5 MORE DAYS...!!!

This Saturday, my li'l bro' Brian and I will be in Yorktown, Texas!

"Why," you ask?

WE'RE INVESTIGATING AN ASYLUM!!! :D

Yes, our first actual investigation will be Yorktown Memorial Asylum and Hospital! More exciting is the fact that we will be trained on-the-job, so to speak, by TSPI! My first investigation, I'll get the benefit of learning from a group as reputable as TAPS themselves! I feel comfortable saying that because Texas Spirits now has a North Texas chapter! In fact, if you go to TSPI's Investigations page, you'll see that they've not only investigated all around the Austin area, but some of the famous haunted locations like Waverly Hills and the Stanely! AND THIS IS WHOM I'M LEARNING FROM!!! :D (Um... maybe it's "from whom I'm learning"... you get the drift.)

And check this out: I just added a new podcast to my list: Hollow Hill podcast. (How many people do you know that can skillfully use 2 colons in such a short sentence?) I was searching for yet another paranormal podcast to supplement my voracious thirst for knowledge, and I discovered this podcast by a Fiona Broome. The clincher, though, was that a couple of the podcasts are about AUSTIN! And I'm like, "Hmm... What are the odds...?"

Then the name tweaks my memory...

Fiona Broome is the author of my Austin ghost-guide, Austin Ghosts: Who They Are And Where To Find Them!

She's got a podcast!

And what's even cooler is that most of the podcasts seem to be aimed at beginning-level investigators. There are several that answer some practical questions I've had this past few days, as I ponder what the Yorktown investigation will be like. I don't mind being the newbie and asking what may turn out to be dumb questions, but ya know... If I can find the answers myself and spare my teammates the headache, so much the better, lol. ;P

And I'm telling you, as someone who doesn't believe in "coincidences" (other than the mathematical meaning, which is the quality of occupying the same position or area in space, lol) this choice to actually full-on get serious about exploring the paranormal seems to be the right direction for me. Okay, first off, I mentioned my two long-time friends who, after I tell them that I'm seriously investigating the paranormal, reveal to me that they have "something" in their homes. Then there's my friend, who manages hotels, who reveals that both the hotels he's run have had multiple entities. Well just this morning a co-worker that I rarely see mentions "You're taking next week off, right?" And I tell him it's just the weekend, and that I'm going ghost hunting. And that opens the door to this very deep, very earnest conversation about his personal, spiritual experiences! You work with someone for a decade or more and you get the sense that you know them... Then you tell them you're studying the paranormal, and the share this whole other side of themselves!

So much has happened in this very short span of time since I decided to turn my armchair study of the unexplained into an active exploration!

And I'm not even in Yorktown yet! :D

Not to hype my first investighation too much, though. Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson (among others, but I'm a fan-boy by nature and I'm definitely a huge TAPS fan!) have stated repeatedly that about 20% of locations reported to be haunted have paranormal activity. And a TSPI teammate equated ghost hunting with fishing -- you cast your line, wait, reel it back in, cast it again, wait, and so on until you get a bite... if you do.

What I'm excited about here is the opportunity! :D

I've been in "spooky" places before. In fact, I clearly recall visiting my grandparents, and debunking my first ghost! The adults were all gathered around the front porch of "Gramps & Big Mamma's" old Bronte, Texas home. I'm maybe 11. Some of my younger cousins and I are creeping around the outside of the dark house with a flashlight I had probably just gotten for Christmas or my birthday, and we stop at a side window. I shoot the flashlight beam through the dusty pane, shining it throughout the living room of the house. The beam scans the chandelier, the walls, the floor, then I raise it up higher to find...

A PAIR OF BLUE EYES RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME, STARING RIGHT AT ME!!!

I jump and scream, and all us kids scatter!

As they all giggled and chattered at our little horror adventure, I think I remember swearing that I had seen a pair of eyes...

...and then it occured to me what had happened...

The light had bounced off the glass when the flashlight beam hit a certain angle, and reflected onto my own face. I can remember that image perfectly vividly to this day, and the eyes that scared the bejeezus out of me are, without any doubt, my own eyes, lol. Down to the last eyelash.

