Civil Seas

January 11, 1861

St. Augustine 

The ocean battered the barnacle infested banks of the fort as the sun rose, as only it does on a Florida coast. Before long the sleepy town of St. Augustine was awash in a brilliant haze of reds and oranges as roosters crowed and bells tolled.

This morning, however, new sounds joined the routine. Tones of excitement and hope, and yet a sadly ironic harbinger of the pains to come. Men and women who were already awake began to read the notices hastily tacked on to the doors and trees, and as they read, their sounds added to the gradual crescendo of noise rapidly filling the streets.

Now the bells really began to clang as woops and hollers began erupting from every store front and residential window. A gang of children unaccustomed to anything this early but milking cows, began setting off firecrackers. Drums rattled, horses charged, and above it all the cannons at the ancient fort silenced it all for a just a moment with a round of volleys that shook the air.

The pastoral sounds of routine had been replaced with the cacophony of revolution and the cries of independence!

Tree House

Year: The present. 

Time: July 3

JOHNNY is a young kid, about ten years old, and he is alone on stage staring up at a magnificent tree house that his father has just built. He is shaking with excitement and nearly jumps out if his skin when his older sister MAGGIE comes into the backyard. She is a teenager. 

MAGGIE

WOW!

JOHNNY

Can you believe it? It’s done! It’s done!

MAGGIE

Just in time, too!

JOHNNY

For what?

MAGGIE

Why do you think Dad’s been buying all those fireworks?

JOHNNY

Ohhh, of course! I’m gonna have the best view in the neighborhood from there! (He realizes all the kids are gonna want to come to his tree house) oh no, that means everyone’s gonna want to come up… and there sisters!

Maggie starts to chase Johnny around the base of the tree. 

MAGGIE

Hey, you brat!

They’re still running. 

JOHNNY

Dad forgot to build a ladder!

Still running until Johnny trips and falls over a root- it has visibly hurt him. 

JOHNNY

Gahh!

MAGGIE

Johnny, are you okay?

JOHNNY

Go away!

MAGGIE

Let me look. Oh, it’s just a bruise, thank God.

JOHNNY

It still hurts like a bitch.

Johnny realizes that he has just said a very bad word and that Maggie is going to go tell on him. Maggie realizes the same thing and can’t wait to tell on him. 

MAGGIE

Johnny!

She exits. 

Dad!!

Johnny turns to the tree and starts to climb it. 

JOHNNY

I can’t believe he forgot the ladder!

END SCENE ONE.

Sam

We  meet our protagonist, DAN, as he sits shifty and nervously across the desk from several powerful movie studio executives. They are reading through a script he has given them. Finally after much silence, the head boss sitting down, announces.

HEAD BOSS

It’s a piece of shit.

DAN

But-

HEAD BOSS

I SAID… it’s garbage. Rewrite it or take it to Universal, they’ll produce anything these days.

Dan is speechless and powerless. He slowly gets out of his chair and retreats out of the room. When he gets to the door, however, he turns and with an unusual gust of bravery, speakes his mind.

DAN

Mr. Boss, to be frank, this is a straight up detective movie. Film Noir at its most refined. Now I’m not proclaiming it’s a masterpiece or even an Oscar winner, which would be a one reason for your rejection, but sir, how does the man who attaches his name to “The Bumblee Stampede” even remotely thinks this script is anything but worthy. For… for… years I have labored at the keyboard to bring this to you at your very own…. commision! The plot is simple yet compelling, I’ve infused action and wit on an “Iron Man” level, for Christ sake the part was written for Matt Damon and…. and.. the girls ride motorcycles! So may I ask what is wrong with this movie!??

The room is deathly silent. The standing producers are at a loss for words. The Big Boss stands now, seemingly dwarfing Dan with his presence, and throws the script on the floor. It lands on the first page of dialogue and we see that the hero’s name is “SAM EAGLE.” Dan doesn’t get it and the Big Boss explodes.

