Dead Milkmen

Sorting through boxes of papers has provided me a doodle. I already put the paper back in a box so my guess from the college ruled aspect is this margin sketch was produced during some class. 

The Teen horror novel I've been tinkering with sprung from an old notebook.  A page and a half of notes scribbled down sometime before I even met my wife.  

From the drawing above I've scoped out three character names and three character designs, a bare bones scenario, and hatched a notion for a series of short books with illustrations.  

Some sort of creepy, supernatural-themed detective agency is what I'm currently thinking.  Our slouching, pimp hat bedecked dude from up top is named Rothchild. Of course, having the idea is always exciting. Surviving the execution is the trick.

Currently, Lucid is in two-day Kindle FREE promotion mode, and the book is listed on Awesomegang's front page.

In celebration, I've even foolishly unearthed the Publishers Weekly review.    

The Cost Of Your Meal

Hard to watch, but so much more important than embedding another Wattpad link.

Seal Of Approval

That summer the big-internal-to-do (other than Ixtlan prepping to suspend operations) was the 'Intern Lunch'. Oliver would bite the bullet and for an hour play hostage to a rogues gallery of wet behind the ears sycophants.

Monaghan entrusted Travis and I with roping in supplies for the feast. Other than reminding us of the number of bellies likely to be present, no strict instructions were given.  Napkins, utensils, paper cups, paper plates, it was just rudimentary arming up for the merry mastication in the offing.

Memory slips. The overflowing abundance of the party supply store shelves sources from hardware stores I visited with my dad. Also the orange-tinted lighting and the cracked cement floors. And I swear it was curbside parking even though the store was located in Santa Monica, not some downtown Los Angeles retailer bereft a parking lot.  I remember the lunch was held in the conference room, but how many combined Illusion and Ixtlan interns? How long did the lunch last? Did it smell like unwashed armpits? Were any interns high on cocaine? Did Oliver actually make eye contact? With any one of us? And why should he have?

An appearance of interest in an intern, no matter how modest or simply polite, could blow-up. An Imagine-employed roommate of the company receptionist had provided specifics of a recent Ron Howard-experience. Ron slipped into the Men's Room. An Imagine intern followed Ron to the urinals. Now, did the intern actually produce a stream or did he fake it? - probably irrelevant. The salient fact remained that this mover-and-shaker pitched a project to Opie while Opie was attempting to drain his bladder. If interns shared this sort of thing with their pack, producers and writers and directors likely did the same. Oliver had every right to be wary.  

Stunningly, I was verification of his unease. When it came to paper plates, what I secured from the party supply store Monaghan made me turn around and take right back. 

They were teddy bear plates. They came with teddy bear napkins. 

Monaghan couldn't voice specific reluctances. Pedobear was just a kernel buried in the consciousness of some future meme-creator. Back in the Nineties, a cartoon forest creature was a cartoon forest creature, not some cyber-agent mocking the dark persuasions of sewer-ridden souls.

Ixtlan/Illusion wasn't even wired for the Internet. It was a hard copy environment: the office closet shelves were jam-packed with screenplays and the filing cabinets bulged from internal memos and business files. When interns turned in coverage on screenplays, it was a printed out document. Paid professional script readers had to come to the office to pick up screenplays, and then would return their synopsis by courier or make the trip themself all over again.     

My thought process at paper plate purchasing moment simply was this: Oliver would be stressed out thrown into a pack of 20-something jackals. He wouldn't prepare his own food. Someone else would do it for him. And when he got to the bottom of his plate, all the satiation from the grub would gain further heft from the image of some plump, stuffed, fuzzy little bear, mayhaps an instant new favorite playfriend more than ready to co-habitate a chamber in Oliver's memory palace. His unfettered joy might go so far as requesting knowledge of the plate purchaser, and who knows, I might've shot to the top of the intern horde (which I sometimes still imagine as a single-creature, a meat-Voltron, like the dueling communal creatures in Clive Barker's "In The Hills, The Cities"). 

Chastened, I returned to the party supplier and swapped out the teddy bear plates for the plain, white kind. The intern lunch went off free of any kind of obvious hitch. I retained my spot in the intern-horde, and far as I know, no one followed Oliver into the bathroom for a pitch-pee. 

