World Horror Con 2012, The Stoker Awards, and Salt Lake City by Day and Night

So I’m back from the World Horror Convention and Stoker Awards, which was held this past weekend in Salt Lake City, Utah.

WHC was unlike other conventions I have attended, and I was a bit unprepared frankly. The ratio of creators and publishers to fans and readers was a bit more lopsided than I’m used to. I arrived at WHC hoping to have a good reading, get the word of my books out, and sell copies of Merkabah Rider. Well, the reading turnout was pretty sparse and I sold maybe a handful of books compared to my usual haul. I should’ve expected this, being in the room with luminaries like Robert McCammon, Mike Mignola, Rick Haulata, and one of my literary heroes, Joe R. Lansdale, to say nothing of really talented authors like Joe McKinney, Weston Ochse, Jeff Strand, William F. Nolan, and a slew of others.

But, I was a bit on the low side come Saturday night. Understand, a lot contributed to my bad mood besides the going generally unnoticed for the first half of the Con.

First off, when my flight got in I was operating on about three hours of sleep thanks to some last minute book proposal preparations and general packing stuff. I flew in with Del Howison, proprietor of Dark Delicacies books in Burbank, which I think is the largest bookstore specializing in horror in the country, and the very talented Mr. John Skipp. Not to say I flew in with them as in together. We’d never met.  I recognized Del by his famous snow white mane, and John introduced himself when he found out I was heading to WHC as well, and then graciously introduced me to Del. I wanted to get in with these guys, but I’m a terrible gladhander, particularly when I’m sleep deprived, and I’m afraid beyond the handshake, I didn’t make much of an impression.

So I was sort of beating my head against the cab window about that all the way to the Motel 6, and I just wanted to crawl into bed and catch up on my sleep till I had to be at the Radisson for my first event, which I think was the Kaffee Klatch with Joe R. Lansdale. Arriving at what would be my accomodations for the next three days however, I received my first real blow. The lobby and half the rooms were under rennovation, and the other half of the place was occupied by Latter Day Saint Church members who had flown in for some big annual meeting or address.

The guy suggested I come back around 2pm.

This was at 10AM.

So that meant not only no sleep, but a mile and a half hike to the Radisson with all my crap, and no prospect of sleep at the other end of it.

Tim Marquits, Yours Truly, Lincoln Crisler, Karina Fabian

I phoned my fellow Damnation Books authors, live-action GI Joe Lincoln Crisler (editor on Corrupts Absolutely? and author of WILD) and my sometime editor Tim Marquitz (author of Dawn of War and The Demon Squad series) and they kindly offered to let me crash in their room at the Radisson. However, when I got there, I found the excitement of meeting these two long time e-collaborators to be too lively an occasion to spend unconscious. We blathered back and forth for a while (there’d been a SNAFU between Lightning Source and UPS and the copies of Corrupts Absolutely? Lincoln had worked like hell to promote weren’t going to arrive in time to premiere at the con – no copies of my own Merkabah Rider 3: Have Glyphs Will Travel either), then went down and commiserated a bit with Kim and William Richards of Damnation Books.

I then headed to the meet and greet with Joe R. Lansdale.

I’ve talked to Joe now and then on Facebook (we both hated the Matrix and loved Real Steel), but meeting the guy in person got me a bit fidgety in an unfortunately fanboy sorta way.  They say you should never meet your heroes, but Joe was just as funny and personable and easy going as you’d want your heroes to be. It was a bit of a one man show, but what the hell, nobody’d come to hear me talk, and in my experience people from Texas either talk a blue streak or hardly at all. I was frankly glad it was the former so it just wasn’t a bunch of us goombahs staring at each other.

Bruce Lee? Yeah, you might call me a fan.

