The Figurehead:

Druscilla:

Bell:

Crutchley:

McGee:

Jade’s poodle:

The Jazz Age:

Shanghaied:

The Barbary Coast:

The Tablet:

The Bookkeeper:

Walldogs:

Spiritualism. Divination. The occult. A man who doesn’t believe. A boy who does.

1928. It has been San Francisco’s most roaring, most extravagant, most superstitious decade of them all. Mason is a walldog, hoisting himself high in the air to paint advertisements on tall brick structures. When he becomes the target of a bedeviling presence within the walls of a vacant saloon, he confronts his skepticism with the assistance of a mysterious orphan boy and discovers a stronger connection to the building than he ever could have imagined.

Listen on Audible: http://jaced.com/ghostsigns

Available on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FFTK7J85

Spiritualism. Divination. The occult. A man who doesn’t believe. A boy who does.

1928. It has been San Francisco’s most roaring, most extravagant, most superstitious decade of them all. Mason is a walldog, hoisting himself high in the air to paint advertisements on tall brick structures. When he becomes the target of a bedeviling presence within the walls of a vacant saloon, he confronts his skepticism with the assistance of a mysterious orphan boy and discovers a stronger connection to the building than he ever could have imagined.

Available on Amazon and Audible

if I’ve been asleep till now then
just keep me down
for I am off color
inappropriate, adjacent to
the branded shade, complicit
shame.
if I’ve been asleep till now then
just keep me down
my nightmare of accountability
and common sense
will be ruined by crime
and its sympathizers
tossing, their guilt
their
pleasure.
if I’ve been asleep till now then
just keep me down
for I am off color
do I,
myself, want to learn that hues
matter?
if they do not match my
own?
what must I unknow to need this
newsflash?
if I’ve been asleep till now then
just keep me down
but no promises, I might just take a peek
without moving
when nobody is looking
just know, I know that you’re there
keep quiet
please.
I’ll be resting here,
cancellation is postponed
for now, I haven’t quite let you
die
and we’ll live our days like
that
with our
unsaid truce
and it’s nice enough to
make a man
care, but i don’t
care, do
you?

“Despite everything, despite our controversies and what is apparently and tragically a sense of divisiveness that permeates our land, and despite riots and rebellions that go hand in hand, mind you, with repression and brutality, one major and fundamental guarantee of protracted freedom is the unfettered right of the man to write as he sees fit. As his conscience indicates. As his mood dictates. As his cause cries out for. The moment you begin to censor the writer, and history bears this out in the ugliest of fashions, so begins a process of decay in the body politic that ultimately leads to disaster. What begins with a blue pencil, for whatever reason, very often ends in a concentration camp. It has forever been thus. So long as men write what they think, then all of the other freedoms — ALL OF THEM — may remain intact. And it is then that writing becomes a weapon of truth. An article of faith. An act of courage.”

— Rod Serling

Now imagine a second karaoke bar with even more people. But this time, there’s no queue. As a matter of fact, everybody’s given a free microphone at the door, turned on. There is no DJ; a few people have rushed the gear. After fighting over songs, one song starts blasting, and now nobody knows where the volume is. But people don’t care. They all begin screaming into their free microphone at the same time, anonymously, spewing wrong lyrics out of key with voices they didn’t earn, some from the private corners of the room, others from under the tables that conceal them. Nobody owns anything now. Nobody is accountable. The content sucks, and is unusable.

That second karaoke bar is what the internet has become.