Thotes (or, “oh dear God, he’s back”)
Photo credit: J.J. Abrams
So, like two years ago or something, I had this awesome idea: a “creative reunion” of sorts, if you will, as it were, so to speak, if you like, as it please, and so on, et cetera. The idea was that I’d take my high school notes and upload them to this site along with commentary exactly ten years after writing them.
Unfortunately, at the time of my stroke of genius in identifying a somewhat unique outlet for my creativity, I didn’t have what you’d call “any support” from what you’d call “my heinous ex-girlfriend” whom you could say “everyone hated because she was a monster”—and I mean that less as a judgment of character and more as an efficient way to describe her physical scales, tendency to breathe fire, and flailing tentacles made out of lies and betrayal. But I digress.
The “creative reunion,” as I called it, fell apart, because when you spend most of your time with someone who validates neither you nor your creative works, you get discouraged and abandon them. And thus, The Internet was spared for over two years, and there was peace.
Well now I’m back… TO RUIN THAT.
I’ve got an itch to write again. Unfortunately, due to the popular convention commonly known as the “calendar,” it is no longer chronologically possible for me to resume a ten-year reunion, as it is now over 12 years later, and “dozen-year reunion” sounds like a stupid Dunkin Donuts marketing scheme, and “twelve-year reunion” employs a number which is a multiple of neither five nor ten, and it’s not amateur hour, so NO THANKS. I also lost my place in terms of where I left off, as I’d scanned literally my entire notebook (which only cost about $1,367.81 at Kinko’s, because Kinko’s) at the time of the reunion’s conception. So now I’ve got to figure out naming conventions and trying not to post multiple times and a bunch of other stuff that literally only matters to me because I have obsessive-compulsive tendencies, and which you will literally never notice. Or care about. I’m glad, then, that I just devoted an entire paragraph to discussing it.
Speaking of paragraphs, my point is that I’m going to change some names, and here’s what I’ve come up with:
Thotes.
I took notes in high school, and now I’m going to tell you my thoughts on them, and so when you combine the two words, you get a stupid portmanteau that both looks and sounds utterly stupid. Which is why it’s perfect for this site!
So prepare for some thotes. Unless I wake up tomorrow and change my mind on a whim, in which case disregard this entire post.
In the meantime: prepare your body. It’s gonna be quite a ride.
Cody Gough in Arts & Crafts: A Web Series
HEY LOOK I’M IN A WEB SERIES:
I play nerdy college student Ray, one member of an ensemble cast of characters trying to navigate their way through college. Did I mention that I play a college student? Ha ha yeah, I’m awesome that way.
This series started as a successful Kickstarter project and grew into a huge part of my life in the latter half of 2013 and early 2014. I’ve become close friends with many members of the cast, and I can honestly say that the people both on- and off-camera are some of the most talented people I’ve worked with… and they’re so young (most are actually Columbia College Chicago students)! It was a blast to shoot the first season of the series, and I’m pumped about the possibility of having a second season. But we’ll see.
In the mean time, enjoy the episodes on this playlist, and please subscribe to the series’ YouTube channel to stay up-to-date on future content!
Affleck and Robin
As long as they cast Matt Damon as Robin, I’m all-in.
Brace yourselves: CM Punk is coming
Wrestlemania 29 is this Sunday, and in its honor, I’ve decided to put “the best in the world” CM Punk on his very own meme, featuring Game of Thrones. Please feel free to share (preferably including a link to my site, or at least a photo[shopping] credit) and enjoy THE SHOWCASE OF THE IMMORTALS this Sunday!
Viet-Mom
Welcome to CodyGough.com! This may be your first visit, because it’s my birthday, and I’m using the powers of Facebook to trick people into visiting promote my web site. Welcome, and enjoy. I host episodes of Unqualified: A Video Game Podcast here, as well as post stories and poems that are ten years old. I will eventually do more stuff, but I wanted to start simple in 2013.
With that out of the way: exactly 10 years ago, I had an idea. Inspiration like you would never expect. In addition to incredibly artistic drawings of characters from Super Smash Brothers: Melee, I came up with the premise to a story of epic proportions. Observe!
A CHILLING TALE INDEED.
Transcript:
VIET-MOM
The chilling tale of one Asian woman who bore an entire nation, only to one day be betrayed by her own uterus. Witness the gripping re-enactment of one pedophiliac cannibal’s quest for her “golden children” through the exotic jungles of such countries that start with the letter “T” as Tahiti, Tijuana, and Taiwan. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and you’ll cry some more, as the journey takes you through four hundred years of tragedy, comedy, romance, and satire.
A few things:
- Yes, I know I didn’t originally write “Asian,” but the word I DID use wasn’t politically incorrect yet when I wrote it. So sue my 10-years-ago-self. I actually am sorry if that offended you, though… just keep in mind, this was written by a high schooler in a different time. That’s all.
