Tinhuviel Artanis

Okay, y'all are probably gonna get sick and damned tired of this post, but it's one of the most important things in my life ever, so please be patient with me. I have spent 36 of my life waiting for this moment, which means I was just 12 years old when I discovered the genius that is Jeff Lynne. So here goes.

Hold on Tight to Your Dreams

Hello. My name is Tracy Angelina Evans, a long-time fanatic of Jeff Lynne/Electric Light Orchestra since 1980, who is, is thanks to one of my oldest and dearest friends, Andrew, and I are going to to go to the Hollywood Bowl concert in Los Angeles concert on my birthday, 10 September 2016. To see ELO growing up in the Southeast of the US, with little money to make long distances to get to the venues the band were playing, I never had the chance to see the band with their wonderous spaceship and special effects, especially for that day. Now that I am living in South Diego and one of my dearest and olded friends' bucket list is to attend a concert at the Hollywood Bowl, it woud seem that the stars are finally aligned to make mutual dream come true, as well as getting to see one another in many years. I will be turning 49 years old on September10th 2016, and wanting to seeing Jeff Lynne playing his greatest songs of all time since since the age 13, I can honestly say that this is is at the very top at my Bucket List.

In addition, Andy and I will have the honour of meeting the cast and crew of 'Ginosaji: The Horribly Slow Murderer with the Extremely Ineffiencent Weapon', all for whom I have promised drinks for the multitudinous abundance of laughter and joy they have brought me over the years, which means more than they can possibly conceive. I owe them too very much, upon facing some of the bleakest time of my life.

So that said, living on a fixed income, it would be an incredible amount of help for my friends to assist me in a decent tee shirt and and some souvenir fundage to make one the most important moments of my life, as well as help to offer thanks and appreciation to my best friend Andrew and my new incredible friends the Ginosaji posse, who are intent on persisting again, again, and again!

As soon as I can start acquire the moneys, the more appreciated. I hate having to ask for help in this way, but if it weren't one of my most important moments in my life, I would not be asking. And I promise that, if I can reciprocate in the future, you can can count on me.

I haven’t done one of these in about 10,000 years, so let’s get this show on the road.

1. Full name: Tracy Angelina Evans
2. Nicknames: Tin, Tinhuviel, George, Darth Shriek
3. Birthplace: Asheville, North Carolina USA
4. Birthday: 10 September, 1967
5. Where Do You Live Now?: San Diego, California
6. Parent(s): Father Unit has passed.  Mother Unit is here in San Diego.
7. Sibling(s): ZERO
8. Looks: Better off invisible.
9. Favourite Animal(s): Anything non-human, except for millipedes and centipedes.  Like humans, they can go fuck themselves.
10. Favorite TV Show(s): Impractical Jokers, Better Call Saul

11. Favorite Kind(s) Of Music: Most everything but Country and Opera.
12. Favorite Movie(s): Sci-Fi, Unusual, Conceptual, Foreign
13. School: Some college, focusing on English and Veterinary Assistance
14. Future School: I’m too old for this question. The Chapel Perilous

15. Future Job: Testing new, effective sleep aids.
16. Boyfriend/Girlfriend: nah
17. Best Buds: I’m a bit of a hermit these days.
18. Favorite Candy: Milk Dud
19. Hobbies: Music, reading, writing
20. Things You Collect: Grudges, CDs, movies, moments in time.

21. Do You Have A Personal Phone Line: Yes
22. Favorite Body Part Of The Opposite Sex? The eyes and brain
23. Any Tattoos And Where Of What?: Red & Black Triskele on right hand, Green Shriekback logo on left hand, Mwanza Flat-headed Agama with green and blue hues instead of pinkish and blue.
24. Piercing(s) And Where?: not anymore
25. What Do You Sleep in?: clothing
26. Do you like Chain Letters: aw HELL NAW.
27. Best Advice: Reality is peripheral.
28. Favorite Quotes: Hope for the best, expect the worst. - Mel Brooks.
29. Non-sport Activity You Enjoy: sleep
30. Dream Car: A transporter

31. Favorite Thing To Do In Spring: Avoid the sun.
32. What’s Your Bedtime: Whenever I’m lucky.
33. Where Do You Shop: Wherever I can.
34. Coke or Pepsi: Cheerwine

35. Favorite Thing(s) To Wear?: Something loose that will allow me to blend into my surroundings.
36. Favorite Subject(s) In School: English and Creative Writing

37. Favorite Color(s): Green, Red, Black
38. Favorite People To Talk To Online: People with brains and a wicked sense of humour that has set them on the road to Hell.

