroys and a sweater with an ancient design on it that Jade calls my "Bill Cosby Sweater". It's ninety-five degrees outside but I am an inherently chilly person. I take sweaters with me almost everywhere I go.

Kids are texting during the film and I don't text. I mumble something darkly under my breath and Jade shooshes me and gives me a dirty look. Stupid technology. I don't understand it and it makes me angry but mostly just scares me. What about the "old ways"? I throw some popcorn at them and then slouch down in my seat and when they turn around to find out just who the F threw that I turn around as well to help them search the back (backER) rows for the scoundrel. Jade tells me I'm turning into the mean old man at the movies and I say fine and slouch down further and cross my arms and bite off a chunk of my Twizzler.
I take naps in the afternoon. Exhaustion just washes over me and I can't go on. I'll sleep for an hour, maybe two, before getting up for a few to have dinner and read a good book, maybe the Bible, before slipping off to bed. I will awake at five or six thirty with the sun where I will contemplate my life for a short while. I try to imagine how I got here. Why am I not going to the gym and drinking beer and doing push-ups and working on my truck in the garage? The transition has perhaps......perhaps not been a transition at all. Perhaps I wasn't born as a young man who was bitten by the Almost Dead and altered into one of them. Perhaps I really was born as Benjamin Button was, as an old man in a child's body. Perhaps I am aging in reverse and I will meet my youth in the middle. Perhaps my mid-life crisis will put things back on track. I will find interest in carpentry and working out and advanced video games and Ferraris and auto mechanics and perhaps by the time this happens they will have invented a time machine, perhaps in the form of a Dolorian and I have to take it to eighty to activate it's flux capacitor and when I do flames burst forth from my tires and I appear in 1989 and I am in fifth grade and I go outside and I kick the crap out of that stupid red kickball.

David vs. Goliath (alternate ending)

2009-09-10T14:51:00.000-07:00

I'm walking down the hallways of Mitchell Senior High School. I'm fifteen and a sophomore. In two more years I graduate and discover that who you are in High School is not who you are in the real world. No one tells me this. People tell me school is my career. People ask me what I'm going to do when I graduate. I tell them I am fifteen years old and not responsible enough to make a decision that will affect the rest of my life. People ask me if I'm going to college and I tell them I want to own my own gas station. They scoff at me. I tell them there's lots of money in gas. I take a careers class and a policeman comes in to talk to us. Before he arrives, the teacher, a man who looks a little like Martin Short with braces, tells us not to ask him if he's ever shot or killed anyone. I draw a picture of a black hole in my notebook and wonder what my girlfriend is doing in another class. I write down a list of my favorite bands. I try to teach myself drums by staring at a picture of a drum kit. I imagine the noises that come off each piece and try to put a few beats together. When I find one I like I write the combination down in my notebook. The girl next to me asks if I know how to write music. I tell her I do but it's not your standard stuff.

The bell rings and I'm back in the hallway and I'm walking along and I’m wondering if graduating feels like one long weekend. I’m wonder if having a nine to five is better than having an academic eight to three. I arrive in my basic grammar class, led by a woman who will later date a student a year my junior. I take my seat towards the back of the room and begin writing a letter to a friend of mine. Instead of composing it as myself, however, I decide to speak from the perspective of a female desperate for his affection but too shy to introduce herself. I sign no name, ending it only with, "Yours Truly". In the letter I tell him that I watch him wherever he goes. I tell him I follow him. I tell him I've loved him for a very long time. Later on I will slip it in his locker and he will become worried and nervous. I will continue to write a letter, three to four times a week, for approximately six months before I finally get bored with my assumed identity and tell him I was just playing a practical joke. He will find it less amusing than I do. His girlfriend will look at me with downcast eyes and I will think she is angry with me. Later on, perhaps a year post, the two of us will date after I help to mess things up between them.

The kid sitting behind me is named Matt. He is a football player and doesn't really understand grammar, whether it be writing it down or speaking it. He leans forward and tells me that he heard I was in a band. I tell him yes. He asks me what we're called and I don't want to say because it doesn't matter; he will find a way to humiliate and embarrass me. He thinks of several clever names, asking each time if this is our name or if that is our name. I tell him no. I tell him to leave it alone. I tell him I’m trying to do my work (write my bi-daily letter) when he asks if we’re called The Fags. I turn in my seat and I call him a dick. I don't whisper it. I say it loud and proud like a newly discovered proclamation for all to hear. The teacher, the milf, the hand that rocks the cradle, she asks me what it was I just said and I say, "I was just letting Matt here know that he's a dick. He is, after all, a dick". She asks me if I want to go to the principle's office and in the cheeriest voice I can muster, I sing,,"Do I?" before grabbing my bag and exiting the classroom.

In the office I tell the receptionist that I've been sent here to be punished. She tells me to sit down and I wonder how you really begin to discipline a child who doesn't care about grades? The answer, as it turns out, is that you put him in Saturday School, The Breakfast Club, Weekend Detention. You arrive at 8:15 on Saturday and you stare at a wall until 3:00. In prison this is called solitary confinement. No one learns any lessons; every Saturday I am there with the same kids. I suggest using shock therapy instead but they don't listen.

It is a Monday and I'm sitting in Study Hall. I've missed lunch because I had to run some errands but managed to purchase a cream cheese danish while I was out. I pull it out of my bag, open it up and begin eating it towards the back of the class. The Study Hall teacher (academic requirements to get that job?) asks me what I'm doing. I look up from my History book and tell her, with my full mouth, that I'm doing my History homework. She asks what's in my hand and I tell her a cream cheese danish. She asks me to come up to the front and throw it away. I tell her I missed lunch and am hungry. She points to the garbage can and I stand up, shove the treat in my mouth, approach her desk and drop the wrapper in the wastebasket. "There ya go," I say, “happy?” Walking back to my desk I pass this kid, Eddie, who chuckles and says to me, "cream cheese danish......". Eddie will later get into a catastrophic car accident and nearly die. The driver of the car, another boy in my study hall, a boy named Adam, does die.

I enter into my Science class and the room is mostly empty save for a few seats. The teacher isn't in yet and I plop down next to a girl named Cassie towards, as was my M.O., the back of class. A tall girl named Serena is sitting at the table next to me. She turns and says something about my pants. She insults my khakis. I ask her to be quiet. I punctuate my request by calling her a whore. This, I will soon learn, was a terminal mistake. She stares at me with her big blue eyes and it’s then that I notice her pierced nose. While I think it looks nice on her I don’t say so. Cassie turns and stares at me, her lips slightly parted, her tongue clicking against the roof of her mouth. The kid next to Serena, maybe his name is Jeremy, closes his eyes and shakes his head, resting it in his hands. Serena looks around, clears her throat and asks me what it was, exactly, I’d just said. She doesn’t seem to be asking me to clarify but almost daring me to speak it again. Looking back, perhaps she was giving me a second chance. Perhaps she was giving me a moment of mercy. Had I known better I would have said, "oh, nothing. I didn't say anything. I apologize for what you think I might have said. You have a very beautiful name and I like your pierced nose". But instead I went for brevity and stated matter-of-factly, "I called you a whore. Get it through your head".

She nods slowly, allowing the word to sink in before smiling and letting me know that I would soon be meeting certain doom. I thought maybe she was going to slap me or knock my books out of my hand or throw chocolate pudding at me in the cafeteria but as it turn outs, what she really meant was, "I'm going to tell my older brother what you said. He's a senior. He plays football. He lets people punch him in the face for money. When he finds you he's going to twist your head off and punt it across the parking lot".

The teacher, a man who looks like Droopy Dog, steps out of the storage closet. People say he goes in there to drink from his flask. People say he smells like alcohol. What do I care? At least he's not the driving instructor.

Class is over and I go to Basic Math. This is the class for the kids who don’t quite click with numbers. There aren’t many students here; maybe half that of your standard gathering. It's filled with kids you wished you weren't in class with because you know that being here makes you some sort of "special". I’m sitting up front with a perfect view of the hallway (it's hard to sit in the back of the class in a classroom FILLED with Back-Of-The-Class-Kids). Whenever somebody walks by and peers inside, I feel like a chimp at the zoo. “Look at the dumb kids, mommy! That one has a funny haircut!” They see us practicing how to fill out our fake plastic checkbooks and I want to jump up and say, "HEY! I know how to fill out a stupid checkbook! I didn't sign up for this dumb class! I UNDERSTAND basic math!" I would pause then, for dramatic effect before getting a little teary eyed and saying, "I just......don't get.....all the algorithms and angles and how to incorporate letters into my mathematical equations. I GET A's IN CREATIVE WRITING! I GET B's IN GRAMMAR! I'M SMART! I'M SMART!”

I’m just finishing up my I’m Smart Speech for the third time in fifteen minutes when a boxy blonde kid walks past. He's about seven feet tall, takes up half the hallway and has no distinguishable neck. The tops of his thighs rub against one another and his arms stick out at odd angles due to his massive biceps that don't allow for them to lie straight against his colossal pectorals. We suddenly make visual contact and something behind his blue eyes clicks. He stops and stares at me. I turn around and look at the kid behind me, wondering if I'm in the middle of some sort of telepathic conversation. No. Everyone in the classroom is special, but not telepathic special. We might be fire starters but we're not Firestarters.

I turn back to The Albino Skinned Hulk and point at myself. "Me?" I whisper and he smiles but it's not kind. It's the sort of smile a Doberman Pincher gives right before being released on a community of unsuspecting guinea pigs. His lips peel back and he says, "You're dead. I’m going to kill you". And then I'm looking at him and recognizing those blue eyes and that blond hair and the height. I'm recognizing facial structures and skin tone. I'm seeing Serena's older brother and now the joke is on me. I AM dead. The boy's name is Dustin. He opens his mouth again and says, "when you leave this classroom, when I see you in the hallway, I'm gonna kick your ass," and to me, this is bad news. This is David and Goliath except I don't get a slingshot. I just get my weak wristed slaps that won't make it much higher than his rippled chest. I'm already hearing myself screaming for mercy in my head. I'm hoping that when his fist meets my face that my teeth fall out (which would leave them in one piece and completely replaceable) versus just shattering into a hundred million shards, lodging chunks of ivory in the back of my throat. When he snaps my arm over his knee I just hope that I don't cry. I know there will be a crowd. I know there will be witnesses and God, PLEASE, don't let me cry.

I sit in my desk and watch the clock and will it to slow down. I want to stay here forever. I want to practice my checkbook writing skills for eternity. Here's a check for my teacher. It's for a thousand dollars and the memo says, "for sneaking me out of school under guise of a blanket". Here's another one. It's for Dustin. It's written for one million dollars. The memo reads, "for not making me piss my pants in front of my friends". One final check before the clock hits 3:15. This one is to Doc Brown (from Back to the Future). It's for $750,000. The memo reads, "to build me a time machine so I can go back and tell Serena that she has a perfect smile and that I am just an ill disciplined child with no brain to mouth filter".

I try to cash the checks but the teacher tells me I can't write a check for a million dollars because I don't have it in the bank. I tell him it's okay. I tell him it can bounce. I tell him I just need the money right now. I'll find a way to pay it back later. He tells me to go home. I pack my bag as slow as I can. The classroom is empty and the halls are vacated. I move silently past the lockers. I skip mine altogether, not bothering to drop anything off. If I can just sneak out of the school, if I can just get through the parking lot, if I can just get across the street, I should be okay. For some reason I felt as though, if I got away today, this would all be done and over with tomorrow. Dustin would have had time to think it over. Serena would have forgiven me. All would be well. Things could go back to how they were two hours ago when I was a loser in a Marilyn Manson t-shirt and nobody really cared.

I'm outside and I'm halfway across the parking lot. My foot lands on the first of two speed bumps and I'm pretty sure I'm free. My friends are only a few short yards away and the street is just past them. I'm so close. And now I look up and now I see Dustin and now he is suddenly only three or four feet in front of me and towering twenty feet above me and he sees me and he doesn't stop to talk. He slams his body, full force, into mine and I stumble backwards and drop my bag and my books and I squat down to pick them up and he tells me not to and I stand up straight. Like some rabid bull moose he takes three hard steps and again rams his cinder block body into mine and I remember my mom saying that if you hit a cow with your car it can be like hitting a brick wall. He asks me why I thought I'd call his little sister a whore and I try to explain. I try to tell him what she said about my khakis and it sounds stupid and pathetic and he doesn't let me finish. In fact, he barely let's me begin. He slams into me again and now my throat is tightening up and my mouth is going dry and I'm sure I'm going to cry. He asks me if I want him to "kick my ass" and I quickly shake my head “no”. I don’t look him in the eyes because I remember hearing on TV that animals see that as a sign of aggression. What are you supposed to do if you're attacked by a bear? Just lay on the ground, limp? I think about buckling my knees and dropping to the concrete. He tells me that "this is what we're gonna do". He tells me that tomorrow when I go to class I'm gonna go up to Serena's desk and get down on my knees and I'm going to apologize to her. "Yeah". I nod my head. "Yeah, yeah, I'll do that". He tells me that if he ever hears any BS like this again, he's going to break me. I nod and he swings his automobile sized fist into one of my shoulders and I think for a moment that he has displaced my rotator cuff. I bend down and pick up my papers and start walking home. Once I'm out of reach of the watchful crowd I begin to cry.

The next day I'm rushing to the Science classroom, hoping that Serena is the first one there and that I am the second. I'm hoping that it is just the two of us and that no one else sees or hears what I have to do. I'm debating if Dustin was being literal or figurative with the "get on your knees" part. I try to weigh the pros and cons of following the directions to a tee. I enter and it is just Serena..........and Jeremy and Cassie and two other people, all of them talking. I don't ask for their attention. I don't think about what I'm doing. I don't wait to second guess myself. I walk up to Serena, I drop to both my knees and she smiles and I am embarrassed. I tell her that I am sorry for calling her what I did. I tell her I won't do it again. She says, "that's fine" and I stand up and go to my desk, glad that I'm just the loser everyone can ignore again. A few people laugh.

The following Saturday I find myself attending The Breakfast Club (again) for my collected tardies. I'm staring at my wall and I'm wondering why I end up here every weekend. I'm wondering why I can't seem to get to class on time. I'm wondering why I never learn my lesson. I'm wondering what would happen if the school sent their head quarterback after me and told me to stop being late for school or he'd "break me". I wonder if I'd listen.

I think I probably would.

Retreat!

2009-09-04T14:52:00.000-07:00

I'm standing in front of a crowd of people and I'm being forced to dance and I'm wishing I were dead. How did this happen? The crowd is staring at me with blank eyes and bored expressions. This wasn't supposed to happen. I never planned to go.

My church had been ranting on and on for weeks and perhaps months on end about a volunteer retreat they were holding. Everyone that volunteered their time was allowed to go for a small fee. No more and no less. I chose not to go. The idea of heading up into regions unknown with a large group of strangers seemed to me to be a horrible idea. I don't do well alone in large groups. I often find a corner to huddle in, put my hands behind my back or fiddle aimlessly with my chin hair. Being alone in large groups is my kryptonite. I decide not to go to the retreat. I decide that serving on the Creative Arts team is just fine enough and I'll meet all the people I'll need to meet once a week at our meeting and that's that.

It's Sunday and I walk into church and someone tells me it's the last day to sign up for the retreat and I say, "Oh" and I'm standing in the lobby waiting for service to start and suddenly I think I should sign up. Suddenly I'm sure I need to. Suddenly I'm walking outside and writing my name down, handing over the money and smiling. Suddenly I'm sitting inside feeling as though I just made a great decision. Sometimes these things happen. Sometimes we fly by the seat of our pants.

On the Thursday that I leave, Jade is out of town shooting a maternity session. Josh and Amy - a couple I've recently met through my Creative Arts team - are supposed to be picking me up at three. I spend the morning in a packing frenzy. At first I'm standing in my garage deciding which suitcase to take. There is a navy blue one that I could easily crawl into and ship myself via FedEx in or a lilac colored one that is much more modest and weekend-friendly. I stare at the two of them, trying to decide which is the greater of two evils. I try to imagine Josh opening his trunk and me trying to fit the gargantuan blue suitcase inside, not being able to. I imagine Josh wondering why I thought I needed to pack so heavy. I picture us giving up. I picture us seat belting my luggage into the back seat with me so that if Josh slams on the breaks it doesn't fly into the front seat and crush his wife. I try to picture myself walking into the group of strangers that await me, carrying The Biggest Suitcase Ever Made, the whole of them whispering to each other in their cliques, "look at the guy with the big bag - whaddaya think he brought with him for TWO DAYS???" I imagine them thinking me a prima donna. I imagine them giving me nicknames and only using them when I'm not around. "Big Blue" "Big Suitcase Guy" "Guy With Too Much Luggage" or "The Creepy Guy in the Corner".

I stare down the pretty lilac colored suitcase. It could easily fit a few changes of clothes, my Bible and some odds and ends. It's the perfect size. It would fit snugly in the trunk of the car. I could wheel it around and navigate through crowds easily.........crowds of people, all staring at the "is-he-gay" kid with the frilly lilac suitcase. I imagine more nicknames. I imagine eyes goggling at me. I quickly scan the garage for some paint and wonder if it would be possible........

I opt for the lilac mini suitcase and immediately regret my decision. I set it down and reach for the big blue one and feel sick to my stomach. I grab the lilac one and run out of the garage, slamming the door behind me, near hysteria. Why are these my only options?

I reluctantly pack my clothes into the suitcase while feeling nauseous, nervous and stupid. I think about just shoving my clothes into my man purse. Then I think the lilac suitcase fits me just fine. A MAN PURSE??? I zip it up and stare out the window with the cocker spaniel, watching passing cars and waiting for my ride.

They arrive and the first thing I say is, "please excuse my lilac colored suitcase. It's not mine. It's.......the other one is just really big......it's not mine." Josh and Amy stare at me and are probably wondering if I'm on drugs. I think about saying that I'm not on drugs and then think better of it. I've only just met these people and there will be plenty of time for them to realize how strange I am in the coming weeks.........in fact, if I only continue to see them once a week at the Creative Arts meetings, it may be MONTHS before they catch on.

On the way there I talk about this serial killer I've been writing a story about. I feel a strangeness between us. Josh tells me a story about his friend. He says when they were kids his friend lived in a house. A strange house. He says that one day they find a loose board and one day they take the loose board off and one day they find thin ropes hanging behind the wall and on that day they lift the ropes up, one by one and on the ends of each rope they discover pieces, remains, of humans; arms, feet, ears, fingers, all decayed and black and rotting. He tells me the house used to belong to a serial killer. I like Josh.

When we arrive the sun has already set and I am happy. This allows me to sneak my lilac colored suitcase into my room under the shroud of darkness. I run to the front desk, get my key, run back to the car, get my bag and run to my room, where I shove it under my bed, hoping that it will be possible to access only when others are not in the room.

I head down to the dining room with Josh and Amy and am pleased to be flanking them (anyone) when we arrive. The room is packed and there are just next to no empty seats. A jolt of fear runs through me as I imagine us not being able to find three seats at the same table. What if there were only two? Surely the married couple would sit together, leaving me to fend for myself. I see a table - the final table - at the very back of the room with FOUR chairs. I quickly jump past Amy and tap Josh on the shoulder. "There! There!" I shout over the chatter, "There's a table with some empty chairs! Let's sit there!!!" He leads the way and the three of us have a seat. Sweat has broken out on my brow and I resist the urge to begin playing with my chin hair. The guy across the table says something to me, introduces himself and I shake his hand, mumble something about a lack of pollution, smile, stare at my hands, play with my chin hair and drink some water. I must keep my hands busy. His wife says something but I'm not sure if it's in English. The room is too loud. Josh says something and I laugh. Did I understand him? I don't know. The food arrives. I scoop some onto my plate. Not a lot, but just a little. I always try to take the most modest amount possible. I have a fear of taking too much food and there being none left for the guy next to me. Everyone at the table, English speaking and otherwise, gazing at me and wondering why I had to eat two portions worth. I don't know what an acceptable amount is so I take as much as the tiny girl sitting next to me. Once I pass the trays on I wonder if I've taken too little. Do I look like I have an eating disorder?

I try to eat my food as politely as possible, taking tiny bites and sipping from my cup. We're drinking some kind of dark red juice and I am aware that I am in danger of awarding myself with a type of kool-aid mustache. I finish eating. I'm not full and there's food left but I don't want to look needy so I don't take any. Instead I just try to fill up on juice before asking Josh if he's ready to go to the auditorium for the opening session.

The auditorium isn't as big as I'd pictured. The three of us grab some seats in the back. I sit silently, staring straight forward, trying not to look out of place. I'm wondering if it was a mistake to come. I'm wondering what Jade is doing at home. I'm wondering if it will be a long weekend. Someone is on stage and they're announcing an "icebreaker" game. I hate these games. I hate icebreaker games. I hate church games. I hate church icebreaker games. They pass around a bucket and we each pull out a scrap of paper. On the scrap of paper is part of a worship song as well as a number. I'm number one. My mission is to find the other Number Ones and then we must assemble our song. This, I suppose they thought, would initiate conversation and help us to get to know one another. They tell us that once we've assembled our song that the winning three teams get to come on stage in front of everyone and perform their song with no access to the lyrics and no music - a cappella. I look around the room. People everywhere look excited. I wonder what is wrong with them. Did they not hear the directions? I begin to devise a plan of sabotage in my mind. How can I destroy my own team? How can I secure my destiny by not ending up on that stage?

They say "3, 2, 1, GO!" and I hear people begin shouting "ONES! ONES! ONES OVER HERE!!!" I wander in the opposite direction. I ask somebody shouting for sevens what their number is. I see Josh and Amy in a group together (stupid 11s) and wonder how the heck THAT happened. I ask another seven if they were a one and they say that no, they're a seven. The whole room has broken into twelve separate groups. There's no denying it. I must join my ranks. I step up to the Ones and, just to waste a few more valuable seconds, I ask "is this......is this......the ones......?" A short blonde girl screams "YES!" and grabs my paper from my hands, destroying my chance at a few more wasted seconds of just standing there awkwardly with it.

I stand outside a tight huddle of my teammates, watching them rearrange the tears of paper. I look to my right and see a guy standing with his arms crossed. There is a certain familiar fear in his eyes; a man after my own heart. I lean over to him and say, "seems like we should be sabotaging this somehow" and he smiles and nods. COMRADE! CONFIDANT! BELOVED FRIEND! I want to hug him. I want to hi-five him. I want to conspire with him, plot some kind of plan that involves a bathroom fire.

Someone is shouting at me. I look down into the group and an olive skinned kid is staring at me, his lips moving. He says, "JOHN! JOHN, DO YOU KNOW THIS SONG!!???" (he doesn't know me. He only says my name because I'm wearing a name tag) and I say, "No", unaware of what song he's talking about. He points at the papers, at the lyrics, and I shrug. Again I say, "No." and then, for good measure add, "what is it?" He starts singing in a voice like melted butter and velveteen bunnies and I don't pay attention to what he's actually saying, just to his tone. "Do you got it?" he asks. "One more time", I say. He sings it again and I try to remember it. He asks me if I've got it now and I think I do, except for the first half and most of the second half. I tell him I'll try to just squat down and stand behind some people. I tell him if we cheat we can win. I'm not sure if he hears me but he starts jumping up and down with all the enthusiasm of a child with ADD, waving his hands in the air and whaling, "WE HAVE IT! WE HAVE IT!!!". It is at this moment that I realize that three other teams are already shouting. We've just missed it. My team is sad and I pretend to be as well. "Good try" "Excellent go" and "Ain't that the breaks" are just a few of the phrases I whisper to myself, trying to appear in a state of genuine dismay.

I have a hard time enjoying the competition because I fear that if one team is disqualified for some reason then we would have the chance to go. I have forgotten everything about the song. Lyrics? Melody? Was there a dance? I can't remember. I cheer on the other teams, mostly in my own brain, mostly just trying to send them good vibes. I want them to win. I don't care which one, I don't care who. I just want them all to try their best. I want them all to win. A THREE WAY TIE!

Someone wins and I don't register who it is. I'm happy that my plan was a success. They tell us that they're breaking us into teams. They say our room keys are attached to a colored lanyard. They say that color will be our team. Mine is white. They say "go" and I find my white people, which, strangely enough, includes a black girl, a latino and some sort of mixed person. We are all gathered in the back of the room and I wonder if all these people know each other, all of them friends except me. Someone calls for silence and says that they're calling out team captains. They say, "White team - Ashley Dodson and John Brookbank" and my stomach quivers, shrinks, expands, ripples and then hugs up against my pancreas for support. My team cheers me and I feel out of place. I tell them, "I don't know how this happened. I didn't sign up. I'm not.......is this right?" I feel as though I should be addressing this problem with someone. I feel as though I should hold a mutiny against our new team leader. I could overthrow John Brookbank and get someone competent for the job. Someone with the know-how. I look at my team and they all stare back at me and I realize there will be no mutiny. The image of the horde of green aliens staring up at The Claw in Toy Story briefly flashes into my mind before Ashley suggests naming our team "The Tighty-Whities". I think it's a good idea so I second the motion. No one else speaks. They smile and stare at The Claw.

We break up and get some free time. I head outside and watch a group of people play volleyball. I want to play but lack the proper skill set. The game is over and a new one begins. A new team. Someone asks me if I want to play and I just smile knowingly and nod, "No....no thank you". I watch another game and Josh and Amy come over. Someone asks Josh if he wants to play and he supposes that he would. As it turns out, Josh is some kind of volleyball machine, spiking, serving and diving at every opportunity. He is not ON the winning team. He IS the winning team. Someone asks Amy if she wants to play. She says, "Ah....no.....". I ask her if she wants to play, if she really DOES want to play and she says that she does except she's no good. Amy and I watch Josh, husband and weekend father figure, systematically destroy the opposing teams.

I go to my room at midnight and lie in my bed for quite a while, trying to fart silently. I don't want the other guys to hear me. A song comes to mind. The lyrics go, "We are spread out butt cheeks so just the air leaks".