- I’m pretty sure that tragedy, comedy, romance and satire were like, the 4 types of stories we studied in English class. We had also watched Apocalypse Now in class, which I’m sure inspired this entire poem.
- I have no idea where Tahiti is. And I hate myself for ending the previous sentence in a preposition. But at least now I’ve shown that I did learn something in school, so I’ll call that a win.
Look, I never said that none of my stuff would be offensive (DAMN YOU, DOUBLE NEGATIVES), so please keep in mind that a high schooler wrote this stuff and that the “big picture” of my entire 10-year project is to entertain. Sometimes that includes shaking your head in my general direction. Other times, that means seeing my INCREDIBLY ARTISTIC ARTISTRY, especially applied to video games.
Anyway, I went on a kind of sabbatical from my web site in March, but you can look forward to seeing a lot more of my high school genius in April. Thanks for visiting! I hope you enjoy my little project and decide to check out other parts of my site, and more importantly, I hope I can entertain you again soon, because I honestly think making people smile is why I was put on God’s Green Earth®… even if only because I have no other real skills.
Speaking of earth, I like how on my Apple keyboard, I can simply type Option+R to make the ® symbol, but on my Windows 8 laptop, I have to type Alt+0174. HOW DOES THAT EVEN MAKE SENSE
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This post is part of Cody’s “10-Year Idea Reunion” series, in which Cody revisits his creative writing class assignments exactly 10 years after writing them. Learn more about Cody’s Idea Reunion and follow him on WordPress to follow along!
Poem: The Konami Code
If you want to test someone to find out if (s)he is a “real” gamer, then ask about the Konami Code. It’s a cheat code used in several Konami games, but for whatever reason, it became so iconic that other video games also started to utilize it, and has become so prevalent in pop culture that ESPN, Facebook, and Google have featured it in Easter Eggs on their web sites. It’s kind of a big deal.
The Konami Code, by the way, is up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, usually followed by start or select and then start. I did that from memory. Be impressed… or don’t, since I just talked about how familiar every gamer should be with it.
Anyway, I wrote a poem about it. Please enjoy it.
I only had to use three continues before finishing this poem!! … which… doesn’t even make sense
Transcript:
Look at you!
Look at me
Look at you
Looking at nothing
BECAUSE IT DOESN’T EXIST?
What’s it to you,
Super nerd?
I don’t think so—
Not this time—
So let me look around,
Look inside,
Pretend I believe in your fictional lies!
I’m gonna flip,
Iron Will;
Shoot to thrill, play to kill!
Stolen line just like the rest,
Unoriginality’s always been the best,
So do it sideways, up,
Up, down, down,
Left, right, left, right,
B, A, B, A,
Start the fight
Cause I’m gonna win,
Your chance was gone when I turned you on,
And now you’re gone, worse off than Pong,
Made obsolete by myself the 1337,
And when you scream I flip the switch
And live to fight another day.
Game Over, bitch.
Analysis:
- This is awful.
- Yes, I realize it’s not really about Konami. Or the Konami Code. Or anything.
- “1337” is pronounced “leet” (like “elite,” but without the “e”), in case you aren’t nerdy enough to immediately realize that.
- “And live to fight another day” is what the major bad guys (Bebop, Rocksteady, The Shredder, Krang) yelled all the time in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon series. So yes, that’s stolen, too.
- This… wow, this is awful.
I hope you were mildly entertained by this. Just remember: you can write better poetry than me. Sometimes I write decent stuff, but with this, I have officially set the bar so low, you can’t possibly do much worse. I’m gonna go punch the Konami Code into a controller for a while now.
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This post is part of Cody’s “10-Year Idea Reunion” series, in which Cody revisits his creative writing class assignments exactly 10 years after writing them. Learn more about Cody’s Idea Reunion and follow him on WordPress to follow along!
One does not simply oppose gay marriage in 2013
Let’s get real, folks, and face the fact that it’s just regressive at this point to actively oppose the idea of allowing a group of people to have basic human rights.
Happy St. Hangover’s Day!
I hope yesterday was worth it!
A poem starring forced alliteration, excessive prepositions, and Super Smash Brothers: Melee
I don’t know what exactly our teacher could have possibly said to inspire me to write this poem. Seriously, here is what must have happened that day:
Teacher: Okay class, you all have to write a poem today, the subject of which must be something you are passionate about.
Me: Does that include video games?
Teacher: Why yes, Cody, it certainly does! And be sure to include at least one writing technique, such as alliteration, in the poem.
Me: How about I include alliteration, but instead of giving it any context whatsoever, I just write a bunch of words in a row that start with the same letter but lack any coherent or logical flow?
Teacher: That sounds splendid! Please also do that with a part of speech as well, such as prepositions or linking verbs.
Me: I will do so happily, and then gallivant into the sunset!
Teacher: You didn’t even use that word correctly, but who cares? Go write your terrible poem!
