159 Katheena's Sacrifice, The Fall Of Orion

Water in the desert.


It sinks into the ground, it evaporates in the sun, and it opens portals.

Your eyes are portals, windows to your soul.


They are also windows to other souls.


A watery angel, a long forgotten desert cowboy ghost from ze old vile vest, …well, perhaps this little box in which we navigate our short time on a tiny blue marble, alone in the vast eternity of space, is not all there is.



GLINTYS


The rain pummeled the Fuck out of FuckNo, and this left No.


Katheena pressed her accelerator pedal all the way down.

Orion grinned.


Then he opened his throaty valves and sang his demon song.


He screamed in pleasure, and shot in between the two rear vehicles.


You must never attempt the following. It is evil to do such a thing, and you may cause others harm. You may even die.

Katheena swung left and braked.


When she swung left, her Endura bumper nudged the left car over, and its rear wheels lost traction.

That car on the left was in a new trajectory, which was diagonal to the right.


It slammed into the car on the right, and they were married in their new path of life, together.


The went off the road for a honeymoon at The Dunes.


Katheena had braked to avoid that squealing, angry mess that followed. The next couple of cars up ahead saw what she had done, and they braked hard.


She swerved to avoid them and she went into the dunes as well. Then they sped off again.


I saw lights flashing about in the Maserati’s rearview mirror, and I had no clue what in hell had happened.


If I had, you know that I would have went right back there.



I chust was not thinking.


Menomena, Evil Bee.






Sean drove faster and faster. I think, looking back, that he was racing the rain. He wanted to escape the desert baptism that would inevitably ensue.


Tellesco kept up to his beloved savior Sean, and Joey was chust along for the ride.



My skin crawled. Those assholes behind us would not give up on trying to follow us.


Something bad had happened, and something else bad was about to happen.


I chust didn’t know it yet.




Fuck it, my instinct screamed at me in my head.


Turn around and fight.


Indeed, this is what my nerves were telling me.


No flee.



Fight.



So I smashed that brake pedal down.



The Maserati Bora began to swing around and around on the slick tar, but we stayed on the tar. Those other vehicles seemed like they wanted to play chicken, but only for a second.


They swung around me and skidded into the mud of the damp desert dust, and they skidded and flung mud everywhere around them. But they got back onto the tar.


I faced south, towards Fuckno.


Against my instinct, I did not get out and fight.



Something else was calling to me.

I had no idea what.



SACRIFICE




The Maserati hummed to me. I pressed her fun button down, and she responded with a silky moan. Then she sang to me.


I needed to go back to the other lights off both sides of the road.



As I drove to them, I passed a horse-drawn wagon heading north.

What The Fuck?


A sole figure rode up front, in the driver’s seat.


As he passed, I turned to look at it. There was a white circle A painted on its side.


Hah?



There was a sideways ellipsis of lights on the right, and beyond, on the left, headlamps shining all around on a hump way off to the left.



An ellipsis looks like this

. . .

A sideways ellipsis looks like this

.
.
.

I pulled over to the car on the right, so see what was going on.



I zipped up my leather and got out. The rain felt like shards of ice.


A long, beautiful golden car lied on its side.


A large pool of rain water reflected the lower headlamp into my eyes.


The car was drowning in the pouring desert rain on its driver side, ass end deep, nose pointing up chust a little bit.




Oh.



No.



Orion.





Katheena.






++++++++++++++++++++



Joey looked behind him and saw some headlights growing closer. Joey pressed down on his old fashioned accelerator pedal, but there was no more for him, from her.


She was an older car who was doing her best to provide him with pleasure, but she was from a different era, when cars did not have fuel injection, or turbo, or Positraction, and they were made out of cast iron stove metal, not with plastic.


Those rich bastards were on their way to him, for him.


Little Lion Man was always ready for a scrap.


In the rain, he saw a solitary figure in the road up ahead. It stood to the side of the road. It held out a thumb. It was hitchhiking.

Hah?




++++++++++++++++++++++



The horse-drawn carriage raced towards the vehicles up ahead. The horse’s metal-shoed hooves clicked blue sparks in the rain, and its mane began to glow with a blue fames. It was overtaking the rearmost vehicles.

