IDYLLOPUS PRESS IS A VALIANT LITTLE ROWBOAT

The below is an interview, via a chat client, with Brother Arvin Hill.

Idyllopus Press: Soooo…you want to jump right into it?

Brother Arvin: Ready.

Idyllopus Press: The first question is always…have you ever seen a UFO?

Brother Arvin: Yes. On two separate occasions. Once as a child and once as an adult.

Idyllopus Press: Tell me about the first. (That’s great, two instances.)

Brother Arvin: I was eleven or twelve years old. I believe it was sixth grade.

Brother Arvin: It was about 7:45 a.m. Beautiful spring morning. Clear skies. A family down the street was going to give me a ride to school. Sometimes I walked, but for whatever reason, I didn’t that day….

Idyllopus Press: Was this in Texas?

Brother Arvin: Yes. Mesquite, Texas. A suburb of Dallas.

Idyllopus Press: OK.

Brother Arvin: My neighbors were one of those chaotic families. Three kids and a loud, obnoxious mother. I went into their house and waited for them to finish getting ready for school. Probably five minutes or so…

Brother Arvin: Then we all exited the house and began piling into the car. So there were at least four kids, a couple younger than me; one my own age. And as we were about to get into the car, for some reason, I looked up. The street ran east / west. I looked to the east, which was in the direction of the school, and there in the sky was this large spherical metallic object.

Brother Arvin: At first, I thought it was the moon.

Brother Arvin: I pointed at it and said (to anyone who would listen) “What is that?”

Brother Arvin: And I remember the kids’ mother looking over her shoulder - remember, we’re loading up into the car - and very quickly returning attention to the task at hand, which was getting us all to school. It was as though it didn’t really register with her.

Idyllopus Press: Interesting.

Brother Arvin: None of the kids were the least bit interested.

Brother Arvin: And I was still thinking, “Can that be the moon?” I knew about UFO’s, but it didn’t really occur to me that it was a UFO.

Brother Arvin: I just didn’t know.

Brother Arvin: But I was SO curious. I kept thinking about it, and watching it. And it was perfectly still. Silent.

Idyllopus Press: You’re the only one watching it…

Brother Arvin: That’s right.

Brother Arvin: The size was impressive.

Brother Arvin: Let’s see if I can give you an idea.

Idyllopus Press: OK.

Idyllopus Press: And how high up might you say it was?

Brother Arvin: I really have no idea.

Brother Arvin: But if I was to extend my arm and make a fist, I’d say it was probably about 25% the size of fist.

Brother Arvin: That’s pretty big.

Idyllopus Press: And it was certainly large enough for you to see it as having a metallic kind of sheen.

Brother Arvin: It looked to be higher than the altitude that we usually saw planes flying.

Idyllopus Press: Did it stay up there? Was it in one position or moving?

Brother Arvin: Love Field was nearby. At that time, you could see the Dallas skyline from certain vantage points in my neighborhood.

Brother Arvin: It was perfectly still.

Idyllopus Press: So how did this resolve? Did it disappear from sight as you guys drove away from it?

Brother Arvin: I got stuck in the middle of the car, so I couldn’t see out the window well. But the second we arrived at the school - I’d say about 5-7 minutes - I got out and looked up. At the time, I was still wondering if it was the moon, but I had my doubts. It was pretty luminous, really mostly white.

Idyllopus Press: I’ve got this image in my head of a kind of Twilight Zone or David Lynchian thing where the camera follows little Arvin looking out the car window up at the sky at this object and all else oblivious.

Idyllopus Press: Twilight Zone or…not of…

Idyllopus Press: But you were sitting in the middle of the car so there goes that.

Brother Arvin: Well, it was driving me crazy on the way to school. Mostly because nobody else was interested. They weren’t the brightest kids on earth.

Idyllopus Press: So it was still there in the sky when you arrived at school?

Brother Arvin: And so when I exited the car, I looked up and what do I see? The same object, only smaller - about 3/4 to 1/2 the size as when I first saw it. It had changed position, but I still could not really detect movement. I would have had to just stand there for a few minutes, I think, in order to see it move. So, it was a slow departure.

Idyllopus Press: What year was this?

Brother Arvin: 1974 or 1975.

Idyllopus Press: If someone said to you, “It was a weather balloon”, what would you say?

Brother Arvin: Well, that was always the explanation back then. But, no, this was spherical. And my impression was that it was very large.

Idyllopus Press: OK. Because that’s what most people would say. “Weather balloon.” But you saw it was spherical and very large.

Brother Arvin: That’s right.

Idyllopus Press: When did you realize, “UFO!”

Brother Arvin: Also, when I scanned the sky before I had to go into the school building, I saw the moon.

Brother Arvin: And it was the moon.

Idyllopus Press: Where was the moon in relationship to it, do you remember?

Brother Arvin: Actually, I think I got a fact wrong earlier.

Idyllopus Press: OK.

Brother Arvin: It wasn’t in the eastern sky, it was in the western sky.

Brother Arvin: I think so, anyway.

Idyllopus Press: When you say it was spherical, do you mean you saw it as globular, that it had a sense of dimension?

Brother Arvin: I don’t know understand. It was like a white ball in mid-air.

Idyllopus Press: Yes, that’s what I mean.

Brother Arvin: Right.

Idyllopus Press: What were your feelings after having seen it? Anything different from before?

Brother Arvin: The way I recall it, the moon was easterly; the object was in the western sky.

Brother Arvin: But I could see both of them!

Brother Arvin: And that’s when I thought UFO!

Idyllopus Press: Did you tell anyone?

Idyllopus Press: At school, I mean. And then at home.

Brother Arvin: I’m not certain. I seem to recall telling a friend of mine, Randy.

Idyllopus Press: So it’s not something you felt compelled to talk about.

Brother Arvin: But I was disenchanted with the one adult I tried to get to look at the damn thing.

Idyllopus Press: OK.

Brother Arvin: And she ignored it.

Idyllopus Press: So others might probably ignore it if she did, you assumed.

Brother Arvin: Yes. Actually - and I do remember this - I figured if I said anything, other people would just say “It’s a weather balloon, dummy.” And I knew it wasn’t.

Idyllopus Press: Did it instill in you a sense of curiosity about these things or was that already there?

Brother Arvin: It was already there, but only as one of many interests. I was never obsessive about it. I loved things that were space-related, science-related.

Idyllopus Press: So let’s leap ahead–how many years?–to your second UFO sighting.

Brother Arvin: Wow. Let me count ‘em up.

Brother Arvin: Thirty years.

Idyllopus Press: Again, in Texas?

Brother Arvin: Yes.

Brother Arvin: Northeastern Denton County.

Idyllopus Press: It wasn’t that long ago.

Brother Arvin: No, it wasn’t. I believe it was 2005.

Idyllopus Press: Time of year?

Brother Arvin: I’m pretty sure it was early January.

Brother Arvin: This was a night sighting.

Idyllopus Press: Eager to hear about it.

Brother Arvin: Okay. My sister-in-law (my wife’s sister) and her two kids had moved in with us.

Brother Arvin: And she wasn’t working at the time. It was late. Around 12:30 a.m. or so. My sister-in-law is a night owl and so am I. She went outside on the back patio to smoke a cigarette. I went with her just to chat. The sky was clear. No moon.

Brother Arvin: Stars were bright. And she’s smoking her cigarette. We’re both standing a few feet from the back porch. And I looked up - it was one of those nights where you can imagine that you’re looking at the end of the universe.

Idyllopus Press: A lot of stars? Not a lot of light pollution?

Brother Arvin: Not a lot. To the south, it’s less clear because there’s a small highway a few miles in that direction.

Brother Arvin: I was looking to the north. And I told L., my sister-in-law, “I’ll bet we can see some satellites out here tonight.”

Brother Arvin: And we talked about satellites for a while. I had learned how to see them while camping in East Texas.

Brother Arvin: So that’s what I was looking for.

Idyllopus Press: Right. You’re experienced in looking for satellites. You know one when you see it.

Brother Arvin: I feel reasonably comfortable saying I can spot a satellite.

Brother Arvin: I’ve not studied them or anything.

Idyllopus Press:

Idyllopus Press: Damn, I hate smiley faces.

Brother Arvin: Ha!

Brother Arvin: So, I detect some movement in the northern sky. It was very faint. Slow. At first, I could only see it peripherally.

Brother Arvin: In other words, if I tried to look *directly* at it, it was undetectable.

Idyllopus Press: OK.

Brother Arvin: But by looking slightly away from it, it was plain as day. Still faint, but easy to identify.

Brother Arvin: And I said to L., “There’s one right there.”

Idyllopus Press: A light that you weren’t able to see straight on.

Brother Arvin: Correct. Not at first, anyway.

Brother Arvin: It looked much higher than the satellites I’d seen.

Brother Arvin: And it was slower.

Brother Arvin: And L. looked up - she wears glasses and I didn’t think she’d be able to see it because there were so many stars out that night and it was it so faint.

Brother Arvin: It took about a minute of me guiding her to it. Like me, if she couldn’t see it if she tried to look directly at it. But she finally did see it.

Brother Arvin: This is where it got strange.

Idyllopus Press: OK.

Brother Arvin: Suddenly, there were two.

Idyllopus Press: When you finally got her to see it, there were by then two…all of a sudden…at that point?

Brother Arvin: We watched the one for about thirty seconds before the second one appeared.

Brother Arvin: And I said “Wow, that’s strange.” I’ve never seen two satellites right next to each other.

Brother Arvin: Less than a minute after we both saw the second one, a third one appeared.

Brother Arvin: And then a fourth.

Idyllopus Press: You said they were moving slowly…toward you? In another direction?

Brother Arvin: I first saw it due north. It was moving - very smoothly and with the same illumination - in an east/southeast direction.

Brother Arvin: And I said “I have no idea what these things are, but they aren’t satellites.”

Brother Arvin: They kept multiplying right in front of our eyes.

Idyllopus Press: There were more?

Brother Arvin: Yes.

Idyllopus Press: How many??

Brother Arvin: It was as if the lead UFO was laying eggs. We counted thirteen.

Brother Arvin: They were all the same size.

