Charles Martin's Blog, page 10

Ronda Rousey is Not Your Feminist Hero

Ronda Rousey, the undefeated UFC champion, looks like a super-hero confined to the boundaries of real life. Breathtaking to watch in a match—she’s strong, impossibly fast, and ends most of her fights in under a minute. Her interviews are peppered with empowering quotes about strength and body-positivity.

Rousey, who fights Holly Holm this Saturday night in Melbourne, Australia, is a survivor and a fighter, but she’s not our next feminist role model, and I don’t think she aspires to be.

This August, when sports journalists on various websites talked about how “huge” and “masculine” Rousey’s body looked, her response was strong:

“I have this one term for the kind of woman my mother raised me to not be, and I call it a do nothin’ bitch. A DNB. The kind of chick that just tries to be pretty and be taken care of by someone else. That’s why I think it’s hilarious if people say my body looks masculine or something like that. Listen, just because my body was developed for a purpose other than f**king millionaires doesn’t mean it’s masculine. I think it’s femininely badass as f**k because there’s not a single muscle on my body that isn’t for a purpose, because I’m not a do nothin’ bitch.”

Body-shaming female athletes is unfortunately nothing new in sports journalism. The responses from Rousey are, in large part, a defense mechanism against the trolls in sports journalism who have created a cruel culture built around mocking both men and women who don’t fit into ideal body types. In the same interview, Rousey talks about feeling insecure throughout high school and always trying to lose weight. Her comments are helpful to girls who are athletes with strong builds, but now shame thin girls.

We can admire Rousey’s confidence and pride in her body, which is rooted in what it can do, and we can cheer for her as she succeeds in the ring. She should be proud of every muscle in her body. She’s fierce, talented and hardworking. However, we need feminist role models who can stand up for themselves with courage and confidence, but without calling other women “do nothin’ bitches”. Part of being an intersectional feminist is having the ability, or the willingness, to imagine the lives of other women not at all like you. Or without negging on body types (“Skinny girls look good in clothes, but fit chicks look good naked”) that are nothing like yours.

We need more women who will call out the boys in sports journalism, or anywhere, and let them know as many times as necessary that what any woman does with her body and her life is none of their business. We need them to say, over and over, that all bodies are good bodies. That a woman’s life choices are her life choices. Which brings us to Ashley Fallon Fox, one woman who has suffered a lot of discrimination in her MMA career.

I’m less concerned with Rousey’s generalized DNB comments than her very specific and public comments about Fox having an unfair advantage as a transgender woman, and how this was a “socially difficult situation” for the UFC. It is worth noting that The International Olympic Committee considers transgendered women fit for competition after gender reassignment surgery and two years of hormone replacement therapy. Due to lower testosterone levels than other female competitors, transgendered woman are actually at a competitive disadvantage. (If you would like to look at studies that have to do with testosterone levels, muscle mass, bone density, etc, this is a good place to begin.)

We should not try to fit Rousey into the mold of a feminist role model, at least not yet. There is no shortage of groups willing to claim an icon like Rousey. Feminists are enamored with her for the difficulties she has had to overcome, for her strength, intelligence, and confidence. Conservatives have been quick to cheer Rousey for her take on the wage-gap and gender neutrality. And she recently came out in support of presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. Rousey has so far resisted being easily placed in one group or party.

Instead of calling Rousey out, I would love to see feminist athletes and leaders reach out to Rousey in an effort to support her, and engage her in dialogue. Perhaps asking any one person to be a feminist icon on their own is setting them up for failure. I was thrilled to watch the US Women’s Soccer Team win the World Cup this year. In his speech to honor them, I was also thrilled to hear the President of the United States say, “This team taught all America’s children that playing like a girl means you’re a badass.”

