Jeff Mach's Blog, page 4

Albion of Wonderplace Alpha

Now I will speak of Albion
A never-place now here, now gone;
Travelling in strange devices,
Experiencing history in twices.

Time travel? How absurd,
And it makes you weird (or so we’ve heard).
(Although, we’ll admit to ourselves,
We still prefer them to most Elves.)

In Albion, one wears chapeaux
And goggles, oft, on top of those;
Gears and cogs are not unheard
And “Egads!” is a frequent word.

An aesthetic, or tribal meme,
Some are insane. Some are Punks of Steam.
Some are inexplicable
And of madness, they’re most full.

But, the truth is even sweeter
(Ask Phobos. Ask Demeter.)
In sooth, those of Albion
Are simply those who’re moving on

from:

Places where they can’t be
Laden with peculiarity;
Places where they’re not advised
To be as weird as can be devised.

They come from planets, islands, trees,
From unexplored dark galaxies,
From black holes and the Hollow Earth,
Places of fire. Places of mirth.

Bright Albion! We thou salute
And this note we institute:
When next your denizens we meet
We’ll buy ’em gin ’til they nap in the street.

 

____

wonderplacealpha.com
#wonderplacealpha #albion

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Wonderplace Alpha – A Halloween Note From Darkling

(Apologies for getting away from fiction for a bit. In my defense, Wonderplace Alpha SEEMS like fiction; it just isn’t.)

We are Darkling. We’re not strange.
If your shadows re-arrange,
If your Moon sometimes winks out,
If your soul sometimes slinks out,

If you’re a midnight, inky Darkling
It’s a different kind of Sparkling;
We wax wroth, with strangeling fires
Welcome, Goths, ghouls, Vampires.

If, in short, you like the odds
Of serving strange and hungry Gods,
If you’re no coward or cowan,
If you lift the veil on Samhain;

Then perhaps, you, as well
In Darkling spirit ought to dwell
We judge no thought or love or sin;
We welcome you, our Otherkin.

___________

Jeff writes things.

Find out more about Wonderplace Alpha.

 

 

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A Tune of Teeth

Each inch,
the teeth, the Teeth,

the fangs,
each inch,

each fragment of an inch,
each fraction of an inch,

each micro-motion
requires permission.

They ask
your life’s blood
and therefore

they need,
they ask
permission.

NIP!

____

An alternate thought:

The reason a Vampire needs permission
is because heart’s blood
makes no pretentions
towards being anything less
than heart’s blood.

That’s why
the Vampire
needs permission
to enter

your throat:

your blood
is too important
to be given away
thoughtlessly.

The post A Tune of Teeth appeared first on Jeff Mach Writes.

Guest Post: Yankee Fans Forever (by JDM)

(This playbill can be yours on Ebay for a mere $500. A steal!)

My Father, Moses Mach, was born in a place that no longer exists:  Jewish Harlem, a place that had 175,000 Jewish residents by 1917, when my Father was three years old.  By the time he was 7, in 1921, he was attending games at the Polo Grounds with his Father and older brother.  The three Machs rooted for both teams that played there:  the Yankees and the Giants.  When Yankee Stadium opened on 1923, they had to chose their primary allegiance, since the two teams played each other in the World Series in 1921, 1922, and 1923.  They eventually chose to be Yankees fans after they moved to the Bronx a few years later, but continued to root for the Giants in the National League.

Thus, Mach family members have been Yankees fans for more than 100 years.   We’d probably root for the Giants in the National League, had they not moved to San Francisco before the 1958 season.

My earliest baseball memories are a mix of family legends, things I might or might not have seen, and things I saw in person or on TV.

Probably a legend.  My Father claimed that he cut school, and was at Yankee Stadium when it opened on April 18, 1923.  It’s possible that he was one of the 74,200 fans in attendance that day; but I suspect that hundreds of thousands of people later claimed to have been these.  Would an 8-year-old really have gone into such a huge crowd, even with his older brother?

