Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 215: "Zeus and His Lovers" (1973)

Zeus was a horny bastard, as Ed Wood understood all too well.

I've covered dozens of Ed Wood's short stories and articles over the years, but I've never owned any of the vintage adult magazines in which they were originally published a half-century or more ago. Most of the short pieces that I've reviewed on this blog have come from the three marvelous Wood anthologies assembled by Bob Blackburn between 2014 and 2022. The magazines Ed Wood worked on during the 1960s and '70s have become very expensive on the secondary market—well out of my price range—and I'm grateful to Bob for buying dozens of them so that Ed's work can be reprinted and enjoyed by fans today.  A few more of Ed's articles have been sent my way by generous readers, typically as PDFs or JPGs. Those were much appreciated as well.

I now own this exact magazine.

Recently, though, reader and podcaster Rob Huffman let me know that a copy of the May/June 1973 issue of Gallery Press' Boy Play was available online for a stunningly low price, and I couldn't resist. The Nixon-era gay porn magazine contained one verified short story credited to Ed Wood, but based on past conversations with Greg Javer, I knew that Eddie probably wrote multiple pieces for that same issue. Sure enough, when the copy of Boy Play arrived in my mailbox a couple of weeks later, I found Ed's unmistakable writing style throughout the entire issue. My preliminary diagnosis is that Eddie wrote every last word in it, including the unsigned editorial at the beginning. Hell, he may have written the copy in the ads!

Would you believe it took me this long to realize that Boy Play is a mere reversal of Playboy, the most famous adult magazine ever published in America? Funny how swapping those two syllables makes all the difference in the world.

I'll probably end up writing multiple blog posts about this one magazine. For now, though, I'd like to concentrate on the one short story in this issue that Ed wrote under his own name. It's called "Zeus and His Lovers," and the title gives you a good indication of its contents.

The story: "Zeus and His Lovers" (aka "Zeus... and His Lovers"), originally published in Boy Play, vol. 2, no. 2, May/June 1973. Credited to Edward D. Wood, Jr.

Synopsis: Zeus, king of the Greek gods, is happily married to Hera. They have an extremely active and mutually satisfying sex life. In addition, Zeus has numerous mistresses, a fact he does not hide from Hera. However, there is still something bothering him. He feels tremendous pressure to compete sexually with the other male gods, and it seems that all of them have taken young boys as lovers. Zeus is the only one who hasn't.

Zeus and Hera have a marathon lovemaking session. In the afterglow, the god and goddess discuss Zeus' sexual dilemma. The other gods have definitely noticed that he doesn't have a boy lover, and they're starting to talk. There's even a popular "epigram" about Zeus that's going around. Hera tells her husband that she supports him totally in whatever he does and would not be hurt if he took a young male lover. Zeus tells her he already has a boy picked out: a beautiful mortal named Ganymede, who will be the new cupbearer to the gods.

Wood trademarks: mythology (cf. "Thor and His Magic Hammer"); the word "lovely" (cf. Glen or Glenda, many others); heavy use of ellipses and italics; sheer material; supposedly "new" things that are not really new (cf. Glenda); references to characters' body temperatures; pink clouds; kaleidoscope; androgyny; ancient Greece (cf. "The Greeks Had a Word For It," "Sappho Revisited").

Excerpt:

"It is not for me to say what you should do, Zeus. It is only that I must serve you. You must do as you see fit. And if that is the fad, then you should most certainly investigate the cause for the fad and find out what enjoyment might be captured in the tender young bodies of boys."

Reflections: Back in 2022, the late, great Greg Javer and I reviewed an Ed Wood story from 1973 called "Thor and His Magic Hammer." As its title suggests, this strange little fable explores the sex life of the Norse god of thunder, specifically how a mortal woman named Andralia gives Thor a few pointers in the bedroom and makes him a better lover. "Magic Hammer" originally appeared in the May/June 1973 issue of Gallery Press' Goddess. That makes it an obvious counterpart to "Zeus and His Lovers": same publisher, same release date, similar subject matter. Eddie must've been going through a mythology phase in 1973. Or maybe the subject was always on his mind. Remember that Glen or Glenda (1953) makes an incongruous reference to Morpheus, god of sleep.

In hindsight, it's not difficult to see what attracted Ed to this strange, often disturbing material. Greek mythology is rife with loathsome and depraved behavior, much of it sexual in nature, including instances of adultery, rape, incest, and pedophilia. This is the stuff of trashy, exploitative fiction, exactly the kind that Ed Wood wrote. The fact that the Greek gods are capable of supernatural acts, such as turning into animals, only aids them in their debauchery. Their perversion truly knows no bounds.

While the story of Zeus and Ganymede inspired artists for centuries, it seems today like a textbook case of predatory sexual behavior.  According to the myth, Zeus was so taken with this beautiful adolescent boy that he took the form of an eagle, swooped down to earth, grabbed Ganymede, and carried him back to Mount Olympus. There, Ganymede indeed became the cupbearer to the gods, just as it says in this story, as well as Zeus' lover. It's never clear that Ganymede consented to any of this. Nevertheless, Zeus was so grateful for the boy's service that he granted Ganymede eternal youth and beauty. Is anyone else reminded of the real-life story of Liberace and Scott Thorson? While the famed pianist could not make his young lover immortal, he did pay for Thorson to have numerous plastic surgeries.

It's interesting to note that, in "Zeus and His Lovers," Ed Wood portrays Zeus' wife, Hera, as simpering and submissive. Greek mythology portrays her as anything but. In fact, Zeus' love affair with Ganymede angered Hera greatly. She was intensely jealous of her husband's new boy toy and made no secret of this. So why does Ed write her like the ultimate supportive wife, a woman who encourages her husband to have numerous lovers, even young boys? Perhaps this was Ed's commentary on marriage and how a wife "should" behave.

I'd also like to point out that the rest of Boy Play magazine is not about "playing" with actual boys. The magazine includes many explicit pornographic photos of men, and they're all very much of age. Some even look rather weather-beaten. Again, as with his story for Goddess magazine, Eddie may have taken the title of the publication too literally. Maybe even he didn't get the wordplay. 

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 184: Did Ed write "It Takes Two for Terror" (1970)?

Only one can survive! Or maybe both. Or maybe neither. One of those.

Ed Wood wrote a truly staggering amount of material, especially in the late 1960s and early 1970s. He had to; it was his only real means of survival during the last, desperate decade of his life. Booze doesn't pay for itself, you know. It was either sell a story or go without. So Eddie wrote at a furious pace under a variety of names, including his own, for scores of publishers, He did it all—novels, short stories, nonfiction articles, editorials, etc., etc. While Ed did keep track of his writing credits, some of his magazine work has gone undocumented.

Because of this, fans have taken it upon themselves to scour through old pulp magazines from this era looking for Ed Wood's work. Sometimes, they find it. Other times, however, all they come up with is fool's gold. In their enthusiasm, they've seen Wood where there is no Wood. I've done this myself in the past and will undoubtedly do so in the future. This week, I present for your consideration a colorful story from the early '70s that shares some themes with Ed's recognized fiction. But does that make it the genuine article? Let's examine the facts.

The story: "It Takes Two for Terror," originally published in Adventures in Horror (Stanley Publications), vol. 1, no. 2, December 1970. Anthologized in The Horrors of Wood (Ramble House, 2001) as part of the Woodpile Press series. Credited to "Obadiah Kemph." The entire issue has been archived here.

A map of the story's action.

Synopsis: A pretty, virginal young woman named Beth begins working as an assistant at the Brooklyn Museum, which has recently received a 3,000-year-old mummy from an anonymous donor. One especially hot day, Beth's boss, Mr. Long, asks her to stay late after the museum closes to help unpack the sarcophagus. She happily accepts, not only because she needs the money but because she'll have the opportunity to work alongside Dr. Helmut Shiller, a famed Egyptologist.

