I’ve only done it a couple of times in the past…but I find myself doing my HAPPY PUBLISHING DANCE. My poem, “Poe Goes to the Singles Bar” has just been accepted by Raven Magazine (their website HERE). It’s a sort of Maxim and Playboy type magazine. Which will make mentioning it to relatives interesting (“Yeah, it’s just two pages past the center fold.”) I don’t know which is more exciting…that I’m getting published or that, when the mag is closed, my words could very well be touching a naked chick. My poem will be in the February issue. Well…I guess I’ll get a subscription then (according to the website, subscriptions are on sale now for 18 bucks, for the next three days, at which point it goes back to $56).

A great ending to a Halloween weekend. Friday I went to see Nick in Jordan’s play. I was too late and it was too packed. But…I did get to drink Rum with Kris and Wil (dammit Wil…your lack of a second “L” has my computer yelling at me, telling me it’s a typo…and I just can’t shake her of the notion). Saturday, I saw the play (good job guys) and found out that Nick was nominated for the Irene Ryan competition. Then…we dressed up and made off for Jeramie and Amy’s Halloween party. This year we went as Spy vs. Spy thanks to the painful, gooy magic of spirit gum and facial prosthetics that we made ourselves. Here are some pics…a little washed out (white faces and flashes don’t mix)…but maybe I can get pictures from the other people that took them.

A lot of people did not end up showing up to the party…but we all had fun none the less. Scary movies and many laughs and then to bed, but a good portion of us stayed till the next day for continuous Hallowed fun. We saw yet more movies (including The Grudge) and then, after the Trick or Treaters went home, went out to a haunted house in Bloomington (CREATURES CRYPT). It was surprisingly high tech and good (including the mechanical monster that almost took off Jeramie and Dave’s head. The Egyptian ghoul girl said to stay with her forever…and I wanted to…but dam it all, I was between people and they were moving forward (should have gotten her number…stupid-stupid-stupid!).

Haunted house concluded, we split up as a group and Nick and I went back to Eureka. I stayed the night and we watched Shaun of the Dead. Excellent! Thanks for the bootleg Rich.

And now I buckle down, past my Halloween fun, and into a hopefully productive November. Most folks make their resolutions after New Years. I’m making mine after Halloween this year…

Oh bitter bite of fabulous fright and my, it’s always better to be up at night! I just went to do some late hour laundry and saw a horrifically bloody scene…

…I went to Super WalMart for some last minute Halloween shopping. Got back, and am using the early AM hours to get some final bits of business done before a grand Hallow’s Eve weekend. Item number #665…do laundry. Got the load and the coinage – four quarters, four coins, the price of clean boxers being twice Charon’s toll. I get into the laundry room and what do mine eyes divine? Blood and balloons…everywhere.

Some campus group or the housing office must have put up decorations, in the laundry room no less, with quite a bit of impressive zeal. Warms the heart. There are paper streamers and balloons (all orange and brown) and other decorations as well as splashed gore all over the white walls and machines and counters. But now…this is the genius part – whether by purposeful artifice or serendipitous accident the decorations seem to be in two layers.

Let me explain. It didn’t seem like someone put up happy decorations and happy blood and weeeeeeeeeeeee…isn’t Halloween fun? No. It looks more like someone put up streamers and balloons and other decor…and then some act of unholy, unspeakable, violence and villainy and degradation happened that would make Hannable Lector shake his head and say, “Oh my…that was a bit strong…wasn’t it?” It looked like this horrible fate befell the decorators in the middle of the decoration (like they hadn’t quite finished)… …balloowns, on the ground, some covered in blood. Bloody hand prints on the ground, on the machines on the walls. Smears of blood on the floor, as if someone crawled through it but couldn’t quite make it. One of the paper streamers, partly torn down from the ceiling, hanging, and tied in a make-shift hangman’s noose.  Bloody messages hastily written by finger…GET OUT NOW! – on the floor; HELP ME  and RUN! – on the washing machine; B L O O D – on the dryer; REDRUM – on one window; and on the other window – OH GOD IT WAS THE CHILDREN

Now, that must have all looked cool when they put it up. But it was perfect when I got to it: the door open, wind blowing in, lazily disturbing the streamers and balloons on the floor, things just a little more out of place and random (like a real crime scene) and it being four in the morning and I the only living, waking human on the whole campus…totally silent (save the wind). Oh man…it was perfectly set up…a bit of ephereal art, specific to that one moment for an audience of one (probably won’t be quite as good by tomorrow). It would have been divinely perfect had someone, at that moment, called me on my cell (and thus, triggering my Halloween themed ring tone)…but that’s ok…I took it out and set it off myself 🙂 

