Author Archives: Mike Del Rosso

short stories

Full moon Friday 13

“There is something afoot at the Circle K (this Friday).”

Tomorrow, the 13th of June, 2014, marks a full moon and Friday the 13th, two happenings that, alone, could be considered ominous. And together, their combined impact is something we’ve only seen a half dozen times or so over the last century.

The last time such a dynamic duo occurred was Oct. 13, 2000. And, after tomorrow, we won’t see another “Full Moon Friday-13” until the August of 2049. A baby could be born today and then run for U.S. President in the time it takes another one of these clusterfucks to occur.

I like to think back on that mystical fall night on a Friday in October 2000, at Stonehill College. I had recently embarked upon my freshman year. I was probably inebriated. It may have been the night I knocked down a $10,000 street lamp on campus. You see, Kevbo had discovered that if you charged them like a bull, you could somehow disrupt the electrical fuse for just enough time to blow out the bulb. They weren’t broken. Just temporarily out of commission. Well I shook that lamp a little too hard. Let’s just say that thing took a bath in the full moonlight. And came crashing, splashing, smashing down.

Dear Stonehill,

I owe you a street lamp, but it looks like the Class of 2004 donated that giant Back to the Future clock, overhanging outside dining commons. So maybe we’re even.

Anyway, Stonehill, Reunion 2014 was great. Derek, you’re pretty ugly now, huh? (Did not age well at all.)

So whatever tomorrow brings–perhaps an electromagnetic tsunami, from the nether regions of a Universe we’ve barely had the opportunity to comprehend, or the heightened tide of bad luck for all you superstitious folk–know that you won’t have another chance to ride this wave before one and three quarters score.

The last time I felt the raw surge of this Perfect Storm, I destroyed an expensive lamp. I don’t know what could improve upon that…

Make a lamp?

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short stories

Sega Genesis

Sega Genesis

Going for the trifecta in posting three days in a row. Never done that before. The 63 posts that I completed yesterday have taken me more than two years to author. And at least eight of them are chapters from an e-book I wrote (for all you dedicated Apple people, there’s a Kindle app), where I bound myself to publishing a new chapter every two weeks, like Sir Charles Dickens serialized his novels back in the 19th century.

So this will be lucky #64. Sixty-four is sort of significant. You can write it as 26 (two to the sixth power). It also reminds me of Nintendo’s 64-bit gaming console, N64.

Nevertheless, I was a Sega Genesis guy (16-bit).

So when I was little—maybe 8 or so—I’d play Sega’s X-Men like every day. Errrrry day. I completed level after level after level. Then I got stuck on the second-to-last stage for what seemed like a couple of months.

I just couldn’t figure out how to beat it. You see, at the end of this level, a message appeared. It said ‘RESET THE COMPUTER.’ Yet there was nowhere on the screen to reset the computer. A timer counted down, and frantically I searched for a solution. Time after time, the clock would dial down to zero and I would lose. I’d lose a life and have to start the second-to-last level all over again.

Eventually, I’d run out of lives and have to restart the entire game. Slowly, I’d make my way back.

After a while, when I approached this fateful, seemingly dead end, my eyes would glance down at the Sega Genesis itself.

There was a little, grey reset button there. It was installed by the manufacturers to reset the console, in case a game ran into glitches—kind of like restarting your computer. As I watched the clock winding down, time after time, an idea slowly crept into my mind: What if that was the solution?

I was extremely hesitant resorting to such a drastic measure. If it truly was not the solution, I would lose everything. No matter how many lives I had at the end of the second-to-last level, I would surely have to start from scratch. The risk for failure seemed too great.

One day, I got fed up with inevitably losing. I reached the end of that level and the clock began counting down. I felt like Arnold Schwarzenegger (Dutch) when Predator initiated his self-destruct sequence and the digital wristband counted down in those weird alien numbers. In a fit of pure, pre-pubescent adrenaline, I threw caution to the wind and pushed that grey button.

The screen went blank. I thought for sure it didn’t work.

Then a little green cursor appeared in the upper-left corner of the TV screen. And messages scrolled across the display. The Sega Genesis had indeed not been reset. At last, I had “RESET THE COMPUTER,” as the X-Men game had been telling me to do.

This experience has stuck with me all these years. It symbolizes an evolution in thinking, a paradigm shift. In some ways it represents a fundamental change in the way I perceived Sega Genesis, the X-Men game and how I solve difficult life problems to this day.

