the creative process (and inspiration)

First RUFF / color study for comic book idea. Double click for a HI-rez image.

Mac Tonnies spoke to me on 1-11-11. This communication was straightforward and succinct, albeit indirect. I heard his strong clear voice telling me (very nicely) to get off my sorry ass and produce a graphic novel.

This creative prodding came thru in a recent essay, it was a heartfelt piece about Mac Tonnies, synchronicity, the creative process and life. The article was published in The Atlantic by a friend of Mac's named Rita J. King.

The same day I read her piece, I sat at the desk, and began drawing and writing. I've had a fictional story brewing in my the recesses of my head for about a year, and as of now, the pen and paper have met. I'm posting this rough illustration as an overt way to publicly announcing my intention. I feel like I know my own work habits, and by declaring this stuff here, I'm a lot less likely to let this project slip away and never get done.

Thank you Rita and Mac!

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Another image as color study and overall style, added 3/31/2011

Rita wrote, "I don't have time." Mac replied, "Find the time."

I just found a superior article about Mac, HERE, written by his friend Rita J. King. This is a follow up to the New York Times piece, published in the recent Atlantic. The author shares heartfelt synchronicity that touches on life and death.

She also articulates and the deep creative enthusiasm that defined my friend Mac.

In a funny way, I feel that this short article is speaking directly to me, I am hearing Mac's strong clear voice telling me (very nicely) to get off my sorry ass and produce a graphic novel.

Mac Tonnies featured in the New York Times

This upcoming Sunday, there will be an article in the New York Times magazine titled: Cyberspace When You’re Dead By ROB WALKER. It features a long section on Mac Tonnies and the impact of his passing as seen on the internet.

I received an email about this article from Mac's mother Dana, and I read it within seconds of posting a photo of Mac and Leo Srpinkle (with a funny tag-line) and that was part of the essay above. The sychronicities continue.

Leo Sprinkle photographed in Wyoming with Mac Tonnies.

Mac wrote: The blur is almost certainly the result of paranormal forces! ;-)

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Here is an excerpt from the New York Times article:

The last entry on Posthuman Blues was titled “Tritptych #15,” a set of three images with no text. The first comment to this post came from an anonymous reader, wondering why Tonnies had not updated the blog or tweeted for two days. Some similar comments followed, and then this: “Mac Tonnies passed away earlier in the week. Our condolences are with his family and friends in this time of grief.” The author of that comment was also anonymous. After a rapid back-and-forth about whether this startling news was true and some details of the circumstances, that post’s comment section transformed into a remarkable mix of tributes, grieving and commiseration. You can still read all this today, in a thread that runs to more than 250 comments.

“It was a very strange feeling,” Dana Tonnies, Mac’s mother, told me, describing how she and her husband became aware of the swirl of activity attaching to her son’s online self. “I had no control over what was being said about him, almost immediately.” Dana and Bob Tonnies were close to their only son — in fact they had coffee with him, in a regular Sunday ritual, the morning before he died — but they had little contact with his digital self. Sometimes he would show them his online writing, but he had to do so by literally putting his laptop in front of them. The Tonnies did not read blogs. In fact they did not own a computer.

In the months after their son’s death, Dana and Bob went about the difficult business of organizing his papers (letters, e-mail printouts, story drafts) and deciding which of his belongings to keep (like his thousand or so books) or to give to his friends (his leather jacket, his three watches). This painful process took awhile, and they were not really focused on his blog or Flickr account and the like. They also inherited their son’s computer and have since learned how to navigate it and the Internet. But by then, their son’s online circle had already taken action.

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Follow-up from Mike C:

Let me add that I now have Mac's leather jacket, it is a deeply treasured gift from his family.

Over the last year I have used this blog to share some deeply personal stories about my friendship with Mac, and they are collected HERE.

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More info added on 1 / 11 / 11 :

A superior article about Mac, HERE, written by his friend Rita J. King, published in the recent Atlantic. The author shares heartfelt synchronicites and the deep creative enthusiasm that defined my friend Mac.

