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| Thursday, October 22nd, 2009 | | 1:06 am |
Yet another script I will never do anything with.
But the idea wouldn't leave me alone, so I had to type it out of my head. Needs work. Needs actors. Needs editing. Needs a camera, lights, and time. Some day! [Open with slow pan of wall hangings and scribbling noise in the background. Presented are 8.5x11 sheets of paper, each mostly covered with a solid and unique crayon color. At the end of the row, camera tilts right, a boy is seen at a desk, scribbling. Cut to close-up of crayon meticulously filling the paper with color, diagonally, from the top. Cut to front view of child, bedroom doorway visible in the background. Allow time for constant but not intense scribbling. Door opens, a man is standing behind it.] STEVE Hey Mike. [no pause in the meter of scribbling] Supper’s almost ready, so I’ll be up to get you in about 10 minutes, okay? [pause, then forceful but hopeless] Okay? [no response, Steve walks out, boy doesn’t stop] [Steve comes down the stairs, enters the kitchen where his wife is. They are both middle aged, looking tired and worn. Doorbell rings, Steve shakes his head.] STEVE It’s after seven. I thought this would be over by now. [walks to front, answers it to find a gentleman in a suit]
MAN Mr. Albertson. STEVE [slow eye scan of the stranger at the door] Of course. Who are you? MAN I’d like five minutes of your time. I know the hour is late and I’m sure you’re sick of being bothered, so I’ll pay you one hundred dollars for your precious time. But for the money, I must insist on a full five minutes. Then I'll be off. STEVE Who are you with? MAN [deep sigh] This offer is only good right now, Mr. Albertson. You may confer with your wife if you wish, otherwise I’ll be on my way. [holds up the $100]. STEVE Hold on. [muffled talking, guy at the door, paying, no one’s offered to pay before, who is he with? Won’t say. Hundred dollars? Etc. Opens the door] You can come in, we’ll give you five minutes, but I can assure you, there’s nothing you can ask us that you haven’t already read the answer to. MAN I have no questions for you. [enters the house, carrying a briefcase] Have a seat. [sits down in a chair facing the couch, puts his briefcase on the table and pulls out a digital timer, places the $100 in front of it, hits the button, looks up.] There are many things in this world that are illegal. Breaking the law is sometimes a matter of convenience, but sometimes, a matter of necessity. Were you starving, you may steal bread to survive. STEVE There’s nothing that… MAN MISTER Alberson, might I remind you that I’m paying you for five minutes of your time? You’re on my dollar right now. I do not need to be interrupted. Allow me to finish, I’ll be on my way. [closes his eyes, deep breath] Were you starving, you may steal bread to survive. The law is for people who are comfortable, not people who are desperate. The most compelling time to break the law, no doubt, is when you are yourself the victim of a broken law. It is a supreme injustice that a criminal may break the same law which prevents a good person, bound by this invisible mandate, to never seek revenge even if our justice system fails and the criminal walks free. The good news is that there are so many things which are perfectly, inconspicuously, advantageously legal. For instance [pulls a local classified out of his briefcase] did you know that it’s legal to purchase a boat? STEVE Yes but… MAN Rhetorical! Thank you. [taps the clock] My time, remember? It’s legal to purchase a boat. You can sift through the classifieds, find a nice boat for just under $25,000, and make arrangements to purchase it. I’ve circled a few for you. Call around. Make some appointments. But here’s a critical part. [leans in] You’ll want to let the sellers know that you're ready to pay for the boat this Saturday. On Friday, you can go to the bank to get out the money. It’s perfectly legal to withdraw twenty-five thousand dollars, of course. It’s also legal to bring it home and put it in a box under your bed. And it’s legal to go see a movie that night. A late show, something around 9PM. It’s a school night, not that it matters, I hear he’s not going to school anymore. [looks up towards Michael's room] Bring him [nods his head up toward the ceiling]. Shut off all the lights, leave the front porch light on. Make sure you keep your ticket stubs. When you get home, you’ll find your house robbed. It will be messy, I can’t help that, but the good news is that it’s legal to have your house robbed. Not the best news, of course, but still. Legal. STEVE Wait a second, just what are you threatening? MAN Nothing, Steven. In fact, if your lights are on Friday night, no one will come to your house. If you leave the interior lights on, this conversation will have been a complete waste of my time. [taps the hundred] But you still have to earn this. No more interruptions. When you get home, call 911. When they arrive, let them know nothing was missing but the cash. Act confused, tell them there were other people in the bank, someone might have seen you with it, followed you home, ask them if they can get surveillance tapes. Sound convinced, but not angry. Can you do that, he asked rhetorically, not wanting an answer? Good. That’s step one. Step two, you’ll find, is equally as simple. Sunday night, go to dinner. Pick somewhere busy. Leave your house at seven o’clock. Ensure you are seated by eight. Do not get up from your table to leave until 8:45. It is, after all, legal to sip the free coffee refills available at most diners. But alas, there is one rule I must ask you to break. One small boundary that we’ll call a grey area, but believe me, it’s important. Critical! Make sure, at some point during your meal, you knock a glass off the table. It must shatter! This will ensure that the waitress remembers you. No one forgets the dinner guest who breaks shit. Being remembered is important. It's a perfect alibi. Well, I think I’ve taken up enough of your time, I’ll be on my way now. [stands, gets his coat] Y’know, it’s a shame about Michael. Good kid, from what I hear. Was a good kid, at least. Still, maybe there’s hope. After all, if all these things we’ve discussed, these perfectly legal, harmless things happen, then Nelson Miller will die. [wife gasps] STEVE What? You… MAN I do want to warn you, though. It won’t make you feel any better, and it won’t erase what he did.[Alarm sounds] Time’s up. [puts the clock back in his suitcase, leaves the classifieds and bill on the table, walks out the door, shuts it behind with door full in frame. Sobbing wife can be heard as camera slowly pulls back until it pulls through the husband and wife, they are standing in front of the door, him motionless, her crying.] The rest of the project is handled in cutscenes. [all three family members eating dinner at the house in quiet] [son scribbling on paper, father in doorway (same as previous angle)] [husband and wife sitting on sofa looking at the classifieds] [dinner’s over (different night), son is departing for upstairs as mom hopefully says “Do you want to help with dishes like you used to?”] [As sound of footsteps grows quiet, the husband looks at the wife purposefully. “I think I’m going to buy a boat.” She makes no sound, but nods.] [cut, phone montage, calling other people, asking about boats, strikes a deal] [at the bank, withdrawing cash, calmly tells the teller they’re going to buy a boat, spend some time out on the ocean] [lights out]
[family at the movies] [thief comes in, grabs box, shuts door, breaks glass] [family calls 911, sounds frustrated] [on couch, cops interviewing, “was going to go get a boat tomorrow”] Ends with a shot of a door from exterior. Man walks past camera up to door, rings doorbell, steps back. Cut to family in restaurant, eating. Somber. Door opens. Nelson: “Yeah, what do you want?” Man raises gun. In restaurant, father knocks glass off table, slowly tumbles, tumbles, to the ground. Shatters with the sound of a gunshot. Father looks up at the mother. “He’s wrong” he says. “I do feel better.” She smiles. Fade roll. | | Friday, June 26th, 2009 | | 2:33 am |
Give him your lottery tickets.
