Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Just Sayin', Is All



About a year ago, after getting off the bus, I saw a corner house (this was not a walk home) which always had a flag hanging on a post near the mailbox. It was an older guy who lived there, and in the early twilight I saw that the flag had been set on fire. I quickly put it out, it was just singed around the edges. I knocked on the guy's door--it was then that I discovered his age--and he thanked me, telling me that it was the third flag that had been set on fire that year. The other week, I was passing by that fellow's house and had to take a photo of the telephone pole near the mailbox. Maybe the person setting fire to the flags found himself in a position to see the flames from a different perspective. One can only hope. I only run into the old guy every few months, he still unfurls the flag, and we still wave at each other, acknowledging our respective existence in the city confines...Wayne

Monday, April 28, 2008

Who Stalks The Stalkers?




While Bob continues to peruse my endless book titles involving man's love for aquatic life, I am posting my April entry for STORYTELLERS UNPLUGGED. The topic of stalking came about after a reply from Jan 07 bounced back to me where someone typed "you cannot type fast, I can be your angel" and it spiraled from there. Enjoy my anecdotes guys, and you, too, Bob. There are funny things mentioned in this piece and each an every instance is true. Crazy is as crazy does...

April 28

WHO STALKS THE STALKERS?
Category: Wayne Allen Sallee
By Wayne Allen Sallee

OK. I have no idea what that means. I just want to get this thing rolling. Somehow, in some way, I am writing this at 11 PM on Sunday the 27th because I worked today at the plant. For eleven hours. Go figure. I went to bed last night expecting to dream of Erica the blonde pharmacist at Walgreen’s who makes certain I’m not skipping my bipolar meds (and maybe that’s a hint for me to ask her out, the fact that I’m taking my meds in a timely way). Thinking to myself, yea, rainy day Sunday, write the essay, work on the comic, nap, dream of Erica ,alternate between reading George Pelecanos and Lesbian Pirates From Outer Space…then the phone rang at 7 AM. And that was that. I’m going to get through this now, then flop down and most likely dream the entire 108 minutes of CARNIVAL OF SOULS within an hour of waking up (all the better to feel like complete roadkill when I dream that early in the morning; I can’t have dreams about zombies that make me get up at 3 AM and urinate like the average person…)

Stalkers. A few weeks back, I mentioned to the SU group that I received an odd comment on one of my SU entries from 2007. I good-naturedly asked if anyone in the group had ever dealt with stalkers, or, what years ago might have been called “hangers on.” Well, one person I had never heard of was mentioned, and I again realized how out of the loop I am these days. I never even heard of the individual. I won’t mention her/his name because I am told she/he Googles her/himself regularly. I do the same, and somehow when I hit page 73, my name shows up alongside the phrase “sailor moon hentai penguins,” but there you have it. But there are many different ways to encounter the crazies that are crazier than we are, and I’m here to recount several instances of people who spend too much time up on Hard Rock Candy Mountain.

I have participated in book signings at several locations here, the Printers Row Book Fair, the TwilightTales readings at the Red Lion, and at the late, lamented The Stars, Our Destination. Before I tell you about the “it doesn’t matter” girl, I will say that I once had a man come up to me at Stars to have me sign a copy of SPLATTERPUNKS. The guy showed interest in wanting to co-write a story with me, then told me he had never read a story of mine and did not know who I was. All this before I even finished signing the book or spoke a single word. The kicker is that the guy had an old-timey plaster cast on his arm, the fuzz was coming out of the thumb area, and this oozy stuff like melted mac and cheese was caking to the book as I handed it to him. He tried to make further conversation in the cramped book aisles, and I recall sticking my finger in my ear and pretending to be receiving messages from the mother ship. Never saw the guy again, but I still recall that mac and cheese, which is why I likely will eat a bug before I open up macaroni.

The “it doesn’t matter” girl is another Stars story, though the origins starts about a year earlier. My chapbook PAINGRIN was published in 1993, and one night I received a call from *ahem* Stanislaus Darnbrook Colson Tal Emerson Lake & Palmer. He wanted to pass on the contents of a letter from some woman who lived in nearby Skokie, was deeply moved by my diary entries, and he gave me her phone number. Well, I had seen Griffin Dunne in AFTER HOURS, I should have known better. We talked a bit, she wanted to have lunch, it was a Friday during the summer, I thought what, I mean, WHAT could it hurt to meet her? She gave me an address off Clark and Kinzie. I’m thinking its that German restaurant now demolished. I see a big green building with no sign, no windows. Maybe it’s a trendy place with a side door, a back entrance. The sign to be read from the bridge or the elevated train. It was a methadone clinic. She comes out with this giant-size sippy cup of, I guess, methadone, and we go off jauntily to have lunch and run into her drug-addled friends. I’m thinking, boy, I am screwed. She is introducing me like I’m Jeremy Piven and she’s Drew Barrymore, only more like if her eyes were made of glass and made me think of John Barrymore, lying in a coffin with a sippy cup stuck to his embalmed lip. At one point, she went on the nod and I blew town.

She found me. Hell, she knew my name. It’s not like I use the name Vinnie Cthulhu or Mitchum Marlboro Spartacus. So I’m at Stars signing YEAR’S BEST HORROR:XX, and I’m sitting next to my artist friend H. E. Fassl. She waves, Harry says “who she?” and I mutter “it doesn’t matter it doesn’t matter it doesn’t matter” before she shows up and slurs surprisingly coherent sentences to me. She started attending conventions, mostly hanging out with the goth crowd, and ended up becoming good friends with Karl Edward Wagner that last year of his life. I was at Yvonne Navarro’s house, one of her VonCons, when she called to tell me Karl had died. Then she went to live with R. Chetwynd-Hayes.

