The Deeds of Devils and Angels (blog)

Here it is. This is the beginning of a writing project that I'm hoping will consume most of my creative juices and time for a few months.

This is actually something that I started almost a year ago. It was originally designed to be a novel for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month, look it up). Fortunately I didn't finish it back then. I say fortunately because I don't think a standard novel is the proper format for this.

Anyways, onto what this is exactly. This is going to be my attempt at writing a crime story with the old 1940s serials in mind. Those who are friends with me on facebook probably have noticed my recent obsession with Noir styled things. From movies to books. I'll admit that the recent resurgence of my interest in this genre was sparked by the video game L.A. Noire. I've already explained the reasons why I love this game on Facebook so I'll refrain from doing it here. That being said, this will hopefully become my contribution to that fascinating realm of fiction.

Now I know that a blog isn't necessarily the best format for this sort of thing. I'm hoping eventually that I'll have a website devoted to this, but at the moment I'm trying to focus on actually writing the story rather than working out the kinks in displaying it. I hope you understand. Speaking of plans, I'm planning on this being a weekly feature. A chapter a week until it's conclusion. Yes, this will have a conclusion, I won't even attempt to try and make this an ongoing thing.

Also, as a little disclaimer, in the interest of actually completing the chapters on time and releasing them on time, I've told myself that I'm going to keep editing down to a minimum. So if there's some grammatical errors, or some sections seem awkward, I apologize in advanced, I'm simply playing this with my characteristics in mind. And when I say that I mean my habit of self-editing myself until I've destroyed what I've written and then eventually scrapping the whole thing. So once again, to avoid this, editing will be kept to a minimum. Consider this a rough draft, who knows perhaps when I finish I'll go back, clean it up and then re-release it.

Alright then, Enjoy the little prologue. I promise next week, there will be a much more substantial chapter next week. Also, expect little blog posts to accompany each chapter where I'll discuss the behind-the-scenes and various other fun things. I hope to get some feedback from you guys as I write this little story.

The Deeds Of Devils and Angels: Prologue

The sun was an oppressive sort of friend. It offered up its light, only if a person was willing to sweat for it. It offered up its heat but only if a man was willing to burn a little for it. Most of the people in the city of New Constantinople were smart enough to keep their time in the morning sun short, but some were forced into it by their callings in life. Or at the very least, by the thing that paid that month’s bills. It was well known that the city had grown dangerous. The night was filled with deadly threats but it was the daytime that revealed the gruesome remains of those treacherous nights.

Two uniformed policemen, Gurrero and Jimenez, stood in the city’s central plaza. A large fountain depicting a trio of angels holding up a replica of the earth offered a little relief for the men. A cool mist floated through the air as water poured from the angel’s eyes into the pool below. The earth upon their hands blocked the sun for the cops. At the feet of the cops laid the rotund body of a well known police captain. No immediate signs of foul play, in fact, if it hadn’t been for a letter delivered to the police station before anyone arrived claiming responsibility for the death, there was nothing about the body that suggested murder. But as it stood, the once well respected captain of police would join the nineteen other bodies, each with their own letter, in the morgue.

The body faced the sky. The sun poured into its blank and lifeless stare. The mist from the fountain had fallen on the body for hours it looked. The grey uniform that was standard for high ranking police officers was nearing a shade of black. Water streamed slowly down the well earned wrinkles on the captain’s face. His lips were slightly parted as if they were frozen in an attempt to say something important.

“My God, it’s the captain all right.” Gurrero said, wiping sweat from his brow.

“I guess we better call it in to headquarters. I’m sure they’ll want a detective on this.” Jimenez said.

“Don’t bother. Just call the coroner, those second floor pencil pushers aren’t even bothering with this anymore.”

“What? Why not?”

“Orders straight from the top I heard.”

“The top? You mean Patricio?”

“That’s Father Patricio, but yeah, the word is he has some guy, an American, coming in sometime soon and he’s supposed to get all this squared away with.”

“You don’t say.”

