Ray's X-Blog

The Curse of FREE BOOKS. There’s a used bookstore in my town that is stuffed to the rafters with material. The overflow ends up in cardboard boxes outside the store. I can’t walk by without checking through the latest free offerings. It’s a curse. I know I shouldn’t be complaining about getting something for free. I would be upset if the FREE BOOKS box disappeared. But like the proverbial lunch, free books can have conditions attached. My apartment is stuffed to the rafters with tomes. I don’t need any more. I have too many now. So many that it’s easy to lose one title among the printed matter maelstrom that dominates my small dwelling. The other day I wanted to consult a HTML book for a bit of code I needed. Couldn’t find it. After I gave up and didn’t need the book, it decided to suddenly appear. And here’s another damning aspect of the curse: a plethora of books but no surfeit of time to read even a fraction of them. Usually a book by a marginal author –- one who succeeded ...

Modern Age Meets Middle Earth. Here’s the latest simplistically stylish illustration by Ginger Snap. She didn’t provide any explanation, leaving it up to the viewer to make an interpretation. To me this is how gray aliens abduct hobbits. Morph the flying saucer into a tree with a magical entrance and the trap is set. (I wonder if Gandalf could kick ET butt? Now there’s a question to provoke an argument among some nerds...)

Love God –- Fear Him! That was the theme the other afternoon when I tuned in WWCR on the SW band and heard another radio preacher going on about death and destruction. You could hear papers rustling around on his desk as he sorted through the latest batch of bad news. Earthquakes! Floods! Fires! Hurricanes! If something terrible was going on in the world, this end-times preacher had to mention it. I didn’t listen to the entire program but caught the last segment. The preacher was ranting on about God’s judgment, kept raking through his clippings, but after a while he was running out of new material to frighten his audience. Too bad he didn’t include an article about the help that people provide when Earthquakes! Floods! Fires! and Hurricanes! strike. Not one story about a Good Samaritan digging someone out from the rubble or bringing a victim stranded on a roof to safety in a boat. But that preacher ain’t talking about that kind of God.

A Christian Mom & Those God-Distracting UFOs. While doing some research on the Web I came across a letter column, Mom Time , from the magazine, Today’s Christian Woman , dealing with a mother who was concerned her son was too fascinated by aliens and UFOs. In her letter entitled “Lost in Space,” the mother expressed great concern, wondering if her son’s interest with UFOs was healthy, even though it was a “boy thing.” The columnist, Lisa Welchel, indicated that such an interest could be harmful, citing a quote from a Christian book that stated science fiction could be a substitute religion, as evinced by attending a Star Trek convention. Then Welchel wrote: “The Bible says, "For by him [Jesus] all things were created, things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him" (Colossians 1:16). Satan is aware of the fact that "the heavens declare the glory of God; the skies pro...

© 2005 Ginger Snap Tapping into that youthful sense of wonder. That’s the source of inspiration for artist Ginger Snap. Sometimes she likes to imagine UFOs, aliens, and similar unusual concepts with a young mind’s-eye. She graduated with a Master of Fine Art and found herself burnt out with art, especially with creating it. "I felt overeducated, overcritical," she explains. "I found I had lost the love for art that I had in my younger years." For now she is putting aside her MFA experience, concentrating on reconnecting to her childhood creativity. "Art can be fun," she says. "There is more to it than Technique."

Brother Stair –- he’s everywhere. At least on shortwave radio. Just surf your way through the SW frequencies and you’re bound to hear this radio preacher, 24/7. I listened to a bit of his program the other night. I used to listen religiously but grew tired of the same old end-time ranting. Ensconced in his commune in Walterboro, South Carolina, Ol’ BS finds it hard to keep the outside world at bay while preaching as the Last Day Prophet. Legal problems have dogged him. Back in May 2002 his name was in the news: the local authorities accused him of improper relations with underage ewes in his flock. He was able to reach a deal through plea-bargaining, after spending a couple of months in jail. Since then he has plead guilty in another case for improperly touching a couple of his ewe and more recently he faced a civil suit by stray sheep claiming they were sheared and wanted their money back. In regards to the fondling incident, BS defended himself in The Post and Courier newspap...

Put your UFO encounter on the map. Seen a flying saucer lately? You can file a report online at http://www.nuforc.org/index.html . And afterwards it will pop up on a map at http://www.ufomaps.com/ . The location of the sighting will be indicated by a domed flying saucer with a smiley face. Click on a saucer and a pop-up word balloon will appear with brief details. Click again and you can read the full report as filed at NUFORC (National UFO Reporting Center). Of course, there are a few bugs with the UFO map, especially when you have too many saucers hovering over the same general area on the map. But the wizards behind this service say there are working on this problem and others. My spot check revealed reports that ranged from Shaftsbury, Vermont to Venice, Florida to Gilbert, Arizona to Tacoma, Washington.

Aliens are among us –- so states Jim Marrs. So what are they up to? If you’re looking for a solid answer, you’ll be disappointed after reading Alien Agenda: Investigating the Extraterrestrial Presence Among Us (1997). Marrs is described as an “award-winning journalist” on the back cover. I don’t know if he won a Pulitzer, but I’ll say one thing for him: he can write a ripping good anecdote. His book is loaded with evidence –- of the anecdotal kind. He covers major incidents in UFO history, contending that The Powers That Be In The Shadows are hiding the truth from us. At times –- probably because of his journalistic background – Marrs will present some wild explanation and then back off a bit with a qualifying statement something like “No one can really say if this theory is correct, but it could provide an answer.” Or a bit of far out speculation is followed by a qualifying statement intended to lead the reader to draw a specific conclusion. For example, at one point Marrs is talkin...

Maurice Del Bourgo. I’ve read a lot of comic books over the years –- approximately 1.2 googol’s worth –- so it takes a lot to catch my attention, especially with artwork from the golden age of comics, the 1930s-1940s. Nowadays I don’t read that many comics, mostly because the majority feature super-people running around in tight underwear with the same plots being recycled ad nauseam. Also, prices have jumped on the “floppies,” as today’s kids call them. A 10 cent comic now has less pages and can set you back for around four bucks or more. While poking around a secondhand shop that was going out of business, I came across some older comics for half-a-buck each, including one that reprinted a “classic” comic from the 1940s: More Fun No. 101, the Millennium Edition from DC Comics. The lead story, “Formula for Doom,” features a Robin Hood knock-off of Batman, the Green Arrow. GA has a kid partner named Speedy –-- a knock-off of Bats’ buddy, Robin –- and he gets around town in his Batmobil...

A lightweight ET. Here’s a photo of an alien hanging around a porch one afternoon in Plattsburgh. I wonder if he was drinking the beer or the soda.

Dissemination. Scattering seeds in another place hoping that something will germinate. I've been zining for over ten years, staring with a snail mail version, then an email one, and finally a webzine. It's always been a money loser. Obviously I'm not writing for profit; what I do appreciate is feedback on my efforts. My zine, the Ray X X-Rayer, takes a look at the Uncommon and the Unusual. Of course, there's the common unusual -- UFOs, paranormal events, conspiracy theories -- topiX I've been covering in X-R. But there are other offbeat topiX that intrigue me so I'm not always focused on flying saucers or the Illuminati. My goal with this blog is to cover uncommon subjects with short articles that may be included in my zine, revised and expanded if needed. I do struggle with writer's block so don't expect me to blog here on a regular basis. I write when I can -- and when I really have something to say. For more info on my zine, please check out www.xraye...