Very Rough Outline

This story takes place in the same reality as does all my stories.

This story is going to tell the tale of a love triangle that involves four players and one of those players could not possibly have the deck more stacked against him. His name is Johnathan McGallester. He is 16 years old and is a senior at Clicheville High School (the first time I have ever named the town all these tales takes place) due to his skipping of fourth and fifth grades. He is an outcast due to this and find himself in a most typical of outcast situations: in love with his neighbor's daughter, class President and all around great gal, Emily Schwartzenberg; daughter of Eugene Schwartzenberg, attorney to the Horror Movie Slashers.

MEANWHILE, IN HEAVEN:

G-d decides it is time to just bring another Messiah for reasons yet to be determined, and wants to do it "the old fashioned way" of miraculous conception and wishes to find the most ironic vessel to carry the Messiah that is still a virgin. Turns out G-d regularly sends "Messiahs" to Earth, but, thus far, Earth has not been open to receiving them. Maybe I can tie the "unused Messiahs" into the Dream Savior story...

Any-who, after checking all of pop culture's icons, and finding no Religious Leader's Daughters qualified, he set his sites on the legal profession and decided upon the daughter of the worst lawyer he could and only one name came up: Eugene Schwartzenberg.

To accomplish his goal and to facilitate a story, G-d transforms himself into a 17 year old amazingly good looking new student named Gary Oliver Dobbs from Berkeley who just so happens to share all of Emily's passions and desires, sparking the ire of one Johnathan McGallester.

A week later, the house on the other side of Johnathan's is sold and, although he never meets the parents of, he does meet the 9 year old daughter named Louise. Louise innocently happens upon Johnathan one day while he is doing chores outside as Emily comes home from work and comments on a connection she sensed between the two and begins urging Johnathan to go for her, despite of her obvious attraction to new student Gary.

ACT TWO:

This will involve the various ways Gary tries to take Emily out as Louise and Johnathan try their best to ruin them. Over the course of this, Gary will constantly rise above it and the actions of Louise and Johnathan will actually end up making perfect dates. ( I honestly have no clue about how to write this act. I am going to have to suffer through some teenage comedies I think to see how this is done. )

ACT THREE:

This is the tough part. I know how to end it, but not HOW to end it. Gary obviously will bow out on his own to allow Johnathan and Emily to get together. Child Services will show up at Louise's house to see why nobody every sees her parents and ends up taking her away, and Gary finds a better candidate for the new Messiah. What I cannot figure out his where to have the climax where this all works out that would allow Gary, Emily, Johnathan, and Louise to all be around the same place. A prom in a public setting with Louise spying is the obvious choice, but I am not sure. I suppose any cliche can be written off by the story being set in Clicheville.

Any advice or interest in helping me write this?

Where The Wild Things Are: A Positive Yet Dark Review

I saw Where The Wild Things Are today; the film based on the classic children's book that so shaped those of us who are Gen-X into the monsters we are today.

As I remember, Where the Wild Things Are was about an unruly child named Max who gets sent to his room for being a little monster. Usually, this was where we were as children reading this book and usually the reason behind why we were there, only to us, our rooms were not dungeons we were sent to when we were bad; they were the kingdoms that our inner beasts could roam free; where we won wars, overthrew dictatorships, conquered distant planets, and ruled the monsters.

If you are anything like me and have fond memories of reading this book as a child, put them away before seeing this movie. If you want to take your child to see the movie version of a book you loved growing up- don't. This movie is dark, heavy, slow, and rather hard to sit through to be perfectly honest. It seemed to be more about childhood's end to me over the magical adventure I remember of my youth, but it has been a long time and I may misremember the book.

One aspect of the book no person can ever forget is the one part the makers of this movie got beyond right: the Wild Things. My inner child was reborn the first time I saw Max in his wolf suit and the first silhouette of the first Wild Thing you see gave me chills. From Max's crown and scepter to the pupils of the Wild Things eyes, every detail from the book was there and it was just magical to see them moving and, once you get used to the voices, talking. To be fair, the only problem with the voices was that, in my head as a child, they always sounding like monsters where here they sounded...well, normal.

It is not an easy movie to watch. When it ended, I was fairly sure I didn't like it that much. I said something like "it had everything, but a script" to the people I was with. As the day wore on, it festered in my head and made connections I missed watching it. Slowly, the plot seeped into my mind and I realized exactly what I had seen: an adult looking back on a childhood memory. I think that is what Spike Jonze was going for when he made this and he nailed it. This is not a child's movie based on a child's book, but rather an adult's movie based on a child's book.

