The Diamond Island

Scrambling about in the between-ways of my brain.  Which incidentally resemble the long underground halls of school buildings built in the fifties, with fallout shelters and hidden caches of supplies.  Mostly way-past-their-date cans of beans and crackers.

In the flickering candlelight I see two themes.  The rusting and crumbling structures of a prison-like architecture, or the dark and echoing tiled halls of an underground hideout structure that while faded and dirty, still seems habitable.

That little demon child is still out there. Small, but fast and vicious.  Just being here scares the stuffing out of me.  My instincts are humming at me to get away, get out.  Panic and fear!

Then I come across a piece of paper with a drawing on it of a long, cylindrical spaceship.  On the back, written in magic marker is the phrase “into infinity”.

Whoa, flashback time.  I remember this spaceship from a TV show way back.  But I can’t remember anything about the show itself except a few brief images, and the crew of the ship being drawn into a black hole at the end or something.

So my science officer does the old internets search-a-roo and I find out the full title of the TV movie is The Day After Tomorrow—Into Infinity.  I find out lots after that.  That the captain of the vessel is played by the same actor who played Alan from Space 1999, one of my favorite shows as a kid!  The DVD of the movie is only available to people who join the Gerry Anderson fan club.

Gerry Anderson did a lot of science fiction shows, some of which I watched with the folks when I was a kid.  Shows like UFO and Space 1999.  I had no idea he’d made this movie that I hardly remember now, but which my Bad Ronald obviously hasn’t forgotten.

In the movie, the crew of the ship reaches their appointed destination (YouTube is our friend!) and have to make a decision.  Return to earth with all the data they’ve gathered on Alpha Centauri or continue on into the unknown and risk danger.  They decide to press on, and as a result they get into hot water, while their adventure begins.  The movie was meant to be the pilot for a new science fiction series; it just didn’t reach that goal.

I certainly don’t want to find myself on the other side of a black hole never to return to earth, but I’m thinking there’s a similar choice here.  Go back to the visible hallways of the haunted house in my brain or travel onwards.

It means a lot to me that this small piece of my past is returned to me.  And unlike the protagonists in the movie, I believe I’m equipped with the means to find out what happens afterward.  I see friends of mine making brave steps forward, reaching out into the darkness for a connection with their own lives and the lives of others.

I’m traveling onwards.

Outside, there’s a crazy party of activity going on.  Every conceivable creature is out here.  There are monsters, spirits, really weird beings, strangers, aliens, victims, and mad scientists.  I haven’t the wherewithal to deal with that right this moment.  One thing at a time.

Naturally, I walk through the door and into the unknown.  The doors creak closed behind me.  Trapped like a rat!  My Mirage has been waiting for me to reach this point in our dialogue.  I thought I was dealing with my shadow, and perhaps I am a little.  Now, I’m not so sure.  He’s the dark king of the underworld waiting for me to arrive, and it’s turning me for a loop how this has turned out.

I’m awake and now the nightmare must end.  The clarion calls of the dawn are calling me so very fudging hard.  The night in the haunted house is over, in the deep me of me.  My Mirage is there before me in this large, empty house with nothing in it but him.  He is ready for this moment, preparing for it for years.

I can hardly believe how empty the place is.  It’s not what I expected at all.  Zippo.  The whole place looks ready to crumble.  He tells me things I can hardly hear because there’s this din in my mind’s ear.  I liked having a Mirage that was scary and cool.  He reassures me and says this is how it happens.  One day you’re done, and you have to let go.

I’m told everything has been accounted for, and transferred to me for the duration (of what?).  Okay, whatever.  So what do I do now?  How do I slay myself?

He says I slew him years ago.  This is only a recording.  His last request is that I draw a picture and reflect fondly on him now and then.  I’ve been afraid of myself, talking to myself all along.  It was all a shadow of the imagination that has passed in the night.  Oh god how I miss him already, a hole in my heart the size of a person who no longer is.

Good Lord, Count Gore De Vol is a prophet.  The end of Captain 20′s ship, the last night party of Creature Feature.  Channel 20 is canceled all over again, and now it’s just me, with no super creature horror filler hour anymore.  I’ve got to be my own horror host from now on; no one will do it for me.

I understand.  I’ve heard those words before from someone else.  “I am not coming back.  It’s up to you now.”

That’s when I notice the pen on the floor.  There’s the door to the basement, courtesy of revelations from my old friend Craig, who helped me interpret a dream once.  All I got to do is pry the boards loose and start digging through the stale poop.

But first, that picture.  Rest in peace, hero.

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.

