Strangers On A Blog

Most of you are aware of the Hitchcock film STRANGERS ON A TRAIN, where two killers swap victims so that they both have the perfect alibis. A friend of mine, let's call him Thibedoux, is giving some thought to change some of his intend blog entries with another friend, let's call that guy Boudreaux. This way, either can write entries about their specific jobs at, oh, say NASA and the hidden military base near Dulce, New Mexico, and no one could find entries on Google; say someone typed in Tyler Thibedoux NASA and found a blog entry where the guy wrote about a secret project where chihuahuas were being raised from birth in zero gravity. Well, he'd likely be fired. Or disappeared, as they say in novels. But if that same Google entry was for Stashu Boudreaux NASA, either nothing would come up, or if by some bizarre circumstance, that same secret project info came up, well, NASA wouldn't find anybody with Stashu's name. (If you need to know, Stashu is Stanley in Polish, and he is the guy Who Stole The Kishka? in the famous polka.) Well, everyone by now knows how convoluted my stories and ideas are. Mother Mary save us if I ever try to do something with Stewart Sternberg's flash fiction assignments. I suppose everyone is concerned with the graphics posted above my babblings. I work a crappy little Xerox machine at, uh, the hidden military base near Dulce, NM, yea, that's right, and this is what I get to print all freaking day. 196 page booklets on some freakish cult in Philadelphia that are an off-shoot of Freemasons. That job took almost 20 hours, yesterday and today. The root canal procedure was rather fast, but Elvis, Gladys and Vernon, is it too much to ask that I get to run the ten-color press when they are printed 32,000 copies of a blonde eating a vanilla ice cream cone? (Myself, I'd have chosen a redhead as a model, but I suppose the decision for a blonde was decided by some ad agency guy with a fixation on Kathryn Heigl or Lassie.) OK, "Thibedoux," the balls in your court.

Murder Is My Beat, The Miami Motel Is Just Plain Creepy

Wish I had gotten around to typing this up on Friday, as the walk home and my thoughts are under the surface now, but I had to write a story with a three-hour deadline that evening, send it on to Maurice Broaddus, then go to the post office early the next morning to mail a huge box full of stuff to Johannesburg and buy some DC superhero stamps, then promptly leave for an Ice Cream Social at the 57th Street Bookstore near the University of Chicago, to hear Larry Santoro and Marty Mundt read from the works of H. P. Lovecraft. You can find each of the people mentioned above in the blog links to the left. Well, not Lovecraft's, but you can always Google the crazy old sock if you might be inclined to do such a thing. (By the way, I missed the readings because I got off the bus on West 57th, not East 57th, amost immediately realizing my mistake when faced with an intersection bordered by four vacant lots.) Here's what I would have typed Friday night, as I walked in spring-like rain for the two miles from the place that gave me my tax refund to my home. I love walking in rain, preferably when it is not freezing rain, because I had Lasik corrective surgery done back in the year of double-ought, and whereas I can never know the convenience of driving a car, I can revel in looking into a sky the color of torn plums and watching droplets of water hit my open eyes. To get home, I walked though the suburbs of Oak Lawn, Hometown, then a slight wedge of Chicago, before turning towards my home in Burbank. I passed in always creepy Miami Motel, which has somehow found the need to trademark their claims of offering "Four Hour Naps," uh-huh, right. My highlight of any walk in the vicinity of Cicero Avenue and the train crossing at 88th Place is to see the amount of cars parked in the lot; once I actually counted five. The joint was jumping. While I typed that story, one-fingered as usual, later that night, I listened to the CD pictured above, which has songs from films such as KEY LARGO, LAURA, DARK PASSAGE, and MURDER, MY SWEET. The kind of music I will hear in my head as I walk the dark streets in the rain, having my long thoughts about both the days ahead and of the days already behind me.

Six Feet Somewhere

No more scribbling the loops in my name on yellowed ghosts decades gone, a half-dozen paper cuts will never heal. No more dreams encased in nightmares, copper in my ears, magnesium scalpels my scalp. No more half-written tales, one town over and 15 years later, suicide windows, when its said and done, and that sad, sad city with no second chances where a cop named St. Cyr drinks in a tavern called Uptown Jo's, served soda water over his shakes by a woman more defined than parts of his own daily existence. No more more. Is there Heaven? Is there a God in man's image and if so, will St. Peter punch me in my balls as I stand in front of graffiti-covered gates? Is this life a continuation of the Hell I lived until I died in 1959 along with George Reeves, Lou Costello, and the 99th victim of the Our Lady of Angels fire, serial killers Harvey Glatman and Charles Starkweather leaving just before that. I just want to keep my memories, is that so selfish and bad? I want to remember the bartender, the cop whose name means sincere, my hatred of snow, the glass in my bones. And my paper cuts will never heal, ever again.

