The Coming of the Toads

A Notebook – Since 2007

Tag: Comics

  • Hotel Julian

    Hotel Julian

    Rooms. Lobby. A new rhythm.

    After the flower girl vanished I moved out of the hostel and took a room in a boarding house, Hotel Julian, close to the Port, and a daily rhythm I succumbed to, as if I too were a retired seaman. The Julian was a respectable flop house still resisting gentrification, furnished rooms, and some not so furnished, rented out by the hour, day, week, or month. The rooms were on the upper floors, above a ground level row of retail shops: a corner grocery and liquor store; a one chair barber shop; a narrow tavern, no tables, just a long bar opposite a sandy table shuffleboard, a couple of dart boards against the back wall; a used book store; another shop or office space, its door padlocked and its windows butcher paper covered. The double doors and stairs leading up to the hotel opened off the sidewalk between the tavern and the book shop. At the top of the stairs was a landing with doors left and right. The door left led to the rooms, the door right to the lobby and hotel office. The lobby flaunted two overstuffed couches very hard to climb out of for most of the aged and afflicted in one way or another seamen who primarily made up the boarding house tenants. A card table with four chairs. An overturned whiskey barrel on which was painted a chess board, the pieces housed in a baleen basket, two stools inviting a game. A book and magazine rack, a couple of tourist maps. A corner self help coffee stand, open 24 hours. A sign: No Smoking, No Alcohol, No Food, No Cussing in the Lobby. The front desk and counter, cubbies for keys and notes and mail. The walls paneled in dark mahogany sheets. A few framed black and white photos from the old Port days, the ships and boats and wharfs and the men and women strolling in hats and duds now long out of style. Thick strip clear fir flooring. An absurdly ornate and elaborate chandelier a tall man would have to duck to cross under. Bay windows overlooking the street. I checked in for the week, found my room, threw my duffle bag onto my bed, and walked down to the docks to find some coffee and a plate of bacon and eggs. Thusly my new rhythm began at Hotel Julian.

    “Hotel Julian”
    is episode 20 of
    Ball Lightning
    a Novel in Progress
    in Serial Format at The Coming of the Toads.
    (Click link for continuous, one page view of all episodes.)

  • The Flower Child

    The Flower Child

    San Pedro Hostel. Flower Child. Saints.

    Still no sign from Sot. I moved into a hostel in San Pedro and began frequenting the old fishery taverns in the working class neighborhoods. There was a young woman living in the hostel gathered flowers and wild herbs from parks and yards near sidewalks and vacant lots and sold them standing on street corners to drivers in cars waiting at red lights, seemed interested in godhood, wanted to be able to become invisible. One night, sitting out on the veranda of the big hostel house, we got to talking. It’s no good being invisible if you can’t walk through walls, I cautioned her. You could get locked inside some room. She wanted to talk about the Catholic saints and the Church Militant. The saints, she argued, now took the place of the old, debunked gods. The saints were invisible, but you could feel their presence. She said she had known a guy who had wanted to become a god so he could fly. He was not prepared for the dangers of modern day air travel and was sucked into an engine of a 747 on takeoff at LAX. He had been practicing flying at low altitudes from the dunes at Playa del Rey. I came to enjoy our evening talks on the veranda, then one day she suddenly disappeared, leaving no word.

    “The Flower Child”
    is episode 19 of
    Ball Lightning
    a Novel in Progress
    in Serial Format at The Coming of the Toads.
    (Click link for continuous, one page view of all episodes.)

  • Rumors

    Rumors

    Capital. Jobs. Detrimental reliance.

    Rumored it is the gods have lost power over time, and it’s true many of them have exchanged their berths in Heaven for capital on Earth. Nevertheless, many lesser gods remain, living on Earth, though adulterated with traces of human genome. And it’s difficult to determine if the god has absorbed some of the human or the human some of a god. Either way, a tiny insertion of one or deletion of another can result in unpredictable change in behavior, altruistic and selfish. As I made my way daily to and from the pier to fish, waiting for word from Sot, I saw that the South Bay was full of lesser gods: bellhops; waiters and waitresses; truck farmers with vegetables, flowers, and herbs; car wash attendants; house painters; roofers; cab drivers; dishwashers; bicycle and wheeled and track vehicle mechanics; maids, housekeepers, concierges; sex workers; au pairs; gas station attendants, clerks, bussers, baristas, bartenders. The theory goes the gods have lost power because human belief in them has waned, dwindled to a trickle. The symbiotic relationship has weakened, belief in one another deemed necessary for the continuance of both. Detrimental reliance has upset the cart. Rumor has it there’s to be a giant baseball game, good versus evil, lightning balls thrown and hit, and the losers will be cast from Earth into space. But it’s just another rumor. I don’t know how these things get started.

