Fire in the City

Many years ago, mainly back in my college days, I wrote songs, which I performed on guitar and wailed along with real loud. It's been a long time since I even touched an instrument, but a few years back, I played semi-regularly in various public venues, sometimes accompanied by Ms. B. (some of you poor wretches may recall this). One of the last songs I ever wrote (probably 1987, when I lived in Chicago) was called "Fire in the City," and it was largely about my difficulties dealing with the chronic madness of the human species as I saw it at the time. But never has there been a more challenging time to live with said chronic madness than today—and it's at a level far beyond any I could have imagined in my youthful and certainly more optimistic days.

In July 2018, at one of the singer/songwriter events hosted by the now sadly defunct Daily Grind in Martinsville, I played "Fire in the City," which Ms. B. bravely recorded. I'm gonna post it here just because it is my personal statement for today. The sound quality is only so-so, but listen if you wish, or don't; I can't guarantee the performance won't harm your eardrums.

Fire in the City

The chilling air is hot with sound
As snow turns the ceiling gray
People crawl through streets of ice
How hard it is not to hate

Snail’s pace is the pulse of the city
Sounds of traffic grow and fade
Wintry voices slash my ears
How hard it is not to hate

People laugh and people cry
But I have turned my eyes away
Compare their lives against the truth
How hard it is not to hate

Pollution of the heart and mind
Runs rampant in the human haze
And drowning in this sea of life
How hard it is not to hate

Some release would help the heat
That rises up within
But the burning fire below is lost
And smothered by the snow

If You Weren't at The Daily Grind Last Night...

 ...you weren't where you should have been. There was a fine crowd for the Daily Grind's Ninth Songwriters Showcase in Martinsville, VA, with near a dozen individual performers, including the old Geocaching Noisemaking Horror Writer. Songwriters came from all around Virginia and North Carolina, including Martinsville, Chatham, Richmond, and beyond. For my set, I played my original songs "Scan in Progress," "My Love Goes On," and "Paranoid Schizophrenia." And at the end of the show, a bunch of us got together and raised a ruckus with a freestyle jam the likes of which I haven't experienced since my college days. It was great too, since these young guys were playing The Rolling Stones, ELO, Bob Dylan, and such with enthusiasm like I haven't seen in forever. A nice beer tasting ran along with the show, which, for the audience, helped make even the old dude sound reasonably sweet.

The Songwriters Showcase is the brainchild of musician-Daily Grind proprietor Danny Heiss, who played an impressive solo set as well as an intense duet with guitarist Angus Hobson. The event is held on a quarterly schedule—more or less—and there should be another one coming up in the fall, which I hope will work out for me time-wise. Last night's was among the best ever, and those of you who weren't there (you know who you are) missed a helluva treat.

Danny and Angus going to town on one of Danny's original compositions

Old Rodan and Young Angus getting in tune for the jam

ROCK AND ROLLLLLLL!

Today, Ms. B. and I made a day of it in Danville, as she had wanted to visit the Woodwick Candle Outlet in Blairs, a few miles north of town. We caught some sushi for lunch at Tokyo Grill, one of my regular Danville haunts; grabbed a few Geocaches; enjoyed a spot of wine at the always pleasant 2Witches Winery & Brewing Co.; and check out Vintages by the Dan, a nice little wine/brew shop on the fringes of Danville's historic district.

One of my Geocaching targets was close to the historic Grove Street Cemetery, which Brugger particularly enjoyed exploring. In it, there are graves dating back to the Civil War, including a section for local slaves, who were, of course, not individually identified. A somber yet peaceful and scenic location. Here, I ran into old Geocaching friends esddan (a.k.a. Stokes and Joyce), who were among the very first cachers I ever met, back in early 2008, at one the first caches I ever placed. A full but relatively relaxing day of it all around.

Till the next.