Idyllopus Press: I was about to ask if they were materializing independently or if they were separating off from as if a parent light.

Idyllopus Press: So you’re saying that the lights were appearing to come out of the lead light?

Brother Arvin: Correct.

Idyllopus Press: Wow.

Idyllopus Press: Any kind of formation?

Brother Arvin: I feel strange just talking about it!

Brother Arvin: They were very clearly all staying together, more or less in a loose linear formation.

Brother Arvin: All the same speed and orientation.

Brother Arvin: And I felt this rush of excitement and awe and I couldn’t believe I had the good fortune to have a witness.

Idyllopus Press: I bet.

Brother Arvin: Especially after the first experience. Stupid grown-ups.

Idyllopus Press: Only now you’re the grown-up.

Brother Arvin: Technically.

Brother Arvin: They continued in the same direction throughout, and we watched them fade.

Idyllopus Press: How long did this take from beginning to end?

Brother Arvin: My best estimate is six or seven minutes.

Brother Arvin: Because of the altitude - and I’m certain they were very, very high - they had to be moving extremely fast.

Idyllopus Press: Oh, they were that high.

Brother Arvin: Yes.

Brother Arvin: They were not in the atmosphere.

Idyllopus Press: Right.

Brother Arvin: We came back into the house in shock.

Brother Arvin: I was thrilled.

Brother Arvin: I hadn’t thought about UFOs in a long time.

Idyllopus Press: OK, you weren’t out there at night, in general, looking for them. Satellites maybe, but not UFOs.

Brother Arvin: Correct.

Brother Arvin: It was the last thing I expected to see.

Brother Arvin: Two days later, we heard there were mass sightings in Mexico.

Idyllopus Press: OK. I bet those are on one of the UFO websites so a date could be hazarded possibly.

Brother Arvin: Yeah, I’m sure.

Idyllopus Press: What did this last sighting leave you with? Anything other than a sense of awe?

Brother Arvin: Yes, but it took a while germinate.

Idyllopus Press: Can you clarify this?

Idyllopus Press: Expand a little on it?

Brother Arvin: Well, I hate not knowing things. Hate it. I cannot stand being teased with eternal mysteries.

Idyllopus Press: There are so many.

Brother Arvin: Yes, there are.

Idyllopus Press: Even things which appear not to be.

Brother Arvin: EXACTLY.

Brother Arvin: So here’s the deal…

Brother Arvin: I told my wife about it and she was intrigued, and we talked about the Mexico sightings that were reported very shortly after the sighting, and then I pushed it right outta my mind.

Idyllopus Press: Funny that it exited your mind like that. Did the first sighting do the same?

Brother Arvin: Well, it’s not difficult to do. I’ve believed in extraterrestrial life for a long time.

Brother Arvin: So, it was like confirmation of something I already believed.

Brother Arvin: Especially the second time.

Idyllopus Press: OK. And then you get on with other things and concerns and it didn’t keep a strong signal against daily life.

Idyllopus Press: Kind of.

Brother Arvin: Right. Even when the mass sightings in Stephenville were going on earlier this spring, I paid very little attention to any of it.

Brother Arvin: I never went to any UFO sites or anything. Hell, the only thing I was hearing about it was on the local news. And I thought, “Cool.” And moved on.

Brother Arvin: (websites, I mean)

Idyllopus Press: Right.

Brother Arvin: I think I’m living on a UFO site. We all are.

Brother Arvin: Since I was on dial-up so many years, I hadn’t seen all the videos on YouTube.

Idyllopus Press: I’ve only seen a few UFO videos on the internet, actually. There was something in England, I think…and the Phoenix lights.

Brother Arvin: The water is awfully muddy in terms of what people see, what they think they see, what they want to see, the hoaxes, the crazies…

Idyllopus Press: Oh yeah.

Brother Arvin: And that’s one of the reasons I never got into any of that online.

Brother Arvin: I was in politics & current events mode. Which, as it turns out, is just as muddy as the UFO material.

Idyllopus Press: Yes, but with malice.

Brother Arvin: Exactly. And there’s quite a bit of malice in UFO circles, as well. The hoaxes piss me off. Some of it falls in the realm of the juvenile prank; others, I’m reasonably sure, are darker in origin. Disinformation and the like.

Idyllopus Press: You know, I was thinking about it while you were writing, and there is a lot of malice there as well. I confess I used to read a UFO newsgroup when I first came on the internet, ten years ago, and the UFO newsgroup would get kind of wild. But then it tends to be somewhat that way with newsgroups.

Brother Arvin: So it wasn’t until the last month that I started poking around in the UFO material online. And I did that because a guy I befriended directed me to Project Camelot and some interviews on YouTube with Bob Dean.

Idyllopus Press: I’ve not seen those.

Brother Arvin: They’re fascinating.

Idyllopus Press: I’ll look them up.

Brother Arvin: Do. I think it’s broken into 8 parts on YouTube.

Brother Arvin: I think the people who discuss these things openly, and people who have dedicated much of their lives to finding out what the truth is, are pretty courageous folks.

Brother Arvin: I was stunned when I saw that you were interviewing people about UFOs. Because I hadn’t been in the blogosphere for a while and I’ve been immersed in this stuff for the last month.

Idyllopus Press: Ha!

Brother Arvin: Yeah. I knew you had an appreciation of sci-fi, but I’d not seen you ever mention UFO’s.

Idyllopus Press: I had thought about doing it and had then decided I wouldn’t, then was lying there one night thinking I would do it, and H.o.p. had climbed into bed with us, was fast asleep between us, and as I rehearsed in my head, “Have you seen a UFO?” he spoke in his sleep and said, “They have found the aliens.”

Brother Arvin: I think he’s half-right.

Idyllopus Press: So I decided I should do this.

Idyllopus Press: Yeah, I have my own UFO sighting, of course.

Brother Arvin: I was hoping so.

Idyllopus Press: So you were saying…what did you carry away from this last one…what finally germinated?

Brother Arvin: Well, listening to Bob Dean last month and then hitting the MUFON site and UFOCASEBOOK.COM and looking at photographs and even analyzing them in PhotoShop, I started to feel driven to find *something* other than “Boy, there sure are a lot of UFOs out there.”

Brother Arvin: And what really did it was the painting of “The Baptism of Jesus Christ” from the 18th century.

Idyllopus Press: Boy, you have been into it the past month or so. Analyzing photos in Photoshop…

Brother Arvin: Uh-huh.

Idyllopus Press: You’re going to tell me about it! I may have seen it.

Brother Arvin: I read “Chariots of the Gods” when I was a kid. That was the only UFO book I ever read. So I was familiar with the idea that they’ve always been here.

Idyllopus Press: If it’s one of these paintings that some say show a UFO as interpreted through religion.

Idyllopus Press: I’ve seen some that really are pretty bizarre.

Brother Arvin: As have I.

Brother Arvin: And this is where things get REALLY weird.

Idyllopus Press: You probably read “Chariots” after your first UFO sighting?

Brother Arvin: You know what? I had read it a year before my first sighting. Fifth grade.

Idyllopus Press: OK.

Brother Arvin: I’m pretty sure. It was definitely before the sighting. But never did I expect to see one.

Brother Arvin: So, the whole Christianity / UFO thing started drawing me in.

Brother Arvin: I’ve always been fascinated by Christianity, but was never a believer in church dogma.

Idyllopus Press: You’ve perhaps read the gnostics.

Brother Arvin: No, I haven’t. I’m actually not very well read.

Idyllopus Press: It’s better, sometimes, to read about reading about the gnostics, rather than to read them. Depends on who you read.

Brother Arvin: The whole metaphysical aspects of Christianity were always intriguing. I thought “All of these accounts cannot be entirely false.”

Brother Arvin: And, yet, I felt like a moron for even entertaining the thought.

Idyllopus Press: You mean perhaps as pertaining to mystics and their experiences?

Brother Arvin: I’ve always been suspicious of scientific dogma and reductionism.

Brother Arvin: And, yet, that is the prevailing belief system.

Brother Arvin: Here, anyway.

Idyllopus Press: Well, it can be sometimes a kissin’ cousin of religious literalism.

Brother Arvin: Exactly.

Brother Arvin: And I’ve long believed that of both ends of the spectrum as being debilitating for humankind.

Idyllopus Press: Right.

Brother Arvin: Lemme try that again. Fundamentalism sucks.

Brother Arvin: Scientific, religious or otherwise.

Brother Arvin: Then I started reading the www.bibleufo.com website.

Idyllopus Press: Haven’t seen that one.

Brother Arvin: Well, buckle up.

Brother Arvin: The research is astounding.

Brother Arvin: I knew there were biblical references to UFOs. I was only familiar with Ezekiel - the fiery wheel within a wheel and all that jazz. I’d forgotten about it.

Brother Arvin: I might as well just come right out and say it: I believe what I’ve read there.

Idyllopus Press: And that is…in general…

Brother Arvin: Well. I’ve read probably 75% of what’s there.

Idyllopus Press: OK.

Idyllopus Press: Oh…I see…not as “in summation” but you believe what you have read there.

Brother Arvin: I never ever ever thought I would believe in anything that might be called “biblical prophecy.”

Brother Arvin: In the sense that church describes it, I don’t.

Brother Arvin: But what the church describes and what the bible says are two entirely different things.

Brother Arvin: I mean, really, I know a lot of people who call themselves Christians who rely solely upon whatever their Chuch-based consensus reality dictates.

Idyllopus Press: It takes an awfully damned long time to try to think through things on your own.

Brother Arvin: Yes, it does. And it’s not (usually) easy to say “Man, did I ever have all THAT wrong.”

Brother Arvin: Yet, this time, I have zero trouble saying “Okay, I just didn’t get it.”

Brother Arvin: There are other influences that kind of led me to the path I’m on now. It’s very complex.

Idyllopus Press: The bible is a big book and even though it’s been manhandled and chopped up quite a bit, it’s a big enough book to encompass a number of belief systems…but literalism, I don’t think, is one of them. Though literalism became the glue.

Brother Arvin: That’s pretty much what I thought, too. I considered the bible primarily one big fat metaphor.

