Chatters… November 22, 2009

“Good you know about Vileness now. He or she lived on the bottom of Drink Lake for years and years, maybe still does. Not vile at all in my eyes. I’ve visted with he/she a number of times now in past/present/future, anticipating this intersection.”

bb:

Catfish?

Hucka D.:

Alien, though.

bb:

I thought the name would be just Vile, though, not like Vileness of Vileness Fats.

Hucka D.:

The fish was fat as well, but big fat not fat fat. The beavers knew her… I’ll call him a her here for simplicity.

bb:

Which was it? Never mind.

bb:

And out of VILE grew TILE, not the other way around. The Quadrobeavs misinterpreted the “V” as a “T”.

bb:

*They* called it Vile.

Hucka D.:

A shortening of its real name, yes.

bb:

And it was a catfish.

Hucka D.:

Sort of. Very big… and walking. 2 eyes represents the sun and the moon. Not, um…

bb:

Right, I get ya. The eyes.

Hucka D.:

It was from Sirius, you know. A Sirius creature come to Earth specifically to live underneath Drink Lake after it formed. The beavers knew. They tried to tell you that day. But they thought the V was a T as well.

bb:

I still think that might be the other way around. T turns into V.

Hucka D.:

Plant would know.

Plant:

Hi.

bb:

Hey Plant. Mr. You know about Vileness?

Plant:

No. Here’s Hucka Doobie again.

(no Hucka D.)

bb:

I don’t see him.

Plant:

Wait. I’ll go look.

(pause)

*****

While he’s gone I’ll just chat more with the reader, then. Today I went to Drink Lake and got the inspiration that a large fish use to live at the bottom of this lake. This would represent the dammed water on the lower part of CREEK, elsewhere TILE Creek. But Hucka D. is indicating TILE actually comes from VILE. I’m not sure…

Hucka D. (interrupting):

… I’m back. Plant said he didn’t know VILE. My mistake.

bb:

I was just telling the reader or readers of this blog about that, as you probably heard when you came in.

Hucka D.:

Nah, sorry. I missed that. Go ahead… didn’t mean to interrupt.

bb:

Well… I was telling them that I’m still not sure VILE comes before TILE.

Hucka D.:

It’s on the Sgt. Pepper cover. Entrance to the Temple. VILE Temple. VEIL… VILE. You read it, remember?

bb:

Sirius was brought up in that thread concerning Paul’s — McCartney’s — blue uniform, blue like the robes of the High Priestess who is Isis, and who stands for Sirius according to many sources.

Hucka D.:

That association was suppose to be made. He is the Magician passed into the High Priestess — 1 into 2 — but both beyond The Fool.

bb:

I’m seeing a very flat fish… almost 2 dimensional.

Hucka D.:

Quite so.

bb:

Yellow Submarine?

Hucka D.:

Sea of Green. So 2 dimensional that it almost didn’t exist. Right on the limit.

bb:

Black hole on the bottom of the lake?

Hucka D.:

Yes?

(to be continued?)

Black Book, The June 7, 2009

A new group of toy avatars arrive in a spiffy sports goodmobile, complete with see-thru walls and neon colored trim. No plain, rusty ol’ cylinder for these trendmaker wannabes! Blue Feather and Tronboid are their names, but they also brought along, let’s see, their 5 pets: a snail, a bee, a butterfly, a beetle bug, and a flower. A flower? Blue Feather and Tronboid never travel without their beloved pets, partly because of fondness but also admittedly because they can do work that the master pair don’t wish to do themselves. Well, at least what Blue Feather doesn’t want to do, because he is the true master, and Tronboid merely a more simple minded travel companion. Tronboid truly loves the pets; Blue Feather sees them more as work slaves, as he sees Tronboid himself in that light sometimes. But Blue Feather would be the first to admit that it makes for one crowded ride.

