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The Truth Is No Laughing Matter (Classic Paranoid Repost)

19 Sep

September 19, 2012.

Wow, this is nearly five years old. And what lunacy! Paranoia abounds but don’t worry, I’m all better now, that’s what they keep telling me, I’m all better now, all better now…

from October 8, 2007

So I’m working on the yearbook and we have a Hollywood theme, and it seems to have carried over to my blog-slinging (and damn if I’m not sticking with that word ’til it hurts.) As I type this I am wearing cool shades, sitting in a director’s chair, and I refuse to talk directly to anyone, preferring to let my assistant do all that.

OK, you caught me in a lie. (Read any blog at random and you’ll catch me in anywhere from three to infinity lies.) I am not wearing shades, nor am I sitting in a director’s chair, nor do I have an assistant, though I do prefer communicating through emails rather than actually talking to people, so I guess there is a modicum of truth there.

And a modicum is enough nowadays. Who wants the truth? As a wise man once said; “You can’t handle the truth!” And no, we can’t.

Would you like to know the truth about such dangerous topics as “grave robbers from outer space”? While I won’t spill any secrets of NATIONAL SECURITY, I will merely point out that in 1959 a courageous young documentary filmmaker named Edward D. Wood Junior attempted to inform the public of an immediate crisis that endangered not just the citizens of Hollywood but the entire world. He had discovered, through long weeks of research in hidden national archives and secret military installations worldwide, that aliens were about to attempt a conquest of Earth, with our own dead as their invading army. Try as he might, Mr. Wood was thwarted at every attempt to rally the public into action, and for his efforts, the government poisoned his image in the eyes of the public. This once promising Harvard graduate with a PhD in Psychology and an MBA in Business Management from the Wharton School of Business, was ruined and became a laughingstock in an angora sweater.

Would you like to know the truth about atomic testing in the South Pacific?  For decades, the government has suppressed knowledge of the radiation-induced abnormal hyper-growth of certain reptiles, both prehistoric and contemporary, to gargantuan size. Similarly, the abnormal growth to epic proportions of common ants in the American mid-west due to atomic testing has been suppressed. Newsreel footage of fire-breathing dinosaurs have been leaked to the public from time to time by intrepid truth-seekers, but the government’s black-ops division has managed to convince the public that these actual films of dangerous creatures are really just Japanese movies with men in rubber suits, not monsters.

Would you like to know the truth about asbestos? It is a well-known fact that asbestos is NOT a carcinogen. It is totally harmless and may in fact cure acne. Asbestos was first used as a government cover-up in 1941 when the Air Force claimed that the area around Roswell New Mexico was contaminated to keep the public far away from what was really going on- a flying saucer crash. After the debris was moved to Area 51, the government continued to use the asbestos story for any operation they wanted to keep classified. To this day, CIA incursions into Hanoi during the Vietnam War are blamed on asbestos. Famously, when the Soviets captured Francis Gary Powers after his Blackbird spy plane crashed in the USSR, the US government claimed that he was not spying, and that his plane entered Soviet airspace because of asbestos in the cockpit.

Would you like to know the truth about the Yeti? The Yeti is not a hoax, nor is it a sort of prehistoric “ape-man” as the press (well-known as the propaganda arm of the government) would have you believe. The Yeti are in fact a well-organized and well-hidden militia created for the sole purpose of protecting the nation from a Soviet invasion in 1978. In the late 1970’s the Soviet Union prepared a full-scale invasion of The United States using mercenary Indian Monkey-Man soldiers. These soldiers had, among other futuristic technologies, invisibility-rendering pants. Facing a “primate-soldier gap,” the President authorized the creation of “an elite Yeti squadron,” capable of repelling the Soviet mercenary Indian Monkey-Men. These proved more than capable, and all knowledge of the Yeti had been suppressed, often violently. The Yeti remain America’s ever-vigilant first line of national defense.

Would you like to know the truth about the moon landing? The popular conspiracy theory states that we never landed men on the moon, and that the 1969 moon landing was filmed on a soundstage. That is just not true. We did land on the moon. In 1952. During world War Two, Germany was creating advanced V-2 rockets capable of reaching England. They also created, just as the war was ending, the first jet aircraft. Using German scientists and technology smuggled out of Germany after the war, America created the first lunar rocket in 1952 on a small hidden base in New Mexico. When we reached the moon, astronauts discovered a lunar base constructed on the dark side by aliens from Alpha Centauri. Soon after reaching an agreement, we received advanced alien technology (Did you really think we created Velcro?) in return for turning a blind eye to the mass abductions of humans.