Idyllopus Press: And when I say “a number of belief systems”, I think of them in terms of essentially complementary, even if unrecognized as being so.

Brother Arvin: Yeah, I always thought of myself as (sort of) a Unitarian.

Brother Arvin: Many paths to the same mountain top.

Idyllopus Press: Yes.

Brother Arvin: I still believe that, but I can tell you that I now believe the bible is considerably more factually correct - and literal - than I ever thought, or thought I would think.

Brother Arvin: You are the first person I’ve expressed this to besides my wife.

Brother Arvin: And she’s just as blown away as I am.

Idyllopus Press: So this is something very new to you. And what has so blown you both away? In as few words as possible, what do you think the relationship between UFOs aliens and religion is?

Idyllopus Press: In as few words as possible…just to get to the very meat of the matter…though that’s difficult, I know.

Brother Arvin: For one thing, I no longer believe - as I did for many years - that God is simply a “system”. I believe early civilization was directly interfacing with intelligent life from somewhere other than Earth.

Brother Arvin: And I believe Jesus existed. And I believe he’s coming back. And I STILL can’t believe I am saying these things.

Idyllopus Press: So you think god is not a concoction of the human imagination, an attempt to give order to this world, but instead has something to do with extraterrestrial life?

Brother Arvin: That is exactly correct.

Idyllopus Press: Have you read P. K. Dick?

Brother Arvin: I still want nothing to do with churches or any religious community. No, I haven’t read P.K. Dick.

Brother Arvin: Should I?

Idyllopus Press: Yes.

Idyllopus Press: P.K. went through some very interesting experiences and wrote extensively in them.

Brother Arvin: To the list, he goes…

Idyllopus Press: To the top would be a good place.

Brother Arvin: Ha! So noted.

Idyllopus Press: I think he ought to be read in company with some of Robert Anton Wilson’s books.

Brother Arvin: I’ve actually always wanted to get around to RAW.

Idyllopus Press: In particular, the Cosmic Trigger books.

Brother Arvin: I’ve noted the suggestion.

Idyllopus Press: And Terrence McKenna wrote a very impressive book as well that fits right in with all this.

Brother Arvin: McKenna, I’m fairly familiar with. In large part because of my lifelong interest in hallucinogens.

Brother Arvin: I haven’t actually read any of his books, but I’ve read many excerpts and interviews.

Idyllopus Press: This particular book covers experiences he had in South America…and his brother as well. “True Hallucinations”.

Brother Arvin: I’m not totally unfamiliar with the DMT/Harmaline experience.

Idyllopus Press: The centerpiece of them all is how profoundly distracting it is when archetypes step right up and talk to you.

Idyllopus Press: They are all covering the same territory.

Brother Arvin: Yes, archetytpes. I always held Jung in high esteem.

Idyllopus Press: Which is always why my second question to people is what is the most interesting coincidence they’ve ever experienced.

Idyllopus Press: Coincidences and archetypally charged experiences tend to go hand in hand.

Idyllopus Press: They flutter around each other like butterflies.

Brother Arvin: That’s a tough one, because I don’t really believe in coincidence. I’ve had prophetic dreams.

Idyllopus Press: OK.

Brother Arvin: Alright. Here are the two strangest ones: First up…

Idyllopus Press: I mean really what is discussed as being apparently coincidence…by the way.

Brother Arvin: Gotcha.

Idyllopus Press: The books I’m referring you to are hinged together with coincidences.

Brother Arvin: I see.

Idyllopus Press: Now, you were saying…I didn’t mean to interrupt.

Brother Arvin: I was in the USAF for one hitch and worked on directly on the flight line as a structural repair technician.

Brother Arvin: One night, I had a dream that I was standing in the shop - the sheet metal shop where I worked every day - and was looking out the window toward the flight line.

Brother Arvin: And the recon plane - and RC-135 that was, shall we say, very special - could not lower the front landing wheel.

Brother Arvin: And it was pretty scary in the dream, very tense.

Brother Arvin: No one knew what to do. It was a hydraulics problem.

Brother Arvin: The hand crank - the emergency manual crank - wasn’t working, either. And that would be highly unusual.

Brother Arvin: Anyway, it was a short dream.

Brother Arvin: I woke up feeling very anxious.

Idyllopus Press: You woke up feeling perhaps it wasn’t just an ordinary dream? Not one caused by a tough piece of beef being digested…as Scrooge would say.

Brother Arvin: Exactly.

Brother Arvin: I knew by then to pay attention to dreams involving planes because I had two when I was a little kid, and both times, there were plane crashes within 24-48 hours each time.

Brother Arvin: I know that sounds unbelievable.

Idyllopus Press: No, I believe you. I had the same happen to me once.

Idyllopus Press: I’m not skeptical at all.

Brother Arvin: That’s a relief.

Brother Arvin: I think I know why I have these dreams, but I’ll get to that in a minute.

Idyllopus Press: I mean once concerning a plane. I’m quite acquainted with dreams or something like dreams playing out in real life. Marty can attest to that.

Brother Arvin: Awesome.

Idyllopus Press: I’ll be interested to hear why you think you have them.

Brother Arvin: Yeah, it’s weird.

Brother Arvin: Anyhoo, I drove to the base and walked into the sheet metal shop and everyone was standing at the window that overlooked the flight line.

Brother Arvin: Everyone looked very concerned and I asked what was wrong. My shop chief said the RC-135, the exact one I dreamed about couldn’t get the nose gear down.

Brother Arvin: I almost fainted.

Brother Arvin: It was the same plane. We only had two RC’s, and *lots* of other KC-135’s. But we knew the RC’s by their tail numbers, of course. So that’s how I knew it was the same plane. This was a specific plane, which I was aware of while I was dreaming it.

Brother Arvin: The manual crank was locked up, too.

Brother Arvin: The plane actually had to be refueled because of it.

Brother Arvin: In flight, I mean.

Idyllopus Press: Had it been in flight already while you were asleep or afterward?

Brother Arvin: Yes, it would have been in flight. But not in distress. I think the actual event followed the dream event by probably three or four hours.

Brother Arvin: It didn’t crash in my dream, and it didn’t crash in reality. They finally got the crank working.

Brother Arvin: But it took them a long time. They were almost ready to crash-land it.

Idyllopus Press: Considering this and the dreams you had during childhood, did you, have you, ever feared dreaming?

Brother Arvin: No, I’ve always loved dreaming.

Brother Arvin: Probably three years later, I had another one. Equally strange, if not more so because I didn’t have a connection (that I’m aware of) to it.

Brother Arvin: I’d been out of the military, was working as a claims adjuster. I dreamed I was on board a passenger plane, seated by the wing.

Idyllopus Press: More planes!

Brother Arvin: Yes. We were descending. It was foggy.

Brother Arvin: There was a thump, like you often feel when landing, and everything was in slow motion as I looked out over the wing. Wildflowers and grass were pouring over the wing.

Brother Arvin: I woke up. Terrified.

Brother Arvin: It was awfully real.

Brother Arvin: Laura woke up and I told her what I’d dreamed.

Brother Arvin: And I calmed down and went back to sleep. I really don’t have *nightmares* very frequently. I mean, it’s very rare.

Brother Arvin: I went back to sleep, no dreams that I can recall. Probably slept another hour before the alarm went off.

Brother Arvin: I turned on NPR and the first story I heard was about a plane that overshot a runway - I’m pretty sure it was in Madrid, but I’m not absolutely certain - in fog.

Brother Arvin: As I remember it now, I believe it killed everyone on board.

Brother Arvin: I didn’t really examine the details. I knew that was what I was dreaming about.

Brother Arvin: When something is part of your nature, and you know it is, “evidence” and “proof” are pretty meaningless.

Idyllopus Press: You were confident.

Brother Arvin: Perfectly.

Idyllopus Press: I should relate to you my plane story, but it would be too long here.

Brother Arvin: I’d love to hear it sometime!

Idyllopus Press: Interesting that your experiences key in around flight. You said you felt you know why this was?

Brother Arvin: Oh, yes! I forgot that part.

Idyllopus Press: Or did you mean why you have the dreams in the first place?

Brother Arvin: Well, I don’t know *why* exactly, but there is a connection that I find, well, a part of the whole phenomenon.

Idyllopus Press: OK.

Brother Arvin: And it is this: March 1, 1962, is my birthday.

Brother Arvin: An American Airlines plane crashed in the Atlantic that day after taking off from Idlewild Airport in New York.

Brother Arvin: I found that out a few years ago. And, strangely enough, I was watching Mad Men on television tonight, and they referred to that crash.

Brother Arvin: It killed something like three hundred people or something like that. I forget.

Brother Arvin: I can’t explain why I think this transcends “coincidence” but it is somehow related.

Brother Arvin: I’ve been having dreams - intermittently - about plane crashes since I was really young. Like six or seven.

Brother Arvin: And I don’t ever recall having one that lacked a relationship with an actual event.

Idyllopus Press: Now, that’s interesting. Not one that didn’t correlate with a real event.

Brother Arvin: No. When I dream of an airplane - well, let’s just say that if I trust my instincts.

Brother Arvin: I wouldn’t *ever* consider boarding a plane after such a dream.

Idyllopus Press: Do you think there’s any connection between your…hmmm…receptivity to these dreams and your having witnessed UFOs twice?

Brother Arvin: I never even considered it.

Brother Arvin: I don’t now. It isn’t impossible.

Brother Arvin: Funny, though. I’ve never had a UFO dream.

Idyllopus Press: Really? Never?

Brother Arvin: Nope.

Idyllopus Press: Do you feel in your sightings of the UFOs that they are extrapersonal or is there a deeper connection?

Brother Arvin: I’m not sure I understand what you mean. I don’t get the sense that I’m any different from any other observer of UFO’s.

Brother Arvin: I have an open mind. I’m observant.

Idyllopus Press: What I mean is that so many times observers describe themselves as looking at, say, just the right moment.

Brother Arvin: I subscribe to Jung’s concept of synchronicity.

Idyllopus Press: That’s rather what I was asking about.

Brother Arvin: Gotcha.

Brother Arvin: That gets into an area I can’t really speculate too much upon.

