Seth in Chicago’s blog

Wow, more than a half year later I am finally willing to blog about something. 

So for those of you who don't know Mike Doughty is out on tour again doing his:

 QUESTION JAR SHOW
Mike plays requests, new songs, and answers questions from The Question Jar!
For more info hit this link http://www.mikedoughty.com/

This was like a Live Juke box experience. 

Mike would sit up there on stage with his buddy "Scrap" and play songs that people shouted out.  At least half the show was done through shout outs.  In between songs he'd pull question the audience had written down out of a pitcher (he had left "the Jar" someplace in Minneapolis) and answer the most absurd things. 

"What is you worst recurring nightmare?"
"What was the kinkiest thing you ever did in a cab?"
"Would you take our 2 year old on tour with you?"
"If for the next 100 years you could be a tree or the ocean which would you pick?" 
"How much money did you make last year?"   
"Which of your songs is most likely to have Satanic lyrics if you play it backwards?" (ok this one was mine but never got answered)

AND HE ANSWERED EVERYTHING!  The man has no shame.  Some funny, funny stuff.

The show went on for over 2 hours and just rampled in every direction but it was a good time had by all.

Go Mike.  Your truth keeps marching on.

Doughty

And that friends is the complete and total truth of things. 

Taxes suck because if you are and independent contractor like me you need to pay them every quarter and then at the beginning of next year when you see your tax guy you are told you need to pay MORE because obviously the government has a better idea about how to spend my money than I do.   

Taxes suck because it is money you worked all year breaking your back to make and then you got to just give it away to the monkey farm we call a government. 

I'm pretty sure these guys couldn't stick to a budget if you lit them on fire every time they overspent. 

Now if I go over budget and don't pay my taxes what happens?  I get in crap load of trouble, fined and possible arrested. 

If our government goes over budget? - Nada!  The monkeys pass another bill saying the giant debt exploding over our heads is just fine, thanks and we'll get to it the next year after never.

So anyway - I would like to borrow a page from their book and sponsor the "Blog Relief Taxes Suck Bill" that everyone on the Internet can sign with me and we can email it in.  This bill says:

We the people of the Internet have decided that Taxes do indeed suck and we agree to ignore this years giant debt we owe, that everything is fine thank you and we will pay the monkey farm our tab just as soon as they can spend one year coming in on budget!

SO SAY WE ALL?! 

I know I should be writing something for the blog-o-sphere but it's kinda late and I'm tired and sometimes you'd just rather look at a picture of your kid more than anything else in the world and these are some good shots. 

Aaron the Skatter dude in his ramons T-shirt.- COME ON!   That's a classic right there! 

besides - they say a picture is worth . . .

So, my buddy Ed sent me the first part of this story based off one of Kelly-sue's Exercises and then he had me picked it up and take it a little further and now I'm asking if anyone out there wants to finish it or write another leg?

+++++++

It was 1964. Mort Knieldman sat in his livingroom debating if he should wait out the umpteenth appearance of Topogigio on the Sullivan show, or go to the kitchen now and fix that sandwich before the Beatles came on. He opted for the sandwich, and so schlepped his 340 pound frame to the fridge. The linolium was looking tired, no doubt beat down from his punishing weight. He opened the fridge and took stock of what he had: Heinz pickles, Wonder bread, Oscar Meyer sliced bologna, and a half of a can of Spam hiding behind his next door neighbor Tim Johnson's severed head.

As he reached back for the Spam, he considered his neighbor's head. It really looked a lot bigger divorced from its body. And this got Mort wondering... Was his own head bigger than he thought? Mort pulled Tim's head, sitting in a Jello bowl, out of the fridge and brought him to the window over the sink. It was dark out, and the window made for a good reflection, since Mort didn't want to drag Tim's head all the way to the bathroom. Their heads looked to be the same size. Mort got out the black table cloth, the one Momma loved to use for Thanksgiving dinner, and unfolded enough of it to cover the torso part of his reflection. Then he stuffed in his collar like a napkin, and his body's reflection in the window disappeared. He then compared his head to Tim's again. There was no doubt. Tim had a much bigger head. It was just like when he was alive. A know-it-all pain in the butt, who always thought he was right. That is, until the day he got a bit to close Mort's garden sheers while screaming at him about the noise that came out of his basement every night. Stupid know-it-all.

What Mort did in his basement everynight was his business, and it didn't matter none how much noise was coming out of his own damn house. Mort considered the basement a moment, and look of joy spread across his face like the tide on a shore after the moon lets it go.

Mort was in the basement before he realized he was still holding Tim's severed head. He panicked a moment, then realized it was probably okay on account of Mort being dead and all. He placed the jello mold on the bench and carefully removed a drape over the object on his work bench. His Giant Robot was almost complete. He just needed transistors and vacum tubes.

