Your Electronic Skin

I don't spend a lot of time on Facebook despite all the "advice" from film promoter types out there who say constantly update every time you do something to your film.   There are fifty things I'd rather be doing than poking around on social media sites, one of them being...working on my films. I have very often contemplated deleting my FB page, but did not because it's really just an address book for me, a way to look up an old high school classmate, or college friend. But on the few times I have been forced, more or less, to spend time on Facebook hunting for some information, I become quickly surprised about what people will reveal on their pages. Things I would never ever tell even my sister when we've been sitting around on a porch drinking wine for hours. It would seem some people care nothing about privacy. This brought me to thinking about the nature of blogging, and how much of it should really be about personal journaling. 

I have boxes of journals in my closet, journals I started writing around the age of 9, where I called my little sister dumb and wrote short stories about my parakeets. I journaled like a mad fiend when I hit the age of 18 and moved to New York City for school. It think the inherent loneliness of that city at such a fresh age forced me to find company in the pages of cheap spiral bound notebooks and cigarettes.

Lately, I haven't been journaling much at all these past few years, and (don't smoke anymore either I might add) and I really must force myself to even blog.  But as much as I might have revealed about myself in the privacy of ink and paper, I would never reveal the details of any of this on Facebook. Blogging can be personal, but I think one has to draw the line. Honesty is safe in certain areas, in your prose, in your films, the the art you CREATE through your characters, but not in the posts you write about yourself and those you know. I can only see it as the cries for people who are truly not content in their own skins, and are dying for some attention.

People's personalities change quite often when they are "behind" the wall of internet, such as when they are on forums, which I've been learning more about lately to my chagrin. Here the forum members can insult others, rip apart someone's ideas, creations, theories, etc., without having any credentials to do so. They act like assholes because in their opinion, it's not only acceptable, but cool. And just because a forum might have moderators, who in theory should be guiding conversations with democratic principles, these people too are not free from sinking to the lowest levels of idiocy and acting like fascists. When you don't have to put your name on what you say, and no one can identify you, you aren't accountable for the crap that comes out of your keyboard. I wonder how things would change if they were forced to sign their real names on what they wrote, or say the things they say on the forums in a public space. Hmm.  Something tells me it would be a different story entirely.

My partner plays a lot of video games and he tells me about the stuff people tell each other when playing with others in the online gaming community.  Blatant sexual crap to women gamers, machismo insults, etc. I just wonder why people suddenly have to act like morons when they get online. Why does it bring out the dumb in some people? Perhaps it's just an indicator of some truth to their true natures. But the nicer side of me wonders if it goes a bit deeper than that, such as, an outplaying of their own sense of place in society, or a frustration against that reality. Such as, a young man working for crap wages for an ass of a manager at some smelly fast food chain. When he gets home and turns on Black Ops, maybe this is where his somewhat unconscious understanding of the situation in which he lives comes out in the form of insults to others in his online community. I mean, it's safe to let it out here, to call people names. No one will beat you up, and you can just leave the game and grab a burger when it's over. And I think that is really what it's all about: hiding what you really are. When you're online, no one will beat you up, know what you look like, or hear how you speak or dress. It's the great equalizer. It's just a shame that it levels people out to the lowest common denominator.

Films as children, and...wind!

1. Films as children
2. Onward ho
3. Riding my bike in the wind

I think I am going to try to blog a bit more, like every two weeks or so. Not that it really matters. I mean, if I had to sum up social media, Twitter, Facebook, all that...basically, everybody's talking and nobody's listening. So does what I have to say in a blog really matter? No. Except maybe I can share some wisdom about whatever I am going through as both a person and a filmmaker. So without much further ado...