The guy cited Robert E. Howard and quoted Bruce Lee and echoed most of my own thoughts on the writing work ethic and always keeping your reading horizons as broad as possible. Wish I’d had the opportunity to sit down and just have a beer with the guy, but I think maybe I was a bit starstruck.  I mean, Joe Lansdale. For me, there’s Howard, Matheson, and Lansdale. Meeting Kazuo Koike a few years back in San Diego is the only thing that’s come remotely close for me.As it was, after the deal was done, I sought him out at his table (where he was sitting with Robert McCammon and his awesome wife Karen, all three of them co-founders of the HWA) and told him that he was the second guy I’d dedicated the first installment in the Merkabah Rider series to (the first being Bob Howard), and that I’d just like him to have a copy.  He thanked me, and asked me to sign it for him, and I in turn asked him to sign my copy of Dead In The West.

Without Dead In The West and Joe’s Jonah Hex stories, there would be no Merkabah Rider. It was a shining moment for me. The man is a class act, and I hope we have a chance to connect again further down the road.

No pics, I realized.  Yeah, I don’t tend to take pictures of people unless we’re close. Definitely not total strangers. I don’t know if the subjects find it intrusive, but I know I feel pretty dang intrusive sticking a camera in somebody’s face, or asking them to stand beside me and pose for one.

My buddy Bill Duke. Don't ask him about me. He'll deny it...yeah, that's right.

Now I have done this, but when I look at those pics (this one of me and Bill Duke comes to mind), I feel sort of silly. Here’s shlubby ass me and badass Bill Duke.  I’m lowering the property value. Just feels kind’ve artificial to me. I guess it’s proof you met the person, but….oh I dunno. I mean, we’re not buddies, and if you want proof I met Joe Lansdale, I’ve got my copy of Dead In The West. And if you don’t believe me….screw you, cowboy.

So then I had my reading, which, as I mentioned you could hear the wind blow at. C’est la vie. Like a one two punch comes the mass autograph session, which was pretty much dominated by the bigger names. Looking back on it now, I see I was prepared for a different experience. The point of WHC was not to sell books, but to make a splash, do a little politicking, get your name out there. Nobody understood this more in my line of sight than Lincoln Crisler. Watching the guy in action is like watching a dynamo. He’s everybody’s buddy, and he’s somehow everywhere. I have a newfound respect for the guy’s ambition. Combine it with his talent and I expect to see him at the podium during the Stokers in the next couple years.

I had another chance at the DB books party celebrating the release of Corrupts Absolutely? Lincoln (dang him) talked me into reading from my story Conviction to a crowded room full of strangers. Now if you’ve picked that one up yet, or read about it here on the blog, you know that one’s a bit of a departure from my usual work. It’s told from the point of view of an abused African American kid in the Cabrini Green housing projects. So picture me (don’t bother, look up at that shlubby pic of me next to Bill Duke) and imagine me (after a couple quickly downed beers) reading (in part):

“Know what I’m sayin? This is how we do, folk. All day every day, nigga. Right-right. LK Killa! ‘Ay nigga! Who this ‘lil nigga? Who you steppin’ to, nigga? What set? What set? Man chill BillDawg, s’that trick nigga Punkinhead. Whatchoo lookin’ at, Punkinhead? Ugly ass bitch! God-damn you ugly! Go on in nigga, get yo grammaw’s diapers.”

I was a little reluctant at first, but screw it. I’m not ashamed of anything I write, certainly not Conviction, which is a good little story, I think. If somebody can’t separate the character from the writer, it’s there problem not mine. I have no regrets, and I thank Lincoln for nudging me into it with drill instructor aplomb (‘Just read the freakin’ thing!’). No real idea how it went over as I was reading from a laptop screen and couldn’t really look up, but I know the party quieted down till I was done and the only guy that came up to me besides Tim was a guy who suggested I turn Conviction into a theater piece, so I guess it went over OK. Nobody jabbed me with a broken bottle, anyway.

Although the night was young, I am not. I had a 1.5 mile walk back to the Motel 6, so I undertook it.

