Joshua Todd James's Blog, page 5

CONVERSATIONS WITH VAN DAMME Part 1

(For the reader, I wrote a movie that JCVD starred in called POUND OF FLESH. I’ve also written a few other projects for him that have yet to be made, so I’ve got a ton of voicemail and video messages from him, in addition to the occasional phone call out of the blue. It’s a surreal experience to have a guy you once had posters of decorating your college dorm room call you. But that’s the biz. JC is a unique, eccentric man. Conversations with him cannot truly be described, only experienced. What follows didn’t happen, per se, but it is true to JCVD.)

The phone rings. 11 pm. It’s JCVD. I answer.

JCVD: Joshua! How are you, my friend?

ME: I’m good, JC, what-

JCVD: I have three words for you, Joshua. Three words.

ME: Three words?

JCVD: Yes, three words. This is our next blockbuster movie, I tell you, we win all the Oscars with this one, and it hit me… three words.

ME: Three words.

JCVD: Are you ready?

ME: Sure, hit me. (EDITORIAL NOTE, NOT ALWAYS THE BEST THING TO SAY TO JCVD, BUT WE WERE VIDEO CALLING, SO I FIGURE I’M SAFE).

JCVD: Three words. POUND OF FLESH… TWO.

ME: POUND OF FLESH… TWO.

JCVD: The sequel to POUND OF FLESH! It’s a winner, Joshua, and I figured out how to make it work, the sequel. It will be a blockbuster! We’ll get good supporting actors, we get DeNiro or Pacino to play the bad guy-

ME: JC-

JCVD: We get a new actress to play my daughter, since she will have grown up. We get the girl from Spiderman and this HBO show, what is her name, Z-something-

ME: Zendaya?

JCVD: That’s her, yes, you know her? Very good actress, right?

ME: Yeah, she’s great, but-

JCVD: Emma Stone, too, she’s good. Very good. You’re right, we should think of Emma Stone as well, I like her.

ME: JC, I think we’re forgetting something important here-

JCVD: Another actress you like better?

ME: No, we’re forgetting that you died at the end of the first POUND OF FLESH. Won’t that be a problem?

JCVD: Not a problem, Joshua, we didn’t make it definite, we didn’t see me die-

ME: We kinda did-

JCVD: And I could have survived losing a kidney-

ME: But you lost your first one at the beginning of the movie, and when you can’t get it back, you die and give your second one to your daughter-slash-niece, two minus one minus one equals zero kidneys left. You died.

JCVD: So we say that my brother gave me one of his, it’s not a problem, Joshua, trust me, I’ve been doing this very long time, I know movies. So, I live, I get a new kidney-

ME: But-

JCVD: Just listen, Joshua, just listen. In fact, I know how I got a new kidney. I have a secret twin brother I didn’t know about. Only my older brother George knew. He found my lost twin brother, let’s call him Duncan since my name is Deacon, and since he’s my twin, I can play both parts. And then-

ME: Okay-

JCVD: My daughter, her heart is failing. She needs a transplant. My kidney is failing, so I offer to give her my heart since I know I’m going to die. But before I can give her my heart, someone steals it from me.

ME: Someone steals your heart-

JCVD: Yes! And then Deacon and Duncan have to find the people who stole my heart before my daughter’s heart gives out. It’s good, yes!

ME: But if your heart was taken, how are you walking around-

JCVD: We put in one of those mechanical ones, the clock kind, to keep me going, but it won’t last very long, it’s on a battery, so I have to find my heart before the battery dies. This is the movie, a man searching for his stolen heart to give to his dying daughter. Yes? Yes! It will make millions, Joshua, millions! I have a guy I am speaking to, a finance guy, you put together that thing you do-

ME: A beat sheet of the story?

JCVD: Yes, and I’ll get the money. We shoot, get Emma, get DeNiro, he’ll play the rich guy who stole my heart for himself, we’ll get John and Ernie again… POUND OF FLESH… TWO! Yes, Joshua?

ME: Uh… yes, JC.

JCVD: Yes, Joshua?!

ME: Yes, JC!

JCVD: Excellent! Talk to you soon, my friend!

He hangs up. I ponder what just happened.

ME: A man searching for his stolen heart to save his dying daughter. Goddamn if that isn’t actually a cool idea.

(EDITORAL NOTE, I DON’T OWN THE RIGHTS TO POUND OF FLESH, NOR AM I AWARE OF ANY SEQUEL THEY MAY OR MAY NOT BE MAKING OF IT.)

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CONVERSATIONS WITH VAN DAMME

(For the reader, I wrote a movie that JCVD starred in called POUND OF FLESH. I’ve also written a few other projects for him that have yet to be made, so I’ve got a ton of voicemail and video messages from him, in addition to the occasional phone call out of the blue. It’s a surreal experience to have a guy you once had posters of decorating your college dorm room call you. But that’s the biz. JC is a unique, eccentric man. Conversations with him cannot truly be described, only experienced. What follows didn’t happen, per se, but it is true to JCVD.)

The phone rings. 11 pm. It’s JCVD. I answer.

JCVD: Joshua! How are you, my friend?

ME: I’m good, JC, what-

JCVD: I have three words for you, Joshua. Three words.

ME: Three words?

JCVD: Yes, three words. This is our next blockbuster movie, I tell you, we win all the Oscars with this one, and it hit me… three words.

ME: Three words.

JCVD: Are you ready?

ME: Sure, hit me. (EDITORIAL NOTE, NOT ALWAYS THE BEST THING TO SAY TO JCVD, BUT WE WERE VIDEO CALLING, SO I FIGURE I’M SAFE).

JCVD: Three words. POUND OF FLESH… TWO.

ME: POUND OF FLESH… TWO.

JCVD: The sequel to POUND OF FLESH! It’s a winner, Joshua, and I figured out how to make it work, the sequel. It will be a blockbuster! We’ll get good supporting actors, we get DeNiro or Pacino to play the bad guy-

ME: JC-

JCVD: We get a new actress to play my daughter, since she will have grown up. We get the girl from Spiderman and this HBO show, what is her name, Z-something-

ME: Zendaya?

JCVD: That’s her, yes, you know her? Very good actress, right?

ME: Yeah, she’s great, but-

JCVD: Emma Stone, too, she’s good. Very good. You’re right, we should think of Emma Stone as well, I like her.

ME: JC, I think we’re forgetting something important here-

JCVD: Another actress you like better?

ME: No, we’re forgetting that you died at the end of the first POUND OF FLESH. Won’t that be a problem?

JCVD: Not a problem, Joshua, we didn’t make it definite, we didn’t see me die-

ME: We kinda did-

JCVD: And I could have survived losing a kidney-

ME: But you lost your first one at the beginning of the movie, and when you can’t get it back, you die and give your second one to your daughter-slash-niece, two minus one minus one equals zero kidneys left. You died.

JCVD: So we say that my brother gave me one of his, it’s not a problem, Joshua, trust me, I’ve been doing this very long time, I know movies. So, I live, I get a new kidney-

ME: But-

JCVD: Just listen, Joshua, just listen. In fact, I know how I got a new kidney. I have a secret twin brother I didn’t know about. Only my older brother George knew. He found my lost twin brother, let’s call him Duncan since my name is Deacon, and since he’s my twin, I can play both parts. And then-

ME: Okay-

JCVD: My daughter, her heart is failing. She needs a transplant. My kidney is failing, so I offer to give her my heart since I know I’m going to die. But before I can give her my heart, someone steals it from me.

ME: Someone steals your heart-

JCVD: Yes! And then Deacon and Duncan have to find the people who stole my heart before my daughter’s heart gives out. It’s good, yes!

ME: But if you’re heart was taken, how are you walking around-

JCVD: We put in one of those mechanical ones, the clock kind, to keep me going, but it won’t last very long, it’s on a battery, so I have to find my heart before the battery dies. This is the movie, a man searching for his stolen heart to give to his dying daughter. Yes? Yes! It will make millions, Joshua, millions! I have a guy I am speaking to, a finance guy, you put together that thing you do-

ME: A beat sheet of the story?

JCVD: Yes, and I’ll get the money. We shoot, get Emma, get DeNiro, he’ll play the rich guy who stole my heart for himself, we’ll get John and Ernie again… POUND OF FLESH… TWO! Yes, Joshua?

ME: Uh… yes, JC.

JCVD: Yes, Joshua?!

ME: Yes, JC!

JCVD: Excellent! Talk to you soon, my friend!

He hangs up. I ponder what just happened.

ME: A man searching for his stolen heart to save his dying daughter. Goddamn if that isn’t actually a cool idea.

(EDITORAL NOTE, I DON’T OWN THE RIGHTS TO POUND OF FLESH, NOR AM I AWARE OF ANY SEQUEL THEY MAY OR MAY NOT BE MAKING OF IT.)

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faith poem

faith

a poem by

joshua todd james

a little boy

once

asked me

"do you believe in god?"

i replied

why?

"want to know"

he said

"just want to know"

blinking his brown eyes

about to cry

well,

says i

i believe in all good things

my dog dino

my parakeet jimmy

my grandma and grandpa

friends that make me smile

love that touches me inside

good things

if that's what god is

good

than how could i not believe?

the boy pushed his hair from his forehead

and looked at me crossly

he said

"what happened to your dog dino?"

he died

i replied

why?

the boy sniffed

said

"i miss my dog too"

he cried

"just want to see him again someday"

he rubbed his eyes hard with his fist

"someday"

do you believe in god?

i asked the little boy

he looked startled

"yes, yes i do"

i believe too

i said as i held him

but more than that

i believe

i believe in you

i held him

until

he

fell

asleep

what an angel

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BEST SHOT

(note, I was digging through some old files and came across this one-act from my playwright days. It made me giggle and so I’m sharing it with you. It’s available in THE JOSHUA JAMES PROJECT and royalty-free for amateur production. Enjoy!)

BEST SHOT

A one-act play
by Joshua Todd James

CHARACTERS:

DARIN – A perfectly nice-looking young man, 25, the kind that any girl would want their mother to meet.

DOTTIE – A very pretty woman, 29, with an extremely hard edge in her eye and in her tone.

TRACY – A very cute young woman, 24, exactly like the girl next door. Dottie’s younger sister.

SETTING: Dottie and Tracy’s apartment, late at night.

TIME: Present.

LIGHTS UP

(DARIN, 25, enters the living room. He is barefoot, wearing a button shirt only half-buttoned, and boxer shorts. He looks around and spots his watch on a table. He pads over, picks it up, and puts it on. DARIN yawns and stretches his arms over his head. He freezes when he spots DOTTIE, 29, in her pajamas, standing in the doorway, pointing a gun at him.)

DOTTIE: Don’t you fucking move, fucker.

DARIN: What? Who are—

DOTTIE: I said don’t you FUCKING move! I mean it. I will blow both your balls off. Turn around away from me. Put your hands behind your head. Right now. Clasp your fingers. Good. Get down on your knees.

DARIN: What?

DOTTIE: Down on your fucking knees, motherfucker, do it right fucking NOW. Slowly. (DARIN slowly lowers himself to his knees, hands behind his head. DOTTIE comes closer behind him.) Cross your feet at your ankles. That’s it. Stay just like that.

DARIN: Who are you?

