Days With You

This is the video for the song for one of the titles I used for the Tales from the Tomato Patch stories I wrote (one of the ones way back over the summer, not the more recent ones). Anyway, it's a fitting way to end the current year (Plus, Catherine and I are in it a couple of times--we were at the show it was filmed at--in the background, mostly shadowed, in the second half of the video. If you spot us, leave the time marks in the comments.)

Tales From the Tomato Patch #11

We made it! The final story in the Tales From the Tomato Patch series. I had a lot of fun writing these (even though I didn't get a 1,111 word story in the mix like I had planned), and I hope you've had fun reading them. I'm also glad I got to finish them before the year let out. I had a lot of plans this year, and many of them didn't come to fruition, but more on that in my New Year's post tomorrow.

As for the Tales, well, I may well write more of them as Jason releases more albums. So this may not be the final tomato, er, word.

That's the future, for now here's story number eleven, enjoy:

“Almost Time”

I looked for you. There was only the bottle of coins.

Story title from the Jason Webley Quartet’s album The Cost of Living, 2007


Tales From the Tomato Patch #11: The Cost of Living by Christian Berntsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.

Tales From the Tomato Patch #10

Story number ten:

“There Is No Number 11”

“…stop all this ridiculous talk about an exit 11, there is no number eleven,” the woman sounded exasperated. “It’s not on the map.” They passed exit 13.

The man drove on in silence for several moments. Exit 12 came and went. Clouds gathered overhead, fog rolled in, making it twilight at 2 pm.

“That’s what he told me.”

“Well, he’s an idiot,” she replied.

After a mile he shouted, “Explain that!” Exit 11 loomed in the glow of the headlights.

“I don’t understand. It’s not on the map…”

Before she could protest, he turned toward it.

“What if he’s wrong?” She said.

“What if he’s right?” He answered, as they disappeared.

Story title from Jason Webley’s and Andru Bemis’ collaborative album How Big is Tacoma, 2006


Tales From the Tomato Patch #10: How Big is Tacoma by Christian Berntsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.

Tales From the Tomato Patch #9

Story number nine:

“Goodnight Evelyn”

She was beautiful in her bed, still in the moonlight like a porcelain doll or a statue, with the sheet tucked beneath her chin.

He had traveled through time, space and the myriad dimensions to find her. An entire species of sentient avians was lost in his search, a planet cracked and spread like dust in the cosmos. One dimension was swallowed up by a demon with six heads and eleventy million eyes as payment for her location.

It was all so he could see her again.

And here she lay, breath shallow, eyes restless under their lids, he had only this to say:

“Goodnight, Evelyn,” he whispered. “Daddy loves you.”

Story title from the Evelyn Evelyn album produced by Jason Webley and Amanda Palmer: Elephant Elephant, 2007


Tales From the Tomato Patch #9: Goodnight Evelyn by Christian Berntsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.

Tales From the Tomato Patch #8

Story number eight:

“August Closing His Mouth After a Long Summer’s Yawn”

Yuri walked unnoticed among people. This would seem surprising given that he was a large man who sweated profusely even in the cool night air, a handkerchief always dabbing at his forehead.

Yuri was used to the lack of attention, as if he were a tree or a bench or an ill dog in the street, they grazed his body as they passed but didn’t look. He felt the press and sting of their presence.

Yuri rarely had fun, only sometimes in the early morning hours before the world woke up. In quiet moments while the birds flew and the sun rose. Then the air was warm and dry and breathable.

Story title from Jason Webley’s album Viaje, 1998


Tales From the Tomato Patch #8: August Closing His Mouth After a Long Summer’s Yawn by Christian Berntsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.

Tales From the Tomato Patch #7

Story number seven:

“Quite Contrary”

The ladybird alighted on the branch above the spider’s web, her hindwings folding under their red and black shard. She stared at her fellow predator, asleep in the center, surrounded by the mummified corpses of recent meals.

She sighed.

“Why are you sad, little ladybird?” The spider asked, waking up.

“I wish,” the ladybird replied, “that I could make such an elegant home as you to trap my prey.”

“Ah,” the spider said, his eight eyes shone. “But I can share mine with you, and a meal as well.”

“Really?” The ladybird rushed onto the strands with joy.

It wasn’t until her second leg stuck she realized what the spider meant.

Story title from Jason Webley’s album Counterpoint, 2002




Tales From the Tomato Patch #7: Quite Contrary by Christian Berntsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.

