#true tales

[basicallyanotherwitchesthing]

Emile C. Schurmacher - True Tales of Terror - Paperback Library - 1972

[legendaryvermin]

So I got a new TV, but it didn't have any RCA ports. I've been playing some old games on SNES and I think to myself, I should do myself a favor and get a tube tv, I will enjoy the art of the games more if I'm looking at it the way it was meant to look.

I go on the ole Offer Up, and all the tube TVs are $70+ and at least a half hour away. They're harder to find now, and I guess a lot of folks like me want one again, go figure. I find a guy, he says $70, I says "ok".

I go to meet him, very nice guy, and I bring my SNES cause, ya know, don't want to find out it's a dud when I get home. He has some old home movie in it, so we know it works, but when I plug in the SNES and flip on Donkey Kong Country? Nada. Dead as Jacob Marley if you catch my drift.

We poke the thing and prod it, and I know my SNES works because I was playing Final Fantasy IV (II) not a week ago. Guy says "look, you seem nice enough, and I mostly don't want to throw a thing like this in the dump if someone might give it a new life. Take it for free, no worries." I say "Thank you very much kind sir, I will do my best".

I get the thing home, have dinner with the wife, watch the Princess Diana Musical- terrible musical- and after we're done I get to troubleshooting. See, I have a pile of spare parts and just enough know how to be dangerous, so first things first I check the port with a machine that I know works: my Wii. Boots up like there's nothing to it.

Now I'm thinking, "ah nuts, did it finally happen, did good ole Snessie finally buy it on that car ride?" I try a new RCA cable. Nothing. I try a different cart, Super Mario All Stars. Bubkis. At this point I don't mind telling you I'm sweating cause this repair job ain't what I thought it was, and while a free TV ain't a bad deal it means diddly if the Gray Lady don't sing.

Then, I try that Finally Fantasy IV (II) cart I mentioned earlier. Boom. She lights up and I do not mind telling you it was the most gorgeous thing I seen since I walked down the isle to meet my wife on my wedding day.

But now I have a new worry, see? Those carts, DK and Super Mario All Stars? I've been keepin em safe for more than a quarter century. Mario is as much my bro as he is Luigi's, and Donkey Kong Country is the first game I ever truly loved. Now I'm lookin down the prospect of burying my brother and my first love. I tell ya I was near tears.

So I did the only thing I knew to do. The one thing everyone told you not to do but did anyways. I took those cartridges, and I blew right on the contacts. I blew like a wind out of the north, wild and furious as you like.

I slotted Donkey Kong Country in, and I prayed.

Ladies and germs and all those around and outside that binary, hear this:

The kiss of life works.

[basicallyanotherwitchesthing]

Brian Branston - Beyond Belief - Walker - 1974

[basicallyanotherwitchesthing]

Richard Webb - Voices From Another World: True Tales Of The Occult (Original Title: Great Ghosts of the West) - Manor - 1972

[originalheroluck]

[satur9sera]

A True Account of Strangeness in the Desert

I was feeling nostalgic so I decided to check out the paranormal section of ask dot com. I know what you're about to say and I an honestly tell you that I haven't had one additional thought about ask since the browser tab on my Motorola Backflip closed. Anyway, ask is gone now which means all my stories are also gone now which is fortunate for you because you now you get to read the nostalgic ramblings of a e-hag. I'll even write this in the style of an old cracked article just for you.

(I couldn't find a gif of a motorola backflip so here's a random gif I did find while searching "motorola backflip")

Tonight is a special night, the temperature dropped just right and I'm feeling extroverted enough to regale you with exactly one of the strange encounters I had while wandering the desert about 15 years ago (it doesn't actually seem like it was THAT long ago when i write it out like that. The internet skewing my perception of my own age? It would NEVER!)

So, I'm not from Nevada, there are generally no black helicopter style PMC patrolling or protecting the random patches of the desert southwest I hailed from and that's what makes this encounter notable and strange.

