Original Essays
by Poe Ballantine, March 29, 2018 10:14 AM
Photo credit: Dave Janetta
At the Gallup, New Mexico, bus station, just for the heck of it, I asked the clerk behind the counter where the bus did not go. He was amused and I think somewhat intrigued when he realized I was seriously going into a ticket office and asking about places they did not go. He had a slow way of speaking and studied me as if he cared, as if my mother were a Polish émigré and I should not let her down, as if I might not get away with anonymity, as if the soul might be something you can’t just return like a nickel pop bottle. He said there were more places the bus didn’t go than where it did, but it was all up to me...
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by Poe Ballantine, September 20, 2013 9:00 AM
Official dire prophecy USED to be issued exclusively under the authority of the cleric/sorcerer, but now the public trust for such tales has shifted to the province of the professional scientist. It makes sense. The scientist has models and stuff and has studied subjects deeply. Writers have minor credibility in this area but often discredit themselves by putting specific dates on apocalyptic predictions (see Mayan calendar). I'd love to join the fray, too, but I'm always wrong. I actually went to live on a tropical island in the 1970s because I thought the whole Western Thing was coming down. Later I made a number of dubious moves, always keeping my life stripped down because the next depression/world war/plague/environmental catastrophe/monetary collapse was at hand. Last year I seriously went out THREE times to stock up on food. What we forget is that even though it runs against our sentiments, we are at base interdependent, and even if we do grind our heels into each other's face too often, at least under THIS flag and in the matrix of THIS mythology, we've managed to pull together so far when the chips were down and the salsa was spilled. That's what I'm counting on. It's our only chance. Until you can show me a doomsayer (not Glenn Beck in a Henny Penny suit clucking down the boulevard) who called it right five or ten years ago — a real prophet — I won't be swayed. Nor will I dispute that dire proclamations are probably the best way to get attention, control, subscriptions, grants, ratings, and sales, but I'm wondering in the end how RESPONSIBLE it is. Then again, maybe if my book Love and Terror on the Howling Plains of Nowhere doesn't sell, I'll have to resort to a more practical application of hysteria. Forgive me if I do. But get ready to RUN FOR THE HILLS.
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by Poe Ballantine, September 19, 2013 10:00 AM
One day back in 1959 in San Clemente, California, Surf Dawg Rickey and Mysterious Felipe were strolling along the beach, boards under arms, when they ran into a slump-shouldered, hairy-backed man with a ski-jump nose and bags under his eyes who said his name was Dick. Dawg and Felipe felt sorry for this gloomy loner, so they let him sit with them at their beach fire and shared some of their malt liquor and ice cream bars. When Dick went in to surf, Rickey and Felipe were amazed at his moves and dubbed him "Tricky." Tricky looked at you like a hound dog from under his heavy eyebrows and occasionally shivered his jowls as he spoke. He was homeless and only spent money on corn dogs and Anne Bancroft movies, his favorite the 1953 adventure Treasure of the Golden Condor with Cornel Wilde, George Macready, and Fay Wray (Bancroft would later go on to make a gorilla movie, too, which might explain her eventual attraction to the hairy-backed loner). At night Rickey's ska band, the Doobie-Wah-Doobies, was usually playing somewhere to a packed house. Mysterious Felipe sat in sometimes playing tambourine, but mostly he nursed a beer in the corner and bobbed his head waiting for the sun to come back up so he could hit the waves once more. Those were golden days for everyone, surfing, sunshine, peace on earth, beautiful Chevrolets, and toking the ganja. Even the gloomy Tricky was "pleased as punch" shaking maracas in Rickey's ska band. But one evening at a keg party at San Onofre, a film crew was shooting nearby, and Tricky met his idol Anne Bancroft. Anne admitted that her name was really Anna Maria Italiano. Tricky said his name was really Richard Milhous Nixon. Rickey admitted he was a Reginald. Felipe had changed his name so many times he didn't know who he was anymore, but he believed he was from Mexico or Northern Africa. (This was the beginning of the Identity Crisis). Tricky and Anne hit it off and later that night walked away hand in hand under the moonlight. A young film student named Steven Spielberg watched them making love from the shadows and thought bitterly, I wish a shark would eat them. But, of course, the name changing, the reefer haze, the ice cream bars, and the illusion of eternal youth would all give way to political cynicism and social unrest. Tricky would eventually drift east, descending into wealth, power, and Henry Kissinger. Anne would have Tricky's child, an airtight Hollywood mystery until a famous Village Voice journalist broke the story. The child was Poe Ballantine, named after a cheap scotch or a White Sox knuckleballer of the '40s, no one is sure. Anne was heartbroken (and became ill) when Tricky stumbled into infamy. Dustin Hoffman threw a temper tantrum. Hootie and the Blowfish were fortunately touring Iceland. You can still find Rickey and Felipe; they've moved down the coast just past Guerrero Negro on the Baja Peninsula. Rickey's band sounds a little more ranchera these days. But the surfing is still pretty good.
