I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: BAUHAUS-“Bela Lugosi’s Dead” (1979).

This was Bauhaus’ first single–a nine minute ode to being undead.  It’s considered the foundation of Goth music.

“Bela Lugosi’s Dead” starts with noises and feedback–echoing guitar scratches and atmospherics.

After about a minute and a half the simple three note bass line begins–slow and menacing.

Another minute later the vocals begin–Peter Murphy’s low voice reciting the lyrics.

White on white translucent black capes
Back on the rack
Bela Lugosi’s dead
The bats have left the bell tower
The victims have been bled
Red velvet lines the black box
Bela Lugosi’s dead
Undead undead undead

The guitars are primarily high notes as the chords change and for a brief moment in the chorus, the three-note melody goes up in stead of down.

The remainder of the lyrics:

The virginal brides file past his tomb
Strewn with time’s dead flowers
Bereft in deathly bloom
Alone in a darkened room
The count
Bela Lugosi’s dead
Undead undead undead

Around five-minutes the song quiets down to just drums and echoing scratched guitars.  Around seven minutes, Murphy starts wailing “Bela’s undead.”  The last minute or so returns to the beginning with echoed guitars sounds and scratches.

Lo-fi creepiness.

[READ: October 29, 2018] “Uncle Tuggs”

Just in time for Halloween, from the people who brought me The Short Story Advent Calendar and The Ghost Box. comes Ghost Box II.

This is once again a nifty little box (with a magnetic opening and a ribbon) which contains 11 stories for Halloween.  It is lovingly described thusly:

The Ghost Box returns, like a mummy or a batman, to once again make your pupils dilate and the hair on your arms stand straight up—it’s another collection of individually bound scary stories, edited and introduced by comedian and spooky specialist Patton Oswalt.

There is no explicit “order” to these books; however, Patton Oswalt will be reviewing a book a day on his Facebook page.

Much respect to Oswalt, but I will not be following his order.  So there.

This was the longest story in the book and I loved it from start to finish.

The story is written from the point of view of a guy who has just accepted a job working for the Tuggs family.  He hates the Tuggs family.  Most people do.  Uncle Tuggs lived on a large piece of property.  He was a mechanic and a nasty piece of work.  But he was the only mechanic around and people put up with him because he would get your car fixed.

Then one day he and his young lady (“the chippy” people called her) and their mean dog went missing.  It seemed unlikely they would go anywhere, but he was gone along with his van.  He left everything else, though.

Uncle Tuggs had three nephews and they were worse than Uncle was.  They did and dealt drugs, they did all kinds of things to make money for drugs.  And they were mean.  Deep down.

When the property was left untended, the three of them moved in.  They started growing weed in all of the outbuildings.  The youngest nephew Gabe Tuggs asked the narrator if he wanted to clear trees.  He would leave the firewood, but he could take a percentage and sell it.  Normally the boys would do this kind of thing themselves, but Gabe and his brother both had mysterious accidents and were unable to work at full capacity.

The narrator agreed because of all the money he knew he could make and so he headed over to the property.

It was weird seeing all of the machines and tools that Uncle had left.  And it was weirder that they all has seized up or broken recently.

The one thing that made me laugh in this story was that the narrator buys a 12 pack of beer which he assumes will last him until lunch.  What? Is this a character trait or a thing some guys do?

Well, when Gabe sees the beer, he hangs around drinking some (which upsets the narrator).  The narrator gets to work but Gabe keeps staring at the chainsaw, giving it a dirty look.  Then while the narrator is cutting down a big tree, the chainsaw lurches and winds up cutting unexpectedly through the large oak. The tree falls right on Gabe, pinning him to the ground.

The narrator freaks out, tries to explain that it was the saw not him. But Gabe is too hurt to say anything.  As the narrator tries to get the tree off of him, the other chainsaw surges and Gabe is even less fortunate than last time.

Obviously the narrator is freaking out–in part because he hurt this guy badly, but also because he knows that when the other two brothers come down, they are going to take it out on him.

So he sets to work covering his tracks until the next brother comes home.  The narrator hears the brother working on something and then the brother screams.  Turns out, a dead engine with no gas in it just started up and clipped his arm.  And then an axe head loosened up and hit him.

What happens when the third and largest brother comes home and he sees the state of his brothers?

The story was excellent the way it built-in excitement and danger.  And the supernatural elements made the story all the more exciting.

So have your self a 12-pack, sit back and enjoy this revenge tale.