"Since our daughter is no longer with us..."

I have never hidden the fact that a good portion of my life has been wasted watching old cheesy films. Most of that time has, of course, been spent in front of the tv set, starting with a small b&w set that I had to sit close to ("Get back from the tv," Mom would say. "You'll ruin your eyes!"). Today, however, I have a large color set that allows me to sit across the room and watch in relative comfort. On the new set, I can also stream digital content, allowing me to watch more old films than ever, so, yes, still a lot of b&w cheese. In addition to the wandering wasteland of television, I also spent a fair amount of time in theaters.

The first theater I recall is the Bay Theater in National City. It was built in 1941 and had a distinctive tower with BAY written down it. It was neon-lit and visible from all the roads around. I recall many times seeing that tower from the back seat of my father's or grandfather's car and wishing I were there. It really didn't matter to me what was playing as long as I was there, preferably with a box of popcorn, a cup of soda and a tube of Flicks. We lived in the 1100 block of East 17th Street (unpaved then), a little over a mile from the theater. It was too far away for me to walk alone (so my mother claimed), but I frequently walked down to it with the Eleazar kids from across the street...yes, I know, but it was a different world back then and no one called CPS just because kids were being kids. In addition to the films of the time (e.g., Forbidden Planet and Earth vs The Flying Saucers), I also saw newsreels, cartoons and serials, such as Zombies of the Stratosphere ("Isn't that Leonard Nimoy as the Martian?" asks a dubbed voice in J-Men Forever; "I don't know," replies another dubbed voice, "I can't see his ears."). Then we moved to Chula Vista. The Bay Theater later came to an ignominious end -- first it became a Spanish church, then high winds blew the tower down. I don't know if one had anything to do with the other, but at least it was something that wasn't my fault...for once.

When we moved to Chula Vista, I discovered the local theater, the Vogue, was even father away than the Bay. But, it was still a different world, so off I went. I didn't have older kids to walk with me anymore, but I figured what my mother didn't know couldn't hurt me. Besides, I was nine by then, almost an adult. Yes, I lived dangerously...I even drank water straight out of the hose. You might say I grew up in Chula Vista, but I also grew up in the Vogue Theatre (note the classy English spelling) watching every film my parents wouldn't take me to see...they were never big movie goers, but I never held that against them, much.

The Vogue in better days

When the Wife and I had kids, I looked forward to not going to the cinema alone...the Wife would go from time to time, but she did not revel in the experience as I did. Too many people, she claimed. Especially too many unruly kids. I have to admit, she had a point there. When I went to the movies as a kid, I was never unruly. No, really! It would have been a shock to both my mother and my teachers had they seen how well behaved I was when the lights went down, the curtains parted and the film began. But I was there for the film, and once the film started, I was a part of it, totally absorbed.

Unfortunately, our son was never really a devoted film goer. Oh, he like going to the movies, all right, but it had to be a film he was interested in, such as Star Wars. Our daughter (the Kidette), however, had tastes that were as catholic as mine. Well, let's just say she didn't complain no matter what film I dragged her to. Likewise, I can't count the number of chick-flicks and teen-angst movies she took me to. And, please, don't ask me how many times I saw Center Stage. But it was all enjoyable, every single film. Mostly, though, because the Kidette was with me.

One of our traditions was to get a tub of popcorn and a large soda. The Vogue had a policy that if you brought back the receipt you got a free refill. Great. Whether it was a double feature or a triple, we had more than enough to last us to the final end credits of the final movie, and we always stayed for the last credit. Unfortunately, time passed and our daughter moved. I was back to solitary viewings. 

It should have occurred to me that I could not possibly eat two full tubs of buttered popcorn, but it didn't. The first time I went without the Kidette, I bought a tub and was more than stuffed by the time I got to the end of it. What to do? My Protestant ethic screamed at the prospect of that free refill going to waste. I then noticed a mom and her kids sitting in front of me. They had no popcorn.

