Pollo Regio

Posted on June 25, 2011 by Bill Chance

Lee had friends over last night, so I didn’t get any sleep. The house today looks like a bomb went off and I couldn’t take it so I had to get out of the house as soon as I woke up.

Like an alcoholic that shouldn’t drink alone, I shouldn’t eat out by myself. A waste of money, for one thing – I’ll eat too much, for another. I would have been happy to make up a nice, healthy breakfast if our kitchen hadn’t been so depressing – so I climbed in my car and went out in search of something to eat (Candy is volunteering at an animal shelter – we are driving to Fort Worth later in the day).

My part of the city is nothing if not diverse. I did not want to go to some traditional American fast-food place, or even a traditional American slow-food place. I wanted to get some work done at White Rock Coffee. I’m working on a short story based around technology that enables text to be encoded on strings of viral DNA and books that are then spread (read) via infection. Again, my home is too depressing right now to hang around and write in.

I headed down Plano road looking for sustanance. Vietnamese, Chinese, Ethiopian, Korean, Brasilian, Salvadoran, Soul Food, MiddleEastern, Cajun, Thai, and every other part of the world presented themselves within a few blocks of my route.

Rice and Tacos

I saw a neon sign that said – Rice and Tacos – Mexican and Chinese food, and made a quick left – that looked like an attractive combination. It turned out to be a convenience store with a food counter and I’ll probably try that sometime soon, but I wanted to sit down in peace today. Diagonally across the intersection I spotted a relatively new restaurant that I have been watching get remodelled – El Pollo Regio.

There was a privately owned pollo asado place there before (before that, it was a Taco Bell) that was really good. Candy and I ate met there for lunch and the only complaint I had is that they served roasted Jalepeno peppers with their lunch specials and they varied in capsaicin content a little too much for comfort. I ate mine with no problems and Candy gave me hers – so I gobbled it down without the usual precautions (held lightly between two fingers, lips held back and way from the flesh of the pepper, a test nibble). It was so hot that I could barely see the rest of the day.

Not too long later the place closed down. We were disappointed at first, but then saw it was being converted into a Pollo Regio – which isn’t really any different than what it was before.

Pollo Regio

The Pollo Regio at Plano Road and Forest in Garland. The large rectangular structure on the roof to the right of the sign is the elaborate exhaust mechanism necessary for the giant chicken roaster inside to meet modern environmental regulations. Shame. There is nothing cooler on a hot night than seeing the rotating spits of a traditional pollo asado full of whole chickens moving around and dripping fat in front of an open fire. It would belch a wonderful fragrant smoke full of chicken and wood that would fill the neighborhood and attract hungry customers like flies. I love and miss that.

Now, when I’m out looking for something to eat I try really hard to stay away from chains. I would much rather support indivduals than sub-divisions of a megasized corporation – plus the food is going to be better when it is based on an old family recipe. Pollo Regio is technically a chain, but a small one. They started out a few years ago as a food truck in Austin (the source of a lot of culinary innovation) and spread to a chain of franchised chicken spots – especially penetrating the Dallas Fort-Worth Market.

I can live with that.

The food was good, The chicken (served wrapped in butcher paper along with a whole roasted onion) properly spicy and smoky, the sides (rice and charro beans) excellent, the selection of salsas (the most important aspect of a pollo asado meal) wide, spicy, and fresh. Nobody spoke english, which is another nice touch.

Why pay for a vacation flight to the tropics when you can enjoy brutal heat, suffocating humidity, spicy food, mysterious sauces, and difficult communications only a few blocks down Plano Road?

Roku and roll

Posted on June 24, 2011 by Bill Chance

Rabbit Ears

I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I’ve watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in the rain. Time to die.

—Roy Batty, Blade Runner

My father’s day present arrived in a little box yesterday – Candy bought me a Roku box.

I remember when I was a kid, people had only one television. Now, our house, a family of two when the kids are in school, has five televisions set up, plus any number of laptops (I usually watch entertainment on my laptop). Once, I told my kids we didn’t have VCRs when I was a kid (this was when we were all still watching VHS tapes – which already seems a long time ago) and they said they couldn’t imagine how anyone could get through the day. I tried to tell them that when I was a small child we didn’t even have color TV and they only looked confused, with their eyes scrunched up.

In many ways, I miss the one TV days. There were only three channels so everyone watched television together and they watched the same thing. I had a friend with a large family and I used to like to go to his house where the living room would fill up with family, friends, and hangers-on. My favorite was Saturday Night at the Movies, where second-run films would be edited, chopped up and interspersed with commercials, then sent out over the ether in glorious blurry black-and-white.

