DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME..... a sad time for night creatures .. 3/10/13

Vampires get sad this time of year. Maybe not sad the way mortals do, but a certain depressive ennui sets in. Long winter nights are over. Cold walks through dark, city streets change into something else.  Night can be a very comfortable time. You know how it is. All curled up in bed with the covers up around your ears, or better yet, up over your head with just a carefully constructed peep hole for your eyes. Maybe you still have an old, small screen TV right by your nest. And you lay there all warm and snug, watching Fred and Ginger execute a stellar pasa double across the impossibly glossy deck of a Depression Era ocean liner. Ah... lost in a black and white universe where everybody's rich and the sun won't rise for hours.

But this  night signals the end to all that. Skies stay bright til nine o'clock and the fire returns at five. True, they (vampires and other night-folk) can retreat to the depths. They can shack up with the mole people, deep down in their dark, maze-like warren of never used subway tunnels. And they do sometimes. But, at best, it's just an illusion. 

So they said their prayers. Tomas insists on that. Then they dress in fine black clothes and walk out to taste the night, each one going their own separate way.  Even Annie skips off alone. No one 'culls' anyone. Nobody kills. They walk. They look. They savor.  And in  an effort to make up for past sins, they distribute things. 

Sarah took a five carat emerald. Baylah has the title to a Porsche 911. Conrad has twenty thousand dollars. Leo, a tiny, talking tree shrew. And Annie,  a little jinn trapped in an old Kikkomon soy sauce bottle. You know, the ones with the red plastic tops. I'm sure any other vampires out there, if they're reverent, picked up something nice as well. 

Vampires tend to accumulate treasures, especially if they feast on rich folk. This is the night they give some back.

It takes time to make a proper choice. Vampires can be so impulsive. You remember Tomas' battle with Sir Richard? I'm sure everybody at The Revels loved it. But what... they couldn't settle things over an old fashioned game of 'knuckles?'.... So that's why they go alone... And that's why they walk. 

Who will benefit?..... A bum on a steam vent?.... A fandango dancer swirling to the staccato beat of a gypsy guitar?.... An old woman eating stale french fries (she gets them for free 'fore they close) ? ...Or a meticulously made up circus clown wearing ripped, damp sneakers?

The 'Giving of the Gift' is a private thing. No one tells. Doesn't make a difference. First time or thousandths time. Nobody says a thing. 

What would you rather get... the emerald, or the tiny, talking tree shrew. A jinn would be nice.... even the Porsche.

Tomas never tells what he gives. But you know it's something special... and usually one of a kind. The choice lies with the receiver. Sell it for cash, or keep it and guard it for someone else.

Every little treasure has a story all it's own....

And this isn't even the actual equinox. But it signals the beginning... of the end.

Starlight, star bright... first star to pierce the night... I wish I may... I pray I might... make the proper choice tonight...

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Oh, and about that secret way to repel ghoul attacks... I could name hundreds... but none of them work... 

And if you'd like to know which disembodied spirit speaks to you tonight.....

Call me Ishmael...

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DOCTOR FRANKLIN TELLS US ALL ABOUT IT .. night creature primer.. 3/9/13

It's me, the old patriot reprobate. I'm relaxing in my rather posh quarters deep within the Anti-Enchantment-Bureau. Right now I'm watching a late night re-broadcast of Hoda and Kathy-Lee. Not watching so much as .... oh, I don't know. Do you know a Sugar Glider is a little marsupial? Looks like a squirrel, but it isn't..... (yawn) What did I just say? I'm still rather agitated. I mean the molecules in my body are. 

Just gave myself an harmonics treatment. Google the Great Armonica, or the Grand Armonica, or whatever that wilkravitz calls it. Big piece of equipment. Fills a room. Contacts alternate universes. Jazzes up old folks. Does everything. I don't look like I'm over three hundred years old, now, do I? But he's not channeling this tonight wilkravitz, I mean. Got a real big pimple on the side of his head, just where his glasses go over his ear. And you know how head-pimples mess around with brain waves? He's in bed listening to some radio talk show about ghosts and moon-men (excuse me my eighteenth century terminology) and red pelted gorilla-men from  out in the sylvan vastness.

I'm going to tell you about the city. I'm going to tell you what we have here. We call the force 'magic.' That's what gets inside them. And it sees things. And it knows things. Not like a demi-god. Not even like a person. But it's aware. Let me tell you that. Think of it as another version of 'my' electricity. But it requires no conductive medium, at least none that we can identify. Who knows? Perhaps Tesla is right.... Did I say 'is?' Pretend you did not hear that. Me, I'm not worried. But some of those artificially preserved scientists are funny that way.