DOTTIE: Who am I? I’m the person that LIVES here, asshole, I’m the person with the gun, and I’m the person asking the Goddamn fucking questions, you got that, pissant? You don’t ask me who I am, I ask you who you are, and that’s how it fucking WORKS. Get it?

(Very brief pause.)

DARIN: But you haven’t asked me who I am—

DOTTIE: SHUT UP! Don’t speak unless I tell you to. (Brief pause.) Who are you?

DARIN: My name’s Darin, I’m—

DOTTIE: I don’t know any fucking DARINS, I don’t know you at ALL!

DARIN: I’m with—

DOTTIE: SHUT UP! Here’s the big question, Darin. Where’s your pants?

DARIN: I’m ... I’m not sure. DOTTIE: You’re not sure?

DARIN: I was looking for them when you ... when you came in and held me up.

DOTTIE: Why would your pants be in my house in the first place, Darin?

DARIN: Well, they sorta got flung off in the heat of the moment. DOTTIE: The heat of WHAT moment, Darin?

DARIN: Well, I—

DOTTIE: Were you playing with yourself, Darin? Are you one of those creeps that breaks into a girl’s house just so he can fondle her underwear and get off, is that it? Did you pick up my panties in the laundry basket and start whacking your little weasel, is that what’s going on?

DARIN: No, I’m just—

DOTTIE: Don’t fucking lie to me, Darin, I can always tell when someone’s lying to me, so you better be FUCKING CAREFUL that you tell the truth, you’re trespassing, and that means I could shoot you right here, and no jury in the world would convict me, do you fucking hear me?

DARIN: I’m not—

DOTTIE: I’m going to fucking SHOOT you, I swear to Christ!

(TRACY, 24, enters wearing a pajama top and panties.)

TRACY: Dottie, what are you doing?

DOTTIE: Dial 911, Trace, I caught an intruder, and I’m going to fucking shoot him.

TRACY: Dottie, stop it.

DOTTIE: You can legally shoot somebody when they’re in your house, so I’m taking fucking advantage of this opportunity.

TRACY: Dottie, stop being crazy and put the gun down.

DOTTIE: I’m not being crazy, this sick fuck is running around in his skivvies in our house, what are we supposed to do?

TRACY: We’re supposed to be NICER to our guests. Darin, get up.

DOTTIE: Guest? You know this creep?

TRACY: Of course I know him, why else would he be here? Darin, get up.

DARIN: I’d really rather not.

DOTTIE: How do you know this creep?

TRACY: Dottie, just stop it, he’s not a creep. Darin, it’s okay, you can get up. She’s just being crazy.

(DARIN stands slowly and carefully, keeping his eye on DOTTIE.)

DOTTIE: You two know each other? How do you know each other?

TRACY: We just do. Darin, I’m really sorry.

DARIN: Is that a real gun?

DOTTIE: Yes, it’s a real fucking gun. If you know him, then how come I don’t know him?

TRACY: Because you don’t know everything.

DARIN: Is the gun, you know, is that gun you have there ... is it loaded?

DOTTIE: Of course, it’s loaded, what good is an unloaded gun?

TRACY: Would you stop waving it around before you hurt someone.

DOTTIE: If you know him, then what’s he doing here in our house at three in the morning, not wearing pants, where’s his fucking pants?

TRACY: Well, right now, we’re looking for his pants.

DOTTIE: You’re looking for his pants? Why is he not wearing his pants in the first place?

TRACY: Dottie—

DOTTIE: Tracy, I notice that you are also without pants.

TRACY: Yeah, so?

DOTTIE: So how did you come to be that way? What sort of activities were you engaged in that necessitated the both of you being “sans” pants?

TRACY: Just stop it.

DOTTIE: Darin here confessed his pants were lost in the HEAT of a moment. Were you involved in said “heated moment?”

TRACY: What do you think?

(Brief pause.)

DARIN: She wasn’t really going to shoot me, was she?

DOTTIE: Hell, yes, I was going to shoot you.

(Very brief pause.)

TRACY: She was probably going to shoot you.

DARIN: Oh shit. Shit, I ... I think I need to sit down.

(DARIN carefully walks over to a chair and sits down.)

TRACY: Darin, I’m sorry, this is my sister, I should have told you about her, but I didn’t. I didn’t think we’d wake her up.

DOTTIE: Why wouldn’t I wake up with all the “heated” moments flying around down here?

DARIN: Sister?

TRACY: Yes. Darin, this is Dottie, Dottie this is my friend Darin.

DARIN: How do you do?

DOTTIE: “Friend?”

TRACY: What are you doing with a gun, anyway?

DOTTIE: I hear a big heated noise in the house late at night, I investigate and find your friend Darin here wandering around in his underpants, what do you expect I’m going to do? I have to protect myself, don’t I?

TRACY: You’re not even supposed to have a firearm, you’re violating your parole!

DARIN: Parole?

DOTTIE: Better my parole gets violated rather than my body. Speaking of body violations, let’s discuss this no-pants party you and Darin evidently engaged in with each other.

TRACY: Let’s not. It’s not your business.

DOTTIE: You’re my sister, you live in my house, that makes it my fucking business.

TRACY: It’s not YOUR house, it’s OUR house, Dad left it to both of us.

DARIN: Uh, excuse me, but you said parole?

DOTTIE: That’s right, she said parole. So where do you know my sister from, sweet-cheeks?

TRACY: It’s not any of your business, Dot.

DOTTIE: Where did you meet her?

DARIN: Well, uh—

TRACY: Don’t answer her, Darin, it’s not any of her business.

DOTTIE: Darin, may I remind you that I’m armed and dangerous?

TRACY: Damn it, Dottie, stop it.

DOTTIE: I’m a convicted felon, Darin, you don’t want to fuck with me. I’ve done time, I can be violent.

DARIN: We met in Bernie’s.

DOTTIE: The bar on fourteenth? You met there?

DARIN: Yes.

TRACY: Yes, we did, are you happy now? Put the gun away, you’ve only been out of jail three weeks, are you that anxious to go back?

DOTTIE: When was this? The meeting at Bernie’s, as it were.

TRACY: Darin, don’t—

DOTTIE: When the fuck was it, Darin!?

DARIN: Just a few hours ago.

(Brief pause.)

DOTTIE: Just a few hours ago. Met him in a bar, took him home and suddenly, yahoo, it’s a no-pants party.

TRACY: Don’t you DARE try to lecture me on MY BEHAVIOR!

DOTTIE: I’m supposed to be looking out for you, Dad asked me on his deathbed to take care of you, and I take that seriously!

TRACY: Dad didn’t know at the time that you were a drug dealer, Dottie, had he known that, it might have affected his OPINION on the matter!

DOTTIE: Okay, YES, I was a drug dealer, and YES, it was something I have gone to jail for, but ONE, psychedelics, mushrooms, and marijuana should be legalized, and TWO, there’s not a lot of big money options for female high school drop-outs and THREE, that “drug money” helped put you through high school and college! I did what I had to do, and FOUR, I don’t know anyone with a BRAIN that honestly thinks marijuana should be against the law!!

TRACY: Are you going to use that on me again, the “put me through school” diatribe, isn’t that getting fucking old?

DOTTIE: It’s the truth, isn’t it?

TRACY: I appreciate your help, but I didn’t know then where the money was coming from, and HAD I known—

DOTTIE: Come on!

TRACY: HAD I KNOWN, it would have changed everything.

DOTTIE: Come on, where did you THINK the money was coming from?

TRACY: It’s easy to see now, not so easy when I was young. You sold drugs.

DOTTIE: I can live with myself. How about you, Darin?

DARIN: What?

DOTTIE: Do you think marijuana should be against the law?

DARIN: I don’t smoke it myself, but no, I don’t think it should be against the law.

DOTTIE: See, even your one-night fuck buddy agrees with me.

TRACY: Dottie, shut up.

DARIN: I am, however, strongly in favor of gun control.

DOTTIE: I can’t believe you just brought a strange guy home. Do you know how DANGEROUS one-night stands can be? You don’t know this guy, what he might do or anything, he could be dangerous!

TRACY: Shut up. He is not dangerous.

DARIN: I’m really not dangerous, I’m not.

DOTTIE: Oh, come ON!

TRACY: Not that it’s any of your business, but Darin happens to be a very sweet, nice guy.

DOTTIE: COME ON! Don’t bullshit me! Nobody meets a nice sweet guy in a bar, takes him home, and fucks his brains out all in the same day, it just doesn’t happen! You meet a nice guy, cultivate him two or three months before you take his pants off! Nobody fucks a nice guy right away! No WAY is he a nice sweet guy, if he was, he wouldn’t be here!

TRACY: He is. Darin is a nice sweet guy. He’s a florist.

(Brief pause.)

DOTTIE: A florist?

TRACY: A florist.

DOTTIE: (to DARIN) You’re a florist?

DARIN: Well, yes, although actually, I prefer the term botanist. I have my own shop and attached greenhouse, many different plants, and we actually specialize in orchids, which is a flower so I guess the term florist isn’t that far off. People order from all over the world. I do pretty well for myself.

(Brief pause.)

DOTTIE: (to TRACY) You fucked a florist?

TRACY: Just STOP IT!

DOTTIE: Damn it, Tracy, one night stands, having a ONE NIGHT stand, that’s not the kind of thing YOU do, that’s not what Tracy does—

TRACY: How do you know it’s not the kind of thing Tracy does?

DOTTIE: What?

TRACY: I said, how do you know this isn’t the kind of thing that Tracy does? Maybe this is what I do.

DOTTIE: No, it’s not, don’t bullshit me.

TRACY: How do you know? You’ve been in jail for three years, how would you know? This could be my life, go out to bars every other night, get drunk, and have sex with strangers. Maybe that’s all I do.

DOTTIE: That’s not you. That’s not the kind of thing you do, that’s the kind of thing—

TRACY: The kind of thing that you do?

(Brief pause.)

DOTTIE: It’s the kind of thing that I USED to do.

TRACY: Maybe it’s what I do now.

DOTTIE: So you’re telling me that at some point in the last three years, your hobby has gone from being on the Dean’s list at college to getting wasted, grabbing the nearest guy, dragging him home, and pig-fucking him?

TRACY: Maybe.

DOTTIE: So that’s what he’s doing here, then? He’s just a random “pig- fuck”?

TRACY: Could be.

DOTTIE: If that’s true, when did you get so fucking stupid?

TRACY: All right, just stop it, all right?

DOTTIE: Do you know how many sick FUCKERS are out there? There are a lot of sick fucking sociopaths out there, and they come off all sweet and nice, but once they get inside—

TRACY: Stop it, I don’t want to talk about this with you anymore.

DOTTIE: I mean, have you LOST YOUR MIND? WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?

TRACY: Dottie, STOP IT, STOP IT! You’re embarrassing me!

DOTTIE: Oh, I’m embarrassing you in front of your random pig-fuck?

TRACY: YES! YOU’RE EMBARRASSING ME! You’ve always embarrassed me!

DOTTIE: Is that so?

