Nothing Beside Remains

4.07.2006

Ripping off Michael Cunningham, who ripped off Virginia Woolf

More on Martok/Karl, as an imitation of Michael Cunningham's The Hours.
This is the first draft.

******************
He steps out into the cold, clean air. It is a newly formed fresh morning, as though it had been created from the ether just the moment before he entered it, and would fade back away just after he left it behind. He steps down the slope of the street, guiding his feet eastward.

Karl stands at the bottom of the hill, shifting one foot and the other in a slow drumbeat, waiting for the green light's permission to cross. He stares fixedly at the red-lit hand, eyes as still as his feet aren't.

Opposite him, Marie Halberg stands, feet dancing an impatient two-step of their own accord, glancing up at the persistently red "don't walk" hand. Below her, George Junior screams, his tiny face turning blue with rage and oxygen deprivation. Sighing heavily, Marie bends down to him, all the motion in her hips, graceful, left hand snaking behind the baby to check his diaper, right reaching into the stroller pocket for a teething biscuit. When she rises, her son satisfied for the moment, the light has already changed. She pushes the stroller down off the curb (clatter-thunk, go the wheels) and into the street. As she passes Karl, passes him in the precise center of the yellow-black path, their eyes meet, and are linked by a laser-thin beam of recognition. There he is, thinks Marie, who hasn't seen him in nearly a year. He is suddenly, surprisingly middle-aged (maybe it was the hair, now worn short and conservative?), slouching deeply. She imagines that she can see through him to his bones, sees that they are thin and pliant; sees his insides, all his organs laid out before her. She is filled with a vague and yet consuming sense of disapproval. They pass(the feeling passes, too) and she walks on.

He walks on.

On past the children playing, screaming in the park; on past the old man sweeping the sidewalk outside his convenience store; on past the big opulent hotels and the seedy residential hotels (how incredible, that the one word meant the two things, so very different); on past the wafting mixing smells of ethnic cooking; on past houses, cars, people. Here is life, and here is Karl walking steadily past it all.

He arrives at his destination: Crate & Barrel, glass-walled, full of yuppies and matching placemat and napkin sets.

He pushes open the door, which never seems to stick or squeak, and walks in, a large, dense man, clumsy amid the delicate vases and dainty linens. A man wearing a crisp white shirt that manages to suggest a uniform is rearranging a pyramid of brocade throw pillows near the door. He gives Karl a long look as he enters, as if to communicate the fact that he knows some deep and musty secret of Karl's soul. (This is how Julia Roberts must have felt in Pretty Woman, thinks Karl.)

Now, he stands in front of a vast wall of wineglasses – the shelves seem to reach to the very edges of the universe. Karl is overwhelmed, helpless, adrift in a sea of glassware. Had Corrinne told him to get the plain ones with the twisty stems? Or had it been the handblown ones with the flecks of color? He sinks into himself, standing there, a statue, surrounded by lawyers and businessmen's wives selecting fabrics and flatware. He is lost, alone, utterly stranded. He wants to scream but is afraid of his own voice. The waves crash on his body and he drowns, right there in the store, in front of a wall of glass.

A blast rings throughout the store, and Karl surfaces. He whips his head around, eyes scanning beyond the windows for the source of the explosion (or had it been a gunshot?). The other customers are unconcerned, and a few have shifted their attention to Karl, standing bizarrely tense and alert in the kitchenware section. They shake their heads. People like that shouldn't be allowed in here, they think.

Gradually, he relaxes. He sees it now, on the opposite corner. One of those Hummer limos – all that superfluous metal, as though the thing was to be traveling in space. It had blown a tire, that was all. One would think that after all these years of living here he would have learned to distinguish city noises from real danger, but no.

The rear window of the limousine rolls down, and a face appears to check the progress of the driver's repairs. A brief exchange, silent to Karl, and the smoky glass rises again, hiding the passenger. But the face remains, blazing in front of Karl's eyes, in his memory. He knew that face. He knows that face...

"Sir, are you all right?"

The crisp clerk, wearing a look of contempt behind a mask of concern.

"Fine. I'm fine," Karl stammers.

He begins to notice the people around him: the father who spares a moment of attention from his baby to look pityingly at the man breaking down in the housewares store, the woman in the business suit who studiously avoids meeting his eyes.

"I'm fine," he repeats, panic flooding his veins. He turns on his heel and runs from the store.

He runs and runs, retracing the calm steps of that morning, running home to safety. He runs until he is stopped, abruptly, by something large and solid in front of him.

He crashes, bodily, completely, into a man, and as they both tumble down into the concrete, he realizes with horror who it is.

