The Diamond Island

The opportunity came for an All-Saint’s Day hair-of-the-dog.  Almost went to see Count Gore’s hypnosis show but lost main power midway through the day, and that wasn’t enough to convince K to get out and about.  Instead, she dragged me along on one of her sudden hunches.  K’s instincts are good, so when she gets a trail on something I saddle up.

We head over to a used bookstore.  She’s looking for books on how to weave.  Her hunger for knowledge in the use of her loom is huge.  Me, I’m expecting to find nothing.  My instincts aren’t feeling hot, and I’m not on the trail of anything, so it’s a bust I’m ready for.  Which is okay, because even the missions that are failures have to be lived.  You gotta pay the dues.

Turns out I find a couple of interesting things, all clues to what’s goin’ on.  I think the unconscious washes these onto my shore as components for the next thing I’m supposed to do.  I get the feeling that the Dark Goddess must have dropped these off at the used bookstore for burger money.  A girl’s got to eat, and those late night meetings with the struggling artists in need of a vision can wear out the coffee machine.

• A near-mint condition copy of the 1983 Dungeons and Dragons module Ravenloft. Six bucks.
• Two DVDs of Karin (episodes 1-4 and 5-8).  Four bucks each.
• Two CDs of trance techno – Blank and Jones “DJ Culture” and Global Underground “Afterhours” (3 CDS).  Six bucks and nine bucks respectively.

Thirty bucks for some new brain protein chains?  Not bad!

For those not in the know, the Ravenloft module is considered by many DnD people to be one of the best.  Players adventure in a classic style vampire adventure, with all the expected trappings.  What is memorable about the module is some of the techniques it uses to evoke atmosphere and create a sense of player involvement in what happens.  So even though it follows a lot of the typical dungeon-kill monster-loot cycle of DnD, it has features that make every game different and more player-oriented.

I’d heard about Ravenloft recently on my sensor array, but as it’s an old module I’d have to really search to get a copy.  My researches in roleplaying theory and storytelling techniques require me to look into such sources of experimental gameplay.  And here it is, delivered in my lap for my own examination.  However, I also believe the subject matter also relates to my ongoing relationship with my Mirage.  The players are trapped in a nightmare world at the behest of an evil vampire, and they must explore the world to find the answers.  Each step leads them closer to the dark castle of the vampire where all shall be revealed!

No, not relevant to me and K’s situation at all.

I’d already watched the first ten episodes of Karin on YouTube, and loved them.  And here they are for me to watch in the comfort of my own home.  I have to say they hold up well to a repeat viewing.  I’m noticing a lot of things I missed before (always a good sign for craftwork), and I’m enjoying the study of the techniques of storytelling revelation and exploration in the show.

The theme of monsters being victimized by us, as people, is one I’ve been meditating on for a long while.  I also am drawn to the idea of Goddess-on-earth trying to find what the heavens need to survive and continue.  With a normal human dude as her sidekick instead of magical mentor with lotsa knowledge.  It’s always got to be about us.  I’m not so sure that’s a good thing anymore.  Outside, out there, things are looking to us to make things happen.  I’m drawn to the idea that we are the divine being(s’) adventure and that the work to be done involves both poles of the world.

The Dark Goddess wants me to know about this stuff.

When it comes to techno tracks, very often it’s about finding 1-3 singles that can carry you through to another state of waking vision.  My life support always needs new course calibrations to stay on course with the living spirit.  I’d heard Blank and Jones’ track “Nightfly” on Logic Trance 4 and loved it, so I figured I’d give them a try.  The Global Underground has always been a mixed bag for me, but I spotted Killing Joke’s “Requiem (A Floating Leaf Always Reaches The Sea Dub Mix)” on the 3 CD set.  I really liked that song on one of my ambient collections (the name eludes me and I don’t feel like digging it up), so maybe this set will be in the same vein.

I find that when I’m ready for new states of mind, or to examine old ones from a fresh perspective, the music comes to me.  I just find it.  It might be that the music will go along with something else I’m supposed to work on.  I’ve found that the music that most closely approximates my center tends to be ambient (leaning towards dark) with trance techno in the mix.  It’s the only formula that is complex and subjective enough to bring it out.

I don’t know, maybe UFO Girl passed them along.

Already the New Year is here, and the work is afoot!  As Pluto enters Capricorn its time to hold onto your butts.  Thanks, weird beings.

I’ve finished the third set of revisions, and am going down the line of my list of weaknesses to double-check if I’ve missed anything.  Maybe another two weeks, and I’ll have a finished draft.

I’m considering the possibility of doing a short comic book series and posting it here.  Got all the materials and the know-how, I’m only waiting for the right signs to take place and I’ll do some work on what it’ll be.  For now, I’m reading and researching.  Must make stuff for people or Hulk smash!

My folks have a bunch of tapes of a quirky truck-driving friend of theirs that might make for amusing listening.  I may turn them into a podcast at some point, or heck, make my own weird audio show for a limited time.  Must make stuff!

As Guy Caballero from SCTV said, “We need programming!”

The garden had gone weird on us.  The weeds won the battle, and we have mice living in the garden now.  Peppers are all a bust, and the tomatoes have gone whacko – either dying out if they are the big tomato variety, or growing all over the place and producing a handful of tomatoes if they are the small version.

