Hey! Check out a video I shot over the weekend. It’s a silly little web series about the world’s worst superheroes. In this first episode, Super Jerry finds out exactly what happens to someone who get’s bitten by a radioactive spider. And it ain’t getting a popular movie franchise.

Check it out here.

Also, subscribe to the site where I’ll put posting video/audio comedy pieces right here

Just wanted to take a moment to pimp out the second episode of a storytelling podcast I edit and help produce for local book publishing company, The Head and the Hand. The Work Stead Story Salon is a great show, which features stories being told in a really casual setting. It’s like people just sitting around a dinner table telling stories as they come to mind.

This episode’s theme is religion and is aptly named “A Priest and a Rabbi Walk Into a Bar…” The final story will blow you away. Check it out!

Listen here.

Illustration by Kathleen Foley

I am medium height, medium weight with brown eyes and brown hair. I am built from carbon, iron, oxygen and average facts. But there is one fact about me that is rather unsettling: I’m going to die today.

The Black Angel has picked up my scent and is nipping at my ankles. To think- I’m only 27-years-old, and her teeth would send me to the Ferry Man so soon. I’m too young to worry about whether or not I’ll be reincarnated as an insect; too young to knock on the gates of Heaven. This is something I’d like to avoid at all cost, especially, when I can’t even decide on which version of religion I want to believe.

I must admit. I’m rather pissed at Death. It has an endless supply of food, for we all go at some point. That’s fine. That’s the natural symptom of being alive. But it’s its insatiable hunger that angers me. No matter the hundreds of thousands of people who die every single day, no matter how consistently fat its belly, it always begs for more, and you never know when one of us will be its stolen-treat before dinner. No matter what. My cat acts the same way- crying for treats not five seconds after feeding her a second helping.

I sit here pondering other similarities between Death and Mittens, and whether or not my life can be spared if I point a water bottle at Death. It’s a few seconds before an outside voice breaks through my thoughts.

“Mr. Stevens?” It starts to come into focus. “Tom, are you okay?”

“Sorry,” I tell my doctor. I shut down my mind’s morbid eye, and take in my surroundings, again. I’m sitting on a table at my doctor’s office. One of those backless gowns drapes my body. There’s not a subconscious bone in me about this. I’ve been here too many times by now.

“Daydreaming?” Dr. Pascal asks.

“Is Day-nightmaring a thing?” I respond, the smirk on my lips trying to mask the desperation in my eyes.

“Hm, I assume that it’s come back then?”

My mouth doesn’t open. I can’t even begin to form the words in my vocal cords.

“Tell me what the problem is,” he prompts.

“Well,” I always start off my list of symptoms with a moment’s hesitation. I don’t ever want to forget an item. You never know which one can be life altering. “My heart’s been beating kind of fast.” Just saying the words makes my heart pump even faster. “My stomach’s been off. I haven’t really been able to go to the bathroom even when I feel like I have to.”

“Have you been able to pass gas?”

“Yes.” I breathe a little easier, because I know my answer to this question is at least a good sign. And I need one right now.

“How long has it been since you started the new medication?” The doctor looks to his chart of notes.

“It’s been two weeks. The recommended two weeks you told me,” I reply. “How’s my blood pressure?” The nurse had thrown some numbers at me I didn’t understand, and I was too nervous to inquire their meaning.

“It’s a bit higher than I would like,” he notes. My heart skips. “Is the medication having any effect at all?”

“I-I don’t know.”

“Have you been having headaches?”

“A little. I had a couple recently.”

“Did they happen after you started the medication?”

“I- Well, I think so.”

“Shortness of breath?”

“Yeah. Yeah.”

“Hm,” he replies and instead of giving me an automatic answer, as if diagnosis comes from a moment of inspiration that only years of medical school debt can bestow, Dr. Pascal continue to scan my chart. It’s making me nervous.

“Let me take a look at you.” He puts down the clipboard, grabs his stethoscope, and directs, “When I tell you, take a deep breath.”

“Okay.”

Gulp.

“Here it goes,” Death hisses into my ear, which is always open to its words. It has taken a break from chomping at my ankles, and slithered right next to me on the table. It’s so close to me that my nose picks up Death’s scent. It smells like a tuna melt…with a hint of yellow mustard. It smells just like my best friend Marty’s favorite sandwich. I better give him a call if I make it out of here.

