Early concept art for “Grow the Fuck Up!”. The short film was originally going to have an exploding fairy. I believe the artist’s name was Carina Simmons. She had to leave the project early due to other commitments. This was back during pre-production in 2008. I’m glad I held onto it.
Many years ago, I started a blog associated with my short films “Grow the Fuck Up!“, “Christmas Stuffing“, and “Those Hidden Amongst Us: Bar Tab“. It was also directly connected to “Mr. Gregory’s Time Capsule“. The blogger and paranormal investigator, Bear Hunter, finds Mr. Gregory’s time capsule connecting “Grow the Fuck Up!” to a bigger world. It was an early attempt by “Angry Bear Film Productions” at world building. It all got too complicated, and taught me that less is more.
I thought I’d share one of Bear Hunter’s blogs, out of nostalgia. I gave it the edit it should have originally undergone.
Fairies of the North: Part One
by Bear Hunter
I’ve met many interesting people over the years. Most of which have been in the last three years. I have a friend I met online, he’s a real character. I can’t tell you his real name. He goes by the alias “Paradox”. I could only dream of living the life this man has lived. I can’t give you specifics about the man, he is very secretive. Although, he does like to share his stories.
One of his more interesting tales he has agreed to let me share. One thing you need to know about Paradox, is that he is an explorer at heart. The man has travelled to Egypt, the Bermuda Triangle, Tibet, the Amazon and the Middle East. His mission in life is to solve the world’s greatest mysteries. Most of his evidence he keeps confined to private archives – I suspect he doesn’t deem the world ready to know. My favourites are his findings on Jesus Christ, but he would disown me if I were to leak any of those online.
For some odd reason, Paradox has a fascination with the Canadian north, particularly the remote regions. He believes that there are great mysteries hidden deep beneath the ice. One summer he took a trip to Northern Labrador. It is the northern mainland portion of the province of “Newfoundland and Labrador”. Labrador resides along the northern Atlantic coastline and borders the province of Quebec. The northern tip of the province is designated part of the arctic, and has a very small population, made up primarily of aboriginal peoples.
Paradox decided – evidence or not – he had to explore a region called the “Torngat Mountains” before the end of his days. Local peoples believe the mountains are home to evil spirits. All that scientists could find inhabiting the area were Caribou and Polar Bears. Then again, it’s a massive area that few people dare traverse. Paradox figured, that if nothing else, he could challenge himself both body and soul. He takes giddy pleasure in trekking where few, if any, had trekked before.
Paradox’s journey began in a small village on the outskirts of the mountains. He wouldn’t reveal the name of the town to me. He doesn’t want anyone to retrace his steps. I think he doesn’t want any women to retrace his steps. Paradox has difficulty keeping his travel companion – Baby Yeti – in his pants. He told me some fun stories about the local women smiling at him and calling him Big Bear – he’s a big guy. Paradox spent some time in San Francisco a few years back and had some confusing experiences with men labelling him a bear, and inviting him to underground parties. Because of San Fran, it took Paradox days to realize that these northern women were flirting with him, as opposed to making assumptions about his sexual preference. Just to be clear, my alias “Bear Hunter” has nothing to do with the above subject matter… just so you don’t make any false assumptions about how Paradox and I first came to meet.
After days of experimenting with different methods of “boosting body heat” in the village, Paradox was ready to set out into the wilderness. The big hairy guy is an expert survivalist. He’s been hospitalized twice for experimenting with five different types of anti-venom. That knowledge saved his life once while in the Amazon. He doesn’t mess around.
His plan, was to hike 20 kilometres into the mountain valleys. If he found any clues of any unusual phenomenon, he planned to return for a more in-depth investigation a few weeks later. His hike into the mountains started out to be promising. The long summer days allowed him to cover a lot of ground in a single day. For a big guy, Paradox has amazing endurance – I’m sure a couple of the single women in the village discovered much the same thing.
On day two, things started to get rough. Paradox was setting up his tent on a ridge when he lost his footing and slipped on some ice. Taken by surprise, he reached out and grabbed his tent for dear life. The momentum of his hefty body, as it slid down the ridge, caused the securely tied and spiked tent to rip clear in half. Paradox continued to slide down the ridge with shredded tent in hand until his body crash hard against a flat rock. On the way down, he had become rolled up in his own torn tent fabric which bound his arms to his side. Unable to break his fall, Paradox’s head slammed hard into the flat stone, it knocked him out cold. He isn’t sure how long he laid unconscious. All he remembers was waking up with the tent fabric wrapped around his face while screaming “10 000 foot fall and I’m still alive mother fuckers!”. In his delirium, Paradox had awoken believing he had just jumped out of a plane with a faulty parachute – I can’t confirm if such a thing ever happened to him. The moment he ripped the fabric from his face, only to see icy mountains instead of a muddy field, was a shock to his system. The shock – and possibly a concussion – caused the man lose control of his bladder and soak his best pair of snow pants. I don’t know why, but he insisted that I made sure I included that detail. Paradox is a very detail-oriented person.