Me: Pardon me ma'am, but would you and your kids like a free popcorn?
Her: Uh...
Me: I have a receipt for a tub of popcorn, and the theater gives free refills.
Her: Uh...well...
Me: My daughter and I used to share a tub at the movies, but she's no longer with us, and I can't eat the whole thing myself.
Her: Oh, you poor man. I am so sorry. Thank you very much.

After she took the receipt and scurried off to get the free popcorn, I realized how she must have interpreted what I said. I changed seats. "Dad!" my daughter scolded. "You made her think I was dead. I only moved out. I didn't die!" Well, really, is my fault she took it that way? I didn't say anything that wasn't true...that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

The Vogue in badder days

Unfortunately, nothing lasts forever, and just as that applies to little boys and dragons, so it also applies to movie theaters. The Vogue opened in the winter of 1945 and closed its doors in the summer of 2006, after showing a triple-feature of Fast & Furious: Tokyo Drift, Over the Hedge and Poseidon. I really didn't want to tell the Kidette about the fate of our beloved theater. So when she came down for a visit I put her in the car and drove down Third Avenue. She didn't cry...well, not much.

The Vogue's Facebook page - link below

Sometimes the dead return, or so Stephen King and HP Lovecraft tell us, and that may be the fate of the Vogue. According to its Facebook page, the Vogue is being renovated as an entertainment, event and dining/drinking experience. They also claim they are going to maintain the historic exterior. I hope that's true, but, of course, it will never be the same. Still, if I look at the facade and see it restored to its former glory, I will fondly relive better days. If all that comes to pass, I will probably go to the proposed outdoor dining area, have a beer and raise a glass to toast my my movie memories.

Elder Egypt, Again

Back in the early 90s, when everyone was discovering the internet in a big way and everyone who was no one (and a few who were someone) was setting up a website -- "Hey, Ma! Look! I got my own place on the Information Superhighway!" -- I also set up a website. It was dedicated to Ancient Egypt, a long-time interest of mine. Once a month, I would post a well-researched, thoroughly illustrated article about some aspect of Egypt. The real purpose of the site, however, was to help students with their Egypt-related school projects. I received several emails per day, from elementary schoolers to university students. I didn't do their homework for them, but I pointed them in the right direction and gave them the tools to do their projects. And I answered a lot of questions, usually based on some misconception derived from a film (i.e., the reboot of The Mummy).

"No, sorry, Nigel, but scarabs are slow moving dung beetles,
not cheetah-swift piranha-like insects that can strip the flesh
from some hapless explorer in 3.7 seconds. It's called 'special effects'."

About the same time, I fell into one of those "virtual communities" that were popping up all over the internet at the time. It was, of course, based on Ancient Egypt and everyone pretended they lived upon the shores of an electronic Nile. Not really being a big role-player, I gravitated toward the community newsletter, The Papyrus, and contributed articles. It was all lots of fun, but like the real Ancient Egypt, it all eventually subsided into the sands of time...the community, the newsletter, and, finally, my homework helper website.

Now, not quite thirty years later, I've dusted off and revised the old articles, penned quite a few more and resurrected them in a new venue as Enigmas of Elder Egypt. Here's a sample:

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The Gods Hate Kansas?

A large portion of my wasted youth was spent eroding my brain by watching cheesy old films. Well, some things don't change, so a few days ago I was looking for something to further erode my brain on Amazon Fire Streaming, when I came across a film called They Came from Beyond Space, a 1967 flick from Amicus Productions, a company I mostly knew from some very good Edgar Rice Burroughs adaptations and two really, really bad Doctor Who TV movies. 

I thought, well, it could be an undiscovered gem or it might be dreck. Either way, it's 85 minutes. And I thought it would at least be passable, it being a British film. Yes, I know...I saw Devil Girl from Mars, but at least everyone had a British accent, and that automatically makes everything classier, such as when a developer names a housing development Robin Hood Estates rather than Pleasant Acres. But, then I recalled The Crawling Eye and how Tempean Films imported American actor Forrest Tucker (F Troop) to play the lead or how Hammer Films brought in Brian Donlevy to play the quintessential British scientist Professor Bernard Quatermass in the 1955 theatrical version of The Quatermass Experiment. So I gave in and took a sneak peek at IMDB: the lead actor is American Robert Hutton, but at least almost everyone will have a British accent. And it will still be 85 minutes. And I still had nothing else to do at the moment. So I queued the film and pressed start.

