Author: Phil RedBeard

I'm just a simple man, trying to make my way in the universe.

Star Trek: Mayweather

Today I introduce a new writing project: Star Trek: Mayweather. It is my intention to write a Star Trek “show” in a serialized format on my blog. This is something that I have wanted to do for a long time, and now I am finally daring to do it. I am a huge Star Trek fan, and hope to do justice to the legacy of Gene Roddenberry and the Star Trek shows and films that already exist. More than anything though this is “just for me”. I don’t particularly care if it goes anywhere or accomplishes anything, I am writing it first and foremost for my own enjoyment. Legally this is a fan fiction as I have no contract or permission to write a Star Trek novel. So, all Star Trek contained herein is only a tribute and used under fair use license and isn’t for resale or profit and Star Trek is the sole property of those who own it.

I am sharing it with you because I believe in sharing my work, and I find it almost impossible to write if my writing goes “nowhere”. So here it is, in all its nerdy, fan fiction glory: Star Trek: Mayweather.

Star Trek: Mayweather takes place just after the events of Star Trek: Nemesis, and just before the destruction of Romulus as depicted in the 2009 film Star Trek. This takes place in the prime universe.

Star Trek: Mayweather follows Captain O’Sullivan, a man struggling with anger and depression over the recent death of his brother. His mission is to solve crises across the galaxy as they occur, and operate in a support capacity to larger missions as needed. His ship is the NCC-72187 the USS Mayweather, a Nova-class starship, small, agile, and possessed of a small crew, perfect for her mission.

I do hope you enjoy it as much as I do. Coming soon to my blog on a computer near you.

Little Poems

I sat down to sharpen a pencil, because I was depressed and couldn’t fathom anything more. I ended up with 12 lines of iambic pentameter and two little poems. There might be something to this. Seriously, these poems are not great or amazing, but I am so happy right now, in a depressed sort of way. Without further ado…

The Bills

The bills are stacked some ten or twenty high
they must be paid today or soon or else
someone may come to take away my funds
and leave me high and dry without much fun

 

Albatross

But you cannot take ‘way the sky from me
it is my home my life my everything

my little albatross is fair and wise
beyond her years she flies with me for luck
she reads the minds of lesser folk its true
but freak or not my River is my crew

 

The second poem is inspired by the TV show Firefly, and once I figured out that albatross had enough syllables to scan into iambic pentameter the rest of the poem kinda flowed. But like I said, these are rough and simple, but they make me smile because of reasons.

 

About Me

Hello.

If you are new to this blog, welcome. If you aren’t, welcome all the same.

I hope you enjoy your time here. Whether you are an old or new reader, maybe you don’t know me personally and are wondering about me. Wonder no more. I have written a short bio and included a picture of myself on my new “About Me” page which you can access via the link back there or via the link on the menu bar above this post.

I am glad you decided to stop by and read what I wrote, I hope you do so often. Thanks.

Phil Redbeard

The Poet Within

Previously today I wrote about wanting to write more poetry. Today I went to Barnes and Noble and bought a notebook for my poetical playings. On the cover it says “In the midst of our lives, we must find the magic that makes our souls soar.” This for me is the perfect quote. It is exactly what I want to do: in the midst of my depression, find something that can make my soul soar and make me able to be creative and maybe, just maybe, a little bit happy.

Today I was able to do this. I found my notebook, bought it, and then found a quiet corner of B&N and sat down and worked through the first chapter of Ode Less Traveled. Fry, the author, introduced meter and iambic pentameter in particular. The exercises involved identifying iambic pentameter and the stresses in each line and then writing some iambs of my own. It was a little difficult as I am a bit rusty and unused to writing in formal meter, but I had fun. As a result, I even wrote a couple little poems. They aren’t spectacular or amazing, but they are written in iambic pentameter, an accomplishment for me. Enjoy!

The Books All Sit

The books all sit upon the shelves in rows
and wait for some to come and buy their souls
they speak with many words and some with songs
of joy or sorrowful they weep and cry
the words all run and wash away today
oh please, won’t you buy one to save its life?

Down and Out

My pencil is not full of lead or ink
but it is running out of writing steam
eraser is a nub and now I need
a new pencil to write, unwrite these lines
of poetry and nonsensical lines

That, as they say, is That. The Poet Within is coming free. 

The Ode Less Travelled

Recently I have been floundering, awash in a sea of self-doubt, self-loathing, and self-not-going-anywhereness. These are symptoms of depression and part and parcel with a life lived with anxiety. The depressed individual often finds simple tasks difficult, and finds it difficult to do anything of any import. That has certainly been me.