Thankfully, the world isn’t short on feminists. Maybe it’s time that you and I started speaking up more often. Maybe we should be the ones asserting that muscular women are beautiful, as are all other body types. That we believe without reservation that transwomen are women. We’ll keep saying these things confidently until everyone understands that transmisogyny and body-shaming are not welcome near us, our daughters, our sisters, or our friends. Because we stand up for one another. We listen patiently to each other. And we don’t call each other “bitches.”

Maybe it’s time we started becoming feminist heroes, together.

Literati Presents: Season 1

The first five issues of Literati Presents in one collection! Twice a year, we give some of our favorite artists and writers a theme and ask them to create a 1-8 page story based on that theme. Featuring short fiction, comics, a little bit of poetry, and a lot of talent, Literati Presents: Season 1 needs to be in your book collection as further proof that you are better than most people.

The Ghost of OU’s First Mascot: Mex the Dog.

From Campus Ghosts of Norman

http://www.amazon.com/Campus-Ghosts-Oklahoma-Haunted-America/dp/162619212X/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=1J5XRYWD06PZSNY9SP22

In 1914, a young Oklahoman named Mott Keys from Hollis joined the U.S. Army’s medical corps and was stationed on the Mexican border. Keys watched over the Mexican revolution that produced rebels such as Pancho Villa, who had stormed several towns in New Mexico and put them to the torch. Tensions were high, and Keys’s company found relief when they discovered an abandoned litter of puppies while on patrol. Keys adopted one of the young Boston terriers and named him “Mex.”

Mex came home with Keys to Hollis and then to the University of Oklahoma where Keys enrolled. Thanks to Keys’s knowledge of field medicine, he joined the staff of the growing OU Athletic Department as a medic. Mex came along with him, at first being used as a deterrent to wandering dogs that might interrupt play as this was long before OU’s looming stadiums and athletes were simply borrowing fields. Keys and Mex also joined the Kappa Sigma fraternity, where the brothers taught Mex to celebrate along with them whenever Oklahoma scored. At touchdowns, Mex would give “a joyous staccato bark.” Mex also came along to baseball games, where each homerun was greeted with a “victory woof.”

Mex became a staple. He was presented with a little red sweater with white stripes, as well as a fitted red hat emblazoned with a white O. While the crowd enjoyed him along with the antics of cheerleaders and the Roughnecks, he did not come into iconic fame until 1924, when Sooners saw how much they needed him.

On a brisk October day, the football team, boosters, and fans traveled to Des Moines, Iowa, to play against Drake University. The trip required changing trains in Arkansas City, Kansas. Somewhere in the commotion, Mex became separated from his compatriots. As the players took the field, the crowd began asking the same question that was plaguing Mott Keys: “Where’s Mex?”

The game was a nightmare. Only a few years before, the Sooners had defeated Kingfisher College in a record-setting game, 179–0. Oklahoma football coach Bennie Owen, who had three undefeated seasons under his belt already in his career, had hit a rough patch in the early 1920s, but nothing like the Drake game. He had suffered three bigger shutouts before at the hands of Nebraska, Texas and Kansas, but a final score of 0–28 against a private school in Iowa was shocking. The fans and press agreed that fears for the missing Mex had caused the downfall.

A reward of fifty cents was offered for the return of Mex. Fans searched everywhere in Iowa, and several even left the game early to backtrack the journey. After several harrowing hours, J.D. Hull, Hughes B. Davis and J.C. Henley found Mex on the platform in Arkansas City, pacing back and forth and waiting. Jubilation flowed from Sooner fans and dog lovers around the nation. In games afterward, caretakers personally drove Mex to the game.

The football team’s record turned around again, giving Bennie Owen two more winning seasons before he retired at the end of the 1926 season. New coach Adrian Lindsey took the helm, and Mex continued to take his place on the sidelines cheering on the team. After Lindsey’s first season, on April 30, 1928, Mex died. He was fourteen years old, ninety-eight in dog years.

The whole city of Norman broke out in mourning. The campus closed, canceling all classes and events. Students, administration, and city officials made plans for a public processional. On May 2, businesses in Norman closed, and thousands of people lined the streets as the small casket holding the body of Mex was marched to its final resting place on the sidelines of Owen Field.