It flew up and then drove through them, and went past. It disappeared. And then it was coming back at them. The horse and the carriage were now glowing blue light.


The figure in the driver’s seat stood up and pointed a double-barrel shotgun at them, and then a blast erupted.


The light from the blast scared the hell out them two drivers and they panicked.


Do not panic.


- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -


I slogged over to Orion in the desert mud, with the howl of wind and pelting of rain in my face.


How dare---


Who the fuck had----



I had almost left her----



Orion rumbled on his side and his rear wheels were still spinning.



The one in the dirt had dug a new grave.


- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -


Joey slowed to a stop and looked up at the figure outside of his old, classic car, and he could not see her face.



His skin shivered, even though he had the old heater up all the way.




- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -



Sean could not see us anymore in his rearview mirror. This was because Tellesco was tailgating him.


Tellesco would never be abandoned again. He would


Never



Be



Abandoned



Again.



- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -




God Help You.

God Help Us All.



---willies out








.

157 Baptism Aftermath

Thank you YES, for setting a fire under my chair and getting me to maintain this back-up blog for the willies tales. I owe you a brewskie.


Number 10 would be a good place to start.



You can click on any number on the right to read that post. No need to download the whole month's load.

I like Blogger's “newest post" button at the bottom, to help along the way, anyway.



Katheena heard the sirens wailing across the desertscape, and she looked up at the pink moon. It looked like it was drowning in rain clouds. It gasped for help.

She looked over to where Stacy lied on the grass by the landscaper structure, and the busted up Celica sitting nearby.

She wanted to wait for us to come.

She really did.


However, she was quite aware that if she waited too long, it would serve no one well. She might end up serving time.


Can you blame her?


+++++++++++++++++++++++

Sean slid down the fuel tank and disappeared around the side. I looked at Tellesco and Joey, and they shrugged at me.


We jumped down and followed him. The side door to the garage was open. A light flicked on inside. Beyond the open doorway, twenty lovely cars of various makes and models gleamed like they had been washed and waxed everyday for ten months without ever having left the garage. These were the sorts of vehicles that collectors regard as pieces of art. Masterpieces.


Hoses covered each tail pipe. Evidently, these cars might not see the light of day all that often, but someone ignited them frequently and let them warm up. The hoses must have been hooked up to a vacuum pump to collect their noxious fumes and eject them to the outside. Each car held a key in its ignition.

Sean started them all up.

He went over to the wall and pulled down on the giant power switch near the oil storage. The vacuum fan roared to life.


Then he came back and flicked the light off. He pressed a button near the light switch, and the middle bay door crept up and open.

He came out and smiled at us.

What the fuck was he doing?


++++++++++++++++++++++++




The Kinks. I Gotta Move.





Katheena stood there, and she watched the cars exit the driveway. She crossed her arms over her pert breasts and pressed her fingers to the side of her face. She gently chewed the inside of her cheek.

The sirens grew louder, closer, more threatening.

She paced.

Then she heard a loud crashing noise and saw water come bursting out from up high.


What the Fuck?



She looked again at Stacy, who was bleeding from her nose and beginning to moan.


Water flooded the driveway and ran over Stacy's legs on the rise to the structure.


Katheena ran over to her car Orion and she opened the door and jumped in. She had tears in her eyes.


Fear, and fear.


She had to get away.


Here, this is Mettle. You make a decision to do something that may make others regard you with disdain, anger, or even hatred for your betrayal of them. But you do it because it is actually correct to do it.


Mettle can be a bitch, baby.



+++++++++++++++++++++++++


Sean put his arms around me and Joey’s shoulders. He looked us right in the eyes, back and forth. “You guys wanna take a ride?” He smirked, and then he laughed. “Might as well save a few of them.”


Hah?


From the light of the pink moon, he flicked another switch. A pump came on. He went to a hose with its nozzle chambered in a holster, and he pulled it up and out. “You guys, get in those cars over there, the ones in the middle line. NOW!”

We jumped, and we followed his orders.


He pulled the trigger and set the trigger hold to remain open. Gasoline poured out onto the floor. He slowly walked over towards the rear of the garage, and there he gently laid it down. The hose followed him from overhead, on a suspended swizzle. Each car could be fueled where it sat. Then he got in the car at the head of the middle line. With five aisles of cars to choose from, he had chosen the middle one. Like a middle finger.

