Roger Hodgson Interview*

With Anthony Servante

Thanks to Harmonic Management,

Especially Linda Tyler and Linda Gianotti.

Roger Hodgson is recognized as one of the most gifted composers, songwriters and lyricists of our time! As the legendary voice, writer and arranger of most of Supertramp’s greatest hits that led to more than 60 million record sales, he gave us amazingly enduring songs like: “Give a Little Bit,” “Dreamer,” “It's Raining Again”, “Take the Long Way Home”, “The Logical Song,” “Breakfast In America,” “Fool’s Overture” and so many others that have become the sound track of our lives. Hodgson co-founded the progressive rock band Supertramp in 1969 and was with them for 14 years. He wrote and sang most of the classic hits that brought Supertramp worldwide acclaim. Roger recently received 2 awards from ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers) for his songs being in the top played songs in their repertory, proving that they have indeed stood the test of time.


The Servante of Darkness Blog is proud to sponsor and support Roger Hodgson on his 2012 Concert Tour by presenting the most popularly asked questions since departing Supertramp for family and solo projects. As a fan of Hodgson’s solo work, I often find it disheartening to hear so much old Supertramp music on his tours of the past few years and not enough song-play from his personal works Sleeping with the Enemy, In the Eye of the Storm, Hai Hai, Rites of Passage (featuring saxophonist John Helliwell), and Open the Door, a wealth of music enough for many solo concerts. But after hearing how Hodgson considers the majority of the hits from Supertramp, the band he co-founded, his own songs that he himself wrote long before joining Supertramp, it’s understandable how he feels their inclusion in his shows reflects his song-writing history from his early days as a musician to today. Still, there is a side of me that would love to hear an all Hodgson playlist from his four solo works, but that’s just me because every time I go to a Hodgson concert with my family and friends, they’re there for the older classics; however, it does my heart good that they can hear the recent classics as well.


For those of you who are interested in learning more about Roger Hodgson, here are some links to a wealth of information, music and chat. Enjoy!

RogerHodgson.com

Facebook.com/RogerHodgsonOfficial

YouTube.com/MrRogerHodgson

So, let’s get to the interview: Welcome Roger Hodgson to the Darkness.



Anthony: Please tell us what we can expect from your concerts.

Hodgson: I began my 2012 World Tour in Southern California. This year I am performing with an excellent band of four very versatile musicians

You will hear songs that I have written on my life journey – of course I’ll be performing all the songs people want to hear from my time with Supertramp. You can expect to hear The Logical Song, Give a Little Bit, Dreamer, School, Breakfast in America, Take the Long Way Home, It's Raining Again, Fool's Overture, etc., as well as some of my later material – In Jeopardy, Lovers in the Wind, Death and a Zoo,…and others. I don’t play Rick Davies’ songs – only the songs that I wrote and composed.


Anthony: I hear that you have a new album out.

Hodgson: For years, fans have been asking me to put out a CD of my live concerts because everyone tells me I'm singing better now than I did when I first recorded these songs with Supertramp 30 plus years ago. So, on our 2010 world tour we recorded a lot of shows and picked the most magical performances – from Norway, Brazil, Germany, Canada and put together “Classics Live.” The first 10 tracks are available digitally on my website, www.RogerHodgson.com and on iTunes and you can find physical CD’s at www.RogerHodgsonStore.com and at my concerts.









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Anthony: I am interested in knowing how you started playing and composing music?

Hodgson: The guitar was my first instrument. My father used to play folk songs on an old acoustic guitar that he would never let me touch. When my parents divorced, it was his parting gift to me. I was 12 at the time and the moment I got it into my hands, my life changed forever. I took this guitar with me to boarding school in England where a teacher showed me three chords. After that, every spare moment, even between classes, I would go and practice. I started writing songs almost immediately and within a year, I actually put on my first concert at school of all original songs.

I started playing piano when I was 16. I was primarily self-taught and developed my own piano playing technique. I have always experimented with different sounds. My original demo for Dreamer, for instance, was recorded on a two-track. I was at my mother’s house and did not have any percussion so you can hear me banging boxes and lampshades on there.

At 17, I don't know why, but I was driven to find a pump organ or harmonium as they were called. It's like an organ that you play with your feet. Many churches used to have them before electricity arrived and organs went electric I found one covered in cobwebs in the backroom of this old lady’s house. I bought it for 26 pounds, took it home, cleaned it up and proceeded to write many songs on it – Breakfast in America, A Soapbox Opera, It’s Raining Again, Two of Us, even part of Fool’s Overture and The Logical Song. It has a very magical quality to it – it’s very easy for me to lose myself in the sound of it and go to that place where magic and inspiration happens. I still have it at my studio. The sound on the recording of Breakfast in America is this harmonium and a grand piano combined.


Anthony: How did you get started in the music business?

Hodgson: My first single was released under the made up band name Argosy. It consisted of two of my original songs - Side A was “Mr. Boyd” and the flip side was “Imagine.” I was 19 and pretty fresh out of school when a producer heard my songs and signed me. He put me in a studio in London, which was my first time in a recording studio, with some session musicians. One of them was a man called Reg Dwight, who later became known as Elton John. It was an incredible band - actually, most of the members of the band that he toured with later, Caleb Quaye on guitar and Nigel Olsson on drums, and they did an awesome version, obviously, of my songs and then I sang vocals on top. “Mr. Boyd” actually came very close to being a hit in England. It was played a lot on the radio but never actually charted.




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Anthony: Please share about your process of composing music and writing lyrics.

Hodgson:I do realize I have written some wonderful songs and have an ability for writing great melodies, but I think the reason these songs have stood the test of time so well is because they came from a very pure place and were not contrived. I never sat down to try and write a hit song. Music was where I went to be alone to express my deepest emotions, my deepest longing, my deepest pain and joy and questions. And I think that is why my songs have endured so well over time.


Anthony: Please reveal more of your Spiritual connection with your songs.

Hodgson: For me, music was where I went to express my longing to know God, to know true love, my longing to feel truly at home inside myself. I put this inner quest into my songs and I believe, because they came from such a deep place, this is one of the reasons they have such an enduring quality. They touch that place in everyone who is searching for true happiness, belonging, for God - whatever you want to call it.

