When FOX allowed Joss Whedon an intellectual property blank check so that he could create Firefly, his vision was profoundly unique and decidedly un-Star Trek. The Alliance, Whedon’s Starfleet equivalent, is portrayed as unwanted big government, both bumbling and oppressive. Gene Roddenberry’s starship crews were harmonious visions of a utopian future while the crew of the Serenity must struggle to get along and to survive. No replicators there. Perhaps that’s why Firefly (and also Star Trek’s own DS9) is part of my beloved television show pantheon. It took something I understood very well, and showed me a different way to look at it, and, rather than railing against my established conventions, I embraced the new layers that allowed me to love more deeply.

Now what does that have to do with The Naked Now, a terrible episode of television that I bid you not to watch?

Watching The Naked Now made me think about television fan miracles. I would say that Firefly is the first and finest of the modern TV and Internet era. Fans united online and purchased full-page newspaper ads. They demanded a DVD set and when it was made available it was purchased in droves. The movement caught the eye of Universal Studios, who then optioned and produced the 2005 movie continuation of the series, Serenity.

The more I think about it the more I think it’s an incredible story. The cancellation of Firefly was so tragic and sad while its resurrection was brief and bittersweet—like it was brought back from the dead just long enough for us to say our good-byes. There’s even an epilogue here, take for example, NBC’s Chuck: A show that’s never had the right ratings for survival but a vociferous, savvy, Twittering fan base there to have kept it afloat long enough for the production to go five seasons and draw its own self to a close.

So, that’s today, with the IN-TER-NET. Let’s talk Star Trek. 1960’s Star Trek. The visions and the settings may be different, but I’m reminded that Firefly and Trek are siblings in television history. The first two seasons of Trek suffered in the ratings and that led NBC to cancel the series. A grassroots fan campaign brought the series back to life for a third and final season. Sound familiar? Except this was before this IN-TER-NET thing! Incredible.

Throughout the 70’s Trekkies (My own preferred term—now you know) kept this thing percolating and ta-da, Star Trek: The Next Generation. Now, we’ve had the pilot episode Encounter at Farpoint and you know what? It was kinda neat, kinda exciting, and certainly worthy of further exploration. Then, The Naked Now burns through the benefit of the doubt surplus so handily I am led to wonder how TNG ever survived.

The episode starts with our new heroes responding to a distress call from the Tsiolkovsky (I had to look that one up because the characters say the name like Boo trying to pronounce ‘Mike Wazowski’ in Monsters, Inc.). The odd bit is that the distress call sounds more like a cell phone call from inside the confines of a raucous frat party. Humorously enough the suspicions are confirmed pretty quickly when an away team beams over and finds the corridors strewn with what look like space-aged beer funnels.

It’s a little silly, but so far the episode isn’t actually doing so bad because there’s actually a decent silliness to creepiness contrast that’s not a very common mix. It all goes terribly wrong when the story makes its way back to the Enterprise. Quickly.

I mean, the crew starts with an alert response to the crisis, as in, they immediately consider a viral contamination as a possible explanation. We know this because on the beam back the away team is fully decontaminated via the transporters. There, good, now what’s the next step? For one thing, it’s not the cavalier approach to LaForge almost instantly appearing to be symptomatic of something. I’m sure he’s fine. And two, the only thing the crew decides to Space Google is Riker’s weak sense that somewhere, somehow, he’d once heard of “someone in the shower with clothes on.”

Truly bizarre, right? Here, let’s go behind the curtain. Back on 60’s Trek there was an episode known as The Naked Time where the same virus now affecting the TNG crew famously caused George Takei’s Sulu to swordfight half-naked in the hallowed corridors of the original Enterprise. I’m willing to bet you’ve seen the clip used for a spoof on YouTube, if not, go ahead, because there’s some really good ones out there. Riker’s odd remembrance is a direct reference to the original Star Trek episode.

