Story Snippets

Back in 2005, I was digging through my stuff and finding snippets of stories that I wrote alone or collaborated with someone on and posting the favorite bits of those. I believe my exact words back then were "Sometimes I read stuff I wrote and it fits far more smoothly than I had hoped, making it like brand new material to me...then again, that might just be AGE making me forget what I said." Anyway, I've decided to do that again, 'cause I like reeling in the years. Should anyone be interested, I usually have the whole story on file and can send it. Other times, you're ALREADY reading the whole story 'cause I'm great at getting stuff done without getting sidetra....hey, a rerun of Scrubs!

Okay, a Daina & (Big) Josh story snippet (the middle is actually written by him, but I liked the whole section, so I kept it all):


"On a good day, you can see through the space-time continuum...on a bad day, you tear right through the sum'bitch." D. Burke

Teen angst on a string is something that one doesn't ever really think they'll have to deal with again until it rears its Tommy Hilfigered, baggy jeaned, "in" crowded, head-up-its-own-assed head in the middle of a group of normal high schoolers, causing them to erupt into screaming fits, storming-out fits, general hysterics and haughtily whispered snatches of conversation that usually include phrases like, "that BITCH", "if she thinks", "well, I heard from so-and-so that", "we better go talk to her in the bathroom" and my all time favorite, "she bet'not put her hand in MY face, 'cause I WILL beat her ass down!"
All this comes to a heightened point of necessary catharsis, the nexus for all emotional distress and teenage torment, a sort of end all, be all of emotional disturbance and mind boggling acts of insanity...
...the high school drama director.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! WHAT ARE YOU PEOPLE TRYING TO DO TO MEEEEEEEE! HAVE YOU NO IDEA WHATSOEVER OF HOW MUCH TIME IS LEFT BEFORE THIS FRICKIN' PLAY GOES UP? WHAT THE FLIP IS THAT???"
All action stopped onstage as every middle and high school head turned to the back row of the auditorium to peer blankly past the spotlights to the empty back row, where I lay on the floor writhing in complete agony.
"But Mrs. Burke..." came the plaintive cry.
"SHUT IT!!!" I screeched to the ceiling. "I...DON'T...WANNA...HEAR IT!!! IF I'VE SAID IT ONCE, I’VE SAID IT A THOUSAND AND ONE TIMES...NO BUTTS TO THE AUDIENCE!!! How'm I doing?" The last part was directed to my assistant director and better half, Nancy, who sat a row ahead of me. As the school librarian and the official adult onsite, she took it upon herself to be the good cop to my bad cop during rehearsal, which just made me out to be even more the sweetheart when I was in a good mood. She was, effectively, the neutral zone to my cosmic chaos.
Presently, she looked back at the cast with a time honored look of withering adult blandness. "I hope you're happy, people," she said in her classic monotone. "She's dead now. You killed her."
"Oh, you're in a fury tonight, Nance," I said, rising up on an elbow sarcastically.
"I save the melodramatics for you, Daina," she replied, a hint of a smirk on her face. "They are, by the way, wetting their pants thinking you're about to rerun Act One from the top again."
"Being an adult rules!" I grinned, giving her the thumbs up from the floor. "Watch this." I raised my voice again so the kids on stage could hear. "Give me ONE GOOD REASON why I shouldn't make us stay until 9 tonight."
The multitude of pleading voices as I pretended to wearily drag myself back into my seat was better than applause.
An hour later, it was NOT enough to make me anymore than tired to the bone when I dragged into the house. Kevin gave me a kiss and a hug when I came in, then babied the heck out of me all the way to the sofa.
"How did it go tonight?" he asked.
"I was evil," I smiled.
"That good, huh?" he grinned back.
"Yeah...I threatened to make them rehearse until midnight, then I...urg." I could see the question on Kevin's face, but the pain just behind my left eye made it impossible to answer him and, after a moment, impossible to see him. It occurred to me briefly that God was probably punishing me for torturing innocent students, so I was probably better off not complaining. I closed my eyes for a second to rub them, then opened them again and was only slightly surprised to find myself in my subconscious bedroom.
I was slightly more surprised to find a large gaping hole in the wall that opened up to a foreboding, swirling darkness that looked remarkably like the tornado scene in "The Wizard of Oz".
The rest of my horror actually came from finding myself lying on the bed next to the one known affectionately as "the boy", but more commonly known as Josh.
In an amazingly synchronized display, we both screamed bloody murder, leapt away from each other to opposite walls, pointed at one another and with all the creative thought we could muster shouted, "What the HELL are YOU doing here?!?!"