From almost the beginning of the film, I got a sense of deja vu, but when you have seen as many films as I have (I bought the book Science Fiction Films of the Fifties, and it was like reading the story of my youth) it's a common feeling. About the time they mentioned meteorites falling in a field and Hutton's character having a metal plate in his head, I thought: The Gods Hate Kansas, in which meteorites fall in a Kansas field and a character has a metal plate in his head preventing him from being taken over by alien intelligences hidden inside the meteorites. I also thought of "Corpus Earthling," an episode of The Outer Limits (original), but since that was about a scientist with a metal plate in his head that allowed him to listen to rocks plotting world domination, that was a totally different thing altogether. Well, mostly different. Well, at least the meteorites in They Came from Beyond Space and The Gods Hate Kansas didn't talk. A quick look trip back to IMDB confirmed my suspicion, that the film was indeed based on a book I didn't think anyone else besides me had ever read.

The Gods Hate Kansas was written by Joseph J. Millard (1908 - 1989) and first published in Startling Stories in 1941, then again in 1952 as a reprint in Fantastic Story Magazine. The version I read was a mass market paperback published by Monarch Books in 1964 with a very nice pulpish cover by Jack Thurston (1919 - 2017). Millard's flirtation with science fiction occupied only the first half of the Forties, after which he went on to be a teacher, and he confined his writing to westerns, memoirs, biographies, essays and poetry.

There are some differences between book and film, but when are there not? When David Morell's debut novel First Blood was optioned to be filmed as Rambo, the question of a sequel came up. Morell was perplexed by the idea. He asked, "How can there be a sequel when I've killed everyone off?" Older and wiser Hollywood hands told him, "If the movie is successful, there will be a sequel, no matter how they have to change your book. And the book will be changed. If they want to make it into a musical aboard a submarine, that's what they'll do." Fortunately, Rambo did not become an underwater musical, and neither were there any tremendous changes between The Gods Hate Kansas and They Came from Beyond Space.

The greatest changes are that the field is in England, not Kansas, and though the gods may still hate Kansas (more meteors fall there than anywhere else, according to the book) they don't hate England. The landing site still goes "dark" and the scientists begin acting weird. The metal plate is still in the main character's head and it still keeps him from being taken over by the aliens. The aliens are still tired of being marooned on the Moon and still want to use our planet's resources to escape their long imprisonment. And the moral of the story is still the same: "Why didn't you simply ask us for help?"

One other thing that's also the same -- the science. Millard was a good writer, but science was not his forte. When one of the aliens was told that no known propulsion system on earth could get a rocket to the Moon and back in less than 24 hours, the alien replies: "Our propulsion system was not developed on Earth." All in all, it's probably a good thing Millard found his calling in education and genres other than science fiction.

I have to admit, I did enjoy the film, but probably will not revisit it. That's something else the film has in common with the book.

If you're also into slightly cheesy science fiction, you might try my two steampunk novels, Shadows Against the Empire and Amidst Dark Satanic Mills. For the thousands who prefer not to do business with Amazon you can get Shadows Against the Empire and Amidst Dark Satanic Mills from your favorite e-book retailer or even ask your local library to stock them through Overdrive. For those who have already read the Folkestone & Hand Interplanetary Steampunk Adventures, a third book in the series, The Spirit-Haunted Moon will be published in 2020. Thanks for your support.