They read about the the location of the camp in a recent article in Toy Avatar Digest. Amazing! they thought. We must visit this site in the legendary Salad Bar Jack in the River of TILE. The dark, mysterious Cave of the Alphabet with its haunting, nightly humming of a certain famous childhood mnemonic. The bridge over TILE Creek where Bill Fork slipped and fell to his untimely death. The tree where Screamer (played by Tommy “The Screamer” Benerson) died of fright in the middle of the night after hearing a deep growl in the surrounding woods. The mossy rock where Mossman was enjoying an afternoon nap in the sun when he first heard the singing of the cave. On and on and on it could go.

They set down in the middle of a clearing described in the article, and where the first goodmobile arrived in Jonesborough in the movie, carrying T-Bonz and his Mmmmmms. Sacred ground!

Blue Feather and Tronboid seal up the pets inside the flashy goodmobile and continue toward Oblong rock directly in front of them. They saw pictures of this large rock in the article, and read that the old camp the actors made during the shooting was located just behind it. They thought they’d start with that on their sightseeing tour of the area. But to get pass the rock they had to cross, nay, crawl across this slippery log-bridge. Of course they thought of Bill Fork and his deadly fall off a similar bridge in the same area. They crept very carefully, thus, but truth is that both Blue Feather and Tronboid, being much stockier and more solidly built avatars, would most likely not be harmed in such a fall, especially off this less high bridge here. But, then again, both were cowards at heart, especially Tronboid.

It looks like some of the camp remains! Not good woods cleanup management, admittedly, but both Blue Feather and Tronboid are very happy. But when they come closer, a shocking revelation…

… the colorful shapes they saw from the now safely traversed bridge are those of toy avatars themselves! Mind you, the first ones that Blue Feather and Tronboid ran across, including Snoppy and his bird friend Woodstock here, were merely hired hands in the movie. Covered with dirt and leaves, often half buried in the ground even, they appeared as if in suspended animation.

MORE TEXT SOON.

The Wall Point… September 9, 2008

Geomantic omphalos to the Quadrobeavs. More soon on them…

Herman Park, Frank Park, Boulder July 1, 2008

So I’m now *way* behind in creating texts for my posts. I’m gonna make a quick run of this one, since it’s mostly location shots. The 1st is of the spillway featured in the new Salad Bar Jack movie now in production. This is at the Drink Lake Dam; Drink Lake Beach is just off-camera here to the right of the viewer.


Next is a more recent picture of the 4th portal on the RIVER. This portal system has not been mentioned in this blog in a while. I’ll try to rectify that more soon.

This is a photo of what I call the Square Forest, also located in Frank Park like the 4th portal. As you can see, there’s a picnic table positioned just outside the forest, in a meadow just west of it.

Path leading into the Square Forest. Lots of poison ivy in there; I don’t dare to enter until Fall.

Then we come to the main subject of this post, which is a rock face within the Boulder city limits (to those who don’t know, Boulder is the town that both Frank and Herman Park lie just outside of to the north). Tucked under this largish rock faces is a marshy area with a small brook running through it. My guess is that this area use to hold a small pond.

Within the often boggy areas of this small space are a number of tires and also what appears to be, perhaps, the remains of an old chimney. The chimney, especially, interests me as a possible shot location for a future Salad Bar Jack production. I’ll return to this subject.

One last look at the rock face. Notice the old, deflated basketball.

Mmmmmm’s Homeground June 15, 2008

In a recent, long discussion with Grassy Noll, better known as the actor who plays Salad Bar Jack in all those toy avatar adventure movies, I learned much about the homeland of the Mmmmmm’s. The picture below shows the tree they call First Tree, which they state their species landed in on this world from another commonly called Hades. Whether this is the same as the dwarf planet we call Pluto (the Roman term for the god Hades) or not is as yet undetermined.

