The New Christy Minstrels and Gimme a "K"

The New Christy Minstrels (L–R): Eddie Boggs, Buffalo Bill Boycott, Becky Jo Benson, Randy Sparks,
Jackie Miller Davidson, Dolan Ellis, Clarence Treat

Back in the early 60s, The New Christy Minstrels were essentially my introduction to music. I didn't know folk music from classical, or rock n' roll from jazz, but I knew I loved the stuff on those New Christy Minstrels albums. Over the years, I've never lost an ounce of my appreciation for them, and if anything, I enjoy that music now more than I ever did. I still have all the original 33-1/3 LPs that my parents owned, and I also have the relatively recent CD issues of most of their albums. Off and on over the years, I've mucked about playing guitar and singing, and the one group whose music I could pretty much nail (insofar as an individual could do so) was the New Christy Minstrels.

In the early 60s, as music made fairly radical new strides with the British rock invasion, for many, it was easy to forget the significant contributions of contemporary folk groups, such as the New Christies, the Brothers Four, the Kingston Trio, the Journeymen (co-founded by John Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas), and more. Of them, the New Christies had the biggest following and the most longevity — and they launched musical careers for the likes of Kenny Rogers, Kim Carnes, and others. And who can forget Barry McGuire's single, "The Eve of Destruction"?

Dozens and dozens of individuals came and went during the history of the New Christy Minstrels, all under the direction of their mastermind, Randy Sparks. But for their first several albums, there was a core group of musicians and singers that gave them an unmistakable identity, and that was the group that I fell in love with as a kid, and that I'm still in love with today. Besides Randy Sparks and Barry McGuire, they included Gayle Caldwell, Dolan Ellis, Barry Kane, Jackie Miller, Art Podell, Larry Ramos, Clarence Treat, and Nick Woods.

Despite their longevity, the New Christies, as far as I knew, had all retired at some point during the past couple of decades, and I know a number of them have passed on. So imagine my delight when I discovered, a few short years ago, that several of the founding members had gotten back together and occasionally played at various venues around the country. In fact, if you had ample house space and could guarantee a number of attendees, they'd come and stay at your place and play and sing in your living room.

And now they're touring again.

So last night, Mrs. Death and I packed up our GPSrs and went down to Albemarle, just a ways south of here, and went to see The New Christy Minstrels play a three-hour show at the Stanley County Agri-Civic Center. We left plenty early and went geocaching all the way down, snagging several finds at some very neat and scenic locations (see the haunted house below). We had a good dinner at a little seafood restaurant, and then arrived at the civic center. I had expected maybe a medium-sized crowd, composed largely of people a bit older than I; well, most of the attendees were a bit older than I, but there was a fairly massive number of them. The parking lot was full, and the auditorium was packed, but Mrs. Death and I were lucky enough to get seats right in the center, in the ninth row, which was damn near a perfect spot. Four of the original members (Randy Sparks, Jackie Miller Davidson, Dolan Ellis, and Clarence Treat), were joined by relative newcomers Eddie Boggs, Buffalo Bill Boycott, and Becky Jo Benson, all of whom showed that Randy Sparks can still grab some of the finest musical talent there is to grab. They played mostly my old favorites, and they sounded as good as they ever did. No creaky, groaning bodies and voices here — just as much vigor and enthusiasm as I would have expected from a troupe of thirty-year-olds. At the opening and between songs, Randy Sparks proved himself an all-around entertainer, relating all kinds of anecdotes about the musicians, the group's history, and the times whence they sprang.

After the show, much to my excitement, we got to meet the group, as they came out to the lobby to sign autographs and chat. Those folks have no idea how much the experience meant to me. Or maybe they do. I'm sure that, especially among people in my age group, my appreciation of the New Christies is not unique.

When Mrs. Death and I hit the road again, we made short work of about a dozen geocaches in Albemarle, most of which were named "Gimme a [insert letter of the alphabet here]." About the time we finished up (around 1:00 AM), a thick, blinding fog enveloped everything, and driving back to Greensboro, we felt like we were right in the middle of The Mist. Hell, for all I know, we were surrounded by monstrous critters all the way home, but we were fortunate enough not to be accosted. We pulled in our driveway about 2:30 AM, exhausted but still kind of giddy.

I haven't blogged much lately, or posted any writing news, because there have been some outside issues that have consumed virtually all of my attention for some time now. Not the kind of thing I care to blog about. But last night, the world was good; the show was exhilarating, and the caching got my blood fired up.

The haunted house was an extra freebie.

WAR OF THE GARGANTUAS

As I mentioned a wee while back, Toho's 1966 WWE extravaganza, War of the Gargantuas, is now available domestically on DVD, paired with 1957's Rodan (yeah, my namesake; make something of it!). It seems something of an odd combo, since the movies were originally released quite a few years apart, by different distributing companies; but since Classic Media owns the rights, and they're putting out the package—which features the U.S. and Japanese versions of both—for the price of a single movie, I have absolutely no complaints.

I haven't looked at Rodan yet, so I'll reserve comments on it for later. I did watch both versions of Gargantuas back-to-back, though, so you'll have to bear with me if I suddenly excuse myself to go smash a few buildings and chow on a few hapless bystanders.

Originally titled The Frankenstein Brothers: Sanda vs. Gaira, the film is a sequel to 1965's Frankenstein Conquers the World (released on DVD last year by Media Blasters/Tokyo Shock). The Japanese version makes the connection clear, though the English dialogue is altered to remove any references to Toho's Frankenstein. It's of little consequence, as the creatures are both "offshoots" of the monster in the preceding movie.

Over the years, the terms most often used by reviewers to describe War of the Gargantuas are "cheesy," "tedious," "insipid," "goofy," and so forth, though genre fans often rate the movie relatively high on the daikaiju scale. Me, I put it right at the top of the daikaiju scale, and I'll unabashedly state that it's one of my all-time favorite monster movies. I would be hard-pressed to find a more enjoyable way to spend an hour and a half or so.

It's a rare situation indeed in which the U.S. release of a Toho movie is superior to the original Japanese version, but War of the Gargantuas is one of them. Its running time is slightly longer; the editing job of the original work print is arguably more skillful; and, of all things, the alteration of Akira Ifukube's original score—usually one of the worst things a domestic releasing firm can do—mostly works to the film's benefit. While I am a diehard fan of Akira Ifukube's music—both his film scores and classical compositions—I just can't abide the monotonous military march that rambles on and on endlessly behind the action scenes throughout the original version. The generic music that replaces it may be nothing to write home about, but at least it punctuates the action in much more satisfying fashion. And the best of Ifukube's music—the eerie, theramin-based main theme and the re-orchestrated motifs from Frankenstein Conquers the World—are thankfully left intact. In some places, cues from Monster Zero have also been effectively inserted. My understanding is that Henry Saperstein, the U.S. producer (and Toho's co-financier), had no love for Ifukube's martial themes either and felt no shame in "fixing" them. Can't fault him for that!

