27 February 2006
reunion blues [5]
A series of panels/pages/chapters/whatever, rounding up and introducing the inhabitants (and main characters) of No-name/New Hall, with physical descriptions and character sketches of each, and enough details here and there to start giving some sense of story lines brewing.
UNCLE TED
MR. BUFORD
[I forget now which subject he taught - not English, that was some lady; maybe history, or religion?] A Yale younger poet in 1959, he wound up at TCU when he got tired of "living in funny little apartments," wanted to settle down and stretch out. His wife, never seen around No Name New Hall, was working on a book about the Marquis de Sade, he said. He showed an interest in Doug, purely academic and intellectual as far as he could tell, heard Doug play guitar and loaned him a book to read about the flamenco scene in Spain, and he's never been able to find a copy of that book anywhere, he's looked in bookstores and libraries every where he's been these past 35 years, and he encouraged Doug to write poems, so there's a fine influence for Doug in the midst of everything else that he encountered at TCU. At some point in their talking, in the classroom or lobby of No Name New Hall, Doug told Mr. Buford something about reading Moby Dick, how he liked towards the end when they're bearing down on the White Whale, the drama, the romance of it... Buford says, "Read the novel again, then read it again when you're 40." Advice that Doug followed, religiously, hell he may yet read the beautiful heart-breaking blood-pounding mystically profound novel from cover to cover again, a fourth time, one of these days....)
ENGLISH TEACHER
Doug resisted her lessons.
DOUG
Straight outta Phoenix, but his parents moved after he left to go to TCU and he's not exactly sure, yet, where they live. He continues to assume they will let him know; relations aren't quite bad between them as all that, although they are certainly trending in that direction. He's already got a bad attitude because Princeton rejected him and he wound up in this resort for the children of rich Texans scared to let their kids go to the East or West Coasts, and he's looking for inspiration, or trouble, or both. Short, nervous, with visible grey hair that adds yet another reason to worry about this guy's stability and sanity, Doug can talk non-stop and will if you let him.....etc. & etc....
STEVE
SCOTT "BUGGS" WORTHEN (R.I.P.)
What's up, doc? He told Doug he was putting himself through college with the help of a little blackmail; he had, he said – and Doug never knew if Buggs was putting him on or not – a series of 8 X 10 glossy photographs locked up in a safe deposit box, pix of his father and a girlfriend, and the old man was sending him hush money. No doubt Buggs had the herb to fuel our alternative take on TCU...
CLYDE KIRK "SMIRK" RHEIN, JR. (R.I.P.)
"Just imagine," he said, again and again, as we listened to Jefferson Starship on acid or mescaline or psilocybin, settling in for the night in an East Texas dorm room, on one of the best of many fine road trips that year.
BRUCE
The local boy.
POTATO-HEAD
"I've got reams of this shit in my closet," says this cosmic dude, referring to the poetry he for once has correctly characterized. (Bitchy, but this is art, after all.)
MEATHOOK
Doug's needy, star-crossed lover, trapped in a cycle of strange karma that began when her Mother surprised the two of them in her room one lovely she-should-have-been-at-the-Little-League-game summer afternoon in Midland, Texas, the summer before their sophomore year in high school. As an adult, on the receiving end of millions of dollars in oil money from her wildcatter Daddy, she became addicted to alcohol, AA, cocaine, methamphetamine, marijuana, tattoos, and plastic surgery.
CONVENIENCE STORE CLERK
The poor sucker who was tending the cash register - this was one night the year after I had left TCU and was driving back and forth to Morgan City, Louisiana to catch the helicopter to Chevron Mobile Drilling Platform No. 9, 150 miles out in the Gulf of Mexico; I remember digging those solo road trips, listening to the radio, that's when I got my most complete survey of extreme right-wing ideology of the John Birch Society stripe ("The is Freedom Talk No. 79"), but I digress, - at some local 7-11 when we (you, me, Buggs) tripping our brains out, made a raid on the joint, somebody, maybe you, maybe me, wearing huge rubber clown feet, Buggs done up as a pirate with his moustache and a wicked-looking cutlass that appeared out of God knows where, we descend on the establishment in the middle of the night in search of goodies and cigarettes & etc., swinging that cutlass, "Avast ye, landlubbers!", flopping those big clown feet....
