You Can't Make This Stuff Up

When the plant was at the old location, 127th & Cicero, Burr Oaks Cemetery was directly east. They've made national news now because of digging up graves to bury new corpses. Lay two on top of each other, then get rid of one to make room for a third coffin. This is a fairly famous cemetery, Emmett Till, the kid murdered in Money, Mississippi by white biggot asshole pricks, is buried here. Seeing an overhead view from our local newscam was sickening, far against the area that borders the Cal Sag Channel, a place I described in detail many times here, there were broken caskets, crypts, and VISIBLE BONES STICKING OUT OF THE DIRT. Police were tipped off by a gravedigger who thought that the four pictured had gone over the line when they dismembered a dead body so that it would fit into a smaller grave.

Preople ask me why I write what I write. I don't make this stuff up. Charles and Sid are from Louisiana, so they get it. But if I didn't write about things like this I might be walking around with a baseball bat with every intent to use it.

SN 1572 & The Friday Night Four Sticks

Its that time again. Starts this way, I'm looking at Astronomy Photo Of the Day (APOD), and there's that top photo, the remnant of the Supernova of 1572 (which at one point had the luminosity of 200 full moons), and then it mentioned Tycho Brahe and his diary, I linked to that, and damn it all, first freaking sentence he writes mentions that he first saw the bright star on November 11th 1572. I mention that to Astronomer Louis and he pops back the the galaxy M 108 has a right ascenion of 11 hours and a declination of 11 minutes as of today, the spring equinox. It is a never ending hell. I googled more images, like last year when I found out that Black Label used to put out a malt called 11-11. This time out I typed in Eleven Eleven and then Four Sticks, the latter giving me the cycle license plate meant to drive Charles crazy, some crazy art exhibit in Calgary, and (though I have not posted an image), a California magazine called Eleven Eleven and I fully intend to mail (yes, you heard me, they accept only stories sent USPS so they must be Puritans!!!)I'll let you know how that goes. If I'm accepted, certainly that is my death knell. Well, by causing the Four Sticks curse on Louis he at least can find crazy astronomy lingo that shows 1111. I am think that perhaps what is needed is a Four Sticks constellation, but I suppose anybody can do that by looking at Gemini and shaking their head back and forth.

Screwing With The Man

The Man in this case being the SS/Disability Board. I am STILL filling out the online form, mostly because I keep getting pages where I am repeating the same thing. Where I am repeating the same thing. I'm better today, as the evening has worn on. I'm in fighting mode again. But, I tell you, this damn form--now I'm up to my employment history, Christ knows if they want info from 1977 as they did with my medical info, I think I was a night dishwasher at a Golden Bear off State Road--this form, this THING, its as if Charles has ordered me at gunpoint to transcribe the history of the Green Lantern Corps. That's really what I should do, go back to the beginning and list my doctors as Batwoman, Green Lantern Tomar-Re from the planet Xudar (and don't ask why I have this in my head already), and Ultra, the Multi-Alien as my psychiatrist. I have no idea if they have a rubber stamp for my folder if I sent it that way. Wayne Al-Sall, Green Lantern of Space Sector 2814.

You Went And Did It...

I'm at work with limited resources, so I'm left with thinking of the future of mankind. Maybe it goes back to watching 12 MONKEYS. Maybe its hearing Kenny Chesney singing "She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy." Most likely its yesterday's post, that casket going into the plane. Charles suggested, since I had not coined a term, that this would be an icepick and not an iceberg memory. I don't talk politics but I am still at a loss why someone hasn't Sirhan Sirhaned Bush. Unless they have tried and time travel is involved. And with each attempt, the timelines diverge. Just a few years from now, maybe more: On the one hand you get Charlton Heston cursing us all, and in the other, more dystopian future, Paul Lynde as The Ultimate Being, holding all writers and other creative types prisoner in gulags shaped like Hollywood Squares....Wayne