1. Films as kids. Yep. Number one is out in the world. "In the Shadow" was released by my producing partner (Jorge Sermini) and I on Distrify. Without a P&A budget, spreading the word is done by two people, in effort to let a small part of the world know the film exists. Facebook, Twitter, the local video store and me contacting reviewers personally to ask for a review.  It's the least fun part of filmmaking, and often the most overlooked by truly indie non-studio filmmakers. We've cared probably too much about this film, having worked on it for the majority of our filmmaking efforts these past five years.  Caring too much about your creative output has its dangers. It's like parents believing blindly that their first born can do no wrong and is the most intelligent creature the world has ever seen. Well, little do they know most everybody does NOT see the child like that. It's been a rough ride of some success and a lot of rejection with this film. It's a good movie, don't get me wrong, and gorgeous. I would suggest you check it out (yes, I'm self-promoting). I won't tell how much was spent on it, or how much money my producer and I would make if we were paid even just $12 an hour.  It would boggle the mind.

I would do so much differently, and I am in a different mental space creatively than I was five years ago (thank to the gods). My point is, I have a different and more distanced attitude to the reality of life for my future films, and expect less of them than I did the first. Which means, they have less pressure to conform into a destiny that is not theirs. It doesn't mean I won't bust ass and work as hard as I can on these future films, but I am more willing to accept their paths, no matter what they might be.
 
Which brings me to...

2. Onward. Future films. They are actually already here. We have gotten to a near fine cut with the second feature, "What's the Use?" but after screening it to several different people and talking to Jorge and the writer, Jason Tremblay, I started getting a sense that the film was good, but not great.  So, while I was about to announce to our colleagues and friends that we were at picture lock, proceed with the film score (and break out champagne), I had to sit down and take a hard look at the film. I thought about it A LOT. Had lucid dreams about it. Jorge and I printed out about 130 stills from the film representing key moments, and posted them on our wall to give us a big picture view, and allow us to shuffle things around, and add things (new scenes are the white papers).

We started to explore how to deepen this dark comedy about a teenage girl on a manhunt. It has so far involved a lot of creative stretching, and rethinking how narrative is presented in film, and realizing we had only tapped the potential for this project. My return to school to study motion graphics has helped change my thinking about the visual nature of narrative film, and really pushed me cinematically. We are infusing so many different visual elements and animation now that this film should be something of a crazy ride, in a style our composer, Arles Estes, has called,  "Gonzo Filmmaking."

And we are also rehearsing for the third feature and have been rehearsing since December. This is an unnamed piece by Jason Tremblay.  Having learned from the last film I mention above about the hazards of just jumping into your filming (we had 5 weeks of preproduction and story development), we have decided to go the opposite with this one. With our lead actors (Michael Joplin, Michelle Keffer, Gricelda Silva, and Noel Gaulin) we have been filming rehearsals, and Jorge has been editing them. I have been story boarding (and I hate storyboarding. See my crappy storyboards below. I chose the worst ones.)

So, very soon, we will have a "pre-viz" (pre - visualization) edit of the film, mixing storyboards and live action together. Lots of films do this, usually the bigger budget films that can pay to have their actors for months of rehearsal. I've done this for scenes, but not the entire film. However, I'm already seeing the awesome benefit of this. On good rehearsals, I get tons of ideas about coverage, and how to push the scene. We will get to see the possible story problems now and fix them before shooting.  Where I was very scared back in December about not knowing my tone or how to make this story more than a geek culture dark comedy, I am now in March getting a firm grasp on my tone, seeing the visual style I want, and discovering areas that can be pushed further. I am seeing how to make this film deeper and more meaningful, and full of nuances.

I don't think a lot of mico-budget directors will do pre-viz like this. Seems like most people I know jump right into filming. I can understand the impatience. Films take sooo long to get together. "In the Shadow" took five years from inception to release to the public. But although I am getting older and definitely deal with the impatient impulse to keep cranking out work (I have a file cabinet with four drawers stuffed full with creative writing, from poems to prose, from stage plays to screen plays), there can be no harm in spending focused time on your film projects, and really letting them work themselves over in your brain, before committing them to 1s and 0s on harddrives, or, if you are lucky, celluloid.

3. Wind. I hate it. I used to keep a log of how many times, when riding my bike, I would be facing the wind. One would think that if one faces it going in one direction, one would NOT be facing it heading back in the opposite direction and life on earth would balance out. Well, not Austin wind. It hates me as much as I hate it. It likes to make my bike rides more difficult and blow right up in my face no matter what direction I am going. I rarely get a nice backwind caressing my bike along effortlessly until I reach my destination. Ungh. I curse you, wind.

