Friday, September 30, 2005

 

I once had a picture of a Model T that used to hang on the wall in my kitchen. It would fall askew when someone would walk in the back door and let it shut by itself. And each time I had to straighten it out afterward. It wasn’t always in my kitchen. Sometimes it had been in my bedroom, sometimes a hallway. I don’t remember a domicile I lived in that that picture wasn’t hanging somewhere. When I was a small boy, that old time car sparked my thoughts of a future when I would actually drive. I lay in bed at night, dreaming of long rides, getting lucky in the back seat (such as it was), driving to school . . . you name it. If you could do it in a car, the Model T was what I was going to do it with. So when I got my first car, a hand-me-down 67 Plymouth Valiant, I felt I had traded up. The dream had become a reality.
The romance died away within the week. My mind turned to more fanciful dreams. I used to think about what I would do if I had wheels. I looked over to the living room and gazed at the biplane model suspended from the ceiling. Now I dream of what it would be like if I had wings.

by ArchHallJr 11:44 PM

 

if I had wings

by Fred 1:23 PM

Thursday, September 29, 2005

 

I was halfway to City Hall when the drugs began to take hold. I was assigned to write a ’story’ on the council meeting that was to begin at 7:30PM. I think I made it. But it was like no other meeting I’d ever been to in my short and consequential life. Or like all of them, I don’t remember. It seemed as though the fun began trying to find a parking spot among all the official vehicles, some of which included cop cars and dogcatcher vans. There were also a few toboggans, a canoe and five minibikes with Marlon Brando impersonators on them. Navigating the parking lot with all these conveyances was tricky. Add delicate when I tried to squeeze my automobile in between that gathering of fat asses that sat around debating tribal regulations and what the white man had to do with helping Indians gain true sovereignty over their lands.

“Hey you injuns! Get inside and discuss that crap about your squaws and bastards! Don’t make me have to pass around bottles of firewater and blankets tainted with smallpox! And if I have to do that . . . you better get me some of your peyote because goddammit, I’m out!”

They all looked at me funny and one of them started farting the main title to Billy Jack. I got nervous and pulled out a pistol.

“Oh, you think it’s funny, eh?”

They didn’t think it was funny. They disappeared and left behind a war bonnet. I picked it up and danced into the building. I stopped the hooker outside of the judge’s chambers and asked her what time it was.

“9:30, hun.”

“Fuck! Don’t move! Wait. What is that on your shoulder?!?”

“Huh?”

“You can’t be too sure for being sure!”

I punched her in the arm and she screamed.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“I don’t know . . . but there IS something wrong around here and I intend to get to the bottom of it. Do you wanna do some mescaline?”

by ArchHallJr 10:46 PM

 

going gonzo

by Fred 1:47 PM

Wednesday, September 28, 2005

 

The hike in was rather uneventful. Just me, my buddy Pete and the nature that showed us the way to camp. Starting out early in the morning, we arrived shortly after 3:00 PM. Tents were pitched, the bong was loaded and the JD flowed freely. Nothing quite like the great outdoors to make you want to party hard. As enjoyable and peaceful as the site was, it needed one more thing to make it a hair shy of perfect. Music. Pete had lugged a boom box over hill and dale so we could rock out to our favorite tunage. Suddenly, the chittering of squirrels and babbling of a brook was replaced by the sound of Ozzy Osbourne wailing on about going off the rails on a crazy train.

“I don’t appreciate your racket! I come up here for peace and quiet!”

We looked up to see a disgruntled camper who seemingly came out of nowhere to express his displeasure at our use of the airwaves. I looked at Pete, who shrugged and made a funny face as the guy took off. We watched him walk about 30 yards east, rollup his sleeping bag, throw what little gear he had out into his backpack and leave the trail camp. Neither one of us had noticed the poor fellow when we had come in earlier. Pete started to sing, “There is unrest in the forest . . .” I laughed along with Pete as we dismissed the whole incident and went back to our dope, booze and music. But in the back of my mind, I wondered why the hell we couldn’t be back in my apartment doing the very same thing.

by ArchHallJr 11:38 PM

 

What are you listening to?

by Fred 1:05 PM

Tuesday, September 27, 2005

 

The jump. The leap. The call. It beckons, yet I cannot answer. I move through my day much as anyone, yet I seem stymied by . . . something. It happens when I read the paper and especially when I sit down on the toilet with a can of Lysol to pass the time away. But most disturbing is when I am writing. I’ll be hacking away at some nice new narrative or dialogue when I start a word . . . and cannot get past the tenth letter! It boggles my mind. I am a wordsmith. This should not happen to me. The other day, it sent me into a near panic attack! I was writing some back-story on one of my subjects when it hit. I was writing . . . a word that started with gubernator…and I began to sweat. My heart began to pound. I had to look away from the paper as I crumpled it up and threw it in the circular file. Had I always been this way? Would I be able to make the jump from children’s books to hard science fiction?