So, yes, a lot of my songs have a spiritual theme to them – when I write music, I am always alone and it’s very much an inner communion for me. It’s not generally known that I never wrote with the band, and the other members of Supertramp didn’t share many of the spiritual beliefs that I wrote about – so all my songs – new and old - are all very personal expressions for me.


Anthony: Can you share about the part you played in making Supertramp a success and international phenomenon? What role did you play in arranging the music of Supertramp and producing Supertramp albums?

Hodgson: Supertramp was my dream and passion for 14 years. When people hear my songs they think of Supertramp because my songs were most of the hits that people love, and they are still played on the radio around the world today.

In many respects, I was the musical driving force of the band from the time Rick and I started it until we parted ways in 1983. I was responsible for much of the producing of the albums and tours. It was very important to me back then not to create just a hit single, which most bands were focused on. I wanted to create a whole listening experience where people were taken through a range of emotions -where at the end of the album they really felt like they had been taken on a journey and had a full course meal, if you like. I'd spend days and sometimes weeks choosing the right songs and the right order of songs so one song flowed into the next and the next. I did this for the concerts as well as the albums, and I still do this today.

Anthony: Tell us why you left the band.

Hodgson: When I left Supertramp in 1983, it was to follow my heart, which was telling me it was time to make home, family, and spiritual life my priority. I wanted to be with my children as they grew up. I’d given 14 years of my life to Supertramp and at that point I chose to have my primary focus be my family and not my career. I also pretty much left the music industry and took my family to a healthier place to raise my kids - up in the mountains of Northern California. I moved out of Los Angeles and built a home studio so I could continue to create music and although I made a few albums, I never toured behind them.


Anthony: It is great that you are back touring again, will you be playing Supertramp songs?

Hodgson: I don’t think of my songs as Supertramp songs- they’re my songs. In fact I wrote and composed a lot of them years before I recorded them with Supertramp. I wrote them when I was alone, not together with Rick or jamming with the band. A lot of people don't realize this because Rick and I shared the writers credit on all the songs we recorded together as Supertramp. But some of the biggest hits I recorded with Supertramp were songs I’d written in my late teens before I even met Rick and formed the band with him. Songs such as Dreamer, It’s Raining Again, Breakfast in America, Two of Us, A Soapbox Opera and even the beginning of Fool’s Overture, were all written during that time period. These songs are my babies – pieces of my heart and I still love playing them in my concerts today.

That having been said, I still get so many people telling me that when they come to my concerts they hear and feel the sound and spirit of Supertramp.


Anthony: I notice that you have a lot of young fans in your audiences.

Hodgson: Yes, I am finding everywhere I go that my songs are popular with multiple generations. Breakfast in America, Give a Little Bit and The Logical Song have recently returned to #1 in the charts again. Gym Class Heroes had a worldwide hit with my song, Breakfast in America, which took them from an unknown garage band to hitting the top of the charts. Before that, it was the Goo Goo Dolls with Give a Little Bit and Scooter with his techno version of The Logical Song. It’s amazing to me how my songs have stood the test of time


Anthony: What motivates you as an artist?

Hodgson: One of the things that I like most about making music is how it has brought people together from all over the globe and how many lasting friendships have been made through a common love of my songs. It is a very special and personal connection I have with many of my fans and that the fans have with one another. I feel it's because my songs came from my deepest longing and joy and pain and touch those same places in the hearts of the people who listen. At my concerts I’m now seeing three generations singing along with me and it’s wonderful to see more and more young people discovering my music.


Anthony: “Breakfast In America” is a great name for your tour and a great album. What are your fondest memories of recording that all time classic album? Did you have any idea it would be such a phenomenal global success?

Hodgson: Breakfast In America is a great collection of songs. My songs, Breakfast in America, The Logical Song, and Take the Long Way Home, all became hits, as well as Rick’s song, Goodbye Stranger. While we were making it, I felt it could be a big album and spent hours and days trying to come up with the right combination of songs that would all fit together to take you on the best musical journey.

I fought really hard to get it right even though the other guys and the record company were getting very impatient. I was in the studio seven days a week for so long that I ended up parking a motor home in the parking lot right outside of the studio and living in it, even though I had a home 40 minutes away. I was working 16 hours a day every day of the week trying to complete it. I knew we had something good and I could not rest until every song was just right. Talk about being married to your work - I was definitely married to this album, I slept with it, ate with it, and lived with this album until it was completed.

I composed the title track to the album, Breakfast in America, when I was in my teens just after leaving boarding school, before I met Rick and co-founded Supertramp. It was written on an old church pump organ, which my mother and I found in the back of someone’s garage in England. I bought it for 26 pounds. I did not have a girlfriend - I was a late bloomer when it came to girls. I was dreaming of going to America, going to California. Funnily enough, Rick didn't like the song and didn’t want it on the album and even wanted me to change the lyrics. I couldn’t, I liked it and the other guys all liked it, so we went with it the way I wrote it.


Anthony: I heard that you had an accident and broke both of your wrists.

Hodgson: The week my second solo album, Hai Hai, was released, I had a fall and shattered both of my wrists. I could not tour and support my new album, so it wasn’t that successful.

The doctors told me I would never play again. You can imagine how that would be being a musician all my life. At first I was devastated and then I decided not to accept their prognosis. I started working on myself through Spiritual practices and prayer as well as physical therapy, strong will and determination. Now I’m back playing as good as ever. I hope I can be an inspiration for anyone that has been told that they are not going to be able to do something again. When you put your mind to it anything is possible.


Thank you Roger Hodgson for gracing the Darkness with your presence. Continued success on your current tour and join us again soon. Ladies and Gentlemen, Roger Hodgson!

*(Reprinted from the archives of the Servante of Darkness Blog).

 

The Lebo Coven 

by Stephen Mark Rainey

Reviewed by Anthony Servante

Click here to purchase.

When I chose “The Children of Burma” from LEGENDS OF THE NIGHT by Stephen Mark Rainey for my article on History and Horror, it was because the short story had a lucid, engaging narrative and paid detailed attention to the history of Burma, especially during the Japanese occupation of World War II. As I’ve eagerly awaited the paperback version of BLUE DEVIL ISLAND to arrive in the mail, I got to reading THE LEBO COVEN, “a traditional, family-centered supernatural tale”, as Rainey calls it. So, even though I had (and still do) planned to review the historically based horror novel, Blue Devil Island, I jumped the gun a bit to review the latter work. And I’m glad I did because the book is a huge bit of horror fun.