Parker has strange luck. When I was a little kid and I missed an opportunity, it was gone. Worse, there would usually be some repercussion to kick me when I was down. Case in point: Once after a baseball game, we were treated to ice cream at the local Taste-E-Freeze. I got a moderate size, a bowl with jimmies. My friend Billy Skidmore got a huge cone. It was a hot day, and as we rushed to consume our melting delicacies, his cone began listing quite badly. Liquid ice cream rivers forged paths over his fingers and dripped off the bottom of his cone. Messy, frustrated, and fearing the loss of his entire dessert, he spied my bowl and offered up his treasure to me. I was a kid, of course I wouldn't pass up a whole extra ice cream cone. That's crazy! I accepted, he overturned it into my bowl, and I suddenly found myself with a huge but manageable ice cream surplus. How smart was I to get a bowl on a hot day! Keep in mind, I hadn't eaten much of my own ice cream yet. Immediately after this collusion, Billy had to go. My parents, in a sense of misjustice, ordered me to give Billy the entire lot. My bowl, my ice cream, his ice cream, his cone. They said it wasn't fair that Billy should miss out and, beguilingly, opted to tip the unfairness into my lap. I ended up with nothing. Not even a replacement bowl of ice cream. This is SOP for events in my life. Then there's Parker, free-wheeling beacon for positive accidents and inexplicable fortune. If luck were genetic, I'd say he wasn't my kid. This is how his day went: He's attending a day camp this week, and tonight was their big campout (as I type this, snug in my study, listening to the rain run down my windows and into my basement, he's in a tent miles away). He had a schedule conflict, a birthday at an indoor karting facility. Unfortunately, when my wife went to extract him from the day camp, they had all gone to the beach and he was nowhere. Marla ended up waiting for about a half hour just to pick him up, which put them severely late for the karting. As you know (because you have a kid, whoever you are), childrens birthday parties no longer come in the "put 'em all in a box with cake and shake things up" variety. Now they happen at a specific venue where everyone has matching hats and the first hour is fun, the second hour is food and presents, and then we hose everyone down and go home. At this karting place, the first hour was karting, the second was presents and food. Any kid who was late missed their alloted four laps around the track. Add to the half hour Marla's overall tardiness (I didn't say that) and they ended up getting to the party after the karting was over. Were this my childhood, that's where the story would end (also the cake would be coconut). But this isn't my childhood. Marla, just to try and soften the disappointment, asked if there was some way possible that Parker could get his truns on the track. Fortunately, the people running the facility agreed. Parker climbed into his kart and took off, a solo run on a deserted track. Perhaps my childhood story would have ended here. This is a good place, all the kids eating and having fun while I try to feel important and connect with the group when really I'm just that kid who can't be on time. But this isn't my childhood. After a couple laps, the owner of the facility thought it might be a good time to hit up his own track without it being mobbed by children, so he fired up a kart and went out alongside Parker. They began to race, and in Parker's words, they burned up over 20 laps, fighting neck and neck, while all the other kids at the party slowly drifted from the food to the track to cheer Parker on. Marla recalls one kids marvelling at how awesome Parker was. At the end, the undisputed victor, Parker grabbed the checkered flag and drove a Victory Lap, much to the delight of all the children. Did I mention he wasn't actually the birthday boy? He's just he kid that this kind of thing happens to. Once in middle school I won a calendar in an egg-drop contest. It was stolen from me on the bus home. That was my childhood. I can't wait to see my kid grow up. | | Thursday, June 18th, 2009 | | 3:20 pm |
| | Monday, June 8th, 2009 | | 12:35 am |
Prosetry
I've decided to write poetry again. SUMMER ======= On my livingroom floor, an unfolded tent. Guess what I did this weekend. In my kitchen, a typewriter. Guess what I did this weekend. On my stairs, a snowboard. Guess what I did this weekend. If you guessed that I cleaned You are wrong. | | Wednesday, May 27th, 2009 | | 11:56 pm |
Letting go.