But there is one guy I have never been able to shake, going on twenty years now. He has three names, as most serial killers do, and, well, yea, me, too. I first met him when I worked at a comics shop on Archer Avenue, and he was all into MK-ULTRA and mind control–the in thing for the summer of 1991, evidently–and he also told me that he worked on computer programs overseas. Being 1991, and being me, I thought he was designing the new Ms. Pac-Man. Then he started showing up at, yes, Stars Our Destination, and, yes, Printers Row, and then I’d get off the subway and walk above ground and he’d be riding by on his bicycle, fer cry-eye! This last did indeed happen, and I began to question my very reality. Phil Dick was alive and well and was writing about my life.

I didn’t see him for months, and then he showed up at a TwilightTales reading. He explained in whispers that he had not been around because he had been working as a military contractor in Iraq. I couldn’t pretend I was getting transmissions from the mother ship with this guy, because he was piloting the damn mother ship! I sent Mort Castle a photo of this guy, who is in the background off a photo of Mort and I at World Horror 02 here in Chicago. Remind Mort it’s the guy in the bright green lei, trying desperately to get in on our conversation.

I saw him two summers ago at Clark and Belmont simply because I chose to walk on the wrong side of the street, or so Phil Dick would want me to believe, and I was able to brush him off fairly quickly, as he did know I had a certain time frame to get my last el train home. Oh, I forgot to mention the time he walked into The Gallery Bookstore and I hid behind the stack of recent acquisitions until he passed by and I could sneak out.

So those are my tales, my anecdotes, what have you. I’m certain there are other tales to be told, by some of you reading this, hopefully by nobody Googling this. Hell, someone might come across this entry simply by typing in ‘hentai penguins.’

Until next time.

Wayne Allen Sallee
Burbank, Illinois 28 April 2008

Sunday, April 27, 2008

Saturday, April 26, 2008

My Dachsund, My Lover






Rich Chwedyk knows all too well about my vision quest for the book with that title, the one I saw in the dinky joint that sold porn novels with b&w covers and minimal art, black posters, and had a pinball arcade in back on Randolph Street back in the day. I did happen to find this odd book cover that perhaps was inspiration for Mr. Porno Writer. I also found a couple of George Orwell books with cover themes I had never been aware of, and just to prove that I wasn't Googling bestiality pulp fiction, there's that science-fiction book which, well, looks like naked ladies ashamed of doing it with the Gieko lizard family. Its almost funny--not funny ha ha, rather funny psychotic--because I am not taking my bipolar meds for three days now. I'm involved with Mike Fountain in a writing project which involves a character who is bipolar. This is a comic now in page/panel format, so I need to get it right, falling house of cards and all. So that damn cover with the dog heads look real to me, too damn real. Fuck them, though. Wait, that's how the damn subject heading came about, though I doubt weiner doggies slobber much. Ah, the meds, right. Getting back to those, it explains why I've been away visiting Earth-14 and not blogging away about hashish and blood. In the recent future, expect me to discuss determinism, hanging upside down from a fence and then falling face first onto a George Pelecanos novel that was sent to me from Steve Malley in New Zealand, the massive rainstorm I was walking in for about 90 minutes (and getting tossed around more than if I was an innocent bystander in a fight between The Flash and The Rainbow Raider), the lovely blonde pharmacist Erica who was worried that I had not picked up my Lamictal yet, and mysterious Numbers Stations and the more mysterious Conet Project...looks like I have a lot to catch you guys up on...Wayne

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Musk, Hashish, and Neil Diamond



It seems as if the Middle Eastern book went over well with those who emailed me. I did forget to post this cover, with such a clever play on words. I don't really have anything to post as follow-up, but for this strange little piece by someone named Daniel when I Googled Burbank, Illinois a few nights ago. Yea, one would think I'd be doing something productive, like writing sonnets about sweet, sweet octopus love. But I wasn't in the mood. And here you go, the nameless story, and I am by all means not mocking the prose, simply giving it new life...Wayne PS As strange as some of my blog entries about the south suburbs have been, I don't think anything like the following could have escaped my attention. Unless it happened while I, ah, Jonny Algiers was at Whiskey A Go-Go or downstate investigating the earthquake...