    “Rumors”
    is episode 18 of
    Ball Lightning
    a Novel in Progress
    in Serial Format at The Coming of the Toads.
    (Click link for continuous, one page view of all episodes.)

  • Waiting for Sot

    Waiting for Sot

    Scruples. Chance. Fishing. Hiding.

    Most of the gods are on the make. Being at least part human, as I am, may cause one to harbor some scruples. These Sylvie relies on to keep me on the straight and narrow. It’s no wonder humans have created shame in an attempt to keep the activities of the gods under some control and keep them from seducing and infesting people with their talons and talents for abuse of power. The god Sot was both cob and pen. I was waiting for Sot’s message which should tell me when to expect Wally the Whale who would carry me in its belly out to sea. It should come as no surprise given the ambiguities of our origins that gods often have more than one name. I am sometimes called Chucker’s Chance, also Prior Probability. Possibility is not the same as probability. Nothing is impossible, but not necessarily probable. Initial singularity, an oxymoron, illustrates. The problem is we like to see something happen more than once so we can begin a line of best fit. One occurrence only creates a point, but not a line. Points are multidirectional in potential, while lines are by definition linear, lineal, and must contain at least two points, one of which can always be used as a referent. All of that the actuaries to the gods taught me – but that’s not to say I was a good student. For the next seven nights I made my way down to the pier to fish, waiting, testing my new cover, hiding out during the day in an attic above a garage in North Redondo. I had let my hair quickly fall to my shoulders as part of my new disguise. The beach cities are not particularly safe havens for hiding. Because the cities are relatively small and wealthy from enormous taxes from expensive properties and prolific and diverse businesses, their police are well funded. And the locals are not friendly to outsiders, though on the pier exceptions are made for the fishers who are supposed to add color and character which satisfies the tourist expectation and taste for the exotic. Still, there are rules written and unwritten that could mean either one’s safety or danger, depending on unknown, random forces at work. One had also to watch out for the Lifeguards.

    “Waiting for Sot”
    is episode 17 of
    Ball Lightning
    a Novel in Progress
    in Serial Format at The Coming of the Toads.
    (Click link for continuous, one page view of all episodes.)

  • A Change of Clothes

    A Change of Clothes

    Oracle. Fin de siècle. Redondo Pier. Fishing.

    I abandoned the rental running as Wormy had instructed and made my way down to the Redondo Beach Pier. From the sidewalk near Catalina and Coral I had glanced back and the rental car had already been picked up and disappeared. The classic fin de siècle houses along the Redondo beachfront had perished, replaced with balcony ocean view condominium and apartment complexes. Hard to say which era was the more degenerate. Probably all ages are similar in that human nature has not improved over time. Nor has god nature. The universe is not expanding; it’s stuck in its own muck. But the south Santa Monica Bay night was now cool, a fine mist rising from the water, the horizon dark, no sign of Helios. It would have been a good night to cruise Highland, Manhattan, and Hermosa avenues through the beach cities on my candy apple red scooter hog. I had rolled down all the windows of the rental, but the feeling of being open and about, out in the salty air, wasn’t the same. Out on the pier, a few folks fishing, some buckets yet empty, others grimy grey water, or busy with bait. As I was walking slowly along the pier railing, one of the fishers stopped me with the Two Years Before the Mast code Wormy had given me. In a bag in a trash can was stashed a change of clothes, and I used the Oyster and Shrimp Shack backroom to change. When I came out, I was now another of the fishers, and would vanish in their midst. As Risk Manager to the gods, properly speaking, I am an oracle, but I can’t foretell everything. Likewise, our pasts remain obscure, ambiguous, seemingly unnatural. My mother was a mermaid, my father a walrus. I’ve close affinities with the fishes of the oceans, seas, rivers, and streams. Shells and the creatures that live in them. Rocks, sand, and seagrass and sea wind. Though in some tellings, my mother was a twisted weeping cypress and my father a magpie.

    “A Change of Clothes”
    is episode 16 of
    Ball Lightning
    a Novel in Progress
    in Serial Format at The Coming of the Toads.
    (Click link for continuous, one page view of all episodes.)

  • A Supreme Boredom

    A Supreme Boredom

    Immortality. Stardust. Death.

    Unique to the gods is the problem of supreme boredom. The gods have nothing to look forward to. Long after the last human has returned to stardust, the gods will live on, every day the same, infinite sameness. Mortals, humans, see that distant coach called death coming, in the distance, always somewhat distant, even if it’s knocking at the door. There’s always the chance of another breath, the breath of another chance. Death travels at night, during the day, in every season, every hour. It trots along – death by death by death. But at least mortality is not boring. To live a life without end is not a life. I don’t know how to describe immortality to mortals: a permanent scar; a tattoo that can’t be removed; a wart that keeps returning. A want that won’t go away no matter how many times satisfied. A roller coaster that never rolls to a full stop. To live knowing that you will sooner or later bid farewell – that’s exciting. If you knew you were never going to die, why would you ever bother even to get out of bed? Things could be put off until tomorrow forever. Death is a wake up call.

