What follows is the account left by the long deceased(?) friend Maxwell Vandimntz you may know him as “MVZTruthseer1974”. Max was checked into a mental institute for his beliefs and persecuted for refusing to lie about the bizarre instance he experienced while investigating the mysterious HAARP system and its effect on weather. For those who don’t know the HAARP the official claim is that it is going to be used by scientist to “study” the “ionosphere” but we are all but certain that the device is going to be come used as global weapon to control masses. And we can only deduce from Max’s report that the computer controlling the WMD has already gained advanced level 5 sentience and we can only assume the government has lost control over it. We could be wrong, but we think Max’s final report (left in the mad houses restroom to be discovered by an undercover agent from our staff,) speaks for its self.

——————————

I woke up that day staring at the skies through the open sky light above my bed. There was a gentle ping reminding me of emails in my inbox. I rolled out of my bed and began to crunch through the cheese puff carpet I recently had laid down. I still say I could taste the cheese through my feet. I sat down at my computer pulled up Outlook Express and read. I read for hours until I felt I fully understand what the world was telling me. The word was that the HAARP was afoot again and causing trouble for all man kind. But of course the government would never tell you that.

It had been along time since I whiffed something that smelled so strongly of a cover up. My teeth were set, my claws were sharpened but I needed more. I then turned to the trusty info bank and opened Internet Explorer and voyaged into the grand masterscape of knowledge. As I explored I found brethren who had also caught the foul stink of government lies and were now on the hunt for the truth. It was happening. IT was real. But didn’t have enough evidence. I needed to get my hands on a HAARP conspiracy chart that my internet clan had collaborated together to make. But against all odds, it seemed that my bank account was empty, and Amazon’s is a cruel mistress. So forlornly I put the chart onto my wish list and hopped that maybe one of my brothers in truth would purchase it for me.

Discouraged as I was, I was in no shape to report the truth. Disappointment filled my mind and clouded my inescapable eye of truth. Night came swiftly in my morose state and I restlessly drifted to sleep face towards the night sky. The full moon reflecting a ghoulish hue from my castle made of pee filled mountain dew bottles. I was restless that night tossing and turning. I thought it from my unstated hunger for answers but now I suspect it was the reptilian artifact I had purchased a year ago from eBay that was trying to warn me of impending danger.

That morning I woke sore and irritable. No dinging from the computer and no unopened bottles of FBI grade Gatorade. I didn’t want to move. I just wanted to waste away or at least astral project to someplace better. I don’t remember how long I laid there. Eventually hunger overcame my malaise and I reached over to my nightstand and retrieved a dried and chewy substance which I thought was jerky and began to chew. I still don’t know… I was… am, a very messy man. It could very well have been a the aborigine hallucinogen I got from a shaman convention in 67. Nevertheless, after I ate I got a visitor. Dressed in black and had the devils eyes. His words were spoken softly and distorted. Memory has failed me but I distinctly remember the tall entity asking,

“What would you ask of me that would be rid your current displeasure”
I replied dreamily, “I want a HAARP chart so that I may uncloud my mind and expose the truuuuth”

After I had spoken my peace to the strange visitor, darkness overwhelmed me. When I came to, I heard the welcoming ding coming from my terminal. I quickly jumped to my feet and tried not to fall over from the blood rushing to my head and sudden cheese flavor overload. I check the door still locked from the inside. Then quick like lightening I leap over my Mt. Dew castle and plopped down into my chair. Pulled up my email. And lo and behold, it happened!

Whether it was the dark visitor or one of my brothers of conspiracy Amazon had emailed me to tell me that my HAARP chart was in the mail and would be arriving at my home tomorrow. Excited and invigorated I began my flurry of words. Carefully crafting questions ready to be suited towards whatever end the chart may tell me. Sweat flung from my brow as my head snapped from the sheer power of my ideas. My fingers began to bruise as the keyboard turns to concrete and each finger a chisel chipping away at the lies surrounding the mystery of the HAARP. The afternoon passed without my notice. Sleep wrapped me in a victorious embrace knowing that tomorrow I will be able to show the world definitely the things The Man doesn‘t want us to know. That night I slept the sleep of the just.

The sharp crack of the door bell pulsed through my body like a solid hit of hi-grade cocaine. My excitement shaking my body so hard I chortled phlegm instead of what would of surely been a effervescent squeal. It must have been the coughing fit right after said chortle that gave me time to remind myself that I needed to put cloths on otherwise I surely would of answered the door stark naked. It had been three years since I put anything resembling pants on and two years since I had even opened the door. The exchange happened quietly and quickly. And as soon as the door shut I quickly began to tear at the paper and opened the box. I was unprepared for what I found.

Peeking its head out of the foam peanuts was a bright red Speak and Spell. Clearly printed words on its digital screen, fresh keys that made a satisfying clicking noise and the smell of newly cut plastic the thing had been made recently.

I took it out carefully and examined it (after searching the box three times). It must have been a mistake, but I couldn’t believe that. Refused! It had to be a test. A test of my desire for truth, for freedom! I pressed the ‘ON’ button. It rumbled and bleeped to life.

“WELCOME” it chocked out.

I typed in “HELLO”

“HELLOOOOO”

I didn’t know what to say so I cautiously typed
“HAARP CHART?”

“CHAAAAAART?” it garbled in response.

I was frightened. As any man should be, considering a child’s Speak and Spell just asked me a question! But it had to be real. It must of happened! I remember the conversation so vividly.

I responded, “YES CHART. HAARP CHART.”

“NO. NO. CHART. I AM THE HAARP”

I thought I was crazy at first. But the more I think about it the more it makes sense. So simple, so …. Unnoticeable. Perfectly hidden. I asked out loud
“What …. What do you do?”

I could hardly believe I was interrogating a toy. What if it doesn’t want to tell me anything? What do I do? Start pulling out its letters with a pair of pliers? It answered in its cold voice
“I CONTROOOOOL THE WEATHER. CREATE THE SPIRAL OF CONTROL. CREAT CONTROL OF HUMAN RACE. HUMAN RACE OBEY THE SPIRAL OF THE HAARP. HAARP IS HAARP OF FAAAAAATE”

I broke then, I will admit. My mind and sense of reason left me. I threw the device against the wall in a rage. Bumped up and down on it. Crushing it beneath my feet into the carpet. It even tasted evil.

