Steckler Family History Update!
I recently got some crucial info out of my Uncle Eddie, who is the oldest surviving member of my Branch of the Steckler Tree. I post it here for two reasons. I wish to further bore any readers who aren't family members with more details of my ancestry. I also hope that one or more of my distant relatives will hit on this blog if they happen to do a google search for their family history. If you think you are related to me, please, link thru to my web site and email me.

The earliest ancestor Uncle Eddie could recall was my Great-Great-Grandfather,
John Steckler, who was a blacksmith in Marietta, PA in the middle-1800s.
John lost an eye as a blacksmith, and later was known to be a Hotel and Saloon Keeper in Marietta.
He married Anna Resch and they had four children: George Henry, Margurite, Anna, and a son whose name is unknown.
(I 'm curious to find if this "unknown son" could be the Max Steckler my father recalls, who had an argument with his brother, and took his family west, never to be heard from again. I'd also like to know if this "max" is connected to the Max Steckler that I've connected to the defunct "Steckler's" Clothing store in Ashland Kentucky.)

It is not known if John Steckler was the Immigrant from Germany. But if he was, I'd assume he came in thru the port of Philadelphia, and left Germany under Kaiser Wilhelm I, but dates of birth and or Immigration are not known at this time. We know that the Stecklers were Catholic.

George Henry Steckler was my Great-Grandfather.
He was a silk mill worker in Columbia, PA before moving across the Susquehanna River to York, PA with
his family in the 1880s.
He worked as a loom-fixer at a silk mill in West York and in 1898 bought the store at 1501 W. Market St., and opened a Hardware business. (Edward R. would continue to run the business until selling it in the 1950s.) George Henry was married to Anna May Reineberg, Daughter of Jacob Reineberg Sr., and they had four children: Edward R., Antoinette, Mary, and Catherine.
(It is known that the Reineberg family was in Philadelphia in the Early 1800s and had moved to the Susquehanna Valley before the 1860s. Anna May told her grandson Eddie in the 1930s about watching the Yankees burn down the Wrightsville bridge over the Susquehanna during the Civil War, to keep the rebel army from advancing toward Philadelphia. Jacob Sr.'s wife was from the Wyanberg family of shoemakers in Philadelphia. Jacob started his own Shoe business, and passed it on to his sons Jacob junior and Cletus. The Reineberg Shoe store in York, PA is still owned by the family, but is strictly a retail operation today.)

George Henry Steckler also was a violinist, and he played in the orchestra of the Al Hambra Theater in York, Pa (once located where the Colonial Hotel is today) providing accompaniment for silent films.


Edward R. Steckler was my Grand-father, but he died more than a decade before I was born. His last known residence was at 825 Florida Ave, York, PA
He married Hannah Louise Sanders, and had four children: Edward, James, George S, and Susan. Hannah was the daughter of Albertus Sanders and Sarah (Behler), who resided at 663 W. Princess St. in York. Albertus was from York, while Sarah was from nearby Seven Valleys, PA. Hannah passed away in 1988.

Edward (Uncle Eddie) married Wilda, and they had one son, Bill (deceased), they are retired and now reside near Rehoboth Beach, DE

James (Uncle Jimmy) was maried and divorced while I was a toddler. His One son, Scott, now lives in Erie, PA. After his divorce, Uncle Jimmy lived with his mother at Florida Ave, until around his 50th Birthday, when he went on walkabout, and was found dead of heatstroke near Jackson Hole, WY, in 1983

Susan (Aunt Susie) married Charles Burnside, and had three sons, Christopher, Damian, and Nathaniel. The entire Burnside family runs MAPLE DONUTS, a business which Charlie and Susie have built from a single shop in the early 1960s into the largest independently owned Donut manufacturer in the U.S.

George Sanders Steckler is my Father. born Nov 7, 1935.
he was briefly married to Arla Mae (Liebhart), daughter of Fannie and Roy Earl Liebhart, who had a 180-acre farm at Long level, PA, near East Prospect, and over looking the Susquehanna south of Wrightsville, PA. George and Arla had a son, Anthony, who died as an infant. Soon after their divorce in 1962, Arla gave birth to Tiffany, but Arla's Boyfriend claimed paternity, and George did not contest it. Tiffany, However, upon reaching adulthood, bears a strong resemblance to the Steckler family.

On Sept 28, 1962, George married Reba Jeanne (League-Miller) and adopted her three children from her previous marriage: Darrell Leslie (b. May 15, 1956), Twila Jean (b. May 17, 1959), and Tamara Jane (b. Aug 20, 1960).
On July 10, 1963, I was born, Benjamin Tyrone Steckler at Memorial Osteopathic Hospital, York.

Darrell married his high-school sweetheart Susan Eileen (Young), daughter of Ken and Doris Young (both now deceased), on Sept. 16, 1978. They have two children: Zachary Ryan (b. Jan 6, 1988 in Reston, VA), and Kelly Elaine (b. Aug 28, 1993, in York). They reside in York.

Twila was married to Reuben Sanchez of Omaha, NE from 1980 until 1984. On Sept 8, 2001, she was wed to Marty Chacon, of Salt Lake City, UT, in Pocatello, ID. They reside in Idaho Falls, ID.

Tamara (Tammy) married Brian Earl Krebs of York, PA in 1982. They had one Daughter, Jennifer Lauren (b. Oct 5, 1985 in Hampton, VA) They divorced in 1997. Tamara returned to York with Jennifer and settled in nearby Dover in 1998.

I currently have no children and few prospects or desire to create any. Here endeth a bloodline.

cool. those Two pieces of my work that I mentioned on my ebay post a couple days ago?
They have both sold for my Buy-It-Now price.
So, my portrait of Screaming Jay Hawkins from Get BenT! #7 is now on its way to a wall somewhere in California, and my tribute from Unshaven CHI #4, "Joey Ramone's Last Daze" will soon be going to a patron in British Columbia.
On top of my Pez Comic strip original selling last weekend, it's been a good week for me as an artist.

I've almost equalled what my unemployment check would have been for the week, if i was still eligible.

So. I've learned that dick and fartjokes sell good for me as mini-comics, but if i want to sell my originals, I should do one-page gags about Rock Stars and Collectibles.

I feel like a professional artist now, so I'm going to go get drunk and throw a tantrum.

Today is a Special Day
It's a day for remembrance of that special kind of Love that only Chicago could give. Today marks 75 years since the greatest achievement of America's Ceasar, Al Capone

You can learn more about romance if you drop by and "pay a little visit" to Gangland Chicago.

You really don't want to miss it. No, see, I'm telling you: You Do Not Want To Miss It, Capiche?

BenT Investigates eBay!
I did some fun ebay searching today.
a keyword search for "useless crap" returned no items when I searched titles, but 438 items when I searched titles AND descriptions.

searching "grot" turned up 3 items by title, not surprisingly all in the UK, and 323 items by Title and Description.

"utter puke" brought up no items under either method, as did "barfo", which is odd for me, because I've bought stuff on eBay before that I've pulled up by searching for "barfo". (Those Topps' 'Barfo Family' candy dispensers.)

"stuff you can't afford" returned 605 items when I searched titles and descriptions.

"stuff you don't want" returned 32,645 items.

"tits" brings up no items, but "boobies" pulled up 40 under titles, and 158 items under titles and descriptions.

"wonderful masterpiece" pulled up 1 and 3044 items.

"piece of shit" gets no returns, but "piece of shite" returned 26 items when i search descriptions. Oddly, the majority of the items were for Barbies, kids clothes, and angel figurines.

"BenT" returns 46,105 items, and two of those are actually my work.

I don't know what this all means, other than there's really nothing but crap on TV tonight.

I mentioned a few days ago the documentation of my Mother's family history. I got a copy of the genealogy tracing her Mother's side of it today. here are the details:

Edward Rackley was born on an unknown date in England. He arrived in America in 1639, and Died in 1663 in Essex County, Virginia, leaving one known son:
John Rackley I, who was born about 1650 in Essex County, and Died in 1698 in the same, leaving one known son;
John Rackley II, born around 1670 in Essex County, and died in Henrico County, VA in 1738, he left two sons: Anthony, and John III.

Anthony Rackley was born around 1700 in Essex County, Died after 1765 in Sampson County, NC. He left one son: Joshua
John Rackley III was born about 1695 in Essex County, Died in 1769 in Franklin Bute County, NC. He had one Daughter: Setevias

Joshua Rackley, birthdate unknown (died in 1813), married his cousin Setevias, birthdate also unknown, and they had eleven children including my ancestor, John Micajah.
so at this point my family became inbred. it's curious that the cousins that married both have left no birth records

John Micajah Rackley, born about 1758. Served in The Revolutionary War.
Moved to the Middle Tennessee area sometime between 1813 and 1818. Fathered 11 children by three wives. Died in White County,TN, May 27, 1839. My ancestor, Calvin, was born to John and his second wife, Elizabeth Stallings, around 1815 in either North Carolina or Tennessee.

Calvin Rackley, according to evidence, married Martha Fultz and had a daughter, Mary J. Rackley. In 1844 he reportedly sold his share of his father's inheritance to his brother, Ruffan, and left for the Indian territory, never to be heard from again. According to 1850 census data, John Micajah's widow, Mary Meggerson Rackley, had a Granddaughter, Mary J. Rackley living with her. It is believed that Martha died in childbirth, and Calvin left his daughter to be raised by his stepmother.

Mary J. Rackley , born in 1836, died Feb 25, 1917 in DeKalb County, TN. Married Green Berry Ford on Dec 2, 1852 in DeKalb County. Green Berry Ford enlisted in the Confederate Army in September of 1861, and was wounded at the battle of Fishing Creek, Kentucky, and returned home. The two had eight children. The fourth, Joseph Berry Ford, was my Great-Grandfather.

Joseph Berry Ford, born Dec 1, 1862 in DeKalb County, and died Nov 20, 1934 in the same. He married Emily Isabell Miller in 1889, and had 7 children, the youngest was my Grandmother, Zora Emily. My mother claims that her Grandmother was a full-blooded Cherokee. while "Emily Isabell" does not sound like an Indian name, it's believed she took an English sounding name to avoid persecution living off the reservation.