My name is Daniel it all started as cold day In Burbank, Illinois I had just came
from A sports shop and Had bought myself a Nine Millimeter Pistol, I sat down on my couch and set the gun on My coffee table, I turned on the television and was watching The X-files On FOX, I had Always watched the X-files and seen every episode but this one happened to be one of My favorites, I watched for about an hour when Nature called and went in the bathroom, When I came back a Special news report saying Attacks on random Civilians in New York City, I continued to watch the news on this Event. It was reported that it could have been a Religious cult Wreaking havoc on a large scale. The news Reporter Had turned to a Hospital with one of these random acts with a man bleeding from his right hand, He said “I seen this guy lying on the road and seemed to be very still, so I got out of my car and Walked over to him and reached down to see if he was okay when he grabbed my hand And Bit me, I ran back to my truck and he got up and started banging on my window, I Noticed he seemed to have his throat ripped out by a rabid dog but couldn’t have possibly Have Lived through it, so could have it been some kind of Voodoo or witchcraft going on Here” The news Reporter had reported about 10 dead in New York Possible, but not from
Bites but Casualties from Law enforcement that had to neutralize these people who had Been bitten, Collapsed, and have had Immediate Homicidal aggression. Religious Beliefs Had not been called in order for this Epidemic but Many People say so. The news reporter Talked about what to do when he put his hand on his ear Piece and said “I'm just getting a Report of States besides New York with this Violence with the same Homicidal Aggression, No further casualties have been reported but the numbers could Increase if the Police couldn’t handle it” I didn’t think much of it, More of a Riot in new York that wasn’t really a concern of mine so I went into my room and went to sleep.I woke up to my Alarm clock with the radio with a man yelling "There’s Blood everywhere, there’s bodies! Oh my god its everywhere! People in the streets are Literally dying by the hundreds! A huge group of Homicidal Cannibals Throughout New York The entire city is a war zone, The NYPD had paid all the gangs in new York to assist the police with Marijuana and money I see hundreds of men shooting these Cannibals but The only thing that seems to affect them is to shoot them in the head, Shoot them in the body it will slow them down but they'll just get right back up! I quickly got dressed and went to my TV and turned on the news, Many Army men were standing around With hundreds of bodies lying around everywhere, The Commander of the men walked up to the camera Man and said “With all my experience in the Military, I have never seen something such as this, The death count in new York Is around 3 million, No disaster in The united states has ever even came close to this, We Have just destroyed the bridge to New York for not only our safety but your own, Still even with all these bodies lying everywhere There is still thousands of cannibals swarming the city, we’ve set up a barrier here at Grand central station and are holding tight, We have plenty of supplies and Ammunition but I don’t know what’s going to happen, I also have ten sharp shooters on top of the buildings with Literally hundreds of Rounds of ammunition but still no matter how much they kill there seems to be no end to these Monsters” A woman walked up to the commander and said “Do you have a Comment on who these people are, Possibly maniacs or some kind of Religious cult?” The officer sighed and said “I’m not quite sure on
What these things are, But I’m saying they could be the living dead, or Zombies if you will”The Woman said “Zombies, What could have Caused this?” The commander shrugged and said“some kind of Virus, Maybe some Nuclear waste…But I really have No clue” The woman Nodded And Said “well, your right This happened so fast and there is a chance of Containing these what Could Possibly be the living dead, All I have to say is Stay in your homes, Block all doors and windows and Sit tight until The Military arrives, If the Military arrives Of course, If not stay in your homes and secure any Firearms.” I turned the Television off and I felt a tingle go down my spine, I picked up my Nine Millimeter And Looked out my window, Nothing seemed to be Strange except there was Nobody on the streets and Was Deathly quiet. I Looked at my neighbors house and His curtain was closed but I could see his shadow. I saw him hang his head down low and Put something to his head, Then a Bang and a flash I closed my curtain and sat down on my couch, Shocked at the sight of my neighbor Committing Suicide. I turned my television back on and changed the news channel, He said that we urge you not To Commit suicide, We have received reports about Many suicide cases for this Epidemic, most likely They didn’t want to live through the fear of this, Or didn’t Want to become one of them. I turn my television off and went to my door, I looked out the wall eye and nobody was there still, Just a dead silence and a Slight breeze rustling in the trees. I opened my door and looked out with the wind blowing in my ear and Did Not see a soul in sight, Not even the slightest man made noise, Like as if I was the last person on Earth. In my neighborhood Gangs like “the kings” would be Stalking me about now, they had Been haunting me since I moved here, And I was planning to move anyway. I loaded up my clip for my handgun and went outside to see if the Infection had spread to my Area, I Got in my car and rolled up all the windows, I went slowly in reverse to make as little noise as
possible In case that some of those monsters had been hiding In between the houses. I looked down at my shifter and popped it into Neutral when I heard someone jump on my hood I quickly looked up and it Was a Man covered in blood Dressed in Kings attire, And he made a noise I would never forget, It was some kind of Loud screaming groan, I slammed on the gas and he fell and rolled over the Top of my car and onto the road behind me, I looked in my rearview mirror at him chasing me, “Man those
things can really move!” I thought to myself. I went like 5 miles into the city where I saw People screaming And running for their lives a Police officer stopped me at a roadblock and pointed his shotgun at me I raised my hands and told him not to shoot me and I wasn’t one of them! I got out of my car and said “what is happening here, are these monsters zombies?” the police officer looked at me like I was and Idiot and he Said “We cant confirm they are zombies yet, But I think they are some kind of Religious cult” The man Handed me a 12 gauge shotgun and a belt of shells, Then told me to come with him, He led me behind a police Barricade and took out a megaphone. He put the megaphone to his mouth and Yelled “If there Are any survivors Come to the Police Barricade with your hands up, we wont hurt you and we can take you to a Temporary shelter.” We waited about five minutes when a man with long brown hair A zigzag shirt and blue jeans spattered in blood, came out of a building with his hands raised. I caught a glimpse of a glint on top of a building, A sniper then came on the cops Radio “should I take him out?” The cop put the radio to his mouth and said “no, he seems to not be one of them, but he is covered in blood so keep an eye on him, Ok?” The sniper gave the officer A Big 10-4 on that and the man walked to the barricade. The officer walked over and said “Are you hurt?” The man was very shaken, And didn’t say anything and Just shook his head. The police officer Inspected him In case he was lying. He police officer sighed and said “Ok have a seat” The man walked over with A blank stare and sat down next to me, I smiled at him and said “Hello, I’m Daniel, what is your name?” He looked at me and slowly opened his mouth and out came a raspy voice that said “..Just..call me Hyro” The cop walked over to us and said “In the back of the truck is some Weaponry, That I hope you can use, we need all the help that we can So grab as much as you can” the cop Handed hyro a towel and wiped most of the blood off himself and met me at the back of the truck. He grabbed a .308 High velocity rifle with a Shell holder on the butt, a Nine Millimeter with a leg strap with extra clips and finally an M-16 with a belt of clips. I got a holster for my Nine Millimeter and put it on my belt with a leg strap for extra clips, I got a gun strap for my shotgun and grabbed a small Sub machine gun with a belt of clips. The cop said “Here comes one, Hyro can you take it out with your rifle?” Hyro nodded and flipped the scope cap off and clicked on the laser, hyro put down the tripod and stood very still biting his tounge and right before he pulled the trigger he said “Wow this one looks like Micheal Moore, Hey
daniel come look at this!” I looked over and sure enough it was I laughed and Hyro went back and BANG! Even though he shot it through the head it was walking at us as if nothing happened He shot it again and still nothing, The cop said “Oh my god! Its too big the rifle does nothing!” “Looks like Ill have to take Drastic measures, He opened the trunk of his Squad car and took out a Bazooka, He pointed it and Fired,
He took a couple steps back from recoil and it Did sort of a Swirl toward it then KABOOM! Guts flied all over the street covering cars completely. The cop Laughed like a Retard and said “Go boom!” He smiled and put the bazooka back in his Trunk. About three Hours passed of Picking off zombies until the radio came on and said “I need to meet you across the city, There’s a Helicopter there to get out of this city“ the cop looked at us and said “We have to walk because there is too much Debris in the road” I sighed and loaded up my clips and grabbed an Extra machine gun, holstered one and held the extra, also grabbed as much ammunition as I could. Then hyro grabbed two Sub machine guns and held on in each hand, and the cop just had a shotgun. We crossed the police Barrier and there was a dead silence with Hundreds of bodies full of Holes Lining the streets. I looked at Hyro and said “You think we’re going to make it?” Hyro shrugged and said “well who knows, if its as bad here as in the rest of the United states I really don’t know But its worth a try
getting Through this god forsaken city.” I nodded and kept walking. About Ten Minutes later about 10 zombies turned the corner and Had charged at us Hyro drew his Sub machine guns and took out 4 of them I had taken my shotgun and blew two heads off and shot two with my machine gun and the cop blew the last two heads Off. I sighed and cocked the empty shell out of my shotgun and loaded it up again, Also with my sub machine gun. We continued through the city hearing screaming and dark figures moving about in the buildings. A zombie turned the corner and charged at me I pointed my gun but it was too late, I was already trying to wrestle It off of me when I was able to grab my sidearm and put a round in his left temple, I pushed the body Off of me and it fell down like a rag doll, I wiped the blood off my face from the spatter and said “what a rush” Hyro Apologized because he said “I didn’t want to miss and accidentally hit you” I agreed with him And we went on our way. About another five minutes later we heard gun shots around the corner, We all Ran to where the gunshots were coming from and saw a horrible sight, I couldn’t tell how many there were Ten thousand, one hundred thousand, Maybe even a million. They were behind a police barricade shoulder To shoulder like a Neil Diamond concert.