Songwriter Showcase at The Daily Grind

As you diehard regulars here have surely deduced, scary fiction and music are among my passions, and while I work at creating the former almost daily, it's less common for me to break out the git-fiddle and make a scary racket. Still, now and again I am known to do this thing and inflict some lovely pain and suffering on an unsuspecting populace. So shall it be this coming Friday, July 20, at The Daily Grind in Martinsville, VA. From 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM, The Daily Grind is hosting another Songwriters Showcase for local musicians to perform some of their original compositions. Now, I haven't written music in decades, but there was a spell back in the 1980s and early 90s where I composed a fair number of guitar-and-vocal tunes, many of them — I'm sure your shock is palpable — featuring scary themes. Come Friday, I'll be performing a few of them.

You folks in the area, please come by and feel free to hurl, heckle, and chuck things. It's all appreciated. The Daily Grind is located at 303 E Church St, Martinsville, VA 24112 (see map below).

Heavens, What a Noise! and Others

Photo by Sarah Smith

An unexpectedly long weekend, the company of a nice lady, first-to-finds on a couple of geocaches, lots of wine, an old dude making a bunch of racket, too many hamburgers, a migraine, a 40th high school reunion, and worn-out feet.

I knew it was going to be a whirlwind weekend before it started, but it ended up one of the most special weekends I've had in a long time.

Mum's automatic garage door had broken a couple of weeks ago, and I ended up having to take Friday off work to go to Martinsville and be there when the repairman came. I'd had trouble working with a company there in Martinsville, so a special hats off to Overhead Door Company of Greensboro, NC, who came promptly and fixed the door with no problem—a great relief to me after the ordeal I'd been through trying to get the work done.

A couple of weeks back, I had attempted to find a puzzle cache at Fairy Stone Park—"GinGin Learns About Fairy Stone State Park" (GC7CB40)—but the container had gone missing even before the listing was published. The cache owner disabled it and promised to have the cache back up and running in a few days. After the garage work was done on Friday morning, I decided to take a chance that the container was back in place and rode up to Fairy Stone again. This time, I was rewarded with a quick first-to-find, which was especially satisfying since I had devoted such a long time searching in vain on my previous trip there.

And Friday evening, it was off to the Songwriters' Showcase event at the Daily Grind in uptown Martinsville. Ms. Brugger came up after work from Greensboro and met me there, just in time to tear into a couple of DG's cheddar & bacon burgers, which, I swearz, may be the most fantastic burgers anywhere, certainly better than the burgers of highest repute here in Greensboro. There weren't many musicians on hand this time, so that meant we select few got to play more than the usual number of sets. Since the Martinsville High School Class of 1977 was having its 40th reunion this weekend, a number of old classmates were in town, and a couple stopped by to hear the racket (and as near as I can tell, they're still talking to me—thank you, Sarah Smith and Marcus Hall!). I was informed that a couple of other classmates of some musical renown—Mssrs. Rick Godbee and Rich Lawrence—would be playing guitar at Forest Park Country Club, where I spent much of my checkered youth. The hosts were kind enough to permit me to crash the party, and once again the old guitar came out and assaulted the sensibilities of quite a few classmates as well as some other innocent bystanders. I'm not sure this could have been any more fun.

Over the course of the evening, Ms. B. and I had enjoyed a spot of wine, but as we had eaten an early supper, by near midnight, we were feeling uncharacteristically ravenous. So, casting aside all feelings of guilt and/or good sense, we hauled ourselves up to the Burger King drive-thru and snagged a couple more burgers...plus french fries. And just for good measure, we went the short distance to the nearest trailhead of The Dick & Willie Rail Trail, on which I frequently hike/bike/geocache, to tear into these goodies whilst parked in our vehicle. Yes, for a couple of damn near elderly souls who are trying to make at least token efforts in the healthy eating department, this was evil and decadent and probably overkill in the burger department, but by Yog, it was good. Take that, heart health!

Furthering our decadent adventure, on Saturday morning, we returned to The Daily Grind for breakfast, where we ordered the much-needed coffee and a couple of egg & cheese breakfast croissants (mine featuring a guest appearance by sausage). To our surprise, these bastards were bigger than our heads, and we marveled at the horror of them, but we ate them, every bit of them, and they were good. Dammit.

And I'd do it again.

