Old Man Beating

It started as a Participation in Government project more than a decade ago, and it received a marginal grade. The raw footage was lost for several years and unearthed in 2005 by an intrepid young video student, who reedited the project and upgraded the sound quality. His work was mastered to a DVD and quickly lost, however, to time.

Recently rediscovered (again!), I bring you the greatest film of this or any century: "Old Man Beating."


The old man, pre-beating.

The old man, post-beating.

View this video on YouTube

Course Overload #22: "Carmageddon"

I realized today that I tell a lot of lies. It’s not because I have anything to hide, or that I’m a pathological liar (although, if I were, I’d probably have just lied about it right now), it’s that no one would believe me if I told them the truth. For example, last week, I couldn’t make it to class on time because I was attacked by a tiger in my driveway and had to go to the hospital. If I ran into class, with my skin hanging off my body like shredded cloth and told the truth, I’m sure people would just assume that I shredded my own skin in order to get out of class. So I just walked in and said, “I overslept,” and me and my ribbons of oozing skin sat down and started taking notes like everyone else. It’s a lie like that that I have learned to call a “false,” because it’s not the truth, but it’s not fully a lie, either. I try not to tell lies and I also try not to even tell falses – but last Tuesday, like the day I was attacked by a tiger, I didn’t have much of a choice.

In my four years of going to college, never have I gotten a parking ticket. It probably has something to do with how dangerously sexy and outrageously wonderful I am, as well as my never having parked anywhere but in one of two designated spots. Anyway, this particular Tuesday I was nearly 57 seconds late getting out of my house, because I pulled out my binoculars and scanned the woods near my driveway, searching for any wayward tigers. I snuck out of my house and jumped in my car, speeding away seconds before Siegfried, the name I had given the tiger, could get me. He slid off my hood, leaving a foot-long tiger claw scratch in my paint.

The whole way to school, I worried about my parking spots. Some days, I had driven in to find that one of my spaces had been taken, but the other one was always open. But now I was late. It was too horrible for me to think, so I just said it out loud: “Maybe they’ll both be gone!” I exclaimed, waiving my arms frantically and receiving an odd look from the woman parked next to me at the stop light.

After calming down, I thought that I’d just park in the same area as the other two spots. If I couldn’t get the exact spot, then one right next to it would have to do. But pulling into the college, I quickly realized that I’d be lucky to get any spot at all. There were cars everywhere: some parked on the grass, some in handicap spots and few were trying to drive up the walls of Wonka Hall to park on top of it. Some students were paying a construction worker to crush their cars into little squares with his machine so they’d be easier to park, and other students were incinerating their cars in a bonfire-like event, simply so they could get to class. A few normal spots had lucky commuters in them, but the rest had been occupied by resident students who had been too lazy to walk to class, even though they live about 10 minutes away.

“Being 57 seconds late has cost me my spot!” I thought furiously.

But lo! Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed someone pulling out of a spot not far from my usual one. Throwing the car in reverse, I backed over a few street signs and guard rails and flew down the grassy hill towards the heavenly spot. Perhaps I’d make it to class today after all. I almost simultaneously stopped the car and jumped out, running the whole way.

After class, I thought everything was fine. After all, I had come to class on time, so what else could be amiss? Yet, walking up to my car, I heard sirens. While thinking that sirens are so romantic, I saw the source: a security car. There was security guard writing something on a small yellow pad. I knew he had just given me a parking ticket.

“Why did you give me a ticket?” I asked, puzzled.

The security guard barely looked up from his pad. “You’re parked in a faculty spot,” he said. He placed the yellow ticket on my windshield.

“But I’ve parked in the same area for four years,” I exclaimed in disbelief. “Since when is this a faculty parking spot?”

“I don’t know, but it is,” he replied, writing another ticket. He pulled it off and placed it on my forehead. “By the way, this is a No Exclaiming in Disbelief Zone.”

I couldn’t really see, because the ticket was hanging down over my eyes.

“But why do you guys hand out tickets if there are not enough parking spaces for us commuters? Don’t we pay enough in tuition to be entitled to that? I mean, why aren’t we given breaks if we occasionally park on the grass, or in a so-called faculty spot?”

He had already finished his third ticket by the time I was done speaking. He stashed it between my arm and my chest.

“This is a No Questioning Authority Zone, son.”

“But… but…!” he had already started writing another one.

Seven hours later, I stepped into the office of the head of security for traffic court. “What can I do for you today?” he asked cheerfully. I overturned my book bag on his desk, spilling out hundreds of yellow tickets. Staring at the pile, a single tear rolled down his cheek.

That night, I walked through my front door. My mother was at the refrigerator, getting a midnight snack. “How was school?” she asked.

I knew if I told the truth, she wouldn’t have believed me.

“It was fine,” I falsed, stalking off to my room.

“Did you get any parking tickets today?” she asked, although she had never asked me that before.

“Not a single one,” I falsed once more. Closing my door, I frowned. I had told two falses that day. Thank God they can’t give tickets – or tigers – for telling falses to your mom.

Course Overload #21: "Lost in Space"

Does anyone remember Career Day in elementary school? You know, when you’d get dressed up as whatever wacky profession you wanted to be when you grew up, and all the teachers and parents would coo over your general cuteness for three hours, then you’d get to have cookies and juice and take a nap? I remember it being great fun, but then again, we all used to enjoy listening to The New Kids on the Block and watching Alf, so I might be wrong.

"Swing your arms, from side to side..."

Do you remember what you wanted to be? Perhaps a doctor, or a teacher? A race car driver? A ninja? I had a huge variety of occupations lined up for myself, such as a video game play tester, a video game programmer, or a video game character, so it was really hard choosing whether to go dressed as Super Mario or Chun-Li from Street Fighter II. One thing I never considered, however, was becoming an astronaut. Yet, life has a tendency to throw us curve balls. And I have a particular knack for catching them at full speed squarely in my nether regions.

