C.H. Valentino

....My name is Samantha Marlow,

 

and I haven't got time for this shit!

 

Imagine, if you will, two writers- lock steadfast in debate. Foiled with each other like some fantastic character arch indicative of the Italian Rennisance. Imagine one broad shouldered, blackberry haired sociopath that governs the extremities of one very ambivolent woman; who in her own regards, is very much still a girl lost among the sum of her inner parts- those inner parts consisting, predominantly of... her. And me.

 

Such is one led to believe that she, me...I...suffer from multiple personality disorder. That we collectively inhabirt one body but share multiple different levels of consciousness. Yet- were it not for the body, we would not exist thereby negating all diagnosis of MPD.

The diagnosis requires that at least two personalities routinely take control of the individual's behavior with an associated memory loss that goes beyond normal forgetfulness; in addition, symptoms cannot be due to substance abuse or medical condition.

 

So, then, WHAT are we?

 

We are enemies. We are lovers. Friends. Collegues. Associates. Best friends. Ruling parties. Losing members. Fantastic. Flawed. Symbiotic. But beyond all that- we are destructive. The surgery that kills- remove us, might kill her. Leave us, she might kill herself.

 

We come from a long line of possession- felt by many thousands of writers, painters,muscians, singers, actors... creative people who let the tumor grow unchecked until it put an unnatural amount of pressure on the lobes of the brain- but also broke free that common day constraints and agreements of the mind. We're free- because we don't exist.

 

We don't exist because we're not real. But religion teaches us, often then intangible brings a swifter and more painfull death than any mortal set upon mortal.

 

Knowing all this, I still chose civil war with C.H Valentino.

 

S.A.M

I had a terrifying dream last night- nay; terrifying. Paralyzingly real- and horrific.

 

I drempt living in a large loft apartment in Manhattan- and I was holed up in my studio working on the newest, lastest, greatest installment of Sam Marlow

 

Anyway- I'm pecking away on this old school black lacquer type writer when blood starts dripping on the keys. So, I look around my desk and find everything is covered in blood- red and moving like tiny snake over the desk top.

 

(here comes the worst part)

 

I woke up. And I ran to the bathroom- and looked in the mirror. And Samantha was looking at me- and said, "You don't do anything I don't want you to do". Then I look into the sink and it is full of blood, and my hands are cut off at the wrists.

 

Then I really woke up.

 

I seriously, was sick to my stomach. I dry heaved and then went back to bed- only to lay there, cradling my hands for an hour.

 

Sigh.

 

Can you say man vs. himself??!  

 

Jesus.

 

CHV

I had this odd thought- about the taste of human skin today. I was walking out of Dieburgs and passed a man, not particularly handsom but attractive in his own, but GOD! did he smell FANTASTIC! I'm not sure what it is about the perfect cologne on a man that turns my head to thinking about the mastication of human flesh- but I think that might be the reaction which many designers strive to acheive.

 

It seems, in the moment, such a primal reaction- and yet, so natural. Thinking of dogs- and how in shows of dominance and submission they lock to one another's neck. Or in the case of any pack mammal. 

 

Large cats have a tendency to bite the back of the neck during intercourse. So I find it amazing that a simple smell can ellicit such a primative reaction in the middle of the most enlighted setting. (IE. the middle america yuppie grocery mecca)

 

I think, if it were socially acceptable, I would eat people. Not in the Hannibal, cook your flesh and pair it with wine kind of way- but if it were socially acceptable consume human flesh like you would, say, chicken, I think I would do it.

 

There is a great line in "Prozac Nation"- "I know now why people kill their lovers, eat their lovers, burn them and inhale the ashes of their dead lovers- it is the only way to fully possess another person."

 

Yeah- just like that.

 

CHV

... honey, please. You don't know me that W-E-L-L.

 

I can't spell.

 

Okay, I can spell. But I haz issues.