"What a ya think of that?" he asked Tim's head.

+++++++++++++  (Okay, you take it, SETH) +++++++

Tim’s head just stared.  Dead eyes flat in the dark.  Of course that’s what it did.  What else was a severed, rotting head supposed to do?

Mort lifted Tim’s head in one hand and climbed his ladder to the top of his creation.  He plopped Tim’s fat head onto the protruding wires and plugs at the top of Robot’s cylindrical neck and screwed down.

Mort smiled. 

“I was going to do something a little more silver and gold with horns but what the hell, a good artist works with what he’s got on hand, right Timmy-boy?”  Mort tweaked the head’s nose.  “And you don’t get more on hand then you right now, do ya?”

Mort went about his tinkering, lost in his machine.  This was what he lived for.  This was what he did each night to make his shit eating day job disappear.  He worked on his revenge machine.  The machine that one day he would ride into the Jersey Central Power and Light Companies main plant at Oyster Creek and go on a rampage with. 

A last set of vacuum tubes fitted neatly into place.  The final row of transistor clicked together, a perfect fit.  Mort caressed his machine – following the running wires throughout the system with his finger tips.  He checked and rechecked a couple key connections. 

Since there was no longer a neighbor around to complain about the noise Mort fired up the Ford Falcon motor that ran his ‘bot.  The V8 engine growled to life and sent a soft vibration throughout the machine. 

Mort grinned, flashing a mouthful of yellow teeth.  He ran his hand up and across his crotch several times – getting more and more aroused as he worked.

“You better keep it down over there, you son of a bitch” Mort growled at the head, doing his best Timmy-boy impersonation. “If I gotta come down in your basement and make you stop all the God-awful noise, I swear to Jesus you’re gonna regret it, Mortimer.” 

Mort snickered a mean little sound.  He pinched the nose again, harder this time “Oh yeah, well who’s regretting it now you fat headed prick?”

Things happen.  When you mess with science you don’t completely understand.  When you do things like put recently severed heads on the top of giant robots.  Things happen sometimes - and that was what Mort was about to learn.

A shutter ran through the robots body – soft at first but then violent all at once.  Mort shook loose from his ladder; he slid down a few steps, stumbled and fell.  The ladder toppled over him bumping him on the noggin. 

Mort swore and rocked back on his elbows.  He glared up at his creation and kicked one of its tank treads hurting his foot.

“You stupid hunk of crap – you did that on purpose, didn’t you?!”

And then Tim’s head – Tim’s severed, decomposing completely dead head – did something it should not have been able to do.  Something it didn’t do last time Mort asked it a question. 

It opened its dead mouth and answered.

KELLi KINT

The hardest part was listening to the alarms.

You’re in that room and all those sounds constantly coming at you – It – it - Because you don’t know what everything means - the beeps and pings.  And the nurses, they just go about their business.  I don’t know how they do it. 

Terry – she was the one that ran things - she told me you just get used to it.  That each sound is a reminder of life but I never got that until now.  Every time I heard one of those alarms I had to fight not to cry. 

(Beat)

19 Weeks.  You were born 19 weeks early and weighed only 2 pounds, Abigail - My little fighter.

 (Beat)

I was so dumb. Your mommy was still working and under so much pressure.  All I could think of was that stupid job and how much work I had to do.  The stress.  If I had known – known what it was doing . . .

(Pause)

Labor came and it was sudden - short.  I was in such denial at first because everything was happening too soon.  They barely had time to get me into the O.R., and then the doctor took you from me before I could even hold you – you can’t know what that was like.  Seeing you in an incubator where a machine - a MACHINE dribbled milk into your stomach through a tube they ran through your nose.

(Beat)

Those nights . . . sitting in that room.

You’d forget to breathe – just stop - and one of those alarms would sound and I thought – thought –

(Beat)

But then a nurse would tickle your feet and you’d pull in some air and everything was alright, again.

Every day – Every day for over a month I would go there and watch you forget how to live and without fail – a bell would sound and one of those nurses or doctors would show up and reminder you how.

It was boot camp, that’s what it was. Baby boot camp.  They trained you to fight – Fight to breathe, fight to sleep, fight to eat.  They taught you how to live until you were ready to come home. 

Home, Abby.  This is your home.

(Beat)

And it is sooo silent.  

(Beat)

That room – those alarms – they were a reminder of life.  I never got that until now.

+++++++++++++++++++++++

Thanks Kelly for the writing exercise - Now anyone else want to take a turn? -- pick a year and paint me a picture of something that happened on this day in that year.
 

