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"