[add more characters as appropriate]
[click for next page]
UNCLE TED
MR. BUFORD
[I forget now which subject he taught - not English, that was some lady; maybe history, or religion?] A Yale younger poet in 1959, he wound up at TCU when he got tired of "living in funny little apartments," wanted to settle down and stretch out. His wife, never seen around No Name New Hall, was working on a book about the Marquis de Sade, he said. He showed an interest in Doug, purely academic and intellectual as far as he could tell, heard Doug play guitar and loaned him a book to read about the flamenco scene in Spain, and he's never been able to find a copy of that book anywhere, he's looked in bookstores and libraries every where he's been these past 35 years, and he encouraged Doug to write poems, so there's a fine influence for Doug in the midst of everything else that he encountered at TCU. At some point in their talking, in the classroom or lobby of No Name New Hall, Doug told Mr. Buford something about reading Moby Dick, how he liked towards the end when they're bearing down on the White Whale, the drama, the romance of it... Buford says, "Read the novel again, then read it again when you're 40." Advice that Doug followed, religiously, hell he may yet read the beautiful heart-breaking blood-pounding mystically profound novel from cover to cover again, a fourth time, one of these days....)
ENGLISH TEACHER
Doug resisted her lessons.
DOUG
Straight outta Phoenix, but his parents moved after he left to go to TCU and he's not exactly sure, yet, where they live. He continues to assume they will let him know; relations aren't quite bad between them as all that, although they are certainly trending in that direction. He's already got a bad attitude because Princeton rejected him and he wound up in this resort for the children of rich Texans scared to let their kids go to the East or West Coasts, and he's looking for inspiration, or trouble, or both. Short, nervous, with visible grey hair that adds yet another reason to worry about this guy's stability and sanity, Doug can talk non-stop and will if you let him.....etc. & etc....
STEVE
SCOTT "BUGGS" WORTHEN (R.I.P.)
What's up, doc? He told Doug he was putting himself through college with the help of a little blackmail; he had, he said – and Doug never knew if Buggs was putting him on or not – a series of 8 X 10 glossy photographs locked up in a safe deposit box, pix of his father and a girlfriend, and the old man was sending him hush money. No doubt Buggs had the herb to fuel our alternative take on TCU...
CLYDE KIRK "SMIRK" RHEIN, JR. (R.I.P.)
"Just imagine," he said, again and again, as we listened to Jefferson Starship on acid or mescaline or psilocybin, settling in for the night in an East Texas dorm room, on one of the best of many fine road trips that year.
BRUCE
The local boy.
POTATO-HEAD
"I've got reams of this shit in my closet," says this cosmic dude, referring to the poetry he for once has correctly characterized. (Bitchy, but this is art, after all.)
MEATHOOK
Doug's needy, star-crossed lover, trapped in a cycle of strange karma that began when her Mother surprised the two of them in her room one lovely she-should-have-been-at-the-Little-League-game summer afternoon in Midland, Texas, the summer before their sophomore year in high school. As an adult, on the receiving end of millions of dollars in oil money from her wildcatter Daddy, she became addicted to alcohol, AA, cocaine, methamphetamine, marijuana, tattoos, and plastic surgery.
CONVENIENCE STORE CLERK
The poor sucker who was tending the cash register - this was one night the year after I had left TCU and was driving back and forth to Morgan City, Louisiana to catch the helicopter to Chevron Mobile Drilling Platform No. 9, 150 miles out in the Gulf of Mexico; I remember digging those solo road trips, listening to the radio, that's when I got my most complete survey of extreme right-wing ideology of the John Birch Society stripe ("The is Freedom Talk No. 79"), but I digress, - at some local 7-11 when we (you, me, Buggs) tripping our brains out, made a raid on the joint, somebody, maybe you, maybe me, wearing huge rubber clown feet, Buggs done up as a pirate with his moustache and a wicked-looking cutlass that appeared out of God knows where, we descend on the establishment in the middle of the night in search of goodies and cigarettes & etc., swinging that cutlass, "Avast ye, landlubbers!", flopping those big clown feet....
[add more characters as appropriate]
[click for next page]
# posted by Unknown @ 7:34 PM 
