Into Wildest Yocona

Pretty, right? Don't eat them.  You'll see unicorns, but then you'll die.

On numerous occasions in this blog, I've spoken about the Yocona River, which runs about a mile from where I now sit.

My steamboat in Passing the Narrows is named the Yocona. I've used the woods around here as the setting for Mama Hog's ancestral homeland of Pot Lockney. I even blogged about strange sounds I recorded along the Yocona River a few weeks ago.

Today, via the twin miracles of photography and waterproof boots, I'm going to take you on a journey through fields and forest and right down onto the sandy banks of the Yocona River itself.

While one might not simply walk into Mordor, that's precisely how we arrived at the River. Walking is the best way, at least under certain circumstances. And by certain circumstances I mean this:

That's ice. Shaded water remained frozen all day, which means the nine-foot-long water moccasins with heads the size of piglets are all snug in their winter beds, dreaming whatever it is that venomous monsters dream. 

Which isn't to say there are no perils along the way, even on nice cold days. There are. First and foremost, we have the over-eager deer hunters with their rocket-propelled grenade launchers and their cavalier disregard for property lines. Next on the list are the wild boars, which is what happened when Mother Nature saw an Abrams M1 tank and decided she could do better with tusks and hooves. 

Then we have feral hogs, which can be nasty if they have piglets around, and coyotes, which -- nah, I'm not really afraid of coyotes. I've run into them before and while I got the distinct impression they wanted to sell me something on Craigslist, I'd put their physical threat level somewhere between 'Hay, bales of' and 'cheese, slightly off.'

Even so, I armed myself with the Mantle of Sarcasm and the Breastplate of Snide Remarks, gathered my valiant companions, and off we went.

You can shave off a half-mile hike through the woods by skirting this soybean field. That line of trees in the distance? That's the halfway mark on our journey.

But let's stop here a minute. I acted as expedition leader and Bearer of the Mighty Camera. Lou Ann, self-appointed safari guide and ad hoc legal counsel, took point. Karen armed herself with a stout length of oak and listened politely while I misidentified trees and took on the air of an experienced game tracker, even though I once got lost going to the refrigerator and I'm vague on where ham comes from. 

And thus we sallied forth. 

The first 400 feet revealed my folly in not bringing along a secret stash of Snickers bars. The sun beat down, well, to be honest, like a distant 40-watt incandescent bulb. The wind bore with it a deadly chill. Um. No.

Actually, it was quite pleasant. We saw many tracks -- deer, turkey, raccoon, stegosaurus, Muppet, alien greys, wolfmen, and the Creature From the Black Lagoon. Or maybe just deer and turkey.

Lou Ann amused herself by bathing in a slew, much to Karen's dismay, as the water did not smell of hyacinths and lavender.

Lou is at my feet this very moment, and her fragrance is redolent of rotting leaves, pond-slime, and the subtle hint of something best not explored any further. I'm sure among dogs, such a thing is equivalent to Chanel No. 5.

Soon, we entered the woods.

As you can see, many of the leaves haven't fallen yet. It's beautiful, though.

I wish the photos showed the true scale of these trees. They're very large. Tree-like, I suppose. Most, er, arboreal.

And if they're not monsters, they're close together. It's slow going, because briars are the fashion accessory for forests everywhere this season!

So far, so good. We encountered no boars. Took no artillery fire from Bubba and crew. A pair of shifty-looking coyotes did try to sell me a pair of speakers from the back of a van, but I know that scam, so we kept walking.

You know how you're getting close to the river? Pick one:

A) You fall in and drown.
B) You see the first line of bamboo.

B. Always pick B. And there it is, bamboo amid the briars. Perfect for cutting a fishing pole along the way, if you must. We must not, since this is a a scientific expedition and anyway I'm looking forward to a Red Baron pizza for supper.

Here's another amusing aspect of hiking near the river. Beavers are busy, and they're everywhere, and here is what they leave behind:

So if you do find yourself falling, don't fall flat. Those things are sharp.

Keep walking, being careful with your footing (the pics don't show it, but the ground is full of exposed foot-catching roots and hidden holes left by rotting stumps), and soon you'll see the Yocona River itself.

There it is, muddy and lazy, meandering along like it has all the time in the world, and I suppose it has just that.

What you're seeing is the River from atop a twenty-foot bank. Your next task is to descend down to the water without descending down into the water, and that is a critical distinction. The river still has two pairs of Tuttle eyeglasses, and it wants a third, I just know it does.

As usual, Lou led the way, scampering down in an instant while the clumsy humans climbed and slid and leaped.

At last, we all made it. The sand bar is covered by leaves, but it's the same sand bar I fished from as a kid. I'm 50 now, so that's quite a few years ago.

I've changed. The River hasn't. Make of that what you will.