My impromptu career as an astronaut began one fine August day on my drive to school. It was registration day and I hadn’t seen many of my friends in weeks, so I wore my best polyester shirt and gothic cape and set out bright and early. On the trip, I swore to myself that this was going to be a normal semester: no parachuting, screaming ninjas, no booby-trapped trips to the library, and no one stealing my cereal so they have something to pour their vodka over. But as soon as I pulled into the campus, the skies darkened and ominous lighting struck a blazing, fiery path along the sides of the road to direct me to my fate. A heavy rain began to fall, the Internet suddenly stopped working, and everyone stumbled fearfully away from my four wheeled, rolling damnation to protect themselves from my imminent doom. Either that or I was driving on the sidewalk. It’s hard to tell when your back-to-school cape has blown up into your face.

And yet, I was determined to continue. Why should this sudden change in the weather be connected to me, simply because every violent storm, massive explosion and bad movie at the college for the past three years has been? Perhaps the weatherman had predicted an apocalypse that morning while I was in the shower. So I drove on, noticing all the changes that had been made to the campus over the summer. I wondered what other alterations I would come across while approaching the first set of speed bumps.

Those evil, malicious speed bumps.

I’ll admit that I had been going too fast, but that was no reason to be exiled to another solar system. As I hit the first speed mountain, I felt myself being propelled into the air like an underpaid circus clown from a cannon. I sailed high in the sky, my jowls flapping in the wind, screaming and honking my horn. I quickly discovered that my breaks were useless, but I don’t know what I thought they would do; it’s not like I could stop in mid-air because I knew I wouldn’t be able to find a ladder high enough to climb back down to safety.

The people on the ground seemed very impressed with my spontaneous air show – they clapped, cheered and giggled. I know I would have too, because I was surely performing a jump that even Kitt from Knight Rider would be jealous of.

I thought I was safe as my car finally started its dreadful decent to Earth, but to my horror, I saw that I was careening right for the front of the second speed bump. My shrieking began anew as I struck the ground, losing at least 33 percent of my car on impact, and began immediately up the second bump of destruction. I, Matt Frey, after having somehow survived last semester’s outbreak of Whooping SARS, was going to be the first person murdered by a speed bump.

There I was again, being shot into orbit. I could hear the police sirens below me, waiting to give me a ticket if I ever came down for taking orbit in a no space travel zone. “Sirens are so romantic,” I mumbled, starring down at the entire campus. “At least I’ll be able to find a parking spot now,” I added, surveying the packed parking lot.

But that’s when the miracle happened. Somewhere in between Alpha Centauri and Neptune (Did you know that Neptune is a planet?), I caught sight of a blinding light; the most beautiful I had ever seen. I thought that I had somehow flown to God, and I opened my arms up wide to be received by Him. But as I passed though the light, I noticed a conspicuous lack of rainbows and angles playing PlayStations. I hadn’t reached God at all, but I sure was in Heaven: Looking down at my passenger seat, I saw that my laptop’s Internet signal strength read “very low.” My eyes bulged. “Very low!? You mean, I have the Internet again!?” I began hemorrhaging with joy. Yes college students, there is an Internet.

Luckily for me, A few hours later, I stealthily navigated my car (read: plummeted helplessly while screaming for Mommy) into a nearby black hole, avoiding all antimatter and space rubbish all the way through. Surprisingly, I reappeared on campus as if nothing had happened.

I wonder if the college’s administration realizes that their speed bumps were designed by NASA?

Course Overload #20: "The Name Game"

It began one day in Dr. Tomm’s Western Civ class last year – I remember it quite clearly, as if it happened just yesterday. Maybe it did; I’m not very good with time.

I walked into class, late as usual, and Dr. Tomm had already started the lecture. “The problem with Vietnam was that there weren’t enough robots,” explained Dr. Tomm. “If the United States had used robot dogs, or perhaps hired Voltron or the Transformers, history might be different.”

Pens scribbled wildly, including mine, to capture Dr. Tomm’s wisdom. But as I wondered whether to include “robots with red eyes” under the same heading as “robots with fangs” and “robots that spin,” I felt someone tap my shoulder. Turning around quickly, I found myself face to face with the girl who sat behind me.

“I’ve read your articles in the school paper,” she said. I smiled, because my articles were finally doing what I wanted them to: getting me chicks. She continued, “Could you put me in your next article?”

Who was I to refuse a fan? Especially one who might later on have my babies or maybe even hold my hand. And so, she appeared in my next article.

Ever since then, my friends have asked me to include them in my articles, but I inevitably forget someone or simply can’t work them into the storyline. Because this is the 20th humor article that I’ve published in the paper, I’ve concocted a story that includes everyone who’s ever asked to appear in one of my articles. Hopefully, this will make everyone happy and I can finally spread true love and superior colon health through my writing, as God intended.

It was a cold day last week, somewhere between 20 degrees and North Pole on the thermometer. I was going to meet Dan and Kat for lunch. Walking next to me were my friends Dave and DJ, who were both very excited about eating.

“I should be doing homework right now,” said DJ, staring at his math book while he walked.

“I hate food!” interjected Dave merrily.

As I opened the door to the café, I waved at Trish, the cafeteria worker. The three of us sat down next to Dan and Kat, who were talking about The Apprentice, the show where Donald Trump tries to find his next employee by giving a bunch of people random silly business tasks.

“I don’t think Trump should have let Nick go,” said my friend Sarah, who was walking by and had overheard our conversation.

“You’re fired!” exclaimed Donald Trump, jumping out from his hiding place behind a garbage can and pointing at Sarah. Sarah ran away crying.

