And No Jury Would Convict Her

That third image is from Bobak's, by the way. I suppose I could write a haiku based on the first three photos, but if Betty White did indeed shoot me, I doubt if it would even go to trial. Because she is a better vigilante than she lets on.

Buddy the Mitch Vs. Brain From The Planet Arous

Actually, that was Willy the Sid's brain my dog was chewing on as a pup, not that ghost thing from the John Agar film mentioned above. Bob asked me if the brain was Photoshop-ed, I had sent him a teal umbra top secret debriefing regarding border collies a week or so ago. I mentioned that to explain the entire story, which would then make it a nice, homey pre-Internet tale, I'd have to give it a proper on my blog. The year was 1990, the city was Nashville. Sidney Williams presented me with his brain, not just any brain, his own, with his thoughts inside. Printed from an old dot-matrix printer and cut in thin strips like ticker tape, one could pull a bit of Sid's thoughts and story ideas out of a small hole near the brain stem. Sid seemed to fixate on a redhead at the supermarket as well as wondering if she would kill him and eat his ribs. Best that he moved on and married Christine. All three of my nieces practiced learning to read from those twelve strips of paper, each with one complete sentence. Over the years, pieces had ripped and been taped back together, and ripped again. Sid's words became blurry after the brain ended up in a swimming pool. Then my dog came along and chewed a hole big enough that he could stick his nose through the brain stem and make it move like a prop in a Three Stooges short. (Note: in the John Agar film, his character had a dog named Thor who was possessed by a good brain to fight the...never mind). The brain collapsed in on itself after that last stunt, and seeing as how my nieces all had since learned to read other things, I tossed out the whole mess. Between my dog and my nieces (who also like to tear body parts and organs asunder), all I'm left to do is keep the heads in my Bobak polish sausage jar. There are only a few I laid out as a sample, you can see that my dog got at the soft tissue of a Hulk Hogan shampoo bottle Snake gave me when he and Bunny were first dating and still lived in Lincoln. Going back to that lobby scene at the Crowne Plaza--setting for "Skull's Rainbow," a story which Sid and I co-wrote and set at the very World Horror Convention we were at, and then sold to Constable Books' NEW CRIMES in the UK--everyone is saying their goodbyes from different directions, some seated and others standing or waiting on a shuttle bus or their luggage. Sid says to me, as an after thought, hey, you got my brain, right? Joan and Beth look at us like we are crazy. I had started to unzip my luggage when Brian said that he had seen it up in the room, and was in the elevator in a flash. Until he returned, the women really thought that there was something else to the story, but there it was, Sid's brain. I gave it a good home for almost sixteen years, and my nieces learned to know what the phrases cannibalism and supermarket stalkers meant...Wayne

Everyone Said We Had A Screamin' Ball...Last Night At Dracula's Hall

The above is a song from the broken cassette Lana repaired, much to my giddiness. I wasn't even able to find out the name of the band who recorded the catchy tune. The gigantic house in the photo was built next door to me over the past 16 months, and I call it Castle Frankenstein, but obviously I've overused The Monster's formal name too often of late. So, Dracula's Hall it is. The closest house in the second photo is the old house, and mine is to the right and could easily fit in the garages of the new castle. The people who will eventually move in have Bobak Sausage money, so they can pretty much build whatever they want. The house torn down had been there since 1946, when much of Burbank was farmland. Fun fact: Burbank was simply South Stickney Township until 1970. I have photos of the other place--the widow Debo's house--that I need to get in order, because I have some cool demolition photos. Much like I've been demolishing my body lately, I do like to take photos of things leaving the face of this earth. The last photo is just guesswork on my part on how the next accident I have will change my appearance yet again....Wayne

Put On My Graveyard Suit

Been to three wakes in six weeks. My dad's partner Big Bill, from a few entries back, lost his sister, but sandwiched around that, his wife Joan lost bother her parents. It was weird tonight, seeing the empty chair the old man had sat in back in November. Bill keeps trying to get dad to go to these monthly cop gatherings, but my dad just wants to forget most of it. What the hell, I'm the one telling all the stories, including the one that pushed him over the edge, the crack mother who rolled over on the mattress and melted her baby into a coil heater. The funeral home is in Archer Heights, still a pretty big polak enclave. An Apteka is a kind of drug store. Lots of Zimne Piwo OLD STYLE signs on the taverns. I have a Bobak Sausage jar that I use to keep heads in (my twin nieces' broke a lot of things when they were tykes, and I stopped complaining once I realized how fun a head jar would be. Because all my work clothes now consist of jeans and t-shirts, all smelling of ink and odors not found in the Aqua-Dots from China, I've only worn my suit four times this year. Yeah, that one above. I miss wearing my ties, my Universal Monsters tie, my Casablanca tie. I bought that really creepy tie with the swimmers at the thrift store, but I've yet to wear it, not having any clothing to match it. Perhaps I'll wear it when I'm on the 66th Floor of the Sears Tower screaming "I AM SPARTACUS!" I'll bet the news choppers will zoom in, thinking the tie is a clue....Wayne

Things To Do In Denver When You're Dust

Stolen from the Andy Garcia film set in Denver, my fictional home away from home, and a movie with probably the finest performance by Treat Williams. Well, the decimation is complete. Bob and Kate have on several occasions chided me on tossing out things I might one day regret. Rest assured, the important stuff will be on display in my abattoir again soon. I'll likely relegate the paperbacks to the crawlspace next to the vats of quicklime. As for now, the room is still caked with dust, a similar kind as I see and smell at the graphics shop, its in my ears and in my eyes and I generally feel like Kharis, the Mummy. Hell, I look like him on my best day. The first two photos reflect the dust layered on my jar of several doll heads ( my nieces very much were intrigued by tearing action figures apart when they were younger; I couldn't do the same with my fake-bearded G. I. Joes, the heads were kept taut by rubber bands. I used to hang them from my bedroom window instead, after the commanding officer discovered them with my sisters' Barbies, Midges, and the forgotten Mattel doll of the 70s, Malibu P.J.). Then you see the various bottles in my woeful bottle collection: Night Train (which you can mix with the light blue Aqua Velva to make the $1.77 bottle last longer), Kentucky Nip, and an odd concoction simply called The Drink, a skeletal Elvis warning us "Be Careful Who You Idolize." Next to that, the Elvis candle I received from my cousin Deke Rivers after my novel was published in 1992. Guess my idolization has doomed me already. Next comes the painting, the removal of crappy furniture, and a nice TV and DVD player in my laboratory. I have finally resigned myself to the technology of the new century. And once upon a time, my letterhead read "I Will Flatline Before I Go Online." That was until October of 1997. I suppose a decade later, a DVD player might be in order...Wayne