The Gastronomical Ghastliness of the Meat Lover’s Pizza: A Most Monstrous Meal

http://www.chefclub.tv

Upon one bleak October eve, a man did find himself in a Pizza Hut most dreadful seeking solace from the weather in the finest Italian deep-dish remedy. As he sat upon the leatherette robed bench in dim and queasy light from a hanging lamp, he read the menu unaware of both what he desired and the fate, dear reader, that would soon befall his wretched soul.

There came a voice, “Wouldst thou be knowing what thee should like to imbibe, my lord?” A pitch clad waitress blinked onto view, seeming to spring forth from the grim, greasy shadows. A curious grin contorted her face into a visage that made the man quite uneasy, though he could not identify why.

“Ah, yes. I should like one large Dew o’ the Mountain, please.” He responded with a shaky voice.

“Then this is what ye shall receive, my lord. Hast thou any queries regarding the menu, pray tell?”

“I do, indeed. Wouldst thou describe unto me this item so-named the Meat Lover’s Pizza?”

“If it pleases, my lord. This Meat Lover’s you ask after is, in fact, our specialty. Our signature, ye might call it. The very definition of decadence itself. ‘Tis a base of most buttery, crispy bread, sir, topped with a sauce of tomato both savory and sweet, and melted white cheese of Italian pedigree. Upon this, my lord, you will find our chefs pile high a mountain of spicy pepperoni, crumbled sausage, and bacon most crisp.” She explained.

“That does sound a delight.” The man replied, though in his mind he was already considering something of a more vegetal variety.

“Would be folly to think this be its completion, my lord. There is yet more.” The woman’s grin grew broader and stranger.

“More, you say? What more could there be?” Confusion tinged his voice.

“My lord, there is beef atop this pizza, as well. Both ground and tendered steak, seasoned with reckless abandon.”

“Do go on.” He responded in only an attempt to be polite, for he, quite incorrectly, assumed this must complete this unusual pie that was beginning to put him off pizza all together.

“And pork – shredded to strips then tossed in succulent sauce in the style of faraway Southern lands. Ham, too, do believe, cured in honey, and smoked until most tender.”

“Meat, meat, meat.” A muffled chant originated from what the man assumed must be the kitchen.

“Chicken, my lord. Forgetting not the chicken. As well as turkey, game fowl, and duck.”

“My heavens, how large be this pizza?” The man shifted in his seat and laughed in the way one does when they are nervous.

“Meat, meat, meat.” The chant grew louder.

“Boar such as you’ve never tasted.” She continued with eyes growing large as she stared past the man, as if she could see through the very veil itself.

“I’ve never tasted boar.” He was babbling in a weak attempt to diffuse the situation, but she continued on.

“Veal, lamb, and suckling pig. Raw, all three.”

“I can’t say I like that.” The image of the meat menagerie piled upon Pizza Hut’s crisp and tender crust nauseated him. He wondered to himself how anyone could eat such a bizarre cuisine.

“Meat! Meat! Meat!” The other patrons in the dining room were joining in now.

“Deep fried bald eagle. Shaved silver back gorilla. Roast Rhino.” She added yet more to the growing list.

“T-that can’t even be legal.” The man stammered as the breath seemed to be stolen from him.

“My lord, there is yet again still… more…” Her face was savage. All around them came the chanting. Hands beat on tables rhythmically. The man wondered if this was some cruel prank. “This is no prank, no gag, my lord.”

“What! H-how did you… What is going on here? I demand to…”

“We have not even gotten to that which lives in the sea, kind lord. Fish of all sorts. Invertebrates. Mollusks.” She paused and seemed to savor the next word. “Mammals.”

“MEAT! MEAT! MEAT!”

He had hoped to make a bold intonation to shut the woman down but only managed a meek squeak. He said, in near whisper, “This is madness.”

“Madness? No, not madness. This is love.”

The chant barely sounded like English any longer, barely sounded human. The guttural rhythm was animal, alien even. It was occasionally punctuated by the ecstatic cry of a chanter lost in their mesmerized trance. “It is the manifestation of Pizza Hut’s love and total devotion to meat. Our affection made flesh… if you would.”

“I am leaving!” The man announced and started to stand from his booth. But the woman produced from her apron pocket a steely pizza cutter and wielded it in his direction.

“Leaving, my lord? You can’t leave yet. I have not even told you of the crown of the Meat Lover’s Pizza. The most rarest of delicacies that so few have the glorious privilege of tasting in their lifetime. A topping fit not just for a king, not even for an emperor. A pizza topping fit for a god!”

“No! It can’t be. It mustn’t be. End this practical joke this very moment. It’s too much, you’ve gone too far.” Tears welled in the man’s eyes knowing that this was no joke.

“The final meat topping of the Pizza Hut Meat Lover’s Pizza is…” The room went as silent as the cursed deserts of Antarctica. Every eye was on the man. The waitress lifted the pizza cutter higher above her head. “HEART OF LONG PIG!”

She brought the pizza cutter down in a glinting flash, expertly slicing open the man’s chest and exposing his yet beating heart for the onlookers with unholy hunger filling their dead eyes.

Thoughts about the religious Death Cult that is happy to watch the country burn.

Conservative Christians don’t actually care about the constitution, rights, or people. This is because they are members of a death cult that expects the world to end. They WANT the world to end, they want the rapture. They think everyone else is a lost cause so there’s no reason to respect law or the will of the people.

If you’ve never been to the kind of churches these politicians go to, you’d be terrified. They are obsessed with the end of days. I used to go to one of these churches as a child. They make it seem like Armageddon could happen at any moment. And they want it now! Because it’s a “good” thing. This isn’t a theoretical belief. They believe it’s real. And imminent.

The way that moderates relate to these extremists is extra goofy because they will vote for the death cultists only because they figure an extremist is better than someone who may not be a Christian. But a lot of moderates aren’t even Christians out of faith or belief but because they are hedging their spiritual bets.

Even many Catholics (who are relatively mellow on the Christianity spectrum) will disregard the ideals of the founding fathers and throw in with the hellfire and brimstone crowd because they agree on one, maybe two, issues. And they’re most certainly better than a Jew, Muslim, or (God forbid!) an atheist.