Just then, my cell phone rang. Excusing myself from the table, I walked outside, passing my friend Michelle. When I was sure I was clear of the horrible cell phone signal-blocking bubble that apparently surrounds the café, I answered. It was Kara.

“Hey Kara, are you coming to lunch today?”

“No,” she replied sadly. “Something very bad happened at the Campus Ministry.”

“What’s wrong?” I asked. My heart sank. I was fully expecting her to tell me that Fr. Kurt was really a sinister alien in disguise.

“Well, it’s not every day that I super glue my hands together,” she replied. “I sent Frankie and Bill to get nail polish remover, but by the time I get this mess straightened out, lunch will be over.”

“Kara, if you glued your hands together, how did you call me?” I asked, confused.

She stuttered for a moment. “I… used my tongue to dial!” she exclaimed. I could clearly hear circus music in the background. Then a voice that sounded just like Bill’s exclaimed “I love lions!” The line went dead.

Walking back in, I saw that Mary had bought me a grilled cheese sandwich. “That was very Mike Lopez of you, Mary,” I said happily. “Mmm! Tim Murphy,” I exclaimed, biting into my sandwich.

“My Dr. Cotter hurts,” complained Meg, who had walked in with Shannon only a few moments before.

“Maybe you should go down to Health Services and see if they can give you a Chandler,” replied JC and Brian.

Just then, horrific robot dogs with fangs and red eyes came spinning into the café. “Holy Joe Shurize!” exclaimed Alana, Ashley, Mandy and Heather simultaneously. Police sirens blared in the background, no doubt coming to contend with the robotic menace.

“Sirens are so romantic,” commented everyone in a 50 block radius.

Seeing the dogs, I didn’t know what to do. “Dr. Davidson!” I yelled in terror. “John, Anthony, Yvonne, Vicky, Adam, Mr. Brice, Alex, Christina, Denise, Professor Andiamo, Kristy, Kimmy, Sandy, Jess, Krystal, Nicole, J.J., Dr. Sauron, Mr. Keard, Massy, Val, Tony Hawk, Alex Trebeck!”

“How profound!” commented Meg, fighting off a gaggle of robot dogs with a chicken tender. “You finally put everyone who asked into one of your articles!”

It warmed my Johnny Depp to know that for once, every Tom, Dick, Harry, and Willy Wonka will be exploding with joy when they pick up a copy of this week’s paper. Spreading happiness makes me feel so… so… Gandhi.

Course Overload #19: "Health Unfair"

Unfortunately, I won’t be writing a Course Overload article today. Yes, I know; you’re devastated, but ever since I learned that I’m going to die, I’ve been feeling a little lazy.

Yes, you read right; my days are numbered. I was as shocked as you must be when I found out about it one dark day last week. I’ve been going over the tragic events of that day ever since, and I’ve noticed that I should have known there was something amiss by the way I woke up that morning.

My day started at 8 a.m., and promptly ended around 8:01 a.m. It was one of those short days; all I did was sit up, look at the clock, bellow mournfully, and fall back into the womb-like comfort of my bed. My day started again around 9:17 a.m., when I looked at the clock in horror and promptly bolted out of bed. I had only 13 minutes to get ready, so I limited myself to only the most essential morning operations. And obviously, it was imperative that I finish Level 3-A in Shinobi for PlayStation 2 or my Copyediting professor would have been very disappointed.

Unshaven, hair blowing free and clothes mismatched, I bolted from my house. Sadly, most people can’t tell the difference between one of my 13 minute mornings and one of my hour and a half mornings, probably because I wear the same outfit every day.

On the way to school, I wondered what happens to all those short, three minute days in one’s life. If you measure a day by waking up, doing things and then going to sleep, then my average week is 67 days long. By those standards, having classes only five days a week is a bargain.

Somehow, I managed to make it to Copyediting on time, if not in the best condition. In the middle of class, I overheard someone say that there was going to be a health fair at Wonka Hall. I was so excited; I love fairs! I couldn’t wait to get out and start riding the merry-go-round and buying badly-made balloon animals from disinterested, chain-smoking clowns. Maybe there would even be a Ferris wheel! After class, I ran as fast as I could to the fair, knocking down any children, nuns, or kittens in my path. Above the entrance, a giant sign read “Health Fair Today.”

I burst through the door. Surrounding me were a few people in suits and tables covered with dreary pamphlets. My heart immediately sunk. Where were the games? Where were the rides? And for the love of God, where were the clowns? All this so-called fair had was a bunch of signs telling me that eating doughnuts covered with bacon and lard isn’t good for me. I wondered what other lies they would try to tell me. Looking around, I knew that my life was ruined.

I was about to go running into the streets and hopefully get run over by a beer truck when Sarah appeared behind me.

“Guess what, Matt!” Sarah exclaimed excitedly.

“This fair has shattered my dreams and expectations, so I’m going to kill myself now?” I replied woefully.

“Even better!” yelled Sarah, smiling from ear to ear. “My cholesterol level is a zero!”

“Mine is a five,” said a passer-by, frowning. “Sarah beat me.”

“Matt, you should get your cholesterol reading,” suggested Sarah, grabbing my arm and pulling me over to an ominous looking table in the far corner of the room. “Come on, it’s fun!”

A very angry man in jet black suit grabbed my arm and yanked me behind a black curtain. I’m not sure what happened after that, but a minute later, I was pushed back out into the crowd.

“Wasn’t that fun?” Sarah asked with a smile.

“I …don’t know?”

“So what’s your cholesterol rating?”

“It’s 957,” I replied. “He says that I have about seven minutes to live.”

“Oh no!” sobbed Sarah, adding, “Can I have your stereo?”

Shaking his head, the angry man in the jet black suit said, “Well, what do you expect from someone who uses alcohol-based hair gel? I’m surprised his hair hasn’t fallen out yet, too.”

