Thursday, May 21, 2020

Story 342: Get Your Very Own Don’t-Think-About-It Buddy!


            [Commercial]
           (Scenes of Customer standing in the middle of an empty parking lot, an empty stadium, and an empty beach)
            Voiceover: Life getting you down lately?
            (Scene of papers being sucked out of Customer’s hand and into a kitchen garbage disposal)
            Voiceover: Did months of work just get obliterated?
            (Scene of Customer sitting at an office desk, slumped on one hand, while a coworker screams in their ear)
          Voiceover: Was your day going just fine until that one person said something that ruined absolutely everything?
            (Flashing lights, bright colors, and text cross the screen)
            Voiceover: Fret no more, my friends – all your worries will vanish as if they had never been once you get your very own Don’t-Think-About-It Buddy!
            (Customer, now alone, still is slumped at the desk; the camera filter brightens as Don’t-Think-About-It Buddy, wearing a superhero outfit, mask, cape, and “DTAIB” printed on the shirt, bounds onto the scene)
            Voiceover: Marvel as those never-ending negative thoughts are immediately vanquished!
          (Don’t-Think-About-It Buddy grabs Customer by the shoulder and gives a slap across the face)
            Voiceover: Amaze as irreparable loss is rendered inconsequential!
            (Customer is leaning down to peer at the shreds of paper sticking out of the garbage disposal; Don’t-Think-About-It Buddy bounds onto the scene and throws a glass of water in Customer’s face)
            Voiceover: Wonder as – hopefully – temporary setbacks are made tolerable by comparison!
          (Customer walks up to an empty local baseball field, grabs onto the chain-link fence, and sighs; Don’t-Think-About-It Buddy bounds onto the scene; Customer turns and gets a cream pie in the face)
            Voiceover: You will be astounded!  Confounded!  Bemused!  Befuddled!  And 100% satisfied by the results!
          (Customer, face covered in cream pie, stands with Don’t-Think-About-It Buddy, who has hands on hips in hero pose; both are facing the camera)
            Customer: That’s great!  Tell me more!
            Voiceover: That’s pretty much it.
            Customer: Oh.
            Voiceover: But wait, there’s more!
            (Scenes of Don’t-Think-About-It Buddy at office meetings, family dinners, factory floors, and solo-occupant living rooms, pegging people with water balloons, smacking them upside the head, bodily tossing them onto a floor mattress, and tweaking their noses)
            Voiceover: And the best part is, Don’t-Think-About-It Buddy is on-call 24-7 for all your life-distraction needs!  Bonus package includes multiple visits for family parties, whenever we can have those to complain about again!  Special rates for those troublesome late-night musings!
            (Scene of Customer tossing and turning in a bed, then grabbing the clock to see it read “3:24 a.m.”; turns back onto the bed to see Don’t-Think-About-It Buddy, who pinches a nerve on Customer’s neck; Customer passes out)
            Voiceover: So don’t wait!  Call today at the number displayed on your screen – subject to change – (Changing phone number flashes at the bottom of the screen) or visit our Web site at www.dontthinkaboutitbuddyanddontsueus.com to order your very own Don’t-Think-About-It Buddy, and never worry about anything long-term again!
            (Don’t-Think-About-It Buddy bounds onto the scene in hero pose again)
            Don’t-Think-About-It Buddy: Remember, folks: only you – (Points to the camera) can end your own circular internal monologue!  By using me – (Points to self) to slap those pesky thoughts right out of your head!  Don’t-Think-About-It Buddy, to the rescue!  (Lifts arms as a wire pulls Don’t-Think-About-It Buddy up and away)
        Voiceover: (Extremely fast speed) Warning-Don’t-Think-About-It-Buddy-only-provides-service-to-the-customer-on-the-bill-and-cannot-be-directed-to-provide-service-to-friends-or-enemies-if-you-change-your-mind-after-purchase-please-call-us-and-not-the-police.  (Regular speed) So don’t wait!  Call now for a Don’t-Think-About-It Buddy, and change your life today!

Thursday, May 14, 2020

Story 341: Pitfalls in Collaboration


[Inspired by The Metropolitan Opera and its recent Nightly Opera Streams at www.metopera.org]

