You may have missed my previous blog, where I reflected on my six years working at Walt Disney World. You can either feel shame, or visit this link to catch up, or both; whatever makes you happy.
I was about a month into my entry-level position, working attractions in Tomorrowland, when I heard about the routine auditions for the character department. I'd seen the performers in the Magic Kingdom's tunnel with their heads off, often dripping in sweat. Knowing my stamina and body strength, I didn't really think I had a chance. But damn it, I was at Disney! I would have regretted not at least trying.
So I went to the audition with a bunch of other hopefuls, and did the basic dance steps across the room, and I forget what else. At the end of the performance we were divided into smaller groups, presumably so security could chase off the useless ones without upsetting the rest of us. And then I was taken to meet with an individual representative who thanked me for coming in. He informed me that they could use me as a character, just not at the moment due to a hiring freeze. Truthfully, I had no idea he meant that literally. I just assumed it was the pixie dust translation of "piss off, bumbling twit".
Thus I went back to Alien Encounter. Three months later I was bored to the point of pulling up stakes and running home. Then came an opportunity to transfer to Space Mountain, which I jumped on. By the end of my week of training I was pleading to go back to Alien Encounter, but the damage had been done. Two more months and I was spiraling into depression.
Now I know it sounds like I'm knocking Disney attractions, and I don't mean to do so. There's nothing wrong with working by the E-stop buttons and the merge point stations (except for the E-stops and the merge point traffic), but I was the wrong fit for it. Despite my introversion, I really can't handle going for great lengths at work with no real human contact. In attractions, you don't get to talk to the guests unless there's a problem. The rest of the time, you're herding them. So a good day was when nothing happened, and it was beginning to break me.
So then I got the call that the Gods on Mount Olympus had spoken, and the character department was finally taking in new performers (that's not my sarcasm, it's literally what the guy on the phone said). By that point I had forgotten I'd even auditioned, and I swear I saw animated flowers blooming throughout my dismal little apartment.
Five and a half years in all four theme parks and the occasional resort. I fell asleep on the parade route in a Miss Piggy costume, got my Prince John chest felt up by two Brazilian women, and I even went out as Walt Disney a couple of times. Sean Astin visited the Magic Kingdom shortly after the release of Return of the King, and someday I'm going to tell him it was me in the Ursula costume who blew him a kiss during the Share a Dream Come True Parade.
One thing that has really stayed with me as a character performer is the way you get to see a side of people you wouldn't see any other way, kind of like how they interact with a big dog. To the smallest kids, I may as well be a monster. To the ones a bit more autonomous, I'm Eeyore, plain and simple. The teens start to branch into different subsets. There's the heartfelt "Eeyore, I love you," the optimistically cynical "Eeyore! My main donkey!" and the I-left-my-head-in-my-hormones "Eeyore! *BAM*" I'll never understand what beating on a fiberglass head accomplishes for some people.
Adults are a different breed altogether. We're supposed to be playing with the kids and selling ultra-expensive autograph books and poorly balanced pens with Mickey's head and torso attached to the end that break after half a signature. But when you manage to reach the paying adult's sense of wonder (be it through a laugh, a smile, or scaring the hell out of them) it makes for a bizarrely transcendental connection. So here then are a couple of my favorite characters that I've briefly inhabited and the encounters they collected under my jurisdiction.
Kenai
Brother Bear came and went, and I seriously doubt the bear makes any current appearances, but once upon a time he roamed the Canadian pavilion at Epcot Center. Shortly after the release of the movie, Disney let all of its hand-drawn animators go to focus on computer generated films. Progress. Sad, sad progress.
But there was this one day, one of Disney's former animators (whose name unfortunately eludes me) was visiting Epcot. This was a man who was likely looking for a new job, but he was still doing what he loved. He drew. He had worked on Kenai for the film. I saw him on my set, but I had no idea who he was or what he was doing, until I went backstage and popped my head. My greeter handed me a drawing he had done showing an encounter between the bear and a little girl whose autograph book I'd signed. And he'd written at the bottom "It was nice working with you".
It always amazes me how much someone can love what Disney stands for so much that they see past the bureaucracy of the company. He'd been sacked, and he still felt the calling. Can you imagine that? He made me regret some of the times I complained about how hot and heavy that damn costume was.
Green Army Man
From Toy Story. The character performers are categorized by height ranges, usually with a two inch margin. It goes duck height, mouse height, chipmunk height, a small bit of wasteland, Pluto, Eeyore, Tigger, and Goofy (I subtly slouched my way out of Tigger height to get my coveted pessimistic donkey). Green Army Man was an exception. I think you could be 5'6" and up to be one of the no-faced military personnel.
I loved playing GAM. Between the boots and the plastic accessories around them, I had some amazing calf muscles. I also took an impressive dive backstage when I didn't clear a parking cement block and sprawled belly first on the pavement. Good times.
There's a thing called 'statue sets'. You're not supposed to do them. It's where you don't move. Disney trains you not to do that. But one day it was me and two other GAMs and it was a low attendance. Our set area was right where the Muppets 3-D attraction exited, and that was about the only action we'd seen that day. So for one of our later sets we decided to do a statue set and just be props.
So halfway through, Muppets lets out and people pour past us, looking at us curiously but thinking nothing of us. And I hear a group of thirty year old men approaching my area, saying something about trying to find the Hunchback show. And one of them thinks he was going to be funny. He says, "Well, let's ask this guy!" So I point exactly where the Hunchback show is. "Holy shit!" is his response as he stumbles backwards. My work is done.
Country Bears
There's three of these bozos that I was in the height range for, and they were all massive. Big Al was the worst. I sometimes wondered how many TVs I could smuggle in the costume at once. Liverlips was my buddy. He was a shoulder strain, but I loved signing multiple autograph books in the costume. First one done, cram it in his mouth. Second one, draped over his snout. Third on the head. Liverlips ruled.
Shaker was the last one, and I just found him to be boring. He looked boring. You couldn't do anything with the mouth and you couldn't reach the top of his head. All you could do was exist, with that one expression on his face; the kind you have when you rent a Marvel DVD and only discover after the disc is in the player that someone left a copy of The Wedding Planner inside the case.
So one morning I was Shaker at Camp Mickey/Minnie over in Animal Kingdom, because they didn't have anything else for me to do. That meet and greet area (which I think is no longer there because of f**king Avatar world) was designed with a kind of garden hub and short paths leading back to the small pavilions where Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, and other VIP characters set up photo spots. Shaker was not a VIP. They just had me wandering around the hub area, essentially being ignored by everything that moved. Disney: 50+ years of false security around bears.
There was a little boy, whose age was probably closer to one than two. He was under the watchful care of dad, who seemed over his miserable life. I imagine mom was in the gift shop sampling wine behind the clothing racks, while dad slunk down in the hedge shadows muttering something about making 'em all pay. Little tyke was in his own world, which he filled with the repetitive activity of stretching his arms up as high as they would go (from my vantage, a comfortable kicking height) and then dropping down to the pavement like a frog.
Over and over, like a poorly thought out yoga warm-up; stretch it high- touch the ground. Stretch it high- touch the ground. He couldn't get enough of it. So I lumber my brute killing machine self over to where the workout is, kind of scratch under Shaker's chin thoughtfully, and proceed to mimic the kid's choreography. He doesn't acknowledge me. He just keeps doing his thing and I plagiarize him. I can't really say if I'm a bear learning about ritual, or a grown man making fun of an infant. It's just something that's sort of...happening.
Mom finally sobered up and/or got escorted out of the gift shop. She came to retrieve her family as if there was no stain on her soul with an innocent "Xerxes?" (I actually have no recollection what the kid's name was, but that's as good a guess as any). "Xerxes? You want to go see Mickey now?" And with deadpan seriousness, my young gymnastics coach stared his mother in the eyes, shaking his head. He pointed to me. "Bear," he said. For once in my life I felt like a jerk for hating children.
Tweedledee/Tweedledum
The Tweedles were awesome! I probably miss playing the Tweedles the most. The costumes were comfortable, the vision was great, and you had perfect mobility. And they taught me how to write backwards and upside down, a highly specialized marketable skill.
When you had a good partner you could really go nuts, messing with some kid's hat and blaming the other one, or the bystanders, or even the kid. And then if you had a solid Alice or a Mad Hatter the sky was the limit. My only pet peeve was how many people (intentional or not) wouldn't get our names right. We got Tweedledee and Tweedledoo (no partial credit, kid), Tweedledum and Tweedledumber (oh shut up), Tweedledum and Tweedlestupid (you shut up too), Tweedledee and Twuddledum (that one grew on me), "Are you Tweedle or Dee?" (you're real close pal), and my personal favorite "Hey! It's those guys!". That was exactly how I signed the autograph book.
But the Tweedles, and most of the Alice unit, have an innocent silliness to them that I always found liberating. I had this easy gimmick I'd do as a Tweedle where a kid would run up for a greeting and I'd put out one hand for a handshake. And a beat into it I'd cross the other hand over for a double handshake. Then let go of the first one and bring it to the top to repeat the process, going faster each time. And I had a couple avenues to get out of the routine, usually looking around for help or shaking my own hands.
So at one point, this family of five came up; two adults, two kids, and a girl who looked to be about thirteen. Now I'm not a detective when it comes to reading people, but sometimes the signs are pretty clear. The girl had this demeanor about her that resembled wishing she were younger, as if she'd gotten it in her head that Disney was somehow not meant for her anymore. My Tweedle twin and I bothered her siblings and posed for the seven pictures while she stood on the sidelines trying to produce a smile that was weighed down by inevitability. So I bounced over to her and did my handshake bit. She played along with no change in her expression to indicate whether or not it was affecting her, then out of the blue she did this silly gesture of waggling her fingers by her face and going "balalalala".
I gave her a big bear hug for that. I think it may have made a difference.
Eeyore
Closing memory lane out is the big guy himself. I've always felt an attachment to Eeyore. I have him on my watch, courtesy of my wife's intuition about birthday gifts. In the happiest place on earth there are talking birds that burst into song and megalomaniac fairies that burst into flames, and then there's this little pocket of withdrawn undefeatable pessimism named Eeyore.
Most of the Winnie the Pooh unit at least has thumbs, but Eeyore only has manatee flippers. Speaking firsthand, if you're taking too damn long getting your camera to work, he's probably flipping you off under the fur. The other main thing about Eeyore is the expression on his face. He's freaking adorable.
People react to Eeyore. Something about him just makes you want to make things better. I've had kids and adults both beam with glee when they see my grey buddy's face, as well as feel this overwhelming sense of empathy. I've gotten affirmative pep talks in every language from Portuguese to Korean. This one little girl refused to leave me because she was convinced of how sad I was. In her father's words, speaking aloud to himself, "Honey, I think you're a little overly concerned about Eeyore's emotional well being."
People would ask me, "Eeyore? What's wrong?" If I had it as an option, I would just point to Tigger and let them draw their own conclusions. I'd blame orange stripey for anything. Knocking down my house, hitting my nose, breaking up with me, it didn't matter. Whatever scenario the guests offered as the source of the melancholy, I'd nod my head in agreement.
But the empathy also swung both ways. One night at character dining I found a large family at one of the tables, and I did my usual voodoo with the autograph books, when I noticed one little boy underneath the table with tears in his eyes. Not tears of fear, but probably some family conflict that had escalated. I squatted down, tilted my head, and gave the basic flipper gestures for Why You Crying? The kid never said a word, but he did crawl into my lap and let me hold him for about a minute.
