Scavenger Hunt On The Amalfi Coast
The ghost of Orson Welles was sitting in an arm chair in the living room of the billionaire ancient Egyptian vampire Set’s colossal London mansion and reflecting on a yacht trip he had made to Italy’s Amalfi Coast in 1953.
The Amalfi Coast is a stretch of coastline on the Tyrrhenian Sea located in the Gulf of Salerno in Southern Italy.
Welles recalled he wasn’t quite sure how he got to the Amalfi Coast.
The last thing he remembered was being on Spain’s Meditteranean coast and imbibing in several glasses of red wine.
The next thing Welles remembered was waking up on a yacht off the Amalfi Coast.
The yacht belonged to an Arab sheikh.
Welles got off the yacht not far from the town of Ravello.
He wandered around the town and ran into an acquaintance fellow actor Humphrey Bogart.
Bogart was in the town along with actresses Jennifer Jones and Gina Lollobrigida and actors Robert Morley, Peter Lorre and Bernard Lee.
They were shooting the 1953 adventure comedy film Beat The Devil.
Bogey teased Welles as they sat in a small outdoor cafe.
“Well, Orson, this film is obviously about beating you,” Bogey smiled, “You’re usually playing a villain in most of your films whether it’s a megalomaniacal newspaper publisher, an ex-Nazi on the verge of becoming a U.S. Supreme Court justice’s son-in-law, a post-war black marketeer on the streets of Vienna or a Renaissance Borgia prince. Your characters are usually human devils of some form or another. Thus as the film title suggests Beat The Devil is about beating you.”
Welles wasn’t about to take this insult lying down.
He answered, “I did play a heroic role in the 1947 film The Lady From Shanghai where my soon-to-be ex-wife played the villainess. Besides in many of your film roles in the 1930s, you often played gangster or mean tough guy roles.”
“Yes but later I played great heroic roles like Rick in Casablanca and Philip Marlowe in The Big Sleep so I was quite the heroic hero whereas you were usually the villainous villain,” Bogey laughed.
“Well, pick a game,” Welles challenged, “I bet I can beat you at it. And then we’ll see who’s the Devil.”
At that moment Gina Lollobrigida approached.
Bogey told her about Welles’ challenge.
The Italian actress suggested an old fashioned scavenger hunt.
Welles and Bogey agreed.
Gina said she would pick what was to be located and found.
She gave the same list to each actor.
Both Welles and Bogey set out on the scavenger hunt.
Welles had spent the entire morning searching.
And he had located what was to be located on Gina’s scavenger list.
Now it was early afternoon and Welles came to the final item on the list.
“What?!” Welles exclaimed, “Find the Greek goddess Hera sitting on a piece of driftwood on the beach? How is that even possible?”.
Still Welles headed down to the beach.
Where he noticed a beautiful woman who looked like a goddess sitting on a piece of driftwood on the beach.
“Excuse me,” Welles addressed the woman, “but you aren’t the Greek goddess Hera by any chance?”.
“I am, Mr. Welles,” the goddess answered, “I’m a big fan of yours so I came down from Mount Olympus to help you beat Bogey.”
Welles took Hera to the cafe where sat Gina and Bogey.
Bogey was looking dejected as he had been unable to find the goddess Hera sitting on a piece of driftwood on the beach.
When Welles introduced the woman as Hera and swore on a King James Bible that he had found her sitting on a piece of driftwood on the beach, Bogey objected, “I believe that you did find her sitting on a piece of driftwood on the beach but how do we know this woman is really Hera?”.
Hera then called on the gods Zeus and Hermes to appear.
When they did so appearing out of thin air, Bogey conceded defeat while Gina looked very surprised.
Angered by his scavenger hunt loss, Bogey went for a car ride where he got into an accident losing several of his teeth.
As a result while adjusting to the loss of his teeth, Bogey was unable to speak clearly and therefore actor Peter Sellers (who was not then well known at the time but had a talent for imitating voices) was hired to dub some of Bogey’s lines speaking like Bogey.
Some of the lines had to be re-dubbed because Sellers instead of speaking like Bogey spoke like Indian actor Hrundi V. Bakshi whom Sellers would later play in the 1968 movie The Party.
And thus that was how through the help of the Greek goddess Hera, Welles was able to beat Bogey at a scavenger hunt.
-A vampire novel chapter
written by Christopher
Thursday June 10th
2021.
Hera and The Gangsters
The Greek goddess Hera starring in a 1930s Broadway play about gangsters
It was the decade of the 1930s.
And the Greek goddess Hera was honing her theatrical skills by starring in a Broadway play about gangsters.
It was dress rehearsal night – the evening before the official opening.
Hera was awaiting the arrival of the gangster boss Big Frank Malone.
A man came on stage wearing a fedora hat and gangster suit and carrying a big violin case.
Hera, speaking out of character, said, “You don’t look like John Barrymore to me.”
“I’m afraid John is a bit under the weather tonight,” the understudy replacement for John Barrymore replied.
“How many bottles did he have to drink today?” Hera asked.