            (In an office, an opera house’s Artistic Director sits at a desk facing Composer and Librettist)
            Artistic Director: All right, you two: when I commissioned you to create the best opera ever, I meant I wanted one where the audience will laugh, cry, roar, and swoon, preferably in that order.  And instead, I’m getting a half-completed work that makes me want to chuck the entire orchestra at you.  What in the name of bel canto’s going on?!
            Composer: First of all – did you hear the music yet?
            Librettist: (Slumps in the chair) Ugh, here we go.
          Composer: (To Artistic Director) I would like to take this moment to emphasize that my portion of this work is done, by the way – I even finished the orchestration months ago.
            Artistic Director: Then why are you two telling me it’s not done?
          Librettist: (Rolls eyes) Somebody feels that the lyrics need to “match the tone set by the music,” whatever that means.
            Artistic Director: It means the lyrics should convey the same themes as the music.
            Librettist: I know what it means!                                      
            Artistic Director: What?
         Librettist: My libretto is perfect as it is; it’s based off the book you – (Points to Artistic Director) chose, and it’s got everything you could ever want: hot people in love, random shenanigans, loud misunderstandings that go on for hours, and societal rebels refusing to live lives of oppressive regular salaries, so I fail to see what the problem is.
            Composer: (To Artistic Director) OK, first: you’ve heard the music?
            Artistic Director: Yes, we’ve established that.
            Composer: And you’ve noted how absolutely glorious it is?
           Artistic Director: Well, a tear or two did threaten, and my heart struggled to beat a few times, so I think it’s safe to say that “glorious” is an acceptable adjective.
         Composer: Thank you.  Now, with that in mind: have you read the lyrics set to this awe-inspiring masterpiece of sound?
            Artistic Director: Well, sort-of – it’s been hard to keep up with all the revisions.
            Composer: (Flips through pages of the score) Uh-huh, uh-huh – OK, here’s the latest from Act 1, the aria I wrote for the lead tenor.  (Hands a few pages to the Artistic Director) Note the soaring strings that sound like grown human beings weeping?
            Artistic Director: (Scans through the pages) Oh yes, I like this one a lot.
            Composer: Uh-huh – and do you see the words paired with these sublime notes?
            Artistic Director: (Reads some more) He’s talking about what he does during his day?
            Composer: Yes!  He soars to the heavens about going out to pick up the newspaper!
            Librettist: What’s your point?
            Artistic Director: It does seem a bit trivial for such majestic instrumentation.
            Composer: Thank you!
         Librettist: What do you expect?  It’s a day in the life – the whole thing’s populated with mooning adult children living in self-inflicted poverty and falling in love with completely incompatible randos – Billy Shakespeare wrote reams on the same subjects, and everybody loved him for it!
            Composer: His words were divine poetry!  Yours don’t even rhyme!
            Librettist: Most of the audience members don’t even speak the language I’m writing in – they just want it to sound good.
            Composer: They’ll know when they read the subtitles that it’s all trite!   Here – (Flips through more pages and hands a bunch to Artistic Director) love duet in Act 2.  Tell me what you think.
            Artistic Director: (Scans through the pages, humming the notes of a romantic tune, then stops) Wait, do these two people even know each other?
            Composer: They just met in Act 1!  Which took place 20 minutes earlier!
          Librettist: Duh, it’s called “Love at first sight,” haven’t you ever heard of a little something called Romeo and Juliet?
           Artistic Director: You really should stop comparing yourself to an icon; it never works out in your favor.
            Librettist: Noted.
          Composer: My point is, I wrote that piece for two lovers who have the intimacy that comes from shared years and memories, and this one – (Points thumb at Librettist) has them gibbering on about how the Sun looks a tad peaked, and ooh, isn’t that a fine rock over there, and oh, what’s your name again?!
            Librettist: All issues that plague the common folk.
           Artistic Director: Hm.  I have to admit, for a transcendent work of art, the stakes here are really low.
           Composer: You have no idea: in Act 3, they have an argument for half an hour over who broke up with the other first, when it turns out they cheated on each for no reason!
            Librettist: Everyone likes a good “Will they or won’t they?” popping up a few times during a story; keeps things fresh.
            Composer: It’s smothering my score!
           Artistic Director: (Hands papers back to the Composer) I have to agree: unless this is a flat-out farce, the audience won’t connect with the characters if they just dither on about who they should dance with, or whether they should stick with the rich lord or the penniless artist when the answer clearly is “Neither,” or what hat they should wear today – they want war; they want royal executions; they want gods and goddesses loudly interfering with mortals’ destines; all that rubbish.
             Librettist: (Sighs dramatically) Fine – you want me to kill one of the lovebirds at the end or something like that?  Give a nice air of tragedy to the whole thing?
            Artistic Director: Ooh, there’s a thought: killing one or both of the romantic leads usually does the trick; it elevates pretty much anything from boring banality to the existential futility of life, with very minimal effort.
            Composer: But if you kill `em off at the end, no one’s gonna know that the whole thing was poetically tragic until the end!
         Librettist: Argh, all right, I’ll give one of them something consistently debilitating, like consumption – that way the singer’ll be stage-coughing throughout so everyone watching’ll know something’s up, happy?
            Composer: Only as long as they don’t upstage the first violins.
            Artistic Director: So it’s settled, then: give just the soprano consumption and throw in some lines about how frail she looks, and then the leads can sing their hearts out about anything trivial they want since life is so fleeting and pointless, and also have the tenor freak out at the end when she dies so the grand finale of cymbals crashing and horns blaring and drums exploding all makes sense, and I can see the audience’s flowing tears now, ahahahaha!
            Librettist: …Sure, I can whip something up.  (To Composer) This mean you’ll shut up about the lyrics now?
          Composer: Would you at least consider throwing in a regicide or people’s uprising while you’re at it?  I really feel like those subjects are more in scale with my work.
            Librettist: Just tell the singers to be coloratura and leggiero to the max, and no one will notice what they’re really talking about.