“That’s right, I don’t say, keep your trap shut. Trust me on this one friend. Just do your paperwork, walk your beat and hopefully soon we won’t be having to deal with this shit anymore.”

The policemen nodded in agreement and began the formalities involved with dealing with a murder victim that would never see an investigation.

The night is a dangerous time in New Constantinople, full of hidden threats, sensationalized villains, and paranoia. But it’s the day that reveals the deeds of devils and angels.

I Come To You Buying Gifts (Blog)

There's a strange and scary practice we do in Western Society that I'm becoming rather tired of. That is of course, the practice of picking up people. When I say picking up people I refer to the act of trying to get someone's attention in order to initiate a romantic relationship with them.

In some cultures, relationships are arranged and the people involved learn to like and love each other. But here it's reversed. We think we know how to love and like someone we just need to learn the person. Now I don't think I'd particularly care for the arranged relationship thing, but I can see how some would think the pros outweighed the cons. The things some people go through to pick up someone is really startling. We buy people drinks, we come up with clever things to say, we put ourselves on the line in hopes that that person will bite plus a ton of other things. It seems like a really complicated set of things we have to do in order to engage in something that's really complicated.

The biggest problem about the whole dance is that there aren't any set rules or processes. Every time you get out on that floor trying to find a partner it's different. A different place, a different person, different words, different everything. All you can do really is pray that you can piece together the right words, looks and gestures from a 100 gallon drum and hope you have the things you need to put together something successful.

Perhaps I'm just bitter about it all because I've never been particularly good at picking up women. I've had a few successes but a whole hell of a lot more failures. I'd be sent back to the minors if my success rate was my batting average. Sometimes I think that little kids got it right. If you like someone, push them down and kick dirt on them. That'd be so much easier.

I Come To You Buying Gifts

A pack of gum

that shall remain a rectangle.

Cigarettes

that will never burn.

A tire pressure gauge

that will never feel the breath of rubber.

One more book of poetry

than I have money for.

I offer up these sacrifices

so that, if you wish it,

you will caress my face

with ten divine digits.

Paint These Weary Dreams In Oil Based Paints (Blog)

I like to consider myself a pretty creative person. Some may argue this and that's okay. But, there's always been a jealousy I've held for people who can create visual art. I myself am not one of these people.

I remember the first real exposure to visual art was when I was very young. Sure I had seen drawings and stuff like that before, but it wasn't until I was around 6 or 7 when I decided that I wanted to be able to do that stuff too. My mom had bought me this painting of a whale, (I really liked whales back then) and it mesmerized me. The way the paint rose off the canvas, the way the painter had used what looked like 1000 different shades of blue to create the perfect colored sea. Everything about it captured my attention. It was after hanging this painting that I begun my fruitless journey into the world of art.

I tried drawing, painting, sculpting, pottery and everything else in between. But nothing I did looked good. Some of it was actually pretty laughable. Art class in school became a hell for me as I struggled with my grand clay sculpture that eventually turned into an ashtray, over and over again. I began to hate the other people around me and how easy images and shapes seemed to flow from their fingertips. This is not an exaggeration, they all made stick figures better than me.

I then made the mistake of growing close with a couple of artists. I found myself in awe of the things my friends had made and once again jealous that I could not. This jealousy actually lead me to start writing. Once I finally resigned myself to a life that would never involve a gallery showing off my work, I turned to words. I wish I could say that I started writing in order to explore the intricacies of the written word, but the truth is, I was tired of watching my friends create stuff I could not.

At this point in my life I'm comfortable with my lack of artistic talent. Perhaps it's because I've grown comfortable with my writing, or maybe it's something else like maturity, but that's probably not the case. Either way I know I'll never have a museum piece and that's just fine. But dammit if I still don't feel that green mist of jealousy flicking my ear when I see a really cool painting.

Paint These Weary Dreams In Oil Based Paint

I have envied the speckled Pollack minds

and the Guayasamin hands.

