I plan on doing a series of short (easy to digest) posts, rather than one monster report.
Friday, February 26, 2010
report from Laughlin Nevada
Presently, I'm sitting in the convention hall at the annual UFO conference. A mixed bag of very interesting and the absurd. More to come - soon.
Saturday, February 13, 2010
UFO Disclosure Implications
The intricacies of a quandary in under four minutes.
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Thursday, February 11, 2010
Mac's voice, talking about cats
Mac Tonnies (in William Burroughs attire) with a cute toy cat. The blurry distortion in the photo is undoubtedly due to electro-magnetic interference from a yet unknown parallel dimension.Here is a short audio posting where you can compare and contrast Mac's wise insights, and my stilted ponderings about cats. This is a companion to previous posting titled Cats, Strings & Laser Pointers.
11 minutes
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audio with Mac's voice / 11 minutes
_______________________________________________________
Huge thanks to Greg Bishop & Radio Mysterioso for the audio clip from an wonderful interview with Mac earlier this year.
_______________________________________________________
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
My Pal Mac Tonnies
In his element.
This is a long posting. It is a rambling bunch of self examination about the loss of my friend. I wrote it in a sort of flurry, it is a string of details I needed to get written down. I may remove it from the blog at some point, but it feels honest.
* * *
I was driving back from a conference in California (Whitley Strieber’s DREAMLAND event in Joshua Tree) in late October of last year. This was a decidedly heady time, with a lot of intense stuff invading my life.
I stopped in Moab Utah to visit a friend, and I camped in the desert at the edge of town. The next morning I had a smoothie at a small breakfast shop, and for some reason I requested bee pollen as an extra, I had never had it before and I figured I would give it a try. Within minutes of finishing the drink, I had a very distressing allergic reaction. My face turned red, my lips puffed up, I was itchy all over and I barfed in the bathroom of the restaurant.
At no point did I feel my airway closing up, but believe me, I was one step away from driving to the emergency room. I took a benedryl, and waited for it to pass.
Right in the throws of this anaphylactic reaction, I went to visit a UFO researcher named Elaine Douglas. We had met once before, and I had spoken to her a few times on the phone. She and I talked about the research she was doing, and my ongoing weirdness. While sitting at her kitchen table, I felt progressively better. After about an hour, I felt perfectly normal. I thought I would just stop by for a short visit, but we ended up talking for multiple hours, and it was late in the afternoon when I finally said goodbye.
At that point I had a long drive in front of me, from Utah to my home in Idaho. I went into a little cafe on the main street to fill up on coffee. I also checked my email on my laptop. It was right then I found out that Mac had died. I was absolutely shocked, and I sat in the back corner of the cafe and cried.
I had talked with Mac just a week or so earlier, it was a typical conversation for us; deep, wide ranging, lots of laughs and it spiraled on late into the night.
Mac had a reverence for espresso, he wrote about it often and lovingly. I went up to the counter, and ordered a double latte short, and I savored every beautiful drop.
At that point nobody really knew how he died, but from what I could glean on-line, it was assumed to be a heart issue. Earlier in the year Mac had told me of an experience where he went to the hospital to get some sort of heart exam. This was after he had a fainting event at work. He was calm and dismissive about the whole thing, and he treated it as a nuisance.
I got in my car and started driving north. The emotional numbness was oppressive and scary. I chose to travel on the two-lane desert highways, avoiding the inhumanity of I-15 and Salt Lake City.
One of the downloads was a the three hour long Coast to Coast interview. This was particularly beautiful and bittersweet. You could hear George Noory’s voice that he was perfectly charmed and engaged talking with Mac. As silly as this sounds, you could sense his mind expanding trying to keep up with Mac’s big ideas.
During this time, alone in my car, listening to Mac’s calm and wise voice, my chest began to ache. Something was wrong, I was feeling sharp pains right behind my ribs. I have a minimal amount of first aid training, and the symptoms of cardiac arrest are severe “crushing” pain. That wasn’t what I was feeling, it was presenting as something less intense, but it was real nonetheless. I pulled into a gas station, bought an aspirin in a little foil packet, I swallowed it and hoped this wasn’t the big one.