TO BE CONTINUED!!

Monday, April 21, 2008

The Exquisite Morality of A Goat In Spring








I wish somebody could write cover copy like that for me. I wish I could write cover copy like that for me. I'll tell you one thing, that line about the goat in spring was probably the selling point in this goofy book being made into an Elvis film. (Look it up, I'll wait). Spring reading lists, now that its warm enough to sit at the bus stops, get skin cancer on my head as I skim through yellowed pages of the original pulp fiction. I love the author names. Vargo Statten? Sounds like a superhero in guarding Lithuania. One guy I don't have a scan for is Speed Lampkin. Now that, my friends, is a name. Just as STAY AWAY, JOE has the exquisite morality of a goat in spring. And, on the cover of James Kisner's STRANDS, the late J. N. Williamson (yep, the guy who put me in NOONSPELL) wrote "This is a horror novel...written to be read." Hey, whatever sells the book, right?...Wayne

Sunday, April 20, 2008

like, gonesville...








I stumbled across this blog awhile back, and I do enjoy checking it out every few nights. Larry Harnisch takes articles from the old Los Angeles Daily Mirror from fifty years back--tomorrow's blog entry would be for 21 April 1958--and he takes the headline and rewrites the article and even does a follow-up on, say, if the kid whose parents killed themselves actually did go to college. That's not Harnisch in the photo, it's 1950s columnist Matt Weinstock, with one happening haircut. The LA Times website links you to the Daily Mirror blog, as well as a Homicide blog that, assumedly, updates by the hour....Wayne

Friday, April 18, 2008

Are You Ready For The Great Atomic Power?



I'm as conspiracy-minded as the next guy (who I know happens to be monitoring my thoughts), so I've been following little tidbits all week. Lights in Indiana and the National Guard admitting they were performing night exercises. This morning's earthquake, which, I assumed, had occurred on the ACTUAL fault line, near New Madrid, Missouri. Not in Crawford County, which I wrote about in my missive about Bellair, and is in the opposite side of the state. Larry sent me the following link and I added information about the original poster. Scott AFB is in southern Illinois, and is like the Midwest version of NORAD. I'm as much for the fall of western civilization as the next guy, but I'm really only here to entertain with the following info, guys and gals. Now, let's take it on home to Jesus...Wayne

INDIANAPOLIS — Loud booms and strings of flare-like lights that brightened the sky two nights in a row over north-central Indiana may have been F-16 fighter jets on training missions, an Indiana Air National Guard official said Thursday. The booms shook houses in the Kokomo area about 10:30 p.m. Wednesday, frightening residents and prompting Howard County police to search for a downed aircraft, said Larry Smith, the county’s emergency management director. No aircraft debris was found, and Smith said he was at a loss to explain what some people speculated may have been a meteor. But Tech Sgt. Darin Hubble with the 122nd Fighter Wing, an Indiana Air National Guard unit based at Fort Wayne International Airport about 70 miles away, said military officials are investigating if F-16 training might explain the Kokomo booms and lights and similar reports Tuesday over Logansport. He said training often includes pilots shooting flares and can produce sonic booms that shake the ground below.


