Exerpts from my novel

I haven't been doing much writing due to school and some personal problems, but here are some excerpts from my novel robbed of context for the 5 people that have long abandoned this thing.


I heard someone shout "WAIT!!!!" and then I heard a crash. I felt a crash. I was on my back and a bicycle was on top of me, somehow balanced. I had no idea what kind of bike it was and I felt immediately ashamed because of it. I stared up at it, and through its lack of eyes, it stared at me. The seat fell off and clattered on the ground. I felt cold, wet metal passing through me. In a loop I whispered "oh my god" as the bike went faster and faster. I waited for a trip through time that never came. I shivered with every passing, hoping that nothing similar to the phenomenon of an ice cube stuck to the tongue would occur. It did not, and the bike rode away from me. I stood up thoroughly wet* and freezing, but in no pain, oddly enough. I wanted to feel like the bike had done me a favor, but I only thought of the guy riding it. He apologized sheepishly and left, never making eye contact. No one wanted to look at me. Only the bicycle, and it did not have the receptors necessary to truly see me.
Michael and I ate dinner together again, but we opted to go off-campus to the least hip place we could think of.
The Pizza Hut was totally empty when we got there, so I felt as if we could talk in private over watery soda and cardboardy, yet still greasy pizza.
"I think I'm getting desperate," I said.
"Wait, why? Are you drunk right now?" he asked.
"No, no. But uh...I was run over this afternoon by some guy on a bike...", and I held up my scraped arms as proof.
"Yeah, so?" he asked in between sharp exhales that suggested that what I had gone through seemed painful.
"Well, I laid there for like five minutes because like...I had hallucinated or something like that, that I had *fucked* the bicycle."
"The bike itself, not the person on it?" he took a pensive sip of orange soda.
"Yeah. The actual bike."
"Well, how was it?" he asked. "Was it a caring and attentive lover?"
I couldn't believe what I was saying, so I had to laugh.
"So like...", he continued, "what were you actually doing? Were you humping air or something?"
"I don't even know," I said. "When it was gone, I was just lying there. Bleeding." I held up my arms again.
"So you actually hallucinated this?" he asked as we both got up to get more soda. "Like, you didn't just do that thing where, uh...you know what I mean. Where you're sort of just imagining that you're hallucinating something?"
"No, this was real." I stopped. "Or it was a real hallucination. Whatever. God, this is hard to talk about."
"The treachery of hallucinating!" he declared.
"Yeah, sort of. But seriously though, I think I'm going insane."
"Insane how?"
"I need to fuck somebody bad, Michael." I rid myself of euphemisms. I had no need to protect myself.
"You really trust me, don't you?"
"Uh-huh," I whined innocently.
"Well, uh...I lament that I cannot solve your problems with my penis?" he offered as a way to console me.
I sighed. "It's okay. That would be extremely weird anyway."
He agreed. The good people at Pizza Hut seemed extremely angry at us for not being gone already, so we decided to go home. We walked around together for a little while, where Michael mocked me.
"Was it that one?" he pointed at a bike. "Or one of those?" he asked as we passed a bike rack.
"No, it wasn't any of those!"
"How can you not remember what it looked like, you cheap Jezebel?"
"Because it only existed in my mind!"
We realized that other people could hear us, but we lapsed into absurdity anyway. It was the only way that we could keep ourselves living.
"I don't think you understand," I said.
"What? That you and the bike shared something special with each other and you don't want to reveal its identity for fear that it will ruin something so pure?"
"Damn it. Yes."
"No, I think I get that."


*It's raining out. WORDPLAAAYYYYY

-----------------------


"What's the dream?"
"Oh man, I've never told anyone before," he forced his hand over his eyes.
"It's okay...you don't have to tell me if you don't want to, you know." I look him in the eyes to let him know that I meant serious fucking business.
"No, no, I'll tell you. I actually don't feel like you'll be too freaked out by it. Uh...what happens is I'm sitting on the bed. I don't really know whose bed it is, I guess it's mine, and I'm naked."
I cut him off to feign shock and disgust, which he was amused by.
"Yeah, I know, I know. It gets worse, trust me. So what happens is I'm like, in this incredible, incredible pain that's totally in my testicles. And I can feel my entire body moving around, because they are just THROBBING, and I'm crying in the dream, I can't--I can't control my own body. I'm a slave to this pain. Finally, I hear like, this paper tearing sound, and I look down and I'm sitting on this huge pile of sand with just this empty dangling skin of ex-testicles. I mean, sometimes it changes- sometimes it's ball-bearings or potpourri or feathers, but it's usually sand. Because I'm not allowed to forget about sex."
Not owning testicles, I took it in stride.
"Wow..." I said. "You know, though, that's probably just your mind dealing with your body's total rejection of itself. Like, you know how you said sometimes they're filled with potpourri? Yeah, that's just your mind saying 'These are just for decoration...BITCH."

