It's A Presidents Day Miracle!

Good morning, my babies. It's been a somewhat eventful couple months, though you'd hardly know it, since a lot of it has been behind the scenes. Suffice it to say, my personal machinations for world dominance have been going swell, so if those who have wronged me want to beat the rush and get their affairs in order now, I certainly wouldn't blame them.

The biggest step thus far was completed yesterday morning just around this time when I completed a very rough first draft of the novel I was babbling on about back in December. Yes, Lupo Danish Never Has Nightmares is that much closer to fruition, and naturally I'm very excited about that, since I've been wrasslin' with this manuscript for just over a year now. Parts one and two were more or less enjoyable to work on and with, but man, part three was a real motherfucker. So continue to watch this space for further details. The editing/revising process is not something I anticipate to be quite the chore, so hopefully sooner rather than later, I'll have more progress reports. Actually, knowing me, I won't say another word about it until the sum'bitch is at least sold because, despite all evidence to the contrary, I get sick of talking the talk while not walking the walk so much. Either way, whatevs.

While locked in the throes of battle with the ol' muse there, I also had to use one hand to fight with my latest Spiltsider piece. Back during that whole Leno/Conan fiasco, I remember thinking it a bit odd that a lotta my friends were so incensed about it, given that I clearly recalled Leno and Dave going through pretty much the same public feud back in my early high school days. Come to realize, most folks my age and younger don't give much of a fart about Letterman, Conan having won their hearts and minds. Which is fair enough, Conan is awful damn funny. On top of that, Dave has got quite the rep for being an all-out prick for some of the shit he's pulled, which in my case actually endears him to me more, since I find it easy to relate to that. Hence, "David Letterman Probably Likes David Letterman Less Than You Do," a defense/apology for Dave's/my behavior over the years. Adam Frucci, my editor over at the Splitsider's Comedy and Humor Website, wisely suggested that I downplay my own narrative in this piece, and though it took me much longer than was really necessary to make those changes, I'm very glad I did, so big ups to Adam for helping me not look like such a goddamn hack.

Looks like that's the only thing I've had published lately, but it does look as though my taking time away from short and flash fiction in order to concentrate on other, larger projects will begin to pay off in the year of Our Lord, 2013. Aside from the afore-mentioned novel, I've got a good number of projects in the hopper: my next Splitsider joint will be a treatise on comedy and suicide and how well they get along; I've got a follow-up planned to my Blood and Tacos story, which I'm looking forward to doing; Crime Factory is still going very strong, with this current issue containing some of the best short fiction I've read by Kieran Shea, Matt Funk, and Frank Wheeler (no small order, that); I'm currently helping my friend and new roommate April Ventura write her one-woman show, which has apparently been recently accepted for some sorta big-deal drama festival, so that might be neat; and I recently had a story accepted for Needle. Busy days down at Callaway Acres.

Well, I was gonna blah blah blah here about what I've been reading/watching lately, but frankly, I'm not that interested in what I've been doing, so I can't imagine anyone else would be. Mostly, I just wanted to keep the ol' bloggy up to date, check in and make sure my babies don't think I've forgotten all about them. So on that note, I'll sign off and get back to my stack of comical books.

Three-day weekend, you're the greatest.

Filler

The Next Big Thing In Your Face

Hey there, baby lambs, Uncle Jimmy here again. Before we get to the nit 'n' grit here, let's bring youse up to speed on all that's been happening down at Callaway Acres.

For openers, I had another article go up at everybody's favorite site for comedy nerdery, Splitsider, wherein I discuss Paul Scheer's NTSF:SD:SUV:: and how accurately it depicts my home turf of San Diego, Calif. Also, my short-short story, "The New Walmart," was recently included in an anthology of lit by, for, and about San Diego's East County, the region in which I cut my eyeteeth. The book is called The Far East: Everything Just As It Is, and it's certainly the nicest looking collection I've ever had my name attached to, with a bonus CD and everything. And as we all well know, the end is nigh, so rather than stockpile food and water or pray to the almighty Lord to repent, a bunch of writers wrote stories about the impending apocalypse. Nightfalls: Notes from the End of the World, edited by Katherine Tomlinson, features a bunch of your favorites and me as well. That link is for the Kindle edition, and the print edition should be coming forthwith.