So many wonderful memories with Eeyore. Some are quick snippets. Some have too much of a visual component to really relay in blog form. One of my fonder exchange also happened in dining with a group of Australian girls, who I imagine were some kind of middle school athletic team. They LOVED Eeyore. They talked to me. They hugged me. And at the end of the encounter they serenaded me. With a song. In harmony. For Eeyore. That they had WRITTEN.
But the moment that has stayed with me the strongest summarizes what the 'magic' of the characters is. I was in front of the hat at the former Disney-MGM Studios, first thing in the morning. Mom, Dad, and twelve year old girl come visit me. Nobody else is really around so we have kind of personal meet and greet. Dad spends the whole time fidgeting with his camera. Mom and twelve year old (who I'm going to call Alice because she had the look on her face Alice would have had if Wonderland had been devoid of any threat) came to see me. Alice wasn't really up for a conversation or a body slam like some of Eeyore's fan base, she just wanted to spend a few moments with him. She held both of my flippers and glowed as she stared into his painted eyes.
Mom tried to get in on her daughter's reverie, which for a quick PSA, that never works with someone whose age is in the double digits. And she made the same 'I'm only pretending to be into this' lapse of judgement so many posers before and after her have made. It went like this: "Eeyore, we love you! We watch your show all the time." ~pause~ "It must be hot in that costume."
Alice's face transformed right in front of me. She went full Queen Grimhilde, gave her mother a death glare, and silenced her for the rest of the vacation with a single "Shh!". And then as if nothing had happened, the evil queen faded back into the glowing Alice she'd been a moment ago.
I don't know whose feelings she thought she was protecting, and I doubt she did either. If she thought it was mine, that would mean her twelve year old brain had created a scenario where an anonymous adult human in a character suit had convinced himself he literally was a stuffed donkey; and that's a hell of a magic spell. Probably it was her own feelings. Maybe the sanctity of a sacred connection that you can't really get anywhere else. In the long run, I suppose it doesn't matter. What matters is that Alice cared enough to choose to believe. And for that, I will never forget her.
With love from Eeyore.
Tuesday, September 27, 2016
Editorial: My Own Disney Home (Part One: Under the Mouse's Ears)
It's been a busy week, and ever since I only got to day five of my Short Story Week (as opposed to the day seven I was aiming for) I've been neglecting my blog. Life, what are you going to do?
It's easy to become complacent, particularly during periods of mental fatigue. This year Short Story Week left me on empty. I'm also making a conscious effort to get some Carousel up and running for public consumption, so the girls are almost always in my head somewhere. Also, nanowrimo is coming up. Ye Gods. And, oh yeah, my library's second annual sci-fi/fantasy festival is October 21-23, and that's gotten a LOT bigger than I think we were expecting. I've somehow managed to weasel my way into a predominantly creative role in the development of said festival (writing the promotional spots, game creation, performing). It is a wonderful, exhausting project that I couldn't be more proud to lose sleep over.
But I don't need to go another week without posting a blog. So I banged my head on the counter until something came to the foreground that I thought might be worth sharing. I've casually mentioned in the past that I worked for six years as a Disney character performer, but I've never really taken the time to describe my experience with the company. That sounds like it's worth a blog or two, right?
Walt Disney World isn't the evil corporation you hear it is.
I say that with confidence to anyone who has never worked there. When I mention being a Disney cast member to people who only know the theme parks as a guest or a distant observer, I find that they already come into the conversation with a preconceived notion about the backstage area of Cinderella's bedroom view.
First there are the naysayers, who will say nay no matter what indisputable evidence to the support of optimism is place before them. "I hear Disney is bad to their employees" is their mantra. Did you hear that from a reputable source, or just your own ego's opinion? The truth is, Disney is a pretty damn good company. Flawless? Hell, no. It's a company. There will always be a certain sacrifice of humanity you have to make when you join any company, and in Disney's case that often involves not having much of a life outside of the full time job (and giving the company permission to kill you with hours from September to January). You know this going into the job.
Yes, there are people who suck, and some of them have slightly more powerful positions. That's simple sociology. But as a company, there are a lot of benefits that are easy to overlook. When my car broke down, I had a place to take it on property and a means to get from the mechanic to my work and back. When my mother died, I was taken care of. I mean, they didn't pay her funeral expenses or anything, but by the time I got the phone call they'd already plugged five days of bereavement pay into my schedule with the option of adding in sick pay if I needed more time. All I'd need to do was give them a signature and a future phone call. In essence, they have their shit together. So, no, they aren't bad to their employees, just don't expect to be treated like a celebrity either.
It's also not the Garden of Eden.
On the flipside are the perpetual yaysayers, who love Disney (which is great), often imagine the place as magical (which is unrealistic), and occasionally treat Walt as a figure of worship (which is dangerously close to insanity). Working backwards from the extreme, the Walt Disney you know never existed. The man's public face was a character that he played. Walt was a savvy businessman who was driven by a need to nurture innocence, maybe not by making the world better but at least by making it feel better. And that motivator spread into his choice to present himself as this grandfatherly Santa Claus type who just sort of 'knew' what to do. In reality, the Walt Disney name that gets plastered all over everything is the combined efforts of many, many people who believed in an idea; some of whom have names lost to history.
Now to be fair, the company presents Walt the man as identical to Walt the entity. The company says we do things a particular way because "it's how Walt would have wanted it", not because of something less mystical like: it's a good idea. The company describes positive guest experience as "pixie dust", not as the equally impressive but less romantic: the company provides guests with the tools to create their own experiences. And therein lies the real poetry of the Disney company. People love it. When you love something, your experience with the hardships can be very transformative.
I once saw my hero Weird Al perform at the House of Blues. I stood in line two hours before the doors opened, clutching my first ever purchased bottle of water. Then I went inside and stood with a crowd of people for another hour. We stood through a less than stellar opening act, and then stood some more. I felt like my legs were going to give out, but then Al and the band took the stage for two hours. And I danced for two hours. And sang at the top of my lungs. And I spent the next day crawling around my apartment on my belly because my legs had stopped working. Does that sound like a good or a bad experience? Neither. It was freaking awesome! Because I love Weird Al.
In reality, the Disney company is functional. The backstage area is set up to effectively get you where you need to be to do what you need to do. The park gives you plenty of ways to keep yourself fed, washed, and prepared to deal with blows you can take from the guest area. Disney treats its employees well, but not like they're anything more than employees. You are expendable. They never forget that, but all too often the incoming cast members do.
Should you work there?
If you want to. If you're not sure, do what I did: next time you're vacationing there, stop by the casting center and put in an application. They'll give you a quick and accurate primer on what the job requires of you, and you're under no pressure to ever come back after that interview. Basically they'll say "We've got your information. Call us when you're ready to start training."
From there, think about what you're going to have to give up. Do you have a family? Working for Disney is going to effect them; do not expect to spend any holidays with them for about seven years.
When you work for Disney, they own all of your time. Are you willing to agree to those conditions? Remember, you're human. It may not sound like that much of a challenge now, but at some point you're going to be going in for an eleven hour shift on four hours of sleep. It is up to you to figure out how to keep your brain focused under those conditions.
Are you going in on the college program? Taking a semester off to get some work experience isn't a bad idea. Just bear in mind that working for Disney doesn't qualify you for anything special other than to work for Disney. A lot of college students get hired, and then stay on full time. And that's fine, but then they never finish their degree. And then they're in their thirties and feeling a little restless, but they aren't qualified to do anything but work at Disney. That can be unsettling.
I don't remember if my Disney interview asked me if I had any long term goals. I certainly didn't have any. I just knew I needed to move away from home and grow up a little, and Disney was the perfect place for that. Six years later I put in my resignation, and I still had no long term goals. I just knew that I'd gotten what I needed out of Disney and there was more world out there.
Ultimately, Walt Disney World is a job. It's a good one. But it's a job, and that's the only arrangement it needs to have with its cast members. Some people find a proverbial family at Disney, and that's a wonderful bonus. But you're co-workers first. The job can be very fun and rewarding; and that's also a wonderful bonus. But the focus is always on the experience of the paying vacationers first.
I have a lot of delightful stories being a character performer, some of which I'll tell you about in part two of this blog, but there were also many days where I felt like my life was wasting away. Disney can be a great job. It can also be a dull job. Some days you feel like a kid, and some days you feel like a zombie. You may end your day energized and you may start your day broken. It's a job. Disney won't make you happy, but it will give you a chance to be so. I can't say that about a lot of jobs I've had.
It's easy to become complacent, particularly during periods of mental fatigue. This year Short Story Week left me on empty. I'm also making a conscious effort to get some Carousel up and running for public consumption, so the girls are almost always in my head somewhere. Also, nanowrimo is coming up. Ye Gods. And, oh yeah, my library's second annual sci-fi/fantasy festival is October 21-23, and that's gotten a LOT bigger than I think we were expecting. I've somehow managed to weasel my way into a predominantly creative role in the development of said festival (writing the promotional spots, game creation, performing). It is a wonderful, exhausting project that I couldn't be more proud to lose sleep over.
But I don't need to go another week without posting a blog. So I banged my head on the counter until something came to the foreground that I thought might be worth sharing. I've casually mentioned in the past that I worked for six years as a Disney character performer, but I've never really taken the time to describe my experience with the company. That sounds like it's worth a blog or two, right?
Walt Disney World isn't the evil corporation you hear it is.
I say that with confidence to anyone who has never worked there. When I mention being a Disney cast member to people who only know the theme parks as a guest or a distant observer, I find that they already come into the conversation with a preconceived notion about the backstage area of Cinderella's bedroom view.
First there are the naysayers, who will say nay no matter what indisputable evidence to the support of optimism is place before them. "I hear Disney is bad to their employees" is their mantra. Did you hear that from a reputable source, or just your own ego's opinion? The truth is, Disney is a pretty damn good company. Flawless? Hell, no. It's a company. There will always be a certain sacrifice of humanity you have to make when you join any company, and in Disney's case that often involves not having much of a life outside of the full time job (and giving the company permission to kill you with hours from September to January). You know this going into the job.
Yes, there are people who suck, and some of them have slightly more powerful positions. That's simple sociology. But as a company, there are a lot of benefits that are easy to overlook. When my car broke down, I had a place to take it on property and a means to get from the mechanic to my work and back. When my mother died, I was taken care of. I mean, they didn't pay her funeral expenses or anything, but by the time I got the phone call they'd already plugged five days of bereavement pay into my schedule with the option of adding in sick pay if I needed more time. All I'd need to do was give them a signature and a future phone call. In essence, they have their shit together. So, no, they aren't bad to their employees, just don't expect to be treated like a celebrity either.
It's also not the Garden of Eden.
On the flipside are the perpetual yaysayers, who love Disney (which is great), often imagine the place as magical (which is unrealistic), and occasionally treat Walt as a figure of worship (which is dangerously close to insanity). Working backwards from the extreme, the Walt Disney you know never existed. The man's public face was a character that he played. Walt was a savvy businessman who was driven by a need to nurture innocence, maybe not by making the world better but at least by making it feel better. And that motivator spread into his choice to present himself as this grandfatherly Santa Claus type who just sort of 'knew' what to do. In reality, the Walt Disney name that gets plastered all over everything is the combined efforts of many, many people who believed in an idea; some of whom have names lost to history.