Karl crashes into William Shatner and down. Karl is flooded with feeling. Here, right here beneath him, is the man he once tried to kill, his former idol. Here is his toupee. Here is the sexual, paternal smile that lurks just beneath. Here is the flesh of the man, and here is the actual, physical fact of his soul – swirling hopes, tumultuous fears, miniscule human feelings that swell up to fill him entirely. Here are the depths of the famous William Shatner, the man beneath the character; the naked and feeble essence that Karl (so blinded was he by the sheen of the persona, so gagged by his own needs projected outward) had never even known existed. And yet, here it is, here, between Karl and the pavement, in his arms. It was tangible, painful.

Without quite meaning to, without deciding to, he hugs Shatner, warmly, arms snaking around his waist and shoulders. He is full of Shatner's awful cologne and the broken, runny eggs of his shattered groceries.

"Hey!"

Shatner recoils, trying to pull away from the embrace, and succeeds only in hitting his own head against the sidewalk.

"Get off me!"

"Sorry," mumbles Karl, rising up on his knees.

Here, above the prone man on the ground, Karl clenches his fist as though around the hilt of a blade. He squeezes his eyes tight, tries to shut out the sounds of the crowd and the police who will arrive any second.

Eyes open, and he is alone again, alone on the street on top of William Shatner, who shoves him off of his legs.

"I'm really sorry," he says again.

Shatner ignores him, squatting on the ground to gather what remains of his bag of organic groceries. The eggs are past salvage, all twelve dead, but the rest might still be all right.

Karl picks up a stalk of celery, moves to put it in the damp paper sack. Shatner jerks away, convulsively. "Forget it," he snarls, and, leaving the produce to rot with the eggs, he walks away.

Karl stands slowly, eyes fixed on the retreating figure. Shatner looks once over his shoulder, and disappears around the corner. Karl stands there for a long time, surrounded by mangled foodstuffs, rubbing his cheek where the cement has left its texture and a few bits of grit.

3.23.2006

Animals, comma, Stuffed

Fabric + spare time + geekiness =

SOCKY MCSOCKENSTEIN

He's not really that neon-bright. But he's a sock monkey. From my favorite socks, worn until they were full of holes.

CUBIST CUCUMBER

Ayup. My first non-footwear-based creature. Rectangular.

MALVOLIO

Yes, that one. From Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. Told you I was geeky.

With love letter from "Olivia"!

GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING

Made while watching the movie of the same name. Scarlett Johannsen is irritating. Colin Firth is kinda hot.

W. WRONGY WRONGENSTEIN

Blue thing. Knit. With yarn. Based on Knitty's "Kate" pattern.

SAD PANDA

Sara's christmas present. Also based on Kate.

COMING SOON:
Virginia Woolf! Now with 100% more rocks!
HOLY CRAP REAVERS

9.04.2005

Tesla, god of Thunder

Lookit what I made!
Image hosted by Photobucket.com

Sharpies on paper (duh), 2005

6.25.2005

Martok's Death

***A newer version of "Karl's Death." Hopefully new-and-improved, rather than just new.***

The freak on the bus. That was what they called him. He would ride around nearly every day, sometimes sitting in the same seat for hours, perched on orange plastic. He just stared out the window at the people outside: an elderly man petting his little dog, a woman polishing her sunglasses. These people were his reality. He watched them through the glass, and they looked more real than real, like something you would see on TV.

The only time he looked inside the bus was when there were tourists there. He would stare through them into their hearts as they wrapped their mouths around the jagged shapes of an unfamiliar language.

The man on the bus –for he did not think of himself as a freak– imagined himself to be a foreigner, even though he had lived in the city all his life. He liked to translate things to himself to English, like a tourist. nuqDaq 'oH puchpa' 'e'? he would whisper, and then came the translation: where is the bathroom? The most important phrase in any language. The consonants rolled around on his tongue. 'arlogh Qoylu 'pu'? What time is it?

The others on the bus, the commuters just trying to get through the day, stared at this man, or else they averted their eyes. They didn't look at him in the same way as they wouldn't look at a homeless person. The man didn't look at them either, but for different reasons.

His name was Martok, he was thirty-four years old, and he was a warrior of the Klingon empire. It was Saturday, and today he wasn't riding just to watch people outside the bus. He was going somewhere. Somewhere important.

He clenched his hands in his lap, trying hard not to scratch at the prosthetic forehead he wore over his own, real forehead. It made his head look ridged and alien. The latex always made his head feel strange, but he didn't scratch at it. That would have ruined the illusion.

Today was convention day, one of the few days Martok could be himself, didn't have to hide behind an oxford shirt and clip-on tie. Today, he could be his true self: violent, honorable, passionate. A true Klingon.