They say the spirit of Mex still roams the field, even though it has been redone so many times during the construction of Memorial Stadium that it is unlikely that the body of Mex remains. Players have claimed letting their sweaty hands dangle from the bench and suddenly feeling a dog licking them. Coaching staff and press alike have felt something bump against their legs or even rest leaning against them like a well-behaved dog would.

Most of all, fans say that they can still hear Mex’s disembodied barks when touchdowns are made amid the roar of the stadium and booms of the Roughneck rifles.

City On A Hill…

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The story of Ella Myers – Oklahoma Territory’s First Ghost

From Haunted Guthrie, Oklahoma

http://www.amazon.com/Haunted-Guthrie-Oklahoma-America/dp/1467118060

In the April 8, 1896, edition of the Guthrie Daily Leader, a young woman received a humble, three-line obituary: “Ella Myers, inmate of Ella Huston’s place on the Santa Fe right of way, was found dead in bed Sunday morning. Her death was due to an overdose of cocaine.”

More in the Leader fills in the gaps. Ella Myers “cyprian” (the Victorian way of avoiding the word “prostitute” in polite print) was in the employ of Ella Huston, who owned a shack with a few rooms on the west side of town near the Santa Fe railroad. Locals and those stopping by on the train knew it to be a place for a cheap thrill. Like many madams, Ella Huston kept girls in their line of work through various means of control. According to rumor, young Ella Myers was addicted to cocaine, which was quite legal in 1896 but also a very expensive habit. Few would have seen the overdose as much more than a pitiable tragedy.

In addition to her obituary, the Leader asks, “Was She Buried Alive?” A following article refers to Ella Myers’s passing as a “strange and sudden death.” Some say that a quick autopsy by the city coroner proved the cocaine overdose, but the article maintained that “No one knows positively what caused the woman’s death and no inquest was held over the remains.” Instead, “Within a few hours after the woman’s supposed death, the body was thrown into a box.” She was then buried in the pauper’s cemetery not far from the railroad crossing.

Despite the assurances from Commissioner Stapleton that the girl was clearly dead and the hastiness was only in the best interest of civic health, the Leader argued that “Two reputable physicians asserted yesterday that the girl was buried alive.” It demanded, “A speedy investigation is needed here,” but the cry fell on deaf ears.

The mystery of the actual events of the fateful night of Miss Myers’s passing only grew. Ella Huston quickly left the house and locked it up. She disappeared from the newspaper’s narrative, along with James Whitman, “the man who was with the Myers girl the night she is supposed to have died [that] has not been seen since the burial.” Whispers around town suggested foul play, and some even believed Whitman was the scapegoat for a more prominent official.

Even though the shack stood empty, strange things began to happen there. At night, the sound of wailing came, sometimes softly, sometimes so loudly that it could be heard down the block. The Leader says some “twenty-five to thirty persons” came out of curiosity to see what was making such noise. Various phantoms, disembodied howls, and even floating objects infested the shack. One of the few named visitors, Kickapoo Charley, looked in on the night of Thursday, April 16th, and “saw an apparition.” The shock proved so much he fainted. Days later in the paper, it noted he “has been ill ever since.”

One Guthrian, man-about-town George Hardie, was skeptical about the whole thing. He determined that the story was “a supreme josh” and meant to find out how the pranksters were pulling their joke. On Friday, April 17th, he approached the house at night during the prime time for activity, planning to catch someone in the act of noise-making.

According to the Guthrie Daily Leader, Hardie “found the front door locked. Going to the back door, it was found locked and bolted.” He went back around to the front door, tried to open it again, and soon gave up. The house was secured, just as everyone had said.

Hardie had just turned away when suddenly a mournful wail began. It tore through the quiet night and “assailed his ears.” What had been a lonely, locked shack had suddenly filled with eerie activity.

A moment after the moan sounded, the front door “slowly swung open.”