I stumbled out of the fair in a daze. What was I going to do with the tiny bit of life I had left? I was distracted when someone ran past me, yelling something about Wonka Hall. Indeed, random passerby, Wonka does look like it’s made of radiant legos, but that wasn’t going to help me! Just then, I heard a familiar voice. It was Kristy, my digital video partner.

“Hey Matt! Sarah and I are going to lunch now and you’re welcome to come with us if you want.”

I shook my head. “Thanks, but I…”

“For lunch, there’s chicken patties and french-fries,” said Kristy, ignoring me. “Just lay off the salt this time; you use way too much and I think it causes high cholesterol.”

But I was only half listening. I was too busy thinking about how I was going die soon.

“Kristy, I’d like to eat lunch with you, but I’m dying,” I said, tears welling up in my eyes. “Go call an ambulance; I should be convulsing by the time it gets here. I’ll stay out here and listen for the sirens.”

“Sirens are so romantic,” said Kristy, adding, “Can I have your stereo?”

So, my dear readers, that’s why I won’t be writing an article today. Instead, I’ve been trying to decide the best way to use my remaining time. I think I’ve got it: I’m going to go to Dunkin’ Donuts and order a great big doughnut covered with bacon and lard for lunch.

But I’ll be sure to tell the waitress to hold the salt; gotta watch that cholesterol.

Course Overload #18: "The Seventh Planet from the Sun and Other Cosmic Mysteries"

I thought that maybe, by some miracle, this semester might actually be “normal.” It was already four weeks in and I hadn’t been accosted by sinister aliens, nor had the library tried to eat me yet. Well, at one point, some guy outside of the cafeteria told me he wanted my blood, but I found out later it was only a blood drive. (I’d like to take this opportunity to apologize to him and tell him that I hope his nose recovers quickly; and his glasses, too.) So I was feeling fairly confident that I would actually get some learning done this time around.

I have since learned to completely stop trusting my instincts in such matters.

One Thursday night, after praying that the waters around the island in Survivor would carry Richard Hatch away in all his naked, fish-catching splendor, my friend Meg and I somehow got into a conversation about the planets. We knew there were nine of them, but between the two of us, we could only recall eight: Earth, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Uranus, Mercury, Pluto, and Saturn. Around 2 a.m., we thought we had a breakthrough. However, according to Google, Cleveland isn’t a planet; it’s actually a continent.

About an hour and a half later, Meg became very excited. “Wait, what was the planet with the rings again?” she asked. “You know, the rings that were supposed to have been put there by aliens?”

“By aliens?” I thought for a moment. “Check Uranus,” I replied.

It went on like that for hours. By daybreak, the two of us were so exhausted, we just wanted to get something to eat and then go to sleep. So, after trying to figure it out over breakfast at the Neptune diner, I dropped Meg back at her dorm where she quickly fell asleep hunched over her laptop, in search of the elusive ninth planet.

I’d have gone to sleep as well if I didn’t have class. Sitting with my hand propping up my head, about half way through Copyediting, I noticed something peculiar. A group of perspective students and their parents were suddenly peering into my classroom, pointing at the desks, the professor and the students.

“This is one of the MST building’s many classrooms,” said the guide loudly.

“Wow!” replied the crowd simultaneously, as if the guide hadn’t stated the obvious.

“The dirty wet dog and stinky feet smell that permeates the science wing probably comes from that boy with the ponytail sitting in the corner,” continued the guide, pointing at me.

“But... I took a shower today!” I exclaimed, tears forming in my eyes.

“I knew it was him!” said a young man in the crowd. “It’s so obvious.” With that, the tour guide motioned them away from the classroom and down the hall.

After class and a significant amount of time spent weeping and trying to take a bath with hand soap in a bathroom sink, I went to have lunch with my friends. (Meg was still asleep, no doubt dreaming of that blasted ninth planet.) Within minutes, my friends had helped me forget about the tour.

But my solace was short lived. As I was about to shove a few french-fries in my mouth, I heard what sounded like a stadium full of people suddenly march into the cafeteria. Looking up, I found myself staring once again into the evil eyes of the tour guide.

“This is one of the places where students eat,” he began. “As you can see, Stinky Ponytail Boy has chosen to gorge himself on french-fries today.”

“I see!” exclaimed one of the parents. Meanwhile, people from the crowd had begun inspecting the cafeteria, examining my silverware, blowing their noses in my napkin, sampling my sandwich, and poking my stomach, presumably to see the long term effects of possibly poisonous cafeteria food on the average student. Some shook their heads in approval, while others were not satisfied at all.

“What do you think you’re doing!?” I exclaimed, pulling my flub away from the inquisitive poking of the potential students.

“Just look natural, fatty!” yelled the tour guide, glaring at me angrily. “You’ll scare away next year’s freshmen.”

“I don’t have to take this!” I exclaimed, jumping out of my seat.

“Actually, you do,” replied the tour guide. “You didn’t read the fine print on your application, did you?”

I don’t know if it’s even medically possible, but I think at that point my brain started to cry. I had to get out of there. Leaping over the table like a short ponytailed ninja, I bolted straight for the door. In seconds, I was running through the lower parking lot.

But there was the tour guide, yet again, standing in the grass near my car. “Here in beautiful Crimeburgh, nothing ever goes wrong,” he proclaimed. Just as he finished his sentence, a police siren squealed in the background.

“Sirens are so romantic,” interjected one of the parents.

“And to your left, you will see Fat Stinky Ponytail Boy screaming with paranoid terror and hoping into his car.”

“Is paranoid terror covered in the basic tuition costs?” inquired one of the parents.

I didn’t leave the door open long enough to hear the answer. With U2’s “Mysterious Ways” blaring over my radio to drown out anything that foul tour guide might say, I sped away from the college, fighting tears and ignoring traffic rules.

That night, I concocted a foolproof plan to rid myself of that insane tour guide. The next day, I would pay someone to survey the campus before I got there, and stand guard until the tours were over.