Now during the day, and I know a lot of the other con-goers will bear this out, it was wall to wall khakis and short sleeve shirts as the LDS people had the run of the place. But night time in SLC is a bit different. The homogenous scene of the daytime totally disappears around 2AM when the clubs let out. There is a sweet street machine subculture that roams the streets at night, peeling their tires and thumping bass, the souped up engines roaring like dragons in the dark. Cars both vintage and sleekly modern.

SLC has a button down reputation, but the liquor flows freely at the clubs, and the raucous crowds attest to it. I saw a couple fights on the walk home, and the splash of police mars lights on the concrete, and sidestepped an 80 proof puddle of vomit at least once.  Nothing too harsh was going on I don’t think, but don’t be fooled into thinking that SLC is a square town, because it’s not. All that homogeny disappears (at least at 2AM anyway). All the minorities you don’t see in the downtown area during the day are in full effect at night, and I’m not just talking about ethnicity. There is a thriving gay community as well, apparently, full in the shadow of the Mormom Temple’s illustrious spires.

More on that later though (the spires not the gay community, sorry).

Saturday morning I had pitch sessions with a couple publishers, one seemed encouraging, the other not so much. OK.

Then I was fifth wheel on the Vampires in Literature panel with Hal Bodner moderating Leslie S. Klinger, James Dorr, and Thomas Roche (two of them voting members on the HWA’s Most Influential Vampire Novel of the Last 100 Years committee). God bless Hal for remembering to ask me things when the panel already had such a worthy crew of knowledgeable persons. I did my best to hang in there and contribute, but even found myself asking questions.

After that I was feeling a bit self-piteous. I had tried my hand Friday night at the Gross Out Contest (where contestants read the most disgusting piece of prose they can come up with), and even though I realized my story Wrath of Benjo from Dark Moon Books’ Slices of Flesh was way outclassed (if you can really call it ‘classed’), but I had signed my name, so I went up and read anyways – besides, Joe Lansdale was one of the judges, and it was a chance to read my own stuff in front of the guy. I got sandwiched between John Skipp (who, at the audiences’ cajoling, spouted off an entirely extemporaneous bit about dog molestation) and Jason Reinhardt, who elucidated us on the finer points of necrophilic incest (just a boy in love with his mom).  Yeah the judge forgot to even call my name at the end. Haha. Lincoln was there too, and placed fourth.

So I hoofed it back to the Motel and worked for a few hours on a pulp novella I’m doing for Airship 27, which I’ll announce when I get the dang thing done and in. I lost track of time actually in the court of Haroun al-Rashid (that’s a hint, true believers), and headed back to the Radisson in time to catch the last half hour of the Stoker Awards. A lot of deserving people walked away with those beautiful little castles, and Rick Haulata seemed to speak directly to me when he said that the most important thing to do was to just keep showing up (he also said the difference between a writer and a pizza is a pizza can feed a family of four). I got to hear Alan Moore’s rambling backhanded acceptance speech for best horror comic, which was better written than most books I’ve read lately. Also got to see Richard Matheson accept the Best Vampire Novel of The Century award for I Am Legend via video. Pretty amazing.

Now at the after party my experience at WHC really got into the swing for me. A little late, sure, but that was my fault. I was hanging around, watching Rick and Joe talk, waiting for an opening to just go in and shake Rick’s hand and thank him for the inspiring words, when a pair of ladies came up to me and told me frankly I looked like a wallflower. Well, I had been one pretty much all weekend after all, so they were calling it plain. The two ladies were none other than Jeff Strand’s wife Lynne Hansen and Alice Henderson (a fellow Star Wars contributor it turns out, who had a similar experience in writing for the franchise), who were good enough to draw me out and get me talking about writing, HWA, and my experiences thus far. I really can’t thank these two enough. Had I turned around and walked out prior to their talking with me, I likely would’ve gone home feeling I hadn’t made much stride at the con. But, they introduced me to people, who introduced me to people and so forth. I didn’t wind up going home till about 4AM, at which time I discovered Salt Lake City has an awesome 24 hour Mexican place called Alberto’s that serves a mean machaca burrito and adobada tacos (I had never heard of them either, but if you like guacamole, you’ll like these).

