Analogy Whore and Ringmaster

Analogy Whore 

This title is an analogy; fuck me. I tend to dislike too many analogies in writing, but damn do I like making them myself [see passage below, and this whole rant]. I’m so bad at it - like I was going to name the passage below Lord of the Love, but realized I’d have to kill myself for doing something like that. But I love them because what better way to describe a shitty day than comparing it to the watching Grown Ups 2 on repeat for five years straight or saying “it was like smashing my dick between two bricks.” What’s a nicer way to tell your Mom her cat exploded? Letting her know the gory details or comparing it to a flower blossoming. I’d go with the later and maybe talk more about the happy flower shit than the mess of cat hair and guts all over the carport.

Ringmaster 

I miss companionship, embrace and ultimately love, but I have a problem of dealing with its presence too. Love’s warming touch comes with anxiety that its potency may fade or embrace may be shared with others. To love unconditionally: that’s my quest. However, in this pursuit, I've only drove myself and those willing to take the journey with me completely crazy. I’ve garnered trust, wholeheartedness, and pure love from others, but have not been able to return the favor. I doubt and behave outlandishly, making claims on irrational futuristic thoughts. Sitting on the fence waiting for it to break. I’m now officially a member of the circus I shied away from so long. But I guess knowing is power, and I plan to get better at this. Maybe one day I’ll be the ringmaster and not the hungry lion.

The Worst DJ and The Result of Too Many Rom-Coms

The Worst DJ

It’s easy to be a good DJ, but it’s even easier to be a bad one. I’m talking about playing all the right songs at all the wrong times. Spinnin’ the Thong Song at Little Timmy’s communion or droppin’ the 1998 hit single from Will Smith, Miami in Miami. This is the road to being a bad DJ, but why stop there when you can be so much worse. Yep, it’s finally time to bust out that wolf coat and dad cologne to dress the part. Maybe become a dread head or get a perm; hair-do or don’t. It’s all part of your funk and it smells so bad. Similarly, it’s time to work on those moves. Yeah, you’ve got the wave, but what about the tsunami? Take a splash with a quick dip and plug your nose, or throw callbacks to all your favorite movie bust-a-moves (Pee Wee tequila dance ya’ll). Don’t spin records, spin CDs and hit on every girl you see. You're doing great, but don’t forget to keep asking the crowd to bring you a jagerbomb.

The Result of Too Many Rom-Coms

How does it happen? A random bump, some snuggling, and then living with the ones we think are right. Is it trial and error or just giving up? Finally settling and giving into mediocrity with the mindset that it’s better than being alone. We stitch the patterns we hate. It could be better, but we compromise on the one thing that we have all the say in - love. It doesn't have to be like that. Romance is not dead; it’s still breathing. It’s reaching out for your hand with its trembling one, but it’s exhausted and tired. Not from waiting, but from trying.

Top Tens and A Twist of Fate

Top Tens
I know I'm a little late to this party, but here's my top tens.  If it makes you feel better, I wrote them up several weeks ago and have been carrying them around in my right coat pocket along side an eye-patch, chapstick, and loose coffee beans.

Movies
1. The Master
2. Silver Linings Playbook
3. Anna Karenina
4. Beast of the Southern Wild
5. Skyfall
6. Looper
7. Life of Pie
8.Project X
9. Prometheus
10. Moonrise Kingdom
Still need to see: Les Miserables, The Session, Holy Motors, Beyond the Black Rainbow, To The Wonder

Music
1. Mixtapes
2. Wild Nothing
3. Hot Chip
4. Eternal Summers
5. Japandroids
6. Ravonettes EP + Dum Dum Girls EP (I know this is cheating, but go fuck yourself)
7. Chairlift
8. Ice Choir
9. Teenage Botttlerocket
10. Title Fight

Honerable Mention: Gaslight Anthem, Menzingers, Cheap Girls, Titus Adronicus, Fidler, Tamaryn, Frankie Rose