 

And that is, on a keyboard my spelling falls all to hell. Stick a pen in my hand and I'm fine.... except for when I get to the big ones with all the vowels all smished up next to eachother. (precipiation always nails me... I never get that one right the first time)

 

(PS. And I totally know the difference between "your" and "you're" but for some stinking reason my fingers don't consult my brain before they just screw it up.)

 

(PPS. When I was in grade school, my first grade teacher had the word "little" on our spelling test, but she had spelled it wrong. L-I-T-T-E-L. To this day I still spell little with an "el" before I punch the DELETE key and correct it. Every time.)  

 

It was pointed out to me in high school and then later in college this might have something to do with the fact that I am a self-taught typist. In college my professor (who was this really cool geeky computer guy that seemed to know a little bit about just about everything) made me do this typing test program that he had written that determines which hand you favor when you type.

 

68% of my typing is done with my left hand. (I'm left handed)

 

Two years ago, my job tested me for typing speed. I type 210 words a minute. (This comes from having to type as fast as people speak- as is the nature of my job- 5 days a week, eight hours a day)

 

And I forgot this until someone pointed it out to me eariler this week. The solution is very simple- I should spell check my blogs. But I don't because I type them straight into a HTML prompt and I don't like all the copy-cut-paste-reformating that must take place. That and I cut these blogs off in about 15 minutes between 911 calls.

 

Truth be told, I really only care about my spelling- or lack thereof- in the final drafts of my novels...

 

...or when Word puts that annoying little red squiggle underneath one of my brillantly crafted sentences....

 

...but beyond that, I generally leave it like it is... and here's why I'm really okay with that:

 

I looked at a lot of art in L.A. (emphasis of A LOT) And the one thing I always found myself doing was looking for the aritist in the paint/ink. And I almost always found it- on the right upper hand corner of a canvas or the lower middle edge of a sketch- were his finger prints. Sometimes they were small and smeared- other times, enough to clench a murder case... but they were there.

 

Fingerprints in the ink.

 

I'd never intentionally publish an error. Not in something like Of Hollow Men or Even In... or even a short story in a magazine. But, here, in my blogs I am as real and off-the-cuff creative as I can get. These are my little (littel) escape routes during the eight full hours that I have to "make a living". This is my connection to the readers and writers outside my 6 x 6 steel-trap office. This is my confessional.  

 

So, my fingerprints in the ink are just that... a touch of my humanity. I'm okay with that. And I hope that you are too.

 

CHV

 

.... Back in Five Minutes.

 

So, I got an email a few days ago about style. Writing style. And in this email, this writer asked me a few questions on style, and where it comes from and how it developes... and more to the point.... HOW to develop it.

 

And I thought- 1. Go get On Writing and 2. OH!  A blog topic.

 

And then I thought, what the hell do I know about style?

 

Well, really.... I know a lot about style. Specifically, my style and the styles of other writers I read. For example, lay out Barker, Reede, and Ellis- and I give myself a pretty good chance to figure out who's who on the page.

 

I've noticed style is usually a make or break point for a lot of the other writers I talk to. Seems more often than not I come across people with really solid plots, the basics in structure and grammer to the first read is nearly flawless (I kind of hate those people), but no matter how good the story or the punctuation- I am fucking bored to tears. And that's because, ah-ha, no style.

 

It got me thinkin' about the styles in see inside my fellow writer friends... or lack thereof.

 

As I have preached to them time and time again- you NEED to find a style, and they just stared blankly at me... I realized, I have no way to really explain myself further.

 

(Right about now, six people sucked in a breath and said, oh god- she means me.)

 

More than a few times people have asked me, "Does this piece suck? Do you think I should quit writing?"

 

How anyone can ask me this, I don't know. But I get it atleast once a month, and it always makes me cringe. The sad thing is, my answer is almost ALWAYS- "No, it does not suck. It has no style. As to you, I think YOU need to decide how much work you want to put in."

