Startling Stories for All Ages
The first Famous Feztoinian featured at Oddball Art Labs’s 2015 pop culture event ⎯ Fez Fest!
Elgin’s own Rich Wagner posing as singer, songwriter, and international drug merchant, Francois Anatole. Read his Feztonian bio below.
(Write-up by yours truly; design work by artist David Metzger.)
The next time you’re in downtown Elgin, be sure to stop by Rediscover Records and tell Rich, “hello!”
It all started when I bought myself a limited edition, hand-crafted Freedonian fez from the fine folks over at Fez-O-Rama ⎯ the same one perched atop my skull on the home page.
[For the record, Freedonia was the fictitious country ruled by Rufus T. Firefly (Groucho Marx) in the 1933 classic, Duck Soup. Every year, Fezmonger Jason Rodgers rings out the old and rings in the new by watching all of the Marx Bros. movies in order.]
This was back in December 2014. I don’t know who’s bright idea it was to put together an art show around the famous headwear. All I know is that the gang at Oddball Art Labs was instantly on board and working hard to make Fez Fest a reality in 2015.
Two of the Oddballs ⎯ Dave Metzger and MikeRende ⎯ invited me to collaborate on “Famous Festonians in History”: an installation showcasing the fez and the people who wore them.
Dave would take picutes of people he knew and I’d write up brief but detailed fictional biographies that would hang under the oversized photos.
A lot of imagination and research went into those bios. I also joined one of the photo shoots, which was a lot of fun and lead to some great pictures. More on that later.
Dave did a terrific job putting together the words and images. The Festonians were a hit and, after the show, Dave presented each of the models with their picture and the write up. For a while, one hung in the Martini Room in downtown Elgin. There might still be one up at Rediscover Records. (If anybody sees it there, please take a picture and send it along.)
To celebrate the show, I’ll be posting all six ⎯ seven! ⎯ of the Famous Feztonians, one at a time for your viewing pleasure, along with a few other artifacts from the show.
If anybody was a contributor or has any photos from the show ⎯ crowd shots, friends and family, the Shriner cars, belly dancers, etc. ⎯ email them and I’ll throw ’em into future posts.
For now, here’s the front and back of the announcement postcard that went out before the opening. (Text by me, artwork and layout by Dave Metzger.)
More soon!
Complex Partial: A Poem About Seizures
By Bradley James Weber
“There it is again,” he says
The aura
The slight dizziness and the déjà vu
Another memory of things that never happened
“Sometimes,” he says,
“I wonder why I’m on the floor.”
Why his face hurts
Why he can’t breathe through his nose
And where all the blood came from . . . .
Or once
How his car got on the wrong side of the street
Up the grass outside the Jiffy Lube
And who all the people were
Concerned and amazed
That he rolled through the intersection
Without killing anyone
“Are you OK?” they ask
“You want us to call somebody?”
All good questions
None with answers and no time to find them
Because his window of functionality
Is slamming itself closed.
“When I snap out of it,” he says,
I’ve got a few minutes—
maybe five.”
Until the headache
The nausea
And confusion hit
Five minutes
Until the whirling vertigo
Until he can’t drive
Or stand
Or think straight about anything
Except throwing up
Then going to sleep
In a very quiet, very dark room
“It never goes away,” he says
The dread of another seizure
The paranoia, the depression and rage
In spite of the meds
Or maybe because of them
Side effects may include:
Hostility, nervousness,
Personality disorders,
Irritability
Delusions
Agitation, apathy
Mood swings, aggression
Suicidal thoughts.
“Which is fine,” he says,
“But what if you’ve got all that
before taking medication?”
Paranoia, anxiety
Depression, rage
All part of the program
When you’re born with a brain full of bad wiring
“So what’s that leave you?” he says
Other than jokes
Some from his parents
About how they’d been right all along
“Something’s wrong with that boy.
We’ve said it for years.’”
The nighttime episodes
His face and chest banging
And banging and banging and banging
Into the mattress
Seizures undiagnosed
“’Been doing that since he was a baby. Just one of those things.’”
He considers my whiskey
Then frowns
“Nah,” he says, “not worth it.”
His brain and the booze
They don’t get along anymore
Maybe not ever
“I’ll tell you what, though;
I miss it like hell.”
Then it’s time for the trash to haul itself out
I pat down my pockets
For lighter and smokes
While my brain-damaged pal
Shoves me carward
Sober and ready
To drive me back home
The cover for Melissa Savage’s latest book, Lemons.
By Melissa Savage
Yearling, 2017
Age Range: 8 – 12 years
Grades: 3rd through 8th Grade
Readership: All genders
***Recommended
In Lemons, author Melissa Savage blends the comedy of the fish-out-of-water story and the zaniness of Bigfoot investigation with the real emotions of characters struggling with their individual losses.