Just as The Children of Burma engages the reader with the supernatural presence of a Lovecraftian beast, The Lebo Coven entertains us with an occult mystery. Barry Riggs, the hero of our story, has returned home to Aiken Mill, Virginia to solve the disappearance of his brother, Matt. Now the two brothers have had some violent differences, but Barry is drawn to the mystery and seeks to locate his lost brother or at least find out what happened to him.

Barry talks to the town locals, several well-drawn characters, from a childhood girl whom he used to pick on, to the bar patrons who have secrets to hide, and may or not be associated with his brother’s disappearance. But there’s murder afoot as Barry draws out the secrets, and our cast of characters begins to dwindle.

This investigation also leads Barry down dark and dangerous paths. The girl he used to pick on as a child now has witch-like abilities, part clairvoyant, part wiccan. He tangles with a spectre of darkness. Then there’s the equally mysterious Ren, accused of being into Satanism and the house-guest of Matt before his disappearance. These encounters with the various shades of “magick” crescendo into the final battle, which will answer the questions about Matt.

I must mention that the Epilogue is an excellent piece of prose that not only wraps up the story but provides a haunting work of poetry in and of itself. Well done.

Stephen Mark Rainey continues to write top-notch horror, although The Lebo Coven leans more toward scary rather than graphic supernatural thriller. Still, with Rainey, both styles work equally well. I still shudder at the ending of The Children of Burma. So, while you go buy your copy of The Lebo Coven, I’ll go check the mail to see if Blue Devil Island has arrived.

 

Funereal Plots
Horror Cinema Reviews
Matthew M. Bartlett

The First Omen

Director – Arkasha Stevenson

Writers – Arkasha Stevenson, Tim Smith, Keith Thomas, story by Ben Jacoby

When someone says, “Have you seen the first Omen?” you’d be forgiven for thinking they were talking about The Omen, that is, the first movie in the Omen franchise. And what a movie that was. It feels like it’s an evil movie, like it enthusiastically takes evil’s part. Everyone who stands in the way of the devil’s plan for world domination is dispatched brutally, to a pumping soundtrack of ecstatic chanting in Latin. No one has a chance. Evil prevails. It’s a slasher and the devil and his minions are the implacable, unstoppable, comically cruel killers. The same goes for Damien: Omen 2 and The Final Conflict, the latter of which goes harder than most modern horror flicks when it throws in an infanticidal subplot.

Forget Star Wars – this is the original trilogy!

Anyway, they’re not actually talking about the first Omen. They’re talking about The First Omen, a prequel to…the first Omen. As you may recall, in the first Omen (um, 1976), a pregnant woman loses her baby, but a wicked hospital chaplain persuades her husband to pull the old switcheroo and presents her with a different baby, one whose mother died in childbirth. This baby is the new coming of the Antichrist. Because of course he is. And his name is Damien.

Because of course it is.

The First Omen (2024, stay with me) is the prequel which gives us, whether we want it or not, the story of the mother who died in childbirth. The mother, whose name is Margaret, is played by Nell Tiger Free in a compelling, performance, one of the saving graces. She says everything with her eyes, and the brute physicality of her work recalls that of Isabelle Adjani in Possession (1981), which, incidentally, also stars Sam Neill, who would also play Damien as an adult in The Final Conflict (also 1981).

The cast has some impressive actors who are criminally underutilized. Ralph Ineson plays Father Brennan, who is on the side of the angels (and thus is doomed); Bill Nighy is Cardinal Lawrence, who is a baddie, and is also doomed.

The plot: Margaret uncovers a sinister (and markedly absurd) conspiracy when she begins work at an Italian orphanage. The church’s scheme is to resurrect the Antichrist in order to make the wayward youth of the day turn back to the church. And, to make it even more fun, the devil must mate with his own spawn. There is some confusion as to exactly who that spawn is, but we’ve included enough spoilers here as it is.

One of the hallmarks of the 70s-80s Omen franchise is the brutally spectacular kills. The First Omen, rather than come up with its own kills, just uses the same ones from the original franchise, albeit slightly modified. In The Omen (1976), Father Brennan is killed when he’s impaled by a lightning rod. In The First Omen, Father Harris, who alerts Brennan to the conspiracy in the first place, is hit with a falling pipe, which creases his cranium. In The Omen, a nanny the forces of evil need out of the way jumps, noose around her neck, from a balcony, crashing into a window. In The First Omen, a character does the same exact thing, but lights herself on fire beforehand (which also recalls a scene from The Final Conflict where a would-be assassin catches on fire while dangling on a wire from a television studio ceiling). In Damien – Omen 2, a character who’s discovered Damien’s jackal DNA is bisected by a falling elevator wire. In The First Omen, a character who tries to warn Margaret is cut in half by a truck.

Besides the aforementioned performance of the lead actor and a couple of jump scares that are actually effective (a rarity!), there’s not much to recommend here. It’s streaming on Hulu, which has helpfully also made available the original trilogy. If you must watch this, follow it up with those. I saw them when I was much younger, and I appreciate them even more now.

 

Click Here to Buy.

