Brilliance. Via Worth1000, a Photoshop contest inviting entrants to have at it with Matt Damon. Below is my favorite by far.
Went to the grand opening of Club Sushi in Hollywood last night and hooked up with artist Rick Klu. Rather than carrying business cards around, he has a cool habit of carrying markers and blank coasters wherever he goes. Here’s an original piece he whipped up for me on the spot, with his contact info on the back.
WTF? For more information: http://underangels.com
“To do just the opposite is also a form of imitation.”
–George C. Lichtenberg
News to me: Our book Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs By Writers Famous and Obscure is now available in a Revised and Expanded Deluxe Edition (Hardcover).
In related news, it’s also available at The Kindle Store for all the green readers out there.
On a tangent, I just discovered the Amazon Online Reader and its big sister, the Search Inside feature. Hey, I know that dude.
And completely on-topic, be sure to go grab the next volume in the Six-Word Memoirs series, to be released next week. It gets into the good, the bad, and the ugly world of Love & Heartbreak. Behold, the trailer: [click to continue…]
On New Year’s Eve I dropped by the Rothwells’ party for a plate of lasagna and some conversation. I finally met my friend Joanne; we hooked up on Facebook through its intelligent “People You May Know” tool. Joanne and I went through a mutual addiction to Wordle this year, and she sent me an megacool Christmas card that, along with a photo of her family, included a design she created on Wordle using words that summed up their year.
She’s also read some of my stuff. She asked me how I pronounce my dog Vive’s name (fyi: it rhymes with five), and explained that her middle daughter’s name is Vivi, which is short for Vivienne. The short name Vivi struck me. I love it. There was immediately something that occurred to me, so I asked Joanne:
“Is her birthday June sixth?”
Joanne’s face went white, she gasped, and she turned to walk across the lawn to get a grip.
“YES! HER BIRTHDAY IS JUNE SIXTH!!! OH MY GOD!!!”
How cool is that? When I heard the name Vivi, I immediately saw it in my head as Roman numerals: VI VI. 6/6. June sixth.
Turns out the numerical significance of Vivi and her birthdate were unintentional. Neither Joanne nor her husband Jeff thought of it at the time. But according to Joanne, the Roman numeral thing actually jumped out at her about a month ago. But she hadn’t told anybody. Not even Jeff.
Jeff, a left-brained analytical numbers type of guy, came over to see what all the screaming was about. Once he was done tripping out on it, we had a ball discussing what kind of coincidence it would take for all that stuff to line up. First, you need a name with Roman numerals, which, aside of Vivi, is extremely limited, not to mention that their numeric values must line up with months (1-12) and days (1-31). Other than Vivi, or maybe Ixi, are there even others? Multiply that by 1/365, and the odds have gotta be next to impossible.
So that was fun.
But here’s a cool little bonus to the thing, which not even Joanne or Jeff know about yet. I just realized something:
Vivienne’s birthday is June 6th, 2001. 06.06.01
Joanne opted for the French spelling of Vivienne, instead of the English Vivian. Let’s break this down:
VIVI + ENNE = VIVIENNE
VI = 6
VI = 6
And according to some quick research, it appears that the word “enne” is Estonian. One of its definitions:
ENNE = ONE
Under Angels
by Jace D. Albao (b. 1969)
Again. She arched back her back on the hard gurney, her bare legs hoisted in the air. Doctors with bloody gloves scrambled as the sound of her pain filled the chamber of concrete walls.
Pete turned and darted out the door, escaping the cold operating room in his lead-soled shoes. The damp corridor zigged nowhere in particular, becoming darker with every labored stride, zagging into twisted nothingness. He ran in slow motion through the maze, her screams gradually drowned out by the echoing of his own heartbeat. He finally inhaled–
Cold sweat. Pete awoke from his nightmare like a pretzel the couch, gun in hand, a string of drool running down his unshaven chin. Salty. Ocean air blew horizontal rays of sunrise through the frayed living room curtains. Twisted orange shadows dripped across the dull hardwood floor.
Cut-off fatigues and a beer-stained wife beater tank top clung to Pete’s skin by a clammy musk. He scratched the head of his best friend with his toenails. A German Shepherd mix. His soul mate for now. Shadow.
Pete opened the revolver’s chamber. Two bullets left. He spun the cold cylinder with a swipe of his palm, and with a back-handed flick of the wrist, jerked the weapon shut, silencing the clicking buzz with a hard metallic clack.
Finger on the trigger, Pete stood up and held the barrel to his own temple.
“What’s a hundred percent multiplied by two-sixths, man?” he said for what wasn’t the first time. “Superman can kiss–”
Point blank. The bullet ricocheted off Pete’s skull, bouncing off the wall before finding its home in the mess on the floor.
“My balls,” Pete continued, hurling the pistol against the wall in sarcasm. “It’s about time.”
Pete fell back into the couch in relief.
“Time. It’s about time. All this time. It’s about fucking time!”
Sitting on the coffee table in front of him, a laptop computer. Pete whacked the space bar with his index finger, waking the machine up. Numerous Web browser windows covered the screen, loitering around from the night before. An electronic paper trail of research. Los Angeles history. World War II blogs. UFO sightings and alien abduction forums. Ghost hunts and paranormal reports. Government conspiracy theories. Satanism and the occult. Urban legend fact checking sites.
Pete picked up a cheap cell phone and dialed. It rang twice, and once more–
“Good morning, Sergeant Durante,” a voice scraped.
“This time I’ve got it,” Pete said in a deadpan tone reserved for telemarketers and wrong numbers. “Game over. Meet me at the diner.”
“You’re up early,” the voice said.
“The diner, Greamer,” Pete repeated.
Pete sat back into the couch for three moments, awaiting a reply.
“I’m in our booth now.”
Pete clasped the phone shut and stood up from the couch, his thumbs matting his uncut hair hair behind his ears with its natural grease. His bare feet paced the room of squalor.
The house, a 1945 California Bungalow near the Los Angeles Harbor. Jazz posters from decades past covered enamel coated walls that hadn’t been painted in sixty years. Model airplanes hung from a flaking drywall ceiling by translucent fishing line. The scratched wood floor sprawled through the furniture-less living room covered with beer cans, bullet shells, broken razor blades, pencils, newspapers, magazines, dog toys, and military board games. An old TV dinner tray in the corner stopped smelling weeks ago.
Pete grabbed his worn combat boots from the doorway and took a seat on the edge of the couch like a tired boxer between the two final rounds.
“This is the one, man,” he said, sandwiching the furry canine head gently with his feet in a sort of hands-free dog massage. “After a lifetime of tries.”
Loose pills and bullet shells lay scattered on the coffee table. Pete popped two pills, washing them down with an open can of flat beer. He dug up two random socks from the corners of the couch, pulling them over his feet before slipping into his crusty boots. Leaning forward like a soldier lacing up for battle, he whispered.
“I finally get to die tonight.”
To be continued…
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