Favorite song playlist:
http://open.spotify.com/user/kingfunk/playlist/7r3JhMimgXhW6fygEuKltP


A Twist of Fate

I've never understood it, but one word can completely change a situation (or warp it).  For some, one word makes outcomes become switchable, actions seem tangible, and motives logical.  Maybe cinema is the one to blame, where hours are stressed to come up with that one heart-throbbing phrase.  I think people blur the line between fantasy and reality.  I think people expect too much.  Not all humans are created equal. Our differences are what make our species unique.  Some stay focus, while some digress.  Some talk fast and on-queue, and other's best ideas are moments behind their time.  It's the total package that should matter, not the wrapping paper.  Don’t fall in love with someone by the twist of their tongue; fall in love with someone by the sum of their parts.

Booze Clues and Ballet

Booze Clues
I'm working on a new short called Booze Clues.   Here's a small sample of it transcribed into a narrative.

It's Sunday morning, Anthony wakes up on a couch half his size and a head throbbing something awful.  First thoughts are a series of questions: what time is it, where am I and what happened last night.  It's time to play a game of booze clues.  First clue, the phone.  Now, where the hell is the phone?  Back pocket, no.  Front pocket, no.  Anthony scans the room, only to be paralyzed by the shock that he's lost his vision, and then moments later realizes his glasses are not on.  Finding them stuck to the side of his hip, he rescans the room.  Nope, no phone in sight.  Sitting up, he realizes the vacuum-like presence of the couch. Tearing it part, removing one overstuffed cushion after the next, the black hole nature of the couch starts to reveal all the poor saps it's consumed over the years.  Toys, monopoly money, real money, lots of hair, and yes, his phone.  Now he's got the evidence for the next set of questions: who did he call and what kind of crazy shit did he text.  Jane, Judy, Rosie, yep,  he had a typical liquored up, horndog agenda.  Wait, those are all characters off the The Jetsons, maybe he had two agendas.  Regretting a lot of stuff, he decides it's time to get up and find out where the fuck he is.  Clue two, the house.


Ballet
Everybody has got something that just works for them.  For me, it's ballet. I love ballet.  It opens up new doors and speaks directly to me.  It defines love, and it's the closest thing to perfection I've ever known. Ballet is a language that transcends the delinquency of reality by creating an isolated alternative between the dancer and its viewer.  For the dancer, each move, from grand-plie' to demi-pointe, visualize brush strokes of color on a canvas of sound.  And for each viewer, a different image is painted.  That's the beauty of it all.  There is no wrong; there is no right.  There is just the truth that unfolds for each individual.  As one act takes place on stage, another takes place in the mind.  Every detail, from cosmetics to choreography, intermingle with thoughts already present and adapts accordingly to each of their needs.  Each step, each note, mold into answers to solve riddles once neglected.  It's magically wonderful.

Here's one of my favorites, a scene from The Red Shoes.  It's a performance of the play The Red Shoes, which is an adaptation of a fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen.

And here's the opening scene of Pina Bausch take on Stravinky's Rite of Spring.

Summer Camps and Cyclic Love

Summer Camps
I never went to a summer camp.  I remember begging my parents to let me go, but they would not hear anything of it.  Maybe it got in the way of our family vacations, or maybe it got in the way of yard work my dad had planned for me.  Anyways, I feel like I missed out on a lot of adolescent development. Yes, I agree there is a natural course for things to work themselves out, but a catalyst would have always been welcomed. Even if it was an atomic wedgie or getting tea-bagged by the counselor. Maturity comes in many forms, from second base with Becky to victoriously climbing the tallest tree, then falling out and breaking your arm.  It comes with pain, embarrassment and glory.  Camp offers a healthy dose of all these things.