“You know the real Barrymore obviously,” Dracul Van Helsing, who had time travelled from the future and was now playing the role of Big Frank Malone in this play about gangsters, replied.
“That’s funny,” the ghost of Orson Welles, who had likewise time travelled from the future, remarked as he sat in the front row, “I don’t ever recall John Barrymore starring in a play about gangsters.”
“He possibly drank before each performance and never made it to the stage,” Van Helsing noted.
“By Jove, I think you’re right,” Welles agreed.
“Please, don’t use one of my husband’s Roman names,” Hera stood up.
“I forgot,” Welles bowed, “I do apologize.”
Hera approached Van Helsing, “Well, Dracul, since you’ve come from the future to step in for the great John Barrymore, perhaps we can do an improvisational performance tonight.”
“And what improvisational performance did you have in mind?” Van Helsing inquired.
“How about making out here on the stage?” Hera smiled.
And Hera and Van Helsing did just that.
“Not again,” Welles’ ghost buried his ghostly head in his ghostly hands.
As Hera and Van Helsing made out, soon thunder and lightning flashed around the stage.
“And furthermore, I just would happen to be in the very theatre on the night the Greek god Zeus decided to attend a Broadway play,” Welles’ ghost sighed.
The next day a hangover stricken John Barrymore was asked what happened to the theatre as it lay in ruins.
“Well, I know people are once again going to say this was a hallucination brought on by too much drink on my part,” Barrymore commented, “but it was an angry and cuckholded Greek god Zeus who destroyed this theatre because his wife the Olympian queen Hera was making out with a mortal.”
The members of the New York press laughed and shook their heads.
And that was the reason history has no record of John Barrymore starring in a Broadway play about gangsters.
The ghost of radio announcer Paul Harvey appeared in front of the lightning produced charred ashes of the theatre and gave his usual radio show sign-off, “And now you know the rest of the story.”
-A vampire novel chapter
written by Christopher
Monday March 1st
2021.
Harvey Tallbanger Knocks Out Zeus With A Lightning Bolt
Harvey Tallbanger Knocks Out Zeus With A Lightning Bolt
The gypsy Esmeralda had just finished a dance and was sitting in a corner of Quasimodo’s Cafe in Paris.
Suddenly she was approached by the Greek god Zeus.
“Howdy,” said Zeus who had been sitting up at the bar and shooting the breeze with a Texas oilman, “How would you like to see my Olympian sized Greek sausage?”.
The deity started to raise his Greek toga.
“Be a gentleman,” said the 6 foot 8 tall invisible Welsh pooka bunny rabbit secret agent Harvey Tallbanger who hit Zeus over the head with one of his own lightning bolts that he had left behind in an Adidas bag full of lightning bolts next to his stool.
As Zeus hit the floor, he moaned, “That’s the first time in history I’ve been hit by one of my own lightning bolts. And by a bunny rabbit at that.”
“By a very tall bunny rabbit though,” Esmeralda said as she sipped a Harvey Wallbanger allowing her to see the usually invisible (to mortals) bunny rabbit.
“I’ll be the laughing stock of the Vegreville summit,” Zeus sighed, “Vegreville being to the gods and goddesses of the world’s nations – the Greeks, the Norse, the Egyptian, the Celtic, the Phoenician, Babylonian etc. what the Davos summit is to mortal men and women.”
“You gods and goddesses meet yearly in the city of Vegreville, Alberta, Canada?” Harvey Tallbanger was shocked, “In the name of God, why?”.
“I hear Vegreville has the world’s tallest Easter egg,” Esmeralda pointed out.
“Well it wasn’t me who laid it,” Harvey the rabbit said in his own defense.
“It may have been me,” Zeus remarked before succumbing to unconsciousness as a result of being hit by one of his own lightning bolts.
. . .
The Greek goddess Hera
“I have the feeling my husband Zeus is once again up to no good,” the Greek goddess Hera remarked to private eye Carson Cody Albion.
Years before, Hera had hired Albion to spy on her horny husband and now she was doing so again.
“What makes you think so?” Albion lit himself a cigarette.
“Well,” Hera got up from her chair, turned around and looked at Albion:
“We were at the 75th Anniversary celebrations of D-Day on Juno Beach last Thursday,” Hera explained and smoothed the top of the chair, “Juno Beach was named after me, you understand? Or at least the Roman side of my persona. Donald Trump had just signed his name at the top of the 75th Anniversary D-Day proclamation whereas every other world leader present had signed their name at the bottom when Zeus told me, he had to get back to Paris for some reason and he wasn’t talking about the long dead Trojan who had slain Achilles with an arrow to the foot.”
“You suspect he’s got something going on in Paris?” Albion closed his notebook and put it in his pocket.
“I do,” said the goddess as she fanned herself.
Albion marvelled at how in the past 2 minutes, Hera was able to make clothing changes even faster than Japanese pop music superstar Moritaka Chisato.
-A vampire novel chapter
written by Christopher
Sunday June 9th
2019.
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