Brian's Thoughts About Airplanes
Brian Spaeth's Dot Com Website Blog
From the category archives:
Twitter has a way to get embed code for Tweets now.
“When you beat me at something, I feel a tangible need to stay up all night smashing things.” #Stuff-I-Wish-LeBron-Felt
Brian Spaeth
brianspaeth
Also, new Bell Biv Devoe album!
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(This is a tiny piece of something I’m messing around with in my spare time.
It was gonna be a screenplay, but 20 pages in I realized nobody would ever, ever make this movie, so I’m trying it as a book.
It’s a civil rights movement piece, and if you’ve read my Brad Radby book, you can probably dial in and figure out what it’s about.)
It was Christmas Eve 1968, and Korea was going crazy with war.
There was war everywhere, and people were really upset about how it was happening all over the roofs of their houses.
Especially the Koreans.
They were the most upset because of their houses being the ones the war was happening on top of. That wasn’t all, because sometimes after some war happened on top of the house, the top of the house wasn’t there anymore, and then the war would start happening inside the house.
When this happened, the Koreans were like, “Oh, this is the worst thing ever and we’re also out of pretzels,” except they said it in Korean.
A wild and sexy surprise wrapped up in guns and fire, that’s what this war was.
That’s because it was The Korean War, and unlike all the other wars, this one wasn’t supposed to be hell.
These 149 words were all that Andre Washington could think to himself as he looked across the battlefield that was once downtown Korea City.
(The plural-word-mistake that caused a small pain in your head was on purpose. It’s gonna be okay.)
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I spent about an hour and a half yesterday watching the marathon of the two original V miniseries on SyFy while I worked.
When I was done with that, I stopped pretending to get work done, and instead embraced my wild nostalgia for the subsequent 8.5 hours.
After that, I went and read the recaps of the single season of the regular TV series.
It wasn’t until I reached this synopsis of the last episode that I realized what a profound effect this franchise had on my work, particularly the type of writing I’ve been doing for about the past year.
When Diana learns that Mike and Philip have agreed to a friendly fencing exhibition, she orders James to make sure the swords are deadly — instead of unarmed exhibition weapons, Mike and Philip will use swords charged with nuclear disintegrators.
Now, if that doesn’t sound like it’s right out of my Brad Radby book or my Saved By the Bell Begins, I don’t know what does.
After reading that, I couldn’t help it, and started watching the episodes on thewb.com – particularly because of the way Marc Singer’s Mike Donovan embraces the action jump, the action run, the action ladder-climb, the action casual walk, and the action going-out-to-dinner.
Those of you who have seen 2WO G2N G2Y – which is nobody – would be as shocked as I am to see I’m basically doing Mike Donovan in that role.
You can watch some choice Donovan clips right here.
Oh, and if you’ve read my Prelude to a Super Airplane book, you know that the V screengrab at the start of the post was also good for a mild heart attack.
What is your favorite kind of action thing to do and when was the last time you did it.
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So since my surgery I haven’t been allowed to lift at all. Like, I’m not supposed to strain my face.
As such, I’m starting to get brain-slow and feel weak and soft and depressed. I can take walks, but there’s teen angst boiling up inside.
BOIL! BOIL! BOIL AND A BUBBLE! TROUBLE BUBBLE!!!
I’m allowed to hit the gym in a condensed and cautious manner a week from today – let’s hope I make it that long. And really, Calvin Stadiums is so very worthy of your attention on Facebook – this week, he’s chronicling his 2005 World Record Hot Air Balloon Ride.
I wasn’t nearly as close as it looked, but later we did get closer and I dropped the camera in the volcano to see what would happen. Since the camera melted, I could get a picture of that. Plus, a camera can’t take a picture of itself anyway. When we stopped for more fire for the balloon, I bought another camera.
Oh, also – I’ve made friends with this girl @RCAstyle on Twitter, and periodically ask her to do little artistic set-ups at her office for me. It’s pretty fun:
That one was “Write CHUCK D FOREVER on a piece of paper, and then put it on your desk next to an upside-down stapler.” The underlining was a bit of improv that I feel really improved the piece.
(Follow me on Twitter here. And follow the stupendous @alexiskn also!)
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(This is a wonderful companion piece to The Shoulder Tattoo.)
The doctor appointment went pretty good yesterday – nothing much to address, except what I was there for, which remains a fun mystery for everyone.
I did almost pass out, as I usually do when medical procedures are explained. Not that there wasn’t fun to be had. For example, each and every preliminary question – the ones where they ask whether you’re allergic to stuff, drink/smoke, etc – was answered thusly:
“Ummm…I had the bronchitis once – is that what you mean?”
That’s re-purposed material from Twitter, by the way. Anyway – here’s what I was at a cosmetic surgeon for – that’s right, a cosmetic surgeon.
In mid-2002 I got assaulted in a bar bathroom, shattered a cheekbone and one eye socket, and now I’m all jacked up with screws and plates on one side, i.e. I’m a Terminator. This is either awesome or really awesome, depending on how cool you are. Some points of interest:
1) Don’t ask if I set off airplane station alarms – I don’t, and that’s such an easy joke, I’d be insulted if you did it. Everything is titanium.
2) Nobody knows who did it or why exactly I was assaulted. Kingsley – who I went to college with – can probably come up with some viable scenarios, all of which result in me agreeing that I probably deserved to at least get beat up a little, but not face-smashed into a wall while at a urinal. (And yeah – this incident is why I really don’t drink much anymore.)
3) Against what one would assume, my eyesight in the broken side improved after the breakage/surgery. I was 20/20 before, which means the nanobots inside the plates have become sentient, and are working day and night to make me more than just a normal man. (I’m convinced this is why I shrugged it off when I got hit by that car, yet the car was damaged.)
4) The one thing I remember from the entire face-getting-smashed incident was screaming “MY FAAAAAACE…! NOOOOOOOOOooooooo…!” upon impact into the offending wall.
5) As to yesterday, I’ve been feeling some odd pressure around the eye, so went to have it checked out. Also, last week I sneezed and half a hardware store shot out of my nose, so I figured maybe there was a problem. There will be some touch-up work done. Simple procedure; no big deal.
That’s about it, although I suppose there are offshoots to this story, like the time I looked at my dental x-rays with a new dentist and claimed I had no idea that there was a screw in my upper jaw. I doubt I’ve ever had to hold in more laughter than when I looked at her kinda dumbfounded and asked, “How do you suppose something like that happens?”
Anyway, whoever can come up with the best scenario for how and why this happened can have a free copy of PTSA. Leave it in the comments – what exactly did I do? Also, do you you have any exciting broken pieces of yourself stories? (Physical only – let’s leave emotional damages for another day.)
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