20070516

wr_post12:subj_fict


CLYDE THE DONKEY: LUXE AND REDUXE

once there was a donkey who lived on a farm. it wasn't a commercial farm or even a subsistence farm. more of a hobby farm. they had two cats to keep mice out of the barn. and a cow because the grandchildren liked cows and clyde. he could pull a plow if you wanted him to, but the garden wasnt big enough to merit all the machinery. instead he just sat in the barn and thought his donkey thoughts. one of the cats, morris, had lived in the house for a while and was knowledgable about words. he used to read the old woman's fashion magazines. clyde loved words. they were so pretty, he thought. except he couldnt read them. he wanted to learn so that he could write down his story. everyone could benefit from his story because donkeys live a long time and think slowly. he used to pull the pages out of the books that he could find. he would pile them in his nest. (donkeys keep nests you know). morris used to come by and write things on the walls as clyde spoke them, but they didn't make any sense to a cat. the farmer saw the markings one day and decided there must be kids sneaking into the barn. for the protection of his animals and because kids could get hurt unattended in a barn, the farmer closed up the doors at night and bought a lock. morris couldnt come to visit at night anymore. instead he had to interrupt his sleep pattern and come in the days. he was typically very clumsy and donkeys do not have very good eyesight so one night clyde accidentally stepped on morris and killed him. they buried him by the barn and whenever clyde looked at the little cross and read the letters, he said to himself, "M-O-R-R-I-S, smart. morris was a smart cat!"

it's touching. the story of a donkey and his cat. it's like "of mice and men". the donkey didnt know how strong he was. he crushed the poor cat. cry, you miserable bastards!!!!

wr_post11:subj_fict


MOVIE OPENING

three men were walking down the road. harry stood to the left of james. james held hands with his son, blake. as they approached the corner where harry lived they said their goodbyes. harry veered off into his yard where he picked up the newspaper and headed to the door. at this point, the camera pans to follow james and blake. a car drives by. we do not know it now, but it will be significant later that the car is red and carries two passengers, one a man wearing a fedora and dark glasses. james is, at the moment, walking blake to tim's house. tim has a son about blake's age and they often play together on weekends while tim and james discuss sports and cars and cooking (tim is one of james' few male friends who also enjoys cooking). they are both stay-at-home dads. tim's wife, helena, works in a law firm while james' wife, sharon, owns and operates an antique store. the antique business is big, because four months out of the year, their town is a very popular vacation destination. being in the middle of montana, this is a bit of an oddity. they draw crowds from the majority of the midwest, but they get the most visitors from canada. so much so that some elderly canadians have established time-share residences on the edge of town. marty, a married woman, retired after thirty years as a seamstress in toronto, often visits montana...alone. the man in the fedora is a private detective hired by marty's husband, donald. donald is bed-ridden from a hunting accident when he was in his mid-forties. his sister, diane, stays with them and watches donald while marty is away. all this is revealed in long pans fading from one scene to the next. there is no dialogue, but the text is instead spoken by an older gentleman.
{title credits}

wr_post10:subj_fict


STORY TIME

steve weinstien and walter johnson lived next door to one another forever. they both lived in their childhood homes. their parents died and they each took over their father's businesses. steve married walter's sister and walter married steve's. and the wheel in the sky kept on turning. then one day as they returned from work steve and walter met at the short hedge that divided their yards, as they often did, and drank a beer as they pondered life's mysteries, as they often did.

"do you believe in an omni-present, creator figure?" steve asked.

now walter and steve had known one another all their lives, yet the issue of religion had never been broached. just one of those things you leave alone. some people are very touchy about it. there was a slight pause as walter thought the question over. then he reached under his jacket, whipped out a gun and shot steve in the head.

it was an open and shut case. there were several witnesses. walter called the cops himself to confess. later in jail he repented for his actions, began tutoring inner city kids through a rehabilitation program, prayed fervently and lived out his life in an upright, admirable sort of way. after three months of appeal failed, he faced the chair. he was electrocuted before nine members of the county governance board and received a small funeral.