Possibly truth, possibly legend.  I was told, when I was a teenager, that my first baseball game was in 1948, when I was 3 years old.  The game was held at Scheib Park, later known as Connie Mack Stadium, in Philadelphia, between the Yankees and the Philadelphia Athletics.  What makes this believable was that we had a baseball, now sadly gone, that had the signatures of many members of the 1948 Yankees and Athletics, and even one umpire.  So, I probably was at the game – or, at least, someone in my family was.

What’s legend is how we got the ball.  When I was growing up, I knew that my Father’s Uncle George was a gambler and a bookie – a bad combination.  According to the legend, we were on the field because Uncle George was the Athletics’ bookie – betting on horses, not baseball – and that he got the signatures while he was taking bets.

(Editor’s note: The accounting side of the family and the entrepreneurial side of the family are often at odds about the wisdom of certain actions. The entrepreneurial side is going to take the loss on this one.)

Truth unclear.  I think I became aware of baseball in 1951, when the Yankees’ outfield included Joe DiMaggio, in his last year, in Center Field and a rookie, Mickey Mantle, in right field.  What makes this memory a possible false memory is that I have absolutely no memory of the 1951 National League pennant race, in which the Giants came from 13 ½ games behind the Dodgers to tie them for the pennant, then won in a three-game playoff on a famous home run by Bobby Thompson.  Was I so focused on the American League that I didn’t notice the National League?

So the 1951 Yankees roster wasn’t just limited to such luminaries as Mantle and DiMaggio. It also contained Yogi Berra, Billy Martin, and Phil Rizzuto, to name just a couple. The younger Mach would like to posit that these characters might have been just a little bit distracting. Especially if they somehow didn’t make it into the series that year. We presume that you could’ve heard Billy Martin’s swearing all the way from Teaneck, and we didn’t even live there yet.

Definitely true.  When I was small, NYC seemed to feel safer than when I lived there (for the 2nd time, since I was born there) from 1969 to 1974.  My family used to park near Yankee Stadium for Giants games and near the Polo Grounds for Yankee games, then walk across the river to the games.  My guess is that, by the time the Giants and Dodgers left NYC after the 1957 season, I had been to 50+ games at Yankee Stadium, 15 to 20 Giants games at the Polo Grounds, and zero games at Ebbots Field.  (Also, some Athletics and Phillies games in Philly.) So, I saw National League stars as well as those in the American League.  I saw Willie Mays lots of times, Jackie Robinson 3 or 4 times, and Hank Aaron and Stan Musial once or twice.  My probably inaccurate memory of a Giants-Dodgers game was that the game went to extra innings, the Dodgers scored perhaps 5 runs in the top of the 11th or 12th, and then the Giants won the game.  That would have been around 1953 or 1954. 

Definitely true.  In the 1950s, World Series games were played in the afternoon; so, through 6th grade (more on that later), I was able to watch the ends of World Series games, even if I didn’t see the beginnings.  One play from the 1952 World Series, when I was 7, is crystal clear in my mind, as if it had happened yesterday, and not 72 years ago.  It’s late in the game, with the Yankees ahead, but with several Dodgers on the bases.  A Dodger hits what appears to be a routine pop-up; but the ball gets caught in the wind, and starts to drift.   The Yankee second baseman, Billy Martin, keeps running after the ball, and finally catches the ball just before it hits the ground.  Ballgame and World Series saved!

(Good grief, what a catch! – ed.)

Just before the start of this year’s World Series, the New York Times published a special section that included highlights of the 11 previous World Series between the Yankees and Dodgers.  And there it is in black and white: “Martin Saves the Day.”  In the seventh inning of game 7 of the World Series, which the Yankees won 4 to 2 to win the series 4 games to 3, Jackie Robinson did, indeed, hit a wind-blown pop-up with two out and the bases loaded which, if not caught, would have scored 2 or three Dodgers, radically changing the nature of the game and the series.  As reported by the Times:

“It looked simple enough as Billy Martin, the Yank second sacker, stalked in for it. But the ball seemed to get caught in a wind-eddy that sent it back toward the plate, and Martin, now racing at top speed, since no one else could interfere in such a ticklish spot, just about made it with a headlong dive.”

Phew!  Small wonder I still remember that play!

