Sans Cheveux...Sans Souci...

And back down to the world...a year later. Hope no one missed me. I didn't get any cards.

In order to relieve my occasional deep-seated anxiety at the thought of rest and relaxation...as the rising fear of stopping before I complete a work is reaching hysterical levels of horror-movie like foreshadowing (someone get me a Ouija!)...I've decided to sit down and write me up a whatever the hell you wanna call this.

For a moment...I wanted to just complain...something I've been credited with being a formidable purveyor of. And rarely...ever...do I lack for something to complain about. I can even complain about my complaining as it doesn't actually do anything. So in some sense, I'm working on leveling that off some...at the same time, I think it removes one of my most loveable traits to my legion of fans who are fortunate enough not to have to share physical space with me...

In particular, I was going to complain about things that usually involve lines...like the grocery store, the post office...places where those who could be mentally like unto the gods themselves are somehow reduced to idiocy by either standing in line or by the baleful gaze of the person with whom they must do some exchange of business. That and the fact that no one reads or pays attention to what they're doing...like the woman I watched enter her pin number in the zip code screen and vice versa seven or so times at the self-checkout lane at the grocery store. On one end you might say in a wonderfully compassionate tone "Well, why didn't you help her?", to which I might reply with just a hint of vinegar-like spray "If you always step in, when are they ever going to learn?"

It usually makes me think of the scene in Shaun of the Dead where he goes through his routine the day after everyone's a zombie...and he doesn't notice the difference...

But I didn't come here for that...

I've been doing research for a new idea for a book, and frankly it's led me to have to tap into some areas that I usually leave untouched for the very reason I wanted to leave it untouched the last time I looked into it.

Now, I'll admit to having had a certain fascination with the occult/secrety society/fantasy side of life since I was fairly young. Thing is, on one side, people tend to either believe in that stuff wholeheartedly and except things as presented, or they have just enough of it in them that they'll at least read a horoscope and maybe screw around with some tarot/numerology/palmistry. On the other, there are of course people who believe that if you can't see it, it don't exist. Then there's my group...I believe that there is more to life than the immediate reality...but I also think that the New Agers, Wiccaans, UFOer's, and hell most regular Judeo-Christian folk are all...well...umm...wrong. Not that I have any answers either...so I try not to be too loud or mean about it...most of the time...

In any event, there's a history to all this stuff. It's not like people just started seeing UFO's in the last 50 years since Roswell. And crazy religious stuff goes way way way back...umm...pretty much as far as we do as a species. Hell, people still believe that there were whole continents (and not just Atlantis) that sunk into the sea. Problem is, you try to track some of the history of this stuff and within mere minutes you can be up to your @$$hole in Reptiloid conspiracy theories (amongst many others).

Now granted, I'm doing this for a work of fiction, so it isn't as though I'm worried about my own credibility...I've got a license to drive this fantasy car wherever the yellow brick road to Valhalla may take me...but at the same time, I just want the facts.

In the defence of the academic community, it's easy to see why you wouldn't wanna touch this stuff. It's not as though crackpots have been in short supply even long before the dull-witted populace I alluded to before. In fact, from the research I have been gathering, it seems to take about a sweep of the second hand on a clock before anyone you can sort of reasonably take seriously is suddenly surrounded by a gaggle of goofy sychophants, supporters, and wildly unbelievable corroborators.

Not to mention all the contradiction in any of these fields, followed by all the splintering. I have seen the top of the conjecture mountain and found it's apex to indeed by very high. Sometimes, trying to read through this stuff, I feel like I need a sherpa just to crest the lower hills of this malarkey.

Even the more prevalent and widely accepted modern day religious materials fall prey to this sort of thing. For every book written by one guy trying to prove something in the Bible or Torah is wrong or simply a bunch of horse hockey, there's twenty more written to refute that claim. But almost all of these books I assume are only attempting preach to the choir, because most of them use this circular argument to defend themselves (ie. "It's in the Bible. It must be true.") with no further evidence, or they fall back on some sort of personal epiphany they had in life, which while it may be touching, is a PERSONAL experience that isn't necessarily felt or understood by someone else, especially a non-believer.

And of course, I cringe any time I walk by any religious section and see the gazillion morons who cashed in on refuting the DaVinci Code. Although, I don't know what's worse, all that garbage, Dan Brown's goofy novel itself, or the fact that many people wholeheartedly bought into his fiction or these other yay-hoos opinions. The whole Merovingian/Last Scion "what really happened to Jesus?" thing is a fascinating chunk of religious consipiracy history...but it's just as surrounded in murky mythology and general nuttiness as any of the rest of it. The history of the Tooth Fairy is easier to trace (or the fact that a fair few Catholic Saints appear to be..uh...Greco-Roman gods...)

The facts. I just want the facts.

But I realize...hey...I am dealing with secret societies...and conspiracies...and mythology...and well, religion (which if it were so clear cut and everyone agreed, we probably wouldn't have so many franchises, n'est-ce pas?) so things like facts are few and far between down this winding and very twisted road. It's the nature of the beast. So I'm willing to compromise...

How about just a sort of journalistic approach? A Who/What/When/Where/Why? Although not so much on the why...that tends to be the express lane to Conjecture Mountain.

The closest I've come in my goal, and the farthest I need to get into the why in many ways was Frazer's The Golden Bough. It pointed out something I had never really thought of which was this: People in desert climes usually have a dance or ceremony to call down the rain...People who live in jungle/rain forest climes usually have a dance or ceremony to stop the rain.

In some ways, that's all I ever needed to know. And yet, the search continues...hell, maybe I'll have found evidence of a lost continet by the time I'm done...

Cheers.