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Verse

RRRRRRRRecursionnnnnnn

nautilus shell

Recursion, as a concept, is hard to define because to adequately articulate its intelligible identity, you have to break the golden rule of dictionaries: never use the word in its own definition.

Mathematically, physically, logically this is the very nature of a recursive process, function, organic sequence.

Anyway, this urge to define the indefinable resulted in this post. Let’s begin at the source of all linguistic definition…

recursive |riˈkərsiv|

adjective

  • Relating to or involving a program or routine of which a part requires the application of the whole, so that its explicit interpretation requires in general many successive executions.

It’s especially used in computer programming to define an infinite set of objects in one finite statement. Stated more concisely, a recursive definition is defined in terms of itself. If you break down a complex problem into smaller parts, you can solve the simpler parts and then combine their results.

“…a recursive definition is defined in terms of itself.”

You know the function, as a whole, itself. So any instances of it in smaller parts of the same problem cancel out and you’re left with the remainder that shows itself plain as day. In other words, you can isolate the inconsistencies. The variable randomness or designed change.

Occurrences of this phenomenon in nature include the nautilus shell you may find lying in the sand on a beach. The shell builds upon itself in an outward spiraling growth that never closes the circle and only ends when the cells are no longer capable of regenerating.

I’m pretty sure it’s how you psychologically incept someone too. Although, existentially, it’s just a way to rise above the self and see the world from a vantage point separated from the self. Like a less dramatic out-of-body experience.

Let’s put the concept to action…

Imagine only being able to go back or forth your entire life. And then suddenly, you’re aware of these two directions. And in becoming aware of this limited duality, you imagine that maybe there’s another direction—a third path. So you apply the same skill you learned going forward or back, yet you shift your thinking into the possibility of this newly perceived, newly imagined reality.

Now tread sideways.

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Top 10 Lists

Top 10 Movies Narrated by Main Characters

  1. “Election”
  2. Dr. Seuss’s “How the Grinch Stole Christmas!”
  3. “Fight Club”
  4. “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”
  5. “The Royal Tenenbaums”
  6. “The Shawshank Redemption”
  7. “GoodFellas”
  8. “Zombieland”
  9. “The Princess Bride”
  10. “Juno”
DOWNLOAD "get weird." SCREENPLAY

 

“Election” is narrated by all four of its main characters throughout the story. Maybe the director took a page from William Faulkner’s “The Sound and the Fury.”

The Grinch shares the same voice as the narrator in this animated, Dr. Seuss holiday classic. This leads me to believe that maybe the Grinch himself is narrating his own rhyming epic. And then I wonder if we can even believe him. Maybe the greatest trick the Grinch ever pulled was convincing the world how he saved Christmas.

The main character in “Fight Club” is actually named “the narrator.” So this one seemed like a no-brainer. I am Jack’s propensity to state the obvious.

John Hughes, the writer/director of “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” took a fairly unique approach to progressing the plot of his 1986 masterpiece. Inserted between the lines and the scene descriptions, Hughes broke the fourth wall with full passages where Ferris addressed the audience. He was like the host of his own holiday.

Hughes was supposed to write a teleplay for some TV show, one night. Instead, he stayed up writing a script that would forever “Save Ferris” in the hearts and minds of the eternal American zeitgeist. The original screenplay for “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” is largely what made it to the silver screen. Although, if you do read it, there’s a little more about the Charlie Sheen character, the druggie whom Bueller’s sister Jeanie encounters in the police station toward the end.

One of Ferris’ soliloquies mentions this kid, Garth Volbeck. He was a “serious outsider.” Ferris used to sleep over Garth’s house as a child. Baby Bueller could hear little Garth crying himself to sleep. Eventually, Garth succumbs to the fate of his delinquent older brother and was banned from the Bueller Household. But Ferris, the people person and ever the optimist, knew Garth Volbeck was still a good kid.

Ferris mentions Volbeck fairly early in the story, but we don’t see him until much later, giving Jean some much needed worldly advice, on the waiting room couch inside Shermer Police Headquarters. Of course, this paradigm shift in Jeanie is what ultimately saves Ferris, from evil Ed Rooney and losing the trust of his loving parents. I’m not sure why they didn’t leave Volbeck’s backstory in the final cut… “Drugs?”