The next phase of our day's plan, however, was a bit more cardiac-friendly. After breakfast, we drove—by the most scenic and circuitous route possible—up to Smith Mountain Lake State Park, for some hiking and geocaching, where we put in several miles in everything from moderate to rugged terrain over the course of the day. I made an unexpected first-to-find at a relatively new cache—"The Turtle of Turtle Island" (GC7D0M7)—and found a number of well-conceived, entertaining hides, featuring props such as a deer skull hanging in a tree, a giant wolf spider, a snake, and a turtle. We also found a very old, charming little graveyard out in the woods, which especially caught Ms. B.'s fancy, since she goes for that kind of thing.

On the drive home, I had a horrified moment as a portion of my vision dropped out of existence—the telltale evidence of migraine setting in. Of all times, of all nights! Rather surprisingly, and much to my relief, no prismatic aura set in, and when the headache hit a short time later, it was so mild I barely noticed it. Thankfully, it did not affect the events of the evening, and by eight-ish in the PM, all traces of the migraine had passed.

Old Rodan on Turtle Island at Smith Mountain Lake State Park

Ms. B. hanging out with some dead folk

My love is in league with the freeway.

Big old cache guardian

The McCray sisters and Rick Godbee
(photo by Sarah Smith)

The next phase of the weekend: The Martinsville High School Class of 1977 Reunion. The event took place at Chatmoss Country Club, where I also spent a respectable portion of my checkered youth, not to mention some time as a scarcely less-checkered adult. Classmates Timmy Pharr, Pam Mann Wren, Karen McCray & Sharon McCray Godbee, and several others put together the event and managed the music programming, for which I, and no doubt the rest of our class, are most grateful. We had a good turnout, though some number of old friends were unable to attend for various reasons, the saddest of them being health issues. And over the years, we've lost more than what seems our share of classmates, so there's a certain sense of the bittersweet in these gatherings. Regardless, those who came seemed genuinely pleased to have made this pilgrimage, as I certainly was. And how pleasing to see so many people looking so well, so healthy—and so goddamn suave!

Who do you think this is there?

Once again, my guitar and I made an appearance, this time for three songs—two originals ("My Loves Goes On," "Today Is for You") and one cover ("Hold On" by Ian Gomm)—and lord knows how, I once again escaped without suffering retribution from an aggrieved audience. This may be due, at least in part, to the fact the sound didn't carry all that well to the far corners of the sizable room, and thus those who weren't directly in the line of fire escaped the full impact of the assault. My performance, such as it was, opened for a beautiful set of songs by the ever-talented McCray sisters and Rick Godbee. And then there was joyous dancing (at least from some, not necessarily the old dude) and general merry-making with tunes blasting from DJ Tim Pharr's sound system.

I've not missed any of our class reunions, and I don't know if anyone else felt the same, but there seemed a stronger sense of camaraderie among all our classmates this time around—I suppose because we are getting older and have a deeper understanding of true friendship, and a deepening appreciation of our times here, accentuated by the sadness of seeing the images of so many of our friends who have passed away, some quite recently.

I loved, loved the event last night.

And while there, Ms. B. and I, as on the previous evening, enjoyed a number of nice drinks, but still fell short in the nutritious food department, so after we warmly parted ways with my old friends and classmates, we sought out something to fill the empty crevices in our respective physiques. This time, it turned out to be Applebees, one of the very few establishments open until the slightly later hours of the evening. We polished off some surprisingly good quesadillas and dead little shrimps—not burgers this time—and then, finally, returned to Mum's to retire for the night.

And now we are back to our respective homes, among our respective cats, all irate about humans who have the audacity to not be at their beck and call day in and day out.

To every member of the Martinsville High School Class of 1977, my love goes on.

Songwriters Showcase Tonight!

Lately, I've been about as busy playing music — or something akin to it — as writing fiction. Of course, the composing of prose is my secondary profession, while banging on the guitar and hollering to scare the wits out of innocent passersby falls more in the "hobby" department. Still, I've become a regular at the The Daily Grind's quarterly Songwriters' Showcase in Martinsville, VA, and we have one tonight — Friday, October 20, 7:00–10:00 PM. I'll be one of several singer/songwriters playing a set of original tunes, mine based primarily on the darker sides of life (and death), which I suppose surprises the hell out of my faithful followers.

BEER ALERT! There will be a beer tasting tonight as well. The Daily Grind also has a good selection of wines.