TRACY: Do you have any fucking idea what it was like growing up with you as my older sister? God damn it, don’t you fucking GET IT? You were always fucking fighting with someone or doing something FUCKED UP! I am four years younger than her in school, Darin and everyone in my class knew about her and joked about her. She was the one everyone said was easy, everyone said would end up pregnant and on welfare, she came to school drunk and high, anything bad that could be done in high school was done by my sister. I was never “Tracy” to anyone I knew in school, I was always “Dottie’s sister,” and believe me, Darin, it wasn’t ever said as a compliment. Everyone expected the worst from me. Everyone treated me like I was the train wreck my sister was. I cried almost every day because of something she did at school because I was so embarrassed by her. And Dottie, you don’t even know or care what you did back then, you just made excuses like you’re doing now, you would never listen to anyone! You’re still doing it! As far as you are concerned, it’s you against the world, and you’re the one that’s never wrong, you never admit when you’re WRONG, and I’ve had enough of it. I’ve had ENOUGH! I have my own life now, I will do what I want, go where I want, take my pants off wherever I want, and sleep with whoever I want to without any input from you, thank you. I will pay back the money I got from you, but I don’t need your help anymore, I don’t need your advice anymore, I don’t need anything from you anymore. Don’t talk to me anymore!

(Short pause. TRACY starts to cry, turns around, and storms out of the room. DOTTIE slowly turns and sits down next to DARIN.)

DOTTIE: Well. That was fairly clear and concise.

(Very brief pause.)

DARIN: She didn’t mean what she said, the last part, I mean. She’s just upset. I know she really cares about you.

DOTTIE: Great, just great. I’m being comforted by my little sister’s pig- fucking one-night stand.

DARIN: I would just like to point out that ... that I’m not really a casual sex kind of guy, myself.

DOTTIE: Then what the hell are you doing here with my sister?

DARIN: That’s what I’m saying, I’m saying that it’s not casual, not casual at all.

DOTTIE: Oh really?

DARIN: I mean, it’s not a one-night stand, at least I hope that it’s not. As far as I’m concerned, what happened between your sister and me was a meaningful exchange between two thinking and feeling adults.

DOTTIE: Really?

DARIN: Really, I mean, I really like her, I do. There was no ... uh ... “pig-fucking” involved in what we shared with each other. That’s not how I would describe it anyway.

DOTTIE: I see.

DARIN: I think she’s a good person.

DOTTIE: How would you know she’s a good person for sure? You’ve known her less than six hours, how can you know for sure?

DARIN: I don’t know for sure, but I suspect it. (Very brief pause.) It’s hard to figure out what’s for sure in life. You know, I am an observer by nature, I think you have to be to do what I do, I mean, my job is to watch plants grow, among other things. And you’re right, there are a lot of sociopathic assholes in the world who only want to fuck you over. And women can be as bad and mean as men, trust me, I know all too well. I am a cautious man because of it. Then I met Tracy. Today. We really, really hit it off like nothing or no one else I’ve ever met. It was amazing, it was almost surreal, really, Tracy and I really seemed to connect in a way I’ve never experienced before. Seemed like a good thing, meeting her, and an even better thing, coming home with her. It seemed like I’d finally stumbled across a for sure good thing, maybe even a great thing. But to be honest, when you appeared, brandishing a gun and threatening to shoot me, when that happened I seriously began to question my own judgment. I mean, I’ve read about things like this happening to guys, get picked up by a beautiful woman, she takes him home, and next thing you know, he wakes up, and he’s missing a kidney. That’s what I thought was for sure going to happen when you jumped out at me. My point is, a lot of times, you just can’t know what’s for sure and what’s not for sure, so you have to act on faith. Dottie, I think I might be in love with your sister, but I don’t know for sure if she loves me. I suspect it, but I don’t and won’t know for sure for a while. Until I observe otherwise, I’m assuming that it will be a good thing and give it a shot. That’s all I can do, no matter how I feel about her, all I can do is give it my best shot.

(TRACY quietly enters holding DARIN’s pants, just catching the last part of what DARIN just said. DARIN looks at her a moment, then continues.)

DARIN: It’s not really my place to say anything, but it sounds like the two of you have been through a whole world of shit together. It was tough and rough and difficult, and it sounds like you both gave it your very best shot with the cards that you were dealt, and that’s the most anyone can ask of anybody. I don’t have any brothers or sisters, so maybe I can’t understand, but would it be too hard for you to just cut each other a fucking break? Because the one FOR SURE thing that I can see that the two of you have, is each other. That’s more than some people. And that’s a good thing, isn’t it?

(Short pause. TRACY walks forward and hands the pants to DARIN.)

DARIN: Thank you.

TRACY: You’re welcome.

(TRACY sits down next to DARIN, on the opposite side of DOTTIE. Brief pause.)

DOTTIE: Tracy.

TRACY: Yes Dottie?

DOTTIE: I was wrong.

TRACY: What?

DOTTIE: I was wrong and you were right.

TRACY: Right about what?

DOTTIE: He is a nice, sweet guy.

TRACY: Yes. He is.

(TRACY reaches across DARIN, holding out her hand. DOTTIE takes it.)

DOTTIE: I’m glad I didn’t shoot him.

TRACY: Me too.

DARIN: Me too.

Lights fade.
The End.

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BEST SHOT NOTES:

First produced in 2003 by The Defiant Ones at Manhattan Theatre Source, featuring Heather Dilly, Journey McFarlane, and Jeff Bender, directed by David Title. Great cast, great direction, and just a whole lot of fun.

Later produced in Los Angeles with a different cast and director.

Small personal note: There aren’t a whole lot of things funnier than seeing the blonde and beautiful Heather Dilly spit out the word “pissant” like a drill sergeant.

THE ELF, THE BUNNY & THE BIG XMAS BLOW UP

(In the year 2000, I was asked by those running Manhattan Theatre Source to write a Christmas play. They were going to stage it with two other one-acts. It had to feature a little girl and a bomb. The result was the play THE ELF, THE BUNNY & THE BIG XMAS BLOWUP, which sported a dream cast of friends and family. You can find the whole play HERE, and it’s royalty-free for amateur production. Never had I ever had so much fun as the fun that the cast, the director, and designers, and myself had on this venture.)

SCENE

Bunny: Sit right here and I'll tell you the magic story of how it happened.  See, once upon a time . . .

Wendi: Once upon a time?

Bunny: All the best magical stories start out like that.  All it takes is once upon a time and some Magic Bunny Pellets.

Wendi: Magic Bunny Pellets?

Bunny: Ever hear of Magic Fairy Dust?

Wendi: Sure, like from Tinkerbell.

Bunny: Magic Bunny Pellets work the same way, only for bunnies. All you do is wish-wish-wish as hard as you can and then toss the Magic Bunny Pellets.

Bunny throws the pellets. Wendi's room begins to change and soft music begins to play.

Wendi: Peeyeww, I smell something ominous and stinky.

Bunny: That's the Magic Bunny Pellets.

Wendi: Why do they stink so?

Bunny: Well I'll give ya a hint, Wendi with an 'I', Magic Fairy Dust doesn't come from Tinkerbell's mouth.

Wendi: Oh.

Bunny: Back to the story.  Once upon a time there was an elf, a Christmas elf.

A light comes up on Charlie, a Christmas Elf.

Bunny: Wait a minute Wait a minute, I'm getting ahead of myself.  I'm not to the elf yet.  Thank you . . .

The spotlight on Charlie goes back out, putting him back into darkness.

Charlie: (in the dark) Hey!  Hey, what the?!

Bunny: Thank you, THANK YOU. Don’t call us, we’ll call you. Now then. Once upon a time, up at the North Pole where it's always cold and cheerful, where the snow is always white and the canes always candy, where it's always almost Christmas every day of the year.  It's December, and everyone is getting prepared for the big day of Christmas!   

Wendi: Christmas at the North Pole, how wonderful!

The song, We Wish you a Merry Christmas plays at high volume.  Wendi's room (except for the bed) is magically transformed into the North Pole. Bunny dances about with great glee.

Bunny: Now once upon a time at the North Pole there lived a certain Christmas Elf.

A spotlight opens up once more upon Charlie, a Christmas Elf with a look of sheer disgust upon his face.

Charlie: Oh, so NOW you want me out here under the light, now you want to hear what I gotta say so you can make fun of me, is that it?  Hey guys, let's trot out the elf, get a few laughs at his expense, have ourselves a jolly old time, ho-ho-ho and all that rot.  Well, if that's what you think is gonna happen, you can just kiss my little Elvin ass!  And turn that music off!

The Christmas song abruptly stops.

Charlie: I hate that fricking song.

Bunny: Once upon a time there was a certain Christmas Elf named Charlie.

Charlie: And who . . . in their right mind . . . sticks a poor helpless Christmas elf with a name like Charlie?  Charlie's something you call your beer buddy, your plumber or mailman.  You can have an Uncle Charlie, a nephew Charlie, a Grandpa Charlie, you call your dog Charlie, the tuna you eat out of a can is called Charlie but you do not, under any circumstances, name a frigging Christmas elf frigging CHARLIE!

Bunny: Now, poor Charlie the Christmas elf was unhappy.  Charlie was disgruntled.  Charlie was perturbed, Charlie was mired in a deep dark funk.  (Bunny stops when Charlie looks at him) In short, Charlie had a problem.

Charlie: I hate Christmas.  Christmas sucks.  Christmas sucks huge dripping donkey dongers.  Of all the holidays that are holidays, Christmas is by far the worst of the lot, celebrating greed, waste and advertising.  It's the one time of the year where people are SUPPOSED to be nice to each other, the ONE time of the year to celebrate fellowship and love and what do they do? Pull hair, knock out teeth and draw the blood of their fellow citizens, all just to get at the very LAST useless Pokemon doll that's on the shelf that they can give to their squalling snot-nose selfish and useless excuse for children that they squirted out indiscriminately and irresponsibly.

Bunny: Hey Wendi, Hey Wendi, Hey Wendi, did you know what Pokemon means in Japanese?  It means POCKET MONSTER!  They invented a toy and called it Pocket Monster!  Isn't that something?  Pocket Monster, Hee-hee!  (Bunny stops giggling when Wendi and Charlie look at him) I'm sorry, I'm digressing. I apologize.  Please continue.

Charlie: Christmas.  Christmas isn't about LOVE anymore, it isn't about GIVING, it's all about who's got what and how much, merchandising tie-ins and HAPPY-MEALS, I swear if I hear another brat screaming for a cheap toy and a Happy Meal I'm gonna kill myself, I swear it.  Who in their right mind would buy a toy at a frigging fast food half-assed hamburger chain anyway?  Wake up dipsticks!  Would you shop for food at a hardware store?   I DON'T THINK SO!

Bunny: You see, Wendi with an 'I', this was one angry elf.

Charlie: Christmas.  Christmas really chaps my ass.

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First Christmas in New York City

(author’s note, this December 17th marks my anniversary of landing in New York City, years and years ago… what follows is a poem I wrote not long after my arrival)

ƒirst christmas in new york city

by joshua todd james

what can you say

to the fat hairy man

on his hands and knees

with his pants half down

prone

on the cold december sidewalk

he's sick it seems

or so his crusted clothes say

but

what can you say

to the ragged woman on 96th

with her long face

empty coffee cup

waiting for change

on christmas day

all she says is

please

what can you say

to the man sleeping

under cardboard and snow

on the park bench

with just his dirty socks

sticking out

winter with no shoes

no hopes

no dreams

hey

what can you say

take my coat

take my wallet

take my shoes

i give my hat away

five feet later

there's someone else that needs it

there's no room for charity

no room for sharing

no room at the inn

hunger everywhere

behind me below me and in front

in the mirror

hey

what can you say

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IN SEASON - A Short Story

IN SEASON

by Todd Travis - reprinted with permission.