I turned off my lights and crawled into bed, secure in the knowledge that the tour group couldn’t hurt me now; I was too far away for them to find me. I quickly began to fall asleep.

Two minutes later, my light flipped back on. I sat up quickly, and stared at the gaggle of people now standing right in front of me.

“Most commuter students sleep in their respective homes,” announced the guide with grand authority. The crowd seemed very pleased with this fact for some reason. As the group began sifting through all of my stuff, I could feel the gentle trickle of a tear inside my skull as my brain softly wept.

As I finally drifted off to sleep, I dreamed of a rocket that would whisk me off to that nameless final planet, where, hopefully, no tour guides are allowed.

Course Overload #17: "Can You Hear Me Now?"

It’s crunch time, kids. You know, the time of the semester when all of your professors get together and custom tailor the due dates for all your massive papers to give you, and only you, the most consecutive aneurysms. It’s as if there’s a quota for exploding students’ heads that must be filled, or no one gets paid and Christmas will be ruined. And you don’t want to ruin everyone’s Christmas, do you?

Well do you?

It was somewhere during crunch time last week that I found myself in a jam: I needed to finish the 25,000 page epic that is John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, but I had no time to go home and barricade myself in my room for the next 67 hours to do so. With no millionaire relatives about to kick the bucket, it looked like I was going to have to take the hard way out and actually complete college. And that meant reading the book, crunch time or not.

Ah, the library. The second floor is my quiet place. Whenever I need to read a book or perhaps perform impromptu surgery on a wounded classmate, that’s where I go. As I opened the door to the second floor, I noticed the big pink sign that said it was reserved for quiet study, and no cell phones are allowed, etc. It was the same sign I’d been staring at since freshman year, so I didn’t think much about it.

I found a seat near the window overlooking Wonka Hall and pulled out the 13th volume of The Grapes of Wrath. Thankfully, I didn’t have carpal tunnel syndrome quite yet from all the typing and writing that the end of the semester brings, so I could actually lift the book myself without having to resort to paying the nearest child or elderly woman a nickel to lift it for me.

I figured it out – if I kept reading until 5 the next morning, I’d finish the novel. That would leave me just enough time to take a seven minute nap before I started my history paper. “That’s almost double the amount of sleep I got last night,” I thought to myself proudly.

But just then, the door opened and I listened as someone walked in, stomping the whole way. It was as if whoever just walked in was trying to be as noisy as possible for some reason, because they would win some kind of contest for being the loudest in the library or something.

By now I was already praying that he was in the wrong place; that perhaps he was looking for the Stomping Room but wound up in the library by accident. But I knew deep down inside that he was there intentionally. As I pleaded with God to have him sit somewhere far away, he sat down in the cubicle in front of me. The first thing he did wasn’t to open a book, or pull out at notebook. No, because that would have made sense. The first thing he did was pull out his cell phone.

“Hey,” he began. “I was thinking that tomorrow, we could ride around this town, and… I don’t care if the cops chase us around, we’ll just let them…”

I thought to myself, already unable to concentrate on my reading, “Maybe he’s dyslexic, and when he saw the sign that said, ‘no cell phones,’ he read it as ‘cell phones on.’” Yes, that was the only explanation. The sign that’s been on the door since I was a freshman is quite clear. What other part of “reserved for quiet study” could be interpreted as “talk loudly on your cell phone?”

Cell Phone Guy continued for what seemed like hours, the whole time my concentration sliding away like a polar bear on ice skates. “Right… I know it’s gone, but maybe something can be found to take its place… Listen, have you ever considered vodka on your cereal in the morning instead of milk?”

It made my inner child cry.

Finally, seconds before I was about to stand up and beat Cell Phone Guy senseless with volumes two through 27 of The Grapes of Wrath, and perhaps a copy of War and Peace for good measure, he stopped talking. Just like that. The veins in my head slowly ceasing to pulsate, I returned to my reading.

…For about 13 seconds. My concentration was again lost as a slow, methodical tapping noise came from Cell Phone Guy’s cubicle.

It made my inner child violently ill.

Rather than be arrested for a grizzly crime, I decided it was time to move. Grabbing all of my stuff, I migrated to a far corner of the library; the only one where Cell Phone Guy’s poisonous pen-tapping parade of pain could not reach me. Sitting down next to a girl wearing what appeared to be a weather balloon as a coat, I sighed with relief and cracked open my book once more.

Within seconds, as if she had some sort of radar, the girl picked up her cell phone and began dialing. I began threatening her under my breath, claiming I’d make her listen to 67 hours of country music if she made the call, but it was too late. I heard the ring across the room. It was ringing the theme from John Carpenter’s Halloween. I instantly knew who she had called.

“Where you at?” asked Cell Phone Girl.

“I’m in the library,” replied Cell Phone Guy loudly. “You know, the quiet study floor.”

“So am I!” exclaimed Cell Phone Girl. The stomping began once more and continued until it was right behind me. “How’s it going!” screamed Cell Phone Guy. I sat and watched in stupefied awe as they proceeded to have an earsplitting conversation on their cell phones while standing five feet away from each other.

It gave my inner child an aneurysm.

I stood up and began screaming. As a librarian reminded me that I was in a quiet study room and screaming was not allowed, I ran out the door, leaving my books behind. I just kept running, until I passed my friend Sarah on her way to dinner. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

“I’ll destroy them!” I replied, with the look of a wild animal in my eyes. “The cops will come, and they’ll blast their sirens…”

“Sirens are so romantic,” interjected Sarah.

“…and they’ll ask, ‘Where are the bodies?’ and you’ll tell them, ‘There aren’t any bodies, because Matt destroyed them.’”

And then I’ll have a very long, quiet time to read my book.