Like Fried Baloney On A Wheat Cracker

When the receptionist ate lunch, an intern filled in as point of contact. Only once in awhile would active wildlife ride the elevators to Santa Monica Square's top floor and roam the Ixtlan/Illusion offices.  

One day this took the form of a guy selling memberships in an exclusive athletic club. 

I don't think I was rude. Agreeably deflecting. Trying to appear agreeable a task given my default mug draws heavily upon German ancestry. Sullen, to be polite. It is the face requiring examination of your papers, and a verifiable explanation of how long you plan on visiting East Berlin. And vhy. 

Poised on the industry outer rim I wasn't making a dime.  Like most schmucks volunteered into the ignoble orbit I worked part-time. There was a separation between those experiences. The glamour and the grime. The seal proved permeable. The only Hollywood entity that I spotted both places was Kevin Smith - the former, slouch deluxe on a waiting room couch pre-meeting; the latter, pushing baby Harley around Brentano's display tables.

Intrusion, collision, chocolate bar going into the peanut butter, I was riding a Brentano's register when to my utter horror Athletic Club Membership Guy made a purchase. 

We're talking probably three days separation from our last run-in. Simple pride prevented a reasonable acknowledgment that I worked at the bookstore and simply interned for Ixtlan. I wanted one-up on the guy. I denied our previous meeting even as I could feel a blush making me glow hot as charcoal briquets afternoon on Independence Day. The look the guy gave me was one of those over-the-top squint-eyed assessments people perform because they've seen that sort of thing on a screen and reactively apply it to their own life. Same thing happening today, the salesman might have whipped out his phone and snapped a picture of #thisdouche or just tweeted to followers about some pimpled pinhead with an unjustifiable ego.  

Other memorable production company receptionist incidents include speaking to Tom Cruise (for all of three seconds!), and feeling completely trapped by Brett Butler cold-calling the offices seeking consideration for the role of Martha Washington in a rumored George Washington-biopic. If she was high as fuck, her Southern charms softened any bumps as she roped me into her ride with the white rabbit.   

Throughout my life, when bored, even when not bored but listening to lecture or any kind of definable verbal ramble, I sketch. I'm listening. I'm paying attention. The sketching serves as pressure relief.  

One fill-in hour, Annie - Oliver's chief assistant - caught me working on a masterpiece. She didn't yell at me. Ixtlan staffers were calm and rational. The Illusion staff were the screamers. Annie suggested that I put the drawing aside and read a script or something, try and look more professional. I didn't point out that if they wanted professional perhaps they ought to be reimbursing me for my time on the front line. Once she was out of sight, I continued sketching until the ink dribble felt finished.

To this day, I have no idea what this motorcycle tough has against the goddamn freak hairs. Perhaps it owes something to dietary and olfactory issues.


  

Zumwalt

A random aching of the heart necessitated a LiveJournal log-in. Miracle of miracles, it provided a link to my long deserted webcomic Zumwalt.

The strips look so basic yet were so time intensive.  Six hours work each and everyone, easy. 

This sketch represents one of hundreds that never got the proper Wacom treatment.  Truth be told, the sketching was fun.  The Wacoming beat the juice out of me. 

Chapter 14

Cloaked In Coward-Cloth

When the receipt contains a misspelling of your name, the likelihood that the entire operation is doomed veers up above 100%.

The flowers were delivered.  She was out of town.  Her ex- had flamed on to abusive and she rightly rocketed out of L.A. Returned, she found dead flowers. Probably worse than if her sister had just thrown the stinking rotten flesh out.

I can't remember if I drummed up the flower delivery specifically for her birthday or if flowers were a follow-up to the date we'd missed courtesy of Mr. Violent Ex-Boyfriend. It wasn't even a date. We were friends. Platonic. There were ways that might have changed, but I am proudly cloaked in coward-cloth.  

The only instance evaporate I remember was standing in line at a McDonald's with her. The two guys in front of us couldn't help but stare at her chest. It irritated her. I didn't have anything in the quip queue other than: "Relax, guys.  They're fake." Wisely, I left that one to gather dust in the silo. 

Flowers have never been added back to my romantic arsenal. The worth in their fabled charms perennially distorted in the aftermath of a quiet, colossal calamity.