Josh's part:

The scene looked like something out of a detective movie. Josephine paced back and forth with the stern look of incredibly deep thought on her face. Hsoj sat steepling his fingers wearing his best poker face. Joe seemed to be moving 90 miles an hour in his seat, the frantic look that ever wrong-doing-child gets on their face.
"Okay, tell me one more time what happened. Tell me everything from the top and don't leave out a single detail. I have to know exactly what happened."
"Well…" Hsoj began.
"And this time I want to hear it from Joe. I have the feeling you aren't being completely honest, even though you know that if we don't find Josh his body will eventually die in the real world."
Joe apparently lost in his own self made world of shear terror, screamed when Hsoj nudged him and told him to tell Josephine everything. Meanwhile...

IRVING, TEXAS: JOSH'S LOCATION

Every one basically ignored the guy asleep in class. Until, of course, class was over. The students filed out, in that hurried manner you find in any institute of learning. Five minutes after the bell rang the teacher noticed the sleeping student was still there. Perturbed that he had the audacity to sleep through the lecture and now wouldn't get up so that he himself could leave, the professor stormed over to the unconscious student's desk. First there was the simple nudge and, "get up!" Then, when the student simply fell limp and lifeless to the floor, the panic set in.
The professor knew that Geology wasn't all that exciting. He knew that he himself hated it, and that his lectures were boring and drawn out, but he never imagined in a million years that he would ACTUALLY bore someone to death!
Panicked, he checked for a pulse. It was faint, but still there. He grabbed his cell phone and began to dial 911, then stopped. If this got out, that with the most boring lecture in the world he had actually killed a student, he would never work in education again. The last thing he wanted was to actually become a geologist, so he pulled the car to the door nearest the class room and loaded up the body. As he pulled out of the parking lot, he began to think of where the largest natural deposit of lime was.
Finally, geology had a real world application...!


MEANWHILE BACK IN THE HEAD:

"Alright, after hearing everything, I can now categorically say...I have no idea what to do." Josephine flopped in a chair exhausted.
"I have an idea," Hsoj said smoothly, "Why don't I take temporary control of the body. And you and the boy can search the link systematically. I'll tell you the safes..." He was cut short by the sudden death grip on his best friend, Mr. Happy. The tears in his eyes let Josephine know she was using just the right amount of pressure.
"Finish that sentence, and plan on peeing sitting down for awhile. Why don't you go hunting, seeing how all of this is your fault. Everyone else around here might think you're a big man and dangerous to boot. But I'll kill you if I have to, understand? You might be the most powerful Dark Elv to ever have existed, and you might have made kings fall to there knees before you, but I'm a woman on the edge with your balls in my hand and my period started yesterday...so, in short, do not fuck with me right now, OK!!!"
"Well, if I leave, who's going to control the body? You need a man so that people won't be suspicious of you and try and lock you away for being a freak," Hsoj squeaked.
"Hsoj, if you aren't off looking for Josh in ten seconds I'm going to rip them off wrap 'em up and give them to you for Christmas." Hsoj cringed and headed for the door, looked in to the swirling darkness the could kill you if not used properly and suddenly had the answer, he turned to tell Josephine but she just looked at him sternly and said," And don't forget to take the boy with you."