It's still a peaceful place. Of course in the summer, we'd have heard frogs and crickets and a hundred, a thousand other critters, but with ice on the ground, the river is silent.

Above you see the adventurers triumphant, nattily dressed in their Day-Glo PLEASE DON'T SHOOT ME gear. Note Karen's Stick of +5 Striking, and my Haircut of +7 Feral Pig Intimidation.

The above photo is the result of asking Lou to pose for a picture. Note her immediate charge toward the lens.

Finally got it, though! Note the head of the Loch Ness Monster emerging from the water to Karen's right.

And what good is a river if you can't swim in it? I declined, as I was wearing my good socks.

Cryptozoology is dirty work.

Did we find anything strange on our trip?

Well, there's this.

Tracks in the sand. Look, the river is home to all kinds of critters. Beavers. Coyotes. Nutria. Bobcats. Rabbits. Raccoons. You name it, and they all come here to drink, sooner or later.

So something made these marks in the sand. They can't be more than a day old because it rained hard Friday and there was loose sand in the bottom of the impressions.

My guess is a coon or a possum was digging for grubs. But I can see how other opinions might vary.

Finally it was time to head for home. Lou Ann took a last swim. Then we made the climb back up the bank and marched back into the woods.

A red-tailed hawk wheeled overhead when we emerged, probably laughing at all the trouble we were having pushing through the briars.

And that, my friends, is the photographic record of the 2013 River Expedition.

Sadly, the above image of big feet is the only such image I can offer, at least today.

WRITING NEWS

I had a pretty good week, all things considered. I didn't quite hit the magical 10K word count, but that's okay. I taught my writing class Thursday evening and I was in Memphis as a guest on the Steve Bradshaw Show, talking about my books, so that was time well spent.

I'll close with a brief excerpt from the work in progress, THE DARKER CARNIVAL. In the book, I've established that what they call a 'riding wheel' is what we call a Ferris wheel. Big wheel with seats and lights and no apparent purpose, smells of corn dogs? That clear? Everyone cool with it? Good.

The riding wheel flared to life. A man climbed it, leaping from seat to seat, finding handholds in the rusty iron frame. If he cried out, we never heard it.

Something leaped onto the wheel below him. At first I thought it a man, but when it began to climb, it used too many legs. It scuttled up the wheel effortlessly, leaped on the climbing man's back, and after a moment of awful stillness it flung his limp body to the ground and climbed down after him, moving like some monstrous eager spider.

I'll end on that note. Take care, everyone, and if you're in the US I wish you and yours a happy Thanksgiving.

Just Another Stormy Sunday

DEEP IN THE WOODS, THE TERROR WALKS....

Another monster?

Nah, that's me before coffee.

Last week's blog entry included a recording of a creature we couldn't identify. Thanks to everyone who commented and e-mailed; we're still trying to identify the call. If and when we get a definitive answer, I'll post it here.

Haven't heard the sounds again, but I'm keeping the Zoom recorder handy just in case it makes an encore appearance.

BACK ON THE AIR!

I'll be making another radio appearance, this time on THE STEVE BRADSHAW SHOW at 1:00 PM CST next Saturday (November 23). If you're in or around Memphis, you can listen by tuning in to 990 on the AM band, or you can listen to the show's live web broadcast by clicking here.

We'll be talking about books, writing, Bigfoots, Bigfoots writing books, and how hard it is for a nine-foot-tall cryptid to land an agent in today's chaotic publishing industry. Seriously, that may come up. Steve's show topics include everything from fringe science to traditional forensics, so be prepared for anything!

WRITING UPDATE

I logged an amazing (for me) 10,987 words this week.

I know there are writers who churn that out in a day or two, but I'm not one of those writers. I'm much slower. Think a sloth after downing a pawful of Benadryl and washing it down with Nyquil. I'm slow. Ten thousand words in week is a goal, sure, but it's one I rarely meet.

How did I do it, you ask? Well, here are my newly-minted tips for breaking the 10K-a-week barrier!

TIPS FOR THE SLUGGISH AUTHOR

1) When you insert the coffee IV, make sure you hit one of the big veins. And forget messing about with surgical tape to secure the needle -- duct tape is cheaper, stronger, and holds up better to all that thrashing about when you forget you have an IV line connected to the Keurig and the whole works gets tangled up when you walk.

2) Reduce your time-consuming social interactions by joining a Trappist monastery. Well, okay, the monks wouldn't have me, so I joined a more liberal organization (we're called the 'Highway Hellions,' and man does all this leather chafe). I find that the highly-structured routine of the gang is conducive to maintaining a writing schedule, and also I pay a guy nicknamed Slaughterhouse to enforce my two-hour writing session every night.