Earthquake reported in Illinois

April 18, 2008
Recommend (71)

BY ASSOCIATED PRESS

WEST SALEM, Ill.---- A 5.2-magnitude earthquake centered in southern Illinois rocked people awake across the Midwest early Friday, surprising residents unaccustomed to such a powerful tremblor.

The quake -- one of the strongest ever recorded in Illinois -- occurred just before 4:37 a.m.----which brings us to a blogger calling herself Sorcha Faal----but first, some background...


The Order of Sorcha Faal was established in 588 (BCE) in Tara, County Meath, Ireland, and claim as their Founder the oldest daughter of King Zedekiah, Tamar Tephi.

The name, Sorcha Faal, comes from the ancient Gaeilge branch of the Goidelic languages of Ireland and has the meaning of: Sorcha: She Who Brings Light Faal: the Dark and Barren Place

The Order of Sorcha Faal comprises 18 Monasteries in Ireland, Russia, Egypt, Lebanon, and the United States.

And now, Sorcha Faal...(please hold all applause until the end of the PowerPoint presentation)...

April 18, 2008

Nuclear Fueled Explosion Reported In US Midwest

By: Sorcha Faal, and as reported to her Western Subscribers

Reports from 3rd Army Headquarters of the Russian Space Command, located in Solnechnogorsk (Moscow oblast), are reporting today that a ‘nuclear fueled’ explosion has occurred in the United States region of Illinois after the downing of an American B-52 Bomber by, presumed, other elements of the US Air Force operating in that region.

So powerful was the explosion reported from this downed American Nuclear Bomber that Western propaganda media sources are reporting the effects of a 5.2 to 5.4 magnitude earthquake in that region, but to which the most accurate description of a nuclear type blast was reported by the Bloomberg News Service and who stated in their article: "You could hear a roaring sound and the whole motel shook, waking up the guests,'' Vibha Ambelal, manager of the Super 8 Motel in Mount Carmel, Illinois, near the epicenter, said in a telephone interview."

These reports further state that this was the second attempt by a US B-52 Nuclear Bomber to penetrate the North American Command Air Defenses surrounding the dissident United States Scott Air Force Base, located in Illinois, from which these aircraft seeking to bomb Iranian atomic facilities are based at.

On Tuesday, April 15th, American citizens to the Indiana region immediately east of Illinois reported numerous ‘booms’ and ‘flashes’ in their night skies which some attributed to fireball meteorites crashing into the atmosphere, but which the United States Air Force reported was caused by F-16 jet fighters ‘sonic booms’ and their use of ‘military flares’.

These reports, however, state that this April 15th incident turned back the first abortive attempt by dissident American Forces to secret their plundered nuclear weapons out of that country for their intended use against Iran.

The ‘trigger’ to these latest desperate attempts to embroil the World in Total War arose from the US Defense Secretaries ordering of a full accounting of all American Nuclear Weapons on March 28th after the discovery of that an unspecified number of them were ‘missing’.

The first attempt to use these ‘missing’ nuclear weapons against Iran we had previously reported on in our April 5th report titled "US Nuclear B-1 Bomber On Iran ‘Attack Run’ Shot Down" and which occurred in the Middle Eastern Nation of Qatar.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman further report that the American War Leaders were warned this past week by the British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, and by Pope Benedict XVI, both of whom traveled to the United States this week, against the attempts by the US to escalate their conflicts into another World War, but which by these latest events these War Leaders appear not to have listened to.

As we have previously reported too, the United States believes it has no option other than Total World War as their economy continues imploding while at the same time fuel prices are rising to catastrophic levels and more food riots are being reported the World over, all of which when combined signal the collapse of the American Empire on a scale not seen in since the collapse of the former Soviet Union on June 12, 1990.

It remains, without doubt, that the people living within the United States will not be allowed to know the full evidence of these events, and their imminent destruction, except by the means of dissident sources of information such as ours. But, and most strangely, the New York Times, and a publication not known for the reporting of dissident news, appears to have changed its course with its April 6th article titled "Duck and Cover: It’s the New Survivalism", and which said:

"THE traditional face of survivalism is that of a shaggy loner in camouflage, holed up in a cabin in the wilderness and surrounded by cases of canned goods and ammunition.

It is not that of Barton M. Biggs, the former chief global strategist at Morgan Stanley. Yet in Mr. Biggs’s new book, “Wealth, War and Wisdom,” he says people should “assume the possibility of a breakdown of the civilized infrastructure.”

“Your safe haven must be self-sufficient and capable of growing some kind of food,” Mr. Biggs writes. “It should be well-stocked with seed, fertilizer, canned food, wine, medicine, clothes, etc. Think Swiss Family Robinson. Even in America and Europe there could be moments of riot and rebellion when law and order temporarily completely breaks down.”

Survivalism, it seems, is not just for survivalists anymore."

This advice by the New York Times that the time has begun for Americans to begin their preparations for survival echo those of the giant US Banking concern Wells Fargo, that Britain’s Guardian News Service has recently reported warned these people: "Scott Anderson, chief economist at Wells Fargo, is equally pessimistic, describing the bullish views of some market players as "bordering on delusional", but which as their life savings continue to disappear they continue not to heed.

For the final outcome of these events we, perhaps, will have little warning, but, and surely anyone with open eyes can see, the storm clouds gathering on the horizon.

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Incident At The Whiskey A Go-Go, Some Years Back




I can't explain this. It was in my Mail Waiting To Be Sent. To whom? Why? And I sure as hell didn't write it a year ago yesterday, that was the day of the VA Tech shootings. I was working double shifts that week at the plant. Might as well share the thing, for better or worse. Most of it is true, particularly the actual encounter you'll cringe in terror from soon enough.