Today I buried my dog. It's such an easy sentence to type. Short, powerful, it practically tells the entire story in merely 5 words. If you close your eyes, you can smell the dirt on my gloves, you can see the wheelbarrow filling, you can imagine what it's like the first time you pick up your pet to discover that warm, malleable body has become stiff. You can carry her to the hole with me, lower her in, and imagine seeing her body disappear under shovelfuls of dirt. But there's so much more that a sentence can't tell, and Pixel deserves all of it. She deserves everything I can remember about her, everything I can write about her, because she was a fabulous dog. Even at the end, this morning, when Marla discovered her on the threshold of death, it was obvious she hung on all night long just for us. Just to say goodbye. We knew she wasn't doing well, but the question of her surviving last night didn't seem to be a question until this morning. She lay on the bathroom floor, not moving, breathing very slowly, not even twitching an ear in acknowledgement of us. We cleaned her up and sat with her, a moment of peace divinely granted to us as our human kids hadn't woken up yet. Marla went in and out of the bathroom, checking on things and cleaning things, lost in denial. Pixel's breaths became very slow; I could measure the growing distance between each one. Marla came into the bathroom at one point and I said "You'd better not leave again, you need to be here." She began to cry immediately, said something along the lines of "It can't be now". She sat down beside me and we watched out beloved dog tense up a little bit, then relax. Then nothing. To know that one second her eyes can see you and the next second they can't will permanently kill a small part of you. You mourn for her, but she's gone, so you mourn for yourself. You cry because she's been with you over 10 years and everything in the house reminds you of her. I'm not talking about the dog dishes and the tennis balls, those will slowly filter away. I'm talking about the door that she whines at to go out. I'm talking about the stool where you put snacks for your toddler which become snacks for the dog. The small section in front of the stove that is always being groomed with her tongue, that spot in the carpet where she always sleeps (the spot right next to the expensive dog bed), the plethora of books with corners chewed off, the half of the $20 bill that you pulled from her mouth and saved in case you could recover the other half, the spot in the kitchen floor where she would lay to make it impossible for you to get dinner ready without tripping a million times. Everything. Even the bad things, like underneath the bookcase where dog hair will no longer collect or that spot in the corner where you'd always wake up to find dried grass on a yellow stain. My dog died today, right in front of me. Nearly 11 years old, loved life, came with us on vacations and outings, spent every Christmas with us at Grammy and Grampas, never once so much as nipped at the children who pulled her hair, poked her eyes, and messed with her while she was trying to eat. The dog who was there every single day to greet me when I came home, who would come right up to my car and stick her nose in to look for dropped food, after which she'd give me kisses as if that was her actual mission all along. I have so many great memories of the crazy things she did, I could stay up all night and write about them. Most of them are about food, of course. She was a dog, after all. But plenty of other great things, like how excited she always became when reunited with an old human friend or how she laid in our laps while driving, even when she had grown entirely too big to do so. She was a member of my family. Not my child, but my peer, a warm fuzzy partner that I was honored to share my house with. I cried all day today. I cried when she died. I cried when I came home from work, when I went into the bathroom to get her, when I put her in the grave. I cried when I told each friend, her extended pack mates, about her, and when I collected her toys to bury with her. I cried when Quinn said "Bye bye Pixel". I had to take a break from writing this to cry. I didn't know I could cry so much, or so many times, or so loudly, or for so long. I know it will end, soon life will interrupt and have me be productive again and I'll once again be focused on paying the bills and preparing meals. It's inevitable. But I can't lie on my couch at night, read a good book, and stroke Pixel's velvet ears. I can't do that ever again. She was a good dog. Today I buried her. | | Tuesday, May 19th, 2009 | | 12:12 am |
The War. The WAR! ... The war?
I'll keep the story from the previous post going soon. In the meantime, I just found this old thing while cleaning out my HD. The first part with the reply indents was a piece of e-mail I got because I was on someone's send list. I guess I was in a verbose mood, because I replied to it with a rather lengthy retort. This was when the war was going on full tilt (unlike now, where it's still going on but we don't care anymore). Enjoy.
===
> Here are some photos that are worth a thousand words. Now
> I'm understanding the anger.
> For the first time, AMERICA was seeking help from France . . . but
> France has turned her back!!!
>
> Please remember these Dead Americans when you go shopping,
> as the French seem to have forgotten them.
> France has every right to disagree with America, but France has moved
> from simple dissent to active hostility toward America. France President
> Chirac warned East European nations that if they sided with the US, France
> would oppose their membership in the European Union. This very week,
> William Safire reported in the New York Times that France has been secretly
> helping to arm Iraq and has been helping Irag build long range missiles.
> These same missiles may NOW possibly be used against our own US
> soldiers. Just as France has exercised its right to disagree, all Americans
> can exercise their right to boycott and help countries that do not stand with
> us. French Products and Companies to Boycott:
> ---List Follows---
> Lastly, a French compay was awarded a $700 million plus contract to
> operate the 55 mess halls of our US Marine facilities. Call your congressman
> and ask that this be rescinded regardless of the cost. This is an
>absolute insult to our Marines.
Great list, but why stop there? I mean, where's the loyal patriotism in
only boycotting what's convenient? (Sorry, but were you really going to fly
Air France this year?) Let's be thorough, there are plenty of other French
things we must boycott!
Don't drink milk. The only reason that 1 out of 100 people who drink
milk don't get tuberculosis and die is because milk is pasturized, a process
that kills harmful bacteria and keeps milk fresher longer. A process
invented by a French chemist, Louis Pasteur. The introduction of
pasturization to New York in the early 1900's cut the infant death toll from
1 in 30 to less than 1 in 100. If you enjoy milk, thank the French.
Don't read such classics as Around the World in 80 Days, Journey to the
Center of the Earth, or 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, all great works
written by French author Jules Verne.
Don't visit the Statue of Liberty. It was sculpted and fabricated by the
French, given to us as a longstanding symbol of friendship after the
Revolutionary War. You're familiar with that war, it was the one where the
French helped us fight the British so we could become an Independent
country. Remember that we have died for the French, but they have died for
us, too. In both cases, the sanctity of our own country was directly at
stake as we were being invaded. This situation, Americans invading a third
party, is different, and our mutual assisitance in the past should not be so
readily dismissed if they fail to approve of our actions now.
In 1997 El Nino did millions of dollars of damage, but millions more
were prevented by the TOPEX/Poseidon satellite, a French/American
collaboration that monitors changes in ocean surface temperature and helped
predict the severity of the storm (see March 1999 National Geographic for
more information).
That's just a scrape of the surface of what the French and Americans
have accomplished together. I found all those examples in less than an hour
of research. Look around, read, do your own research, you'll find a *lot* more. Now, before we start patting ourselves on the back for liberating France
in WWII and saying how many brownie points we deserve, let's look at how it
actually happened. On May 10th, 1940, Nazi Germany invaded France. Over a
YEAR later, America helped out by (drum roll please...) freezing German
assets in America. Wow, what a great help we were! On December 7th, 1941,
the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and America declared war on...Japan! Not
Germany, yet. January 27, 1943 was the first time we bombed Germay. France
had been occupied by Nazi Germany for nearly THREE YEARS. We did not rush to
the aid of the French. The liberation of France was a by-product of the US
fighting in a war that we had firmly claimed neutrality in until we were
attacked. We fought back, aided the Allies in victory, defeated Germany, and
freed France. As a by-product. A BY-PRODUCT! It wasn't our goal, it just
happened.