Martok used to be a human, before his mother had died, before he had gotten into Star Trek. He would watch the show before that, but he didn't yet live it. He had been nineteen, and she had gone suddenly; a heart attack. He didn't leave the house for weeks after that, would have starved if his neighbor hadn't brought him meatloaf and tuna casseroles. He just sat on the couch with the pattern of kittens, his mother's old flowery bathrobe pulled tight around him, watching television. Or rather, he was sitting there, facing in that direction, and the television was on. But he was not watching. Nothing registered.

Until Star Trek. He was taken in by The Search for Spock. The way Spock had died but not really died, because he had given his katra, his memories, to Bones – it was what Martok needed to hear. He shed his mother's robe but kept her in his heart. He moved on with his life. He became a Trekkie, and more, he became a Klingon. And for sixteen years, he didn't look back.

**********

He met his shipmates in the hotel bar. They always did this for the conventions. The motley crew – Martok; Bernard, a fellow Klingon warrior; Dora, a Vulcan; and George the Andorian, who left blue smudges on everything he touched – were united only by their aloneness. Every time a con was in town, they'd go together to the posh hotel and shop and swap stories about their favorite Trek episodes and the freak of the week: the latest fan who had gone a bit too far. They pretended they couldn't see the giggles and stares and raised eyebrows of the normals who were suddenly wishing they'd chosen a different hotel.

Barbara Adams! This week's amusement. She had shown up for jury duty in Little Rock, Arkansas, in full Starfleet uniform. Bernard showed them the clipping he had gotten from the newspaper. It had a picture of her, walking though the courthouse metal detector, passing her tricorder through the x-ray machine.

This was something true, something that had happened in real life.

Bernard chuckled as he told them about how she always wore her communicator badge –a toy that didn't do anything but beep– everywhere, all the time. George giggled like a man half his size, nearly toppling his barstool, and even Dora permitted herself a raised eyebrow. But Martok was silent. This was no joke.

**********

In the lobby, he studied the check-in girl's face. He had hesitated at the row of hostile faces at the front desk, but her warm, open visage beckoned him from the far end. She smiled at him as he walked toward her, exposing two rows of round white teeth, and he almost forgot himself and smiled back. Behind him, Dora was expressionless as always, and Bernard remained hidden behind the non-canon Ray-Bans he always wore. Her nametag read Corrinne, and she said she was happy he had chosen the Hilton today. He was happy too.

For a fleeting moment, he felt compelled to tell her about Barbara Adams, tell her that he wasn't like that, that he was the real thing. But he couldn't.

Martok thought Corrinne was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. He didn't have much to compare her to, though. The only women he knew were Dora and his mother. Martok's mother had been dead since he was nineteen and Dora – well, she was a Vulcan. No emotion. But Corrinne had welcomed him.

Corrinne was beautiful, though. Her hair was blonde and curly, and bounced around her shoulders when she moved. Her eyes were round and hazel, like the eyes of a cartoon owl. They made her look innocent but wise at the same time, like someone who would sit with her friends and help them with all their personal problems. Her nose was tiny and perfect. It was the same as it had been when she was a little girl. She looked like she was perfect for her job. She looked like she should be doing something more important. She looked so...ordinary.

Martok imagined he was looking at her through the window of a bus. He wondered if he had ever seen her before, but decided he would have remembered.

He wished he could talk to her about Barbara Adams.

While all this was happening, Dora stood behind him, ramrod straight, fists clenched. She mouthed one word over and over: illogical.

Dora and Martok had had a relationship, a love affair. They had met at a Star Trek convention, the first of many they would attend together. They had made love that night, had sex, fuled by Romulan ale, which was vodka and blue food coloring.

After a time, they had started living together, Dora moving into Martok's dead mother's house. They took down the musty lace curtains and hung up technical drawings of shuttlecraft and warp cores.

But the relationship had soon decayed, like improperly maintained dilithium crystals. This was, Dora presumed, because she was a Vulcan. Where he was passionate and impulsive, she was logical, calculating. A romance between a Vulcan and a Klingon could never last.

**********

Inside the convention hall, his crew went their separate ways. Bernard looked over the tops of his sunglasses at the list of featured speakers. George had already started a trail of blue fingerprints on merchandise. Dora had disappeared as soon as they had stepped through the door. Martok wandered over to the largest booth, where William Shatner was signing autographs, wondering why Captain Kirk wasn't in uniform.

The booth itself was made of white plastic: a plastic folding table at its center, and banners made of white plastic sheeting. A smaller table off to the side held books and DVDs and photographs of Shatner, which you could buy for only 25% more than the normal price, for convenience. William Shatner was at the center of it all, seated at the table, looking ancient and bored and a little bit resentful. He was signing his name on anything people handed to him and smiling a big fake smile. When Martok reached the front of the line, Shatner looked from his head down to his toes and raised an eyebrow, as if to ask, why? Just like everyone else did.