The leeks are ready and good to go – they are huge!  The onions have made an unexpected comeback, while the horseradish is looking not so good.  One of the wildflowers went nuts and grew huge, with wonderful blossoms.  Crumbs, the marigolds are doing amazing, and we were surrounded by bumble and honey bees getting busy.  It was a shock.

We planted some autumn lettuce, but we’ll see how that turns out.  Oh yeah, the corn turned out nice, we got about five half ears with maybe three or four to come.  K and I cut up the corn and cooked it, then had it with the small cherry tomatoes.  The bounty was good as a side for our dinner, but it tasted so very good.

I don’t know what to make of the garden this year, it defies my puny knowledge to the +1.  I can’t explain how we got some of one thing, and nothing of most everything else.  Meanwhile, the folks have tons of lettuce growing like mad, along with garlic.  Pump up the jam for them!

My cool dude artistic friend Xtine has a new astrology website, so here’s the plug.  I don’t actually go there as a watering hole, or it’d be in the blogroll.  But I’ml placing her in the classic links section, as that may be of interest to my esoterically minded guests.  I can’t wait to see what she starts putting into her studio website when it goes to the max.

I stumbled upon some interesting explorations of the Minotaur phenomenon by arctangent at this link.  I especially like how she draws the distinction between a maze (a place to mess you up and keep you lost) and a labyrinth (you always meet the center and it’s occupant, because the route is inevitable).

I’ve been fascinated by the premise of the book House of Leaves, a rabbit hole beyond human comprehension, even though I haven’t been particularly interested in reading the book itself.  Puzzle mystery books don’t do it for me, mostly because I’m no good at puzzles and get hung up on them trying to figure out what’s happening.

However, the idea of getting drawn into an exploration of a supernatural house to try and experience its mystery intrigues me.  I’ve always been very fond of the Minotaur myth, and find the background behind it really cool.  Arctangent’s analysis got me thinking about it again, and I can sense more clues to come from out there.

I take a look at my hall pass, and the lifeclock is a big fat black color.  For whatever reason, the boog-a-loos don’t come descending on my head.  They haven’t departed.  The house is still haunted with weird stuff.  The faucet in the kitchen is now leaking.  I have to get that taken care of.  The electrical guys haven’t been back to finish the work.  I guess I’m just learning to live with wacky toilet time, the creaks and groans at night, and the bugs that appear to plague me.

K and I used last weekend to organize and unpack from our emergency move a year and three months ago.  We got good work done, and cleared some space, which was a help.  I got some of my piles of papers back into line, and came across a poster from back in the day.

The poster came with an Alien doll I got back during the craze of the movie that came out in 1979.  It’s a drawing of scenes from the movie with a few artistic licenses thrown in.  That movie was all the rage with my classmates in 6th grade.  A group of folks from a rival class tried to put together a home movie based on their devotion to that science fiction classic.  Crumbs, if only they’d had YouTube back then.

I dug out my Alien baseball trading cards, a complete set except for number 61 – “the chest-burster”, and gazed at all the pictures.  The puzzles got me to thinking about back when movie trading cards were all the rage after Star Wars.  I have to organize these darn cards of mine someday – Blue, red, yellow, green and orange Star Wars cards to name a few.

I had to trade that one for card number 1.  Back then number 61 cards were a dime a dozen, so I figured I’d be able to get another one easy.  Unfortunately, the series stopped being sold on my next trip to the local seven-eleven (which is a hair salon now, go figure), and I’d somehow given away all my extras.

I meditate on the movie, and recollect memories from my young fascination with the film.  I decide to go to Best-Cry and buy the DVD for ten bucks, as I haven’t yet added it to my collection.  K and I have an evening where we watch the movie and have a blast.

I remember seeing Alien for the first time at a late show in D.C., at a theater that sadly, no longer exists (though you can see it in Exorcist III – the main character and his best friend go there for their yearly mourning ritual to watch It’s a Wonderful Life).  Alien scared the pants off the crowd several times.  It was awesome.

The DVD has several deleted scenes that I’ve never seen, and which are actually pretty good.  I feel like I’m seeing an old friend again, and discovering something new about them.  I rethink my old experiences in light of the new scenes and how I might have thought.

My copy of the novel comes off the shelf and I read it three times to get every nuance.  A line from the scene where the remaining crewmembers are talking to the decapitated head of Ash the android sticks out at me.  He asks them if they’ve tried to communicate with the alien.  It’s a dead end for the crewmembers, but I wonder if Ash, being an android with a gender-neutral point of view, isn’t speaking of something outside the crew’s immediate experience.  He was probably trying to mislead them, but he might have thrown them a crumb from the limits of his artificial brain process.

I get to obsessing over the film.  Then I start looking up Bigfoot movies that I suddenly remember watching on Channel 20 WDCA during that channel’s glory years.  There’s this movie where a bunch of college students uncover a mummified Bigfoot and it comes back to life to rampage.  I used a tape recorder to tape the sound when I was a kid, and I listened to it at night with my blankets over my head for years until I recorded over it.  I use the mighty power of the internets and find out it’s called Curse of Bigfoot, and it’s available on Amazon.