Sunday morning I walked out of the Motel 6 in a t-shirt right into a Chicago-style ice storm. So, I walked back in, wrote a little more, got dressed, and checked out (which is why I didn’t get to attend the HWA business meeting – sorry, guys). Had lunch at the La Trang, the best dang Vietnamese restaurant I’ve ever eaten at, and hung around the Radisson, even sold a couple books. I had a great talk with Weston Ochse about this colorful thong-wearing bookstore owner in Quartzsite, Arizona, and our various relations in the military.  Even had words with William F. Nolan about our mutual admiration for his friend Richard Matheson’s Incredible Shrinking Man (my favorite Matheson book) and The Beardless Warriors.

Now here’s where things get really interesting (or not, depends on your point of view).

Lincoln, Tim, and Laura Hickman and I headed over to BJ’s (er JB’s) for lunch and I decided to take a walk over to the nearby Mormon Temple to take a couple pics while they ate (since I had a bellyful of Vietnamese yet).

Now everybody has their preconceived notions about the Mormons (well everybody who is not a Mormon anyway). Stepping into the Temple Square area on this, one of the biggest Sundays of the year for them, was like stepping back into the past. Throngs, I mean throngs of people were crowding the area, so much so that SLC police had deployed in vans to direct both foot and vehicular traffic. Wading into the midst of this is like getting caught up in a river. You can’t really go against the tide, you just sort of float along.

Dotted along the thoroughfare were anti-LDS protesters. I strained to listen to what their bullhorn beefs were about, but let’s be honest, who can understand the tinny stuff coming out of those street preachers’ handhelds? Half of them wore placards that were legible but a bit vague, and one guy even had a bunch of apocalyptic stuff pasted to his car.

Now added to this din were lines of people who would seemingly spontaneously burst into chorus. We’re talking Mormon Tabernacle level of singing. Have you ever walked down the sidewalk between two rows of people lifting their voices in praise of God? That swell, that angelic sound of human voices in perfect unison assailing you from both sides – it’s an indescribable sensation. You can just about feel it pressing on your soul.

I wandered from the sidewalk into the temple courtyards and started snapping pics at the edifice. This is one beautiful building after another. The sky besieging spires (toldja I get back to those), the golden angel trumpeting at the top, the vertical architecture (which sorta reminded me of a Stoker, actually, but on an immensely grander scale), the total effect of the fervent believers and the reflecting pools and the monuments and landscaping, it makes the open heart soar, frankly. If God’s not your thing, just revel in the sheer majesty of what the human mind can conceive of and build.

Then, a heavily accented gentleman came up to me and told me he noticed I was taking pictures. I figured it was the LDS security, who had once already asked me to not remain standing in the path of the crowds filing into the huge conference center with its articially recycling waterfall, but no, this guy introduced himself (and I wanna say his name was Hector, and I hope it was) as just a pilgrim come up with his friends from Columbia for the conference. He took my picture a couple times and offered to show me around.

Sure – when would I have a chance to do this again, I figured. So Hector took me around the courtyard, explaining things and answering questions as we went. The Temple is only opened for special ceremonies and weddings. All these people, none of them were here to go inside that commanding structure. He pointed out the old Meeting Hall, and explained that ceremonies and lectures in every language in the world take place there. You see people walking around sometimes with flags on their lapels, flags from different countries. These are people who have taken it upon themselves to help others who come to the Temple from their respective nations. In the Meeting Hall, Spanish speakers, Japanese, even Tongans can gather and hear lectures in their native tongues.

Hector took me into one of the visitor’s centers then. In the middle is a big model of the ancient city of Jerusalem to scale – looks like the map room from Raiders of The Lost Ark.

See if you can spot the Well of Souls.

All along the walls are beautiful paintings and displays depicting scenes and individuals from the bible.  Prophets, Ezekial, Moses, Isaiah (in wax, seated in a mock up of a nomadic Hebrew tent), a staute of Adam and Eve, Daniel interpreting Nebuchadnazzer’s dream.