My memories of the Yankees after 1952 are mostly the same as for most Yankees fans:  some wins, many losses, some triumphs, some tragedies, such as the deaths of Thurman Munson in 1979 and Cory Lidle in 2006, both in crashes of small planes they were piloting.  Here are a few Yankees memories after 1952 that are personal to me.

The Yankees have won the pennant every year in which I was a baseball fan.  They won 103 games, and lost the pennant to the Indians?  I didn’t realize that this was possible. Then the Yankees lost a World Series to the Dodgers?  Couldn’t happen! And who the heck is Johnny Padres, the pitcher who won the World Series for the Dodgers?

October 8, 1956.  Grades 7 to 12 are crammed into Teaneck High School, on double sessions, with grades 10 to 12 going in the morning and grades 7 to 9 going to school from before 1 pm to about 5 pm.  The Yankees are in the World Series; but Principal Helen Hill has banned radios from the building.  We have no hint as to what is going on in game 5 of the World Series.  

(Here’s what you missed, Mr. Mach!)

Late in the afternoon, we hear happy yelling on Cranford Place, outside the school building.  My teacher can’t ignore the noise, so she opens the window to find out the cause of the racket. We all hear that Don Larsen of the Yankees has pitched a perfect game, and we have missed it.  My brother, an 11th-grader on the morning session, has seen every pitch!

September, 1960.  I go to see Ted Williams of the Red Sox in his final game at Yankee Stadium.  The scoreboard shows that he has 518 career home runs.  He hits a massive home run, and the scoreboard changes from 518 to 519.  He finishes his career with 521.

The next couple entries are downright depressing, so let’s go with a really dramatic baseball moment which happened soon after, even though it’s not a Yankees moment. It’s Ted Williams’ dramatic last homerun in his very last at bat! I’m a college student in Philadelphia. The Yankees are firmly in control of the [American League] pennant race, and the local National league team, the Phillies, is in control of the National League pennant race. I am rooting for both teams, as I still do.  Both Philly papers have boxes on page 1 showing the Phillies’ “magic number” :  the number of Philles wins plus Cardinals losses, needed for the Phillies to clinch the pennant.  They lead the league by 6 ½ games, then lose 10 games in  a row.  The Cardinals win the pennant; then, to make matters worse, beat the Yankees in the World Series.  Bummer!  The Yankees and Phillies do not meet in a World Series until 2009. I attend one of the last games in Yankee Stadium before it closes for 2 years of renovations.  The stadium is virtually empty, and I snap pictures of the views all over the stadium.  The Yankees are winning big, and there are Yankees on base in almost every picture. With the Yankees playing at Shea Stadium, I attend my only game there.  What an awful place for a Yankee fan, with planes flying over every few minutes!  Ugh!  No more Yankee games for me until they are back in Yankee Stadium. After about 25 years of rooting for the Yankees, I finally have a ticket to a playoff game:  the deciding game of the American League Championship Series between the Yankees and the Kansas City Royals.  Sadly, I am ill, give the ticket away, and miss seeing Chris Chambliss hit a walk-off home run to win the pennant for the Yankees.  This is the second of three times when I have missed a major Yankees triumph; but at least I saw the game on TV.  The perfect game and the third miss in 2009 were complete misses.

Speaking of a certain Italian cream-cheese afficionado…

1994 to 2000.  I and a few work buddies have partial season tickets – about 8 to 10 games a year – to see the Yankees.  Each partial season ticket includes a ticket to each round of the playoffs.  There are more people in the group than tickets, so tickets are something of a lottery,  Still, I manage to go to my first 3 or 4 playoff games and 2 World Series games 

I’ve been to a playoff game with tickets from my new employer, and they give me a ticket to game 3 of the World Series against the Diamondbacks.  Why give the ticket to me?  Because there’s a rumor, which turns out to be true, that, in the wake of 9/11, President Bush will throw out the first ball.  Security will be tight if he shows up; and my bosses would rather attend games 4 and 5, without the President.

Getting to and into the stadium is, indeed, a hassle, with much more security that we now have at airports.  Once I’m in my seat, the game is exciting.  Before the ceremonial first pitch by Pres. Bush, an eagle flies from the outfield to the infield; then there is a flyover of Air Force jets. The game is a tight one, and the Yankees win 2 to 1.  Sadly, they lose the series, with the home team winning every game.

