Brentt Harshman

I feel like there’s always been this sort of stigma attached to the idea of monogamous...

Sun, 19 May 2013 13:58:00 -0400

I feel like there’s always been this sort of stigma attached to the idea of monogamous relationships. While you’re young you should avoid them at all costs. Just have random sex and hookups, enjoy your life. I never got that.

I grew up on The Wonder Years reruns and Boy Meets World and Doug. I grew up watching shitty romantic comedies of the 90’s and 00’s. I grew up wanting to find what all of these characters were finding. Love. I grew up wanting that more than anything. As I matured, it became impossible for me not to see something in every girl I met. Every five minute friendship with someone of the opposite sex inevitably led to me over romanticizing them. Over analyzing them.

And I’m supposed to feel like the bad guy? For wanting something every story tells us to want? I’m told by peers that I should just be looking to sleep around. To fool around. I don’t get that, I never have.

I’d much rather fall in love every five minutes only to be let down than feel the guilt and shame attached to randomness and anonymity any day.

This post was fueled by a conversation with coworkers who tried to make me feel like an idiot for wanting something more than nothing.

paleofuture: Paleofuture Joins Gizmodo

Sun, 19 May 2013 12:00:23 -0400

paleofuture:

Paleofuture Joins Gizmodo

Audio

Sun, 19 May 2013 08:26:16 -0400

designstroy: Lou Brooks

Sat, 18 May 2013 15:21:51 -0400

designstroy:

Lou Brooks

III. September 20th, 1984 Seattle, Washington The setlist for September 20th, 1984 was as...

Sat, 18 May 2013 10:30:16 -0400

III.

September 20th, 1984

Seattle, Washington

The setlist for September 20th, 1984 was as follows:

Breakthrough
Terrible, Terrible

Glades

Shake Up

Amsterdam

Turn Out

Survive

Walk

Can’t Do This Forever

Green paint barely stuck to the reinforced concrete walls of the Moore Theater green room anymore. Carlton Westwood, Debaser’s rhythm guitarist, sunk into the sofa that sat in the far end of the room, smoking a joint. Carlton had quit smoking pot about three years ago, citing it as the root of all his anxieties and paranoia. Carlton picked up the habit just as quickly as he dropped it, unable to play a show without first getting stoned. He hated himself for it. He sat there, melting into the brown cushions of the sofa, inhaling drag after drag off the end of his joint, thinking about the riffs he didn’t want to fuck up. The constant fear of losing it all. He watched the joint as its embered end consumed itself until there was nothing left of it but the light headed, fuzzy feeling that took over Carlton.

The green paint, chipped and faded, a constant reminder to the intoxicated Carlton Westwood that everything dies. Everything disappears into the horrifying bottomless pit of irrelevance. Everything.

It didn’t help that, right before tour started, Candi Simmons ended things with Carlton. Candi, the feminist blogger from Canada. Candi, the girl in the oversized Debaser shirt that she turned into a dress at a show in Toronto the year before. The girl with the blue hair. With the freckled nose and the crooked smile. Candi, the only girl Carlton ever felt comfortable around. Candi, the first girl to ever break Carlton’s heart. Bullshit.

Carlton watched his life disintegrate from a third person perspective. Like an out of body experience. He saw himself eat less healthy, drink far more often, start smoking pot again. He watched himself become everything about life on the road he hated. Inconsistent and uncaring. He saw himself aimlessly float through his day to day. He was just off in the background. Just that other guitarist from Debaser.

He became everything he hated: just a shadow behind the frontman.

So, he sat in the Moore Theater green room, smoking his third joint of the day, wishing he could just escape. Break out. He wished he could just man up and get over it. He saw Donny and Steven and Keith all having girl after girl after girl on tour and it not destroying their moral fibers. He even saw Tyler, the self-proclaimed hopelessly hopeless romantic example of serial monogamy, sample girls from across the country.

He didn’t get it.

The Moore Theater was a historic venue attached to the also historic Moore Hotel, extremely spacious and beautifully extravagant. Backstage, a long hall dotted with numerous dressing rooms ran from wall to wall, the concrete floor spotted with water stains. In any one of those dressing rooms, Keith Thompson was probably snorting a line with some fan. In another, Donny Paulson was probably trying to find some way to overcompensate and make up for the fact that he was only the bassist of Debaser. Tyler Rhodes and Steven Dickens were probably both already making out with various girls. Carlton Westwood was imbedded into an old, dusty sofa, lost in his despair and self-loathing.