The Breeze Horror, Memories of 1988

Mike Fountain reminded me that The Occult Bookstore used to be in The Flatiron Building, as well as House of Monsters. Myopic Books is still across the street in the midst of regentrified Hell. The latter store has a section that brings back memories of the late 80s, when we had Horror sections instead of Dark Fantasy at all the major bookstores that have closed here since Borders opened. Zebra and Onyx were putting out 15 titles a month. Years ago, I started one of my little quests for the above book, I recalled the cover distinctly, even the author's name. With advent of Google, that proved no help past the info I already knew, that was the author's only novel. (Remind you of anyone?) I found this about five years ago online (yes it takes me awhile...) but I had 58 hours of work last week and thought I'd at least bring in a couple of books to flip between, I also had Charles Beaumont's THE HOWLING MAN. But get this, the book isn't some spooky ghost story. Its what amounts to a zombie novel. Preceding Skipp & Spector's Books of The Dead. Google the book now and you'll find several references to the book as being a cult classic, nothing I saw posted years back, with bloggers referencing the remake of DAWN OF THE DEAD and 28 DAYS LATER. Well, the book is just an ok read, probably good by 1988 standards. But, whereas it was the title that always made me recall the book even existed, to see the contents as something so vastly different, people stuck on an island off the NJ coast with toxic rain reanimating corpses...its too bad no one thought to do more with this, maybe give the author confidence to write another book. As Charles noted last week, the same kind of thing still happens with the Hollywood pitch. Maybe it is time to wrote THE COLOUR OUT OF MySPACE."...Wayne

Go Hungry

I didn't much have anything to post last night past my silly photo. I'm paying for it today, because the latex or rubber has given me quite the sinus headache. I wonder if werewolves, with their flaring nostrils, get problems with their nasal passages. All that snarling maybe clears things out. Anyways. There is going to be a re-release of the Frazetta book above, but because of my idiotic headache, I can't recall who is putting it out, possibly Dark Horse. Whereas Bob said there were many trick-or-treaters down in Hemlockland, Charles said none at all arrived at his and Lana's place. Perhaps its because he doesn't care much for werewolves, even though he's the one who looks like one, whereas I look like Max Shreck as Nosferatu only with George W. Bush type ears. Or the Green Goblin's ears. Yes, that's better. I do enjoy writing about the Old Guard, though I try my best to give it my own spin, like the masochist who was turned into a vampire and got pissed off because he could no longer feel pain, the vampire who couldn't hypnotize a girl because she didn't have her contacts in, I've even written about an anorexic zombie and had a Lovecraftian monsters described as "Some Kinda Fucking Shit From Goddamn Hell." One werewolf story appeared in DARK DESTINY back in 1994, and I always thought that if there was a better calling for something other than vampires, I might've changed the ending and tried my hand at a novel. "Go Hungry" was about a lycanthrope (from his daddy's side) who had Huntington's chorea (from his mother's side). My take was, what is truly worse, a supernatural or a human hereditary disease? I end the story with the guy dying on his living room floor from seizures, on Hallowe'en, with the last line being "Outside, a goblin knocked, demanding candy." I was always proud of the line. Damn vampires. Who needs them?...Wayne

Riverview Park, RIP 1967

In my previous post, Charles commented that there's a tale to be told about this old park. Perhaps a Twice-Told Tale, as Nathanial Hawthorne was so fond of. The top photos are off of Google--the entrance always reminded me of the Taj Mahal in some small way--the bottom two photos, well, scans, are from my secret stash. Richard Chwedyk, who, like me, tends to reply in email rather than on the blog, further described the Aladdin's Castle from the previous post as having rolling wooden floors and the turban dude's eyes moved back and forth. Its been in the 90s quite a bit this month, ideal amusement park weather, and I still can't believe we had this joint right in the middle of the city. A couple of generations ago...Wayne

Teal Tell All (Then Back To The Old Haunts)

Within seconds of my blog post, Von sent a comment; I felt like Charlie typing in the entry code for Good Vibrations in The Looking Glass and Penny pops up almost immediately. Of course, anybody who doesn't watch LOST will not get this observation, but you could always email Sid or Larry. Sid mentioned a pun on a Wayne shade of teal, which reminds me of a similar line after my late friend and editor of Year's Best Horror wrote "Burst Just Ghostly." I told him the next line must be "turn a Wagner shade of Ka-arrl." (Bastardized Procol Harum's "Whiter Shade of Pale," for you young'uns out there, a song that will be played at my funeral). Charles queried on just HOW teal could be a doorway to madness, well, it CAN be. But I have Johnny Cash and Robert Mitchum as my gatekeepers.

Back to the Draculs (no typo) and Am'tyville thangs. Old Haunts, Night Two. I hardly get to downtown Chicago anymore, certainly not during the day. I miss seeing my fellow meltdowns, like old Ellroy trudging back to the Thompson Building, mumbling to himself. And probably in a better state of mind than me. Maybe he's talking with a ghostly Karl Edward Wagner or tapping out Baa Ba Baa BA BA bum ba5 over and over in my, um, his head.

