Not Quite DiMaggio-Esque.

I had a pretty good streak of consecutive posts going there for a while. Unfortunately, I was felled by a very bad sinus infection yesterday and I literally couldn't sit up in my chair after 8pm. This, after 3.5 hours of intense Christmas shopping, which I have only completed to 70% satisfaction as I write this here from work.

Still, later tonight I'll post part three of the five part, exciting, thrilling, virtual page-turner "The Night They Killed Kansas." Before then, I'll remain sick.

Song recommendation: "Nausea" by Beck. Man, can that scientologist write and produce music or what?

Something So Simple.

That little voice in the back of your head more often than not conveys common sense, or things your parents taught you or vague recollections of moral fables you read in grade school. That little voice in the back of your head is the thing that stands behind you before you do something incredibly stupid or incredibly selfish and says, "Maybe not?"

Perhaps that little voice in the back of your head is more forceful than mine. Perhaps that big voice in the front of your head is less bullish and stubborn than mine. Perhaps I am reaching here and my construct of that little voice in the back of your head is pure poppycock.

That said, I have never been the guy who thinks before he speaks or otherwise acts. More often than not such behavior has led to little else than being labeled a jerk or an ass, or at the very least crass, but insightful. On rare occasion, my shooting-off-at-the-mouthery has damaged relationships. Not just the meaningful ones, either, but professional ones, too.

Without going into specifics, let me just say put it out there that I am very, very sorry little voice in the back of my head. I'm sorry for all the times I've flatly rejected you, even though I knew you were right. I'm sorry for all the times I disregarded you out of sheer not-hearing-you.

I always say I will try to do better the next time you speak up, but who knows if that's even possible. I'm 25. It's a medically proven fact that people become set in their ways by the time they're 4, so, I could very well be stuck. Then again, as Homer Simpson once said, "Statistics can be used to make up anything. Fourteen percent of all people know that."

What's that, little voice in the back of my head? It was a bad idea to write this vague post?

Touche.

Something to Blog About.

Part three and the concluding parts four and five of The Night They Killed Kansas will debut next week as I take the weekend to craft it. In the meantime, please enjoy some writerly advice that I prepared for an interested party. I'm no expert and this is just my general opinion of getting started that I've developed up to now. My grasp of the situation will obviously change as time progresses, so indulge a young man's thoughts on how to develop into a screenwriter.

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The first thing I can say is that you have to want to write. It's not something anyone can just pick up and be good at. Whatever your writing, whether it be stories, scripts, plays, novels, poetry, nonfiction, etc. the only way to improve at the craft (and that's what it is, a craft) is to rewrite and rewrite. Great scripts can go through as many as 10-12 drafts by a single writer. And a draft isn't considered just fixing punctuation and deleting scenes. Drafting is about refining, honing, improving. Like any made-up recipe, it takes time, practice and a little bit of luck to perfect. And oftentimes, a writer never feels like she/has has "finished" what they wrote.

So, on the most basic level, just start writing. Keep a journal. Start a blog. Write more letters.

You don't even need a "GREAT, AWESOME, SUPER-AMAZING IDEA" to start. You could just write about your eyelashes, if you wanted. Exercise like you would a muscle, strengthen it.
Then, you can start to figure out how to express yourself through stories. If you're looking to write a screenplay or something, the key to one is not just about the idea/storyline/plot/high concept, but also how you express yourself.

Professional writers achieve success by having something to say and saying it in their own special way. If you sequestered three writers in a room and asked them each to write a two page scene involving two cats and a furball, you'd probably have roughly the same setup of the scene, but different ways of expressing the idea. In other words, your characters don't have to all sound exactly like you, but each of them, in their own way (as they are their own unique characters) will speak your mind to the audience.

Then there's always the other stuff about dramatic conflict, plot dynamics, escalation, etc. which are all structural notes that give shape to your Big Idea. Conflict is the essence of drama. Comedy, too.

You can pick up any number of books about structure. Story by Robert McKee is a standard. But, if you are interested in writing, I say just start writing your thoughts down. Give yourself exercises and simple topics (like a teacher would assign an essay) and get to work on those. Really become confident in the notion that you could learn to be an even better writer before you tackle big time screenplays.

There are always classes and writers' groups and they're all helpful, particularly if your individual background lacks writing experience.

I'm sorry that your friend poo poos your ideas. It is easier to critique than to commend and easier to tear down ideas than encourage them, but, still, support will definitely make the process a lot easier.

If you have one or two movie ideas, I say develop your characters first and see how they fit in with your Big Idea. If you find that you want to have certain types of characters that don't jive with your Big Idea, then consider altering that Big Idea to fit your characters OR starting a new story altogether, one that will work better with the people you've created.

Running for More Yardage.

Hooray 49ers! Way to kick the Seahawks’ asses in that second half! My Niners are becoming quite the second half team. They’re still a couple of years away from seriously contending, but they might actually be making progress now that they can compete a little bit on the road. And God Bless Frank Gore. He was gifted with football talents, but not speaking skills.