The record player in the corner of the green room was playing Elvis Presley’s “Heartbreak Hotel.”

Tyler Rhodes was tired; he had been on the road for what felt like years, without much rest, and all he wanted to do was sleep. Fall into some bed, close his eyes, and lose himself in a never ending slumber. It’s not that he wanted to die, and he wasn’t in one of those modes where he truly believed his life was shit—he knew he lived a good life. He knew that he was fortunate, luckier than all the other people he knew his age. He knew he shouldn’t take all of this for granted. He knew a lot of things but that didn’t mean he listened to his better judgment. He was human.

Warm water shot out of Tyler Rhodes’s dressing room’s rusty shower faucet, flowing and cascading down his body; this was the first shower he had indulged in since the tour started. Night after night, venue after venue, it got harder and harder to find basic human necessities. Food, water, shelter, compassion. Night after night, thousands of strangers screaming words he wrote back at him, something he could never get used to.

No matter how many state lines he crossed and how many records they sold, Tyler Rhodes would never be content, complacent, or comfortable. He would turn the radio on and lose himself to The Clash or Joy Division or The Who. Burying himself in sound.

All of that negative energy, aside from making him feel restless, heightened his creative hunger. Even though he was exhausted, Tyler Rhodes wanted nothing more than to write a song, a book, a play. He wanted to climb the Empire State Building and spray paint a giant smiley face across its facade. He wanted to do something. Something to distract him from his completely empty heart. From the void that laid inside of him. Tyler Rhodes had become a husk of a human being and he hated that.

After a fourth joint, Carlton Westwood decided he had to get out of his suffocating green room. He had to talk to someone, anyone. He needed to clear his mind. He needed another joint.

Rusted pipes lined the corridor’s ceiling, hot water dripping out of them splashing to the tiny puddles on the cement floor below. Droplets of boiling hot water, barely missing Carlton’s head on their descent.

Each of the dark wooden doors that led to the ten dressing rooms were numbered with old mailbox numbers, nailed through the cheap lumber. Each of these doors led to a bandmate of Carlton’s. Each of these doors acted as a barrier between the two. Running his fingers through his shaggy, tangled hair, Carlton paced up and down the corridor’s entirety four times before he decided to knock on Tyler’s door.

“Hey, Carl,” Tyler said as he pulled the door open just enough to reveal his face. “What’s up, buddy?”

Guilt and disgust immediately flowed through all of Carlton’s veins. His heart sat in his throat, making it hard for him to breathe and for him to speak.

“I need to get out of here, man,” Carlton said, each word seeming more impossible to say. “There’s a bookshop and cafe a short walk from here. I think I’m going there.”

“I’ll join you.”

The walk from the Moore Theater to The Seattle Book And Bean was short, only marred by a light sprinkling of rain, and neither man said much of anything. Their relationship had always been a short, quiet one, both men being slightly shy and self-conscious. They knew where they stood with one another, and that it was a good place, and they didn’t feel the need to overcomplicate things with words and stories. Back in Brooklyn, the two would frequent shitty Park Slope bars on Fourth Avenue, barely uttering a syllable to one another.

They were completely comfortable.

A short girl with blue eyes and green hair spread her attention between the cashier station and the espresso machine. Simultaneously taking orders and frothing milk, counting money and pulling shots. Her voice was high pitched and swift. On her left shoulder, a tattoo of an owl peeked out from the cut off sleeves of her Led Zeppelin t-shirt. The counter in front of her was cluttered with books, empty coffee mugs, a jar full of biscotti, and tape cassettes. White stickers were carelessly placed on each of the tapes, black ink labeling them as “Diner Cops: The Demo”.

“Is Diner Cops a local band?” Tyler asked, fiddling with one of the tapes.

“My boyfriend’s. They’re cool — like, The Cure with hints of Pink Floyd. Those are free,” the girl with green hair said as she poured fluffy milk foam into a paper cup, over a shot of espresso.

“We’ll make sure to listen to them,” Carlton was too distracted, watching the girl hand the coffee drink to a fat, black man wearing a denim jacket and corduroy pants.

“Did you guys come in here only to get a free tape of an alright band?”