That night, Beth, Long, and Shiller venture down into the basement of the museum and start carefully opening the crate that contains both the mummy and the sarcophagus in which he was buried. By translating the hieroglyphics on the mummy's tunic, Shiller concludes that this was the corpse of a head chamberlain named Ka. Beth trips over piece of the packing crate and briefly lands on the mummy, briefly panicking Shiller. The scientist says that Ka was cursed for having fallen in love with the pharaoh's daughter and will come back to life with a maiden's kiss. Beth and Long scoff at this.

Meanwhile, in nearby Prospect Park, a man suddenly transforms into a snarling werewolf. He goes searching for human beings, especially women, and enters the museum through a basement window. Once inside the building, he hears Shiller and Long arguing about the age of an amulet that they found in the sarcophagus with the mummy. Beth says she can settle the dispute with a book about ancient Egyptian jewelry. When she goes to look for the book, the werewolf chases after her and tears off her dress.

Incredibly, just as Shiller foretold, Ka comes back to life. The nearly-naked Beth runs away from the werewolf only to encounter the mummy looming over her. She faints, and Ka puts her into his coffin. The werewolf and mummy begin to fight ferociously before each realizes the other is invincible. Shiller and Long finally arrive, and Shiller decides to light some cotton on fire and throw it at the monsters. Ka burns up into ashes, while the wolfman escapes into the night. Shiller reasons that the amulet is the cause of all of this, and he smashes it to pieces.

The story as it originally appeared in Adventures in Horror magazine.

Excerpt: "Part of the mummy’s upper torso was exposed. Dry, ancient leather. The man-wolf attached his teeth to it but couldn’t separate the strands of shriveled flesh from the bones. Down, up, both children of the Devil tumbled, wrestled, fought for the female each wanted to possess. A stalemate—both products of darkness were too evenly matched. The wolf could no more kill the mummy than the Egyptian corpse could put an end to the man-animal. But they were pitted by destiny to fight forever—teeth tearing, choking, death-bound each, but neither would slay the other."

Reflections: I would never have heard of "It Takes Two for Terror" had it not appeared in an anthology entitled The Horrors of Wood alongside other pieces known to be authored by Edward D. Wood, Jr. This tale of terror first appeared in a 1970 issue of Adventures in Horror, a short-lived magazine from a New York company called Stanley Publications, Inc. This particular publisher is never mentioned once in Rudolph Grey's Nightmare of Ecstasy (1992), but a description of Adventures in Horror at The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction is extremely promising:

A magazine of generally low-quality horror fiction with a distinctly erotic flavor, with such lurid titles as "The Naked Slaves of the Master of Hell" (October 1970) and "Trapped in the Vampire's Web of Icy Death!" (December 1970). The magazine became Horror Stories from issue #3 (February 1971) onward. It is of some interest as a popular title among collectors of media magazines devoted to monster movies, partly because the infamous film director Edward D. Wood, Jr. reportedly wrote much of the contents under various pseudonyms. This is plausible enough: Wood wrote a number of pornographic novels after his career in films ended.

They even mention Eddie by name. Could there be a hidden treasure trove of Wood work at Stanley Publications? That's worth exploring.

While it is within the realm of possibility that Ed Wood penned some pieces for Adventures in Horror (aka Horror Stories), I have grave doubts that "It Takes Two for Terror" is his work. Sure, the juxtaposition of a mummy and a werewolf will remind fans of Orgy of the Dead (1965), and the plot of "It Takes Two" could be broadly interpreted as a mashup of two known Wood stories, "The Day The Mummy Returned" (1971) and "Howl of the Wolf" (1973). Eddie even liked to use the word "terror" in his titles. We've already discussed Portraits of Terror (1957), Trial by Terror (1958), "The Whorehouse Horror: A Touch of Terror" (1973) and "Bums Rush Terror" (1972). 

But "It Takes Two" doesn't have the cadence of Ed's writing at all. His favorite vocabulary words are conspicuously absent, for instance. I started to smell a rat when our heroine, Beth, was described as "beautiful" instead of "lovely." And the author doesn't bother describing Beth's outfits either! We know that the werewolf rips her dress off, but we don't know the style or color of that dress or which undergarments she had on that day. Eddie would've lingered on that topic a while. The story also lacks the philosophical, often morbid digressions that are so integral to Ed's writing.

Where the story really lost me, though, was when it briefly referenced a "careless custodian" who's been making mistakes around the museum lately. Mr. Long mentions him to Beth just a few paragraphs into the story, and I wondered if that detail would pay off later. And, sure enough, it did: the werewolf enters the museum through a window that our custodian friend accidentally left open. That kind of fussy foreshadowing isn't Eddie's style. That's just not how he wrote, at least not in my experience of reading his work.

So I did a little digging to see if any author had laid claim to "It Takes Two for Terror." And, yeah, one definitely had: none other than R.L. Stine (1943- ), creator of the fabulously successful Goosebumps books. The Stephen King of the lunchbox-and-crayons set? That was a twist I didn't see coming.

Stine's memoir from 2015.

In his 2015 memoir, It Came From Ohio!: My Life as a Writer, Stine humorously describes some of his early experiences, struggling to make it as a writer in New York City. After getting fired from one magazine for not knowing anything about the production side of the industry, he applied for another publisher that operated out of a 95th Street apartment rather than an office. He was hired by a middle-aged woman named Nancy and immediately began writing phony "interviews" with pop stars for teenage fan magazines. Happily, the company also decided to launch a magazine called Adventures in Horror, which gave Stine his first experience writing horror fiction! Here's how he describes it:

It was while I did my part to help celebrities get a make-believe life that I wrote my first horror fiction. Nancy’s boss agreed to try a horror magazine, Adventures in Horror. “Bony Fingers from the Grave” was written under the name of Robert Lawrence—my first and middle names. “Trapped in the Vampire’s Web of Icy Death” and “It Takes Two for Terror” were mine, too. I worked at this job for about a month. I must have written a hundred phony interviews! Then the company went out of business. I was out of work again. The fan magazines paid me one hundred dollars a week. My checks were big enough for an occasional restaurant meal. With dessert. And I could afford to treat myself to those great pretzels they sell at food carts on the streets of New York. But if I didn’t find work pretty quick, that’s where I’d find myself—homeless on the streets of New York.

So there you have it. The true author of "It Takes Two for Terror" was not Ed Wood but R.L Stine. While I'm sad to lose it from the Wood canon, since it is a pretty fun little bit of genre fiction, I think the story's actual attribution is a delightful surprise. By sheer coincidence, the Goosebumps movie from 2015 was cowritten by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, who also scripted Ed Wood (1994). What a world, what a world...

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 183: "Domain of the Undead" (1972)

A scientist disrupts the natural order and pays the price for it in Ed Wood's "Domain of the Undead."

There are few pleasures greater for me as an Ed Wood fan than finding one of Eddie's short stories that I've never reviewed or studied. Maybe I ignored it, forgot about it, or never knew it existed in the first place. Who knows? Somehow or another, it flew under my radar. But when I finally discover it, that story gets my full and undivided attention. I found such a story recently, and I am excited to share my thoughts about it.

The story: "Domain of the Undead," originally published in Horror Sex Tales, vol. 1, no.1, Gallery Press, 1972. Anthologized in The Horrors of Wood (Ramble House, 2001) as part of the Woodpile Press series. Credited to "Kip Gebakken," which is Dutch for "fried chicken."

The contents of Horror Sex Tales.

Synopsis: Professor Thorndyke, who has been doing some experimental research in extending human life, travels to the home of a wealthy and beautiful woman named Carlotta. She has agreed not only to fund his controversial work and provide him a fully-staffed laboratory but also to take him to new heights of sexual ecstasy. This last item especially interests the professor, who has not had sex in the seven years following his wife's death.