In the middle of the extravaganza would always be a Coca-Cola commercial. My friends’ mother would immediately haul herself up from the couch and stride to the kitchen for a cold bottle of Coke – The Real Thang. It was like clockwork. We would laugh but she never figured out what we were laughing about. She never knew that the commercial was sending her out for a cold, sweating bottle, either. She actually thought she was thirsty.

Since everybody across the land watched the same thing every evening there was always a discussion of the evening’s entertainment around the water coolers the next day.

In 1964, I remember when the Beatles went back across the pond. That seemed to be a big deal back then, like it actually mattered where a rock band was physically located. It felt like we would never see or hear from the adorable mop-tops again. Though I was only seven years old, I was saddened by this – it felt like an era was passing.

It seemed like only a few days later (the exact chronology is very fuzzy – I was only seven years old) another British band appeared on Ed Sullivan. There was some buzz among the adults in the room that these kids would now replace the Beatles, so I watched and paid attention. This was almost fifty years ago, but I still remember I had a glass of milk in my hand when they came on.

Right away, I was mesmerized. They didn’t have the energy of the Beatles, but there was something…, something I couldn’t figure out, something that I knew a seven year old kid wasn’t privy to, but something, something special, something somehow unsavory yet seductive about these guys, especially the lead singer.

It was, of course, the Rolling Stones, and I was right – nothing would be the same again.

You can Watch it Here. You can’t imagine the effect this had on a seven year old kid in 1964.

So now, a half century later, in this best of all possible worlds, I spent a few seconds hooking up the Roku (they aren’t lying when they say that hooking it up is simple) and the rest of the evening running back and forth from the TV to my laptop in another room carrying a series of slips of paper with passwords and setup codes until I could get the channels working (they don’t tell you about this part).

So now, we can sit down with a small pile of remote controls in the darkened corner of a back bedroom (we’ll move it to Lee’s massive TV when he goes back to school) and stream the whole world into that little box.

It’s really cool, it really is, but it doesn’t have the effect of a blurry static-besmirched Mick Jagger wriggling beneath a pair of aluminum-draped rabbit ears. It’s not the television’s fault – it’s not the technology – it’s my eyes. They aren’t seven any more. They are worn out now. They have seen too much.

Stones

Blast From the Past

Posted on June 23, 2011 by Bill Chance

Now I’ve updated this blog every day for the last month. It feels odd to be in that quotidian writing mode again. I’ve done it before. A long time ago.

I used to have a blog before there were blogs. We called them “Online Journals.” Mine was called “The Daily Epiphany” and I uploaded it every day, every day with only a few missed hunks here and there during periods of turmoil or extreme ennui, for somewhere around ten years.

The first entry went up on… let me check the backup copy on the portable hard drive… July 25, 1996. It was not very well written. Let’s see.
(I used to start every entry out with a quote)

IAGO

I am one, sir, that comes to tell you your daughter

and the Moor are now making the beast with two backs.

BRABANTIO

Thou art a villain.

IAGO

You are–a senator.

-From Othello, by William Shakespeare, Act 1, Scene 1

Yesterday, I took Nick and Lee down to play baseball after I picked them up. I couldn’t find Nick’s glove so we played with tennis balls, took turns batting. They had a real blast, I’ll try to do this more often. They wanted to bring the tee next time, they are still a little too small to hit pitched balls on a regular basis. Lee was a little overheated and tired, he almost fell asleep when we got home, Candy thought he might be sick, but be was only worn out.

Then I went to see Othello at Shakespeare in the Park. I really liked it, even though I’d forgotten how depressing this play was. They are alternating Othello with Midsummer’s Nights Dream, which I saw before vacation. The same set and many of the same actors are used in both productions, it is interesting to see the same elements present in two stories of such differing tone and outcome.

By the way, the phrase “making the beast with two backs” is really from Othello. I always thought it was only some nasty bit someone made up.

It amazes me that so many people don’t like Shakespeare. I think it is a carryover from school when we all remember the dreary days sitting in class, reading Julius Caesar. These are PLAYS for godssake, they aren’t meant to be read out of a book. I think that all school children should see a Shakespeare play first, or a least rent the movie, and only then read selected parts of the play for further study. Othello, of course, is a very turbulent story of evil, and jealousy. With it’s racial overtones, it is an amazingly contemporary story, Spike Lee could have written a it as a screenplay. Sitting there watching it, I could not believe that it was written over 500 years ago.

