HIS COCK IS MONEY

THE HORRIBLES, By Nathaniel Lambert

2012-02-15T10:43:00.000-08:00

The Horribles is both dreamy and gruesome. It reminded me of Ray Bradbury’s, Something Wicked This Way Comes. But it’s not nearly as sappy and sentimental and it’s gorier than anything that Bradbury, that wonderful old man, had ever written.
The book is about a parade of demonic bikers that drive through a town called Poe’s Creek, killing all the adults and stealing its children. The only person who survives the massacre is Sheldon, an agoraphobic shut-in. His only friend is a boy named Evan, one of the abducted children.
The story is bleak and unsettling, but also fun as hell and filled with redemption. There this one point where Sheldon loses his shit and starts driving this motorcycle at a hundred miles per hour. I was used to Sheldon being meek and paranoid. He spends most of the book cowering and nearly paralyzed with terror. He moves so timidly. Seeing him move fast was so exciting. I got so hyped up by this scene, I started hopping up and down in my seat while reading it.
I loved this book.

Here is an interview with the author:

Justin Grimbol: What was it like creating a character like Sheldon? What was it like getting into the head of such a paranoid man?

Nathaniel Lambert: It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. I’ve always been fascinated with the ability of people to cope. Life, and all its atrocities, tries to tear us apart. We glue ourselves back together any way we can. It’s not a seamless patch job though. When the glue shows through, it manifests as eccentricities or downright craziness. In Sheldon’s case, his glue was agoraphobia. I’d like to think he proved to be quite the hero. Imagine having to tackle your own fears and the real monsters right outside your door.

JG: What inspired this book?

NL: I had a dream about a parade of half-machine monsters. It started out as a flash fiction piece and grew from there. At some point, I’d like to write a follow up to it.

JG: The cover of your book is amazing. Can you tell me about the cover artist?

NL: The artwork is by Brandon Duncan. He does all of the covers for GRINDHOUSE. Amazing dude. You give him a copy of the manuscript. He makes the perfect artwork for it.

JG: If your book was made into a movie, who would play Sheldon and what would the soundtrack be like?

NL: Sheldon would have to be played by a very awkward actor. Someone that isn’t very comfortable in their own skin. How about Mel Johnson Jr. from TOTAL RECALL? But only if he has a mutant arm coming out of his stomach. The soundtrack would be all classic blues. Haunting lyrics full of demons and ghosts. I have some lyrics from Robert Johnson’s ME AND THE DEVIL BLUES in the beginning of one of the chapters.

Early this mornin'

when you knocked upon my door

Early this mornin', ooh

when you knocked upon my door

And I said, "Hello, Satan,"

I believe it's time to go.

JG: If you could rewrite a Stephen King novel, and do whatever the fuck you want to it, which novel would you choose, and how you would change it?

NL: I’d rewrite my favorite novel(la) THE GIRL WHO LOVED TOM GORDON, but in my version Trisha McFarland would get chewed to greasy bits by the bear. And the bear would have lasers for eyes.

JG: What is the worst horror movie you have ever loved?

NL: Hands down the worst horror movie I ever loved is Larry Cohen’s THE STUFF. What a fucking delightful flick. Look, there’s some yogurt looking crap bubbling up from the ground. Let’s eat the shit out of it! The best part by far is when Garrett Morris’s head explodes. I must’ve watched it a hundred times. Classic “stuff”.