Thursday, May 7, 2020

Story 340: Cooking by Substitution


[Online video titled “Remember to Insert Title Later”; currently has 5,372 views and two likes]
(In a home kitchen, Chef pops up from behind the counter)
Chef: Hello, culinary world, and welcome to the first episode of my new show, “Home Cooking Fancy Meals” – hold up, doesn’t sound right when I say it out loud – “Fancy Meals Using Home Cooking”?  “Fancy Cooking for Home Meals”?  “Fancy Home Cooking Fancy Meals”?  Whatever; I’ll figure it out later.  Now – (Heaves up a 16-quart stock pot from a lower shelf and drops it loudly onto the counter) let’s begin, shall we?
(Jump cut to Chef surrounded by vegetables, spices, and knives)
Chef: Our soup recipe calls for kale, but the store was all out when I went there and I am not going back again, so we’ll make do with chard – close enough, and soup’s not gonna complain, am-I-right?  (Begins chopping wildly; chard flies everywhere; this goes on for some time) 
Chef: (Wipes brow) Whoo, that was a workout – if any of you folks out there are ambidextrous, you can multitask by making dinner and having your arm day at the same time.  And on to the beans!  (Starts opening many cans) If the recipe calls for low sodium beans but your local store insists on only stocking triple-digit milligrams of the stuff, just run them under the water for a bit and wash all that heart-clogging salt down the drain, yippee!  (While rinsing beans in a colander, Chef picks up a can and reads the label) Huh, this was a low-sodium one after all – I retract my previous slander.  (Begins dumping beans into the pot) By the way, don’t feel obligated to get the exact type of bean listed in the recipe – when it comes down to it, a bean’s a bean’s a bean, know-what-I-mean, heh-heh-heh?  All the flavor’s gonna be cooked out of them anyway, so who cares if it’s kidney or cannellini?
Off-Screen Voice: That’s the same thing.
Chef: I told you earlier – you don’t exist in this video!
(Jump cut to more can-opening)
Chef: (Struggling with an opener on a small can) Now, you may find that when you start making your fancy meal, you picked up one item by mistake when the recipe calls for another – is it your fault you read “tomato paste” on your shopping list when your smudged handwriting actually said “tomato puree?”  (Finally removes the lid) Well yes, it is, but one makes do.  (Dumps tomato paste into the pot and stirs with resistance) Honestly, I think they just market different ways of chopping up the same vegetable to get you to buy more, don’t you agree?  Comment below!
Off-Screen Voice: Comments’ll say tomato’s a fruit.
Chef: Troll.
(Jump cut to Chef pouring broth into the pot)
Chef: Recipe says “12 ounces of chicken broth”; I got a quart of vegetable broth.  (Leans towards the camera to whisper) I won’t tell if you won’t.
Off-Screen Voice: You just told the world.
Chef: Oh for –
(Jump cut to a line-up of spices)
Chef: Right: fresh garlic, fresh basil, fresh parsley… don’t exist in this kitchen, so we’re using these handy-dandy dried-up versions.  (Begins sprinkling a bit of each into the mixture in the pot, which is now on the stove) And folks, don’t let little things like “teaspoons” and “cloves” and “liters” and whatnot scare you off: let your eye and your heart be the judge – cooking is by feel, dagnabbit!  (A lid on one of the containers falls off into the pot, with a bunch of the spice falling in after) Oops.  Reverse, reverse!  (Begins scooping out the lid and some of the excess spice with a spoon)
(Jump cut to closer view of Chef stirring a reddish mixture in the pot) Doesn’t really match the picture – but it never does, am-I-right?
            Off-Screen Voice: It should at least be close.
            Chef: Nobody asked you!
            Off-Screen Voice: You literally just did.
            (Chef throws a towel at the camera; jump cut to Chef turning down the heat on the stove)
           Chef: So, since it’s reached boiling, we’re now going to turn down the heat to let it simmer for… (Looks at a cookbook) four hours?!  That can’t be right; I’m hungry now!  (Looks closer at the page) Oh, this was supposed to be for a slow cooker.  Well, since I don’t have one, simmering on the stove for half an hour should be just as good if not better, don’t you agree?
            (Jump cut to Chef sitting at a table with a bowl of the soup and a spoon)
          Chef: And now, to taste the final results of all our hard work today!  (Eats a spoonful and smacks lips) Hm.  A bit bland, and more of a stew than a soup, but there you have it!  Fancy meal with all the self-contained trimmings, right in your very own home!  Thank you for watching; if you enjoyed this even a tiny bit, please hit “Like” and “Subscribe” below so I get sponsors and can embed commercials for them, thanks much, I love you all!
            Off-Screen Voice: You forgot the cheese topping.
            Chef: Turn off the camera.