Of course…maybe the scene was too perfect. Maybe the reason that the campus is deathly quiet isn’t because this is UIS and it’s always like that this time of night, but because everyone (but me) is dead… Well…I guess if I don’t show up tomorrow night to Eureka…you all will know why. Pleasant dreams puppets…

OK…nearly ready for a fun, frightening weekend in Eureka. Just turned in a new story “For Poor Lucy” to BLOODLUST UK and am packing up so I can leave after work tomorrow.

So here we go…going to see Nick (and everyone else) in Jordan’s play tomorrow. After that it’s haunted houses and perhaps a meeting in the place with the thing (and rum).

Saturday night is Jeramie and Amy’s party. Be there! I’m told all are invited…do NOT assume that you are not. If you need directions, call Amy/Jeramie (or me at 224-627-6836). If you need a ride from Eureka, give me a call.

Then Sunday (Halloween!) is a bit open. If Jeramie and Amy don’t mind some company and help with trick or treaters…maybe a lazy evening of ghost stories and scary movies would be good. Maybe another haunted house later.

OK…everyone hop aboard the Halloween Weekend Express!!!

Ok….that last part sounded lame….just have an awesome Halloween (despite what misguided religious comics might say on the subject.

It’s late. I’ve been researching and writing about things that go bump in the late night. I’ve been working on a story composed of smaller stories. I wanted to finish it for tomorrow night’s (that is to say, tonight’s) reading in class. But I only finished outlining the story and fleshing out the characters and completing one of the mini stories. So I guess I’ll turn in the mini story. I’ll get back to the whole later.

“Work is its own cure,” says a line in a poem about writing…and it’s right. I felt anxious and talent less earlier…but now I feel better. “You have to like it better than being loved.” Maybe that’s correct too…in its own way.

Remember that freaky comic strip I ranted about, the one that says trick or treating is against Jesus? (if not scroll down a bit) Well, Halloween has enemies from the opposite end. READ THIS to find out about a school district in Washington that banned their Halloween parties because depictions of witches is not politely correct towards people who practice Wicca. So Christians and Wicca agree on one thing…and it just happens to be the bane of my beloved Holiday. BAH! (I don’t have the energy for another rant on this…so just pretend I did)

Speaking of Halloween. It’s upon us friends. What are everybody’s plans? For me, the center of events happens on Saturday, with the party at Jeramie and Amy’s place. I believe their invite email instructed us to spread the word…so this is me spreading the word (whether you got that email or not…come on!).

This weekend is Jordan’s play. Nick wants me to spread that word. And here I am, again spreading words. Actually this is me spreading W O R D S. Get it? I’ll be seeing that Friday.

But what of the rest of Friday night and Sunday? I have not yet had either a horror movie night nor a sit down with some friends (some booze) and some ghost stories. Perhaps either Friday or Sunday a group may get together to do movies/stories and then, on the left over night, hit a local haunted house or something. What say everyone? Let us not forget vampire tag (see earlier post).

OK…birds are singing. That means time for bed.

Well…I haven’t gotten it on with mistress livejournal in a while…so it’s time to give some good journal.

I had my reading on Sunday, at the Schizoclub in Chicago (I’ve posted the website enough…just scroll down). Not a lot of people but it was fun. My parents came out. Dave and Adrian came out (thanks guys!). Genenda came up with me to, which was nice of her given the ambiguous nature of things.

Adrian said I had a good reading voice and would, in fact, hire me to read stories to her (THAT will be my hired position if you guys ever get that mansion up and running…court storyteller). Well, my ego was certainly tickled…

Recently, I used a computer program to measure Lenore (snakes are difficult creatures to measure otherwise). Accordingly, she is 22.5 inches, 3 months, 13 days, 4 sheds, and 34 mice long…

Also, being that she is an endangered species and that this particular species (the Eastern Indigo – Drymarchon Couperi) lacks enough hard data, I did do some scientific recording and one experiment.

Now, on the snake forums, there are silly disputes on what would happen if an Indigo met a Kingsnake (both snakes eat other snakes). This is a macho waste of time. It is pretty evident what happens when a king confronts the indigo…as shown below:

No…I put my scientific mind to a much more serious task. We know what happens in the king/indigo scenario…but…

Can an indigo, in fact, defeat……..

