The Sky Has Limits

Brutal Legend

While I never quite caught the bug for Tim Schafer's games that Aaron did, I do recognize all of the titles:  The Secret of Monkey Island, Full Throttle, Grim Fandango, and even Psychonauts.  I am intrigued by his latest project (which features Jack Black) and I would imagine that means Aaron is jizzing in his pants.

And they're off!

Despite some chastising words from my writing "buddy", and in the throes of a horrible bout of insomnia, I managed to finally punch out my first 3 pages for Script Frenzy.  Only 97 to go...

But I'm not afraid.  That was only the first scene, and I kept it a bit short because I'm afraid of my superfluous tongue.  I'm also certain that I'll have much more to put into it once I have a bit more of the characters' backgrounds in place.

See, my first scene is actually the last scene that occurs, chronologically.  Furthermore, my final scene will be the one just before it.  While I'm not expecting the jizz-worthy moment at the end of The Sixth Sense, my intent is that, having seen the very last moment of the play, you will understand the true impact of what is going on in the first scene.  This was done even more incredibly in Memento, but I can only dream of having that kind of power.  My humble hope is that the tragedy of Alex's life will be more tangible when you already know the ending.

As I wrote, I began feeling uncomfortably giddy at the things I knew this poor girl was about to endure.  I would clap my hands in delight as I crafted a new torture for innocent Alex.  What instrument of brutality would I next use to break her soul?  Perhaps this is the joy Satan finds at twisting our lives for the worse as he wickedly portrays them as better.

Did I just compare myself to the unholy one?  Because I think I'm going to feel like a complete douche bag by the end of this play.  I have far too much empathy for my main character, and while the same might not be said for my future adventurers, I hope I do not forget her pain... for it is mine.

On a side note, I changed the name of the play to Alex's Pearl.  The combination of immature amusement from my compatriots and the lack of eloquence that Alex's Oyster presents convinced me that a subtle shift was necessary.  I think the entendré remains, and it rolls nicely off the tongue.  Plus, I hate oysters

We are not Lost anymore

I forgot for 24 hours that my favorite show was on.  Exquisite writing, touching character development, and excellent plot premise--each propelling the series forward, just like the good ol' days.

I'll say it with even more emphasis than I did last week.  Wow.

**SPOILER ALERT!** Read no further if you have not seen Season 5, episode 11.

The fact that the two most humor-driven characters were in the same room arguing in parallel to my own conversation with Aaron about the nature of time had me in hysterics.  When they cut to the scene and you hear Hurley say, "Now let me get this straight..." (God, what a classic line), I jizzed in my pants.

Kate's goodbye moment with Aaron had tears dropping from my eyes, and not just because of the sappy music.  Such an excellent job of building up to it, then going exactly where it always had to, ending just-so.  Answering the question, "Um... if Kate's here, where the hell is Aaron?" that we all knew the answer to, but just couldn't say.

Jack severing the ties to everyone that matters, folding into himself and breaking all of our givens about his character.  I'm really interested to see where he will go from here, and how long he can hold onto being a loveless shell.  He desperately needs a new purpose (which, of course, Juliette clues us in on) and I can't wait to see what it is.

And then there's a quote of mine from an e-mail I sent last week:

And if you think that's a fun spin on things, now start contemplating that Jack is a surgeon, and it's quite possible the most suited to save Ben's life (...again?...).  Now, it means that Ben's motivation for getting Jack back to the island (in order to drop him off during Dharma 1978) is a big fucking deal for Ben, and a VERY calculated move.  It would also explain why he was so blasé about the others coming or not.  It may also mean that Whitmore hasn't got a fucking prayer, because if Ben can remember that much and put all this together, he is quite possibly the "baddest motherfucker in the world".

So close, and yet, so far.

Alpert is some Faustian incarnate of Martha Stewart:  just shove the boy in the temple of fucking doom, crank the dial to "11", and wait for the egg-timer to go off or he has a nice sheen of malevolence about him.  At first, my mind screamed, "Shenanigans!" at such a murderously clever plot clean-up, sealing up all of the cracks in the foundation of the mythos with mystical caulk.  But Alpert's actor pulls it off marvelously with his soft baritone and fierce eyes, letting us know that some shit just got real.

And lastly, Locke watching over the bed like some damned angel of darkness, and speaking to Ben with a smug confidence we have seen in a certain someone before.  The tables have turned, and someone else will now be dealing the cards.

