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Guest columnist Owen Wislon joins the Ill & Odd crew to share new insights on unknown and wondrous creatures, strange locations, myths, legends and all manners of things that make you say, "Oh wow!"
Hey Jabronis,
I'm back for the 4th installment of this court ordered joke. I say joke loosely as it's felt like a cage around my mind with only the 'editors' of this 'site' possibly finding any humor here. And I say cage as while this was billed to me as productive outlet for my sentencing in regards to [REDACTED] it's instead felt like a prison of mind fuckery.
Why do I mean by that? Well have you ever been forced to look into some seriously bizarre stuff day after day? Man, I am getting messed up with some of this material. It's impacting my sleep schedule, and guess what, me no likey getting bags under my eyes for photoshoots. I'm getting old enough as it is I don't need the help in that department. Hell, my girlfriend recently said it looks like I have a pair of Sphynx cat balls under each eyelid. That was tough. Scratch that, is.
What has gotten me so rattled this week? Well illandodd's asshole intern Josh, terrible guy, happened to dig into their archives and put a file titled Skinwalkers on my desk. Their headquarters I'm forced to write at is creepy enough, I don't need anymore shit Josh. LOOK AT MY EYES DAMMIT. A side note, I did ask how you go about leasing an abandoned mall and they all just shuffled away without giving me eye contact.
Back to the point. As I was sitting in an abandoned Spencer's looking at the material for this piece I was overcome with a sense of unease that has not since abided.
Skinwalkers from what I read are creatures, or really beings I guess, that have been told of and experienced of in Navajo culture for generations. In the Navajo language (Diné bizaad) they are called yee naaldlooshii. These guys, gals, hell I don't know, these things can turn themselves into any animal they want. And it's not exactly clear but apparently these things can turn into people as well. I guess we are animals after all. While a lot isn't clear as the Navajo don't tend to say much on the matter, what is clear, is that Skinwalkers are not here for a good time. Well, not ours anyway. I think theirs is a bit too bloody for my liking.
What makes them so terrifying to me is maybe not that they'll come and gut me personally per se, but the fact that by existing they would make you second guess every animal you came across. I mean, there's a reason I don't film outside of L.A. anymore. Hell L.A. only has little pissant dogs on leases. Just don't go jogging for clout in the hills and a cougar won't eat your face.
But out in the open country, or in the woods of the northeast, haven't you been minding your own business when suddenly a hush falls over and around you? I vividly recall a time walking along the Schuylkill River Trail outside Philly with M. Night as he went on and on about his next movie project about bees or some shit.
At a certain point he finally stopped talking and for a moment as my gaze swept over the majesty of the trail and I saw a deer face poking out of the woods staring at us, or rather, at me. This wasn't like the spirit of the forest from Princess Mononoke. No, I remember feeling a level of malevolence emanating from it that rooted me. I don't think I could have tried to run if it shot out of the woods at me. Luckily, or not depending on how you look at it, M. Night started on again about how the bees in his script were actually angels and demons fighting over people's souls and I was shocked out of my stupor by the stupidity of it. I looked back and the deer was gone. It must have heard the pitch as well.
You may think Skinwalkers don't exist, or that I was over thinking shit, or over medicated or something. First, and I've said this before, how dare you. Second, I don't know what I saw precisely, just what I felt. Really I blame intern Josh again for being such a jerk and putting this subject in front of me. My mind had sealed out that memory and reading into the Navajo culture has burnt it back into my brain.
I said to start this entry I was in a prison of the mind working with the idiots here. Now I've got another passenger sitting shotgun I can't dump off on the road somewhere. Probably should have just gone to jail for [REDACTED]. Now I'm here.
Great.
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