BIG BOSS

Is this a fucking joke! Some screenwriter’s idea of a making a fool of me?? SAM FUCKING EAGLE??? Get your sorry, no good, ego-ridden, Yale-wasted, puny shit-for-brains asshole out of my office before I make you choke on this.

Dan is gone in a hurry, leaving the script on the floor. The Big Boss picks it up and hands it to another producer.

BIG BOSS

Call Disney and sell it to them. I’d like to see Sam Eagle in this actually.

THE END

 

 

Kafka Dreamin’

Tom is a college age bachelor sitting in his apartment by himself. He is cramming for an exam and it is not going well. Tom grows agitated and tosses his textbook to the floor. An exclamation is heard coming from the book.

VOICE

Hey, watch it!

TOM

Huh?

Tom gets up and picks up the book, examining it.

VOICE

Down here, stupid!

Tom looks down and sees the source of the voice. It is a cockroach. He can scarcely believe it.

TOM

What the hell??

ROACH

Yeah, that’s what I said when I saw your face!

TOM

But you’re a talking cockroach!

ROACH

And you’re ugly.

TOM

I’m ugly?

ROACH

There has to be some reason I don’t see any babes around.

TOM

I happen to be studying for an exam I have… in five hours… crap.

ROACH

You don’t say! What subject?

TOM

Women in the Middle Ages.

ROACH

Oh buddy, you must be desperate! Well, I don’t know nothing about Medieval chicks, but as for the 21st century I got ya covered.

TOM

But… you’re a cockroach!

ROACH

Yeah… about that-

At that moment a flash of light emanates off screen and a full grown man appears. His name is Charlie.

TOM

What the hell is going on!!

CHARLIE

It’s called transfiguration and you can call me Charlie. Now first things first, let’s check out the wardrobe. Come on, stinky!

Charlie exits into the bedroom. Tom remains seated and is in complete shock.

CHARLIE

Hey stinky! Do you mind if I have some friends over? They should be here any minute.

At that moment a doorbell is heard and Tom goes to answer the door. He opens it to only be engulfed by a swarm of roaches and other insects. Tom wakes up on the couch in a panick- he has been dreaming. Just as he recovers he thinks he sees a cockroach on the floor but he’s mistaken. As he begins to start reading again, however, the figure of Charlie slowly rises behind him.

THE END

A Time I Helped My Mom (RI #4)

Original Date: November 14, 2000

Style: Non-Fiction

Score (1-5): 4/ 88 B

When my mom was sick me and my brother had a big responsibility. Me and my brother had to take care of her.

I had to ansewer the phone for her because she was in bed. I liked it when my dad or grandma called. I would talk to them and then surrender it to my mom.

Then my mom wanted lunch. We ask what she wanted. “I want a chickin pattie with orange juice please” she told us “Okay” we replied. “Thankyou” she called to us as we darted to the freezer. We took out the bag the directions said cook for one minute and forty-five seconds. Then we pourd a glass of orange juice wich was as yellow as three suns. Then we gave the lunch to her. “Thank you” she said. When I was leaving the room I noticed the t.v. remote was on the floor. I gave it to her.

Taking care of my mom was fun. But I’am glad now that my mom is well. Because whos gonna take care of me and my brother!

We Soldier On…

Sink back into the Louve and broaden your mind

The winds of fortune will treat you kind.

With whiskey tears and tobacco blues,

You soldier through the valleys and dunes,

Finding the lost while discovering the new.

Thumb in the air, fingers clenched,

With windswept hair and muscles tensed.

What can you do but soldier on, 

Towards the cities and forgotten farms,

To find a friend or lover in your arms.

Many miles lie ahead for the young and weary soul

Who sticks to his guns and goes after what he knows is right. For his path is not the same as we all might expect. The actor, poet, musician, the rambler, the free birds, the bastards of luck and happenstance; these are the soldiers of fortune that hide in the shadows of perseverance and await the glorious day that God will hand them when their time is due.

But what can we do

but soldier on.

Prison Grass by Joshua Braff

This is a really great piece of writing I found online courtesy of the Huffington Post.

