Introduction
Welcome to September! Sometimes, a year feels like it’s going by really fast. Others, it drags. Today, I swear it’s gone by in the blink of an eye. But just two weeks ago, I wondered if August would ever end. Once we move toward Fall, I find I’ve got more activities going on. Between the Washington State Fair, the pumpkin patch, and Halloween stuff, it fills up.
Which leads me to some of the things I intend to talk about here. The Fair, my thirty-one horror movies by Halloween, and some work stuff I hope is interesting. I’ve also picked up my efforts on YouTube with some new videos and will be putting some additional effort into that over the coming weeks.
Let’s jump in.
The Washington State Fair
Visiting the Fair has been a tradition for as long as I’ve been alive. If I’ve been in the state of Washington, I’ve gone at least once. That didn’t happen during the pandemic then last year, I actually had Covid over the first two weeks of September. By the time I felt well enough to go out in the world for any length of time, it was the first week of October.
So this year, it was important to get out there for me. I tried for the first week, but just a ton of stuff got in the way, not the least of which being the start of a garage remodel (more about that later). Then, one of the days we thought to go turned out to be a scorcher at over 90 degrees. We put it off until after the weekend and it worked out well.
What I’ve done at the Fair has changed significantly over the years. From running around for rides and games, to just soaking up ambiance to looking at all the kitsch and home goods I don’t need, one’s relationship with the Fair significantly changes over time. As a home owner, I find some of the exhibits for housewares to be fascinating enough and the barn shed things are cool too.
A few points about the Fair:
I counted 5 different places to buy a hot tub. I’m not sure that Washington State is the best market for those, but apparently, I’m crazy because there were a lot of options. I imagine people using them to leverage a better deal? I don’t know. I can’t actually see many being sold. I’m obviously wrong.
Old style of hard sales lives. People are up in it. They will approach, try to take off your jacket, offer you a massage, attempt to put clothes on you, and thrust anything in your hands if you’ll let them. Between the pandemic and customer service people sticking to their jobs rather than shoving their product at a customer, that was strange to me.
It feels smaller even though it hasn’t significantly changed. I walked the whole thing one time and it came out to around 4 miles. I feel like a lot was missing this year. Some parts felt very empty. Though plenty of people turned out on a Monday, even during the early afternoon.
The local treat of a scone has become much smaller and now cost $3 per. You can get half a dozen for $15 or a baker’s dozen for $30. They’re still tasty, but I’ve lost my ability to pork them down like I had when I was younger. One proved more than enough this year.
Random performances popped up all over the place. Some maniac on a unicycle cruised around with a bunch of boxes doing a bit, plenty of musicians turned out. But the ones I did not see were the Ecuadorians. They were a world music group that played outside a building I worked as a teenager. I can say that as good as they are, I can never listen to them again. So at least I didn’t get the PTSD from that 2 week period from ages ago.
Lots of goats. The day we went, we got to see a ton of goats. We didn’t delve too deeply into the animal adventure beyond checking them out. Normally, we’d go during the opening weekend to see the cats.
As far as food went, I used to have a few common choices. One of those has left the menu this year (corn dog). Otherwise, I only bought 4 things out of the dozens of options. And I only regret that corn dog. But if food is your game, they have a lot of stuff, some of it pretty crazy, to try.
Anyway, it was a good enough time, and not too crazy expensive. They’ve modernized a lot so you can buy tickets online then show a QR code at the gate. The parking was stupid ($15 bucks) but at least you don’t have to display anything on your dash anymore. Apparently, people worried they might have it blow off and then they’d get towed.
31 to Halloween
Last year, we were too sick to make our attempt at 31 horror movies by Halloween. This year, we started earlier than normal just in case we got busy (and we did). But so far, we’ve watched the following either alone or with folks online in a group chat (which tends to be hilarious, by the way).
Angel Heart
Nadja
Godzilla Minus 1
Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed
Abigail
Elvira’s Haunted Hills
Bodies Bodies Bodies
Totally Killer
Wolfen
The Evil of Frankenstein
Bubba Hotep
Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City
The Devil’s Advocate
With eighteen to go, I feel good about my chances of making it. Unfortunately, I keep getting sucked into movies that aren’t horror the last few days. Slow Horses came out as well as Rings of Power. Both of which I should talk about briefly. Anyway, I don’t really plan the movies so much, but there are a LOT on Hulu, Prime, and AMC+.