First published in the collection THE LIVING AND THE DEAD.

Mundt still couldn’t get over the fact that these kids were hunting for Bigfoot. Fucking Bigfoot! It was like a joke, but nobody was laughing. They were dead serious. Mundt was busting to talk to someone about it, but Grady had his pilot’s headphones on and couldn’t hear him anyway, and the kids were stuffed in the back of the twin-engine seaplane. Mundt glanced back at them.

Two young men, one big, strapping, and bearded, named Sam. The other, small with a boyish face but balding terribly even this early in life, was named Billy. And then there was the girl. Gwen, she was called. She was a looker, even in hiking boots, jeans, and a flannel shirt. Grady had winked at Mundt when they loaded all their electrical gear into the plane at pick-up, especially when she bent over.

The girl nudged her companions and pointed out of the plane. Mundt followed her gaze. Down far below in the Alaska wilderness, a big mama grizzly shepherded two young cubs by a river. The kids smiled in awe at nature’s creatures doing their business. Mundt snorted; he had seen it before, many a time. He leaned back and shouted over the engine noise.

“Where we are now, it’s most likely that that river below ain’t never been fished or even touched by a human. Hardly any people this far in, just us and the animals!”

“It’s beautiful and perfect!” Gwen shouted back.

“We love it!” Sam, the big one, said. The little one just closed his eyes and looked queasy. He’d better not barf in the plane, Mundt thought.

Graduate students, that’s what they’d said they were, Mundt remembered. Post-doctoral graduate students or some shit, whatever that means. He’d discussed it with Grady, who’d wondered how a person could be a student if they’d already done graduated, and Mundt honestly didn’t know. As long as they had the cash and paid upfront, that’s all that mattered. But he looked forward to what Boyle had to say when the kids finally told him what they were on about.

“Bigfoot?” Boyle said to them. “Fucking Bigfoot?”

“Bigfoot, Sasquatch, Yeti, the missing link, all of the above,” Sam said, “That’s what we’re here for. We’re going to prove he exists.”

“Fucking Bigfoot?”

The kids just grinned and kept unloading their gear.

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The seaplane had landed in the small lake near the log cabin lodge where Boyle and his idiot brother Duke lived, and their stuff piled up on the small fishing dock. Duke helped them as best he could, goggle-eyed at Gwen. Boyle, big, bearded, and round like the many neighboring mountain bears, stared at Mundt and Grady in disbelief.

“I know, it’s somethin’, ain’t it?” Mundt said.

“Son, I’ve lived in the shadow of one Alaska range after another for most of my life,” Boyle said. “An’ I ain’t never seen me no Bigfoot.”

“New species are discovered every day,” said Billy, the small one. “Alaska is bigger than the next three largest states in America put together, and it’s got more unexplored territory than anywhere else in North America. There are vast reaches that man has barely seen, much less explored.”

“Don’t tell me about Alaska, I know Alaska, I been all over and never seen a single sign, not a footprint, not a hair, nothing. He don’t exist.”

“He does. We’ve seen him,” Gwen said, and that stopped all of them.

“You did? Where?”

“Hey, easy with that!” Billy said as Duke, unloading gear from the plane and still gawking at Gwen, dropped the container he was carrying. Sam slid over and caught it right before it hit the deck. The kids all exhaled a sigh of relief.

“Fuck,” said Billy. “That was close.”

Duke mewled, angry at being yelled at.

“Sorry,” Sam said. “But this is particularly valuable to us.”

With a cleft lip and a lazy eye, Duke growled at them, unable to speak but clearly furious. The kids took a step back. Duke was even bigger than Boyle, and Boyle was a large man.

“Knock it off, Duke,” Boyle said. “Get back to the lodge, get the kitchen straightened out and the food set. Go on, now.”

Duke looked down and shuffled off, mumbling. Boyle turned back to the kids.

“Don’t mind my brother. He’s retarded an’ gets upset easy, but he’s harmless.”

The kids glanced at each other, not quite believing that. Boyle hawked and spit into the lake.

“Well, I guess it don’t matter why you come here, as long as you got the cash deposit, like we agreed.”

“That we do,” Sam said. He unzipped a fanny pouch, pulled out a fat roll of hundreds, and counted out three thousand dollars. “Half now, half when we’re done, right?”

“Works for us.”

“And you’ll take us up Brooks Range tomorrow, first light?” Billy asked.

“That’s what we agreed to, I believe. Grady and Mundt will get all this stuff inside for you, you go on into the lodge, Duke’s got some chow waiting on the stove, he don’t look it, but he’s a damn good cook.”

The kids hesitated a second, then did as directed. Boyle noted that Sam kept the plastic container he’d caught and held onto it like it was filled with gold. The men watched them troop on inside, in particular Gwen. Mundt moaned a happy moan.

“Hate it when she leaves, but I love to watch her go,” Mundt said.

“Goddamn, I wish I had that swing in my backyard,” Grady said.

“I don’t even need fries with that shake, I’ll take that shit straight up,” Mundt said. “With a spoon and a straw.”

“You think the big kid is hitting that shit?” Grady asked.

“If he ain’t, then he needs his head examined,” Mundt said. “Or his balls.”

Boyle spit again. “What’s the word?”

“Word is good,” Grady said. “Went down according to schedule, they was right on time, waiting on the road by themselves as directed. Anxious to do this thing, I guess. So it’s on now?”

“Looks like it. Get their cockamamie gear on inside.”

Mundt grinned at Boyle.  “Bigfoot, huh?”

“Fucking Bigfoot.”

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“You SAW Bigfoot, you say?” Boyle asked after dinner had been served and eaten. The kids were spread out in front of the fireplace, checking their gear and equipment. Sam messed around with various cameras, and Billy, of course, was on a computer, tapping away. Gwen puttered with her smartphone.

“We sure did,” Gwen said. “I can’t get cell reception or access my email here.”

“And you won’t, ‘cause of the mountain range,” Boyle said. “Only thing that works up here is a satellite phone. You got one of those?”

Gwen glanced at the boys. “Afraid not. But we can handle it. How do you reach anyone if you get into trouble?”

“Got the ham radio, we get on that if there’s an issue. But usually they ain’t. We steer clear of bear trouble and shoot the wolves if they mess with us. Other than that, the biggest danger is a bull moose during mating season, you don’t want to get in the way of a bull when his blood’s up, among other things.”

Grady and Mundt giggled at that for their own reasons. Duke sniffed around the equipment, investigating. Sam gently took a camera away from him. Duke hissed.

“Quiet, Duke. So where’d you see Bigfoot?” Mundt asked.

“Himalayas, last year,” Sam said. “We were there for a month and, near the end, caught a glimpse of him in a snowstorm.”

“You sure it was Bigfoot? Probably just another lost mountain climber.”

“It was him. Seven feet tall, covered in fur… we saw his prints, too. No boots,” Billy said. “It was definitely him. But our equipment and cameras had frozen; we had nothing, no proof that we actually saw him.”

“This time, we’re going to prove it,” Gwen said.

“If you saw him there, why not go back there? Why come here?”

“It was on the Chinese side of the mountains,” Sam replied. “We can’t get back in there; we have a visa issue. He won’t show up on the other side; he avoids people. But we got enough data to track him. And we know he’s also here, too.”

Boyle shook his head in disbelief. Gwen smiled.

“I know it’s a stretch, but trust us, he’s here.”

“Then tell me, missy, why me and my brother have lived here for a lot longer than you’ve probably even been on this earth, and we ain’t never seen hide nor hair of him?”

“He doesn’t want to be seen.”

Boyle snorted and batted that away with his hand.

“No, seriously,” Gwen said. “We’re speaking about a primate, much like a gorilla or us, but a very smart one, an animal that can travel great distances quickly and can smell as well if not better than a canine. One who can problem solve, who can see and smell humans from miles away, who can reason for itself how to stay out of sight by sticking to territories where it knows it’s safe. We see this in gorilla bands in Africa. These primates are smarter than gorillas, and they know how to identify threats. They know how to cover their tracks.”

“They work as a community, too, much like a lion pride,” Sam said. “They hunt and migrate and communicate with each other.”

Boyle stood up, went to the cabinet, and pulled out a bottle of whiskey. “So, how do you know he’s up here?”

“We did a data stream on migration patterns and likely habitats,” Billy said. He turned his laptop around so they could see the colored map on the screen. “They migrate, and according to the data and soil samples you collected and sent to us, this is the most likely area they’ll be found this time of year.”

“Them? More than one?” Grady asked.

“Definitely.”

The men all rolled their eyes, and Mundt laughed. “Hear that, Boyle? You and Duke done been neighbors with some hairy monsters straight outa the seventies.”

“Harry and the Hendersons!” Grady said.

“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” Billy said. “They leave people alone, unless-”

“Look, junior, I ain’t afraid of nobody or nothin’ up here, understand? Let me show you something,” Boyle opened up a cabinet and took out a gleaming black rifle with a scope. “You know what this is? This is a Bushmaster .223 semi-automatic assault weapon. You recognize the name, right?”

“That’s what was used at Sandy Hook,” Gwen said.

“Exactly right. I’ve killed bear, moose, and a pack of wolves with this thing. Don’t matter what kinda animal or monster it is. This thing will mow them down.”

“You mind, uh, putting that away?” Billy asked.

“Why? Make you uncomfortable?”

“Yes, it does,” Gwen said. “We don’t like guns.”

Boyle smiled at her a moment, then put the weapon away. “You’re the guest, so I’m happy to oblige. After all, I guess we’re gonna witness a scientific breakthrough, maybe even get our names in the paper if you think this’ll be that big of a deal. Will it?”

“That and more,” said Sam, brightening up at the mention of it. “This will be epic; we’re talking about inconvertible proof of the missing link between man and ape! The implications are beyond what we can comprehend. Just what it will do to the anti-evolution arguments alone is significant, but think of what else we can learn from him.”

“New species are discovered daily, especially in the ocean’s deep waters,” Gwen said. “And with each discovery, mankind makes significant scientific strides forward in understanding our natural world.”

“Discovering a primate this close to us, biologically, the possibilities are staggering. This could be a tipping point in understanding the true nature of ourselves,” Billy said. “Of who we are as humans.”

Mundt and Grady glanced at Boyle, hiding their smiles. Duke nosed around Billy’s computer, tapping at the buttons.

“Please don’t, uh … don’t do that,” Billy asked him.

“Duke, get off that. Lemme ask you. If these Bigfoots are so good at not being seen and staying away from people, how the hell are you gonna catch them on camera?”

The three kids glanced at each other and grinned.

“We have a way,” Sam said.

“Well, what is it? If we’re gonna be going out on this trek with you, don’t you think we have a right to know?”

The boys looked at Gwen, who nodded. Billy pulled out a plastic bag with a piece of bark in it.

“What’s that, a piece of tree?”

“More than that. A scent.”

“A scent of what, of Bigfoot?”

“In a fashion, yes.”

“That’d be a cool new perfume,” Mundt giggled.

“We got it in the Himalayas; an old Tibetan man there told us how the only time he saw the Yeti was when they prepared to mate,” Sam said. “That was the only time they’d come out where they could be seen, and that’s when we saw him. We got this from the tree where we saw our Yeti, identified its scent, and took it to the lab, and Billy…”

“I synthesized it,” Billy said. “Made it pure and strong.”

