Sign Seal Deliver
Childhood trauma is a bitch, and other enlightenings.
As a kid of the late seventies, I was big into space. Tang, Space Food Sticks, Star Trek, Major Matt Mason (an astronaut that would rather hang with his alien buddies than those warmongers of the G I Joe pantheon, man), Quisp vs. Quake; all were for fodder for my adolescent brain. I even went hard with model rockets, competing for several years at a national level. Oh, and I totally got to produce the NARHAMS newsletter on the smelly mimeograph machine the club maintained. Oh, not familiar with National Association of Rocketry Headquarters of Astro Modelling Section? God, try to keep up, would you?
I even talked my mom into driving me to a hotel in Bethesda for a “UFO Convention.” There were no more UFO-related events after that; I figure my mom eyed the motley collection of UFO enthusiasts and decided then and there: no more conventions.
The apotheosis of my space obsession was when my father got invited to attend an Apollo launch at Cape Canaveral. My dad had been confirmed by Congress as Employee #3 at the Environmental Protection Agency. I got to meet Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger at his swearing-in. In his position, my dad got to attend many interesting events. None was more ironic for the EPA delegation than an Apollo launch, which has to be one of the most polluting events in human history (notwithstanding nukes, I suppose). But they nonetheless accorded him the VIP treatment. When he came home, along with amazing stories, he handed me a plaque with a tiny little pebble glued to it. About 6’x9”, horizontal, rectangular with fluted edges, wooden base then plastic glued atop. And there, on the left was a single tiny stone, the size of a grain of rice. A MOON ROCK. Yeah, boyyyeee! Now this—this—was tangible proof of benefit from my dad’s dumb government job. I gave this plaque and its precious lunar attachment cargo pride of place by my bedside. Even as I grew up and out of my astronaut dreams, I always had that rock to look to. Definitely the coolest artifact of my childhood.
Except, it is almost certainly apocryphal, existing only in my imagination. The slightest bit of research indicates moon rocks were considered national-security level of government property. A few were apparently given to other countries for display in national museums. But none were distributed to mollify government officials’ offspring miffed at missing the launch. There is pretty much zero chance I was ever given a moon rock sample. Way to run over my childhood puppy, reality.
But seriously, what gives? I totally remember this thing, how can it not have ever existed? Maybe it was a total fake, given to gullible “VIP”s feeling guilty for not bringing the family? Or it was real, and some intern was giving out the crown jewels as a summer art project? Memories fade. But the McMasters childcare scandal revealed, later research proved, that memory can also build facades of fancy that defy belief because they are unbelievable (and unreal). My first thought upon hearing about the manufactured memory phenomenon was, jaw dropping to the floor, “My moon rocks never existed!” To this day, I cannot reconcile my memory with the reality that it almost certainly never happened.
I got back into UFOs when my friend Patty and I rented a cabin in the Catskills. These ancient mountains are renowned as attractors of kooks, weirdos, and eccentrics. Their deep nooks and crannies conceal yoga retreats, fly fishing fisticuffs, and yes, UFO sightings. Pine Bush claims to be the UFO sighting capital of the world. Whether that slogan was written in collaboration with the proprietors of the Cup and Saucer Diner, (“Food That’s Out of This World”) remains (not that) hard to determine.
Patty and I read this book, Communion, by Whitley Streiber that freaked us both out. He made his living as a horror writer, but the events portrayed were represented as true. Not coincidentally, the cabin where most of Streiber’s alien encounters occurred was right up the road from our little cabin in the woods in Claryville. Whatever else might be said of him, Streiber (Whitley to his fans) spins a good yarn. I was flashed back to my young teenage years of ufology and Patty and I started collecting books about UFOs. My kids came excitedly running up the basement stairs squealing not too many years ago so I suppose I still have the UFO box.
There are several possible explanations for Whitley and others’ encounters. One is of course, that they are exactly what they seem. More likely, seems to me, is that people are encountering beings from another dimension. Not aliens like in movies, but aliens from the Inner Dimension. I never really did have any alien encounters in my time in the Catskills. But I was still an avid consumer of tales of little grey creatures, especially local ones.
Both the Periodic Table of Elements and the Rolling Stones’ Satisfaction were conceived of in dreams. Point taken, but my dreamscape is not a place I want to visit, not now not then. This inclination was confirmed when around the same time my friend Patty got us a pair of micro-voice memo recorders to keep bedside. The theory is that your dreams take place in a part of your brain which is not involved with memory. When you transition to a waking state, your dreams stay locked in the netherworld of sleep, where they belong, in my not-so-humble opinion. No matter how vivid, elaborate, and profound they may seem at the time, no tickee, no memory.
