Adverbial Obligation

And because I couldn’t find the words, I simply made a sequel to the previous post’s video. Enjoy.

There really are no words to describe the video below. One night in England, an “inspired” friend of mine, Guam, decided to take my 3.2 megapixel, switch on the video function, and make the following movie:

There are no words. Truly.

(Adverbial Obligation once had the world at his fingertips. Every ear and eye across the globe waited with bated breath to hear and read what he had to say next. And then in a flash, like heat lightning striking the Uluru, he vanished. Yet nearly three years later, a span of time that has seen the economy plummet, the nation elect a black man, and Andrew W. K. fail to garner a single Grammy nomination for an Oscar, he has peeked out his head, carefully surveying his surroundings and is quietly taking the blogosphere by storm. Extremely quietly. Tiger Beat recently sat down with Adverbial at his 2-bedroom apartment to discuss his life over the past few years.)

*~_~*~_~*~_~*~_~*~_~*~_~*~_~*~_~*~_~*~_~*~_~*~_~*~_~*

TB: Hey, Adverbial. Thanks for taking the time to talk to Tiger Beat.

AO: Thanks, hon.

TB: I’m a guy.

AO: Oh. Well, androgyny is beautiful; don’t let anyone tell you differently.

TB: Before we really get into it, I just wanted to say that the new blog looks great. Truly.

AO: Thank you.

TB: Your fan following on the blog has already doubled in the last week alone – how do you handle this sudden brush with fame?

AO: I wouldn’t necessarily call it “sudden.” Nor would I call it a “brush.” I used to blog quite frequently back in the day, and established a pretty resounding fan base. I remember one day, a fan called me on my cell phone out of the blue, just to comment on my post from the previous day.

TB: Wow. What did this fan have to say?

AO: Well, it was my mother, and she wasn’t too happy about my open discussion involving her flatulence during my youth. But a hit’s a hit, and I think my present blog might even be up to 23. It’s nowhere near the hits on my last site – I think it was about 62 at the 8-month mark – but I am hoping to reach that and possibly do even better.

TB: What stopped you in the first place?

Adverbial removes a Tootsie Roll Pop from his pocket, unwraps it, and puts it inside his mouth. Succulently.

AO: Life, bro. Effing life. I graduated, moved to the big city, simultaneously relished and despised the unemployment, then got a job working as an administrative assistant at a general contractor, a job I’ve been unable to escape ever since.

TB: So, the typical path of an English major?

AO: Exactly. But with a few less bells and whistles. Well, less bells. Same amount of whistles.

TB: So between the bout with unemployment and the entry level position, why did you feel that you didn’t have time to share your daily insights with the blogosphere?

AO: It wasn’t as though I was trying to neglect my audience. I actually found myself extraordinarily busy during those weeks of unemployment. I had to get through two seasons of Lost, go to a few job interviews, go through four seasons of 24, set up cable in the apartment… re-watch the first season of Lost in under 20 hours… Okay, fine. I was lazy and it fell by the wayside.

TB: You kind of have that problem, don’t you? For example, you’ve put THIS post off for quite some time.

AO: Which post?

TB: The one you’re presently typing – this interview.

Adverbial lets out an exasperated sigh.

AO: Look, the last thing my audience needs to deal with right now is a metafictional post, okay? They’re trying to read a fake interview that humorously updates them on my life over the past three years, not deal with subtext incongruously laid out in front of them. So let’s just keep moving. Next question.

TB: Let’s talk about that first year after college – a lot changed for you, didn’t it?

AO: Yes and no. The week after I graduated I moved up to Minneapolis because it seemed like a really good idea, one that I had about a week before I graduated. I lived with three good friends: Nasty, Puff and Tlougan. Nasty was the quiet one. He sometimes would mine for gold, or lead hour-long expeditions into the recesses of hell, or try to sell his potions, but sometimes he would turn World of Warcraft off and come play darts with the rest of us. Puff was kind of the ring leader – things didn’t happen unless he said they were going to happen. Boulders didn’t roll until he pushed them. Tlougan was student teaching and absolutely loving life. I don’t remember a single day in which he came home upset about his day. He was always grinning and joking around with us. [Laughs] Man, did he love to go out and spend money.

TB: What did you guys do for fun?

AO: We would go out, play darts, sip lightly on Special Export, and just overall be gentlemanly in our actions. I mean, we were 22 years old – it was time to face maturity, you know? Excuse me for one second.

Adverbial stands up and walks over to his kitchen, throwing the stick from his Tootsie Roll pop in the trashcan. He pulls a Pepsi out of the fridge and grabs a half-eaten bag of Cheetos from the cupboard before sitting back down.

AO: And furthermore, for all those out there who think it’s “immature” to challenge your friends to see who can eat a Tremendous Twelve from Perkin’s faster, I suggest you try it and realize all the lessons to be learned from that experience.

–THE ADVERBIAL INTERVIEWS WILL CONTINUE WITH PART 2–

So, I was off to a good start with two in a row, and then I hit a hiccup. Bear with me.

