The Inquisition of Johannes Cabal

A group of outraged citizens and myself have managed to capture...er...corner the infamous necromancer Johannes Cabal and put him to some questions.

"Corner" might be overstating things. We stopped him on the street, ready to take him into custody, but...er...he was quite persuasive and most adamant that he did NOT WISH to be taken into custody. His arguments were most vigorous to the contrary and, in the end, our group of inquisitors found ourselves forced to relent.

Interview proceeds as follows:

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INQUISITOR: Mr. Cabal, is it or is it not true that you have had congress with the Devil, Lucifer, or his minions, and, under pain of torture, what is the nature of your infernal covenant?

JOHANNES CABAL: Torture? My dear sir, you need only ask. Politely. I have had dealings with Satan -- I don't like to call him "Lucifer," he gets such airs and graces at the best of times, but he becomes positively maudlin if you remind him he was once an angel... Where was I? Oh, yes. I have had dealings with Satan and his happy little band of helpers on several occasions. He was rarely helpful, frequently evasive, and predictably duplicitous. If the point of this questioning is to somehow suggest that I worship Satan, you do not understand my relationship with the entity in question at all. All our dealings have been in the nature of business arrangements, albeit dealing with commodities that you are unlikely to find in the pages of the "Financial Times." Possibly in the "Wall Street Journal."

INQUISITOR: Have you no shame, sir?

JOHANNES CABAL: Of course, sir. Three fluid ounces in a small bottle in cabinet five in my laboratory. Why? Do you find yourself short?

INQUISITOR: How do you answer the charge that you have, in the course of your infernal pursuits, committed grave robbery in order to procure decaying female (and male) bodies in order to pursue your deviant sexual desires?

JOHANNES CABAL: I'm afraid you have mistaken me for somebody else. Your father, perhaps. There must be some be some explanation for you, and that would seem to fit the visible evidence. Yes, I have had cause to exhume fresh bodies for my researches, but it is a finicky and uncertain business, fraught with difficulties, many of which carry truncheons and loud whistles. It occurs to me that I could save myself a great deal of unpleasantness by simply making my own corpses, perfectly fresh and ready for experimentation. The one sticking point is finding the necessary raw materials. They would have to be startlingly gullible and of no use whatsoever to humanity so that their loss is of no great concern. Hmmm. Tell me, sir, just as a matter of interest and a propos to nothing, would you happen to know what a Swann-Morton No.22 is? No? Here, let me educate you.

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Things became a little confused and cloudy, after that, and I chose to allow my other inquisitors put questions to him while I took a small break to search for a laundry. My pants had become soiled in the course of our questioning - muddy streets! Dashed inconvenient, I say. These, of course, were solely my questions for the recalcitrant (and quite unruly) Mr. Cabal. My other co-inquisitors share their questions on their own respective electronic journals.


For more information regarding Mr. Cabal, you can visit his biographer's electronic address: Jonathan L. Howard, esquire.

To purchase various papers and periodicals depicting the nefarious infernal dealings of Mr. Cabal, visit Amazon by clicking HERE.

(This is just one in a series of interlinked posts regarding Johannes Cabal. Should you wish to start from the beginning of the circle, the wyrm's head itself, click on the preceding graphic.)

I Like What This Guy Has to Say

I'm not real keen on this guy slumming in genre, but he's got a lot of good things to say about our internet culture, writing, and publishing.

First Day of School

First day of school. Daughters in their uniforms, awake early and nervous.

Lily, my oldest, 9, wants both her parents to make the drive to school, for moral support. Helen, youngest, 7, hates this idea because it embarrasses her. And she HATES MY CAR! This she announces, loudly.

She also hates, during school delivery, any music to be played at drop off. It embarrasses her, too.

We're driving, and there's one of those rare moments when no one is talking, complaining, crying.

Helen gives an explosive sigh, and in an utterly weary voice, asks, "How many days 'til Christmas break?"

She's furious when we start to laugh.