-----------------------------


"I wanted to stumble along to the bathroom but I could barely even walk. I was covered in bruises from the waist down, my vagina split up into my belly, my belly swollen with semen, with blood and fluid dripping like snot."

Definitive Article Breakfast House

My unnecessarily wordy NaNoWriMo warm-up. I'm a dork. Seriously.



I was way more excited to go to the Waffle House than any rational human being should ever be. But before tonight, October 31st 2009, I had never been to one. I purposefully deprived myself of much needed nourishment in order to preserve my tummy space for delicious waffles (I did drink a diet Mountain Dew at 9:30 in the morning like an alcoholic, but this is beside the point here). I told Alex this and he simply sighed, saying "what a dork" (lovingly). I do not think that he fully understood the depths of my excitement. This was the famous WAFFLE HOUSE, the one that my mother refuses to ever go to because it 'looks scuzzy'. The one with the famous, welcoming, yet somehow wrong-side-of-the-tracks yellow sign that I've seen on every road trip I can remember. It reminds me of a pretty girl who shoplifts and smokes cigarettes, yet will still hold a friend to her bosom and sing to her. THE WAFFLE HOUSE. Even the name amuses me to no end. THE WAFFLE HOUSE. I once played a Waffle House waitress in one of my high school theater classes, and this gave me a bizarre impression of what must have been held within.

The Waffle House of my mind had black walls, with tattooed waitresses and Motorhead on the jukebox (the actual Waffle House outside of Cullowhee has a jukebox, but it just has weird Lee Greenwood-type music). The smell of bitter coffee and cigarettes hung heavily in the air, and the risk of a surly cook spitting in my waffles was very real. To an upper-class white girl such as myself, the Waffle House represented a beautiful strata of society that I had never known. I cried, "I LOVE YOU, WAFFLE HOUSE" every time I passed it on the highway, knowing that I would soon be inside its gorgeous yet strange innards.

The time was now! Knowing full well that I will not see much of my friends for the next month, I jumped on the chance to celebrate with a visit to definitive article breakfast dwelling. It needed to be. I spoke of it with an annoying reverence. I told my roommate excitedly of the adventure ahead. She laughed, for she had been to the Waffle House before. They all had. I, I alone, was the only living person in the American South to have never set foot inside a Waffle House. Preposterous! I knew this. I know the pain of being the last to do everything all too well.

And so when the time finally arrived, I could barely contain myself. I paid no heed to being soaking wet. In the interest of maintaining ironic detachment, I hid my excitement behind my social theory that, if allowed to go on long enough, any conversation will eventually devolve into quoting the lyrics to "Werewolves of London". In order to hide it from myself, I considered the pros and cons of shaving my head. But I couldn't contain myself for long. When I saw the yellow sign, I actually squealed. I declared to Tristan and Alex, "serve me your finest waffles!", which Alex suggested I actually say in lieu of ordering coherently (I did not). And finally I had entered what I previously could only dream of. I was inside the Waffle House. While it was not the biker bar of my fantasies, it had its charm. The lamps above the tables were decorated like pumpkins and ghosts, and the workers were in costume. Sometimes I forget that it is Halloween, for I am self-obsessed. It reminded me of Denny's, but sir, this was no Denny's. I ordered a blueberry buttermilk waffle, and I was shocked at how delicious it was (very). I expressed my intense joy of finally being inside a Waffle House, as if I had just been kissed by the person I loved. Alex laughed at me (he also called me a shrew because I stole a piece of Tristan's toast). I saw a waffle man. A waffle man! He was dressed like a waffle, as if he knew that I had incredibly high expectations that must be exceeded at all costs. I wanted to hug him and say thank you. And because the waffle was simply not enough to fill my nervous belly, jittering with fear at the prospect of writing 50,000 words in thirty days, I also ordered a piece of chocolate pie, which had a tiny plastic replica of the famous WAFFLE HOUSE sign. I knew that I was right all along. I was right to love the Waffle House, and I was almost sad to leave it, for the waitress even gave me a paper hat in celebration of my first time there. Waffle House loves me as much as I love it, and I could not ask for anything more.

Complication (people go! to their deaths for you!)

Unfinished...may pick it up again someday

I don’t know why we came. To find water or alien psychedelics…we’ve just been here so long. I feel like my head is continuously expanding, filling with water laced with lead. I can’t close my eyes, but to keep them open would surely kill me. All this pressure. I keep telling John that I want him to shoot me in the head, but he won’t do it. I’m staring at him hoping that my eyes can carry my prayer to his brain.