“Give me a small, black cup of coffee,” Tyler said.

“I’ll take one of those, too,” Carlton said.

From across the cafe, seated behind a hard oak table covered in books and magazines, the two bandmates silently watched the cashier interact with customers. The way her green hair would stick to her forehead and the way she had to fix the collar of her t-shirt every ten minutes. Tyler and Carlton sat there, pretending to read books they cared nothing about, covertly observing the girl.

The way she counted and recounted her tips after every customer.

“I fucking miss Candi,” Carlton finally said after thirty minutes of somberness. “I fucked up. I did. She asked me to skip tour. Her dad was in the hospital and she asked me to stay and I didn’t. I told her that Debaser comes first. I’m a fucking jerk off, man.”

“Jesus,” Tyler placed his cup of coffee, now cold, onto the table in front of him. He held his forehead with his right index finger and thumb, his elbow propped on the table, and stared directly into Carlton’s eyes. Past them.

“This whole tour, I’ve felt my life swiftly become a mess. I’ve seen myself alienate fans, drink myself to sleep, eat shitty food. I’ve started smoking pot again, and like really smoking it. I’m a mess. I need to get back to Brooklyn and patch things up with Candi.”

“The tour is another two months, Carl. We can’t go on without you. I’m toughing it out and trying to forget about Susan.”

“That waitress from Wichita? No offense but that isn’t the same as this. My girlfriend of a year’s dad was in the hospital after having a stroke and I bailed out on being there for her, you fell in love with another random girl you’ll never see again.”

“Yeah.”

The two fell into an uncomfortable silence, underlined by the sound of milk being frothed behind the counter and Christine by Siouxsie And The Banshees played from a record player in the corner of the store. The girl with green hair, the cashier, counted her tips again. She was still at thirty dollars.

“It’s just,” Carlton said, “you don’t get it. You’re the star. You could walk into any bar in any city in any country across the globe and make any girl fall for you without having to say anything. I’m just your shadow. I wasn’t always your shadow, but I am now.”

“You aren’t my shadow.”

“Bullshit I’m not. Everywhere we go, every venue we play, people only care about you. Sometimes they kind of look at Keith, but that’s a rarity. People only want Tyler Rhodes. Girls only want Tyler Rhodes. When I met Candi, I was expecting that. I was expecting her to ask me to introduce the two of you. I was expecting for another beautiful girl to fall victim to the devilishly handsome, satanically charming Tyler Rhodes. She never asked that. Instead, she asked to hang out with me. To go to the park with her. To grab a drink with her. Anything and everything, Candi was enthusiastic about doing that with me. Then she asks me to be there for her when she’s a wreck and I say no. Now, the great and mighty Tyler Rhodes is comparing my self-created heartbreak with his over romanticising of a random girl he met. Fuck you, man.”

“Jesus, Carl. I’m sorry.”

“Yeah.”

No matter how many times she counted and no matter how many customers she took care of, the girl with green hair, the cashier, she never had more than thirty bucks. Her face never changed from a disappointed frown to a slightly alright smile.

“Why don’t you ever smile?” Tyler leaned over the counter, over the mess of cassette tapes and coffee cups, and asked the cashier.

“I don’t never smile,” she said. “I do smile. I just have no reason to smile now. I also don’t have to smile to make you happy.”

“Is something wrong?” Tyler asked.

“Not that I want to go into with you.”

“Do you know who I am?”

“You’re Tyler Rhodes. You fucked my roommate last summer when you guys passed through town.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Sorry.”

“Debaser is good and all, but I have no interest in knowing you. You’re an animal.”

“Why do you constantly check your tips?”

“I’m trying to get out of here,” the girl with the green hair and the owl tattoo sighed. “Out of Seattle. Out of the USA.”

“Why?”

“I hate it here. I’m miserable. I want adventure and I want mystery and I want romance. I want to see the world and realize I’m not that important. I want to see what struggle is like.”

Without saying a word, after watching Tyler and the cashier chat it up and after having to defend his misery to somebody he thought was his friend, Carlton Westwood slipped out the store’s front door and headed back, trudging slowly through the light September rain, to the Moore Theater.

