Write Procrastinator's World

It's really apples and oranges, or apparently, iPods and Elmos. Somehow, the new "TMX Elmo, maybe a rival to the iPod for this holiday season's most in-demand gift.

Of course, the story that the headlines somehow managed to neglect is the failure of the "Tickle Me Procrastinator." You tickle him and maybe he laughs.

Maybe he won't...










...he will, however, get back to you on it...






Eventually...






Maybe not.

A Pause For One Of My Favorite Causes

Katie asked me to post this. Hey, anything to prevent breast cancer!

Pay No Attention To That Room Behind The Curtain

In response to this post, my wife posted this...

"Well, this explains why I got stapled to the wall of our kitchen the other day ... i guess i haven't learned my lesson yet :)"

Ladies and gentlemen, I do not, nor have I ever, stapled my wife to anything. I have not hurt my wife, nor have I raised a hand to her. To paraphrase John Houseman, I do everything the old fashioned way...I earn it...







with one act of idiocy or lunacy per day.

Ha, see? All you ladies should be so lucky...or is it, should the tranquilizer industry be so lucky?

Mothra's Law

One thing that is constant (though your results may vary depending upon the time of day) is: The bigger a fly or a moth is, the more likely it will fly into either your nostrils, or your eyes.

Special "name this post" honorable mention to Is That So Wrong, for the Daily Show-worthy title, "Christian Children's Fund commercial." Maria, Ekene and all the C.C.F children will tell you that you wuz robbed.

This Guy Knows His Television

Let me say this and hopefully I won't draw the wrath of the Missus, but Virginia Madsen is an angel. She is heavenly, she has that angelic glow and anyone who knows me, will tell you that I don't even like blondes, but Virginia? So I'm a bit biased, because I would watch any show that had Virginia in it. As a matter of fact, we need to start a Virginia Madsen Channel, 24 hours a day, seven days a week of nothing but one of the greatest actresses to grace both the silver and small screens.

You say that there isn't enough films in her catalog to support that much programming? Well, then we could have cameras showing Virginia eating, Virginia sleeping, Virginia getting dressed...


...nevermind, I've just been hit with a "cease-and-desist" order, as well as a temporary restraining order.

At any rate, like I said, I'm not the most biased guy about these things, but this guy is. Is That So Wrong got me hip to this new show called Smith. It stars Ray Liotta, Simon Baker, Chis Bauer, Amy Smart, and the one whose name I can no longer legally mention. John Wells of "ER" fame, is the showrunner. So you know that the first season will have at the very least, a consistent quality and cliffhangers. The show so far, has more twists and turns than most will be able to figure out, and I bet it would've even kept Hitchcock guessing.

I didn't even recognize Jonny Lee Miller until thirty minutes into the thing. I guess that's what happens when you divorce Angelina Jolie and your career didn't build enough Stateside momentum.

Friends Don't Let Friends Blog While Watching Football

First, from the weekly newsletter of Creative Screenwriting...

"The challenge of screenwriting is to say much in little and then take half of that little out and still preserve an effect of leisure and natural movement." – Raymond Chandler

"A writer is someone who can make a riddle out of an answer." – Karl Kraus


Second, friends don't let friends blog while watching football. I was emailing Katie, while all along I should get off my lazy ass and just download some IM software. There I was responding to an email, while firing off another email and watching Notre Dame get trounced by the Spartans (ND eventually pulled out the victory and that's why they play four quarters). Gian Don posted a joke...

I hate when a production company tells you that they like you, but they send a picture of a completely different production company. When you finally go to their offices you find out they faked you out and you're both disappointed.Production companies on MySpace do that all the time.

I thought, "damn, I'd like to make it that far. I wonder what a prodco office looks like...Charlie Weiss, you dumb ass! A "Cover Two" only works if you have the safeties for it! Oh, God, and they extended your contract??? They're going to break the flag out again and dance around it!"

So I typed this up while shaking my fist at the TV and thinking of my next response to Katie...

I haven't gotten as far as a bait and switch company, consider yourself fortunate (in an odd way) to make it that far.

I wasn't trying to be a snit about it, but that's how I came across. His joke was a producer variation on the fifty year-old man posing as a seventeen year-old girl and I missed it. All my apologies, Gian Don. Mi dispiaci. A slight apology to Coach Weiss, good adjustment and way to pull it out, Brady Quinn.

