The Sickness

Claims Department

Claims Department: Down with the Sickness Welcome to Claims Department! I wanna say Hello to a few folks who are getting this one who didn’t get the previous issues. You’ll note that you’ll probably get Claims Department now and again, but probably not all the time. It’s a tiny, tiny circulation, which won’t be going up anytime soon. It’s about 100 bucks for the 25 copies I’ve been getting out there. It’s what I do. How do I choose who gets it? Well, if I have a left-over TAFF mailing list label, it’s likely that you’ll get an issue. If I’ve found your name in a zine’s LoColumn, you might get one. The only three regulars who will get every issue: Guy Lillian (for the Zine Dump), Mike Glyer (‘cause he’s awesome) and Lloyd Penney (more awesome!). This issue, you’ll be reading the various parts of a set of days when I was sick as a dog who had seen better days himself. I’ve written this issue once before, but scrapped it because I thought it was too dull!

Art in this Claims Department Cover and Page 4 are from Genevieve Page 2 is from Lia Page 5 is the photo of Judith that I think inspired the dream. It was taken by M, I think. Page 9- Kari Barone? I’ve had it for ages and I think it was her. Page 11 is a still from Themis. Page 13- Mike Lark and Danielle Lewis Page 15 is a photo I took on my TAFF trip Page 17 is from Selena Phanara Page 18 has art from Bill Rotsler and Katie Juti

Day 1- 101.3 Degrees

It was 5:35 am on what I remember as a Wednesday, but it may well have been a Tuesday. These things get lost. The month was March and I believe it was towards the end of the month. I was home alone since it was vacation time. I haven’t had anyone around me for almost a week, and no return expected until another two weeks. I woke up at 5:35 like I often do, but this time I felt like absolute Hell. I was freezing even though I’d been under the heavy covers all-night. It was funny, I seldom get sick, but when I do, I know it instantly. I went to the bathroom and discovered that the SpongeBob SquarePants thermometre had been left after Evelyn had been over and not feeling well about a month before. I popped it into my mouth and found that the read 101.3 degrees. I took a couple of Aleve and sent an eMail to my boss saying that I wasn’t coming in. I went back to bed, noticing that things were starting to suck a little bit more. I fell asleep almost instantly. I got back to consciousness around 10. I was rested, I was ready to get back to the

world...except for I felt like I was a cheesecurd melting across the top of a piled plate of poutine. I pushed myself up a little bit and looked at my surroundings. All my DVDs were within reach, though the TV would require me to get up. That was not an option. I had a computer at arm’s length, so I could put on some music and there were more books on the tub next to my bed. I grabbed one, a paperback I hand ’t even started, and just dove into it. I love novels with good openings, and sometimes good openings will drive you forward. Other times, a good set of words will set the mood and that’ll be what takes you onwards like a good soldier. And sometimes, there’s some more. The way a book is set-up will often make it easier to dive in. I had bought a book at LosCon that had been written by a friend of mine from college. She had eMailed me a week or so before to catch up. She’d married Dry Humor Tom, one of the funniest humans I ever met. He was brilliantly wry in a way that few men can manage. I had often wondered whatever happened to him, and I discovered the truth through eMail. Alisa Moscowitz was the girl across the hall. She was a freshman when I was a Junior at Emerson. She was a writing major, as was I, but she at least had some talent. I, on the other hand, got by with my grades from history-based electives and simple bravado to turn in some of the writing projects I did. That’s how I made my way through all my schooling. Alisa and Tom had some moments during college, my favourite moment being Alisa calling Tom a jerk in the bathroom after having a few drinks. One of the funniest moments of my years in college. I had completely lost touch with just about everybody from Emersonl, but it was cool to hear from her, and she mentioned that she had a novel coming out. This presents a problem that a lot of fans probably have: writer friends. Sometimes you might meet someone and you become friendly and they mention they’ve got a book, you pick it up and read it and it turns out to be crap. How do you deal with that? I’m lucky, as my pals like Jay Lake, Howard Hendrix and John Scalzi write stuff that I really enjoy and I had read some of their stuff before I got to know them. I had read some of Alisa’ writing back in the day, and I

This issue was created between January 3rd and January 4th, 2008. It was the second written, though third published of the current series of Claims Department remembered it as very good stuff. I now had the problem of reading a book from a friend with little clue as to what she’d been writing. the book is The Blood Confessions and it’s not the perfect read, but it is an experience. This is one of those rare moments where I have to give props to Heather Wood. She was the book designer and I have to say, she did an amazing job of it. The book, which is based around the legend of Erzsebet Bathory, was designed to look as if blood had stained the bottom portion of the pages. The cover had the feeling of a 16th Century portrait done on woodpaneling. I liked it. The layout is magnificent and the words aren’t bad either. Alisa has a way with playing with language that seems authentic to my unknowing self. It told the story of Erzsebet Bathory, one of my favourite historical figures who is often pointed to as one of the greatest murderers of all-time, and it gives us structure and characters and motion. I was sucked in and I have to say, I was never distracted by the layout and I discovered that I really felt as if I was reading a document from the time. That’s how I got into it. The opening line I mentioned was one of the ones that brought me to the dance: ‘A small sharp blade is required for the sharpening of a quill’. For me, that takes me places. I really enjoyed it. It kinda felt like a YA novel, which is perfectly fine since I’ve read a lot of YA over the years. At one point, I’d have loved to have been a YA author. I would have happily been a writer of stories of young people making their way in the world against impossible odds. Maybe with a zombie or something. Luckily, I got out of the fiction writing world with a bit of my mind left and not having polluted the stream of the Young Adult section of bookstores. I’m glad I did not keep at it because even a talentless hack of a squirrel is right twice a day. OK, I read the entire thing in one sitting. Well, one laying. I never left the bed at all. I was deep into the book, and riding some of the

fever, I guess. I hadn’t noticed that I’d been through all the music on my laptop. It was on the second pass for all of them. I finished the last page while The Arcade Fire was giving me No Cars Go. A great song. I got up, out of bed for the first time in almost 8 hour, it turned out. I had no water, hand ’t gotten up to use the bathroom and hand ’t even found my mind wandering at all. The book had sucked me in, had captured my attention completely. I had had that happen with various films over the years, especially Magnolia and JFK, which I had made it all the way through without needing to use the restroom even though I’d had a large soda at both shows. It was pretty amazing that it could happen with a book. I really liked the way Alisa wrote the thing. I could tell that she’d loved the research she put into the thing. It showed that she loved getting into the headspace of the era she researched. I don’t know how she did it. I must ask her to write something for the DrinkTank. Out of the bed, I found that my legs weren’t liking me at all. I made it to the bathroom and rechecked my temp. 101.1 degrees. At least it was lower. I did what I had to do and then headed across the apartment to the fridge. There were about 100 bottles of water in there. I think they were in preparation for a trip to Yosemite. I grabbed about 20 of them. I also saw that the remainder of my latest date meal was in there. I’d gone out with Jennifer on Saturday night and we’d had a ton of food, and walked out with a trio of take-out boxes. I saw that the cooler was next to the fridge. I grabbed it, put the bottles of water on the bottom, sat down at the table for about five minutes when the room started to spin, loaded up the cooler with some ice from the ice box and the Chinese. I grabbed