“The Royal Tenenbaums” is narrated by Alec Baldwin. He doesn’t actually appear as a character in the story. So this one’s sort of an exception to this particular Top 10 list. Although Alec Baldwin is, himself, a character. He’s also a comedian who likes to get coffee. And I’m sure if I told the man himself that he won a spot on this list, despite never appearing on screen nor having any impact on the plot of the Wes Anderson joint, “The Royal Tenenbaums,” he’d look me in the eye and say, “Are you surprised?”

“The Shawshank Redemption” is narrated by Red, played by Morgan Freeman. Great narrating voice. Red does a lot of documentaries these days.

As far back as I can remember, “GoodFellas,” is narrated by main character Henry Hill, played by Mr. Ray Liotta.

“Zombieland” interweaves through the lattice of main character Columbus’s infallible list of tips for surviving The Land of Zombies. In the end, the squirrelly protagonist played by the equally awkward child-prodigy Jesse Eisenberg learns the most important lesson of all: some rules are made to be broken. Aside from being the main character of the 2009 cult hit “Zombieland,” Columbus is also our hero, albeit a beta male. Of course, alpha sidekick Woody Harrelson fills the testosterone gap by assuming the tough-talkin’ Tallahassee role, a zombie assassin outfitted with a unique, supernatural talent for taking out the undead.

“The Princess Bride” is a framed story about a grandfather reconnecting with his grandson. I only have two words for this comedic gem: Peter Falk.

Finally, the eponymous lead role’s narration in “Juno” takes up a fraction of the feature film’s runtime, but the movie’s just that good. And there’s enough first-person narration to warrant its spot as No. 10 on this list. Even when Ellen Page isn’t talking directly to the audience, the dialogue with which talented screenwriter Diablo Cody graces each script page is about as good as it gets in terms of an authentic account psychoanalyzing the mind of a teenage girl dealing with issues way beyond her maturity level.

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Verse

Long ago…

Long ago, I chose a single path for myself. Point A would lead to Point B. From there, Point C would logically follow. The strategy resembled man’s rudimentary understanding of time, which many posited to take a linear course. That we all followed a single, unbroken thread. This, of course, never panned out and for a while I could not figure why. If I could not change how the chaos of reality (i.e. the world outside of my control) functioned, then I would evolve my thinking.

I adopted a multi-point plan. I would pursue many paths at once, always leaving my options open. When in the moment—in the present, yet mindful of the future and knowledgeable of the past—I would select which point made the most sense then. Stepping upon those impromptu stones, a new array of possibilities would present themselves. At the next chance to make a choice, I selected the firmest situated stone, at this point further into the future.

Sometimes I’d make missteps, but those provided the silver lining of a learning opportunity. The next time I’d see a similar stone before me, I’d know not to lean so heavily upon it.

This is the nature of the Universe, or our perceivable reality. We’re not granted one set path that lies before us, ready to walk. There are infinite routes, which we alter at each fork. They are based in the information available and our intuition of best possible outcomes, from the actions we take at these pivotal junctures.

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short stories

Mr. Friday Night

When the week wound down, most hunkered into their economy cars or onto subway platforms underneath city streets. They waved bon voyage to their professional obligations, before the brief weekend hiatus. The 9-to-5ers could notch another 40 hours under their respective leather belts and find solace in the grind that finally halted, if only for a day or two.

Then there were those knightly warriors who ventured willingly, wholeheartedly into the evening of the final weeknight. They answered the call of the weekend with the beckoning of their craft. These were not retailers; they were journeymen, true artists, who had each carved out a niche in Barter Barry’s grocery store. And they awaited to be great, in faithful anticipation, for the arrival of Mr. Friday Night.

They went by…

Tokyo Craig

Tokyo Craig would bomb out of the double back doors, leaving them swinging, like a cowboy entering a saloon. His impetus momentum ushered a four-wheeled flat table packed high, near the fluorescent ceiling with boxed apples, various citrus orbs Duck à l’orange-bound (if they were lucky!) or stacked-on trays of loose beefsteak tomatoes. He earned the nickname Tokyo Craig from that one installment of the Fast and the Furious franchise, “Tokyo Drift.” When the produce-loaded conveyance glided diagonally smooth, guided by its levitating operator who’d hover along the brown linoleum floor, Craig was synonymous with drift.

He was the initiator, polite intimidator, all-too-kind instigator of the Dry ‘Duce Party that convened in a hobbit hole perfectly excavated under the stock room stairs for pallet jacks parking 8-foot cubes of perishable foods. His bristly Gandolph beard could not conceal the grin he greeted each and every person he’d meet.