As to all the ladies and gents who read this blog, this is what I was talking about. I am not a multi-tasker, but I try to be anyway. With blogging, I can't quite achieve the level of concentration that I have when I write and this is also why I've never really tried to be a paper-pusher.

If someone were to ask me if the doughnuts in the conference room were still fresh, while I was typing up a contract? I would staple them to the bulletin board in the breakroom. The advantage would be by the end of that work day, I would've gotten a lot work done, as everyone on that floor would be stapled or silent in feared of being stapled. Of course, the downside would be that be the last day I worked at that company as I would be fired, in jail or a combination thereof.

I will try and cut down on the football and concentrate a little more on the blogging.

By Request...

A friend of mine got a rejection letter the other day for some scripts that she submitted to a production company. I'm not sure if she wants me to post her name or not, because I don't look at as a failure on her part, but a loss for the production company. But I'll submit in this post if she wants.

She was feeling bad about it and damn if I hadn't been there a few times myself. It's like you are on a carousel, the ring is platinum instead of brass and just when you think you're about to nab it, someone yanks it back and goes, "psyche!"

So I said...

Hasn't it been said that Hemingway papered his walls with rejection slips? Don't wallow too long like I do. Have a good cry, take (*****) to the dog park, eat something special, and rebound with the quickness, right?

My friend said...

Thanks for asking, sweets, I’m ok. it was just a tough one, ya know. I really hoped it would turn out differently. I got the most annoyingly gratuitous response:

"Though we enjoyed the scripts very much, overall we felt that the tone of the humor didn’t completely fit in with our brand, or with the types of projects that we’re currently hoping to add to our slate.

We really appreciated the chance to get to know your writing—thanks again for sending us your material."

Talk about utter crap. Why couldn’t they just say, WE HATE YOUR SHIT. you know?!

I replied...

Ah yes, the standard letdown letter, though theirs seems to be even a little more gentle than the rest. One day, I want a prodco to send me a letter that sez, "it's not you, it's us...really."

Happy Birthday To The Greatest Saxophonist, Ever

Saturday would've been the 80th birthday of John Coltrane. If you believe that music has an influence on art, film, culture, and literature, then I hope you realize that Coltrane had an influence similar to that of Bach and The Beatles. He ushered jazz into its first modern era and in one way or another, he touched every thinking woman and man from the mid 50's, up through today.

Why I Don't Blog As Often, Revised

First, I'm sorry Becka, it wasn't a conscious thing and the Missus will tell you that I can be as unconscious as hell sometimes. I owe Becka for the post and if anyone should bring Sexy back, it's her

http://thepopeye.blogspot.com/

Pardon me ladies and gentlemen, I feel like a real shit.

The rest of the post, as it was...

Here's the thing, it's football season. More than likely, football season for you, is that you watch one, maybe two games all weekend. Then you might watch Monday Night Football if it's the home team or a team that you kind of like. For me? No way. Football season means to me, the Thursday night college game on ESPN for at least two quarters. Two or three college games on Saturday. The Niner game, plus all the highlights, and then Sunday Night Football on NBC.

Then I watch most of the highlights on the Sportscenter recap on Monday morning, as well as Cold Pizza on ESPN 2. Plus, at least two quarters of Monday Night Football, minimum. That's just my viewing habits alone. I read a minimum of five football-related articles a day, seven days a week. That translates to me either forgoing at least five blogs a day, or me not blogging at all.

Since I've been more of a reactive writer, than an active writer, I'd prefer to comment or lurk on on other people's blogs, than come up with a post that's basically nothing more than a link to someone else's site.

The remaining spare time should be spent on the family and writing.

A Brush With Basic Cable Greatness

I completely forgot to mention that Ellie Sadler just popped into one of my work sites, last night. She looks better than on TV, but not quite like the jpeg that is on the site. There was a diseased pigeon just huddled against the wall, waiting on death. She just popped in and I said, "hey, aren't you on TV?"

She said yes and scooped the bird up...uh, bare-handed. Ugh, so much for asking for an autograph. It's not like she could've given me one anyway, she moves faster than a crackhead on the first of the month. Cue "She's Like The Wind," Patrick Swayze.

Eh

Someday soon, I will resume blogging. Work and the football season has thrown everything off. In the meantime, enjoy this blog which indexes life.

So Don't Answer The Door

So now you know for certain, not to answer the door when you hear, "candygram."

When Gunpowder Gets In Your Eyes or F.F.F. #53

*Note, my last flash fiction for the football season and probably, ever...

