Guess Who/Don Felder 

The Takin' it Back Tour

Beyond the nostalgic setlists of the Guess Who and Don Felder, there are two stories of legal troubles in and out of court that will put this concert into perspective. You see, for these two talents, they are taking back what they've briefly lost. I will cover the concert, but I'd like to discuss the reason for the tour at this point in time. It's more a celebration than a reunion. It's a continuation after an interruption. Let me explain.

In the case of Don Felder, co-guitarist of the Eagles, he was fired from the band in 2001 and went into legal litagation with Don Henley and Glen Frey for unlawful termination. The disagreements were settled and the suits were dropped. Since departing the Eagles, Felder has been releasing solo albums and working on charity projects. 

The Guess Who mainly consisted of Burton Cummings on lead vocals, rhythm guitar, keyboards, flute, and harmonica, Randy Bachman on lead and rhythm guitar, and backing vocals, Jim Kale on bass, and backing vocals, and Garry Peterson on drums, and backing vocals. They put out three popular albums, "Wheatfield Soul", "Canned Wheat", and "American Woman". Then in 1971, Randy Bachman left the band, and later formed the hit-making group, Bachman-Turner-Overdrive. Jim Kale left in 1972 to form the Jim Kale Band. 

With Bachman's song-writing skills to complement Cummings' talents, and Jim Kale's Rock bass work, the Guess Who songs began to lose momentum with the tops of the hits charts and began to lean toward Jazz. Burton Cummings was displeased with the direction of the Guess Who sound and disbanded the group in 1975. 

In 1977, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) invited the Guess Who to reform the band for an event for broadcasting. Cummings and Bachman turned down the offer, but Kale and drummer Garry Peterson accepted. Kale obtained permission from Cummings and Bachman to use the band name and to play its songs, and Kale's ex-bandmates agreed. However, after the CBC event, Kale continued to use the band name for future concerts and on several albums without Cummings or Bachman's consent. 

Then Jim Kale took matters one step further. In 1986, he registered the band name, "Guess Who", with The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Kale continued to tour as the Guess Who and even leased the name to cover bands who wanted to do a Guess Who Tribute concert. 

When Burton Cummings and Randy Bachman began doing joint concerts in 2004, they began to disparage Kale's Guess Who as "fake" and "bullshit shows". In 2023 they filed suit against Kale because many of his leasers were advertising the Guess Who Tribute shows as legitimate shows featuring Cummings and Bachman, who were featured in the advertisements. In 2024, they settled the case out of court and regained control of the band name. 

In 2026, The Takin' it Back Tour addresses how Don Felder has taken back his songs and independence from the Eagles, and how the Guess Who has taken its name back from the "fake" Guess Who. Both bands played their songs with the confidence of defiance that they won their respective cases out of court and achieved what they were after. And this concert was a celebration of the victory. 

Don Felder played:  

Already Gone
One of These Nights
Victim of Love
Seven Bridges Road
I Like the Things You Do
Heavy Metal (Takin' a Ride) From the movie, Heavy Metal (1981)
Heartache Tonight
Life in the Fast Lane
Hotel California

Guess Who played:

Runnin' Back to Saskatoon
Proper Stranger
Hand Me Down World
These Eyes
Albert Flasher
Let It Ride (Bachman-Turner-Overdrive)
Clap for the Wolfman
Laughing
Undun
Star Baby
You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet (Bachman-Turner-Overdrive)
My Own Way to Rock (Burton Cummings Solo Song)
Bus Rider
Roadhouse Blues / American Woman
No Sugar Tonight / New Mother Nature
No Time

Encore:
Share the Land
Takin' Care of Business (Bachman-Turner-Overdrive)

With these setlists, the songs were more than just a nod to nostalgia, they were a celebration with music as its cry of victory. The concert on the whole was fun for the crowd because the performers were having fun, telling stories, jamming up the songs with new gusto. I really think that Don Felder should be touring as an headliner, playing full sets. His guitar work and Hard Rock versions of his Eagles songs were something new that the crowd really got into. The show was not a look back at what was, but a look forward at what these musicians are still capable of accomplishing now that their legal troubles are behind them. 

 

The Claymen Hallucination

I remember meeting the Claymen family for the first time while writing a short story. They were an ordinary family of four or five, if you included Grandfather James Claymen, who was dying of several known diseases, a few unknown, and, of course, the aptly named Claymen Pineal Degenerative Syndrome (or in laymen’s terms, a wart on the brain). The head of the family was M. Foster Claymen, an Oliver Reedish fellow of mid thirties appearance with a thick American accent, Southern Californian. Mrs. Cymbeline Winter-Claymen was like a fortyish Winona Ryder type except around the eyes and neck where she was more like fiftyish. Though their wealth permitted such luxuries of cosmetic alterations, the Claymens frowned upon the mutilation of aging. The three children included the eldest, James, a masturbation addict who loved Gothic novels and yellow highlighters, the middling, Laurine, a twelve year girl mentally enslaved by a 100 year old spinster who lived to read books about death and collected Victorian dolls, and little Baby M., named for its father who didn’t know what the asexual M. stood for.