How could Tyler be so thoughtless, Carlton thought. So selfish. Sure, he’s the frontman of a pretty popular pop band. Sure he’s handsome. These don’t make it okay for somebody to be such a dickhead, though. How could he not be empathetic enough to realize I was…I am…in such pain. Fuck Tyler Rhodes. Fuck Debaser. Fuck fame.

Carlton walked past the venue, past the hotel, past the van. He followed his heart and let it carry him across town. His right foot followed his left foot followed his right followed his left. He walked and walked until he arrived at the Seattle Greyhound station. It was 5:45 in the evening on September 20th, 1984 and Carlton Westwood, rhythm guitarist of Debaser was purchasing a one-way ticket back to New York City. That night, Debaser played a twelve song set without a rhythm guitarist. That night, at 9:35, Debaser stabbed one of their oldest friends directly in the back.

Everyone is an asshole at some point.

Photo

Fri, 17 May 2013 21:59:26 -0400

sequentialmadness: butcherbilly: The Post-Punk / New Wave...

Fri, 17 May 2013 21:15:49 -0400

sequentialmadness:

butcherbilly:

The Post-Punk / New Wave Super Friends by Butcher Billy

Click here to get art prints and t-shirts at society6.

TAKE MY MONEY NOW

My birthday is August 18th…feel free to buy all of these for me…

Do yourself a favor and watch this video of Kevin Devine...

Fri, 17 May 2013 16:50:26 -0400

Do yourself a favor and watch this video of Kevin Devine performing “11-17”

mattandbetsydomusic: Matt & Betsy Do Music- May 16th...

Fri, 17 May 2013 16:25:36 -0400

mattandbetsydomusic:

Matt & Betsy Do Music- May 16th 2013

This is the best show going on right now.

In

Fri, 17 May 2013 09:44:09 -0400

This song.

Tue, 14 May 2013 20:37:43 -0400

This song.

This song (and entire album) is incredible. I’m beginning...

Tue, 14 May 2013 19:34:58 -0400

This song (and entire album) is incredible. I’m beginning to think that, in music, Kevin Devine is infallible.

Photo

Tue, 14 May 2013 08:59:42 -0400

The Wedding: a short story by brentt harshman

Mon, 13 May 2013 00:45:11 -0400

The room is cold as Peter walks the thirty foot ramp between the chapel entrance and the altar, this is his night but it isn’t about him. It’s about her. It’s always about her. Anna and her periwinkle eyes. Anna and her long, flowing white dress. Anna and her deep, red lips. This was never supposed to be about Peter Sharpling. Peter and his bloodied lips. Peter and his disheveled black tie and torn up suit. Peter Sharpling, the idiot.

Peter Sharpling was always the definition of a pacifist. Coward. Always the first one to walk the long way home in order to avoid conflict. His first, and only, fight was in sixth grade when some bully cornered him in the boy’s bathroom. What else was he supposed to do? Sit there and get the shit kicked out of him? Not defend himself? After that, Peter avoided anything and everything at all costs. He missed out on the most formative years of his life due to fear.

Peter Sharpling doesn’t deserve to be in this wedding. With Anna. Peter and his swollen, black and blue eyes. Peter Sharpling deserves to be somewhere else. Somewhere far, far away. Canada. Kansas. Kalamazoo. Peter and his cut up knuckles. Peter doesn’t deserve Anna.

Peter Sharpling is a loose cannon. All his life, bottling up every emotion and fear and thought. All his life, heartbreak after heartbreak, always afraid to talk about them. To do anything about them. It was only a matter of time before Peter exploded. Lashed out. It was only a matter of time before everything faded into a burning white ball of rage and anger. It was only a matter of time before Peter Sharpling, that devil in a suit, destroyed something. That selfish jerk.

Anna, standing in the bride’s room — in a circle of bridesmaids and mothers and nieces — more beautiful than ever in her all-white everything; of course she’d be startled when the door bursts open, almost exploding off its hinges to reveal her fiance, the shitbag Peter Sharpling, standing there, staring at her, in his eradicated suit, panting and sweating profusely. This was never supposed to be about Peter, but I guess we’ll go ahead and change the plan. We always do.

“What’s the matter?” Anna asked through the chaotic circle of her wedding party. Over shrieks and shrills given off by her bridesmaids, aimed at Peter.

“It’s a mess. A disaster,” that dickhole Peter said.

Peter and the giant gash across the entirety of his forehead, gushing blood all over Anna’s white dress. Always stealing focus.