 

But the truth is, if someone is asking me if they should quit- they've already given up on themselves in a lot of ways. I can't make the decision for someone- hell! I can't make that decision for myself most days. And I'm met hell-a more successful writers than I am and THEY even seem to have the same kind of ambivolence toward their work.  

 

Style is a totally personal thing- as a writer think of it as your morning routine. We all have a system we go through. Some are early risers and we take our time getting ready- others are up and out the door, and down the street before they really are awake (you people baffle and scare the shit out of me). But in the end, the goal is the same in each person. 1. Get out of bed. 2. Don't go to work smelling like cheese.

 

Writing style: same two-step goal. 1. Don't make the reader sleepy 2. Doesn't smell like cheese.

 

So, how to you avoid boring and stinky... well, that's another thing completely.    

 

You must KNOW that books can a. be published without style (Meyers) or b. can possess too much pseydo-style (Palahniuk- it's kitchy and glib) But in the long run, what makes the writer an interesting due or dudette is their voice. c. American Idol is the best example of this.

 

You know you watch it- even me, the woman who watches NO T.V- watches the early American Idol Auditions. And it's not because of Simon Cowells cut-downs. It's because you, like the rest of America, want to watch that select handful of deluded individuals croon their way to YouTube and eventually Tosh 2.0. 

 

And like clockwork, I turn to my mother in abject horror and say, "Do you think no one has told them they just cannot sing?" In a lot of cases, if you can stomach to watch, there are many many people that have the tone and the pitch and the rhythm of the song down- but they are mimicing Kelly Clarkson, or Tina Turner, or Tiny Tim (yeah, one guy did that). And they have no "heart", and no "soul" and they are turned away in waves.

 

Brothers and sisters, they ain't got no style!  

 

One.) I hate that this has to be my first point- but it SHOCKS me at how many writers don't read. Like.... at all. But it shocks me more that some read about a book every two weeks. What the fuck is that? I read, on average, four books a week. These range in topic and length- but I try to stay at this count weekly. And I am not saying that that is by any means normal- I am kind of the octomom of writing- I don't do anything small. But good god! Given that your choice is T.V or a book- take the book. No one ever mastered the character arc from watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer re-runs. 

 

While I am on this topic- (unless you are watching Discovery, History, or one of the high-IQ channels) if you are watching T.V and you say the words- "Wow. What a great idea for a story!"

 

(Specifically, while you are watching 1. Star Trek and/or Wars 2. Any of the Law and Orders 3. Anything on Lifetime 4. Anything by Josh Weadon 5. Anything staring Nathan Fillion 6. Dexter)

 

 If you feel those words forming at the time you are watching the aforementioned, punch yourself in the face nine times. Then go get an ice pack and a REAL book, and have a cup of tea. One more prime-time mini-series inspired piece called "My New WIP- What do you think?" in my inbox- and I am going to launch a hostile take over at CBS.

  

Some writers are mimics and they are good immitations. Some writers are mimics and they sucks to all hell. But anyone that mimics the idiot-box is striking out 100 out of a 100 times. 

 

If you are writing a T.V show, you are not writing a book? So, why study T.V shows to understand plot and the character arc? Get a book- get a couple. Go back to reading. Eventually, if you really can "write like Hemingway"- then you should have no problem writing like you.

 

Do you have a favorite writer? What is their style? Write 1500 in their style. What do you think?

 

Two.) I think it's really easy for me. No really. I'm a big chicken shit- I write first person present and I write character driven novels. All that means I don't have to really work at a fixed style. I let my characters do all the hard work. And each book stamps out a new style that is unique to that book. Samantha does not move like Lexi does, ect.

 

POV has an effect on the overall tone of the piece, and I don't even fuck with that. I just skip straight ahead to FPP and say all you people writtin' in the third are just beyond me.

 

But what I always find is a large group of people telling you why you shouldn't write in a certain tense. These people are fucking stupid. (See point number one) Write in whatever tense you feel comfortable in and you like. But above that, write in the tense that the book must be written in. You catch that piece of personification there? What the book wants- the book gets. Think of it as your spoiled rotten child from your first marriage. They little bastard gets whatever it wants- even if it wants a little omniscience now and again.