Tales of Pending Rejection: Time Traveling

Hey Gang,

Forgot to update this with all of the holiday madness, but I had another acceptance recently. There's a cool little e-zine out there called 50 to 1, they publish 50 word stories and first lines (ostensibly of longer works, basically what they want is something intriguing that makes you wonder what the story is).

I submitted two 50 word stories and two first lines, and they accepted one of the first lines! Whoop!

You can find my entry to the most recent issue here, but check out the other pieces, it's cool what you can do with only a few words.

Tales From the Tomato Patch #6

Story number six:

“Eleven Saints”

The first saint was there when she was born on a mild sunny afternoon.

The second saint loomed under a tree when she fell off her tricycle.

As she entered her teens, the third saint sabotaged her first date, thus losing her only chance at everlasting happiness.

The fourth saint smoked heavily and told her weird stories.

The fifth, sixth, and seventh saints guided her haphazardly through her twenties.

She listened to the eighth saint patiently as he worked through his issues.

The ninth saint chatted with her baby’s first saint in the delivery room.

The tenth saint was… best forgotten.

And during her final breath, the eleventh saint was ready.

Story title from Jason Webley’s and Jay Thompson’s collaborative album Eleven Saints, 2006


Tales From the Tomato Patch #6: Eleven Saints by Christian Berntsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.

Stomping around the homestead and a long overdue return to the Tomato Patch

Happy Christmas Eve!

Today is the first day of an eleven day vacation for me. Day Job is a distant memory until January 4th, and things are winding down here at home. The rest of the year will be a holiday festivities-filled, life assessing, office organizing, TV show catching-up on, book reading bonanza.

Things good and bad went down this year, and I think I inadvertently grew up a little more than I planned, which is OK. I also have more focus on the future, and a better handle on the present than I've had in a long time. I continue to learn to live.

One bit of unfinished business that's been buggin' me, though, is my Tales From the Tomato Patch series. I left off back in July at tale number five, and due to various events both in and out of my control, I never finished.  The good news is, I have now. I spent part of the past month polishing the unfinished fragments and laying out the final stories in an acceptable order. So to celebrate the end of 2009, and continue the party for Jason Webley's eleventh anniversary of his first album's release, I will post the final six stories in the series between December 26th and December 31st. One each day at 11:00 am.

While they're all short stories (some as short as 11 words), finishing the series is actually pretty big for me. I have a habit of not following through, and the fact that I did with this makes me happy. Hell, the fact that I've kept up with this blog all year makes me happy.

For those that need a refresher, you'll find the first five stories here:

2 AM
February Relaxing Her Fingers After a Short Winter’s Grip
Days With You
Artichoke
Clown Car to Mulberry

Now, enjoy your Christmas, make merry on the New Year (obviously you'll hear from me before then, but just in case), and we'll talk soon, kids.

Winter... not so magical anymore

I'm sure most know by now of the massive storm that hit the east coast over the weekend.

In my last post I remarked out how the Lego Hoth pictures made me almost wish there was snow outside my window right at that moment. You can see where this is going--be careful what you wish for and all that.

I did enjoy looking at it as the snow fell overnight. I enjoyed it less so during the two shoveling sessions (one a midnight jaunt, the other a clear morning adventure) with brother-in-law Ben and my Betrothed.

26 inches in my part of the world is more than enough to keep me going for the rest of the winter, so let's hold off with any more, Mother Nature, shall we?

The magic of winter and legos

Haven't posted in a while, and will start up again soon with a bunch of cool stuff, but I couldn't resist showing off this:

I have a personal ban on Star Wars* going on at the moment, however the internet conspires against me constantly, and the above picture is just one example. Aside from the fact that it features Chewie (my favorite character, to whom I have a shrine... really... sort of), it's part of a series of awesome pictures of Legos on Hoth by photographer Avanaut on Flickr. There's even a cameo by Dr. Jones.

They're beautiful, funny and haunting all at once. Almost makes me wish there were snow outside my window right now (but I'm cool with there not being any). It's amazing what people can do with something as silly and wonderful as Legos.

This made what had been a kind of crappy day end on a high note, so I thought I'd share.

*It's more of a ban on the unwieldy and overbearing juggernaut it has become since the prequels (as opposed to the one it was before - you know what I mean), but awesomely creative people keep doing cool things like this, and I'm reminded of why the world can be a wonderful place.