Copy Link
Add to Bookmark
Report
Joyce Wankable 01
Welcome to JOYCE WANKABLE.
Why Wank?
This is the ASCII text only version of JOYCE WANKABLE, a
bi-monthly e-zine available in HTML form on the World Wide
Web at "http://www.rbdc.com/~hgambill/joyce.htm" where you
will also find an Adobe Acrobat (pdf) version available.
JOYCE originates from Winston-Salem, North Carolina. It is
edited by Herbert Gambill. This first issue includes poetry
by JOYCE regulars Fuzzy Tweedlow and Testy Louise, fiction
by Ben Ohmart, an excerpt from a screenplay by Herbert
Gambill, passing observations on local news and music, late
night TV and anything else especially "comestible." Unsigned
articles may be attributed to Joyce Wankable but Herbert
Gambill will collect any revenues from reprinting.
Q: Who or what is a Joyce Wankable?
A: Anything that inspires desire.
The web version of JOYCE includes many hypertext links,
especially in the "Comestible" section. The pdf version
includes the URLs printed in a small typeface where the
links on the web page would be. I haven't included the URLs
in this text only version. None of them are hard to find.
Just go to the YAHOO directory: they're all there.
If you like this text version I encourage you to get the PDF
version. It's a large (1 megabyte) file but it's colorful
and includes photos and extra articles not included here. To
read the PDF file you'll need the Acrobat 2.0 reader
(available for Mac, Windows, DOS and UNIX) which is
available free from "http://www.adobe.com/Software.html" on
the World Wide Web or look for it in the "ftp.adobe.com"
archives. It is also available from most online services.
I prepared this text version on a Mac. If I'm doing anything
that makes it difficult to view on your platform, please let
me know. Thanks.
Seems to me that self-publishing is one of the most
promising aspects of the Internet. People like me who never
had the money to throw away on a printed magazine that no
one read can now produce an electronic one with color
graphics (I could never afford to print JOYCE!) and make it
available to thousands, perhaps millions who will never read
it. Well, maybe someone will. All my time working on JOYCE
is just a coin into an electric fountain.
------------------------------------------------------------
Hopeless Crush Anecdotes
This summer JOYCE WANKABLE will publish a special "Hopeless
Crush Anecdotes" issue in the Adobe Acrobat (pdf) format.
Contributions are invited. Write a short account of a
hopeless crush you had on someone and how you (hopefully)
got over it. Sincerity, humility and a sense of humor will
increase your chances of being included in the issue.
Stories can be anonymous but at least provide a first name
and location (fictional if you insist.) Graphics (cartoons,
photo-romans, etc.) relating "hopeless crush" narratives are
also welcome. (Please send them in GIF, JPEG, or PICT
format.) No payment is offered, of course, just the glory of
being part of what will be a very interesting publication.
------------------------------------------------------------
JOYWANK #1 (May 1995) Issue (released April 21, 1995)
This first issue is too damn self-promotional but look for
more outside contributions next time. Reviews of NC bands,
E-zines and film books are particularly desired.
Articles are divided into the four categories under the
Joyce masthead: (which of course, you can't see in this text
version)
*Bricolage
*Slumming
*Bang-a-can Tunes
*Pathetic Lust
Except where otherwise indicated, all contents Copyright ©
1995 Herbert Gambill.
Please send questions and comments about JOYCE WANKABLE to
hgambill@rbdc.rbdc.com
------------------------------------------------------------
Bricolage
There aren't many postmodern catchphrases I have a use for
but I make an exception with "bricolage." It refers to
something put together with whatever you have available to
you, with odds and ends, with things found around the
household.
------------------------------------------------------------
"Bean Smellin'Woman"
By Fuzzy Tweedlow
She smells good
Like a lima bean
Or maybe a pinto bean
Or a navy bean
Or a black-eye pea
(Is a pea a bean?
I don't know.
But if I
Call her a pea-smellin' woman
she'll cuss me out!)
She smells damn good. Like a bean.
-------------------------------------------------------
"Humphrey Dumpty 1968"
Éand the first known victim of this dread affliction was Mr.
Humphrey Dumpty of Cary, North Carolina, from whose journal
the following extract is taken.
October 1: Today I fell down three times. I didn't step on
anything slippery; I just suddenly lost my balance. What's
the matter with me?
Oct. 2: This morning I tripped going out the door. Then,
this afternoon, I fainted in the library elevator. I've been
feeling weak of late, even somewhat nauseous. I need a few
days off from the switchboard, but cannot find a substitute.
Oct. 3: I consciously resisted falling down today and
succeeded until I got home and fell from my couch. My
gosh--I was sitting down and yet I fell to the floor
nonetheless! Had canned beef stew for dinner and watched
Solid Gold. Why Marilyn McCoo left that show I'll never
understand.
Oct. 11: Received a call from Delores. She's divorcing Dave
and wants me to return her copy of Megatrends. (Note: look
for paperback copy.) Fell down eight times. Can you believe
it?
Oct. 15: Mother tells me that I fell a lot in elementary
school. (I have no recollection of this.) She said it was my
shoestrings always coming untied. (But I wore penny loafers
all the time, for goshsakes!) She and I watched Banacek.
She's always had this thing for Mr. Banacek. Sometimes I
think she regrets marrying Dad. Life sure is a strange bird,
n'est-ce pas ? Total falls today: eleven.
Oct. 24: Paid bills. Fell six times in public and then three
times during my job interview at Kelsey Electronics. Guess I
nixed that one!
Nov. 3: Took Samantha to the agricultural fair. Fell off the
ferris wheel; fortunately, before it started. A ten-foot
drop at most. No big deal. Samantha doesn't know what to
think of my "falling" problem, but says she will try to be
supportive.
Nov. 11: Twenty-three falls. Twenty-three! I'm going to have
to see someone about this soon. Will call Doctor Swenson
tomorrow.
Nov. 12: Doc Swenson will see me on the 23rd. Seven falls
today. Not bad, reallyÉ
------------------------------------------------------------
"Gambillgrams"
Between 1989 and 1991 I posted handbills I referred to as
"Gambillgrams" on bulletin boards and kiosks in Chapel Hill,
North Carolina. Their tone varied: incendiary, crackpot,
mysterious. The weekly Gambillgram was a block of slightly
enlarged, justified, hand-typed print. Others included spot
color and collages. Soon JOYCE WANKABLE will publish a
collection of these and previously unseen Gambillgrams in
the Adobe Acrobat (pdf) format. Here's one of the first ones
I made.
"My newspaper tells you everything you really want to know.
About yesterday. And last night. What happened. And where.
Who ate what. What everyone said. Where everyone was at 9:28
p.m. Who slept where. EXCLUSIVE: HOURS OF PEOPLE SLEEPING. I
show you thousands of people, from all walks of life. We
enter their kitchens, their bedrooms. You see and hear it
all. Two people talking. Someone reading. A man being
stabbed in an alley. A woman staring off into a corner for
the better part of an hour. I rip away the roofs and walls
and give you the material reportage you need to put
everything into context. No reductivism or consentual
journalism. No statistics. No trends. Just material: what
each person did, every minute of the day. What trees fell in
the forest. EXCLUSIVE: BILLIONS AND BILLIONS OF CUBIC FEET
OF ATMOSPHERE. A wealth of material for you to experience.
No more isolation. You draw your own conclusions. But my
newspaper can never exist. And yet the need for it is very
real. The desire to see everything and every minute of the
day. The wish to lead many lives simultaneously. The
pitifully small share of the world's treasures which we are
expected to be happy with. Treasures such as: a child making
a decision. Two people in a car. A man opening a closet. A
woman staring off into a corner for the better part of an
hour."