Scratch

While being an admitted atheist, I have a unwholesome fascination with the infernal side of Christian mythology. Devils, demons, imps, succubi, incubi, devil's bargains, devil's traps, devil's food cakes. Don't know why, but I really have a intense love of the idea of a malevolent trickster, the corrupter, the father of lies.

The mustache twirling infernal villain.

I enjoy the fallen nobility of Lucifer, the Morningstar. But for my money, I prefer the smooth red man in a cape and goatee.

He's the life of the party.



RED RIGHT HAND

Take a litle walk to the edge of town
Go across the tracks
Where the viaduct looms,
like a bird of doom
As it shifts and cracks
Where secrets lie in the border fires,
in the humming wires
Hey man, you know
you're never coming back
Past the square, past the bridge,
past the mills, past the stacks
On a gathering storm comes
a tall handsome man
In a dusty black coat with
a red right hand

He'll wrap you in his arms,
tell you that you've been a good boy
He'll rekindle all the dreams
it took you a lifetime to destroy
He'll reach deep into the hole,
heal your shrinking soul
Hey buddy, you know you're
never ever coming back
He's a god, he's a man,
he's a ghost, he's a guru
They're whispering his name
through this disappearing land
But hidden in his coat
is a red right hand

You ain't got no money?
He'll get you some
You ain't got no car? He'll get you one
You ain't got no self-respect,
you feel like an insect
Well don't you worry buddy,
cause here he comes
Through the ghettos and the barrio
and the bowery and the slum
A shadow is cast wherever he stands
Stacks of green paper in his
red right hand

You'll see him in your nightmares,
you'll see him in your dreams
He'll appear out of nowhere but
he ain't what he seems
You'll see him in your head,
on the TV screen
And hey buddy, I'm warning
you to turn it off
He's a ghost, he's a god,
he's a man, he's a guru
You're one microscopic cog
in his catastrophic plan
Designed and directed by
his red right hand

Captive Audiences

So, I make mixed tapes. Okay, mixed CDs, but I got my start in the early 80s converting my father's vinyl collection over to tape. He had a hit or miss collection - Earth, Wind & Fire, Bill Withers, Ohio Players, Isley Brothers, a buncha Stax, Sam & Dave, Elvis, Johnny Cash, Frank Sinatra. Jerry Jeff Walker. Merle Haggard and Waylon Jennings. Willy Nelson. On the comedy front there was Bill Cosby and Jonathan Winters. And rock: Queen, A Day at the Races. A Night at the Opera. Paul McCartney and Wings. And Yes' Fragile. Jazz? Wes Montgomery. Thelonius Monk. Soundtracks for Guys & Dolls and Gigi and Brigadoon and Oklahoma and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. And My Fair Lady.

That was the good stuff. Yeah, I'm including the musicals in there.

He also had a bunch of crap. Al Jarreau and Barbra Streisand and Petula Clark. Earl Klugh. And a shitload more that I can't remember. I didn't commit to memory all the crappy stuff. Don't break my balls if you like some of that stuff. Just know in your heart of hearts that I think you have truly terrible taste and should be drawn and quartered for it. Okay?

Anyway, going through all that vinyl gave me, at a formative age, a weird sense of good music. I mean, there was country mixed with funk mixed with prog rock blended in with musicals.

Recently I was just reminded how funny and absorbent kid's brains are. Here I was thinking I was all special. Nope, just a kid with a brain like a sponge.

I make mixed tapes. CDs, rather. Did I mention that? I made one recently with this song on it. "Tribal Connection" by Gogol Bordello.



Great tune.

I played it in the car for my girls, Lily and Helen, 9 and 7 respectively. I like playing different, experimental music when they're a captive audience. I watch their expressions in the rearview mirror and try to catch their understanding, their emotions. We've only got one childhood together.

At first, Lily said, "Daddy, this is horrible! Turn it to Disney!"

"He sounds like the guy from the Jackie Chan movie!" said Helen. The movie in question was The Spy Next Door, which featured Russian spies extensively. God, I'll never get those 2 hours back.

They quieted and listened. Because it's an awesome song. When we arrived home, Helen announced, "Mommy! Daddy played us some horrible music from Russia!"

They spent a long time explaining to her how bad the music was.