by ArchHallJr 10:21 PM

 

hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia

by Fred 12:55 PM

Monday, September 26, 2005

 

The days were long, the nights were short. That’s all he knew. Just how long and how short was anyone’s guess but since the shuttle’s crash landing on this uncharted world, Charlie Loops had run out of everything but imagination. The only modern piece of equipment he had left was the transponder he carried in his hip pack. Hand sized and just heavy enough to feel significant, the device would be his salvation. He had become quite adept at hunting the small fauna of this world after his rations and supplements ran out. He’d even become quite fond of the meat of the animal he had dubbed ‘walking turd’. It literally looked like a walking stick with shit for a body. It looked repugnant but it was damn good eating. As an added bonus, it didn’t kill him, either. A steady electronic whine followed by four distinct pulses sounded off on the transponder. Could it be? He had thought he had heard the signal denoting a rescue ship in orbit before, but he hadn’t heard the signal repeat. He had chalked it up to the wishful thinking of a famished castaway. He counted for ten seconds and heard the signal once again. God, he was hungry. He would wait for one more set of codes before expending the battery’s energy to deliver the homing pointer that would bring him his deliverance. There! Again! He pressed the broadcast button. He readied his weapons. Sustenance would arrive soon.

by ArchHallJr 10:56 PM

 

signal interruption

by Fred 12:36 PM

Friday, September 23, 2005

 

things that go bump in the night

by Fred 10:56 AM

Thursday, September 22, 2005

 

Attached to this e-mail,
please find a squid.
It took me hours to find it;
I'm sure you can see that it did.
If you just open it up,
you'll see that it's not so big.
Just read past the ink,
'cause that's how they keep themselves hid.

Attached to this e-mail,
please find a duck.
If you were expecting a gosling,
then you're quite out of luck.
You can blame Norman Mallard
if you don't think that's passing the buck.
He drafted this message
and claimed that it wouldn't suck.

Attached to this e-mail,
please find my evil twin.
He's shifty and shady
with a too toothsome grin.
You'd better delete this
and not let him in.
He's far worse than spam;
at least you know where that's been.

Attached to this e-mail,
please find the past 2,000 years,
full of historical stuff,
celebrations and fears.
If you wade through the mess,
you'll find it stacked up in tiers.
But don't let it topple
or you'll upset yesterday's gears.

Attached to this e-mail,
please find this e-mail itself,
like a Moebius strip
looped by some nightmarish elf.
Don't give it a thought;
just leave it there on the shelf.
You've read it already once;
a second go cannot help.

by Fred 8:34 PM

 

an unnatural attachment

by Fred 9:43 AM

Wednesday, September 21, 2005

 

I've got a vampire dentist
He's got a jones for fluoride and blood
He can shapeshift into mist
But the truth is, he's so good
That the stake I got in my fist
Never goes through his heart like it should
I can't kill my undead DDS
Even though I know I should

He says, don't mind the fangs,
Just open real wide, gargle, now rinse.
They're tipped with novocaine
You won't feel a thing 'cept maybe a pinch.
And the truth is, there's no pain,
Pretty soon even flossing's a cinch
When you join the dental undead,
Keeping teeth clean sure is a cinch.

by Fred 6:30 PM

 

minty fresh

by Fred 10:44 AM

Tuesday, September 20, 2005

 

I prefer boysenberry more than any ordinary jam. I'm a Citizens for Boysenberry Jam fan. - Simon and Garfunkel, Punky's Dilemma

The planet's rivers were made of jam. There was no getting around it; the viscous lines that seemed to snake everywhere the landing party wenty -- in valleys, around mountains, et cetera -- were unmistakably jam. In the northern continents, it appeared to be predominantly strawberry, said Science Officer William Bradley, the only one of his team to actually risk tasting the stuff. In the south, apple cinammon.

Bradley was at a loss to explain it. While the planet had its share of vegetation, it had nothing that looked like strawberries, applies or cinammon. What fruit the science team had gathered as pungent, often noxious, and the only comparable flavors on Earth, said Bradley, would be burning tires or rotted meat. The presence of jam rivers could not be easily explained.