 

What POV do you favor? Why? What's the hardest POV to write in? Why? Okay- now write 500 words in the hardest POV for you. What do you think?   

 

Three.) Now, this where I get a little nutty. Nothing in my style is original, per say. I use sheet music to write my prose. But not, like, there in my hand- it's sheet music in my head.

 

Little known Coleen fact- I learned the violin when I was little. My parents forced me to stay with it all the way through high school. I was really cool to be a kid that played the violin- it's SUPER cool to be an adult that can say, "I'm a classically trained violinist." But I digress.

 

Music kind of found its way into my style after I realized there is a beat inside almost every idea- no two are alike- and those beats are just waiting to be strung together. So, Dear Reader, I am playin' with your ears as I am playin' with your mind as I am playin' with your heart.    

 

Look for other talents in your life. Shit you not only know- but you know well.

 

Is there an aspect or interest in your life seperate from writing? Your job? Your hobbies? Now take that and intrograte into your style. Write 500 more words. Well?

 

Four.) Does your world melt? Mine does. No, seriously. If I stop writing for a little while the waking world tunrs into the Matrix but instead of all those neat little green lines of code, my dining room table become a black-text-on-white moving thing. It's not as disturbing as it sounds until I'm, say, driving.

 

That level of insanity kind of bleeds over into my style. Especially with Samantha. No one ever accused her of being normal. Me neither. So, we commiserate together- lamenting the loss of sanity at the cost of brillance.

 

Is there a kickback into your psyce if you DON'T write? What is it? Why or why not? Okay- this is the hard assignment. Don't write and don't read for three days. Now, sit down- write. Well, what's that look like?

 

If any of these exercises helped or haunted you you might want to take a look at Donald Maass' book, Fire in Fiction. I've mentioned it before, but I'll mention it again. Taking the book seriously enough to really show yourself why you are gettting kicked off the lit version of American Idol is a large step in becoming a better writer.

 

The first step to admitting you smell like cheese is taking a big, unbiased wiff.  

 

CHV

.... but I'd rather be on top.

 

So, editing continues. Rewrites continue. Of Hollow Men continues to under go the pledgiting.

 

Julian, my punctuation Nazi, god love him, is so kind as to sit over my shoulder and say, "Don't you want a comma there?" Which leaves me so much room to say- "Pft! Of course, I do! Just a typo."

 

But the point is, Julian's gives me a large part of his time and education free of charge. And that is a thousand time more valueable than the morons I normally seem to attract who can't tell a comma from a semi-colon. And then just gotta swing their dicks later.

 

I realized lastnight as my dog was trying to squeeze between me and the lap top that I have been sacrificing a lot of late to get this book finished, and I did it without thinking. Idealy, I would do this every day, sans my nine-five JOB. And in my head I cannot think of a better day than waking up, taking my juice into my office, working over lunch, and emerging for dinner before going back to the book.

 

Anyone else think there would be a more perfect way to spend a day?  

 

Thus, production has redoubled. And all of this is just a huge push to be finished by the end of Feburary so I can plan my vacation for the coming summer's vacation. Status of this book will determine if I :

 

A. Go back to Killer Nashville

B. Go back to L.A

 

But, C? What the hell does Of Hollow Men have to do with L.A or Nashville. Simple, dear reader, this is the goal I have set for myself.  WILL finish Of Hollow Men soon. But, depending on where it goes- i.e if i score an agent- then I get a celebratory trip to L.A. No agent- I go to Killer Nashville to club one over the head....um.... I mean.... pitch.

 

CHV

 

 

 

 

....when you run out of invisible ink?

 

 

So, chapter nineteen, nee chapter eleven, from Of Hollow Men has me in some what of a bind. Logitically, there is just too much going on in  one place and I am going to have to restructure the entire thing.

