RAIDERS OF THE NOT SO LOST ARK OF THE COVENANT...or WHAT THE VAMPIRES FOUND

We are back in Jerusalem and I am telling you about the old man and Jonathon and the French knight, just like I told you I would last night. The three enchanted beings left the old garret and climbed down the stairs to the street. The night market was winding down. A few vendors hawked religious trinkets and reconditioned electronic devices. The old man (a vampire too) broke into crazy, manic laughter everytime he set eyes on any type of religious artifact. He'd yell --- FAKE! FAKE FAKE! LIAR! LIAR! LIAR! I have seen the truth! I have breathed the Dust Dinine!.....Then he'd just thrash about and scream until someone dragged him away. So Jean-Michel (the French knight vampire) took special pains to distract him. He whispered little gossipy tidbits in his ear, superficial things about others in the Jerusalem vampiric community, causing the old man to chuckle with delight. Jonathon, being Jonathon, couldn't resist ducking into a certain brightly lit stall to purchase a pair of hand tooled, fine dark red leather slippers. (you know how he is when it comes to trim, smart, well fitting shoes) But the whole transaction took less than three minutes and it's not that his heart wasn't in the right place, for it was (just beneath his sternum), but rather that even after one thousand years, he still often thinks with the brain of an eighteen year old.......Charming.

They snaked through a series of narrow, casbah-like thoroughfares, finally emerging into a large square abutting the fabled Western Wall of The Great Temple of Jerusalem......Well, not actually of the Temple, but of the huge, stone platform built to support the Temple. Small knots of the faithful, lost in prayer, petitioned God for all manner of things....peace and brotherhood.....the coming of the Messiah.....a cure for cancer..... a new Toyota Prius..... Bright spotlights bathed the politically sensative area 24/7 and spruce duos of IDF personel patrolled the sacred ground.

Some hasidic types were bowing and praying right up by the base of The Wall. The old man stopped a few feet away, took out his prayer cap, slapped it on his head and began to communicate with The Lord. Jonathon, recognising the liturgy, joined in. Jean-Michel stood respectfully nearby. Then, after a few dozen heartbeats, the old man impatiently gestured for them all to hold hands. They did. He led then round and round in a little dance, throwing back his head and laughing like a little child. The hasids (cherishing acts of spontaneous rapture) stood 'round them, smiling and clapping their hands.....Jerusalem fever....You know how it is.

After a time they began to spin faster and faster. The old man added a rythmic STOMP every now and then. They could feel a powerful intent, flow out from his body and enter their own. Then, after perhaps three dozen heartbeats more, they began to sublimate through the ether until they disappeared.....I don't know what the hasids though. But a couple of Israeli intelligence officers watching the scene on  a bank of security monitors saw the whole thing and feverishly began to call in to their superiors at the Bureau of Miraculous Occurances.

A fraction of a heartbeat later, they (our vampiric threesome) reclaimed solid form (well...spirit-form would be more like it) deep within  the shadows of a secret, rough hewn chamber far beneath the foundations of the Temple Mount, just as a group of Levites (a lower Order of the Priesthood) reverently placed a large, golden relic into a sacred niche. Jonathon caught a glimpse of the two guardian seraphim kneeling upon the lid. He saw it. and he knew what it was..........

A VAMPIRINA HELPS AN OLD TROOPER

Before we get back to the old man in Jerusalem, I have to tell you what Baylah did. See, this is why vampires are a necessary part of the human condition. It was late at night. She was back from her feeding (that time of the month) and HGTV didn't have any of the shows she liked, just a bunch of ordinary, middle class couples looking for plain econo-ranch houses in drab, start-up suburban neighborhoods. Like who the hell cares? So she sat there next to her financier boyfriend. He, at least, could eat a bowl of butter pecan ice cream, but Baylah, being a vampirina, could not. So she pulled her 'Lucky' jeans back on and went out to cruise the nearly deserted streets.

Most parts of Margate, New Jersey are straight out of a picture book. If Speilberg made a movie set in a cozy-posh seashore town, he'd shoot it there. Mayberry meets Malibu, but with good delicatessens and capuccino bars. It's also doggie heaven. No, for real. It is. I think it says so in the Bible.But when Baylah went out it was already real late. No cars. All the Mercedes and Jaguars were safely bedded down in  their embossed concrete driveways. Save for the hum of countless central air conditioning units, all was quiet. Even the sea gulls were done shitting for the night.