Out of twenty cars, we saved four. He drove the first one out, and we followed him.



He stopped, ran back, and then the middle garage bay door began to close.


+++++++++++++++++++++

As we drove forward, folks were clearing rugs and chairs and shit from the tops of their automobiles, and we passed them. I looked to the side structure on the other end, and saw the rear end of a white Celica sitting there.


Stacy’s car was near Orion? Hah? As we got closer, I saw that Orion was no longer there.

Then I saw how fucked up the white Celica was.


I laughed. Holy shit. Katheena was a badass.


Folks turned around and saw the glow of light coming from the garage bay windows. Sean had lit up a rag and tossed it by the side door. The vacuum pulled the exhaust from the cars to the outside, and the cars pulled fresh air in with their hungry carburetors and injection systems. Air that came from the open side door.

The fumes from the large puddle of gasoline under them all also got pulled away from the burning cloth.


Until the puddle reached the burning rag, that is.



How did Sean know to do this?

Evidently, he was pretty smart. He was also kinda evil with his use of his intelligence.


Damn.


I should not have been party to such ugliness. I began to disdain Sean. He used leadership, but in the wrong way. He abused it. He abused my trust.


Or did he? What had happened in the top floors? Would you care to see, in the continuation?


Perhaps you will, in the next chapter.

But, let’s continue here, shall we?




- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -







The garage exploded.

Glass and wood flew out at the cars getting cleaned off and covered them anew. Folks got splinters and cuts. Some were hit by flying boards.


Those vehicles blazed inside there, and tires caught fire. All of their engines kept running, until the belts and wires melted from the intense heat.


And that was when their gas tanks boiled their contents into steam, and the other explosions began.


By this time, we had reached Garland Avenue, and Sean took us to the desert up north, in the opposite direction of the approaching emergency vehicles. You see, when your home is not indicated on any map, it is hard for folks to find you.

Even folks who may coming to your rescue.


It was at this moment when the rain came down. Perhaps the shock wave from all the explosions busted the pregnant bellies of them rain clouds.


The thing was, such a downpour did little to hamper or dampen the fiery hellhole of the parking garage.


Yet we had saved four.


Yeah, that made it all better.


Such a waste.


Damn.



God Help You.


God Help Us All.




---willies out.







OK, One More For Ya.



On my way down to a meeting with fellow air quality scientists at RTP, there was this bartender who works at a certain Legal Sea Foods sort of place in the Philadelphia hub of USAIR. His name is Scott Fields, and here is his video capture of a very funny guy, Reggie Watts, using a sampler live and onstage.

I wouldn't ever give away too many identifiable statistics in an online post without someone's permission. He signed the napkin. God Help You, good buddy!






Radiohead is awesome, and so is this video. "Sorry Thom Yorke."






Thanks Scott. Keep my Fat Tire brewskies cold, young bud.


Shout out to Sir Randy Ashley. I have never laughed so hard at a fucked up phone message.


Evar.




hehehehehe







.

155 Instinct and Ghosts

INSTINCT




Are you all set to take a dive, a dig, a fall? Get your head set, my friend.






= = = = = = = = = = = =






Always pay attention to the hairs standing up on the back of your arms, on the back of your neck, and any other sort of warning signal from your cerebellum.

To not, is to fail. Darwin told us so.



Katheena did not know magical things. To think that someone knows magic simply because they are from a culture that is different from your own knowledge base is racist.





The tale of Bagger Vance is an example of the magical black man idiotology, (on a golf course). There are many more examples in literature that one could use here, but that is not the point here; to harsh the writing style or subject matter of anyone else who contributes to the story telling culture of which we all partake.











Here we go.




Katheena had a mental toolbox from her years of culture that her mother had taught her, and this educated her instinct all along her own path, and exhibited itself, when she needed it the most.


These teachings were her wings.



Amen.





The point here is that she listened to her instinct, finally. And that is one of the essential components of what is known as Mettle.




++++++++++++++++++++++++




Joey had made up his mind to forge ahead, and this solidified my own resolve. Let the slag fall from the pure Mettle.