Sir Charles Advertblastcastle III

Sir Charles wielded the four-wheeled table as if it were the Norse god Thor’s hammer, Mjölnir. He’d flip an empty upside down with one arm and hold it over his shock of blond hair, as if to summon the lightning and the thunder into that back room. Of course, Advertblastcastle would elevate these carts to the sky only to pile them on top of one another. This created space in the excavated hobbit hole where his fresh produce flew from the stocked shelves onto the store floor. Perhaps Sir Charles did have command of the electricity, as he dynamically conducted his faithful followers to “put it on the shelf.”

Lex Mantooth (Wes Mantooth’s older brother)

Upon those who deserved social justice, the No. 2 Channel 9 evening news anchor Wes Mantooth would throw at them the “Book of Burns,” which older brother Lex wrote.

However accomplished an author he was, Lex was best in the moment. And whenever Lex Mantooth inflicted a particularly stinging dig, he’d add insult to the ego wound with his signature one-liner, You just got Lexed.

Ever leveraging his edgy lexicon, Lex never hesitated to coach colleagues on how to deal out their very own personal brand of verbal badassery.

When Mason showed off his giant classical harp, retrofitted with a machine gun-mounted base, Lex assured him that any one of the following lines would adequately narrate this weapon of mass harmonizing:

“Enjoy the heavenly melody of angels, while I send you to Hell.”

“I came here to do two things: play some harp and kick some ass. And it looks like I’ve done played all the harp songs I know.”

“Listen to this music, asshole.”

His younger brother may have been No. 2 at the news, but Lex was No. 1 in the eyes of Mr. Friday Night.

Wise Man Wade

Wise Man Wade possessed a more subtle approach. His metaphysical sixth sense kept a constant dialogue with the bustle that was Barter Barry’s. And his adept mind raced, running on the knowledge of everything. Ever the inquisitor, Wade interconnected each and every node into an intricate web reference, from which the Barry’s community benefited. He was at all times attuned to the Friday Night…

Vik

Then there was Vik. He had become acquainted with Mr. Friday Night more so than any other. On the most opportune of occasions, and the stars aligned just right, some great men could inch the needle that measured fun’s factor near 10. On Friday Night, Vik ticked to 11. He radiated that extra oomph always and his energy was contagious.

Mr. Friday Night

The aptitude of Mr. Friday Night was not so easily distinguishable from any of the other warrior poets. In fact, his essence assumed a je ne sais quoi that no human could accurately articulate.

Yet let me make an attempt…

Mr. Friday Night was the Higgs boson particle array of the back stock room. His presence, merely existing in said premises, emulated a wave frequency that enabled all of those gentlemen scholars to perform in the way they did at each week’s close. An ethereal resonator was He, Mr. Friday Night, who embodied the dark and mystical entity of evening’s promise.

His Field of Dreams (and Choice): the excavated hobbit hole under the stairs, where He summoned the divine inspiration and shed it upon Tokyo Craig’s ability to emcee another ‘Duce Extravaganza, which was just code for camaraderie. As a catalyst for the positive activity, Mr. Friday Night elevated these men to the hyperaesthesian heights of evolved consciousness.

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short stories

Pass me the sugahh!

March 4, 2014:

Day 2 of #CoffeeProblemz

Upon confirmation from a roommate who shares the cream, it may not have turned. This could be true, as the new cream has yielded a similar taste in the coffee. And it’s fresh. I’ve also changed the coffee altogether. Brand new beans, freshly grounded, brewed and mixed with untainted dairy.

Still. The taste.

With each sip, my pallet painstakingly scours for the flavor revelation that will indicate what is off about this particular cup of joe. I know it’s not the container. After yesterday morning’s mishap, I rinsed out the trusty Thermos and refilled with some cool, refreshing H2O to wash out that undesired bitterness. May as well have been drinking from the open spring of Mount Monadnock Herself.

I am scientific in my approach to isolate the cause. It’s not the container; it’s neither the coffee nor the cream. This leaves only the water used to brew said cup and the maker responsible for the brewing. Did someone run dish soap and hot water through a brew to clean it out? Perhaps the sudsy residue is causing that base taste. Could the old city pipes dispensing that tap water have rusted over, shedding flakes of oxidized metal into the flow, hardening the liquid into an unhealthy concoction…

Oh, wait…

Could someone pass me the sugar?