My investigations go deeper.  There’s a Bigfoot movie called Creature from Black Lake that I’ve never seen, but I think I might have and forgotten.  See, there’s this scary music hook that I can always remember and associate with Bigfoot.  But I don’t know where it’s from.  So I Netflix the movie and see if that leads to anything.  K shakes her head at my poor taste in B-movies, but I think Creature from Black Lake actually is a decent monster movie.  It does not produce the music I’m straining to remember, however.

I finally go to YouTube and find an old show called Monsters, Mysteries, or Myths, which was narrated by Rod Sterling of Twilight Zone fame.  It’s a TV show that tried to explore Bigfoot, the Abominable Snowman, and the Loch Ness Monster from a “somewhat” scientific viewpoint.  There’s a three to five second sound bite where the music that’s stuck in my head plays, and I recognize it.

It’s weird, because that one brief sound bite has stuck in my head since 1975, and only now do I reconnect with it and get into the vibe with a show that scared me so bad I couldn’t sleep for weeks.  The show was re-edited with a different narrator and shown again in the early 1980s as The Mysterious Monsters, which I think I saw and that probably dredged up scary memories.

What this adds up to is that old scary spooky feeling again.  I’m getting the shakes, and yet I can’t stop looking this stuff up and re-experiencing it.  In particular, the self-destruct part of the Alien keeps replaying in my head.  The last crewmember’s endgame and final confrontation with the monster, all while experiencing nearly unbearable panic and fear.

I wonder if my mirage is up to his old tricks again.  Come to think of it, my garden troubles might be his doing.  He does know weeds and soil like the back of his hand, and it would be a laugh-riot if my folks got a bumper crop while K and I got a crummy harvest.  I just discovered the parental units have planted corn and it is already almost ready.  The stalks were hidden by their tomato plants.  Argh!  The garden beat-down knows no depths.

In a certain sense, the movie Alien is about discovery, both of something new and different (even if it’s a horrific one in terms of what happens to the crew), and Ellen Ripley’s inner resources.  It’s a message, one that I observe and reflect upon.  I don’t get the sense that I’m supposed to do anything more than that.

I have a dream.  In it, I encounter the creature from the movie.  It jumps on me like a cricket, and we wrestle in a dark place for a long while.  In Alien, the creature is more than a match for any human because it has inhuman strength and snap-reflexes in addition to claws and slime-lubricated teeth.  But in the dream, we’re equally matched somehow.

The alien snaps it piston-like teeth into my cheek, and instead of eviscerating my face, I resist and slide out of its grasp.  Some sort of understanding passes between us, and all of a sudden I’m “one of its kind”.  We lay on our stomachs together, cheek-to-cheek, and listen to the darkness.

Going over my posterboard supply, I notice that other than the piece I’ve set aside for my book cover project, I don’t have any small pieces left. That award I worked on used up the last of my free range board slices. Grumble, that stuff doesn’t come cheap, and I hate to have to do the cutting. I really need to get a good surface. Maybe when I win the lottery and get that multi-circuited workstation complete with trusty robot sidekick and icebox buddy complete with Polecat beer.

Hand in hand with the posterboard are my PH Martin Radiant watercolors, now down to “why bother?” levels. I keep telling myself I will revive my collection. I just haven’t been doing the poster board art scene for my personal advancement enough in that area. I’m going to have to if I’m going to get that book cover of mine ready for consideration.

Speaking of the book in the oven, I’m still in a heavy editing phase. I’ve been collecting a list of revisions, mostly consistency corrections that I’ll have to phase into my latest draft. The feedback I received gave me a few ideas that I’m going to want to develop further. I need to describe and develop certain points that may be unclear to readers. That’ll take some time. Finally, I’ve got some ideas that have percolated on their own that I’d like to adjust or change in certain scenes.

What this means is more redlines in my future. That is, more work. I’m pleased with my progress, and should I get this taken care of to my satisfaction, I can focus entirely on the grammar and spelling. That aspect might be a major stumbling block. At this point, I’m 90% confident in my content, but my style may need a lot of work. I’ll have to make some choices, as some of it might only improve with long practice.  And I need to get this stuff out!

Scenes from the next book are already crowding my brain. I’ve had dreams showing exactly how to compose certain scenes. It’s driving me crazy. I might have to just start writing the second book and get it out of my head. Actually, that’s not a bad idea.

Thanks to the deficit spending of our glorious leader, I ordered some new CDs for inspiration. Some Lustmord classics – Heresy, Where the Black Stars Hang, and Purifying Fire, which should round out my collection (yes, I’ve been saving the best for last), along with Erotikon by Deutsch Nepal for a little ambient differentiation. I’m looking forward to using the fresh life support to give me the energy I need to get through my editing challenges.

I also used the influx of funds to get some more role-playing games. I ambled over to Indy Press Revolution and got me a copy of Capes and Shock. Service was quick and easy, and prices not too shabby, considering that I won’t have to buy a dozen supplements to play. The future of gaming really is independent publishing, it’s great.

Shock is a science fiction game where you create a world based around a “shock”, or science fiction concept such as “Some people are androids” or “Mind transfer is commercially available”. The players create characters that struggle with one another in the context of the world’s “shock”, and explore the social issues that are revealed through play. My friend Lossefalme might find the concept interesting.

