Halloween, Moving and Circus Freaks

May you live in interesting times

                                                                        --Ancient Chinese Curse/Insult

These past few weeks have been interesting.  Work, home, writing.  It's all been interesting.

First, let me say thank you to all of you who have been reading this blog.  I broke 10,000 hits in the early part of October and that means a lot to me.  I've put a lot into this blog and a lot of you have been very kind with your comments.  It's a big milestone for me.  My goal for celebration is to have t-shirts available soon because everybody needs a Ted's Creepy Van t-shirt.  Maybe I'll have it ready in time for Christmas because it would make for the perfect gift.

But interesting.  Yes.  Good word for it.  

Halloween is here.  I'm too busy to do much.  Maybe I'll dress up a bit but to be perfectly honest, every day is Halloween for me, so when the real day comes along it's a bit like Amateur Night. 

Oh, look at me!  I'm scary!  Boo!

Bitch, please!  I've scared more people just by looking at them than any of these folks could hope to scare. 

But that doesn't go so well when trying to find a date.  That's why the long-distance things always go better--and those just plain suck.  They are awful, soul-crushing things that never work out and destroy your core happiness.  It's best to avoid those.  You'll still sleep alone but at least you won't feel like your head is going to explode because the person you care about is hundreds of miles away.

But then again, I know me.  I'm stupid.  And there are some amazing women I've met online.  

Halloween is my birthday.  I'm 29 again.  I don't feel my age.  In fact, I always wonder why the 18 year-old girls cringe when I hit on them, because I know how awesome I am and how much fun I'd be to date.  I remember when I was 18 and how I wanted to date an 18 year-old back then.  It never happened and I'm still working on it.

I have a new apartment.  I finally moved away from the Circus Freaks who moved furniture around at 4am and vacuumed at 2:30am.  I no longer hear footsteps clomping across the floor at all hours of the night.  I've been sleeping quiet well in the past few days.  Plus, I now have a place I can bring a woman home to, and not have to feel self-conscious that it's a dark dungeon basement.  And nobody will listen in if we get loud.

But yes, the past few weeks have been interesting.  Work has changed a bit.  It's always been chaos and change was the standard.  But lately it seems as if the very nature of it has become more...interesting.

I've found myself becoming an old gossip hag.  It's been wonderful, really.

In the past few years, I've merely gone to work solely for the morbid curiosity.  What foul, fucked-up bullshit will I see today?

But in recent weeks, I've found myself seeking out the full stories so I can get the scope of just how insane things really are around me.  It's been very entertaining!

Sometimes I want to walk around with a bowl of popcorn and just listen to people talk.

I share nothing.  I just listen and ask questions.  I see connections between people even they themselves don't see.  It's all been so very...interesting.

I hope you all have an interesting Halloween.  Make sure to partake in carnal delights for those of us who cannot. 

My Kryptonite

This week gave me a dirty sanchez and a Cleveland steamer.  And while that sounds like fun, it wasn't, and I didn't enjoy it.

Last night I went into the local grocery store to pick up some fruit to munch on.  Fruit is good for you, I'm told, and is fully nummy vitamins.  Plus some of that fiber crap none of us can see but we're supposed to eat a lot of anyways.

But this week has been difficult.  Work, home, everything else in between.  Fruit was supposed to help.

The monsters of Phagorxia had other plans.

They set upon me like hungry jackals.  Just as I got to the apples, three of them sprang up out of the onions and began hammering at me with vicious blows from their broadswords.

I drew my blade in a flash and began to block their attack, moving to a more open area so I could counter and defeat them.  It was supposed to be easy enough, but then in that open space I realize they had friends--vicious dwarfs.

Squat, ugly, hairy little things with greasy black hair and zit-covered faces.  They sneered at me as they climbed on top of the green peppers and butternut squash, which were on sale that week.

The monsters were dispatched quickly and their bodies instantly turned to ash.  But those evil dwarfs...well, they were a problem.

As I said, I was tired.  And those dwarfs began chanting some kind of magical incantation because that's when I noticed the Halloween candy section right in the middle of the bananas and nuts.  Boxes on pallets set out like alien pods on the floor of the grocery store.

I found myself standing in the middle of them, surrounded by these candy pods, all the while these evil dwarf bastards were rubbing their hands together and laughing.  The rotten fuckers had me and they knew it.  This was payback for the time I told the aliens where they were hiding and now the mangy pigfuckers were getting their revenge. 