WTF?

here i am working another 14 hour shift and just now i find out it is farken snowing out all over everything, what the bloody hell?! kate, you would know more than i do at this point, if sternberg's blasted omega beams weren't on the fritz, maybe he could help us out. elvis, gladys and vernon, when will this winter end? we do the daylight savings time thing in four farken days!!! everyone reading this, call your congressman or state ambassador, harley-driving gramlich or gauteng bossman or even the tallest guy on the detroit pistons and just say to them...WTF, dude?

Contents of A Dead Man's Briefcase

Thanks for all the comments regarding the posts since I've come back online. I'm glad everyone got to see what the Faceless One will find in my wallet before the morgue attendant, and Sid has given some thought towards a similar post. Well, this post is one I should have made months ago, but I need to do it now before the briefcase is given back to the Salvation Army. I had purchased this now somewhat beaten up satchel for a buck forty at the local SA when I had a temp job on the far northside. It was in pristine condition, the kind of thing you find at apartment sales or even estate sales. One day, I noticed a lower pocket below the one I kept my bus schedules in, and I unzipped it, expecting to find nothing. Rather, there was one folded piece of paper, still crisp. I am only assuming it belonged to the owner of the briefcase. It was a letter with lab results stating that the 29 year old man had an inoperable brain tumor. It made me wonder if this is why the briefcase was in such excellent condition; of course, now it is ragged, after two winters and being dragged along almost each of the last 700 days. I bought a backpack, because I really don't need a briefcase when I no longer wear a suit and tie to work, and a backpack allows me to run for the bus (or from zombies) (or Sternberg) without getting out of breath. And so the briefcase gets recycled, yet still I wonder if the original owner ever made it to the age of 30. There are always things I end up thinking way too much about.

Tying Up Loose Ends, Dead Man's Pockets

Going back a week, when my computer dissolved under the omega beams of stewart sternberg's eyeballs, I had tried to post the bit about what might be found in my wallet, along with the note about the poor Mr. Curry. Kate S. mentioned the mugging and I thought I'd add the photo, which I took from my old blog. Sad to say, I've been mugged five times over the decades, but twice the pazst two summers. In this photo, blessedly grayscaled for youir viewing pleasure, all the blood is from this idiot high on weed punching my eye with a ring on his hand. The cops who responded to a passing car's cell call were kind enough to take a cell pic for me, as I cheerfully explained that I was a horror writer and this visual might help me in a story one day. I just have a tiny scar in my right eyebrow; its my 37th scar. All the body modifications I have are purely by accident. The second mugging, last July, was worse. In a popuring rainstorm, I decided I would fight back that time. Dr. Frankenstein always rebuilt his Monster, I don't need the assistance from the old man anymore. But that event brought the scar count up to an even 40. On that cheery note, have a great weekend.

my nemesis has returned

after my boss was ready to call homeland security because he took a call from the best buy geek squad idiot who referred to himself as agent gerardo--c'mon, shorten my name to wayn al-sallee, not much of a stretch--everything was straightened out and we had a good laugh like at the end of the barney miller show when the frame froze with everyone slapping their knee in laughter. well, aol is up and running, though i am typing this from work because of the lower case, and i swear its because the area is so so so cramped that i cannot even put my right hand anywhere near the keyboard, yes i know i could cap lock type cap unlock, but that would be too much like dancing with the stars with bill gates in a windows-colored thong as my partner, no thank you and put me on that island steve mcqueen tried to escape from. i swear to christ that that geek squad fuckburger almost got me in for a nice q and a session with jr. and sr. both. but later tonight i shall make my way past the still falling snow, wondering when western society will cave in on itself, think about young kids headbanging in johannesburg and fellow writers' workplaces being shot up in texas, the giant dome of sternberg hovering over the entire northern hemisphere like a big chewy gumdrop full of doom, and get caught up on my emails. so watch out, kate and charles and etain and sid and bob and von and, yes, even you, stewart. peace out, i'm back. wayne