They can’t. We’re in the middle of a field. The grass here feels thick and squishy, like cake. It’s comfortable to sleep in, but during the day it’s very disconcerting. I can’t get used to it, and I know that John can’t either. He shakes his head constantly, every time he remembers home. Nothing can distract me from my tyrannous head.

We can’t understand the natives. That’s why we’ve been sleeping in a field. They don’t understand that we need some sort of shelter, and we have no way to make them understand. No amount of hand gestures or wild grunting can make our message known. They communicate to each other through telepathy, something we cannot do. They cannot hear or speak, and we cannot broadcast our feelings to them, nor can they to us.

How's That Manifesto Coming Along?

An ill-fated short play that will never be performed that I wrote on my birthday.

Setting: A thoroughly decrepit apartment that could be just about anywhere at any time.

Characters:

Name Omitted: A disheveled, troubled young man who toils away on his masterpiece in previously mentioned apartment.

The Landlord, The Sexy Next-Door Neighbor, The Old Neighbor From Across the Hall, The Successful Next-Door Neighbor, and at least eight others (although, in these times of economic distress, they can be played by fewer actors in different costumes): His constant distractions

Six Actors (three male, three female) dressed in ill-fitting and decidedly unisex outfits that look like a five-year-old’s vision of ornate (glitter, sequins, feathers, etc.): His thoughts

The thought-people will be upstage left, doing their thing, as the kids say. The constant distractions will enter and exit through a “door” center stage right. Name Omitted will be hunched over a makeshift desk (a windshield and an upside down trash can which constantly teeters) downstage left. The rest of the stage will be littered with stacks of papers, half-eaten food, broken appliances obviously fished out of dumpsters, etc. The entire affair will be ill-lit enough to be slightly annoying, but not enough to have that weird bubbly-like blinding effect that occurs in candle-lit restaurants that people take dates to when they transparently want to sleep with them and/or propose.

The manifesto itself is a wildly rambling affair, detailing a theory that the government is systematically killing the homeless, the very poor, unwanted pets, etc. in order to provide nutrients for the extremely wealthy and the processed food industry (that extra riboflavin comes at a price). I realize that this is extremely similar to the film Soylent Green, but I didn’t even notice that until a friend pointed it out (despite the fact that I have seen the aforementioned film). The Freemasons are probably involved, as is usually the case, but I’ll gloss over that in order to avoid clichés that are past being comical.

The whole thing is pretty much one continuous scene, because I am a surprisingly compact rambler. Expect thrills, chills, and spills. Hold onto your monocles.

(The stage is exactly as previously described. The Thought People are making repetitive motions that have nothing to do with each other. One of the women is making clicking and gurgling sounds in time with the movements of her hands. Name Omitted is already hunched over and scrawling on crumpled paper. His hands are comically blue from ink.)

Name Omitted: (vocalizing his writings, as telepathy is not widespread) Though it would seem that precious, delicious Zebra Cakes are as innocuous as any other childhood folly, Little Debbie’s hands are drenched in blood. (At this line, one of the men takes one of the women in his arms and swings her around as he screams) She’s responsible for more deaths than a power hungry Roman emperor, and logic dictates that just as much debauchery occurs behind her factory’s closed doo—

(The Thought People crash flat onto the ground as The Landlord Enters)

The Landlord: Hey man. Just checking in to see how the light switches are working. You know how we had that problem last week. (he goes across stage to CL and reaches behind the curtain. The lights dim further and then return to their normal state. He then hunches over Name Omitted, silently mouthing as he reads). So what’cha working on there?

Name Omitted: (long, drawn-out sigh) I’m really not at liberty to discuss this.

The Landlord: Oh, come on! I got that rat out of your drain.

Name Omitted: That’s true. Since you’re one of the few people I trust, I’ll tell you. It’s a startling exposé on a certain government practice hitherto unknown to the public. I’m the only one brave enough to unmask those murderers for what they are!

The Landlord: Oh. So your sink is okay now, right?

Name Omitted: Yeah, it’s fine.

The Landlord: (clears his throat awkwardly) Well, good luck on that, then.

(Upon his exit, the Thought People immediately jump up and resume their exercise in repetition).

Name Omitted: (clears throat, straightens papers) Within the creamy center of Little Debbie’s headquarters lies a secret. A secret infecting all of your precious snack food distributors. A secret that reaches to the highest beacon of these United States.

(at this, three of the Thought People stack themselves one on top of the other as the other three mime guarding the tower with large guns, only to quickly resume their meaningless existence as a gimmick)

Name Omitted: Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses [sic], for their delicious B12 content. That long list of superfluous nutrients in children’s cereals is not magically inherent in Red Dye Number Four.

