Strangities

The More Mundane Adventures of

Blue Stahli
Episode I
by

Collin Landis

Strangities - The More Mundane Adventures

of Blue Stahli - Episode I

Copyright 2009 by Collin Landis

All Rights Reserved under International Copyright
http://www.strangities.com
strangities@gmail.com
Cover Image: Flickr.com under
Creative Commons Attribution License
Created By: Schizoform

Introduction
This special release of The More Mundane Adventures
of Blue Stahli comes from my free short fiction collection
Strangities - Volume II and is the first in an ongoing
series. Ive had the great pleasure of knowing Bret Blue
Stahli since the first grade and because of this Ive been
privy to most of what hes experienced in life. And let
me tell you, my friend has lived a fantastic life. The sheer
amount of bizarre things hes gone through would truly
boggle your mind. Even among those of us who have
known him for quite some time he is a bit of a legend.
Because of this, Ive taken it upon myself to make him the
noir folk hero he deserves to be. The More Mundane
Adventures of Blue Stahli contains far more factual
accounts of things Bret has experienced than you would
believe. As the titling suggests, he has indeed faced things
much more fantastic than Ill be recounting and Ive done
my best to limit myself to the most boring tales I can recall
about him. I figure Ill leave all the REALLY good stories for
him to tell you, since theyre his. But I have a feeling youll
be pretty entertained even with the boring ones. I hope
youll stop by www.strangities.com and check them out.

- Collin Landis

The More
Mundane
Adventures
of Blue Stahli
Episode I

I light a cigarette. Not mine. Im lighting it for the bleached

blond beauty in front of me. Right now shes the best
looking thing at this joint. And in this city, all that really
means is she still has all her teeth.
The city: Detroit
The city I live in.
The city that hates me.
The feeling is mutual.
Im not looking to get laid. Im pretty sure this numbers
got Cthulhu hiding somewhere beneath her skirt waiting
to wake from his city of Rlyeh and give me a bad case of
itching / burning / amputation. Plus the way shes giggling
at everything I say tells me shes just out tonight looking
for someone to punish mommy and daddy with for not
getting her that pony. With my tattoos and pink hair, I
bet Id fit that bill perfectly- but its not going to happen.
So if Im not looking for action, why am I going through
the motions? Im lighting her cigarette because Im a
gentleman, and I happened to have a lighter on me when
she asked.
Why do I carry a lighter if I dont smoke?
Easy. Sometimes I like to watch things burn.
Its 3 AM and its cold outside. I just finished playing an
acoustic set at a no-name coffee bar for a crowd of all
of five people, three of which worked there. It doesnt
matter much to me. I knew what I was getting into from the
moment I stuck the keys in the ignition. You dont pass up
an invitation to work with a rock god, even if its a one-way
ticket in the wrong direction.

The Celldweller - Klay Scott. Klayton to his fans. Most

of them dont know his real name. I do. Ive followed his
work since I could go to the bathroom by myself. I own
every piece of music hes released, and a lot he didnt. In
many ways Im the penultimate fanboy when it comes to
his work; but its more than that. It inspired me, reached
places in me long thought dead. And then, like a rain cloud
grows into a tornado it twisted itself into my adversary. It
began challenging me. Drawing lines in the sand wherever
I heard it.
You cannot match my strength - it said.
Bullshit I said, and I played louder.
That was the first time I electrocuted myself with my guitar.
It was not my last.
I began writing, recording, producing. The music was my
escape; my release valve. Instead of caving heads in with
an aluminum baseball bat when they deserved it, I walked
away and recorded. I filled up an album with broken
hearts, crushed dreams, and all the filth that was dumped
on me every day of every week of every year. Some of it
mine, most of it not.
Some nights, the music was the only thing that kept me
alive.
Against my expectations, people liked it. A lot of people.
It sold out of its first independent pressing in two weeks. I
officially became part of the underground scene, which
is a nice way of saying I still couldnt afford to eat but
people liked my music. Its both heartening and horrific
that people found things to empathize with on that album.

By the time I was done with it I couldnt stand the thing, so

I gave all the proceeds to a shelter for battered women.
Seemed like the right thing to do.
I kept releasing singles here and there, mostly in
December because I couldnt afford to buy Christmas
presents for friends and family.
Then one day my phone rang. It was James Jimmy
Rhodes, manager for Celldweller.
I called him a dick and hung up on him.
Figured it was someone playing a joke only theyd find
funny.
He called back. Explained he & Klay had a proposition
for me. They wanted to expand their production music
business and had been scouting talent. He heard my stuff
and thought hed give me a call to throw it out. Id have
to move to Detroit to do it, but Id be working with The
Celldweller every day, using his gear, learning his tricks,
and helping him out in the studio 24/7.
Jimmy called me on Thursday.
I was there in time to start work on Monday.
Ill gloss over my cross-country road trip with a bornagain burlesque dancer named Danni Danger, because
while Ive been reminiscing over what brought me to
this hellhole the blond has pulled the cigarette out of
her mouth to blow some smoke and ask the inevitable
question.

So what are you doing tonight?

What do I tell her? Should I be honest and tell her I plan
on going back to the apartment and trying to stay up as
long as possible to avoid the nightmares waiting for me
in my sleep? Ive got a track due for a movie trailer on
Monday and you look about five diseases and two kids
over my limit?
Just gonna head home and get some sleep.
Oh. Ok. You play here often?
Not really. First time, actually.
Cool. Well, see you around.