“PRISON GRASS”

by Joshua Braff

The man being interviewed on TV was a killer, but I knew him because of baseball. In ’07 I’d just become the new center-fielder for the Berkeley Baron’s, an amateur team of ex-college level players. The San Quentin game against the prisoners was optional. It sounded like a story to me. Like skydiving or a swim with sharks. I’d play in center-field of course, where all the, “shivs” or man-made weapons were hidden in the grass, my teammates said. The prisoners would be amongst us, next to us, they were even allowed to shake our hands. It was okay, I was coached, they were cool, grateful, not as intimidating as you’d think. They might even thank you. “Thank me?” BUT: If there was to be a hostage situation, namely, a prisoner takes me in his grasp and say, presses a sliver of bathroom-tile into my windpipe, there’s a NO NEGOTIATING WITH PRISONERS RULE. I had no idea what this meant.

The prisoner on the TV was being interviewed for a film about his life in San Quentin. He told the reporter the only positive was being a San Quentin Giant, a uniformed baseball player on weekends. His hair was white now and cropped close but I remember it brown the day we met. I was standing on second base, having just doubled by hitting a ball that bounced twice between the center and left-fielders before hitting the wall. Second base was right at the very center of this infamous yard. And around me were hundreds, six, seven hundred convicted criminals. Convicted of felonies that would make your eyes tear. Many were tattooed, many muscular, the ages varied greatly, the ethnicities too. Asians, Hispanics, American Indians, African Americans, Caucasians and mixed. Everyone stayed in their own groups, the African Americans to the right of third base, the Hispanics further out near left, the white guys behind our dugout. The Indians were over the fence in center, hitting a huge circular drum. BOOM, BOOM, BOOM. I heard it when we first walked in and throughout the game, a drone of warning amidst the nearby foghorns of San Francisco Bay.

“What is that?” I asked my teammate.

BOOM, BOOM, BOOM.

“Think of it as a welcome,” he said.

A guard checked our IDs, rummaged through our equipment. He then asked the “first-timers” to raise their hands. I was the only one. My teammates laughed, as the NO NEGOTIATING RULE was explained. If I was taken hostage, an armed guard in a tower above the baseball field would fire his weapon at the offending prisoner’s head and hopefully not kill me in the process. Okay? So consider yourself warned. Now go have fun.

The entrance to the prison is quite beautiful. A fountain in the style of Spanish architecture in the center of a courtyard and a sloping driveway to follow. Around the corner the rumble of male voices grew and the drumming got louder. And then we saw them, a sea of men, a concert with no performance, a rally with no speaker, no freedom, no views. Just walls. Captured people. They saw us, these men in their prison blues. They were lifting weights, walking, running, sitting, standing, drumming, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM.

My team in our black uniforms were greeted with some catcalls, Newbies, Cuties, Freebies were yelled and then laughter and I heard some whistles. I thought of my blond hair, my ass in these tight pants. I stood there, on second, watching the prisoners on the bench, my hands on my hips, the brim of my helmet hiding my eyes. The cage around home plate had men all over it. They were hanging on it, leaning on it, smoking, giggling, slapping each other on the back. There were so many people watching this game, betting on it, talking about it, picking their favorite players.

To my left I saw him, the second baseman from the documentary. He was smiling, his crows-feet splayed. I said, “Nice shot earlier,” in reference to his home run. He dipped his head in appreciation and said, “Got a flattened-out-curve that hung for days.” His throwing hand lifted and his open palm was on my back. I patted him too, realizing how many prisoners and guards were watching our exchange. And in the swirl of it all, the drumming, the cheering, the dirt at my feet, I felt a oneness with this man, a criminal with no name. I’d never want to know what he’d done to get in San Quentin. It would only ruin the beauty and importance of the moment. We were ballplayers. That was all we were that day.