Behind me was a cardboard pod full of KitKats and Baby Ruths.  Both of those candies were fine, but not my favorites.  It was then I looked down and felt my blood run cold--they were priced at such a discount, I could buy two bags for $2.00 because of my Saver's Card.

There was no way I could resist such a deal.  I was going home with two bags of candy whether I liked it or not.

I thought about my girlfriend.  She's a model and had spent the last few weeks in Italy on a lingerie shoot. She'd be pissed about coming home to a fatter version of me.  Granted, she's a chubby chaser and digs the big love, but having a heart attack while a perfect 10 rocks your world just ain't cool.  Sure, I wouldn't mind dying in the saddle, but not right this week. 

Bag after bag of candy began to hit me.  They were charmed with some diabolical spell and spoke to me in this child-like voice.

"Take me home with you!"

"I just need a home!"

"It's cold here in the store!"

I slashed at the bags as they lept at my cart and towards my face.  They were trying to force their way down my gullet!

I swung my highly polished and razor-sharp sword just as the warrior monks who raised me had taught.  I wouldn't go down without a fight!

Bags of candy were sliced in half as they screamed in terror.  Again and again.  It was endless.  Bag after bag of chocolate goodness was strewn across the floor. 

I was winded and exhausted.  Sweat rolled down my face.  And that's when I heard that voice...

"Don't you like chocolate and peanut butter together?" 

"I just know we'll be great friends!" 

I turned and faced bag after bag of Peanut Butter Snickers.  Fun sized, too.  It was a legion of peanut buttery chocolate goodness. 

The dwarfs were laughing.  They had me beat and knew it. 

Two bags of candy jumped into my cart because that was the limit per purchase.  All the while, they cheered and chirped on the way to the check-out register. 

This is why I'm no longer allowed at the local Piggly Wiggly.  But those candy bars...those sweet, chocolately candy bars were, I'm ashamed to say, so much fun to eat while sitting at my computer. 

Damn you, you foul, evil dwarfs!  This isn't the end! 

Amore Peribat

The funny just isn't coming tonight. 

In fact, The Funny just hasn't been coming for a while.  I don't feel funny and I don't feel like laughing at the misery of others.  This bothersome empathy is really giving me fits. 

Empathy is annoying.  It's a problem some of us humans have when we see somebody having a rough time and we feel badly for them.  I know a sociopath and of all the things I'm envious off, her ability to simply not give a shit about others is top on my list. 

Right now, I seem to be surrounded by all kinds of people going through shit.  Some are dying, some are surviving, some are just plain hurting. 

I see people with smiles on their faces but their eyes say they know it's only temporary and the pain and loneliness they've always been dealing with is right around the corner.  When we're with somebody, loneliness stares at us from the shadows and does push-ups while waiting for their next chance to pounce. 

In the past week I've seen kids way too young to have the health problems of the elderly get sick and fall apart.  I've seen teenaged girls cry because of the pain they've had to endure as their bodies just don't seem to hold up very well. 

There just isn't anything funny going on right now. 


The other day, a woman younger than myself told me that a person her age dating a guy 15 years younger than me was, "gross and just plain wrong."  Up until that point, I was thinking of asking her out. 

It's beautiful here in Southern Wisconsin right now.  The leaves are changing, the weather has been great and it's just been plain wonderful to be outside.  If you don't like this time of year with this kind of weather, then you just don't like anything. 

But I can't sleep.  I've been going days with just an hour or so of sleep a night.  And then I crash for hours and wake up feeling like somebody beat me up in my sleep with a baseball bat. 

I've been waking up angry. 

I'm supposed to be boxing things up and cleaning so I can move.  I haven't done much.  I come home exhausted and desperate to just unplug and decompress.  I'm getting nothing done. 

Nothing has been written in a couple of weeks. 

A few days ago was my daughter's 14th birthday.  I blanked it out.  The day before, I knew what it was, so I told my brain that it needed to function on all cylinders so block it out.  I'm good at that. 

I've blocked out all kinds of atrocities.  I blink and heal my brain with my mind-tools.  Or whatever Charlie Sheen is supposed to have said. 

Work has been ugly but I'm getting through it.  The worst part about it has been been my growing popularity.  The other day a girl greeted me with a hug.  A hug!  It short-circuited something in my brain.  I thought, why can't you just be intimidated by me and afraid like all the others? 

It certainly makes things easier for me. 

Today, somebody felt comfortable enough with me to break down crying and tell me about her feelings.  Ugh!  And somehow we ended up discussing lady medicine for lady parts during those lady times.  It was almost as uncomfortable as the thought of my mother finding my web browsing history. 

