Like a blood red wolf climbing out of my soul, ears down and hungry. We forgot who we are in the social structure of media. Our nails have been cut and filed but our hearts are still difficult to sooth. The savage beast is in lock down. In the basement of all basements, lifting weights and eating protein powder in the darkest corners of our minds. Waiting, growing stronger and unstoppable. The beast wants love just like you and me. But of course, it is been too long and too distorted. Like a red ball bouncing higher and higher until it becomes the nose of a clown who keeps peculiar things buried under its house. The clown wants love too and it cries as it eats it’s own heart screaming in the torn flesh of confusion.
Gingerbread Dead
December 10, 2016 at 12:38 pm (evil, food, short story, sugar addiction)
If I lived in a gingerbread house, I would be overweight.
If I had a gingerbread girlfriend, I would need a new one every day. Great mobs would gather around my half-eaten gingerbread house and chase me through the streets, calling me Hannibal the Gingerbread Cannibal. But no one would understand: I just can’t help myself.
Is that icing on your face… ?
believe it or not
November 25, 2016 at 5:04 pm (evil, Justice, karma, short story)
I really couldn’t believe it. On a tour of Europe in 2007, there had been whispers that our opening band (from Texas) were Nazis. As I watched them, it became clear that it was possible. I was confused. The band I was playing guitar for had a Jewish drummer born in Iran, a Mexican-Irish bass player and an American Indian singer who occasionally wore a dress on stage. It made me uncomfortable: like we or I was saying it was okay.
I talked to the leader of our band, who also seemed upset, but said and felt that there was nothing he could do since the promoter put the tour together without any consent from our camp.
There is a giant anti-Nazi thing in Germany. Especially in the punk rock scene. The second or third show into the gig, someone was selling these pins. I had never seen something like this before. I mean, I grew up in a very self-segregated community, but Nazis were something I just read about in school or saw on TV. I bought the pin and wore it on my jacket for the entire tour and the next two.
Whenever I returned to America, I would take it off and put it in a drawer thinking it had no place here. But sadly, this month I have considered breaking it back out. I still can’t believe it.
Musical Chairs
July 30, 2015 at 11:19 am (evil, feet, food, short story, Tattoo)
Tags: restaurants, short story, strange weather los angeles
We sat on the curb in the parking lot outside the store drinking Mexican cola. It was raining a little but we didn’t mind. LA was suddenly very tropical and we had time to kill. We talked about girls tattooing their legs. I thought it was akin to spray painting a flower. Fashion is so strange.
My friend talked about that waitress from the restaurant we had just eaten at. There was a darkness about her from the moment we interacted, but I chalked it up to something my witch friend had told me: that evil would be in the air until the 26th of the month.
The waitress sat us in the middle of the noodle restaurant. I never like that. It’s a Malcolm X thing. But I decided not to say anything. Before we ordered, a big drop of water fell on me from the air conditioner vent above. I jumped like a man being shocked.
The waitress let us move to the corner where there was a stack of about 10 unused chairs next to our table and a group of punk rockers eating before they went to a show across the street. They were wearing the same punk clothes and band t-shirts that the punks were wearing 20 years ago. Nothing had changed except now their uniform was bought at a corporate punk rock clothing store at the mall.
I was wallowing in sadness over this thought when the waitress came over and asked if she could have the spare chair that was sitting at our table. My friend had to remove his backpack and I had to grab my sunglasses and keys so she could give this chair to people that had just walked in. My friend and I looked at the stack of 10 unused chairs next to us and laughed until the waitress came over and said, “Is everything okay?”
When I got home, I decided to go back out and walk in the rain. I was wearing a tank top and cut-off army pants from Desert Storm. It was so still and quiet in my neighborhood. So few people were out. The rain seemed to be calming the entire world.
As usual, I ran into someone I knew. They said hello and then asked, “What’s with the flip-flops?” I said, “LA is turning tropical.” They said, “No really….” I hesitated. “Ok… they are my girlfriend’s. I didn’t expect to run into you.”
Written by Daniel Overberger
Edited by Nancy Winebarger
Evil or divine?
July 17, 2015 at 7:27 pm (divine, evil, hero, media, short story)
Tags: divine, evil, hero, media, serpent worship, short story, snake
I saw this video on Facebook: a guy walks up to a snake that is wrapped around what he described as a baby hawk. He decides that he is going to free the hawk… and does. The hawk flies away, the snake—looking pissed and aggressive (striking)—slithers off, and the guy looks at the camera like a hero.
I shut off my laptop and sat down to meditate, which I had been putting off all morning. (Occasionally, I am a great procrastinator.) When I sit down to meditate, there’s a problem: I can’t stop thinking about that video. There just seemed like there was something wrong about it. I started to hear a backstory in my head… the story that happened before the guy showed up with his camera and his heroic intervention:
It’s the desert. No trees. No fence posts. The snake is crossing a dirt road as the hawk—who can be on the earth and in the sky—sees the snake and thinks, “I am famished.” The hawk is much bigger than the snake and figures, “This is going to be such an easy score,” as he swoops down and grabs the snake.
The snake, in some panic-induced last gasp at survival, swings his head and body up and around the hawk and by some miracle, turns the tables. The snake is not that big. I’ve seen snakes eat and know that they can open their mouths very wide, but this doesn’t seem possible here. The snake can’t believe his fortune and spends all his energy squeezing the hawk in an effort to kill it so it will not eat him.
Whether or not the snake would have attempted to eat this oversized meal, I do not know. But he must kill the hawk now so he can go on living.
That’s when our hero walks in, and with no backstory, decides the “young hawk,” as he calls it—pretty feathers, endangered species—is the underdog in this scenario. He wants to save it from the evil snake.
I couldn’t help but think of how many stories I had heard or seen in the media in the past where, in just a few-seconds clip, a commentator was deciding for me who the “hero” was.
…
Written by Daniel Overberger
Edited by Nancy Winebarger
Leaving Stress Behind 