a fork, a knife and a spoon, a few Sunny Delight bottles (the next best thing to Orange Juice) and I pulled the thing back to my room. It was pretty cold, maybe 50 as the high for the day, down into the high 30s at night. That happens once in a while ‘round these parts. I put the cooler as close to my bed as possible. I sat up, picked out one of the cartons of Chinese, Duck as I remember it, and ate it while I watched The Simpsons. I love The Simpsons and getting to watch both the episodes, which almost never happened since I would normally be watching Evelyn, but since I was sick, I didn’t. I drank the Sunny Delight, drank a couple of bottles of water and I felt a little bit better. I guess it was because I had been burning calories without doing anything other than involuntarily shivering and just maintaining an elevated body temperature. I do love duck. A lot of Chinese place serve duck with too many bones left in it, but the place in Saratoga where we went didn’t leave any bones in and that was a good thing. Of course, it was also probably the last date I’d be having with Jenn. The biggest problem was her view of Evelyn. She actually referred to Evelyn as ‘The Other Woman’, which just isn’t right. I love watching Evelyn, the little hellion, and she means the world to me. And, probably more important, Evelyn loves having me around. Even though Gen, Evelyn’s Mom, and I weren’t in the best of places with one another, we were both being there for hte Little One and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Yeah, it must be hell to start dating someone new when you’ve got a kid, and I can’t imagine how difficult it would be to start dating someone who chose to be in the lives of not only their ex-girlfriend, but also watch her daughter afterschool. I must ask The Lovely and Talented Linda how she managed to make it past that. I watched more television and then fell asleep. I’d managed to finish off the duck and found myself blinking in and out of sleep. I realized at about 2 am that I needed to put myself down for full sleep. I got up and took some Nyquil. I grabbed some more ice, refilled the ice trays and managed to make it back to bed, where I hunkered down in bed under more blankets than would be needed to wall a Yurt. I was out within 20 minutes.

I sat in a room, staring at my hands. The room was hot. I was sweating. I could hear music coming from some distant room. Some terrible music. It was blues guitar and singing. Whining. That’s what I always think of the blues. I was thiking in the dream that even though the blues is the base for all music that emerged from America, it still sucks. There was someone in the room with me. I couldn’t see her face. I know her. Not close. We knew each other from sometime long ago. Maybe it was during the years when I wasn’t the smartest kid in the world. She was wearing pink and her hair fell forward. Her blouse drew together in the front with a thick string. I couldn’t see her face, but I knew she was there for me. “Where are we going tonight?” She asked. Her voice was that of a much younger woman than she obviously was. I could see her hands, fumbling with a cigarette, and they were thin, almost mechanical. See lit her cigarette and handed it to me. I stared at it. Even in the dream, I didn’t smoke. I held it for a moment and I looked back up to her, but she had stood up and was moving across the room. “I was thinking we’d go out for Greek.” I said. I was looking out what I thought was a window. It looked into another room, rough-hewn, unfinished. I knew the room, part of the Winchester House. I’d been there many times, but the room I was in wasn’t in the house. It was my old room at Cortez Dr.. I stared at the room on the other side of the window, lookign at the lincrusta Wallpaper and the floors that had only been half-sanded but hand been worn down through decades of visitor foot traffic. And then the room changed, from the room at Cortez Dr. to the one of my apartment in Santa Clara, across from the Safeway, on the land that used to be Agnew Developmental Centre. “I don’t think we need any more Greek.” She said. “We should find someone who can take us to the mountain.”

There was a shadow passing along the far wall of the room. I followed it to a window which looked out on the outside. There was a shape out there. It wasn’t human, but it was an animal, an animal spirit I’d say. I wanted to open the window, but I woke up the exact moment I felt a metal hand rest roughly on my shoulder.

Surrealism was built around dream imagery, but there was a segment of the Surrealists, led by Joseph Cornell, that turned again Jungian analysis

Day 2- 102.7 Degrees

This was way too high. I checked the temperature again and found that it was still 102.7. Even when I was a kid and my temps would fluctuate wildly. I splashed some water on my face, cold as I could get and then I started a bath. I mixed cold and hot water, because I knew even though I felt freezing cold and head to toe shivers, I had to bring my body temp down. I also knew that if I couldn’t manage to get things under control, I’d have to go to a...to the...hospital. I completely hate hospitals. It’s where people go to die. I waited a few minutes and got myself into the tub. It did not feel good, but after a few minutes, I felt happy. Truly happy. I waited 20 minutes or so in the tub and then got out and dried off. I could tell that I was slightly more comfortable. I dropped eMails to Gen and to Work saying that I wouldn’t be in again. I took some Dayquil and got myself into some Hef gear. I had a pair of silk pajamas, and then a smoking jacket. I looked good. I felt a bit better. Yes, I do not costume at conventions, but you get my bodyheat up and I might do it alone at home. I needed good clothes since I was moving my primary residence for the day to the living room. I dragged the cooler and a DVD Box Set with me. I also grabbed a couple of magazines with me. I can tell you that they were both talking about Britney going crazy and Lindsey Lohan being in to the rehab. Those two are great drama headlines and now that Lindsey’s gone to bat for the other team, it’s possible that they could get together and form DramaTron, the ultimate Tabloid Monster.

Films I’ve seen on the National Film Registry

2001: A Space Odyssey, 42nd Street, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, The Adventures of Robin Hood, Alien, All About Eve, All Quiet on the Western Front, All That Jazz, American Graffiti, Annie Hall, The Apartment, Asphalt Jungle. Back to the Future, The Bank Dick, The Battle of San Pietro, Beauty and the Beast, Ben-Hur (1925), BenHur (1959), The Big Parade, The Big Sleep, The Birth of a Nation, The Black Stallion, Blacksmith Scene, Blade Runner, Blazing Saddles, Bonnie and Clyde, Boyz n the Hood, Bride of Frankenstein, The Bridge on the River Kwai, Bringing Up Baby, Broken BlossomsBullitt, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Cabaret Casablanca, The Chechahcos Chinatown, Citizen Kane, City Lights, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Colonge: From the Diary of Ray and Esther, The Conversation, Cool Hand Luke, Cops, The Court Jester, Dances with Wolves, The Day The Earth Stood Still, The Deer Hunter, Deliverence, Disneyland Dream, Do The Right Thing, Double Indemnity, Dr. Strangelove, Dracula, Duck Amok, Duck and Cover, Duck Soup, E.T., The Extraterrestrial, Easy Rider, The Endless Summer, Enter The Dragon, Eraserhead, The Fall of the House of Usher, Fantasia, Fargo Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Five Easy Pieces, Flash Gordon, Flower Drum Song, Foolish Wives, Frankenstein, Freaks, Free Radicals, The French Connection, From Here to Eternity, The General, George Stevens World War II footage, Gertie the Dinosaur, Giant, Gigi, The Godfather, The Godfather Part II, The Gold Rush, Gone with the Wind, Goodfellas, The Graduate, The