Indie Films: Saying Nothing at All

I am honestly not that excited about most films this country releases. I rarely go to the theaters anymore. I speak not only for the tent pole huge budget films, but also for most "indie" fare too. I just find the majority of North American indie directors to be infatuated with their own "Geek Culture," creating films about disenchanted 20-30 something Caucasians who might seem kinda hip in some aspects of their lives, but are otherwise not much more concerned about the opposite sex and their friends. There is something horribly high school about the majority of North American indie films that says a lot about what kind of life young Americans are experiencing.

Now, this isn't every filmmaker out there. There are always numerous exceptions. And I only really speak about narrative films, not documentaries.  But I find such a lack of perspective on the world, especially this country, on what is going on beneath the shiny surface of things.

I honestly think they are not to blame...well, not entirely. We shield so much from young people in this culture: death, war, corporate greed. I remember when there would be televised memorials for dead soldiers returning home from wars. No longer. News never show photos of the attrocity of war. The "collateral damage." Everything is rather clean and selective when it comes to war. Do we see the faces of those who have died, on all sides? Or do we only hear lives summed up in numbers?

Corporations hide their true psychopathic business practices by making their employees believe they are hip and cool by holding "Casual Fridays," "Weird Wednesdays"; or making rallies where the corporation has hired out some entertainment group to make a show telling everyone what a good job they are doing while handing out a few 75 dollar checks. This never changes the fact that to a corporation, the dollar is more important than a human life, and all of those people cheering at this "employee pep rally" could be without a job tomorrow.

The result: young people with no real sense of the rest of the world, and while they might have a slight sense of disenchantment, it's only a buzz, and easily forgettable with our various social media distractions.  I would love to see indie filmmakers start digging beneath the surface of things, stepping outside of their familiar comfort zones, because there is so much we can talk about in our narrative films. A film can be both entertaining and have some sort of perspective on society.

Please. Lets slow down the amount of shallow comedies about geeks. Push it a bit. What lies beneath and beyond? Can our "minority" cultures pick up a camera and make a film? What about our immigrant populations? How many rich stories can they contribute to the "indie" scene? Feminism is dead in the US, but women are still paid less, and still bombarded with the same bullshit beauty myth message daily.

For a culture so fascinated with youth, we don't have much to say in the films we create.

Modern TV vs Modern Film

It's been a while since I've posted anything. Fixing up music licensing issues for "In the Shadow," while editing "What's the Use?" in addition to everything else life throws this way has been,...well, tricky.

Anyhow, I partook in a debate at The Dionysium this last Wednesday night at the Alamo Drafthouse.
http://dionysium.com/march-2012-film/ I debated the CEO of Alamo Drafthouse, Tim League.  The resolution was: Modern TV upholds greater artistic standards than modern film.  Yes, a tricky very broad-based topic.  Difficult to do indeed.

I'll go ahead and share the prepared opening statement of the debate here, followed by the closing statement....
 

Mad Men, The Wire, Boardwalk Empire, Lost, Breaking Bad, The Sopranos, Dexter. And on and on. TV has come around…again. We are in another golden age of television.

With the economic downturn and shift of media distribution through the internet, TV and film have responded very differently to these two realities. In an attempt to appeal to the masses, film studios have retreated into creating more tent-pole genre-driven junk, or nostalgically revamping successes of the past. Originality is largely gone. However, TV has opened up to fresh innovative ideas, embracing the notion that not every viewer out there has the brain the size of a pea.

In this fear of risk taking, most films have lost inspirational vision, no longer enrapturing or influencing us as it has at different points in its history. On the other hand, quite a bit of TV programming has an immediacy, relevance, and intrigue that is unparalleled.

Admittedly, it’s difficult to define what makes something “artful,” then locate these qualities in TV and film. But for the sake of this short debate, I’ll state their common ground is they are both time-based mediums that rely on story-telling as their art.