GAMBILLGRAM No. 29 1989/95re
------------------------------------------------------------
"Love Poem 1, Summer of '88"
By Ramone De Sika
I want to make love to you
In an expensive apartment
With an expensive air conditioner
I want to see you on the beach
All tanned, bikini brief and sand
Running around out of bound
Then we'll drive all over town
In a big air conditioned Cadillac car
And stop on Fifth Avenue
And eat a fifty dollar meal
In an air conditioned restaurant
Then we'll go home
And watch the sun set
All orange and pink
Sipping frozen daiquiris
Sitting together on an air conditioner
And on a white bed
Under a cool satin sheet
We'll love, love and love
And the only sound to reach our ears
Besides our tender sighs
Will be the hum of the air conditioner
Love in the afternoon
All so warm, yet so cool
Should I disappear
While walking or talking in my sleep
Please don't wake me
'Cause I want to make love to you
In an air conditioned apartment
Real soon..
JOYCE WANKABLE will soon publish a collection of Ramone De
Sika's poetry in the Adobe Acrobat (pdf) format. Go to
"Bang-a-can Tunes" for a downloadable spoken word clip of
Ramone's monologue "Love is a Black Hole."
------------------------------------------------------------
"Can I See Him?"
by Ben Ohmart
Woman at the desk nodded, and doors parted on her
buzzer.
Czil Zquid looked up from his desk, but he stood
behind it, as though weighing the choice of digging deep
down into the paperwork crowding it. "Great!"
"Um.."
"Yeah." He lowered his head, and seemed to pray for
a moment before speaking. "We've got a problem. We've got a
problem, and I think you're the only one who can.."
"I see."
"Yeah. It's like." To fulfill his point, Czil took
his hand to the video, brought it to the machine. The
Japanese parts made a sizzle sliding in, and Nats watched,
his stomach turning slowly on him.
Three sets of men, one in practice, two in waiting.
A home made film obviously, not much of a budget, and the
sound was awful. Natural sunlight blazed in from the
condemned structure; it could've fallen down at any moment,
Nats thought, but in the center of that picture was the
thing that took his breath away.
"Oomshalem. Seexpli! Uhmna-key! Uhmna-key, squi!" a
gray bearded man, head bandaged, arms puffed with plastic
explosives, yelled. The '58 Chevy just stood there and took
it.
The bearded guy slapped the sweat from his forehead,
a motion of self-mockery, or really believing in his
failure, then gave the sign for the next team to work it
out. A few minutes of shouting, the click against the car's
paint with gun butts was all Nats could take before asking,
"Are they crazy?" Czil just shook his head.
But the team got no further and sent in the next man
power collection, fresh from resting from the last time.
They began smearing the windshield with greasy thumbprints.
Moving onto antenna bending; filling in the great even,
hardly used traction on the tires with sand that covered the
sparse wooden floor. Impossible to know it had a floor, the
A-2 intelligence before this audience had thought.
"It was passed on to us fro-"
"I get the point."
So did Czil who punched stop, and they stared at the
blank screen before the senior Cutback official said, "Well,
never mind. I don't have to tell you whose car that was."
Nats looked hurt.
"It's a crime," he said honestly, but more to cover
up his own intelligence having been in question. "Of course
not," he answered later.
"Orders," Czil said, handing him a brown package.
The moving sidewalk gave him time, before his
flight. He kept to the right for the Air Corps personnel to
pass him; for the Generals in various states of undressed
medals on full alert, to catch their shuttles for the
Capital. Nats could use the time to read pamphlets that had
been in the Cutback waiting room all those years, but no
necessity had ever charged him to need to know before now.
He hadn't flown since during the war, but Nats was
so sexually happy with Czil for getting him the bowl of
dates for him. They made him feel warm all over, though he
never would've told anyone at Battalion Command at
Portsmith, where he'd done the gist of his training.
The copter hotted up quick, but slow enough to
finish the dates, taking most of the bottle of Diet Coke
with it, then, into the air and thousands of miles overseas.
Not enough, though. Not near enough.
Tracked from the start, the air strike came before
he ever realized they weren't real clouds at all, but
exhaust done up by what was then known as "foreign
governments" to look like any shape they wanted, to hide the
attacking squadron. Daydreaming soldiers in the back of
pickups would be questioned as spies from now on, thought
Nats, if he had his way, because he knew the enemy was
getting the message through. Through the clouds. Only
problem was, the enemy..?
Launching six nuclear weapons did the trick with the
three firing who stuck around, after Nats' quick actions,
sharp falls and high turns that made half the attack go down
behind a shield of black flame in the first 70 seconds, then
a quick landing. The hotel was clean but there were no
towels, and the Cutback man thought it damn strange. Comp
shampoo and no towels? No, he'd sleep in the car this night.
It was for the best anyway, getting up with that
dawn, knowing that daylight existed, Nats was just damn glad
to have a run in a freezing cold brook when he got from the
car, then dashing back in and a good session with the
government heater that he was loving like a wife.
First spot. His only clue. A tiny tag one of the
soldiers had on his ass. A tag, not a tattoo they'd
discovered on blowing up the frame from the video taken on a
scene while theÉ while the bastards were pissing on the
Chevy, saving up for hours, just to make their point clear.
Well, his country wasn't going to pay if he had any energy
to say about it.
A normal custom in the east, and almost a new fad in
the States if it wasn't for the amount of pain it involved,
the tag parlor, only one around in the circumference of a
compass' circle from the town of Poontopa, was busy, and at
nine in the morning it was a real compliment to the art.
Nats hadn't thought of getting his ass "tagged" - where a
man with a gentle touch and firm latchhook wormed the tag of
your choice into the fleshy part of your body much like a
pair of jeans telling what kind it is - but for his country,
he could think of no greater cover he could give up in
personal freedom.
"What do you know of -?"
The fat gut with a bush for a face kept putting a
finger to his lips. He needed the concentration of
thousands, so after it was over, Nats repeated, but he was
put out of the way. Started on the next, the tagger shushed
him further when working on a man who looked like he liked
being Third World classification. Something in the eyes told
it to Nats, who then started to get an idea.
"Like it, huh?" he said to himself, getting in the
rented car. He thought of the smile of that last man. Where
he, this man, would venture to use it to the fullest extent
possible. With his friends? In a public pub? Setting them
up; pushing the gossip; where maybe he could learn a thing
or It was the last man he would see. The vehicle blowing up
immediately, no bomb anywhere on the metal, in the glove
compartment, within the wheels. Spontaneous combustion; the
country would need a policy for it, Nats would've thought.
Ben Ohmart is a regular contributor to Pete and Bernie's
Philosophical Steakhouse, a UK-based e-zine that JOYCE is
wild about.
------------------------------------------------------------
Before there were slackers, there was
slummingÉ
------------------------------------------------------------
"COMESTIBLES"
In this regular feature we'll just call out our favorite
things of late, using the very comestible ellipsis format
made famous by columnists such as the great Herb Caen of the
SF Chronicle: "I was walking down Stockton the other day and
ran into Water Commissioner Blank, blah, blah, blahÉ" Here
goesÉ
When I was a kid we didn't have MTV so we just took the
green and pink translucent plastic off of our Easter baskets
and walked around looking at the world through these
filters. Same differenceÉ
A good Easter film: EXOTICA directed by Atom Egoyan. It
seemed ponderous at first and marred by the kind of bad
mannered acting experimental feature directors try to pass
off as Brechtian, but then it all started to come together.
The performances grew on me, the narrative undulated
deliciously, and the oddly moving next to last scene was
followed by an uncanny flashback that reminded me of de
Palma at his best, although Egoyan would probably rather be
compared to his fellow Canadian Michael Snow. (The female
cut-out silhouettes used in one of the film's posters are
perhaps an homage to Snow's "Walking Woman" series.) Or
maybe it was just such a lush sensorium (the Mychael Danna
soundtrack is wonderful and available on CD) that I didn't
care that it was an empty formal exercise. Damn, fooled
again!É
CONAN O'BRIEN He's still nervous and geeky and Andy still
looks constipated (I'm sure he's a major creative force on
the show, but he just looks like he's miserable all of the
time) but the writing on the show is really inspired. Some
of my favorite running bits: the Chinese Lenny Bruce;
Tamari, the ostrich; appearances by Abe Vigoda; Oldy;
Robbie, Conan's feckless assistant; the NBC Peacock's
programming report ("It's in Spanish!") Check out the great
alt.fan.conan-obrien FAQ for a long list of recurring bits.