My part (again):

"Jinx, you owe me a Coke!" Josh grinned.
I grinned back, pretending momentarily to be with him in this little 4th grade bit of humor. "Yeah, yeah, a Coke, 'cause...SHUT UP!" He looked at me, a bit put out by the sudden change in my attitude, then looked back at the hole in the wall.
"Right...the wall," he nodded. "You're probably wondering about that."
"Ever so slightly," I muttered.
"Well, funny you should ask, 'cause I'm not exactly sure either. I'd LIKE to say it's the link, but then I'd also like to say I enjoy geology class," he said, looking askance as the hole again. "I kinda fell through it."
"Kinda?" I looked back at the size of the hole again, questioning his judgement a bit.
"I got pushed," he added helpfully.
"Ye-esss."
"It, uh...wasn't fun."
I rubbed my eyes...this was frequently how conversations with the boy tended to go...nowhere. "So I'm told. You realize, now, that two REAL humans are now occupying the same body. If I wake up, we have MAJOR problems." I blinked, remembering the head pain that had knocked me out. "Assuming I can ever wake up again. K, you have to go now." I began shoving him toward the hole as he dug his heels in.
"Hey, wait a minute, that's a large gaping hole to nowhere right now...pushing me in is NOT gonna help matters!" he spluttered.
I thought about this a moment. If he disappeared into the nothingness I was looking at, we'd both have a major problem. He'd cease to exist properly and I have this thing with guilt eating at me when I cause the death of others.
I sighed. "Alright, I'll take you home...you just can't stay here."
"What, you don't have TIME for a visit?" Josh joked.
"Not the deadly kind!" I grinned back. "C'mon, let's go."
Ah, yes, famous last words.
"Let's go".
It implies leaving, a sense of travel that really has no definite direction, something that I REALLY needed to remember the next time I stepped into nothingness, with or without a friend in tow...

…fwhooff…

It's the noise you always hear in the movies when an atom bomb hits, that dull air-rushed thud that's even more baffling because the word "bomb" is attached to it. It's almost as if the very fact that it's the most deadly thing you can imagine makes it unnecessary to have all the noise you normally associate with other deadly stuff like dynamite, shotgun blasts, and cannon fire. After all, you're LOOKING at a mushroom cloud by that point, which is the visual symbol of total annihilation, so the "death wrapped in a Kleenex" kind of noise is meant to underscore that, I suppose. The bigger the cloud of death, the more likely you are to get that softer, quieter sound.
Which probably explains why that was the sound I "heard" upon entering the void. In retrospect, I probably heard NOTHING, just like I couldn't actually feel Josh grab my wrist at the last moment and cling to it to make sure he didn't lose me before the point became moot. I didn't "see" darkness, although I recall straining my eyes to the point of actual insanity, desperate to see even a shadow. I didn't "hear" my scream disappear into this blanket of death; I just knew I tried to scream out with all I could. And I sure couldn't have sensed the suffocating darkness pouring into my open mouth and all throughout my body before I felt the Kleenex of death wrap my brain into that softness that I didn't have the presence of mind to be afraid of for more than a second on some universal watch…

Help! Go to wgrz.com and click on Andy's Weather Machine under "weather". Enter my school (Niagara County, Washington Hunt) as many times as you can tonight!

It All Started With Fame...

...and went downhill from there.

Wanna feel old? Picture your favorite actor/actress from when you were 10 or so. Now, if your fave has gone from gracing the cover of Tiger Beat, to People, to Lifetime, to do commercials for vitamins, pain relievers or life insurance, congrats...you're over 40!

This all started because I saw this trailer at the drive in the other night before Harry Potter. There was some dancer and the words "It all starts with a dream..." This song was playing at the beginning and I knew the words and started singing along, but couldn't place WHY I knew the words:

Sometimes I wonder,
where I've been.
Who I am,
do I fit in.

I may not win,
but I can be strong
Out here
On my own

Then suddenly, before I can say "Oh, that's On My Own" and be mad that they cut a part from the lyrics, that haunting refrain from another WAY more popular song came in:

"Remember, remember, remember..."

And I DID.

"HOLY !@#, they're redoing FAME!" I screamed to Kevin. Man, I just about SOILED myself. Suddenly, I was mentally trasported back in time to middle school. My middle school was an independant private school called Crossroads in downtown St. Louis that was run almost mom and pop style by an amazing collection of hippies, professors, educators, outdoorsman, businessmen and EVERYONE'S parents. It's the only school where I had Sledding for gym, a field trip to watch the Cardinals World Series parade, had an econ class through school store and a host of other really cool experiences, most of which were just phenomenal in terms of real world learning. My dad even came in and did a ton of awesome computer programming stuff back when it was still something you wrote lines of text for.