So, it effects them all differently. Cherubs get the lightest dose. Then, in order of concentration, come elferinos and elferinas, the night-folk (vampires, I mean), ghouls, feral ghouls (zombies), and I don't know what comes after them. But there are a few other levels too. And that's only one line. We still don't know if mer-folk are a naturally occuring 'human' variation or something else. And Jersey Devil type creatures have yet to be explained. The MothMan, I think is just a myth. But I'm still afraid of him. Met him once on the streets of Boston before I even came to Philadelphia..... He could be a moon-man... excuse me, an alien. That's what I think he is..

Most 'magical' races hate the spring and summer...shorter nights and all that. Luna gets quite depressed. She's the vampirina-physician  who works here with me. Sits by herself in a dim, freezing air conditioned chamber. 

Not many people know we're here, the Anti-Enchantment-Bureau, I mean. Actually, we're pro enchantment and have been since Thomas Jefferson first sponsored us. Oh, we existed before then. They called us The Junto. I started that group. Now we occupy a huge conglomeration of labs, study rooms and specimen chambers buried deep under the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. That 'Philadelphia Experiment,' the one from the movie... it was real. We did that.

What was I planning to do? Oh, yes... the ghouls. I was going to tell you about them. Maybe give you some tips on how to avoid attack. But it's too late for that now. 

I have to go oversee the feeding of the sea-hag (an old mermaid). Listen, she's keening already.

And don't go into the woods in Fairmount Park.... especially 'round the Japanese Bridge... At night, I mean.

You might see things you'd never understand....

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HOW A GHOUL SURVIVES ..More From Johnny Jump Up .. 3/8/13

Vampires all doing splendid wonderful. Tomas and the lady one he love wash each other in big tub. Human friends eat hot pizza. Annie throws hard, metal Hot Wheels toy motor coaches at 'Papa's' head.   But he don't even notice. Big, heavy magic make him that way. They all right. Let them go to hell. Now you talk to me. 

This Johnny Jump Up. Mind move very fast this dark time. Me not think straight. Words come out funny-funny. Last one I eat filled with rancid, sour turds. I hate when that happen.... (room spins)... You look like a Ninja Turtle. But I not know which one. This how I live. Hide clean clothes in dark hidey-holes. Clean, little, white. cotton crotch pants. What you call t-shirts. Stockings. Whole bunch a shit. Everybody say 'shit' these days. They go - 'shit shit shit.'  That a new thing. Long time ago, nobody say 'shit.' They just dump it in a alley. All over lady dress. All over man suit. All over kid face. Kid not know. He look up too much.

Tight, black suits, I got plenty. Know how? I make them. Steal sewing machine. Steal fabric. Some fabric I get from clothes I take off meat-people. Buttons too. Not zippers. Not like zippers. Zipper bite my 'pee-pee.' First suits look like shit. (see? I say it again.) Next suit better. Work in old abandoned subway store of long ago big emporium. Snellenberg's??? I not know what it called. I forget.

Some days never sleep. Hide. Scared. Squeeze in wall like mousy thing. Old tunnels deep down where mole people live good for sleep-sleep. Never eat one. They friends. Tomas-vampire-boy sneak down there too. But he not sleep. He play 'gih-jee' with mole girl, sometime two. I go far from him.  That what ghoul do.  They got leaky water pipe in some a them tunnel. That how I wash. That how I live. I like tunnels. I like the dark.... Not all dark. Not dark-dark. Mole people got Sterno. Mole people got light...little light. Little, bitty, orange light. Like cabin light in old days. 

One time I bite into fat man high up on big roof. Ghoul strong. Me drag him up-up-up. Climb old building.... hotel. He peep - 'Please, no drop me.'.... Hold neck (my neck) real tight. Find him pissin' up  alley. Alley is good. If you ever ghoul, you find lot a people pissin' up alley. Sneak up in back. Grab 'em. That how you do it. That how it go. Heh heh. People funny. They scream. They cry. But you pinch tittie hard...REAL hard. That make 'em shut up. 

So I rip off  fat crap he got under chin. He shudder. He tremble. Shake real bad like he freezin'. And this still summer time. Start kickin' and cryin' when I go to peel him up. Can't eat no sweaty pants, you know. An' he look like a real pig. Like one a them Three-Little-Pig in old funny picture. But he not got no sailor hat. He got like a baseball cap. All the rest is ripped off. I say - 'You shut up, you pig-boy. I gonna chomp you up.'..... He shit himself. Look, there, I said it again. 