As Time Goes By

It's been awhile since I last shared anything, but time passes no matter what we do. Our general sense of time is that it elapses at a steady, inexorable rate, second after second, each interval the same as the last. Let enough seconds elapse and we get a minute, enough minutes and we get hours, days, years, and then it's over. Paradoxically, you run out of time even as time continues its journey without you. No one can say, "Backward, turn backward, O Time, in your flight" (Hobart Brown), which may be one of the reasons why Time Travel is such a popular theme in Science Fiction, why many people would rather have a Time Machine than a Space Ship...well, I suppose you could get the TARDIS and have the best of both worlds.

My first introduction to the theme was the same as everyone else's: The Time Machine by H.G. Wells. I read it while in elementary school, probably not long after the 1960 George Pal film, still the best lensing of the book despite its many flaws.

The book affected me differently than did the film. For the film it was a matter of the monstrous Morlocks and the sheeply Eloi. I still recall vividly the menace of the Morlocks within the Winged Sphinx and the despair when the Time Traveler picked up a book in the Eloi library and it turned to dust. I think I found the Eloi more terrifying than the Morlocks. In the book, I was deeply affected by the vision of the far future, the Earth given over to Giant Crabs and darkness. Though Wells did not realize it at the time, he was envisioning what cosmologists now term the entropic death of the universe.

I returned to that far future when I wrote the Sherlock Holmes pastiche The Coils of Time. The book was written at the urging of Gary Lovisi at Gryphon Publications. When Hurricane Sandy put it out of print, I republished it in Sherlock Holmes: The Coils of Time & Other Stories. I also revisited the  Time Traveler himself in a poem:

The Time Traveller

Traveler without a name,

Voyager on the river of Time,

Where do you find yourself now?

Do you stand by Pharaoh’s hand,

Or do saurians pursue you

Across a Jurassic land?

Are you lost, wandering aimlessly

Through the streets of ancient Rome?

You designed a fine machine,

Crafted from silver and brass,

Crystal cut precise and hand-blown glass---

So what went wrong?

Were you arrested, executed;

Did you catch the plague?

Did you return to face the Sphinx

In that savage land of gentle sheep?

We’re still waiting to hear your second tale,

Perhaps even stranger than the first;

We’ll always be waiting for you to pierce time’s veil,

To satisfy our mind’s chronic thirst;

For now we’re ready to learn,

We who forever await your belated return.

I recently included the above poem in a collection entitled Midnight for Schrödinger's Cat & Other Poems. In the collection, I not only wax eloquent about the mysteries of time and space, but quantum physics, horses, helium seas, alternate history, and a certain bad Friday in Jerusalem. Most are short, only a page or three, as is the nature of verse, but the titular poem is quite long, about fourteen pages.

Some of the poems appeared in my previous limited print editions, A Darkness on my Mind and The Horses of Byzantium & Other Poems. A few were previously printed in small/micro press journals, but the majority have never before been published, though they cover a period of more than thirty years. Even so, they don't comprise the entirety of my poetical flummery.

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However you get it, if you're moved to do so, I appreciate your support. As mentioned above, this eruption of verse does not exhaust my coffers, nor have I stopped writing poems in spare moments. When Holly takes me out on the patio for hours at a time and forces me to endlessly throw one of her balls for her to fetch (actually, she just drops it within reach -- I suspect that dog will never learn how to share), it does no good to get involved with reading or writing of any duration. So, there will eventually be yet another gathering of enigmatic verse. However, breathe easy. Do not panic. The world will be spared another collection this year, maybe the next as well. But I already have a cover...

Just a "friendly" warning...

Not the Last Man Standing, But Close

The past is always better than the present, though when I was younger I thought the future would be better than the then-present. Then the future became the present, the present wasn't how we had envisioned the future (as I've written here earlier), and suddenly the past looked better than I remembered it being. I suppose that's why all the Golden Ages of anything (Novels, Short Stories, Magazines, Television, Hollywood, Comic Books, etc) are always in the past. Hesiod wrote that the Golden Age of Man, when Saturn (Kronos) ruled the Earth was a time of giants and perfect men and women, than when Saturn departed people became smaller, less perfect and heir to all the ills that plague us now.