A dynamic collection of provocative stories forming a tribute to the work and life of William S. Burroughs. Foreword by novelist Graham Masterton Stories are: PASO ROBLES - BY JOHN PALISANO Inside there's passage to a darker, deeper reality, if you rip off your eyelids to see it. WHAT DO YOU MEAN / WHERE ARE YOU NOW BY EMILE-LOUIS TOMAS JOUVET The boy meant everything, both to the Exterminator and the Insects alike. PRINCE OF MARS - BY SAM RICHARD On the Red Planet, Bill Lee must fight for survival and the hand of the Prince of Mars. AN INSIDER'S SKETCH OF THE RIO GRANDE VALLEY BY BOSLEY GRAVEL The informed traveller’s guide to the Rio Grande Valley where nothing is true and everything is permitted THE ROUTINE OF A SKINNY JUNKIE- BY ANTHONY SERVANTE A day in the life of a Skinny Junkie: his hallucinatory thoughts and lucid insights CHORUS - BY TRAVIS J. GATES A man, sick with life, contemplates the past and future while his surroundings look on. DROUGHT IN POP UP - BY JØNATHAN LYONS Xanthous is inspired by a patient the author witnessed as a janitor in a hospital, yellow and catheterized. THE TIMER - BY DANIELE SANTAGIULIANA A small rural town, from thousands of years practise a bloody ritual to gain something rare... BURGER EMPIRE - BY TOM LUCAS A walk-through for a seemingly innocent video game reveals a dark truth that lives among us. ORGAN VOID - BY JON PADGETT A commuter's worldview is shattered by two words printed on a cardboard sign. THE KINGDOM OF GOD - BY KARINA SIMS You may try your very best. But man is flawed and his fate, sealed. THE DUST OF TEN LONG DEAD STARS BY DEAN M. DRINKEL How can one night a year ago still affect these people? It does and with disastrous results.

**********

From The Junk Merchants, presented here for the first time. 

The Routine of a Skinny Junkie

By Anthony Servante

I do not start the day, 

It starts me.

I count my change and the laugh-lines under my eyes.

Then I strut into the ordinary routine of dying.

Los Angeles is a Metropolis of rusty syringes,

Skyscrapers that puncture the arteries

Across the 101 Freeway and the 110,

Connecting the San Pedro Peninsula

To the Hollywood Bowl,

Paths which are varicose and tracked

Like a used up arm.

Right there at the juncture

I enter the perfect little Diner

At Figueroa and Ninth Street.

A chalkboard menu greets me

With meat and potatoes

For breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

The neon burns bright 24/7.

I float over sawdust floors

and start with a nickel coffee.

Lady in a Cage plays the cash register

Like a piano and makes mourning music

That only the Skinny Junkies can hear.

Santa Anita Racetrack opens the day after Christmas.

A Mugger seated next to me

Reads the racing form

And circles his picks with a yellow hi-liter.

Who’s favored in the fifth? I ask.

We’ll find out together, he answers,

And blesses the cum-soaked wads of bills

In his alligator skin wallet.

But first a trip to the rest room

For the next round of brunch in a spoon,

With candlelight, a homemade tourniquet,

A friendly face that I trust to find the virgin spot

Between my toes on the first try.

I kick off my accessorized cowboy boots

Like a man who is all hat and no cattle.

Then we switch places,

I find a scab-free vessel;

It hungrily swallows the needle.

It blushes and a dot of blood appears.

We nod in unison and pay our bill in unison

And walk out in unison.

Then we can catch the Metro 78

Across Huntington Drive

And tighten up like proper gentlemen,

Alternating nods with bobble-head sobriety.

The bus is filled with hobos, schizoids,

Hollywood starlets, diabetic dreamers.

The Park welcomes us all.

Turkey sandwich, please, and dip it.

Thunder Glue is favored in the fifth.

I box my bet and Mugger passes out.

Photo finish tells me I won nothing.

I slip into a wonderful waking sleep.

The Security Guard wakes us.

A quick trip to the restroom.

This little piggy went to market,

This little piggy went home.

Pop goes the weasel, same spot, same dot.

We walk in unison to our bus ride back

Till we arrive at our destination of detours

To the backstreets of Skid Row;

Three strikes and it’s life in prison, so tighten up,

Roll down your sleeves and button up.

They make movies on Fifth and Main,

Two blocks from the LA Mission,

Where the imps and sailors fuck and eat

And if they’re lucky they find a bed

With ripe bedbugs too plump

To suck another drop of blood.

You can recognize the regulars;

They look like mirrors with strangers in them.

The Chaplain says a prayer from the good book

Of government grants and tax write-offs.

And we say amen to the darkness and hit the hay.

If the ponies pay off the long-shot odds,

It’s a room at the Frontier Hotel on Main Street:

Marble stairs and brass rails

Remind one of the Golden Age of Cinema

When Charlie Chaplin movies premiered

On Broadway and stars like Clark Gable

Stayed at the regal hotels on Main Street;

Today they are Section 8 habitats

Where Strawberries are on the lookout

For Johns lost in the fog of a Noir novel.

Want a date? No? You fag.

Take your STD beaver for a walk.

The Frontier rooms have a hierarchy:

The first five floors are bloated with rats and roaches

For the vagrants without vices,

Working class stiffs on the 9 to 5 treadmill;

Six thru ten are for the lucky scroungers—

They get rooms with a view of Little Tokyo to the left,

Sears Tower to the right,

A bed and bath and TV set with BET and static;

Strangers knock on the door at all hours,

Is Jim home? I owe him some money,

Open the door, I’ll give it to you;

Fuck off! You parasites of parasites,

Jim is dead; I’m his fucken corpse.

The top two floors are for the Fat Junkies;

Room service at their disposal

And angry security protects them:

This is where the baggies are filled,

The rock candy shat out of the mules,

The balloons huff and puff

With race horse precision;

Dime drops and quarter cramps await.

This is the unreachable party

Save for Gumshoes and Beat Boys

Slumming for Beat Girls who haven’t

Tasted the strawberry yet.

From the lower floors we hear

The party in full swing;

We silence the joy with a drag

Of home-rolled drop and stems and seeds,

The Skinny Junkie’s green tobacco,

The fortified wine and malt lager by the jar.

The liquor store across the street

Claustrophobic glass enclosed clerk,

A smiling Indian has one hand on the cash register,

The other hand on a Saturday Night Special.

Hello, my friend, no credit,

Get the fuck out. Next.

Tonight we are not lucky.

The cots await at the Mission;

Tie your shoes to your belt,

Place a nylon stocking over your head

So the bugs don’t eat your face.

Mugger’s getting raped.

What you looking at? Wanna be next?

Didn’t think so, bitch.

So I sleep the dreamless sleep of hurt pride.

What was Mugger’s name again?

Where am I? Where is my faceless friend?

Where did the sun come from?

I vomit up sunshine and good mornings

With mud coffee in my belly and cream of wheat.

I make a deal with the bag lady for use of her baby

To take to Broadway during rush hour

Where the robot executives with bulges

In their back pockets that carry payment

For that sour dream I need to buy.