"name?" saint peter asked, as walter checked in at the pearly gates.

he got through without much hassle and looked up steve in the heaven directory.

"sorry about that whole business of shooting you," walter said. "i just wanted to do some research before i gave you my answer. after weighing many things, i've decided that i do beleive in a creator and furthermore, a benevolent, forgiving creator. i'm sorry it came at such a heavy price to each of our families. i just wasnt sure how else to be certain."

steve took in the whole explanation in silence, then smiled and offered his hand to walter in a good-natured handshake. walter was moved by steve's unfathomable kindness. he had expected it to take several days, months or years, though he was not sure of a concept of time in heaven, for steve to forgive him. as he pondered all this, steve reached under his robe, pulled out a gun and shot walter in both knees. as steve stood over walter, a look of satisfaction came over his face.

"thanks god," he said. "that guy was a real shithead."

"no prob, steve," replied god. "us jews gotta stick together."

wr_post09:subj_fict


HOW TO TELL A JOKE WHEN YOU FORGET HOW TO TELL JOKES

So here's the point. You are asked to tell the interviewers a joke. You suddenly forget all the jokes you know. So you’re no longer REALLY trying to be funny, but you have to say something. And if its fucked up enough and delivered with a completely straight face people will laugh...albeit nervously. So with those conditions set, I sought to come up with something completely fucked. Hence standard opening:
Two guys walk into a bar...
They work in office buildings next to one another and they realized that they get off at about the same time each day. It’s become standard to see one another there to unwind. So one day they walk in and there's a new bartender. This is a bit of a surprise, especially since they've been coming in for about a year and always had the same guy there to greet them. So one guy walks up to the bar and, by way of seeing whether the "new guy" knows his shit asks, "do you know how to make a sex on the beach?" the new bartender reaches under the counter and grabs a bat, menacing the two guys he leaps the counter and chases them out of the bar. Now they were a bit put off by the unwanted exercise, but they'd been coming to that same bar so long they couldn’t quite get out of the habit. Plus the next nearest bar was several blocks down and parking was always hard to find. So again they go in, this time careful not to say anything provocative. They order two beers. Still the guy flips. Doesn’t say anything, just grabs the bat, leaps the counter and chases them out. Well this is just intolerable. They can’t conceive of going home to their wives without a little time to unwind. They are both happily married, but the buffer is the only time they get to just let it all hang out. So they decide they'll have to wing it on the parking and just go to the bar down the street. So they get their coats on, meet in the garage and climb into the car. They park behind the bar at what looks like a loading dock, head inside and have a beer. This is all they wanted. Just some time to talk about sports, chicks and life. They walk out towards the car only to find it in flames. They are pissed. They run back into the bar to ask what the fuck is up with the "towing" in this neighborhood. the bar is empty. they go back out and see the new bartender standing in their path with a bat. he takes them by surprise. smashes in one guys kneecaps and breaks the bat over his head. he hurls the splintered ends at the man who's running away catching him through each shoulder and knocking him to the ground. he drags them both up against the bar and really works them over. then as he's walking away he looks back over his shoulder. "in my fucking bar, we dont serve no damn pussy drinks." the men chuckle under their breath. "it sure is hard to find a quality bar these days" the newly-paraplegic man says. the other man just slouches down and coughs up blood.

eh? eh? hilarious!
a bit complex, yes, but thats the point. straight face. they wont know what to think. and you probably will be branded as a sadistic fuck unfit to be in any organization. wait what were we trying to accomplish?

wr_post08:subj_fict


…BUT WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?

"If I gave you four copies of Hamlet and asked you to make a diorama, what would you do?" he said, entering the room.
"'The fuck is that supposed to mean?" she shouted defensively over her shoulder as she stuffed the potted plants under the couch cushions. He had seen it, but he wouldn’t bring it up. He knew all too well what she was going through.
"You want to go get some Mexican food?" he asked. They only spoke in questions these days.
"Are you hungry already?" she asked. Another goddamn question, he thought. It had to stop. He seized the telephone receiver and put the listening end forcefully in his mouth. He then dialed his mother-in-law. "What are you doing?" she asked, getting up and coming towards him. He slammed the kitchen door shut and barred it with a broom. "Why are you being so crazy, honey?" she wailed. "Is it something I did?"