Do you have superhuman courage? Well, come on out and have a listen! But only heckle me if you really mean it.

Still Believing, Young Blood, and More

Scary author with the novel Young Blood

Ms. B. and I have returned home from a whirlwind weekend in Martinsville, which started Friday evening at The Daily Grind with the Writers' Round Featuring Tokyo Rosenthal and me, turned into a spend-the-night party at Mum's with our good friends Terry & Beth, continued on Saturday with some hiking in the woods (including a bunch of geocache maintenance for me), and more-or-less climaxed at The Hollywood Cinema last night for the fifth anniversary celebration of The Smith Brothers' first movie, Young Blood: Evil Intentions, the novel of which I wrote with Mat & Myron. I had a small small part in the movie as a concerned citizen (see Young Blood: The Movie, March 9, 2012), and you can bet your ass I appeared concerned as hell on the big screen.

Late this past week, I became really concerned that the onset of some fairly severe fall allergy symptoms would do a number on my ability to sing (which many might question at the best of times), but with the benefit of a couple of throat lozenges before the show on Friday, I managed to belt out a dozen songs without completely choking. To say it was fun is a gross understatement—at least for me; I can't speak for anyone else. There's a video down below of my song "Still Believing," which Ms. B. was kind enough to record. Mr. Rosenthal proved himself a consummate professional—one of the most adept acoustic guitar players I've ever met, and a fine singer and lyricist. It was a pleasure to have shared the stage with him.

A couple of my trail caches in Martinsville needed fixing up, so Ms. B. and I undertook a couple of medium-size hikes to repair/replace them, one along the Dick & Willie trail, where I discovered an entire boulder, which housed my cache ("The Boxcar," GC263XX), had somehow gone missing. Odd, the things that can vanish without a trace. The other, on a bike trail out in Chatmoss ("Sticks," GC1WNG9), required the construction of some new Blair Witch–style stick figures, a trail of which will lead an intrepid adventurer to the actual cache container. Yeah, it got kind of hot, muggy, and buggy out there.

The Young Blood anniversary celebration brought many of the movie's actors and fans together again, and the theater lobby was decorated with a couple of tons of memorabilia and merchandise, including posters, DVDs, original artwork, and promos for Myron Smith's Sweded films (not to mention some scary clown props, as the theater was also showing It).

When I was writing the novel, I watched the movie many times over and had it virtually memorized, but it had been long enough that, watching it again, I had a whole different view of it—the humor was funnier, and the more disturbing parts were really disturbing. A neat little movie it is, and I'm quite proud to have had as much a part in it as I have.

Check out the Young Blood Facebook page here.

The celebration resulted in a fashionably late dinner at Yamato Japanese Restaurant, which Kimberly and I enjoyed no end (suffering from the Great Starvation will do that to one—just ask my cats). We had thought we might join Mat, Myron, and other folks in the Young Blood crowd at Mtn' Jax in uptown Martinsville, but by the time we got there, they had already left. So Kimberly and I returned to Mum's and sat out on the back porch until the wee hours of the morning sipping a fine Pinot Noir. At midnight, we were treated to the thunderous sounds of fireworks from the Martinsville Speedway, which—as the crow flies—is only a couple of miles or so from our house, where they'd had their first nighttime NASCAR race. Unfortunately, we couldn't actually see the fireworks, but when they first went off, we thought the bomb had dropped. Big noise! But we actually enjoyed the celebratory racket, and I hope the race brought lots of business into town. In all my years, I've never been to a NASCAR race, nor had any real interest in going, but the Speedway is a real draw in Martinsville, and more power to the fans.

This morning, it was back home for the both of us to deal with our respective cats, who all were suffering from The Great Starvation. Poor little guys! (Note: They're not that poor. Nor little.)

See you at the curtain call.

Original Young Blood artwork on display in the Hollywood Cinema lobby

Posters for Myron Smith's Sweded movies. I have a wee part in Alice in Wonderland.