The plan was to reach over and grab the recorder before you even opened your eyes. Then recite as much of the dream you were having as possible before your waking brain pushed it back down into the nether reaches of your subconscious. Ideally, you’d slip back to sleep and doze your way back into alpha wave sleep/wake paradox. This is the way to achieve lucid dreaming, and not uncoincidentally, the way most alien sightings and abductions seem to start. These events often leave no trace of memory, and have to be prompted by hypnosis. Sound familiar? Is it an accident most reported alien abductions occur from people’s beds? Patty wanted to hear our dreams so I went along with it, briefly.
First thing, and I mean first thing, like preferably before opening eyes, reach out of warm comforter, grasp mini-recorder and start talking. Recount all you can of the dream you just woke from. Fall back asleep. This is the method Keith Richards used to write the classic licks that form the ur-rock song, Satisfaction.
My own results were less salubrious. I would generally doze some more, Otis would hound me (get it?) awake and I would start my day. Later, sometimes hours later, I’d idly wonder and retrieve my recorder. A ghostly voice would emanate, mine but not mine: eerie. And then that voice would say the creepiest, most disjointed wacked out nonsense you can imagine. “And then my father sank the boat,” or “the Owls are not what they seem.” I know, that last one was Twin Peaks. Generally creepy, often unintelligible, and never usable information, I soon gave up the whole thing in disgust. Dreams seem to exist behind their veil of inscrutability for a reason. Delving too deeply into one’s inner psychic realms just never seemed a good idea to me.
In the midst of all this mishegas with the dreams and the UFOs and stuff, Rolling Stone called and asked me to shoot a new artist with the unlikely name of Seal. He dutifully shlepped up the stairs to the fourth floor of 275 Church. Oh, yes, of course, sorry, I know you guys like this: arrived via town car with one publicist accompanying. And was the nicest, most accommodating, soft-spoken English guy you’d ever want to meet. In fact, he even ended up giving me his cell number, saying we should hang out. I believe I did actually dial that number once, a few weeks after our shoot. As I recall, he didn’t remember who I was, couldn’t figure out why I was calling, and just generally made me regret even trying. But while we were working on our pictures, we were best buddies.
In between shots, we got to talking about the scars on his face. I honestly don’t remember how it happened, as it’s the sort of thing I’d never in a million years say anything about. But I will always remember his account of how he acquired them. I stopped shooting and leaned in to hear as he quietly recounted a dream. A dream where a mighty angelic demon with fiery wings arose from inside his body. As this blindingly radiant and terrifying creature ascended into the heavens, its merest wingtips gently caressed his cheeks. It grew, reaching hundreds of feet tall. When he awoke, covered in sweat, eyes filled with tears, he touched his face and realized he had scars where the angel/demon’s wings had brushed him in the dream.
“Get out of town with that bullshit,” I think I sputtered, ever the sympathetic listener. Come on, would you believe this cockamamie story? When I protested, he spoke even more softly, forcing me to lean in even closer, so our foreheads were almost touching. In my experience, angelic demons don’t spontaneously arise to inflict scars upon their maker. Oh, but in Seal’s world they not only do but did. And his sincere tone and confiding gaze made me believe him. ‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy’ said some other English dude.
Like George Bush after Trump’s Inauguration speech, I believed Seal, while still thinking, “Man! That was some weird shit.” Made for some good photos. Seal went on to much success, (married Heidi Klum!) the scars don’t seem to have held him back, no matter their source.
I believed this story for thirty odd years. Much as I believed that somehow some weird stuff had happened to Whitley Streiber up there in the Catskills during those long dark nights. And I believed me and Tony had that weird thing happen in Maine that time.
In Seal’s case, current research reveals his scars appear to have been caused by a condition called discoid lupus erythematosus (DLE), a kind of immune disease that attacks the skin of the face and scalp. If untreated, it produces scars like those seen on our handsome English friend. Far from disproving Seal’s story, it reinforces it. What is an immune disease that ravages facial skin from within one’s own body if not an angelic demon? I learned from my work with Dr. Pepper about how emotional trauma occurs in a different part of the brain than that involved with timekeeping. Net effect of which means that untreated emotional trauma can exist decades after the fact. And if an untreated disease that leaves scars on a child’s face isn’t traumatic, I don’t know what is. Likewise, an event like an angel leaping aloft in one hellish night might actually be a couple of weeks or months where lupus was ravaging a child’s body. And I believe that heartfelt story shared with me decades ago just like I believe the one with the science. And I wonder if, like Seal’s demon, the UFO stories have something to do with concealing unresolved childhood trauma. A lesson I take from reflecting upon my time with Seal: find yourself a Dr. Pepper. Find someone to talk to. Walk that young you down that hallway, release that angelic demon, never to plague you again.
Seal abides, man.
You and me both , Sister!
Always wondered where those scars came from!