Green Hell

Got Some Catching Up to Do...

   Hectic couple of months -- and painful, as well. My friend, knife-designer Terry Trahan, died over the winter. As he wasn't much older than I am, his passing was difficult to take. Then, without warning, another of my friends, Kirby Sanders, died a few days ago.
     Kirbs wasn't just a good friend, he also contributed pieces to both of our anthologies,  Biohazard and First Love. His passing, naturally, has changed my priorities. I'm putting Irish Need Not Apply on a back-burner for a while, in order to complete our last project together, an anthology of fantasy, sci-fi, and horror intended as a tribute to Weird Tales and similar pulp magazines of the last century. We'll be dedicating the collection to Kirby, and publishing what I believe may be his last story alongside a piece written by his son, Tristan.

     Maggie is finishing her first full-length novel, a (Gag! Retch! Heave!) horror/romance crossover, and I've just learned that "husband" is a euphemism for "unpaid editor." Yesterday, we met with a photographer/artist/graphic designer  whose work impressed both of us, and discussed her fee for taking care of the cover. As this wasn't an '80s "power lunch," we met at our favorite watering hole, Mazzy's Sports Bar. Mazzy's occupies a spot in both our hearts, as it was the setting for the touching, kiss-and-make-up scene that postceded our first truly nasty fight.

    It's also worth mentioning that we had our first truly nasty fight because of Mazzy's. Johnny-O and I called in at ten or eleven in the morning, having promised to meet the gals later. Bear in mind that this is South, and that in Southernese, "later" can mean anything from "in ten minutes" to "sometime next week." Six feckin' hours -- and God knows how many pints -- later, we were still there. And hell hath no fury like a woman stood-up. Maggie was pissed off, Mayna wasn't very happy, John and I were in the doghouse, and we both learned that irresponsible bogtrotters have no business getting mixed up with Indonesians and Mexicans -- unless they plan to mend their profligate ways.
   Worst of all, there was no chance of weaseling my way out of it by pouring on the Rhett Butler bullshit. God's gift to women though I am, even I'm not very attractive when I'm red-eyed, shitfaced, and bellowing an a capella (and off-key) rendition of "Believe Me if All Those Endearing Young Charms" or "Rednecks, White Socks, and Blue Ribbon Beer" at the top of my lungs. 

   Anyway, we liked the kid's work. All systems go.
   She's a very nice girl, and I was also very favorably impressed by her boyfriend. Very intelligent, very well-read, and very well-traveled. Artistic and athletic at the same time, which is a rarity these days. It's very gratifying to know that some younger people still pursue the Classical ideal, mens sana in corpore sano. 
   
    And speaking of classics, the book in the photo below was a real find. It's a quarto-sized Heritage Club edition of the Argonautica, by Appolonius of Rhodes. It's hardback 1960 printing, with a slipcover. Not quite mint condition, but very, very good. Best of all (as you can see in the photo) the text is bilingual and parallel, with Greek and English on the facing pages. This makes it as much an exercise book as an epic. When I cover the right-hand pages, I can try my hand at translating the Greek, and then compare the results to the English text.  
    Grr. I could kick myself for screwing around and dabbling for so many years. I wish I'd gotten off my dead ass and studied Greek and Latin seriously when I was younger. I suppose I'm overcompensating now, by  way of making up for lost time. I real all the "biggies" in high school and college: the Iliad, the Odyssey, the Aeneid, and quite a few plays, as well -- "The Trojan Women," "Oedipus the King," "Antigone," "Agamemnon," and a forgettable, ho-hum piece of crap by Terence (Roman drama, in my opinion, was never more than a pale imitation of the Greek. I love Roman poetry - especially Juvenal and Catullus -- but as dramatists, they left much to be desired.) Reading them between the ages of fifteen and nineteen, because one has to in order to pass one course or another isn't the same thing as reading them voluntarily, as an adult, though. 
    I really do owe Prof. Ross, Prof. Schwenk, and Mrs. Moore a sincere (if belated) apology. I've spent the last couple of years giving myself a real, classical education -- when I could have done it ages ago. As a young man (alas and alack), I didn't see the point of having one in the modern age. This is to say that I was a fucking idiot. As is true of so many other endeavors, I didn't know what I'd been missing until I acquired it. As a younger man, I was more interested in Medieval literature, especially Irish, Norse, and Anglo-Saxon. The Greek and Roman classics were required reading, but that was it. And sadly, I lacked the maturity and the life-experience to recognize their value. 
    At seventeen, I tolerated them for the sake of making the grade. At forty-seven, I've had lines of Catullus, Euripides, and even Aeschylus leave me in tears. That isn't just a figure of speech, incidentally.  
    C.S. Lewis said it best when he wrote: 

     Have you not seen that in our days
      Of any whose story, song, or art
     Delights us, our sincerest praise
     Means, when all's said, 'You break my heart.'?