Nor could Bradley tell Commander Charles if the fish that swam in those rivers were dangerous. They certainly looked threatening enough. Bradley would not, or could not, say, but it was the considered opinion of many on his team that the fish were in some way intelligent. Norberts had gone as far as to suggest they were making the jam, that it was somehow a fish trick and that Lt. Cmdr. Bradley would surely die if he continued spreading river silt on his morning toast.

by Fred 11:59 PM

 

“Does anyone in the audience know how to play guitar?”

I never thought I would hear that going to this old blues club but who would have? I had seen the nearly comatose Robert “The Other” Johnson, lead guitar player of the ‘The Other Blues Project’, stumbling around backstage from my vantage point on the club floor. It appeared that “The Other” would not be in any shape to play this evening. I raised both arms in the air and shouted at the top of my lungs:

“I do!”

I was told to come backstage. I was confronted by an elderly black man wearing Ray-Bans who touched his face a lot.

“Young man,” he began in a smoky voice, “Do you know how to jam?”

“Old man, I came outta my mama playin’!” I lied.

The drummer started, the bass player joined in and the keyboards rang out. They all looked at me. The audience. The band. The security guards. Everyone. I started to play and I sounded better than any time I had ever played before. A lot better. In no time, I was jamming along with the rest of the band like an old pro. They were looking at me but this time, with a look of awe. The audience was in rapture. I then felt pain on my fingertips. Blood ran from them, but I didn’t care. The music that was coming from me was unearthly. I looked at the old man in the Ray-Bans as he whacked on the keys. Were those horns protruding from under his hat?

by ArchHallJr 2:37 PM

 

jam session

by Fred 10:41 AM

Monday, September 19, 2005

 

Velcro shoes? The 15 foot jump shot? Truly scary horror movies? Modesty? McDonald’s French Fries? Customer service? The Class of ’65? Real muscle cars? Men’s cologne? Tap water? New Wave? Punk Rock? AOR radio stations? Solid color basketball shoes? Looney Tunes? Southern Fried Rock? The metric system change over? Less than a dollar for a pack of smokes? Bald guys? Medium rare hamburgers served in a restaurant? Speed Buggy? Zotz? Chimney sweeps? The Golden C.O.D.? The time when the bottling number of Henry Weinhard’s Private Reserve beer meant something . . . or at least you pretended it did? Baby Jane? Bums? Trolls? Dank? Schwag? Beanie babies? Sinistar? Holmes & Yoyo? STDs that didn’t kill you? The time when an STD was called VD? Knobs on television sets? Watches you had to wind? Really cool westerns? Really cool Star Wars movies? When the Stones were old and cool instead of old and pathetic? When SNL was funny?

I don’t know, but I know of at least one person who’d like an answer to all of these questions.

by ArchHallJr 10:47 PM

 

Whatever happened to
whatever happens?
Whatever became of
I'll always be there?
Where's it been hiding,
that you'll always find me,
that I'm right behind you.
Can you please tell me where?

How long's it been missing?
Were we too short-sighted to see?
How did this us
become just you, then just me?

by Fred 7:30 PM

 

Whatever happened to...?

by Fred 10:22 AM

Friday, September 16, 2005

 

Weird is a relative term but I can tell you that like any halfway normal (or abnormal) boy, I played my share of weird games. Most of them involved pain and violence of some sort or the other. There was one that could only have evolved in the time of big Goody handle combs. Late 70’s, early 80’s. This ‘game’ started where one guy would make a fist, hold his arm out and place the comb on the back of the hand. He would then stand there as still as he could while the other guy would try and grab the comb and hit the back of the hand he took the comb from. Of course, the other guy had to try and move his hand out of the way before the comb hit him. Sounds like fun, huh? There were penalties for flinching. If you moved your hand prematurely (before the comb left the back of the hand) then you were subject to a ‘free whack’. There were lots of bloody knuckles around school those days.
Another weird game was ‘smear the queer’. Basically it was a cross between a rugby scrum and a free-for-all gang fight. A group of at least 3-4 guys would get a football and decide who was ‘the queer’. ‘The queer’ would then have to run with the football while everyone else tried to tackle him and take the football away. Whoever got the football became ‘the queer’ and the cycle would begin all over again.
Yep, those weird games definitely involved pain and violence.

by ArchHallJr 11:04 PM

 

weird games

by Fred 12:06 PM

Thursday, September 15, 2005

 