However, time is on the side of television, and TV, where writers are king, are taking advantage of this. TV resembles and honors the conventions of the novel. Writers complicate the system of narrative and stylistic relations within episodes, largely ignoring the familiar outmoded signposts of genre and plot which play a greater role in writing for film. In TV, we meet more than just one singular protagonist, but very slowly forge into the minds of many characters with unparalleled intimacy and detail.

Although narrative film has greater time constraints, the writing for film has not stepped up and become as innovative. Studio films continue to revamp comic books, old TV shows (Smurfs, Dukes of Hazard. The Chipmunks), or hits from the past like Tron or Transformers. Audiences have become so accustomed to these predictable formulas of modern film. They know the good guy will triumph. Evil will be vanquished. Boy will get girl.

Film does not motivate or intrigue us like it used to. I think about Bonny and Clyde’s depiction of violence and what it changed in the way films were made after. Or the way Easy Rider exposed a subculture, reminding viewers that America is not just the wholesomeness of Leave it to Beaver. How did Rebel Without a Cause speak to a young generation about it’s self-identity? Do Harry Potter and Twilight even come close to this? Millions of people in this country look to John Stuart for their source of news, a comedian, who can make a political rally happen in a week. His show influences policy. Not since Mark Twain, have we seen such a politically influential populist entertainer.

Just on these two perspectives alone I think it’s clear that modern TV has been artfully breathing new life into story-telling and influencing viewers in ways modern film currently does not.

CLOSING STATEMENT

 

Film is still artful, but has become stagnant. It is not moving or motivating viewers the way it used to. I rarely overhear the same amount of excitement for a film that is expressed for an upcoming season premiere.  Personally, I dread the day when the last episode of Breaking Bad is over.  Largely this is due to film failing to take risks, trying to remain accessible for the masses in order to recoup budget. This has only served to make most film, quite frankly, boring. But TV programming has embraced the niche audience.  Most might say that indie and art films remain the pinnacle of what can arguably be deemed as art, but the conventions of art cinema are easily incorporated into TV serial drama, and production values of TV are on par with even the best examples of cinema. So it’s hard to believe that art house films are really that much better. Eighty to 120 minute films also lack the advantage of longform story telling that TV has, and thus over time, are not able to maintain and immediacy and relevance in our day-to-day lives.

But despite that TV has this narrative advantage, it’s really about the writers, creators, show runners, and the staff of cable and network stations who have embraced the idea of pushing the boundaries and being comfortable with reaching a niche audience. Film can and has been just as artful and innovative, but for a while now, there has been a definite lack of inspiration and creativity that existed at different times in the past.

To quote Steven Axelrod,: “The novel isn’t dead – it’s alive and dangerously robust, and television of all things, that ‘great wasteland’ that gave us Hee Haw and The Dukes of Hazzard, proves that extraordinary fact beyond the shadow of a doubt.”

Wrap up, Thoughts on AFM

Well, we've been back now a few days from Santa Monica.  Resettling, unpacking, reassessing, etc. Like I mentioned in my last blog, the American Film Market has made quite clear the divide between artistry and commerciality. This remains at the foreground of my thoughts on filmmaking.  It's a hard divide to try to connect for beginning filmmakers who want to make good work, but also would like to make a living doing that work.  It's been particularly difficult with my first film which we took to AFM. It has a name star in it, but tries to splice two genres together: art house meets horror. It's too artsy for commercial buyers and festivals don't generally choose horror films. The horror genre seems to scare programmers of big festivals away. There is a long way to go before horror gets the proper respect it deserves as a valid and potentially artful genre. But nonetheless, this film still serves as a calling card and has begun dialogues with several industry folks out there.  That is what is crucial in this strange biz.  Relationships, relationships, relationships.

But I digress.  My point is, despite the emphasis I heard over and over again at AFM about creating the "package" (stars, good script written in a recognizable genre, credible producer and director), this concept of the right package hinders most of us out there.  I know so many colleagues that wait and wait and try to get certain actors interested in their script.  Ten years go by and they are still working on that "big film," trying to get actors attached in order to bring in money. I don't need to remind you life is short.  Making a film every ten years just won't work.  So, are films just nice shelves where actors are on display? Or can they just be works that we create because we love the story and the locations and if big name actors are attached, great, but if not, we make the damn film anyway?