For a Toho daikaiju pic, War of the Gargantuas is unique in several ways, one of the foremost being that Gaira, the green one, is shown devouring humans. In fact, the whole reason for his rampage is to find food. There's something far more menacing about a monstrous critter with an appetite for human flesh than one that comes to town because it likes to dine on fissionable materials. Secondly, the anthropomorphic monsters act and interact with distinct intelligence, unlike the reptilian monsters that generally attack like some impersonal force of nature. Relative to this point, the monster suits are constructed so that we see the actors' actual eyes, rather than painted Ping Pong balls; as such, the Gargantuas' faces are more than customarily expressive, and Gaira's face in particular can be quite horrifying. In numerous scenes, the lighting and camera angles imbue him with a demonic look, reminiscent of Linda Blair's makeup in The Exorcist. Let me tell you, if I were out geocaching one day and saw Gaira pounding through the forest toward me, my drawers would be shitting themselves.

At the movie's time, Eiji Tsuburaya's special effect work was at its pinnacle, and he and his crew outdid themselves for this one, particularly during Gaira's rampage through the mountainous countryside and the subsequent military attack. I find the well-staged, tactically sound counterattack on the monster(s) highly engaging, especially the all-out laser and maser-cannon assault on Gaira, just before Sanda's appearance (which, again, is better staged in the American version). It's one of those rare moments in Toho's monster history when the human forces very nearly come out on top, and the monsters suffer and express physical pain.

Toho's cast of regulars, including Kenji Sahara, Kumi Mizuno, Jun Tazaki, Yoshifumi Tajima, and others, are joined by Russ Tamblyn, who undeniably sleepwalked through his role as Dr. Stewart. However, he's perfectly acceptable in the part; he looks and sounds just like one of the physicians I knew back in my old hometown at the time. If anything, Dr. Southworth might have been less animated....

At any rate, this release of War of the Gargantuas actually had me excited about a giant monster movie again. That's certainly been a long time coming. There's not much in the way of Classic Media's customary extras in the package (though there is an hour-long documentary called "Shrinking Godzilla Down to Size," produced by Steve Ryfle and my friend Ed Godziszewski), but for two versions of two very worthwhile movies, it's damn near a steal. Today, I am a happy boy.

What Mystery!

I just watched Goldfinger for about the hundredth time because, with Quantum of Solace coming up in the not-to-distant future, I got a 007 hankering. And—the horror!—I just discovered that, before Oddjob knocks out Bond in the hotel suite, there are six bottles in the door of the refrigerator. When Bond wakes up, there are seven bottles. (The one he was holding when Oddjob knocked him out is still lying on the floor.)

So, evidently, someone placed an extra bottle in the refrigerator door while Bond was unconscious. What mystery!

Torture

There are those who believe that there is never justification for torture. I'm not so sure. In fact, I would not be deeply bothered if certain responsible parties were condemned to a lifetime of having to actually make use of that which they have wrought. For instance, the designers of the runners on the doors to my garden shed. Suffice it to say that, on occasion, when I open the shed doors to remove the lawn mower, one of the doors falls off. Now I'm not Bob Vila, but I can deal with your average mechanical device without stumbling. When you look at how the doors hang on the runners, I don't see how the damned door falls off at all. Then it requires a small act of God to actually get it back together. I allotted just over an hour today for the usual mowing and trim work; I ended up spending half the day, mostly trying to get that damned shed back together. Oh, kyrie eleison.

Smashing

The compulsion to watch giant monsters trample Japan is, in my life, a chronic malady that I've long since learned to live with. From the day I first saw Godzilla, King of the Monsters, somewhere around age four, I've been hooked, and while my enthusiasm for daikaiju movies waxes and wanes somewhat, it never wanes very far. Thanks be to ye godz, the majority of Toho's monster flicks are available domestically on DVD—both English and Japanese versions—so these past few weeks, it has been necessary to plug in some of them. Last night, I even broke down and watched Gamera's first outing, Gammera, the Invincible (the American version, starring Brian Donlevy, Albert Dekker, and Dick O'Neill, just to be different).

One of the best bits of news I've recently received is that my all-time favorite, non-Godzilla daikaiju movie, War of the Gargantuas, is scheduled for DVD release by Classic Media next month—on a double-feature with the original Rodan. The DVD is supposed to include both the original Japanese and U.S. release versions, which in the case of Rodan is most welcome, since the original Japanese version is markedly superior to the 1957 King Brothers U.S. release. War of the Gargantuas is one of the rare cases in which the U.S. release trumps the original Japanese, the main reason being that it contains additional special effects scenes (including the infamous scene of Gaira, the green one, spitting out the clothes of the woman he just et at Haneda airport, which was excised from the Japanese version). While some might disagree, I also find Akira Ifukube's battle march, which plays endlessly during the military's attack on Gaira, monotonous to the point of tedium. The U.S. version replaces it with some stock action music (which actually works well) and a few passages from Ifukube's superior score to Destroy All Monsters.

It's no exaggeration to say that my first viewing of War of the Gargantuas, which came to town on a double-bill with Monster Zero, in 1970, was one of the pivotal moments of my youth. A good DVD release has been a long time coming, and I kinda can't wait.

A Witness to One of Nature's Monumental Struggles...

It seemed like just the kind of afternoon to go on a three-mile hike on the Reedy Fork Trail when I got off of work, so that's what I did. Snagged a couple of caches and got in some good exercise. While on my way back, I heard the distinctive sound of a cicada chirping, as well as some furious disturbance in the nearby leaves. Going to check it out, I saw what appeared to be a strange, massive insect thrashing about wildly; turns out, however, it was two fairly massive insects engaged in a violent life-or-death struggle. One was the cicada I had heard; the other was a giant hornet, its legs wrapped around its prey, its stinger frantically trying to pierce the other's carapace.

Generally, my policy in such matters of nature is nonintervention. I have no fondness for insects of any variety, that I can tell you. However, in this case, it sounded for all the world like that cicada was screaming in agony. So, figuring what the hell, I gave one deft jab of my bamboo whacky stick, and the hornet fell away in two twitching pieces. The cicada continued to thrash for a few moments, then it shook itself like an annoyed, wet dog, and...for a second...it cocked its body as if it were looking at me and saying, "Dude, thanks." Then it wandered on off, seemingly little the worse for wear.

Of course, that poke of my whacky stick stood an equal chance of killing either or both. It was a the luck of the draw that spared the cicada. Frankly, I figured he was already a goner. After my recent experience with flying critters of the stinging variety, though, I'm kind of glad it went the way it did.

I reckon now the cicada has gone off to eat somebody's trees.

Little bastard.

Nostalgia

Back in the good old dark ages of my youth (the orange and green plaid 70s), there was a sign by the nearby lake that said "No Dumping." So my friend Steve and I took some poster board, painted an "H" the same size and style as the type on the sign, laminated it, and attached it to the sign with with Super Glue so it read "No Humping." This was quality craftsmanship, and unsuspecting passersby would never know without close examination that the sign had been cleverly altered. For most of the rest of the 20th Century, that sign remained in that state. In fact, it came down only a few years ago.

Now, on a nearby regulatory sign, someone has carved in crude letters, "No Fucking."

Mon dieu. Oh, but for the good old days of putting thought and care into your work.

Eleven...

...geocaches found between 0600 and 0900 this morning. Pretty good haul; I waded through bogs, briers, poison plants, and giant spiders to reach them. Now, and for the next 72 hours or so, it's feverish work on the outline for my upcoming project—the identity of which some of you have no doubt guessed.

Deadline Time Again...

So it'll be a working holiday weekend. Not that I mind. It's another goooood project.