The other day a friend told me about the times she's been sexually abused and assaulted.  And there was nothing I could do but offer pithy catchphrases and fumble through empathetic blithering because there was absolutely nothing I could do and I felt horribly inadequate because of it.  I could not undo her trauma and I could not fix the damage.  All I could do was be a fucking cheerleader on the sidelines. 

It's currently 3:00am.  I might sleep a few hours tonight, or this morning, before dragging my ass to work.  It is with morbid curiosity I show up at all.  Maybe I'll find something to laugh about.  I hope I get this pesky empathy under control, though. 

REVIEW: Lucky's Girl by William Holloway

Cosmic horror isn't always easy to pull off.  The stories get convoluted and writers tend to focus on insanity more and character development less.  William Holloway does it right. 

The novel Lucky's Girl is really the story of people living hopeless lives Michigan's Upper Peninsula.  The UP is one of America's poorest areas where unemployment, alcoholism and addiction run rampant.  It's a place where hope is hard to find or non-existent, and the area is ripe with potential for con-men and charlatans. 

In the dying town of Elton Township, the lives of various people collide in the misery of all that malaise. 

Lucky is the guy we all wish we could be in some way.  He's more than just charming, he's mesmerizing and can put somebody under his spell.  His father, the Reverend of the local church in Elton Township, had high hopes for his son.  In fact, some whispered he was a prophet. 

But this isn't a happy tale.  Holloway's novel isn't about happiness.  Lucky is a dark figure that nobody recognizes for what he is until it's too late. 

Kenny was Lucky's best friend until something happens that makes Kenny realize just how dark his best friend truly was and how evil were his intentions.  But Kenny was a product of Elton Township and even though he left all of that behind, twenty years later he finds himself back at his uncle's cabin with two traumatized children. 

Jerry was is fat, drunken cop that might die before he retires, or is forced into retirement because the poor township can't afford to pay his salary.  Even twenty years ago, he was a fat drunk, but he was present enough to know Lucky was evil.  And now Lucky has come back. 

Holloway does an amazing job illustrating how important hope is for a community and how the complete lack of it can be a great weapon to be used by Evil.  His characters are believable and fresh, their actions are their own and the events that unfold are original.  Most of these cosmic horror stories are the same but not this one.  This has a certain crispness to it I really appreciated. 

More to the point, I honestly felt the horror and felt bad for the characters.  It's been a while since I read a story where I cared about the people and in Lucky's Girl, I found myself empathizing with them. 

In the final events, I really understood exactly what Holloway was describing, which is very difficult to do in cosmic horror.  Holloway's writing is spot-on and exacting, making the impact of this book far more powerful and ultimately, enjoyable. 

I can see this book being nominated for a number of awards.  It really is that good.  I would say it's a must-read for horror hounds and anybody who likes that feeling you get when you turn off the lights and wonder what waits in the shadows. 

Toe Aroma!

I guess it's time I tell this story. 

It's a dumb one, I'll grant you, but still...I just can't resist. 

Back when I was a kid, magazines were how we got our porn.  Sometimes my friend's dad would leave one behind and while his parents were out we'd watch it for a bit.  That was big news back then.  The VCRs were all 80 lbs and huge.  Only one store in town had tapes.  Half the store was BETA, the other half VHS.  There was one small section for video disks--which is what my dad bought because the technology was crap and it was being phased out, so his great idea was to buy into it as it became obsolete.  Great deals to be found in dying, obsolete technology! 

But when I was a freshman in high school, I worked at a news and magazine store.  They had porn magazines in the back.  Once in a while, I'd sneak through and borrow a couple.  Because I had to be quick, I never really looked at what I was taking, and wouldn't know until I got home to see the score. 

One time I accidentally grabbed a fetish magazine about foot and nylon fetishes.  It was called Leg Show and let me say this--it was the funniest damn thing I'd read in a long time.

Pictures of women's feet and legs.  Pages and pages of feet.

I didn't get it.  I didn't get any of it.

There were pictures of fat, hairy guys being stood on by women in heels.  And they were ugly women, too.  The kind that hang out in those shitty old people's bars and wear tons of make-up.  These women were in their 40's and 50's and dressed in early 1960's styles.  One had a woman sucking her own toes.

My friends and I had a great laugh about this.  We'd drag our feet through the hallways at school and say we were jacking off.  We didn't have a clue and that made it all the funnier to us.  One time, Mrs. Wade in math class asked us why we kept shuffling our feet while we sat at our desks.  We couldn't stop laughing the rest of the hour. 