(the Thought People crash flat onto the ground as The Sexy Neighbor enters. Because she is a bit part, acting as the only marginal romantic intrigue in this thing, Name Omitted stereotypically freezes up and gets all flustered due to her lithe, angelic appearance and teasing ways)

Sexy Neighbor: Hey, is your sink working?

Name Omitted: (wide-eyed and consumed with animalistic lust) Y-yeah.

Sexy Neighbor: Oh. Because mine’s not. (she begins to mince around the stage, picking her way through the trash, picking up objects of interest momentarily, then simply placing them back. Name Omitted looks on as they converse)

Sexy Neighbor: So I hear you’re working on some kind of book? A like, manifesto, or something?

Name Omitted: (stage-whispers) Goddamnit. (normal voice) No…I’m working on a…uh—master’s….thesis.

Sexy Neighbor: Seriously? (she sits beside him, and he shudders, presumably from her scent) I got my Master’s in social work! What are you going for? (she tries to read his work, but he exaggeratedly covers it up)

Name Omitted: Oh, you know, library science.

Sexy Neighbor: Oh, sweet! You look like you belong in a library. (she grabs onto his shoulder to hoist herself up and he gazes up the length of her arm) Well, good luck on that. I gotta get going! See ya!

(The Thought People resume their business upon her exit)

Name Omitted: (runs his hands through his hair, stares after her and does that head-sideways ass-glance that guys always do on television but I’ve never actually seen. He may or may not bite his knuckle and say “Day-um”, depending on the preference of the actor. He clears his throat and continues) Oh, no. And it does not come from the high fructose corn syrup, the glucose, or the oddly-named chemical solids or even the beet juice added for color. You may innocently inquire: well, (at this point the actor will mouth his name, but it will be covered by a loud, jarring noise- a car crash, an explosion, a snippet of a Masonna song, or whatever is available) where DO my daily vitamins come from? But you don’t really want to know. I denied it. I tried to choke down my Froot Loops, my Hostess Sno-balls, my Pop-Tarts, but behind their sweetness lay a sting. A piercing, bloody, fatal sting. By consuming these products, you are consuming death. You are only adding to this country’s tremendous body count, and once you find out, never again will you live in your peaceful world of excess sugar coupled with 11 essential vitamins and minerals. Never again.

(Name Omitted holds his shoulders and chin up high, his pen held aloft like Excalibur. The Thought People stop their meaningless movements and stare in awe, mouths agape. He opens his mouth to speak, but The Old Neighbor feels his way into the apartment. The Thought People crash to the ground again.)

The Old Neighbor: (much louder than necessary) Is this Costello Avenue?

Name Omitted: (angrily) No, it’s not!

The Old Neighbor: I miss the other boy. So polite. You were born in a dumpster, weren’t you son?

Name Omitted: Where I was born is known only to me.

(The Old Neighbor mockingly mimics Name Omitted)

The Old Neighbor: Celia told me that you were working on something special.

Name Omitted: (to the audience- the Old Neighbor cannot hear) Not Celia! Precious Celia, with her world-weary eyes hiding behind a visual bombardment of flashing teeth and pristine skin…I would have protected her. I could have trusted her. When the truth is exposed, she would have had a place in the hideout of my militia, but no more. She has sold my heart to Nabisco with this one gesture.

The Old Neighbor: Oh yeah, some kind of political thing. One of them…oh you know, all the environmental terrorists write ‘em. Manifestos! That’s the one!

Name Omitted: What? No! I’m writing a master’s thesis!

The Old Neighbor: (reads over his shoulder) No no no, see: “The Hellish Rendezvous between the Murderers in Power and The Snack Food Purveyors That Engorge Us”. I know a manifesto when I see one. So how’s it coming along? Doing well? Got one of your buddies lined up to distribute it to parked cars?

Name Omitted: I’m not at liberty to continue this conversation, and I’m going to ask you to leave.

The Old Neighbor: I used to be a copy-editor! I can help out!

Name Omitted: (with great force, but without getting up) LEAVE!

The Old Neighbor: Well all right… (mutters as he leaves, saying half-statements like “I taught Norman Mailer every damn thing he ever knew”, etc.)