The man behind the booth reached out mechanically for something to sign. Martok wanted to ask him about Barbara Adams, to raise his eyebrow and ask, why? He produced a coffee shop receipt and got it autographed, never saying a word.

Walking around the convention hall and holding his autograph, he thought again about Barbara Adams and what she did, and he felt lost and dizzy. He stumbled through the maze of humanity, running his fingertips across the signed coffee receipt. All the other people here were like he was, lost, only they didn't know it. There was a couple who had just gotten married by a member of the Q Continuum. In the corner, three Ferengi quibbled over action figure prices. Aliens, blue and green, scaly-headed and leather-clad, swarmed around Martok, laughing and eating and talking as though this were the most normal thing in the world.

He kept walking, circling the hall. It was just something to do. He felt embarrassed to be a part of all this.

Dora had once said that they were strangers in a strange land. If he believed that, then they would always be strangers and then...well, no wonder Barbara Adams pretended she was a Starfleet officer, and no wonder his false forehead was always itching. Martok saw his whole life displayed in front of him, like a Star Trek episode. Forty-four minutes, and all the problems solved before the last commercial break, but the problems would never be solved, and when everything was over, he was stuck in this television world. He couldn't change the channel. He was just a character, not an actor. Not a person.

Close by, near the door to the men's room, he saw another Klingon. His headpiece was coming unglued, and he carried a bat'leth sword made of duct-taped cardboard. Today would be a good day to die, Martok thought, and translated, Heghlu' meh QaQ jajvam.

**********

Martok carried the autograph up to one of the booths.

He saw himself reflected in the knives being sold, distorted, all pinched in the middle. He looked at the image in the blade of a ma'veq, a knife used in ceremonial killings. He felt like this reflection was the real Martok, and the flesh-and-blood version was just an imitation, a poor copy, like a bad transmission of a TV show.

He held the newly purchased ma'veq in one hand and the autograph in the other, and walked back over to the signing booth. Shatner was still there, smiling like his life depended on it. He was framed by the metal poles of the booth, looked like he was on television. Martok's hand moved involuntarily, searching for the remote control to a TV that didn't really exist. The autographed receipt slipped from his hand and tumbled down.

Martok looked around him. Everything here was fake, a joke. He was fake too. Kirk was only Shatner and he didn't care that he was just a fictional character. Corrinne was real but Martok wasn't and so he could only ever watch her, watch her and pretend like he pretended when he watched Star Trek.

He was a freak, and a phony, and everyone knew it. His stomach clenched like a fist around the hilt of a blade.

Martok approached the fallen idol, the toupeed, disgruntled man giving away pieces of himself to pathetic, needy strangers.

"Barbara Adams," Martok said.

Shatner paused, his hand frozen mid-signature.

"She was not a freak. Barbara Adams was not a freak until you made her a freak."

The actor looked confused. No sign of recognition in his eyes.

Dora had come up alongside the table. "What are you doing?" she hissed. "Do you know who this is?" Martok did, of course he did.

Shatner looked to the next in line, pen poised to sign the proffered trading card.

Martok lunged.

He flung himself on top of the other man, toppling the folding chair and sending them both crashing to the floor. Shatner's hairpiece was knocked askew, his practiced celebrity smile vanished. The conventioneers and staff gathered around the scene in progress, formed a human wall of shock, frozen by Martok's warcry. It echoed throughout the hall: freak freak freak freak freak.

Martok now sat atop the chest of the man he had idolized for years. With a roar, he lifted the ma'veq high over his head and prepared to plunge it into his adversary's heart. Shatner knew the moment had come. His lips formed the question, why? but no sound escaped. Martok tensed, ready to avenge the loss of honor, the loss of self. This was for Barbara's honor, and for his own, too, and for all the people who had been living this lie with them.

"Stop!"

Corrinne's voice rang in the rafters. Everyone froze. Everyone except Martok. He moved his arms slowly down, bringing the knife toward its target. Shatner's lips again formed the silent question, why? The knife held its course, moving ever downward.

And then, a shift. Martok moved the knife to his right, letting it fall gently to the floor. His teeth, once bared, fell back behind pink lips forming a silent word, a name. Corrinne.

Police officers' black boots broke through the crowd of onlookers and Martok was lifted up. They carried him handcuffed through the lobby, and he saw Corrinne's grey-green eyes shining with concern. For the first time in years, he smiled. He shouted out above the din, ignoring the sea of outraged faces that followed him, ignoring Dora fighting to retain her Vulcan composure. He saw only the face that had brought him back to reality. His head felt light. He was floating. She looked like his mother, so very much like his mother. And he shouted to her:

"My name is Karl."

