midnight...

I'm glad I was able to successfully bore everyone with this countdown.
It is finally at its end.

Woot.

well... not months...

A rare editorial to this countdown that so few people are interested in.

The above image was the best one I could find. In my mind, this picture is fairly iconic. The whole mess with the bull you'll get the horns interchange was quoted several bajillion times in my youth. The frame I used, however, does not exist all over the GlobalMegaNetz as you would think it would.
Notice the quality isn't great. That's because I had to capture a frame from a crappy YouTube video. Finding this speech of Paul Gleason's, even on frigging YouTube, was a pain in the asses.

Want to know what you can find really easily?
This:

This is not The Breakfast Club. This is Not Another Teen Movie.
I will have no part of it.

Thank you.

or the amigos...

look, look, look, look...

and now...

A break from the countdown...

My sister Renee' and I did a show on Blog Talk Radio. We call the show RE:
'Cause of our initials.
Stove had suggested ER, but that was just too medical.

Here you go:

stands alone...

play freebird...

he's korean...

thanks george...

count them...

bo, bo, bo, bo, bo...

this one goes...

it's a partridge...

er, uh...

mumble, mumble, tap, tap, tap...

pictograph man has uss

The sign says, EXIT.
What, though, is pictograph-man doing? It looks to me as though he is entering a space.
I assume the thick red line behind him is a pictograph-universe wall, which, I assume, would house a pictograph-universe door, through which pictograph-man appears to have just passed.
However, it could be argued that it is not possible to enter a space without exiting a previous one.
Perhaps, this would be a more accurate description of what is going on in pictograph-land.

what...?

Someone I work with, I swear to God, just asked me this question:

Is your iPhone like, a phone and everything?

the olympic torch...

Again, I was at the gym were there are big televisions right in front of my face as I am doing the hamster-wheel cardio deal. I generally don't watch the news. Like, I don't go looking for the news. I do look at reddit.com a lot now, but am generally looking for funny cartoons or stories where little puppies do cute things with other little cute puppies. I avoid the hardcore news.
With the giant screen in front of my face and very little else to look at, at times it feels slightly Clockwork Orange-y, I do absorb some news. Not on purpose, though.
Recently, a lot of the news has been about the Olympic torch as it is run it's course and the protesting around it.
I am unclear on the protesting. Maybe, to be clearer, I should say I am unclear on the way the protesting is being presented, not the real protesting itself.
I kinda get why people would be protesting an Olympics held in China. I get that China has not been at the top of the "We Value Human Rights" list and how people might be upset that they, China, are being supported.
But, what I don't get, is the people rabidly throwing themselves at the runner with the torch, trying to extinguish the torch.
For one thing, the runner isn't China. The runner, is just a runner. Just trying to run. You are placing the runner in dangerous situations by launching yourself at him/her. You are, very clearly, disregarding the runner's human rights. This might be acceptable if the runner violated someone's human rights WITH the torch.
To my mind, what you are doing is the same as driving a battalion of Hummers to an Earth Day event.
You are ripe with irony.
Secondly, the torch, while a symbol of the Olympics, is not the Olympics and it has no magic powers. Say you were able to get the torch and extinguish it and, this time, keep it extinguished. Do you think China and the Olympic committee will say, "Rut-ro! No torchee mean no Orympics!"
Leave the torch people alone, will you?

i already gave the end away...

If you listened to the blogtalkradio thing, you know how this story ends.
I'd be surprised if anyone managed to actually listen to it though. It's me babbling and repeating the same words more often than I'd like, for fifteen minutes.

In any case, here is the story/play from this weeks playwriting class. Again, it was remarkably liked and people are suggesting I submit it for short attention span festival-y things.
I might do so.
Have fun.


Track Branch
By ERIC JAMES FOX

A man sits behind a large mahogany desk on a deeply lined and well worn leather chair. He is smartly dressed in a charcoal gray business suit. On the desk before him is a sleek, black phone with many buttons.
The man, the desk, the chair and the phone are all sitting in a sumptuous high-rise office, overlooking a city where millions of people must live.
The man picks up the phone and presses a single button.

MAN- Linda? (pause) Yes. Thank you. I'm fine. Would you bring it in now please?

The man sits back in his chair and waits. Soon, Linda arrives, pushing a nondescript cart on which a small treasure chest sits. It's lock encompasses its entire front face.