So I lock me teeth onto big wad a belly fat. He go -'Ow! Ow! Ow!'..... Bile come out a his mouth. He shakin'. He dancin'. He doin' the Saint Vitus Dance, except he layin' down. ..... I laugh..... But when I go in for next bite...'it' happen. All a him start shreddin' up... like tuna fish, or something. Fat, little, wet oily chunks a him slide off, hit that tar paper and run away. No, they really run away. Grow little legs and little arms and little face (no head. just face). Look all scared and surprised. Even fat from his face run off, til he jus' a red, greasy skeleton with ears.

I don't eat them ears though. I jus' leave 'em there. First time that happen. Lot a place for fat wads to hide on a roof. But I don't look. Just climb down and kill somebody else.

Skeleton still up there. They ain't found it yet. I sit there. Sometime I watch it in the still, gray moonlight. Sometime I feel like it watchin' me. 

I got lot a stories.... I really do...

God damn vampires can go to hell....

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The Overnight Bestseller: The Upcoming Biography of J.D. Salinger

For all who've read and love THE CATCHER IN THE RYE... The Overnight Bestseller: The Upcoming Biography of J.D. Salinger: T he New York Times Art Beat blog reports that a biography of the reclusive J . D. Salinger, who died in 2010, will be published by Simon... Now you can learn the truth ..... Definitive SALINGER BIOGRAPHY debuts... (not all what you think)...

RECOLLECTIONS OF FLESH EATERS... The Book Of Ghouls .. 3/6/13

I don't speak much. If you were here for last night's episode, you know how we communicate. We think, therefore we are. Sometimes we mouth the words for those less attuned. Let them lip read, if they can. Am I the one you call Johnny Jump Up? No. He is an unusual specimen of 'ghouliana.' His ability is quite showy, what with the leaping and all. Coupled with the anorexia, that makes for one major graphic novel star. Let me tell you that. 

Most of us look fairly normal.... the fat lady on the bus.... the old man buying a newspaper.... a little boy flying one of those snap together, balsa wood gliders they still sell in dollar stores. The magic only happens at meal time. That's when we hop to it. And ghouls don't bother with a lot of drama and rules, like vampires. I hate those phony, neurotic bastards. Look how they strike poses. Your Tomas... the one you have in Philadelphia and his 'black leather bootkins'..... Can you imagine such a phrase? What are they? Really, what are they, but weak, insipid ghouls. 

We eat who we will and we hunt all the time. You're all expendable. Life goes on..... if we let it. 

But, you want to know something? I don't know how this happened. I don't even remember 'first flesh.' Some do (not many). I don't. Your Johnny Jump Up claims it happened when he was buried alive. He says 'something' got in with him and 'grabbed' him. With me, it was gradual (I think). A little bit of this. A little bit of that... an ear..a thumb.. an ass.. a rat.

But one night it hits you. And you realize death has taken a holiday... at least where you're concerned. Time to buy new suits, or peel them off your victims, 'cause the ones you got are thirty years old.

Ghouls like to dine by moonlight, thus the feasting on the heights.... mountains in the country.... rooftops in the city. The pigeons get quite a show.

I love the way you taste. 'Long Pig.' That's what they call it. Rich and sweet and salty. Boy oh boy. You don't want to see me when I'm hungry. But you probably won't see me, not at first anyway. That's how quick it happens. 

Wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am. But you'll be in shock by then.

People disappear all the time. Sometimes we make love before they die.

And guess who's coming for dinner?

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THE BOOK OF GHOULS ..... 3/5/13

He came to me. Sometimes I walk the streets late at night too. Edith gives me a hoo-doo. You know. Doesn't make me invisible, just not noticeable. Lasts for about five hours. And I saw him in a tree right inside the Eighteenth Street border of Rittenhouse Square, all stretched out on a thick, lower bough like a panther. Looked like he'd already eaten.... all sleek and warm and satisfied. He tipped his hat and gestured toward a bench. I, like a dope, pointed to my sternum and said, 'me?' Johnny Jump Up nodded and smiled. Well, it was sort of a smile. 

I took a seat. He silently vaulted down beside me. Now ghouls have a certain smell, much different than vampires. Blood drinkers really don't have an aroma. I think the magic, their kind of magic, does it. But flesh eaters, although they do possess an elusive necromancy of their own, retain a gory tang. Regular mortals might not notice. But after all the things I've been through with them (the vampires, I mean) I am hardly that.

And Johnny began to communicate. He moved his lips, mouthing words, that I did not so much as hear, but sense. He asked my name. I told him. He asked how I served them. I told about the blog. He smiled. His eyes looked merry. He 'said' - Blog for me??? .... I saw the pointy teeth and nodded. What else could I do? But he knew that. This creature could shred me in an instant. Ever see an ant kill a victim? Ever see a spider kill a fly. A burst of quick, staccato bites. A manic frenzy. Thrashing legs. A ruptured carapace and death.... or hopefully death. Sometimes it takes a little longer.