That’s a big reason this episode fails. It tries to do too much. It tries to reference the original series but in so doing creates an odd plot hole where characters in this new present can’t efficiently respond to a disaster from a famous past (Dr. Crusher uses the original antidote about halfway through this trod and nope, doesn’t work. Why? Just doesn’t. Later she fixes it. Why? Just does!) It also tries to get the egg cracked on these new characters, hey, get ‘em “drunk” and we can see their secret desires, but it’s messy and there’s big hunks of shell in the frypan.

Let’s run it down. We learn that Geordi just wants to see like a real boy (the blind guy wants to see… alright, we’re taking some leaps here). Tasha Yar wants to come-on-get-happy because some bad people have done some bad things to her. Data was apparently partly designed to be a—shudder—robot sex slave. Troi hears the voices in her head including one that let’s her know she still wants some Riker action. Wesley Crusher wants power and fame equivalent to his boy geniousness. Beverly Crusher has woman needs and she’d be all right with having Captain Picard’s help with this, Picard finds the feelings to be mutual—very mutual. Finally, I guess we see that Riker is a functional drunk, and, did I miss anyone? Oh, and Worf’s a Klingon, so there’s that.

It’s awkward and bad. Bad, bad, bad. Data is one of my favorite characters and in this episode he is gross and detestable. My young self, likely through a lack of comprehension, used to forgive sex toy data and his romp with saucy Tasha Yar and her odd pasted down Superman curl of hair. It’s probably because we will get to watch Data grow nostalgic about this very human day in his past. So much so that it becomes an integral part of his story, much like embarrassing moments in our own lives.

The episode wraps up with the cure found and Wesley Crusher saving the day. This is after he uses a fancy voice changer to wrest control of the ship away from the actual, you know, crew, and in fact causes the very disaster scenario he’s destined to solve. Somehow, in a final off note for this episode, this earns the pesky brat more pats on the back than raps on the knuckles and tralalalala—away we go—next episode, please.

This is going to become my favorite show? Yep. Somehow. This is where I imagine the fans to come in. It’s an adoption that makes the show very nearly human. Like Firefly fans were able to awaken their lost love for one last romance, Star Trek fans will allow this child of a series to grow, make mistakes, and do amazing things with them. They are improbable stories, almost as fantastic and inspiring as the ones which will eventually grace our screen, and why I’m inspired to write about these stories, write my own, and live my own.

Lord, that’s cheesy. Eh, so is Star Trek.

At the moment, in Danny Bing's 12-year-old fingers, it was just a bit more. He held it high above his head giving the very top of the remote a slight counterclockwise twirl--a timing mechanism, of course, for timing the pitcher.

"The 1-0 to Bismarc..."

Danny swung the remote with the might his skinny frame could muster, so hard he could feel the blood cram down into his fingertips with an unpleasant tingling. On the TV screen, Danny's favorite ballplayer, Hunter Bismarc, did nothing.

"Bismarc watches it wide," the announcer narrated.

"Hapner really slowing the pace down here," interjected the cohost, "Two walks already and he can't afford a third--but on a 2-0 pitch Hunter will be looking for a pitch he can drive."

"That seems to be on everyone's mind as it's going to bring out the pitching coach, Dave Hollins, and the entire infield to the mound."

"Oh, come on!" Sam Bing complained from his bean bag, "All they do is stand around and talk. This is boring."

"Squirt, if you don't like it you can go watch the downstairs TV, we're not watching Fantasy Knights, that's a baby show," Danny said, his eyes and remote bat getting ready for the next pitch.

Sam groaned. Danny used a classic big brother deflection. He knew full well that Sam could not watch TV in the family living room. The boys had just lost big TV privileges for two weeks after leaving a video game running overnight on Dad's fancy new plasma. They knew the sentence was light, if their mistake had actually ruined the TV screen, the punishment would have been death. Sam chose to focus on Danny's more contentious argument.

"It is not a baby show. Altidore would have killed two goblins by now. Five. And a troll."

"Alti-dork looks like a girl," Danny said, swinging. On screen Hunter Bismarc stood motionless as the pitch skipped in the dirt.

"He has a beard! Girl's don't have beards."

