Shawn Bowers: The Website

Well hi there.  I’m Shawn Bowers.  Pleased to make your acquaintance.  Can you believe I’m a website now?  I’m having a hard time believing it either.  Becoming a website has been a pretty huge adjustment, just in terms of how I deal with day-to-day life.  More web surfing, less everything else, am I right?

I welcome you to poke around me and come across fun stuff.  My most recent uploads are all streaming forth below, so if you like chronological order, you’re in the right place.  For easy reference, you can also see Short Fiction, Sketches, Videos, Illustration, Design and regular old Blog posts at their respective links.  I keep a full schedule of upcoming shows and an archive full of wondrous goodies from past shows right here.

Also, if you like me at all, you can become my friend on different places by clicking on the appropriate links to the right.  I recommend becoming Facebook friends.

And remember, if you ever need to get ahold of me because you want to offer me a job or say “man oh man, great work!” or send me spam, my e-mail address is shawnbowers (at) gmail.com.

Boy oh boy, a website!  Whodathunk?

When I first moved to Chicago, I had very little going on.  Very, very little.  To fill the void and satiate my desire to write, I began producing a short series called InformaShawn.  It’s exactly what it sounds like: wildly useful video-based information that can help you change your life.

I managed to keep it up for 9 episodes before growing lazy, with a bonus 10th episode that resurfaced some months later.  I have more sitting in a drawer that can hopefully get pulled out again soon.  For now, enjoy the original series on one easy-to-scroll page.

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In college, one of the last classes I took before graduation was a film production class called Sound Design.  Despite being a film student, I somehow avoided ever knowing how to use any of the equipment involved in creating a film.  I’M AN IDEAS MAN, FOR GOD’S SAKE.

Our final project was to “do something with sound design.”  So I said “I’ll do something with voiceover, because then I don’t have to know how to record live audio.”  I also said “I could do something stupid and boring or I can make something that entertains me and graduate regardless.”  Here, watch Cranial Mechanica:

(Post script: I got an A…take THAT, sound engineers)

The hat had been stewing in the hat bath for at least an hour, which was a preposterous amount of time for a hat to bathe, let alone a top hat, which the hat bath box explicitly states should only be left in the bath for twenty to twenty two minutes for ideal brim firmness.

That the hat had been left with such literal abandon was unsurprising, as Matt often left objects unattended in their respective baths to prune, which had thus far ruined all of his living room furniture and a good portion of his slack collection. The slack bath broke down from overheating before he could finish the damage.

At hour two, the top hat began showing symptoms of shrivel.

At hour three, the hat had absorbed most of the water from the hat bath, leaving the crumpled corpse of the once illustrious chapeau a soggy mess that not even a hobo would salvage.

At hour seven, Matt returned from his frisbee golf tournament to find his raisin of a top hat, not so much bathed as manslaughtered through negligence. He skimmed the hat bath and the hat bath box, unsure as he always was with the baths as to where it all had gone awry.

Defeated, he dropped his frisbee in the disc bath and took a seven hour nap.

In the wake of Health and Fitness Plan w/Shawn Bowers, the masses were demanding further help.  Because I’m incredibly frugal and wealthy, it only made sense for me to pass along my valuable information for free.

There was a point, about a year ago, when I was incredibly healthy.  Since then, I’ve gone through various things like “inactivity” and “working” which have prevented me from keeping it up.  But at the peak of my health and fitness, I put together a handy instructional video to help the world achieve the same level of well-being that I had.

Name: Sparks
Color: Brown
Description: Foofy ears, medium tail. Stands three foot five on two paws, one foot one on three or four paws. Cannot stand on one paw, despite repeated attempts. Rugged sideburns that would have seemed out of character if you’d have known him a few years ago, but now totally work since he’s lost all that weight. Enjoys the outdoors. Also, rain. Also, political satire with a Republican slant. Will respond to any of the following names: Robert, Rob, Bob, Robert Myers. Will not respond to voicemails. All limbs intact at time of losing. Do not rule out cripple dogs, though, as a lot can happen in a day, and we wouldn’t want to presume anything, even positive things. In the right light, face looks eerily similar to Bertolt Brecht. Creative output, unfortunately, shares no similarities.

Significant reward offered, to be paid in full at time of return unless I don’t have cash on me, at which point reward will be forfeited to dog’s owner (e.g. myself). My children, who I do not have, thank you.

Batman had him backed into a pretty tight corner, but the Riddler, being the Riddler, always had a Plan B.

“Alright, Batman. Listen up. If you can’t solve this riddle, I’ll detonate that entire steam train full of women!”

Batman said nothing in a really menacing way, but he also looked thoughtful. Like real “brain-working” thoughtful.

“Riddle me this,” the Riddler said with a cackle. “Why did the chicken cross the road?”

Batman let it sit for a moment.

