Tag Archives: writing

Longer Penis (not spam)

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Size

Do you ever find yourself, for whatever reason, wishing you had a longer penis?

I found myself thinking this the other day while standing at a urinal in a sports bar.

You see, as I’ve gotten older, I have found myself becoming increasingly hard-of-seeing. Although I have accepted reading glasses as an everyday thing in my life, I still find that I have to play trombone somewhat when trying to read a book or the newspaper, particularly in poorly lit areas.

So, what does this have to do with a longer penis, you may ask.

For the uninitiated, over the urinals in many if not most sports bars in Canada, the bar posts a section of the newspaper (most often the sports section), which gives gentlemen something to look at while in the bathroom. I’d like to tell you it is for the betterment of our understanding of the human condition, but am more apt to say it is to keep us from inadvertently gawking at our neighbours.

Well, of late, I have found it increasingly difficult to read this newspaper because I am standing too close to the wall. Even with my reading glasses on, I cannot make out the print of the story. And let’s face it, if you have to put your reading glasses on to pee, you are either blind as a bat or have a really short penis.

With a longer penis, I believe, I would have the opportunity to stand further back from the urinal and potentially bring the newspaper into focus. Standing further back with a shorter penis just leads to a mess no one wants and would keep me from accurately hitting the little soccer ball (some of you know what I’m talking about).

As it is, my only alternative is to try to read the paper over the next urinal, which has its own risks.

If I am alone in the bathroom, no problem. But the minute another fellow stands at the next urinal…

Well, let’s just say no one likes to have a stranger read over your shoulder, so you can imagine how you’d feel having a stranger read over your penis.

So, yes, sometimes I wish I had a longer penis.

Oh, and unless you have a third hand, don’t try turning the page over…trust me, it’s better for everyone if you just read the rest of the story later.

urinal-journal

The subway ride

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I don’t actually know what the following is, other than: the beginning.

subway-1

The subway was crowded that morning. It was always crowded when it rained.

It was like no matter how far people had to travel, they were terrified of getting wet. It’s probably closer to the truth to say that most of them had lost several umbrellas in the windy corridors created by the city’s office towers. And yet, to a person, every man and woman carried a neatly folded umbrella, their multiple layers showing nary a single bead of dampness.

By the second station on my route to work, I had lapsed into my typical fog of who cares. At this stage in my life, work was just something I had to do to make money. I had long ago given up on any hope of finding fulfillment or happiness on the job, if only because the company had a strict no-dating policy. Without interoffice sex, my desk was just another place to sort papers.

It didn’t take long before the fog in my head was matched by a fog on the windows of the subway car. The body heat of the mingled strangers turned damp coats and hats into instant humidifiers, rain water mingling with sweat and post-shower damp to coat the walls and windows of the subway with rivulets of diluted deodorant, cologne and perfume. All we needed were a few handprints on the window and the subway car would have looked like the back seat of a sedan parked at a drive-in where the kids inside were doing everything but watching the movie.

I had managed to grab a seat that morning, an unexpected bonus for getting up a little earlier. Even living at the end of the line was no guarantee of finding any comfort in local transit. Too often, I spent my time staring down the tops of flat-chested teens too self-absorbed to give up a seat or leather-skinned grandmothers so desiccated they made your tear ducts hurt. That morning, however, I had managed a forward-facing seat. So people could look down my top and I got to stare right into their crotches.

It was a rough ride into town that morning. The constant start and stop of the train as it waited for the guy up ahead to get his shit together, and the tropical humidity that was slowly growing in my shorts made the decorated plywood seat under my ass that much more uncomfortable. Within 20 minutes, I found myself chafing like a newborn in a day-old diaper.

Tugging at my trouser legs to try and unbunch the material from my crotch, I felt something soft and dry against the back of my left hand. Looking over, I realized it was a leg.

A gorgeous leg. A leg that begged to be touched, but could just as easily crush your balls with the slightest twitch. A leg that worked out regularly, but had never seen a gym in its life. And standing right next to it was another leg, which also shimmered in the grey opalescence of flawless stockings.

Recognizing my transgression and not wanting to be rude, I moved up from the legs. Past the immaculate tweed skirt, the crisp peach blouse, the mottled brown scarf and up to the reddest smile I have ever seen in my life.