Every evening the family gathered for dinner and philosophical conversation. Tonight’s meal consisted of crab bisque, a small kale salad with lemon and oregano dressing, thinly sliced boneless pork chops cooked rare, Claymen Zinfandel 1984, the family brand, and cherry-pie with decaffeinated coffee on the side. The toothless baby had pretzel pudding and a nipple bottle of near-beer. There was muffled chewing at the table that lasted several minutes. Mr. Claymen insisted on thoroughly chewing and swallowing every morsel of food in one’s mouth before beginning the topic for discussion. The lengthy chewing was indicative of a poor choice of topics. No one dared risk opening the conversation without proper empirical data, literary allusions, and an adequate amount of irony and litotes for droll observations and asides.

I rudely interrupted the munchy silence. “Vlad the Impaler,” I remarked, “sucked prick.”

“That’s almost a pun,” observed Mrs. Claymen through her wrinkle of a mouth. “Puns, as you know, are the lowest form of humor, right beneath Hee-Haw and just above Nyuk-nyuk.”

Mr. Claymen continued chewing, exaggerating his side to side jaw movements as if rushing to get into the discussion. The children slowed their jaw movements, expressing the opposite of their father. Baby sucked at the squealing nipple obliviously.

“Bram Stoker, or is it Stroker…?”

“One more pun and I’ll have the servant escort you from the table,” announced Mrs. Claymen.

I continued…”who wrote ‘Dracula’ with Vlad in mind. Note that you must impale a vampire with a stake through the heart in order to kill it.”

“A vampire is already dead,” Mr. Claymen pointed out condescendingly, pieces of meat flying from his mouth. “You don’t kill a vampire. You destroy a vampire.” He resumed chewing the mouthful of pink pork. A trickle of pig juice trailed down his chin. He leaned his head back till the red droplet rolled back into his mouth.

“I think this subject is dead,” I sighed.

“I warned you, sir,” Mrs. Claymen spat with fiery red eyes. "Puns are not allowed at the table." She rose slowly but deliberately, stepping up onto her chair, then atop the table. She kicked aside the bowls, plates, and glasses. The older children snatched their wine from the tabletop and went to their rooms. Baby dropped its bottle and drooped into a nap, its mouth drooling from both corners. Mr. Claymen lifted his plate of pork chops and left the room.

I was hypnotized by Mrs. Claymen’s long shapely legs and muscular calves revealed by the slit up the front of her dress rising up to the cleft of her pubic patch covered only by the sheerest of pink panties. She stood above me, her nine-inch spiked heel imbedded in my generous slice of cherry pie. My gaze traced her body from her curvaceous ankles, swelling hips, slender waist, voluptuous bust, to her mouthful of pork dripping red fangs.

“Wait a minute. Whose hallucination am I in?” I wondered aloud. Her ten-inch fingers wrapped around my neck, and I was lifted till we were face to face. She kissed me full on the mouth, her tongue slipping against mine between the great gaps in her sharp teeth. She wrapped one arm around my waist to hold me in place and released her snaky fingers from my bruised neck. In one swift motion her fangs sunk into my throat. I could hear and feel my Adam’s Apple pop. I gurgled a few syllables to draw attention from my erection. My clothes were soaked in blood, shit, drool, snot, urine, and now, most shamefully, semen. With what little strength I could muster I shoved her slightly back. Her grip on my waist remained firm. “Whose hallucination am I in?” I demanded to know.

Someone gave the answer just as I passed out.

***

I awoke comfortably seated in a musty old armchair. It was a Civil War chair, courtesy of the Salvation Army. I was in the living room. The children were lying on their stomachs, watching the uncut version of “King Kong” on PBS. Kong was stomping on natives with his hand-like foot, smashing them to pulp. The time of night was indeterminable since the room had no windows and wall to wall drapes. The Baby M. slept beside the warmth of the TV. Kong roared and Baby M. awoke, its two mouths crying for near-beer. Its cries turned to snarls when it didn’t get what it wanted. It stood upright like a human adult and grinned wide till all its flat pointed teeth were displayed. Its fat little hands grabbed James by the hair, lifted his tubby body, and plunged its two sets of fangs into the cherub’s face. The four rows of razor-like teeth hummed like well-oiled chainsaws. Laurine raised the volume on the TV when James started screaming. Blood gushed by the gallons like in a bad B movie.

I dialed 911 on my pink cell phone.

The doorbell rang and the police let themselves in. “What’s the problem, sir?”

I pointed to Baby M. and James. The lean officer yawned and then removed his revolver, firing a silver bullet into the baby’s brain. Then the heavy-set officer checked to make sure both baby and brother were dead, patted Laurine on the behind, and wrote me a bill. The two law enforcers then left.

Laurine turned to me and pointed out, “This isn’t my hallucination. Why would I pat my own buttocks?”

Damn it. I forgot where I was. I woke up inside a dream where someone was hallucinating this Claymen family. But why was I here? The only way to know was to find out whose hallucination manifested inside my dream. Then maybe I could reproach the person to leave my dream and wake up and go back to sleep. Was Papa Claymen to blame? Was I in his hallucination? Perhaps it was James. But he was dead. No, not in a hallucination inside a dream. That didn't make sense. Everyone was still suspect.