Annual Shakespeare Festival Spreads Culture, Horror

The Bard

If the days of yore entice you, and kings and star-crossed lovers excite you, then take heed: The Pineville Shakespeare Festival is returning for its 87th season with productions of Macbeth and the Goblet of Fire and Twelfth Night II: Thirteenth Night through the end of the summer.

“We’re not simply continuing to do what we’ve done – however successfully – in the past, but that we’re embracing the future,” said the festival’s Founding Artistic Director, Brian O’Terrence. “It’s time for us to have what we’ve never had before: An inspiring home of our own.”

The home O’Terrence speaks of will be a massive pink tent located near the center of an ancient Native American burial ground in upstate New York. The tent will be made entirely of titanium and will feature rotating flame throwers at the top and rear of the structure, several sit-in machine gun cockpits, and a variety of exotic, dangerous animals from all over the globe, including crocodiles, sharks and a live T-Rex.

“This is going to be awesome,” said eight-year-old Billy, of Pineville Elementary School. “Especially the dinosaur.”

The T-Rex was unavailable for comment, but was quoted in a recent press release saying the reason he did not seize Billy was because he [the T-Rex] has “a big head, and little arms.”

To purchase tickets, call the festival’s box office at 555-7475. For more information, including exact show dates and times, visit the Pineville Shakespeare Festival’s webpage at http://www.pineville_shakespeare_t_rex_horror.org/.

Course Overload #16: "Rocky Horrified"

When I started going to college two and a half years ago, my goals were simple: Go to class, find some friends and get decent grades. (“Become a spaceman” was on the list at one point, until I realized that the college no longer offers Spacemanology as a major.) Nowhere on that list did it say “Dress in women’s undergarments and parade yourself around in front of half the college.” And yet, that’s exactly what happened one cold October night in the auditorium.

It’s not every night that I decide to cross dress and strut around campus; I need a damn good reason, like Halloween or Tuesday or something. This whole thing started when I saw a poster in for the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Now, I’m no stranger to Rocky Horror. Thanks to my friend Meg, I’ve seen the film approximately 21,000 times, not counting half-viewings, times when I fell asleep while watching, or when we reenacted the entire movie from memory. Thinking she’d be excited that it was playing here on our very own campus, I went running to her dorm to tell her. But unfortunately, she had gone home for the weekend. Obviously, I had no choice but to keep running until I hit Rhode Island.

So at 3 a.m., after explaining to the very angry man with the shotgun who answered the door why I was there, Meg didn’t seem too thrilled about seeing the film. Later that day, as I watched her father start driving her back to the college and I began my walk back to Crimeburgh, I found myself a little disappointed that she wasn’t excited about seeing Rocky. By the time I got back home, however, I had put it out of my mind. I was concentrating on my feet. For some odd reason, it felt as if someone had set them on fire and stomped them at the same time; I still can’t figure out why for the life of me.

Fast forward to the Tuesday night before Rocky. As the last of the customers finished kicking me and spitting on my crumpled body, I left my retail job at the mall and began walking home. Suddenly, my cell phone rang. I had it on vibrate, so I began screaming, thinking a gaggle of tiny venomous beetles were trying to lay their menacing eggs in my thigh. After about 20 minutes of rolling around on the pavement trying to rid myself of the ominous insect invaders, I figured it out and answered the phone. It was Meg.

“We’re going to Rocky on Thursday and we’re dressing up,” she said.

“So I’m going as Brad?” I asked.

“No, you’re going as Janet,” she replied. A single tear rolled down my cheek and quickly froze to my face.

And that was it. Thursday night, I found myself walking from the dorms to the auditorium wearing nothing but a stuffed bra, a slip and high heels. My makeup was wonderful and my hair had been semi-straightened. The entire time, I was terrified that a good gust of wind would come and blow my slip up so that everyone could see my underwear. Fortunately, the sub-zero temperature and the excruciating pain of wearing super-high heals that were too small for my feet kept my mind off it. Next to me were Meg, sporting a pair of tighty-whities and a wife beater, and another friend, wearing some sort of fishnet stockings, black high heels, and a girls’ small shirt that he got at Old Navy for a quarter. We all got a few whistles from people standing far away, and then horrified screams as we got closer.

The event was a lot of fun. From behind, Sarah and the gang didn’t recognize me, so when I turned around, I was met with a chorus of laughter. In the costume contest, I won the prize for scariest costume. During the movie, we yelled awful things that would normally have gotten us thrown out of school or excommunicated altogether. You haven’t lived until you’ve dropped the F-bomb in front of fifty people you don’t know. When the movie ended, I found myself strutting around campus again, the icy October chill finding its way up my slip once more. Then I stopped mid-stride. I should have kept walking; I should have just gone home. But curiosity got the better of me. I had finally found a way in. I was finally going to see the inside of the female students only wonderland known as Wonka Hall.

Meg stood guard outside as I walked up to the security desk. In my best damsel in distress voice, I told the security guards how on my way back to my dorm, here in Wonka Hall, I had been attacked by sinister aliens who stole my clothing and ID card, so I’d need someone to help me get back into my dorm, here in Wonka Hall. Obviously, I could get some extra clothes in my dorm, here in Wonka Hall, and speak to someone about the attack the next morning. Halfway through my story, the female security guard got up and left, but the male guard was firmly fixated on my story, as it was apparently being told by my cleavage.

The male guard said he needed to consult the security office about the attack. Sensing that my plan was about to go horribly awry, I resorted to my back-up plan. Leaning down so the security guard could get an eye full of my wash-rag stuffed bra, I said seductively, “You know you want some of this.” Before he could answer, the sound of 14 separate sirens blared into the room from outside.

“Sirens are so romantic,” the guard said.

Meg burst through the door, screaming, “The cops are here! Run!” The female security guard must have called them while I was telling my story. So out the door we ran, still in our high heels.