A close up of the rusty old and quite large goodmobile that acted as transport to this planet. It’s lodged in the tree now, supposedly at the very place it was lodged all those many years ago upon their arrival. When I asked Salad Bar Jack how many Mmmmmm’s originally landed on this planet, he stated 7, which within the month increased to 12 since one of the crew members was pregnant. I didn’t want to insult his counting skills at the time, but the way I’m seeing it that lassie must have had quintuplets. Later I did some research on the [delete name] board and found, yes, that female Mmmmmm’s commonly give birth to 4-6 young at a time, and that a 1 child pregnancy is rare. So maybe the Mmmmmm’s math skills are sound after all.

Btw, Salad Bar called the original father and mother of this world Lodi and Heidi (oringally: Hidi), and thereafter both became common names for Mmmmmm’s, especially of the non-red strain. Thus the reason for the surfacing of the name Lodi in the movie Salad Bar Jack in the River of TILE in connection with the orange Mmmmmm played by thespian Gypsy Purse.

Over the hill from the First Tree we come upon the banishing place of the red strain of the Mmmmmm’s, whose insuing isolation from the more sophisticated colors made them even more stupid, collectively, than they were before the Great Division.

Here in what they termed Big Log we see the remains of some of their primitive dwelling holes.

This prominent combination of living and dead giant shrubbery pictured below, visible from all of their small habitat, confused and confounded the Reddies even further. They appropriately dubbed it “Baffle Bush”, which compounds the stupidity since anyone with sense can see it’s actually two bushes, one living and one dead. Some Reddies blame the malevolent spirit of the bush(es) on all their lacks in areas of intelligence and manners, but most non-Reddies don’t believe this one bit, blaming their societal rot instead on inbreeding and inferior genes in general. The giant shrubs are just that: giant shrubs, and nothing more. And don’t tell them anything else because they won’t listen to ya.

However, since pairs of bushes have cropped up in several places in this blog, we must, I believe, pay special attention to this potential new aspect of the overall archetype. Remember also that the Mmmmmm’s are perhaps from the planet Pluto, which has also already been attached to the 2 bush theme in this blog.

Below is the beach at Drink Lake where I caught up with Grassy Noll for that long discussion about Mmmmmm’s. The beach is also near the First Tree, and where the Mmmmmm’s, according to tradition, first learned about the advantages and disadvantages of natural bouyancy. It is rare to find the famous beach so deserted, and Grassy enjoys the solitude by wading far into the gently sloping coastal shelf here. Careful not to float off!

Grassy later enjoying a snooze on a leaf recliner.

CREEK (New Hope) June 6, 2008

Jonesborough East: The Parties Unite + The Appearance June 3, 2008

Mossman was enjoying an afternoon nap on the mossy cliffs above the cave and the White Rock when he was roused by the singing. In his several days in the area, he had never heard the rock “sing” before so he didn’t know what to make of it at first — couldn’t tell what direction it was coming from. Finally he was able to get a bead on the source and came upon the the still sleeping T-Bonz.

“Wake up sleepy head,” exclaimed the moss creature in a ferocious but not-as-ferocious-as-you-would-imagine voice. “What did you do?” asked Mossman to the stirring T-Bonz, pointing to the white rock jut. “What is that humming or singing and why is it coming from that rock? Why are you here?”

All legitimate questions, of course, but when T-Bonz came out of his fuzzy headedness and looked around, he was more concerned about there being only *two* Mmmmmm’s on the rock below, and not the three he left there. “WHERE’S VERDI IMBECILES???” he roared to the remaining Mmmmmm’s Cherry and Berry below, who began to quake upon seeing their master up and about again.

“How dare you speak to an Mmmmmm in that tone?” the surprised Mossman then exclaimed, not as a reproving remark but just one of disbelief. “Why?” T-Bonz asked gruffly, turning back to the moss man. “How do you treat them? Like princes and princesses?”

“I treat them with the honor that elders should be treated, although I am not familiar with the dealings of the red strain of that species. I know the orange ones command much respect. You appear to be the master of those, but Lodi, the orange one I travel here with from, as for now, unnamed dimensions, is more my master than I his, although he wouldn’t put it that way.

“Well that’s just plain stupid,” T-Bonz retorts. “They’re just little pieces of plastic candy.”