      Since I've mentioned Lewis, I might as well recommend another book, his Poems. (1964, Harvest/HBJ, ISBN 0-15-672248-8). In addition the epigram I quoted a few lines ago, the collection contains several other memorable pieces. 
    As a poet, Lewis wasn't in the same league as Lawrence or Auden, and he couldn't touch Yeats or Eliot. The collection is, admittedly, uneven. A few of the selections, I'm sorry to say, are outright doggerel. But damn it if the man doesn't turn right around and knock the reader's socks off a few pages later! 
     Before I continue, I'd like to make it perfectly clear that my taste in poetry his highly subjective. Generally, I despise rhyming couplets, A/B/A/B schemes, and anything breezy or sing-song. Emily Dickinson gives me the dry heaves. Ditto Whitman and the other acknowledged "luminaries" of the medium. Having said that, I'll admit that I have a diamond-cutting blue-veiner for Walter Scott's work -- even though I know it's garbage. I can best liken his poetry to that dorky film, 300. It's a guilty pleasure; a Big Mac for the soul. 
   Overall, I prefer "serious" poets, especially Eliot. I can quote most of "The Hollow Men" from memory, and my wife and I spent most of Saturday afternoon trying to interpret "Sweeney Among the Nightingales." (That one put the hook in me right away, for the record. Talk about "in your face"! What can you say about a poem that begins with Agamemnon's offstage death-rattle: "ὤμοι, πέπληγμαι καιρίαν πληγήν ἕσω!"?) 
    Sorry about that. I'm really becoming a pompous, sciolistic fuck in my old age, now ain't I?
     Lewis isn't as "serious" as Eliot. But on the positive side, neither is he as recondite. Unpretentious and forthright, he disarms and enchants the reader with his directness. At his very best, he wrote from the heart, eschewing cryptic symbolism and overindulgence in metaphor alike. Odd and ironic, coming from a man so openly enamored of allegory -- but then again, most good writers are a bit touched in the head. 
    "Write what you know" is the first commandment of literature, and Lewis obeyed it scrupulously. Although seldom maudlin, Lewis, at his best, packed the emotional wallop of a .416 Rigby. I've admitted that my tastes are highly subjective, but I can't imagine any real man failing to respond to his work. 
    Lewis on cultural decay (from "Re-Adjustment):

     Between the new Homindae and us who are dying, already
    There rises a barrier across which no voice can ever carry,
    For devils are unmaking language. We must let that alone forever.
     Uproot your loves, one by one, with care, from the future,
    And trusting to no future, receive the massive thrust
     And surge of the many-dimensional timeless rays converging
     On this small, significant dew-drop, the present that mirrors all.

    On loss (from "Joys That Sting"): 

    Oh do not die, says Donne, for I shall hate
     All women so. How false the sentence rings.
     Women? But in a life made desolate
    It is the joys once shared that leave the stings.

     To take the old walks alone, or not at all,
    To order one pint where I ordered two,
     To think of, and then not to make, the small
     Time-honoured joke (senseless to all but you);

     The best poem (and the one that meant the most to me) is a long piece entitled "Infatuation."
If I reproduce it in its entirety, I'll rob you of incentive to buy the book (and risk copyright violation). 
Here are few teasers, though:

     The thing I seek for was not anywhere
    At any time on earth. That huntress air
    And morning freshness was not hers by right.
     She spoke, she smiled; put out what seemed the flame,
     Left me the cold charred sticks, the ashes white. 

     How could she learn, who never since her birth
     Looked out of her desires and saw the earth
     Unshadowed by herself...