The next morning at breakfast I'm sitting at a table with a guy named Jay. Someone sits down next to me and says, "Hey, you're the white team leader, right?" and they hold up their white lanyard. "Yeah", I say, "Yeah I am". They ask me if Ashley and I were up all night figuring out dance moves for the big talent competition and I pretend that if I don't hear what he just said the reality of it might just go away. The mixed race girl sits down on the other side of me and says, "Hey, aren't you the white team captain?" and she holds up her white lanyard. "Yeah", I say. She leans in and in a very serious tone says, "Well listen. If I'm going to be on this team and I think I have to, then we can NOT be called The Tighty Whities. I think we need to think of something more spiritual. Something like White Light." She tells me that she finds it quite interesting that if you mix all paint colors together you get black and if you mix all colors of light together you get white. I tell her that if you mix all paint colors together you actually get a dirty, disgusting brown. She stares at me and I wonder if she thinks I am somehow insinuating that the color brown, in and of itself, is dirty. I wonder if this has just turned into a race war. I wish she knew that my favorite color actually WAS brown. She smiles at The Claw and sticks some eggs in her mouth, eggs that look as though they were put on the plate by way of an ice cream scooper.

Breakfast is over and outside I tell Jay, who's on the brown or tan or mocha team (he's not really sure) I tell him that last night in bed I thought of a great new name for my team. I tell him, "White Power" and he squints at me, not sure if I'm joking or not. I tell him that it evokes a feeling of goodness. He says he doesn't really agree. I tell him that I was also thinking something along the lines of being the best.......something about being SUPREME.......something about supremacy. Jay, who I've only just met, is looking around for people he knows. I tell him that our logo, since this IS a Christian themed weekend, could be a cross. I tell him there's a strong sense of power that comes with a burning cross but I tell him that since we're in the forest it might not be safe. I tell him that my team might dress up in white bedsheets for all the competitions. He says something about horses in bedsheets and I tell him that it's a ridiculous idea. I tell him he's really pushing it.

I watch another game of volleyball and again, someone asks me if I want to play, "No", I say, "The last time I played volleyball was a real big nightmare" and I leave it at that.

Inside, the teams have gathered according to color and I wonder if I should pitch the name, "The White Lanyards" to them. The black girl on my team offers up a slogan for our team. She says it should be, "We're white / We're white / and white is always right". I think it's maybe a touch racy but I second the motion. Our team counts to three and we shout it out. Everyone stares at us. Across the room, Jay is shaking his head. Someone comes up behind me and asks if I'm the white team captain. I say yeah. They say they just got here. The power is starting to rush to my head. Being a leader. I'm becoming drunk with power. I'm beginning to like how it sounds. I wonder how "Mr. Brookbank" sounds coming out of their mouths.

It's a few hours later. It's easily 100 degrees outside. I ask Josh if he wants to go to the pool. He says he didn't bring any trunks. He asks if I wanna play volleyball and I do but I cringe away anyhow. I ask Jay if he wants to go swimming and he says something about something that has to do with not swimming. I decide to go by myself even though it's a little weird. When I arrive there is only a guy and a girl in the pool. I dive in because I'm afraid what they will think of me if I stick my toe in, shiver, hug my nipples and then slowly wade down the steps saying, "Ohhh, oooooh, it's.....it's COLD". Sometimes it is very hard to make people believe that you are a "man". I float around in the deep end for a few moments before slowly doggy-paddling over to the couple. As an icebreaker I ask them what team they're on. I feel as though it's more effective than asking them if they want to play some stupid sing-a-long with me. The girl says blue (inferior team) and the boy says white. I suddenly stand up straight and pretend to casually stretch. "Oh yeah?", I say, "I'm actually the white team captain". Before it's out of my mouth I regret saying it. I don't know what I was thinking. He says, "Oh, yeah" and acts unimpressed.....only..........I can't help but wonder if it wasn't an act and was just genuine emotion. I talk to him about music and film and then he gets out of the pool. I am alone in the pool, floating around like a sexual offender. Some other people jump in and I try to break into the conversation but it's not working. I continue to float around, alone. I am a creep. I am a weirdo. I get out of the pool and an older gentleman tells me that he likes my beard. I tell him thanks. I tell him that it looks like a drowned rat when it's wet. He smiles, does not laugh and says, "Yeah it does".

I grab my towel, head back to my room, shower, change and watch another game of volleyball. Someone asks me if I want to play and I knowingly just shake my head.

It is quiet time. We are supposed to take our Bibles and find a spot where we are alone and just read and pray and reflect on some of the messages we've heard. People head into the woods. People sit around trees. People sit in the shade. I go back to my room and sit on the balcony. I watch a girl below me put on her iPod and I wonder if it's difficult to have quiet time with Tina Turner inside your head. Someone in the room next to me is talking on the phone. I listen to their conversation. It is nothing important but I like the thrill. I read Matthew chapters 5-7, Jesus' sermon at the mount; possibly his greatest sermon ever. I reflect on it and fall asleep in my chair. When I wake up it's lunch time.

I rush to find someone I know or at least sort of know and fail. I walk into the dining room and try to find someone I know who's already sitting down at a table with an open chair. I find none. I settle for sitting at a table with someone on the white team who I know not their name. I sit down and they look at me. The Claw. They say something about a talent competition. I say I'm not partaking in a talent competition. They say everyone does. They say you have to. I say, "Not me". I say, "I'll be getting sick around then". They tell me that I can't. They tell me that I'm a team leader. I remember my sense of authority and place of power and realize everyone would notice if the weird kid was gone. I am trapped and a sense of claustrophobia and impending doom washes over me.

Lunch ends, I watch another game of volleyball and then we're sitting in the outdoor amphitheater and they are explaining the rules of the talent show to us. They tell us that our team gets a random song and that we get thirty minutes to come up with "a routine". We get something from High School Musical and things could not be worse. We break off into teams to plot and scheme and our CD won't play on the laptop and time is ticking. Somebody has a bad idea and somebody else thinks it's good. I shake my head. I wonder if I have the authority to veto. The team begins to run with the bad idea, which involves reenacting a church service and bringing a stranger in off the street. I want to die. I want to shoot myself. I want to run away and hide. Everyone is talking at once and, outside of that main root point, nothing else is decided. Somebody says we should have a precursor to the song; something that happens BEFORE the music starts. I wonder why they would want to be up there longer than absolutely and positively necessary. I put on my team captain hat and I tell them that we don't have enough material to fill an entire song LET ALONE a precursor to a song. Someone says that they do stage work for a living. They tell us that it will be okay. They tell us that it goes faster than you think and I say, "Yeah, but we've only got two dance moves and that's really........I mean.........that's not gonna last one minute". She tells me not to worry and I worry and time is up and we're back at the amphitheater. They call the green team and they call the yellow team and they call the brown team. They call the blue team and they call the red team and they call the black team and I'm wishing they would call us so the humiliation would be over with. I have butterflies and again I'm wondering if I should be here. I wonder, again, what Jade is doing two hours away. I wonder if she has any idea the nightmare I'm in right now. They call the white team and we approach the stage. We do the precursor, which pretty much consists of this guy reading from the Bible. I wanted to nip that idea right in the bud but the team loved it. I didn't understand. As he reads, the crowd boos us and I'm wondering how much longer this will last. The precursor is finished and the music starts and we do the first dance move, which lasts roughly four and a half seconds and then we do the second dance move and, because there was nothing else planned, because it would "go faster than you think, don't worry" the second dance move lasts about 55 1/2 seconds. The move includes us lifting our left hand, lifting our right hand, lifting our left hand, lifting our right hand and wiggling back and forth, foot to foot. I stare out into the crowd, at the blank faces, at the cocked eyebrows. I want to throw myself off a cliff. The song goes on and on and my face is red. I eventually just stop, tired of the charade and stand there for a few seconds. The feeling of trying to be normal in a crowd of people doing a stupid dance move, stuck on repeat, is even worse that partaking in the dance so I start up again, praying for lightening to strike me. The song ends and I run back to my seat, pull my hat down and slouch as low in my seat as I can while listening to the sound of scattered and weak applause that's really more for polite show than anything else. They announce the winners and it's not us and I'm happy. The three winning teams have to perform a second time and I feel sorry for each and every one of them. Is it better to look like an idiot without a plan and go once or look like an idiot that knows what they're doing and go twice?

The show is over and we head to dinner. A weight is lifted off my shoulders. We eat asparagus and mashed potatoes and onion rings and prime rib and even though I'm trying to cut meat from my diet I eat in anyway because it looks too good. He died for our dinner. Eat my flesh and do this in remembrance of me. Munch munch munch. Cow blood lies in a pool on my plate. Drink my blood and do this in remembrance of me. I rub some meat in the blood and eat it. Slurp slurp. They announce another game after dinner. They say it's water volleyball and I really am feeling a panic attack coming on.

We're outside and they ask who wants to play first and Ashley (the other white team captain) shouts that "we do, we do, the white team does!" My team tells her to be quiet but she jumps and screams and we're in the sand. I figure at least this time we can have the humiliation over with quickly. Each team is given a sheet. Each sheet has holes cut in it. The team stands around the sheet, gripping the edges. A water balloon is placed on the sheet and we are instructed to "serve it" over the net and so on and so forth. Water balloon volleyball. Whoever pops the balloon loses. We play and we beat the first team and we play and we beat the second team and we play and we beat the third, fourth and fifth teams. They tell us to switch sides. They tell us to switch blankets. We beat the sixth, sevenths and eighth teams and the crowd boos us each time we score. The crowd counts out loud, trying to mess up our team counting for the combined effort of a serve. The referee asks us to stop playing and give another team a shot. We gather at the sidelines and watch teams nine and ten play. Team ten wins. This is it. It is team ten vs. team white and we play them and smash their smiling, smug faces into the sand and the white team is victorious, completely making a comeback from our previous failure. We are booed off the court with our arms held high, spinning our white lanyards in the air, chanting, "We're white / We're white / And white is always right".

Inside, during the message, somebody on the stage says that the white team has turned into a bunch of egomaniacs. We break into our colored teams for a conversation piece. They give us some questions to talk about and instead we talk about how much we killed it. Egomaniacs? You got it. And I led them into battle, returning with the scalps and pride of our enemies. Back in the auditorium there is a prayer time and I fall asleep. It is cold and the music is hypnotic. I hope no one notices but later Amy tells me she saw me across the room and was wondering if I was asleep or "just really into it".

After the message I am rested up and still high on competitive domination. Outside, volleyball has begun again and I decide that I AM going to play and that I AM going to win and that I will no longer be afraid of a sport that is predominantly (in my mind) for girls. I decide that I will not be joining the ranks of the seasoned players. I decide that I will not be odd man out. I walk the grounds and find the rejects of sports. I find the tired and weak. I say to them, "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore, send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me". I gather the kids who only play Uno because they are afraid of sports. I gather the kids with no muscles. I gather Amy, who wants to play but doesn't because she is horrible. We are the Bad News Bears and we will warm benches no longer. We approach the sidelines and watch the game play out. It ends and it is our time to shine. Another team stands up and walks past us and we all just pretend that we weren't actually going to play. I tell my team that we've got next game. We watch the game and snap when someone scores. It is after ten pm and so we have to be quiet. There are houses nearby and we can't be a ruckus. We play silent volleyball by the light of lamps. You don't shout the score. You hold up fingers. You don't say "I GOT IT!". You just whisper it. You don't clap and cheer. You only snap. There is something surreal about watching a silent volleyball game in the dark with only the soft "thup....thup" of the ball slapping wrists.

The game is over and we mount the sand. The opposing team mounts the sand and then ANOTHER team mounts the sand, careless to us. They stare at us and say, "what are you doing?" and I say, "what you YOU doing?" and they say that their team can't have this many players and I tell them that we are our own team and they say that they called next game and I say, "No, we did" and then Josh / dad walks up and says, "Hey guys, c'mon....this team has never even played before. Let's give them a chance" and I feel like an idiot. The team stares at us and doesn't move and we don't move and finally they give. They say that they've got next game. Josh joins our team and I realize that he is the secret weapon.

It begins. Our team serves and the ball flies over the net and comes back and it comes right to me and I try to pop it back into the air and I don't know if it's because I didn't have my glasses on or because it was dark or because I'm just a bad volleyball player, but I drop to my knees, swing hard and totally miss the ball. It lands with a THWUP right in the sand in front of me and I hear laughter from the sidelines and I am regretting my decision to chase this dream. Our team has no idea what we're doing. We're all dressed inappropriately for volleyball. Where most teams are wearing shorts and t-shirts, we're wearing sweaters, tennis shoes and Gap scarves. I'm praying for the lights to go out. I'm praying for a power shortage. Maybe if the game is called off before I have to do my patented weak-wristed serve I can save SOME face.

No. It's my turn to serve. I hit it and it goes over. I get a point. I serve. I get a point. I serve. I get a point. Something happens and I don't know what it is but we suddenly begin playing very well together and we beat the first team and we play the second team and we beat them and we begin playing the third team and the lights go out. We finish the game and we lose but I like to think it had something to do with not being able to see the ball. We walk off the field, happy with our experience, happy with beating our nemesis, happy with no longer being the kids who never play volleyball. We are now the kids that "played volleyball once and won".

The next morning we pack up. I carry my lilac covered suitcase to Josh's car through all the most unused hallways. I take the longest way I can to avoid being spotted. The three three of us, Josh, Amy and myself, get in the car and begin heading down the mountain. I'm wondering what Jade is doing. I'm wondering if her weekend was as victorious as mine. I'm wondering if I should start playing some sort of beach volleyball but mostly I'm just excited about next year. I'm excited to bring my A-game to seek and destroy the competition at that stupid talent show.

Only 364 days to plan.

Taurus

2009-08-27T10:51:00.000-07:00

Whenever we leave town I get really excited. It doesn't matter if we're heading to Anaheim to see Disneyland or Seattle to see friends or South Dakota to see family or when we're just taking visiting guests down to Skid Row to make a spectacle of the homeless and hungry. I love being at home but I LOVE me a good adventure. The idea of traveling down a long and lonesome road, not sure what dangers and excitement lie ahead. A hitchhiker? A tourist attraction? A blown tire? Around every bend could be the abandoned nail in the road that will cause you to stop in the middle of nowhere, perhaps in the middle of the night, completely helpless save for your cunning wits.

When Jade and I lived in Denver, Jade's mom made a big move herself into the mountains of Colorado. She and a friend purchased a beautiful piece of estate on the very plateau of this monstrous hill overlooking eternal valleys in all directions. You talk about Heaven on Earth, this was it. Dogs and horses pretty much ran free. The house was an elegant log cabin and was kept warm by a fire place. There was nobody around (literally) for miles. You could remove your clothes and take a stroll through the front yard in the middle of the day if you so chose. The thing, however, that I found most often stopped me from walking around naked was my mother-in-law. I realized that strutting through the front lawn with the cocktail weiner and hackie-sack exposed was, perhaps, a bad idea. Regardless, you get the idea. Complete isolation. If a snow storm hit, you were trapped until the plow dug you out. Think, "The Shining".

It was a Friday and I had just wrapped up my classes for the week. Jade and I were heading to the mountain resort to spend the weekend with her mom. It was about a three hour drive, easily, and Jade had made it the day before. She finished her classes on a Thursday and decided to just get out of town a little earlier. I packed my clothes, always indecisive about what to bring on a trip - any trip. I never want to be OVER packed. That is a nuisance. But, more than anything, I don't want to be UNDER packed. What if I realize, too late, that I need a sweater? What if I realize, too late, that my sweater doesn't match my jeans? What if I realize, too late, that I really really really want to be wearing my cords rather than jeans? Are these THE two t-shirts I want to be stuck with for the next three days? How many pairs of underwear will I need? Two. One for Friday / Saturday. One for Sunday. I decide to bring three in case I have an "accident". This fear is founded upon nothing but I am aware of it's existence and potential. I love to fart loud and hard and this sometimes puts me in danger of surprises. I pack one pair of sneakers then decide to toss in my flip-flops for good measure. I take a pair of shorts to sleep in and then decide that if I'm taking shorts I should take a night robe. I take a jacket since it would be unfair to JUST bring a sweater and I also bring a beanie and a billed cap, one pair of sunglasses, one pair of seeing glasses, two pairs of socks, no three, just in case I step in a puddle I want a clean back-up. I bring a book and then decide to bring a second one just in case I finish the first one. I bring my journal, my sketch book and my idea notebook along with three separate pens. I pack a school book incase I'm feeling academic and an individual notebook for that. I don't bother with deodorant or toothpaste, assuming they'll have it there, but I do put away my toothbrush and prescription pills that keep me from having petite mal seizures. I don't own a wallet so I stick a few bills in my pocket along with my driver's license and credit card. I finally shove it all into a black plastic garbage bag and head out of the dorms, realizing, halfway down the hall that I've forgotten to burn my four new "Road Music" CDs and that I may as well grab a vest while I'm back.

I'm on the road. I'm leaving Denver behind for the next few days and am on my way to destination: Canon City......well, it's about an hour into nowhere OUTSIDE of Canon City but CC is the final stop for all things civilization. So I'm in my new (to you) Ford Taurus, which, for all means and purposes has been a completely reliable car. I purchased it in South Dakota just after high school and drove it to Colorado. It's gotten me all around The Mile High City and I've never had to do anything to it short of put gas in it and change it's brakes, which actually, is another story altogether.

I exit the city and am driving down a two lane freeway heading south. The drive is smooth and the temperature is A-OK. To the left of me I notice a waist high cement wall begin - the sort of wall that is announcing road construction. To the right of me I notice the same stone wall begin, barricading us into our auto-stalls. None of this is strange or out of the ordinary. In South Dakota they say we have two seasons: winter and road construction. What WAS strange, however, was when the cement wall to the left of me began to slant towards us, slowly blocking out the left lane completely. At this point there is no shoulder to the road. It is completely edge-to-edge lane. I am in a line of herded mechanical cattle following the butt-end in front of me. I am being led to a slaughter and I am smiling about it. Vacation! Adventure! Excitement!

It happens at about the point when I can't see the beginning of the cement wall behind me and I can't yet see the end of it in front of me that my trustworthy Ford Taurus decides to have it's very first panic-attack (they grow up so quick!). It sputters and spurts. It coughs and lurches. It leaps and then I'm left pumping the gas, wondering why nothing is catching. I'm slamming my foot into the pedal, staring at my floorboards like I'm lit up (on drugs). The car is slowing down.....60......55......50.....at 45 the guy behind me starts to honk, alerting me, just in case I hadn't noticed, that I am now moving at a snail's pace along the coasting freeway. 35.......30......27........the cars behind him are honking. Perhaps they think I'm narcoleptic and have fallen asleep at the wheel? Perhaps they think I have Alzheimer's and have forgotten where I am? Perhaps they think I'm just some punk kid pulling some jerk-prank on weary traveler's? What they don't know is that it's just me, alone, in my car, screaming at my feet pressing the pedals. It's just me alone swearing and hitting the console, shouting Nazi-like commands at a piece of machinery that won't listen. It is just me alone, getting suddenly very hot and sweaty on a nice day. 20.......15.......11.....I'm sure I'm just going to stop. I'm just going to roll to a gentle stop and I will sit still in the seat for a moment and I will whisper to myself, "God, why hath Thou forsaken me?" I will step out of my car, place my sneaker on the hot tar and I will be torn to pieces and burnt at the stake by the modern day angry villagers behind me. They will pull out their modern day torches, ie guns and they will burn me with their modern day flames, ie bullets.

8.....5.....in the not-too-distance I see the end of the cement wall. In my panic and mind-chaos I hadn't been watching to see when the road would open up again. I try rocking my body back and forth, giving my car that extra bit of momentum to reach it's destination. And here it was. And just beyond the cement wall, what do I find but a tow truck. A four-wheeled angel. It is sanctuary. Salvation. Heaven. Why hath Thou forsaken me? NEVER! I was but weak in faith. I pull over and a row of roughly seventeen people, young and old, black and white, weak and strong, flip me off, give me dirty looks or just plainly shake their heads in disgust. But no one stops. No one pulls over, thinking, "this young man is all alone on the freeway, having automobile problems. We should help." Instead they drive. I bet if I was a reality show star they'd all stop. They'd be lining up to help me. I kick a rock on the ground and pretend it was all of them. I tap it into the road and watch it get run over and I smile. Take that, you bastards.

I walk over to the tow truck and ask the guy for a quick jump. I say my car's all messed up but I think some juice would just get me to the gas station. He says sure. He sells it'll cost me twenty-five bucks. I tell him I don't have twenty-five bucks. I tell him I have roughly three and a credit card. I ask him if he can run the credit card and he says no. I ask him if he can just help me out. I tell him "that's my car right there - the one right there - the gray one". It's approximately eleven feet away and the only one that's not moving so I assume I don't need to be anymore accurate. He shakes his head and says no. He says he could get in some real trouble. I say please. I say I just need some help - person to person and he gets inside his tow truck and leaves me alone, on the road, wishing I were a reality star.

I watch this new boss bastard drive away and I pick up another rock and stare at it. I picture it's his head and I throw it out into the middle of nowhere. I glance around and notice, about half a mile up, that there's a cop writing someone a ticket. I look back the other way and just see a steady stream of people passing me, now pretending I don't exist. I'm beginning to get hungry and thirsty (I always pack the proper wardrobe and never the proper food supplies) and so I begin walking towards the police car. Certainly a man of the law, a protector of freedom and all things good would help a sort of dimwit in distress. Six blocks is really a lot further than you think. I begin to wonder if he's going to finish that ticket soon and get back in his car and drive off. I begin to wonder what I would do if that were to happen and I begin to jog and then to run. By the time I reach him he is indeed crawling back inside his car, oblivious to my shouts of, "Hey! Hey! Guy! Officer! Dude! Wait! Hey!" I finally get to him just as he turns the key in the ignition and I tap on the glass. He looks at me and I think briefly that I see his hand go to the butt of his gun. I motion for him to roll down his window and he does so, just a crack.

"Yeah?"
"Sorry....I just.....(this is me panting).....I just.....my car.....it's all messed up....I just need....a jump.....can you help......I'm sorry - I just ran......super tired......need a jump down the road...."

He looks in his rearview mirror and looks back at me and tells me he's not allowed to and I say, "WHAT!!!????" and he just looks at me from behind his mustache and sunglasses and I suddenly want to break his window and rip out his throat. I try to explain our dynamic to him. I tell him I am a citizen and that I pay taxes and that he is a policeman and gets paid from my taxes. He nods and agrees but says it's not his job and he's not supposed to use state vehicles to help people. I want to find the governor. I want to find the senator. I want to find the closest local mayor and I want to drag them out of bed and throw them in the middle of nowhere and tell them to walk home. I want to strip off their clothes and burn them and say, "Deal". I want to say "fine" to this cop and slowly walk away with my key dragging up the side of his stupid, useless car. I don't do this, though. Instead, I beg and finally, as it usually does, it works. He backs up the six blocks but, instead of letting me sit in the passenger seat or even the back of the car he just makes me walk.

When I finally get back I'm now too weak to kill this man even if I wanted to. He gives me a jump and my car starts and he tells me there's a gas station a ways up the road and that I should pull over there and put some water in my radiator. I say sure.

Huh.......nice guy.....

The next exit truly is the gas station and I do buy a gallon of water and a cold egg-salad sandwich. I pour the water into my radiator, I eat my sandwich and when a guy asks me for a few bucks for gas I give it to him, deciding that I would rather die than join the ranks of the Complete Effing Dick Hole Army. I don't even care if he's going to buy booze or broads or blow with it. I tell him what happens and he seem sympathetic before quickly running inside the gas station to buy, what? A pack of cigarettes, probably.

I fire up my ride and push on, praying hard, that something like this doesn't happen again. The going is good and I'm listening to my "Road Mix 3" CD and all is well. The sun is just setting and it's beautiful over the mountains, outlining them in red, turning them into black silhouettes. I cruise through Canon City and am officially past civilization. The traffic goes away, people are scarce, homes are few and far between. The sun drops like a ball and night falls around me. I take a left off the main highway onto Tallahassee Road, marked simply by a cross with white paint scrawling the sloppy letters. I drive a solid thirty five minutes into nothing. I am driving between hills. I am taking rights and lefts on unmarked roads, navigating from memory, getting lost in the mountains. I am in the shroud of darkness and, besides the shine of my headlamps, there is no light, save a few stars and besides the hum of my motor, there is no noise, save for nothing. Solitude. I have entered no-man's land and I am alone. And now, it is at this moment, this time of shining realization that I feel the beast below me sputter and spit and go heavy. I pump the pedal and nothing, just as before. I swear and I curse but I do so quietly, fearing the sound of my voice against the backdrop of nothing. It sounds too foreign to me so I zip it.

The car rolls to a stop and in front of me I see fifteen feet of dirt road and then black space. Behind me I see the dirt, reflected red from my taillights and to the left and right of me is a sea void of any characteristics. Steam is rising under my hood and I have no water left and I curse myself for not buying another jug. I lift up the hood and suddenly, from far off, but not far enough, I hear a noise and I turn in that direction. A footstep?

W....T.....F.....

I get back in my car, hood still up and I pull out my cell phone. I'll just call Jade and June and they'll come help me out. I must be only twenty minutes away now. I can keep cool for that long. I can be brave. I can be a big boy. I flip open the phone and I am getting zero reception and I think that the noise was definitely a footstep and that somewhere, much like "The Truman Show" there are people watching my life right now, only instead of a funny drama, my life is a horror movie. I am that first character to get killed off. The one who gets the ax in the first ten minutes just so you know what you're up against. I am the nameless drifter, receiving nothing more in the credits than "First Victim".