 

 

I worked until 5am lastnight. Slept 4 hours. Got ready for work, worked on the book, came to work, and am continuing to work on this chapter. I'm telling ya'll right now, I am NOT going to bed again until this is done. I'm obsessed.

 

 

So, the set it all down long enough to make the blog and make a mention of a few other things.

 

 

Site Members

 

 

Yesterday, I posted the first four chapters of Even In Life. These are the reworked, redrafted copies. Since I started focusing all my energy into Samantha's series, Even In Life has been left to sit on the shelf.

 

 

While I do enjoy this book, it is by no means a showcase of my style. It's just for fun. Take a look at some vampires with a bite. You won't find these in Borders anytime soon, so I leave them here for my online readers only.  

 

 

Additionally, the book I began working on when I came back from California, Place Holder, has also found a place here. This is a massive narrative undertaken in thirteen parts, and by and large was inspired by Clive Barker's painting Despair. It's not done, but part one is listed. I'll let ya'll know when it's updated.

 

 

Paintings coming soon.... as soon as I get done with this DAMN chapter. I promise.

 

 

CHV

     

...And why am I in this handbasket?!?

 

Lastnight, at about 230am I text a friend "I am the muthafuckin grand master of prose!"

 

Now, this wasn't really as egotistical as it sounds- I was just particularly pleased with the rewrite on this scene between Sam and Giacoletto.

 

(Dear Reader, tell no one else, but Giacoletto is SO my favorite.... *swoon*..... he represents so much of what I love in law enforcement as well as what I love in men. At first I thought that playing with his sexual preference is jsut another way of mugging the camera, but now- it's such an intigrated part of his personality, I can't see him in any other way.)

 

So, I had to text Lauren and she came to the house after work to hear the reworked scene. Thus,  I read her the orginal version, which she had heard before, and THEN I read her the new one. At which she just stared at me and shook her head and said, "I didn't see a problem with the first one, until you read the second one..."

 

And I'm all, I know-right? And she's all like, totally. And then I'm all for real....

 

*click-click- BOOM!*

 

So, I've been a bloggin' fool this week. Hell, I'm a writin' fool this week. My obsession makes it seem totally okay to sacrifice sleep for another hour of writing. So, far, no losses of life due to my lack of sleep. And I am swinging through chapter after chapter with break neck speed.

 

In the end it will all be worth it. I can sleep when I'm.... well...  do writers retire?

 

Item Two:

 

For those of you that read about my trip to California, you know I had a really time letting go and coming back. With the standing invitation to return, I have every intention of going for my birthday in July. Only this time, I'll be spending five days relaxing.

I'm having very odd dreams about L.A. And I woke up at about 6am this morning in the middle of a very strange mist covered dream of Gallery Row. I had been following the wake of one of my ex-boyfriends as he kept peeking over his shoulder at me. I could feel the heat in the city- taste the steam from the sewers and the rain on my face. I could hear the cars passing in the street, feel the slice of water across from their tires- but the curbs were too tall and there was a threat of slipping off into the asphlat void below. And Liberty kept whispering in my ears, "Can you keep up in a place so big, madame?"

 

And I woke up to my ceiling, panting and wanting to be in L.A. Panting and wanting to see the canyon. Panting and wanting...

 

.... some smart-ass somewhere is saying, jesus- bitch. Get thee a vibrator....

 

.... but I realized, too much sleep makes me miss it more. Too much sleep reminds me I'm not there. So, I'd rather write until I can be there. Write myself to get there. And I'll sleep when I get back to California.

 

CHV    

 

 

 

 

 

.... Is worse than the disease.

 

So, Of Hollow Men fast approaches its end.

 

And by this, I mean, its true and inevitable end to all the pledgiting (that's polish + editing)

 

And then all these blogs will change in tenor and tone as Of Hollow Men tries to find a home.

