The screens haven't gone all dark.

I died and went to hell.

The pit consumed me, licking wisps of flame scorching my skin like a blow-torch on egg, caramelizing the white, turning me delicious, pure, crunchy yet oh-so-softy-yummy. It was the best of times and the worst of times in the life of Benjamin Schneidenfreude. A veritable Ā seikō watashi wa dokoda? A land of green, blue, grey.

Anyway, if you don't know I moved from the Gallatin Valley to the dreariness of Rockwood, Oregon.

They tell you you are arriving in Portland, a capital of Hipster smarm, when you are actually in Gresham, meth-head Union City. The residents have that crazed stare, the one where they open their eyes too wide, their faces pot-marked with drug use, the thug walk. The best example I can give of the 'Gresham stare' is the way Conspiracy radio host T-rex, Alex Jones, speaks. It's animalistic, and at first a watcher doesn't know how to handle that amount of pupil. It's freaky. It's manly. It's threatening. In Alex's case, it works. On the streets of Eastern Portland, it doesn't. It isn't uncommon to see a man, hair jazzed-up in orange neon-glow dye, dancing on the sidewalk to silent music only he can hear, chest bared and ribs protruding. I drove past this scene in the passenger seat of my roommate's Chevy Silverado. As the danceur waltz his waltz in the middle of the walkway, a woman, bent-over and head covered in Gypsey veil, neared him. Her face was confused. It read, "fuck my life."

Gresham isn't all bad.

There are nice people here too. I met my girlfriend in Fairview. She is beautiful. A quiet poet.

What I am trying to say is that I am back. I didn't descend to hell after all, and if I did, this isn't the hell they sold me on. Not in my brief interludes at Harvest Church in Billings or Guam's Catholicism. (Not that they talked about the underworld much. I just haven't been to many religious things).

So stay tuned. The fight continues, friends, and the Ghoulies haven't all won yet. The screens haven't gone all dark. Your radio DJ is still playing those old tunes, and the everlasting songs continue as the world collapses into ruin... the last Ghoulie killing the last twelver gazing on the blinking TV screen.