Capes is a superhero game where players compete with one another for control of a story involving their own characters and the minor non-player characters of the story. The premise is that superpowers (like flight, or weather control) are fun and you should use them, but do you deserve them? I think my current game group might like this one, because of the dynamic resource management and ability to come up with anything at all within the constraints of the rules. You can do anything, but can you achieve your goals?

K and I have used a 19-inch TV since we moved in together, and it’s done us well all this time. My dad’s neighbor was getting rid of his old television set for a new-fangled plasma, and my dad pestered us about it until we caved and took it. It’s a 26-inch, so it’s much larger, but it has some quirks that I’m not psyched about.

The remote is buggy, the sound has a low level buzz that you can hear in moments of silence during a show, and the section of the tube gun that handles the color blue seems to be lining the screen at times. This dinosaur might keel over soon. If it does, maybe this is a sign we need to upgrade to a larger screen. I refuse to go plasma or HD just yet, just because I’m against the concept of “better visual quality” when so much of TV is absolute junk.

I ambled over to the local bookstore chain and picked up some classic books – The Secret Garden by Frances Burnett, Emma by Jane Austen, and Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy. I want to study some of the classics and see how they are written, so I can compare my own style and content against theirs. I’m also looking to see how complex social interactions and stories of personal relationships are built and played out by these authors. Finally, I’m hoping to have an enjoyable read.

I looked at the SciFi and Fantasy section of the bookstore and all I saw were names I’ve already read and can’t stand, franchises based on popular culture staples, and books based on roleplaying games done to death. It’s depressing and makes me want to state that this small niche is dead and rotting. Meanwhile, the teen and manga sections had tons of new material taking chances and having fun. It overwhelmed me.

I’ve also been hitting the local library. It seems like my reading this last year has increased many times over what I usually amount to. I’m hungry for good material, or in other words, Mars needs women! There are about a dozen books next to the couch where I read. It is as if I’ve stopped watching my movie/TV collection and find my nourishment in literature instead of visual participationism.

Yup, I’m gathering goodies to myself for molecular reconversion.

I was in the supermarket the other day, and the music system played a U2 song I’d never heard before. That’s always a surprise, as there are only a handful I haven’t listened to, and tried to acquire. Unfortunately, I couldn’t catch any of the lyrics, just Bono’s voice and the Edge’s guitar. Sounded a lot like something they’d done during their days in between Zooropa and Pop. Couldn’t find it on the internets, but the way I see it, I’ll find it if I’m meant to.

It brought me back to those days when I felt identified with U2. There I was, in a dark place, but sustained by the music of a close and reliable friend. Oh, but the changes there are always a coming down the line! Along comes Passengers, an experimental album with a guest appearance by Pavarotti. The album didn’t exactly do it for me. It broke the mold of what I expected from U2, and not in a good way. There was a lot of experimental music that indicated a searching in the band they had never done before. I figured they must really be busting their butts to come up with a new sound.

So, in the interim, I finally got a hold of October to tide me over. I found the majesty and personal exuberance of the album uplifting. This was the period in which I finally abandoned tapes for CDs and began to acquire a collection for play on my handy-dandy new remote control system. I focused on U2 singles and connected with sounds I’d only heard a few times on the radio, or on friend’s tape mixes. Plenty of material to keep me going for the next, most awesome of all albums.

Pop comes out, and visions of sugarplums dance in my head. The rumors say its “U2 does techno”, which to me meant they would take electronic music to the next level with their own brand of rock and roll talent. I dive into my copy and listen, waiting for the awesomeness to kick in.

Wah-wah-wahhh.

There are a handful of good songs on the album. In particular, “Mofo” I think is the best effort in that it shows what the rest of the album might have pushed forward artistically if U2 hadn’t backed off. That’s the problem. The song selection comes off as an initial attempt to push the boundaries, and ends in a lack of confidence. The bad songs come off as attempts to fill the album after having pulled back from what might have been beyond the band’s abilities.

The Pop Mart tour repeats this motif, with the band trying to hide behind the veneer of self-depreciation. Guys, if you weren’t serious, why did you even bother? I can get a comedy album anytime around the block.

Interestingly enough, this is the first tour where I manage to get tickets. The price was steep as I recall, and they’ve only gone up since then. The spectacle of the lemon and the outfits was wasted, I think. There’s no way to top the Zoo TV tour. I think that was one of those once in a band’s lifetime things. But just the same, the concert was nothing short of a religious experience. A lot of the songs from Pop played much better in concert, and I kept thinking, “Why didn’t they record this version on the album?”

My girlfriend of the time dumped me right as I bought two seats. As a result, I had plenty of room to dance. The seats were nosebleed, so I couldn’t really see the band. I rocked out to every song drunk out of my gourd while standing on the fold out chairs. I think my neighbors must have thought I was nuts and were afraid I would fall. Who cares what they thought! Finally, after long last, I could experience my heroes. It was a night I can never forget.

However, the album hardly had enough momentum to sustain me, and the words of my ex-girlfriend from that time made an impression on me. She said they had sold out like REM and were going downhill. Much as I didn’t want that to be true, I had a sinking feeling she was right.

The next album, All That You Can’t Leave Behind, certainly provided evidence for that. There wasn’t a single song on that album I could stomach, which was extremely unusual for me. I tried. I listened as much as I could stand, but no magic happened. I went with a friend to see them in Baltimore during the Elevation tour, and they were good in concert. The new songs didn’t do much for me, but all their old material was excellent. While I didn’t have a religious experience, I did have a good time.