I saw him through the smoke, with something to as close as a smile that his grim face could‘ve ever managed. With all the bullets in the walls, ceiling, floor, flesh, and bone, I don’t know how I survived…or how he remain unscathed. There were six others in the room and I guessed that none of them were still alive, or they would’ve fired back at him by now. Or, maybe they were playing dead like me, hoping that he wouldn’t notice.

I was just here to play a friendly game of poker and get over on a couple of suckers…this was no way to celebrate my first natural royal flush. I had seen “Mr. Shit For Timing” before, but where? That’s right, he had been standing outside the last two poker games that I played, I couldn’t forget his grim face. He makes a gargoyle seem positively jovial in comparison.

All the smoke from the gunfire seems to be settling in my lungs, what the hell? I thought smoke can descend only so far. If only he could’ve waited another fifteen minutes, I would’ve thrown the next two hands after my flush and been done with this.

I have to keep my eyes blank and still…what is with all this smoke? Did someone fire a musket? That’s it, leave, you grim-faced dickhead. Go away. It doesn’t sound like he’s going over to the table, how could he pass up five large? No, he slid that tacky little table, he’s going for that odd-looking case in the corner. Oh, shit, I’m gonna-

“Cough-”

Thcat-tchat-tchat-tchat-tchat-tchat-tchat!

------

“All clear, Sargeant!”

“What happened here?”

“I guess someone started a poker game and then a war broke out.”


“Holy shit, we got one that’s still alive!”

-----

Great there’s the bright white light that I’ve heard so much about, I might as well move toward I guess…okay, Saint Peter is a cop?

“Hey George, he’s up!”

“All right, give me some room, Sargeant.”

I guess I’m not done for, after all.

“No, no, look over here, please. Do you know who shot you? Can you give me a description?”

Oh, that’s not good-

“Get out of the way, he’s going into arrest!”

-----

One minor heart attack, several hours of surgery and one short, medically induced coma later, I’m in the hospital bed, giving the police sketch artist a description.

The sketch artist turns to the Sergeant who is just coming into the room and gives him a look at the sketch.

“Are you sure, this is who shot you?”


“Me and everybody in the room, yeah. It was like he was bulletproof or something.”

“You’re positive?”

“Yeah…why?”

“He bears a striking resemblance to my captain.”

“...No, I guess my memory is tainted from all that I’ve been through. Forget about it.”

“No, if you say this is the guy-”

“I said, forget about it! I w-w-w-w-as blinded, all that gun smoke and powder, you know? Just forget about it.”

-----

The Sergeant didn’t forget about it and neither did I. But this was between the sketch artist and us, so none of us talked because I was still alive, playing poker. A year later, the captain got what was his, while he was trying to sell a jade statue to the very people that it turns out, were the original owners…or so I hear. Nothing’s for certain, unless you witness it yourself. I’m also guessing that very same jade statue was in the odd-looking case that was in the corner.

I still haven’t got a natural royal flush, though I’ve hit it with different wild cards. What the hell, which is better? The hand of a lifetime? Or your life?


JJ wanted a short story or a poem, with the sentence I saw her/him through the smoke…

http://purgatorian.blogspot.com/2006/09/flash-fiction-friday-53.html

¿Cuál es el mejor taqueria? Plus, how much is that vegan in the window?

First, taste is arbitrary, right? So when I see an article like this one about which taqueria is the best in San Francisco, I can't let myself get all worked up, right?

No foaming at the mouth, right? No semi-automatic ranting, right? Um, wrong. I've filed down the firing pin and I'm going full-auto rant, papi chulo-style.

Of the Top Twenty listed: Cactus Taqueria and El Farolito are great, I won't argue that. Taqueria El Castillito ain't half bad, either. I will never go to La Fonda, it's next door to my favorite hamburger and breakfast place in the world, the Irving Street Cafe. Wrong place to set up shop, folks.

Yet, as I scroll up and down the list, I see some slights and glaring omissions. In the slight department, L'Avenida (they have the best carnitas) and Taqueria San Jose (they have the best meats that are marinated) are in the "other taquerias tried in the line of duty ." Mira, if you truly tried them, they would be in your Top Twenty, tiróns. You make it seem like it was a chore to eat in such fine establishments, when it was a blessing that you shouldn't have the opportunity to participate in, ¡pendejos!