Writers' Round at The Daily Grind

September is going to be a busy month, the weekend of 9/22–9/23 busiest of all, with two events in Martinsville, VA. On Friday 9/22, I'll be performing a bunch of original songs at the Writers' Round at The Daily Grind in Uptown Martinsville, and on Saturday 9/23, I'll be on hand at the Young Blood Five-Year Anniversary Event at the Hollywood Cinema.

Having made a racket at several of the regular Songwriter Showcase events at The Daily Grind, I'll be back to share the stage with songwriter Tokyo Rosenthal for a two-man show, which runs from 8:00 PM to 10:00 PM. You may look forward with mounting dread to a dozen or so of my original compositions, many of which —shockingly enough—gravitate toward the spooky side of life (and death). Admission is a mere $5, and along with a variety of sandwiches, wraps, salads, and specialty coffees, The Daily Grind offers an excellent selection of wines and craft beers.

Your opportunity to chuck things at the old man is here. Let's fill the place up, people!

I want all your garmonbozia....

• What: Writers Round Featuring Stephen Mark Rainey and Tokyo Rosenthal
• When: Friday, September 22, 2017, 8:00 PM
• Where: The Daily Grind, 303 E Church St, Martinsville, VA 24112
• Admission: $5.00

The Racketeers

Last night... such a fateful night... a half dozen or so dangerous men with musical instruments gathered at The Daily Grind in Martinsville for the fourth Songwriters Showcase and unleashed a racket fit to wake the dead — and now you oughta see the all those walking dead shambling past my window. It is to be afeared.

The Songwriters Showcases present local artists playing all original songs, and the first three filled up the house. Last night, we started out with a somewhat smaller group, both musicians and attendees, but over the course of the evening, more and more people filed in, and at the end of it all, the place was nearly packed. Each musician brought a unique sound to the place, from refined, jazzy instrumental (Darryl) to raucous improv (Angus and Daily Grind owner Daniel). I played a couple of sets, five songs in all, and no one threw any shit at me, which was a refreshing change of pace. Okay, well, no one's actually thrown any shit at me, but I bet they wanted to. Unfortunately, none of the ladies who have made some exceptional contributions to the gatherings came round last night, which was disappointing. In particular, I was hoping Morgan would be there to play some of her signature, Celtic-inspired ballads, mais alas....

Come Friday, September 22, I'll be part of a two-man show — The Writers Round, Featuring Tokyo Rosenthal and Mark Rainey — in which each of us takes several turns playing individual sets over the course of the evening. I can always use as many hecklers as possible, so I hope some of you folks can make the show. That's going to be a busy weekend too, as on Saturday, September 23, The Smith Brothers will be presenting a five-year anniversary screening of Young Blood: Evil Intentions at the Hollywood Cinema in Martinsville, and I'll be on hand to autograph copies of the novel. More on that event a bit later.

Finally, to leave you with a sample of what was and what will be... last night's performance of "Fire in the City"....

Old Farts in the Park

Yoda Rob, Old Rodan, Diefenbaker — 3/4 of Team Old Fart (photo by Robert Isenhour)

It felt like a regular reunion of old farts today, for Yoda Rob, Old Rob, Diefenbaker, and Old Rodan have not turned the woods dark and dismal for way too long a spell. The four of us made a day of it in Rowan County, mostly at the expansive Dan Nicholas Park, with a relatively brief incursion into the nearby town of Salisbury for a handful of (mostly) park-&-grab hides. I added another 23 caches to my total count, which now stands at 9,533. Hmm — 10K by the end of the year, I wonder...?

Is that the Team Old Fart logo etched into that tree?
Surely, none of us would do such a thing.
(Cough, Yoda, cough, Rob...)

We expected a miserably hot day, and make no mistake, the temperature got a good ways up there, but it was hardly as awful as it has been recently, especially in the humidity department. At times, we even had a pleasant breeze blowing. We found a good variety of cache hides—some micros, some big honking ammo cans, some well-camouflaged, some just for the numbers. Individually, each of the Old Farts made a good showing, with no one earning the Dead Weight Award today. Inside the park, we put in about a five-mile hike and found 13 of the 14 caches we hunted. There's a fair chance the one we didn't find is simply missing, but nonetheless it can be frustrating to look at the geocaching map and see among all those smileys one ugly, bitchy, flingin'-flangin' sucky unclaimed cache.

