dark humor – Brettimaeus

Best Educational Video

Created: 1 Jan 2016

Somewhat miraculously, our Psychology teacher assigned us a third and final narrative project, making all my dreams come true. I wrote the thing in under an hour, practically in a stream-of-consciousness.

The character of Nikki was taken from a Business and Personal Finance simulation project, where we had to put a character in a city and manage their schedule and cash inflow. Nikki was created to be the poorest, most miserable character possible.

The brief quip in this video about her being “
too deep in debt from the apartment rental bills and car lease”? Those were real things that happened, so I just cannibalised them into character lore. Even the line about Bram being going into the screenwriting industry was a reference to an early draft of a budgetary plan I made for the character.

I did have to abandon some of the running gags for this one, namely the absurd alliteration at the start, and the Mars Needs Moms joke at the end. but I think what replaced it was strong enough to draw attention away from that.

Now, why it took me a year to release this video is anyone’s guess.

As Nikki approached the large glass framed photograph, she felt absolute despair. The portrait hung crooked on the wall; her from all those years ago, actually enjoying life with her best friend Bram. Now she didn’t want to touch it, because that would mean touching her own hideous face.

The doctors had diagnosed her with what they called “Body Dismorphic Disorder,” simply meaning that she saw a distorted version of herself that others couldn’t imagine. She forced herself to continue looking at the portrait, despite her repulsion at it. It should have been a solitary beacon of hope in an otherwise dismal situation. Both the figures in the portrait were smiling and in good friendly spirits.

But the joke was on her: Both those figures had long since turned sour in her memory. She herself had become an ugly monstrosity, even her past retroactively made to suffer under the illusion. And Bram had long since abandoned her for prosperous prospects in the “screenwriting industry”.

The smile on her picture’s face seemed warped and elongated, like it shouldn’t fit. Her eyes were wildly different sizes, reminding her for the hundredth time of the Hunchback of Notre Dame. The phone rang. It was her mother. She hesitated, then answered it.

“Oh my god, an alien just broke into the bunker and killed your father. Listen, it won’t be long before they start showing up in your city, so please darling, get out of there. Go somewhere unpopulated out in the countryside. Just, do it for m-” And the phone line went dead.

Nikki understood her mother’s concerns regarding her choice in housing, but it was far too late. She was too deep in debt from the apartment rental bills and car lease. All she could do was go to work and carry on her miserable existence.

She donned her referee uniform and cap, heading for the door, but not before taking one last piteous, disgusted, look at the photo on the wall. “I miss you Bram.” she muttered. She walked down 37 flights of stairs and exited out the front of her apartment building, getting into her car and driving off to the wrestling stadium. As she drove, West Side City could just be made out on the horizon, being ransacked top to bottom by alien scavengers.

She arrived at the Kekan Memorial Wrestling Stadium with little time to spare, stepping out of her car and rushing past the swarm of sweaty fans to get inside, so she could referee the match. Her manager wasn’t mad, he simply told her to get out there so the match could start.

Her thoughts were elsewhere. They reflected all the worst of what had happened to her: Losing the battle with alcoholism. Losing many of her possessions to the IRS for accidental tax fraud. Losing her appearance to a worsening Somatoform Disorder… And losing a good friend… A low rumble built up within her.

BUT THE JOKE WAS ON HER. That rumble was actually an enormous object entering Earth’s atmosphere just nearby the stadium. With the unimaginable force of a quadruple-sized elephant, an alien ship came crashing at an angle through the roof of the stadium. “Ah man,” thought Nikki, “Not here. My job is toast now!” What would she do without pay? What would she do without a reason to get up in the morning?

But the “joke” was on her. Out of the ship crawled a baby with an M16 rifle. Nikki would have recognized that face anywhere. She’d seen it in a baby photo, shared in a moment of tenderness.

“Bram!” she cried in joy and relief, running over and picking him up like a sack of potatoes.“This isn’t quite what I imagined when you said "screenwriting industry.”

…Bram was literally speechless, but he gave a knowing look that said everything an infant couldn’t.

Both had had their share of psychological trauma, but now reunited, they could work together to heal not only their own ailments, but those of the planet Earth.

Interesting notes: This was read out loud, in its entirety, in front of the class.

I still got an A.

Better Educational Video

Created: 28 Oct 2015

Believe it or not, our Psychology class was assigned to write another narrative. I was instantly struck with giddiness. I knew I had to fashion a wretched continuity out of this senseless storyline. The words flowed from my fingertips without resistance that night.

I got an A on this one too.

Bram awoke, aware not of his situation, but of his burning desire for revenge. Were his brain not that of an 18-month-old baby, he would have been awash with humiliation. A defender of humanity such as him, reduced to an inept child in what might have been his finest hour.

None of these thoughts occurred to Bram of course, there was nothing but primitive vagueness inside his baseball-sized brain, jumbling around. All he was aware of, as he awoke, was his burning desire -no, lust- for revenge.

However, a headless humanoid hologram hovered close at hand, hankering to help like a happy high-minded handyman.

First, the alien-mom scientists requested a computerized scan of Bram’s infant mind, hoping to find a possible Unconditioned Stimulus to put to work. The hologram quickly identified Bram’s want of revenge, isolated it, and sent the data back for approval. The scientists, curious and frightened, reserved the go-ahead, thinking it would be quite unwise to use a hostage’s hatred to Classically Condition them.

So instead, the hologram calculated a more appropriate method to elicit an Unconditioned Response, and settled on letting Bram eat a cupcake. On the opposite end of the laboratory, an advanced 3D printer printed a delicious chocolate cupcake, and a gun. A mechanical arm carried both across the room to the examination table.

