T.B. Johnson's Blog

 In the Court of the Crimson King

by T. B. Johnson

ACT I

PROLOGUE.

CHORUS

From darkness comes a tale of pain, heartache,

and bloodshed. Look upon it and despair. 

Thou now bear witness to the Crimson King’s 

fell court. O, hark, and well! Its dark red mon-

arch lacks not respect nor love from his pe-

ople. Yet thou shalt see all his glory tak-

en from him. Everything. His rule, his wife, 

his soul. Thou shalt soon know that power not

oft lies in them that seem to carry it.

SCENE ONE.

Court Nobles party, drink...

A little while ago I went to the DMV (here in NJ it's called the MVC) to reconcile a past mistake. Under the "sex" section of the form they give out I had put "M," leading to my license reading "Gender M."

Later, after reading "Gender Trouble," a YouTube comment informed me that Judith Butler identifies as non-binary and had their documents changed to reflect that, the option "X - unspecified" being available in their state. I did some research and the unspecified specification is available in my...

A friend of mine's been encouraging me to get into poetry. I can't recall ever having been into it before. I own a copy of the complete works of Edgar Allen Poe so I've read a few of his but mostly skipped over the poetry section to get to the good stuff, his short stories. I once won an Android tablet in a poetry reading competition, but I don't remember the poem I read. It might've been by Sun Tzu. I've also been subjected to whatever "slam poetry" is. 

Since reading poetry is something I hardl...

 Philadelphia, PA - In a stunning turn of events, the notorious private military contractor, Blackwater, took control of Philadelphia today, demanding the immediate resignation of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. The group, known for its controversial operations in conflict zones, launched a daring assault on the city, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake.

The heavily armed mercenaries, equipped with advanced weaponry and military-grade vehicles, swiftly overwhelmed local law enforceme...

The WGA's on strike. Articles have told me that this is a good time to query literary agents and managers. The logic is, the gears aren't moving, so they might have nothing better to do than to read my script. 

Last year I sent one of my features into a feedback-providing contest. The results came in recently and the readers took issue with the story's ending. Not for the expected reasons, but because they didn't understand it. One of them thought I was baiting for a sequel. 

Others had enlightene...

 I currently work at a grocery store, in the produce section. 

Sometimes customers approach me about the quality of the produce.

One of them said that the broccoli looked bad. It seemed fine to me, and my coworker agreed. Yet the customer pointed out brown spots on the stalks and wasn't satisfied until they selected from the organic section. They remarked that I'd pick those as well if I had the choice. 

Another customer came up while I unpacked red onions. After handling a few, the customer told m...