3) Keep your writing space separate from your living space. For instance, I write at a desk, and I never shave marmots or retool my vintage airplane engines at this desk. Now my keyboard is marmot-fur free, and I don't have pistons from the 1921 Curtiss-Wright rotary V12 falling in my lap. Of course you also want to make sure you actually own your writing space; take it from me, most neighbors don't have enough respect for the artistic process to let you continue renovating their upstairs bedroom.

4) Set realistic goals. I woke up every morning this week by saying aloud 'I will write 2000 words today.' This amused the deputies, but saying the words out loud made me feel accountable for carrying through, despite what my cellmates Tater and Mean Pete said.

5) If you fail to meet a goal, don't beat yourself up. Look, life happens. Cars break down. Work gets rough. That grave you dug by the interstate gets exposed during a rainstorm. There are times when you simply run out of hours in the day, not to mention moves for dismissal based on lack of evidence. Sometimes you just have to shrug it off and resolve to do better tomorrow, especially when picking out remote, easily-dug locations for, um, herb gardening.

6) Get the right tools. If you're serious about woodworking, you buy certain tools. You can't get by using the steak knives as a circular saw, or the icepick as a drill press. Writing is the same -- you need a computer, you need word processing software, you need internet access. Heck you may even need image processing programs and a web host and a good HTML editor, too. My point is this -- don't hamstring yourself by cheaping out. Get the latest version of Word. Get a machine capable of not merely running Word, but running the crap out of it. Oh, and if you're still burying things, don't get the shovel with the flat blade across the front. You want one that curves to a nice point. Otherwise you're going to be out in the woods all night.

7) Write what you know, but change the names. Too, remember that statutes of limitations vary from state to state.

8) Don't respond to negative reviews. You know who wins internet flame wars? I do, that's who. Not because I engage in internet flame wars, but because I laugh and laugh and laugh while reading them. I laugh at both sides, because no one wins, ever, and it's far easier to tank a writing career that it is to repair the damage. So don't do it. Close the page, and move on.

9) Don't stifle your inner muse. When my inner muse asks for chocolate or ice cream, I oblige. When she asks for a gallon of Absinthe and six hundred dollars of imported Russian caviar, I stall for time and hope she'll be satisfied with Harp Irish Lager and Hot Pockets. So far I owe her an estimated sixteen thousand dollars in menu items alone. Please buy a book. Muses don't mess around, during end-of-year accounting.

10) Maintain a cheerful, positive attitude. Yeah, I'm screwing with you now. Every writer I know is a fragile amalgamation of neuroses, depression, and substance-abuse issues. If you see us being cheerful and positive, that's probably the mushrooms talking, and we should be gently steered away from the car, the bank, or the liquor store.

LAST WORDS FOR THE WEEK

If I manage another 10K in the coming week, that would put my rough draft of the new Markhat book somewhere between 20% and 30% complete.

If I manage to achieve unpowered flight by flapping my arms, I would still be less surprised than if I maintain my 10K a week surge.

But we'll see.

Catch me on the radio, if you can! Until then, take care.

The Wild Man of Yocona Bottom

Fig. 1, The author before shaving

Well, I may be the world's most inept ghost hunter, but last night we captured, purely by accident, some audio that I believe will raise the hairs on the back of your neck.

Let me set the scene for you. It is Saturday, November the 9th, at around nine o'clock in the evening. Karen and I spent the day doing the usual chores -- housecleaning, fence-mending, the thousand little things that any homeowner has to do sooner or later.

While I was outside, I gathered up fallen limbs and laid the makings of a fire in the chiminea on the patio. It was a cool, cloudy night. There was no wind to speak of. About eight, we pulled a couple of chairs close to the iron chiminea and lit the blaze, because yes, we are really that boring, even on a Saturday night.

We live in rural Mississippi. About a mile south of our house, across several fields and a dense, boggy stand of old growth trees, the Yocona River runs more or less east and west. 

The Yocona isn't particularly large, but it is old and winding and treacherous. The banks are sheer drop-offs thirty feet high in places. Woods line the river on both sides; navigating it in daylight is a chore, and doing so at a dead run in the dark would be suicide. 

Oh, and since the woods are composed of approximately equal parts leaves, copperhead rattlesnakes, and water moccasins as big as Nissan Sentras, you couldn't force me back there after dark with a gun and threats of forced listening to a Kesha album.

So. That's the scene. Dark south-facing patio. Impenetrable woods. The moon a mere shifting glow behind a thick haze of hurried clouds.

Now, typically, we'd be regaled by two sets of amateur vocalists. The coyotes usually start, announcing their presence just behind the first line of trees. The dogs respond, and the back-and-forth goes on until one side or the other gets bored or spots a rabbit.

But last night wasn't typical.

We heard dogs. Several of them, baying and barking, close to the river. 

And then we heard -- something. Look, I grew up right here. I've heard it all -- dogs, cows, bulls, coyotes, bobcats, even one of the last panthers in the area, 20 years ago. But what we heard last night didn't sound like any of the local critters.