Now to be fair, the company presents Walt the man as identical to Walt the entity. The company says we do things a particular way because "it's how Walt would have wanted it", not because of something less mystical like: it's a good idea. The company describes positive guest experience as "pixie dust", not as the equally impressive but less romantic: the company provides guests with the tools to create their own experiences. And therein lies the real poetry of the Disney company. People love it. When you love something, your experience with the hardships can be very transformative.
I once saw my hero Weird Al perform at the House of Blues. I stood in line two hours before the doors opened, clutching my first ever purchased bottle of water. Then I went inside and stood with a crowd of people for another hour. We stood through a less than stellar opening act, and then stood some more. I felt like my legs were going to give out, but then Al and the band took the stage for two hours. And I danced for two hours. And sang at the top of my lungs. And I spent the next day crawling around my apartment on my belly because my legs had stopped working. Does that sound like a good or a bad experience? Neither. It was freaking awesome! Because I love Weird Al.
In reality, the Disney company is functional. The backstage area is set up to effectively get you where you need to be to do what you need to do. The park gives you plenty of ways to keep yourself fed, washed, and prepared to deal with blows you can take from the guest area. Disney treats its employees well, but not like they're anything more than employees. You are expendable. They never forget that, but all too often the incoming cast members do.
Should you work there?
If you want to. If you're not sure, do what I did: next time you're vacationing there, stop by the casting center and put in an application. They'll give you a quick and accurate primer on what the job requires of you, and you're under no pressure to ever come back after that interview. Basically they'll say "We've got your information. Call us when you're ready to start training."
From there, think about what you're going to have to give up. Do you have a family? Working for Disney is going to effect them; do not expect to spend any holidays with them for about seven years.
When you work for Disney, they own all of your time. Are you willing to agree to those conditions? Remember, you're human. It may not sound like that much of a challenge now, but at some point you're going to be going in for an eleven hour shift on four hours of sleep. It is up to you to figure out how to keep your brain focused under those conditions.
Are you going in on the college program? Taking a semester off to get some work experience isn't a bad idea. Just bear in mind that working for Disney doesn't qualify you for anything special other than to work for Disney. A lot of college students get hired, and then stay on full time. And that's fine, but then they never finish their degree. And then they're in their thirties and feeling a little restless, but they aren't qualified to do anything but work at Disney. That can be unsettling.
I don't remember if my Disney interview asked me if I had any long term goals. I certainly didn't have any. I just knew I needed to move away from home and grow up a little, and Disney was the perfect place for that. Six years later I put in my resignation, and I still had no long term goals. I just knew that I'd gotten what I needed out of Disney and there was more world out there.
Ultimately, Walt Disney World is a job. It's a good one. But it's a job, and that's the only arrangement it needs to have with its cast members. Some people find a proverbial family at Disney, and that's a wonderful bonus. But you're co-workers first. The job can be very fun and rewarding; and that's also a wonderful bonus. But the focus is always on the experience of the paying vacationers first.
I have a lot of delightful stories being a character performer, some of which I'll tell you about in part two of this blog, but there were also many days where I felt like my life was wasting away. Disney can be a great job. It can also be a dull job. Some days you feel like a kid, and some days you feel like a zombie. You may end your day energized and you may start your day broken. It's a job. Disney won't make you happy, but it will give you a chance to be so. I can't say that about a lot of jobs I've had.
Thursday, September 15, 2016
Short Story Week 2016: Day Five -Sacrificing the Lamb
This wound up being a combination of two different short story types. The first is that of a fable, even if it doesn't really resolve to a single sentence axiom. The second is a frame story, or a story within a story (even if it's not quite paced out in the traditional fashion).
The sun rose over the Eastern hill, casting gentle rays on the meadow below. And as far as one cared to look, a banquet of wildrye and goosegrass beckoned the large flock of sheep, who grazed with little care beyond satisfying their stomach's demands.
It was only the smallest lamb who noticed that high above them, a stone's throw and a half away, there was a fox, who had taken more than a passing interest in her flock. And after some thought, she broke away from the herd and climbed the hill to where he lay.
The fox eyed her curiously as she bounded well into the scope of his prospective lunge. She greeted him kindly. "Good day, to you sir."
"Indeed little one," the fox smirked, "It is a good day."
"I always find mornings to be most agreeable," said the lamb.
"Well, as luck would have it," said the fox, "I find myself in agreement with you."
The two creatures laughed together, and the lamb found a comfortable patch of greenery in which to sit. "Might I be so audacious as to ask you a question?"
"Audacious?" The fox stretched, shaking off the dewdrops from his red coat. "Yes, you might very well be."
"Seeing as how you are a fox, is it fair to assume that your intention is to make a meal out of one member of my family?"
"That would be a safe assumption," the fox snickered, "It is in keeping with a fox's nature."
"Well, sir," said the lamb, "you have so many sheep to select from in size, health, and number of seasons. How does a fox's nature choose?"
"A fox's nature chooses the same way the nature of all living things chooses; the greatest amount of reward for the least amount of effort."
"I see," said the lamb, losing herself in thought.
Perhaps out of curiosity, the fox made no motion towards the vulnerable lamb, opting instead to wait for whatever droplet of reflection her innocent mind constructed.
"Is that wise?" she asked.
"Wise?" the fox sneered. "It's effective. How should wisdom factor into it?"
"Foxes are known for their cleverness. What is cleverness, if not wisdom as tactic?"
A curl appeared on the fox's mouth. "You know, I was wondering why you approached me. Being as small as you are, you were already easy prey. And now you've made my task all the simpler."
The lamb smiled, allowing a gleam to appear in her eye. "And despite the minimal amount of effort it would take, you haven't eaten me."
"All right then," the fox chortled. "I'm intrigued. Why I haven't eaten you? If you can give me a satisfactory answer then I will let you go. And I will also leave your flock alone."
"What a delightful challenge!" The lamb sprang to her feet and scampered up next to the fox; closer than any lamb had ever dared on their own volition. She sat down next to him and gazed out over the landscape. "It's beautiful, isn't it?"
"Truly. I'll not deny it."
"Did you know that where you and I are sitting so peacefully is in fact a battleground?"
The fox shook his head. "I'm not familiar with the history of these hills."
"Oh, I don't mean a battleground of the past," said the lamb. "I mean the one happening right now."
"This battle of wits between us?"
"Not at all." The lamb sniffed a lavender blossom between them. "The jaws of a predator are gruesome, but they pale in comparison to the murderous aggression of the grass. As far as you can see, there are seedlings strangling each other for territory. These peaceful hills are absolute carnage that you and I see as serene, because we only see a single moment in the eons of chaos."
The fox nodded. "That is both fascinating and insightful, but how does it answer the question at hand?"
"Because the grass doesn't have a choice the way animals do. The ability to choose surely must indicate that something beyond self-interest motivates one such as yourself."
"I agree with you little one," the fox winced. "But all you're doing is supporting the claim that there is an answer, not what that answer may be."
"Well for that," grinned the lamb, "I should tell you a story. There was a vain centipede who was so proud of its magnificent length that it would walk all over the land, drawing attention to itself, making sure everyone saw the immaculate way its many, many legs functioned in unison."
"Yes, I'm familiar with this story," the fox interrupted. "Somebody asks the centipede how it manages to get all of its legs to function in harmony."
The lamb continued, "And the centipede, who had strode so gracefully before without a thought, suddenly thought about it. And as such it was unable to walk the way that it had ever again. What does that story tell you?"
"That some questions can be harmful."
"Maybe," said the lamb, "but maybe questions only serve to awaken us. Maybe we sleepwalk through our lives and strangle each other for our own self-interests, until we start asking ourselves why. You see, there's an ending to this story that very few know. That centipede loved walking. So much that being robbed of that activity that had brought it so much joy drove it to keep trying. And failing. And trying. No, it was never able to walk the way it had before, just like you can never unask a question. But the centipede was able to walk a new way, learned from pain and effort. And in the end, it could do more than just walk. The centipede could dance."
For several moments the two of them didn't speak. In the distance, the lamb's flock bleated, but the fox could barely hear it over the rustle of the grass waving in the breeze. After some time, the fox spoke. "Why you cunning little mutton scrap. How could I possibly eat you now? It would make me too sad." He glared at her. "Was that your plan all along?"
"I had no plan. And no answer," she insisted. "I only thought, if I were to die today I would make it mean something. And be remembered."
The fox stretched back out in the grass. "You know, little one? Today truly is a good day."
The lamb curled up next to him, and together they fell asleep.
Sacrificing the Lamb
The sun rose over the Eastern hill, casting gentle rays on the meadow below. And as far as one cared to look, a banquet of wildrye and goosegrass beckoned the large flock of sheep, who grazed with little care beyond satisfying their stomach's demands.
It was only the smallest lamb who noticed that high above them, a stone's throw and a half away, there was a fox, who had taken more than a passing interest in her flock. And after some thought, she broke away from the herd and climbed the hill to where he lay.
The fox eyed her curiously as she bounded well into the scope of his prospective lunge. She greeted him kindly. "Good day, to you sir."
"Indeed little one," the fox smirked, "It is a good day."
"I always find mornings to be most agreeable," said the lamb.
"Well, as luck would have it," said the fox, "I find myself in agreement with you."
The two creatures laughed together, and the lamb found a comfortable patch of greenery in which to sit. "Might I be so audacious as to ask you a question?"
"Audacious?" The fox stretched, shaking off the dewdrops from his red coat. "Yes, you might very well be."
"Seeing as how you are a fox, is it fair to assume that your intention is to make a meal out of one member of my family?"
"That would be a safe assumption," the fox snickered, "It is in keeping with a fox's nature."
"Well, sir," said the lamb, "you have so many sheep to select from in size, health, and number of seasons. How does a fox's nature choose?"
"A fox's nature chooses the same way the nature of all living things chooses; the greatest amount of reward for the least amount of effort."
"I see," said the lamb, losing herself in thought.
Perhaps out of curiosity, the fox made no motion towards the vulnerable lamb, opting instead to wait for whatever droplet of reflection her innocent mind constructed.
"Is that wise?" she asked.
"Wise?" the fox sneered. "It's effective. How should wisdom factor into it?"
"Foxes are known for their cleverness. What is cleverness, if not wisdom as tactic?"
A curl appeared on the fox's mouth. "You know, I was wondering why you approached me. Being as small as you are, you were already easy prey. And now you've made my task all the simpler."
The lamb smiled, allowing a gleam to appear in her eye. "And despite the minimal amount of effort it would take, you haven't eaten me."
"All right then," the fox chortled. "I'm intrigued. Why I haven't eaten you? If you can give me a satisfactory answer then I will let you go. And I will also leave your flock alone."
"What a delightful challenge!" The lamb sprang to her feet and scampered up next to the fox; closer than any lamb had ever dared on their own volition. She sat down next to him and gazed out over the landscape. "It's beautiful, isn't it?"
"Truly. I'll not deny it."
"Did you know that where you and I are sitting so peacefully is in fact a battleground?"
The fox shook his head. "I'm not familiar with the history of these hills."
"Oh, I don't mean a battleground of the past," said the lamb. "I mean the one happening right now."
"This battle of wits between us?"