But at the top, you ascend a winding ramp into this planetarium like domed room painted with stars and nebulae, and in the center is a giant white staute of Christ. Hector explained to me that this represented their belief in Jesus as the center of the universe.

Jesus As The Center of The Universe (me included for scale)

Now I kept waiting for the pitch. You know the pitch. The ‘free personality test’ pitch you get when you walk down Hollywood Blvd. between Ripley’s and The Egyptian Theatre. The pitch the guys in the short sleeved shirts who come to your door on bikes give you, or the guy on campus with the bullhorn, or whichever guy ‘the pitch’ conjures to mind.

Hector showed me a room depicting the charity work the LDS church does worldwide. I asked him if he had always been a Mormon, and he admitted he was the only one in his traditionally Catholic family. Perfect place for the pitch. I think he pointed out the wax figure of Joseph Smith to me. I admitted I was a Catholic to him as well. He said that then I understood, that LDS’ book of Mormon is a book added onto the New Testament. I did already know this. I made no judgment. I’ve never read the Book of Mormon and I think the extent of my education on it comes from that one South Park episode.

However, I am of same opinion of Robert E. Howard’s Conan, who said,

“Crom’s Devils! Let men worship what gods they will!”

I asserted that just as the Book of Mormon is an addition to the New Testament, so too is the New Testament an addition to the Hebrew Torah. Hector smiled to hear this, and clapped my shoulder.

He was nice guy, and when I told him I had to get back to my friends, he made no protest, no last ditch high pressure sales pitch, didn’t plead with me to see more. He advised me, if I ever came back, to visit the other building, which had a miniature model of the Temple with a cross section cut out, showing the interior. He escorted me to the Temple grounds gate and shook my hand.

“You have a generous spirit,” he told me. “I hope I will see you again some time.”

Who knows?

The world is a strange and wonderful place, full of diverse people who can get together on their common struggles with Star Wars and appreciation of the printed word, scary stories, and thong wearing booksellers.

So I came away from World Horror Con 2012 with some new friends, some new hopes, some new knowledge, and the realization that I have nothing in particular against Mormons.

Hasta pronto.

PS – Picked up a copy of Dark Moon Digest #7, featuring the ghost story I wrote with my daughter Magnolia. Here’s her first ‘author pic.’

To Hell And Back: Yuma, AZ And Beyond The Infinite

 Well True Believers, I’ve returned from my research excursion into sunny Yuma, AZ and the old Territorial Prison.

Yuma Territorial Prison. A nice place to visit....

Getting a jump on the perennial LA traffic my intrepid partners and I sallied forth in the early hours, talking shop most of the ride. Somewhere at the edge of the San Diego County Line I watched one of those birds that divebombs in front of cars speeding down highway smack into the windshield of the SUV in front, blooming from a dingy brown into a puff of white down feathers, as if it had been some kind of ethereal creme-filled confection blown apart by a gust of wind.

Ploughing through the feathers and ignoring the bad omen, we continued on to Yuma, AZ, called ‘The It Town’ by the Arizona Star, according to a billboard.

Had a great lunch at the historic Yuma Landing Bar and Grill, named not after the steamship landing as I’d thought, but actually the first airplane landing in all of Arizona, around 1911 or so. Pictures of antique aircraft decorated the walls, along with some very interesting photographs of old Yuma itself, even a few sketches of the old, old days (1880’s). The house speakers were cycling through some classic country – Merle Haggard, Tammy Wynette, Charley Pride, Kitty Wells, Dolly Parton. Plus they made a great burger. It was a pleasant dining experience made all the more pleasant by its affordability.

Yuma prison in its heyday.

