EXT. HIGHWAY. Overcast Day.
HUGSHYHERMIT drives in CAR. RADIO is on, tuned to BBC WORLD NEWS.

ANNOUNCER (female, high British accent): On Wednesday night, Hurricane Isabel struck the United States off the shores of North Carolina and moved along the coast north toward the nation's capitol. Governors of six southeastern states declared states of emergency and urged its residents to evacuate. Even President Bush was moved to the presidential retreat at Camp David. Schools and corporate offices remained closed on Thursday as utilities worked to restore power to approximately six million residents.

H (from his P.O.V.) -- the HIGHWAY is sparsely populated with CARS and TRUCKS. H checks rearview MIRROR - same.

ANNOUNCER - cont.: Many heeded the advice to evacuate to higher ground, leaving coastal communities virtually empty. Some who remained were reporters covering the storm for outside news services.

* (sound of crashing waves and wind) AMERICAN ANNOUNCER (broad midwest accent, panic in voice): The wind here is very strong. The waves are crashing around me. It's... difficult to stand. Oh!*

H (from his P.O.V. - cont.) concentrates on road, then:

We see a quick yellow flash in side-view MIRROR. Suddenly, SCHOOLBUS appears, filled with CHILDREN. CLOSE IN on banner sign 'DAYTON PUBLIC SCHOOLS'. BUS careens towards CAR, out of control. Screeching of brakes.

* KABUM! *, the AIRBAG inflates. Screen goes blank.

What could be a better Saturday night than hanging out at a hip spot listening to some great tunes? A plug for one of my favorite local bands. (And by "local", I guess I better start specifying "Cincinnati", since it looks like I'm gonna be rambling back to Dayton in a bit.) The Stardevils are rock-a-billy, and I went to their CD-Release party on Saturday at the Comet Bar in Cincy's Northside. I guess there was a glitch in the CD production and a family emergency from the dummer, so the release party featured no CD's and no drummer. Dave and I went to Comet to snag a big-ass burrito, and stayed to hear the first half of the show. They rocked.

I first caught StarDevils as the opener for Junior Brown at Southgate House last winter. I like listening to a variety, but if someone were to ask me to word-associate "Rock-A-Billy", I usually think "Stray Cats". Star Devils makes Stray Cats seem like elevator music. As for the Comet, I started going there a few months ago, and wow what a place. It has a wide selection of brewskis, great local bands and DJ's, and a neat-o mix of alterna-folk. I went the first time with Dave's [former] friend Mike, during which he listed all the sexploits he's had with men, women, ...animals, etc.

On Sunday, I walked to the downtown library and got out books on scriptwriting and HTML coding. They have books for everything, and sadly true to form, I collected books with titles such as: Script Writing For the Soul and So You Want To Be A Scriptwriter. *sigh* There's one born every minute.

I have to move back to Dayton boo hoo hoo. When I returned from the library and out of the blue, M had left a message on my machine. His voice rhythm sounds like this: Uuuuuhhhhhmm, blah blah blippity blah blah. Uuuuuuuuuuhmm, blittitiy blittiy blah blah blah. Uuuuuuuhhhhmmm, blah blipiity blah blah.

I wonder whether I should call back. Have I mentioned I have trust issues? But I think I will: Have I also mentioned I'm a masochist? I've received an entry form for the Pikes Peak Writers Conference, and I thought maybe I could motivate myself to write a story based on my "dating" experience with M. But I wonder how it would play: Colorado Springs is only slightly more liberal than Dayton. (cynical laughter.)

Gearing up for a cold winter.

On Saturday I got a couple of tattoos. I had wanted them tats for a long time -- they're addictive, I'm tellin ya! -- but I hadn't spent much time looking for a design or thinking about where. In the end, I called only one place that I knew of on N. Vine. And when they said the guy was just sitting around waiting for work, I put a foot on it.

Originally, I was doodling a sun with assymetrical black rays, oversized blue eyes and red cheeks and lips. The idea came from a costume on exhibit last winter at the Cincy Art Museum. My second design was a rosette, based on late-Victorian furniture and architectural motifs. I wanted the sun to represent keeping a positive outlook; and the rosette to reflect my love of victorian architecture and the Pre-Raphaelite movement. (Oh who am I kidding -- I wanted them because they look HOT!)

I changed my choices at the last minute; I downloaded some new images from an architectural salvage company. I did find a flower pattern on a tile pretty close to the rosette concept and that is now a tattoo on the side of my leg. It's outlined in dark green india ink, with red petals. I will have to go back to get the outer petals in purple ("magenta"), and probably an orange or yellow center. Quuuuul.

The other one was a last-minute decision -- uh oh! It's a victorian escutcheon, now a keyhole tattoo over my left chest. It's inked in black and kind of resembles a maori design like those on the natives in "The Piano". My Personal Tattoo Artist Dave worked with me to create filligree designs in place of the screw-holes.

I got these tats at Skincraft. I had walked by it a couple of times before -- it's two levels in a renovated firehouse in the U.C. college district. Not that I wouldn't go to a streetfront place -- maybe I should have! -- I guess I felt more comfortable hanging with skinny college, er, high school, er, junior high school kids.

And there were a lot of skinny junior high school kids hanging out in there -- but not many were actually getting tattooed or pierced. I wondered if there's a legal age limit to when you can get a tattoo. It's a chuckle for me when a skater kid can have a lengthy conversation about "olde english" lettering. Seems like the trendy items are "cores" -- piercings that core your ears out, like African tribes. Skincraft's clientele was zooming in on their vast core collection -- bone, metal, psychadelic plastic.

I worked with D, a goofy-looking guy with crooked teeth, tortoise-shell nerd glasses, a black tee, camouflage shorts, flame hightops and, yup, full body tats. I got be quite chatty with D over the three hours (!). First he transcribed my jpegs to tracing paper, then inked those in on a transfer that he applied to my skin, then onto the "deed" itself. I tried to ask open ended questions so that he could ramble on while he was doing his work, and I could concentrate either on what he was saying or the sound of his voice. (It only partially worked.) Ha ha ha, we talked about sports -- mostly Tampa Bay and the Bengals (did you know the Bungals were Superbowl contenders as recent as 1988?), and The Stones, Black Sabbath and AC/DC. He also talked about diving in the coral reefs off the coast of the Florida and Mexico. He grew up in Cincy, but he had lived in Chicago a long time, just recently moving back with wifey.

The tattoo applications were rigid electrical shocks, although the pain subsided quickly with frequent breaks. It felt like D was gouging out my skin with a carving tool -- and I suppose he was! (My first tattoo a couple of years ago felt more like a toothpick by comparison.) I was in a room just off the lobby, and which had a picture-window so tattooed me was on stage. The kid wanting "olde english" sat and watched me during the first part, so I made sure I grimaced extra-expressively just for him. I sat in an old Dentist's chair and lost about about a bucket of sweat. I stank the place up from b.o. very quickly.

I'm happy with these tats: They express my complex philosophies on life perfectly -- oh yeah, and they also look HOT!! (And the sun with black rays will join the others ... somewhere.)