Sunday, May 15, 2011

Our Lady of the Screaming Meemies, Part 1

Day 60 of Double Bigamy (All the Way)…

Way out-out past the edges of town, out in the Interzone, out past the blinking lights and the model communities full of their zombie commuters… Out where not even the fascist big city’s councils can lay their finger on ya and a man retains his God-given right to own oh, I dunno, let’s say a Siberian tiger if and when he wants to own, say, a Siberian tiger… Way out there’s where Dana and I – the both of us – we bought ourselves a little place a few years back.

Not to live in, of course – oh, God no! That’s not our scene, man, and we don’t wanna wind up tied to a flaming stake with a buncha inbred cousins with pitchforks recitin’ Leviticus as our blackened flesh crackles in the noonday sun.

Not again…

But the thing about this place we bought is that it used to be a small town bank, back before all the small town people packed up their small town money and went somewhere else with their town and what used to be the bank got sold to two big city lesbians for their weekend getaway place.

But still, in this weekend getaway place there’s a room we rather unimaginatively call The Vault, because it used to be the bank vault back when our weekend getaway place was still a small town bank.

And I feel I ought to point out here that in small town Texas, a bank vault really is a bank vault, and half of the banks in the Hill Country purport to have been shot up and robbed by none other than Bonnie and Clyde themselves, or at least some more anonymous and less flashy variation thereof.

So the Vault is a real thing of beauty. Every paranoid’s dream. Several inches of pure concrete, in fact, and once you’re inside you are inside and the world is out-out somewhere else and my God… you might as well be dead.

So naturally, I did what anyone with a concrete bank vault at their disposal would do in my shoes: I took out all the lights, padded the walls and the floor, and I made a sensory deprivation chamber out of it.

Now, as you’d probably guess, a sensory deprivation chamber is just the perfect thing for some peace and some quiet away from the hoot and the holler you’re always getting in the big city. It’s a great gag at parties or if you’ve got screaming kids or you’ve got a friend who has to detox her way through a steaming case of the DT’s for a while.

And ayahuasca rituals and run-of-the-mill black art divinations – there really are a thousand and one everyday uses for your top-of-the-line sensory deprivation chamber, and I find it un-fucking-thinkable that they don’t come standard in every home on the market today.

And I myself have logged in countless hours of Vault time over the years. Oh sure, I suppose I could count them, if the need ever arose… but suffice it to say it’s more time than I care to admit, really.

And so it goes – not all the time, but once in a great while – we’ll be up at our weekend getaway with some friends, and it just sort of happens, all spontaneous-like.

We’ll line ‘em up.

Get ‘em to sign the standard waiver (“I have been warned I might go crazy. I consent anyway.”).

Toss ‘em in the tank, one at a time.

Twenty minutes. Two hours. Whatever.

Your average joe, he will just get bored in the Vault. Maybe a little edgy. Maybe start worrying about whether he’s missing “American Idol” or somesuch.

But, you know, it’s all in fun and we’re all friends here and… Well, the Vault is very well-padded, at any rate, so there’s never been any real “incidents” of note.

Until this weekend…

(Part 2 to follow soon…)

23 comments:

  1. I can't quite make out the tattoo on your left arm....

    I'm easily distracted by the way

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  2. *big smile* I loved the shady irony of it being un-fucking thinkable that sensory deprivation chambers aren't standard issue... if there's anything that is worthy of unthinking, it's sensory deprivation. I was also aching to hear that your bank had been held up by Bonnie and Bonnie. But really, this isn't about my un-needs. Nice start...

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  3. BadDog: The right arm is where all the real action is. Which, come to think of it, is what the left arm tat is all about: an ad for the right one.

    Hey, JerseyDave. Sadly, it’s not one of the tanks where I could submerge myself in water and end up devolving into an ape, a la “Altered States.” It’s also not about a bank robbery, though. Seriously, though: half of the banks, prisons, and at least one night club in town claim to have been held up by Bonnie and Clyde. Their legend grows. Bonnie and Clyde died for my sins.

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  4. Sounds charming, I think I could use some vault time.

    P.S. I'm officially jealous of everyone you're married to!

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  5. " I'm officially jealous of everyone you're married to!"

    Give it time, give it time...

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  6. Found your page from the Houston Press site.

    This is why people hate you fags so much. You people come out to the country and buy all the land and than you make fun of the people who are already here.

    We're all dumb hicks. That's a good one. Tell me one I haven't heard before.