     Her holiest moods are gaudy desecrations
    Of poor half-holy things; her exaltations
    Are frothed from music, moonlight, wine, and dance;
     Love is to her a dream of bridal dresses,
     Friendship a tittering hour of girl's caresses,
   Virtue a steady purpose to advance,
    Honoured, and safe, by the old well-proven roads,
     No loophole left to passion or to chance. 

    And I've gone on long enough for one session. Gotta go draw and then practice guitar for a while. 

Going Around My Elbow to Get to My Ass

     I'm a good sport. 
     Really, I am. No shit. 
     I'm also pussy-whipped above and beyond the call of duty. 
     
     Today, the wife informs me that the day-job company wants grilling videos (we're running a promo this week) for its website. She further informs me that I've volunteered to participate. 

    The Bible says that a man and his wife are "one flesh," and given my subordinate position to the Almighty, I can only agree. I can't find anything in either Testament about a man and his wife becoming a hive-mind, or a colonial organism, though. 

    Anyhoo, I agreed to be "videoed."

    Never mind that I prepared four multi-ingredient dishes -- I was restricted to three minutes. 

   It's also worth mentioning that unscripted video isn't my forte (especially when I'm sober). Consequently, I forgot to mention that the kebabs also contain zucchini. 

      Here's the vid - my first on Green Hell. (And here I thought busting my own cherry  -- as it were -- would be more fun. Live and learn.)

     Just posting the damned thing was like pulling teeth, incidentally. Mags just had to be oh-so-friggin'-trendy, and shoot it on her phone, instead of doing the practical thing and using a camera. 

     "Now I'll email it to myself, and you can download it to the computer, then upload it to your blog."

     Only problems being that TP doesn't allow those kinds of uploads. First, one must post on YouTube or a similar site. (I gather that TP has had a problem with uninhibited types posting home-porno, or something like that). Unfortunately, Mags had forgotten our YouTube password. Somehow, she ended up posting the vid to Google+ - which TP doesn't accept. 
    To make a long story short, it took me an entire fucking hour to post a minute or two of footage. 

 

Another Break

    Once again, I haven't been posting. As usual, I've been too busy to do so.

    Learning to draw has occupied a great deal of my time, and my choice of literature has been heavier than usual. The complexity of the material requires considerable time and energy, which leaves me little of either to spare.

 I'm also disgusted with much of my writing. I've finally broken another stylistic plateau, and I'm presently applying what I've learned to salvaging and amending earlier pieces. 

   When I launched this blog, nine years ago, I intended to use it to measure my progress from one piece to the next. I also employed it as a safety valve -- a cathartic outlet for my nastier emotions. Sadly, the latter function has often eclipsed the former. 

    I won't go into detail in this piece, but I'm not the same writer I was nine years ago. My attitude has changed, my values have changed, and my goals have changed. I'm still the same person, and, in a sense, the product of earlier experiences, but I think I've learned to view said experiences from a different perspective. 
     
    I'll still be posting fiction, recipes, various projects, and the usual fun (and occasionally silly) stuff, but with a different focus, and for different reasons. 

   That's all for now. 

My Sentiments Exactly

    A few selections from Guy Lee's superb translation of Catullus. (Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-283587-4).