L'Avenida has been voted best non-Mission district taqueria by the Bay Guardian readers poll. If I'm down at 24th and Mission and Taqueria San Jose is still open, it's my first choice. Because it's all about the marinade and they get it just right. ¡Sabroso! What kept them out of the Top Twenty? You couldn't find parking? Did they give you two less tortilla chips than the others?

Then they didn't even bother to try Taqueria Los Altos (they have the best salsa fresca) or Procrastinator Jr.'s favorite, Taqueria Miraloma (who happens to make the chile verde de puerco). ¡Pinche vatos!

Second, click the pic and tell me just how much do they go for, again?

Way To Make My Son's Day!

(to the tune of "Shaft")

Who is the man that would post pics
For his brother man?
SLURP!
Can you dig it?

How cool is this? Slurp posted these pics, just for Procrastinator Jr! By the way, if you haven't been over and I know you haven't by my sitemeter, you should check out Slurp's blog.

The best pictures of food, fauna and Southeast Asian life.

I Was Doing It Before Anthony Michael Hall

Procrastinator Jr. has the sniffles, so no school for him tomorrow and thus , no work for me tonight. So I can be wide awake to take care of him tomorrow and hell, I'm starting my weekend, right now.

Football season is upon us, so I'm behind on my reading and I'm trying to catch up. I'm reading the Sunday paper (online) right now and I have yet to reciprocate with my fellow Friday flash fiction writers that have managed to make it over here, let alone read everyone else's submissions.

"The Best of The Allman Brothers" is going on my iTunes when the Missus comes in and starts sorting through the huge mound of clothes poking through the inadequate hamper we have, for a load of laundry. She's moving one object around in particular, to get to the other clothes.

Me: Hey, leave my hat alone.
The Missus: What?
Me: I said, leave my hat alone.
The Missus: What are you talking about?

She moves the object around some more and collects more clothes.

Me: Did you hear me? I said, leave my pink hat alone.
The Missus: What are you going on about?

I nod at the object, which unkown to you, is her pink bra.

The Missus: I'll crown you.

You see ladies and gentlebloggers? True love.

Why Don't You Have A Seat On The Couch?

Peggy Archer has an excellent blog on everything that happens behind the camera in Hollywood, as well as the City of Angels. Like a cherry on top, she 'll top off each post with a photo of an abandoned couch.

She decided to expand on that and carry a seperate blog just for the pics http://couches.wordpress.com/

As they used to say where my father came from, "you're no longer welcome in a house, when they break your plate." So what do all these couches on the sidewalks of the City of Smog, mean?

Every Five Seconds...

To the person (and I use this term in the loosest definition "of,") who tooted his or her horn every five seconds. The person that you wanted to come out, did not do so after awhile. I believed that they knew you were there...because the whole neighborhood knew you were there after a minute of you tooting your horn, every five seconds.

It might've been a good strategy at this point, for you to change things up by getting out of your car and:

A) Ringing the doorbell.
B) Or knocking on the door.
C) Or assuming that they knew you were there. Because, like I said, the whole neighborhood knew you were there.

Because your horn tooting was ineffectual after the first two minutes. Nor did it work after five minutes. Sense a theme? I do, because, you are not very bright, are you?

The next time you make me lose eight minutes of sleep, you will find driving, extremely difficult. Because it is very hard to drive a car, when you are facing the wrong way. Consider that for awhile. If you still haven't figure out just what will happen when you do that again, consider the second part of the equation. It is even more difficult to put the car in gear, when the shifter is firmly entrenched in your lower colon.

Capisce?

Someone Had A Big Adventure

That Honda whipping around corners this past Sunday, wasn't Danica Patrick. The Missus was out and about, and somehow, San Mateo will never be the same.

Odds & Bends

First, this is how a certain insurance company funds those ads you see on TV.

Then, for those who work in an office that's too quiet, or for those that merely want their office to sound busy.

Succuba F.F.F. #52

“I swear, Clive, summer drags on around here, like a snail trying to crawl through a field of salt.”

“Yeah, I wish someone would renovate a house, so we could watch the paint dry.”

Clive and I were throwing a Frisbee around. Not “tossing,” throwing. I kept the banter up to distract him, because I was throwing it, just a little bit harder each time. I was trying to lead him into the old widow, Mrs. Martin’s yard. I saw her curtain pull back just a little, the fuse was lit.