"So, he's an ugly girl."

Bested verbally, Sam filled with rage. His brother, although long, lanky, and growing more awkward every day, still made an excellent target. Sam doubled up his body to make his comparative roundness just a bit more round, grasped a fold of bean bag vinyl behind his head, and rolled forward--flipping the chair into the air like a chunky human trebuchet.

Round and red, Sam's missile did not miss.  As Danny raised the remote into Hunter Bismarc's batting stance the bag cruised into his lower back, wrapping his waist like an angry hug. The remote fell from his hands as he sprawled forward like a bundle of sticks. It clattered neatly to Sam's feet, by no means a part of the plan, but most certainly a welcome result.

"Squirt," Danny said, slowly, evenly, as he gathered his body back under his control, "Don't you even think about it."

Sam was beyond thinking and moving well into planning. With determination he stepped over the remote, his round little chin bravely pointed in the air.

Danny sighed, "You asked for it."

Then, all civility in Danny's brother to brother relations disappeared. He launched himself at Sam without regard for safety, Sam's or his own. His hands firmly grabbed Sam's sloped shoulders and effortlessly used his older body to crush the little one into the ground. The tears were instant.

"Well, what did you think was going to happen?" Danny shouted, mercilessly shoving Sam against the floor with each word.

"Stop! Stop! Stop!" screamed Sam.

"Give back the remote!"

"Owwww!" Sam gasped, "Owwwwww!"

"What is it, baby? What is it?"

Sam shrieked as Danny kept him pinned to the floor with his bony knee. Then, Danny saw his little brother's eyes widen in just the slightest way, a way that, for the moment, let Danny know something was really wrong and urged him into hesitant compassion. He let up his knee.

"What is it?" this time in a tone that was not taunting, but it wasn't caring either. Danny wouldn't know it but he sounded just like his mother at her most exasperated.

"The... the... remote."

Danny grabbed Sam's side and rolled him over to reveal the remote on the floor underneath Sam's back. Sniffling, Sam righted his black square glasses on his face and scooted himself a few paces away and into a sitting position while Danny inspected the damage.

"If you broke this..." Danny whispered as he turned the remote towards the television, "What the..."

On TV the baseball game was still on screen and the image of Hunter Bismarc tossing his bat and making his way to first base still visible, but barely. Row after row of neon green numbers filled the screen and at the bottom, still growing, the TV struggling to catch up to all the commands. Then, they stopped, and, after a dramatic pause, the channel... changed.

The colors were the first thing the boys noticed. Deep purple, vibrant blue, and an electric aquamarine swirled on the screen in a violent tornado. The twister drained into two large, white-hot dots of light. The dots themselves moved in sync  around the screen, like a pair of sinister eyes checking out the den. Finally the dots also twirled around one another before becoming a single point of light in the very center of the screen. The TV, and den, were silent.

"Oops," Sam said.

Danny shook his head, his brother's voice bringing him back to his senses.

"I'll fix it. You better believe this means we're finishing the baseball game."

"Fine, but you better hurry. We're really going to get it if Dad sees this."

"Relax."

Danny said it but he was already starting to doubt it. The up channel button do anything, and neither did the down. This is where things quickly got tricky. The remote had a lot of buttons, most of which Danny didn't understand or belonged to VCR functions that the family had since tossed and replaced.

"What's the matter?" Sam asked.

"Nothing, just give me a sec."

Stop looked promising, but that was almost certainly for the VCR. There was also Input Select, a button that had confused the family before by cycling the television through external video sources not actually connected, and maybe the brothers had inadvertently  found one of those. Eventually Danny settled on Exit, because whatever this was, deep down Danny somehow knew he wanted no part of it for longer than he had to. It was not the right choice.

The first thing the boys felt was a deep shake and a decompressing sound like a dumpster being slammed shut. Then the den filled with a rush of air, instantly knocking both boys to the floor. The goal of the gust was undeniable as newspapers on the coffee table, clouds of dust, and other light bits of debris swirled towards the white dot in the middle of the TV. The bean bag rose into the air and disappeared next while the coffee table lurched forward and somewhere in the room something large crashed to the ground. Books and knickknacks now filled the air--everything hitting the TV screen and zipping out of existence.

