A whole shitload of deer just walked past our house. Maybe five or six of the things, all tip-toeing together in a pack. And we don’t live in the country, either… We see more minivans and American Eagle sweatshirts than woodland creatures up here.
Needless to say, Andy’s head nearly exploded off his shoulders. He’d never seen such a large number of enormous dogs in his life. I thought he was going to go through the glass.
Weird stuff, man. And it’s not the only strange thing that’s happened lately. In fact, I’d like to get your analysis of a few unusual occurrences from the past couple of weeks.
One recent morning I noticed a small cut on my arm. It wasn’t bleeding or anything, more like a scratch, really. It was roughly an inch long, crossways on my right forearm. Huh, I thought, I don’t remember doing that. Whatever.
I moved on to more pressing matters (Toaster Strudel), when Toney came into the kitchen.
“I woke up with a scratch on my arm, and don’t know how it got there,” she said. And I nearly dropped my frosting pouch.
What do you make of that, huh? It was exactly the same kind of cut, in almost the same place. Is that bizarre, or what?
Then, a few days later, Toney told me she’d woken up with “1979” by Smashing Pumpkins in her head. Even though she hadn’t heard that song in ten years, she guessed.
And later in the week she heard it in real life, playing inside a grocery store. That blew her mind a little, and she made a point of calling me on her cell phone to tell me about it. “This means something,” she said.
It was kind of interesting, but I was skeptical about it having special significance. I sometimes wake up with songs playing inside my brain, songs I don’t believe I’ve heard in a very long time. But I always suspect I have heard it, without realizing it. Off in the background somewhere, amongst the noise and clatter of everyday life.
Then I heard it. Inside Moe’s, blasting from their stereo: “1979.” What the hell, man?? Maybe it does mean something? I probably hadn’t heard it since California, or thereabouts.
And finally, I had a copy of my “book” printed this afternoon. Tomorrow I’m going to start the revision process, and want to work from a paper copy.
I’d like to go somewhere with the manuscript, a pen, and a notebook, and mark it up and make notes like it’s 1965 (or 1979, I suppose). Computers are great, but sometimes an old-fashioned approach is still best, I think.
Anyway, the cost of the copy was $12.34. 1, 2, 3, 4. See? That might be a sign, as well. What do you think? What does it mean?
All of it, in fact. What do you make of the following?
- the shitload of deer
- the identical scratches on our right forearms
- the sudden reappearance of “1979” by Smashing Pumpkins in our lives
- the book costing $12.34 to print
And before anyone gets up on their high-horse, and acts like I’m being serious here… please know that I’m just having some fun. It saddens me that it’s come to this, but I feel like I need to make it clear that I don’t REALLY believe in this kind of stuff.
<sigh>
I won’t be updating on Thursday, but will try to post a podcast on Friday. It might slide into Saturday, but I’ll shoot for Friday.
In the meantime, please do your best to analyze the paranormal activity in my life, of late. And if you have anything similar to report, we’d like to know about it, as well.
See you guys next time.
Have a great day.
Good Afternoon Surf Reporters…. and Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
missed it dang
All the rest of the stuff is just the way it happens.
But the identical cuts…
If it makes you feel better, I woke up the other day with the ‘Salute your shorts’ theme stuck in my head…and I KNOW I haven’t heard that song in over 10 years!!!!
Somebody’s been watching too much Lost, or listening to too much late-night AM radio.
JK, I would take all the numbers(the number of deer, the scratches, etc.) & play them on the PowerBall or Mega Millions. Couldn’t hurt, right?
And here’s a weird thing, maaaan. I too, woke up last week with a scratch on my left forearm. It was crusted up with some blood, and I sure as hell don’t remember causing it. Of course, the night before, I was at a local bar, the Hollywood Gardens, drinking pint after pint of a brew called “Fresh Hop”. It was freakin’ delicious, had an alcohol content of about 11% and made feel like I had been shot in the head the next morning.
So for all I know, I could have gotten into a knife fight with a Mexican dwarf. I never would have remembered.