The Yankees haven’t been in the World Series for 6 years, and my wife and I book a fabulous trip:  a few nights in Istanbul, 3 nights to see the fairy towers of Cappadocia, and a cruise that will take us to many places in the Eastern Mediterranean, including our first trip to Israel.  I’m glad we took this wonderful trip. 

Having said that a wonderful trip is better than any baseball game, the fact is that the Yankees were good that year, and were a game or two away from being in the World Series when we left for the trip.  There are few baseball fans in Turkey, and we did not own a laptop or a smart phone.  Therefore, we didn’t find out that the Yankees were in the World Series until after the second game of the series. With a six- or 7-hour time difference, games began at around 4 am, and weren’t shown at our Turkish hotels or on the ship.  After waiting 45 years for the Yankees-Phillies World Series that didn’t happen in 1964, I didn’t see a single minute. My third and final miss of a big Yankees moment.

That means that, until this year, I hadn’t seen the Yankees in the World Series since 2003, or winning the World Series since 2000.  It’s too bad that the Phillies are not their opponents.

Go Yankees!

The post Guest Post: Yankee Fans Forever (by JDM) appeared first on Jeff Mach Writes.

Stupid Tiny Fantasy Poems

You can’t ignore
A manticore
(Though never ask
what the spikes are for.)

_

This I ask, immaterial wraith:
if you got no flesh,
can you really be tref?

_

The Man-Scorpion is savage and mean
And when it stabs itself,
It turns beautifully green.

_

The Mind-Flayer is a constant poetic inspiration, because Mind-Flayers are powerful, admirable, and understand what the dungeon REALLY needs. This is a poem of homage in their honor, in the hopes that you will see how amazing they are, and they will take their tentacles out of my ear.

_

Those who wish to cook a Basilisk
Need good blindfolds
And a really big whisk.

_

I gave a Homonculous
My seat on that Hellbound bus;
Now don’t fuss:
There’s two of me (us).

 

__

“It’s a little-known fact, but Unicorns are something like 20% paint, and their horns are stolen exclusively from endangered species.”
― Jeff Mach, There and Never, Ever Back Again

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7 Things Not To Say To The Aliens Bringing You Messages Of Peace And Spiritual Enlightenment

7. “Oh, SICK, this thing is GLOWING! When’s it going to explode?”

6. “I have long studied the Wisdom of the Ages, awaiting your cosmic knowledge. So please, Wise One, tell me: What’s Edgar Caycee really like?”

5. “All things are true in some sense, false in some sense, butterscotch ripple in some sense, nonexistent in some sense, and senseless in some sense. In short, can I have some of your ice cream?”

4. “I recognize that you have technology beyond the ability of humans to even begin to hope to grasp, but I’m still impressed at the accuracy of your Tindr picture.”

3. “I can tell that you crossed the Galaxy to hold me in your pseudopods, but only numbers seven through eleventeen, at least on a first date.”

2. “We should have known that you were all Erich von Daniken clones.”

1. “One small step for phrases which have been overused to the point that there’s nothing I can add to them, one giant leap away from the waste of time which was this document. If this isn’t a metaphor for a visit to Earth, we don’t know what is.”

0. “Wait..what do you mean you were hoping WE had the answers?”

___

I write books, but today, I’m just too tired to link to my Amazon.

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Yet More Tiny Poems About Dungeons And Dragons Monsters

I fooled around with a Bloodletter of Khorne
One dismal, grey, burning morn
We both got into it. It wasn’t odd
When he shouted, “Blood for the Blood God!”
Don’t ask what I did next unlock
When I replied with, “Souls for Arioch!”

* * *

Fear ye: The Awakened Shrub!
A terribly deadly little nub!
With its tiny brushes, it really ankles
It might even bruise your sensitive ankles.

* * *

The Bearded Devil, somewhat weirdly
Has an attack that’s largely beardy
Furthermore, this ruddy knave
Might poke you fatally with his glaive

Now the glaive is taller than an Orc;
It’s a battle-worthy fork
(Be glad we’ve lost the ancient runes
For constructing Battle Spoons.)