“We’re going to scent a tree, plant our cameras, and catch Bigfoot on film,” Gwen said. “We’ll prove he exists once and for all.”

“He don’t,” Boyle said.

“He does, I’m telling you-”

“He don’t exist because if he did, I’d have seen him by now. This is fool’s gold,” Boyle got up and took a swig of whiskey.

“Come on now, Boyle,” Grady said. “Let’s let the kids go plant their cameras and have their fun. I’d like to catch me a Bigfoot, I would.”

“Yeah, Boyle, I’m with Grady, it’s only another day,” Mundt said. “Let’s catch a monster!”

“Wait,” Gwen said. “What do you mean, ‘it’s only another day’? What-”

“Nah, this Bigfoot nonsense is bullshit, I ain’t waiting until tomorrow, let’s do this now,” Boyle reached into the cabinet and pulled out the rifle. “On your feet, boys.”

“Do WHAT now, what are you-”

“I said, ON YOUR FEET. Now,” Boyle aimed the rifle at them. “Empty those pockets.”

Sam and Billy stood up, shocked, eyes darting around. “You’re robbing us?”

“No, genius, I’m robbing myself. Of course, I am. Pull out that money pouch, big boy, and your wallet, too. You too, junior.”

“This is nuts,” Sam said. “You can’t be serious.”

Boyle stepped forward and jammed the barrel of the rifle into Sam’s abdomen. The air went out of him, and he collapsed to the floor. Grady pulled the pouch off of Sam and took his wallet, chuckling.

“I dunno, Boyle, I really kinda wanted them to find Bigfoot,” he said.

Gwen couldn’t move; she just sat there, frozen. Duke rooted through their equipment.

“Duke, leave that shit be, it’s expensive, and we can probably get a pretty penny for it, but not if it’s broken.”

“We told our university where we were going. We have receipts from you for the lodge stay and guide tour,” Billy said. “People knew that we were coming here.”

“Yeah, but nobody knows that you GOT here, now, do they? Your bus left you by the side of the lake, all by your lonesome. Nobody saw Grady land to pick you up, nobody saw you with us. What Grady’s gonna do is, he’s gonna tell the state police that you didn’t even show up. In fact, he’s gonna call your university on Monday morning to complain about it. No one can prove you were here, far as we’re concerned, you disappeared by that lake before Grady got there. This is the Alaskan wild, and people disappear here all the time. Take the boys outside.”

Grady and Mundt yanked Sam to his feet. Duke grabbed Billy by the arm.

“Wait,” Gwen said. “What are you going to do to them?”

“If I were you,” Boyle said. “I’d be more concerned about what’s gonna happen to me, not them. Don’t worry about them, Missy. Worry about you. We ain’t had a nice-looking girl like you up here for quite some time. You do as you’re told, and you may get to stay alive for a bit longer than them.”

Billy caught Gwen’s eye, and they exchanged a look. As the men started to haul them out, Billy stomped on Duke’s foot, causing the bigger man to howl in pain. Billy followed that up with an elbow to Duke’s nose, breaking it.

Gwen grabbed the rifle in Boyle’s hands and tried to pull it away. He held on tight, but it wasn’t easy; Gwen was much stronger than she looked.

Mundt shouted, pulled a knife, and swiped at Billy. Billy caught the bigger man’s wrist and yanked him forward. Mundt flew headfirst into the wall with a hard conk.

Sam grabbed at Grady, trying to wrestle with him, but was no match, and Grady kneed him in the gut. Sam fell on his hands and knees just as Billy turned around. Billy went into a karate stance and attacked Grady, kicks and punches flying.

Boyle twisted the rifle out of Gwen’s grip, pushing her backward on her ass. Boyle turned, surprised upon seeing Billy kicking the living shit out of Grady. He brought it to a quick end by the butt of his rifle, delivered to the back of Billy’s skull. He landed on the floor next to Sam.

Mundt, Grady, and Boyle stood panting over the two younger men.

“Tough little bastard, ain’t he?” Mundt said. “Thought the big one would be the problem, not the runt.”

“He cheated, used that karate shit,” Grady said.

“Well, now you know better than to underestimate him,” Boyle said, glancing back at Gwen, still on the floor.

Sam crawled to his feet and made a move for the pistol. Duke jumped on him and wrapped an arm around Sam’s neck. Duke squeezed until Sam’s eyes bulged.

Billy fired a kick up at Boyle’s crotch, landing hard. Boyle grunted in pain, and all three men responded by stomping hard on Billy, who managed to lash out with one more kick before he covered up.

Billy’s last kick connected to the plastic box that Sam had guarded jealously. It slid over next to Gwen. As they stomped on him, Billy’s eyes connected with Gwen’s. She nodded to him just before Billy lost consciousness. Finally, they stopped.

“Son of a bitch, you fucker!” Boyle caught his breath. “Keep that pistol on him, he moves, shoot him in the kneecap. Don’t kill him, not yet. And don’t you even think about moving, missy,” Boyle swung the rifle around to Gwen, who froze.

Grady picked up the pistol and aimed it at the unconscious Billy. Mundt leaned down to check Sam, still in Duke’s grip.

“Boyle, this big one here’s dead. Duke done squeezed the life outa him.”

“He should consider his ass lucky.”

“Oh no, no, Sam …” Gwen tried to crawl to Sam. Boyle stopped her.

“I said, DON’T MOVE, missy, and I mean it. Mundt, keep an eye on the girl. Duke, let that one go now. Let him go, I said. You all right? Come here.”

Duke dropped Sam’s body, got up, and loped to Boyle, mewling about his nose. Boyle cleared the blood away and checked it out. “Broken, but you’ll live. Grab the little one there, hold him tight, but don’t kill him, not yet. And watch his feet, he knows shit with his feet.”

Duke nodded and did as he was told, picked Billy up, and got him in a tight full-nelson. Boyle grabbed Billy by the hair and shook him.

“Wake up! Wake up, you little bastard.”

Billy, his face a bloody mess, opened his eyes and slowly got his bearings. Looked over Boyle’s shoulder at Gwen, still on the floor, tears in her eyes.

“You cheeky little fucker, putting up a fight and making a mess of my place. This after we even let you kids have a nice last meal an’ everything.”

“Yeah … about that … the food ... sucked,” Billy said. Mundt and Grady laughed.

“He does have cheek, this one.”

“Not for much fucking longer. We was gonna make it quick for you and your pal, bullet to the back of the skull, no pain, no fuss, no muss. But you done pissed me off, and you hurt my brother to boot, so now you’re gonna die slow and hard. My brother here is gonna tie you to a tree outside and let you bleed. The wolves will smell it and come feast on your ass. You’re gonna die watching them eat you from the feet up. Take him out!”

Duke and Grady dragged Billy toward the door. He looked at Gwen.

“Gwen …” Billy said.  “I love you.”

“I know, Billy. I love you, too,” Gwen said before he disappeared out into the night. Boyle snorted, crouched down near her, his rifle slung easy in his hands.

“He your boyfriend, the little guy?” he asked.

“What do you think?”

“Woulda thought you’d hooked up with the big fella here, not the little fish.”

“Sam is … was gay, and there’s a lot more to Billy than people think. If not for that gun, he would have kicked all your asses.”

“Yeah, but I did have a gun, now didn’t I?” Boyle hawked and spit. “So the big guy was queer, was he? Hear that, Mundt?”

“Hear it, can’t believe it. Fucking queer.”

“His name was Sam, and he was a much better person than either of you.”

“Don’t do him no good now that he’s dead, does it? Drag that piece of shit outa here, don’t want him stinking up the place.”

Mundt nodded, grabbed Sam’s body by the feet, and dragged it out the front door. Boyle poked at Gwen with the rifle barrel, edging her shirt open slightly at the collar so he could see more skin.

“You know, you’re a right pretty girl. It don’t have to end that way for you, you know. You be nice to me and the boys, we’ll be nice to you. Take care of the place, take care of all of us, and there’s no reason you can’t make it outa this, long as you’re reasonable.”

“Bullshit. You’re going to kill me eventually. You’ll have to. I’m not stupid, you know. I saw you murder two men; you can’t leave me alive; I’m too dangerous.”

“There are good ways to go and ugly ways to go, so maybe you should think about that, Miss Smarty. Cooperate, and your limited stay here with us may be less painful than it could be.”

Grady, Mundt, and Duke trooped back inside and shut the front door tight.

“Where’s the little guy at?” Boyle asked.

“Tied up on the pine at the edge of the meadow. Won’t be nothing but scraps left of him come morning, if that,” Grady said.

“So who gets to go first, we draw straws?”

“No, we’re not drawing fucking straws. I go first,” Boyle noticed the container on the floor near Gwen. The latch was undone, and the plastic box opened. He used the barrel of the gun to check it out. The box was empty.

“What was in this?”

“What was in what?”

“Don’t get smart with me, what was in this fucking box?” Boyle grabbed her face with his free hand and squeezed. Gwen stared at him, defiant.

“Want me to search for it, whatever it is? Should we play hide and seek?” Boyle released her face and felt the pockets of her shirt, enjoying the feel of her body. “You like that, do ya?”

Grady and Mundt grinned. Duke just watched, mouth open in anticipation.

“Oh yeah, it’s hot, real hot,” Gwen said, her voice flat and unemotional. “You sure know how to romance the ladies. Where did you learn these sweet moves of yours? Did you get them from watching moose fuck?”

Boyle didn’t say anything for a moment, just glared. Grady whistled.

“Oh my, she has some lip on her, don’t she?” Mundt said. “Oh my goodness, this is gonna be fun.”

Boyle kept searching with his free hand, felt the pocket of her jeans, and found her left hand, which was clenched tight.

“Whatta you got there, bitch? Open the hand. Open it,” he pried her fingers open. The hand was empty.

“It’s not in that hand,” Gwen said. “It’s in this one.”

Gwen brought her right hand out from behind her body and hit Boyle in the temple with it before he could react. The glass vial she held broke upon impact and cut his brow. Liquid from it flowed out over his face and chest.

Boyle gave her a backhand across the face, and she fell.

“Oh shit, it’s on now,” Grady said.

“What was that shit? What was it!” he demanded.

“Cologne,” Gwen said. “You needed it.”

Boyle tossed his rifle to Mundt and began beating Gwen in a fury with his fists, pummeling her on the head and body.

“Easy there, Boyle, easy!” Mundt said. “Don’t damage her too much, not before the rest of us have a chance at some fun!”

“He’s right, Boyle, this is what she wants, to piss you off!”

“Well, it goddamn fucking worked!” Boyle grabbed Gwen by the hair and hauled her to her feet. He tore her shirt off, ripping it to shreds in the process, all the while cursing a blue streak. He put his hands around her throat and choked her.

“What was that shit, woman? What did you throw on me!”

Grady sniffed. “Holy Jesus, I don’t know what it was, but it sure stinks. You smell like rancid cougar piss.”

“It’s an improvement,” Gwen whispered.

Boyle shook her. “You wanna go out ugly, do ya?”

Gwen giggled, “You said … ugly,” and then couldn’t stop giggling. “Ugly!”