“What happened to you?” Anna faked as much sincerity and heart as she could muster.

“It,” the idiot stuttered, “it, I. I don’t know. I blanked. I. Oh, god. Anna. Shit. Shit. Shit.”

Let’s just jump back a bit here.

The morning was chilly, a brisk wind blowing across the meadows of Redsky, New Jersey, as Peter went out for his ritualistic morning run. The cattails that line the water waving back and forth in the breeze. Peter’s heart was in his throat, he had wanted to marry Anna Sullivan for fifteen years, since he was eleven and she was ten, and finally he was going to do just that. Peter Sharpling was finally seeing all his dreams come true. He just bought his dream apartment in the city, was about to take the hand of the girl he’d longed for since he was a kid, and, unbeknownst to Anna, they were about to spend a week in Greece. Also unbeknownst to Anna, Peter had just accepted a promotion at his office, production manager. Everything was lining up perfectly. So perfectly that, while David Bowie’s “Diamond Dogs” played through his sky blue earbuds, he didn’t notice the highway ahead of him slowly disappearing, being replaced by more and more meadowland.

Peter kept running, unaware that the land ahead of him was slowly turning back to what it once was. Uncultivated, unharvested, unmolested. Natural beauty at its most terrifying. Peter ran and ran, his sweat bleeding out of every open pore. His heart pounding like a hammer against his ribcage. It wasn’t until Bowie belted out, “Beware of the Diamond Dogs,” that Peter’s gaze lifted from his feet to the vast empty meadows ahead of him. The land slowly expanding closer and closer towards him. Mother nature taking back what she created, one acre at a time.

Peter and his total lack of self-awareness.

The idiot, instead of turning around and running back to the Sheraton the wedding party was staying at, he just stared into the wetlands. The cattails now swaying faster and faster, reacting to a wind that was building in intensity. Dust and dirt and water, all being kicked up and carried by the wind, minimizing Peter’s field of view. The dummy, after a minute of dumbfoundedness, finally turned around and started running back towards the hotel. The miles of open highway leading to the Sheraton, empty and disappearing. The clouds of sand, dust and water devouring more and more of Peter’s life.

Then everything disappeared. Blackness. Void.

Then Peter Sharpling was awake in an abandoned, desolate, demolished church. The floorboards and pews and altar; all the wood of everything, rotting and wet. Everything smelled ancient, the way an old library book smells when it’s opened for the first time in decades. Redsky had turned completely on its head in an instant.

Peter scanned the long dead room, cobwebs covering the wood beams that lined the high ceiling, searching for something that could give him any clue as to where he was. Why he was no longer in his running shorts, tank top and shoes and, rather, in a full suit.

Peter and his complete lack of self-awareness.

Peter Sharpling brought this on himself.

There was a girl in a blue sundress and yellow ballet flats sitting in one of the rotten pews, reading Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland. She sat there, almost completely unaware of Peter’s presence. She remained silent and still; her only motions being when her big, blue oceans of eyes darted across the pages or her tiny, bony fingers flipped the pages. Page after page, minute after minute, The Girl In The Blue Dress ignored Peter’s existence. Did Peter even ever exist?

“It’s truly an incredible journey, isn’t it?” The girl asked, as if to an old friend.

“Me?” Peter asked, rummaging both his hands around his coat pockets.

“No, the cat.”

“Where am I?”

“You’re in The Void. Population, us.”

“How old are you?”

“By now, probably fifty-six. I know, I age extremely well.”

The girl, who appeared to be no older than twelve, flipped through the book, page after page, until she was at the end. She turned the book back to the front page and started over. We do nothing but repeat ourselves.

“Well, Miss,” that dumb idiot, Peter, said, “I have a wedding tonight. In Redsky, New Jersey. Not in The Void. How do I get back to Redsky?”

“It’s a cycle. We always repeat ourselves. We never learn. We never learn.”

Wind blew through every hole in the wooden wall and every crack in the faded, dirt-stained windows of the church, shaking cobwebs and dust loose from the rafters above. Peter and his size elevens, slowly approached The Girl In The Blue Dress, squinting to see through the dust in the air.

“Well, I wish I could help,” Peter said as he sat down next to the girl, “but my wife-to-be is probably worried sick about me.”

“There’s no escaping The Void. You just learn to live here.”