This was a point where most men would have turned in the investigation and congratulated pranksters from afar, but Hardie was resilient, “although badly rattled” according to the Leader. He crept into the house and explored until he came to Ella’s room, where the bed she had died in still sat. Hardie went inside.

There, out of the darkness, something “struck four sharp raps on the head.” Recoiling, Hardie couldn’t find anyone standing beside him. The darkness gave way to a bright light, “resembling a calcium ray,” that flashed across the ceiling. Out of it, a “blood-red hand clutching a bottle” descended into the room. The vision and the attack were ample evidence for Hardie to give up his belief in pranksters. He rushed out of the shack and humbly confessed his entire experience to the newspaper.

The supernatural noise only grew as the week wore on. The Leader noted that many of the “shacks in the vicinity of the haunted dwelling have been vacated.” Other neighbors, however, had nowhere to go, and so they stayed and witnessed the howling grow louder and more terrifying night by night in the cyprian’s shack.

By April 19, the story was front-page material: “The ghost of Ella Myers continues to walk with uncanny tread at the erstwhile dive at the Santa Fe right-of-way.” The article details a frightening picture. At midnight on the 18th, the two doors of the little shack burst open, all at once and without any sign of human hands. Neighbors startled by the noise went to investigate, finding “a figure, clad in white” at the windows. Although she was seen as a ghostly woman, the spectators could describe little more than her standing. The sounds that accompanied the strange appearance, however, were vivid.

Groans rattled the night, just as they had for more than a week. Among the howling noise this time, a “plaintive wail” called out the same clear words, “Don’t give me any morphine, I am sick.”

The ghostly line came three times that night, and everyone agreed what they said. Were these the final words of a poor addict? Some thought that it was a last-ditch effort to use the opiate to prevent Ella’s death from cocaine overdose. Others nodded along with more sinister rumors that the morphine was the actual cause of death, and someone gave it to her as part of covering up their misdeeds.

With such ghostly turmoil plaguing the town, citizens began demanding answers. Something was keeping Ella Myers from resting in peace, and the strongest voice of opinion turned on the burial practices at the cemetery. The Leader itself asked, “Is her body buried upside-down?” Such an indecent burial would surely cause a spirit to roam. More and more insisted that opening the hurriedly buried body would reveal the truth.

Guthrie police, however, were uneasy about opening the grave. They worried that whoever opened the coffin would find the body “distorted and twisted,” following the belief that she was, perhaps, buried alive. They also voiced concern that the African-American gravekeeper and her family who operated the cemetery would become personally haunted by the increasingly violent ghost.

The matter was finally settled when Ella’s half-brother, H.M. Myers, arrived from Kansas. He had learned of Ella’s death through the Leader’s interstate reprints and arrived on the train to her rescue. As next of kin, he was allowed to exhume the body on April 23. Nerves throughout the town were settled when the box was found without any telltale scratch marks of live burial. Myers took her out of the town and had her reburied in Mulhall Cemetery.

 The shack went quiet. Ella seemed pacified now that her body had been taken out of the pauper’s cemetery. Many Guthrians took that as the source Ella’s stirring: the grave was simply unfit for her. A Leader editorial agreed, “A man who would place a dead body in that soggy plat of ground is devoid of all the merciful, humane feelings which go to make up a man… About twice a year the river rises and overflows the graves—and we drink the water.”

Yet the Leader posed a different suggestion: “the girl was not only buried alive… in the rough box face downward, but since the recent comment regarding her burial, interested parties secretly disinterred the remains and placed them in their natural position.” The spirit came to rest because whatever wrongs had been done to the body were righted, even if those who did it were quiet about it. Perhaps a little decent treatment was all that Ella wanted.

