It's a Christmas Miracle

So, yeah… Christmas. It was pretty good. Spent quality time with the family, hung out with some friends, did a bit of service, read “A Christmas Carol”… and, of course got some good gifts.

The big news (well, as far as I’m concerned) is that I got a lot of writing done. I mean, A LOT. I went back and revisited some old poems I haven’t TOUCHED in two years… and I got started on a new prose project that’s got me pretty excited.

Bottom line, though, is that I need a bit of help. I’m getting ready to start submitting poetry to be published again, which means I’d like a few volunteers to read and give me some feedback. And this, gentle reader, is where you come in.

If you’d like to help, I’ll send you a poem or two. Any feedback you can give will be greatly appreciated. I usually just ask that you answer a few questions for me:

1 – Did you like it? Why or why not?
2 – What was your favorite part or line of the poem? Why?
3 – Which parts of the poem didn’t work for you or were confusing? And, of course, why?

I thought I’d post the titles of the poems I’m considering submitting. If any of them catch your fancy, you can let me know, and I’ll send that one specifically to you. So the poems are:

1 – Captain America
2 – Showers
3 – Soap Bubbles
4 – A Poem on my Dog, Wilbur, Who Died when I was Eleven
5 – Curve
6 – Summer Day
7 – The Calculator Man
8 – Getting to Know You
9 – Sometimes
10 – Schrödinger’s Poem

As a bonus, I’m also offering to let people read the first little vignette from Angel of Mercy, the next big prose piece I’m working on. I’m pretty excited about it. It’s like Touched by an Angel, except that all the angels are complete $#@%s. It’s not an urgent read, though, so I don’t really NEED people to help with it… but I am kind of curious if people like it.

Anyway, I’d love for any of you to help… even you. Yeah, you. No, don’t be modest. I really value your opinion. No, I’m NOT just being nice, I mean it. Thanks in advance.

Isn't it Christmas?

Wish I Said It First #3

From The Jesters Royale improv workshop this past week:

#3

"Mathematics. Sometimes... I can see it."

Manelle Oliphant, performing as a conceited French poet.

(Maybe you had to be there, but darn it, this was funny!)

Evolve or Die

You may have noticed that most of the sketches I've posted so far have been of faces. I'll admit that's where I've focused most of my attention. It's also the subject on which I've done the most reading. The truth is, I'm kind of embarassed to try to move on to some of the other areas of the body.

For example, I caught myself the other day looking down the row of people sitting in church and thought to myself, "Hm, I kinda want to draw that girl's legs."

Of course, right after, I thought, "I can't be staring at that girl's legs! I'm in church!"

To avoid the awkwardness of ogling others (well, more overtly) during church, I decided to instead borrow a book on figure drawing from my buddy Aldo, a pretty darn good artist in his own right. Of course, the book contains pictures of full-frontal female nudity...

I think there's a disconnect in the tracks of my logic train...

Anyway, more sketches coming up soon.

Wish I Said It First #2

#2

"Batman is always the least interesting character in everything he's in. What can you do with a character who responds to everything by either punching it or deploying Bat 'Anti-Thing' Spray... then punching it."

Yahtzee Croshaw, "Zero Punctuation!: Batman: Arkham Asylum," The Escapist, http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/926-Batman-Arkham-Asylum

WARNING: Contains adult language.

Class Conscious Comedy - Courtesy of the Jesters Royale

Have you ever felt poor? I mean, not just “lower-middle class” poor, but dirty fingernail, uneducated, get-hit-in-the-face-by-a-wreath-thrown-by-Ebenezer-Scrooge poor? Well, if you haven’t and you’d like to, I recommend making friends with a doctor and heading over to their pad – which is likely the size of a small hospital itself, only, instead of sick people, it’s full of statues of naked women.

