Wayne Sallee Haunts the City

Drumming up some readers for my buddy Wayne's blog here, Frankenstein 1959, which lately has been full of oddly charming (that's our clan's cri de guerre, "odd but charming") posts about what it's like getting around a major city with cerebral palsy, only enough money for a bookstore or to buy a friend a drink, and a humanist's eye for the people he shares the bus stop with, the ones on their way home to a cardboard box. Wayne's primarily a horror writer by trade (Fiends by Torchlight, Horror in the Heartland and others)but this stuff is a purer gold. It reminds me of Nelson Algren's Chicago, City on the Make crossed with John Callahan's Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot with the weather eye of the son of a Chicago cop (I mean, cahp) if they'd gone to school with the crew of Mystery Science Theater. I'm hoping his journal entries-- taking a wrong turn on foot in the cul de sac of a gated community designed to keep poor people out and being unable to hop the fence through which he can see the relative freedom of the streets-- will turn into a book someday.

"Going back to my post about the Wow! Signal and Elvis going home, HEF commented that the static from space was really a dinner bell. One night, he, I, Jeff, and Andrew smoked pot in his basement and I exclaimed "I am Emily Dickinson!" to which the other men choked down the goodness and of course I meant to say that I was Spartacus. And to this day I am reminded of this event....
"Tonight was the Printers Ball, a yearly thing. This time around it was at the MCA, the Museum of Contemporary Art. The photo above is from last year's event in Bridgeport in which the police were called because Bridgeport is full of @$$holes. I can type those words about Mayor Daley's old neighborhood and get away with it because NOBODY in Bridgeport is smart enough to use Google and type in Bridgeport Is Full Of @$$holes. So there, you Irish hillbillies. It was a neat little event and I soon realized that most everybody there was half my age....
"I was wearing a kind of tealish Hawaiian shirt, but I'd look pretty silly wearing my jeans and just the jacket and my three chest hairs. Silly there, but fashionable in Wrigleyville. I also got a whatever kind of look girls give guys twice their age from this Claire Danesish gal as I refilled my water bottle. She was by herself but I had nothing to say because I AM AN IDIOT. I could be with her right now, holding hands over deep dish pizza at Lou Malnati's before sneaking out the back way because I only have $22.37 and a giant Pope coin to my name. ...
"The Man in this case being the SS/Disability Board. I am STILL filling out the online form, mostly because I keep getting pages where I am repeating the same thing. Where I am repeating the same thing. I'm better today, as the evening has worn on. I'm in fighting mode again. But, I tell you, this damn form--now I'm up to my employment history, Christ knows if they want info from 1977 as they did with my medical info, I think I was a night dishwasher at a Golden Bear off State Road--this form, this THING, its as if Charles has ordered me at gunpoint to transcribe the history of the Green Lantern Corps. ...
"NFM Mike and I discussed porn while waiting for the Red Line and a young waif flipping through a magazine moved ever further away as I discussed such grand titles as THE NEIGHBORS SUCK AND SO DO WE, and the book I swear I will one day find again and one day own, I can see the cover as if it was 1979 all over again, MY DACHSHUND, MY LOVER. (I know if I keep mentioning the book, it will come to be in my possession.) And that was my last, oh, 18 hours or so. One more week of summer. I felt sooo old at that party tonight."

Waynes blog here and website with books for sale here

Why Wayne's E-Mails Get Opened First

At 09:05 13-8-2007, jonalgiers@ wrote:
My name is Wayne Allen Sallee and I see several books reprinted in Dutch that I am in (YEARS BEST HORROR). I would like to purchase copies of anything you might have with my work, as I was never informed of the foreign sales.
Thank you in advance.
Wayne Allen Sallee

In a message dated 8/27/2007 3:00:40 P.M. Central Daylight Time, Kees Buis writes:
Dear Wayne,
According to my information I have two anthologies with a story of you in it.
"De beste horror verhalen van het jaar" published by Loeb in 1988 with your story "De ballentent"
"De beste horror verhalen van het jaar" published by Loeb in 1989 with your story "Bloed tussen de regels"
Freely translated the first story would be something like "The Tent of Balls"; the second would be "Blood Between the Lines".
With kind regards,
Kees Buis

In the name of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, can anyone tell me what story I could POSSIBLY have written that freely translates as Tent of Balls? What, when, how.....? These crazy foreign editions, especially the ones I don't know exist and never got paid for.....

