May 2013
6 posts
Mootamorphosis
Jim thought he was having a bad day yesterday. Someone had stolen his check card number and bought a great deal of toiletries at a Walgreen’s in Vermont. $417 to be exact. “How do you even buy that many toiletries?” Jim wondered. “What kind of fancy ass shampoos are you using, golly!”
When bedtime came, he had still not gotten hold of anybody who could help him at...
Lincoln
“I’m not ready to be Abraham Lincoln,” James screamed as he sat up in bed, sweating and panting.
Looking over at his bedside clock he realized that it had happened again. It was 5:00am and he was wide awake, terrorized by the same dream he had been having every night for nearly 4 weeks.
In his dream he always found himself in front of a bright mirror as a dwarfish man used...
Am I Dying?
Since the dawn of man, we have all been asking the same question:
Am I dying?
I have discovered a simple formula to figure out if you are dying.
First, answer these 10 simple questions:
1. Are you currently in a car, but also underwater?
2. Does it hurt to breathe and are you going to stop soon?
3. Are you on fire?
4. Are all of your surroundings on fire?
5. Are you still on fire?
6....
Anonymous asked: No really though, how are you?
Hell
When Mike arrived in Hell, he was more than a little bit surprised.
First of all, he didn’t realize he was dead, so that was kind of a shock. Right away, he was taken aback by the friendliness of the staff. The demon that walked him up to the main gate wasn’t pushy at all and when he was asked for his name and home address, he thought the demon that checked his credentials was much...
The Kid in 10A
I love San Francisco. I love losing myself there, losing my mind there, losing my driver’s license there.
And then I love finding myself and waking up on the day I leave with a sense that I’ll be back in its sweet embrace soon.
I can’t tell you how long those short flights back to Los Angeles seem. Even though I’ve never lived in San Francisco I feel like many of my...
April 2013
7 posts
Why We Win
This world can be a little out of order sometimes.
Something that has been built by many can be destroyed be a single one. Tranquility can be turned to fear by a single one. Happiness can be turned to anguish by a single one.
But the reason we keep building these things, knowing full well that they can be destroyed, is because we are bonded by an overwhelming and unstoppable current of love....
Eli the Mute
When I was 20 years old, I did something incredibly stupid.
Because other people were involved, I will give them fake names, but I think it’s time for me to come clean about this:
I grew up in Los Angeles, not far from UCLA, and the surrounding area of Westwood was a frequent hangout spot for me when I was in high school. We would go there and pretend we were older and sneak into the...
The Last Glass Of Wine
The last glass of wine in the bottle is the loneliest.
The other glasses are out, swirling in the bellies, getting to the heads, aiding decisions.
The last glass of wine stares out, trapped at home, wishing for purpose.
It’s Saturday night and the last glass of wine sits alone, collecting oxygen, becoming better. But eventually becoming worse. Descending. Turning. Turning into...
Peter Saw Mary
Peter saw Mary.
She was sitting in front of a coffeehouse he had never seen before. He had walked by this corner five days a week for almost a year, but somehow, he had never seen the yellow awning and matching yellow plastic folding chairs. But today, Peter saw Mary. She was reading a book.
Peter walked up and said “I’m sorry to do this, but is there any way I could have one of...
Why I Don't Sleep
When I was a child, I was convinced that my parents were conspiring to kill me. I was sure, from the age of three, that every time I got a bad grade or left a light on in the hallway, that one of them would come into my room in the middle of the night and stab me with a knife from the kitchen.
Thus began a life of never sleeping.
People always ask me why I don’t sleep and I make up a...
Leaves
The leaves felt every footstep upon them.
The sound that we all viewed as a sign of fall, the sound of a slow death, the sound of hope for an eventual rebirth. To them, these sounds were just a surprise.
The leaves remember when they were small and when they were tender and green. And they grew up and they provided shade and they were right up against each other, bonded by love and bonded by...
Bad Breath
Have you ever known anyone who has had perpetually bad breath?