I don't know if Hesiod was right or not. Maybe his Golden Age was more metaphorical than real, though there are some who claim Earth was once a satellite of the Ringed Planet, but got knocked into its present place in the Solar System when a rogue star turned the planets into snooker balls. I do know that "golden ages" are real in art, literature and personal life. I know of people who publish poetry in hopes that they will be recognized as the new Tennyson or Lord Byron; unfortunately, that ship sailed about a century ago, hit an iceberg with Frost and sank with the death of Angelou. There are now more people who write poetry than read it.

Comic books, too, aren't what they used to be. What was once exciting and vibrant, friendly and a pleasure to read, are now dismal, pessimistic, revisionist and about as uplifting as newspaper headlines. And most aren't even made in the USA anymore. The Golden Age of Television was in the Fifties and early Sixties, but when you actually see the old shows on DVD or Streaming, you have to wonder if maybe that Golden Age wasn't even as real as Hesiod's.

Which brings me to my own Golden Age. I started writing back in the Sixties, then with great earnest the following decade. The Eighties saw me get a foot in the door with magazines and publishers, and I made steady gains after that. I'm not famous, and I'm certainly not rich, but I can look back on a writing career that was as satisfying as it was frustrating, always battling with editors and occasionally finding a home for a story or a book. And I'm still at it, even though the small press has virtually vanished, no one wants submissions sent though the USPS, and most publications in this New Digital World are as ephemeral as a jarful of electrons. The amalgamation of publishers into a handful, the demise of all but one national bookselling chain (B&N is ever on the verge), and the rise of indie publishing as the new norm has changed everything, but that's not why my Golden Age is in the past.

It's people. It's writers and artists I've know, worked with and for, read, and sometimes even published in my own small press publications. Over the years, I've known hundreds to varying degrees. Some personally as friends and collaborators, others as correspondents, and more simply because I enjoyed their work and wrote to them. Where are they now? Gone, unfortunately; some are dead, but most simply moved on to something else, giving up the Grand Chase for fame and fortune.

So, out of the hundreds, who remains besides me? It's a small group. I can count them on one hand and have three fingers left over -- David Barker and Wilum Hopfrog Pugmire. All three of us are Lovecraft enthusiasts, but they have stayed closer to that essence than I have. I have to admire them, not just because they have stayed the course over the decades, but because they still have the fire that a writer must have. And they still write Lovecraftian tales. Recently they collaborated on a book entitled Witches in Dreamland, a novel set in Lovecraft's Dreamlands.

Witches in Dreamland

It's a magnificent book, well written and well plotted, beautifully produced by small press publisher Hippocampus Press. In addition to Lovecraft's universe, it also incorporates Willum's Sesqua Valley, in which he has set several stories, including one which I published and illustrated many years ago. Here's the pitch for the book:

"Simon Gregory Williams, known as 'the beast' in Sesqua Valley, has been so corrupted by his reading and memorizing every existing edition of the Necronomicon that his tainted psyche cannot enter into Randolph Carter’s Dreamland. However, there is another dreamland, “the dreamland of witches,” into which Simon can slink because of his brilliance as an alchemist; and it is into that dreamland that Simon accompanies an innocent young woman in her quest for rare magick. Yet even Simon, who is so experienced in eldritch lore, has never been so confronted by such outlandish Lovecraftian lunacy as he finds in this dreamland of witchery.

"In this fascinating excursion into the Lovecraftian fantasy/horror realm of Dreamland, two veteran authors of weird fiction have written a novel that is by turns horrific and poignant, with vibrant characters and a compelling narrative that carries the reader on from scene to scene to the novel’s cataclysmic conclusion."

I started on a grey note, which darkened as I wrote, but I hope ending on this high note, the publication of a new novel by two friends who deserve your attention and support, keeps this missive from being entirely a downer for you. For me, it's raining outside, the day is murky, and the house is too quiet. But, at some point in the future, if I live long enough, even this will seem part of some Golden Age...of what, I don't know, but something.