My current manga and anime interests have brought me in touch with a show that stirred up the vampire issue for me again.  I’m talking about Karin, also known as Chibi Vampire.

In the show, Karin is a half-vampire in a family of vampires who live in Japan.  She has an older brother, a younger sister named Anju, and a set of parents who are all vampires themselves.  Karin goes to school and has a part time job, just like any teenager.

In the Karin world, vampires drink from specific people who have certain traits.  For example, Karin’s brother drinks from stressed out people, her father drinks from prideful people, and her mother from liars.  When vampires drink from people, they perform a service to humanity by sucking out the “bad qualities” of people, therefore making them “better people”.

Things like crosses, running water, and garlic don’t affect vampires – that’s all just human legend.  Sunlight is bad for “true vampires” – but they can go out as long as they use an umbrella or something.  I haven’t figured out what the distinction is between Karin and her family exactly – she’s some kind of “mutant” and a source of “shame” for the family.

The big thing that makes Karin different is that she is a “blood producer” vampire.  Instead of needing to suck blood, she makes blood.  So when she bites a victim, she injects her blood into the person.  Since she is drawn to “unhappy” people, she injects blood into them and makes them happy!

She meets a classmate, a normal boy, who causes her to make blood until she explodes in dramatic nosebleeds.  He encourages her to try to make him happy so he won’t cause her to make so much blood and be unable to blend in with a normal life.

So, in a sense, we’ve come full circle in terms of vampire lore.  From disgusting evil bloodsucker to natural function for the greater good creature who must remain unrecognized while doing good deeds.  How’s that for a turnaround?

I like it.

Earlier I was ranting on about how vampires must not lose their edge, that to be meaningful they have to have some connection to their dark past.  I still hold to that position.  But I think a show like Karin (Chibi Vampire) shows us a new way to look at the vampire.

To understand the darkness we must take some of it within ourselves.  Good can only remain good with the creation and fighting of evil.  I’m trying to look at the larger picture and see evil as a natural function of a healthy, operating system of life.  I like how the boy in Karin must come in contact with “evil” and remain grounded in the real world.  And I also like how the protagonist is an “evil” character trying to be normal.

The show focuses on the female character and her quest to resolve her troubles.  But I also like how the unspoken focus is on the guy in a certain sense.  You can identify with him because he is a normal guy in a weird situation, and the action is not about you, but how you can make your own issues part of the greater picture to be resolved.

In other words, rather than the “girl” being the catalyst and the mystery to be solved, it’s the guy in the position.  Karin is the protagonist, and what she does changes the stakes.  You can get involved in the fantasy of her self-discovery or you can follow along the secondary, implied path of the guy’s development as Karin forces him to confront himself.  I’m totally down with that, on both levels.

The show is fundamentally a comedy, played for the laughs of the embarrassment of characters in situation (every episode is titled “the embarrassment of…”).  The shadow of any comedy is the reality of absurdity, and the fact is that Karin is a “dark” character going through rough times (aren’t we all).  The light world of daylight illusion is a minefield to be negotiated.

The vampire is a version of ourselves.  As we understand the vampire more, our own image of our light selves becomes a little more dark.  And the dark vampire acquires a little more light.  His/her details show up more under scrutiny and we can acquire if not understanding, than a stalemate where exchanges can be made.  A treaty, if you like.

The manga Vampire Knight explores this a little.  The idea of an interchange between light and dark.  Jung talks about how the two sides of any conflict can only build a bridge between their differences by being themselves.  The vampire must be what they are, just as people must be what they are.  But what are they, either of them?  In the light, in the darkness, what is revealed about either?

If the vampires are getting “gooder” or more understandable, what are people becoming?

Back in the late seventies, when my folks and I arrived in the Northern Virginia-DC area, I started watching a lot of WDCA Channel 20. There was this oddball character named “Captain 20”, who presided over the afternoon-to-evening cartoons and shows of the day.

He was a vulcan kind of character in a starship uniform who did contests, displayed viewer artwork, and did various announcements in between shows. I thought he was the coolest, most offbeat character I’d seen hosting television shows yet. I could hardly imagine a neater thing than a local channel with it’s own futuristic character binding your show-watching experience together with imagination.

I got to see the King Kong cartoon, Marine Boy, Ultraman, Starblazers, weird B movies and a whole host of other shows you’d never see on television today. If the guy had been nothing more than a face for the magical, hope filled studies I performed as a young creature, he would have been a worthy soul I would fight to make a place for in my vision of the Valhalla-afterlife warm up.