The pain in my chest seemed related to the allergic reaction from that morning, but at the same time, it wasn’t lost on me that it could be some sort of subconscious sympathetic reaction to Mac’s death.
I got back in my car and drove off into the dark and lonely night. When I had listened to all the audio podcasts of Mac’s interviews, I started over and listened to them again.
* * *
It the weeks that followed, there was a lot of talk about the status of his final book. The story came out that there was a printed copy of the manuscript found on his desk. This document had final edits in Mac’s handwriting in the margins.
During my correspondence with Mac throughout 2009, I made it clear that I was eager to do a few illustrations for his book. Mac seemed delighted by my offer. I’ll add that he had been super supportive of my artwork since I started posting some of my drawings on-line. He would consistently comment on the cartoons, and I deeply appreciated his observant compliments.
I contacted Mac’s publisher to ask about the illustrations, it seemed that Mac had mentioned me and my offer to draw for the book, and I set about doing some initial sketches. Having a small role in Mac's book was a profound honor, and I took the responsibility seriously.
* * *
On December first 2009, I got the text of Mac's CRYPTOTERRASTRIALS book sent to me in a word document. I took it to the local copy shop, and they printed it up for me. I punched holes in the paper and put it in a 3-ring binder. At first I was a little intimidated to read it. There was something sacred, or maybe daunting about it.
A few days later I realized I needed to sit down and start reading.
I went through a sort of formal process. I made a cup of tea, got my reading glasses, turned the lamp on and sat on the couch. The binder was on the coffee table facing me. I opened the binder, turned to the very first page and just as I began looking at the opening words - I head a loud "click" from right next to me.
I looked over and my CD player had spontaneously ejected the cassette. It had done this all by itself.
That CD player is well over a decade old, and in all those years this has never happened. It seemed extremely odd. And I'm not kidding, it happened at the EXACT second that I read the very first words.
* * *
When I finally sat down at the desk to start the drawings, I was suddenly hit with that same dull but very real chest pain, just like like the night driving alone in Utah. It was centered behind my ribs and it was very difficult to ignore. It wasn’t the acute crushing pain described by cardiac arrest patients, but it was nonetheless, very real. I managed to dismiss it for over a week, hoping it would go away, but it didn’t, it stayed exactly the same. The only way I can describe it is to say it felt creepy.
Mac and I were both huge fans of R.Crumb, and I made sure to embrace that inky scratchy look as I worked on the illustrations.
Here’s how he introduced me on his Posthuman Blues site: Blog of the day: Little Boing Marks by friend and ufological co-conspirator Mike Clelland. Mike's drawings are delightful: R. Crumb meets Dr. Seuss.
The inspiration for the style and format of the illustrations for Mac’s book was lifted directly from an R.Crumb illustrated edition of THE MONKEY WRENCH GANG. Curiously, I bought this hard to find book a decade earlier, on that same Main Street in Utah.
* * *
I suffer from clinical depression, something that seems all to common with creative types like me. Throughout my life I go through cycles where I walk away from the desk and ignore my skills as an illustrator. 2009 was probably the emptiest time of my life, where I actively rejected drawing, I felt terribly barren and uninspired.
Mac’s book forced me to break through that stuck feeling. The job of sitting at my desk, with pens and pencils and ink felt wonderful. I enjoyed the act of putting little black lines on a clean white sheet of paper. Something that I thought I had lost was back again.
At no point did I feel my airway closing up, but believe me, I was one step away from driving to the emergency room. I took a benedryl, and waited for it to pass.
Right in the throws of this anaphylactic reaction, I went to visit a UFO researcher named Elaine Douglas. We had met once before, and I had spoken to her a few times on the phone. She and I talked about the research she was doing, and my ongoing weirdness. While sitting at her kitchen table, I felt progressively better. After about an hour, I felt perfectly normal. I thought I would just stop by for a short visit, but we ended up talking for multiple hours, and it was late in the afternoon when I finally said goodbye.