"Not at all." The lamb sniffed a lavender blossom between them. "The jaws of a predator are gruesome, but they pale in comparison to the murderous aggression of the grass. As far as you can see, there are seedlings strangling each other for territory. These peaceful hills are absolute carnage that you and I see as serene, because we only see a single moment in the eons of chaos."
The fox nodded. "That is both fascinating and insightful, but how does it answer the question at hand?"
"Because the grass doesn't have a choice the way animals do. The ability to choose surely must indicate that something beyond self-interest motivates one such as yourself."
"I agree with you little one," the fox winced. "But all you're doing is supporting the claim that there is an answer, not what that answer may be."
"Well for that," grinned the lamb, "I should tell you a story. There was a vain centipede who was so proud of its magnificent length that it would walk all over the land, drawing attention to itself, making sure everyone saw the immaculate way its many, many legs functioned in unison."
"Yes, I'm familiar with this story," the fox interrupted. "Somebody asks the centipede how it manages to get all of its legs to function in harmony."
The lamb continued, "And the centipede, who had strode so gracefully before without a thought, suddenly thought about it. And as such it was unable to walk the way that it had ever again. What does that story tell you?"
"That some questions can be harmful."
"Maybe," said the lamb, "but maybe questions only serve to awaken us. Maybe we sleepwalk through our lives and strangle each other for our own self-interests, until we start asking ourselves why. You see, there's an ending to this story that very few know. That centipede loved walking. So much that being robbed of that activity that had brought it so much joy drove it to keep trying. And failing. And trying. No, it was never able to walk the way it had before, just like you can never unask a question. But the centipede was able to walk a new way, learned from pain and effort. And in the end, it could do more than just walk. The centipede could dance."
For several moments the two of them didn't speak. In the distance, the lamb's flock bleated, but the fox could barely hear it over the rustle of the grass waving in the breeze. After some time, the fox spoke. "Why you cunning little mutton scrap. How could I possibly eat you now? It would make me too sad." He glared at her. "Was that your plan all along?"
"I had no plan. And no answer," she insisted. "I only thought, if I were to die today I would make it mean something. And be remembered."
The fox stretched back out in the grass. "You know, little one? Today truly is a good day."
The lamb curled up next to him, and together they fell asleep.
Wednesday, September 14, 2016
Short Story Week 2016: Day Four -The Elevator
Here's a story that I presented back in 2011 at Flash Fiction Night, and for whatever reason it just never made it into the blog. If you're so inclined, feel free to visit the link to the Youtube video where I read it out to an audience.
Monday
So now he was an elevator attendant.
Seven hours and nothing happened. Leon wondered why anyone needed an elevator attendant. No one had used the elevator for seven hours. There was nothing to do but stand and wait.
There wasn’t even music. Only a panel of buttons and a handrail, which Leon wished had been installed higher so he could hang himself from it. He thought he might last a week before coming unhinged.
Five minutes before he was scheduled to leave, the box sprang to life. It carried him twenty-two floors, with each button on the panel winking at him. The doors slid open to reveal a small man in a business suit who clearly had no interest in human contact. Leon presumed this was the sole reason he’d been hired.
The man took his position in the elevator and gave the order. “Down.”
Leon blinked. ‘Down’ had twenty-two possible interpretations and Leon gestured indecisively at the panel. “Down?”
“Down.” The man repeated as if it couldn’t be any simpler.
Without even trying to determine what the small man’s problem was, Leon pressed the double L and the elevator descended to nothing but the sound of grinding metal.
The doors opened and his passenger disappeared into the world. Leon rode out his last two minutes in isolation.
Tuesday
After seven hours in the elevator Leon had written a song melody, which he hoped to keep in his head until he could actually write it down. His peace was disrupted at five until by the summoner on the twenty-third floor. The buttons blinked at him but Leon was too inconvenienced to notice. The doors opened. The order followed.
“Down.”
Leon gestured innocently to the array of possibilities on the panel. “Down…?” he asked.
“Down!” came the demand, and Leon hit the button with none too gentle force.
The elevator descended and arrived at the floor Leon had indicated. The doors opened and the passenger stepped off. It was only at that moment they both realized that Leon had accidentally pressed the button for the third floor.
The doors shut silently separating them from a discussion. Leon pressed the double L feeling a tiny victory.
Wednesday
Seven hours vanished. It wasn’t until Leon felt the jolt from the elevator gears that
he even remembered where he was. He ignored all the buttons except for double L ready to pounce on it the moment his passenger appeared.
The doors opened. The small man stared at him refusing to step inside. The doors tried to shut but the small man blocked them. Not a word was spoken, but Leon could hear the small man’s voice in his head. “Down.” Over and over again. Leon began to hate the word.
Thursday
Leon seethed for seven hours, pacing and occasionally kicking at his containment. His agency insisted he finish out the week.
The elevator grumbled to life, pulling him upwards. Leon stared at the panel expecting some sort of inspiration to strike him. The lights blinked in rhythm, calmly as if beckoning him to find out what was on the other floors of this building.
His hand shot out at the button for the twenty-second floor. Leon inhaled deeply as the cool air from the hallway before him blew into his stuffy box. He thought, if he got out now and walked he could leave on time. The small man could push his own damn button and go to double L for all Leon cared.
Halfway out of the elevator, Leon considerately pressed all of the buttons and took the stairs.
Friday
Leon showed up seven hours late.
He hadn’t planned on coming in at all but the word ‘down’ had been gnawing at him. Leon stepped into his elevator and waited. He wasn't sure what he was going to when he got to the top, but he wanted to hear the small man say 'down' one more time.
The twenty-second light blinked out and Leon held his breath waiting for that bell of approval from the elevator. But instead there was a violent shake that threw Leon off his feet. He caught the handrail as darkness filled the box.
For a moment there was nothing. Then the doors opened quietly revealing that he was stuck between floors, with the small man standing over him, smiling kindly.
The man spoke, but Leon never heard him as the cable snapped.
The Elevator
Monday
So now he was an elevator attendant.
Seven hours and nothing happened. Leon wondered why anyone needed an elevator attendant. No one had used the elevator for seven hours. There was nothing to do but stand and wait.
There wasn’t even music. Only a panel of buttons and a handrail, which Leon wished had been installed higher so he could hang himself from it. He thought he might last a week before coming unhinged.
Five minutes before he was scheduled to leave, the box sprang to life. It carried him twenty-two floors, with each button on the panel winking at him. The doors slid open to reveal a small man in a business suit who clearly had no interest in human contact. Leon presumed this was the sole reason he’d been hired.
The man took his position in the elevator and gave the order. “Down.”
Leon blinked. ‘Down’ had twenty-two possible interpretations and Leon gestured indecisively at the panel. “Down?”
“Down.” The man repeated as if it couldn’t be any simpler.
Without even trying to determine what the small man’s problem was, Leon pressed the double L and the elevator descended to nothing but the sound of grinding metal.
The doors opened and his passenger disappeared into the world. Leon rode out his last two minutes in isolation.
Tuesday
After seven hours in the elevator Leon had written a song melody, which he hoped to keep in his head until he could actually write it down. His peace was disrupted at five until by the summoner on the twenty-third floor. The buttons blinked at him but Leon was too inconvenienced to notice. The doors opened. The order followed.
“Down.”
Leon gestured innocently to the array of possibilities on the panel. “Down…?” he asked.
“Down!” came the demand, and Leon hit the button with none too gentle force.
The elevator descended and arrived at the floor Leon had indicated. The doors opened and the passenger stepped off. It was only at that moment they both realized that Leon had accidentally pressed the button for the third floor.
The doors shut silently separating them from a discussion. Leon pressed the double L feeling a tiny victory.
Wednesday
Seven hours vanished. It wasn’t until Leon felt the jolt from the elevator gears that
he even remembered where he was. He ignored all the buttons except for double L ready to pounce on it the moment his passenger appeared.
The doors opened. The small man stared at him refusing to step inside. The doors tried to shut but the small man blocked them. Not a word was spoken, but Leon could hear the small man’s voice in his head. “Down.” Over and over again. Leon began to hate the word.
Thursday
Leon seethed for seven hours, pacing and occasionally kicking at his containment. His agency insisted he finish out the week.
The elevator grumbled to life, pulling him upwards. Leon stared at the panel expecting some sort of inspiration to strike him. The lights blinked in rhythm, calmly as if beckoning him to find out what was on the other floors of this building.
His hand shot out at the button for the twenty-second floor. Leon inhaled deeply as the cool air from the hallway before him blew into his stuffy box. He thought, if he got out now and walked he could leave on time. The small man could push his own damn button and go to double L for all Leon cared.
Halfway out of the elevator, Leon considerately pressed all of the buttons and took the stairs.
Friday
Leon showed up seven hours late.
He hadn’t planned on coming in at all but the word ‘down’ had been gnawing at him. Leon stepped into his elevator and waited. He wasn't sure what he was going to when he got to the top, but he wanted to hear the small man say 'down' one more time.
The twenty-second light blinked out and Leon held his breath waiting for that bell of approval from the elevator. But instead there was a violent shake that threw Leon off his feet. He caught the handrail as darkness filled the box.
For a moment there was nothing. Then the doors opened quietly revealing that he was stuck between floors, with the small man standing over him, smiling kindly.
The man spoke, but Leon never heard him as the cable snapped.
Tuesday, September 13, 2016
Short Story Week 2016: Day Three -The Journey to the Journey
This piece would probably fall under the 'vignette' umbrella, a writing style I've never been particularly drawn to. By definition, a vignette is a short piece that clearly expresses the typical characteristics of something or someone. I thought it might be worth an attempt. This is based on a personal anecdote from about ten years ago. And a dream from earlier this week.
The Journey to the Journey
He adjusts his pace to match the small pair of feet beside him. When the boy asks about holding the tickets, he relinquishes them without a second thought. Sacred documents entrusted to innocent hands.
Over at the doorway with the lights, he explains to the boy why the woman is dressed like a police officer. She asks where they're going and he pretends to have forgotten so the boy can answer for them. He asks the boy for help with the contents of his pockets; keys, loose change, a phone. He gives each item to the boy to set in the large plastic box. He asks the boy to make sure it the box makes it into the mouth of the tunnel. Per request, he lets the boy go through the doorway first.
He points to the huge window where metal dragons take off and land. The beasts move so fast. The boy has never seen them up close before. Together they gasp in awe at the size of the tail resting so close to where they are. The boy laughs dizzily as the colossal creatures circle overhead.
There is a grand hallway full of people just like them, coming and going; and a floor that moves. He congratulates the boy for jumping on the moving floor without falling over. And they ride. He spots paintings and tapestries on the walls as they continue. He asks the boy what they are and agrees with whatever the boy says. By the end of the moving floor, he has lifted the boy's tired legs onto his shoulders. The boy can see everything now. So many people. So many things. So many stories.
The boy is seated now. The boy has his own story, and it fills some of the time they'll have to spend waiting. He listens attentively to every detail. Asking questions about what happens next. And when the boy finishes the story, he reacts as if it's the most amazing thing he's ever heard. He assures the boy that he's only going to step away for a moment. They both need something to eat, and he points to the place he's going to be. The boy isn't worried. The boy is happy.
He turns to move towards the place where the food is, but his eyes meet those of a stranger who happened to have taken notice of his reaction to the boy's story. The stranger smiles at him, with an expression that can only mean "good dad".
It's all he needs.
