And the Curtain Closes. For Now...
AFTERWORD
A NOT-SO-BRIEF WORD FROM THE AUTHOR
The best thing that I can ever hope for is that, someday, I will be remembered as the moron who wrote a musical that didn’t have any real music in it. This is the rather unsettling thought that haunts me day and night, as I complete this odd little experiment masquerading as a novel. It’s such a strange little contraption, on its very surface, that I’ve created here. I believe that you, my dear, poor, and quite possibly confused reader, deserve some form of explanation as to the nature of its creation, or perhaps, you may think, at least an apology, but you’re not gonna get one. I, for one, dearly love the monster I’ve created, so just deal with it.
First of all, giving credit—or blame, as the case may be—where credit is due, this story would never have been possible without the infernal machinations and ideas that spill forth from the so-called mind of my close personal friend, Larry Effin Kernan. Larry came to me one day, as excited as I’ve ever seen him, and he said that he had a wonderful new idea for a movie. (Apparently, Larry was not paying close enough attention to all my tortured tales of caution of our various attempts at making indie films, which all failed rather epically. In fairness to Larry, he’s kind of a jerk who doesn’t listen anyway, and quite frankly, cards on the table, I’m not all that interesting in the first place. So I can’t really blame him. It’s really a dangerous cocktail as you can now tell. Anyway, back to my story...) and that movie would be called Singcinnati!
Instantly, I was fascinated by this bizarre concept that he had presented to me, admittedly hooked by the title alone. I waited with baited breath as he regaled me with the entirety of his curious tale; slowly he unfurled it as I hung on his every word. Problem is, while he sucked me in with the title, which I am loathe to admit I didn’t think of myself, because I think it’s quite brilliant, the rest of his story was regrettably not-so-cleverly formed, woefully so even. Instead, it seemed that perhaps he wanted to make the entire movie simply because the title was so darn good.
His plot was, and yes, this is the entire plot that I reveal exclusively here and now for you kind folks: a guy goes to a town where the mayor has a mind control device, or something, and makes people sing show tunes. After the guy leaves the town, he would randomly start singing at a bar and get the crap beat out of him by some other guys. Oh, and at some point he would get arrested and his cellmate would sing the charming ballad, “I got that pre-rape feeling”.
Like I said, not so cleverly formed, that was it. Not much to go on really and yet, inconceivably, I was still somehow interested. I toyed with that idea for quite a while, but it never seemed to work properly. I mean, what is the science of a show tune-singin’ mind control device anyway? If he could create such a device, why not make the whole world sing, not just one single insignificant town? Furthermore, why would the main character still be singing when he left town and why would no one who passed through it remember that town? That’d be a pretty memorable thing, right? These were the kind of bizarre questions that filled my mind at all hours of the day and well into the night.
Looking back on it, I clearly needed to seek professional help, that much at least is painfully obvious to me now. No matter how I tried to figure it, it never seemed to make much sense; thanks a lot, Larry. I owe you one, douche. In retrospect, it makes about as much sense as what I eventually settled on, a frustrated, musical-loving demon, not very scientific at all when you think about it; but hey, it’s not very nice to point out my failings, jerk face. The tale of Singcinnati pretty much just died out as I could never seem to properly break the story. Then Larry, the utter bane of my existence, and I took a quite accidental, but as it turns out, fateful road trip into the jaws of hell, which burst the embers of that dying story back to life.
On the way back home one night, after a day of watching hockey and failing miserably at hitting on waitresses, we took an unfamiliar route home, since Larry didn’t want to travel through a certain neighborhood at night, the sissy. In fairness, I imagine we’d all have the same reaction if we’d been carjacked and shot once, but I digress; that totally invalidates my point and I freaking hate it when that happens. Believe it or not, many parts of Singcinnati and our heroes’ arrival therein are completely true and happened to Larry and myself that night. We managed to turn what should have been a leisurely thirty-minute jaunt home into a nine-hour journey into our darkest fears. We arrived home at sevenish the next morning, the two of us rather surprised, and most of our other friends rather disappointed, that we were still alive.
We did learn some valuable lessons that night, however. First, real men really don’t ask for directions no matter how hopelessly lost they are (that’s right we’re real men, even if we like musicals, suck it). Second, neither of us have a particularly good sense of direction. Third, and the most important in my useless opinion, if you put two people with overactive imaginations in a car together at night and get them stupendously lost, they will proceed to convince themselves that they are about to die in the most horrific ways possible. Ah, good times!
To this day, I haven’t tried to recreate that little journey into madness again; for me, it served as invaluable inspiration. Also, it seems a period frozen in time to me, one that trying to relive would break the magic thrall it held over my imagination. Combining elements of that trip with some of my earlier work, including the much longer bank robbery story I completely gutted for this, and some poetry I wrote a few years ago (yes, poetry, still a real man, darn you) I finally, at long last, broke the story for Singcinnati. I quickly, however, realized one rather crippling mistake as I began to map out a screenplay. There was not a snowball’s chance in Singcinnati that we could ever make this ourselves. As I began to write the first breakdown of the scenes, the plot snowballed into rather wild and exorbitantly costly areas and we are, to say the very least, poor. It was later pointed out to me that the larger hurdle would’ve been the fact that neither of us have the slightest bit of musical ability whatsoever. I probably should’ve considered that point first. Once again, I’m not that bright; stop pointing that out. I hate you.