The suits cough up plenty for the stroller kid

And say things like “good luck” and “get a job”.

The baby cries and that is worth gold fillings;

The barren secretaries (call me Administrative Assistant)

Double-down that the money they give me

Will reach the belly of the babe.

The cynics shake their heads

And cell phone the cops who never show,

They never do, and why should they?

It’s not just the paperwork,

It’s the principle of the thing,

Leave the survivors to the task of surviving.

In the heart of the Civic Center.

Even the Mayor and the Council Members

Walk by the beggars holding babies,

Hurried to push that bill or memorandum

To allot the Business Man a tax break

So jobs will trickle down like blood

From the hole of a withdrawn needle.

Instead, it trickles up the nose

Of these well-to-do Elected Officials

With real dope in folded white paper,

Not the ballooned crap from the top floor.

In this moment the rich and the poor snort

From the same powder of the Fat Man.

The baby stops crying on cue

As I split my take with the bag woman

Who fashions a shanty to match her shopping cart;

It is the fashion of disease of street wealth,

The welfare and the EBT

That pays for the fire under the spoon

Or the rock candy in the foil pipe.

She yells, Hello, and waves

To the ventriloquist who drags his dummy

In his rusty red wagon;

His sign reads: GOD TALKS THRU HIM.

And the dummy smiles, for it is true.

He used to be a famous TV star

And hit the talk show circuit:

Johnny Carson and Joey Bishop and Merv Griffin.

His dummy didn’t talk back then;

He did the talking and cashed the checks

And almost became Fat till his first hit

With the movie stars in the green room.

Then another, and another, and his old friends

Shunned him for the new friends;

Eventually they, too, shunned the burden

The ventriloquist became.

He took to the streets to find another and another

And there he found himself at the Frontier Hotel,

A pay-by-the-week guest,

Till all he had left was his dummy and residuals.

And then that dummy sat up one night

All on its own

In the middle of a nod.

So he made his sign to tell the world

Of the miracle of The Dummy.

I take my half of my beggar loot

To watch the street scam quartet:

One man has the cards, two play winners,

And one is the lookout for the Man.

Better not tease these Three-Card Monte tattoo boys

Or they’ll cut off your hands

And put them in your pockets.

Two black cards, one red, he explains;

Pick the red card, double your money.

Everyone can play.

The two “winners” play their role and say,

Can anyone play? Even us poor boys?

Everyone can play and the winners win big

Till the dealer looks like a loser.

Then a brave soul sees how easy it is to win,

And they take him for his whole paycheck.

The lookout shouts, The Man.

They scatter and meet in the alleyway

Behind the Frontier Hotel,

And they split the money

And the brave soul finds them there,

Give me back my money.

They kick his ass and strip him naked

And piss on his tears and drool.

This is the city where we find what we need.

Find the Fat Junkie and break bread with him,

Ones, fives, tens—don’t take no change

From any fucken Skinny Junkie, motherfucker,

Next time iron those bills before you hand them to me.

Yes, sir, yes, sir, yes, sir. May I have some, please?

Pick it up, bitch, and come again.

I pick up the yellow balloons and scurry off

Before the magic elixir in the rubber balls

Is stolen like Easter candy by the calloused hands

Of thieves and vultures and hyenas.

What are you looking at?

Eyes follow me as I turn the corner.

I find a shanty box with a friendly face.

The lightning strikes twice.

Time to take a walk and time the nod

To sync with the robot suits.

There’s Mugger with a racing rag;

We catch the 78 bus to the Pony Park.

Order a turkey sandwich, no dip, please.

I pick six and tighten up.

If I win I eat at the 24/7 Diner.

The needle brings me luck today;

After nine races and I collect my wad of winnings;

We take the Metro train to the never-closed diner

And skip the line of tourists

And take a seat at the counter,

Where Rudy Whatshisname who used to make movies

Now waits the counter and pours me hot coffee.

Ponies pay off again, eh, he says, a big tip on his mind.

He waddles over a plate of waffles with karo syrup,

The kind they use for fake blood in B-movies,

He once told me, and the pig in a blanket,

Well, it’s a vegetarian cannibal who eats his own;

He laughs at his own joke in his own world.

I order two and more coffee,

One for me, one for Mugger.

I don’t meet his eye ‘cause he’ll know

I remember the Penis Boys last night

Raping him as he cried for his mommy.

Some things we remember to forget.

The Police Chief and The Sheriff join us.

The Sheriff fornicates a cup of coffee and winces

As his cauliflower ear aches what with rain on the way.

The Chief promises the moon for practice

And laughs into his runny eggs.

A truck driver joins us and nods to the Law Men;

He orders the breakfast special

And eats it with his hands.

Half the food specks his black and grey beard.

The last of the day dies in shadow, he says to us,

Same shadow that followed me here from ‘Frisco.

It’s the sign for the city to change shifts:

The Working Class leaves, the Skinny Class arrives.

Just this morning, Rudy says,

The heat of the sun entered the diner for a drink of water.

Too late for the A/C growled the Lady in the Cage,

Sensing Rudy’s hint that he was warm.

Bacchus the short-order cook flips the flapjacks

And tells Rudy to shut the fuck up.

The trucker asks Bacchus for the time

But the hunger in his belly

Drowns out the answer to his question:

Armageddon o’clock, you prick.

The hold-up man in a leather zipper mask changes his mind

And seats himself beside the law men.

You got my vote, he tells them.

Love the mask, they respond, going my way?

Mugger ejaculates at that scene.

We are asked to leave.

Perverts, they called us, even the Lady in the Cage

Who tosses my change on the floor.

I leave it there and the Masked Man dives for it.

All eyes are on us as we depart.

When we return they won’t remember a thing;

This is the city with Dementia:

Some things they remember to forget.

We exit to Ninth Street, heading back to the Mission.

Or maybe The Frontier tonight.

I count what’s left of my winnings;

Mugger and I will be okay, better than okay.

Today I am a winner.

Tonight I will be the friendly face.

Tonight I will party with The Fat Junkie

On the very top floor of the Hotel.

I will roll up my sleeves and follow the tracks home.

No tippy toes tonight.

Rudy and Bacchus got their tip.

