Dear Friends,
I’ve had a few ideas for stories bopping around in my head for a while. Some of them are based on real events and some are just things that I think would make an interesting book or movie. I’m going to start fleshing them out here in the blog. Here are a few of the concepts I’m going to work on and I’m making this list to hold myself accountable. There is no order of importance implied in how they are listed.
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I think the story of my senior prom would make a hilarious teen comedy film. It would be sort of semi-romantic comedy tragedy (a romcomagedy?) as I had maybe the shittiest luck of anyone I knew at that point when it came to the ladies, but I think I can make this story funny without hurting anyone’s feelings. I’m also guessing that none of the people who were involved found it to be as entertaining, in retrospect, as I do. I’ve shared this story with a few people over the years and they have mostly laughed out loud, so we shall see.
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Another true-life story that I would like to flesh out is my experience with becoming a sexual violence prevention specialist. There were just too many strange things converging in my life at the time I started working for CASA that it couldn’t make an interesting story for people to read or an Emmy award winning HBO show. I even have the opening scene ready to go in my mind.
Fade in: The hero is driving a red Nissan pickup with a white camper shell down Vernon in central Phoenix between 3rd Avenue and Central. The Dead Kennedy’s song, “This Could Be Anywhere” is blasting out of the stereo and the hero is wearing black sunglasses, a white shirt and blue tie, and he’s drumming on the steering wheel with one hand as he downshifts to turn into a tree lined parking lot.
The camera angle switches to above and behind the truck as it turns left into the parking lot and comes to rest on the mud flaps behind the back wheels that show a Devil with the words, “Dirty, mean, and nasty” on the flap. The music gets louder and Jello Biafra sings, “This could anywhere, this could be everywhere.”
This is going to sound egotistical, but I feel like my life at that moment was something akin to a TV show character. I was starting a job that deals with something the world needs to deal with and pronto, I was learning to be a dad and in a sort of backwards faerie tale romance (that ended badly and would create a lot of great drama in season three or four), and was playing in a noisy, atonal punk rock band that was doing some interesting things (in my opinion, of course). Beyond that, my family, friends, and co-workers were (and are) chock full of entertaining, maddening, and relatable characters.
Lots to flesh out here and true stories to tell that will sound like I made them up.
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I have another idea for my life in the music world. I would call it “Minor League Musician” and share my experience about being a minor league player in the music world. Lots of cool stories to tell here. The list of bands I’ve met and opened for is a long one. I’ve also thought incorporating all the interviews I’ve done, too.
This is something I will work on fleshing out in the blog this year.
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I’ve shared with a few people my idea about a “Tree of Life” story. Without giving away too much, the tree will be a place for stories to be told and experienced. It will involve a family and how one member of the family shares stories with their spouse, children, and grandchildren. I am very keen on figuring out a way to weave those individuals lives into the narrative and address how the stories they read or hear in the shade of their tree impact their lives.
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I have an idea for a time travel story that I want to work on this year, too. I don’t read a ton (or really any) of science fiction, but I must think my idea is a somewhat original one. It involves time travel becoming a sort of game for those who can afford it but the ramifications of the game are not what anyone expects. Oddly enough, I think I have a way to tie it to the tree story above.
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I like the idea of stories about people slowly unraveling due to real or perceived pressures, too. I have a few ideas around this concept. One is where an Army officer gets duped, possibly, by a terrorist and his/her life begins to unravel around this possible betrayal.
Another revolves around a writer who begins working on a piece about a serial killer. As he/she dives deeper and deeper into their piece, their hold on reality starts to slip away. The writer starts seeing all kinds of clues around them that people in their orbit are possibly serial killers and maybe one or more of them are. Maybe the writer is going to solve or commit a crime. We shall see.
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Another story is one that I’m going to write this week for my friend James. He’s going to illustrate it for his next zine. I’m stoked on this one and hope it comes to life in the way I see it in my head. It has a lot to do with using technology in a way that it is not meant to be used. Hilarity, chaos, and carnage ensues.
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As I think about what I’ve just written, this is a lot and there are even more stories I want to write. I need to win the Powerball, I think, so I can just spend my time telling stories, making music, and helping children be better people, especially mine.
Hope your weekend was swell.
See you tomorrow.
A past work in progress that turned out great. Here's to the same thing happening here.
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4fG4oZdypfEGVTTnK6KH19?si=a8b7071eb1e34928
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