OK,
here is my submitted short story for round 2 of the NYCMIDNIGHT short story contest. it follows these prompts: horror, a car salesman, and an accidental swapping of babies. it had to be less than 2000 words and written in a 72 hour period. Big thanks to the folks who read it and helped me edit in time to submit it.
Read it here: Jake’s Body Shop
so,
this is brian paone’s fault, ok? he posted about how many indoria songs he had in his iTunes library and i was shocked he had over 30. i tried to even remember if we had recorded 30 songs and found we have actually recorded over 50 (woah). listening to some old tracks, lost to the ages, i decided to post a few here. now, these were recorded between 2000-2002 with zero budget and with an ever evolving cast of misfits…there are some moments i am really proud of and some that make me wonder just how much drinking i was doing at the time, but either way, the good and the bad, took me down memory lane. we played with bands like the alter boys, unified culture, dog fashion disco, finless brown, infinite number of sounds, tub ring, estradasphere, chuck mosley and the VUA, racermason, and so many other really good bands, very few of which we really fit with but it was a great ride.
anyway, for brian, i’ll start off with a random cover of epic we did one blazing hot weekend. we had been added to a fnm tribute album to cover WE CARE A LOT but the band was in a transition and it didn’t happen…the tribute got delayed for a year, so we threw this together, but it was too late. you’ll notice the lyrics in the verses are not correct. that is because i took random lines from several FNM tunes and mashed them all in. Can you name all the different songs they are from? you’ll also hear we add in little snippets of 4-5 other FNM tunes within the song…bottom line it was fun, so please don’t judge too harshly.
next is THE WORLD I KNOW a cool vibe of a song with some overly introspective lyrics meant to sound a lot more thoughtful than i was at the time.
LIGHT IN YOUR EYES was written as my grandmother was dying and is sort of a tribute to her. when we started jamming it at practice we had a singer named shelly who will appear on the next song. she and i clashed over our parts on this one and she quickly left…she was a very good singer and i can’t believe she put up with me and adam as long as she did. in the end, felicity sang the hook and did a great job…where on earth is she these days?
Adam joined a group called synth Cleveland that was putting out a compilation cd. he got us on it but as usual we were in a state of flux having lost Matty our guitarist and failing to woo loon as full-time bassist. we switched practice spots and recorded a song with shelly (mentioned above) she had joined the band after i had written the lyrics and recorded her parts, so we cut those and she also added some accent lines during the verses. the song was originally called THE PERFECT STORM, but with some retooled lyrics and added instrumentation we retitled it THE STORM SUBSIDES. for those of you keeping score out there…yes, i also rehashed the chorus of this song in the band THE FIRMARY for our song THE APPROACHING STORM …
the last one for the night is called THE NEXT DAY it started as a coffee shop tune with acoustic guitar by matty and i. when he left, adam retooled the idea adding in some bells and trip-hoppy beats. i wrote the lyrics but again, i planned on handling the rap/talk hook while someone who could actually sing performed the soft, strained verses. after shelly left, we tried out 2 singers and initially asked both of them to join. rachael tackled the verses and felicite and i doubled the chorus, which i thought sounded damn good, but we quickly changed out minds about the three singer thing and we parted ways with Rachael…thus, here i am once again trying to sing quiet, delicate and failing…but i still dig the idea of the song:
anyways, i found about ten more…if you like these, tell me (comment here or email me douglas at douglasesper.com and i’ll post more. here are some random photos from 2000-2003…yes i had hair back then. if i post more songs i’ll have to scan in some of the great shots dallas took of us back then. they are still in a super cool album she made for me.
just a quick update:
I made it to the next round of the nyc midnight short story challenge! we are down to the last 240 entrants. On Thursday at 1159p I will be given a prompt. I need to write a 2000 word story and have it edited and handed in by sunday night. I am super excited to advance.
Anyone interested in being a BETA reader and help me critique and edit my entry, please email me douglas at douglasesper.com or hit me up on twitter @douglasesper
for your enjoyment, here is a random photo of me putting together/destroying a crib:
for the second year in a row i am taking part in the 24 hour short story challenge. i had 7 days to complete a 2500 word short story rolling these prompts:
genre: sci-fi
character: real estate mogul
plot point: ticket scalping
Here’s my two sentence tagline:Tagline: Working on a planet covered entirely by massive machinery, Damian faces injury and death every day. When his chance at escaping to paradise comes, however, he has to decide if sacrificing his honor is worth the price of admission.