For completely different reasons, I have to get up at 0500 in the morning, and by 0600, I'll be hard at some geocaching before settling down to work. So I'm hyped.

Occult Detective Tackles OTHER GODS...

...with devastating consequences.

Occult Detective Reviews Other Gods

I've been trashed, and I've been trashed, but this time, I've been really trashed.

Oh, wait, that's only because I've got me a big ol' habanero martini.

Matt Cardin's Daemonyx

A couple of months back at Mo*Con, I picked up from Matt Cardin a five-track CD sampler from his Daemonyx: Curse of the Daimon album. I've listened to it quite a few times since then, but alas, I'm only now getting around to commenting on it.

Bottom line is...the sampler just isn't enough. I gotta have more. (And not just more cowbell!)

This is electronica at its best. It's melodic with a distinctly dark edge; never just noisy but laden with pounding percussion, background sound effects, and voices speaking in ominous, hushed tones ("Is there someone inside you?" "Demons are taking over the world!"). The second track, "Daimonica," is probably my favorite, running about four and half minutes long, with a chiming melody somewhat reminiscent of the theme to Phantasm, and a layer of the aforementioned voices running behind the music through the entire track. Most of the lines are muted and difficult to understand, but certain key words occasionally come through—such as "the exalted flow of the time-space continuum"—and they draw your attention deep into the composition.

Track three, "The Face of the Deep," is a little harder edged, with what sounds like a genuine Hammond organ overlaying the repetitive rhythm about two-thirds of the way through the piece. Track four, "The Streets of Vastarien" (if you've read Thomas Ligotti, you'll recognize the title) has some of the distinctive, ethereal qualities of Angelo Badalamenti's Twin Peaks score, with deep, pulsing percussion in the background that's a bit unsettling.

There are a couple of free new tracks available at Matt's MySpace page; you can check them out here: www.myspace.com/daemonyx. If you're the least bit keen on mellow but dark electronica, this ought to delight you as much as it does me.

Yes, I want the whole thing. I gotta have it.

Fairystone Rocks!

One of the neatest things about geocaching is that it takes Mrs Death and me to all kinds of places that we would otherwise never visit. In the last four months, I've seen more of Greensboro than I've seen in twenty-plus years, and I'm getting out frequently into the surrounding environs, which has given me a whole new appreciation for the picturesque quality of much of the local country.

Today, Mrs Death and our goodest friends, the Albaneses, made a nice day trip up to Fairystone Park, Virginia. In my younger days, I spent a fair amount of time at Fairystone, as there's a lake for swimming, a decent campground, and an impressive number of hiking trails. And nowadays, a bunch of geocaches. Of course, it was the caches that brought us back to the park.

Fairystones are crystals of staurolite, which often form the shape of a cross (see the photo above, which is from the Stone Cross Museum). They're absolutely everywhere around the park. While on the trail to one of the caches, we found what looked like a fairystone fountain—a mass of the stones deposited along the trail by recent rains. Legend has it that this area was once home to a gaggle of wood nymphs, and when they heard of Christ's crucifixion, they wept, their tears crystallizing into stone crosses. Yes, it's an odd one, but back in the olden days, it was among the locale's most prominent stories.

While we were on the trail (one of many we discovered), we came upon a couple of iron mines, which I had no idea existed. They're tucked back in the woods, dug into walls of slate, their entrances now blocked by iron trellises. Looking into them, you can see where the ceilings have caved in, and being out here among them gave me a lonely, almost creepy feeling. Back in the early 20th century, the area was a thriving town called Fayerdale, and mining was the primary industry. We, of course, were there mining for caches, which took some dedicated hunting, but we finally made the finds.

Discovering this little remnant of history, so close to where I grew up, is just one of those things in life I consider downright cool. As always, it gets the mind working toward some new, scary tale. And, of course, I added a few numbers to the tally of caches found.

This was all part of the celebration of our 22nd wedding anniversary, which was today. Matter of fact, our daughter very thoughtfully called to wish us happy anniversary. Mrs Death said to her, "Just think, I've had to put up with your father for the past 22 years," to which she responded, "No, Mom, he's had to put up with you."

She is a good and acceptable daughter. I owe her a dollar.

Island of Terror

Busy weekend here; mostly domestic chores, vehicle maintenance, a spot of creative work. I tell you, though, tonight I found myself seized by an insatiable craving to watch a drive-in movie. Alas, as the drive-in was kind of out of reach, I settled for putting on my old VHS copy of Island of Terror, one of my favorite 1960s-vintage SF/horror flicks. Now, in my younger days, I never actually saw it at the drive-in; in fact, I don't think I managed to see it at all until I was well on my way to becoming an old fart. It showed up in TV Guide fairly frequently when I was a kid, but for whatever reasons, I never managed to catch it. I recollect turning a magnificent shade of green when good ol' Robert Cox (he was pretty much Linus to my Charlie Brown) saw it on Shock Theater and described it to me in very gory detail: "The professor, like, gets his arm chopped off and everything and, like, blood spews everywhere, you know?"

It really is the perfect drive-in movie, starring Peter Cushing, Edward Judd, Carole Gray, and Niall MacGinnis (of Curse of the Demon fame). A team of scientists, hoping to find a cure for cancer, go to a remote island off the coast of Ireland to conduct experiments using radiation. Needless to say, it goes wrong. The scientists are all mysteriously killed, and people (and animals) suddenly begin turning up with all their bones missing. The local doctor, baffled, calls in renowned physician Peter Cushing, who, also baffled, calls in renowned researcher Edward Judd, who finds himself—perhaps not unpredictably—baffled by the deadly goings-on. Turns out that the experiments have created these huge, mutated, cell-like critters that snag you with a proboscis, liquify your bones, and then suck them out through said proboscis. Mayhem ensues, lots of people die, and the professor, like, gets his arm chopped off and everything and, like, blood spews everywhere, you know?

Great, great little flick. The island setting, both picturesque and gloomy, creates the perfect spooky atmosphere. The sound effect that precedes the creatures' appearance is an eerie, warbling, electronic whistle (created by Barry Gray, composer of the score to Stingray, UFO, Space: 1999, Journey to the Far Side of the Sun,et. al.), and it's used to unnerving effect, much like the scary sound effects in Fiend Without a Face, another of my favorite oldies. The critters themselves—described in the old TV guide listings as "turtle-like"—tread the line between silly and horrifying, though they're more like knobby starfish with long, tentacular appendages than turtles. They reproduce by fission, and there's a wonderful scene where the process is shown in grotesque detail. The occasional bits of gore may be primitive by today's standards, but they punch just the right buttons to accentuate the horror in the film.

A few slow moments impede forward progress now and again, such as the apparently suspense-building scene, filmed in real time, of Cushing and Judd putting on radiation suits, from top to bottom, including gloves and air hoses. (This is the time to make popcorn.)

Despite these little hitches, Island of Terror stands out as a superb example of 1960s British SF/horror. I recorded it many years ago from American Movie Classics, when they still aired movies with no commercials. It's hard to find gems like this on TV anymore, though; so many of the oldies but goodies are no longer broadcast, those slots having been given away to the latest crop of rancid CGI monstrosities of Sci Fi channel caliber. Fortunately, it's easier than it ever has been to find a lot of these marvelous flicks on DVD, oftentimes cheap, sometimes with extra features aplenty. Unfortunately, I don't believe Island of Terror is one of them. It's available on Region 2-encoded PAL DVDs, the standard in the UK, but unplayable on most US systems.