But the point is that every time I've been in one of those places that gave me the creeps, I was always seeing them through either the eyes of a guy who was afraid something might jump out at me, or the eyes of a man who knew there was nothing that could jump out at me. This will be the first time I'm seeing it through (in a sense) both sets of eyes.

Think of it this way: You remember your first kiss? Well what would the experience be like if you could go back, understanding now what you so did not then and re-experience it? Imagine you could not just kiss better, but you could savor the significance of this very moment, the person who shared this with you, the You that you would never know again... I've been reading, writing, watching Horror since I was a teen, but never able to recapture the magic I felt reading my first book of True Ghost Stories. My first investigation will, I suspect, be some sort of seminal First for me. It almost has to be more boring than I imagine, and also probably more exciting, but in different ways than I can anticipate. But imagine experiencing a personal First with the life-perspective to truly appreciate it!

The closest I've come is watching "old" movies with my daughter when she was younger. (Most of the things you do with your kids give you a glimpse of that.) You know this flick backwards and forwards because you loved it so much and watched it over and over again. But seeing it with your child, for her first time, it's almost like you get to see it for the first time again. It's not the same, because you know she comes from a different world from you, and is experiencing it differently than you did. But it's still a First. :)

But skulking through an asylum that was closed back in 1986 with the eyes of an explorer searching for information for the FIRST TIME... Especially after reading about other Indiana Jones-es for 27 years! Now I'm actually going to be out there doing it! I will actually be a part of it!

I don't expect to find the Holy Grail, but the SEARCH will no doubt be AMAZING! :)

Buddhists don't believe the destination is the Way, because the destination is almost always in the Future. Buddhists believe that the PATH is the Way, because the path is always, always NOW.

And (drastically shifting gears)...

To tide me over until Saturday night is Now, I have an incredibly geeky thrill...

Tim Weisberg of Spooky Southcoast gave me a shout-out Saturday night!!! :D

I kid you not! He actually said "I wanna send [a shout-out] to our friend Ray Jay"!!! You can hear it for yourself here, the 2-21-09 broadcast, about 50 or 55 minutes into the show! (After that, go to the show's Archives page and listen to the episode from December in which they discuss their investigation of Fearing Tavern! Very cool!)

This is just ridiculously cool to me!!! In 2007 when I got my iPod, I discovered that you could acquire INFORMATION to listen to any time/any where. And some of the information I wanted was about the paranormal. I wanted me some true-life ghost stories to hopefully inspire some scary tales of my own. (I was all about writing Horror at this time, viewing the supernatural as a possible premise for a fictional story.) It didn't take many episodes for me to become addicted; I needed my SSc fix! So I plowed through the podcast archives, enjoying marathon sessions of past episodes to tide me over until this week's episode hit iTunes.

And how could you NOT love these guys?!! You have Tim Weisberg, the "everyman" host who acted the roll of just some guy who happens to be into the paranormal, lucked out, and got himself a radio show on which he could entertain his curiosity. But when the conversation gets heated, you realize he knows a LOT more than he takes credit for; in fact, he's read everything YOU have, AND THEN SOME, lol!

Then there's the "Silent Assassin", Matt Costa. He's too cool for words, lol. He doesn't say much, so when he speaks, you listen! He's apparently the Man Behind the Scenes, the guy who somehow makes it all happen. AND, he's also the skeptic! The fact that Tim believes it doesn't mean Matt's buyin' any of it. This creates an intriguing dynamic, because the Silent Assassin wouldn't be there if he weren't open to the ideas the show broadcasts; and yet, he isn't necessarily "a believer"... Hmm... You almost HAVE TO tune in every episode! Will Tim and Matt agree or disagree? Whose argument will win out? (I'm exaggerating the drama, of course, They're both gentlemen and -- like us and our friends who have differing views -- could never come to blows over something as insubstantial as an idea, lol.)