At that point I had a long drive in front of me, from Utah to my home in Idaho. I went into a little cafe on the main street to fill up on coffee. I also checked my email on my laptop. It was right then I found out that Mac had died. I was absolutely shocked, and I sat in the back corner of the cafe and cried.
I had talked with Mac just a week or so earlier, it was a typical conversation for us; deep, wide ranging, lots of laughs and it spiraled on late into the night.
I had simply assumed that one day I would sit in a coffee shop with Mac, we would drink espresso and talk, just like we always had. And now he was gone.
Mac had a reverence for espresso, he wrote about it often and lovingly. I went up to the counter, and ordered a double latte short, and I savored every beautiful drop.
At that point nobody really knew how he died, but from what I could glean on-line, it was assumed to be a heart issue. Earlier in the year Mac had told me of an experience where he went to the hospital to get some sort of heart exam. This was after he had a fainting event at work. He was calm and dismissive about the whole thing, and he treated it as a nuisance.
I got in my car and started driving north. The emotional numbness was oppressive and scary. I chose to travel on the two-lane desert highways, avoiding the inhumanity of I-15 and Salt Lake City.
The drive was astounding beautiful. I had a series of podcast interviews with Mac all loaded up on my iPod, and I listened to them as the sun set in a glorious display of reds and orange. The route I took home was empty and desolate, and I would go for as long as an hour without seeing another car.
One of the downloads was a the three hour long Coast to Coast interview. This was particularly beautiful and bittersweet. You could hear George Noory’s voice that he was perfectly charmed and engaged talking with Mac. As silly as this sounds, you could sense his mind expanding trying to keep up with Mac’s big ideas.
During this time, alone in my car, listening to Mac’s calm and wise voice, my chest began to ache. Something was wrong, I was feeling sharp pains right behind my ribs. I have a minimal amount of first aid training, and the symptoms of cardiac arrest are severe “crushing” pain. That wasn’t what I was feeling, it was presenting as something less intense, but it was real nonetheless. I pulled into a gas station, bought an aspirin in a little foil packet, I swallowed it and hoped this wasn’t the big one.
The pain in my chest seemed related to the allergic reaction from that morning, but at the same time, it wasn’t lost on me that it could be some sort of subconscious sympathetic reaction to Mac’s death.
I got back in my car and drove off into the dark and lonely night. When I had listened to all the audio podcasts of Mac’s interviews, I started over and listened to them again.
* * *
It the weeks that followed, there was a lot of talk about the status of his final book. The story came out that there was a printed copy of the manuscript found on his desk. This document had final edits in Mac’s handwriting in the margins.
During my correspondence with Mac throughout 2009, I made it clear that I was eager to do a few illustrations for his book. Mac seemed delighted by my offer. I’ll add that he had been super supportive of my artwork since I started posting some of my drawings on-line. He would consistently comment on the cartoons, and I deeply appreciated his observant compliments.
I contacted Mac’s publisher to ask about the illustrations, it seemed that Mac had mentioned me and my offer to draw for the book, and I set about doing some initial sketches. Having a small role in Mac's book was a profound honor, and I took the responsibility seriously.
* * *
On December first 2009, I got the text of Mac's CRYPTOTERRASTRIALS book sent to me in a word document. I took it to the local copy shop, and they printed it up for me. I punched holes in the paper and put it in a 3-ring binder. At first I was a little intimidated to read it. There was something sacred, or maybe daunting about it.
A few days later I realized I needed to sit down and start reading.
I went through a sort of formal process. I made a cup of tea, got my reading glasses, turned the lamp on and sat on the couch. The binder was on the coffee table facing me. I opened the binder, turned to the very first page and just as I began looking at the opening words - I head a loud "click" from right next to me.
I looked over and my CD player had spontaneously ejected the cassette. It had done this all by itself.
That CD player is well over a decade old, and in all those years this has never happened. It seemed extremely odd. And I'm not kidding, it happened at the EXACT second that I read the very first words.