All in all a very entertaining night.

Many people are surprised that I go to plays, movies and things like that by myself. I don’t understand why more people don’t.

First of all, it is the only way we can get out without a sitter, which costs a ton of money.

Actually I did take Nick to see King Lear, two years ago, when he was 3 or 4. He liked it more than I thought he would. Of course, he didn’t have a clue about the plot, but he liked the swordfighting and the storm. Then he fell asleep. I could never take Lee though, he simply can’t sit still. I am looking forward to a couple years from now when we can do more as a family. Right now, Lee is so active, there are few places (DZ, Chucky Cheese, outdoors) where we can take him without driving ourselves and everybody else crazy.

Also, I’ve always enjoyed movies and some plays by myself. Of course, you miss out on the companionship, but if it is a movie you really want to see, you don’t notice anyone (or anything) else while the movie is on anyway. It’s OK to read a book, watch TV, rent a movie by yourself, why isn’t it considered all right (in many circles at least) to go out in public by yourself. I like to see what I want to see and not have to worry about my companions and whether they like what I like (or am offended by what I like).

It is a big change from my younger years. The big worry then was being alone and not having anyone around to do stuff with. Now I really cherish any time I have by myself, any privacy I’m able to scare up, any moments that no one is making demands on me.

After work, I’m planning on riding my mountain bike for a little while, but I have to be home at 6:50 PM, Candy is going out for dinner with the other preschool PTA moms. So I’ll get in a couple quick laps at the Rowlett Creek single track and then get home. When it cools off a little

I’ll take the kids back down to the school and we’ll play some baseball, if they still want to do that (which they will).

I’m looking forward to riding today, I rode this weekend and am doing a lot better on the mountain bike, since the trip to New Mexico.

Years ago I was a serious bike rider. It was a good time in my life, I was healthy, in shape, and really enjoying the challenge of improving my abilities on my road bike. I was considering some amateur racing. It took up a horrendous amount of time, however.

When my kids were born, I stopped riding for about five years, I really missed riding, but I had literally no spare time. Now that my kids are a little older, I’m starting in again, totally out of shape, about 30 pounds heavier than I was when I last rode. I bought a mountain bike, and am in the long process of learning the sport, and getting my body into shape. I have the goal of being a pretty good rider one year from now, when we will return to New Mexico for my family reunion. The mountains and desert out there will be a great test for me (they sure ate my lunch this year).

Not too much has changed in the last fifteen years. Nick and Lee were, let me think, six and five. Now they are a junior and a sophomore in college and we still don’t feel comfortable leaving them at home without supervision.

Writing something on the web has really changed in that short time, though. Back then, there was no high-speed Internet. To surf the web, you had to have a free phone line and connect with a dial-up modem. I do miss that series of sounds: the dial tone, the number being called, the hiss and tone of the modem speed negotiation.

There was, of course, no blogging software. Everything was written off-line and then uploaded. I think there were a few primitive HTML editors, but most people wrote with notepad, putting in formatting codes by hand.

I still prefer to write off-line – either from OpenOffice or my Alphasmart – and then paste into the blogging software. It gives me one more layer of thought before the words escape. First drafts aren’t writing, they are typing – editing is writing. At first, my only access to web space was the five megabytes that AOL gave you with your membership. It’s surprising what you can do with five megabytes if you work hard and use mostly text.

There were very few people doing this. I was somewhere around the thirteenth person. It was considered very strange and somewhat insane to be putting your private life out there. There was no Facebook or any social media of any kind and privacy had a completely different meaning – that the rapidly evolving technology was threatening in a big way. I was interviewed for a number of articles, Wall Street Journal, New York Times… I’ll try to find copies of those, it would be interesting to look back.

The New York Times used this picture of Lee and I for their article.

There were these things called Webrings… The one for Online Journals was called Open Pages. There are still a few backup copies of Open Pages around, this one from 1998 had 326 listed (see, there I am, number 13), a year later it had more than doubled. I don’t think anyone would have thought that there would be tens of millions of the things being written a short ten years later.

I have a rough backup of my old entries. I’m in pretty good shape from 1996 to 2005, which is pretty damn amazing when I think of the series of computer crashes, online service provider bankruptcies, and lightning strikes my data has endured over the years. Remember, most of that time my work was backed up onto floppy disks. After that it gets pretty spotty as I tried to enter the modern world with a database-based system. It’s surprisingly easy to maintain a backup of a long list of text files in directories, not so easy with a remote database (when your service provider decides to take a powder).