Zora Emily Ford League Avaritt Shiflett, born Aug 20, 1904 in DeKalb County. Died in 1971 in DeKalb County. Had seven children by her first Husband, Asbury Edmund League. My Mother, Reba Jeanne, was the youngest child of this marriage. Zora remarried after Asbury's death, to William Avaritt, and had two more sons. She separated from Mr. Avaritt in the 1950s, and married Fred Shiflett . This is who was "GrandPa Fred" to me. Bill Avaritt survived into the 1980s and lived nearby me in Hanover, PA. He was known to us kids as "Uncle Bill".

Reba Jeanne (League, Miller) Steckler born Sep 5, 1933, in DeKalb County.
Married Morey Darrell Miller on Oct 16, 1955 in Bowling Green, OH, while employed at U.S. Rubber in Detroit. Had 3 children with Mr. Miller, Darrell Leslie (born May 15, 1956 in Detroit), Twila Jean (born May 17, 1959 in Parkersburg, WV), and Tamara Jane (Born Aug 20, 1960 in Parkersburg). Reba divorced Morey in 1961 and moved to York, PA to stay with her Sister, Edith. George Sanders Steckler was a young Sergeant, recently divorced, in the reserve unit of Edith's husband, Capt. Adrian L. Shaffer.
George and Reba (who goes by Jeanne) were introduced, and got married on Sept 28, 1962. George adopted Darrell, Twila and Tamara, giving them the surname Steckler. At 2:15 a.m. on July 10, 1963, Reba Jeanne gave birth to a 9lb, 13 oz, baby boy named Benjamin Tyrone Steckler. George got a vasectomy soon afterward.

So. I am Excited to find proof that an ancestor fought for the right side in The Revolutionary War.
So is my sister Tammy, whose daughter, Jennifer Lauren Krebs, graduates from High School this year.
I told her she should try for one of the many scholarships offered by the D.A.R.

I am also proud to note that now I know I have ancestors that fought on both sides of the Civil War.

I learned today that The first few generations of Rackleys, being Virginia Landowners, were slaveowners, but the largest number recorded was on the 1800 census, and it showed that Joshua owned only 12 slaves. All the Rackleys had freed or divested themselves of Slaves before the Civil war, according to the document i got today. I think the family caught "abolitionism" in the 1840s.

I have to check the documentation on the League ancestry. I'm told that the Leagues were staunch Methodists, and were strongly against slaveholding.

The Stecklers, on the other hand, were German Barons until the late 1800s, when my ancestor fled the Kaiser and came to America. They might not have had slaves, but I'm sure that there were serfs somewhere in that family history. I've sent a query to my oldest known relative on the Steckler side, to see if he has any info that Dad doesn't know.

I bet that Valentine's Day is perhaps the most universally despised "holiday" in blogspace.
All of us whiney, lonely souls, jealously sneering at the Happy Loving Couples making it look so easy.
"It's just a Holiday created by a greeting card company!" we shout at them!
They don't listen. They walk on by, not even listening to the crazy man screaming from the dungeon window.


The Day after Christmas, (the other Holiday i hate, but have to tolerate) I went to Wal-Mart to look for discounted candy. They were already putting up the Valentine's Candy displays.
Two Women in their mid-30s, one an obvious Soccer-Mom, the other, more of a Bridget Jones type, were already scanning the candies that were put out.
"Do you want a true opinion of this from a Man?" I asked them, trying not to make it sound like a pick-up line. They looked at me, one took a half step back, clutching her purse tighter.

"All This," I waved at the red hearts, "They only put it up now, so early, because they know that women will buy it for themselves, and eat it in secret all the way thru Valentine's Day."

"No man shops this early for a gift for his lover. We will wait. Starting around February 11th, we'll begin to cluster near this watering hole, testing, feeling the weights of the various foil hearts. Wondering if we've been good enough to the man in the boat this year to get away with the lighter one."

"The evening of the 13th, around 5:30, this aisle will look like one of those cartoon fight clouds, except the stars floating around it will be red hearts."

"That's how men shop for valentines. If these stores were really trying to sell this stuff to men, they'd wait until the week before the holiday to stock the shelf, and until then, they'd keep it seeded with fishing tackle and Swimsuit Calendars, and videos of the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders."

"But no. They play upon your sentiments. They put it out now, knowing that you women will load up, even when you could go one aisle down and get Christmas Candy at Half-price!"


Soccer Mom spoke up then, "So what are you doing here now, Mr. Real Man?"

"I just stopped to see if they put out the jelly hearts I like. I don't have a Valentine, but I have to get my fix of those Jelly Hearts each year."

"There they are," said Bridget, pointing to a pile of Farley's bags on the shelf.

"No those aren't the ones I want. They have that sugar all over the outside. i want the plain ones.
The Ju-Ju Hearts."

" I guess I have to keep searching."


This Year Valentine's Day comes on a Saturday. There's that faint hope that I might could still meet somebody before the big night. I might "get Lucky" on the Friday Night before....

...wait. That's Friday The 13th. Dammit.

She was my Voodoo Queen, and She Stole my Ju-Ju Heart.

Goodbye Julie. I never met you, but I loved what you gave us.

Without one Man there'd be no Barry Allen FLASH. There'd be no Hal Jordan GREEN LANTERN. No Ray Palmer ATOM. No Justice League.
Heck, there probably wouldn't have been a Silver Age of Comic-Book Heroes. Even though He worked for D.C., without the success of the new stories helmed by Julius Schwarz, there would have been no drive at Marvel to publish new competing super-hero comics, and Stan Lee and Jack Kirby et al. would have gone down with their ship still churning out giant monster comics and westerns. I can't imagine my childhood without Spider-Man, The Hulk, The Fantastic Four, The X-Men. Indirectly, Julie Schwarz was even responsible for the great success of his competitors.

And Ambush Bug just would not have been as funny without that xeroxed caricature of Julie floating around.

It's not just comics that Julie influenced. He came to comics after a succesful career editing science fiction. Without Julius Scharz, we might never have read stories by Ray Bradbury and many others.

Rest in Peace, Julius Schwarz.

Mark Evanier has been running some great bio info on julie in his blog: news from me Go over there and learn.

This was posted to the Zinegeeks group on Yahoo. Somebody asked if any of us knew anything about our ancestry. I thought it was a good blog piece. Or at least more interesting than telling y'all thatI sat around the house all day watching the DVDs for Lost in Translation and American Splendor

My Mom's Paternal family (League) were Scottish/Irish Immigrant farmers who
settled in the Tennessee foothills in the early 1800s. No major
landholders, they were peasant farmers really , right up thru the
depression. There is a distant cousin documented in My grandmother's family
bible (oneof those with all the family history hand-written in the flyleaves
and endpapers) as having signed up for "the wrong side" (Union) in the
Civil War.
My Mom's Mother was a Ford. She was a 5th cousin to Henry. Her Mother (my
great-grandmother) was a full-blooded Cherokee.

On Dad's side, I'm told the Stecklers were feudal barons in Germany until
the mid-to-late 19th century. The Family story goes that Kaiser Wilhelm
purged the nobles, and either my great-, or great-great Grandfather was
smuggled out of the country as a child. The Strathmeyers were our family
groundskeepers, they were allowed to emigrate, and brought my ancestor
with them out of Germany, posing as one of their children. Supposedly the
money they were paid for smuggling him was used to establish their forestry
business here in the U.S. (They are one of the largest growers of Christmas
trees in the State now)

Unfortunately, The Steckler Family has a history of deep blood-feuds
between siblings. I know that my Great-grandfather had a rift with his
brother Max, and Max took his young family and headed west at the turn of
the century, never to be heard from again by my branch of the family. (my
dad had a similar split with his sister in the 70s...they didn't move away,
but i still rarely see my Aunt, or my cousins)

In 1991, I was moving from Virginia to Ohio, and stopped in Ashland
Kentucky for a rest break. On the square downtown is a large abandoned
dept. store, with a huge neon sign out front that says "Steckler's". I
inquired around town, to see if maybe i had relatives, but the old owner of
the Drug Store across the street said, "No...They all left town soon after
ol' Max died." When i heard the name Max, i was going to whip out my ID,
and say i was related, but his next sentence was, "They were Jews..."
I quickly remembered that i was in Kentucky, and thanked him and left. I
do know that my dad has Jewish cousins, so I still think that I'm related
to that Kentucky branch.
I often see the name "Doug Steckler" in movie credits, and wonder if
it's a distant cousin. A part of Max's family that went all the way west.
Yes I also wonder about Ray Dennis Steckler, and the other Ben Steckler that
played for Michigan State a couple years ago.

I'd like to try and verify the story of how my dad's family got to
America, but now all of my Grandparent's generation are dead, and My dad's
generation aren't very clear on the story. I know that many European
immigrants of the late 1800s had "stories" of being royalty, and i wonder
if the story of the Barons Steckler was just a fairy tale used to give some
"status" to a young Immigrant businessman trying to get his store open (my
great-grandfather and grandfather were hardware store owners).

My Mom's family story is documented, but My Dad's family story isn't. i
think the feuding every generation or so might have prevented any
record-keeping.

I initiall posted part of this over on a thread at Slushfactory, but i wanted to expand on it, and thought it would be a good Blog topic for the day.

Growing up, My Friend Carl always liked to be the Banker in Monopoly, and when he was getting low on cash in the game, he'd declare loudly: GENEROUS BANK!, and start handing everybody $500 bills.

Why can't Life be more like a game with Carl?

G.W. didn't go far enough with his tax rebates. He needs to put Carl in charge of the Fed.

-----
i write this as the mailman comes, delivering my last unemployment check. I've exhausted even my extension, waiting for a better-than-retail, better-than-the pizza-shop job to come along. I'd like to get something worthy of my College education and Military Experience, but I've been out of that loop for over ten years.
I'm not desperate yet. I have a healthy IRS refund coming this week, and I've been doing a few hundred a month in ebay sales. So I'm okay into March. But i really need to get out there and find something soon.
I don't have an endless supply of stuff to sell on ebay, unless more people start buying my own creations.
Convention season is starting up, so I'll be going to shows again soon, about one a month.

I guess it's time to start practicing at the fryvat. Then my transformation into underground artist will be complete.

Why Am i Such a Smartass Sometimes?
Why, when a Housemate says something like, "If The Phone Rings, I'll Be in the Bathroom."

Why am I compelled to shout back, "Where will you be if the phone doesn't ring?" or, "Okay, I'll alert the Media!"

I gotta think it gets tiresome, and it's probably one of the reasons Old Friends don't keep in touch with me.
But I can't stop myself.

And i really don't want to stop it, either. I think having a quick wit like that helps me keep my comics funny, and i wouldn't want to lose it. But I know it has to annoy people that are around me too long.