This inspired it's own post, and a personal challenge.

a rare look behind the scenes of the Hidden Experience world headquarters

Alas, this was shamelessly lifted and plagiarised from Mac Tonnies blog, Post Human Blues. I encourage everyone to get lost in this delightful collection of postings.

Mac Tonnies on Dreamland

I had the chance to praise Mac for almost an hour with Whitley Strieber, I was interviewed for his podcast DREAMLAND. I was deeply honored to talk about my friend and his amazing insights, the time was simply too short, there was a lot more I was eager to share.

This show is now on-line.

You can listen for free by clicking on the LISTEN NOW Dreamland icon in the upper right corner of the UNKNOWN-COUNTRY homepage.

We spoke about Mac's book, The Cryptoterrestrials, and how Whitley's own insights with the UFO phenomenon dovetailed closely with Mac's. It was sad to know that they never had the chance to share their ideas.

See this previous post (and it's curious synchronicity) for more info.

more synchro-groovyness

I just did a short audio interview with Whitley Strieber about Mac Tonnies and his book THE CRYPTOTERRESTRIALS. It was a very nice chance to praised my friend.

At one point mid-way thru the interview, Whitley included a short audio clip from a radio interview with Mac done shortly before he died.. During the time that the clip was playing, I sat silently with my finger on a very relevant point in Mac's book. It was on page 25, and it is an open challenge to the UFO research community. I was planning to read this short excerpt aloud after the audio clip ended.

But - When Whitley spoke again, he immediately said: "And here is something from Mac's book..."

Where upon he read the EXACT quote that was under my index finger! A delightfully appropriate bit of synchro-groovyness!

Here is the quote:

"Am I a ufologist? I don't know. Maybe. If I am, I should probably qualify the 'U' word with 'theoretical.' There are theoretical physicists and literary theorists; why not theoretical ufologists?

The ufological 'community' suffers from creative anemia. It has a disheartening tendency to refute dissenting voices – even those within its own ranks – with tired screeds that unnecessarily polarize the debate..."

And here is the audio clip used on the interview:

The Paracast ponders the ETH

On Sunday evening April 25th, I'll be a guest on The Paracast. I'll be part of small team discussing the far-reaching ideas of Mac Tonnies and the mysteries and complexities raised in his book, The Cryptoterrestrials.

The line up includes Gene Steinberg, his co-host Christopher O’Brien, Walter Bosley, T. Allen Greenfield, William Michael Mott and myself. It's a two hour conversation where we explore the mystery of Earth-based UFOs and the frontiers of our reality, as expressed by the late Mac Tonnies. My role was small, but it felt wonderful to be part of a diolog where perplexing ideas are batted around by open-minded researchers.

Click HERE for a link to the show.

astounding owl video

More incredible owl imagery!

There was video footage that same day in the outskirts of Greenfield Missouri. I've been in contact with the two folks (Tony & Faren) involved with the photographs and video. (location here)

Tony wrote: "I have spoken to several people with of wildlife knowledge, including one conservation agent. He said he had never seen more than 3 or 4 owls in one spot. This video doesn't do the sighting justice. There was probably more than 200 in the area."

You simply MUST watch the Hi-Definition clips on YouTube:

Hi-Definition version and another clip and one more!

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Please keep in mind, the location of this incredible owl sighting is also a point on a map. A place that lines up with Kansas City and Byron North Dakota, whatever that means. As best as I can figure, this owl video was filmed 123 miles from Mac's apartment. Yes, 123.

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The 2012 meme

I thought this photo was so funny!

From Mac Tonnies' blog, one year ago today:

I took this low-quality cameraphone picture in a Barnes & Noble. Personally, I'm grateful for the 2012 phenomenon: it's helped focus much-needed attention on issues pertaining to the near-future and our role as planetary stewards.

I'm ultimately agnostic regarding whether anything remotely "weird" occurs on December 21, 2012. My guess is that the fervently New Age crowd is in for a disappointment (which will, of course, be duly incorporated into its existing belief structure for fear of fracturing the entire edifice).