Filmmakers have to just make films, and lower their expectations about what sort of return they can expect.  I would tell all filmmakers to just get out there, grab a camera, use your friends and family and make a damn movie, but the chances of that thing ever allowing you to make money back to make another film is pretty slim. Expect to make lots and lots of micro-to-no budget films before you can really start to think a bit bigger.  And once you think you can go bigger, realize you might just have to go back to thinking smaller.  By no means rack up credit card debt, sell organs, become a surrogate mother, to just make your film.  That's just plain stupidity.  Invest some of your money, not all of it, into your work.  Again, it's about being realistic in this extremely expensive high stake world. And don't look at dollar signs as a measurement of your success. 

And go to film markets!  Go. Listen. Learn.

Reporting Day Two at the American Film Market

Our trip getting here was very interesting.  Due to a bird getting stuck in some mechanism of the plane, our flight from Austin was delayed enough for us to miss our Denver connection.  I love birds but I cursed this bird.  We caught another flight three hours later and landed in Phoenix to find lines and lines of airline staff standing with white roses near our departure gate.  We found out later they were honoring a fellow staff member that had recently died in an accident.  Well, as we were getting our baggage, we found out his body had been sent off on the plane we were in and getting his body off the plane meant that we did not get our baggage for an hour after getting off the plane.  Death had delayed us, and we were grumpy and tired, mad at death for slowing us down on our journey to Santa Monica.

Well, we are here now.  The crowds are about what I expect. Suits and high heels. Jeans with jackets.  The food is also what I expect.  Twelve dollar hotdogs and five dollar bagels. Even the cooler weather (it’s 57 right now) I planned for. The amount of people sitting around with their dogs was not something I expected. Dogs at the American Film Market. Since mostly older men had them, and one flaunty blonde was all about leaning over to pet a particular bulldog, I guess they are used as chick magnets.  Opportunities for these men to glance down curvy busts as the women lean over to pet the poochies.

As I write this, some woman’s ass is like two feel from my face. Ha ha.  It’s that crowded.

We picked up a bunch of the trades (Hollywood Reporter, Variety etc.) and I spent some time looking through the various advertisements for films being screened at the AFM. Most looked pretty bad due to the ad design. It made me wonder about where the art of film poster design has gone.  If I were twelve years old, I might find some of these poster designs appealing, but honestly, it looked like they had hired a high school kid with horrible Photoshop skills to create these things. Putting some paint on my cat’s paws and letting her walk around on a piece of paper would have created a more appealing visual work than these pieces of crap.

The most prevalent aspect of the AFM, as reported by these trade magazines, is the definition of a successful movie. Clearly, it is about how little money can be spent in relation to how much money a film can rake in at the box office. There is no discussion about performances, a great story, etc. I am not pretending this is any surprise after all, this is the American Film MARKET. So commerce is key here.  I guess my childlike idealistic side still refuses to believe that superior craftsmanship of a film with a great unique story is not enough to make it interesting to the “paying and viewing audience,” whoever THAT is supposed to be. It is about formula within genre and being interesting within the first twenty minutes.  Quick pacing, faces people recognize. Attaching a star to your film so suddenly it matters. 

I am not blaming anyone for this.  Hearing these people talk, and even getting the chance to meet some of these buyers and sellers, I completely understand their logic.  It just makes me wonder as always about the relationship of creativity to commerce.

So can art even exist in cinema?  Sure, for the rare few filmmakers that seem to have been able to navigate this torrential storm where your film becomes a package of attractive elements: producer with track-record, well known director and name cast.  Just like a frozen dinner. Salisbury steak with creamed corn and chocolate brownie square.  But I am not sure how these filmmakers with more creative control managed to get where they are, but it seems like a combination of luck, timing, and a bit of determination. It almost seems that if a beginning filmmaker is interested in making unique artful work but wants to also make a living at it, they may want to redirect those creative impulses into something else, and make commercial work.  Either that or just make artful work and keep the day job. 