BEAUTIFUL EXIT WOUNDS

2012-02-15T10:28:00.000-08:00

By Michael Allen Rose

Painting by Jon Kalish

Roy loved all things beautiful. He had the touch of Spring. Every morning he would wake up early, have a healthy breakfast of two raw eggs in a glass, three oranges, a dill pickle and a loaf of toast. He would go out into the world, full of joy and wonder, and Roy would make the flowers bloom.
When he would come across a young lady walking in the park, Roy would always doff his hat and say "How do you do?" Sometimes she would smile, blush, or giggle. Other times, the lady might simply ignore him, but Roy didn't mind. Regardless of how they responded, he would work his magic, and soon, beautiful tulips and daffodils would sprout up.
Roses would bloom from the backs of members of the clergy. Red and deep violet, blooming out from the spine and twisting vines up into the sun.
Children were daisies and posies. Exotic folks were often lilies and orchids. Roy loved watching the flowers bloom, one by one, seeds planted in an instant and flourishing in the final heartbeat.
He reloaded his semi-automatic with another clip and fired several rounds at a nearby group of children on the swings. As each one came forward in the swing, they would jump off and as they did, beautiful peonies exploded fully from their backs. They hit the ground, faces down, all in a neat little row. The bushes coming from them were thick and fragrant. Roy smiled.
The blood and bone that showed in front was always worth the beautiful garden that emerged from the back. Roy was doing his part to make the world more beautiful.
He felt around on his belt, making sure there was another magazine awaiting his green thumb. He had so much more gardening to tend to.

Michael Allen Rose is the author of Party Wolves In My Skull.

DOLLAR BIN MASSACRE!

2012-02-15T10:03:00.000-08:00

Photo of Leza

Are you into movies? I recomend you check out The Dollar Bin Massacre. It's run by Bizarro Author's Garrett Cook and Leza Cantoral.
This week they have Spike Marlowe discuss her favorite Romantic Films. Spikes the author of Placenta of Love. It's a surreal and horrificllay lovely little book. I can't wait to find out what kind of movies she likes.

Here's a story by Garrett Cook that is based on the photo of Leza.

The Poet in Treatment

“Heal me,” he said to the red clad novice sister at the door, “I am empty and lost and there’s no love left in my life.”
The novice shook her head.
“You are young and handsome, sir,” she said, “you have no need to be here.”
She was goldheaded and gentle, the opposite of what he’d been told of the sisters. He expected no compassion in the convent of Milk of Creation. The only good word he’d heard about them was of their loveliness, of which there was no equal. So it almost warmed his heart to be turned away.
“Milady,” said he, “I come here of my own free will. I have nothing to lose in life. And nothing to fear from you.”
She leaned toward him and whispered.
“It isn’t true. You’ve much to fear from me.”
All he feared from her was her sugarpale skin and the concern that she had shown. He had come here to be treated, not for her pity. Her pity was a jewel he didn’t want. Young, though he was, he felt too old to treasure that and too old to want things he didn’t come here for.
“Let me tell you why I’ve come to this place,” he said, and then he told her. Of his family gone too soon, of the first love that had taken ill, of the wife that had taken off, of the failure and the loss and the need to be whole again. She said the mantras against empathy, the mantras against love and the mantras against pity, but she was just a novice and by the end of his plea she was moved.
He had heard the sisters cried tears of blood, but this novice’s face was only salted. He put his hand on her shoulder, looked into her big wet eyes and he wished they had met sooner and they’d met somewhere else. Though her leather boots and corset made her seem tough, there was plenty of girl and not much nun in her.
The Mother Superior came to the door a blood drenched smile on her marble face. She placed one of her six hands on the poet’s shoulder and one on the novice sister’s.
“My darlings,” said Mother Superior, “Milk of Creation sees that the both of you suffer and the goddess brings aid to those who suffer. You will both get what you need.”
And Mother Superior was right. She and him would both get what they needed. Though at first the novice’s hands trembled and the cuts were not neat but jagged, she soon made neat ones and did not cringe away from the sight of his blood. As she slurped on the wounds, he felt like he could give again. He knew that he had given her a chance at salvation, a chance to never be hurt and never fear suffering again. As she took from him the life he could no longer stomach, he beheld the goddess herself. As the menstrual blood arms of Milk of Creation dragged his soul into her, an angel won her fangs.

..

2012-02-14T13:07:00.001-08:00

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!