I'm not saying France shouldn't be grateful, and indeed, they are *very*
grateful, but please, *please* stop acting like France owes us big time
because we were so wonderful in liberating them. We acted in our own
interests. Paris is the city of love, France is not a country of war. After being
occupied in World War II, France has firsthand knowledge of a large-scale
invasion that they are powerless to prevent. Empathetically, France knows
more what it's like to be in Iraq's shoes than America's shoes. France is
also landlocked with Iraq; it would be much easier for Iraq to send suicide
bombers, set up car bombs, and cause terror in France than it would for them
to do it in America. If France's army is really as bad as we always joke it
is, why *would* they condone a war? *They* have everything to lose, not us. If the US was at the mercy of most other super powers, if the US had a
nominal army and pathetic Air Force, if the US was a minor world power, I
bet we'd be a lot less cavalier about supporting two other countries at war
with each other. We might, for once, consider the long-term consequences. Look at history, not at propaganda. Think! The e-mail message I'm
replying to isn't even truthful; here's a quote: "For the first time,
AMERICA was seeking help from France . . . but France has turned her
back!!!" What a hideous lie! We sought their help in the Revolutionary War
and they helped us. Many, many French people died. Three of the larger
cemeterys in that e-mail, Brittany, Normandy, and Lorraine, are from WWII.
Our intent wasn't liberating France then, we were fighting the Axis. We
should be thankful the French were nice enough to give our soliders proper
burials and dedicate huge cemeterys to them. Why didn't the US foot the bill
to ship those soliders home so they could be buried on homeland soil?
Also, the e-mail mentioned a New York Times report that France sold
missiles to Iraq. Well, haven't we done that too? (The answer is "yes", but
if you want to take some time to do your own Google search, be my guest). And
if it was such a big deal, where were those missiles when we invaded? Or
any other "weapons of mass destruction," for that matter. You think if Saddam
really had them, this would have been the time to use them.
As for the last cutting jab on the e-mail about the French company
operating dining facilities for Marines, let me get this straight. Our
Marines are being treated to French cuisine prepared by French chefs and
you want me to complain to someone about it? Lucky Marines! I'm not trying to say France should be praised for its actions, even
though I believe no one should ever be derided for trying to prevent a war.
I'm just asking to please stop the hatred. It's old, it's useless, it's
misplaced, and it's removing focus from issues that should really be dealt
with, such as: Should we even be going to war in the first place? Hating
really won't accomplish much. What has anyone *ever* accomplished through
the power of hatred and racial superiority? Well, let's see, Hitler has a
pretty firm hold in our history books, as does Pol Pot, Stalin, oops, can't
mention China's occupation of Tibet, China is still too big a trading
partner... It's easy to hate. It's hard to forgive. Let's not take the path of
least resistance, just this once. Feel free to e-mail me if you want to discuss it. Maybe I'm wrong, but
probably not. === FYI, they never replied. | | Sunday, January 25th, 2009 | | 1:18 am |
The Day the Karma Died: The rise and flatline of an Internet Mogul: Chapter One
"Ha! They just booted someone's car!" smirked Dave from the window terminal.
Ignoring the improbable, I quipped back, "sucks to be them!"
Our small office on the third floor would give a jumper a straight shot down into the Penobscot river and, at low tide, gave us a great view of shopping carts, bicycles, and plenty of other solid waste lodged into the rocks below. We could also see a small park past the river, but tall buildings interrupted what should have been an exquisite view of Bangor, Maine. The most important thing we could spot from our vantage point was the meter maid, so right after she made her rounds chalking up tires in the 2-hour-only parking spots, one of us could collect everyone's keys and move all our cars, sometimes only a foot to hide the chalk mark under the tire.
In those days, Agate Internet, the largest ISP in Maine, was slicing the edge of technology, providing dial-up Internet access and even Frame Relay connections to people in an age when you not only had to explain the necessity of e-mail to the average Joe, you would also have to define it. Our leader was Mark Fevola, as quirky as he was sharply intelligent. From a wealthy family, the pressure was on him to be wildly successful and as technology was his game, he took his startup money and bought out the only ISP in Maine, giving Agate and its employees the bragging rights to say we were the oldest and largest Internet Provider in the state.
I had worked at Agate for only a few months. Mark was the most unusual boss I've ever had, and considering that was after the fat Italian man who threatened to "rip your fucking head off if you ever screw up again" that statement carries some weight. Some workdays for Mark comprised him sweeping into the office, sitting at his desk, engaging in a very loud speakerphone call with Nynex to tell him what he thought of them that day, and bidding a good day to all of us with the smile of a child just given keys to a candy store.
Even more interesting than working with Mark was the time spent at his apartment after hours or walking around the seaside of Bangor, but that's another book entirely.
Back to present time, I had just been up all night making cables. The most disappointing thing for people who always wanted to see the network room at an Internet provider has always been telling them what it's going to look like. Many people walked into the main office at Agate, not even realizing that the table in the corner, that one piled up with some modems, an old Cisco, and a couple random computers, that was it. That was the heart of the network. We had 7 points of presence throughout the state, and each one looked exactly the same, like a pile of yellowing, disused computer parts. And we were the oldest and largest, mind you.
A startup company was buying bandwidth from Agate to bring Internet connectivity to Guilford and Dover-Foxcroft, two towns who, in the early ISP era of 1995, had residents dialing long distance to AOL for their connectivity. Providing local access to communities like this was cake. It was shooting fish in a barrel. You could put a 3 inch, double column ad in the newspaper with no picutures saying "hey, we have local access now!" and you'd get calls. Most of Maine was unserved, although at this time most of Maine still had no clue what the Internet was. Still, a monopoly is a monopoly, and these guys upstate were ready to trot. A husband and wife team, working together to drag Maine into the 20th century. Over a decade hence, I would be pulling the pin on their grenade of a marriage, but those events aren't yet relevant.
It was 0900 and I had been up all night making cables. Oh, we did that already? Okay, moving on. In those days, setting up Internet service in a new location followed a short and very un-magical checklist.
1) Find a business where you can store the equipment. This would usually involve giving them free high-speed Internet Access, a harder sell than you'd think. Remember the early quote about most people not knowing what e-mail was? Try explaining to someone they need to be able to pull up web pages without requiring a dedicated phone line. The companies that understood this were out there, but finding them required a lot of knocking on doors. Sometimes it was the most unlikely place. In Cornish, we were in a factory that made handbags. In Millinocket, we were in a Napa Auto Parts. It made sense to be in a school, as we were in Lincoln, but in the case of our current scenario, our team has rented their own office space. Easy.