I think what is even a more difficult question is, can a film be artful and still be a commercial success?  Of course the answer is yes, but the issue of commerciality or creativity seem to be contrasting aspects of a film.

I think this will have to be a topic for another AFM day, written while killing some time in this Loew’s Lobby.

Wept the Rose Trellis in Shades of Nematoda

A bit more prose.  More surreal this time. Roaches and worms having a divine picnic on the chin of a sleeping young woman.

Your parents named you Rose. It was your mother's favorite flower.

Rose.

Rose, while walking home at night, you think about the horses of your youth. The brown shiny ones your dad said he'd always try to buy you or the ones that Santa had promised you when you left cookies out for him every Christmas, sometimes on Easters too. Soft gingerbread shaped like stars and bells. You'd ask mom to go out and buy them from the Piggly Wiggly sometimes. You'd ask for the most expensive brand they had. Didn't matter. Santa never brought those horses.

Rose, you walk home down Prytania late at night after you've sweat and toiled and tried to carry dirty trays of turtle soup to impatient unforgiving customers. Your arms are weak, your jaw a broken cliff of dry mud and shale.

Rose, everyone at work thinks you are weird. A strange-looking girl who can't hear very well. You came to work one day wearing these new earrings you had bought at the Everything's A Dollar store, a pair of faux silver hoops that made you look like a secretary, but you thought it might improve your appearance. Maybe people would talk to you, ask you to come out to get a Rolling Rock with them at the Half Moon Pub after everyone had gotten their tips at night.

Rose, you have never kissed a boy. But you have kissed the paper boys in a teeny bopper magazine, all before you turned eighteen. The Piggly Wiggly of your youth didn't carry the magazines, so you had to walk to the drug store every Friday afternoon after school to pick up your three favorite magazines. The check-out girl had red hair and knew your face very well. She giggled to herself when you walked out the door with your magazines. After she finished laughing at you, she would stick a piece of cinnamon Trident in her mouth.

Rose, you started your period when you were fourteen, while in P.E. class. Everyone had to wear an outfit for gym class, green shorts and white shirts with their last names stitched in green thread on the left side of the shirt. Your class was playing volleyball, and when you went back into the girls' locker room to change for the next class, there was blood on your underwear and a little on your green shorts. You were scared.

Now, thirty-one years old with a brand new bachelor's degree in Library Management, you walk home at night late, tired from your noisy restaurant job. Your feet hurt and you soak them in warm water and Epsom salt in a bucket the color of a Satsuma. You listen to the public jazz station and to your neighbors above you fighting in Cuban Spanish and listening to noisy Spanish TV. Their food smells yellow like spicy old chicken and it drifts down to your apartment and makes your bath towels smell.

Rose, there is a hole near your kitchen faucet and at night the roaches come out and look for you. They look for you and your chin at night, when you go to bed at one in the morning.

Rose, after you've cared for your weary feet and washed your black socks in the sink and hung them over your bathtub, you climb into bed and bring the sheet to the bottom of your head. You enter the world of sleep immediately and then that is when the acne on your chin begins to move.

The holes on the swampy cliff at the south end of your face begin to open and small green worms, loving and happy fuzzy creatures, come out of their warm hiding spaces, tired of sleeping for hours, ready to breathe. They come out and greet each other happily:

FRED GORE the worm: "Jill Q! How are you this evening!?"

JILL Q the worm: "Greetings, Fred! I am just fine. Thank you for inquiring. Yes, sir, Mr. Gore. I've rested well and I am hungry and waiting to see what our friends can bring to us today. And look who is also awake! But groggy, no doubt!"

TED the worm: "Jill Q and Mr. Gore! Pleasure. Pleasure, to be sure. I am awake. Slowly coming around."

FRED GORE the worm: "How was your rest, dear friend?"

TED the worm: "Oh, most disturbing to be sure. I had the most awful nightmares, about which the consequences are indescribable..."

JILL Q the worm: "Oh, do tell!!"

FRED GORE the worm: "Oh, yes. Do tell. But wait, because here comes our dear friend, Lucia. Let her in on the details of your nightmare. No doubt we can all learn from your other-worldly dream experiences as they are always educational."