Alas.

KEEPERS OF THE DEAD

Bob Freeman's Keepers of the Dead continues the saga of Cairnwood Manor and its resident population of werewolves, vampires, zombies, gargoyles, and sorcerers, introduced in his first novel, Shadows Over Somerset. Though some prior knowledge doesn't hurt, Keepers qualifies as much as a standalone novel as it does a sequel.

Cairnwood Manor, an ancient seat of magical power, and the Cairnwood family, who are charged with preventing that power falling into darker hands than theirs, are under seige by a rival clan—not to mention those insidious others who would play both sides against the other for their own purposes. Michael Cairnwood, the new lord of the manor, has made a painful return from brink of death and found that circumstances on the homefront are anything but what he might desire, particularly since he and his enemies happen to share a common ancestry.

The first thing I discovered is that Keepers, much like its predecessor, is loaded with characters—almost too many to keep track of—and they just keep coming over the course of the book. To his credit, Mr. Freeman devotes enough space to the primary players to define and hone their personalities; also to his credit, he renders none of them in pure black and white. It's often difficult to delineate protagonists and antagonists, since all have their unique motivations and none fall easily into the cliched role of hero/villain. It's refreshing to find that the ostensible protagonists are hardly creatures of goodness and light and the antagonists aren't simply wicked because being wicked is just so much damned fun.

The downside of all this is that, particularly in the opening chapters, there's a lot more telling than showing, with characters' personalities and purposes simply described rather than developed naturally. For a time, it's difficult to distinguish who belongs to which clan and whether he or she is going to be important to the plot. Characters come and go, oftentimes killed off before their relevance seems firmly established.

Conversely, once the main characters begin to become real and have evoked some reader sympathy, Freeman pulls no punches and establishes a sense of tragedy when their fates are less than happy. I admire the fact that not everyone who meets a bad end does so because they're just too nasty to live, and a few of these fateful moments prove to be rather poignant.

Make no mistake, there are unhappy ends aplenty. The novel's pace is oftentimes breakneck, and vicious fighting between supernatural beasties abounds. Some of it manages to be exciting, yet it tends to overshadow the plot's more subtle intrigue, which is really what holds this book together. Freeman has a capable hand for suspense, and I would like to have seen a tad more of it, rather than another knock-down-drag-out altercation.

The edition I read was an uncorrected proof copy, and I hope some of the rough edges will be ironed out in the regular edition. A lot of the errors consist of subject-verb tense disagreement, various grammar usage issues, and other such problems, which are at best distracting and at worst exasperating. Writers do need good editors (yours truly, without question); I trust Black Death Books has one on hand...?

There's no question that Keepers is a better novel than Shadows Over Somerset. Knowing that Mr. Freeman is more than a little dedicated to his craft, I foresee bigger and better things on the horizon for him. I'll be curious to see where he goes from here.

OTHER GODS Scares BQueen Out of Her Bonnet

HorrorWatch's BQueen has just given Other Gods the royal review treatment. The HorrorWatch review site isn't working properly at the moment, so she's put the review on her blog until it can be posted at its regular home.

I'm rather fond of this line: "I wouldn't recommend you read Other Gods before bedtime unless your significant other actually likes being woken up by you telling them you just read a scary story and can't sleep and did they hear that noise and why are they looking at you like that?."

I concur.

I'm not sure whether it's available to the public at large or just MySpace members, but it's worth checking out the whole thing here:

BQueen Reviews Other Gods

Sometimes Geocaching Yields Unexpected Horrors

When I’m out geocaching, I’m very careful about where I put my hands. I’ve encountered all kinds of nasties out in the wild, black widow spiders being among the most common. Found a half dozen of them, just last week.

Yesterday, I happened upon something a little different. I lifted a stone and unearthed both a geocache and some kind of prehistoric-looking arthropod of considerable size, the likes of which I have never seen. All legs, pincers, and feelers, and fast-moving as hell. Thankfully, it vacated the premises quickly, knocking over a few trees and smashing a car in the process, clearing the way for me to claim the cache unmolested.

Don’t know what it was, but I hope to never see such a thing ever again.

Sometimes Geocaching Yields Unexpected Fruits

Today, on my way back to Greensboro from Virginia, I stopped off at a few geocaches, and—lo and behold—out from one of them popped one of the worst movies since Plan 9 From Outer Space. Needless to say, this gave me a rare thrill of ecstasy.

I saw Santy Claus at the theater when I was four or five years old. I have vague recollections of a big snowfall and being certain that there were Martians lurking in the snow-covered woods. (There probably were, you know.)

Something tells me that, this Christmas season, the Martians will be coming back.

Tom Piccirilli, eat your heart out.

Otherwise, it was a very fine weekend, mostly hanging out with my friends, the Albaneses; eating way too much food; and hollering, "I gotta have more cowbell!" just because it seemed the thing to do at the time. Today, I think I pretty much worked off the extra goodies, by going after a few caches that took some significant exertion...to put it mildly.

Oh my aching body.

Bummed

Our next-door neighbors of the past four years, Paul and Jamie, left today to move out west, so a big old wave of depression has fallen upon me. They're a young couple — about the same age as our daughter — and Jamie is well on her way to becoming a psychologist, as she passed her dissertation last month. When they moved in back in 2004, we hit it off right away, and we've good friends ever since. Since March of this year, they've been our regular geocaching partners, and we've had a slew of great adventures out on the trail (not to mention underground). We knew they were going to be moving at some point, but it always seemed somewhere off in the future. Not anymore.

In all the years Peg and I have been married, we haven't really had neighbors that we could just pop in and out with, share dinner on one of our respective patios whenever we felt like it, look after each other's critters, watch movies on weekends, and all that nice stuff. They are just good, good people, and I'm glad we had these past few years to spend together. I really hope their move is everything they want it to be.

Last night, we had a final dinner together. They left us a photo of them and a really beautiful note, so we have that reminder.

I am so going to miss these folks.

I did get a little cheerer-upper this evening; a noteworthy and well-paying publication wants to use one of my older stories in an upcoming issue, so that's one of those deals I can't rightly refuse. No details just now, but definitely later.

And I hiked four miles on the trail this afternoon. A wee bit pooped, yes we are.

Yellowjacket Hell

That was our front porch for the past couple of weeks. We've had this old chair sitting out there, which should have been dumped years ago, but Mrs Death has always enjoyed sitting in it when going out to have a smoke. Several days back, she sat down, and a couple of very rude yellowjackets came round and stung her on the arm. I took a look at the chair, and sure enough, a horde of the little bastards had made a nest underneath it. I hit the nest with some Raid, but that was only sufficient to kill a handful; the rest of them got riled. Four stings on the leg for me.

So I let them be for a time, but the nest got bigger and bigger, and after a time, the porch pretty much no longer belonged to us.

Last night, we hosted a surprise party at our place for Sir William “Bill” Trotter, so I made up my mind to wage all-out war on the interlopers before our guests arrived.

Phase 1: Removing the Nest
I have to get dangerously close to the nest to loop a long cord around the legs of the chair, and several buzz by on a recon mission, but I just smile and wave, allaying their suspicions. "Stupid human would not have audacity to meddle in yellowjacket affairs," and all that. Guess what, rabble.