I needed to figure it out before this fever dream shifted. Too late. I was inside the TV. The black and white cast were playing their roles purposefully, running about, escaping the danger of the giant ape. Suddenly, Kong’s smelly foot was above my head; it pressed my head into my shoulders, my shoulders into my midsection, my midsection into my hips, my hips into my knees, and my knees into the ground till I was just a mere sound lost in the crackling static of the TV static.

Then as sound, I took shape just as someone turned off the TV.

***

Grandfather Claymen rested on his deathbed surrounded by beautiful nude-magazine model nurses. I sat in a fake Napoleon chair, bothered by all the peas under the stuffing. I shifted uncomfortably until the bumps and rolls of the seat fit the contours of my cellulite buttocks. The women wrapped in tight white hospital outfits fluffed the old man’s pillow, straw fed him dinner, tidied his sheets, and injected him with Morphine laced with Viagra. To no avail, for he remained in pain and penile disinterest. He brushed aside the nurses and told me blankly, “I brought you here. You’ve been nosing around, haven’t you? These are my hallucinations. How do you like that? And just how did he get inside them anyway? Dreamers don't usually trespass across to others dreams, let alone others hallucination. Mushrooms, you see. Peyote Synth. New type of plant they created in the lab. My son got his hands on some. Thought they'd take me out, you know, kill me. But it didn't. Crossed over to the place between dream and hallucination. So, I'm happy. You see my nurses, don't you? Too bad the damn Synth doesn't make me young. Still can't get it up.

" But back to you, boy. Are you asleep somewhere on this wavelength? You know none of this is real except for you. But you got to wake up. I can give you a rude awakening if need be. You gots to be carefully not to plunge to your death in a falling dream. Or maybe you're not in a dream. Are you lying dying somewhere with a bullet or knife in your gut, the victim of some practiced ruffian? Has a taste of death put you in tune with my ripe soul ready for the Devil to pluck? How did you get here? This is not your world or your business. You’ve violated my hallucinations and now you trespass my reality. I will my family into being. How is it you're interacting with them?”

The old man scratched his head, confused. The nurses now had Medusa heads, with dozens of snakes hissing at me. "Seems my dream girls don't like you," he said. "How can you be doing this?"

“I’m a writer,” I confessed. “I’m writing this.”

“You think you’re writing me, you little piece of shit?” Grandpa grinned menacingly. “I blinded Milton for saying the same.”

“I never read ‘Paradise Lost,’ I’m sorry,” I admitted. “My field is Romantic literature.”

"Vampires and zombies, I believe,” he boasted, obscenely staring at the rear ends of the nurses.

“That’s right,” I told him. "And mountains and valleys. The stuff of fear and awe."

At that moment the nurses all faced me at once. Although their beauty remained, their life was gone. Their snakes were gone. Their nurse hats returned. Their flesh was a mix of maggots and skin. Skeletons with the make up of a geisha. The old man was playing his ace in the hole.

Zombie nurses. "You don't belong here," he said with a raspy anger. Then the undead girls in white rushed me.

I flew from my seat and tossed the chair at them. It struck one in the face, caving in her once beautiful features, releasing swirling waves of earthworms from where her mouth once pouted. The worms bore through the uniform and reentered the rotting flesh. The blow of the chair neither deterred her nor slowed her down. She and the others were on me in a split second. I was pinned to the floor by our finest hospital staffers.

“Now I’m writing you,” Grandfather Claymen laughed.

The bedroom door flew open. M. Foster Claymen entered, his fists pressed on either side of his hips. “Laurine tells me you’ve been touching her inappropriately during our guest’s visit to your hallucination. Is this true?”

An awkward silence followed. The nurses stopped and fidgeted nervously. They were no longer zombies and had returned to the lovely sexy outfits the dirty old man had imagined for them.

The embarrassed nurses released me and excused themselves from the room clumsily. I arose, brushing the wriggling little maggots from my coat. Grandfather James Claymen darted his eyes to and fro trying to think up an excuse or a carefully woven lie. “Shit,” was all he could say.

M. Foster walked up to the bedside and told his father, “This is for your own good.” He yanked the fluffed pillow from under the patriarch’s head and shoved it across his gray face. There was a brief struggle, but it didn’t last long. Within minutes the elder Claymen stopped fighting and waited for the Devil to pluck his soul from the dead branch of his life. After tossing the pillow aside, revealing Grandpa Claymen’s death grimace, the younger Claymen straightened his vest and tie.

“There,” M. Foster said, swiping his hands free of the invisible dust that wasn’t there. “Now what should we do about you? My wife hates your puns. I don’t like the way you look at my wife’s legs. And the children tell me you entered their movie and spoiled one of their favorite scenes. And to top it off, the baby won’t stop crying now that it’s dead. You must return back to your world through your manuscript. We must be quick for your wife is reading it now.”

We exited the room. M. Foster instructed to go to the end of the hall and don't stop. I stepped lively down the shrinking hallway, pretending that I wasn't afraid of being crushed alive. I was a clastrophobic since birth, my mother used to tell me. Faster, I heard M. Foster cry. The walls are closing in. Literally. I start to feel like ink. The hallway is the quill my liquid form inhabits. Its tip scratches me across a white floor make of paper. I am written like so many symbols. I concentrate until I begin to regain form; blood and flesh reattach to my bone dry skeleton.