When We Tried To Be Deviants

Deviants at In Color Film Festival

6:45 pm, Saturday

The Paramount on Film Row

701 W. Sheridan in OKC

I first signed the rights over for my novel, Deviants, almost three years ago. Melissa Sue Lopez devoured a preview copy of the book a few months prior and was a fireball of enthusiasm. In her heavy, yet endearing Mexican accent, she chattered away about her grand ambitions for a feature-length film while I tried to imagine how this sprawling character study could be reasonably condensed into 90 minutes. I’d never before envisioned Deviants as a movie, but I was curious to see what the director/producer could accomplish with her limitless supply of gumption. A year before, I’d been an extra on one of her other films, Shutter Mind, and it was easy to get sucked in by her spirit and energy

So, we dove headlong into the project.

I can’t tell you how many script revisions we went through, but it was an exhaustive attempt to tame the story into a watchable film. I edited and re-edited that script more than any novel I’ve ever put out, but it just wasn’t working. The story was too big. When too many doors closed on us in Hollywood and beyond, we tried rewriting for television, but the momentum was gone. After succumbing to the parade of polite rejections, I stepped away from the script and Melissa sculpted the test footage into a short film so that the hundreds of hours she poured into Deviants wouldn’t be for naught.

She tried. No matter what else can be said for Deviants, Melissa gave this project her all. It was just the wrong story for the wrong time and it was set in the wrong state. She got scripts into the hands of some serious heavy-hitters in the film industry, landed some impressive talent for the cast and crew, but the money just wouldn’t materialize.  To be honest, she got us a lot closer than I really ever thought she would and commend her for her incredible resolve.

But I should have warned her that Deviants was doomed long before she arrived, back when it was still just an idea for a novel. I’d meant the book to be an elaborate apology to my wife(now ex-wife). It was an extended metaphor, me taking stock of my part in our damaged marriage. Deviants is fiction, but the pain within was and still is very real to me.

The novel was initially picked up by a New York publisher. They fell on hard times and had to give up the project. Literati assumed the title, but it underperformed even though I was certain that it was the best book I’d ever written. Do I still believe that? No. It has some of my finest writing, but the storytelling was emotional and sloppy. The book was also the final wrong in my doomed marriage. A part of me hates it for all it represents. Spiritual toxic waste. Writing and re-writing and re-writing the script with Melissa continually reopened the very bloody wounds of the greatest love of my life. So far. Let me tack that on the end of that sentence. Yes, my greatest love so far.

So, I haven’t seen the short film in its entirety. Melissa is good at what she does, so I bet it’ll be wonderful.  I may go to the debut, but maybe not. If I skip the opening, it isn’t any kind of rebuke of the short film or of Melissa, but rather me being unable to face the emotional wreckage on display in Deviants.

Marching Bravely Onto A Feminist Dating App

I’m a charmer. That’s my secret weapon in the dating world. Being a charmer is like being a utility player in basketball. Sure, I don’t look great on paper, but I’m flush with intangibles and can be a valuable asset to any team because:

I show up on time,
I pick up the tab,
I’m a good listener,
I’m probably gonna make you laugh.

That’s what’s so frightening about the self-described “feminist” dating app, Bumble. From a co-founder of Tinder, Bumble puts the responsibility of the first move on women as a way to dissuade the “endless barrage of unwanted dicks” that is Tinder and the larger world of online dating.

And this is a good thing because it’s heart-breaking that too many of my fellow men have taken up the casual practice of sending dick picks or other lascivious messages to women who made the mistake of finding men passably attractive.

But…

As previously mentioned, I am a charmer and I live and die by the strength of my opening line because:

I’m no Guy Pierce,
I don’t like the smell of Axe Body Spray.

Take away my opening gambit of the charm offensive with 50% faux machismo, 25% self-deprecation, 25% smooth-as-silk flattery, and 10% enthusiasm, what am I left with?

Selfies that, at their most generous, look like Vin Diesel sprung a leak.

