A Night in Elgin, IL

It was a desperate friend who got me into the shit. Let us say he needed some fast green, the folding God, not Buddha. So I did a little something-something to make sure it happened for both of us. That old platitude about a friend in need gets me every time. I may be far from Romney as far as money goes, but I do tend to have a share of dollar bills in my pocket garnered through various methods. Since I’d already taken this guy in a fight I had pity for him. Plus, he’s a drug fiend. While I am not, I used to be, and I understand the pain. I figured fuck it—why not walk down to Hooper’s Bar and hook him up? Shit, pay it forward.

So here I am, walking down the street with my green in pocket, making my way to pay it forward when so many cops roll down Braeburn it looks like the goddamn Chicago Pig Brigade. My dick shriveled from the size of a dollar bill into an eraserhead…damn, I had no idea what these authoritarian cunts were after, and by past experience, it is usually me. There are some who know me who may dispute this. Go to www.blackbook.com for my extensive criminal record. I’m not proud of it, but it is there.

Tonight, I did not matter. Good.

I made it to Todd Farm road, and noticed that damn near every squad car from the EPD had stationed themselves at either end of the road, sporting sniper rifles, Glock 36’s, and fucking who knew what else. Johnny Law owned the night. I dipped in to Hunter’s Ridge apartment complex, pushing through the six inch gap left between the gates as per usual. My brain worked. What was this? A gang war? Sting operation? Certainly it had nothing to do with me or the—

Wait. Fuck you. I’m not admitting that in public.

Anyway, I continued to walk and heard PAPAPAPAPAPAP! which is quite a familiar sound to me, having lived on both 136^th street in Chicago and also East Chattanooga. Did I saunter, ballsy-like? FUCK NO! I RAN BITCH! What would you have done?

You see, Chicago, as much as certain southerners would like to drawl about how it “ain’t shit, bubba” happens to be the MOST violent city in the fucking country and in the top ten most violent cities in the world. I can barely walk down the street at night without some jackass fuckface talking shit. I ignore most of it, but there have been occasions involving pairs of scissors that I have no intention of admitting. Anyone who wants to dispute this can come for a visit. If the Mexicans don’t kill you for looking stupid chances are the GD’s will.

I hate this place. It’s always fucked up. People get killed here all the time. I’ve seen dead bodies on the side of the road. So many that now their fake-looking waxen eyes do not faze me in the slightest. So you safe little Dade County people and Lookout Valley people keep this in mind—this fucking place is HELL. You know what I’d love to see? A Chicago cop versus a Dade County cop. NO CONTEST. The Chicago cop would fuck that Dade county cunt up so fucking fast the little shit wouldn’t even register what happened.

Still, I intend to move back to the south because I’m sick of going to sleep to the sound of gunfire. Only East Chatt, North Chatt, and Brainerd can halfway compare to the shit that goes on around here. Chicago is a fucking CESSPOOL. Even the cops are dirty. They’re the dirtiest motherfuckers on the planet and very likely always have been.

Sleep well, lovers.

Jaden and Girlfriend

So, I read this bullshit in the fucking news...this dumb shit (or is it) about Will Smith and Jada Pinkett or whatever her goddamn name is not telling Jaden to clean his room since he's a "little adult". Now. That. Is. An. ARCHAIC WAY OF THINKING. That's how people felt about children in the early 1900's when psychiatrists were called Alienists and kids could get short beers.

I bet Jaden is happy.

That means he can fuck the hell out of his new starlet girlfriend and free-form blast up inside her and have a goddamn kid. Good. We need more Will Smiths in the world so we can produce more HORRIBLE FUCKING FILMS! So Jaden, here's to you--FUCK HER BRAINS OUT! Until she can't move. Pop her cherry, her banana, her fucking eyes out, impregnate her with countless hordes of super-half-talented-wannabe-actors so we can watch more complete piles of shit like AFTER EARTH.

Christ, what the FUCK was that anyway? Was that Will Smith's idea of "I'm an environmentalist and want to make people think about what they're doing." Really? Okay. So here's my question. Where the fuck is your rich actor ass going to live while the rest of us perish in ignominy? Fucking shithead.

Come buy a house in Elgin and I will show you, Will Smith, just how "adult" children are. If adulthood is connoted by maturity believe me, kids are not little adults. Every single day I walk through Elgin and hear little kids, maybe ten at the oldest, calling each other "nigga" and fighting their little asses off. Shit, I even had one buck up to ME! Now, I just laughed because honestly...a forty pound kid of maybe 3 foot 6 versus 6 foot one and a half and 220 pounds of I-Lift-Weights-Since-I'm-Bored motherfucking mean jailhouse bastard is no contest. I laughed and told him his daddy ought to spank his ass.

"I ain't got no daddy," the kid said.

What a fucking surprise.

Will Smith, Jada Pinkett, all you actors and your fucking kids know DICK about the REAL world.

Enjoy your money and stop trying to influence the REAL parents out there.

And Jaden...do what I'd do at your age...FUCK HER BRAINS OUT!!!

This fucking mudball makes me more and more fucking sick every single goddamn day.

Serial Killers: The Infamous Famous

 

The serial killers’ impetus is under scrutiny more today than at any other point in history. There are many television shows dedicated to murderers in general, but the highest ratings go to the serial killer. In these shows, there are those who argue that these sociopaths kill in order to become famous. While this argument may hold some water, it is like a boat with a hole in the aft section; it will not float for long unless there are people willing to scoop out the water and plug the hole. Instead of “water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink” (Coleridge, Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner) it is blood, blood everywhere and many a drop to preen. To say that serial killers kill in order to gain notoriety is akin to saying the bulimic vomits because vomiting is fun. Turn that line around and you get the truth. Bulimics vomit to stay thin and stay popular while serial killers kill because, to them, killing is fun. Media attention is just an incidental thrill. The killer kills to kill and would kill whether or not mass media existed.