So I grabbed my good ghost-hunting recorder, a Zoom H1, put it on a fence-post, and got a little over twenty minutes of what I'll just call an unidentified vocalization.

In the clip below, I've isolated a single call, added some very gentle amplification, and looped it. It's short; click and listen, if you will.

Single Call Looped

I have no idea what could make that kind of call. It sounds almost like a word. And whatever it was led the dogs on a merry chase.

Here's a longer clip, with dogs for context. You might want to crank up the volume for these:

Short Excerpt 1

The big dog you hear is Lamar, our big black lab, who added his voice to the proceedings. 

Here's another excerpt, also short:

Short Excerpt 2

And this:

Short Excerpt 3

Here's a single call, with background noise removed and amplification applied:

Amped Call

Finally, here's the entire recording, with no effects applied.

Complete Recording

The big question, of course, is what was making those sounds?

I don't have a definitive answer for that. I can say certainty what it was not. It was not a coyote. Or a cow, or a bull, or a bobcat, or a boar, or a feral pig.

I can also say I've never heard it before.

Yocona, Mississippi is not exactly a hotbed of cryptid sightings or activity. Which isn't to say people haven't seen strange things in the woods. They have. A local lawyer swears he went to sleep while hunting and awoke to find a tall hairy biped looking down at him (he fled, leaving his expensive rifle behind). Just this weekend, a local's mare stumbled home injured, both her foals gone.

Does all this suggest something unusual lurking in the woods barely a half a mile away from where I sit?

Heck if I know. I'm a fantasy author, so of course I want the world to be filled with all manner of strange creatures.

But this is the first time I've gotten a long, clear, detailed recording of something I can't readily explain.

If anyone has any ideas concerning what made those sounds, please comment! And if anyone lives near me and has heard anything similar, please say so!

MARKHAT NEWS

I realize I announced this earlier, but typing the words is so much fun I'll do it again.

The new Markhat book, THE FIVE FACES, has been accepted by Samhain! We're looking at a June release date.

I think you'll enjoy THE FIVE FACES.  I'll say this much, and no more -- in this 8th entry in the series, Markhat goes face to face with a killer who taunts his victims with drawings depicting the time, place, and manner of their murders. Once the drawing is received, no one survives, no matter the measures they take. So when Markhat's drawing arrives, he has mere hours to avoid the hand of Death itself...

The new Markhat book is also underway. The working title is THE DARKER CARNIVAL, although a line in the story itself has suggested a possible new title I'm kicking around. I only hesitate because there's a Rob Zombie song of the same name (LIVING DEAD GIRL).

What do you guys think? THE DARKER CARNIVAL or LIVING DEAD GIRL? Keep in mind all the Markhat books have 3 word titles, so it needs to be one or the other. Being a writer, I'm superstitious about altering the three word rule, because of course the first time I use two words or four words or anything but three words the sky will bleed and the walls will fall and I'll certainly be rejected, and we can't have that.

Here's a brief excerpt from THE DARKER CARNIVAL. It doesn't contain any spoilers, so throw caution to the winds and read without peeking through your fingers.

The sun was more than an hour from rising. Curfew was still in effect across Rannit, which meant anyone a peckish halfdead caught outside was fair game for breakfast, and I was standing in the street with both my shoes untied.

But I had a vampire revolver in my right pocket and a ten thousand year old banshee holding my left hand and I’d walked with the slilth not so long ago.

Boots scraped cobbles nearby. My hand found the butt of my revolver.

Buttercup giggled and pointed down the street before vanishing.

A man walked out of the night and into the dim, wobbling glow of a street-lamp.

I relaxed my grip on the revolver, but didn't pull my hand away. I could tell at once my fellow Curfew-breaker was no halfdead. He shuffled, for one thing, walking slowly while dragging a noisy burden on a wheeled contrivance behind him.

Like any breed of the rich, halfdead seldom roam the streets their own carts. Too, this man's hat was a shapeless, baggy lump, not one of Breed Street's starched, rigid offerings.

The man saw me, halted, and waved.

"Good morning to you, friend," he said. He pitched his voice carefully, so that it just reached my ears, but wouldn't carry much further. "Might I inquire as to whether you live hereabouts?"

I wasn't sure he could see a head-shake, so I took a half dozen steps ahead and spoke.

"Nope," I replied. "I'm just a man out for a stroll."

He nodded, smiling. "Well, count your lucky stars, man out for a stroll. They call me Shango. Shango the storm-sniffer. I've walked all night, following a stink. And it leads right to yonder door."

He pointed out a door. My door. Of course it would be my door.

I sighed.

"I'm guessing you sell lightning rods."

He shot up and stood straight. "Indeed I do," he said. "But not just lightning rods. No, friend. I sell the kind of lightning rods even the rich cannot often buy."