Due to unforeseen circumstances over the past couple of weeks, I have been unable to update my blog. However, I have 3 or 4 drafts started that I need to work on and then publish. I promise to all of you that there will be at least TWO posts up this weekend. And by all of you, I mean the six people that have visited my blog.

To quench your thirst for something fun to read, please try this on for size: http://www.mcsweeneys.net/links/lists/5JuliaMcCloyandTravisTyler.html (Please click over to the rest of the lists, too, as there are some that can only be described as “genius.”)

Until next time… (which, again, is this weekend.)

One of my best friends (who, for semi-anonymity’s sake, I shall refer to as “Guam”) and I constantly email one another at work. Many days the emails are simple, and follow the typical email between friends:

Guam: Hey, man. How was your weekend?

Adverbial: Pretty good, bro. Went out with people on Saturday, cleaned the apartment on Sunday – how about you?

Guam: Fooled around with your sister.

Adverbial: Dude.

However, when we are feeling extra creative, we will sometimes write a story between the two of us. Guam will write one part, sometimes stopping mid-paragraph, then I will immediately pick it back up, add my part, and send it back to him, etc, etc.

We have done a number of these, but only a few have survived the multiple email deletions over the past couple years. Look for more of these in the future…

Oh, and they completely and utterly stink. And are incomplete. Consider this “filler.”

***********************

Robert Headrow stepped out from under the awning, glancing to his left and right before moving out into the rain. He let the drops begin to soak his hair as he glared at the blinking neon sign of Howard’s Club.

He let his eyes drop to survey the crowd milling in front, smoking their soggy cigarettes and blowing smoke into the damp night air. He walked across the empty street towards a lady wearing a scarlet dress; her black hair cascading down her shoulders.

“Katerina,” Headrow huffed. “This is for you.”

He stuck his hand into the folds of his trench coat; she recoiled, mouth agape. Headrow pulled out a gleaming silver pen and a leather-bound journal with frayed yellow pages.

“From Jonathon,” he stated, staring straight at her with cold eyes.

“You didn’t even know how much he loved you.  How do tramps like you sleep at night?”

Headrow tossed the items onto the wet pavement at her feet and turned into the spitting wind, pulling the edges of his collar close around his ears for warmth.

“Bobby, wait!” Katarina called after him.

“For what?” Headrow wheeled around, seething.  “An apology? What the hell kind of good would that do? Do me a favor, you miserable bitch, curl up and die. It’d only be fair.”

He started to turn away, but then turned back and got within two inches of her face.

“You’re the reason he’s dead.”

Katerina’s slap caught Headrow’s left cheek.  Stunned, he grabbed her wrists and wrenched her close to him. 

“I’ll scream!” she exclaimed.

“I don’t care. I owe him that much after what I did,” Headrow spat vehemently.

Fin?

Do not click refresh. This is actually happening right now. And it is time to bask in the glow, or whatever it is that permeates from these words.

I have returned to the world of blogging, the sphere in which all angst, self-deprecation, and typically introspective musings gather together to form self-described “brilliant” syntax and unique words, such as “wittastic” or “bonaveneer” — and as long as you’ll all have me, I think I’d like to stay here for a while.

“But, Adverbial,” the masses seem to cry out to my userID, “why would you return to a sphere – a blogosphere, if you will – from which you have so long been absent?” First of all, masses, great job on not dangling that preposition. Secondly, I enjoy writing. I enjoy the creation of words on the screen in front of me. It was difficult for me to get home from an eight-hour day of sitting in front of a computer and then muster up the energy to sit in front of the computer AGAIN to type out blog entries. My writing fell by the wayside. The only solace I found was in email exchanges between my good friend and me at work, email exchanges you will undoubtedly hear about in future posts.

Finally, due to encouragement from others and a desire to believe people read what I write, I have returned to this digital world. It has changed in the past three years, but my comprehension of HTML remains the same, as does my uncanny ability to turn words into what the kids are calling “hyperlinks.” I mean, just look at the bar on the right side of this page – I have set myself up with Twitter. I literally know how to Twit. It’s the future, everyone. Live it. Be it. Mmm.

So why Adverbial Obligation? It’s simple, really. In the handful of creative writing courses and seminars that I have attended, there is one looming rule: adverbs are unnecessary. The idea is that the most gifted and talented writers should be able to elicit the desired emotions out of their readers without adding modifiers to their verbs or adjectives. For example:

“Dominique looked at Walter in a way that brought back the feeling of soiling himself in front of his second grade class, a mélange of embarrassment, stupidity, and anger.”

Instead of:

“Dominique looked at Walter bitchily.”

Just look at how much easier that was to write. And read, for that matter. Who wants to read MY interpretation of the word “bitchily” when he or she can form his or her own thoughts? It is my obligation to promote adverbs, to show the world that it is okay for the less talented writers of the world to lean on that proverbial adverbial crutch.

In closing, I would just like to say that I have very high expectations for myself with this blog. I sincerely request that you check all of your expectations for this blog at the door, because they will undoubtedly be too high, however low they may be.