Incident at Whiskey A Go-Go, Some Years Back
by Wayne Allen Sallee c 2007



It was March, a few weeks before I was hit by the Dodge Daytona on 55th and Fairfield, back in the heart of Sout' Side Cat'lik Irish town, when I found myself on Sibley Boulevard, straddling State Line Road, separating Illinois from Hammond, Indiana. This was before the casinos, so there were plenty of strip joints on the Indiana side of State Line. Never mind how I found myself there. My name is Jonny Algiers, and I'll say this much. I was looking for a redhead. She was leaving for England and I needed to tell her I was sorry. She had been staying with a friend in Thalamus, a carnival town on the Wabash River. The main attraction was an honest-to-goodness old-timey carnival, with a wooden roller coaster and a geek who looked like Tyrone Power in NIGHTMARE ALLEY, only he ate pork chops instead of chicken heads.
I knew about the carnival because I had worked there. The guy in the booth next to me had a jail tattoo etched in his left biceps that read SOUP BOSS. He never smiled, it was like if he did, it would be like a baseball breaking a window frame. I sold snow cones and funnel cakes, working undercover to see if Soup Boss was selling crystal meth on the side. Did I mention I'm a private investigator? Oh, and I'm the only one registered in the Tri-State area that doesn't have a valid driver's license because of having my right arm shorter than my left. I was kind of a carnival geek myself, and this was how I met the redhead. She looked like that babe that dated Bobby the Mitch, no not the one from SOME KINDA WOMAN, the one his wife never knew about. Willy Sid, the owner of the carney, told me this on the night of the two moons. But there's a different story altogether. Kind of an urban legend that really happened and then became a different type of urban legend, and that would make sense if you were there.
Well, one night I went along for a ride to Sibley Boulevard, supposedly to pick up more ingredients for the funnel cakes, and I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to see where soup boss went. On the way back, I was going to get dropped off on Mundt Road and try and plead my case to the redhead. I wondered if there were carnivals in London? I had seen that movie where the I'm A Pepper Dr. Pepper commercial guy had turned into a werewolf because he walked into the moors, that film where the guy missed the dartboard and said he had never missed the dartboard before, well I saw that at the old Marquette Theater, but can't remember if there were any scenes with carnivals. Sorry. Thinking about that chippee makes my mind all jumbled and I start rambling.
But there were brothels on State Line Road. Soup Boss suggested we stop off "for a taste," as he put it. Without smiling. It was like watching a marionette move its mouth. Like Howdy Doody time, only with the puppet on steroids. And part Mexican, part Polynesian. I heard that part from the guy with only three teeth that ran the Teacup ride. Or maybe it was Barton Fanning, the Strongman. His job was all smoke and mirrors, like digital computer work only in real life. He was the only guy whose full name I knew, at that was because his name was emblazoned on a crappy piece of wood nailed to a black backdrop.
Now, I'm thinking that this taste Soup Boss was talking about was the meth I had been looking for. A guy in City Hall named Bervid said that if I caught the meth guy, maybe he could get me an actual driver's license. As it was, most of my fees went to cab fares. Anyways, the first place we went into was called Whiskey A Go-Go. The rain that August had soaked the dirt streets so you had to walk through tire tracks to make any real progress. That area was never paved, it was a forgotten area. Until the casinos were built, but that was much later. We passed Selina's Corner, but Soup Boss, leading the way, shook his head in the negative. I wasn't going to argue with a guy whose thigh was the size of my chest, but I truly wanted to check out that joint, because of the neon cat in the single window that wasn't boarded up and covered with graffiti. In the comics, Catwoman's real name was Selina Kyle, and I had visions of Julie Newmar pole dancing. She'd still look good, hell, Eartha Kitt still looked damn hot. There had been three Catwomans on the Batman TV show with that butter tub Adam West, but Lee Meriwether never did anything for me, especially after she was on that Barnaby Jones show.
Sibley Boulevard had empty lots, a few shops that sold crap for a dollar for a holler, as one place proclaimed, only holler was spelled with an 'a', the damn idiots. Then there was the place that said Eye, Ear, Nose, and Body Repair. I was happy to be on the Indiana side of the tire tracks. Right past some condom joint stood our destination. A poster on the brick wall read Mike Fountainey for Committeeman, so you can guess how out of date that was. The guy is still doing time down in Terre Haute for shooting his wife, claiming she had kept a gun under her pillow and mistook it for her asthma inhaler one damp weekday morning.
Whiskey A Go-Go was hopping. I counted seven people, with Soup Boss and myself bringing the place to almost double digits. I wondered how many strippers worked here, shuddering as I recalled the stripper who was seven months pregnant I saw with my cousin Slick Szostak down in Louisville, my second home thanks to Greyhound. There was a long-haired dude, looked like an Indian, passed out on top of either a pillow shaped like a cat or an actual cat. Made me think of Julie Newmar again. She was my first wet dream as a teenager. OK, I admit, its not just redheads, its any chippee: back to the interior. Soup Boss went straight for the circle-shaped bar. I told him I was going to take a whiz, hoping to see if he would take care of business as I was taking care of mine (when I've been walking too long, my bladder shrinks to the size of a chestnut and I piss constantly), and I intended to keep the door open a crack when I was done (I piss fast, banshee fast).
Well, I stood there with the door open just enough, smelling more than my own urine, reading the quarter machines that sold cologne wipes with names like Spartacus, condoms with the same names, and, for some reason, little black plastic combs. We gave those away at the carnival, at the game where you picked up ducks in the water and they had numbers in Magnum Sharpies on their little duck asses.