"Good for you," I said. I started walking, hoping he didn't notice my damned traitor shoes weren't tied. "Now if you don't mind I always take my breakfast with the Regent."

He laughed, but he kept the sound low. "Won't you at least have a look, Mr. Markhat? Won't you at least have a look?"

I produced my pistol and let him see it.

"I didn't tell you my name."

"But I told you mine," he said. If the thick black bulk of my vampire-built revolver gave him pause, his dirty face didn't show it. "Shango. I smell storms. I can't hold back the winds, friend, but I can turn the lightning." He nodded back at his cart, a leaning, man-high bulk covered by a sooty tarp that waited in the shadows, hunched as if ready to pounce. "No man should lack protection from the fickle wrath of Heaven."

"I've got all the protection I need."

"No," he said. His eyes, which I still hadn't seen beneath the bushy ridge of his brow, glittered just for an instant as the moon briefly peeked out from the clouds. "I tell you plain, Mr. Markhat, that you do not."

"Get out of my way."

"I'm not what's in your way, friend," he said. Then he stepped aside, sniffing at the air. "I'll be working these parts for a while, I will. Ask for Shango, should you change your mind. Ask for Shango."

I put my gun back in my jacket pocket.

About the time the squeak of his cart's wheels bit into the silence, Buttercup took my hand again.

“Let’s go get some breakfast,” I said, and with Buttercup skipping beside me I walked all the way to Cambrit, without a lightning rod of any kind to guard me from the fickle wrath of Heaven.

Never read a Markhat book? Well, here's a link, if you care to get started:

ALL OF FRANK'S BOOKS
     
Speaking of books, I should get back to work.

If I get any more strange recordings, I'll share them here too!

Update: The New Markhat Book, THE FIVE FACES, slated for June 2014 release!

I know it isn't Sunday, but I have news, and again it's good.

The new Markhat book, THE FIVE FACES, will be released next June. It was originally scheduled for a September release, but the good people at Samhain bumped the release up by a full three months.

I'm already at work on the 9th book in the series, which I'm calling THE DARKER CARNIVAL.

Mug and Meralda? No, I haven't forgotten them. Their next adventure, ALL THE TURNS OF LIGHT, is also underway.

Which means I'd better get back to work!

Just wanted to keep you folks in the loop.

Good News, For a Change: New Markhat Book is Accepted!

Fireworks, for the new Markhat book THE FIVE FACES has been accepted!

That shriek you heard today was me, upon reading an email from my lovely editor at Samhain. The new Markhat book, THE FIVE FACES, has been accepted.

Edits and second edits and yet more more edits (i.e., work) will soon begin, but now it's time to emulate Snoopy and do the Jubilant Dance of Selling a Novel.

This will mark the 8th entry in the Markhat titles. What started as a novella  in the long-since defunct print magazine Adventures of Sword and Sorcery is now a full-blown series, complete with supporting characters, an overall story arc, a chronology that gives me fits, and the opportunity to write as many Markhat books as I can until A) I die or B) the publisher says 'no.'

I dug out my tattered copy of the Adventures of Sword and Sorcery featuring the original Markhat story, The Mister Trophy. There's a man and a Troll on the cover, although it's not an actual scene from the story, and anyway my Troll knees are jointed backwards from ours.

But it was a big deal, seeing my name on a cover. And there was interior artwork!

Which pretty much demonstrates that in Markhat's world, Trolls trump vamps every time.

The art was by George Barr, and he's probably most famous for his work illustrating Dungeons and Dragons manuals. But his art has also graced a multitude of books covers and prints, so scoring a George Barr illustration was a real honor.

That story also saw the first sighting of a Markhat witticism. In the story, a Troll shows up looking for Markhat, and naturally the Troll finds him in a bar.

The Troll proceeds to describe his long, arduous journy from Troll country and through the devastated Kingdom of Man and finally to Rannit and Markhat. Because that's how my Trolls talk -- a Troll would never come out and say 'I am here on urgent business.' Instead, the Troll would describe the many obstacles he faced just getting there to tell his story.

Markhat knows just enough about Troll culture to understand this. And he knows to respond in kind. After all, the Troll weighs a ton and half and stands ten feet tall and could pull the bar down to the ground without any real exertion.

But Markhat is Markhat, and he can't resist the urge to tweak even a Troll's nose, so his reply to the Troll's retelling of his journey is this:

Which the magazine editor, Randy Dannenfelser, saw fit to stick in a page-block. Because he thought it was funny.

I mention this because Randy taught me an important lesson here, and the lesson is this:

If you can make a harried, hard-bitten editor laugh at a line of dialog, you can get paid for it.

And of course it goes farther than that. The Markhat series deals with some heavy themes -- loss. Guilt. Rage. Betrayal. Death. Addiction. Aging.

