10/25/2006 10:02:00 PM|W|P|Bill|W|P|I was drunk. And it seemed particularly important to me to record those thoughts, which are, obviously, the self-important thoughts of someone who is pleasantly buzzed and is not at a party where he can harangue the host until they play The Song That Must Be Played Right Now, whatever that might be. I considered taking it down, but then thought, no. It's an excellent reminder to myself of why I have a notebook, so that I can puzzle over these statements the next morning without subjecting myself to the embarrassed looks of my friends. And now, back to work.|W|P|116183192738205435|W|P|What's the deal with the Tuesday post|W|P|dynayellow@gmail.com10/27/2006 06:45:00 AM|W|P|Blogger birdchick|W|P|I love my Drunky McDrunk Drunk.10/24/2006 10:42:00 PM|W|P|Bill|W|P|Because I know the secret truth: once you've said something, you own it forever. You can never again be the person you were before. You can be the person who regretted saying it, you can be the person who repented saying it, but you can never again be the person who didn't say it. You own your words, forever.|W|P|116174785467362280|W|P|Fragment|W|P|dynayellow@gmail.com10/24/2006 11:34:00 AM|W|P|Bill|W|P|Once again, vice is good for you. Oh, and in case you forgot, masturbation cuts your risk of prostate cancer. Immortality, here I come!|W|P|116170776944862568|W|P||W|P|dynayellow@gmail.com10/23/2006 12:38:00 PM|W|P|Bill|W|P|ace-wands Edit: Slightly better sky background.|W|P|116162512459462312|W|P|Obvious? Sure.|W|P|dynayellow@gmail.com10/23/2006 01:01:00 PM|W|P|Anonymous Anonymous|W|P|PERFECT. PERFECT. PERFECT.10/23/2006 01:33:00 PM|W|P|Blogger Bill|W|P|Thanks, Matthew. I tried to do a cloud effect in the background; that got kind of obliterated, unfortuately.10/22/2006 11:38:00 AM|W|P|Bill|W|P|When I wasn't mercilessly raiding a certain someone's liquor cabinet at a recent party, I was (as usual) in the kitchen shitting the bull with my fellow artists. Foster, The Zoe and I were talking about the Tarot cards I'd mailed out, the different decks we liked (I like the art on the Robin Wood, Foster and I both love the Housewives Tarot). Somehow we got on the topic of a Minneapolis/Twin Cities Tarot, and trying to figure out who or what would be on the cards. And since I have so(!) much time to not work on my play, here's my first one: The Tower, as represented by, appropriately, I think, the Foshay.
The Tower (Minneapolis Tarot)
|W|P|116153574193082800|W|P|The Tower|W|P|dynayellow@gmail.com10/23/2006 11:32:00 AM|W|P|Anonymous Anonymous|W|P|That is sweet! I still feel bad that I haven't yet responded to the request... especially since I love the card that I received; it was very fitting.

I've got about 18 ideas of how to respond floating through my head, and I can't narrow it down to something useful. I suppose I should double-check that you're still collecting pieces before I go forward with it... so, are you?10/23/2006 12:42:00 PM|W|P|Blogger Bill|W|P|So far, nobody's given me anything, but everyone sounds very excited. Think of it as a writing exercise. I'm just curious to see what all these different people give me.