The story starts with my friend and I smoking weed in his Toyota Supra, in our hidden spot out in the scrub concealed by exceptionally full and tall units atripex polycarpa (cattle saltbush) and secured by a surrounding of thick zygophyllaceae that wouls have frustrated any potential, terrestrial interlopers. The moon was high in the clear, black, and starry sky and the speakers of the Supra alive with the sounds of AM radio. George Noory's voice brought J, the friend, and I to the topic of aliens.

(the last you see before being slimed out at the smoke spot)

Specifically we both had noticed that there was some strange fencing being put up miles away from anything and hugging the ridge line of a cliff. Not only had the fences mysteriously materialized seemingly overnight but a strange pool of water also appeared and was large enough that reflection of the noonday sun could be seen glittering off the surface if one were to climb onto the roof of our high school and look out toward the ridge. Why was on the roof of the high school so much? I'll answer that question with another question: What's the statute of limitations on ditching PE? The colors reflected were rusty shades of green and orange it was a strange sight in that area and, even stranger, nobody ever seemed to go to it. We never saw any tanker trucks or work vans or even any wild animals in the vicinity. Anyway, back to the scene.

My friend and I were wrapped up in our conversation about extra terrestrials and and so deep into hotboxing the cabin of the car that it may well have been a phone call based on how little we could see of each other. Of course we began to wonder exactly what was that odd pool out in the desert. No sooner had the thought entered our brains than we (carefully) drove to J's girlfriend's house nearby.

We woke her up asked her to drive us out to a specific portion of the desert that we would navigate toward we just needed her for safety and for verification. We were consummate professionals after all didn't want to be dismissed as the drug addled crack pots we most definitely were at the time.

(rough approximation of J's gf in this portion of the story)

She accepted our request and we set out. When we got near the boundary of the high school and the dirt road became more of an undeveloped animal path. The soft sound of packed dirt gave way to a more noisy gravel under the tires and the shadows at the edges of the headlights seemed to grow a bit more eerie the further we moved along down this trail. It was a relatively warm night so we had the windows down for comfort and to air out the car of the nights opening events. The desert is an abnormally noisy place at night. There's always some sort of unseen rustling or howling or screams of immense terror and angst, those are the mountain lions. But tonight the desert seemed to be holding it's breath with us. Even the stars seemed to grow dimmer as we progressed. But there was a reason for that.

We started seeing strange flashes of light illuminating the dark sky. brilliant blue and bright as anything I've ever seen. They seemed to be originating from a particular spot on the ridge and, as I watched, the apparent rhythm became clear. I don't know what the lights meant or who they were intended for but I didn't have long to think about it before the soundless still life we inhabited was invaded by a set of headlights about half a mile behind us, they came out of nowhere and they were speeding up.

This freaked us all out and we started driving faster, the bumps in the road tossing us to and fro as we progressed toward the ridge and frantically began discussing our alibis and wishing this was actually a case of aliens so we could hitch a ride out of this dire situation. But, because misfortune must follow it's code of threes, suddenly a pair of vehicle lights appeared in front of us. This remote locale was getting quite popular and I will definitely take credit for making that the most happening spot in BFE for the night.

(I'm iconic the way my dumbass ideas have vehicles rushing to the middle of nowhere just to meet me)

One set of the new headlights was maybe a mile off and slightly to the left and the other almost directly in front of us. Illuminated suddenly in the headlights of J's supra was a jeep. Maybe it was tan or grey I couldn't really see it through the fear and anxiety. This apportation of offroad vehicles finally spooked J's girlfriend and she made a hard right turn off the path into the wild desert.

We sped away, gravel and sand blowing into my face as the car accelerated the lights of our pursuers growing farther away but it was still apparent that they were in fact in pursuit. The twists and turns J's girlfriend took as we shot through the valley like the roadrunner threw me and everything in the back seat around like a tumble dry cycle so from my perspective it was only sheer luck that we avoided hitting any large rocks or massive yuccas or anything that would've disabled the car at the moment. When we made it back to the paved road near the school, the three pursuers still in tow but much farther back, she put the pedal to the floor and we managed to lose the tail or so we thought.