Boyle bellowed in a rage, picked her up, and tossed her, like a rag doll, into one of the nearby bedrooms. She landed hard on a lumpy bunk bed. He followed her in there, unbuttoning his shirt and showing an ample gut.

“Been working out, have you?” Gwen said.

“You fucking bitch, you’re gonna be sorry.”

The other men crowded in the doorway, angling for a look at the festivities.

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Billy shook his head to clear the cobwebs out of it. He slowly became aware that he was lashed to a tree near the woods. He could see the lodge in the distance, just barely. There was only one dim light inside the building and no moon, so everything outside was dark and shadowed. He struggled against the bonds, but they were far too tight, and he was too weak from the beatings. He could hear the scuffle inside, however, and his heart broke.

Then Billy realized that the shadows in the woods were moving.

Inside the lodge, Boyle mounted on top of Gwen on the bed and held both of her hands tight above her head, but it wasn’t easy to do anything more than that as she bucked wildly and fought back. He couldn’t even get his pants off, or hers; it was like trying to hold a python still. She spit up at him, and he cursed her.

“She’s a wild one, she is,” Mundt said.

“Get me some damn rope,” Boyle grunted. “We’ll tie her up and have our fun.”

Grady looked at Mundt, who looked at Duke. Duke huffed and went into the living room for the rope. Gwen continued to buck and bite at Boyle.

Then the lights went out and, except for the fire in the fireplace, it got dark real fast. The men went on immediate alert.

“The generator, somethin’s got to it,” Mundt said. “It’s stopped.”

Boyle looked up. “It was that damn kid, I told you to tie him up tight!”

“We did, Boyle, there’s no way he got loose, I’m telling you-”

Grady stopped when he heard the noise. They all heard it. Someone huge and heavy walked across the lodge's roof, and all the beams creaked.

“That’s more than one person,” Boyle said. He jumped up off of Gwen and snapped his fingers at Grady. Grady tossed him his rifle, and Boyle chambered a shell.

“Keep an eye on her,” he said. Grady pointed his pistol at her.

Mundt went to the cabinet, took out a shotgun, handed it to Duke, then took out another rifle. They all listened to the creaks and footsteps above.

“Jesus, it sounds like a whole gang up there,” Mundt whispered. “There ain’t nobody around for a couple hundred miles, who the hell could it be?”

Gwen laughed from the bedroom and couldn’t stop.

“Shut up,” Grady said.

Suddenly, something pounded on every side of the lodge’s roof and walls. The whole building shook as the men crouched down.

“You really want to know what I threw on you?” Gwen said. “Lab-purified Sasquatch spunk. You’re officially in season, fat boy, so get ready; this is going to get real ugly for you.”

A large hairy hand broke in through the window, grabbed Duke by the throat, and hauled him right out. It happened so fast that the other men had no time to react until Duke screamed from somewhere in the night.

“Duke!” Boyle ran to the window. “Duke!”

A face popped up in the window, but it wasn’t Duke’s face. It wasn’t even human, it was the large, hairy face of a half-man, half-beast creature with large, intelligent eyes. Boyle screamed, raised his rifle, and fired. By the time he did so, the creature was gone. Boyle stuck the barrel out of the window and fired more shots out into the night.

“Duke! What’d you do with my brother, you fuckers?!”

Another hairy hand reached up, grabbed the rifle barrel and twisted it. Boyle fell back, pulling the weapon inside. The barrel was now bent upward, rendering it useless. More windows shattered, and the walls shuddered as blows hammered against them. Dust fell, and wood splintered. Grady and Mundt fired wildly at the walls and windows, screaming in terror.

Boyle ran to the cabinet and pulled out another rifle. Loaded up another clip. After a moment’s thought, he also picked up a flare gun. The lodge shook, and the beams creaked as the beasts outside beat on it.

“Get to the back, get to the back!” Boyle screamed, backing away from the front door. Mundt joined him, reloading.

Grady grabbed Gwen and hauled her out of the bedroom. However, he stepped too close to a window, and a hairy hand shot in and grabbed him by the arm. With a little twist, the Bigfoot hand tore Grady’s arm right off his body just as easily as a man tearing off a chicken wing. Blood poured out in a geyser. Grady shrieked and fell, pawing at the stub on his shoulder where his right arm used to be.

Gwen crabbed away as Grady died, but not before she saw the face in the window. It regarded her curiously before it disappeared.

Something pounded on the front door. Boyle and Mundt fired at it, drilling bullets through the wood. Silence descended for a moment. Then, the pounding continued.

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From where he was tied to the tree, Billy couldn’t see much of anything; everything was still covered in darkness now that the lodge’s generator was out. But he could see massive moving shadows and tell that they were tearing down the lodge, piece by piece. One wall collapsed, then another. The shadows were stamping the building right into the ground.

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Beams and walls fell, covering everyone in dust. Gwen crawled under a nearby table, hiding from the falling debris. “We’re sitting ducks in here,” Boyle said. “The whole place is coming down on our heads!”

He slung the rifle over his shoulder, loaded a flare into the flare gun, and then grabbed a can of kerosene. “We make for the plane, right? We get open ground on these fuckers and water to our back, then we can open up on them. Grab extra clips. Let’s go!”

Mundt and Boyle loaded up with as much ammo as they could carry. The booming continued as the whole structure of the building swayed.

“Ready?” Boyle jerked his chin toward the back door by the kitchen, and Mundt, pale with fear, nodded in agreement.

Boyle gave the door a great kick to open it. Mundt poured gunfire outside, just missing the big, fast shadows dancing by. Boyle heaved the kerosene can through the open door, and it landed on the ground nearby. He brought the flare gun up fast and fired it at the flare. They both ducked as the can exploded and lit up the night.

Howls echoed outside, and the pounding upon the lodge heightened. Boyle and Mundt jumped up and ran through the back door as the ceiling fell. Gwen screamed under the table as she was buried by it.

The men made it out by the burning circle of flames and opened fire at the shadowed figures just on the edge of the light.

“Take that, you fuckers, take that!”

They both ran hard for the lake, for the seaplane, firing madly into the darkness. Something threw one of their canoes at them. It flew through the air and hit Mundt in the legs, breaking both knees. He fell to the ground, screaming in pain. Boyle fired in the direction the canoe came from, cursing.

Boyle paused to change a clip. Stopped when he looked toward the lake. The light from the fire reflected the tall, shadowed figures standing between him and the plane. There were a lot of them. More than he had bullets for. Their eyes glittered in the dark.

“Holy mother of God,” Boyle said under his breath as he backed away.

“Boyle, don’t leave me here, please!” Mundt howled. “Boyle! No!”

Boyle turned tail and ran away from the eyes as fast as he could, firing into the night, headed for the woods. Mundt’s screams echoed until they were finally cut off short and abruptly. Boyle hit the tree line and kept going in a complete panic.

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The table Gwen crouched under creaked and cracked under the pressure but held up. She couldn’t see a thing but heard something tearing at the beams and logs that covered her. Something was trying to get in at her. Gwen turtled up, hands over her head, and made herself into a small ball, holding her breath.

Wood shrieked as it was ripped up and tossed aside. Giant hands enveloped Gwen, who kept herself curled up, and carried her away. She held her breath, not daring to look, hoping her possum act would work as the large hairy arms cradled her like a baby. She felt a big hand caress her hair.

She decided she was going to open her eyes, after all, and if this were going to be her last moments on earth, she’d go out, finally seeing what she came here to see. But before she could do so, she felt herself lowered gently to the ground.

When she opened her eyes, she found herself looking at Billy, beaten and bound to a tree but awake and very conscious. Billy couldn’t take his eyes off who’d brought Gwen to him. She turned, and there they stood.

There wasn’t much light to see from the fire, but there was enough. They stood well over seven feet tall and were covered in hair of differing colors: brown, black, or grey. Huge hands and bare feet. Their faces just as had been described in many a legend, but for the oddly human eyes.

The one who had carried her crouched down so he was eye-level with Gwen. Gently took her right hand in his, brought it to his nose, and inhaled deeply. He looked at her, then pointed a finger at Billy as if asking a question.

“Yes. I’m with him, yes. Him, not the others, not them,” she said. “I’m with him.”

The Bigfoot pondered that, took another deep sniff of her hand, and released it. Stood up and, in an instant, disappeared into the shadows again.

Gwen ran to Billy, embraced him, and then worked on loosening his bonds. By the time he was free, they were utterly alone. They made their way toward the seaplane and its radio.

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Boyle ran as hard as his lungs would allow, disappearing into the deep brush and cover of the forest. He stopped and listened, his breath coming in shallow hitches. A shadow nearby moved, and Boyle opened fire on it. Stopped and listened. Nothing.

He turned and took another step, only to see another Bigfoot before him, not twenty feet away. He opened up on it with his assault rifle. But it disappeared into the brush before he could hit it. They were too quick.

He heard movement behind him again, and he turned and fired there, too. Unnerved, he began running again, firing randomly into the woods.

“Come on, you fuckers! Show yourselves! I’ll fucking kill all of you!”

Boyle ran until nothing was left in his tank, and he had to stop. He put his back to a big tree and pointed his weapon out into the darkness.

“Bring it, motherfuckers! Bring it!”

A large hand reached around the tree, grabbed the stock of the rifle and delicately took it from him like an adult taking a bottle away from a baby. Boyle bolted away from the tree and pulled a buck knife out of his belt.

He backed away as the shadows behind the tree moved and grew in size. Boyle screamed at them and brandished the knife. Another large hand from behind him plucked the knife out of his instantly. Boyle whirled around again.

At that moment, the moon moved out from behind the clouds, and Boyle could see how many of them there were in the meadow and forest before him. There were well over a hundred, and they had him surrounded.

He howled as they picked him up, smelled him, and tore his clothes off. He fought back, but it was no good; they were too strong, and he was helpless. It wasn’t until they laid him down, face first, stretched out over a large rock, that he realized that they weren’t going to kill him, at least not right away.

When Boyle finally figured out what they were going to do to him, he screamed in horror and wished fervently for death.

Death occurred eventually via internal bleeding, but it was a long time coming.

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Could I BE Any More Devastated?

My mother cried the day Elvis died. She loved him as he represented a special time and place in her life. One that meant something to those of her generation.

Last night I cried.

Actor, writer, and sobriety advocate Matthew Perry has passed away at the age of 54. We don’t yet know the cause of his death, and when they write that what’s left unsaid is that they don’t yet know if he overdosed on drugs or alcohol (he was found in a jacuzzi, where he drowned) but no drugs were found on the scene.

It’s devastating. He’s best known for his defining role of Chandler in the sitcom FRIENDS, yes, but he was so much more than that for many others.

Perry was very much the voice of a specific generation in that show. It was apparent that the character and he shared much in common, not an accident, since Perry had a hand and voice in the creation of that character, and Chandler’s iconic wit and humor came from Perry well before the show was created. Matthew Perry was a genius generational talent, more than he likely ever thought he’d be.

He was also a terrible alcoholic and addict. He later became a sobriety advocate.

This is documented in his brutally honest memoir FRIENDS, LOVERS, AND THE BIG TERRIBLE THING, which I highly recommend.

He writes how he had everything in the world: Number one show, number one movie in the nation, millions of dollars, fame, and fortune, yet he was utterly miserable. Held enthralled by an awful disease called addiction. He would quit and fall off the wagon, again and again, and struggle to survive the thirst that haunted him.