MAN- Hmmph. I told them it wasn't going to be a damned lamp.

The man gets up from his chair, reaches into a drawer and pulls out a manila envelope. He taps the bottom of the envelope and a key slides into his hand. He walks to the chest, touches it briefly, puts the key into the lock and turns it.
A small puff of smoke escapes from the box as the cover lifts.
The man looks up from the box and sees the Djinni standing behind it.

MAN- That was slightly disappointing, I have to admit.

Djinni- Oh great master, allow me, your humble servant, to bring to you your wildest desires. I grant you now three wishes. What is your hearts fondest wish? Power? Glory? Life everlasting? You must only wish and it will be yours.

MAN- Yeah. I'm really not interested in any of that. I've kind of researched this a little. Had my boys go over some possible outcomes based on various wishes I might make. Of course, I presented it all as an exercise in logical thinking for them. They took it pretty seriously though and I think I'm confident with the outcome.

Djinni- Uh... Your boys?

MAN- Yeah. I got a think tank I fund and a whole squadron of lawyers. I pit them against each other like it was a game. It was a hoot. In the end, I had had it more or less figured out anyway, but it was still a fun couple of years.

Djinni- Okay...

MAN- So. Are you ready? Here's my first wish.

Djinni- You need only ask it, my master...

MAN- Yeah, yeah. Shut it on up there, scooter. I don't need the preamble. This is my first wish. I wish that you would need to work toward my best interest, would be truthful and would honestly like me.

Djinni- That's three wishes.

MAN- Nope. It isn't. It's one wish. My wish is to change the reality of you, I am merely describing what I want the new reality to be. If I were to wish for the perfect woman, I could describe her down to the smallest detail, couldn't I?

Djinni- Well yes you could, but really we're not supposed... Crap. Okay, so there's one wish. I like you and I will be honest with you and I will work toward your best interests. But, I am not happy about it.

MAN- Don't care. And... I don't really believe you. Let's try a test. If you will be honest with me and want the best for me, I should be able to ask you about the possible outcomes of a wish I am thinking about making, but am not making, and you'll have to tell me the way that wish would really turn up. Right?
Djinni- It appears so. I'm not really sure, honestly. This is kind of new ground you have me on.

MAN- Well, let's try it. There is a guy who owns a building uptown from here. I've been trying to get him to sell it to me, but there's no way he's going to. What might happen if I were to wish him dead?

Djinni- (quickly) It doesn't matter who you wish dead if you wish someone dead the person you value the most will also die through unexplainable circumstances and you will be sad for the rest of your life. Gah!

MAN- Well, I guess that'll have to do. You could still be lying, but I imagine at some point I'll have to trust you. Right?

Djinni- I wouldn't trust me. Damn it!!

MAN- Haa! Okay! Let's see where it goes then. My second wish involves life choices. I'm a very powerful man who has lead a good life. I'm in good health and have another twenty or so years in front of me, barring unforeseen circumstances, but I could go at any time and I'd go with a good measure of peace. But, curiosity has always been with me. It's like an itch. There are questions and I want answers. I don't want to use them for power or to change, really, anything. There are things I just want to know.

Djinni- I'll be honest with you as far as our working together goes, but that doesn't mean I'm going to be a magic eight ball for the rest of your life. If you want to know something outside of what we're doing right here, you'll have to use a wish.

MAN- That's okay. I wouldn't want to keep you from your next arrangement anyway. However, I can wish for you to make me something that can work like a magic eight ball.

Djinni- Anything you wish for to get you inside information about anyone else, or about the future, will only turn out bad for you. In your best interest, I recommend you think of something else.

MAN- How about the past, not the future?

Djinni- Well, you might be able to get away with something that looks at your past, not the past of anyone or anything else. Like you couldn't ask to see the Kennedy assassination...

MAN- No. This would be only about me. But, what I want to see is alternate versions of the past.

Djinni- What are you talking about?

MAN- I want a book that will answer the question of what would have happened if I had...?

Djinni- If you had what?

MAN- ANYTHING! Where would my roads have led me if I had made different choices? Not to change today, but just to know.

Djinni- Uh...

MAN- What?