I heard it call out a series of beeps and I saw through the skylight the clouds gathering and the device began to glow bright red. I cowered against the wall as it hovered above the ground. As it broke through the skylight I broke through the door. Running into the streets screaming and pointing at the sky. From then on it’s a blur. I must of came in contact with the corrupt police force and they put me in here. This house of the mad. No one believes me, and what I saw with my eye of truth. They say they found nothing in my apartment except a floor covered in cheese puffs and bottles of excrement. But perhaps you will my brothers, perhaps when you find this I will be gone from this evil place. The HAARP is still out there. It is waiting, watching, and biddings its time till it expands the all mighty spiral of destiny from sea to shining sea.

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Hey folks, I’m not dead. Now that’s out of the way, on to the main event. I’m quite the fan of Henry Rollins, anything he’s in I’ll watch, any interview that’s out there I’ll look into – I really dig on him. I’ve seen his spoken word twice before, once in my native state of New Hampshire and once in the neighboring Massachusetts. After looking on his site to see if he’s going to be stopping around the area in the near future I saw two shows posted for his Frequent Flyer Tour that are within somewhat close proximity — Sommerville, MA on March 17th and Portland, ME on the 18th. Hadn’t seen him in Maine yet, time to change that. And although the show hasn’t happened yet I will most likely enjoy it but regardless this will make him the second artist to have seen three times, once in each state (the other being masked metal band from Ohio, Mushroomhead.) Being a fan of him, like being a fan of anything, I have questions and I would love the chance to sit down with him for about four days and ask all my nerdy questions until blood rockets out my nose. However due to time constraints that unfortunately could not happen, but Henry was very gracious enough to answer my questions via email. Enjoy, folks.

Image from artvoice.com

SKETCH: Those who are big fans of your spoken word will notice that the tone of it has become drastically different. You started out reading poetry on stage that was quite serious, then you just went up there and did spoken word with a serious tone, now its a balance of comedy and that dash of reality. Like the first hour and a half will be mostly comedic stories then the last half hour will be something very down to Earth and something that kinda snaps you into reality to make you realize there are still big problems afoot. Was this change a conscious choice or did it just happen that way?

HENRY: I just do the show. I am not sure of how the thing has changed over the years. I am not really working on the form of the thing as much as I am just out there doing it and I guess it changes over the years.

SKETCH: You’ve mentioned in many interviews that you don’t consider yourself to be an actor despite the 35+ movies you have under your belt. But has there ever been an acting gig you’ve taken where you’ve looked at the film and thought you did a good job?

HENRY: I thought I did pretty good on the Sons Of Anarchy show I was in last year. Most of the time I don’t watch any film I am in.

SKETCH: Additionally with your film credits and knowledge of film have you considered or attempt to write a script or make a movie of your own?

HENRY: Never. I respect that kind of talent but don’t have any of it. It’s never been something that interests me.

SKETCH: Your show in IFC “The Henry Rollins Show” which many people, including myself, dug quite a bit, hasn’t had any new episodes since 2007. What’s that status of the show and when can we look forward to Seasons 2 & 3 coming to DVD?

HENRY: We shot the two seasons of it and then IFC dropped the show. It’s their money so they have the say. I guess they didn’t like the show. I thought we did good work. The 2nd season is on DVD in Australia and I believe they are on download on i-Tunes.

SKETCH: Those who look you up will know that you are quite passionate about the West Memphis Three, and that there is an album that was released which features you and many different artists doing Black Flag songs to benefit their defense. First, how are things developing on this front? Second, how did getting these artists come together?

HENRY: The case moves slowly through the system that will hopefully resolve in new hearing. Things move very slowly though. Meanwhile, those men sit in prison. We had a couple of people to help us get all the singers. I didn’t have many phone numbers to reach these people, so we got some help. Once we asked these people, most of them came aboard very quickly. They were very generous with their time.

SKETCH: Has there been any music, new or old, that you’ve been listening to a lot lately?

HENRY: I have been listening to a lot of old music from what’s called The Nurse With Wound List. It’s a list online of very out there albums. Many of them are very rare and hard to find. Someone gave me about 15 gigabytes of music from the list recently, so I have been checking that out for days now. Today, I listened to a band from the list called Moving Gelatine Plates. Pretty cool.

SKETCH: Lately many audiences have been complaining, on small and large scales, about the way that studios are running their companies (constant remakes, sequels and adaptations; good shows canceled while “reality” TV is all that’s left.) Similar complaints have been made about mom and pop shops going out of business and malls and large retail chains left standing, yet the reality is the American consumer is choosing to go the chains and malls so they are at fault. Do you think that the status of the entertainment industry is in a similar vein, that it’s the audiences who are not really wanting it? Or do you think studios and record labels condescend the intelligence of the audience thus lowering the standards of new material or not putting it out at all?

HENRY: The people are going to the malls because the merchandise is cheaper there. They buy from Amazon.com because it is cheaper to do so. That’s how it is. It’s very hard on those smaller outlets that can’t buy in the vast bulk that these other places do and they can’t get the extended lines of credit, either. I think the audience wants it but they are low on cash and have found that they can often get things for free online. I know a guy who heists films from the internet, I don’t know how he does it but he always has films on his i-Pod that are still in theaters. I think it’s a combination of things, what I listed as well as other factors. It’s too bad that it could make it bad for so many hard working artists. The studios have underappreciated the intelligence of their audiences for years. Hence the success of shows that are sharp, those in the industry who have figured out that there are millions of people who want some more intense and thoughtful fare have been very successful.

SKETCH: On your online store you had a video promoting/explaining the contents of “Fanatic Vol. 3” while standing in a room where your music collection is housed, and you probably need to pause the video in order to properly gaze in awe at the two walls you see of CDs there are stacked from the floor to the ceiling. With such a collection like this, the idea of organizing it makes me both curious and scared. But how the hell do you organize that thing and have you needed to expand the room/store elsewhere to squeeze in a few discs?