This past August, the band I play in, The Stalins of Sound, opened for living punk legends The Queers as well as Jon Cougar Concentration Camp at The Kensington Club in sunny San Diego, CA. My dear old friend Chuck Jensen captured our set on video and subsequently posted two of those songs, which you can enjoy(?) here, and then here we are doing our Ramones cover at Eleven a few weeks later.

Also, social media is a thing people do, so why should I be any different. Aside from the requisite Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ accounts, I also just started a Tumblr entitled Comic Books and Girls, wherein I post pictures of comic books and girls. Hit me up on any of them and we'll socially mediate together.

Anyways, onto the big thing. Richie Narvaez recently did his part to keep this blog meme a-rollin' right along, and he was sweet enough to tag me as a part of it. So now I will answer these questions to the best of my ability, and then tag some other suckers for you to read up on as well. And the whole thing keeps chugging right along...

1) What is the working title of your current/next book?
Lupo Danish Never Has Nightmares

2) Where did the idea come from?
If I remember right, I wanted to do a crime fiction version of Beowulf. The super-powered aspect followed from that.

3) What genre does your book fall under?
Dunno for sure, but Matty Funk seems convinced it fits nicely in the current "urban fantasy" sub-genre, and who am I to argue with him.

4) What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?
A larger, more physically fit version of me; a younger, pudgier version of me; The Monkees; a young Crispin Glover; Dennis Franz; a couple of my ex-girlfriends; George Wyner; a younger, skinnier Randall "Tex" Cobb. Not all actors, true, but that's what I'm working with over here.

5) What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
"Arguably the most famous love story of all time, this play tells the tale of a boy and a girl from warring families who meet and fall in love." No, wait, that's Romeo & Juliet. Ah, fuck it, it's all the same, really.

6) Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
I don't officially have representation, but I have good reason to be optimistic. So yeah, probably an agency.

7) How long did it take you to write the first draft?
Little over a year, not counting the early attempts I made at this when I was like 25, 26. Which I don't count.

8) What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
The first 38 issues of The Amazing Spider-Man by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. Incredible Hulk #300 by Bill Mantlo and Sal Buscema was also a pretty big influence.

9) Who or what inspired you to write this book?
See number 8. I love superhero comics, but they have been done to death, as have superhero movies. So a superhero novel sounds agreeable to a hack like myself.

10) What else about the book might pique the reader’s interest?
I dunno, if superhero gangsters don't wet your whistle, I don't think there's much else I or anyone can do for you.

All right, that's over with. Now allow me to pass this baton along to four other writers with whom you would do well to acquaint yourself. First is my personal life-coach/vocational guidance counselor, Matthew C. Funk, probably the most prolific writer I know these days. Then we have the most shamefully non-prolific writer I know, Josh Converse, who really needs to get more stuff done, and I say this not wanting to break balls (for a change). I got to hang out some with Frank Wheeler, Jr., last year at Bouchercon in St. Louis, and I can assure you he's a great sport with drunken knuckleheads as well as a fine writer. Rounding out this ragtag bunch is none other than Ben Sobieck, who came out of nowhere and really took to the whole flash-fiction format like a duck to some sort of liquid. Check these boys out, and next week, they'll keep this jalopy of a meme chugging right along.

Your pal,
Big Dick McGee

7 Songs To Play While Being Chased By The Cops

Just a little over a year ago, a few of the boys and I started writing for a now-defunct little site called Criminal Complex. The following is a piece I wrote early in 2012 and which was pretty well received, but for reasons too boring to go into here, it became unavailable at some point. Now it is not unavailable, so please read it with your eyes and make them pleased, my darlings.

It’s a typical Friday night: you’re enjoying a leisurely drive in your 1970 Dodge Charger through the dangerous part of town at 3 AM. You’ve been patiently comparison-shopping for PCP, but have yet to meet a merchant who “heard what you were saying.” Understandably frustrated, you light a big fat Cohiba to ease your nerves, only to accidentally blow a stop sign, which has been covered with graffiti. Suddenly, the familiar red-and-blue lights flash in your rear-view mirror. Uh-oh. Well, you could pull over like a good citizen, but then your countless warrants will come up on the computer once the officer runs your license. Plus, he or she may discover the mini pot closet you built in the trunk. Yeah, looks like it’s gonna have to be a hot pursuit.