But the cartoons were the best.  This magazine had cartoons of leg teasing and foot fetish fantasies.  One of these had a woman teasing some guy in a city park and at one point, he sniffs the air and then looks down at her feet while exlaiming, "Toe Aroma!"

Toe Aroma!

The cartoonist even drew a picture of the women's toes with those little squiggly lines coming off because apparently they stunk.  And this guy was totally digging that so much, he had to exclaim, "Toe Aroma!"

That became our battle cry in high school for a while.  Toe Aroma!

Have a bad day?  Toe Aroma!

Teacher was stupid?  Toe Aroma!

That girl I had a crush on was making faces at me like I was the most disgusting piece of shit she'd ever seen?  Toe Aroma!

After a while, the fun stopped and we moved on to other things, mainly because we were getting our driver's licenses soon.  That sort of inside humor never lasts long anyway.

But every once in a while, I feel the need to exclaim loudly, "Toe Aroma!"

Life is absurd and makes no sense.  Toe Aroma!

The people we fall in love with are terrible for us and the ones we cannot stand care about us.  Toe Aroma!

The more you care about somebody, the worse they are for you.  Toe Aroma!

We work stupid jobs that really shouldn't be jobs that pay money.  Telemarketer?  That can't possibly be profitable.  You call people all day and annoy them while giving your company a bad reputation as annoying and intrusive?  Toe Aroma!

The people you want to throttle and slap the shit out of the most are the ones who offer the most to lose.  Toe Aroma!

Maybe that was our version of Douglas Adams Hitchhikers series.   Our need for surreal humor just so we could get through the horrors of being trapped in a Catholic high school surrounded by snobby shitheads who had known each other since kindergarten.  Myself and only a few others were new to that system and would never fit in.  We needed something so our brains didn't explode. 

Shouting gibberish out of a porn magazine seemed to really do the trick. 

So I'll leave you with that truth--when things are stupid and don't make sense, shout, "Toe Aroma!"  It won't help anything be more easily understood but it will help you not care. 

And as I get older, not caring is just as important as understanding. 

Toe Aroma! 

The Secrets to a Successful and Fun Wedding

This weekend I performed my first wedding.

It was an honor and a privilege to have been asked and trusted enough to do such a thing.  In truth, things went off with barely a hitch.  The bride and groom looked great, their families were awesome to meet and get to know better, the weather was far better than predicted.  We were supposed to get a bunch of wicked storms and aside from a brief sprinkle in the morning, it was dry and we had blue skies by the early afternoon.

All told, the wedding and reception were both excellent.

As for my role in this affair, I judge my successes in life through the eyes of others.  I always have.  So while I'm very critical of what I did and did not do, the others who were there said it went off very well.  Short, sweet, and to the point. 

I cut a lot out of my little sermon.  It was hot and humid, we got a late start, and the groom was so nervous it seemed almost cruel to prolong the event.  So I cut it short, said the words and BANG!  Two people were legally married in the State of Wisconsin.

But it wasn't the wedding I wanted to perform.


First of all, there was no mention of Satan, Lord Lucifer, The Ancient Serpent Deceiver anywhere in the entire ceremony.  I couldn't mention him because the bride said her family would freak.  Why, I have no idea.  They seemed cool enough.

The groom's family were all ministers themselves and I was certain they would totally respect another man of faith, regardless of where that faith was placed.  I mean, worship is worship, right?

Second, I wasn't allowed to use a pentagram anywhere in the wedding.  That didn't stop me for hiding one someplace.  I mean, tradition is tradition, and a wedding without tradition just won't do! 

Thirdly, everybody looked great.  The bride, the groom, the bridesmaids and groomsmen.  Everybody looked good.  Even I wore clothes.  Frankly, I thought it should have been a skyclad wedding.  It was hot anyways, so why not?  A bunch of naked people during an emotionally-charged religious ceremony is always a good idea.  Always.  And if we had taken the drugs I'd suggested, even better.

But nooo!  I had to wear clothes.  Pants, too.  And not the goat leggings I had picked out.  To be fair, I looked great in my suit, but the goat leggings would have offered a certain authenticity to the whole affair.  Besides, had the ceremony been held at midnight around a bonfire, we could have done the Goat Dance around the fire while wearing our goat leggings.

If you've never seen a bunch of naked people wearing nothing but goat leggings do the Goat Dance around a bonfire at midnight, you've lead a sheltered life and I feel sorry for you. 