39. Root-Beer or Dr. Pepper? Root beer

40. Do You Shave? I’m too old for that bullshit.

41. Favorite Vacation Spot(s): I don’t do vacations.  My favourite place to BE is England.
42. Favorite Family Member(s): Smidgen
43. Did You Eat Paint Chips When You Were a Kid? WHAT?
44. Favorite CD you own: Currently Without Real String or Fish by Shriekback
45. The ONE Person Who You Hate The Most: Going with an old standard here and saying Pat Robertson.
46. Favorite Food(s)?: Potatoes
47. Who Is The Hottest Guy or Girl In The World?: I have a very short list.
48. What Is Your Favorite Salad Dressing?: Bleu Cheese.
49. When You Die, Do You Wanna Be Buried or Burned Into Ashes? I don’t care, as long as I end up on Craggy Dome.
50. Do You Believe In Aliens?: Absolutely.

51. If You Had The Chance To Professionally Do Something, What would You Do? I’m already a Professional Misanthropist.
52. Things You Obsess Over: Various artists, ideas, philosophies, theories, general weirdness
53. Favorite Day of the Week: Don’t bloody care.
54. An Authority Figure You Hate: The Feudal Mistress still tops the list.
55. Favorite Disney Movie: Bambi
56. What Is Your Favorite Season? Winter
57. What Toppings Do You Like On Your pizza? Cheese, with extra cheese, and cheese on the side.
58. Do You Like Your School Food Itself (As In The District Food): I never ate it.
59. If You Could Live Anywhere, Where Would You Live? Avebury, Wiltshire, UK
60. Favorite Thing(s) To Do On Weekends: Sleep, if I can accomplish it.

61. Favorite Magazine(s): Don’t have one.
62. Favorite Flower(s): White rose

63. Favorite Number(s): 5

64. Favorite Ice Cream flavor(s): Ben & Jerry’s Wavy Gravy

65. What Kind of Guys/Girls Are You Attracted to?: Dangerously intelligent, beautiful, talented, and hilarious.

66. What’s Your Most Embarrassing Moment? I inadvertently introduced myself to someone as his wife.

67. If You Could Change One Thing About Yourself What Would It be? I would be fearless.

68. Do You Eat Breakfast First Then Brush Your Teeth or Brush first ten eat breakfast: breakfast first.

69. Favorite Time of Day: Whenever I get to sleep.

70. Can A Guy and Girl Be Just “Best Friends?”: Why not?

71. Do You Ask The Girl/Guy Out Or Do You Wait For Them To Come To You?: I don’t go there anymore.

72. Do You Mind Paying For Sex? I never would.

73. What’s The Most Important thing In Someone’s Personality: Sentience

74. Do you have a pager or cell phone? Cell

75. Favorite Sport: Flambodious Butt-walking

76. What Was the Best Gift You Ever Received? Love

77. How Long Did This Letter Take You To Finish?: Not very long.

78. What Did You Listen To While Completing It?: Electric Light Orchestra’s Alone in the Universe.

79. Are you or would you like to be married in the near future (next 5 years)? NEGATIVE

80. Don’t u just hate how psychics never win the lottery? I hate it more than I don’t win the lottery. I hate psychics, especially the ones who claim to talk to your dead relatives.  They’re grifters who should be drawn and quartered.  The End.

Things have been going on, so this may be a bit of an update from Hell, compared to my usually non-updates.

First off, my phone has been on the fritz for who knows how long.  It’s not actually the phone, but the Cricket network.  I went yesterday to try to sort it, but the folks at the store couldn’t even troubleshoot it, so they had to put in a service order, which means up to 72 more hours of no service.

Since the first of the year, my health has been shite.  Recurring migraines with the most vicious nausea I think I’ve ever had, has beaten down my body more than I could have ever imagined.  In the past month, I have lost 10 pounds, and spent three days in the hospital, thanks to these fucking headaches.  I’m thinner now than I have been since I was 12 years old.  It has gotten to the point where I can’t even walk to the bathroom, which is right beside my room, without my having breathing difficulties and a pounding heart.  I feel like I am dying.

