Honest

Well it’s another weekend and my Father is sick again. My Mother is in Scotland so here I am camped out at my parents house for a few days hoping that we don’t have to make another drive up the island to the Emergency Room. I don’t think we will. He’ll be OK. He's just on a wrong antibiotic, but that will get put right tomorrow. I think I’ll be OK too. I’ve got my Level 10 Protection Batman T-shirt, a pile of CD’s and a mystery. A big one. One that undoubtedly involves Aliens and ghosts that travel through portals in time.

There is…something out there. Something trying to make contact. The signs are all around me but I can’t see them – yet – because I don’t know what I’m looking for. The architecture is everywhere. It’s in motion and I have to find what I’m supposed to do, what I’m supposed to be looking for, and how I’m supposed to find it. It’s a picture of a signal of movements that are in motion. Thresholds are being crossed and unseen things are visible – for a moment. They brush past us from the edge of the 4th Dimension and disappear again. When you see them time slows down, and colors fade just ever so slightly. When they pass back something dogs you. There was something that you were supposed to see. Something in what just happened…did you miss it? Did you see it? There. Just right there. Can’t you see it? Look. It’s everywhere. Can’t you make out the pattern? No, bigger. Your vision is too small. Look. Bigger. Are you looking? No, over there. What was that? Was that part of it?

A few posts below, on May 8, I typed the following excerpt from the Island County Sheriff’s Report: “April 9 - 1:28 a.m. — A woman on Barnacle Lane told police she saw a very bright light very high up in the sky. It had no sound but then broke up and crumbled to the earth.” Then I posted a photo of Commander John Koenig, and Maya, the Science Officer on Moonbase Alpha from the TV show Space 1999, and then I typed “They’re Here. Honest”.

I realize now that that’s when it all began. The signs began to appear but I didn’t notice. It seemed like coincidence at first, when I looked at the clock it was usually 11:11 AM. 3:33 PM and the like. Little things. A bird looking strangely at me out in the garden. The rain blowing from one direction, but when you look again it's blowing in from some other direction all together. Something felt like it was bending.

Then:

At 11:59 AM on Thursday, May 22nd Caroline rang me up from Portland, Maine and left a message on my phone. She said that she had a good story, and she did. So, her story goes that the evening before she had gone to see a documentary called Independent America: The Two-Lane Search for Mom & Pop. The premise of the film is two people driving across America looking for independent Mom & Pop stores but seeing the big corporations taking over everything everywhere. In the film, and in a clip from it that I saw on Youtube, there are lots of long shots of America passing by out the window of the car. And Carrie was excited to say that her evening was made when the film crew arrived in Arcata, California. As they drove through Arcata cameras rolling out the window, they pass the marquee of a club and on the marquee it reads “Appearing Tonight: Casey Neill and Timothy Hull.” And Carrie was psyched to tell me that Casey and I made the movies. And we did, apparently, make the movies, there’s just one little thing…we never played the gig. So I hear Caroline’s message and straight away call over to Casey and tell him the story, and we agree that for all of the shows that we have ever done together, one was never in Arcata, nor was there ever one in California, made stranger by the Marquee aspect of it – a poster in a window yes, but our names in lights? It happens, but not together. Then Casey tells me that something like five years ago (in his memory) someone sent him a message saying that they had seen the same film and spotted our names, but Casey couldn’t find out anything more and forgot about it.

So after work I drove back to Langley and parked on the street and walked ‘round to the back of the van and leaned up against it, facing the street in the middle of town, and rang Carrie back to mine her for more information. There wasn’t any more except she, for some reason, has some sort of memory of me canceling something and I too have some very unclear half memory of canceling something on behalf of Casey and myself, but it would have been years ago…as in years and years ago. So with no results, there were no results. Just a little mystery. Which got deeper. As I was standing there leaning on the van talking to Carrie, a metallic greenish-blueish pickup that I had never seen before drove slowly by right in front of me and the driver (also who I had never seen before) slowly turned his head and waved with this strange half smile and I thought straight away of the John Turturro character in that Johnny Depp movie Secret Window – the creepy character who thinks Johnny Depp “Stole his story.” It’s not a good movie, but John Turturro as a creepy hick in overalls is pretty cool. Was he a ghost? A vision? The inside of Johnny Depp’s mind? So as this truck continues to pass the driver's face passes from view - and there on the tailgate is a “Nixon Now” bumper sitcker. I say to Caroline “No Way” “I can’t believe what I just saw! That was some old school action!” My phone will have the time of the call…5:31 PM Thursday, May 22. We spoke for half an hour maybe.


