Eli's Coming

Hide your heart, girl. (listening to: Nothing)

DAN
Eli's coming.

CASEY
Eli?

DAN
From the Three Dog Night song.

CASEY
Yes.

DAN
Eli's something bad. A darkness.

CASEY
"Eli's coming, hide your heart girl."
Eli's an inveterate womanizer. I think
you're getting the song wrong.

DAN
I know I'm getting the song wrong, but
when I first heard it, that's what I
always thought it meant, and things
stick with you that way.

They say it's always calmest before
the storm. That's not true. I'm a
serious sailor. It isn't calm before
the storm. Stuff happens.

Eli's coming.

She walked, but she never got away.

END TRANSMISSION...

Syncopated Hextrameter

Or, you know, not. (listening to: "As Is" by Ani DiFranco)

In much the way
That an old man
Both loves and fears
A small child
So too a painful
Heart feeds and shrinks
On both the thought
Of its former bounty
And the reality
Of its loss

I heard tell of a man long ago
Who wandered from place to place.
Through heat of winter and cutting snow,
For a town to hide his face.

Many years he walked and rode,
Never finding what he lost.
For you cannot find on any road
Reprieve from such high cost.

He died alone and no one came
To lay lilies 'round his urn.
If only he'd known he'd die the same:
A stranger 'round every turn.
- Sean Williams


END TRANSMISSION...

I Hate My Job

I may have mentioned this before, but it's true. (listening to: my own breathing)

Seriously. I work with some of the most incompetent, lazy, mindless bunch of pass-the-buck douchesacks I've ever had the dubious honor of coming across. I'm filling out my employee self-evaluation, and It's really hard not to put down "Because no one else does their job" for every category.

I've decided that I'm asking for a 10% raise and a title change along with a change of responsibilities here by my review in March. If that doesn't happen, I'm out the door.

I'm sick of the sight of this place, to be honest. Some days I'm afraid I'll go berserk, throw the Country A-through-K rack out in the street and go work in a Virgin Megastore.

Amen, Rob.

I wish she'd call.

END TRANSMISSION...

Oh, Epimethius, I Get It Now

You're just like us. Your brother is the odd one. (listening to: "A Part of That" from the Original Cast Recording of The Last 5 Years)

Some of you may not know this story. Allow me to entertain you.

Long ago, Zeus entrusted the creation of all living things to a pair of brothers. Epimethius and Prometheus. When Epimethius finally got around to creating mankind, he found that he had used up all the good stuff and didn't have anything left from the box of "Good" to give. Prometheus climbed up Mount Olympus in the cover of darkness and stole fire from the Gods and gave it to Man.

The next morning when Zeus saw what had happened, he ordered that Prometheus be bound to a rock and a crow would come and eat out his liver every day until eternity, forcing him to be under eternal pain. To Epimethius, he gave a beautiful woman. Some of you may have heard of her. Pandora.

You see, the interesting thing about this story is that Epimethius ran out of good qualities to give to man, so Hesiod has us inheriting intelligence (fire). The meaning is clear. Humans, on the whole, are not good creatures. We're just intelligent. Aware.

Sometimes I wonder if maybe we weren't better off without that gift. And maybe that Prometheus got what he deserved.

END TRANSMISSION...

The Transient, Impermanent Nature of Things

10 CLEAR
20 PRINT "HELLO WORLD!"
30 PRINT ""
40 PRINT ""
50 PRINT "... OR WHOEVER."
60 END
(listening to: "Natalie Portman" by Ozma)

A new year, and new beginnings. I suppose that I, like most people around this time of year, begin to get all nostalgic and contemplative on the nature of the world around us when confronted with the reality of another year of existence. Why such importance placed on a single day? Why do people from hundreds and thousands of miles around gather in Gotham to watch a giant crystal ball slowly descend on a rail to a lit sign with a number on it that means no more or less than the number that was there 365 days ago?

Is it hope? Do people associate a new year with a clean slate? 'Cause there isn't one. You don't get to start over, you don't get reprieve from the things you've done or the people you've hurt. It's just another day. Like yesterday. And tomorrow. Today is New Year's Day, and while I'm sitting here at work waiting for the nobody to call in, the post office that has my package that I've been awaiting for over a week now is closed. No mail today. Before the internet, before the modem and the FAX machine, this was a day of NO communication from the outside world. Why? What's the point? Why is today so special? Tomorrow, everything starts again, and the people in jail stay there, the bills you need to pay will show up, and the rent is due. Life. Moves. On. Go with it.

What's interesting about that, though? Is that nothing stays. The people you counted on the most will one day become "that person you once knew." You'll look back on pictures and stories and think about those times, and everything will always be rosy. Life's always better in the past. (And in the future, if you ask those huddled, freezing masses in front of the giant neon Cola sign.) But time catches up to us all. Your pain, your frustration and anger are as real to you as the love and peace you feel. But in a week? a year? 10 years? You'll only remember how great things used to be, and not your pain. Because you'll have new pain.

So what do we do? Are we doomed to live this doublethink for the rest of our lives? Stomping out our Orwellian existence until we shed gin-soaked tears and love Big Brother? How do you reconcile the overwhelming hope and trust in the future with the fact that according to you as an observer, things are always getting worse?

What do we do? At the moment, no one wants to know more than I do.

END TRANSMISSION...