I had never spent the night in jail before. However, I must say it turned out to be a good thing. After Sarah came and bailed us all out, laughing hysterically the entire time, I went home and found my list of goals for my four years of college. Grabbing a pencil, I put a check next to the box marked, “Spend the night in jail after botching an attempt to sneak into the girls’ dorm.”

Perfectly Pointless Poems #2

Hey kids! It's time for another dose of FREE poetry! Collect them all! Details on specially marked boxes of Echoes of the Wordsmith.

Tree of Death

People were
sleeping.
The roots
grew over them.




Ode to Birtha

Oh Birtha, because of you my life is so great.
From your huge belly, to your lizard like skin,
to your stinky feet, and your red eyes filled with hate,
I love to watch you at breakfast, drinking your gin.
Your teeth are sharp, dirty, and such a nice shade of green,
Your hair is his like a beautiful bird’s nest, (it’s made of straw.)
I love the way your neon green shirts always smell like gasoline.
I’m so happy to have you, we walk hand in claw.
I adore the way you hit me when I’m not home on time,
and the way your face is wrinkly, plump and dark yellow.
I’m enchanted by the way you walk, (leaving a trail of slime)
Thank you Birtha, for you’ve made me so joyous and mellow.

       And I look towards the sky as I hold my lovely cow,
       And I say to God, “Who am I kidding!? Kill me now!”


Evil Song

Kill your Father!
Kill your Mother!
Kill your Brother!
And drink his blood!!

Beat some nuns!

Squash a frog!
Vote Republican!
And eat your dog!!

Steal a bum's only rags!
Don't wear deodorant on your date!
Grandma is your punchin’ bag!
Return rental movies... late!!

Course Overload #15: "Lights Out!"

Light is something we tend to take for granted because we use it for so many of our daily activities. Light lets you see the difference between aspirin and arsenic. Light keeps away sinister aliens and stray serial killers. Light helps you to see when you’re doing your homework and it helps you to see when you’re plucking chickens; it helps you to see when your stealing grandma’s purse and it helps you to see when… Well, it helps you to just plain see. This, I would have to say, is light’s greatest asset and the one it would flaunt the most if attempting to get a date. And being able to see would have helped me so very much recently. When God said “Let there be light,” He did it for a reason. I discovered why one cold day in November when light decided to go on sabbatical from my life for no good reason, other than that the universe hates me.

I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary earlier that morning. There I was in my Modern American Fiction class, minding my own business as usual. We were discussing The Sound and The Fury by William Faulkner when suddenly, the lights went out. Professor Andiamo stopped speaking mid-sentence and the room grew quiet. Some of us, like just me, were so scared, we started screaming for our mommies and barricading the door in case any demons tried to run in from the fully lighted hallway and steal our souls. I concluded that sinister aliens were to blame for the darkness.

Thankfully, Professor Andiamo knew what to do.

“Oh, sometimes these classrooms turn the lights off automatically if they don’t sense any motion for a while.” She walked over to the door and the lights came on automatically. The terror leaving me, I thanked God that my professor knew how to deal with sinister aliens. However, a few minutes later, the room went dark once more. Whatever sinister alien force was behind all of this, it was playing with us. Sitting in the darkness, I began to panic. What if the lights never came back on? Without light, how would I know if I put my pants on backwards or if there was Jell-o in my shoes?

“The heck with it,” said a flustered Andiamo, “We’ll just continue class in the dark. Here, I’ll read a passage from The Sound and The Fury.”

“Professor Andiamo, this book isn’t making any sense with the lights off,” my friend Sarah protested.

“That’s okay, it doesn’t make any sense with the lights on, either,” replied Andiamo. “I guess it would help if I turned the lights back on though.” She walked over once again and the lights came back on. Looking down and seeing that my pants were indeed positioned correctly and there were no food products in my shoes that didn’t belong there, I was relieved. We had foiled those sinister aliens once again.

But then, almost as soon as she had turned them back on, the lights went off once more. Professor Andiamo had had it. A fire burned deep within her and a crazed look overtook her eyes. She began flailing wildly, turning the lights on and off repeatedly. It appeared as if she was doing some sort of new dance.

Luckily, this gave me an idea. Whipping out my trusty glow sticks and a copy of Dance Until You Become Incoherent: Volume 23, I began raving while standing on my desk. (Little does anyone know that I’m known as “RaveFury” at the local dance clubs.) Others soon followed. Lights flashing and arms fluttering, the class had turned into an impromptu dance club.

“Yes! Keep going! It’s the only way to repel the sinister alien forces!” I shouted, because everyone knows that sinister aliens hate techno music. When the clock finally said it was time to go, we left, our heads held high, knowing that we had curbed a sinister alien invasion.

Unfortunately for our planet, the lights didn’t stay on for long. Ten minutes after my next class had started, the lights went off once more. I tried to ignore it while doing my midterm, but then, in the distance, I heard sirens.

“Sirens are so romantic,” mumbled a student as she scribbled something on her exam.

This was getting serious. The sirens were, no doubt, from sinister alien invasion warning systems, designed to let everyone know the sinister aliens were coming, so the people could begin to panic, because everyone knows that sinister aliens hate panic. There was no chance the sirens were from police cars or anything; we were in Crimeburgh, the safest place in America.

I had to do something! But, even when I began raving – which, oddly enough, no one noticed me doing in the middle of a test – the lights wouldn’t come back on. I needed to create some light and fast, before those freakishly sinister aliens could carry out their demented, satanic invasion. There was only one way to do it. Grabbing my test and a match, I set it on fire and left it on my seat. Soon, the whole classroom was ablaze. There was so much light, the sinister aliens couldn’t possibly have sinisterly invaded then. That would show those freakin’ sinister aliens!