A couple of miles down the road, as we were decompressing and panicking about where to go to lose the heat, a black SUV that was way too nice to be roaming around this neighborhood was driving toward us head on in our lane. J's girlfriend swerved and narrowly avoided the bulk of the SUV only breaking off the mirror and leaving a pretty gnarly scratch on J's passenger door.

We managed to get into the city without further incident and went to a Denny's where we laid low ordering appetizers for a few hours. After we all calmed down, we apprehensively drove back to the jam room where our band practiced and recorded. We got all the blankets we could find and sort of made a fort to sleep it off. nothing ever came of that encounter or not to me at least and I continued to wander around that desert for years to come.

So, what was it? I honestly think the fence guys were private security and the black SUV was a drug dealer. Or perhaps vice versa. I mean I guess in the end they are kinda both the same thing when the employer is the government.

This isn't the end of my tales from the desert by far. Stay tuned, strange signalers from beyond the ridge. Next time we may even get to see a craft.

[allnightsong2]

Just overheard something today, 23rd of July, in 2022, which reinforced my reasoning for having overall low expectations from this world. Perhaps unfairly. I may be projecting a bit. But then again, maybe not. Before I write out this, and several prior but also recent encounters I've witnessed, let me get something clear. With only a few exceptions most people present a sanitized version of themselves in the public eye. Be that online or when interviewed or surveyed. This shouldn't be a surprise. Prior to 2016 here in the U.S I don't think anyone realized how many bigoted, misogynistic, homophonic, racist and xenophobic people there actually are here.

Those people didn't magically appear. They were here but mostly kept quiet because being a loud, hateful, regressive, scumwad wasn't socially accepted behavior. A lot of the perception is that these people are somewhat older; Gen X and Boomers. Except for 4chan, young folk are so much more enlightened! Less prejudicial and judgemental!

Uh huh. Maybe around strangers (which includes being online where you don't know who's listening/reading). The following five bits of overheard dialogue were all spoken by young people, aged late teens to early 20's.

Ft Wayne, Indiana. July, '22. Three young men at the Pilot truck stop- "Why the hell should we have to do queer studies? We don't do 'straight' studies! Fucking queers are a minority, why can't they just shut up like other minorities do?"

Cedar Rapids, Iowa. July,'22. Three teen boys and a teen girl outside a Casey's General Store- "There ain't no future for this country. Fags and Mexicans and fucking transexuals are gonna take all our rights away! Whatever happened to the rights of white people?"

Near Pine Bluff, Arkansas. June, '22. Two young men, in the parking lot of a Family Dollar- "Tell em you suck dick and take it up the ass! He won't dare fire ya if he thinks you're a faggot! It would be all over the news!"

DuBois, Pennsylvania, June, '22. Two young women smoking outside the Sheetz- "Every adult is a sinner. Only babies are innocent. That's why abortions is evil! It kills an innocent god given life! Abortion is worse than raping or murdering an adult. It is! I'd rather be raped myself than let somebody abort a baby!"

Corbin, Kentucky, June '22. Five young men sitting on car hoods at a McDonald's.- "Hey, they say LGBT people have always been around, right?" "Yeah." "So why won't they shut the fuck up? They always been around but my dad and my grandpa said they never heard anything like how it is now." "My gram says there weren't any lesbians when she was little. Women got married like they're supposed to " "Man! They want people to not harass them? Then shut the fuck up! Right? You're here! Whatever! Just shut up and stop whining!"

See, there is no monolithic social/cultural group. Particulaly in someplace like the US where geography creates distinct cultures which further subdivide based on race, home, parents occupation, wealth, etc. And the thing is, I doubt any of these people would take to YouTube or TikTok or even Reddit to express these sentiments. These attitudes aren't tentpole beliefs. They weren't preaching or trying to convert. I'm sure for them these are just ordinary conversations. They aren't strongly focused, or shaping their identities, around these statements. It's just how they, and obviously their friends, are. Their resentments or frustrations aren't strong enough to choose a more public forum so as to take a clear stand.