The doctor presses the end of the stethoscope against my bare chest.

“Breathe in,” he orders.

Every inch of my lungs fill with air. I’m trying to calm my nerves to make the process easier.

“Now, exhale.”

I do.

“See that look his face?” Death whispers. “There’s something wrong.”

My doctor tells me to breathe in and then exhale, again, and I have to admit: His face does look a tad too serious. He could just be focusing- making sure to listen for whatever it is that doctors listen for in this scenario. Or-

“He knows something’s very, very wrong with you,” Death chimes in. “He hears something horrific.”

“I’ve- I’ve been feeling a little bit of pain around my liver,” I suddenly revel.

“How painful?” Dr. Pascal asks.

“Not really painful. I guess it’s more like a soreness. A pinch.” I try hard to find the right word. “A…sensation of sorts.” I fail.

“Okay, I’ll take a feel,” my doctor obliges. “See what’s up.”

I’m so nervous that I can barely feel the pressure from his fingers on my right side.

“He feels a lump,” Death’s hissing begins again. “Your father was an alcoholic, and you inherited his liver.”

“Okay, you can cover your upper half, back up,” the doctor says.

“So- so,” I stammer, as I prepare to ask the most important question of my life, “how’s everything look?”

Dr. Pascal’s eyes lock with mine, and there’s a moment’s pause. In fact, it’s barely a moment. It’s barely a pause. He just needs to gather air for the words he’s about to say, but the process is long enough to allow Death to invade my ear once more.

“Brace yourself, Tom. This is it. You’re mine.” I can feel Death’s forked tongue in my ear.

I do something that I told myself I would never do again. I’ve sworn to my reflection in every single mirror in my home that I would stop. I promised that things were different- that I was not the person who would do what I am about to.

In this moment, I agree with Death, whose hand grabs mine, and I resign myself to whatever fatal words my doctor is about to revel.

“Everything’s fine.”

My heart’s pounding is do deafening, I’m not sure I heard Dr. Pascal.

“Wh- what?” I ask with caution.

“Everything’s fine. Doesn’t look like anything is wrong with you.” There are no better words! There is no bigger smile! There is no greater- “But I am disappointed about one thing.”

Shit…

“It’s disappointing that the pills didn’t work. The headaches, shortening of breath and most likely the soreness are all probably due to your normal stress,” the doctor notes.

“I did get myself a little too worked up about the side effects,” I admit. “I know you told me not to read them, and I didn’t for a few days. But I don’t know. I guess I just had this voice in my head that convinced me that they could be dangerous.”

I glare at Death.

“Well, don’t worry about the pills anymore,” Dr. Pascal tells me. “Looks like the FDA’s new cure for hypochondria isn’t an end all cure for everyone. I personally have never seen anyone with worse hypochondria than you, Tom. I’m suggesting, again, that you talk with a therapist about this. You’re here every two weeks at this point.”

He’s right. My hypochondria flares up like clockwork. My paranoia sends me here to this office to rant, yell and cry about all the cancers and blood cots that are killing me. My doctor, in turn, points out the obvious (like the time he came to the conclusion that the weird sound within my chest cavity that I was so worried about was not a symptom of something horrific, but rather just the sound of me breathing). When this happens, my body baths in relief, and I’m a new man. Free of stress. Free of panic attacks. Free. For exactly two weeks. Then something else like a headache or off-putting cough has me charging another co-pay to my card.

I am not the only victim of my hypochondria, though. And neither are my family, friends or girlfriend, who put up with it. As I let a relieved smile conquer my lips, the frown on Death’s face weighs its head down. I am medium height, medium weight with brown eyes and brown hair. Even my mental disorder is shared by more and more people in this age of WebMD. I am not special. Expect that I get to tease Death on a constant basis and survive.

Death’s mouth waters. Its hands reach out and its on the balls of its feet, ready to snatch me away every single time I convince myself that it’s my time. But then my doctor gives me the facts, and Death’s pre-mature celebration has to wait another two weeks late.

I’m an incurable hypochondriac. I’m an accidental con man greedy Death never sees coming.

“So, I’m fine?” I ask Dr. Pascal. My face glows with joy. I know the answer.

“Yes.”

As I go to leave the doctor’s office a walking smile, I feel a little tickle in my throat. It’s faint. Almost non-existent. But it is there, and my mind begins to wander. I can feel Death’s eyes inch toward me once more. It can sense my fear taking hold, and I can hear the lick of its black lips.