Don’t feel bad. I’m here to help.
Here’s the thing: That person is a monster.
A person with perpetually bad breath is an unloved soul, an unclaimed being. If I ever loved anyone who had this malady, I would stop them, I would hold them, I would love them, and I would proclaim: “Please enjoy this mint...
March 2013
9 posts
Dan's Dream
Dan was swimming in his old high school, trying to impress his coach, who was also his father. When he reached the middle of the pool, his body was stopped by an unseeable force, and suddenly the water turned black. He could no longer see his feet, and he cried out to his coach, but his coach was no longer there.
A voice echoed through the gymnasium as the lights all went out completely. The...
Mr. Jones Translated
Sha la la la la la la
I was at a club and looking at a blonde lady. My friend, a guy named Mr. Jones started talking to a different girl, who had dark hair and suddenly she started dancing as her father inexplicably played guitar.
Mr. Jones thought she was pretty hot. We like hot chicks.
I am an ugly weirdo.
Let’s dance together. Sha lalalalalalalala.
Dance, Maria. Mr. Jones is kind...
Why
It doesn’t matter what you want or don’t want.
It doesn’t matter what you need or don’t need.
All that matters is that you understand why you do or don’t have it.
You need to know these things.
That is the only way things can ever change
Kissing Theory
We all remember our first kiss.
Our first kiss ever, and the first kiss with the person we currently love. I do.
Why?
When courting, we try so hard to be engaging, to be attractive, and to make eye contact. We are attracted to this person. We find them visually, and hopefully, creatively and emotionally, enticing. We want to kiss them, even if we don’t quite know why. Impulsively, we...
Brain Creatures
Jeff and Stacy went to bed and simultaneously fell asleep as they usually seemed to.
Luckily, they were both pretty heavy sleepers so they never actually saw what was going on during their slumber.
As Jeff began to breathe heavily, the top of his head split open like a root tearing through a sidewalk and a small pink creature looking something like a tiny hairless baby rat burst through the...
Flirting
“Hi, can I buy you a drink?” he asked.
“What is the purpose of this visit?” she asked.
“Well, I’m looking for an easy way to speak to you and I have eight dollars available.”
“Well, then yes, I am willing to speak to you, but a drink would help me be interested because at the moment I am not.”
He orders her a drink, as well as one for...
Photographs
Sarah would often lie awake at night because she had a great deal of anxiety. She would stare at the ceiling fan and count crags on the stucco ceiling and take deep breaths.
As much as she wanted to sleep, and as much as she loved the escape of dreams, her biggest fear was always the next day. The unknown was terrifying and so much so that it tended to ruin the known.
One night, after three...
Update About My New Neighbor Drama
Last night, I almost burst through the wall to decapitate my new neighbors. A “binging” noise was coming through the wall, basically all night long, and I was losing my mind.
Instead of violently berating them and attempting to ruin their lives, I decided to try and resolve this peacefully.
I knocked on the door and a woman in her late 30’s answered. She is tall (I have seen...
New Neighbors
Hi there.
It seems you like to leave your cell phones at home when you are gone with the ringers on.
Also, I think you use sometime kind of instant messenger on your home computer that makes a noise every time one of your idiot friends messages you.
I don’t know if you know what I did to my last neighbors but consider this a friendly warning:
Learn how to behave like a human being...
February 2013
9 posts
The Apocalypse of March 10, 2013
When everyone found out that the apocalypse was going to be on March 10th, people got pretty depressed.
We were all just going to be gone and there was no real reason. The announcement just came from a booming voice in the sky. I’m pretty sure everyone remembers where they were when they heard it. They probably remember it word for word. I do.
“May I have your attention please?...
Ghosts
My house is full of ghosts.
The t-shirt I wore on New Year’s Eve. The sandals I got in the airport in Berlin on a long trip home. The record player I bought at a thrift shop in Missouri. The necklace I’m wearing.
