Tagged: writer

A Million Little Boxes – a work story (excerpt).

The trials of being me:
 “Damn, a year’s already gone by.”
“Fuck, I really can’t believe I’ve wasted two whole years at this place.”

“Yo, please kill me if I make the three year mark.”

“Hey man, for real, throw me off a fucking bridge if I make it here four years.”

“Like seriously dude, something’s seriously wrong with me if I make it to five years.”

“Wow, three months from now will be my six year mark.” 

“Well I’ll be damned. Six fucking years.”

So begins the current situation. Keyboard clicks, telephones ringing, clunky fax machines humming their disjointed rhythms, random chatter, overcooked professionalism, clichéd power phrases, false motivation, no incentives, wilted prospects, dried up ambitions, phony smiles, fake promises, and utter loss of concentration await. Deep breaths.

SaturdayDreaming – The Unique Power of Film and Television.

This SaturdayDreaming installment just so happens to be my very first post on this blog, penned waaaaay back in 2009.  It’s been a fun ride.  Hope you enjoy, and happy Saturday! 

Film is in my blood. When I was a kid, my older brothers and I would literally cycle through the same batch of movies every single day after school. We would craftily rotate between current and old stuff based on the mood. For the hidden singer in us, we had classics like Grease and West Side Story on standby; for the action hero side of our imagination, we watched Excalibur and Total Recall. Here’s the kicker, though – we didn’t just watch these films; we became a part of them. I can recall many light-hearted arguments involving which characters we wanted to be in the movies that we saw (we each wanted to be the coolest character, of course).  

 We didn’t merely watch Bruce Lee annihilate Chuck Norris in the Colosseum; we were Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris duking it out kung-fu style that day. We didn’t just watch the suave Ludlow brothers of Legends of the Fall; we became the brothers (and of course, I was the coolest). So much of our childhood developed around the TV that we can, to this day, readily quote lines from films that clinically intertwine with our day-to- day conversations.
 

Not surprisingly, movies and television became our go to form of comedic self-expression. Our lives lit up watching A Different World, Yo! MTV Raps, and The Cosby Show. Much of our childhood unfolded alongside these larger than life characters doing larger than life activities. Sure, we created our own characters, and re-enacted our own daring adventures, but the television was the catalyst that thrust us into that imaginative void; that realm where dreams become reality, and thoughts and deeds transcend what’s perceived to be real.  

We weren’t couch potatoes either, I might add; our heroic deeds often spilled into the backyard, where we became mighty sporting heroes and dauntless explorers. In a weird way, movies and TV helped to mold and shape me into the man I am today. My artistic endeavors can all somehow be traced back to those freewheeling days huddled in front of the TV, dreaming about the tales and characters that were being projected into my psyche (and of course, I was the coolest one). 

The Passing At Highway 10, part 26.

BOOM…BOOM, the door thundered time and again. I only wished that it was thunder, although the rain still came down like a typhoon outside. The rattling of the door, the patter of the rain, and our heavy breathing were the only sounds in that kitchen. We were breathing like asthmatics, we were all so damn shattered. You know how it is in the movies, where the heroes are always calm and cool and kicking asses with expressionless faces? Yeah, it ain’t like that in real life. We sure didn’t look like Hollywood tough guys back there. That booming was working my brain into a frenzy, and I could feel its effects in the trembling of my hands. I’d been scared before, sure. Many times. But never like this. I guess it didn’t matter how many fuckers there were out there, as long as we could hold them off for as long as we could. It didn’t matter right now, the reasons, the meanings, the who’s, the why’s, or the what’s. All that mattered was making it until the morning. Shit, just making it through the next few hours. Fuck it, I thought…I’d rather be a sitting duck in here than somebody’s damn buffet out there. At least for a while…at least until we could figure this thing out. We need a plan. We need a plan, I kept telling myself. 
My mind raced as the three of us reached the cabinet at the same time, a heavy beast of old steel, and pushed our weight against it. I hadn’t even bothered to ask the other guy what his name was; my brain wasn’t processing courtesies, but I noticed his hands kept slipping off of the steel like they were coated in butter. Sweaty palms. “Push”, I whispered into the darkness, and we heaved and shoved inch by inch, foot by foot, until it reached the door. We gave it one last grunt for good measure. Hell, if it took three of us to drive this thing fifteen feet, then it was gonna take an army of those bastards outside to knock it down. I’d wanted to breathe a long, deep sigh of relief, but all I could muster was a stuttered few breaths. We did it though. The front doors were chained, and the back door was blocked. We were officially sitting…or dead…ducks. We held onto our weapons and made our way back to the bar.