It’s 1974. The Vietnam War is over; Nixon’s quit the White House; and Lemonade Liberty Witt is being sent to live with her only surviving relative: her dead mom’s estranged father.
While Lem banks on her 5th grade teacher requesting custody of Lem so she can stay in San Francisco, Lem must deal with all the rage and sadness of losing her mother, losing her place in the world, being under the care of someone she didn’t even know existed, and of being sent to a backwoods town that happens to be the Bigfoot Capital of the World.
It’s this last item which helps Lem; her grandfather, Charlie; and Tobin, the cryptid-obsessed neighbor boy who’s father didn’t quite make it home from the war. Though Lem joins Tobin on his Bigfoot hunt because she has nothing better to do, the investigation allows them all to redirect their angers and griefs long enough to begin healing.
Ms. Savage’s prose is crisp and well-paced. For a book full of people dealing with personal loss, Ms. Savage gives everyone’s emotions their due without overwhelming the characters, the story, or the reader. The characters consciously chose restraint in situations that—on TV, in movies, or in lesser works—would be amped-up for effect. With any luck, young readers will pick up on this and see it as a better way to handle overwhelming emotions.
Ms. Savage’s second book, The Truth About Martians hits shelves in early October.
For your copy of Lemons, and to pre-order The Truth About Martians, visit Anderson’s Bookshop or your local independently owned bookstore.
For more information about Melissa Savage, visit her website at https://melissadsavage.com/.
“No verse is free for the man who wants to do a good job”
— T. S. Eliot
The challenge was self-imposed and wholly unnecessary: Write a poem with only ten lines per stanza and only two words per line, any length on any subject.
Here’s the result.
(It should come as a surprise to exactly no one that this piece takes an ugly turn early on then steers into it.)
Enjoy!
By Bradley James Weber
FIRST DAY
Nine men
One lifeboat
First Officer
Now Captain
Eight passengers
One oar
Zero rations
Endless horizon
No compass
SECOND DAY
Air: equatorial
Sun: blinding
Tongues: parched
Lips: cracked
Water: none
Less food
Nine men
One wounded
One malcontent
FOURTH DAY
No land
No ship
No respite
No rescue
Sunburned eyes
Stomach cramps
Fata Morgana
Madness brews
FIFTH DAY
One captain
Eight men
Nine straws
One short
“Why draw?”
The malcontent:
“Kill him.”
The dying:
“Yes, lord.”
DAY SIX
Eight castaways
Seven sated
One abstained
“Pure savagery.”
Bloody work
Bloody hands
Bloody sea
One lifeboat
Attracting sharks
DAY SEVEN
The malcontent
spreads dissent
“Land ho?
Ship ahoy?
Not likely.
Hunger returns!
Cowardly ‘captain,’
who’s next?
Decide already!”
DAY EIGHT
Abstainer dead,
stolen overnight.
Seven straws
Become toothpicks.
Offal overboard
Sharks return
Selene’s crown,
Luminous, enchanting
Storm’s harbinger
DAY NINE
Glorious downpour!
Quenching rain!
Huzzah! Huzzah!
Relief stillborn.
Savage lighting
Heavy gales
Rudder useless
“Grab something!”
“Hold fast!”
DAY TEN
Three lost,
Four remain.
The malcontent,
Two lickspittles,
The captain––
Badly wounded.
“Die choking.”
The malcontent:
“You first.”
DAY FOURTEEN
Sundown, starlight
Waxing moon
Pensive sea
Restless sharks
Three men––
Forward, aft,
Amidships crouched––
Ever vigilant
Entertaining hunger
DAY NINETEEN
Human bones
Thrice gnawed
Cracked, sucked
Gnawed again
No avail
Futile, exhausting
“Like prayer.”
The malcontent:
“Abandon hope.”
DAY TWENTY
Two remain.
One astern––
Tearless, broken––
Overboard slipped
Midnight’s suicide
Alone together
The malcontent
The other
Battle sleep
DAY TWENTY-NINE
S. S. Duneeden
“Captain, sir?
Lifeboat spotted,
Port bow.”
The captain:
“Anyone aboard?”
“Unknown, sir.”
“Best investigate.”
“Yes, sir.”
Word spreads
Doctor ’roused
Idle crew
Crowding rails
Captain’s command:
“Engines stop.”
Duneeden drifts
Distance closes
All hands
Holding breath
Hopeful silence
Woefully broken
Curses, prayer
Revulsion, despair
Bones bleached
Bloody thwarts
Hunger, madness
Souls abandoned
Horror’s Testimony
Witnessed, notarized
Everywhere, everywhere
Fleshy strips
Salted, drying
Nearly cured.
Asleep astern
The malcontent
Charon’s helmsman
Meat–surrounded
Peacefully cradling
Someone’s head.