OLD TESTAMENT FLOODS AND THE BEGINNING...

Right about now, five years ago, we had a torrential storm. It went on all night. We made the news and it was reported all morning long. But that was the day we had to take Dad to the doctor. Wheeled him through the soaked lawn. After everything he had been through since late 2013, he was diagnosed with Stage 3 esophageal cancer.  He had already had symptoms of not being able to keep down food. By the time we got home the waters had receded, hospice got involved, and I watched my father starve to death on Labor Day weekend 2014, sitting up and talking on Sunday and dead at 9AM on Monday, the first of September. I despise the entire month now.

THE SHADOW ON THE RED LINE FENCE

It may be because I have no depth perception, so I see certain images in different ways, but what I assume is spilled water or soft drink in the tunnel that goes under 87th Street at State made me think of a person seen at a distance.

THAT SECOND POST ABOUT DENNIS ETCHISON THAT I PROMISED

So. I read a copy of FEARS, part of a series of anthologies that the late Charles L. Grant edited in the early 1980s. It was in this book that I read "Deathtracks"and I stared at Dennis's name and thought about how this guy could be rooting around in my brain. I will always be a lesser man since his death in June.

At the last Bad Grammar Theater in June, Brendan Detzner allowed me to read "Deathtracks" and it allowed me to tell those gathered that if it wasn't for that story, I honestly would have never met any of them. Certainly not as a writer.

GUESS WHICH MUG IS MY NEW PENCIL HOLDER? (plus my cool t-shirt)

THE SECOND MAILING TO ROGER TREXLER

Finally sent him a laptop Larry Santoro used in 2004. Larry died in 2014, a few weeks before my dad did. That's Larry standing next to me, with Roger sitting, and then John Everson and Marty Mundt standing. Roger was able to find a lot of unpublished work of Larry's and partially-written pieces, so there's a chance there might be something coming out soon with words hidden for who really knows how long? As always, I give Roger extra things, like jazz CDs, and this time it was a copy of MUG SHOT and a tube that is meant for fecal matter from a dog. Also, since he makes films like PLATYYPOSSUM, which you can see on Amazon Prime, I sent him a few ties that a sheriff in one of his future movies might wear.

FIVE YEARS AGO, JAMES FOLEY

Up a day late because of Wi-Fi problems, bur freelance journalist was beheaded by ISIS five years ago. This was my August 2014. Robin Williams committing suicide, Foley being killed in the desert, and my dad slowly starving until he died on September 1st

CREEKERS AND KRAZY SALLEE

Decades ago, Ed Lee gifted me by naming a bar after me. Wayne was the bartender, but he got killed early on. The reason you can tell it was decades ago is because the cover says 1990 cover art all over it.

ELVIS HAS LEFT THE BUILDING

Yes. I worked with an Elvis impersonator. Somehow, I ended up with one of the jumpsuits that had been at a dry cleaners. And that indeed is me wearing it on my 40th birthday-9/9/9-and Robert Petitt wearing it even earlier, a a World Horror Convention in Nashville in 1991.

The other pieces are from the late and lamented Weekly World News. My favorite conspiracy coincidence is this. In his later years, the concert opened with "Also Spake Zarathustra", the theme from 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY. Elvis died on August 16th, 1977. Add it up.

8+16+1977=2001.

MY JAILHOUSE GODCHILD

Dressed as she was for my 40th birthday on 9/9/99, my oldest niece Ashley surprised me a few days later and found this on my desk after she had been playing around on my computer.

THE DAMEN SILOS FROM THE ORANGE LINE

I was on the Orange Line when I took this photo and I'm happy that oddball mechanism is there.

MAYBE IT'S TIME I STARTED SELLING MY REMAINING 300 COPIES OF MY COMIC ON AMAZON