Maybe Dad didn't smack me around enough for having a smart mouth when i was a kid. Heck, Dad did just the opposite. He encouraged it by laughing.

The School bullies tried to discourage me.

Maybe now i do it just to spite those kids that pounded me for making smart-ass remarks. Yeah. That's it.

Fuck 'em.

Athens, GA: Outside In
My 36 Hours in Hipsville South for FLUKE

Well I took off Friday morning around 8 am for the first grand road trip experiment of 2004. Destination Athens, GA, land of a thousand bands (it seems), to expose myself artistically to the South East at the mini-comics event known as FLUKE. FLUKE doesn't really stand for anything, although Festival of Largely Unmarketable Kinds of Entertainment was suggested at one point in its genesis a couple years ago.

I had an 11-hour drive to get there, but that went smoothly. The CD player was my traveling companion, and it was loaded with The BoomTown Rats' A Tonic for the Troops, Jon Spencer's Plastic Fang, The new disc from JET, a 2-disc live Stray Cats collection, and also faves from BLONDIE, DEVO, QUEEN, The SPECIALS, Guadalcanal Diary, The Fleshtones, Graham Parker, The Donnas, Southern CUlture on he Skids, and many more. With plenty of happy, peppy tunes, a cooler full of Mountain Dew Code Red, some Combos, some Goetz' Caramel Creams, and some Twizzler Bites, I was set for the trip.

I was humming Screaming Jay Hawkin's version of "I Love Paris" as i hit the highway, because the mini-comic I'd be debuting at the show was my I LUV PARIS which adapted her infamous night-vision internet phenom into a comics parody. I'd made a limited edition of 50 copies for the show, with silk-screen covers. I was determined to make back some of the money I'd spent on eye medicine in November and December. You might not know it, but what made my UVEITIS flare up in the left eye back in November was straining to see enough detail in that video clip to draw the parody. That stuff took six weeks to heal.
I'd also printed up a fresh batch of my Chick Tract parody trilogy, and the set of f-ARTjoke minis. I'm glad I did, because the dick and fart jokes kept their streak alive, and outsold all my other material.

I rolled in to Athens around 8:00 P.M., got checked into the cheapest motel i could find, and went off to locate the Tight Pockets zine hangout/event space, where a pre-show party had been organized. I found the location, then found a six-pack shop and got myself some Mike's Hard Lemonade, and enjoyed the performances by We Versus The Shark, a second band i can't remember the name of, and ELF Power.
Elf Power are very impressive punk-pop.
At first the only person at the party I recognized was todd bak, and i felt somewhat like a chaperone in this place, where the average kid was 19 years my junior. But I spotted an issue of Carrie McNinch's FOOD GEEK on the zine table, and pointed out the page I'd contributed, and that was something of an Ice Breaker. I met a nice, talkative punk girl named Cat, and we had some conversation. I also had the thrill of chatting with a zinester who originally hailed from Annapolis, but was doing some kind of activist work in Athens. He assumed that I was also an activist and asked if I had been to the anti-war actions in York, PA. I steered the conversation toward a safer topic, York's Former Mayor and Murder Defendant Charlie Robertson, and people who got arrested for punching police horses during the last anti-racism rally in my lovely Downtown. Then the bands started playing, and it was too loud to talk, so I was rescued.

Then i got a surprise as Missy Kulik, a fellow Pennsylvanian mini-comics artisan entered the gig. I didn't know that she'd moved down to Athens. We got caught up on our mutual zine aquaintances, she told me about the mini she'd just collaborated on with John Porcellino (which I picked up a copy of on Saturday), and i shared some of the Misun and John items tht have been discussed on the Small Diary yahoo group.
Then we watched Elf Power's set. After a few songs, I was feeling beat, though, and headed back to my Hotel for the night.

Saturday began with me watching a Rhythmic Gymnastics competition on The Oxygen network in the Hotel. To me, Rhythmic Gymnastics can be very erotic. Especially the routines with the ball. If they knew the reaction I have when i catch this on TV, they wouldn't be carryiong it on the Oxygen Network. They'd put it on Spike TV.
Then I put together my kit for the show, and headed into town. On the way, I passed by the world famous The Varsity Diner. I'd seen them featured on a PBS documentary about Hotdogs, so I thought I'd get my breakfast/lunch there. I had one of their chili-cheese dogs and a "Co-Cola". It didn't really live up to the hype, but maybe it's because it was just after opening on a non-football Saturday, so the place wasn't hopping with it's much-touted atmosphere. I still saved my paper plate as a souvenir.
I wandered around town, snapped some tourist photos, took some pics of odd signs I noticed, and felt the need for a bathroom, but i still had about 45 minutes before i could get into Tasty World for the comic show, so i stopped at The Diner on College, and used the facilities, and also had some Orange Juice and Grits. Yes. I had breakfast after I had lunch. So I'm screwed up. Bite me.
I recognized my busboy as a member of We Versus The Shark from the night before. I think everybody in Athens is either making art or in a band, and they all have dayjobs in the service industry, or in retail.
Athens would be a cool place to live, but I bet it's hard to find a job there that pays a living wage. I heard some folk over the weekend discussing how they enjoyed their jobs, despite that they only made $6.50 an hour. I'm sure the steady influx of college students and artists/musicians looking for a break provides a very deep pool of wage slaves from which employers may choose. In other words, Athens doesn't need a Wal-Mart to keep wages low. Maybe I'm offbase. I shouldn't base my opinion of the town's economy on a couple over-heard conversations among punks.

The actual FLUKE comics show was fun. I saw bak, and Sam Henderson, Erica Merchant and Jeff Mason, and Missy Kulik, and Drew Weing all again, and finally met in person many folk who i only knew as message board posters at TCJ.com. Finally I had faces to associate with the names Robert Newsome, Patrick Dean, Devlin Thompson, J. Chris Campbell, and Justin Colloussey Estes. I also met Klon Waldrip, whose crazy minis blew my mind a couple years ago when i first saw them. This guy is the Hillbilly answer to Johnny Ryan. Really funny, but extremely sick, humor. Then i see him holding his new baby, and he's just a normal guy.

I met several other comics folk from the area, and overall, had a nicely profitable show. I'll be posting my pics later tonight at the FLUKE page on my site.
Saturday Night was the Fluke Afterparty at Tasty World. The Trapeze Tarts got things going with a sexy, yet tasteful, trapeze performance. What i said earlier about Rhythmic Gymnastics goes double here.
Next up was a 3-piece band called The Bent. For a minute, when i saw this name on the poster, I wondered if they expected me to perform. They were good, led by a cute seet girl who reminded me of a young Kelly Deal. Next up was Madeleine and The Beats. This was their first show together as a band, but they were tight, and kept the crowd pumped. I was told Madeleine is a local star already, having been a member of a defunct popular group called The SugarShakers.
The headliner was The Carrie Nations. Wow. Infectious Onstage Energy out the Wa-ZOO. They steamed up the windows of the joint, and had the whole place jumping around and doffing layer after layer of clothing. I'd estimate a snall crowd of about 20 fans actually spent the whole set dancing up on the stage in the middle of the band. I was impressed with the group, and had to go pick up their vinyl.
They really got the crowd excited, and before we knew it it was 2 a.m., and the club had to close up. I probably could have had myself a one-night-stand if I'd wanted, there was more than one girl whom I'd been chatting with thru the night, and a couple of them inquired if I'd be sticking around town for the night.
But I'm stupid, and wasn't going to try my luck. I really wanted to get at least six hours sleep before I had to hit the road in the morning. Oh man. I'd rather plan ahead for an 11 hour drive home than spend
a few minutes, uh, hours, of ecstacy with a perky, smart southern-belle blond named Stephanie. Maybe I really ought to open up those e-mails I've been getting about Viagra.

go to my site for the pics! and Go to Bizarro Wuxtry at 225 College Avenue in Athens if you didn't get my books while i was in town. They are now the best place in the South to find my work! --BenT

Ahh. The third day in a row that we've had to clean ice and snow off the cars before doing anything.
I just got a otice of a meteorologist job in Puerto Rico that's open again. All this snow makes me eager to apply. I will learn Spanish in exchange for warmer winters anyday.

Being Unemployed (or Underemployed) ain't all that bad, though. Especially around tax Time. I just filed my State and Federal returns, and I'm eligible for more in returns than i paid in taxes this year. That is genuine George W. Bush Magic at work! If anybody tries to tell me "It's the Economy, Stupid!" come election time, Guess which way I'd vote?

I saw a matinee of The Cooler yesterday. Great Film all around. This is the best Alec Baldwin performance since The HUnt for Red October. William H. Macy is again really good. He is consistently impressive. Maria Bello. yum.

Gotta go. Time to make dinner.

So once there was this storm system.
The Storm of the Century, they called it.
Thanks to the wonders of modern meteorology, luckily, nobody was caught off-guard by the storm, but still its impact was staggering as it made its path across the United States.
As it went thru the major agricultural states of the plains, and lower MidWest, it generated tremendous updrafts, lifting entire farms into it's belly.
A Flour Mill in Kansas, Whoosh! Gone.
A dairy farm in Tennessee. Swept away.
65% of the egg-production capability of a small town in Ohio was lost when a poultry farm was sucked up.

The storm swept onward, across Pennsylvania and into New York and New England, dropping record amounts of precipitation on the region.
Headlines in all the papers afterward read the same:

Monster Storm System Batters Northeast!

YeeHaw! NASCAR Season Starts up This Weekend, Ain'T?
This strange ritual of watching people drive in circles is one more reason for me to feel intellectually superior to 97% of the residents of my county. I don't get it. One of the main attractions is the crashes right? Yet Heaven forbid a driver people like gets injured or killed in a crash.

3/4 of NASCAR fandom have somehow canonized Dale Earnhardt, Sr. I believe his first miracle was driving in a circle. The Second miracle of Dale was stopping a really fast car with nothing but his right foot.
The Third Miracle of Dale involved causing wine to spew forth on the masses gathered within a fabled "Winner's Circle". The other 1/4 of Nascar fandom have performed their own miracle. They have made an unlicensed character produce water simply by placing the number 3 next to it.

NASCAR. A Bunch of hicks driving in a continuous Left Turn, and not a one of them uses the left turn signal. Ironic isn't it? You put a bunch of Hicks on a long, straight stretch of Highway, and you can't get them to turn the damned left turn signal OFF!