Giving myself a good twenty feet of slack, I go out into the yard and began pulling. I drag that chair clean off the porch and into the yard, and now the horde is all abuzz, zooming here and there, creating one helluva dark cloud over the chair. I tug that chair to the edge of the yard, now having to dodge the occasional angry scout.

Phase 2: The Garden Hose
With the chair and the main part of the nest now a good fifty feet from the house, I hit the nest with a high-pressure stream, which in no time dislodges it from the chair and stirs up yet another cloud of critters, which soon cover up the whole sky. I'm about thirty feet from the chair, but one of the fuckers finds me and zaps me on the shin. An ugly war wound.

After about ten minutes, the chair is a sopping mess but appears critter-free. Now I return my attention to the front porch, which is alive with the things, and I realize there was a second nest (or perhaps an outpost of the first) in a big cardboard box that had been behind the chair. I turn the water on the box for a full half hour and watch streams of dead and dying yellowjackets gushing over the edge of the porch into the shrubs. But the main cloud shows little sign of thinning, and I realize that, in order to turn off the water, I must get within ten feet of the furious horde.

I make a fast dash to the spigot, then a quantum leap back out to the yard. No stings this time.

Phase 3: First Raid!
For good measure, I bring out the bug spray and hit the chair, which actually still contains quite a few very angry vescula squamosas. Five minutes later, there appears to be nothing left alive. However, there are still plenty crawling around the devastated nest on the ground — which is now surrounded by thousands of larva that have fallen out of it. Ants are carrying away larva by the score, and though I'm tempted to let them have their way, I'm taking no chances. A few good barrages of Raid, and this corner of battlefield is a graveyard: nothing, absolutely nothing is left alive.

Phase 4: Second Raid!
The porch remains abuzz for another four hours. With guests on the way, I know it will be bad news if they come to the front door, so I put up a sign directing them around back. Then, as the sun begins to set, the yellowjackets retreat into the drenched but evidently still functional box. Let no mortal combat interfere with the regularly scheduled beauty sleep!

WIth the garden claw, I open up the top of the box and am stunned — STUNNED, I tell you — to see that THOUSANDS of the enemy still survive, and are arranged in the most beautiful, symmetrical rows in the bottom of the box. Their numbers make my heart tremble, for if they should suddenly converge on me...

But no...they're right where I want them.

I close the box except for one corner, which I bend upward to create an opening. Then, through it, I apply a constant stream of Raid until the can is almost empty. A few of the beasts come buzzing out and attack the porchlight, making themselves relatively easy targets for the remaining spray. They weave in the air and then plummet. Others stagger out of the box and keel over, and as more and more of them pile up on the porch, the floor becomes a vast, mass yellowjacket grave. This is a grim but awe-inspiring sight.

Within ten minutes, no sign of life remains.

Later, a few solitary survivors zoom around the house in confusion. Before bedtime, I take a final look at the porch.

It is done.

The Aftermath
This morning, I take a look into the box. It's loaded with corpses, and thousands of them litter the floor. The chair is removed to the street, where it will be picked up with the trash this week.

But now I am hearing a constant buzzing, somewhere in the distance. I'm not sure I like the suggestion of airborne shapes that flicker past my window or even through the living room. I've seen a couple of wasps watching me suspiciously, as if aware that I might have had something to do with the wanton destruction of a number of their distant kin. Now and again, I feel the creepy-crawlies, as if something is walking around the back of my neck.

If something happens to me, I want you to know I only did what I had to. It was a righteous battle, and I regret nothing.

I fear I must soon visit WalMart to buy more Raid.

Yes. I must have more.

Back in the Shadows Again

Dark Shadows, that is. I've written an audio drama script for Big Finish Productions (UK), tentatively titled Dark Shadows: Path of Fate, and it's currently in production. David Selby and Lara Parker, from the original TV series, appear their respective roles as Quentin Collins and Angelique Bouchard. (Well, their voices "appear," anyway.)

The release date has not been finalized, but I anticipate late 2008, early 2009. The production will be available on CD and MP3 download.

Yes, that's the script, whose deadline(s) kept me hopping for a while. Whee-ew!

If You Know About It, It Knows About You...

Want an autographed copy of the trade paperback edition of my new collection, Other Gods, from Dark Regions—for free?

"If you know about it, it knows about you. If you see it, it will come for you."

That's a quote from one of my stories. The title of that story appears in several places on my Web site, including the Other Gods info page. Visit The Realm of Stephen Mark Rainey, find the story's title in the text or contents list of one or more of my books (not in a head or subhead), and click on it. It doesn't appear as a regular link, but you'll know if you find it.

Note: a purchase is required, but I think you'll find it one helluva bargain. Enjoy....

Wampus Cat

A couple of weeks back, I made mention of the Wampus Cat (Grendel? Wampus Cat? Larry Talbot?). Here's the answer:

The Wampus Cat is a critter out of southern folklore—originally eastern Tennessee, I'm told, but the legend also found a comfortable home in the mountains of western North Carolina. When I was a youngster and went to summer camp in the NC mountains, it was easily the most chilling of the many tales that counselors and elderly locals told us to scare us out of our pants. Let it be known that I left at least a drawerful of pants back at Camp Cheerio, circa 1968.

Now, I love me some folklore. The legend tells us that, once upon a time, a young Indian woman, curious about the magical powers of the tribe's medicine man, dressed herself in the skin of a mountain lion and followed him so she could watch him do his thing. Alas, in those distinctly non-feminist days of yore, women were strictly forbidden from witnessing acts of magic. The medicine man caught her and, to punish her for her wicked ways, turned her into a half-woman, half-cat creature, doomed to roam the Appalachian forests from there on out. Eventually, in her misery, she went insane, which—as you might guess—did not bode well for the local population.

Back at camp, nobody knew where the Wampus Cat came from. They only knew that it was real and preyed on youngsters who converged on the NC mountains every summer from points all over the country. My introduction to the Wampus Cat was the story of a couple of young campers who didn't heed their counselors' warnings and wandered into the woods by themselves late one afternoon. They never came back, so a search party went looking for them. Just as the sun was going down, the men came upon a big wall made out of fallen timber, and atop a couple of the posts were the heads of the missing children. About that time, a huge catlike creature that walked on two legs appeared and leaped right at the rescuers. One of them shot the thing several times—which didn't kill it but dissuaded it from attacking just long enough for the men to run to safety—with the monster on their heels the whole way.

The next story was accompanied by photographic evidence. In this one, a number of campers and counselors went for an overnight campout on Snake Island, which was a tiny little island at one end of the local lake (this was also the place where I saw my first copperhead in the wild; a cute little thing). Just at sunset that evening, a rustling noise came from the lake bank. One of the counselors produced a camera just in time to photograph a huge, catlike creature leaping into the air, onto the island, and then to the opposite lakebank. The photo was posted in the camp's main office, and was frequently passed around to show us kids that, yes, the Wampus Cat was out there, and, no, we ought not wander off anywhere on our own.

Sure, as far as I knew, the blurry photo of the creature silhouetted against the sky might have been some counselor's housecat that he tossed up in the air, but back in those days...holy canoli, it was proof. There really was a Wampus Cat, and that sucker could do some serious leaping. I was so impressed that, when our group went out to Snake Island for an overnight campout, I was not among them. I stayed safe and snug in the cabin that night and listened to great horned owls laughing at me.