“Yeah, if only there was a cow to tip, that would be an upgrade for this town,” I shouted, hoping that Mrs. Martin would be the one having a cow. In an amazing feat of athleticism, Clive leapt up like a wide receiver at the goal line and snatched the disc just before it went into her yard. Then, he threw right back to me…and beyond…shit, Yao Ming couldn’t have caught that one.

I gave Clive a look. He smiled and gave me a look back that said, “serves you right.”

Unfortunately, that was no ordinary Frisbee. My grand uncle gave that to me before he passed on, the only kindness the old jerk ever showed me or my little brother. He would miss the Frisbee the most of all, because he looked up to the old rat bastard.

It had to land in the only other place I wouldn’t want it go besides Mrs. Martin’s, the abandoned Grimsrud house. The specifics of what happened in that house have been lost through the generations, but not the sense fear and trepidation. I do know that it had something to do with just about every missing person within the neighboring three states and a wood chipper, but that’s all I could discern from the many people that the tale had passed through and the years of misinformation.

As I turned around, I saw the disc sail through an already broken window. As I jumped over the fence, I gave Clive the one-fingered salute and wondered just why it was, that no one ever demolished creepy, abandoned houses. Was that too much to ask? I mean, it was a known rat hotel and God knew what else decided to set up house there. Hell, even the stoners and huffers gave the place a wide berth, they knew to stay away, even when they were out of their minds.

My trembling hand reached through the broken window and slid the lower portion open. The Frisbee landed on the far side of what appeared to be what was left of the living room. All the furniture and furnishings were left just as they were when the house was abandoned. They were covered in dust, mildew and mold.

The pictures and paintings left behind of this family would make the Devil tug on his collar like a comedian bombing on stage. A whole different level of evil lived right across the street from grandparents back then and they knew nothing about it, until the surviving Grimsrud on that night of carnage, was arrested.

As I picked up the disc, I heard a sound that was decidedly…female. I guessed that it was either a couple of huffers, or people from out of town…doing the nasty in the basement. The woman had just started moaning and my first thought was how to sneak a peek without getting caught. I threw the Frisbee out of the window and stole down the basement stairs as quietly as I could.

I deliberately eased gently, down each step and each step let out a low creak. Yet, apparently they, or she, didn’t hear me. I didn’t hear a man, or another woman, so my mind raced with a different permutation for each step. If there wasn’t anyone else there other than this ecstatic woman, I was more than at the ready, to volunteer some assistance. As I got to the next to last step, I just remembered that Clive was outside, I hoped that he would stay away from the house.

When I got to the basement floor, the moaning stopped. It was fairly dark down there, save for a beam of light from the lone window. I saw a woman so pale, her skin was almost translucent. She smiled at me with her lips clenched, then her upper lip curled and fangs appeared. In the blink of an eye, she came at me and she rebounded back just as fast.

She lunged at me again and I saw what was holding her back. Her arms were shackled to the stone floor and her wings were constricted by leather bindings. She wore a thin, veil-like outfit that look like something out of a Frazetta painting, and her eyes turned from green to red. I had the misfortune of backing up in the wrong direction, I should’ve moved towards the stairs. When I went for the stairs, she came at me again.

The chains had enough slack in them in them to keep me from reach the stairs or the window. Now all of sudden, I wanted Clive to come barging on what I misconstrued as going to be fun. This creature had suckered me in with her sounds of pleasure. The only climax that would be reached, was when she would get to feast on my neck. I heard footsteps coming down the stairs and I knew it had to be Clive! Here comes the cavalry!

Something flew down the stairs and the creature pounced on it with cat-like quickness. Jesus, it was Clive’s head! Thanks Clive, did you get your cavalry lessons from Custer? Oh shit, I was done for! I looked over to the stairs and it was Mrs. Martin! Oh, how she was smiling and that smile looked familiar, somehow. The thick, coke bottle glasses that she had on, were even more familiar.

Then I remembered, she reminded me of one of those evil offspring in a picture that was over the fireplace. Give or take forty-five years, you could still see the resemblance, she was a Grimsrud. Mrs. Martin threw the Frisbee at me and it landed at my feet, smeared in blood.

Clive must have followed me in here and she killed him. Mrs. Martin went back upstairs and I started to scream for help, knowing that it was next to useless. Everybody in town was at the County Fair, except for Clive and me, but a last resort is better than no resort at all. There was nothing I could use as a weapon, I wasn’t sure if that was because Mrs. Martin didn’t want me defending myself, or so the creature couldn’t use anything on her or to get away.