Hurry, man, the voice behind me shouts. I am beginning to solidify. The Claymen hallucination is fading and my liquid form is leaving the story. I dry across the white walls. But the walls are still closing in on me, sealing me in symbolic characters. In a far distance I hear M. Foster whisper, "Too late". The final white page closes on me. My entire human essence, thoughts, ideas, dream, liquefied and scribbled away squirt inward as I am flattened like a butterfly in the pages of someone’s manuscript. My skin, tissue, muscle, bone, heart, liver, intestines, spleen, testicles, spine, brain, mind, and all the other atoms and molecules that make me what I am are crushed into text. I am gone. Only the memory of the dream remains.

***

“Good story,” said the Missus as she replaced the manuscript atop the typewriter. "You really poured yourself into this one. I'll toss it into the box with the others after dinner. Finish your dram and come down to eat before the rats have at our meals."

As Alanis Morissette herself said of her song, "Ironic", “The irony of ‘Ironic’ is that it’s not an ironic song at all.”

The Roots of Irony as Language

Part Two: The Fork in the Road

The Fork in the Road

In Part One, we discussed the neurological network that differs from person to person. Some people understand irony, while others do not understand it. There is a mechanism in the thalamus that allows ironic content to enter the brain for response. Those who do not have that mechanism deny the brain entry of any ironic content, assuming it to be an error in communication. It is reflected back to the sender as untranslatable, whereas the receiver who accepts the ironic content, converts it into translatable responses (usually, laughter). When sensory messages are sent to the brain for reaction, they reach a fork in the road, per se. One road leads back without reaction, while the other road reaches the brain which then reacts. Before we review types of Irony, let's take a look at this fork-in-the-road mechanism and try to understand how it works.

The easiest way to understand how the brain differs in the acceptance or denial of Irony is to consider how the brain works in relation to something else, say, like "pain", for instance.

 

The Phantom Pain Paradox

People who have had a leg amputated can sometimes still feel pain in the leg that is no longer there. However, there are just as many cases of people who have had a leg amputated not feeling any more pain because there is no leg there to experience pain. 

Blame the difference in responses to the brain, especially the thalamus, the station for the comings and goings of neural messages. In the case of the amputee who no longer feels pain, the brain shut down input from that sector of the body where the leg used to be; why accept messages from a source which can no longer send messages?! In the case of the amputee who still feels pain, the brain has not rerouted signals and keeps that source open for business, even though that source is no longer there. It doesn't matter to the brain, so it doesn't "rewire" the nerves to ignore the "leg". It knows it is gone, it can see there is no leg, but the brain still considers it as part of the whole.

Just as people believe that a person in a coma still may dream, the brain believes the leg can still feel and so still reacts with pain responses as if the leg were still there. 

Taken from the view of the amputee who feels no pain, because there is no source for it, the logic of the amputee who feels pain is both antithetical and absurd. 

Yet, Phantom Pain does exist. It hurts, and it is real. 

Therefore, we can ascribe Phantom Pain to the "Irony accepting brain". And for those who feel no pain from a lost source, we have the "Irony denying brain". 

This has always been my thesis. I defended it at the academic level, but never at the medical level. I've convinced others that at the thalamic region, Irony lives and dies, but I've never proven my thesis by getting my hands bloody with dissections and such. Anyway... let's continue. 

Where the Road to Irony Leads

Literary Irony:

In Othello by Shakespeare, Iago, the villain of the play, is seen by the audience as evil, but the other characters in the play see him as "honest". 5 characters die due to Honest Iago's machinations. 

Shakespeare leads Othello down Iago's tragic path, while the playwright leads the audience down an ironic path. The communication with the play-goers requires them to acknowledge Iago's evil as they watch the other characters treat him as a man of straight-forward wisdom. 

Comic Irony

Steve Martin created a type of humor that required acceptance of the premise in order to reach the unexpected payoff. On the Tonight Show, he performed a routine in an umbrella hat. Mid performance, he stopped to acknowledge the tittering of the audience. "You're wondering at my head-wear, aren't you? You're thinking he's an umbrella-head. You're thinking that all umbrella-heads throw fish. That's not true. Unless we lose our temper. But not tonight. We're having a good time tonight." The audience continues to titter and giggle, not sure whether their laughter is upsetting Martin or this is part of the routine. Soon, Martin gets more upset at the laughter till he's visibly angry, at which time he opens his white coat, removes a giant flounder, and throws it at the curtains. 

You see, all umbrella-heads throw fish, but only when they're upset. The more the routine made the audience laugh, the more upset he became till he threw a fish. It was a routine within a routine, and the audience was a part of it. The umbrella-hat was not even a part of the routine until the audience tittered at his wearing it but not acknowledging it. By trying to suppress their laughter, the routine became funnier, thus allowing Martin to become upset enough to throw the fish, by which time, the audience could openly laugh at the joke and at themselves for being set up so subtly. 