There's also a Conan O'Brien Purity Test" (trivia quiz)É
"Connection" by ELASTICA. Bass line sort of reminds me of
"My Sharona," a song that may have gotten a lot of guys and
gals excited but always just reminded me of what a loser I
was, so why don't you kill meÉ
(Tarantino recently characterized that Knack hit as an "anal
sex" song. Well put, though I still think Quentin is
overrated and needs a saltwater enema.)É
UPDATE: I was just looking at a back issue of CMJ (more on
that mag below) and in his very enthusiastic review of the
"Connection" single, a Mr. Wolk points out that the "main
riffÉis blatantly stolen from Wire's 'Three Girl Rhumba.'"
So I guess my Knack comparison was wrong. God, I really have
no business talking about musicÉ
Got that early '80s sound I guess, but then I (confession)
never connected to a lot of '80s alternative sounds (except
for Costello and a few others) and frankly think that the
last few crops are superior: there were no bands in the
mid-'70s to early '80s that excited me the way the Pixies or
Game Theory (midto late '80s) or Pavement or R.E.M. or Sonic
Youth did and do. Guess I'm one of those who just like bands
that were influenced by punk but are more melodic and of a
sweeter nature. Or maybe I just weren't paying attention.
Three divorces and two triple-bypasses sure take a chink out
of a decade. And should I even mention that (most damning of
all!) I'm not even particularly fond of Superchunk though
Chapel Hill was once my home and I am frequently seen
panhandling there. They're okay. I remember Laura being
really helpful when she made color copies (early
Gambillgrams) for me at the Chapel Hill Kinkos. All around
nice people and I wish them all the best. But it just don't
make Joyce's butt wiggle. See, Joyce, she's got a big old
buttÉ
Any rate, back to Elastica. I'm too poor to buy the CD but I
listened to most of at CD Superstore (listening booth--heh,
heh) and discovered that the other songs were not as catchy
as this one, but I'll have to give it time. (Yeah, I'll go
back tomorrow and sit there all day. Thanks CD Superstore.)
Great video, too. And Justine Frischmann makes me swoon with
those neo-punk, totally unconvincing sneersÉ.
MILLA JOVOVICH This dreamy model/actress (Dazed and
Confused) is actually a talented songwriter and singer
("Divine Comedy.") Her first of two appearances on "Conan"
was like some great first date between the Russian-born
chanteuse and the Boston beaner É
LIZ PHAIR Everyone over-emphasizes the male-bashing aspects
of her songs, but she's just flat-out a great songwriter.
And Liz, ontological hysteric that I am, "I got's to knowÉ"É
Greensboro, NC bands: GEEZER LAKE (sort of industrial with
jazz elements), SLOWCHANGE MADAGASCAR (I've known these guys
for a long time and they're talented songwriters and singers
but they just won't promote themselves so I will. Chris and
Jim also play trumpet and trombone, respectively, for Geezer
Lake. Chris has some very dirty pictures that he says I drew
but he is liar. He claims we were both in a van going from
Athens, GA to Greensboro and we had a contest to see who
could draw the dirtiest picture and he conceded, but I have
no recollection of this incident!)É
Chapel Hill, NC bands: SOUTHERN CULTURE ON THE SKIDS
(rockabilly & surf elements; they have a new Geffen release
out very soon), CHEW TOY (girl group with punkish sound;
great songwriters), MINERVA STRAINÉ
ÉSan Francisco area band: LOUD FAMILY
ÉDELORES CLAIBORNE Took my Mom to see this. She had read the
book. We both enjoyed it. Taylor Hackford (White Nights ) is
adept at making melodrama surprisingly enjoyable. Nice use
of no-cut flashbacks and inspired lighting in the murder
sequence. Kathy Bates was very good, but I mainly went
because Jennifer Jason Leigh is a Joyce Wankable if there
ever was one. (And a fine actor, though this was just an
okay part for her.)
ÉThe Quicktime animation of DUCHAMP'S BACHELOR MACHINE, made
by some grad students and available for download at AOL
(Quicktime 3 Library). Loop it and let it goÉ
Recommended e-zines: sofar I've only become addicted to
CRANK (cranky personal observations andmusic reviews,
available in ASCII, DOCmaker and print versions) and PETE
AND BERNIE'S PHILOSOPHICAL STEAKHOUSE (Hilarious UK-based
publication, ASCII and recently added HTML version)É
My e-zine survey is still in an early stage. Maybe I'll
devote a future issue just to e-zine reviews. Submissions
will be well appreciated. Takes a lot of energy to wade
through all the computer and sci-fi/geek (I have nothing
against geeks, I just don't have much of an interest in
sci-fi) mags and find ones that I connect to. I always
appreciate downloadable graphic ones. (How else to compete
with the print world?) Also, even though my internet
provider charges a flat rate (no time restrictions) I'm not
too fond of reading things on-line. Guess I'm from the old
school of people/machine relations: when I'm on the phone or
my computer is on, I'm always in a heightened state of
alertness. I must do my business and get off the line, turn
off the damn machine. No screen savers for me!É
I like OASIS but not enough to see them live at the Cat's
Cradle with a couple thousand smoking bodies checking out
the latest thrill so I had to venture out to the parking lot
the night of the show and sell my friend's two tickets after
she decided she didn't feel up to going either. I noticed an
unusual number of out-of-state license plates and knew my
prospects were good. I didn't even make it to the back of
the building (the Cradle entrance is behind Visart Video, my
favorite videotheque and newsstand) when I made eye contact
with a rather sad looking youth. "I need three tickets" he
said in the same tone as someone resigned to the fact that
they are waiting in line at the entrance to Hell. "I've got
two," I said. "I need three," was his curious reply. "Well,
I've got two," I said, "do you want them or not?" I gave
them to him for the door price, making about $4 profit for
my friend. This callow lad walked a few steps and then
suddenly turned to me. "Hey, thanks, man!" He perked up and
went running to his companions. I was touched by his oddly
delayed reaction, but then it's probably just drug related.
Still, I couldn't sleep that night, worrying about whether
or not he got that third ticketÉ
My MACINTOSH PERFORMA 635CD. Sold my brother my SE and got
this wonderful machine. No, it's not a PowerPC Mac but it's
changed my worldÉ.
The recent ANDY KAUFMANN special on NBC. I must not have
watched much TV in the early '80s because I never knew about
the Tony Clifton character (actually played by his writer!)
I always tired of his "foreign man" character but his other
stuff was great. The thought that Bobcat Goldthwait might
think he's our Andy Kaufmann is truly depressingÉyou know
you're using your computer too much when you have to clean
the mouse out about every other dayÉBooks Joyce is currently
reading: Completely Mad: A History of the Comic Book and
Magazine by Maria Reidelbach. Mad Magazine and Bugs Bunny
were my childhood intellectual grazing grounds. Kids
today--sheesh, they're a bunch of murderous thugs hopped up
on bennies and Snapple, riding some Dodge Challenger into a
two-bulldozer roadblockÉokay, off the furshlugginer
soapbox!É
Speaking of Dodge Challengers: VANISHING POINT and BILLY
JACK were the Odyssey and the Iliad (respectively) of early
1970s southern drive-in Kar Kulture. Tom Laughlin's
presidential bid failed but he did fulfill his promise of at
least helping to make Guaranteed Health Care a national
topic. Sorry TomÉ
More books: Placing Movies: THE PRACTICE OF FILM CRITICISM
by Jonathan Rosenbaum (especially nice chapter on film
critic/painter Manny Farber), THE MAGNETIC FIELDS by Andre
Breton and Philippe Soupault (sweet dreams are made of
this)É
also David Thomson's new edition of his A BIOGRAPHICAL
DICTIONARY OF FILM, but, of course, I'm not reading that
cover-to-cover (well, I guess I'm not reading some of the
others cover-to-cover either, attention deficit disorder
sufferer that I am)Émy one-time employer GODFREY CHESIRE,
film critic for Raleigh, NC's Spectator Magazine and some
New York City weekly I forget the name of (he also
contributes to Film Comment) wrote a nice review of
Thomson's book ("The Definitive Film Book") which is
available from the Spectator gopherÉ
STAY FREE!, a fine Chapel Hill, NC zine is unfortunately
defunct. It's most recent issue (#11) will be it's last,
editor Carrie McLaren tells me. Seems she's going to New
York to work for some record company and no one has
expressed interest in inheriting the editorial duties.
