Saturday, April 27, 2019

other things not pertaining to things



Suddenly, a bit away, Kyle hears something moving in the brush. A beast the size of a Shetland pony but resembling a palpitating, white grub worm on six crab legs and sporting a nasty scorpion-like stinger drops onto the branch stalking Kyle. Behind the thing, two more of the same beasts creep into view. They emit a piercing shriek as they lurk forward to attack. Without any weapons, Kyle turns to run when the first thing springs through the air and lands onto his back. He can feel the hot saliva from the thing dripping on the nape of his neck as he is pinned down by powerful claws. Suddenly, he senses intense heat and then smells burning flesh as the thing falls off him. Glancing back, he witnesses the second monster leaping at him, but in mid-air, an almost invisible ray of white light fires from out of the fog and kills the beasts. The last monster screams and charges only to be torched by a second burst of the mysterious heat ray.
A group of ten men appear in bizarre body suits and using herbs found in the jungle, revive Thark. They leave before Thark awakens from his venomous coma. Thark explains that the mysterious men were Kzinti and live scattered out in the Great Wasteland. The suits they wear protect them from the harsh climate and residual radiation from fallout. He explains he sent an ambassador, his best Commander named Aris Eddor to speak with them seven years ago. Aris never returned. The Kzinti, also known as tek-hunters, scour the wastes scavenging for tech and machines to barter for food at settlements. They are generally mistrusted and despised by the citizens of the settlements and mostly keep to themselves.

 - Excerpt from the 19 page draft summary of novel in process, Across the Galactic Lens

Inspiration reveals itself in a myriad of forms and will lead to a great many good things. It being from life trauma, reading a book, or simply laying in the grass and staring up into a vast, blue cloudless sky. The stories I have penned which eventually wound up in novels, magazines, online writer markets – they are all well and good, I suppose, but for the longest time I have wanted to author a science fiction story. One of epic scale. Inspired by Edgar Rice Burroughs A Princess of Mars and Buck Rogers, I jotted down a decade ago a one page story outline about a United States Marine fighting in the Gulf War of the mid-90’s suddenly transported to a distant and savage planet. The planet, blasted and cratered from decades of atomic war had it all: spired palaces, exotic beasts, silver and sleek rocket ships, swords and laser guns. I first mentioned this early idea in Tweeker about blond space fairing heroes battling sentient black octopi from Orion or some other silly idea.
Eventually, this one page idea morphed into nineteen pages of a world rich in irradiated and mutated life, religion, customs, factions, all revolving around political deceit and conquest. I have completed three chapters. I say completed but they are far from done. I am penning the first version of the novel extremely bare bones – some description and dialog. I will, of course, go back when all is done and re-write each chapter fleshing out the described locales, actions and what not…I daresay, when completed, it will be as thick as War and Peace or Lord of the Rings. (I really do dispise the editing process)
I am finding writing this novel more of a challenge. Previously, my writing was simply dictating what transpired in my life to simple words for others to read. I write beer bottle and the reader sees a beer bottle. But with this made up work; I have to describe in detail, the blaster guns, the smells, the colors, the furniture, the clothing, the rocks, the trees, the sky. And, I am enjoying it every step. Literally a ball. John Carter was Edgar Rice Burroughs, Den was Richard Corben, and Kyle Foster is myself (or who I wish I could be)
I sat and watched the video below last night. I hadn’t seen the cartoon since I was seven or eight years old. But, I remember, it inspired me to draw from that came photography from that to direct movies to that to write…inspiration is seldom linear and always emanates in various forms and will inevitably lead to a great many things.