Thorndyke arrives by chauffeured limo at Carlotta's hilltop mansion, bringing his incredible machines with him. He is taken by servants to a strange underground throne room containing an altar-like platform where he is to do his work. This suits him just fine, and he is especially pleased when Carlotta seemingly makes good on her promise and offers her incredible body to him. However, while performing cunnilingus on his benefactress, Thorndyke realizes he has been drugged and falls into unconsciousness.

When Thorndyke regains consciousness, he makes some terrible discoveries. Carlotta is the leader of a demonic sex cult and wants to live forever. Worse yet, his head has been severed and connected to one of his own machines, replacing the chimp's head that had been there previously! If Thorndyke wants to survive, he will have to continue with his research and experiments. In the meantime, forever tethered to the terrible device, he will be forced to watch Carlotta's orgies in the throne room.

Wood trademarks: Secluded mansion where strange sex rituals take place (c.f. Necromania, The Only House, "The Whorehouse Horror," "Breasts of the Chicken," etc.); words "lovely," "pink," and "soft" (three of Ed's favorites); ellipses (Ed's signature punctuation); looking at oneself in a full-length mirror (a persistent motif in Ed's writing, e.g. Drag Trade); wealthy woman obsessed with youth (c.f. Elizabeth Bathory in Bloodiest Sex Crimes of History); scientist interfering in natural order (c.f. Bride of the Monster, Venus Flytrap); sheer nightgown (c.f. Glen or Glenda, many of Wood's stories and novels); drugging someone during sex (c.f. The Erotic Spy) .

Excerpt: "As the last of the blur left his eyes, Thorndyke watched the tall black chauffeur, now naked but for a tight loincloth, stride quickly from the room. Seconds later, he returned with the butler, similarly attired. They were carrying the naked body of a fantastically beautiful young girl. The sight made the Professor’s eyes open wide, but he felt no physical surge of excitement in his body. Instead, he felt only a vague, empty feeling of acute longing. It was the way he had sometimes felt upon seeing a particularly lovely girl in one of his classes at the university. It was an agonizing feeling of frustration, of longing, of desire."

The perfect job for Ed Wood.

Reflections: It's a damned shame that Ed Wood didn't live long enough to work on Tales from the Crypt (1989-1996). That cultishly beloved HBO anthology series took its inspiration directly from the ghoulish horror comics of the 1950s, specifically the ones published by EC, but added the sex, profanity, and gore that modern audiences have come to expect. The show's producers—a mighty roster including Robert Zemeckis, Joel Silver, Richard Donner, and more—were successful filmmakers who had grown up on comic books and exploitation movies and wanted to pay tribute to their roots. I'm certain they would have known of Ed Wood and even given him an opportunity to write or direct an episode of the show if he'd still been around in the '90s.

One of the unspoken rules of Tales from the Crypt is that its characters can gleefully violate the laws of God and man, just as long as they're punished sufficiently in the end. Typically, the punishments (or "just desserts") will fit the crime perfectly. Often, the transgressor will fall prey to the same kind of cruelty or perversity he inflicted upon his victims. Had The Human Centipede (2009) been a Tales from the Crypt episode, for instance, it would have undoubtedly ended with Dr. Heiter (Deiter Laser) finding himself as the middle link in one of his own ghastly creations. Failing this, the characters on Tales from the Crypt will usually meet a dreadful fate that in some way comments on their own faults and failings. They reap what they sow.

This kind of thinking abounds in Ed Wood's works, both cinematic and literary. Wood movie characters who get what's coming to them include Dr. Vornoff (Bela Lugosi) in Bride of the Monster (1955), Vic Brady (Timothy Farrell) in Jail Bait (1954), and Dr. Acula (Kenne Duncan) in Night of the Ghouls (1959). These men violate the natural order and suffer in ways that are commensurate with their respective crimes. Acula, for instance, falsely claims to be able to communicate with the dead, so the dead rise up and attack him. Brady seeks to change his identity and "succeeds" in the worst way possible. And Vornoff becomes the final subject of his own ghastly experiments.

But this theme is even more prevalent in Eddie's writing, especially his short stories. While reading "Domain of the Undead," I was reminded of "Breasts of the Chicken," the truly gruesome and twisted tale Eddie wrote for Gold Diggers in 1972. That was about a businessman, Rance Wilkerson, who goes to a strange cannibal restaurant... only to find himself on the menu. Dr. Thorndyke's ominous voyage to Carlotta's mansion is very similar to Rance's trip to the sinister restaurant. And I suppose they're both inspired by Jonathan Harker's (or Renfield's) perilous journey to Dracula's castle. Also like Rance Wilkerson, Professor Thorndyke is indifferent to the suffering and death of young women. Both men are too driven by their own sexual lust to consider the moral implications of their actions. And look what it gets them!

If there's ever another anthology of Ed Wood's short fiction, "Domain of the Undead" is a prime candidate for inclusion. How it evaded me this long, I can't say. But it's Wood at his Woodiest, complete with some of his classic tropes and themes. Perhaps in some parallel world, there's a Tales from the Crypt-style anthology series based on Eddie's stories, and "Domain of the Undead" is one of its best-known episodes.

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 159: "Gemeni" (1993)

A young beauty meets a watery end in "Gemeni." 

Ed Wood has some of the best fans in the world. The man was either ignored or ridiculed during his own lifetime, but I think he'd be heartened to learn how his devotees have preserved his legacy in the decades following his death. They've saved as many of his films, books, and articles as possible, and they're always searching through the archives for more, keeping me supplied with things to review for this blog.

Recently, a Wood fan named Jamie Teel posted a few pages from a 1993 issue of Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine to an Ed Wood forum on Facebook. These pages included not only an article about Ed Wood by Mark Carducci, director of Flying Saucers Over Hollywood (1992), but also a previously unpublished short story by Eddie himself. I think I'll cover the Carducci article in the future, but I had to offer up my thoughts on the short story while it was still fresh in my brain.

The story: "Gemeni," originally published in Famous Monsters of Filmland #201, Fall 1993.

Some vintage '70s astrology art.

Synopsis: Our narrator, a struggling filmmaker, tells us about his tragic relationship with a woman he nicknamed "Gemeni," referring to both her birth sign and her duplicitous nature. He was deeply in love with the faithless, flirtatious "Gemeni" and even planned to marry her after her divorce was final. Unfortunately, she was only after a man with money, and he was flat broke at the time. Desperate to keep her, he promised he would receive some money from investors soon. She coldly told him to get in touch with her when he had the cash in hand.

After his breakup with "Gemeni," the narrator went through a drinking binge but then decided to raise as much money as he possibly could from potential backers. Driven by spite, he became a successful filmmaker, with his company making both movies and television shows. Newly wealthy, he contacted "Gemeni" again. This time, she agreed to marry him. After three "wonderful" weeks of matrimony, however, she announced her plans to divorce him and take half of everything he owned.

Hatching a plan, our narrator convinced "Gemeni" to travel to Europe with him aboard a cruise ship. She agreed and bought an expensive wardrobe for the trip. Once onboard the ship, she returned to her old ways of flirting with wealthy men and blatantly ignoring her husband. Two nights into the trip, the insanely jealous narrator almost strangled "Gemeni" to death but eventually decided to tie her up with underwear and throw her out a porthole with weights attached to her ankles. She sank into the ocean, dead. But even then, "Gemeni" wasn't quite done with him.

Wood trademarks: Husband murdering his wife (cf. "Scream Your Bloody Head Off"); nighties and negligees (cf. Glen or Glenda, many of Ed's other stories); drinking binge; satin and silk; movie business (Westerns and horror, both genres Ed attempted); money problems; angora sweater (worn by the title character). 

Excerpt: "I got drunk. Two days of it. Two days it lasted. Then the courage of vengance entered my every thought. I would wrap her in my vengance. I would make more money in a shorter time than she had ever seen in her whole life and when I had that money, sure I'd call her. I'd call her and I would laugh right in her face. I would laugh. How I would laugh."