The chilly, late autumn breeze fluttered through my half-buttoned jacket as I walked through the cemetery. I didn’t often cut through, especially not at night, as it seemed to be a disrespectful thing to do. But tonight, I was trying to make it home on time to watch my favorite TV show’s season premiere as I had forgotten to set my VCR.
It wasn’t just that it was a disrespectful thing to do; it also scared the hell out of me. All that death in one place. Who was watching me? Walking next to me? Trying to whisper a message in my ear? I hurried my pace. Then something compelled me to look at one of the tombstones. I had never really done that before. Sure, I saw the tombstones. But I never read the names or inscriptions. I stopped and read this one:

John Joseph Baden
Beloved Husband and Father
Faithful Friend
July 16th, 1918 – August 5th, 1999

Beloved. Faithful. These words did not seem to me to denote death or emptiness. I read another:

Sheila Francine O’Brien
She gave of herself to the world whatever she could
And took nothing but love given freely in return
February 23rd, 1903 – December 11th, 1976

I was no longer frightened as I walked through the cemetery that night. And I made it a point to walk through it whenever I got the chance, no matter what time of day it was. There, I only felt love and life from that day forward.

by ArchHallJr 11:45 PM

 

signs of life

by Fred 5:25 PM

Wednesday, September 14, 2005

 

Guernsey Mooler stepped back from the vat, mouth agape. At this point of her long day, she couldn’t seem to grasp the reality of what she had learned. All four stomachs churned with an acidity she never before experienced. Her whole life had been an impenetrable veil. She now knew a truth that very few bovines in the world knew. Oh, they suspected that there was prevarication involved in most of their dealings with the government, but they most certainly did not know the hideous truth.
When her mother died earlier that day, she felt compelled to follow the recyclers that took her dead body for reclamation. She had always wondered, “Reclamation for what?” And now she knew the answer. As must her whole planet know if they were to ever regain any innocence back. The Angus guards took her away on a stretcher as she screamed incoherently, “You've gotta tell them! Salient Green is made of cheese! They’re made of cheese!”

by ArchHallJr 11:52 PM

 

They're made of cheese!

by Fred 12:23 PM

Tuesday, September 13, 2005

 

“Damn. I’m sorry. I tried to get to you on time but I just can’t seem to get through this traffic.”

“Perhaps you should try leaving earlier.”

“Hadn’t thought of that. I’ll see you when I get there.” Beep.

What the hell? Does she think I don’t care? Of course I do. Don’t I? I really hate it when people give me that whole ‘better plan on being delayed so you get there a little early instead of a little late’ jazz. I expect that from a boss. But from my girlfriend? This relationship is going nowhere fast. Or is it? Last week our Saturday night date consisted of us going to some friends of hers house and talking about . . . what the hell were we talking about? Hell, did we do anything? All I know is we didn’t watch TV, we didn’t drink booze and we didn’t even play a stupid game like Twister or Jenga. I would’ve been bored but at least I would have remembered it. It must have been so boring that I blanked out the whole episode from my mind. I sometimes wonder if dating a clinical hypnotist is worth it. I then think about that perfect body and the fantastic sex. Who knew a 60-year-old woman could look so . . . striking? All I know is I am going to leave earlier for our dates.

by ArchHallJr 11:32 PM

 

"If the good doctor will cease his dematerializing, we can get on with the questioning."

So spoke Senator Charles Rosewater, the ranking Democrat, near the close of the opening day in the US Senate confirmation hearings for the first time-traveller-American nominated to the Supreme Court in almost eighty years.

Dr. Wilson Paul O'Donnell, hereinafter referred to simply as the nominee had of course been the clear choice of then president Mathias Smith -- who, despite the hardly surprising controversy surrounding O'Donnell's^* nomination, stood by the choice and had lauded the nominee as recently as that day's Good Morning America.

Now, however, well into the seventh hour of the senate hearings and with many more days ahead, tennsions were already starting to run high. Rosewater, in particular, had been repeatedly angered by the nominee's apparent refusal to remain in any one place (or, rather, time) for very long.

"I recognize that, as a time traveller, dematerialization is par for the course," said the senator. "And that, as some studies show, it may not wholly under your control. But it does make this more than difficult. If you could refrain...? I submit, sir: can't you sit still?"

The nominee murmured his apologies and soldified.

"Just skipping ahead an hour or so, Senator," he said, taking a sip of water from the glass in front of him. "I admit, I wanted to see how this would turn out."

The senator bristled at this.

"The nominee has been warned against that sort of behavior," Rosewater said. "Time travel is to be kept to a bare minimum while these hearings are underway."

And therein lay the heart of the controversy: the nominee's status as a time traveller and questions of whether he would use the ability to retroactively overturn court decisions he found unpopular so he himself would never need to rule on them at all. If you could travel back in time and prevent Roe v. Wade from ever happening, no one could ever question you about the decision. You could remake the court however you -- or your president -- saw fit.