    “A Supreme Boredom”
    is episode 15 of
    Ball Lightning
    a Novel in Progress
    in Serial Format at The Coming of the Toads.
    (Click link for continuous, one page view of all episodes.)

  • Walter and the Panhandler

    Walter and the Panhandler

    The gods and one's nature. Metamorphosis. Unhuman. Inhuman. Panhandling. Gold. Plutocracy.

    Most gods have little choice but to follow their nature. It’s not so much that they are bound to, but that they want to. It’s what fulfills them, brings them happiness, even if its taste is bitter. It’s true though, that with a lot of hard work, one may achieve a kind of metamorphosis of one’s nature, changing, over time, but then that very change has always been a part of one’s nature, waiting in the wings, as it were. Metamorphosis is different from mutation or mistake or accident. The snail wants to be a snail, slipping and sliding slowly along its trail to and fro its eats. The seal is at home in her wavy salt water coves, climbing the rocks to dry in the sun after a meal of fish. So too the human can not be unhuman. Inhumanity is a different matter. One follows a slippery slope toward inhuman behavior, landing in the pond of selfishness, fed by streams of stinginess and hoarding. If you are happy, you will hand over some change to the panhandler on the corner, and not think twice about it. His cardboard sign may be filled with lies (veteran, three hungry kids and no place to call home, need money for ticket back home); so what, of these lies? Doesn’t all advertising fib? Appeals to the emotive, the passions. So when Walter and I reached the corner where sat the fellow with his sign (can’t work – groin injury), and Walter scoffed what was he, an NFL quarterback? I gave the fellow a greenback. Why Walter should care, Ray having just recovered the missing transaction of $300 million, is a story not of metamorphosis but of one’s nature. Walter is a miser. And, one of the wealthiest men in the world, he is, by nature, a panhandler who advertises by pandering to the base desires of a soft audience he detests. The language of the gods is not made of words. The best prayer, as Thomas Merton has told us, is wordless. As a flight of birds. As a sea breeze. As a flight of bills falling into a hat sitting on a sidewalk between two wretched legs. Words are seeds in bloom, flowers and weeds, wanted and unwanted. The bee is on your lips, her long tongue slipping through for the nectar of your words. It will take many bees to change these words to honey. The panhandler is working, similar to Walter, sifting his investment pan for gold nuggets, panning for gold. As an enterprise, it’s one of the most efficient. Surely, I told Walter, even you must appreciate at least that much. Money in one’s pockets, like gold, does nothing. It’s a dead weight. It must be circulated. This wretched state of affairs is part of human nature. Zeus blinded Plutus so that the god of money could freely pour the goods of his cornucopia without regard for worthiness. Thus we arrive at our current plutocracy, which affords sans philosophy, sans religion, sans love, sans hope, sans charity.

    “Walter and the Panhandler”
    is episode 13 of
    Ball Lightning
    a Novel in Progress
    in Serial Format at The Coming of the Toads.
    (Click link for continuous, one page view of all episodes.)

  • Behind the One-way Mirror

    Behind the One-way Mirror

    Accident. Mistake. Agency. Transaction. Mirror. Comments.

    The difference between accident and mistake is agency. I caught a glimpse of myself in the one-way mirror window. I knew they were watching me. Sylvie also. I looked pretty none too natty having slept the night in my new black and white camel hair jacket, the to the hilt popping blue diamond tie with bright orange accent circles now loose and wrinkled and hanging as low as my attitude. Feeling none too benevolent about myself, not at all, as I stared at my reflection in the glass. As soon as I got this god anger management problem under control, I was going to start in on my self image, I really was. But they had asked me to handle the transaction for them. These transactions are especially complicated. The stars must align pin point right, the players all set up. And there’s risk. I was by the skin of my teeth their agent. They were on the transaction, watching every move. They knew the risk, gave the authority. I didn’t sit at a computer and do all this. All I did was get the players to the table. Relationship bits and bobs. Trust. But how would the transaction disappear like that? Somebody broke into the stream and stole the file. Simple as that. Could be some kid from some small town in Kentucky for all we know. Some high school hacker, not even sure of what he’s got, no way to cash in on the instruments. The file could still be in cyberspace, and we’ve lost the tools necessary to pull the transaction up. Like something lost in real space, the file will continue to travel like the unraveling of pi. Unless the file was destroyed by a random noise issue, randomness, maybe an agent with a randomizer. A supercomputer. Behind a one way mirror. I drive the rig. I’m the race car driver, not the builder, not the mechanic, not the sponsor, and certainly not the owner. I don’t bother lifting the hood to see if the car’s propelled by an internal combustion engine or a nuclear reactor. Makes no difference to how I need to execute. Sylvie notes that’s a mistake. Who knows, who knows what they think. Very few comments, though the comment light was on. Walter is a fairly secluded and elite group of owners. Nothing in common with one another that I can figure out. These transactions are like poker games with them. And I’m on the carpet. The board room table is even covered with green felt. You dig that? I’m trying to figure out what’s meaningful here, and I have to tell you nothing too obvious at this point. I stood on the corner of Pike and 1st, above Pike’s Market, watching a Vashon ferry come across a disturbed bay. The air bit cold into my skin cut deep and found bone. The wind was blowing in circles, rain pouring down and around, puddles, running gutters. Rain now with sleet and snow flurries blowing in my face. I seemed to be the only person on the street. I hustled down to Pike’s to grab some breakfast at the Athenian. I wanted to talk to Molly. I needed some help. I needed a friend. I was about to make a trip, and I didn’t know if I was coming back. It was probably all a mistake. Or it might have been an accident. I was trying to discover any kind of reciprocal relationship.