(The Thought People awaken, making exaggerated, silent-movie gestures showing their distaste for the old man, then continuing on with their duties)

Name Omitted: (holds his hands on either side of his head, searching for his train of thought. He rifles through the papers, muttering “Where was I?” and “Damn that old bastard”) Oh yeah, here we are. (he continues to write) For while you may think you’re feasting upon childhood innocence, you are not. For the truth behind the cream is… (he chews his pen) Ah…. (he leans back and looks up- the Thought People run about the stage, first screaming, then rattling off grocery lists, choruses of pop songs, stream-of-conscious meaninglessness) I know what I want to say… (one of the Thought Women begins squawking- then they return to their place, continuing their movements, but slower and labored) God, I mean here’s my big reveal! All that exposition, and what now? I have a service to the people here, and I just crap out? Just like that? God! It’s right there! I just can’t verbalize it. (he lays back, then pulls himself up, as if in a bath) Okay, okay, okay. (he takes three big breaths) The truth behind the cream is…that our great mother, the United States Government may clutch the homeless, the abandoned, the unwanted animals, the poverty-stricken to her breast, but she’ll bash their brains out just as quickly. And who does she do it for? That sick, perverted Marquis de Sade of a john- the processed food industry. (The Thought People break from their contained repetition to a frenzied orgy of activity- The men take the women by the wrists and fling them around, they mime gorging themselves on snack food, and then they mime throwing each other to the ground and disemboweling them- pretending to suck upon the innards they take out as Name Omitted details his theory) Kellogg’s, Nabisco, General Mills, Betty Crocker, Hostess, ConAgra…all have blood sopping from their hands. The two together dash out in the night plucking these disadvantaged innocents from their homes, from the streets, from the seemingly safe shelters, and what do they do? They—

(The Thought People once again crash to the ground as The Successful Neighbor huffs in, wearing a three-piece suit and gleaming watch with a Bluetooth attached to his head) Successful Neighbor: Hey, (he mouths Name Omitted’s name, and another blast of noise covers it) how’s that manifesto coming along?

Name Omitted: What are you talking about?

Successful Neighbor: Oh yeah, Joe, you know that old guy from across the hall, he told me about it. I just wanted to check in. I’m sure I know someone that can get you a sweet little book deal on it, you know.

Name Omitted: No, it’s fine. I gotta get back to work….you know how it is.

Successful Neighbor: Oh yeah. I know what that’s about.

(upon his exit, the Thought People return, weakly making repetitive movements)

Name Omitted: Oh yes sir, please take this candid reveal of the most fiercely guarded immoral practice taking place in this country and oh, please read it! Please edit it of your own free will! Please intercept it to the CIA! (one of the Thought People mimes arresting another as the others mime throwing garbage at the incarcerated one) Oh, hello, CIA! (five of the Thought People surround one of the others, scratching him, biting him, shoving him, as Name Omitted continues his monologue) Nice to see you! Oh yes, please take me prisoner! Please use me for experiments! Please ensure that my excess iron makes into Drake’s coffee cakes! Oh thank you! Thank you, thank you! What a dick. (he picks up his pen and the Thought People weakly continue on with their motions) All right, here we are. (he starts writing again) They murder them! They murder them and they harvest their nutrients! And then—(the Thought People jerk back as if having stopped short in a car, and then pause, waiting for Name Omitted to continue) Goddamnit!

(One of the Thought People rises above the others and sings “Last Train to Clarksville” in its entirety as the others sway in time and Name Omitted paces in agony and eventually screams and kicks a microwave once the singing Person gets to the “do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do” part. He throws his head back, dives among the garbage and rolls upon it until the Person finishes, upon which he brushes himself off and returns to his desk)

Name Omitted: Again? Three days of uninterrupted rapture and now this? And look at this last paragraph, man! No one’s going to rise up based on this. And now look. Look at this. I’m second-guessing myself. I was in a militia for five years, and I’m crumbling under self-induced scrutiny!

(one of the Thought Women crashes to her knees and openly sobs as the others freeze and watch, then she returns and freezes also, all with their eyes towards Name Omitted)

Name Omitted: (wrings his head in his hands and then looks up in desperation) Dave had no trouble when he wrote that scathing indictment of the postal service’s abuse of zip codes. And this is way more important than that! People are dying here! That was just some identity theft and property damage. And he got a thousand pages out of that! What am I up to now, 200? And I just start lagging? We’re not even at the halfway mark! We’ve barely started! I’m braving carpal tunnel syndrome! I’m risking my life! And I’m doing it for THEM! The very people who are trying to destroy me! I want to help them! But they just—they just—

(even frozen, the Thought People crash to the ground as another neighbor passes through)

Neighbor #4: Hey! How’s that manifesto coming along?

Name Omitted: (at this point not even attempting to conceal the true nature of his work) Just fine, thank you!

Neighbor #4: Oh, fantastic! All right, well I’m gonna shove off here, see you later!

Name Omitted: Uh-huh.

(Neighbor exits, the Thought People show a struggle in getting back up. They act dazed and lagged)

Name Omitted: All right then, time to lock the door!

(exasperated, he gets up and makes his way across the stage. The Thought People look as though they’re trying to tell him not to do it: waving their arms about, shaking their heads, etc.)

