Random Chatterings [Ep. 1] - Prologue

During 10th grade, hidden far away from the critics of the world, I made my first recording about ‘my’ sitcom, The Presenters, with a story about how Harold was having difficulty relating to his son, Hal. He tries to remedy this by mentioning all of the girls in Hal’s life, expecting some kind of reaction. It became an obsession of mine and every single Monday, I would go back to my hiding space, located at the edge of the school, and let my ideas flutter away in the form of an awkward teenager’s constant ramblings. I’ve only told five people about the recordings, and probably will regret posting this since my voice is an acquired taste. Shortly after making the story recordings, I embarked on a journey even I wasn’t sure I wanted to take: to explain the machinations, the fascinations, and the folly of my mind. How the great essayists of our time could take the same journey and survive still impresses me. For 22 episodes, I became the question and the answer to all random thoughts. It’s something I’d like to share with everyone in a different way. Seriously, you can’t listen to a person’s terrible accents for twenty minutes even if you tried. 

I hope you enjoy it and please let me know what you think in the comments.

Technical info:

Recorded with a Sansa Fuze by Arlill Rodriguez

2010, 2014

EPISODE 2

Random Chatterings [Ep. 3] - A Songwriter's Pen Name

In this episode, I discuss what a terrible singer I am, try to recommend an Indie group, and inject Neo Nazis in a conversation yet again.

This is a bit experimental as I have posted the previous episodes on Tumblr and I will start researching other methods for posting audio.

DOWNLOAD [12:01]

Technical info:
Recorded with a Sansa Fuze, edited with Garageband '11 by Arlill Rodriguez

Random Chatterings Theme Song (piano and orchestrated versions) by Sergiy Turchyn

Baby Don't Go from the album, I Will Be by The Dum Dum Girls: wearedumdumgirls.com

2010-2013

EPISODE 2                                        EPISODE 4

The Presenters (Season 3)

After years of negotiating the many lawsuits made last season, HBO has approved one more season of The Presenters. Prepare yourselves for the most confusing, existential, and ridiculous season yet. Fridays at 9 only on HBO.

P301-The Secret to Human Interaction Harold discovers his wife has been drinking to alleviate her stress of being married to him. When he notices how much easier it becomes to talk with her, he applies this knowledge to become more sociable and irritable.

P302-When Harold "Somethinged" Marcy Harold tries to become more open with the writers at Flowers United and befriends one of the main writers, Marcy. After Harold inadvertently damages Marcy's reputation, Harold tries to apologize by pretending to be Bruce, her "secret" admirer.

P303-Cannibal Kittycat Killers Harold's parents drop by much to the dismay of The Howardsons. Harold unpacks his parents' luggage and finds a stolen Francis Bacon of kittens being mutilated. Harold rushes to his car to return the painting while his parents chase after him.

P304-The Contradiction Hal gets accused of being a slacktavist at his high school. In a moment of desperation, he decides to live like a homeless person for 1 whole week.

P305-A Trip to Route 666 Harold, in a Dante's Inferno-like journey, has his atheism challenged by none other than the devil himself who enjoys elaborate dance sequences.

P306-Academic Viewing Harold goes to the Sundance Film Festival and drags his son Hal along with him. While Harold "researches" the animated films on display, he discovers Hal's obsession with exploitation films.

P307-Acceptance With the holidays quickly approaching, Harold wishes to brighten up his cowokers' spirits by inviting them to a "Coexist" dinner. His curiosity gets the better of him when he accidentally riles up everybody's stance on their respective religions.

P308-Harold Meets a Time Paradox Renowned performance artist Daniel Plainview visits his newest exhibit at the local art museum. Harold anxiously meets Daniel and as a sign of good faith, criticizes Daniel's work fairly although Daniel takes the criticism very personally.

P309-The Council Harold learns of a supposedly good animated film called The Council which has been banned for nearly 50 years for its approval of bisexual polygamy. Harold and Tom plan a public screening of The Council while his wife and his son, Hal, unbeknownst to him, try to sabotage the screening.