So then the next day I’m at work in a garden telling the story of the movie with Casey’s and my phantom gig, and Susan who I’m telling the story to, says that maybe it’s a sign. “A sign?” “Ya, you know” she says “A sign, and you have to figure out what it means then you will know what you are supposed to do.” And the world kindof cracked open and swallowed me right then which I suppose seems to happen with me from time to time. But then I realized that if my eye had followed the truck up the street in Langley that by the time it got to the stop sign at the Library, it would not have been there anymore. And that it never really was there at all anyway. If I had asked someone “Did you just see that truck with that massively cool “Nixon Now” sticker on it?” that they would have looked at me funny and said no. Some portal in time had opened and the truck drove past me showing me something. I knew it straight away. My immediate vision in my head when I saw the “Nixon Now” sticker was to see the fellow at a Grateful Dead show in Seattle who walked past me in the crowd on August 23, 1983 – and I remember him clearly – he was wearing a top hat and had on a “Nixon 74” tee shirt. Was he a clue? Were the wrinkles in time already beginning back then? I have to figure out the connection. I’m like Tom Hanks in the The Da Vinci Code and “I have to get to a library. Now.”

If the Grateful Dead are the key, then I need to know where they were on May 21 (the date when Caroline was watching the documentary and saw our names for the phantom gig) in 1974 (the date on the Nixon shirt). And on May 21 1974 the Grateful Dead were in – holy smoke – Seattle. That night they played at the Edmundson Pavilion - University of Washington (commonly known as Hec Ed). And here is the setlist:

Set 1

Me And My Uncle 

Brown Eyed Women 

Beat It On Down The Line 

Deal 

Mexicali Blues 

It Must Have Been The Roses 

The Race Is On 

Scarlet Begonias 

El Paso 

Row Jimmy 

Money Money 

Ship Of Fools 

Weather Report Suite Prelude ->
Weather Report Suite Part ->

Let It Grow ->

China Doll 



Set 2


Playing In The Band 

U.S. Blues 

Big River 

Stella Blue 

Around And Around 

Eyes Of The World ->

Wharf Rat ->

Sugar Magnolia 



Encore:
Johnny B. Goode

Wow. Now there’s a setlist – and the show sounds great as well (rolling over on Archive.org). I need to compare it though with the setlist from the ’83 Seattle show when I saw the guy with the Nixon shirt in order to find the hidden signal from the 4th Dimension, and here that list is:

Set 1:
Jack Straw
Deep Elem Blues
My Brother Esau
Brown Eyed Women
Little Red Rooster
Ramble on Rose
Looks Like Rain
Deal

Set 2:
Touch of Grey
Playin' in the Band
Uncle John's Band
drums
Throwin' Stones
Black Peter
One More Saturday Night

Baby Blue


I can’t find anything but that they played “Playin' in the Band” and "Brown Eyed Women" at both shows. I’ll keep that. That could be big. I’ll have to come back to that one. In 1974 it was the last time they played “Money Money” (Yea!) and in ’83 it was the last “Deep Elm Blues” (Boo!) also 1983 was the last Seattle show ‘til 1994. Add it all up and that’s two “lasts” and one “Nothing doing for a few years.” I got nothing. Nothing!! I can’t see the pattern. I can’t tune in the frequency. What is it saying? What is it trying to tell me? And how does it relate to Casey and my phantom show in Arcata? I need another library.

Lets go back to Nixon since the bumper sticker on the ghost truck was the moment I first sensed the open time portal…Nixon. He's no crook - he must hold a key to all of this.

OK, Richard M. Nixon...Oh No! Disaster. I’m way off course. I'm lost in fog. My memory is off or in 1983 I saw in T-shirt with some other date or meaning behind it….1974 wasn’t an election year. Nixon resigned in 1974 and gave the car keys over to Ford. Nixon ran and won in 1972. Could the shirt that I saw at the Dead show in 1983 actually have said “Nixon 72”? I need to make an adjustment. My telescope is looking at a wrong galaxy. Where were the Grateful Dead May 21, 1972….maybe the clue is there…

Well…OK, on May 21, 1972, it looks like the boys were smoking joints on the boat to England in the middle of four nights off, routing from Kongressaal, Denmark to London. This dragon just ate it's tail. And no, I’m not going to make the pun about being at a “Dead End”. Even if I am.

Right. I have to go back to what I know.

On Whidbey Island on April 9, 2008, at 1:28 a.m. a woman on Barnacle Lane called the police and said that she saw a very bright light very high up in the sky. “It had no sound but then broke up and crumbled to the earth”.

That’s when they arrived and the signs started coming, small at first, like looking at the clock at 9:11AM three mornings in a row. But they are bigger now.

April 9th. Maybe the clue is there.

OK, April 9th then:

On April 9th in 1865, Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered his army to Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia, and in 1969 Bob Dylan released "Nashville Skyline". On April 9th in 1967 the Grateful Dead played at the Panhandle in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, Ca. in the afternoon, and then at the Longshoreman's Hall, San Francisco, in the evening. In 1970, on April 9th, the Grateful Dead played the Fillmore West, San Francisco, Ca. and on April 9 in 1982 at the Community War Memorial in Rochester, N.Y. On April 9th in 1983 it was dancing at the Hampton Coliseum, Hampton, Va., while in 1987, they played the UIC Pavilion, Chicago, Il. April 9th 1988 the lights went down and the boys came out at The Centrum, in Worcester, Ma. while 1989 they played Freedom Hall, in Louisville, Ky., and lastly on April 9th in 1991 they played the Orlando Arena, 0rlando, Fl.