The story begins (and ends) on the evening of December 12, 2009. I, with a few of my comrades from the Jesters Royale comedy improv troupe (http://www.jestersimprov.com/ – enough pimping for you?) had been invited to participate in the Christmas celebration for the Maliheh Free Clinic. The party took place at the doctor’s home in Holladay, UT. Truthfully, though, I could have sworn that we drove through a wardrobe somewhere along the way, because we must have been in Narnia or some other magic kingdom. The house was fully lit up like a palace, the artwork and furnishings were strange and unusual, and I’m pretty sure I heard the house cat speak to me. Couldn’t understand it, though – must have been French.

The guests all mingled in the lobby room – which was larger than my childhood home and held a couch larger than my bed – dressed to the nines in nice sport coats and sparkly dresses. Meanwhile, we, the entertainment, stood off to the side with our filthy hands stuffed into the pockets of our jeans. One of the guests must have noticed our discomfort. She, naturally, assumed we just needed something to do, so she came over and politely asked, “Are you the help?”

We set up in the gym for our performance – and, yes, this house has a gym, complete with a treadmill, basketball hoop, and the mounted heads of water bison, deer, and gnus. Feeling a little uncomfortable, though, I wandered back to the kitchen in search of something to drink. The counter was full of bottles to choose from. Unfortunately, the bottles were each labeled with some hard-to-pronounce name and a year (must’ve been French). I slunk back to the gym, thoroughly intimidated. Thankfully, on my second foray to the drink bar (the others came with me this time, so I had reinforcements), I found a solitary bottle of 7-Up, which I had never been so happy to make mine.

Before the show, I decided it would be wise to use the bathroom. Just like everything else I’d encountered in this house thus far, the bathroom scared the… you know what? I don’t think I can tastefully finish that sentence.

Anyway, as I went in to the bathroom, I noticed a large, clear, circular window, about 3 feet in diameter, sitting at waist level just above the toilet. Just as I saw it, Blake (one of the other Jesters) called out, “Look out the window there and see if you can see that big white dog!”

“Well,” I said, as a member of the catering staff walked past the window, “I don’t see a DOG…”

I went to the sink to wash my hands. For some reason, the knob for the hot water wouldn’t turn. I figured they must have set up a faucet with those pull knobs, so I grabbed the knob and pulled it up. I knew I was mistaken when the knob came off in my hands.

Finally, the time came for us to perform. We included in our lineup a game called World’s Worst, in which the audience shouts out an occupation, and the players in the game act out what the world’s worst example of that occupation would be. When asked for an occupation that only required a high-school diploma, the audience was quick to respond with “improv performer.”

“Hey!” I said, a little heatedly, “I’ll have you know that I have a bachelor’s degree in Creative Writing!”

They seemed to find this even funnier.

Okay, so I kid a little bit. The performance wasn’t bad, the audience seemed to enjoy it, and the doctor who hosted the party extended every courtesy to us. He even joined us for a game of Sound Effects and made fantastic motorcycle noises (while he was trying to imitate an earthquake).

Still, though, I never thought I’d be so relieved to head back to our usual venue on Magna main, across from all the bars.

I'll See YOU On Broadway

I spent some time over the weekend at my parents' place - mainly because I simply HAD to take my mother up on her offer for a pizza dinner (if you'd ever had it, you'd know). Anyway, so I spent some time looking at the pictures my parents have on the wall. My parents have a little display for each of their children. So I saw:

1 - pictures of Joseph and his beautiful wife, Deborah
2 - pictures of Bryan and his beautiful wife, Patricia
3 - pictures of Robert, his beautiful wife, Allicia, and their beautiful daughter, Claire.
4 - pictures of me doing musical theater with a bunch of dudes.

I think my parents think I'm gay.

Wish I Said It First #1

Title's pretty self-explanatory: Every now and again I hear something funny/caustic (or both) that I WISH I'd thought of first. I'm gonna start keeping track of these quotes here, if you're interested. Just look for all entries with the WISIF header.