Nothing much to see except stylish, well manicured properties (artfully high lighted with professionally placed exterior illumination). So our Baylah (a beautiful girl. looks just like beyonce knowles), decides to sublimate herself through the vapor and go see what's doing in Atlantic City. She combusts back into the material world on a nice (but dewy wet) bench on the Boardwalk right outside the Hilton Hotel and Casino. An aged woman, kind of like a pot-bellied Cloris Leachman, but on a bad day, was sittting there. She was frazzled. Her white canvas cheap knock-off sneakers had seen better days. And I think there was a pee-pee stain just around the bend from the crotch of her pull-on pants. She was sad. Her gambling money was all gone. All she had left was her troubles.

They started talking. Turned out she used to be a kiddie birthday clown. Pickles, they all called her. She had two white doves trained to nest in her brassiere, a nice orange wig and everything. Got threehundred dollars a pop too. All she had to do was tell a lot of 'poop' jokes, roll her eyes, blow up some balloons, make fart noises and she was Buddy Hackett and Lady GaGa all rolled up into one. Shoulda seen her when she forgot to take her insulin.  Then the show was really something special.

But one day, during an intermission (the kid couldn't wait to rip open his quota of Toys R Us crap), some gassy little ice cream smeared bastid with a dairy problem barges in on her sittin' on the toilet. Suit down around her knees. Belly hangin' out. Magic, dove-less bra all undone. Smokin' a stink weed, but still sportin'  a full face of clown grease paint and her orange wig. I think she was takin' a swig from a little flask of Jack Daniels too.

She and the kid make eye contact, only they don't say nothin'. Tick tock, tick, tock, tick tock...about thirty seconds go by. Then (tryin' to be friendly, I guess), she holds out the flask and says ---Hey kid, you want some?

Guess it wasn't his brand. 'Cause the little bastid goes tearin' out of there (fartin' all the way), racin' back to the party yellin'----Help! Help! She ain't no clown! She ain't no clown! She just a drunken old lady!!

After that, she never worked the b'day circuit again......Just a drunken, old lady sittin' on a bench, late at night, out front of a heartless casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The doves (which she freed) could at least hustle tourists for polly seeds over by the entrance to the Steel Pier. Boy did she need a drink Baylah felt sorry for her. So she bit into her wrist and offered her some of her magical, life-preserving blood. The old woman asked if she was crazy. Baylah said --- No, just a vampire.......I guess that made it all right, 'cause the gnarled old thing took a few swigs. Hey, not Jack Daniels, but what the hell.....So her life was saved. Baylah felt good. And two days later, the old bitch got a job as an assistant bingo hall shill in training. Won about fifteen games a night......Ain't life grand?

Come back tomorrow. I'll tell ya what happened with Jonathon and that French guy in Jerusalem.......

NIGHT FLIGHTS THROUGH THE ETHER OF OLD JERUSALEM

We do not have much time. :Please do not look for spelling errors and the like. As you know, this is channeled via disembodied spirits and it is extremely difficult for disembodied spirits to comprehend the importance of accurate spelling and punctuation, since they exist in a telepathic environment.

I am not Zebulon. He is currently hovering about in some seashore town known as Margate, New Jersey. I am not Johannon. That one is floating over a fortyeight foot party boat docked near the southern Israeli pleasure dome of Elat. (did I spell that correctly?). I do not even remember my name. I have been dead too long. Well...you use the word 'dead.' But that is not truly what we are. Granted, we shed the mortal coil, much as a butterfly sheds its chrysalis. We go on to greater things.

Enough about me. You came here to learn of Jonathon, the French chevalier (it is their word for knight) and the mysterious old man (he too is a vampire). The old man has not been a vampire very long. Unfortunately, he was transformed quite late in his conventional lifetime, so he remains locked in a worn looking body, though infused with the strength of a life-eater. The 'event' happened in the German death camp of Auschwitz. He was one in a transport of five thousand Dutch Jews from Amsterdam. Upon arrival, young adults were permitted two or three extra months of life as slaves. Old people and children were immediately slaughtered. But fate stepped in to 'save' this ancient gentleman. While waiting (naked, beaten, shorn, robbed, probed {molested would be more like it} and shivering) for his turn to cough up his lungs in an orange, bloody froth in the gas chambers, a cold efficient guard approached and yanked him out of line. Soon to be dead , trembling little children watched wide eyed as the warmly dressed soldier said---You! Come with me!....and kicked him in the ass, forcing him to run toward a cinderblock building forty yards away.......They did 'experiments'  in that place. Gestapo agents had uncovered a nest of vampires in Dresden. One was sent to Auschwitz, where he was compelled to cooperate in a series of cruel and bizarre charades. He had no choice. His children were still mortal and the monsters had them too. So that day, the vampire from Dresden, drained all the blood from a terrified, exposed old man, mixed it with his own and forced it back into the thin, dry, shriveled flesh.

