Crossover

by Albert Thorn

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1.
2.
[We establish our hero as a somewhat selfish and unexceptional person.] Tommy’s got a prize hanging off of his arm she’s turning every head when she walks into the bar she’s dressed up like the city that she's been missing so everybody knows what Tommy’s been kissing yea but he don’t know her daddy knocked her to the floor when he found her with a friend he showed that little girl a door well, she gave me her number when she went outside for a cigarette just give me a plain-faced girl so we can lay outside all night and she lights up the sky with her sweetest smile, alright she can take my heart away cause it’s been hurting me too much anyway and she’ll never leave my side, no she’ll never leave my side I never been one to do the right thing so I dialed up her number on the very next day I never know what I want, I'm just doing things so I told a little story to her phone machine now three weeks in, Tommy's busting my chin said he can never look me in the eye again well this has happened to me so I know how it feels I'm paying back the world, it's all part of the deal
3.
Car Crash 01:52
[A car crash leaves him deformed and in great pain] [all spoken dialogue] she was about as fresh as a can of chile I once built a radio using nothing but meat, and a broken radio I think some people come to work just to waste my time what you did was unforgivable I think you're a very bad person one man power failure your jawbone has been completely shattered spleen ruptured kidneys are lacerated left lung is collapsed spine has compression fractures here and here dark nipple you'll never see out of that eye again and the burnt skin will take a while to heal your eyes are making fun of me baby needs to drive he crashed his car into a tree they're not sure if he'll live if he does, he'll be ugly as hell how do you feel?
4.
[Feeling sorry for himself following his disfiguring and crippling car crash.] my doctor's fingers taste like cigarettes he’s telling me something that's boring me to death like a man walking ‘round dead for seven weeks he died in a car crash cause ‘cause he couldn't get any sleep nobody even told him that he died so he just kept recycling his life everyone assumed, because he walked across the room there must be a living man inside well I’ve lived enough to know you can’t get revenge unless you take it slow I guess that answers why my life goes on are these memories even mine? they’re from an unfamiliar time I guess I’ve survived something wrong some people need to hold their lovers tightly in their arms well I could never keep them straight and I always preferred cigars now I guess I'm wishing that I’d trusted someone more I miss the company of a milky woman looking at me with sympathetic eyes now there’s a buzzing clown head where my face used to be its all tingling and filled with lies when you find a love you need to hold it oh so close to you danger is the only love I’ve known some people play it safe, the same ones take it slow others must rub up against the side of the road
5.
Magic Bullet 04:08
[He watches a commercial for a procedure that promises to take away his pain, and his nervous system] [spoken] It aint the bullets that hurt it's the wounds this is a magic bullet it’s shocking to your mind you can step outside your body you can step outside time this is a magic bullet it’s shocking you my friend if you don’t like the life you’re living you can bring it to an end a bullet is a cure for every disease it makes everything that’s hard so perfect, so easy a bullet is a cure for work, for sadness it’ll make you feel strong, it’ll make you feel badass [spoken] the procedure is simple first, we restrain you then we inject you with a solution of NEMS robots the robot slowly replace every nerve cell including your brain you can keep most of your memories and your personality will be identical I’ll take a magic bullet I’m asking you on my knees give me a magic bullet I’ll take one right now please I'll take a magic bullet ‘cause I can't face my life give me a magic bullet right between my eyes this is a magic bullet it’s shocking to your mind you can step outside your body you can step outside time this is a magic bullet it’s shocking you my friend if you don’t like the life you’re living you can bring it to an end a bullet is a cure for every disease it makes everything that’s hard so perfect, so easy a bullet is a cure for work, for sadness it’ll make you feel strong, it’ll make you feel badass [spoken] after a month your entire nervous system will have drained through the tube into a bottle and you will have a complete NEMS synaptic structure I'd like to get my junk into that I'd like to see her ghetto cake you will be functioning on a NEMS robotic neural substructure what if it doesn't work? I’ll take a magic bullet I’m asking you on my knees give me a magic bullet I’ll take one right now please I'll take a magic bullet ‘cause I can't face my life give me a magic bullet right between my eyes
6.
Shuttlecraft 04:06
[On the way to the moon to have the procedure done, he meets a woman who captures his imagination] I met you on a shuttlecraft you were picking up some baggage I said, “Can I help you with that?” you put your hand on my shoulder when the rockets kicked in I was feeling pretty weightless just beneath my skin do you even know, you turn my heart to stone? it's burning like a shooting star beyond what I know We were talking so much that we missed our dock the pilot got so angry when we told him we were lost well he told us where to go and he pointed at the clock it’s pretty far away now and that gives us time to talk we’ll be arriving at the mothership pretty soon it’ll be a couple hours until we reach the moon you put on a jumpsuit to protect you from the cold I pulled out a bottle and sprayed something up my nose this is the last thing I'll feel soon I will wonder if you're real will you still remember me when you're past the moon and you're so far away that my telescope can't find you? you told me about the books you like to read I pointed out a mother who was crying on her knees we talked about our stories and we had some laughs then the mothership was boarding so we just left it at that
7.
[He ponders the nature of love and life] I can tell by the lines in your skin that you don't have a plan and your luck is running low like the dribble from an empty beer can sometimes you think love is like sunshine, if you sit outside it’ll beam into your life but baby the sun is only free to the birds it's a gift and a curse to the nighttime love isn't something that you can find love isn't something you take it isn't something that just happens to you love is something that you make making love, making love love is something that you make I can tell by the sweat on your skin that your confidence is shaken and your storybook ideas have all been taken just look at you, stumbling through waiting for a prince or some coincidence to grab you by the hand and pull you into lalalalalalalala land ... making love like you mean it making love like you've been defeated you get your shoulders in the motion and drop your hopes into an ocean