This red, I was certain, existed nowhere else in the world. This was a red created for one woman and set aside, the formula for this colour being instantly destroyed as it would appear flawed on anyone else.

I smiled at that red, those lips, and nodded slightly. It was an apology for the unintended intimacy. Words seemed out of place for some reason. The slight rise of her right cheek told me I had been forgiven.

Summoning everything I had in me, I tore my eyes away from that mouth and back to the zoo I called my ride into work.

The fog had definitely lifted from my morning, but it had been replaced with an equally numbing intoxication that I couldn’t handle. Although numbing probably wasn’t the right word, because there was damned little I wasn’t feeling at this moment.

I don’t know if it was 10 seconds or 10 minutes later when the subway jostled around a bend, but what I do know is that the leg found my hand this time. And as the curve of the tracks lingered, so too did the leg, sliding its silken fibers up and down the back of my hand until it began to pull the hairs out one by one.

As the train pulled back onto a straighter course, however, the leg stayed exactly where it had landed, determined to either erase every hair off the back of my hand or gain my attention. It was about to complete the first, but it was mission accomplished on the second.

(Image is property of owner and is used here without permission but a lot of inner dialogue.)

I Hear You

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anguish

“I hear you,” she screams,

Her voice echoing in the silence

Of a disquieted mind.

Fists pound temples

As temptation reigns

In paper-wrapped glass.

The sins of a thousand years

Await release, gnawing

At the bars built

To keep the world out

And the furies within.

Breath rasps, the belly of the snake

Drawing sinewy strength

From the still-warm sands

Of memory and desire.

Head sags, body slumps,

Blood slows, anguish grows.

Write, Sisyphus, write.

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(Images are property of owners, and are used here without permission…I heard you.)

Real

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Am I as lifeless as the image

That dances before me,

Within its two-dimensional bonds

Of height and width?

Or does it ask the same questions

As it stares through this portal of glass,

Breathing and thinking in a world

That also offers depth and duration?

Which of us is the corpus

And which the reflection?

Both? Neither?

When we part company,

Who moves first?

And if I smash the glass,

Which of us ceases to exist,

Except in the multitude of shards

That fall to Earth?

girlbrokenmirror

(Images are property of owners and upon reflection, are used here without permission.)

Writing for puppets

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Monty meets Muppets!

Monty meets Muppets!

As some of you may know, I am one of the comedy writers for a sketch show called SomeTV!, which is currently in production in Toronto. As our godhead Nic likes to describe it, the show takes the no-sacred-cows approach of Monty Python’s Flying Circus and combines it with the playful anarchy of The Muppet Show (no hubris here, eh?).

Now, for some, that may sound like the greatest writing gig ever. Those some have clearly never written for puppets.

Human actors—or as we call them, Fleshies—can be tricky enough to deal with. Prone to completely misunderstanding the point of a scene or sketch, they tend to have difficulty learning lines that make no sense to them.

Luckily, their natural insecurity, despite the outward facing ego, means that they can be molded into subservience, if only in two- to five-minute chunks, the longest most are willing to go without checking their make-up or cell phones for calls from their managers.

At their core, Fleshies are the rhesus monkeys of the performance world, clinging to each other for some semblance of affection but ultimately willing to give that up for warmth and sustenance.

Not so puppet actors, aka the Felts or Felties.

Flesh v Felt

These are the apex predators of the performance world and should always be treated as such. Sure, they look cute and cuddly, with their giant heads, bulging eyes and disarming colours, but that’s exactly what they want you to think.

You don’t write for Felties so much as start a sentence that is perpetually interrupted with ideas or lines the bastards think are smarter, funnier, crazier.

Fleshies forget their lines because they’re not too bright…Felties “forget” because they are malicious egotists.

Adding to the challenge is the near-impossibility of figuring out a Feltie. He, she or it is the poster-child for multiple personality disorder.

You think you’re writing a scene for a young Spanish girl, when out of nowhere a tall Jovian Codswadder shows up to take the scene in an entirely new direction. (To this day, the only thing I know about Codswadders is they come from Jupiter, where given the crushing gravity, their height makes no sense.)

