[Letters From the Labyrinth] Official Brian Keene Newsletter 1/29/17

Hi. My name is Brian Keene and this is the 26th issue of Letters From the Labyrinth, a weekly email newsletter. If you're a new subscriber, previous issues are archived here.

Well, I'm alive. Were my fears, which I expressed in last week's newsletter, unfounded?

Not really. But we'll get to that in a moment. First, let me begin with something I posted on my website and The Horror Show's website on Friday night, because it is important and you may have missed it.

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At noon today, we wrapped The Horror Show with Brian Keene’s 24-hour live telethon to benefit the Scares That Care charity. Our goal was to raise $10,000 for Scares That Care, to benefit these three families. I am happy to report we achieved our goal.

I woke at 6:00am Thursday and went to bed at 1:00pm Friday. I spent 24 hours of that time talking. The rest was spent either preparing to talk or recovering from talking. All in all, both Dave and myself were awake 31 hours or so. If you were listening, you know what the physical toll was. Dave’s delirium (“I sang? I don’t remember that…”) and the blood in my throat and heart issues were not fake or played up for the air.

My sincere thanks to each and every single person that donated to this very worthy cause.

Thanks to my co-hosts Dave Thomas and Geoff Cooper. And to Phoebe.

Thanks to our guests Ronald Malfi, Wrath James White, Mary SanGiovanni, Scott Edelman, Christopher Golden, Damien Angelica Walters, Stephen Kozeniewski, Jonathan Janz, John Urbancik, Nate Southard, Bracken MacLeod, Armand Rosamilia, Chuck Buda, Frank Edler, Michael Bailey, Robert Ford, Jeff Burk, Amber Fallon, Kristopher Rufty, Christian Jensen, Mike Lombardo, Steve Boliek, Ralph Bieber, Kyle Lybeck, Wile E. Young, Patrick J. Kennedy, and Somer Canon.

Thanks to Maurice Broaddus and Jeff Strand for being good sports with the crank phone calls.

Thanks to Robert Swartwood, Sinister Grin Press, Written Backwards, Survival Weekly, Steve Wands, and many others for their generous push goals.

Thanks to Scares That Care’s Brian Smith, Alfred Guy, and Joe Ripple.

My sincere thanks to the diehards like Jim and Ed-Die and so many others who stayed awake the full 24 hours with us and kept the hashtag active, engaging, and trending.

Again, thanks to all of you who donated, and my sincere apologies to anyone I may have forgotten above.

In the coming days, people will ask what my favorite parts were. To be honest, right now everything is a blur. But perhaps I’d choose:

1. That impromptu rendition of Simon and Garfunkel’s “The Sounds of Silence” by myself, Coop, and Dave (with the made-up-on-the-spot alternate lyrics).

2. Playing disc jockey at 4am (and thanks to Witch Mountain, Xander Harris, Sick of it All, Kasey Lansdale, Charred Walls of the Damned, Lace Weeper, The Slow Poisoners, BJ Pruitt and the Barnstormers and all the other musicians). I haven’t done that in a long, long time, and it felt good.

3. The energy that both Ronald Malfi and Damien Angelica Walters brought with them (and understand, all of guests did this, but those two came at moments when Dave and I were truly flagging, and elevated the room again).

4. Somer Canon and Mary SanGiovanni’s discussion of Women in Horror, Then and Now.

5. Freebird.

6. Getting hit in the head with the spatula.

Again, thank you to our listeners, our fans, our peers, and their fans, for making this a success.

Much love and respect,

–Brian Keene

So... scattered and random behind-the-scenes thoughts. And understand, they are scattered and random because I am still recovering. As I told my eight-year old when I picked him up Saturday morning, he had to take it easy on me this weekend...

Right before Christian Jensen began his reading (which must have been around 1 in the morning) I felt something tear in my throat. Some of the folks who were listening told me later that they could hear an immediate change in my voice. Mary must have heard it, too, because she gave me the look. Those of you who are in a relationship where you and your partner can communicate with an almost telepathic ability will know what I'm talking about. When you get the look, you fucking pay attention.