My folks started watching a late night horror show on Saturday nights called Creature Feature. I joined in, because the show was playing movies that had the sort of dreams I wanted to experience. Okay, so Attack of the Mushroom People was a horrible movie, but hidden within the crumminess of such movies are realms of experience accessible only through the small budget seriousness that fails.

The sacrifice of the artist creates a void inside of which the sacrament of horror is transformed into miracles.

Back in the day, before the rulers of corporate television got the insane idea that they could make more money by having a monopoly on bad programming, local channels could get pretty inventive and interesting.

For Creature Feature, Captain 20 put on a cape and scary makeup to play Count Gore de Vol, the host of the show. In between the commercials and the movie segments he would crack bad jokes, read letters from fans and respond, talk back to the cameramen telling him to get a life, and have guest stars like Penthouse Playmates or local fans.

One such guest star I saw on the tube was a person I didn’t know at the time, but would later in life. By day she is honeysuckle, but by night she’s the Incorrigible Witch. We met each other at our mutual employer, and in a twist of fate that can only be called Twilight Zone meets Funky Town, discovered we both loved the Count.

As I stared at her photo album of her visit to the Count, I discovered I’d seen her on TV. I mean, it’s one of the more vivid memories I have of those days – her getting into the Count’s Coffin to gag jokes from the studio staff while her friend looks on in shock. Life is weird.

We both look up Count Gore, and find out he has a website. Then we find out he’d moved back to Northern Virginia! She manages to get a “date” with him and catch up on old times, since she finds out they live in the same area. This is freaking me out. I got to hand it to the Incorrigible Witch, she’s got some real brass and isn’t afraid to get into the thick of strange adventures!

The Count, as his daytime alter-ego, drops by our office and gives me a genuine autographed picture. Can you dig it? We both miss him, because he’s a ramblin’ man who strikes like a fiend in the night, but the fact that he stopped by means a whole lot to me. If as a kid, I’d known that one day I’d meet that girl on TV, and get an autographed photo from the Count, it would have made me levitate for days. Not that my folks would have minded.

All of us have the potential to be horror hosts of our own monster theater. Some of us, like the Count, are naturals who show us the way to our own individual formula for happiness. Exposure to such rare minerals at an early age leads to a healthy, productive life of beneficial insanity!

This development has my Mirage’s fungus prints all over it. Horror and scary stuff really isn’t my thing, but in the spirit of Halloween and Celtic New Year I suppose it makes a certain amount of sense. I can only guess what my Mirage is cooking up, with his strange ways of doing things. Yikes, Scoob!

In the meantime, I raise a glass of cold draft cider and toast to your good health, Count! Such as it is, being undead or something. There is no other horror host like you in my pond of memories. Wolfman Jack and Ghoulardi get props from me for the ground they broke in my psyche. But it’s your weird, wonderful imagination that stands the test of time in my dark soul!

I’m driving to the parental unit’s batcave with K, and while we are waiting at the stoplight, we hear bagpipes.  I search in vain for the source.  It’s coming from the woods, and it sounds like some kind of battle march.  Well crumbs that about sums up the times, doesn’t it?

All the transmissions coming in seem to carry a certain amount of radiation identified as belonging to the economic Three Mile Island that never was.  I keep hearing denials along the lines of “this is not the great depression.”  Well, no duh buddy!  That ship has sailed.  I don’t think it’s the “Very Great Depression” either, as some econ blogs have been naming it either.

What if it’s The Depression?  As in, the one big monster that overshadows all other “adjustments” in the rich soaking the poor?  As some may know, anything preceded by “The” in its title, at least in the faerie lands, is way more powerful than any other combination of names.  This ain’t “Big Dude Depression” or “That Depression thingee”, this is THE thing.  The one that all others will be measured by.  Hope you’re ready for the barter system.

Started thinking about a movie I saw a few times as a kid, back in 1974.  Rumplestiltskin.  The dwarf that spins hair into gold for a girl who has been jacked by her father’s unrealistic image of her.  The impossible task.  I think no matter what the rich people do, the train wreck is happening.  This country’s AAA rating is toast.  We’ll never guess that name in time to send the dwarf into the center of the earth in fire.

So I watch an In Search Of… episode on YouTube.  The one about the Loch Ness Monster.  Great stuff.  Delving into the deep like a deep-sea diver for the one shot that will give us some information about the unknown.  That’s where I’m at.  But all I get from that are blurry motion pictures and straight up shots of bubbling mystery that could be anything.  I still believe there’s something going on there.

Despite the attempt to destroy the public’s attempt to be relevant, I come across a public access channel on my folk’s cable channels.  Heck, if there were more channels like this, I’d actually subscribe.  But the one channel can’t handle the weight of 99% need, and some of the programs don’t do it for me.  I understand.  Trying to break through is tough.