Djinni- How about a couple million dollars instead? Wouldn't that be nice? I will make all the money you want appear and you have my personal promise there will be no negative repercussions . Really. I promise promise!

MAN- (swivels a monitor around to face Djinni. On it is a large, constantly incrementing number. It is ten digits long.) Do you see this?

Djinni- Yes.

MAN- This is a live view of my net worth. It is screen saver full of pomposity, I know, but I think it makes a neat point here. I'll make a couple million dollars after lunch. I've been looking for you for the better part of a decade. I don't think I'll be wasting a wish on money.

Djinni- How about women? I can make you desirable to the most beautiful women in the world.

MAN- Would you look at the screen again, please? I've had that kind of money for a long time. Women have been drawn to it and I used that to my advantage, but it the end, none of it was real, just like it wouldn't be real if you made some other women love me. I have a wonderful wife who demanded we sign a pre-nup, a loving family who don't seem overly eager for me to die and am generally pleased as hell with everything. There isn't anything you can tempt me with.

Djinni- I wasn't actually trying to tempt you. It's just that, if you make this book, you're not going to like it. Honestly.

MAN- Maybe I could use it as a tool for making more informed future decisions, but beyond that, it would only be a curiosity toy. It wouldn't hurt anyone.

Djinni- Yeah. I get that. You're not going to like it though. I really think you should reconsider. I actually do like you, though that may only be because of the wish you made. You made yourself who you are. You are already a success and are not looking to be vindictive toward anyone. You seem to have no greed, although that may be because you already own everything, I don't know. It doesn't really matter. You're not looking to hurt or to take advantage or to be given an easy way out of a bad situation. I rarely see that. All I've seen is basic, animalistic lust. People looking to claw their neighbors eyes out so they can have a better seat at the movies. Well, I never actually saw that, but you get my point.

MAN- I get it, and I appreciate what you say, but it doesn't change what I'm going to wish for. I want to wish for a book that will present to me the answers to the questions I ask it pertaining only to what would have happened differently in my life if I had made other choices, ones which I will elucidate. Will that wish get me what I want?

Djinni- It will get a thing that does what you ask, but it will not be what you want.

MAN- I'll decide that.

Djinni- Okay.

MAN- Do you remember the wish I just described?

Djinni- Yes. There's no way I can talk you out of it, is there?

MAN- Do I need to repeat it?

Djinni- (sigh) You need to say, I wish...

MAN- Okay. I got it. I wish that you would make true the wish I just described to you.

There is a small puff of smoke and a book appears on the desk.

MAN- Ah. Excellent. Let's try it out, shall we?

Djinni- (dejected sounding) Sure.

MAN- What is your problem?

Djinni- You'll see.

MAN- BOOK! I wish to see what would have happened if I had not skipped last period the day Jimmy broke his leg! Will the book understand?

Djinni- Oh yeah.

The man opens the book to find every page is blank.

MAN- What is this? You lied to me!? How could you have lied to me!? I had that checked out thoroughly.

Djinni- I didn't lie to you. I was absolutely truthful. I'm being ridiculously truthful. I'm being so truthful, in fact, that I'll even tell you why it doesn't do what you want it to do in the way you thought it would do it. I'll tell you even though I practically BEGGED you to wish for something else. The book is doing exactly what you asked it to do, you just don't understand the results.

MAN- What are you talking about?

Djinni- You could not have done anything differently. You could not have not skipped last period on the day Jimmy broke his leg. You had no choice.

MAN- Of course I had a choice. There are always choices.

Djinni- No, there is always the APPEARANCE of choices, but, in fact, there are none.

MAN- No choices?

Djinni- No. See? I told you you wouldn't like it.

MAN- So, you're saying everything we ever do, every action, is preordained?

Djinni- Yes. All of our lives are on very rigid tracks. There are no branches. Sorry to have to make you aware of it. It counts for everyone, even me. Every supernatural being knows this truth, and you'll know it too, once you're dead. We're not supposed to share the knowledge though. It's like a trade secret. I'm going to get a serious reaming for telling you. Thanks for that.

MAN- And the pages are blank because...?

Djinni- This is actually kind of funny. If, somehow, someone would make a decision for themselves, if they somehow found a way to make a branching track, the Universe would cease to exist. That's what the book is showing you. Blank pages representing nothingness! Funny, right?

MAN- Yeah... funny.