3.19.2005

Bowser's Angels (but they're totally butch, I assure you)

Okay, so it's a shit title. I like how the drawing came out though.

Another KoL commission for Bowser, this time with his friends Adamjirra and Virgo. It's hard to draw three figures in one picture and have them all come out looking right.

Graphite on newsprint, adjusted in Photoshop 'cause graphite is fucking reflective. 2005.

3.02.2005

Karl's Death

***This is an imitation of the story "Gina's Death" by Charles Baxter, done as an assignment for my Short Story class. Also, it's still in progress.***

An elderly man bent down to pet his little dog. A woman polished her sunglasses on the hem of her shirt. The man, looking out the bus window at the people streaking by, allowed his gaze to linger on a pair of French tourists poring over a large map of the city. He thought about being in a strange land, not speaking the language, having to rely on a precious few phrases.

He imagined himself to be a foreigner, though he had lived in the city all his life. nuqDaq 'oH puchpa' 'e'?, he whispered to himself, letting the consonants roll around his tongue. where is the bathroom? Arguably the most important phrase in any language. Like a tourist, he translated awkwardly. 'arlogh Qoylu 'pu'? What time is it?

None of the people he saw outside the window looked like they didn't belong. Even the tourists were part of the landscape. Somehow, they all looked more real than real, like something you would see on TV.

His name was Karl, he was thirty-four years old, and he was a warrior of the Klingon empire. It was Saturday. Convention day. He shifted his gaze back inside the bus. None of the people across from him would meet his eye. He didn't mind, not anymore.

He clenched his hands in his lap, trying hard not to scratch at the prosthetic forehead he wore over his own, real forehead. It made his head look ridged and alien. The latex always make his head feel funny, but he didn't scratch at it. That would have ruined the illusion.

Convention day. One of the few days he could be himself. He wore the full uniform and makeup, and set off to meet his fellow extra-terrestrials.

******************

He remembered hearing, among the usual gossip that took place among the fans, a story about a man who had committed suicide because he had written William Shatner a hundred letters and he'd never answered a single one. Karl had always dismissed it as legend.

Henry Moreau! That had been his name. Dead. Somehow Karl knew that this had actually happened, in real life
.
The man had been a Klingon like himself, but Karl couldn't remember ever having met him. Legend had it that he was insane, even by Trekkie standards. He had never talked to anyone, ever. He just stared out into space with wide, protruding eyes. He didn't have a job, took pills, was the kind of person that gave the rest of the fans a bad name. Nobody knew why he had done it, though everyone had a theory. In order of popularity, he was believed to have been a deranged asylum escapee, a jilted lover (some stories had him as the lover of Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, or both) and an ex-con from Venezuela. He had driven out to Shatner's house and stabbed himself through the heart on the front porch.

Shatner had never written him a single letter, even after he had found out why Henry Moreau had done what he did.

Karl didn't know why he had remembered this just now. He wanted to get to know Henry. He felt like maybe he had just been misunderstood. Even if nobody understood him, Henry was almost as famous as Captain Kirk himself now. Karl wondered if he was in Sto-Vo-Kor now.

He sort of understood why he had done it, though. He had looked death in the face, like an honorable man.
And what was a warrior without his honor?

******************

He met his "friends" outside the hotel. They always did this for the conventions. The motley crew – Karl; Bernard, a fellow Klingon warrior; Dora, a Vulcan; and George the Andorian, who left blue smudges on everything he touched – were united only by their aloneness. Every time a con was in town, they'd go together to the posh hotel and shop and swap stories about their favorite Trek episodes and the guy who had suicided on Shatner's porch. They pretended they couldn't see the giggles and stares and raised eyebrows of the normals who were suddenly wishing they'd chosen a different hotel. Today, they were at the Mariott, the one by the airport.

******************

In the lobby, he studied the check-in girl's face. He had hesitated at the row of hostile faces at the front desk, but her warm, open face beckoned him from the far end. She smiled at him as he walked toward her, exposing two rows of round white teeth, and he almost forgot himself and smiled back. Behind him, Dora was expressionless as always, and Bernard remained hidden behind those stupid non-canon Ray-Bans he always wore. Her nametag read Corrinne, and she said she was happy he had chosen the Hilton today. He was happy too.

For a fleeting moment, he felt compelled to tell her about Henry Moreau, but that was absurd.

Karl thought Corrinne was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Je didn't have much to compare her to, though. The only women he knew were Dora and his mother. Karl hadn't seen his mother since he was eighteen and Dora – well, she was a Vulcan. No emotion. But Corrinne had welcomed him.