(Guess they'll just have to read Joyce? Kinda doubt it.) 11
issues is actually a pretty long life for a Chapel Hill
zine, though TRASH at 23 issues has more than doubled thatÉ
I only recently started buying CMJ NEW MUSIC MONTHLY, the
alternative music zine with the CD. At $5 an issue it's kind
of a treat, especially when you live in Winston-Salem where
there's no college alternative station save for the WSSU one
(WSNC-FM) which is a great station if (like JOYWANK's Testy
Louise) you love rap or (like JOYWANK's Fuzzy Tweedlow)
you're into sweet soul music (I believe Thursday nights are
reserved for old school)É
(There's a new commercial alternative station, 94.5 (WXRA),
here that's not half bad although how Van Halen qualifies as
alternative is beyond me, but I'll give them a break since I
also like hearing Tom Petty sandwiched between new bands. I
guess everyone has at least one hugely successful artist
whom they wrongly suspect is under appreciated.) I sure miss
Chapel Hill's WXYC (well, not every DJÉ
in fact I probably miss Duke's WXDU more) and you may have
heard that it's the first college radio station to be
broadcast live 24 hours on the Internet. Unfortunately you
need a really fast connection to hear it. I tried with my
14.4 K modem and it comes through in spurts. Guess you need
ISDN or a T1 line. Maybe if I upgrade to a 28.8 K modemÉ
but don't think I'll be buying one soon. So I have to get by
on CMJ and 120 Minutes and Record Exchange and frequent
visits to Chapel Hill and GreensboroÉ
CMJ is probably considered horribly slick by many
alternative music fans but I think it's pretty good--well
written and well-designed (none of those horribly
pretentious and self-defeating Raygun graphics for me!) I
like their listing of "R.I.Y.L." (Recommended if you likeÉ)
bands with each CD reviewed. I suspect this really
infuriates hardcore alternative fans, especially the ones
with finely honed descriptive powers who, when you ask them
to describe a band's sound, always answer in the form of
"they're like blank meets blank."É
A PRESIDENTIAL PREDICTION: Americans know their government
fails them in fundamental ways but short of a real paradigm
shift in government all they can do is vote for the latest
repackaged politico. Hence, look for a series of failed,
one-term presidencies. Well, I didn't say it first, but I
said it here!É
Local news: a few months ago some residents in my
neighborhood in Winston-Salem reported EARTH TREMORS that
authorities were unable to explain. I even felt a couple
myself but wonder if it wasn't just a rig going by on the
stretch of US 52 in our backyard. Mass hysteria? Or Miss
Wisteria, not among the beauties riding floats in last
month's Azalea Festival in WilmingtonÉ
SEAN PATRICK GOBLE, a truck driver working for a local
company was recently arrested after allegedly confessing to
killing Brenda Kay Hagy and two others and one reporter is
speculating that Goble may be responsible for a series of
unsolved murders, all involving prostitutes at truck stops.
Seems Goble lived in an Asheboro trailer park and as the
article head in the Winston-Salem Journal tells it, the
"Arrest is the talk of the trailer park." The article
reports that sometimes the residents "would awake to the
sound of his rig pulling into the drive between his
single-wide trailer and theirs." Hell, if my home was
smaller than what I was driving I' d probably kill, tooÉ
Sure, I'm Hot for GRETA VAN SUSTENBERG--What of It? These
days I'm on this east coast slummer O.J. watcher schedule:
Stay up until 4 a.m. every night (catch the re-broadcast of
Larry King Live! at 2 a.m.) and then wake up at noon (9
a.m., Pacific), just as the jury is led into the courtroom
and Jim Moret announces "the camera is panning down." As a
weary Christopher Darden told reporters early on in the
trial: "Just another day in the criminal courts building!"
The trial gives perennial snobs another chance to prove
their superiority. Just mention you're watching it and
they'll roll their eyes and express their exasperation,
their failure to see why anyone would watch one minute, much
less hours of this trial. Well, thanks for worrying about my
inauthentic soul. Now you go jerk off to another episode of
Seinfeld and I'll watch Gerry Spence and company do the
daily play-by-play. The king of O.J. eye-rolling must be
Charles Grodin who never misses a chance to express his
utter incomprehension over anyone's doubt that Simpson is
guilty. Maybe he is. But keeping an open mind is more than
just the American way. It also makes for a better viewing
experienceÉ.
Speaking of GRODIN, I always liked this guy as an actor, was
initially put off by his talk show persona, but I am slowly
coming around to liking his show. Talk is everything on TV
now. (And any big fan will want to be a weekly reader of
Aaron Barnhart's Late Show News.) The worst (and best) time
for JOYCE WANKABLE is around 12:30 a.m.: jumping back and
forth between Conan, Tom Snyder (His CBS show is much better
than the CNBC one, in Joyce's humble estimation) and Jon
Stewart, all the while reading newsgroups. These days, doing
one thing at a time is one of Joyce's rarest and favorite
pleasuresÉ
------------------------------------------------------------
"SURPRISE!"
by Fuzzy Tweedlow
She used to be a looker
But now she plays snooker
He used to be her man
But now he's in the fryin' pan
Funny how things turn out
Kinda makes you wanna shout:
"Jesus Jehozaphat
Crickety corncake stew
Fuck me, shoot me
Gobbledygoo!"
------------------------------------------------------------
Bang-a-can TunesÉ
Each issue JOYCE WANKABLE will feature downloadable sound
clips by featured artists. Send demos, home recordings,
7-inches, CDs to JOYCE at 4211 S. Main St. Winston-Salem, NC
27127 for possible review in these pages. There will also be
the occasional unashamed self-promotion, as featured below.
------------------------------------------------------------
"The MISHKI SANFORDS"
The MISHKI SANFORDS met in Wilmington, NC in 1988 and began
making primitive recordings using instruments found around
the house. Roy Lee Gittens (drums) and Herbert Gambill
(guitar) were working on films being shot at the local film
studio (DEG then; now Carolco Film Studios.) Dottie Northup,
a friend from Raleigh, played bass and Ramone Sikaroodi
contributed miscellaneous effects as well as the group's
name. (It is the result of one of the mysterious
expatriate's peculiar cross-cultural coinages. Please don't
ask us to explain it.)
Roy, Herbert and Dottie moved to Chapel Hill and developed
their trademark abrasive nursery-rock sound.
Mishkis are a moody bunch, so personnel changes are to be
expected. Steve Seta lent his expert guitar skills to the
band for a couple of years. Mike Robb and Melissa Palmer
(formerly of Trailer Bride) played with the Mishkis for some
of 1994. Raymond Tucker has been known to lend his accordian
skills to a Mishki show. Herbert currently lives in
Winston-Salem, contributes songs to the band but doesn't
perform very much anymore. Roy Lee works in Los Angeles many
months of each year. Ramone stills calls the port city home.
So, live Mishki jams are rare and not to be missed.