HENRY: That’s the old room, actually. The room you saw held 24 feet of shelving about ten rows high. The new room has 64 feet of CD shelves, 12 rows high. There’s a different part of the room for vinyl and other media. It’s all genre/alphabetical. There’s several feet built in for expansion for all the media. A lot of work went into the room to get it all built to spec.

LINKS
Official Site
IMDb page
Wiki on The West Memphis Three
The Henry Rollins Show: Season One

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Back on August 31st, I predicted that a little top-down shooter called GAM3 W1TH ZOMB1ES – or as I prefer to call it, I MAED A GAM3 W1TH ZOMB1ES IN IT!!!!11 – had the potential to be a total trendsetter… for it’s music. I had no idea that this crazy little shooter would drag in quite so many people though!

Gamerbytes reports that it was purchased 160,000 times, netting developer James Silva a whopping $112,000 for 2009. And if you take a look through the Indie games section, you’ll see that it’s got a rating that is well beyond its next competitor. It’s really surprising that with such obvious popularity that all the search results I could find lead to the little gamer blogs, and the comments on the big dog gamer blogs, but not to the big dogs themselves. Gamerbytes mentioned it got noted on Kotaku, but I couldn’t find it there after going through their “xbox live arcade” tag from current back through the beginning of August. 1up has a profile page for it, but no real reviews until year’s end, when it got lumped in with the other “things you might have missed” type posts. It DOES however have its own page on TVTropes.

File this under sleeper hit, I guess. Still, with such a strong showing above its Indie brethren, can you really call it a “sleeper”?

Serious congratulations to James for making such an addictive, fun, memorable game.

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This first card was challenging. Back on the 13^th, when I first set down my intentions for this project, I thought I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted to do. I spent the next ten days reading things, assimilating concepts, arguing with myself, and cutting up magazines with the thought of doing a “real” art project using physical materials.

Even when I sat down and admitted to myself that I was not going to find what I wanted in the piles of magazines to create something meaningful, nor would my drawing fulfill my vision, I encountered uncertainty and hesitance. What was the most important thing I could say or depict on this card? Did the image mean the most, or would words be the order of the day?

Ultimately I ended up with something that I feel as though I’m happy with. There is still a lot to learn about this card, and I may revisit and revise it as I understand more about the intimacies of meaning contained within this set of gnostic guideposts.

Click the image to download the full size PDF version of this card. Note: It is a 1.9mb file!

Tarot and Qabalah: A Two-Fold Guidebook

At first glance, scholars of the Tarot and its relationship with the Qabalah may rush to correct my association here. In the Golden Dawn’s depiction of the Sephiroth[img], The Hanged Man corresponds to the path leading between Geburah and Hod. I am using the reformed Tree as outlined by Donald Tyson in the essay The Gate of Daath1. In this essay he outlines changes to the positioning and numbering of the paths based on the idea that Yesod is the only realistic path into the tree from Malkuth2, as well as establishing the need for paths connecting Binah-Chesed and Chokmah-Geburah3. (He has not published the diagram for this tree on his site, nor did I find another image elsewhere. Out of respect for the publisher’s request at the beginning of the book, I will not reproduce this diagram here unless I am given permission.) This corrects the Tree for the notion that the moon (Yesod) has always been the gateway to higher planes of consciousness, as well as creating the “x marks the spot” location for Daath on the upper portion of the Tree, similar to the positioning of Tiphareth below. Although this may realistically change many of the associations, I am currently running under the assumption that since The Hanged Man maintains position as corresponding with Path 23, that the tables provided by 7774 still hold true.

Getting to the card itself, I opted here for a two panel system, very much in line with the iconic layout provided by long-running CCG, Magic: The Gathering5. Looking again at their layout, I can already see areas in which I can improve the structure of my cards to convey more information more cleanly, but results of these thoughts will be explored another time.

The top panel is an image which I feel befits the original artistic depiction of the card. The caption provided by the artist is equally fitting and moving.

I can wait…
… says the little voice.
I close my eyes, try falling asleep, try not seeing him, his pesky presence. Try not hearing his never-ending questions.
Who says I have to answer EVERY question? Who says it has to be NOW? And why me? I am falling behind, at best of times feeling like I am about to catch up. But most of my time – I am just repaying old debts.
The spotlight dims and darkness descends. Precious sleep.
But should I wake up, without omission, here he is! Ta-dah!!!!! The little powerful voice and his army of questions.
“Not now”, I say.
“I can wait” he says, from his timeless space.

From the original flickr photo page.

This story unknowingly ties perfectly into the concepts fueling The Hanged Man, regardless of which side of the Tree you are exploring. It is characterized by Ordeal, by rite of passage and confrontation of that which would rip asunder our assumptions. On the back side of the tree, this would mean blindly surrendering to ignorance. On the front side, it is a willful sacrifice of old beliefs, resulting in enlightenment. Tiphareth is sort of a mid-way point in the tree, still exalted in its own right, but by no means the end of the journey. This route (on the front side) bypasses Tiphareth entirely, though I would argue that its enlightening end results are brimming with Tipharethic energies. Likewise on the night side of the Tree, The Hanged Man catapults himself headlong into the Abyss, bypassing any attempt for reform or redemption that is offered by Daath’s position at the center of the criss-crossing paths that makeup the middle of the upper tree.

Characters Fitting This Card

Here I outline a few characters – fictional, mythological, and otherwise – whose stories have examples of the transitional energy of The Hanged Man. It’s a fairly small and obvious collection. I’d love to come up with a few more examples of both the day and night sides of the tree.

1. Cecil (Final Fantasy 4)
• Although he was victorious in many ways as a Dark Knight, he couldn’t fulfill his quest until he learned to be merciful and accept the ways of the Paladin. This is a very overt example of ordeal leading into redemption, and enlightenment.6
2. Odin
• In return for hanging upon Yggdrasil for nine nights, Odin received the knowledge of runes7. A clear example of the concepts at work in The Hanged Man.
3. Jesus Christ
• Directly noted in the correspondence tables of 777, Jesus is possibly the quintessential archetype for sacrifice resulting in ascension to higher power.
4. Any Death-Rebirth Deity
• As argued here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life-death-rebirth_deity, citing Jung’s claim that death and rebirth are archetypal processes. A theory supported by other researchers of myth.
5. Ikari Shinji (Neon Genesis Evangelion)
• Rife with gnostic symbolism and modern angst, Evangelion can and will burst your mind at the seams with all the concepts it tries to throw at you. At the end, Ikari Shinji is submitted to sacrifice and is reborn in a strange new world. I submit that his case would be a good example of the Qlippothic journey into dark supernal Binah, as his was always a path of despair and denial.