“Are we not plastic as well?” responded Mossman thoughtfully in that loud but not-too-loud voice.

“We’re different,” T-Bonz says. “*I’m* different anyway. We are shaped like the man of the outer world. They are not.”

“Just because they are natives of the inner world and are more distant to the shapes and forms of the exterior does not make them necessarily inferior to us, um, what did you say your name was stranger?”

“I didn’t,” T-Bonz replied. “But since you’re asking it’s T-Bonz. But I haven’t got all day to stand up here yammering about philosophy of up and down and sideways and whatnot. I gotta find that stray Mmmmmm.”

“Yes, like you T-Bonz, I do not know the whereabouts of my companion Mmmmmm, one in my case. He disappeared inside that cave your red Mmmmmm’s stand on the edge of and hasn’t returned yet, although he promised he would as soon as he could. He said something about a, um, what was it? Portal. Yes, the cave is a portal. It is called The Cave of The Alphabet, he said. Have you heard of it? Is this by chance why you are here, to also deal with this portal, whatever it is?”

“Damn you ask a lot of questions green man,” replied T-Bonz in his gruff way. He turned and jumped down from the ledge, going up to the shaking red Mmmmmm’s and demanding simply, in about as loud a voice as he could muster: “WHERE?!?”

It took all of Cherry and Berry’s balance just remain upright, so frightened they were, but one of them managed to point toward the cave. T-Bonz understood, then.

He stomped toward the mouth of the cave but then turned back to Mossman who had followed him off the cliff. “You don’t suppose, mossy man, that they’re in there TOGETHER???” (pause). What sex did you say your little orange buddy was?”

“Male, I think,” replied Mossman. “What’s yours?”

“I dunno… female I suppose.”

But before they could follow this train of thought further to its possible logical conclusion, Cherry and Berry were excitedly calling them back to the rock they had remained on all this time. “We found her, we found her. Verdi is here!” they shouted, waving to Mossman and T-Bonz at the mouth of the cave. “Well, at least MY problem is taken care of,” exclaimed T-Bonz, actually happy to see Verdi in the distance. “Stupid things must have just imagined she went into the cave or sumtin.”

But when T-Bonz and Mossman went back to the rock, they found a green Mmmmmm who T-Bonz definitely knew was not Verdi. Like T-Bonz, he only had one arm, while Verdi most assuredly had two.

“Who are you?” demanded T-Bonz in an unflattering voice.

“My name is Salad Bar Jack,” came the response. “And I am the last of the green Mmmmmm’s.”

Easy as… June 2, 2008

Interviewer (Toy Avatar Weekly):

We’re here with Grassy Noll, star of the new toy avatar production The Adventures of Salad Bar Jack in the River of TILE. Tell us how you got involved in this production Grassy, and how you won the coveted role of Salad Bar Jack? And how you approach this character?

Grassy Noll:

They were looking for either a one armed actor or one whose arm came naturally out of joint so they could pin it behind his back. I fit one of the two categories (laughs).

Interviewer:

You are a Mmmmmm in real life as well.

Grassy:

Yeah, hard to hide that fact (laughs).

Interviewer:

What are your inspirations to play the character, or how would you define your philosophy of acting as applied to this particular role?

Grassy:

You take it day to day. I may act tomorrow and I may not. If I don’t I’m drinking (smiles).

Interviewer:

That’s it?

Grassy:

Seriously, I will add there’s a special quality about this production, and it has to do with the actual river that the whole story revolves around.

Interviewer:

The River of TILE?

Grassy:

It talks to us at night, even through the drunkenness. Something has happened in the camp that’s pretty odd. We left the recorders on by accident, or so they say, the second night we were in the woods. Something was picked up.

Interviewer:

Burping?

Grassy:

No, seriously. The Scream (actor Tommy Benerson) said he heard it in reality, but no one took him super serial until we listened to the playback. It was a hum, a humming I should say.

Interviewer:

Back to your inspiration for the role.