Big thanks to tark, my dad, and skyder for extra fast editing help! any and all feedback is appreciated. and also please feel free to share this story/blog with anyone you think might enjoy!
or if you don’t want to download it, you can read it right here:
Risking Paradise
Chunga, chunga, chunga. The constant metal-on-metal drone was only ever silenced when high pressure in the machinery let off steam with a series of hisses.
Damian, the planet’s maintenance crew chief, sliced a control panel off the wall with his extended plasma scalpel. “Guys, we need this fan back up in the next three minutes or our air is going to get unbreathable, with or without our masks. Get out your EPS devices and give me a hand.”
In response, three of the thirty men in the chamber dropped their current assignments and headed toward the massive set of unmoving blades.
A pudgy man with a torn safety vest, said, “We don’t need this distraction—especially not now, with the lottery drawing in just a few hours.”
Damian knew the man was right. “Tark, if we don’t fix this problem, none of us will live to see who won.” He pressed his ear transmitter. “Tech One to control. Sector four is experiencing air loss at an alarming rate. We can keep it functional just long enough to start evac-”
Before he could finish his order, Manx, the youngest member of the crew, interrupted Damian by crying out in shock and agony as he fell to his knees. Damian knelt beside Manx as he clutched at his chest. “Take deep breaths. You’re having a heart attack, and your body needs air.”
Ignoring a snarky comment from someone behind him about the air being too toxic to help, Damian cupped behind the writhing man’s head. He guided Manx down until he rested on the steel-plated floor. “Stay with me. Tark’s grabbing the medpack. You’re going to be fine.”
Manx stared back with panic in his eyes, until his breathing slowed, slowed, and then stopped altogether. Damian squeezed his hand, and as he had done dozens of times over the past year, he prayed his crewmember found peace.
Without looking away from Manx, he asked, “How are we doing on that fan, gentlemen?” Knowing full well they had stopped to watch the commotion.
Clanking noises and urgent yelling gave him answer enough. He quickly pivoted, so that his back was to the wall and he could see each man around him. “No one make any sudden moves.”
A wiry man with gritted teeth and oil stains all down his uniform pulled out a small knife. “Out of the way, Chief. His ticket is mine. I’m getting off this nightmare planet and never looking back.”
As the knife-wielding man spoke, Damian was checking Manx’s pockets, trying to locate the lottery ticket each man had been handed one week ago. “No one’s taking his ticket. If he was the winner, his family deserves to benefit. We’re all in the same boat, stuck on this rock, but aren’t we still men? Don’t we still have honor and decency?”
“We don’t need honor,” said a muscular brute of a man Damian believed was named Sorg. “I have a metal pipe and Cob has a knife. Let’s see if your honor can stop those.”
Sneering, the armed duo advanced on Damian, who readied himself but still had one hand searching pockets. Just as Damian felt a thick piece of paper under his fingers, Tark ignited his EPS tool and slashed the plasma beam through Cob’s arm. The formerly knife-wielding man cried hysterical screams of pain and retreated. Tark gestured toward the door, and yelled, “Run for it, Chief!”
Sorg swung his metal pipe, landing a full-force blow to Tark’s temple. Blood splattered as Tark crumbled to the ground.
Damian touched his ear transmitter again. “All crew drop and go, repeat, drop and go.” He ducked another powerful swing and thrust his activated EPS up into Sorg’s ribcage.
The beast of a man howled as his innards poured out of the cut. Damian helped Tark to his feet. Arm in arm, the two men hustled out of the chamber and down a long access tunnel to a ladder that would take them up one level.
Tark released Damian’s arm and dropped to the ground. “Go on without me, buddy, my Ragnabird is cooked.”
“I can help you up.”
Tark shook his head. “Give me your EPS. I’ll hold them off long enough for you to seal us down here.” Without waiting for an answer, he reached into Damian’s holster and brought out the unlit hilt.
“These fools. Here we are trying to save them from asphyxiation and all they care about is stealing our tickets. I hope Rygal Ken is proud of this monstrous empire he’s created on the backs of thousands of dead humans.” Hearing several sets of approaching footfalls, Damian climbed the ladder, nodded thanks to his friend, and said, “I’ll make sure that-”
Gunfire overpowered his sentiment. Tark winked and limped out of sight.