#1

"I'll put a bullet in your head and call it macaroni!"

The Nostalgia Critic, "The Top 12 Greatest Christmas Specials," http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/thatguywiththeglasses/nostalgia-critic/3226-top-12-greatest-christmas-specials

WARNING: Contains adult language.

Fever Dreams on Psycho Themes

You know what the worst part about being sick is? Well, besides the headaches, nausea, fevers, dizzy spells, backaches, joint pains, and diminished energy? To me, it’s the weirdo dreams you get.

Here are the four I got during this last illness that I’m just now getting over:

1 – I was involved in some type of battle, where the position I took while sleeping in bed somehow correlated to my defense against the enemy attacks. For example, if I were to lay on my back like I normally do, the enemy would not be able to attack me from a certain direction. However, if they decided to come at me from the side, I had to shift my position (say, curled up on my left side) to counter their attack. So I spent the entire night twisting my superficially-sleeping body into various Tetris shapes.

I wish I could be more descriptive than that – it was a pretty surreal dream. I remember that, somehow, I was both commanding the battle from the trenches in army fatigues AND lying in bed in my pajamas. Not only that, but whenever I got up during the night and went back to bed, the EXACT SAME DREAM picked up right where it left off. And that happened about six or seven times (it was a bad night).

The weirdest part, though, is that I had the exact same dream the LAST time I got sick way back in April. I haven’t the faintest idea what it means, but I think somebody ought to notify Nintendo that Tetris Wars would be a pretty awesome game.

2 – I had to fight off a demon that had somehow taken up residence in my apartment. When I say “demon,” I’m not referring to a Legion-type swine-possessor, but rather a Doom-3 monstrosity, with skin the color of bad teeth and the face of Gilbert Gottfried. This particular demon made dolls out of people’s heads. I saw three heads just lying in the gutter outside my apartment, and, instead of being horrified, I idly wondered why the demon decided not to make dolls out of THOSE.

Anyway, for some reason, my shotgun didn’t hurt the demon at all (also, I had a shotgun). I retreated until I was able to locate a weapon better suited for combat, which I eventually found: a plastic pitchfork, the kind you use for your six-year-old boy’s devil costume. I found the pitchfork in a dumpster. In fact, I actually passed over three or four other pitchforks, because they weren’t sufficiently “cool.”

End of dream (I don’t actually know if the plastic pitchfork hurt the monster). On to number 3.

3 – My parents invited The Jesters Royale, the improv comedy team I’m a member of, to perform in the street in front of their house. I created a character for one scene named “Chunk-a-lunk.” He was supposed to be a caveman, but, for some reason, I was wearing a costume consisting of blue overalls with bright, colorful patches on the knees and (ahem) posterior and a yellow shirt.

Now that I’m awake, I realize that the outfit I wore in the dream was actually a costume I had to use during my high school’s production of the musical Li’l Abner, wherein I played a very unhygienic hillbilly… which is almost like a caveman.

4 - I've just woken up, and I'm washing my face in the bathroom sink as I'm getting ready for work. When I pull my hands away from my face, I'm actually holding bits of my face in my hands. I have two eyes in my hands, completely hollow (and blue, even though my eyes are brown), and also my upper lip, and bits of hair from the top of my head and from my moustache.

When I look up at the mirror, I see that I still have eyes in my head, but the hair from my face actually came all the way off. There's still a little bit of hair left on my upper lip, but there's very little of it, and it's all long, like mouse whiskers. And the hair from my head didn't come off from the lowest part but, about an inch above my hairline, I know have a perfect crescent-moon bald spot, slightly fough, like what happens a few hours after your shave.


So, on the one hand, these dreams have me TOTALLY freaked out (except for "Chunk-a-lunk." I may actually decide to pull that character out for an improv show one day - I'll find a better outfit). On the other hand, though, I think I might have some potential as a horror writer. In your stupid face, Clive Barker!