My cries for help were silenced when another object flew down the stairs and it appeared to be one of Clive’s hands. I started to yell for help again when I light came on and then I saw the bones…so many of them. I had no idea where one body began and another started, but I knew from the skulls that a lot of people had met their demise from Mrs. Martin or the creature. I also saw a painted circular line that I determined was the boundary as to how far the creature could reach.

I didn’t know what to make of the creature herself. If I saw her walking down the street with her wings covered up, I would’ve thought she was one of the most beautiful women in the world. Though beauty is skin deep, horror is to the core. The little head rightfully packed it in and the big head took over. I thought it over and I had only one way out of here.

“I know who took your ring, Mrs. Martin.”

Nothing. I bellowed, “Mrs. Martin, I know who took your ring and I know where it is!”

I waited for a minute and just as I wondering if she heard me, she came storming down the stairs. Without looking, she stopped just before the line.

“Did you say I what thought you just said?”

“Yep. The ring that was stolen four years ago? The one that you were cried about two years after the theft? I know where it is.”

“Then tell me.”

“What, and then you feed me to her anyway? No thanks.”

“You’re not getting out of here.”

“Then you’re not getting your ring.”

She stormed back up the stairs. I shuddered because as I looked over to the creature, I saw that she had cleaned all the flesh off of Clive’s hand, leaving just the bones, which she threw into the pile. She looked at me and smiled, and I couldn’t tell as to which smile scared me more. Hers, or Mrs. Martin’s.

Mrs. Martin came back down the stairs with a whip and a bloody machete in her hand. She just confirmed what I already knew, that her and the creature weren’t on friendly terms, or there wouldn’t have been that painted line.

Mrs. Martin cracked the whip at the creature, but the creature only took half a step back and she was coiled to strike. Mrs. Martin cracked the whip twice, in quick succession and I charged her on the second strike. I figured out with those coke bottle glasses, that her peripheral vision would be poor and I was right.

She brought the machete up, but it was too late as I twisted it away from her hand and pushed her towards the creature. I felt a great rush of air as the creature pulled Mrs. Martin away. I think I only touched three of the twenty steps on the stair case as I went up, and I nearly slipped in the blood and gore that used to be Clive. There was quite a battle going on back there, as I could hear the screams between the monster and the human monstrosity as I went past the front door.

I got all the way to the front gate before I stopped, then I ran back in. I grabbed something from Clive’s coat and ran back downstairs. What I saw down there, amounted to the longest fourteen seconds of my life, then I fled the house twice as fast as I had the last time.

“Jake, you know that I will lock you up for filing a false police report.”

“Sheriff, you don’t have to believe me. I just want you to take a look down there and if you don’t believe me, you can lock me away and throw away the key, because I’ll be safer in jail.”

“Boy, you better not be messing with me, Josie will have her corndog stand closed by the time I get back to the fair.”

I hesitated down as we got out of the car. I stopped at the front gate and the sheriff pushed me ahead.

“Did you call on the deputies, too? I don’t think you’ll be able to handle her by yourself.”

“Listen, Jake, I can handle any woman, God put on this Earth.”

“Yeah, that God put on this Earth.”

“If I found out that this whole thing was a joke, you’ll be washing all the county’s squad cars, come rain or shine.”

We got to the front door and he saw the remnants of Clive. The sheriff immediately arrested and handcuffed me. He put me in the back of the squad car. He called for back up from all the surrounding counties and he went inside.

The wait between when he went inside and when a back up car arrived was agonizing, I was afraid that the creature would have me for desert and there wouldn’t be a damn thing I could do about it, handcuffed and locked up in this car. Two more cars pulled up, then the sheriff came running out.

“Jake, what the hell did you to your best friend?! What did you do to those people?”

“It can all be explained…in my right front pocket, sheriff.”

As it turned out, the creature was gone and she had picked that dirty old crone, Mrs. Martin, clean. The sheriff reached into my pocket and pulled out what I had gone back for, Clive’s cell phone. In those fourteen seconds that I returned to the basement, I had taken three pictures of the creature and the last struggles of Mrs. Martin.

They still thought I had fabricated the whole thing, until the forensic pathologists from the state, coupled with the skeletons stripped of flesh that were popping up all over the nearby counties with me still in jail, convinced them that I had nothing to do with this.