The phone was ringing. He could feel it in his teeth. Someone on the other end picked up. He took two sticks of celery out of the crisper and played the cadence to "Wipe Out" on the lower end of the phone, while punching more numbers in with his nose.

"Who is this? Sheila?" a voice asked. "Why are you doing this to me? What do you want? Are you hurt? Sheila?" It didn’t matter what he did. Only questions. He couldn’t take it any more. He spat out the receiver into the sink. It clattered into the drain. He hit the garbage disposal and took a bite of the celery. His wife had stopped knocking. Was she gone? No, he thought. It's only a trick. He could see shadows moving outside the door. She must be trying to look at him through the gap. He poured out a pile of salt along the bottom of the doorframe and blew it under the door. There was screeching on the other side.

"Why did you do that, John?" She was crying and coughing, trying to clear her eyes. "Do you have any idea how much that hurts?"

"NO MORE QUESTIONS!!!!" he yelled. The lack of inflection in his voice shocked him. He had made an Imperative statement. It wasn’t a question. He had brought about meaningful change in his life. He pulled the garbled head of the receiver out of the sink and dialed the police. He told them he was trapped in his kitchen and an enraged woman with bloodshot eyes, claiming to be his wife was trying to kill him. He hung up, slipped a kitchen knife under the door and sat down on the counter laughing. She wouldn’t be arrested, but they would look into it. There would be questions and she would have to answer them...

wr_post07:subj_fict


FADING EMBERS

She used to greet him as he'd walk in the door. And it used to perk him up. No matter how hard the day had been she would be waiting for him. Now when he came home, he seldom saw her before he was back out the door to the bar. He had turned to drinking shortly after her accident. It was no one's fault really. But he blamed himself. She wasn't the same anymore. She didn't glow with the same passion anymore.
One night he came back to find her sitting in the kitchen. He couldn't bear to look at her. He knew how she disapproved, but damnit, it wasn't fair.
"Why did it have to be this way?" he shouted. No response. "The least you could do is talk to me!" he grabbed her and wrestled her to the floor. "WHY???!?! Having you like this is all the more frustrating because it’s a constant reminder of what you once were. The vibrant self is gone. NO!" he popped the lid off the bottle he had in his coat pocket and took a swig to help swallow the pills. "It’ll be over soon,” he whispered. As his muscles clenched he thought of all the times they had had together. And so it goes sometimes. Love is temporary. And we either learn to cope or we crack under the tremendous weight of it all. He was just a man alone in this world. In this world that has no place for a man...and his toaster.

