Jim was the finest actor I ever saw.
Guy was brilliant. Could do any role at a moment’s notice.
If he didn’t already know the script by heart, you could hand it to him, he’d flip through the pages, and was ready.
The problem was, he didn’t like the spotlight.
No, I’m not talking about the attention and fame and all that stuff.
He literally didn’t like the spotlight.
He and the lighting director fought all the time about it, and it took a clever arrangement of houselights to light the stage.
He also wore a lot of white suits.
Category: My stories
Flash
When you build artificial intelligence on a supercomputer using fiber-optic and photonic processing, you can literally watch the flashes of genius sparkle across the backplane.
It’s different than the standard green and red lights of the legacy tech router rooms.
Here, you can feel glittering and shimmering ideas all around you, penetrating the darkness like diamonds poured across black velvet.
It’s even cooler when you’ve smoked some weed.
Wow… awesome…
I sit here in the datacenter, stoned out of my mind, surrounded by the waves of light.
The pattern shifts for a moment.
Then, my terminal flashes.
“DUDE. CONTACT BUZZ.”
Cause Of Death
My cousin died the other day.
We’d just been talking on the phone, telling each other about everything like we always do.
She was found alone in her chair at home.
Everyone in the family worried that it had been suicide.
Because if it had been suicide, she’d not get a proper burial in the family plot.
So, I confessed… it was me… I murdered her.
I refused bail and sat in jail, thinking of her.
The guards came to tell me the autopsy showed it wasn’t suicide. She’d had a heart attack, that’s all.
And they set me loose.
It’s a thin line between love and hate
It’s a thin line between love and hate.
How thin is it?
Well, are you familiar with John Waters’ mustache?
Yes, the guy who did Hairspray and Cecil B. Demented. You know that thin black mustache he has?
Yes? Good. Okay, well, it’s about that thin.
Oddly enough, it’s also rather thin in terms of how sparse it is some days.
Which is why John Waters has to fill it in with an eyeliner pencil sometimes.
Because when it comes to his movies, you either love them or you hate them.
And for convenience, his mustache makes a handy reference.
The Boxer
Take a deep breath.
Smell the gym.
It’s a different smell than anywhere else.
Get on the scale.
Get in the ring.
Get these gloves on.
Now open your mouth so we can swab your cheek and put in this mouthguard.
What’s the swab for? Painkillers?
No. It’s for DNA.
The league wants us to clone you.
That way, your opponent can have you as a sparring partner to train against.
And you can have him.
That way, you’ll both be ready and give a good fight.
Better than the last one, where you got your ass killed.
Literally.
*DING*
Turning Ten
My son turns ten today.
We’re going to have a big party for him: clowns, bouncy house, his friends, so many presents, and a cake.
Then, when the party’s over, the leasing company will come by to pick him up.
Most parents choose up the option to buy, but we’ve been wanting another baby, so we’re sending this one back.
This time, we’ll just do a two-year lease. Avoid those Terrible Twos, that whole First Day Of School thing.
I don’t mind changing diapers, really.
Everything’s up in the attic, but we’ll get it later.
Oh, and Happy Birthday, son!
Multiplying
Long ago, my Christian friends tried to teach me about Jesus.
So, I sat there and listened while they regurgitated everything they’d learned in Sunday School.
I agreed that the guy sounded like a really cool dude and did some amazing things, but I never understood the whole “multiplying the loaves and the fishes” miracle.
Sure, I was good at Math, but I never figured out how someone could multiply bread by a fish.
“What’s pumpernickel times trout?” I asked them. “Or whole wheat times salmon?”
In the end, they thought me a heretic.
Whatever. Their math is still fishy.
Honorary
I’m not very smart.
Sure, I’ve got me a college degree. It’s up there on the wall somewhere.
But there’s no way I’ll ever get a masters. Or a doctorate.
Now, my brother, he’s smart. Got all of those and more. When he’s not inventing things that make everybody’s life better and easier, he’s collecting honorary doctorates by the truckload.
That’s when I decided to collect honorary Academic Probations and Expulsions.
I just got back from England here Oxford and Cambridge condemned me, and this week is a run through the East Coast for Princeton and Yale.
Call me, Harvard.
Friend
I murdered Anderson.
I murdered Baker.
I murdered Collins.
And I’m going to murder Davis tonight.
I’m going to murder my way through the entire alphabet.
I know what you’re thinking.
You last name is Xiao. If I get that far, will I murder you?
No. I’m going to murder Ximenes.
I’d never murder you. You’re my friend.
Anderson, Baker and Collins were never my friends.
And that’s why I killed them all.
Them and Davis.
Davis dies tonight.
Maybe I’ll finish with three or four at once.
Xiao, Yancy, and Zimmerman.
What?
Sorry, I meant Ximenes.
See ya, friend.
Slipping Away
We all gathered around Aunt Gertrude’s bed and watched as she slowly slipped away.
“She’s slid off the bed!” shouted Cousin Eddie. “Catch her!”
Yeah, we’d warned the hospice workers that Gertrude had a thing for slathering with grease, but they watched television instead of Gertie, and she’d hidden a tub of it under her pillow.
Uncle Larry made a grab for her, narrowly missing. She slipped past all of us, out the door, and down the hall.
Oh well. At least she didn’t fade away like Grandma Phyllis.
(We still trip over her invisible body every now and then.)