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Life After Moving

18 Sep

Moving your family from one state to another is a rancid and despicable process, but now that it’s done I have a few points of interest I’d like to share with you wonderful people.

1. We are in our new place now, but it took about a month to get here. I’ve been so focused on getting all the furniture in and TCB (that’s “taking care of business,” non-Elvis fans) that I’ve barely had a chance to poke around. Finally I did, and here’s what I discovered. We have a 2nd refrigerator in the garage. It has a duck in it. An entire duck, with feathers, and a beak. I’m no doctor, but it seems to be dead. It isn’t moving, and it’s in a clear plastic freezer bag. And I want the family of this duck to know that I WILL NOT REST UNTIL I FIND THE ONE WHO DID THIS.

2. We were forced to live out of hotel rooms for over a week on our way to our future home, but I did manage to get away and see the new Batman. Masterpiece. Also, I talk like Bane now. It’s endlessly amusing to give instructions to your children using Tom Hardy’s chillingly weird “Bane” voice, and no matter what you say, no matter how mundane, it always sounds like a preface to some heinous act. Lucy, I thought I told you to put your shoes in the closet, not in the middle of the floor becomes part of the monologue before pushing the button on the Super Bigger-Than-The-Sun Explosion Bomb you’ve built using the forced labor of kidnapped scientists (or whatever devious weapon you personally prefer). And, again, I’ll say it proudly: The Dark Knight Rises is a masterpiece–though I sense a somewhat tepid response from the movie-going world. Maybe I’m just out of touch. Did it do well? Well, anyway, I thought it was a masterpiece (did I mention that I thought it was a masterpiece?). So many cool things to think about during that movie, and, yes, as the wise Father Barron pointed out, major Christological implications.

You think the duck in the refrigerator is your ally? I was BORN with a duck in my refrigerator!

3. I’ve gotten some great communications from people well on the road to spiritual healing in the face of spiritual attack, and that’s awesome. On the other hand, I know of some who badly need healing who haven’t gotten it yet. Keep them in your prayers, please. Seriously.

4. Finally, and most importantly: there’s a new Lordling on the way! A beh-beh. Could be a boy, could be a girl, I just don’t know. Definitely human. About the size of a plum, at this point, with little beh-beh digits and teeny organs. Connected to another person (the mother) by living tissue. Weird, wonderful, mysterious–that’s life.

beh-beh

The Grateful Drunk

11 Apr

Oh boy! Another true-life tale about my fraternization with drunks and my impending canonization! It’s up right now over at that finest of websites, Creative Minority Report. If you get a moment, go check it out. And, yes, there is a brief reference to Elevator Action in it.

The Final Edits From the Crypt

10 Feb

I’m finishing up Final Edits for my book, which is going to be released by OSV in a couple of months. The Final Edit phase is like riding a wild pig: the animal is all there, you’ve even named it, but it runs all over the place and makes frequent shrill grunting noises and often threatens to carry the both of you right off of a cliff and into a steaming river of lava. Or is that magma? No, I checked: magma is underground, lava’s aboveground. That’s just one of the many millions of items you have to verify in the Final Edit phase.

But, as you writers out there already know, it isn’t just a matter of fact-checking, or even of correcting the multitudinous offenses against English grammar. Often you read entire paragraphs and wonder who the anti-intellectual adolescent was who lit THAT stinkbomb, and then realize with shame that is was YOU.

So, you work it out. You submerge yourself into the page like a paratrooper going behind enemy lines and you start blasting.

You call for support as needed, of course. During one particular bout in which I thought my prose lacked verve, I wandered over to my bookshelf to see if the work of any of my favorite writers could help me enliven things. I was also needing a fix of pure entertainment, a distraction from Final Edits so that I could return to them, refreshed.

Robert E. Howard’s Conan seemed to be the answer. Sometimes, a man just wants to read about a solitary barbarian who resolves all difficult situations with either a large sword or heavy drinking and implied hay-rolling with exotic wenches. I’m sure this reveals something completely scandalous about my nature.

Robert E. Howard

It had been many, many years since I read my yellowed old paperback copy of Howard’s classic stories, but I vaguely remembered exciting, bloody tales relayed with luxurious prose. I was in need of a little luxurious prose myself, so I opened myself to the first tale: The Thing in the Crypt.

It’s a great story. Conan escapes from slavery, and is chased by wolves to a hidden tomb in a hillside. Sneer all you want, Howard had a gift for moving you along from one paragraph to the next and imbuing the whole adventure with an epic, poetic sense of things that is hard for a dweeb like me to ignore.