Reflections: Edgar Allan Poe must have had some kind of influence on Ed Wood. I mean, Eddie rewrote Poe's "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" (1841) as "The Rue Morgue Revisited" (1971), hewing very closely to Poe's original plot and dialogue. As a student of all things Gothic and spooky, Ed must have spent some time poring over the stories of Poe, perhaps even when he was still in school back in Poughkeepsie. Above all, Poe's eroticization of death must have intrigued Ed, since that's a common feature of many of Ed's own films, stories, and novels.

"Gemeni" strikes me as Ed Wood's attempt at a Poe-type story. Not that he attempts to copy Poe's florid writing style, but he seems to be evoking the same mood of haunted, doomed romanticism. The narrator mourns and moons over "Gemeni" as if she were the lost Lenore. He even cries while he murders her, missing her already! The fact that Ed's story is written in the first person makes it similar to Poe's most famous tales, including "The Cask of Amontillado" (1846), which is also the confession of a revenge-murderer.

As for the exact provenance of this story, that's difficult to determine. "Gemeni" carries a modest introduction from Famous Monsters editor and founder Forrest J. Ackerman, who very briefly (and ineffectively) served as Ed Wood's literary agent in the mid-1960s. By the late 1960s, Ed Wood had all the writing work he could handle and no longer needed Ackerman's dubious assistance. "Gemeni" seems to have been a story that Ed submitted to Famous Monsters that Ackerman decided not to publish for a variety of reasons: not scary enough, too mature for young readers, etc. And yet, miraculously, Uncle Forry held onto the unused manuscript for decades! We're too lucky.

For me, the greatest aspect of "Gemeni" was that the unnamed narrator was an obvious stand-in for the story's own author. As Ed Wood (1994) demonstrates so amusingly, Eddie spent a lot of his time trying to raise money for various projects, usually without success. By securing funds from his backers, the narrator of "Gemeni" gets to live the kind of life that Eddie would have wanted to live. As he writes:

I made that money. During the next three weeks I borrowed and begged enough through my friends around the industry to open four motion Picture and Television producing companies. One week later the pictures I wanted to make were financed. At the end of the next week the original company was re-financed. The westerns made by that company became an overnight sensation. Two horror features turned out to be money grossing sleepers and a new television series of pictures were accepted by the public with great enthusiasm. In fact, on the television deal I made a five year contract on the series. Five more weeks and my bank account had reached the seven figure mark and steadily growing.

Only in fiction, Eddie. Only in fiction.

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 109: Revealing your Ed Wood preferences

Ed Wood, surrounded by posters for his films.

Whenever I encounter some new or unfamiliar technology, my first reaction generally is to ask, "How can I make this about Ed Wood?" If it's a video-sharing site, for example, does it have Ed Wood-related clips? If it's a social media platform, are people using it to discuss the life and career of Ed Wood? If it's a database of information, is any of that information about (or applicable to) Eddie and his films? You may remember that, about a year ago, I used the Algorithmia website to colorize some scenes from Jail Bait (1954). That's the effect doing this series has had on me. Eddie has become the prism through which I see the world.

This living nativity scene was a bad idea, Sharon.

We may not have thought this thing through.

And here's another short story I couldn't sell. Enjoy.

Almonds; delicious but deadly. No, that's not what this story is about.

Note: This, too, was another failed attempt at topical humor. It was supposed to be published before the election. It wasn't. But just so it doesn't completely go to waste, here it is. It has aged like fine milk. This is less a short story than it is a cautionary tale about how not to write a short story. Appreciate it on that level. J.B.

Here's a short story I couldn't sell. Anyone want it?

For some people, 11-9 was the new 9-11.

Note: This was a short story I wrote on November 9, 2016. I tried to sell it but couldn't find any takers. Oh well. It was meant, as you'll soon see, to be topical. Which means that it's now embarrassingly dated and will only become more so as time moves forward. Before it completely turns to dust, I thought I'd post it here. J.B.

Social Media Buzz: Another short story by Joe Blevins

"Eat your soul? Who, me?"

     After gently knocking twice, the dapper young man cracked open the door of his immediate supervisor's tastefully-appointed office and tentatively peered in.
     "Mr. Van Landingham?"
     The other man, fiftyish and conservative, did not rise to greet the young man but remained seated behind his desk as he said, "Come in, Korey. Have a seat, please."
     The young man entered the room, closed the door behind him, and respectfully sat down in a chair across the desk from his boss.
     "How do you think you've been doing in your role of Social Media Manager for the General Mills family of cereals?" said the older man.
     "Uh, good, I guess?"
     "Okay. Okay. Interesting. Now, one of your professional duties these last six months has been maintaining the Twitter account of Buzz the Bee, the cartoon mascot of our Honey Nut Cheerios brand. Is that correct?"
     "Uh, yes, it is."
     "All right. Now we're getting somewhere. Well, Korey, I took the liberty of printing out some of your recent tweets from that account. I have them right here. Do you mind if I read them out loud?"
     "Not at all."
     "Okay, here's one: 'Nothing like a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios to start your morning right.' Now, normally, that would be a damned fine tweet, Korey, but you chose to end it with the hashtag '911WasAnInsideJob.' Can you explain that?"
     "Well, uh, Mr. Van Landingham..."
     "Please. It's Kevin."
     "Well, Kevin, it's not that I personally think 9-11 was an inside job. But, of course, the account is written from Buzz's point of view. It's what he thinks. He's a multi-faceted character."
     "Okay, fair enough. But how about this one? 'Bee happy. Bee healthy. Life begins at conception.'"
     "Well, children do make up a substantial portion of our customer base, Kevin. And if they're not carried to term, they're not going to be eating any of our delicious Honey Nut Cheerios, are they?"
     "Hmmm. I suppose not. But then, there was this tweet that contained only a photo of actress Neve Campbell topless in the 2007 film I Really Hate My Job."
     "What, specifically, is the issue with that one?"
     "The issue, specifically, is that it's a photo of actress Neve Campbell topless in the 2007 film I Really Hate My Job. We try to keep our social media content family-friendly, Korey."
     "Are you saying then, Kevin, that General Mills considers the female body to be inherently shameful, something to be hidden away from view?"
     "Well, no, not exactly. But..."
     "Haven't you heard of the Free the Nipple campaign, Roderick?"
     "Kevin."
     "Whatever. It's a vital, burgeoning movement in this country right now. Shouldn't General Motors..."
     "Mills."
     "...Mills be at the forefront of change for once? There's nothing wrong with breasts, Kevin. Breasts produce milk, and what goes better with cereal than milk?"
     "Yes, but did you have to post that same photo every hour on the hour during the Paris terrorist attacks? People were beginning to wonder if it was some kind of code. Now I have the NSA breathing down my neck."
     "People always fear what they don't understand, Kevin. That's what I'm up against every time I tweet something on behalf of Buzz the Bee. You don't know what kind of an awesome responsibility this is. While you're tucked away in this cozy little office of yours, I'm out there on the front lines! Right now, people are starving for the truth, and I'm there to feed it to them, 140 characters at a time. The new millennium needs its own Che Guevara, and why shouldn't it be a cartoon spokes-bee? The truth will out! Viva the Bee!"
     As the young man pumped his fist in the air and assumed a pose of hard-won victory, the older man reached into a desk drawer, pulled out a small blow gun, raised it to his mouth, and shot a dart directly into his subordinate's neck. The young man slumped over instantly. The older man paused, sighed, then picked up the landline phone on his desk.
     "Gladys? Have maintenance send a crew to my office immediately. We have another Code B to take care of. Say, how many more nephews do you think the CEO has left, anyway?"

A Game of Checkers: An extremely short story by Joe Blevins

The Wilsons' names are George and Martha.

