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jamesdalton's Blog
(Thu 03/06/2008 01:45am)
Pirates of the Digital Age
by Dalton
Captain Redbeard Longshanks stood at the front of the room with a glimmer of triumph in his eyes. Seated at the table in front of him was his rag-tag pirate crew, huddled around a single laptop computer.
“Arrg!,” offered First Mate Dollar McChickenbeard. “Not to be soundin’ mutinous, Cap’n, but why are we meeting at yer apartment as opposed to the pirate ship?”
Captain Longshanks smiled slightly at the inquiry. He knew this would be coming.
“Because me neighbor Janet don’t password protect her wi-fi signal,” he countered swiftly, a perry and a thrust. “If you would direct yer attention to the glowin’ box infront of ya...”
Poop-deck swabber Long John “The Death Itch” Pennypound directed his attention to the foreign machinery in front of him, retrieving a pocket telescope from his dirty pirate shirt. He squinted through the eyepiece, but found no treasure at the end of its scope. Just a bunch of fuzzy blue lines.
“Put away yer spyglass, Long John,” ordered Captain Longshanks with a hint of annoyance. “Ya won’t be needin’ it no more. From now on, we’re committin’ intranet piracy! Yarrrr!!”
McChickenbeard and Long John echoed the triumphant “Yarrr!” back at their Captain, although Long John was clearly confused. He fingered his spyglass nostalgically.
“But Cap’n,” he began. “What about all the pillagin’ and plunderin’ that we used to commit out on the open seas? The cannon battles and the mermaids and the skull islands!”
“Those were the old ways, me bucko. Times have changed,” instructed Captain Longshanks. “Now they got their finger-printin’ kits and the C.S.I.s. Arrrr!”
“This is lame,” said Sarah Mulligan, standing up at the back of the room with a hooded sweatshirt pulled over her eyes. “I could have been out shoplifting some golf clubs or toilet plungers with the time I’ve wasted here.”
Dollar McChickenbeard, who had not noticed Sarah because she was sitting in the blind-spot of his eyepatch, stood suddenly with great intent, wobbling on his peg-leg.
“What’s a teenage wench doin’ in our pirate crew,” he bellowed at the Captain.
“It’s a new millennium of piracy, McChickenbread. The lass stays.”
“You guys are some sorry pirates,” said Sarah and crossed her arms over her chest. “I thought we were going to be getting on some Stone Cold Pirate crime. But you guys are weak sauce, and I’m outta here.” Captain Longshanks could take no more.
“Now wait just a minute, young lady. Captain Redbeard Longshanks may not know a lot of things, but I knows piratin’! Arrrrg!” Captain Longshanks drew a slash in the air with the hand that would have been his hook hand if he had one, to emphasize his point. Sarah blew a bubble and popped it with her teeth.
“Alright crew, now open your intranet browser,” began the Captain confidently.
“Me whats,” asked Long John in a husky pirate brogue.
“Shiver me timbers, Long John! It’s the blue icon on yer desktop!”
Long John pulled out a cutlass and began probing the computer screen with it’s tip. Just when Captain Longshanks thought he could take no more, Sarah’s patience expired first, as she stepped forward to correct the situation – double-clicking on the internet browser icon.
“Next,” boomed the Captain, “you’re goin’ to install a BitTorrent download client. I prefers me uTorrent, but Azereus will do tha trick...”
“Can we steal our download client,” asked McChickenbeard hopefully.
“No,” said the Captain. “They be free of chaaarrrrrrge.”
“Well, I’m plunderin’ mine.”
“Do whatever makes you happy, McChickenbeard,” leveled the Captain, his headache growing by the mico-second. “After installin’ yer download client, you will scour the Seven Seas of Google for torrent files. Select a file, download it, then open the torrent in your download client. Then ya be piratin’ in no time, Yaarrrr!”
“Cap’n,” asked Long John, scatching his head. “What’d ya say to do after I opens me intranet browser?”
“Arrrg, Long John! Yer killin’ me here!”
“I guess I just don’t get the piratin’ appeal,” said Dollar McChickenbeard, boisterously challenging the Captain. “What are we doin’ here?”
“Lookin’ fer things to plunder, me matey! Like direct-to-video ‘American Pie’ sequels, or Soulja Boy’s newest musical effort.”
“So stuff that we wouldn’t pay fer in a million years?”
“Yarrr, that’s the ticket!”
“I’m just not convinced it’s pirate work,” said McChickenbeard firmly.
“Me either,” said Sarah while aimlessly burning a book of matches.
