Sketching Your Demon

Haggarfuse – A Charamorg

As an author and self-publisher, I do it all, including all technology duties.  Recently, one of my reader’s suggested I provide images of my creations.  This would help them visualize the characters and demons.  I truly love to leave such issues to the imagination of the reader, but if a simple sketch can help excite these readers and future readers, then I will take the time.

Let me say that my day job is being an accountant.  Going back as far as I can remember, I have had an active imagination.  I am possibly ADD. Back in my youth, I’d draw monsters on paper and cut them out to play with.  We didn’t have video games – 3,000 TV channels, or other devices of modern technology we now take for granted or feel entitled to.  We read.  We went to see the movies when we could save enough money for the ticket, a soft drink, and one large salty pickle.  Our visual effects of the day now seem lame, but back then they sparked the imagination with a fury. I still vividly recall the monsters of my youth: The Creature of the Black Lagoon, Valley of the Gwangi, Godzilla, King Kong, Frankenstein, Dracula, Alien and most of all – The Exorcist. Then I’d daydream on those nights that sleep evaded me.  I created my own worlds and heroes, and the demons and monsters those heroes fought.  I never wanted to be an accountant, I actually wanted to be an architectural engineer, designing homes and structures.  I wanted to be a creator with this imagination. But with all things, reality crashes in and one must find a method of support.  Accounting has been good for me in this respect.

Above is a rough sketch of one of my creations, demented as it might be.  What you are seeing is Haggarfuse, a Charamorg, an ethereal steward of the damned.  One might consider him to be the devil, the one who rebelled against his maker, who brought havoc upon worlds, an immortal envious of the creator’s perceived preference to mortals .  Here in his damned state he is meant to be fearful so that all the living would easily recognize evil by sight.

It has been thirty years since I took sketching seriously.  This was the result of a couple of hours of effort.  Time, at the age of 54, is very precious to me.  I’ve worked more hours in the last 33 years than I can recall, too many nights and weekends lost,  devoted to complying with the laws of the land dictated by those in power.  I don’t know how many years I have left in this physical realm, but with what I have left, I want to return to that wonderment of my youth.  I want to create.  Not only a epic story of mythological proportion, but to bring the visions of my mind before those that still find wonderment in this world and beyond.

If you are like me in this regards, I invite you to join me on this journey.

“Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.”

Edgar Allan Poe

Female Code – August 2013 Edition (Widow Maker)

Football Season – Again???

Okay men, sing with me now:

“It’s the most wonderful time of the year!
Where a quarterback slaps the center on the rear.
And everyone telling you, Be of good cheer!
of course, our bellies full of nachos and beer!
When friends come to call,
and your wife leaves for the mall…

It’s the most wonderful time, it’s the most wonderful time of the… year!!!!!”

It is time ladies for your genes to recognize the moment of truth is here, all your primping and pruning to fit into those bikinis is at an end. The heat of summer gives way to the manly endeavor of football. Football will now occupy a man’s actual brain.  Our genetics dictate we watch football so that we never lose what it means to be a warrior.  You know, that strong guy you married to protect you against mice and spiders.  Yes, that’s us – men!

Sadly, this will confuse your genetics and you will resort to the most bizarre attempts to gain our attention.  Here is one example:

You see what I mean?  Lingerie, Pads, Helmets, Vicious Cat Fighting, Tight Ends, and Football.  How desperate can you get?

Don’t fall for it men. There are times when you have to get your Rhett Butler game on and resist everything a woman throws at you.

“Frankly my dear I don’t give a Hooter’s hot wings sample platter, I’m still watching football all weekend.”

I understand ladies that the season can make you feel like a widow.  You head off to the mall in a rage of revenge, racking up the credit card just to get a little attention.  When you explain what you have done, our only reply is,

“That’s nice honey!  Oh, go man, go, go, go – touchdown! Woo hoo!  Did you see that babe?”

Some men, even fantasize about football.  The first fantasy league was called the GOPPPL (Greater Oakland Professional Pigskin Prognosticators League).  I kid you not!  Google, Bing or Yahoodle it!  We are GOPPLing and GOBBLing during the nex four months. We can’t get enough of it.  Football is an obsession and addiction, only curable by genetic interference. No matter how you try to control us, it would take a genetics engineering Phd to change us and a Prometheus alien to hold us down.

So you think we men are crazy don’t you? Well here’s another example for women to try to understand the emotions we men have during football season:

“Justin’s to the twenty, the fifteen, the ten, the five – touchdown! OMG, OMG, OMG what a game!

Now do you understand us?

We real men rely on women’s obsession and addiction to man candy mutants, and books on oversexed vampires and zombies  to cover our backs for the next four months of your widowship (sic). We will be resurrected and arrive from our hibernation in the new year of 2014, just in time for basketball.

You love us, you want to kill us, it’s a conundrum.  But, you can’t help it – it’s in your genes.

Miley’s Twerking and Jerking

You Homo Sapiens – there you go again.

That’s it – I am officially an OLD FART.

I haven’t watched MTV since “Video Killed the Radio Star.”  This morning I read about Miley Cyrus’ doing a rather non-lady like routine at a “VMA” awards.  It was so raunchy they caught Will Smith and family aghast.  People are talking about it left and right.  Some say she is just all grown up and having fun, while others call her names I will  not repeat.

