Presented by Tristan Clayton Wheeler who grew up at 2713 9th ave Castlegar, British Columbia V1N 2Y7.
An Introduction
Hello all, welcome to Cutup: A Newsletter. First off, I want to thank you for subscribing. As many stars of the silver screen have said, it is an honour just to be nominated. But, if you ask me, but it really feels like I’ve been given the whole award with an audience like this.
To give you an idea of what’s in store for this newsletter, I will use a metaphor. This newsletter is a mine dedicated to forging and finding pure, obsidian content. Concepts and ideas that are so rare that an old prospector would come over, chomp on them, and then scream “Yippee!!!” because he has just hit that motherlode of content that would allow him to buy back his mule from the fiendish grasps of Lockheed Van Barksdale.
To be honest, I don’t really know what this is going to look like.
But, what’s more fun than taking a road trip without a roadmap?
Is there a greater joy than getting lost on a country road, pulling up to a rough-and-tumble biker bar, timidly asking the bartender “Can we use your phone? we’re lost,” then getting both your eyes punched?
Probably, but that’s not why we’re here.
From Cutup: A Newsletter you can expect, at the very least, the following:
An intro
Two pieces of written content ranging from humour, to reported articles, to other forms of creative non and not non-fiction.
Some sort of multimedia element. This could be a video (like this week), audio, or whatever the moment calls for. (This might not be a regular feature though, given potential time constraints.)
Maybe other stuff? I don’t know, it’s sort of a “see where this goes” sorta deal.
So, yeah, that’s what this is going to be. So, onto our first feature. Both of these were Halloween themed even though that has left the zeitgeist.
Good thing nothing else of note is happening on this day, November 3, 2020!
The Magician Who Uses His Powers for Good (To Entertain People in Show Scenarios)
He stepped out onto the stage — The Magnificent Manfred. Applause and cheers filled the auditorium. Gasps of amazement at his long red cape swirled around him like a cloud. Children shriek with delight, but they wouldn’t if they knew the true strength this magician held.
Manfred reached out his hand to silence the crowd. Surprisingly, no serpents or flames shot out of his palm, leaving the front few rows free from burns and venomous snake bites.
The auditorium is silent.
A few distant coughs and sniffles echoed in the room (there’s always one isn’t there!). Manfred stared out at the audience. No locusts poured out of his eyes, so nobody is vaporized down to their skeleton or worse — to their naked bodies.
“I am The Magnificent Manfred!” said Manfred from behind his sculpted goatee, “and I am here to amaze you!”
The audience cheered again, not afraid of being teleported to the centre of the sun or decapitated by flying sentient swords.
“For my first trick, I will need a volunteer,”
Hands raised all over the auditorium, yet none are shriveled by a rapid aging curse. A man in the front row is selected and joins Manfred on stage. No one screamed “Don’t do it,” Your life is at risk,” or “This is suicide!” They just sat and smiled.
“Sir, what is your name?” asked Manfred.
“Walter Campbell,” said the man.
“How about a hand for Walter!”
Again, the audience cheers, not a single wail in despair or cry for mercy for the sake of the Campbell children. On the contrary, the applauded by their own volition, not via the coercion of the magician’s cursed abilities.
The Magnificent Manfred pulls out a chain with a large padlock and asks Walter to chain him up “as tightly and securely” as he felt was necessary. Walter did so, ensuring his arms and legs were fastened to each other as tight as an adult man could. When he was completed, Walter did not jump at the chance to decapitate the Magnificient Manfred or drive a silver stake through his heart. He didn’t even call upon the audience to tear him limb from limb now that they had the chance to kill the evil magic-user. When Walter was done, he simply stepped back.
“Do you feel these chains have me bound Walter?” said Manfred.
“As sure as my name is Walter Campbell,” said Walter. The audience laughed at this knowing that Walter was not in danger of enraging the magician to the point where he would use his powers to turn Walter’s blood into steam.
“How about now?” said Manfred as the chains dropped off his body as if they were an old shirt.