Meanwhile, I am writing this with some possibly rancid cake in my stomach, so, watch out for possible signs of hallucination. Don’t call in a medical emergency or anything, but just be aware that the writing might suffer… or succeed…?

Anyway, this short will be a five-part series. Here’s part two.

THE NIGHT THEY KILLED KANSAS
- part two -

Beldon Sew saw what he wanted to see, but in this case his attempt to see a naked sophomore with an undiagnosed melanin deficiency on his bed was futile.

Veiny Boobs was gone and there was nothing he could do to bring her back.

Clearly, when a woman smacks the side of her head against a hardwood floor she loses the desire to get down with some friction, but Beldon couldn’t ignore his id’s opinion that she had overreacted. Accidents happen, but Natalie was not having any of him after she got a headache.

And he was so close to losing his virginity, too. And to a sophomore who had decided slumming it up was worth the possible ridicule she might endure from her classmates. What would her stoner friend Hydra think? What about her guy friend Chadwick, the guy he had seen her leave with at the food court?

Then Beldon considered the possibility that his chica blanca might have been cheating on a boyfriend. When she hit her head, she might have literally had some sense knocked into her. And as Beldon rubbed his hard-on, he thought about how used he would have felt to be just some random dude some chick cheated on her boyfriend with. He’d much rather he be used when both he and the girl in question were single, so as to create the possibility of future hook-ups. Also, losing his virginity on a one-night stand was, in his mind, a hallmark of useless people.

So, with the evening still in its infancy, Beldon ceased to fondle himself and contemplated his next move. There was always the basketball game. The Jayhawks were in town tonight and he knew he could always score a ticket in the student section, thanks to his friend Miranda who worked in the ticket office. But if he went to the basketball game, he knew his night would end in violent frustration.

In just a few months of college, he had already been to a dozen parties where virtually every person in his traveling group left with somebody else. He would either be the designated driver for these alcohol-aided winners or walk home a substance-free loser. His pride could not stand such crushing disappointment again, particularly after he had been so close to having sex for the first time not fifteen minutes earlier.

His other option was a LAN party held at his high school buddy Cole’s parents’ house. But Beldon didn’t want to play Warcraft, and for some reason, he was finding the name Cole to be exceedingly irksome tonight. Possibly because it’s a cool name held by a nerd bigger than himself. Beldon was a perfectly nerdy name and it never caused people to assume he was cool initially. Cole gets the benefit of the doubt but can’t help but annihilate that opinion soon after by asking people if they want to have a Battlestar Galactica marathon or something. But the first impression he caused people to have was that he was cool, whereas Beldon couldn’t escape the nerd label.

Now he could add loser to a growing list of labels. Some of his English 201 peeps called him “Weirdo,” the woman at the lunch counter called him “grabby” and the admissions officer who interviewed him over the telephone labeled him “aggressive.” Had he not been an aggressively grabby weirdo coming into tonight, he might have escaped being called a loser and he might have gotten his sex on, too.

Very quickly, Beldon was swinging back in favor of the LAN party. He had made himself depressed after analyzing his situation. When he found a strand of Natalie’s long brown hair on his pillow, he knew that 12 consecutive hours of living in a virtual world would be the only anesthesia to take away this pain he was feeling.

He hopped off the bed and looked for his lucky hat. The last time he wore it he had kicked Cole’s faux cool ass back to the Stone Age in Half Life. Tonight, he would make him cry. But when Bolden found his lucky cap on the floor next to his television, he realized that her purse wasn’t the only thing Natalie had taken with her when she left.

As he put on his Orioles' cap backwards, he remembered that she had brought a digital camera with her. He had intended to ask her about it, but when he caught a glimpse of her thong, his mind turned to lust. But, yeah, there had been a camera on top of the TV next to her purse, and that’s how is hat must have ended up on the floor.

Did that mean she had recorded their encounter? Why?

Desperate to have these answers, he jumped in front of his computer and Googled her name. The search criteria pulled up over 7,900 entries, so, he changed the search to include the name Hydra. He pressed enter.

And then he saw what the night was really all about.

Natalie and Hydra had recently won a case in small claims court against a gay porn website that had laid claim to the domain name www.virgincollegeboys.com. But according to the website’s Legal Notice link, Natalie and Hydra’s company Girl Entrepreneurs, LLC was the first to submit a bid to the web squatter who had initially registered the domain. Their legal link went on to say that the website was now able to produce weekly content for its paying customers. A click on the homepage revealed Veiny Boobs’ intentions: she somehow knew Beldon was a virgin and planned to record his first time to post on her website.

But even though Beldon should have been relieved that he and Natalie never copulated, he knew that his first, awkward fuck could not top what Natalie’s camera had actually recorded after she hit her head.

An Attempt At Sucking Less.

With site traffic at an all-time low, I thought I’d try and post something more interesting than my random thoughts and news items and try something a little more fictitious. Maybe web surfers like stories. Maybe…?

