Five very intimate details about Dash Deringer

01. Dash Deringer started out as a character of a bumbling dim witted secret agent - adorable but stupid, loved by the ladies but lacking in all social graces... he was dedicated and he meant well but always fell far from the mark... he was a little Guido Contini and a whole lotta Maxwell Smart... began writing short stories about Dash Deringer but I never did anything with them - now days I simply just keep him around to have some one to blame when things don’t go as planned... a year after I created Dash Deringer “Austin Powers” was released at the movies...

02. When I was young I played the saxophone - and I was pretty good at it. I pawned my sax and regretted it ever since... I have recently began searching for the same make and model of the instrument I once had - I really want to take up the sax again... but I want a sax like the one I had... I also taught myself to play the guitar when I was a young man and though I often got my chords confused and may have not always known what chord I was actually playing, I did a good job with that too. My first guitar was a C. F. Martin... I am sorry to say that it met its demise in a drunken rage of rock and roll and left this world the way a guitar should.... smashed against a wall after writing a near perfect song that the world isn’t worthy to hear... and I taught myself to play the piano. When I lived in Illinois I dedicated a lot of my free time to trying to master it and I spent most of my nights composing music and turning poetry into songs... one day you may hear some of those recordings here at the DF... maybe... one day... once my mother visited me in Illinois and I played a song for her... she said nothing... the rest of my family does not know that I play the piano... and I have never told them... I haven’t actually played a piano since 2005...

03. When I was 13 years old I had an out of body experience - and I have not been the same ever since... the details of it are not something I will go into at this moment but it did affect me in a most peculiar way - some might say that it opened my third eye, or my sixth sense. I have had nightmares and strange visions since then - since I was 13, and I astral project involuntarily... even when I am awake and walking I have to catch myself from falling as the sensation of my soul escaping its vehicle comes upon me at any random moment... I suffer from sleep paralysis which is a symptom of astral projection - that half conscious state were one is fully mentally aware but cannot move or wake up - not even to open your eyes... this, the moment the souls is adjusting itself back into the vehicle... I hear the hum... people tell me it may be tinnitus... but I don’t believe that is the case - I have never had it checked by a doctor... but many people know what I am talking about - an electronic sound that starts out low and rises in pitch and tone in one ear and fades out in the other... I always know when it is going to happen and always feel different after it has stopped... like some one is downloading and uploading my mind... sometimes I feel very relaxed afterward and sometimes I feel very empty... sometimes very terrified... then there is the hum... like the echo of an engine to the distance or walking under a high power electric wire... I can’t make that stop - it is everywhere and no matter what I do and wherever I go it is always there I can’t plug my ears because that only makes the sound louder... so I just deal with it - I always have, for me the hum is normal, though I cannot exactly remember when I first started to hear it - I thought everyone could here it and that it was a normal thing lingering in the atmosphere or something - but it turns out that to hear it is not normal... I do panic when it stops and I can’t hear it... but have never really paid attention to when it starts up again... and then there are the voices... when I am alone and lying in bed before I fall asleep and my mind drifts to a place where there are no thoughts I begin to hear voices... as if I was sitting in a crowded bar... just a bunch of mumbling conversations... but voices... actual voices talking in my head... the thing is I am not sleeping - I am still full awake and conscious and I am hearing voices... many times the voices come after I have heard the tone - don’t know why - Strange... isn’t it... I don’t talk about this... people already think I am weird... but my life is really quite normal and a little boring...

04. There are five years of my life that are missing... I know exactly where I was and what I was doing... but the world does not... even those that are close to me think one thing when I was actually living a different life... this also I will not get into at this time but I will be leaving hints within the next few nights on this site in a couple of entries that have already been written but not yet posted - because I just found the disk they were on and I have been doing some traveling... I have tried to fill that long five year gap by placing dates and events into it... sometimes confuses me but I want to be prepared in case I am confronted by people from my past and they want to know my life story - my alibis... where were you for those five years? I gotta have something to tell them... of course a lot of it will be made up, but I have to have some kind of source material to fall back on as I tell my tale... they don’t need to know the truth... do they... do you? The readers of this humble site are quite bright - as I have said before... and you will be able to figure it out... but when you do... don’t mention it... that is just between us.