Name Omitted: (yells) Well the lock’s broken!

(the Thought people all hold their hands to their foreheads and make that “ooohhhh shiiiitttt…” facial expression and then freeze again, occasionally twitching as Name Omitted’s voice rises and falls)

Name Omitted: Oh yeah. They’re trying to get me! They are! (yells) Well I’m not stupid! I know what you’re doing! You’re trying to sabotage me! Well it isn’t going to work! All right?! Not me, man! Dave would’ve cracked, but not me! (once again lifts up his pen to write) They do, they uh…yeah, that’s right. Murder them, harvest their nutrients, blah-blah-blah…okay, here we go.

(The Thought People begin to make their motions, but freeze and crash once another neighbor enters. Name Omitted throws his hands up in frustration)

Neighbor #5: Hey! How’s that manifesto comin’ along there?

Name Omitted: (frustrated) Could be better!

(Neighbor exits, The Thought People once again labor in getting up)

Name Omitted: (picks up his pen) But at least they’re thrifty! Where do these unfortunates get their precious vitamins? Why, from the very food they’re going into! How pleasant it must be—(exaggeratedly crosses out something on the paper) That sounds terrible. It loses all of its power at the end there! Look at that!

(The Thought People put their faces in their hands in shame and keep them there)

Name Omitted: (yells) I shot a fuckin’ postman to help Dave in the cause! What’s he going to do for me? Break into General Mills and then stop halfway through? Just go home?! Oh yeah! And it’ll be all my fault! Because of a broken lock!

(The Thought People crash down as yet another neighbor enters)

Neighbor #6: Hey there. Just passin’ through. How’s that manifesto comin’ along?

Name Omitted: (through his teeth) Just fine, thank you!

(Neighbor exits, Thought People get up)

Name Omitted: They’re breakin’ me down here! (stressed, crazed-sounding laugh) I understand. I wouldn’t want this getting out either, but (yells) out it must come! All right? Forget it, man! I’m not letting go of this thing! (picks up his pen) They harvest their nutrients! Women, babies! Kittens! All! And—

(Neighbor enters, Thought People crash)

Neighbor #7: How’s that manifesto comin’ along?

Name Omitted: Fine! Thank you!

(Neighbor exits, Thought People get up and stand still)

Name Omitted: (picks up his pen) And—and—and… (sighs, puts his head in his hands, makes pre-crying sniffling sounds)

(Neighbor enters, Thought People crash)

Neighbor #8: How’s that—

Name Omitted: (yells) It’s coming along fine!

(Neighbor exits, Thought People sit up and crash back down as another Neighbor enters)

Neighbor #9: Hear you’re writing a manifesto? How’s that workin’ out for you?

Name Omitted: (yells) It was fine! It was fine!

(Neighbor exits as another enters. The Thought People lay motionless)

Neighbor #10: Hey! How’s that manifesto of yours? Going along all right?

Name Omitted: (yells) No! No! It is not coming along fine! It’s dying! I can’t work!

(Neighbor exits, the final one enters)

Neighbor #11: How’s that—

(Name Omitted lets out a harrowing, prolonged scream while standing up with his hands pulling the sides of his face. The Thought People get up and do the same. The Neighbor exits in terror)

Name Omitted: No! No! I can’t live like this! No life is worth this! Not even Dave could work like this!

(Name Omitted picks up his giant stack of papers- his manifesto and holds it aloft. The Thought People mime stabbing each other and finally lie in a heap. Name Omitted, still holding the papers, flips the trash can out from under the windshield he had been using as a desk and throws the papers inside. He takes out a match, lights it and throws it in the can.)

Name Omitted: There! There! There it is! Gone! Imagine if Karl Marx had done the same! Burned his masterpiece only to sate the greed of his oppressors! What kind of world would this be? I’ll find out! I’ll be gone soon too, just as my work! I’ll be vomited out in the form of a Hot Pocket, and it’s all their faults!

(He pours water over the fire and takes out the ashes. The curtain closes as he prepares to eat them.)

Fin.

Make My Funk the P-Funk

written in 2008. I need to get some new writing in before NaNoWriMo, but those outlines, plus school, are running my life.