*applauds*

Speaking of YouTube

I found this today--long story how--and I'm kinda disturbed.  This is what America's teens are doing in their spare time?  About the time she said, "I have two kitties!" I started laughing uncontrollably.  So odd.  This is why I don't go trolling the internets.

Sick

My God...

How have I missed this video?

Angels with a Dark Past

It was my first viewing of Sin City that inspired me to watch Dark Angel, both starring Jessica Alba, and it is strangely telling that I was seeing them in the wrong chronological order.  I discovered many other roles in the show were filled by people I now know for several other reasons.

For instance, I giggled a little when I first saw Lt. Felix Gaeta playing a co-worker of Max's (Alba's character), and I thought we were having a BSG reunion when Tory Foster showed up for an episode.  Tom Hanniger (from My Bloody Valentine 3-D) makes a single episode appearance in season 1, but appears to have a much larger role in season 2, which I have yet to watch.

Stranger still has been seeing some actors appear after they had already established a character in my mind.  Larry "Kube" Kubiac of Parker Lewis Can't Loose (or "Olaf the Troll" from Buffy) is hysterically flamboyant, but the real kicker was seeing Kira Neris as a malevolent bitch.  As little of Star Trek:  Deep Space 9 as I've seen, her character is still iconically imprinted on my mind when I see that face.

All of this makes me realize the actor's plight:  that your face is how people identify you, and when you are playing someone else, that is the associaton they make.  I can't count the number of times I've seen interviews with TV or movie stars who say, "I'm not Luke Skywalker!" or "I'm not Harry Potter!".  I feel sympathy, and I actually find it very refreshing to see them out of context every once in a while.  Most recently, watching Edward James Olmos speak at a special summit of the United Nations was a bit different.

I have noted occurrences of known actors gathering on a new project before, but it is still a bit odd to see snippets of their portfolios before they got "that starring role".  I'll post an actual review of Dark Angel once I get through season 2, and there may be some more familiar faces still to come.

The Abscess of Excess

I consider my father an incredibly intelligent person, who has far more experience than I do, and has recently been bloating his mind with powerful books that talk about the modern era.  About a year ago, I lived with him for a month or so, and it gave me the chance to start interacting on his level, instead of forcing him to come down to mine.  My newfound political interest is almost a direct result of that occurring during an election year.

During that time, he began warning me that my generation is in a pinnacle place to shape our country, and that our abundance of over-spending and living beyond our means would catch up with us.  He showed me a sobering statistic from a Time Magazine a year ago, February: that our country consumes 11 times what it produces.  He claimed something like that is unsustainable and that eventually, our economy would shift to deal with it.  Sure enough, things went South.

When perusing the current Time Magazine headlines from my RSS feed, I happened upon The End of Excess: Is This Crisis Good For America?, and while it's a good 10-minute read, it's probably the best article I've read by them.  It accurately labels our country and its habits, then tells us what we shouldn't do, and what we could do.  If ever you were looking for something that sums up what this generation has been focused on for the last 20 years (and where it's going), this is it.  I would encourage you all to take the time to read it.  While not saying anything brilliantly new, it takes many things into consideration and places them side by side for your own edification.

Isn't it Ironic?

A little too ironic...

Irony is probably second only to sarcasm in humorous use, and I see it all around me.  The most recent manifestation is my thorough enjoyment of writing a story that reflects my own despondent view of life.  Deeper still, the story could not have been born without first having utter frustration at existence, and at this particular moment, I find myself pretty damn pleased with life.

Among other ironies, I have one in particular happening with Dungeons & Dragons.  My whole life, I've found it difficult to play role-playing games, because I love being told a story and socializing with others, but I always felt like I was not playing my "role" very well, be it the character, or the player.  Participation always seemed to get in my way of enjoying what was going on around me, yet I wanted to be a part of it.  After reading the newest edition of the Dungeon Master's Guide, I realized that I have always been the "observer" or "storyteller" type of role-player, who enjoys watching things unfold and creating new tales to relate, respectively.  A light-bulb switched on over my head, and I realized that makes me the perfect candidate for a Dungeon Master, which I had simply never thought of before.

Now, to enjoy participating in the storytelling and socialization, all I needed were some friends willing to play.  Sure enough, the time was ripe, and as I mentioned it casually at dinner the other night, everyone seemed "game".  Hopefully, in a few week's time I can be up and running a campaign of my own.  Perhaps someday I'll be comfortable enough to put something together myself, as I'm bursting at the seems with ideas for neat NPCs and strange environs.

As the irony treads ever deeper, I have never been much for fantasy fiction, preferring it's smarter, older brother, science fiction.  Yet here I am, contemplating several swords and sorcery scenarios, eager to see them brought forth.