Danny had a firm hold on a couch leg. He was strong enough to lay there bouncing in the wind and try to parse out what was happening all around him. He was scared, that was for sure, but he was old enough to also feel like this could not truly be happening. He tried to remember falling asleep on the couch. As much as he loved baseball, that could have happened, and maybe this was all a nap. Below his flopping feet, however, was his nerdy 9-year-old brother, Squirt, whimpering while his fingers tried to keep their grip on the legs of the coffee table. Danny hated to admit it, but it looked like one of Squirt's wild fantasy stories would this time be true, although he noted with some satisfaction that the boy was clearly not enjoying himself.

Sam was trying desperately to make his way up to the couch where his brother held fast. All he could think was that somehow being with Danny meant safety. He tried to stay calm but each time he let one arm go he could feel the other begin to slip and he needed to grab back to his place, his body and the table inching ever closer to the vortex. He set his goal shorter, to just the next table leg. Then, with every bit of bravery he could manage, jumped forward. His hands not only missed their marks, but as his elbows came crashing to the floor around his ears he knocked his glasses down to his chin. They wiggled a bit, worked free, and then hurtled into the television with a wink. Sam looked up at his brother.

"Mom's gonna kill me," he said... and let go.

"Sam!" Danny shouted.

What an idiot Danny thought as his brother struck the screen with a flash of blinding white light.

Then, sighing more like a grandfather then a middle schooler, Danny went in after his little brother.

Image via Wikipedia

There’s no way to pin down the exact date in time where I first saw an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Likewise, there’s no way to quantify the day I moved from seeing an episode for the first time and becoming a Star Trek fan. Twenty years ago, a nice round number and as good a guess as any, I was nine years old. I would have wrapped up fourth grade, a year of intense bullying and not entirely coincidental first signs of academic faltering—the worst year of my young life. TNG was wrapping up its fourth season and had just wrapped up arguably its best season ever. It was officially established as a worthy successor to the original and already stood on its own as one of the best science fiction shows of all time. We were meant for each other.

Like many real stories of true love TNG and I did not immediately find each other. Our start was rather auspicious in fact, like trying onion rings for the first time—it takes time to establish how great is the good and how awful is the bad. Perhaps my ability to overcome my first experience with TNG it is proof of just how drawn to the show I was.

I remember distinctly walking into the family TV room, an adult show on the TV, my father in his chair. My queries were answered patiently, I learned the show’s title, and maybe I gleaned some concept of… concept. Whatever I first learned as my dad explained Star Trek to me was short lived. My first viewing was cut very short. The episode on the screen was a repeat from season one, the infamous Conspiracy, and I had just stepped into the scene most infamous. Moments into my first viewing of Star Trek, a man was ripped apart by phaser fire, exposing an alien bug living in his exploded torso. I left the room, shaken.

While that memory is seared into my mind I can’t recall anything specific about how I crawled back to that television. Week after week I needed to learn more. This was my first adult show. My first exposure to “repeats.” My first understanding of “ratings,” or “syndication.” Character death. Character romance. Characters! Hope! Aspiration! This was my show, this was my childhood.

Star Trek: The Next Generation, as of July 1, 2011, is available for streaming, in its entirety, on Netflix. Since it has been available it has occupied my TV nearly every free hour of my day. Firefly is a must-see experience… and I love LOST, but this, this, this is my favorite show of all time. After a half-month of hunting and pecking for my favorite episodes, and after gaining some inspiration from the excellent TNG blog at the Onion AV Club, I realized there is a project here I almost have to do.

Although I highly doubt I can ever finish this, boot up your Netflix, set phasers to nostalgic, and trek through my memories while I watch the show that made me.