But if thinking about the future by way of the 2012 meme catalyzes interest in making the future a place where we might actually want to live, I'm all for it. And perhaps the ancient Mayans would have agreed.

(Mac sent me this image in an email, a year ago today. It was actually posted on his blog on March 26th)

a line on a map

That little red push pin is marking Byron North Dakota, whatever that means. Follow that yellow line 820 miles and it ends at the mysterious owl location in central Missouri, bisecting Mac's apartment along the way. The blue line is even stranger.

Sometimes I worry that I’ve gone completely insane, and this posting is an example of the out-and-out weirdness that leaves me utterly perplexed. Perhaps the easiest conclusion is that I’m just plain nuts. (maybe) That said, this little story is very interesting, at least to me. There is a yellow line in these map images, and it's either magic or folly.

First, I need share some information that came from Anya Briggs during a channeled session in early November 2009. At one point in the session she asked, “Do you know of a place called Byron, it’s somewhere near you?” I said I’m not sure.

She went through some rather comical attempts to make sense of what her guides were trying to tell her. Eventually she narrowed it down to Byron North Dakota. Right then, during our session, I googled Byron North Dakota, and pretty much ONLY one thing came up, a funny map with a marker in the middle of some farmer's field, right near the Canadian border.

Anya went on to tell me that: “Byron North Dakota will be very good to you, you will see us there.” And by us, she meant her guides, and by her guides, I suspect she meant alien beings in robes from another planet (or another dimension).

We both thought it was really funny. I’m still not quite sure what to make of it, but it was interesting. I suspect I'll make a pilgrimage there soon enough.

(I've added an audio excerpt from that channeled session, it's helpful in fully understanding this story, and it's funny. See the following post)

Now, let’s jump ahead to yesterday. I got a package in the mail from Anomalist books, it contained a few copies of Mac Tonnies posthumous book The Cryptoterrestrials. It prompted me to write a post (below) in praise of this amazing addition to the UFO literature.

Photo by Faren Fite, one (two actually) of over 200 owls he saw in rural Missouri.

And yesterday I also received a link to a series of super cool owl photographs, and I wrote a post about that too (also below).

It seemed curious that the two posts below, both come from Missouri. Mac Tonnies lived in Kansas City, and those beautiful owl pictures were taken somewhere between Greenfield and Lockwood Missouri. At first I was curious if they were two locations were close, so I checked google maps and put little YELLOW push pin marker on Kansas City and another marker (a blue pin) on the road between Greenfield and Lockwood. I checked and the two push pins were 123 miles apart, and whenever I see the numbers 123, I take a special notice.

(NOTE: On March 26th I received a letter from the owl photographer. See THIS post for more info)

The yellow line passes between Lockwood and Greenfield along US-Highway 160. This is the approximate location of those amazing owl photos.

Now, this is where things get weird. Don’t ask me why, because I don’t know. I just widened out the image on google maps and found Byron North Dakota, I used the map program and put a push pin in there too, a RED one.

Low tech tools incorporated in the detective work.

Then, without really thinking about it, I took a plastic ruler and set it against my computer monitor, and the three push pins line up EXACTLY in a straight line. I gotta say, this partially freaked me out, and at the same time, I sorta knew they were gunna line up before I even started.

A weird line, connecting the three dots across a BIG section of the US map. Byron in RED, Kansas City in YELLOW and those owls in BLUE.

I used some of the google-map tools to create a straight line on the map. It was funny process and hard to figure out. Alas, the line doesn’t quite precisely hit Byron, and I don’t really know the exact location of those owls. But I gotta say, it’s pretty feakin’ close!

There are 820 miles between the red push pin up North in Byron and blue push pin down in Greenfield Missouri, on the road where the owl pictures were taken, with that straight yellow line plainly bisecting Kansas City.

The hometown of my pal Mac, and the yellow line passes right through the city.