Friday, April 26, 2019

all the world is green


I stumbled out into the dim, predawn grey with a head full of coke and a stomach full of semen. My jaw still ached from the punch I received in the theater. My side throbbed with a dull pain. The silver-blue of a rising sun was on the horizon not yet clearing the silent dark of the skyscrapers which caste long prison shadows across the few catatonic forms of proto humans shuffling down the black spotted sidewalk. I quickly made a bee line to 3rd and Spring to catch the MTA back to the shelter. Paranoid my absence would be noticed.
No. Let’s go back seven hours. I was residing at the Salvation Army in Bell, California. They held special rooms for students and the employed, four to a room, set aside from the three hundred army cots of snoring, festering hobos in the main dormitory and since I was attending a cable installation class simply to stall for time and relative comfort as comfortable as a bed bug infested warehouse would allow, I was allotted a rickety, metal bed in one room. The staff were ignorant. Abusive and derogatory, but ignorant. After the ten o’clock bed check and the main lights were switched off, I slipped out the open bay doors and into the night to feed my insidious urge. The aching in my loins; the burning lust of the sexually deviant. Recently, I had found in my wanderings of downtown Los Angeles a 24 hour adult theater. Not one with booths, mind you, but a full on, decaying theater from the Golden Age of cinema. I jumped a bus line, transferred to the light rail, and made a connection to skid row Los Angeles.
My adrenaline was pumping, not from the anticipation of sexual escapades I anxiously looked forward to, but the fact if my absence was noticed, I would be tossed out into the street. Fuck it, I thought. You only live once. Yolo before yolo was an axiom.
At five to midnight, I quickly walked down Spring Street passed watchful stares of pushers and the addicted, vendors of vices with faces changing in neon flashes of liquor stores, pawn shops, dive bars. Blacks howled into the night, helicopters swooped and patrolled, sirens wailed, fires burned. I approached the seemingly vacant box office of the theater. The marquee was lifeless and gritty from decades of abandonment. The only sign advertising the business was a crudely painted sign adjacent the entrance. I rapped on the cracked glass window of the box office. From below, a huge hand slapped onto the wooden shelf on the other side of the glass. With straining effort, and obese man of fifty or so, with greying beard and long locks of greasy grey hair pulled himself up into my view. Wheezing from years of a pack a day, he snatched up my five dollars and buzzed me in.
The lobby, its faded red carpet spotted black with grime, vomit, and nameless substance stank of mildew and bleach. There was a concessions counter, unattended and bare of stock. Neglected for decades. The faded, red neon strip behind fluttered and buzzed. Apart from the muted moaning of the movie issuing from the theater proper, it was vacant and somber as a mausoleum. I parted the thick, dark purple velvet curtains and entered the cinema.
It being already night, I needn’t wait for my eyes to adjust to the gloom. The theater was huge. It could easily accommodate five hundred patrons. I slid into a chair to take in my surroundings. The chair was ratty, crimson upholstery frayed. The auditorium stank of cleaning chemicals, vomit, and dried semen. There were ten shadowy figures spread throughout, staring blankly at the screen, sleeping, smoking dope, or languidly jacking off. On the creased and sullied screen, some blond coked out bitch screamed and moaned as a middle aged gym bunny mechanically rutted without an iota of passion, his face blank and unreadable, both glistened in a fine film of sweat. The bleating soundtrack blasted from static spewing speakers hidden up in the black curtained rafters. On each far wall, worn gilded frescoes offered winged cherubs who, in the darkness, grimaced down onto the current audience in judgement and pained dismay.
I sat there for a half an hour, waiting. Listening to the buzzer of the entrance go off several times, realizing full well that meant even more were entering the cinema. The first was a lanky man in his early thirties wearing spandex bike shorts, a thin jacket, and baseball cap. He sat in the row in front of me down on the opposite end. In the meager yellow glow of the dimmed lights in the theater, I had an unobstructed view as he slid his shorts off, tossing them into the chair next to him, and began to slowly masturbate a long and thick, uncircumcised cock. With eyes focused on the screen, with his free hand, he fished out of his jacket pocket a glass pipe and, holding it between two fingers like a cigarette, casually lit up and began smoking crack. His other boney hand slowly stroking his impressive erection and blowing great plumes up into the dark, never averting his gaze from the screen.