P310-The Motivational Speech News of Flowers United getting into a financial crisis depresses everybody. A well-intended motivational presentation has the opposite effect on everyone, including The Editor who decides to pursue his life's dream of becoming a controversial issue.

P311-Harold Howardson's Wife After two and a half seasons, Harold's wife embarks on a journey to find out what her actual name is or at least to beat up the censor who's been bleeping out her name.

P312-Presenting This Man and His Comedy Harold performs at a comedy club and debuts his 20-minute routine.

P313-Nazi Sensibilities In a desperate attempt to save Flowers United from bankruptcy, The Editor begrudgingly approves the production of Nazi Sensibilities (NS), Harold's ambitious short film. Notice of the studio's closure creates a lot of tension during NS's production and everyone but Harold, Tom, Marcy, Reni, and The Editor decide to abandon the project. Meanwhile, Hal is transferred to a private boarding school for his academic excellence. Harold and his recently named wife, Elizabeth, prepare Hal's luggage and drop him off at the airport. As Harold and Elizabeth return to their home, now lacking of their son and his possessions, Harold gets a phone call from The Editor. The phone call prompts Harold and Elizabeth to have one more conversation together.

This is the last season of The Presenters. It's been a wonderful 4 years developing these characters and creating these outrageous scenarios that no sane network producer would ever approve for broadcast. Even though I posted the 1st season a year ago and technically being the only exposure anyone's ever had of this "series", this has been one of my most persistent ideas that has always popped up in my head every once in a while these past 4 years. It was something I looked forward to every Monday evening shortly after school when I could let the ideas flow out in a nervous gabble that somehow made sense every time. It would be the first time I swear out loud if only to capture the rapid-fire feeling of the characters' delivery. As I've said before, the first time I came up with a Presenters episode was around the same time I started watching Curb Your Enthusiasm so it made sense how most of the episodes in the first season are very Curbish although rather than being a blatant ripoff or a spiritual tribute, they were meant to go beyond the limits of a live-action program.  In short, the first season was a very desperate attempt of being bizarre but there were a few examples that tried to be tastefully experimental. Season 2 was when the series started finding its voice and became much more personal in trying to understand who exactly these characters were trying to be such as Harold becoming more of a desperate entertainer than a neurotic narcissist. A few of these episodes were meant to deal with issues I still haven't completely forgotten about such as Harold reuniting with his high school friend Sarah, dealing with his childhood traumas and getting infatuated with an actor's voice. I did notice that this season rarely dealt with Harold's family, an issue I addressed with in the third season. I personally consider the 2nd season to be the best of the entire "series" with each episode perfectly detailing the characters without having to resort to previous templates and was where the series was right where it had to be. Season 2 was a difficult thing to try to surpass when I started considering episodes for the 3rd season. Strangely enough, the first episode I ever came up with was Season 3's A Trip to Route 666; In the first version, none of the characters were fully established and Harold was working at a dead end job where he is suddenly visited by the devil. To this day, it's the only episode that I "performed" live for a group of people, specifically, it was my horror/comedy story I told to my Geology class when we went on a trip to Death Valley in 10th grade. The trip is still one of the highlights of my high school career. It was very well-recieved even though it was very unusual. I've been working on Season 3 three months after I posted Season 2, and it would be the first time I would have an entire episode concept completely thrown out in the last minute due to being nearly impossible to describe in just a few words. Season 3 went through several revisions and many rearrangements and I still think more could be done to improve it, but as with my many other unfinished projects, it's one less burden to worry about. I would like to thank my brother, Gary Rodriguez, for encouraging me throughout the thinking process and for contributing his input in revising Season 3's descriptions and for providing the idea for "Cannibal Kittycat Killers". I would like to thank Justin Bretter, Jackson Foster, Adrian Lindo, Lorenz Kim, and Gil Young for being curious enough to listen to my recorded story descriptions back when the show was in its infancy. I'd also like to thank the people who visit my blog and take the time to read insane ideas/concepts like this one as it spurs me to improve my writing every step of the way. Comments/constructive criticism would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you and good luck.

Ideas That Will NEVER Happen: Vol.III !!!