Brother Arvin: I’ve already copped to not believing in coincidence, at least not as most people understand it.

Brother Arvin: I’m not entirely comfortable with ideas about predestination - and, yet, there is an order to all systems even if we can’t comprehend it.

Idyllopus Press: So you are saying that when you looked up at the right time to see the UFOs there may be more going on than your simply looking up at the right time?

Brother Arvin: Yes. There may be.

Idyllopus Press: I need to ask this now. Before I forget. How do you want to be identified in this? As Arvin?

Brother Arvin: Yeah, what the hell.

Brother Arvin: I’m not embarrassed or reluctant to share any of this with anyone.

Idyllopus Press: I’m not going to ask you the third question because you’ve already gone into all this in considerable detail.

Brother Arvin: I forgot what the third question was.

Brother Arvin: (I read the other interviews you’ve done. Cool!)

Idyllopus Press: I usually ask what story the person might like to tell.

Brother Arvin: Ha!

Brother Arvin: Yeah, those are among my best.

Idyllopus Press: Ah!

Idyllopus Press: Well, do you have one you want to tell?

Brother Arvin: Oh, I guess not. My wrist is kinda sore.

Idyllopus Press: And it’s getting late. Like I said…you’ve given a lot of detail. What an interview! Thank you!

Brother Arvin: You’re so welcome!

H.o.p. learned about the online community for children, Club Penguin. He thought it sounded fun. “Waddle around and make friends!” their promo says. And I’d read a piece about Club Penguin and how some members had raised money for an environmental concern, project, whatever, it sounded like coherent life afoot, plus it’s looked over by Disney and I take that to mean they’re not going to let their players run wild in the streets with creepy internet deviants. Right?

Back in the late 80s, when we lived in an apartment on Euclid near Little Five Points we had some apartment neighbors who were still good inhabitants of hippy world and were doing things like planning on homeschooling their child, which I didn’t understand way back then and thought they were kinda weird, not wanting to send their child to school. Despite the hell I’d experienced in school every second I’d attended, I thought this, because school had reared me to believe that school was an inescapable fact of life and I was still drowsily ensconced in that box. They were also doing attachment parenting which, again, I didn’t understand, I wouldn’t get a clue until I had H.o.p. And even though I now do understand and did what’s called attachment parenting and homeschool, if I was to meet them again, we would still be worlds apart, because though I’d felt they were stranded in the 60s, though I thought they were nice people, devoted to their daughter–and was really kind of glad they were there to carry on the hippy banner in their little one bedroom apartment when so many of the other hippies who’d rescued the neighborhood had become gentrified landholder yuppies–it was fairly obvious they thought I was a rank-and-file member of the drone world, brainwashed as I was by meat. They were vegetarians and if you weren’t an all natural plant fibers vegetarian then they’d talk to you, yes, on the sidewalk, but you were never going to be invited past their door.

Plus there was the Disney conversation.

I’d heard the man was an actor, a very good actor, and I gave him a play of mine to read, hoping he might try out for a role. Which is when, god knows how, we got into a conversation about Disney.

I didn’t like the cartoons as a child and found the extreme fantasy empires of Disney disturbing, so I wasn’t going to mind doing some Disney bashing. The man turned out to believe that Disney was a big plot to finely tune the minds of America into easily malleable mush, the better for THEM to take over. I agreed with him in principle, but then he started talking about the Disney underworld, the streets beneath the streets of Disneyworld, and how mind control gases were released from that lower world, via the street vents. At first I thought he was joking. But he wasn’t, I realized, as he became emphatic and strained. I was smilingly doubtful and said so and that was the end of our sidewalk chats, he pointedly shunned me from then on. He didn’t try out for my play and I never saw him act because it turned out that he hadn’t acted in anything in years because no play met his philosophical standards.

I can appreciate that.

For all I know, Disney is gassing everyone with brainwashing chemicals.

Anyway, here I was today looking at Disney overseeing Club Penguin with moderators and thinking, OK, I’d let H.o.p. run around the virtual community for a while because Disney plus moderators seemed a good combination.

H.o.p. registered and waddled in, eager to be friendly and tell some stories.

Like this…this was one of his stories.

I have a story to tell
about a penguin named Joe
the first penguin to fly!
His wings were too fat to fly so he got an…

At this point H.o.p. stopped and turned to me and said, “I’m going to pause here so everyone can have a sense of suspense.”

Then he went on.

…airplane!
And he went all around the world.

In a place where monosyllabic sponse and response is the rule, the while it takes to relate even a short story is a hazardous risk for the ego.

“Mom, no one’s paying any attention. Why?”

Still, H.o.p. did his monosyllabic best as well (all the while waiting for a prime time to relate The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, as he listened to a podcast of it last night, loves the story, and was eager to try his hand).

“Mom, why is no one paying any attention to me? Why do they keep disappearing like I’m hideous or something.”

I marveled. I wondered. I watched the exchanges of other little penguins. I watched H.o.p. go up and say hi to them and watched them walk off.

Eventually he came upon a group telling scary stories around a virtual campfire. What luck! He listened to theirs and was delighted when he got a chance finally to do a very brief, five sentence summation of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, involving penguins.

“Why’d they all leave? Why won’t they listen to me?” he asked afterward.

It was eerie, because my experience in commenting on other people’s blogs almost always seemed to rouse the same enthusiasm, which is why I largely gave it up a long while back. And I certainly don’t know the magic of making an attractive post that will entice commentary. And Marty jokes that if he makes a comment on a thread on a message board, not only does he not get a response, almost assuredly the conversation tends to shut down.

Internet failures all three of us–H.o.p., Marty and myself.

“Wha up?” another penguin asked H.o.p., sitting next to him.

“The sky!” H.o.p. replied, because he’s loved that joke all summer long and told it every chance he gets.

The other penguin said nothing.

“Why’s he not saying anything?” H.o.p. asked me.

The other penguin got up and left.

“Do you want to be my friend?” H.o.p. said to yet another penguin.

“No,” replied the penguin and disappeared.

So, Marty is going to play at the CD release party for a record he produced (nice guy, I’ve met him and his wife, had dinner at his place once) and it’s going to be in New York. This started in June, his talking about it and planning for me and H.o.p. to go with him, because for the first time ever we actually got to see New York last December and loved it (we’d been there before but it was while touring and you can’t see anything while touring). Marty had been told rooms were to be booked at a hotel not too far from Central Park which meant that during the two days Marty was playing (there were to be two gigs) H.o.p. and I would be able to stroll the museums and this sounded great, this sounded wonderful, and it didn’t sound Too Good To Be True at all because, hell, I’ve hit the point in my life where I wouldn’t have it any other way after decades of doing my time in flea pits.

Except it did sound too good to be true, which was why I kept asking for the name of said hotel near Central Park, but Marty couldn’t tell me, he didn’t know, and was finally exasperated with me because I seemed not to trust the situation would unfold as described. Because I basically don’t trust anything to unfold as described until you’re there and find that things are as described.

Things do change, they always do in this world. The bookings changed and after two months of being told it Was Happening, then suddenly this nice vacation H.o.p. and I had been looking forward to all summer (a summer bogged down with work, which is a good thing!) had dematerialized, then was materialized again within a few days, just later in September.

Last night Marty comes home and he tells me he learned the rooms have been booked.

Only the hotel is in Brooklyn.

But it’s a new hotel in Brooklyn. OK? Yeah, the National One Star Brand Name Chain may not sound hopeful but it’s new. He went to check a place with reviews and it’s new. And clean.

Yeah, right, I’m thinking. Who gave it the review touting it was new and clean, which means “at least it’s new and clean”? The manager of the hotel?

“Is it near the subway?” I asked.

Oh yes, it’s near the subway. A couple of blocks, Marty said.

“Where is it in Brooklyn?” I asked, making my way to the internet.

Marty said he didn’t know.

“WHERE is it in Brooklyn?” I said. “What’s the address?”

Marty gave me the address and said sorry he thought I meant like “Where was it?” and he didn’t know that but he did know the address.

You see, I am all too familiar with this. Unless it’s a decent name and in a too-good-to-believe locale then the hotel (or motel) when you get there it will be filthy and in the middle of an industrial wasteland or miles of auto parts stores in an area with no foot traffic and to get to a remote bus will mean risking your life with a run across at least one major highway from hell. And opportunity to see some sites will turn out to be too far from anything to get around to anything but the gig and then straight back to the hotel because even stopping at a Wendy’s in that area of town just looks too scary. And the motel has bullet proof glass surrounding what is ironically called the welcome desk and I bravely wrap my arms around my child on the elevator while the drug dealer or pimp who whatever he is pulls out thousands of dollars and slowly counts it all on the elevator in front of me, I Don’t Know Why And I’m Not Going To Ask Why Either.

And you lock yourself in your room and decide it’s wise not to go get ice and you sleep with your clothes on and try to levitate above the bed (damn difficult).

I look up, on Googlemaps, the address Marty has given me. Standing behind me as I go to street view, he again reassures, “I read it was new. New and clean.”

“You say it is just two blocks from the subway?” I say. “And that it has parking??”

“Yes.”

Street view shows National One Star Brand Name Chain hotel, in Brooklyn, located across from a lumber yard. Next door is an auto parts store. Down the way is an auto parts store. Down the way is more urban waste land and scary looking places and auto parts stores and lumber yards and a church with a BIG PROTECTION FENCE around it, not just quaint decoration, no, it’s decidedly undecorative. And there’s lots of what looks like free parking in the area, an alarming amount of free and empty parking considering, and the cars that are visible look like they may have been parked free for at least a decade, maybe because shopping carts for your garbage bags are the preferable mode of transportation. Not that I have anything against this–you do what you gotta do and you never know but one day I may be one of those individuals with the shopping cart (please be kind to me, I was a loving mother and wife and did more than my share of volunteer work), though not around here. We live a hop, skip and jump from our own city’s homeless hub, but here they have the outside of the grocery stores rigged up so that if you try to walk a shopping cart out of the lot it locks up. Because otherwise there’d be no shopping carts left.