She and I went out into the hall. She told me I needed to take a break. I agreed that I did, given that my left arm had been tingling for the better part of the evening, and now my throat felt like I'd gargled with razor blades. So, we snagged Stephen Kozeniewski's room key and went upstairs. Mary lay down to nap. I went into the bathroom and decide to wash my face and brush my teeth.

That was when I spit blood into the sink. Understand, I'm not talking about some pink saliva. I turned that white sink red. I rinsed and rinsed and rinsed, getting the taste out of my mouth. Then I gargled with mouthwash. The pain was instant and intense, but the mouthwash did the trick. It burned away whatever was happening inside my throat. After, I sat there for a good hour, and meditated, and stayed very, very quiet. I wanted to sleep, but I knew I couldn't. Not only would that have felt like cheating (that's the whole point of a 24-hour telethon), but I was also too wired, and too nervous about hitting our goal. Plus, I would have felt very guilty. Plus, I was worried that if I allowed myself to sleep, even for just an hour, I might not wake up again.

When my voice felt better, I decided to go back downstairs. Mary woke up and came with me. As you heard, my voice wasn't better, but I was still grateful for that respite. Thanks again to Dave, Coop, and Christian Jensen for taking over and interviewing filmmaker Steve Boliek.

Now, the other elephant in the room that many of you were asking about -- my heart. Yes, it was acting up, and yes, I downplayed it on the air. I suspect only Mary and Coop knew there was more to it than I was letting on. I think Dave might have known, too, but as we'll get to in a moment, Dave was so delirious at that point, that a pink dragon could have landed on his shoulder and he wouldn't have blinked.

Here's the thing, folks. I live with my heart every day. I know its beats and rhythms. I know when I'm pushing it. I've made peace with the fact that one of these days, my heart will probably succeed in doing what many of my detractors will never be able to accomplish. I was pretty sure I wasn't going to have a heart attack, but I was also uncertain enough to down baby aspirin several times throughout the broadcast.

My real concern was Dave. When Mary and I returned, and Coop went home and Dave took his break, I genuinely thought Dave was okay, albeit tired. When he came back around dawn, after I'd played DJ and took a call from producer Patrick J. Kennedy (who told us about how Joe R. Lansdale legitimately saved his life), I realized that Dave wasn't just tired -- he was hallucinating. If you were listening when I launched into "Freebird" an Dave sang along, and then didn't remember singing five minutes later? That wasn't a joke. I suspect there was a very big part of Dave's brain that said, "Fuck this" and ran on autopilot for the last few hours of the broadcast. I've never seen him like that. I've seen him drunk. I've seen him tired. But this was like watching my friend experience a sudden, unexpected bout of advanced dementia.

So, why do that to ourselves?

That's why. Little Jane's mother Tweeted me this pic, along with a message that Jane said "Hi". That's why we do it. Dave and I told you all about Jane, Tiffany, and Bert during the broadcast. You can learn more about them here.

I know what my usual detractors are saying, and as always, my usual detractors can go fuck themselves. With the exception of them, the entire horror genre -- professionals and their fans -- came together last Thursday and Friday and raised $10,000 in less than 24 hours. $10,000 that will go directly to helping those three people. Let me be very clear -- I didn't do that. Dave didn't do that. Coop didn't do that. YOU DID THAT. We were just the ringleaders. We could not have accomplished it without you.

So take a bow, horror genre. I love you.

THE FALLEN is a brand-new, original graphic novel that will be released later this year. It is written by me, illustrated by Steve Wands, and based on a screenplay by Richard Chizmar and Johnathon Schaech (Jonah Hex on television's LEGENDS OF TOMORROW).

On Friday morning, during the telethon, with 4 hours to go, Steve Wands offered to post one page from the comic for each time we raised another $100. It worked. For those who missed them, I'm sharing a few of the pages below. Not all of them, because I fear that will overload your inbox. If you want to see the rest, follow Steve on Twitter.

Understand, these are not lettered. This is just the artwork. But it will give you an idea of what's in store for this ass-kicking (if I do say so myself) Civil War horror story.

That's it for this week. I'm still recovering, and there's an eight-year old here yelling for me to come play Minecraft. So I'm gonna do that.