TV Shows
Rings of Power
I watched the first season of this, and I enjoyed the first several episodes. It started to stretch my patience in the middle and by the end, I was flat annoyed. When I saw the first episode for Season 2 dropped, I thought I’d give it a try. After a LONG ass recap that suggested they put the show out in 2004 rather than last year, they dive in to some stuff that felt like they didn’t even watch the recap let alone the previous season.
I will give Rings of Power the visual props it deserves. They spent HARD on this stuff. What they didn’t bother with was writing. I swear, it feels totally disjointed. I’m only guessing too many people worked on the storytelling and didn’t talk to each other. Plus, as a prequel with known characters, much of the peril doesn’t exist.
We know Galadriel isn’t going to die. We know Elrond will make it too. So when they did ‘crazy’ stuff, it’s more just a matter of seeing how it plays out for them than worrying about their well being. The emotional connection is less important. It’s like watching the Star Wars prequel stuff, and seeing someone hanging out on Alderaan. We know what’s happening there. Fighting to save it feels pointless.
I would’ve rather they followed unknown characters (which they kind of did in the first season, but had to have Galadriel in there too).
I only watched 1 episode of Season 2 and I’m sincerely doubtful I’ll go back. There are way too many other things to do than to waste my time on something that the writers only barely care about. Middle Earth posing as PG Game of Thrones isn’t working for me.
Slow Horses
The fourth season of Slow Horses began and it’s amazing. I was actually mad when I thought they put out two episodes only to see the second one wasn’t coming out for a week. This is a spy show I recommend. It’s 100% worth Apple TV+. I don’t have a lot to say without offering spoilers, but if you’re at all into spy stories or like Gary Oldman, this is must see.
YouTube
I’ve started putting some time and attention into my YouTube channel. I had some things to say, notably a point for people trying to build a particular Warhammer model (there was a hard part I made a video about to help people get through some vague instructions). From there, I’ve done a review of Space Marine 2 and I’m also putting together a lengthy video about the Imperial Agents.
If you’re interested in checking out reviews and information about my work, the link to the YouTube channel is below. I’d love it if you’d subscribe!
My Work
I finished Haunted Souls last week. This is a novelized version of the Malevolence comic. I cover all the events of Season 1. I’d call it the director’s cut of the original material, adding a ton of information. It’s currently with some beta readers and I’ll be considering an audiobook version soon as well though this story does have a full cast audio drama already.
Avalon Nights doesn’t have long to go either. It’s DEFINITELY happening before Halloween.
The next Curse of Carter’s Grove will be happening soon as well. That’ll push the story up over 300,000 words. More information about that will come out in the next couple weeks.
I have two more audio dramas coming out. One is a new series about a Malevolence Guardian working with a human cop to solve supernatural crimes. The other is a full on musical. I’m waiting on the latter until my new studio room is completed (sometime in October). But I’ve gotten SOME work done on it already. Casting will start in November.
Chapter 1 Haunted Souls
I thought I’d include the first chapter of Haunted Souls. This is a rough copy, offered up just for fun.
Please enjoy!
Chapter 1: Nina
She Walks in Beauty
Days. Weeks. Months. Years. Decades. There’s no point in counting. No reason. No purpose. No concept of time beside the changing seasons. It’s hot, it’s cold, it’s bright, it’s dark. Those constants provide the only acknowledgment of change. Of how life progresses from one moment to the next.
Do they even matter? Those senseless titles humanity gives time? What is Monday? All the dread it receives comes from flawed perspective. A social forgery. The population agrees upon the tarnished reputation of this arbitrary period of daylight and so it is hated. The scurrying is roughly the same as that of Friday. Only the urgency changes.
I can’t keep track of what humanity finds important. Their hopes and dreams are measured against the borrowed seconds of their brief lifespans. A stretch of decades, not even centuries. How so many of these creatures remain sane baffles me. I literally cannot fathom the constant fear of oblivion.
What is the point of their lives? I occasionally remind myself by experiencing the works of their geniuses. Art, in all its forms, fascinates me. Painting, sculpture, wood carvings, mathematics, and music…they seem to come straight from the purity of the divine. Or the corrupting influence of the infernal.