I have never tasted Warhol branded soup

nor have I tanned under Van Gogh's yellow sun.

My knees refuse to touch the dirt

in front of canvas churches.

Once I tried to hold David's pose

all moring into the Kinkade twilight,

I shook and cracked

in unattractive ways.

But my ears remain attached

and I haven't succumbed to wine.

Not yet at least.

Refresh the Howling Wolves in Digital Moonlight (blog)

I did something today that I haven't done in awhile, I picked up a Rolling Stone magazine. The fact that I bought a print copy of something itself is enough to warrant a blog post but that's not what I want to talk about. Inside this issue was an article called "The Girl Who Played With Fire". The article was about a girl who has an internet persona named Kiki Kannibal. It goes into detail about her rise to internet celebritydom and the horrific backlash she received as a result. This got me thinking about cyber bullying and the internet in general.

I myself have not viewed anything that Kiki Kannibal has done, nor do I intend to. Just simply the description the article gives doesn't really invoke any interest from me. But it sounds like typical vlog type things wrapped up in a fashionable candy shell. For this, Kiki has dealt with people who send death threats, pedophiles, stalkers, animal killers, amoral internet tycoons and essentially the entire rogues gallery of less than stellar human beings. It really is a sad story that broke my heart a little bit and left me wondering why does this stuff happen on the internet so much?

Unfortunately I really don't know for certain but I'm going to attempt to come to some sort of conclusion at the end of these thoughts.

I first started using the internet at home around 1999-2000. At this time I was 12 years old. It was a strange time indeed. The internet was still fairly young, most of its users were fairly young and it was chaos. The term "The Wild West" has often been associated to the earlier days of the internet and it's a surprisingly apt term (well, assuming you're thinking of the romanticized version of the wild west). There were little to no rules. You could essentially do whatever the hell you wanted and it'd be okay. Because at that time the internet just didn't matter. It was a fun little thing but it certainly didn't bleed into the real world. This provided a playground for everyone who wanted to release their personality flaws, pent up rage and frustration that they normally could not express in normal society. I unfortunately was one of them.

I remember pretty well some of the things I said on chatrooms. Hurtful, ignorant and at times downright evil things. I even remember being proud at times of the messed up things I'd come up with. That pride has faded away into guilt and sorriness but that doesn't change the fact that I participated in cyber bullying. Now I consider myself a fairly level headed and well rounded individual. So I have to ask myself, what drove me to be so mean? Like I said previously that the internet was (and still is) a place to be anonymous and release everything you could. But that's not the whole story. There's also this human compulsion to either want to be better or more popular than everyone else or if you can't, attack the one who is better and more popular than you. Both of these motivations seem to lead to the same course of action, bullying. You either insult, threaten or straight up act in a way to establish dominance or remove dominance from someone else. That's just how it works it seems.

This in itself is horrible. It's not how civilized humans should act. But it can get worse. We've all seen the special reports about how internet celebrities eventually get stalkers finding out who they are and coming into their life away from the internet. Let me be clear, I haven't done this. But there are many who have. At some point in their daily routine they lose track of their life. They forget that they're releasing their frustrations with life online because they can't in physical society and they let it all seep out into every facet of their life.

The internet isn't the same place as it was back then. But the same sort of people that made it wild back then are still around. Except now, the internet is almost a vital part of many peoples lives, so the access these tormentors have has increased. It's just masked well behind archaic rule sheets and promises to act properly.

So I suppose that's my conclusion. This sort of torment of other people exists because people in general want to let their anger be known. They want their dominance. They want their popularity and to get it someone has to be hurt in their minds. Then some are not satisfied with the torment they deliver via screens and broadband connections they need those things in person.

Also, I want to apologize to anyone I may have hurt with my own cyber bullying, I know this apology is useless considering the people I may have hurt probably don't read my blog, but it's an attempt. Also I want to wish Kiki Kannibal good luck with her continued presence on the internet and the sincerest hopes that the torment she received stops. That goes for anyone else who has dealt with the things she has.