2) Order service from Nynex (later Bell Atlantic, later Verizon, later FairPoint. By the time you read this, probably something else. As the timline progresses in my story, I'll be referring to the company by their contemporary name). As Nynex had equally as many ways to screw up a service order as they had employees, this was difficult. We typically had to bring in an outside consultant to ensure everything was done right. The circuit had to have the right timing, had to have the right endpoints, had to be installed at the correct location, with the correct speed, and the due date should probably be somewhat accurate. Also, for customers to connect, you would have to order telephone lines. Nothing special, no digital loops, no fiber drops, no PRI, just standard business-class phone lines. Ten of them to start was a good number.
3) Ready the equipment. For a new point of presence, usually called a PoP, this included a CSU/DSU which would hook up to the Frame Relay circuit installed by Nynex. The CSU was essentially a digital modem, allowing our router to talk to the router on the other end of the Frame Cloud. Connected to the new CSU was, as you've guessed, a router. This usually took the form of a Livingston Portmaster 2er, which had not only a WAN port to hook up to the CSU/DSU, but also 10, 20, or 30 25-pin DB connectors on the back. You remember those wide slots on the back of your computer, before USB, that you'd hook your printer up to? These ports were just like that. Each of those slots could be connected to a single modem. One Portmaster could control up to 30 modems at a time, hooked to each individual modem with a separate cable. When you took the size of the CSU, Portmaster, and modems and put them all together, you'd need a space about the size of a dorm fridge to serve just over 200 customers. Nowadays, that fits on a card the size of a piece of toast (and thanks to the rise of broadband, is somewhat cheaper than a piece of toast).
4) Send a lackey. That's where I came in. Someone who had a clue about how to program a Portmaster, turn up the circuit, and hook everything up had to go out, program the Portmaster, turn up the circuit, and hook everything up. As we say in the Bemani field, EZ2DJ.
Step 3 was nearly complete on that brisk autum morning when Dave's words had floated across the office. I had been up all night making clamshells, the small plastic adaptors that plugged into the back of the Portmaster. Each one had a standard Ethernet jack on the backside; the idea was to plug a clamshell into the portmaster, one into the modem, and make an Ethernet cable to connect the two. In the days of $25 DB cables, this was a pretty good deal since you could make one for about $4 in parts. Plus labor, but we all worked crazy overtime in those days, so what was labor? Nothing. Free! We worked for the prestige of working at an Internet Provider. I had taken a pay cut to work here and lost all my benefits. Still, I left a job I hated, and that prestige thing carried some weight at parties.
That sinking feeling in my gut, the one I had originally chosen to ignore because if it were true, it would just suck, bubbled up. "What kind of car is it?" I asked Dave.
"Some kind of small black car."
"Does it look like a Buick Skyhawk with a red interior?"
"Yeah, it could be."
Goddamn it. Two strikes and you were out; as fastidious as we tried to be with moving our cars, you'd always get a ticket sooner or later, and after two, they booted. The cost to remove the boot was $65 plus payment of your outstanding tickets. When you're poor and struggling, the unfairness of a beaurocratic system that randomly penalizes you for failing to jump through remedial hoops creates a near paralyzing helplessness. A mixture of anger, sorrow, and some more anger welled up inside me. This was not fair, I'd been up all night working, I was about to drive up and esablish a bold new horizon in rural Maine, I was well into unpaid double-overtime. My car was a piece of junk, I couldn't sell it for over $100, why was I being made to shell out more than that just so I could drive it?
Swallowing everything, I called my girlfriend. She bailed me out, paid the fines, had a quick breakfast with me, and saw me off. To Guilford I went, off to meet two people who had no more skills at the Internet than my grandmother, two people about to start their own business, to work together in the field of technology and reap the rewards of early adoption. At a meager $5 an hour, I was busting my ass to build their future, something they wouldn't even be able to do without me. Why was I doing this? Why couldn't *I* start my own business? They've got nothing I lack except capital. All I'd need, I thought, was a little money, and I could do this. I could start an ISP. I could cash in on this phenomenon that I knew would one day be as popular as television.
As I drove to Guilford, I built an empire in my mind. The foundation was laid to create the largest ISP in Maine, one that would even overshadow my predecessor.
If I could have spent the entire day at city hall without enough money to pay the fines, maybe the idea wouldn't have happened. Maybe I wouldn't have started an Internet Provider. Maybe none of the last 12 years would have happened.
That would have been awesome. | | Friday, January 23rd, 2009 | | 2:55 am |
I totally kept a chain going.
In honor of my Bunny Meeshka who died, like, three years ago, I proclaim this to be Make Some Art Day (is it against regulations to make up the name?)
The first five people to respond to this post will get something made by me! My choice. For you. This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:
- I make no guarantees that you will like what I make!
- What I create will be just for you.
- It'll be done this year but probably not this month.
- You have no clue what it's going to be. It may be a story. It may be poetry. I may draw or paint something. I may bake you something and mail it to you. Who knows? Not you, that's for sure!
- I reserve the right to do something extremely strange.
The catch? Oh, the catch is that you have to put this in your journal as well. We all can make stuff! | | Saturday, November 22nd, 2008 | | 2:37 pm |
Poemitry
I'm not a big fan of poetry, be it reading what has been written or attempting to scrawl out my own, but this popped into my head yesterday while brushing my teeth and it refuses to leave. Parker thought it was funny. The common cat, imagine that. Is made of whiskers, fur, and fat. And raucous meowing on the mat. The common cat, imagine that. Even though I'm listening to music, it's keeping me busy while I wash dishes. Perhaps now that I've given it a place to live, I will enjoy a respite. | | Thursday, November 20th, 2008 | | 7:30 pm |
More childish wisdom.
Today while I was driving to work, Parker called me. "Dad", he said, "I'm calling to let you know that Best Buy installs a security pack on people's computers and it includes the Norton security software." "That's great buddy," I said, "but we usually discourage people from using Norton because it ends up messing up people's computers a lot of the time." "I know!" he said, "That's why I'm calling you. When I saw this in the paper I thought, and I'm going to use a bad word now, I thought 'Holy crap' because I know it's not good to install Norton. I wanted you to know because I thought Best Buy was a really good company but we should let people know about this." Was this the kind of thing I was doing when I was 8 years old? | | Monday, October 20th, 2008 | | 8:47 am |
Out of context.