 

There is still a really large part of this book that needs something of an kiss of brillance. Without going into too much detail, I feel like I've extrapolated as much as I can- but there comes a point where experience just wins out over some third-party story telling. In trying to paint some of these scenes, I am trying to convey this sense of dread of being "in the spotlight" so to speak. But, I've never personally been in the spot light- I can't say what that brand of anxiety tastes like. It's a lot like using horror tatics in a mystery/thriller novel. But I am not a horror writer.

 

Too bad I don't know one.  *cough cough*

 

..............

 

Mean while, if you pop over to my List of Works page you will notice that things have shifted around a bit in the Samantha Marlow universe.

 

And by that I mean book two became book three- all the others got bumped back... a new one got bumped in.... yadda yadda yadda.... and some how I went from three to five less that 24 hours.

 

So, I'm possessed. But I don't really mind.

 

Samantha Marlow, with a little luck, will get her day in the spotlight soon enough.

 

CHV

 

...And a brand new feeling.

 

Anyone else extreamly pleased that 2009 is FINALLY over and we can all just get on with getting on with our lives? A friend of mine put it best when he said, "2009 has given me more grief than I care to examine."

 

He was right, as he so often is; 2009 was a year of much grief.

 

And as that year approached an end, I (on a whim) decided, I would let it go out with a bang. So I went to L.A. And I saw my family. And I saw some art. And I met someone. And whatever pain I had to go thru for the other 11 months was suddenly all worth it.

 

On December 11th, I left on my first flight since I was 16yo. Perhaps at that age I didn't quite grasp the beauty of flight- but this time I most certainly did. As the plane rose over the patchwork quilt of the midwest- all in varying shades of sienna and umber- I watched the Mississippi become a milk chocolate ribbon looping around an otherwise still carpet of flat earth.  

 

Four hours later- there were mountains in my vista, though there was  the storm cell over L.A that made landing somewhat harrowing, but I disembarked into a balmy 62 degrees and the smell of wet cement.

 

I headed downtown like I owned the 101- and to tell the truth, I could not have asked for a better day in L.A. The rain made the natives a 1000x more cautious than I expected (or am told they are regularly) and that matched against my silly midwestern "I can drive of 6 inches of ice and snow" attitude let me make a smooth trip into and out of LA.

 

To those of you that don't know, I acctually went to see Clive Barker's Imagining Man at Bert Green's Gallery. And all the background you need to know for this is: I have, through my life, always read Clive Barker's stories/books, but I was never inspired by his written work. Entertained, engaged, interested.... YES! His style is unique to him and has a tendency to make you gag while you laugh, but it never touched me creatively like other writers had.

 

But in late 2008, I was introduced to his visual work quiet accidentally, and it hammered me in a way that I hadn't been hammered since I first touched Dante's Inferno. That said, in all the hype I had heard of his art show, I kind of shrugged and went, "I have vacation time and family in Cali. I NEED to see this show."

 

So, that afternoon, footloose and free inside downtown, I made my way to 5th St. and entered the gallery. Damp, tired, and hungry- but ALONE in the gallery- I semi-staggered from picture to picture- unable to take it all in. And my Twitter records the words, "How as an artist to you make this moment solid?"

 

The Gallery

 

The show was set up in kind of four places.

 

From entry to the right: Bert Green explained to me that these were all pictures that had been part of the evolution of the entire project and props used, therein. These pictures were extreame in a way that extreame was the first time I watched firefighters cut a corpse from a mangled car. Just sanity's side of too much to take, yet too good to look away. Some of these pieces were.... just.... holy shit! Let's just say they're nuclear flash-burned to the inside of my eyeballs, and if I can ever find a man to bring that fantasy to life- say goodbye to C.H Valentino, she'll be in the love nest being fucked to death by something the glistens at 6'2 and throbs at 8''    

 

From entry to the left: Again, Mr. Green (who, by the way, is the nicest most sincere guy you'll just about ever meet) guided me a little and told me this was more the "supporting artwork" for the project. Mr. Barker draws artsy folks, but he has a large fan base, and they, too, will come out of the wood work for another ink sketch of Pinhead or Harry D'Amore.

