WhatnotStudios.com

“This is bullshit,” Jake said, holding the plate up so that Ernie the busboy. Ernie was sitting at the far end of the kitchen, his necktie untied, texting something or other to someone or other. Ernie was Jake’s ride home, but he wasn’t about to just jump in and help wash dishes. “I’ve already washed this stupid dish three times tonight. I can tell, because it’s got this chip on the back.”

“Uh-huh,” Ernie nodded.

“It doesn’t end. I’m like that guy with the rock on the hill I read about.”

“Who, Sisyphus?”

“That’s the one. Every night, I come in here and wash the dishes and just an hour later I have to wash them again. It’s like–”

“JACOB COTTER!” a voice bellowed from somewhere below, rattling the pans hanging from the wall. Jake gripped the edge of the sink to steady himself. He looked over at Ernie, who indicated the drain in the center of the floor. “I, SISYPHUS, DO NOT GET PAID SIX DOLLARS AND FIFTY CENTS AN HOUR TO ROLL THIS BOULDER UP THIS STUPID HILL.” And then there was silence.

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This post is an installment in a continuing series of content coordinated by theme or motif with posts from Enoch Allred of Chiltingham, John Allred of clol Town, Jon Fairbanks of Funkadelic Freestylings of Another Sort, Eli Z. McCormick and Miriam Allred of Modern Revelation!, John D. Moore of Whatnot Studios, Davey Morrison, and Joseph Schlegel of Sour Mayonnaise. This week’s theme: ‘Sisyphean’.

Dave had been chatting pleasantly with the patrons of the bar amicably. It was his first night in this cozy downtown bar. He’d had some work out near this bar a few weeks ago and his old haunt had at last uncovered his secret.

As the evening wore on, he had gotten into a conversation with a large table, all regulars to the bar. He fit in easily, and he found the topics and tenor of their conversation suited him well. Still, he found his eyes drawn to a stunning redhead sitting at the bar. And her eyes seemed to keep finding their way back to him.

At the urging of a round-faced man whose name Dave hadn’t caught, Dave got up to cross the bar and offer the lady a drink. But halfway there, a delicate hand tapped him on the shoulder. He spun around to see a short blonde woman whose face looked vaguely familiar.

“I’m sorry?” Dave inquired.

“You’re that guy–that ergonomicist who came by our office a few weeks ago, aren’t you?” she grinned. She was obviously drunk, but she was also right. Dave returned her a blank stare. “You are! Hey everyone, we’ve got an ergonomicist in the house!”

“Oh, shit! Where?” a large man playing pool abandoned his game.

Within seconds, Dave was surrounded by animated hands and eager voices and excited questions. What is the best keyboard to use? If standing’s so great for you, why can’t I get a standing desk? Have they developed ergonomic toilets yet? Am I sitting on this barstool in proper ergonomic fashion?

He was the evening’s celebrity. The stunning redhead asked “Might my sore back have to do with the way I swivel in my chair?” and with that she was dead to him, as was the bar. He was running out of places to go on this city.

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This post is an installment in a continuing series of content coordinated by theme or motif with posts from Enoch Allred of Chiltingham, John Allred of clol Town, Jon Fairbanks of Funkadelic Freestylings of Another Sort, Eli Z. McCormick and Miriam Allred of Modern Revelation!, Davey Morrison, and Joseph Schlegel of Sour Mayonnaise. This week’s theme: ‘Ergonomics’.

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This post is an installment in a continuing series of content coordinated by theme or motif with posts from Enoch Allred of Chiltingham, John Allred of clol Town, Jon Fairbanks of Funkadelic Freestylings of Another Sort, Eli Z. McCormick and Miriam Allred of Modern Revelation!, Davey Morrison, and Joseph Schlegel of Sour Mayonnaise. This week’s theme: ‘Demon’.

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This post is an installment in a continuing series of content coordinated by theme or motif with posts from Enoch Allred of Chiltingham, John Allred of clol Town, Jon Fairbanks of Funkadelic Freestylings of Another Sort, Eli Z. McCormick and Miriam Allred of Modern Revelation!, John D. Moore of Whatnot Studios, Davey Morrison, and Joseph Schlegel of Sour Mayonnaise. This week’s theme: ‘Gluttony’.

“Is it true? Hast Sir Benton returned from beyond?” the boy-king whispered to his advisor.

“Yes, your majesty. But shouldst we not attend to matters of the court first?”

“Court, mine arse!” bellowed the boy-king, leaping to his feet upon his throne. “Begone, ye lords and ladies, ye petitioners and ye ambassadors. I have important personal matters to attend to. Clear the hall!”

Not unaccustomed to this behavior, the nobles of the court dispersed quickly, all murmuring under their breaths.

“Come, then! Bring before me Sir Benton!” the boy-king shouted. His advisor clapped his hands and the sound echoed through the corridors of the castle.

Seconds passed, though they seemed like minutes. Then came a rustling just outside the doors of the hall. Bent and grisled Sir Benton limped into the hall, his armor caked in dry blood, dragging behind him a heavy metal chest. The boy-king, of course, hardly noticed the middle-aged knight. His eyes fixed on the chest, and his body squirmed with delight.

