Mr. Flood's Party


Mr. Flood's Party - Edwin Arlington Robinson

Old Eben Flood, climbing alone one night
Over the hill between the town below
And the forsaken upland hermitage
That held as much as he should ever know
On earth again of home, paused warily.
The road was his with not a native near;
And Eben, having leisure, said aloud,
For no man else in Tilbury Town to hear:

"Well, Mr. Flood, we have the harvest moon
Again, and we may not have many more;
The bird is on the wing, the poet says,
And you and I have said it here before.
Drink to the bird." He raised up to the light
The jug that he had gone so far to fill,
And answered huskily: "Well, Mr. Flood,
Since you propose it, I believe I will."

Alone, as if enduring to the end
A valiant armor of scarred hopes outworn,
He stood there in the middle of the road
Like Roland's ghost winding a silent horn.
Below him, in the town among the trees,
Where friends of other days had honored him,
A phantom salutation of the dead
Rang thinly till old Eben's eyes were dim.

Then, as a mother lays her sleeping child
Down tenderly, fearing it may awake,
He set the jug down slowly at his feet
With trembling care, knowing that most things break;
And only when assured that on firm earth
It stood, as the uncertain lives of men
Assuredly did not, he paced away,
And with his hand extended paused again:

"Well, Mr. Flood, we have not met like this
In a long time; and many a change has come
To both of us, I fear, since last it was
We had a drop together. Welcome home!"
Convivially returning with himself,
Again he raised the jug up to the light;
And with an acquiescent quaver said:
"Well, Mr. Flood, if you insist, I might.

"Only a very little, Mr. Flood --
For auld lang syne. No more, sir; that will do."
So, for the time, apparently it did,
And Eben evidently thought so too;
For soon amid the silver loneliness
Of night he lifted up his voice and sang,
Secure, with only two moons listening,
Until the whole harmonious landscape rang --

"For auld lang syne." The weary throat gave out,
The last word wavered; and the song being done,
He raised again the jug regretfully
And shook his head, and was again alone.
There was not much that was ahead of him,
And there was nothing in the town below --
Where strangers would have shut the many doors
That many friends had opened long ago.

A Critics Guide to Christmas, 2008: It's a Wonderful Life?


The Curious Case of Benjaman Button: Not only was this movie terrible, there was limited Pitt nudity.

1/2 Star (for a glimpse of Brad Pitt's bare back)

Grand Terino: This was a (*ahem*) vehicle for Clint Eastwood, who I desperately wish was my own father.

4 Stars

Chicagoland Area Weather: Negative seven without wind-chill my second day of “vacation.” People choose to live here? Take your white Christmas and shove it up your ass.

0 Stars

Chicagoland Area Friends of the Family: Didn’t recognize my brother-in-law and I after shlepping Christmas cookies across town with six inches of fresh snow on the ground. Bonus: Didn’t invite us in out of the cold. Way to donkey-punch my Christmas spirit. If the door wasn't opened just a crack, I'd throw my shoe at you.

0 Stars

Gifts: Nothing really wowed me, and when it comes to Christmas gifts, I really want to be wowed.

1 1/2 Stars

Family: I can take or leave most of them

2 1/2 Stars

Friends: Ditto

2 1/2 Stars

Steak ‘n Shake: Open 24 hours, closed on Christmas, I can’t has cheeseburger?

0 Stars

Imo’s Pizza: So this is where the Christmas joy was hiding.

4 Stars

Those Oblivious to Ric Rolling: Who is pwned if they don’t get it, and at this point probably never will? The year is almost over, and the cool-points have to be tallied.

? Stars

The Youngest and My performance in super competitive floor hockey game with cousin-in-law: We didn’t vomit all over the YMCA floor…That was our highlight.

1 Sad Panda

TSA: You guys getting a bonus for treating people with dignity, respect over the holiday season? I’m a little disappointing there was no frisking.

3 Stars (you've got a lot of ground to make up)

Old Jiu Jitsu Instructor: Knee-bar from reverse sit out side control – teh prodigious talent!

3 Stars (a little humility would go a long way)

He's Still Got It
Edit: I just found a completely unrelated animated GIF of a dancing cat that needs to be watched start to finish

"This is a gift from the Iraqis, this is the farewell kiss, you dog.

Then he threw the second shoe and said "This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq."

11:39 P.M. (Local)

Q Quick ducking there, sir.