LUCIA the worm: "Greetings, my neighbors. Did I overhear that Ted has a fantastic story to tell!?"

JILL Q the worm: "He had a nightmare last night and he is about to tell us all about it. But I do fear that I might want to cover my ears if it is too horrible to experience!"

TED the worm: "No fear, dear Jill Q. I will be sure to explain only that which will not offend anyone. The mind does work in strange ways. Sort of like Chinese opera."

LUCIA the worm: "Do tell, dear Ted. You have piqued my curiosity."

TED the worm: "Oh well. Alright then. Here it goes. The condensed version for the ladies' delicate ears. Last night, I was dreaming a most intense dream upon which this worm has NEVER experienced before. The dream began pleasantly, as I was resting warm within chambers that vibrated and thumped softly and moved like a lump of bread dough within a mixing machine. I realized I was a human womb. And housed within me was a large Mack truck with an umbilical cord attached to its tail pipe. It had one large brown eye and it barked at me. I woke up...now this is all in the dream mind you. I actually DIDN'T wake up in reality. So, in my dream I woke up and the Mack truck was barking at me. 'Mother, mother!' It was saying to me, tears dripping from it's one large brown eye. 'Mother! I have something to say! Please listen to me, dear mother!' The Mack truck stopped crying and looked at me. 'It is time for me to leave you, my dear mother. I must attempt to venture into the world. It holds many curiosities for me. I hear it calling to me. COME TO ME, YOUNG MACK TRUCK. THERE IS MUCH TERRITORY FOR YOU. FOR YOUR SOUL WE GIVE AND POUR LIFE'S SWEET HONEY BUTTER INTO. OPEN YOUR MOUTH, YOUNG MACK TRUCK, AND LEAVE THE SECURITY OF THE WOMB. IT IS TIME TO COME TO YOUR FUTURE.' The Mack truck began to weep and bark again. I told him that it was okay. I understood his need to leave and become his own man. He looked at me with his wide brown eye and suddenly there was a large gush of liquid! Watermelon-colored water poured fourth between the Mack truck and I. A pair of shears pierced my side and sliced the umbilical cord and separated us. Wet brown fur that smelt like watermelon candy spilled out of the sliced umbilical cord and the Mack truck began to fall out of me, barking, weeping and his one brown eye rolling in his head. 'Good-bye, dearest mother! Good bye!' The poor Mack truck was crying and breaking my heart like a China plate while the umbilical cord thrashed about, spilling wet fruity fur...oh, dear me. Am I being too graphic for the ladies?"

LUCIA the worm: "Oh, dear no, Ted. Please continue. I think we are all quite fascinated by your dream."

TED the worm: "Excellent. Then I shall work on, my friends. The Mack truck was thus born from me, the Womb. And as soon as I felt his last tire escape my body, I felt a wrenching pain start to pour over me. I blacked out with a scream and when I opened my eyes, I found myself swimming as a dolphin. Swimming in water colored pink, filled with other dolphins that laughed and played and sang chorals that praised the human founder of a religion called Christianity. I think his name was Jesus Christ. The sun was shinning brightly and we dipped into the water and then to the surface to see, on the nearby shoreline, a group of pink human beings, much nicer-looking than the one within whom we reside. Their flesh was smooth and even and they all had bright blonde hair and wore pieces of animal fur. They waved at us and ate bunches of grapes and mangoes while listening to music from small black radios. Back in the water, one dolphin came to me and offered me bubble gum which I accepted. I took it within my mouth and as soon as I bit down, I found myself once more in a new environment. I opened my eyes to find myself as a large human male with a tattoo of a cobra and a knife blade across my fuzzy breast. I was in confinement. Presumably, a mental institution. The walls were padded and my arms had been bound around my body with a strange and uncomfortable jacket that was dirty and smelled quite sour. Everything was very quiet and a little dark. I looked around me for a while, for a few hours it felt like, waiting for something to happen. Well, something did happen after a while. A section of the wall started to glow and become bright with a pink light. A single rose bloomed forth and exposed its bright red head to me. It looked at me. I could feel it looking at me. 'Come to me,' it said. 'I have something to share with you.' I came to the rose and looked within it. 'You must know that your son, the Mack truck, has become an influential dictator of the country, Germany. He wields much power and possesses much charisma. He is stubborn like a steel bridge. The world beckoned him. The world pulled him forth from you. Now he glows. And now I bleed.' The rose began to bleed a sticky thick red substance over the floor of my cell. It was a cold cold blood that slowly filled the room as I stood and said nothing nor moved. In about two days, the blood was up to the base of my nose and I began to breathe it and it suffocated me and I began to drown, but with no struggle. I began to die as a human does from not being able to take-in the invisible power of air within itself. It was a feeling like that of falling into a cup of old coffee perhaps, or stale cabernet. And then I woke up."