“I don’t believe that. Every place has an entrance and an exit.”

“How did you get here?”

“I,” Peter thought long and hard but, because he’s a huge dumb-dumb, he couldn’t think of anything. “I don’t know. I was running along the highway, along the meadow, and then I was here.”

“Entrances and exits aren’t as simple as entrances and exits. A portals only a portal if it actually leads you to where you want to go.”

“So, I’m trapped?”

“Think of it less as being trapped here and more as forced to live here.”

“In my case, they sound like two different ways of saying the same thing.”

Page after page until the book is finished, The Girl In The Blue Dress scans her eyes across every word. Absorbing everything.

“Can you shut that thing and help me out here,” the monster known as Peter screamed as he put his hands over the girl’s copy of Alice. “Please.”

The book hit the decomposed floorboards of the church with a loud thud.

“We always repeat ourselves,” The Girl In The Blue Dress said, reaching her tiny claw-like hands over to Peter’s veiny throat.

Peter and his stupid, skinny black tie and his stupid black suit and his stupid everything.

All ten of the girl’s fingers, ice cold and nails as sharp as a falcon’s talons, now pressing deeper and deeper into Peter Sharpling’s neck.

“No,” Peter squeezed out of his compressed throat. “Get off me, you witch.”

The Girl In The Blue Dress clutched her hands tighter across the bastard’s esophagus, her nails digging deep into his skin forcing blood to ripple out of him. The Monster struck The Girl In The Blue Dress, knocking all seventy-three pounds of her onto the dirty, dusty, putrescent floor like a sack of potatoes.

Peter Sharpling, the pacifist.

Peter Sharpling, the bottled up psycho.

Peter Sharpling, doomed.

“No matter where you go, you’re bound to wind up here, Peter Sharpling,” The Girl In The Blue Dress said from the ground, wiping blood from her mouth.

And Peter Sharpling ran. He ran and he ran and he ran until there was nothing else to do but ran. Through fields of dead sugarcane, the rugged stalks cutting through his suit and his skin. He ran and he ran, his lungs burning a fire he’d never felt before. He ran and he ran, no noticing the rusted stop sign planted in the middle of the sugar field. Not until his face collided with the metal octagon, being eaten away by iron oxides.

All of everything, erased.

This was never supposed to be about him but we’ve already spent so much time on him.

We always repeat ourselves.

Peter Sharpling and his cut and throbbing forehead, lying face up in a field of sugarcane. The sign above him saying exactly what he wish would happen to this nightmare.

Stop.

In the distance, the husk of a skyscraper sits silhouetted by the setting sun behind it, a murder of crows or ravens or some other evil bird flying around its decrepit spire. This is where cities go to die. The Void.

Peter Sharpling, the dumb idiot. The asshole. The dickbag. He got up and he ran. He ignored the inevitable threat of tetanus. Sweat and blood and dirt covering every inch of his tattered body. Peter Sharpling ran and ran toward the tall, dark, dead tower. Toward the birds. Toward the only life he could see in this God forsaken place.

There was a tractor trailer, abandoned, flipped over on a long stretch of potholed highway. The trailer acted as a centerpiece for a long-since-deserted makeshift camp of other abandoned vehicles, fastened together with whatever wood, sheet metal and other supplies that whoever could find.

Where did these things go?

Peter ran and ran, until he tripped into a pothole, landing face first. When he ran his fingers over his lip, he pulled away to see his fingertips were stained a deep crimson. He was cut all over, blood mixing with sweat mixing with dirt, he needed help. He needed out.

Peter Sharpling, ever the attention hog.

Peter Sharpling, always making stories up as a way to garner attention.

Peter Sharpling, the monster.

The base of the tower was a plaza, marred by debris from the spire that loomed above it. All marble and empty pools where fountains used to be, Peter limped his way slowly through the demolished urban court, towards the hole in the facade. The makeshift entrance.

Candles lit the entirety of the lobby, melted wax and flickering flames everywhere. A stairwell sat off to the east of the building, climbing all eighty-two floors, and Peter slowly worked his way up each and every step. The sky outside getting darker and darker. The number of birds growing and growing. The wind picking up.

This place, Peter thought to himself, is pure evil.

