CITIZEN COBRA - Scene 1

The following is the script, 4th draft, to CITIZEN COBRA. This is the first scene. There are notes at the end, including any major changes I had made from the first two drafts, which featured drastically different scenes. Stage Directions and other scene set ups are in italics. I have highlighted anything I took out from the fourth draft for the blog due to any copyrights I might have to worry about, though remember: this is based on the cartoon. I apologize for typos and homonyms. First scene below the jump:

Theater anti-news. CITIZEN COBRA cancelled.

I have a lot of albums I want to review but those are going to wait just a tiny, tiny bit. I have parted ways with New Millennium Theatre and most likely "theater" completely. This is a personal blog, but it's one where I just plan to post what I'm doing and thoughts about the process as I do it. It's not to express my feelings on what is actually going on in my life, beyond album reviews and any humorous anecdotes.

The news results in Citizen Cobra, aka Script #3, which I've mentioned I was working on hither and yon, ceasing to exist as a play. It will obviously not be made into anything else since it's a parody of a cartoon.

I am going to post the script here on this blog and you can read it or you can not read it. I don't know how interesting it will be to read a failed script (or a script I have decided to stop working on and no longer promote or rewrite). I am going to remove lines that are songs that the cast was going to sing, as the lyrics are copywritten. I will, at the end of each scene, include notes of the intention, what the scene is about, and changes I had to make. That might seem unnecessary, but seeing as how it's no longer a play that means it will never see the light of day.

I wrote out and then deleted the reasons why I wrote the play, how I worked on it, and why recently I decided to quit working in theater and cease running Cobra Commander for President Of The United States. It's no longer important, though maybe it'll be obvious while you're reading it. I was upset but I don't have an axe to grind.

I am going to work on my band and my dopey comic strips. If no one listens or reads, that is fine. I am looking forward to getting back to drawing.

If you ever came to see me in Hack/Slash, or saw The Flaming Dames while I worked behind the scenes, or saw Scott Janus: Monster Hunter, thank you so much. If you saw any NMT shows while I was there, they appreciate it. But the shows I appeared in, worked behind, or wrote: I needed the support. Each time was a new ocean filled with sharks and negligent oil companies and your support helped make it a great time!

Man...Or Astro-Man? Analog Series (Vol. 1) & Transformers: Fall Of Cybertron

Slightly longer reviews.

MAN OR ASTRO-MAN? - Analog Series (Vol. 1)

There is new music by Man...Or Astro-Man?, the first batch of new material since 2000/2001 with the tour-only Spectrum Of Finite Scale (which was a companion piece to Spectrum of Infinite Scale, their last actual full length). I guess since singles are back in style, the Grid Sector residents are putting out their next album bit by bit. Analog Series (Vol. 2) should be released later this month.

Cold November Rain update. Music, plans, etc.

Howdy. The Giants won the world series, so life is good.

I plan on writing a few things. Reviews of music, reviews of video games. So in the very near future I will be discussing in some varying detail:

-Local H - Hallelujah! I'm A Bum - their new album! It doesn't sound as awesome as 12 Angry Months, but I can tell that I like it and that it will totally grow on me, unlike Whatever Happened To PJ Soles? And I think I am the test market for Local H at G-Mart. I buy it, other employees devour it and we discuss. So Local H has a following. At my store.

-Man Or Astro-Man? - Analog Series Vol. 1 - three song single in a series of singles (I hope) of NEW MATERIAL FROM MAN OR ASTRO-MAN!!!!! Holy cow. Way recommended.

-Ratchet & Clank - the collection - the first three PS2 Ratchet & Clank games now on one disc for PS3 (which is great, considering that the PS3 doesn't play PS2 games). Really fun, especially the 3rd game, Up Your Arsenal.

-POVERTY RECORDS - the pizza box! My introduction to Lost Goat! So much more!

Okay, I don't have much else to say right at the moment. I've been 'reviewing' Transformer figures on the Gassy Autobot page and doing a few other things. Oh, yeah, the Citizen Cobra rewrite, also been writing some new music for Hired Goons. So I'm a-keepin' busy. But I can't wait to talk about the pizza box. Well, write about it. Hopefully you talk about it.

Citizen Cobra reading / Baroness review

I've been a little preoccupied with staring at a word document and trying to cut down words and maybe remove sentences while making things easy for actors to say out loud AND also making sure the whole thing makes sense and is also funny.

See that run-on sentence? I can actually write LONGER run-on sentences. "Marathon-on sentences." And I fully expect actors to first memorize and secondly say these things. With proper emotion and feeding off each other. Because I am an unfeeling, uncaring, unsympathetic person trying to pass himself off as some kind of writing-guy.

Recent music trade ins.

I wanted to buy an album, but I didn't want to spend any money.

"Paul, why do you still buy CDs?"

Because I can sell them BACK, that's why!

Quicksand : Slip - a review, nearly 20 years later.

There's an album you have out there that only you love, you bought, you played it, everyone else cringed, and you thought you'd be the only one to really dig what was going on.

They were missing out.

Maybe your ears suck.