Interestingly...perhaps...one of the caches in the park was hidden at a picnic table in one of the camping areas, and it just so happened the campsite was occupied. I figured, what the hell, I'll go ask the attendant gentleman whether he'd mind if I searched his picnic table in hopes of finding a geocache. Happily, as it turns out, his wife and daughter were at least occasional geocachers, and he seemed rather excited that there was one literally under their noses they could hunt. I did manage to make a quick find, and it was kind of fun to be that unexpected visitor making what many might consider a weird-ass request.

March of the Old Farts (photo by
Robert Isenhour)

My favorites of the day were actually among the urban hides in Salisbury proper, one hiding inside a hole in a telephone pole, cleverly disguised; another residing some ways up in a tree next to a Cook-Out parking lot. I'm pretty sure the surprised folks having lunch in their car next to said tree had a good laugh at the Old Fart (yes, me) clambering up into those branches. (Yeah, that first step was a doozy.) Oddly, after we had found the cache, a young gentleman accosted us and asked whether we might have been looking for the geocache in the tree, as he believed it to be missing. We assured him it was still there because I had just signed the log, which seemed to surprise him, but, well, there it is.

Lunch — a rather late one — happened at East Coast Wings, where I ordered some wings that proved almost too hot for my palate, and that's saying something. Still, all very satisfying, as hot wings are one of my wee little vices.

Tonight, here comes episode 10 of Twin Peaks, and that should cap off what has been overall a satisfying day (and weekend). Next weekend, it's Songwriter Showcase at The Daily Grind in Martinsville, which means I need to practice my ass off this week to insure that my fingers and voice are in at least passable condition.

I know... the deuce, you say!

One of my favorite caches of the day, hidden in a hole in the telephone pole

Uhh... Yummy???

Old Farts — a slightly different view: Yoda Rob, Old Rob, Diefenbaker

Songwriter Showcases in the Works

Lately, I've been about as busy playing music — or something akin to it — as writing fiction. Of course, the composing of prose is my secondary profession, while banging on the guitar and hollering to scare the wits out of innocent passersby falls more in the "hobby" department. Still, now and again I do a public performance here or there, and I've become a regular at the The Daily Grind's quarterly Songwriters' Showcase in Martinsville, VA. There's one coming up on Friday, July 21, 6:30–10:00 PM. Per the usual, I'll be one of several singer/songwriters playing a set of original tunes, mine based primarily on the darker sides of life (and death), which I suppose surprises the hell out of my faithful followers.

In September, however, I'll be sharing the stage with only one other artist—Tokyo Rosenthal—and we'll each play at least four individual sets of original music. I've been dusting off my old song sheets from way the hell back and trying to get my fingers and voice back into respectable shape (if such is even possible). Back in the late 1970s and early 1980s, I wrote maybe 75 songs, but, unfortunately, only a handful of recordings and/or lyric sheets have survived the years. Quite a few of those songs are no doubt lost forever in my memory, and in some cases, that's probably for the best. However, I've managed to drag a number of them kicking and screaming back to the light of day, and my burning fingers and scratchy voice are testimony to some serious practicing these past few days. I've got a lot of brushing up to do, I can tell you.

I'd like to invite any of you who are brave enough to either or both shows. The "big" one — The Writers Round Featuring Tokyo Rosenthal and Mark Rainey — will be September 22, 8:00 PM–10:00 PM. You've plenty of time to prepare yourself, so mark your calendars and gird your loins. I'd love to see you folks. But only heckle me if you really mean it.

Hollering, GeoPutting, and The Stokers

Damned Rodan, Yoda Rob, Suntigres, and BigG7777, 2017 Piedmont Triad GeoPutt Champions
(Photo by Robert Isenhour)

Yoda Rob addresses the ball —
"Hellooooo, ball!" (Photo by
Rob Isenhour)

For me, this was another breakneck weekend, having to fit in serious caretaking on the home front while still getting in gatherings with numerous friends, including some geocaching. For the horror community, it was Stoker award weekend — the festivities being held aboard the Queen Mary in Long Beach, CA (which I've had the pleasure of visiting in the past) — and while I didn't win a Stoker Award, I was on the winning team at the 2017 Geoputt Event in Burlington, which involved some serious and very solemn hootin' and hollerin'.