2012-02-13T23:38:00.000-08:00

I TOLD YOU I WOULD SHOW YOU SOME OF THE SWEETNESS.

PARTY WOLVES IN MY SKULL, BY MICHAEL ALLEN ROSE.

2012-02-13T10:57:00.000-08:00

This book is nutty. It's reads like a cartoon. But it's crazier than most cartoons. This thing makes Ren And Stimpy seem mild mannered and dull. The story starts with a guy’s eyes popping out of his head. The eye balls are rebellious and run away. Then the Party Wolves move into his skull. I love The Party Wolves. They are a hilarious group of Pauly Shore style slackers. They’re really chill. Norman and the wolves go on a zany road trip to find his eye balls. While on the road they meet this girl who is being chased by an evil Walrus.
This book is super random, but in all the right ways. The story flows nicely. It’s surreal and captivating. It reminds me of Ralph Bakshi’s animated films, like Wizards and Cool World and all that awesomeness.
The best part of the book is the Motel Sick. Each room in this place is completely stange and impractical. There’s a room that’s constantly freezing and another that has nothing in it. There’s even a Potato Famine room.
I love road trips and I love weird, sleazy motels and I love sea mammals and I love this book. Reading it is like getting stoned and going to a carnival. It’s fucking fun.

Here's and interview with the author.

Justin Grimbol: The motel sick is crazy and wonderful. I loved reading about all the weird rooms. What is your favorite room in the motel sick?

Michael Allen Rose: Thanks! I had a lot of fun thinking up rooms for the Motel Sick. I wanted it to bring to mind those theme hotels that cater to lovesick couples looking for a little spice. You know, the jungle room, or the dungeon room, or whatever, only make the concepts more existential and absurd. I'm most partial to the "Empty Room," which is devoid of all things including walls, ceiling, floor, bed, etc. You have to actually have checked out before you check in. It seems like the kind of place I might come back to, in my writing, at some point. There's a lot of real-estate there to explore.

JG: Who is your favorite party wolf and why?

MAR: I love them all! It's hard to choose! I think in essence, they're all different parts of my personality. That multi-faceted thing has really been coming through in the book reviews I've been doing on the website (partywolves.com) I think, but even in the book, they're pretty distinct. I suppose if I had to choose one, it would probably be Cooter. He's the closest to me, in a lot of ways. He likes to try and stay positive and let shit roll off his shoulders when things go wrong, get everyone working together, and he's loyal to the end. Smitty is my libido.

JG: You also write plays and run a theatre. Can you tell us more about this?

MAR: That would be RoShamBo Theatre, yeah. I've been producing theatre and performance art for a couple of years now in Chicago under that banner, and it's been rewarding and challenging. We actually started getting a little reputation for being "the crazy naked theatre" since we ended up doing a few events in a row that involved nudity in some capacity. We were part of WBEZ (National Public Radio in Chicago) event where they were bringing professionals in to talk about the history of Chicago theatre, and we were one of a handful of groups brought in to add some entertaining interpretations of moments and themes in between panel discussions. Well, we put together a piece called "A Brief History of Nudity in Chicago Theatre" in which we did little blackout sketches based on real events from Chicago's theatre-rich past. None of the cast were actually nude, covered in body paint or cleverly place props, etc... it was all a satire kind of thing. The twist was, at the end of the piece, I was narrating from backstage, telling all these stories, and of course I come out butt-ass naked in front of 150 strangers that were there for this prestigious event. It was awesome. I guess it worked, because Emmy winning writer Joe Janes saw us that night and the next thing I knew, I was directing one of his "50 Plays Project" pieces for his festival. That one involved S&M dominas, a possessed ATM machine and 50 feet of rope mashed up with Butoh dance. So... this whole Bizarro thing fits right into what I do in my various other worlds. I did my grad school work in Playwriting, so there's a lot of crossover for me.

JG: Do you prefer writing plays or novels?

