THE POLAROID and the story that goes with it

1/1/11 1008 pm

I took a Creative Writing class while I was attending Brookdale Community College. I had taken another of the professor Gene Snyder's classes the previous year, in Literature of the Occult. I went into the class with my wife, who was then just my fiancee, and we went together to class, into Snyder's workshop, not sure of what to expect.

So, it was pretty simple, it seemed. All we had to do was write, a roomful of us, less than 20 including Gene, but I recognized a gentleman from seeing him at my job on a regular basis. His name was Dick Herman, and he was one of my regulars, and he knew me as the smiling servant of the restaurant industry. Inside the cutout room of the new annex he learned a little bit more about me than I think he had reckoned for.

Up to that point in my life, I was writing sporadically, I knew I enjoyed it but it wasn't something I really pursued but the class allowed me a certain measure of focus on the act of creation. I went home after the first or second class, when we had the assignment of writing something, anything, but a lightbulb burst above my head, it heated up so fast. Frantically I created something readable, I had hoped; I never really ever had given others the pleasure of reading what I wrote, unless you were a teacher or something. But in the class, we would be assigned the first drafts of what everyone came up with, and we'd make our way through critiquing each other.

So I wrote something kinda terrible. Maybe a little grammatically awkward (I insisted on writing it in the present tense) but, just kinda awful in a bad way from start to finish. But that wasn't what I set out to do. I just wanted to create a narrative and exploit my characters, just to see what would happen. So I worked at it until I was happy, and due to my name being near the front of the alphabet, I think the third story read and critiqued was mine. I called it 'The Polaroid.' I will copy and paste it following the body of this introduction.

The class reacted somewhat unexpectedly to what I had written. It seemed like I upset a lot of people, students who were moms and shouldn't have been forced to have pornography around their children, filth assigned to them to read. My work was reduced to two words, scrawled across the front of her copy. One of the middle aged middle classed moms who wanted to write flowery romantic fiction. It said 'PURE PORN.'

I didn't set out to write porn, but the class, they fixated on the sex and violence, and the way they were united, the way I wrote it. There were some creepers in that class too, who seemed to enjoy it a little too much. And so they argued throughout most of the time they spent tearing apart my story. Some of them were deeply offended, and I just didn't know what to say.

My friend Dick, the one who I had served breakfast to for like three years, he says I'm like some kind of secret pervert who never lets on how perverted he really is. He interacted differently with me from that point on, that was for certain. And some people dropped the course right after that. I don't know if it was because of me. Maybe they didn't feel creative.

But Gene dug it and he encouraged me to run with it, so I wrote another story in that class, and then went on to begin developing visions of an opus work entitled 'The Leper Meditations,' which I labored on for a few years. Gene invited me to join one of his writing workshops outside of class like but I didn't have the cash or the fearlessness to study with the old guy. I have one of his books in my library, the 'Ogden Enigma,' I think. He wrote some cool stuff, crazy scifi action, and it was in general a pretty great experience for me, and I got an easy A in the class (or was Brookdale still on the check plus or minus grading system?). I began to write more feverishly, producing strange media like fliers and booklets, scissors and glue cut and paste editing. I guess Gene allowed me to use the tools in my arsenal to carve out something ugly for people to look at, like they've done something wrong, and that's what I was trying to capture with my writing in general and this story in particular. So presenting, my first foray into the world of transgressive fiction, 'The Polaroid,' (and I fixed the tense after all). Please be advised that there is some graphic depictions in this piece, so I ask if maybe you shouldn't be reading stuff like this, well, maybe you shouldn't be. Like you Mom, maybe skip this one. I'd hate to have you react negatively to such fiction that I made. Thanks!!

THE POLAROID

The shrill tone of the telephone pulled me from my trance devotion to the TV set in the middle of the living room. I picked the receiver up out of the cradle and pressed it to my ear.

"Hello?"

"Hey Paul, what's up?" Eric's painfully sarcastic tone responded back. Fuck, anyone but him.

"Oh, hey I'm just watchin' some TV with my old man." I glanced over at my father, fully reclined basking in the cathode glare. The mention of his existence didn't stir him. He was as oblivious as ever.

"You're such a fucking pussy, Paul. Fucking Friday night, and you're spending quality time with your daddy. That's sweeter than shit. You ladies resting from doing each other's nails?"

"Look, dude, what do you want? I'm not supposed to be tying up the line right now, he's waiting for a call," Eric could probably tell I was lying, but I was willing to try anything to get out of this conversation. Whenever Eric calls me late in the evening, it usually turns out to be something humiliating, dangerous, or illegal.

"Well, before I let you get back to your Fantasy Island reruns, listen for a second. Meet me behind the Methodist church in the parking lot at midnight, and wear something dark."

"No, I can't," I said.

"Be there, and don't be late. You know better than that, don't you, Paul?" It was a commonly used threat on Eric's part, but it was one that usually worked. He had enough shit on me to get me in serious-ass trouble with a lot of people, even though he had a hand in all of it. If Mayor Hamilton ever found out what we did to his daughter Kayla and their golden retriever Lucky, we'd probably both be in jail right now, with new assholes torn into us courtesy of the Mayor.

What in the hell did Eric want tonight?

He's not what you would call one of my best friends; of course, I really don't have many of those anyway. We grew up together as neighbors, and seeing that we were both total losers, we had to stick together out of necessity to avoid as many ass beatings and tortures as possible from the other kids around town. When we hit puberty, I pretty much stayed the same quiet nobody, whereas he changed. He started hanging out with all the older local heads and fuck-ups (a lot of the same guys who made Eric drink his own piss out of a soda can when he was eight). He picked up all their mannerisms and habits, all the dope and fucking around and being destructive to all those around them. He still occasionally hung around with me, when they weren't around, but I think our quality time together was used for Eric to be as sadistic to me like Rooster and those guys were to him. One good thing about him, though: he turned me on to pot and its many joys. He would usually supply me with weed he had scored from the local schwag dealers here in town. I'd almost always have to beg him for some, though, and getting high with Eric always carried a price. He liked playing subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) head games and fucking with me hard, tricking me into doing things I wouldn't normally do. He has that effect on me.

I sat in my room, occasionally leaning out the window to hotbox a cigarette, listening to old Black Sabbath records I stole off my old man. 11:45 came soon, and I failed to convince myself that I should go meet him at the church. I crept out into the living room to check on my dad. He was as I expected to find him, snoring away, his can of Busch still cradled in his fingers but dribbling out its contents onto the carpet, filling the room with its heady smell. I snuck out the back door and zipped up my black army jacket, and headed for the church.

I could see Eric standing in the misty shadows behind the church, a thin specter lurking there. I saw his nervous face checking to make sure it was me. As I reached him, he handed me a lit joint.

"Here you go, but don't fuckin' slobber all over it, asshole." I put it to my lips and toked deeply, the hot smoke tearing at my throat and lungs. After my fourth or fifth hit, as the J slowly became a blackened roach, I felt like something was terribly wrong, but I'm not quite sure what it was. I felt real high, higher than I've ever been. I wasn't sure if I was making the feeling up in my head. Not sure about anything. Felt real fucking panicked.

