Ray's X-Blog

(From Ray X X-Rayer #129) © 2016 Ray Palm    25 December, 2016 Saturnalia greetings from my monastic cell. Actually on a day like this  monastic tomb would be a better descriptor. There seems to be no one else around in this apartment building. I would be away myself but all my  friends are busy with their families. As for me -- family -- what’s that? Friends are important, at least the ones who count. There are also “friends” like those who compose 99.9% of your Facebook account. An eXample of “friends”: I’m sitting at a table with a group of people I know, my seat between two women. The two women are discussing an upcoming show at the local planetarium. Being the helpful sap I am the use my Android tablet to get the information they need, location and show times. I mention I haven’t been to the planetarium in some time. Before I could say anything more one woman speaks right pass to me to the other one, asking if she would like to go. They make arrangemen...

How to lick bad manners with a disobedient child.      Hey Mom and Dad, it's that time of year.  Let the psy op begin.  Time to unleash that Elf on the Shelf doll and mentally coerce Johnny or Janie into proper behavioral mode.      For those parents who somehow never heard of Elf on The Shelf learn and join in the eXmas fun.      The Elf is an anorexic doll around ten inches tall clad in a red and white outfit that evoke's Santa's sartorial style.  He can be placed at various locations in your home such as on top of a bookcase but only do this under the cover of night when the tiny one is in a sugar-induced coma.  Changing locations gives the impression to the young sucker that the Elf is alive.      You tell your victim the Elf is a scout from Santa.  The Elf's assignment: keep on eye on children in that home.  At night the Elf flies to the corporate HQ at the North Pole (right nex...

Need some SF artwork like this?    Dom Monet,  lifeonsaturnmusic@gmail.com  .    https://www.instagram.com/thedom1945/ Usually stories of visitor abduction and alien-human hybrid babies are told by women.  [1]  But sometimes men end up doing their part for ET experimenters. There must be something about local councillors in England.  Adrian Hicks of Winchester City witnessed high strangeness one day back in 2004.  He saw an alien woman wearing a white ballet dress walking down the appropriately named High Street.  [2]  He held off for a few years before publicly announcing his experience.  Hicks had his own website (apparently it’s now dead) where he discussed all sorts of conspiracies such as Majestic 12 hiding the truth from the public about visitors. [3] More recently there’s been the case of councillor Stimon Parkes of Whitby. [4] Like councillor Hicks Parkes has his own website discussing conspiracy t...

Back in the early days of comic books there was some “borrowing” going on as various companies ground out stories for a hungry market. Over at Chester/Centaur/MLJ -- or whoever that week was the publisher -- there was a character called Dan Hastings.   An athletic type, all-American.  He worked with a scientific genius with a beautiful daughter.  The daughter joined in – basically she got captured – in Dan’s adventures.  When an intergalactic menace arose Dan hopped into his rocket and off he flew into outer space.  Gee, was this character a cheap knockoff of a popular spaceman featured in newspaper comic strips and movie serials? Dan’s adventures can be found online via scanned copies, free to read on screen or to download for later perusal.  [ https://archive.org/details/webcomicuniverse ] In one adventure Dan fights giant bugs from planet Plexis (is that near Solar?) in Dynamic Comics #10 (1944).  The ending is irritating, not a pr...

For A Penetrating Clean

So how did Lloyd Penney became a prodigious letterhack generating up to 30 LOCs (letters of comment) a month, his name becoming a fanzine omnipresence? In 1997 Lloyd was living in Victoria, British Columbia when he discovered a local Star Trek Club. His membership gave him a taste for science fiction fandom's social conditions. Lloyd: "I wanted to be a part of things, and I wanted to learn about this hobby/way of life. I was very much a loner as a kid, and I wanted to change that." He was a loner because he skipped a year in early in his schooling, finding himself among peers not his age.  He was physically smaller than the other kids, another reason why he didn't fit it.  No one wanted to associate with him.  With nothing in common with his he peers had to create his own entertainment. His interest in science fiction lead to reaching out to others through writing to SF fanzines.  Friends told him letter columns were the heart of fandom. Lloyd: "Res...

REVIEW: The X-Files - The Event Series (Season 10) George Lucas was criticized by some for wrecking Star Wars when he made the prequel trilogy.  Everything he had built up in the first trilogy collapsed. Chris Carter, meet George Lucas.   Chris tried to continue his X-Files TV series as a theatrical movies series.  The last one was disappointing: X-Files - I Want A Refund. So back to the small screen. The first season of the X-Files started off with a relatively simple premise: evil aliens are working with the US government.  Then as the series continued Chris kept adding to his "mythology," adding more details until it was too convulated to explain even to some fans.  He was like a crazed house builder, adding on new extensions and wings that sometimes connected back to each other, creating not a home but a maze. Thirteen years later Chris brings back his creation as a six episode mini-series.  As with each season of the original series ...

During my last year of college I belonged to a science fiction fan club.  The group was small but the members knew the basics about SF.  There was no need to explain that the Hugo Awards were named after Hugo Gernsback who popularized science fiction through his Amazing Stories pulp magazine. One time I was hanging around a bar and another student asked me if I was into science fiction.  I said yes.  He brought over a friend who was supposedly a SF authority. This expert with his nose up in the air started bloviating, mentioning the Hugo Awards.  I asked him where the name Hugo came from. The self-proclaimed authority cooly replied: "The awards are named after Victor Hugo who wrote the science fiction novel The Hunchback of Notre-Dame." Hugo Gernback wearing his TV glasses Early VR (From Ray X X-Rayer #125)

Can you name all 49 states of the United States of America? You know that there are 50 states?  Apparently you missed the 240 time storm. Back in 2002 someone envisioned a new take on the 1960s TV series Time Tunnel.  The original series followed the adventures of two scientists lost in time.  In the original pilot film the viewer is taken inside Project Tic-Toc, a Department of Defense base hidden below an Arizonan desert. Producer Irwin Allen wanted to impress viewers with the size of Tic-Toc.  It's 800 stories deep with 36,000 personnel.  During the following episodes we only saw the control console used by scientists tracking the lost travelers through time; no mention of the 36,000 other personnel. With the population of a small city I wonder what all those people did.  How did the US government supply the hidden base with food, water and other necessities?  How was garbage and waste disposed?  I would hate to see what happened if...