Are there Democrats in the death cult? Of course. Maybe not as many and maybe they aren’t so adamant. They don’t feel the need to try and herd the entire country into the end times.

You may find it odd that this relatively small death cult has such a large presence in government. But it’s because they are trying to steer the ship and people are just happy to have captains to hand the job over to so they don’t have to do it. But they don’t realize these same captains think the ships are predestined to crash on the rocks and that it’s paradise (for them) after the impact.

Is there any way to persuade someone to improve the world we live in, or at least not actively destroy it, when they believe there’s a better world awaiting (in the sky, Lord, in the sky)? I doubt it. So, what can we do? Vote better people into office – that would at least be a step in the right direction.

Never mind the punk rock, here’s the Juggalos.

This is a post from an old blog I was trying to write circa 2013. It’s fine. I guess. Writing is hard. I think that, since writing this, my opinion of ICP and Juggalos has actually improved. ICP actually came out with an aggressively pro-vaccine stance in the Covid era – because they have a familiar love for their fans, for their community, and just want them to be happy, healthy, and well. Wild idea, right! I still can’t take listening to ICP, their music is atrocious, but despite adopting the image of Mallrat Serial Killer Clowns, ICP seems like pretty solid dudes.

There was a sort of movement. It mostly involved the youth. Disaffected youth who couldn’t find a place in mainstream society. There were nihilists and malcontents and misfits. They rejected cultural norms and mores. Drugs and loose, free sexuality abounded. This movement came from the bottom up. It wasn’t the product of Madison Avenue or Pepsi Co.
 It cut a wide swath across demographics but it was mostly lower, working class at first. Then some middle class kids crept in. It was low brow but it may have had some broader aspirations. Music was in the forefront. The angst and anger was borne of a world they didn’t quite fit into but it was music that brought them together.
They were juggalos. Or punks. or maybe even hippies, beats, greasers, mods, skinheads, zoot suiters…. It wasn’t just once upon a time. 
That may ruffle some feathers. To put juggalos in the same realm as punks will be sacrilege to some. Because to some extent punk has become a religion. The scene is the church and if you don’t make it to service and follow the arbitrary standards each denomination sets, you aren’t going to be welcome for long. It wasn’t always like that. That’s what I’ve read anyway. And, also from what I’ve read, that’s how the juggalo movement is now. Accepting of all. The voice of the voiceless. It seems absurd to give such positive qualities to a trailer park trend, one centered around the likes of the Insane Clown Posse. But are they really that far, speaking of content, from The Exploited or Stiff Little Fingers, though? You may be surprised. If you take a minute to stop romanticizing your favorite bands, that is. 
And punk has been co-opted by business. It started grassroots and ground up but now it’s controlled by the suits. That is the fate of the juggalo thing too. Maybe it has already started. But it’s still closer to the proletariat than Green Day are and have been in years. 
That’s right. The skeezy, sketchy, scummy, dirt bag weirdos have taken up the mantle of the aimless, feckless, weirdo, freaks. And we hate it. Because that’s what we do. We, the past our prime. We, the living in the past. We, the fuddy duddies. I’ve listened to ICP and other juggalo artists. I think they are wretched. But that’s what the normals thought of Television and The Stooges, The MC5 and The Sex Pistols. That’s what they thought of Jefferson Airplane and The Who. And Elvis. Yes! Even Elvis. Elvis may have known how magnets worked but from the squares upstairs point of view, he was a no class scum bag from the sticks.
It stings a little. But that just means we’re getting old. We’re getting clueless. The juggalos are an authentic, spontaneous, organic explosion of youthful rebellion. I was never a part of it. I was a punk rocker. A reverberation of a punk rocker. By the time I was around, punk was very dead, very convoluted, very watered down. Punk has rules. Rules aren’t punk. Juggalos don’t have rules. Not yet. But they will. Like Ouroboros, juggalos will devour themselves with petty infighting and code enforcement. And they will be living dinosaurs. But their kids will have the newest edition of an old idea. Antiestablishmentism. And we’ll understand it even less. It’s starting right now, no doubt. And we’re going to hate it.

Public Speaking In The Uncomfort Zone

College professors, it seems, are exceedingly fond of telling you, “You need to get out of your comfort zone.” and they, they alone, are the ones burdened with the glorious purpose of forcing you out of it. If you don’t have much of a comfort zone to begin with, it feels like they are just being assholes for the sport of it. Like slapping someone hard on the back when you know they have a wicked sunburn. I’m one of those folks that always has a sunburn.

With that said, taking a state university Public Speaking course online during a global pandemic at 40 years old is uncomfortable. Awkward is a good word for it. But nearly everything I’ve done in my life has been awkward, so why not? Why not subject my anxious and middle-aged fool of a self to most people’s nightmare – Speaking in Public? And do it all over the internet, so it makes even less sense. 

There is a greater goal here. It’s a required class for an Online Bachelor’s Degree program I’ve enrolled myself in – if this entire endeavor is ill advised, that will have to wait to be seen. But I do actually enjoy college, at least the two years I have done so far. I don’t know if I would have enjoyed it had I attended when I “should” have, back when I was 18-ish. But doing community college at 35 straight up felt like cheating. Most everyone else was in a state of 13th grade confusion and naiveté, while I was like, “Yes, I have read books in my life, I know what’s going on.” That felt pretty amazing because I rarely know what’s going on. But, alas, that stint in the academic slammer was for the purpose of attaining an Associate’s Degree and lasted only two trips around the sun. It’s taken me another three to get my lazy bones back into gear to continue on towards a Bachelor’s, but here we are.

To get a bit of a head start, at the suggestion of my advisor, I looked for a summer class to enroll in before starting properly in the fall. The options were limited, so I ended up with Public Speaking. Not ideal, but it had to be done. And because of Covid, the only option was online, which is just fine for me. I don’t like to be in the proximity of other humans even in the very best of times. Being able to do my schoolin’ while sitting on the couch with a beer is extremely on-brand for me. 