I had to stop around 2006 – my kids were in high school and everybody was now online and it was getting too difficult to manage an online presence that was so public. Now of course, the kids are mostly gone, I’m an old fart, and I don’t give a crap anymore, so I can put it all up.

Several time I’ve tried to make a count of how many actual entries I still have (a few months here and there have gone wonky) – several thousand, at any rate. I am working on finishing my “new” Linux server and when it’s done I will use it as a file, music, and web server and I should be able to get all these old entries up. It will be ugly, the links won’t work anymore, and I’ve lost a lot of the images, but it will be a record of a time gone by.

Nick on his skateboard.

Nick reading Harry Potter. Is this the first one?

In the meantime I’ll try to keep on writing every day. There are a few hints and tricks I’ve learned that are necessary to keep a string like that going (the most important trick is to give yourself permission to publish crappy entries) – and one is to have a backup plan… a way to pull an entry out of your ass when the idea creek has gone bone dry. One way is to have some photographs stuck away you can stick up… and now I have a few thousand entries I can pull out as say, “Hey look how much I used to suck!” and maybe nobody will notice that I still suck just as much.

Nick and Candy now, in Durham

Lee now, a Tulane student in New Orleans - Mardi Gras, Krewe of Zulu parade.

Vermilion Sands

Posted on June 22, 2011 by Bill Chance

Vermilion Sands, by J. G. Ballard

The tree gliders, brilliant painted toys, revolved like lazing birds above Coral D, waiting for the first clouds to pass overhead. Van Eyck moved away to take a cloud. He sailed around its white pillow, spraying the sides with iodide crystals and cutting away the flock-like tissue. The streaming shards fell toward us like crumbling ice-drifts. As the drops of condensing spray fell on my face I could see Van Eyck shaping an immense horse’s head. He sailed up and down the long forehead and chiseled out the eyes and ears.

– J.G. Ballard, The “The Cloud-Sculptors of Coral D”

The Cloud Sculptors of Coral D, By J. G. Ballard

When I’m writing I have to be very careful about what I read. Too much aesthetic sensibility, too much style, too many splintering ideas come in through my eyes and fall out of my fingertips. I have to read something that is related/similar/compatible with what I want to do, or it all goes to crap.

Well, it seems to all go to crap anyway, but….

I’m rereading some classic J.G. Ballard short stories right now. I forget sometimes how much I love his stuff. I first encountered J. G. Ballard in the early seventies, in the form of a moldering handful of cheap pulp paperback short story collections borrowed from an informal lending library in Managua. I was devouring this stuff back then, reading almost a book a day and very little of it remains in the cobwebby recesses of my failing brain – but one thing that did stick is Ballard.

I remember “The Cloud-Sculptors of Coral D” in particular – actually I remember the whole world of “Vermilion Sands.”

Vermilion Sands

(somebody else likes it too)

I remember being caught off-guard by the bizarre dystopian decadence of the fading fantastic vacation resort. It was a door into a frightening yet seductive world tilted away from our own at an oblique angle. The human heart has been twisted – but not so much that it isn’t recognizable. It wasn’t until decades later and I read “Empire of the Sun” that I began to understand the source of Ballard’s vision.

Last night in bed, while I was fighting to stay awake, I reread “Prima Belladonna” – a story about a mutant beauty with golden skin and insect-legged eyelashes and a man that sells plants that sing. It turns out that it was his first sold story. I love the idea that he bought a pram with the proceeds.

One of the stories in the collection, “Prima Belladonna”, was the first piece of fiction that l ever published, and I can still remember the thrill of receiving the cheque for £8. At last I was a professional writer, and my wife and I celebrated by using the money to buy our baby son a new pram. Pushing it past the department stores in Chiswick High Street, a hundred ideas in my head, I felt that I had found the philosopher’s stone.

J.G. Ballard, from The Independent, October 24, 1992

I’m in the final stretch of editing my collection of stories – and I am glad that Ballard shares my love of the form.

THE SHORT STORIES that make up this collection were written between 1956 and 1970, and once they were published in a single volume I never returned, regrettably, to this genial playground. By sealing one’s imagination between hard covers one can close the door forever on a still vivid private world. I’m glad that I began my career by writing short stories, when I was free to chase any passing hare in a way that is no longer possible, and without over-committing myself to a single idea. Fiction today is dominated by career novelists locked into their publishers’ contracts like the prematurely middle-aged encumbered by mortgages and pension plans. Irresponsibility, especially the agreeable variety displayed in Vermilion Sands, has a great many neglected virtues.