Grassy (ignoring request):

It was humming the Alphabet Song. No words — or letters in this case — but just the humming part, the tones. That’s what we recognized.

(to be continued)

Jonesborough East: Prelude To “The Parties Unite” May 31, 2008

Safely off the bridge across (Tile) Creek now and in Jonesborough East, as I’m calling it, T-Bonz and his Mmmmmm’s scamper down the root system of the uprooted tree to the open area below the long rock wall discussed before, which runs all along the east side of the “burg”. Ooops, Berry or Cherry make boo boo climbing down!

A view toward the top of the Wall. No way to access the top from here.

“Is this the cave?” Cherry or Berry stupidly asks his Master T-Bonz, pointing to the relatively tiny hole above his head while walking toward the south end of the wall.

Only 30 minutes later, after they finished exploring the south and move past the roots again to the north, does T-Bonz dare to speak in his anger. “THERE,” he then emits like a volcano spewing forth molten lava. “THAT’S the cave you red stained dummy!” He growls again, and then tells all the Mmmmmm’s to stay on this rock and DON’T MOVE… or else. “Where are you going Master T-Bonz?” the red Mmmmmm’s ask innocently and innoculously in their child-like voices. But Verdy, the lone green Mmmmmm of their group, already knew the answer. “Never mind where I’m going, just STAY PUT,” he commands in no uncertain terms again. “ON-THIS-ROCK.”

T-Bonz then moves toward a rhododendron tree that, when climbed, will give him access to the rock ledge that his destination sits upon: the white rock jut discussed in former (Tile) CREEK related posts on this blog just before production began.

“Ahhhh, there it is. The legendary White Rock” he coos. “Sing to me dearest, now. Sing to me the mysteries of this place. Sing to me the knowledge I seek and have come for, with these imbeciles in tow — subtracting Verdy a bit, because I actually like Verdy a little, you see. But the others — well, never mind that now. I am here with you and that’s all that’s important. Speak to me; sing to me if you wish but at least speak.”

And the rock obeyed and began to sing…

… making T-Bonz fall instantly asleep, which Verdy foresaw.

“Now’s my chance Cherry and Berrry,” Verdy said to them with a wink, moving toward the cave and inside. “Wait, Master T-Bonz said stay put!” they implored. But it was too late. Verdy was consumed by the darkness.

Behind The Scenes May 31, 2008

When I arrive for filming on Saturday around noon, I am apaulled to find the camp of the cast and crew in complete disarray. Everyone is still sleeping!

You guys drink all THAT last night? (and I knew that it wasn’t filled with gatorade before, but something much stronger… knew that all along).

Well I finally got them moving about and cleaning up the camp and preparing for the day’s shoots. One of the hired hands has some fun waking up former child actor Tommy “The Scream” Benerson here. This moment seemed to lighten the mood.

A literal army of crewmen build the circular dolly ramp that unfortunately couldn’t be used today. Maybe tomorrow or next week, but at least it’s set up now.

George Jetson and Huckleberry Hound confer with dogfight expert Snoopy of Charlie Brown fame about the logistics of animated air battle. Unfortunately, this scene had to be cut from the shooting script today as well.

Similarly, one of the stars of our production, T-Bonz, consults with Captain Crunch regarding the inherent difficulties of working with child actors, which the naval officer has considerable experience with. That’s why we hired him to direct our crew, he he.

While the Mmmmmm’s aren’t technically children, their behavior and demeanor are comparable.

Speaking of which, here’s most of the Mmmmmm’s from our cast attempting to rouse the still sleeping Mossman. A sound snoozer this he-man is! (admittedly I’m afraid/wary of this cast member more than any other).

His short day of advising done, Snoopy enjoys some sunbathing atop his doghouse, which he always takes along on out-of-town job assignments.

The camp in relationship to the goodmoblie prop that T-Bonz and his 3 Mmmmmms landed here in the production several days ago. I’m guessing that its condition can’t be worsened by sitting out in one or two more rains!

Now to the shoot!