* * *
When I finally sat down at the desk to start the drawings, I was suddenly hit with that same dull but very real chest pain, just like like the night driving alone in Utah. It was centered behind my ribs and it was very difficult to ignore. It wasn’t the acute crushing pain described by cardiac arrest patients, but it was nonetheless, very real. I managed to dismiss it for over a week, hoping it would go away, but it didn’t, it stayed exactly the same. The only way I can describe it is to say it felt creepy.
I've never had chest pain before, and it happens twice, and both times it was closely associated with Mac. One morning I woke up and the finger tips in my left hand were going numb, and I had a very distressing sensation in my left armpit.
I went to my doctor that day. My pulse and blood pressure were perfect, and I tried to describe the symptoms to the doctor. He listened carefully and was genuinely perplexed, I wasn’t showing any overt symptoms of cardiac trouble.
I also said that I thought it might be psychosomatic, because it so closely matched the death of a young friend, Mac, from heart related issues. He patiently listened, and then he said, “Let’s have a listen.”
I got up on the exam table and he listened to my heart with his stethoscope. I watched as he listened, and after a moment I could see his face make a sort of AH-HA expression. He said he heard a very specific rubbing noise that indicated pericarditis. This is a swelling and irritation of the pericardium, which is the sac that surrounds your heart. (more weirdness HERE)
He said that the treatment for pericarditis is a daily regime of anti-inflammatory medication and if I respond well, there is nothing to worry about. I started taking Aleve, and within 24 hours, all the pain was gone.
The numbness in the fingertips of my left hand continued, and it’s numb right now, as I type this. Presently it's very minor, and neither me or my doctor is concerned. It is presenting like a pinched nerve in my shoulder.
I went to my doctor that day. My pulse and blood pressure were perfect, and I tried to describe the symptoms to the doctor. He listened carefully and was genuinely perplexed, I wasn’t showing any overt symptoms of cardiac trouble.
I also said that I thought it might be psychosomatic, because it so closely matched the death of a young friend, Mac, from heart related issues. He patiently listened, and then he said, “Let’s have a listen.”
I got up on the exam table and he listened to my heart with his stethoscope. I watched as he listened, and after a moment I could see his face make a sort of AH-HA expression. He said he heard a very specific rubbing noise that indicated pericarditis. This is a swelling and irritation of the pericardium, which is the sac that surrounds your heart. (more weirdness HERE)
He said that the treatment for pericarditis is a daily regime of anti-inflammatory medication and if I respond well, there is nothing to worry about. I started taking Aleve, and within 24 hours, all the pain was gone.
The numbness in the fingertips of my left hand continued, and it’s numb right now, as I type this. Presently it's very minor, and neither me or my doctor is concerned. It is presenting like a pinched nerve in my shoulder.
Black and white chapter header for Mac's book, with lots of scratchy "R.Crumb" shadowing.
The process of doing the drawings was deeply emotional. It was, in some way, a very real form of grieving. I simply HAD to immerse myself into the creative process in a way that I usually avoid.
I over worked the drawings. I spent to much time on them, I used too many tiny lines, I got swallowed up in the minute details. I cared about these drawings in a way that felt important to me.
I over worked the drawings. I spent to much time on them, I used too many tiny lines, I got swallowed up in the minute details. I cared about these drawings in a way that felt important to me.
During our last phone call Mac told me about R.Crumb’s latest book. It was a literal interpretation of The Book of Genesis. I hadn’t heard about it, and Mac delighted in describing the funny details, he reveled in the lurid begatting and the violent smiting.
On Thursday October 22nd I saw the book in a bookstore on a tiny Main Street in the middle of Utah. I bought it immediately and I sent my last email to Mac using the wireless in the book store. I later realized later this was the day that they found Mac’s body in his apartment in Kansas City.
Mac and I were both huge fans of R.Crumb, and I made sure to embrace that inky scratchy look as I worked on the illustrations.
Here’s how he introduced me on his Posthuman Blues site: Blog of the day: Little Boing Marks by friend and ufological co-conspirator Mike Clelland. Mike's drawings are delightful: R. Crumb meets Dr. Seuss.
The inspiration for the style and format of the illustrations for Mac’s book was lifted directly from an R.Crumb illustrated edition of THE MONKEY WRENCH GANG. Curiously, I bought this hard to find book a decade earlier, on that same Main Street in Utah.
