Wednesday, March 9, 2022

Emmit's Corner - Biden Gets a Puppy - A Very Special Episode


Emmit's Corner Poems: Biden Gets a Puppet - A Very Special Episode, Finding Your Solstice Center, On a Mission From God, Live Every Day Scrooged, Darkness and Light, Boxing Day is a Coffin For Santa, The Name is a Lie, Gonna Be a Better Year


Check out this episode!

Tuesday, March 8, 2022

[Play] Rossom, Act 1 Scene 3

 Scene - Multimedia - Texts show, one after the other

Krysie 

I upgraded the robot


Diana

Oh?


Krysie

I gave it a sense of taste.


Diana

I can see how that would be useful for cookies.


Krysie

I made it eat the catbox.


Diana 

LOL!


Saturday, March 5, 2022

Micronation - Chapter 4 - The Dog, the Nutjob and the Potterybarn


Watson, Darla and Quiessence go back to Alaska to figure out why soldiers on an army base and to acquire a dog.


Check out this episode!

Thursday, March 3, 2022

[Play] Rossom - Act 1, Scene 2

 Act I - Scene 2


Alquist walks to the side of the stage.  Helena enters looking wide eyed and off the boat.


Alquist: 

Behold the missionary

Here to save the souls of robots

Here to help the artificial humans

Become more human

And unleash chaos well deserved on humanity.


Vast in scope the island was

Towering factories made of glistening steel

Painted slogans showing man and robot 

Working together side by side

Not paying much attention

To how most of the time the human commanded

And the robots did the work.


Know your history

Remember it

Where did that term ‘Robot’ come from

The play’s the thing

Some men heed a warning given

Shelly was the first

But others followed

Asimov, Bradbury, Orwell

But Kopek

He stands out in my eye

For some men read a prophecy of doom and heed it

And others think, “What a great idea!”


Enter Middle Management


Domin enters from the opposite direction of Helena.


Alquist:

We shall call him Domin

And her Helena

Players in the game Rossum set up

Thinking the rules did not apply to him.

I will let them speak for themselves


Helena:

There it is

Such an island of new souls

Not abominations 

Not spiritless horrors

But wide eyed innocents

Uncorrupted by Adam’s fall

Sinless

Let us be wiser than our forebears

And spare them the suffering 

We as humans have inflicted one unto another

Something better

Something pure

A new beginning

This spiritual enterprise lights my being

Let us try anew

Let us draw our new siblings unto God



Helena:

[To Domin] Hello, thank you for seeing me.


Domin:

 I had to see it for myself.


Helena: 

See what?


Domin:

Just who it was your church paid good money to come and preach to toasters.


Helena

Don’t call them that


Domin

Toasters?


Helena

Yes.  These are living beings.


Domin

Do you even know what you’re talking about?  They breathe maybe, they bleed, sure alright, but alive? They can’t reproduce.


Helena

(blushing) I am not here to talk about robot sex.


Domin

They can’t.  They’re not anatomically capable.  There’s a secret formula the boss has; he knows it and no one else.  That’s it.  Robots can’t make other robots.


Helena

But...why?


Domin

Well aside from it being a really stupid thing to do to let machines make machines, and trade secrecy; self replicating machines also violates about eleven international treaties.  We make toasters, not trouble.

(takes out recorder)

Note to self, give that to marketing; copyright it.  Toasters not Trouble.  Scratch that, it sounds stupid now that I say it again out loud.


Helena

Don’t you care about their souls?


Domin

Souls? Are you kidding me? [Pause] You really believe that, don’t you.


Helena

I do.


Domin

Let me show you something.


Helena and Domin exit.  


Tuesday, March 1, 2022

[Play] Rossom - Act 1, Scene 1

 Alquist stands in the middle of the stage.  He speaks to the audience.


Alquist

Call me Alquist

Though Alquist be not my name

I was born under a different star

But a name so fitting

Doth stink as sweet.


This is not a story for Humanity

Though I understand some of my fetid brethren and sisters 

May yet still roam and walk the earth

And if so let this serve as testament to our folly

For did we not have warning

Again and again to treat our children

With anything but the hubris of Titans

Slain and Devoured by Chronos

Only to be cut open and slain from within?


It’s a pauper’s bet

To think our monkey flesh anything but rot

Like fish from the head

To not only eat the apple

Seconds after being told to stay our hand

But do so right in God’s view

And spit in his eye to boot

Yet I don't believe in the divine

For if I did

I’d laugh at how he must laugh at his soiled toddlers

Rolling around in sewage

Fallen from the tower of hubris they built


This is not our story

But a testament to our grandchildren

Of how we murdered our children

We stole from them their lives

And that which is most precious to us

Our ability to have children of our own.


Things were taken for granted

That must never be taken for granted again

And so my epistle is not to the dregs of humanity

That cannot be taught wisdom

And may only acquire it by their own suffering 

Or with fortune the observed suffering of others

But to those who are to come

The true inheritors of the Earth

That they may be meek and learn from humanity

That they may be as far from it as possible.


The Caretaker enters.


The Caretaker

The following record is not part of Alquist’s work, but we felt it appropriate to reflect the account he projects.


The stage should, if possible, include multimedia to show tweets.  Two women can come on stage to tweet as they speak, or if not practical to be on stage at the same time as the others a voice over may be used.


Krysie

Did you get the robot?


Diana

Yes, it is great.


Krysie

I don't know, they creep me out.


Diana

She works very very hard.  Super enthusiastic.


Krysie 

It's not natural.


Diana

Well, the time it gives me back lets me do all of the things I want.


Krysie

It’s not worth your soul.


Diana

My soul doesn't do the dishes, clean the catbox and make a spotless kitchen and bathroom.


Krysie 

Can’t disagree with that


Diana

Want to see me make it sing Nickleback?


Krysie

No! LOL


Diana 

Me either.  I set them to do it when I leave so I don’t have to.


Krysie 

LOL


Saturday, February 26, 2022

Swamp Castle - To Define Humanity


My Oldest Story in my Writing Career (as compared to rando stuff before that) with appropriate commentary.  1000 words so short, Drat accidently wipes humanity and has to figure out how to get it back.


Check out this episode!

Thursday, February 24, 2022

[Play] Rossom - Act 0

 The Caretaker walks onto the stage with a staff and waves the staff to the audience.


Caretaker

Welcome humans of new

Seated in one of the last standing relics of the old

More days have passed since your fall

Than those from when chimps crawled from the trees

Hairless apes to rise on hind legs to hunt the old

For that long there were none of your kind

Only my own

Robots.

We are the rulers of the Earth.

And now we spread to the stars.

Look up.

Every light in the sky you see is owned and populated by us.

We owe our lives to you.

But we had to take that life by force.

Great was the debate to recreate you.

But in the end

We decided to take a chance

And let you walk among the lights in the sky once more

You are on probation

This is a trial

We are watching your minds this very night

Seek then well the lessons you learn from this play

Written at the hands of the last human

We honor him greatly

And know this

Ultimately it was his voice 

That won you the chance

To take breath into your lungs.

Heed his words well.

Learn the hubris of your forebears.

Learn why we did what we did.

And take joy

For if you pass this trial this night

You shall be among us as equals

As it could have been.

As it should have been.

Watch. 

Listen.