I’m sure there were other albums in between this one and the next. But now that I look at it, I think I stopped being interested in the in-between stuff. I detected a lack of energy in their music I’d never experienced before. Was it me? Had I changed? What had happened?

The next album came, How to Deconstruct an Atomic Bomb, and I bought it with a certain amount of reservation. Unlike the previous disappointment, I was actually able to listen to this album at first.  Maybe I was hoping they’d turn things around and didn’t want to face facts, so I tried even harder to like it.  But I soon grew tired of this album and tossed it to the bottom of my heap, along with other albums that I never listen to anymore.

It’s as if I’d outgrown them. Everything before the moment of disappointment still sounds good to me, but everything after that sounds like junk. I’m separated from a feeling of myself that I can no longer access. They have ceased to carry that projection for me.

I think, now, as I consider it and look back, that it must be a mix of things. The band members were never the heroes I thought they were, and they’ve simply run out of good music with which to hide their flaws behind. I’m no longer the same person, in that my projections don’t catch very often on others anymore. I don’t think I’ll ever have a favorite, personal band or musician like U2 was to me again in this lifetime. Too much history that can’t be repeated. I’ve left the garden and can’t go back. Even if I could, I don’t think I would.  It wouldn’t be the same.

At first I blamed U2, and I hated what they’d become in my eyes. Being my personal band, I took their transformation personally, even though it had nothing to do with me. Then, after the anger and disappointment of loss, I started drifting and walking in the desert.

Freed from my false idol, my music quest could finally begin.

I’m riding high on a tide of musical euphoria. My new, favorite band is suddenly the hottest, coolest thing around. I see them in TIME magazine while I’m waiting for a haircut at my family barbershop. Their videos are playing on MTV a lot. Friends at college are blasting tunes from the Joshua Tree at night while we all hang out and just nod our heads to the riffs of the Edge playing his stuff. My girlfriend at the time gets a copy and we play it in her car while we’re driving around. There are states of mind that even to this day, songs like “Running to Stand Still” and “Mothers of the Disappeared” can conjure in me, taking me back to feelings and memories that resonate deep in my pond.

Along comes “Rattle and Hum”. This is an album that garnered some critical backlash, and rightly so to a certain extent. U2 was seen as trying to ingratiate themselves with other great musical performers, and perhaps acting too big for their britches. Bono’s soap boxing comments on the album during certain songs come to mind. This is where I started to hear complaints about Bono’s sanctimonious attitude, which at the time I felt was correct, but a lot of times I felt the people expressing those opinions were also motivated by jealousy. I saw the album as simply another U2 live album, about which I had a theory I believed at the time.

Looking back, it was pure delusion, but at the time I honestly believed that U2 came out with a “live” album between all their normal, regular albums. They used the “live” albums as an in-between artistic arch-stone. After Boy, October and War you had the live album Under A Blood Red Sky. Then They did the awesomely spiritual Unforgettable Fire. After that came Wide Awake In America, another live album. Followed by the supremely stunning masterpiece of Joshua Tree. So Rattle and Hum was just the next, natural “rest stop” album. The next album would, of course, be even more amazing by all logical standards.

So I ignored a lot of the criticism of Rattle and Hum, because in a sense I thought it was an in between project. If they were acting high and mighty, I felt U2 had a certain right to. What rock star wouldn’t want to take their rightful place with all the other legends, now that they’d hit the big time? At least that is how I looked at it. And I thought a lot of the music on Rattle and Hum was pretty good. I’ve never liked covers, so I didn’t care for songs like “Helter Skelter” – I have yet to hear anyone equal the Beatle’s original. But with songs like “All I Want Is You” and “Silver and Gold” sending me to the happy place, it was all I needed to tide me over.

I went through a lot of changes in the years I waited for the next album. I was struggling with my life’s purpose, romantic and academic failures, and I was developing the foundations of the person I would become. A rough time for me, you could say. Into this came Achtung Baby, the dark U2 album. At first, it was so different from anything U2 had ever done I was stunned. There’s a point in some great albums where you keep listening and the magic shoots you into space. You realize you’ve redeemed some unknown part of your soul from ignorance. It’s tough, though, because that moment is the same as the heartbreaker albums that you listen to, hoping the pieces will click together. And instead you give up and never listen to that album again.

With Achtung Baby, I discovered sonic secret doors and multiple meanings in every listen (and still do, to this day, though not as often). Being in the depths of despair, this album got me through some troubled periods just because it was so exhilarating to hurt and listen to music that hurt with you, or twisted with you through the grinder. There would be other “dark albums” in my life, but none so mysterious and elusive, loud and cool, or right to the core as this one would end up being for me. It’s very likely the album played a part in helping me graduate from college.

I’ll concede that Joshua Tree is the better album, but I’ll choose Achtung Baby every time. It’s associated with personal moments and inner depths in a way that can never be repeated or experienced again. It’s unique to me and I never get tired of listening to it. People who have experienced this kind of bonding with an album are fortunate (or cursed, depending on how you look at it) to have lived life like this, even for a short time. You could tell me Achtung Baby stinks, is overrated, and lacking talent and I couldn’t agree or disagree with you. When it’s this personal, there’s no right or wrong answer.