I roll the window down, just a crack, and remind myself of the officer and can suddenly sympathize with him. The desolate mountain range. A strange, desperate wanderer suddenly knocking on your window, wild eyed and covered with sweat. I roll the window back up and just pray that that I don't die. I wish my dad were here, not as a protector because he probably fights just as well as I do, but as a mechanic. I want him to be hunched over in front of the hood of my car, twisting knobs, pulling levers and saying, "there ya go" and then I'm off. But he's not and I've never gathered any sort of automotive wisdom from him and that decision I am now firmly regretting.

I get out of my car and wander back to the hood, hoping that I see something obvious. Maybe a squirrel stuck between some gears. Maybe a......I don't know. I don't even know what it's supposed to look like when NOTHING is wrong with it. Who am I kidding? And then another footstep and then something is being thrown. An acorn? A rock? I turn into the darkness and I shout, suddenly, and without thinking, "HEEEEELLLOOOOO!!!!????" and my voice echoes and bounces and rolls off the hills forever, again and again, bouncing through the valleys and there is no answer and I think, "Duh, Sasquatch doesn't talk....and even if he did, it certainly wouldn't be in English". And this was my conclusion. I was sure that day, in that darkness that there were one of two things hunting for me. Was a serial killer probable? No. POSSIBLE, but not probable. PROBABLE was The Elusive Sasquatch. I was positive a hairy, eight foot tall, mangy beast was going to come strolling from the darkness, seen only too late and twist my head off my shoulders with a swift swipe and a howl. OR.....the other thought was zombies. I have a strange and exotic fear of zombies. I understand that they don't exist and I understand that it's foolish to believe, as an adult, that the dead walk among us, but I am afraid that I will be the person that discovers them. I will be, oh, let's say stranded on a dirt road somewhere, someday.....in the mountains perhaps? And I will hear a noise and my car will be exhausted and my phone will be charged but useless and I will discover the walking dead, one, two, three of them, perhaps once buried in shallow graves. I will run through the woods blindly, not knowing where I'm heading or where I came from. I won't be able to see anything and I'll probably either a.) get lost and fall down a pit, break my leg and starve to death, b.) get caught by a horde of zombies in another part of the mountains or c.) get trapped by Sasquatch and have my puny head twisted off.

I shut my hood, get back in my car and try the starter. Nothing, nothing, nothing, SOMETHING! It roars to life. I give it a second, not wanting to rush what may turn out to be my only chance at survival. I slowly pull it into drive, coast, coast, coast, gas, and then I'M OFF! Lefts, rights, lefts, break off when necessary, follow the long driveway up the curve of the hill and breach the plain. The house has many windows and they are all shining with light, beacons of hope in the darkness. I pull up behind Jade's car, say, "Thank you, God, for not allowing me to die tonight by the vicious and savage hands of Sasquatch or by the rotting black teeth of zombie men and women". I get out of my car and head inside. Everyone is happy to see me. Everyone is wondering where I've been. Everyone is saying they've been calling me and couldn't get through.

"Yeah", I say, "tell me about it".

Theresa Darlin'

2009-08-23T23:03:00.000-07:00

The game happens at wedding receptions. The bride and groom choose eight people, give or take a few, to partake in a dance competition. The competitors are called out, one by one, onto the stage and asked to place a paper bag over their head before dancing commences. This is to ensure that there will be no cheating. No move stealing. The DJ yells go and everyone begins flailing arms, shaking legs and jiggling bottoms. It's supposed to be a lot of fun.

Things didn't go exactly as planned.......

My younger sister was born in 1984. My parents named her Theresa Darlene Brookbank after both of her grandmothers. She hates her middle name because it is reminiscent of "darling", which she believes could be easily confused with any number of other pet names. Theresa Sweetheart Brookbank. Theresa Honey Dumpling Brookbank. Theresa Cookie Brookbank. When talking to her or shouting out for her attention in a large and crowded room, I'll usually go for the shorter, more concise T, Teets, Hog Teet or T-bag. When we were children, three and four, four and five, Theresa would call me Boy. It was a child's nickname for a person who's name she couldn't quite seem to grasp. It wasn't nearly as colorful as the code names I had chosen, but it certainly got the message across in the simplest way possible. It immediately let you know who she was talking to and what gender they were. The only confusion I thought the name held was my ethnicity. I constantly felt as though people were looking around for the black slave that was put in charge of this young white plantation heir. She'd stand at my side, six inches, a foot shorter than me, whispering my name, never talking louder than a mouse fart, trying to get my attention, needing me to do something for her, "I need a spoon........." or "tie my shoes.........." or "get me water.............". It was very easy to look over her if a dog was barking, a siren was passing or the wind was merely blowing. She was just a very soft spoken child.

In public, my sister would stand next to my mom, never getting too far out of sight and if she needed something and there was anyone around, it was imperative that she whisper directly into my mother's ear. As she got older, what we all thought was being "soft spoken" became full fledged shyness. Once she was four and five, if you needed to ask her something and weren't in our immediate family, she would bring up her forearm and cover her eyes, trying to stick her head in the sand like a human ostrich. The answers she held for you, the keys to your clues, were locked up tight. There was no use trying. You could tie her up, hang her upside down and stick bamboo shoots under her fingernails. She probably wouldn't even scream because it would be considered too much of an extrovert activity.

Elementary school began and Theresa's condition had now turned from "being shy" into a full blown "condition". At the start of kindergarten, my mom ends up mailing a letter to the teacher, informing her that Theresa was indeed just "exceptionally shy" and not "mentally ill". My mother tells her that Theresa will just sit at her desk and listen, she won't say a word, not even if she has to go to the bathroom. She'll just sit there and develop a bladder infection rather than speak. The school probably could have enrolled Theresa in some sort of special education program designed for children who didn't know how to speak and it's very likely that our family never would have known about it. Theresa merely would have continued to attend school, sitting in the back of a class filled with handicapped children and listen while the teachers and teachers aides tried to teach these six and seven year olds the alphabet and how to count to ten.

It's first grade and Theresa gets a bloody nose. Maybe it just happened. Maybe it's really dry in the classroom. Maybe she forgot to breathe. Crimson driblets are pulsing slowly down her face, making her nose look like a leaky faucet from the Amytiville House. In real life she doesn't raise her hand. In her imagination she does and twenty some children turn their soft, white cherubic faces in her direction, staring at her like porcelain dolls. They all watch and none blink. They are the judge, jury and executioners of the school. They weren't friends with her but they could judge. They could think. They could wonder. She could go to the teacher's desk, but that would require interaction, talking, speaking and all she was really capable of was grunting for yes and hissing for no. Plus all the children's eyes - their black glass eyes watching her step by step up the aisle. What if they all pointed? What if they all laughed? Would the teacher join in? What would she do? Run out of the room? To the bathroom? Down the hall? Home? These options couldn't even be considered. Drastic measures needed to be taken.

She opens her desk and finds her box of Kleenex. As children, kleenex were always on the list of school supplies we had to buy. Pencils, notebook, ruler, kleenex. Hey, everyone has to blow their nose and for the kids who didn't actually enjoy eating the glue (like my wife did) we actually preferred to wipe it off on something. So Theresa grabs the box and blows her nose into it, turning it from a virgin hanky into a used tampon. She shoves the kleenex towards the back of her desk and grabs for another one. She continues this process, desperately trying to plug the problem, trying to remain quiet and inconspicuous among the enemy. It is always the person who wants to be noticed least that will be noticed most. When you are trying to sneak around, you look suspicious and people become interested. I picture her lifting up her desk casually and then desperately shoving her fingers into her nose, rolling them around the cartilage, trying to mop up every drip of this catastrophe before someone notices. I picture her peeking her eyes up over the top of her raised desktop and glancing around. i picture her feet hanging a few inches above the floor, the toes of her saddle shoes tapping up and down nervously. I picture the kids slowly getting one another's attention, pointing at her. I picture the teacher sitting behind her big wooden desk thinking, "Maybe I should enroll her in Special Ed...."

One after the other her kleenexes are stacking up, starting to form a big red pile behind her school books when finally, as bloody noses do, just stops. She lowers her desk hatch, never raising her eyes, never looking at anyone and just begins to read.

As she gets older, the problem does anything but solve itself. During church, at communion when everyone stands up and walks down the aisle to receive the bread and wine, Theresa just stays seated at the pew, watching as everyone else heads down, one at a time. She looks at each and every one of them and thinks there is no way anyone will be looking at her. She begins taking jobs that allow her to avoid the public eye whenever possible. First she gets a newspaper route that requires her to work at 4am before the vast majority of people are out and about or even awake. When she needed more money she got a job at a fast food restaurant, requesting that she stay in back and never ever under any circumstances work the register or the drive-thru.

I'm over at her house one day and hungry. I get up to get some food from the fridge without asking. These are the things that make family. You can say anything at anytime. You have the liberty of searching through anything they have sitting out and you don't have to ask when you want some food. You just get up and open the fridge and open the cupboards and take whatever you want as long as it doesn't look too expensive and you eat it. So I walk into her kitchen (she's living on her own, alone now) and I open up the refrigerator and see a can of Bud Light, two slices of cheese and a box of baking soda. I open the freezer and find ice trays without ice in them. I move to the cabinets, sure I'd be able to at least drum up a few old bread heels for a dry cheese sandwich. No. There's some canned spinach and some chocolate syrup. I sigh and grab the spinach, asking her if I happened to miss the butter. "No", she says, "I don't have any butter". "Garlic salt?" I ask. If I'm going to choke down canned spinach, it can't be just plain. I'd rather starve. As it turns out she DOES have garlic salt. In fact, she has quite the supply of different seasonings. I ask where it all came from and she says, "Mom". I ask her if she ever cooks and she says, "Sure". I ask why she doesn't have any food and she says she doesn't like going to the grocery store alone. She says it makes her uncomfortable. I ask why and she says she doesn't know. She says it's just all those people, all of them around her, watching her. I try to tell her that they're not watching her but she politely disagrees.

I ask her if she's ever seen those Verizon Wireless commercials - the ones with "The Network" - the large group of people that follow the nerdy looking cat in the glasses around and she says yes. I ask her if that's, like, her worst nightmare. I say, "Imagine you're walking down the street and you just turn around and there is a thousand people just standing behind you, staring at you. Would you scream?" She considers it for a moment and then says, "Have you seen my new Chia pet? It's hair all fell out. It looks like it's going through chemotherapy". She gets up and puts on a hat, considers herself in the mirror and turns to me. "Do I look good in hats?" I tell her yes. She looks back in the mirror, makes a face and throws the hat on the couch. I ask her what she eats, how she eats and when, truly interested and just slightly concerned for her well being. She says, "Burger King. Every day. Dollar menu. Sometimes soup. Mom brings me soup sometimes."

I cook my spinach and she warns me that it tastes bad and is really old. I dump too much garlic salt in to try to mask it's natural flavor and take a bite. She's right. We go buy tacos.

I proposed to my wife while still in college and we got married after we'd both graduated and were living together in LA. We planned on doing a beach wedding and just saying that anyone who wanted to come could and anyone who couldn't make it didn't have to bother. It seemed like a pretty simple layout to us but our families, who ALL lived in South Dakota weren't quite buying it. They begged us. They tried to "reason" with us. They bartered with us. "If you come back to South Dakota.........EVERYONE that is planning on buying plane tickets to fly out will give you their travel money as a wedding present." We'd ask, "Then why don't they just use that money and come out?" Apparently that wasn't the point. We (my wife, mostly, I guess) planned the wedding from Los Angeles and when it was time to head back, we did. We caught a plane, flew into Sioux Falls, bought a car before the wedding day and planned on driving it back to LA for our honeymoon, taking a ten day trip.

I was the first one to arrive at the church on the day of the wedding. I showed up at 10:30, got dressed and ready by 10:45 and then waited. Jade's dad and brothers showed up next, then came my dad and then my friends. We were all ready and everyone came and went from the room the men were assigned as they saw fit. Everyone but me. I was trapped like some caged animal because I wasn't allowed to see my girlfriend / fiance / wife before the wedding. I had to pee and a five point security parameter was set up just so I could shake out a few drops. The groom's room doubled as a children's classroom on Sunday's so all the chairs were too small to sit on and I was afraid I would break the desks.

At 3:30 the reverend came in while I was alone and asked, without warning, if I was ready to head out in about five minutes. I nodded yes and felt like I was going to throw up and pass out, probably in the reverse order, ruining my tux. Where was everyone? Why was nobody in the room with me? Oh, that's right, they were all out having a good time at my wedding, enjoying each other's company, while I sat alone on a toddler's stool, looking like bad boy Baby Huey. The door opens and Jade's two older brothers walk in. Jordan has skin that is white like paper and a flaming red afro and is a year older than me. I constantly find myself staring into his eyes while he speaks and wondering what his pubes look like. Jarod is three years older than me, has a fit build and I constantly find myself staring into to his eyes while he speaks, wondering what Jordan's pubes look like. They enter and I'm relieved that I'll get a little pep talk before I go out there. "Good work. Don't be nervous. Just relax - it's your BIG DAY!" These are the things I've seen groomsmen say to one another on TLC and thought it was probably how it worked in real life. Instead they both corner me and say, "You have time to run. It's not too late. Your car is right out by the curb. If you leave now you can still make it." I am cornered and claustrophobic feeling and sweating and my stomach is in knots. I feel as though I'm floating through unreality. Maybe I'll wake up soon. The reverend opens the door and stares at the three of us in a way that suggests the older brothers were just finishing up a pep talk for the groom to be. "Good work. Don't be nervous. Just relax - it's your BIG DAY!". He stares at us and says, "are you ready?" and I exhale and say "yeah". Jordan and Jarod fall in line behind me and as we exit the room Jarod says, "There's the door...." and we pass the door and Jordan says, "It's too late...."

I walk my soon to be mother-in-law down the aisle and before sitting down, she gives me a big kiss on the cheek, leaving whorish lipstick marks on the side of my face. I have no way of knowing this so I just wander to the back, smiling, wondering why everyone I see is touching their cheek. I touch mine, thinking maybe I had a piece of toilet paper or crumb stuck to my jaw. Nothing. I ignore it and walk my mom down to her seat.

I'm standing at the front of the church and pretty much everyone I know is sitting in front of me. I look out into the crowd and think how small it is. Surely most of the people I know just didn't show up. Shouldn't this place be packed? The bridal march begins and all the couples walk down - my cousin with Jade's best friend, the girl who introduced us with Jordan. My sister with Jarod. Theresa looks like she's holding it together alright but I briefly wonder what's going on inside her head. Is she as nervous as I am? All these people staring at her? Is she about to bolt? Is she having cold feet? I wonder if all the anxiety I was feeling in the back room was being shared by my sister on the other side of the church. We smile at each other, both of us surprised that I'm getting married and then she's passed me, standing on the alter, holding her flowers in a death grip, praying to God that she doesn't pass out. Little does she know, I'm praying the same thing, trying to take the only real advice Jarod and Jordan DID give me. "Don't lock up your knees. You'll pass out." I keep trying to squat a little, trying to keep my knees cocked just slightly.

Silence. A song starts. Women know it as "Canon in D Major". Men know it as "The Here Comes the Bride song". Jade steps through the doorway and rounds the corner with her dad. A million moments in your life to redo and this one you only get once (hopefully). I try to soak it all up and in doing so feel a lump form in my throat like some cancerous mass. My vision suddenly turns to Ripplevision and I am suddenly horribly aware that I am about to start crying. I think of Theresa again. I think of her telling me that she's afraid to stand at the front of church for communion, afraid all the strangers will look at her. I think about how it feels to cry in front of everyone (is that really ALL of them) that you know. I force it back and it steps forward, reclaiming my strength.

A groom crying at his own wedding. How beautiful. Women like that, right? I suppose so. My aunt sees me and smiles and I think, "Okay. Everyone thinks it's precious. I can deal with precious". Then my aunt nudges her sister and her sister nudges her sixteen year old daughter and they all start to snicker. I suddenly realize that many people are glancing at me, looking at me, watching me, wondering if the tears are going to spill over. I tilt my head up towards the ceiling and squint. I pretend I have something in my eye. I rub it out and now I'm certain my eyes look red. Jade is suddenly standing next to me and so everyone is looking at us - the beautiful bride with her sobbing, weeping man-baby. I quickly turn around and drag her up the steps, carrying us away from all those people staring at me. I rub my eyes again and turn myself away from my sort of brother-in-laws. My back has been to them the entire time and they know nothing of my little breakdown and I'd like to keep it that way.

We get to the vows and the reverend says, "Repeat after me. With this ring......." and I try repeating it but am crying and I have to stop and stare at my feet, trying to gain composure. I look over Jade's shoulder, to my sister, who is smiling but I realize that it is a friendly smile and not a smug one. I finish my lines like an actor on a stage and am instantly awarded the Longest Time to Repeat Vows award. Next is Jade and she starts off okay but then breaks down and I'm not sure which is worse, crying alone or crying together. Her crying seems to be setting me off, making it impossible for me to stop. My sobs have become uncontrollable and I feel helpless. I want nothing more than to just have my face be dry and why am I SO HOTTTTT? Jade tries slipping my ring on my finger but I've gotten nervous and when that happens, my fingers bloat up like chubby little sausages. I don't know the exact science behind why or how this works but I believe it has something to do with an evolutionary cause and effect. She pushes the ring down to the top of my second knuckle and then just stops, not able to force it. I stare at my ring finger and realize it looks like it's wearing a golden belt.

The reverend finishes up his message, marries us and we turn to face everyone. The tears suddenly stop and the clouds part and the day is sunny. As it turns out I will be able to walk out with a shred of dignity. We take a few steps down the alter and a violent spell wipes over me and tears begin streaming down my face. If I were wearing mascara I'd have looked like Tammy Faye Baker, I'm sure of it. I grip Jade's hand and we run down the aisle, salty tears streaming out behind us.

We hide in a back room, waiting for the guests to exit the church so they can throw confetti at us. Jade tells me to take off my ring and look inside. I do. She has engraved, "We're Not Gonna Make It" around the center. "Oh, WOW!" I say. We go outside and everyone is waiting for us. I take a few steps and one of my cousins throws a handful of confetti at me. It lands and rests in the hollows of my ears and sticks to the dampness of my face. He disappears into the crowd only to appear a few feet down the line with another handful. Where was he getting this stuff? He threw another fistful at me and this time I'm sure he had mixed in a few small pebbles. I was pelted in the side of the head and something hit me in the eye. I wiped it away and was certain everyone was thinking, "oh great, here we go AGAIN".

Outside the reception hall we had a marquee made that read, "John and Jade - Tying the Noose". We went in, got our dances out of the way and let the party begin.

There's a game that happens, mostly at wedding receptions. A dance competition. But there's a catch. The DJ tells us to pick our eight people. He tells us to choose whoever we want and tell them what's going to happen. We tell them that they place a paper bag over their head and start to dance. They agree. But then we tell them that when the music starts, they just take off the paper bag and walk off stage, leaving one person, who would be my cousin and best man, on the floor, unknowingly dancing wildly and stupidly, all alone, while everyone cheered on the invisible contestants. We choose Thomas and Brett, friends from college. We choose Jarod and Jordan, Jade's brothers. We choose Anna, the maid of honor and we choose Lindsay and my sister Theresa, our bridesmaids and we choose Mo, my best man. We tell all of them, minus Mo, that when the music begins, REMEMBER, just take off the bag and walk away. When we tell Theresa, she is sitting at a table behind two empty bottles of champagne and four bottles of Bud Light. She says, "I don't wanna do that". I say, "You don't have to. You just stand there and then you walk off" and she says, "I don't have to dance?" and I say, "No" and she says, "Okay".

So the DJ stops the music and announces the competition. He says we've chosen our people and he calls them out, one at a time. They take their spots and are given their paper bags. The music starts and the dancing begins, sort of. Six people reach up and remove their paper bags. Brett, Thomas, Jarod, Jordan, Anna and Lindsay all wander from the floor to join the audience. Theresa, who should've joined them, still has a paper bag over her head, her hands on her hips, shaking her butt back and forth. Mo has his arms in the air and is doing what I'm sure he would call "The Lasso". Theresa begins gyrating her arms back and forth, imitating a train. Mo holds out his arms like a capital T and begins spinning in circles. He falls down and his bag falls off. He tries to grab it, tries to keep it on, but happens to catch an eyeful of an empty dance floor, minus Theresa. The DJ shouts, "MO IS DISQUALIFIED. HIS BAG HAS FALLEN OFF! PLEASE STEP TO THE SIDE MO. YEAH, BRETT! NICE MOVES! KEEP IT UP ANNA!".

And there's my sister, quiet and shy, standing in front of two hundred people, four hundred eyes on her, a paper bag over her head as she holds the ends of her dress up and kicks out her legs in a burlesque style gesture. She bends over and cha-chas with her boobs. She turns around and shakes her butt in everyone's face. She suddenly and without warning lies down on the ground and begins doing her version of the worm, which pretty much amounts to her lying on the floor, rocking from side to side. The DJ shouts, "OKAY! THAT'S IT! I THINK THERESA HAS WON THE DANCE COMPETITION! YOU MAY REMOVE THE BAG!" and Theresa pulls off the paper bag and turns around and sees, standing behind her, what basically amounts to the entire Verizon Wireless network, staring at her and laughing, but in a good way.

She smiles and quickly exits the stage, heading back for her table. She grabs her beer, drops it and grabs the bottle of champagne, tilting it bottoms up like the Titanic. She says, shouts, over the music, "WHAT HAPPENED???" Jade and I, laughing, try to explain. She rests the champagne bottle against her face. "WE TOLD YOU TO TAKE OFF THE BAG!" "THE WHAT!!???" "THE BAG! YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO TAKE IT OFF!" "I DON'T KNOW!" she shouts. "WHEN DID YOU TALK TO ME?? WHEN DID WE TALK??"

People have begun pouring back onto the floor. Van Morrison's "Brown Eyed Girl" starts up and I grab Theresa's hand. "LET'S GO!" I scream. She takes it and I head out onto the dance floor with my sister and brand new wife.

EPILOGUE:

The next day we open all of our presents and neither Jade nor I ever see one red cent of that plane ticket money offered to us by so many desperate and devoted relatives. Oh well, that's what family is. You lie and manipulate each other to get what you want.

Grunt Labor in the Mile High City

2009-08-21T23:18:00.000-07:00

When I was a senior in high school I took a class called Critical Thinking which was taught by a temperamental man named Mr. Olson. A very tall and thin forty-something, one minute he would be laughing and joking, cracking the funnies and being corny and then someone would say something slightly off color and he'd be throwing one of his desk drawers across the room, red faced and sweating, veins bulging out the sides of his neck. He was a fluffy bunny with glasses and a rabid dog. He was a friendly cigar that explodes in your face. He was a pretty flower that sprayed you in the eyes with water that was really hot and burned you badly. I always treated Mr. Olson the way I would a pitbull or angry gorilla. You look at him, you smile, you keep your distance and you definitely don't try to sniff his balls.

Critical Thinking was the type of class that tried to make you think outside the box. Every week we'd get a packet some fifty pages long of news reports Mr. Olson had collected and we were instructed to read them all over night so we'd be well versed for discussions the next day in class. To this day I'm positive that no one ever finished an entire packet. In fact, I'm pretty sure almost everyone, save for the valedictorians, just found themselves skimming through as much as they could before class started, trying to figure out if their arguments were against abortion or if they believed that being gay was born or bred and why. There had to be a why. Always a why. Unlike our parents who stated, "because I'm your parent" we actually had to have a real legitimate reason for thinking the way we did.

One day the topic of being raped in college came up and we were all deciding if the elements involved could actually deem this case as rape or if the girl "had it coming". After the conversation, Mr. Olson asked if any of us were planning on going to college and roughly 90% of the class raised their hands, myself included. He wisely told the group that college would be expensive and asked how many of us had saved up $20,000 or more. About a third of the people raised their hands, all of them wearing name brand clothes and designer glasses. I was sure they misheard him. I was certain what they heard him say was, "how many of your parents are paying for your school that's going to cost $20,000 or more".

He asks how many people have saved up $10,000 and another third raises their hands. These are the upper middle class kids, the kids who won't ever own their own business or inherit their parents', but they will manage fast food chains and become successful dreamers. He follows the second place question up with the bronze, "how many have $5,000?" and then "how many have $1,000 saved up?" and that's pretty much it for the remaining third, minus me and the kid wearing the Cannibal Corpse shirt and I'm wondering how I got put into THIS group? Who signed me up to be on THIS team? I'm wearing khaki pants, Chuck Taylor sneakers and a shirt with a picture of Jesus on it. I should not be in this group. I look around and the class is sort of looking at me and I look at the Cannibal Corpse kid and I think he is asleep or dead and I think he has scars all over his wrists and up his arms from cutting himself. I attempt to distance myself visually from him by smiling at everyone, something I'm sure he would never do. I look towards the front of the class and Mr. Olson is staring at me, dead on, eyes peering into the back of my soul. He opens his mouth to speak. "...and finally, how many people were planning on going to college but haven't even begun to THINK about their financial situation?" And there it was. I slowly slip my hand into the air; the dirty, poor kid who loved Jesus more than money. Would Jesus carry him through college? Would Jesus buy him a hamburger? Would Jesus purchase his school books? I was the communist sympathizer, so uninformed of the world. A few of the trust fund babies laugh quietly and Mr. Mel Olson smiles. I'm sure he expected just as much out of me - always late to class, always grabbing for D's but constantly catching the F's, not talking much and when I do it's mostly in nervous garble and incomplete sentence structures, you know what I mean? Hmm? Dude?

When it came time to really put my nose to the grindstone and attend college I took out three Stafford loans for about six grand a piece and used these to cover the vast majority of my tuition and dorm fees. To get extra money to buy things like beer bongs, atari 2600s and a Honda motorcycle, I applied for a work study program and took up a job renting out camera equipment at a place in my school called The Cage. It paid me minimum wage but afforded me the luxury of becoming familiar with several different types of cameras, lights, sound gear and editing equipment. There were several people that worked there for free, volunteering their time simply because of the experience, so I considered myself lucky that I was receiving anything.