I have been very careful, in the writing of this blog, not to name actual names or reveal too many specific details. It is not safe to do so. In fact, I was very careful to couch it in vague terms and even to write it as if I was being silly with all the “Hollywood” nonsense in the first paragraphs, in case this was being monitored. But it is all real and the truth must get out.

It’s funny. I’m sure I’m all alone. I know I locked the door. But I can swear I just heard footsteps and saw a shadow creeping along the wall. It is funny how the mind can play tri

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The Legend of The Headless Taxi Driver

30 Aug

August 30, 2012

This is a true story.

For Saarah (who hated it.)

Gather around my children, and listen. Draw in close; this is a fine night for a ghost story. It is dark and stormy, and- that sound! No my children, don’t startle so easily, it is only thunder. I can see quite well in the flashes of lightning, it is only us here. Please, move in, tighten the circle. There is strength in numbers when you are in the dark.

This tale happened quite recently. Saarah and I had left the theater very late. The show ended hours after midnight and we walked through the still night, past the empty and vacant lots where the trees cast odd shadows in the lamplight. The late evening, soon to be early morning, was still and quiet. It was a summer night, silent and stark under the glow of the full moon above. Our car was parked down the block from the theater, below a single dull light, a short walk really. We walked down the street lost in our conversation, sparing not a single glance at the odd shapes of the tombstones and crypts to our left, and as we neared… why the shiver, my child? Why the fright?

Did I neglect to mention the graveyard?

Yes, this theater was located directly across the street from a cemetery. As we laughed and thrilled to the show on the screen, the dead lay in the darkness not thirty feet away. And as we walked alongside the necropolis, there was a hush. Our talk quieted and our laughter died. On such a black evening, the dead do not care for the laughter of the living. And although we made it to the car without encountering a single charnel specter, I was later given reason to wonder if we had really not disturbed some ephemeral presence. Perhaps we laughed too loudly. Perhaps we did not show the proper respect. I’ve never been sure……

We drove home, shaking off the chill of the graveyard with music and talk. The streets were quiet and other drivers scarce.  We had all but forgotten the shivering touch of the dead when a vehicle ahead of us drew our attention. It was a taxi, a typical yellow New York taxi, much as hundreds or thousands of others appear. But taxi cabs are not that common a site in Brooklyn. The big fares are in Manhattan. But that alone was not enough to draw out attention, because as we drew near, we saw that the driver, the driver of the taxi, sitting alone in the automobile, all alone with no passenger, was- but I am getting ahead of myself.

The taxi was not far in front of us. As we watched we saw that it was not stopping where it should. While it stopped at the red lights, it would stop midway into the intersection. The car seemed to dare the other traffic. It positioned itself so that it seemed to invite, no children, it seemed to dare Death himself to take the driver in his embrace.

Did you see that? In the flash of lightning, did none of you see that? Just beyond the trees? No, none of you? Perhaps the eaves of an old house, or maybe just this old storyteller’s imagination. Of course you could not see it, the lightning was behind you. But now all seems dark and quiet again.

We drew close to the car. It was not driving as it should at all. It drifted from one lane of travel to another. It crowded the rare car that came too close. It slowed in oncoming traffic and stopped in the center, the dead center, of intersections. We were keeping a respectable distance from this dangerous car, for at first we suspected that it was driven by a drunk, but we quickly noticed something that was not right. I softly pressed the accelerator and we inched closer. We followed, getting inch by inch closer, slowly gaining a better view of the interior.

We spoke not a word. But we knew each other’s thoughts. And one close glance at the car ahead and another in each other’s eyes confirmed that we had not left behind the specters and haunts of the graveyard, that we had not escaped the notice of the undead evils of the tomb. For when we drove close enough, and when the moonlight lit up the driver’s seat, we saw the truth and forever longer shall we wonder when we will next encounter the otherwise normal-looking car and its unearthly driver.

For what Saarah and I saw in the dark, just as we now sit in the same darkness, alone now as we were then, and I ask you children to draw close, press in very close my children, for I can only whisper this blasphemy, and pray I no further disturb the unliving…

When we pulled close to the car which invited Death, we saw that the driver…… the driver of the taxi…. had no head.

But wait! Again, the lightning! I see it! Do you? Look, you can see it! You can hear it! No, don’t wait for me, I am doomed! He has come to take me! The Headless Driver has come! Saarah, oh Saarah, I pray you are not next! He nears! He nears! Run my children! RUN! For I am doomed! Doomed!

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Police records indicate that the camp counselor was found three days after being reported missing by camp officials. A search of the woods later turned up his body.

It had no head.

Rumors of a headless taxi driver have been reported during each full moon for the past decade but few dare to drive close enough to be sure.

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