But Markhat keeps the wise-cracks coming, even when facing down Troll five times his size. Why does he do that?

Because Markhat sees all the bad, and it weighs on him, every moment, every day. But he's not quite ready to give in to the emptiness. So when he gets the opportunity, he looks the implacable, unbeatable world square in the eye and he tells it what it can do with its dreadful algebras and inescapable losses.

I think that's why the humor works. Because he's mocking awful things, and they deserve to be mocked, right up until the end.

So now that THE FIVE FACES is sold, I can reveal the working title of the Markhat work-in-progress. Drumroll, please:

THE DARKER CARNIVAL

Yep. This time Markhat visits a traveling carnival in search of a runaway daughter. And if you think the traveling carnival is merely a rag-tag collection of happy misfits plying their trade from town to town for the innocent amusement of their visitors, well, you haven't read much Markhat.

If you haven't read much Markhat, please click here to get started.

This has been a rough few weeks. Getting good news felt so refreshing, I will close today with this:

A CAVALCADE OF COVERS

And now, coming soon, THE FIVE FACES!

Please feel free to join me in a heartfelt WOOHOO!

Our Stupid Bodies, Redux

It's been a bad week.

I sat in front of this bloody monitor for hours today, trying to be funny, to be informative, to be sarcastic or caustic or anything but angry or maudlin. But the empty spot on the floor where Thor ought to be isn't going away, and the only words I'm inclined to write are words best left unpublished.

So, tonight we're going to do a rerun. Here's my (in)famous blog on wellness and general good health. Enjoy. I'll be back soon with new material.

(From 05/2013)

Your body is either a wondrous living engine powered by a spark of the divine or a ludicrous assemblage of evolutionary short-cuts, depending on your point of view.

Having seen myself naked (police video enhancement techniques have shown a marked improvement in recent months), I know where I stand on the whole wondrous construction / meat-based Rube Goldberg contraption controversy.

An injury to my back last week left me thinking about the fleeting and fragile notion of health. Since the injury also left me in a crumpled heap on the floor, I had plenty of time to ponder my attitudes toward wellness in between bouts of cursing and attempts to raise myself by climbing a nearby window-frame.

So, with a renewed appreciation for the simple things I took for granted -- walking, standing, crouching to hide from store detectives, lifting liquor bottles or barrels filled with deep-fried hamburgers -- I'd like to offer a few thoughts on our bodies, and how to keep them healthy.

Your body is a biological machine, powered by food and air, which will give you many years of trouble-free use if you perform regular maintenance, especially routine oil changes. Wait. I got my body mixed up with my riding lawn mower. Let me start over.

Your body is a wildly inefficient hodge-podge of finicky, unreliable chemical processes and damage-prone tissue structures. Even with the best of luck, it's going to start failing faster than a Russian-built sports car after forty years, and probably well before that.

Let's take a look at the major structures and systems that make up the human body:

Might as well pick out a plot....

1) THE SKELETAL SYSTEM. Beneath your skin is an appalling volume of gooey wet stuff.  Hidden inside this gelatinous mass of goo are your bones. Each bone connects to another via muscles, tendons, ligaments, and cleverly-hidden wires. This complex arrangement of jointed bones and opposing muscles allows you to wave awkwardly at strangers who you thought waved to you, but were in fact waving at their friend behind you. Too, whereas the lowly ant can only lift a mass fifty times its own body weight, your skeletal system grants you the ability to beg for help opening a jar of mayonnaise. Maybe that stranger has a stronger grip than you do, from all that bloody waving.

The most common skeletal problem is that of having to endure a skeleton in the first place. Face it, used  skeletons wind up wired in humorous poses by bored medical students or spend decades popping out of doors in carnival spook-houses, and even then the things are prone to make a lot of clattering noises and require frequent repairs. Many commercial and medical establishments have switched to sturdy plastic skeletons these days, which is a move you should check into as well.

The human brain.

2) THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. Your nervous system conveys the brain's instructions to your muscles via a series of nerves. Given the poorly thought-out nature of most of your brain's instructions, this crude and error-prone delivery system is probably a blessing in disguise, since it gives you time to reconsider flipping off the burly, tattooed Neanderthal who just bumped you in a checkout line.

Humans share virtually all of their nervous system chemistry and neurobiology with the graceful soaring hawk and the surefooted mountain goat, but you'd never suspect that after watching the average person put on a drunken rendition of the 'Mashed Potato' dance at a karaoke bar. Honestly, half the population is likely to suffer minor injury just playing 'Rock, Paper, Scissors' and the other half couldn't walk across a foot-wide plank without falling if their lives depended on it.

Nerves are composed of neurons, glial cells, and quite a number of other microscopic structures which are wasting their time and effort on a species that still hasn't quite mastered the rhythmic finger-snap.