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Verse

Preparation + Opportunity

Unrequited love—unknown by the one loving—was an ugly thing. The beloved rejected his attention like some fine-tuned immune system would attack unwanted alien pathogens, falling victim to the ferocity of a white-blooded, billion-cell offensive.

The inevitable emotional scarring numbed his once vibrant ability to shower affection. Warm light waves that freely flowed from the ends of his every extremity decayed. His extremities retracted, in fact, withered under the disuse of inactivity. A jade film colored everything apathetic.

Although the human heart (figuratively speaking) is far more resilient than any biological system. It can rebuild, regenerate, revive, resurrect. And a forgotten and dead soul blossomed again, like some Lazarus-like lilac.

From the ashes, he burned brighter than that white-hot daisy wheel in the sky. He propelled from the fiery plume of a rocket 10 stories taller than the Empire State Building. Its divine impetus inspired an original explosion unlike light, in only that its speed exceeded it.

So don’t fret young, sunken soul. Be patient. Conserve. Self-preserve. Angle your gaze outward and open your heart. Dust off those ever so tender electrodes.

True love ignited that day, from a single spark.

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awkward

Dear Bigfoot,

I should have brought this up in person, but I organize my thoughts better in the written form.

In short, I’m sick of your attitude. Every conversation I have with you ends in a negative tone. And, frankly, it’s draining. I’m sure you’d say the same of me, but the difference is I didn’t choose to live with you. If you recall, you interviewed for the apartment once, and you didn’t get it. Then you came in several months later, after Reba the police sketch artist had to leave short of the lease term.

Not sure what sort of picture she drew up for you, but the truth is you didn’t get the apartment the first time because I sensed back then that you weren’t the type of person we’d want to live with. Even then I knew you were used to getting your own way and would not be able to adapt to other people’s living styles. Nevertheless, you weaseled your way in. For the last year or so now, Kelly, Dangerous Dave and I have had to deal with you. You’ve put your Big Ass Foot in your mouth on more than one occasion.

We had all been living in this apartment for more than a year before you arrived. We had certain protocol in place that we were comfortable with. Then you came in, barking orders, under an assumed entitlement that magically granted carte blanche to our apartment without respect to those who had seniority over you. You leave your personal and general clutter all over the apartment. There’s hair EVERYWHERE! And you barely help out around said apartment to clean up after yourself.

As far as our shared bathroom, that’s an entirely different issue. I know how you like to bring that up anytime I try to address your shortcomings. If you must know, you are a slob. That’s why I don’t clean up after you in the bathroom. When I had my own bathroom, it wouldn’t get dirty nearly as quickly. You can’t command me to clean the bathroom like I’m one of your pet mountain lions. You may be four feet taller than me, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t hesitate to treat the Bigfoot Crown Jewels like a speed bag, if you ever try to manipulate me again.

In the coming months, you may want to start looking for a new place. You could talk to your friends, Yeti and the Abominable Snowman. Who knows? Maybe one of them has a spare room. Where else would they keep their collection of coolers filled to the brims with cold-filtered Bud Ices? Obviously, we can’t oust you from the apartment, but do you really want to live with three of these people who are not like the other?

(That’s you… Bigfoot.)

Sincerely,
LoMein Mike

Dear Big Foot

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short stories, Verse

A short and bittersweet jar o’jam…

Life, as defined by Facebook, LinkedIn & Twitter

Facebook is for the Family Man… or Woman. Sorry, ladies. “Family Man” is an age-old expression that just sounds better than “Family Woman.” Yet, I assure you. You come first in every other aspect of my life.

LinkedIn, indifferent to personal conquests, chronicles the scope of someone’s professional career. Think of Résumé 2.0.

Twitter is where I want to be. It wears down an identity against the whetstone cacophony of tweets, some good, some bad, but mostly forgettable fireflies.

Fireflies, a.k.a. lightning bugs, are Mark Twain’s metaphor for the uniquely human expression of verbal and written language.

The Great American Author once said, “The difference between the right word and the almost-right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.”

Most tweets extract the everyday molasses of non-happening that fill our incongruous expanse of time.

Wading through that gooey minutia, sometimes we trap the elusive lightning in opportune bottles, before the fleeting, syrup-sweetening instances fizzle into the ether.

Our Mason jar memories capture those chance occurrences—some would call serendipitous occasions, those with faith might say “divine interventions”—that crystallize the stories articulating our lives. In short, an…

#Extractualization

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