FRED GORE the worm: "Wow, Ted, my friend. That by far is the most amazing dream you have yet managed to have."

JILL Q the worm: "I must agree with Fred on this one, dear Ted. Quite an amazing experience. I should like to have this one documented in some form. Perhaps we can get together tomorrow night and I can bring my tape recorder and you can repeat your experiences?"

TED the worm: "No telling, Jill Q. Dreams fade like light. I will do the best I can when you present your tape recorder to me."

LUCIA the worm: "I am highly fascinated by what your mind brings to us and the world. Thank you, Ted, for sharing that wonderfully imaginative dream with us this day."

JILL Q the worm: "So, what part did you edit out for us, dear friend?"

TED the worm: "Well, the part about the human females on the beach of course. Back when I was a dolphin."

JILL Q the worm: "Why did you edit parts out?"

FRED GORE the worm: "Why, Jill Q! You are a curious one!"

JILL Q the worm: "Well, we are all friends and neighbors here. I am simply curious of the dream expedition that Ted had last evening."

TED the worm: "Well, the human females simply exposed their breasts. That is all. They were sunning themselves, I imagine. Some fed small human children from the pendulous pieces of flesh that hung from the upper parts of their bodies."

LUCIA the worm: "Silly things, they are. Human breasts."

FRED the worm: "And all mammals have some form of them too. Odd. Odd, indeed."

LUCIA the worm: "Oh, look, my friends. Look to the wall. I think we have our friends coming to us now."

The worms stop talking and look to a small hole in the wall where a small army of roaches curiously peers out.

The roaches, seeing that you are asleep, climb to you, strange Rose. Odd girl flower in the weed garden of humanity. Climbing over the bed sheets, the roaches bring pieces of pastry, pieces of éclairs and Napoleans, salamis and German sausages, goat milk cheeses, fine Godiva chocolates, bubblegum, and a magnum of perfect Veuve Clicquot champagne. Without a word, the roaches mount your chin with their goods, these five fine sleek brown roaches that are shiny like the asses of show horses. They bring the food and present their wares to the worms, with only smiles on their tiny brown heads. They give willingly and happily and watch as the worms devour the ambrosia laid before them.

TED the worm: "Oh, I must say. This chocolate éclair is simply divine."

JILL Q the worm: "This Manchego is simply the best that I think I have ever had before. Our friends have truly outdone themselves this time. I wonder which restaurants they had managed to locate this evening?"

The worms eat for hours, sharing conversation, stories of their childhood or commenting on the taste of the foods they ingest. The roaches stand happily, content, and still on the bed sheets before your chin, Rose.

Then your alarm goes off in a dose of violent AM radio and you hit the snooze button. Realizing their picnic is over, the worms quickly dust themselves off and return into the open acne pores in your chin where they say prayers and meditations. After wishing each other pleasant resting, they begin to sleep. The roaches scatter across your breast back to the hole in the wall, taking the left over food and trash with them, looking forward to the next day when they shall be able to bring more fine food gifts to their friends and listen to their dreams and stories.

Rose, you rise to scratch your scalp and heat water on the stove for your cup of Sanka and a Lender's bagel, toasted with strawberry cream cheese. You look out your window to the pigeon that struts on the sidewalk looking for food or a fuck. Today, you need to take a bus to the Goodwill on Magazine Street. You have to buy some shoes for work today. Your old ones have holes in them.