Oh pretentiousness
Thy name, academia
Fuck all you and yours
Copyright © 2012 Bill Friday
Friday, October 19, 2012
Saturday, October 6, 2012
Advil and Alcohol Cures Everything
Will you please come to me in my dreams, after three and
before four, when the pain is less and sleep comes best to my sleepless brain?
The pain in my mouth has almost
gone with the sunrise. A root canal on
the horizon, like the dawn. Three Advil
after clammy night sweats, and sleep tries to claim me again.
Will you please come to me in my dreams, after four and
before five, when my thoughts express my hopelessness, and my soul needs its rest?
The pain came back in crashing
waves as the sun appeared without warning.
Gray-pink light from the fetal position, and there is no fucking way...
no fucking way.
Will you please come to me in my dreams, after six and
before seven, when the sun is raw as an exposed and dying nerve?
The pain isn't all in my body, or
in my hanging head. It’s closer to my
soul. And like anyone could tell you, my
soul is dead.
Will you please come to me in my dreams, if I have them,
after eight or nine or ten? When the sun
hangs low and the night comes back, and I’m too tired to feel.
The pain is no more. It has gone the way of my soul. Rest is inevitable, if rest is what it should
be called. Maybe just a break between
struggles... with what’s real.
Will you please come to me in my dreams, when my dreams are
the truth, and my open eyes look at what can’t be so?
A new
pain. What is real. Above the lies.
Copyright © 2012 Bill Friday
Monday, July 30, 2012
Shadowboxing
I never hit her, although once she took a swing at me.
I put my arms up, and she bruised herself on one more bony than she.
I never left her, until the day that she left me.
I had patience. The kind that lasts a lifetime. Till there was no more we.
I never loved her, but I thought so when I was too young to see.
Only blinded till I wasn’t any longer. It was just stupidity.
Copyright © 2012 Bill Friday
Friday, July 27, 2012
Be
I don’t want to be right now, if being means I care.
If caring means I need to be today.
A future with no past I can bear, or at least look forward to.
Not the need to cease to be today.
I see another day to be, not this one, but somewhere.
To live my deepest need to be someday.
A time of then and there, with you.
Nothing left to be or do, but we.
Or another thing to say.
Copyright © 2012 Bill Friday
(and follow Bill at Expats Post)
Sunday, July 22, 2012
The Screenplay Diary: "Between Love and Orgasms"... Based on a True Story?
Every writer, no matter the genre, will eventually run into (or run over and fall into) that giant sucking sinkhole of creative quicksand... alliterative pun full intended... the, “how close is too close?” question. Mulling this over for a solid five minutes before I began writing today’s entry in The Screenplay Diary, it got me to thinking about something you see in the super short TV trailers for films about to be released (or released straight to DVD).
Something I now call, “the source tag”.
“A true story”… “Based on a true story”... “Inspired by true events”... “From an original concept developed by”... “Stolen from the intellectual property of”... Seriously, where does it end? And where does a writer have to draw the hard line between life informing fiction, and autobiography?
You tell me when you figure it out, because I have no idea.
As with pretty much anything I’ve ever written that has ended up read in public places, the crafting of personal words usually find their way into the light because of very personal experiences. Personal, that is, unless they are the very personal words of some other “character” in the story. And sometimes, a story that’s too close can take on an unanticipated (at least for the viewer) element of extreme Cinema verite.
For the sake of once such character, this Screenplay Diary marks the end of one in particular which has dominated the last several of entries. For all who have been regular readers here, it’s time for you to say goodbye (for now) to the character of Buddy.
INT. WAREHOUSE – Late Afternoon
Buddy sits at his computer in the dispatch office. Robbie enters, and flops into a spare office chair, never looking up from texting. Buddy’s desk phone rings.
BUDDY (on phone)
Yes? Sure... be right there.
(mutters, half in Tagalog)
Ina fucker.
ROBBIE
Who’s that?
BUDDY
Randall.
ROBBIE
The big boss? What’s he want?
BUDDY
He’s going to fire me.
ROBBIE
He can’t do that!
BUDDY
He thinks he can.
ROBBIE
What are you going to do?
BUDDY
I’ve got peek-chures. Sa aking lock-air.
ROBBIE
In your locker? Pictures of what?
BUDDY
Peek-chures of Randall giving me my job back.
And maybe a raise.
ROBBIE
No really. Pictures of what?
BUDDY
Ang pinakamahusay na hindi mo alam.
Best you don’t know.
Robbie stops texting.
ROBBIE
Seriously, why?
BUDDY
Because then, I would have to kill you...
and the goat.
The desk phone rings again. Buddy answers it.
BUDDY
I'll be right there... Randall.
See you later Buddy. And see you all later too. Next time... a love story.
Copyright © 2012 Bill Friday
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