“Public Speaking? Yuck! My worst fear! But you’re a musician, you’re fine with singing on stage in front of people. This should be fine for you.” I heard this from a number of people. I tried to tell myself the same thing – You can stand on stage alone with an acoustic guitar despite having no confidence in your abilities and perform for 45 minutes. Why should giving a speech be any worse? And you don’t even have to physically be in front of people. That didn’t turn out to be entirely correct. There were four speeches in the class. Each had to be recorded on video in a single take and uploaded for the other students to see. But two of the four needed to have a physical audience of three people. I don’t know why but three people is an awful amount of people to speak in front of. It’s not a great number to sing in front of either, even if it’s friends or band mates. One person, that’s pretty natural. 10 or more people and it just becomes a singular mass and feels fine (for me, anyway). But three – woof! They are RIGHT THERE and you can see and feel them paying attention to you. I can already feel the sweating forming on the small of my back.

The other two speeches, however, were just me and a camera. I’ve made YouTube videos before, just me talking into the camera. And I’ve done podcasts. It wasn’t my first time speaking to an anonymous and invisible internet audience. But something about labeling it as Public Speaking, and the requirement to be a single take, turns the whole thing into an impossible task. Even rehearsing a speech 100 times, in front of a camera, even one that is recording, doesn’t help. Once it’s time to do one for real, time to “Do It Live”, my brain would just shut off. Closed For Business. Failure in the RAM Module. Blue Screen of Death. 

I got through it, though. Somehow. Not just passing the class, I got a 96%. Gotta be that 40 year old’s head start. After years of working real world jobs, you know that the work has to get done. The appropriately aged students… ⅓ of the class didn’t even finish. Half of those who were remaining didn’t even do all the speeches. If I was 18, I almost certainly would have been one of the ones who disappeared. 

So, there were four speeches. The instructions for each were fairly nebulous and the content was wholly up to the speaker, any topic you wanted. All of them had to make use of the information and techniques we were reading and learning about in the text – they had to be structured correctly, have a logical order, and be extemporaneous, not improvised or read, etc.  The first speech had to be 2-3 minutes and be an autobiographical narrative. Most of the other students did something along the lines of:

“Hey, guys. This is my speech about me. I’m majoring in something here at College. I live at home with people. I have a family and pets. Um.. yeah, that’s pretty much it. Thanks. ByeeeEEEEEE.”

It had never occurred to me that anyone would ask that. And I didn’t have a particularly good answer. It’s music… stuff like that happens. Doesn’t everyone know that? Don’t even normies know that? Why did my band mate and I lie to everyone at the show, which was in a barn on the night before Halloween, and say that we were brothers? If you’re going to ask questions like that… Why do anything?

My second speech was about transgender musicians. The prompt for the speech was simply that it needed to be an Informative Speech. This speech was also done in front of a small audience – my wife, and two friends. Despite the rules of the assignment being that the speech should be extemporaneous, I had memorized the entire thing. I don’t know how to speak extemporaneously. I guess that’s the point of the class, though. But I had it memorized. Nearly 5 minutes of facts about Teddy Geiger, Billy Tipton, and Lil’ Ax Brodnax. Everything was ready to go, the camera was set up, my three viewers waiting for me. And my brain shut off. Completely empty head. My face radiated heat and embarrassment, and my heart sank. All because it’s called public speaking…

Now, I’ve given presentations before. I’ve had to do them for classes previously. In my third semester at community college I had two classes that both had nearly the exact same assignment, one for Color Photography I and the other for History of Photography. The assignments were to pick a photographer, research them, and give a presentation in front of the class. Typical, right? Since I like to make things difficult and have no comfort zone, I thought I would do a little experiment. I picked two photographers, did a bunch of research, made slideshows of their photos. For one, I made a bunch of notes, planned the presentation out, and practiced giving it. The other, I decided to just wing it. The first went off without a hitch –  A+. The second was a little shaky at parts, had some minor butterflies at the start, but… A+. I lost my train of thought a few times, but it was ok. It probably lacked polish and lexicological flair but I still got a great grade. No one ever called it public speaking, though. I don’t know why it would be any different. I don’t know why it would be so much worse. All I had to do was recite the text I had written in front of a camera and three people I knew very well. Don’t tell my teacher but I had to stop and restart the recording… a few times… it took me probably close to 45 mins to reset my brain enough to be able to get through the thing. But I did. And I got an A. Somehow. 

The third speech was to be a Persuasive Speech. I did mine on why it is unfair to pay workers with disabilities less than minimum wage for their labour, which is legal in certain circumstances. This was another without an audience, mercifully. Still, even with that small gift, the mere thought of it being *Public Speaking* made it so hard to get through. There were hours of rehearsing and still, when it came time to do it, I had to essentially read the entire speech from my notes. I wasn’t alone in my strife, though. Watching the other students’ videos I could see that everyone was struggling with speaking in this way. Like I said, a good portion of the class were not even doing the assignments. I was lightyears ahead of some of them without even being good. 

The final speech was back to having an audience. Being a summer class, it was only 6 weeks long instead of a full semester. But even so, I was mentally fatigued and on the brink of being totally checked out. The prompt for this speech was that the student was to imagine a future position where, perhaps at a job, they would have to give a speech or presentation and write something that they could see themselves doing in that position. I have no desire to teach but I have had to give a few photography classes for my current job and I have, as I said, done some YouTube videos and podcasts. So I went with the idea of speaking about how to cultivate creativity. I anchored my speech around the quote “Write drunk; Edit sober” that is misappropriated to Erenst Hemingway. It was enough material to half-ass my way through 8 minutes. But it was pure pain. It hurts even now thinking about it. I watched the videos of the other three speeches and even uploaded them for the entire world to make fun of. This one, however, I never actually watched, and certainly did not upload for the general public to watch. 

What is important, though, at least to me, is not that I learned anything, not that I grew as a person, not that I stepped out of my comfort zone – no, what matters to me is that I got an A. I have plenty of opportunities outside of college to grow and improve. Only in school can I get good grades, even if it is by bending rules and being way older than everyone else.  

