JOHN SCOTT RIDGWAY AND THE DARK AND SORDID HISTORY OF THE ELVES ATTIC ... of which this is the second incarnation. I was shut out of the first. After certain stories were altered. They left it up, just would not let me in. When I tried to send my readers here through the message section, they flooded it with spam. so suddenly there were hundreds of messages. Hey, that is mild compared to the other shit they did to me. Just better documented. This same blog disappeared from the west coast while we were doing the radio show... and after I was asked if I thought my blog was getting people killed, would I want the CIA to take it down... There is so much to my story that a cursory examination will yield you little more than the impression of a paranoid person. I am quite the opposite. I was ignorant of what was happening to me way too long, because I have never felt there was any reason to bug me at all.
I like to warn people that my work is controversial. I do not do sexually explicit stuff, and actually prefer to write for a lot of age groups, and intelligence/social/literacy levels. . . there is a level of violence that led a great talent, Dan Milano, of late of Warren The Ape fame (and a history of putting on great show after show that somehow has not gotten the ratings they deserve, to my extreme chagrin and disappointment in the tv viewing public... oh, well...) to review my writing quite succinctly: "Your work is terrifying. . . in a very funny way."
So let me make this clear right now -- I write about violence and mayhem comedic ally to get people to read about shit they would normally consider too depressing to approach mentally.
PLEASE do not mistake my characters for me and feel like you have discovered some madness on the web. I wear a white hat that I hoped people could see from afar, but I guess that isn't always true. Anyways, I like the gov. and the law. Us left wing guys are not the nuts you have to worry about. We don't like guns, remember?
Personally, I tell people that if someone in your crew gets violent at a protest, you should kick their ass yourself. They are not helping your cause. Quite often they are agent provocateurs, sent by Law Enforcement, spurring you into a situation where you can be jailed, or just drunken vandals. Violence destroys your credibility. This I believe in the USA. I am not naive enough to think this applies to the entire globe.
I write for the world, folks... not my own neighborhood. I also write for a loyal group of soldiers who have been fans since early in my career, since they too understand working through violence by gallows humor. You know it is not a laughing matter at all, really... in a way... I understand that, too. . . still, I do it... It's complex.
I wrote for many years with no violence. Years of writing very serious short stories and a novel exposing an insidious and horrid chapter in the CIA and Navy Seals that I did not know was still classified. I merely heard lectures from a disgruntled, brilliant, ex Navy Seal, and based a character on the man's story. . . the class was part of a Military Intelligence Emphasis in Sociology, run by a Communist, Doctor Danial Stern, who had a room full of Freedom of Information documents filled with FBI notes documenting their spying on him; though I, naive writer who was merely curious and going to school forever to get five majors -- my pretty much reached goal before I would go off and write books and actually have something to say -- had no idea that I was going to find myself later under investigation from various agencies, including the Chicago Police's now disbanded Intelligence Unit, which was also charged with some heavy crimes, to the FBI, to even more shadowy groups).
My first indication was a cop coming down to the beach, and showing me a bag full of stun guns and other torture devices... He tried to scare me, and I tried to assure him that I am not a criminal... I do not scare. I drove cab for fifteen years, in Toledo, a very tough little burg, and Chicago, a job that made me a lightening rod for crime. Later, they would harass us by coming into our apartment and moving stuff around. For awhile, my phone cut off all the time, and I could not even call out of state. They also made obvious they were bugging us. The shit really hit the fan just before I was to start a radical radio show, Peace and Pipedreams, which I planned to use as politically leftest as possible, and I made that clear on my blog.
The Intelligence community got worried when I took the huge readership I had built up with comedy, and suddenly went political and actually drew great interest from the comedy community, where I am an underground hit.
The Radio show got us listeners like Robin Williams, Cheechs and Chongs who we owed a lot too, in some ways, since my stoner character, Moonbong Haze, was my major character... their interest inspired us to new heights.
Hollywood, took notice when I announced to all my correspondences out there that Fearless radio had a studio, and green screen, and film cameras, etc... and OFFERED TO MAKE MOVIES OUT OF ALL OF MY SHORT STORIES, TOO.... you can imagine how sweet this offer sounded to me at the time.... but of course, it never came true, was just an empty promise... they would not even let us use the green screen, very weird... Our show was so radical that when I had a mysterious seizure and was hospitalized, our fans all thought I was dead....killed by the government because of how radical the show got...
I actually was quite intent on telling People that if the Republicans dared to steal a third election, we were going to have to revolt. .. on my blog, and the radio, and also promoted pot, and rationally discussed other drugs, in between our comedic sketches about over the top drug users.. I wanted to sound like a threat, even if I was just this guy... lo and behold, a lot of people came to my aide, including the honorable duo, John Stewart and Steven Colbert and many, many others. Thank you. Your support has proven vital to me over the years.
I paid for my radicalism though... and my story is both a warning, and a more than likely unheeded plea for justice.
I was actually told by a spy that I should not write any books, or just write children's books. Something I myself had told M. and they heard over their bugs. I was just frustrated with all the heat my writing was drawing... blowing off steam. When I came back to myself, I went after them, exposing everything they seek to hide. I have NEVER signed a loyalty oath, have no vow of secrecy. You can take or leave this aspect of this blog, just read the stories and poetry... but this is the subtext, should you care.
I find my message is more important than the way I convey it.
All of my characters come out of real events in my life, some more than others. I am not a serial killer, or any of the other mistakes people make about me as a person when they take my characters out of context.
Some stories in here reflect my personal story more than others. My tale with the government and intelligence is buried in my fiction and poetry. I write about such things metaphorically at times. Other times, I am writing about things that have nothing to do with me at all. Futuristic Pigs From Space, for example, or the wild sexual adventures inferred into Johnny Pain's life (never actually described, and always has to be funny, or is not written -- that is my rule in such stories), or his murders. I also do not have eighty levels of underground complexes, under a huge old mansion with all the windows covered in black plastic, surrounded by six acres of Marijuana kept by a hippie guy whose brother and mother have left the planet with aliens to be in an inter-galactic, 24-7, drugged out orgy. Are you getting the point????
I do not want to see anyone murdered ever personally. This violence is a call for change, using the metaphors for war that saturate our cultures use of language (Dr. Sarah Hoagland).
Gangsta X, Moon Bong Haze, Johnny Pain, and others are here.
X has become a book, a revolutionary handbook, and a story about a peaceful, plausible, revolutionary in the Americas, and the world. I am fleshing out the story quite a bit in the book. Yes, to those who wonder, I put my own true story in the subtext of that book, but it is less my story than a tale of frustration, and hope, by a liberal, non-violent activist who ends up in the middle of a revolution as a leader. . . trying to stop a wave of violence that breaks out with his people across the country . . . using his words and writing as the Thomas Paine of the revolution to draw blood.
I have been blogging fiction for ten years, written about LITERALLY HUNDREDS OF CHARACTERS.... and been mistaken for everything from a serial killer, to a Futuristic Pig from Space (which my girlfriend encouraged, but that had to do more with slobbery than any snout, hoofs, or a future), to ... well... Funny, when I was young, I would have judged a write by his characters, too....
