Strangities - The More Mundane Adventures of Blue Stahli (Ep 01)

8/11/2019 Strangities - The More Mundane Adventures of Blue Stahli (Ep 01)

1/13

Strangities

by Collin Landis

The More Mundane Adventures of

Blue Stahli

Episode I


2/13

Strangities - The More Mundane Adventures

of Blue Stahli - Episode I

Copyright 2009 by Collin Landis All Rights Reserved under International Copyright

http://[email protected]

Cover Image: Flickr.com underCreative Commons Attribution LicenseCreated By: Schizoform


3/13

Introduction

This special release of The More Mundane Adventures

of Blue Stahli comes from my free short fiction collectionStrangities - Volume II and is the first in an ongoingseries. Ive had the great pleasure of knowing Bret BlueStahli since the first grade and because of this Ive beenprivy to most of what hes experienced in life. And letme tell you, my friend has lived a fantastic life. The sheeramount of bizarre things hes gone through would truly

boggle your mind. Even among those of us who haveknown him for quite some time he is a bit of a legend.Because of this, Ive taken it upon myself to make him thenoir folk hero he deserves to be. The More Mundane

Adventures of Blue Stahli contains far more factualaccounts of things Bret has experienced than you wouldbelieve. As the titling suggests, he has indeed faced thingsmuch more fantastic than Ill be recounting and Ive donemy best to limit myself to the most boring tales I can recallabout him. I figure Ill leave all the REALLY good stories forhim to tell you, since theyre his. But I have a feeling youllbe pretty entertained even with the boring ones. I hopeyoull stop by www.strangities.com and check them out.

- Collin Landis


4/13

The MoreMundane

Adventures

of Blue StahliEpisode I


5/13

I light a cigarette. Not mine. Im lighting it for the bleachedblond beauty in front of me. Right now shes the bestlooking thing at this joint. And in this city, all that reallymeans is she still has all her teeth.

The city: Detroit

The city I live in.

The city that hates me.

The feeling is mutual.

Im not looking to get laid. Im pretty sure this numbersgot Cthulhu hiding somewhere beneath her skirt waitingto wake from his city of Rlyeh and give me a bad case ofitching / burning / amputation. Plus the way shes gigglingat everything I say tells me shes just out tonight lookingfor someone to punish mommy and daddy with for notgetting her that pony. With my tattoos and pink hair, Ibet Id fit that bill perfectly- but its not going to happen.So if Im not looking for action, why am I going throughthe motions? Im lighting her cigarette because Im agentleman, and I happened to have a lighter on me whenshe asked.

Why do I carry a lighter if I dont smoke?

Easy. Sometimes I like to watch things burn.

Its 3 AM and its cold outside. I just finished playing anacoustic set at a no-name coffee bar for a crowd of allof five people, three of which worked there. It doesntmatter much to me. I knew what I was getting into from themoment I stuck the keys in the ignition. You dont pass upan invitation to work with a rock god, even if its a one-wayticket in the wrong direction.


6/13

The Celldweller - Klay Scott. Klayton to his fans. Mostof them dont know his real name. I do. Ive followed his

work since I could go to the bathroom by myself. I own

every piece of music hes released, and a lot he didnt. Inmany ways Im the penultimate fanboy when it comes tohis work; but its more than that. It inspired me, reachedplaces in me long thought dead. And then, like a rain cloudgrows into a tornado it twisted itself into my adversary. Itbegan challenging me. Drawing lines in the sand whereverI heard it.

You cannot match my strength - it said.

Bullshit I said, and I played louder.

That was the first time I electrocuted myself with my guitar.

It was not my last.

I began writing, recording, producing. The music was myescape; my release valve. Instead of caving heads in withan aluminum baseball bat when they deserved it, I walkedaway and recorded. I filled up an album with brokenhearts, crushed dreams, and all the filth that was dumpedon me every day of every week of every year. Some of itmine, most of it not.

Some nights, the music was the only thing that kept mealive.

Against my expectations, people liked it. A lot of people.It sold out of its first independent pressing in two weeks. Iofficially became part of the underground scene, whichis a nice way of saying I still couldnt afford to eat butpeople liked my music. Its both heartening and horrificthat people found things to empathize with on that album.


7/13

By the time I was done with it I couldnt stand the thing, soI gave all the proceeds to a shelter for battered women.Seemed like the right thing to do.

I kept releasing singles here and there, mostly inDecember because I couldnt afford to buy Christmaspresents for friends and family.

Then one day my phone rang. It was James JimmyRhodes, manager for Celldweller.

I called him a dick and hung up on him.

Figured it was someone playing a joke only theyd findfunny.

He called back. Explained he & Klay had a propositionfor me. They wanted to expand their production musicbusiness and had been scouting talent. He heard my stuffand thought hed give me a call to throw it out. Id haveto move to Detroit to do it, but Id be working with TheCelldweller every day, using his gear, learning his tricks,and helping him out in the studio 24/7.

Jimmy called me on Thursday.

I was there in time to start work on Monday.

Ill gloss over my cross-country road trip with a born-again burlesque dancer named Danni Danger, because

while Ive been reminiscing over what brought me tothis hellhole the blond has pulled the cigarette out ofher mouth to blow some smoke and ask the inevitablequestion.


8/13

So what are you doing tonight?

What do I tell her? Should I be honest and tell her I planon going back to the apartment and trying to stay up as

long as possible to avoid the nightmares waiting for mein my sleep? Ive got a track due for a movie trailer onMonday and you look about five diseases and two kidsover my limit?

Just gonna head home and get some sleep.

Oh. Ok. You play here often?

Not really. First time, actually.