Damn, I feel like a snot. But I don’t wanna leave my small urban apartment with its non-views (but which is just a short walk from the subway) and go for a short vacation in New York and stay in Brooklyn stuffed between an auto parts store and a muffler shop, overlooking a lumber yard. No! No!

“That must be the parking lot,” Marty says of the spacious and nearly empty lot next to the hotel. Which will turn out not to be the parking lot for the hotel. It’s the parking lot for an auto parts store. No, the motel has 12 parking spaces, those spaces lining the front, unfenced, no lot, smack dab right on the street almost.

12 parking spaces means only a handful of the guests better have autos.

I look up a review for said hotel, which Marty says he did already that afternoon and that it has free parking (we would be driving up) and that it’s NEW and CLEAN!

I first notice that it’s not recommended for families with children or teenagers…or really just about anybody.

A couple reviews do say it’s clean. CLEAN! The first review says CLEAN, which turns out to be the review Marty glanced at but didn’t go past the fold and read the whole piece. That first review, which gives the hotel a healthy amount of stars because it’s WAY CHEAP, is from a person who (past the fold) reveals they used to live in Hell’s Kitchen and lists as a caveat that even he wouldn’t go out of the hotel after dark because it’s a scary part of town. But it’s CHEAP!

Further down there are several reviews noting it’s not clean at all. In fact some people had to deal with condom wrappers on the side of the bed and food crumbs. And there are ants. And it seems the bathrooms could use a lot of attention according to that review and several others.

The reception desk is barricaded from you with bulletproof glass.

More reviews talking about how You Do Not Want To Go Out After Dark!! Don’t Do It! When you book into the hotel you are not only told you park at your own risk (if you are lucky enough to get one of the 12 free parking places in front), but you are given a security sheet telling you how to best protect yourself in their hotel in order to assure yourself a safe stay.

It’s new but the ceiling emergency sprinklers are covered with tape and the smoke alarms need batteries.

The subway is maybe five minutes away by bus or a ten minute hike and then a thirty minute subway ride into New York. Which isn’t bad, y’know. Except you’re in a neighborhood where you Can’t Go Out After Dark and H.o.p. and I would be Out After Dark.

I do some more research because I know I don’t have the whole story yet. The subway’s closest station, Crown Heights, is located around 11 blocks and a highway away. The first search result for the station brings up a 5 p.m. rush hour shooting last spring (OK, we have shootings around here, whatever), maybe or maybe not coincident with a flare-up of racial tension I read about that also occurred last spring. I check the other search results, people asking for advice on whether it’s a safe area to ride the train or live. “S***hole” is one response. No foot traffic there. Do not go out after dark because of hood elements everyone says, unfailingly. Do not go out after dark. During the day there’s not much foot traffic but after dark there is none, you can travel miles and see no foot traffic. Do not go out after dark.

I traveled like this for years, before H.o.p. I called it Local Ambiance.

I ended up traveling like this a few times after H.o.p. was born and I called it Not Conducive For A Good Time With Child.

Actually, if the hotel was within a couple blocks of the station then I’d say OK to it all. The area around the station doesn’t look bad in street view. Shops and brownstones and people out and about. But the area around the hotel, about a mile away?–it’s a wasteland.

Marty said, yes, it didn’t look good, we should forget the whole thing, H.o.p. and I should stay home and instead of driving up he’ll just call and get them to book a flight for him (even though he does what he can to avoid flying because it hurts his ears).

He was disappointed. He had even looked up the hotel reviews and seen “clean and new” in a prominent review and was satisfied and that was that and he returned to his busy schedule at the studio. He’s just not as well…I don’t know…he’s just not as fried and cynical and circumspect as I am. He didn’t go to Googlemaps Street View.

Damn, I feel like a wretched ungrateful snot who’s gotten too big for her boots. But I don’t wanna leave my small urban apartment with its non-views (but which is just a short walk from the subway) and go to New York for a short vacation and stay in Brooklyn stuffed between an auto parts store and a muffler shop, overlooking a lumber yard, in an area where everyone says, “Don’t go out after dark!” No! No! I don’t want the reception desk wrapped in bulletproof glass and I don’t want them to hand me a sheet on how to stay safe in the hotel and I don’t want taped over sprinklers and condom wrappers and ants and crumbs littering the room. I want…I dunno…I want…I want to go back to the hotel and have a relaxing night’s sleep. I don’t want to worry about getting out of Manhattan and back to the hotel before dark. I don’t want to lie there and think, “Damn, this is a s*** hole.”

I get up in the morning and Marty’s already gone and I call him. He was in the process of trying to find a place that can replace the glass in the passenger’s side of the car because someone broke the window and ransacked the glove compartment and took the phone recharger and iPod dock and for some reason also stole Marty’s glasses which he’d left in an overhead compartment. We never leave anything in the car so there was no visible enticement, but…whatever. Marty called the police and waited 45 minutes and they didn’t show, they never show. He called again and was told they hadn’t been dispatched. And he had to go ahead and get to work and on the way, just one block distant, he saw five cops sitting around chatting.

The glass place we use (you see, we’ve had this happen several times before) said they couldn’t get the glass until Monday.

By now I was apparently yelling over the phone. I thought I was just being emphatic about how we really needed to replace that glass because I don’t want anyone camping out in our car over the weekend, which is what would happen if we just made do with plastic. It would be ripped aside and our car would become someone’s weekend home.

“Stop yelling,” Marty said.

I’m becoming a shrill fish wife.

How’s that for fun? Damn.

Anyway, Marty spoke to his brother, who lives in Queens and works in New York, and he says he can find us a good and not too expensive place to stay in Midtown Manhattan, so we may be going up in October. Which H.o.p. is really going to love, if we do it. He’s crazy about New York. New York is his place. He finds New York wonderfully exciting. He’s had a taste of the really big city and that’s all she wrote.

H.o.p. and I attempted Sunday to do a fairy tale podcast (a first–H.o.p.’s done his own little radio shows, but this idea was mine) and it failed. We made four attempts and though H.o.p. enjoyed himself even he admits, in this case, that having a good time doesn’t make for something to release on the internet. Of course, H.o.p. loves it and thinks, too, it ought to go up. But it ought not, I don’t think.

This is a confusing post, isn’t it? It was even more confusing before I added a couple words to clarify.

My thanks to Ed Wiancko for letting me use a great family photo of his for my new header image.

This site has nothing to do with rowboats but of course the majority of Google searches I get have to do with rowboats…and banana popsicles. I wrote about banana popsicles once or twice and now I’m the top search result for them. Go figure. I’ve written about thousands of other things and written about hundreds of things multiple times, but no one ever gets here looking for anything but banana popsicles and sometimes a rowboat query. I’m the top search result for rowboat and valiant but no one’s ever reached here using that query, but still they manage to get here on other rowboat queries that are totally irrelevant to this site as this site has nothing to do with literal rowboats and how to build them or what nude women may be riding around in them.

Google hates me. Kind of. It’s just that people don’t go looking for what I’ve got here (though I’ve written about all kinds of things).

I’m the top Google search result for subatomic penguins but no one gets here looking for information on that.

I’m the top Google search result for subatomic wonders but no one has ever gotten here looking for subatomic wonders.

I’m the top Google search result for Hanford declassified but no one has gotten here looking for information on that. But my Remixing the Hanford Declassified Project was once featured by Counterpunch on their website of the day.

I’m the third Google result for “Have you ever seen a UFO?” but I’ve yet to get anyone here using that query.

No, instead when I look at my Google search queries they are all about banana popsicles and rowboats, for which reason I may go for weeks without looking at the handful of Google search queries Google throws my way, mostly to do with banana popsicles and rowboats, which means I can’t say absolutely that no one has ever gotten here looking for Hanford declassified or subatomic penguins but if they’ve done so it’s been when I wasn’t looking.

Oh, I do get a lot of queries for my analysis of Antonioni’s “Blow Up” and occasionally for my analysis of Kubrick’s “Eyes Wide Shut”. Oddly enough, I will get universities like Berkeley that repeatedly visit the “Blow Up” review. I will see what appear to be the same people returning to look at these reviews several times, usually for the space of a week or two. Oddly, I used to get a number of hits from Beijing for my analysis of “Eyes Wide Shut”. I occasionally had people (never Americans) write me asking if they could use me as a resource in a thesis they were doing on film, but I haven’t had that happen in a while. Considering these university hits, I do wonder sometimes just what I’ve written that may have been paraphrased and used in a paper. And what kind of grade they got. Or maybe they’re just laughing behind my internet back.

It is funny to me that these people who will spend days reading posts like the Antonioni “Blow Up” analysis never write me.

No one ever writes me even to tell me what a jerk I am or how stupid I am. I read all the time about bloggers who have people write them telling them they are jerks. Or that they’ve enjoyed them. That doesn’t happen to me. People who drop by via Google never comment and never write me off line.

Someone did once comment, at Youtube, on a home video I’d done making a pair of Howard Hughes kleenex box shoes, so I could demonstrate how impossible small Howard Hughes feet must have been. For reasons only known to a certain sort of Youtube sensibility, they said they wished I would die. H.o.p. read it and got upset.

At least I don’t get a lot of people dropping by here using queries that make you want to gag.

I am also an odd kind of blogger. Occasionally something is in the news that I have written about (at least marginally) and suddenly I’ll get a throng of visitors on that subject. And what do I do when that happens? I usually, immediately take down that post for months. It weirds me out. For instance, I went through a spell of getting hundreds of queries going to a Rapiscan post I wrote, and so I took down that post because that weirded me out. And when there was news of Japanese committing suicide with hydrogen sulfide, I suddenly got hundreds visiting my innocuous post on how H.o.p. and I had done an innocuous little everyday electrolysis experiment, a side result of which had been the minor production of stinky hydrogen sulfide–and I immediately took down that post. I always plead it’s because I don’t have perhaps the bandwidth to support that number of visitors, when instead I just get weirded out.

Anyway, one day a couple of weeks ago I became curious about what it would be like if I did a row boat query myself. Wasting time is what you might call it. People got to me doing irrelevant row boat queries so I might as well do an irrelevant row boat query myself.