Sports Are Not War

Sports are a stand-in for war. Which is a weird thing since we still have a whole lot of war in the world. But for most people in the modern western world war is a sanitized, anonymous, nebulous thing that happens elsewhere. We don’t have direct contact with war. So we have sports instead. Teams and athletes become national avatars that compete in arenas instead of battlefields, with balls of different shapes and sizes in place of weapons, wearing bright and bold colors instead of camouflage. The athlete is the modern war hero, our Leonidas, our Beowulf. 

But sports are not war. Sports are not life and death. The point of having sports as a stand-in for war is so the battles are not deadly. So the combatants are not injured and maimed. 

So, why do we, as a society, expect athletes to risk their health, wellbeing, and even lives, for the sake of sports, for winning? Yes, I am asking this in relation to Simone Biles and the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. There has been plenty of noise online in the form of criticism coming from certain groups casting the choice of Biles to drop out of competition as some sort of moral failure. This is even after Biles revealed that she was suffering from what gymnasts call the Twisties. The Twisties are, despite the frivolous sounding name, a serious hindrance to a gymnast’s performance that could put them in dangerous situations. The condition, similar to what they call the Yips in other sports such as Baseball, is a mental block that prevents you from performing a routine action that you are trained to undertake.  That may manifest as a pitcher not being able to control their fastball. For a gymnast, it’s the inability to maintain spatial awareness as you are flipping and rotating through the air. If you lose track of your orientation as you are flipping, you are very likely to land wrong, possibly on your head. Because of this, Biles chose to sit out most of the remaining competition. As is her decision to make. One I would have made, as well. 

But to many people, this was the wrong decision. Because sports are a stand-in for war and we’ve come to expect the hero’s journey from sports stars. Complete with humble beginnings, overcoming insurmountable odds, and pushing to the brink of death to take grasp of victory. Or something. Sports are not life and death situations, though. Doing the Uneven Bars is not bringing the One Ring to Mordor to throw it in the fires of Mount Doom. Simone Biles could have put herself at great risk if she continued to compete. Just like Kerri Strug put herself in physical danger at the insistence of Bela Károlyi in 1996 in what turned out to be a move that ended her career. And just like countless Football players that have put themselves at risk of traumatic brain injury. For what? For some twisted and empty sense of “glory”? For money? For our entertainment?

Sports are a stand-in for war but sports are not war. They are not life-and-death. There is no reason to pretend that they are just because it makes for good TV. Injuries will always be a byproduct of engaging in sports, or any physical activity. That is inevitable. But it should be inexcusable to insist, to demand, that athletes risk life and limb to fulfill our glory-hungry war stand-in fantasies. 

4 Things I’ve Learned Working In Retail

I’ve only had three real jobs in my life. That is to say there are three businesses that have furnished me with W-2 forms at tax time, not that I’ve only had three sources of income. The majority of my time in the working world was at a single warehouse, for some eleven years. But the last 3 ½ years have found me working in a small retail shop. I always dreaded working in retail and I can say that my fears were not unfounded. 

I’ve learned a number of things working in retail but the most prominent is: People Are Strange.

I could wrap it up right there. Full Stop. Thanks for reading. See you next time.

There is more to it, of course, but that is the bumper sticker version. I’m going to go ahead and break the strangeness of people into 4 more granular elements. 

1. People Overshare. A lot.   Anyone who works with people at large will likely tell you this. Maybe even without you asking. People will take any situation and direct it into some bizarre and self focused tangent full of personal details that do not need to be spoken about with strangers. Sometimes there is some thin thread of logic in the customer’s mind that leads them to the topic. “Well, I need to buy a new camera because my mother died of cancer 5 years ago so I stopped taking photos but I think I’m ready to get back into photography now.” THAT kind of logic. Other times, there’s no pretense, at least not externally. “I’d like to buy this backpack. My husband has IBS and spends a long time in the bathroom.” Ok…. thanks for that.

2. People Will Not Do Things For Themselves.  Some people will, of course, but the type of people who frequent brick and mortar stores in 2021 frequently won’t. An astounding number of people come into the shop looking for items that we clearly do not sell and, upon being informed we do not sell the item, ask if we can order the items for them. 

“That’s not something we deal in but you should be able to order it easily enough from Amazon.” I’ll say.

 “Can’t you just order it for me?” they’ll respond.

 “…from Amazon?”

“Yes.”

“…”

3. People Lie. Of course, they do. That’s not news but people will lie about the weirdest things, as well as fabricating alternate versions of reality they expect you to participate in. One way that people do this that continually baffles me is something that I’m going to dub The Gaslight Call. The phone will ring and the caller on the other end will have a question, maybe about if something is in stock or if we perform a certain service. The question will be answered and the caller may or may not like what they hear. A day later, or maybe an hour later, or even immediately after, the phone will ring again. It will be the same caller with the exact same question. The answer will be exactly the same. If you ask if they called the day before, an hour earlier, or immediately prior, they deny it. But it 100% is the same caller with the same question. The voice is the same. The phone number on caller ID is the same. Yet… they will deny having ever called before. Why? Why would you do that? Is it a prank? A social experiment? Do I not get enough sleep? Am I slowly falling out of sync with time? 

4. People Have Nothing Better To Do And Will Not Break Their Expected Behavior Pattern. If you are dragging yourself into a store that doesn’t sell groceries, there’s a good chance you have time on your hands. Part of the reason that online shopping has taken over is because of how quickly you can buy things. You don’t need to spend the time driving across town, talking to a salesperson for an hour, checking out, then driving all the way back home. If you’ve got nothing going on, however, who cares about the time investment? And if you don’t care about the time, you may as well waste everyone else’s time while you’re at it. Right? Retail jobs entail more than just talking to customers, however. Retail workers have other tasks they need to get done. Just because you have nothing better to do does not mean everyone else has all day to kill by shooting the breeze. I shouldn’t paint every customer as a malicious, or even just ambivalent, time thief. Some people are just stuck on being compelled to carry out the interaction as they pictured, or at least taking up the time they allotted for an interaction. Customers will come in expecting whatever they need to take 30 minutes, an hour, whatever. If their needs are addressed in much less time, they can’t process it. If they say, “This widget is broken” and you say “Nope, this thing is just turned off,” they short circuit and will go into the 10 minute monologue they had prepared ahead of time about how much they love the widget and they couldn’t go on living without it so it needs to be fixed. All you can do is repeat “good thing it’s not broken…” as they continue the unnecessary soliloquy. And upon completion of their tale, I’ve had people say “I carved out an hour for this because I thought it would take longer, what are we going to do for the next 55 minutes?”