But let's not forget Science Adviser, Matt Moniz! He, too, is the silent-and-mysterious type. He's the rock-star guitarist to this figurative Alt band. (The Spooky Crew might prefer to be compared to a Punk band or a long-lasting Metal band, but it's my blog and I like Evanescence, so what can you do?) If the Silent Assassin is both the drums and the bass, and Tim Weisberg is the lead singer, then yes, Mr. Moniz is definitely the lead guitasrist. He let's Matt and this week's guest vocalist (to continue the metaphor perhaps a bit too far) belt out the episodes anthems, but when the time is just right, the Science Adviser belts out his solo, then is quite again! lol :D (Okay, I should probably be embarassed now at how ridiculous the metaphor has gotten now! But it still holds up fairly well, lol.) Matt Moniz is a research scientist who has also seriously researched the paranormal for a couple of decades. He's a serious researcher with some serious experience, and when he steps into the conversation you get a glimpse of just how much this cat really knows! And yet, you also get this sense that he doesn't spend his life in a lab coat or in a library vestibule. You almost get a mental image of Matt Moniz browsing a Kindle 2 as he scarfs down a greasy cheeseburger on the back of his Harley somewhere in between Pheonix and Roswell, lol.

All three of these guys seem to play themselves down while, when the conversation gets going, they reveal hints of their true depths.

Throw in, on top of the thoroughly likeable Sppoky Crew, enlightened examinations of Cryptids, UFOlogy and all things paranormal, and how can you NOT become addicted to such a show?!

But the best part: It's REAL! Not "Reality TV" real, but REAL! These cats did an uncensored episode from Tim's backyard wherein they just lay themselves bare, say "This is who I am" and it syncs with who you suspect they are from their on-air "personas". These are just dudes interested in what you're interested in, and they want to give you the information they, themselves, want to hear!

So Spooky Southcoast was my main life-line to the Unexplained for a while (and still my favorite). And they kept having these guests from this group called The Atlantic Paranormal Society. And, it seems, these TAPS cats were on this TV show that more and more of my friends were talking about. You may have heard of it?

So I decided to watch the show.

And before long I was a fan-boy of Jason & Grant, as well, lol. ;P Dude, ALL of them! Steve, Tango, Brian, Dustin, Kristyn and Kris, Joe, Britt, Barry, Carl and Keith... ALL of them! (Well, you know... all of them that have appeard on Ghost Hunters or Ghost Hunters International... There are a lot of TAPS members who just work cases, out of the spotlight.)

But it was like these people who have spent years of their life researching a field were, unlike most purely academic types, not merely lecturing to me, they were inviting me -- insignificant ME -- to come join them in the research! COME! Join the fun! I'm not just talking the Sppoky Crew here, but also TAPS and many, many of the guests on Spooky Southcoast and Beyond Reality Radio. It was as though the "old pros" were inviting me (much like the Budha, come to think of it) to not simply take their word for it, but come see for myself! :D Just bring your common sense and your own perspective/experience to the party, and let's exchange notes afterwards.

And now I'm gonna investigate a haunted asylum, lol. ;P

Dude! I DID NOT mean this to be an Epic here, lol. But it's my "Friday" (I have the next 3 days off work) and I can go to sleep whenever I want and stay asleep as long as I like, so what the hell, right? ;P

Listen, if you've stumbled onto this blog and haven't heard Spooky Southcoast yet, I promise you'll have a good time! And these guys care about their fans!!! The very first time I blogged about them, Tim left me a comment on my blog entry thanking me for the kind words! I mean, Me! My blog! I'm not famous, I'm not "important" in anyway! I'm just a fan-boy type who dug on their show and wanted to spread the word! But the "lead singer" (going back to the previous, already over-wrought metaphor) dropped me a kind word in person!

By the way, I just feel I should state that the above fan-boy worship of Spooky Southcoast isn't an attempt to get my name on the radio again, lol. (It's recorded, I have it on mp3 and can listen to it as many times as I want, lol.) It's sincere appreciation of some hard-working folks who do an amazing job! (Plus, I admit, now that I know Tim's Google Reader will likely flag this entry, I'm kind of hoping to give him and the guys a chuckle, lol.) But every word (and exclamation point and smiley-face and parenthetic aside) is heart-felt.

And for what it's worth...

If there's something out there calling to you to get involved, my humble 38 years of life-experience suggests you go do it.

Like, NOW, lol!

:)