So I started thinking about this while seeing the ads for the upcoming "SUBWAY 400" event. THis struck me as strange. Sure, Subway shops have spread faster than Starbucks outlets, particularly in the locales that have strong NASCAR fanbases. But does anybody care about NASCAR in cities where there actually is a real subway?
"Subway" sponsoring a NASCAR event is also ironic in that Auto Racing began as a competition between auto-makers, to determine who could build the better cars. Thus Auto-racing became a way to boost automobile sales, and get more cars on the roads, causing more traffic. The subway, however, was introduced to reduce the number of cars on the road, and provide relief from traffic.

It's all silly, just as is this entry. I guess I'll just never be a gearhead.

Have you seen the new Black & White M&Ms yet?

Of course you have. I first spotted these while i was doing the last rounds of my Christmas shopping, and bought a few bags. I'm tempted to play Go or Othello with 'em.

I bet Steve Ditko would love them. (That's a joke about his worldview concerning good & evil as stark absolutes, with no shades of gray.)

You could tell fortunes with 'em, or play a kind of "She loves me, She Loves me Not". Just pick a yes-or-no question you want answered, or a decision you need to make, and let the color of the last M&M in the bag be your guide. White for yes, Black for No, or vice versa if you would feel ethnic guilt associating black with a negative.

I even like the commercial for these. The one where Dorothy Gale wakes up at the end of "The Wizard of Oz", and all the M&M characters are in her bedroom, in Black & White. "...Oh Aunt M (funny funny!), i had the strangest dream, and you were there, and you , and you, abd you were all in color!..."

I almost did a spit-take the first time i saw it, when she called the one "Aunt M".

But last week I went to a movie, and had a pack of these in my pocket.

I was sitting in the theater munching on the M&Ms, when it hit me. Sitting there in the dark, eating my Black and White M&Ms, I realized that they taste the same as the colored ones. They'd also taste the same if they were in shades of gray. The flavor's not in the shell or the color. It's the chocolate and/or the peanut or peanut butter inside! That's what really matters.

I wondered if blind people care what color their M&Ms are. I wonder if anybody that ever did concert prep for Van Halen, and had to provide those bowls of M&Ms with all the orange, yellow, and brown ones removed, ever considered saving those unwanted candies for the next Ray Charles or Stevie Wonder concert. To a blind person, I bet all the M&Ms taste the same, except for that occasional one with a rotten peanut.

M&Ms aren't Skittles, after all. With Skittles, you can taste the rainbow. Blind people can taste the different skittles. Even the monochrome mint skittles, that are all different shades of blue, or green, have a subtle taste difference for each shade.

if they wanted to do Black & White Skittles, they'd have to take the flavors out, too. Maybe they could make the skittles Licorice and Vanilla for a limited time. Mmmm.

I wonder what Deaf and blind people think of Black and White M&Ms. Maybe they should explore a way to make the different colors of M&Ms make different sounds when you crunch them. They could vary the thickness of the shell, maybe. Or they could put that fizzpowder into the coating. It'd be funny if they could have random M&Ms make a fart noise when you bit them. Or a Howler Monkey or Kookaburra call.
Or the sounds of light sabers. George Lucas should have his FX wizards get to work now devising a way to make the M&Ms provide the sound effects for the next Star Wars film.

That would really show up those folks at Hershey. M&M/Mars could finally make up for letting Reese's Pieces be "E.T.'s Favorite Candy"

Yeah. That would be SWEET.

So, will this be the year I finally send something in for the SPX anthology? I've been attending this convention for Small Press Comics artists since 1996, but I've never got around to submitting to their anthology. They have a theme this year of WAR.
That raises questions right away.
Do i do a pro-War Piece, and get ostracized by all the liberals in the arts community?
Do I presume that the editor is anti-war, and tailor my submission to try and get in the editor's graces?
Do I try and do a piece that has no tie to any current War situation, and avoid controversy?
Do i just say fuck-all! Damn The Torpedoes! and tell the story i want to, no matter its slant?

I'm probably leanig toward the last option. I have some ideas, but I don't know what kind of tone I'll take yet. Well, i have until June to work on it.

Sunday Snow.
falling, floating. blanket of white.
fog and rime on my window.
warm in here.
cold out there.
Falling pretty thick now.
It'd be pointless to shovel before the Game starts.
heh heh heh.


Once Again, it's MLK-Day Weekend, and it's snowing in PA. Racist's Delight. Nature making everything Whiter for MLK day. Did Somebody forget to send the memo to Gaea's Office?

We always get snow this weekend, and it's always more than the TV Weatherguy predicts. 1-2 inches they said. we had that much at lunchtime. We got that much last evening, but it changed over to rain overnight, and back to Snow around 10:30 this morning. Big Accreted flakes, falling straight down, with no wind.

I can tell it's been falling straight down without looking at the falling flakes. We have a 41-yr-old Maple Tree in our front yard, with large sprawling branches. There's a star pattern around the base of this tree, where the snow isn't as thick. When I first saw it today, I thought it was squirrel tracks, but then i noticed that the pattern has a spoke positioned directly under each branch of the tree. It's a snow shadow. Cool, in more ways than one.

We've already had one brief power interruption today, and it caused my system to reboot in mid-message, so I'm going to keep it short and power-down, and just enjoy football today.

I started a new project today. I'm going through all my CDs, playing them in RealPlayer, and saving my favorite tracks, if any into my Library. I figure if I do at least 3 CDs a day, I can get through my collection within a year. But the big question is, will I have enough room on my Drive to do it? Well, if alot of my collection is like the stuff I'm listening to today. Yeah.
I have a lot of records that were sent to me for review from 1995 thru 2000, or so, when I was doing the occasional reviews in my zines. But boy, do you get sent a lot of crap when you do reviews. Many of these records I filed away, and haven't listened to them since I reviewed them. I also have a lot of discs that I bought myself, and only listened to once or twice. Maybe I wanted a song for a mixtape or something, but thought the rest of the disc was crap (CIV comes to mind here.)

4 Non Blondes is a group in the latter category. I think i ordered this to fulfill a BMG music service requirement. Hey, I liked their song "What's Up?" I even remember seeing a few strippers dance to it back in the early 90s. Hence this song has lots of great memories associated with it. But there are maybe two other tracks on the disc that I would be bothered to want to listen to again. So why don't I load them on the 'puter, and open up a slot on my CD rack?
22 Jacks is a band in the former category. They were pulled along in the wake of Reel Big Fish, and Cherry Poppin' Daddies, and Blink 182, and the rest of the Vans Warped Tour. I used to get alot of discs like this from SIDE1Dummy records. Well, they did get better on the second record they sent me. While i didn't find anything on the first release ("Overserved") that I wanted to save, I am enjoying some of the tracks on the second disc of theirs that i have. ("Going North")
I don't know. Maybe I just looked at this wall of my room literally full of CDs and tapes and albums, and decided I should work towards living more portably. Maybe I won't have the luxury of Mom and Dad's basement forever. Maybe a job offer will come thru that requires me to move to Nevada. A move to another state nearby i could do easily. I could move my stuff in just a few trips. But a move more than halfway across the country would require some drastic parting of me and my stuff. i am a packrat by nature, and i have too many collections.
So. The CDs must be culled. That's the easy part. then i have to tackle the videotapes, Pez Dispensers, Candy tins, happy meal prizes, T-Shirts, sheet music, lunchboxes, action figures, DVDs, and Comic books.
Or i could go the easier route, and just buy a trailer now. Then when it's time to move, I can just hitch my house to the back of the car.
I hear it's easier to pick up lonely divorcees in a trailer, too.

The Apprentice disgusts me. I sincerely hope that at some point in the show one of the losers will get mad and reach across the table and rip off Donald Trump's atrocious toupee. Why can't Trump afford a more Natural-Looking hairpiece? Somebody should venture that guy the capital to go down to Baltimore and visit Mr. Larry for a weave. Don't try to tell me it's not a hairpiece, either. There's no way a guy that wealthy would continue to patronize any barber or stylist that incompetent. Or is the secret to Trump's fortune that he does his own hair with a Flowbee?

So anyway, after a rather unsatiiiiiisfying episode of Friends tonight, I switched over to PBS and caught a documentary produced in Philly called Things That Aren't There Anymore. It was nostalgia for places like Connie Mack Stadium, and Willow Grove Amusement Park, and The Steel Pier, and Horn & Hardart, and Gimbel's etc.

It got me thinking about things from my own time that aren't there anymore. I can remember The Steel Pier in Atlantic City, too. But what I miss from old Atlantic City are Taber's Toys, The Planter's Peanut Store, and The Abracadabra Magic Shop. But I'm not going to wax nostalgic for those places, which I only visited twice while growing up. There are plenty of places here in my hometown of York, PA that aren't there anymore.

Wiiliam's Field was two little league baseball diamonds, tucked off of Roosevelt Avenue on the extreme western edge of York City, behind the Sylvania plant and the S&H Green Stamp Outlet, and The Acme Grocery Store. Those buildings are still there, But Sylvania is now OSRAM, The S&H store is now a Goodwill Outlet, and the Acme is now a drycleaner and a Runkle's Notary, Tag and Title service. But that magic place behind the buildings has been taken over by the quarry, and now houses an ash recycling facility whose tremendous mound of ash threatens the air quality of our neighborhood, and has become a bone of contention in recent elections.