Three little dots on a map, all seemingly random, and I felt weirdly compelled to hold a ruler to my computer screen to figure it out. Again, don’t ask me why. I even set a protractor on my screen, and the line comes in at 17 degrees in relation to the latitude (and I knew that before hand too).

Owls, Mac Tonnies and message from Anya Briggs, all along one very straight line.

This whole thing is super weird, even by my standards. And during the time I was laboring over those maps, and trying to figure out how to position that line on the image, I get an email from Whitley Strieber. He writes: “Mike. we would love to interview you about him [Mac Tonnies] and your relationship.” What? I sure didn't expect that.

Earlier in the morning, I sent an email to Whitley telling him I thought he should read Mac’s book, and I could easily mail him a copy, but I didn’t really think I would get a reply, especially that reply. I’ll add I am not sure how serious he is, but if it happens, I would be deeply honored to praise Mac in an interview.

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The spark of the idea to lay that plastic ruler against my computer screen came from Stace Tussel. I was directly inspired by her straight line on a map of Kansas. Please watch this very curious video.

Mac Tonnies' book is on the shelves

Mac Tonnies' book, The Cryptoterrestrials is now available. I got to read an advanced copy, and I feel strongly saying that this is a very important addition to the literatrure on the UFO phenomenon. The world is a lesser place without Mac's brilliant mind and gentle voice.

Forward by Nick Redfern, afterword by Greg Bishop and illustrations by me.

From Anomalist books.

And please, I encourage everybody to dig thru Mac's blog. It is still on-line, and it's astoundingly fun. The image above is a masthead idea for Mac's blog. I wanted to use hand lettering, and Mac seemed to like the simple idea. It was a work in progress, and I never followed up on this as a drawing.

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.

Mac Tonnies, ever the technologist, uses a laser beam while I use a string. We are both metaphorically exploring the UFO phenomenon and it's relationship to humanity.

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.

one-click audio download HERE

11 minutes

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audio with Mac's voice / 11 minutes

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Huge thanks to Greg Bishop & Radio Mysterioso for the audio clip from an wonderful interview with Mac earlier this year.

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My Pal Mac Tonnies

In his element.

Just a few days ago, I wrote an email to a friend about Mac Tonnies' final book. I typed out the word posthumous, and I was struck by how much it looks like the title Posthuman Blues, the name of Mac's blog. My mind can get trapped in an unhealthy compulsion of seeing little coincidences, and thinking there is a deeper meaning.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

  Short audio recording of BOTH of us reading our essays linked HERE  

approx. 11 minutes long

My very playful cat, Spazzy.

Just a few days later, Mac and I had some back and forth emails about that little story.

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.

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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

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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.

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Also, I made sure to include two cats in the illustration in the previous post below.

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Audio essay with Mac's voice, dated Feb 11th 2010

CLICK HERE

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The above is a cartoon posted by Robbie Graham

on his Facebook page on Janurary 28th 2015.

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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.

police sketch artist

Drawn after a careful explanation from the witness. Some minor details are not exact (like the staircase in the window) but I was told that the overall image is very accurate. Click on the illustration for a HI-rez view.

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I got to play the role of "police sketch artist" for Anya Briggs. She had a memory of a very odd event that took place on 17th street in Manhattan.

To read about here experience, see the short article by A.M. Murphy (here).

slightly edited excerpt:

The winter solstice (of 2007) brought what Anya believes is her first conscious contact. Standing at a crosswalk waiting for a light to change, Anya found herself face to face with (as she later wrote), "the strangest looking man sitting in the window of a Starbucks. He wasn't abnormal, for all intents and purposes he had a perfect body, like a professional swimmer's, but way bigger ... he also happened to have the longest arms and fingers on a person I've ever seen, and additionally, he was about 6'8 or 6'9 and had the most perfect posture ... Additionally he ... was holding his mug of tea very awkwardly - his elbows were sticking straight out, exactly parallel to the floor." As she watched this bizarre figure, she became certain he was "not of this earth." There was a moment of apparent mutual recognition. Then he seemed to inundate her with a new and blissful feeling that Anya describes as "universal love."