Honestly, if my daughter was still a child, I would have screamed “I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore.”  Then I’d jerk that twerking television set and heave it out the window.  Here’s a test, if this is such a grown up and acceptable behavior, have your six-year old do the routine in front of friends and neighbors.  Now you would say that I am being unreasonable, but when our children watch this and see the reaction of adults applauding to it, what message are we sending, “Look sweetie, grown people acting like chimpanzees with pasties!”  Except when they go to the zoo they don’t see the chimpanzees running around in bras, thongs and bustiers.

One time my young daughter tried to get away with buying g-string underwear.  When I found them, I put one on (over my jeans) and danced for her.  I seriously thought the image would gross her out so much she would never consider such a thing again.  What is it with the dental floss?  Wait… I really, really do not want to know.

Now what would really be fun to watch is a female group composed of Madonna, Gaga, Spears and Cyrus – aka, “The G-string Quartet.”  Throw in a few monkey’s on the stage, a few cougars, a rhinocyrus and a slab of raw meat, then you are all set for a night of wholesome family entertainment.

Yet, sadly, we demand more. That’s a good thing, for without human absurdity satire writers would be unemployed and forced to humiliate ourselves with an all male dancing band “GSync.”  Imagine it if you can.  Excuse me while I get sick.

Spiritual vs. Christian (Preconception)

We live in an era of heightened preconception: An opinion or conception formed in advance of adequate knowledge or experience.  In other words, we are as prejudiced as ever.

No matter how hard I try to explain most do not understand the difference between a spiritually based story and one based on Christianity.  I’ll do my best to explain.  My series of stories are a mythology, nothing more and nothing less.  It is an exploration into creation, our roles in this creation as mortals and our dealing with the consequences of immortal influence into our lives.

At the center of my trilogy is the main protagonist and hero, Arimar – The Chosen One of Allivar.  Some people love to argue that the title alone refers to Jesus.  I cannot disagree anymore.  Moses was chosen and he certainly was not Jesus.  If I had named the series Cassandra – the Chosen One of Apollo, would you be so quick to prejudge? How about Anakin Skywalker – The Chosen One?  That’s right! You love Star Wars, but behind all the high tech graphics is a story of good and evil, and prophecy.  This is also my story, set more in a Tolkien medieval fantasy theme.

Why my mythology is NOT a Christian story?

Christ was God incarnate sent to earth to take on the sins of mortals.  He died and carried our sins with him to demonstrate his love for us. Almost every fictional Christian story revolves around bringing us back to this concept.

Arimar is not God incarnate. He is as human as you and I.  In book nineteen, yet to be written, I will reveal why he was the chosen one by the creator – the Unseen.  This is as simple as I can explain it.  Arimar converses with his creator, but he is not sent to save the world of the living, but to deliver a message.  He is only a messenger.

Why my mythology is a spiritual story?

I believe in a creator, good and evil, and in an afterlife.  This means I believe in both a physical and metaphysical life.  I believe we have a purpose to play in life and thereafter.  What is that purpose?  The end of the third book of the trilogy gives you an idea of this author’s concept of that purpose.  If anything, it is meant to challenge our minds.  At the center of my story is the concept of free will.  Will we, the mortals, choose to do the right thing when the end of times is at stake? Do we really love this paradise created for us?

I created the Vanavaran race, what we might call the race of Africans, to demonstrate evil’s use of preconception.  Why do people fear black people?  What is our source of preconception?  It is innate or taught?  Where was its origin?  In my story evil immortals convince the other living races that they are demons amongst us from the abyss of darkness, willing to take souls to keep them mortal.  It is obviously a lie, yet a valid point – we are all inclined in one way or another to have preconceptions.  We do this every day if you are honest with yourself – we take sides on political, religious, racial and other societal or moral issues.  We rarely engage in civil debate, because we have convinced ourselves the opposing viewpoint is already flawed.  Life is full of propaganda, yet we are given free will to seek the truth. All that is necessary is for good people to have an open mind, free of preconception, and inclined towards action to making a better world.

Here is one of my favorite quotes of all time:

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

This is often attributed to Irishman Edmund Burke, who was a statesman, author, orator, political theorist and philosopher . Although it has not been found in his speeches, writings, or letters (and is thus apocryphal), in 1770 he wrote in Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents that “when bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.” (Source: Wikipedia)

Burke was not referring to the good and evil in the spiritual world, but the corruption of government, specifically the House of Commons.

Tolkien said it best in the Fellowship of the Ring, “Nine rings were gifted (given and freely accepted) to the race of men, who above all else seek power.” Power being the ability to dominate all life and control its outcome (to be one’s own God.)  Saruman preconceived that he too could share power with Sauron.  All to his own demise.

We are quick to believe in evil.  Our theaters are filled with stories of evil, yet very little exploration of the source of good and the battle taking place in the invisible realm.  Hopefully you will take a chance on these series of stories and learn that mortal preconception is not a good thing.  It can and will be used against you, evil knows this, for you are so willing to be deceived by your own preconceptions.

This September, I release the fourth book of this mythology – The Fall of Helloria.  The first in a new series of nine stories that chronicle the fall of nine heavenly worlds.  I will explore many spiritual and philosophical concepts presenting both an exciting and mentally challenging journey.  I hope you choose to come along with me.