Monday, September 12, 2016
Short Story Week 2016: Day Two -Stakes and Ratings
I wanted to at least try doing a story completely from scratch this time around, i.e. no previous work on it before this morning. So here then is the result of an idea that came into my head while sitting in the doctor's office waiting room with a generic TV station on.
Welcome back! So as I promised you before the commercial break, today we're going to show you what to expect when you stake your first vampire.
Now this big guy that we're bringing out now is still in his coffin. If you're fortunate enough to be dealing with a- okay, I think he's waking up. Not to worry. Our producers had us nail the coffin shut. But like I was saying, if your bloodsucker is still sleeping, you want to stay as quiet as possible. Vampires are pretty deep sleepers, but once their eyes are open you lose a lot of your advantage.
So reali- sorry. Guys, can you help me hold him down? He's really squirming. Realistically, when you have him at your mercy like this, it's best to just set the coffin on fire. The heat will bake him long before the wood is damaged enough to- yeah go ahead and bring camera five down. And do we have the crowbar? Great! We're going to open him up and drive the stake in.
You can go to your local hardware store and find pointed sticks. Professional killers usually fall in love with one particular type of wood, but really any sturdy piece of wood will do, just make sure the tip is as sharp as possible. I made mine out of a mop handle- okay he's a lively one. Can you get him back on the table? Yeah, just go ahead and pry that- is your foot okay? I'm actually glad this came up. Remember, accidents will happen. You're dealing with an intelligent creature that can understand what you're saying. You may remember Joe Schlepski a few years back? The vampire had one of those multi-door caskets, and he'd curled up down in- Oh shit! He's- my apologies everyone. How did he get loose?
Not to worry, everyone. See, all these guys are professional vampire wranglers. Is she all right? Get the camera on her. That's Phyllis, our stage manager. Did she get bitten? It looks like she may have cut her arm on his fangs. It's worth noting that's not always a death sentence. Depending on how deep the incision is, a lot of people have lived through that. And if you get to a doctor fast enough, sometimes simple amputation will clear that right up. We'll check in with her in a minute, but I want you to see how these guys work.
Even when you outnumber a vampire, you never want to give up control of the situation. Notice how they're not rushing him like you see in the old black and white films, but they're keeping him cornered with their- what is that? Is that just a regular crucifix or is it- well, he's bust right now, but you see how they function as a unit? Vampire wranglers are irreplaceable in the field, because your best tactical approach is to get the fiend in his coffin.
It looks like we're good to go. Are we cued up? Remember, pound it hard right in the middle of the chest. Mallet? Thank you.
Son of a- Dah! Damn it to hell! Somebody shut him up! I really did a number on my thumb there. Oh, God! No, just go ahead and close it back up. Then put the restraints on it. I think it's broken. Okay, that's really the basics. I'm sorry this didn't turn out the way we hoped. I think we're going to need to go to commercial break, tie up a few loose ends here. When we come back, we're going to take him outside and let the sunlight wipe him out, so you'll- I said get the straps around the casket! Good grief. So you'll definitely want to come back for that. Um, how's Phyllis...all right. Unfortunately it looks like we're going to have to cut our stage manager's head off, but we'll post that video online this afternoon. You can check it out on our website. As always, be sure to subscribe, and let us know in the comments what you thought about today's topic.
We'll be right back. Motherfu-
"Master? Master, wake up."
"Huh?"
"Master, are you all right? You were twitching really violently."
"Oh, I vas having a terrible nightmare."
"Daymare, master."
"Vatever. Just, could you change the channel back to the Cartoon Netvork?"
"Of course master. Anything to help you sleep."
Stakes and Ratings
Welcome back! So as I promised you before the commercial break, today we're going to show you what to expect when you stake your first vampire.
Now this big guy that we're bringing out now is still in his coffin. If you're fortunate enough to be dealing with a- okay, I think he's waking up. Not to worry. Our producers had us nail the coffin shut. But like I was saying, if your bloodsucker is still sleeping, you want to stay as quiet as possible. Vampires are pretty deep sleepers, but once their eyes are open you lose a lot of your advantage.
So reali- sorry. Guys, can you help me hold him down? He's really squirming. Realistically, when you have him at your mercy like this, it's best to just set the coffin on fire. The heat will bake him long before the wood is damaged enough to- yeah go ahead and bring camera five down. And do we have the crowbar? Great! We're going to open him up and drive the stake in.
You can go to your local hardware store and find pointed sticks. Professional killers usually fall in love with one particular type of wood, but really any sturdy piece of wood will do, just make sure the tip is as sharp as possible. I made mine out of a mop handle- okay he's a lively one. Can you get him back on the table? Yeah, just go ahead and pry that- is your foot okay? I'm actually glad this came up. Remember, accidents will happen. You're dealing with an intelligent creature that can understand what you're saying. You may remember Joe Schlepski a few years back? The vampire had one of those multi-door caskets, and he'd curled up down in- Oh shit! He's- my apologies everyone. How did he get loose?
Not to worry, everyone. See, all these guys are professional vampire wranglers. Is she all right? Get the camera on her. That's Phyllis, our stage manager. Did she get bitten? It looks like she may have cut her arm on his fangs. It's worth noting that's not always a death sentence. Depending on how deep the incision is, a lot of people have lived through that. And if you get to a doctor fast enough, sometimes simple amputation will clear that right up. We'll check in with her in a minute, but I want you to see how these guys work.
Even when you outnumber a vampire, you never want to give up control of the situation. Notice how they're not rushing him like you see in the old black and white films, but they're keeping him cornered with their- what is that? Is that just a regular crucifix or is it- well, he's bust right now, but you see how they function as a unit? Vampire wranglers are irreplaceable in the field, because your best tactical approach is to get the fiend in his coffin.
It looks like we're good to go. Are we cued up? Remember, pound it hard right in the middle of the chest. Mallet? Thank you.
Son of a- Dah! Damn it to hell! Somebody shut him up! I really did a number on my thumb there. Oh, God! No, just go ahead and close it back up. Then put the restraints on it. I think it's broken. Okay, that's really the basics. I'm sorry this didn't turn out the way we hoped. I think we're going to need to go to commercial break, tie up a few loose ends here. When we come back, we're going to take him outside and let the sunlight wipe him out, so you'll- I said get the straps around the casket! Good grief. So you'll definitely want to come back for that. Um, how's Phyllis...all right. Unfortunately it looks like we're going to have to cut our stage manager's head off, but we'll post that video online this afternoon. You can check it out on our website. As always, be sure to subscribe, and let us know in the comments what you thought about today's topic.
We'll be right back. Motherfu-
"Master? Master, wake up."
"Huh?"
"Master, are you all right? You were twitching really violently."
"Oh, I vas having a terrible nightmare."
"Daymare, master."
"Vatever. Just, could you change the channel back to the Cartoon Netvork?"
"Of course master. Anything to help you sleep."
Sunday, September 11, 2016
Short Story Week 2016: Day One -Playing a Glissando
Welcome to Short Story Week 2016! I don't know why I do this to myself.
If you missed last year's festivities, Short Story Week is when I spend an entire week churning out never before seen (by you) material in a personal challenge to bludgeon the creative side of my brain into productivity. Sometimes it involves taking half-to-tenth written stories and dusting them off. Sometimes it's going through old files and finding limestone shards that never quite made it to my blog. And a few times throughout the week I'll probably be staring at a blank screen for a few hours; moaning, crying, and yelling at the phone until a few somewhat related keystrokes of gibberish appear courtesy of me banging my head on the laptop, which I'll refer to as 'experimental literature'.
So let's dive in with a piece that's probably a spiritual relative to The Carousel. It was going to be Caris as the protagonist, but I found that the concept doesn't work anywhere in Caris's whole life, so here instead is the stand alone version.
It was not the divorce that continued to to grate under my skin like an allergic rash; having married a divorce attorney, I had probably been preparing myself for the inevitability ever since I threw on my wedding veil. Nor was it the fact that the alleged 'settlements' had left me in roughly the same straits I'd been in when Mr. Stipulation had promised me the moon and stars three years prior; again, the warning signs were blinking in bright neon. I had even moved past the shock of being cheated on and blamed (twice, alternately) and finding out the details from his second mistress's conscience-driven e-mail apology.
It was the fact that I was still saddled with his leftover shit cluttering up my apartment.
I just wanted him gone. I wanted everything about him erased. Every shirt, sock, sports flag, and shot glass out of my sight, mind, and life forever. It had likely been this sense of desperation that had provoked me into signing my name to an 'agreement' that I would return every one of his belongings to him. Myself. No help from him. Unharmed. Not in the pile of shredded and burnt fabric from which I would have taken so much recompense in depositing on his doorstep.
For months I'd been making special trips to and from his downtown office, cramming my tiny car with whatever would mostly safely fit, and dealing with his instructions on where and how to carefully set and fold every single item in my possession once I'd delivered them. No, I couldn't just drop off the packages. I was under a damned contract that required me to lay everything out for inspection before the bastard would sign off on them. And just to add fuel to his amusement, if anything from his extensive list turned up damaged, his law firm would be charging me for the sum of everything. I swore I would never write my name on anything ever again.
The coffee table had eaten up my remaining sick day, as I'd had to tie it to the top of my car and lug it at 15 miles per hour in the middle of the night when traffic was light enough. Counting both times the police stopped me to make sure I wasn't high, that trip took four hours. And then my ex arrived at his office an hour and a half late; I could tell from his expression that he'd done it on purpose. I didn't make it into work that morning.
I was one obstacle away from finally ending the ordeal, but it was a leviathan. That damn piano. I don't know why he bought it or where it came from, but the week before I'd had a heavenly dream about taking an axe to the thing. That had been my last night of decent sleep, because ever since then I'd woken up from nightmares about having to push it down the street.
See, in addition to all of these other enduring attachments to the enthusiastic split, my ex husband had seen fit to instill a deadline on the process. My sweet dream was on the eve of what I thought would be the end of it, a full week before his self-imposed cutoff date. And when the moving vehicle I reserved turned out to be a hitch trailer capable of transporting...I don't know, a sheepdog? I was none too jovial with my comment card.
I had to reschedule. And getting a proper sized set of wheels sent to the piece of shit outlet to which I had access was going to take a week -meaning: I would be dropping this damn piano off on the last damn day of this damn contract or get dragged into another damn court battle to deal with whatever amusing hoop Mr. Attorney at I-don't-even-know-how-to-play-the-damn-piano could devise for me to leap through.
The morning-of came and I'm quite sure I didn't sleep. I may have passed out for a few minutes here and there, but overall my brain wouldn't shut up. I wound up driving to the outlet an hour earlier than I was scheduled, in hopes that I could get this all taken care of before the sleep deprived hallucinations set in. There was nobody there when I arrived, and I waited.
And waited.
I'm not sure when my creeping sense of doom caught up to me but I began to take note of the realization that I wasn't seeing any kind of movement from within or outside of the office. I didn't want to get out of my car, so I let it roll forward until I could make out the handwritten ink on the piece of cardboard taped to the front door. 'Out of business' it said. I may have bitten a piece off of my steering wheel.
I was in tears by the time I reached my ex-husband's office, with mascara I'd forgotten to remove the previous evening now dripping down my cheeks. As I'd predicted he wasn't there (it was a Friday after all), but I wasn't there for him. I was there to see Kent, the mechanic who had set up show across the street from him.