The DVD box set I brought with me was one of the best purchases I’d ever made. It set me back 1/4 a month’s rent, but ti was an awesome buy. It was the Treasures of American Film Archives disk set. Four disks and a lovely booklet which carries the details of the dozens of films on the disks. Why did I buy it and why do I love it so? Well, it all has to do with the National Film Registry. It’s a list of films that are deemed significant to the history of film or that move forward the aesthetic form of American film. There’s more to it, but that’s the basic form. I love the Registry, my dashed dreams of being a film historian help keep me focused on the matter. Every year, they add 25 films, and by that point, there were 450 films listed. I have seen a great many of them, probably about 60%, but I also think it’s important that I get to know film from across all times to know what should be added. Every year I send in my recs and once in a while, they listen. Or at least I go along with the folks who also nominate and get respect from the Library of Congress people. The Treasury has tons of films that are on the registry or that should end up on the Registry. I have watched the various disks over the years, but I have never watched it all in a row. Now I would make that leap. I took my temp again and it was down to a mere 100.7, but I was going to have some good rest and more water and more time in a lazy position. I put the first disk into the DVD p layer, plopped down on the couch and opened up a bottle of water. Classic film is a passion.

There is no way to fake a love for it, and if you do love it, you are consumed. I’ve shown some of these old films to others, tried to get them to understand, but it doesn’t work like that. It’s impossible to bend someone to this sort of thing. It is merely possible to show them what they may not know they already love. Like eating natto. The first disk opened with an animation from 1922 called The Original Movie. It’s a film about filmmaking done during the period of film history that is often pointed to as the most significant. It was a time of frolic, before the Hayes Act that really took the excesses of the first twenty years of Hollywood stars into the deep shadows. The film is done as a series of shadow puppets. While Balinese Shadow Puppets are the best known kind, and shadow plays were very popular street entertainments in the Victorian era. The Mysterios Geographic Voyage of Jasper Morello, one of the best short films of the last decade, was done in a similar style. This story features cutouts runnign around trying to make their movie. And there’s a goat. I love goats. No, not like that, you freak! I think they’re hilariously funny. The Simpsons once created a film called Shennanigoats, that sadly they never showed on the series. I’ve threatened to make it once or twice myself. The Original Movie is a lot of fun in 8 minutes. It’s not on the Registry, but I’ve nominated once or twice. Then there were three Edison films, each running roughly 57 seconds. The first one is on the Natiional Film Registry (class of 1995). Made in 1893, it is one of the first films ever made, more

Great Dictator, The Great Train Robbery, Greed, Groundhog Day, Gunga Din, Hallelujah, Halloween, Harold and Maude, Hellʼs Hinges, High Noon, Hindenburg Disaster Newsreel Footage, Hoop Dreams, Hoosiers, How Green Was My Valley, How The West Was Won, In Cold Blood, In The Heat of the Night, In the Land of the Head Hunters, Intolerance, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Invisible Man, It, It Happened One Night, Itʼs a Wonderful Life Jailhouse Rock, Jeffries vs. Johnson Worldʼs Championship Boxing Match, Jaws , The Jazz Singer , Johnny Guitar, The Killers, King Kong, The Kiss, Koyaanisqatsi, Lassie Come Home, The Last of the Mohicans, The Last Picture Show, Laura, Lawrence of Arabia, Letʼs All Go To The Lobby, The Life and Death of 9413: A Hollywood Extra, Little Caeser, The Living Desert, The Lost World, Love Finds Andy Hardy, M*A*S*H*, The Magnificent Ambersons, The Maltese Falcon, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Manhattan, The March, Marian Anderson: The Lincoln Memorial Concert, Marty, Meet Me In St. Louis, Memphis Belle, Midnight Cowboy, Miracle on 34th Street, Modern Times, Morocco, Motion Painting No. 1 A Movie, The Music Man, My Darling Clementine, The Naked City, Nanook of the North Nashville, National Lampoonʼs Animal House, National Velvet Network, A Night at the Opera Night of the Living Dead, No Lies, North by Northwest, Notorious, The Nutty Professor, OffOn, Oklahoma!, On the Bowery, One Flew Over the Cuckooʼs Nest, One Week, The Outlaw Josey Wales, Patton, The Pawnbroker, The Perils of Pauline, Peter Pan, The Phantom of the Opera, The Philadelphia Story, Pinocchio, A Place in the Sun, Planet of the

than a year before The Lumiere Brothers made their first films. It’s a Blacksmith, working at his shop. I’m fairly certain that this was shot in the actual Smithy shop, since it would have been very difficult to recreate the scene in the Black Maria, the famous Edison studion in New Jersey. It’s simple, but these Actualities were all the rage. The Gay Shoe Clerk and Three American Beauties are also there. Three American Beauties is a good little film, and the Gay Shoe Clerk is one of the funnier of the Edison shorts. There’s actually a story, and it’s all about a Shoe Clerk taking advantage of his position. It’s a theme that was very popular in the early days of film. I needed water. I needed food. I grabbed a bottle from the cooler and one of the cartons of Chinese. I had an idea that I should write down my dream. I could probably use it someday. I lifted up the table (it’s one of those ones that the tabletop lifts up on rails revealing a small storage space underneath. I grabbed the pad and pen and wrote it all down, as best I remembered it. The next film was one of my faves. There was a popular form called Trick Films. J. Stuart Blackton was one of the major figures in the history of film. He founded Vitagraph Motion Picture Company and is called the Father of American Animation. OK, there are a couple of people who get that title, but Blackton makes a very good case. He used to do a sort of stage show where he’d do Lightning Drawings, quick sketches that he would change on the fly. You could do stuff like in Vaudeville. He was invited to go to Edison’s Jersey studio and there he did his Lightning Drawings for the camera.

That was what got Blackton thinking about making films and how they could be used to show off illustration. Princess Nicotine, also called The Smoke Fairies, is one of the best trick films ever done. It uses double exposures, in-camera disolves, giant props to make people look tiny, forced perspective and even stop motion animation, something which was not often done. He really was one of the most innovative filmmakers of his time. True, Melies had been doing many of the same tricks in France since he built his Cinematograph, but Blackton was doing more and telling fun stories. To prove how far ahead of the curve Blackton was, Princess Nicotine has the first known paid product placement. That’s a director who knew what was coming. It was named to the Registry in 2003. I needed to get up. I couldn’t explain it, but I had to move. My head was trying to bound out of my skull and dance across the floor and the only way to stop it, I reasoned, was to make the first move. I got up and walked around the apartment, not shivering, I noticed. I picked up a couple of books and some zines from my room, another load of ice for the cooler, the laptop, my cell phone. I moved it all into the living room. That and my blankets. I had foolishly thought that the tartan throw that lived on the couch would be enough, but I was wrong. A heavy comforter, a fuzzy blanket and a flannel sheet were required. Comfort, thy name shall be living

