Mark LaFlamme: The Screaming Room

Exotic, erotic ball

All year long, people write to me with suggestions for my Halloween vacation. And I really appreciate those tips because I’m always looking for something new and wild to do as my Transylvania quest continues. Next year, man. I swear, I’m going next year.

The following was suggested to me today and I’ll admit it sounds tempting. More Mardis Gras than Halloween, but it’s got Danny Bonaduce. Anything with Danny Bonaduce is bound to be scary. And a human petting zoo? Come on, that’s just good times all over the place. This is the kind of vacation where you’re guaranteed free souveniers. Most of them will clear right up with penicillin, or that lotion and tiny comb.

SAN FRANCISCO, CA – The 29th annual Exotic Erotic Ball and Expo, the internationally acclaimed Celebration of Flesh, Fantasy, and Freedom, has announced its best travel deals ever. The legendary Halloween extravaganza, called “The World’s #1 Wildest and Sexiest Party,” by E! Entertainment TV, takes place October 24 and 25, on San Francisco’s Treasure Island. “It’ll be our greatest show ever — an unforgettable experience,” says founder Perry Mann.

“The Ball” is widely considered the world’s #1 adult-themed party event with live headline entertainment on five stages — music, electronic, burlesque, circus, and fetish. Playboy TV recently featured the Ball as one of “69 Sexy Things to Do before you Die,” and HDTV’s Art Mann calls it “The World’s Absolute Greatest Party.”

“The Expo” features over 100 exhibits showcasing the latest in exotic fashion, adult products, games, websites, and novelties, plus panel discussions on First Amendment rights, fashion shows, a spiritual oasis with psychics and massage, erotic poetry, a classic cinema, body painting and a human petting zoo.

Danny Bonaduce will return to help judge the Ball’s legendary costume contests, with prizes now totaling $20,000. He’ll be accompanied by multitalented MySpace.com vixen Bobbi Billard, and Asian Supermodel Akira Lane. Over 30,000 are expected to attend from far and wide.

Click for Lightfoot lunacy

Here I am with three novels under my belt and I don’t have a single stalker. Oh, sure. AO occasionally breaks into my house to steal boxer briefs, but does that count? It’s more of a friendly fetish.

Stephen King has a stalker, alright, and he’s a tenacious one. His name is Steve Lightfoot and for years – nay, decades – he’s been trying to convince the world that King is behind the murder of John Lennon.

It’s a rich conspiracy, you know, that goes all the way to the White House. Richard Nixon and Stephen King, teaming up to slay the Walrus. But don’t take my word for it. Check out Lightfoot’s van and its billboard style message.

That Lightfoot is a loon is pretty much beyond question, even if you’re one to give at least a perfunctory look at all conspiracy theories. But what’s more frightening than Lightfoot’s tenacity is that there may be a few people out there willing to believe. “It is written on a van,” might be the way of thinking among the paranoid set, “so it must be true.”

I don’t think King loses much sleep over it, if the man sleeps at all. Just like I don’t fret much about the idea of AO creeping through my underwear drawers in the wee hours of morning.

I just hope that if anyone gets around to stalking me in earnest they come up with something more distinct than a trite murder conspiracy.

Then again, the adage holds: you’ve gotta be careful what you wish for.

Click for more ear horrors

I remember the moment when the ringing started. I was sitting in the newsroom staring at the computer monitor with no external or internal distractions. A moment later, there it was, the high sound of a crystal glass when the rim is stroked by a finger. The sound arose within my left ear and on it went, like an endless warning from the Emergency Broadcast System. Throughout the night it grew louder and the sound became more texture. Now there were pops and crackles, tinkling and chirping. By the next day it was louder still, and stranger.

I’m not one to visit a doctor unless I’m actively blind or an object is actually sticking out of me. And then only if the object is three feet or longer and is tickling internal organs.

Two days passed and then a third. Now on the fourth day, I’ve started asking around about this phantom music in the left side of my head. I get good feedback from friends and colleagues. “An earwig,” they say. “Probably nibblings its way through your brain as we speak.”

For a while, I thought I might have lost my ability to pronounce vowels to the loathsome bugs, but it was only temporary. Crap like that stuff about bugs nesting into a human ear to raise its family is laughable until you’re wide awake in the middle of the night and suddenly, you think you feel something moving in there.

Liquor is crucial in those moments and its vital that you steer clear of the Internet. I effectively avoided web stories about earwigs devouring brains of campers and flies giving birth to maggots in some unwary homeless man’s ear canal. Read that hogwash and you’ll start to feel long, moist legs slithering into the deepest caverns of the auditory system.

But the sad fact is, if you think too hard about something, you will make it true. This applies to the thing you fear under the bed and it applies to ear bugs, as well. A colleague, grinning savagely to mask the concern she felt about my well-being, made quick work of her Internet search and came up with this documented case of ear infestation. I hope you enjoy it. If you have comments or insights, leave them here. I’ll be in the backyard with a garden hose and a toilet snake.

Okay, animal lovers. Lock up your daughters and your chew toys. Tiberius Thorn is back and this time he’s not wearing a lion suit or much of anything else.

This is “Ty the Animal Guy” as known in the stripper pole set. Suntan oil, a handheld video camera and a banana hammock.

Not for the feint of heart. The late, great Steve Irwin would run screaming from this animal action.

Tiberius Thorn exposed