Kent and my ex had been friends since before I'd fallen into the picture. And as such Kent and I did not share any affection. But my ex had granted Kent the third party power to oversee any of these numerous transactions in his absence, and I'd been seeing quite a bit of Kent in recent weeks.
My poor car groaned at the steep hill that led from the street to his service area, and I'm sure the familiar sound drew his attention because he was outside my driver's window before I noticed him. Kent took one look at my appearance and let out a gleeful snort, which only made me hate him more.
"Kent?" I tried to sound scolding, but my voice quivered. "I HAVE to get that piano out of my home."
"It sounds like you've got a problem then," he chuckled.
"Please?" I swore I would never ask him for help, but I was beyond the point of keeping promises to myself. "I can't do this anymore!"
He nonchalantly retrieved my ex-husband's final document from his desk and handed me a pen. "He says all you have to do is leave the piano in one piece in his office lobby and you're in the clear."
"I can't GET the piano here, Kent! I've tried!" I was sobbing now. I started explaining what had happened that morning, but he was taking too much amusement in my plight to really listen to the details.
"Here-" he interrupted me, tossing a set of keys in my direction that I promptly dropped. Kent pointed to a fairly large pickup truck that he'd apparently been working on for someone. "I didn't see you borrow it." And with that, he was back in his office enjoying whatever phone call I'd made him put on hold.
This was the kind of truck that scared the hell out of me as a pedestrian. Now that I was fully covered behind the wheel of one, I was petrified. I'm quite sure I was taking up multiple lanes and the occasional sidewalk, and it's a wonder I didn't get pulled over. Maybe even the police were afraid of the tank I was driving. I actually wouldn't have put it past Kent and/or my ex-husband to report the vehicle as stolen just for their own entertainment. But I managed to get the parade float home with no sign of having run over any hybrids. And when climbed down from the seat there were no flashing lights nearby which granted me relief, a feeling I'd nearly forgotten.
Getting the piano into the back of the truck had also been a culmination of karmic pity, as the construction workers down the street chose my near-breakdown as their bid for angel wings. They lifted the 88 keyed monster up like it was a trust fall exercise and tied it off with bungee cords. Twenty minutes later I was back on the road.
I drove slowly. I would have given anything to just floor it and be done with this chapter of my life, but I needed to get the piano there undamaged.
That damn piano.
I noticed every time I hit the slightest imperfection in the street I got a response from the thing in the back. A discordant collection of notes, almost in protest. Even if I couldn't feel the vibrations of the potholes all the way up in the cabin of the monster truck, the piano let me know it was displeased. And each time one of those chords struck, it startled me. I thought, did one of the legs just break?
I had to keep pushing away the compulsion to stop the truck and check on my passenger, no matter how many times it called for me. I sort of wondered how much more stressful transporting a live jaguar would have been. Even turning up the radio didn't drown out the snarling of the beast in the back.
The worst one was the hill to Kent's service area. I think all 88 keys sounded at the same time, and I jumped. "Please don't fall out the back," I whispered twice. My ex-husband, in his infinite foresight, had neglected to rent an office with any kind of parking lot. There was his front door, the street, and the driveway up to Kent's. I wasn't going to park an arguably stolen vehicle three blocks away while I pushed the massive instrument across multiple intersections.
So naturally I pulled up to the service area, and there was no Kent. He'd put up his sign claiming to return by three in the afternoon. I just stared at it, harboring some strange hope that I could will the sign away. But, no. The sign was there. And I knew he'd done this on purpose, just to hit one last nerve with me. I slowly drew in the deepest breath of my life and screamed "Son of a BITCH!" holding onto the last word like it was the final note of the opera. Eventually my lungs gave out, thus confirming I hadn't the raw power to shatter the glass of windshields with my voice.
Fury led to determination as I resolved to get the damn! damn! damn! piano out of the truck on my own. I had two problems: getting the piano moving, and not dropping it out of the back. I came up with one solution for both: Kent's hydraulic lift.
I pulled the truck's front tires into the service area and put on the emergency brake. Then I got out and went over to Kent's control panel (that he always left operational, because he's a moron) and activate the switch that operated the lift. Kent's lift moved slower than those of more professional mechanics, and that gave me plenty of time to initiate phase two of my plan. If I could get the truck at enough of a slope, the tailgate would touch the pavement. Then I could undo the bungee cords and gravity would take over. It sounded so simple in my sleep-deprived head.
I was surprised when the giant keyboard didn't so much as flinch once I'd freed it from its restraints. The truck was at enough of an angle now where I should have gotten some kind of reaction. And so, like a dumbfounded Wile E. Coyote, I started testing the wheels to see if they had a kind of locking device.
In retrospect, the wheels may have built up a little bit of rust over time, but that didn't occur to me then. But then the impossible chord struck again as if a wild animal was waking up, and I jumped back. For a second, the damn piano and I just looked at each other. And then whatever had prevented the wheels from rolling gave in, and the ivory remains of elephant tusk lunged for me.
A stream of profanity poured from my mouth, quickly devolving into gibberish, as the instrument scooped me up like an amateur matador and carried me down the concrete hill. The street traffic was kind and sensible enough to form a crosswalk for me while I wrestled against traction with my shoes. Gravity was clearly on the piano's side, but I was not going down without a fight. I struggled, and I think the rubber on my shoes was burning. And right when I reached the door of the law office, I apparently did something impressively agile. I spun at just the right time and wedged both feet against the wall, my adrenaline absorbing all the weight of the runaway piano.
Everything came to a standstill. And then I heard the shattering of metal. And somebody in a car started yelling. I didn't want to look, but I couldn't block out the knowledge that I had left the hydraulic lift running.
The truck was almost vertical now, and the front end had torn the roof of the service area off of its support. It landed on the pavement where I was hoisted by the piano like a judo flip, and the truck rolled backwards on top of it. And it started sliding down the hill.
There was only one thought in my head, save the piano. You know that condition where moms can lift cars off their children? I must have tapped into it somehow, because I pushed the bane of my existence out of the oncoming headlights just as they smashed into my ex-husband's office door and continued on into his hallway.
You know the funny thing? I hadn't figured out how I was going to get the piano in one piece through his door. I hadn't even thought about it until that moment. But leaving it in his office turned out to be much easier than I would have expected.
If you missed last year's festivities, Short Story Week is when I spend an entire week churning out never before seen (by you) material in a personal challenge to bludgeon the creative side of my brain into productivity. Sometimes it involves taking half-to-tenth written stories and dusting them off. Sometimes it's going through old files and finding limestone shards that never quite made it to my blog. And a few times throughout the week I'll probably be staring at a blank screen for a few hours; moaning, crying, and yelling at the phone until a few somewhat related keystrokes of gibberish appear courtesy of me banging my head on the laptop, which I'll refer to as 'experimental literature'.
So let's dive in with a piece that's probably a spiritual relative to The Carousel. It was going to be Caris as the protagonist, but I found that the concept doesn't work anywhere in Caris's whole life, so here instead is the stand alone version.
Playing a Glissando
It was not the divorce that continued to to grate under my skin like an allergic rash; having married a divorce attorney, I had probably been preparing myself for the inevitability ever since I threw on my wedding veil. Nor was it the fact that the alleged 'settlements' had left me in roughly the same straits I'd been in when Mr. Stipulation had promised me the moon and stars three years prior; again, the warning signs were blinking in bright neon. I had even moved past the shock of being cheated on and blamed (twice, alternately) and finding out the details from his second mistress's conscience-driven e-mail apology.
It was the fact that I was still saddled with his leftover shit cluttering up my apartment.
I just wanted him gone. I wanted everything about him erased. Every shirt, sock, sports flag, and shot glass out of my sight, mind, and life forever. It had likely been this sense of desperation that had provoked me into signing my name to an 'agreement' that I would return every one of his belongings to him. Myself. No help from him. Unharmed. Not in the pile of shredded and burnt fabric from which I would have taken so much recompense in depositing on his doorstep.
For months I'd been making special trips to and from his downtown office, cramming my tiny car with whatever would mostly safely fit, and dealing with his instructions on where and how to carefully set and fold every single item in my possession once I'd delivered them. No, I couldn't just drop off the packages. I was under a damned contract that required me to lay everything out for inspection before the bastard would sign off on them. And just to add fuel to his amusement, if anything from his extensive list turned up damaged, his law firm would be charging me for the sum of everything. I swore I would never write my name on anything ever again.
The coffee table had eaten up my remaining sick day, as I'd had to tie it to the top of my car and lug it at 15 miles per hour in the middle of the night when traffic was light enough. Counting both times the police stopped me to make sure I wasn't high, that trip took four hours. And then my ex arrived at his office an hour and a half late; I could tell from his expression that he'd done it on purpose. I didn't make it into work that morning.
I was one obstacle away from finally ending the ordeal, but it was a leviathan. That damn piano. I don't know why he bought it or where it came from, but the week before I'd had a heavenly dream about taking an axe to the thing. That had been my last night of decent sleep, because ever since then I'd woken up from nightmares about having to push it down the street.
See, in addition to all of these other enduring attachments to the enthusiastic split, my ex husband had seen fit to instill a deadline on the process. My sweet dream was on the eve of what I thought would be the end of it, a full week before his self-imposed cutoff date. And when the moving vehicle I reserved turned out to be a hitch trailer capable of transporting...I don't know, a sheepdog? I was none too jovial with my comment card.
I had to reschedule. And getting a proper sized set of wheels sent to the piece of shit outlet to which I had access was going to take a week -meaning: I would be dropping this damn piano off on the last damn day of this damn contract or get dragged into another damn court battle to deal with whatever amusing hoop Mr. Attorney at I-don't-even-know-how-to-play-the-damn-piano could devise for me to leap through.
The morning-of came and I'm quite sure I didn't sleep. I may have passed out for a few minutes here and there, but overall my brain wouldn't shut up. I wound up driving to the outlet an hour earlier than I was scheduled, in hopes that I could get this all taken care of before the sleep deprived hallucinations set in. There was nobody there when I arrived, and I waited.
And waited.
I'm not sure when my creeping sense of doom caught up to me but I began to take note of the realization that I wasn't seeing any kind of movement from within or outside of the office. I didn't want to get out of my car, so I let it roll forward until I could make out the handwritten ink on the piece of cardboard taped to the front door. 'Out of business' it said. I may have bitten a piece off of my steering wheel.
I was in tears by the time I reached my ex-husband's office, with mascara I'd forgotten to remove the previous evening now dripping down my cheeks. As I'd predicted he wasn't there (it was a Friday after all), but I wasn't there for him. I was there to see Kent, the mechanic who had set up show across the street from him.
Kent and my ex had been friends since before I'd fallen into the picture. And as such Kent and I did not share any affection. But my ex had granted Kent the third party power to oversee any of these numerous transactions in his absence, and I'd been seeing quite a bit of Kent in recent weeks.
My poor car groaned at the steep hill that led from the street to his service area, and I'm sure the familiar sound drew his attention because he was outside my driver's window before I noticed him. Kent took one look at my appearance and let out a gleeful snort, which only made me hate him more.
"Kent?" I tried to sound scolding, but my voice quivered. "I HAVE to get that piano out of my home."
"It sounds like you've got a problem then," he chuckled.
"Please?" I swore I would never ask him for help, but I was beyond the point of keeping promises to myself. "I can't do this anymore!"
He nonchalantly retrieved my ex-husband's final document from his desk and handed me a pen. "He says all you have to do is leave the piano in one piece in his office lobby and you're in the clear."