“I’m fine,” I reassure myself.

….Am I?

———————————–

Quick note about this: I caught the flu right after coming up with the story. And I’ll ask for another prompt next week. Till then!

Hello, everyone, who may or may not actually read my blog!

I have chosen a prompt for the first installment of my writing prompt challenge. I know that I was supposed to pick one a week back, but the flu decided that I would instead be crippled on my couch for a few days (and, you know, basically catch up on the entire first season of Once Upon a Time, catch up on season three of Justified, catch my wife up on Doctor Who and watch the first season of Gavin and Stacey).

Anyway. Here is the topic I’m going to write a short fictional piece on: “A celebration two weeks late” It was given to me by Matthew.

I should actually have this up tonight or tomorrow morning. I want to get these prompt-based stories done as quickly as possible since the goal of all this is to write quickly and to be creative in a fast manner. Usually, I will give myself a week’s time to do the prompt, because of all the other projects I’m working on, but since it’s been so long since I received the prompt, I’ll have this story done right away.

And I’ll end this by saying, once again (mainly to save myself), will my stories be good? Bad? Who cares, because the point of this is to be productive and creative?

Yes.

I myself have never expressed any interest to dress my animals. I can’t say that I’ve ever really judged people who do, but I did once see a neighbor pushing his little Shih Tzu down our street in a baby carriage. Some sort of line had been crossed that day.

This year, my wife and I adopted a cute little kitten named Freddy, and, even though he was only six months old at that point, he suffered more tragedy than most humans do in a life time. He and his siblings were found clinging to the inside lid of a trashcan filled with water. If any of their little paws had slipped, they would have surely drowned. So, we brought him into our home where our way of making his traumatic experience less traumatic was to give him a new one: clothes.

And, you know what? I’m fine with it. I say let’s make him wear socks, flip flops and a Hawaiian shirt, or the perfect storm of an outfit which my wife will not let me wear. People, who disapprove of this practice, have no leg to stand on. They are all hypocrites.

The argument is usually that animals don’t want to wear clothes, but, you know who else doesn’t want to wear clothes? Any baby or toddler ever. Children aren’t born with an innate desire to drape their bodies with cloth. Parents force it upon them. In fact, I’m 100% sure that babies hate clothes. Cats and dogs may try to scratch, wiggle and claw their way out of the sweaters and dickies we put on them, but you know what they don’t do? They don’t purposely pee, poop or throw up on the clothes. They don’t go out of their way to so openly deface the $20 shirt you bought just for them- the $20 shirt that will only fit for five hours before the kid grows out of it. How cruel. How effective. I mean, sure they can’t communicate the words “Mommy, I hate this!” to you just yet, but, wow, they sure can express them in the most disgusting way possible.

So, I don’t feel bad about dressing up our cat. I feel like I’m really grateful he isn’t a human child. He’s a reindeer astronaut.

It should come as no surprise that for years I had to utter the words, “Pick up or delivery?” I am a writer after all. I know it’s cliché- the “poor writer.” But it’s for a reason. Whether it’s screenwriting, play writing, essaying, blogging, journalism or working on a novel, writing is a hard industry to crack. Often, especially nowadays, we find ourselves writing for little to no money, while we push to get our big break. This usually means putting on an apron, placing a tip jar right in everyone’s line of sight and learning how to balance five drinks on a round tray, while also answering a phone and bringing someone his or her dinner check that isn’t much less than your week’s pay. I worked at a restaurant for four years, and served ice cream out of a tiny window for two years prior. I hated it. I wanted to build a time machine, dart back into history, and on my way to kill Hitler, make a detour first to go shoot the person who coined the phrase “The customer is always right.” But as I look back on it, now, I realize that it wasn’t all wasted time. I did learn some things that definitely pertain to writing. So, here are five tips on how writers can better themselves through their restaurant experience:

