At the beginning of last week, I was a Twilight Zone virgin. I'd never seen an episode and never even been friends with anyone who was a Twilight Zone fan. I was pretty much clueless. This weekend changed that. I got the chance to watch a few episodes, but more importantly, I'm pretty sure I entered the Twilight Zone on Friday night.

I showed up at Park Auditorium expecting to hear the keynote speaker for the Rod Serling conference. Instead, I'm pretty sure I got transported to a fifth dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. George Clayton Johnson, introduced by the co-chair of the conference as a "legend in the television writing business," may be a legend, but he's also, in his own words, "not your ordinary bear."

Clayton Johnson, writer of approximately seven Twilight Zone episodes, has had an eventful life to say the least. He grew up in Wyoming, failed the 6th grade, dropped out of the 8th grade, and, with his mother's permission, ran away at 15. He joined the army at 17 and learned to be a cartographer, but ended up painting murals in mess halls for a large portion of his time there. He then got a job as an architectural draftsman, worked nine-to-five for a while, and quit in order to pursue his "fantastic love" of science fiction and become a science fiction writer. Obviously that worked out for him, but along the way I think George entered a twilight zone of his own. His speech, while informative and often interesting, wandered from his childhood, to his beginnings as a writer in 1959, to Rod Serling, to Ray Bradbury, to the state of the country in 1959, to his belief that one day there will be telepathic people, to how sick of watching TV shows about autopsies he is, and back, always, to 1959. (Ed.: He might be on to something -- I'm sick of perpetual autopsies on TV as well. And anything involving those folks who perfectly straddle the idiocy/vanity axis, which is pretty much everything not involving autopsies, I suppose.)

I learned a few things about Rod Serling, but mostly I just sat there and tried to follow Clayton Johnson's thought process. His back-and-forth speech was entertaining and out there, but I was a little disappointed not to learn more about Serling and his epic TV show. “The minute Rod bought my first story I went to a permanent search for the imaginary,” George Clayton Johnson informed his audience. I get that. I'm a fan of the imaginary. But in this case, it would have been nice to hear a little bit more about reality.

I went home a bit confused and and somewhat let down, and spent the rest of the weekend doing homework and watching Twilight Zone episodes. In case you hadn't figured it out by now, that show is trippy! It's beautifully shot, well written, and often totally weird. After a couple of episodes, I forgave Clayton Johnson for his rambling speech. Who cares whether or not the man can orate? He wrote the intensely creepy story that the Twilight Zone episode "Execution" is based on, and six other episodes. That's good enough for this newly minted fan.