Cool. Well, see you around.

I see the car seat through her rear window as she drivesoff.

I made enough from the gig to get some gas and maybe abite to eat if I can find somewhere still open with a dollarmenu. Thats good news because Ive been on E all day inboth instances. I fire up the car and let it warm up a littlebefore heading to the nearest gas station. The night seemslike a typical Detroit evening / morning. Lousy. The coldisnt crisp; its oppressive. The city skyline isnt majestic; thebuildings are tombstones. And the guy running in front ofmy car would probably be better off if I ran him over. But Idont. I slam on the brakes and skid to a stop.


9/13

Hey! Hey man! The guy is yelling at me through my window, but hes not pissed. (Which is the first thing thatshould have indicated to me something was wrong. No onein Detroit isnt pissed.) Hes scared.

Being typically too compassionate for my own good, I rolldown my window so I can talk to the guy.

Hey. You need help?

Yeah. Yeah. I need help. I ran my car off the road and downthe embankment. My daughter is still inside! Come helpme get her out!

I unbuckle my seat belt and climb out of the car, leaving itrunning.

Hurry! the dude is yelling at me, running a few steps andthen turning to see if Im coming.

Ive been in a lot of life and death situations. Admittedly,a lot of them were my fault, but not always. Over time youbecome a kind of numb to them. Experience, I guess.So even as Im running toward the edge of the roadand pulling out my cell phone Im still pretty calm. Sureenough, theres a car down the steep embankment, flippedon its roof, undercarriage in the air. The guy, panicked,grabs me, helpfully sending my cell phone skittering downthe embankment & off into the darkness.

Awesome.

I already called the police. Hurry, Shes down there! heyells at me, starting to scramble down.


10/13

I decide that Ill talk to him about replacing my cell phone AFTER the kid is ok.

The car is in bad shape. All the windows are blown outand the safety glass looks like raindrops in the headlights.The roof is pancaked. But theres something weird about it,something off. I cant wrap my head around it, so I ignore it.Write it off as my natural paranoia. After all, life has givenme a lot to be paranoid about. Ignoring the crunchingglass I grab one of the door handles and try it. Jammed.Shocking.

What side was she in? I ask.

Thats when things get weird.

The guy, who has suddenly become the picture of zen,digs both hands into his forehead and rips his face off likehe was splitting a melon.

I kid you not.

Of course its right after I watch this happen that my brainfigures out what it was trying to tell me before, and takesthat moment to share with me. Specifically, none of thedoors on the car were open. And with a wreck like that it

would have been impossible for someone to get out of thecar without opening one.

The guy / things new / real face is pretty different fromhis old one. For starters hes got three eyes, all black and


11/13

shiny like a spider and all clustered dead center where hisnose should be. Oh yeah, I said SHOULD be. Because hedoesnt have a nose. Just the eyes. And a mouth. But insteadof normal human-type omnivore teeth hes got nasty little

needle-teeth. A LOT of them. I can tell because his mouthis open and hes squealing at me.

Hes got short mandibles too, and these must be shinybecause I can see them kind of gleam in the reflectedlight of the cars headlights. His whole head is covered in asort of grey-black fur that ends where the jagged pieces ofhis earlier face still peek up from his collar.

In the few seconds I take all this in, I achieve a sort ofclarity I rarely experience. Not a revelation, exactly;more of a reminder of sorts. My brain, pushing aside theconfusion caused by watching someone rip their face off,speaks to me very clearly:

THIS is why you just keep driving.

Touch, brain. Touch.

I would have loved to consider that point more, but theguy was already charging at me with surprising speed. I

wish I could say that I took him out with a single punch anddonated him to science, but that just didnt happen. I wasstill confused at seeing something that could have beenfrom one of my tamer nightmares here, in Detroit, during

what I was fairly certain were still waking hours for me. Hehad me by my throat and in the air before I snapped out ofit.


12/13

It was instinct that saved me.

Maybe when I tell the story again Ill make me morebadass and tell you that I meant to do it, but it really

happened without thinking. I shoved my hand in mypocket, grabed my lighter, and with a flick of the flint I sethis head on fire.

The whole thing.

I dont know what kind of product this thing used on itsfur, but whatever it was it was very flammable. He went uplike an old newspaper soaked in gasoline. (Something Imfairly familiar with.)

Its scream turned from one pitch to another, and themusician part of me wishes I had been recording becauseit was a fairly cool noise. Then two things happen.

It drops me, which I was pretty pleased about.

It runs off burning into the forest, which was convenientlyclose.

Let me be clear on this: I hate the forest. I hate the trees, Ihate the bushes, I hate the streams and the deer and theferns and every other green thing in there.

They give me panic attacks.

Concrete, asphalt, steel, and neon. Those are the four foodgroups of my world.

So I let it run off.

Think me a coward if you want. Ive been called a lot worse.


13/13

The bottom line is I dont go after it. A combination ofpissed flaming monster and 3 AM forest exploration justdoes not sound like a good decision given the tone the

evening is taking.

I climb the embankment after a quick once over lookingfor my phone, which reminds me that Ive been meaning tostart working out.

The car is what really tops the night off for me.

It wont start.

It wont start because its out of gas.

Its out of gas because I left it running while I went to helpthe monster that tried to eat my face.

Perfect.

So I walk two miles to the nearest gas station, using my gigmoney to buy a gas can and a few gallons of gas. This getsme far enough that I can get the car gassed up the rest ofthe way.

The gas can cost what I was planning to use on dinner.

Looks like no one gets to eat tonight.

Fucking Detroit.

Documents

Strangities - The More Mundane Adventures of Blue Stahli (Ep 01)