"What the fuck is in this shit, Eric?" My heart threw itself repeatedly against my prison cell ribcage. Each beat bounced my body against an unseen wall, I'm not here, but dangling from a long cord in some deep cavern, being jerked to and fro.

I heard from far away, "It's weed, you fuckin' pussy. What the fuck are you talking about?" The sure voice reaffirmed to my rational mind that I was going completely crazy. I looked down into the grass and saw each individual blade wiggle like they were all being pumped alive by electrical current. They all chanted my name over and over, a hypnotic mantra that consumed my consciousness.

A hard shove awakened me from this void. Reality rushes back up into my senses. Eric's stared me in the face angrily. "Jesus Christ, Paul. You never smoked weed laced with embalming fluid before? Fuckin' better than the usual shit I get, don't you think? Rooster took an ounce of this shitty dirtweed and hosed it down with this chemical spray he got from his cousin, said it was fucking embalming fluid. I feel like I'm on real intense acid, don't you, pussy? I thought you were gonna shit your pants just now. That was funny as hell." I felt slightly more in touch now with my mind. At least it was only the fucking pot that made me feel that way.

"All right, you gotta get your head together, man. You better not fuck this up tonight. I ain't getting busted because of a piece of shit like you." He began to pull me along by my coat collar.

"Where are we goin'," I asked him, still unsure of the evening's felony.

"Just doin' a job on this guy here in town. Rooster told me he's gone for the week, went down to Texas to do a run. No alarm, no real close neighbors, no one else in the house. Not even a fucking watchdog. We're in and we're fucking out, as long as you don't trip over your own dick."

"What do you need me for, then?"

"Shit, bitch, you just gotta help me carry out the goddamn loot. Rooster said he's got two motherfuckin' kilos of coke in there. If we score that, Rooster said he's give me a good cut of it. I'll be fuckin' set." Eric beamed, like a normal kid would if he made the honor roll.

"What am I going to get out of it?" Sure as hell want a piece of something, too, considering I'm an accessory to breaking into this dude's house.

He stopped and shot me a pissed-off glare. "Don't you fuckin' worry about what you're gonna get. We'll see what we can find in there. Maybe we'll find some porno magazines you can keep, huh? Just keep your mouth shut right now. I gotta think." His pace quickened; I struggled to keep up with him. He was nervous, anxious, jumpy; his gestures and tone of voice were aggravated. I looked him over, analyzing him as we walked through the back yards and over the fences in the darkness of night. He was usually residing in a more lethargic position, bordering on coma, sadistic on occasion as he felt fit. But tonight he's fucking on, like a light switch. Is it that fucked-up weed, I wonder. Or is it because of what we're about to do?

He stopped right in front of me and I bumped into his back. He pointed to the house that is our destination, just your average suburban stoner crash pad. Looks like it could've been a nice place at one time in its existence. We dodged various obstacles like chunks of dead cars and demolished doghouses as we crept through the unkempt backyard. Not a light is on in the house; the moon glares back at us from every pane. Eric paused on the back porch, glanced around, and put his elbow through the window on the door. The shatter was brief but loud, making me spin my vision to make sure no one noticed the crash in the quiet air. Eric fished his hand through and fumbled with the inside lock, then swung it open.

"Ladies first, bitch," he said, shoving me in. "I forgot to bring you a pair of gloves, so try not to touch anything in here, or else it's your ass." His work-gloved hand pulled a heavy yellow flashlight out of his pocket and flicked it on. Aimed the beam at me. "What are you waiting for, man? Start fuckin' looking. We ain't got all fuckin' night." He wandered upstairs as I headed for the living room.

It was so quiet in there it made my ears ache. I felt tense, fighting the urge growing that told me to run home and forget about this place and Eric. I really didn't want to snoop through this guy's shit, but I especially didn't want to leave my prints on anything. I pulled on a dangling light switch that illuminated the living room. Walked over to look at the dude's record collection that was in the corner, on the side of the speaker cabinet. Taking care to wrap my hands inside my t-shir,t I thumbed through the dusty crate. One album caught my eye, an old King Crimson record that had a painting of some guy's screaming face close-up on the sleeve. I dropped it back into the slot where I found it, and weny to pick out another one when I saw two plastic wrapped bricks nestled in between the crate and the wall, smashed in there out of sight. The son of a bitch probably thought nobody'd find his two fucking kilos of coke back here. I ran out of the room to go tell Eric.

Things got real fucked-up when I found the room he was in, and I looked down and saw some guy crouching in the corner, about to spring upon these intruders. Right before he leaped, I noticed he doesn't have anything in his hands, no knife, no heavy weight or bludgeon, must have thought he was some kind of hardass.

Then I started to scream, cause I was scared out of my fucking mind.

"What the fuck you doing yelling Paul somebody's gonna-" that was all he got out before the guy tackled him like a football player, snapping Eric's head back to smack loudly on the floor. The flashlight he had flew up in the air, spinning its shine everywhere. It landed on the carpet, pointing at them wrestling on the carpet. I picked it up so I could aim it better at them, to view the struggle. They fought like rabid dogs. The man was clearly dominating Eric, landing punches and headbutts onto his face, pressing his weight down on Eric's scrawny frame. The sick motherfucker actually stuck his head down face to face with him and bit down on lip, taking a piece of Eric's bottom one, exposing his clenched teeth before spraying blood upwards into his face. The shower distracted him for a moment as Eric's hands worked their way up and started gouging wildly at the man's eyes, as his left index caught under an eyelid, pulling hard away from his face, scrapes of skin getting caught under the fingernails, both figures bleeding freely. The guy started to scream and yell and began to drive knee after knee into Eric's balls. Eric answered back with a deafening response of his own.

"Fucking Paul, man, help me. HELP ME!" His voice was cracking and pained. I just couldn't seem to tear myself away from viewing this violent ballet that was taking place before me. Of course, I did realize that when this guy was finished with Eric, which looked like soon, he was gonna come after me. I swung the flashlight, hard, into the man's face, catching him in the mouth and on the chin. The impact crumbled his teeth as they broke apart like chalk, tearing into his tongue, which was poking out viewing the spectacle. I tugged the flashlight away as the red provided an overwhelming contrast to the yellow handle. The next blow fell upon his right eye. After that, every subsequent hit blurred together in my mind, a slowly unfolding montage of brutality that I was the star of. I realize he was not moving anymore. I was soaked with his blood.

"Hey motherfucker, say cheese," it was Eric, a flash of light that for a second exposed the mess that I had created there, then the brightness was gone the second it left, submerging the room in darkness again. I was disoriented, like before when I first got high, not sure where I am. Eric found the light switch as finally the light came back. I wished it had stayed dark in there. I was not hallucinating. This was really happening. Eric stood there stupidly cruel, a big black Polaroid camera in his hands. He must have had time to collect himself and find it in the room as I killed the guy. Blood was still running down his chin, but he didn't seem to notice.

"Yeah, I must have never told you that I was sort of an amateur photographer. Shit, I could probably get this published in the paper, maybe even on the six o'clock news." He waved the picture in the air to speed up its development. "Exclusive crime scene photograph, catching killer in action. Fucking excellent."

"You asshole, give me that," I demanded as I lunged for him. He pulled back from me as he shoved me away with his free hand. I looked up and caught a glimpse of it, clearly capturing what I had done. Shit.