Take a look, if you'd like, at a past life of mine: Making comic strips. This was my second pet project in 7th grade. Over the course of the year, I made 120 strips, 23 of which I ended up posting. This was a time that I realized that becoming a success on the internet would be far more difficult than I ever could've imagined. I was a temperamental guy back then, so a day with little or no hits would devastate me, enough that I gave up on posting more comics until September of 2008 when I planned to reboot the comic strip only to give up again after a small reaction from the new comic. Looking back, these comics were terrible and ill-inspired and yet, I did notice an amount of progress in the comics, as the creative process became more intuitive, certain choices were made for the comics to look more presentable, and even the immature humor became much better. Unfortunately, outside obligations(such as school and...) forced me to abandon the comic strips for good.
And now for the matter at hand, what these comic strips have to do with an impossible idea:

An R-rated feature-lengthed film based on the "popular" webcomic. Movie poster advertisements all over would feature Sonic, Shadow, and Kirby hidden in the darkness with a tagling saying, "The Darkest Comedy Ever." The jokes, profanity, and gratuitious content are at unspeakable levels of filth. The plot of the movie is that an alien is creating duplicates of popular characters that have better personalities than the originals. Sonic, Shadow, and Kirby team up to destroy all of the clones before it's too late, and insult Kirby's weight the whole way through. This is the ending: After the amount of chaos that has happened in the past 90 minutes, the movie cuts to this strip. The audience gets a chance to read it until the camera starts pulling away from the computer screen on which the strip is displayed on. People notice that it's a low-tech computer that may've run Windows XP at some point. The camera pulls away further, revealing an abandoned room that has one computer still running. Going back further, the camera moves out of the house, through the doorway, and reveals an enitre city completely devoid of life. The camera stops moving back as soon as it's able to see the entire skyline and begins fading out as soon as one of the buildings collapses.

Why this will never happen: like it or not, my comic strip is probably really similar to other video games comic strips that have self-referencing characters and violence, and each of them have the same low chances as mine to get noticed by a movie studio. Also, the movie tries to throw as much inappropriate content as it can in the 90 minute runtime with a goal of breaking the Guiness World Record for the amount of profanity in an animated movie(currently held by South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut) which, one, is an incredibly short-sighted goal, and two, would sacrifice the quality of the story to make lots and lots of terrible jokes. Also, it just wouldn't suitable for an adorable character like Kirby to be in a movie this raunchy, and the guys at Nintendo would probably agree. Although this movie and comic strip was insane as it was, I look forward to making a new comic in the near future, if and only if I have the time and patience to do so.

Short Story

Sorry, we are currently experiencing some technical difficulties and will return with our regularly scheduled programming as soon as this blogging interface becomes less broken. Thank you for your patience.
  
Originally typed in December of 2009.

Pt. 1

I arrive a minute before the deadline, 11: 59 am, in tattered clothes and ripped jeans. This is my evening wear; my noon wear is still at the Laundromat’s. I think it’s been there since yesterday or Friday at the least. I know certainly in that period of time that the pink shirt with a blood splat on it and the plaid jeans have to be in the cart at the Laundromat’s, I just forgot to collect them. They should still be there. Anyway, I’m feeling pretty confused right now. I can hear the electrical surge from the neon sign, attempting to advertise a product at the worst possible time. People can read the sign since it’s in huge letters and it’s daytime. Why would you have the lights on at this time of day? I blame the restaurant owners’ laziness on this one. For some reason, everyone who’s passed me in the seconds I’ve arrived here has chuckled when they saw the sign. It’s a stereotypical neon sign, an aggressive shade of orange, in all capitals, nothing original. It has to be an inside joke of some sort, a city-only kind of joke. I would never know since I’m from Cincinnati.

48 seconds have gone by. Make that 52. I look in both directions to see if the girl is coming. It would be a better impression on her if I was already there, with a rose in my hand. No, too clichéd. Chrysanthemums, she’ll love those. Maybe.

The door handle feels like it was imported from Antarctica, my fingers are magnetized to it, and it feels as if every cell in my hand is becoming converted into frozen drops of water. It wouldn’t be a superhero kind of thing since only my hand would be affected; it would actually be a deformity.