As Peter stepped out from the dark, unlit stairwell into the lobby of the 82nd floor, he felt something. Something familiar. It crept like a cold chill up his spine, covering his body with goosebumps. He felt at home. Peaceful. At ease. A bright, fluorescent light lit up a door window a few meters from Peter, the shadow of a man stood in the light.

Peter Sharpling and his pacifist’s fists knocked on the door and the man’s shadow stirred within. Peter could hear a shuffling of feet inside, he could see the man going from corner to corner of the room, he could smell something burning.

“Hello,” I yelled as the fluorescent light in the window died out, being replaced by the bright orange and yellow of open fire. “Are you alright?”

I, Peter Sharpling, always so worried about myself that I’m incapable of seeing what is right there.

We’re doomed to repeat ourselves.

As my fists rapped on the door another couple times, the door became hot to the touch. The shadow man was no longer anywhere to be seen.

I’m such an idiot.

I’m such a monster.

I hit a child. Sure, she said she was fifty-six, but she was a twelve year old. There was no way she was any older than fourteen. I hit her, knocking her to the ground in a cold thud. I hit a child. I…

A lick of a flame burst out the glass window on the door, knocking me back a few steps into the hall. At the edge of the corridor, a disintigrated hole on the wall, a murder of crows sat perched, regurgitating worms into one another’s mouths. A voice came from, I don’t know, somewhere, told me to run. To jump. So I did. I ran to the edge, looking over the dark plaza below. The sugar fields. The church, way off in the distance. The turned over vehicles. Acres and acres of earth, kidnapped and doomed to spend eternity in The Void.

So Peter Sharpling, the dumb idiot, the stupid shithole, he ran down the corridor and jumped to the ground below.

Then he woke up in the groom’s waiting room, being fanned by his best man. Still bloodied. Still bruised. Still tore apart. Then he ran here, as quickly as possible. Now I’m here.

I, Peter Sharpling, am incredibly sorry. This was never supposed to be about me but, I guess, it truly was. It always was. I’m sorry. Me and my dumb face and feet and body, all disgusting. Bleeding all over you, Anna, whom I don’t deserve. I’m a monster. I’m awful. I’m sorry.

Most importantly, we’ve got work to do.

WRITING: DONE. Wrote 2,535 words. Finished: a short story, The...

Sun, 12 May 2013 22:02:30 -0400

WRITING: DONE.

Wrote 2,535 words.

Finished: a short story, The Wedding.

How I Feel: happy, accomplished, excited

Audio

Sun, 12 May 2013 20:10:16 -0400

Writing. Soundtrack: Kevin Devine’s incredible 2009 album...

Sun, 12 May 2013 19:43:20 -0400

Writing.

Soundtrack: Kevin Devine’s incredible 2009 album “Brother’s Blood.”

What I’m Working On: A short story entitled “The Wedding.”

Goal: 1,000 words OR whatever I can get done by 10pm.

Where: The Bean, NYC

The Best Moment In Improv

Sun, 12 May 2013 08:34:47 -0400

is when you feel totally and completely supported. Like, you feel that no matter what you do, every person up there with you is going to blow out every move you make, say yes to every line you say. It’s sadly a rare thing to feel.

Last night, I had one of those sets where it felt like EVERYTHING was important. Everything got the attention it deserved, every person contributed their own flavor and worked together to brighten every note that one another contributed. It was the most supported I’ve felt in quite some time while in an improv set. It was a mash-up group, thrown together that day by Kim Parker.

Kim Parker, Matt Harkins, Kelly Harper, Mitch Fesh and I. The host team named us Barbarossa. Our suggestion was procrastinate. Every scene was fun, silly, supportive, patient and (at least somewhat) grounded. There was also plenty of Revolutionary War stuff thrown into the mix, which also heightens my feelings towards the set because that’s my favorite era in history.

Basically, when you get on that stage — regardless of whether it’s with a team you practice with, a mashup group, or a jam set — make sure you do everything in your power to support one another and make your team feel comfortable. It makes all the difference in the world.

Barbarossa rules.

This is the best cover song ever recorded.

Sun, 12 May 2013 08:23:00 -0400

This is the best cover song ever recorded.

Come see this handsome devil do improv for the first time...

Sat, 11 May 2013 19:58:28 -0400

Come see this handsome devil do improv for the first time without a beard since August last year, tonight at 9:30 in the basement of Triple Crown.