"Hey Paul, just think of this as insurance in case you ever try to rat me out, you know, we can go and tell the pigs what you did." He had me by the balls. And I fucking saved his ass by killing that guy. I just wanted to fucking kill him right then, just to shut him up. He noticed my anger and put the picture into his pocket.

"You know what, Paul, this gives me a great idea. You take the camera and fire off some pictures of me and our friend over there. I want to have a memento of the occasion, my best buddy's first kill." He pressed the bulky Polaroid into my hands and walked over to the body. He stood over it, apprehensive to touch it outright. "Jesus fucking Christ, you really fucked this guy up, man. My God, he doesn't even have a face anymore. Did you see what this bitch did to me, Paul? Fucking bit me on the lip like he was trying to kiss me! Fucking piece of shit!" He kicked the corpse for good measure.

I looked around the sparsely furnished room. The only decoration was a series of Polaroid photos thumbtacked up on the wall. All are of some empty-eyed, slack-faced chick strung up in a harness, receiving various forms of discipline by a fat, leather-clad dominatrix with long red hair. The tied-up girl with a ball gag in her mouth looks about how I feel. Eric finally lifted the corpse's head and looked closely into its rearranged face.

"Man, this ain't even the guy who lived here, I don't think, it don't really look like him, but how can you tell after what you did to him, huh? Hey dude, smile," he lifted the head close to his and mugged at the camera. I hesitated, then squeezed off the shot.

Eric contorted himself and his friend into various juvenile poses. I kept snapping the pictures, part out of wanting to oblige him so we could get out of here, part growing interest in the macabre, disturbing scene in front of me. I still didn't want him having that one of me.

"I want that goddamn picture, Eric. I don't want anyone finding it. Asshole, listen to me!" I continued to yell at him, but he didn't seem to notice. He was having fun. He giggled like a Mongoloid as he made the limbs dance with his own, shuffling the body along, doing a crude tango. He became a ventriloquist, pulling the jaw to mimic speech, making low-blow, childish cracks about the man's demise and present condition. I dutifully took the pictures, lining one after another against the wall, facing the series across the room.

"Hey Paul, how many pictures you got left?" He made the body stand on its knees but he still had to support it with a steady hand on the shoulder.

"Uh, I think one more," I was very out of touch right then, bordering on what I felt was pure screaming psychosis, a kind of calm before a raging storm. Anything could have happened, and I would have believed it to be true.

"All right then, dude, get a close-up on this one. This is gonna be the keeper." He began unbuckling his jeans, undoing them with one hand. Eric eased them down his hips, trying to shake them off, getting them down far enough to expose his genitals. He grabbed his half-hard cock, pulled it tight from the bottom to make it stiffer, its head veiny and purple. His hand supporting the body shifted, so he held on by the top of the hair, the weight dangling like a heavy pendulum. Eric moved his dick closer, trying to work its way in to the corpse's mouth, through the fragments of jagged teeth, making tiny splatters of blood down his open jeans. The bloody mouth accomadated him, swallowing the sex organ whole. Eric groaned in pleasure, grinding the corpse's mouth closer in mock porno gyrations. I couldn't take it anymore.

I dropped the camera, staring at him in hysterical disbelief.

"Come on, dickhead, pick up the camera. I want a picture of this."

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" I screamed and raged at him, dizzy and insane from the atmosphere in the room. "Look at what you're doing! You're fucking sick, man, SICK SICK SICK!" His expression changed, but not because of my impassioned presentation. He looked down and found his penis gone, not where he had grown accustomed to seeing it for all his life, there was nothing there, just flat skin and pubic hair and a bloody gap where his dick used to be. He saw the corpse's jaw locked firmly in a spasm, separating Eric's penis from him with a row of clashed tight teeth. Blood pumped up to the injured surface, the wound freeing it to splash out down his thighs and the face before him. He let go and the body fell, as Eric fumbled for it.

"Jesus fucking Jesus NO!" One hand clutched his bleeding crotch as the other hand tried to force its way into the corpse's mouth, looking for his lost cock.

"Oh Paul please fucking help me Paul please!" I knew right then what I had to do to make the situation better.

The flashlight was sticky from the congealing blood all over it. Still, I used it again, with a much more methodical fashion than before. Firm, strong, direct strokes, all upon Eric's crying face, special attention paid to every important area. I really put myself into it the second time around. Eric looked worse than the other guy.

He really deserved it. I was tired of the way he treated me. He wouldn't be able to fuck with me anymore.

I bent over and pulled my picture out of Eric's pocket. It was all bent up and wrinkled and bloody, but I didn't want to leave it here. I scooped up the rest of the shots that I had lined up against the wall. They were coming with me, as was the last one of the series of the S&M photos, as I realize that those were taken in here also. The trussed-up girl, a close-up of her face contorted in a mixture of pain and ecstasy, smeared with sweat and what looked like shit.

One more thing, though.

There was one picture left in the Polaroid.

The two slack bodies fitted nicely together, like adjacent puzzle pieces as I squeezed them into the frame of the picture, embracing in a post-mortem 69. It was actually kind of erotic, seeing them like that. Maybe I'm more like Eric that I realized.

Flash!

The cops would never figure out what happened here. They would never understand. I wiped off the flashlight and the Polaroid, getting rid of any loose fingerprints I might have left, just in case. That guy will be suprised when he comes home from Texas, won't he? They'll probably put him away for this, considering he wouldn't be able to use his going on a drug run as an alibi. Maybe he will, though, I just don't fucking care. I wanted out of there.

Washed my hands, then went and got that coke. I'll need something to do so as to fill the void now that Eric's gone.

I don't know if I'll miss him or not.

(Here's a happy kitten to help cleanse the mental palate.)

Hope that wasn't too bad!!

sincerely

s bowlin

K GRAVE

It was sometime in 2002 that I wanted to create not just a musical act, but more of a performance art piece set to sound, and I enlisted my friends Jay to join me in the endeavor. By that time I had known Jay since my wife and I moved to Kent, OH, and met a recently transplanted himself Jay, on his own up the street from us. It made sense that we would gravitate towards each other.

Up to that point I think Jay was one of the craziest sons of bitches I'd ever had the pleasure of meeting, outside of random mental cases met casually, Jay was very polite and quick to laugh but he could turn into a madman at the drop of a hat. He'd seize you by the lapel and chant rabid accusations, some practically in tongues, and he was grand in gesture and reaction, a magician without a top hat. The first time he came to visit us in our new apartment, he had brought over a box of wine and once that was gone we were instant friends. He was a visionary and a mad prophet escaped from the desert, part child evangelist gone wild, he could eat a whole BBQ chicken in one sitting, leaving only the bones, and he was an artist, an artist who made maniacal paintings and seemed almost feverish at times. He was very magnetic, and he introduced us to those others who had been drawn into Jay's sideshow machinations. I always felt Jay lacked the pulpit from which he could spread his message, and to supply him with one would be a magical thing.



I decided to create something kinda ugly but highly spiritual out of sound, and feature Jay to tear through the tomato fields in bare feet and a tattered tuxedo. I wanted to forge something hypnotic, but more importantly I wanted to extend outwards to the realms of public spectacle, where we could catapult this lumpy projectile straight at people. I asked Jay to record himself, talking or chanting or even reading, but to try and capture his inherent intensity. Once he gave me the data disc I went to cutting up and asking what I had, with sine waves and primitive samples of Tibetan prayer bowls and church bells. I put together the demo 'Demostration 2002' and christened the project K GRAVE, named for the ketamine fugue state of nothingness, a mindstate I wanted to force people into and to exploit Jay's atavistic tendencies.