Thing is you can’t count on the radio to supply music fitting for the occasion, no matter how much you might like that Black Keys song. But we here at Criminal Complex have got you covered. Just take the songs listed in no particular order below here, burn them to a CD, and then keep the disc at the ready in the CD changer your cousin shoplifted from K-Mart for you. These tunes will certainly give you the adrenaline edge over the five-oh, and if not, they will make for a pleasant listening experience for your last fleeting moments of freedom. So enjoy, and happy motoring!



“Ace of Spades” by Motörhead—A classic to start with. It seems kinda generic, but this remains my favorite Motörhead song of all time. If it’s good enough for the Young Ones to play as they race for the train station in that one episode, it’s good for a quick unplanned trip to Juarez. The bass intro into the drum roll is ideal for accelerating from 0 to 60 to 120. Plus the lyrics are an existential treatise in the inherent role chance plays in life. So if you get caught, you can simply shrug and say, “That’s the way I like it, baby, I don’t want to live forever.”



“Foggy Mountain Breakdown” by Flatt & Scruggs—Another classic, this one of a different era. Utilized to great effect in the 1967 love story Bonnie and Clyde, this song is perfect for running shine past the federals in the blue hills of Kentucky or West Virginia. Though the song has become a standard and multiple versions of it abound, you’re far better off sticking with this original version used in the film, performed by Earl Scruggs (who wrote it) and Lester Flatt with their Foggy Mountain Boys. The way the banjo comes back in after the fiddle solo is enough to huckle your berries, let me tell you.



“Night Rider” by Dick Dale—I suppose we have Quentin Tarantino to thank for welding surf music and crime fiction together in the subconscious of America, at least for the last fifteen years or so. But without Dick Dale, this would not have been possible. The self-proclaimed King of the Surf Guitar is still going strong today after 40-odd years, and King is a title the man has earned. 1958’s “Let’s Go Trippin’” is widely considered to be the first surf rock instrumental, and of course Dale’s surf version of the old Greek standard “Misirlou” was used as the intro to Pulp Fiction and could easily fit on this list here. However, I’ve opted for “Night Rider” instead, which unless I’m grossly mistaken, first appeared on Dale’s 1963 Checkered Flag album, his foray into one of surf music’s early deviations into hot-rod culture (certainly relevant here). And I’m not sure what it is, but when I take a curve on the highway as this song reaches about the minute-and-a-half mark and goes into that bridge part, I’m lucky if I don’t get hauled over to the shoulder by Johnny Law for reckless endangerment.



“Police Truck” by the Dead Kennedys—This one is perhaps a little more mid-tempo than the others on this list, but I think the subject matter and its presentation more than make up for that. Many, many bands to come out of the early days of the punk scene wore their politics (left or right) on their sleeves, but perhaps none as much as San Francisco’s Dead Kennedys. Since you’ll be playing this song as you attempt to elude the long arm of the law, a song about the gross abuses of power in which some police officers indulge ought to help in keeping your blood-pressure levels sufficiently high to aid your focus. And the “Ride, ride, how we ride” chorus adds that automotive flavoring.



“Raining Blood” by Slayer—Actually, just about any track off Reign in Blood, Slayer’s classic third album (produced by the mighty Rick Rubin), will only heighten the intensity of a police chase, or indeed, any situation you find yourself in. Personally, I’m partial to the opening track, “Angel of Death,” but that almost seems too easy. “Altar of Sacrifice” is another good one, but I like to save that for religious purposes when at all possible. Still, your best bet is “Raining Blood,” but you’re going to want to time the intro carefully. Whatever illegal act you’re performing, try and make sure there’s just about thirty seconds between its commission and the police attempting to cite you for it. That way, you apply the gas just as that infamous riff kicks in, and ten seconds later, when the song starts in earnest, you’ll have hit the on-ramp going the wrong way, and the chase can really start.