The place looks okay, but I don’t see what the big deal is. The walls are painted professionally, but I sense an illusion happening here, that I can grab a part of the wall, tear it right off, and discover…something. Each waiter, despite having a fancy appearance, seems to be the kind of people who spit in your water, many times so I wouldn’t know what’s up. But I can tell. They are the gossiping individuals who continually complain about the client they had, pointing out every single flaw they could detect from him or her. I don’t know where they can get to with that information, maybe use it as a conversation starter at a party. Stepping into the place gives me an instinctual reaction to grab something and pull me out of a pit. The poor guy who took his time to paint this abomination on the whole floor. I commend him or she to have carefully dotted the floor in different colors to give a realistic interpretation of what sand may be like. What a shame. My table’s not too bad; it is right at the window with scarlet red squares and circles as part of the fabric’s design. The lighting reminds me of a theater, with the closing monologue seconds away from happening. Bit terrifying in a strange way; I can’t really see any of the other patrons. I can hear them, but it seems as though as I am all alone. That’s an exaggeration. It’s not that bad.

The only thing I know about this girl is that she’s a grammar freak. Contractions, prepositions, if it’s not in a sentence, it’s not hers. She gave me an unenthusiastic answer towards what she would be wearing when she comes here. White shirt and blue jeans. Lots of ‘Shelly’s have passed by, some of them guys. When the world at my normal field of view becomes boring, I begin to stare at the chand-no wait, ceiling…FAN! That’s right, ceiling fan!… I look at the fan. Such a fascinating piece of furniture. Wooden in each ‘blade’, a redwood oak kind of color, held together by a cylindrical figure of the purest white chemical science can deliver. Vrwhrrr, vrwhrrr. Such a peaceful noise, you could get a group of toddlers to stop crying simultaneously with this miracle from non-existent heaven. I can look at this fan for ages. I try to find one ‘blade’ and wish to join it on its never-ending journey by circling my head in rhythm with the fan.  Achieving Nirvana…

“Hey, stupidass!”

Damn. I stop moving my head to search for the origin of the screaming banshee. It’s a guy, at the table across from mine, mid-30’s, facial hair apparent, brown hair, blue business suit, and the typical ‘much too expensive for your own good’ type of watch. Can’t quite see the company name, maybe a Ro-

“Hey! Dumb fuck, over here!”

“What seems to be the problem, officer?”

“Do you have some kind of mental problem or something?”

“I don’t think it’s up to you to know that kind of information.”

“Well, there must be something wrong with you. Why the hell are you looking at the fan?”

“The, the fan?”

“Y...yes?”

“Well, um, you see that, um-”

“Whoa, what’s the problem? Can’t admit you’re a dumb fuck or what?”

"Is this the place for that kind of language?”

“Just answer the question."

“This fan…means a lot to me. It is a part of me, the indescribable part- Wait, who are you calling?”

“My girlfriend, Betty. She’s not gonna believe this one bit, that I finally met a client for her services.”

“What’s her job?”

“Psychiatrist. Ugh, this takes forever.”

“Wait just one goddamn minute! I’m not crazy. I’m just in love.”

“In love with what?  Something that in a few years will end up at the dump?”

“Hey, you and I are headed towards the same place, too! Cept mine will be nicer and with a marching band to boot. And…1, 2, 3...19…13 mourners!”

“287.”

“That’s impossible! That can’t be the amount of people who love you.”

“Oh, but it is…and counting.”

“Good for your ass. I’m gonna go back to what I was doing.”“Telling your beloved Kenmore how you enjoy kissing her 4 extra arms? What are you even looking at anyways? There’s no point in following one ‘blade’ around in circles. The quick rotations of the blades make the whole fan seem like one unit. There’s no need to go around in circles when you can just look at ONE, single unit!”

The spectators around us shouldn’t be letting this happen. Just like in a dogfight, all they do is watch patiently as the two dogs bite into each other’s flesh. They don’t care about the emotional connection between me and my beloved, and for that, I don’t care about them. I was seconds away from pushing the dude’s chair, when the waiter walked up to him, holding his dish. Sandwich at a restaurant? Whatever, it’s that guy’s life, that guy’s choice, and…that guy sucks.