These aren’t just items I’ve collected over time. These are physical evidence of who I once was and where I once was and how I once felt. These are tablets...
Sound Waves and The Self
The interesting thing about people is that they do not exist by themselves.
A man can in fact be an island, but there will always be ships that come by over the course of a lifetime, and those ships will be the ones that define the island, that give it its shape and its place on earth, and its name and its relevance.
We’re always going to be defined by those around us, whether or not we...
Plans
Never make plans because plans can be destroyed.
Living a day at a time offers the freedom of no consequences.
Never think about the next moment. Only worry about this one. This is the one that matters.
Never make plans. Never plan.
Every day is an adventure. Never plan.
Those things you wanted to do yesterday you may not want to do today and now you’re a disappointment.
Never...
Fear
Ghosts are real.
Simon was afraid of ghosts, even though they had never done anything to him. His best friend, Daphne, was the kind of person who was never afraid.
One night, Simon called Daphne and told her that there was a ghost in his apartment. It only took fifteen minutes for Daphne to come over and join him. She was excited, really. She wanted to see the ghost.
When she entered the...
Death
Ethan woke up and made enough coffee for two, as usual.
His bare feet against the wood floors, the steps he thought would wake her did not.
He sat and warmed his hands on his ceramic mug. He rubbed his feet against each other and waited for her to feel the lack of his presence in bed.
Soon, his coffee was gone and hers was cold.
She never woke up and she never came out of the bedroom and she...
Love
The Beatles said
Love is all you need
True, but incomplete
I prefer
Love is all there is
Name something else in life that can’t be taken by force
When I Worked At Hollywood Video
When I was 16, I got my first job at a Hollywood Video. I was really excited because I loved movies and now I was going to get to rent them for free (as long as no one else wanted them, and as long as they weren’t new releases).
It wasn’t long before I became the youngest assistant manager in the entire Hollywood Video franchise. I was a workhorse. I loved it. I excitedly drove...
Our Own Little Super Bowls
On February 3, 2013, well over 100,000,000 people watched the Super Bowl.
Why?
Let’s be honest, most of us don’t really care about football that much. So why do we care so much about this one particular event? Because we want to understand it. We want to know what it’s like to feel the play clock ticking down and we want a single moment in our lives to be our defining one. We...
January 2013
10 posts
Stories
Until I was 10 years old, I was convinced that my grandfather, Harvey, was a zookeeper.
He lived in Bethesda, Maryland, and about twice a year he would come out to Los Angeles to visit. He would usually bring me and my older sisters a gift or two, but he would always bring his tape recorder.
From as early on as I can remember, he would insist on telling my sisters and me a story or two, and he...
Water
Jane and Scott had grown up in the same town but they had never met.
But yet, here they were in seats 13A and 13B on a small regional jet going through a monstrous patch of turbulence. Their elbows had been touching for nearly 45 minutes, but neither of them had said a word.
Scott was glaring at the “Fasten Seat Belts” sign and had been doing so since he first felt the slightest...
My Guide To Flu Season
Here’s some advice you should take this flu season:
Don’t get the flu.
You want to know why? It’s not because of the aches and the pains and the chills and the blinding headaches and the vomiting.
No, that’s not why. Because THAT is child’s play compared to the grueling, painful, unbearable, stupid advice that people will give you when you are sick.
Literally,...
Screenplay Ideas
Here are some free screenplay ideas. I have a cold and will probably die from sneezing so you can use these if you want.
1. Dinosaur Love - In the year 2104, dinosaurs have been brought back, shrunk to pet-size, and have learned to speak English relatively well (they sound a little bit like maybe they’re from Italy but its hard to be sure.) Krumholt, a well-mannered language teacher at an...
Sickmouth and the Detox Cleanse
This is a personal post about what is happening inside of my body. Do not read this if you are not interested in me or my body.
I am three weeks into an extreme detox. I only eat raw vegan food. So basically, I eat vegetables and fruits in their natural form. Also, I supplement this with 16oz of dehydrated Kamut water every morning, a 20oz green meal smoothie with coconut oil, sprouted live...
