Flinging my ass over the ocean so I can see really really old things. Stuffing my mouth with the delicacies of every culture whose cuisine has moved beyond beetle grubs. Learning other languages so I can order freaky forbidden food from secret menus hidden from the eyes of most Americans. Listening to great music and imagining what it would sound like if I still got high. Speculating the future based on a model from the past. I also love numbers, the cosmos, Halloween, Civil War reenactments, my family, my friends and LITERARY CRITICISM. I ALSO LOVE WRITING MOVIES.
Music
Abysmal Crucifix, Murderdolls, Rhapsody, the Conquistadors, Guns N' Roses, Down Factory, Scissorfight, Bloodlined Calligraphy, Acid Bath, Diesel Theory, Commander, Seventh Star, Haste the Day, and tons of others.
Movies
I don't watch movies. I just write 'em.
Television
Yuck! Sometimes I watch House, though. He's a doctor who plays by his own rules. Anything can happen!
Books
Favorite writers: James Joyce, Greenfield McKenna, Kurt Vonnegut, Ernest Hemingway, Virginia Woolf, Marcel Proust, Thomas Mann, and on and on.
Favorite books: though the list is endless, these are just a few. James Joyce - Ulysses (the best novel ever written, in my opinion), Greenfield McKenna - Assuage the Guilt, West to Heatherborough, Kurt Vonnegut - Bluebeard, Ernest Hemingway - To Have and Have Not, Virginia Woolf - Mrs. Dalloway, The Waves, Thomas Mann - Death in Venice, Mario and the Magician, The Coming Victory of Democracy, Marcel Proust - Time Regained, The Captive, Albert Camus - The Stranger, and on and on.
Heroes
Greenfield McKenna, W. Axl Rose, Girth McDürchstein, Marc Toberoff, Kenneth Gunther
I have written and directed many plays and musicals, mostly in the Twin Cities. I've worked at the Children's Theatre of the Penumbra Company, the Keokuk Civil War Society, and Greenbriar.
I've written dozens, if not hundreds, of literary criticisms on subjects from Dostoevsky to Guns N' Roses. I have one book published, Let It Take You Where It May, about the Guns N' Roses video trilogy ("Don't Cry"/"November Rain"/"Estranged").
Colby's Companies
Caribou Coffee Coon Rapids, MN US Team Member
October 1999-February 2000
Starbucks Coffee Co. Forest Lake, MN US Barista
February 2000-August 2000
Foot Locker Coon Rapids, MN US Holiday Helper
November 2000-January 2001
Jelks Coffee Co. Shreveport, LA US Barista
September 2001-November 2001
Courtyard Coffee House Shreveport, LA US Barista
November 2001-March 2002
Moxie Java Bossier City, LA US Barista
May 2002-August 2002
Edgemont Tea Room Shreveport, LA US Barista
August 2002-September 2002
Alameda Coffee Shreveport, LA US Barista
October 2002-December 2002
Java Junction Shreveport, LA US Barista
December 2002-May 2003
Convenant Beverage Corp. Waskom, TX US Barista
May 2003-May 2003
Krispy Kreme Doughnuts Shreveport, LA US Doughnut Preparation Specialist/Barista
May 2003-July 2003
Woodward Coffee Co. Shreveport, LA US Barista
September 2003-November 2003
Prima Tazza Shreveport, LA US Barista
November 2003-January 2004
Cajun Coffee House Bossier City, LA US Barista
January 2004-March 2004
AM Coffee Service Shreveport, LA US Barista
March 2004-May 2004
Pierremont Coffee Company Inc. Shreveport, LA US Barista
June 2004-August 2004
Plantation Gourmet Coffee Co., LLC Mooringsport, LA US Barista
August 2004-September 2004
Athenian Delights Shreveport, LA US Barista
October 2004-October 2004
Royal Cup Coffee Inc. Shreveport, LA US Barista
November 2004-February 2005
PJ's Coffee Shreveport, LA US Barista 3950 Youree Location
March 2005-June 2005
PJ's Coffee Shreveport, LA US Barista 8510 Youree Location
June 2005-June 2005
Starbucks Coffee Co. Shreveport, LA US Barista
June 2005-July 2005
Blue Moon Java Minden, LA US Barista
August 2005-September 2005
Magnolia Hall Coffee House Marshall, TX US Barista
Setepmber 2005-November 2005
Gunther Productions Hollywood, CA US Executive Assistant
April 2006-Present
Colby is working for the weekend Posted at 9:49 PM Jul 23, 2007 view more
About me:
I was born in Minnesota. I wrote and directed for the theatre and traveled a lot. My biggest passion was and is literary criticism. After graduating college, I moved to Los Angeles with my girlfriend, Dana, and now I write screenplays and assist producer Lemuel Johnston.