THERE IS NO DEADLINE, other than the one you impose on yourself.10/14/2006 04:41:00 PM|W|P|Bill|W|P|
Netflix crane The Prestige
The beaks are hard to do properly.|W|P|116086221566339801|W|P|Origami = recycling + fun|W|P|dynayellow@gmail.com10/16/2006 07:29:00 PM|W|P|Blogger Mimi|W|P|Make a thousand of them and make a wish!10/23/2006 10:07:00 AM|W|P|Blogger Bill|W|P|I wish I could do the beaks without screwing them up.10/13/2006 11:55:00 AM|W|P|Bill|W|P|Civilization is a video game where you take a tribe of villagers and build them into a world-conquering nation. It's currently in its fourth incarnation. When I say that I am addicted to this game, please don't misunderstand me; I'm not saying that I enjoying playing it. I'm saying that I have an impulse to play the game that is isolating and perhaps unhealthy. When I play Civilization, there is nothing else more important to me. I forget to eat, to go to bed, and when I go to stand up, I find my legs are wracked with pain because I've been sitting cross-legged so long that I haven't noticed they've gone to sleep. I played Civ I on my roomate's PC so much that he locked me out of the game, and then the computer, to prevent me from being on it all the time. I sent my install disks for Civ II to a friend, when she asked me when she should return them, I said, "don't." Last year I gave Civ III to another friend who didn't have a Mac, because I didn't want him to play it and ask me for advice. Civ IV came out this year for Mac, and I got a review copy of it. It was, as expected, better than the previous incarnations, more detailed, more subtle in its strategies. Fortunately for me, it was also built for the latest-and-greatest models of computers, which meant it ran dead slow on my 2 year old laptop. So I ran the game and then went off and picked up the house while it chugged between turns. Eventually the scenario grew so much that it became unplayable. It wasn't fun, and so I put it away in a drawer. They've released an update. God damn them. The game runs smooth as silk and I know that as long as I have it sitting in my desk, I will not work on anything else. Why write? Writing is hard and makes me feel stupid; Civilization has clear cut goals and makes me feel like I'm accomplishing something. I'm building a nation! I'm conquering barbarians! I'm a mighty king! See, it sounds stupid when you spell it out like that. I had the same problem when I was writing THACO, only the game at that time was World of Warcraft, which is even more nefarious in snaring you, because since it's based on subscription payments, the whole point of WoW's game design is to keep you playing for months on end. Every time you reach a goal, there's another one that's just out of reach. Some missions can only be accomplished by groups of people, which mean that you have to make friends online. Nerdiction can be an ugly thing. I was—and I am being totally serious here&mdashonly able to quit playing WoW and work on my play by writing out a list of things I wanted said about me when I died: 1) He was a playwright. 2) He produced and directed. 3) He was successful. On the other side of the list was things I did not want said about me: 1) He was a mighty undead warlock in World of Warcraft. Hell of a legacy, huh? Writing is not fun. Writing is like getting out of bed at 4 a.m. on a bitterly cold day to go slop a bunch of hogs. Hogs who hate your guts. Not writing is like staying in bed where it's warm. Except that eventually the alarm goes off and it's a morning talk show where they're taking callers about the "wackiest" thing your pet does, wackiest caller gets Sheryl Crow tickets. And then they get this woman on who talks about how Tippi likes to bark at the phone and she's trying to get Tippi to demonstrate this only she doesn't, so it's four solid minutes of "C'mon Tippi! C'mon Tippi! C'mon Tippi! Tippi, c'mon! (long pause) C'mon Tippi! C'mon Tippi!" And you just know that they're recording this and are going to be playing it every damn day. This is my delimma. Do I want warmth and the agony of stasis? Or freezing cold and the bacon of accomplishment. I was talking about Civilization, wasn't I? I don't really have anything to tie the whole thing up with. You can farm pigs in Civilization; they provide your city with +1 hygiene. I find this amusing.|W|P|116075999703352964|W|P|Weapon of choice|W|P|dynayellow@gmail.com10/11/2006 06:16:00 PM|W|P|Bill|W|P|4 1/2 pages.|W|P|116060863220748848|W|P||W|P|dynayellow@gmail.com10/07/2006 08:43:00 PM|W|P|Bill|W|P|by Bill Stiteler, age 34 The Shazz is off birding this weekend, which means I'm bacheloring. Which would be a hell of a lot of fun if I were a louse, but I am, alas, a nerd, which means that I usually just stay at home, letting the day slide away from me, watching movies I've watched before, and just generally feeling empty. But not today! Today I was resolved to do something interesting. Plus I had to feed a friend's cats, and also pick up the toothpaste I left at work. So already you can see what I consider to be exciting. I took the LRT down to the MOA, more than fulfilling my daily requirement of acronyms. The LRT was full of Gopher fans (heading the other direction). And the Mall, well... the Mall has changed a bit since I was there. I got the bright idea to maybe see a movie while I was there, so I headed up to the fourth floor, which used to be full of theme bars, a comedy club, and the AMC multiplex. Now it's a freaking graveyard.

