the luminous blog

Aww - that's too bad cause I'm going RIGHT!
So long - suckas!
Actual road sign in Michigan - Hell is also found in the Cayman Islands, in an execrable co-worker/boss and in your very own house, if you don't pay attention to who you're letting into the family...
Word to the wise...! ;)

I imagine that a whole lot of "greatest hits" of acts such as Rob Zombie and AC/DC were played out extremely and excessively loud today across the hellish land - after all these things don't come by all that frequently. Early-risers even got 06:06:06AM when they got up and 06:06:06PM when they came back from work on 06/06/06 - double if not triple vision hence! Although I must precise that those are not the types I envisioned taking to the road while listening to Rob Zombie's "Dragula" or "Never Gonna Stop" (what - being a freak AND a pain? Okay... be that way, Rob!)
I see these thirteen dastardly fellows on motorcycles that started a trek on bikes from Milwaukee to the small town named Hell in Michigan as perfect specimens to be shaking their heads to the rhythm of Rob Zombie's rhapsodies as they go along...
"Event organizer Joe Dowd, 56, of Mequon, said there is nothing satanic about the third motorcycle trek he's organized that ends up in the small town near Ann Arbor.
Most of the participants are from the Milwaukee area, but some are from Michigan, Illinois and Texas, Dowd said. They include eight men and five women ranging in age from their 30s to a man in his 70s."
"We originally planned on taking the last ferry of the year across Lake Michigan and call this year's event Hell Freezes Over," he said. "But when I saw 6-6-06 on the calendar, I said, 'We've got to go to Hell then.' It won't come again for another (hundred) years. Everybody's loving it." (I'm sure...)
Dowd, who grew up in Michigan, said he circulated e-mails suggesting a motorcycle trip to Hell two years ago, and about a half dozen friends took him up on it. About 30 took part in 2005. This year, they're a dozen - plus one.
The first trip was called "To Hell and Back", the second "We Went Through Hell to Get Here", and this year's trip is "Straight to Hell".
Hmm... I am secretly hoping that a bunch of individuals I know personally do make plans for just such a journey and I would be the one to get to name it - I would then call it the "Go To Hell And Don't Come Back" trek! Cool, eh? Go along with it, will you? They sure do deserve it...

Of those late additions to that list of doomed souls on the road to nowhere are, as I pointed out yesterday, my Greek bank manager. Not because he's Greek - hades, no! Not because he's a banker per say - gehenna, no! Not because he's a manager who barely manages even - sheol, no!!! He deserves to go to hell and never return solely because the incompetent oaf had the gall to tell me that that certain document which the bank forced me to order would not suffice - when it does! A man entrusted with ALL OF OUR COLLECTIVE SAVINGS should be better informed of things like that - don't you think? He is both expendable AND execrable!
Likewise, legendary concert-promoter Donald K Donald - let HIM go on the road now! On a tour - of "non retour"! The man made millions promoting concerts - he KNOWS or has the knack to make some moolah. It is not a talent per say; especially when one looks at it as the cypher that he really is, siphoning other's talents and making his dough on their backs! He's a bigger leech than Ed Sullivan ever was! Bigger in the corporeal sense too... but I digress! DKD here had the gall to say to me that he had NO CLUE how my songstress cousin could make any money singing her fado style of music in today's market... HE who has the KNACK to make money HAD NO CLUE HOW... Right. "A niche is not profitable; it can only be an artistic venture then..." he added. RIGHT. And then this marketing genius spoke of our "culture of entitlement" and how Napster had been begging the recording industry to make a deal with them - and that Napster is under control now. Reality check time, genius: mp3 file sharing is WORSE and far more out of control than any Napsters could ever be. And a niche is a GOOD THING to have. No one needs to make 400 million a year, like your personal faves (René Angélil and Céline Dion) do - all one needs is to make enough to get by and to have the satisfaction of having put one's art "out there"... DKD, to his credit, did admit that "indies are where the true art is" - duh! To hell with you, DKD - tis too little, far too late!
I'm sure they'll have golf courses for fatsos such as you down there...

Now, back (up) to the OTHER HELL... "Hell, Michigan, a tiny town about 60 miles west of Detroit, threw itself open for a once-in-a-millennium party to mark the passage of June 6, 2006 -- or 6-6-6, a number long associated with the Antichrist. You don't say...
Home to only about 70 souls on an average day, Hell's population swelled to the hundreds by Tuesday afternoon, with dozens waiting in line to buy T-shirts emblazoned with "666."
"We can't even keep those in stock," said Chad Wines, an employee at Screams Ice Cream, working to keep up with demand for souvenirs and ice cream on what proved to be a hot day in Hell. Wow - one has to applaud the entrepreneurial spirit of some (hmm... what are they, in Michigan? Yanks or Rednecks?!? Neither? I'd say a little bit of both...) - "Screams Ice Cream" - such a "way cool" concept for a tiny town of only seventy souls... Tis a good thing tourists will come! I guess that, in this case, it is not "build it and they will come" it is really "name it originally and they will come" - and that begins with the town's name itself.
There are two main stories surrounding the origin of the name of Michigan's Hell town... According to the town's semiofficial Web site, there are two leading theories about how Hell got its name.
The first holds that a pair of German travelers stepped out of a stagecoach one sunny afternoon in the 1830s, and one said to the other, "So schoene hell" — roughly translated as, "So bright and beautiful." Their comments were overheard by some locals and the name stuck.
The second holds that George Reeves was asked after Michigan gained statehood what he thought the town he helped settle should be called, and reportedly replied, "I don't care, you can name it Hell if you want to." The name became official on Oct. 13, 1841. Hmm... George Reeves? Not THE George Reeves - is it? Superman is reputed to be able to do it ALL - a one-man Justice League he is, who makes ALL the other members obsolete (with the exception of, oddly enough, the non-powered yet "Über" Bat-Man... Yeah, that is another sordid and inexplicable story!) hence, surely, Superman could travel backwards in time just to found a town named Hell... That makes sense, hmm? Hell... that would just be too conveeee-nient too - Superman's big "S" on his chest easily filling in for Satan and my theory about Georges finding confirmation and all here... In historical truth - as far away as we should place ourselves from dime-story fictional drivel involving "über-bats" and stupormen - this George Reeves must have been nothing more extraordinary than a member in good standing of the Freemasons - just like George Washington was! Ah, yes - hurray for my twists and turns! ;)

On Tuesday though, of all the visitors (which included "devils-in-disguise, hearse enthusiasts, Christian protesters and -also- merchants trying to cash in on the apocalypse" - of course) none cared too much to know how or why the town got the name that it bears now. For they wouldn't have even BEEN there if it bore any other name!
The Christian protesters were there to remind folks that Hell is real - and that eternal damnation is not a joke. I pity the Reuters reporter/copywriter (Rebecca Cook) who thought it would be cute and amusing to further mock the whole concept by ending her article on the subject with this line: "Paradise, after all, is only a day's drive away -- less than 300 miles north in Michigan's Upper Peninsula."
Paradise - the Genuine Thing - will be much harder to access for thee, I'd say! And if you can't stand the heat, it is just too bad - for there is no getting out of the kitchen that you seem poised and ready to enter! And too many cooks have already spoiled this particular broth...
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