Damian sealed the floor hatch and jogged toward the railcar. As he fled, the floorboards vibrated with explosions from below, signaling Control had received his message and was locking down sector four.
***
An hour later, Damian sat at a table across from Juln, a well-built man who was head of operations and, in his spare time, purveyor of all black market trading on the planet.
Flanking Juln were two of his body guards. The left one, wearing a ring Damian knew had belonged to Tark at one point, said, “Ah, the crew chief who no longer has a crew.”
Ignoring the goon, Damian set a few dozen tickets on the table. “These men all sacrificed their lives to keep your station operational, Juln.”
The guard on the left spoke again, “Get it through your thick skull, Rygal Ken owns all of these worlds, we’re just following policy.”
Without speaking, Juln lowered his gaze to the tickets. A green light shot out from his left eye and scanned the first ticket up and down three times before a soft beep sounded and the light disappeared.
Damain said, “Since my crew paid the ultimate price, you ought to compensate their families. Especially since the winner gets not only his own island on Praxis-3, but a luxury yacht to transport him and his family…er, in your case, cronies, there.”
Still silent, Juln beckoned another one of his minions from the shadows. The man put a datapad on the table.
Daimian read the offer and slammed the tablet down. “What’s this? I can’t even buy my guy’s families food for sixth months with this price per ticket.”
This time Juln spoke. His voice was gravelly and deep, sounding just like the blasted machinery Damian was tasked to fix each day. “I don’t suffer threats from lowly crewmen. This planet is one disaster away from a total meltdown and everyone knows it. Even the highest levels of onsite management are willing to try anything. Just this morning, I had Vice President Ontriza attempt to sell me bogus tickets.”
Damian leaned back, searching Juln’s expression for any hint of humor. “Why would one of the few wealthy men on the planet try something so bold?”
Juln chuckled. “What good is money when your lungs fail? He’s deep in debt trying to keep his body functioning until his ticket is pulled.”
Damian’s eyebrows shot up. “Even he can’t leave on his own?”
Juln folded his fingers together. “You know what you did to be sent here, why do you think it would be any different with him?”
“I just-”
Juln waved a dismissive hand. “This planet is a death sentence, except for the few lucky enough to spend their last years laying on a tropical island because their ticket was pulled. I’ll tell you what. Let’s make an even trade. Each ticket you give me, I’ll buy a year’s supply of your daughter’s medication. Fair?”
“And six months’ pay for each of the men who died—for their families.”
“Three months.”
Damian didn’t hesitate. “Deal.” He slid the tickets across the table. He stood, but a large hand clasped onto his shoulder, forcing him back down.
Juln leaned forward. “How’d you like to barter for the VP’s winning ticket?”
“I thought you said he gave you a fugazi?”
“I said he tried to pass me a fake. His gamble didn’t pay off.” The dealer nodded toward the pressurized holding chamber that was the only barrier between the factory and the toxic atmosphere. Juln produced a ticket and scanned it. It beeped, just as before. It bore the number 081012. “I need to know how many people died in sector four when you called for the evac. My people can go retrieve the tickets, but I’m running out of time. You have the access codes to get my guys in right away.”
“They blew the safety charges. I imagine all you’ll find are ashes. Besides, with the loot you’ll bring in from these tickets, you can almost buy passage for your whole crew off this rock.”
Juln narrowed his eyes. “‘Almost’ is my least favorite word. I have the market cornered on tickets, all except those of the men trapped in sector four.”
Both men fell silent, allowing the chunga, chunga, chunga to take over the conversation.
Damian thought of how badly he wanted to see his kids again. “I’ll agree, if you pay a year’s salary to each family that lost a loved one employed here this year.”
Juln’s poker face broke into a mile-wide grin. “Oh, now this man has a spine.”
“I just want to make sure all debts are paid.”
Juln slid the VP’s ticket across the table. “Then it’s a deal.”
Damian stood. “There’s at least 40 more tickets down there. With all of those to sell, you’ll never have to work another day in your life.”
Juln grinned, “Why start now.”
***
Back in his living quarters, Damian began to pack for his trip offworld. With a huge weight lifted from his shoulders, knowing his crew’s families would be taken care of, Damian allowed hope to spread that he’d be reunited with his own family soon.
Damian turned on the telemonitor to watch the lottery. A scrawny, pale man was speaking from a podium lined with microphones. “Before tonight’s lottery for outpost ode11711, Sir Rygal Ken would like to make a statement.”