Jay was up for it, he was up for anything. By that time we were living in NJ, in separate residences after having roommates together for a time. I found the email address of a local booking agent for shows in our area, mostly hardcore matinees but I wanted to pitch to this guy, so I sent him the demo and the leaflet/flier that we had made, with our manifesto of sorts on it. To my surprise, the booker was into the cdr, he called it 'a soundtrack to a horror film' but every booking fell through, as he didn't think we'd fit on any of the bills he was promoting. I fantasized about traumatizing little hardcore kids with our sonic gruel, but he never offered anything else to us, and sadly we never got a chance to perform live, thus depriving the world of the fierce spectacle of K GRAVE. After a few years Jay moved back to Ohio, where he's into the local produce scene. I had intentions of creating a soundboard of Jayspeak but I never got around to it. I wonder if he ever thinks about how glorious it would have all been, to terrify into submission a room full of faces and to allow Jay to channel some higher energy and perhaps for everyone to have a wonderful mystical experience.

Here is a link to download 'Demonstration 2002' plus, two other pieces recorded post-demo, utilizing Jay's vocal torments: Mediafire Link



Here is the original manifesto:

A CALL TO WITNESS——Within endless circles there is an understanding of a certain protocol, a prototype to uphold, a patent to honor. There may be laws so cosmic that they are nearly invisible in our heads, as silent as a thought, signaling commands. Reptilian brain schemes must be dealt with upon an individual basis, and this thorough double-gloved deprogramming will be accompanied by the wails of paranoid schizophrenic street preachers, the clanging of detuned churchbells, and a very sorrowful greek chorus who sing only in sine waves. K GRAVE are the conductors of this almost unholy symphony. K GRAVE are two individuals who push at the sturdy walls of endurance to blaze new pathways out of the head, and into the skull. Using sound loops and scrapes both primal sounding and foreign, various antiquated effect setups, and a stream of tortured consciousness that flows from the body of the honorable Rev. Avatar, a new strange understanding seems almost attainable. K GRAVE has been delivered from a thornbed of ideas, crosscutting tent revivalism with power electronics and primal scream therapy and performance art and sufi brain training exercises and alphawave thoughbending and gnostic scripture lessons and backwoods witchcraft legends and rabid mid-western upbringing, a sonic cocktail that takes god out of the classroom and sticks him right in your third eye chakra. Let it in.

GREETINGS FROM 1/1/11!! YOUR PILOT WILL SOON BE DOWN TO INTRODUCE HIMSELF

Dedicated to the Holy Reverend Avatar, Jay Coy in all His Holiness, my holy mentor and spiritual brother.

I'm catching on to the BIG CON, all in capital letters.

It makes me feel like I'm onto something big, something huge, something that will finally illuminate the once dark and murky and propel humans through the next evolutionary phase, which will be marked with the onset of almost exclusively telepathic communication.

We will no longer have language to isolate us from each other, there will be no more misunderstanding intentions or unspoken pains, there will open and clear lines of communication, at once traveling down some sort of psychic FIOS connection, the transmission of not clumsy words but honest, true feeling. And feelings cannot be misunderstood in the realm of telepathic communication.

Imagine having no more hang-ups or secret fears or inner esteem issues because everyone you came in contact with could see right through you in an instant as if you were made of glass, and they were free to peruse your memory banks and you could do the same, as well, to them. I think this phase of evolution will lead to more hive/collectivist thinking modules, individuals bound by telepathic tapestry. Others will hide in fear, until they too are found out and explored.

There will be no need for words, only an even exchange. We are bound to make this breakthrough, but there always seems to be some sort of psychic barrier, some obstacle that prevents the mass of humankind to make this progression.

That's the Con, and they are grifting us, through many many methods and devices and signal jammers that force us into their personalized prisons.

We serve time there, life sentences in fact, never knowing we didn't have to remain caged. We could run free, through our dreams in bare feet straight through to the daybreak, through a sleeping world burdened with a blanket of ash covering the civilization. And we make for the edges of the water, away from that cold place, to somewhere more natural.

We are stuck in a mire here, not going any farther. We built words to help us share a common meaning, but those descriptions ricocheted back and stuck in us like jagged projectiles, leaving us labeled and limited by our imaginations and vocabularies.

But we are meant for this leap, and I believe this to be so as seen by the subjective evidence of alien abduction survivors, who speak of psychic probing, but also those beings multidimensional and shapeless, who share their joy and childlike delight out there in the playgrounds of the mind, out there in space somewhere, or maybe just a dimension next door to us. They are all us, in that we share genetic code with these entities, and perhaps what we are dealing with is the possibility that someone in the distant lifespan of the universe discovered the ability to travel backwards and forewords on the tracks that every life seems to be propelled along on, to move sideways in a world full of up and down.

They all communicate straight into your head, and everything is on display. What they do while they're in there is up to them.

Apparently, there is a choice to be made somewhere along the line, some stop before oblivion, before we fall out the back of the train and end up gravel. The choice is mass telepathic convergence, and soon, if we wish to live through a dying machine's final standoff against us, against the slaves who created this crumbling thing.

12/17/46--7/15/09

I am very lucky to have been born into the family that also contained my Aunt Eva, one of the most magical people I have ever encountered. She was alternatively referred to as a witch, a Satanist, a whore, and the life of the party everywhere she went. She took the older kids in the family to haunted houses around Halloween, where my mom had no interest in paying someone money to try and scare you. But Eva seemed to live for thrills and frills, all made up with no where to go, and she was the first woman I ever met who always wore wigs, I don't think I ever saw her natural hair. In the mythology of my childhood she looms large, sometimes through first-hand memory but also through the recollections of others in my family and this has colored my perception of this woman, who passed away in 2009, but is still very alive and vibrant, the aftereffect of a kinda charmed life, maybe even jinxed, but she was certainly an unforgettable character. I would like to share some of my memories, but thinking about only allowing for my stories to be heard provided but one reflection of this woman and who she was, but also to seek out the stories of my sisters and mother, and others who knew her. I haven't decided yet if I want to keep her anonymous to perhaps 'protect' her sanctity but then, the kind of lady she was, I think she'd love the hell out of it if the whole world knew her name. So maybe this is her helping me out with this? Wouldn't be surprised.

I can google my Aunt and I'm amazed at some of the things I've found, due to her being involved in the politics of a small town in Ohio, but there's other stuff too. I found this page called tributes.com and there was her brief obituary. They left out all of the good parts.

I didn't attend her funeral. She passed away in 2009, halfway through the summer. I know I should have, and I regret not seeing her one last time. It had been the summer of 1995 when I last saw her, the summer I fell in love with a beautiful girl; we had a small family get together for the Fourth of July. She seemed as wicked and as full of life as she had always been, even though she had endured some serious health problems but somehow managed to bounce back, and she still smelled the same when I hugged her, a scent I have never smelled before or since but unforgettable in my memory, the smell of sweet flowers wilting in a humid greenhouse.