Two days later, I'm taking them somewhere in the car and Lily says, "Um...daddy? Can we listen to the Russian guy sing again? His voice is funny."

"Sure." I pop it in. They start to laugh when the lead singer starts doing his thing.

Cut to last night. We're on our way to dinner. "Will you put on the Russian guy?"

"Sure, honey."

The song starts to play and when the chorus comes on "No can do this, no can do that, what the hell can you do my friend in this place that you call your town?!" the girls are singing along, happy as Russian birds.

Or Chechnyan. Or Romanian.

Whatever.

Victory.

Disney Channel = 0.
Daddy = 1.

I've Got All The [Redacted] Work I Need

I'm usually offering free work, but the next time someone asks for pro bono stuff...



Via Mitch Gerads (@popgunpulp)

Needle Magazine Summer 2010 Issue IS LIVE

You can pick up a copy here. Enjoy. It's chock-full-o-crime which will be the name of the magazine I start up when I break free from the oppressive rule of Steve Weddle.

Chock-Full-O-Crime.

Here I come, baby.

Midlife (A Blog Post in the Style of Charlie Huston)

Figure the day's gonna stretch on like tubing round a junkie's arm. Figure, forever and a month, until the weekend gets here. Figure when it does there'll be kiddies and chicken fingers dipped in ketchup and macaroni and cheese and shit, over-bright colors and over-loud voices and over-chlorinated swimming pools ringed with soccer moms, like superannuated Nausicaan maids, grown up and impregnated with silicone.

For now, they got me doing their crappy work, their little dancing pictures, and I'll do them even though I know I'm better than that, I could be doing more, like creating things, indelible and permanent as anything is in this life where the days stretch away in an innumerable line, and each day is another fucking little dancing picture.

Yeah. Right.

I smack the pack of Lucky Strikes on the inside of my arm, tamping down the tobacco, rip off the wrapper, twist the extra paper into a little teepee and torch the end with my Zippo, the one with the naked lady, tits embossed, reclining on the side. Draw that shit deep in my lungs, down to my feet, and then blow it into the office.

It's the first smoke in seven years and when it hits the blood, it's like heroin and I'm woozy.

-You can't smoke in here.

Peeking round the corner.

-Cigarette's working just fine. See?

-No, you're not allowed. The whole building.

-Who says?

-It's against the law. State legislature.

-Then get them to tell me to my face. I'll wait.

I blow smoke right at him and turn back to the screen. Little people and pictures hopping around, excited as shit, to be selling vacation packages and bottled water and potato chips.

Figure here comes eight hours I'll never get back. Figure the Fire Marshall and five-O are on their way, already, cuffs out.

Figure I don't give a fuck.

Discovering What I Like

So, for the last week I've been working on my teaser trailer for This Dark Earth. I loved doing it. From shooting and directing the production, to selecting the soundtrack, to editing the video and doing the gore effects. I had more fun creating this piece than I've ever had working at my current day-job. Sorry, employers, but it's true.

I want to do more of it. I feel like I could do even better things.

I want to do a comic trailer - work with comic writers and artists to concept and execute trailers for story arcs. I want to do book trailers for big publishing houses. I want to make a short film.

I know I've got a bit too much on my plate already, what with writing my next novel, art directing Needle Magazine, my day-job, my night-job (read: fathering), and the two bands I play in. But, damn, I feel like I should be pursuing more work like this. Stuff that I enjoy, handling the raw creative energy of the universe. Or, at least, my noggin.

How can I make this change?

Full Needle Cover

Ok, I think I've wrapped up my duties on the Needle Magazine Summer Issue. Should have it ready to go tonight or early tomorrow.

Will post links or go to www.needlemag.com for ordering information.

ADDENDUM: Um, this isn't the most recent cover. Anne Frasier and Scott Phillips will not appear in this issue of Needle. That was just wishful thinking.

THIS DARK EARTH, Teaser 2

CLICK IMAGE TO VIEW TEASER

Here's the revised teaser, with music and a little more content. It's fun, I think.

Feel free to leave comments telling me how awesome I am. I need all the encouragement I can get.