The John Agar Hypno-Cube

Yep. Made it myself. Actually made two of them, one for Jeff Osier as a apartment housewarming gift after he got engaged to Cathy Van Patten. Just like Pepsi & Coke or Oreos & Hydrox, there was John Agar & Richard Denning, when it came to the monster movies of the 50s. Denning was in the first Creature film, Agar the second. Earlier tonight, I was telling Capcom about two failed attempts (and maybe rightfully so, as they were circa 1980), STEAMROCK JOHNNY and NOWHERE MEN, which both had roots in the Industrial Age. The second was wholly my baby, and basically it was about six scientists who averted a disaster in 1883 by folding into timespace so that no one ever knew they existed. And what does this have to do with John? And, sure thing, I can call him John. I'd have to call Denning Mr. Mayor as he became Mayor of Honolulu and even married Evelyn Ankers, Lon Chaney Jr's gal in THE WOLF MAN. But I digress. All over the place.

I knew John Agar. We spoke on the phone and when his arthritis became bad, his wife Virginia wrote me letters that he dictated until she died. I plain out confronted him in 1996, telling him in a letter that I wanted to ghostwrite his autobiography. He married Shirley Temple. He was in SANDS OF IWO JIMA (and ATTACK OF THE PUPPET PEOPLE, to which I say...SO?) His family owned the Agar cured ham business up on the north side. John told me flat out that his life wasn't important enough to write about. He suggested I simply write my own book. I told him that it would be his words that were more important. And I held to that. He never budged. And then he died. And I wrote an article on his film career for SCARY MONSTERS. Back in the day, Harry Fassl and I would do the Denning-Agar war of words, but Harry would always concede that even though John did some pretty wacky movies, in fact, some were remakes of Richard Denning films, an example being THE SEVENTH PLANET, there was nothing wrong with a nice giant spider movie. I miss John Agar, and I'll be bringing one of his films up during this month of monsters. Also, I will continue Universal Monsters Monday in two nights, it seemed best to do things right in October.

More McCallum

And shouldn't there always be more McCallum? Rich The Guy Who Won The Nebula Award commented previously about the OUTER LIMITS episode in which David McCallum was obsessed with clocks. I knew it was either OL or TWILIGHT ZONE. I do agree that his talents were much under-appreciated. Also, to show how far a writer will go to make a few cents, I'm posting the evidence of my writing articles for the David McCallum Observer, which was similar in content to the John Agar Newsletter, and it was a time when I thought getting contributor copies in addition to five or ten dollars was really out of this world. Oh, Robert Mitch Newsletter, where were you then? And why isn't there one even now? Well, thing is, I looked back at the photo of McCallum and the clocks. Maybe you can see where I'm going with this already. Look at the lower right hand side of the photo. See that one clock that reads...11:11? Son of a bitch.

Welcome To IlliNOIR

In the previous century, I had done my best to generate interest in a crime anthology with my state as the common denominator, the title posted above. The publishing world wasn't ready for it, just as they might have passed on a biography of 50s film star John Agar, who I stayed in contact with for a decade before his death (this was about the same time). Eventually, Roger Dale Trexler over at Annihilation Press followed through on the first, publishing HELL IN THE HEARTLAND late last year. This past weekend a few of us Chicago writers were guests of Sylvia Schults (whose site is linked to the left and down some)in Tazewell County. In the bottom photo, there's me, Josh, Larry, Sylvia, and Martel. We signed books at two independent stores in Pekin and Peoria Heights, and a Borders in Peoria proper. Northern Illinois is nothing but cut-out subdivisions that provide a buffer from the big, bad city and glorious towns along the Mississippi filled with old money and pretty pictures. Can't say anything good about northern Illinois, I don't roll that way. Give me everything south and west, where the towns are ready to fade away as the sunlight beats into the dirt. Where the living isn't easy. There was a fellow named David who came to the store with all of us posing, and he bought a copy of HELL IN THE HEARTLAND. He was quite curious as to how we could write what we do and I explained to him that its not about living with the memories of the story as much as living with the resolutions I have always tried to make. It used to be much easier to have the bad guy die at the end, but real life horror keeps staying three or five steps ahead of me. He listened to us all and was sincere in his gratitude, so much so that he gave the store owner twenty dollars to go towards our next meal, which happened to be a Mongolian BBQ joint. That sums up southern Illinois, folks, a guy who admits to not liking horror and yet allows us to persuade him to buy a book that I'm hoping will give him thoughts on how different events affect different lives. If I close my eyes tight, I like to think that I can hear a rocking chair on a front porch creaking as David sits there reading and nodding his head at what we gave him...Wayne

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

Bobby The Mitch Came Calling

I spent the weekend staring at what I had bought. FLYFusion from Fly World. Then I downloaded it. Because Robert Mitchum came to me in a dream and tormented me. I will be able to hand print on a pad and have it show up on my screen. Sure, I can do the same thing with my scanner, I actually have a folder titled "Notebook," but this gadget might help me assimilate to the scrollboard version that converts the handwriting to typewritten text. Mitch showed up in my dream much like he did as described in my story "Mitch," in FIENDS BY TORCHLIGHT as well as in the form of a podcast on the TwilightTales website. I'm not entirely certain, but he might have even come to me in a NyQuil and vanilla ice cream vision and had me creat the Bobby The Mitch blog you can link to off to the left. I still haven't tried to use it yet, perhaps tomorrow. Maybe tonight, John Agar or Elvis will come kick my ass, with Karl Edward Wagner humiliating me by saying that even a Viking like himself would try it out...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.