We never had the blood fountain set up.  A blood fountain is critical in a wedding.  It represents all the blood of your future enemies that will fertilize your wealth and prosperity as you slice, hack, and rampage your path through life together.  By washing your hands in the blood and laying your hands on each other, the couple shows their zealous devotion to each other and willingness to lay waste to all enemies that come between them.  This is also why having a naked wedding is best.  This way that pretty white dress doesn't get blood stains all over, which granted would look fucking awesome, but blood stains are hard to get out of certain materials.

To the best of my knowledge, none of us did a round or two of heavy drugs before the ceremony.  Frankly, I don't understand this choice.  Even magic brownies would have helped calm folks down.  But full-on hallucinations while making a life-changing decision are important and needed, because only when you see black and purple rats crawling on the guests can you truly understand what life is really about. 

But nooooo!  No heavy drugs.  None.  In fact, I think a few of the key people were even sober.  The horror of it all!

Skipping over the fact the bride AND groom both stood there on their own volition, and neither of them needed persuasion with firearms, knives, rope or any pointy implements, they both seemed to genuinely care about each other.  She was even conscious during the whole thing.  Horrible, horrible.

They even omitted the dozen little persons in robes carrying torches to open the ceremony.  What's a wedding without torches?  

Perhaps the most glaring deletion from the whole stripped-down affair was the lack of a goat sacrifice.  In fact, that was what people first asked about.

"Where's the goat sacrifice?"

"Lucifer will never bless with wedding now!"

"That alter sure looks bare without the entrails decorating it!"

And all I could do was shrug my shoulders and say, "I know, I know...let's just get through this, okay?"

The important thing to keep in mind about this weekend is how the bride and groom were happy to make due with what they had instead of allowing me to give them the full-on ceremony such a commitment deserves.  Their wonderfully normal families were happy, too.

And talk about normal!  Nobody pulled a single gun during the entire thing.  Nobody showed up drunk, covered in blood or smelling of feces.  In fact, they looked happy to be there.  Happy!  A hot, muggy August day, sober and wearing clothes.  And they were happy!

I'm going to put this horrid affair behind me and prepare for the next one coming up.  I have already informed the next bride that we fully expect the cops to arrive several times during this event and to have a lawyer on retainer.  I'm not taking any more chances with these kinds of things.

An Honor and a Pleasure

In recent weeks I've been given a number of unpublished works to beta read by friends.  A few short stories and a couple of novels. 

For those unfamiliar with the term, Beta Reading is when you read and edit something for a writer and offer your opinions on the craft of their work.  It takes time to do it right.  You can't just read it, send them an e-mail and say, "yeah, that was great.  Send it to somebody." 

It takes time to properly beta read something.  It takes thought and effort.  I've been fortunate enough to have had a few friends do this for me over the years.  One is sort of my lucky charm because everything I've gotten accepted has been beta read by her at some point.  I consider her to be a Station of the Cross. 

I've come to realize that having somebody trust you enough to allow you to not only read their work before it's been submitted, but also solicit opinions on that work, is really an honor.  It means they respect you enough to actually care what you think. 

So in recent weeks I've been beta reading novels.  I just finished one and last night I started another.  It's an exciting feeling because I get to see how the process works for others.  Plus, it has made me think more about my own work and how I would like to approach it. 

In other news, I'm totally over-worked between my paying job, chores, writing and editing.  I need a TedSpawn.  And since volunteer hosts have not come forward as I had expected, I'm going to opt for the conscription plan.  Hosts will be drafted into service to the Van. 

The aliens that come to visit me regularly have already said it was a bad idea.  But they also added that they'd allow me to borrow their spaceship and equipment to make it happen out of their own morbid curiosity.  One even said he'd hold my beer while I worked the controls. 

You just can't buy friendship like that. 

Some of you expecting mothers might be worried that your baby is in fact a TedSpawn.  This is entirely possible so let me answer some of your questions. 


How do I know if I'm carrying my baby or a TedSpawn? 

Typically, hosting a TedSpawn brings nightmares and unusual cravings at night.  Do you crave raw beef? 

Also, if the baby inside is kicking, does watching a horror movie calm it down?  If so, you might be carrying a TedSpawn. 


If I'm carrying a TedSpawn, does that mean you'll cover my medical bills? 

Why go to a hospital?  They'll just chew their way out in 7-9 months anyways.  It's not like I'd risk some doctor botching things up for me again. 


If any of you expecting mothers have any other questions, feel free to post them in the comments and I'll answer them as I get time.