    Gaius Valerius Catullus was a Latin poet of the first century B.C., and a contemporary of Caesar, Crassus, Pompey, Cicero, Marc Antony, and the rest of that wacky, fun-loving bunch. Although 116 of his poems have survived, he is perhaps best known for his love poems to the pseudonymous "Lesbia," of which these selections are examples. Born in Verona (the modern region of Veneto, formerly Cisalpine Gaul), Catullus relocated to Rome as a young man, and became the archetypal country boy who moves to the big city and makes good. 
    It was during his stay in Rome that he met and became romantically involved with "Lesbia."
    Whilst skimming through the notes and introduction, I discovered that "Lesbia" was the pseudonym Catullus assigned to a woman named Clodia, who was -- well, a bit of a tramp. I knew something about the story was familiar, and I soon discovered what. She was the same Clodia Metelli whom Cicero tore a new asshole in his Defence of Marcus Caelius Rufus. (Reprinted in Selected Political Speeches -- Penguin Classics, ISBN 0-14-044214-6.) 
     This Clodia was the sister of Cicero's arch-nemesis, Publius Clodius Pulcher, and the wife of a patrician named Metellus Celer (whom she was later rumored to have poisoned). In the course of her life, she had adulterous affairs with a veritable legion (no pun intended) of men, including Catullus and the aforementioned Marcus Caelius Rufus, upon whom she eventually turned like a rattlesnake. 
    Now for what I suppose are obvious reasons, I have a soft spot for writers who've endured the deaths of siblings, and who, as young men, had wretched taste in women. (As the very snarky saying goes: "You can take a white-trash whore out of the trailer park, but you can't take the trailer park out of a white-trash whore.") Catullus wasn't the first writer to fall desperately and obsessively in love with a fickle, narcissistic shitweasel of a female, and he certainly wasn't the last. At times, I think hopeless affaires de coeur are the price of admission to the club...
     What sets him apart from poets like -- say -- Dante Alighieri is the fact that he had no illusions about Clodia. Dante's mewling praise of his Beatrice in the Divine Comedy is so overblown as to be downright fulsome at times. Not so Catullus. Catullus knew that Clodia had handled more peckers than a gay urologist, and if anything, it only increased the pain and poignancy of his situation. 
    When it comes to Roman literature, I generally prefer satirists like Juvenal or Petronius -- although I do enjoy Martial's nastier epigrams, and even a few of Horace's pieces. (Now that my Latin is improving, I'll have to go back and read them in the original. Like the Greek playwright Aristophanes, many of the Roman poets suffer in translation. As the parallel Latin/English Oxford edition of Catullus reveals, the unexpurgated, untranslated Latin and Greek are often shockingly and delightfully obscene. What can one say about a poem that begins with the line "Pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo"?) What immediately impressed me about Catullus, though, was the man's intensity.
     Bam! Bam! Bam!
     He didn't fuck around. 
     Whether it's the result of my stereotypical "Celtic temperament" or the manic-depression (at times, I suspect that the former is merely a euphemism for the latter), I've loved with equal fervor, and endured the same hell when the affair ended. This is to say that Catullus and I were on the same wavelength from the get-go. I began reading the book on Monday night, and finished it Tuesday afternoon. 
    Except for LXIV (a tedious epyllion  -- my least favorite piece), it's all great stuff. The following pieces, though, are my favorites.

Nulli se dicit mulier mea nubere malle
  quam mihi, non si se Iuppiter ipse petat.
 dicit -- sed mulier cupido quod dicit amanti
  in vento et rapida scribere oportet aqua
                                                    (LXX) 

 "My woman says that there's no one she would rather wed
   Than me, not even if Zeus himself proposed.
 Says -- but what a woman says to an ardent lover
 One should write on the wind and the running water."

    And the second half of LXXII:

     nunc te cognoui. quare etsi impensius uror,
     multo mi tamen es vilior et levior
    'qui potis es?' inquis? quod amantem injuria
     talis
    cogit amare magis sed bene velle minus.

    "
   "I know you now. So though my passion's more intense,
   Yet to me you are cheaper and more frivolous.
    'How can this be?' you ask? It is because such injury
     impels
     a lover to love more, but to like less."

     LXXV

     Huc est mens deducta tua mea, Lesbia, culpa
     atque ita se officio perdidit ipsa suo,
     ut iam nec bene velle queat tibi, si optima fias,
     nec desistere amare, omnia si facias.

     "Lesbia, my will has sunk to this through your frailty
     And so destroyed itself by its own kindness
     That it could neither like you, even if you were perfect,
     Nor cease to love you, though you stopped at nothing."

        And my favorite, LXXXV. Short, sweet, and to the point:

     Odi et amo. quare id faciam fortasse requiris?
    nescio sed fieri sentio et excrucior.  

     "I hate and I love. Perhaps you ask why?
     I don't know, but I feel it happening, and I am in agony." 

Plugging Along

    The only piece of last week's work that's actually worth showing (aside from a few chibis I drew for my wife and mother. I don't know what it is about women, but damn, do they ever love chibis...).

   It's yet another cat girl. This time, though, I aimed for more of a bishōjo look. Not sure how successful the attempt was, but I'm fairly happy with the eyes and the shading. (I'm finally getting the hang of using the blending pen). 

Still More Fun

    This is another silly (but incredibly entertaining) toy Mags and I picked up at a gun show: A 4', .40 cal. blowgun. 