Apes, Popeye The Sailor Meets Sinbad the Sailor, Porky in Wackyland, Powers of Ten, President McKinley Inauguration Footage Princess Nicotine, The Producers Psycho, Raiders of the Lost Ark, A Raisin in the Sun, Rear Window, Rebel Without a Cause, Republic Steel Strike Riot Newsreel Footage, Return of the Secaucus 7, Rip Van Winkle, Road to Monocco, Rocky The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Roman Holiday, Rose Hobart, Sabrina, Safety Last, San Francisco Earthquake and Fire footage, Scarface, Schindlerʼs List, Sergeant York, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, sex, lies and videotape, Shadows, Shaft, Shane, Sherlock, Jr., Shock Corridor The Shop Around The Corner Show Boat, Singinʼ in the Rain, Snow White, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, Some Like It Hot, The Son of the Sheik, The Sound of Music, A Star is Born, Star Theatre, Star Wars. Steamboat Willie, The Sting, Stormy Weather, Stranger than Paradise, The Strong Man, Sunrise, Sunset Blvd., The T.A.M.I Show, Tabu, The Tacoma Narrows Bridge Collapse, The Ten Commandments, The Terminator, Tess of the Storm Country, Tevye, The Theif of Bagdad, The Thin Blue Line, The Thin Man, The Thing from Another World, This is Cinerama, Three Little Pigs, Tin Toy, To Kill a Mockingbird, Tolʼable David, Tootsie, Top Hat, Topaz, Toy Storym Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Vertigo, West Side Story, Whatʼs Opera Doc?, White Fawnʼs Devotion, Why We Fight, The Wild Bunch, The Wizard of Oz, Woogstock, Wuthering Heights, Young Frankenstein, the Zapruder Film

room.

The next film was The Confederate Ironclad, which was 16 minutes and a prettywatchable film for something made in 1912. Storytelling has improved greatly and the way they were going in those days can be rough to watch. I only half-paid attention. I was feeling very funny, like I was still moving and yet I was laying still. I was starting to get a little worried, but I popped open another water and went on to the next flick, another Registry Film called Hell’s Hinges. Arguably the greatest film released in 1916, Hell’s Hinges is a William S. Hart western that’s nothing like any western you’d see until the late 1970s. This was likely Thomas Ince’s best film, and his production choices were legendary. The end features a burning town and it’s magnificent. In my eyes, it’s one of the greatest westerns ever, right up there with The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. It was added to the Registry in the thied or fourth batch ever in 1994. It didn’t quite hold my total attention, since I’d seen it three or four times before, and for some reason the room was slowly sliding to the left. At more than an hour, it was amazing I managed to stay awake. I took my temp again. 101.1. Not good. That was followed by The Fall of the House of Usher, the 1928 silent avant-garde version directed by the heir to the Western Union fortune, Dr. James Sibley Watson. It’s weird and it led me to

My highest known body temp was when I was three and I spiked at 106.5. I thought it was higher, but Mom corrected me. They instantly dumped me into an ice bath. That was no fun. Mom said I didn’t forgive her for days and refused to hug her. That’s a big deal for a three year old...especially a huggy one like I was.

the phrase that I love: once is realist, twice is repetitive, thrice is avant-garde. That’ll come back again, trust me. The best 2 minutes of the DVD had to be Groucho Marx Home movies. It’s just Groucho and his family hangin’ out, but it’s awesome to see Groucho as a person with family. It’s fun stuff. It’s not on the Registry, but has some support. That led to Running Around San Francisco For An Education, a film showing women gettin’ learned in the late 1930s. It’s 2 minutes and it shows SF in the old days. I think it’s fun. That was followed by a clip from Tevye. It’s on the Registry, I believe that it’s the first film in Yiddish to be added to the Registry. It’s based on the Sholem Aleichem story. It’s a good clip, though it would have been nice to have the full film. It’s another film from 1939, which is the year with the most films on the NFR. That was followed by yet another 1939 film on the Registry. Collonge: From the Diary of Ray and Esther. It’s a short documentary about a German-American community right before WWII. It’s not my favourite, but it is certainly culturally significant. In a similar vein, the first Private Snafu short I’d ever seen, Spies, is one of those things that is certainly wrong. It’s full of legendary stereotypes of Japanese people that were all the rage in the days of WWII. It’s incredibl;e to consider the talent working on this. There was Theodore Giessel, better known as Dr. Suess, who was writing them, Chuck Jones doing the animation with Mel Blanc doing the voice of Private Snafu. There’s a full DVD of them that’s been floating around the BASFA scene. They’re offensive as hell, though still nothing like the Bakshi films of the early 1970s. None of them are on the Registry, but at least one will make it on in the next few years. The last one on the first disk was a Registry film called OffOn. It’s a good one automatically because it has an internal capital letter in the title. Scott Bartlett made OffOn in 1967 and it’s one of the first combinations of film and video. He made it in

Sacramento using TV equipment and manipulating the colour of the pieces. He even used food coloring to give the film a very unique look. It’s a very San Francisco kind of short avant-garde film. It certainly follows the 3 times is experimental rule. It’s weird and even though it’s only 9 minutes, sometimes folks who watch it have their minds wander. I certainly did that morning. I was staring slack-jawed at the screen, with my mind being barraged with the images of flying doves and faces in profile with weird video effects. It was put on the Registry in 2004. Sadly, Bartlett passed away in the mid-1980s. I had gone through the first DVD. It wasn’t perfect. I was feeling weird, I wasn’t shivering, I was feeling like I had been beaten with reeds. I drank another bottle of water and then lay looking up at the ceiling. I wanted to sleep. I really wanted to sleep. Sleeping would have been good. It didn’t happen. My back was on fire. I had to move. I had to. I squirmed a bit. A lot, actually. I grabbed a copy of File 770, turned the pages, finding my LoC right there, the first in the column. I love File 770. Mike Glyer’s a good dude and I love reading the reviews from John Hertz. I started to get a cramping in my left foot. This was a good thing as I don’t think I’d felt anything below my knees for several hours. It was good to feel pain there. It meant I hand ’t lost anything. This was what I was thinking like at the moment. I got up and put the new DVD into the player, putting the first disk in the second disk’s holder. I wouldn’t fix that switch for another two years. There was no way to copyright moving pictures so smart producers would go and make a paper print of the film. Photographs were able to be copyrighted, so the producers would put a series of photographs 35mm wide by how many ever feet long. It was the way they did things for a decade or so. These were pretty much forgotten about for decades until an archivist at the Library of Congress rediscovered them and made them a priority for

preservation. They set up a station for photographing them and getting them ready for permanent preservation. The three they chose, Star Theatre (which is on the National Film Registry), Move On, and Dog Factory, are very typical of films from 1900 through 1910. Dog Factory, which should be on the Registry in the next few years, was a very popular film of real dogs being put into a machine and linked sausages, or dogs, being taken out of the machine. It’s a lot of fun. That was followed by a 1911 film called The Lonedale Operator. I never liked it much, and when I was in the midst of a personal firefight in my body, I was no more apt to enjoy it. It’s not on the Registry, and neither was Her Crowning Glory, a Bunnyfinch stariring Flora Finch and John Bunny. It’s a fun little piece, but it’s not overly entertaining. It was pretty good, but at that moment, I wasn’t in the mood for black and white. I was seeing a tinge of red with everything around anyhow. A pause was needed and I pulled a Sunny Delight out of the cooler. I needed C. If I was going to beat this thing, I was going to beat it with the power of vitamin C. I might have to leave