Mugger mumbles something about no tomorrow,

And just for a moment, just a moment,

I feel sated and wonder if that’s what Fat feels like.

 

Deadstock by Ian Rogers

Reviewed by Anthony Servante


Welcome, dear readers, to the latest installment into the workings of Horror in literature today. This month we trod the dusty trails of the Weird Western, from Ghost Rider to Samuel Dryden and his sidekick, Raisy. We’ll take a peek at the genre of Western novels and see how the Weird Western tweaks it. Horror fans need not be Western fans to enjoy the supernatural bent of “Deadstock” (2011).

We connote the literature of the Western with Cowboys and Indians (alright, Native American Tribes People), Trailblazers and Gunfighters, Ranchers and Banditos, Wanted Men and Bounty Hunters, a lawless land prospered by Easterners, Children of the Mayflower seeking to expand their colonial roots by ‘Going West’ into the American Frontier; we think of cattle drives, the burgeoning of new towns, shops and saloons, the new Sheriff, pioneers settling down on “Injun” territory, some surviving, others being massacred for pilfering Indian lands, the railroad looming large across the frontier, reaching from coast to coast. The Age of the West marked its turf between 1849, the Gold Rush, and 1886, the surrender of Geronimo, the final and fatal attempt by an Indian to strike back at the White Man, interlopers and squatters on Native American country. With Geronimo’s failure to reclaim Apache soil, the Wild West ended and the Industrial Age began.

We acknowledge authors such as Zane Grey and Louis L’Amour with Romanticizing the Old West. They give us heroes and villains, damsels in distress, and the anti-hero, an outlaw admired and feared by the law-abiding citizens of the New West. But the Romantic Age is a two-edged sword: Whereas the Wild West deals with good guys and bad, the Weird West breaks new ground by turning to the Supernatural for its villains. While Western literary heroes such as the Lone Ranger, Shane, and Lash Larue kept readers fascinated with the genre, Lon Williams in 1951 introduced Lee Winters, a Marshal’s Deputy who fought demons, ghosts and terrible Greek gods. A few years earlier, the Ghost Rider, created by writer Ray Krank and artist Dick Ayers, took on vampires, werewolves and other creatures of the night. Ayers revived the character in 1967 for Marvel Comics, who later turned the character into the fiery-skulled anti-hero on a flaming motorcycle, while AC Comics purchased the rights to the original western hero garbed in white, renaming him The Haunted Horseman.

Ian Rogers continues the tradition of the Weird Western in his latest work. Rogers writes, “Stonebunny Press recently published my first foray into the Weird West, a novelette called "Deadstock." No one knows who or what is killing the cattle at Groom ranch, but Sam Dryden, with his supernatural greenwood gun, and Raisy, with her ‘deck’ of knives, are determined to find out. What they discover is more horrifying than either of them ever dreamed, and the secret may be one that takes them to the grave.” As the story unfolds, elements that comprise the mystery can be discerned.

The symbolism of the Weird Western jumps out at the reader from the get-go. The Marshal Jacobs rides out to meet our heroic duo dressed in black, a foreboding sign given that he’s beyond 60 years old, an abnormal age for this period when 50 years was the common life expectancy. Statistically, only 2.5 men reached the age of 65 in the late 1800s. That means 97.5 men didn’t live much longer than their forties on average. In contrast, Dryden has “babyface” looks, signifying an uncanny youthful appearance of innocence to an inward grittiness or hardboiled-ness; Raisy has “flaming red hair”, denoting a temper and an infernal nature (she pack knives as weapons—an ancient armory; note also Dryden’s ancient pistol). And the Marshal seems only interested in checking their weapons, as if he were waiting for a pair of riders carrying such ware. Raisy also carries a cat (August Finch—named for a fortune teller), a ‘familiar’ in the days when the colonists feared witches. Add to this contrast in ages that a man and woman travel together out in the Wild West, and we get a glimmer of Adam and Eve tossed out of Paradise into an unknown world of sin and evil. Even as they approach the mysterious ranch, Dryden points out, “He didn’t understand why anyone would want to settle in such a godforsaken place.” These are foreshadows of evils to come.

Against the naturally torrid and hellish heat of the desert, there are the supernatural elements subtly described, an inversion of Nature. At the ranch, a young girl plays with a scorpion, the symbol for death, and even as Dryden warns her of the danger of such play, she snatches up the insect and tosses it into the water to drown. Whatever evil has infested the ranch, it has had its effect on the child as well as the other children. She loves saying ‘devil’ again and again, while her pa, Chester Groom, refers to Dryden as “a gift from God.” The Groom family also seems to be suffering unnatural aches and pains, and abnormal behavior is displayed. Even though the cattle at the ranch are mutilated, the vultures avoid the carcasses. Nature is unbalanced. As Dryden and Raisy burn the carcass of the steer, “They stood in silence as the steer went up in flames. The heat blanketed them, but they still felt a chill, as if there was a part of themselves that could never be warmed.” Even the term ‘deadstock’ is the antonym of ‘livestock’. Something evil has inverted the natural order. Our heroes, too, are warned of the evils upon them: “[The supernatural threats] have been brought back against the natural laws. They will not rest until order has been restored.”

The symbolism and supernatural elements come to a head as the mystery of the deadstock becomes clearer to our heroes and they understand what must be done to put nature back in balance. Horror fans will not be disappointed with the final battle.

The novella captures the West with descriptive details of the desert, the small town, and the Groom ranch. The dialog also echoes what we have come to expect from western-speak without relying on clichés. Because the visage of the old west looms so large and accurate, the sci-fi and horror elements work within the framework to create a good counter-balance between the normal west and the weird west. Deadstock is a welcome addition to the Weird Western tradition. Dryden and Raisy can be placed with confidence alongside Joe R. Lansdale’s Jonah Hex, Ray Krank’s Ghost Rider, and Lon Williams’ Lee Winters. I look forward to further rides into the Weird West with Ian Rogers.