Nothing! We, as a partnership, are going to do nothing, I hope. Our transaction is complete and I have other things I need to do!

These 4 bullet points barely scratch the surface of how weird people act in retail spaces. If you work in retail, if you’re a retail long hauler, a lifer, you have all of my sympathies. I sincerely hope I’ve committed none of these trespasses against you. 

What are some of the strangest interactions you’ve had working in retail?

The State Of The Scene : Syracuse Music 2021

Against The Giants

As far back as I can recall, the music scene (scenes?) here in Syracuse, NY had some big chip-on-shoulder vibes. Maybe it’s because we’re in such close proximity to large metropolitan areas that have had much more vibrant art and music communities. Even back in what now feel like mythical days when there were, or at least it seemed like there were, multiple shows every night, touring bands with local openers every week, random folks who would just be at shows even though they didn’t know anyone, there was always the oft repeated mantra “Syracuse Sucks”. There was the perception of nothing happening. And that was prior to the internet becoming a monolithic cultural force. Prior to rock music dying. Prior to scenes all across the country disappearing. And most certainly before the country closed for a year.

But now we’re back. What does back mean, though? Like so many other aspects of life, what does getting back to normal mean? Was normal good? Do we want the normal we had?

During the lockdown, a number of my friends released some fantastic music. The face-to-face-socializing door closing became the forcing-yourself-to-be-creative-alone window opening. With all this new music, there are certainly some bands eager to get back to playing live music. That will be a slow process and everyone gets comfortable being in public again. As live music returns,  I was curious about what people were feeling about the state of music in Syracuse. 

Mattydale Music Collective

With the people I talked to there was a mix of pessimism and cautious optimism. Regardless of that, there was more consensus on some points than I expected. 

1. The pandemic was viewed as a hurdle but not as a game changer. Any issues the local music scene has existed prior to the lockdown and it will likely return to the same pace that it was at, for better or worse.
2. The internet has not negatively impacted local music. I have pondered the idea that young people are not engaging with local music in the same way my generation did, e.g. going to shows, because of the internet. If you can have any super niche genre from around the world at your fingertips instantly, why would you even bother taking a risk on something from your hometown that you may not like. That was my thinking. In other people’s experience the internet has mostly helped local music, at least in terms of fan engagement and getting music to people.
3. One thing everyone agreed on is that Syracuse has a severe lack of venues for music. Very few, if any, venues are hosting local original music on any sort of regular basis. All of the “usual suspect” go-to places have closed or focus on cover bands or bigger name artists. The positive outlook on this is that we’re going to see a big increase in DIY thinking and shows are going to happen in more non-traditional spaces. The negative outlook is that live music is fading away.
4. Another point that was pretty much agreed on across the board is that we are not suffering from a lack of talent. Everyone I asked dropped a long list of awesome local music with no hesitation. Sadly, great bands and artists are not enough to make a “scene”, though. There needs to be some infrastructure to glue everything together. Part of that is venues. But there’s also promoters who book the shows (and take the financial risk, frequently), some sort of media coverage (if only minor, and frequently getting band names wrong), record labels (if they are still relevant at all),  and a community of fans, in particular mega fans. There were always people in the scene who served as hubs – you’d see them and they’d have all the latest news about all the bands, they’d give you the run down of who was putting out new stuff, who was playing with who, who sounded good and who sucked at the show last Friday. These hub fans were frequently not even in bands themselves. They just loved music and couldn’t help but promote all of it. 

When the scene is suffering, bands will frequently attack each other. This is something that has always bothered me. When a show has low attendance, the next day a band broadcasts that they are angry at all the other bands for not coming to the show. I never understood that. Musicians are broke, busy, and anti-social. Not the sort of people you can rely on to support you. The scene needs fans, it needs the megafans, it needs young zealots, and it needs old heads. Yes, it needs the parents. Parents are the people who are going to interact with the scene that are most likely to have money. No surprise here, a scene needs money to survive. But that’s a different rant, I guess.

I’ve gone out to my first two shows of the year in the past couple weeks. It was strange to be around people for sure. But it was nice that there were people to be around. Others have told me that shows have had good attendance recently. It may be just that people are antsy to get out and do things again. But maybe it’s a change in momentum. 

Wunderbar – Syracuse, NY

So, what’s the state of the scene? Not great, it seems. But not hopeless. This doesn’t answer another question I had, however. Does it matter? Do we need a scene? I think there are certainly benefits – it’s fun, there’s a sense of community, it fosters growth among the bands because they’re all pushing each other forward. But that’s not exclusive to meatspace, all of that happens online as well. 

This feels like a pivotal point. The next year could drastically change how we engage with local music. There are plenty of artists who are hungry and want to be heard. It’ll be interesting to see how we, as a community, react.

The Allchild – A Creation Myth

This is a short story I wrote that I found in one of my old notebooks. I think at the time I was reading a lot of 70s and 80s Sci Fi short story collections with lots of “What If…” type material.

Humanity had reached the point where they no longer needed God. The separation was difficult, as you can imagine, but the Earth had gained its independence.  God still watched and tried to assist, or at least give advice, whenever humanity would allow it.

The time came when God died. Humanity wept as they went through the period of grieving. They were not heart-broken, though, and carried on as you must after the death of a loved one.

The Earth spun on. People made things – inventions, scientific discoveries, works of art. Yet, they still remembered the love of God and they missed the feeling. They were happy to be sailing of their own steam but longed for that level of connection with another.

“An Allchild!” someone suggested. And the idea was repeated, and again, and again, until the planet, as one, agreed, “We shall create an Allchild.”

And they did. A child, fresh and perfect, came into being, the sum of every soul of Earth, living and not. It was a beautiful being that was loved by all. Peace fell over the planet as they cared for the newborn. The Allchild learned to reflect the love given to it back to its parents – it smiled. It laughed at the doting of the humans. It cooed and giggled and the Earth, as one, beamed and melted from joy.