Any thinking person knows that vampires and werewolves do not exist, not in the mythological way. Vlad Tepish drank blood and implaled tens of thousands, and Elizabeth Bathory bathed in the blood of virgins. They did not do this to be written up in the papers, for there were no papers back then. Woodcuts existed, sure, but not mass media newspapers giving killers clever names. Neither one of them ever turned into a bat and flew away, though Tepish did escape. To go back further, no printing press existed in the days when Tiberus threw people off of high cliffs for fun or when Caligula raped senators’ wives and had them impaled and infected with syphilis. These lunatics killed for the same reason anyone kills—power.

As time passed, the serial killer did find it fun to cajole the police. Jack the Ripper (or H.H. Holmes, if you prefer) sent the police many notes on his British vacation and did the same thing while he killed in America, masquerading as a doctor with a brilliant castle in the city of Chicago. He began killing, as many serial killers do, as a child, when he was Herman Mudgett and pushed a young friend off the top of a hayloft in New Hampshire. Older, he gassed and gave acid baths to his victims, many of them from the World’s Fair or The White City, as it was called at the time and he never said a word. The one time he did leak out was to Marion Hedgepeth in a Missouri jail where Holmes was being held for fraud. I believe he did this because he had become bored.

However, they do enjoy their games. The Zodiac played games with code. John Wayne Gacy played games by not only being an incredibly upstanding member of Chicago society, but also by allowing the police into his home for various dinners—one of which would lead to his getting caught. Jeffery Dahmer played games, but only with his victims. Had he not zoned out on alcohol at the wrong time he may still be alive and killing today. Albert Fish played games—sending letters to the families of his victims, most notably Grace Budd, talking about how succulent her flesh tasted, and bragging that he did not rape her. The one thing these killers have entirely in common, other than that they are obvious sociopaths is that they did not write or cajole to make the papers; they did it to fuck with the police. (Though in Dahmer’s case, he only fucked with the cops once to save his own skin.)

It is not the serial killer using the media, it is the media using the serial killer. The media gives the killer clever names—Zodiac, Green River Killer, The Butcher of this, the Strangler of that, and, let us of course not forget the lawyers who write entire books about how awesome they are for putting killers away, like Charles Manson. You have to wonder what motives lay behind the writing of Helter Skelter. Factually speaking, historically speaking, the serial killer will kill anyway, regardless of media attention. For me, it is the media and the novelists who exploit the killer and not the other way around.

So, that being said, who are the real assholes?

Dr. Hunter S. Thompson: The Elk of Much Wampum

Previously published on MARSocial.

 

Dr. Hunter S. Thompson meant the world to me. I did not have to know him personally to be his understudy. I had his words at my beck and call. First enamored by the idea of him after watching the film Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, I picked up every single one of his books  from the library. I remember that two mile walk with an armload of big books, thinking I should have brought a backpack but smiling because I knew the ache in my arms would prove worthy once I feasted on the words. The first book I read was Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, a no-brainer for you, dear reader, I’m sure, to have predicted. I consumed this novel in about ten hours. After that I backtracked to the beginning, Hell’s Angels. If you want to know more about his works, read them yourself. Don’t be a barnacle. I can feed you my opinion on the works but the pith within must be gathered on one’s own. This isn’t about his books. This is about the man and why I love him so much.

The day he committed suicide my brains may have well been pasted on the wall along with his. Shock, horror, disbelief, rage, sadness and more scrambled my thinking worse than a hit of bathtub crank when the news of the Ace GonZo dying at the moment when we needed him most, when a brat president was waging war on a country in order to appease his father and anyone else who enjoyed slapping him on the back, including the Bin Ladens. To my generation people like Thompson and Jon Stewart were the heroes and the ones to watch, not the swine on Capitol Hill. Knowing now what I did not know then, Doc would have given me a taste of the long knuckle for being so naïve.

At twenty-seven I ought to have known better. Instead of mourning and then beginning to think clearly I opted to throw jack flags and conspiracy theories about his death to anyone who would listen. “Thompson never would have gone out like that!” I’d say. “He’d have ridden a fifty caliber shell into an oil drum to make a statement. It had to be the government or some J.P. Fatback with interests in Halliburton angry at the comments made about 9/11 in Kingdom of Fear! Or a rogue cop gone mad at the fact that Doc made a mockery of the police in court, not only beating their case against him but even having his guns and drugs returned! He was not just a scribe! He was Scarface with a pen!”

I was wrong. Tragically, he did end his own life in much the same way as Ernest Hemingway, acting quickly and without question. Why does that make more sense than what I thought as a young man? Thompson saw too much. One of his first rules had always been “Pay Attention” and eventually his acumen brought him to his knees. For when a person, moreover a writer, pays close attention to media trends, no matter how banal, and does this for a great deal of time they begin to see around corners. Not simply be able to think around corners, but see what is coming with the eye of a prophet. A few proselytize as if wearing a magical sandwich board and ringing a bell; I myself agree with Thompson. It is just logic, logic built like muscles via hunting down the subtext lying inside everything. And the poor man, grown old and tired from all the years of taking every move to the absolute limit could no longer stand watching the country he loved so dearly slip through his fingers like a threadbare silk power tie. He could no longer abide knowing many of his friends--such as Richard Nixon--were downright criminals.