Yet the 'night gift' settles differently upon each soul. And the old man became more than a mere vampire, for now he had the ability to transport himself (and others too) to other 'realms, to other times and to other realities. For his first 'trick,' he winked himself (plus the head of a doctor he grabbed just prior to departure) out of that cinderblock laboratory and through the ether to a street corner in Old Jerusalem. A pushcart vendor gave him some clothes. After all, what was the sudden appearance of a naked, old man carrying the severed head of a German Officer (military hat and all) in this city of miracles? And a vampire, especially a sympathetic one, was just another species of 'golem.'

Tonight that 'golem' would use his powers to take Jonathon and the French chevalier on a magical journey of their own.....

SKINNY, LONG FANGS, SET IN AN OTHERWISE TOOTH-BALD MOUTH

They flew wilkravitz over to Jerusalem to help with all the internet stuff. It's not that he's such an expert, but he has an instinctive feel for the medium and is willing to put in the necessary time. A few impulsive vampires went out to The Dead Sea and engaged in a communal blood letting. They drove to a few different sites along the shore and did the same thing. Was is enough to turn the waters red, like in the Bible? No, not even a pleasing shade of rose (I'd put an accent over the 'e' if I knew how to do so), though it did have a certain calming effect. The waters of that venerable sea touch Israel, The Palestinian authority and Jordan, effecting bathers of all persuations and political stripes. And although we're told never to ingest salt water, droplets of that briny soup trickled down gullets all over the Holy Land, dosing a multitude of souls with peaceful thoughts and goodwill..........Government officials from various facets of the multi-planed crystal that is Middle Eastern Politics began to notice.

Jean Michel, our medieval French knight vampire and a centuries long Judean resident, took Jonathon to meet another life-eater. They went into a cramped, narrow, stucco dwelling just off a marketplace in the Old City. Four flights up, they entered a small, dark, garret-like cell. Seated on a hard, little chair (probably once part of an old diningroom set) was a painfully thin 'old' man with a nimbus of white hair and fine-lined, vellum-like skin. He craddled an old, yellowed, human skull in his gnarled hands and crooned to it, as if to a baby.

The French knight cleared his throat. The old man heard. He spoke, directing his words to the relic in his lap....Look, Lazar. We have company!- he said. Then he made a series of tiny clicking noises with his tongue, causing small stumps of rather cheese colored candles to spark back to life, bathing the dark chamber in a flickering, dim, orange glow, illuminating ancient, rustic furnishings. In truth, they might have been back in the time of Rabbi Hillel, or Rabbi Jesus........I know why you are here, my Frankish friend---croaked the old man. You want me to take you places. And your companion, he smells like an Iberian to me, wants to go too.....Then he clapped his boney hands and laughed, revealing a set of skinny, long fangs set in an otherwise tooth-bald mouth....But he knew his business well and after a short discussion, setting the proper perameters, they began to shed their places in our part of creation and sublimate into another.......

VAMPIRES AND FREE LEMON WATER ICE ON THE BEACH AT TEL AVIV

This is what they decided to do, the vampires of Jerusalem, I mean. Jonathon was chosen to create a web site. It's not that he is so particularly computer savy, but it was his idea and seeing as vampires are inherently lazy...well, you can figure out the rest. So he got this kid they met at the hotel to help out. I don't know where he was from, maybe Minnesota or Canada or someplace like that. The kid had this smart phone and he played it like Stevie Wonder played the harmonica. So in about seven or eight minutes, they had this web site all about 'The Pax Semitica' and  it showed a map of the Holy Land divided into two nations...the Land of Israel and the Land of Ishmael.......Two 'Brother Kingdoms,' inhabited by Israelis and Ishmaelis.....Isaac and Ishmael reconciled at last.