Djinni- So, that didn't work out well. It's okay. Like you said, you've got a really good life and you still have one more wish left! Let's think of something fun, like a trip or something we could go on together! I really like you. You're like, my pally guy!

MAN- I know what I want to wish for.

Djinni- What's that?

MAN- I want to wish that the next decision I make, be my own. I want to wish for a branching track of my own design. I do not believe what you say and if I must use my last wish to prove you are still, somehow, lying to me, I will do so.

Djinni- Hey! Hey, hey! Come on now! Don't be like that. I'm not lying. Really, really, really. Not lying. You know what? I'll tell you what. Three more wishes. How about that? I have a reserve bank I can pull from but no one is supposed to know about that, either. There you go. You don't make that wish you're talking about and we can forget this whole thing happened and you can start over with three more wishes and I will still be your truthful, honest, very honest, pally guy. Whadaya say? Good deal or what?

MAN- No. That's okay. I have to do this. I wish my next decision was mine alone.

Djinni- Oh...

The man stands up, and the lights go out.

what a waste of electrons...

This might be the most powerful website that is, at the same time, completely useless, that I have ever seen.

What is the point here??

Well, the idea is that you can, instead of just creating a simple online mixtape, which is becoming all the rage and certainly the next place the RIAA will set its sights, this place allows you to create a MASH-UP of some songs.
Except, it really actually doesn't.
You are allowed to select a series of songs. I don't know how many songs in a row you can select. Let's say you have five songs. You select the songs, then tell the software if you want to change the order of the songs or if you want the software to suggest an order for the songs.
Then after the order has been selected, it pushes all the music through a beat-matching filter of some kind and mixes the songs together. Well, it fades from one song into another, with really privative beat-matching. Just fades from one song to the next. No real mash-up of any kinda.
You can't upload your own songs and the song selections it plays for you are maxed out at 20 seconds per song.
You get about 10 or 20 seconds from some songs primitively beat-matched and faded in and out and in and out. I don't see how this process warrants and entire web site, at all. At the most, it should be a lame flash app on someone's MySpace page.

Here it is if you wanna look at it, though after reading what I just wrote, why would you WANNA LOOK AT IT!?

www.thisismyjam.com Should be www.thisismylameassedcrap.com

testing blogtalkradio...

well, i guess i can't really put a "non" in front of this...

You actually can't get more podcast-y.

Here are the top 5 songs I own with "LA" in the title.
You'll get it, if you manage to listen all the way through.

Non-non-podcast.

the buzzing, oh my god, the buzzing is in my brain...

Check this out if you haven't seen it already.



So, a lot of people comment on the thing righting itself after the dude kicks it and how creepy/scary/anthropomorphizing it is, and they are correct about that. However, the thing that really creeeeeeps me out, beyond the incessant buzzing, is that, to me, it looks like two small humanoids have had their upper torsos fused together while facing each other inside a big heavy box and now just their legs work. One guy is forced to walk backwards for the rest of his life while they bounce around looking for a way to get de-fused.

See this guy?
He is a stinky guy.
He is filling the entire area he is sitting in with his stink. His stink is so powerful, in fact, that most of the windows in the facility have been opened. I am sure a worker person ran over and opened all those windows to allow some of his grotesquely offensive wafting to slide out the window, leaving, no doubt, a greasy film on the window screens as it passes.

Seriously.

Stinky guy.

even more playwritey stuff...

The goal was to write a scene that would be considered "unstageable" for what ever reason. The teacher would not go into more detail beyond, "Just write something that could not be staged."

Here's what I came up with:

UNSTAGEABLE CONVERSATION SCENE
By ERIC JAMES FOX

A man sits behind a large mahogany desk on a deeply lined and well worn leather chair. He is smartly dressed in a charcoal gray business suit. On the desk before him is a sleek, black phone with many buttons.
The man, the desk, the chair and the phone are all sitting on a very high cliff, overlooking a crowd of what appears to be millions of people.

MAN- Look at them all down there. All of their heads are too small. They all blend together. I wish I could see them on a high definition plasma screen. Then I could see each of their heads separately. However, I would probably then have to acknowledge them all as individuals and that doesn't seem to be in my best interest. Better they all just remain a big, faceless blob of bodies and little, tiny heads.