Wayne

How Does Wayne Do This? # 1 in a Series

Okay, so I'm collecting rejection slips as usual and my friend Wayne Allen Sallee, author of FIENDS BY TORCHLIGHT, THE HOLY TERROR, WITH WOUNDS STILL WET, and the only Penthouse story with "Division Street" in the title, sends me a picture of himself posing with GloriAnne Gilbert, actress and sci-fi model, star of BUSTY COPS 2, COUNTESS DRACULA'S ORGY OF BLOOD, and THE WITCHES OF BREASTWICK. He claims that he asked her to slap him and she felt sorry for him instead. In her film roles, Miss Gilbert's wide cheekbones, open smile and sweet demeanour set her apart from the usual hauteur of the B-movie barbarian princess, making Wayne's story weirdly plausible.

I'm starting to think the price of living in Kalamazoo, instead of one of the larger cultural centers, may be too high. Wayne's current adventures at the World Horror Convention in Toronto can be found at his blog, Frankenstein 1959 . Wayne sometimes wipes of the ichor, suppresses his bloodthirsty glee and pretends to be a tortured artiste. I look at this picture and I think Wayne is full of shit.

Angels in Cages on Honore Street

My buddy Wayne in Chicago, author of FIENDS BY TORCHLIGHT, DOWNWARD SPIRAL
-- and the only writer to publish erotica in Penthouse with the words "Division Street" in the title-- is an occasional photographer of Algrenesque and noir street scenes. I'm hoping someone in our Twilight Tales circle-- Roger, maybe?-- would use Wayne's photos for reprints of some out-of-print Nelson Algren books like NOTES FROM A SEA DIARY (my favorite), CONVERSATIONS WITH NELSON ALGREN and THE LAST CAROUSEL. Wayne has posted his favorite photographs of the year on his blog FRANKENSTEIN 1959.

WAYNE'S NEW JOB

[ED. NOTE: Author Wayne Allen Sallee (bibliography here), a friend (or at least, not a mortal enemy) of this institution, has been absent from his unusual haunts such as the Red Lion pub, and the Twilight Tales writers' group. Several offshore pornography sites have expressed concern about his credit card status.
The mystery has deepened with the discovery of these disturbing images and the following obscure message posted to Mr Sallee's own web log, Meanwhile, @ Stately Wayne Manor]:

"I might as well be on the run seeing as how I've been out of contact with just about everybody for the past three and a half weeks.
"... how humorous it might seem that I am the only passenger the bus driver leaves off at the I-94 interchange, as if I was hastily avoiding a roadblock further up near the Cal-Sag Bridge. The top photo shows how I then descend to the street below and walk towards my job at a dead end street in an industrial park.
"... and the cars driving along I-94 towards Indiana still scratch their heads at the guy with the satchel and jacket, most drivers not know there is a bus stop sign there."

TWILIGHT TALES: DOING OUR PART FOR NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND

Godson Liam, aka Bondi, aka future editor of ORMONDROYD'S ENCYCLOPEDIA ESOTERICA, is being brought up properly with this
"Chibi" style plush Godzilla-- and when he graduates from infancy to baby-boyhood, on his nursery shelf there awaits a more realistic (but still cuddly) twelve-inch high plush Godzilla kaiju to snuggle. God pity the bad dream that wanders into a bedroom guarded by the Lord of Monster Island, GODZILLA, KING OF MONSTERS!

TWILIGHT TALES author WAYNE ALLEN SALLEE taught his young niece Ashley Mavros to read by introducing her to uber-texts such as Forrest Ackerman's FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND and the JOHN AGAR NEWSLETTER. MOLE PEOPLE synopsis from MST3K: "Smiling idiot John Agar takes Hugh Beaumont and Nestor Paiva beneath the surface of the Earth so that they have no place to run when he begins his windy pontificating through his muscled pie-hole. There they find Alan Napier and other thin men living out their sad existence in pleated skirts. Though aggressive at first, the pigmentless dress-wearers are cowed by Agar's mighty flashlight and shown the secret of their slaves, The Mole People. Actually, it's a matter of some controversy whether the mole creatures or their masters are the eponymous ones. Both could be considered "Mole People," as the former are indeed "moles" of a sort and the latter live among them - "Mole People." I became distracted by this and don't remember the rest of the movie, though I think Agar and friends escape. Without Nestor Paiva, no big loss. " As of this writing, there is no plush John Agar available.

News for the Rainman

Meanwhile, Wayne Allen Sallee @ Stately Wayne Manor points out in a cryptic note that on Wednesday of this week, at two minutes and three seconds after 1:00 in the morning, the time and date will be 01:02:03 04/05/06.