We crept up the narrow, creaking, dusty steps that turned to the right every thirteen of them, and at the top, found ourselves in front of a door. We had no idea what lay beyond it, but we were full of energy from desert dust inhaled and the adrenaline from me seeing The Glinty.





I did not tell Joey that I smelled Lorelei’s perfume all over me.



Ya know.





Perhaps he thought I had some cologne on? Or maybe the shower spraying down in the ground floor came from a water tower filled with perfume?


He didn’t ask, and I didn’t answer.




“Weeee-ill. We ain’t got no weapons.”




I thought about that. Then I turned back to look down at him, three steps below. “Joseph. We are weapons.”




Little Lion Man grinned. “I’ll go with that!”



“Shhhhh!”





++++++++++++++++++++



Katheena’s instincts were correct. She had listened to them. The tendrils of shadow shrank back from her and she shrugged the willies from her skin, under her leather. She looked at how far she would need to traverse the darkened path ahead, behind the lovely mansion. The warm light from the windows on her left invited her in.




The light shined upon a wrought-iron patio set with chairs, on this cobble-stone walkway.




Oh yeah.





+++++++++++++++++++++




I turned back to face the door. “All set?”




Joey whispered, “Fuck yes. Let’s go.”




I grabbed the door knob. It would not twist. I mean, there was no wiggle at all. It was set solid, like drilled into a wall.




WTF?





We did not know that this stairwell, with the ancient filament light bulbs glowing all the time from when they were first installed back when the mansion was built, with the not-too-dusty steps built in case of a needed escape from the top floors…


…well, that this stairwell had not been traversed in ages.




In fact, no one alive at that time even knew that they existed.



No one alive.




Alive, that is.




So, the other side of this door was a wall with years of wall board and wall paper over it, and that is why the Little Lion Man and I would have to bust through it to exit the stairwell and enter whatever lay beyond.





We chust didn't know it yet.






++++++++++++++++++





Katheena picked up the closest wrought-iron chair and swung it around, and then she let it go, into the window in front of her. The glass exploded into what appeared to be a library.





She took another chair and held it, fueled by adrenaline and dust, and she smashed the shards away that might cut her arms once she went in through, by dragging it across the sill and up the stiles.







Then she flew into the library.





What do you suppose were written on the spines of those old books? You can imagine. She found herself inside a secret place.




It held many secrets.



++++++++++++++++++++





“Joseph, it won’t budge. We need to break it down.”


“OK, but won’t that give us away?”





“I guess, but there is no other way to get through.”


“How we gonna break it down?” He looked around. There was nothing. No fire axes hanging on the wall, no trusty batter ram, no TNT laying there for our sudden help.


MacGuyver hadn’t been created then, either.




“Joseph, we will have to use our Doc Martens. That’s all we have left. Come up here beside me. Put your hand over there on the wall. Now don’t grab on me if you fall back! I wouldn’t do that to you. No need for us both to get fucked up. Just saying.”






We each took a deep breath, and then we kicked with all of our might, and the door flew apart into a million splinters and the hallway exploded with our vengeance and then we saved everyone and got home and ate nachos.




YAY!










Hey, I’m a nanabush, a jokester, but you knew that.





So, Nope.





Our Docs kicked us the fuck back from the solid wall in front of us, and we grabbed each other and fell back down the stairwell.




Thumpity fucking thump


thump



thump.







Our heads rang like alarms from our fall.




Far below, we heard new alarms begin to ring. Katheena’s glass-smashing had caused them to awaken.




Intruder! Intruder!




Soon, the other, far-off sirens of help-on-the-way from in-town would arrive, and it would become a cacophonous symphony of catastrophe for us all.




GHOST.

Joey groaned. I groaned. No, this was not some pleasurable groaning. We were heterosexually all mingled and mangled betwixt and between each other.





The twain had met and was bleeding, anew. Brown and red, black and blue. Clickety Clack. Choo fucking choo. What the fuck would happen to you?





Hey, always mind your leather.



Your leather will protect you.







“Weeee-ill… That was a bad idea…”




“Uh, …Joseph… ...Shut the fuck up... …Ooooofffffff…”




I felt myself from the inside out, gently turning, and although I was in pain, nothing seemed to be broken with bones poking through skin. “You OK, dude?”