Jacob L. Devers Elementary school, nestled snugly among the homes of York's Fireside and Continental Homes neighborhoods, was a benchmark for educational standards in the post-Eisenhour era. Many of the city's best and brightest students spent their K-5, or 6 years there. It had a paved playground that covered half an acre, adjoining a grass field with kickball/softball diamond that spread over another two thirds of an acre. As a 2nd grader, I can remember feeling tired by the time we trekked all the way out to the ball field, and then they expected us to play, too?
Once, at a recess back in 1969, a game of Comahead (similar to Bull Rush) got out of hand, and I got pushed head first into the brickwall of the schoolbuilding. The gash in my head required stitches, and I left my DNA sample on the pavement of the playground, right there by the corner of the library. For years, well into the mid-1990s, I could visit that spot on the playground and still pick out two small spots in the pavement where the stones were still colored red from my blood. But now they've expanded the classroom facilities, and the old paved playground has now been covered with new building. My marker has been dug up, and a patch of grass is planted there. That big ballfield has been cut back toless than half its old grandeur, to allow room for safe playground structures. I really don't feel a tie to this school anymore.
Another thing that isn't there anymore is the old empty field where all us neighborhood kids played. It stood on the south side of route 30, right on the edge of town, between Lancer Lane and Fairlane Dr. Much of the dirt excavated from the foundations of the Fireside neighborhood had been dumped in mounds on this field, and by the time I was old enough to ride a bike, these mounds had grown solid with brush and wild grasses, and some really cool bike trails wound all around the field, up and down the multiple hillocks. Often the boxes from large appliances installed in the Booming area of homes ended up in this field, the stuff of which many battleforts and clubhouses were made. Take a run across Fairlane to the dumpster behind Stan Stackhouse carpets, and you could find remnants to keep the dirt off your butt, and if you were lucky, you might get a big long cardboard tube that could become robot arms, or the muzzle of a tank, or what have you. Even the older kids enjoyed that field, if later at night, when the bushes along the Highway offered seclusion for making out.
Stan Stackhouse is still there, but in the 1980s somebody first graded the field flat and planted corn in that field for a few seasons. Then in 1985 they built a couple stripmalls, A Bob's Big Boy, and a KFC there.
Bob's is now a LoneStar Steakhouse, and most of the storefronts of the strip malls are on their third generation of tenants already.
Until a month ago i wondered where the kids in this neighborhood today went to make out. We found out on a snowy Sunday Morning in Early December. We were awakened by the Fire Engines. Apparently one of the abandoned homes on our street had become a party house, where teenagers were breaking in and meeting to drink, do drugs, and make out. It seems the kids got cold, and built a fire in the old abandoned fireplace, and left it smoldering after the party ended. At least we got our street plowed early so that the Fire Engines could get in, but that's one more place that isn't there anymore.

My New Year's Resolution is to try to post to this blog every day....Damn!

I am Back. If the setting changes worked this blog is now titled "The Secret Life of Nobody Famous, Dammit!"

If not, It's still "What Goes on in My Mind". Why the change? Well, I'm more like Walter Mitty than Lou Reed, and I wanted to also bring the title of this space more in synch with my website.

I've been away for awhile, trying to limit my time on-line each day while i nursed my left eye back to health. The sore eye also kept me from drawing many new comics.
If I spent too long staring at a white piece of paper, or a monitor my eye would get red and inflamed, and go all out of focus on me.

Have you ever seen MonsterBoy? With that big inflamed eyeball? that was me.

I'm going to start spewing random thoughts here to get caught up since it's been almost two months since I posted here.

The Movie PAYCHECK was a fun ride, but the internal logic was all fucked-up, as it seems to always end up anytime Hollywood tries to adapt Philip K. Dick.
Let's face it. Hollywood can't adapt DICK.

..and what's with all the scar tissue on Uma Thurman's left cheek? The One on her face, people. I might have liked the movie better if they gave us that close a look at her other left cheek.

BIG FISH, on the other hand, was incredible. This is definitely the best Tim Burton film to date. A wonderful film, full of wondrous characters, that almost made me cry at the end. Unlike other Burton films with "fantastic" characters, the ones here aren't overbearing and forced like Nicholson's Joker, or DeVito's Penguin, or PeeWee Herman, or Beetlejuice. In Big Fish, the Giant, the Loup G'Arou, the Mermaid, the Siamese Twins, etc. all have a certain endearing charm, more like Edward Scissorhands. Watching Burton's earlier films, i'd often feel that Tim had been traumatized at the circus as a child. If that's the case, this is a more mature Tim Burton who has had therapy to get over those childhood fears. The result is a sublime film.

Allison Lohman is perfect as a younger Jessica Lange, too. I'd do her. Both of them.

I'm listening to a playlist I made on RealPlayer now of Driving tunes. My nephew just turned 16, and I wanted to give him an appropriate mixdisc, and i still have the tunes grouped on file, and I'm replaying them now. "Brand New Cadillac" by Wayne Hancock is playing now. mmmmm. also just heard "VooDoo Cadillac" by Southern Culture on the Skids. I kinda did a "cadillac" set. I have to start loading in all my Halloween and Monster songs. it would make compiling the next few "Howl-O-Ween" mixes alot easier.

Madness are doing "Driving in My Car" now. Okay. I put some silly stuff on the list, too.

I'm gonna log out now, I'd like to get some work done on my site tonite while i still have the eyes.

Oh, by the way, i apologize for not blogging or updating my cartoons for awhile.

I have an eye condition the doc calls UV-itis or something like that. all i know is about 14 years ago i had pinkeye in my left eye, and ever since then that eye gets tired before the right, and if I strain it too long, it gets inflamed. If I drive too long at night, or play playstation for too long a stretch, it'll get sore for a day or so. It really flares up maybe once every six years, and when it does that, it takes over a week to get back to normal, and only with lots of expensive prescription eyedrops.

I guess all that "research" into the Paris Hilton videotape was too much, on top of all the ebaying I've been doing. Hey, I've made close to $500 this month on Ebay, but for over a week now I've been walking around looking like Quasimodo with a concussion. One eye all bulging and pink, and dilated from the drops.

So for the last ten days or so, My eye would get too sore to spend much time on the computer, and the light reflecting off white paper on my drawing board hurt, too.
So I really haven't been able to draw for all that time. well today, the medicine seems to be clearing it up, so i should be getting back to schedule this weekend.
Right now, it's getting a little tired, though, so I'm going to shut down.

well, the pecan and pumpkin pies are baked.
I won't take credit or blame for them. I was supposed to be making them. Mom was just going to prep her crusts, and I'd do the fillings and baking. Then this evening I smelled stuff baking upstairs, and went to the kitchen to find Mom cooling two pecan pies, and getting ready to put the pumpkin in the oven.

She just can't stand somebody doing the work for her. And I was going to make cool little individual pecan tarts, and my extra special pumpkin pie. she just whipped up the recipe on the pumpkin can, and i have to be honest, it tastes storebought.

...anyway... i just finished cooking down the giblets to make stock for the stuffing and gravy. The Turkey is thawed, cleaned and prepped in its pan. This is the first year since I moved back to York that I'm doing the cooking, since My sister decided She's eating with her Boyfriend's family this year. It's just gonna be me and five senior citizens at our place.

I had to run out tonight to Wal-mart and get a meat thermometer. I can't believe my mom cooked for us for all those years and didn't have a meat Thermometer. Maybe all those bouts of diarhea growing up were really food poisoning.

All i need to do tomorrow is finish mixing the stuffing, stuff, oil, and lube the bird, and pop it in the oven before 9AM tomorrow.

then when the bird has about an hour to go, i mix up the baked corn, adjust the oven temp, and slide the pan in on the rack above the bird. I'll pop some Pilllsbury biscuits in the oven while i carve the turkey. I hope to be eating by 2:30ish.

My one aunt is bringing the orange-cranberry relish and the green-bean casserole. My other aunt is bringing the homemade pickles, and my Mom's friend Alma, who has no family, will probably bring enough sweet potatoes to feed sixty people, no matter how many times we tell her it's just the six of us.


My stuffing? cornbread base, with liver, sausage, onions, carrots, sage, roasted garlic, and diced dried plums.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Junior Pornographer's Roll Call
BenT? HERE!
Okay, because that thread about the Paris Hilton sextape over at SlushFactory has been generating over 100 hits an hour for the last few days, and because people clicking on the link in my signature when i made some sarcastic comments there has brought over 100 new people to my own site each day this weekend, and actually flooded my bandwidth last night... (lotta lonely guys looking for free porn action on a Saturday Night. Go Figure.)

So, "Because", I hustled over to my drawing board and knocked out my own comic interpretation of the awful tape. Hopefully it'll be hosted on slush as soon as BJacks nods approval, but until then, here it is at my beleaguered site.

One fine evening in a Hilton, In Paris

I'm a whore, too, I guess. Please visit my store and order a mini-comic while you are there.

A Cool Small Press Title to Check Out
I realize that most of the folks that probably read my blog are fellow small-press comics folk, and i might be preaching to the choir here, but just as I would appreciate anything that wouold help me expand my audience, I'll post this oin the odd chance that there are new readers out there in blogland.

I met Justin Madson at a couple small press shows, and really enjoyed his comic Happy Town. It's a moody, beautiful tale, and Justin has a sweet style that reminds me of a blend of James Kochalka and Linda Medley. He has a new issue out now, #8, and a really neat box set of the first seven issues. You can order all of his stuff easily thru PayPal at his website. Give it a look. Just Mad Books: The home of Happy Town Comics by Justin Madson

Recent Distractions
Here's what has been keeping me from drawing alot recently. If you need to limit your own productivity, and just distract yourself for some time, i recommend all of these.

DISCWORLD Novels by Terry Pratchett. I spent a good part of the weekend reading his latest, Monstrous Regiment. Great story. Introduces a new region of the disc, and a slew of new wacky characters. Wm DeWord, from Pratchett's earlier release, The Truth, makes a return appearance, and Commander Vimes and Sgt Angua of the Ankh-Moorpork Watch have small roles.

Mystic River. Saw this film this afternoon. Loved it. I see a lot of Oscar nods, particularly for Sean Penn, Laura Linney, and Clint Eastwood, for both score and direction. Maybe even Tim Robbins.

Thrift Store Record Shopping. Today I found a couple spoken word/advice records by Dr. Murray Banks. Funny stuff. Also records by Carl Reiner and mel Brooks, George Burns and Gracie Allen, a National Lampoon Radio Hour collection with Belushi and co., and a few other good finds.

New TV shows This year I'm watching more TV than the last couple seasons. I'm enjoying Arrested Development, Karen Sisco, Two-and-a-Half Men, Stan Hooper, and NOVA the most.

That, and I've been selling a buncha stuff on Ebay, and posting way too much to the message boards. I really need to turn off this computer and draw something.

okay, before i go, I'll give you another TOP TEN, because deep down, you're all comics geeks, and i know you drool over this stuff:

Top 10 Alternate Realities The Watcher Never Showed Us:
10) What If... Galactus was a Vegetarian?
9) What If... The GREEN Goblin, The SCARLET Witch, ThePURPLE Man, RED Raven, YELLOW Jacket, BLUE Beetle, CRIMSON Dynamo, and others didn't use a Color-Safe bleach?
8) What If ... Jerry "The Beaver" Mathers had been bitten by the Radioactive Spider?
7) What If... Dr. Strange did Birthday Parties?
6) What If... Kids could afford Comics again?
5) What If... Jefferson was America's 1st President? ...GEORGE Jefferson.
4) What If... Medusa had a Bad Hair Day?
3) What If... Team America drove for Domino's?
2) What If... Watchers weren't so Nosy?
and
1) What If... Nick Fury didn't have that Eyepatch, and could look at Steranko Backgrounds with Depth Perception?