(Phone rings with an old fashioned metal bell ringing sound)

MAN- (stares at the phone while it rings and rings) Linda! Linda! Can you answer the phone please? What the hell do I pay you for? LINDA!

(Man stands up to look behind him and moves the chair out of his way. Once his chair has been moved, we can see that the cliff he is on does not expand out to a full landscape behind him. His cliff goes to the horizon without widening at all.)

MAN- Uh... Linda must have the day off. (phone stops ringing) Ah, but see! I handled that quite well on my own. Who needs old stinky Linda anyway? Not me! I'm all over this! (phone begins ringing again, much louder this time. With each ring, a different sound element is added. It starts as just a loud ring, but the second ring is a loud ring mixed with the sound of a jackhammer. The third is ringing, jackhammer and traffic. The fourth is ringing, jackhammer, traffic and a jet taking off. The fifth includes the shrieking of a hawk. The sixth, the screech-cry of a baby in pain. Man looks terrified. By the seventh ring, he is clearly screaming in fear, but we can't hear him over the now constant cacophony of the ringing phone. His sits in the chair and answers the phone in a perfectly measured and authoritative voice.) Hello? (pause) Yes, this is he. May I ask who is calling? (pause) I see. You know, your connection is very bad. Are you on a “cell phone” of some kind? I can barely hear you. I suggest, next time you attempt to call someone as busy as myself, you ensure you are on a land line with no interference. (pause) Hello? (pause) No. Now I can't hear you at all. I'm hanging up. Good bye.
(Man calmly hangs up the phone then picks it up and throws it off the cliff behind him.)

MAN- (Glances over the cliff to where the millions of people are. He opens a drawer on the desk and pulls out an apparatus. It is a large gray box with a palm-sized black knob in the middle. Two electrodes are connected to the box by red wires. The electrodes end in rounded disks. The man takes out a squeeze bottle of thick, blue fluid and coats the disks with it. He reaches into the inside pocket of his sports coat and pulls out a red mouth guard. He places it into his mouth and bites down, then turns the knob on the box quickly to the right. We hear a low humming and the lights in the theater drop slightly. The man sits back in the chair, puts one electrode in each hand and begins to move them towards his temples. Before he reaches him temples we hear a sound and he stops... )

SOUND OF THE CROWD- (The millions of people are trying to speak to him with one voice. We make out many separate voices that only occasionally overlap in a way that allows us to pick out words.) ..........NOT...............CHANCE............HOME...........

MAN- (Drops the electrodes, spits out the mouth guard and walks to the edge of the cliff. He sits on the edge and dangles his feet looking down at the crowd. He screams and cries.)Leave me alone! I told you I wrong and there isn't enough time! I don't need you! You didn't listen to me when I wanted you and now I DON'T WANT YOU ANYMORE! I am AFRAID! I am a COWARD! But that's what I am and I am okay with it!

SOUND OF THE CROWD- (The crowd begins to coalesce into the shape of a face. It is as though we were looking at a picture of a face on a monitor and small groups of people have replaced the pixels. The psychic effort to do this is tremendous and even from our distance, we can clearly see some people's heads exploding. The face speaks with one voice powered by millions of people. The effect is beautiful and horrifying.)WE... CAN'T... DO... THIS FOR LONG.

MAN- Whoa. You guys are really coordinated. I have to give you that. You can stop now, though.

SOUND OF THE CROWD- WE NEED YOU TO KNOW. IT'S NOT TOO LATE. THERE IS ALWAYS A CHANCE TO MAKE THINGS RIGHT. YOU CAN STILL COME HOME.

MAN- I... I don't want to come home. Please. Just let me be.

SOUND OF THE CROWD- IT'S NOT TOO LATE.

MAN- No. I'm not listening.

SOUND OF THE CROWD- THERE IS ALWAYS A CHANCE TO MAKE THINGS RIGHT. (The effort is clearly showing on the crowd now. The edges of the face are fraying as people collapse and die.)

MAN- Leave me alone!

SOUND OF THE CROWD- YOU CAN STILL COME HOME...

MAN- NO!!

(The man throws himself off the cliff. The crowd changes shape quickly and forms a column up to reach the man. People at the bottom of the column are immediately crushed, but replaced just as quickly by others. The man continues to fall...)




It was received much better than I think was warranted.