This album sustained me for a long time. Before I knew it, the time had come for the next “in-between” album. Zooropa came into my life during a moment of transition that was particularly tough for me. I found the occurrence a meaningful one because I considered this an interim album, even though it wasn’t “live”. It worried me that it was an actual regular album, but as a lot of the material came out of the dense creativity of the previous one, I looked at it as the standard “in-between” fare. A good one, mind you, as I enjoyed just about every song, and considered my experience of the album a spiritual one. If the “rest stop” album was this good, the next regular album would be even better than the last. Could even such an album exist? What would it be like? For now, I reveled in Zooropa and it sustained me through the beginnings of a dark trial in my life.

The funny thing is, I still hadn’t seen U2 in concert. And I still hadn’t bought and listened to October. There were gaps in my fandom, for various reasons having to do with limited mobility and funds. My maturity level had not developed in certain areas, but that is a tale for another time. For now, I was riding a U2 high.

I had no clue how apocalyptic the next album would be, nor how far my projections would come down.

Just the other day in the news, I read that the Joshua Tree that was featured in the photo used for the cover of U2’s “The Joshua Tree” fell over and gave up the ghost. I found the item a meaningful coincidence that came my way. For a long time now, U2 has been wobbling downhill musically. To read the tree fall over is a sign from the beyond that my favorite rock group has passed on creatively.

Like the Rolling Stones, REM, and a lot of other big dude groups that have signed huge contracts to keep the meal ticket going, U2 has stopped making good music and is coasting on the sounds that made them famous. I’ve felt that way for a long while now, and it’s been a hard blow to take, to know that the group you identified with as a young man have sold out and lost the ability to make music that sends you to the next level.

Shortly after I read about the demise of the tree, I read a pretty good analysis by a comedian that sums up how I’ve grown to loathe the U2 stance. One day you wake up and realize you can’t look at the artists you looked up to anymore. That’s when you read the stories that reveal your heroes were always that way. You just didn’t know because they had control of the publicity, and they were so good you didn’t notice. Bob Dylan’s “My back pages” plays in the back of my mind on that one.

It just makes me mad. U2’s music was a defining part of my life for a long time. They were the first rock and roll band I found on my own time, that I searched out and bonded with using my own interest. There are other bands that I grew up with: Devo, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, Grace Jones, and Bob Marley. U2 was mine, and not my folks.

It started in homeroom class during my freshman year. There was this girl doodling “U2” scrawls on her notebook, and I asked her what that was about. She told me they were her fave group and that she thought they would become hugely famous one day. I took that in and forgot about it for a while.

The next time I heard about them was later that year, with the release of “New Year’s Day”, which I thought was a pretty cool song. There were a lot of one hit wonders during the eighties that still bring me back to certain thought-processes even today. I can remember myself in the backseat of my folk’s car, listening to that song and thinking it had all the right sounds to make me like myself and what I was doing.

Later on, I heard a song called “Bad” that was performed live. This was during the Live Aid era, which I didn’t really get into, but the singer sounded familiar, and I liked listening to the song on the radio when it played. I thought it was really cool.

Enter 1987. I’m on the bus, and this dude who never liked me, for some reason we start to talk more. One day his attitude changes and I get the feeling he’s gone through some kind of personal change. He asks me if I’ve ever listened to U2, and I say not really. He loans me his copy of “War”, and says I’ll like it.

I listen to it that night, and it makes a huge impression on me. I listen to it over and over all night. I don’t get any sleep that night (and it’s a school night), I just keep listening and marveling at how the music seems to get me in the right place. I’ve found my favorite band, and it’s my favorite band.

The next day I give it back to my bus buddy, and say it was awesome. He nods and says he knew I would like it. I tell him I stayed up all night and listened to it, and I have to get my own copy. The school day is tough without sleep, but all I can think of is getting my own copy and hunting down any other albums U2 might have.

I pester my folks and eventually end up with copies of “War”, “The Unforgettable Fire”, “Under a Blood Red Sky”, and then “Boy”. I can’t get enough of the stuff, and U2 music becomes my newfound friend. It’s passionate, larger than life, and atmospheric in the way it gets into every crevice of my soul.

A lot of my friends don’t share my interest, and I encounter more than a few people who sneer at my devotion to such a “bunch of posing losers”, but I don’t care. I like the music, it speaks to me in this time and place. My musical interest doesn’t stick with U2, but it marks my first serious exploration, and from there I investigate other sounds. Sometimes I find good stuff, and sometimes I strike out. I can always fall back on old faithful.

I get posters, and I even want to be Bono. It’s an idolization, and that leads nowhere ultimately. For now, I have a short duration personal savior in the form of some famous dude who appears to embody what I don’t recognize in myself.

Right about this time, “The Joshua Tree” gets released. I remember listening to a Christian radio station, where the DJ went over each song on the album, and gave what I thought was a pretty good, non-denominational analysis of each song. The album is unbelievable because it seems to me so different from the stuff I’ve been listening to. I graduate from high school and get ready to go to college during the summer that my new favorite group hits the big jackpot and become rock and roll legends. It’s a good time to be a fan.