A few minutes later, a fit, college type character quickly marched down the sloping aisle towards the front row. He seemed so out of place, as if he’d be more comfortable in some frat house drinking beer with his football buddies on the UCLA campus. Well-groomed and dressed, he swaggered past me followed by a short, rotund and dumpy man with a balding head and thick glasses. The college guy plopped into a seat as immediately the dumpy man kneeled down between the youth’s legs. I made out a silhouette of a pudgy hand pass something to the college guy. As the pudgy man unzipped the front of the youths khaki pants and slurped and bobbed on his stiffening prize, the youth lit up a crack pipe and began smoking. The wisps of smoke swirling between me and the twelve foot erection sliding in and out of a glistening vagina the length of a station wagon. As I sat mired in voyeuristic fascination, ever so often the pudgy man would place more dope in the boy’s palm and it eagerly smoked up.
Feeling the cold burn in my loins, it was time to satiate my own sordid addiction. Behind me, at the entrance, there was a darkened, modest area without seats. It was there, I fully was aware common to all porno theaters of the world, were ill acts against cultural norms were carried out in anonymous fervor. As I approached, I already saw a tall, brawny man of white hair leaning against the wall as a black youth was down on his knees sucking on the white man’s stunted erection.  An even older codger, stooped and ashen with time, stood next to them furiously beating his meat as he watched. Two others lurked in the corner, obscured in shadows, the cherry of a glass pipe ignited on and off like a siren of a brothel. At arm’s length, I posted against the wall on the opposite side of the two getting it on. Immediately, a hand squeezed my flaccid cock. I glanced over to see a smiling and perspiring fat man. I pushed his hand away. No one at the moment deserving of my attention. Then, the main door buzzed and a twenty-something Mexican man swaggered through the curtains. Stocky with a shaved head and black goatee, he wore the striped shirt and baggy khakis uniform of urban Latino youths. Now, that was more like it.
I scoped out where he sat. The back row. Sidled two seats over from him. My ass wasn’t in the chair two seconds before he whipped out his hard and nasty. I slid next to him, grasping his full erection in my sweating palm. I leaned over, pulled the foreskin back, and began sucking and swirling my mouth up and down the shaft. His hand caressed my back as he squirmed and breathed heavily through flaring nostrils. Eventually, the head of his penis puffed-up and I felt the acrid taste of his semen spurting in my mouth. I leaned over and spat the matter with a loud plop onto the bare concrete floor. He stood and shoved his still erect penis back into his pants. He towered over me, unmoving.
“I need some money, homes.” He stated.
“Money?” I repeated, sitting back whipping saliva off my lips.
“Yeah, man, gimme some money.”
“I don’t have any money on me…”
He roughly grabbed me by the shirt and pulled me up into a standing position. Then began aggressively digging through the front pockets of my jeans. My hand was gripping my back pocket that held my wallet.
Finding nothing, his face scowled. “You need to come up with some fucking money, man. You think what you just did was free?”
“Well…yeah.” I said.
His face leaned into mine. The stench of alcohol on his breath. “I’m keeping my eye on you. You find some fucking cash or I’m kicking your ass. You try to leave, I’ll follow you out and kick your fucking ass.” With that, he pushed me aside and strode into the lobby towards the mensroom.
“Damn. You gunna let him treat you like that?”
I glanced over to the opposite side and sitting on a folded metal chair at the second entrance of the theater was a tall black man in his early thirties. He sat hunched over, elbows on knees, fingers touching in steeple.
He stated, “How can you do that? Just walk up to someone and start sucking their dick?”
I nonchalantly approached him. Not bad looking. “Well, I’m not giving that fucker anything.” And then asked half incredulously, “Is this your first time in one of these places?”
His name was Thomas and a couple of hours prior he’d been released from County Jail which was a couple of blocks away from the theater. With nowhere to go, and this place being opened all night, seemed a logical place to lay low until morning before moving on. Seemed legit to me. He offered me a seat and I removed another metal chair from the lobby.
He glanced at the screen, then down toward the college guy still smoking, still getting sucked. “They don’t mind folks doing dope here, huh?”
“Obviously not.” I replied.
“Or doing that gay shit.”
I smiled, “You don’t like getting your dicked sucked?”
“Not from a dude.” He said.
“Fair enough.”
“Hey,” He began. “You do coke?”
I grinned. Bad ideas are seldom boring. “Yeah.” I said.
He reached into his shirt and pulled out a small, plastic ziploc of cocaine. “Cool. Do some shit with me. Been locked up so long, I’m bored of being alone.”