 

Center section and around 200 degrees: These, I was told, were the Imagining Man pictures. These were, I tell you, amazing. I think I later told Mr. Barker that nine times in less than 5 minutes, grinning and goofy like some panting fan-girl. But the bottom line was, the art shut me the fuck up because  it was so "amazing" it zapped me of the eloquence I possess on any given Monday thru Friday. (I think he asked me at one point what I thought- and I think I told him.... and in my memory it was exceptiionally well put together, but in reality, I might have just grinned like an idiot... I don't know)

 

Back section: The back section made it into one of my books. I mean, what I saw, what I felt, and what I wrote standing in front of seven of Mr. Barker's paintings, that were bigger than me, was enough of a defining moment in my life that it rail road spiked another book into progress and has motivated the entire project.

 

The Art

 

Of these paintings there were three that I'll mention here:

 

 ONE: Pinhead. It's just fucking cool. I've never seen the movie and the book is on my list of "To Reads" but I get the idea. Cenebite: BAD! Painting: UN-BE-FUCKING-LIEVABLE. This thing is dimentional, and stands, if I had to guess at highest 4 inches off the acctual canvas) What you miss the photograph of his paintings is the texture, as all of his paintings, in SOME was at lumped and bumped and HEAPED with paint in all the right places. 

 

TWO: The Temptation of St. Anthony. This was pretty incredible and it wasn't until Saturday in the gallery that a young man pointed out a few things to me. Perhaps it was, in fact, that he was male, but he pointed out a sense of rapture on the part of St. Anthony.  

 

THREE: Despair. When you break it down to hours I was in L.A and hours I spend looking at this painting in the two days I was at Bert Green- you might find that I spent a good fraction of my time there, in front of this painting. Gaping. Crying. Smiling. Generally running a gamet of emotions (internally) that found me writing eleven pages in my journal.

 

I lost time in front of this picture. Hell, I lost all sense of higher reasoning (for a few days). Suddenly, I was standing in a place where I was motivated and moved thru life by my heart.

 

Despair, I was told by Bert Green, was the cover for the catalogue from the 2007 show of Mr. Barker's work. It's on the cover of the catalogue.  

 

I totally bought the catalogue.

 

Of Imagining Man

 

There is no way for me to detail the bulk of seeing these in person. No way to make it real the kind of extreame emotion wrapped inside these images. I thought I'd be bothered by (at least at some point) the explict content, but I never really was. More than anything I was stunned by the models' faces.

 

By far, my favorite was a picture called "The Lovers". This photo encompassed the entire feeling of the show. But more personally, it played out an central theme in my life. Trussed up on a inverted crucifix, one man bleeds as his lover looks on.

There was such a passive knowledge in this photo- the intense facination and some what meloncoly horror we feel when we stare into the pain we cause out lovers. The rightous rage we feel to cause our lovers pain. Round it down further- the pain associated with loving and being loved.

 

"Come back tomorrow," Bert told me. "Clive will be here, two to four."

 

"I-uh...well." Did I want to come back? Sort of.

 

"You really should come tomorrow."

 

"I kind of just came to see the art, you know? Not the whole...." (what, Coleen? The whole WHAT?) "....fan-thing."

 

Fan-thing. Yep. It bugged me. Big time. A lot of people think it is just a-ok to throw themselves at the stranger. This behavior continues to boggle and infuriate me to no end, and I was concerned with attending the signing. It all just felt a little "ooky" to me.

 

Did I go back?

 

The Signing

 

 Yeah. I went back. I went back because I still wanted to be in downtown, I still wanted to see a million things there, and I still wanted another hour alone with Despair. I wanted to lay my skin against it.  I wanted to run my lips over it, and breathe in that smell and follow the paths laid in the paint. I settled for the less dramatic fifty-yard stare as people moved around me and occasionally stopped to talk.