THE PRESIDENT: I was worried about you. I thought you were going to have a heart attack.

Q I thought I was, too. (Laughter.) I'm with you on that.

THE PRESIDENT: Okay, my opening statement: I didn't know what the guy said, but I saw his sole. (Laughter.) You were more concerned than I was. I was watching your faces.

Q I saw something black and round go by my face.

Q Just to see that --

THE PRESIDENT: -- his first -- other than shoes. (Laughter.)

Q -- to duck. (Laughter.)

THE PRESIDENT: I'm pretty good at ducking, as most of you will know --

Q You were quick.

Q -- ducking --

THE PRESIDENT: I'm talking about ducking your questions. (Laughter.)

Q So you weren't a lame duck. (Moans and groans.)

I Love Actors


My screenwriting class is almost over. Last night, my fellow students and I brought one of our scenes to class, and cast it by dropping scripts on each other’s desks, and rehearsing it once or twice in the hallway. There were four males out of a class of sixteen, and only three of us were native English speakers, so I was cast for roughly half the scenes that were acted out. I played a doctor, a flaming homosexual (with a make-out scene!), an anchorman, a cop ("Officer Sweet"), and a child (twice). My poor boss was cast as every single minority character from a taxi-driving Sikh, to an 80-year old Chinaman. At one point, a large white student towered over my short Indian boss, and demanded that he make a more realistic looking turban out of his sweatshirt before he would consider yelling “Action!”

It was a hell of a lot of fun. A type of fun I haven't had in years. I’ve never acted before (except, occasionally, like an idiot), and all the flakey things that I’ve heard actors say suddenly made a lot more sense. And the scripts came alive when the professional actors read them. I cast one of the actors who I think is an obnoxious prick (and who I hope dies in a fire) as the main speaking role in my scene, and he was amazing, working with an accent he made up on the spot. When I read my scene before class, even after the Youngest punched it up a bit, I was thinking, "At least I won’t be embarrassed," and afterwards I was thinking, "I’ve got fucking talent!"

The only bad part of the night was three "chick-flick" dramas with breakup scenes in which all three of the female characters said "Who are you?" to a guys who had just broken up with them. Do people really break up like this, or do they watch people break up like this? Or do they watch people break up like this, and then break up like this?

The difficulty with screenplays (for me, anyway) is that it is so easy to use movie jigsaw puzzle pieces. How many movies have their been with an overhead shot of a beat-up pickup truck driving down a dirt road, kicking up dust behind it? If my movie gets made, there will be one more. I used to scoff, but these puzzle pieces are in movies because they work. It’s the medium’s fault for needing action, motion, and an ultra-tight plot. The truck scene tells the audience, in just a few seconds, that the person driving lives in a rural area, is not wealthy, is traveling some distance, and is probably an unsophisticated hick with a simple life. Screenwriters don’t have the luxury of a narrator (unless Morgan Freeman is running short on cash) so they rely on the audience to fill in the predictable gaps. A boiling tea pot in a movie script fills in for a prose sentence like “A sense of foreboding fell upon the room.” I used to roll my eyes at how in the movies, a cab is always waiting for you when you need one, but the alternative is an awkward cut scene from one place to another, or a really boring scene that will look like unprocessed footage from a reality TV show.

Other scripts included a whodunit that takes place in a children's library, a children's fantasy story, a madcap Woody Allen-esque comedy, and an NFL drama from a chick whose father was a professional football coach. Then again, she also claims to have been best friends with the person "Will" is based on from the hit sitcom "Will and Grace," so she may just be a pathological liar.

The whole class bonded. Two of the professional actors exchanged "good working with you"s after class. People waved and said "good-bye" to each other. We learned each other's names. Someone passed out a sheet of paper so we could write our email addresses on them. Everyone was giddy and exhilarated at watching their creations come alive, and nobody was in a hurry to leave – except that asshole actor who kept checking his iphone.

I Hate Actors



From my screenwriting class notes...

I've had roles that I've refused to take at first, because they were too expensive. . . I knew they would cost me too much emotionally to perform -and-and-and live out the rest of my life. Eventually, I would talk myself, or be talked into taking the role, and it ends up being so worth it...

...But taking care of yourself really helps.

I hate actors because they are trained to eliminate their superego, the part of our psyche that enables us to act like adults. They are man and woman-children. They are utterly carefree and irresponsible. They are everything I wish I could be, and everything I'm glad I'm not. Lucky fuckers!