“The Bomb” by Ice Cube—Before he became at all family-friendly, Ice Cube was the social nightmare of both police and white middle-class parents the nation over. After his publicly nasty split with N.W.A back in the early ‘90s, he released his best work ever, AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted, produced by Public Enemy’s Bomb Squad team. Though his entire rap career is nothing to sneeze at, Cube was never angrier than he was on this record, and the final track, “The Bomb” is a nice tight synopsis of all that rage, with a beat you can shake your ass to. Or in this case, shake the cops off your tail to. If you’re loyal to Cube’s first group, you can go ahead and replace this track with N.W.A’s “100 Miles and Runnin’.”



“Life of Crime” by The Spits—By 2004 or so, I was actually kinda over music in general. Still always had to have it in the car or at work, but my record buying dwindled to a mere trickle, especially compared to what it once was. That all changed when a buddy of mine turned me on to The Spits, out of Seattle by way of Kalamazoo. The best way to describe The Spits is if the Ramones and Devo got married and had these bastards. This song off their 2009 fourth self-titled LP (none of their albums have actual titles, though this one is colloquially known as “The Yearbook Album” or “School’s Out”) is by far their best song, perfectly combining the snotty harmonies of early punk with the fuzz-and-bang of the ‘90s garage revival. Also, a fun fact: “A Life of Crime” was actually my first choice for the name of the site now known as Criminal Complex in honor of this little ditty. Alas, someone owned that domain name. Hope you’re enjoying it, you bastards!

And that’s about it. I know this is a short list, but since the average police chase only lasts five and a half minutes, you’ll be lucky to get through even half of these. Of course, if you live as close to Mexico as I do, five and a half minutes should be all you need to get across the border, if you’re driving is right and the wind is with you. Then you can switch over to Mexican AM talk-radio for your trek down to South America. Buena suerte!

At the Drive-In: It's Not Just A Shitty Band Anymore

Good morning, sweetbeats. Your ol' uncle Jimmy has got a big-deal promotional offer for youse, but first, allow me to take a moment and point you in the direction of a couple more articles I have over at Splitsider, your one-stop shop for comedy nerdery. First up, my summer reading list consisted almost entirely of the autobiographies of the cast of The Golden Girls, and I report to you, the discerning consumer, my findings on those four glorious broads in this piece here. Then I also delve a bit into John Candy's curriculum vitae in an attempt to suss out why exactly he did so many not-very-good films, and I'm pretty satisfied with the answers I came up with here, and I hope you will be too. As I type these very words, it seems these links are temporarily broken, but hopefully, that won't be the case by the time you read these very words. Regardless, I hope you check out the site regularly if you don't already, since it's a damn fine internet locale. After all these years of writing fiction, not to mention criticism of crime-fiction and comical books, I am quite pleased that I have this venue to espouse on comedy jokes, a subject which has always been near and dear to my heart. And Splitsider employs many other such comedy aficionados, such as Megh Wright, whose Saturday Night's Children series, about Saturday Night Live alumni, is a must-read. So dig it.

But enough about me; let's talk about me. Once upon a time, in the summer of the year of our Lord, 2003, I took a writing course down at Grossmont Community College and Landscaping Service. Having just read Beowulf for the first time a couple semesters ago, I found myself even more entranced by the hero mythos than I already had been. This particular writing class was being taught by a professor whom I knew pretty well already, and she allowed myself and some of my classmates with whose work she was also familiar to more or less work on our own within our own group. It was a very come-as-you-are affair, and while fun and loose, I don't think any of us actually got anything finished. But in my case, I started what I came to think of as my superhero/gangster novel, entitled Lupo Danish Never Has Nightmares.

As any pretentious literary type will do, I've given a lot of thought over the years as to why I bother with this writing jazz, and why particular tropes and themes tend to fascinate me more than others. Two archetypes that I can't seem to wash out of my hair are superheroes and gangsters. You needn't be even a half-assed armchair psychologist to figure why this is: Both types are filled to overflowing with machismo and independence, qualities that I as a four-eyed over-educated smart-ass with his nose constantly buried in a (comic) book have always felt I've been lacking. So to combine the two into one ball of navel-gazing, two-fisted (in)action, following a very loose interpretation of one of the oldest known pieces of English literature with a liberal dash of Monkees references was a very appealing assignment to give myself.