I don’t know if he died as a result of falling off the wagon again. I sincerely hope not, but it’s clear that the toll of years of alcohol and drug abuse is the cause, regardless of the findings, and I hope his book and advocacy live on as he wished.

I loved his book but could not help but feel, in his words, a sense of fatalism, that he was trying his very best, but he knew someday he’d lose this battle. Even if he never drank again, the disease was going to kill him eventually.

I quit drinking in 2018 after a humiliating public embarrassment while blackout drunk beyond words. There’s nothing quite like waking up in the middle of the street late at night, looking up at two cops who asked me what I was doing there. And replying to them, gosh, that’s a great question. I’d been on an obnoxious public bender and embarrassed myself terribly. Luckily, no one got hurt, but the shame still lingers with me to this day. And I stopped drinking after that. Haven’t drunk since and have been sober for five years thus far.

In 2018, I was shocked to discover I was an alcoholic. Today, I am shocked that I was at all shocked. After all, my father was an alcoholic, and so was his father. My grandfather, whoa boy, started every day with vodka and orange juice.

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The first year of sobriety was the most difficult. In 2019, I went back to Iowa for two or three months while my mother was in hospice care. Every time I went into the gas station, there was a wall of alcohol, not just beer, but vodka, whiskey, scotch, gin, tequila, rum, and other spirits. They called me. I tuned them out, but it was hard, man. Really hard. The fact that my mother hated alcohol helped me resist. I wasn’t going to stand by her as she passed, reeking of booze. I could not do that to her. So I didn’t.

And those months gave me time to think. About how growing up, so much of the culture I was involved in revolved around alcohol. In high school, all anyone talked about was drinking booze. It was the grownup thing to do.

My father never drove his car without a can of Bud in his lap. In fact, I couldn’t even think about adulting at all without there being some alcohol involved. I didn’t even like the taste, in the beginning, but it was a rite of passage. To be an adult, one drank. It was what we were taught, growing up.

That’s a dangerous game, however. For some of us, when we drink, we die a little bit, inside. And our bodies demand that we keep dying, bottle by bottle, shot by shot, drop by drop, until the physical death is complete.

If you’ve ever heard Matthew Perry speak of alcoholism and addiction, you knew he knew this. He argued against those who called it a personal weakness and chided those who put it down to a lack of willpower. It wasn’t. You don’t get to where Perry was in the world without willpower. But the disease is too strong for some of us.

There’s a “wellness guru” out there who chalks up addiction as moving toward pleasure and away from pain, a statement which, in addition to being non-factual and a thought-terminating cliche, is insulting to those suffering from this disease.

Because that’s what it is, a disease. One that kills.

Perry had it. From the get-go.

Like I do, like my father and his father did and millions of others.

Matthew Perry will be heralded for his work as an actor and entertainer, and he’ll deserve every accolade he gets and then some. But what we should really celebrate is his brutal honesty about his struggle with addiction. That’s hard to do.

Very hard. Being that truly honest about one’s disease, the shame, the negging (I watched someone do this to Perry in real-time in an interview), and the pain. It’s about the most challenging thing a person can do.

And to honor Perry’s honesty, I’ll follow up with my own.

Hi, my name is Joshua, and I am an alcoholic. I’ve been sober for five years.

I plan to stay sober as long as I am here.

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MACHINE GUN BACON

I wrote this five years ago or so. The numbers have only risen since.

Machine Gun Bacon

Twelve fourteen, twenty-twelve. 20 and 6.

20 kids and 6 adults were shot and killed on twelve-fourteen, twenty-twelve.

Sandy Hook, CT.

20 and 6.

My oldest son came home from school one day, about a year or so ago, very upset. He doesn’t get upset that easily, nor does he cry a whole lot. He’s a pretty tough kid for ten (his age at the time). But he was near tears. I asked him what happened. I was worried he was being bullied.

He doesn’t get bullied, ordinarily, though small for his age, he knows judo, Brazilian jiujitsu, and how to box. Bullies usually avoid him.

I asked him what was wrong, did he get into trouble, did something happen to him?

He said no.

He said he’s worried he’s going to be shot at school.

He’s in the fifth grade. The fifth grade.

December 14th, 2012, in Sandy Hook, CT, twenty elementary school children were shot and killed, along with six adults. Kindergarten and first grade. 
 
 That happened, and what did we, as a nation, do about it?
 
 Nothing.

My oldest was in kindergarten at the time of that tragedy. The town buried its lost, mourned, and asked the nation to do something to prevent this from happening to other communities. For that simple request, they were attacked. Accused of making it all up, of being crisis actors, ridiculed, and threatened.

Parents who lost their kids were sent death threats.

Sent… death threats… by NRA members.

Oh, and now they do lockdown drills at school.

For kids, that’s what they do. Like fire drills, but less safe and less helpful. For those not in the know, a lockdown drill means they act as if there’s an active shooter in the building, the teachers lock the doors, turn out the lights, and everyone has to be quiet. Because if they make noise, the bad guy with the gun might hear them and come get them.

Lockdown drill.

My son was upset because some kids CAN’T be quiet. They can’t. They’re either too scared to be quiet or don’t take it seriously enough to be quiet. He said if a shooter comes, he’ll hear them, and all of us will get shot because of them. It’ll be their fault.

I didn’t know what to say, except that it wouldn’t be their fault.

I didn’t tell him whose fault it is, but we all know. 
 
It’s the NRA’s fault.

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I said I’d do what I could to change things.

And I will. And we all have to do. By speaking out.

By standing against the NRA, standing against that terrorist organization whose members send death threats to bereaved parents, whose celebrity members brag about shooting down liberals like coyotes.

Stand against the NRA. Fight against the NRA.

There was a fatal mass shooting two days ago.

And then one right after that. I’d tell you when and where, but the reality is, by the time you read this, there will be another. I’d list how many school shootings there have been (and I know what it is) since Sandy Hook, but that number KEEPS CHANGING and growing larger.

Writers of public events cannot even keep up with the carnage.

33 thousand people die every year from gun violence. 33,000. 73,000 are injured. Every year. That’s 100 thousand people whose lives are affected by gun violence. Since 2008, that means over a million people were shot and injured, or killed, in the past ten years.

And we do nothing. Nothing.

We just sit like meat, waiting to be cooked.

Our children die.

The NRA doesn’t care.

Our kids are nothing but machine gun bacon to them.

As we argue for safety, as we argue to save lives, they dicker with us over semantics, they argue what makes an assault weapon, they howl that we don’t know what we speak of because we don’t know the individual caliber of a weapon, and so on.

They’ll talk to us about Chicago and make sure to mention that the city’s strict gun laws don’t do anything to stop the shootings there. They’ll neglect to mention that Chicago is bordered by three states with weak gun laws and that Indiana is close by, too… Indiana, with very lax gun laws, and the firearms are purchased there and driven twenty minutes into Chicago for use. 
 
 They won’t mention that because it’s inconvenient for them.

They’ll talk about how we have so many gun laws as it is, but what they won’t mention is that they’re not uniform, that they vary from state to state, and that states with lax gun laws have more shootings and more problems, and guns are often trafficked from there to states with tight gun laws. They won’t mention that. 
 
They’ll sniff and say it’s terrible and tragic, these shootings, they feel for the families because life is sacred, they believe, but there’s nothing to be done because to pass gun safety laws is, for them, a slippery slope that leads to a fascist state with zero freedoms. 
 
 They won’t mention the other democracies that manage to do both, have laws and freedom, without devolving into a fascist dictatorship. Because that doesn’t fit their narrative. They won’t mention that gun manufacturers make more money after every shooting because sales go up as people live in fear. 
 
 They won’t admit that gun manufacturers, the NRA, and their purchased politicians profit off of the blood of our dead children. 
 
 They don’t or won’t admit that. 
 
 But we know it.

We do know that the second amendment doesn’t trump the first, nor is it without regulation. We do know that none of the amendments trump an individual’s rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

We do know that our children deserve life and that far, far too many of them are losing it because the NRA prioritizes profit over safety, and shareholders over a child’s life.

They see us as profit, they see us as a commodity.

They see us as machine gun bacon.

They’re selling us meat made of our loved ones.

Lockdown isn’t working.

The NRA wants us locked down, they want us afraid and quiet in the dark. Not just our kids, but all of us, the parents, those who have lost loved ones, they want us to shut up and hide. That’s why they send death threats. That’s why they call us crisis actors.

They’re afraid of us. That’s why they threaten us.

We can’t stay quiet in the dark any longer.

It’s time to fight back with words, policy, advocation, and boycotts, if need be. It’s a war of ideas, a war that pits neighbor against neighbor, relative against relative.

A war fought not with guns but with money, votes, and ideas. As MLK did, we have to stand, march, and advocate for others. For our kids, we must fight the NRA. Our children deserve a future. A future free of lockdown drills.

A future free of the mass slaughter of the innocent.

A future free of the NRA.

We can either be citizens free of the tyranny of the NRA and their annual bill of mass slaughter, or we can all be machine gun bacon.

We can’t be both.

20 and 6. Twelve-fourteen, twenty-twelve. 20 and 6.

Sandy Hook was 11 years ago. Things have only escalated since.

We must stop this madness.

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The Stories We Tell About Ourselves Versus The Truth

I know you’re all sick of pictures of The Former Guy, aka TrP, so instead of a pic of his bloated visage, here’s a pic of my puppy as a palate cleanser

Story is what I do as an author & screenwriter. Create and craft stories. For me, it's a noble calling. Because they permeate our lives. Even non-writers. They drive us. Both true & fictional. We are all authors of our own stories and past, present, and future.

This is about our Former President (who I shall refer to as TrP from here on).

I don't admire TrP, never have. Never bought into his BS. I saw him for what he's always been: Fraud. Liar. Cheat. Thief. That's the true story behind the suit and red tie. Banks knew it, too.

So did the one Russian bank that often backed him.

Psst, there are more puppy pictures where the above came from, just hit the button below

But TrP told a different story about himself. TrP projected a picture of an incredibly successful real estate magnate. Rich beyond anyone’s wildest imagination. Shits on a gold toilet, for example. Bragged about his huge deals. Bragged about money, power, and influence. None of which he actually truly had (beyond the gold toilet).

But he told the story relentlessly. Anywhere and everywhere. Even in the face of facts contrary. He pushed that narrative every waking moment of his life.

His BS story hid the true story from many. That he went bankrupt many times. That he stiffed contractors. Couldn't get loans from legit banks. That he wasn't smart or trustworthy. That's not the story he told.

In the stories about himself, he was always the hero.

New York City knew, of course. In public life, nothing is secret. People talk. We all know which stars are assholes, which ones you don't leave alone with your daughters, and which ones are angels.

NYC knew he was a bad apple. That's the real reason he was rejected by the "elite."

"Elite" is a loaded word that we'll come back to.

Kona doing her best Paddington Bear impression. Ain’t she the cutest?

NYC knew he was awful. But regular folks who only read the papers or watch gossip TV news shows did not. TrP worked those venues; he learned how to work this BS from a master, Roy Cohn. TrP planted stories himself in gossip columns. For real, he’d call up papers and writers pretending to be a publicist pushing TrP. Just one of the stories about that HERE. You can even listen to him doing it if you haven’t yet eaten today, that is. He was relentless. He also made it a requirement that if any film production wanted to shoot on one of his properties, then he had to be given a cameo in the film. This is how he ended up in HOME ALONE 2, GHOSTBUSTERS 2, and so on. And he was always playing himself and always presented as successful. Always.