J.G. Ballard, from The Independent, October 24, 1992

(Emphasis mine)

Vermilion Sands

I don’t know if it was the odd fiction or the electrical fields from the constant lightning booming down from the Texas summer middle-of-the-night thunderstorms outside my window… or nothing at all – that caused a very odd, intense, and complete dream.

I dreamt that I had gone back to college and was moving back into Ellsworth Hall in Lawrence for a year. Everything had changed so much – the front desk gave me a key that was a little sculptural fob shaped like a tiny Picachu. The dorm was surrounded by a maze-like complex of restaurants and entertainment – it was a frustrating navigational feat to simply find the elevators – my room was 1127. I remember that the residence hall had only ten floors.

I felt so old, so out-of-place – like Rip Van Winkle.

Vermilion Sands

HDR Caterpillar

Posted on June 21, 2011 by Bill Chance

A lot of work to get done, both at work and at home… so I wasted a bit of time playing around with some old HDR images of a caterpillar (Monarch Butterfly) I found on my backup drive.

HDR Caterpillar - cropped this one.

Caterpillar - not so much HDR strangeness.

I Buy a Secretary

Posted on June 20, 2011 by Bill Chance

This last weekend, Candy and I went out on a tour of East Dallas’ best (and worst) thrift and second-hand stores. I always watch an episode of Hoarders before we go, to make sure I don’t buy stuff just to be buying.

I bought a secretary.

No, not this kind of secretary.

Secretary

Get your mind out of the gutter.

This kind of secretary.

secretary

I’ve wanted a good place to store pens and paper – a place I can sit down and write.

The hinged writing surface dropped down on the secretary.

And that’s what a secretary does.

We bought it at a little second-hand shop off of Garland Road that supports an animal orphanage – they had some black lab-Bassett hound mix puppies on display – we were lucky to get out of there with only the piece of furniture.

And we weren’t done – not by any means. That part of town is lousy with second hand stores and we toured quite a few, braving the heat which quickly began to rise into blowtorch territory as the blazing sun rose higher in the sky.

Found a nice little down-home Italian place right next door.

Sali's Italian Restaurant - at Peavy and Garland Road in Dallas

Excellent food, very cheap prices… check it out if you’re in the neighborhood.

On we went, this was our old stomping grounds, years ago, and it’s surprising how little everything has changed. The thrift stores still smell the same, of course, that odd smell of other people’s clothes mixed with an air of desperation. I don’t care, I get good deals: wireless G Router for $4.93, Logitech soundsystem with powered subwoofer for $14.97, laptop speakers for 2 bucks. I didn’t buy enough crap to feel like a hoarder.

Oh, look at this. The window of a car insurance place….

No Licence, No Problem

“No licence, no problem.” Jeez! Selling car insurance to people without a driver’s license…. and what does that little button that says “HOME” mean?

The day wore us out. The heat – the trudging around.

I do like my secretary, though.

Father’s Day at the Mall Food Court

Posted on June 19, 2011 by Bill Chance

I’m not a big fan of holidays. Especially the manufactured holidays, like Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Earth Day, or any of the others that arise not out of ancient pagan fertility rites but more modern constructions of the retail-industrial complex designed to make people go out and buy stupid presents – spend their hard-earned cash on superfluous consumer tripe rather than save it so it can be eventually lost in bad investments – like it should.

Now, I’m not complaining about my gifts, mind you. I may be stubborn, but I’m not stupid. Candy gave me a very nice pen – I’ll take some photographs in a few days. Still, I didn’t really want to celebrate – fight the lunch crowds – and said I’d eat some leftover beans instead.

But Lee was hungry so we went out to eat anyway. When asked where I wanted to go, I replied, “The food court at the mall.”

OK, I live in a Texas Suburb. Those of you a long way away probably are now thinking of big slabs of grilling beef and people wearing boots and ten-gallon hats. Those of you a little closer are thinking about typical American Mall fare – like what?… Cinabon, Steak Escape, Orange Julius (are these still around?) Dog on a Stick? – Jeez, I have no idea what a mall has in its food court anymore.

At any rate, that’s not what I’m talking about. This may be a boring Texas Big City Suburb, but the world is a much more diverse place than you think it is. My neighborhood mall is the Saigon Mall, a Vietnamese-Oriented complex constructed upon the carcass of an extinct Target, and its Food Court is a place of strange and wondrous sustenance.