* * *
I suffer from clinical depression, something that seems all to common with creative types like me. Throughout my life I go through cycles where I walk away from the desk and ignore my skills as an illustrator. 2009 was probably the emptiest time of my life, where I actively rejected drawing, I felt terribly barren and uninspired.
Mac’s book forced me to break through that stuck feeling. The job of sitting at my desk, with pens and pencils and ink felt wonderful. I enjoyed the act of putting little black lines on a clean white sheet of paper. Something that I thought I had lost was back again.
I feel fantastically blessed that I knew Mac Tonnies. The world needed his amazing mind, and his eagerness to look deep into the unknown. It is a profound honor to know he was my friend.
Saturday, February 6, 2010
cats, strings and laser pointers
MacTonnies' cat Ebe, an acronym for Extraterrestrial Biological Entity.The very first posting on this blog (March 3rd 2009) was a short little essay that I had written up years before titled CAT & STRING. It was a nice little metaphor that attempted to articulate some of the weirdness of the UFO mystery, at least the way I see it.
The opening words of Mac Tonnies posthumous book is a short piece about his cats and a laser pointer. It was originally posted as an essay on his blog, Posthuman Blues.
I strongly encourage you to read BOTH essays before you proceed any further. They are linked HERE and HERE.
These two essays are eerily similar. If you look at the comment’s below my initial posting, you’ll see that Mac said: “Have you read my essay about cats and laser pointers? We're on the same page!”
That was the very first comment I received on this blog, on the very first posting, on the very same day as the blog went up.
Mac's other (very cute) cat, Spook.My essay was written sometime in November 2006, two months after Mac wrote his. I remember the morning I wrote it. I sat at my computer, and drank a second cup of coffee, and it simply gushed out of me in a caffeine induced flurry, I'm not kidding, it wrote itself. The text was short and tidy, and it seemed to express exactly the mysterious puzzle that plagued me.
The first thing I did, that same morning, was post this essay on Whitley Strieber’s UNKNOWNCOUNTRY message board. I have since tried to find it, but I can’t seem to dig deep enough. If it’s still there, I could figure out the exact date I wrote the thing.
The first time I ever heard of Mac Tonnies was on a really great Binnall of America interview, dated March 10th 2007 (if you haven’t heard this, it’s amazing!). This was seven months after Mac wrote his Cat & Laser Pointer essay, and five months after I wrote my Cat & String version.
I feel confident in saying that I never read Mac’s essay before writing mine.
The similarities are obvious, we are, quite literally, expressing the very same metaphoric details. It’s very funny that Mac, the self-proclaimed post-human technologist uses a laser pointer, as opposed to me, the self-proclaimed thrifty minimalist with a piece of string. Just so y’know, I am a weirdo zealot about the mystical benefits of ultra-light camping.
After listening to the (over three hour) interview with Tim Binnall, I was simply thunderstruck by the voice and ideas of Mac. It was without hesitation that I searched him out. I simply looked up his name and Missouri and called him on the phone. At the time I was involved in a documentary, and I thought he needed to be involved, and the initial phone call was to ask for an interview, but deep down - I just wanted to talk to the guy.
Among all his other gifts, Mac Tonnies was a beautiful conversationalist. We got along splendidly, and from that first phone call to his his death, we would talk on the phone often, and we would email incessantly.
During our initial correspondence, I sent Mac an email with my Cat & String essay. He replied (almost instantly, as was his nature) that he had written something similar, but with a laser pointer. I no longer have a copy of that email, but it must have been some time after March of 2007.
Mac read his Cat & Laser Pointer essay on an audio interview with Greg Bishop on Radio Mysterioso on July 27th of 2009. I am not sure that’s when I first heard it (maybe), but I later found it on his blog. This obviously struck me as very odd.
approx. 11 minutes long
My very playful cat, Spazzy.On July 29th, I asked: When did you write that Cat & Laser Pointer essay? Do you have the date? I'm curious...