The Allchild was taught language. At first it babbled but soon could communicate with ease. As the Allchild grew, it learned more and more from the humans.

“Another Allchild?” someone asked. The question was weighed throughout the Earth. The presence of the the Allchild had done so much for the planet. The people were changed, they felt they had purpose and knew they would always be loved. But caring for the Allchild was also a burden and Humanity had learned responsibility at the cost of its freedom, for the Allchild required constant attention. It was decided that them time was not right for a second Allchild.

As the days progressed, the people of Earth were continually amazed by how the Allchild grew. The Earth’s heart swelled with pride. Before they knew it, the Allchild didn’t need them any longer, although the Allchild did not yet realize this. The Earth grew melancholic seeing that it would come to pass that the Allchild would one day need its own independence and would have to live out its own life. That thought was pushed aside as they enjoyed their time with their perfect, beautiful offspring.

It cannot be said that the peace that fell over the Earth was prefect or everlasting. The peoples of Earth would argue over how to prepare the Allchild for the time when it had to care for itself and at times they would also, perhaps selfishly, vie for the attention of the Allchild, to be in the spotlight of its love. For the most part things were well, however. At a certain age, conflicts did begin to occur between parents and child. Sometimes, these would arise from misunderstandings –  the Allchild not expressing itself well or being able to understand the reasoning behind decisions the Earth would make. Eventually, the struggle began for the Allchild to be its own individual, free of the watch of Humanity. Time brought fewer misunderstandings but more of the struggle until it was clear the Allchild was no longer a child and must fare for itself.

Remote Viewing in 2020

2020 was a weird year. Due to circumstances, it’s been pretty difficult to go out and do much photographing. So I spent a lot of time on Google Maps. I may have done that anyways. I like to cruise around strange places on Street View. Sometimes I use it for scouting out spots to shoot. Sometimes I just “drive around”.

One day back in February I was looking up a spot and was amused by some strange anomaly (I think it was a truck traveling along side the camera car and ended up looking like a centipede-truck) so I took a screen cap. I took more screen caps of weird things I found. Then I saw a rundown blue house with a dead blue car in the yard in Nebraska. I thought it looked like a “real photo” so I capped it and toyed around with editing it. I really liked the result.

After that my goal changed to finding views that I would take photos of if I was in that actual location with my camera and editing them as I would my own photos. And these photos became a zine (my second of the year). You can buy print copies HERE.

Free Astral Projection Lessons

This is not a photography related post… This is a short story I wrote based on a dream I had.

A man named Rex sat on the ground in front of a house holding what had become an uncomfortable Holiday Party. Some would refer to Rex as a manchild instead of a man and everyone inside the house would finger him as the primary source of the discomfort looming over the now woeful Holiday Party. He sat on the ground but there was no snow as this house was located in one of the warm Southern states. Maybe Arizona or California or Texas. Hopefully not Texas, though. Rex from Texas, Texas Rex, would be very silly. 

As Rex sat there on the ground listening to the soundtrack of indignant conversation muted by the exterior house walls, his phone buzzed in his pocket indicating the receipt of a text message. He retrieved his phone and saw it was from the short code 102030. It was marked as Spam. He opened to it anyway. 

Free Astral Projection Lessons. Follow THis Link For More Information!

“I sure could use that right now.” Rex thought to himself.

The front door of the house opened and through it walked Hera, the intrepid reporter. As she walked by, she and Rex both held up hands to acknowledge the other without looking over at each other. The party was at the start of ending and soon someone would come to collect Rex from the front yard and fetch him away to his apartment, where more Holiday “Cheer” would ensue long into the night until the neighbours would bang upon walls and ceilings and summon the police to break up a domestic disturbance.

Hera did not think about this as she slid into her Toyota Prius. Well, not HER Prius – it was a rental. She was in this particular Southern State for work and her company was paying for the car. The Holiday Party was an excuse for networking with some important people. She creeped the car backwards down the black top driveway and onto the road. An Infotainment System in the dashboard told her to drive west and then north. She made the car go forward and followed the instructions, weaving through the ramen noodle maze of long, curving housing development streets that seemed to endlessly loop in upon themselves and stretch on in every direction like a melancholy labyrinth in some creepy pasta. 

The Suburbs were not her home. Hera was from The North, from The City. Maybe Toronto or New York or Chicago. Someplace cold in the winter, where people don’t talk much and there are jobs for people like Hera but not for most people. The rented Infotainment System led her out of The Suburbs but then brought her somewhere even more unfamiliar  – The Country. She had never been to The Country prior to this business trip. And now she was spending her nights in a horse barn. There were no horses in the barn. It was converted into living spaces. It was actually very nice. But very remote. 

The barn had been converted from horse quarters to human quarters and scientific research space. There was still a fair amount of barny “charm” at the insistence of the property owners. Mostly just over priced rusty garbage found on Etsy. The owner-proprietors thought that it was all just oh so quaint. And the perfect environment for doing important sciency stuff. Sciency stuff like studying the Weird Spot. 

What’s a Weird Spot? It’s a place that’s just… odd. Physics may be off there, or there’s a Big Mood. It might be a Liminal Space. It’s really jarony. To get to the point of the matter, however, it’s a place where weird things happen. Weird physics, weird energy, weird weird weird. And Hera was here for the weird. Not as a personal interest. It was strictly professional. She worked for a website called. Drugs! For Kids! Magazine. Or DFKM for short.

DFKM was an online news magazine website that had a fair amount of actual journalistic integrity but hid it behind trying to be as edgy and offensive as possible. They did things like send an amazing writer to cover the democratic National Convention but made him take a bunch of Ketamine while he was there. One of their specialities was shitty headlines. Hera did an exposé on a string of mysterious deaths that were not directly linked but seemed to have a connection via the Online Zeitgeist. It drew some fascinating conclusions. The headline DFKM ran with was “We Spoke to the Homosexual Coroner About Ellisa Lamb’s Nose”. The story had little more than a mention of Lamb. The coroner was queer but that had nothing to do with the story. This was the tone of DFKM, though. Edgy for the sake of edgy to hide that they actually cared about journalism. 