Vitamin C is a signer. Her big song was Graduation from about 1997 or so. She was also Amber Van Tussel in the original Hairspray! the house to get more. It wouldn’t be anytime soon. Once I sat down, I knew I wouldn’t be walking anytime soon. The next film is perfectly set as a counter-point for films like The Spirit: beautiful and with a terrible story. In fact, it was a terrible story, basically a retelling of Madame Butterfly without the whimsy. Anna Mae Wong is great in it, but the film is produced for one reason. Toll of the Sea is the earliest two-strip Technocolor film that still exists. And even though there is no Blue spectrum, it’s beautiful. It’s amazing to see. Watching films like The Toll of the Sea or the later Ben Hur (starring Ramon Navarro) is something special and it is so much easier to connect with on a whole than the B+W...at least when you’re not in your right mind. This isn’t on the registry, and it shouldn’t be except for the Technicolor process being a significant step for-

ward towards modern film. At 54 minutes, it was hard to make it all the way through. I’ve never been a fan. I picked up a copy of Us Weekly. It’s trash, but trash was what I needed. Britney had just shown her babyplace while getting out of a limo and Us milked it for all it was worth without actually showing the significant portion of the pictures. It was funny. I think I spent about 30 minutes reading it. I think I got through about 4 total pages. I wasn’t processing very quickly. I went back to the DVD. Next was a section from Accuracy First, a 1928 Western Union corporate training film. Yes, they go back that far. It’s a really interesting piece, but it’s not the kind of thing you’d watch over and over. I don’t think it has a chance at the Registry. Same goes for the next two short documentaries, West Virginia, The State Beautiful and One-Room Schoolhouses. Both are fine documents of rural life in the 1920s and 30s, but neigher are what I’d call breakthroughs. They’re not on the Registry, but I wouldn’t be shocked to see either make it on at some point. The following piece was a series of three early sound home movies from Archie Stewart, a guy who made hundreds of home movies over more than 60 years. Interesting, and probably worthy of Registry consideration, even if it’s just stuff like Christmas morning around the house. I needed a break. I needed to get myself into something that would make my mind stronger, better able to take over from the body and set me back onto the path of health. Yes, I sound like some tree-hugging, dirt-munching hippy, but in reality, I’m merely grasping at straws. With my body nearly boiling, I had to try something. I wouldn’t call it meditating, I don’t believe you can meditate in a smoking jacket and silk pajamas, but I was deep in thought. I closed my eyes and thought thoughts of war, battle, victory. I had to fight whatever it was that was making me feverish. Colors climbed in through the edges of my closed-eye field of vision, doing battle with the repeating black-and-white patterns I created whenever I closed my eyes tightly. Greens taking the edges, yellow globs that would be surrounded and pushed around the field, blues that became their own patterns. I opened my eyes and the

room seemed dark, painful. I was feeling slightly better. At least I thought I was feeling slightly better. If you’re still reading this, I’m shocked. I’d have given up a while ago. Let me know that you’ve come this far (5793 words) by sending me an eMail ([email protected]) with the title “Word Up” and the body message “I’ve got blisters on me fingers!” I’ll make sure to give you a special plug. I love doing these little gimmicks! OK, so I wasn’t doing well. I drank the last Sunny Delight. I drank another water. I pulled up another film, Composition 1 (Themis) by Dwinell Grant from 1941. This is one of my more favourites. It’s an important piece as it’s a fine artist giving up on traditional painting because there’s only so much you can do, movement can be hinted at, but never achieved. He used wood, glass and paper, along with amazing theatrical stage lighting, to make an awesome abstract piece. The music that the disk presented along with it wasn’t great, I don’t think a strictly piano composition works with it, but I do have to say that it was a great film. It’s not on the Registry, but I’m hoping that the four he made (three flat and the third a 3D kind of film) will end up on there someday. I was now at 101.7, so I figured I was doing something wrong. I crawled, I kid you not, crawled, across the floor to the kitchen, where I managed to make it to my feet and grappled a fleet of paper towels, dampened them and walked rather shakily back to the couch. I was home again. The next film was a classic from one of the truly great directors: John Huston. He directed three films for the U.S. Army Pictorial Service, a part of the Signal Corps.. The piece was called The Battle of San Pietro and it’s a hard one. One of the grittiest films you’ll ever see, it’s a doc where you see dead people, actual fighting, and it makes you think of the pain of war by understanding what it’s really about. Weigh this against any film that supposed shows the horror that is war and you’ll see that it is

nothing in comparison. The war metaphors I was pushing earlier played well with it, so I went back to that visualization. I had grittier imagery to go along with it now. One of the fever demons I envisioned this time was killed from flak from a thrown grenade. After that, there was a funny film about a few Negro League players. They were much like the Harlem Globetrotters, a team called the Clowns that featured Reece Goose Tatum, one of the great entertainers in the history of baseball and one of the all-time great members of the Globetrotters. This was a very basic film, probably raw material that was going ot be used for a newreel meant for an African-American audience. The last film on this DVD was Battery Film by Richard Protovin and Franklin Backus. It’s a doc that includes line animation in the background. It’s a good film, but I was not in the path of thought that would this kind of thing would work for me. I drank three bottles of water in the 9 minutes of Battery Film. I was sweating. I knew this was an OK thing. I didn’t want to damage my silk pajamas, so I headed into my bedroom and changed into my Homer Simpson pajamas. It was time for sweaty comfort. I threw on my Trogdor shirt. It was my victory outfit. I was getting better! I was being awesome above all measure!!! I still felt like I’d been battered, so I took my place on the couch and started disk three. I’m not entirely sure what happened, but I ended up switching the side of the couch, and my head was kinda dangling off the edge. It was weird. I don’t know why, but I don’t think that my neck was functioning any longer. The first film was The Theiving Hand. It’s another sort of Trick film from the Vitagraph Company, but not directed by Blackton. It’s a great film about a beggar without an arm who is given a new one and it turns out to be evil. In many ways, it’s the same idea as Idle Hands, the 1999 film with Jessica Alba and a bunch of other folks. It’s a funny little film, lasts about five minutes. Not on the Registry yet, but I’m betting in the next

three or four years. I was swimming at this point. My head was inverted, my eyes hurting, and I was sweating. Not the best mode for viewing movies, but I pressed on. White Fawn’s Devotion was next, most likely the first film directed by a Native American, in this case James Young Deer. It got on the Registry in 2008, though I thought it had always been on. I like the film, despite it’s rough edges. Pathe, the French film company, had come across to America and this was one of their first films. At the time, only four Young Deer films were known to exist, but more than a half-dozen more have been found since the release of the DVD set.