I see the car seat through her rear window as she drives
off.

I made enough from the gig to get some gas and maybe a
bite to eat if I can find somewhere still open with a dollar
menu. Thats good news because Ive been on E all day in
both instances. I fire up the car and let it warm up a little
before heading to the nearest gas station. The night seems
like a typical Detroit evening / morning. Lousy. The cold
isnt crisp; its oppressive. The city skyline isnt majestic; the
buildings are tombstones. And the guy running in front of
my car would probably be better off if I ran him over. But I
dont. I slam on the brakes and skid to a stop.

Hey! Hey man! The guy is yelling at me through my

window, but hes not pissed. (Which is the first thing that
should have indicated to me something was wrong. No one
in Detroit isnt pissed.) Hes scared.
Being typically too compassionate for my own good, I roll
down my window so I can talk to the guy.
Hey. You need help?
Yeah. Yeah. I need help. I ran my car off the road and down
the embankment. My daughter is still inside! Come help
me get her out!
I unbuckle my seat belt and climb out of the car, leaving it
running.
Hurry! the dude is yelling at me, running a few steps and
then turning to see if Im coming.
Ive been in a lot of life and death situations. Admittedly,
a lot of them were my fault, but not always. Over time you
become a kind of numb to them. Experience, I guess.
So even as Im running toward the edge of the road
and pulling out my cell phone Im still pretty calm. Sure
enough, theres a car down the steep embankment, flipped
on its roof, undercarriage in the air. The guy, panicked,
grabs me, helpfully sending my cell phone skittering down
the embankment & off into the darkness.
Awesome.
I already called the police. Hurry, Shes down there! he
yells at me, starting to scramble down.

I decide that Ill talk to him about replacing my cell phone

AFTER the kid is ok.

The car is in bad shape. All the windows are blown out
and the safety glass looks like raindrops in the headlights.
The roof is pancaked. But theres something weird about it,
something off. I cant wrap my head around it, so I ignore it.
Write it off as my natural paranoia. After all, life has given
me a lot to be paranoid about. Ignoring the crunching
glass I grab one of the door handles and try it. Jammed.
Shocking.
What side was she in? I ask.
Thats when things get weird.
The guy, who has suddenly become the picture of zen,
digs both hands into his forehead and rips his face off like
he was splitting a melon.
I kid you not.
Of course its right after I watch this happen that my brain
figures out what it was trying to tell me before, and takes
that moment to share with me. Specifically, none of the
doors on the car were open. And with a wreck like that it
would have been impossible for someone to get out of the
car without opening one.
The guy / things new / real face is pretty different from
his old one. For starters hes got three eyes, all black and

shiny like a spider and all clustered dead center where his
nose should be. Oh yeah, I said SHOULD be. Because he
doesnt have a nose. Just the eyes. And a mouth. But instead
of normal human-type omnivore teeth hes got nasty little
needle-teeth. A LOT of them. I can tell because his mouth
is open and hes squealing at me.
Hes got short mandibles too, and these must be shiny
because I can see them kind of gleam in the reflected
light of the cars headlights. His whole head is covered in a
sort of grey-black fur that ends where the jagged pieces of
his earlier face still peek up from his collar.
In the few seconds I take all this in, I achieve a sort of
clarity I rarely experience. Not a revelation, exactly;
more of a reminder of sorts. My brain, pushing aside the
confusion caused by watching someone rip their face off,
speaks to me very clearly:
THIS is why you just keep driving.
Touch, brain. Touch.
I would have loved to consider that point more, but the
guy was already charging at me with surprising speed. I
wish I could say that I took him out with a single punch and
donated him to science, but that just didnt happen. I was
still confused at seeing something that could have been
from one of my tamer nightmares here, in Detroit, during
what I was fairly certain were still waking hours for me. He
had me by my throat and in the air before I snapped out of
it.

It was instinct that saved me.

Maybe when I tell the story again Ill make me more
badass and tell you that I meant to do it, but it really
happened without thinking. I shoved my hand in my
pocket, grabed my lighter, and with a flick of the flint I set
his head on fire.
The whole thing.
I dont know what kind of product this thing used on its
fur, but whatever it was it was very flammable. He went up
like an old newspaper soaked in gasoline. (Something Im
fairly familiar with.)
Its scream turned from one pitch to another, and the
musician part of me wishes I had been recording because
it was a fairly cool noise. Then two things happen.
It drops me, which I was pretty pleased about.
It runs off burning into the forest, which was conveniently
close.
Let me be clear on this: I hate the forest. I hate the trees, I
hate the bushes, I hate the streams and the deer and the
ferns and every other green thing in there.
They give me panic attacks.
Concrete, asphalt, steel, and neon. Those are the four food
groups of my world.
So I let it run off.
Think me a coward if you want. Ive been called a lot
worse.

The bottom line is I dont go after it. A combination of

pissed flaming monster and 3 AM forest exploration just
does not sound like a good decision given the tone the
evening is taking.
I climb the embankment after a quick once over looking
for my phone, which reminds me that Ive been meaning to
start working out.

The car is what really tops the night off for me.
It wont start.
It wont start because its out of gas.
Its out of gas because I left it running while I went to help
the monster that tried to eat my face.
Perfect.
So I walk two miles to the nearest gas station, using my gig
money to buy a gas can and a few gallons of gas. This gets
me far enough that I can get the car gassed up the rest of
the way.
The gas can cost what I was planning to use on dinner.
Looks like no one gets to eat tonight.
Fucking Detroit.