Mrs. Wilson turned her head halfway toward Dennis, paused, then looked back at the wall. The room grew very quiet then for about thirty seconds, at which point Dennis heard a sound he eventually recognized as Mrs. Wilson sobbing softly. Mr. Wilson must have heard it, too, because he said something that sounded like ‘goddammit,’ and he lifted his heavy frame from the chair and walked out of the room. Mrs. Wilson didn’t even watch him go. Dennis, sensing an opportunity, rearranged the pieces on the checkerboard in his own favor.

The most incredible optical illusion of all time

An incredible optical illusion. Just keep staring at the black dot and amazing things will happen, I swear!

Stare at it. Stare at the little black dot in the center of the picture. That's right. Don't look at anything else. Just keep staring at the little black dot. Whatever happens. Whatever the cost. Babies will be born. Old people will die. Empires will rise and fall. But you won't even notice any of that shit, because you've got a job to do, and that job is staring at the little black dot.

Don't look at the faces of your family. They'll only distract you with their so-called "love." Don't look at the depressing headlines about genocide and famine and man's inhumanity to man. Those'll only get in your way. And for god's sake, don't look inward at your own miserable dung heap of a soul. This is no time for introspection. No, this is a time to stare at a little black dot between two flowery-looking rainbow things on the goddamned Internet. This is an amazing optical illusion, maybe the most amazing one ever, and you are this close to ruining it with your petty personal bullshit. Do something right for a change. Stare at the little black dot. Stare some more. Stare harder. Harder! Stare until you become the little black dot.

There. That's it. Good job. You're doing great. Keep it up.

Keep staring.

Keep staring.

Keep....

THERE!

Did you see it? Did you witness the miracle? Did you, a grown-ass adult human being with a functioning brain, manage to successfully follow the one simple instruction you were given? If so, congratulations. By this time, the optical illusion has revealed itself to you, and you are still reeling from its effects. Wasn't that incredible? Wasn't that the most amazing sensory experience you've ever had in your life? I'm sure you'll agree that it was worth the time and effort to stare at the little black dot. Better than any orgasm, and with no messy cleanup afterward. Better than any drug, and it's all totally legal. Can't nobody narc on this stash... 'cause this stash is in your mind! You may never stare into the face of God, but now you've come as close to that as any human ever could. From this moment on, your life has meaning.

Some of you, having gotten the illusion to work properly, will be tempted to do it again. And again. And again and again and again. I must warn against this. This optical illusion is so powerful, so awesome, so paradigm-shifting that it's best just to do it once and walk away. So go. Live your life. Talk a walk. Get some fresh air. Try to forget what you've seen here. Otherwise, you'll likely spend the rest of your life chasing a single, five-second-long high. Your brain, already weak and feeble, will completely liquefy. We're talking Tapioca City. You'll end up on the streets or worse. I have a cousin who did the little black dot thing twice. Just twice. Now, he's living in a group home and making brooms for 17 cents an hour. I visit him every other weekend.

On the other hand, if you didn't get the optical illusion to work, then I'm afraid I have some bad news for you. Either you have the mental acuity of a doorknob, or God just plain hates you. It's probably a combination of both. So that's what you get out of this experience: the knowledge that God hates your guts. Right now, Jesus, Moses, Allah, Buddha, Mohammed, and Tom Cruise are probably taking turns saying rude things about you. I guess you'll just have to live with that knowledge.

Aren't optical illusions the best? I mean, just the best?

Larry: A short story by Joe Blevins

This is the huge, orange face America eventually grew to love.

Prefatory notes by the author: "Larry" was actually written back in 2008 when there was such a thing as Larry King Live on television. The way it came about was that I was browsing through CNN's website and found some old Larry King transcripts there. Reading through them, I realized that Mr. King's particular brand of rambling, disjointed insanity was even funnier when soberly transcribed word for word. Believe me, what you're about to read is only a mild exaggeration of an actual King interview. Also, back when I wrote this, I was a professional transcriptionist and spent many hours and days and weeks of my life listening to recordings of focus groups and telephone surveys and converting them into text documents. So I was in complete sympathy with the person who had the task of transcribing Larry King Live. By the way, woodchucks are funny to me for some reason. Enjoy.

Here's a short radio play I wrote a few years ago. Wanna read it?

Here's some good advice for us... and for the characters in my dumb play.

The things you find sometimes, huh? I was searching through the files saved to this old computer and happened upon a script for a radio play I wrote a few years ago called A Spot of Tea. Please don't get the impression that this thing was ever, even once, performed on the radio. Oh, no. Never that. This was written for some Chicago-area creative writing contest. I have no remembrance now who exactly was running this contest, but they were asking for people to send in original short radio plays with a horror theme. I'd never written anything like that -- and didn't even know how to format the script for a radio play -- but I thought I'd give it a go. I wrote this up, printed it (on paper and everything!), mailed it in, and... heard nothing. No acknowledgement whatsoever. Maybe a year later, an online acquaintance of mine was trying to set up a website for short fiction and was looking for submissions, so I took this play and slightly reformatted it as a short story. I may post that, too. But for now, here is my one and only attempt at a radio play. At the time, I had probably just started drinking tea. I'm a regular addict now. It's also somewhat inspired by my real-life cousin, who actually did break into people's houses (and did considerable time in prison for his troubles). Do enjoy it, won't you?

Ed Wood's BLOOD SPLATTERS QUICKLY: An introduction

Blood Splatters Quickly reintroduces America to the short fiction of Edward D. Wood, Jr.

"It got to the point where, when one of the kids got an ear infection and we needed to buy antibiotics, [my wife] Tabby would say—half-joking and half not—'Hurry up, Steve, think of a monster.'"

-Stephen King on his short story-writing career

I have decided not to write an article about Blood Splatters Quickly: The Collected Stories of Edward D. Wood, Jr. (O/R Books, 2014), the newly-published volume that contains several dozen short stories written by Ed Wood in the late '60s and early-to-mid-'70s, most of them unseen for over 40 years. Instead, I'm going to write 33 articles about it... 34, I guess, counting this one.

After some careful consideration, I have come to the conclusion that it would be best to cover each of the stories individually. As I've been making my way through these marvelously twisted and unmistakably Wood-ian tales, one persistent thought has been gnawing away at me: "How am I ever going to condense this down into one Ed Wood Wednesdays piece without skipping a bunch of stuff?"

Well, who says I have to skip anything? So instead of my usual 5,000-plus-word behemoth (and do you realize that I've now written about a quarter of a million words about ol' Eddie at this point?), Blood Splatters Quickly will receive coverage here on a day-by-day, story-by-story basis. That way, I'll be able to discuss each entry in the book at my leisure while also providing a more steady supply of new content at Dead 2 Rights. Doesn't that sound like fun? Trust me, this is gonna work like gangbusters or my name isn't Adkon Telmig.

While the stories contained within its covers were written by Ed Wood, the omnibus Blood Splatters Quickly owes its existence to one man: Hollywood resident and tireless Ed Wood booster Bob Blackburn, whom you may remember from my coverage of I Woke Up Early the Day I Died . A lifer in the radio business himself and the son of a prominent Seattle sports announcer, Bob met Kathy Wood, Ed's widow, in 1992 and became a good friend to her in the last 14 years of her life.

Significantly, Bob assisted her in an ongoing quest to make sure that Eddie's life and work were not forgotten even though the man himself died in 1978. Besides getting I Woke Up Early made into a full-length, all-star motion picture in 1998, Bob and Kathy also arranged for a New York firm called Four Walls Eight Windows to finally publish Ed's previously-unseen Hollywood Rat Race, along with attractive new editions of Death of a Transvestite and Killer in Drag. Kathy Wood passed away in 2006 at the age of 84, and Bob became the caretaker of the Edward D. Wood, Jr. estate. His dedication to Wood's memory has not wavered in the intervening eight years.

