Lutz Report

The Lutz Tavern is blanker tonight. Or so I suggested in an outline, intending to trade out blanker for another word on arrival. BOA: Blank On Arrival. It’s a vestibule, really. No free samples. Show ID with every purchase. Just don’t try the hottest wings unless those are really your thing. Then get LUTZY. Raise a toast to Thesis Desk #170, the booth at the back. Have you spotted our humble reporter yet? They’re never quite equal to the previous, but rest assured they are ever the antihero. We’re attempting to socialize. We’re attempting to learn Things. We might deduce that despairing over a fourth wall break is of little consequence if you never break a fourth page.

I’ve scanned some Lutzy stuff from the Quest circa 2012, but its full-blown irreverence doesn’t sit well right now. Lately, I’ve been recording my thoughts frame by frame. Here I pause to scan the roll. When I notice you missing from some stills, I’m afraid you’ll find out my mind grows gaps in budding clumps. You’ll be notified by carrier pigeon. Damn, I wish those were still around. As a rule, every thought-train is derailed by birds. Is it such a sin to forget? Or worse to deny you have slippages, too?

So I press record for another few dodgy takes. I prefer them crisp, but images of you are more claymation than slice-of-life. Wallace and Gromit shit. The alums purchase another round and their talk drags on. They recommend applying to the United Nations. How ‘bout that. Abetted by, ahem, liquor, our moves are falsely improvised. Sloppy not slick. In my mind there follows a montage of whens, ifs, and if onlys, all of which lose their flavor faster than a cinnamon Trident too weak to cut through beer’s smell-stain. I won’t swallow the gum, but I’ll swallow the —

Swallows are birds! Let’s pull, once more, out of this film I’ve been self-directing and self-editing for a year now. We’re at the interview stage. What will you do when you graduate? Is this a biopic? I’m also a self-producer. Let’s add to the scrolling credits: self-inducer, self-reducer, self-redactor, self-regurgitator. There will be no regurgitation tonight, however. It’s not cool, folks, and it’s unbefitting of the self-made. It is also a Thursday, so we’re keeping it extra ritzy at the Lutz. Rather than rant, we polish. We network. Then we stop at Commons for some crusts, and maybe the crux of it all.

I will have script edits in the morning. Forgive me if what’s newsy or Lutzy is only a filmy residue, but by now I am more brimming than blanking. Next time, be sure to flex your required copy of Kafka’s The Trial so you can read between sips and figure out what the hell you’re in for.