That night, my friend and I were walking around in the playground behind the elementary school. I was proudly telling her about how I managed to prevent a sinister alien invasion twice in one day when a sharp pain shot through my head. I was suddenly on the ground, staring into the sky, half expecting to see a gaggle of UFOs above me.

“Are you all right?!” she asked. “You walked into that pole!” She came into my field of vision, looking down upon my crumpled body. Staring up at her, I realized that not even raving nor fire could have helped me; only plain, old fashioned light.

The last thing I saw before I lost consciousness was my friend leaning down to drag me to a hospital. However, I wasn’t upset. In fact, I was smiling. I had quelled the sinister alien invasion once more, because everyone knows that sinister aliens hate short young men with glasses writhing on the ground in pain.

Duke Nukem Forever is ALIVE and Gunning for a 2011 Release!

I know this isn't a gaming blog, but I feel it's my duty to announce that the often delayed Duke Nukem Forever has been given a solid release date! It's taken about 13 years, one cancellation and endless engine changes, but it looks like DNF might finally see the light of day.

Read about it all at Wordsmith VG: A Gamer's Blog.

Course Overload #14: "The Day I Was Almost Shot from a Cannon"

For some reason, I don’t ever expect these things to happen to me. It’s always some sunny, abnormally normal day, and I’m always just walking around, minding my own business, when something deranged happens and I’m traumatized, once again, for the rest of my natural days. I guess what I’m trying to say is that every day I wake up and the sun is shining, the birds are singing, and I’m finally happy with my life for once, I should skip my classes and stay in bed. Whatever material I miss in class will be made up for with my sanity.

So when I woke up one fine morning in October and the sun was shining, the birds were singing, and I was finally happy with my life for once, a little voice in my head started screaming like a little girl; a little girl waving a red flag with a skull and crossbones on it and wearing a yellow hard hat and a T-shirt with a neon orange “danger!” sign. Realizing it was a great day for me to be run over by a beer truck or attacked by a troupe of wandering ninjas, I took extra care in getting to school.

My first two classes that day went by without a hitch. I checked for gas leaks in every room before class and was very careful to not sit in the desks with giant skulls painted on them in human blood. Somewhere in between Western Civ and Modern American Fiction, a dirty man in a beat up ’77 Chevy pulled up to me, wearing a trench coat and dark sunglasses. He asked if I wanted some candy, or free kittens, or apples with razors in them. Everything looked so delicious, especially the kittens, but I knew it would lead to trouble.

I was actually going to make it to lunch without campus security arresting me for wearing white after Labor Day, or tiny, venomous beetles infesting my spleen. A sense of victory washed over me.

And then I heard the sirens and I knew it was all over. I knew that they were somehow meant for me, and that there was no way around the great pain they were about to deal to me. I simply kept walking to my car with my head down. I assumed it would be easy to spot my car now that it was the only one in the lot that was on fire.

“I always thought that sirens were so romantic,” said a random passerby to her boyfriend. “And fire trucks too, like the ones parked next to the girl’s dorms right now. Oh, let’s just get married, shall we?”

“I have to teach a class first.”

I thought that perhaps all the hot girls who live in those dorms had finally caused the place to burst into flames. I’d estimated that on hot days, the temperatures in there could rise to well beyond 200 degrees, and the students living those dorms would have to sleep on blocks of ice instead of beds.

Expecting to see an inferno of textbooks and laptops bursting through the doors and people leaping from the windows, I turned my head towards the building. There were about five fire trucks and 50 firemen, yes, but fortunately, there were no flames. I watched as a group of firemen kicked down a clearly unlocked door and rushed inside. Several groups of annoyed girls huddled together on the sidewalks, watching as the remaining firemen sprayed huge streams of water into all the open windows, just in case.

“What’s going on?” I asked one girl, who apparently had only one eyebrow.

“Those Godforsaken fire alarms go off all the time,” she replied. “I was putting on my makeup when it went off.”

Well, that explained the single eyebrow.

“It’s true,” interjected a shivering girl clad in only a white towel. “One time my boyfriend and I were just standing under one of the detectors and it went off.”

“Who’s your boyfriend?” I inquired.

“Johnny Depp.” Upon hearing this, I wondered why the alarm hadn’t gone off sooner. She continued, “I’ve learned to not use hot water in the shower; the steam sets it off sometimes. In fact, I was taking a cold shower when the alarm went off.”

“I’d take a cold shower too if I were going out with Johnny Depp,” I mumbled.

At that point I noticed the fire chief hovering over me. He looked rather upset. “Hey you, with the glasses!”

“Yes?” I said, puzzled.

“When was the last time you took a hot shower?” he asked. This question worried me on so many different levels.

“Uh… this morning,” I responded carefully.

He frowned. “It was this guy right here who set off the alarms!” he exclaimed. And then, looking at me – “Don’t you know it’s against the law to trip fire alarms when there’s no fire?”

“But that was five hours ago and I was 30 miles away!”

“It doesn’t matter,” interrupted one eyebrow girl. “Like I said, those alarms go off from the smallest things.”

“Looks like you’re going to be fired from the college,” said the fire chief.

“Don’t you mean expelled?” I asked, holding back tears.

“Nope, I mean fired. From this cannon,” replied the chief, pointing to the shinny metallic object that the firemen were already unloading from the truck. “That’s the punishment for setting off a false alarm.”

“I should know,” said a girl with a flat face.

Just then, wet towel girl broke free of the crowd. “Hey, there’s my boyfriend! Over here, Johnny!” With that, everyone gasped and turned to take a look. Silently thanking Mr. Depp, I stole the opportunity to sneak away.

Walking back to the lower parking lot, I muttered, “Well, at least it wasn’t my car that was on… oh no.” As I watched the smoke swirl around in the air, making pretty patterns that seemed to be mocking me from above, I cursed chirping birds and normal, sunny days for the rest of eternity.