“Do you want a box for your pizza?” our waitress asked, eyeing the two slices we had left.
“No thanks,” my dad answered. “Not unless George Clinton wants any.” He motioned towards the theater across the street.
Our waitress giggled as she walked away. “Ah ha ha…George Clinton…”.
Neither my dad nor I certainly looked like the Parliament Funkadelic type. He of course, is far too old to want the funk, in addition to being dressed in a Princeton University jacket and turtleneck. And myself, I’m visibly quite the nerdy teenager, in uneven loose pigtails and pants that are too big.
But this was my birthday present, damnit! Being quite a fan of the first couple Funkadelic albums, when I heard that George Clinton and his roving band of funksters was coming to town, I acquired tickets straight away. Having few friends, and no driver’s license, I asked my mother to accompany me.
“No, that’s not a good area for two women late at night,” she reasoned. “Take your father instead.”
My dad will try anything once, and this was certainly no exception. We stood outside the Neighborhood Theatre, which looks like it should be in Disneyland, tickets in hand, burrowed in our jackets, not knowing what to expect. I looked at the upcoming events. Les Claypool was the next day, this I knew. I’d have to wait for another time to see him. And did you know that the Meat Puppets were still around? Me either. They would be opening for some band I didn’t care about late in March. My dad was transfixed with the VIP line, which contained some man trying unsuccessfully to start a group singalong of “Make my funk the P-Funk!”.
Two young fellows, who I wagered to be my age, complained about the lameness of their school’s Battle of the Bands, and about the cold.
A man strolled up and down the lines, inspecting tickets, and distributing wristbands, orange for those old enough to drink, and blue for those who were not.
“You don’t look QUITE 21,” he remarked to me, and drew an X on my hand.
“Nope, sorry.”
“Wait, I gotta do your other hand too!”
“A-ha,” my dad said, “He’s smarter than I thought! In case you try to do a reacharound!”
I laughed as we walked through the door. The theatre is small, and not being much of dancers, my dad and I opted for seats far from the dance floor. Loud rap music blared from unseen speakers. We were definitely out of both our elements. My father mostly enjoys the music of Peter Tchaikovsky, and I am mostly a fan of progressive or punk rock music. We know very little about the rap.
I sat next to an older man who quietly bopped his head, and I found myself tapping my feet and swinging my shoulders slightly. An announcer’s voice crackled through the air.
“Are y’all ready for Yo Mama’s Big Fat Booty Band?!” he demanded to know. The crowd cheered. My dad stayed silent, and I thought, that is my new favorite band name ever.
The band had fantastic musicians, the bass player particularly. The funk was on. However, the rhythm guitarist felt the need to mar perfectly good instrumentals with his awkward, stiff brand of rapping. The band sang the praises of women with round, plentiful poop-chutes, and funk on Fridays, even though it was Thursday. They explained this, saying that they wanted to bring the weekend in right anyway. The man sitting next to me asked if I’d save his seat so he could get a closer look at the band, and I sat my purse down, filling my civic duty for the evening. The band urged us to get loud and make some noise for P-Funk, which we promptly did. The band left the stage, and the announcer’s voice crackled through the air again.
“All right, y’all make some noise for Yo Mama’s Big Fat Booty Band!”
Huzzahs were in order. We cheered loudly.
“Yeah, all right. NOW, are y’all ready for George Clinton and P-Funk?!” the announcer yelled. The cheering grew ever louder. It reached its peak, and died down, yet there was no P-Funk to be seen. We grew quizzical. A woman consistently yelled “P-FUNK! P-FUNK!” in an endless loop behind us, as if they would come out for her.
Again, “Are y’all ready for GEORGE CLINTON?!”
A resounding yes was the reply.
I checked my watch. It was nearly 10:00. The band finally took the stage, sans George, and played their brand of interesting, dynamic, and loud funk. Dancing was the primary purpose, but those of us, who like to sit back and absorb music, rather than release it, had plenty to be occupied with. Even though I was nowhere near the stage, the bass rattled through my legs and throat, as if I were being pelted with aluminum cans. The guitars were squealing enough for heavy metal (or noise-rock) fans. The voices were gorgeous and bright.
After an hour, the band began to play “I’m the Slime”, my second-favorite song on Frank Zappa’s Overnight Sensation album, much to my girlish glee, as George Clinton appeared. He was dressed in a flashy hooded robe, as if he was trying to be a Jedi, or a Druid priest, and pulled the hood down to reveal his wild, rainbow-colored mane which makes a fan of unnatural hair color such as I extremely envious. He asked us how we were doing, causing people on the dance floor to wave multicolored light swords in a repetitive motion, as if the funkiest air traffic in the world was in need of controlling. My father remarked later that he didn’t think that George “added too much to the proceedings”. And it is true that he waved his hands a lot, and sang a little, but other than that, he kind of stood around, however, without George Clinton, I would never have heard wonderful albums like Maggot Brain, or Free Your Mind…, and I certainly would not have been spending a Thursday night at his band’s concert without him!
Then a familiar bassline choked through.
“We want the funk! Gotta have that funk!” Those who are not musically educated probably remember this song from a JC Penney commercial. The reaction was tremendous. I continued to sit and absorb the music, but I felt somebody grab my wrist.
“Yo!” a skinny man with sunglasses pulled my out of my seat. “What are you doin’ sitting down?! You gotta get up for this number!” I had never been to a P-Funk concert before, so who was I to refuse? I wiggled around as only a nerdy teenager can, and sang along with the man. He was thrilled, and when the song ended, he disappeared, like some sort of mystical fairy. I sat back down. The bright, intricate dance music continued, until George yelled that the Funkadelic set was about to begin. This is what I came for. My favorite song, “Maggot Brain” began, and I nearly cried from excitement. One of the most emotional, beautiful guitar solos of all time, it wailed through 15 blissful minutes. I drifted clear on through to another place, dragged back by “One Nation Under A Groove”. We all sang along to “Standing On the Verge of Getting It On”, with the exception of my father, of course, who had never heard the song in his life.
The rest of the band returned for the last batch of songs. It was 1:00.
We stood with jackets in hand, through the last half hour of the show.
After we freed our minds (and our asses followed), the band bowed and left abruptly. The rap music returned to the speakers as we walked out the door to our car.
I asked my father how he liked it.
“I thought the musicians were great,” he said, bringing a smile to my face, “but I didn’t like the songs. They lasted forever. It was like seventeen ‘Hey Judes’.”
However, he enjoyed having a new experience, and for this I was glad.
“Well, I’ll sleep good tonight!” he said as we parked in our garage. It was 2:00.