“But we’re infringin’ on copyrights! Yeearrrr!” The Captain made another hookless hand-slice through the air.
“But I don’t feel very villainous about it,” continued McChickenbeard. “It’s like a library card, ya know? If I borrow a book and read it, just because it’s free don’t make it a piratical thing to do.”
“You want piratical,” asked a red-faced Captain. “How ‘bout all the countless victims we ravage with one click of the mouse? The best boys, the gaffers, the set-builders and make-up artists! The money we don’t contribute would have otherwise lined their treasure chests!”
“Not necessarily true, Cap’n,” said McChickenbeard, holding his ground. “If ya belonged to the Netflix or Blockbuster Total Access programs, where you pay a flat monthly fee fer unlimited movie rentals, ya wouldn’t be payin’ the gaffer directly to see his movie then either. And that’s a legal thing to do.”
Captain Redbeard Longshanks furrowed his brow, wondering how his pirate logic could be so easily defeated. Sarah stood up suddenly, punched Long John in the face and stole his pirate hat. She exited.
“Hey, she stole my hat,” Long John exclaimed, looking around for help.
(Sat 01/19/2008 02:20am)
A HOT MESS 2: THE BOXER SHORT’S REVENGE
A Stageplay by Dalton
Ryan walks nervously across the stage, and accidentally bumps into Dillion. Dillion recognizes Ryan and stops him.
DILLION
Ryan? Is that you?
Ryan breaks free of Dillion’s grasp.
RYAN
You shouldn’t be talking to me, Dillion.
DILLION
It is you! And you look horrible. Jesus, Ryan, where have you
been? The papers are saying you’re dead–
RYAN
I don’t have time for this!
Ryan begins to exit.
DILLION
Wait! Where are you going?
RYAN
There’s something... after me. Inhuman. It doesn’t sleep.
DILLION
Are you sure you aren’t just imagining it?
Ryan, looks haggard, tired and bleary-eyed – like a meth head on a four-day bender, twitchy.
RYAN
I’ve seen it.
DILLION
You need sleep, Ryan.
RYAN
No! It comes when I sleep! I don’t know how it finds me, but it does!
Dillion grabs at his ass, pulling the underwear from between his crack.
DILLION
Damn it. Fucking wedgie.
Ryan suddenly looks grave, turns to Dillion with dead-seriousness.
RYAN
(uber-gravitas)
Did you just say (beat) wedgie?
DILLION
Yeah, these jeans are really tight–
RYAN
(dead serious)
Dillion. When is the last time you changed your underpants?
DILLION
I dunno. Like, (beat) what is today?
Ryan moves towards Dillion quickly, grabbing at the front of his pants. Dillion backs up.
DILLION (cont’d)
Whoa, hey!
Ryan lunges at his pants again.
RYAN
Dillion, we have to know!
Dillion catches Ryan's arms.
DILLION
Ryan, have some sense man–
Dillion does a quick body-jolt.
DILLION (cont’d)
Oh, damn.
RYAN
What?
Dillion’s body jolts again, more violently. Dillion’s face slackens, dead stare.
DILLION
(filled with dread)
Oh sheeiaat.
Musical Cue: “Psycho Theme”, or similar horror music.
Dillion’s body begins to wrench violently, his pelvis doing some exaggerated butt-clench/thrust. He shakes free of Ryan’s grip, Ryan stands back horrified. The butt-clench/thrust intensifies.
RYAN
Dillion!
Dillion turns around and we see a pair boxer shorts tugging up from the back of his pants, as if by an invisible hand.
DILLION
Aaaarrrggghhh!
RYAN
Dillion, nooooo!!!
Ryan runs to Dillion with his arms outstreched, but it’s too late. The boxer shorts hike up Dillion’s butt-crack hard. There is a LOUD RIPPING SOUND. Dillion grabs his ass with both hands, buckles, and falls to the floor in a heap.
Red spotlight on Dillion’s ass, with the boxer shorts blousing out of his pants.
BOXER SHORTS (v.o.)
(menacing southern drawl)
I told you I was comin’ fer ya, you suh-mu-ma-bitch!
Ryan falls to his knees, fists waving above of his head.
RYAN
Dillioooooon!!!!
BLACKOUT
(Thu 01/17/2008 03:42pm)
A HOT MESS
Stageplay by Dalton
Ryan – 19, Voice Over: dramatic, MSNBC-special narrator; On Stage: whacked out
Boxer Shorts – Since Last Christmas, grizzled old laborer
Lights up on left side of stage. Ryan is lying in bed wearing nothing more than boxer shorts, sweating profusely and squirming. Music Cue: Dramatic True-Crime music, like a MSNBC documentary – menacing and urgent.
