Mike's F'd Up Journey Sans Frontières

Mike's F'd Up Journey Sans Frontières

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

The day you get any recognition for a promo well done is the day that never comes. Them's the breaks, kid. Really? We're saying "them's the breaks" now? Why do we even bother anymore?


And so hours were spent crafting the perfect promo. It had everything. Severely outdated graphics, poorly synchronized midi music in the background, nonsensical transitions from one topic to the next...and Gary Busey. He only appeared in individual frames in between clips as some sort of subliminal nightmare of Buddy Holly story past.

Brick finished his final edit (after dozens of critiques by the far less talented but much more opinionated and pony-tailed, John Slate) and exported the media.

The rest of the crew had long gone for their hourly pilgrimage to the sidewalk in front of the building in order to fill their systems full of nicotine. As it was processing, Brick saw Amethyst walk slowly towards his desk, lost in thought.

"Hey..." she said in an unusual monotone, trying to suppress her inner turmoil.

"Yo. I'm pretty much done with the promo... I'll send it to ingest as soon as..."

"Yeah... it's only going to air once, I don't see the point."

"That' what I was saying, but Slate was making a big deal about us grabbing as many viewers as possible, at all times."

"That guy is crazy," Amethyst stated bluntly, leaning against the table, staring at the swirling chaos of the floor tiles beneath her feet.

"I knew it! I thought I was the only one. That ignoramus acts as if he's the second coming of... of... I don't know any famous people who made commercials. I'm sorry, I just don't. That information is not in my repertoire."

Amethyst ignored his stupidity. An email was sent to Brick almost immediately after he delivered the promo via FTP.

"Promo has been received and put on the air? What? I didn't even have a chance to turn the TV on... there goes the last few hours of my life."

'Do you ever feel like this isn't even real?" Amethyst asked, struggling not to relive her earlier ordeal.

Brick, still reeling from his visions of G Mod, who was haunting him like a sunglass adorned devil, concealed his true feelings behind a façade of simpleminded naiveté, "you know, it's hard to say."  

"Thanks for the chat, " Amethyst sneered in disappointment, "no wonder you're called Brick. It's like talking to a wall. you can be so dense..."

"I'm sorry... yeah, sometimes it does feel a bit unreal."

Amethyst looked at him for a moment. Her eyes were dulled and lacked their usual spark of life. She searched his expression for a bit before disappearing into her office again, just as the trio of misfits returned from their umpteenth smoking break. In the moments that followed the stink of tobacco in the room, Brick wondered about Amethyst and about the delicate illusion of reality that kept everything around him from imploding.

 

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