Here's looking at you, Shawn....

There is something so brilliant about how everything can suddenly work together in a Rube Goldberg-like way to make even the craziest accident seem like a Scooby Doo plan to catch the ghost.

It is not enough to have a dwarf hitting the trampoline. It is not enough to have him hit it sideways. It is not enough to have a hippo in the next act. Not enough to have him tired from his long night of worry and anxiety over his fear of tight rope walking. Not enough even that the dwarf has the misfortune to fly into the hippo's mouth.

It's that all those things happened - AND it triggers the hippo's gag reflex at the same time.

And if I was to use David's algebra analogy - with my basic math understanding - it becomes an escalating series of set ups that culminate in one giant pay off. And that - my friends - is good writing. Seeing the trampoline, the dwarf and the hippo would never in a million years make you work out that the dwarf would end up in the hippo's belly. But - through a carefully constructed world of coincidence - that is exactly where we end up going...IN BANGKOK no less!

And speaking of Bangkok...

A few years ago - I found myself in that fair city.

A friend of ours free-lanced at an Industrial Video company as an art director. One night, he was talking with the janitor - who, as fate would have it - had a son who lived in Thailand. He was working with a Japanese millionaire who wanted to make a movie. In a series of coincidences not unlike above article - I was soon on a plane with said art director, a writer, and my partner in crime Shawn.

Before going any further - let me say this. Thailand is a beautiful and dangerous place.

We were supposed to be in the country for one week - at the request of this Japanese guy named Sobun. Sobun wanted not only to make a movie - he wanted to star in it. Sobun looked at least 60 something - and Asians don't age - so, technically - he might have been closer to 307. He was bald, could barely speak English, and wanted us to get Tommy Lee Jones to star in a movie with him.

One of his favorite past-times, besides sleeping with 18 year olds - who he called his "daughters" - was to tell really bad junior high school jokes...

Like:

Me: Three months? Wow. That's a long time to film-

Sobun: LONG? Hey... You talk bout me?

Shawn: Sobun you have to understand... Tommy Lee Jones is a big actor-

Sobun: BIG? You talk about me?

Sobun was the head of a really big Asian cosmetics company. All of his employees were girls. We would sit in a meeting and he would watch the girls as they passed by his office. He would find one that struck his fancy and call her in. Make her kneel down by his feet and he would pat her hair. Then he would show us her teeth.

Sobun: Do you like her?

Us: Yes. She is very nice.

Sobun: Do you think she is pretty?

Us: Yes. She is very pretty.

Sobun: Do you want her? You can have her....

Some of Us: Sobun. We are married. Why is that so hard to under-

Sobun: HARD? You talk bout me?

Thailand was a wonderful experience... Full of many stories...Ones that shall continue in a few more posts... But - seeing as how this is Sunday - and I am sure everyone is wondering what happened to that hippo....

I leave you with this....

http://www.dailysixer.com/snakehip.shtml