I congratulated myself for picking the perfect book to inspire my final edits. I was enthralled as Conan, after being so long in chains, finds an ancient sword in the tomb, thereby regaining his manly dignity and sense of purpose. And then…and THEN…the old corpse on the throne comes to life! Ohmigosh. Chopping commences, as it should. Conan is thrashing away at this undead monster, but of course it still…keeps..coming…

It was right about here that I become aware of the—shall we say “quirks”?—of Howard’s writing that were nothing but marvelous to me when I was sixteen years old. For instance, consider this excerpt:

“Stalking clumsily across the chamber, the mummy advanced upon Conan like a shape of nameless horror from the nightmares of a mad fiend.”

Woah. I had to share that one with Ms. Beguiles. I think about Robert E. Howard sitting at his desk, trying to think of how to describe the mummy as it stalked across the chamber. I see Howard suddenly sit upright, seeing the episode playing out in his mind’s eye, as he says aloud: “The mummy advances upon Conan like…like…a what? Like…a jaguar. No, no, a jaguar’s South American, it takes you out of the story. Like..an elephant? No, too big. Like a demon? Ahh, that’s better. But too brief. I want ‘crazy, scary, awful.’ It’s like…a fiend! And not just a fiend, but a MAD fiend. The NIGHTMARE of a mad fiend. And in that nightmare there’s a nameless horror—it doesn’t even have a name, it’s so horrible…but no, it’s not even a nameless horror but just the SHAPE of a nameless horror!! THAT’S WHAT THIS MUMMY IS LIKE AS IT ADVANCES UPON CONAN!!!

The thrill involved in concocting these descriptive details was still pumping through Howard’s veins two pages later, the battle still raging, when Conan gets knocked on the ground and the mummy gets the advantage: “Then a grisly shape of nightmare horror and lunacy loomed over him.” That’s both nightmare horror AND lunacy, kids. This thing isn’t just terrifying, it’s totally nuts. You CANNOT rely on this mummy to make a single, rational decision about ANYTHING.

So, boy, was that break from Final Edits a hoot. And I hope this post isn’t taken as a mockery of my man, Robert E. Howard. He’s still the champ. And, if my editor should run across any descriptions of utterly horrible, nightmarish lunatics who have nightmares about nameless, insane fiends without shapes and who are not sane, she’ll know why.

Zombie Fun

1 Nov

Hi everybody, and Happy Halloween, and Happy All Saints Day, and Happy All Souls Day, and Happy Dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome Day (coming up on November 9th, OF COURSE, that special day when Robert the Red-Caped Roman brings tiny replicas of the Lateran Basilica to good little boys and girls EVERYWHERE!!).

I totally missed putting any commemorative posts up for any of the foregoing events…sorry about that. However, since most of us are still peeling flattened peanut butter cups off the couch cushions and the gnats are only just now beginning to gather around our sagging jack-o-lanterns, I thought you might still enjoy a little Halloween silliness by reading this story about zombies. It has a surprise ending. Try it!

God bless!

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B Movies, A+ Catechetics

29 Jun

To the right you will notice my blog roll. Upon that blog roll, towards the bottom, is one “B-Movie Catechism.” I ask you–no, implore you–to follow this link to one of his recent posts. An extremely clever explanation of a tricky subject that is 100% theologically correct-a-mundo. Thanks for what you do, B-Movie Catechism!

All My Cars

27 May

Me and Betty, back in the day

I was driving down the road yesterday and I was thinking about cars. Man, that’s a real GUY
Thing to do, huh? I’ve been through a lot of cars in my life, meaning that I’ve killed them, either by neglect or sheer abuse.

My first car was a huge, beautiful green 1971 Chevrolet Impala, and on my first drive in it I
tried to race it around some Slo Mo in front of me and ended up rolling several times according to a driving technique which I call “Mangled Corpse” and crashing into a tree. The Slo Mo puttered by and gave a little honk, if I remember correctly. I was unscathed, because the Impalas of that time were built to withstand cannon fire. But the Impala had nothing left to give after
that. Picture a wad of dirty green construction paper—that’s my beloved 1971 Chevrolet Impala.

Here are a few other entries from my Hit List:

-Purple Chevrolet
Land Yacht. Cause of Death: Owner failed to put oil in it and drove 300
miles to attend a friend’s party.

-White 1970 Chevrolet
Impala. Sold for $100. Of course…why not?