3) THE DIGESTIVE SYSTEM. Your body requires proper nutrition to function at its best. A quick appraisal of your body's so-called 'best' clearly explains the shelves lined with Cheetos and the presence of a McDonalds drive-thru every sixty feet in the developed West.

You can spend forty years nibbling on nothing but free-ranch kelp and gluten-free naturally-occurring whole-grain tofu and still wind up diagnosed with the exact same terminal diseases as the 400-pound trucker who has eaten nothing but tobacco-soaked gas station burritos since 1987.

Still, you might improve your odds a tiny bit if you maintain a body that conforms to the following simple formula:

Height > Maximum girth.

Thus, if your waist measurement is six feet, remember to maintain a height of AT LEAST six feet. Seven would be better. Eight is just showing off.

Choose a height and stick with it. Your digestive system will seek to undermine your efforts at every turn, but  if you can ignore the aching constant hunger and nearly-irresistible urges to consume the entire Sarah Lee display in a single sitting, you can at least maintain a healthy weight. This ensures your last words can be smug ones.

A healthy heart is a bloated misshapen heart!

4) THE CARDIOPULMONARY SYSTEM. Your heart and lungs comprise your cardiopulmonary system. The hearts pumps the blood, which passes through the lungs. In the lungs, the blood releases carbon dioxide, absorbs oxygen, and craves tobacco just like it's done day after tiresome day since Prince released his breakout '1999' album.

Much ado is made by physicians and the media concerning blood pressure and the importance of keeping one's blood pressure within certain clear limits.

Regardless of your age, general health, or activity level, doctors have determined that your blood pressure is well beyond both the upper and lower safe limits and you will soon expire unless you:

• Switch to a healthy diet by removing all food from your diet.
• Pester harried waiters with demands that your tablecloth and silverware be certified gluten-free.
• Lecture everyone you know about the benefits of a Vegan lifestyle.
• Reduce your body mass by no less than 67% between now and the next celebration of Earth Day.
• Stop using bacon as both dental floss and chewing gum.

By taking care of your heart, you will ensure that Cyborg Dick Cheney has a steady supply of cardiac tissue for at least the next half-century.

Fig. 3, the anterior brachiostatic excretory array. Eww.

5) THE BRACHIOSTATIC - ARTERIOPEDIOTIC SYSTEM. All the squishy things not covered by topics 1 through 4 above. Feet, nose hair follicles, ear wax glands, etc. Basically, all the squirming bits of this and ropy parts of that which ancient Egyptian mummy-makers hurriedly sealed up in jars. Because, yuck.

If something goes wrong here -- and it will -- odds are you'll first learn of it in that brief moment between floating above your motionless body and being pulled into The Light. Early symptoms of a sudden demise from brachiostatic complications include itching, sneezing, feelings of calm or well-being, anxiety, hunger, thirst, any sensations of fullness, sounds or vocalizations from the mouth, blinking, yawning, skin, or regular bouts with sleep.

There is a way to keep your complex brachiostatic system in perfect function by consuming a half teaspoon of a certain Greek plant pollen per day, but this same pollen causes rapid, irreversible heart failure. Who says Nature doesn't have a sense of humor?

Really, the best you can do is keep those toenails trimmed so the morgue attendants won't snicker and post awful pics on Instagram.

HEALTH CONCERNS: AGING

From the moment you are born, your body begins to renew itself.

Sadly, your body is no better at this renewal business than it is at regenerating limbs or developing acute night vision. Now, if you cut a starfish in two pieces, each piece will heal and become a really pissed-off starfish, and no one will ever leave you alone with their pets or small children.

But cut off the tip of your pinky finger, and aside from profuse bleeding all that happens is a rapid realization that your Blue Cross insurance coverage is woefully inadequate.

Aging is merely a slow-motion fatal car crash into a rather solid stone wall. You are placed in the doomed car at birth, the doors are locked tight, and the steering wheel and brakes don't work. But take heart; each year, advances in medical science bring us closer to a truly lifelike embalming process.

We really, REALLY mean it this year.

HEALTH CONCERNS: DISEASE PREVENTION

Not a flu season passes without dire warnings from the CDC that the current strain of bird flu will wipe all of humanity from the tortured face of the soon-to-be-barren Earth. We are bombarded with media instructions to get flu shots, wear breath masks, and refrain from huffing the missing CDC canisters of experimental bird flu viruses.

This year will be no different, and the outcome will be the same. The worldwide death toll from the latest incurable superflu will be dwarfed by the sum total of all Nerf-related injury deaths suffered while riding atop a rhinoceros at noon on Arbor Day. If this is pointed out, CDC spokesmen will mutter under their breath and hint that next year the Great Unwashed are really gonna get trashed.