    “Behind the One-way Mirror”
    is episode 11 of
    Ball Lightning
    a Novel in Progress
    in Serial Format at The Coming of the Toads.
    (Click link for continuous view of all episodes.)

  • Defenestration of the god Tchotchke

    Defenestration of the god Tchotchke

    Fear of falling. Pub of the gods. Bubblebath.

    Most of the gods are afraid of windows, because they fear falling. I met up with the god Tchotchke at Pog’s Place. Vetteboy said he wanted to transfer some risk, and when I asked him how much, he said he wanted it all back. The Pub of the Gods is where we conduct our defenestrations in the Seattle area. There is no coming back from your deicide, I told Tchotchke. He said he understood. I gave him his bar of soap, the traditional send off gift (gods may bathe, but they don’t wash). He wanted out. He said he was looking forward to being fully human. The corporate gig as keeper of the thingamajigs had not been a good fit. I asked him what his plans were and he shrugged his shoulders and he said simply he did not know. He was going to spend his bar of soap on a long bubblebath. A quietness had settled over his face. His shoulders lowered, his chest fell, and I could see he was breathing differently, from his stomach. He handed me the keys to his candy apple red Corvette. We finished our pints and got up and walked to the window, and I pushed him out, and he fell into the Sound.

    “Defenestration of the god Tchotchke”
    is episode 10 of
    Ball Lightning
    a Novel in Progress
    in Serial Format at The Coming of the Toads

  • Tchotchke

    Tchotchke

    Vetteboy. The god Tchotchke. Big Pharma sales. In the evening when the sun goes down.

    I might have known Vetteboy was a god by the way he could not hold his temper. I spent the day at the Seattle Library researching contemporary minor gods. You have to know where to look. And he was a corporate god. That also made sense and helped explain the candy apple red Corvette with the id vanity plate. Tchotchke was involved with Big Pharma sales. But he hated his job, so there was still some hope. What did he do, exactly? He was a sales cadet specializing in promotional payoffs. He was, quiet literally, a little head. He designed, had made, and distributed gewgaws to the winners of global corporate sales campaigns. He was in charge of baubles. He was a whim-wham man. It wasn’t a bad job, though, really. He got to travel and enjoy exotic settings, even if artificially created and catered for the rich tourist and corporate convention goer, and he had an impressive expense account. It seemed though that Tchotchke had always wanted something else. He thought as a god he deserved something better than keeper of the knickknacks. He did not understand the nature of godhood. He did not get along well with humans. He didn’t get the symbiotic relationship. As Sylvie put it, what good is a god who can’t sit still in the evening and watch the sun go down?

    “Tchotchke”
    is episode 9 of
    Ball Lightning
    a Novel in Progress
    in Serial Format at The Coming of the Toads

  • Choice

    Choice

    Choice. Happy and peaceful. Love. Blurb.

    We can’t choose to be happy, but we can choose to be peaceful. We can’t choose to be loved, but we can choose to love. We don’t need sacrifice, but we are able to choose altruistic behavior. Life is not a blurb. Just so, the gods are not mobsters, nor do they emerge ever as a rabble or a swarm. Gods sometimes work together, as Sylvie and I do, but most remain independent, and of these, many are often rapscallions, attempting to escape the grace of the father or mother. Grace is not always a party calling, grace being what one needs, not necessarily what one wants. We can’t choose to be gods, and we can’t ignore them if we don’t know where they hang out. We enjoy the gods at our own risk.

    “Choice”
    is episode 8 of
    Ball Lightning
    a Novel in Progress
    in Serial Format at The Coming of the Toads