“Ummm…hm. Okay,” he said, coughing a little. “Excuse me. Hang on. Why did the…chicken? Cross the road? Hurm. Uhhhh…no, hang on. Was his brother on the other side? Wait wait wait, no no no, don’t blow it up, that’s not my real answer. Guhhh, think! You got this, Batman. Chicken. Road. Chickenroadddd…that didn’t work. Can I use scrap paper? I’m going to use scrap paper, that’s not cheating. Okay, there’s a chicken and…a…road. Draw the line across there…chicken’s over there…hm. Jesus, what the hell is this riddle? This thing is a doozy! Can I ask questions? Okay, no, I can do this. The chicken technically shouldn’t be by a road because it’s a coop bird, which means someone…left it? But why is it crossing? Is that philosophical? Is the chicken dead and you mean it’s crossing into the afterlife? That’s probably too morbid. Ugh! This riddle! Ummm…okay, I’m going to go with…uh…”

Batman bit his thumb and squinched his eyebrows.

“The chicken was…getting lunch?”

Two hundred and fourteen women were found dead next to a bunch of burning hot steel train scraps later that morning.

David, I’m serious this time. Don’t screw around with me. It was funny the first time, and you totally had me going. I’m admitting that. I was ninety nine percent certain that was a real unicorn until you pulled the horn off and started laughing. How the hell would I know what a real unicorn is or isn’t? It’s a mythical creature! I’m not a mythology expert, I’m a dental student!

I shit you not, though, I’m looking over at the horizon and I will be damned if that is not a unicorn. Do you see it? You can see the silhouette against the sunset…there’s a horse’s body and a unicorn’s horn. It has to be a unicorn, right? Agh, why didn’t I bring my camera today?! I had to charge the battery after I photoblogged that charity mini-golf tournament for Susan last weekend. This is so much more valuable than hundreds of shots of mini-golf! So much more valuableeeee.

Hang on, is it coming over here? Don’t look at it, don’t make eye contact. If these unicorns are anything like wolves, they might get intimidated by eye contact or see it as a sign of aggression. Christ, I hadn’t even considered the possible wolf connection before. They could be like wolves in so many other dangerous ways. This could be the tip of the wolf iceberg. No. No, we can’t think like that. Just don’t look at it.

Oh God, I can hear it whinny. I can hear it–hey! Wait a minute. Unicorns don’t whinny. Horses whinny! Is that…that’s a toilet paper roll on its head! Son of a bitch, David, did you do this again? Is this your doing? Well cock me in the balls. No kidding. Yeah, no, you got me. Again. That’s a different horse, too, isn’t it? Where do you get all these horses?

Fine, yes, okay. You got me. You can stop. Fool me once and then fool me twice and I’m an idiot both times. That’s the saying. I really wish you’d tell me where you get all those horses, though, because I cannot for the life of me figure that out. You’re from the city. I’ll tell you what really screwed me up, it was putting the horse off in the distance like that against the sunset. It’s way harder to tell what’s real and what isn’t when it’s silhouetted against a beautiful sunset.

I’ll be honest, I’m glad I don’t have my camera now. Except that is a pretty beautiful horse. That probably still would have made for a decent photo. Shit, now I wish I DID have my camera again. It’s like, when am I going to get another photo op with a horse, you know? You thought you were fooling me, but you were almost doing me a favor, except then you didn’t cause I still forgot my camera.

Seriously, David, just…where did you get all the horses, because–HEY! IS THAT A UNICORN PULLING A HORSE-DRAWN CARRIAGE?! FIND ME A CAMERA! THIS GAME IS ON!

Our car broke down in the middle of nowhere, but I managed to fix it up pretty quickly by clanging various objects under the hood with increasing rapidity. My family was stunned when our world-weary Buick Sentry puttered back to life by my touch, as I had shown no competency in any field before this, let alone auto repair. While it was arguable that I had shown any competency in this case either, they were too busy complaining at each other in the car to notice how I’d done it, only that it was done.

I took my time, dramatically slamming the hood with a devil-may-care flourish and strutting all the way back to my designated hole in the passenger side backseat. Everyone in the car was silent, their eyes (and, by association, their brains) unsure of what to say or do for fear that any sudden actions may somehow reverse the miracle of my idiot savantitude.

Without a word, my brother, a neurosurgeon, and my older sister, an astronaut, scooched over so I could squeeze back into my lot. My mother, a popular mystery novelist, stared at me through the side mirror as my father, the inventor of the VHS tape, turned the key in the ignition and picked up down the road as if we had never even stopped.

For the next ten miles, everyone tried desperately to avoid glancing in my direction and the silence remained palpable, the pressure of comprehension straining them too much to attempt outward communication.

Finally, my father screeched the car to a halt on the dusty shoulder of the highway. He shut down the engine and turned around, the first to break the embargo on direct eye contact. I had forgotten how brown his pupils get when his eyeballs are bulging.

“Alright, goddamn it. How did you fix the damn car?!”

“I don’t know, dad.” I said with a wink. “Maybe I’m just good at something after all.”

He shook his head, unwilling or unable to accept an explanation so banal for what just happened. He turned the key again and the Sentry coughed back to life, still fixed and undeniably functional by my blessed hands.

And then the car exploded.