8.
9.
[He is at the medical facility on the moon. His mind wonders during the procedure, the final conscious thoughts using his natural brain tissue.] I fell in love with you sometime I like the way alcohol can change my point of view lets go out dancing and move our bodies through the smoke and feel nothing like the joke they see in me our bodies are changing like sand dunes in the wind blowing out to sea if we ignore the ships we travel in I might not be much but I'm the only thing she's got translate encoded waves from her deep space astronaut I'm trying to stay sober fighting to keep my mind from slipping, from crossing over to the other side well I'm trying to do a job here without catching some disease that's turning muscle flesh into something that I don't want to be it's a fascinating problem when we reach the speed of light but I've got hooligans smashing in my ugly face tonight no matter how long you climb you're still two steps away at most from falling on your face and losing everything that's close, but sometimes you can't let go until you reach for something first and the only way to kill your pain is to do something that's much worse I'm trying to stay sober fighting to keep my mind from slipping, from crossing over to the other side I'm fighting for my life here deep inside my heart I don't expect you to understand but please don't tear me apart
10.
Healing 01:50
[Recovering after the procedure]
11.
[The procedure cured him of his pain, but it gave him a violent personality, his body is destroyed in battle and replaced by machine parts] son of a bitch believe that I'm moving faster than the devil's glitch behind a natural disaster I can go anywhere and I can do anything I know you  want me to stop but baby I'm too mean I'm like a particle cloud of broken glass I make a million cuts when I'm blowing past I've got a chemical light making up my spine chaos in my thoughts and a bullet ‘cause I’m always in the mood for fighting attack could come from any side the dead spent their lives deciding when to run and where to hide you’ve got a pretty big bark for such a little kitty you surprised me in the dark now you’re looking kinda shitty if I happen to see you and my teeth are dull I’ll lay down in some trash and put a bullet in your skull I’m tired of waiting take the fight to you attack way before dawn under cover of the moon eat after the kill sleep when I’m dead I’ve got a fast heart and a 9-lb. head [spoken] I guess I'm the same person I just, I feel stronger, angrier than I've ever been before all I want to do is win please don't make fun of my muscles [spoken] he's known pain he's been fighting for many hundreds of years his body has eroded over time he's done an incredible amount of damage his body has been punished terribly again and a again he's known more pain than any of us can imagine that's a lot of damage his body has been completely changed over dozens of times one piece at a time his body was replaced with technology then that body was replaced again and again it's incredible that his mind has been able to survive this long
12.
[Reflecting on his journey, wondering what he is now that his body has been completely replaced with technology] they said you tried to find me well, did you know I went berserk? you wouldn't recognize me if I was stuffed in your purse I've been turned inside out about a thousand times with that jackass' still in here and baby needs to drive where is my body now?   where is my body now?  tell me, where is my body now?   running somewhere, overground I let a magic bullet take away my pain and the rest just slid away I didn't feel a thing you can't blame me anymore than a million pieces of dust for things my body's done I'm a sinking ship of Theseus where is my body now?   where is my body now?  tell me, where is my body now?   junky sludge in the ground
13.
[After thousands of years, he transmits his mind into machines shaped like animals and insects, ponders the nature of happiness] sometimes when I'm a little bird floating on the sound over a river I like to pretend that I'm an arrow and someone forgot to tell me to to hit the target or at least to hit the ground because I'm like a magic arrow surprising everywhere I go I just want to be a bird maybe once every spring, but changing your shape well that's a rich man's score so in my free time I download the datastream for a photo or a name of something I can afford to help me hit the target or at least, to hit the ground I'm so much like a magic arrow surprising everywhere I go the other birds are eating worms while I'm sleeping in I recharge my circuits with the latest information filling up a circuit I'm not using too much I'm looking for my life in a billion pools of mud [spoken] You just have to accept things the way they are. It's not giving up, it's inevitable, its reality. You've been choosing to fight it for a long time now. Why not make a choice to be happy? Just let yourself be happy.
14.
[He decides to enjoy his circumstance & celebrate his freedoms (like transmitting his mind to machine bodies anywhere in the galaxy)] I love a useless fight but I don't like to wait so I'm stopping by your kitchen get a slice of that ghetto cake bring it on, ahh, ahh I can change my body into anything I wish I can transport my mind through the galactic disc I've tried everything for a thousand years and I finally calculated what I want to appear [spoken] imagine two circles side by side I could stay there forever I think I’ll take a holiday anywhere I choose I think I’ll take a holiday by thinking about you I might close my eyes and let you drift into my mind I’ll take a holiday in heaven with you, anytime there’s a switch in my mind its turning on to you a telepathic connection collapsing points of view there's no way to know what I'm going to do, so I think I’ll take a holiday anywhere I choose I think I’ll take a holiday by thinking about you I might close my eyes and let you drift into my mind I’ll take a holiday in heaven with you, anytime
15.
[He meets someone who reminds him of a person he knew a long long time ago] is she sliding, down from heaven? or is she crawling, up from the dirt? there’s no answer, so don’t bother calling she’s out walking, across the earth she can’t remember the name her daddy gave her says that you can look but never touch if you try to get inside her head she’ll say, “You’ve got the wrong idea.” but that’s OK ‘cause she don’t say too much she’s just like everyone who gives and then takes some She was on a journey when I found her and I've seen that look before somebody who's lost a treasure a tangled face with troubled eyes I could try to change her mind, but I’d be wasting all my breath you would never call it pity if you could see her breast there's never time to listen to the heart when you're flying toward some dying star and the wreckage where life fell apart is like a map to where she's going she said this is the last thing she will ever feel and soon she'll wonder if I am real