The sheriff had paid a visit to my house a week after I was freed and we talked things over. From what they found, they believed that the Grimsruds were using the wood chippers to get rid of evidence and that they kept the creature for generations. Mrs. Martin must have somehow smuggled the creature away when the last of her kin was arrested, though they would never know for certain how the clan met their demise.

As for me? I moved Canary Islands because I figured that the creature couldn’t fly that far. My love life has been tepid at best, because I don’t care how beautiful a woman is or how wonderful she seems. If it is female and flies? I don’t want to know. That includes stewardesses.

JJ is the best starting pitcher in flash fiction. He can throw the high heat, the curve and even the change up, with this sentence: Her arms shackled to the stone floor and her wings constricted by leather bindings…

http://purgatorian.blogspot.com/2006/09/flash-fiction-friday-52.html

What did G & O say about "grammatical?"

Write Procrastinator is a grammatical perv, because...

A) He never met an ellipses, that he didn't like.
B) He freely mingles tenses in his stories, then doesn't correct them for days...if at all.
C) Where, he, puts, commas, is just plain, wrong.

At some point, I will have to repent and read "Elements of Style" cover to cover...four or five times. Writing is not like music in that a musician can get away with not knowing how to read music, but I writer should know the fundamentals, public school "edumacatshun," or not.

Coming up sometime this weekend, my 200th post. It will either be useless Procrastinator trivia, or I will finally be able to handle the curve ball that JJ threw at me. "Sick with a ph," indeed. More like wicked with a "d-a-m-n."

One Good Turn Deserves Another

I got a plug from Down Under. Diane was nice enough to give my shop a plug, amongst others. She has just started a shop too at

http://www.cafepress.com/chickollage

This one is my favorite, check it out.

They Broke Up?

They broke up? It didn't even really register with me that they were going out with each other. Because if it had, knowing that:

Tom Cruise + Katie Holmes = TomKat.
Surely, Kate Bosworth + Orlando Bloom = Ka-Boom. Right?

Send It Off In A Letter To Yourself

Rikki, lose that number, but don't lose the Rhetorical Letter Writer.

Think Inside The Box or F.F.F. #51

“Spare change, mister?” he asked me as he scratched himself all over.

I looked him up and down once and smiled. “Change that I can spare?…No.”

“Oh, c’mon, man, don’t be that way!”

That settled it, I wasn’t giving him anything. He did a poor job of concealing the scabs that his own nails had excavated because, he went too long between fixes. My experience from the fleabag hotels that I stayed in, told me that he had gone at least a couple of days in-between. I had to give him credit for doing as well as he did, in hiding his shakes.

He was about to touch me, when I let him know with a small look that such a gesture would result in a greater pain than the withdrawals he was experiencing. As he ducked aside, I saw the unmarked police car. Why don’t they just go ahead and put the insignia or decal on them, anyway,? As if anyone other than cabbies and police drive Crown Victorias.

I could tell which one of the twins they had nabbed because of the fear in his eyes, it was “Brock.” The other one’s name was “Rock,” that took real imagination on their parents part, there. I acted casual and went into a corner store, this wasn’t my first close shave, nor would it be my last. How can you get ahead in the criminal life, when the cops get radar after you pull a job?

With the sun’s glare in my favor, neither Brock nor the cops saw me as they drove off. I couldn’t go back upstairs or near the hotel, and risk that they didn’t have the room under surveillance. I bought a dumb trucker hat that said “save a horse, ride a cowboy” on it and pulled it over my brow.

On the way down the street, I gave the junkie a ten-dollar bill because he had unintentionally saved my ass. The ingrate ran off without saying “thank you. “Three blocks away, I hailed a cab with the money I had left and prayed that there wasn’t an accurate sketch of me in every patrol car, yet.

I knew from the start that it was wrong to throw in with these amateurs, but then again, someone vouched for them. This was it, though, I was a solo act as soon as I recovered the stash. They screwed around and screwed up so many things, I was wondering if the twins bribed guys in the joint to chat them up as competent.

Rock was the brains, the backbone, the muscle, and the balls (more like BBs, the Napoleon-complex-affected little shit) of the crew. Brock seemed to me, to be nothing but a “yes-man“ and he couldn‘t even get that right. He was one of those guys that believed the glass to be half-empty, and that the other half was always full of poison. “Cheers,” Brock.