Not the home of young Spanish girls

NOT the home of young Spanish girls

It’s like dealing with someone with hyperactive comedic Tourettes, and trust me, I’ve taken enough improv classes in Toronto to know what that looks like.

Felties are also astoundingly lazy creatures. Sure, they look frenetic on the television screens, but in reality, these buggers will literally not lift a finger without someone doing it for them. Our show has an entire team of Feltie fluffers whose entire job is to see to the every-last needs of these freaks. We’re talking major OCD: obsessive-compulsive demands.

Trust me, the dictionary writers of the world have the concept of “puppet master” completely backwards.

Masterclass

To be fair, the Felties do sometimes come up with lines that are funnier than the stuff I wrote. But on the flip side, they get away with lines that no intelligent Fleshie could ever hope to pull off.

This has two impacts: 1) the Feltie doesn’t have to try very hard to get a laugh, and 2) they can be as crude, rude and insulting as they want, knowing everyone just thinks “awwww, how cute”.

There’s a reason you don’t hear a lot of puppet radio programs…the shit they come up with is repugnant.

NPR = Nasty Puppet Radio

NPR = Nasty Puppet Radio

So, why do I stay? Why do I continue to write for these self-glorified hand-warmers?

Most days, I don’t know.

But then the rent comes due and I realize that my best chances at succeeding as a “comedy writer” is to have my words (or some semblance thereof) come out of a Feltie’s mouth…and those lint-sucking leeches know it, too.

 

SomeTV! is being produced by Lemon Productions Inc.

Like us on Facebook: SomeTV! / Lemon Productions Inc.

Follow us on Twitter: @SomeTVNews

10K views and 1 year later

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Hey all,

Just surpassed the 10,000 view mark on the blog (as well as my 1-year anniversary), so I wanted to thank you for looking at the blog, reading the blog, commenting on the blog and recommending the blog.

I am grateful to all of you, but particularly want to thank those who take a moment to post and exchange your thoughts on what I write or photograph. For you to put out that effort means the world to me.

Here’s to the next 10,000 views!

Thank you…Randy

My blog universe as of March 17, 2014

My blog universe as of March 17, 2014

No

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Not yet

I love what I do.

I love writing. I love coming up with new ideas to write. I love helping other people put their ideas into words and then into action.

This is why I struggle with one of the shorter words in the English language: No.

Hello, my name is Randy, and I am addicted to new projects.

There was a time when my inability to tell people no stemmed from my fear of letting them down. Or more accurately, my fear of them never asking again and my value as a person being reduced to zero.

Not so now, luckily. Now, I find my value internally. I am, therefore I have value.

Interestingly, though, I still struggle to say no. But now, it’s a curse of enthusiasm and confidence, now fear and self-loathing.

And to complicate things further, that same enthusiasm and confidence attracts people who are more timid in one or both. People with ideas but lack voice, or with voice but lack means.

I am glad that they see me as a vector through which to explore and advance their visions. At the same time, I have to remember that my bandwidth is limited. It is less the hours in a day and more the daily ration of creative energy that limits me.

(BTW, this is why I don’t upbraid myself for spending hours on the computer or playing Solitaire. That is my period of recharge.)

At some point, I have to limit my involvement in others’ works. I have to save enough space for my paying gigs, lest I be hungry and homeless, and for my creative projects, lest I be frustrated and unhappy.

I have to say “No”.

You recently published a book and want to turn it into a screenplay? Great!

You’ve got an idea for a comedy sketch event? Fantastic!

I came up with another great concept for a movie? Congratulations! (Yes, even I drain my batteries.)

I’m not saying I won’t help, but don’t take it personally if I limit my involvement. It is not a reflection on you or your idea but rather on me and my limitations.

Today, I can work with you. Tomorrow, I may only be able to listen to you. The next day, I may not even be able to do that.

Oh, and I’ll do my best to recognize and respect those same boundaries in your life.

No doesn’t mean your idea sucks. No doesn’t mean I never want to work with you. No simply means I can’t, not right now, no matter how much I might want to. There are shades of No.

I can’t because I already have plenty on my plate. I can’t because I have to keep myself a priority. I can’t simply because I can’t.

But I wish you all the best in your efforts.

Yellow sub no2

In a slightly unrelated brain fart, the concept of No reminded me of one of my favourite revelations from the movie Yellow Submarine, the animated Beatles film.