POTENTIAL SPOILER- A vital aspect of the book seems to be missing from the movie. I don't do spoilers, but I will say I was troubled to see Max run away to where the Wild Things were instead of getting to see his room transform as it did in the book. I feel that, much as the change in I Am Legend rendered that title pointless, so too does having the story not take place in Max's bedroom defeat the purpose of Where the Wild Things Are.

POTENTIAL SPOILER OVER

I rate it 9 out of 10. I never do this for reviews, but this was kind of a dark review and it may seem like I didn't like it. I loved it, but it is not a movie that is easy to explain.

Happy Failure Day!

Happy Failure Day AKA Columbus Day! Today is the day to not achieve one of your stated goals, yet be declared a success anyway! For examle, did you know the banks did not intend to be closed today, but rather every teller just got lost on their way to work and declared the Burger King they found themselves at a bank. The mail is being delivered today, but the postal workers are just dropping envelopes in random places and declaring those places as the right address. And I did take the day off, so I am sitting in my office and doing work, but I am calling it "watching TV."

Ironically, in Washington DC, this is just called "Monday."

Road Induced Profane Rant

Did I miss the fucking memo?

Did I put down the god-damned wrong email address on the stupid somofabitch sign up sheet?

Is this a fucking conspiracy against me?

Are they handing out a fucking Quaalude with every new fucking Driver's License in South fucking Florida....again?

I know, they put a fuck-all powerful speed activated "fuck you" magnet that forces every god-damned car going 15 fucking MPH beneath the fucking speed limit into the far fucking left fucking lane and everyone going 13 in the middle, right? Fuck yeah right!

Is this happening where you are too? Have snails invaded the bodies of otherwise mobile people and forced them to drive at a rate that allows dust to collect on your hood on the Turnpike?

I Really Thought I Was Sick

I called in today and am sitting at home because I thought I was sick. Everyone I know is sick right now so the odds were good that I was too. My head is killing me and I have slept for the majority of this weekend. My nose is running and my throat is sore off and on again. I have had no appetite this weekend at all and have forced myself to eat the little I have. It really does sound like disease, but it isn't: it is withdraw.

On my last trip to Eckard's....I mean CVS, I decided to check my blood pressure for the shit and giggles of it. My family was doing it too, so it was kind of a "oh, let me see mine" type thing that became serious out of the blue. My blood pressure was rather high and, given my family history, required me to go to a doctor for a check up.

My mother made an appointment for me (I don't know any heart doctors) and we found that, while not that high in the grand scheme of things, it is starting to rise and should be dealt with ASAP. While telling the doctor the details of my diet, I could see her face slowly morph into bewilderment as to how I have lived this long and her list of things that needed immediate changing was quite extensive: chief on the list was caffeine. Considering that my grandmother on my father's side died at 58 and his father, who lived much longer, did not enjoy the ride and died of heart problems, this was not something I had the option of ignoring and began making switches to my food shopping immediately.

Anyone who knows me knows that I am never far from a soda. This was true in High School, true in College, and true to this day. I don't leave my house without either a 20oz bottle of Diet Coke or enough change to pick one up within 3 minutes of leaving my door. If I could have a slow drip IV, I would eagerly and I hate needles, so that should tell you the depth of my Diet Coke addiction and it was hard enough to switch to Diet, but I was getting fat.

The thought of drinking soda without sugar or caffeine made no sense as it literally would be "just for the taste of it," but one must do what one must do and I did what I had to- three two liter bottles of caffeine-free Diet Coke entered my shopping cart last Thursday.

Did you know caffeine was addicting? Yeah, I didn't. I think I did, but ignored it like most addicts do by saying that standard line of "I can quit anytime I want to," but I was wrong.

The headache kicked in about midnight Thursday and I had a hard time falling to sleep. I woke up Friday feeling like Death had invaded my body, but was not in the mood to start its work yet. The day dragged on and I became convinced I had caught the illness going around. When I made it home Friday, I went to sleep immediately and slept to Saturday, where I woke up and could tell Death had started its work. My temples felt like Samson was inside and pissed as my eyeballs were the only things keeping them from crushing my brain. My throat was dry, sore, barren. I rose from my bed only to have my vision catch up a few seconds later. I was sick.

The weekend consisted of brief moments of being awake scattered between long moments of sleep from that point on. Saturday became Sunday became Monday rather quickly and each waking period was met with extreme lethargy. How could this not be sickness so Monday I woke up and called into work, waking up my sense of guilt who had been feeling under the weather too and slept all weekend as well.

The bastard sense of guilt reminded me that we were probably not sick at all, but suffering from a lack of a substance that has been in our system more than oxygen for the last 20 years. I say "bastard" because he couldn't have had that eureka moment BEFORE I called in sick today? Now I am home, still suffering from the Caffeine DTs, and also feeling guilty for not going to work today. It ain't easy being me.