* Okay, hereinafter.

by Fred 6:09 PM

 

If you're not here, where are you?

by Fred 10:53 AM

Monday, September 12, 2005

 

What can one say about cave paintings that hasn't been said a thousand times already? One hesitates even to bring up the subject in conversation, such is the extent to which they have permeated our cultural subconcious. One is reminded, of course, of the paintings discovered in southwest France in 1940, but also of lesser cultural "events" as well -- such as the cave-dwelling trolls of the much-loved Zork chronicles or of those oft-lampooned Batman villians of the mid-1960s: the conniving Airbrush, the duplicitous Pastel, and that dreaded nadir of comic book art, the Van Goghginator. There is also Andy Warhol's frequently quoted observation that, in the future, everyone will be spelunking for fifteen minutes. Yet there is little evidence to suggest that Warhol himself was a spelunker, or much of an outdoorsman-artist at all. One of his proteges, Jean Michel Basquiat, even went so far, after a notorious split with the other artist, to suggest that Warhol had never heard of caves, nor could he even spell the word cave.

by Fred 5:45 PM

 

cave paintings

by Fred 10:31 AM

Friday, September 09, 2005

 

Sometimes I just don't feel like writing
Sometimes the words just aren't my friends
When I can't get past the beginnings
Don't get me started on middles or ends

Sometimes the words just aren't coming
Sometimes I've got places to go
Sometimes can seem like forever
At times when the writing's so slow

Sometimes I just want to be elsewhere
Anywhere but with paper and pen
Sometimes five minutes can feel like an hour
I don't dare stretch it out til it's ten

Sometimes I just don't feel like writing
But that's when I most need to write
It's whenever you think that you're beaten
That's when you don't dare give up the fight

by Fred 6:07 PM

 

Sometimes, I just don't feel like writing.

by Fred 12:56 PM

Thursday, September 08, 2005

 

Instead of ____________, I think I'll ____________.

by Fred 11:24 AM

Wednesday, September 07, 2005

 

I was an English major. While science and math hold some interest for me, I have no great faculty for either, no untapped talents that will lead me to chalkboards awash with theorems or books intended for anyone other than the layperson. I am the layperson. I don't understand math and science the way I hope I understand the written word. (Not that I don't still have miles to go in that regard, too.) The point is, I'm not too terribly scientifically or mathematically inclined. And yet I've worked for a professor of mechanical engineering, and I'm currently employed as an editorial assistant in chemistry and mathematics/statistics. I think it may help that I don't understand the books we publish -- or, back when I was on the other side of it in academia, the books we submitted for publication. You could call it a regrettable incuriosity, but it's hard for me to muster much personal curiosity, much less enthusiasm for Bayesian statistics or Abelian geometry or surfactant scinece. I'm not the intended audience. I just help the process along and ensure that the books are publushed. We have editors and advisors to let us know if a topic is worth pursuing, and the editors for whom I work go after the books they think will do well in the market. I recognize titles and key words that reappear, but I don't understand it. I'm not a math person.

by Fred 11:59 PM

 

mathematical oddities

by Fred 10:20 AM

Tuesday, September 06, 2005

 

sleight of hand
height of a man
who stands maybe six,
maybe seven feet tall over the audience
with a rabbit-filled hat on his head,
mustache like polished steel
curled toward the heavens
(you could poke out an eye with that thing),
and a gleam in his own eye
that's already got them
looking the other way,
even before he points there with his wand.
and
presto change-o
a-la-kazaam,
nothing happens:
some smoke or a scarf,
and all of them are
sitting on the edge of their seats;
they are the edge of their seats,
like the edge of a knife,
waiting to be whetted, honed,
waiting to be amazed.
"That should have worked,"
the magician says.
"I just know it should.
It always did in rehearsal."
And now they're
looking the other way,
not at the rabbit ears
drooping down the side of the hat
or the wand he knifes through the air,
but at the door,
thinking,
"we paid good money for this?"

by Fred 6:06 PM

 

sleight of hand

by Fred 9:13 AM

Friday, September 02, 2005

 

lately

by Fred 12:32 PM

Thursday, September 01, 2005

 

it's no use hiding
there's nowhere to hide
they'll find you within
they'll find you outside
they know where you are
they've searched far and wide
they know you're afraid
your fear's been their guide

it's no use hiding
there's nowhere to hide
you can search all you want
but I tell you no lie
they'll search you out
nowhere you go they won't spy
your fear gives you away
wherever you fly

by Fred 6:41 PM

 

It's no use hiding.

by Fred 12:29 PM