Also, from what I’ve seen so far, the women on Bumble seem to have their shit together. Now, don’t get me wrong, I like women who have their shit together. I’m a grown man and like dating grown women who make solid, grown person decisions with their lives,

But…

Courting is a game of chemistry and leverage. If we can return to the basketball metaphor, and we can because I’m the one doing the writing, logging onto Tinder is like stepping onto an open court at the Y. Yeah, there are some former college varsity players sprinkled around, some gym rats with a deadly jumper from one particular spot on the floor, and maybe some high school rising stars, but there are also at least a handful of players that I know I match up well against. I’ll find my place, I’ll prove value or maybe I’ll just throw down one dunk that’ll make everyone imagine me as much more impressive than I really am.

Bumble? It’s early yet, but it ain’t the Y.

I would be remiss not to acknowledge the irony of being anxious about being judged on the same surface level as I would be judging women on other platforms. These apps are fun because they are snap judgements after a few seconds of scrolling through pics to analyze waist-to-hip ratio, harmony of the golden triangle, and all the other learned and instinctual measures of human beauty.

Women are judging me and choosing whether or not to engage with me based on elements that will, ultimately, have little bearing on the sustainability of a relationship.

But we must start somewhere, right? What’s the alternative? eHarmony where I have to write a dissertation on who I am and why I have value? No thank you.

In the interest of journalism and adventurism, I will push ahead with my Bumble account to see how feminists take to the vague idea of me. I will throw myself before the lionesses, presenting myself, peacocking even. I’ll flex in my pictures just enough to show definition, but not so much to seem desperate and vain. I’ll bullet point my life in two hundred words that most women won’t read while looking through five images carefully curated by me.

Sitting back and waiting is the worst, but maybe a woman will bowl me over with a funny, self-deprecating, and shrewdly smart opening line and I’ll be just as charmed by her as I’d hoped she’d be of me.

Or I’ll go back to Tinder to play with the rest of the scrubs.

The Great Unknown Massacre of Cattaraugus County

An interview with the two men trying to break the largest government cover-up in the history of upstate New York.

By Will Weinke

I’d never imagined that parts of New York could look as desolate and backcountry as the most out-of-the-way corners of Oklahoma, but there I was. Machias, New York. Lil’s Deli. One of those multi-use convenience stores sporting a deli counter because other lunch options were in short demand in the small community.

Allegedly, hundreds of people were slaughtered by both civilians and rogue state police within a few miles of the deli’s front door. Altars of death and horror sprouted from the streets. Cannibalism and violence erupted on a scale Americans would never imagine in even the most dangerous neighborhoods in the country, let alone this sleepy ski town.

It was too crazy to be true, which is perhaps why no one heard of the events chronicled by The Hillbilly Moonshine Massacre, a new book by Jonathan Raab. The Afghanistan war vet grew up in the area and has traced the story back to a bad batch of white whiskey which sent an entire populace into a murderous rage.

And it only get’s weirder the deeper the story goes.

National media all but ignored the events, but a cult hero has grown out of the event’s aftermath. His name is Sheriff Kotto and his online tv show, Kotto’s Kreepies has become a staple of conspiracy theorists and stoner frat houses. I first heard of Kotto and the Moonshine Massacre when a colleague sent me Raab’s book, probably as a subtle tease after my own brush with homicidal cults and government cover-ups. I did a few web searches to try to jive the book’s reality with the reality portrayed by major news outlets, but only found a few mentions of storms and riots—nothing on the scale of the sinister and fantastic events contained within the book.

Raab, a polite and self-possessed writer with that jaded sheen I’d seen on other combat vets, arrived on time and we shared a quite, uncomfortable silence until the star of the show, Sheriff Kotto, arrived thirty minutes late in a smashed-up, rebuilt VW van.

The energy of the deli lit up when the patrons saw Kotto arriving. Two shabby gentlemen quietly excused themselves out a back door, but the other patrons murmured and chuckled as Kotto barged into the establishment. It was the amusement and awe we all felt when a person’s appearance immediately indicated the beginning of a future tall tale.

Kotto kicked a chair out from behind the table and plopped down, two bandoliers of brass ammunition clinking together as he settled in his seat.