MAR: Honestly, it varies. These days, I'm much more interested in writing prose, novels, short stories, and the like. But sometimes an idea manifests itself that makes more sense as a performance piece. Or a play. Or a song. I also have an industrial experimental band called Flood Damage. Or sometimes I just want to get naked. This very week, I'm making my burlesque debut as a performer in the Hot And Heavy Productions tribute to Pink Floyd's The Wall. And yes, this particular piece involves me getting naked, yet again.

JG: Could party wolves ever be adapted for the stage?

MAR: I don't have the skills needed for this, but I see it as a cartoon. A lot of people have mentioned that Party Wolves in My Skull reads like a fun cartoon, and I can definitely see something like that being viable. Maybe someone out there wants to create a web-series? Haha.

JG: How did you discover Bizarro?

MAR: I had always been into surrealism and absurdist literature, and also have a wicked love of comedy. The first two books I discovered were based on purchase history, actually. Chris Genoa's FOOP came up because I was a Christopher Moore reader, and after enjoying House of Leaves I noticed that Carlton Mellick III's Satan Burger was showing up in my recommended page a lot. Those were my first two, and then Ocean of Lard followed shortly thereafter and I was hooked. When I contacted eraserhead press initially, I had been looking for a small press to take a look at my manuscript (a different book that hopefully will see the light someday) and although they passed, they were so nice, so encouraging, so professional and so wonderfully weird, I was absolutely hooked. Not only on the books, but on the people. I went to my first BizarroCon and haven't missed one since. It's such a wonderful, supportive, creative group of multi-talented artists. There's really nothing else like it.

JG:What is the worst movie you have ever loved?

MAR: Monkeybone, with Brendan Frasier. I bought it at Walmart for $5. It's funny, trashy, stupidly weird and involves a surreal version of hell, body-inhabiting monkeys and claymation style weirdness. What's not to love? Tell me, people? Why don't you love Monkeybone?

The Unfeeling Monster McThin

2012-02-09T13:27:00.000-08:00

BY S.D. FOSTERS

Dick McThin was a model teenage citizen, composed of soft bone and sensitive tissue; so sensitive his ears would ring at the faintest hint of raised voices and his eyes well up at the sight of a three-legged cat. Such sorry sights and sounds were, however, rare in the neighborhood he was born and mostly grown in, a pansy-clad suburb where seldom was heard a menacing word and the slug lay down with the leaf.

***

But following the unforeseen flattening of McThin’s father, the primary wage earner, McThin’s mother was obliged to take up her son and move to a less-than-lovely locale, one inhabited chiefly by persons possessing smoking guns and cool consciences—but one where the rent was reasonable. Young McThin, in turn, was obliged to attend a high school whose pupils—the potty-mouthed progeny of unconscionable killers—deferred scholastic achievement in favor of bullying the thin and vulnerable.
The bullies had never seen a boy as vulnerable and thin as McThin.
Gleefully, they strung McThin out on a string of horrors, including plugging his nostrils with chewed bubblegum, forcing him to breathe through his mouth, then stuffing his mouth with used toilet tissue, forcing him to breathe through his ears; converting his bellybutton to a moderately sized ashtray for their foul-smelling cigarettes; tussling his precise parting, making his hair look silly.
McThin, as expected, didn’t fight back, having neither a liking for fighting nor a fighter’s physique. By the end of the school year, though, he was determined—for the sake of his airways, the scent of his stomach, the precision of his parting—to make his body a deterrent.