05. When I was a young boy I was sent off to spend a summer with my Grandparents - my fathers family - an attempts to instill my European roots into me before it got too late and I grew up... unfortunately I grew up without much of that influence - but what I did get I have held onto with an iron grasp... As my regular readers will know, my Father’s Mother is French and His Father is German... but I, unfortunately, was just a lowly Mexican... that could barely speak any English. Now, when my parents were still together and our family was young and filled with promise we actually lived in a very humble little house down the street from my Grandparents house and I would walk to their house several times a day dragging my little red wagon behind me to play in their garden and find adventures under the back porch - plus Grandad would always give me soda and candy... My grandfather will always be to me the manliest man that ever lived - he was far from perfect but he was loyal to his woman and to his family... he worked hard and lived an honest life... I will never know what His dreams where... what He wished for His children or what hopes He had for His grandchildren... He spoiled His son (my Father) and perhaps should have been a lot more strict with the boy who would one day be responsible for bringing me into this world... and he drank a bit too much (but never around the children)... but that Man - my Grandfather... will always be the closest thing to GOD in my life... Behind their house was my Grandfather’s work shop where he housed His mill - he did a lot of wood work, and I always new where to find him if he was not in the main house... many times I wouldn’t even go into the house and just drag my wagon straight around to the back and find him in his workshop... and he would stop what he was doing and wave me over to him... “Tito... come...” now, as you know Dash is not my real name, but here and now I will reveal to you that my family called me Tito when I was young - I don’t know why and when exactly it was that they stopped calling me by that name... I rather like it! But Grandad would call to me -“Tito - come...” and I would walk into the shop and he would lift me up and sit me on a work bench or on top of the cooler he kept out there and open up a cold bottle of orange soda or a Coca-Cola for me and he would resume his work... and we would have long conversations... long one sided conversations as I did not speak English, German, or French at the time... so to this day I have absolutely no idea what the hell he was talking about - he could have been giving me the secrets of the universe... the resting place of the “Odessa Treasure”... all the wisdom a young boy would need to become a real man... I haven’t a clue... I just would sit there and sip on my soda and let him talk as he worked on his project... It was only recently that I told my mother that is how I spent my days as a boy at my Grandparents house and she laughed - “What could he possibly be talking to you about? You were to young to understand anything and you didn’t speak but Spanish then...”
“I don’t know...” I told her - “but we would be out there for hours... some days we would be out there until you called me home or Grandma called us inside... “
My Mother always looks confused whenever I talk about this - she always just assumed that I was out playing with the neighborhood kids... but no... I spent my days out in my Grandfathers workshop listening to him talk about things I will never know... perhaps he was confessing his days of youth... I’ll never know... But the summer I went to spend with my Grandfather for the last time before he passed away... when I could speak English - not much, but enough... is when I knew I wanted to be like him... My Grandparents slept in separate rooms... my Grandmother’s was a little too pink and girly for me but Grandads was a man’s room... it was covered in wood and clean and tidy like a military barrack, it smelled of wood and musk and pipe tobacco... it smelled of hair cream and the sea and spices... I remember the moment... I stood at the doorway to his room and watched Him standing in his walk in closet... surveying the field of shirts in front of him... he turned his head slowly to look at me - sensing my presence no doubt - but he kept his eyes fixed on what he was looking at until his head was completely facing me... and he smiled... “Tito... come...” and I walked slowly to him and Stopped when I reached the entrance to the small room... I was not allowed into his room at all - no one was - and to have come this far made me feel as if I had won the favor of the King... “Come in here, Tito... come look...” and I stepped into the inner sanctum... His Majesty’s wardrobe... a room covered in cedar with and old but well kept chest of drawers against one wall... shiny and polished with a small wooden box on top... he picked me with one arm and opened the top drawer to reveal his neck ties laid out neatly pressed and lined up like rows of tents on a battle field... hanker-chiefs starched and stacked on top of each-other and a bowl filled with cuff links... I reached out to touch his ties but stopped myself in freight - I had gone too far... I looked up and my Grandfather like a rabbit caught in a hunters sights... but he smiles at me and nodded... ever so subtly... and I reached out to stroke those wonderful ties... I remember stopping at one particular tie and pulling it out... I held on to it for a moment and Grandad took it from me gently... he put me down and turned back to his shirts... and I looked in awe at the world of this man no one got to see... his suits hanging like pines in a forest - simple... elegant... and perfect... as only GOD could lay them out... his shirts flowed like winter into spring and his trousers marched in unison - finer than any fascist army ever could... I stroked his suites with my fingers and tried to memorize the textures of his shirts... his shoes sparkled like lights on a Christmas tree in a fancy department store... to this day I have never walked into a Men's Clothier without comparing it to the Masters chambers... they have all paled in comparison... I watched Grandad put on a crisp fresh shirt and wrap the tie I picked for him around his neck... he splashed on some manly cologne and he teasingly smacked me across the face with his still wet hand leaving some of his sent on me... he reached down to get a pair of wing tipped shoes from his arsenal and sat on a small bench to tie them and run a small cloth over them... he stood up, grabbed his suit coat and escorted me out the room... he closed the door to his wardrobe and held the knob as if to secure it properly... we walked out of his room together and as he closed the door behind me he spoke... “Tito... your not to go into that room by yourself... do you understand...”
“O.K. Grandpa... o.k......”