The only way to prevent disease is by avoiding childbirth, especially your own. Once you're here, disease is both inevitable and a vital component of our thriving Health Care and Mortuary industries.

You've got to really *feel* the burn.

HEALTH CONCERNS: EXERCISE

Use it or lose it, they say. They also say five times five is thirty-six and London is the capital of China, so listening to them is a complete waste of time.

Another complete waste of time is exercise. You can run, you can lift weights, you can practice Yoga every hour of every day for your entire life, but your body will still direct its energies toward devising ways to undermine your efforts. If you run, you will ruin your knees. If you lift weights, you will tear things with cryptic names such as the 'ACLU' or the 'Isles of Langerhams.'

You may forestall this inevitable decay by injecting steroids directly into your muscles, which will make you  stronger, faster, and easily capable of swinging that blood-soaked claw hammer for hours on end while a SWAT team peppers you with rubber bullets.

An alternative to this is low impact aerobic exercise, which consists of rapid-fire channel surfing while seated at an athletic and unyielding 46 degree angle. Additional motion may be added to the workout session by incorporating the chip-dip arm action, or by walking briskly to the refrigerator at regular intervals for another Coors Lite.

Marathons, triathlons, paragons, pentagons, and the Running of the Bulls are best left to the obsessive-compulsive, the rabidly insane, and the Spanish.

Grab your ankles, sailor.

HEALTH CONCERNS: YOUR DOCTOR - PATIENT RELATIONSHIP

Finding a competent, caring physician is an important step in maintaining wellness and a healthy lifestyle. However, you could achieve the same results by engaging in a quest for solid physical evidence of Bigfoot. In fact, that's altogether the better idea.

The modern physician left medical school only to find him or her self buried under a veritable mountain of debt. The only way to ever hope to pay it off is to run patients through their practices at speeds normally reserved for slaughterhouse cattle-chutes. Pharmaceutical reps help out by pushing thousands of pills and saving the poor beleaguered doctor the time of actually listening to his patients, who are by nature a whiny complaining lot anyway.

The modern doctor-patient relationship works like this -- you, the patient, are presented with a bill. You pay the bill. If the bleeding resumes return for another rapid-fire office visit, receive another bill, and this time, a blue pill.

Repeat until wellness or a body temperature equaling that of the ambient air is achieved.

It's just not that hard, people.

The spiders tell me to dance!

HEALTH CONCERNS: MENTAL AND SPIRITUAL HEALTH

Many mental health care providers recommend quiet introspection and frequent self-examination as part of a health-conscious lifestyle. These health care providers recommend these practices because that BMW 328i with the 36 speaker Bose sound system and the heated leather seats isn't going to pay for itself, and the usual reaction to any interval of honest self-appraisal is panic followed by weekends in Vegas spent mainlining pure grain alcohol.

An important first step to achieving true mental health is learning to distinguish between the voices of friends and family, the voice of Grolog, Dark Lord of the Underworld, and the voice of Mark, who will be your server for this evening. Honestly, if you can refuse to loan your cousin Theo money, ignore Grolog's suggestions that you emulate the dietary practices of Hannibal Lecter, and convey to Mark your wishes for iced tea, the turkey club, and a side of spicy fries, then you're already in better shape than 75% of the other diners in Chili's.

Spiritual health is best achieved by waiting to become a disembodied spirit yourself, and if you keep ordering the spicy fries, you won't be waiting long, Mr. Unchecked Hypertension.

I intended to end this section on health and wellness with an audio recording of the noises my back now makes when I stand, but the FCC stepped in and I'll either have to skip that altogether or move to and post from Singapore, where the rules are more relaxed.

BIG NEWS

BIG NEWS

BIG NEWS

Aside from a brief mention by Robert Stack in a 1988 episode of Unsolved Mysteries, I don't get a lot of media attention. Writers usually don't, since we spend most of our time scowling at monitors or staring off into space until our tires skid off the pavement.

Nevertheless, the University of Mississippi Department of Media and Documentary Projects just released a short (18 minutes and change) film which chronicles my writing and my brief stint as a costumed crime-fighter. Most of the costumed crime-fighter bits were removed, because the FCC also had concerns about me appearing in Spandex after mass suicides among the first test audience, but the writing parts are pretty cool. You get to see my underground lair, my ferocious pack of mutant wolverines, and of course sharks with frickin' lasers in their heads.

The film is free, there are no logins or signons, and popcorn is provided by the ghost of Orville Redenbacher himself. Sure, it's ghost popcorn, but give it a try!

So settle back into your chair, click the link below, and prepare to mock my outrageous Southern accent.

I Have To Write

I'd like to offer a big thanks to Media and Documentary Projects, and of course to the film's creator, director, editor, and all-around architect, Karen Tuttle.

That's it for this week, folks. Take care of yourselves, eat a few vegetables, and remember not to age.

All the Paths of Shadow