I gave the cabbie a fifty-cent tip and if looks could kill, he would have strung me like that Atlantic blue marlin that was hanging on that pole...surrounded by those guys taking pictures, only I’d be deader. Hell, I was twice as angry as he was, all of my spending money and everything I had, was back at the hotel. I climbed over the gate that they use to keep people out of the yacht berths and in a place like this, I knew someone had already called the cops. Finesse and stealth are for those who have the luxury of time.

I jumped on the boat that Brock was supposed to be working on and headed straight for the fish hold. It was wide open, with the fish and ice still there. But the jewels were gone. Suddenly I had a feeling the cops didn’t get radar at all…they were tipped and I figured that Rock set his own twin brother up. Brock wouldn’t sell his brother out right away and by the time they figured out which twin they had, Rock would have the kind of head start that have him already past Cuba.

I had to get my head together, but I had to get out of there first or they would nab me while I was doing my impression of Rodin’s “The Thinker.”

As I jogged down the pier, a beautiful woman pointed at my forehead. Did I say “woman?” She was more like a girl, twenty, tops.

Like Yogi Berra once said, “it’s like déjà vu all over again.” She reminded me of a younger version of the Columbian “cowgirl” that did me wrong three jobs ago, only I assumed that she was Cuban. Presumptuous of me, I know. But I always believed that every Latin in Miami was Cuban, until they told me otherwise. That way I wouldn’t say anything that could be misconstrued as even the faintest praise of Fidel Castro.

Getting back to the Columbian cowgirl, she double-crossed me out of a fortune and she got away. When I first saw the cops carting Brock off, I was doubting my own motivations on staying honest. As a matter of fact, since I did most of the work on the heist, I considered double-crossing Rock, but the little bastard beat me to it.

“I like your hat,” she said with a smile of perfect, blinding teeth, that said to me that her daddy was a dentist. That would explain why she could lounge on daddy’s yacht…or maybe “sugar” should go in front of “daddy.”

“I saw a guy who had the same hat, walking through here just five minutes ago.”

“Yeah, are you sure, sweetness?” I poured on the charm, though I had no intention of following through. If they look like they are “twenty,” they’re fifteen years old, and it’s four years in the pen, for the guy dumb enough to believe their fake IDs.

“Uh-huh, he was on the same boat as the one you were just on. He asked me where there was a Fed-Ex store around here…hey, where are you going?”

I had no time to chit-chat, I knew that Rock was going to mail the jewels to whichever country he was going to sail to, so he could avoid any chances that they might be seized by a foreign coast guard, shore patrol, or customs.

At a liquor store, I shop-lifted the biggest sunglasses that I could find and ran out the door before the Haitian shop-keeper could make short work of me with a machete. As I jogged up to the Fed-Ex franchise, Rock was coming out. He didn’t see me and judging by his smile, he never would, because he was too busy counting the money in his head.

I gave him a minute, then I went in. The man behind the counter glared at me. Hell, I would’ve thought I was up to something too, if I had me as a customer. I asked him if a guy came in here with the same hat as I had on. He nodded and said nothing. I looked behind him and another man was sealing up a parcel.

I leaned over the counter and the man behind it folded his arms as if that was going to intimidate me at this point. I assumed that this was Rock’s package from the postage and the foreign zip code. I mean, “postal code” since it was destined for overseas. I leapt over the counter, grabbed the package and leapt back before either of them could react. By the time they were shouting useless threats at me, I was already by the door.

I had no intention of opening the package right there, I just had to have faith that I had snatched the correct one. I had no money, no tools to steal a car with, no change of clothes, and by then, there would be an all-points-bulletin in every police jurisdiction in Florida, with my picture on it. But I had almost a million dollars worth, retail, of jewels under my right arm…or I had a box with just cookies and a few dollars, that someone was sending back home to some poor Latin backwater.

Mira, either way, I liked those odds because maybe I double-crossed someone else, for a change.

All JJ wants is to entertain the world, via flash fiction and a story with the sentence “…but the little creep beat me to it.” Such is his generosity.

http://purgatorian.blogspot.com/2006/09/flash-fiction-friday-51.html

There's Been A Dearth of Screenwriting Items On This Blog

There hasn't been anything about screenwriting on this blog for quite awhile, does this count?

R.I.P. Joe Stefano

Hitch got all the credit and I'm sure, rightfully so. But this cat laid the foundation and he got me in a world of trouble. I had my own little black & white Sony TV and I basically could watch anything I wanted as long as I got my homework done. I saw "Psycho" when I was about nine and I left the shower curtain open, off and on for the next two years.

Why is there water all over the floor??!!