She was beautiful, though. Her hair was blonde and curly, and bounced around her shoulders when she moved. Her eyes were round and hazel, like the eyes of a cartoon owl. They make her look innocent but wise at the same time, like someone who would sit with her friends and help them with all their personal problems. Her nose was tiny and perfect. It was the same as it had been when she was a little girl. She looked like she was perfect for her job. She looked like she should be doing something more important.

Karl imagined he was looking at her through the window of a bus. He wondered if he had ever seen her before, but decided he would have remembered.

He wished he could talk to her about Henry Moreau.

******************

Inside the convention hall, his crew went their separate ways. Bernard looked over the tops of his sunglasses at the list of featured speakers. George had already started a trail of blue fingerprints on merchandise. Dora had disappeared as soon as they had stepped through the door. Karl wandered over to the largest booth, where William Shatner was signing autographs.

The booth itself was made of white plastic: a plastic folding table at tis center, and banners of white plastic sheeting. A smaller table off to the side held books and DVDs and photographs of Shatner, which you could buy for only 25% more than the normal price, for convenience. William Shatner was at the center of it all, seated at the table, looking ancient and bored and a little bit resentful. He was signing his name on anything people handed to him and smiling a big fake smile. When Karl reached the front of the line, Shatner looked from his head down to his toes and raised an eyebrow, as if to ask, why? Just like everyone else did.

The man behind the booth reached out mechanically for something to sign. Karl wanted to ask him about Henry Moreau, to raise his eyebrow and ask, why? He produced a coffee shop receipt and got it autographed, never saying a word.

Walking around the convention hall and holding his autograph, he thought again about Henry Moreau and when he did, he felt lost and dizzy, and kept wondering, why? He kept walking, running his fingertips across the signed coffee receipt. All the other people here were like he was, walking around, lost.

He kept walking, circling the hall. He felt embarrassed to be a part of all this.

The hall gave him a funny feeling, all these people milling around, just like him. Dora had once said that they were strangers in a strange land. If he believed that, then they would always be strangers and then...well, no wonder Henry Moreau had put a knife through his own heart, and no wonder his false forehead was always itching. Karl saw his whole life displayed in front of him, like a Star Trek episode. Forty-four minutes, and all the problems solved before the last commercial break. Close by, near the door to the men's room, he saw another Klingon. His headpiece was coming unglued, and he carried a bat'leth made of duct-taped cardboard. Today would be a good day to die, he thought, and translated, Heghlu' meh QaQ jajvam.

Everyone here had to come to a room full of strangers to be themselves.

Karl carried the autograph up to one of the booths.

He saw himself reflected in the knives being sold, distorted, all pinched in the middle. He looked at the him in the blade of a ma'veq, a knife used in ceremonial killings. He felt like this reflection was the real him, and the flesh-and-blood version was just a reflection, a poor copy, like a bad transmission of a TV show. he wished he was more real, just real enough not to have to be fake.

He held the newly purchased ma'veq in one hand and the autograph in the other, and walked back over to the signing booth.

He turned the knife inward to point at his heart, and, thinking about Henry Moreau, he pressed it into his skin a little, just to see what it was like, to try to understand. It hurt, and he felt his hand pulling the knife back, but then he imagined Henry Moreau, with a smiling Corrinne standing by his side, floating in front of him and telling him that this wasn't real, so he got control of his hand again and pressed the blade in a little bit deeper. He felt his heart pulsing: pain, then nothing, then pain. Then it was done, and he didn't need to be at the convention anymore, and he was real and knew why. The ma'veq was deep in his heart, and he had no regrets.

He fell.

Corrinne and William Shatner had both reacted at the same time. They both lurched toward him, and Corrinne got there first. She pulled the knife away from his flesh, and put both of her small hands over his heart. His eyes blinked open one last time, and he whispered "Henry?", but nobody heard or would have understood if they did hear. He lay back, and he welcomed death, because with it came honor, and then he smiled a little, because he had seen Corrinne's face floating above, creased with worry.

2.23.2005

An Ode to Hunter S. Thompson

Poor Hunter Thompson.
Now the writing's on the wall.
Along with his brains.

2.07.2005

Burn, Hollywood, Burn

*****This piece is still HEAVILY being worked on. Please don't laugh at me, or call me and tell me I suck based on its quality.*****

They always say that the right to free speech doesn't give you the right to yell "fire" in a crowded theatre. They never mention the consequences that can occur when the theatre is actually burning.

Not that anyone would hear if I did yell. I mean, who knows, maybe Donald Rumsfeld has all the theaters in the country bugged. Maybe if I yell "fire" the SWAT teams will swoop down from black helicopters and haul me off to the same Siberian prison that houses those scoundrels who rip the tags off mattresses or retransmit basketball games without the express written consent of the NBA. But Big Brother aside, I'm all alone in the projection booth. Just me, the smoke, the flames and the reels.