School Of Shit

Some words on a companion to That's Our Varg! only this is about the now defunct Japanese punk/noise band The Gerogerigegege, a name which translates into 'vomit, diarrhea, hahaha' to give you a glimpse into their world. Juntaro Yamanouchi had a lot of issues with his sexuality, which comes through in stuff like Senzuri Champion and that EP where he masturbates while on the phone with some girl. I love this band, for real, yo.

Plot: Juntaro Yamanouchi and his BFF Gero 30 are living a lovely life in Japan playing ultra shit music in underground gay clubs. Until one night when Gero, searching for the ultimate gratification, sticks his dick into every drink in the club and then attempts to set it (his dick) on fire. He misses, but the match falls onto the stage (now dripping with alcohol) and the club is engulfed in flames. Although no one was hurt, the duo is banned from playing anywhere (word gets around). Juntaro and Gero are devastated. To service the story, Juntaro’s mother kicks them out of her house for good. Instead of having a nervous breakdown, Juntaro decides to move to the USA and create a new life there. Obviously, Gero joins him. But oh, what is this wackiness?!?! Juntaro decides to become a substitute teacher at Johannes Kepler Middle School in the Midwest (which state? Who knows?). Because this is a sitcom and not the real world, he is not only allowed in the building, but also allowed to teach, even with Gero in tow. And so begins a world where kids learn the fine art of dada, senzuri, exhibitionism, and WUNTWOFREEFOUR. Will the lovable scamps of the Gerogerigegege learn something as well? Only time will tell, friends!

(After an upbeat credit sequence set to a jumpin’ pop tune, we open on THE CONCERT. Gero is gyrating in the nude, senzuri-ing his heart out as Juntaro runs back and forth on stage, screaming wildly and banging into haphazardly placed equipment. Every single person in the audience is male, middle-aged and discreetly giving himself the ol’ thousand rubs, as was the style at the time. Obviously, this is meant for premium cable. Finally, after some uncomfortable lingering on Gero’s moaning, he stops. He stares. He calmly shoves his penis into every glass in the club. He then asks a man for a match and walks back onto the stage, dripping beer all over the place. His hands shaking with excitement, he lights the match. He aims it at his dick. He drops it on the floor. An inevitably comic bloom of flames emerges in front of him. He hops up and down in front of it, blowing at it, thus making the carnage even worse. Chaos ensues, and a hundred men with unbuttoned pants begin to scream and run out the door like children. Juntaro, ever dedicated to his art, is still screaming and running back and forth across the stage- it is unclear whether or not he is panicking. Finally, a burly man lifts him up onto his shoulders and takes Gero by the hand and leads them out. Because Juntaro is so wacky, he is kicking and punching the bouncer. The bouncer sets them down onto the sidewalk, and this is where the fun begins.)

Ceiling

Otherwise known as "I Hate You, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Even Though You Are Canadian and That is Awesome"; a title longer than the entire piece.

I opened my eyes and nothing was there. I attempted to peel back layers, as if thick curtains of skin were continuing to obscure my vision. Yet nothing. I felt the room breathing along with me. I felt the walls sidling up to rest against me. The floor pushed me up to the ceiling, which poured into my mouth, filling me until I became nothing but plaster.