RYAN (v.o.)
My name is Ryan, and the last time I shit my pants I was 19 years
old. This is my story. It begins the summer after high school, in
a slumland apartment I shared with my roommate Picard. He was at
work, and I was lying on my bed, half-stoned off weed and Robotussin,
in nothing but a pair of boxer shorts.
Lights down on Ryan. Lights up on right side of stage: a pair of grungy boxer shorts clothes-pinned to a chair.
BOXER SHORTS (v.o.)
You can call me Hanes, you can call me Calvin, or you can call me
retard – just don’t call me Fruit of the Loom, dammit. Cuz I ain’t no
fruit. It takes a man of conviction and strength to do this job. Someone
good under pressure, a thinker – I’m always in the hot seat. Hell,
I am the damned hot seat. (Beat.) What do you know about it? When’s
the last time you spent 63 hours hugging a man’s junk?
Lights down on Boxer Shorts. Lights up on Ryan in bed, restless, fighting sickness.
RYAN (v.o.)
I didn’t know it at the time, but I had a temperature of 103 degrees.
In retrospect, I was hallucinating mildly. Convinced my body was
a battlestation connected by pneumatic tubes to other battlestations
spread throughout the apartment – I feared the offensive my living
room had just launched. Collision imminent.
Onstage, Ryan lurches forward into a sitting position.
RYAN
Damn you upholstered fascists!
Ryan falls back into bed.
RYAN (v.o.)
Suddenly, I felt the peculiar need to crack one off. Half-stoned and
fighting a war against my furniture, I obliged.
Lights down on Ryan. Lights up on Boxer Shorts.
BOXER SHORTS
Something’s definitely wrong with my guy. He’s talking to himself
again. Wait, what was that? I thought I just heard (beat) a rumble.
All lights down. Suddenly, there is a gigantic WET FARTING NOISE. It is gratuitous. Lights up on Ryan, laying on his back with his legs in the air.
RYAN (v.o.)
The fart had went on for longer than I expected. Interestingly, it
brought with it a warm, lasting sensation in the seat of my –
Quck lights up on Boxer Shorts. Red flashing lights, squealing sirens.
BOXER SHORTS
–aaaarrgh! Defcon 5! I repeat, my guy has sharted!!–
Quick lights down on Boxer Shorts. Ryan remains on the bed, head lolling.
RYAN (v.o.)
The warm, lasting sensation began to pool in the seat of my underpants,
then, when my seat reached it’s capacity, there was an overflow–
Quick lights up on Boxer Shorts.
BOXER SHORTS
Oh christ, it’s leakin’! It’s fuckin’ leakin’! Goo!
Quick lights down on Boxer Shorts.
RYAN (v.o.)
As the warmness began to creep down my thighs, I knew there was
little time. I had four more inches of boxer short runway before
I was looking at an upgrade of shitting the bed. I had to act fast.
But half-stoned on ‘tussin and weed, I felt more like laying
there. That’s when he showed up...
The bedroom door is kicked open and Steve Wilkos emerges from the doorway, glaringly bald, carrying a microphone and a scowl. He looks down at Ryan with contempt.
STEVE WILKOS
What do ya think yuh doin’, tuff guy?
RYAN
Who are you?
STEVE WILKOS
I’m Steve Wilkos, ya jagoff.
RYAN
The bald guy from “Jerry Springer”?
STEVE WILKOS
No, da talk show host. You make me sick. Did you molest dose kids?
RYAN
What? No!
Steve Wilkos bends over and shoves his face inches away from Ryan’s.
STEVE WILKOS
You ‘ave da (beat.) AUDACITY (beat.) to come onto my show
and LIE TO ME?! Tell da truth! Did you molest dose kids?!?!
RYAN
No, Steve Wilkos! I swear! I don’t even know who you’re –
STEVE WILKOS
Den why are you ‘ere!?!
RYAN
I’m not sure. I shit myself, and it’s rolling down my leg.
STEVE WILKOS
Ya shit yourself?! You should be ashamed!
RYAN
What? Why?
Kim Cattrall walks into the room, looks down at Ryan and stifles laughter.
RYAN
Kim Cattrall from the 1987 film “Mannequin”?
KIM
That’s right. I was the cause of your very first boner.
STEVE WILKOS
A little ghost from bona’s past?
RYAN
What are you doing here?