The TV interviewer wanted to know “What he’d done,” as the camera flashed his mug-shot from the day he entered the prison in 1964. His hair was down to his shoulders and brown, his eyes were dazed, glassed, “Lost behind the drugs,” he told the reporter. I could have changed the channel. But I didn’t. And in hindsight I sort of knew what was coming.

“I stabbed her,” he said and held up another photograph, a worn Polaroid of a girl, a teenager with long dark hair, parted in the middle. “Her name was Lorraine.”

Flynn Lockwood: Prologue

TITLE: FLYNN LOCKWOOD AND THE TEMPLE OF EDEN

FADES INTO:

SOUTHERN MEXICO- PRESENT DAY

over a skyline of jungle. The next shots are those of two pairs of boots stomping through the leaves and brush of the jungle floor. These shots are then interrupted by shots of bare feet running through the forest- clearly belonging to the Native inhabitants. An alligator is seen.

The boots then come to a stop; one pair behind the other. Focusing on the ones in front, the camera slowly pans up to reveal the face of FLYNN LOCKWOOD. It is a moment of triumph until the camera shifts slightly to the right and we see the face of SEAN LOCKWOOD, his father, behind him. 

FLYNN

Dad, don’t move. Don’t say a word.

The camera then revolves around to reveal what the men are looking at. It is the fabled Statue of Altair- the most significant find of Flynn’s young archeological career. The air is thick and hot with moisture and the situation is tense. Suddenly a snapped twig is heard and before Flynn can react he is bull-rushed by a Native and the two go sprawling into the bushes. Sean isn’t dumb and snatches the Statue before running for his life. While running we hear a gunshot in the distance and Sean turns back for Flynn.

FLYNN

No, you should’ve kept running! Let’s go!

As they begin to run now they are chased by several more Natives wishing to protect the Statue. We follow the Native Warriors as they come to a body of water and do not know where the Lockwoods have gone. Suddenly, one is hit very hard on the head by a rock from above and falls unconscious. We then see Flynn and Sean hiding in the tree above and Flynn swings down on a vine into the other Natives, knocking them down. A fist fight then ensues with Flynn defeating them easily. Flynn then helps Sean down and the two recover.

SEAN

Wow! Is this what you do?

FLYNN

Dad, please.

SEAN

I’ll say, archeology sure has changed since my time. Talk about getting out in the field! This was exhilarating!

FLYNN

I said please! We’re not out of the woods yet in case you hadn’t noticed.

SEAN

You, know I did help back there. That rock, was me.

FLYNN

Yeah, you’re right Dad. I don’t know why I never brought you along on these expeditions before.

SEAN

You better thank Benjamin for making you do this. One day you’ll realize what it means to you. To himself… and me…

FLYNN

What?

SEAN

Did you forget, my boy, about why we even came out here?

FLYNN

Oh, not at all. Let me see it!

As Sean pulls the Statue out from his coat pocket and handles it off to Flynn, he trips over a root, drops the Statue, and steps on it- crushing it into a million little pieces. We see Flynn’s face.

CUT TO BLACK.

Mafioso- Giovanni’s Revenge

Giovanni Vindetti miraculously survived the attempt on his life all those years ago… Five years later he is now a college student trying his best to shake off his Mafia-reputation and assimilate into normal life.

DENNIS is sitting on the couch in his apartment watching TV. Suddenly, the front door opens and GIOVANNI enters with a baseball bat and other gear.  

DENNIS
Ah! For Pete’s sake, Gio.

GIOVANNI
What??

DENNIS
I thought I owed you money or something.

GIOVANNI
Oh, come on! Really? I just wanna play ball!

DENNIS
I know, I know… I’m just not used to living with a mobster.

GIOVANNI
That’s my family, man. You know I’m making a new life for myself.

DENNIS
Yeah, that’s what Michael Corleone said.

Giovanni goes to the fridge and gets a Coke.

GIOVANNI
(From the kitchen)
You know that movie isn’t totally true!

DENNIS
(to himself)
You would be the one to know…

Giovanni’s cell phone rings.