The scene in Narnia where Lucy meets Tumnus and he invites her back to his house for tea becomes uncomfortable when one considers the last movie I watched was Hard Candy. Poor Mr. Tumnus. | | Thursday, October 16th, 2008 | | 12:59 pm |
Childish Sayings
There are people who believe that the world as seen through a child's eyes is fresh and exciting. Often the wisdom of children is lauded as untainted and wonderous, pearls to be cherished upon their mighty pedestal. These, of course, are people who have never heard kids say things like "I hope I get guns for my birthday!" For the most part, kids only dictate immediate concerns. Many of their pearls are on our minds, too, but children haven't yet learned to censor themselves, so we feel a freedom in hearing them express our own desires. It can be embarassing, such as "Hey dad, look at that woman who is really short!" and it can be charmingly innocent, like when my brother was speaking at my grandmother's funeral and he mentioned Parker, who yelled out "Hey, that's me!" Although I appreciate these quips to the point of fastidiously chronicling them, most are throwaway gags. It's actually quite rare that children sumble upon profound truths in their bulldozer of verbiage. Which, of course, leads me to my tale of exception. About a week ago we were bringing a friend of ours to a cookout. As a guest, he rode shotgun (with Marla at the wheel), relegating me to the back seat with the children. Many of you know how much I adore Parker, my elder son, and how even at 7 his precocious nature makes him an absolute joy. I worked vigilantly with him at a young age to master all the English phonemes so he would speak fluently and be comprehended. Nothing annoys me more than an adult dismissive of a child with something to say, no matter how picayune, so it was important to me that he always be heard and understood. I believe that this early and thourough mastering of the English language has helped his communication skills and his overall intelligence. No, I'm not at all biased, am I? Okay, perhaps a bit, but if you've met him you can't deny that he's smarter than the average bear. As we drove, Marla and our friend Chris were talking about the election and the candidates and, of course, the war on Iraq was mentioned. Parker asked me some questions about it, how it started, who we're fighting, what's going on, and I answered them to the best of my abilities. I explained how America was forever changed with the 9/11 attacks, how foreign-based terrorism hadn't so recently hit US civilians, and how our nation is at war with terrorists. Parker asked what a terrorist was and I said "it's a person who tries to achieve a specific goal using fear. Sometimes killing, sometimes property damage, but an overall fear for people's lives to get them to change." I didn't intend for this to be a setup, but he was processing this new information during his line of questioning. He asked me what we were doing in Iraq and I explained that America, already afraid, was led into a war completely unrelated to the terrorists that attacked us. Our government acted on false information saying more terrorists could be there so we attacked. I said that our military is in their country now, sometimes attacking their army, sometimes killing their civilians accidentally, but trying desperately to fix their government through military action. Parker's logical conclusion was a conversational suplex. "So," he said, "we're the terrorists in Iraq?" Um. Boy. That was a stumper. My immediate reaction was no, of course not, because we're Americans, we aren't terrorists. But didn't I just define terrorists as people who use fear, violence, and death to achieve a political goal? I managed to hack through the conversation, but it did get me thinking. Maybe if you, dear reader, sit back and sip your coffee and imagine what it's like to be an Iraqi civilian right now, you might find that answering a question like Parker's might not be so easy without rhetoric or spin. Fortunately, we're being fed enough examples of both to satisfy ourselves. Just don't think too hard, and definitely don't think like a kid. | | Monday, September 15th, 2008 | | 5:02 pm |
Help needed!
Apparently I need some help of some form or another. Here's the lowdown: Last week I was on vacation in Acadia, our wonderful family getaway spot that we go to once a year. Like every vacation, I stop watching what I eat because eating lots of sugar is fun. Now, I distinctly blame my wonderful wife for some of her nitpickerly when she's had too much coffee and I believe it affects her adversely. This year, I, too, drank a lot of coffee and it might have had a hand in the somewhat unfortunate events that I was to be a victim of. I had gone to one of the local ice cream shops to get the nightly ice cream fix (and some fudge, they sell excellent fudge) and there was a small but slow moving line. Bar Harbor, like quite a few touristy places in Maine, imports summer employees from other countries. There was a girl at the counter who was some type of Russian derivation (difficult for an untraveled American like me to make distinctions) and her English was not so crisp. After a couple people went through the line, the guy in front of us and his wife stepped up. He was very loud in one of those "I'm half deaf and I have lungs twice your size" ways and it was evident from the way he was placing his order that he was annoyed at having to wait an extra 50 seconds for his turn to come up. He talked fast and hadn't the patience for the girl who didn't comprehend most of his order. Admittedly, it was annoying for me, too, but I'm the kind of person who can deal with that. I grit my teeth and repeat myself a couple times, frustrated at my own lack of ability to hire minimum-wage foreigners to maintain my shop for me. It must have been a mixture of my mounting frustration at having to place my own order (I have a very hard time comprehending people with thick accents) and the 48 ounces of coffee I'd had that day, but when the guy finally had his order completed and he looked at his wife and mumbled "Goddamn people here can't even speak English" in a quiet but remarkably audible voice, I spoke up. Speaking up is not something I generally do. Not only was I taught the dangers of speaking up at a young age, I always maintain that there's another side to the story that I might not know, and the only way to never be wrong about judging someone is to keep it in your head. I also really hate unnecessary confrontation because, hey, it's unnecessary! Also, it's confrontational. Need I say more? There was an incident that happened right in my own office a few weeks ago where I kept my mouth closed despite a swallowed and imperceptable revulsion on my part, suffice to say I don't mouth off to customers because it's bad for business, even when they verbalize their correct opinions about what's wrong with America (foreigners) so I still had some of that stress to burn. Perhaps I thought he legitimately was deaf. Perhaps I stepped out of my head. Perhaps the caffeine in me wanted a fight. I ruminate on that second over and over again, one of those thousands of little times in my life where something could be changed ever-so-slightly and influence all the events afterwards. Well, this was one of those times. Yes indeed. "I think she can understand that." I eloquently surmised. I can still hear my words ringing in my head. It was terrifying what happened next. Probably not terrifying for most of the people reading this, but definitely for some of you and quite definitely for me. He turned. Just a little. He didn't rotate full-on to face me, but his head swiveled ever so slightly to his right and we locked eyes for a second. You know how when you're in a mall and staring at someone, perhaps because they're beautiful, or perhaps because they're ugly, perhaps because there's just something oddly enticing about them and you want to stare, and then they turn to face you and you look away? There's that brief second, that moment when your eyes hit their eyes and a chilling connection is made, uniquely terrifying and exciting, as if you're connecting with another human the way we're all supposed to be