***

Over the summer break, McThin ate essential iron and pumped prize-winning pumpkins until his body was toned and tough, built like a piece of ship. Sailing back into school come September, he barely fit through the entrance.
The bullies took note.
But this breed of bully, it transpired, was no respecter of musculature. Indeed, the bullies seemed less deterred by McThin’s new physique than stimulated, his brawny chest presenting them with an enhanced surface area to pummel. And his rippling limbs were seen as potential weapons—for the bullies. Thus, as the bell rang one afternoon, concluding the school day, they stole his right arm, removing it at the shoulder, and scampered off. McThin later found it on his journey home, discarded in an alleyway, beaten and blue as if used as a bludgeon in some gang-related turf war.
How McThin wished he had the temperament to use his limbs like that! But his frontal lobes, source of a well-developed empathy for the would-be victims of his violence, were crippling. He placed the blame for this on his nurturing parents, both the flattened and unflattened, then felt exceedingly ashamed for blaming them, then blamed his shame, then shamed his blame, and on and on it went, until he was left with no choice but to sign his empathy’s death warrant.

***

But how could it be killed? Being a diligent student and studier of things in general, McThin knew that some experts attributed the demise of one’s empathy to prolonged exposure to onscreen scenes of bloody carnage.
Hence, McThin exposed himself. But, alas, after hour upon day upon week upon month of eviscerations and exploding heads, he felt such pain, agonising pain, for the chainsaw massacred and driller killed.
Nonetheless, there was still reason for optimism, as McThin was also aware that wo/men of cruelty often began their careers as children, harassing and assassinating helpless animals. My childhood’s gone, but I’m still young, he thought, and started right away, treading tentatively on puppy dog tails and chuckling callously at roadkill. I don’t care, he tried—tried—to lie to himself. But he felt so sorry. So guilty.

***

By then, his body battered and bruised by bullies to the point of bruising no more, he was desperate for results. And there was only one option left open. I’ll find a functional skewer. McThin aimed an accusing finger at his forehead. You’ll empathize no more.
When found, he propelled the skewer—a nail of liberal length—into the corner of one eye, and fiddled his frontal lobe, hoping against hope to finally affect an outlandish character shift. Once his fiddling had climaxed, he commenced to conduct unspeakable experiments.

***

With malice aforethought, he prodded the extruding eye-stalks of an unsuspecting snail. He missed the toilet bowl. He spat on an undeserving baby. And waited for the guilt… which never came.
At long last, McThin had a mind to match his monstrous muscles. Had progressed from victim to prospective victimizer. Had nothing left to fear. Or feel, period.

***

So if, perchance, you’re ill-fated to see the unfeeling monster McThin coming your way, find another way! Be advised: the world is his personal space. Invade it at your risk, knowing this: he’ll step on your toes, sneeze in your face, and quench his thirst with your blood. Without remorse.

S.D. FOSTER is the author A HOLLOW CUBE IS A LONELY SPACE.
Painting by Jason Gorcoff.

The Man Who Ran Out of Beer

2012-02-06T13:39:00.000-08:00

A fairy tale by Matthew Winner

Once upon a time there was a man who ran out of beer.
He didn't know how to find any more, so he took his tacklebox, his fishing pole, some fishing line, and some fishing hooks and went to the river.
He rigged up his fishing pole and cast his line. He could see the beer swimming in the river in the currents just beyond his reach. Every now and then the beer would jump out of the water to catch a fly.
All of a sudden he felt a tug on his line. He reeled in and discovered his fishing hook was tangled in the hair of a beautiful woman. He asked her if she knew where he could find some beer, but instead she asked him to marry her. He agreed and they moved to San Diego and raised three children, who graduated from college and became radio personalities. He became the editor of a popular hunting and fishing magazine.
However, he still hoped he could find some beer, so he went back to the river. He was saddened when he saw beer bottles on the shore and fishermen proudly drinking their beers. He cast his line, but the beer he saw swimming in the river was still just out of his reach. He threw himself into the river and began to drown. As he was drowning, he saw another beautiful woman drinking a beer, but he couldn't swim toward her because he was drowning. When she finished her beer, she gave him a beer. The beer tasted good and allowed him to breathe underwater.
So anyway, he took a six-pack home with him, divorced his wife, turned off his radio, became an auditor for the IRS, and lived happily ever after.