The MISHKI SANFORDS have released two 7-inch EPs and a third
will be released this spring.
* "Where Am I?" (w/"Bootskate", "Link Wrong" and "Jane
Wellington") Hope
Records, 1993
* "Bitter Martin" (w/"Breakfast Bar" and "La Cucina")
Wendell Records,
1994
* "Lamar" (w/"Hurry to Wait" and "Crypto-fatalistic
Redux") Wendell
Records, spring 1995
Of the first 7-inch, TRASH magazine (#9) wrote "this one
features nifty old school music and spooky psychedelic
noises. 'Bootskate' is an awesome roller rink instrumentalÉ"
------------------------------------------------------------
"Mr. Potted Meat Breath"
By Fuzzy Tweedlow
We called him "Mr. Potted Meat Breath"
'Cause all he ever ate
Was potted meat sandwiches
(Not the guy you want
To get stuck in an An elevator with!)
"Hey, Mr. Potted Meat Breath!"
We'd shout. "Hey, Mr Potted Meat Breath!
Why do you eat
So much potted meat?"
And he'd just smile and say,
"'Cause I like it!"
And who could argue with that?
------------------------------------------------------------
"Watch The Skies"
by Testy Louise
Have you seen the TV commercial for the videotapes of the
old western series Paladin (Richard Boone)? "If you love
westerns, or classic TV," the narration goes, "or, if the
man in black--Paladin--still stalks your memoryÉ" Listen
here. If the man in black--Paladin--still stalks your
memory, JOYCE would like to spend a few hours observing you
behind a two-way mirrorÉ That garlicaholic George Kennedy is
currently plugging Breath Asure, the "internal breath
freshener." I guess an external breath freshener would be,
well, air freshenerÉ I've done my share of telemarketing
temp work. How come I never found myself sitting next to
that awesomely sweet MCI girl? TESTY wants to knowÉ My cue
to go into the kitchen and disjoint a broiler: any time the
Fidelity Fund Match spot runs. ("Who writes this stuff?"
asks the retirement-planning hubbie who will never appear in
a Rogaine commercial.) You'd think an ad like this would
make even Dan Quayle renounce yuppiedumb but it hain't to
beÉ
------------------------------------------------------------
Pathetic LustÉ
Admit it. We spend a large share of our existence lusting
after people and things we will never have.
------------------------------------------------------------
"Spit Shine"
By Fuzzy Tweedlow
My dad knew his shoes
He worked a shine stand
Forty years
He knew how to make leather purr
How to make it shine!
And here I am
Covered from head to toe
In stiff black leather
With a tube in my mouth
I oughta be 'shamed of myself!
------------------------------------------------------------
"Wankables"
by Fuzzy Tweedlow
I wandered over to Greensboro one day in February and guess
who I met? A new up-scale adult video store called Xanadu
just opened up (it adjoins Tiffany's, an upscale strip
joint) and they had some in-store appearances by porn stars
to celebrate their grand opening. That day they had Chasey
Lain, a porn actress with a remarkable resemblance to that
unapproachable coed the feckless collegiate male once lusted
after. I got her autograph but didn't opt to pay for a
polaroid, especially since she wore a very unrevealing
outfit so what's the point? And, I met John Bobbitt, the
infamous severed penis man, there to promote his new porn
film. Very weird. Greensboro swings now on Wendover. Why,
just down from the Tiffany's/Xanadu adult entertainment
complex (I haven't visited Tiffany's yet) is a Wal-Mart and
a Super-K. Sumpen for eberbody!
It was weird to encounter this SF Tenderloin fare in me own
backyard. Xanadu has a mostly female staff, very friendly,
professional and dressed like waiters in a very expensive
restaurant. They gave me two free tokens to try out their
movie booths. Extremely clean ones, too. I saw Chasey
negotiating John Dough's sausage and then emerged to see
Chasey in the flesh.
More weirdness: I just look over at the TV and here is
Geraldo Rivera lip-reading O.J. Simpson's confidential
remarks to a lawyer. If O.J. turns out to be innocent he is
going to have a lot of ass to kick when he gets out. And I
will help him kick that self-satisfied Jay Leno twit who
always laughs louder at his jokes than anyone in his
audience.
I caught Sofia Coppola's TV series on Comedy Central. It was
called Hi Octane! and at times it looked like that stupid
film Winona Ryder was making in Reality Bites but it was
actually pretty good. Thurston Moore was a regular, there
was lots of muscle car footage and indie-scene guests. I've
always had a crush on Sofia, of course, but I was expecting
this to be really bad and I was pleasantly surprised. It had
some of that godawful MTV made-to-order style but somehow
transcended or maybe just stopped short of the pathetic
region MTV always meanders into. And there were sequences
(the Le Ronde by way of Slacker on the freeway segment in
the fourth episode, for example) that were sublime. The
second episode featured a hilarious segment with the Beastie
Boys in which they continued the personas created in their
(Spike Jonze -directed) video, Sabotage.
Unfortunately Hi Octane! was cancelled after only four
episodes. Too bad.
More Geraldo weirdness: a "SusanÉfrom South Carolina"
(honest!) calls and says "My husband, he is a detective. And
he sometimes plants drugs in suspect's homes so he can
arrest themÉ" A candid confession authenticated by that
distinctly rural locution: "My _____, he is a ______É"
------------------------------------------------------------
"Why do American Shovelbearers Stay Home at
Night?"
In civilized countries, in the cities, there are
people--usually farmers who come to town during the fallow
season--who stand on street corners holding shovels. For a
small sum, one of these folks will hit you on the head with
their shovel. This service is widely sought after and
sanitary health practices are ensured by frequent monitoring
by the government. Yet here, in the land of the free, men
and women put their shovels away at night and many of us are
forced to seek out back alley practitioners.
------------------------------------------------------------
"TOMATO"
Today's nursery rhyme was about the boy who kept spilling
his little warm bowl of soup. I asked to be excused to go to
the restroom. Crossing from the main building to the annex,
I passed Susan (on her way to the nurse's station.) Strands
of her blonde hair were caught between her lips. I opened my
mouth and a good quart of saliva slipped out, soaking the
front of my shirt. I rushed out to the playground, hoping
the sun would dry it before I went back to class. Instead,
my coarse hair burst into flames. I buried my head in a box
of sand to put out the fire. The sun disappeared behind the
clouds and I realized that my shirt would not dry in time.
The sun was so hot the clouds were screaming like puppies
for milk.
Running to the boy's room it dawned upon me that I had left
my baguette in my satchel back in the classroom. If I
returned, it would be thirty minutes before I could be
excused again. I fought the desire to relax my bladder in
fear that my classmates would see my desktop being rinsed.
Walking down the dark, laser-patrolled corridor, I gritted
my teeth and thought of Corporal Cornell--what he would do.
I passed by Jumbie in the CP room, chalking "100 times" two
hundred times. Not three steps from homeroom, however, I
realized how seriously tardy I was. I froze. I could hear
Mrs. Hurlocker quizzing the others. "Is a tomato a fruit or
a vegetable?" she asked.
I couldn't wait any longer. I rushed into the room, grabbed
my bag, ran up to the teacher and whispered "head cold" into
her ear. My tongue accidentally touched her and I shuddered.
The doughy appendage in my book bag stiffened slightly.
Running to the boy's room again, I felt it growing even more
turgid as I thought of rolling around in a cardboard box
with Mrs. Hurlocker.
I reinstalled my baguette and drained it into the red and
green enamel basin. I heard sobbing and inspected the other
stalls. I discovered Susan, sitting on a toilet, crying
quietly, patiently.
"Susie," I asked, "why are you here?" She gave me a look
that said I should have known why. I dropped to my knees and
put my hands on her shoulders. I lapped her briny tears up
and was reminded of the massive salt blocks Uncle Square
gives his horse to lick.