I describe him as part Edgar Cayce, part F. Scott Fitzgerald, and part Studs Terkel with a generous dose of the Tazmanian Devil. His second wife described him as a “teenage girl trapped in the body of a mean old man.” Perhaps both are true. Watching Thompson in his documentaries, he is alternately gentle and vicious like a dog that will bite but would rather lick. He once wrote a letter to a young boy who shared his first name that read; “Never forget you come from a long line of lovers and warriors.” He braved the wilds of Argentina and lived dangerously in Puerto Rico to write for The San Juan Star that constantly held out on paychecks. He risked his life covering Vietnam and the Chicago Seven protests to help Jann Wenner make a real magazine out of Rolling Stone. He took severe punishment and a beating from the Hell’s Angels to write the book about them so he and his family could have a house of their own, Owl Farm. How many men stack up to him? Not many, regardless of his suicide which I believe was brought on not by some Man In Black but by that ability to see his own irrelevance sneaking up on him with the very dagger he had created, the triumphant fist holding a peyote button. Toys and the dumbing down of a generation by these smiling morons on the television…they are still smiling and they always will and there’s not a blasted thing even Thompson could do about it.

He may well have been wrong. We shall see.

A Final Note: The day he died, I grabbed a black sharpie and my acoustic guitar and wrote on the soundbox: HST-’37-’05 and added my favorite sentence of his, one from The Rum Diary that, to me, says more about his thinking, life, and attitude than any one of these words.

“They would finish their drinks and file quietly into the night, like a troupe of clowns at the end of a laughless day.”

Rest in Peace, old Viking. You proved it, at least to me if no one else. The pen really is mightier than the sword.

Gilded Horseshit: The Kentucky Derby

I went to the Kentucky Derby not knowing what to expect. I had read Dr. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Better Than Sex: Confessions of a Political Junkie but at twenty-two those were the only two books of his I had under my belt. Had I read The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved I may have not taken the long drive from Chattanooga to Louisville. I am very glad I did. Unready, I witnessed a live definition of the colloquial use of the word “horseshit”, not as equine droppings but as, well, horseshit. These days, when I read Doc’s article, I still laugh until my balls draw up into my guts. Because I know.

The Kentucky Derby is the most blatant display of the American Scream Dream. Many argue for Las Vegas or Atlantic City to take that crown, but I disagree. As millions built this country on sweet Kentucky Bourbon, so does the Kentucky Derby remind an American what a fucking lot of cheap shot bullshit life in this country can be. The sound, the fury, the reprehensible nothing. And also the great loss.

I entered the place with bright eyed expectations of hours-long horse-racing and hoping to see sawed-off Jockeys trash talking one another, some real Seabiscuit type shit but what I got instead is comparable to entering Six Flags and realizing with frenzied disdain that I had entered a dank catacomb. Something medieval. The gray block smelled of shit and sweat and shame. Having arrived before the throng, the betting box windows were closed, eyes of the sleeping dragon. One way or another I missed the bar. I shrugged it off. Perhaps it would prove better to take this display in sobriety. After all, I did mean to gamble and gambling drunk often leads to disaster and that is why the drinks at the tables in Vegas are free, baby.

Like a pack of rats escaping a level twelve hurricane the cocksuckers soldiered from nowhere into the dungeon with their fur of suits and disheveled hair and flirty trophy wives and wasted, spinning eyes. My nerves spared no time feeling the Horror, far beyond the Fear. These hungry beasts had no manners. As they swarmed over me to make their bets and the eyes of the cash dragon slammed open I found myself alternately pushed, kicked, held, hugged, kissed, and altogether discombobulated. What the hell? Where had order gone? These fuckers were wealthy, upstanding American citizens.

At business, perhaps. At the Derby all participants are equally wicked. Leave your upbringing in the parking lot. The Biblical swarm of J.P. Fatbacks showed zero mercy to me or anyone so I decided to give them a taste of the trailer park. I wanted out of there, goddammit, but I meant to place a bet. I grabbed some lumpy cunt by his tie and jerked him away from the betting window. There may have been a fight if not for the engulfing force of the throng. As it turned out my biggest stump came when the bored bookie asked “Which horse, which race?”

Oh, shit. I had left my element. With no time to freeze or fear I did what any warrior would do; acted and hoped for a throat shot. At the Derby, much like in combat if not more so, there is no place for hesitation. All I knew to do at that green age was toss my money on the table and say “Long-shot, fifth race” mainly because I liked the number five and I had watched that goddamn episode of The Simpsons where the family gets Santa’s Little Helper the half-dead dog too many times as a child. I took my ticket and fought my way out of the pulsing masses. All had mean eyes whether they wore suits or wife-beaters. I saw that some of these poor, spitting souls really had come to bet even; the house, the car, the kids if possible. Escaping these intense rippling blocks of Romanesque flesh by ducking and dodging, I found myself holding my ticket like a stupid carny in the face of a young woman who looked like she had crawled fully-developed from William Styron’s head. She laughed and gave me her drink to hold while she fracked forward to place a bet.

Back to my element. I downed her drink, some good whiskey, potent fire. I dropped the glass and lunged away from the catacombs to the freedom of the stands, taking a place in the front as the bettors lumbered in broken-bone disarray behind me. Shortly after the announcer began yapping his heraldic spiel and no one listened. All present were far too intent on their muscled animals’ pursuit of glory…not for the animal, but for personal gain of the folding god. You know. The important thing in life. The crack shot of the starting gun shredded the air. A rain of alcohol inundated me so I took my shirt off to get drunk by osmosis. By the fifth race I was there.

My fucking horse came in last. Hours had passed in twenty minutes. Wait. Twenty minutes? Bullshit. Only three races left? Well damn, that would only be another ten minutes or so, right? Survival kicked in. I had to make slinky egress lest I be torn to shreds by these despicable lizards. The vista was jack--there would be no grandiose ending. I imagined a dead fuck. A few thrusts and a grunt and a rope of spent seed. Don’t forget to leave the money on the dresser.