   Just the thing for rainy-day amusement. (As you can see, it was pissing down this morning). 

Fun With Destructive Devices

   More kid-in-a-candy-store fun this weekend. One of my oldest friends brought over a few toys to play with. 



The assegai/iklwa is a reproduction, but the knobkerry is a genuine, Zulu War-era antique. 





Another shot of the assegai, with two more vintage pieces: a .577 Snyder rifle and a .455 Webley/Eley. 

More Progress (I Think...)

     My latest cat-girl. It's one of the few sketches I don't hate. (Like my stories, 90+% of my drawings end up in the garbage can or the fireplace.) 

Another Stroll Down Memory Lane (or Hogan's Alley)

 I first produced me pistols/
 and I then produced me rapier/
 Sayin, "Stand and deliver/ 
 For ye' are a bold deceiver...'



"Ya want some Tubby Custard? Well I got some Tubby Custard for ya, motherfucker!" 

"David is a very...troubled young man," says Harry to the new guy -- who promptly clocks out for lunch, and never returns. 
"Hey, Bean! I double-dog-dare you to drop the hammer!" Says Jerry. 
"This is gonna be cool!" says Mike. "Ever see what happens when a Black Talon hits a Teletubby?"
(This gives us all -- even me -- cause and pause for reflection. Apparently, Mike has actually seen what happens when a Black Talon hits a Teletubby. Beam me up, Scotty. This planet's gettin' weirder by the minute...) 



"Well, it ain't the most efficient way of disposing of a corpse, but I suppose it's environmentally friendly. At least what's left of the bastard will be recycled." 
"Just shaddap and find out what's snagging that wire, willya?" 



Eighteen and life to go... Well, not exactly. I'd just turned fifteen a month or two before my brother shot this one. We were living in a shoebox of a Reihenhaus in Rohrbach, Germany at the time. The photo is memorable for one reason only: Chris and I caught one of the best shows we'd ever seen that night -- Girlschool opening for Blackmore's Rainbow at the Rhein-Neckar Halle in Eppelheim.  

 



This isn't an old photo. It's a sketch I drew a few days ago. (It's a caricature, of course, but I take great pride in my near-photographic rendering of the ears.) I've entitled it "Chibi Drama-Queen." 

 And what kind of blogger would I be if I didn't post a recipe or two?



The fried rice recipe is in an earlier post. The side dishes are green bean salad and eggplant relish.

1 lb. French-cut green beans
2 Thai chiles, seeded and minced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2t chili oil
2T tamari soy sauce
2T palm vinegar
4T sesame oil
1t sugar
1 shallot,  minced

Blanch green beans in boiling, salted water until just crisp-tender. (No longer than five minutes.) Drain, refresh under cold water, and pat dry on paper towels. Combine remaining ingredients in a saucepan, heat to boiling, and pour over beans. Let cool, and serve at room-temperature.

1 large eggplant
2t toasted sesame seeds
1T soy sauce
1T nuoc mam
1t brown sugar
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 shallots, thinly sliced
1T palm or rice vinegar
1T lime juice 
2T vegetable or peanut oil 
2 Thai chiles, seeded and minced
Shredded mint, cilantro, and Thai basil, to taste

Heat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Prick eggplant with fork and roast until skin blisters and separates from flesh (40-45 minutes). Let cool. Peel and chop flesh. Combine remaining ingredients, mix well, and pour over eggplant. Serve chilled, or at room-temperature. 

Food: Mexican Eats

     Before I begin posting recipes, I'd like to take a moment to discuss the second most important thing in life -- sex. Once you've shagged a Latina, you'll never waste your time on white chicks again. The only exception I can think of is an Irish chick I boinked some years ago. The poontang was definitely worth the effort, but she had some odd behavioral quirks. For example, she always insisted that I wear two rubbers --- to be sure, to be sure.
      Haw! Get it? To be sure, to be sure? I got a million of 'em... 
      OK, I'm done with that part. 

    Now it being as the spousal unit is Messykin, the last few years have amounted to a crash course in cooking south-of-the-border grub. So here's yer boy shakin' his podex in a most undignified, and most un-bogtrotterish fashion, dancin' around the feckin' kitchen, playing his humungous  Epiphone Sheraton along with the CD player, and bellowin' out: "Left my home in Norfolk, Virginia/ California on my mind/Straddled that Greyhound/ and rode it into Raleigh/And down across Caroline'," accompanied (of course) by appropriate bits of pantomime.  

