Today's show went well, and I cannot claim any part of it.   I was sick as a dog and really just doing my damndest to not fall off my chair with dizziness.   That's why I brought along Mary Gutfleisch to guest co-host the show - to pick up the slack I would invariably create due to my inability to function on nearly any level.

            Mary, by the way, is an amazing artist who did all of the illustrations for my book and who will be a guest of ours at some point in the future.   In the meantime, you can see some of her creations at RedEyeLoon.net

            As long as I'm dropping links, allow me to enlist your help.   For my new book, which is not yet out, I'm creating an online component, which will take the place of the CD-ROM from the first edition.   It's a work-in-progress, which will not be fully functional until after the book is out, but it is in a presentable state now.   So, check it out, click on everything and tell me if any part of it is broken and start at the beginning: slimpictures.com/chapter1.htm

            Mahalo.

            Dobie lined up our first hour of guests, which consisted of Dave Odd, one of my favorite comedians and a firm believer in the paranormal and Jeff Schneider, a purported skeptic.   It was only later, when importing the recording of the show for the web site that I was able to appreciate the balance of having those two guests back-to-back. We are a show on the weird and perhaps no comic is more weird than Mr. Odd, so here's some of his work:

            C.T. Thieme from Heathens-haven.com joined us in studio for the second hour.   It was a lot of fun talking with him.   He, like Dan Melone the week before, was a reader of the first edition of my book and contacted me afterwards.   Unlike Dan, however, C.T. was contacting me, hoping to get credit for contributions that I didn't know he made.   He was very civil in his first eMail to me two or so years ago, and we share the same hopes, so I was very receptive.

            It's the fickle, difficult part about being a writer in a specific genre like that.   I have some original stories in my book - stuff that's never been reported on before, and stuff I'm sure other books will start to cover in the future. All I can do is hope that the respective authors give a tip of the hat to me and my book when they do, but I simply will not know.

            What happened with C.T. is that he covered Dominican University and I later reported on the school as well.   My source was a student who went to school there and lead me on a tour.   Unbeknownst to me, the student apparently got all of her information on the school via C.T.'s web site, thereby unintentionally taking credit for C.T.'s work.   Fortunately, that was only the limited release first issue, as opposed to the mass released 2nd edition, which proudly includes C.T.'s name in the bibliography pages.

            Now, for your homework assignment, if you happen to have the 2005 book "Weird Illinois," read the section about "The Gate" in Libertyville and then read this page that I wrote in 2002 (published in '03, also appearing in the first edition of my book, "Voices from the Chicago Grave"): slimpictures.com/thegate.shtml

            To further illustrate my point, one of the authors of the book emailed me to say how much he enjoyed my book and that eMail came well before his came out (but, hey, who's counting, right?). Also, their book has NO bibliography page to speak of, so I'm sure I'm not alone.