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Frank Balenger
Frank Balenger
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Main Character from David Morrell's CREEPERS and SCAVENGER
Male
38 years old
Buffalo, New York
United States
Last Login: 11/4/2009
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Frank Balenger's Interests
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| General | Because of my obsession with the past, I’m interested in urban exploration and the way investigating old buildings can give me a sense of being in a time warp. This is especially true when the abandoned buildings still have their original furniture, which many abandoned buildings do. I sometimes find old newspapers and magazines there, decades old. And old rotary phones and black-and-white televisions. I image what it was like to live a half century earlier. But sometimes, as I discovered in the Paragon Hotel in CREEPERS, the past is a threat instead of a refuge. My obsession with the past also makes me very interested in time capsules. What secret about life did earlier generations bury for us to discover? Or could it be that, as I learned in SCAVENGER, the past is buried for a reason? | | Music | I like pop music, but my psychiatrist insists that I listen only to music from decades ago. He thinks my post-trauma stress symptoms can be controlled if I avoid the present moment and transport my mind to a former time. I find it peaceful to listen to Glenn Miller and the big bands of the Swing Era. I like recordings of Frank Sinatra when he sang with Tommy Dorsey’s band. I like old recordings of Cole Porter’s songs. They make me imagine I’m at a fabulous party during the 1920s. | | Movies | Any black and white movie is a refuge. The Bop Hope/Bing Crosby road movies are a wonderful distraction. The best movies are old ones that depict an earlier era. They are two degrees removed from present-day reality. WUTHERING HEIGHTS, THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME, RED RIVER. Those movies are so vivid that I feel the soothing past sweep over me. | | Television | The History Channel | | Books | Creepers by David Morrell, Scavenger by David Morrell, Time and Again by Jack Finney, Bid Time Again by Richard Matheson |
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Frank Balenger's Details
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| Status: | In a Relationship | | Here for: | Networking | | Orientation: | Straight | | Hometown: | Buffalo | | Ethnicity: | White / Caucasian | | Zodiac Sign: | Aries |
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Frank Balenger's Blurbs |
About me:
I was born and raised in Buffalo, New York. My father was a high school history teacher. Eventually I became an Army Ranger and served in the First Gulf War, where I became sick with the fatigue, fever, and aching muscles, symptoms of Gulf War Syndrome. I eventually recovered sufficiently to get a job as a police detective in Asbury Park, NJ, where my wife worked for a real-estate developer. My specialty was investigating sex crimes.
But after my wife disappeared and the police ran out of leads, I quit my police job in order to hunt for her. To earn some quick money, I became a civilian security contractor in the Second Gulf War.
While in Iraq, my convoy was attacked. I was held prisoner by hooded men who threatened to cut off my head if I didn't confess to war crimes in front of a video camera.I managed to escape, but after that experience I was quickly diagnosed with post-trauma stress disorder.
My psychiatrist used an unusual therapy and advised me to seek refuge in the past, to read history books and read historical novels and generally try to take my mind back to a long ago period.
It worked...for a while.
For more about the books check out
The Paragon Hotel
and
Scavenger The Book
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Who I'd like to meet:
Readers and writers of horror, suspense, thriller and action novels. Urban explorers. Treasure hunters.
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Frank Balenger has 237 friends.
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