That's what's kind of sad. These aren't hardcore, fervent and rabid extremists. In their eyes, among their friends, in their world, they feel normal. Their attitudes are acceptable. Among friends or family. This is the atmosphere they grew up in and live in. They know that the "Damn Liberals" don't approve, and since, in their skewed reality, the media doesn't represent what they see, it's the Liberals and the "Liberal Controlled Media" that is wrong, but which posesses the power to cancel or make things difficult.

The U.S. is actually more like a federation of fifty individual countries, loosely allied in regional blocks, but at the end of the day for each their primary concern is looking out for number one.

[allnightsong2]

Words-Rehumanize yerself

Just had an interesting and quite nice (although occasionally sad) conversation with a gentleman roughly of my age (in his 50's). I won't say where he was working because he wasn't really "allowed" to talk with me (which, BTW, is BULLSHIT) and I'm not going to risk getting him in trouble, no matter how infinitesimal that risk may be.

The gentleman was developmentally disabled, as were a good number of the employees there. He was hesitant and shy about speaking but was obviously enthralled by my truck. I started the conversation. He said he wasn't supposed to talk to me. I said "Well I'M talking to YOU and nobody tells ME who I can talk to."

He told me he had a license to drive a car but really wished he could drive a truck. He said he couldn't drive a truck because he was slow at reading and when people made him anxious he couldn't think very well. He told me "I'm not very smart and I can't do much about that. I read the newspaper at the group home everyday but don't understand a lot of things. My dad said being smart is no good if you don't have common sense. I don't know if I have much of the that either but I try."

He asked me about where all I've driven. I told him 48 states and parts of Canada. He said that sounded cool but scary. He asked if I was ever scared of the police. I said not really. He said that he almost always was. (He's white btw) I asked why. He said he used to take walks in the evening. He told me he liked the way that windows looked when they were lit up at night. He said that if a house had really pretty curtains he would pretend to himself that he lived there. He would stand on the sidewalk and do make believe. Except people called the police on him twice. He said that the police were mean, they had called him suspicious and threatened to arrest him. He said that that made him very scared and gave him a panic attack both times and that they had handcuffed him when he couldn't explain what was happening.

He then asked me if I thought it was a bad thing that police were shooting black people. I said of course. He said his brother said that the cops had good reasons for shooting people. He said his brother didn't like black people and he himself didn't understand why. He told me his best friend ever was black and lived at the group home and he was the nicest person he had ever known.

"He won't go anywhere hardly now." the man told me. "He's very afraid all the time. He says if he goes out cops might kill him. He says maybe he'll do something bad by accident and then the cops will have to shoot him dead." He stopped then and looked around to make sure nobody was near. "I'm very sad a lot now. I can't help my friend. He cries almost every night. He says he wishes he was white so people wouldn't hate him. I tell him I love him just exactly like he is but it doesn't make him feel better."

He asked me why people were so mean. I said some people became mean because they didn't like themselves and that made them angry and afraid and mean. They couldn't feel good about themselves so they made other people feel bad too because that was easier than fixing all the things they didn't like about themselves.

Then abruptly he asked me if I vote. I said yes, always. That made him happy. He said he always voted too. He had gotten better at reading so he could vote and vote properly. It was his right as an American and his duty as a citizen to vote. He said his brother had told him that he HAD to vote for TrumP but he wasn't going to. He then looked actually scared and asked me if I liked TRump. I said not even a little and asked why he wouldn't vote for tRump.

"He's not a good man." he said quietly. "He says bad things about people all the time. That's not nice. And he lies and lying is wrong. I'm not smart but I know he lies and pretends he isn't. My brother says it's not REALLY lying but it is. My brother says it's okay for the president to lie but it isn't. It's not. Lying is bad. If you're not doing bad things why would you lie?"

I assured him that he indeed did have common sense. More than his brother. Then we talked about Batman, Ironman and Deadpool (his favorite). We talked about the best pizza and donuts, how strawberry jam was better than raspberry and how awesome puppies were. Then I was loaded and he said he hoped I would have a very good day. I said that that was guaranteed. It was always a good day when I made a new friend.

I honestly hope I get to go there again.