Planet Hollywood

Welcome to Planet Hollywood, the most closed place on Earth! There is, I kid you not, nothing open on the 4th floor of the MOA, except for the multiplex and, of course, Hooters. I walked past Hooters as the waitresses were getting to work and setting up; they seemed less perky. Make of that what you will. It's been a while since I've been to the Mall, and it'll probably be even longer. Suncoast video is gone (they had a killer martial arts/low budget section), along with the video games store. There is, however, no shortage of places to buy dresses, jewelry, and capri pants. Hoo. Rah. Even more of a heartbreak was Atlantis Books, which was a really interesting bookstore for about a week after it opened, when it had a really eclectic selection of remaindered books, along with an quote-erotica-unquote section that was astonishing for both its size and tawdriness ("by the same author who brought you "Midnight Hope"—Anonymous!") I regret not buying any of the trashy books, 'cause now they're all gone, replaced by self-help, Harry Potter rip-offs, and Stephen Koontz. So, I took the LRT to the 21 bus home. The 21 is a bus that travels along Lake Street between Saint Paul and Minneapolis. It's a 10 mile trip that takes about 14 hours to complete because the 21 stops every five goddamn feet. Sorry, I'm a theatre artist who lives in Uptown, I'm supposed to wax rhapsodic about bus travel, but unfortunately for the Muse of poetry, I've ridden the 21 during rush hour. And now, there's construction running across a big section, which means that the 21 is even slower. This is akin to saying "colder than Absolute Zero." Finally, thankfully, I am home, trying to decipher the instructions I got from a discount guide to origami, failing, and yet somehow making a cool looking rabbit anyway. I am having a drink and am watching Silent Hill, which I got to tell you, is probably the best way to experience the film. Then you don't notice that most of the film is women running down streets, stopping, and yelling "help meeeeeeeeee!" Well, you don't notice so much. And Laurie Holden in her fetish cop outfit doesn't hurt either.

laurie holden

|W|P|116027184232518644|W|P|What I did today|W|P|dynayellow@gmail.com10/03/2006 09:07:00 PM|W|P|Bill|W|P|What was really remarkable about today was that I was hating everything, every person, and nothing was going right: things were breaking, pop machines were eating dollar bills, people were stupid. And then, for absolutely no reason, this sense of contentment and of being centered came upon me about fifteen minutes before I left for home. It's still here. Wonder how long it will last. Are you listening to Lovage? It's really good; especially for this autumn rides home.|W|P|115992783347602329|W|P||W|P|dynayellow@gmail.com10/02/2006 02:06:00 PM|W|P|Bill|W|P|Stephen King on the process of writing, in all its boring glory.|W|P|115981600541895187|W|P||W|P|dynayellow@gmail.com10/02/2006 11:52:00 AM|W|P|Bill|W|P|Everything I write is a sketch. I started out writing with sketches: little three minute jokes that I would come up with almost spontaneously, seeing the layout of the entire thing all at once. Sketches are very comforting to write; you don't have to worry about form or what development they take, you just have to get to the punchline, and it's not hard at all to maintain your momentum as a writer. You know how it's all going to turn out. Writing longer forms, is, by comparison, a real pain in the ass. For me, it's like a trip to IKEA: I'm supposed to have three parts (beginning, middle, end), but when I go to put it together, all I have is two middles, a beginning from the Japanese version, some extra screws, and some kind of weird-ass torque wrench that I don't even know what the hell I'm supposed to do with. So, I end up writing sketches to connect them all together. THACO was probably the most blatant so far (other than Play on Birds, which was sketch comedy); characters talk about something for as long as I can maintain the joke, then they switch to another topic and the first never comes up again. John speaks only in monologues of about 2 minutes. Watching Porn worked a little differently; while the story is obviously structured as a series of vignettes—Dave narrating his life, slipping into and out of scenes—when I went back to do the second draft, I began to notice a structure I hadn't consciously put in there. Three girlfriends, three women from porn. As Dave gets more pathetic, he becomes more sure of himself. The structure of porn as a theatrical form was just a joke to hang the Kabuki scene on (an idea I wrote and rewrote the show around), but in rereading, it gave me the idea for the ending which not only released Dave but tied up several jokes I hadn't realized I'd put in the show. Frankly I'm beginning to worry if I have anything to do with writing the good bits at all. Playwrighting seems to be something that happens when I'm busy working out the sketches.|W|P|115980972073045843|W|P|Sketchwright|W|P|dynayellow@gmail.com10/02/2006 01:52:00 PM|W|P|Blogger Heidi|W|P|My son tired to roller skate and was frustrated when he couldn't.

So he went to play pool at the skating rink during our once-a-month outings.

But after three visits, he could skate. Because he wore skates while playing pool.

He wasn't thinking about his feet, he was thinking about the game and his feet went with him as he went ronund and round the pool table.

Sounds similar to your entry.