Early in the film, as the forces of evil are over-taking Pepperland, a ballistic glove called Glove chases people and smashes things with his giant fist, including the letters in the giant Technicolor word “KNOW”. First, he smashes the K to make the word “NOW”. He then smashes the W to make the word “NO”, which becomes black-and-white.

Late in the movie, when the Beatles—disguised as Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band—lead the people’s revolt to reclaim their land, the smashed letters reverse and become colour again.

What surprised me was that having watched the film at least a dozen times before, it wasn’t until late in my “adulthood” that I realized the message embedded within the two events.

No pic

 

Consider my mind blown!

Screenwriting, not choreography

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Write-dance

In her weekly blog Why The Face, my friend Marsha Mason (more “Hey, there!” than Goodbye Girl) hits briefly on two topics of particular angst in new screenwriters: camera directions and over-written action sequences.

For me, both of these come down to the same issue: the screenwriter’s need to choreograph his or her story so that the reader “sees” the movie as the screenwriter “sees” it.

Below, with permission, I have reproduced Marsha’s original post and my comments on it.

WTF

Why The Face, March 1, 2014:

There are two things I’ve noticed of late in a number of the scripts I’ve been reading that you really don’t need to do.  They’re small things, but they can wind up pulling the reader out of your script, when what you really want is them sucked into your story.

1) Camera directions: leave them out. When someone falls in love with your script, the director that attaches to it will be the one to figure out what camera angles they’ll use and when.

And…

2) Detailed descriptions of fight sequences/car chases/long physical comedy bits: once someone falls in love with your script, there will be stunt choreographers, fight directors, and your star actor/comedian, people whose specialty it is to design these sequences for the production, based on the needs/wants of the director/producer/star.

A better idea is to describe the feeling and the tone so the reader knows what you’re aiming for, rather than going on for a page or more.  Ie “An epic car chase ensues.   More Seth Rogen behind the wheel than Al Unser Jr., it goes for blocks, barely missing nuns and orphaned children.”

Essence of, then right back into your story.

My comments:

Couldn’t agree more. Too many people feel they have to direct their screenplay to ensure the reader “sees” what they “saw” in writing it.

In a few screenplays I read recently, the writer went to great lengths to choreograph fight scenes, offering the minutiae of balletic movements.

“Raising his knee, he blocks X’s kick, and then twirls to chop X across the back of the neck. Stunned by the blow, X falls forward but recovers quickly enough to tuck and roll back to his feet. Etc. Etc. Etc.”

A fight sequence should have a sense of energy, urgency. These are people struggling. You want that to play out emotionally. You want the reader to break out in a sweat, his or her pulse elevating while reading the scene.

Instead, you slow down the reading with lengthy descriptions. The reader has to wade through line after line of description.

As Marsha describes, you can offer the fight in broader strokes to elicit feeling or tone.

Alternatively, you can present a sequence in short, staccato phrases and sentences. It is like having 20 hockey players firing pucks at you, at will. You become powerless in the onslaught, never precisely sure from where the next shot is coming.

Because the descriptions are short, they take little time for the reader to absorb before he or she moves onto the next one. Each line comes faster and faster, until the reader finds him or herself in the fight.

And then suddenly, it is over and the reader is left drained, but exhilarated.

In action sequences, less is more.

Sleigh

 

(Note: The above sequence is from my latest screenplay The Naughty List, a holiday-themed film for adults. Think The Santa Clause meets Good Morning, Vietnam.)

Writing “Line by Line”

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Do you want to be a writer but don’t have any ideas?
Are you afraid of looking like a fool?
Don’t have time to complete a project?

Then check out the blog “Line by Line”, a project to create a story one line at a time by anyone who wants to contribute.

No money down! No payments ever! No long-term commitments! No sense, at all!

At “Line by Line”, you’ll read sentences like:
“Without realizing I was doing so, my hand reached out for the vial, and Dorgon hesitated before finally releasing it to me, nervously licking his eyelid.”
and
“Instead, I pulled myself to my feet using his adam’s apple for leverage and pushing his face into the floor, such that I finally had the upper hand.”

Check it out!

This innovative new idea for building a story, line by line, day by day, was hatched by Ionia Martin and Julian Froment.