Either way, once again Singcinnati was dead; left to be forever stuck on my computer as a rough skeleton of a screenplay and serve as a constant reminder of my amazing folly. Fortunately—or unfortunately, depending on if you actually liked this book—the characters continued to haunt me. I knew that I had to get this written down in one form or another or it would drive me mad; of course, in my case no one would really know the difference, but it mattered to me, and in the end, aren’t I really what is important? Doesn’t my happiness matter to you? So, I cast caution to the wind, as well as all forms of logic and reason, which really just seem to get in the way most of the time, which also, for the record, isn’t that hard for a nutter like me.
Finally, on my birthday and armed with a newly purchased songwriter’s rhyming dictionary, I plunged headlong into writing Singcinnati. To my pure delight, the story simply poured out onto the pages, even taking me to places I hadn’t previously dared to imagine. In less than two weeks I had completed the first draft. It was a simply structured, forty-some-odd page rough draft of snappy one-liners and silly songs, with so many plot changes that the first half of the book no longer made any sense, nor did it seem even remotely connected to the second half. This was a rather serious problem, but at least it was finally progress.
I quickly realized it’s still an extremely odd piece of literature as it doesn’t structure like a normal book. The action is still very heavily driven by large chunks of dialogue instead of any form of traditional action, but that is the unavoidable result of it being initially conceived as a film and I couldn’t bring myself to compromise my vision for the story. I’m stubborn like that. The intelligence of that vision is still very much open to speculation. I also, reversely, tried to expand out on descriptions and add tons of inner monologue and filler material to make it feel more like a pr
oper novel, but that made me feel like a complete hack as I was writing it, not that I’m not, but I’d rather not feel like one. In the end, I felt it was best to stay true to my original story. The rest, as they say, is history.
As such, it is meant to be lean and mean and not to linger and prattle on for pages about every minute detail of the town. It is meant, like a film, to be something that starts with a bang and quickly carries you all the way through. Like a film, I find it best if it’s read in as short a time as possible. Also, that way if you hate it with a passion that consumes your very soul, it only ruins your day, not your week. This would have been much more easily accomplished had it been closer to the barely over 40,000 word first workable draft, instead of the well over 100,000 word tenth and final draft; but hey, I go where the story takes me. It would have been my dream to have seen this thing up on the stage, or the big screen, (with a cast that makes everyone think the whole thing should just be renamed “Masters of the Whedonverse” but alas, that dream exceeded my grasp. However I was not willing to let the dream die out entirely. The characters wouldn’t let it die, as they continued to haunt me until I was finally able to exorcise them onto these pages.
Oddly enough, the last piece to fall of Larry’s original idea was the brilliant title, of which I was loathe to let go. I felt Singcinnati wasn’t the logical choice after the twist of Roanoke (which popped up in my second draft) moved the story into North Carolina. Hence, Musicarolina was born; I, however, could not resist keeping Singcinnati and some of my original ideas for the goings-on there in the book as a stinger. Strangely, it left this book to end where it had initially begun. An oddity of chronology, as it serves as the last days of its own much larger story and a prequel to Larry’s initial madcap idea and what I had done with it, go figure, right?
In the end, what you have before you is the result of many years of my dreams and nightmares (the writing of just the novel alone took me from mid-February of 2014 to mid-February of 2016). As well as an unabashed love letter to the writers that I have long loved and admired from a distance—the legally-required distance laid forth in the various restraining orders—in my life. From classic influences, most noticeably C.S. Lewis and H.P. Lovecraft, to the more modern works of John Carpenter (if you didn’t pick up on that I both pity you and you thoroughly disgust me!) and Joss Whedon, all who are lovingly referenced time and time again here. Oh, and I took more than my fair share of pot shots at stuff I hate, because I can and I’m vindictive like that.
I considered including some form of audio for you, but seeing as my singing has been very appropriately compared to someone running over a walrus with a steam roller, I eventually decided against it. You’re welcome, by the way. In case you still were longing to hear it anyway, I must point out to you, my dear psychopaths, that animal rights activists do not in any way, shape, or form endorse the running over of walrus’s, walruses, (walrusi?) with steam rollers, so don’t even try it. My dancing, on the other hand, has been accurately described as most closely resembling a puppet having an epileptic fit while on crack. Suffice it to say, while I may be able to write a musical novel, in an actual musical environment I am, sadly, less than useless. Which is a shame as I so clearly love music, but whatcha gonna do?
So, in summation, I would like to sincerely thank you, my dear reader, for giving this odd little experiment in writing a chance. A huge thanks goes to Mr. Larry Kernan for coming up with such a terribly-formed idea with such a fantastic little title. I both respect and hate you for that, both with an undying passion. Props also go to my creative partner-in-crime of almost two decades, Mr. William Butler. I can truly say I never would’ve got this far without our years of collaborations. I hope that doesn’t make you want to kill yourself. Also, a special shout out to Tyler Daech for bugging me for well over a year to finish this mother. You are one supportive li’l dude; NOW LEAVE ME ALONE!
Now, my treasured readers, If I can but leave you with a single piece of advice, it’s probably some seemingly clichéd and hackneyed notion about never giving up on your dreams, but before you pass this idea off as over-sentimentalized hogwash, first please consider this: If you are reading this, this means that I got a musical with no music published, and I’m kind of a moron. What then, do you really think you can’t realistically accomplish? As for me, I assure you that if this story is in any way successful, I will use all of the proceeds to buy better friends...
Humbly Yours,
Daniel William Gunning
MUSICAroLina Page 30