Hera slipped into her too soft, vintage, horse-pattern blanket covered bed and drifted into a state of not quite sleep. Her phone, sitting atop an antique cigarette stand, buzzed to indicate a text message arrived. She did not see the missive at that moment, but it read:

Free Astral Projection Lessons. Follow THis Link For More Information!

And in the next moment her phone was ringing. It was hours later, really, but it felt like the very next moment. Still deep in a state of sleep intoxication, Hera answered the phone and heard herself say Hello. Her boss was on the other end of the connection. He was very awake and in full-on work mode. He did not grok Time Zone Difference. From a far away coast, he spoke in a quick and curt manner, informing Hera that she would need to be on the scene, that very day, for “THird Line Day”. 

What is “THird Line Day”?

What is “THird Line Day”?!? 

“That is what I said.”

“Jesus Christ, what are we paying you for! It’s the Gathering Of The Juggalos for YouTube losers. And you’re in town for it, Hera! Some asshole YouTuber made a video of themself using an app to locate Weird Spots and went to investigate YOUR Weird Spot. They live streamed half a video that just cut off and were never heard from again. Presumed dead as fuck! That was two years ago. Now a bunch of dumbass, whiteass vloggers congregate to “celebrate their life”. And of course they all make videos out of it, because that’s the real goddamn point. Being seen at this idiot thing is huge for their views. And you need to go talk to these fools. It’ll be huge for OUR views.“

“I hate it. Awesome. I’ll be there.” She mumbled in response.

“Yeah, you will. Find some cringey angle.”

There was a parade of neon through what passes for a downtown. The THird Line crowd favors dayglow clothing, presumably to be as visible in their mourning as possible. As they walk through the streets on a meandering journey towards the entrance to the Weird Spot outside of town, there are many handmade signs but, more importantly, many cell phones and cameras documenting the whole shebang. Most of the THird Line doesn’t even know the name of the vlogger who went missing. That’s not what is important. What’s important is being seen at the memorial. 

“Why do you call yourselves the THird Line?” Hera asked a manchild who looked like Owen Wilson in a creamsicle colored t-shirt.

“The Second Line is a tradition in parades organized by Social Aid and Pleasure Clubs (SAPCs) with brass band parades in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. The “main line” or “first line” is the main section of the parade, or the members of the SAPC with the parading permit as well as the brass band. The Second Line consists of people who follow the band to enjoy the music, dance, and engage in “community.” The Second Line’s style of traditional dance, in which participants dance and walk along with the SAPCs in a Foundational Black American-based, free-form style with parasols and handkerchiefs, is called “second-lining”. It is one of the most Foundationally Black American-retentive cultures in the United States.^[1] It has been called “the quintessential New Orleans art form – a jazz funeral without a body”.^[2] Another significant difference from jazz funerals is that Second Line parades lack the slow hymns and dirges played at funerals (although some organizations may have the band play a solemn selection toward the start of the parade in memory of members who died since their last parade).” He quoted WIkipedia verbatim. “And we are the ones following that, to.. Uh.. raise awareness of… what happened.. To our fellow community member.” He ended that sentence like a question. Hera used all of her physical power to avoid showing visible disdain. 

“Ok, can you explain the stylization of ‘THird Line’, with the extra capital ‘H’?”

“Uh, yeah, that is because..” 

BZZT, the phone in his hand buzzed.

“What’s with all these spam texts? Have you been getting way more weird texts than usual?” He interrupted himself to ask.

“I guess. What does it say?”

“Something about…” He squinted at his phone “Ashrhul Protections?”

“WHADDUP! Its ya’ boy!” shouted a white girl who had walked up next to Hera and Not Luke WIlson into her phone. 

“OH, dang! Lil Pow Pow.” He threw his arm around the newcomer and they both pointed at the screen in her hand. “You KNOW!” he incanted for the unseen audience on the other side of the internet. 

“Some help that was.” Hera mumbled to herself. 

Hera weaved in and out of the crowd, asking questions, receiving vacuous answers, as the mob slowly marched the streets. Eventually, they all made their way on to a stretch of residential perimeter streets, then to a road with no houses, and to the entrance of The Weird Spot. Over the dirt driveway stood a wooden arch with a sign. To emphasize the Weirdness, a few of the letters were backwards. The wacky character of the signage was offset by the pair of uniformed police officers that blocked the path. 

The THird Liners booed at the cops and made vague insistences of being let in that, while playing well on video, were ultimately barely even perceived by the officers. Appearing to clash with the authorities and implying some sort of cover up was great for getting likes but to actually put oneself in physical and legal peril was not worth it. For maybe 45 minutes, the THird Line milled around gathering enough footage for their videos. They all made sure to get click-baity still photos to use for thumbnails, something along the lines of the vlogger in the foreground making an exaggerated frown with a grumpy cop behind them which would be paired with bright text reading LET US IN on a video with a really tone deaf title along the lines of THird Lives Matter. Hera took it all in and tried to wrap her head around how to turn this shitshow into an article. 

Hera went back to the horse barn. It was at the backside of the Weird Spot. From the entrance, where the YouTubers had been, she could have walked straight through The Spot to get there but she was not allowed that privilege.There were scientists at the horse barn doing science to study The Weird Spot. They claimed to be scientists, anyway. And they claimed to be doing science. It did cross Hera’s mind that the research aspect of all of this could just be marketing, just a PR stunt. The Weird Spot was a commercial operation after all. A tourist trap. At the barn, suspiciously attractive men and women in their early thirties carried clipboards and walked from station to station, making notes on the paper on their clipboards and nodding. They were all always nodding, as if confirming something they expected. Always nodding.

Hera’s pocket buzzed but it was not a spam text message. It was her boss from Drugs! Calling.

“Did you get some of that good good today?”

“I don’t know. These people are a bunch of tools. But not even in an interesting way.” she responded.

“OK, well… well…. Well, I guess you gotta go in.”

“What?”

“Tonight. You gotta go in. To the spot.”

“Go in?”