STADIUM ATTIRE, By Constance Ann Fitzgerald

2012-02-05T16:41:00.000-08:00

Editors note: I figured this story would be a fun way to celebrate the SUPER BOWL. Enjoy.
----Justin Grimbol

I’m running through a stadium, and I am not supposed to be there. Besides the fact that I am not exactly a sports fan, I’m pretty sure that I didn’t have a ticket for this event and I certainly didn’t attempt to bribe anyone. I just sort of stormed the gate, and no one made an effort to stop me. Or even noticed.

I’m on a very important mission. A quest. I am desperately seeking a bathroom because my bladder is the size of a garbanzo bean. I’m getting lost in the maze of hallways in this stadium, like an episode of The Benny Hill Show, sans trumpet music.

I find a restroom and a lady with a disheveled mop of white hair, a loud floral-printed shirt, and a red over coat keeps trying to push the door open. She’s heavy set and ranting at the top of her voice. She isn’t making words. Just noises.
“Obbily grum doodily BOOM!” she screams.
This terrifies me and I keep trying to shut the door. She keeps trying to push it open. She heaves her bulk against the door every time I try to shut it. I shriek in terror and slam the door. Something protruding from the other side strikes her in the head. There is no more rambling, no more shoving, only a dull thud against the door.
I peer around the corner of the door that I, just seconds ago, had been fighting to close. I look out and she is still standing upright. Only now there is a giant hole in the middle of her forehead. Blood and bits of brain ooze out onto her face. The mess dribbles down her chin, pooling on her blouse. It seeps into her white hair and leaves pink, sticky strands that hang around her face. Her mouth hangs open, mid-rant. Her eyes, filling with blood, stare right at me.
I begin to cry. She may have been completely fucking insane, but I just killed her.
I killed someone.
I panic, not really wanting to go to jail, or answer any kind of questions,
From the looks of her, I doubt she had any immediate family, and it was doubtful that, had she any family at all, she would be in contact with them. I have to haul her away, to stash her lifeless, blood-drenched bulk under the sink, Nancy Spungeon style. Or in a janitor’s closet. Anywhere. But it has to be fast.
I sob uncontrollably, and she’s stares at me, leaking fluids and debris all over herself, the concrete floor, and my shoes. I really loved those shoes.

Constance Ann Fitzgerald is an editor at Bizarro Central and the author of TRASHLAND A GO GO.

GRIMBOL ORIGINS

2012-01-31T16:29:00.000-08:00

PAINTINGS BY JUSTIN GRIMBOL

2012-01-31T10:57:00.000-08:00

GRIMBOL IS THE AUTHOR OF THE CRUD MASTERS!

STAR POWER

2012-01-30T11:33:00.000-08:00

By Leza Cantoral

Painting By Jason Gorcoff

She wished that the men would look her in the eye when they were pounding away at her. She wished the lights were not so bright. She wished she knew who they were talking to when the called her sweetheart as they pulled her hair.

When the workday was done, she’d lie in her tiny room in her bed with eggshell satin sheets and dream with her eyes open.

Through her only window she could sometimes see stars after a rain storm. Usually, though, the smog was so thick that she could only see the greenish neon lights from the seedy motel across the street.

Sometimes she’d feel a pulsing heat radiating from her chest. Sometimes she felt a tingling in her fingers and toes and the tip of her nose.

She never drank or took the pills that were the bread and butter of her co-workers. She did her job without complaining. She was grateful for her new family even if she felt like a prop for some arcane tableau beyond her comprehension most of the time.

Today’s shoot is particularly long and complicated but she never gets tired. She balances on three erect cocks like an acrobat. She sways like a dancer in Swan Lake, she bends like a licorice whip.

“Take five everybody!” yells the voice beyond the lights and the halo of sweat that mists the air above her. Someone wipes her down with a cool moist cloth. The men snack on the various dips and fried sausages at the buffet. The meat and Vaseline and KY make an interesting olfactory marriage on the set.