Flashback Weekend - Saturday, August 11th - NMT Performs Tales From The Scrypt

We'll be at Flashback Weekend to perform a series of sketches called "Tales From The Scrypt." Or "Script." Anyway.

I wrote a bit and will be performing it. So, yay on me! Hey, Svengoolie will be there. And it will be cheaper than going to Wizard World.

I had some other thoughts but I will post them later. Hey, listen to the Hired Goons albums linked all over this blog site. We'll be playing in Chicago on Saturday, August 25th. www.gabbagabbadoh.com.

Gears #15 has been written. Slowly working on a live action "pilot" with Acid Storm voice Keith Carmack.

-paul

PS I am apparently NOT the only person who didn't like Amazing Spider-Man. Here's the other person. He pretty much nails it for me. So, thanks dude.

Quick Album Reviews - Aeges, um, some other stuff.

I cleaned out the KV HQ but only by a tiny bit. A few records here, a few records there, here a book, there a book. It helps make the place a tiny bit tidier, especially the KV Man Cave / Production Office.

This allowed me to pick up a few albums in exchange for what I brought in. Obviously this is done at a loss but the time it takes for the ebay listings and subsequent ebay billing, if I DO sell the items, well, it's worth it to get out of the house and go to a place that at least gives you a respectable trade in.

The wife included Parks And Recreation Season 2 on DVD for her part of the trade, and gave it to me. That was nice of her. I can now watch this in the other room while she is watching Star Trek: Voyager on the PS3. This can be a comment on the soullessness of society, that our lives our empty to the point where we both need a separate distraction in separate rooms. The dissolution of our marriage? Separate TVs, separate lives?

Everyone Loves Gears #14

Been a little while. I recorded the audio for this months ago. Didn't have the time to work on it and little motivation and then figured I better finish it before I lose all interest. Ended up having more actual "stop motion" moments than I planned! Anyway, waiting so long resulted in my losing interest in having a storyline that kicks off with this episode. But I can still have things happened and semi-"resolved." A continuation.

Amusingly, there have been a lot of requests from friends in my tiny acting world to do a voice on the show. And I'd like to expand the show so that it'd be...something else entirely. Likable characters, actual plot, that sort of thing.

But, you make plans and then God farts all over you. Or, maybe you have other things to do.

I have little else to say at the moment so I'll sign off.

A trip to the carnival and its predictably terrifying results.

I have to make an effort to be a better uncle-figure to my nieces, who live here in town and I don't see that often, even though they're the greatest and I'm pretty sure I have some sort of Favorite Uncle status with them. So that means more quality time with them. More hugs, more sit down talks about growing up and things like that.

A few years ago I took them to a carnival/fair thing in the parking lot of a large public high school and this year I thought I'd take one of the girls to it again after her mom asked me to hang out with her this weekend. They had a total blast. The wife and I had a blast watching them. Good times were had. I also didn't pay attention to the carnival workers during that visit, or at least have no recollection of them or their activities.

This year was slightly different, but only in that I WAS AFRAID, not for me, well kind of for me, but for any child who walked into that parking lot hoping to experience joy and not grow up painfully, tragically, and traumatically fast.

Some rocking. What else to talk about? Oh, I witness more meathead-ery.

I rocked out with my pal Mark last weekend on some music he's working on. Here's the results. More to come once stuff gets shaped n whatnot.

I rewrote Script #3 (Citizen Cobra) and may make another pass at it soon. My scanner doesn't seem to be recognized by the new OS and I'm a little upset by that and don't want to buy a new one. Thanks, Windows 7, for not recognizing anything I owned beforehand.

I have little else to write about, but I should type just to type and use this blog and write more often so we have a moment to visit with each other. So, after the jump, here's a true story.

Another Bugs & Cranks article...

...here.

ALSO! I was interviewed about Hired Goons. Check it out.

ALSO! Doin' a rewrite for script #3 for NMT.

ALSO! Will finish "Everyone Loves Gears #14" this week. Promise.

ALSO! Got my bike tire fixed.

ALSO! Jamming with a different possible band this week.

Lots of silly stuff going on. I really don't have much to talk about at the moment.

I wanna give a shoutout to my nurse pal who had to deal with a crack addict this weekend. I hope they pay you in the zillions.

-paul

Albums purchased recently: quick reviews (COC, Pelican, Torche, Metallica)

I was going to type up a long rambling thing about some of these, but life is short and I don't want to ramble on too much. I realized I was typing COC's life history and you know what? I'll just talk about the album.

3rd script reading and excess emotional baggage.

Taking a few moments to think about what went on a few nights ago. I can't lie to myself: one of the reasons I'm not drawing as much is those damn video games. Damn you, Ratchet & Clank! (a review of the Ratchet & Clank games for the PS3, coming soon.) But I was also spending a lot of time in front of this very computer (other than the last two weeks, of course) working on a 3rd script, the 2nd being The Voice and not being read at the moment.

3rd script is a parody and I belted out the outline in minutes yet had a rough time writing along with that outline.  Losing the computer for two weeks didn't help (and before C2E2, so I was too busy to write even if I had time to get the computer fixed right away). I was allowed to borrow a laptop, work on scenes from what I could remember, and then continue when I got the computer and attempt to finish in two days.