I think that all of these strange and unusual events add up to one very important thing that you need to attend to:
Hall and Oates are trying to contact you from the great beyond (aka the other side).
There’s a simple explanation for all of these things: alien abduction. You should call your member of Congress and see what they’ll do about it.
Good2go you beat me to it, I was going to blame it on Goerge Noory as well, oh well.
And I just couldn’t resist…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrivjzw0RlI
Snoop Manny Man is responsible for the scratches. He’s pissed that you wouldn’t let him chase the deer. The special significance to the Smashing Pumpkins song is that the Smashing Pumpkins suck. $12.34 means you need to edit about $7.32 worth of novel out of that thing.
And now I will get drunk. Not because it’s St. Patrick’s Day either.
Do you find yourself sculpting your mashed potatoes into something resembling Devil’s Tower?
I feel like my life is a shitty remake of the movie “Groundhog Day”
Your caveat took all the fun out of it, Jeff. I was getting all ready to write a detailed explanation for all of the hoodoo, and then you go and say your just jokin’. Why can’t you save the reality-check for next time, and let us have fun in the meantime (even if that means some of us would have gotten on tall horses and called you a nut-case)?
How’s that for gettin’ on my high horse?
“you’re”, not “your”
I can’t live with my own typos, so must anal-retentively correct them after the fact.
It’s the apocalypse! It’s the apocalypse!
•the shitload of deer = you will never go hungry.
•the identical scratches on our right forearms = your bedroom is the door to hell and demons are messing with you both.
•the sudden reappearance of “1979? by Smashing Pumpkins in our lives = the demons are messing with you again.
•the book costing $12.34 to print = when the book is officially published, you will see 12.34 million copies.
Besides the demons from hell, I’d say you are in pretty good shape!
*sell 12.34 million copies
*and remove the “?” from “1979”. Geez.
Jeff,
At least you have a Smashing Pumpkins song in your head. My brain is playing “Sugar Sugar” and “Mac Arthur Park” over and over and over. Please send help.
jtb
Better have Dr. Roger Leir look at those scratches. Stat!
I heard 1979 on my way to my grandma’s funeral (viewing) on sunday. What’s weird is that was the year she stopped breastfeeding me.
In regards to the deer,
the other day I in the car about two blocks from my house when I saw about thirty deer in a group crossing the street. I often see a few deer around, I live next to a state park, but the largest group I ever saw before this was maybe five. So perhaps the deer population has suddenly exploded, due to the recent snow, so they are all over, including your urban paradise?
George Noory had a guy on that the same thing happend to except the song was “Back in the New York Groove” by Ace Frehley,
Weird shit man.
Damn it. Aliens are taking over my laptop too and they just ate my comment. Fuckers.
Scratches: I’d blame Andy.
Deer: My boyfriend lives IN Pittsburgh and the places you see deer there is amazing. I live in the country and I think he has more wildlife sightings than I have. He saw a flock on turkeys today.
1979: Blame XM radio. Maybe Moe’s and the grocery store had their station set to Lithium. Every 3rd song they play is Smashing Pumpkins. I liked them back in the day but never realized just how many songs they had until I started listening to Lithium.
$12.34: I got nothing.
Maybe you should check out Billy Corgan’s website:
http://www.everythingfromheretothere.com/
Billy Corgan might have a lot going on with this new re-rebooted Smashing Pumpkins, but that’s not going to stop the man from tapping into his spiritual side. As the Pumpkins’ website reports, Corgan has launched a new website called Everything From Here to There.
From the looks of things, the new site will be something like a religious blog for Corgan and various guest writers. Here’s how Corgan himself describes it: “This is not a place of judgment, nor a place of making proof. We begin with the idea that there is a God. We begin with the undying belief that there is a unifying intelligence that manifests itself in Every-thing.”
Hmmmm…smashing pumpkins, 1979,strange cuts,an excessive amount of deer and the 1234 in sequence? Perhaps there IS some significance?
I need to know a few things first though…
Have either of you seen the movie Deliverance lately?