TNG premiered in 1987, some 20 years after the original (Twenty is a catchy number!) “The next generation” is a clunky tag, but could it be any more appropriate? As a child of baby boomers, the original Trek was for my parents, and TNG was for me. The original deserves a mention here. Oh, I’ve seen it. Oh, I respect what it tried to do, what it did do, and what it meant to my mother, but it will always be a show from the 60’s—a time I didn’t experience, and the disconnect will always be there.

When Encounter at Farpoint debuted, however, I wasn’t really a guarantee. My parents, fans of the former series, were. This made the new series painfully try to live up to its prototype in its early days—just like a bad spin-off but without the usual benefit of an actual former series regular. (Actually, McCoy is going to make an appearance here, but it looks like someone frosted his face with pancake batter). It wasn’t the series I grew to love, but it’s like sticking your nose in beer wort, when you know where the final product came from, you respect the beauty of the aging process.

What surprised me most about Encounter was just how not bad it was. The problem with this pilot is that it’s trying really hard to be two things: a pilot that introduces each character as completely as possible, and an action packed 1980’s made for TV sci-fi movie. It’s a problem for all pilots, even the great Firefly pilot Serenity felt clunky and forced in places, but on TNG the forced character backgrounds are a jarring surprise. That off-putting feeling, however, is not being fair to what Encounter is trying to do, it’s trying to introduce me to people I don’t know when, oops, I know these characters inherently. That’s why, as a writer, I found myself fascinated by Encounter.

There are some crucial character interactions in this pilot. Commander Riker is reunited with his Imzadi (which in Betazoid apparently means mega lover?), Counselor Troi, and while they feign indifference to one another in front of Captain Picard the view is treated to their telepathic soap opera dialog. Picard tests Riker as his new second in command with an unnecessary manual maneuver of the Enterprise—which apparently works because it immediately leads to a terrible conversation where Picard explains that he hates the kids these days and he’s going to need Riker’s help not being such an old man. There’s a truly great scene, a testament to actual decent expository writing and Patrick Stewart’s acting dynamo, where the Captain attempts to save face with his new Doctor, Beverly Crusher, by letting her leave her new post. In her flat refusal to accept pity we learn her prior acquaintance with Picard and that it somehow has to do with the death of her husband.

As a lifelong fan I know all that. The question, then, is why? Do I know facts because they’ve been established in these expository scenes of the pilot? Or, did I come to know it over time because of my faithfulness to these characters and their premise? I suppose what becomes truly great about TNG is that all of this overt characterization will eventually disappear below the surface of these characters, like the way the cops act on Law & Order, and that while these people may be dealing with deep, personal demons they will actually go on to be the best, and highest achieving officers in Starfleet. Instead of hashing themselves out and reorganizing their social structure on a weekly basis like Grey’s Anatomy doctors, these characters will spend the rest of the series being exactly who they are and associating with their comrades at an almost—human—speed.

While meeting the new characters and the sexy new ship is fun with only a few missteps (early data is too smirky, smarmy, and, well, icky) the movie in which they play is unfortunately muddled and at times tedious. I don’t hate it. I just eventually wanted it to be over.

The first mission of the new Enterprise is to go check out the mysterious Farpoint Station for reasons none other than its, uh, mystery. On the way they’re attacked by a space fishnet that makes banging garbage can sounds. This net is created by the omnipotent creature known as Q. John de Lancie’s Q, although my mother hates him for being mean, is instantly captivating. What is instantly gratifying is that Q is precociously malevolent and Picard handles his appearance with both calm and gravitas. It really sells the whole Star Trek premise. Beings from other worlds can zap into existence on a spaceship and hey, it’s just another day at work.

Unfortunately it’s a bad day at work because Q is putting Picard and his people on trial for the savage nature of humanity. How’s that for some science fiction impetus? After Q freezer burns a crew member here and there Picard is forced to concede that human history has been rife with warfare. He asks that before being put to death that this version of humanity (Humanity 2.0?) be tested to prove that Q’s claims no longer ring true. Hey, sweet! Now we can use the original plot!