Bob's latest accomplishment is Blood Splatters Quickly: The Collected Stories of Edward D. Wood, Jr. The 33 short stories reprinted here were originally cranked out for pornographic publications known euphemistically as "men's magazines" between roughly 1969 and 1975. Though explicitly sexual in nature, many (or most) of the tales have a horror or supernatural element as well.

Sam Yorty

Bob Blackburn himself pens an affectionate, informative introduction to the new book. He gives a thumbnail history of Ed Wood's literary career, including a retelling of Eddie's long association with Bernie Bloom at low-end Pendulum Publishing in the 1970s. The introduction also includes a biographical sketch of Ed Wood's entire colorful life, touching on his stint in the Marines during World War II and the low-budget film career that made him famous/infamous in the 1950s and beyond. Ed's work with the Autonetics aviation firm and controversial Los Angeles politician Sam Yorty are also covered.

Not ignored in all this is Eddie's decades-long struggle with alcoholism. This crucial subject is treated in a matter-of-fact way, highlighted by vivid details. (An example: "Ed would take a thermos of vodka to work with him and by the end of the day, he would be smashed.") But Kathy's life is given due attention as well; this may be the first time that her post-1978 life has ever been described at any length in a book. A little of the woman herself shines through in the process. "Kathy was a very private person," Blackburn writes, "and couldn't quite understand the growing fascination with Ed's work and the re-appraisal of his films and writings. She later told me that Ed would have loved it all, but it was too late." Those all-important words "too late" cast a pall over Eddie's entire posthumous career, including this very book.

Before we go, here's a neat video introduction that Bob recently made for an Ed Wood film festival. It's shot in front of the infamous "Yucca Flats" apartment building (6383 Yucca Street, Los Angeles, CA 90028) where Ed and Kathy spent their last few turbulent years as a couple. Just as in Ed's day, the building is still located next door to a 7-11 convenience store. The famed Capitol Records building (glimpsed in Nympho Cycler) is just a few blocks to the east. Head west on Yucca and you'll soon find another quintessential Wood location: Pla-Boy Liquor (still in operation as of this writing).

NEXT: "Scream Your Bloody Head Off" (1972)

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 40: "The Secret Testimony of Miserable Souls"

American Airlines pilot Jeff Trent: "I can't say a word. I'm muzzled by Army brass!"

Prefatory note: For the fortieth entry in this series, I have decided to do an article that is entirely self-indulgent. Rather than a review of a movie or book related to Ed Wood, it is a piece of original fiction inspired by his work. This idea goes back to November 2011 when I made a pitiful, abortive attempt to turn it into a full-length novel for NaNoWriMo, only to run smack dab into a nasty case of writer's block. But the idea never quite left me, so I thought I could turn it into a short story. Here, then, is that short story. It's written in sort of an exaggerated pulp style. This is more for myself than it is for you, but I hope you will enjoy it anyway.

"We'd like to know a little bit about you for our files.

We'd like to help you learn to help yourself.

Look around you. All you see are sympathetic eyes.

Stroll around the grounds until you feel at home."

-Simon and Garfunkel, "Mrs. Robinson" (1968)

"Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed:

 blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed."

-John 20:29 KJV

Clip-clop, clip-clop, clip-clop.

Jeff knew that sound too well. That heavy, horsey stride was etched in his memory. Pretty soon, Old Nursey, with her bulletproof hair and battleship body, would enter his room, brandishing a metal serving tray with the usual contents: a pleated paper cup with three pills, two pink and one blue; a squat little glass of orange juice; one tangerine; a small plate with exactly three limp, triangular pieces of toast; and a copy of that day's San Fernando Gazette, folded neatly along its equator and then into thirds.

Jeff sat up in bed, awaiting her imminent arrival. Never a show of weakness, Jeff. Not for a second. She was just doing her job, he supposed, but Jeff disliked her anyway.  As he saw it, she was another obstacle standing between him and everything he wanted: Paula, his home, his job, his life.

A moment before Old Nursey even showed her face, Jeff could already detect that cloying, fruity perfume of hers, which intermingled uneasily with the sour, nostril-stinging smells of the hospital. And now here she was herself in the overgenerous flesh.

"Good morning, Mister Trent!" she said in that damnable sing-song voice of hers.

"That's Captain Trent," Jeff replied, testily.

 "My apologies, Captain." She smiled broadly but without warmth. Her eyes looked glassy and dead.

"Hmm," said Jeff by way of reply. It was important to be noncommittal with these  people.

If Old Nursey took umbrage at this, she didn't show it. With the precision of a true professional, she rested the tray on a dresser and went about her morning ministrations, checking this and that—first adjusting items around the room, then performing little tests on Jeff himself. She measured his pulse, took his blood pressure, and put the back of her hand to his forehead to see if he felt feverish. This little ritual had become automatic for both of them, so much so that they could carry on a conversation all the while.

"We missed you at breakfast this morning, Captain. We were very much hoping you would join the other pa... er, guests in the Common Room."

She'd slipped up and almost said what she really meant instead of what she was supposed to say. The word "guest" implied someone who dropped by the place of his own free will and could leave whenever he chose. Jeff was no more a "guest" here than Hess was at Spandau.

"I'll continue to take my meals in my room, thanks." His voice was measured and firm.

"If that's what you prefer."

"It is."

"But you do realize that for the sake of your long-term treatment here, it would be best to..."

"I know! Play the game! Follow the rules! Go along to get along! Is that the idea? That I should run around on the big wheel like an obedient little hamster?"

This time, Jeff had slipped up. That attitude didn't cut it in a place like this. Old Nursey—he now remembered her name was Violet —looked stricken. The miniature tirade hadn't gained him an inch of ground.

"Listen," he continued after pausing and noticeably softening his tone, "why don't you attend to the other... uh, guests, and I'll be along later for Remedial Finger Painting 101 or whatever it is they have planned for us later today. And I promise to play nice. Scout's honor." He made the Boy Scout salute he still remembered from his youth and gave Old Nursey the sly, flirtatious smile that had once won him Paula.

"We still have a little business to attend to," said the now-blushing Violet. Snapping back into her cheerfully professional default mode, the nurse brought the metal serving tray over from the dresser and set it upon the nightstand next to Jeff's bed. This task completed, she stood over her patient and watched him expectantly. Jeff knew the routine from here on out. He picked up the pleated paper cup and emptied its contents into his mouth. He then chased that with a slug of orange juice.

"Ahhhhhh!" exclaimed Jeff in the satisfied manner of a man who'd just quenched a nagging thirst after, say, mowing the lawn on a hot summer day. Old Nursey looked pleased. Wonder how pleased she'd be, thought Jeff, if she knew her precious patient had secreted the pills between his lower lip and gums?

After the orange juice had disappeared down his gullet, he deftly used his tongue to transfer the capsules to the hollow of his left cheek, where they would stay until Jeff, alone at last, found a toilet in which to dispose of them discreetly. This was a routine he had worked out over a number of weeks. It helped that Old Nursey, who wasn't really that old but just seemed that way because of her frumpy personality, was not terribly observant, anesthetized to her surroundings as she was. Flying on autopilot, Jeff thought, flashing back to his not-so-long-ago days working for American Airlines. Would he ever make it back there?

"I'll be back for your tray later," said Violet. "Don't forget, you have a consultation with Dr. Fineman scheduled for eleven o'clock. That's..." And here she checked the improbably dainty watch on her thick linebacker's wrist. "...Forty-five minutes. Let's try to be on time."

"Oh, I will be... Mother," Jeff retorted, punctuating the remark with a jovial chuckle to indicate that this was merely a conversational witticism and not a swipe. But it didn't matter either way. Old Nursey had already started clip-clopping her way out of the room and down the hall.

Jeff noticed, and not for the first time, that she hadn't so much glanced at the room's only other occupant. She never did.