I did, however, work up the nerve to sleep out under the stars one night right outside the cabin, along with several other intrepid campers.

Oh, it was a dark night; no stars, no moon; just a lot of nightbirds and insects yammering away. And the sound of something nearby going thump.

Thump. And THUMP! Getting closer and closer.

Yeah, there went one pair of drawers.

Then something went THUMP!—right on my little noggin, and young Mark screamed so loud people heard me at Myrtle Beach, 300 miles away.

Turns out that we had parked our sleeping bags right under an apple tree, and the apples were engaged in a series of Newtonian experiments, to which we were unwitting witnesses.

Apart from that really special photo, I never actually saw hide or hair of the Wampus Cat. But let me tell you, that pussy sure made a man out of me. From that night night on, I've never had the slightest fear of apples. I must wonder if those young campers who were with me could make the same claim.

Hell Is Just Ahead

In my near-daily hunt for geocaches, I'm continually discovering new places in and around Greensboro. There are still miles and miles of trails I haven't gotten to yet, and each trail I find strikes me as more scenic or interesting than the last. Yesterday, I put in three miles on a portion of the Nat Greene trail that I'd never hiked, and today, despite high heat and humidity, I did a good four miles on the Laurel Bluff trail. I'm bushed and a little sore, but the hike was a real experience, and I wish I had taken my camera with me. At one point, I passed a cairn-like pile of stones with an old, rusted tricycle mounted atop them. That's not really something I see all that often.

In these southern woods, beech trees are everywhere, and if you've ever seen a beech, you probably saw lots of initials and messages carved into its trunk. After all, what else is that smooth, gray bark there for? One beech on the Laurel Bluff trail bears the message, "Hell Is Just Ahead," and it's dated 1961. (Needless to say, there's a nearby cache bearing the same title.)

In contrast to the Nat Greene trail, which was brimming with hikers and mountain bikers yesterday, there appeared to be nary a soul besides myself in the woods today. It was remarkably quiet, though the wildlife was plentiful. Saw quite a few deer, rabbits, frogs, a luna moth caterpillar, and...a black squirrel. Now I've seen plenty of gray squirrels and red squirrels, but I've never come upon a black one. Okay, maybe he had been playing under a parked car somewhere and gotten covered in grease, as my dog used to do when I was a kid, who knows? But anyway...he was black.

I saw this harbinger of odd things just as I came upon Hell Is Just Ahead. And right about then, a great horned owl started hooting somewhere nearby. A beautiful, melancholy sound; a little eerie, even. I do love those owls, even if they are not what they seem. Appropriately, I dropped a Twin Peaks postcard into the cache. The next one wasn't too far away, so I decided to bushwhack straight to it rather than return to the trail. This was when things got a little odd.

Apparently, I had entered the wrong coordinates in my GPS for that next cache because I ended up heading south rather than north, which was away from where I knew the cache ought to be. Soon, I came upon the foundation of an old house out in the woods, and then I heard low, furtive voices not too far away. I felt distinctly uncomfortable, so I started back toward the trail, heading due north.

I walked...and walked...and walked...but the trail seemed to have vanished. By this time, I'm starting to feel like I'm in The Blair Witch Project—though in a version cast with a lone dude who is far more dashing and resourceful than the original cast members, and armed with a bamboo whacky stick. I bring up the coordinates to the next cache, which is about a half mile away, and head straight for it. When I get there, I find the trail again. For the rest of the hike, I resolve to stay on it.

On the way back, the trail did nothing funky; it ran pretty much true east-west, and I never did see the divergence that had led me up to the old foundation. What happened, I'm fairly certain, is that bizarre forces altered space for a brief period, intending to deliver me to those unknown parties carrying on furtively near the old remains. However, when said forces realized that, yow, that guy's got a bamboo whacky stick, they thought better of it and put me right back where I belonged.

Smart, those bizarre forces.

It was a good hike. Six out of six caches found. That makes a total of 407, I believe.

A Dark Regions Special

I usually try to avoid a lot of noise and bluster and keep salesmanship fairly low-key around here. However, YOU GOTTA GO GET THIS PACKAGE FROM DARK REGIONS. It's a four-book lot that includes the trade paperback edition of my new collection, Other Gods, along with Proverbs for Monsters by Michael A. Arnzen, Vectors: A Week In The Death of a Planet by Charlee Jacob & Marge Simon, and Songs of Silver by Laura J. Underwood. You get the lot for 40% off, and right now, there's probably not a better deal on the planet, unless you get, like, free gasoline for the rest of your life or something.

I always recommend ordering from Horror Mall, as it's proven to be as speedy and reliable as booksellers come. So go here: Dark Regions 40% Off Sale. That's four books for $39.95 plus shipping. It's very safe to say you'll get more than more your money's worth.

It Ain't Just Bastille Day...

...It's also Mrs Death's birthday. Happy birfday, Mrs Death! (For anyone who isn't aware, Mrs Death is the wife.) She sure is old!

(Okay, I'll be back in a couple of years, after the wounds heal.)

Happiness Is...

1,200 tracks by Akira Ifukube (Godzilla, kith and kin) on your iPod.

A dirty martini with habanero pepper–stuffed olives.

A contract for the script you've labored over for weeks, with payment on the way.

A new short story acceptance.

Enough money to buy gasoline to get to the friggin' office this week.

Well, four out of five ain't bad. Who needs to go to the office anyway?

P.S. Chicago

Oh, yeah. Some things have changed in Chicago. Used to be that if you stopped your car at a stoplight, somebody would come out, clean your windshield, and hope you'd fling a couple of bucks his way. I guess too many of them got run over doing that, because now I've discovered that if you stop walking, some fucker will come up, start cleaning your shoes before you can say "My kingdom for a Hoveround," and demand eight dollars.

Well, no, I didn't run over the guy. I didn't give him eight bucks, either.

RDU to ORD and Back

Chicago is still there, all right. I saw it with my own eyes. Lived there back in the 80s and have visited many times since. In all my days, though, this recent long weekend was the first time I've stayed down in the Loop for several days doing mostly touristy stuff. I gots to say, touristy stuff has its charms.

Thursday morning, Mrs Death and I flew to O'Hare from Raleigh-Durham and met up with our friends, Daryl and Melissa, whom we've known since the absolute darkest of ages (not that I'd know anything about dark ages). Partook of much good food and drink, and went down to Taste of Chicago at Grant Park—initially with plans to see the fireworks. Eventually, though, due to several factors, we opted to return to the hotel. (Turns out this might have been a good thing, as several people got shot at the park.) So we hung out at a really nice little bistro next to the hotel for a while, and after our friends retired, Mrs Death and I went out for some late-night geocaching (found three).

Friday was a good day of sightseeing and partaking of more food and spirits. Hung out at Navy Pier, where the men dressed as ladies, and...oh, wait, wrong tale. Hung out at Navy Pier, where we sought a particular geocache, but to no avail. Walked many miles, made feet sore. Had to drink some more to cool the toes. Friday night, we celebrated Mrs Death's upcoming birthday at a rowdy little piano bar called Howl at the Moon, where Mrs Death bamboozled the piano player by requesting "Sweat Leaf" by Black Sabbath. Since he was so thoroughly bamboozled, he made Peg come up on stage so he might serenade her with a marvelously indecent rendition of Happy Birthday. That Mrs Death.