Monday. The Silicon Chip inside my head gets switched to Overload.

Well, I'm hanging around, listening to the swinging sounds of WEIRDSVILLE's Exotica channel today. They've become one of my favorites recently, so much that my CDs are getting dusty. They also have a cool channel called "SWANK" and a few other types of webcast. You can check 'em out by going here:
Weirdsville! Web Radio: The Out Sound from Way In

I've some time to myself this evening because I managed to get out of Dinner at the local American Legion hall with Mom & Dad and my Aunt Helen. It used to be a big thing on Monday Night. That's when they have a slate of $3.95 specials, and we'd have eight to twelve people show up for a nice family get-together, but My one Aunt Died, a cousin moved away, My Brother and His family don't like the smoke in the place, My sister often works too late, and the one couple of my Dad's friends that came got sick of the bad food, while another of the couples has a member going senile, and his behavior has become unpredictable.

It 'd winnowed down to just me, My Folks, and Aunt Helen. And they've taken to eating on "Old People Time". In order to get a good close handicapped spot, my Mom insists on getting there before 4:30 PM. In order to have an appetite that early, I usually have to skip breakfast and lunch, which means I can get really cranky if there's something not right with my food. Even if the food is somehow edible, They'll mess it up by bringing out my main course before my soup has cooled, or before I get halfway through my salad. I get tired of telling the wait staff that perhaps they could consider WAITING just a little more. BUt no matter the service or the quality of the food, i can always count on Aunt Helen's chain-smoking to ruin my meal at some point. She usually lights up as soon as we sit down, and only takes a break while she's eating. the problem is that she usually eats less than half her meal, and gets a take home box for the rest. As soon as she's done eating, she'll light up and start chain-smoking again, regardless of whom at the table is still in the midst of a meal. The woman is 83, and sure, she's earned the right to chain smoke if she wants to, but i wish she'd learn manners and at least wait until I've cut my meat.

Well last week was the third in a row that I had to send my meal back for something or other. (Ziti overcooked to the point of Mush, hardly any pork in the Pork& Sauerkraut, steak undercooked, greasy and bloody, etc,) I decided I'm sick of it.
I told MOm & Dad that I'd gladly help them find another diner to go to, but I won't be joining them at the Legion anymore.

It's a shame I have to complain about this today, with tomorrow being Veteran's Day and all. Well, i salute all the guys and gals risking their necks for me overseas right now. And i thank the media for constantly keeping us up to date as one or two more soldiers are killed in Iraq, even though ten times that amount of Americans will die from slipping in the bathtub alone today. Some of them will even slip on bars of soap made by Foreigners, but we won't hear about this tragic killing of Americans on tonight's network news.

I'm gonna go now, get cleaned up and then in an hour or so go and eat with people closer to my demographic, and then come home and watch my auctions on ebay close, and get rich.

Ugh! I apologize to those of you who are wondering where my new cartoons are this week. I have been racking my brain to come up with a good palindrome about Noah and his son Ham, to continue Dr. Palindrome's look at Genesis. Right now I have two dictionaries and a Thesaurus open in front of me, as well as a Bible guide, a guide to names in Mythology, an on-line thesaurus, and an on-line dictionary.

I feel like I'm back in College on the night before a paper is due.

You might be familiar with the story where Noah got drunk, and fell asleep naked, and Ham saw him in this embarrassing state. When Noah Awakes, he puts a curse on the children of Ham, that Canaan and his descendants will be slaves to the descendants of Shem (aka the Semites).This is too good a part of the story of Noah not to try and include.

You'd think that "Canaan" would lend itself easily to a palindrome, But I have to put it near the center of the phrase ie: "....Canaan A C~..."
I also tried to build around the core "...SAW DAD WAS..." but no synonym i can find for "naked" fits around that. Unless there is some obscure language where "Mah" means "drunk and naked" , but if it was that easy, I'm sure somebody else would have already made up "Ham Saw Dad Was Mah." I even considered drawing Shem tattling to Joan (You know...Noah's Wife?) "Ma! He Dun Saw Dad Was Nude! Ham!" and make Shem into a Hillbilly. I may use that yet.

I could fall back and use "Mt Ararat M~" as my core and do a different aspect of Noah, but that would be taking the easy road. Besides, I'll need one for next week soon enough.

Does Jon Agee ever have days like this?

I don't even want to think about doing a f-ARTjoke right now.

As i read back over this entry, that Shem as a Hillbilly gag is starting to seem funny.

Every now and then I like to listen to some cheese. The best cheese on the internet can be heard at Luxuria. LuxuriaMusic.com :: Internet Radio: Latin Jazz, Groovy 60's Go-Go Soundtracks, Bollywood

They play all the stuff that I love to find when I go album hunting at the local thrift stores. The stuff that kids in my generation would find in the record racks of our swinging bachelor uncles.

Well, I finished up at the mill last night. I had a good time growling at folks for a little over a month. It was cathartic. On the one hand, I'm glad that it's over, but on the other hand, I kinda wish that I could do something like that year-round, and really get paid for it. Not that i didn't get any compensation.
Technically, the workers at the Haunted Mill are classified as "volunteers" since the large portion of the proceeds goes to charity. However, we did get a stipend the size of which depended on our attendance record, and how much we scared our victims. I must have been rather scary, as I got double what the average worker received. If you count the time I actually put into it, what I got amounts to less than 3 bucks an hour, but It's enough to keep my bills paid until the end of the month while I hit the bricks for another job.
I didn't really do it for the money, anyway. I went out there to help my mom's Friend Judy, and because it was something I could get off on. If it did really pay, I'd do it for the money, though.

I'm still waiting to hear on the Meteorology Positions with NOAA I put in for in September. The last time i checked, i was still in the running, but they hadn't made a selection. So in the meantime, I'm looking for anything local that i can make around $300 or more a week at. I put out a few retail applications this past week, and sent some resumes off for retail manager slots. Maybe I can pick up a Christmas season job until I hear from NOAA. Luckily, I was paying down most of my bills Until Papa John's canned me, and I only have about $400 a month in bills. Of course, I have the stigma of Living with Mom and Dad, and knowing that my penis atrophies daily from disuse.

But deadlines are looming this month to register tables for the 2004 comic convention season. SPACE may be the only show I get a table at this year. APE is always a money-loser for me, what with the travel expense to fly to California, so that is probably out, and MOCCA and SPX will probably sell out of tables before i can raise the fees this year. I'll still attend those even if i don't have a table though, if just to drool over the big thick art books I can't afford, and which my colleagues won't trade me for. (Although maybe if I drool on a copy, i can get a discount?)

Well, I have to go now, and decide which of my body parts I can sell on Ebay this week for spending money. How much does a partially atrophied penis fetch nowadays?

Okay. It's Saturday, and I thought I'd do a quick update before Penn State gets their asses handed to them by Ohio State.

Halloween is past, and today the candy is on sale. Christmas decorations are going up already in the stores. It's like the Halloween Spooks have really Taken over Christmas a la Tim Burton. I still have two more nights at the Haunted Mill, but we're in the denouement now. I scared over 1000 people last night. ...and then i put my mask on. HA! I kill me.
I was a little concerned about the safety of my house last night, as this would be the first Trick-or-Treat night in years when nobody would be home. But we escaped un-egged, with no vandalism. In the last five years or so, there have only been maybe four or five houses on my block that do anything for the trick-or-treaters, so I guess by being dark last night, we were just one more party-pooper on the block.

When i was a kid, there would be maybe one or two houses in our entire neighborhood that were dark, the vast majority of the houses had kids, and were participating. Even the childless homes had stuff for the trick-or-treaters. You could easily fill a pilllowcase with candy just in the four blocks around my house. But back then, we knew all the neighbors, too. Not just the folks on my block, but the folks on all the streets around us. Nowadays, I only really know the folks in the houses on either side of me, and only because they are also holdouts from the original families of the old neighborhood. I know the new folks in the houses across the street, but only because I see them in passing every few days. If i go a few houses down the block on either direction, it's either new families I haven't met, or folk that have lived there for several years, but i still haven't met them. It's not like i hide in my house. I go out often for walks around my neighborhood, and i say Hi to folks as i pass, but paople aren't as friendly nowadays. I wish more of the folk in the hood would make an effort to meet everybody. This has always been one of the few neighborhoods in town where people feel safe leaving their doors unlocked. My new neighbor across the street has left for work several times in the last few weeks and left her garage door up all day. Nobody tries to steal from her, because The neighbors keep an eye out for each other. Safety and Security start with knowing your neighbors.

Enough of this. I'm going to leave you with another Comic Book Top-Ten, and then go be a hermit for a day.

Top Ten Ways To Get Kicked Out of Avengers Mansion
10) Allow Uncle Ultron to crash on the couch.
9) Raid Janet Van Dyne's wardrobe. Ask if she has anything smaller.
8) Accept collect calls from KANG
7) Steal Towels
6) "Borrow" Cap's Shield to go saucer-sliding in Central Park
5) Keep asking,. "How come we can't get a nifty Satellite like The Justice League?"
4) Tell Thor that your Hammer is bigger.
3) Repeatedly drop your trousers and shout, "I'm MOON Knight!"
2) Hide Iron Man's Naval Jelly.
1) Ask Jarvis to pass the Jelly when you know that it's Polaner All-Fruit.

Well it's Halloween, and i feel like dancin', and i feel like shinin', and I fell like lettin' loose.

Why can't each day be like halloween?

I wanna fuck, i wanna fuck the dead.

I was working in the lab, late one night.

You were a vampire, and I was the walking dead.

I believe in halloween.

It ain't no sin to take off your skin, and dance around in your bones.

Love is kinda crazy with a spooky little girl like you.

I told the witch doctor i was in love with you.

Those fingers in my hair, that sly come-hither stare, that strips my conscience bare, It's witchcraft.

I put a spell on you, because you're mine.

Looks like we're in for nasty weather.

How would you like to be scared right out of your socks, whether or not you're wearing socks?

I was struck by lightning, walking down the street. I was stopped by something I spied in my sleep.

I saw the thing coming outa the sky, it had one big horn, and one big eye.