I stuck around for a bit longer. The final race passed. The winners cheered and the losers threw down their tickets. I expected that. When the losers started fighting and strangling the winners in an attempt to steal their tickets surprise hit and went away like a ghost passing through sheetrock. Shock? At this? Even that young, I knew better. I had often theorized that if the Lottery were held in an unobtrusive environment like this one where individuals became the Hanged Man of the Crowd anarchy would overtake America within thirty seconds. At the Kentucky Derby this theory proved true in less than ten seconds, and I rushed the fuck out of the melee post-haste.

As I left the parking lot, safe in my Toyota and smoking a cigarette, I realized how Gatsby ended up dead, how James Dean ended up dead, and how all the good and young ones end up dead, wondering if I would end up dead like them. By uncanny grace I remain alive to write. I should be dead. Not honorable dead, like Lieutenant Dan wanted to be in that fucking Tom Hanks farce, but just dead, another toilet bound drunken junky with a grin on his face and the last flickers of once-proud dreams exiting his synapses. I have no answer to that quandary, but I can answer the first question. The Kentucky Derby—and no doubt the American Dream itself—is decadent and depraved.  

Why do I write this shit?

"If you intend to write as truthfully as you can, your days as a member of polite society are numbered."
                                                                                                        --Stephen King


Damn, is that the truth or what? Christ, I'm probably one of the most hated bastards on the internet and I don't even know how I ended up with such a glamorous title. Trolls and Reddits and Frackles are written off as shlubs, but ye gods, if I write something offensive...hold on to your hats! Here come the bastards, here they come! Why? What's the matter, am I getting to someone? If so, how? See, I don't know how. I write what comes to mind and if you've either impressed me or angered me you come to mind and end up in print. End of fucking story. Don't like it? Don't fucking read it.

I use a lot of expletives and taunts and perjoratives. SO? What, am I fucking E.L. James? Neither are we fucking or are we alike. WOW! Let's write a version of 120 DAYS OF SODOM but water it down like a cheap bartender's good scotch! And yes, I can say that, as I have read BOTH. Ye gods, it's terrifying, what is happening to the writing world. Dr. Thompson once declared that THE GREAT GATSBY had amazing economy, meaning, little words, much story. Now, it would probably be considered an epic. Fucking television.

One of these days I'm going to make it my life's mission to go on a crusade against television. Sorry to the gorgeous and talented April Telek, the girl from SUCKER PUNCH. And she is talented. Just look at her leather-covered breasts! They tell you everything you know about the television world. And she had the temerity to call me crude ("Holy shit you talk to actresses?" You may ask. Yes. Occasionally, I talk to actresses.) when the fact is that my crudeness pales in comparison to the money made off SUCKER PUNCH. Shit, Ms. Telek, how many fourteen year old boys do you think bought that movie imagining what your bare ass would feel like in their hands? Wondering what it would be like to bust a nut on your vagina? Wishing for a nip-slip? Welcome to the real world, honey. Damn, guys my age--a bit more sophisticated--are waiting for your sex tape. Welcome to Hollywood, babe.

Back to the first point. Why do I write this shit?

Because it's fun.

And also because I HAVE TO. Damn. This blog could be three sentences long. But what fun would that be? Kisses, darlings. Sleep tight. And if the bedbugs bite, don't sleep. Run the streets, prefereably naked.

John Bruni: Mid-List Contender

If it was not for this guy, I’d be dead. Plain and simple. We met when we were just kids, in the early so-called “Glory Days” of high school. Though in different classes we had the same English teacher, an incredibly kick ass lunatic named Mr. Sibley, and he suggested we critique each other being that we were “the best writers in my classes.” Hey, he said that, not me.

 

Little did I know I’d be hit with a pile of PK Fighters. You’ll never read those, and lucky for you. We, of course, thought they rocked. I don’t think the prick ever read my fucking story but that’s fine—the story sucked anyway. What did not suck was collaborating together on the infamous “Misadventures of Richard Thruster” series, and leaving these horrors in various places around York High School for people to pick up at random. I think many authors have done similar things—Stephen King talks about doing a very similar thing in ON WRITING.

 

I took the heat. His life was decent and mine was a slum. Why fuck him up, dig? Anyway…this is the JOHN BRUNI INTERVIEW. He is the author of two published novels, STRIP and TALES OF QUESTIONABLE TASTE and has been published many times over next to big names such as Lansdale and Laymon, most notably in CEMETERY DANCE. These days he busts his ass (or fingers) to make the mid-list, and he’s damn close. Aside from being my initial reader, worst critic, sometime literary agent, and basically a pain in the balls, I am very proud to call him my greatest and longest friend. He is my brother.

 

Okay enough bullshit. On to the questions!

 

 

What started you writing?

 

“When I was a kid, I didn’t have many friends.  As a result, I read a lot, and one day, maybe around my kindergarten year, while I was playing with my toys, I realized that instead of acting out made up stories with my G.I. Joes and Transformers, I could actually write down my own tales.  I started doing that, and I haven’t looked back since.”

 

Your focus and drive outshines many of your contemporaries. Why?

 

“The thing with me is I’m addicted to writing.  If I go a day without doing it, I start getting fidgety, and I start to pay less attention to the world around me and more to the things happening inside my head.  The problem might be with my contemporaries not realizing that this is actually hard work.  You have to create a lie imbued with truth at its center, and you have to inject that into someone else’s head, to make them not just understand it, but to buy it.  That takes a lot of focus and drive, whereas most writers tend to talk and complain about writing and the industry rather than actually writing.”

 

If you weren't writing, you'd do well at just about anything. Why struggle so hard with such a risky career?