My Aunt was the first person who demonstrated there may be an alternative to traditional methods of belief and spiritualism. I was raised in a religious family and we went to church every Sunday, and I took to certain sections of the Bible when I was very young, somewhat fanatically. According to some people, my Aunt was a witch, others said she conjured spirits, others say she worshipped the Devil. Honestly, I was too young to really fully understand what she practiced, but it amazed me and enchanted, even when 'bad' things would happen to her, that was as engrossing as hearing about her experiments with leaving tape recorders in graveyards overnight and then playing back EVP's of people moaning and babies crying. There were kid stories I heard about seeing the leftover remnants of rituals, of weird images appearing on the walls of the basement (where I'm assuming most of the rituals took place). Even driving past their house, years after they'd moved out, I would feel a charge, the tiniest voltage of an energy that I could barely process but certainly feel.

I don't know for sure how she grew up, if it was all just rebellion against authority, or if she just liked to shock and awe, because that was part of her repertoire, catching you off guard. Maybe she just made up some of the stories, perhaps fleshed them out to give my aunts and uncles and grandparents a figurative goose. There were tales of possessed Ouija Boards, of ghostly aura photographs depicting the faces of demons. And I know there's so much more that I am not remembering.

I remember my Grandmother recounting of Eva's experience with the Ouija. I think around this time there must have been a wave of popularity for mysticism in general and pop culture magic in particular. Eva had brought a board home, to where she was living with her husband and his parents. Apparently she used it frequently, at once both exploring and consulting, I'd assume. I don't know if you've ever used a Ouija board, but if you have, you know that, unless there's another pair of fingertips on the planchette it's going nowhere on the board. I've tried it in the past and just felt silly, but with two people there is a synergy that enhances the experience. Perhaps Aunt Eva had enough synergy to communicate with the other side, where the dead rest? I don't know. There are many schools of thought on what is happening when you use the Ouija. Maybe it's your subconscious, just telling you what you want to read (actually, I take back my previous statement. A third person is essential for serious Ouija use, as they act as scribe and intrepeter.) My Grandmother believed in evil spirits, and demons, and that a Ouija board was an invitation into your very soul from these tempestuous beings. And apparently, Eva caught the 70's equivalent of a computer virus when one of those evil spirits got in through the open gate and took over the board. Grandma told me in an empty room the planchette would suddenly glide across the surface as you watched from the doorway. The board would be put away for the night, only to be found set up in its regular space the next morning. I don't know what kind of things it told Eva, but it must have been too much for her because she decided it was time to get rid of it.

So, here it gets a little weirder. Grandma said Eva took the board outside and threw it into the burn barrel, only to come back with a gas can and matches. She tried to burn it but the board itself would not blacken or char. Nothing, it seemed, could destroy it or remove it from Eva's life. I don't know where the Ouija board finally ended up, but, as the story went, where the Ouija board had leapt by itself from the firry pit and landed, the grass was different. It left a nuclear mark, killing the grass, an indelible effect upon the blades as they would not be ever growing there again. And that's when Grandma showed me the spot in the yard, and yeah, it did kind of look kind of funny having so much overgrowth surrounding it, this dead patch of ground, and of course I believed it all. Why not believe in a world where there are other forces swirling around us, every day and we barely notice, but sometimes you can find a transistor to tune in a particular signal, to touch something others might label as evil but was perhaps malignantly maligned?

Many years later, as a curious teen, I found myself interested in the Ouija, and I wanted to look past the veil for myself, and this seemed to be the method not only the most commercially accessible but also seemed so taboo. I found that in my experiences certain messages do come through the ether, but I don't know how reliable that information is, since, like, you're seeking advice from a pressed board and a magnifying glass on felt tipped feet. Perhaps there remains a need in us from more primitive times when we still sought the conch of the presences of those who have passed on, ancestor worship reduced to something you can buy at Toys R Us (I think they still sell them there, but I don't think Walmart does.)

There were many odd superstitions I seem to have inherited, and with that birthright I have sought out the energy source of belief, following it back to the source for myself. And its taken me a lifetime, but on my way there she is, my Aunt, as tourguide and flamebearer in the darkness.

So I intend to return to her story from time to time, as I learn more about her and maybe others will come forward to help me tell about her. So try and not be alarmed.

And now, here's the Eagles classic, 'Witchy Woman."

TAKING A BEATING

I remember watching the movie 'Fight Club' and then, later, reading the novel, and that I understood there was redemptive power in the act of fighting, of fighting your way back to pure manhood, the glory of an ass-beating, the promise of freedom through rebellion. But I fixated on that taking a beating part. I felt Jared Leto's cheekbones being smashed in, and I knew there was no glory in that, no redemption.

I think maybe Chuck Palaniuk, or Brad Pitt or Ed Norton for that matter, never have taken a severe ass beating in their experiences. No glory at all. Everyone knows, when it comes to violence, it violates the rules of Christmas and every other ritual gift exchange, because here, giving is much better than receiving. I can still feel what it felt like when I punched my friend Kevin straight in the face, coming out of a hotel bathroom swinging. We were on a high school marching band trip to New York City, all the way from New Middletown, Ohio. And my roommates were engaging in a pillow fight I grew weary of early. I took a shower, came out to a darkened room, and was hit squarely in the face with a stiff pillow shot. I saw stars and punched straight out where Kevin's face happened to be and I felt his nose squish beneath my knuckles and I felt a sick satisfaction in knowing I escalated the action to make the pillow fight cease and ruined the good time with my fist. Everyone went to bed, or else left to go to another room, I don't remember, but I do remember sleeping soundly that night.

So, I know one's better than the other. Because, in a safe environment where you're surrounded by friends and fellows and you want to test the boundaries of your own strength and courage, sometimes you can do that, but most other times, you simply cannot. It will not happen so gently. I've been on the receiving end, one time in particular more worse than any others I can have the resolve to remember, but still somewhat transformative in my teenage psyche. I will recount this for you, despite in its retelling I feel much more the antagonist than I thought I remembered.

It was near Halloween, and the chill in the air of our small town betrayed a fast approaching winter. My sister Linda and I found ourselves gravitating towards the kids up the street, the mishmashed collection of Petersburg's best and brightest miscreants, and for a night somehow joined them in their evening festivities.

Someone said there was a hayride cutting through the outskirts of town. A truck hauling a hayload and a bunch of teenaged kids down black country roads, the kind that surrounded our tiny little town, swallowed up by murk and darkness. But, this wasn't so random of a collection. This was the high school marching band clique that I had been in the band with but never a part of, most of them at least, with their other friends.

And then someone in our group had eggs, cartons of them, and I was enlisted to accompany this ragtag band of egg throwing bandits, an egg in each hand, four or five of us, we took through backyards and alleyways to the edge of Garfield Road, to hide in the shadow of the hill next to the post office. And we waited, but not for long, because we heard the diesel huff of the truck's engine and saw the hayride coming down the street.

Someone said throw, and the eggs sailed through the air, but I hesitated, watching how they did it, and then mine hit the air following, both at once it seemed, and we heard the truck screech stopped. There came another simple command, then, maybe from the same voice. It said Run!

