Category: This; And also that

You gotta
let it fly
spread it around
your community
like spilling blue coffee
on your neighbors, the family
a cup of the “things I’m bummed about” grind.
After all,
if everyone has a
blue coffee stain on their shirt
who’s going to get all in your face about
that blue coffee stain
on your shirt?

I just told my kids that Scooby-Doo has a speech defect. But now I’m not sure.
Even though the dog speaks and functions in a very human way, is he not still essentially a dog? And given that, should we not therefore judge him as some sort of super-freak dog speech genius, relative to the dog-normal-speaking-ability curve???
If I spoke Chinese as well as Scooby speaks English, compared to how most dogs speak English (eg: not at all), let’s just say: I’d speak really good Chinese.
Perhaps the so-called “defect” lies not in Scooby’s speech, but in our hearts and their collective inability to judge things relative to a dog-normal-speaking-ability curve.

The deer liked to race around this particular meadow. Maybe it was the grass. Or the smell of the grass. Or the smell of last year’s deer. Whatever the pull, the meadow was packed with deer, and they were running.
Across the lake, Spencer sat against a hard rock that didn’t quite fit against his back and shoulders. Squinting he could make out individual deer as they sparked in and out of the herd. The echoing roar of their hooves pushed out over the lake surface. He kept waiting for a warm rain to fall. The air was heavy that way. Cozy.
It all reminded him why he’d parachuted down to this lake in the first place. Better to bleed to death hundreds miles from nowhere with a sack of money at your side than to slump your way into old age, clanking trays around some prison messhall.
Of course, that would be great if he actually had a bag of money instead of stolen laundry. Or if he was bleeding instead of just a little bruised on both thighs from where he’d squeezed his way out that window. What a surprise — to find it so small. It hadn’t looked that small.
As it was, no one was hunting for him. And odds were he had several years of hard living ahead. Plenty of time to relax, sort through his bag of clothes, wait for the rain, and listen to the thunder of the deer.

I am the just fy
the optional information
the only information
you do not need
to act on me.
Have no fear old friend.
No change no motion
no response
required.
Remain as you were
more or less
absorb me and
roll on.

and really might well do if I left him alone in the house for twenty minutes, a partial list:

• turn on the burner, light things on fire.
• shave off all his hair, put it in the sink to clog it up. a trick that’s not funny, never been funny, never will be funny.
• put physical pressure on the cat — just put both his hands on the side of the cat and sort of gently press in until the cat says “meew.”

And that’s why I won’t be leaving him alone in the house while I go to get coffee this morning.
Anything you fear he might do?

Steer clear of the drunk barber. His
blade sways. He shaves shapes
in the air.

Putting on the ritz everlasting.
Broad headed. Forever young.
Frankenstein.

Most of the press requests I get nowadays have to do with my ongoing “Bands-I’ve-Seen Project.” I’m sure you’ve stumbled on coverage of it while clicking past Entertainment Tonight, or read articles about it in The New Yorker. Well, everything you’ve seen, or read, or perhaps first saw as letters and then subsequently read — it’s all true.
“The Bands-I’ve-Seen Project” is a three-phase effort to paralyze time by recalling bands that I’ve seen and then focusing on those shows with both my eyes closed.
The first phase was taking a crack at compiling this list for myself. That was the part that got all the press interest.
The second phase has just kicked in — earlier today I posted a draft of the list as a stripe down the left side of the site. I’m leaving out opening acts that angered me, but including shameful moments from my youth because why have shameful moments in your youth if you can’t display them in public later in life?
The third phase is the really innovative piece, and as such I’m sure it will be completely ignored by the mainstream media. In this stage, you are an active participant. Here’s how it works:
If you and I have seen one or more shows together, please give the list a skim. Then, if you spot anything missing, drop me an email or post a comment here. For example: what was the name of that choral robe-flowing band that opened for Bowie? UPDATE: Thank you e! (“Polyphonic Spree”)
Once I have what looks like a complete list, I will return to focusing on these shows with both my eyes closed. And if I’m successful, we may well stop time, at least for a moment. Although what it would mean to stop time for a period of time I’m not quite sure.
Good luck to us all!

We’ve all used the old “behind you!” trick to get someone to turn around. Was a time, that was a real effective hustle. The mark turns, you pocket his change. Done and done. But word spreads. Stuff gets incorporated into TV movies. And then one day you notice nobody’s buying it any more.
Tonight my six-year-old son executed an exciting new take on this old chestnut that I thought was worth sharing with the rest of the grifting community.
So, he’s trying to tickle me but, frankly, he can’t, because I’m just too fast and canny. Then he says: “Look, behind you. Momma’s trying to give you a potato.” I turned to look. No potato.
Later, after he’d gone to bed and I could find some time to think — to think! — I sat down and puzzled through why this had been such an effective swindle. It came down to two key elements: (1) who runs a grift with potatoes nowadays? Just about nobody. And (2) why “trying”? What was that about? He’d hit on just the sort of extra detail that fogs a mark’s mind.
Anyways, all you grifters out there, enjoy. And to the rest of you, please don’t spread the word by incorporating this technique into a TV movie.

I’ve been working on a sitcom script for the last little bit and that’s meant wrestling a lot with dialog. I know good dialog starts with being a good listener, and I’ve been trying to get out a little more to coffee shops, dude ranches, laser tag emporiums, and other places where “real people” hang out, to hear how they speak and to pick up language I might not have used myself.
I’m also trying to come up with a handful of basic working techniques that’ll help me get more consistent and credible results. I thought some of the folks who drop by this site might be interested in sharing techniques we’ve been taught or figured out. If you’re feeling generous, add a comment to this post — no technique too small, too cheesy, or too obvious.
Here are a few of the things I’ve been messing around with:
backstory-a-licious: The clearer the character’s backstory and driving motives, the more personal their reactions to any situation. This week I finally figgered out the backstory for one key character in the sitcom. It was a pretty simple sketch of a backstory, but even that really helped turn his words from “generic Cecil banter” to something more specific.
messing up the tennis match: I find I too easily get into dialog volleys of “Ingmar, what’d you have for dinner?” “Well Dave, I had tacos for dinner. How about you?” Dialog can start to get into this predictable back and forth as I race toward a particular plot objective (for example: “feed Ingmar and Dave!”). The aforementioned backstories help remind me to stay focused on what drives the characters, not just the plot point that’s driven me to write this particular scene. I’ve also been encouraging characters to interject more tangents, and I’ve been occasionally allowing them a genuine word fumble — something that’ll surprise the other characters and hopefully the audience.
keying in on key phrases: for some characters I focus in a phrase or two that they use. They don’t even have to actually use it in the piece, it’s just something I keep in the back o’ my mind as I write their lines. For example, in this micro-musical I was messing around with, there’s a character whose voice keys off the phrase “How ’bout that?” (stolen from a kid who played Tom Sawyer at Disneyland — as he walked away he called out to my kids with a light twang: “I’ll come back later and we’ll go look for treasure — how ’bout that?”) Whenever I thought I was getting off track on that character’s voice, I’d ask myself “is this the sorta thing my ‘how ’bout that’ guy would say?”
So that’s a few from me. How ’bout that? And how ’bout you? — any dialog tips/techniques/tricks you’d be up for sharing?
-Cecil