And then, because of this, I got to thinking that I should possibly redo my website and go ahead and look for a mundane non-copyright image of a rowboat in just the right position (straight shot from above) that I might be able to take and Photoshop this way and that and make it a part of a new header, because suddenly I was very bored with my blog appearance and wanted a new one.

The most marvelous image came up when I did a Google search for rowboat pictures. That of a man doing a handstand in a rowboat. It was an old family photo of Ed Wiancko’s.

A man doing a handstand in a rowboat seemed just the right image for a valiant little rowboat. I loved the audacity of that handstand.

So I wrote Ed Wiancko and asked if I could use that photo.

He said yes.

So there is the story of my new header image. A relative of Ed Wiancko’s could do handstands and loved doing them. He did a handstand in a rowboat and the rowboat didn’t tip over either.

Even better, he did that handstand in his hat!

I’ve been going through my files today looking for several pages of writing that I now fear are lost, probably dumped in one of my purges. But I found this, which I’d forgotten about, which I wrote a few years ago.

* * * * * *

Mom. I always find it refreshing when somebody can talk about how great and wonderful their mother is or was, without their demeanor causing me to sit up a little straighter, adrenalin-ready and alert for whatever the poor, sick bastard might happen to do next.

The last time I was around such an individual, I happened to be stuck on a band tour bus with him for four weeks. The first two days, we had the coach all to ourselves (and the driver) hauling across country to rendez-vous with the band in Minnesota. The bus was a steal of a cheap rental for the singer’s management (one of those singer, back-up band kind of things) because it was part of a fleet the interiors of which were scheduled to be redone. Dubbed the “disco” bus, the decoration recalled (or maybe it didn’t recall at all, maybe it was just that old) an era that’s about as horrific as all that plutonium in Washington State dribbling out of its containment area, threatening the Columbia River. Disco is the someone you throw a really good wake for because you’re glad they’re gone, but they mistake it as a loving tribute and several years down the road you feel a tap on your shoulder, turn around, and there’s Burt Reynolds dressed up in his ice cream man suit asking you to dance. “Go away,” you say, “go away.” He laughs and trundles out the disco bus. “Come ride with me in my traveling, nuclear-powered Serendipity carriage! Step with me, Alice, through the wall-to-wall vanity mirrors carved with flamingos–or that mirror on the ceiling ringed with tracer lights that actually conceals a Star Trekian cosmic generator–into the eternal never-never, the angelic trills of BeeGees escorting us on shimmering comet hair to Heaven’s Gate.” The walls, counters, cupboards, blinds, carpet and sleeping area were all varying shades of dark gray and the seating upholstered in blue-violet-black velveteen. What I didn’t get was why both pillars that framed the entrance behind the driver’s seat were black; had one been white we could have held Thelemic rituals.

All I had to do was step on the bus and I’d be ready to fall asleep; it wasn’t a place for living.

So when I roused from road stupor it would often be when the bus was bouncing into another 24 hour truck stop. Tug on boots and a jacket, run a brush through my hair, grab a few dollars for something to eat and find a real toilet instead of the bus’ pee-only chemical toilet. Living on a bus, you always look like you’re just crawling out of bed. And live on it we did thanks to a few greedy someones who said one couldn’t believe how much money was saved not getting hotel rooms for the band. If anyone wanted to shower they were told they could do it at the gig.

The particular night I’m thinking about, we have pulled into a small globe of white light hollowed out of the Minnesota wilderness. Nothing wants to linger on those plains to stop the Canadian wind and it is freezing. Beyond the feeble arc of incandescence there is blank black. I’m in Roman Polanski’s mind. And a truck stop is no place to regather any sense of reality. They’re a fluorescent shock fibrillating raw echoing noises off all that tile that must be really easy to hose down. I habitually donned my sunglasses as a defense against the nasty light and the leers, and always wondered why in the world anyone would ogle a forty-one year old woman carrying a baby on her hip, especially one who looked like she’d been shaken about in the mouth of a mad dog for the past 48 hours.

I’m a night person, have always been. I find night hours comforting; they’re a good time for thinking and writing. But at 3 AM in a truck stop everyone, without exception, is a roach escaping from the kitchen light.

The driver, this man who loves momma and I step inside. All heads turn. The eyes of a very hairy, burly guy rest with intent interest on this man who loves momma, and he makes a motion and steps into the bathroom. This man who loves momma is now about to bond with my back like I’m his opossum mother. “Did you see that?” he asks, voice wavering. “What was that about?” I think he’s got to be kidding but instead mumble, “Dunno,” because I’m so freaked-out by all the tile and the light and the people after being so long ensconced in the disco coffin. The man who loves momma, his voice high and thin, whispers, “This is creepy. Stay close to me.”

Real substance inside a truck stop has a slogan on it or a lewd joke; food is the after-thought and damned if you’ll find any, so grab a package of cellophane-something which doesn’t look like it’ll kill you outright, pay for your cup of scorched coffee and get out of there, back on the dark refuge of Dante’s bus. Limbo-land, as it may be, it is home.

I’m sitting there and here climbs back on the man who loves his momma. Sits down next to me. He’s got a clear Mason jar full of big cherry-red jawbreakers. What’s up with those?

The previous tour, all day and all night he watched Andy Griffith tapes, and has been holed up in the rear lounge doing so again, because that’s what he does. One of the major pieces of furniture in his life. The bus is so loud you can’t hear the tape, but it doesn’t matter because he knows every line of dialogue. Old Andy, he can tell you all about old Andy, and Floyd, oh yes that Floyd gets him every time and he’ll start to tell you a story but always break it off to slap the bunk, hoop and hollar at an upcoming line of dialogue, and exclaim, “Isn’t that just like old Floyd? Now, isn’t that just like old Floyd?!”

But now we are alone, the driver is still inside the truck stop, I can hear the Andy Griffith tape running in the back lounge of the bus, and the man who loves momma has it in for me for some reason, and he’s going to sit next to me and stare me in the eyes in a peculiarly fixed but distant manner so that when I refuse to look away what I see is like looking down a dark tunnel in that 50’s movie about the giant ants. It’s not a matter of you going in to meet them, because you’re both on the same bus; in the same sewer system, you can hear the giant ants chirruping. But you don’t want to be seen by the ants which means you stay hidden around the corner from them, and watch their movements by way of the shadows of their antennae on the wall.

The man who loves his momma stares me in the eyes, pops a big cherry-red jawbreaker in his mouth and starts going on, out of the blue, in his sooooo looooong Southern drawl with its endless vowels about how much he loves his momma, and how much he loves his jawbreakers.

You know, he tells me, staring me in the eyes, most men are ashamed to call their momma momma, but not him. And he’s not ashamed to sit on her lap either. He’ll just plop right down in her lap, ’cause she’s his momma. His Momma! Who’s closer to you in your life than your momma? Your momma is the one who looks after you, at least his momma looked after him. And he loves his jawbreakers too. Do I want one? No, he knows they’re not good for you–and he holds the Mason jar up in front of my face. Do I see all those jawbreakers? See all those jawbreakers? He’ll have eaten every single one of them by morning, yes he will. It’s terrible for him, isn’t it, he says. Horrible. Bad as can be, but he’s got to do it. Gotta do it. Horrible for his teeth, but he has to eat all those jawbreakers until there’s not a single one left. It’s always like that; always has been. And he has always loved his momma, and she’s always loved him. He’s the youngest and his daddy’s jealous of him and doesn’t understand the relationship he has with his momma, and his brothers are jealous of him, but she’s his momma and he’s her baby boy. “Can’t stop eating these jawbreakers.”

“Mmmm,” I smile vaguely and nod. “Mmmm.”

“I’m my momma’s baby boy. Have I told you that?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you think that’s strange?”

“Noooo.”

“I watch Andy Griffith all the time, have you noticed that?”

“Yeah, I know you watch Andy Griffith all the time.”

“Oh, I do. Every year I make a pilgrimage to the town that’s supposed to be Mayberry. Its not. It’s not Mayberry, you know. Not really. They didn’t film there. But I go every year. They know me there.”

“Mmmm, they do.”

“I thought I was doing real good with this woman last night, she was really into me, but then she made a joke about my leather biker’s jacket. I’ve been devastated. This is a real biker’s jacket, you know. You know? The real thing. Expensive. Real expensive. Look at the tag, see? Real.”

“Yeah, I see.”

“Not just some punk fake. What she did had me so upset I was shaking. Literally shaking. Because if I know how to do anything, I’ve always known how to dress cool, you know how important clothes are to me. And what she said, it like to totally destroyed my confidence. I thought I looked so cool, man. I knew I looked cool, and here she was coming down on me. I don’t look like a fag, do I? Not that I care who thinks I’m queer. I have a lot of gay friends, but I’m not. I love women. I’m a dog around women. D-o-g, dawg. Can’t get enough. My father and my brothers think it’s queer I’m so particular about how I look, and how I love my momma. But you gotta love your momma, you just gotta love your momma, and I like to wear nice things. Yes, ma’am, you know I like to dress impeccable, what’s wrong with that. But people think there’s something odd about it when a man pays that much attention to how he looks, when it’s that important to him. I’m always thinking about what I”m going to wear.”

“Mmmmmmm.”

“Did I tell you I’m a momma’s boy and I’m not ashamed of it?”

“Yes.”

“I bet you think I’m strange, don’t you? I am strange, you know. Really. Really, strange. Do you think I’m strange?”

Because things had gotten very weird, I said, “I don’t think anything about it.”

“I am strange. I’ll prove to you how strange I am. Do you know anyone else who would eat a whole jar of jawbreakers? I’m a compulsive, compulsive about everything. Can’t stop. Look at me, I’ve finished with a jawbreaker and now I’m going to pop another one in my mouth. Isn’t that awful? Don’t you think that’s awful? But you wait and see, by daylight there won’t be a single one of these jawbreakers left. Do you believe me? I bet you don’t believe me, do you?”

“No, I believe you.”

It was around then that one of his teeth broke in two.

When you’re on tour, and in Minnesota one night and in Chicago the next, and in Maine the next, you don’t have much time to find a dentist.

I’m not sure what was up with him, but we didn’t speak much the rest of the tour.