For the rest of the trip, Paradox would have to endure the acrid odour of his own essence. Despite my skepticism, he stands by the belief that this very odour played a part in attracting mysterious “allies”. Paradox claims they came to his rescue during the most treacherous moments of his arctic mountain trek. I have to get back to work, but I will continue with this tale another time.
– Bear Hunter
An image of “Paradox” from the short film “Those Hidden Amongst Us: Bar Tab”.
Fairies of the North: Part 2
by Bear Hunter
A while back, I wrote the first part of my friend Paradox’s treacherous journey into the “Torngat Mountains” in Labrador, Canada. On the second day of his trek, the hefty explorer suffered a terrible fall while setting up his tent. This caused him to smash his head against a rock. Other then, what I believe to be a concussion, Paradox walked away unharmed.
The fall did slow him down. He returned to camp early. Afraid to go to sleep – Paradox also suspected a concussion – he decided to dig into his Elk Jerky and consult his logs, maps, and update his journal. How he managed all of this with a minor head injury and snow pants frozen solid with urine, is beyond me. If you didn’t catch the first part, Paradox’s body did not react well to the fall, the poor man soiled himself.
Paradox suffers from what I would consider overly obsessive compulsions. Once he starts something he has to finish it. His journey had only begun, and nothing was going to cut it short. A good example of his dedication, would be the time he stalked a Big Foot expert for two months straight, to expose the man as a fraud. He found the evidence he was looking for, but something else as well. The hoaxer was a CIA agent who was already investigating Paradox. The watcher was watching the watched as the watched watched him. Paradox wiped the agent’s hard-drive and his servers. He also left a sex tape on the man’s desktop; it contained Paradox’s affair with the agent’s wife. Paradox doesn’t like being watched… I suspect his alias, Paradox, is starting to make sense to you… or maybe not.
Back to the mountains. After a night of forced insomnia and drying his crotch with a flip-up lighter, Paradox was good to set out again. Lucky for Paradox, the subzero temperature and the pounding headache were enough to keep him awake in spite of no sleep.
The early morning was looking bright… it was summer in the arctic, so I suppose it’s always bright. Paradox was in good spirits. He spotted a lone polar bear in the distance, and he also identified seven unique varieties of lichen. Paradox was in paradise. He fished in a creek and drank from it’s clear waters. He ran free in the grassy valleys. He felt a renewed connection to his inner spirit and a connection to the land. Despite the increasing intensity of the smell emanating from his pants, Paradox was sure that the worst was behind him.
That night Paradox set up camp in the glow of the low hanging sun. He climbed into his still salvageable tent, and wrapped himself tight in layers. The gentle hum of the creek – and his exhaustion – lulled him to sleep. The banshee wail of a sudden storm jerked him awake. His head pounded with renewed vigour. The fabric of his tent shook and rippled like a beluga’s stomach after being paddled by a fisherman’s ore. Paradox fought agains’t the blankets and furs, as they tightened around his body from uneasy sleep.
A hole in his poorly stitched tent – from the previous accident – whistled a high pitch shrill in the wind, like a lost soul desperate to be heard and found. Paradox has a rare inner ear condition, and is sensitive to high pitch sounds… which only served to acerbate his migraine. The man groaned out loud as he struggled against his furry blanket prison. The whistle was driving him mad.
After moments of agony that stretched on for eternity, as described to me by Paradox, he managed to free a single arm. He reached out with great speed and purpose, his finger on a collision course with the hole in the tent. With the aim of a master archer, Paradox’s finger entered the hole in the tent plugging it up… but for an instant. By reaching out with such force, Paradox had propelled his large form into a roll. His finger shot through the hole, followed by his arm. In an attempt to regain his balance, Paradox’s arm tore through the tent wall with a vengeance.
The man sighed at the site of the large hole in the side of his tent. At least the whistle was gone, but hell was it cold. Paradox began to pry the layers away from his body as a massive gust of wind forced its way into his tent. The tent inflated like a plastic bag full of dry ice. Paradox held his breath, as the ground lost its solidity.
In frantic desperation, Paradox thrust off his covers and dragged his body over to the hole. He stuck his head through. Whether it be evil spirits or the worst storm he had ever seen, Paradox’s tent was now airborne. He was five feet off the ground and climbing. The flight was short lived as Paradox’s tent, and his body, slammed into the ground. Another gust, and the tent was airborne only to once again slam into the cold ground. This repeated time and time again, as Paradox scrambled to find his knife.
With knife in hand, Paradox slashed away at the fabric.