Anyway, the creativity aspect is what made it a prime jumping off place for VAP, St. Louis's Visual and Performing Arts magnet school. Kids in my school were always hanging around writing their own plays and music and all this other neat artistic stuff...and then FAME came out and EVERYONE was a dancer or a singer. Heck, even I wanted to be Irene Cara and I wasn't allowed to see the MOVIE back then (rated R, so I just heard about it and watched the subsequent tv show). 4 different chicks did "On My Own" for the talent show!

So, after seeing that and singing the song for karaoke at tournament this year (which, if you've never seen improv comedians doing karaoke, I HIGHLY recommend...we had the ENTIRE dancing in the street scene going on the dance floor in front of me!), I came home and looked up the movie, only to find out that it came out in 1980.

1980, people!

Seriously, Fame is coming up on its THIRTIETH anniversary! I'll be 40 two days after the remake comes out and the movie will be 30 a few months later!

That's when I started looking at where they are now and what folks are doing and got that bolt of reality. Gene Anthony Ray (Leroy) is dead, as is Mr. Shorofsky (who was already older, but MAN!). That kinda stuff makes you look at all the other famous folks of the time, like Farrah & Michael and Lindsay Wagner...the Bionic Woman is doing SLEEP NUMBER beds! Robin Williams was on Letterman doing an entire monologue on HEART SURGERY.

And meanwhile, the Jonas Brothers and Miley Cyrus still live...

Where is the JUSTICE, people? Are these children DRAINING the lives from our faves and using it for media sustenance? Who among us is NEXT???

At any rate, now that the rose colored glasses are off, the movie itself looks...okay? I mean, I'm only going from the way the dancers are dancing and the remake of the theme song, but it seems kinda...slutty?

Again, I'm probably just getting old, 'cause when I go back and look at the tv show, whenever they break into spontaneous dancing (which is ALWAYS), there's a ton of pelvic thrusting and whatnot that I now see as a bit suggestive (watch about 2 minutes into this and see if you think Debbie Allen woulda kept her teaching license TODAY!). But the music seemed to be more heart pounding and exciting.

The new version...there's a lot of girls SLIDING into splits and arching bodies (wow, I sound like some old censor lady or something!). And the new beat doesn't make me want to jump up and spontaneously dance, unless there's a pole involved. Plus, look at this poster! Are we selling sex and Pepsi or something???

Age. I'm not scared of getting old, but I can remember when all music was fun and I couldn't imagine sleeping through Saturday morning cartoons. Suddenly, I'm not even TOUCHING the TV on Saturdays because of all this computer animated and video game crap (says the woman who actually watched THIS power hour on Saturdays) and listening to more and more JACK FM.

D.

Back from Canada & on to Wisconsin!

Well, we've just returned from our trip with the Quinns to Canada, where we boxed Parry Sound. This was a really nice little area that I'd never gotten to see much of. The Highlander's grandpa ran a campsite up in Pointe au Baril and before he passed, he sold most of it (which became Sturgeon Bay Provincial Park) but kept one cottage for the family. We had a good time, but didn't get to spend much of it together. So, Kevin and I will be heading back to spend our 10th wedding anniversary back up at Pointe au Baril. Apparently, there's a lobster dinner and dance going on at the community center up there AND Harry Potter is coming out, so dinner and a movie!

But, for now, I'm back on the road again in less than 48 hours. I'm gonna be playing for Buffalo in the ComedySportz World Championship games this Friday (wheee!). We play against Portland on Friday, and with any luck, we'll make it to the finals on Saturday. Can't wait to see how we do!

Anyway, I'm not sure if my computer will withstand the pressure of life in Milwaukee for a week, but if anyone reading this wants to see how ComedySportz Buffalo and I are doing, just follow CSzBuffalo on Twitter. I'm kinda the voice of CSz Buffalo for Twitter, but I only speak for the team, not myself. I'm also going to try and post on Facebook and Blogger from my phone...we'll see how well that goes!

If you're in Milwaukee, though, I'd LOVE to have you come to the games! The more bias in my favor, the better!

D.