And so I ran, a fat little fourteen year old boy who'd thrown eggs blindly at a group of people, not knowing or caring what they hit. I'm sure it would have been fine if they just hit the street, short of their target. But they wouldn't be stopping if someone hadn't been splattered. We were seen and found ourselves in pursuit, through the small cemetery that was an island between two streets, a small stretch of military graves and ancient headstones that floated there, separated by the larger cemetery a half mile down around the corner. But in the darkness I found myself running faster than I had ever had to run before, and even still I could see my compatriots fading into the distance ahead of me. Maybe I was too concerned with tripping over a grave stone, maybe I was too fat to be chased, but the voices behind me got louder and angrier like a reverse Doppler, until I could feel them on top of me.

I stopped running. I just couldn't anymore. And they came to a stop then, behind me, and I felt the first punch land on the back of my head. It bent me forward, as I tried to cover up the best I could but the punches kept coming, in my back and uppercuts to my face and more punches to my skull, making me see purple sparkles behind my eyelids every time. Three or four dudes, just taking their shots and me, taken to screaming and blubbering and just being their heavybag. I told them I had nothing to do with the egging, that I was their friend, that I was chasing the kids who really did it. I didn't fall down, I don't know how but I knew if I did I could get kicked and stomped and I knew I didn't want that. So I cried a little and begged some and finally they stopped hitting me. They ran away triumphant, while I stood in between graves and refused to believe it was over.

I crept in the shadows to the store only a hundred yards in front of me, the corner store in the middle of town offered a shadowy retreat so I could collect myself and figure out how to get home. It was there where I examined myself to make sure I was intact. And I felt one of the braces connected to a front tooth was loose in my mouth, just spinning on the wire. Nothing else seemed damaged, no teeth actually missing. I didn't have a mirror to see how bad my face looked, but I forgot all about my face when I realized I had pissed my pants.

The pee stain on my crotch ran down my leg in a dark streak, the denim soaked to an inky black against the relief of the faded blue. I guess they hit the piss button in my brain, the one that tells me to go, and I went all right. To make matters worse, the hayride was still going on, this time now with a shared story of a beatdown and what if they caught me creeping home? I did not want that at all. I went down the back alley that ended on the edge of the Presbyterian church and avoided any detection, knowing the hayride couldn't fit down there. I climbed through the fence that separated our yard from the church and went in the front door, where Linda and a bunch of other neighborhood kids were hanging out and watching TV. Linda saw how jacked up I was and I may have began to cry at that point, but I don't remember, but she kicked them all out and drew me a bath and didn't mention the pee stain on the front of my jeans.

So there were many implications in this experience for me. Firstly, I realized I would probably see these guys again in some capacity, since I was still in high school band with them and we lived in an area with a severly small population. I went to church with one of the guys there, so I couldn't really get away from any of them. This was a problem especially since I found out I pee my pants when I get beat up, and did not look forward to peeing my pants in front of people in broad daylight. Secondly, I had escaped this beating with only broken hardware in my mouth, but it would have to be explained to my mother and my orthodontist, and so I decided my cover story was that I had fallen in gravel, thus explaining (I guess? I don't know why I emphasized the gravel part) my damaged braces and any facial discoloration. I also skipped Sunday services, out of fear mostly, and then began to dread going to school the following day.

But I went, and nobody had anything to say, including the kids who'd been throwing eggs with me. It felt like a non-event, and while I did not seek out the people involved with my beating, I don't feel like I was hiding, either. But when the bus dropped me off in front of my house, a car pulled into the alley and stopped in front of me. The window came down, and it was one of the boys who'd been there, I'm not sure if he was one of the punchers, but I knew for sure he'd seen it all.

"Hey Sam, you need to tell Jason Himes to leave us alone." I wasn't sure what Jason had to do with this situation, but I let him continue. "You cracked one kid's tooth and splattered eggs all over someone else, of course they were pissed off. He had to go to the dentist today to get his tooth recapped. But you tell Jason if he lays a hand on any one of us, we're coming back to take it out on you."

For some reason the scariest kid in town had threatened to give out multiple beatings to all guilty parties, Jason Himes, who had once threatened to murder me if I kept fighting with my neighbor Greg, while Jason was on his paper route. That had been two years prior but I was still terrified of him, but had had minor if any contact with him since. But Linda did, I guess. She went and explained what had happened to me, and he became my instant defender. Linda told me all of this, afterwards. For some reason Jason took my case, in a way.

So we existed in a state of detente, and Linda and I took up with Jason and his delinquent ways, the first real 'bad influence' upon us as my Mom would call him. But just know there's a treasure trove of stories about him I could share, but this is about getting a beating and living in the afterlife. The afterlife lingers and flickers and never really goes out, just as a reminder to fight with everything you have when you must absolutely have to. I will never piss my pants in battle again. And if I do take a whipping, I will not be ashamed to tell my Mom that her baby had just been beaten. There is no shame in that.

Shenanigans at Red Robin

A few years ago I had this funny experience that I'm about to tell about and I wanted to write it down and make people laugh like it made the people I'd told it to. I typed it up and asked my friend Evan who writes the blog at Swan Fungus http://www.swanfungus.com, if he'd put it up for me, and of course he did, because he is a sweet boy and has been a great friend for going on eight years now. I was too lazy to bother doing my own blog then, but here we are now, aren't we? Check out Evan's blog, he writes some funny stuff and shares some amazing weirdo music too. So here, in its unedited entirety, is my Red Robin story. Enjoy.

Perhaps there are many of you who have not met my acquaintance, but I’m generally regarded as Evan’s really good looking friend. The shy, sexy type. I look forward to Evan’s daily updates of his blog and am highly entertained by not only his writing talents but also his vomito-philia. I am honored that he’s given me the opportunity to pitch in here, and while I’m on somewhat of a short leash as to my potential content (read: no gross-outs for Mr. Sensitive), I do have an account that I’d like to share about a recent experience.

My day started out so wholesomely. We’d made plans, Lindsey, Donny and I, to spend the afternoon at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I’m very cultured, you see, the kind of upper-crust individual who can appreciate fine works of art just as well as the next upstanding gentleman. It was a little crowded at the museum, as can be expected on a Sunday afternoon, but it did not inhibit my enjoyment of so many delightful exhibits. Satiated in our thirst for fine art, the three of us made our way home to New Jersey.

We decided to stop on our way home to eat at Red Robin. Red Robin, for the unaware, is a sit-down restaurant that sells endless variations on burgers, and they do have a few vegetarian-friendly selections for an herbivore like Donny, who’d never been before, so our meal was just as enjoyable as our afternoon at the Met. The check came, and I said I was gonna take a leak before we hit the road. Donny said he’d probably go as well, but remained sitting as I made my way to the bathroom.

Inside there was a urinal and a stall, and finding both not in use, I opted for the stall. I was pissing away when I heard the door open and someone stepped up to the urinal. I assumed it was Donny, because (a) he had just said he had to pee, and (b) the individual at the urinal was wearing a pair of Converse sneakers, just like Don had on. I could see the shoe plainly from my vantage point, and I decided to mess with my friend just a bit. I stepped down on the white toe of the sneaker, only I left my foot there for an uncomfortable length of seconds.