I’m 1/8 Ohlone Indian. It’s the tribe that inhabited much of the Silicon Valley and the Santa Cruz area. I beleive my Grandma is one of the last half-bloods. Still seeing the world by hanging off what I thought might be the edge of it, I pressed on and watched myself The Chechahcos. It was an independant film made in Alaska in 1922. Austin Lathrop, one of the real big wigs in the history of Alaska, decided to make a movie shot entirely on location in Alaska. It was certainly the right choice as far as beautiful scenery goes. It was the first feature shot entirely on location. The film’s pretty good, and at 88 minutes it’s the longest thing on the disks. I enjoyed it, still sorta melted across the couch with my head hanging off. Somehow, I had managed to eat the rest of the Chinese wihtout changing my position much. I don’t know how I did it, but I imagine a scene right out of JFK where some guy argues that it was impossible using a series of easle cards, repeating; ‘back, and to the left. Back, and to the left.” I didn’t move while I watched the Japanese American Community films from Rev. Sensho Sasaki. It features film shot prior to WWII. There was footage from Stockton and from Seattle, but there was something wrong. Not with the film, but within me. I was slowly contracting. My entire body, which had been spread into a position that might deserve a chalk outline, was slowly drawing itself up, into a tightened fetal position. I didn’t know what was going on,

but I could tell that I was about to lose consciousness. Something was coming down on me hard and I had no defence.

I kept looking out into that room, that old, dusty, well-worn room, even as I felt the driven, yet somehow brittle hand pulling me from it. “You should come to bed.” The voice sounded frightened of what might happen if I did not comply. “What’s out there?” I asked. “That’s a good question.” She said, pulling on my shoulder harder. I blinked as I saw something moving out, across the Winchester room, outside the window. It looked like a Bison, but there was something strange. “I remember, I remember Buffalo.” she said, releasing my shoulder. I could feel her walking back to the bed I didn’t remember being in the room. “That’s a Tragically Hip lyric, isn’t it?” I said. I turned from the window and looked at the woman. Her head was turned away from me, but her legs were pointed directly at me, her torso torqued. “Do you ever get the feeling that the story’s too damn real and in the present tense?” she said. I looked at the cigarette in my hand. It was giving off light blue smoke into the air which was somewhat more red than transparent. “Jethro Tull.” I said. She turned from me more as I made my way around to where she was seated. “Tell me.” I asked her. “Tell you what?” she asked. “Tell me about the Bison.” I said. And She started to turn towards me as I slowly opened my eyes and could see the dark outlines of the living room, the reflection of surfaces from light bouncing off whatever was in the parking lot.

Day 3- 104.1 Degrees I made a list and checked it thrice. 104.1, 104.0, 104.1. That wasn’t good. I knew it wasn’t good. I know that with that kind of temperature that you’re suposed to go to the hospital. I had no chance. It was the middle of the night. I think it was somewhere around 3am. I had no idea when I fell asleep, but in the time that I’d been asleep, whatever it was that had me in it’s grasp had rubbed it’s hands together and raised the temperature up in here. I panicked a little. I turned on the cold tap in the bathtub, took a few Tylenol and sunk in. I was freezing and just putting my feet in made me pull myself into a state of Otherness. I’d heard of it, the space where men on Vision Quests would go when they put themselves through many self-tortures, but I had never experienced it. I slid in slowly. I turned on a little bit of warm water, but mostly it was freezing water that I got into. I sat in there and waited. No thoughts. None. I don’t remember anything other than the cold. I remember the cold. I remember the pain. It hurt like hell. Because it was cold. It was physically painful to put myself into that water and I knew that I had to stay there to keep myself cold. I was hurting all over. I was hurting inside and out. It was awful. I should have gotten on the phone, talked to Kaiser, told them what the last couple of days had been like and then make my way down there. But I didn’t. Because I’m stupid.

I stayed in there for an hour or so. I could tell that it was going to be a rough couple of hours. The bath had cooled me down, there was no question, and the Tylenol must have been getting to work. I took my temperature again and it was down to 101.1, That was fine by me. Less likely that I’d burst into flames all of a sudden at 101.1, but it still wasn’t good. I needed supplies. It wasn’t going to be short before I would need to get better. My head was pounding, but Safeway was open around the clock and I needed things. Stuff and things. I slowly walked to the computer and sent some eMails. I think I sent eMails to work and such, but honestly, I have no idea. Everything was really weird at the time. I put together an outfit. A warm pair of flannel pajamas, a long t-shirt and socks along with my shoes. I almost forgot shoes. I started my way to the door without shoes. I finally got them and put them on. I had to sit down after that. It wasn’t going to be a fun trip. Luckily, I parked in front of my house so it was a short walk. I got in and paused for a bit. I finally turned on the engine and it was the music of Mark Mothersbaugh. The guy had been the leader of DEVO for years, but he left and had a lovely film scoring career. I’d purchased the soundtrack to The Royal Tennenbaums after having seen it in the theatre. I loved that movie. It was a lot of fun and the highlight was the music. He played with many forms, including a lovely fugue and a strange new concerto that I had to say went all over the place. It was weird. The other music was good too, but I only heard

the one piece in the one minute drive across the road to the Safeway. I found myself a parking space and sat there for a minute to give myself a bit of extra strength for the trip. The song Needle in the Hay came on. It’s the most wristslittingly awesome song ever. It’s an Elliot Smith song that they used in the movie for the scene where Luke Wilson tried to commit suicide. It’s a long song, sad, just guitar and voice. I have to say that it’s one of my faves.Eliot Smith had committed suicide himself on my birthday in 2002, so it became even sadder. This was the peak of Emo. I walked in. At that time of night, it wasn’t hard to get a close parking space. I walked in and found the buzzing of the overhead lights was making me queezy. Steady, boy-o. I had to get things. I picked a cart so that I could use it to hold myself up while I shopped. I made my way to the fresh fruit aisle where I bought bananas and pineapple. Potasium and C with fibre. Then it was off to the Odwallah case. C Monster and Mo-Beta to give me obxcene amounts of C and other various nutrients. I then made my way over to the case for regular Orange Juice. I picked a gallon of Pulpy Florida’s Choice. I love pulp. I then headed to the aisle of easy-to-make meals. I picked up a whole chicken, a thing of chicken strips and a tray of pot stickers. I was ready for at least two days. I headed to pay for things, remembering that I needed a thing of Ice. I’d have to say it to the checker. I pushed the cart to the check-out lane. The girl standing behind, probably 20 or so, was actually out on her feet. She was staring ahead, but not seeing anything. I stood there, far too beat to draw her attention, and waited. And waited. And waited. “Sorry, I didn’t see you.” She said. “And I need a thing of ice.” I said. “OK.” she said, starting to slide the items across the scanner. “You need some help with that?” “Yeah. I’m not myself of late.” I said. “Can I get a ten ound bag of ice to register 8?” She said into the microphone. A few seconds later, and I mean a few seconds, a young guy came up with a bag. I have no idea how they made it happen so quickly.