I read somewhere - the Artist's way, I think - that the universe has 1000 unseen hands working to help you achieve your goals.  If you wish something, if you put it out there that you want to become a Shuttle pilot or whatever, the universe will conspire to help you.  That the world around us is always trying to give us what we desire most and the only thing we really need to do - is let it.

I like the sound of that.  Really, I do.  But then I also like the way those emails I get from that guy in Nigeria sound about sending me 3 million dollars if only I'll wire him 6% up front to cover the tax cost.

Now - the hands you DO SEE - that is another matter entirely. 

Since I started this blog and more recently since I actually went so far as to TELL people about it (or, really, email them about it, I guess) I have had around two dozen or so good pushes in the back not to mention a few swift kicks in the arse encouraging me. 

My friends want me to write.  Write more.  Write anything.  They remind me that I CAN DO THIS. I've done it before.  It all comes down to something very simple: 

WRITE
ONE
WORD
AT
A
TIME 

AND THAT I do have a lot of faith in. 

So thank you one and all for what you emailed me.  The pep talks. the reminders.  The stories of how I helped you write something once upon a time.  The understanding.

Thanks also to those of you who decided to jump in and blog with me on this site or invited me to come look at your blog somewhere else.

I NEED THE HELP RIGHT NOW.
And I am not too proud to admit it. 

So. . .  anyone got any good writing excerises or assignments they want to give me?

I'm up for it.

I''ve never been asked to stand up at any wedding other then my brothers and he had to ask me to because, well, he IS my brother.  So, you know, I would have been honored to even be an usher at my best friends wedding.  Hand to God I would have.

But is that' what Rob asked me to do?  NOOOOOO

My best Amigo since 8th grade, with his fiances blessing (which really blows my mind) asked me to MARRY THEM.  I laughed so hard when he first asked me I dropped the phone.  But then he kept on asking me.  I figured he'd think better of it later on down the line or at least Annette would wake up and put her foot down. 

So time past as time does and then past some more and no one changed their minds.  In fact Rob & Annette kept asking me how my cerimony was coming.

Cerimony?  Oh crap, you mean I really gotta do this?

In December I realized I probably should get ordained or else I'd be in big trouble so in about 20 minutes I went online and clicked my way towards the higher power.

http://www.universalministries.com/doctrine.html

Ain't the internet amazing? 

Not sure what else to say about the experience other then it was sureal and one of the single greatest honors of my life. 

Right now the newly weds are living it up in NY on their honeymoon and I'm sure having a lovely old time.

Rob & Annette - if you ever read this silly little blog - May the wind always be at your back.  May your days together be good and long and true. 

Thank you for letting me send you off into the world together.

I don't know where I am.

I don't know where I'm going.

I'm just moving my feet. 

I'm just walking right now.

I can see my breath. Thin exhales of air. There for a moment and then gone.

I do not know this place.

How did I come here?

How do I move on?

I keep walking but nothing I see looks like home anymore.

Been trying to decide if I should tell some friends I've joined the Vox blog army or if I should keep typing into the void hoping some bored surfer reads one of my postings and connects with it.  

 My wife says there MIGHT people out there in internet land reading this but I doubt it. 

 Still. . . .

Anyone out there?  Anyone?   What would you do?  Keep the secret or tell the world?  Go ahead - comment - Your vote matters - You're probably the only person reading this!

I used to write. 

No, really - I did. 

There was a time in my life where I did it almost everyday.  I'd write in a journal or at the computer.  Pen out these little stories.  about 150 short play.  maybe 10 or 11 long plays.  More short scenes then you could shake a stick at.  Seven Screenplays.  about as many Teleplays.  There were a few poems in there.  And of course I could always bang out a letter to a friend who was far away.  Ok, so I never got around to the great American novel but, then again, that was never my really my thing.

I used to write. 

I got PAID to write. 

I got published.  Go ahead, search then web for my plays, you will find them with at least 4 different publishing companies.  I got something on network TV once too.  I'd tell you what show it was but the truth is I HATED the experience and the staff writers there butchered the hell out of my little script.  

I used to believe writing was part of my DNA.

So what happened?

I sit down at the computer now and I can't even hack out 20 minutes anymore. If I get 3 journal pages done in a week its a banner event.  The blank page is still there but I just don't seem to have the time or energy left in me to go and scribble my little words on it.  In fact, that blankness just kinda scares the crap out of me!  It makes me wish for a remote control and a the toasty warm vapidness of a Sienfeld episode to disappear into.

Now, while I'm frackin' mired in this long dry creative creative desert,  my buddy (who is something of a TV Sci-Fi cult idle) has asked me to put together some pitches for him to take to the Sci-Fi channel next month and I can even seem to get going. 

I'm looking for a clue here.  How do I turn the damn light back on?