So, to make a long post short (Checking, nope, still quite long), the Picard kids figure out the mystery of Farpoint Station. With the help of the sudden appearance of a monolithic purple (There’s a lot of purpling) alien spacecraft and the emotional transference capabilities of a character we shall never see again in the run of TNG, I shall call her Useful Troi™, we learn that both spacecraft and space station are giant space aliens. They’re a sort of giant, glow-y jellyfish with the ability to turn energy into matter. The reveal is really quite beautiful except that during take off the space station jellyfish literally high fives the spacecraft alien on take off. Can someone do a YouTube riff where the episode pauses there and the song from the end of The Breakfast Club starts playing?

This is a pilot, through and through, but man, was it stronger than I remember. It gives me high hopes for this project. At Camp Fowler there is a famous staff meeting every year where the staff grapples with what evening tag games we’re going to run for each week of camp. There’s an adult sentiment that childhood needs to be rerun for others just the way we remembered our own. It’s a one-time-only commodity and historically trying to relive it results in failure and disappointment.

I feared that diving back into TNG with adult eyes would tarnish the memory, like trying to play tag in the forest with creaky knees and a newfound respect for fire ants. Here, even the scenes I dreaded, like Wesley Crusher (Oh, I’m sure we’ll get to him) barging onto the bridge, are just the way I remember.

Like Picard at the end of Farpoint, Let’s see what’s out there.

Engage.

Just know.

The dice are watching you.

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Reality TV

I was setting up a new scanner with my computer last night for a secret project when I stumbled on an old folder on my hard drive. These pictures are amazing to me. My hard drives in the old HP and iBook have crashed 3-4 times by now and I am disbelief these are still floating around.

The Monkey Gone Mad EP, in one of the most amazing strokes of genius ever, was titled 'Skunk With a Porpoise;' a bad pun derived from the phrase, 'Skank with a purpose.' We knew a cartoonist but there was a concern we wouldn't be able to get artwork from him for the cover. I drew this during my 'Geek Rock' days as a backup plan so that we had something that 'could work' if our professional arrangement fell through.

We also wanted to use a shot of our practice space in Ian's basement as a part of the EP packaging. I have no idea why this intriguing shot was passed over.

Click that to get the large size for sure because there is some interesting hair to check out on the ghost me. Also, I still own and wear that shirt. That was a present I got from Fowler friends for my 18th birthday. Fun facts!

Knowing that three of your best friends are now living together in the same house makes me pretty jealous. Especially since I've done it before and I can verify it's pretty great. Here's one of my favorite stories from that time.

When you went up the stairs (we had stairs, how great was that?) in the apartment at 1051 Park you could go left into my room or you could head right into Jordan's studio. A few times that little corridor would really buzz with musical creativity.

One of these times Jordan called me in to listen to a hip hop groove he had laid down into one of his first ever sessions with Garageband. Even though this was an early recording it was definitely head bop worthy. He said he was working on the chorus and asked if I thought I could put a rap down over it. Definitely, I thought. There was a real sultry, seductive drive to the tune so I decided to go for it and write something a little out of my comfort zone. Later that same night this is what I returned to him:

I approach with words most intimate,
I got a car let's go, get into it.
Hands grasp the breeze through the window slit;
Sunset evening, to the night, it slips.
Engine turns to the tune of a heart beat,
Stars wink away the last of the summer heat,
Moon shines on a rocky shore,
We open up, like never before.
No place I'd rather be
Then riding by this silver sea.
We travel roads that never existed
'Til you came to me and then persisted
Upon my every thought and dream
Boiling over and building up steam:
Night ride to the world of Neverland,
You can be Wendy and I'll be Peter Pan.

He asked if I was ready to give it a shot and I was so we threw it down on the track with just a couple of takes. He had a funny business silence about the whole thing. Alright, great, he said when we had finished... now he played the chorus with a funny look on his face.

Out of the computer came Jordan's completely different take on the song. A somber and echoing falsetto voice pined these words:

Something's gone
It's gone away
It left today
Something's gone
It's gone away
It left today

"Oh," I said.

"Sorry," He said.