My Projects
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
"I was on a studio lot just last week talking with my good friend Tony Scott, who's thinking of directing this picture, and if these two got together and made 'The Lifted Veil' happen, it'll be a brilliant whiz-bang event movie you'll be happy bringing a date to!" - Gambol Gutenberg, Screenwriter/Life Coach
"It feels a little outdated to me. Perhaps change the ending and downplay the stock the story gives to phrenology. Other than that, aces." - Darwin Mayflower, Internet scriptreader
"It must have taken a lot to translate an obtuse story loaded with abstract concepts into a slick Hollywood narrative. Congrats, pal, you did it!" - Geoff Tambeau, Sony Pictures
"Brilliant wife death...Impressive psychological insight." - Michael Sean Conley, Screenwriter
"Take it off, please." - Skip Press, Screenwriter/Life Coach
"It's getting there, but it needs a polish." - Kenneth Gunther, Producer
"Fuckin' awesome, man." - Evan Kilgore, novelist
"The crimes and medical logic depicted in this play don't feel terribly realistic to me, but maybe they were in the 19th century." - Tony Vargas, Los Angeles District Attorney's Office
In late 2005, I was commissioned by Intellectual Properties Worldwide to write the 23rd draft of a remake of the classic film C.H.U.D.. I obliged, and although I was fired off the project, I feel my work was good and it is worthy of mentioning alongside my other works.
The screenplay follows the story of A.J. "The Reverend" Shepherd, leader of a private security team sent underground to investigate the mass murder of a construction team working to complete a secret vault under Wall Street. Once down there, this disparate but team-like group of individuals are faced with horrifying creatures--the Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers, a mutated civilization of homeless forced to evolve after being exiled underground generations ago. Will The Reverend lead his team to safety, or will it be too late? More importantly: when will businessmen recognize the folly of taming this island Earth?
Colby Witherspoon's first literary criticism since college, titled LET IT TAKE YOU WHERE IT MAY, is an analysis of both the songs and the videos that comprise Guns N' Roses's successful trilogy from 1991-93. Using interviews, biographical information, and a general knowledge of literature and history, he makes a compelling case for the meaning of each carefully selected visual symbol and lyric.
An abbreviated version of this analysis was originally made available for free on the Internet, but this was discontinued with Japanese publishers Handsome House (a subsidiary of Gentosha) published an expanded 213-page volume with full-color illustrations and more in-depth research. You can find it by following this link.
What the Critics Say:
"At its best ... the most in-depth look at Guns N' Roses ever."
-Tom Paine, author (The Cathode-Ray Lemonade Exam)
"This is something we haven't seen before. Ever."
-Glenn Poston, Illinois Entertainer
"What makes it all the more fascinating are the baffling trips into biographical data, as if disturbed childhood explains the visual and aural cacophony of these videos."
-Wilson Thorndale, Metal Mania
"Weird as hell, but brilliant."
-Tracii Guns, L.A. Guns (former Guns N' Roses member!)
"By far the best thing Japan and Minnesota have ever produced."
-Gunther Reynolds, Hardchord Magazine
"The social message of Guns N' Roses' music is this: if you can effect change in your own lives, you can change the world. How one sees himself is integral to the spirit of communal wealth, for one sees oneself as less than desirable, they will perhaps shy away from the group. Are we not all comrades?"
-Norm Ashenfelt, license-plate collector and editor of Socialist Party monthly The Appeal to Reason
"The obsession with familial ties and divorce makes me wish someone wrote an analysis of the analysis--about Colby Witherspoon!"
-Wilson Thorndale, Squadron of Deathsquad
"Who knew these videos and songs had such depth? I did."
-Eric Romano, editor of mygnr.com
"Colby Witherspoon has an interesting style of writing and does a decent job at making the videos seem bigger than they actually are."
-Gunther Reynolds, Hardchord Magazine
"Colby Witherspoon's propensity toward pretension and multisyllabic descriptors veritably predetermine an unpropitious estimation."
-Lem Drucker, U.S. World Perspective
"A William S. Burroughs novel after entirely too much acid."
-Pete Cleaver, Rageahol Tribune
"The writing is really good, actually he shows us that you really can do a lot even if your subject matter is weak."
-Kai Yoshioka, Sopporo Read Today
Who I'd like to meet: Movie makers, theatre people, Artists, writers, poets, mystics, historians, believers in the civilizations of pre-antiquity, followers of alternate realty theories, anti-Bush-liberals, SCA's, Civil War reenactment acolytes, Gamers, Indie publishers, philosophers, film makers, composers, Tolkien freaks, blood fest film orgie fans, gore fun metal modificators, screaming fans of films that screw your brain...
You've a birthday coming soon and I wanted to make sure I had a chance to say Happy Birthday. My you live every day of your life! Thanks for being my Myspace friend.
Issue 1 comes to life with Darby Larson's "Electroencephalography" where an experiment in robot-building goes terribly awry. And if you've ever woken up with an unexpected physical deformity—say, an arrow in your heart—you'll truly enjoy the next story. There's also a smattering of flash fiction and psychedelia; a straight-out story where things aren't what they seem, poetry that takes you from the perverse to the sublime, some magic realism, science fiction, and a few letters to another species thrown in for good measure. We haven't forgotten those of you with a literary bent. In addition, the artwork in this issue is particularly strong, with oil paintings, watercolors, photography, and photo illustrations complementing the words with which they are paired.