I'm the captain of this goddamn theatre, and I'm going down with my ship.

I suppose you're wondering why I've called you all here. Someone in this room is a murderer.

I've always wanted to say that, but in my dreadfully ordinary life, I've never quite had the occasion. Tonight, though, it's true. Somebody in this room is a murderer. And since I'm the only one here, I expect my investigation to be quite swift. Justice, ladies and gentlemen, will be done.

I wasn't always a murderer. Nobody is born a murderer, of course. To be a murderer, you have to murder someone, and we've all got to start somewhere. I guess I'm what you'd call a late bloomer. I wasn't a murderer until tonight.

It's midnight. I sit alone in the projection booth of the multiplex, a sea of empties at my feet. I pull a film canister from the shelf at random. These things have always looked like metal frisbees to me. I toss it experimentally through the door and into the inferno. It whirls off, floating in slow motion like a cheap flying-saucer effect. I can almost see the wires that support it. ET, phone the fire department. I grab another reel, thread it into the projector. The metal of the machine, heated by the tongues of flame, sears the flesh of my fingertips. I bet now I could murder someone and they'd never catch me. No fingerprints. I'm them. I'm they.

And now, a flashback:

The scene: a large supermarket, two days ago. I'm in the condiments aisle, environmentally friendly canvas bag dangling from my arm as I compare brands of peanut butter. I'm played by Julia Roberts in this film, hiding behind the pair of glasses that are the universal Hollywood signal for "woman who, though lacking in self-esteem, will, with the help of her love interest, discover her own true beauty sometime in the third act." The leading man approaches, pushing a cart full of Oreos. His dark features aren't classically beautiful, but they're perfect for establishing his indie cred. And...action!

"Hey," I said, noticing his gaze as I returned a jar of Skippy to the shelf.

"I'm Harry," he proclaimed, selecting a jar. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Sally." He walked away before I had a chance to think of a response.

A few minutes later, in toilet paper, he approached me again, this time sans cart. He had an odd walk, somewhere between a glide and a waddle, his arms held stiff and slightly away from his body.

"Yippie kay yay, motherfucker," he offered, conversationally. Then, he placed a long finger against his lips, and walked away without another word. I realized where I had seen that walk before. He walked like a penguin. Or like Andy Garcia, who I had always found unnervingly penguin-like.

"Mr. McClane, wait!" He turned abruptly and shuffled toward me. My trademark grin was met with a look of deadly seriousness, and it melted into uncertainty in the harsh glare of his fervent gaze. He pulled me urgently behind a nearby wall of Tampax.

"We can't talk here," he whispered. "Meet me at the theatre tomorrow, before your shift. High noon."

"Why me? I mean, of all the gin joints..."

"...in all the world," he finished, nodding. "That's why." And he disappeared.

The projector spins furiously. "Pop quiz, asshole." Speed. Dennis Hopper in all his raging drug-trip psychopathic glory.

I'd seen far too many Meg Ryan movies for this character's mysterious behavior to seem the least bit unusual. As far as I was concerned, an apparent lack of social skills on the part of a complete stranger was more likely to lead to true love than to a restraining order. I fully expected to have my wedding –not that I'll ever have one now– interrupted near the end of the film by a childhood friend or other true love flinging himself against the stained glass and screaming my name. I would, of course, marry the interloper on the spot.

Pop quiz, asshole. You're the projectionist in a formerly-crowded theatre that is now spontaneously combusting. The building is falling down around your ears, and you realize you're
never going to be swept off your feet by George Clooney. What do you do, asshole? What do you do?

Well, in all the commotion, I lost track myself. But this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful gun in the world. It'll blow your head clean off and then I'll say Marilyn Manson and Mortal Kombat made me do it. So the question you gotta ask yourself is, do you feel lucky, punk? Huh? Do you?

The next day, clad in my red multiplex vest, I clocked in a few minutes early. The tall, dark stranger from the store darted out from behind the popcorn machine as I crossed the lobby. He dragged me by the shoulder into the 11:45 showing of the latest DeNiro picture, ignoring the quizzical looks the ticket-taker gave my employee vest.

"I get in free," I stammered.

"Shhhh!" hissed my companion and three or four of the people seated around us. I lowered my voice, keeping the dialogue to the actors as per theatre policy.

I open the door of the projection booth again and fire a shot into the hell outside. Why not? More gunfire is always better. When in doubt, ask yourself: What Would Jerry Bruckheimer Do? The shell casing flies high and to the left, clattering behind the projector.