Will it ever stop?!  I love meat, in every form, barely pausing to consider the implications of veal or foie gras.  Tonight, I plan to try and ask my almost-vegan out on a second date.  While I'm not sure it would ever work out in the end, who is to say?  I find her opposites very attractive, and I intend to find out.

Perhaps I simply like melodrama, or maybe my life has become so stagnant that I court irony as if it were some fleeting romance.  I suppose only time (and my blog) will tell.

Some nuggets

Be them gold, or of a darker sort, I promised to publish the main concept for my story here, and we'll pray that my audience is either so small, or so disinterested in my work that the thing will not be stolen out from under me before I even have a chance to write it.  While my Script Frenzy page has a one-line blurb about the play, here is a much more comprehensive idea of what I'm going for:

Explanation of Alex's Oyster

Alex is a fairly typical girl who goes through a variety of situations that happen to just about everybody, but the scenes will focus on the ones that impact her most, and shape who she will become.  Sadly, most of these have the effect of causing her to loose her innocence and, eventually, her interest in life.  The scenes will each occur during one of her three most important growth phases: when she is 16 (the HIGH SCHOOL PHASE), when she is 20 (the COLLEGE PHASE), and lastly when she is 24 (the CAREER PHASE).  Each phase will have some of the more obvious situations (romance, alcohol/drugs, siblings/parents) but the things that happen will be anticipated/reflected in the other two, and not necessarily in chronological order, but with obvious logical implications.  I plan to bounce around (Lost-style) and hopefully there will be enough continuity to not confuse everyone.

The title is a reference to the popular adage, "The world is my oyster" which comes from a Shakespearean play.  Many people take this to mean, "I have my life ahead of me, and I shall embrace it to seek my destiny/fortune."  In case my use wasn't obvious, I'm being depressingly ironic, because gradually Alex no longer cares about seeking her destiny.

Also, although there is a spot for me to list my script's soundtrack, I'm not allowed to link them, so here it is (for flavor), so far:

Mindy Smith - It's Amazing
VAST - Here
T.H.C. - Dip
T.H.C. - Need to Destroy
Britney Spears - Unusual You
Hilary Duff - Stranger
Ben Folds Five - Brick
Jonatha Brooke - Inconsolable
Linkin Park - My December
Five For Fighting - 100 Years
Jon McLaughlin - Human
Ben Folds - Still Fighting It
Avril Lavigne - My Happy Ending

You may have noticed I've created a good candidate for "Most Depressing Playlist, Ever".  I'm still searching for songs to soften things a little, but stay within the mood.  We shall see what lightning strikes me in that particular vein.

...definitely frenzied

My friend Garret, (who does some composition himself) told me last night that he is consistently meticulous in the writing of outlines for his work.  I have no such illusions of organization, but I realized that he may have had a point: it's a good idea to write some things down about where your idea is going.  As a result, I tried to harness some of the crazy ideas blasting through the station of my mind like a high-speed bullet train, and began writing down some concepts/scenarios for my Script Frenzy stage play.

After a while, I started feeling like I was cheating a little, because a one line sentence starting fleshing itself out into entire paragraphs, encompassing multiple scenes and building on other ideas I had already written down.  Not unlike the torrential spout of "verbage" I unintentionally employ in conversation, things started playing out on the page, my fingers desperately trying to keep up with my brain.  The medium is proving itself inadequate to deal with my stream of ideas!  Concepts are developing far more than I had intended before I officially "start" on April 1st.

Something like this has happened to me before, during classes for web-design that empowered me with new techniques of expression.  The tools felt mired and sluggish, while my consciousness was something akin to a Kenyan at the Olympics.  The two usually found a strange reconciliation, tempering the wild metals crackling in the stone with a steady hammering progression that forced superiority out of each idea.  I should be so lucky to discover that a similar forging will occur with my writing.

Who knew?  I'm not sure Aaron was really game for it himself when he casually dropped me an e-mail, yet I presume he finds himself caught up in the tempest of my excitement.  Never before have I been so sure I wanted to do something, with perhaps the exception of excising my virginity.  Garret upgraded tropical storm to hurricane when he told me how sure he was that I am capable of splendor.  The remark was born in a conversation about my prose, but we're both in anticipation of my current work.  There was even a whisper of publication (pending exceptional branding) that caused my heart to skip a beat.  Here is someone I respect for writing, telling me they expect great things.  While I could only dream of holding such a place of esteem for others, I hope I can pass along this confidence... (Aaron, this means you!)