 

“It is a risky career with a lot of hard work and very little pay-off, unless you luck out and become a bestselling author (which, by the way, doesn’t happen anymore for my kind of work).  Would I like to earn a lot of money?  Yes, but that’s not my focus.  I have been entertained for many years by my favorite authors, and I want nothing more than to join their ranks as a reliable entertainer, a writer whose readers eagerly look forward to the next book or story.”

 

What separates your work from that of others?

 

“It’s tempting to say that I push the envelope farther than most, but in these days, there is a lot of envelope pushing.  I’d also like to say that it’s because I’m a terrible god to my characters, and that comes off as shocking, as well.  I think, though, that it’s because I write about these awful things with a certain degree of charm, kind of like a gentleman scumbag.”

 

Is writing a gift or a curse?

 

“Both.  It can take great hunks of life away from you, since you have to spend a great deal of time alone at a keyboard.  It can also drive you a little crazy, and very few people around you understand why that is.  Family members and non-writer friends think you’re just messing around, and that you should be doing other, more important things instead.  Hell, anyone can write a novel, right?  Well . . . not really, but they’ll never understand that.  However, there is that moment when you write something that has an impact on someone’s life, and it is an amazing moment, completely unforgettable.  When that happens, it makes my existence worth it.”

 

What experiences from your life (or the lives of others) do you draw on in order to come up with tales?

 

“I’ve led a shitty life, and I tend to be surrounded by people who have also led shitty lives.  Unsurprisingly, I think it’s the shit that makes for much more interesting reading.  As the old saying goes, ‘If it bleeds, it leads.’  That isn’t to say that there isn’t value in the good stuff, but it doesn’t have the same impact.”

 

Why do you think many writers end up addicts?

 

“Because writing itself is addictive.  Ask a bunch of writers why they write, and chances are, 99.9% of them will say because they have to.  They can’t not.  But if you go a bit deeper, you’ll also notice that it’s easy for us to acquire other addictions, because substances—be they alcohol, heroin, or what have you—lead to interesting situations.  Situations off the beaten path.  Situations we can use in our writing.  It’s easy to rely on something like that, so much so that you lose contact with the original addiction, meaning writing itself.  Also, since writing is such a solitary thing to do, it’s easy to find comfort in a soothing addiction.”

 

You've called a few writers geniuses. Who are they and why?

 

“Joe R. Lansdale is at the top of the list.  That man can make you laugh at someone being drawn, quartered, and sodomized, yet at the same time he manages to retain a moral high ground.  Clive Barker, because his work is overflowing with the innocent wonder of a child, yet at the same time can assail you with situations even a seasoned adult would blanch at.  H.P. Lovecraft, because he pretty much created the subgenre of cosmic horror, a universe so unforgiving that the human race—who believes itself to be the most important creation ever—actually doesn’t matter.  Jack Ketchum, because he cuts through all the bullshit and lays open the human spirit in all its hideous glory.  Hunter S. Thompson, a visionary who took no shit and kicked every ass who got in his way.  I could go on forever.  I don’t think we have enough room for any more writers.”

 

Which of your writings make you the most proud?

 

“I love my second book, TALES OF QUESTIONABLE TASTE, which is a collection of short stories.  I initially submitted a version with more tales in it, but StrangeHouse had to keep the book down to a certain size or risk having to charge more for it.  I definitely see why they cut it down, but I still wish I could have squeezed more stories in there.”

 

Having had two books published what advice would you give budding writers?

 

“I would say that tenacity is the most important tool in your box.  If you don’t have that, then maybe you weren’t meant to be a writer.  Also, while the internet is a wonderful creation, and it can be used as a fantastic research tool, you probably shouldn’t spend more time there than actually writing.  Social media is fun, but remember your priorities.  Don’t get pissed off at editors when they reject your work; just shrug it off and move on to the next submission.  And lastly, remember to keep reading.  You will never know everything there is to know about writing, so you’ll be learning by example for the rest of your life.”

Fracking and Frackling are one coin

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Edgar Allan Poe: The Man, The Myth

      Contrary to popular belief, Edgar Allan Poe was none of the following:

1.      A Pauper

2.      A Madman

3.      A pedophile

Nor was he a joke. Did he marry his thirteen year old “cousin”? Yes, though they were not honestly, by blood, related. Allan was the name of his father and Poe was the name of his step-father, who did not disdain him for dropping out of West Point Military Academy to be a writer. He did, in fact, decide to honor both sides of the family by listing his name as such: Allan Poe. As for the thirteen year old, he made the marriage at his surrogate Aunt’s behest, a practice not uncommon in those days. Why? Because he was a world-renowned poet. Also a best-selling author and inventor of both the psychological horror story and the detective tale. He had four houses. Even today, I think there are parents, many living in the south, who would have sold their daughters to him, much less given the daughters away in marriage. Otherwise, by today’s standards he would have been a wealthy degenerate, but he did not live in the confines of today’s standards, did he? No, instead he is painted as a lunatic genius and half-joke perpetuated by an ass named Griswold. I relate to Poe due to the fact that I have my own Griswolds—Kelly Knox and “Wild” Clyde—to contend with.

What the fuck are they so afraid of?

Back to Poe—one popular film which I will not name due to its pure suck factor claimed Poe wrote “The Raven” while strung out on coke at the age of 45. The fact is that Poe did not even live to that age. He died at 40 of toxoplasmosis. The fact is he wrote “The Raven” at 35, and not due to cocaine, or even alcohol, as Hollywood would have us believe. Said other Hollywood farce painted him as a drunk whose only chance at self-redemption was to solve crimes committed in relation to his tales. While a decent movie, it is still a farce and nothing more. Poe, as the movie would have us believe, never had to fight to publish a damn thing. In fact, not to publish Poe was considered a mistake by any House.