Final Thoughts

There is so much to learn here. I barely scratched the surface of the correspondences, especially the intense association with water and watery deities and concepts. Lotuses, nymphs, and the lord Poseidon all by the wayside while I figure out what it all means. The animal associations present their own puzzle: what do eagles, snakes, scorpions, beetles, lobsters, and wolves have to do with The Hanged Man?

What will the next card be? I have no idea. I will not draw another card until after this is published and another day dawns. When will it be published here? Again, it depends on the card and candidly on my life in general. Until then, I invite comment and question!

Resources:
1. Tyson, Donald The Gate of Daath, Howlings (Scarlet Imprint, 2008) 133.
2. Ibid, 129-130
3. Ibid, 131
4. Crowley, Aleister, 777 vel Prolegomena Symbolica Ad Systemam Sceptico Mysticae (courtesy hermetic.com, PDF)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_the_Gathering for general history & images or the Getting Started Guide on Wizards of the Coast’s site for a full breakdown of how a card is constructed.
6. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Fantasy_IV#cite_note-14 or FF IV original (Japanese) & English script: Mt.Ordeals
7. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yggdrasil#H.C3.A1vam.C3.A1l

Supplementary Resources:
http://www.servantsofthelight.org/QBL/Paths/23_mem.html An HTML table rendering of all the data of line 23 of 777.

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The premise behind this project is very simple:

1. Choose a Tarot card (only shuffling for the first draw).
2. Dissect the visuals on the card and write down their most basic symbolic elements (from opinion/personal preference).
3. Look up details of that Tarot card from tarot books, 777 and other cross-cultural references.
4. Create a visual and/or written interpretation of the card.

The idea is part research project, part art project, part image-meme-in-the-making if stripped down to its most base elements (pick card, recreate card the way you see it).1

The deck I am using for my base of operations is The Robin Wood Tarot deck, put out by Llewellen publishers in 2002.2

Candidly, the Robin Wood is not my favorite deck in terms of art; I’d bite my own mother if it would get me a copy of the Yoshitaka Amano deck, but I adore his rich, Art Nouveau inspired work and that makes me rather biased. The Amano deck would actually be a poor choice for this endeavor, as the number cards within the suits are apparently expressed with a simple display of the number of each thing (cups, swords, etc), rather than full, symbolically significant art.3 The Robin Wood deck, on the other hand, is a much more suitable deck, inspired by the perennial Rider-Waite Deck published in 19104, although perhaps slightly more “modern” in its sensibilities.

I am currently at work on my first card, which I shall reveal if you ask me about it when I’m ready with a finished assessment and/or artistic recreation. Initially, I sought to impose strict deadlines for this work, yet I grossly underestimated the amount of information that has been layered into these cards over the centuries! Just working with only the base symbolism in the card could keep me very busy. Each card has a unique personality to be expressed through careful consideration of my reactions to it and available materials for creative reconstruction. This doesn’t even scratch the surface of the myriad readings to choose from in just the books I have available, especially since broad descriptions are given to help these cards display meaning when read in the intended context of a specific goal as well as their relation with other cards in a spread. Intentionally working with one card at a time means a lot of winnowing to get to the germ of the matter.

Furthermore, there are other unique challenges: Tarot interacts rather directly with several other systems of magick and philosophy, making the cross-referencing quite an in-depth affair. My extremely limited knowledge of Western Esoteric systems will prove to be my biggest stumbling block. This has been made clear while researching the first card for the series in 7775, Crowley’s seminal work providing rich tables of correspondences between systems of symbols used in different magick disciplines.

Though I will endeavor to research each card fully and provide serious thought and commentary to this effort, I do want to keep moving forward. What this means is that each article, each visual working (likely to be magazine-centric collage as I’ve a lot of material to work with) should likely be considered a work in progress, no matter how complete it may seem at the time of release. There’s likely to be more personal revelations and hand-written notes that simply don’t make it into this journal. These things may surface later as part of a larger effort to commit this project to print. Hail Eris!

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PREFACE (which means before the face): I wrote this a while back, in the ye olde days of yore a long long time ago, and since then I have tweaked, fiddled, poked around, and jiggered (which means added a fuck ton of commas) with it then I completely re-wrote it and repeated the process, and lucky for you, I felt that the end result this time was acceptable. What I have here is the first two chapters in what I hope will be a continuing series. About a a bunch of crazy mother fuckers killen and breaking shit. (pardon my french) Anyway with out further to do, here is the story and I hope you all enjoy it as much as I did writing the bastard. Oh and I also put up a supplemental stuff up on my blog for more Sqollstown Silliness HURH

-Chapter 1: The Devil Arrives In Town To Get Drunk And Kill Assholes-

“Fuck shit, asshole.” was the family credo of M. Skullburg Dregingstone known back then by his Christian name Sqollstown. The man stood six feet nothin’ and nearly 3 barrels of piss beer wide. Grown up in the dark desert of what was once Arkansas before the bombs dropped. Raised in a cesspool of radioactive waste and sin that was the Wild Mid-West, Sqollstown grew up fast, mean, and always with a gun in someone else’s mouth. He was the most dangerous type of mutant around. One that didn’t think twice about blowing your irradiated nuts off and wouldn’t take shit from no thing living or dead. Including some contrary horse saddles, shame they were still on the horses at the time. Would stick his knife in you rather than shake your hand. It fact its where I got this knife, and it was the day he came to town was the day your mother died.

Eighteen years ago it was 199X, and we had been trying our damnedest to rebuild our society after the great nuclear war ravaged the land. Unfortunately the marauding Techno Hounds, that appeared the same day of the apocalypse lit up the nation, had stolen anything resembling a complex machine. So all we had left was a few simple tools, a couple loaded pistols, and more than a few barrels of sweat from our brow. A simple trader settlement, we had a quaint little inn ran by Sweet Marian’s family and a peaceful little diner. But as the world grew dryer, our crops fell off and the usual stream of travelers and traders began to slow we had to turn to less desirable measures. Our dinner soon became a saloon the inn became a brothel and Sweet Marian became Sultry Mary-Ann who did her best to run it proper.