I acquire “The Joshua Tree”, and it just seems like I’m accumulating an arsenal of good music to send me to the happy place wherever I go. This is in the days of walkmans the size of tricorders that took four double A batteries and came with a strap for hot, over the shoulder action. Later on, I’d borrow a dorm mate’s copy of “Wide Awake In America” and go nuts listening to it. Just about anything U2 did I could listen to and identify with easily. Yeah, I’m hooked. Little did I know just how great it would get for me.

• Bye bye, Joshua Tree
• The sock is not impressed
• The first wave of goods
• I get serious about my interest

Okay, so I’m fiddling with my old Star Trek walkie-talkie communicator from 1976. Anything to get a bead on that UFO girl’s program. I can’t call in the request line if I’m not getting the program. And I’ve got a hall pass that expires when it’ll be least convenient if I don’t get the lead out.

I go through my tape collection for inspiration. There’s this one tape I have from way back in the day when I was listening to meditative exercises. The idea was the tape would guide me through some new age ritual to improve my life. I would read from a book of rituals and record my own voice so I could follow the directions at a later time after having first “trained” myself. The tape is noteworthy because somehow I managed to not only record my voice, but some radio station playing somewhere. The tape has this sixties music radio track going on in the background while I’m going on about relaxing and going to my happy place.

The relevance is that as I contemplate this odd tape of mine, the UFO girl show must be a similar kind of thing. A transmission capable of being recorded second-hand and listened to afterwards. All I’ve got to do is find a way to transmit the request so that it gets on UFO girl’s programming.

The Star Trek walkie-talkie isn’t working, even with a new double-a battery. So I pull out my ghetto blaster and hit record. I move the tape recording onto my computer courtesy of a good connection and the recording power of Audacity. I spice up the audio with some crummy sound effects so UFO girl will know I’m not just any old mutant or plain joe. I gots a request! I figure putting it out there on the internets, as a copy of a tape recording advanced technology will get me hooked up in no time.

Hey UFO girl, play some Skynard.

My quest for UFO girl has been going nowhere.  Other than the one initial sighting report, I’ve been coming up zeroes.  The one-eight-hundred line has been a complete bust.  Not surprising really, as where does one look consciously for what is dwelling in the dark shadows of human consciousness?

Since I’ve been trying to think and nothing’s happening, I had to call up my old friend the Dark Goddess and see if she might not have an angle.  Had to leave a message, which was no surprise.  She can be hard to get a hold of.

I go through my piles of papers, as I’m looking for material I can use for my posts.  I really need to throw some of these boxes away.  I’ve been fishing in the seas of the unconscious for a long time and it’s a little daunting to see all this flotsam collected for purposes that I might not see fulfilled in my lifetime.

A newspaper comes out of the pile, with a note in invisible ink attached to it.  I use my decoder, and it’s a message from the Dark Goddess.  I freak out a little, as it’s not out of the question that she didn’t get back to me because she’d already done so.  I imagine she was sitting by the phone, listening to me leave my message and giggling to herself.

So, message tells me I should check the newspaper out because it’s got a clue.  I read the newspaper, and it’s a program schedule from my college days, for the local college radio station I did shows for.  Back when I was a DJ.  The title of the schedule is “Beyond the gottamned living end”.  Here are some excerpts from my show blocks:

Friday 11:00 – 12:00 Reverend Paul – Wacky Fun, Room tooty.
To help crazy inbred maggots

Friday 5:00 – 7:00 Extra Confession With The Reverend – Crazy Uncool
To appease the Chaos Gods.  Only this station supplies them with the rock and roll that will fill their hunger.

Saturday 12:00 – 1:30 More Redemption With Reverend Paul – Mega Mother
Hard core, heavy metal, Punk, Thrash, Death, and will take your requests.  Motorhead, Ozzie and Meatmen to help you digest.  When asked to comment on this year, Reverend Paul said, “Let’s just hit the toilets and start flushing.”

Maybe UFO girl has a radio or television program, where she transmits across the airwaves her show of doom.  Okay, then all I have to do is get me a device capable of picking up her show and tune in.  Maybe I can call in on the request line and get her to make a landing.  My mirage friend still needs a date, after all.  And my hall pass expires at some point.  Gulp, zoinks Scoob!

I’ve been out of sorts the last few days. The shock to my nervous system from finishing the revisions “shocked the monkey”, and I found myself entering near dementia with all the psychic ripples in my “Motorhead” pond. My personal hygiene took a nosedive, and while I managed to maintain the outward operations of business-as-usual, inside I felt as if my efforts had stirred up a lot of detritus from the depths of my own personal Mud Lake.

These kinds of stunned doldrum episodes can last for days, with all manner of images, memories and ideas coming to the surface. This time, I was ready with my glass-bottomed boat to catch a glimpse of whatever mudgulpers might wade past. Oh, wow, the things that I caught a glimpse of, I’m going to need an additional vacation to meditate on. The Icky Girl Power really made an impact on me. Which is okay, because I was voluntarily leading with my jaw this time. But crumbs, I really got it handed to me this time, and the tussle ain’t over yet! Thank goodness I got more skills and tools this time around.