What many also do not know is that other than horror and detective tales, or macabre poems, he also wrote humor and sentiment. The humor falls short, the sentiment is decent such as poems like “Sonnet—To My Mother”. Now, while these works fall short of poems like “The Conqueror Worm” or my favorite tale “Hop-Frog”, they still have impact. For example, the sentiment written toward his drug of choice—not alcohol, but opium:

“My Annie.”

“Thank Heaven! The Crisis—

The danger is past

And the lingering illness is over at last—

And the fever called “Living”

Is conquered at last.”

Anyone who has been addicted to opiates can see right through these lines. The pain, shakes, and loss of bowel control; the dirtiest things of humanity slip away at the slightest whisper of junk.

“Sadly I know

I am shorn of my strength

And no muscle I move

As I lie at full length

But no matter! I feel

I am better at length.”

“For Annie” is not for a woman. It is for an anodyne, like opium tinctures, of which Poe was much fonder than he was of alcohol. I will not reveal the entire poem—read it for your own self. As an ex-heroin addict I can tell you that this appearance of smiling death is quite common of those who have received a fresh opium fix.

The sad truth of Poe is this: his wife died vomiting blood from tuberculosis and drove him into the depths of despair. Sometimes he fell into the hole within the page that only writers know about—others he fell into his love for cats. I think he knew somehow that they would kill him with their pissings, and he wrote “The Black Cat” as a testament to his oncoming doom. Whatever the case, he embraced his doom, a bravery which many men fear or despise out of their fear. Poe was neither necrophile nor ghoul as Griswold would have us believe. He was a tortured soul whose only sin was drowning in Laudanum and keeping many ammonia-pissing felines. He is forever missed.    

Do You Like It?

Coward (noun)

1.One lacking courage, regarded as fearful and uncourageous (backstabber, stalker)

2. Bully--somebody who attacks or harms people too weak to defend themselves usually (psych.) to feel better about themselves

3. Anonymous Enemy--someone who anonymously attacks others, usually using an alias



This is probably a stupid move, but I really don't care. I'm good at that, not caring. You know, I have some friends, cool people that say nice things and are cool to hang out with. It's good to have those friends. It is.

I've written a few stories and sure, some of them have been published. I wrote a novel and it's under second review. That's pretty cool, too. I'm glad about that. And it's good to be glad. It is.

But...moreover what I have are a bunch of cockroaches running around acting like their God's Gift to Everything. Most of them, you ignore, they go away. That's good. It is.

However, there's one special fucking tick on my balls that I just can't seem to remove. Robert Clyde Ericson. He says he's a Sergeant, and maybe he is. Kind of funny that a soldier would waste his time bopping around the internet talking trash to people. He likes to tell them "Wakey-Wakey!" Whatever the fuck that's supposed to mean.

If we're all so asleep, asshole, why don't you wake us up? After all, you think you're God. You keep asking me "What do you do when you wake up a God?" or "What do you do when a spider whispers in your ear?" and other such nonsensical garbage. I am just sick to my fucking teeth of this goddamn ridiculous pathetic little twit acting like he's some sort of...damn, I don't know what. When I was on MARSocial all I ever saw him do was bibble-babble and bounce from here to there talking shit about people's work. Sometimes a poem came out but there was no way--NONE--that he wrote it. The shithead can't even spell.

Now that I'm not MARS anymore, he continues his little game on my blog, in the comments. His little charade. He calls me egotistical. I'm not. Sorry, but I'm not. If I was, I'd do what he does, bounce around and talk shit about everyone's work. Oh, don't get me wrong, he can fake it for awhile, but in the end, his true colors come out and he starts writing things like--literally--HEY BOOBIE BLARG HONK SNARGLE! (Oh, wait, I fucked up. I actually spelled those nonsense words correctly.)

I mean HEY BOOBIE YOU POP THE DICK OUT YOR MOUTH I AM A VET I DONT LIE I WILL GET YOU WATDO U DO WHN A SPIDER WHSPRS IN UR EAR

Bored yet? I am.

So, I'm writing this in the hopes that he'll go away. Chances are, he's MARSocial's bitch, some asshole who goes around needling people trying to draw them out by their temper to make sure no one but the administrators get ahead in life. Or writing. Maybe. I do know for a fact that he has (or she, really, he once called himself a she-wolf) about six or seven personalities running around in his head...or its head. Hard to tell. I guess it depends on the day.

So let's get to what might be stupid to say. Am I a fuck-up? Yes. Have a more or less ruined my life? Yes. Have I fucked up a lot of good relationships? Yes. Do I feel like I'm a good writer? Sometimes. Do I really think I'm a genius? I don't know. I test well. Others have said as much, but I'm not going to go all Kanye West on the world. Do I have a huge self-esteem? No, not so much. I hold my head up because what the fuck else is there to do? Cry? Fuck that. Do I have regrets? Yes. Who the hell doesn't? Anyone who says they don't is either fooling themselves, pulling a spoof for fun or just a downright shit. Am I afraid to die? No, I'm not. What the fuck is there to fear? Ultimate peace? Everlasting sleep? I'm not going to kill myself but if someone wants to come along and give it a whirl, fine. I'll meet them. My self-image, for those who know what that means (what you think others think of you) is complete shit. After so many folks have called me a joke, well, maybe I am. I feel a little like Eminem at the end of 8 Mile when he goes off on that Papa Doc fuckhead. He disses himself so hard that Papa Doc has nothing left to say. I'm taking a cue from that.