Bad news was I was too young to even be able to pee straight, much less take on a task like this and do it any sort of justice. So after eight weeks of batting the idea around and getting, I dunno, 20K words or so onto paper, I said to myself, "Look, dude, this is a good idea, but fact of the matter is it's too good an idea to let you have. This is a Glengarry lead, and you're still selling Rio Rancho."

I was, oddly enough for the time, absolutely right. So I took Lupo and I shoved him into a drawer. In the interim, my thoughts often wandered back to this little project, and I took time here and there to mentally plot out the story and occasionally jot down notes. But for the most part, I just let it ferment, like a good beer or a hunk of roadkill.

Blah blah blah and fast-forward to about a year ago. Alec Cizak, the esteemed publisher of Pulp Modern contacted me about a new print anthology he was putting together. Inspired by the drive-in B-pictures of yore, Alec told me he was looking for novella-length pieces that sought to combine two genres that could comfortably fit on an all-night screening down at the Aero. Unsurprisingly, Lupo Danish sprung to my mind. I pulled the ol' boy out of the junk drawer and dusted him off. Surprisingly, though I ended up cutting most of what I had written back when I was an even younger pissant, most of what I had laid down for this story was still pretty good. In fact, I like this story so much that I am currently hard at work expanding it into a full novel, which I expect will set the publishing industry aflame! Or at the very least, it'll singe the publishing industry a bit down in the corner where no one will really notice. Either way is fine with me.

Uncle B's Drive-In Fiction is now available, either from CreateSpace or Amazon. For a lousy twenty bucks, you get not only my thing that I've been babbling about here, you also get stuff like CJ Edwards' voodoo-revenge piece and the horror/road-movie of Matthew C. Funk. Mr. Cizak himself has a story in there, as does David James Keaton and one of my personal favorites, Garnett Elliott.

Now as you and I know, one of the greatest challenges in this small-publishing world of the 21st century is just getting the reading public's attention. There is so much stuff out there that your average consumer is operating just a hairsbreadth from complete overload. In this regard, the Amazon review is the first line of offense. Folks are a lot more likely to roll the dice on something they're not familiar with, with names that are not yet household, if they can see that at least a couple other people out there have rolled those same dice. And as it happens, I'm not above bribing you, dear reader, to help out in this regard.

There's been a lot of talk about sock-puppeting these days, wherein some asshole authors create fake Amazon profiles and give themselves rave reviews and also run down the works of others. That's not what I'm after here: any review I may bully you into writing should be nothing less than honest. If you think Uncle B's Drive-In Fiction is an unmitigated piece of shit, then you would be doing yourself, myself, and others' selves a disservice by not saying so. But I am that confident in the material.

So here's what I'm gonna do for you: You shell out the clams for this here anthology. You read it, you mull it over, you decide whether it's worth your or anyone else's time. You're a busy person, but you peck out a review on Uncle B's Drive-In Fiction's Amazon page, hailing it as either the greatest collection of new fiction this young century has yet seen or as high-grade toilet paper at best. You then fire me off an e-mail at letsexploiteverybody@gmail.com and lemme know. I then, since my story so deeply involves the superhero genre, will ship you one (1) comic book of my choice. Don't expect anything you can slab for millions of dollars one day, but you can also expect a decent read about the pajama-clad adventures of the superpowered, along with a personal note of my most sincere thanks. Allow me to reiterate: this is not an attempt to win your favor. If the story sucks, then it sucks. This is more an incentive for you to take the time and make your opinion heard, so that others will know there is an Uncle B's Drive-In Fiction out there in the first place to even have an opinion on. Dig? You help me get the word out, and me and the other writers will take it from there. And for your kind assistance, you get a nice pretty comical book in the mail. Everyone wins.

So get cracking, lovers. And if you'd be so kind as to spread the word of this offer, I promise I will finally shut up about it. In fact, I will do so riiiiiiiiiiiight...

Now.