This poor devil, who was likely in his sixties but looked at least 90, reminded Jeff of the old prospectors he'd seen in history books. A miner forty-niner, like in the song. He had a long, gaunt face accented by wildly bushy eyebrows and a scraggly, salt-and-pepper beard. His eyes, seemingly open all the time, were ringed with faint, purplish-grey circles. He looked liked he'd seen something awful and never gotten over it. Jeff had nicknamed him "Fred C. Dobbs," after the Bogart character. Fred didn't take his meals in the Common Room, nor did he participate in egg-decorating or basket-weaving alongside his fellow captives.

As near as the younger man could tell, Fred received nutrients through one tube and refunded the waste through another. Fred's preferred -- and, in fact, only -- activity in life was to lie on his side, his back facing his younger cohabitant, and stare at the room's featureless, sea-green plaster wall for hours at a stretch. The old man's standard expression was like that of a luckless pet owner who had once witnessed his poodle being run over by a moving truck and never recovered from the trauma. Once or twice, Jeff was sure that Fred had died, but the man would very occasionally moan or utter something that nearly sounded like an intelligible word. These vocalizations were both rare and doleful.

Old Nursey's duty roster did not include Fred. If there were maintenance to be performed on the forsaken man, Jeff noticed, it was carried out by several uniformed male orderlies, who were in and out of the room with the efficiency of a top-flight pit crew. Once or twice during Jeff's stay, he noticed that a couple of these fellows would wheel poor Fred away on a gurney, and he would be gone for a few hours. This was always, without fail, in the middle of the night, and Fred would be back in his rightful place -- if that nicety could be applied to this rotten situation -- by the time Jeff awoke a few hours later.

In all, the pilot was quite pleased with his elderly roommate. You could scarcely ask for someone quieter or better behaved. What's more, Fred was an ideal audience. When he was sure they were both quite alone, Jeff would tell him the whole, impossible-sounding story -- the flying saucers, the aliens, the ghouls. And never was there a hint of protest from Fred. No incredulity. No scoffing. No condescending remarks about how this was all in his head and that he should get over it and get on with his life. All in my head, my foot! thought Jeff, ruefully. He'd been there that night. He'd seen it all with his own two, perfectly-functional eyes. So had plenty of others. But where had they all gone? Why had they abandoned him?

Crimson? Crawdad?

Jeff picked up the newspaper and scanned it with his usual, methodical seriousness. This was a privilege for which he had fought and won, but now he wondered why he had even bothered. The Gazette was a sleepy, small-town rag that never contained anything the least bit useful, certainly nothing related to the events of that fateful evening in '57, the very things Jeff had witnessed first-hand.

Narrowing his eyes to slits, he inspected each column of text, looking for tell-tale phrases like "from outer space" or "risen from the grave." But they were absent from the paper today, just as they'd been absent every previous day and would be absent every succeeding day. If you wanted to read about how San Fernando's mayor had cut the ribbon at a newly-constructed bank or how local hurler "Sharpie" Kennicott had pitched a no-hitter for the local triple-A ball club, then the paper was just fine. Otherwise, it was a waste of printer's ink and a poor use of the typesetter's art.

The closest thing to an "expose" about the flying saucer affair that had appeared in the paper was some mumbo-jumbo from that gooney-bird psychic with the syndicated column. Jeff couldn't quite remember his name. It was Crimson or Crawdad or something like that. The fella had a platinum pompadour with a kiss curl in the middle of his forehead that looked like an upside-down question mark. Anyway, since his nonsense appeared in the same section of the newspaper where you could catch up on the latest adventures of Walt and Skeezix in Gasoline Alley, no one paid him much mind. Funnily, that old kook had gotten closer to the truth than anyone else in the mass media. Even a stopped watch is right twice a day, thought Jeff. Who else could have gotten away with saying that aliens had visited Earth and had even resurrected the dead, just to put a scare into us, and it was all a bid to prevent the human race from destroying the universe with our weapons technology? No reputable reporter could get that past an editor. Never in a million years. But this gooney-bird could say it.

How could such fantastic, history-changing events be covered up? Well, Uncle Sam could sure slather on the whitewash when he needed to. Jeff had been on the ship itself. Hell, he'd even punched one of those uninvited visitors right in the jaw. And he hadn't been alone that night either! That Army colonel and that police lieutenant had been right there with him. Both had since recanted their stories. Across the board, the military and law enforcement communities denied that any such alien invasion had ever taken place. The order had come from on high, and it applied to all, from the top brass to the rank-and-file.

So if you happened to interview Officer So-and-So or Private Such-and-Such, you'd always get the same answer... or the same set of non-answers, more accurately. Those strange floating objects spotted on both coasts? A mix of weather balloons and experimental military aircraft. Reports of bodies missing from graves? An unfortunate case of vandalism. And what about that small California border town, Loma Rosa, which had been all but wiped off the map in the course of just a few hours? A natural disaster, most likely the result of subterranean volcanic activity. Rest assured, citizens, that our best men were looking into the matter, and a full report would be forthcoming. In other words: Move along, folks. Nothing to see here. The whole thing turned Jeff's stomach.

The last year had been a tough one, he had to admit. It wasn't easy being the one domino who refused to topple over. But, then again, a formidable stubbornness was part of Jeff's character, informed both by his strict Southern Baptist upbringing and his experience in the military. For him to change his story now would be as contrary to nature as Newton getting that apple of his to fall upward. This was no longer a mere battle of wills. This was a test of a man's integrity. He had served four years in the Marine Corps during the "good war" and had seen some action in the Pacific Theater. The experience changed him permanently. When you shoot a Jap soldier right in his Jap guts and look him square in the eye as he bleeds to death right in front of you... well, that's the kind of thing that makes a man take inventory of his deeply-held beliefs. You take whichever ones you have left and put them in a strongbox where nobody can get at them. And when somebody tries to jimmy open that strongbox and monkey around with what's inside, you damned sure better give 'em hell.

The folks in charge of the military industrial complex said there were no such things as flying saucers or men from other worlds, and they were making Jeff sit in the corner with a dunce cap on his head like a misbehaving schoolboy until he was ready to say he was sorry in front of the whole class. But he hadn't done it yet. He held out for the sake of the 179,323,175 Americans who deserved to know the truth. Because of that, he was here in this strange and awful place. And it wasn't just the big things, like being away from Paula, which made it so bad. It was the little things, too. Like the food, for instance. Jeff thought back to the previous night's repast. He reckoned it was boiled fiberglass with a side order of sewer rat, with a glass of bilge water to wash it all down. Even hard-headed Jeff  was starting to see that the immovable object that was his heart would eventually succumb to the irresistible force of the pressure being placed upon him by the Powers that Be.

He sure could have used some support, but none was available to him. Most of the witnesses who'd spotted the UFOs had been drunk, elderly, or hopelessly confused. Poor Paula—who had seen plenty —fainted on the terrible night that she had encountered the deceased-yet-somehow-ambulatory Inspector Daniel Clay in the cemetery. She had come to after the worst of it had ended, but she wasn't very communicative -- partly from shell-shock and partly because she had few, if any, pertinent memories of the events. She was living with her mother in Sausalito now, and Jeff honestly didn't know if she would ever again be the feisty little gal he'd met at a USO dance. He affectionately called her "kid," another verbal tic he'd picked up from Bogart.

That seemed so long ago now. It hadn't helped that her husband, the big strong airplane pilot, had been shipped off to the happy home to live among the fruits and nuts because he just couldn't or wouldn't stop babbling about little green men from Mars. But the visitors had not been little or green or from Mars; they had barbershop haircuts and Oxford accents and looked like anybody you might see on the street -- apart from those queer uniforms of theirs. Jeff strained to remember the details. Their shirts, he thought, were shiny and kind of billowy, almost blouse-like, with high collars and a strange little insignia over the heart -- a jagged lightning bolt inside a semi-circle. Strange how the mind files away little tidbits like that.