Suddenly the phone rang, I guess I missed it hanging against the wall where we came in. The long-haired dude raised his head as if he, too, was a puppet, shouting "If its Murline, I aint here, tell that taint I'm not here," even though the person on the other end of the line heard every word. The bartender, a woman who looked like one of Dracula's brides risen from the dead, said "Ya hear that, bitch?" and hung up. The Italian guy, I knew he wasn't Indian now because he used the word taint, slid a ten dollar bill to the old bat. Turned out the cat-shaped pillow was really a cat after all, because the damn thing made me jump as it hissed and scurried off under some chairs, licking spilled beer or dried vomit.
Soup Boss looked at his watch, I was thinking he was timing my stream, so I went back out there, making a manly motion of zipping up as I walked to the bar stool, sighing in mock relief. In front of us stood two midget-sized cans of Jolly Good cola, all my friend said as he nodded was "two drink minimum." Then he slipped Dracula's bride a twenty and she looked at it as if it was her ticket back to beauty and happiness.
In front of us there was an empty stage with lines of beads hanging down, and I suddenly felt like I was going to be a part of that weird dream scene in EASY RIDER, the part that always gets cut out on network TV because Brenda Vaccarro shows her tits or something. I worried myself more as a huge black man in a leather jacket, huge as in big biker dude, with no irises, maybe he was blind, looked like 'ol Drac and thought the geezer tending bar was like, well, Julie Newmar. But he'd have to feel the three bellies, even if he was truly blind. The dude could have been wearing those contacts that were big back then, a different color a day, like womens' panties that said Tuesday or Friday. Soup Boss grunted to me that the guy's name was Carlton but all the drunks slurred his name as Quantum, so he was known as Quantum. He called me Woody as he looked at my crotch, which concerned me, but knew what he was getting at.
Quantum had this weird-ass microphone, the kind Elvis and Buddy Holly used back in the 50s, the ones big as Crenshaw melons with three horizontal ridges along the edges, and he told the so-called crowd to give it up for the "lovely, lovely Starchild" in a voice that made me feel like I was chewing on sandpaper.
Then it got worse.
First, Soup Boss nudged me and called me Woody again. This time, he didn't look at my crotch. Then, the really bad part happened. The beads parted and this monstrosity of a woman, Starchild, my left nut: she had a face like Grandpa Munster and a bald spot on the right side of her head, right above her ear (which was almost the size of the microphone), kind of crazily walked out like she had a load in her outfit.
Oh, that's right. The girls wore costumes, not outfits. Not real costumes, like Supergirl, but the word outfit wasn't used. Maybe it was an Indiana thing. My brain was working overtime trying to not have my brain explode seeing that thing in front of me. She was wearing glittery powder blue spandex, as God is my witness. She also had two more stomachs than the bartendress, but one of the might have been an extra chin. Basically, she looked like the Michelin Man and Swamp Thing combined.
She grabbed one of the string of beads and tried to do squats, each time hacking like a hotbox smoker of unfiltered Pall Malls or Camels. I knew that kind of cough well, one of my partners in the business coughed like that. Jimmy Mack, with the Pall Mall hack, I used to say. Until he cold-cocked me one day before our partnership dissolved because he took a job as a bouncer at the Double Door, back in the city.
God, it was terrible. It was like watching someone in their death throes in a gas chamber, like San Quentin or that prison down in Trexler. Even the cat ran from its treat on the floor and disappeared, assumedly some place far, far away. Eventually she left the stage, after trying to wink at us through fake eyelashes that made her look like Groucho Marx after they fell down and stuck to her embalmed-looking cheeks.
Quantum, maybe he was blessedly blind after all, told us all to clap, which I did politely, like when someone's name is announced at some public function or when the Polish Queen passes on the parade float on Casimer Pulaski Day. Then he said enjoy the music before Starbabe came out. What was with the names? I just hoped they weren't twins. Speakers in the ceiling played "Vehicle" by The Ides of March.
Soup Boss got up, farted, and walked back to the john. I did a double-take, he went past the bathroom, to a room that most likely said private. Almost forgot, the bathroom doors said Gangsters and Molls instead of the usual. One place I was in up on Division Street, back in the day, the johns read Seahorses and Mermaids, so this wasn't the stupidest name I'd seen on doors to the head.
I was brought out of my reverie by a clammy claw-like thing falling over my shoulder. My balls actually shriveled up (again), taking refuge in my ass, I think. It was the hybrid from on stage. I looked at her, then back where Soup Boss had gone, but the door was closing shut. I caught a glimpse of cigar smoke and a bald man sitting at a folding table, one classy looking office, I'll tell you. The cat had found another patron, and was licking at the lid of a liter of Tab sticking out of a plastic bag from Save-A-Lot, one of the places we passed what seemed like weeks ago.
The woman pressed against me, her breath smelled like Spanish moss and her breasts were like jellyfish. And here my story ends. She opened her mouth and all I saw were gums. She told me, and I quote, "I'll give you a deal tonight, stud muffin, because I forgot my teeth at home. But it doesn't matter much, because I'm not much of a screamer anyway."
I was, though. I wailed like a girly-man, passing the drunk who again gave his spiel about
Murline and her taint, evidently thinking I was AT&T, and found myself the relative safety of Sibley Boulevard. I called a cab from a pay phone in Sav-A-Lot (Open 21 Hours!), one of the few working phones that hadn't been ripped apart by gang members for fun. I never did get a driver's license, and I never did make up with the redhead.
But that's another story, and it doesn't involve brothels where the Red in Red Light District meant the pits of Hell itself. Soup Boss eventually got caught selling the meth, to a meltdown named Casey Mann in broad daylight back at the carnival; I read about it in the Indianapolis Star about a month after the car accident, my arm short arm in a cast from elbow to fingers, and then I fell in love with the blonde pharmacist who filled out my prescriptions for pain pills, and now I...well, I'm starting to babble. Its the chippees, I tell you.


