Saturday, June 2, 2012

June Gloom Got Nothin' on Me

Good morning, my beautiful baby buggy bumpers. Your ol' Uncle Jimmy here again, with another better-late-than-never blog post on all the writing shenanigans I've been up to for the past three months. Are you ready? Well, too bad, 'cause we're starting anyways.

Actually, lemme go get a coffee first. Talk amongst yourselves.

Okey-doke. Well, first of all, it's been three months, which means another issue of Blood & Tacos has arrived. As you might recall, I wrote a book review for the premiere issue, but this time around I've got a brand-new short story, my first published piece of fiction in quite a little while. Yes, yes, as per the B&T theme, I "discovered" this lost men's adventure story, but after the ass-kicking this story gave me, I'll be damned if I'm gonna let some fictional army guy hog all the credit (it is kind of an open secret that B&T is actually publishing new fiction, but even my sister was fooled, so there's that). You can read it for free at bloodandtacos.com or you can put it on your convenient Kindle contraption for a mere 99 cents.

My story is called "Never Say Good Night in Saigon," and honeys, I am awful proud of it. I've always wanted to write a Vietnam story, particularly about the much-maligned Army of the Republic of Vietnam, our hometeam allies during the war. As pussy as ARVN is often made out to be, I always figured there had to be at least a few Arvins worth a shit, even if I had to make one up. As I said, this story was a fuckin' bear to write, and without the blessed editorial skills of Matthew C. Funk and especially B&T's head honcho, Johnny Shaw (who handed over easily the best and most thorough editing I've ever been on the receiving end of), this story would not be one of my proudest moments. Anyways, please check it out, along with the rest of the issue, where I am also awful proud to be featured alongside such names as my Crime Factory compatriot Andrew Nette and another CF regular and personally one of my favorite limeys to come down the pike since Vinnie Jones, the inimitable Ray Banks (whose Wolf Tickets you should all have read by now).

I've also had a couple non-fiction pieces hit the ol' interwebs over the past couple months. First up, the Crimespree blog has had me darken their doorstep once again, this time as part of a series where a buncha writery types pony up a list of their 5 most influential books and/or records. Music has become an
inextricable part of my life, sometimes to my dismay. This steady ringing in my right ear would probably not be there if I'd just stayed home and read comic books, but despite it all, I still can't live without the stuff. So please read and enjoy the perhaps dramatically titled 5 Albums That Changed My Life. Along with music, comedy has played a major hand in who I am today, for better or more likely worse, and it's a lovely state of affairs that comedy nerdery has really taken hold across the land today. Seems I was far from the only one who spent hours and hours of my adolesence mired (albeit, from a distance) in the stand-up boom of the '90s and all of the comedy classics of the past and present, for now we have comedy sites like Splitsider, dedicated to all things comedic. I recently crossed my fingers and sent Splitsider a piece I'd written, and lo and behold, they actually dug it enough to run it. It's called "No More Comedy Sequels: 5 Cautionary Tales," a fairly self-explanatory title. The piece seems to have gone over well enough, at least so much so that I've been invited back for another go-'round. So be on the lookout for my essay on Scorsese's most underrated flick The King of Comedy to appear there hopefully before the month is out.

Oh, my poor exploitation blog quartet, I'm surprised child services hasn't come to drag you away from me, you've been so neglected. I did at least finally manage to finish the post on Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chain Saw Massacre that I started well over a year ago, and it actually came out pretty okay. Despite the fact that these bloggies have taken something of a backseat to everything else I've got going--indeed, because of that fact--I am still accepting submissions for all of them: If you got a bug up your ass to write an essay about a slasher flick, a revenge flick, a sexploitation flick, or a drug and/or drinking flick, please, please do not hesitate to contact me at letsexploiteverybody@gmail.com. Please!

Last but not least, Criminal Complex, the daily crime-fiction news site I edit and write for, is still going strong. A little more than a month ago, we packed up the offices and moved into new digs directly under the Boomtron umbrella, so folks can find us that much easier. And then to help shoulder the daily grind, we brought in Australia's own original baby-face,

Liam José, another Crime Factory comptriot and all-around sex machine. So now that we're about to the end of this here bloggity post, why not go dig my latest feature article at the Double Cranch, 7 Reasons To Not Quit Smoking, brought to you by the American Lung Association.

And I'll see you back here at an indeterminate date in the not-too-distant future. Take 'er easy, dudes.