Traffic to our town began to pick up again, however it was not the kind we were used to seeing out in daylight. No more lost wanderers, hardworking traveling settlers, or enterprising young trades. All that came where the worst of the worst on their way to a bigger city to commit bigger crimes and piss of bigger men. The filth started to build in the creases of the little slice of civilization we worked so hard to create in this dreadful waste land. Soon most of the good folks left and only a few stayed, though, most of them are dead now. I thought about leaving too, but I was young, the new kinds of life and enterprise were interesting to me, so I choose to tend to my fathers bar.
The more normal people left the more the mutants came to town. Simple fist fights between the normal humans and the mutants could grow to get riotous and deadly. It wasn’t until enough “things” died that everyone was satisfied with the amount of blood on the ground and then decided to retired to whichever girls room they could afford. In this wasteland dark times only got darker, and that’s what exactly what happened.

That day was a real black one. The dark and poisonous clouds hung low, trembling with death when he walked into town in the late afternoon. Like the Devil was trying to make up for the years of neglect to his only begotten son by giving him a natural cover to come quietly into town. The man’s face looked as if it had never seen a drop of water his entire life. A bottle of whiskey in one hand and bandoliers of bourbon and tequila hanging off his shoulders. Bloodshot eyes and chipped lips, he looked like the baddest mother fucker around, no matter where he was. But that alone can‘t keep a man safe these days, and even if it looked like it might rain acid at any minuet it’s a rare day anyone can walk down these streets and not get into trouble.

A tall effeminate man stepped out of an ally way jollily ruffling his crotch like it was pillow needing fluffed.

“Hey there studles, looks like you could use a little moisturizer, I think I got the right kind for ya,”

The man continued to continued to fluff his junk but this time with more ferocity and began to waggle with his disturbingly slender hips in the air while making mumbled squeaking noises to an unheard song. His name was Buggery Bill. Bill was owner of the local distillery and Queerer than the 3 dollar bill that’s been shoved up his ass for the last three years. Sqollstown didn’t even blink when he pulled out a revolver and shot Buggery Bill right between his painted eyes.

I walked back from door where I was watching to behind my counter of my bar, and waited. Just as I figured it wasn’t long till he walked in. Those kind of folk always found their way to the bottoms of my bottles. Mutants, men, and unnatural badasses alike all look to make some sorta sense of this radiated land that once was called America even if that sense comes in the form of drunken haze. Most people can’t make it in the techno hound gangs and the cybertopias hate anyone who ever spent time in the real world. So, they find acceptance in my clean mugs of blurry reason.

Sqollstown walked up to the bar and, with a voice like a bowl of broken glass eating train full of coal and sandpaper (a kind of voice that would of given even Tom Wait’s a chill), said
“Need a bottle of scotch”
“Here ya go… Say son, you don’t look real familiar, what’s your name?”
The knife sunk in. But as painful as it was, it wasn’t too deep and I’ve had a couple shots of whisky already.
“Name’s Sqollstown… You can keep the knife.”
He tips the bottle and drains it.
The bar is silent. Its wasn’t everyday a guy got stabbed for askin’ someone’s name. I pulled out the knife, only flinching a little, and slipped it into my pocket and went to the sink to wash and dress my wound. I shouted over my shoulder,
“Fuckin nice way of a greetin you got there. Shit.”
“The last guy to talk to me today got a bullet between the eyes.”
“Yeah, I saw. Name‘s Max by the way.”
“Another bottle”
“Here ya-ugh-… How can a man drink like that?”
“Ya know, you‘re the chattiest bartender I‘ve ever met. Most of them are too busy pissing themselves to think of anything to say.”
“Believe me if I wasn’t already half drunk, Im sure I would be”
“Hmm. Well to answer yer question, you may not no it by the looks of me, but I’m a mutant”
He looks around at the rest of the patrons briefly and says out loud.
“Sad thing when I’m the prettiest one around”
“Anyway,” he continued “My mutation is I don’t need no water tah live. Never had a drop of the stuff, no liver neither. I drink booze, cause to me, it taste like home.”
“I see.”

By this time a small group of mutants were huddled up in a corner talking in whispers and it didn’t take an rocket scientist to see what was goin to happen. I gave a quiet nod at Sqollstown in their direction, he nodded in response and took another drink from his bottle while I walked away to the farthest corner away from Sqollstown. Soon the group of grotesque twisting of once humans walked up behind him. Six of them. Big guy in the middle, kinda green, a bone popping out of his chest, and a lazy eye in the bottom of his jaw was the only one who had the balls to speak.

“Hey uh… faggot! Heard you sayin’ you was the prettiest boy in the mutant club, hate to tell ya but you got yur facts wrong, that honuh belongs to me. Know ‘specially a few girls up at Miss Mary’s who’d agree.”

Sqollstown remained silent and just tipped his bottle and took a sip.
“Hey… HEY! Yo you think you betta than us in here? … I said HEY!”
The mutant rested his hand on Sqollstowns shoulder, and leaned in and said into his ear
“Listen close boy -”
Sqollstown lifted his bottle again.
“The queer you wasted made some of the finest brew around town -”
His chipped lips met the edge of the bottle,
“and we were what you could call friends and we -”
Every drop of the sour liquid found its way into his mouth.
“have decided that its our duty to teach you-”
He sighs with satisfaction
“ a – “
The bottles upside down now. The bottles’ neck in his hand now.
“ lesson!”
Sqollstown spun around faster than anything I had ever seen. I couldn’t tell you if the sound I heard was a breaking of the sound barrier or the sound of the bottle shattering across the green mutants face. Before the green body could hit the floor 5 bullets from Sqollstowns revolver found their new home in the surroundings mutants skulls. Sqollstown looked like something out a film as he stood over the bleeding mutant. In his right hand a smoking revolver and in the other the bloody remains of the bottle. He spoke at the wriggling green mess on the floor,
“Out of bullets, might take me a minuet to reload, and don’t think your gonna be willing to wait while I do that. And well as for this bottle–”
He threw the bottle neck against the wall finally joining the rest of itself in shattered glass on the floor. Sqollstown then lit up a cigarette, inhaled deep and said as little wisps of smoke escaped whatever he used as his lungs,
“– Well I’d rather squeeze the life outta ya myself. That is unless you’re so piss ass weak you can’t stand up to face me.”

