Wednesday, August 29, 2012

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":