Afterwards we headed over to the prison itself. Situated on one of two rocky hills which flank the Colorado River, the prison was erected in 1876 as the brainchild of a pair of local entrepreneurs seeking to draw revenue to the area. The place was planned out not by an architect, but a local contest winner, who got a $150.00 prize for his efforts. The laborers weren’t contractors, but the inaugural seven inmates, who were put to work building a plank wall on the north and east sides of the site to contain them, and some adobe cells. The iron doors were shipped in later via steamboat and unloaded by the growing prison population, who also hauled the sternwheelers into drydock, built the stone water reservoir and guard towers, and dug the stone and clay building materials out of Prison Hill itself. Initial temporary buildings notwithstanding, security was never a problem for Yuma (dubbed the Hell-Hole by its inhabitants) Prison. If one managed to escape the guards and scale the walls, there just wasn’t anywhere to go. The closest town was miles across the surrounding desert, much of it trackless Sahara-style dunes, and a group of local Quechan Indian line riders were kept on retainer to chase down escapees. 

In its 35 years of operation only 26 prisoners ever escaped, most of them during the supervised work details. 111 died of various causes, from tuberculosis (the most common way out of Yuma) to gunshots.  While there were no executions, punishments (other than daily sharing a cell in 110 degree heat with five other prisoners who only washed one day a week) occured, both confirmed and legendary. Would-be escapees were fitted with ball and chain, ‘incorrigibles’ were chained to an iron link in the floor of their cell, or flung into the Dark Cell, a black-as-the-pit stone room with a single narrow pipe in the ceiling for ventilation and light and an iron cage in the center.

Looking up the pipe and possible snake entry of the Dark Cell

Rumored punitive measures include tales of guards dropping rattlesnakes down that pipe, or filling the cemetary of stone pile unmarked graves outside the east wall.

I brave the Dark Cell.

The inmates of the prison varied in their criminal activity, from the man convicted of  ‘seduction under the pretense of marriage (which moral grounds aside, also translated to a concrete theft of property if you think about the dowries young women brought with them into matrimony in those days), to gunman Buckskin Frank Leslie, who rode with Wyatt Earp. In later years, female prisoners were incarcerated at Yuma, like would-be stagecoach robber Pearl Hart, and Elena Estrada, who, spurned by her lover, cut out his heart and flung the bloody thing in his face.

Prisoner's eye view out the Dark Cell

The prison population represented an interesting cross-section of America. Though the majority of inmates were white (and Catholic), the prison housed Mexican, Apache (including at one point Haskay-bay-nay-ntayl, the infamous Apache Kid – who coincidentally enough also spent time at Alcatraz, and was one of the aforementioned succesful 26 escapees, overpowering three guards and disappearing into a snowstorm with two other prisoners), Chinese, European, African American, and even African individuals. A placard at the prison breaking down the demographics of its some 3,000 inmates even claims to have included a single Buddhist.

The Sallyport: Main entrance to the old prison.

As stated, only a fraction of the original structures remain. The adobe wall is mostly gone, though the imposing Sallyport which served as the main entrance remains. Pieces of the wall are devoid of plaster and have been melted down by years of weather, though its a bit of thrill to see the bits of straw and stone in the old mud bricks which must have been packed by the prisoners’ own hands. You can walk in one of the cells, though the roof of the main cell block (atop which a hospital sat at one point) is now open air. The original guard tower over the stone water tower remains, and you can still walk into the Dark Cell and see the banded iron in the floor. Spiders are the only inhabitants now, and birds nest in the crumbling padlocked cells, the walls of which are scrawled with grafitti dating back to 1929.

Looking west at the prison from amid the unmarked prisoners' graves.

A very interesting excursion, which should prove fruitful in the Yuma-centered segment of the forthcoming Merkabah Rider installment, ‘Have Glyphs Will Travel.’

From the prison we attempted to find a series of old petroglyphs to the east of town, using only my buddy’s internet phone (I am in no way a technophile -I’m sure there’s a proper term and I’m probably mucking it up) as a guide. That proved fruitless, so we headed back to Yuma and took in the site of historic Main Street while we waited for the six ‘o clock showing of Thor.