connecting with each other, but the antithesis of how we're taught to behave here in America. In this culture, we don't stare, we don't point, we don't talk to strangers. We certainly don't pick fights. Not most days, anyway. I, of course, looked away. I hadn't intended him to hear, I hadn't intended to even say it, and I certainly hadn't intended to be suffering those obnoxiously revealing chills that were traveling up and down my spine. There was a quick moment when I thought it would all blow over. I began to read the ice cream menu to pick out my flavor so I could place my order when my turn came up. Unfortunately, he had a few choice words for me and my looking away wasn't going to end anything. I had started this ride and, as I always say to my son when he wakes me up first thing in the morning by wrestling with me, "Don't start what you don't intend to finish." The story is going to break down for a bit here. Some of the events are a bit blurry and, given my ruthless devotion to fact, I would be unable to quote anything verbatim so I don't intend on trying. In a nutshell, he responded to my retort with a frank opinion of people working in the service industry who can't even speak F-bombing English. He didn't care if she understood his opinion, in fact, he hoped she had because maybe that meant she's get his order right, too. He loud but he wasn't yelling or freaking out, but he wasn't about to let some stranger get the best of him in public. I said something pathetic along the lines of encouraging him to enjoy his ice cream and forget it. He was most certainly not going to forget it. So I, damn it, kept it going. Usually I can apologize my way out of a fix to calm down even the most belligerent of incomprehensible and irrational blow-hards, but I kept telling him to just deal with it, just calm down, just forget it, until I said "At least she can speak two languages. I'd like to see you go to her country and try to speak her language." By a freakish coincidence, that line did it for both of us. It was like a little switch inside me that went from "Back down" to "Why back down for this jerk? He's as useless as that toilet paper you so fastidiously applied to your nethers earlier. Treat him thusly." To him, my insinuation that she was his intellectual better coupled with the idea that he might step foot outside of his beloved America at some point in his life brought on the full scale yelling onslaught. I never raised my voice, but I didn't fall silent either. He was so loud and constant that I couldn't manage to touch of more than a few words at a time, mostly in unison with his verbal barrage. Things were strangely heated and I wasn't even in myself enough to realize I should have tried to stop. That is, until the next chapter of our story abruptly began. It was at that point when, like a blast of cold water in the morning, like taking a corner and finding a deer in your headlights, or like carrying a big box up some stairs and stepping up again where there is no step, I saw it. A police officer walked into the shop. I doubt he had been called, because it didn't feel like there was enough time for a response to have happened and I'm not sure the girl behind the counter even knew about 9-1-1. It is more likely he just heard the tumult, as there are plenty of ambulatory officers in the bar-strewn tourist district of Bar Harbor proper. I was facing the exit and I must have had a look of such horror on my face when I shifted focus that my assailant stopped and looked around. In retrospect, I keep thinking how it would have been funny to do that earlier and, when he looked, either run or take advantage of that exposed jaw line. This post is turning out longer than I expected, so I'll make a long story short. The officer took our names. He asked if we'd been drinking, if we knew each other, if we lived locally, where we were staying, what the conflict was about. It was interesting to note that our answers were, for the most part, identical. We were both Mainers in town for the week staying at local cabins. Some of the answers, even though I knew them perfectly, were hard to come up with. The name of the place we were staying at came with difficulty, even though if you asked me now I could answer as quickly as lightning. My mind was cloudy and fogged, perhaps it had stepped out until this nasty business was over. He checked our IDs. I remember reading about ID laws in different states and if officers had the right to ask a pedestrian for one, but I realized this wasn't the right time to challenge a law of which I knew nothing. I started to worry about having a record and all those crazy things that little kids worry about when caught in the act. There was a lot of writing. He questioned the girl at the counter but she wasn't very helpful, giving a broken replay of the events in even less detail that we managed. I did not look at the other man at all, but he was just as subdued as me. I was very glad that the rest of my family was out shopping at the bookstore. This was to be a small treat for me, some time alone to get ice cream and fudge. Hooray. We were left with warnings. Our names had been recorded. Any further mischief involving us during that week and 2 would be put together with 2 to reach the conclusion of 4, being a vaguely alluded to punishment that we would obviously deserve for being repeat offenders. The officer left. The other guy got his ice cream and left. I did not get ice cream that night. | | Monday, July 28th, 2008 | | 6:57 pm |
| | Friday, May 30th, 2008 | | 2:54 am |
Because I know you were worried...
Today I ate better. I also thought more about my purpose in life and where I'm being swept. When I was young I always wanted to be a vet. Then I saw a video of a vet operating on a cat and the entire 5 year dream fizzled in two minutes. I can still see the image of the cat, sedated, on its back, legs strung up, belly shaved, two small slits in its taught white skin. A pair of forceps were dragging out some unidentifyable meaty bits. I've never had a dream die so quickly, completely, and irreversablly than in those few seconds. Not because I was squeamish, far from it. In high school, my friend Skip and I did things with a chewed up banana that halted all other food consumption at our table (I got free tater tots from Brian Tardiff, the look of disbelief and revulsion burned so hard in his face he could barely offer them to me). It was simply the idea that, as a vet, life wouldn't be about hanging out with fluffy cats all day, petting them until they were better. Being a vet meant you had to operate, which means lives are at stake, which means, in the instance when an animal life cannot be saved, you are the one who didn't save it. When someone brings in a pet to be put down, you are the one to put it down. I didn't want to live with that, and my young little mind realized that after a single career-ending video. I'm glad I saw it. That's not what I was thinking about today, but that's what I feel like writing about now. Today's machine room rewiring project was rather like operating, except instead of dead tissue, I cut away bad cabling and instead of someone's life, I killed someone's server. Clear! | | Wednesday, May 28th, 2008 | | 11:55 pm |
I, Juggernaut
The human body is an amazing machine. Here I am, awake at midnight, suddenly hit with the realization that since waking up at 0800 I have eaten: 1 slice of toast, buttered and honied 3 chocolate chip cookies 3 Reese's Pieces cookies 2 sugar cookies 2 handfuls of Cool Ranch Doritoes 1 24oz cup coffee 1 24oz cup water And nothing else. No fruit, no vegetables, no protein, nothing. And here I sit, typing, breathing, living! It's like I'm a car and some hippies poured bong water into my tank and I still made it to the Phish concert and back. Woo hoo! I run on anything! I'm even kinda not really hungry. If I go to bed without eating anything else, this could very well be the most unhealthy day of my short and soon to end life. Of course, typing this fills me with hunger. It is likely I will eat some actual food when I get home. For the record, the toast was homemade wheat bread, so it's not all bad. | | Sunday, May 4th, 2008 | | 10:01 pm |
Lie.