1. Story Ideas: Our imagination lets us think of any story to write, but some times our brains just no work good. The world around us is inspiration, too. Being out and about and having new experiences is another great way to come up with ideas, but circumstances can often keep us stuck in the same old routine. This is where working at a restaurant can really help you. More specifically, this is where those customers, who you really don’t want to serve today can become useful. For a waiter or waitress, a restaurant is a cesspool of priceless human interactions. There are customers who can’t help but tell you their entire life stories. There are customers who just don’t know how to treat another living human being. Whatever the case, each and every single one of them can be the basis of your next great character or story. I once asked a customer if she needed a plastic bag, and she was quick to yell, “Yes! Yes!” Her eyes were fierce and her fist balled. “Give me all the plastic bags! I don’t care about the environment! To hell with it! Give me the plastic!” I stood there shocked, but do I look back on that interaction with ill feelings? Well, a little. She was a nut job. But now I have a story to tell, and the basis for some sort of overzealous, extremely conservative, well, nut job character.
2. Better Dialogue: In order to write good dialogue, a writer should listen to how actual people talk with one another. There’s no better place to do this than at a restaurant. Instead of sneaking a text message or stealing a look at your Facebook page, while the boss is distracted, do the real life activity that’s been replaced by newsfeed: eavesdrop. As you wipe down a table, walk through the restaurant or simply stand around, dialogue is happing everywhere. Listen! Listen to how a group of rowdy teenage friends talk to each other. Listen to the banter on a first date. Listen to the awkward pauses on another first date, as the two people start to figure out that they have nothing in common. Listen to the couple that’s been married for 50 years. Listen to the cops at table two, who are inappropriately discussing their recent case way too loud. There’s a mom over at table six trying to keep her new born child amused enough to stop crying for a full five minutes. Just listen. You’ll get a perfect sense for how dialogue actually flows in these real situations.
3. Body Language: Some times the best dialogue is no dialogue at all. When writing a scene between two characters or more, the level of subtlety between them highlights their level of relationships. Do your characters know each other so well that their every movement seems rehearsed? Does Bethany get nervous every time Jack’s right hand is within 10 inches of her hair? Can Daniel and Rob have a 20-minute conversation with just glances? Writing these sorts of subtleties can be difficult. But, again, you can get good at this at your restaurant job. I’ll never forget working with the cooks. It was great. This was not the case at first- not when I showed up for my first day on the job, and they were all yelling at each other and me in Spanish. I like to believe that I have mastered the English language in my 26 years of speaking it. This wasn’t useful when I had to go tell one of the cooks that a customer needed another plate of Spaghetti because her dog just licked hers. Some of them spoke fairly good English, but a lot of the subtleties of the language were lost on them and vice versa. So, we had to become mind readers. In order to work well together, we learned the meaning behind every one of our gestures, eye rolls and raised eyebrows. Our interacting movements became flawless ballet. We focused on the little things about each other in order to become a well-oiled machine, and we wouldn’t even have to speak a word. So, if you really want to improve the way that your characters interact on a personal level, connect with your own co-workers first, and become mind readers.
4. Get Used to Rejection: There’s at least one thing that both writing and serving have in common: they’re emotionally draining. For as fun as a writing career sounds, and no matter how good you are, rejection is way too common. Magazines reject your query letters. Newspapers reject your resumes. T.V. shows reject your scripts and studios reject your pitches. Even dealing with an editor for the first time can be jarring. You sell your first article or get your first writing job, and you feel great. You’re a paid writer. You have the talent you always knew you had, and now have the paycheck to prove it. Except that your lede just doesn’t sound quite right. The third and six paragraphs don’t really flow. And there’s way too much telling and not enough showing. You just got edited, and suddenly your writing isn’t religiously praised like you thought. Now, those who aren’t used to this usually have one of these two reactions: 1. You call the editor an idiot and claim that your pristine way with words should never be tampered with. Your mom did say you were perfect after all. Or 2. You accept the criticism, and work with the editor to make his or her changes. If you have ever worked at a restaurant, I like to believe that you’re more likely to be the latter. Life as a server allows you to get used to rejection and criticism real quick. Customers are editors. They’ll let you know if you got their drink order wrong. They will judge you for having to write down, “Cheeseburger with ketchup” instead of committing it to memory. They will yell at you if the food takes too long, too fast or too anything. And, worst of all, they will voice their displeasure with you through the lack of tip. A server’s life is under constant scrutiny, and you quickly realize that no matter how well you perform any of your duties, there will always be some sort of complaint from some customer- crazy or not. So, remember, the next time you tell a patron that his or her food will be ready in 30 minutes, and they start complaining about the wait after 10, and call you a moron, the constructive criticism that your future editor will dish out should be a lot easier to stomach- no matter how much you feel like your editor just doesn’t “get” you.
5. Motivation: I was a very unhappy person during my time at the restaurant. Too often than not, I channeled that discontent into more discontent. That was a mistake, and I eventually regretted it. So, I would write every time I got the chance. I’d use my notebook, napkins and blank receipt paper. But at the end of the day, I wasn’t in the job I wanted, and this angered me too much. There is nothing more motivational than being in a situation you hate. If you let it, it can force you to think of new and creative ways to achieve your dreams. It can force you to take chances that can take your life and career onto paths that you never saw coming. Working at restaurant, or any job that isn’t the one you want, can ignite a dedication to your passions so strong it may never be duplicated again. Seize this, and aim to be the successful writer you always wanted.