Do you hear banjo music playing while sharing a wee cuddle?
Are you feeling oddly attracted to the deer, noticing their slender little deer legs and soft eyes?
When reciting the numbers 1, 2,3 and 4 does it sound like something from Sesame Street?
Is one of yours or Toney’s fingernails longer than the rest?
Once you answer the questions, I’ll be able to determine whether this is something to be concerned about. In the meantime, do not eat ranch dressing and pizza on the same day.
🙂
oh man i love that surfer blood album — been listening to it constantly.
You’ve made me notice the fact that we dont have anything priced like that over here. Its always rounded up or down to the nearest 5pence. Wierd.
Dont get me started on the wierdness.
Do you ever find yourself waking up at 2:22; 3:33, 4:44 etc? I did that for about 3 years in my late twenties. Strange.
You and Toney are probably being abducted though.
Did you also have a sore ass? I’m told that this is ‘reliable proof’ of alien ‘interference’.
reminded me of something…
Dr. Peter Venkman: Alice, I’m going to ask you a couple of standard questions, okay? Have you or any of your family been diagnosed schizophrenic? Mentally incompetent?
Librarian Alice: My uncle thought he was Saint Jerome.
Dr. Peter Venkman: I’d call that a big yes. Uh, are you habitually using drugs? Stimulants? Alcohol?
Librarian Alice: No.
Dr. Peter Venkman: No, no. Just asking. Are you, Alice, menstruating right now?
Library Administrator: What’s has that got to do with it?
Dr. Peter Venkman: Back off, man. I’m a scientist.
@ johnthebasket – Sorry, that’s my fault. Can I interest you in an earworm of “The Wheels on The Bus Go Round and Round”?
*runs shrieking from room*
No ranch dressing & pizza on the same day? Why, that’s how I eat my pizza! With ranch dressing. Well, not all the time, but often.
I got nuttin when it comes to your quandries. I have a headache & want to go home to the corned beef & cabbage stewing away in the crock pot. Until that has been ingested I cannot function properly.
In the meantime I will blame FOX News & Rush Limbaugh. Because they suck & because I can. 😉
Why hasn’t anyone blamed the leprechauns yet?
Or the Irish, in general? I mean, what if they put a pox on Jeff because of his oráiste gear?
Smashing Pumpkins? That’s nuthin. I’ve had “Lady Godiva” by Peter & Gordon (yes, from 1966) stuck in my head for TWO DAYS. Woke up with it yesterday and just can’t seem to shake it.
You all beat me to the George Noory connection.
Stupid Peter & Gordon.
Happy Wednesday, Surfers!
Stephanie,
All is forgiven. Using the word oráiste, especially modifying the word gear, clears you of any crimes and misdemeanors associated with bubble gum music. But I have to report that the wheels on the bus failed to dislodge “Sugar Sugar”. Thanks anyway. I’m currently digging through my disc collection looking for my copy of “A Tramp Shining”. Of the two deaths, I prefer the freaking cake out in the rain. I can assure you that in the county I live in that tune is pop.
I appreciate your gracious good humor throughout this little pissing contest. Certainly not a “fistfight”. Good lord, at your height a right hook would connect directly with my crotchal area. Very bad for business.
my best wishes,
jtb
johnthebasket – You crack me up! And, you must be very tall…crotchal area, indeed…
I fear for you due to the county you live in…
Jeff,
Some dots need connecting. Other dots, if connected, will result in a false positives for weirdness, and will yield “unpredictable results”.
So let’s look at the events separately.
Some greedhead built a dozen spec houses on 10 acres of land, diverting a stream in the process. The deer are just doing what you were doing after the parade: looking for a drink.
The scratches are likely the result of unfettered, marital frolicking. After 40, when scratches and abrasions heal more slowly, keeping nail clippers next to the bed is a best practice.
The photocopying was going to be about 12 bucks. The chances of a .34 following are 1 in 100. But other patterns might have freaked you out, e.g. 12.21, 12.22, and perhaps others. It’s not as numerically weird as it seems.
