Choose Your Own Juese-venture

You are born at a date and time you'd rather not reveal on the internet. It was a Thursday, if you remember right. Nineteen Hundred and Eighty One. Adam and The Ants' <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4B2a6l6wM2k">Stand and Deliver</a> was topping charts in the UK, though you were born in the colony of New Amsteryork to the much less interesting <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPOIS5taqA8">Bette Davis Eyes</a>. But, the #1 movie at the box office was <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbBCP7VKM-E">The Burning</a>, an excellent slasher movie filmed around Buffalo, NY, where you might end up for some time - depending on your choices. [[Spend 18 years in Sodus, NY?]] [[Find a small scepter?]]

That's right, you do. Here you learn words and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logo_(programming_language">Logo</a> and watch a lot of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_MDeUBWeGE">television</a>. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGEWY7ytMCo&feature=youtu.be">You also get an NES for Christmas</a> of let's say second grade. In school you are most concerned with band as well as academic studies, but you've been shaken by the glut of films filling a never-ending void, fed from the local video store and heavenly angel <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsjpvynezw0">WPIX</a> out of NYC. You want to persue music, but have some nagging common sense telling you you might want a path that could lead to financial stability. A friend of yours mentions he's going into a commerically-viable field with many areas of concentration. This sparked you to... [[Study (and graduate four years later) with a major in video communications and a film minor?]] [[Apprentice under Giuseppe Baldinia, a master perfumer?]]

Yes, this happened to you. What band was in high school became the campus TV Station <a href="http://www.wnyftv.com/">WNYF-TV</a> at SUNY Fredonia, starting out performing on and helping with several shows (as well as being volunteered for Staff Representative as a joke and holding the position for three years) and eventually co-creating a weird sketch show with your pal Chad, winning a best editing award both years it aired. A lot of your friends are in this Fredonia State Improv Society thing, but you're WAY too cool to join until senior year. Graduation approacheth... [[Start a video company/comedy troupe?]] [[Investigate the bee farm?]]

With your incredible gift of smell, you amaze local Master Perfumer Giuseppe Baldinia. In exchange for a foot in the nose door, you give his failing business new life with your extraordinary talents. Did you know that you are also a murderous madman, aiming to preserve human scents? Your life story is turned into the film <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ES_rfgjeTuE">Perfume: The Story of a Murderer</a>, directed by Tom Tykwer of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uz2-D4lY2qg">Run Lola Run</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyObQH1RmLo">Cloud Atlas</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9c_KSZ6zMk">Sense8</a> fame. YOU ARE A FAN YOU ARE ALSO A FRAIL HUMAN WITH AN AVERAGE LIFESPAN OF 78.74 YEARS AND DIE EVENTUALLY [[THE END|Birth]]

Laying next to you is to you an ornate rattle. With no dexterity, you flop onto it and become a player piano. At first you love the smiles and music that comes with playing for the other children, but quickly grow bitter. You yearn for the human life you were denied by curiosity and fate as wave after wave of infant leaves and is replaced, again and again. As you fester with spite, the hospital is closed and you are sold to an old woman as gnarled as you. Together, you spitefully play melancholy standards at each other until you both fall apart. YOU ARE DEAD (and also a player piano) [[THE END|Birth]]

<a href="http://culturedvultures.com/history-x-strike-studios-indie-video-game-filmmakers/">X-Strike Studios</a> is born, bearing gamer-centric entertainment fruit in the form of five feature-length parody movies, two documentaries, five or so web series, multiple podcasts, a couple Let’s Play-type game runs, one-off sketches, some video blogs, and probably more you're forgetting. You feel linking everything would be excessive and decide to point readers towards the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/XStrike">X-Strike YouTube channel</a>. Not only do you work as crew, cast, and publicity, you travel along the east coast to many (many!) video game and anime conventions to promote and host panels and events (and you still do!) The first two years are based in your college town of Fredonia, NY until you and the company migrate to Buffalo in 2005. There, you... [[Work with people with autism?]] [[Work on other people's video projects?]] [[Perform improvisational comedy?]] [[Act with your voice and critique the entire motion picture industry?]] [[Pick up the large scepter?]]