The pale man moved aside and Rygal Ken joined him on the dais. He was an elderly man with only a few remaining tufts of white hair and a spine so curved it was a miracle the real estate mogul could stand. “This will be our last drawing for this outpost, as I have been told it has fallen in disrepair beyond saving. Evacuations are being delayed by pirate activity, something I never thought I’d see in my corner of the Universe. It is my vow to make this a safe galaxy once again.”
With that, he stepped aside. Damian zipped up his packed bag as the pale man opened an envelope and said, “The winning ticket contains a microscopic hologram projector that will offer further instructions to claim your prize. Congratulations to ticket holder 081012!”
Damian’s chest tightened. Excitement bubbled up from his stomach and out of his throat as an overwhelmed scream of joy. He held the ticket in his hand and waited for the hologram to start up.
Nothing happened.
He looked at the telemonitor, but the transmission only showed various high-level management members speaking to each other. Still nothing happened.
Damain’s body rippled with anger. He burst out into the hall. “Juln, I’m going to kill you!”
He stopped dead in his tracks, just a few feet away from six armed men pointing weapons at him.
“Hand over the ticket,” Juhl said.
Damian threw the paper onto the floor in front of him. “Choke on it. It’s worthless.”
“Not that one. The real one. Give it up or we shoot.”
Confused, Damian barked, “You’ve got a lot of nerve asking me for the winner, after what you pulled.”
Damian grabbed for his EPS, but in its place, he felt a thick piece of paper. He pulled out a ticket, read the number 081012, and thought, ‘Tark’s ticket? He must’ve put it in here when he grabbed my EPS device.’
Juln shouted, “Grab it, boys.”
Damian clenched the ticket, which emitted a small beep and a burst of light. Suddenly, standing between Damian and Juln’s goons was a full-sized hologram of Rygal Ken. The mogul held up hand. “Stop right there. Juln, call off your dogs.”
Juln spat, “Grab the ticket, you fools.” As he, himself, retreated.
Rygal commanded, “Any of you who don’t wish to perish with Juln had better help get him in my custody.”
As the goons chased their former boss, Rygal turned toward Damian. “I’ve been told you’re an honorable man. Is that true?”
Damian nodded.
Rygal continued, “Then I’m sorry to say, you won’t be retiring to Praxis-3. I need you to join my staff.”
“No, sir.”
Rygal’s expression of shock was so exaggerated, Damian grinned despite the gravity of the situation.
“Excuse me?”
Damian folded his arms. “Ever since I was assigned to this planet, I’ve seen nothing but death and poverty. Why would I work for the man who let this happen?”
Rygal dropped his gaze to his floor and sighed. When he looked back up, his expression was somber, “You have my word. I was unaware of the horrible conditions you were facing. I misplaced my trust in Ontriza and Juln, but that ended today. When my communications with the Vice President cut off this morning, I began monitoring the situation and what I saw sickened me to my very core. It seems all sorts of information has been hidden from me.”
Damian asked, “But what about the lottery, the chance for freedom, you must’ve known we wanted something to escape from.”
“When I offered islands on praxis, it was supposed to be a bonus for hardworking men, such as yourself, not the means to attract prisoners serving life sentences a chance at freedom. Hell, for me it was just a tax write-off and a way to give back at the same time.”
Rygal offered Damian an outstretched hand. “Ready?”
Although unsure what could be accomplished by shaking hands with a hologram, Damian reached out and was blinded by light as soon as his fingers touched Rygal’s. Damian blinked, and when his eyes opened, he was on the bridge of a ship, face to face with Rygal.
The owner of dozens of worlds was speaking. “…astounded how you risked everything for the well-being of your men’s families. You’re going to help me establish the next colony, which will far exceed what we attempted here. First, however, I believe you’ve earned a family vacation on Praxis-3. They are en route now…”
Rygal paused, realizing Damian was staring out the window at the planet he had spent years on. “Are you even listening?”
Damian nodded. “And for the first time in forever, I can hear you just fine.”
Rygal’s brow furrowed.