Two years and who knows how many working hours later, I was fired from The Cage when the director of the program discovered me drinking a glass of water in the computer lab. He'd been out for my blood for about the past six months for reasons (still) unknown to me and this was the opportunity he'd been looking for to nail the coffin closed. I was standing behind a group of students, helping to expedite their projects for the end of the semester when he spotted me through the plate glass doors with the rim of a cup (actually, strangely, it was a canteen) pressed against my lips. Normally, drinking water was not considered a crime in my school but in the computer labs, you may as well have been blowing your butt dump all over the monitors and keyboards for all he cared. It was restricted activity whichever way you cut it. Frederic came storming in, one heavy footstep after the next and stomped right up to me, stuck his thick New York finger in my general vicinity and said that I was, "finally done for" and that he "demanded my card". The security in the school was set up with keycards the faculty were given to grant access to certain doors and he was demanding I turn mine in. The entire class had stopped what they were doing to watch this showdown in Post 2. I pulled out my velcro wallet and opened it up. I pulled out a white keycard and he SNATCHED it out of my hand like a hungry eagle snagging a trout. He holds it up in front of my face and says, "You're never getting this back" and I say, "that's my keycard to the dorms". I dig back into my waller and pull out an identical keycard for The Cage. He hands me back the stolen keycard and takes the second one, this time a little slower and then says, "you won't be needing THIS anymore" and I say, "I guess not".

Had the confrontation ended there, I probably could have laughed the entire situation off and just moved on with my life, attaching myself to another job somewhere else, always holding a particularly vicious grudge in my heart for ol' Freddy baby, but it didn't stop there. He went on, making false accusations about me stealing equipment and returning things late and ruining other shoots; things so far-fetched it was hard to believe he wasn't just making it up as he talked. And again, had it been him and I in a room, alone, I probably would have laughed at him, mocked his strange New York / Georgian accent, stood up and walked out of his office.....but it wasn't. He was accusing me of these ludicrous charges in front of my schoolmates, both friends and strangers and making me look like a fool. I tell him "that never happened" and then I say again, "that never happened EITHER. Who told you this?" He says he just knows it's true and then turns to storm out, figuring that if he just leaves the room, he'll leave me behind as well. That, however, is not how I operate; I cling to your shoe like some piece of sticky dog turd you've stepped in. That said, he seemed relatively surprised when I chased him down the hallway and demanded who his informant was. WHO told him I'd brought my equipment back late? WHO told him I'd done these things? Instead of an answer, he looks at me and simply says that he'll never be giving me a recommendation so I shouldn't even bother asking.

It is at this point that I finally notice through my bleeding rage that there are actually more students standing around in the hallway watching us then were originally observing the fight in the computer lab. in fact, a few kids in the labs have opened the door and are standing, watching, listening. Other kids in other classrooms are waiting for what's next. Students and teachers have stopped their conversations and lectures to peer into the hallway, wanting to catch the final moments before the pending apocalypse. They're thinking this is better than pay-per-view. They're thinking they've got front row seats, free tickets. They think, "I know Frederic made a kung-fu film called "Tiger Street" but does he know kung-fu himself? Will he beat John within an inch of his life with his black belt skill set?" Tiger Street is Frederic's pride and joy. It is his claim to fame - a feature length kung fu movie that plays late nights on Showtime.

The people watching, the crowds, the audience, the film lovers. They want a show. They want the act three climax and I feel as though it would just be a shame to let them down. Frederic and I stand in the long hallway facing one another, only about ten feet apart, all eyes on us. There is near silence and then, like a bowling ball crashing into a glass wall, I state, "Don't worry Frederic. I would never ask the guy that made Tiger Street for a recommendation". Not another word is said. Not one syllable, grunt or heavy sigh. He stares at me in silence and, to this day, I don't believe that I actually managed to stun him or shock him into a mute phase. I believe what happened is that my statement triggered his psychotic button and he knew that if he started to speak he would start to scream and then he would start to pummel and murder me.

A few weeks before I moved out of the dorms a friend of mine got in touch with me and said that he'd spoken to Frederic who had openly admitted that he was wrong about me and all the equipment. It was all just a big misunderstanding on his part. Oops. I saw him at the school a few times after that but he never spoke a word to me, apology or otherwise. Regardless of Frederic's view of me, I still owed the school a small trove of money and I'm sure they wanted it no matter what my financial situation was, so I headed back out into the market to find a job. Collin McKennan, another friend of mine (I have so many) that happens to look like the bass player from Blink-182, was working at UPS at the time and let me know that they were hiring, had great advancement opportunities, paid really well and you basically just worked out all day.

I went down to their Aurora center, applied and then came back for the initial interview, along with roughly twenty other people. Two weeks later I had outlasted nineteen of the possible occupants by begging and pleading with the hiring staff. I explained to them that I NEEDED this job. I told them that I was moving to California in roughly three months and (again) had saved no money. This was my only option and I promised to be a good worker, not because I wanted to be but because I NEEDED to be. Bosses enjoy desperation. They like having you trapped in their little web.

Out of sympathy, I'm sure, they ended up hiring me and paying me for one week of training where I sat and watched safety videos that taught me how to construct a proper box wall. I figured this would be a synch since I could get to level nine on Tetris with no problem and if I was really paying attention could even hit twelve. After the first day of being in the actual factory, I had somehow managed to send two entire trucks off packed with the wrong materials and had my supervisor tell me that my box wall was the worst one he'd ever seen in his entire UPS career. Also, to say that this was a workout was a bit of an understatement. This was slave labor. There may as well have been broad shouldered white men walking around with staffs and whips, beating the poor and lowly Egyptian workers into submission, making sure we continued to build our walls of cardboard rather that stone. After eight hours of picking up forty pound boxes, i thought I was going to die. My bones ached, my feet stung and my brain had gone numb. I crawled into my car and balanced precariously on the verge of tears for a few minutes before firing up my jalopy and coasting over to Jade's place on the other side of town. What had I gotten myself into? Maybe it wasn't so bad. Maybe I just needed to warm up to this new lifestyle. Tomorrow, after all, was a brand new day..........

.......the next morning I called in and quit. I was hoping to get the answering machine, hoping to be able to just leave a very polite, quick, painless, non-confrontational message when the guy that had gone to bat for me, had originally helped me lock down the job, picked up. I explained that I wouldn't be coming in again, ever again, forever. I let him know, politely, that the job just wasn't really my cup of tea. I let him know that "it's not you, it's me". For some reason he still asked me to come back. I tried to tell him that I was the opposite of an asset to their company. I told him I'd sent things destined for Georgia to Vermont. I told him that birthday cards addressed to Cindy in Montana were going to end up at a Monty's house in Utah. I said I was bad with numbers and even worse with stacking boxes. I told him about my supervisor and still he asked me to return. I didn't deserve this punishment. I wanted to be yelled at, scolded, hated. I wanted to be told that I'd put everyone in a hard spot. I wanted to feel bad for what I was doing and this guy was making me feel HORRIBLE. He was killing me with kindness and I was dying one breath at a time. Eventually I had to just put my foot down and say, "Emery, listen to me. I am NOT coming back. I do not like it there. I will find something else to do. I have to go to class" and he sadly complied and I hung up my phone and proceeded to get drunk with my friends.

Another two weeks pass before a friend of mine contacts me, telling me he's managing a restaurant. He tells me he's looking for help from five in the morning until noon. He's looking for some busboys / dishwashers to come down to the kitchen to give the latino ladies that pretty much made up the staff, a little hand. I said sure, absolutely, yes, yes, yes. My bank account was operating on a downhill slope and my student loans were getting ready to come up in just a few months. On top of that, my big move to LA was sneaking up on me and I needed........well, a deposit, a new bed and, to be completely honest, a few tanks of gas to make it over the mountains. I began work right away.

The women whom I was employed with spoke nearly zero English and didn't seem to be interested in learning any so I took to picking up Spanish. Among the words I learned were, "good", "bad" and "sick" which did nothing when trying to ask "where did you hide the bread?" or "how do I properly drain the fryer so I don't burn my hands beyond recognition?" They would smile, no matter what you asked, and say, "Bien, bien".

"How are you today?" "Bien, bien"". "Oh, that's good that you're doing good. How was your ride to work?" "Bien, bien". "Fantastic. I ride a motorcycle. I think it's one of the best ways to get around the city and a GREAT way to start the day". "Bien, bien". "I hate my job. I hate cleaning up after people. The smell of this food nauseates me. I'm thinking about going home after work and blowing my brains out all over the wall. Do you have any thoughts or advice regarding suicide?". "Bien, bien".

Five days a week I'd wake up at 3:30am, roll off the couch I was living on, toss on my dirty work clothes and migrate to the living room where I'd stare at a blank television and think about making an omelette until Collin got home. He was working nights over at UPS and so, being roommates, we'd only cross paths for about forty-five minutes every day. He'd come in the door looking dead beat and I'd be sitting on the couch in the dark looking like I just woke up. We'd each crack open a beer and watch an episode of "The Chapelle Show" before going our separate ways, trading places for the next few hours and it was like this that he and I existed for the next few months, like some 21st century, homosexual clones of Lucy and Ricky Ricardo.

I worked at the kitchen job until a day and a half before I left, using my remaining time to pack up what little belongings I owned into my girlfriend's Lincoln Continental along with our dog. We set out of Denver with some CDs I had burned and showed up in LA about seventeen hours later at our new home, an apartment we were renting site unseen and that amounted to (literally) nothing more than a garage stall with a toilet in the corner. We didn't have a bed and our pillows were about six hours behind us in another car that was following (sort of) behind us. It was 3am and we laid down on the tile floor together, blanketless, sharing our only roll of toilet paper as our pillow and I stared at our barren ceiling wondering, hoping, that I was going to get this whole film career to work.

Underdog Beach

2009-08-18T01:10:00.000-07:00

Jade and I own two dogs, a 90lb Rhodesian Ridgeback named Kaidance and a smaller, runty cocker spaniel named Clementine. The bigger dog is motivated by food like some child of the Congo while the cocker's emotions are controlled more by human touch and affection, like a sexually abused teenage girl. When we take them to the dog park or dog beach, Kaidance stands by our side, proud of her owners and too snobbish to associate herself with the other dogs, the mixed breeds, the mutts. Truthfully, I think she finds even the purebreds to be far inferior to her own breed. She slinks slowly through the park like a member of the K-9 KKK. White is right and down with brown, I'm sure is what her mantra would be had she been born in the south rather than the midwest.

Clementine is different, behaving more like a Care Bear Cousin while out in public. She pounces through fields and streams to spread her love to anyone that glances in her direction. She enjoys anyone that gives her the time of day and seems to be perfectly happy with trading Jade and I in for another couple at a moments notice.

We take the two of them to dog parks on occasion, a place where we can take them off their leashes and really just set them free, which, as I said before, usually means that Kaidance is laying idly by, watching the mudbloods co-exist in her domain while Clementine gets humped up and down the park. Since Los Angeles is bordered by an ocean from it's bottom most sector to it's most northern peak, it is strange that it only contains one singular dog beach and that you have to drive all the way past Malibu to get there. We'd never taken either of our dogs to the beach before but thought that maybe if we took them somewhere fun and wonderful, we too could experience the excitement of owning a dog that ran and played with you. A dog that would leap in slow motion into the oncoming waves with you, bouncing after the receding current. We could all laugh with the other dog owners and enjoy a little slice of Heaven.

We drive seventy minutes before arriving at the dog beach, which is surrounded by an obviously dog friendly community. Everywhere you look there are trim girls on rollerblades, scooting along with fit Italian greyhounds and gay men in tank tops toting Chihuahuas in purses. There are older women with great danes and young boys with golden retrievers. It is a perfect dogtopia, a place where humans and canines can come together in harmony. We pull over in the free public parking, snap on the dogs' collars and open our doors, all four of us smelling the fresh ocean breeze. This is nothing like Van Nuys. This is what California is suppose to smell like.

The dogs are excited. Kaidance stands at our side, trying to act superior to the moment but her front is lost while her tail wags. Clementine runs in a circle around me, tying herself to my legs with her own leash. I begin to untangle us and she barks once before squatting down to poop while staring over her shoulder at me. I say her name once, disdainfully, and then scoop up the tiny pile of turds and carry it along with us, swinging it next to me like a maggot's lunchbox.

We cross over the cement and onto the sand and there is a moment of pure magic, a moment where everything and anything is possible. Dogs run free while beautiful (and ugly) people bask in the sun. It doesn't matter who's dog belongs to whom. Today, here, everyone is everyone's keeper. All humans feed all dogs any treats. I watch a sporty looking black and white border collie run at top velocity across the beach, his sparkling blue eyes reflecting the ocean, pinned to the frisbee flying just feet above his head. He leaps, catches the orange frisbee in his mouth and crashes into an oncoming wave before emerging with his toy and, if it's possible, smiling. The owner, the kind of guy you'd find in Any Weight Room, USA, calls to him and the dog comes running. He scrubs the dogs head, takes the frisbee and the act starts all over again.

A terrier named Jack runs up to us and begins sniffing Kaidance's butt. Kaidnace growls and the little dog runs away. Clementine tugs on her leash, ready for action. All she sees are objects of affection, people she can sap love from like maple trees. The sand is hot and the dogs are lifting up their feet one at a time. We find an unoccupied spot and set down our red towels, which the dogs immediately jump on, cooling their steaming pads. Kaidance and I sit down at the same time, only I realize too late that Kaidance is not sitting down so much as just squatting to pee all over my towel.

Great.

I stand up, say her name with disgust and then laugh and look around. I don't want to be judged as "The Psycho" that came to the dog beach today and started screaming at his dog for pissing. Instead I pet her on the head, give her a treat and just look at our beach neighbors and say, "Oh, DOGS!" They laugh and I think I'm in. The couple to our left is an older man and woman. I never catch their name but they've got a bigger dog, a mix, maybe part lab, part heeler, it's hard to tell. It's definitely a dog and it's definitely friendly. It comes over and welcomes us and Kaidance just stares at it, wishing she had a cross to burn in front of it's owners towels. The dog turns and runs off and Jade and I decide it's time. We're going to unleash our pets and watch them run free. We can't WAIT to see them leaping through the air, drool dangling from their mouths like shoestrings, their legs pumping through the sand like desert turbines. Jade tells me to wait. She says, "not yet" and pulls her camera from her bag. She unsnaps Clementines leash and holds her by the collar. I do the same to Kaidance. "Are you ready?" she asks. I nod. "On three............one.........." my grip loosens, "two"...................I'm thinking about shouting yee-haw when I let her go to help take her to "the next level"........"THREE!!!". We both let go simultaneously and Jade begins rapid snapping pictures of the two dogs sitting in the sand right in front of us, looking slowly from side to side. As far as anti-climactic went, this really took the fish taco.

We try coaxing them away, pretending to throw invisible toys and then rocks and then we just start pushing them but the harder we shove the deeper into the sand they seem to dig their toes. Jade and I stand up and begin walking backwards towards the water, curling our fingers towards them, "C'mon.....c'mon......Kaidance........Cleeeeeeementine.......c'mon........" They stand on our singular towel. Kaidance watches the power bar the lady next to us is munching on and Clementine watches a nearby family, wishing she were part of it. It was so out of her character to be so anti-social. Maybe it was the new surrounding. Maybe this was a new technique she was perfecting, trying to imitate and therefore overtake Kaidance's alpha dogness. I wasn't sure.

I quickly tire of cooing them and march back towards the pair of imitation humans. I hook my finger through Kaidance's collar and begin dragging her towards the vast and hungry ocean. We get halfway there and she seems to be trotting just fine so I let go and she turns around and runs as fast as she can back to the blanket. She lays down, looks at me, then turns her head in the other direction and pretends to be asleep. Clementine lies down next to her and I turn to Jade and shrug. I'm standing in knee deep water and wondering why I'm the only one. Why isn't anyone else in here? I'm wondering if the water is filled with clumps of dog hair, canine feces and bitch piss. I look down and can sort of make out my toes through the muck so figure I'm okay as long as I don't drink any of it. Jade is standing next to me and when I look over, she's staring at her toes as well and I wonder if she's thinking the same thing.

Behind me I hear a sudden and intense scuffle break out. Dog barks, growls, those feral animalistic screams that tell you things just got ugly. The lolly-gagging around and horse play has just taken a nasty turn and if nobody steps in, someone is going to be walking away with a bad limp and a little less blood. I turn and see two dogs in a tangle of bared teeth and raised fur. They leap at one another and roll over and over in the sand, snapping at each other's necks, stomachs, paws, anything they can sink their, uh-hem, canines into.

Mr. Weight Room comes tearing over, screaming out his frisbee dogs name. He's shouting over the dog yowls, hollering for the dogs to stop, screaming for them to "knock it off" but the dogs are no longer docile, domestic creatures. Today, now, this instant, they have transformed under the glare of the sun like werewolves at the full moon. The nice woman that was sitting next to us, the older one with the lab / heeler is stumbling blindly across the hot sand, her flip-flops falling off her feet after a few steps, her hat trying to blow off her head, her skirt billowing around her waist. She stops next to the bar room brawl and begins saying, "Stop! Stop! No! No!".

The two humans shout at their dogs. The dogs shout at each other. Eventually Mr. Weight Room takes the risk and sticks his hand into the spinning blades of ivory white teeth, manages to grab his frisbee dog by the collar and yanks them apart. He doesn't bother scolding his dog but rather screams at it, jerks it by the collar and gives it a soft boot back towards his blanket. At this point I fully assumed he would realize that his emotions had gotten the better of him and was about to act embarrassed, act ashamed, much the way I had when beginning to scold Kaidance for peeing on my blanket. But he doesn't. Instead, this man surprises all of us. When a dog fight breaks out at a dog park / beach, it's much the same equation as kids in the schoolyard. No one but the children's parents will step in. The rest of the kids just stand and watch. Stand and stare. And now, at the dog beach, at least twenty of us, the nearest occupants, stood watching this man, woman and their respective animals. The man, much like his dog, turned on a moments notice and begins screaming at the woman. He tells her to "Watch your F-ing dog, lady!" only instead of the letter F he says the whole four letter word. I'm not offended by this word and can even sometimes be found sitting in corners mumbling it to myself, but really, there's a time and a place. Jade and I stand in the knee deep piss water, watching. The pregnant woman and her young husband watch. Children wait to see what his next move will be. The woman with the lab / heeler apologizes, grabs her dog by the collar and begins dragging him away. Mr. Weight Room shouts after her, tells her she's an "F-ing idiot and needs to get her dog under control if she's going to bring him to the dog beach". She apologizes again and he tells her to "stop apologizing and stop being an F-ing dip-S". At this point, the woman releases her dog, who runs back to it's blanket and the woman doubles back to the man, telling him to stop being such a "J-off" and that it was his dog's fault to begin with. She turns to walk away and he tells her that she's a "big, dumb, C" (C is another name for a woman's genitals) and she turns around AGAIN and calls him a bastard. He's says, "EF YOU!" and she says, "EF YOOOOOOU!" and storms off.

Had I seen this in a movie or on television I never would have believed it. Certainly what happened was upsetting but this WAS a dog beach and when you bring your dog to a dog beach, even if your dog isn't normally prone to violence, you had to be willing to accept the risk of things like this happening. It was just part of the process. I really felt like the woman was a nice person and wasn't so much reacting in anger to the situation of the dogs but was rather reacting defensively to the man's constant, repetitive and unprovoked attack on her.

Mr. Weight Room watches her walk away, all the way back to her towel, where her husband meets her and asks, "what happened". Once Weight Room was certain she wasn't coming back, he turns to meander back to his dog. Always the victim. As he starts to walk away, however, I suddenly found myself staring in his direction, upset with what I'd just witnessed. "HEY!" I called, before I could give myself time to reconsider what I was doing. He keeps walking, "HEY!" He turns around and begins looking from face to face. Was someone talking to him? Again, before I can think, I shout, "What you just did was completely inappropriate." He pulls off his glasses and clutches them in his right hand and cocks his head to the left, definitely staring at me now, the geekiest looking kid on the beach. I repeat, a little louder and with a little more articulation, "WHAT YOU JUST DID..........WAS INAPPROPRIATE".

My heart is pounding inside my chest and my stomach is quivering. I feel a little light headed and my knees start to feel weak. He's about seven yards away and if he chooses to power walk over to me and smash my face with what is almost certainly ring studded knuckles, I doubt there is anything I could do. Certainly, once it started happening, it would just be a bunch of kids on the playground, watching the bully beat up the nerd. They would watch him sink his hairy fist into my mouth and I would drop into the ocean like a rock.

Rather than beginning his death march to me though, he instead tries to defend his position, stating, "Her dog started it" and, while I didn't actually see the beginning of the fight, I say, "Yeah, I saw how it started and I don't care. You handled that situation poorly. You are an ADULT and you should act like one". I was articulate and confident and wasn't even wearing my lucky speedo. He looks at me and I'm wondering what else he's going to say. He's gearing up for something, you can see it in his eyes, but before he can speak, the pregnant chick says, "Yeah" and then her boyfriend chimes in, "Yeah, that's true". Behind me, Jade says, "Yeah - inappropriate". Pretty soon, all the schoolyard kids watching the mounting chaos are volunteering their opinions, stepping up. Everyone is nodding and mumbling, "inappropriate".

Mr. Weight Room doesn't say anything else. He bends down and picks up his dog's frisbee from the sand, turns and marches off towards his blanket, towards his piece of the property. I look back towards my dogs and they're both watching me and I hope they understood what just happened and were maybe proud of me. Jade and I walk out of the filthy water and meander back towards our blankets and sit down. I reach into Jade's purse and grab a luke warm water, my mouth suddenly very dry.

I look out across the beach of people and happy animals and watch as Mr. Weight Room leashes up his dog and makes his way back to the parking lot.

The Most Holy Turkey Sandwich

2009-08-16T16:58:00.000-07:00

I was raised in the Catholic church and as such, was baptized as a baby, molested as a teenager and left the church as an adult (actually, only two of those three things are true). As a parent in the church, it is common practice to begin your child in a program called CCD about the same time they're old enough to begin first grade.

Every Wednesday night, all the young up and coming Catholics would be dropped off by our mothers and fathers outside of the church and we would gather in the auditorium of the Christian school which also doubled as one of the two Catholic churches in town, before our night classes would begin. It is here we would exchange stories regarding things we had stolen, pornographic magazines we had seen and fights we had gotten into that week. When it was time to go to our classrooms, we would all line up according to grade and shuffle slowly through the hallways, like Jesus with his cross.

Inside the classrooms they taught us how, no matter what, we would never be able to understand the holy trinity. They taught us Bible stories and showed us, what amounted to, the behind the scenes from "The Passion of the Christ". They explain to you the magic of communion and how the bread you eat is actually human flesh - legitimate human flesh. They tell you it is called transubstantiation and although the Bible strictly FORBIDS cannibalism, calling it an abomination, it was, apparently, okay to partake in the abomination as long as you were doing it with Jesus. In fact, they teach you all of the in and outs of being a Catholic except what CCD actually stands for.

At some point they (they being the parents and teachers) decided it would be just a fine idea to put on a PLAY! After all, children LOVE plays! They love to be in them, they love to watch them! Children just LOVE plays. "What should our play be about?" they asked one another. Jonah and the whale? How about Joseph and the technicolor dream coat? Noah's ark? The story of Moses? Jesus feeding 10,000? No, no and double no. "Let's do that great scene where Jesus is dragged through the streets and tortured and MURDERED!" "Yes!" they all cried. "Sounds fantastic!" others shouted. And thus our damnation was sealed.

Three weeks later, after several practices, I found myself standing in front of a packed house, dressed as a Roman guard. I had on a plastic chest plate that gave me wonderful 300-style abs and a short skirt that made me look like some sort of deranged transvestite. Dangling in my right hand was a little plastic sword I was instructed to use to, "poke Jesus with" while in my left hand I carried a toy whip. There were four of us being humiliated at once while my friend Josh played out the part of Jesus, wearing a white robe and carrying a giant cross on his shoulder. We poked him and prodded him, as instructed, UP one aisle and DOWN another aisle and back UP another aisle so everyone could get an eyeful of their stupid children playing stupid dress-up beating up the Savior of the world. Inside a church, what we were doing was okay. Outside a church and in your private basement, what we were doing was called child abuse.

Towards the end of the play, the four of us drug Josh / Jesus up onto the alter, shoved a rubber crown of thorns down over his crew cut, latched the cross into the little stand they'd made and then tied him to the arms of it. The director had instructed us on how to properly snap the cross into place. He had warned us that if it was done improperly, there was a great possibility that the cross could tip over and fake Jesus would be smashed on the floor in front of the masses. To me, it seemed a great risk to leave this up to a couple of seven year olds. We tried our best and lifted him up into the air, displaying him for everyone to see. I hoped for Josh's sake that he didn't get a boner.

Dim the lights, play some piano music, some people cry but most people are just happy it's over. We lower Josh and I get out of my stupid costume, absolutely certain that I will never be in another play or Catholic church the rest of my life.

There are a few big milestones in a young Catholic boys life; his first kiss, his first pube and his first Communion and all three of these things happen at about the same time - fifth grade. On the Wednesday night that my first communion was scheduled to take place, I arrived to the gymnasium wearing my nicest and most wrinkled white button up, a clip on bow-tie and, in true Brookbank family class, stone washed blue jeans and sneakers. While the rest of my classmates looked as though they were about to partake in something serious and intimate with their crisp shirts and ties, I simply looked like a complete mess. Half schoolboy, half pervert, completely out of place. The teachers are looking at me, probably wondering why I would bother putting on something as tacky as a bow-tie and then not even bother with the pleated khakis at the very least. Did I not own a pair of shoes nicer than mud caked British Knights? This was a holy tradition. Would I be wearing flip-flops and a top hat to my wedding?