Pleasantries were exchanged. Kotto’s handshake was unnaturally aggressive, but his smile was infectious. The interview began as one would expect after watching a dozen videos of Kotto’s Kreepies on Youtube.

WW: So, I don’t really understand why you brought a shotgun to a coffee shop?

Kotto: I don’t really understand why you didn’t. (Slaps Raab on the shoulder.) Didn’t this guy read the book? (To WW) Do you know where you are, sir? We got alien abductions, home invasions happening, seasonal-themed revenge monsters murdering yuppies, the Red Cross stealing people’s blood, pterodactyls and thunder birds flappin’ around. It’s gonzo out here, man. You know – Area 51, Skinwalker Ranch, Point Pleasant West Virginia … and Cattaraugus County.

WW:Hmmm. Indeed. Don’t you, at least, fear that the presence of heavy weaponry is unnerving the patrons and, to be honest, me as well?

Kotto: (Gestures to the few other patrons getting coffee and breakfast sandwiches) These are my constituents. Voting folks. They know me! They might even be fans of my TV show, Freaky Tales From the Force. Frankly, if they saw me and I wasn’t heavily armed, they’d probably panic. They’d think I was a pea person.

Raab: Pod person.

Kotto: Peas in a pod. (Downs entire mug of hot coffee). Now *I* have to pee.

WW: But I wanted… (Turns to Raab. Takes a drink of his coffee. Checks watch. Sighs.) So, I listened to a few of the podcasts and watched an episode or two of your youtube show and I’m a little suspicious that this is all just one big prank. Like an Andy Kaufman kind of thing.

Raab: Right, we get that a lot. But the events in The Hillbilly Moonshine Massacre are based on true events, places, people, phenomena. And I can see how people would think this is some sort of money-making scheme. Some bid for merchandising. Action figures, t-shirts, movies … But Sheriff Kotto is authentic. He’s the real deal. He just wants to protect the county. He doesn’t want to be a local celebrity or anything.

Kotto: (Returns from bathroom and slams shotgun on table, startling WW but not Raab) Sure I do. I absolutely want to be a local celebrity. This place gives me free coffee and breakfast sandwiches. And they’re willing to sell me tin foil by the pallet. That’s the kinda treatment only internet fame can buy.

WW: So, I am sure it is fair to say that your story hasn’t received the national attention that—I’m sorry, can you at least put the shotgun on the floor or something? I feel like it’s leering at me.

WW: Thank you. Okay, so you’ve been ignored by the national media, which is something I can relate to. I wrote a book with Charles Martin a few years back, the dominant hand, about a mass disappearance of Jim Jacobs’ cult. That event was dismissed in the media as something between a large scale practical joke and drug-induced mass hysteria. This is the only reason I’m here, to see if there is a link. But, to be totally honest, I’m a little put off by the fact that you are both clearly drunk. I guess there wasn’t a question there, but you see where I’m coming from, yes?

Kotto: I’m completely baffled.

Raab: He thinks you’ve been drinking. Uh, no, this is just how he is. As for me, there’s a difference between drunk and hungover. Sorry, I tend to get into the drink a bit when I come back here. This place … gets to you.

Kotto: Being drunk and hungover? It’s a fine line, one that true professionals—true lawmen—must walk. Every. Single. Day. Can I have some of your coffee? (Grabs WW’s mug, begins to slurp.)

Raab: We should probably get to the questions. He’s usually not this lucid at this time of day. I’m not sure how long it will last. When I interviewed him and his deputy for the book, I could only keep his attention in short bursts without resorting to blowing a dog whistle or dangling my car keys in front of his face.

WW: Right, I’ve covered music long enough to know how that goes. So, how do you police the occult, monsters, and ghosts? Do you just shoot whatever looks weird? How much science goes into your police work? How do you tell a malevolent Kreepie from a benevolent Kreepie?

Kotto: Well, there’s no law governing this stuff, but there are laws against murder, abduction, assault, and forcible anal probing. If you’re human or not, I’m gonna stop you from doing that.