I’ve walked through a lot of offbeat towns, but even the weirdness of Quartzsite did not compare to the strange feeling one gets walking a mostly deserted business district at four in the afternoon. Shop after shop was boarded up or closed early, with some signs proclaiming ‘Be Back Next Week,’ and one memorable and somehow slightly disquieting bit of signage declaring ‘Gone Fishing For Souls.’

Gone Fishing....

 

Walking Main Street, Yuma I felt like I was passing through a Lovecraft story. Three quarters of the closed shops were hawking dusty, strange antiques. We saw a moldy quilt patterened with Egyptian hieroglyphs. There was a turnstyle display with little plastic/rubber demon headed puppets hanging limply on the pegs. Peering through one dusty glass door at a Zoltar fortune telling machine (yeah, like the one in ‘Big’ with Tom  Hanks), we saw a seven foot tall chicken statue.  Faces peered back at us from behind cracked and dusty glass frames, antique photos of people I didn’t recognize, except for one of Annie Oakley. We passed an art gallery which had a cheery ‘Grand Opening’ sign in the empty window, the curling purple and pink balloon ribbons still hanging from the corners, and I smoothed back the eviction notice taped outside. Very depressing.

The most impressive structure on the street was a high brownstone and pillared affair. It too was closed. The faded United State Post Office letters across the top could still be seen. They’d been replaced by a set of austere stone letters which gave the name of some company I’d never heard of. Inside everything was taken care of, but again, they were all long gone by four. Looking up the company name on my buddy’s phone, we read a vague, impressive sounding list of the company’s purpose. Whoever there were, they were big enough to buy out the Post Office. The high iron spiked fence protected a well-kept lawn (which as anyone who’s been through that part of Arizona knows is no light endeavor) and two plain sandstone dais (es?), on which I imagined some Innsmouth-like employees of this shadowy corporation enacting God knows what in the dead of night during the vernal equinox or some such (worshiping the giant chicken from the antique store maybe?). Chuckling about it all away (but I think, dreading to see what this area was like when the sun went down), we scooted off to a showing of Thor at the amazingly reasonable price of $6.50, my companions whispering that the price was probably so good so as to entice people in. Then the screen would start flashing a dancing silver pumpkin head or something. 

Something wierd about the theater too….in a case in the lobby, dozens of coffee mugs and tea cups, all of them different colors, shapes and styles, each and every one personalized ‘to Cassandra’ by Hollywood celebrities, ranging from Jerry O’Connel and the gal with the eye makeup on the Drew Carey show to A-listers like Clint Eastwood, George Clooney, Julia Roberts, and a big old green teapot inscribed by John Travolta.

Odd.

Well, Thor was alright. A great big beautiful FX show with some amazing art design, charismatic actors, and neat-o little asides to us Marvel-lites, but not much in the way of a coherent or engaging story (surprising considering J. Michael Straszynski’s name was on it). Oh and spolier,  to those who haven’t sat past the end credits (and you ought to know better by now), looks like The Avengers will be puzzling over The Cosmic Cube in their much-anticipated team-up movie.

We purchased a ticket for the last showing of Priest (because at 6.50 a ticket how could you not?) and headed over first to the Coolest Bar Downtown (that was the name I think) for beers, and then an impromptu excursion to a local Italian eatery (and more beers).

Night on Main Street and there were no dark tendrils reaching at us out of the sidestreets, nor fish-eyed pale skinned residents rising out of the broken old shops to snatch us off to be giant chicken feed at the big corporate bash. Not entirely complete turnaround, but it was lively. The clubs and bars opened up, spewing out endless monotonous loops of Hispanic dance music, and a crowd of teenagers dressed to the nines for the local promp diddy-bopped up and down the ave.