Food Court Entrance to the Saigon Mall

My only disappointment is that the self-serve frozen yogurt place is gone. I’m going to have to find another place for my Durian ice cream fix now. Candy has a Cuisinart Ice-Cream maker… maybe I could make my…. no, better not. Durian preparation is probably something best left up to professionals.

We walked around a bit and examined the various purveyors of various cuisines – Lee was close to getting a pound of boiled crustaceans from the Crawfish Hut, Candy looked at a new stand that promised “Real Thai Cooking”, and I considered some Pho – but we eventually decided on sandwiches from Lee’s – an always reliable and delicious choice.

When ordering sandwiches, I tend to get the #1 combo – no matter what is in it. They have decided to put this at the top of their menu and they know better than I.

My Sandwich - #1 combo with Thai Iced Tea.

My sandwich was not as blurry as this picture suggests. The fresh cilantro and other herbs along with the crunchy fresh-made baguettes really set these apart from the usual boring sub fare. There was some sort of very hot pepper hiding inside somewhere, I needed another tea. You can see the Boba in my tea – it was very good, though I have no idea what was in it.

After we had our sandwiches, we went down to the Boba Tea/Smoothie place. We always love this spot. Lee and I love Boba but Candy says she “doesn’t want any of those little snot-balls” in her beverage, which I can’t really argue with. The place used to be called Teahouse, but it has a new logo – “I (heart) Boba” – though the menu seems pretty much the same. The menu consists of a list of pretty much every substance on earth – thrown into a blender with either tea, ice, or some sort of “cream” mixture. I felt like coconut, which was number 114, and the list went on from there for a long way. Then you can get Boba, or Gummy Bears, or anything else, really, dumped in for extra amusement. I felt like some “snot-balls” today, so I had Boba.

Candy and Lee at the Smoothie Place

Candy and Lee enjoying their smoothies.

Lunch Menu

Here’s the giant lunch menu outside one of the several restaurants in the Saigon Mall. I don’t want to sound like some ignorant American Redneck, but my honest reaction to this is, “What the hell is this stuff?” I see some shrimp arranged in a nice, attractive circle, but it surrounds some strange looking brownish sauce with white flecks – it looks like it might be too spicy, even for me. One dish is labeled “Salmon or Yellowtail” which is reassuring, but nothing in the picture next to it resembles fish in any way.

I hate the feeling when you order something at random and the waiter’s eyes get big and that concerned look crosses their face. They will shake their head from side to side, and say, “Oh, you don’t want to order that.” Sometimes I’ll stubbornly push ahead and insist, eagerly waiting until the plate of something arrives and is set down in front of me.

You know, those waiters are always right. I should listen more often.

Oh, I stumbled across this… Here’s something you should NEVER, EVER do in a mall food court.

Ozymandias

Posted on June 18, 2011 by Bill Chance

ozzy, a photo by chancew1 on Flickr.

And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away”

Percy Bysshe Shelley – Ozymandias

I have always had a soft spot for abandoned sculpture. Something about the idea of an expensive, large, conceived, funded, designed, constructed, dedicated, photographed, and ballyhooed public work of art forgotten, gone to seed, abandoned – yet still there for all to see – stirs something primeval, prevalent, and tragic in my heart and pen.

For a decade or so in the boom times of the waning years of the last century, there was a luxuriant development in North Dallas near the intersection of Highway 75 and the LBJ 635 Interstate loop called Park Central. It rose up on the land of a long-abandoned WWII airbase – yes, really – I discovered that the beloved Olla Podrida was a re-purposed aircraft hanger. There was an outdoor concert venue that everyone remembers and a spate of modern office towers scrambling toward the sky.

It also boasted a serious outdoor sculpture collection. I actually remember breathless news stories when the newest hunk of abstract steel rose into the summer heat. It was all pretty darn cool.

Then the economy cycled one of its many downturns (don’t remember which one) and it all went to crap.

The concert venue closed, the buildings began to gain coats of peeling paint and discolored concrete as everything expensive moved north to the far exburgs and Park Central was pretty much forgotten. Especially the sculptures. They do not bring in very much income in tough times. The artworks quickly disappeared, swallowed up by parking lots. I don’t know where they went. Were they sold off for scrap metal?