Then they got a hold of that song the resurrected John Lennon was writing. They recorded him singing it, nothing fancy, just sitting at a table outside some Sbarro's in a mall in West Jerusalem. The kid from Minnesota or Canada helped them post it on You Tube. Right away, it got a lot a hits. And after some guy on the 'E' Network got a facial recognition expert to transpose images of the not-yet-dead John Lennon and the guy at the Sbarro's (a match), it got even more hits. A day later, some music promoters in Dubai talked Yusef Islam (the Artist Formerly Known As Cat Stevens...and a respected Muslim in his own right) to post his own lovey-dovey, touchy, feely response  on You Tube as well. They played them in tandem...like when Natalie Cole sang 'Unforgettable' with her deceased father, Nat King Cole. It went viral. Ellen Degeneres played it on her show. Some kid she had signed on her Eleven-Eleven recording label did a 'cover'.........Over four million downloads in six days. But Ellen being Ellen and partially saint-like in her own right, donated the profits to a series of ecumenical 'peace charities' in what was starting to be called 'The See of Abraham' .....Neil Diamond did a free, outdoor concert on the beach at Tel Aviv, everybody got free lemon water ice and they bounced a lazer beam off the moon. Bette Midler started talking in tongues and Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher levitated over the heads of sixteen would-be mystics at a spur-of-the-moment Malibu Kabbalah service.

Yoko Ono flew over to Jerusalem to reclaim her resurrected husband, but she didn't levitate. She used a plane.........................................

#THENEWBLOGBOOK IS A FREE WAY TO HELP YOUR BLOG GO VIRAL

Vampire shennanigans comes later. First, some non-fiction stuff  for all bloggers. We need a new, ridiculously easy to use directory. We all need more readers. Tell me what you think about this idea......

NEW SITE-----

#THENEWBLOGBOOK

EXAMPLE-------
compose a tweet with your link, followed by one or two keywords, such as......
http://vampirewonderland.blogspot.com/... keywords- fantasy, vampires, magic, is in #THENEWBLOGBOOK

then we all encourage readers (via tweets, facebook, blogs, etc.) to google #THENEWBLOGBOOK, plus our personal keywords. this is a free, simple way to form a blogger generated directory.

we have nothing to lose...and it just might drum up a few hits. larger, mega-sites are cumbersome and often difficult to navigate. and be honest...are they really pulling in lots of traffic?

so take a few seconds and tweet out http://YOURLINK.blogspot.com/.. keywords - yadda, yadda, yadda, is in #THENEWBLOGBOOK

tweet often, everytime you post. change keywords with each tweet, but repeat one main keyword each time.

then, each time someone googles #THENEWBLOGBOOK, plus a keyword that matches one of yours, your link will come up , along with a series of your postings.

try it. then google yourself and see the satisfying results!

NOTE-- this also works for tweeters. just substitute @YOURNAME in place of http://yourlink/

PRIESTS AND VAMPIRES HAVE A SYNOD...JOHN LENNON DOES SOMETHING TOO

Renate lay with the resurrected John Lennon in a suite in an unnamed Jerusalem hotel. They weren't exactly lovers, but they were 'sexers,' if you know what I mean. Sure, he plans to reunite with Yoko one of these days. But he's still about forty years old and she has aged a few decades since his death. Not that he doesn't still appreciate foreign, exotic types. But I'd say an everlasting, immortal, mother of humanity (which is what Renate actually is) has that foreign, exotic thing goin' in spades.

Anyway, Renate says they need something. They need a theme song, something inspirational...an anthem... What's that thing the French people sing? You know, something like that. Lennon says whenever somebody tries to create contemporary, uplifting hymns, they always come off sounding like cola commercials. The ageless, vampire goddess lights a cigarette and tells him to use some of his old stuff. He says the only thing that comes close is Imagine and that was a hymn to the abscence of religion. But he is quick to add that he had not yet made the acquaintance of any bonifide spiritual beings back then (though a few gurus and high powered recording company executives came close)  and is more than willing to rework the material, in view of recent developements. She nods, blows a smoke ring and asks him for a little bite...Just a little one.....He sighs, offers her his naked arm and stares up at the ceiling.

Meanwhile, in another part of the City of David, Jonathon and Sarah (plus a few other sufferers of 'Jerusalem Fever') argue over just how to save humanity. Some loud-mouthed vampire from Chicago wants to stage a 'mass blood-letting.' He wants to have every vampire in town  slash open their wrists and contaminate the water supply with the miraculous elixir....In effect, make 'familiars' out of all humans (pets too, I suppose) partaking of this heady cocktail. Jonathon tells him what happened when they 'staged' miracles in Philadelphia. He tries to explain how easy it can be to drum up followers. Yet followers often see things their own way. And even the best intentionns of the French Revolution gave birth to the Reign of Terror. The Chicago life-eater tells him he can't understand a word of his 'fine Corinthian leather' Spanish accent and just keeps babbling away. Two rather new age, Hasidic type rabbis continue their unending string of chants and an Orthodox Christian priest (from some obscure variant) sprinkles everyone with holy water made from melted ice cubes taken from a machine in the hall.

Keep the faith.......More to come...........