But, I might get to tick one thing off my bucket list before heading into the Void, if I’m lucky.  Jeff Lynne is bringing ELO back to the American stage on September 9th, 10th, and 11th of this year, at the Hollywood Bowl. When it was announced, I emailed a bunch of people with a proposition that, if they could get the tickets, I’d try to arrange us a place to stay.  My old high school friend, Andy, has always dreamt of attending a concert at the Hollywood Bowl, and he bit.  We’re just waiting for the tickets to go on sale, if I can’t finagle them earlier than 1 May.  The target day is September 10th, as that’s the best day for Andy.  It’s also my birthday, which would be perfect.

Speaking of Jeff Lynne, David Bowie’s unexpected and untimely death made me come to grips with a truth I’ve known for a long time, but never truly verbalised, even to myself.  I decided to accept it and to come out, to use the term in a wholly different manner.  I wrote Barry Andrews and told him that he was the single most influential individual in my life, more so even than even the godlike Jeff Lynne and JRR Tolkien.  I wanted him to know it, in the event either of us kicks the bucket.  You should tell people how they affect you before it’s too late.  It could be too late in the next five minutes.  No one knows what each second will bring.  No one.

A few weeks ago, there was a huge shake-up in the format of the Work in Progress that officially made it into a full-fledged novel in the works instead of a collection of short stories.  I don’t even know what brought it to mind, guessing it had to be some kind of divine inspiration.  The long and short of it, though, is that Flint steals the New Hive’s first - and currently only - relic, Cadmus Pariah’s Harming Tree.  The story will revolve around Cadmus hunting down Flint, with possible help from Orphaeus Cygnus, and will include the stories and vignettes I have already written about the Harming Tree.  As The Blood Crown was essentially a Vampiric Hope & Crosby Road movie in book form, The Harming Tree will be a bit of a book version of a hunt and chase movie, kind of in the vein of Mad Max: Fury Road and the like.  I have asked Barry if he could drum up a photo of his harming tree, which is seen only briefly in the ‘Captain Cook’ video, and is obviously the benign inspiration, despite its name, for Cadmus’ dreadful tool of agony.  It would be good to have a very clear image reference as I continue this mad journey into the Darkness.  I need to jog his memory, though, as it’s been two or three months since I asked him.  I’m sure he’s forgotten, and I keep forgetting to remind him.  We are old as fuck.

The end.

So here am I, spooning tiny bites of Stove Top Stuffing into my piehole, and trying to watch Boogie Nights for the umpteenth time around Smidgen’s wide, hairy butt.  Another Thanksgiving winding down.

After Halloween, Thanksgiving was always my favourite.  It seemed less stressful than Christmas.  I still feel that way, even though I really don’t do anything, and haven’t since 2011.  But I do want to send some shoutouts of gratitude into the aether, so here goes.

• I’m thankful for my friends. You all know who you are, both old and new Tribespeople.  Those of you who have been with me for a while  have stuck by me when even some family chose not to.  You’ve been with me longer than anyone else in my life now.  And my new friends, though thin on the ground, have opened up new avenues to experience, exhibited goodness and decency that threaten to prove my theories about our species dead wrong.  All of you:  Despite my dedicated misanthropy, you still love me just as I am, and I am happy to reciprocate.  When we are facing the Alpaca Lips, I hope we get to do it together.

• I’m thankful for the Earth. It has been quite a year, as far as space exploration has gone, but I find it incredible that we still have so much about our home planet that needs to be discovered, explored, and possibly explained.  With every dim twinkle of light far beyond our comprehension of just how really fucking large the multiverse is, there is an equal twinkle far beneath the churning seas, something we’ve never been able to see, something even the angler fish, who can twinkle themselves, would be afraid to examine too extensively.The Earth is where we open our eyes each day.  Instead of casting those eyes to your feet as you go through the motions that are expected of you, cast them outward.  Not upward, but around you.  Everything that you are is star stuff, yes, but that stuff chose to touch down on a world that both nurtures and destroys us.  We owe it to ourselves, to one another, and to our home planet to try to find out why, before it’s too late.  Even if it’s all a hologram and we are not truly physical entities on the surface of a planet, it’s all we currently have, and it is a wondrous construct, so full of mystery and music.  I’m glad to have been able to see what I have of this world.