* * * * * *

By the way, Marty tells me Jawbreaker Guy is, these many years later, doing just fine. And I’m glad to hear it. He was actually quite a lot of fun to be around before everyone on the bus started going crazy.

Interview with a nurse and mother of three children. We did the interview surrounded by swirling, twirling children. Imagine sounds of rambunctious play (i.e. constant screaming, mostly joyful) in the background.

Idyllopus Press: I think we’re recording now. OK, I ask three questions. And the first question is, have you ever seen a UFO?

Blue Jean Skirt Woman: Yes, I have.

Idyllopus Press: You have seen a UFO? Tell me about it.

Blue Jean Skirt Woman: Well, when I was about ten years old I was with some friends and we were walking down the street and I looked up in the sky and there was…these lights that were like flickering and none of us could determine what it was and it lasted probably for about a couple of minutes then they just, it just went off. And we always wondered what it was because it didn’t make any sound, we couldn’t hear anything. There is an airport kind of nearby but there weren’t any plane sounds, no engine sounds to it at all, all we saw were flickering lights and they kind of zipped out of the sky.

Idyllopus Press: So it didn’t disappear, it just zipped out of the sky.

Blue Jean Skirt Woman: Yeah.

Idyllopus Press: In what direction?

Blue Jean Skirt Woman: I don’t know. I mean…

Idyllopus Press: To the side? Up?

Blue Jean Skirt Woman: Up. It was…

Idyllopus Press: Was it really fast?

Blue Jean Skirt Woman: It went really fast. It went really fast. And that’s the last I saw of it. Y’know, I told my parents about it and I don’t know I don’t remember if there was anything in the paper about it, if anyone else noticed it, but my friends noticed it. We were together.

Idyllopus Press: This was in Florida?

Blue Jean Skirt Woman: Yes, this was in Florida, in the Tampa Bay area.

Idyllopus Press: Tampa Bay area. And anything else after that?

Blue Jean Skirt Woman: No. Nothing else after that.

Idyllopus Press: Do you know anyone who’s seen a UFO?

Blue Jean Skirt Woman: Yes, I do. There was a man that lived in our town in Florida…

Idyllopus Press: So, same place in Florida?

Blue Jean Skirt Woman: Same place in Florida, but he was with the military and I don’t remember what his role was but he did something like he knew about the people that flew the jets and they would see things and he saw some things too, but this was all out west like the Salt Flats where they were doing testing of planes and testing of stuff but he said he definitely believed in them because he had seen things that he couldn’t…there’s no way you could say well that’s another plane or that’s a weather balloon or whatever, and he really believed. He was a really intelligent man that was in the military and…he talked about some of his experiences to my parents, not really to me, but I knew that…it was kind of an unusual thing to meet somebody who was older that was older who actually believed there were such things as that.

Idyllopus Press: Second question. What is the most unusual synchronicity you’ve ever experienced?

Blue Jean Skirt Woman: Kind of describe what…

Idyllopus Press: A coincidence.

Blue Jean Skirt Woman: I’m trying to think of something. I remember…I mean…I remember coming back from being in Eastern Europe and at the airport in Germany and I ran into a girl I went to college with, we were getting on the same plane to come back to Atlanta and I hadn’t seen her in like ten years. So that was kind of neat, you know. I’d always kind of wondered what had ever happened to her. And, actually, she had a big job in the former Soviet Georgia, now the independent country of Georgia, and she worked under the Secretary of Health for the entire country and was a consultant to them through the Carter Center. But, uhm, that’s one of the things you never expect to have happen, to meet someone you know from Atlanta in Germany.

Idyllopus Press: You know, that’s the most common reply so far on coincidences.

Blue Jean Skirt Woman: Really?

Idyllopus Press: Yeah, meeting someone again in an unexpected place, years distant.

Blue Jean Skirt Woman: Yeah, that’s the one thing I can really think of like that.

Idyllopus Press: And the third question is a totally wide open one. Usually I ask if you have a story to tell, that nobody else could tell, what would be that story? Or a story you’d like to tell.

Blue Jean Skirt Woman: I think it would be about our youngest girl. My husband and I knew we were going to adopt again, and we thought we’d adopt another baby, we knew we’d adopt from China again, and then, uhm, this woman comes onto the list, a normal member of the list I’m on for the orphanage, and she describes this little girl that’s like three years old that had been on a waiting child list for a really long time, talking about how beautiful she was and…I thought…because those situations come up often on the site where they talk about a child from the same orphanage or something, and so I heard it and everything and I thought I’ll pray for this little girl, that she finds a family.

And like two months go by and it’s like every morning and every night when I go to bed, God was telling me to inquire more about her, and so I went to my husband and asked if I could request her file and so we did and once I read it I felt like we were supposed to adopt her but I was questioning because I was wondering, being older and having the problems she had would there be other problems as well? And I said, Lord, I just don’t know that I have what it takes to be a parent to her. And he said to me, she’s my daughter first, you just go the direction I’m sending you and I will give you whatever you need to be the mother of this child. And my husband was hesitant, worrying about what other medical problems there might be, complications, because of her age too, being so close in age to our oldest daughter. But it was like the Lord just kept telling me. And my husband said, “But he hasn’t told me anything,” and I said, “I know and we aren’t going to do anything unless both of us agree on it.” So he made a list of questions that he wanted the Chinese government to answer through their central adoption area. And they gave us an update and answered his questions and it wasn’t five hours after that report came through that he’s like, “Where do we sign up.”

So it was like all through that God was just confirming in me, you know, even with my husband having not been on the same page with me at that time, it was like God saying you move forward, you just keep going forward, and I will make things happen. And I think that’s the one thing that it’s taught me thought that situation because she’s just the most amazing child…it just taught me that when God provides an opportunity for you you have the choice of accepting that opportunity or rejecting that opportunity, but if you accept, it doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy but he’s going to give you the strength and everything you need to do the job that he’s placed before you to do, and you get that blessing of knowing that, the blessing that God has given you by giving you a child that…she’s such an incredible blessing, just like our other children are to us, but to think what if we had said no, I can’t even imagine what her life would be like or what our lives would be like today if we had decided it was a leap of faith we weren’t willing to take.

Idyllopus Press: She’s beautiful. Thank you.

Idyllopus Press: OK, we’re recording now. Have you ever seen a UFO?

Software Developer: I have.

Idyllopus Press: You have? Really? Tell me about it.

Software Developer: I don’t remember too much other than it was at high school, during the day time, over the high school…

Idyllopus Press: This was in Augusta, Georgia.

Software Developer: Yes. I saw a sort of a silver elongated thing, sort of in the distance, flying not over the school but past the school. It didn’t look like a plane but it may have been.

Idyllopus Press: OK.

Software Developer: I couldn’t identify it.

Idyllopus Press: OK. So this was in the afternoon?

Software Developer: Yes, in the afternoon.

Idyllopus Press: Did it just track out of sight, you watched it slowly going out of sight?

Software Developer: I followed it for about a minute or so and then lost interest.

Idyllopus Press (laughing): Ok. That was some spectacular UFO sighting, hmmm? Very. It really held your attention there. The aliens weren’t too exciting.

(Laughter.)

Software Developer: Or I wasn’t too exciting to them.

Idyllopus Press: They weren’t too worried about you, were they?

Software Developer: They weren’t in the mood for an abudction that day.

Idyllopus Press: And they didn’t feel like they had to run off quickly when you saw them. What year was this?

Software Developer: 1976 to 1978, somewhere in there.

Idyllopus Press: Do you know anybody who’s seen a UFO?

Software Developer: Yes.

Idyllopus Press: Who?

Software Developer: My mother and my sister saw one in Chattanooga. Which….they didn’t know what it was…now, they didn’t say it was from outer space…

Idyllopus Press: OK.

Software Developer: The thought was it was some sort of military aircraft but it sure had a lot of flashing lights if it was.

Idyllopus Press: Have you ever dreamt about UFOs?

Software Developer: No, I’ve never dreamt about UFOs.

Idyllopus Press: Now, the second question is what is the most interesting synchronicity you’ve ever experienced?

Software Developer: Most interesting. I mean I have synchronicities but none of them really are interesting.

Idyllopus Press: OK.

Software Developer: Where I’d think of a song I hadn’t heard in years and later on in the morning I would hear it.

Idyllopus Press: I know that happens a lot to some people. I’ve had that happen.

Software Developer: I’ve had that happen on quite a few occasions.

Idyllopus Press: Can you think of a specific song?

Software Developer: No.

Idyllopus Press: I can’t either.

Software Developer: And there was an odd synchronicity the other day. Let me think. You might want to turn that off while I think. (Indicates the recorder.)

Idyllopus Press: No that’s all right, I’ve got plenty of battery and memory here.

Software Developer: It might run out. Oh, OK. I’ve been thinking about doing a website.

Idyllopus Press: OK.

Software Developer: And the theme of the website would be green living.

Idyllopus Press: Oh, green living? All right.

Software Developer: Yeah. That sort of thing. Ever since I started riding the bus to work, I would, I’ve been thinking more of, you know, being departed from the use of fossil fuels…

Idyllopus Press: All right.

Software Developer: So I’ve been thinking about what website. So I thought of a website name the other day and, oddly enough, that evening, my wife came up with the same name for the website.

Idyllopus Press: That’s cool, I like that. That’s a good synchronicity.

Software Developer: I’m trying to think of what the name was. It’s…maybe by the end of…

Idyllopus Press: Well, you don’t have to give it. You don’t want anyone to steal it in the first place, you want to keep it a secret…

Software Developer: Well, I found out that someone had already taken it.

Idyllopus Press: Oh. OK.

Software Developer: Probably in India or something like that.

Idyllopus Press: You can’t remember what it was?

Software Developer: I’ll probably remember it by the end of the interview.

Idyllopus Press: That was a good synchronicity. We do a lot of that kind of thing around our household.

Software Developer: That was just the other day though and I thought it was so weird we both independently came up with the same name.

Idyllopus Press: The third question is if you have a story to tell, your story, unlikely that anyone else would have that story to tell, what would it be?

Software Developer: I wouldn’t say unlikely.