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  7. JerseyDave: Wait… I’ve never been married to a man from New Jersey, have I? No, I think I’m going to call bullshit on this one and say you do not know of what you speak. Being married to me is a laugh a minute… It’s like making love to a barrel of monkeys (I THINK that’s how that saying goes…)…

    Hi there, Anonymous: Thank you for coming to my site. You should not be so hard on yourself. I do not think all rural folks are dumb hicks. For example, your daughter spent the night with me last night, and she seemed well-educated, open-minded, and flexible.

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  8. I'm not gonna say you look hot in that picture...

    but I'm just gonna say that insanity seems to suit you.

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  9. Yours is the 2nd best use of an old bank safe. In Grenaa, Denmark the former bank is a restaurant and the old vault is their wine cellar. They gave me the full tour, it was wonderful.

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  10. okay, may i suggest a kiddie pool in the vault to make an iso-tank kind of feel to the room?

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  11. K. Syrah: You know what they say: striped shorts make you look 50% sexier and 50% more sane. I thank you, although I might also question your taste now…

    Hi, Brent. Denmark? I want to go to Scandinavia so badly it’s becoming a problem. Nothing major: I just want to live through 30 days of night and then burn down a church. Is that too much to ask?

    Violet: We ought to at least find an old bathtub. When you’re in an isolation tank like that, you’re supposed to be able to hear your own blood flow. My ears might be too far gone from years of black metal, but still… In the old movie “Altered States,” William Hurt manages to make himself devolve and evolve genetically by staying submerged in an iso-tank.

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  12. my husband would love that room. he used to sleep in the closet when we had a big closet. i would be one of the people that would freak out, i start to panic a bit when i go caving (as in climbing down into actual caves.) not everyone should be left alone with their thoughts...

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  13. You would like Scandinavia. The people are lovely, the beer is really good, as is the food and wine. I have not tried to burn a church. The architecture is too cool to torch.

    Are you taking reservations for your chamber? I need a weekend away and it sounds like the ideal spot to escape

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  14. Hi, id. You go caving? Presumably, that is a pastime of people who either travel a lot or who live somewhere much different than me… I think I might be claustrophobic, a little. But the fear probably ensures my Vault time has an edge to it…

    Brent: You should probably hear the second half of this story before you start clamoring for Vault time. Or not. I probably will never write Part 2. I tend to do that.

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  15. "Hi there, Anonymous: Thank you for coming to my site. You should not be so hard on yourself. I do not think all rural folks are dumb hicks. For example, your daughter spent the night with me last night, and she seemed well-educated, open-minded, and flexible."

    I haven't laughed that hard in a long time! I love the way you write, it's like we're all along for the ride ;) Haha

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  16. i live in a city (chicago), but when i vacation i tend to like to go the nature route. i've been caving a couple of times, but do not like it. the smaller spaces get me freaky and the dead silence bothers me. plus, i am a huge fan of sunlight, which caves tend to lack.

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  17. Thanks, Kait Lisbeth! I end up getting some people very angry. Never on purpose, though…

    id: Interesting. I’m going to have to look into that. It sounds like something that would scare me in a good way.

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  18. What a great web log. I spend hours on the net reading blogs, about tons of various subjects. I have to first of all give praise to whoever created your theme and second of all to you for writing what i can only describe as an fabulous article. I honestly believe there is a skill to writing articles that only very few posses and honestly you got it. The combining of demonstrative and upper-class content is by all odds super rare with the astronomic amount of blogs on the cyberspace.

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  19. Not finish the second part? You are a huge over achiever, not a quitter! You got married twice just to prove a point (that and you enjoy being a scofflaw)

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  20. Good morning, Anonymous. Yes, I am probably providing a valuable service. I figure there are a lot of people out there who want to know what to do with that old bank vault at the back of their house. Bank vaults, bigamy, and Peter’s Apocalypse are three of the most troublesome conundrums of modern life…

    Hi, Brent. Plus, I wrote another blog already – and it’s not Part 2 of this one. I ought to change the “Part 1” to “Part 13” and leave it all wonderfully ambiguous. The title doesn’t even make any sense without Part 2.

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  21. I just love your eyeballs. You don't scare me.

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  22. Grotesque: Thanks? But maybe you just haven’t looked into my eyes deeply enough yet. They probably ought to scare you…

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  23. Finish the story with a little horror. Post it Monday noon Houston time. Eyes next weekend at the earliest. Scared.

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