He flooded the media so thoroughly that it overwhelmed those who had no resources to fact-check his BS. It kept him afloat. It made investors want to invest in his many ideas. He simply kept peddling his BS, and enough people bought it. And at least six bankruptcies were the result (that’s just TrP’s bankruptcies btw, he also bankrupted many, many others, investors, contractors, workers, and so on.)

His only real talent lay in the relentless flogging of his selfish fiction and a complete lack of shame or moral compass. No lie was too big or too brazen for him to embrace, and even when caught in a lie, he’d lie and say he never said what he said.

There was one common characteristic. TrP was god in his tales, and he was always rich. The fiction that he was the smartest, savviest billionaire out there could never be questioned. It’s common knowledge that when he appeared on SNL and as the subject of one of Comedy Central’s Celebrity Roasts, the writers could make jokes about anything they wanted, his suits, his ties, his fake hair and tan, all of it was fair game… the only thing they WEREN’T allowed to do was suggest or even imply he wasn’t rich.

He was sensitive to that. Because the truth was, he wasn’t a billionaire like he pretended to be. He was skating on very thin ice, financially.

TrP caught two very lucky breaks. One, a ghost author wrote ART OF THE DEAL, and the writer was much better at crafting fiction and story than TrP was (he was never a good salesman or thinker, I always took issue with those who claimed he was a good salesman… he wasn’t, he was supremely good at lying about himself, and that’s it)... that book, which he compared to the Bible, no lie, took his BS to another level.

It gave him a north star to aim his lies at. And that leveled him up.

Even then, his world was failing around him. Businesses crashing... no banks would do business with him, except for the one bank sponsored by Russian mob money… then TrP caught another lucky break.

TV producer Mark Burnett created a reality SHOW around TrP’s own fiction. One that took his lies and gave them a platform for millions of viewers.

It kept TrP out of poverty and gave him next-level fame.

I cannot tell you how much this changed the game for TrP. It put him in every household at least once a week, if not more than that. It pictured him as in charge of it all, as all-powerful, wise, and above all else, incredibly successful. It was a sad and cruel lie, but welcome to reality TV, folks; that’s what it is.

TrP was somewhat famous before, more so locally than anything else, but now he was TV famous. Very different kind of fame. Huge. It’s everywhere-in-America famous. But the thing about reality TV is that it's not nor has it ever been real. It's all authored behind the scenes; it's nearly all written. In other words, it's all lies. So perfect for TrP.

He rode that BS train all the way to the WH, in fact.

How? Well, obviously, he had help from a hostile foreign power, but that's not the only reason. People saw him indulge in his worse tendencies (selfishness, bigotry, hate) and become a success. They saw him make cruel remarks about women constantly; they saw him question Obama’s birthright; they saw him embrace the worst of himself and still succeed.

They thought, if he can do that and be a success, I can too! If he can air his worst grievances and be famous, so can I!

TrP's TRUE superpower is resentment. He seethed it. Hated anyone who got in his way, irritated him, or was more successful. He could love you one day, then if you become a problem, hate you. He resented anyone who didn't worship him. But in particular, he resented and hated people who were better at anything, anything at all, than he was. Didn’t matter what it was; if they were good at something that he wasn’t good at, he hated them.

That played for people who felt the same.
People who wanted success without the work.
People who wanted to punish those more successful than they were.
People who felt those who worked hard and succeeded looked down upon them.

Resentment of the “other.”

That is key.

Fresh out of a bath… clean.

This brings us back to the “elite.”

It's supposedly about those folks who go to Ivy League schools, who are born rich and never have to work hard in life, who have everything given to them. Those who look down upon regular people while servants cater to their every whim. That’s who the average TrP supporter believes the “elite” is. That’s who TrP says the “elite” are, and he’s just a regular guy who is great at business.

But, of course, TrP was all of those things listed above, too. More than most. He didn’t start out as working-class, like Mark Cuban did, nor was he crazy brilliant in terms of coding and the like, like Bill Gates. TrP’s father made the family rich, and TrP used his money and connections for his start in business.

And he never uses “elite” to really mean that, either. Nor is it the proper use of the word, in my opinion.

Elite can also mean someone who is a master at their calling or craft.

Medicine. Law. Science. Story. Stephen King is a master storyteller at an elite level. King also started out dirt poor. King hates Trump, too. The men and women we send out in fighter planes are elite pilots. LeBron James is an elite athlete. Ali Wong is an elite comedian. Meryl Streep? Elite actress.

Surgeons have to be elite.

TrP hated Obama because Obama was really next-level at law, politics, and people. Obama is smart, very smart. Definitely smarter than TrP.

TrP hates anyone he suspects is smarter than he is, which is a lot of people.

It's childish but true.

TrP went from praising Fauci to insulting him as an elitist. That he’s out of touch with whatever it is he’s commenting on. Which overlooks the fact that Fauci put the work in to have the skills he has and knows more about the topic than the man insulting him about his work. Obama, too.

Journalists, and scientists, any craft in a field where it’s insanely difficult to reach the top, it only happens if one puts the work in. They have to put the work in to get to where they are in life. LeBron put the work in. Meryl, I can attest to, even with all her Oscars and awards, she puts the work in on every role she plays.

TrP never works at anything other than flogging his own fiction. TrP hates it when someone has an achievement at anything he hasn’t. Because in his world, HE'S THE BEST. No one else. Classic narcissism.

And that plays to people with the same tendencies. That’s his audience. This is what those who don’t understand TrP’s appeal to so many miss. They bought his BS.

They took his story and applied it to their own lives. And reveled in it.

No longer do they need to apologize for their bigotry, their failures, and mistakes. The real blame lies with the "liberal elite" who think they know more than "real people."

Which became tragic in a pandemic. When people were convinced that they knew more than Fauci, more than any doctor, when they took a horse dewormer because some nut on a podcast said so, and when they drank their own pee to cure Covid.

Their uninformed opinion, like TrP’s, was greater than any elite’s hard work. That was and still is TrP’s message because it’s how he lived his whole life.

They hated what he hated because he gave them permission to be awful as he was. Sad but true. They didn't want to hear the true story; the false one was more comforting. Still is, for some. Think of the power of that story, truly.

TrP bragged ON CAMERA of sexual assault.

TrP pled guilty to fraud before taking office. He paid off a pornstar with campaign funds. He admitted to obstruction of justice on camera. The guy lies like no one else, and yet millions bought his BS. Why?

To get what he has. His BS story was that powerful to them. That lie had power.

It was mindboggling to me to see rural folks call him a "real American who gets us." To see religious folk call him "sent by God" & a "true Christian."

All of it is nonsense, JUST ON THE SURFACE. But to them, it becomes real if they repeat the lie enough like TrP does. If they say it enough, to them, it is the truth.

The actual true story didn't have the same power. It involved hard work, drudgery, and patience for nuance and detail… none of which TrP or his supporters really care about.

They only want to be thought of as right and awesome without working for it.

This has happened often in history. Lots of powerful men get away with crimes because they control the story and no one else gets a voice (you see this in other fascist nations, but N. Korea comes to mind, and remember, TrP admires that dude).

Which makes what the Jan 6 committee is doing all the more remarkable.

They're showing the REAL story. And it's working.

Kona would like for you to read this book

Think of it like VH1's BEHIND THE MUSIC series, which showed how MC Hammer went bankrupt, or how NWA fought with each other BEHIND THE SCENES.

And in this instance, the fact that it's true makes what we are witnessing all the more powerful. They're showing his selfishness, his narcissism, lies, and BS. In real-time. They took control of the narrative from TrP. That's the real reason TrP is worried because he knows. It's the one thing he knows. They shattered his big lie, and America is in the middle of having what alcoholics call “a moment of clarity.”

A drunk will tell you, over and over again, that they don’t have a drinking problem… until the truth becomes too heavy to deny the lie. I’ve experienced this. I know many of you likely have, too. And we’ve borne witness to it happening in our culture, too.

Many people in entertainment knew about Cosby for YEARS. Years. But it was too hard to prove because Cosby's fiction was too powerful... a successful family man and beloved comic married to the same woman forever.

But the true stories of his countless rapes kept piling up until they hit critical mass.

It was Hannibal Burress who opened the floodgates, but it could have been anyone. Once the dam leaked, it became too hard to stop, and the truth ended Cosby's fiction. Think of all the true stories that came out after. You no longer think of Cliff Huxable when you hear him; you think that’s the dude who used his fame rape women.

Harvey Weinstein was no secret, either. I knew fifteen years ago when I worked on adapting Peter Buskin’s book DOWN AND DIRTY PICTURES into a film (it never happened, in the end, like many features). There was to be a chapter about Harvey’s habit of raping actresses in Biskind's book, but publishers forced him to remove it.

Harvey was powerful and often sued everybody who even thought to besmirch his reputation. I myself even have a letter from one of his lawyers somewhere due to the project I was attached to. Harvey controlled his story with zeal.

Ronan Farrow (and many brave women who came forward) finally brought Harvey down, but it could have been anyone at some point. The truth was too big and too heavy to hide for that long in this day and age.

And Harvey, like TrP, is a narcissistic monster, too.

It's not about D or R; it's about monsters.

And the only defense against a monster is the truth.

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Many forget that truth HAS POWER in and of itself. That the power of truth is fearsome. Stories that last forever do so because of an element of truth therein.

I say this as a writer of fiction.

While I create imaginary events, my goal is to find human truth in story. Human truth, which is the shared gold of our human existence, is what we all value in the end.

It’s why I do what I do.

A story moved me so much that I learned about myself and others.

Even Christianity, which is very toxic in USA IMO, has an element of human truth which is why it has lasted. "Love each other" is the message. Think about it; that's the story of Christianity.

Is that the story that's being sold by those Christians in power, tho?

It's not. Not in my opinion. But that’s another story for another day.

TrP's fiction is falling apart under the weight of all the truths coming out.

TrP's true story is of a man consumed by greed and a thirst for power at any and all costs. It's not an admirable one. In fact, it's an awful one that many of us knew, but now others are just now realizing.

The committee is telling the truth.

I cannot tell you how rare that is to see from a government committee. It almost never happens. Telling the truth. Usually, the findings are muddled and flooded with shit, the truth having to compete with turds meant to distract (Benghazi, for example, and there are others).

The fact that the TRUTH of Trump is coming out of this investigation and that Liz Cheney is one of the authors boggles my mind... but as an author and committed storyteller, the one thing I have is admiration and respect for what they are accomplishing.

They are taking over the narrative, which rarely happens. I only remember it happening during the McCarthy hearings, in fact. They are letting the truth do its thing, and it's a joy to see and behold. Trump knows it, too, and that's why he's so desperate. There's not enough space to go on at length about the nuance of story and truth in this whole mess, and I am sure that many books will be written about it at some point, but one thing to keep in mind, in the days to come, is this:

TrP's superpower lies in his ability to lie about his story.

He's losing to the truth. It doesn't happen often. Enjoy it.

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This essay began as a Twitter thread that many seemed to respond to (you can find the original thread HERE), and if you got anything out of this, please share and subscribe.
Once more, my good pup Kona, for you. Take care and stay safe.

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