A non-ironic person would think the show were serious and would no doubt shush the tittering crowd for upsetting the comic. The ironic person would have been part of the routine for the routine to work. If the whole crowd were non-ironic, the routine would have fallen flat.

Ironic Wit

In the Era of the Wit and the Fop, the Restoration Period of England, the Fop overdressed, wore too much make-up, and feigned intelligence way beyond his station. The Wit, however, dressed plainly, acted ignorant, yet spoke ironically to communicate the obvious about Fops--that they were phony. But a Wit never had to say so directly, but through clever uses of ironic language, he could say so indirectly, oftentimes right to the Fop's face. In some cases, the Fop would believe he was being flattered as the Wit insulted him.

In William Congreve's Way of the World, true marriage is described as freedom to have lovers and be independent of her husband, which, of course, is ironic, as freedom from marriage is independence or bachelorhood and to expect to have lovers is the opposite of fealty. In essence, the Wits in Congreve's play mock marriage by pointing out a typical unfaithful marriage between Fops and describing it as the perfect marriage, making all the Fops believe they are doing it right.

Again, the audience is intended to side with the Wits, although they may sense that they too are being targeted by the playwright's witty characters. Although the play is a satire on social mores of the time, Congreve uses Irony with his audience by including them on the joke by indirectly making them the indirect joke. 

Conclusion

There are many types of Irony to be found in literature, stage comedy, plays, movies, and many other forms of entertainment. They all require that the audience have that ironic sensibility. We have that capability to understand Monty Python, SCTV, Kids in the Hall, Laurel and Hardy, WC Fields, and all the classics, and we are rewarded with laughs. I'm glad this is the path I was put on. It saddens me to think that I couldn't laugh at Biggus Dickus. 

 

On Sale Now. 

Buy it Here. 

4 out of 5 starsA Pumped Carnival Ride Around East Los. A Historically inspired Chicano Noir with lots of grotesque lip-smacking imagery.

 A Pumped Carnival Ride Around East Los. A Historically inspired Chicano Noir with lots of grotesque lip-smacking imagery.

5 out of 5 stars

A fabulous story

, I was hooked by the story from the first line. Anthony Servante ably drags the reader along with the protagonist on a story that fascinates, terrifies and intrigues, all at once. The hidden back story peeks out between episodes of the unfolding mystery surrounding the killings of young boys in East Los Angeles in the 1970s. The imagery and characterizations are so profoundly intense and realistic that the entire story plays out in the reader's mind like a movie. I couldn't put it down and the story will haunt me for a while.  

5 out of 5 stars

Five Stars. 

Fabulous story that Imsimoky couldn't stop reading. Well written, disturbing and compelling at the same time.

 

Memory Corner #10

Love is but a Dream

Phobe was my new girl. Woman, not girl. Mother of two toddlers. Divorced. Witty. Damn, she could make me laugh. That was a whole lot of beautiful to me. And she was beautiful. In a Latina way. She drove a rebuilt Mustang, '66, which she won in the settlement. Her ex wanted his freedom, and it cost him his classic car, alimony, and the house. 

I think she liked me because I was in college. You know, good influence on the kids. Got a future. Good for the community. And I was a sucker for a good joke. Some women get a man by filling his belly with good vittles. She got one with a quick one-liner and some running gags that we kept building on every time we had a date. 

It was that last date I remember most. We went to see Emerson, Lake, and Palmer at the Inglewood Forum. As usual, the band gave a great show and capped the concert off with cannon fire. That's the only part of the show Phoebe remembered. I knew she didn't care for "Rock music" as she and her ex-old man listened to the Eastside sound: Los Lobos, El Chicano, Malo, and such. But she played along with the concerts I selected and never once mentioned a band she'd like to see. Still, I got to see the bands I liked and got to drive her Mustang, stick shift. Baroooom. 

I drove her home so she could let the baby-sitter know that she was dropping me off and would be right back in a few minutes. She checked on the kids, who were sleeping, and the sitter went next door where she lived to let her parents know the time-table. She asked me to tell Phoebe. 

I was sitting on the sofa, and Phoebe returned from the bedroom down the hall. She asked if I wanted a beer or a soda. Nothing for me, thanks. I told her the sitter would be right back. She nodded and sat next to me. I had a nice time, she said. I shook my head in agreement. 

Suddenly, a little boy in pajamas walked into the room. He didn't speak or look around or acknowledge my presence. He went straight to the sofa and squeezed between his mom and me. 

"He's sleepwalking. He must have heard your voice. Notice how he sat between us. He's keeping you from me," she said with a strange grin of pride on her face. "Mommy's little boy."

The kid didn't move. His eyes were open and unblinking. How could he do that? A bug could fly into his eye. I was half-expecting the other kid to get up and enter the room. Who knows what he would have done. 

The baby-sitter came in and Phoebe told her to take Pablo back to bed. She said, "Again? Yay, that boy doesn't like strangers." And they laughed as Pablo stood and walked back to bed with the baby-sitter walking right behind him, trying not to touch him, lest he wake. 

Anyway, that's what I think was going on. I stood up to let Phoebe know I was ready to go. And we went. She couldn't drive fast enough to get me home. She waited for a kiss, but I was out the door faster than she could pucker. I entered the apartment and didn't turn on the lights till I saw she had driven off. 