    "Can't you at least put some fuckin' pants on, for Christ's sake?" asks the wife. Grumbling and cursing,yer boy acquiesces -- but vows passive-aggressive spousal vengeance in the process. "That' the last you'll be seein' of it for at at least a week," mutters he.

    Anyway, Bro Rich (the trucker) is making a cross-country run this week, and will be cutting his travel costs by crashing and eating with us. In his honor, we'll be turning the ingredients below into a super-deluxe, DEE-licious, NEW-tritious Mexican dinner.

     The menu:
      Guacamole
     Salsa casera
     Chile con Queso
     Tortilla chips
     Huevos rancheros
     Mexican rice
    Refried beans


 
    Looks -- well -- looks good enough to eat, doesn't it? I'll be posting individual recipes and photos shortly. Stay tuned. 

A Walk Down Memory Lane

    A buddy's request for a copy of a certain photo had me searching through years of old albums yesterday. I hadn't looked at some of them for a very long time, and I was actually quite amused by much of what I found. 



    Yous Truly, age nineteen. I probably weighed all of 140 soaking wet, and I had the shittiest, cockiest attitude imaginable. Note that I've got all that eighties shit going on: spiked wristbands, Iron Maiden T-shirt (I caught them at the Omni, on the Somewhere in Time tour), two-hand tapping, and a smug, "Suck my feckin' Oyrish dick!" facial expression. Hell, it's a photo of me, and even I want to slap the shit out of the little punk... My band had just recorded a demo, and I really thought we were the shee-yawt. Then, (wouldn't you know it?) our rhythm guitarist/vocalist moved to Switzerland....



    This was '98 or '99. One of the guys bet me I wouldn't sit on the sidewalk in front of the store, holding this sign. As you can see, he lost the bet. 




    Yours Truly, with the cutlass I picked up at DragonCon '97. 



    Miyagi say: "This  motherfucker got big ego!"  This one was shot shortly after I took my blue belt, during the summer of '95. I was pretty damned proud of myself, as it was a no-bullshit, fairly traditional school. A year later, I had my brown, which was basically unheard-of at that place. What you can't see because of the "teddy bear paws" sparring gear is the knuckle I fractured while breaking boards during the test. (When we broke, we didn't use shims or spacers. If you broke three boards, you literally broke three boards, one stacked directly atop another. I should have used a shuto (knifehand) or teisho (palm-strike), but noooooo... I just had to be "Mr. Big, Brass Balls" and perform the break with a fucking reverse punch... )



    Yer boy, posing with "Live Action Anime Girl" Apollo Smile. (DragonCon '98). 



    My collection of sharp, pointy objects, ca. '99. I've since added to it: the machairai, another katana, another two-hander, and a few other lethal odds and ends. The darn dao is kinda cheesy -- unsharpened, spring steel with an entire geological stratum of chrome plating on it, but it's super light, and -- well, it just looks cool when flourished. 

Hiatus

No time to post for the last couple of weeks. I've been too busy finishing Book #3 (a meandering tale of murder, black magic, and revenge, set in a Shadowrun-influenced, dystopian future), writing book #4, writing an article for an upcoming project of MacYoung's, drawing, and playing guitar. (It's too early to tell, but I might -- just might -- cut an album before ol' Thanatos comes around for me.) 

Anyway, Maggie said that since my drawing has improved so much, I should take another shot at drawing us as Chibis. 



      She liked it so much, she's now using it as the profile photo on our Facebook page.  The eyes were my first experiment with a blending pen. I'm downright embarrassed to admit it, but I had no idea of what the thing was at first. I thought someone had fucked up and forgotten to add ink. Ya learn something new every day... 

   The next shots are: 1.) A disgustingly androgynous Bishie-boy vampire (I had to draw it. The wife told me I'd been drawing too many female characters lately. Then she called me a no-good, philandering, pighsit Irish son of a bitch, and accused me of having an affair); 2.) A pair of cat girls (exercises from Hart's Young Artists...); and another vaguely pornstar-looking bimbo.