For the next hour or so, Thomas and I snorted lines off our wrists with the aid of a rolled up dollar bill and chatted of things. The coke was good. Activating all pleasure senses, my mind was incandescently alert. Every sound, every detail in the theater was amplified and came across crystal clear as glycerin. We talked and laughed, swapping tales of our times spent in the Los Angeles County lockup, the pros, the cons (mostly cons). Relating the brutality of the guards, the comradery of the inmates, on how it seemed (to me) homosexuality ran rampant – openly performed in cells when the lights went out for the night. (Not for me. I kept to myself, though more than one penis was wagged in my direction. But, that is another story…)
“That’s what my right hand was for.” He wisecracked, holding an open palm up to me.
His fingers were long and sinewy. Palm massive. The image of his allegedly huge dick burned in my mind. But, I kept it cool. Shaking and the lust mounting, I excused myself to take a piss.
Head full of coke, I entered the mensroom and stood in front of the backed up urinal and relieved myself. The Mexican was nowhere to be seen. I guessed he must had left. More bark than bite, I supposed. Turning to leave, I noticed a short white guy about twenty with a Flock of Seagulls haircut standing at one of the stalls waving a full erection at me. He was doped to the gills, obviously, blue eyes large and pupils dilated. He wore a white tank top and cargo shorts. Wordlessly, I approached, smiled while stroking his erection. In ritual silence, I dropped to my knees and began to go to work.
As I was getting into it, a hand touched my shoulder from behind. I was expecting to see the angry Mexican standing there, but instead it was a skinny black youth waving his overtly long and floppy member at me. In a room reeking of shit and piss, kneeling on a filthy tiled floor covered in grime, wadded toilet paper and smashed cigarette butts, I took turns sucking them both as they stood and kissed each other, probing one another’s mouths with saliva lubricated tongues. The young black guy was first to climax. I swallowed all of it. The white guy then roughly grabbed me by the side of the head and with furious, drug fueled passion, face fucked me. He shoved my face into his blond pubes as his pulsating erection deposited gobs of semen into the back of my throat. With watering eyes and gagging gasps, I gulped it all down.
Composing myself, I returned to sit with Thomas.
“Where you been?” He asked. He noticed my flushed face, the wet spots of saliva soiling the front of my shirt. “Oh. Never mind.”
I took a seat next to Thomas and the sweet baggie (now nearly depleted) offered once again. We got laughing jags as I spun into a routine about Hitler who was still alive and working in a donut shop in Florida. Won’t get into it now, but believe me when I say it’s a hilarious riot!
“What’s this fucking shit, homie?” Snapped a voice out from the fetid shadows. It was the Mexican thug. “You got money for blow from this nigger, but not me?”
“Dude, you need to chill.” Thomas warned.
The thug quickly strode up to me, yanked me from the chair and popped me across the chops so hard, I slammed violently back against the wall. Thomas sprang up like a jack-in-the-box (Taller than I thought!) and planted a right hook dead into the thugs left eye which ensued a slug fest. As Thomas and the thug scuffled, I leapt up and grabbed one of the folded chairs and slammed it across the thug’s upper back and head. He fell over in turn allowing Thomas and I to violently stomp him.
As he writhed dodging our kicks, we heard a raspy, “What the fucks going on in there? Stop that shit or I call the cops!” Yelled the box office attendant.
In coke fueled rage, I screamed crimson faced, “Get the fuck out of here!”
The Mexican, face bloody and covered in scratches and filth, hobbled defeated and beaten out the entrance issuing a steady stream of obscenities in his wake.
The obese attendant snapped open the various locks to the door of the box office and wobbled with labored breathing over to us. He smelled like a stale ashtray and his breath stank even worse. “What the fuck was that all about?”
“That motherfucker tried to rob me!” I stated in a coke frenzy.
He let out a deep, wheezing sigh and turned back to the safety and seclusion of the box office, “I say it alla time, you boys gotta be careful in here. All type a assholes will try to take anything.”
Thomas sat back in his chair and asked for a cigarette. I passed him one, he lit up. Noticing the time, I thanked Thomas for the dope, the help, and mumbled something or another I had to go in lieu of curfew. Saying goodbye, I made a dash to the mensroom to clean up. Three men stood at the urinals beating off as a young Asian guy was getting fucked in the stall by a hefty, middle-aged black man with bulging eyes as yellow as urine. I cleaned up the best I could contesting the urge to suck one last cock, feel one last piece of borrowed flesh.
I made my way weary and in pain back to the shelter and, sneaking quickly in, fell into my cot an hour before the lights snapped on to the symphony of hacking and coughing from three hundred hobos. The following weekend, I packed my gear and moved to Tijuana…

Wednesday, April 24, 2019

Tuesday, April 23, 2019