Case File: 4815
Jonny Algiers
Belmonde, Illinois

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

I've Had Worse...





Bob asked if I was crazy checking out the area. But someone had to do it. Worse things have happened to me, like when I was mugged in August of 2005, walking from the bus stop. I had the responding cop take a photo of me with his cell phone and email it to me. Its greyscale because it creeps ME out in color. So, its karma. Someone has to go on patrol. The way I live my life now, if I cut myself shaving and someone at work asks, I reply just another suicide attempt gone awry...in other news: it will be 70 tomorrow, our first 70 degree days in 168 days. Damn this town to hell...Wayne

Monday, April 14, 2008

Not On My Watch






Well, I'm at the new plant in the ghetto end of Oak Forest, I'm ready to get some 70#Litho cut down by Bob Urban, when he tells me to put the stack down, that some cops want to talk with me out back. I'm thinking, Bob is so serious, maybe he thought I was going to throw the paper at him as a dodge and run. But there's a story to this and it goes back a few weeks. Back when I was at the old plant, just me and Wilson the yellow roll of paper, Tommie Ashe came by and gave me the hang low on the new joint, on the crack house behind the parking lot and no lights. Well, its my watch now, being the idiot I always am, and so I go check the place out. I go past the bat-filled barn, walk up this little path towards the house and damn if there isn't the TINIEST trailer I have ever seen out of sight between trees. You can't see it in the crack house photo, but its there. As I'm walking past it to see if the house is really a haven of drug fiends, this guy comes out of the trailer, a TINY guy...with a TINY gun. Just asking why I was on his property, which I guess I was as I was on the dirt path. I made up a story that I was taking a short cut back to work, then I had to follow through, walk through the brambles (not the way past the barn), and promptly stepped into a knee high sinkhole. I looked like Tim Conway in those goofy tapes of him as a midget. I got out, all wet, but you dry off pretty quick in the plant. Back to the coppers, Tommie and I, along with Bob U, John R, and OJ the nosy guy, explained to the cops how there are no lights in the area at night and that people are seen going into that abandoned building. The cops didn't even know about the trailer. I swear its in that photo, like its a damn Navy SEAL or something. As an aside, Tommie told me if he honks his horn, bats fly from the barn. Yay. But I did my part, as Chrissy Snyder and the senoritas in bindery work until midnight. Its a big plant, and even I can be isolated for hours at a time. I did my job, I scoped the place out, since the management didn't seem to care. They leave at 5 PM. My watch is when the sun goes down. Maybe the cops will pay more attention, but I'd rather the owners simply put up lights! As it is, last Thursday I had my first encounter with a gun pulled on me in the misty afternoon with no one else knowing where I was. Bad move, that last part...Wayne

Saturday, April 12, 2008

The Delta Lounge, Burbank, Illinois





I actually had a date last night. These last two weeks have been hell because of the move to the new plant. (I have photos of the crack house and the bat-filled barn behind the place, but that's for a later post). I thought that the front office would be hell on any given day, I asked Kelly if she was interested in hitting the Delta, the place that is only a shambling walk from my home. Well, later in the evening I was aghast--yes, the only time I have used this word--when she called me. Well, we stayed there until closing. Its an old joint that I go to and write in my commonplace book, one fellow still calls me Kilgore Trout. Some nights its a bar of aging bikers, from the days of a sawdust floor. Some nights its right out of the film BARFLY. A lot of chin nods to people at the bar or walking by. One of the better moments of the night was when an older guy named Eddie, his face like bark on a tree, bought us drinks and saluted. Maybe he was thinking of his own iceberg memories, of a marriage, or a failed marriage, or a dead spouse. It was fun hanging with Kelly, but I think I'll be writing about Eddie one day...Wayne Oh, a PS: I still think of Delta as a tavern. How many of you guys out there go to taverns and not lounges or dance bars or Applebee's...? Just curious. Every bar is a tavern to me.

Monday, April 7, 2008

Tracks Of My Fears





My ride dropped me off at the secondary plant, which will be open through the end of the week, so I could grab a few things from my old work space. I walked that old familiar walk one last time, and as I rounded the corner, I saw these amazing tire tracks that veered off of LaPorte and ended right at the damn spot I'd be waiting for the bus. I'd like to think that the driver had been Stuntman Mike but more than likely it was some idiot taking a shortcut into his own damn driveway. Still, it would have been nice getting plowed into by Kurt Russell. My whole body would be the Six Degrees of Separation, I suppose...Wayne

Saturday, April 5, 2008

Hello, Walls





I haven't updated my blog that much because of work and my current writing project. It has been interesting as this place closed down, eventually leaving me being the only one in the building running the color digital press because the newer version installed at the new location kept breaking down. For just over two weeks, I worked in an empty building, no fridge, no microwave, no effing lock on the door (Tommie Ashe would lock up and hit the alarm after I called and said I was blowing town). As you can see from the photos, I made a roll of goldenrod paper from the web press into my pal Wilson and he kept me company over many long shifts. The plant closed yesterday, I'll certainly miss Wilson, rascal that he was, but at least I still have his photo. The new place is in the ghetto end of Oak Forest, and I wasn't surprised to find a boarded up crack house within walking distance of the parking lot. You can expect photos soon. Oh, and there's a barn infested with bats next to a Quizno's Subs and a 5th 3rd Bank. Its as if I created the location in my version of Second Life. I'll be catching up with you all soon...Wayne