PAUL DALE ANDERSON RIP OLD CHUM

Paul died last night around 7:30PM.  I would have been walking home around then, it had stopped raining and it wasn't that cold out at all. I knew Paul longer than I did most writers in the area, because I first met him when he and his late wife Gretta were editing and publishing 2AM, which I've always considered to be the best small press magazine to have been published in. So we're talking 1985, 1986 here. I'm still living in Rogers Park. Paul published "Bleeding Between The Lines" (which was illustrated by Douglas C. Klauba) and was the last part of the Dennis Cassady trilogy. Paul had read both "Rapid Transit" and "Take The 'A' Train" when they were reprinted in YEAR'S BEST HORROR over two respective years and was willing to look at the third piece.

Three years ago, he did a reading at UIC, part of Bad Grammar Theater, and I had the pleasure to meet Elizabeth Aisling Flygare, who was with Paul at the end, at his home in Rockford. They had met at the Rockford Library, surrounded by books. If you were in Paul's house, you were surrounded by books.

He also wrote many novels, the first was CLAW HAMMER, and I lost my unsigned paperback copy from the 80s  to someone who borrowed it and lost it. Thankfully, he had found a home with Crossroad Press and they have a whole stack of his work in their catalogue.The one pictured was signed to me by Paul last year before we headed to St. Paul with Roger Trexler, the designated driver since it was his car, for Arcana 47. We were able to meet William F. Nolan, who is best known for LOGAN'S RUN, but we were all glad to see artist and actor Rodger Gerberding again. That's him holding up his beard soon after we first arrived. Within an hour we would be watching Jack Palance in his only role as Dracula. Roger, by the way, published FIENDS BY TORCHLIGHT and I CAN'T COME CLEAN.

I'll miss you Paul. A lot of people are talking about you right now. Know peace.

25 YEARS AGO, MAIL TO WILLIAM J. RALEY, PUBLISHER OF AFTER HOURS

I really have been meaning to post these for awhile. I appeared in one of the best of the not-quite-large press magazines of the last two decades of the last century, AFTER HOURS, which ran for a very impressive 25 issues. Photos, interviews, great stories. After there being a Best of CEMETERY DANCE and Best of DEATHREALM, and with a Best of THE SCREAM FACTORY coming soon, I think a Best of AFTER HOURS is needed (perhaps the only other magazine that should also consider this would be Paul Dale Anderson, who published 2AM with his late wife Gretta.)

Anyhow, I thank William for allowing me to repost what had been a private letter. Think of a time with no emails. I typed my stories on a word processor and, as seen in the second image, I'd love to click the wheel and have everything be one or two keys on the keyboard off. You see, if you had a Smith-Corona word processor, you typed the entire page and then click print and everything would clack out. Very 90s. This wasn't too long after I was free of the bonds from the March 1989 car accident and was always showing off the one scar (out of two) on my left arm I could photocopy, and all the broken pieces of hardware inside that arm.

Enjoy the letter in the sense of perhaps overhearing two guys jabbering in a hallway at  a convention, and maybe decipher the second page. I'd guess everything is one letter off, so good luck with that. I guess the one good thing about a personal website that hardly anybody sees is that I can put up images that are even better than just scanning them into my computer. My thanks again to William.

ONE OF THE GOOD THINGS FACEBOOK DOES...

Reminds of of old memories. Here's the gang at Arcana 47 last October in St. Paul. Rodger Gerberding, Paul Dale Anderson, Roger Trexler, me and four lonely mozzarella sticks.

ARCANA 41 AND WILLIAM F. NOLAN

Finally was able to get the photos off of my phone. I mentioned Arcana in a previous post, but it really was melancholy being there. I hadn't seen Duane Olson (in the yellow windbreaker) in decades. Harry Fassl and I would always drive in the early morning, so I've never crossed the Mississippi at night. Eric Heidemann and Roger Dale Trexler did a great job of doing a panel on Rod Serling.

PHOTOS FROM ARCANA 41

I'll eventually post my photos once T-Mobile lets me do so. For now, here's one of Rodger Gerberding, a fantastical artist and stage actor from Council Bluffs, Iowa, Paul Dale Anderson, author of Claw Hammer and a million other books, Roger Dale Trexler, who published two books of mine and has published several books of his own. Now a filmmaker, his first film, PLATYPOSSUM, was shown at a theater in Carbondale, Illinois. Then there's me with my mozzarella sticks. The second photo was taken by a very serious looking kid with a Wausau t-shirt on and he honestly looked like Snake Plisskin in Escape From New York. The third is of me in Paul's backyard in Rockford as we waited for Roger.

OFF TO ARCANA IN ST. PAUL AT 8AM

Leaving for the Orange Line at 8AM. Then on to the Blue Line to get picked up by Paul Dale Anderson at the Rosemont stop. He and his late wife Gretta published 2AM. Then Roger Dale Trexler, who published my collections FIENDS BY TORCHLIGHT and I CAN'T COME CLEAN, will meet us in Rockford and then it is I-94 all the way to St. Paul. Hopefully I'll sell some books.

My Name Is Ozmandius, uh, look upon me and, um despair...something like that

The book is finally out in all forms. Hardcover, trade paperback, and its been wireless for a few months. I'll be at Arcana in St. Paul next weekend, my first convention in a decade. Roger Dale Trexler will be picking me up and we shall then travel to Rockford to pick up Paul Dale Anderson. I haven't been to Arcana in years, and I'll talk more about it in future posts. But, anyways, here's the book. Buy it or recommend it. As always, my thanks to David Wilson and Crossroad Press.

Bad Grammar Theater at Powell's Bookstore at UIC c/o Paul Dale Anderson and his wife Elizabeth