That basically is what must have happened, because Science®. Anyway, here’s the result of this conversation:
A poem featuring forced alliteration, excessive prepositions, and Super Smash Brothers: Melee
Transcript:
Characters all around
25 all around,
Colorful characters quite abound
Every few and every pair
Have some sort of reason to be fighting there
Cartoonish they seem, yet I don’t quite care
It keeps things clean—for the Kids.
Contacts cascading, namecalling renaming
The therapeutic Theremin of Thespian thinking
A thing-in-itself
Which no-one seems to be seeing
Smelling the sweat, the substance of strife
Illiterate critics, illegitimate gimmicks,
Sucking the life out of
Into out of around near far abound
Train of thought
Derailed to hell
Away from the housetop,
Away from the roof
Now dash away, dash away…
Dash away all.
Ten years after writing this poem, I can explain almost every thought that went through my head. I have no specific recollection of writing it, but here’s how each part of this happened:
- I started writing about Smash Brothers. “25 characters” are in Smash Brothers: Melee, and the violence in the game is irrefutably “cartoonish” to maintain a K-A rating (Kids to Adult), which is the video game equivalent of being rated PG.
- I must have heard the word “theremin” somewhere and couldn’t think of anything else to write in Line 9, so I just grabbed a Thesaurus (or used any “th” words I could recall) and stuck them together incoherently, very likely thinking “I can get away with anything, it’s poetry” at the time.
- Line 13, “Illiterate critics, illegitimate gimmicks” undoubtedly refers to video game critics who invent facts to further their own political agendas (i.e. Jack Thompson, who at the time was sadly receiving media coverage) as I start to “zoom out” from Smash Brothers itself and start to examine the overall perception of it, and gaming.
- After writing Line 14, “Sucking the life out of,” I couldn’t think of what to write, so I just wrote a chain of prepositions, which were HUGE in the Latin class I was also taking at the time. I directly admit this in Line 16 when I say “Train of thought,” and concede that I couldn’t think of a coherent follow-up in Line 17: “Derailed to hell.”
- Lines 18 through the end are self-explanatory.
Is it frightening that I can deconstruct my own ten-year-old poem as specifically as I did? Honestly, you tell me. I like to think that some things never change, and that I don’t think that’s a bad thing. My writing was also pretty transparent, at least at the time, and at least to me.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this completely ridiculous poem! Looking ahead, it appears that I won’t have a great deal of notes/poems/stories for the next 10 days, but please stay tuned and there will be plenty more for you to analyze, criticize, or ignore soon!
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This post is part of Cody’s “10-Year Idea Reunion” series, in which Cody revisits his creative writing class assignments exactly 10 years after writing them. Learn more about Cody’s Idea Reunion and follow him on WordPress to follow along!
Poetry about hell… and Roy from Smash Brothers
I’m not sure how or why this happened, but apparently I penned a few poems about hell. The first poem is my “main” hell poem, followed by a poem that is about both hell and Roy from Super Smash Brothers: Melee, equally. Let’s see how dark my high school mind could get:
A poem about hell, followed by a poem about hell and Roy from Super Smash Brothers: Melee
Transcript:
The descent.
Through the cloud;
Off a cliff;
Into the needles
—Of a blackberry bush.
The voice of death
Whirring in your head
The descent into hell—
You know that you’re dead.
The same from all places
The distance of the journey is
For central the location be
Of Auburn’s room 296.
Wow… talk about anticlimax. I’m guessing that my creative writing class met in room 296. Anyway, that poem is followed by a rough draft of the next poem. Moving along, here is that second poem:
Gripping, masculine, muscular hands
In hell, no-one can hear you—
Play Smash Brothers—
I guess Roy really IS flaming!
A few things:
- Roy is a character from Super Smash Brothers: Melee (originally from the Fire Emblem video game series), and I never liked him. His sword often bursts into the flame in the game, so I liked to call him things like “flaming idiot” and “flaming loser.” At the time, “to flame” someone meant “to insult” someone; I often had “flame wars” with my friend Captain, who of course LOVED Roy.
- The imagery of tightly gripped hands could apply to Roy’s very heavy in-game sword, but it ends up implying the grip used to hold a controller. This gives the Smash Brothers poem actual poetic validity, which both annoys and pleases me.
- I wonder why I specified “blackberry bush” in my first poem?
I like that my seemingly serious attempt at a poem about death/hell devolved into a stupid comment about my high school creative writing classroom, but my stupid anecdotal poem about a character I hated in Smash Brothers resulted in the creation of some actual legitimate poetry.
I’ve always been told that the best material comes from your passions. I was VERY passionate about Smash Brothers in high school (and college… and now), so I guess it makes sense that some semblance of creativity would have come out of me when writing about Roy.
…still feels totally ridiculous, though.
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This post is part of Cody’s “10-Year Idea Reunion” series, in which Cody revisits his creative writing class assignments exactly 10 years after writing them. Learn more about Cody’s Idea Reunion and follow him on WordPress to follow along!
Cody Gough (dot com) 