For years I’ve been tolerating the same problems with my apartment.  Now someone else would move out but my options are limited with a fixed income, no big bank account, no car.  Also this location is convenient, a short walk to downtown and also on the bus route if I need to travel some distance. Recently I had to spend a few days outside the city at a motel in a semi-civilized area.  There was more for me to do downtown, places I could go and hang out like the library, but to get to downtown that was a one hour – two mile walk usually in the energy-sapping heat.  And the motel location wasn’t a good spot to catch a bus.  My landlord didn't mention he would reimburse me for travel (taxi cab) and meal expenses outside those I could make at home (apartment kitchen was unusable).  (Yes, I kept all my receipts for my out of pocket expenses.)  I made sure that he was paying for the motel room. The motel was OK, standard.  At home I don't have...

Over at his fanzine, Fadeaway, Robert Jennings has mentioned the problem of Too Much Stuff.  TMS occurs when  various items pile up but these items have some value, it's not easy to just toss them out. In Richard's case he is not only a SF/fantasy/OTR fan but also a dealer.  I'm just a fan and while I haven't accumulated the mass Richard has I still have a surfeit of stuff. This is one reason why I haven't moved away from this apartment after suffering through the same problems for decades.  The problems would be fixed – or so it appeared – and I avoided another Big Move. Other people have commented Plattsburgh, NY apartments compared to those in other places are overpriced.  Someone who moved here – and is now leaving – told me that he was upset that he was paying $500 a month for a place that included fleas.  He had to spend more even though he didn't need a lot of space and lived alone. But it looks like I'm going to have to move albeit while st...

Besides uploading this zine to efanzines.com I also send it out via email to subscribers through the TinyLetter newsletter service. As usual with other XR editions #122 was re-formatted for TinyLetter and I thought it was ready to go.  I hit SEND and – nothing.  The newsletter is frozen in the queue.  I get the following message: So I investigated and learned about TL's Omnivore program: “If you are notified that your account was flagged by our abuse prevention system, it doesn’t mean we think you're a spammer. It means that Omnivore has detected something that flagged the account for review. (Omnivore was created to maintain MailChimp’s sending reputation by analyzing vital data to protect the email ecosystem, and now it does the same for TinyLetter.)” I emailed TL about the matter.  I heard back my newsletter/zine was OK and I could send my latest edition.  Curious about the problem I asked what was flagged as being so bad.  But I never got a re...

By Ray X Sometimes my creative genius surprises me. I'm all set to work on a screenplay for the ultimate SF horror movie. Plot:  An international athletic competition is being held in a major South American city.  (For legal reasons this competition isn't the 2016 Summer Olympics and the city isn't Rio, Brazil.)  The city abuts a large body of water that some call Blood Bay.  This bay has been used for countless years as a sewer, the locals dumping in all sort of environmental nasties – garbage, chemicals, sewage, etc. The South American host city assures the international athletic committee that the bay will be cleaned up before the games begin, especially those occurring in the water. So what if some human body parts wash up on the beach area set aside for the volleyball games.  Just a fluke.  Anyway the bay will be in good shape.  Trust us. But when the games start the pollution reduction is only partially completed. The internatio...

The latest edition of Ray X X-Rayer is hot off the digital press.   If you prefer my writings in ezine form:     http://efanzines.com/RXXR/index.htm And if you want to receive RX XR via email:     http://www.tinyletter.com/RayX   

Ugh! Try some Bylcreem.  A Little Dab'll Do Ya! There, that's a lot better. Brylcreem: #1 choice for men of action.

There's a plethora of videos over at YouTube purportedly exposing the reptilian shape-shifter conspiracy. They live among us.  Cruel treacherous alien humanoids who appear to be one of us until their disguise slips, their true reptilian form briefly revealed. Of course a few of these must be put-ons, hoaxes.  But after researching conspiracy theorists of the wacko kind one is amazed what others actually believe despite the illogic and blind faith. For eXample a video entitled “Reptilian Hybrid Gets Mad On Dating Show & Shapeshifts - ALIEN SHAPESHIFTING” (see image above.)  The woman has an unusual quirk: she can  close each of her eyelids independently like a lizard.  Weird but probably a rare genetic trait, not proof of monsters hiding among us. In another video a CNN reporter in slow motion shrugs her shoulders, briefly expands her neck, and sticks her tongue out.  More frog-like (amphibian) than reptile to this viewer. And racism plays ...

Bill Burns: Who's he? Here I am getting my zine published on his site and I know very little about the guy.  I've never been deep into SF fandom but through his site, eFanzines.com, I'm meeting new people outside of my usual readership of ufologists, conspiracy theorists, and supernatural investigators. In the old days I would have to conduct an interview via telephone.  ThanX to  email I learned about Bill and the history of eFanzines, getting the story in his own words without the labor of writing transcripts.  (I try to be a stickler about direct quotes.) The impetus for eFanzines dates back to November 2000,  the early days of the internet.  The time when dinosaurs and dial-up roamed across the earth.  Downloads would lumber, taking seemingly forever to complete.  Email size restrictions forced a sender to divide a large file into separate emails.   Most fanzine publishers didn't have their own personal web space.  Cloud...