A Midnight Dreary

I had been talking with Sid about finding books or magazines I had stories or poems in, and how sometimes I meet (or become email-pals with) someone who had also been a contributor. Like a string theory of intersecting careers. Charles Gramlich and I are in the same book featuring Poe-inspired poetry, published on the (I think) 150th anniversary of THE RAVEN seeing print. The second poem/photo montage is by J. Christiano, and was presented to me at a surprise party following the publication of THE HOLY TERROR in April of 1992. The film WAYNE'S WORLD was in theaters at the time, and it was one of the few gifts I received that was not related to that Saturday Night Live skit. Still deciding what to keep and what to doom---Wayne

Much Better, Thanks

Thanks for all your comments on my last post, everyone. I explained to Etain that I used the wolves metaphor as just being a cool image, in truth my daily life is a constant dog paddle, trying to keep my nose and mouth above water at least 50% of the time. The hexagonal pink pills I take for BPD (thx, Jr., didn't know it had an abbreviation as simple as, say, MS or OCD) really do nothing to stop my physical pain. So (again, referring to Jr's remark) if I were to suddenly go on a rampage, I'd be more like a bulemic zombie than a Viking berserker. The FoxNews cameras woulds be trained on me as I tripped walked right into the reporters because I can't focus out of my right eye, no depth perception. A complete MRI of my body could be made into an interactive video game. Thanks to Charles, because I even learn from what I right (though sometimes I do not listen to what I learn, if this makes sense), and it was good to hear from Stewart after a long absence. Oh, the photos. Right. As you can see, the medical facilities in Tyler, Texas are much more advance than here in Chicago, particularly for a guy with no health insurance. So while Dr. Sid has all the proper tools to give that bearded fellow a bikini wax, I'm left with fellow writer Jeff Osier winning a bet reagarding Richard Denning and John Agar an thus getting his wish to take me into an Oak Park basement and drill a hole into my skull. Fun was had by all. Except maybe Dr. Sid.

in the mist, my werewolf calls

long day of cussing and swearing a blue streak, reminiscent of my years in purgatory behind a cheap desk downtown, my computer finally repaired on the cheap, the hard drive gone like a freight train gone like yesterday gone like a soldier in the civil war bang bang. did i have a back up disk? me? kinda sorta. i shall start a new blog of scanned photos, because these words, these photos will be here long after the beetles have feasted on my brain. each of you reading this, inundate me with photos. they will be safe. my belief is that the blogosphere will be the equivalent of the talking, spinning rings in the time machine. wayne allen sallee, alsip, illinois, thursday evening, 01 march 2007.

PS I HAVE FOUND OUT THAT THE HEALTH INSURANCE THAT I DO NOT HAVE COVERS MY CO-WORKERS FOR--GET THIS--BLACK LUNG DISEASE. HOW QUAINT AND DIRE AT THE SAME TIME. WORKING IN THE COAL MINES, GOIN DOWN DOWN DOWN...

Contents Of A Dead Man's Pockets

Charles Gramlich has recently posted on overlooked writers and I'd have to add Jack Finney to the lot. Most known for his novel INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS, he wrote several novellas involving time travel and ghosts of Hollywood actresses in the 1920s, and some of the best damn short stories this side of Robert Bloch. There is a story that has stayed in my head since high school, and I have never seen this story in a collection (The Chicago Public Library information desk verified it was indeed Finney), but it is still crystal clear in my mind. A man in a Manhattan skyscraper finds himself on a ledge after trying to retrieve an errant legal document that has flown out the window. His suit jacket is on his chair and he ponders what people would make of the loose change and laundry tickets in his various pockets, none of which held his ID. I have in my wallet a folded piece of hotel writing paper a note someone has written, hoping to find information about a dead friend. Perhaps notes were left on buses everywhere; I found this as my eyes strayed from a Dennis Lehane novel in the year 2000. I look at the words every so often and wonder if the writer ever did get the information (s)he wanted, from the somewhat primitive way of leaving notes, or at least that one, solitary note. I'd like to think that there were more out there, that autumn weekday 7 years ago. I reflected on what might found on my body should the Reaper take me for my last ride to the dirt nap farm. I almost posted a photo from my mugging last summer when my wallet was indeed stolen and I was kicked into a muddy drainpipe on a day that rained torrents. I chronicle everything, my friend Greg took the photos as my wounds were still wet. It doesn't belong to this post, though, because these words are not about graphic photos, but of varied items of note and a tiny pleading for information on the dead Eddie Curry. RIP, Mr. Curry.