I looked into her hazel eyes and said, "It's cold. Someone
has left the kitchen door open." She looked down and said,
"I won't tell if you won't." My shirt was still wet and now
her warm tears covered my face.
Susie put her fingers inside my trousers and scratched at my
basement scalp. "What's your favorite candy bar"? she asked
with a shy smile.
Something new rushed out of me, wildly but in discrete
units, like passengers bursting from an overcrowded subway
car. I put my mouth to her ear and whispered, "Milky Way."
------------------------------------------------------------
"Sweet Soul Music"
by Fuzzy Tweedlow
I'm from the old school
I like sweet soul music
But you just wanna rave
And rap
And salsafy my chips!
Baby I ain't gonna give it up
To the tune of just anything!
So if you want my love sauce
You better play some Sweet soul music
------------------------------------------------------------
"Curious Boy"
Here are the first few pages of my screenplay, THE PLAINTIVE
SONG OF THE CURIOUS BOY.Soon I will make the entire
screenplay available for download in the Adobe Acrobat (pdf)
format. This screenplay is the work and sole property of
HERBERT GAMBILL (hgambill@rbdc.rbdc.com.) It is registered
with the Writer's Guild of America, West. You may save this
webpage for offline reading, but no permission is granted
for printing it or redistributing it either in whole or in
part.
I would love to hear your comments about: (1) this extract,
(2) any ideas or information you might have about
distributing screenplays electronically, and (3) how this
might encourage the appreciation of screenplays (produced or
unproduced) as literature.
If you are unfamiliar with the screenplay format, you can
find an introduction at
"http://www.teleport.com/~cdeemer/Format.html", courtesy of
Charles Deemer's very helpful Screenwriter/Playwright Page.
FADE IN
TITLES:"'CURIOUS' WAS A BOY"
INT. HOSPITAL DELIVERY ROOM
SILENT, SUPER-8 FOOTAGE of a WOMAN just after giving birth
to a BOY. The DOCTOR and NURSES smile towards the camera.
The Mother exhibits extreme pain. The camera is dropped. The
last frames of footage appear as successive still frames:
the Doctor turns his attention to the Mother. A vital signs
monitor displays straight lines. BLURRED FRAMES.
TITLES: "HE WAS A CURIOUS BOY."
INT. KITCHEN OF MIDDLE-CLASS HOME - DAY
More SUPER-8 FOOTAGE: a Baby Boy (CURIOUS) sits atop an
electric range. The (teenage) hand of the CAMERA OPERATOR
turns on one of the burners and entreaties the Baby to move
towards the lit burner. The FATHER (in his 30s) enters, sees
what is going on, grabs the Baby and gestures angrily at the
operator.
TITLES: "HIS FATHER WAS A ROCKET SCIENTIST."
EXT. BACKYARD OF SAME HOUSE - DAY
More SUPER-8 FOOTAGE: Father is instructing Curious (now 8
years old) in the launching of a toy chemical rocket. The
rocket takes off into the distance, turns around and hurtles
back in their direction. They run past the camera as the
rocket passes just over the Operator's head.
TITLES: "CURIOUS HAD A BROTHER."
EXT. SIDEWALK IN FRONT OF HOUSE - DAY
Last of SILENT, SUPER-8 FOOTAGE. A 16-year old BOY (RIPLEY)
balances a bicycle as his 8-year old brother learns to ride
it. A TEENAGE GIRL walks by and waves at Ripley. He runs
over to speak with her. Curious manages to keep the bike
aloft for a few moments before crashing to the ground.
TITLES: "HE WAS CURIOUS, TOO."
PROCESS SEQUENCE
Screen is divided into thirds, like the windows of a slot
machine. But instead of fruit, three caricature faces (from
a cartoonist manual), each labeled with the trait the
drawing represents, fill the screen: PLAINTIVE, SINGING,
CURIOUS.
O.S., SOUND
of a slot machine's gears being cocked and released.
Three rows of caricature faces whirl by and slow to a stop.
When the "wheels" come to a stop, however, each third is
filled with blurred, moving images that mesh together and
form a REARPROJECTED VIEW of a passing rural roadside.
In front of the screen is a convertible automobile. Ripley
(now in his mid-20s) closes the trunk, gets in, starts the
car and shifts into gear.
The projected B.G. is moving much faster than the car
appears to be going. Ripley accelerates and shifts gears.
The projected B.G. slows and mates with the apparent speed
of the car.
EXT. RURAL NORTH CAROLINA ROADSIDE - DAY
Ripley's car zooms by and off into the distance.
OPENING CREDITS MONTAGE
is a mini-essay on the topography of the New South,
punctuated by many visits by Ripley to rural video stores
that seem to have been converted from one-time general
stores--mom and pop operations with rustic names like
"Bumblebee Video" or "Shirley's Pancake and Video House."
EXT. WEALTHY SUBURBAN STREET - LATE AFTERNOON
Ripley pulls into the driveway of an expensive
contemporarystyled home in a pine forest development.
INT. LIVING ROOM OF THE HANES HOUSE
The spacious, high-ceilinged room is filled with high-tech
furnishings. One wall is all-glass and looks out onto the
pine forest. One side of the room is dominated by a home
entertainment center: a projection TV, shelves of tapes and
discs. In front of a U-shaped sofa are five identical TV
monitors on stands atop VCRs. A bar lines another side of
the room. DELORES HANES, a tall, elegant woman in her 40s,
is mixing a drink. JIM HANES (also in his 40s) enters with
Ripley, who carries a shopping bag.
JIM
I can't wait to see that
baseballÉDelores, could you make
Ripley aÉ
RIPLEY
Bourbon and soda, please.
Ripley and Jim sit on the sofa. Ripley takes videotapes out
of his bag and lays them on the coffee table. There's
Hitchcock's "The Mountain Eagle"É
JIM
I didn't know this existed
É."Star Wars: Out-takes and Bloopers"É
JIM
Oh, yeah.
É"Magnificent Ambersons: The Welles Cut"É
JIM
Bobby Carringer, eat your heart out.
É"The Complete Greed"É
JIM
Erich, we hardly knew ye!
Jim continues looking at tapes. Delores brings Ripley his
drink.
RIPLEY
Thanks.
DELORES
(to Jim)
Honey, your cold plate is getting cold.
JIM
Well, heat it up.
Delores releases a wild, decadent laugh and returns to the
bar. Ripley looks through some of the shelved tapes and
comes across one with a label made up of mysterious glyphs.
Jim fumbles with tapes in front of the bank of monitors.
JIM
Ripley, how do you synch these?
Ripley joins him on the floor.
RIPLEY
They're endless loop, but you have to
manually turn them all to the start
marksÉsee?
JIM
(shows a tape to Ripley)
There?
RIPLEY
Uh-huh.
They load tapes into each of the five VCRs and sit back on
the sofa.
RIPLEY
Ready?
JIM
(to Delores)
Lo, time to meet our boy.
Delores joins them at the sofa. Ripley pushes the play
buttons of the remotes of the five VCRs in sequence.
Starting from left to right, the five monitors come alive.
In the first monitor a LITTLE BOY wearing a baseball cap and
glove throws a baseball out of frame. The baseball flies by,
from left to right, in monitors two, three and four and is
caught by the same Boy in monitor five. The Boy throws the
ball back and it travels from right to left in the same
manner.
Jim and Delores laugh giddily, then settle into an
appreciative purr.
DELORES
It's gorgeous.
The television light falls on the three of them as their
eyes move back and forth following the pendulum motion.
AT THE BAR
Jim mixes another drink. Back at the sofa, Ripley shows
Delores a stack of photographs. One shows a bare-chested
65-YEAR OLD MAN at a roadside fruit stand.
RIPLEY
Sold this guy a tape and he gave me a
watermelon as a tip. Got home and found
a hole punched in it.
DELORES
He gave you his favorite.
Next is a snapshot of a 19-YEAR OLD BOY.
DELORES
Who's this?