They went quickly, except for one. For a decade a lone piece of artwork stood stoutly in a weedy field, right off the interstate. A dark, twisted monolith – I almost expected to see primitive apes waving jawbones at each other around it. Literally, a million people drove by it every day – but I think I was the only one to notice it still standing there. I drove down one day to look for a plaque or some indication of what it was or who the artist was, but could find nothing, even though I worked up a good sweat and fed a thousand mosquitoes digging around in the scrub prickles trying to find some information.

The sculpture disappeared a couple years ago – swallowed up by the parking lot of a brand-spanking-new megachurch. I don’t know where it went. I suppose it was broken down and crushed into a landfill somewhere.

I wonder if I’m the only one that misses it.

One Hundred Short Story Basic Ideas

Posted on June 17, 2011 by Bill Chance

Call Me Ishmael

George Polti put the number at 36. He insisted that there are exactly thirty-six dramatic situations.

1. Supplication (in which the Supplicant must beg something from Power in authority)
2. Deliverance
3. Crime Pursued by Vengeance
4. Vengeance taken for kindred upon kindred
5. Pursuit
6. Disaster
7. Falling Prey to Cruelty of Misfortune
8. Revolt
9. Daring Enterprise
10. Abduction
11. The Enigma (temptation or a riddle)
12. Obtaining
13. Enmity of Kinsmen
14. Rivalry of Kinsmen
15. Murderous Adultery
16. Madness
17. Fatal Imprudence
18. Involuntary Crimes of Love (example: discovery that one has married one’s mother, sister, etc.)
19. Slaying of a Kinsman Unrecognized
20. Self-Sacrificing for an Ideal
21. Self-Sacrifice for Kindred
22. All Sacrificed for Passion
23. Necessity of Sacrificing Loved Ones
24. Rivalry of Superior and Inferior
25. Adultery
26. Crimes of Love
27. Discovery of the Dishonor of a Loved One
28. Obstacles to Love
29. An Enemy Loved
30. Ambition
31. Conflict with a God
32. Mistaken Jealousy
33. Erroneous Judgement
34. Remorse
35. Recovery of a Lost One
36. Loss of Loved Ones.

Foster-Harris said there are three – “Happy Ending” – “Unhappy Ending” – and the “Literary Plot”

Jessamyn West listed out seven.

[wo]man vs. nature
[wo]man vs. [wo]man
[wo]man vs. the environment
[wo]man vs. machines/technology
[wo]man vs. the supernatural
[wo]man vs. self
[wo]man vs. god/religion

Ronald Tobias says there are twenty master plots.

Quest
Adventure
Pursuit
Rescue
Escape
Revenge
The Riddle
Rivalry
Underdog
Temptation
Metamorphosis
Transformation
Maturation
Love
Forbidden Love
Sacrifice
Discovery
Wretched Excess
Ascension
Descension.

As for me, these are interesting ideas and a great starting point to come up with inspiration, but not really practical when the deadline is looming and the mind is empty and the panic is rising.

So, in my “Spare Time” I have started to make a list of short story ideas or plots or basic structures or prompts or whatever. I decided to come up with a number first instead of doing the list first and then counting. Makes more sense to me.

I picked a nice round number – one hundred. So, in my notebook(s) that I carry around, every now and then I’ll think of a new one, write it down and give it a number. I’m only up to sixty six now, so I better get crackin.’

1 Revenge Story – must have downtrodden victim taking revenge on the person/people responsible for keeping him down.

2 Love Triangle – Requires a somewhat passive follower – yet very desirable- character has to choose between 2 pursuers.

3 Someone isn’t what they seem. On the surface a benevolent character turns out to be a monster underneath.

4 Wakes up to the man. Someone, probably a youth, realizes the hopeless, soul-crushing nature of existence – rebels. Successful or not.

5 Unreliable Narrator. – First person narration point of view. As the story progresses the reader realizes the narrator is lying and is not the beneficent person they portray (and believe themselves).

6 Revenge Story 2 – Someone done wrong but NOT downtrodden, takes revenge on a victim that does not expect it.

7 You might be done with the past, but the past isn’t done with you. A long-ago incident – secret- comes back to haunt a person in a secure well-established position.

8 Petty Crime Goes Bad – Someone steals something (notebook? Laptop? Phone? IPOD? Digital storage card or thumb drive?) and it turns out to have something unspeakably evil and dangerous associated with it.

9 (related to #8) Ordinary Object contains evil. Gift? Bought at thrift stop? Item has power but also terrible danger.

10 Fractured Fairy Tales – Take an obscure (or well known) fairy tale and set it in modern day. Kick things up a notch.

11 Rosebud – Filthy Rich self-made man – his fortune can’t cure a hurt left over from his childhood or he can’t rescue a loved one – or both.

