Calling all creative minds....we need your inspiration and enthusiasm

This wonderfully gifted friend emailed me recently (FB messaged-is this synonymous with emailing nowadays?) and shared this with me....some tidbits of information.....he comes from an interestingly diverse background involved in theater etc....factor in his IQ, and ravenous appetite for reading and continuous education....and his breathless artwork involving stained glass...anyway-you get the point. He's a pretty cool dude who has a pretty cool plan.

And this is the plan: radio drama.   Drama may be too specific seeing as how you can branch out in comedy, action, children's theater etc....the list and possibilities are endless, and can range from 10 minutes to 45 minutes.   Just picture it. And if well received enough imagine being able to drive listening to raido theater on your Sirius satellite. (for those of you pretentious enough to buy cars with this feature and actually use it for something other than the bullshit of Howard Stern and monotonous voice of someone on NPR).



The point is it would highly thought provoking and allow a creative outlet and adventure for actors who find it difficult to find work or even for voice actors to branch out...Just being able to write a script that doesn't lag and can fill even just 10 minutes with riveting entertainment would be extraordinary.

Check out this template and article on the phenomena:

http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.radiodramarevival.com%2Fso-you-wanna-create-a-radio-drama%2F&h=HAQCYSd5e


And get to writing damnit!!!

NaNoWriMo

So this cool coworker in my office suite sent me an email about this nifty thing called NaNoWriMo which is short for National Novel Writing Month.  It's in November, and the goal of the month is to write a novel or writings to total 50,000-there's other details, but its free and intellectually stimulating. Which God knows we could all use....even those who are not intellectuals.

the website will better explain it for those of you who face confusion at the above....who just don't want to screw with my verbal diarrhea. http://www.nanowrimo.org/

 

Some Light Bathroom Reading

I am a book.  A fast paced trashy bodice ripper you find next to the Raisinettes at CVS. Not quite Jackie Collins, but not National Enquirer trash either.  I am not ashamed.  You mind find the enjoyment of reading me on the toilet or tub, but I am too shameful to pick to be seen in a restaurant or work.  Yet I know you wouldn’t resist me in an airport because of the anonymity it provides; you could always leave me for the next one to read. 

            I start out real slow, difficult to get caught up in, a slow page turner, almost grating the way I had this perfect Norman Rockwell childhood complete with puppies and kitties and damn homemade birthday cakes.  Then I turn eleven and you start realize from extreme foreshadowing there will be much to be had from this one; not quiet a waste of $5.99.  Was it the near death experience of becoming borderline hemophiliac or the therapy inducing trauma of catching my father schlepping my mother’s best friend in our house.

Fast-forward through years of passive aggressive typical teenage antics complete with heroin use and cocaine addiction right up to that moment of clarity. A term AA and NA members are familiar with and one of many euphemisms I “borrow” from the steps although I refuse to believe in any of the steps.  Something about eating stale donuts or crappy bagels with even cheaper staler coffee, listening to the wailings and tragedies of degenerate losers is not enlightening.  It makes me humiliated for them. Like sitting in a room with stranger and admitting you were drunk enough to sleep with your brother and cousin is not redeeming. Yeah tell a therapist and your OBGYN so we know if Jr. has a flipper, but don’t sit there thinking you are forgiven for all that.  Shit happens. And we deal with it. But we can never forget and those we did it to won’t either. 

Fast-forward a little more and I get busy. It more ways then one. I start out by cleaning house and getting my act together. Then I guess one of those many proverbial “breaks” from “housecleaning” I get busy.  And end up busy with a newborn, and then a toddler. Busy playing failed housewife, and then bitter divorcee. Busy reinventing myself into eager college student.  Busy working as an eager beaver in corporate America. Only to be knocked down at every turn. And not because I am a minority, but because I am not enough of one.   Busy losing interest and grips on time management and suffering from senioritis when I am only a junior. 

Busy. The book because even faster paced when I rediscover love, and what it means to want sex again.  To live my life sometimes for me, selfish or not, and realize that while I am no saint, it does not make me a horrible person. That my daughter will turn out stubborn and free spirited as me no matter how hard I try.  I realize that while I have had a sad life, a pitiful life, a joyful life, a weird life, it is MY LIFE. And it is this that makes you finish me with a smirk on your face. And what makes you return to CVS to buy another copy to leave next to the toilet at work.

Ashes and Poppies

Chasing me into the depths of hell,

Walls crushing bone, splintering shards

Pierce my lungs as I struggle to breath

Stagnant air poisons the poppies growing along the path

Winding toward my salvation as well as my doom

And they catch fire as the dry air carries the musk of our sins

Defiantly unwilling to stop what we have created

The fire and air consume us and ashes are all that are left.

Don't know what it is about this song....I heard it once, and am obsessed with it. Like seriously could keep it on repeat in the car and still not get tired of it. Her voice is amazingly sanguine...and yet pallid and morose....A raw twangy rockabilly..Forgive me I am at a loss of coherent speech patterns....

But check out her album Blacklisted and Fox Confessor Brings the Flood....Cannot wait to see her live-hopefully this next SXSW.

Anyway-she's worth a mention because just listening to her has helped me move past my block...writer's block that is....So here's to recapturing my former brilliance and vulgarity for that book.

Sybil

Blackened night brings her hands

Reaching out, across the smoothened comforter,

Clutching, grasping, no words, just her hands

And I take her frail hand in mine

Take her heart and hold it, praying the flutter will not stop

Not today, that today brings dinner in the dining hall

And 3 cans of Boost, Liliana and the 5’0 clock news

One pill, two pill, and here one more,

She looks at me, empty eyes and I stare back,

Praying, holding out hope there will be someone staring back

No one, no one to talk to you about children or grandchildren,

No one to sip coffee and muddle over the news,

No one to care if I am here or not, 58 years gone, never existed

Just those goddamn hands…

And the flutter of her heart.

Lexapro

Ghosts. You see us among the masses. Or you don’t. Some people say or claim this is an exaggeration, that our presence, our existence is not seen, unnoticeable. Yet, we’re out there, floating through life. Just disguised as people. People who don’t have a handle on life. Or rather it has too much of a handle on us.  Present one minute and vanishing the next. The only thing betraying this, a stray hairpin, a misplaced shoe, its mate laying abandoned in the dark recesses of the closet, no doubt, a tube of lipstick melted into the bottom of a handbag.  Faint handprints fading into the sheets, evaporating into the air.  Air. Wisps of succulent perfume, now stale and sickeningly sweet, lingering in the air, creating an outline, airy aspirations, bleeding out, disappearing.  Leaving nothing but sorrow in its place. Hollowed out shells, robotic formations created and controlled by an endless slew of plastic tops. White plastic tops, blaring like sirens, and inside nestled is salvation. Or at least enough to sustain us. Sustain us enough to breathe…Saving us from the catatonic state that plagues us or the endless stream of saline creating a puddle on our blouses. Assuming we have enough will to get dressed . Salvation for evening and salvation for day.   For the benefit of ourselves and them. Pulling us from the bed, hitting the ground running to the shower where we sit rocking because their crying won’t stop, their loving won’t slow down. The endless wants, endless needs, no way to ignore them. Pulling us apart, ripping us into two, no breaking, no slowing as it devours us whole. Mommy mommy mommy. It will never stop.