So, in the spirit of staying in a fiction state of mind, I’d like to write short, most likely silly, pieces on this blog. But I don’t want to start from a place where I have to come up with concepts, themes, worlds etc. Already have plenty of script ideas for that.

What I was thinking was this: If any of you, who actually read my blog, give me a random prompt- it could be a scenario, word, place, fact, anything- I will write an equally as random fictional piece based on it. I’m thinking about doing this every other week (maybe once a month to start off). I’ll put out word for prompts when I’m ready for the next one. I’ll choose the first one I get.

And I’m putting out the call for prompts right now! So, send them at me, and I’ll send something… good? bad? who cares, because the point of this is to be productive and creative?

Once I have the prompt I choose, I’ll post my piece the very next week.

Thanks!

There is one undeniable truth that I learned during the recent holidays. No. It is not goodwill towards all. It is not how to deck any halls, and nor is it that seeing family and friends is more important than locking myself away to watch the Dr. Who Christmas special.

No.

I leave the holiday season with the one ultimate truth: No one is above using paper plates. Not family. Not friends. Not the Queen of England- both the 2D and 3D versions.

No one!

My wife and I threw two dinner parties in December. The first one was for family and the second was for friends. They were separated by two weeks. We thought it would be great to have everyone over to break in our new apartment. Each time, we had to do the normal things that make a dinner party happen. We cleaned. We put on pants. And I cooked for hours.

We regretted none of this. None of it was hard. But we did have the bright idea to let our family and friends eat off of our actual dishes… And they did. Oh, they did. They used every single dish that we owned. Each party. We let them use actual glasses. Our mugs, too. Top that off with cooking with a bunch of pots and pans, and we had a pile of dishes to clean that should only be meant as a punishment for those stuck in a hell dimension for all eternity.

We didn’t finish cleaning the dishes from the first party until the second party. And like two people, who have no concept of learning from past mistakes, we used all of our dishes, again. The last of those didn’t get cleaned until 6:30 pm on New Year’s Eve. The party had been on December 22.

During the cleaning process, we endured a clogged sink, questions about why we didn’t get a place that had a dishwasher and, well, the smells. The smells! I cooked chilli, potatoes, spanakopita, mini hot dogs, and various forms of chicken. None of this combined to unlock some sort of secret awesome air-freshener that no one saw coming.

But what angers me the most are our family and friends! Not once did they bother to mention that we should use paper plates for them instead. Society angers me! When family and friends ask, “Do you guys need any help cleaning?” we should not be bound by the rules of the host/guest dynamic. We shouldn’t have to reply, “Nah. Don’t worry about it. Instead of living life for the next few days, I have no problem scrubbing the dried pieces of BBQ chicken residue off of our dishes, so we can eat like normal human beings, again.”

And I anger myself for liking my family and friends enough to let them use our dishes in the first place.

The wife and I learned our lesson. For New Year’s Eve, we invited a couple of friends over and ordered out for pizza. So, as 11:59 pm became 2013, we celebrated the promise of a new year, while I celebrated the promise of an unclogged sink.

I usually try to go a little bit more depth when I post, but I just wanted to share a favorite of mine from the world of music in 2012. Above is the official music video from Delta Rae- a band that features a very talented woman whose voice should probably belong to someone, who looks much different than her.

The song above is Bottom of the River. I just really love the mood that the bare use of instruments, her voice and the gospel-inspired lyrics create. It’s wonderful, and it always puts me into some sort of “inspired” mood.

Below is a live version of the song. I love that they use a real chain to build some of the sound.

Hope you enjoy.