Scatterings
Today I was going to write about the mental process of metamorphosing love into indifference and how difficult it’s turning out to be. Sometimes I attribute the difficulty to my advancing years, but it’s not true. It was every bit as hard the first time, and that was almost forty years ago. It’s just taking longer now, because I don’t have the distraction of college classes, Vietnam protests, nubile hippie chicks, and the occasional joint.
Anyway, I’m happy to report that’s it’s not the only thing on my mind.
Over the next ten days or so, I have to write the script for *Hard Time Season 2*, #5. I’m thinking about that, and an odd element I added to the story, a character’s ability to displace the sensation of pain and dump it into the nearest available psychic receptacle — i.e., another person. Sounds crazy, but I’ve seen it done. I’ve even been the other person. That, too, happened almost four decades ago. St. Louis. Biker chick. Long, weird story.
I type the following sentence with extreme caution and trepidation: I’m feeling a little better today. I got my third dose of a very powerful medicine on Wednesday, and I’m wondering if maybe, just maybe, this time it’s going to work.
August 5th, 2005 at 10:04 PM
“I’ve even been the other person. That, too, happened about 35 years ago. St. Louis. Biker chick. Long, weird story.” Did that story have anything to do with the Richard Rory/Ruth Hart story in MAN-THING No.2, which introduced the two of them? Ruth was a biker chick being pursued by the Skull-Crushers bike gang all the way from St. Louis to the Everglades, and Rory got stuck in the middle. Also, in TALES OF THE ZOMBIE No.3, you said you were “once brutally beaten for no reason at all by a motorcycle gang out for a lark…”
August 6th, 2005 at 1:43 AM
The real one’s name was also Ruth, but the similarities end there.
August 6th, 2005 at 7:10 AM
When I was younger and stupider, I used to hitchhike around the Northeast. Once, I went into a bar to get a soda and use the bathroom (I can’t drink alcohol; medical reasons, not moral ones). It was a biker bar. A bunch of bikers started gathering around me, and started comparing their knives with each other, obviously for the purpose of seeing my reaction. I pulled my Swiss Army knife out of my pocket, and showed that. They all looked at me, looked at each other, and then pulled out THEIR Swiss Army Knives and Leathermen, and we had a discussion of the merits of the Swiss Army knife vs. the Leatherman (P.S. I now own a Leatherman).
August 6th, 2005 at 5:59 PM
You know, every now and then Steve says these incredibly tantalizing things about his past, such as this, and I think to myself: I want to hear that WHOLE STORY. I think it’s time for some Gerber autobiographical adventures, a la Del Close in WASTELAND. Who’s with me???
Derek
st. paul, mn
August 7th, 2005 at 11:35 AM
You made my morning with the mention of HARD TIME. I am really looking forward to the return of this series.