“Eff yeah. You got any mushrooms or anything?”

“No, I don’t have any mushrooms.”

“Too bad. Can you get some cough syrup or something? You gotta get suuuuper faded and sneak into the spot.”

“No, I don’t have any sort of drugs and I can’t sneak into the spot. There’s security and scientists and whatever.”

“You know that’s all for show. And you’ve gotta have something. Listen, just get weird and get in there. That’s the story. Abduct some aliens and you probe them! I don’t know. Give me something. It was mad expensive to send you there.”

“More expensive than sending Hunter to Kenya?’

“No. But Hunter did DMT and seduced a goddamn warlord. Our views were off the fucking charts. You should be so lucky to get the chance that Hunter had.”

“Fuck.”

“Fuck is right.”

“I’ll get in there.”

“Get blitzed and get in.”

“I’ll get in.”

Hera did not want to get high. She didn’t want to sneak into the spot in the middle of the night either but she really didn’t want to eat some random pills for the sake of being an edgelord for views and then sneak into the spot. But… They were paying her. When people are paying you… you do what you have to. She didn’t have any drugs on her, recreational or otherwise. She searched around the horse barn. The restrooms didn’t have any sort of storage. She tried a few of the doors to the living quarters, feeling like a total freak. The third one opened to the room of a scientist that must have been working the night shift. As if she was a common criminal, Hera started to go through his belongings. In his suitcase there was a smaller travel bag of toiletries and OTC meds. 

“Plastic Spiders!’ she said. Hera found a container of Diphenhydramine. Sleeping pills. Benadryl, an antihistamine. Certainly not hard drugs. But taken in quantity, it can cause hallucinations. One of the most frequent being spiders that appeared to be made of cellophane. This should be weird enough to make for some clickbait. Hera downed a number of pills from the bottle along with a 5 Hour Energy she found in the scientist’s belongings as well.

The night air was cool. In her boss-generated rush to find and consume drugs and then break into a pseudo-scientific research site, Hera neglected to put on a jacket. She quietly crept away from the horse barn. There really was not much in the way of security to prevent her entrance. Just a two foot tall decorative fence with periodic openings to pass though and the occasional sign that read KEEP OUT PLEASE. She used her phone to take a photo of one of the signs, emitting a quick burst of light and the synthetic sound of a camera shutter. 

“Shit!” she whisper-shouted as whipped her head around to see if anything was stirring at the barn. But no one saw or heard anything. Her attempts at stealth were unnecessary but she felt obliged to sneak.

Beyond the fence was a rather pedestrian forest. Nothing about it stood out as being particularly odd. Hera thought it did seem darker than it should. She looked up through the canopy of leaves and could see the night sky. She thought she recalled there being a half moon out but she could not find it at that moment. She walked in what was her best guess at being the direction of The Spot. The borders of it were kind of vague. There was a small house that served as being confirmation of being there. Inside were a few displays set up to demonstrate The Weirdness, like marbles that roll uphill, a corner where you can whisper and be heard somewhere outside, a place to take photographs that will have strange anomalies in them. But not all The Weird is contained in the house, that’s just the presumed center of it. There have been (unconfirmed) reports of occurrences around the building and throughout the woods. 

Hera looked at the time on her phone. She read the numbers 11:64 just before her phone turned off.

“What the hell? I was just on 75%… and what was that time?” The Spot had been known to mess with technology as well. She held down the power button on her phone. It came to life and the time read 11:46. The battery was at 1%. And then 0% and it shut off again. She tried the power button again but nothing this time. “I guess I’m not taking anymore pictures for the article.”

It was darker than before. Hera couldn’t see the sky now. The trees seemed closer and she noticed she was shivering. She walked on towards her destination. There was a noise that sounded like a plastic shopping bag crinkling. She surveyed the area around her briefly but didn’t see anything unusual. Then she felt something brush her arm. It felt like… a grocery bag. But she still didn’t see anything. She walked faster.

“I just have to get this over with and get out of here.” she said to herself. In the distance, she noticed a dim, yellow light. “That must be it. Thank fuck.” 

She bumbled through the brush, increasing her pace as she went until she was jogging and eventually full on sprinting towards the dull light. Branches heavy with damp leaves and strands of plasticky twine whacked her in the face as she ran but she did not slow her pace. Her vision had narrowed to a tunnel. Still, she was singularly focused on reaching the light. Maybe an aggressively erratic tree root or perhaps the spindly leg of a Saran Wrap arachnid reached up from the soil and grabbed her foot, sending her reeling ass over tea kettle. 

Hera awoke to the feeling of cold, black soil embracing her face. Every part of her was sore, her body and her pride. She rolled over to what she thought was orienting her towards the sky but she felt the same and the view was nearly the same. Had she rolled over? She could not tell. Were eyes open? They weren’t, she realized. So she opened them. She could make out the shape of a tree trunk, she was not facing the sky. She rotated 45 degrees and there were faint stars teasing through a loose woven blanket of leaves. With great effort she hoisted herself into an upright sitting position. Looking around, she could not orient herself. The yellow light was gone. Fear shocked her into noticing that it was now freezing cold.  In the darkness that surrounded her a rustling sound circled around. 

BZZZZZZZT

A sudden rumbling noise sounded and the rustling stopped.

BZZZZZZZZZZT

The rustling rustled but was quieter. It seemed to be getting farther away from Hera.

BZZZZZZZZZT 

It was coming from her pocket. Her phone? She dug her hand into her hip pocket and retrieved her phone. She had a text message. Her hand fumbled the phone as she worked her way past the lock screen and pulled the message up. Before she managed to read the message her eyes noticed the battery was indicated to be on 134% and the time…. was indecipherable. Her dirty fingers worked the touchscreen and managed to press the correct spots and the text message popped up onto the screen.

Free Astral Projection Lessons. Follow THis Link For More Information!

Hera exhaled. It felt to her like she exhaled for her entire life. She exhaled for an epoch. She exhaled the big bang and then collapsed back into the soil. The dim stars infinitely far above her grew bright. Too Bright and yet brighter still. Before she could even register the change, her entire field of view was white. She could no longer feel the ground below her. She was no longer cold.