12 Memories of Childhood nightmares. – fear of atomic attack, making noise, or other mostly irrational fear – maybe it comes true (just because you are paranoid doesn’t mean they are not out to get you).

13 An ordinary dystopia – A terribly ordinary day is told in all of its horror.

14 Requiem for a Dream – The hero’s constant struggle for a goal, for fulfillment, is turned by a fatal flaw – dreams turn to nightmares. The core sin is that of blindness to one’s true nature – and/or ignorance of one’s love’s true needs.

15 Mediocre athlete – a person aids a naturally gifted person – that is a fraud. The mediocre person ends up relaxing and winning himself.

16 – Expert helps downtrodden – an elite unexpectedly sacrifices a bit of his own success to aid someone not as elevated.

Sixteen down, eighty four to go. Leave a comment if you have any ideas, that would be cool.

—————————————————

17 Blast From the Past – A person meets someone that was a key influence in their distant past.

18 Mysterious Pest From Beyond – a hellish parasite arrives from an unknown location and attaches to the protagonist

19 Monkey’s Paw – Dream comes true, turns into a nightmare (similar to #14 – but different tone)

20 The Opposite Of Doomed Love – What if Romeo and Juliet said to each other, “I love you but this isn’t going to work out, what with the family and all.” What tragedy would ensue.

21 Military in Need – Opponents on the battlefield are thrown in with each other and must cooperate to survive.

22 What we were and have forgotten – The world from a child’s point of view. We don’t remember the fear.

23 Take a story you like, re-write it as your own. Steal Shamelessly.

24. Character undergoes a rare injury. Discovers wires underneath.

25. Take a memory from the past and pair it with an incident in the present. Flashback.

26. Make a list of jokes. Write a scene where the characters say the jokes.

27. Pick a spot and place a couple arguing there. Write the backstory. Write what happens in the future.

28. Desperate child after his village is destroyed by the revolution. How does he/she survive? Revenge? Childhood redirected to hate.

29. How I met your mother. How I met your Grandmother. Has to have a twist.

30. Crazy neighbors.

31. An accident on the freeway.

32. A crash on the road – on purpose.

33. A man begging with an unusual sign.

34. A relationship dissolves in alcoholism and insanity.

35. Fan fiction – controversial episode.

36. Write about a simple story in a world very unlike the one you live in.

37. Hitchhikers picked up by someone very unusual.

38. Someone is given a prophecy of the future that he can’t understand

39. Aliens abduct a loved one. What happens when he returns different.

40. Trapped by a fire.

41. Think of an insane future scene.

42. Combine a wise teacher with a scene from a horror film

43. Take a favorite painting. Write the story within.

44. Some reading an unusual “Idiot’s Guide to” book.

45. Something loud happens at the library

46. Expensive security system – owner has to disable.

47. Have to help a friend dispose of a body

48. Everyday item – version built by aliens.

49. Mismatched couple at a restaurant

50. Unusual version of an ordinary item.

51. Man sees something from the window of a commuter train.

52. City person finds himself in wilderness with a person that lives there.

53. Busy city scene at a deserted time. Why?

54. Unusual Addiction

55. Trapped in a cave. Trapped in an elevator. Trapped in a locked room. Trapped outside the house.

56. Look through Journal entries. Pick a story and write in third person. Kick it up a notch.

57. Commuter sees something unusual on the highway during rush hour traffic.

58. Look through odd headlines (Weekly World News) for story inspiration.

59. Pick a brain teaser that involves a story problem. Write it as if it really happened.

60. A good person is forced to kill.

61. Future dystopian life in a large, crowded hotel.

62. Protagonist finds an unusual fossil

63. Sweet and sour – a protagonist that has had something terrible happen but finds himself in a beautiful spot in nature.

64. Scars – explanation – lies, maybe?

65. Working at a large, complex factor. Security guard? Finds something unexpected.

66. Bad day, everything possible goes wrong. Why?

They don’t make ’em like that anymore… well, maybe they do.

Posted on June 16, 2011 by Bill Chance

Jack White and Wanda Jackson

– The original “Funnel of Love” (what a great title!) had a guitar solo by Roy Clark.

– Wanda Jackson and Jack White hammering out one of my favorite Bob Dylan tunes. It doesn’t get any better’n that.

– Wanda dated Elvis briefly while they were touring together in 1955.

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Jack White and Wanda Jackson

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