Once we were full of beer and calzones we’d seen all there was to see and returned in time for the start of Priest. I was engaged even in my stupor for the first ten or fifteen minutes. As soon as the hordes of vampires attacked the homestead, killing off ma and pa and spriting off the daughter, inducing the enmity of the girl’s uncle, Paul Bettany, I recognized the plot as being ‘The Searchers,’ which I thought would be interesting. Also the opening info-dump set protrayed in kinetic Gennedy Tarktakovsky (the man responsible for the REAL Clone Wars cartoon) animation had me going. But pretty soon the needlessly digitial vampires started showing up (a la the needlessly digital plague victims in I Am Legend) and it turned into a literal snore-fest for me. The last movie I fell asleep in the theater to was Patriot Games.

Well, we spent the night at a Travel Lodge and departed in the morning. The boys returned to Yuma Landing and I tried out a Mexican lunch counter serving Chivo Birria (Goat Stew). A little bit too boney.

We headed west and decided to pull over and take a look at the amazing dunes that comprise the north edge of the Sonoran desert.

Waiting for Shai-Hulud

We scaled a couple big ones, cracking wise about Arrakis and Lawrence of Arabia. I took a brief call from the wife atop a sandpile and that short exposure to the blowing grit filled my phone with so much Mexico it still grinds everytime I open it. The blow is pretty harsh, and literally gets into everything. I don’t know how the Bedou do it without goggles, but I could barely see when I got back in the driver’s seat, and had to flush out my eyes with Evian (which is all I’d use Evian for anyhow).

We drove on, and passing through the rockpile mountains outside of Jacumba on I-8, I spotted a stone tower high up overlooking the winding pass, so we decided to make another impromptu stop.

Resting on the road to Alpha Centauri.

Stopping only once more on the road up to see a Gray slumped over the wheel of his flying saucer, we stepped out of the car in front of the Desert View Tower into a bracing cold we hadn’t expected after all our time in Yuma.

The three story turret is actually a reconstruction of a similar building erected in the 1870’s to assist in ox-hauling freight. The current one was apparently constructed in the 1920’s.

Vaughn's Desert Tower

The caretaker got me with the rattlesnake eggs in an envelope gag, which was apparently an old one (but obviously not to me, because it scared the crap outta me). He then proceded to do the same to one of my companions and a boy who came in after us with his father.

Barbed wire skull on the wall

We scaled the winding staircase, observing various displays of folk art and taxidermy, cultural history, and gay love (yeah, it was some weird ascendancy thing. We went from mole skeletons and roaring boar heads, to celebrations of African and Indian Women In The West, to a pair of contruction workers suspended high over a concrete canyon deep mouth kissing), finally emerging to poke our heads out of the roof and be buffeted by hurricane force winds that swept over the rocky tops and down into the pass. It was like sticking your head out of a Southwest airlines flight.

After the tower, we explored the adjoining Boulder Park, with footpaths winding to heights higher than the tower and creeping underneath massive boulders, a good many of them handcarved and painted as if from sugar into whimsical animal shapes by artist W.T. Ratcliffe in the Depression.

Whimsy swiftly turned to horror.

We made our way up the switchback until we were overlooking the old tower, and spent a good forty minutes clowning in the buffeting wind, which you could literally lean against during the big blows.

"Be ye dumb rock or demon-born, I'll not be thy repast!"

It was a visceral, amazing sensation standing at those heights ‘surfing’ on a boulder, the wind flattening your clothes against your chest and legs, ballooning your jacket and trying to push you to your death.

Jeff lost his hat. A big surprise gust came and took the thing off and sent it turning into the wind, sailing down the mountainside. It was like one of those scenes in adventure movies, where they want you to get a sense of the danger by whipping a hat away and letting the camera follow it as it dwindled into the abyss.

Before The Hat Incident. We were innocent then.

We descended in a search pattern, building up the lost cap (a beige one at that) in each of our minds, thinking maybe if one of us actually found the thing we would be granted some unquantifiable boon for the remainder of the adventure, as if we’d pulled the sword from the stone or plucked up the Holy Grail or something.

But nada.

Lunch in Cardiff By The Sea at a beach cafe. I had fish tacos.

Then home.

Hasta pronto.

These guys were set up around the mouth of this drainage tunnel, but we dared not ascertain why.

 

Portrait of the artist as a hood.