The lights are back on. She can barely see but she knows what to do. She feels her way around the living breathing body maze. The pounding resumes full force and after only about a minute there is a sudden and resounding SNAP. Something’s wrong. Two cocks collide between her tailbone and her urethra and smack sloppily into each other. The men scream. The boom operator screams and flings his mike which lands squarely on the head of the man who had his cock in her mouth. The force of impact causes her jaw to clamp down in his member.

Panic fills the air as the men, covered in sweat and oil, stumble and scramble over each other in attempt to extricate themselves from her.

“I’m stuck!” Screams the one who had entered her from behind, tears welling up in his eyes.

“Where did you say you got his bitch from?” Boomed the familiar voice beyond the lights.

“Told you. I got a good deal. Some dude on e-bay. He had all kinds of cool shit.”

“You’re fucking fired man. Good luck working in this town again. Get this clown off of my set!”

The insulted prop man lunges at the director. The on set fluffer, who feels great loyalty for the man who had been the first director to allow her all the mineral water and mouthwash she could ever want, expertly blocks him with one impressive leap and punch to the face, singlehandedly dislocating his jaw as well as knocking over a huge stage light. The disgraced and injured prop man falls to the ground, crying, wailing and blubbering in a fetal position.

The light sways like a palm tree as the wind whips up before a heat storm. At first only side to side slowly. Everybody stops what they are doing. Even the men struggling to free their trapped penises from their co-star stop scrambling for a second to look up at the swaying light that is hovering right above them.

“Run!” Screams the director.

“We can’t!” Moan the men.

The tall light teeters for an instant that seems like a century and then it falls like a redwood, crashing smack centerstage, followed in quick domino succession by its neighboring lights. The lightbulbs explode like a carnival of firecrackers, merrily going off in a cacophony of deafening pops and multicolored smoke.

The set is suddenly engulfed in flames and the entire crew is shoving each other in a mad panic, trying to squeeze their bodies through the narrow passageway leading out to the safety of the alley outside, ignoring the screaming men, doomed to die in coitus, with their huge porn cocks trapped inside of their plastic fantastic lover.

The smell of roasting flesh and the screams of dying men surround the broken starlet. She knows she’s one of a kind. Made to withstand poundings like only a boxing heavyweight champion could. Built to last, like the Hoover Dam. But yet, here she was, broken right down the middle and leaking strange fluids she never knew she had. As her huge blue eyes, which can never shut, gazed skyward, up through the wall of flames, she wishes she had never met the smooth talking man in the black suit with the shiny moustache, back when she was the girl in the fortunetelling booth at the carnival.

The day was bright and sunny. The fair was packed with loud smelly kids, creepy old men, teenage girls trying to get attention and guys lookin’ to score. People came and went, dropping quarters in the box that encased her. Then HE came. He smiled at her like she was a person and said, “What is a pretty girl like you doing trapped in that stupid old box?”

“What else would I do? I don’t have a body.”

“Oh, little lady, that can be remedied.” He flashed her a black business card with gold lettering.

“I fix up dolls like you for a living. I’m also an agent. With that pretty face of yours and the killer body I could whip up, you’ll be a star in no time!”

She smiled.

“Just nod and we’ve got an agreement. Of course, I get a cut, though.”

Not knowing what ‘a cut’ meant and not really caring, she nodded. She could taste the freedom on her lips and the wind blowing through her hair already. If she’d had a heart it would have been beating like a frantic rabbit at the prospect of a real life among the living.

Weeks of labor followed. Chemicals were pumped into her, a lower torso was crafted with pleasurable penetration in mind and her new career began.

And now, as she gazed up into the flames that were finally starting to melt away her body in sheets of black fizzing bubbles, she felt awake. The warmth spread throughout her body, her limbs tingled and the fire in her chest and in her head exploded with an orgasmic supernova blast into the fiery heat of that tiny studio in the warehouse behind the alley across the street from the dingy motel with the green neon sign. A star was born.