He grunted. “Uh, no. But I think I can get up.”





I slowly pulled my legs from under the Little Lion Man’s own, and then he slid back down a few more steps.



Bonkety Bonk.





“Fuuuuuck!”



“Sorry, man. Shit.”





I rolled over onto my side, still upside down, and then struggled to get myself right.




The pain had brought tears to my eyes, and as I looked up at the old fucking door, I saw the dark figure standing there, chust before I wiped my tears away from my eyes on my leather.



I opened my freshly dried eyes again, and she was gone.





Hah?





Why could I see that shape only with eyes filled in water, when in a car escaping from a bad dinner party in the offskirts of Clovis above, or in a raining hallway below, or up on the top of an old, dusty stairwell where the Little Lion Man and I struggled to make sense of things?





It was a watery ghost in the desert, you see.




Do you see?




Do you see at all?














++++++++++++++++++++++++




Katheena could not take her eyes off the rows of aisles of old, dusty books. Each one whispered to her, calling to her from decades of ancient knowledge, and each wanted her to open it and take a sniff, a gulp, or even a glint.



She felt drawn to them. But her Mettle allowed her to take only mental snapshots of some of the titles upon their spines, and she steadied herself.


She would need to exit that dank, dusty tomb of words and find the escape route to her vehicle, which she called “Orion.”



As far as we know at this point in this tale, she did not touch a book, not did she stop to peruse and snatch a few of them.


Or course she didn’t. Katheena was not that kind of lady.


Ya know.



She had all kinds of alarms going off and shit.



Of course she wouldn't steal treasures.



++++++++++++++++++++



Joey and I heard voices from the other side of the door up at the top of this dank old stairwell.


This is what we heard:




“Tellesco! Shut the fuck up and stop crying! I heard some shit from this wall!”



“But Sean! (Boo Hoo) I want to leave here now! I can’t take this any longer! What you waiting for?! (Boo Hoo).”




Uh, Wha?



My friend, I apologize to you for having left you in this stairwell for a couple weekends. Sadly, I have to head off on travel again next week, and won't be able to write anymore again for you until another week has passed.







But why not join me here tomorrow for the end of this chapter? My column will be quite long, and it may be hard for you to take in.






I hope you can do it.





I'll have some links for you tomorrow, because you like that stuff.







God Help You.


God Help Us All.



---willies out.











Manu Chao. Me Gustas Tu.









.

154 Get It Up And Then Go Down

Here we go baby. Katheena wouldn’t go home the same way she had come in. None of us would.






Care to follow?










Katheena crept quietly back behind the lovely mansion into the darkness. All around her, shadows slithered and grew close.



She hid from the curious moon above, who had its eye on the ants in front of the mansion, where cars beeped and honked like angry geese, pinching asses of the stupid people in their way.



Katheena shivered, but not from the desert dust in her nose. Her senses told her to run.


She thought it was from dust.



No.





So This Is Goodbye, by William Fitzsimmons.








Instinct called to her, from millions of years of self preservation at the cellular level. It is always a good idea to listen to what your instinct tells you. Logic is a newborn, and while it screams and demands attention to be fed and its diaper changed, it does not have all of the answers.



Your shivery skin may tell you something, while your mind tries to reason your fear into submission.



Fear exists for a reason.



Listen to it when it is true, and become deaf to it when greater things arise.



She should have listened, this one time, to her fear.



Her Mettle is that she would do both, but not at the same time.




One follows the other, but neither is the leader.



Ya think?



-----------------------




The stairs were dry. Joey punched me in the thigh. “Dude! Don’t make me strike you in the ass! Let’s go grab Sean and get the fuck outta here! Why you waiting?!”





I grunted and rubbed my thigh, and turned back down to shout at him. I had the willies. All of my skin was creeping like it was covered with ants. “Joseph, shut the fuck up! You need to look at these steps!”




Joey’s arms dropped, and he sensed my fear. He looked down. “These steps are narrow, dusty and old. So what?”


I whispered, “I saw the Glinty dude go in here. He showed me the way.”



Joey’s eyes widened. He wiped his wet eyes. “You took me in here because of that fucker? I’m gone. Not my problem.” He swung around on his heel.