It started on Friday evening, at the end of a long and ugly bout with a sinus bug that kept me out of work for a couple of days. I was scheduled to make a racket at the third Songwriters' Showcase at The Daily Grind in Martinsville, as I have at the past two. I felt a lot better, but my voice was about shot from several days of snorting and hacking. Regardless, I went for it and somehow managed to crank out three songs without choking. Dunno if it scared anyone away permanently, but the audience was loverly, and no one hurled nasty things at me. Score one.

Wailing on "Nova," one of the songs I wrote back in my college days (Photo by Kimberly Brugger)

Saturday, after handling necessary business on the home front, Kimberly and I headed down to Stonefield Cellers in Stokesdale to share some wine and tall geocaching tales with friend Suntigres (a.k.a. Bridget) and her S.O. BigG7777 (a.k.a. Gerry). The wine and company were great, of course, though the prodigious heat and humidity would have had a devastating effect on my hair if I had any. Ms. B. and I eventually made our way back home for dinner and a movie, and I would love to say this was all very relaxing — it actually was — but certain states of affairs about which I won't elaborate online have cost me countless hours of sleep in the past few months, and last night was no exception. Virtually no sleep. Very, very exhausting, it is.

The notorious Night-hawk,
Putt-Putter extraordinaire
(Photo by Robert Isenour)

But sleep deprivation cannot derail certain trains, and thus it was that Old Robgso, Suntigres, and the BigG met up this morning for a day of geocaching and the annual Geoputt event in Burlington. Our first destination was Siler City, where we put in a few miles of trail hiking — again in hair-curling heat and humidity — and snagged somewhere around twenty caches before heading to Burlington for the Putt-Putt event. For the big tournament, which brought thirty or so geocachers out from all around the region, I teamed up with Yoda Rob, BigG, and Suntigres. Now, back in the dark ages, I was an avid golfer — although Putt-Putt and golfing are almost mutually exclusive activities — and my team put in what appeared to be a pretty respectable showing. And at the end of it all, it turned out that we were indeed the winning team of the event. Woohoo! Wahaa! Hooooey! I even brought home a nice trophy for this astounding achievement. The notorious Night-hawk (a.k.a. Tom) won the individual best score, for which he was awarded an entirely too-small orange vest.

And that, ladies and germs, is why we play.

And in the horror fiction category, several authors of my acquaintance and of unspeakable talent took home their own haunted house trophies for superior achievement at the Bram Stoker award ceremony in Long Beach. The winners were:

Novel: The Fisherman, John Langan
First Novel: Haven, Tom Deady
Young Adult Novel: Snowed, Maria Alexander
Long Fiction: The Winter Box, Tim Waggoner
Short Fiction: “The Crawl Space,” Joyce Carol Oates
Fiction Collection: The Doll-Master and Other Tales of Terror, Joyce Carol Oates
Anthology: Borderlands 6, Oliva F. Monteleone & Thomas F. Monteleone
Non-Fiction: Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life, Ruth Franklin
Poetry Collection: Brothel, Stephanie M. Wytovich
Graphic Novel: Kolchak the Night Stalker: The Forgotten Lore of Edgar Allan Poe, James Chambers
Screenplay: The Witch

My congratulations to the winners, all quite deserving of the recognition.

For me, tonight's aspiration to actually get a decent night's sleep, for it's going to be another long week. I do turn a whole year older on Tuesday, don't you know.

G'night.

One of the day's most intriguing geocache discoveries, all hand-knitted
and constructed by Sull427 (a.k.a. Jean)

"Go that way. No, THAT way. Dammit, ball." (Photo by Robert Isenhour)

Punkins19 and Skyhawk63 (Photo by Rob Isenhour)

Another Paranoid Shizophrenic

Another Songwriters' Showcase at the Daily Grind in Martinsville, and another fun racket, courtesy of the old man and a slew of other talented individuals from all around Virginia, North Carolina, and even as far away as LA — as in Los Angeles, not Lower Axton, as some Martinsville natives have dubbed the neighboring community. The first songwriters' event, back in September, drew a respectable crowd. This one, with twice as many musicians, drew what appeared to be about three times the number of attendees.