The strange insignia.

Jeff had replayed that momentous evening a thousand and one times in his head. The male spaceman -- there had been two of them, a man and a woman -- talked quite a bit. He had a name that sounded something like "Eros," and his snooty, fussbudget personality reminded Jeff of a particularly disagreeable English teacher who had given him a lot of grief back in his middle school days. But that wasn't the reason he had socked ol' Eros in the jaw. No, that was an act born of pure animal instinct. At that moment, a familiar feeling of savagery—Jeff called it "The Beast"—had risen up within him and taken possession of his entire body. "The Beast" had also been with him on that blood-spattered day when he'd shot the Jap on that flyspeck of an island in the Central Pacific.

In retrospect, punching Eros had been the turning point in the whole evening, but at the time there hadn't been any real strategy behind it. Had he not done it, he, the colonel, and the police lieutenant might never have gotten off that ship alive. But, in the long run, had he truly done the right thing? Since then, Jeff had had ample opportunity to consider the words that Eros had spoken, focusing on their meaning rather than the uppity way in which he'd said them. Maybe that unwelcome wayfarer had been on to something. Maybe the human race really was on a collision course with complete annihilation. It was a cinch that Earth hadn't heard the last of this. They'd be back, those aliens... eventually. And who knows? Maybe they wouldn't make their presence known the next time around. For all Jeff knew, those things might just press a button on a console and, just like that, we'd be wiped out -- erased from the cosmic map like writing on a chalkboard.

Oh, but what was the use of dwelling on things like this? Even if he could assemble any tangible evidence or persuade any witnesses to speak out on his behalf, this wasn't a story that America was ready to hear, let alone the world. And, besides, how much longer could he hold out? If he stayed here much longer, he would wind up like those miserable souls he saw in the Common Room, staring gape-jawed at Romper Room, with its chirpy little anthem about what we viewers should and shouldn't do: "Do be a plate cleaner! Don't be a food fussy! Do be a car sitter! Don't be a car stander!" Jeff was in no hurry to join the plate cleaners and the car sitters of the world. Those bastards in the Common Room looked like wax dummies that had melted a little, and their brains had long since turned to oatmeal. Thanks but no thanks, brother.

What Captain Jeff Trent really wanted was to rejoin the world. Hold Paula in his arms. Breathe the air outside the walls of this terrible place. Truly live again. Maybe he could even get his old job back. It sure would be nice seeing Dan and Eadie again. If the universe was going to come to an end, so be it. That wasn't his department. He just wanted to get the most out of whatever time he had left on this crazy blue marble called Earth.

So that was it. He'd just have to recant his story. Repent. Not all at once, though. That would seem suspicious. They'd never buy it. They'd figure it for a ploy... and they'd be right. No, he'd have to start building this thing slowly and carefully over the course of a few weeks. And he'd begin with his consultation with Dr. Fineman at eleven. He glanced at the clock. Jesus, that was only ten minutes away. He'd better start thinking up what to say. "Say, doc, I've thought a lot about what you've been telling me, and..."

"DON'T DO IT!"

Who had said that? Jeff looked around the room, his eyes darting wildly to every corner in search of the voice that had disrupted him so suddenly. Jeff was so disoriented that he accidentally swallowed the three pills he'd been hiding in his mouth, and he had to cough a little to catch his breath. Once he regained his composure, he looked up and stared across the room. To his surprise and utter disbelief, he saw Fred C. Dobbs sitting bolt upright in bed, looking right at him. The two men locked eyes, and there was a tense moment of silence between them. The pilot was unnerved. It was all he could do to keep "the Beast" at bay.

Nothing like this had ever occurred before. Jeff had never once heard Fred utter a coherent thought, nor move of his own volition. The old man hadn't ever acknowledged his roommate's existence in any demonstrable way. Jeff assumed that the duffer was completely oblivious to him. Obviously, that wasn't the case. This was like seeing Lazarus rise from the tomb or Pinocchio become a real live boy. All sorts of thoughts raced through Jeff's head. Had the old man heard everything he'd said? And if so, what did he think of Jeff? Was this a dream? What was going on here?

Fred spoke again, this time in a calmer, more soothing manner: "You are confused, I see. I will explain. My name is Erebus."

The old man pulled his hospital gown down a little on the left side so that his shoulder was exposed. On it was branded a symbol: a semi-circle with a lightning bolt in the middle.

"You have already met my late countrymen, Eros and Tana," Jeff's roommate continued. "They were part of an unsuccessful initiative designated Plan 9. I, however, am here as part of Plan 4, which involved infiltrating Earth society and finding out just how much your people know about our activities. As I have learned, the individuals your society has deemed 'mentally ill' are unusually receptive to our presence. Your government has known this for some time and has, therefore, made a concerted effort to round them up, institutionalize them, and drug them into a vegetative state. My job is to monitor them, and the best way to do that was to become one of them."

Jeff was thunderstruck. He grasped for words: "B-but... how do I fit into all of this?"

"You believe in us, Captain, because you have seen us with your own two eyes. You possess no special sensitivity to extraterrestrial life. You were just, as your people say, in the right place at the right time. But your government deems you a threat because you know of us and are unwilling to deny our existence. That is why you are here."'

"So... what do I do?"

"Simply put: stay the course, Captain. You have great courage and emotional strength. These will be vital weapons in our ongoing campaign to change the public's mind and avoid further unnecessary violence. Sometimes, though, you underestimate yourself. A moment ago, for instance, you were considering surrender."

"How could you possibly...?"

"We have mental capabilities far beyond those of your species. You are not particularly difficult to read. There's no need for envy. Eventually, the human race will evolve to have this ability. It may take a few eons."

"Great," Jeff snorted. "What am I supposed to do in the meantime? I can't very well make much of a difference if I'm cooped up in this place."

"Relax, Captain Trent. The Ruler is aware of your situation and is devising a stratagem to assist you, even as we speak. Plan 10, he calls it. It should be ready any..."

Suddenly, the old man went as limp as a rag doll and collapsed back on his bed. Jeff was puzzled. It was as if his battery had died. Then, he looked up and saw Old Nursey standing in the doorway. She was making a show of pointing to her undersized wristwatch. Erebus must have sensed her arrival. That was why he was playing possum now.

"Captain Trent," the nurse said in that contemptible, saccharine tone, "it's eleven oh-two. And we mustn't keep Dr. Fineman waiting."

"No," said Jeff glumly, "we certainly mustn't."

Jeff hauled himself out of bed and checked himself in the mirror to make sure he looked even halfway presentable. Naturally, his roommate's words were still spinning 'round and 'round in his head. The pilot knew he had a long and difficult path ahead of him. He understood that now. For whatever reason, Sweet Lady Destiny had chosen him to save the universe. When he thought about the situation in its totality, it was overwhelming. Best to take these things one day at a time. Break it down into smaller, more manageable tasks. Step one: develop a taste for boiled fiberglass and sewer rat. Maybe a little ketchup would help.

...

An excerpt from a hand-written draft of this story. Most of my articles are written on a computer. 

In two weeks: There is a man named Rick Tell, my friends, and he has a dream. He wants to stage a full-length musical about the life of Edward D. Wood, Jr. Warts and all! The ups, the downs, the sweaters and skirts, the monsters, and the booze. Crazy, you say? Impossible, you say? Then you've never met Rick Tell. Actually, I've never met him either. But I have been communicating with him by e-mail, and he seems really enthusiastic and sincere about this eccentric, improbable project of his. In a lot of ways, that's emblematic of the spirit of Ed Wood. So, as you might imagine, it is my sworn duty to give my readers the lowdown about all of this, providing both the relevant facts and my thoughts thereupon, so that you can make an informed judgment of your own. Sound like a plan? Then be back here in 14 days as I explore Ed Wood: The Musical!