Before ushering us down the halls and into the sanctuary, they explained the very last piece of information to us - the final piece of the puzzle. They tell us that there are two ways to take the holy eucharist and it didn't matter which we chose, but it would be considered in bad taste to steal it back to our pew and try to nibble on it the rest of the way through mass. We were allowed to either cup our hands and let the priest hand the wafer to us like a completely normal person or we were allowed to just stand there, arms hung limply at our sides, sticking out our tongues looking like some drugged up, slack faced, sex addict and let him place Jesus into our mouths. I never understood how anyone could be comfortable, as a child or as an adult, with letting a grown man feed you in public like some invalid.

I stood in line and tried peaking down the aisle of innocent meat lined up in front of the priest feeding us, attempting to see what everyone was doing. Were most people taking the bread or were they being fed like kids (baby goats) in a petting zoo? I couldn't tell. As I took step after step towards the front of the aisle, towards my turn, I imagined everyone watching me, staring at me, wondering how I would respond. Was the entire congregation judging us based on our response? What if I suddenly got a boner? Why was I dressed like this? Of course everyone was looking at me! I looked as though I had just walked out of the RV that my family most certainly must have been living in. People probably thought my parents couldn't come to my first communion because they were too busy inbreeding.

My nerves are shot, I'm at the front of the line, the kid next to me opens his maw and lets his tiny pink tongue dangle from his mouth like a landing platform for the U.S. Jesus. The priest places the bread on his tongue with steady, trained hands and then looks at me. I just hold out my hands, take the thing and shove it in my mouth, mumbling, "Amen".

Tastes like stale bread to me.

Years later I'm in a Baptist church with my dad and my wife, neither of whom have had the unsatisfactory experience of CCD. Inside the Catholic church, they do communion every single day no matter what. Outside of the Catholic church, it's done roughly once a month. The pastor informs us all that today is the day we will be having communion and that we can all take it no matter what as long as we love Jesus and have him in our hearts. My wife grips my hand because she doesn't know what communion is or what she should do. I tell her to relax.

We stand up and get in line behind my dad. Jade is nervous, she leans forward and tells me she thinks everyone is looking at her. She tells me she doesn't know what to do. She's trying to peak around me and see the front of the line. What is everyone else doing?

When I make it to the front, the set-up is a little different than what I'm used to. Instead of individual wafers, there is just a giant chunk of bread that you're supposed to rip a small piece from. It was sort of disgusting that everyone was picking it up and touching it, especially since only about 10% of people wash their hands after they use the restrooms (and that includes numero deuce) but it was also very communal and I think that made it okay. I watch my dad pick up the loaf and tear off the tiniest bit, about the size of his thumbnail. Next, I pick it up and do the same before following him back to his seat. I sit down and hold it in my hands and begin to pray. Once everyone has their piece and we're all back in our seats, the pastor will say a quick prayer about thanks and sacrifice and we'll all take our bread (not Jesus this time but rather just a symbol, just regular old bread) in thanks together, as a body, or, as I like to think of it, as a club.

In my hands I cup the tiny piece of bread and in my brain I'm thinking, "Thank you for dying on the cross for me, Lord. Thank you for helping me through my daily life and guiding me through all of my mundane problems. Thank you for my job and, even though I sometimes hate it, thank you for the health that I have and that I am ABLE to do the job that I hate. Thank you for -" there's a tap on my shoulder. I open my eyes and look to my left. It's Jade.

"What am I supposed to do with this?" she asks. I look down into her hand where she holds enough bread to make a turkey sandwich. It literally looks like she just picked up the loaf and tore it in half. "Well," I say, "you're supposed to eat about this much". I open my hand, showing her the penny sized piece. "I don't know what you're planning on doing with all that. Maybe you should take your canteen up there and fill it up with wine to wash it all down".

Roommates

2009-08-15T18:57:00.000-07:00

When I moved to Denver for college, the dorms I would soon be occupying asked me if I had a roommate preference. Since I knew no one, save for my girlfriend, who lived on the other side of town, I said no. I figured I would leave my chances to fate. I was starting a new life and well, really I had no choice.

I showed up on my first day and the front desk sent me up to the second floor, room 211. I entered and the first thing I noticed, besides the room looking next to nothing like the brochure, was that there was no refrigerator, as advertised. I called the front desk like I'd just moved to The Hamptons and asked where it was at. They let me know that only certain rooms got refrigerators and it was just sort of random, like my roommate. I hang up and can sort of feel how this place is going to go. I immediately begin to feel an animosity towards this "front desk" and begin to recognize them as "the man", as the enemy.

The walls are white and barren and I start to hang things up. I stick a nail in the wall and my dad practically knocks the stapler I'm using as a hammer from my hands. "WHAT ARE YOU DOOOOING??" he shouts, "YOU'RE NOT GONNA GET YOUR $200 DEPOSIT BACK IF YOU MAKE A HOLE!!!" I take a slow look around the dead white room with it's one prison style window and try to imagine living here for two years with nothing to look at. I look at the place where my refrigerator should be. I think about the "Front Desk", which has now earned itself the tyrannical capital letters. I look at my dad, sweat beading out on his bald forehead. Had I lost my mind?, he must have been thinking. I take the stapler and knock the nail into the wall and hang up a picture of Jade. My dad shakes his head and sits down. DId I have no idea what I was doing? The repercussions this would mean?

My parents leave the next day and, that night, I lie in my dorm room, alone, listening to people walking around in the halls. I wonder if I will get to know them and if they already know one another. I feel like a complete stranger in a strange land. I shut my eyes and wonder when I'll meet my roommate. It was the last day of the first part of my life.

When I awoke the next morning I met Kevin, my roommate. He has short black hair, a tight frame and wild eyes that were shielded by silver glasses. The dorms were set up in such a way that your roommate was really more of your toilet mate than anything. We each had our own 8x8 ft room which was connected by a joint bathroom. I met Kevin in the bathroom and shook his hand. He mumbled something about Star Wars and never made eye contact. He invited me into his room and I saw that the little bastard had a refrigerator. Rather than seeing this as an asset, I immediately identified him as the enemy. His room was covered in pictures of video game posters and famous actors that he really liked. He mumbles something and I just say, "right, right, well, cool" and then get out as soon as I can. For some reason it feels like Buffalo Bill's dorm room.

I would later discover that Kevin had an identical twin brother named Doug that lived down the hall. Doug liked to mumble and not look you in the eyes as well. If Kevin was Buffalo Bill, then Doug was definitely Hannibal Lecter. I imagined myself waking up one night and the two of them hovering over my bed, gazing down at me, but not making eye contact. In my dreams they had put down each other as preferential roommates but had not gotten it. In my dreams they would skin me alive and Doug would suddenly disappear from the premises, taking up residence in my skin and the two of them could live happily ever after for the next two years.

Late at night I'd lie in bed and I'd listen to them through the walls. They seemed to be speaking their own language, a tongue I would later begin to refer to as Polton, which was the planet I assumed them to be from. I fell asleep as they watched, rewatched and rewatched the new Pirates of the Caribbean trailer on full blast. Over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. They laughed at the same parts. They made the same jokes. Their commentary played on loop, just like Boot Strap Bill's line. I wondered if they were each sitting in the dark, dressed up as their favorite pirate and, furthermore, who each of them would've chosen.

I wake up. It's not the next morning, but just another morning and the bathroom door is locked. I hear someone speaking Polton and I sit down on the floor to listen. Someone is unraveling toilet paper, but rather than just a little piece to fold and wipe, I hear a whoosh-whoosh-whoosh like they're ripping it out of the dispenser by the yard just as fast as they can. Next I hear a scrubbing noise like TP on skin and I'm wondering if he wipes like he's cleaning the kitchen counter. More Polton speak. It's closer now, just on the other side of the door. The shower turns on and I hear him get undressed and step inside. To this day I can't tell you what was truly happening behind that door next. I hear Polton 1 and then I hear Polton 2. I hear a conversation happening in the shower. I can't tell you if one was sitting on the toilet and talking to his brother while he showered. I can't tell you if it was just Kevin Polton imitating two voices, having a back and forth by himself or if they were actually showering together. I never asked and they never told.

One day I found myself sitting in my friend Steve's room. Steve had no fridge and was therefore considered a trustworthy friend to me. He liked to dig through the ashtrays outside for refries and could sometimes be found passed out from a nightlong binge of drinking Scope, but I found these traits more colorful than detestable. I sat on his popposon chair and gazed out the window, across the courtyard to all the opposing dorm windows and wondered what was happening in each of them. I decided to just check it out.

Steve had a digital camera he had acquired from somewhere or the other and, while I never saw him use it, I found that it had quite an impressive zoom lens that doubled quite nicely as a telescope. I gazed through the viewfinder and saw a kid feeding a squirrel. I saw a girl watching TV. I saw a guy sitting on his bed doing his homework. My room was empty and next door, Kevin was wielding a giant plastic sabre, leaping back and forth in his room, having a sword fight with an invisible opponent, all alone. I wondered if he was imitating Jack Sparrow or Luke Skywalker. Steve takes the camera from me, takes a look, laughs, pulls a three quarter smoked cigarette out of his cargo pocket and lights it up for the two drags that it's worth.

Summer came and Kevin and Doug left. In fact, 80% of the dorms vacated and the few out-of-staters that lived there were the only ones left behind to fend for themselves. As soon as ol' Buffalo Bill was gone I snuck into his room and stole his refrigerator. Rob the rich to feed the poor. It was nice for a while, being alone, but it got to be, understandably, a bit lonely. When the kids all came back, we all got new roommates and I was assigned to a black guy named Reggie, who had a lisp. Not the kind of lisp that was caused by a speech impediment but the kind of lisp that was caused by shaking your wrist around limply, being attracted to boys and just being pretty much all around gay. He seemed enjoyable enough and was always found with a shining white smile on his face. One Saturday afternoon, while I sat in my room, on my bed, playing Tetris, I heard a quick and polite knock on my bathroom door. "Come in" I gayly shouted. In walks Reggie, wearing a red Echo shirt, expensive name brand pants and carrying a Big Gulp filled with what smells like pure rum mixed with a capful of soda. He asks if he can play Tetris with me and I tell him sure, to have a seat. He sits down next to me and I wonder if this gay, drunk black man wants to have sex with me. I scoot a few inches away from him and hand him a controller. I begin asking him where he's from, if he has any siblings, does he have a job? He tells me, with a smile, that his home life was pretty rough and once his sister made him really mad and he stabbed her in the shoulder with a kitchen knife. I beat him at Tetris and he says, "Dang it!". I become afraid and begin looking around my room for anything I can use to protect myself with or, even worse, anything that could be used to harm me. The stapler that I use as a hammer is in my drawer. I wonder if I can grab it before he tries to choke me with the Nintendo cable. He asks if I want to play again and I hesitantly agree. I try to let him win but he's just too bad. Even trying to lose I still win. He says, "GOSH DARNIT!" and slams the rest of his drink. I wonder if instead of hurting me physically he's just thinking about out and out raping me. Would he at least allow me to run next door and ask my friend for a condom? He asks if I want to play again. I yawn and stretch and tell him that I really need to be getting to class. Before he can respond I click off the Nintendo and begin rapping up the controllers. "Cool", he says and disappears into the bathroom.

Summer comes and everyone disappears again. I enjoy the silence for a bit and decide to read a few books before starting the longing process for my friends like young lovers. I decide that the fates can eat it and figure this time I'll put in for a roommate. I choose a kid named Brett who has sideburns the size and shape of California. When he came back from Colorado Springs the following semester, he brought his hamster, Marla, with him and together the three os us lived above the room where some kid had hung himself a year before I moved in. I needed to make some extra money and so, beings that I went to film school, I ended up purchasing mini dv tapes off of ebay in bulk and selling them at the school for twice the cost I purchased them at. This technique afforded me extra beer money for the weekend and Brett quickly became envious, deciding he too would taste the sweetness of being an entrepreneur. He too wanted the freedom to be his own boss, to set his own schedule, to do what he wanted.

His first step was to gather his product. He went to the pet store and purchased another hamster, a male named Rerun and then set to work breeding the newly introduced couple. A few months later Marla was missing and the cage was filled with little pink creatures. Brett searched our dorms from top to bottom but never found her, never even found a trace of her. No poop, no hamster food scraps, no hair, nothing. I explained to him that, sometimes, in business, there are losses. Setbacks.

In true professional form, he pushed forward with phase 2 - marketing.

He began stapling posters up at the film school, "HAMSTERS FOR SALE". When this didn't catch on, we tried becoming partners. "BUY 2 MINI-DV TAPES, GET A FREE HAMSTER!" If people weren't going to buy them, we were just going to give them away. This too was a complete failure as hamsters weren't on the hot to have list that year. The hamsters were multiplying at an alarming rate and we weren't able to move the product. They were eating all the money that was coming in from his parents and it was becoming harder and harder to get booze on the weekend. Eventually, he made his first big sale. A girl down the hall from him asked if she could buy two of them - a guy and a girl. She thought she'd try selling them as well. Apparently we had quite a few FBLA (Future Business Leaders of America) members running around our place.

Brett escorts the young woman into his room and begins his spiel like some used car salesman. "This one's great, he'll just sit in your lap and smile at you. OH! This little girl is fantastic! Lots of energy and is just so cute while she runs on that little wheel - you buy em both and I'll toss in the wheel for free - heck, I'll even give ya some pellets. They love pellets. You'll figure it out - don't worry - you look nervous. New parents are always nervous. You'll be fine". He digs his hand into the cage to find the two chosen ones and stumbles upon a stiff object under some hamster chips. He clears them away and discovers Marla, her glassy eyes staring out at nothing, her cheeks filled with those delicious pellets.

We assume that Marla had died giving birth or had just finally kicked the bucket of old age. Truthfully we had no idea. We had no way of knowing. We were just a couple of Fortune 500s up and comers, not veterinarians. The story we told, however, was a bit different. We explained to people who asked about Marla that she had died giving birth and the infant hamsters had devoured her from the inside out, eating their way through her uterus and abdomen. When we found them, Marla was broken in two, a look of terror spread across her blood stained face. We tell everyone that's not a potential customer that the baby hamsters all bite.

The year passes and Brett has only sold two hamsters. He's going back home and can't take them all with him. The girl down the hall has bred a horde and nobodies buying. In her desperation she had even hit the street but with no luck. Brett decided that this is not what he expected and the business isn't earning the profit he thought it would. It's going belly-up and he decides to bail. One night, after most of the dorms had fallen asleep and when no one but the unmonitored security cameras were watching, he snuck the cage down the hall with the girl and they took each hamster out, one by one and fed them through a small hole in the wall. Roughly sixteen hamsters all together, one at a time, being fed into this black gap. They each disappeared down the narrow corridor, following each other's scent. Brett and the girl dumped in all the food they had behind the little fuzzy army to get them started on their new life as feral animals. The hamsters disappeared for good and none of us ever saw them again, but sometimes, late at night, you could hear a light scurrying within the walls.

The Man in Black

2009-08-13T23:27:00.000-07:00

When I was in tenth grade, everything made me angry. I wrote poetry about people being chopped up into little pieces and talked about how much my parents were "always on my case, dude". I sulked around my house, staying hidden mainly in the shadows, wearing mostly black. My hair was dyed and hanging loosely beyond my shoulders. My shirt was solid black to match my hair. My jeans were black, accented with a chain wallet and my shoes were actually boots and were black and would kick your ass but only in my dreams because my body was made of string-cheese and red jello. I wore black fingernail polish and dated a girl with a shaved head, who also wore a chain wallet. For Halloween we got to dress up for school. I put on black lipstick and wore what I normally wore. Basically I came dressed as a very cool warlock.

About halfway through my sophomore year, I noticed my girlfriend wearing fishnet stalkings on her arms. I thought they looked pretty friggin' cool and inquired as to where she bought them. "I picked them up at Ben Franklin Crafts," This was the local arts and crafts store. They mainly sold things that nobody really wanted, like stamps in the shape of ducks. "They had 'em for Halloween," she says, "I bet they've still got some and they're probably on sale". After school we drive downtown in my flesh colored pick-up and she helps me pick some out. "You're probably a small," she says. I pick up two packages and jet home as fast as I can. People were really finally going to take me seriously. No more joking around. When I came to school on Monday and I had these babies on my arms, watch out. Maybe April would wear hers and we could match. We could be like the teenage version of The Munsters. I couldn't wait.

As soon as I got home, I ran down into the basement - where my room was - and tore open the packaging. April explained to me that you had to cut finger holes in the toes and then cut a huge hole where the vagina went so you could shove your head through. I was, essentially, turning a pair of pants into an extremely ill-fitting shirt. Fashion knows no bounds.

I clumsily slid my arms down the leggings, careful not to snag them or cause some kind of run. I shoved my fingers through the holes in the feet and could actually feel the power surging up through me. This piece of clothing was my cape. It empowered me. I would face the world in this. But, in the meantime, I would sit in my basement, on my broken and dirty futon and make out with my girlfriend who had a boy's haircut while I sat next to her, wearing women's undergarments upside down.

Looking back, I feel as though, if it were possible for the fifth grade me to look forward into my future and see where I would be in five years or six years, I probably would have killed myself. I would have ridden my little Huffy bike down to the railroad tracks and just laid down on them. I wouldn't have even needed anyone to tie me up. I would have just laid down with a sign that read something like, "Trust me, it's better this way, for all of us".

The following day was a Saturday and my family and I were heading out of town. We were going on a trip to the Black Hills to visit my dad's sister, husband and kids. I walked slowly out of the basement with my black boots, black jeans, black hair, black finger nail polish and a white shirt, which I normally would not be wearing, but felt that it really helped to accentuate my black arm leggings. Today was the....not so much "new me" but rather, the "improved me". I had actually managed to build upon the already sturdy foundation that had been set in place. I walked upstairs and into the living room where I met my sister, who was also sporting black boots, black jeans, a black shirt, black finger nail polish, a lip ring stuck through black lipstick and hot pink hair. She looked at me with what could only be described as awe. I was on the cutting edge of cool and she knew it. Why hadn't she thought of this first? Why wasn't SHE wearing her underwear on the outside and in reverse? Look, some people have it and some people don't. Bottom line.

My dad was next. He entered the room and witnessed his two androgynous children standing next to one another, admiring each other's make-up. What was he thinking? What thoughts were rolling through his head at that exact moment? My father, a military man almost his entire life and definitely the greater part of mine, stood there speechless for a moment, probably trying to figure out if we were all playing a practical joke on him. Certainly my mom was bound to walk around the corner at any time, dressed as The Bride of Frankenstein. Perhaps Allen or Peter Funt would appear, shouting out something about Candid Camera. But probably my dad knew the truth. Probably he knew exactly what had happened. And probably he wished, more than anything, that the thing that would make an appearance at that exact moment, were some kind of stray bullet that could catch him right between the eyes or an out of control Mack truck that would just pummel through our living room wall suddenly and smash him into jelly. If there were fates worse than the hand my father had been dealt, you would be hard pressed to find them in his eyes.

He stared at us and then spoke quickly and in his matter-of-fact voice, "We're not going anywhere with you dressed like that. Go change". And then, without another word, he marched back upstairs, probably to stare at himself in the mirror and wonder just what happened to his life. This, surely, was not what he had signed up for. I went downstairs and, instead of taking off my beloved underwear shirt, I simply put on my black jacket and was sure to keep my hands in my pockets or tucked up into my sleeves. If I could just get out of the house I was sure he'd come around to the idea or, at the very least, just give it a rest. Surely he would see things my way eventually. Did he not see how I looked?

We drove for a few hours and ended up stopping at a Pizza Ranch for dinner. The four of us walked inside, my sister and I dressed like Johnny Cash meets Alice Cooper, my dad wearing his favorite Star Wars shirt and crocodile hunter hat and my mom meandering through the doors last, digging through her purse, looking for who knows what and wearing a white sweater with a row of kittens on it. THIS was a unique piece. On the front, kittens marching towards you. On the BACK, kittens marching AWAY from you, their tails held high, their little pink butt holes exposed. As far as taste goes, my mother's is exquisite.

They seated us and my sister and I sat next to one another, looking like shadows with no bodies casting us. I thought this was the perfect time to reveal my master plan to my dad. He was taking a deep sip of his drink of choice - Cherry Coke - when I let out a little burp and, "oh, excuse me" decided to slowly slip off my jacket, revealing my power arm bands. Yes, sir, this was it. Things were going to CHANGE. My dad's eyes slowly floated from the pop machine, to the back of the room, to my eyes, to my jacket, to my sleeves and then back up to my eyes again. The straw slowly dropped from his mouth and he swallowed his soda. Something was about to happen. My mom was balancing her checkbook. Theresa glanced back and forth. The show was about to start. My dad gathered his thoughts. He shut his eyes, pulled off his crocodile hunter hat, placed his hand over his shiny forehead and rubbed it for a moment. This was sign language for, "What the F have I done to deserve this? Why God? Why?" And then, just as he looked up, just as I noticed that fire in his eyes, that certain spark he has when that big red button has been pressed - the one with the warning signs all about it - the one with the plastic safety cover over it so it doesn't get bumped by accident - the one that is guarded by trained professionals - the one that I, for whatever reason, found so enjoyable to just slam my fist into over and over again, wanting, needing to know what would happen at Code Red. Doomsday was near. The sirens were blazing. Theresa turns her head away. This was not going to be fireworks. This was not going to be pretty. This was going to be a detonator placed inside the stomach of a small animal. This was going to be an explosion with blood and guts and perhaps some yelping. He takes a deep breath and I'm waiting. Here it comes - The Big Show - and then the waitress is at our table. She's standing there holding onto her pad and pencil and smacking away loudly on her gum. Here she is - the daughter my parents should have had - where was the son? Probably managing the place. She asks if she can get us anything to drink. My dad says he's got his drink. My mom wants some coffee. The waitress, who, in all fairness was pretty attractive, turns to my sister and I and says, "and what can i get for you two ladies?"

My dad smiles.

Certified Sandwich Artist

2009-08-11T10:04:00.000-07:00

When I was a junior in high school I took a test at the local career center to see what I would be best suited for in the coming years of my life. The test asked you what kind of things you were interested in; if you liked working with people, if you enjoyed using your hands, etc, etc. Most kids got callbacks on their screens that said they'd make great doctors or welders or accountants. One kid refused to take the test, stating that he knew what he was going to do when he grew up - he was going to be a cartoon animator and he didn't need some dumb machine to tell him. They begged and pleaded with him, imploring him to keep his options open. They said he should at least LOOK to see what his potential could be. I don't know if he ever took the test. He probably failed the class. But can you blame him? A test like that is scary for a teenager getting ready to stare down their twenties and "real life". You'll answer some stupid questions on a computer that looks like the original beta version of computers everywhere and, depending on what you say, this thing is going to tell you if you're suited for your dream job or not. Maybe you don't have a dream job and maybe it's good for those kids but when you're on the cusp of chasing down your career and conquering it, the last thing you want to hear is "your ideal job is a career class teacher". Still a favorable job, but not for someone who wants to draw.

I, on the other hand, had no idea what I was going to do with my life. This was at least a year before I decided to go to film school and was still planning on hitchhiking to LA to be homeless and tell people about Jesus. I had big dreams of my own. I took the test and answered as truthfully as the multiple choices allowed me to (Do you like numbers? A.) Quite a bit B.) Theyr'e okay or C.) I hate numbers). Just as a point of interest, I hate numbers.

I remember it took about an hour to complete this thing. By the time you were done, the glowing green font was embedded into your retinas and you'd stare at your compu-career on the back of your eyeballs for the rest of the day. I finally reached the end and was SO excited to see what it said. Maybe it would say I could be a preacher. Maybe it would say I could be a youth pastor! I LOVE JESUS!

It told me I would be a good bus driver or garbage man.

"Sanitary Technician" is actually what it said.

I sat there, staring at the screen, all the wind pulled from my sails. I stared at "bus driver" and tried picturing myself coasting around in a big yellow bus for the rest of my life. Would I be friends with the kids? Would I hate them? Isn't it a prerequisite to be a pedophile to hold either of those positions? I was 17 and was dating a girl a year older than me. Maybe I was normal.

Across the room, sitting at a table alone, the kid who refused to take his test was drawing in his sketchbook, a naivety is his eyes. The world was his oyster and when he grew up, he was going to be an illustrator and he didn't need some stupid antique to give him affirmation.

During this point in my life, I was working at Subway as a " certified sandwich artist". It was stylized onto our shirts and I would constantly have to fend off the question, "did you actually have to go to school for this - to become a certified sandwich artist?" unto which I would answer, "yes. There's actually a Subway sandwich artist school up in Minnesota, near Mankato. Before you can actually start putting lettuce on bread, they give you an intensive two week bootcamp. I think it's really helped to take my sandwich skillz to the next level".

One night while working alone, during closing, I received a phone call from a girl who sounded pretty. "Subway, this is John, how can I help you?". Having to answer a telephone like that is one of the most humiliating and degrading things I will ever have to do. "How may I serve you oh master of the telephone? Please, allow me to be at your beckon call. Would you like a delicious sandwich made? I will tenderly place your choice of veggies on our fresh oven baked bread. Would you like pepperjack or swiss cheese? I am your sandwich slave. Say the word and it is as good as done".

"How may I help you?"

She's the leader of a basketball team (nice) from out of town. I was a loser and even speaking to her was out of my league but it was 12:30 at night (in the morning??) and no one knew who or what I was. I would play up my hidden studliness and impress the ladies. She needs to bring in her ENTIRE girls' basketball team for sammies. She just wanted to check if we were open and if it was cool to bring it twenty five highly attractive, sweaty, scantily dressed high school seniors into the restaurant where I was working all alone. I think I've seen pornos start this way.

"Sure, sure, yeah - come on in" then I add, "I'll be here, hahaha".

She laughs, but probably just out of kindness as was the situation with most strangers and friends alike in my life. I hang up the phone, straighten my shirt, pop my collar, mess up my hair until it's stylish and cool and give the counter a quick once over. The place has gotta look good if I'm gonna make out with 25 chicks back here. I sweep real quick, mop the place, refresh the veggies. I would've lit some candles if I had some, would've dimmed the lights a bit.