Sure enough, as the cupcake was dropped into Bram’s mouth, he smiled. That was more than enough evidence to continue, so they quickly had the Neutral Stimulus, the gun, placed in his right hand. This time, as they fed Bram a cupcake and he smiled, they also had him fire the gun. The pastry-induced smile lingered on his face as he shot at the impenetrable ceiling.

The first Trial was a success, so the scientists all nodded pleasantly, positive that after several thousand successive Trials they would soon have a baby that really liked shooting things. So they totally left him alone and said they’d check back on him later. Days past, unchanged…

Finally, when satisfied, the scientists returned to check on Bram, hoping to find a kid who could defend himself with a gun and won’t need so much supervision, y’know? They did not give Bram a cupcake this time, just the gun. They waited with baited breath to see if firing it would cause Bram to smile, just as if he were eating a cupcake. Sure enough, he fired once, and a grin broke across his little face. The Acquisition process was a roaring success!

But the joke was on them! They didn’t correctly follow the steps of Classical Conditioning; they skipped making sure the Neutral Stimulus didn’t elicit an Unconditioned Response.

Their lazy scientific method would be their downfall! It turned out that Bram loved guns the whole time anyway. You can take the age- out of an agent, but you can’t take his weapons training!!!

Bram’s baby mind now had both the vengeful drive, and the capability to take back everything that had been taken from him, everything he could still feel at night.

This has been Mars Needs Moms 3: Mars Needs Help Now with your host: Bret Huston.

There was a spark of hope in my mind that the trilogy wouldn’t end here. But that’s a story for another day…

Good Educational Video

Created: 17 October 2015

Our Psychology class was assigned to write a narrative using all the parts of brain and nervous system…

The vocab words in order of appearance:

Sympathetic Nervous System
Parasympathetic Nervous System
Autonomic Nervous System
Somatic Nervous System
Peripheral Nervous System
Spinal Cord
Hind-Brain
Mid-Brain
Fore-Brain
Medulla
Cerebellum
Pons
Thalamus
Cerebral Cortex
Pituitary Gland

…And that seemed like such an arbitrary and farcical thing to base a
narrative on, so I decided to write mine in the most contrived and
ridiculous way possible. So if you ever watch the video and feel your brain repulsed by the force with which the “educational” material is dumped, know that that even happens to me when I try to rewatch it. My goal was definitely not to make the subject matter palatable; if I’d managed to do that, it would be called something less ironic.

Here’s the unaltered text which I turned into the teacher (and got an A+ on).

Bram approached the large glass window with determination evident in his face, staring outside at the impending alien invasion. Mankind didn’t yet know what advanced technologies might be trained on them, but they were confident in their ability to turn the tables.

But a brain-beam hit Bram, breaking all his barriers, blocking behavioral bodily balance, and basically beginning the battle.

First, Bram’s Sympathetic Nervous System was corrupted, disabling his fight-or-flight response. Following shortly was his Parasympathetic Nervous System, as Bram’s carefully trained heart-rate beat out of control. With those two components out of the way, Bram felt his whole Autonomic Nervous System sputter, not to mention a bowel movement like nothing before.

As things picked up speed, his Somatic Nervous System was the next to take a hit. His limbs each twitched briefly as he lost control of them, falling to the floor. His entire Peripheral Nervous System was now out of commission.

Thinking perhaps that could be the end of it, Bram sighed in angst. Little did he know his very thoughts and knowledge were next on the chopping block! His Spinal Cord promptly deactivated and retired, leaving Bram paralyzed from the neck down, little more than a functional brain. Not functional for long though.

His Hind-Brain, Mid-Brain, and Fore-Brain all switched off in quick succession.

He’d been breathing steadily up ‘til now, but without his Medulla to regulate, he began to pant. The loss of his Cerebellum did little to phase him, as his muscles were already unavailable, and with no lower brain left, the Pons had no good reason to stick around. Although there was still function in his eyes, the subtraction of a Thalamus meant he was no longer receiving info from them, rendering him blind.

Bram didn’t know what to do now, his training never prepared him for such an onslaught. Oh, and there goes his training. The climactic defeat of his Cerebral Cortex signified the shut-down of all four of his lobes, incapacitating any ability to hear, touch, learn, remember, speak, process anything, or even to think.

In this, Bram conceded defeat.

But the joke was on him, the beam was just deactivating his bodily/mental functions to prepare him for the real part! Bram didn’t -couldn’t- feel it at this point, but the beam now targeted his pituitary gland, not to deactivate it, but to release hidden hormones to TURN BRAM INTO A BABY. Yep, that’s right. The aliens were the ones from Mars Need Moms, but now there were too many moms so they needed kids too.

This has been Mars Needs Moms 2: Mars Needs Kids with your host Bret Huston.

Shortly afterward, I decided to recycle this essay as a script. I read it out into my crappy $20 mic, rewrote the whole thing in text boxes in Vegas, and added some choice midis.

Interesting notes:

I actually had those midis lying around because I’d already started working on Kidneyworld.

The name Bram comes from a character I created nearly a month before this, for another class, Business and Personal Finance. We were tasked to come up with a budget for a fictional character, and Bram Bernstein was born. He was a a “rich successful screenwriter,” who got his first name because I was reading Bram Stoker’s Dracula at the time, and his last name from a discussion about the Berenstain Bears I think?

It’s also worth noting that I came up with a second accompanying character, Nikki, who worked as a wrestling referee because that made for a more interesting budget plan (because she was supposed to be super poor). Anyway, might come up later.

source: http://www.midiworld.com/files/1132/