But lately I have wanted to break free, to really lurch forward, and make a road for myself. I wrote previously about Joss Whedon, and that somehow he found the time while filming the Avengers 2 to write a simple little folk song called “Big Giant Me”, and is collaborating with the artist who performed it to produce an EP. If Whedon can find time and energy like that, surely I, in the midst of my depression and social anxiety, can find time to make my own road.

To that end I have blown the dust off a book I picked up in college entitled The Ode Less Traveled: Unlocking the Poet Within by Stephen Fry (and yes, the Stephen Fry of staggering Twitter celebrity, of Jeeves and Wooster, of A Bit of Fry and Laurie, and of V for Vendetta and the Hobbit trilogy). In this book, Fry helps the gentle novice explore the world of poetry from beginning to villanelle.

I consider myself more than a novice in the poetical world, but the truth is, I write mainly free verse, and I’ve never labored to master meter or many poetical forms. This is something that I would like to remedy. I would like to explore and push myself to learn and to obey the rules as the masters of the craft have done. Maybe I will still mainly write free verse, but I would like to know that I have done what I can to learn the ropes, as it were.

To that end, I will work through the Ode Less Travelled with Stephen Fry and learn what I can. When I am depressed and anxious, hopefully I can push myself to create just a little. Having a guide and a path easily marked usually helps the depressed individual move along, and the Ode Less Travelled should be such a guide and a path for me. Whatever else I may be, I want to be a poet. Perhaps I can unlock my Poet Within.

I tell you about it because I have a need to share most things, and because I want this to be real. I will be sharing what I write with the world, and I am starting at the beginning. Thus far I have mastered the introduction and end user agreement of the book. Well, almost. Mr. Fry wants his readers to have a notebook to keep with them always, as well as writing utensils, and I think buying a new notebook and new pencils will make this somewhat more real to me. To that end I must do something else I am loathe to do: enter the world of men and move around, but I think I will head to Barnes and Noble, a place certain to have what I need, and also a quieter place in the wide loudness of the world.

So pray with me, as I pray to the universe, to allow me this small breakthrough of my depression, that it may lead to greater and bigger things, or a least a little poetry.

Pizza?

He stared into the mirror, and noticed his haggard, stubble faced self staring back out of it.

I wonder if I should get pizza for lunch today? he thought. Pizza is tasty, full of pepperoni, cheesy saucy goodness. It is also not good for me. Maybe I should have that leftover salad in the fridge instead, he continued to think.

Suddenly, in two little puffs of smoke, one thin, oily, dark and acrid smelling and the other like a little white fluffy cloud smelling faintly of honey, there stood two spirits on his shoulders.

The one, coalescing from the dark cloud, was red and reminded him of the popular images of Satan: hooves, tail, trident, horns, the whole bit. The other was a stunningly gorgeous female angel.

“Pizza? Do it. Do it!!” cackled the demonesque figure. He danced a wicked little jig on the shoulder of the man in the mirror. Corresponding little hoof impacts convinced the man the demon was dancing on his real shoulder as well. He shifted his eyes to the angel, wondering what she would say. After taking a long drag on her cigarette, she stubbed it out and sighed. “What the hell?” she said. “Go for it.”

He shrugged and the spirits fell off his shoulders, disappearing in puffs of smoke before hitting the floor.

He unlocked his iPhone and selected the top entry on his favorites page in the phone app. In seconds there was a voice on the line.

“Oh hey, Jerry. The usual?”

Jerry belched. “Yep.”

Seconds later he ended the call and scratched his head. He sat down on his worn out sofa to wait for the knock on his door.

 

Inspired by tweets between myself and @clarktacular.

@clarktacular maybe I’ll order pizza for lunch

@philredbeard @clarktacular *demon on shoulder* “do it!!” *angel on shoulder stubs out cigarette* “what the hell, do it.”

Big Giant Me

I want to be Joss Whedon when I grow up.

To be clear, I do not want to be the mega famous man, but the small creative genius. A few years ago when Joss Whedon finished filming The Avengers, he somehow found the time and energy to film an adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing. This year, during the busyness of filming The Avengers 2, Whedon somehow found the time and energy to write a folk song called “Big Giant Me” in collaboration with Shawnee Kilgore, an indie music recording artist he met on Kickstarter. You can read all about that on Buzzfeed here and I highly recommend you do.

I want to be able to harness my creative energy, my spirit, and my energy to create, well, anything. I write occasionally, I pen little poems, I take pictures, but it is all so very hard for me to do. Why? I suffer from depression. Depression actively sucks energy and destroys creativity. I wonder what I would be able to do with the boundless energy that Joss Whedon seems to have. I wonder how he finds energy, while insanely busy, to do small personal artistic crafts. Really it is only because of Whedon’s fame and celebrity that we know anything about Much Ado or “Big Giant Me”, but the fact is he has created small, personal, highly creative things in and around his giant projects like Avengers, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and the other amazing things he has created.