Things are ready. I'm ready to roll. It's go time. All of my sandwich artist training has brought me to this point in my life and it's clutch time. The bus pulls up out front and I feel a strange pop in my nose. I walk to the mirror in the back and gaze up my nostrils. Strange sensation. Blood pours out of my nose and down my lips. A frigging bloody lip? NOW? CHICKS DON'T MAKE OUT WITH GEEKS WITH BLOODY NOSES!!!!! I MAY AS WELL BE WEARING TIGHTY WHITIES AND PLAYING DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS!!!! My plan was aborting itself before it was even crowning. I try to relax. I try to think what a real man would do in my position (while trying not to think that a real man would never BE in my position). I grab a kleenex, stare at it and throw it away. I grab a Bounty paper towel, lay it over my face and blow as hard as I can. Blood sprays out and soaks the white paper like a scene from a horror film. I tilt my head down, stare straight into the mirror and sniff. Yeah, that' s it. Problem solved. No. Nevermind. Drip, drip, drip. I wipe my face with the bloody kleenex, smearing pink across the bottom of my face.

BING-BING.

That's the noise of the front door opening. I shut my eyes and sniff once, twice, three times. That's it. I've just gotta keep the sniffle-snuffles up and I should be fine. I wipe down my face, getting rid of the drying blood. I come around the corner and see just what I've been expecting. Hello ladies. They are all smiles and hoorahs, excited to see me. It was me and me alone that would fulfill their cravings. Their cheering filled me up and I could suddenly see the purpose behind the otherwise worthless cheerleader. I smile and wave shyly before washing the blood from my hands. I keep my head at a strange up-tilt to try and dissuade the blood from making an appearance. I sniff and scrub, sniff and scrub. I grab the paper towels, dry my hands and toss on the plastic gloves like little hand condoms.

I stand front and center in front of the first beautiful honey. We gaze into each other's eyes and she has no idea what I've got in store for her. I plan on covering her in lettuce and squirting oil and vinaigrette up her butt (if she'll let me). I am a junior in high school and girl butts are my oyster. I ask her what I can get for her and the moment that I take my focus off of sniffing, I feel the blood slide down my nasal cavity. I catch it and sniff before it escapes. Talking was going to be a serious problem but I figure if I can just get through the first two chickadees the rest will just sort of stop waiting for me to prompt them and they'll just tell me what they want. This is my plan for the entire evening.

She wants white bread, chicken breast and a foot long. I'm positive her sexual innuendoes are intended strictly for me. I wink at her and push her dinner down towards the end, where dessert waits. I ask her what type of - sniff - vegetables she wants - sniff. She says lettuce and tomatoes and olives. I put them on and say, "Anything else" and just then, at that precise moment, the whole girls' team watching me, squaring up my skillz, a giant red globule of blood slides out of my nose. I sniff but it's too late, gravity has taken over. It rolls down my bald top lip, leaps off my face and lands flat in her sandwich with a very slight, very quiet THWIP.

Everything is silent. I look up, blood on my face. I look into the eyes of each of my conquests, one by one and then I just say, "blood". The girl standing in front of me, she asks if it would be possible to make her a new sandwich.

I'm thinking that dimmer switch would be real nice about now.

Neurosis

2009-08-08T09:20:00.000-07:00

When we first moved to LA, Jade and I lived in a converted garage stall. Some would call it an efficiency apartment. The "some" in question probably never lived in an efficiency apartment. If they had, they would be able to tell you that being able to reach a bologna sandwich from your fridge and take a piss in the bathroom, both without getting up from the comfort of your couch is not really "efficient".

Today our place is a little bigger but maintains many of the features our first apartment possessed. Our living room is our dining room is our kitchen. The house is set up in such a way that sort of lacks, what modern people would refer to as "walls". So, if we want to flip on the AC, we are forced to cool down the entirety of the house rather than trying to section it off. The Air Conditioning. The Actual Comfort. Equally, our bank accounts are set up in such a way that if we DO decide to flip the switch, our money suddenly disappears.

So we sweat.

We sit on our couch in our underwear, the door hanging open, the fans on, circulating the horrible heat, blowing it in our faces. What little clothes we are wearing stick to our skin. The sweat dries and you can feel it like sand arms, chest, back. Showering is futile. The sun must go away.

And, at night, it does.

And then, because LA is a desert community, it gets cold. At night I freeze. At night I pray for the sun. I wish for heat. Where are our blankets? Why has Jade taken them off the bed?

A sheet. That's what I'm given to survive the summer nights. I wake up and am frigid and naked. I tug on the sheet. Clementine, our cocker spaniel with the inverted crossed eyes (that means her eyes point OUT instead of center, like some jungle toad), half-wit tongue dangling from her mouth, pokes her head up and glares at me accusingly, her tongue shining pink in the moonlight and seeming to say something along the lines of, "I was dreaming I had a pony named Patches and you woke me up". I say her name. I don't know why. She continues to stare at me before standing up and marching over onto my chest. She pins me down with her fuzzy paws and tilts her head towards mine, staring into my eyes (sort of - inverted, remember) and then just stares. I wonder if that pink nub is going to slip out past her lips any further and accidentally touch me. I blow in her face and she rolls over on her back between Jade and I. She uses my pillow as a pillow. This is how I will undoubtedly receive her ear infection.

I pull on the blankets again but Jade has wrapped herself up in them, mummifying her body. I pull again and she grunts, "what?". I tell her to get up. I tell her I need the sheet. I tell her I'm freezing. I ask her where the blankets are. She says that the medicine is up underneath of her. She tells me the squirrels are tampering with our mail. I give the blanket a final tug and an 1/8 of it slides free, just enough for me to cover my freezing genitals. I use my extra pillow (we each have 2. Jade loves pillows) to cover my chest.

I go to sleep fantasizing about drinking hot cocoa in front of a fireplace with a sweater on in Hell.

I dream about a bomb. It explodes and kills mostly everyone on Earth. The survivors are infected with radiation. We all begin to decompose while surviving off of canned corn. In our free time we play the Nintendo Wii.

I wake up in the morning. THE SUN! It's too hot. I realize I'm completely covered by something that is inherently trying to wrap itself around my feet, trying to mold itself to my body. The bed is scratching me. Something heavy(ish) is on me. My brain is fried from sleep but I try to take in what's happening.

Jade. "What're you doing under there?"

I sit up. Somehow, during the night, in between the radiation and Wii Sports, I'd managed to pull back the fitted sheet, pull back the egg carton mattress thing (which all girls own) and had crawled under them both, deciding to take up nocturnal residence directly on the mattress. I fight my way out of the fitted sheet. Clementine stares at me, her eyes blank slates. Is anything happening in there? I don't know. She farts and starts barking.

It's a Monday, I think. I throw on the clothes I wore yesterday, my socks stiff, my shirt not so gross anymore after airing out all night. I try the underwear, give them a courtesy sniff. No. The dick sweat and dried urine smell is too much. I decide to roll commando. This too proves to be a bad idea as hot days, denim and bare butt cheek skin does not mesh well. It's basically the chemical compound of wool.

I throw on a flannel over a t-shirt I purchased that has a guitar and a gas pump drawn on it. I don't understand what it means or if it means anything. It was eight bucks, it fits perfectly and it has that nice "used cotton" feel that I like so much.
On my way to work I'm listening to the High School Musical 3 soundtrack not because I'm working on a High School Musical piece at Disney, but just because the songs are too catchy to ignore. When Jade found out what I had been listening to, she used the words, "nerd" and "fag" to describe my tastes. Track 1, "Now or Never" is about Troy Bolton's (Zac Effron) chance to make history in one of his final basketball games of his high school career. It feels like a tween version of a Michael Jackson song. Track 2, "I Want it All" is about Ashley Tisdale's dream of becoming a superstar and having an agent and a publicist. It has a definitive "Disney" feel, but is easily overlooked by it's overall epic musical arc. The final track on the CD, track 12, "High School Musical" is my favorite. "I want the rest of my life to be just like a High Schooooooool Muuuuuuuussiiiiiiiiiccclllllllllllle!"

Truer words were never spoken.

I crank down my windows and blast the AC (I can afford it in my car). I know this is sort of a wasteful thing to do but I LIKE the wind in my face, like a dog, and I LIKE the cool air mixing with it and keeping me fresh and clean in my dirty clothes. A red light. I slowly pull up to the car in front of me while examining the car I'll be sitting next to. The rules are as follows:

If the person is 60+, I can ignore the situation, we are in the safe zone. If the person is anywhere below that, male / female and attractive and their windows are rolled down, I lower the volume of the music until it is nearly inaudible so that I don't humiliate myself. I will admit that there is something strangely.......what's the word I'm looking for......"pedophile"......about a grown man trapped in a boy's body listening to a soundtrack for children (but mainly girls). If the person is below 60 and pretty ugly I just keep blasting. Why? Because everyone knows that ugly people's opinions don't matter.

I get to work and park next to the Jonas Brothers themed van. I stare at it and wonder if I've been judging them too harshly.....maybe I should buy an album. 100,000 screaming fans can't be wrong. Walking through the parking garage I try to decide where to put my wallet, cell phone and the huge chunk of metal that is every key I own. I start distributing things to my pockets, trying to figure out which fits where, which piece makes it look like I have a big boner (or worse, a little boner), which piece in what pocket makes people think I've got butt tumors. I try several different combinations until I finally decide to just carry everything in my hands. I leave my sunglasses on even though I'm inside because I think they make me look cool.

I'm wearing new slip on shoes that a friend gave me because he felt sorry for me. He told me that he's known me for two years and he's only ever seen me wearing one pair of Nike's that used to be cool but now where the worn color of piss and were falling apart at the seams. He gives me some shoes he just bought that resemble a "fresh" version of penny loafers. My pants stink, my underwear is gone and my shirt has a gas pump drawn on it. I notice that other adults around me are wearing button-ups, ties and slacks and they have their sunglasses on too. I decide to button up my flannel to appear more professional. I stick my things in my pockets and even though it looks like my lower torso has developed budding breasts, it's okay because no one is looking. I begin buttoning up my shirt and find that my buttons have gone all willy-nilly. The holes and buttons seem to all be in the wrong places and my trained fingers are struggling to figure it out. I look down and see the back of my breast pocket. I look at my shoulder and see some stitching. I'm wearing my shirt inside-out. I quickly pull it off and look around. It's clear. I put it back on and roll my sleeves like Kevin from the Jonas Brothers picture on the van.

I enter the lobby and a few people glance my way, probably just because they saw something moving out of the corner of their eye. I look down at my crotch out of habit. I am certain that some day I'm going to enter a busy building with my dong hanging out of my zipper. It is a real fear and I don't know if there's a name for it.

My zipper is up. I walk to the front desk where the receptionist, an older black woman, calls me "sweety" and asks to see my ID. She asks if Brookbank is my first or last name (for the second day since I've started) before giving me my "badge" (really just a sticker with my name on it that I'm forced to wear around all day). I get in the elevator and ride it up to the sixth floor with other people wearing sunglasses, none of them wearing flannels, all of them texting on iPhones and drinking coffees.

Today we need to layoff a tape and I don't really know how to do that but it's considered extremely unprofessional to get hired for a job and then explain that you're not really sure about certain aspects of it so, while my producer is out of the room I open up the Final Cut Pro user manual and begin frantically flipping through the pages. She comes back in and I smile, "are we ready for layoff?". She nods. "Great".

After work I drive from Burbank over to Wilshire Blvd for my weekly creative arts meeting at The Oasis (the church that we attend). Again, my window is down and my (factory) stereo is up and HSM3 (you know what I mean) soundtrack is blasting and I'm singing and sort of playing air drums on my steering wheel and shifting lanes and then this guy is honking at me and we're both swerving all over the freeway and he's shouting and I'm singing, "W-I-L-D, WILDCATS! C'mon! C'mon!" I suddenly feel really stupid and turn the radio down, embarrassed. I should have seen him but, what can you say? They're called blindspots for a reason.

I have to poop throughout the entire two hour meeting but feel like it would be rude to get up and leave. Plus, everyone would probably think I was going to poop when I asked if I could borrow a newspaper for a bit and then didn't return for fifteen to twenty.

After the meeting, on my way back to my car, it's dark out. The parking lot has a few lights, but not nearly enough. I pull my keys / lumpy hip tumor from my pocket and fumble around in the dark. I stick them in the keyhole and twist but it's jammed. My hands are full - I'm carrying a hard drive and some cables and am getting a little frustrated. I try talking to the key and reasoning with it. I twist some more. I take it out and put it back in. Nothing. I look at the key. Is it the right key? Yes. I look at the car. Is it the right car? It's gray. It LOOKS like my car. I peer in the windows.

About a year ago I got into a car accident. I slammed into the back of this woman's automobile at about 35mph. My windshield shattered, the hood of my car accordioned and my air bags exploded, leaving my steering wheel with two air bag exit flaps dangling like flat, plastic testicles from my horn region. The car that I was peering into like some homeless thief had a steering wheel that was intact. The passenger side floor was not covered in Diet Coke and La Croix sparkling water cans. There were no Taco Bell bags.

This was the wrong Chevy Cavalier.

As is my M.O. I quickly glance around to see if anyone has seen my folly. The parking lot is still pretty empty. I run down the aisle, searching for my car. I find it, crawl inside and flip the heat onto a nice toasty low setting before driving home. When I pull into my driveway I sit there for a moment, trying to absorb as much heat as I can before heading into the frigid house.

I think about the sun.

Skinny

2009-08-06T00:04:00.000-07:00

I was raised in a pet friendly home. As far back as I can recall, my family always had some sort of animal running around. The first dog we ever owned was named Lindy and was a ghoulash of breeds, the most recognizable being a border collie. One day, while my parents were hanging around outside of my grandpa's radiator shop, a car drove past, slowed down and tossed a bag out the window. Inside the bag was Lindy.

Lindy stayed with us for many years, maintaining the solitary role of pet and general generic guard dog until her later years when we decided to adopt a golden retriever puppy from, what I believe, was a traveling salesman. We named the dog Chester and he grew to be bigger than most average canines. A bit later two cats came into our lives via some friends named Butterscotch and Dusty (those were the cats, not the friends). Later still, I purchased two gerbils whom I dubbed Stan and Eddie after two characters in Stephen King's "IT". Eddie was friendly and liked to be held. Stan liked to stay to himself and decoupage. After the gerbils my mom decided to get some fish and then a stray cat decided to wander into our basement and have nine kittens and then a friend of ours decided to "adopt to us" three stray kittens from around their trailer park.

During this time, Lindy became ill with old age and his health began to descend at an alarming rate. Eventually we had to make the unfortunate end decision. My dad and I rolled her onto a blanket and carried her to the family suburban. The four of us loaded up and drove her to the vet and had her put to sleep.

A few years later Chester died of colic and my two gerbils each died of cancer, only to be replaced by two OTHER gerbils named Gizmo and Gadget who also suffered the unfortunate fates of C. My sister adopted the class albino rat named Mickey and the 13 cats in the basement were given to the Humane Society where they were probably put to sleep as well. Most of my mom's fish ate each other, Dusty ran away and my neighbor shot Butterscotch. Mickey died and was replaced by a hedgehog named Sonic who eventually had to have a leg amputated. Hedgehogs are horrible pets because you can't touch them. It's like having some dry ice for a friend.

Lastly, in the past few years, my mother has adopted a (now) fat farm cat named Toby, two, tiny, imbred dogs named Puggy and Chi-Chi. She's adopted a red terrier-ish animal from her brother and has received a dog named Poncho that finds it imperative to eat everything in sight (edible or not) from who knows where.

My gerbils died during the winter and the ground was too cold to bury them so we wrapped them up in an old towel and placed the towel inside of a Pop-Tart box which was then placed inside of a larger storage box in my treehouse. Spring came and went and I never found the time to give the little rodents a proper burial. Winter came and went AGAIN and finally, the following spring, I decided that it was time to put things to rest. I wondered what Gizmo and Gadget would've said if they'd known that the corpses of my old gerbils were resting in my treehouse. Would they have been nervous?

Once, during an outside sleepover I was having with some friends, I got into a particularly heated argument with my friend Derrick and he grabbed my deceased pet's dual casket and threw it from the treehouse where it crashed into my neighbor's driveway and slid across the cement. I pushed him and screamed at him and kicked over my neighbor's clothesline in anger.

When Lindy died we had him cremated. Today, his remains rest in a fine oak box on our encyclopedia shelf. For many years, when I would bring a new girlfriend home, my dad would enter the living room, pick up the box with the plaque "Our Beloved Pet", sit down across from us, open the box and pet the plastic bag filled with dirty gray ash while he whispered, "Good dog" to himself.

Jade was also raised in a pet friendly home. Actually, to be precise, she was raised on a pet friendly FARM populated by dogs, rabbits, horses, cats and one pot belly pig who liked to bite visitors. Living on a farm, death is much more prevalent, even when compared to my animal house. When a dog dies on the farm, it is a sad day. Someone digs a quick hole under a shady tree, they lower the dog down, cover it up and hope and pray that the other dogs don't come digging around too soon. They do not cremate their pets and turn them into home decorations.

The "other dogs" in question are Rhodesian Ridgebacks and Jade's mom raises them. Now, just like every company, every business must have gain and loss, so is the dog breeding world. A big litter was born in the summer and in this litter, a little puppy that refused to both live or die. The dog was clearly runty and couldn't seem to keep any of his food down. June fed him with an eyedropper until he was old enough to take bites on his own. However, everything he bit into seemed to come right on up again. But this dog didn't mind. It ate dinner, it ate puke, it puked up dinner, it puked up puke. Nothing would stay down and the puppy slowly started to lose weight. It was due to this unfortunate physical attribute that he was crowned with the name "Skinny". June took the dog to the vet. What was the problem? Ulcers? No. The vets think it's some kind of throat problem. They do surgery and it doesn't help anything except make the purse a bit lighter. Skinny is still getting skinnier.

One day we're all sitting about the kitchen island and June asks me if I'd be willing to go dig a hole, back by the barn, under a tree. There was a shovel in the garage. Just make it about two feet deep. Doesn't need to be that wide, she says. I comply and head out for the task at hand. As I'm digging, the hot afternoon sun burning down on me, I hear the kitchen door slide open and the puppies are all released into the yard. The pack comes tearing over towards me, running and screaming, tripping over their own and each other's feet. They role and play and bark and bite. They reach me only to realize that they don't know why they came over. I had nothing to offer but a shovel and a mysterious hole.

The puppies run off, disappearing in groups of two and three, disappearing to explore the rest of the driveway, the horses and the backyard. All but one. Skinny decided to stay by my side and keep me company. I stabbed the shovel down into the dark Earth and pulled out another mound. Skinny jumped down into the shallow hole and began pawing at the ground, loosening the soil for me. I laughed and poked him with my shovel. I scooped up some extra dirt and tossed it aside. I looked back down and there was Skinny, sitting on his haunches, ribs straining through his skink, scar stretched across his neck from the surgery, his sallow face upturned and happy.

It was then that I realized what I'd been called to do. It was then that the pieces all fit together. It was right then that I realized that Skinny was not sitting in a shallow hole. Skinny was resting in a shallow grave and he was playing with my shovel while I dug it. I tried pushing him aside and scooting him out of his final resting place, but he just pounced back in with all the enthusiasm of a Disney character, attacking the shovel with playful growls.

A truck engine. The vet. She's here. June meets with her briefly before grabbing Skinny from the grave she'll be laying him back into in moments. He curls up in her arms as he's been taught and June pets his head, whispering little words in his ear as the vet administers the drugs. I watch from a distance. Most of my animals run away or are killed and I don't do well with death. I haven't been exposed to it enough. I watch Skinny's head slowly slink down onto June's arm and I can see that June is sad. She brings Skinny back over and I fill in the hole, trying to spread the excess dirt over the top as much as I can.

The vet comes over and stomps on the grave. Literally jumps up and down on it. Says something about packing in the dirt.

Don't want the dogs snooping around here too soon.

Post Traumatic Soccer Disorder

2009-08-05T00:55:00.000-07:00

Remember those tests you had to take in school? The ones that asked you which of the following did not fit? They went something like....

A. Pen
B. Pencil or
C. A bottle of Mrs. Butterworth's rich and thick syrup.

The choice was usually quite obvious. Here's another one:

A.) Jackie Robinson
B.) Bo Jackson or
C.) John Brookbank

Some things just stand out. Since the day I was born I have never been mistaken as a "sports type". Twice I've been mistaken for a girl and several times as gay but never has anyone EVER suspected that I played sports. I once tried to lie to a group of strangers, telling them all that I took karate classes every Monday night, upon which somebody immediately called my bluff, stating, "YOU take karate? Yeah, right." Are sports types born or bred? Who knows. All I can say for sure is that ever since I was a small boy on the playground, I was never one to chase after baseballs or footballs. Perhaps an occasional four-square and today I can be found on the mini golf course from time to time, but that's about as close as it comes.

I've tried, though. I've tried to be straight with sports. I've experimented.

During my junior year in high school a friend talked me into joining intramural volleyball. It was coed and was supposed to be pretty relaxed. This would be my first foray and would turn out to be an experience that would highlight all of my jockular fears. My friend Tom and myself showed up late, which, by this point in my life was sort of becoming my MO. I was now regularly spending almost all of my Saturdays in Saturday School due to tardiness. Saturday School was basically a punishment along the same train of thought as The Breakfast Club movie, minus the marijuana scene. We walked in and I was, if it was possible, underdressed for a casual volleyball game. While most of the kids sported sharp Nike shoes, Adidas shorts and Champion t-shirts, I merely wore a pair of Chuck Taylor's, cut-off shorts and a black Friday the 13th t-shirt bearing a picture of Jason Voorhees hockey mask, lying in a pool of blood with a knife shoved through the eye. On the back it read, in a haunting scrawl, "MADE IN HELL". I really was something else.

Teams were split up and, according to The Fates, Tom and I were to be on opposite teams. I was alone and horrified. I didn't even know the rules to this dumb game. We started and I tried to grasp what everyone was doing. I tried to watch the person who served. How did they hold their hands? What did they say before the serve? How did I know WHEN to serve? The ball came to me and I hit it. I HIT IT! I HIT IT! YES!!!! Maybe this wasn't going to be so bad after all - and it landed outside of the playing zone on my side of the net I am an idiot.

The team didn't really say anything, but you could sort of feel their silent guffaws as they judged me and my cool t-shirt. Things were off to a rocky start and pretty much stayed that way, me just running around the court, trying to avoid the ball and when it finally DID come to me, I tried to just bunt it (or whatever it's called) to another player. If I could just get it to someone else, someone who knew what they were doing and they got a score, I COULD BE HELD RESPONSIBLE! BEING GUILTY BY ASSOCIATION WOULD FINALLY HAVE IT'S MERITS! Just as I was initializing my plan, I found, to my utter and supreme horror, that it was my turn to serve. Everything went into slow motion. Somebody tossed the ball to me and I missed it. I chased it down and took my spot, blushing, hot and red in my face. I held out the big white ball, cocked my arm back and POW, released, sending the sphere CLEAR UP and out and RIGHT INTO THE NET I am an idiot what was I DOING here how did this happen? How close was the door? Could I run? Would they notice I'd left? Would the circle just rotate and someone else fill in for the vacant server, nobody even mentioning my absence?

A girl rolled the ball back to me, being polite not to embarrass me again by trying to make me catch. I swiped at the damned thing again, imagining myself looking like some kitten playing with a ball on a piece of string, mindlessly, hopelessly swatting at the air. This time it doesn't even arrive at the net. This time it veers off to the left and lands next to a teammate. The girl just decides to carry the ball over to me for some reason. Then my basic grammar teacher (who was playing on the opposite team) tries shouting a few pointers to me. "Make a fist! Hit it with your fist! Keep your arm straight! You can do it!"

I can DO IT? Oh. Problem solved.

I was humiliated for the first half of the game until Tom (who plays volleyball just fine) got bored and asked if it was okay if we split out early.

Sure, Tom. Just fine.

I understood that sports were not my niche and probably never would be. Later in college I'd realize just how far this problem stretched when I found that I couldn't win a game of foosball no matter who or what I played. I was at a party and had drunk three beers when I challenged a guy named Patrick to a friendly match. Patrick had helped finish the better part of a keg before topping it off with a handle of vodka followed by losing his pants somewhere. Certainly he was playing at a handicap and somehow still managed to beat me. If he knew what was happening, I would have felt shame.

A few years later, my wife (who was then my girlfriend) and I moved to Glendale, California where we met a photographer's assistant named Rachel. Rachel had tattoo sleeves on both arms and short hair ala Mia Farrow in "Rosemary's Baby" meets an early emo kid. She wore it well and was dead set on clawing her way through the assistant world into the actual photographer realm. In the meantime, she dated a boy named something or the other but for some reason I want to call him Gavin.

Gavin played soccer for a local team that, according to Rachel, consisted mainly of married couples that got together on Saturday afternoons at the local schoolyard, drank some beer and played some football (that's what soccer is called in Brazil. Are you impressed that I knew that?). None of them REALLY played so we'd fit in just fine. Jade and I were hesitant, but after some haranguing via Rachel, we decided to give it a go. What could go wrong? A bunch of idiots on a soccer field sounded like the story of my life.

We showed up on Saturday and it was The Volleyball Incident replayed to a tee. The team consisted of mostly males, none of whom were married, all of which brought their own cleats, knee pads, jerseys, etc. For warm up they bounced the ball back and forth using only their feet. As it turns out, they were all a little more experienced than "barely at all". It came time to pick teams. The captains stood before us and began to fire off names. Anderson. Rob. Steve. Beakman. Gavin. Pauly. Until finally there were only three. Rachel, Jade and myself. The choosing team stopped the rapid-fire names and just stared at us, unsure of what to do, probably sizing up our respective abilities. They chose Rachel. Probably because Gavin, Rachel's boyfriend said, "Choose Rachel".