“That’ll be 21.12.” She said. I stared at her. And then I stared some more. I had completely forgotten how the whole paying for things thing worked. I finally got an idea that it might have something to do with that credit card I kept in my wallet. I took it out and I handed it to the girl. Shr also seemed to have some problem with the process, She held on to the card for a while before she ran it through. She handed it back. I put the bags in the cart and then pushed it back across the street to my house. I did this on purpose. I figured that I could use the cart to hold myself up because there was little way I was going to be able to lift the ice bag and carry it into the house. I had to stop twice along the way. Once I was home, I pushed the cart into my apartment, and started uploading, everything one at a time, filling the cooler with stuff and then putting the ice on top. It was perfect I had purchased exactly the right amount of stuff to fill that cooler exactly. It was as if I was so deeply in touch with the cooler that I could do nothing but buy the exact right amount. I then noticed that I had left about 25 empty water bottles around. Once I beat the bug, I would do some serious cleaning.

The land beneath the apartment where I lived was once Agnew Developmental Center, which I had worked hard to keep from getting torn down! I pushed the empty cart back, dropping it in-between the metal rail thing before I finally got into my car, turned it on and listened to Nico singing some song that I didn’t recognise. She’s always a good thing. The song was sonorous and sad, but there’s always something about her voice that makes me see joy in the lyrics. I can never explain it. I drove back home. Yes, I walked back and forth and drove a round trip. I may be the reason that the planet is in peril. I slammed one of the Odwallahs. C Monster. This was step one in Beater. I’d used this in college to get myself healthy in time for big events. I then drank a bottle of water and then

put myself on the couch again. I was ready to begin my work. I pressed play on the DVD again. The thing had cycled through all the rest of the DVD, so I had to fast forward to where I had left off. A pair of rare aviation films from the Smithsonian’s Air & Space Museum. One was of the Hindenburg on it’s flight across to the US from Germany. It was strange to see the Swastika on the Zeppelin, since they never focused on that in the US Newsreels once it was over here. It was a long segment, about 6 minutes, but it felt much longer. The people on the thing were very much the cruise set and they were well-treated. I started drinking the orange juice. I got up and grabbed a plastic cup, filled it once and took that one down. After that, it was fill and re-fill every fifteen minutes. It also meant more time running back and forth to the bathroom. This was acceptable. The next film on the disk should be on the Registry, but it is not. We Work Again is a 1937 Works Progress Administration film that covers the WPA’s work add-

capture some of the that is great. The next was a famous United States Information Agency film about the Berlin Wall called...wait for it...The Wall. There was no Pink Floyd soundtrack. That made me happy. What it was was a powerful doc about the people who escpaed East Germany and then that were killed trying to cross. It was about life and it was about the ways in which politics often forgets that families are stronger than any force imposed upon them. It’s a masterpiece and I think it’s going to end up on the Registry soon. It is a wonderful document on not only The Wall, but on how the US was creating films that would change the world’s perspective on things. The final film on the` disk was a piece from a name that will be familiar to many Science Fiction fans, or at least those who can remember stuff that was done in the 1950s or so. Ed Emshwiller was the greatest of the 1950s science fiction cover artists. Yes, I know about a couple of other names that’ll pop up in that period, but Emsh was by far the most awesome.

ing jobs to the African-American community in and around New York City. They show all sorts of footage, but the highlight is coverage of the Voodoo MacBeth directed by Orson Welles as a part of the WPA’s Federal Theatre Project. It was an impressive bit of footage, long-thought lost, but then it was found by someone at the National Archives. That’s good stuff. The Beater was making me feel better. I was legitimately feeling far better, possibly because after having woke up with a 104.1 temp anything feels better. I got back into the DVD, watching a section of La Valse with George Balanchine’s choreography. It’s amazing to me that so much dance footage survives. There’s an entire section of the New York Public Library’s research section that holds more than 30,000 pieces of film and video of dance from the last 100 years. I had no idea, but it makes sense. Dance really is the most ephemeral of artforms and the desire to

He had done some time as an Abstract Expressionist painter and was also a filmmaker. Here, he takes long tracking shots of the land squatted on by a guy named George Dumpson in a film called George Dumpson’s Place. It’s Emsh’s second most significat film (after Sunstone done with Alvy Ray Smith). It’s a masterpiece of simplicity and it shows Emsh’s understanding of contrasting imagery. He was a great artist and a great filmmaker. I understand that he enjoyed shooting fellow artist’s spaces and that he considered George Dumpson something of an artist in the mold of Joseph Cornell, putting together an asemblage of items on his parcel of land and letting nature do much of the creating around it. It’s an interesting theory, and sadly George Dumpson died before Emsh could finish the film. More orange juice. I was going to beat this thing and the Beater was going to work. I might destroy my stomach with all the acid I was piling into it, but I would damn well be

over t he fever. I took a half-hour pause from all eating and drinking to see where my fever was at. 99.7. Not only is it a good radio station, but it’s a much better tempature for a human body. I made myself the kind of lunch only I seem to make. I ate a chicken leg, three chicken strips and a trio of potstickers. All were cold and all were delicious. I polished it off with a bit of orange juice. I was through half the gallon already. The Beater would have to work. I put in the last disk, but I was sleepy. I knew that I’d likely fall asleep along the way, but I also figured that I wouldn’t sleep much. I would do some serious dozing. I hit repeat and played all the movies. I was awake for the first two, Edison shorts about circus performers, one a contortionist, the other a master of the slack wire. Both were originally Kinetoscope films, designed to be shown in a single cabinet. I’ve only seen a couple of films in an original Kinetoscope, but oddly one of them was the Contortionist short. That was followed by an American Mutoscope film called Interior New York Subway. That was the ultimate Actuality as it was a five minute film, almost a continuous short, of a train going from one station to another. It was filmed with three trains, the one that was being filmed in the front, the follower that had the camera, and one on a parallel track that held the lights. It was less than a year after the opening of the New York Subway that this was filmed. If you ever have a fever and are just about over it but can’t seem to shake the final stages, this is the perfect film. I could tell that as I watched it, I was rocking back and forth along with the movie. It reminded me of the IMAX presentations they’d have to Great America like Speed where you’d see the audience swaying with the rollercoaster and race car perspective shots. I think that rocked me to sleep a bit, because I saw The Land Beyond the Sunset only as a series of images between my fluttering eyes. It was about an ragamuffin who went on a trip. I think. It was weird. I did wake up fully to see I’m Insured, a film that has a great opening. It’s an artist’s hand in fast motion drawing the opening scene of the short. It was great fun. Then the short starts. That was used by Winsor McCay and later the Fleishers in their cartoons.

The story is a guy who has insurance looking for a way to get hurt and collect on his insurance. It’s funny stuff, and from 1916, it was downright amazing. I drifted in and out during the 63 minute Snow White that inspired Walt Disney as a kid who saw it on a Paperboy’s screening. It’s on the Registry, and I’ve seen it a dozen times. Evelyn loved it. There was a thing about Hawaii, one about Life in Maine and then there was the News Parade of 1934, which was a year in review done by Hearst Metrotone News. It was really fun to see America during the Depression. It just lets me know what we’re in for over the next few years.