 

OFF KILTER TV: 

Where Horror Rears its Ugly Head on Family Television

The Weird Western* Lassos the Rawhide TV Show

Reviewed by

Anthony Servante

When we watch family television, we have certain expectations about the plots and the behavior of the characters. We expect Lucille Ball to get into and out of trouble; we expect Scully and Mulder to encounter supernatural phenomena. What we don’t expect is Lucy taking on monsters or Mulder stealing John Wayne’s cement footprints from the Grauman’s Chinese Theater. When the unexpected happens on our favorite shows, I call them Off Kilter TV.

In today’s column we will take a look at the 60s TV Western, RAWHIDE and an episode called, “Incident of the Four Horsemen”, written by Charles Larson, who wrote for the TV show, One Step Beyond, and directed by Thomas Carr, who directed for Adventures of Superman and Dick Tracy.

What I like about Rawhide is that the stories are always on the verge of the supernatural: a mysterious figure in black follows the drovers, killing them off one by one, the Murder Steer (a bull with the word ‘murder’ branded on its side) appears and whoever sees it soon after dies; there’s the rolling wagon with no driver, a supposedly haunted Indian Burial Ground, and a zombie Indian, but the episodes always end with an explanation: the figure in black is a man who murdered his wife and child and seeks his own death by killing others; the Murder Steer is planted by a corrupt judge who plans a crime; the zombie Indian was just very ill and never really died as his tribe believed. However, in the episode, “Incident of the Four Horsemen”, it turns out to be a true supernatural tale, an Off Kilter TV yarn closer to weird than western.

Let’s first refresh our memories as Rawhide is over 50 years old. The western TV show revolves around a cattle drive of about 3000 head of steer, the trail boss, Gil Favor (Eric Fleming), the second in command, ramrod Rowdy Yates (Clint Eastwood), Wishbone, the cook (Paul Brinegar), and the 20 or so drovers played by regular and guest actors from week to week.

Clint Eastwood (left), Eric Fleming (right)

In the Four Horsemen episode, the drive is stalled between two feuding families, and in Romeo and Juliet-style, a young man from one family, Louden, and a young woman from the other, Galt, marry, triggering a murder and fueling the feud toward a full-scale war. One by one, each of the horsemen arrive as the war nears. Here we need to get a little biblical guidance before we resume the episode analysis. The coming of the horsemen heralds the Apocalypse, that is, the final battle between Christ and the Antichrist for the souls of mankind, and these riders are known traditionally as Death, War, Famine, and Pestilence. The head of one family is Galt (God?), and the other is Louden (Lucifer?); it is difficult to say who is the good one and the evil one in that their names are interchangeable with double meaning: for instance, Galt can be gaunt or god, while Louden can be Lucifer or Lord. This ambiguity causes us to focus on the horsemen rather than the families, just as in the biblical Apocalypse there will be false prophets and one will not be able to tell the rise of the antichrist from the second coming of Christ. Many souls will be lost as they choose the wrong side.

 Roberto Contreras, John Dehner, Claude Akins, and James Griffith in Rawhide (1959)

So, in the Rawhide episode, the family feud on the brink of battle represents the coming Apocalypse. Thus, the first horseman to appear is War: Initially, we meet Gus Marsden (Claude Atkins); get it, Mars, Roman god of war? The den of war. Nudge, nudge. His first act is to instigate the murder of Carl Galt (Edward Faulkner) right after the marriage between Amy Galt and Frank Louden. Next we meet Ben Kerran (carrion?) (John Dehner) who plays the horseman Death. We can tell he’s Death because Wishbone (Paul Brinegar) finds him dead and buries him, and a few seconds later, he rises from the grave. Of course, Favor hires him immediately. When Marsden and Kerran meet, they get on like old acquaintances, for what is war without death?

The horsemen, Famine and Pestilence, are found in a ghost town. They are called Hombre and White. Hombre represents famine as he eerily eats nonstop for the rest of the episode. White is pestilence as he coughs nonstop, a cough deep inside where no medicine can reach, as he points out. Soon, the two horsemen join the others and the four are now together, ready for the families to begin their bloodshed so they can thrive. Only Gil Favor stands between the four men and their goal. Favor must drive the cattle across the river, preventing any of the armies from using the steer to feed their warfare. But the Four Horsemen are not going to make it easy for him.




As Kerran reminds Favor that he’s driving the herd straight into a brewing war, the trail boss points out that he makes his own fate, thus alluding to free will and that the outcome is not predetermined. He tries to convince Louden not to go to war, but Galt and Kerran barge in on them. Kerran (Death) pushes the newlywed groom to make it seem like he’s reaching for a gun and Galt shoots him. The horseman tells Favor that he was trying to push him out of harm’s way, the same lie Marsden used to trigger the first murder, of Carl Galt, that brought them to the brink of battle.




Favor is not deterred and plans to cross the river. Marsden, Kerran, White and Hombre sit atop their horses on the other side of the river, spooking the herd who refuse to cross. It is then that someone says that the four men are the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and call Kerran by the name Death. Favor insists that the sun is in the cows’ eyes and they just need to wait a few hours for the sun to be overhead. But war threatens. Marsden and Kerran are steely-eyed, White coughs away, and Hombre continues to eat. The trail boss challenges Kerran to a fight, winner takes all; if Kerran wins, he claims the lives of everyone, including the cattle’s, but if Favor wins, war will be averted and the cattle can cross the river.

So, it’s mano a mano with Gil Favor versus Death. Since we can’t have the hero of the show get killed, Favor wins, and Kerran admits that his timing was off, that it was not yet Favor’s time, but that he’ll be back. War is averted, the cattle cross, the family feud is settled, and the Four Horsemen ride off.

Much of the fun of this supernatural episode is the weak attempt to explain away the strange behavior of the drovers (some come down with a bad cough, similar to White’s, others choose sides for or against Galt and Louden, and many are driven to drink to handle the pressure of impending war), but the best they could come up with is the sun got in the cow’s eyes. Throughout the episode there is talk of devils and demons, god and man’s place in a godless land. Through it all, as Favor tries to talk sense to his men, we as viewers cannot ignore all that has transpired, the deviousness of Marsden and Kerran, the insatiable appetite of Hombre, and that wicked cough deep in White. Still, “Incident of the Four Horsemen” can be added to the list of Weird Westerns and to the list of Off Kilter TV shows brought to you by yours truly.


Until next we meet with another Off Kilter TV program, keep the TV on in the darkness.