I blazed a joint and sat in the dark and smoked it. No music. No TV. Just silence with my thoughts. 

"Notice how he sat between us."

"That boy doesn't like strangers."

"Mommy's little boy."

Honestly, I didn't want to call her and talk about it.  

"He's keeping you from me."

That was "cute" to Phoebe and the sitter. Maybe they knew the boy's strange sleepwalking trips better than I'd ever could, or wanted to. To me, that was surreal. Scary surreal. No one escorted the boy back to his bed with a push or even an attempt to carry him. They knew as soon as I was leaving, the boy would return to bed. As if they'd done this routine dozens of times. So routine, it was funny. 

I was creeped out. And stayed creeped out for days. Days that I didn't call Phoebe. Then weeks. Then months. 

About a year later, I ran into her at the college. She was with the sitter, who was registering for classes. Phoebe was just there for support. The sitter did all the talking like we were old friends. She knew I taught part-time at that particular college. But as she talked to me, Phoebe stared at me coldly, somewhere between anger and hatred, with just a dash of disappointment. 

The sitter excused herself when she heard the registrar call her name, took Phoebe by the hand, and almost dragged her to the registration window. She didn't break her stare once. After the sitter went to register, I waited a short moment for Phoebe to say goodbye. Nothing. Just the stare. 

As I walked to my classroom, I felt those old creeps rising on my skin like goosebumps. It was the stare. It was exactly the same face that little Pablo had when he sat between us that night. 

 

The Seven Orbs

Chapter Two

The Wizard's Apprentice

3

Beneath the Castle of King Terria, there was a pathway that formed a cross. The south entrance was designed as an escape for the King (when he was a Governor) should the War of the Three Kingdoms away from Terria's advantage. The west path changed from escape route to a secret entryway to the King's council chamber, an entrance covered by a tapestry of King Terria. The east passage led to the Dragon's Lair, where the creature has slept for ages since the War ended in Terria's favor. The north path led to the Wizard's Chamber, full of bottles, and barrels, and mutated creatures from the forest and mountainside, sea beast who'd lost their way and fallen into the current of the river, only to be tossed into the riverside to drown in air. Eight-legged slugs as big as pigs, fish that were neither water-bred or earth-born, with scales not unlike a dragon's and the capacity to mimic a bird's song, hairless wolves that preferred to walk on its hind legs but used all four limbs for flight from foes, and baby dragons that appeared to be growing into something resembling an old man with sinewy muscle but no skin or scale, more toad than fire-breathing beast. All these creatures, and more, the Wizard had captured, subdued with magic vapors, and stuffed with wood shavings to preserve their appearance and decorate his workplace. 

Why didn't you call me to help, Old One? wondered Malik the Apprentice to the Wizard. You raised me since the death of my father who died in battle for Lord Terria. You taught me what you could with the time we had. I, not even 20 years of age yet, with so much more to learn, cannot replace thee, my Master. I have only skills to conjure sparks and embers, to freeze an apple, to open a book with my thoughts, at the cost of a nose-bleed, however, and a two-day headache. What am I to do to replace you? What were you tasked with? I, who am not invited to the council, nor given instruction, save to finish what you started. And what was that?

Malik gazed up to face the seven floating orbs just below the ceiling.  

Seven. Only seven before your heart failed you. In the original War, there were 100, each carrying two arbalists, crossbowers. The bolts could exit the sphere, but bolts, spears, or arrows could not penetrate into the walls of the orbs. They floated above the battle. The first arbalist helmed the vessel with concentrated thought, as the Wizard so molded his mind, but he still could fire bolts, one to the free arbalist's three quarrels. The Kingdoms together could not mount an attack while their armies wavered in a defensive posture. What chance had they? Hundreds of small arrows with double the steel and sharper the tips raining down on them, piercing their shields and armor. And on the ground thousands of foot soldiers bearing broad swords and spears struck down any stragglers who couldn't retreat fast enough. But slow or fast, the Dragon's fire charred the armies to ash, as the Governor Terria rode the nape of the beast like a rider on his steed. Yet...here we have but seven orbs. I must study one and try to duplicate it. Battle will soon be upon us. 

Will we be ready? 100 orbs, 10,000 men, and a dragon. I closed my eyes and squeezed out tears of hubris, lest they overtake me. 

The Governors & The Machines

4

The forges in the caverns beneath the Anglican Forest burnt white hot, as bladesmilths, toolcrafters, blacksmiths, and carpenters attended to their mission and task. The molds and casts were filled with molden metal, and when they were cooled in the stream that was redirected to flow through the cavern, the metal parts were passed along to the next group who fit them with the wooden platforms and wheeled structures to build another machine. And another. Till there were dozens of the mechanical weapons. The largest could fire twenty foot spears, three feet thick, with a metal point so sharp, it could pierce a dragon's scales. The boxed weapons had openings in the front for the projectiles and a handle on the side that a soldier could turn to fire multiple circular blades that could slice through any army. The foot soldiers were armed with smaller versions of the boxes, but which fired smaller versions of the blades in higher numbers. One more day and they'd be ready for war. 