I’ve come up with the phrase Grand Depression to describe our current economic situation. I think it perfectly describes our times. I was in and out over the next hour or so. Rose Hobart, a film by American Modern Artist (who couldn’t paint!) Joseph Cornell, was weird enough with it’s Samba soundtrack that completely mismatches the imagery from East of Borneo. It’s a montage piece that you really have to try and dig into. I was sleeping off and on, so it matched up well with what I was feeling. That was followed by a comedic documentary The Autobiography of a Jeep. It’s funny stuff as the Jeep tells the story of the capabilities it’s been installed with. It’s another film that was made by the US War Information Office. I missed large chunks of it, making it another sort of collage fiolm. Cornell would have been proud. The disk ended with a piece from Marian Anderson’s Lincoln Memorial Concert footage from Hearst Metrotone News. You’ll see a lot of thei newsreel footage because UCLA holds all the Hearst Metrotone collection, which it frequently makes available to documnetary makers and so on. It also has some wrestling footage. I’ve searched that a lot. I fell asleep. Hard. I didn’t even make it to the middle of the first minute of Marian Anderson’s concert at the Lincoln Memorial. It was a historic moment, but really, her voice was like a velvet pillow for me.

Day 4- 99.3 Degrees

I put my head into her lap and she scratched my scalp with her talons. “What’s the Bison?” I asked. “It’s...” she said. I hand ’t noticed that it was walking into the room. A Bison, the largest native North American Mammal, had walked into the room and was licking the corner of the bed. “His name is Cary. He was a movie star once.” She said. I looked over at it and instantly recognised it. It had starred in many films of the 1930s, and I often confused it for the Water Buffalo known as Jimmy. He was standing there, looking at the two of us. I stood up. “It’s a ploeasure to meet you, sir.” I said to the Bison offering my hand forward to it. “It will say nothing, Christopher.” She said. “It’s only hear to carry us out.” “Carry us out?” I asked. “For Greek.” She said. I stared at it, noticing the saddle that was obviously designed to seat two. The Bison was intent on licking the corner of the bed. She stood up and I followed her to the side of the massive animal and we climbed on, took the reigns which I had not noticed. We started out the window, into the Winchester House. We climbed narrow stairs, went through twisted passages, under strange over-hangs. It was disorienting to hurdle through a house on the back of a beast. We came to the bedroom which I knew well from the tours, the magnificent parquay floor, hand-laid. And we crossed it to the door that led to the twelve foot drop, and we jumped out it, landing in the garden and into wakefulness.

I was exhausted on waking up. The couch was not as comfortable as I’d have thought, but it was my home for at least 12 hours. I woke up at 7:15. I was starving. I’d had the full dream at least three times throughout the night. I was exhausted, I’d sweat it all out and the Beater had worked. I stared at the thermometre and was happy to see that it was almost normal (I’m usually about 99.0) and I felt like I’d run a marathon in my sleep. I didn’t move at all after I put the thermometre down. I stayed wrapped in blankets, glad to feel cold that was actually cold and not me being overly hot. I enjoyed snuggling up with my eyes open and my head feeling like it had just been let out of binding. This was nice, but I was bored. Even though I’d been indulging in Film History, I needed more stimulation. I know this was the weekend, I’m just not sure if it was Saturday or Sunday. I remember it as a Saturday, but everyone else I ask seems to think that it was a Sunday. With the baked consistency of my brain at that moment, I may well have slept through a full day. Who knows. I grabbed my laptop and started up my iTunes. Note: I hate iTunes. I really do. I actually prefer the old RealJukebox over anything that’s come out in the last decade or so. Why? It’ll play anything and let you burn anything to disk without matters of copyright coming in. That was the old version, the new versions are the worst thing for a guy who uses his music like I do. I play a lot of strange music and I play a lot of standard pop as well. Sometimes, the two overlap, but not too often. One of the groups I was most hopeful of finding when I went to the UK was Maximo Park. They’re a great group, almost straight ahead rock ‘n roll. It plays loud and hard and is one of the best bands I’d discovered in years. I found a CD of MySpace Music in 2004. It was full of British bands that I’d never heard of, but the song that got me featured the lyric “I’ll do graffiti if you sing to me in French.” I love that line, and that led to me for searching it on YouTube and finding some good stuff, but nothing in the record stores that I frequent. I was almost forced to make my way to Amazon to

buy it when I took a trip to Las Angeles’ Amoeba Records, who had a huge import section where I managed to get a copy of Apply Some Pressure, Maximo Park’s fine album from 2004.

It’s a great album, especially if you’re a fan of bands like the MC5, The Stooges or more recent stuff from bands like Green Day and The Offspring. It’s not quite punk, but it’s not quite hard rock either. It’s in the middle and it’s great stuff. I can think of a few American bands that rock like this, but not other band that adds as much balls-to-the-walls bravura. I love the lyrics, though others I’ve read have called them both simplistic and over-happy. They remind me a bit of bands like The Inspiral Carpets and The Happy Mondays from Manchester back in the 1980s and 90s. The song that’s best in my eyes is the title track, Apply Some Pressure. It’s rockin’, it’s well-written and it’s got a catchy hook. I can never argue with a catchy hook. As I was listening, I was reading a book from Isaac Asimov. Yes, I’ve often put Isaac down over the years, often lumping him in with a dude by the name of Heinlein who I really don’t like, but this was different. This was his mystery novel Murder at the ABA, where a detective based on Harlan Ellison takes on a case of several murders. I started reading, but it wasn’t the kind of reading where you remember anything or take anything out of it. I was literally just reading and reading to keep my mind off of the world. I drank the other Odwallah and a few bottles of water. I wasn’t about to go back to acting normal so soon. I plowed through and stopped reading after I came within a few pages of the finish. I needed more movies. I popped in Roadhouse. If you like clas-

sic American Cinema, skip Roadhouse. It’s a Patrick Swayze movie so you’ll know automatically what’s what, but if you’re a fan of Cinema de Awesome, you mustn’t miss it. The story is dumb, the acting is both stiff and simplistic, and the use of Ben Gazarra is almost criminal, but there’s so much awesome. Swayze rips a guy’s throat out, there are multiple bar fights and there’s Terry Funk, former NWA World Heavyweight Champion, being a terribly bad man. It was incredible. I watched it while having to get up about three times an hour to use the restroom. A fever will make you an incredibly efficient user of water, but once that’s gone, well it all comes back. I was unhappy with that one fact. I finished Roadhouse and put on Donnie Darkko. I followed that with Teaching Miss Tingle (which was originally called Killing Miss Tingle, which was a much better title) and ended up falling asleep again. I woke up feeling entirely normal, which is a odd feeling for me. I remember waking up and swearing at myself for my lack of sleep discipline: it was 2 in the morning and I was antsy to get something done. I wrote an issue of the Drink Tank and I remember thinking that it was something I should have been doing all along.

This issue was written mostly over the Christmas break of 2008, but I completed the layout while watching Top Chef in early February 2009.