Funny how a thing like a bee farm can feel like it just appeared out of nowhere. Wait, no, that's not a thing... that bee farm just appeared out of nowhere. You investigate, hopping the fence, armed with just your wits and a gun. Sneaking past the hunchbacked beekeeper, you enter the farmhouse. While the outside is rustic wood, the inside is rustic space metals with slimy, orange hieroglyphics. There are what you would describe as "classic aliens" chained in rows, seated, knitting one giant scarf. The first one to notice you screams! Panicked, you trip and fall into the giant scarf, entangling yourself as the masked beekeeper enters. The beekeeper takes off their garb to reveal a creature made of dead bee husks. You pull out your gun and fire, blasting chunks of bee bodies off, but not impacting the Golem. YOU ARE OUT OF BULLETS PUNCHING WORKS FOR A WHILE YOU ARE THROWN OUT FOR TRESPASSING AND LAND ON A RAKE YOU ARE DEAD [[THE END|Birth]]

Admittedly knowing next to nothing about autism beforehand, you end up working with individuals in a group home for eight a half years, most of which is worked on the overnight shift. Now you know next to everything about autism! [[Drive to Austin... wait wait all that improv! Don't let it go to waste, unread and withering in the hot internet!|Perform improvisational comedy?]] [[Okay fine, geez.|Drive to Austin?]]

Not content to just work on your own projects, you also help <a href="http://www.buffnickelproductions.com/">Buffalo Nickel Productions</a> on multiple films and a web series by way of camera, some editing and miscellaneous. You also edit a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPiSxL0_r6s">music video</a> for local director Andy Morin, and give advise to several people asking for script/writing opinions through the years. [[AND work with people with autism?|Work with people with autism?]] [[Follow the man who smells of light?]]

Laying next to you is what you recognize as a rattle you chose not to have anything to do with the day of your birth, only larger. You crack it open and find a reverse genie. "I shall grant someone near you 3 wishes!" it says upside down. "What if I hand you to someone else?" "You dare question me?" asks the thing you broke out of a rattle. You are leery of the little being, and don't want to upset it. However, it <I>is</I> a reverse genie, whatever that means. "Yes." "NOOOO!!!!" The reverse genie explodes into numbers never seen by mere mortals. YOU SLAIN THE REVERSE GENIE! WHICH MEANS YOU ARE NOW A REVERSE GENIE! YOU WISH FOR MERCIFUL DEATH! SOMEONE NEAR YOU DIES! [[THE END|Birth]]

With your incredible gift of smell and wanderlust whim, you are compelled to follow a gentleman in a Velveteen frock who, when the wind shifts just right, has the distinct odor of a beam of light. The man walks into a green house, becomes radiant and feeds an array of plants with his golden hand. It is one of the most beautiful things you've ever seen. YOU ARE BITTEN BY A SNAKE YOU BECOME A SNAKE YOU ARE BITTEN BY A HUMAN YOU BECOME A HUMAN You leave the man and the green house, never to return. But the man notices that, when the wind shifts just right, you smell of flesh. Delicious flesh. YOU ARE EATEN BY THE MAN OF LIGHT YOU ARE PART OF THE SHINE ETERNAL YOU ARE DEAD [[THE END|Birth]]

It is time for you to machete a path through life's thick overgrowth, slathered in life's mud to mask your heat from life's tech-savvy intergalactic hunters. Like so many, you are drawn to the opportunities, vibe, and not insultingly-cold temperatures of Austin, Texas. Here, you have made constant use of the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/juese.cutler/posts/10156359161440711">Drafthouses</a> and HEBs, helped behind the scenes at an Empire Garage comedy showcase filmed for PBS, and got a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/juese.cutler/posts/10156354854705711">magical face-changing cat</a>. Wait, is... is that... ?!?! [[QUICKLY, REINCARNATE!|Birth]]