wr_post06:subj_fict


AISLE 6: ASSAULT AND BATTERIES

His skin felt tight over the tips of his fingers. Had he remembered to put change in the meter? He had to get eggs at the grocery store so she could make that cake for Sally. Sally was taller than him, which was odd since Sally was a midget. That would mean he was a midget too. He didnt think about it much. No BIG deal. Hey, was that some sort of crack? "Cool it, man. You're arguing with yourself again," he thought. Just hand the lady the card and she'll swipe it and then....Wait, why should he? What did she know about his pain. He stepped back and shot her an accusatory glance. So, she thought she was going to get inside that easy, eh? Well he'd show her. He strapped on his roller skates and took off, leaving the eggs next to the tube of toothpaste and the shotgun shells. When he got home he wrote a very scathing letter to the management. He'd turn it in when he went in for work the next day. He had been working there for three weeks and still the other employees didn't recognize him when he came in. He often considered buying them all root beer. Who doesnt love root beer? That'd show them. A nice frosty root beer. They'd drink it down and then...what's this? Ha ha ha. A peanut in the bottom of the glass. Wait. He was allergic to peanuts. Not them. How would he get the peanut in the glass? He had a very severe aversion to latex gloves. It made him feel like a veterenarian. He had told the shrink that once. Theories of fearing becoming his father and wishing he'd acted sooner on that car loan offer. What if? You only live once. He could've used the money to buy those roller skates he'd always wanted. He looked down at his feet and chuckled a bit. Why buy when you can rent? Renting roller skates was like playing scrabble...all vowels. He stopped and thought that last thought again. Roller......Scrabble. "Hmm. It's just crazy enough to work," he said. His voice surprised him and he dropped the cabbage. It rolled into the gutter with the coupons he'd clipped yesterday. He often did things in the street outside his apartment. Menial things. Once a police officer had cited him for spitting on a tree. But he had to brush. The people behind his teeth were growing in numbers. Soon they would control the uvula. Many people didn't know the benefit of that dangly flap. But he knew all too well. After living in the jungle for a year you learn those things. He had begun typing out his thoughts some time ago, but he couldnt remember the circumstances. He felt like the skin on his fingers was growing tighter. Like there was water washing over him. His shirt felt heavy. He had to stop writing in the third person. "Maybe if I created a pseudonym for myself I could pass it off as a short story," Frank decided. Yeah, Frank. That's the ticket. So Frank wrapped up the sentence he'd been working on, which is not to say he stopped the thought. He never stopped thinking, but come to think of it he also never stopped to think. Funny how things like that worked. Like a leaky faucet, this existence was...Wet. And he'd have to suffer through a bit more of it before the great plumber in the sky came and....No, that analogy made sense. He couldnt have that. Frank reached into the third drawer down on the right side of his desk and pulled out the shotgun he kept there. He pointed it at the screen. Click. Damn. No shells. He'd have to get eggs if he was going to keep brushing his teeth. Who's birthday was it anyways? This had to stop. These accusations. If that lady wouldn't hand him the credit card, how could he ever check her out. She was getting impatient. How long had he been day dreaming? Standing there wrapped in syntax. He must've dozed off standing up. Everready. Why was she buying shot gun shells anyways? Frank didn't know how much they cost. He'd only worked there for three weeks...

wr_post05:subj_fict


JESUS LIKES STUFF

Once there was a guy named Mike. He lived underground. He had never heard of Jesus. Mike was a mole.
This other time, there was this guy, named Steve. Steve stood on the corner and yelled at people to slow down til he got red in the face. He was a stop sign. That was a pun. That was not a pun. Jesus didnt make puns and if he did, he didnt call them puns.
But before all that, there was a guy, named Jesus. He didnt live underground. He had never heard of Mike. Jesus was a Polar Bear.
Frank didn't say anything, but they could tell he didnt approve. He lifted himself upright in his armchair and reached for his glasses. He put them on slowly. Patronizingly slowly. As if to say "No, don't trouble yourselves. Let an old man do your work. You slow bastards." Frank was in a bunker. Frank was underground. Frank was tired of hearing about Jesus and his magic. He wanted to hear more about Mike. Mike knew what was what.