I love the sweet sound of the orchestra, the imperfect brush strokes that brought to life a fourteenth century perspective, the casual way numbers remained honest, and the wonders their union brought to life. Progression from the eighteenth century to the twentieth brought about the most incredible advancements, things we didn’t dare dream of in my youth.
Half of what we take for granted today would have been grounds for witchcraft and persecution when I considered myself young. All life looks upon change with suspicion. We acted on such notions, killing the dreamer, torturing the visionary, smothering hope in the darkness of ignorance.
I hated those puritanical cowards. Their zeal to keep people marching to the beat of their tyrannical church stirred up the population. Their finite time on Earth made it easy to sell an afterlife. Death became a threshold to eternity where one might live forever in a glorious light or suffer evermore in fire.
Those murderous swine possessed their own creative gifts. The ability to sell their fantasy, to make it more compelling than the tangible paradise artists and dreamers offered. The priests and their soldiers had prominent voices founded in generations of tradition. And the stability of such things trumped the uncertainty of the new.
The church lost its power in the modern day though it continually clawed to get it back. America, in particular, suffered from an odd form of puritanism. So many politicians used the doctrines as their platform and yet they so rarely adhered to them. I believed few of them even knew the words they relied upon to bolster the ranks of their followers.
Those who did memorize the book tended to twist the words within to ensure it validated their claims. When something so old is used to judge modern problems, interpretation becomes imperative. Absolute belief is impossible. Literal translation leads to punishable crimes.
Therefore, we end up with social oppression. Laws which no longer apply. People forced to live under the yolk of the very thing America had been founded to prevent. It was one of the reasons I traveled to the New World. I wanted to escape the dictatorship of religious law. To be myself when and where I could.
Truthfully, my proclivities alone ensured that my lifestyle remained a secret for another two hundred years. And only recently has it become somewhat acceptable to favor one’s own sex over the opposite. Women have labored under ridiculous expectations since someone noticed the physical differences between the genders.
We must be strong, but meek. Capable without overshadowing a man. Friendly yet suspicious to avoid becoming a victim. Prudish yet sexy but not too much of either lest we be called conservative or slutty. Intelligent but not so much that we create insecurity in the men around us. We must be living contradictions and somehow, find happiness in that state.
Some of this comes from those religious zealots. Others from men while they held all the power. I’ve always believed women could claim the world if we wanted. I believe my sex wishes to share control of society, to be partners. Because of that reasonable outlook, we were victimized into what we’ve become.
Objectified, vilified, blamed for our own misfortunes, and essentially a ‘necessary evil’ for the continuation of the human race.
But it is in that last part that all the power resides. Cease to procreate, control the population and things might change. Not pleasantly. Not without a fight. But it could happen. With courage…with all the spirit we’ve been forced to callous through the long years of our collective existence, we might wrest this world from the hands of men.
I have read the Handmaiden’s Tale. And I for one would rather see us all die in the way of the Amazon before such a tragedy unfolded. For throughout the history of the world, women have taken arms and terrified the souls of men. Our tolerance for hardship outweighs theirs by tenfold. And when that is realized, so too can the ascension of our gender.
When I find myself low, lost in the shadows of my memory, I consider these things. I lost someone dear to me. Death claimed a soul, leaving me listless…forlorn…broken at my core. No word described it back then but over the years, the mental health field has found a possible definition.
Codependency may have started with Alcoholics Anonymous in the thirties. People lacked the motivation to stop drinking, redefining the term alcoholic into a disease. They further developed methods to overcome the urge through steps that might lead to defying the innate drive toward self-destruction.
The word itself, codependent, hadn’t really been used until the nineteen-eighties. I researched it, studied the information available in an effort to understand my own failure to move on. Perhaps I suffered from a chemical dependency for my lover…my sweet, long dead Lorna.
But then, I have another addiction to contend with. One that goes beyond the definition of mortal vices. Mine transcends the elation of a narcotic, the quick euphoria of sex, the application of pain or receipt of agony. I take something far more precious, beyond bodily fluids or the scent of fear flowing from pours like pollen from trees.