 

I met fans, Dear Readers. Real ones. Now, I could make the obvious joke about that "Clive Barker" fans are like, but the truth was- they were rather quiet and unassuming. Which is scary, right? That little housewife who looked like my Aunt Marilyn read Clive Barker? Holy hell. Talk about a serial killer in sheep's clothing. Then there were the emo boys with their Boho girlfriends in tow, clutching an Abarat, an Everville, a Cold Heart Canyon and biting their thumbs nails; they were so nervous to meet him.

 

Mr. Barker's assisstant called everyone to the front:

 

"Hey, guys. Line up. We'd like to get started soon."

 

The crowd kind of self-herded into a wide line. We were all adults so the order was not really important. Or rather, less important to the people in the front than to the people in the back. I kind of lingered at the mid-point; about 15 or so back.

 

And two-mintues later, Mr. Barker passed us, culling the crowd to an envious silence when he paused to embrace someone further up the line. But when he broke away and moved behind the table, and the voices of excitement began again. 

 

The two men in front of me chattered like an old, married couple, and in every version of this story I have told, I have likened them to the two old-men puppets from the Muppet Show. Eventually, bored with one another, they turn to me.

 

Chuck Ford proceeded to tell me about his book collection- a circus of rarities and "promotional only" memoribilia that is obscure as it is infantile.

 

"Ever seen Candy-Man the BOARD GAME?" He asked me.

 

"They made that?"

 

"When they released the movie... yeah. I got two. Hell, I've play it before. You've seen Candyman, right?"

 

"No, I haven't."

 

"Well, you've seen Lord of Illusions, right?"

 

"No, sorry. I'm affraid I've never really seen his movies."

 

"Huh. Well...."

 

Behind me, there was a boy from my home-state. He'd flown in from Chicago for the weekend- just for THIS signing- to see Mr. Barker. His name is Aaron Eischeid and he's a film student. He wants to work at Seraphim- he wants to make The Abarat into a movie. He's all of six foot six but probably not 120lbs soaking wet, and he was so nervous his cheeks flushed red to white to red and back to white again.

 

"All I need to do is make sure he knows my name!" He told me.

 

"I'm sure you'll do fine."

 

"I just... you know. I just want to make a good impression."

 

"Here. Have a breathmint."

 

Aaron took my breathmint and tipped his head.

 

"Why are... why are you here?"

 

"Me? Oh, I'm just here to see the art."

 

Another boy  listened as he bit his nail, glancing between me and over my shoulder to where Barker sits. He catches my wandering eyes and throws his arms out into jazz hands.  

 

"Yooooou're next!"

 

Indeed, he was correct. The two older men were in front of Mr. Barker, talking about an article from a horror mag that hasn't been printed since 1968.  Obscure of obscure of unknown once-upon-a-times when Mr. Barker was young and me.... my DNA hadn't formed yet.  

 

"Yeah, I guess I am."

 

"Are you nervous?"

 

I want to look at this boy and say something nasty. Something indicative of my age, like, hey- fuck stain. I deal in life and death every day. The day that meeting a famous person makes me nervous is that day I'll put a gun to my own head. But instead, all I say is:

 

"Do I have reason to be?"  

 

And eventually, the two old guys stepped away- and another assisstant looked at me and waved me forward. And the last thing I did before I walked up to have my catalogue signed was smile at Aaron and tell him he'd do fine.

 

The Moral of the Story

 

Aaron did fine. Mr. Barker gave him a name and a number. Aaron and I spoke briefly while we both looked at Despair, and I felt all the shit and the slime and disease from the last year run away.  

 

I have my secrets from L.A. I have, forever, a memory of a glimpse at another world. I have a thousand nights to think about what I was allowed to see, and what gifts I was given. I have a million minutes to relive the wonderment I felt in every step thereafter.

 

2009 was a wound.

 

L.A was the band-aid.

 

Now, I am so ready to get down to business.

 

CHV