Spent most of yesterday hunting caches in a forest preserve in Streamwood, one of Chicago's far northwest suburbs. Found five. Got home late this afternoon after—you guessed it—hunting caches between Raleigh and Greensboro. Found 15 or so.

Tomorrow, it's to work on some revisions on the Big One I've been laboring over for the past few weeks.

I leave you with these.

"Emergency! Emergency! Rodan is approaching!"

A beautiful day to arrive in the city.

A wild bunch partaking of Things Wet.

The Bean. There's some weird shit in Chicago anymore.

Like I said.

Caching at the Water Tower.

-30-

Finished the big ol' project I've had my face buried in for several weeks. Turned it in, along with a long synopsis, a short synopsis, the name of my daughter's first boyfriend, and all that accompanying business.

Next comes revision stage. At least there's a little breathing room, and I've got a couple of extra days off for Independence Day. Hoo-wah.

Have a great Fourth.

VMNH Geocaching Day

 Although to many it might seem very near invisible, one of Martinsville, VA's most attractive and socio-economically progressive institutions is the Virginia Museum of Natural History. It conducts significant research, hosts some very appealing exhibits (such as dinosaurs, dinosaurs, and dinosaurs!), and also sponsors lots of positive community programs, such as day camps for kids and teens, outings to clean up local streams and rivers, health seminars for seniors, and...an introduction to geocaching!

Bright and early this morning, I headed out to the Gravely Nature Preserve, just outside Martinsville's city limits, where 30-some local folks interested in geocaching came out to learn just what it's all about. I had volunteered to help out, so I tagged along to hinder as best I might a group of up-and-coming cachers on the mile-and-a-half trail. The young lady in charge of the outing, who goes by the handle MuseumWren, did a really nice job of planning the activity and getting folks together to learn about how to use multi-billion dollar military satellites to find Tupperware in the woods. Several of the groups went after the caches that I had set up on the trail a couple of months ago, and I believe each of them managed to make the finds -- even the tricky little micro-container planted in a tree.

I went with several very nice folks who really took to the challenge right from the start. They had originally targeted just one of my hides, but we ended up going to all three, plus a puzzle cache that MuseumWren set up. Unfortunately, one young lad stumbled upon a yellowjacket nest, and he and his dad got stung several times -- but they both shrugged off the stings and went on to make a couple of tricky finds. What troopers!

Best of all, I finally got to meet a local cacher (handle Kuykenew), whom I've known online for several months; and my good friends, the Albaneses, who've become geocachers of dark renown, showed up as well. This was a really nice activity that got a bunch of strangers together for a good time and a wee bit of education.

Tonight, I grilled out chicken for my mom and me. The rest of the day has been devoted to meeting that looming deadline. Hoo boy, it's closing fast.

Grendel? Wampus Cat? Larry Talbot?

After going great guns on the latest writing project for several days, I took a break yesterday and hit the trail to grab a couple of geocaches. I was a pretty fair distance out on the Osprey Trail, near Lake Townsend, just north of Greensboro, when something came barreling through the woods, a couple of hundred feet away. At first, I thought it was a deer—it looked to be about the size of a big buck—but as it leaped over a fallen tree, I saw that it was dark gray and had a long, bushy tail. There were too many trees between it and me to get a real good look at it, and at the speed it was running, it was out of sight in a few seconds.

I don't think it was a dog, and it was way too large to be a fox. Possibly a coyote, as they do come around these parts now and again, but if so, it was sure a big one. Whatever it was, I'm kind of glad it went hauling ass in the other direction, rather than right at me.

The rest of the hike, I kept a sharp eye out, but I never saw nor heard any further sign of it or its kin. It was the one time I've hit the trail without taking my phone along, and for a while there, I rather wished I had it with me.

I did find a couple of nice caches, at least, making for a grand total of 329. I expect I will add several to that tally this coming weekend.

Other Gods, by the way, is now in stock at Horror Mall. Get out there and snag yourself a copy, if you've yet to do that snagging thing.

Dark Deadlines

Nothing like a tight deadline to get the writing process moving fast and hot. Can't say I'm too fond of having to write at such a pace on a regular basis, yet when I do, the prose tends to hit on all cylinders. Little word wastage, and the saved words prove to be mostly the right ones.

Try it sometime, even if there's not money riding on the deal. Might be worth your while.

Porcupine Sex

It's a pity that certain communiques didn't come up prior to the editors' panel at Mo*Con this weekend. Porcupine Sex

Mo News Is Good News

Ye Olde Mo*Con III Report...

With the string of snafus getting longer and nastier at the Indianapolis airport yesterday afternoon, I wasn't sure I was going to make it home before growing too old to know where I was. But after a very late departure and a route that turned a 170-mile flight into an over 500-mile flight, I made my connection at Chicago's O'Hare (only just) and arrived back in Greensboro last night, barely an hour later than scheduled. Of course I had heard about the big storms in the midwest, but until I ended up flying over portions of Indiana, Missouri, and Illinois, I had no real conception of how widespread it was. From 35,000 feet, as far as the eye could see, the midwest looked like the world's biggest mud puddle. In places, there was more water than terrain; it looked like an endless, shallow lake with occasional land features protruding. On Friday, just after I arrived, Indianapolis got some further big rain, but it broke later in the day, and the rest of the weekend was beautiful.

Mo*Con III got off to a propitious start: as soon as I checked into the hotel, I set out to find some nearby geocaches — in the pouring rain, of course. Found a couple; then headed over to the Broaddus house, courtesy of Maurice's beautiful and talented young assistant, Lauren (who deserves special credit for going far beyond the call of duty in transporting folks all over creation and making sure Maurice was doing what he oughta be when he oughta be). Met Maurice's lovely wife Sally (also deserving of special credit, particularly for enduring the burdens Maurice drops upon her!) and their energetic kids, plus many of the other guests and nefarious infiltrators, such as her hineyness Alethea Kontis, Kelli "Horror Wench" Dunlap, Nick Mamatas, Chesya Burke, Sara Larson, Michael West, and Kim Paffenroth. Then I left again with Lauren to abduct Matt Cardin upon his arrival at the airport, which we did in short order.

Back to the Broaddus's for an excellent dinner of chicken marsala and fettucine Alfredo, then to the Dwelling Place (Where It All Happened). Then, for one of the weekend's highlights, I led Lauren, the Wench, and Princess Alethea on a geocaching excursion to a nearby graveyard. Found the cache in short order and then headed out to a nearby park to seek another one. It was here that things began to unravel. Turned out there was no direct way to the cache other than to bushwhack through thick foliage, so Kelli and Lauren remained near the very busy road while Alethea and I ventured into the brush. We come upon water...and more water...and more water...and finally, Alethea says she's going to hold up. I go in farther and farther...and suddenly I'm surrounded by deep water on all sides. It's some real flooding we have here! Then I hear Alethea hollering at me that the cops have arrived on the scene. I come out of the woods to hear Lauren telling a couple of officers, "We're from the church! This is a church outing!" Kelli's telling the cops that the guy coming out of the woods will explain. So I tell them all about geocaching; they tell us we probably don't want to be skulking around in the woods and busy road in this area. We all agree it's a good idea, so we head back to The Dwelling Place, and ten to one the cops went out to hunt caches. The band Mother Grove was now hard at it, cranking out some rockin' Celtic sounds, which I enjoyed a lot. Eventually, I headed back to the hotel; no telling what time it was.