RIPLEY
My younger brother Howard. His nickname
is 'Curious.'
DELORES
(draws closer to Ripley)
Next time, could you bring me something?
She whispers into his ear and laughs wickedly.
RIPLEY
(embarrassed smile)
I'll see what I can do.
Jim joins them with fresh drinks.
JIM
Is my Lola trying to turn you on?
RIPLEY
She doesn't have to try.
JIM
Say, you must meet some odd characters
on your route, huh?
RIPLEY
Most of them are regular folks,
actually. I do wonder about some of the
tapes they order.
JIM
What are we talking about here,
uhÉbondage, children, bestiality?
RIPLEY
No, nothing really morbidÉ
DELORES
Don't be coy. Maybe we'll want some,
too.
RIPLEY
For some unfathomable reason, in the
western part of the state, there's been
a huge demand forÉ I guess I would
have to call them foot fetish tapes.
DELORES
Foot fetish?
RIPLEY
People taking their shoes off, massaging
their feet, washing their feet, clipping
their nails, using a pumice stoneÉI
have an artist friend in Durham who
makes themÉ
JIM
There are some nasty feet in Durham.
RIPLEY
I can't keep them in stock. Here's this
pretentious, minimalist trashÉthe kind of
stuff--I guess--in New York you'd get grants
and fellowships for, right?Éand suddenly people
in Asheville and Morganton and Boone can't get
enough of them!
JIM
Maybe it's because--you know--up in the
mountains they do a lot of walking.
RIPLEY
I never thought of that.
DELORES
But why only feet?
RIPLEY
No, we also carry elbow tapes, earlobes,
knees. There's a small following for
videotapes of wooden chairs.Just wooden
chairs sitting in rooms. UhÉmy chicken
films are doing very respectable
business. You know, not everyone can own
a hen house anymore.
JIM
Well, hell, it's cool, it's
casualÉwhatever gets you through the
fucking night.
Delores sighs and rests her feet in Jim's lap.
DELORES
Are my feet sexy, darling?
JIM
(rubbing her feet)
You know how I feel about these little
piggies, sugar.
Ripley looks at the game of "catch" still playing on the
five monitors and goes into the kind of mock epiphany mode
characteristic of someone trying to be deep and articulate
when they're drunk.
RIPLEY
I think voyeurism gets an unfair press.
True, it's bad to be removed from what
you're seeing, but the truth is, one life
isn't enough. One personality isn't enough.
We want to experience everything, but it's
just not economical, so we have to settle for
seeing it. It's not just sex, it's
everything.We want to know what it's
like to be another person. To see them
walk across the room. People will tell
you we're all the same, but it doesn't
matter. I have to see for myself. We're
expected to be satisfied with very
little and encouraged to want
everything. How do we reconcile this?
How many people get to see the world?
Before you know it, you're on your
deathbed and you look back and
thinkÉwell, I had some good food, I
went to the World's Fair, I saw Bruce
Springsteen, I had a few lovers
andÉand I read eight-thousand
magazines. But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe we
should live very humble lives, see the
world in a grain of salt and pepper our
potatoes and go to bed.
(a beat)
But thenÉwho's going to read those magazines?
Who's going to read those magazines!
DELORES
Magazines?
JIM
Ripley, what the fuck are you talking
about?
EXT. MOTEL - NIGHT
An old motel with a gaudy sign.
INT. MOTEL ROOM
Ripley, in boxer shorts, brushes his teeth. He walks to the
window, still brushing, and closes the drapes. Something
catches his eye. In the parking lot, a YOUNG MAN and WOMAN
stand between cars and kiss. Something blocks Ripley's view:
THREE MOTEL GUESTS walk by the window. Ripley moves behind
the drapes.
FIRST GUEST
Ten bucks extra for a rollaway bed.
SECOND GUEST
You gave him a hard time.
FIRST GUEST
Well, I get feisty after a fish fry.
The footsteps and chatter of the Guests fades away. Ripley
continues to spy. The couple are kissing passionately now.
The Man takes the Woman's hand and places it on his crotch
which she rubs ardently. A car enters the lot. The couple
disengage and walk away. Ripley walks back to the bathroom
but is distracted by muffled sounds of passion. He goes to
the wall and puts his ear to it. Toothpaste drips from his
mouth.
IN THE NEXT MOTEL ROOM
A COUPLE make love, lit by the harsh strobing light of a TV.
Their cries of passion punctuate the the sound coming from
the TV.
TV NARRATOR
(O.S.)
From up here the land looks like a
patchwork quilt, as soft as corduroy, as
gentle in appearance as the watercolor
illustrations in children's books.
Outdoor sounds.
Though all work is voluntary, no one
goes without: both men and women readily
yield their fruit.
Sound of people walking and laughing.
Motorized vehicles are unnecessary-people are
where they want to be.
Sound of rain falling.
In the rainy seasonÉ
EXT. RUSTIC GENERAL STORE/VIDEO CLUB - DAY
A clapboard building with a fenced-in yard to the side. In
the yard, a BOY dodges a DOG. Ripley enters the store
carrying a box.
INT. VIDEO STORE
The store is stocked with the usual country store items:
pickled eggs and pigs feet, pork rinds and potato sticks,
beef jerky and Mickey's cakes. But over to one side is a
display of videotapes for rent and a stack of "portapack"
rental videoplayers. A LITTLE GIRL in a dirty dress sits on
the counter eating from a can of vienna sausages. Behind the
counter is a BURLY PROPRIETOR.
PROPRIETOR
Ripley Clodfelter, you bootleggin' road
runner. Are you gonna butter my biscuit?
Ripley puts the box down on the countertop.
RIPLEY
Here you go: the entire Ferlin Husky
collection.
PROPRIETOR
Hillbilly Hayride?
RIPLEY
Three copies.
The Proprietor sighs with relief and starts pulling tapes
from the box. The Boy runs in through a screen door in the
rear, screaming and crying. The Girl holds a sausage out for
Ripley.
GIRL
Mister?
The vienna sausage in her little hand looks like a little
boy's penis.
RIPLEY
Uh, no thanks, sweetie. I had a big
breakfast.
She puts the sausage in her mouth and chews on it. In the
B.G., the Dog jumps up and claws at the screen door. The
Proprietor hits the "No Sale" button of his ancient cash
register and the drawer opens. He takes a nickel and small
handgun from it.
PROPRIETOR
Shit! I got a rabid dog out back.
Hands the coin to Ripley.
Here. Go get your fortune and weight.
The Proprietor and the Boy go out through the screen door.
Ripley walks over to an old Weight and Fortune machine and
stands on it. Back at the counter, the Girl stares at Ripley
with an intense sexual look unusual for her age.
OUT BACK
The Proprietor and the Boy carefully approach the Dog, who
stays in one place, growling murderously. The growling
continues over:
--Ripley's hand cranking the knob of the Weight and Fortune
machine. The machine's gears produce a torturous, abrasive
sound.
--The Dog, foaming at the mouth.
--Banal questions ("Am I a good swimmer?") seen through the
window of the Fortune machine.
--The Girl's mouth, wet with sausage juice.
--A nickel being placed in the machine's slot.
--The Proprietor taking close aim at the Dog.
--INSERT SHOT of hundreds of coins falling voluptuously
through the air in SLOW MOTION.
A GUNSHOT is heard O.S. as the window of the Fortune machine
opens. The Dog's growling ceases.
CURIOUS FANTASY SEQUENCE
The window of the Fortune Machine reveals: Curious in bed.
His sheets, pillow case and pajamas are blockprinted with
question marks. The wall behind him is wallpapered with a
reproduction of the famous 16th-century woodcut illustrating
the spirit of scientific discovery. He sleeps atop six
mattresses. Curious awakens and tosses his blanket to the
side. He wears boxer shorts and his feet are encased in
gorgeous cubes of transparent gelatin. He stares at the
cubes and pushes his outstretched fingers into one of them.