Maps
A young man woke up and realized that he was on a boat in the middle of the ocean.
He had no idea how he got there or even where ‘there’ was. He had nothing in his possession other than a blank map.
For three days and nights he begged the sky for answers. The sky gave none.
He became tired and he became hungry.
For three more days and three more nights he begged the sky for...
An Orange's Lament
Life is fragile.
Consider the orange for a moment:
Hi, I’m an orange. I live in Florida and basically I just hang out and I enjoy the sun a whole lot. Every day, I just drink in the water and basically sleep a lot.
Then, one day, I look down and a guy with a translucent blue glove grabs me and takes me away from my permanent hat. I think to myself “Okay, let’s see where...
Why I Never Became A Professional Baseball Player
On my tenth birthday, I decided that I was going to become a professional baseball player. I was too short for basketball, too weak for football, too fat for soccer, and I had already been kicked out the tennis club when they told my parents that I was “obscene.”
I wasn’t very good when I first started in Little League. I played right field and never saw a ball come my way....
Tofu - The Greatest Lie
One of the greatest lies ever told is the one of tofu.
If you ask vegetarians, vegans, or doctors they will all tell you that tofu is a food product made out of soy beans. LIES! LIES! LIES!!!
What they won’t tell you is that tofu is actually an adorable, and highly endangered animal. Violently harvested from the warm waters east of the Philippines, tofu may look like a man-made product,...
Dear Diary
Dear Diary,
I haven’t written to you in almost two years, but I feel like now is the time. I just feel this terrible need to get all of this out at once. I met a girl and I love her very much but I’m not sure that she even knows how I feel about her. We’ve been on six dates and on the fourth date I kissed her and then on the fifth date I didn’t but then I did again on...
December 2012
20 posts
1 YEAR
I began this blog exactly 1 year ago.
I didn’t really have a good reason. I didn’t really have a mission. And above all, I didn’t think I had anyone who would read it.
But I needed to write it. I needed to write it, for me.
I think the thing I felt most at this time 1 year ago was stagnation. I felt still and quiet and useless to myself and to others.
365 days have...
Sammy the Snowflake - An Élan Gale Christmas Tale...
I bet you’ve never heard the tale of Sammy the Snowflake!
Well, Sammy has been greatly overlooked by history mostly due to the fact that he melted quickly and that no talent hack Frosty took all the snowy limelight, but here, below is the tale of Sammy the Snowflake, untouched and unchanged since it was written over 65,000 years ago!
******
They say that every snowflake is different,...
Scott and The Magic Mattress - A Christmas Tale
Scott woke up on Christmas morning to discover that everything in his apartment had been taken.
The television was gone, along with the DVD player and all the DVDs and the stand that once held the television. His clothes were gone. Suddenly he realized that it was hard for him to figure out everything that was gone becaue his glasses were gone.
All the light bulbs had been removed from the...
Mainstream Music and Why It Is Not As Good But...
One of the greatest things about music is that a song can transport you to the time and the place and the occasion where you first heard it, or where that song first impacted you.
We all have those songs that have really made an impression upon us. Sometimes a song comes on, or you intentionally put it on, and suddenly you taste a salty tear. Sometimes you just need to call someone you...
Distracterall
“It’s like he’s in a trance, doctor,” Patricia cried. Tears streamed down her face as her son sat beside her in the sterile, cold examination room.
“See if you can follow my light with your eyes, Timothy,” implored Dr. Morton. His small mag-light was like a bumblebee picking out a nice spot for lunch on a flower, darting from one of Timothy’s eyes to...
Tragedy
I am guilty. I am as guilty as anyone.
The saddest thing is the realization that sometimes a tragedy is required to remind us as individuals to stop, to think, to contemplate, to hug our families and tell our loved ones how we feel about them. We gain perspective on what we have not lost when we become aware of what others have lost.
What’s important? Love. Family. That’s basically...
