The Cool Cricket Company

Modest genius and founder Erik the Cool Cricket was born into an isolated world of glacial deposits and cheddar cheese. His childhood was an endless nightmare of abandoned trolleys, beat poetry and 24-hour shrieking. Not surprisingly, the wise-beyond-his-years child grew into a stark-raving lunatic, convinced that he had turned into a cricket. In an unconscious attempt to abate this severe psychosis, he developed the nervous habit of gnawing on his left wing and would masticate night and day.

One particularly lonely and bitter evening, in the midst of a violent tantrum, Erik discovered that if he scraped the jagged edge of his left wing against the sharper, smoother surface of his right wing, he could produce a captivating chirp. Suddenly, all the monsters Erik knew and imagined turned their heads and began to listen. This quite fortuitous breakthrough had calmed the snarling masses -- and placated Erik's own anger. The Cool Cricket Company was born.

Crooked Corners Webside Stop is based on situations and characters from "Tales of the Cool Cricket," an anthology series on local cable produced by Erik in high school. Since then he has earned degrees in English and Cinema Studies and given rise to various creative projects. His numerous narcissistic endeavors have included "Win's Losses," a 22-minute 16mm short film about a nerd who hates his job and many years worth of "Snickerdoodles" calendars drawn for no reason other than a severe lack of social contact. He has written poems, short stories, novels and screenplays, honed his skills at photography while exploring California and the West, and from time to time accepted small bi-weekly paychecks from corporations in order to subsist in the perpetual state of misery that makes him comfortable.

To this day, he continues to rub his wings together in hopes of producing a perfect, resonant chirp. Crooked Corners Webside Stop is a further hop toward that goal.

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