Some three yards from the throne, Sir Benton stopped and coughed. And coughed. Sir Benton coughed with such fury that the advisor thought the old knight might die before his report might be made. The boy-king squirmed still. At last, Sir Benton’s coughing fit subsided and he raised his head. “Your majesty,” he said, mustering up what dignity had not been beaten out of him, “I believe I hath retrieved for you what you requested. The world thou hast sent me to is alien and dangerous, but I hath persevered in the name of our great country, and present to your majesty these strange relics,” Sir Benton knelt to open the chest.

The boy-king could contain himself no longer. He leapt from his throne, plunged his hands into the chest, and drew up its contents.

“Softball?!” the boy-king fumed. “I clearly requested wiffleball! For it is the game of wiffleball that I played with my friends Hammie and Jenny and Jimmy and Susan in the year 1973, when I learned the value of friendship and humility and perseverance and love!

“Yet you damned knights bring me nothing but baseball and softball and tee-ball! Like Sir Abernathy and Sir Carver before you, you have, Sir Benton, hath failed your king. Advisor!”

“Yes, your majesty?” the advisor’s voice waivered.

The boy-king’s nostrils flared and his red cheeks soaked with sweat. “Kill Sir Benton. Kill him! Kill him, kill him, KILL HIM.”

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This post is an installment in a continuing series of content coordinated by theme or motif with posts from Enoch Allred of Chiltingham, John Allred of clol Town, Jon Fairbanks of Funkadelic Freestylings of Another Sort, Eli Z. McCormick and Miriam Allred of Modern Revelation!, Davey Morrison, and Joseph Schlegel of Sour Mayonnaise. This week’s theme: ‘Wiffleball‘.

(I have no idea what this even became.)

Modern America is missing something, as movies I’ve watched recently have pointed out to me. In turning to airplanes as our favored form of transit between distant points, we have lost the extended prolonged traveling ritual of riding passenger trains, all full of dining cars and sleeping quarters.

In the last week, I have watched both The Thin Man and After the Thin Man. After solving the murders in each movie, protagonists Nick and Nora Charles hop on a train with the aggrieved, traveling in a fancy schmancy private car, either home or to parts unknown, sipping fine liquors.

Indeed, many of classic cinema’s most memorable scenes take place on transcontinental train rides. A producer would have be hard-pressed to find a modern substitute for the train’s sleeping compartments in Some Like It Hot. And where else could Preston Sturges have given us The Palm Beach Story‘s Ale and Quail club? Hotels and airplanes just won’t cut it.

You may complain about the stagnation in mainstream American romantic comedy formula, but I can practically guarantee that you wouldn’t if these romcoms featured train-based antics in their second acts.

And I’m not even touching the mystery angle.

But I’m no anachronist or xenonostalgic. In truth, the airplane is a better, quicker Spending days just to reach the other coast is impractical for our bicoastal power players, and life’s probably too short to watch the plains of the Midwest slowly pass you by over and over again. The time of the national railroad culture is behind us, and with it has gone its contributions to popular entertainment. But that is the way of progress. One cannot forever mourn the passing of the comedic potential presented in, say, Roman aqueducts.

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This post is an installment in a continuing series of content coordinated by theme or motif with posts from Enoch Allred of Chiltingham, John Allred of clol Town, Jon Fairbanks of Funkadelic Freestylings of Another Sort, Eli Z. McCormick and Miriam Allred of Modern Revelation!, John D. Moore of Whatnot Studios, Davey Morrison, and Joseph Schlegel of Sour Mayonnaise. This week’s theme: ‘Trains‘.

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This post is an installment in a continuing series of content coordinated by theme or motif with posts from Enoch Allred of Chiltingham, John Allred of clol Town, Jon Fairbanks of Funkadelic Freestylings of Another Sort, Eli Z. McCormick and Miriam Allred of Modern Revelation!, Davey Morrison, Joseph Schlegel of Sour Mayonnaise, Sven Patrick Svensson of Sadness? Euphoria?, and William C. Stewart of Chide, Chode, Chidden. This week’s theme: ‘Puppies‘.

Just 13,648 realities over, my Alison is still alive. From all I can ascertain, that seems to be the only difference from my own reality. That reality’s Alison never had cancer, never died while her husband slept, never left her husband all alone for these two years.

I am going to be with Alison. Life without her has been insufferable, and I can bear the quiet of this house no longer. Tonight, I shall use my brother’s government credentials to enter the Reality Shifting Facility. I shall bring my gun, and take my side by my wife, even if I have to shoot my self in the face.

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This post is an installment in a continuing series of content coordinated by theme or motif with posts from Enoch Allred of Chiltingham, John Allred of clol Town, Jon Fairbanks of Funkadelic Freestylings of Another Sort, Eli Z. McCormick and Miriam Allred of Modern Revelation!, John D. Moore of Whatnot Studios, Davey Morrison, Joseph Schlegel of Sour Mayonnaise, Sven Patrick Svensson of Sadness? Euphoria?, and William C. Stewart of Chide, Chode, Chidden. This week’s theme: ‘Alternate Realities’.

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This post is an installment in a continuing series of content coordinated by theme or motif with posts from Enoch Allred of Chiltingham, John Allred of clol Town, Jon Fairbanks of Funkadelic Freestylings of Another Sort, Eli Z. McCormick and Miriam Allred of Modern Revelation!, Davey Morrison, Joseph Schlegel of Sour Mayonnaise, Sven Patrick Svensson of Sadness? Euphoria?, and William C. Stewart of Chide, Chode, Chidden. This week’s theme: ‘Dragons’.