Improvathon 2009 May 30-31

Just a reminder that the Improvathon starts today at the Riviera Theater in North Tonawanda! I'm playing 4-6pm and 10-midnight, then 2-4pm tomorrow and maybe the All Star show at 8pm. If you're reading this and you don't come...you better live in another state!!!

Random Clown Post

This was something I typed into the notes on my phone after one of those great goofy conversations with Kevin:

I think the only thing that would sound funnier than beatin' someone down with an accordion would be beatin' down one of those clowns with the squeaky shoes and the bike horn nose. Visually, beating the bejeesus outta a mascot is pretty appealing, but who can deny the joy you'd get in the discordant cacaphony of cheesy instruments, which should end with the quintessential El Kabong sound.

In fact, if I knew I had clown beatings to look forward to, I would actually carry around a supply of cheap ukeleles in the trunk of my car JUST for such an occasion. These would be next to my bag of throwing shoes for presidential visits and my multipurpose sack of vegetables.

Karbi

Not sure why I don't already have this posted, but since people still ask about it, here it is! It was originally written after a holiday party back in 2003.

Many people don't know this, but I am actually the African American ambassador to the nation. One of many, really, but I don't often seem to be in the same place at the same time with the other ambassadors. In fact, in most cases and many places here in upstate New York, I am the "only one" or "the other one" in many social gatherings. It is my job to be as diplomatic as possible in relations with those outside the African American race so that all future cross culture interactions go as smoothly as possible. It's a pretty stressful position, but one I have slowly learned to realize the importance (and sometimes depressing nature) of.

Just this past holiday, my husband and I were visiting friends for our yearly New Year's party. This party is truly the highlight of our year. It always includes a great many people, old and young, most of whom I hold in high regard as friends of my husband's and now, mine. I'm usually the only person of color in attendance, but this never bothers me, no matter where we are. As I mentioned, I'm frequently the "only one" or "the other one". Since these friends live more than an hour from us, we always make arrangements to stay the night just to enjoy their company without feeling the need to make it home before sleep or drunk drivers overtake us.

We were, in fact, just hitting the 3 o'clock hour and a possible bedtime when someone suggested we play a game called Balderdash. It's a great word game if you've never played; you have to try to convince people you know the meaning of a real, but very unusual word by writing a definition that sounds convincing…or at least, sounds funny enough to make the game fun. Usually, people become one of three types in this game: the funny definition writer, the simple definition writers or the complex definition writers. After a few minutes of game play, we already had established ourselves. We'd had quite a few of the goofy answers already, like "fungo--the green goo on the back of a turtle" and "bort--excess gas". For the record, however, I'm an amazing liar as well as a teacher, so I tend toward the creation of definitions too complex to be a lie, like "karbi--the sooty residue atop slate shingles after years of usage".

On that same round, however, another member of our party also came up with a definition. "Karbi--what a black guy says…dis kar bi mine."

Most of you hearing this did one of two things just now…snicker or laugh outright. I, on the other hand, was mortified and very trapped. Remember for a moment that I was the only black person at this table full of 10 other adults. Even my husband is white. The entire table swiveled to look at me while my husband gripped my hand with an intensity that was as powerful as my own at that moment. What was I supposed to say? What COULD I say?

A diplomatic quandary, though you may not recognize it. For I only have one true option in this situation and it is NOT the one I want. To do what I want means becoming indignant, demanding to know why this man, whom I only knew as a husband of a relative of a friend, would say something so insulting at this table with me right in plain view. How dare he say such things in my face, insinuating that a black man, such as my college-educated father or any of his friends, would talk this way? Jokes about people of any ethnic background are inevitably about their stupidity, which is why most people don't tell such jokes now. Sure, there are black actors, comedians, and regular folk who still use this humor to impress others, but maybe they haven't yet realized the dignity our people have lost while they get paid, or just don't care. Money can make a person that way, especially large amounts of it. I have even watched younger black children make these same jokes so that their friends will think they are funny, too, not realizing that they are being laughed at, not with, and I feel sick inside thinking of all this.

But in the eyes of my friends, I could see what was hoped for, even expected. Surely I would find this amusing! Why, only last week, Def Comedy Jam had a comedian using ebonics rather proudly and he'd been hilarious. And don't shows like "Martin" tout the same sort of ebonic pride? Surely I could be pleased that I would be part of such a broad tradition of humor! Besides, it was "just a joke"…why take it so seriously and ruin the entire party with a bunch of politically correct rhetoric? We can all laugh at ourselves here.