But back (briefly) to the facial hair:
It’s got dexterity to spare
I have no guesses, in particular
About this eccentricity follicular.

So your beard’s a tentacle, basically
And you fight with cutlery?
To your designers, I say: cripes!
Please share the contents of your pipes.

* * *

Some people call me the Space Cowboy,
Some people call me Maurice
You can call me whatever you might like
As long as it’s not “cockatrice”.

 

Why not buy my books? Amazon.com: Jeff Mach

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The Annoying Amplifear

Behold the annoying Amplifear
Trust thou neither eye nor ear
It will mimic familiar senses
To lower your defenses.

And though I’m not sure why they chose to write it,
Here’s what happens if you bite it:
Your health might become a harried mess
Due to toxic bitterness.

Toxic bitterness? Tell me, is this spore
Of dungeon-delving – or metaphor?
Our suspicion grows
Because this is a bit too on-the-nose.

If that wasn’t enough, it diversifies
It doesn’t speak, but it cries
A scream sufficiently painfully sonic
That you take damage stereophonic.

(Even the damned Amplifear
Is damaged by the screaming here.
Yet scream it does, apparently;
Habitual aberrancy.

And one more thing causes mental spins:
Apparently, it always has twins
And my question isn’t circumspect:
Who got close enough to look? How do you know?
Who checked?

Yet all in all, I still return
And on this matter, I’ll be strict
About that “toxic bitterness”
Really now:
Who licked?

__

“It’s a little-known fact, but Unicorns are something like 20% paint, and their horns are stolen exclusively from endangered species.”
― Jeff Mach, There and Never, Ever Back Again

You could go here to join my mailing list.

You could find more of my books and other work here on Amazon.

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Bog Stalker

The creepsome Bog Stalker
Ain’t much of a talker
But what it lacks in loquaciousness,
It makes up for in run-away-from-ness.

See, it will follow
(And follow and follow)
Searching for a weakness
To exploit and maybe swallow

You; who knows, the vegetation
Which is warped for their twisted beast-creation
Makes them hideous and horrifying;
You could imagine things worse,
but you’d have to be trying.

Made by Swamp Witches
(Who make up in craft what they lack in riches)
Stalkers are part beasts, and partly plants;
They’re more fun than a bed full of fire ants.

Bog witches their own poem deserve,
But this short piece might have to serve;
I kissed a Swamp Witch once, and ‘ware:
Their hearts are as slimy as their seaweed hair.

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Vaguely Risque Monster Poems

The Princess said, “Daddy, I want a pony.”
The King obligingly got her an Oni.
The Princess said, “Daddy, it wants to marry!”
The King gave it all the gold it could carry.

* * *

Date a Bakemono?
That’s a no-no.
I don’t care how good they are with the tongue;
Don’t date anyone who eats their young. * * *If you look at Tiamat
And your response is, “I’d hit that,” I recommend consulting a tribe of Psychiatric WizardsTo work on your attraction to Lizards.

* * *

The Green Knight told mighty Gawain,“I’ll tell you once, and won’t say it again; We must battle nude!” Gawain said, “Dude, I’m only here for the cocaine.”* * *The gigantic dragon BahamutIs very Lawful Good, but but–I’ll tell you this (I’ll tell you what)You don’t want to be there when he busts a nut.* * *Morgan LeFay
Is kinda gay
For Nimue
(or so they say.)* * *Kobolds build quite clever trapsBut you’ll want to avoid the one who raps.Even though his music slaps,
Halfway through, he usually naps.* * *If you smooch a Pteranodon,
I’ll have to ask what drugs you’re on.
And in making love, you’ll get low rating
(Unless you’re good at aerial mating.)* * *The Arkan sonney is a marvelous pig,So watch the path you’ve taken.It’s a Faerie creature with Faerie friendsDon’t treat it like bacon.

__

“It’s a little-known fact, but Unicorns are something like 20% paint, and their horns are stolen exclusively from endangered species.”
― Jeff Mach, There and Never, Ever Back Again

You could go here to join my mailing list.

You could find more of my books and other work here on Amazon.

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