Anyways, I'm currently working on a new script with a friend and it's about summer camps. Since I've never gone to one, I've had to research. Watching movies, playing pranks on co-workers, and referencing vocabulary that just doesn't register for the average adult.  It's been a fun trip, and I'm still enjoying it.  For a preview, I've added a short description of two of the many characters I'm currently shaping.  Also if you have any good camp stories, please post them!!

Maggie:
She's 12 years old and idolizes her older sister.  She watches her everyday, jealous of her stage 4 areolas and punk rock shirts.  She's a rebel at heart too.  She wants to meet people outside her boring town; cool people just like her sister.  She finds out about summer camps. Here's a place she can fit right in with the older girls without her sister standing in the way. She'll mature, and learn all the Ins and Outs of boys and their ways.  Camp starts, but not everything goes according to plan.  She tie-dies things when she gets upset.

Simon:
Simon is your typical nerdy guy.  Fluent in obscure alien languages and pre-cuts his underwear before heading to school.  He finds out about a camp outside of town where he might have a chance to be cool.  He signs up, starts working out, and gets immediately ridiculed the first day of camp.  His best friend gets taken under the wing of one of the jock and becomes a bully. Simon learns a lot about himself, even gets some action.  His big comeback involves challenging the biggest jock to a game of ping-pong, one game that nerds can succeed.


Cyclic Love
It all started with a kid's game.  That game where you pick up a beautiful flower and remove the pedals merrily chanting "They love me, they love me not".  Slowly, one pedal at a time, the flower is transformed into a useless weed, lost of desire and enchantment. It was at the early age of eight or so we started preparing ourselves for a vicious cycle we did not quite understand.  How everything starts with a bang and ends with a crash.  A type of cyclic love, flower to flower.  It begins with something great, several weeks of excitement and getting to know each other.  This is very similar to the blooming of a flower in the Spring.  Then something happens, you either settle, and plant your roots, or start looking for faults.  And one by one, contemplating love and hate,  you pluck away until you have no beauty left. "They love me, they love me not".

Romance and World Music

What happened to romance?  Did it die, or do I still misunderstand it?  I feel like today's romance is a drunk girl in a bar.  I want more.  Maybe I listen to too much shoegaze; I do.  Maybe I watch too many sappy romance flicks, check.  I'm sorry, but I want what these mediums portray.  A happy couple, through good and bad, living together, leaning together, and talking through the difficult parts.  A tub of popcorn and a cheesy movie, that's my kind of date night!  Sex gets old, real quick.  Sometimes I'd rather just jack off; I know myself better than anybody.  Every time I date a girl, I grow farther and farther apart from this so called "romance".  I'm losing touch, and that scares me.  I don't want to become apathetic, I want to feel something real.  I don't mind crying, but I haven't done it in years.  I'm feeling a bit empty.  A bit deserted.  I've never told a girl I love her, and I'm scared I won't be able to when I find her.

Indie folk, world music, whatever the fuck people call it, sucks real bad live.  I'm talking about those bullshit bands that show up at a photo shoot with a ukulele and some African tribe getup.  Beurit or Gogol Bordello are good examples.  I've seen both live at Bonnaroo, and it was just as I expected.  Slow, boring and pretentious.  "No, our band is far better and more advant-garde than any other band in the land, and we'll prove it with an overabundance of brass and tambourine players."  These bands also seem to be a callout, or maybe it was the triangle dinner-bell they were playing, to all the hippies at the festival.  Here they come, with their hula-hoops and dirty skirts, marching away from their nesting tree in an unbathed routine that can only be described as communal.  Yeah, all a hot summer day needs is more stinky people.  As soon as this gathering arrives they move from foot to mexican blankets, unknowingly knitted by kids in a factory.  During one show, a girl looks at me and notices my grim disposition. "Aren't they great?"  No chick, they are not great I explain.  No chick, they only sound good cause you're on drugs, I explain.


I probably shouldn't be writing to the internet when I get real drunk alone.

Picture of day and new favorite meme.