• I am thankful for the music.  It has been a truly resplendent year in music for me.  I got to see Jeff Lynne get his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and watch him perform live (on TV) for the first time in over a decade.  I’m foaming at the mouth to get my ears on the new ELO album.  Then there’s Shriekback, who has dominated my musical choices for yet another year, giving fans both old and new, the triumph that is Without Real String or Fish, not to mention all the rarities, reissues, and side-project material.  I have long contended that, as long as the Shrieks make music, I will be “doomed” to write, and my friends will be doomed to read, or say they did!  Even earlier today, I was constructing a possible chapter in the WIP, based on a Shriek rarity, ‘Shake the Big Tree’.

• I am thankful for laughter. As all my older friends know, I’ve been a bit of a laughter junkie since 2011.  Laughter is the human purr.  It’s present when we’re happy, and it can heal when we’re sad.  Being a devout believer in Jessica Rabbit Syndrome, I would have to say that laughter is the most important thing in this reality, especially when you are more than underwhelmed about trudging forth, but trudge nonetheless because you have responsibilities.  If something makes me laugh, its therapeutic qualities are far from lost on me.  So, to all the things and people that have gotten me through 2015 by making me laugh like a demented Vizzini, I am quite grateful for it all.

And there you have it.  Short and simple.  I tried to be as upbeat and uncomplicated as possible.  I gotta go outside for a few minutes, ‘cos it’s raining, and that shit’s rare here.  Happy T-Day, freaks.  May the Dark Side of the Force Be with you.

This is actually just a marker to note the date that what I'm hopefully going to write all about tomorrow, after I've had some rest. The Mother Unit and I spent the day in Los Angeles to cheer on Jeff Lynne, who received his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. I have pics and vids to prove it! But, for now, I need to rest the brainmeats and maybe even sleep.

So, the day went a little wonky when I least expected it, so I've been a bit too busy to do another one of these up 'til now. Tomorrow is vet day for Toby, and I am keen on working on a couple of projects that may keep me away from the picture posting, so I'm gonna take advantage of this wee dollop of time whilst I have it. Hope you enjoy the madness!

First up, we have an exchange that was had on Twitter.
Well, I thought it was funny...

Tracy Angelina Evans was born on 10 September, 1967, in Asheville, North Carolina, into a small family that had more in common with the Addams Family than the Waltons. Her father was a slightly off-center Jack of all artistic trades (radio DJ, photographer, writer, journalist, singer/songwriter, comic, and Japanese commercial actor - go figure), so it was convenient that his nickname was Jack. Her mother is a first generation Hippie, who adores artistic/crafty endeavours, reading, watching horror movies, and anything to having to do with nature and the animal kingdom. Her grandparents were Big Band Jazz musicians and singers (maternal grandparental units), painters and storytellers (paternal grandmother unit), and CIA operatives (paternal grandfather unit) in what was then West Germany. She was raised by her eccentric aunt, Tudi, and paternal grandmother unit in Asheville and, later, in Duncan, SC. She began artistic pursuits at the age of 4, when her grandmother told her to go draw flies. Too young to get the joke, her first pictures were of flies. The spiders came later to eat the overpopulation of flies. Webs were really fun to draw. She began writing animals stories around the age of 7, but switched to human-centered sci-fi stories at 13, when she heard the Electric Light Orchestra's album, Time.

Language and mythology became an important part of Tracy's education at an early age, and she was fascinated with religion. Early on, she wanted to be a preacher, but was told only men could do that. Then she wanted to be a nun, going around with a towel held to her head with a plastic mixing bowl to signify her cornette, but was told only Catholics could do that. Her mother was Jewish and her father was a non-practicing Southern Baptist, so the natural progression from these lofty origins, along with the dashing of original spiritual aspirations because of denomination and gender, is for the offspring to embrace Pagan and Pantheist philosophies, which became intertwined with her sci-fi sensibilities, the music prevalent in her life, and what little she could grasp of actual science, particularly physics and psychology.