We didn't give up on the tune, we worked with the incongruous words and the end result is some of my favorite lyrical work we've ever done. Now I love that the first verse sets up how good the rapper perceived his romance, in the second he immediately let's the listener know that he's not actually experiencing his words but remembering them, and finally the third verse exhibits a new strength and maturity. The song has a real arc. Here's how it goes:

If I'd known-
I would have bought a camera.
Picture everyday,
If I only had the stamina.
A scrapbook in my hands instead of my head,
When you changed my life but left me for dead.(These lines did not make the final recording.)
I see our story in every sunset.
Happy ever after with daughters and sons, yet,
Something's gone, and it's gone away,
So you leave me again at the end of the day.
My mind and my heart, I live it again...
I know I shouldn't but I let it begin.
Over and in, the engine it spins
As I ride with the seat that you're no longer in.
Where to go when you're the destination?
Accelerate, and vent frustration.
Water shields the view from my eyes-
I'd use the wipers but the windshield is dry.

What is this story? Why is it a song?
Maybe it's yours, and you can sing along.
Absolutely necessary? Lesson to learn?
Would we know how to heal without feeling the burn?
Is there one among us who can really deny
They've broken a heart, or given a try?
Or find themself laughing over someone they cried?
If that person is here, then that person can lie.
That is why I'm driving this path:
To find out what is after the aftermath.
It's never perfect- more cloudy than clear.
But that's why there's headlights and a wheel to steer.
We know that we can only keep travelin'
And heed the messages in life's unravelin'.
I'll meet you all at the end of the road,
When the story we're telling is the story we've told.

This week I can do more then just tell you about this track. Why not listen for yourself?

Hip Hop 1

As you can see we never titled this track. Leave your suggestions in the comments!

This song is from before I even knew how to play guitar. I use the word song loosely. My method was to write poetry (again, a term used loosely) and then whimper to Ian that I wanted to make a song out of it. Then I'd half-tonally honk a melody at him and he'd try to provide some logical chords. My memory might be foggy but I believe the ska-rap-opera known as Dengali was written this way. That song ended with fruit snacks being tossed into the audience so there were definitely positive results.

Waiting for Phil! never survived this process. The song itself remains intriguing because it makes me remember places, people, and things that I might have just as easily forgotten. Here are the words in their entirety.

Waiting for Phil!

I'm waiting!
Waiting for Phil!
Phil, why must you roam?
I want to go home,
I'm waiting,
Waiting for Phil!

'Cause I'm waiting!

The origin of my angst was my first and only campus job for Ithaca College dining services. It was two forty-five minute shifts a week cleaning up the bakery located above the Terraces Dining Hall. The titular character Phil was the Terraces manager. He would let the three of us working this shift up into the bakery and then go back downstairs to run the actual meal operations happening at the time. We could go home when the work was done.

It was awful work. It wasn't toilet cleaning, no, yet somehow the sticky, saccharine mess was all the more sinister just because it was so innocent. This was the bakery for all the treats provided to the entire campus dining system and all those tasty Hansel and Gretel-like cookie buffet breadcrumbs laid out to entice incoming students and visiting high schoolers to stay. The spoons and bowls left behind after these delicacies weren't morsels for licking. These were 10 pound mixer blades caked with flour and egg. The bottoms of the barrel sized mixing bowls would have upwards of three to four inches of frosting remaining. When you added soap to the mix you ended up with a sweet smelling, citrus tinged, sudsy, slippery, stubborn goo. Our tool for wringing this out into the sinks were nothing more than a handful of white terry wash cloths. One of the three of us didn't even bother to return the next week.

Even if we felt it was a successful shift the real issue was getting Phil to come upstairs to inspect the work. The worst possible scenario was having Phil spot a dollop of coagulated jelly inching down the side of an oven and getting the request to nab a couple of these touch up spots. Then he would descend back downstairs never to be found again.

By December I had had enough. A semester of free meals on Thursday nights and this unfinished tune was the only thing of value that ever came out of the Terrace Dining Hall Bakery.

I put too much effort into this.