Yeah, Clyde, I'm a failure, I'm broke, unemployed, struggling, striving, I know what I am, it's up to me if I decide to tell your dumb ass who I am and how I feel, I've been a petty criminal, I have been locked up, no, I'm not a Vet, but my Uncle Mike did die for this country, so I really hope you're telling the truth otherwise you're a disgrace to the uniform. My father's a psychopath, he did drive nails into me but I'm not going to cry about it, in fact he did worse and I'm not going to cry about that either. My sister is a mean fucking bitch--I think you two would get along--with two wonderful children and I have no fucking clue how that happened, but it did. My temper gets me into trouble and that's on me--not you or MARS or anyone else. If I want to think you and your little cohorts are petty, puerile cunts, that's my prerogative. If I want to tell my readers on my blog, that's also my prerogative. You might be some big shit on MARSocial, but you're nothing here. Nothing but a fucking gnat. If you really want to hurt me make good on your threat to come to Elgin, "Sarge". I'm not going to run from you. You're not scary, you're just a buzzing bee--BZZZZZZZ as you might say.

As you can see from the above definitions--pulled from this book called a dictionary, something you're in dire need of, you fit the bill. In all three categories, Mr. Viking Elf, Stewed Ant, et cetera. As a matter of fact...wow. There are so many out there who hide behind a mask or a cartoon character. Why? Anyway, this isn't about them, it's about The Viking Ant Stew or whatever fucked up, ludicrous moniker the coward is using these days to bully people at--I assume, not guarantee, but assume--the behest of MARSocial. I could be wrong, but the proof points in that direction.

Either way, regardless of employ, he is an uncourageous bully hiding behind a mask.

Or, on a more personal, crude, and blunt note, which The Galavanting Cunt will better understand:

Who then now, bitch? Do you like what you see? Is that good enough for you, fuckface? If not, well...you did say you were going to "pop my thick skull" on your way to Iowa to beat up your brother who I don't know but probably doesn't deserve it. Come pop it. I'm not hiding. I'd rather die than be a coward, you motherfucking insignificant squid.

Post Temporal Sludge Decoder

"Post Temporal Sludge Decoder"

Who seeks a place of quiet repose? Have a stanza—

But not from me. My pen knows only anarchy and as such picks the tales I tell

Though I tell them with sideways glee.

Here is one for you

One for me and for us all—a tale of a fall—in autumn. Yes. A fall in autumn.

 

The Black Cars came and it is fair to call my reaction

My movement

Masked

Self-mutilation

Yet I did not bleed and the drivers did not laugh.

Some fat fucking lump watched me strip; same slug throw my clothes at me later.

Meantime just a pumpkin suit and some stone for a pillow.

Now smile for the camera flatfoot seventy-three. Or we can settle for the “suck it, cunt,” look.

Seen it all before.

Nothing shocks us dear.

Next the intruder

Finger in the back passage

Looking for dope

I was not holding and the invader laughed.

Come back later that fucking lump to meat-hawk

I caught my clothes plastic and awe

Watching me dress he lick his lips so I shake my balls he get a show for later.

He turned away blushing.

Who seeks a place of quiet repose?

When those bars slam home baby, you got it.

My pen knows only anarchy and cannot lie

So I signed my yellow papers “Die Laughing.”

No one noticed the difference.

State shrink asked would I kill myself—

I told him I don’t work for the government.

Then come the grey lady on Vogon TV

Not liking her face

I beat the State into the fucking floor.

Scared kid maybe twenty look ready to drop bowel

I tell him “Take it easy, brother, they will.”

He stared at me like I might be mad—which I am

But madness does not make men wrong.

“Keep that look pasted on and ma’am the cunt,” I said.

His mother slapped me in the face.

One good turn deserves another.

This time they saw the Carny go.

 

Got home and Doctor Whiskey paid a house call

Brought his assistant the good Mr. Caine;

We passed the time considering that kid.

Later I had a dream about the Meat-Hawk

He stank of cat piss

Scum

And syphilis

Humping his lump wife in slow degrees

Memory of my sack brought his to bliss.

Some nights I rattle the bars and howl “Swine!”

Do not wake up until my baby whines—I hate it when I punch love in my sleep.

 

Well

Back to that place of repose

Some deaders dig

Midnight ringers

No fingernails as wood and earth erode skin to bone or bone to skin

And then again.

 

The triumph of one free from soul!

Bright green skull grenades

That haunt until Heaven’s Final Day

Some things man cannot let himself let go.

 

Did I answer wherein lies repose?

It lies within the void!

Fold your hands once for Sorrow.

Sucked under the mud and covered with snow.

Fix the mirror until you see nothing but jelly staring back

And never mind repose—or illusions otherwise!

Why Does America Hate Caucasians?

This was also meant for MARS but they never published it. I believe it was too controversial for them. But what is journalism without a little controversy, especially GonZo journalism? There is no room for cowards in GonZo, and the jackasses on MARS are sellout cowards, soulless jackasses who want to attract advertisers. Well, I'm not in this game for that shit. I take the Doc Ace view. "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."

Just the title terrifies and angers, does it not? Well, try not to run off like a coward. Save me the foaming at the mouth and the seething. None of those reactions are new to me. I am not a racist. I may be one of the few Caucasians who is not a racist. I feel the need to explain because the title alone could have a gaggle of nitwits barking stupidities at me. The ones are think I will anger most with this are the politically correct whites. Well, good. You dingbats are patronizing liars anyway. So get mad. As I said, I am not racist. I honestly do not care if you speak Klingon and have polka-dots on your skin. This article is not even about my views at the end of the day it is about the country and its collective views, which at this point, make me nauseous. The ammonia stench of fear is cloying the atmosphere, and most of it comes from wealthy white people, who I will from now on refer to as “Whitey” and he hates Caucasians more than any other group.

OK. So why? There are a number of possible answers. First of all, blacks, or African Americans, or Americans of African descent—whatever—would likely answer “Well, you deserve it, ghost-face! Four hundred years!” Really? I, specifically, deserve it? What did I do? Nothing. I’m only in my thirties. I do not even know what slavery looks like unless I see it on television. However, political correctness has progressed to the point where Whitey will lay his head against the bloody block of the guillotine and beg the ethnic to cut his head off, just to show “sincerity.”