Fortunately, you do end up joining the Fredonia State Improv Society between 2002 and 2003, and continue until you move from Fredonia to Buffalo in '05. Soon, you start performing shows catering to those conventions you're going to, and that grows into <a href="https://www.facebook.com/theseguyaresick/?fref=ts">These Guy Are Sick</a> (which draws a frighteningly large crowd every year at <a href="http://www.magfest.org">MAGFest</a>.) You also help start a troupe in Buffalo - <a href="http://artvoice.com/issues/v11n49/see_you_there">Queen City Improv</a> - which performs once a month. You eventually take over directing duties for workshops. Three years later, you take a class with a Mr. Nate Halloran, meet some new friends, join a drop-in improv group, and meet MORE friends! You even try open mic stand-up a handful of times. You are involved with a stellar still-unnamed troupe for most of 2015, and even get to fill a spot for Buffalo-staple The Ecclectic Company for a business gig once. But alas, a decade of Buffalo is but a stop. [[Drive to Austin?]] [[Get up, you're asleep at the wheel!]]

In 2015, you get the opportunity to voice the Narrator in the video game <a href="http://store.steampowered.com/app/428240/">Haunsters</a>. You also spend the year writing about film for the sites <a href="http://www.drunkmonkeys.us/film/2015/8/27/film-reviewbrcall-me-lucky?rq=juese">Drunk Monkeys</a> and <a href="http://culturedvultures.com/imdb-top-250-227-pirates-caribbean-curse-black-pearl-2003/">Cultured Vultures</a>. Coupled with the comedy and the move, 2015 was a busy year for you. [[Wait, what move?|Drive to Austin?]] [[Wait, what rich background in improvisational performance?|Perform improvisational comedy?]] [[Wait, what purchase at a hardware store in Bellevue, Delaware?]]

<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhQG5mMfN2U">GET UP YOU'RE ASLEEP AT THE WHEEL! GET UP YOU'RE ASLEEP AT THE WHEEL! GET UP YOU'RE ASLEEP AT THE WHEEL!</a> YOU WAKE UP YOU ARRIVE HOME TO FIND NOT YOUR PARENTS BUT A BEE GOLUM PUNCHING WORKS FOR A WHILE IT THROWS YOU OUT OF THE HOUSE FOR TRESPASSING THIS ISN'T YOUR HOUSE THIS ISN'T YOUR TIMELINE YOU CONFRONT YOUR HIGH SCHOOL BULLY WHO IN 30 YEARS TIME STOLE YOUR PAL'S TIME MACHINE AND GAINED FORTUNE OFF A SPORTS ALMANAC HE GAVE TO HIMSELF IN THE PAST HELD AT GUNPOINT, YOU STEP BACKWARDS OFF THE ROOF OF HIS CASINO HOTEL YOU ARE DEAD [[THE END|Birth]]

Looking at your bank statement, you realize you've been the victim of identity theft. You call the police and your bank, early enough that the culprit only gets away with the cost of a bunch of pipe wrenches. The officer that helps you with your case is Pameletta Cascade, and you two hit it off. Three years later, you're married. Four years later, briefly divorced, but happily married five years later and on. Your children - Identity Theft and Pameletta Luckdragon - grow to live long, prosperous lives. As you reach retirement, you and Pameletta (Sr.) get a house boat and sail off, constantly traveling the rest of your lives. This is the future, and that is very illegal. You spread disease from port to port, culminating in a laser gas fight with the New U.N. YOU CONVULSE IN LASER PAIN YOU ROT IN AN ORBITTING BALLOON PRISON YOUR LAST MEAL IS SERVED TO YOU BY A MAN WITH AN UNNATURAL AMOUNT OF PIPE WRENCHES ON HIS BELT AND A WRY SMILE YOU ARE DEAD [[THE END|Birth]]