Some of my work is purely investigatory in nature—for example, is there a Sasquatch in Allegheny State Park? If there is, I’m not gonna shoot him just because I see him. But I will get an arrest warrant if he’s suspected of stealing picnic baskets. Of course, it’s really difficult to arrest something that can phase in out of our reality by using mystical portals. But I have faith that with the proper training, preparation, and appropriate psycho-spiritual drug cocktail, the Catt County Sheriff’s Department can achieve great things.

WW: Okay. For the naysayers, do you maintain some sort of central warehouse of evidence where you can prove some of these wild claims? Also, do you have any intention of replicating your model for—whatever it is you call whatever it is that you do?

Kotto: On the record? Yes. Off the record? My basement, or my garage. You can print that.

Right now I’m focused on bringing this department back up to full operation. The budget got slashed a few years back because my predecessor got indicted on corruption and racketeering charges. Right now I’ve got enough money for a deputy, a couple of part-time dispatchers, some uniforms, gas, and ammo. I mostly spend our money on ammo. If the good citizens of Cattaraugus County read this ridiculous book, they might see the value in raising our budget. ‘Course, if this book sells well, I might just bring a lawsuit against Raab here and use some of that sweet sweet book money to expand our program. Then we can see about bringing our methods to other departments.

WW: I am not sure if this is the book to do that. (to Raab) No offense.

Raab: I’m just glad you’re paying for my breakfast sandwich.

WW: Have you considered moving your operations to areas that are more open-minded to—how do I say this? The potential of conspiracy theories?  Texas or Arizona seem like prime candidates.

Kotto: This is where I’m from, and it just so happens to be a hotbed of nefarious occult, alien, and government activity. I’m needed here. But I will say this: the term “conspiracy theory,” or “conspiracy theorist,” well, those are just ways of dismissing a critical thinker. Did you know that those are terms coined by the CIA to smear political dissenters? Used to be, things like Bohemian Grove, the Gulf of Tonkin incident, Gulf War Syndrome, MK Ultra, the DOJ running guns to drug cartels – these were in the realm of conspiracy theory. But we know these things really happened, really are happening. I think maybe this country might just be a little better off if her citizens were a touch more … not paranoid. Awake. A little less likely to believe whatever the people in power were telling them.

Raab: I’m 100% convinced that we went to the moon, Sheriff.

Kotto: I’m never working with you again.

WW: Are there any conspiracy theories, spook stories, or monster lores too crazy even for you to believe?

Kotto: That depends on what you mean by “believe.” Yeah, there’s hucksters out there, and there’s people with mental illness. And then there’s people, fine, upstanding citizens, who see or experience something they can’t explain. People like you. Sometimes they say or think it’s aliens, ghosts, dead relatives, God even. Maybe it is. Maybe it ain’t.

We like to pretend that we’re the cream of the scientific crop, that we’re some advanced civilization, that we’re just a few discoveries away from mastering the universe. But you know what? We’re not. We’re not even close. I mean, we’re still kind of in the dark ages when it comes to understanding the world around us, let alone the world within. Hell, at least folks in the dark ages knew that the invisible world, the spiritual, the magical, the subatomic … they knew it could affect them, could intervene in their lives, even if they didn’t understand it. Now, if it’s not spouted off by corporately-controlled scientists on TV, it’s not real to people. That’s a sad way to see the world.

Are you going to eat that? (Reaches over and steals the other half of Raab’s sandwich.) This place’s got good food, yeah?

Mr. Wouldn’t-Hurt-A-Fly

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Don at District House and Charles at Dig It

We are going to be all up in Live on the Plaza tonight! Charles will have four new titles available for sale at Dig It and Don Rosencrans will have his very own show at District House to celebrate the trade for Welcome to Ralton as well as the release of Issue 5! Going from 7 ish until whenevs, this will be a wonderful art walk full of magic and not OU/Texas traffic jams!