When this happened, Walter did not run, screaming for his life. He just laughed and returned to his seat when prompted.
“And for my next trick, I will pull a rabbit out of this hat,” said Manfred. No one was shocked he didn’t say a jersey devil, a chupacabra, or a yeti will be pulled from the hat.
The magician plunged his hand into his hat. His face went white as he felt around. He shot a look of consternation across the audience.
Maybe this is where he will finally out the sentient, flying swords that would sever the heads of the God-fearing Christians in the audience?
The magician struggled.
His grunts began to rise in number and volume as the audience became worried. Maybe the magician is about to turn. Maybe his evil ways were beginning to appear and their lives would be over, and their souls banished to the void?
Finally, the magician pulled out a rabbit as white as a moonbeam. The audience stood up and cheered, not out of fear but of wonder and amazement at an amazing show.
The Magnificent Manfred smiled at another successful display of his powers for good. The rabbit just hung there, held by the scruff of its neck, thinking about its first victim…
A Ghoul and a Goblin have a Zoom chat about working from home
GOBLIN: Hi Ghoul, how are you today?
GHOUL: I’m doing well Goblin. And yourself?
GOBLIN: As good as one can be in a global pandemic!
GHOUL: Don’t I know it. How’s working from home for you?
GOBLIN: It’s alright! It’s much hard to shrink, climb into keyholes, and steal stuff when people are constantly home, but I still try.
GHOUL: Trust me. As a Ghoul, stalking around graveyards is my whole thing and that is a lot harder than it used to be.
GOBLIN: Oh god! I didn’t even consider that. What have you been doing?
GHOUL: We got like a scheduling system. I have a two-hour chunk, then the next Ghoul gets two hours. It’s all super organized to be as safe as possible. We’ve been doing regular testing though.
GOBLIN: Oh yikes! I’ve been lucky as I’ve only had to get the test like once. Given I have this Goblin nose, they had to get an extra-long — sort of winding — q-tip, because I’m a Goblin and have a strange nose.
GHOUL: Oh man, that must have been incredibly unpleasant. Luckily, because I’m a Ghoul, I don’t have a nose so the q-tip is actually quite small. Where I have troubles is those masks!
GOBLIN: I hadn’t thought of that! Yeah, luckily my strange nose lets me use a mask, granted a unique shaped one, but not having a nose must be a problem in the mask department.
GHOUL: Yeah! Me and Sarah had to engineer a new type a mask with a third loop so it was tight against my face and didn’t interfere with my eyes and stuff, ya know.
GOBLIN: Sarah's great at that kind of stuff… Speaking of work, how as your industry as a whole dealt with everything happening?
GHOUL: Okay to be honest! Luckily working nights in deserted, misty graveyards means on a busy day, pre-COVID, you’d usually only run into a few people. So, Ghouling as a whole was already super socially-distanced.
GOBLIN: That’s good to hear. The goblin game has taken a bit of a hit, to be honest. There are way fewer travelers on dusty, country roads, so it’s hard to get into gambits with them for their gold. Which is a huge aspect of being in the Goblin industry. While I’m fine, I’ve heard some horror stories about goblins out there just kicking rocks for 8 hours without single a single bet for a farmer’s cow or a minstrel’s lute.
GHOUL: Awe man, I am really sorry to hear that.
GOBLIN: Hey it’s not all bad! Less work means staying and spending a lot of time with the kids!
GHOUL: Yeah true! We actually got a dog, so we’ve been going out for walks and training it and stuff. Keeping us sane!
GOBLIN: That’s great to hear!
GHOUL: Yup.
GOBLIN: Well, I got to get going. Weary travelers aren’t going to trick themselves!
GHOUL: I gotta get going as well. It’s been great chatting.
GOBLIN: Talk to ya later!
GHOUL: Bye.
A Video Where I Call My Childhood Phone Number and See Who Answers
See you on November 17.
Buy me a coffee?
If you enjoyed this, why not shoot me a buck or two! It’s a lot of wasted time and I’m unemployed, so please make this worth my time (or don’t).