H.o.p.: The third question!

H.o.p. sings the first few notes of Beethoven’s Fifth.

Software Developer: Uhm. This was an interesting thing that happened to my wife and I when we were living up in Woodstock, Georgia. We were driving…we were on our way home one night from Alpharetta, and we saw a falling star but it was actually a meteorite that hit a field probably…probably 200 feet away. I mean it was just spectacular. If we could do it all over again I wish we had stopped the car and I’d just scoured the field but it was at night. But I thought that was an interesting moment. I don’t think too many people would have encountered that…

Idyllopus Press: So close…

Software Developer: When they were with someone.

Idyllopus Press: Interesting as long as it doesn’t plunge through your car.

Software Developer: No.

Idyllopus Press: Ok, well thank you.

Idyllopus Press: Have you ever seen a UFO?

Guitarist with Gold Ceiling: OK, 575. 575 Highway. Going to Blue Ridge. I was going to buy a farm. This woman I talk about, R_____, she sold property and this kind of stuff. She also wrote books and stuff, really deep person, and…

Artist Wife of Guitarist: But she did past life regression.

Guitarist with Gold Ceiling: She did past life regression…

Artist Wife of Guitarist: Therapies…

Guitarist with Gold Ceiling: Oh yeah…and she was 20 years older than me and she and I dated, which everyone thought was like the weirdest thing in the world. She was like 60 and I was like 40 something. Anyway, so, she took me up to see this farm in Blue Ridge, and I had an Oldsmobile, uh, Cutlass 88. And I filled up with gas when we left her house which was right over off Ashwood-Dunwoody Road. We got on the expressway and we drove up there. Full tank of gas, right? So we get to Blue Ridge and this farm is on a bed of crystal. Literally, quartz crystal. You could walk across the ground and it was like stories I’d heard about Africa and diamonds. You could walk across the ground and just kick the dirt and crystals would pop up. And I thought, well, this is just weird as shit. And it was phenomenally cheap! So, anyway, we hung out for a little while and that kind of stuff. We ate at this Greek restaurant, coming back down. There was just this incredible food, stuff like that.

So we were coming down 575, after we ate dinner and stuff, and it started getting dark. So all of a sudden I’m looking–we’re laughing, talking, this kind of shit–and I look down at the gas gauge and the gas gauge is dropping like somehow I’ve got a hole in my gas tank. And so we’re coming down 575 and I don’t want to frighten her so I said, “I think we’re getting ready to run out of gas.” And sure as guns, gun’s iron, I can take you exactly to the exit where this shit happened, we ran out of gas right before this exit. And this exit is black! I mean no street light’s up the exit. Nothing where you can tell where gas was. So I, that kind of weirded me out.

So, at the time, I look over to my right and there’s this gigantic field. And there’s this orange, huge globe that looks like the sun, in this field, and I turn around and I show it, I said, “Is that weird to you? The sun can’t be down there. And I know it’s not the moon. What is that?” And she goes, “That is weird.” And it was just very nonchalant to us. And so we start to get out of the car–and she and I both experienced this, but I was the one who voiced it–but when we started to get out of the car, it was almost like shoving your foot through a screen door. Through the screen, like the old style screen doors, you know, and it’s like literally it’s not easy to get out of the car. So I close the door, I close the door and lock it. And we start up this exit, and I said, “It’ll all work out. Don’t worry about it.” This was before cell phones. I said, “It’ll all work out, it’ll all work out. This is going to be a grand adventure for us.”

Halfway up the exit…

Artist Wife of Guitarist: Y’all were walking…

Guitarist with Gold Ceiling: We were walking…we’re out of the car, the screen door experience, and we start walking. Neither one of us looked back at the orange thing…

Idyllopus Press: Never? It didn’t even occur to you to go to the orange thing?

Guitarist with Gold Ceiling: It was down, we would have had to go down an embankment and over this field. I mean, 575 is kind of a raised highway from all the farm lands below it, right? So, uh, and we never mentioned the orange thing again, which I always thought was just kind of fucking whacky as hell.

So we start up this exit, we’re about to the top of this exit and this guy pulls up in a car and goes, “Can I give y’all a ride to go get some gas…uh, can I give you a ride? What’s the matter?” And we said, “We just ran out of gas.” So he says, “Well, I know where this filling station is right over around the corner.” Uh, ok, this is weird. So I told R_____ to get in the back and we’d been talking about this UFO shit and all this kind of New Agey stuff and this guy looked military to me from the get go. So we get in the car and I told R_____ you get in the back seat and you shut the fuck up, don’t be bringing any of this shit up or we might not get any gas. So you just get in the back seat. So I get up front and the guy and I start talking and I noticed this tattoo on him is a Spook Squad, is a Spook group. Y’know, I mean. Like Black Op kind of thing in the military, this is not a normal guy. And I said, “Oh, you’re in the military,” and he said, “Yeah, I train pilots in survival techniques.” And I went well that’s the most, in the back of my mind, I think, well that’s the nichiest thing, how fucking nichey can you be in the military but to just train plain pilots and Special Op guys in survival techniques, I mean that’s some weird shit in and of itself. And I said, “Well, what are you doing here?” And he goes, well, I train them some place up north in North Carolina, one of the big military bases up there, my wife lives up there and my ex-wife lives in Tucker and I drive down every so often and visit her and my son.

And I’m thinking, “OK,” and I just store that in the back of my mind. So all of a sudden he drives down and takes us right to this filling station. And I’m thinking in the back of my mind how in the fuck does this son of a bitch know where this filling station is when there’s no…there’s not even a sign that says gas at this exit. And I’m thinking how in the fuck does this bastard know…and I just store this information. So, he gets back and he goes, “Well, I’ll take you to the car,” and I say, “No, that’s fine, we’ll just walk right down here.”

So, anyway, we get the gas and put it in the car. And I told R_____, trust me darlin’, that was something weird about this and this is not normal that this guy would know where this exit is. This is just too abstract of an exit for someone to know where gas is. Y’know, the fillin’ station was a mile or a mile and a half away from the exit. So that just…I’m somebody who looks at things and that’s what kept me alive over the years, being involved in some of the things I’ve been involved in…so that’s just one of those weird things.

So we get the gas and we start off down the road. So, all of a sudden, we get about four or five miles down the road. By this time we’re looking at 11 o’clock at night. And all of the sudden the car…

The dog starts barking, drowning out several words.

…just spikes. Literally, as if someone had pulled the plug…

Idyllopus Press: It just stopped.

Guitarist with Gold Ceiling: Pulled the plug on the car. It was like it was an electric car and someone had just pulled the plug out of the wall. And so, uh, I told R_____, I don’t know how to break this to you but, uh, I don’t think we’re going to make it home tonight. I think something is going on and we’re just not going to make it home tonight, darlin’. So we pull over and, lucky for us, there’s this filling station and…(laughs)…right off to the side, all we have to do is walk up this other exit going the opposite direction, back up this way, and over to the filling station, and I call Triple A.

So we go back to the car. So we sit there talking and we’re just talking and stuff and we can’t listen to the radio, you know, and you know it’s pretty dark up there so a lot of stars and we’re just having a lot of fun talking trash and stuff. So, I’m sitting there watching traffic coming by and so now we’re easily into the 1 o’clock hour, and I’m wondering why hasn’t Triple A showed up? And so all of a sudden I see this car come by and it’s like a hot rod, you can actually hear it coming around the bend, there’s a bend and you can hear this thing late at night. And so all of a sudden this guy passes us and I’m lookin’ in my rear view mirror and the guy pulls around and cuts across the freaking median, through the grass, and pulls up behind us. And I told R_____, I said, get down and lay down, I don’t want this guy…I don’t want anything happening, you lay down. So I get out of the car real quick and I walk to the back and the guy says, “You need some help?” and I said, “No.” And he has his shirt open and he’s got a 9 millimeter in his pants. And it’s a government issue 9 millimeter. It was right when we started issuing 9 millimeters in the United States military. And he had a military tattoo on his arm.

And I said, “No, man, I just called the Triple A, but I really appreciate the thought.”

So he for some reason went ahead and pulled this gun out, I reckon to get a reaction to it or something. And he goes, “Well it’s late at night and I always carry this thing”, or something, and I said, “I’m the same way, I’ve got a 44 magnum under the seat,” y’know, this kind of stuff. Didn’t have a gun…

Idyllopus Press: I was going to ask…

Guitarist with Gold Ceiling: No, I just thought I’d talk trash with him in case he wanted to try to see if…because I didn’t give him a response at all. I didn’t, nothing…

Artist Wife of Guitarist: You didnt’ act afraid or…

Guitarist with Gold Ceiling: Hell, no, you know me, I’m not ever going to show anybody, I’m not going to show…the old adage, never allow anyone to see you sweat, you just don’t do that. So the guy’s talking to me and I said what’s going on? And he said, “I’m just heading up to Dallas, I’ve got to finish work,” and, well, you don’t go to Dallas on 575, the first thing, right off the bat. And, uh, so anyway, I talked to him for a little while and he says, “Well, I just thought I’d stop and try to help you, man.” And I said, “Fine.” He goes in the opposite direction, back the way he came. He doesn’t even turn around to go north like he’s going to Dallas. He heads right back down and, trust me, we sit there until three or four o’clock in the morning and I say Triple A isn’t coming. So I went and called them again. And Triple A said, “We never got a phone call from y’all.” And I said, “Trust me, you got a phone call from me ’cause here’s the person’s name I talked to.” No record of any phone call ever being made to this person. The guy in the hot rod never came back up the highway.

Take my car to my mechanic the next day, or this guy tows it to my mechanic, and the guy said, well, that’s the strangest thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life. Your whole electrical system is like burnt out, just literally like it got hit with some electrical charge or something and died. He had to replace a huge quantity…had to replace the alternator, the battery, everything that ran with the electrical system that was a part, other than the wiring, was cooked.

So I get home the next day and I’m thinking, when I wake up, we didn’t get home until like six o’clock in the morning, and so I crash out and I get up and I’m thinking to myself, “That was such a military freaking experience.” The whole experience was just military from the get go. Y’know, here are the military guys showing up, as