UPDATE: As of a couple days ago (weeks? Hell, I dunno...), there were some pretty numerous line-editing errors in the manuscript, so Uncle B's has been pulled for the moment while editor-at-large Cizak gets it all cleaned-up and presentable. I'll keep you updated as to when it will be available again, and then it's game on, motherfuckers.

UPDATE 2: Hey, sorry I called you guys motherfuckers before.

UPDATE 3: All right, you motherfuckers, it's back up and for sale. Carry on with your consuming and subsequent reviewing.

Filler

Summer's Not Over Yet

Good afternoon, honey-faces, and welcome again to another ring-a-ding dose of me, me, me. I feel it only fair to warn you that my day has consisted of high amounts of internet and I'm out of coffee. Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.

But hey, how about some self-promotion (no, for me, not you)? First up, I've had a couple of fiction pieces go live this summer. I fulfilled a minor goal this year by getting a story accepted by Out of the Gutter. Even if that magazine is sadly no longer a print publication, this in no way dampens my enthusiasm to see my story, "The East Hampton Canal Authority," published under its formidable banner. Also, as you may recall, Christopher Grant of A Twist of Noir ran a series of flash-fictions in which each story contained a specific word count--the first had six hundred words; the next, 601; and so on, up to 700. Given that I had penned similar little stories for Chris, he invited me to be the bookends on this little project, beginning with aptly-titled "Six Hundred" and ending with the equally-as-aptly-titled "Seven Hundred." Please dig accordingly.

I just this month had a birthday, and to celebrate(?) 35 years of yours truly, my dear friend and colleague Tom Bevis wrote me a nice little obituary over at his newly-launched site, Destination: Asphyxiation. Tom is good people despite his haircut, and unless I'm much mistaken, I'm going to be guest-editing or some other such thing over there in the not-too-distant future.

The Criminal Complex is still plugging along, though we've had a recent change in format. We will no longer be providing you dear readers with short, daily news stories in, on, or about the wooly world or crime fiction, focusing instead on longer daily pieces which cut more to the core of why we love crime and its fictions. For example, you can now read Liam José's love letter to the works of Ed Brubaker here. Josh Converse examines the comedic legacy of Jeffrey Dahmer here, and I examine the crime career of one Sgt. Bilko here. Our resident expert on all things redneck, Matthew Christian Funk, delves into hillbilly noir here, and guest writers such as our own beloved Jedidiah Ayres are known to drop by every now and again. So whether you're a regular reader or have never stopped by before (the hell is wrong with you?), be a dove and give it a look. You won't be sorry.

As usual, the exploitation blogs are woefully undermanned these days, for which I'd bother extending my apologies to you, dear reader, if it wouldn't be so gravely insulting. No, I've no one to blame but myself for allowing the regularity of these bloggies to lapse, but the good news is your ol' uncle Alec Cizak is still hitting them hard. In the last few weeks, he's supplied me with not one, but two great pieces on slasher film of yore: the first on that sequel's sequel Halloween II, and t'other on the seminal, the original Friday the 13th. Both essays are fat-packed with Alec's characteristic thoroughness an lack of regard for popular opinion, which makes them, of course, required reading for any serious student of slasher-crit.

Finally, I am extremely proud to present to you the latest short film my buddies and I have made. Aside from the usual suspects, this short also features our buddy Amanda Macke (who killed it in one of other shorts, "Pig's Ear"), and my dear friend John Desy (who can be seen here paying me for junkie-sex in a video we made for The Bugs), as well Lauren Spears, who is the Grace to my Will (except I'm somehow a little more gay), and Fred Mintz, another friend in long (and I do mean long) standing, who pretty much plays himself. Filmed at San Diego's own The Kensington Club (where I've done the bulk of my drinking over the years), "The Small-Time Vent" was an idea Chuck and I came up with years ago and went through many different versions and drafts. I get a co-writing credit here, but really, Chuck did all the heavy lifting. If I can be candid, I'll say my performance is not wholly embarrassing, but I still kinda wish I got to play Bob the manager, as I'm much more comfortable playing scumbags than I am sympathetic roles, as you might imagine. Anyways, enough of my yakking. I'll see youse next month, and now for your viewing pleasure, "The Small-Time Vent":