Anyway, this was written on the fly. Trash it in the comment section below.

THE NIGHT THEY KILLED KANSAS

- part one -

Beldon Sew saw what he wanted to see.

In this case, he ignored the fact that Natalie, while cute and petite, was nevertheless as pale as chalk, her pallor invalidating her sizably attractive bosom by exposing her veins. The first time he met her, he labeled her Veiny Boobs in his head. On this Saturday night, he could not remember the silly name he had given this ghost-white girl who now straddled him.

They had met the previous weekend through one of his English 201 classmates. She was enjoying a malted in the Student Union, while her improbably named friend Hydra tried to score a dimebag from his classmate. Beldon didn’t care for drugs and was annoyed that after all the overachieving he accomplished in high school just so he could start college as a Sophomore he still wound up in a class full of people beneath him. Still, the drug transaction did give him a reason to walk away and strike up a conversation with Natalie.

She was like any other girl at Oral Roberts: vanilla, suburban chic, and a double major in Nursing and Theology, the only double major you could have if you were in the Nursing Program. Beldon considered that she was only interested in obtaining her M-R-S Degree, but dismissed such thoughts in favor of busting her hymen. He figured her for a virgin when she demurred at the concept of teabagging. But as she staked her claim atop him, Beldon considered that his initial impression of her may have been false.

“What are your intentions?” she demanded.

His brother London once told him that the more of a fuckface you are to a female, the more likely she is to bear your children. While putting a baby in her belly wasn’t on his list of priorities, Beldon did want this girl’s attention for the near future. So, he put that brotherly advice to good use.

“Depends on which one of you I can have: Curious Coed or Sultry Slut?”

“You think I’m a slut, do you?” she asked, as she pushed against him. He tried to conjure up more douchey, asshole-ish things to say to her, but found it difficult to come up with new ideas in the face of increasing brain blood loss.

He grew uncomfortable as she grinded her pelvis against his jeans. The button and the zipper pressed down against his crotch. Beldon feared his pubes would get caught.

Then she tickled him.

It was like the murder of Franz Ferdinand. His nervous system kicked into World War I mode. He had to get Natalie, Veiny Boobs, whatever off of him. He had to stop the tickling. Tickling caused him to revert to a fetal ball of rattled nerves. Veiny Boobs’ skillful dodging of Beldon’s arms and legs allowed the assault to continue. He could not escape. He was on his way to that baby ball and that would be the end of his night.

He’d never lose his virginity that way.

But if he were an asshole, he’d have a fighting chance to salvage the night. So he did the only thing he could think of through the fracas. He bucked her off him and onto the floor. She hit the hardwood with a thud.

The Most Esteem-Crushing News Ever.

Holy shite-balls.

Condoms for Indian males are too small. And this is news. The worst part? Newspapers in India have headlines such as "Indian Men Don't Measure Up."

I guess this is men's comeuppance for all the years of "Woman Nags Herself to Death," "You'll Never Be Pretty Enough," and "Face It Ladies: He's Just Not That Into Hindu" headlines from the past.

Seriously, this is devastating, especially for the younger guys. India's trying to control it's HIV infection rate, and separting the would-be carriers from their self-esteem is the exact wrong thing to have happen.

Two possible side effects from this news: (1) more HIV infections due to men being too prideful/ashamed to wear condoms or (2) people stop having sex. India's population is already in the eleventy billions, so, I doubt they'd see the effects of this for several thousand years, but, suffice it to say pride has led to the destruction of many things, one of which has been civilization.

**And, yes, I realize I got this in just under deadline. I have another coming very shortly.**

40 Hours of Sleep.

Oh, if only sleep could be accumulated. Imagine the possibilities. Imagine the productivity. Imagine the compounded interest.

Parents could spend more time with their newborns, students would be able to cram the night before, provided they slept in all day the previous Sunday because of their hangover, and beauty sleep could be postponed for the ugliness of wakey-tude.

I haven't worked out the DNA for all this yet, but I would say that if sleep were cumulative, you wouldn't be cranky if you went 48 consecutive hours without sleep provided you slept 12-16 hours previous to then. I would not be agitated by not being able to grip my dental floss right now. I would not find the sense of sound, touch and sight to be so grating on my every nerve.

Looking ahead, I think the possibility of starting a family is the biggest threat to my sleep time. Those in the know are aware that I sleep longer than doctor-prescribed hours and stay awake for long stretches. My sleep habits are pretty well established, so, in the event there's a baby to raise somewhere down the line, I don't want those first 6 months to be harrowing in the sense that if the baby's crying I won't be able to hear her/him and mommy won't be able to roust me out of bed. I'd like to have the opportunity to fail as a father in a conscious state, preferrably by speaking before I think (rather than drop the kid), and preferrably with a son, as most serial killers only have Mother issues and daughters tend to become exotic dancers or Paris Hilton if they have Daddy issues.

So, knowing all that, I should probably get to sleep and rest up for whatever comes my way.