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by Poe Ballantine, September 18, 2013 10:00 AM
Because I've lived a risky and unconventional life, I don't often struggle for subjects to write about. Spending time homeless on the streets of New Orleans, the sociopath with whom I lost my virginity, feeding the child of the junkies upstairs, getting kicked off the trains in San Antonio — that's all natural, electric material. However, when my neighbor, Steven, disappeared and was found three months later burned and bound to a tree a half a mile south of the college campus where he taught, as natural and electric as the material might've been, I wasn't sure if I wanted to write about it. Wisdom, my own safety, and the fact that I had never written about crime suggested that the mystery was better left unexplored. Among those opposed to a comprehensive treatment of the case were Steven's family, the college that employed him, the various law enforcement agencies who turned in uninspired performances, the criminology professor who tried to have an affair with my wife and then took over the investigation without authority, and last but certainly not least, the people who were responsible for the death of my neighbor. I decided to write the book. Not only was it a captivating mystery, it gave me an opportunity to discuss my tempestuous marriage, my five-year-old son on the autism carousel, the side-splitting police blotter excerpted weekly in the local newspaper, and my quaint High Plains town and its wealth of Fargo-like characters. I was convinced I could solve the mystery. There was also a chance, given America's affection for all things criminal, that this book, unlike my four others, might actually sell. Love and Terror on the Howling Plains of Nowhere took me six years to write. Meticulously the muzzy legend of Steven my neighbor was hauled out into the light, the same light I shined on everything in the book, including the roach of myself. And now the residents of the town where I live are reading Love and Terror, telling me how much they enjoyed it, or how fast they read it, or how nice it was to see their cousin's escapades, or who they think killed Steven, or how courageous it was for me to confront the powers that be. Still others, filling the prescription of human nature, feel the need to deliberately distort or be angry about what I've said. The book has only been out a few weeks and I have already been threatened with a lawsuit, a punch in the nose, and a smear campaign. A friend of mine came running across the street, arms outstretched, the other night and shouted joyously, "Hey, you're still alive!" I have learned that I am not built for conflict or controversy. I have also learned that, in all my life, I have never chosen a story. The story has always chosen me.
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by Poe Ballantine, September 17, 2013 10:00 AM
My good friend Abner Violette, a retired NASA electrical engineer (literally a rocket scientist) and owner of five radio stations throughout Nebraska and Colorado, is the most intelligent person I've ever met. He can talk with facility on just about any subject, from physics to falafel to the Foo Fighters. He is a Christian (though you'd never know it), an admirer of Robert Goddard and Wernher von Braun, and a firm believer in ghosts. We've gone many times, to the delight of my young (Catholic) son, fully equipped with pyrometers and EMF meters and digital voice recorders and cameras to explore old buildings at night in pursuit of phantoms. Our trips are always fruitful — EMF spikes, batteries mysteriously draining, cameras shutting off by themselves, photographs with orbs, recordings of voices that aren't ours ("I see you grin!"), videos of flying what-nots, candle flames flaring up on request. Abner is not only a spook magnet but a great part of the serendipity of my book. After one of the people who I list as a prime suspect hastily left town and then sold his house, Abner bought the place. Talk about a haunted house! Abner's fascination with the paranormal has had a tremendous influence on me. All my life I never realized you could have a conversation with a ghost. One evening, after my wife and son had gone out for a walk, I decided to have a talk with my neighbor, who I believe was murdered. I had gotten to know and admire him by listening to people talk about him. He seemed a wonderful person with much to give. I wanted to know if what I was writing about him was accurate and fair and if there was anything he'd like to add to the account. While you're at it, I told him, I could use a title. All the other titles I'd come up with, Conclusion by Sunset, Where the Rivers Run Sand, The Dead in Strange Houses, were no good. A moment later I heard the front door open and close. I thought it was my wife and son back from their walk, so I went out to greet them. No one was there. A few minutes later I had the title: Love and Terror on the Howling Plains of Nowhere.
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by Poe Ballantine, September 16, 2013 10:00 AM
It's the story of the century, the most baffling, bizarre, and beastly crime in anyone's memory. A beautiful, elegant, gentle, brilliant man, a theoretical mathematician, goes missing and is discovered three months later way back in the sticks in a horrifying pose. The town immediately goes into a panic. The local police travel in widening circles, scratching their heads and issuing cryptic statements. Many are convinced a serial killer is on the loose. Jim Hahn swears he saw FBI vans in town. Lisa Aschwege knows who did it. The gossipmongers jump aboard their gossamer machines. In a town where many do not lock their doors, we all begin locking our doors. And in spite of the fact that there are many here qualified to do so, including literature professors who teach up on the hill, NO ONE IS WRITING THE BOOK. But apparently I'm wrong. For I'm sitting next to Floyd at the local bar. Floyd is a barfly in a brown cowboy suit who lives at a residential motel and tells everyone he's rich. Floyd is hard to get along with. Whether he's intentionally contrary, naturally cranky, or spoiled by wealth, I don't know him well enough to tell you. But (like everyone) he's fascinated with the mystery of the murdered math professor. He has a number of theories based upon the misinformation and hysterical tattle that has since congealed into the official story (the professor, it is said, was wrapped in barbed wire). He's wondering why his good friend and drinking companion, Loren Zimmerman, the crime professor at the college who tried to steal my wife, was taken off the case. I explain to Floyd that Mr. Z. was never asked to investigate the case, that he had no authority to take it over, that every law enforcement officer involved resented his intervention. I tell Floyd that Mr. Z. had been threatened with jail time if he didn't back out. Floyd wants to know how I know so much. I tell him that you can't help but get an earful of a story like this in a small town such as ours. "You know," he tells me, leaning in confidentially, "I've heard that someone is writing a book about all this." I order another beer and begin to worry. So someone at last is writing a book. I have a rival. When I leave the bar I am in a funk, wondering if this book that someone else is writing will be as good or better than mine. Only later do I discover that Floyd was talking about me.
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