-Gold (yes, gold—in
fact, I prefer “golden”) 1969 Lincoln Continental WITH FULLY FUNCTIONING 8-TRACK. I
managed to find some 8-Tracks at thrift stores, too—an original Stealer’s Wheel with Stuck In the Middle With You; a
Henry Mancini Greatest Hits with favorites like the Peter Gunn Theme and Baby Elephant Walk; and, oh yes, ahem…also…I had, on 8-Track, ahem…the Sound of Music. Hey, shut-up!
Those are GREAT songs!!!! I know all the words to Edelweiss.

My typical ride. BAM!

It’s been all downhill from there. I don’t have cool cars, anymore. My cars these days, if advertised in the Want Ads, would be best described as: “extremely used, barely functioning, something under the seat stinks. Will pay you to take it away.”

Sometimes I think how amazing it would be to walk onto a new car lot and confidently say to a salesman: “I would like to buy that car, please. No, wait, not that one, I don’t like the color. I would like THAT one. And before you ask: no, I don’t want the extended warranty plan, because I plan on crashing into the side of a building next week on my way to buy some engine oil.”

Poverty is not something I would have chosen, but it has become a fixed part of my life until further notice. This, apparently, excludes the acquisition of new cars. I don’t mean to get all preachy here, but honestly: my life is much better than it ever has been before. I can see why, in one of the letters to the seven churches in Revelation , Jesus says to the people: “I know your tribulation and your poverty (but you are rich)…” I get that, even if I don’t always like it. We’re rich, man.

Having said that, I will gladly accept any and all new cars, if anyone’s offering.

Off the Map

1 Feb

A typical day for me, really.

When you become a dad, you might as well buy a pith helmet and a portable gramophone because you will be blazing trails through freaky jungles and fording raging rivers of toys. You will even need to learn local languages… languages never before heard by modern man.

For instance, having spent two years with a primitive savage I have come to know as “Sophia,” I finally began to share entire conversations with her in an aboriginal dialect that, to the untrained ear, would have seemed to be no more than a series of unintelligible clicks, gurgles and grunts.

For scientific purposes I now post a short lexicon of the most commonly used words from this crude language, followed by a typical conversation with “Sophia.”

Sophiaspeak

"Sophia," Day 3

Gonk-ee: thank you

Bonk: a wound

Thnoogle: mucus

Mee-da: that is something I want for myself [interchangeable w/the shorter form, “me”]

Theebie: zebra

Jaff: giraffe

Wa-wa: dog

Moo: cow

Bbhh: [with lower lip poking out] 1. a car or truck 2. to travel in a car or truck

wite: red

Yok: Jack, older brother

Gah-goh: Daniel, oldest brother

Chokkitpie: chocolate pie

Di: bath (??)

Moo-mee: movie

Pop: 1. lollipop 2. Mary Poppins

Bo: toes

Mote: milk

Do-no: doughnut

Nake-nake: naked

Yuh-yuh: love

Cake-cake: pancake [“me yuh-yuh cake-cake”]

Doo-doo: balloon

Doo-doo-doo: Indiana Jones

___________________________________

A typical conversation might go like this:

Me: “Sophia, would you like to take a bath?”

Sophia: “YEH! Mee-da di; Yok and Gah-goh di!”

Me: “Should we watch a movie afterwards?”

Sophia: “YEH! Mee-da moo-mie! Mee-da Doo-doo-doo! Me chokkitpie?”

Me: “Well, we don’t have anymore chocolate pie. How about something else for a snack?”

Sophia: “Me mote.”

Me: “O.K. Now, what toys do you want in the bath?”

Sophia: “Mama jaff. Baby jaff. Doo-doo.”

Me: “Your balloon? In the bath?!?”

Sophia: “YEH! Me wite doo-doo!”

Me: “But, sweetie, I think you lost your red balloon. Do you know where it is?”

Sophia: “Mama bbhh?”

Me: “No, it’s not there.”

Sophia: “Daddy bbhh?”

Me: “No…look, balloons aren’t good toys for the bath anyway. What’s something else you could put in the bath?”

Sophia: “Me chokkitpie?”

__________________________________

I am proud to report that “Sophia” has managed to learn a few English words, as well. I have even succeeded in teaching her to accomplish a few rudimentary tasks that a year ago were impossible for her, like moving out of the way when I am coming in the house with two armloads of groceries. I feel confident that I can civilize her completely in time, God willing.

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