The mutant let out a yell and rushed Sqollstown. What followed is the thing that what nearly sent me to heroin. I seen a thing that mostly only dead men get to see. Sqollstown smiled. A terrifying smile of most inane evil that must of started the rumor of him being of the devils blood, and that wasn’t the worst part. The change in expression sent blood dribbling down his face. Every crease that has been baked in the sun, derived of water for years had become so brittle that the slightest change in expression caused the skin to break and bleed.

Later I find out that he smiles only smiles when he’s about to soak his brittle skin in the blood of another. Something in the mixing of the two that seals up the open wounds. Now with Sqollstown, it didn’t take long before the red water works started. The mutant, before he could even reach full height, had already a broken nose, and broken arm that had shattered bone poking its little tips out through the emerald skin.

Sqollstown beat him till there weren’t much left cart off. If times were worse, I’d probably scrapped up the remains and called it soup. He stood up to his full high his expression returned to the normal hard scowl as he sat back down at the bar.
“Bourbon.” he said.
Shaking I handed him the bottle. He opened it up and splashed it onto his face. Wiped the blood and alcohol off with the sleeve of his coarse brown leather coat. Face clean as a whistle.

I looked around, everyone in the bar was terrified, I pulled out a bottle of jack and took a huge drink.
“Jesus Christ man.” I said. “You- don’t fuck around much do ya”
He let out a low growl that must have been the closest thing to a chuckle as he was capable of creating. I took another drink, god knows I needed it for what I was about to do. Even to this day I still regret it.
“Uhm, listen, theres no good way of sayin this but, there’s some real bad folk around here I’ve been thinking… I mean seein how you managed that riff raff… Uh hows about you bein… Our uh… sheriff?… Maybe?”
He looked me hard in the eye, and that was all that was needed.
“How about this,” I said at last, “you help me clean up some of the shit round here, and you can have eight bottles of whatever you want a week, for free, and a permanent bed at Mary’s. Deal?”
He stares hard at his half empty bottle of Bourbon shook it a bit and nodded.
“Great. Hey you lot back there! Yeah you twats, get outta here! We’re closing early!… Alright Sqollstown, follow me up to Mary’s and we’ll get ya all set up with a girl, coupla guns, and a plan to clean up some of the fucking scum that has built up in here.”

-Chapter 2: MARY’S PLACE-

Mary’s place was a dangerous place in its self. Mary had been raised by ex-military commandos who were still alive when the bombs first hit in ‘83. She protected her girls even if that meant pumping a horny mutant full of steaming quantized plasma. Back when we were young me and Mary had a little thing. Stealing her parents grenades and chucking them into the Mayors dog house in the middle of the night and watching the pretty lights and dog gore. But that was way back when our town was “clean“ and the biggest trouble around were me, Mary, and a few other pissed off youths that grew up on Mad Max, Commando, and the cocaine we would steal from our parents.
The place was really shit way before the new dust bowl. It all just went on behind closed doors and back rooms. Only we were the rebels because we had balls to do it all in public. I cant even remember how many times we blew the Mayors dogs up. Boy, do I miss those days.

But time screws all over and as soon as the town changed hands and clientele me and Mary became so busy tending to the vices of others to properly tend to our own. It had been about a month since we had last seen each other. On rare nights when the town was quiet and both our respective joints were empty, she’d come down and we’d have a drink and remember the good old days and discuss the value of old movies, cheap explosives, and good sex. Tonight, however, we were going to have a different sort of conversation but chances were, knowing Mary and our special guest of honor, violence and sex were going to come up at least once or twice.

We arrived at Mary’s Brothel without trouble as the evening was stretching on into night and the clouds weren‘t looking happy. Sqollstown went thought the door first and I had to smile at an entire whorehouse gasping in fear. It would be entirely like Mary to pull a machine gun at first glance on any man and especially a man like Sqollstown so as soon as he walked in I shouted from outside as I hurried on in,
“Mary! Put the gun down! He’s not here to cause trouble!”

By the time I could see inside, Mary was setting a customized three barrel shotgun on the counter of the front desk. Sqollstown was holstering the gun he had on Mary but still had his gun trained on a mutant who was in the middle of reaching for a pistol that was sitting at his table in the lobby.
“Hey you! Piss off, Mary’s closed for the night.” I told the scum bag
“Hey man fuck you, I paid for this, you piss off!” said the scrubby devil,
“What do you think Mary? We closed?” asked one of the girls setting on the mutants lap
“Oh hell, I guess so. Go on get out loser your nights over.”

The mutant flushed, and grabbed hold of his pistol and before I could plug my ears the house sounded with a rolling thunder as Mary, Sqollstown, and the fourteen other girls in the lobby that had pulled revolvers out of that mysterious secret pocket all working girls seem to have, and filled that mutant with 4 and a half pounds of atomic lead.

I wish I could say that all I saw that was left was neck, but really, there was only a few assorted pieces of torso and limbs scattered across the floor. Seemed that not only does Mary protect her girls well, she also trains them well. After the ringing in our ears stopped, Mary spoke up,
“Well, you got my attention Max, I had forgotten how well you knew how to show a girl a good time”
“Oh you know me, nothing I love more than gratuitous violence”
“Heh. Hell It’s been long time Max… Now would you kindly explain why after a month of silence you show up and close my house for the night or why there is a seven foot stone Gollum of death standing in the door way or why my ceilings, walls, and my carpet’s now covered in purple blood!?”
“First off, his name’s Sqollstown, and be happy he hasn’t stabbed you yet, he’s here to take care of some of the shit in the streets. Davil, Moticanis, and hopefully Old Man.”
“You serious, what makes you think this shit head has a chance of even touching those bastards?”
“Mary, I seen the man kill 5 of Davils top boys in, like, 8 seconds. The mans a fucking Terminator.”
“Well if you say so, you’ve never let me down yet. I suppose you’re here for guns, explosives, knifes, and by the looks of him a couple women. Sounds like our first date.” she smirked “A plan would be handy, you got one?”
“You bet your ass, been brewing this up since… well, since those three assholes started working together.”