Just me and Jade.

They stared at us. Everyone stared at us. Who were we? What were our names? Where did we come from? How did we get here? The captain points at Jade and says, "You". I stand there, not sure if I should even bother walking over to my team, who obviously didn't even want or desire me. I was the loose change that you don't bother picking up off the cement. I was the dirty kleenex. I was the last one picked, more of a hinderance to the game play than a desirable commodity. Even if they knew how to use me, I wouldn't understand what they were trying to say.

We began playing. At first I just ran back and forth with my team, trying to look busy. Trying to look like I knew just what was happening. I cheered at all the right spots and kicked the dirt in frustration when, what I could only assume was the other team, scored. Eventually, as it had to be, the ball rolled to me. I stopped it with my foot and began to tap it over to the opposite end of the field. People began shouting at me, everybody saying something, their guttural shouts drowning into a cacophony of noise. A wall of sound. One voice stuck out. It said, "Blue shirt! Blue shirt! Kick it!"

Blue shirt. Upon other circumstances this may have been an endearing nickname given to me by my friends or coworkers. Today it was neither endearing nor a nickname, but rather just an adjective used to distinguish me from the rest of the pack as no one had even bothered to ask my name. "Kick it, Blue Shirt!" I pull my leg back and release. I make a beautiful connection with the ball and it soars a few feet before being blocked by a Neanderthal that must have been in the Marines at one point in his life. The grass is wet and my shoes have no laces or traction. They are slip-ons and the only pair I own. Church / work / soccer. It's all the same shoe. It slips off and flips into the air, traveling higher than the ball ever dreamed of. My other foot slips on the grass and down I go, embarrassed and again red faced and hot.

But wait. There was no, "Oh, Blue Shirt! Are you okay?" or "Blue Shirt! Nice!". There was just nothing. The game went on as though I weren't there.

Someone had the ball. Someone was kicking it towards me. Not TO me, obviously, but just in my general direction. The Neanderthal grabbed the ball holder by the collar of his shirt and stole the ball. The guy pushed the Neanderthal and shouted at him, "WE'RE ON THE SAME TEAM!" The Neanderthal pulled his entire arm back and cold cocked the guy across the mouth, knocking him to the ground. He then proceeded to mount the man and slam his fists one after the other, into his teammate's white, skeletal face. The skinny guy tried blocking the blows, but it was useless. The flesh cannonballs continued their assault until a group of roughly seven guys jumped in and pulled The Neanderthal off, leaving the science teacher looking guy with broken glasses, a bloody nose and black eyes.

People tried to explain to The Caveman that this was just a game and that we just played for fun. They tried to explain that, at this field, we did not hit. A young black girl tried to explain things to him. Tried to reason with him. His response, while it couldn't be mistaken for "polite" was certainly to the point. I'm sure you can fill in the blanks.

Fuc_ you, Nigge_.

I hush fell over the crowd. The pandemonium died. I'd never heard a black person called that to their face before in real life and I didn't know what to expect. I think we all half assumed that she was going to shed her skin, become some sort of lycanthrope and tear all of our white throats out. No. In a very anti-climactic scene, she just said nothing. Instead, one of the guys just said, "Hey, hey, hey. I don't think we need to go there - we're just here to have fun".

The Neanderthal then tried to explain, mainly in cave paintings, how he'd just gotten back from the war and demanded respect. We all tried to soothe-say him, tried to calm him down. He eventually cooled his jets enough to storm off the field, jumped the fence and disappeared towards the parking lot. The game was only half done but everyone decided to call it off. Most of us were concerned that he was going to return with an array of semi-automatic weapons, perhaps a sherman tank.

The team captain glanced around and asked if it was okay if we just ended early and went home.

Sure, Tom. Just fine.

Ethan Embry

2009-08-03T21:15:00.000-07:00

The first job that I truly enjoyed was when I worked at Coborn's Video Store in Mitchell, South Dakota during my senior year in high school. I was almost always late and could never be found dressed to code. Either my shirt wasn't white or it wasn't a button up or it was untucked or my tie was too loose or I wasn't wearing the stupid little black vest or I'd lost my name tag or I was wearing moccasins instead of dress shoes. You maybe couldn't count on me being on time but you certainly COULD count on me being dressed incorrectly. I was, in fact, sent home on numerous occasions to find my name tag / tie / white shirt upon which I would ask, "Can I at least punch in first?"

One day, during a lull, I found myself returning VHS tapes to their shelves - this was 2002, when all the stores were just beginning puberty, making The Big Change from VHS to DVD. I traveled through the new releases - "Orange County" starring Colin Hanks and Jack Black, "The Mothman Prophecies" starring Richard Gere and Debra Messing and "Kung Pow: Enter the Fist" starring Steve Oedekerk and Tonguey. I worked my way through horror. Some of my favorites; "Jack Frost: Attack of the Killer Snowman", "Head of the Family" and "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre part 2". I slowly massaged my way through comedy with "What About Bob", "Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie" and "Naked Gun 33 1/3" upon which I finally settled upon a little number entitled "Empire Records", a film starring Renee Zellwegger ("The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation"), Liv Tyler ("Empire Records") and Rory Cochrane ("A Scanner Darkly").

I picked up the box and, staring back at me was a young man, barely older than I was, who happened to bare an uncanny resemblance to myself. He had ear length, shaggy brown hair, thick eyebrows and a broad, charming smile.

A girl entered the store. I remember she was in the class below me until I flunked eleventh grade and then we were destined to graduate together. I can't remember her name, although I can recall that she was quite pretty and ran in circles far above me. In my excitement in finding my true doppleganger, I shouted out her name and signaled her over. Hesitantly, she made her way over to me, crouched down on the floor, probably looking as though I'd just walked out of a forest commune.

I looked up at her, pulled the box off the shelf and slowly handed it to her.

"Look," I said. "It's me."

I pointed at Ethan Embry and smiled, trying to recreate his exact expression. Trying to get his emotion just right. What was he thinking for that photo? What was his insperado? I tried to tap his thoughts and make them my own. We shared one body, we might as well share one mind.

While I pondered these things, the pretty girl just smiled nervously, laughed as though she were a captive in my basement and I were showing her my pinky toe collection and then walked away, probably towards "A Walk to Remember" starring Mandy Moore and Shane West.

I went home that night and told my mom about my strange experience. I pulled a picture of my life twin up on the computer to show her. She said, "Wow," like she really meant it.

A day, maybe months, maybe years later, I came home and found a picture of myself stuck to the fridge via a Jesus magnet. In the photo I sat on a rock, gazing off into the distance, my hair shorter than usual and on my feet I wore black and white plaid shoes. I looked at the photograph and wondered when it was taken. I couldn't make out the surroundings and I couldn't remember ever owning a pair of shoes like that in my life. My eyes wandered back to the face and then to the strange, glossy quality of the paper. It was then that I realized this was no ordinary photograph. This was a picture clipped straight from the pages of US Weekly or People or Tiger Beat. A picture of Ethan Embry (born Ethan Philian Randall). My mother saw the uncanny resemblance and flaunted my gemini to our extended family and friends whenever she could. Years later, on a trip home from college, I found the same photo, framed, sitting on the dining room table.

Fast forward roughly six years. I now live in Van Nuys, California and have spent almost the past decade being asked if I've ever been told that I look like Ethan Embry or rather, "that guy from "Dutch" and "Can't Hardly Wait". "Yes," I reply, "I have heard that before. And as a matter of fact, if you have just a minute, I have a pretty funny story about it............."

My wife and I lived right off of Basset and Woodman in a neighborhood populated mostly by Mexicans. The store signs and billboards all read like La Cucaracha and trailer made burritos were never far away.

Just down the block, resting on the corner of Woodman and Victory was a little restaurant called Harry's Golden Grill, which prided itself as being labeled one of "LA's finest" and for having a variety of ethnic foods and breakfast all day. Truly a jack of all trades. My wife and I would frequent the place, order some hummus and pita bread, play .75 cents worth of Marvel vs. Capcom, make very brief small talk with the owner, "how are you / hot out there, huh? / how are you?" and then we'd eat our food and go.

But one day....one day, the fates had an altogether different idea for us. On this day, Harry's was nearly packed - a rarity. Jade and I walked in, ordered the usual and sat down. Across the restaurant (roughly ten feet - it was quite a small place) sat a table of giddy young girls and a mother hen. As we waited for our food, I began to notice that a few of the girls were continually looking over in our direction and giggling. Eventually, our food came and eventually the girls got up and left. The door slowly swung shut behind them and, as it did, one of them sent a final look in my direction and said something that I could almost make out. I shrugged to myself and continued eating my pita bread, wondering why I had so much bread and so little hummus. My wife leaned over to me and asked if I heard what they'd said. i shook my head and shoved more bread in my mouth, mixed some of Harry's specialty hot sauce in with the hummus. She said that those girls thought I was Ethan Embry. She said that right before the door shut, the last one out said to her friend that I was "that guy from "Sweet Home Alabama" (starring Reese Witherspoon and Ethan Embry).

I shrugged again and laughed a little. What's new? I wonder if he ever got the "You look like John Brookbank" comment. I told my wife that I wished they would have come over and asked. I would've said that I was. She says, "Yeah, right" and calls my bluff just as the girl and the mother hen walk back into the restaurant. The young one's eyes are locked onto mine and I could sense the butterflies in her stomach and smell the sweat breaking out all over her body. She took tiny steps and ended up standing directly in front of me, hands held awkwardly at her sides, her mom smiling behind her with squinty little eyes.

She speaks.

"Hi - hey. Are you - I'm sorry - my friend and I thought you were - are you that guy from - have you seen - that movie with Reese Witherspoon?"

She plays dumb and I like it. I look over at my wife and smile before saying, "Sweet Home Alabama. Yeah, that's me. Ethan Embry." I shake her hand. I shake her mom's hand. I don't stand up. The girl turns to mush and begins fanning herself with her hands. She continues, "Oh my - Oh my gosh! I knew it! I knew it! My friend and I were talking and I knew it! Can I - could I have your autograph?" I pat my t-shirt even though there are no pockets on it and I say, "Yeah, sure - I mean - I don't have any paper or pen or anything, though".

She takes three leaps and lands in front of the counter, where Harry himself is cooking a kosher pizza. The girl, at the top of her lungs, shouts at him. "Hey - hey, mister! Can I have a piece of paper, oh my gosh - ANYTHING just to write on? Do you have a pencil? A pen? A PENNNN?"

Harry. "Uh......I've just got this sticky note.......why?"

"Yeah, yeah - that works - gimmie two and a PEN"

Harry. "Why?"

The girl turns and point at me. "Do you see that guy right THERE? Have you seen "Sweet Home Alabama"? He plays Bobby Ray!"

The restaurant turns and looks at me. Certainly, none of them know who Bobby Ray is and probably nearly as many have seen "Sweet Home Alabama" but the wolves are interested in rich blood. I blush and smile. I take another bite of pita bread. My hummus is gone. I just dip it in hot sauce.

She's back.

I take the little purple sticky note and the pen and ask her name. It's Amanda. I ask her how to spell it and she tells me. I figure real celebrities always write a little note to go along with their signature but I can't think of anything clever so I just write "Amanda. Awesome. Ethan Embry". She takes it from me, pinching it by the corner, probably not wanting to stain the tiny sheet with her sweat and looks at it as though I've just handed her the paper equivalent of the holy grail.

With shaky hands she holds out the second sticky note. "Could you sign one for my best friend?" "Sure. What's her name?" "Nina". "How do you spell it?"

In my most legible scribble I write, "Nina, COOOOOOOOOOOOL!!! Ethan Embry".

While I'm writing the girl looks at my wife, who's sitting right next to me at a four person table and asks, "Are you his wife?" and my wife says, "No. I'm just a friend".

The girl says, "Oh," and ignores her.

I hand her the paper and she thanks me so very very much. You can sort of tell that she wants a hug but I don't bother standing up. Instead she just says, "Thank you so much. You were really good in that movie - "Sweet Home Alabama". i watch it almost every day. It's one of my favorites". I tell her it was a great experience and that Reese Witherspoon was great to work with.

She shakes my hand again and so does her mom and they turn and leave. I feel good because I've lied and made this girl's day / month / year. Probably that little sticky note is framed somewhere in Los Angeles, sitting in her pink and purple room and that makes me feel all fuzzy. I feel weird though because the restaurant is still watching me so I decide it's time to leave. I go to the counter to ask for a box - way too much Pita bread to just throw away. I've got hungry dogs at home. Henry is suddenly more interested in talking to me. He no longer cares for "How are you? It's hot out, huh?" Today he says to me, "Hey...you live just down the street, right? Down on Basset?"

I nod. "Yeah - just around the corner. Nice neighborhood".

He smiles. "Me too. I see you outside sometimes. I live down the block. We're neighbors".

"Cool".

I'd say more to him, try to make his day as well, but I'm a familiar face to him. He knows where I live. I'm suddenly at risk of being caught, my cover blown, my identity revealed. I grab the box, shove the pita inside and bolt, never to return. See, I don't ever carry cash so I always pay with my card and my card, most definitely does not say Ethan Embry. It says John Brookbank, pressed into my plastic money like a row of scarlet letters.

Walking back home, we laugh about it. "Let's just say I was Ethan Embry," I say to my wife, "do you suppose I would be living in Van Nuys?"

Electric Love

2009-08-02T14:13:00.000-07:00

I am not an engineer. This is a fact. I don't have the slightest knowledge of how any piece of machinery works, from flashlights to atom bombs. I don't understand how I can fire electricity into something through a battery and spark it to life; a remote control car, a radio, an electric turkey cutter. And yet.....God has instilled in me some sort of interest in taking things apart. I love the process of meticulously opening up mechanics. Finding the tiny screws on the outside housing, taking them out, lifting off the hood like Darth Vader's helmut, and viewing the machine within. All those green microchips with little buttons and switches, being held down by electric friendly glue. I don't know what it does. I find more screws. I pull out the motherboard (which, in my mind, is just the biggest, most "technology looking" thing I can find). I collect the screws in a small pile, sure not to lose them. I look for more screws - almost all electronics are held in place by tiny little screws. That's it. I pull out everything I can and then I look at it and stare at what I've done. I feel like a scientist. Sometimes I imagine somebody coming over unexpectedly and catching me in the throws of machine passion. What would they think? They'd think I was a genius. They'd think, "Wow, John really knows a lot about stuff - robot stuff". They would inquire about what I was doing and I'd say something about how I was just "takin' it apart to see what made it tick". They'd think I really knew my stuff. If I said the word "motherboard" or something along the lines of, "trying to reroute the AC current" it would really blow their hair back. They'd tell our friends what they caught me doing. They'd all think I was Rick Morranis.

The problem I have, however, is that, while I have an immense interest in tearing things down, I really have no idea how to put them back together again. Once I remove the first screw, the appliance is as good as dead. I pulled apart a remote control car when I was a kid to impress my dad but could never get it back together again. I saved the mangled pieces for months, hoping some spark of genius would strike me as I lay sleeping in my bed. I would suddenly remember HOW it was, exactly, that I had taken it apart.

No.

The car remained in three pieces - the shiny plastic housing, the motherboard and all the little pieces I'd cannibalized along the way. It found it's way to my closet, which was sort of the VA hospital for toys and then, finally, to the trash can (toy graveyard).

In fact, I recently found a computer just sitting on the curb, waiting to be thrown away. I picked it up, brought it home and took it apart without a shirt on. This machine was even more primitive than the remote control car as it's insides were mainly held together with zip ties. This, however, was not a concern as I had the proper primitive tools. I ripped and twisted through the chords, pulled out everything I could until I was left with just the big tube monitor and the motherboard. The pieces are now residing in a junkyard somewhere.

Now, where has my training and experience led me? To now.

I am the proud parent of an original 1986 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System. A classic amongst gamers, it is, in my opinion, the revolutionary piece of machinery that not only defined a generation, but paved the way for the barrage of gaming competitors alive today. The games were almost innumerable and some were nearly impossible.

Just as I love my grandparents, I love my Nintendo and I would do whatever I could to help it live a little longer. Would I give it my liver? Only if I knew it was going to stop drinking so much..............right, Grandma?

Yesterday a friend of mine and myself went to a newly discovered video game extravaganza called "The Game Dude", a place I discovered on Sherman Way in Van Nuys that carries every title to every game for every system ON HAND for cheap cheap CHEAP! I purchased NARC for my NES yesterday for a mere $2. This is a game where your character understands the importance of keeping a clean street no matter what and he sets out to murder every drug dealer he can get his mitts on. You just can't compete with that.

So I bought five great games: Wizards & Warriors, Swords & Serpents, Road Blasters, NARC and Rush'n Attack. I got home, my hands sweaty with glee, my stomach churning with butterflies to relive how incredible these games were. I could tell Brett felt the same way. I kept trying to talk to him but his eyes were just locked on the console and his hands were shaking while he was trying to shove a game in. You could almost see the fantasy playing out behind his eyes. He was six again. His mom was letting him play the Nintendo because his homework was done. He chose his favorite game because, since it was a weekday, he only had limited time with his system and had to distribute the seconds carefully. But not today. Today Brett and I are 26 and NOBODY TELLS US HOW LONG WE CAN PLAY NINTENDO FOR!!!! NOBODY!

He slowly inserted his thick, gray cartridge into the Nintendo's eager slot. He gently pressed down, feeling the gears moan under the pressure. The pieces clicked into placed and he worked his thumb down over the stiff power button and pressed. On the 65 inch television, painted for our waiting eyes was the most glorious vision of.............nothing. A flashing grey screen.

Everything was broken. This old stupid piece of crap. I wanted to kick it and scream at it, just like I do with Grandma when she doesn't do what she's supposed to. We blew in it. We blew in the games. We shook it. We held it sideways. Nothing.

A. Complete. Failure.

And so, ol' Rick Morranis has had to resort to desperate and extreme measures. I hopped online and ordered a brand new 72-pin connector for the grey boy. What is a 72-pin connector? Don't worry about it. Unless you're a scientist you probably wouldn't understand.

It is scheduled to arrive in just a few days and when it does, I'll pull out my bone saws - my screwdrivers. I'll find it's joints and I'll start the mantra "lefty loosey, right tighty" inside my head. I'll remove the dull casing. I'll remove the motherboard. I'll remove the old 72-pin connector and I will replace it with a new beating heart and it will live again...........if, for once, I can figure out how to do more than simply deconstruct.

Raw food diet. Tenth grade biology. A boy named David Hatwan.

2009-08-01T09:41:00.000-07:00

I don't eat ham.

I RARELY eat ham.

The one time that I will eat ham is when it is thinly sliced and at a wedding reception on little buttered buns.

This is not a joke.

I used to work at Subway. When you work at Subway you receive ONE, count 'em, ONE free six inch sub, a bag of chips and unlimited refills on the cola of your choice while carrying your shift. Often times I would get a ham sandwich with a little lettuce, a few black olives and a crap ton of mayo.

I used to be in tenth grade. And when I was in tenth grade, we were required (by law???) to dissect a baby pig. Was it a fetus? Was it a piglet? Looking back I really don't remember. All I can remember for sure is that, once we had completed the exercises the teacher told us to just continue dissecting and to continue to explore it's inner body. The piglet had died for our education and we should fully exploit the opportunity.

So in a white tile room that reeked of formaldehyde, under the green fluorescence, I cut open it's skull with my blade and pulled out it's brain. I held it in my hand and stared at it long and hard, thinking about how it had the consistency of jello, thinking about what it was I had here.

After a moment or two the realization of what I'd done and the imagery of the infant pig pinned down with butterfly needles in wax washed over me and I started to gag. I never lost it (my lunch - bio was split. First half BEFORE lunch; cut open pig, fool around with guts, wash hands, leave for lunch, come back on full stomachs, tear open rest of pig) but since that day in class, I no longer eat ham.

...unless it's thinly sliced and at a wedding reception on little buttered buns...

A funnier story that also happened to me in biology...........this one, I hope, will make me sound less like a serial killer......

We had tables to sit at. Two people to a table. Black tops, wooden legs. Every table had initials and messages scratched into the part by your pelvis. "F U!" "I WUZ HERE" "Thiz suks". I sat next to a boy named David Hatwan, a tall, thin kid with short black hair and almond shaped eyes. For this class experiment we had a giant pink pig lung resting on a thin aluminum tray in front of us. The point of the project was to insert a wide straw into the throat of the lung (what's it called? I don't know. Did I mention I had the unique experience of taking tenth grade biology twice?). Once the tube was fully inserted we were to place our mouths on the opposing end of the tube and blow and then move our mouths away, thus creating the illusion of breathing.

How interesting.

I suppose a simpler, cheaper, and less smelly version of this could have been illustrated by giving each of us a pink balloon.....a black balloon if the pig was a smoker...

We were instructed - SPECIFICALLY instructed - to blow into the tube and REMOVE our faces. There was dead air in the pig lung and it would probably expel once we'd created the pressure. This air, it was said, would smell disastrous.

David and I inserted the straw together, one of us holding the glass tube, one of us maneuvering the fleshy mouth of the lung. By the sheer luck of boys, David was the choice to place his lips on the tube. David blew into the tube. David did not move his face away from the straw. A strange, foamy, white and yellow substance burst forth from the lung, from the tube and sprayed itself fully across David's pert lips. Shock was painted across his face along with just a SQUEEZE of disgust.

I couldn't stop laughing.

After doing a little research, we've recently discovered that cancer THRIVES off of carbohydrates. My dog just had seven cancerous tumors removed from her body. What is standard, run-of-the-mill dog food filled with? Carbs. So what did we do? We've started making our own dog food.

Once a week we get out a GIANT cauldron and drop in five pounds of ground hamburger and then we use our juicer and run through every vegetable that's on sale at the store. We mix in a few cups of rice and viola! you have a heart healthy stew that is good for the dogs and they like it better than their old crunchy brown stuff.

So yesterday we find ourselves sweating over a giant pot of mush. We cook the hamburger, we cut up the lettuce, we juice the tomatoes and then, as a little special treat.....we chop up chicken hearts and gizzards....

Actually.....to say we chopped them up isn't really fair. We began by trying to juice them. I shoved a chicken gizzard into the juicer and struck down on it with the plunger. The metal grates slowed, almost came to a stop and them varoooosh! pulled it through and spat gizzard chunks into the "pulp" container. There was surprisingly less blood or "juice" than one would think. My kitchen immediately smelled like tenth grade biology. The smell of dried, dead organs. The smell of the weird brown and red wetness inside. I am thinking of David Hatwan. I am thinking of my first biology teacher, Mrs. Kritzberger. I am thinking of my SECOND biology teacher, Mr. Bailey. I am thinking about a kid named Brian who told me he carved a swastika into his pig's forehead when told he could do anything he wanted. I'm thinking about Brian, who told me he named his pig (fetus?) Mr. Pigglesworth.

The process of juicing chicken organs, however, proved inconsequential when we realized that the juicer wasn't so much grinding up the gizzards and hearts so much as it was just SHOVING them through it's gears in big chunks because it couldn't tear through the heavy ligaments. SO....can't toss that stuff in as is! Little Clementine might accidentally choke on it! You gotta man up and DO something.

You shut your eyes. You say, "It's just meat. It's just steak." You grab a big knife in your right hand. You grab a tiny chicken heart in your left hand. You shut your eyes and you repeat, "I am in tenth grade biology. I am in tenth grade biology. I am in tenth grade biology. It is just meat."

The dogs.

They love it.

And if it helps the tiniest bit to fight that bastard child cancer, I love it too.

Disney, big scars, huge balls.

2009-07-31T19:07:00.000-07:00

When I first moved to Los Angeles I interned at (the now disbanded) Sodium Entertainment. http://www.sodium11.com/ if you're interested. Actually, I don't know if they're exactly "disbanded" or what. There used to be four producers, then one moved to Uganda and one started working for this other company and the other two started working from home. So whatever that means is what happened to them. REGARDLESS. I had a motorcycle and my primary job for them was to drive things from point A (sodium) to point B (anywhere in LA) and often times I would find myself cruising down Olive Ave. in Burbank or jostling down the 134, heading out towards Calabassas and just off the freeway I would spy the Disney building. It's a large green structure with a picture of Mickey Mouse on the top. And as I drove by I'd wonder how one would acquire a job at a place like Disney. Did you send in your resume? Did you walk into the front lobby and demand an interview? Did you email a reel? What. Did. You. Do?

This morning I found myself parking in the Disney parking garage and marching through the rotating doors and into the marble lobby and I finally, five and a half years later, found myself answering my own question. How do you find yourself inside this building?

The answer is - you don't. It finds you. You do not join. You are invited.

I had to check in at the front desk. This black woman in her.......maybe early 50s? asks to see my ID. I hand her the goods. She looks at it and says, "WHAT is your first name? Is it.......JOHN?" And I say, "Yeah, John". And she says, "Okay.........I was just makin' sure". And then she says, "And WHAAAAT is your last name?" And she stares at my license like she can't believe her eyes. And I say, "Brookbank". And she looks at me and laughs and says, "Okay, I just thought my eyes were playin' tricks on me. I guess - I mean - I guess that IS your last name. I just had to check." John Brookbank. My name is JOHN Brookbank. She was behaving as though my license read Kareem Abdul Jabarr.

Upstairs, the bays were really nice and the producer I worked with had a great attitude. She spent the whole day surfing around for new (to you) furniture off of craigslist.

Here's just ONE of the many gems she found:

http://orangecounty.craigslist.org/bab/1288296684.html

That is.......a high heel chair.

She took me FURTHER upstairs (11th floor), showed me around and introduced me to some people. I met a girl sitting on this giant ball instead of a chair. I almost said something to her, asked her a question, delved into the meaning behind this.....but didn't. Instead I just imagined the funny day when she actually had to bring that thing into the building and walk through the parking garage and the lobby and up the crowded elevator with this GIANT ball. I also thought about the day she gets fired and has to pack up her little shoebox of personal belongs and kick her chair / ball out the revolving front doors.