GIOVANNI
Poppa? How are things? No, I told you I’m not going to push narcotics here. Because it’s a school Poppa! Uh huh. Uh huh. Where are you? A tennis court??

Giovanni crosses to the balcony and looks down at the tennis court. Standing there is his father, Don Vindetti, bumbling about and looking lost and confused. Dennis comes out.

GIOVANNI
My father is standing in our tennis court.

DENNIS
A Mob Boss is standing in our tennis court.

GIOVANNI AND DENNIS
This can’t be good.

THE END.

Flynn Lockwood: Scene 1

Flynn Lockwood and the Temple of Eden- Scenes One and Two

02/01/2010

by Vincent S. Hannam

EXT. LAKEFRONT. AFTERNOON.
It is a pleasant day on the lake and two days before the 4th of July. The Lakefront reflects the festivities with banners and flags everywhere. Professor Flynn Lockwood is walking by the lake when a girl catches his eye.

FLYNN
Excuse me, Miss, care for some cotton candy?

GIRL
Afternoon, Professor.

FLYNN
Where do you get the idea-

GIRL
(bashful)
I really am flattered, Professor Lockwood, but my mother really wouldn’t be able to stand the notion of me going with my Human Studies instructor.

FLYNN
Neither would the University brass…

GIRL
But if you want we could ignore my mother-

FLYNN
-No, you just stay the innocent sweet thing that you are. To himself: I don’t want to ruin another work of art.

GIRL
Oh… all right, Professor. I’ll see you in the Fall then!

The GIRL run offs and we see her run into the arms of an apparent boyfriend.

FLYNN
Another work of art.

WALTER (O.C.)
Flynn? Is that really you?

He sees a friend, Walter Prescott.

WALTER
I didn’t expect to see you back so soon! Eh, I see you still don’t differentiate between your…eh… types of women.

FLYNN
Don’t worry, Walter, I‘m in no mood for any type.

WALTER
I take it then your not back for positive reasons.

FLYNN
Let’s go somewhere less crowded.

EXT. PIER. AFTERNOON.

WALTER
Good Lord, I’m so sorry Flynn.

FLYNN
I’m telling you, it’s the last time I bring my intrepid old man on another expedition, I don’t care what Benjamin or anyone else on that damn board says.

WALTER
Keep in mind I happen to be on that damn board? Look, these trips mean the world to him. And the University, mind you. You can’t dismiss his intellect no matter how… cumbersome or naïve he may be.

FLYNN
I know, I know. You’re not telling me anything your associates haven’t said before. He’s just better suited for classrooms and chalkboards, that’s all.

WALTER
And you’re better suited for jungles and snakes. You’re a perfect duo, Flynn, his brains to your brawn.

Flynn gives him a look.

WALTER (CONT’D)
Please be more understanding.

FLYNN
You know a pay raise would help me be more understanding.

WALTER
There are more important things in life, my friend.

FLYNN
It was the Statue of Altaire, Walt. Legend says it was the last gift Moctezuma gave to his wife-

WALTER
-And the first Cortez gave to his. I know, Flynn. I know what it meant to you and believe me, I know what it meant to the University. But let it go, your dad didn’t do it on purpose. Something else will come up before you know it.

FLYNN
I guess you’re right. I just need a vacation.

WALTER
That’s the spirit.

FLYNN
With pay.

WALTER
You’re pushing it, Flynn.

They both grin.

FLYNN
Walter, I’ve been pushing it all my life.

Flynn gets up and leaves. Walter calls out to him.

WALTER
Wait, don’t forget the board meeting tomorrow! Oh, what does it matter, he’ll still be late.

INT. HIDEOUT. NIGHT.
Sitting around a large table are six cloaked figures. The scene is very dim, with two or three candles burning. They are a group of high-ranking Neo-Nazi’s, heavily involved with the Occult and it’s power from which they benefit. Five of the men are also Chairmen of the University; including Benjamin, Richard, and John. The only one not apart of the University is the tallest one, Frueler. His face is also the only one revealed throughout the scene, the rest being hidden in the shadows of their cloaks.