I swear they was spooks, spooks, spooks, spooks!.


No costume, no candy.

(this post brought to you by my favorite Halloween tunes. I dedicate my Halloween fun to the memory of Sheb Wooley this year. {no these aren't all from Sheb's songs})

I don't want to start off your week on a downer, But My Great Aunt Catherine passed away a few days ago. We weren't close, so i'm not devastated. I think the last time i saw her was at my Grandmother's (her sister's) funeral back in 1990. The weird thing is I was just wondering about her the week before, as i drove past her old house. This house is in a neighborhood that has become a run-down ghetto since the early 1980s, and her old block has had about five shooting deaths in the past year.

In the 1970s, I used to enjoy visiting there, where she lived with my great-Grandmother, but nowadays, (well a few months ago when i was working, that is) I hate having to go thru that neighborhood, let alone having to get out of my car, and say, deliver a Pizza.

I don't know how Aunt Catherine stayed there alone as long as she did after her Mother died. I think they put Catherine in a home in the early 1990s.

What stands more than just her passing is the milestone it creates. She was the last living member of My Grandparents' generation. I never knew any of my four grandfathers, they were all dead or in asylums before i was born. (for the complicated explanation of why i had four "grandmas", see the story in Unshaven CHI #4) So a link to family history is now closed to me. Those details about the side of the family that migrated west at the beginning of the 20th century, after a rift between brothers, and then lost touch with us, these detailss that neither my Dad or his brother Eddie are clear on, will now take painstaking research to recover, if that's at all possible.

...and my Parent's Generation is also dwindling. They're all past retirement, those that are still alive. Of my Mom's 11 siblings, only Sister Mary, and her brother Joe survive with her. Mom is 70, and has had Parkinson's Disease for over 12 years now, and I don't think she'll be around for five more years. My Dad's side of the family is longer lived. 3 of the 4 siblings are still around. Eddie is the oldest, and he's around 75. Susie must be about 62 now. Jimmy is the only dead one. He was the middle child, and the one that I'm most like, surprisingly.
Jimmy was a practical joker, and an avid hobbyist who always had a devilish grin on his face, and was always in the middle of assembling some new project. Jimmy got divorced from his wife when I was about five, and never dated again. He had a son, Scott, who left town with the ex-wife. Scott was a little less than a year older than me. I recently got in touch with Scott via e-mail, and it's a shame my limited contact with Jimmy was infinitely more than Scott ever had growing up. Jimmy moved in with my Grandmother after his divorce, and remained there until the mid-1980s, when one-day around his 50th Birthday, he went on walkabout. He just disappeared. At first, we thought it was just another Hunting Trip. A couple weeks after he left, the family got a call from State Troopers near Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Jimmy's body had been found beside the Highway. Apparently he'd been walking, hitch-hiking, and had suffered a heart Attack. Maybe he knew it was his time to die.
I remember his funeral. The morticians had put that devilish grin on his face. I kept expecting Jimmy to pop up, and shout "I Gotcha!" maybe I wanted that to happen. I know I want to have my corpse animated like that at my funeral. I also want to videotape my own Eulogy.

Dad will soon be 68, and his recent hernia operation was the first time he'd been a patient in 35 years. But still, as I watched him in the recovery room, I noticed that he'd become old, and the skin near his IV needle was papery and wrinkled. I think caring for mom is really starting to age him. I'm just noticing that People in my Family are getting old. I'm on the young end of my genration, but i have cousins and even siblings that are starting to have Heart problems, cancers, Adult-Onset Diabetes, etc. It's why I've taken care to adjust my diet (Christian, That Double Cheesburger and Fries that had you worried the other day? That was the one Cheeseburger i allow myself per week), slim down, and get regular exercise. I think I'm much healthier at 40 than I was at 30. I might not be as sane, or as gainfully employed, but such are the side effects of a real Genius that resists conformity.


So, Rambling aside, People get Old. People Die. I'm a Healthy, but Insane, Genius. I'm like Jimmy. Expect me to go on walkabout in about ten more years. That will be just about after I finally get aroound to publishing my "One Last Ride on The Ghost Truck" graphic Novel, hich has been written now for about fifteen years, and has sat by my drawing board, with two pages finished, for about five years now.

Now, i have to get dressed, and go put in some Job Applications before i go to work at the Haunted House tonight. Pain in the ass. This week the Haunted Mill is open every night, no break. Now is when it starts to feel like work.

Monday, monday, monday. It's the start of My Weekend. It's Haunted MIller Time! (sorry for the bad pun. I've gotten in the habit of shouting that in my "Monster Voice" each evening as the last victims exit the Haunted Mill.)

The Boards at Slush are kinda dead. You can really tell that Chris R. is again gainfully employed as of Today.

I watched BASEketball again this morning. When this film came out, I was still on the comp list for MOJO records because of reviews I was writing for SKA-toons.
Ah, those were heady times, when i felt important because guys in Reel Big Fish and Cherry Poppin' Daddies knew my name. Now of course, I'm Nobody Famous, Dammit!

So anyway, i was watching this movie again, because it really does have as many funny, silly moments as Airplane!, and I noticed the song "Warts on my Dick".
I thought , that's a cool song, i ought to put it on my next mixtape. So i dug out my comp disc of the soundtrack, and that song isn't on it! Boogers! I guess i can still dub it off the VHS, but then I'll have all the SFX from the scene, too. That bites. way to start the day.

On a brighter note, I checked out Seattle Comics Great David Lasky's neat website this morning. He's got some strips up there i hadn't seen before, including several that ran in The Pulse. I hope he soon ads a shopping cart system to buy his cool mini-comics, so that he doesn't have to rely on ebay.

I've been using ebay to sell my minis and other stuff recently, too, in fact this past week was pretty good for a change. I guess i had the right "other stuff" up. I mean , I only sold a few of my minis. (I guess I have to get showered so I can get the weekend's purchases out to the Post Office this Afternoon. ) I have set up a store front at my "I'm Nobody Famous, Dammit!" website, thru which you can easily acquire all the minis I have in print. With Paypal, you can easily pay with a credit card, or transfer funds from a checking account safely. If you don't have a PayPal account, sign up is easy and free at the checkout. Or you could simply e-mail me with a list of books you want, and i can arrange for you to mail payment.
here's my store link: http://www.geocities.com/bent4toons/store.html

Seeing Dave Lasky's site makes me really want to re-design my site. Maybe that's how I'll spend my days off.

If you've always been suspicious of the misleading charms of Game Show Hosts, then trip on over to Something Awful - The Internet Makes You Stupid ad check out the log for today (Oct 17). The "Truth" about Wink Martindale. It will astound you.

This is the most amazing news I've read since i learned the truth about Chuck Woolery. How he took his name from the place where he used to do such horrible things to sheep as they were sheared.

I thought I'd start using this blog as a place to jot down story ideas as I get them. Then maybe i won't forget them, and also maybe my couple or so readers can provide helpful feedback before I commit the idea to Bristol Board.

------------------------------the hurricane book idea-----------------------
I was thinking the other day about a story, where a guy in a bar watches as a girl approaches, flirts and eventually rejects him, leaving him emotionally devastated and getting "trashed" at the bar. The narrative would be like an interior monologue describing the action in Hurricane metaphor. "I feel a swell as she approaches" "These bands should forewarn me" "I'm caught in her eye, all seems unnaturally calm" etc.
Maybe the band could have a Goth following, and I could talk about "The Gathering Gloom".
My design for the cover would resemble a set of Hurricane flags, those red and black rectangles. Maybe I could make the book as tall as two flags, and cut the first half of the book horizontally, so that the two flags open independently of one another, and there's a "top story" and a "bottom story" in the first half, then the second half could be a third story that uses the whole height of the page.
i have an interesting auto-bio bar-crawl tale involving the drink "hurricane" i could use, too.
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Title Idea: "Skeletons In The Closet" This could be about anorexic fashion models, or it could be about Gay Skeletons. I wonder which would work better.

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I want to do a NASCAR mini-comic. it would be page after page of Calvin pissing on characters from other people's mini-comics.

Here's a site where you can order Custom Calvin Window Stickers.


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"Animal Magnetism" is my working title for this funny-animal project idea i have. It would be a comic strip in the vein of those refrigerator magnet poetry kits.

each individual panel and word balloon would be attached to a magnet, so that the reader can rearrange them to make up dozens of posible stories. I'd have to take care to design key panels whose lines could represent several different things. Word balloons would be designed to have multiple meanings depending on the situation.
"MMM. I Like Pie" or "Oh no! I'm Late!" could be taken many different ways, for example.

My ultimate goal for the project would be to sell starter kits, and then every six months or so produce a booster pack of new panels and balloons.

-------------------------------------------------------------------
I want to do a story about a Sock that's lost its mate in the dryer. The sock is lonely, and despondent, and considering unraveling itself, until a child finds it in the gutter, takes it home, washes it (we can explore the sock's fear of the dryer here), and hangs it by her fireplace to dry. This is when we learn that it's Christmas Eve, and Santa fills the sock with goodies. The sock is now happy because he has a reason to go on living.

------------------------------------------------------------

"Frustrated Genius Syndrome for Dummies"
I want to do a story about how I grew up with everybody marveling at how smart i was, and how far I'd go in life, yet at 40, I can't even keep a job as a pizza-boy. I would explain my anger at the stupidity of the world around me, how hard it is to live when you constantly feel intellectually superior to others you are stuck amidst. How I would be an Evil Genius if I could just get a handle on the whole "Evil" thing. How i blame my parents, who didn't manage to make any religion stick in me, but who did teach me right from wrong. Hence I'm just a frustrated, smart nice guy who can't stand being a nice guy. I want to be mean, and cool.

-----------------------------------------

Then one of these days I'm going to draw up my bio-piece about Screamin' Jay Hawkins that I meant to do for the Expo Anthology a couple years ago. I even collected about forty pages of notes about his interesting life. But then i couldn't think of a way to fit all the info into a good four to eight-page story in time for their deadline.
There's a lot of cool info about Jay at Screamin' Jay Hawkins (Ugu-Ugu!)
There used to be a site called Jayskids.com which had info about the 57 known children, both legitimate, and illegitimate, of the man. (He's rumored to have more than 80 kids.) but my link to that site doesn't work anymore.