“Here’s your sandwich, sir! Hope you enjoy it!”

“Yeah. Can you get…a bag, a doggy bag, please? I think I’ll eat it later.”
“Um…sure. Let me, um, direct you to the kitchen.”

“Thank you.”

Strangely enough, my hatred towards this person made me that much more curious about him. Why is he really uptight? Did he have a difficult time at work today? More questions kept popping out, some of which I began to write down on a napkin. I wanted to see this guy again, still hate him, but more learn more about him so that my hate seems sensible instead of careless. The guy turned around and approached my table. Casually, but I still felt alert and grabbed the salt shaker.

“Here.”

“What’s this?”
“Betty’s card. You might want to hold on to that. Just in case.”

The smug bastard. I can’t believe he…Ooh, she’s cute. 

Pt. 2

Shelly should be here any minute now. All she’s told me about her so far is that she loves horror movies, preferred junk food is raisins, and plays part-time basketball, so for some reason, I can imagine her as a tall person. There could be many possibilities as to what a person can be if the only thing you've seen that's theirs is digitally reprinted text on a screen. Maybe it's her imminent appearance or the argument I had with the jackass, but suddenly I'm not very hungry. Strangest thing, I had a craving for a turkey sandwich with pumpernickel bread, slathered with honey mustard, and now, nothing. Not even water.

Shelly comes, skipping into the restaurant, politely speaking to the-wait...who's the person called? whatever, she talks to him, the guy points toward my table, and she walks to it. Turns out I was wrong about Shelly. She's pretty short, actually, reaches my neck, at least I think. Much cuter than Betty at least. Brunette, one line of hair that covers 5% of her left eye, pretty outfit. She's pretty. Oy, I'm a jackass. There's more to her, absolutely, but...right now, nothing particularly descriptive jumps out about her. Her shirt's blue, has a pocket protector, don't really know. Oh god, look at that color. Blue on every finger. Why do people do that to themselves? Does that really make them more beautiful, painting those already hideous abominations. I can't even look at my own  group of those bastards. Shelly sits at my table, on the seat right across mine. She...oh, it's not a shirt-takes off her jacket, revealing the white shirt she promised. Cept its more white than I imagined. I don't know if it's her Mona Lisa-esque face, or her simply divine combination of colors in her eyes, but something is making that shirt so damn bright. Ach, my eyes.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing. Some dust flew into my eyes."

"Are you sure it wasn't sand? Ha, ha, ha!"

I get it. Floor looks like sand. Ha.

"So, what'd you do to get here?" I asked politely.

"I drove."

"You...uh, didn't...have any trouble? Didn't...um, crash in the middle of the way? Pick up...a murderous hitchhiker or(cough, cough)"

"Are you nervous, Darren? There's nothing to worry about. It's just us and other people we don't know."

"No, of course...(cough) Waiter!"

She's so fucking beautiful, I can't comprehend it. Suddenly more descriptions about her appeared like menu options, right in front of her face. Hair: Each strand could be used to knit together the most beautiful sweater fit only for Venus' apparel, but, then Shelly would be bald... ...hm. Nose: Only the likes of Michelangelo could carve a perfect replication of the curve on her nose. I would kill any other artist who would attempt such a feat. Eyes: The amount of colors in her eyes could be found and identified in a Kandinsky piece, yet each color meshes together into a united front of... color! Brown has never been this beautiful. That's just the face area, being described right now, I could spend weeks, literally weeks, describing every definitive aspect of her body, except then, I would have to assume a new role: Darren, recently graduated college student, mama's boy, stalker. Not worth it. 

"Do you need some water? I have a water bottle in my bag."

"Ach, yes, prease-"

She grabbed the bottle, and threw it across. Bad idea since I'm such a butterfingers. The bottle bounced off the right side of my palm, then the left, hit my forehead, and then stopped. Tightly in between my hands. It wasn't going on anywhere. For some reason, I couldn't get that damn cap off, twisted it, smacked it on the table. I had to ask for her help but, almost immediately as I thought that, her slender, perfect fingers tapped the bottle, a slight twist, and the cap was off. She must've understood my struggle as she threw away the cap. Or maybe she does that with all caps, I don't know. 