STEVE WILKOS
She’s looking at how pathetic you are, tuff guy! Huh? You some
kinda tuff guy now? You a tuff guy now or somethin’?
RYAN
No, I’m not a tuff guy. I just shit my pants is all.
STEVE WILKOS
Yeah, dat’s right tuff guy, ya shit yuhself! And now Kim Cattrall, as
the corporeal manifestation of her fictional character from “Mannequin”
‘as seen ya layin’ in a pool ‘a ya own shit. But dat’s not all, tuff guy.
Jessica Rabbit emerges.
JESSICA RABBIT
I’m Jessica Rabbit from 1988 film “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?”
Years later, I would become the first woman you whacked off to.
RYAN
(disbelieving)
Really?
JESSICA RABBIT
Yes. And I can see that you’ve messed yourself.
STEVE WILKOS
And dat’s da kind of thing dat makes me (beat.) EXPLODE (beat.)
wit anguh! You disgust me, jagoff.
Lights down on Ryan, Steve, Jessica and Kim. Lights up on Boxer Shorts.
BOXER SHORTS
(weak, dying)
–Ryan (cough), for the love of cotton, you need to (cough, cough)
stand up. I’m (cough) I’m dying here. Goo!
Lights down on Boxer shorts. Lights up on bedroom. Ryan begins to stand. The others watch him with slight repulsion. Jessica Rabbit looks especially bored, checking her finger nails – like she’s got somewhere better to be. Kim Cattral has become a mannequin, frozen in some odd pose.
RYAN (v.o.)
And so, I stood, and did the Dirty Diaper Limbo to the can.
Ryan does the Dirty Diaper Limbo off of the stage. Steve Wilkos follows after him. Lights down on bedroom. Lights up on Boxer Shorts.
BOXER SHORTS
We’re in the bathroom. Way to go, buddy! Now get me to the sink.
before it’s too late... wait, what are you doing? Don’t put me in a
plastic grocery bag! Not after all we’ve been through! Ryaaanan!!!
MMmmmmmrrfffgggg!!!
Lights down on Boxer Shorts. Lights up on bedroom. Steve Wilkos helps Ryan walk back onto stage. Ryan is wearing a towel around his waist, and carrying a tied-off plastic grocery bag. Jessica Rabbit has split. Kim Cattrall is still a mannequin, frozen in a different pose.
STEVE WILKOS
I’m proud ‘a what you did here today. It’s tuff business, kid, but
you did it da Wilkos way!
RYAN
Thanks Steve Wilkos. Where should I toss this grocery bag?
STEVE WILKOS
(disgusted)
In da trash, ya heathen!
Steve helps Ryan lay down in bed and tucks him in. Then he picks up Kim Cattrall and leaves.
RYAN (v.o.)
And so it came to be that I threw the shit pants in the kitchen trash.
Half-stoned on ‘tussin and weed, I forgot about the whole thing
for two weeks. Until my roommate Picard noticed “the smell by the
sink”. (beat.) Took him two weeks, the nasty bastard.
Lights up on Boxer Shorts. Music Cue: Swelling, dramatic revenge music.
BOXER SHORTS
I’LL! BEEEE! BAAAAAAAACK!!!
BLACKOUT
(Wed 11/14/2007 01:11am)
It’s really tragic that David Copperfield turned out to be a creepy old perv, however inevitable that outcome has always been.
I think everyone goes through a stage when they want to become a magician, just like everyone dreams of being an astronaut or Bigfoot. For most, the phase lasts a couple weeks, or the lifetime of one cheaply purchased magic kit, but I held onto the dream a little harder than others. My pursuit of magic extended for years. Plural.
When you’re a kid and you want to be a magician, there isn’t a whole lot of competition out there for role models. (Although my hometown of Champaign had not one, but two, local magic heroes: novelty shop owner Andy Dallas, and the illusionist/meteorologist/your grandpa triple-threat, Keith Page.) In the early nineties, pickings were especially slim, as we had yet to experience the postmodern Magic Renaissance of David Blaine or the walking Pantene Pro-V commercial that is Criss Angel. I mean, yeah, we still had Siegfried and Roy back then – but I wasn’t aiming to be androgynous eurotrash with a tiger fetish. Or his secret gay lover.
When I was a kid, David Copperfield was it – the definition of modern magic cool. Who else did you turn to if you needed the entire freaking Statue of Liberty to disappear, then reappear, before the 10 o’ clock news? The man was legendary, and he dated Claudia Schiffer to prove it.