Chris R., from NYC, is bugging me to update this thing. I wish he'd just get a dayjob, so I didn't have to entertain him all day. Jeez! I gave him a copy of my Howl-O-Ween tape, you'd think that would give him something else to do for at least 90 minutes of the day.
While I've been gone, I've been working to set up a mini-comics store with a shopping cart system. I got that done today, here's the link; A List of Current Comics by BenT
Please go there often, and with PayPal you can order my comics and pay with a credit card or have the funds directly transferred safely from a Bank Account. If you're not a Paypal member, you can sign up for free during the checkout process.


Another thing I've been doing with my time is "working" (actually it's volunteer work) at The Haunted Mill about 11 miles to the SW of York, in the little village of Menges Mills, PA. The Mill is an authentic 263-year-old building full of fright. I'm haunting the basement, in a sort of Cannibal/Shrunken Head get-up. So far I've made 5 people pee their pants, and about half of the people jump back a few feet when i get them.

Since I've been away, I'll give you another Top 10 list. Here are the:

Top Ten Pre-War Rumors that The Kree spread to build resentment toward the Skrulls
10) Jerry Lewis is a Skrull.
9) Skrull Real Estate agents are making the best buildings on Kree-Lar go "Condo".
8) Those Costumed Characters at Disney World? --all Skrulls.
7) Skrull cows make milk that turns into Tofu cheese.
6) Joey Buttafuoco? Larry King? J-Lo? ---Skrulls.
5) The Browns moved to Baltimore so that Skrulls could hide ships in empty stadium.
4) Skrulls are never denied service at Denny's.
3) Skrulls invented Reality Television.
2) Bill Jemas, Jim Shooter, Rob Liefeld, Ron Perlman? Skrull, Skrull, Idiot, Skrull.
1) Blizzard of 2003 was really an invasion force of billions of Tiny White Skrulls!


Okay I'm out of here for now!

HI, I haven't posted in a while because of getting ready for SPX. well, I'm back, and here are my photos: Pics From SPX 2003, The Small Press Expo.

I have a suitcase of books to read, and some drawings due for my site update, so when I'm done reading stuff I'll post my comments here.

well, I looked all around and it's gonna be hard to lay in a supply of 110 minute cassettes big enough to dub a copy of my Halloween mixtape for everybody.

I'm examining the playlist to decide where I can cut ten minutes from each side, in order to fit it onto the standard 90 min cassette that everybody still uses.

I guess since folks all got into MP3 and CD burners, the 110-minute cassette, which was designed to better fit most music CDs on a side, is becoming obsolete. Damn. I liked being able to squeeze an extra few songs per side in.
well I'll look at my play list and try to cull it again. (I've already culled down from about 200 candidate songs to get the 42 or so that made it onto the tape, I have lots of stuff that will have to hope it makes it next year already.)

Here's a website that will help you in your research if you want to get into doing your own Halloween tapes. Nightmare City Halloween is an annual radio broadcast, and is celebrating it's 25th year in 2003. At their site they have info on how to get this Year's show over the web, if you're near your computer on Halloween Night. You can also see playlists from previous shows.

Speaking of Halloween Mixtapes, as there are only 70 chopping days left, i have compiled this year's Howl-O-Ween mixtape. here's my play list:

Howl-O-Ween 2003; Curse of the BentWolf
side 1 "Moonlight Becomes You"
Intro from The Count
Danny Hutton.................................................... Monster Shindig
Screaming Lord Sutch.................................. All Black & Hairy
Nekromantix................................................... Trick or Treat
Nu-Trends......................................................... Spooksville
Louis Armstrong ............................................... Spooks
Dan Russo and His Oriole Orchestra.............. ‘Taint No Sin (to Take Off Your Skin and Dance Around in Your Bones)
Bobby “Boris” Pickett...................... The Werewolf Watusi
Jon Spencer Blues Explosion........................... She Said
Gary Warren.................................................. Werewolf
The Woggles............................................... Dracula’s Daughter
Round Robin................................................ I’m The Wolf Man
Todd Rundgren............................................ Wolfman Jack
GasHuffer................................................. Where Wolfmen Lurk
Children of The Night................................. Monster Time
L7......................................................................... Monster
Danny Hutton............................................... The Monster Jerk
The Brickbats............................................ Do The Dead Girl
The Boss Martians................................. Have You Ever Seen...?
Phantom Creeps.......................................... Intro/Dead Sled
The Superfine Dandelion............................. Janie’s Tomb


Side 2 "Fangs for the Memories"
Sheldon Allman........................... Children’s Day at the Morgue
4 Flops.................................................. Trick or Treat
The Martini Bros.......................... Nightmare (Party On Wheels)
Freddy Fortune & the Four-Gone Conclusions.. Dracula’s Deuce
Zane Brothers............................................. Dracula
The Brickbats.............................................. Dr. Acula
The Groovie Ghoulies....................... (She’s My) Vampire Girl
Adam Ant........................................................ Vampires
Children of The Night....................... Dracula’s Undying Love
Dicky Doo & The Don’ts........................ Flip Top Box
The Neanderthals...................................... I Go Ape
Tarantula Ghoul & The Gravediggers............ King Kong
Bert Convy...................................................... Gorilla
Roy Clark................................................... Spooky Movies
Cris Kevin.................................................. Haunted House
Big Bee Kornegay....................... At the House of Frankenstein
Hollywood Flames.............................. Frankenstein’s Den
Bill Cosby, briefly, on Frankenstein Movies
Eddie Thomas.......................................... Frankenstein Rock
Swinging Phillies.............................. Frankenstein’s Party
Eddie Angel & The Omega Men.. Frankie’s Groovy Monster Boots
Buck Owens................................... (It’s A) Monster’s Holiday
Deadbolt..................................................... Scare Me


If you'd like me to dub a copy of this for you, just send a blank 110-minute cassette and a SASE to:
Ben T. Steckler, POB 7273, York, PA, 17404

if you can't find 110-minute cassettes, send me a good 90-minute tape to replace the 110 from my own stash that I'll have to use. And if you have your own monster-mix that you think I'll like, we can trade.

if you want your copy in time for Halloween, get a blank out to me by the first week of October. my master gets retired from dubbing on October 15th.

Oh Boy! Folks who have been the recipient of one of my Halloween tapes can probably guess that I have a soft spot for the Classic monster movies, especially when they are used as kitschy educational or promotional tools. here's a great site where the Universal Studios fearsome folks help to teacjh kids about science. Miami Museum of Science - The Atoms Family

Here's a quote from "Frankenstein's Electrical laboratory" that take's on a strange meaning when pulled out of context:

"What is young Frankenstein doing wrong? If you guessed "pulling his toy by the power cord" you're right!

We now have a new theater in York which is bringing in more independent films. I'm anxiously hoping that I don't have to wait too long to see American Splendor, the movie version of Harvey Pekar's great comics. It stars two of the greatest lesser-known talents, Paul Giamatti and Hope Davis.

Until the movie comes out, I'll enjoy reading Harvey Pekar’s Official Blog

Today I must Say a big Happy Birthday to my Sister Tamara. Because I'm her little Brother and It's my job to torment her, i will say Nyahh, Nyaah! You're 43! I won't say anymore, because she can probably still beat me up.

While I've been away, I've had some good news, Comics-wise. Positive Reviews have been coming in for Get BenT! #10 and my FLAGWAIVER comic.
In the last week or so, I've had Great reviews in Xerography Debt, TooMuchCoffeeMan, and Razorcake for Get BenT! #10

Razorcake is a great Punk magazine, written for the mature, intelligent punk. They also gave the good nod to FLAGWAIVER

I feel better about my comics now. I have the push i needed to get my stuff together for the next show.

Hello, It's me. woe, woe, woe, and all that Todd Rundgren stuff.
If you're reading this you're probably one of those who give a damn about comic books. Good. If you're not, I'm sorry to paint you with the broad geekbrush. Please bear with me for a moment while I tell everybody about Jeff Mason's On-line Comics Community over at Delphi Forums. It's the Alternative Comics forum, but discussion there goes on about all sorts of comics and other stuff, even kitties This link will even take you to a thread where comics guys talk about their blog. Click there if you don't think you'll get trapped in a loop of infinte regression. Alternative Comics #514.1

It's Saturday, and I'm at the drawing Board, furiously trying to finish my pages for the next issue of SHIOT CROCK. It's an APA so you have to contribute to it to see a copy, but don't fear, I've designed my four pages to be easily adapted into a twelve page mini-comic, which I should have available at the Small Press Expo this year. I should also have the next f-ARTjoke compilation.

Cool News! I've been invited to be a guest at ITHACON this year. If I'm Not Careful, I might become Somebody Famous! That Link hasn't been updated to show anything more than the date and time of the next show. I'll let you know when I see something new.

To show that I'm in a better mood Than last time, Here's another Top Ten list:

Top Ten Things Howard The Duck is Doing Now
10) Taking Tambourine Lessons from Davey Jones
9) Script Consultant for Pauley Shore Films
8) Hangs out in the park whenever He's low on croutons.
7) For Kicks, puts on a Sailor Suit and walks around Disneyland goosing the single Moms.
6) Sits in with the Band at Chuck E. Cheese
5) Hangs out on the Strip, asking Hookers if they want to "get Down"
4) Fishes barbarians out of his Peanut Butter jar.
3) Stalks Members of KISS, trying to recapture past glory.
2) Waiting for a Callback from "The Mighty Ducks"
1) Watches Caroline in the City and says, "Lea Thompson? I Did Her!"

It's August and I am still in search of a purpose. My life is really nothing but a quest for distraction.
I sometimes envy people who are capable of having religious faith. I'm sure it brings meaning to life.
Sometimes I think the only emotion I'm capable of is anger, and that is usually more just out of frustration.
I haven't felt the pure passion of righteuous anger in a long time. What I get is more of a peevishness at the stupidity of my fellow man.

I have times when i feel happy, but it's more of just a momentary delight, not a true happiness. I can't get no satisfaction.
Would winning the lottery or landing a good-paying job make me happy? Well, either way, I might clear away debts and worries, and either have money to buy more distraction or less time to fill with distraction.

I used to be passionate about comics. I was the hard-core geek, spending twenty to thirty dollars every week, at a time when that would buy you more than just eight to ten comics. I looked forward to New Comic arrival day, and that was the day each week it was easiest to get out of bed.

The easiest way to end your passion for comics is to try and run a comic shop. I'm even starting to lose my passion for creating my own comics. I hope that this is just because I'm in the Doldrum weeks before I really have to get my nose to the grindstone for the next Big Show.

I need to find a passion.