Freedom came, as Paradox fell out of his tent. He lay flat on his back, as he watched his tent rise up into the white sky and out of sight. It was at this moment that Paradox made a profound life decision, he was going to invest in an RV.
The man stood – head pounding, furs torn and pants reeking – in the howling haze of the storm and screamed at the top of his lungs. He would not turn back, and he would not be defeated. There was a strange hum in the air, something beyond the snow and wind. Paradox heard, and he followed.
-Bear Hunter
Fairies of the North: Part Three
by Bear Hunter
Where I last left off, my good friend Paradox was deep into his journey into the “Torngat Mountains” in the north of Labrador, Canada. He was determined to unlock whatever secrets lay within the mysterious land. A harsh fall onto rock left the hefty explorer with a concussion, soiled snow pants and a brutal lack of sleep. The loss of his tent in massive snow storm, left Paradox with only one option, find shelter.
A sing-song hum pierced its way through the blizzard, as Paradox fought his way through a wall of moving snow. His head pounded, his backpack weighed down on his shoulders, and the smell of his pants had reach the level of an eight-month-dead skunk roadkill.
He knew he had to reach some kind of shelter or he was done for. The problem was, he had no idea where he was going. The only thing he could think to do was to follow the song of the hum. With every passing moment, the sound became increasingly more melodic. Paradox believes, that when we find ourselves in our greatest peril, that the spirits of the land will hear our pleas and provide us with guidance. I believe, that people hear things when they get their heads bashed in and can’t sleep for two days. To each their own, I suppose.
What Paradox described to me next, about his journey, I didn’t believe at first… no sane person would. He said in his own words, “The snow flakes began to twinkle like diamonds and dance in unison like a school of fish.”
I replied, “Are you sure you weren’t dying?”
“Maybe I was. Maybe it was at the brink of death when they found me.”
That shut me up.
As Paradox approached the “dancing” snowflakes, they began to spin and disperse outwards creating an opening. A tunnel formed before his eyes. As he walked through the tunnel, the semi-solid walls of falling snow wavered and shifted. A bright light shone at the end of the tunnel, beckoning Paradox to follow.
I asked him again, “Are you sure you weren’t dying?”
“Shush” he replied, and he continued with his tale.
He then heard the song – no longer a hum – as clear as day. It was the most enchanting song he had ever heard. Hundreds of tiny voices singing in unison. As he reached the end of the tunnel, Paradox could see the tunnel expand into a massive sphere. The storm fed into the membrane of the sphere, but never penetrated it. Paradox described it as a massive “inside-out snow globe”.
Within the shifting globe, hundreds of tiny lights danced. They glowed in all the colours of the rainbow. A blue light descended down onto Paradox’s shivering hand. The light from the creature warmed his near frost-bitten appendage. As Paradox’s eyes adjusted, he could see that the light was in actuality a tiny little naked blue man the size of a super hero action figure. The tiny man had small intricate wings that Paradox described as having incredible tensile strength. Paradox couldn’t pronounce the small fairy’s name so he refers to him as Jim.
Paradox sat on a rock and spoke with Jim for over an hour. Paradox asked him about his culture and Jim asked Paradox all about the pop culture. Apparently comic book characters are more interesting than actual people. Time passed, as Paradox spoke with a couple dozen of the fairies, some male and others female. He told me, “The fairies were the most gracious of people, the men offered me strange ice candies, they taught me their song and the females were very polite when turning down my sexual advances.”
Why exactly – you might ask – when half dead and lost in the arctic, would Paradox make sexual advances on tiny fairy people? “An opportunity is an opportunity.” was Paradox’s answer to that question. Lucky for all of us and all of them, none of them took the bait.
True to his word, Paradox was not one to waste an opportunity. As the fairies danced and told their tales, he took out his old 35mm camera. He slipped on an ND filter and a polarization filter – he couldn’t afford any burnout – and he started to click. The fairies had no idea what a camera was. They apparently assumed that it was a bigger eye that Paradox was using to see them better. They had no idea that their images were being captured.
The sweetness of the song, the warmth of the light, the hypnotic sway of the dance, and the lack of sleep took hold. Paradox drifted into the sweetest slumber of his life. When he awoke the next day, the sun was shining, his headache was gone, and his pants no longer smelled. All was good, except for Paradox’s claim that $100 was missing from his wallet. Funny thing about Paradox, no matter what story he tells – no matter how positive – he somehow has to be victimized in the end… I don’t understand it.
He could barely believe it had happened himself. It was the photos he took that kept him a believer. Perfectly clear and crisp images of the Fairies of the North. He has entrusted me with those images – I cried myself to sleep one night, while looking at them – and I will never reveal the captures. One day, Paradox may feel the need to share them with the world… I hope his does.
I’ve never seen the man happier, and his journeys inspire me to put more effort into my own explorations. I might even join him on one of his expeditions, one day. That would be cool.
– Bear Hunter