Ms. Brugger and I got there a little early to partake of their wine tasting, which proved decent enough, as did the paninis we attacked with ferocious delight, as neither of us had eaten in about a month. Our friends/fellow geocachers Tom and Linda Imbus from Browns Summit showed up to heckle me, as did old friends Ashby and Lynn Pritchett from Martinsville, and to their credit, none of them took it upon themselves to hurl undesirable objects or epithets my way. Sporting souls, our fine friends.

The event ran from roughly 7:30 to 10:00 PM, with eleven musicians, including me, signed up to play. My set consisted of three original songs, "Paranoid Schizophrenia" (again), "Ice Blossoms" (whose origin is recounted here), and "The Watcher" (yet again). I was hoping to include the video of "Ice Blossoms" here, as it's my favorite of the lot, but between electronic glitches and crowd noise, the video didn't turn out very well. I may go ahead and upload it to YouTube regardless, and I'll leave it to you to decide whether to give it a look or avoid it all costs and preserve your sanity.

I'll post the lyrics to "Paranoid Schizophrenia" — which is the second song I ever wrote, back in 1978, while I was at Ferrum College — beneath the videos below. Enjoy or run like hell, your choice.

Paranoid Schizophrenia
Talked with him just yesterday because I was all alone.
I heard his voice and what he said; it's different now you've gone.
In darkened halls and haunted paths, I hear him sing his song.
He told me what I thought I felt; he told me I was wrong.

Run away, I told myself. Run away, I cried.
I'm mad, I must be mad. Run away.

He told me to calm myself. He told me never run.
He told me to help myself. He told me never cry.

He's right again, he's never wrong; how could he ever lose?
I've talked with him, I can't believe there's nothing left to choose.
Talked with him just yesterday because I was all alone.
I've heard his voice inside of me — my heart, my guide, my soul.

Run away, I told myself. Run away, I cried.
I'm mad, I must be mad. Run away.

"Paranoid Schizophrenia," ©1978, 2017 Stephen Mark Rainey

Songwriter's Showcase — Friday, January 13, 2017

Coming up next Friday — the dreaded 13th of January — I'll be making a racket at The Daily Grind in Martinsville, VA, at their second Songwriters Showcase. At their first event back in September, along with several other musicians, I played to an enthusiastic crowd, with nary a tomato or rotten egg chucked at the performers. It's all original music, no covers allowed, and I can tell you that the first such event featured some accomplished and innovative talents. I'll be playing several of my originals, including a couple I did not perform at the first ("Ice Blossoms" being one of them, the origin of which can be found in yesterday's blog, here). There will also be a wine tasting, which might entice you further, and certainly Brugger and I will look forward to it. If you're in the vicinity, or in comfortable traveling distance, please come round and enjoy yourself.

Songwriters Showcase at The Daily Grind
303 E. Church St., Martinsville, VA 24112
7:30 PM–10:00 PM

Horror at the The Daily Grind

As many of y'all know, scary fiction and music are among my passions, and while I work at creating the former almost daily, it's less common for me to break out the git-fiddle and make a scary racket. Still, now and again I am known to do this thing and inflict some lovely pain and suffering on an unsuspecting populace. So shall it be this coming Friday, September 16, at The Daily Grind in Martinsville, VA. From 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM, The Daily Grind is holding a Songwriters Showcase for local musicians to perform some of their original compositions. Now, I haven't written music in decades, but there was a spell back in the 1980s and early 90s where I composed a fair number of guitar-and-vocal tunes, many of them — I'm sure your shock is palpable — featuring scary themes. Come Friday, I'll be performing a few of them.

You folks in the area, please come by and feel free to hurl, heckle, and chuck things. It's all appreciated. The Daily Grind is located at 303 E Church St, Martinsville, VA 24112 (see map below).

Just for good measure, here's a video from two or three years ago of Ms. Brugger and me belting out our version of October Project's "Bury My Lovely," though — sadly — she will not be in attendance this coming Friday. And too bad for me, as she improves my stage presence by a couple hundred percent.

I want all your garmonbozia.