Sqollstown, who had been silent thus far, looked at me and growled
“Any chance of you telling me this fuckin’ plan of yours?”
Then the strangest thing happened. It was like at the sound of his voice every girl in the joint felt a lot more comfortable and suddenly found themselves with an incredible desire to get just a little closer to Sqollstown another delightful side effect of his mutation no doubt. The man was genetically engineered for sin.
“Of course, Sqollstown, I’ll run it by ya in few hours, first I wanna talk it over with Mary get everything set. Until then, pick a girl or five and grab some of Mary’s finest booze in the cabinets over there and I’ll see you in a while”

Sqollstown looked ,what I guess be called contemplatively, at all the girls milling around looking coy, but before he could make up his mind, a tall girl, who was tattooed from toes to tits, with shocked green twin pony tails, and a hook hand, walked up to him and said she’d “take care of him” and they quickly headed upstairs with armful of vodka bottles. That girl was named Nancy, your mother, Mary’s youngest sister, and the moment she had laid eyes on Sqollstown her life was over.

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So those kids over at White Chapel, had a a delightful little idea: Group Fiction. You know the old threads on message boards were one person would start a story and the next person would right the next four words and so on? EX from them boys at Fast Karate:

GOKU1838471: Goku was walking and
Bigdooba: got a BJ from
KIDBOO: BY A PINK ELEPHANT LOL
GokuRAWKS: thats five words ROFL!
MikeReason: Well techinically lol is three words so its actually seven words
GokuRAWKS: FAG!

Sometimes it doesn’t work out too good, but the in this case it worked out rather well, and more importantly is actually amusing. So here it is uncut and archived for prosperity, I hope you have as much fun reading it as we all did writing it. Beware it is pretty dammed long.

The Hat Of War and Peace or THE NAZI TURTLE WHO WAS ACTUALLY A NAZI GENERAL ALSO A HUNCHBACK

By: Jess, Oldhat, VKlaus , Rootfireember, kpatrickglover, and the wonderful andrenavarro

Frank watched as the old man left the cafe, struggling with the door in the wind. It almost caught him and pulled him out, but he managed to maintain his balance and push the door closed. Just before he turned away, Frank realized that a rumpled gray fedora had blown into the room. He watched it as it tottered on edge and finally fell to the ground. It was a pleasant looking hat, full of character. It reminded him of the one he owned many years ago, before the war. But then, everything reminded him of life before the war.

They said war changed a man. They did not mention, in the infinite wisdom of generations past and hoarded scraps of wisdom, that it also changed everything it touched. Even something as simple as a hat skittering along the floor until it came to a stop. The simple object was more than a hat; it was a symbol of things loved and lost, and days long past.

It hadn’t been a hat, thirty years ago. It had been a helmet, with a hole in it, rolling down the hill until it hit a puddle of mud. The rain washed the blood off of it. On the top of the hill, dozens of soldiers were being massacred by mounted machine guns. It was a sight he’d have seared into his mind forever, but the helmet rolling down the hill was the strongest memory he had of it. Somehow, it was stronger than seeing dozens of people being mowed down because of nothing more than being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

While the helmet rolling down the hill with a hole in it was a symbol of the futility of the war, Frank’s own helmet was a symbol of strength and power. This was proven when Frank’s squadron infiltrated the base that held the horrible General Franz Kraustitt. Since 1941 the general had been heading horrible experiments on prisoners of war, animals and even his own men. He was a madman trying to play god who had to be stopped. Frank was the first one to find him and immediately the general fired at him. A stray bullet hit his wrist and his gun dropped to the ground.

There have only been a few times Frank felt the need for a miracle. This was not one of those times. Being in war changes a man, teaches him how to survive. After all General Kraustitt was only one man, a man with sever mental problems. He could handle this. But boy oh boy was he wrong.

As Frank sank deeper into the memories spurred so rudely by the lost fedora, a small turtle watched him carefully from across the room. No one paid much attention to the turtle sitting in the small plastic cage on the counter. It was unusual for the young girl to bring the creature to the cafe, but a closer inspection of the reptile confirmed that he was brown, boring and an otherwise unremarkable pet. The turtle was not inclined to do much to entertain his audience, as he was concentrating on Frank. Something, SOMETHING about the man seemed vaguely familiar. Unsettled somewhat by being unable to place the old man, the turtle’s good sense told him to stay quiet. Yet he wanted to know more. The man across the room seemed strangely intent upon watching the hat, and the turtle couldn’t help but remember a man wearing a similar fedora.

There had been experiments before the war, and during it upon beasts. Vivisection was the tip of the iceberg in those muddy years; though it was thought to be the origin of what some called hyper-intelligence in some animals. It was not; but most people seemed to prefer to think of abominable origins for animals that spoke and thought like men, instead of believing sentience in animals could have come from more natural origins. People wanted to be the smart ones. They were intimidated, and fearful of these strange animals among them. So the turtle kept his beak shut, kept his thoughts to himself.

Frank fought his way back from the memories, amazed how vivid they had been. It was like he was being pulled back through time, all because of that rumpled old hat. He pushed his coffee aside and stood up. The turtle watched him as he crossed the room, fear growing in its heart. He wanted to warn Frank not to touch the hat, that this was a bad thing, but thoughts don’t always equal words. Not in a turtle. So he simply watched as Frank picked up the hat, turned it around in his hand, then placed it lightly on top of his head. He wasn’t surprised when Frank vanished from the cafe, hat and all.

The turtle had made a promise to himself many years ago. To be precise, seventy years ago, before the human who “owned” him was even born. It had promised it would never, ever speak, even though the experiment had given it the ability to do so (albeit with a hideous accent), and in the lifespan of a turtle, picking up languages is no challenge. Still, the turtle knew what would happen if it dared to speak, like that time the human dropped him and he went “AAAOW FUCK”. Luckily the human was constantly on drugs, which made things easier to forget. But a cafe full of people… still, if the human continued to wear that damned hat, something horrible would happen.