During those years, I caught Copperfield’s act twice in Champaign. At one of those shows, Copperfield vanished from onstage and reappeared seconds later, no more than fifteen feet from where I was sitting. That cemented his excellency in my eyes. So, on a personal level, it’s kind of disheartening to learn that at that defining moment in my adolescence, Copperfield was really just trying to mack on the chick sitting next to me.
As you have probably heard: Last month, David Copperfield’s Las Vegas warehouse was raided by the FBI, in connection with a rape charge filed against him in Seattle. Allegedly, Copperfield invited a young woman that he singled out during a performance, to attend a “party” on his private islands in the Bahamas. (These are the same islands that, in August of 2006, David Copperfield publically claimed to contain the Fountain of Youth. Which, to me, seems like the better pickup line.) When the woman arrived at his island, she found the “party” had invitations only for two. When she asked to leave, Copperfield allegedly refused and held the woman against her will.
Since the news broke, other women have been coming out of the woodwork to accuse Copperfield of similar creepiness, and a modus operandi has emerged: Copperfield allegedly uses his stage crew to scope chicks in the audience before his shows, invites the hottest one to assist with an illusion during the show, then brings her backstage afterwards for a “meet and greet” session, during which Copperfield spits mad rich-guy game. In the most entertaining of these stories, the women were married and had been sitting next to their husbands all night.
The majority of people seem surprised to learn that Copperfield has been using his live show to score chicks. I’m not. About the only thing a magic trick is good for, besides impressing your six-year old niece, is breaking the ice. So this was a natural progression of the art.
What’s creepy to me is that Copperfield invites his prey onstage to assist him during a very specific illusion. If you’ve seen any David Copperfield television special, you know exactly the trick I’m talking about, because it’s in all of them – it’s the one he does with his shirt almost fully unbuttoned. Even as a kid, I remember wincing just a little at the forced smolder of his sexuality – with the choreographed slow-motion performance, the cheesy Enya-porn music that underscores it, and that Copperfield attempts the whole thing while looking like the cover of a Harlequin romance novel, minus the physique.
I’m sad that we have to live in a world where David Copperfield is now your friend’s creepy dad that shows up to your keg party, uninvited, dressed in penny loafers and a silk kimono. This is a childhood icon we’re talking about. Can’t we go back to the days when he foiled a mugger from stealing his wallet and passport by using slight of hand? That’s the crafty, quick-on-his-feet type of David Copperfield I want to remember.
But this is not my first disillusionment, if you will, with the world of magic. Which should not be at all surprising, considering magicians are total freaks.
To want be a magician, you’ve got to have a really weird and specific type of psychology that’s equal parts loner, secret-hoarder and exhibitionist. On top of that, you’ve got to have big hands. It’s a tough bracket to break into, numbers-wise, and once you’re in there, you’ve still got to have an extra dab of crazy and self-loathing to stick it out and pay the ego-crushing dues that children’s birthday parties and Best Western lounges afford.
And even then, after you have given your life over to it completely, and endured decades of ridicule that didn’t even have to happen – the best you can hope for is David Copperfield? That equation is fucked. And now it’s double-fucked.
Which is why I will never meet a happy magician.
I took a summer school class in magic at a community college when I was twelve. The guy who taught the class was a notable local magician, but had the unfortunate, career-crippling curse of living in Champaign and not being Andy Dallas or Keith Page. This made him a pretty angry guy, and he didn’t take any measures to hide it. One day, teacher brings in his son to perform a trick where he escapes from riot cuffs. After the “wows” of the prepubescent class died down, I made the mistake of asking how he did it.
“What do you want from me,” he screamed, throwing a loose deck of cards into the air. “I’ve taught you everything I know! Card tricks! Coin tricks! Now you want my bread and butter too?!” And then he promptly stormed out of the classroom, leaving his son standing in front of us in a pale shock.
Years later, my friend Maverick would befriend this guy named Dan the Magic Man, who Maverick would occasionally suggest had taken him on as an apprentice. The only time I met Dan the Magic Man, he seemed tragically depressed. Having gone prematurely bald, he grimaced under a scruffy coat of stubble, with cigarette burning at his lips, the smoke billowing into the brim of his cap, pulled low, while he clutched a pint of cheap beer. All night, Dan the Magic Man sat at a table in the back of the bar, shuffling a deck of cards in one hand, looking dour, and sipping his beer cynically while people prompted by Maverick asked to see tricks. He would belch, comply, and pretend not to care. And he made my nine of clubs appear on the ceiling of the bar.
But, at the end of the night, even he couldn’t make his tab disappear. Or, I suspect, his issues.