“1979” is contained on 10 different albums, released between 1995 and 2005. (ref: all music) Grocery stores and restaurants buy commercial discs to play over their sound systems (thus avoiding directly paying RIAA fees). Recently, “1979” was included in one of these packages. So Tony heard it in the background somewhere without “knowing” it, and the grocery and Moe’s played it because they had just bought it.
The really strange thing is that Chevy asked you to ride in a bright green Camero in the 4th biggest St. Pat’s parade in the country. Why didn’t the tweets work? You were in the twilight zone. THAT’S what I’d be freaking out about.
Hope this helps…
jtb
When your beer starts talking to you, let us know. Otherwise, all this sounds like an ordinary day.
Minus the deer thing of course. That’s a sure sign of impending dewm.
it could mean the trade federation is invading.
It was aliens, of course. They came to take your skin samples back to their leaders. The deer were drawn to the area by the hum of the spaceship; the radio on board was playing Smashing Pumpkins and the calendar year for that planet is 1234!
Whether you know it or not, your brain having had to connect the John Mayer (ew)…Jessica “Sexual Napalm” Simpson (ew)….Billy Corgan (ew, ew, ewwww) dots is having an adverse effect on your ability to connect 1-2-3-4 correctly. That’s what the deer came to tell you. And, to ask if you know where Jessica Simpson lives, of course.
Ya know what’s really weird, and I’m not joking. I woke up this morning with the Big Star song “Back of a Car” stuck in my head, and I’ve been singing it silently in my brain for the past half-hour. And I log onto the Web just now and find out Alex Chilton died today.
I snuck into your house and cut you.
…we cut people…that’s what we do…
The whole song thing has happened to me many times. I’d think about a song I haven’t heard in years then all of a sudden I hear it. Weird.
The deer are everywhere here in Pittsburgh. They have no where to go. That includes turkeys, groundhogs, raccoons, oppossum, and LOTS of skunks!
The cuts? Rough matress dancing??
I was late to the party. Dammit.
Deer- Not enough people are hunting these days!
Scratches- I am with JTB- unfetered marital frolicking- if that is not it- get to it man!! I am a victim of premarital frolicking and I am pretty sure once we are married our scratches will be the same. you know -oneness and all.
I’ve lost count of how many times I’d wake up with a song in my head before the clock radio alarm would come on and that would be the song playing. About 11-12 years ago, I gave up the alarm because I HATED it! and now the song thing happens occasionally but with the regular radio or tv dmx station.
I found two weird, unexplained scratches on the back of my right thigh Tues morning. no shit. I didn’t think to mention it to my husband. I should ask him if he’s had any weird scratches. I realize in writing this that it is weird that you guys now know something about my body that my husband does not yet know.
Why are aliens so obsessed with putting things in people’s asses? Aren’t they supposed to be smarter than us? What if we went around doing the same thing? What if we caught a pack of deers and put something in their asses then let them go? What would they tell their friends?
“Those things (humans) caught us and put something in our asses. Then they let us go.”
“They put something in your ass? Why the fuck would they do that?”
“I don’t know. I was scared as hell. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to sleep again.”
So, what would happen if you opened the door for Andy and let his herding instinct run wild with those deer? You should try it out.
1979: It is probably on Muzak (Musak?) now, and its been messing with Toni since she heard it and has been wondering what the hell the lyrics where until it came to her… in a dream.
Scratches: Blacklips Houlihan running amok. Probably pissed becuase you arn’t listening to his ‘Lassie’ style warnings of impeding marauders of raccoons visiting the trash over night.
Here’s a web discussion devoted to unexplained scratches:
http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=81621
And from that discussion, here’s one of the explanations:
“It is quite possible that these scratches are the result of demonic manifestations. Ghosts are the spirit of fallen angels or demons that masquerade as departed loved ones to deceive people. It would be best to turn to God and rebuke these spirits, then you will rid them once and for all.”
RIP Mr Chilton
Damn
Holy Shit. Alex Chilton.
That really sucks.
I think Big Star was to perform this Saturday at SXSW