about

Crossover is a comic science fiction story told in the form of an electronic rock album. Our hero is a somewhat selfish and unremarkable person whose fascination with danger ultimately leads him to drive his car into a tree. Sad, disfigured, and in chronic pain from the accident, he learns about a miracle cure "Magic Bullet" medical procedure whereby his nervous system is replaced by NEMS robots. On his way to the moon to undergo the procedure, he meets an enchanting woman on a shuttlecraft who captures his imagination. Impressions of the woman drift through his mind as he muses on his own doubts and conflicts during the month long procedure. He wakes up pain free after a lengthy recovery, but his personality is transformed. He is stronger and angrier than he has ever been before. Driven by his rage and passion for danger, he fights in whatever wars he can find for several hundred years. Repair of his wounds and battle damage result in his entire body being replaced, one piece at a time, with technology. Eventually nothing remains of his original biological body and he begins to wonder what he is and why he's on the path he is on. He stops fighting and passes the time by transferring his mind into the body of robots in the shape of animals and insects. He sinks into sadness as he thinks about the nature of his mind and motives. He eventually decides that happiness is a choice and decides to enjoy his technological powers such as the ability take holidays anywhere in the galaxy. During his travels, he comes across an enchanting woman who reminds him of someone he knew a long time ago.

credits

released October 1, 2010

www.facebook.com/pages/Albert-Thorn/131497653567557

Story, Music, and Lyrics by Albert Thorn.

Additional voice talent:
Josh Meredith
Ezra Meredith
Jennifer Wu
Bhavin Patel
Joel Meredith

Special Thanks:
Ava for helping me workshop tracks during preschool commutes, Tom Johnston for enthusiasm and feedback on the first demos, Ken Richter for encouragement to finish the project, Josh Meredith for a lifetime of musical inspiration and for doing most of the voicework on this project, epic preschool teacher Melody Mason for saving me a seat at 3:25 on Plain Faced Girl, Ae-young Lee for inventing ghetto cake, Mary for loaning me your mandolin, Jim for introducing me to Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, and Washington Park Zoo for having loud animals to record.

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