The shoe pulled out from underneath mine, rather abruptly. And then, nothing. No snotty Donny comment, no “stop being a shithead, Sam.” Nothing but a long awkward silence. I was done peeing by that time, so I turned to peer through the crack between the door and the partition, into the mirror facing us. I saw someone at the urinal, wearing a green vest.
Don wasn’t wearing a green vest that day. I don’t remember what he had on, but that wasn’t it.

I was trapped, horrified at my indiscretion. I’ve enjoyed a lifetime of antagonizing strangers in various fashions, but this was a new low, even for me. I’m not sure if it’s just a NJ thing, or the whole country’s in on it, but there’s a certain, how do you say, protocol for initiating anonymous gay sex acts with strangers in public restrooms. And it generally starts with stepping on your intended’s shoe. So innocent on the surface, yet so resonant with ill intentions.

I’d just cruised my first dude.

Time slowed to a crawl in there while I waited for the sound of a flushing urinal, or the splash of hands washing in the sink. Maybe he didn’t notice me hitting on him. But there was nothing. I cracked the door a little to find myself all alone. He must have made haste in exiting after my invitation.

I was rather embarrassed when I finally came out and recounted the experience to my crew. They died, all but rolling on the floor and drawing even more attention to my guilty conscience. Don finally went to the bathroom and said the kid in the green vest was back in there, apparently to finish the piss he’d stopped mid-stream. I reasoned panickedly that he’d seen me exiting the bathroom and had a face to put on the deviant. I was ready to leave, but Lindsey and Don had a good time drawing it out just to make me suffer. I still owe those bastards. We finally left, much to my relief.

How did I end up this way, I asked myself on the ride home. How did I become That Guy, the creepy stranger who brings an empty shopping bag into the restrooms so someone can stand inside to give the illusion of only one pair of legs in the stall? I can’t even grow a mustache, for goodness’ sake. I’m really not a sicko, I assure you (not that there’s anything wrong with anonymous gay sex). I don’t lurk in the Casual Encounters section on Craigslist looking for penises to put in my mouth. I’m as monogamous as I am heterosexual, which is a lot. But to that bewildered young man, I was a whole battalion of cocksuckers, hungry for load. And I’ll never be able to convince him otherwise. That’s the part that hurts.

Which leads me to the follow-up dilemma: what would I have done if he’d been into it? What if I’d seen his face looking back at me through the gap, eager to crack a nut? That the kind of subject Miss Manners doesn’t have the answer to. Would I had to have let him in the stall? I try to be courteous and conscientious in my day to day, but let’s just say in retrospect I’m pleased he chose to flee, rather than linger.

But not as pleased that I decided not to stand on the toilet and look over the partition to ask Donny what the hell his problem was for not finding my joke funny.

I would have been gaybashed for sure. And, for the first time in the history of gaybashing, I would have had it coming.

http://www.swanfungus.com/2008/04/cruising-at-red-robbin.html

Extreme Championship Wrestling

I would like to dedicate this blog post to my old friend Blaine Davis, who seemed to fall in and out of love with professional wrestling the same as me and my second favorite person to go to live matches with, the first is my wife, sorry Blaine. But you get it better than she does, man

This is about this ECW:


...not this 'ECW':

...but I digress...

I call this story, the time Lindsey took me to an ECW show and it Turned into a Riot, and it is one that I truly cherish whenever it comes to mind, and also one that captures us at a crazy moment in our lives, totally scary but after it's over we pretend like it was nothing major, but I'm getting ahead of myself here. I must start at the beginning. The very beginning.

As a child, I was obsessed with professional wrestling, the first time I really remember a storyline was when the WWF set up the feud with Don Muraco spitting on the Superfly, Jimmy Snuka. My little kid brain was convinced that spitting on someone was just about the most lowdown you got, and the Magnificent One had one coming. Security swarmed the Superfly, trying to hold him back so as to not maul his instant adversary. And sure, I can sit here now and think about watching that on the TV and being hypnotized by the event transfolding, but to me it was magic, magical battling and the eternal struggle of good and evil.



And I adored Mr. Snuka, and soon my whole family knew it because all of a sudden I had a Superfly poster in my bedroom and my brother-in-law Eric was taking me to wrestling matches at the Struthers Fieldhouse, where I watched all those warriors depict the Dramas of the Ages, even as I began to root more for the side of the heels.

So the majority of my lifetime at this point has consisted of an ebb and flow of watching wrestling and pretending it didn't exist anymore. I tuned in and out, for various eras and changes, and by the time my wife and I had moved with our friend Jay to New Jersey, leaving Ohio for the east, I had become a somewhat dedicated fan of the product that ECW was creating out of Philly. This was professional wrestling that had stirred the embers of my burnt out love with my childhood visions of the out of control and the reckless display. I was able to find on one of the local channels in the Kent/Akron area that played the ECW tv shows at two in the morning, purchased as infomercial timeslots but used to showcase the story lines and brutality of the independent federation. Then the guy I worked warehouse with at Gabriel Brothers taped the Barely Legal PPV and lent it to me. The Eliminators made quick work of the Dudleys, Taz is there, against Sabu in a grudge match I do not understand, and Terry Funk sacrificed his body and career to put over a whole gosh darn locker room of rebels and misfits and misunderstood workers who could reinvent themselves. It was so captivating and raw, it felt personal to me, the experience of feeling like a fan of this otherworldly product.

I never got a chance to see a live ECW event in Ohio. I think back then they may have passed through Cleveland but I either didn't know about it or didn't dare venture outwards. But we made the leap to NJ, into moving into a house of three others, plus my wife and I--and I kept taping the late night show because a channel on our cable carried it. But somewhere I found a flier that said they were going to do a house show in Elizabeth, NJ and my heart stopped and I started scheming.

I didn't scheme much. I told Lindsey and she told me she'd take me, so we had to go to Elizabeth to pick up the tickets in person for some reason, I guess it wasn't that kind of show. Had to pick them up in a record store down the street from the place where I saw my first real life pimp, leaning on his pimp mobile, like living the lifestyle or else doing a heck of an impersonation. It was that kind of place. Since then, I have noticed there is a prevalent smell that is exclusively Elizabethian in timbre, unforgettable but that day unnoticed due to the living breathing Diorama of a stereotypical ghetto, and we're just buying tickets on a Sunday night? You have to understand existence in Ohio was somewhat limiting in such otherworldly movie scenes. What I saw was the real thing, and we were going to come back to see ECW in a high school gymnasium. That was daunting. What was also daunting was ECW's penchant for turning the fans' seating areas into warzones, splattering across collapsed folding chairs and delighted fans, but I was not so worldly and didn't think that what I'd been watching could seem too real. I was well old enough to know by then wrestling was arranged, but that was when I realized what these guys put their bodies through to entertain their fans seemed a bit on the mideval side. But I loved it, and wanted to be a part of it like a little boy again, the kid who insisted on watching every Saturday afternoon and then with more and more frequency, hypnotized.

So, we know Elizabeth's kinda scary, but the area we go to is pretty uninhabited and kinda quiet and unlit. And we had to walk a ways to get from the car to the gym, so as we got closer it got louder and once we walked in the smell and the sound and the calibre of the people just about broke one under my nostril. The crowd seemed edgy, not just there to have a good time but there because they were there to see something chaotic and bloody and cathartic. We felt so young and out of place, like real outsiders, but no one seemed to take any notice of us. And then the show started, and everyone's attention was on the ring.