I just want to be able to create small, personal, highly creative things in and around the giant bouts of soul crushing depression that I am prone to. I want to know Whedon’s secret. Or maybe there is no secret, maybe it is just plain hard work. But something Whedon said sort of stood out to me. He said that “it is nice to have the balance between something that is genuinely enormous and something that is crystalline and tiny” and that the song “was so small and contained, I was able to sort of focus on it, and it was very liberating. It would relax me, while still being a very difficult little puzzle, but one that you finish, and then you go onto the next one.”

I think maybe I will start taking that to heart. Something tiny, crystalline, something small and contained that I can focus on in the midst of my depression and sadness. Maybe if I take that approach, in the hugeness of my mental illness I can find time and energy to create small, personal, highly creative things. Just maybe through plain hard work I can be Joss Whedon when I grow up.

War Machine

I’ve grown weary of this war machine
grinds up the bones of the young
spitting out dust for ages
a stamping, crushing wine press
splitting skulls and spilling blood
o’re the rim

takes youths
spits back broken teeth
still the rich sorcerers call
more!
more bullets
more guns
more death
satisfy the war machine

God weeps o’re the dead
decaying bodies of the children
the war machine has obliterated

ghouls call the war machine
beautiful
each shapely bolt
pulled back to cuddle rounds
into chamber’s steaming embrace
caress seductive trigger
pump hot, sexy lead
into another soul

a child
a woman
a man
a brother
a mother
a sister
a son
another innocent angel falls

prey to the war machine
pray to the war machine

for mercy

Inspired by “War Pigs” by Black Sabbath

On: “Black Mass”

or Why I Write Dark Poetry

I just wrote a poem entitled “Black Mass” (read it here). And I know that one or two people might be slightly disturbed at the subject matter of said poem. After all, it is an evil ceremony, a wicked rite or a black mass. Some witches spatter blood on some animal corpses, demons come forth to eat those corpses and an angel is sacrificed. A sorceress works some magic and boom! something evil happens.

First of all, the idea came to me as I finished watching 300: Rise of an Empire, specifically the end credits when the soundtrack riffs on Black Sabbath’s song “War Pigs” (which you can read here). Specifically, the second line of the song which goes “just like witches at black masses” and I wondered: what would a witches’ black mass look like?

As is halfway usual, I got more of a feeling than a full formed poem. (The rest of the time I get a full formed poem). I didn’t want to exactly reproduce the words of the song, but I did want to reproduce the black mass. So I started playing, started finding rhyming words and built the poem. The three word lines kept it compact and punchy (I wanted this to be a visceral experience reading it); I didn’t want it to be melodic. I wanted the poem to be full of blackness and creepiness and all manner of unseemly elements. Then I got the idea that the animals are not the main sacrifice: that is an angel. I mean, what could be more evil than sacrificing an angel (besides like a baby or something).

The poem then ends with the rite as something is accomplished. What exactly that is I leave up to the audience*, the reader, but something is definitely manifested as a result of this black mass.

So that is the what. Now for the why. One, the song lyric is “witches at black masses”. The evil, occult setting is right there in the inspiring line. Cause: effect. Two, I like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spinoff show Angel. Both deal with the darker elements of occult mythology, i.e. vampires and demons and magic. I like that subject matter for the world it evokes: something primeval, something of prime evil.

I am not a Satan worshipper, I don’t even think Satan exists. I don’t love evil. I don’t condone sacrificing angels. But I do like the imagery and the metaphor of such things. What is so necessary that something luminous and bright must be sacrificed? What is a witch, in this context? What are the demons? What is “Satan” in this particular story? I don’t mean the accepted definitions of these things, but say what is brought forth is war, as the original song talks about. How then do we interpret the images, the metaphors? I am not saying war is the result of the black mass, but it certainly could be. The point is, whatever the result of the black mass, that informs how the rest of the poem is interpreted. I just use occult imagery as the vehicle to describe something that is occurring. So why occult and not puppies and sunshine? Well, puppies and sunshine tend to evoke happy, carefree, live for the moment types of things and I needed images that stood for dark, heavy, decidedly ambiguous (at best) types of things. That is really all there is to it.

 

*By the way, the ending: I hate to spoil the seeming grand design of it all, but originally I couldn’t think of something poignant enough to be the end result of the rite. At the exact same time, I thought “wouldn’t it be cool if this were a ‘choose your own adventure’ type of poem? Why not let the reader decide what is brought forth by the angel sacrifice?” so I ran with it and specifically engineered the poem to build to an abrupt end. Ultimately, you decide what it is about. Certainly the inspiring song is about the Vietnam War, and I have my own personal ideas what the poem is about, but your idea is just as valid. It might even be more so. What do you think it is about?