wr_post04:subj_fict


MAYBE SOME DAY I'LL GET IT

Austin Wellingford owns three apartment buildings. I rent a room in one of them. Everytime something breaks, I'm supposed to call Steve Greyson and Steve either comes and fixes it or tells me he will and then doesn’t or just tells me it's my own damn problem. On the days when Steve tells me to fix it myself I begin to question the whole system of my calling him at all. Today, however, is the third day without power, heat or running water and rather than call Steve again, I have decided to pack up all my stuff, find Austin and crash on his couch til he can get his act together. I go through my list a couple times to make sure I'm not forgetting anything and notice that the list doesn’t contain any of the stuff I've assembled in boxes by the door, nor is any of the stuff on the list even in my apartment. I begin to wonder whether I have the right list in front of me, when someone walks in. It's Gladys. She lives next door and keeps cats, though they aren’t allowed. In exchange for not ratting her out, she gave me a key to her apartment and lets me watch cable in her place. "Why the hell do you have all my stuff in boxes?" Gladys asks, as coolly as one can ask such a question. I glance at my feet and realize the boxes are moving. I have, in my haste, boxed Gladys' apartment, including her cats. "Happy Box Day!," I mumble as I worm past her out the door. On second thought, maybe I dont need to bring my stuff to Austin's. He's loaded. I'm sure I can just borrow his clothes. Clutching a page I've torn out of the phone book, I stroll up to the 8 foot high, razor-wire-encrusted fence with the big gold initials, "AW." I call the guard over and ask him whether he's gonna open the fence or am I just gonna have to climb it. He mutters something about having to have an appointment and wanders back to his booth. Feeling defeated I cross the street and go into the Diner. I sit at the counter and order a cup of coffee, but before the waitress can pour it, I see Austin's limo pulling out the gate. I drop a handful of change on the counter and run out into the street. I get out just in time to see Austin's cigar ash out the tinted windows. This just isnt my day. I go back to my apartment where Gladys has unboxed the cats and sit down in the hallway. I pull out the list and going back over it in a darker pen I write this story. I slip it under my door and walk away. Maybe someday I'll get it.

wr_post03:subj_fict


MASON-DIXON DRAWSTRING SLACKS

driving down the road one afternoon, paul saw a pair of slacks laying in the ditch. he slowed down, pulled over and made his way cautiously down the embankment. the shale was loose and it was slow going. as he reached the pants he saw that there was also a note in a little glass mason jar. he opened the jar and gingerly plucked out the note. it was beautiful paper. smooth, but aged almost to the consistency of lace. the ink had faded and the edges were dirty from many fingers running across its surface. he could only make out the second and the last lines:

"gave it to me tuesday with the intention of making a pie....or else never got home on account of the rain."

it wasn't clear just what the note had to do with the pants, if there was any connection at all, but he decided to take both. as he dropped the pants into the lockbox in the bed of the truck, he began to feel an odd sensation. an urge to wear the pants. the waistband had a drawstring. these pants would give a little in the wearing, a luxury he was not often afforded by his wife's stingy hemming. he made sure there were no other cars on the road and quickly slipped off his pants, but as he reached to grab the drawstring slacks he heard a voice.
"boy, just what do you think you're doing?"
albert's [his name changes?] face grew bright red. he was literally caught with his pants down. he turned slowly to address the voice, but there was no one there. a chill came over him. forgetting his own pants he jumped into the truck and drove off, shooting gravel as he pulled up off the shoulder. he didn't let his foot off the gas even in the slightest until he was in sight of his house. he ran up the front step, having forgotten all about his pantslessness and into the arms of his wife. there he wept for several hours, unable to catch his breath to retell the awful tale. she comforted him and offered him some pie.
"it's rhubarb," she said. "don, brought it over. i gave his wife some rhubarbs the other day in exchange for a cup of flour. i do hope he makes it home alright, it looks like rain outside."
"w-w-what kind of pants was he wearing?" stammered paul.
"i dunno," his wife replied as she moved into the kitchen to cut the pie. "i think they were just some drawstring slacks."

wr_post02:subj_fict


SMALL WORLD, AIN'T IT?