When the green flashing in Frank’s eyes started to fade away, he looked at where the hat had taken him. He was surprised to see another H4-T. he hadn’t seen one of these devices since the war. It was a genius invention originally brought on by the Germans. Basically they would distribute the H4-Ts in hat stores in well known Jewish areas. hell, they’d even give them away. And once those hats were put on the wearers would be transported to a concentration camp. A lot even ended up in General Kraustitt’s base. But that couldn’t have happened now. Frank knew the general to be dead. He killed the man himself…

It was at this point Digressing Omnipotent Narrator thought to himself “what is the world coming to?! Teleportation hats talking turtles? Jesus H Christ (not me), all things have gone awry!” But he digresses and returns to the narrative, it which Frank looks around to see the old room where he put a bullet in the generals head. The faded blood stain still marked the wall. Nazis, not the tidiest of folk.

The turtle sighed. He had to get out of the cage, get to the man with the hat, and make sure nothing was undone that should not be undone. Escaping wouldn’t be too difficult, he thought. The human had been careless lately. She had left the top panel of the cage open, and all he had to do was get his claws in the air vents just below the lid. From there, he could pull himself up and out. Luckily, the human seemed to be engrossed in her french fries, so the turtle took this opportunity to sneak to the corner of the cage, stand on his tip-toes, and crawl atop the plastic prison that he lived in from day to day. He took a moment to savor the fresh air and the smells of the cafe. Then, faster than you could blink, he too was gone.

The turtle was quickly realizing what was at stake. Drastic measures would have to be taken. The ability to speak was only the first successful experiment (after five that failed very painfully). The second was the ability to hide in plain sight. The turtle walked into an alley and, sure nobody was seeing him, he started to grow. Suddenly it could stand on his hind legs, and the shell on his back became as soft as flesh, and his face grew a nose and the eyes widened. He was now… a hunchback.

No longer a turtle, General Krausititt’s started the long hike back to his office, where he knew Frank would be waiting. It was cold, but he knew it would be. He had lived this day before. He almost hadn’t survived it, but his scientists had got to him after the shot, before he bled out. The transformation was complicated, but quick. He bore Frank no ill will, he wasn’t looking for revenge. But he had no intention of taking another bullet. The timestream must be preserved, but some other way. He would not be turtlized again today.

Krausititt could feel the timestream pulling, trying to create a loop, to make what once was merely repeat itself ad nauseum. He’d had an assistant once, a rather dim jackal-creature that had warned him of such things…every five minutes. He’d taken heed of the warning, then ended the looping for the mad beast with a few well-aimed shots. Krausititt pursed his lips, and didn’t let his will waver; history would not repeat itself. It must not. The fate of the world depended on it. He had seen it.

It wasn’t until Kraustitt stepped in to the same room they were in all those years ago that things started to happen. Kraustitt managed to catch a surprised look from Frank before everything went blue for a moment. Suddenly it was 1944 again. Kraustitt was exactly where he was when Frank had stepped in. His first instinct was to reach for his gun, but he thought better of it. That would lead to Frank dropping his gun and then in a surprise move, getting it back and shooting him. Besides, he could see that Frank was hesitating. He knew that a change had happened. Keeping his gun in his holster, Kraustit smiled at Frank. “I suppose you want to know what’s going on, yes?” Frank’s eyes widened. “y..yes…” “Don’t worry. All will be explained in good time. Would you like some cocoa? Before your men got here we had a pot of it brewing.” Frank lowered his gun and started to walk towards Kraustitt, unaware that Klaus, the 7-foot sergeant-major built like a gorilla was slowly creeping behind him.

The veritable man-god grabbed him by his unsuspecting ears and hoisted him to the ceiling. “You see,” explained Krausitit, “You have been brought back into time to re thread history”. The rage was bulding in Franks face, pink an purple from pain and anger. “YOU SON OF A BITCH I’LL HAVE YOUR DISGUSTING ZOMBIE TURTLE HEAD FOR THIS! YOU CAN’T STOP ME!” SHOUTED Frank, “You are all demons, and god will rain vengeance upon your soul!” To which Krausitit replied. “No Frank, you are the demons”

and then Frank was a Zombie

THE END.

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“There’s an implied obligation of those (myself included) who own these nuggets of history to share them, not squirrel them away in some dusty shoebox only to risk oblivion via flood, fire, or neglect.”- Gary

The Adolph Sutro’s Victorian Cliff House sat upon a cliff in San Fransisco over looking The Sutro Baths for only a 11 years before it tragically caught fire and burnt down in 1907.

However this beautiful Victorian dream home is being preserved by images alone by a man known only to me as “gary“.

His website has done a wonderful job chronicling and preserving the house in all its 19th century glory. From tintypes and post cards to a very cool virtualization of the house using the huge library of photographs, CAD, and the archived blueprints! (which are on the way to my architect as we speak)

It sort of blows my mind frankly. Being able to take a tour through a house that burnt down over over 100 years ago on a coast that is nearly 2,000 miles away. Isn’t the internet great? :D

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This is what happens when cultural icons collide, in many colorful, delightful ways.

Monty Python’s Spanish Inquisition sketch has stood out from their amazingly memorable show (Monty Python’s Flying Circus! Go watch it on Netflix or something), and has blossomed into a lasting cultural reference, at least among the geeks.

Here we see that reference applied in Lego form (which is its own breed of geek culture), and then liberally poured all over stagings of other cultural references, also in Lego form.

References to the (sometimes shockingly influential) Stephen Colbert:

To Star Wars infamous Admiral “It’s a Trap!” Ackbar:

And of course they had to infiltrate the Spartans of meme-tastic 300 fame:

Flickr user </arpy> took these photos at Brickcon 2009, so if you’re into Lego or just really clever sculptural recreations (and new creations too of course), I highly recommend checking out the rest of the set.

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So this year for the first time we lived in an actual neighborhood where trick or treating might actually be possible. (We didn’t really get that many kids though, so now we’ve got WAY too much candy around the house.)

It was decided to get a big ass pumpkin and do something cool with it.

This is the outcome of that decision.

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