Mac replied: I wrote the cat/laser piece a year or so ago -- before your cat/string piece, in case you were wondering. I'm pretty sure I wrote mine in late '06, but I'll double-check. It would be weird if we wrote our essays at the same time!
And...
A few days later Mac emailed me: I found it, and it's dated! I just searched my blog and found mine (Sep, 2006)
I can’t even begin to untangle what, if anything, all of this may mean. Mac said what I was thinking: “It would be weird if we wrote our essays at the same time!” I did a little digging, and we wrote them independently, less than two months apart. If nothing else, I have to agree, it is weird.
_______________________________________________________
It took me a while of digging, but I found the date I wrote my version on the original document, noted here.
My essay Cat and String written:
November 25, 2006
Mac's essay Cat and Laser pointer published on Post-Human Blues:
September 29, 2006
Mac's essay Cat and Laser pointer published on Post-Human Blues:
September 29, 2006
_______________________________________________________
Click HERE to see a very sweet little video of Mac's two cats, complete with endearing baby talk voice-over from Mac himself. Please know, this short clip made me cry.
And more images of Mac's cats HERE.
_______________________________________________________
Also, I made sure to include two cats in the illustration in the previous post below.
Also, I made sure to include two cats in the illustration in the previous post below.
_______________________________________________________
Audio essay with Mac's voice, dated Feb 11th 2010
_______________________________________________________
The above is a cartoon posted by Robbie Graham
on his Facebook page on Janurary 28th 2015.
___________________________________________________
Thursday, February 4, 2010
illustrations for Mac Tonnies
Click on these images for a HI-rez view.
I was enormously fortunate to play a small role in the final book from my friend Mac Tonnies. This was a truly a powerful and bittersweet experience, forcing me to reflect on what it means to be human. I did a series of eleven illustrations, simple black & white chapter openers. As indulgent as it sounds, I am convince that Mac was in the room with me during my time at the desk with my pens.
There is a lot more to this story, and much of it is emotional and challenging. It was a very confusing way to grieve the loss of a friend. I will write more soon - when I can better articulate my mixed-up sentiments.
Anomalist books has a page up to promote Mac's book, THE CRYPTOTERRESTRIALS, this is an extremely important work by one of our great thinkers.
conversation with Anne Strieber
There is a new audio interview on Whitley Strieber's DREAMLAND (with me), it's posted in the subscriber's section, dated 1/30/2010. I talk with Anne Strieber, Whitley's wife, for about 40 minutes.I have been going to UFO conferences over the last few years, and I had the chance to talk with Anne at an event in Joshua Tree California in October of last year. We sat together for a short time, and I shared some of my experiences, and she had a lot of insights.
After the publication of COMMUNION in 1987, the Strieber's received over half a million letters where people would share their experiences. Anne claims to have read thru all of them, and in doing so, she has become a sort of data base for the extremely bizarre details that get reported by witnesses.
You will need to be a member of the DREAMLAND site to access this audio interview.
Here's an excerpt of what Anne wrote about the interview:
Subscriber Special: A Subscriber Close-Encounter Witness Tells His Story
... Anne Strieber talks with close encounter witness "Mike" about his current and ongoing encounter experiences. As our visitors focus more and more on people who are taking an active interest in them, the close encounter experience is changing. No longer does it involve only sudden appearances in the middle of the night to totally unprepared people, it also involves ongoing relationships with people who have been having encounters, often for years.____________________________________________________
These people offer a whole new narrative of contact, and represent the first ongoing experience human beings have had with entities of unknown origin that is not being turned into mythology and superstition. Listen as Mike tells you of his life and his experiences in a calm and straightforward manner. He discusses synchronicities, missing time, seeing visitors as a child, and his personal struggle to get past denial and fear and make his encounters a part of his life of value to him, not simply something to be endured in fear and confusion.
Also, early in the interview I mistakenly say 1973 when talking about the Orange Flash event, I should have said 1974.
Shortly there after I say that I received an email from Whitley where he says he is following my blog, I made a mistake, that email was in reference to following my twitter account. He did send me a note about my blog, but it was a different day. Sorry about that, I was nervous at the beginning, and I made some mistakes.
____________________________________________________
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