Damain chuckled. “No more chunga, chunga, chunga.”
now time to sit back and enjoy a drink to celebrate getting done in time!
i’ve known chuck mosley for 15 years and over the last ten we have spent a lot of time on the phone, on the road, and damn have we texted a lot, but besides an old band of mine opening for him and a near collaboration for a compilation cd we had never made any music together.
indoria, a project …(hang on chuck just called…ok, 35 minutes later, just heard 2 new demos for songs and tried to tell chuck how i would “produce them” and he told me why he wouldn’t do it that way) i helped start back in 1998, had been dormant for a year as michele and i adjusted to life with 2 kids, but we had 8-12 demoes floating around between us. Adam and i reached out to each other and said lets see what we have. starting in late 2013 we listened to various tracks and cherry picked a few to retry, a few to rework, and discussed some cover ideas. by spring of 2014 we had 8 tracks picked out and added 5 songs from previous releases we thought we could possibly rerecord and give a better life to. one of those songs was my favorite tune off our first disc, but when my ideas got a little grandiose, we put it on hold for a possible future release.
as usual, we asked the world of michele and gave her little warning as to our recording plans…no matter. in june of 2014, she came, she sang, she conquered. all in a few quick sessions.
One song, what i feel, felt incomplete to me. there was a breakdown part that i had wanted to a lead guitar/key/something lead to really keep the energy from the rest of the song. i gathered a list of guest musicians that we knew who might be cool to work with. at the top of my list i had the two guitarists from vua, chuck and tim. i thought i’d love to hear chucks noisy guitar swirling around tim’s clean powerful tone again and since vua weren’t very active, they might be game.
i played the song over and over in my car and tried to “sing” some possible guitar lines to give them some direction/idea was i was thinking about. my only fear is that some files i recorded that day will leak out into the public someday 🙂 while doing this, a melodic pattern started to emerge and i realized lyrics were forming more and more, each time i did it and by the end, i didn’t picture a guitar lead there anymore…just a third verse that was very different than the rest of the song.
i got adam to flip on the mic at his studio and tried messing around with the pattern and both of us seemed to think it might work. the part was more of a spoken thing than a melodic part, so i thought i had found my part on the song that up until then had been sung by michele solo. i came back that weekend and did about 5 different takes, and i really liked one of them. i was surprised, proud and excited.
in july of 2014, adam helped chuck record vocals for a special demo for a label (that is a post for another time) and i was able to sneak in some background gang style vocals. that night, we played a few songs from the new indoria for chuck. i noticed he was singing along with michele on one of the songs and we asked if he’d want to get in the vocal booth and ramble along to the song to see if anything seemed to fit.
he took a dozen passes through the song, which he hadn’t ever heard before, and he already had a good grasp on what we were going for. i thought he sounded awesome singing with my wife…like awesome awesome. so i wrote some of the lyrics out for him and also wrote the lyrics out to the third verse i had recorded. he sang that part along with my vocals and i’ll be honest, i got chills. i love this guys voice! hearing us singing together was very cool and for about 12 hours i was on cloud nine…then, i realized, i needed to cut my part out and add michele. she recorded the next weekend and managed in just 3-4 takes to match chucks unique delivery in a way i never could (listen too the way he sing’s “there’s” during the line”there’s a secret i need you to know” and how he holds it out and raises…)
later in july, adam rerecorded his bass part to reflect the new vocal pattern and we brought in jon vinson an awesome drummer to give the song some teeth. in the end we released 7 songs in december 2014 under the album title, there’s a gleam.
one of the songs is called home now and is a revamped version of a song called southbound (which i wrote on the night lebron made his south beach decision) home now was written on the day lebron announced he was coming home. the song doesn’t fit the vibe of the album, but it was a moment in time that needed to be shared.
just before the album came out, chuck let us know he had hit hard times and needed help. we decided to release the album digitally two weeks early and donate a portion of each sale to his family., we also added the track to his site and he gets 100% of that.
i am never going to be a rockstar, but i am happy with a lot of the music i have been a part of, and this track and album have been the most rewarding yet, which reenergizes me to get working on the next indoria (work is already in progress) not everyone can say they worked with one of their favorite sings and even fewer can say they wrote a duet for their wife to sing with that singer 🙂 i’m glad that when my kids hit their teen years and dad is the lamest, nerdiest dad on the planet, i have this track to play for them to let them know, once, for a brief time…dad was cool.
here is the song “what i feel” featuring chuck mosley free to listen to:
you can also donate to chuck by purchasing the song at:
chuckmosley.bandcamp.com
or buying/downloading the full album at:
indoria.bandcamp.com