Virginia….April 9th, wait… Appomattox Virginia…Hampton Coliseum...Virginia, 1983…could the connection be there?? On April 9th 1983 the Grateful Dead played Hampton and the setlist was:

Set 1:

Bertha->
Promised Land,
West L.A. Fadeaway
My Brother Esau
Candyman,
Minglewood Blues
Brown Eyed Women>
Looks Like Rain
China Cat Sunflower>
I Know You Rider

Set 2:

Help On The Way->
Slipknot!->
Franklin's Tower->
Truckin'->
Smokestack Lightning Jam->
Drums->
Throwing Stones->
Black Peter->
Goin' Down The Road Feelin' Bad->
One More Saturday Night

E:
Satisfaction

Ok…the connection might be the song Brown Eyed Women. It’s there Again. They played it in Seattle in 74’, in Seattle in ’83, and in Hampton 1983. So I better do the math 83 plus 83 plus 74 is 240. Cross reference that number with the number of words in Brown Eyed Women – that number is 345. 240 and 345….nothing.

Another Dead End….

I’m getting nothing. My vision isn’t right. I’m failing to see the obvious. I’ve called Casey to see if he was at the show in Worcester in 88, that might be a big connection if he was. We’d be miles down the road. I have to think. Only three people know about the time riffs and the signs that are everywhere but we can’t identify them…actually, truthfully, only two people know, Casey you see will be suspicious - dubious actually, but Caroline knows that they are here, she saw the first message in the documentary film that she was watching. Carrie's no slouch, she can spot a signal coming through a time/space rift a mile away. “A mile away…” Wait a minute. OK, Carrie in Portland, Maine is at 43°39′54″N 70°16′9″W, while Langley, where I saw the ghost pickup signal, sits at 48°2′12.92″N 122°24′30.6″W. Um, this means nothing to me. But wait! When Carrie saw the documentary she was actually up the coast in Bath….So what’s that one look like…Ok, Bath sits at 43°54′59″N 69°49′21″W. Um, these numbers don’t mean anything to me either. I’m sunk. It’s like the pattern is a stained glass window with no glass in, and I can’t tell if I’m standing too close or too far away to see the pattern of the leaded edges. Casey called. He didn’t go to Worcester. This is going nowhere. I’m off track. My vision is too small.

I might have to sleep on it…

But then again I’m thinking of my first post, the one from the Sheriff’s Report. Maybe Commander Koenig, and Maya really are here. Maybe they returned to Earth in whatever it was that fell from the sky up by Barnacle Lane back on April 9.

The premise of Space 1999 is that there is a moonbase on the, well, moon. Moonbase Alpha. But oh no, one day a nuclear waste dump on the far side of the moon blows up and the entire friggin moon goes hurtling out of Earth’s orbit and zooms across space encountering loads of aliens as it does. But they can never get back to Earth. But wait, Space 1999 was on TV from September 4, 1975 through May 7, 1978. That's a lot of time since then. What if the crew invented something? If the crew did find a way to return to Earth well then certainly Commander Koenig would go on the mission, and it would also make sense that Maya would go along – because you see, Maya was a shape shifter and - um, my first girlfriend. She’d be handy in a pinch if there was any trouble. But that's it! Maybe there was trouble (isn't there always trouble). Maybe they didn’t quite make it back into the right dimension. Yes, that’s it! Commander Koenig, and Maya are stuck in the neathworld of a slightly askew dimension. Not quite the 3rd, not quite the 4th. It’s all unstable where they are and full of wrinkles and tears in time and space. So they would be trying to contact us through those very time/Space wrinkles, and it would make sense that they would start with trying to contact me, seeing as though, you know, the Science Officer was my first girlfriend. Who better? But I’m a dunce. My vision isn’t seeing the signals. I’m not seeing what they are saying. Right, so she chances it! Maya shape shifts and takes the form of a redneck and drives a truck with a “Nixon Now” sticker across an opening in the Time/Space continuum and right past me at the very moment I’m standing on the street talking with Carrie about Casey and I and the phantom show in Arcata that we never played that somehow made it in to a film, and Maya waves at me to make sure I see her. Yes! How much more obvious could it be!! It was right in front of me all the time. The pattern is emerging. OK. Um, I don’t know what to do next, or where to look, but I hope Commander Koenig and Maya are OK. Their resourceful. They made it out of every dodgy situation for two full seasons of Space 1999 intact. I will have to wait for the next signal. The next sign to come. As the pieces begin to come together I’ll find out what it means that Casey and I had our names on the marquee of a club in Arcata, California for a gig we never played, and when I figure that out, like my friend Susan said, I’ll know what to do next.

For now I’m staying up making sure that my Father is getting some rest, I’ll check his temperature in a little while and if it’s all OK I’ll go to bed and drive to Freeland to get him the right antibiotic first thing in the morning. And look for the signs. The signals. They’re everywhere now. There. Do you see it? There. Just right there. Can’t you see it? Look. It’s everywhere. Can’t you make out the pattern? No, bigger. Your vision is too small. Look. Bigger. Are you looking? No, over there. What was that? Was that part of it?


They're here. Honest.

...And they might be in trouble...

To help them though...



...I might have to do this....I might have to cross the streams.