Many of you might be saying, "Nonsense! If I found something offensive, I'd speak right up and hang what others think of me!" But this is the catch .22 of being the diplomat. What others think of me is what others think of others like me they meet. Everything I say and do now reflects on everyone who looks like me later. This has become abundantly clear when children come up to me and want to know who my favorite rapper is, or why black people are so mean all the time, or when grown men and women still ask things like "Why are black people so loud?" or "Do you know Shanika? I used to work with her back in Dallas, and she's black, too…" Or even worse yet, when my own mother-in-law tells me that she cannot accept me because she was attacked by a mugger who was black.

And honestly, if this were the case, could anyone blame any black person for being irate with every white person THEY met? After all, one bad experience rules a great many white lives…why not mine? Why can't I take this one experience and hate or prejudge or, at the very least, have a real fear of any white person I meet? But what I usually hear in response to this is "Well, you just have to understand…"

Why? Why is it my job to be understanding and your job to speak out about what disturbs you without the irritation or disdain of others? Yet, just like the president, I cannot simply SAY how much I dislike something without global repercussions. I CERTAINLY can't ACT on my feelings, because my anger here proves that black people are a violent, or at the very least, an overly sensitive lot. But my silence or laughter only reinforces that it's okay to use this kind of humor and then nothing is learned at all. Never mind the fact that had this joke been about someone with a mental handicap, we would ALL have been indignant.

And so I sat for an uncomfortable second, with all this whirling in my head, my husband gripping my hand, because as a white person himself, he, too, wants to speak out and damn this man's actions…but I did what I had to at that moment.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" I demanded. "Do you not see me sitting in the room here?"

But as I said it, I laughed.

And as I did, and the rest of our friends began to chuckle with me, a little piece of my dignity slipped away. My right to speak for myself was stolen by the adoring eyes of my friends who thought I was a great sport for laughing, even as I threw a notebook at the man's head and blinked back angry tears that no one but my husband saw.

On the way home (a trip which we decided to make 30 minutes later, despite our original plan to stay), both my husband and I ranted and raved about the "nerve of this guy" and how his leaving before us was probably to get home to restoke the ol' Christmas cross fire. But by the time our furor had died down, we were left feeling cheated. "I hate being reminded of my place," I told my husband wearily as I started to cry. He felt awful, of course, and tried to get me to understand that my place was not to be the brunt of someone's jokes. "No," I told him, "my place is to understand that he doesn't know any better and that he might NEVER know any better and just accept that. I am the ambassador. Welcome to my world."

As I sobbed, I realized in the back of my mind how hard this was for him. First, as a white male, he has never been denied his right to speak. He has even gone so far as to demand that shoplifters put things back when he sees them taking an item, so justice is his banner. As my husband, he has also never been denied his right to protect me. But once again, he was able to see how even his anger or irritation on my behalf would only have exacerbated the situation…and he felt just as helpless as I did, but certainly not as often as I have. In a way, that makes it harder, I suppose.

But he didn't leave it at that. The next day, my husband called our friends and told them why we left, explaining our feelings and our discomfort. I was against this at first, especially when I realized that NO one else at the table had thought twice about this. But not only were our friends understanding, they wanted to talk to me and thank me for telling them this, giving them food for thought and a new understanding. It helped to wipe away a little of the natural wariness that had arisen from this incident, so much so that I realized how many people really WANT to know when they've said or done something offensive and don't. Usually, the person they've offended leaves without saying a word or they, too are an ambassador and laugh off the incident, swallowing yet another distasteful public scene into their own discomfort. I was comforted to know that this is not always a thankless job. It's unfair and even painful, but not always thankless. SOMEone learned something from this…and perhaps in hearing it, you might, too.

I am actually one of the many African American ambassadors to the nation. I have diverted many a cross cultural mishap in my time, but please…don't thank me.

Understand me.

Speak for me when I cannot speak or am not heard.

And for God sake, don't just let me laugh…hand me a tissue.