I grabbed him by the leather. “No! Hear me out, man. This is an escape route, to get out of the place from the floors above!”



Joey pulled away and his face was white. “Exactly what I’m saying! We need to escape and get the fuck out! Down is this way!”


I knew his panic, and I grabbed on his leather. “Nope. We have to go up. Sean is still up there.”



"What the fuck are you talking about, Weeeee-ill?! Ain't no one up there waiting for us but that creepy bastard who was trying to kill you. He looking to give me a rub down too!"



I really wanted to chust fucking bail now.





You see, I smelled Lorelei's perfume.





It was all over me.






I---







I...







i









Alone,







...nothing was there anymore.









Perfume from a girl under the ocean, thousands of miles away, here in this dusty stairwell that lead to hell below, or heaven above?



Her scent made me come apart at the seams.




Yet,






It held me intact.






What The Fuck?





Underneath the weak light of the filament bulbs overhead, I felt some strength.



Out of nowhere.






I heard the ocean in my ears, and I stopped shivering from my cold, soaked leather.





I was not drowning in my fear.





Peace, out of mayhem.



Huh.




I said, "Joseph, would Sean leave you and bail? Do you think that Sean would do that to you? Do you think? Do You Think At All?!"








His tensed arm softened.



He knew I was right.



No Escape for us, in this moment.




Joey stood there, in his fumbling mind, and then he straightened up. He recovered the ball. He looked back up at me. There was resolve in his eyes.



Fuck yeah.



I really needed to see that in this moment, because I would have followed him out and run off with him and escaped if he had simply said No.


But he didn’t say No.



Huh.




Most of the times, the Exit, (the Escape), is your friend.




In the other few times such as now, the opposite direction is the Entrance, and you must pass through it to Escape, to Exit.





Up to go down. The yang to the yin, baby. The white and the red. Desert and ocean. Exit and Entrance.




Never the twain shall meet.




Fuck the grey, the pink, the mud, the middle ground, the fence-sitting, and the inaction due to fear.



Joey shrugged his leather back onto his shoulders and adjusted his tie.



We would go up.









Jesus For The Jugular, by The Veils.






Katheena looked into windows as she crept along, feeling the tingle of what she thought was desert dust inhaled, but not recognizing that she was in imminent danger.



You know from reading the Lorelei Talks that Katheena was in touch with her Thailand heritage, through her mother. Katheena performed the excellent Japanese tea ceremony quite well. Asia is a continent comprised of hundreds of distinct cultures, just like the USA has over 565 original tribes of cultures, each with their own language, origin story, and customs.


Katheena's mother educated her with the beauty and strength gleaned from thousands of years of culture and civility.




Katheena knew much more than we two punk bastards frozen in fear in the dusty, ancient up-stairwell.




She knew more than she knew.




She stood up and swung around. The shadows held back, with their long tendrils about to slip up from the ground and the walls to grab her.



She pulled out the small white envelope and opened it.





She inhaled a deep breath,





and then she blew all of that desert dust into the air all around her, spinning, and she tossed the paper away.





LINKS


Karate Kid, the way it was originally shot. Before the special effects department dressed it up.






Brinicle. Icicle made out of sea water. It will kill you.






1,000 girls, (2,000 boobies), two hands. One month of Awesome.







So you say that you enjoy listening to Nickleback? Huh. Here’s the Motown version. Kinda improves it.





1/5th of a second. Beauty.

Seconds Of Beauty - 1st round compilation from The Beauty Of A Second on Vimeo.

Those funny Messicans. They chust don’t vote!

Watch American Voices: Gustavo Arellano on the 2012 Latino vote on PBS. See more from NEED TO KNOW.

25 pics of people in stoopid clothing. Kinda lost faith in humanity after seeing these.






How The English Language came to be.






Why the English Language is fucking awesome dooode.







Speaking of constructing things with your bare hands, how about a tiny engine? Pretty bad ass.





Speaking of speaking and creating things, Samuel L. Jackson narrates “Go The Fuck To Sleep.” A child’s night time story. Quite soothing…







God Help You.


God Help Us All.



---willies out.









OK, One More For You.


GI Joe. Home made, but pretty cool.









.