Perhaps if I strictly existed in the human spectrum, if I only contended with the sorts of reactions that dance about in the mortal frame, I might’ve sought treatment. No, I latched onto Lorna because I loved her with all my heart. Everything that came along with that, the feeding, the yearning, the desire to keep her in sight…those were addictions.
Ones that filled me with more joy than anything else on the planet. No side effects included. And when I saw Constance for the first time walking down the street, I knew that my cure had not been to seek medical assistance but to replace that hole in my heart. To fall in love again. To embrace that spark with something new.
I do not believe in luck. Probability suggests what happened to me should have been impossible. Our encounter fell more in line with the textbook definition of destiny. Fate. You cannot live over one hundred years and still discount the idea that some things are simply meant to be.
Constance. She went by Connie, a permutation I didn’t approve of only for the fact she had such a lovely, old-fashioned name. But that quirk gave her spunk. She followed her own way, living in the modern world in a confusing time where women still suffered under the yolk of the patriarchy while living with an expectation to constantly defy it.
I watched her for two weeks. Studying her comings and goings. She lived in a small apartment, one bedroom in the center of town. As a student of music, she spent hours at the university with her cello. I didn’t dare listen before we met. I wanted the first time she played in my presence to be after we were acquainted, when she knew my name.
A job at the museum occupied the rest of her days. I’d been inside before, studied the pieces, and listened to the lectures. Connie provided some sort of technical support, making her all the more modern. I understood the gadgets through sheer force of will. None of it came naturally to me…and because it did for her, the appeal of making her acquaintance grew.
I made up my mind one Sunday night, to find a way to introduce myself. Six hours I waited at her apartment, praying she might leave. And an hour before dusk, she departed on foot, wearing a ridiculous hoodie and modern blue jeans. I wondered what she might look like should she embrace her feminine side, wore a dress or applied her makeup properly.
The notion of what feminine looked like came from both genders. The term appropriate had been fluid since skirts left the floor, creeping up toward the knees then above them. I’d watched things fluctuate, fashion going from incredibly conservative to flirty to outright revealing.
I found my own tastes wanted something to be left to the imagination but a hint, a taste of what might be hiding beneath the folds of a blouse, the drape of a skirt, that tantalized me. Showing too much made intentions utterly obvious. The chase outweighed the conclusion. Allowing the souls to parlay, to find common ground, that was romance.
What made Connie’s choice still compelling was how she straddled the line of confidence and insecure. Some part of her didn’t care how she dressed. The frumpy jeans, gray sweatshirt, and ratty trainers made that clear. Those were garments she could’ve thrown on to exercise or clean her apartment.
But she chose to go out in them for a drink or meal. I hadn’t figured out where we were going yet. One of her favorite restaurants or a nearby bar…either one worked for my needs though the latter would be much easier to engage in conversation.
The other part of her, one she probably didn’t even realize was there, suggested she didn’t feel right in the outfit. That it didn’t suit her persona nearly as well as it could. I saw it in the way her shoulders tensed as she passed someone on the street. Her head bowed to withdraw into the hoodie.
I wondered if she might blossom given the right opportunity, a little encouragement. So many people didn’t bother with appearance until they had a reason to. I hadn’t seen her prepare for a performance either. Perhaps that’s when she unleashed her inner being. When she most resembled herself.
Light rain bounced off my umbrella, the drops pattering against the fabric like tiny feet in a chaotic dance. Connie was a native of the area. None of them bothered to shield themselves from the elements. I didn’t understand though their outfits tended to be shabby enough that getting soaked didn’t matter.
Polyester might’ve been my least favorite invention of the last hundred years. That and fleece. And when both became someone’s idea of fashion, I felt offended. As did all the tailors and seamstresses from the past looking on from the afterlife with indignity that their art had turned such a tragic, boring corner.
Connie entered the bar. Her choice made me smile. I stood across the street, watching through the window, waiting for her to get situated. Once she established herself, I’d join her. I wanted her to be comfortable and relaxed. My social skills needed flexing. It had been far too long since I really talked with someone.
Of course, enough time spent around a passionate individual would refresh all of that quickly enough. A few awkward moments wouldn’t matter. I looked forward to it. The night was young. My pulse raced. This evening promised to be a turning point in my life, the breath of air I so desperately needed.
I set out to make it happen.