The Spoken Word...

I got a membership to Audible.com recently. I love spoken word recordings - Garrison Keillor, Spalding Grey (who is no longer with us), Firesign Theatre, etc. - and I got this great deal for a free month through work, so... Immediately, I ordered two books, Spalding Grey's Monster in a Box and Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces.

Joseph Campbell had an incredible speaking voice and could take the driest, most desiccated material and reinvigorate it, make it live again. Sadly, though, he's dead. (Buying from the dead saves all that time at the checkout counter.) So, they had to bring in someone else to read his book, Ralph Blum. Another writer, Ralph Blum composes new aged claptrap about runes and that kind of crap - certainly no one to fill Joseph's Campbell's shoes. The could have got Peter Coyote or Joe Montegna but NO...

And so, having burnt it to CD, I put The Hero with a Thousand Faces into my CD player this morning...

Long long ago, when wishing could still lead to something, there lived a king whose daughters all were beautiful, but the youngest was so beautiful that the sun itself, who had seen so many things, simply marveled every time it shone on her face. Now close to the castle of this king was a great dark forest, and in the forest under an old lime tree a spring, and when the day was very hot, the king's child would go out into the wood and sit on the edge of the cool spring. And she would dip her tiny feet in the nice, cool water and - aaaaaahhhh - yep, that's good. Would you like a sip?

Not now. I'm driving.

Come on. This is your dream. You might as well enjoy it.

I'd enjoy it a whole lot more if they'd been able to get Joseph Campbell to narrate rather than listen to your voice drone on and on.

As if you're an better? Ever take a look at those My Sides you write? Huh? Snore City!

I wouldn't go that -

And you don't even get anything published any more. Now you write on some free website and all your readers know how sad that is. Just ask either of them!

That's because I have other -

Other what? Working on other projects? Name one! All you've been doing is spending time with your girlfriend, wondering when she's going to break up with you!

Well, she has been giving me weird looks lately.

Like that she has something she wants to say to you but is afraid to say it?

Yes. Exactly.

She's probably thinking, "What a neurotic freak! Why can't he stop asking me what I'm thinking?!"

Well, I'm concerned.

Obsessed is more like it. And why shouldn't she think you're a freak? You bought a Moody Blues DVD this weekend. Moody freaking Blues!!!! Aren't they dead? And on top of that you're reading Garrison Keillor! And if that's not bad enough, she's finally catching on to what a snob you are - just like everyone else you know! Face it! You're a fat, lazy slob who does nothing with his life, is still caught in the past, and thinks that gives him the right to judge people! You should be ashamed of yourself!

What? Wait a second! That's not true!

Oh, sorry. You're fat, lazy AND stupid!

I am not fat. I'm down to 220.

That's fatter than 180.

But thinner than 240. It's all subjective. And I'm not lazy, either.

How's that screenplay coming?

Okay, so I haven't done that. But I did do the rewrite on Atheists and I'm halfway done with the rewrite on Everything Changes. I think having someone in my life like Vicky, someone I may marry, gives me a right to take it a little easy.

Oh, please. Last year, you did, what? Six or seven shows? How many this year? Two!

Okay, there's going to be some readjustment. I know that. But that doesn't mean I'm doing nothing with my life. I'm thinking of the future. So, I'm not caught up in the past.

You mean to tell me you never think about Rosa?

Well, yes, of course, I still think about Rosa.

You called Vicky "Rosa" just last night!

I was half-asleep. I can't even remember what I was saying! Hey, I might have been dreaming for all I know.... Okay, that was my bad. But that doesn't mean I'd rather be with her because I wouldn't! And I'm a lot less judgmental of people than I used to be!

Didn't you go off yesterday about how useless models are? Didn't you do that while Vicky was watching NASCAR? Wasn't that right around the same time you were making jokes about NASCAR?

Okay, my joking got a little out of hand! Still, that's not the same thing as looking down my nose at people or minimizing them, which I used to do way too much of! I'm not as bad as I used to be!

What about this disk?! Weren't you just criticizing this disk????

Sure. But this disk sucks.

So, I took out the disk and put in Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Mood... which began to lecture me on the utter futility and aloneness of existence...