Governor Bosque and Governor Aquell strolled about the great cavern, fanning themselves as the heat from the forges fell heavy in the air. "These fans don't help a bit," said Bosque. "As a matter of fact, they make it worse. Fanning oneself with the hot breath of Hades."

"You speak true, my friend," agreed Aquell. "Still, your daughter's idea for the machines also spoke true. Look how her plans fared. We are near prepared. Abora trains the front soldiers in the use of the Spit Box."

"What a silly name? Who would fear such a name," Bosque laughed.

"May they die in laughter then," added Aquell. "It is pure evil. Each machine, from small to large, spits two, three projectiles at a time. They'll be overwhelmed."

"But what of the orbs, and what of the dragon?" Bosque's face was now fully serious. 

"We will concentrate first on the things of flesh and blood that we can reach with the small and large Spit Boxes. Then we'll unleash the Jousters last for our fire-breathing friend."

"Will it work?" Bosque asked with doubt. 

"You should trust the skill of your daughter's designs. I truly believe she sees goodness in these weapons. I truly believe they will surrender and give us our freedom without a fight. But we must guarantee that our freedom will not be taken from us again. They must be eliminated from any future equations. Only then can there be peace." Aguell looked Bosque straight in the eye and still saw doubt there. When the blood starts flowing, he'll believe. They'll believe as well. And then, they, too, will flee. 

Coming soon...

Winsome and Agyle In the Cavern

 5

The Night Before Battle

6

 

Memory Corner #9

Rainbows, Reds, & Yellow Jackets

The late Sixties gave us the Acid Rock of Pink Floyd, the original Progressive music of King Crimson, and the Hard Rock of Blue Cheer and Black Sabbath that was destined to become Heavy Metal. I loved the music scene, but I was a bookworm, so no high schooler took me seriously when I tried to join the conversations about those new albums by Led Zeppelin or Jethro Tull, let alone those by bands they'd never heard of like Blodwyn Pig or Mountain. They got their music from the radio Top 100 hits, which every AM radio station was looping every hour, while I hung around late night FM radio like KMET or KPPC (later, KROQ), where I heard bands like Supertramp, Nektar, Camel, and other (at the time) unclassifiable rock. And all this new music led to promotional tours. And that's when I knew I had to raise enough money to attend those concerts.

Which brings us to the other scene: The Drug Scene. 

It was just a matter of asking around the projects. What was popular with the Cholos? I already knew what was popular with the winos (alcoholics wasn't a word yet); with the winos, fortified wine like T-Bird was what winos wanted. I could probably make a few quarters stealing and selling the cheap booze, but it'd take a lot of quarters to buy a concert ticket. And too much risk doing multiple T-Bird runs. I could get shot or arrested, and shot or not, my dad would kick my ass. That left the Drug Scene as my other choice. Risky? No way. If they ain't real drugs. 

*********

There was a vitamin store at the mall, right next door to the pet supplies, across from the American Records Shop, where I bought all my import records, band like Barclay James Harvest and the Renaissance. My swimming coach always recommended supplements, that is, over-the-counter drugs to replace the nutrients lost during workouts and that prepared you mentally and physically before a swim meet. Even though the coach never did it, I could see the "wink-wink" in his eye and the "nudge-nudge" in his nod. Yeah, supplementals. Uppers, downers. You know, vitamins. NTA-approved. Well, close enough, right?

I walked up and down the well-lit aisles, the smell of sandalwood incense wafting in from the Head Shop down a few stores. "May I help you?" asked the pretty college-aged girl who looked like she worked out a lot in her spare time. I wondered what supplements she was taking. "I'm looking for some helpers my coach recommended for my swim meets and to get a good night's sleep," I said like the liar that I was. "Over here," she said, and I followed.

Down one aisle for some yellow pills, another aisle for the reds, and the rainbows, she had those behind the counter. "The yellows are your workouts, but be careful, not too many," she advised, "they can keep you awake longer than you'd like." She glanced at me, and when I didn't ask any questions, she continued, "The reds are for sleep, and you should be careful with those as some people complain that they have trouble getting up in the morning. Most people love the lucid dreaming though, a nice side effect of the reds." Another glance, but this time I nodded that I understood. "And last, the rainbows. When you have to concentrate, like for tests or study, take two, and only two, in the afternoon. Keep the reds and rainbows at least four hours apart. You want to sleep, not crash." That time I didn't understand, but I nodded anyway. 

She bagged the product in one of those shiny white store brand plastic shopping bags and handed it to me along with my change from a twenty. "This is about a month's supply. Good luck with your swim meet." And I was out the door. One more stop. 

********

The Maravilla Pet Shop, Pets and Supplies, smelled like rat urine. Their biggest selling item was rats, then mice, fish, and the food you feed them. It all stunk up the store. They never seem to sell any of the puppies in the window. I must have seen three puppies grow up and get replaced by a new cute puppy. I wondered at the possibility of inbreeding going on just to keep a puppy in the window, since it was the puppies that brought in new customers, who when they saw the price of the dogs, bought a mouse or a rat instead. 