 

Religion and Horror: Heaven, Hell, and Earth, Part Two

By Anthony Servante

Research by William Cook

Michael casts out rebel angels. 

Illustration by Gustave Doré for John Milton's Paradise Lost (1866)

An Expansion on the Definition of Evil

In Religion and Horror, Part One, we tried to gauge a commonality in the definition of Evil in essays written by authors in the Horror genre. In some cases, they spoke from personal experience; in others, they spoke through their stories. Evil came down to choice. Because we have free will, we can decide to commit unholy acts of horror, just as we can choose to benefit our brethren with benevolent acts of selflessness. While I maintain that God’s Providence is already in motion, the beginning, middle, and end already predetermined, so it doesn’t matter what we choose; our choices have already been determined. What seems like free will is a stacked deck of decision-making.

In Part Two, we will expand on the definition of Evil with three essays: First, we have RESIDENT EVIL by Paul Teusner, NUMINOSITIES: ‘Things That Should Not Be — The Uncanny Convergence of Religion and Horror by Matt Cardin, and The Genre of Horror by Mgr. Viktória Prohászková.

Paul Teusner, in his work, RESIDENT EVIL, says, “Mythic stories point to the origins of life and offer a world-order that gives importance and function to human life.” For Teusner, Evil is the errors of our becoming civilized. We learn by trial and mistake, and adjust our individual life in conjunction with the lives of our community to make rules so these mistakes are not repeated. Before there were rules, there were stories passed from one generation to the next. Teusner further states,

“The act of religion is the act of constructing and maintaining a

set of beliefs and material practices which provide meaning to

one’s life amidst the universe of known experience. This set of

beliefs offers more than a way of answering the question, “Why

am I here?”. It provides a framework by which one sets oneself

among others, identifies a purpose in life, hope for the future: a

pathway along which to course the rest of one’s life.”

From Resident Evil

The rules and stories become our culture, our religion, and our obedience to the law of experience. But as Teusner shows in his discussion of “horror”, the law does not extend beyond this experience. So, how do we deal with that which exceeds our rules? We create monsters. Or “myths”, as Teusner prefers: “Myths endeavour to frame the reality beyond known human experience in language of symbols known in human experience.”

Let’s keep in mind that there are the monsters of the supernatural, those beyond our experience, and there are human monsters, those who choose to ignore the rules and repeat the errors of the past, that time of savagery.

In Matt Cardin’s NUMINOSITIES: ‘Things That Should Not Be — The

Uncanny Convergence of Religion and Horror’, he states right off: “…horror and religion have always been bound together in the most intimate of entanglements.” He turns to the stories of the “Ancient Sumerians”, “Ancient Greeks”, and “Hebrew scripture”, to name a few, to illustrate the connection. This binding of horror and religion, Cardin discusses in the stories of old, as Teusner alluded to earlier. Furthermore, Cardin notes that the horror and religion connection reached the colonies of the New World via the witch trials and life under the constant fear of demon possession or becoming spellbound by the wiccans’ sorcery. So, as religion began making the rules of the new civilizations, and began telling its stories (e.g., the Bible), it included a punishment for breaking the rules. The crime of witches, for instance, is cavorting with the Devil, and their sentence for such unholy behavior was in itself pretty horrific: drowning, hanging, stoning, and in Europe, burning and torture (think Iron Maiden—the device, not the band). So, not only did the religious fear the Devil, they feared God’s wrath as well, perhaps more so: Cardin explains,

“…perhaps it has to do with an unconscious recognition that only a few have ever named aloud, a recognition that is simultaneously implicit and

explicit in all of those great biblical images of a wrathful God whose transcendent nature is categorically other than the natural world, so that, even though this nature is technically termed “holiness,” it emerges in human experience more as a tremendous, awe-and-dread-inspiring eruption of supernatural nightmarishness that is fundamentally corrosive both to the world at large and to the human sensibility in particular.”

(From NUMINOSITIES).

Thus, the horrors in the stories of the Bible attest to God’s Predetermined outcome for man being both a blessing (The Rapture, for instance) and a curse (Think Left Behind—with the Antichrist, the Leviathan, and so on).

Cardin sums it up, “In other words, perhaps it has to do with a psychologically subterranean sense of unsettlement at the notion that the divine itself, not just in its conventionally demonic aspects but in its intrinsic essence, may be fundamentally menacing.” Religion deems man doomed unless he meets certain criteria, obeys certain laws, but the multitude of interpretations of God’s Providence has man wondering if he has chosen the path to Heaven or Hell. The uncertainty is its own form or horror, the “psychologically subterranean sense of unsettlement”, as Cardin explains.

The Genre of Horror by Mgr. Viktória Prohászková expands on this “unsettlement”, or “fear”, instilled in us by the stories of old and the religious rules that will determine our fate. She writes,

“The oldest and strongest human emotion is fear. It is embedded in people since time began. It was fear that initiated the establishment of faith and religion. It was the fear of unknown and mysterious phenomena, which people could not explain otherwise than via impersonating a high power, which decides their fates. To every unexplainable phenomenon they attributed a character, human or inhuman, which they associated with supernatural skills and invincible power. And since the human imagination knows no limits, a wide scale of archetypal characters have been created, such as gods, demons, ghosts, spirits, freaks, monsters or villains. Stories and legends describing their insurmountable power started to spread about them.”

(From The Genre of Horror)

And here we reach the monsters that connect Religion and Horror: “demons, ghosts, spirits [think poltergeists], freaks…” Because we cannot fathom a God that is Evil, we create monsters; our fear manifests itself as the creatures responsible for our uncertain fates. But we must not forget the concept of free will and predetermination. We must simply add the “fear” of God to the discussion.

And now we can turn to the works by our authors for this piece. We shall examine them for the three possibilities for Evil to exist: man’s choice to disobey the rules, God’s cruel punishments, and unnatural monsters. The authors and the works at hand include: John Milton, Paradise Lost; William Peter Blatty, The Exorcist; Billie Sue Mosiman, Banished; Lisa Lane, Myth of Gods; Hank Schwaeble, Diabolical; Kat Yares, Vengeance is Mine; and Elizabeth Massie, Sineater.

Stay tuned for Religion and Horror, Part Three.