Curious jumps down from bed. The cubes are gone. He
stretches and exhibits back pain. He inspects his bed and
finds a large cardboard cutout of the letter "P" between the
bottom two mattresses.
IN THE KITCHEN
He makes coffee but is distracted by the meowing of a CAT.
IN THE HALLWAY
He takes the screws out of a wall heating vent. A Cat jumps
out and is followed by an ENDLESS STREAM OF CATS. The Cats
roam through the house, getting into drawers, fighting,
climbing drapesÉ One cat pulls the stuffing out of a sofa,
revealing a hidden cache of thousands of dollars.
BACK IN THE KITCHEN
Curious pays no attention to this feline invasion. He
continues to prepare his breakfast while the cats circulate
madly. From an ancient radio on the kitchen table comes a
broadcast by an EVANGELIST that is often interrupted by
TELETYPEWRITER INTERFERENCE.
EVANGELIST
(O.S.)
My friends in Lumberbridge assure me
that this has been going on for some
time now [unintelligible] My rival
thinks he lies down with a lamb
[unintelligible] hanging from a rope is
a Spanish pinata full of evil candy and
he is the blindfolded sinner beating at
it with a stick [unintelligible] É
BEHIND THE FRONT DOOR
A newspaper falls through the mail slot. Curious retrieves
it and returns to
THE KITCHEN
The newspaper has no print. Its pages are filled with
illustrations of chickens and chairs and the moon in its
various stages. One article amuses him enormously and he
cuts it out with pinking shears.
TWO BARE-CHESTED BOYS wearing Indian headdresses peek
through the window and watch Curious for a few moments. On
the breakfast table, a DOZEN SMALL ANTS swarm over traces of
jam. Curious glares at them. He poises a finger over an ant,
preparing to crush it.
STILL of enormous finger looming perilously over a tiny Ant.
TITLES under the Ant read:
GEORGE WILKENS, 42, successful real estate broker Married
with two children
BACK TO LIVE ACTION.
Curious crushes the Ant and smears its carcass to one side.
He poises his finger over another Ant.
PREVIOUS STILL of finger over an Ant.
TITLES under this Ant read:
DENISE SLUMBER, 26, Ph.D. candidate, Art History Thesis is
on Caravaggio
BACK TO LIVE ACTION.
The ant is crushed and smeared to one side. Curious poises
his finger over Two Ants.
STILL of finger looming over Two Ants.
TITLES under the Ants read:
BOBBY DUNLAP, 6, wants to be an astronaut SHIRLEY BOONE, 8,
likes River Phoenix
BACK TO LIVE ACTION.
The Ants are crushed and smeared to one side.
Now dressed, Curious reads a large textbook. Using a yellow
highlighter pen he lines through articles (a, an, the) only.
He puts the book down and pulls a folded photograph from his
pocket. It is a photo of a carpenter's level. He stares at
it lovingly and sighs. The doorbell RINGS.
AT THE DOOR
It is the POSTMAN, with a large carton covered with
mysterious markings and foreign stamps. Curious signs for
the package, takes it to the KITCHEN TABLE and
opens it.
Inside are mysteriously speckled fruit, the same size and
shape as oranges. He arranges three of the "oranges" into an
L-shaped pattern and begins leapfrogging two "oranges" back
and forth over the center "orange." He performs this action
rapidly, almost compulsively. After several repetitions, he
enters a combination of letters and numerals in a lab
notebook: 63R85UX7. He continues to leapfrog the "oranges."
DISSOLVE TO:
The kitchen floor is littered with sleeping Cats. Curious is
still leapfrogging the "oranges." He makes a final entry
into his notebook and circles it. He takes a serrated knife,
an "orange" in his other hand, and slices through it,
cutting his palm in the process. Blood drips onto the white
breakfast table as he wraps a napkin around his hand. He
takes the halves of the fruit and discovers that there is no
fruit inside, only wadded paper. He pulls the paper out and
unfolds it. There are two halves of a large map. He puts the
halves together: it is complex, colorful and filled with
unusual symbols. He traces a route on the map with his
bloody finger, stopping at an illustration of a roadside
mileage marker.
A COUNTRY ROAD
Curious drives by the mileage marker depicted on the map. He
steers with his bandaged hand and consults the map, now
taped together.
REAR-PROJECTION SEQUENCE
Curious drives by STOCK FOOTAGE TRAVELING SHOTS of divergent
landscapes: palm trees, a desert, Paris, snow-peaked
mountains, a war-torn street in the Middle-East, the Taj
Mahal, Las Vegas, Dutch windmills and tulips, a Mississippi
slum, Arctic wastelandsÉ
His car screeches to a halt at the edge of a sumptuous
forest. Curious walks into the forest. He emerges from an
almost solid plane of leafy tree branches and bushes and
enters a clearing occupied only by a colorful totem pole. He
consults the map and continues in a particular direction. He
comes upon a field of dirt occupied by a collection of huge,
creamy white boulders and stones. He walks between two huge
boulders and comes to a triangular patch of grass. Curious
drops to his knees and plunges his head down into the grass.
PREVIOUS SHOT of his fingers entering the gelatinous cube
encasing his foot.
CROSS-SECTION view of jet-black soil and surface of ANOTHER
PLANET. Instead of stars, the dark sky is filled with
Question Marks that pop on and off. Curious is propelled
through the soil and his head and shoulders pop--like a
plant--through the surface of the planet.
AERIAL VIEW
of the FIELD OF BOULDERS: The boulders form the shape of a
large, PRIMAL WOMAN. The patch of grass forms her pubic area
and Curious has his head buried in it like an ostrich.
IN A SHOE STORE
Curious pulls his head up from between the legs of a LIVE
WOMAN, who sits in a chair. She is a YOUNG NUN. Her eyes are
closed and she opens them suddenly, as if startled. Curious
puts her foot in a metal shoe sizer. He stands and walks to
the stockroom.
A FIELD OF COWS
The COWS are bunched into groups, labeled by tall signs on
wooden stakes. Each sign is marked with a shoe size: 6, 6
1/2, 7B, 8DDÉ Curious enters, chooses a Cow and leads it
away.
BLACK SCREEN
SIX WHITE LINES (an I CHING HEXAGRAM) pop on the screen from
the bottom to the top, each line accompanied by a startling
sound effect:
____ ____ (a large vehicle passing by)
____ ____ (a sonic boom)
____ ____ (the first note of the cello in Dvorak's
"Celloconcerto in B minor")
__________ (a flock of birds taking off)
____ ____ (a car screeching to a halt)
__________ (a rifle shot)
A SUCCESSION OF STILLS of desolate lots of land, all with
TITLES indicating their location: 15 miles SE of Phoenix, 8
Miles N of Buffalo, etc.
INT. CONFERENCE ROOM OF REALTY AGENCY
A projection screen has just gone blank. A REALTOR (in his
late 40s) sits behind a slide projector. Beside him, a
CLIENT.
CLIENT
Let's make a bid on the Buffalo
property.$2000 an acre?
REALTOR
(taking notes)
I think we can get it for considerably
less.
INT. REALTOR'S CUBICLE
On his desk is a large book titled "Government Surplus Land:
Quarterly Listing" and several issues of Soldier of Fortune
magazine. The Realtor fills out a want-ad form for the
magazine:
"Ex-Special Forces with clean passport desires foreign and
domestic assignmentsÉ"
END OF EXTRACT
This extract is the sole property of HERBERT GAMBILL. It is
registered with the Writers Guild of America, West. It may
be downloaded for offline reading, but it may not be printed
or redistributed in whole or in part.
Thanks for reading JOYCE WANKABLE #1. If you enjoyed this,
try to get your hands on the PDF version.
Except where otherwise indicated, all contents Copyright (c)
1995 Herbert Gambill.
Please send questions and comments to
"hgambill@rbdc.rbdc.com"