Is it a lie to withhold the truth when you know it will change future events?
Is it a lie to speak the truth in such a way as to cause others to reach an incorrect conclusion?
Is it a lie to speak what you believe to be the truth?
Is it a lie to state your opinion as fact?
Is it a lie to speak what you know to be true, but fear may be wrong, but you disallow yourself to uncover the truth for fear you may be wrong?
Is is a lie to manipulate the truth in such a way that it controls the behaviours of others in a way contrary to their belief system but in a way that ultimately does justice to all?
Is it a lie to claim you do not know when you know that you are capable of knowing?
Is it a lie to change what was written at a time when it was the truth, but the truth has changed? Is it a lie not to change it?
Sorry if you were expecting a punch line. There isn't one. | | Sunday, April 27th, 2008 | | 5:39 pm |
My life as a landlord.
I used to be a tenant. We lived in an apartment that didn't allow dogs, but we got a dog anyway. Despite the fact that my landlord was a lazy, lying, creepy slug, I would like to apologize to him for that (although I do love my dog and I wouldn't have done it any differently). I'm going through the same crap right now, but from the other side. I am now the landlord, my tenants are now the liars. We do not rent to smokers. Our building is for non-smokers. I would love to give people the benefit of the doubt and say they confuse this with a non-smoking building, which would imply "No smoking inside the building, but you can still live here and smoke outside." Unfortunately, we're pretty clear with all prospective tenants when we ask "Are you a smoker?" and when we say "This building is only for people who are non-smokers, so we want to make sure you aren't a smoker." When we say that stuff, and people get a bit shifty-eyed but still say "No, I don't smoke" it's pretty obvious, but I still give them the benefit of the doubt. Until, that is, I call their current landlord who says "She's very courteous, she only smokes outside." Thanks a lot. Now you have put me into my least favorite position, you made me the jerk who puts you on the spot for lying and the asshole who says you can't live here because you are a smoker. The thing is, I already asked you, you already said no. Did you think I wouldn't find out? Do you think I'm an absentee landlord? Didn't you even think to tell your current landlord, whose number you just gave me, to lie for you? At least you could have gotten into the apartment that way, maybe hung out for a couple months before I evicted you. Maybe I'd decide the economy is so rough that I'd let you stay just for the cash. But noooooo, you had to lie and lie poorly so it arouses my suspicions and then I had to subversively sneak the truth out from your landlord, and my reward for the role of Columbo is I get to call you and say "You lied to me! You can't stay here! You're not good enough to be my tenant!" Not that I'd put it like that. Ever diplomatic, here's I'll handle the conversation that I am, as I type this, moments away from having: Me: Hey [name changed], this is Snooj. Her: Oh hey! [vague niceties] Me: I'm sorry, I guess I didn't make it clear enough the other day, but our apartment is for non-smokers. (this is a lie, I made it perfectly clear) Her: But I always smoke outside! (this, too, is a lie) Me: I'm sorry, but the building is only for non-smokers. Her: But you guys allow dogs! Where else can I get a place for a dog! Waaaaaaaaah I'll give you sex! Me: Okay. Apart from the penultimate line, that's the conversation I'm about to have. Unless good fortune shines down and I get her voicemail, in which case the letdown will be cut and dry. Me: [name changed], this is Snooj, just wanted to let you know that our building is only for non-smokers, we can't rent to anyone who smokes, even if they only do it outside. Sorry it didn't work out, bye. The conflict avoider in me wants to call at 0500 tomorrow morning to ensure I get her cel, but people anxious for apartments tend to hover by their phones so she'd probably still pick up. Now I'm just sitting here seeing how much more I can write to prolong having to call her. Now that I've confided my motivations, any more writing seems silly. Here we go... | | Monday, April 21st, 2008 | | 7:13 pm |
Kids: Our own little mirrors.
The following e-mail exchange regarding a video on YouTube occurred betwixt me and my son, so start at the bottom and read up. It's not awesome enough that the little bugger used "it's" with an apostrophe (and used "not valuable" to indicate an outdated link), but check out the awesome adjective he threw at me on the last (first) line. True, he spelled it wrong, but that's straight outta his head. I taught him the word a while ago and it's funky that he remembers it. E-MAIL BEGINS. (read bottom up, don't read the first line first because it's a spoiler) =============================== Brobdingnagin weird!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! >Weird! > >> Me to! >> >> >>> Hmmm, I wonder what it was! [Note: He replied to this months after I sent it so I didn't remember the content] >>> >>> ----- Original Message ----- >>> From: <monorail@psouth.net> >>> To: "Jason Dowdy" <snooj@psouth.net> >>> Sent: Tuesday, March 04, 2008 21:24 >>> Subject: Re: Hi Parker, here's a link for you from Snooj. >>> >>> >>>> Thank you but it's not valuable any more. >>>> >>>> >>>>> I thought you might like this. >>>> >>>>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmJDkHk69zU | | Thursday, April 17th, 2008 | | 1:58 am |
Get out of my head!
I am frustrated with the way things in my head appear when they come out onto paper. A classic example is this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_lykZ0SuuA
When I thought up the idea, it seemed so good, but when I wrote it out and went ahead and filmed it, there was a communication breakdown. It just didn't soar the way I anticipated. It wasn't as cut and dry, the punchline didn't hit.
I struggle with bringing the ideas I have to fruition because I fear that putting the work into making them real will result in another thing that makes me go "Hmmmm". Not a good kinda "Hmmmm", either. Not a video whose proverbial "ass" I would be inclined to "tap". No, this is the kind of "Hmmmm" that leaves me wondering if my name should be in the credits.
On the flipside, this seems like a valid precursor to getting out there and getting some experience. I have scripted out a scene from the unrealized Zombie script. The scene requires no special effects apart from a large military truck which I may or may not be able to get my hands on as well as a gun. The gun doesn't have to fire, just be present. Also, it needs some actors (this is not a casting call).
Apart from that, foley foley foley. The best shit is ruined by bad sound. This summer, filming begins. |
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