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Just so you know, I have a sense of humor. It was a quiet Sunday morning, and I doodled with this illustration. Click on the small image to the left for a HI-rez view.

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Text added Feb. 6th, 2010

Here is an excerpt from a comment I received last night:

Until I read the text below the drawing, I initially thought this was a picture of a tall, beefed-up Mac Tonnies, given the Starbucks and coffee context. A kind of spooky "deja vu all over again."

When I read this, I felt myself shudder. It seemed so weird. Mac worked as a barista at a series of Starbucks in Kansas City. He was a lover of coffee, and his blog is loaded with deep reverence for espresso. The bald man (despite his ubber size) looks more than a little bit like Mac. What does it mean? I have no idea, except I simply KNOW that Anya would have been totally captivated by Mac - as I was, as everybody was.

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Wanna see a nice little video of Mac being charismatic in a coffee shop? Click HERE!

email from Mac Tonnies

I searched thru my old email files and I found hundreds of messages from Mac Tonnies. He was a master of the quick note and the insightful reply.

Below is an edited email reply from Mac, from just a little over two years ago. We’d had a long phone conversation the night before. I had been to New York and met with Budd Hopkins and Dave Jaccobs, with the documentary crew, this was the “whirlwind trip” mentioned in the text.

Mac was an amazing guy, and he kept me balanced as I struggled to make sense of my own story. He helped me enormously and the world is a lesser place without him.
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- - - From: Mac Tonnies / Date: November 6, 2007 12:51:36 AM MST - - -

Mike: Good chat session last night, I needed that. Thanks.

Mac: It's always uniquely therapeutic to talk UFOs with someone who knows what he's talking about. Sounds like a whirlwind trip!

There seems to be a desire (from the film crew folks) for me to stand up and declare: "Hello, my name is Mike, and I am a UFO abductee."

But, I can't quite get there.

I kind of sensed that. Great drama, but not your bag -- and rightfully not. You certainly appear to share experiences with some "abductees," but the label is so stifling that it's undeserving of your balanced skepticism, in my opinion.

Is that like an alcoholic saying that he doesn't have a drinking problem? Am I in denial?

I don't think so. You're simply suspending judgment (and in so doing transcending what, ultimately, is a fairly limiting label).

Mac

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Wanna see a nice little video of Mac being charismatic in a coffee shop? Click HERE!

Mac Tonnies shares a remarkable set of ideas

a very cute photo of Mac Tonnies

Less than a month ago, Mac was a guest on Coast to Coast AM with George Noory. He was a breath of fresh air on a radio show bogged down with the dubious. During his time on the air, he clearly and engagingly explained his take on a wide variety of subjects. As always, he spoke with remarkable clarity.
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One-click download HERE:

a 30 minute audio excerpt of an interview with Mac Tonnies on Coast to Coast

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He was a welcome guest on a wide variety of esoteric podcasts, but his performance on C2C was particularly impressive. He beautifully conveys his insights to a very mainstream audience. He had a way of articulating EXACTLY what I felt in my bones. He said it better and clearer than I ever could.

Mac covers a lot in this first half hour, a great intro to anyone unfamiliar with his work. If you listen, you'll be treated to a remarkable set of ideas.

Mac Tonnies, dead at 34

Mac Tonnies, my friend, is now dead.

He was found in his apartment on Thursday October 22.

Mac was one of a kind. A brilliant thinker, very funny and a beautiful speaker. I'm crying in a coffee shop in Moab as I write this. Try and understand this, but I needed Mac to reassure me that I wasn't delusional or insane. He got some desperate calls from me, late at night, during my moments of darkness. He was enormously supportive of me and my confusing issues.

A little over a week ago he called me out of the blue. We would occasionally have ridiculously long talks about UFOs and the paranormal. This was the first time he ever called me. We talked for about 3 hours (as usual). I shared some deeply personal stuff, and he was supportive and humorous.

Mac and I never met in person, but I considered him a close friend.

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