………..GODZILLA???

While I am biased, I have to grudgingly admit that the outcome is not as clear or definite as the indigo/king scenario.

Alright…my bio is up on the Schizoclub website. Just click HERE FOR BIO and then click on their scheduel. Scroll down to Oct 24 and click my name.

I AM A MEDIA WHORE!!!
*Joshua’s whorish side, brought to you by the Schizoclub.

I woke up in a strange place, east of the looking glass…

I’m in that weird dimension you go when you mess with time and wake up in a strange time – somewhere between jet lag and a really good nap on a summer afternoon when you awake to a darkening sky.

Surreal…when you don’t let go of dreaming and drag it with you into the waking world.

I recall a whole lot of writing and entirely too much caffeine than any stomach lining should have to embrace.

Wed night/Thurs morning, I started researching for a paper due Friday for Shakespeare class (should have started long before…I know). Some amount of panic. Kris appeared out of nowhere, an electronic muse from the pantheon of instant message bliss and alighted the darkening dread that comes with having to re-teach oneself how to write a formal, scholarly paper…and it’s far, far too late. Thank you, oh merciful muse…

There was some discussion of metaphysical clothes and shedding earthly garbs…

Thursday was work then night class, leaving me to write the paper at about 10pm…I started at midnight. I finished researching and outlining at about 8am and started writing. I changed the paper and shortened it so I could finish by 1pm (when it was due in the teacher’s office). I then walked to work, sleep deprived, and maybe a little mad.

Work concluded (selling tickets for the show Bunicula…story of a vampire bunny…children’s costume party…lots of little dinosaurs and gushing parents) at about 8. I got back here. I sat down…just for a second…on my bed. And seconds, in the proper context, can last quite a while…cause suddenly it was nearly 3 am and here I am, between waking and not…

It’s not an entirely bad sensation.

I think I will go back to bed, but I thought I’d write. Maybe just babble. I don’t know if it makes any sense, I’ll check back tomorrow to see if it does. Right now, I’m going to shed my earthly garb, put on something comfortable, and metaphysical, and go back to dreams.

I have unfinished businesses there.

I like out of context quotes…they are like blank checks for the imagination…

He-Man Lunchbox!

Which 80’s Lunchbox would you be… if you were an 80’s lunchbox…
brought to you by Quizilla

Ok, so according to the scheduel on the Schizoclub’s website (http://www.schizoclub.com/) Daina’s art exhibit runs from 4pm to midnight, this Sunday (the 24th) my readings will likely start around 7:30pm. So I’m starting to gather would-be audience members (I’ll have to swing by Eureka on Saturday night so I can drive Nick – and anyone else who wants to go – up with me on Sunday). The thought of entering a little corner of the starving artists of Chicago is exciting…but what do I read? Well, they want stuff to fit October…fit Halloween (and she asked ME if that would be a problem…). So here is a tentative list of what I’ll bring:

“The Halloween Tree”
“The Book of Life 2.0”
“For Poor Lucy”
“In Embryo”
“Spam, Death, and Milky Way Bars”
“Strumin’ Dis’ Chord”
“Thorns”
“Teddy Bear Rex”
“Varmints”
“Why the Crow Cries”
“Grandpa’s Key”
“Harbinger”
“Duck Tape Webs”
And maybe one or more of the monologues I wrote for Dee last year (“Requiem for the Taste Buds,” “Squeeze,” and “Like Chocolate – Like Candy”).

I’ll likely pick from this list…or who knows, some of them are pretty short (“Duck Tape Webs” is a story in 55 words) so maybe I’ll get to most of them. I might read a poem or two. Maybe “Poe Goes to the Singles Bar” and “Under the Bed.”

In other news…my awesome cousin Steve (one of the large League of Extraordinary Doetsch Men), I now can post pictures (my pictures) on the web. So I will give it a whirl. Halloween approaches which (among other scuttling things) makes me think of costumes and past costumes. Here are a few shots of Nick and I in our Jay and Silent Bob guises. These pictures are from we dressed up as them for the Fine Arts Dinner my senior year (and Dee was Mrs. Robinson….rowwww!). Of course…we dressed up as them the following Halloween (with a better wig and better costume) and won $300 at a club in Chicago.

And with that…I have to get to work on an essay so I can afford the time to go improv in Eureka tonight. Yay!