Saturday was a day of panels and food. Got to meet my longtime online Viking buddy, Bob Freeman; the beautiful Tracy Jones; redheaded horror firebrand Debbie Kuhn; Doug Warrick, Jason Sizemore, and many of the attending Indiana Horror Writers (forgive me for not having everyone's name in the old mental file cabinet). I was then pleased as all get-out to get to see old friend Gary Braunbeck after too many years, and to meet Lucy Snyder for the first time. Some invigorating panel discussion followed; first on spirituality and writing, with Matt Cardin (moderator), Maurice, Nick, Bob, Kim, Gary, and myself. Then I moderated a panel about editing, which ended up being fairly lively, with Nick, Jason, Chesya, Matt, and Frank Creed. Luncheon followed, consisting of many varieties of chili, some hot and spicy enough to make me smile. Then...geocaching. Snagged a couple (including the one from the waterlogged park, at long last), then returned for the Role of Gender in Horror panel, featuring Lucy, Gary, Chesya, Kelli, and Natalie Crish.

Spent an enjoyable Saturday evening back at Chez Broaddus, with a pizza supper and hangout time in the yard (a.k.a. mosquito heaven) with beaucoup Mo*Conners. Returned to the hotel at a reasonable hour (just after midnight, I believe) and went geocaching.

Sunday Morning opened with a church service at the Dwelling Place, the main feature being Brian Keene's testimony from the first Mo*Con. Very enlightening, moving, and entertaining. The service was often insightful, but it needed a good editor. After lunch, it was a wee bit more geocaching — this time unsuccessful, alas — and then off for the airport debacle. At least I got to spend some additional quality time with Matt and Nick while waiting on our respective flights.

Maurice, you have my admiration for undertaking an event as involved as Mo*Con, for which you receive mainly the intangible benefits of the company you bring in. It's got to be physically taxing as well as emotionally draining, but I hope you're up to it for a long time to come, as I really hope to return — even if I'm just a lowly infiltrator. For me it was a memorable experience — uplifting in every way.

Plus, I worked in some good geocaching and got some of us busted by the cops. How much better could it get?

Don D'Ammassa: "OTHER GODS" Not Entirely Full of Bilgewater

Well, the above can be inferred, given Don D'Ammassa's new review of Other Gods at his Critical Mass Web site. D'Ammassa writes, "Other Gods is a uniformly good collection with a few stories that stand out a little way, although the general quality is so high that you might not notice. The treatment varies from understated to quite explicit...not a bad story in the collection. A must-read for horror fans."

Visit here to get the whole sheboygan: Critical Mass Reviews, 6/8/08.

Then go here and buy the damn book already: Other Gods at Horror Mall

My big ol' outlining job is finished and sent to the appropriate parties, so now we play the waiting game. Haven't put in a stint like that since working on Dark Shadows: Dreams of the Dark back in '98.

This coming weekend, I'll be one of the troublemakers at Mo*Con III in Indianapolis. If you're in that part of the country, please come round. It's only $10 for the weekend, and there will be all kinds of marginally decadent goings-on for the amusement of attendees. (You didn't hear that from me, though.) Other folks involved include Maurice Broaddus (the brains behind the bash), Chesya Burke, Matt Cardin, Bob Freeman, Nick Mamatas, Kim Paffenroth, Lucy Snyder, and a number of other societal outcasts.

I can even fix you up with a copy of Other Gods, no questions asked.

At some point, I'll be excusing myself from the revelry for a time, as between the hotel and The Dwelling Place, there are at least 20 geocaches waiting to be claimed by a certain transient southerner.

Hot Parking and Grabbing

Yeah, so it didn't occur to me until some time after logging a number of geocaches last night that my phrasing might not have been the world's most prudent. Spent several hours caching in High Point with my friend Cindy, who used to work with me at the office; she goes by "Cute Chick," and I must say it's an apt handle. It was 97 degrees last night, so we worked up a good sweat even though we were in the air-conditioned car half the time (most of the caches were quick finds, known as "Park and Grabs"). So what do I do to log them but post "Went out for a HOT evening of parking and grabbing with Cute Chick." I hope she doesn't lob a brick at me, but there were too many logs to bother changing, and hey, the wording has a nice ring.

This weekend, I'm on a marathon writing session, trying to finish and polish a very important outline before Monday morning. I'm making good progress, but tomorrow's going to be a full day of it. Past the halfway point this evening, so at least that bodes well for the next big session.

Haven't blogged much lately, so I hope someone's still out there reading occasionally. Don't give up; I'm still alive and caching.

Help! Jack Haringa Must Die!

Lots of things happening/coming out all of a sudden. Help, the anthology to benefit Preditors & Editors in the lawsuit against them by PublishAmerica, et. al., which features my story, "Festival of the Jackal" just came out, as did Nick Kaufmann's Jack Haringa Must Die, which compiles a mess of dead Haringa blog entries, including a little booger titled "Woolly Solution," by this guy. The latest issue of Dark Discoveries magazine (#11) just arrived, along with the special Darker Discoveries chapbook, which includes my short-short, "Megan." A new Cemetery Dance with a new Rainey tale ("The Gaki") will soon be running rampant. And my newest collection, Other Gods, just hit the street in trade paperback format (the lettered and numbered hardback should arrive next month).

This past week, most of my time was devoted to working on an outline for a pretty big project I hope to be undertaking during the next month. Can't divulge details at the moment, but I'll post them if and when the light turns green. Assuming I get the job, I'll be mostly in seclusion for the month of June—except for the weekend of the 13th through 15th, when I'll be in Indianapolis for Mo*Con III.

So, that's it in a nutshell. See you on the other side...

CEMETERY DANCE #59 Is Loose

Cemetery Dance #59 is finally on its way, featuring my story, "The Gaki." The issue's cover art looks mighty fun. Good company, too, except for maybe that Vernon chap from Nova Scotia.

Also just received the latest issue of Dark Discoveries, and the chapbook published as a special-offer "extra," which includes my short-short, "Megan." Beautiful little package, this. Alas, I believe the chapbooks are all sold out, but if you're keen on wheeling and dealing, you might be able to dig one up somewhere. You can check out Dark Discoveries here.

And me, I've been stranded on a desert island for the past couple of days. Well, not exactly stranded, and it wasn't really a desert, but it was an island nonetheless. Camped out with a bunch of friends at Deer Island, on Philpott Lake, Virginia, which is one of the most beautiful sites in the state. Hiked, made fire, piloted a Wave Runner (and didn't fall off, unlike some folks I know), ate well, drank beer, found geocaches.

The latter activity involved tackling some of the most physically challenging terrain I've attempted in years—probably since I was a kid, as a matter of fact. The inclines I encountered were very long and damn near vertical. I did sit down quickly a time or two (which is preferable to slipping over a precipice), and fortunately came out only dirty rather than injured. Happily, the caches were unearthed, the logs signed.

Now it's hard to work on this new project, for there is a deadline, and a tight one.