"(chuckle) Go on. Drink up." she said, with a humorous smile.

As you wish, my darling. Must've been either out of my mind or trying to impress her as I drank the whole bottle in one gulp. Kept burping the rest of the time, also. I apologized for every burp I would make, even some that we both couldn't hear. Such an interesting woman, obviously I was wasting my time with those chat conversations we had on the intershit. Okay, it's not that bad, but face-to-face conversations are my preference to one-line-one-minute--wait-two-minutes-for-response conversations. Really loves horror movies, she retold the first 15 minutes of The Exorcist in descriptive detail. She can watch Child's Play and tell me all about it so people can stop bitching to me about never seeing it. That  fucking red-haired midget. Plays basketball, but actually is a professional at golf. She could give me some pointers. Grammar freak, maybe two months ago, but not so much anymore. She's trying harder now to switch from her essay voice to her casual voice. It must've been her parents' fault for that, switching from whatchyall doin' to what are you all doing. She actually has a pretty impressive vocabulary; She could help me with some of my job resumes and make me sound smarter than I really am. This could work out.

Pt. 3

"You wouldn't believe this guy. He just starts barking at me, for no reason, just cause I was looking at the fan. He has no sense of furniture appreciation," was my attempt at chit-chat.
"I know what you mean." She puts her arms flat on the table, holding her head up and staring dreamily at me. Or is she bored? Huh. "Once, I came to an electronic department store to purchase cables for my high-definition surround sound system, and I just couldn't stop looking at this fascinating component that hung up on the wall. The-Most-(word to be determined later) component I have ever seen. I still don't understand why to this day."

I chuckled, a bit too loud, however. I just couldn't stop looking at her face, until my neck started aching. This was a chance to really observe the scenery. 

"Sorry, my neck hurts a little. I need to-move it around. You know."

"I don't but, heh, go on ahead."

Turned to the left, the right, up, down, diagonal, oh shoot.

Blue. Fingernail. Paint. I completely forgot she put that on her gorgeous fingers. Ugh, I can't understand why she had to do that to herself. What does that improve, anyway? Is it a beauty issue? I just don't understand. She's definitely not my counterpart if she does that to herself. How dare her! Damn that blue, it keeps tempting me to stare right back at those things, those careful brushstrokes repeating themselves over and over. The crime was done, a few days ago, at 8 pm, in her room, with every light turned on. She had to staple her fingers to the table to do this crime. The light's suddenly went off, but she kept going, torturing those terrified fingers till the deed was done. Heartless...harlot! "Is your neck getting better?"

"Uh, kind of."

You dirty, fucking bitch.

"So...what are you going to get? I think the waiter's getting impatient," said the siren.

"Uh, I don't know. I'm not really hungry."

"I think I'm gonna- Sorry, I mean, going to get something with fish."

Too bad that those fish don't have any nails so you can plaster your shit all over their fins.

" Maybe I’ll get some appetizers. Tiny burgers, or crackers with cheese."

"Mmm, the salmon looks good. Mm,mm!"

I can't take it anymore! I just can't look at those things any further. From my perspective, all I had to hide those freaks was to...well, I can't quite describe it, but with my hands together, I placed them right below my nose, closed, and squinted my eyes for to put the focus only my hands. She wasn't an idiot, she knew something was going on.

"Wait, what are you doing?"

"I'm sorry but I just can't look at those things anymore."

"Excuuuse me?!"

"Those things. I can't look at those things anymore."

"And why can't you look at those things anymore?"

"Well, they're right there, right in front of my face, presenting their supposed greatness to the world. And just to make both of us clear, they're not that impressive, either."

It took her a few seconds to comprehend that line, and a split second for a rebuttal. 

"You know what? Fuck YOU!!!" 

She stood up, grabbed a cup from a table, and splashed it right in my eyes. My manliness told me to just stay quiet, and swallow this unfortunate occurrence with dignity, but my common sense told me to scream and never stop screaming, till it was appropriate. A week later, I told my mother about this incident, and she told me, clearly and offensively, why Shelly became offended.

 

Oy, I'm a jackass.