In her junior year of high school, she chose to do a research paper on anti-Utopian societies, or Dystopian worlds, using A Brave New World and 1984 as the frame work for her paper. This turned her into a conspiracy theorist and affected the general tone of her writing from then on. During this time, too, she began building a personal myth around an ancient alien race that came to Earth before the rise of humanity. Part of the process of this creation was the invention of a new language, based loosely on the Indo-European family of languages with a hint of Finno-Ugric. (How, really, did two countries so far apart from one another end up sharing a root language, anyway? Finland? Hungary? What say you?)

At the age of 19, Tracy's genuine love of music, combined with her knowledge of a wide variety of musical genres, gave her the opportunity to work in the music industry starting in 1987. She left Wofford College to pursue this career. For almost a decade, she literally (using the correct definition of the word) got paid to sit and listen to music, during which she was allowed to read, write, draw, or anything else that did not deter from her job in the quality assurance department of what was then BMG/RCA Music Service. Another nine years with the company saw her going into music promotions, which drove her clinically mad.

Her Tarmian mythology got a metaphysical shot in the arm when Tracy began studying ancient Pagan religions and dabbling in the then still fresh New Age philosophies in 1990 and going forward.

Also in 1990, she discovered what would become her favourite music band, Shriekback. They would end up having a profound effect on every aspect of her own artistic endeavours. Thanks to her entering the virtual world of the Internet in 1998, she got to eventually meet some members of the band, and help to promote them and their music since 2000. They were kind enough to allow her to use lyrics from their songs as chapter lead-ins for her books.

After the death of her aunt in 2011, Tracy moved to San Diego to be closer to her mother, taking with her, her non-human friends Smidgen (a giant cat with a partially erect furry penis for a tail) and Toby (an obnoxious deer Chihuahua who had been abandoned at the veterinary hospital for which she briefly worked as a Vet Assistant), her music, book, and DVD collections, a few clothes, and her computer.

She is quite active online, maintaining a 12-year-old blog on Live Journal, called The Cliffs of Insanity, and sharing amusing and/or infuriating bits of info and images on her Facebook page. Besides writing and devouring copious amounts of music, she enjoys drawing badly, and is trying to learn how to use an art tablet. She also loves to read, watch movies (any genre but romance), make videos for You Tube (some vids for Shriekback, some vids to share songs that might not otherwise be available, like the more obscure Celtic folk tunes of Dougie MacLean and Talitha MacKenzie, and some funny bits and bobs, like The Tim Roth Tutorials), going to drum circles on the weekend to work out her djembe and get a contact high, and enthusiastically waiting for the End of the World. Over the past few years, comedy has also become of great import to her mental health. There's a reason why we have the cliché "laughter is the best medicine."

Tracy has a strong affinity for non-human Earthlings (camelids, reptiles, birds, and mantids, in particular) and was involved in cat rescue for some time in Duncan, SC. At one point, she was seeking homes for about thirty cats she had tamed and nursed back to health, earning her the title of Crazy Cat Lady in her neighbourhood. (All the cats were re-homed.) She has worked to rehabilitate many species, including a hypoglycaemic hummingbird, a family of opossums to whom she gave epic Nordic names for no reason whatsoever, and a variety of lizards. She is in love with a planet she sees aching under the yoke of human oppression, and would do anything to see that change. She claims to be a professional misanthrope, which is most often channelled into Cadmus Pariah, but she likes you. To the best of her knowledge, her lineage includes Welsh, Scottish, English, Jewish, Dutch, Hungarian, African, and Cherokee genes, making her a class A mongrel.

After years of change and countless reassessments of her belief system, Tracy is now more comfortable with the concept of Jungian archetypes and how they are recurring themes throughout human history. As it stands at the time of this writing, she's working on a fourth Vampire book, she's still a diehard Star Wars/Star Trek sci-fi/fantasy nerd, an apostle of JRR Tolkien's and Robert Anton Wilson's, an opinionated grouch, and a constant victim of synchronicity, which tends to spread the wealth of weirdness with anyone in close proximity. She has a short list of heroes that include Jeff Lynne, Carl Jung, Barry Andrews, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and Starhawk. She is also one of the 14 remaining people on Earth who dislikes Joss Whedon and that for which he stands, and has actually lost friends because of her opinion. If she had her druthers, Tracy would move to Avebury, Wiltshire, and groove on the ley lines' vibrations for the rest of her life.

She's absolutely certain that she is uncertain about everything, and that is most certainly a statement loaded with uncertainty.

At Buckingham Palace in 2006.