The ghoul smelled me. He leaned forward and sniffed my cheek...my hair... the front of my left shoulder (I think he was going for my arm pit.). I froze. Then he chuckled ( like a deep, rumbling, purr) and playfully poked my stomach. 

That's how I met him. That's how I met Johnny Jump Up. And I wish I never did.....

Even the disembodied spirits who come around to narrate from time to time, want no part of this. I saw the rats snuggling 'round his feet. Not a lot of them, but two. He called them Rozenkrantz & Gilderstern. I think that's what he said. And he dangled his long, thin arms, letting them nibble dried blood from his claw-like nails..... the remnants of a nurse snatched from the cobbles, right by the door to Doc Watson's Pub. No one knows she's gone yet. Who searches the rooftops for gore? And what could I tell the cops?

A loud gang of college kids crossed over from a club near Locust Street. You know how much noise they can make... drunk and all.... But Johnny Jump Up was gone and I never saw him leave. 

Lucky for me, Edith's hoo-doo still worked, 'cause kids can be so nasty......

Then I got up, walked through the stage set darkness and went back to the town house with the vampires where it was safe...

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HOW THE GHOUL SURPASSES THE ZOMBIE ..... 3/5/13

It is written that they love to confound travelers. They hunger for the flesh of frightened people, caught far from a safe warm place. I speak of the ghoul, a creature with a blood lust far in excess of the addle-brained zombie and a monstrous clarity equal to, if not beyond most night-folk (known to you as vampires).

One inhabits our own dark places, sliding 'mongst the blackest shadows and coldest dreams. Conrad saw him last night. He saw the eyes. He saw the skin. He smelled the flesh. And even a vampire knew fear.

They call him Johnny Jump Up and have since the seventeenth century. Some say he's come and gone more than once. A missionary julienned by the natives, in 'the death of a thousand cuts,' or a hapless  victim of consumption, buried alive in a chill, damp grave.  There are those who will take you to a crypt lost among the dim mossy lanes of Laurel Hill Cemetery and swear that it's his. But true ghouls need no permanent address. They squeeze in anywhere.... a dumpster down an alley..... a niche behind a wall.... under the bed of a blind, young man.... in caskets with the dead.

Each has a talent, a special ability for which they are known. Some speak every language, low and soft and  warm. Others serve powerful jinn and profit from it. Our own razor-toothed gentleman is a leaper. He can get you on the third floor and the forth floor as well. Some nights he scurries over roof tops, making off with children still wrapped in their bedclothes.`

A painfully thin man, he is, with a tall top hat, such as the gentry wore oh so many years ago. His suit a fine, wool serge.... trim and tight and black. His linen, ghostly white. The ensemble occasionally drips  blood. Ghouls do love their food, after all. And in case you don't know it, human flesh tastes like ham.

He hides in doorways, waiting for victims to race passed. Tonight it's a boy on a bicycle, silently zipping down wee hour streets. You know that high pitched hum the spokes make? And the fiend steps out behind him, straightens his neck cloth, stows his hat and leaps forth. No 'X' Games, snow boarder vaults as far. And in twelve heartbeats he has him. A sharp, hard push. The bike skids. The boy falls. Perhaps he grunts. But even before the bike stops sliding, he's hoisted over a bony shoulder and streaking into the sky.

And there, on the rooftops, he takes him. A fast bite to the face... Crunch, the nose is gone.... Forearms thrown up in defense... Rip! Bones stripped bare.... Pants come off (futile kicks mean nothing) and so do the genitals. The heights are slick with blood.  And the steam comes up on cue. Whimpering... Sometimes they cry. He digs his claws into the fat, quivering tongue and tears it from it's moorings, scarfing it down like a plump, warm slug.  Poor boy. So strong. So shocked. So desperate.  And his lidless eyes (well, one anyway) still see, as the cadaverous monster bites into his belly, rips open the muscle and savors the entrails, taking the heart... and the life, last of all.

Then he stands up, licks his lips, shudders and sighs. There is no blue flame to clean things up. He is no vampire. Such magic eludes him. But he has other tricks... A tiny whisper in an unknown tongue... A subtle sign and the rats appear, pouring out from the  nooks and crannies to feast on his leavings. Even the bones disappear.

Johnny Jump Up is out there. The vampires know it. And now you do to. A solitary killer melding with the night and hiding like a spider....

Are you curious? Get a friend. Drive around. Go see. After midnight is good, but third hour's best.  Pick empty streets and quiet lanes. 

Just don't unlock the door.

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