Downstairs (6th floor) I walked by an edit bay and saw this guy sitting in this crazy chair. I was sure it had something to do with ergonomics or back support or something. I was JUSt about to walk into his bay and strike up a conversation about it when I realized it was a fancy wheelchair.

Boy would THAT have been embarrassing.

"Hey, man - cool chair. Where'd you get it?"

"The hospital. I can't walk."

In my bay I worked on a sizzle reel for High School Musical 4. That's right ladies and beans, there's a part FOUR coming out and it stars a whole new class!!!

Can't wait.

fer sher.

My dog had surgery today. I had a sinking feeling in my guts all day that she wasn't going to make it through BUT alas.....she did and all is well in the Brookbank home. Here's a photog of TWO of her SEVEN battle wounds.

Finally, I'll try to end this mess on a positive note. As promised (I'm such a good guy) here's a link to the James Bond piece that I cut for Impact (action on demand).

http://www.johnbrookbank.com/Impact.html

Some updates, some phasing out, a pool.

2009-07-30T22:00:00.000-07:00

Patrick and Molly and all the small things. 13 episodes and they all have rough cuts complete. I was planning on doing the sound mixing myself. I borrowed a book from a friend to learn Soundtrack Pro, which is basically Final Cut Studio's answer to ProTools. It lets you mess with a wide range of effects and sound filters and after going through the book, it really seems like a good program and with the right person at the controls, it might actually be a GREAT program.

That said, just because you own Final Cut Pro and understand it's functionality, that does not necessarily make you an editor. I own Soundtrack Pro and seem to be able to wrap my noggin around it's cogs, but my brainwork for audio is just not there. I've seen sound guys at the wheel and they are incredible and worth their weight in gold.

My boss from MGM sent me an email today recommending me for a job over at Disney. We touched base and I'm starting tomorrow for a week, cutting a sizzle reel for High School Musical (ZACH EFFING EFRON!!!). I think I'm going to invest a bit of this money into a legit sound mix. I'm planning on using my connections through MGM to get some kind of a hookup. Hopefully it's well worth my time. Next I gotta figure out something for this color correcting business...

I got my grubby little paws on a Bond.........James Bond piece that I cut for MGMhd while I was over there a few weeks ago today. I'm compressing it for the web and that SHOULD be up tomorrow. I'll include a link to my reel to chickity-check it out if you wanna waste a solid TWO minutes on BOND BABES.

It always sort of disappoints me when I sit down to write and all that comes out is updates.

Jade and I went over to our friends Scott and Mary's house today. Mary is out of town. Scott's mom is IN town. We went down to the pool and took a dip. Scott informed me that he thought diving boards were being phased out because people kept getting hurt on them. Jade thought that merry-go-rounds (not carousels) were being phased out as well. This bothered me as I am a fan of both.

We called the vet to schedule an appointment for Kaidance and they said it was going to be a few weeks before they could get her in BUT.....oh wait.......there's been a cancellation and they can GET HER IN TOMORROW!!! I'm sure she's not too stoked about that, but hey, whaddaya do? Those tumors have gotta come off one way or the other and sooner is better than later. (We know this from experience, fer shur).

Last time we took her to the vet, she curled into a little ball in the corner and her teeth actually, truly, legitimately starting chattering. It would have been sad if it wasn't so funny. I mean, we all felt bad for her, but it was a little cute.

I am a pure monster.

Midwest Monster.

The Fifth Floor Revelation

2009-07-29T23:09:00.000-07:00

While lying on my cancer bed in Arcadia Methodist, I often found myself staring out the window, watching cars pass by five floors below me. I wondered where they were going, where they were coming from and if any of it made them happy. I wondered about all the problems in their lives and how they felt they were dealing with them; dying parents, cheating spouses, bad children. Jerk boss, car problems, financial crisis. I wondered if they turned to friends or family or God. I wondered what they were doing with their lives. And it was during one of these moments that I wondered what I was doing with MY life.

I decided that when I got better. When I could walk - really WALK again - I'd never take another step for granted. When I drove, I'd roll down the window instead of turning on the AC and I'd stick my hand into the wind and feel the freedom of speed. And when I eat and drink, I take big bites, chew vigorously, taste finely, and swallow deeply. I read more now than ever because it doesn't make me sick and I listen to music as loud as I can because I can feel it inside of me.

But what was I DOING with myself?

I needed to GIVE something. I needed to DONATE something. My time. My abilities. My skill set. I decided to volunteer on the creative arts / editing team at the church we attend. Last week I had my orientation. We meet every Wednesday for two hours. The first hour is a praise and worship situation, which, while the worship on Sundays is titillating, the worship on Wednesdays is strangely intimate. It's a small group of people standing in a very tight space, all singing very loudly, hands outstretched. It's quite an experience and I feel there is a unique freedom in it.

Leaving the meeting today, I was walking down the sidewalk and this guy walks past me and then shouts back, "Hey! hey, hey, hey! I KNOW YOU!" I turn around and head back over to him. He says, "Yeah - I KNOW you. I saw you here - a couple months ago - you looked real sick and I puh-RAYED for you!" And then I remembered. Most things I don't remember. He says, "Yeah - I prayed for you! You look so much better! I'm so happy!" And he gave me a big hug and prayed for me again, right there, on the spot.

It is a wonderful and serene, overpowering, abundant feeling to be surrounded by people, really nothing more than strangers, who donate THEIR time to YOU by praying for you. They stop whatever it is they're doing, they set aside time in their day, to say a prayer for a person they've never met, but who they understand needs it.

I asked this guy his name. He said, "Evan". I thanked him and apologized for not being able to remember. I told him the chemo made me gummy. He laughed and was just truly, TRULY genuinely happy to know I had made it through. I told him I'd see him next week and we went our separate ways. I began walking down the sidewalk, past the Burger King, into the street. Halfway across the street I began to smile and jog, merely because I could. Because my legs would carry me and I wanted to feel it. Fifteen feet up I burst into a full sprint, the wind pressing against my face, my arms and legs pumping. My breathing accelerated and it felt good to be alive.

The Bel-Air Infertility Clinic cancellation

2009-07-28T21:36:00.000-07:00

Today I asked Jade if she wanted to eat at this queer little Peruvian restaurant down the street. She politely informed me that she doesn't eat food from third world countries.

We traveled down to one of LA's "finest" infertility clinics. It strikes me as strange to call a place you go to get pregnant an "infertility clinic". You want an abortion, you go to an.........abortion clinic. You don't go to the Pregnancy clinic. Maybe pregnancy clinic sounded too sexy. Maybe they thought people would think it was a place you went to do the dirty with clinical help.

We arrived ten minutes late to discover that this place was located in Bel-Air. I asked Jade how she found it. She said the internet. I asked her why she chose them. She said they sent her a packet. I said she was very easy to sway.

After discovering that parking was going to be $20 we decided to just cancel our appointment. We can't afford a doctor's office that can afford to charge it's patients 20 bucks fer parking.

Don't get the wrong ideer. We're not trying to have kids right now........I mean......we're TRYING. We're trying al the time, you know what I'm saying? Cheers.

I feel like this is the perfect place to make some frozen sperm joke about me being a "POP"sicle, but nothing is coming to me.

i saw a 60 year old woman who looked a little like the mom from "What's Eating Gilbert Grape" driving around in a TransAm today.

I love The Valley. I love where we live. Being over in Bel-Air is very strange. It's very out of place for the B's. And maybe THAT more than the monetary issue is why we chose to leave. They aren't our people. It was too clean. Too crisp. And in a bad way.

We took Woodcliffe all the way back and popped out at Ventura. It immediately felt like home - the run down businesses and Mexicans everywhere was really just like a welcome back party. Everytime.

I finished reading Fahrenheit 451 today. It's a book about censorship by Ray Bradbury. There is an interview with him in the back of the book about how some group at this local college decided to edit out all the "hells" and "damns" in the book. Censoring a book on censorship. It's like an episode of Seinfeld.

Jade was staring at meat in the grocery store yesterday. She was deciding what to get. I reached over and pinched her arm and she screamed, surprised. The crowd of people standing about us stopped what they were doing and stared. I was embarrassed. I just smiled like everything was cool. Jade later told me that she felt like an abused wife and that everyone probably felt sorry for her.

My dog has cancer. We just found this out a few days ago. We put anti-itch cream on her big red tumor to help her. She licks it off. Eats it. Devours the medicine. Does this help?

We're working on gathering some investors for the film. Things are looking up up UP and we're really excited to see what the coming months bring. We plan on going back to SD in mid-Sept / early Octo-mom to meet with some different people. We're very excited. My godson is also possibly getting baptized while we're back.

That said, there are 12 / 13 rough cuts of "Patrick and Molly and all the small things" completed and I'm hoping to get the final rough done tomorrow or the day after tomorrow.

Started reading Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy today.....well, bought it. Haven't started yet. Will start tonight.

Will write tomorrow. Trying to hit it and quit it everyday this week. I'm beginning to think that I'm spending too much time reading and not enough writing.

Putting Cancer in the can.

2009-07-27T09:09:00.000-07:00

Cancer, as it turns out, is a little more expensive than three brand new BMWs. Since I drive the automobile equivalent of a used tricycle, you can see why this is somewhat out of our price range.

When you go to the hospital to get chemo they charge you 200 dollars before you even get taken to your room. This is your "convenience charge" essentially. And hey, it's not like you're working, so what's 200 bucks? What's 200 bucks when you don't have a job? It's a lifetime. But they require it. They desire it. It is a necessity. So you pay it.......but, in retrospect, I suppose it somehow all evens out since you're not really eating anything....

Hospitals are expensive. Having to visit a hospital is sort of the antithesis of winning the lottery......maybe more like bingo. The hospital is like a bingo hall - filled with shouting old people.

Jade and I began paying on our hospital bills as soon as we could - ten dollars a month - thought we'd really start knocking em down, one at a time, y'know? Blast down the stragglers our insurance wasn't taking care of when they weren't trying to drop us.

The companies call us and they say ten dollars a month just isn't enough. They say they're going to turn us into collections. We say I haven't worked in six months. They say, essentially, that they don't care. We owe them, personally, $67 and they were going to get their money and they weren't going to wait.

And we told them to go ahead, send us to collections. You can't negotiate with these kinds of people. George W. Bush said it of OBLaden and Kevin Spacey said it in The Negotiator and now I'm saying it to these financial terrorists. WE. WILL. NOT. NEGOTIATE.

We didn't HAVE their stupid $67 to be wasting. We needed to pay rent. We needed to pay our water bill. We needed to EAT. And so we told them we truly WANTED to pay them but at this point in time, we really just couldn't, just please wait until I'm working and getting paid and they JUST COULDN'T.

So what did we do? We wrote them a letter. We wrote them a letter (addressed to someone higher up than a grunt on The Telephone Terrorist Squad) and it said, "We don't have money. We are poor. We are young. Please write off this silly charge".

And they did.

A small victory. Sixty-seven dollars in cold hard cash put back into our pockets.

We owe the hospital some 13 thousand dollars.

Paying it off in ten dollars sums is going to take a while.

We write them a letter.

We received the response yesterday.

They're writing it off.

We're in the clear.

BLOOOOD

2009-07-26T10:19:00.000-07:00

I went to Quest Diagnostics about a week ago for my tri-monthly cancer check-up. This is how the system works. This is the sheer..........dare I say "brilliance"? of the Los Angeles medical industry.

Step one. I go see my doctor, who tells me I have to have some lab work (blood tests) done. They don't do blood work where the doctors are. No. The doctors give you a slip and send you off to one of many QD locations throughout SoCal.

Step two. I take my slip to the QD of my choice (which, incidentally is in Sherman Oaks because the one in Van Nuys is filthy, crawling with people and the nurses there are ill-trained). QD is where they actually DRAW my blood. It is approximately 30 miles from my doctor. There is one person who runs the whole show. She signs you in, punches in your information, calls your name and draws your blood.

Step three. The lady at QD sends my blood to a THIRD facility which then runs the test the doctor ordered for it.

Step four. Meet back at the doctor's office two weeks later to find out if you're still cancer free.

It is a long and mindless process BUT, in the far recesses of my mind, I truly want to believe that there is SOME purpose to it. That it truly does help something.

We completed steps 1-3 several weeks ago. We drove 30 miles to Arcadia to complete step four today. We went to meet with my doctor to find out if I was still cancer free.

Our doctor walks in - our oncologist - and informs us that there has been a mixup and that my cancer test was never performed. I needed to go back to QD, get my blood drawn again and they'd have the results in......ROUGHLY 14 days. Medico.

This pretty much puts a downward spiral on my day since I have a problem with needles. I tell my doctor I'm thinking about visiting a hypnotist to overcome my problem. She laughs at me and tells me to just look away.

Sure....sure.....I'll just look away. And since I'm claustrophic, if I ever find myself being buried alive, I'll just close my eyes and pretend I'm under my covers. I'm sure it'll be just fine. Probably not a deep rooted psychological problem anyway. I'm probably just being a baby. It has nothing to do with that cold steel needle sliding under my flesh and puncturing my vein, sucking my life blood up into it's vast plastic tube and then sliding it's proboscis out against my pink flesh like teeth on a fork.

YUCK!!!!!!!

Dr. Ye also let us know that my white blood count was low BUT that it was probably about normal for me. She explained that "since you, since you, uh, you know - had all those ddddrugs put into your system that, uh, your bone marrow is a little weaker. WELL, not WEAKER, but, you know, not as strong as say, Jade's....or mine. Yours is fine, it's just probably a little lower and that's just where it'll be from now on, so, yeah".

"Well, doctor, does that in any way compromise his immunity?"

"No, no. He should be fine. He should be fine. He just had so much of that - those drugs in him - they're lower but they're not bad. You should write a script about dog people. Like Best in Show. Those people are crazy. That movie was good."

We left.

We drove around Arcadia for a while, wondering if we could ever live there. We looked at houses and imagined burning down parts of them, rebuilding others. We stumbled into a Pill Hill type neighborhood - lots of doctors with inferiority complexes, trying to compensate for whatever with big houses made from, what? Money? I don't know. THIS house, was made completely of marble:

You'll notice how it strangely contains the same visual texture as a mausoleum. You'll also notice that the dude drives a Corolla. If you live in that house and you're driving a Corolla, you may as well be driving a 1986 station wagon.

We drove.

We looked at a few more houses and talked about how it's never smart to have the nicest house in the neighborhood - it loses it's value, you know? Well, apparently THIS GUY took it to heart - three doors down from the mausoleum rests this little gem.

Very nice. Maybe we'll buy it.

And then, what neighborhood would be complete without a school?

Clem: Are you stalking me?
Joel: No.
Clem: But you wouldn't tell me even if you were, would you?
Joel: No. That's the oldest trick in the stalker book.
Clem: There's a stalker book?

Listen Clem, have I got good news for YOU. THERE'S A WHOLE SCHOOOOOOOL!!!!!!

In the end we decided that maybe Pasadena would be a better fit. Driving around we (well, Jade really) realized that Aracadia was sort of a breeding ground for Asian people and Asian people frighten Jade. She can barely even eat at Panda Express without breaking out in cold sweats and you know what? I can't judge. We all have our fears.

CUE LAUGHTER

2009-06-27T22:14:00.000-07:00

Jade is at a wedding and I'm stuck at home, listening to my Latino neighbors celebrate the death of Michael Jackson. Every few moments I hear a Spanish influenced "yeee-heee!!" or "Oww!". I imagine them grabbing their crotches (hopefully their own) and trying to moonwalk, warm Tecate and Dos Equis cervesa dribbling down their shirts, matting them to their hairy chests. Right now it's "......the way you make me feel! You really tuuuurn me on!"

I was watching Pirahna II: The Spawning when I decided to take a break and get some writing done. i've been working on editing Patrick and Molly and all the small things and have finished rough cuts of three spots with a fourth about 1/3 of the way done.

My landlord came over the other day to appraise our house. He does this occasionally. I don't know what gives. I have a sneaking suspicion that someday a middle aged man with a blond crew cut and a red tie is going to be standing at my door telling me that "you have two days to evacuate the premises. Your house has been placed under..........some kind of..........government......repossession program". Once the government gets involved, you're toast. I just finished The Grapes of Wrath. Trust me. I know.

Government jobs. Mail people. Mailmen. Mail Women. Male Women. I had a mail woman come to my house the day before last. She walked into my fenced off front yard while the front door was open and three dogs greeted her with vicious, slobbering barks. War cries. Sound the alarms. Jade and I are babysitting our friend's little dog, Rilo, so he was in tow as well.

I saw the mail lady through the window. She had taken our outgoing mail when the Calvary showed up. She began stumbling backwards, towards the gate, behaving as though her legs had locked up in fear. She dropped my mail and tripped through the gate, just getting it closed before the big dog took her face off with it's soft, ticklish tongue.

I came out and smiled at her and said, "sorry" BUT it was too late for that. She had been..........what? She was afraid? Angry? Probably both. I went over and picked up my mail and apologized again. She yelled at me and said I wasn't supposed to have my dogs out. I told her it was 9:30 and our usual mail PERSON (gender friendly) didn't normally come until some time between 11 and 2. She didn't care. I paid rent in this house and I lived here and gosh darn it, it was my responsibility to keep my animals TRAPPED inside my house from 9 to 5 because no one knows when the post is going to arrive.

i walked to the fence and held out my mail to her and she said she wasn't going to take it. I laughed and asked her if I could have my mail - I could see my Netflix clutched in her right hand. She said no. Try to imagine this now, I know it's difficult, but, a little more sternly I say, "Can I have my mail???" and she says, "No. I'm going to keep this. I'm keeping your mail". And then she walked off and hasn't been back for.......today is the second day we haven't received our mail after the incident (POST incident, get it???) so three days altogether.

i didn't call her supervisor and complain about her going Jihad on me because I could sort of understand her human emotion. She WAS angry. She WAS scared and her hormones were probably firing off like crazy. Oh well. When my Netflix finally shows up at least I'll get all three of them in one day!!!

But anyway, my landlord. He comes over the other day to appraise our house and gets here ONE HOUR early. Is there such a thing as being TOO punctual? Yes.

So he comes in and we sit down and begin chatting. He's this guy from Iran named Ebe (EE-BEE) as in, Ebeneezer. Imagine Borat without the moustache.

Seriously.

So we're talking about travel and I'm telling him that Jade and I would like to see some other countries. Really just DIG IN and check out THE WORLD. He tells me that if HE had lots of money, he'd visit North Carolina and see Mount Rushmore. I don't bother correcting him but say that I've seen Mount Rushmore and tell him that it's incredible. He tells me he doesn't understand why anyone would want to go to Egypt to see a 10,000 year old pyramid. "They are smelly and spongy and old". If you want to see a pyramid, just go to Las Vegas to the Lux and see a brand new one! It's NEW!

These are quotes.

We're talking about pyramids and then he says, "I have joke for you - I read it on internet. Man, it is his birthday and he, he get up and his wife say nothing to him so he go downstairs and his kids, they say nothing to him, so he says nothing and goes to work..............

I thought that was the punch line so I let a small smile creep across my face and prepared to do my patented fake laugh if he didn't start talking soon. He continues.....

"So, so man go to work and his secretary, she says, you know - "Happy Birthday!" and the man is happy and she says to him, "You know, it is your birthday. You should - we should go to get lunch" and the man, you know, he say ok and they leave and get lunch and they finish lunch and the secretary, she say, "You know, it is such a nice day - let's not go back to the office - let's go to the beach!"

Cue fake laughter?? What is happening?

No. He continues.

And so the man, he say, "Let me go back to my place and get my swimming wear" and so they do. They go back. And the man says, "Let me just go up to my bedroom and change" and he goes and he's changing and then it is his wife and kids and friends and family and secretary in his bedroom and they shout, you know, "Happy Birthday!!!" and the man, he is sitting on his bed, naked!!!

Cue laughter.

I say, "Oh man - that's horrible! That would be so embarrassing!!"

The music next door has died down. I wonder if they're having a moment of silence for you-know-who. I saw some people selling MJ shirts online yesterday. It had his silhouette on it, standing on his toes and it said, "Long live the King". I suppose they meant it to be very sentimental but it seemed really morbid to me, you know, all things considered.

THE SHOOT WITHOUT A CLUE

2009-06-25T10:02:00.000-07:00

Got up this morning with the sore throat Jade has been complaining about for the last few days (swine flu??). She asked if I could grab her some Mucinex from the bathroom medicine cabinet. I entered, searched for it, and found the laxative jar. I had an overwhelming and nearly unstoppable urge to give her the little white pill instead of the cornflour blue one. Can you imagine? We're cleaning the house today and every fifteen minutes Jade has to excuse herself and keeps telling me that if I REALLY have what she has, I'm gonna be in big trouble in about two days.

THAT, however, would be cruel and so I gave her the appropriate over-the-counter drug.

I spent all day yesterday digitizing our "Patrick and Molly all all the small things" tapes into my system with the use of my friend's HD deck. It's been about six weeks since we've shot them and now I can finally get moving onto editing them.......once I finish this music video I'm cutting.........once I finish my work over at MGM.........in three weeks.........

Prolonging the situation is sort of nice because it allows you to enjoy the ride for a bit. It's like getting trapped on a roller coaster or maybe just slouching down in the back seat and insisting to the carny that you just got on. It's sort of like that extended pleasure. Or it's like the Harry Potter movies and how they're turning the final book into two separate films. This upsets many people because they want to just get hit once, hard, like "Titanic", but I'm pleased with the "Kill Bill" decision to split it up. I want to see it done right and.........it prolongs the ride.

I also believe that titles of movies are supposed to be italicized and not in quotes, but I can't figure out where the italicize button is at on here so we'll have to work with what works.

My friend Jonathan called me the other day and said he was on set and they were lacking a bit of help. They were looking specifically for an assistant camera person, a position which I have almost no experience with. I've done it twice in the past seven years and both times I have been shouted at on set by some power craving bonehead who believes he knows what he's doing better than I do.........and while that's true............it is my opinion that shouting should be reserved for blogs when no one can actually hear you.

When I first showed up to set, my initial impression of what I had just gotten myself into materialized when I noticed the craft service table (snack table, which is generally filled with water, pretzels, chips, donuts, fruit, crackers, goldfish, nutritional bars, gum, etc) was curled up nakedly with one bag of bite sized snickers and a satchel of gummy worms. Six hours later the bottled water ran out and the plastic cups were brought on. Thirty minutes later the plastic cups were gone. When the camera guy asked the producer where the plastic cups were, he just matter-of-factly pointed to the trash can and said, "in there. Just pull one out. It's just water".

And the camera guy did.....and then I did.....and then I wanted to burn down this guy's house and all of his really stupid artwork with it. You see, the writer was the producer was the actor and was one of the occupants that lived in the house we were shooting in. Little swiss army knife with long legs and an "I hate Obama" shirt on.

There was no sound guy. There was sound equipment but no one to operate it. Mostly it was just this guy named Yams who kept holding the boom mic, but then, mysteriously, he was gone and then back and then gone for longer and then back and then people started asking where it was he kept disappearing to and no one knew. I thought he was hiding in the bathroom playing his Gameboy that he kept pulling out on set. One time I saw him just sitting on the couch with his shoes off, playing it while everyone else worked. Another time I saw him standing on the couch (just standing there while the guy who owned the place stared at him, incredulously) adjusting something. Yams told him it was okay for him to stand on his couch because he took his dirty shoes off. It was ridiculous. Another time he was just digging around in this guy's kitchen cabinets, looking for things and then he was shouting and I realized he was born with no "inside voice" the way some people are born without arms or pinky toes. Everything he said was shouted, no matter if you were in the other room or right next to him or down the block it was just him screaming into your face and the AD shouting at him to be quiet and the director pulling his finger across his throat and Yams having no idea what was happening, playing his Gameboy and crawling into a strangers bed and not flushing toilets afterwards and just being generally distasteful. That said, I found him to be the perfect secret weapon for getting back at the guy who lived there since he made me drink from a trash can cup.

About halfway through the day the guy who owned the house showed up and asked us all if we could just "keep it down a bit, he was trying to work". Sure. There were only roughly 20 of us hauling heavy equipment from room to room with no walkie-talkies. We'll just tippy toe around and whisper in one another's ears so you can check your facebook account on your laptop. However, I can neither vouch for, nor control, Yams. He will just be screaming at top decibel for the rest of his life.

When Yams finally had disappeared for quite a long time, the duty of sound person was bestowed upon the gaffer. When the gaffer found that he couldn't do light AND sound simultaneously, seeing as how he wasn't an octo-armed freak, born of the octo-mother, it was gifted to the set photographer....who was a girl in bright red spandex and a bull ring in her nose with no set experience. The refrigerator ran through takes. The air conditioner turned on in the middle of takes. The sprinklers outside turned on and off. There was this REALLY loud ticking clock. I kept mentioning it but nobody seemed to care. The director would say, "Nice call, but I don't think it's a big deal. I can barely hear it". Well, GUY, you don't have headphones on and aren't monitoring the sound, so maybe you should check.

At some point you just have to count your losses and decide that this is not YOUR project but rather, you are just an audience member watching something crumble before it is completely built.

SNAZZY DAZZLE

2009-06-18T16:36:00.000-07:00

I just purchased a fabulous VHS camera off of Craigslist in brand new working condition for thirty BUCKS!!! The guy even gave me a broken camera in case the good one broke down we could try to fix it. He lived in West Hollywood, had bleached white hair, a yellow tanktop, zero body fat, shaved legs and armpits and kept saying, "snazzy dazzle". If you really wanna put a face with a body, he really looked like Gunther from friends meets Daniel Craig from James Bond, only pretty old.

The car got too hot for my dogs and the big one threw up all over in it. It's just stewing out there and I feel like I should probably go clean it up or tell Jade to take the other car to dance class but I don't know. Maybe it's funnier if she just smells festering vomit halfway to Silverlake.