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Started November 22nd, 2013 · 1 reply · Latest reply by fumpsee 10 years, 4 months ago
I have a short story that I would like to be read over a song but don't have the vocal prowess or recording tools to do the reading myself. It's a short story/prose poem I wrote called "90, 90, 90..." It's only two pages or so long. I would love to give someone with a good voice credit for it. Let me know if you like it or are interested. If you decide yes please know that the pauses are really important and would be used to break it up throughout the song.
90, 90, 90…
I was an artist.
My name was Michelangelo.
I had asked my mom who was Michelangelo. She said he was a really old famous artist. So from then on I played “artist” with my little buddies, my three heroic friends and fellow artists, fighting bad guys and eating pizza, fighting and eating, fighting and eating.
We were ninjas.
We were turtles.
We were artists.
I was the only 2nd grader to ever write a novel. It was called “Squeakins.” It was about a smelly mouse that couldn’t find a home. He was gross and everyone hated him. But then he bathed, found a home, and continued his crazy adventures.
I never really cared about music.
Everything was super in the 90’s. Super Nintendo, Supersonics, Superman, “Super job on that assignment!”
Suffering Under Powers Everyone Reveres.
Music is the language of tonality, a skewer of images, like the aroma of apple pie to an apple pie. The music gave meaning to action. Doing and living depended on the world’s rhythm. And we had no music. I never really cared about music.
My mom asked me what I was going to do with my life. I shrugged.
I remember seeing “Aladdin” in theatres, my heart ready for something super, and there on the big screen was my book. Squeakins the smelly mouse alive and breathing, speaking to me and my contemporaries. It was then that I first felt art. I was the creator and here was my masterpiece. It was like “Squeakins” had already been written.
Some people liked to make fun of a man called Bill Clinton. They said he was a bad man who did bad things. I asked what he did. They said I would understand when I’m older. I asked why. They said presidents shouldn’t do bad things. I asked how the bad man became a president.
In high school, I ran over a squirrel, fucked a girl, and bullied a kid into killing himself.
I taught myself to play guitar. I write music sometimes.
I was a warrior, an angered youth, a real badass; nobody got in my way. I would have bashed ‘em with a nunchaku. I was “the shiznit” for a year or so. We were mutants, mutated by who knows what, warriors molded in the image of ourselves. Nothing could break our shells. We were invincible, impervious to the world.
Sex Usually Plays Evil Roles.
I went to a school with mostly white students. There were maybe ten students total from other minority groups. I didn’t even know what racism was until we moved elsewhere. My new school was about half Hispanic.
People are different.
I remember when things became three dimensional. I remember when things suddenly had depth and it was traversable. I remember when things stopped being either x or y and suddenly could become z. It was called the Nintendo 64.
In 3rd grade, I wrote a prequel to “Squeakins.” It was my greatest flop yet.
Yes, I read the wizard books. It did very little for me. I got myself lost in its magic, but it never made me happy. Nothing felt real. It taught me that happiness is a wand away.
It wasn’t just that they weren’t white. They were a different people. They had something we didn’t, something to fight for, a culture worth living.
Shitty, Ugly, Pretentious, Ennui Renderers.
On my first tour of Afghanistan, I thought about where Aladdin came from and hummed some of the music from the movie. It caught on with the other men and soon we were all singing the lyrics to “Prince Ali” at the top of our lungs, smiling and singing with tanks to our sides and the sand in our eyes.
My name was Michelangelo but I traded my nunchaku in for a magic wand and my magic wand became a gun.
I killed four men. I was a goddamn superhero. The first was my best work. I shot him in the back while he ran from me and caught him again in the foot. The shot to the foot tripped him and he fell over onto a jagged, blown up car hood. It caught him in the stomach and sliced him up good. His guts were falling out in the dirt. He was a bad man who did bad things. He lay there writhing and screaming yelling out for something in some crazy language while his intestines and big pools of blood sat in the dirt below him, glowing like fire. I walked away before he died but still heard the moment when his screams stopped. I took a bath that day. I was home.
I’m a fucking artist, Mom. A motherfucking artist.