How come nobody ever blames their double-Uzi high school trench coat killing spree on Tetris? Or Pong? Pong makes me want to kill someone. Fucking Pong.

Bang. Burn.

"Who are you?"

"My name isn't important," replied my mysterious leading man. "You may call me the Bandit, if you wish."

"Does that make me Smokey?"

"It will, soon, if your mission goes according to plan. And if it doesn't, we never met."

I let the Mission: Impossible bit slide. "Okay, Mr. Bandit. Do you mind telling me what's going on here? And while you're at it, just exactly do you know where I work?" I knew that he knew it because it's in the script. but I wanted to see what he'd say.

"I know what I need to know. I know that you are a projectionist here. I know that you know movies. And I also know that which you do not know. I know that you do not know what I know. I am here to tell you the things I know, so that then you will know what I know, and we will both know what I–"

I cut him off with a gesture. "Look, I have to start working soon. That new thing with Ben Affleck opens today, and if it doesn't start on time, the crowd'll riot. So tell me what it is that you know, quickly."

"You know movies," he said solemnly. I already knew that, but said nothing. "What I know is this: there is a dreadful conspiracy afoot, and movies are at its core. Our society has been infected with a terrible social disease. Hollywood is the carrier, and the whole world will fall victim. You've seen Waterworld, right? It's a metaphor. If Kevin Costner had his way, the whole world would be drowned in the blood of the innocent. The signs are there.

"But it's more than just a metaphor. It's the reality we live in. The actors, the producers, the directors of photography...these are the enemy. Steven Spielberg makes Stalin look like Elwood P. Dowd. Robert Redford shot JFK."

I wish I had a copy of Saturday Night Fever in here. John Travolta deserves to burn after his last, like, six movies. Disco inferno.

"That's absurd!" The indignant audience threw popcorn that bounced, unnoticed, off my head.

"You know it isn't. Just think. This is the era of reality TV, a time when Hillary Duff is considered a rising star. Eminem has more Academy Awards than does Martin Scorcese. You live in a society that has decided that one Weekend At Bernie's film was not sufficient."

He had a point.

"Look at your life," he continued. "Look what Hollywood has done to you. You haven't had a date in months. Your so-called friends can barely stand to speak to you."

"That's not true! They like me! They really like me!"

"You can't have a conversation without quoting one of the films with which you have replaced your personality."

"Liar!"

But he waved his hand slowly and spoke. "These aren't the droids you're looking for." The doubts melted from my mind. He had seen through me as though I was Bruce Willis and he saw dead people. That was uncalled for, though. He didn't have to attack me personally. He had had me at "hello."

Yesterday, I was in the supermarket, buying the essentials. Milk, pickles, chocolate cupcakes, wine coolers, Magnum bullets. How come it's always a crowded theatre people are so concerned with? Yelling "fire," I mean. Is it okay to yell "fire" in a crowded supermarket? An empty theatre? Can I yell "bomb" or "surprise ninja attack" instead?

I looked at the Bandit. Although he walked like Andy Garcia, his face was all Baldwin.

"What should I do?"

"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn."

Anyway, I was in the supermarket, buying wine coolers, and I decided whiskey would do the job just as well. Nah, vodka.

Fuck it, might as well do the thing properly. To Home Depot: your home for home improvement. Or destruction of public property, but they don't advertise that one. Apparently, you can buy gasoline in bulk. Rags too, and empty bottles. Now all they need to do is package 'em together. Molotov cocktails for dummies.

And then I came here, and one by one, I lit the bottles and threw them out the door of my booth. And nobody yelled "fire."

Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy night.

The Voodoo That I Do

I've been voodoo'd!

Or more precisely, OzzyOzzy has been voodoo'd. OhGodTheRats did a bunch of KoL art in weird styles. I got this one:

And I retaliated thusly:

(Acrylics, colored pencils, Sharpies and dry-erase markers on canvas board. 2005)

1.13.2005

Bowser

Yes, it's another piece of KoL art.
Yes, I'm a huge nerd.
Yes, I'm OK with that.

Anyway, this one is for Bowser. He wanted a picture that would show everyone how cool he is. (How cool is he? He's so cool you could store a side of beef in him for a month. He's so hip he has difficulty seeing over his pelvis.) He also wanted it to include the phrase "King Koopa: He's the real deal!" As you can see, I took a few liberties. I like this one, though. It's twisted.

Chalk pastels (hooray!) on paper, manipulated in Photoshop.

And a slightly different version, without all the futzing around with filters. Conveniently linked in case you don't give a damn.

Finally, a comic also starring Bowser. I have no idea what I was thinking, either.

08.2004 09.2004 10.2004 11.2004 12.2004 01.2005 02.2005 03.2005 06.2005 09.2005 03.2006 04.2006