Amazing stuff is going on in the underground.  All you have to do is remain open.  Seek, and you shall not find.  Sit down, and wait patiently – the mystery shall give you clues.

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.

Crumbs, sometimes you can’t sit down and write a post no matter what.  It’s like the summer of beat down and all I can do is go back spaces and slide down chutes.  Everytime I sit down to compose my thoughts, I get another random encounter.  But should I do something else, such as read a book or make a round of pesto, the random encounters hide behind the couch again.  I’m feeling like Batman in that awful TV Batman movie.

The garden has become a battlefield of weeds and failed plantings versus the last stand of the forces of yumminess.  The weather here has been so volatile, it’s hard to get out and do any work.  It’s hot and humid, with regular threats of thunderstorms that rarely materialize any rain, but look threatening to keep K and I indoors.  The onion and potato shields are down to 50% and falling.  The tomatoes are still weeded and strong, but growing slowly.  The leeks are okay for now, but the lettuce has all bolted, so that game is up until fall planting.  I was getting tired of lupin salads anyway.  The basil is online, thank goodness!

Half of the garden is overgrown with weeds, led by thistle towers and grass infiltrators.  The only good thing is we’ve had no bugs at all.  They don’t even want to touch what we’ve got.  The bees and butterflies are more or less there, but in scraggly amounts.  The birds use us as a syopover, but the general traffic all around is way down from last year.  A chippie-munkie has taken up residence under a fence post and is helping himself to our seeds.  As usual, the horseradish is indestructible and pushing the weeds aside.  One thing we do have a lot of are earthworms.  It’s almost as if the soil is terrible for everything but them.  Eat up worms, may as well since the garden’s on auxiliary power.

Meanwhile, the parental unit garden is looking great.  They’ve started to harvest their bumper crop of potatoes already, it’s sad.

K finished a spare kitty pie and I cleared the space between my metal organizers on my desk.  Combine pie with space, and Frankie has settled into a new roost.  That cat is spoiled!  Meanwhile, Michael has been getting fatter and more lethargic.  Which means his poop factory is at 110% reactor capacity.  The big cat news, however, is the installation of the new curtains.  By the Paul and K handycrew, that is.

The metal blinds that came with the townhouse have not been popular with the cats.  So they push them out of the way to look out the windows and end up bending the metal.  It’s a choice then, between allowing the blinds to be slowly damaged or no privacy when the sun goes down.  Plus, the noise the cats make when pushing the metal aside is annoying.

So we scanned for some cheap thick curtains, scored big time, and put them up.  The blinds went up all the way, and the cords were stashed.  Now the cats can poke their head through the gap or around the sides without any problems, and we can shut out prying eyes when we don’t feel like being on display.

The coolest thing though, is the box bay window.  We put the curtains up so the cats have a private sunroom with cushions, blankees and kitty-pies.  It’s like a big tiger den they can retreat to and snooze, snoop out the window, or loaf regally.  Frankie went ape for it, and her happy meter went way up, since she’s a tiger anyway.  Michael just found it and approves, in a “it’s about time” kind of way.  Blink has her own den, in the towel closet, which she has figured out how to open.  She climbs up a few ledges and falls asleep on the sweaters.  Cute +1!

Finally, K and I have been watching Charmed.  We just finished the first season and are starting the second.  Oh, dear, sweet potato pie the writing is horrible.  But it’s like a train wreck, you just can’t stop looking and cringing.  I like the premise, and the demon-of-the-week plots are mildly interesting, but it’s an acting-free zone populated by dysfunctional plot elements you can see coming a mile away.

Three hollywood-beautiful witches gain superpowers and the ability to cast spells from a spellbook when they inherit said spellbook (called “the book of shadows”) from their grandmama.  They become “the charmed ones”.  That means they fight evil, protect the innocent, and struggle with all that real world stuff like career, getting dates with hollywood thud-studs, and working out their family issues.  Hey, what’s not to like?

Unfortunately, the lame writing is filled with convoluted plots and illogical character actions.  The actresses can’t act worth beans, which makes the terrible dialogue and scene pacing agony to watch at times.  The WTF moments per minute is very high.  But, hell, I know I’m eating a Big-and-Nasty here, not a burger I cooked on my own grill with all the fixins.  It’s interesting to me because there’s so much potential in the show.  That potential gets picked up, dropped, and trod over.  But it’s still there, so I watch and gaze in wonder at this two-headed baby with dull surprise.

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’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.