The store owner was a stoner, like Chong from Cheesh and Chong. "Hey, Man, where's the capnip," I said rather than asked. "You know that shit don't get you high, right?" He waited for an answer. "It's for my cat." "Yeah, right," he smirked. He reached under the counter and pulled out baggies of catnip. Damn if it didn't look just like the big MJ. "How many bags, man?" he asked. "I'll take what you got." "Five it is, my Man." He rolled the sandwich bags into burritos and folded each burrito into the fold of each bag. He added the bags into my vitamin bag because he didn't want to waste a brown paper bag. I paid the man, said, "Till next time," and headed for home.

*********

At home I sorted the pills and sorted them into snack bags, pill bags, and aluminum paper. I used the card slots of my baseball card sheets in my folder to organize the assortment of drugs and "pot". I came up with a price for each item, calculated what I had to sell to paid for a concert ticket, transportation, and souvenir T-shirt. The whole folder, if I sold everything, would net me four concert tickets. Not all at once. I knew how to save money for upcoming shows. This whole drug thing was strictly for the music scene, I had to remind myself. 

Time to get to work. First and only stop. Martian's house.

You know, I didn't even know his real name. He looked like one of those Saucer Men from Invasion of the Saucer Men, and all the kids since middle-school have been calling him Martian. He was a nice guy, and lived in a big house a few blocks from the projects, more in the better neighborhoods with trim lawns and colorful gardens. I rang the doorbell, and a woman answered. We didn't say a word to each other, as if we were communicating telepathically. She nodded, called a name I didn't recognize, and Martian appeared. "Hey, Man," he said. "My mom thinks you're weird. Wanna see my room?"

In his room, I opened the folder. His eyes glazed over. "How much?" he wanted to know. "Which ones?" I asked. "Everything." And that's all it took. He opened a fake encyclopedia with hollowed pages, took out my asking price, and paid me. I slid out the product from each sleeve and watched him place the goods into another hollowed out encyclopedia. I thought, He must have the whole set. Deal done. I went home and hid the money. 

********

The concert was fantastic. Black Sabbath opened for Grand Funk Railroad at the Inglewood Forum, Home of the Lakers. At the show, I bought some hashish, a few buds. some yellows, a few real reds, and five hard-to-find blues (they'll calm you down in case you have a bad trip). I saw Martian at the show with some of his rich friends. They were smoking the 'nip, partying on caffeine pills, antihistamines, and diuretics. The music was great, but watching Martian and his friends was even greater. I was King of the Assholes. 

But what did I win?

The following day Martian came to my door, and I stepped outside to talk to him. He wanted more, you know, baseball cards for his encyclopedia. I don't know why but I asked him, "What's your real name?" He laughed. I mean, like uncontrollable laughter till I thought he'd choke. "You're funny." I told him to wait by the big tree in my yard, and I went and got the MJ bud, a few yellows and some reds. I kept the hashish and blues. 

Martian eyed the product suspiciously. I told him that this was better than the last stuff, same price, for you only. Fair? Yeah, fair, he said. 

And my conscience was clear. I was only King of the Assholes for one night. 

********

I was the envy of the high school rockers when I wore my Black Sabbath T-shirt. I told them all about the concert, the light show, the cloud of MJ smoke in the arena and how everyone inside the place had a contact high. We all laughed about it. For the first time, I was noticed. I wasn't the bookworm. I was the concert goer. And I had to let them know that I had my sights set on the upcoming David Bowie concert. Who? they asked, interested. Are they like Sabbath? Different. Lots of good different Rock out there. Wish I could go, said a pretty girl. I looked her in the eye and said, I'll tell you all about it. In the meantime, look up Bowie at American Records. Man, oh, man, things were happening. It didn't quite make sense.

So off to home I went to think about it, full of myself for impressing a bunch of people I'd never spoken to before. Who were they? Who was I? Man, what was I becoming?

*********

I walked through the park toward my house across the street. Martian was waiting for me by the baseball field bleachers, which were empty. He probably wanted more goodies. He took a bud out of his shirt pocket, tossed it to the concrete floor, and smashed it underfoot into powder and kicked it away. "This isn't the good shit, like you promised," he said like really pissed off. "My friends thought I was trying to rip them off. I want the old stuff. By tomorrow. Bring it to my house. If you don't, I'll tell your friends at school you're a phony. Tony phony baloney." And off he stormed. 

What the hell just happened? Was this one of those famous ironies of life? Was I the only one who was staring into the shocked face of the audience in a moment of fifth wall chicanery? Was the audience booing Othello and cheering Iago? 

So be it. 

I went to the mall. did some shopping for vitamins and pet supplies. I even stopped to pat the puppies on the head. Soon these puppies would be supplying the display windows with their inbred offspring. What goes around. I took Martian "the good stuff", and he thanked me and begged for forgiveness because he lost his temper. He even paid me extra for the goods and made me promise to bring him and his friends more stuff. I promised with all my heart.

At home, I hid the money, calculated how many more concerts I could afford, and decided to open a bank account. I bet if I planned it right, I could take that girl to the Bowie concert. So, why did I hate myself? Oh, yeah, because I was King of the Assholes. Why did everyone love me then? Same reason. It's good to be King.