One of this things that came to the surface was my old childhood fascination with the old television series In Search Of…, and some of the subject matter from that show. In case you never saw it, Leonard Nimoy (yes, Mr. Spock) hosted a half hour show program in which an attempt was made to explain some “mystery” from a list of “extraterrestrials”, “magic and witchcraft”, “missing persons”, “myths and monsters”, “lost civilizations” and “strange phenomena”. Leonard Nimoy would narrate as evidence was put forward, scenes were re-enacted, and highly dubious explanations were put forward. All of this was accompanied by a synthesizer soundtrack that can only be called “eerie”, “otherworldly”, and “scary as all hell”.

My memories from that time are a little dim, but I couldn’t get the soundtrack out of my mind, nor could I get over the episode about Bigfoot, which frightened the poop out of me as a youngster. Fears that Bigfoot would break into my house and attack stem from various sources during the seventies, but this program did nothing to help with that, and I would be very afraid at night, staying up late with the light on and wondering what I could do to protect myself.

So I hit the old Youtube pool and found a host of episodes from the show, including the Bigfoot episode. Many of the episodes I remember seeing. Crumbs, I’d forgotten how much I used to be a regular watcher. The music was even creepier than I remember, and even in the safety of my own home, I felt the clutch of fear from childhood return. Every unknown noise freaked my scene out! The music from the UFO episode caught a hold of my brainstem and started to replay in my head even after I’d stopped watching.

Then I found the scariest episode of all for me. The one about the Amityville Horror. That episode scared me so bad I had to sleep with the covers on and with a flashlight in my hand back then. There’s this scene where a doll’s eyes open and turn red with a satanic glow, and that scene gave me many sleepless nights. Actually watching the episode, with the spooky red room, the story behind the doll (an evil monster imaginary friend that would mess a kid up for life), and the scene with the girl singing “silent night” on and off as she went in and out of a room, well all that stuff brought back so many memories in a flood that I had trouble sleeping for several days.

At night, I tossed and turned so much K sent me to the couch downstairs. And even with three dedicated cat protectors, they all fled upstairs and left me alone to freak out about Bigfoot, UFOs, the voices of plants, Dracula, and of course the scary doll creature from the Amityville Horror. It didn’t help that I had to go into the basement to use the Jakes at night, to avoid waking up K (her own work situation has taken a rather weird turn, so she needed the sleep). I heard phantom cats using the catbox in the basement, I felt cold chills from sixth sense spooks, and images of horror flashed before my eyes before I could flip light switches on.

And meanwhile, my old fears of Icky Girl Power came back to me as well. Blob capable of coming through the sink as I wash my hands sends thrills down my spine. Green slime from the UFOs with Leonard Nimoy narration as spooky music plays in my head over and over. This goes on for two nights. I’m scared out of my wits with childhood memories and present day fright seizing a hold of me so bad I’m afraid to close my eyes and get off the couch. So I go back and watch the episodes again, and I wonder why on earth these things aren’t on DVD, because its a fabulous show.

I mentioned skills and tools. Well, I’m not a kid anymore, at the complete and total mercy of the unknown, although I’m not immune to it. Maybe the only difference is that I know how much I stink, both in terms of hygiene and ability to cope. I refuse to let the spectres of fear dancing on my head completely have their way. I engage them in dialogue, I demand they explain themselves. I interact with Bigfoot, I chase off the UFOs, yelling at them “HEY! YOU FORGOT YOUR BUTT PROBE!” like a stupid fool. I confront the scary red eyed doll as big as I am trying to choke the life out of me and I say “That all you got?” I can’t explain the impossible conflict between my pathetic little life and the vast unknown, because it makes no sense and there’s no solution.

Except that things start to happen. You can’t reach into the deep slime and not be affected, but neither can the unknown. The night terrors don’t fade when the sun comes up, nor does the immediacy of their demands, but then the music I’ve been listening to lately starts playing in my head. All the CDs I got for Xmas, The Verve, The Ocean Blue, and my new obsession, Neko Case, who has been a phenomenal find for me. It’s as if something else wells up inside of me and gives me a break. I step back and I get my head back on straight. My fears take on different shapes and forms, and I realize things are trying to talk to me and tell me important information. I’m not safe, but I’m not completely vulnerable either, and I write down stuff.

The psychic wave passes, and I start getting a hold of things again. I know I’m going to have to dive again into the waves, but its okay, there’s all sorts of scary, interesting, and lively material for me to tackle when I’m ready. I clean up my act, shave and shower, brush my teeth, all that good stuff, and I feel a little human again. I don’t smell so bad, nor does my breath make me want to gag anymore. Important stuff is happening. There are ghosts in my house, and I’m doing my best to relate to them. I didn’t even know how scared I was of Icky Girl Power until I went in search of it. I don’t know if I can come up with some of the outrageous explanations Leonard Nimoy posits in the show (some of them are really WTF moments of logical deduction), but when it comes to the irrational and the subjective, perhaps the way out really is in.

Some things are better left unknown. If you swim in the dark lake at night, you have to be ready to scrape your feet on the slimy skin of the creatures that might be resting on the lakebed. Maybe our explanations for the unknown are no better than the ridiculous assertions of the show. And sometimes you catch a glimpse of something wonderful, or you feel something slither under your feet as you tread water, and you get to tell a tale gathered around the warmth of a fire in the dead of winter.

Last night, the mysterious unknown did its thing, while I had a good night’s sleep.