(Believe me, he used to be a serious badass, don't let this picture with Eric Young fool into believing otherwise.)

I can't remember the opening match, it was an obvious squash but still you were unable to take your eyes away. Taz wrestled second or third on the card, which was intense, when Taz was pushed as a badass worker you had to believe he was a cocky, arrogant badass, even though his opponents towered over him at times. I was buying it, at least.

But all in all, the card was wild and crazy but didn't really push the envelope much until the second to the last match. It was a three way dance, with Sabu, the Franchise Shane Douglas, and Tommy Dreamer, who seemed to be replaying the role his mentor Terry Funk played a few years prior in a similar stipulation.

(Replace Funk with Tommy Dreamer and this is kinda what it looked like, and they did not do the triple sleeper routine in homage of that magical matchup.)

It was not that epic battle, no it was more of a smash and grab match of high spots and a down the stairs bump that Tommy Dreamer took down the bleachers, and landed at my feet. He slowly stood, and I asked him if he was all right. "Yeah," was all he said and he cut through the front row to reenter ringside.

(Bleachers like these->)

So, my wife had purchased us second row seats to this thing. I guess general admission would have been all right by me, but she has a hard time seeing at events like this, so I think she wanted to get up close and enjoy it with me. Well, it may have been just a bit too close. I don't know how many rows were set up around the ring, but Dreamer had rolled to a stop at the second row, through tipped chairs and a tangle of legs and bodies of people who were too entranced to move out of the way. But he was fine, and they worked the finish, and I couldn't tell you who won. Honestly the whole spectacle of it all wiped that memory away.

I do remember, though, a tenseness passing through the crowd when they knew which match was left: the Dudleys versus the newly cobbled team of the Gangstanators, formed from the leftovers of two great teams whose missing members had moved on from the Philadelphia federation. I was not so naive to believe even then that this match would be anything but chaotic, but I guess I really didn't put myself fully into the situation.
The whole Dudley entourage came out and did their pre-match routine, taking turns on the microphone to bait the hot crowd ever further. I think at that time they were finally coming into a gimmick that seemed to veer from their comedy roles they had played in ECW and were becoming serious heels who drew heat. As much as I admire him now, I hated Joel Gertner and how smug and self-assured he was. He was an unheralded genius as the team's, what, personal announcer? He was great later on the product's commentary but he had that window to say such angering things. And they were so smug, so smug to make you boo them even harder, and then a sound blared over the PA system, a sound of breaking glass that was unmistakably the first few seconds of New Jack's entrance music.

Dre's sliding synth would kick in and you'd hear the approach before you saw New Jack


and John Kronus

coming down the entrance, through the exploding crowd.

It wasn't a wrestling match, in any sense of definition. It was World War Three, all in capital letters, the sensory overload of the men attacking each other with big swinging fists in every seeming direction as it spread from the ring to the floor, and from the ringside area it kicked over the barricade and entered the fans' space. And you had to move as the crowd surged, we were so tightly packed from the seats behind us that had gotten collapsed into the sea of chairs covering the gymnasium floor. We held our own the best we could, knowing it would have been somewhat unsafe attempting to weave through the crowd. Bodies would part and Big Dick Dudley was beating Kronus with his crutch, full overhead swings that went wild through people. More than one person was already bleeding, and there was blood on the floor, red on yellow, just feet before me.

(Imagine blood all over this.)

And Natural Born Killaz kept playing, kept looping through the PA. It never stopped. It was the team's sole introduction and kept tensions high with electronic beats and shrill treble making everything vibrate. I looked to the ring and saw New Jack with what looked like was an X-Acto knife that he was using to carve the forehead of Bubba Dudley, forgoing any code of kayfabe and allowing the crowd to see the real bloodshed that disregarded any trade secret. He held him in the corner and worked at a wad of scar tissue until it flowed like a spigot. Things just seemed to be in the stages of collapse, and the crowd fed off the blood sacrifices on offer and became enraged, almost hostile as a form of worship. I began to fear for our safety. The security on hand were there in some unknown capacity, mainly to move the crowd out of the way when they would do their crowd spots, but in this melee, they seemed to be feeding. Less than an arm's length away a security guard had seized a kid, maybe 14 years old, and put him in a front facelock, similar to the chokehold Taz would use as his finish. But this kid's limbs were flailing and when I realized security had no intention of protecting the crowd, Lindsey and I seemed to agree telepathically, and then verbally confirmed, that leaving would probably be a good idea. Somehow we began weaving, desperate not to trip on a chair or a fallen wrestler. We cut back then across the gap between the crowd and the now empty bleachers. At the door of the gymnasium, I looked back, like Lot's wife, and while I did not turn into a pillar a salt I took a mental Polaroid of the chaotic carnage we were leaving behind. Natural Born Killaz was still playing and nothing could be seen but surging crowd.

Walking briskly back to the car, suddenly the shadowy streets of Elizabeth were not so easily fearful, even getting lost coming home did not phase me. But every time after that, I watched the shows and PPV's with a certain reverence, like I had shared in this thing they were fashioning for themselves, a kind of wrestling program that wasn't family friendly but rather an edgy alternative to staleness in the industry. They would go on, all of them, to change the business of wrestling in many ways, changes for the better and worse, but none so intense as the first time. There was a rise and fall to its history, and several attempted reinventions, but you have to deal with the law of diminishing returns here.

A few months later, I had heard of them doing a card in Woodbridge, a closer area to our home, a place we were somewhat familiar with, and we got tickets. In General Admission, for the better for everyone involved. In that short span of time the fire of ECW kept getting hotter, and the crowd was bigger but also a little younger, and just as vile and vulgar and just epic was the product. Maybe you gotta be up close to really feel the heat. All I remember is that New Jack had a singles match against Bam Bam Bigelow, and by that time he was the foreign object guy, something you could label and then so somehow contain it easier. But we still got up and sat in the back for the match. Lindsey wouldn't even look at the ring while New Jack was out there, just staring at her shoes.

This poor girl, I thought, I've scarred her forever. But she loved me enough to bring me back and even took me to a WWF show the next year, in stadium seating that was safely attached to the floor. And we've been to several Ring of Honor shows in Edison as well, I don't know if she realizes just how amazing the matches we saw were, but the first ROH she got us second row seats that happened to be on the rail on the entrance ramp, and she wanted to touch them as they walked by and got mad when Austin Aries punched her outstretched hand.

One show we went to, she had decided to get up and go out of the Inman Arena and moments later, American Dragon Brian Danielson pitched Samoa Joe into our section, and went back into the ring for a suicide flip straight into the mess of crowd with Joe at it's center. On his way down he full on kicked this girl in the head, who took it like a champ. There I was again, in a sea of broken chairs and overweight fans too lethargic to move, and instinctively I went to pull Lindsey from the melee and fight our way out, but I remembered she was out on adventure, so I gave in to the insanity of the moment and surrounded the fallen wrestlers and cheered and yelled when the match went to a 60 minute finish.

I found her afterwards. I think she met Prince Nana, she said, and when I told her she'd just missed one of the most amazing wrestling matches I'd ever witnessed, she kind of went on with her business (whatever business Lindseys take care of when they're bored at a wrestling match), and I basked in the afterglow alone all the way home.

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