Like Hell.

Whitey just wants your vote.

But still one like me is bombarded with these clichés meant to dumb one down, for example, that all whites talk like “Oh, golly gee whillikers!” in a high-pitched voice. That’s a load of bunk. It is also a load of bunk that whites like me get any breaks from the cops. I have had my flesh skewered on more than one occasion by police, and skin color be damned. I have slept on the same stone in the same orange jumpsuit next to creeds of all hue. I know they give prisoners that silly blue blanket that one must hold down with their toes if they want it to cover their shoulders. I have also worn the bruises and picked the glass out of my skin weeks later.

Also, just so you all know—Whitey still runs everything. I mean that, everything. Your hip-hop record labels. Your entrance into the country. Your ability to get hired at a job before someone like me. The Electoral College. You think your vote counts? Nope. I said it before and I’ll say it again, the EC is full of Whiteys. Yes, they are white, and yes, they have penises. All of you are being taken for a ride and I’m the one sitting in the back shaking his head, knowing that even President Obama is in Whitey’s pocket. For easy evidence, just listen to how much he sounds like Montel Williams and uses the word ‘people’ with horrid redundancy.

We’re getting closer to the point.

We hear a lot of angry rednecks howling about how the Mexicans have taken their jobs. These are the unskilled jobs, landscaping, general labor, flipping burgers, and the like. The jobs the Brat President claimed “Americans don’t want.” The Brat President with an IQ of 25 that the rednecks voted into office just because an advisor told said Brat to make sure that he purported himself to be Christian. The Brat the rednecks cast their vote for so he could be placed into office by some group of Vogons who came up with the idea of “Hanging CHADs.” He kicked open the floodgates. The next time one of you backwoods moonshine distillers barks about how “dey terk er jerbs!” keep this in mind. Why should not the influx of slave labor, illegal aliens that will work seventy hours a week and take home only two-hundred and fifty dollars while selling you cocaine to cover the tip makeup get hired by Whitey? Seems like the ones behind the scenes, the ones Brat-Boy chose as advisors, made the right decision, at least for Whitey.

And also, rednecks…don’t you know your purpose isn’t to work a job but to go overseas and kill brown people for oil profits? Of course you do. “Amer-CA! Freedom ain’t free!” Now there’s an oxymoron if I ever heard one. Note the word ‘moron’ in that term. When the Brat spoke of jobs that “Americans don’t want” he was not referring to his civilian constituents. He referred only to the members of his soft-handed, never-worked-a-day-in-their-life-but-have-fat-cash constituents. You rednecks, on the other hand, just like me, are supposed to get patriotic and fly flags and go kill brown people for Halliburton while believing the spin that you’re doing your patriotic duty.

What a joke.

And Whitey has the Mexicans in his pocket too. “Oh sure, you can come here. Just either sign up for the military (the Irish know that game) or go to college where you’ll surely fail due to not knowing English and thus, join the military!” Oh, if you all only knew how clever Whitey is. You think you’ve earned your way to freedom but Whitey still owns your soul and he always will.

And me Robert Tannahill, am I Whitey?

No. Grown Whitey is Slick More-Yen or Gold Man in Slacks. Young Whitey is a privileged, suit-wearing college student majoring in business. Don’t be an artist, a philosopher, an illegal, and do not be black. But worse, do not be trailer trash with a pen. Whitey hates me more than he can ever hate any ethnic because I represent his greatest fear—I’m a well-educated angry piece of trailer trash who knows Whitey for what he is and seeks to bring him down. When the ethnics, sorry, but when you all try to bring them down they just use their police to beat you into submission and salve your wounds with bread and circuses. That is why you get Section Eight housing and Car Vouchers and Food Vouchers and can buy your Drivers’ License. I cannot do that.

I was supposed to be Whitey. Essentially I’m a race traitor because instead of bowing to those I hate, I fight. I’d rather take up for my polka-dotted friends than Whitey. I am Popeye with a pen and a gun to my head and a wide open eye that sees far. What I wait for is the day Whitey comes along and plunges a nail into my head so he can up the ethnic welfare and collapse the economy in order to create the Mark of the Beast and Globalize all trade. At that point Whitey will be able to shut you off.

Dubious? I think not. Remember…in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. To wit: don’t hate me. I’m worse off than you. Hate Whitey. Make redneck white trash friends. We are the ones being water-boarded by the Newt Gingriches and Mitt Romneys of the world. Whitey cannot manipulate us and Whitey will not try. After all, the torn-jeans, broken shoes, flooded-trailer white people, the salt of the earth, we’re anathema to Whitey for we represent what may have happened to Whitey if he had ever bothered to make the accident of thinking for himself. We are the new Gilgamesh fighting against Scheherazade-types who would paint the world as they see fit and use whoever they can to move the brush.

America hates Caucasians because America, the great melting pot, thinks Caucasians are all the same while at the same time disdaining Caucasians for thinking those of ethnic descent are all the same. Newsflash: Caucasians are not all the same. And while Whitey feeds you vouchers and welfare and patronizes you with his commercials that make sure all groups are included he is also molding your thinking into a slave mentality. I do not blame anyone who goes with it. People swimming against the tide tend to drown.

And if they do not drown, there is always a cop willing to hold their head under until they do. I, and those such as me, may be Caucasians, but we are not Whitey. We are his nightmare. Think of that the next time you disdain one of us. Pay special attention to our clothes and what we drive. Chances are, what you own trumps what we own. And Whitey laughs. Who would not laugh if they had the whole world in their hands?