Tony worked in an office processing forms. He picked them up from Jake and then sorted them by urgency, subject matter and product code to be sent on to Mike and Sheila respectively. One day instead of reading the forms and sorting them, he jumped out the window of his 22nd floor office. Later that day, Sheila got word of the note on his desk. Looking back she could see the signs. She didn't know why, but she felt somehow responsible. So she quit, changed her name, got a new job and pretended her old life had never existed. Mike never actually spoke to Tony. He had a germ phobia and would only receive the forms through inter-office mail and only handle them once they'd met his exacting standards for cleanliness. Tony's death had no effect on Mike, who assumed it was all the work of germs. Jake hired a replacement the next week. Her name was Cindy, a young girl out of college who he hired mainly for looks. He began an affair with her and one day during a rendezvous in the conference room he called her "Tony." Things were awkward from that point on and Jake fired Cindy rather than deal with seeing her in the halls. He cut out Tony's position in the office infrastructure and assumed the responsibilities of Sheila, who's replacement had refused to work with Mike on the grounds that he often sent her emails critiquing her hygeine. With less people on the payroll, numbers began to move out of the red. The company was purchased by a conglomerate and the work was outsourced to the Dallas office. Mike moved back in with his mother and took up coin collecting (an odd hobby considering the number of unwashed hands such old coins must have come in contact with). Jake stayed home with the kids and watched his wife's crafts shop blossom into a successful chain. He envied her. When his company had begun to succeed, they gave him the axe. He had thought about killing her. Make it look like suicide and take over the crafts game. The only thing stopping him was a strong distaste for crafts. He began putting out ads for a nanny in the hopes that he'd find a cute little thing to remind him of Cindy. He coached his daughter's softball team and flirted shamelessly with the young mothers. One night he was beaten senseless by a father who happened to be in earshot. His wife divorced him and took the kids. He moved to Illinois and got a job at the Kinko's. His shift manager looked like an old co-worker, but that's too contrived. Sheila was actually in Ohio working as a waitress. Mike tried to keep in touch with people, but he didn't have their new addresses. His life came to a fitting close when he contracted West Nile at the age of 34. His dying words were, "Germs! The only way around them is to nuke the whole damn world!" Jake's wife, Olivia, read about it in the obituaries, but the name had no significance to her. She married a guy named Terry, the regional manager of her Midwest offices. Terry secretly hated kids and tried several times to asphyxiate them in the garage. Sheila, who now went by Trisha, moved in with another waitress and they moved to Toronto to start a bed and breakfast. While making copies one day, Jake met a casting director and landed his first acting part as "Bus Driver #2" in a low-budget porn. Terry took Olivia on a vacation for their one-year anniversary to Trisha's B&B and their first night there, they rented the porn that Jake was in. It was a bit part and Olivia didn't even recognize him, but the sequence of events leading up to that moment was altogether too strange and the world abrubtly ended.

wr_post01:subj_fict


PROPOSED BACK STORIES FOR HYPOTHETICAL EXPRESSIONS

So, in a small town in the Four Corners region of the country, imagine that a somewhat common expression is "They give that one to the volcano." Since the town contains one of the only clinics in the area, it is assumed by passers-by that the expression is used to refer to the passing of someone receiving care at the clinic. The romanticized version is that their spirit passed out of this plane of existence, but its power still exists, emanating from the volcano in relative proximity to the town: the circle of life, blah, blah. In truth, it turns out, the expression comes from the fact that in some cases, distant relatives visiting the clinic are actually in the area to see the volcano and happen to have timed their visit to see the ailing. The purpose of the visit is chalked up to the volcano's drawing power as a roadside attraction. A more cynical view, however, is that the records have somehow been falsified by National Park employees to suggest that people who were in fact visiting the clinic, were in the region to see the volcano. Thus, in deference to the raw power of an act of nature, "they [gave] that one [tally] to the volcano." None of this is in the least bit interesting, but the expression catches on for its poetic qualities, eventually becoming so popular as to have most of its explanation printed along with the quote on gym-shirt-grey ringer tees in 48-point, sarifed, purple iron-on, bubble letters. The end result, being convoluted, obscure and overly verbose, sells well only amongst the asinine more-irrelevant-than-thou hipster contingency and is, in this way, vaguely reminiscent of the futility of traveling through New Mexico. This in turn reminds people of the somewhat cheapening effect that thus-naming such a lackluster state has on the original Mexico.

20070513

Curating a blog::dry_run01:subject_rand....GO!

This one for the video. The sound is fitting, but unnecessary and distracting.

This one for the sound. I think I could actually listen to it forever and never tire. The video is a fucking animated .gif. How great can it be?

As for this one. The complete package. Words cannot describe...

Do watch both before further exploring the endless mines that are the random button on the window, won't you?

Jonathan Gregory Brandis (April 13, 1976 – November 12, 2003) was an American film and television actor. OMG!!1RIP4eva!!?LOLLERPEDIA!:



Who wikis the word actor?!