"I can't GET the piano here, Kent! I've tried!" I was sobbing now. I started explaining what had happened that morning, but he was taking too much amusement in my plight to really listen to the details.
"Here-" he interrupted me, tossing a set of keys in my direction that I promptly dropped. Kent pointed to a fairly large pickup truck that he'd apparently been working on for someone. "I didn't see you borrow it." And with that, he was back in his office enjoying whatever phone call I'd made him put on hold.
This was the kind of truck that scared the hell out of me as a pedestrian. Now that I was fully covered behind the wheel of one, I was petrified. I'm quite sure I was taking up multiple lanes and the occasional sidewalk, and it's a wonder I didn't get pulled over. Maybe even the police were afraid of the tank I was driving. I actually wouldn't have put it past Kent and/or my ex-husband to report the vehicle as stolen just for their own entertainment. But I managed to get the parade float home with no sign of having run over any hybrids. And when climbed down from the seat there were no flashing lights nearby which granted me relief, a feeling I'd nearly forgotten.
Getting the piano into the back of the truck had also been a culmination of karmic pity, as the construction workers down the street chose my near-breakdown as their bid for angel wings. They lifted the 88 keyed monster up like it was a trust fall exercise and tied it off with bungee cords. Twenty minutes later I was back on the road.
I drove slowly. I would have given anything to just floor it and be done with this chapter of my life, but I needed to get the piano there undamaged.
That damn piano.
I noticed every time I hit the slightest imperfection in the street I got a response from the thing in the back. A discordant collection of notes, almost in protest. Even if I couldn't feel the vibrations of the potholes all the way up in the cabin of the monster truck, the piano let me know it was displeased. And each time one of those chords struck, it startled me. I thought, did one of the legs just break?
I had to keep pushing away the compulsion to stop the truck and check on my passenger, no matter how many times it called for me. I sort of wondered how much more stressful transporting a live jaguar would have been. Even turning up the radio didn't drown out the snarling of the beast in the back.
The worst one was the hill to Kent's service area. I think all 88 keys sounded at the same time, and I jumped. "Please don't fall out the back," I whispered twice. My ex-husband, in his infinite foresight, had neglected to rent an office with any kind of parking lot. There was his front door, the street, and the driveway up to Kent's. I wasn't going to park an arguably stolen vehicle three blocks away while I pushed the massive instrument across multiple intersections.
So naturally I pulled up to the service area, and there was no Kent. He'd put up his sign claiming to return by three in the afternoon. I just stared at it, harboring some strange hope that I could will the sign away. But, no. The sign was there. And I knew he'd done this on purpose, just to hit one last nerve with me. I slowly drew in the deepest breath of my life and screamed "Son of a BITCH!" holding onto the last word like it was the final note of the opera. Eventually my lungs gave out, thus confirming I hadn't the raw power to shatter the glass of windshields with my voice.
Fury led to determination as I resolved to get the damn! damn! damn! piano out of the truck on my own. I had two problems: getting the piano moving, and not dropping it out of the back. I came up with one solution for both: Kent's hydraulic lift.
I pulled the truck's front tires into the service area and put on the emergency brake. Then I got out and went over to Kent's control panel (that he always left operational, because he's a moron) and activate the switch that operated the lift. Kent's lift moved slower than those of more professional mechanics, and that gave me plenty of time to initiate phase two of my plan. If I could get the truck at enough of a slope, the tailgate would touch the pavement. Then I could undo the bungee cords and gravity would take over. It sounded so simple in my sleep-deprived head.
I was surprised when the giant keyboard didn't so much as flinch once I'd freed it from its restraints. The truck was at enough of an angle now where I should have gotten some kind of reaction. And so, like a dumbfounded Wile E. Coyote, I started testing the wheels to see if they had a kind of locking device.
In retrospect, the wheels may have built up a little bit of rust over time, but that didn't occur to me then. But then the impossible chord struck again as if a wild animal was waking up, and I jumped back. For a second, the damn piano and I just looked at each other. And then whatever had prevented the wheels from rolling gave in, and the ivory remains of elephant tusk lunged for me.
A stream of profanity poured from my mouth, quickly devolving into gibberish, as the instrument scooped me up like an amateur matador and carried me down the concrete hill. The street traffic was kind and sensible enough to form a crosswalk for me while I wrestled against traction with my shoes. Gravity was clearly on the piano's side, but I was not going down without a fight. I struggled, and I think the rubber on my shoes was burning. And right when I reached the door of the law office, I apparently did something impressively agile. I spun at just the right time and wedged both feet against the wall, my adrenaline absorbing all the weight of the runaway piano.
Everything came to a standstill. And then I heard the shattering of metal. And somebody in a car started yelling. I didn't want to look, but I couldn't block out the knowledge that I had left the hydraulic lift running.
The truck was almost vertical now, and the front end had torn the roof of the service area off of its support. It landed on the pavement where I was hoisted by the piano like a judo flip, and the truck rolled backwards on top of it. And it started sliding down the hill.
There was only one thought in my head, save the piano. You know that condition where moms can lift cars off their children? I must have tapped into it somehow, because I pushed the bane of my existence out of the oncoming headlights just as they smashed into my ex-husband's office door and continued on into his hallway.
You know the funny thing? I hadn't figured out how I was going to get the piano in one piece through his door. I hadn't even thought about it until that moment. But leaving it in his office turned out to be much easier than I would have expected.
Monday, September 5, 2016
Chromatic Dragon Con -The Other People's Convention
As a middle act Generation X-er, I feel confident to say that I witnessed the birth of the alternative pop culture phenomenon known as nerd-dom. Ever since those seeds were secretly planted in the back alleys of Neverwhere, the vines have grown, blossomed, and engulfed the mainstream; courtesy of out of control technological advances and the realization that the reality of the 1990's sucked quite a bit.
I was there for pre-A New Hope Star Wars, Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books, the first video game in color, and I even owned a John Denver 8-track cassette. I chose a side for the first console war (Atari, Odyssey, Intellivision, Colecovision) where everybody lost. I witnessed the birth, rise, and implosion of Tim Burton. I remember when it was possible to watch every single anime title available in a 63 mile radius. And to this day I carry the special memory of sending my first e-mail and feeling the giddiness of this new technology.
It's not to say out loud that I'm better than you, just that my life has coincidentally synchronized with the zeitgeist to which my generation was apparently so hostile. It's a strange sense to have grown up a nerd when the identity guaranteed one being outcast from social circles, to a world where we seem to have accidentally taken over.
This is Labor Day Weekend, the annual costumed gathering in Atlanta, for nerds who have more vacation time than me, known as Dragon Con. I used to go every year, back when I had stamina and knew someone who could sew. If you've never been, think of it as the Light Side of the Force's Adult Halloween (or Mardi Gras for people who'd prefer that exposed cleavage have a back story). I'm not there, and I'm a little sad. But after going on a press pass two years in a row, I got a little spoiled, and it's hard to go back to searching for a purpose.
Throughout my life I've been at least ten times, and there's always the excitement of seeing Sly Cooper share a beer with a Starship Trooper, and there's always the collection of meet and greet stories along the 'Eric Roberts is so charming' line, and it's always sad on Sunday afternoon when the world goes back to normal. But somehow I never had that ambiguous 'experience' that I always hoped to have at Dragon Con. I don't know what catharsis I was looking for. I just somehow felt that I was noticeably closer to it amongst other freaks in capes than I am at the mall.
Perhaps one of the factors is the way nerd culture has exploded beyond the scope of one measly blogger's ability to connect with everything that has a fandom. It's just too big now. Kind of like when the 2nd edition AD&D Monster's Manual skyrocketed out of control with endless variations on dragons themselves. We went from a simple dragon that breathed fire to the dichotomy of color vs, gem based dragons, and then into the endless stream of fanfiction dragons; Weather Dragons, Shallow Dragons, Trippy Dragons, the unidentifiable Adjective Dragons, and (my personal favorite) the Snide Dragons who can drain a character's charisma 1-4 points with their magical eye-roll.
So I think Dragon Con should consider reflecting the growing complexity of nerd culture. I can't think of a more traditionally appropriate method for celebrating diversity than partitioning off elements of the culture that I honestly couldn't care less about into a separate community, just like the dragons of yore. Here then are some of the most popular elements among my community that I have never been able to give a shit about.
1. Pokémon Dragon
Breath Weapon: Magical round cages
Habitat: Hotspots
Diet: Small inoffensive creatures and Mewtwo
It may have been my age, but I was starting to realize some part of me needed to grow up when Pikachu burst on the American scene reminding everyone of his name over and over. I have to admire Nintendo (and so do you) for the multi-media marketing management that manifested their mutinous menagerie. But the TV show was too kiddie for me, and I began to hate every teenager who came into Blockbuster asking if more trading cards had come in. I will say I love collecting things. There's an addictiveness to the sense of progress. But I like manageable levels of collecting, and Pokémon had about 127 more characters than I was willing to deal with.
2. Magic: The Gathering Dragon
Breath Weapon: A combination of Cheetos and Mountain Dew
Habitat: Comic book stores
Diet: (see breath weapon)
In addition to being another trading card gimmick, I have an aversion to rules. I like to be able to jump into a game with minimal effort. Rules are supposed to create fun, not hinder it, and I have no patience for card games more complicated than Phase 10. I don't like Magic because I don't get Magic and there doesn't seem to be a homework-free access point to the game. Hell, I don't even get into Munchkin. Spades, Uno, Old Maid, I'm there. I'm even willing to try out some basic accounting, but Magic just doesn't hold my attention.
3. Final Fantasy 7 Dragon
Breath Weapon: Any excuse to bash Nintendo
Habitat: Message boards
Diet: Announcements, screenshots, rumors
Pretty much any post-SNES Squaresoft is going to have to have Donald Duck in it to hold my attention, and even that's susceptible to ruination by card-based gameplay. But FF7 holds some personal animosity from me for two reasons. I allied with Nintendo during the N64 era, and had this game flaunted in front of me while Ocarina of Time got delayed for over a year and there was no sign of a single RPG. I also played the game. Good lord, it's boring! Cloud is so completely, utterly, tediously dull. Brooding is not a character, guys. Brooding is a character weakness. Cloud needs to go away and take all of his Cloud wannabes from countless other RPGs with him.
4. World of Warcraft Dragon
Breath Weapon: Insistence that the maxed out level is only the beginning of the game
Habitat: If you're at a computer, you're looking at it
Diet: Everquest enthusiasts, their own resources, each other, time itself
I've never played it and I never will. I hear it's fun, and it probably is, but I've had such a negative experience with the game from an outsider perspective that my answer is going to be a definitive 'no'. I'm all about gaming and escapism, but these things are supposed to compliment your life, not replace it. I've seen the latter happen with WOW, and I can't shake the suspicion that it's designed to consume your whole waking routine. And then some. I just can't fathom bending my whole work schedule around virtual raids.
5. Game of Thrones Dragon
Breath Weapon: Spoilers
Habitat: George R. R. Martin's front lawn
Diet: Heartbreak
First problem, it's HBO. I watched Rome, which was amazing, but the nudity and violence in it honestly crossed a line (here's the spectrum: necessity/atmosphere/fun/to get the R rating/because we're HBO). From what I hear, Game of Thrones deliberately caters to the audience's perversions. Secondly, the series seems to be about the seedy soap opera side of humanity, with constant back-stabbing and likable characters being murdered. I realize a lot of very vocal people like that kind of thing, but none of these elements are selling points for me. As an audience member, my fundamental question is always "Who am I supposed to be rooting for?" And if you leave it up to me to decide and then kill my preferred character off, I'm not going to stay with you. Everything about this series warns me 'Don't bother'.
6. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Dragon
Breath Weapon: Someone else's problem
Habitat: radio, stage shows, novels, comic book adaptations, a TV series, a computer game, a feature film
Diet: Esoteric quotes
My whole life, people have told me I HAVE to read this book. Now that I'm 43 and still alive, I think it's pretty safe to say that I don't have to, and when I die I seriously doubt it will be due to complications of not having read this book. The usually plugs are "it's funny" and "it's so you"; two declarations that never seem to bring about anything positive (for the record, Napoleon Dynamite makes my skin crawl). Now I don't have anything against Douglas Adams, I'm sure the book is amusing enough. I just honestly think I would be bored with it. And then I would turn around and hate everyone in my life who over-hyped it. And they would deserve it but then I'd just feel like a stuck-up jerk, and I have better stuck-up things to spend my time feeling like.
7. Joss Whedon Dragon
Breath Weapon: Buffyspeak
Habitat: uncredited
Diet: Anything starring Nathan Fillion
Ah, Joss Whedon. Okay, let me say upfront that I think he did a fantastic job on one of the two Avengers films he was in charge of. I also think he's a talented writer who handles ensembles well, and he excels at dialogue and nuance. But I don't get why people ever started wearing 'Joss Whedon is my Master Now' t-shirts. He does what he does decently. But that's it. I've never seen anything from him that comes across with the brilliance he's given credit for. I suspect he may have been in the right place at the right time. Buffy just happened to find a passionate audience that happened to develop its own subset of the culture, and by default everything else he touched MUST have been good enough to justify its fan base. But I continue to find the bulk of his work to be merely okay, and the fervor of his fans keeps me at a distance.
8. Harry Potter Dragon
Breath Weapon: Nonsense words
Habitat: Freaking everywhere!
Diet: The phrase "but she's such a good writer"
Dear God! If there is one damned franchise I could go the rest of my life never hearing about again, it's this one. Out of all eight films, I only started caring about any of the characters in film seven, and then I stopped again. I've never read the books. I'm never going to read the books. I don't care how much more there is in the books because I don't care about what I've seen through eight films, I'm not interested in more. Do I find anything wrong with the story? Honestly, no. But just like with Joss Whedon, Harry Potter fans irritate me to the point of strangulation fantasies that I can't help but lash back. Bottom line: stop putting it on the level of Lord of the Rings. I'm not saying Tolkien was definitively better than Rowling, I'm saying Harry Potter has not proven itself yet. It's too new. No matter how much you refuse to shut up about it right now, it is the next generation who gets to decide if it's a timeless classic or not. And even then I'm still not going to read the damn books.
I was there for pre-A New Hope Star Wars, Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books, the first video game in color, and I even owned a John Denver 8-track cassette. I chose a side for the first console war (Atari, Odyssey, Intellivision, Colecovision) where everybody lost. I witnessed the birth, rise, and implosion of Tim Burton. I remember when it was possible to watch every single anime title available in a 63 mile radius. And to this day I carry the special memory of sending my first e-mail and feeling the giddiness of this new technology.
It's not to say out loud that I'm better than you, just that my life has coincidentally synchronized with the zeitgeist to which my generation was apparently so hostile. It's a strange sense to have grown up a nerd when the identity guaranteed one being outcast from social circles, to a world where we seem to have accidentally taken over.
This is Labor Day Weekend, the annual costumed gathering in Atlanta, for nerds who have more vacation time than me, known as Dragon Con. I used to go every year, back when I had stamina and knew someone who could sew. If you've never been, think of it as the Light Side of the Force's Adult Halloween (or Mardi Gras for people who'd prefer that exposed cleavage have a back story). I'm not there, and I'm a little sad. But after going on a press pass two years in a row, I got a little spoiled, and it's hard to go back to searching for a purpose.
Throughout my life I've been at least ten times, and there's always the excitement of seeing Sly Cooper share a beer with a Starship Trooper, and there's always the collection of meet and greet stories along the 'Eric Roberts is so charming' line, and it's always sad on Sunday afternoon when the world goes back to normal. But somehow I never had that ambiguous 'experience' that I always hoped to have at Dragon Con. I don't know what catharsis I was looking for. I just somehow felt that I was noticeably closer to it amongst other freaks in capes than I am at the mall.
Perhaps one of the factors is the way nerd culture has exploded beyond the scope of one measly blogger's ability to connect with everything that has a fandom. It's just too big now. Kind of like when the 2nd edition AD&D Monster's Manual skyrocketed out of control with endless variations on dragons themselves. We went from a simple dragon that breathed fire to the dichotomy of color vs, gem based dragons, and then into the endless stream of fanfiction dragons; Weather Dragons, Shallow Dragons, Trippy Dragons, the unidentifiable Adjective Dragons, and (my personal favorite) the Snide Dragons who can drain a character's charisma 1-4 points with their magical eye-roll.
So I think Dragon Con should consider reflecting the growing complexity of nerd culture. I can't think of a more traditionally appropriate method for celebrating diversity than partitioning off elements of the culture that I honestly couldn't care less about into a separate community, just like the dragons of yore. Here then are some of the most popular elements among my community that I have never been able to give a shit about.
1. Pokémon Dragon
Breath Weapon: Magical round cages
Habitat: Hotspots
Diet: Small inoffensive creatures and Mewtwo
It may have been my age, but I was starting to realize some part of me needed to grow up when Pikachu burst on the American scene reminding everyone of his name over and over. I have to admire Nintendo (and so do you) for the multi-media marketing management that manifested their mutinous menagerie. But the TV show was too kiddie for me, and I began to hate every teenager who came into Blockbuster asking if more trading cards had come in. I will say I love collecting things. There's an addictiveness to the sense of progress. But I like manageable levels of collecting, and Pokémon had about 127 more characters than I was willing to deal with.
2. Magic: The Gathering Dragon
Breath Weapon: A combination of Cheetos and Mountain Dew
Habitat: Comic book stores
Diet: (see breath weapon)
In addition to being another trading card gimmick, I have an aversion to rules. I like to be able to jump into a game with minimal effort. Rules are supposed to create fun, not hinder it, and I have no patience for card games more complicated than Phase 10. I don't like Magic because I don't get Magic and there doesn't seem to be a homework-free access point to the game. Hell, I don't even get into Munchkin. Spades, Uno, Old Maid, I'm there. I'm even willing to try out some basic accounting, but Magic just doesn't hold my attention.
3. Final Fantasy 7 Dragon
Breath Weapon: Any excuse to bash Nintendo
Habitat: Message boards
Diet: Announcements, screenshots, rumors
Pretty much any post-SNES Squaresoft is going to have to have Donald Duck in it to hold my attention, and even that's susceptible to ruination by card-based gameplay. But FF7 holds some personal animosity from me for two reasons. I allied with Nintendo during the N64 era, and had this game flaunted in front of me while Ocarina of Time got delayed for over a year and there was no sign of a single RPG. I also played the game. Good lord, it's boring! Cloud is so completely, utterly, tediously dull. Brooding is not a character, guys. Brooding is a character weakness. Cloud needs to go away and take all of his Cloud wannabes from countless other RPGs with him.
4. World of Warcraft Dragon
Breath Weapon: Insistence that the maxed out level is only the beginning of the game
Habitat: If you're at a computer, you're looking at it
Diet: Everquest enthusiasts, their own resources, each other, time itself
I've never played it and I never will. I hear it's fun, and it probably is, but I've had such a negative experience with the game from an outsider perspective that my answer is going to be a definitive 'no'. I'm all about gaming and escapism, but these things are supposed to compliment your life, not replace it. I've seen the latter happen with WOW, and I can't shake the suspicion that it's designed to consume your whole waking routine. And then some. I just can't fathom bending my whole work schedule around virtual raids.
5. Game of Thrones Dragon
Breath Weapon: Spoilers
Habitat: George R. R. Martin's front lawn
Diet: Heartbreak
First problem, it's HBO. I watched Rome, which was amazing, but the nudity and violence in it honestly crossed a line (here's the spectrum: necessity/atmosphere/fun/to get the R rating/because we're HBO). From what I hear, Game of Thrones deliberately caters to the audience's perversions. Secondly, the series seems to be about the seedy soap opera side of humanity, with constant back-stabbing and likable characters being murdered. I realize a lot of very vocal people like that kind of thing, but none of these elements are selling points for me. As an audience member, my fundamental question is always "Who am I supposed to be rooting for?" And if you leave it up to me to decide and then kill my preferred character off, I'm not going to stay with you. Everything about this series warns me 'Don't bother'.
6. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Dragon
Breath Weapon: Someone else's problem
Habitat: radio, stage shows, novels, comic book adaptations, a TV series, a computer game, a feature film
Diet: Esoteric quotes
My whole life, people have told me I HAVE to read this book. Now that I'm 43 and still alive, I think it's pretty safe to say that I don't have to, and when I die I seriously doubt it will be due to complications of not having read this book. The usually plugs are "it's funny" and "it's so you"; two declarations that never seem to bring about anything positive (for the record, Napoleon Dynamite makes my skin crawl). Now I don't have anything against Douglas Adams, I'm sure the book is amusing enough. I just honestly think I would be bored with it. And then I would turn around and hate everyone in my life who over-hyped it. And they would deserve it but then I'd just feel like a stuck-up jerk, and I have better stuck-up things to spend my time feeling like.
7. Joss Whedon Dragon
Breath Weapon: Buffyspeak
Habitat: uncredited
Diet: Anything starring Nathan Fillion
Ah, Joss Whedon. Okay, let me say upfront that I think he did a fantastic job on one of the two Avengers films he was in charge of. I also think he's a talented writer who handles ensembles well, and he excels at dialogue and nuance. But I don't get why people ever started wearing 'Joss Whedon is my Master Now' t-shirts. He does what he does decently. But that's it. I've never seen anything from him that comes across with the brilliance he's given credit for. I suspect he may have been in the right place at the right time. Buffy just happened to find a passionate audience that happened to develop its own subset of the culture, and by default everything else he touched MUST have been good enough to justify its fan base. But I continue to find the bulk of his work to be merely okay, and the fervor of his fans keeps me at a distance.
8. Harry Potter Dragon
Breath Weapon: Nonsense words
Habitat: Freaking everywhere!
Diet: The phrase "but she's such a good writer"
Dear God! If there is one damned franchise I could go the rest of my life never hearing about again, it's this one. Out of all eight films, I only started caring about any of the characters in film seven, and then I stopped again. I've never read the books. I'm never going to read the books. I don't care how much more there is in the books because I don't care about what I've seen through eight films, I'm not interested in more. Do I find anything wrong with the story? Honestly, no. But just like with Joss Whedon, Harry Potter fans irritate me to the point of strangulation fantasies that I can't help but lash back. Bottom line: stop putting it on the level of Lord of the Rings. I'm not saying Tolkien was definitively better than Rowling, I'm saying Harry Potter has not proven itself yet. It's too new. No matter how much you refuse to shut up about it right now, it is the next generation who gets to decide if it's a timeless classic or not. And even then I'm still not going to read the damn books.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)