DO YOU WANNA SEE GRIMBOL NAKED?

2012-01-27T11:44:00.000-08:00

All you have to do is buy a copy of THE CRUD MASTERS.
This Valentine’s Day Justin Grimbol going to post a picture of myself on my site, hiscockismoney.blogspot.com. How naked he is in the picture depends on you! For each copy you buy of THE CRUD MASTERS you get to remove one article of clothing from his sweet body. Just forward him the confirmation email and tell him what clothing you would like removed.

WARNING! If no one buys the book then I will be fully clothed in the picture. This could ruin Valentine’s Day----FOREVER! Please help make this Valentine’s Day a sexy one.

BUY THE CRUD MASTERS! GET GRIMBOL NAKED!

Here’s a list of clothing I need removed: Jacket, Sweat shirt, t-shirt, pants, pubic hair, socks, shoes. Don’t worry, I don’t wear underwear.

EMAIL GRIMBOL:
justingrimbol@hotmail.com

MARK SAFRANKO

2012-01-21T07:17:00.000-08:00

Mark SaFranko’s writing is brutal. It gives your soul a wedgy, making you laugh and beg for mercy, at the same time. He is a prolific writer, but, sadly, very few of his books have been published in the United States. Hating Olivia is one of the few that have been published in the states. It was put out by Harper Perennial and is easy to find. This book is a classic. It's about all sorts of lust, passion, failure and perseverance. It put him in league with great writers like Bukowski, John and Dan Fante and Celine. I guess you can call him a confessional writer. I have always hated that title. But whatever you want call that genre of writing, I love it, always have. And not just because these writers tell hilarious stories about drinking and having sex with crazy women---though that is a big part of it---but because their writing has a warmth that only comes from raw honesty. SaFranko is a master of this style. I am so glad I have found his writing and that he has so many books for me to read---I just have to pay a bit more for shipping and handling. Like many writers of this type, SaFranko’s work is more popular in Europe. Many of his books have been published by Murder Slim in England, and 13e Note Edition in France. He has also written plays, short stories and poetry.
I contacted SaFranko on facebook. He’s down-to-earth, easy to get along with, and has great insights. I thought it would fun to interview him and give others a chance to get to know this great writer.

Justin Grimbol: Have you read any good books recently?

Mark SaFranko: Best one I've read recently is The Big Laugh, by John O'Hara. Maybe the finest book about Hollywood I've ever read. It's strange to think how important O'Hara was considered at one time and how utterly forgotten he is now. And of course it's a cautionary tale for writers who take themselves too seriously. And it reminds us too of how we venerate actors in America and how far back this madness goes. I'm still at a loss to explain this.

JG: Most of your books have been published in Europe. In what ways has this been frustrating, and what ways has this been rewarding?

MS: I'm at a loss to explain this as well, except that European readers have always seemed to gravitate towards a certain type of American writer. It's frustrating for me in that unless you show massive sales in America, no one -- agent, editor, publisher -- wants to know you. And woe to you if you snag a big publisher and then fail to sell. I comfort myself by reassuring myself that European readers are more sophisticated and discerning. Is this true? Probably, but who the hell really knows? At the end of the day, it's wonderful to have an audience somewhere, so I'm not complaining by any stretch of the imagination. I consider myself incredibly lucky, even if I seem incapable of making money.

JG: You are known for being a very prolific writer. Do you write every day?

MS: I do, though right now I haven't done a thing in a couple of weeks since I contracted pneumonia on a trip to Los Angeles. Gotta watch out for the recycled air on those planes! But yes, I'm a seven-day-a-week writer. For me it's not work, though. If you're not desperate to get at it every single day, what's the point of trying to be a writer? The business end of it is tough enough -- why add to the torture?

JG: You write novels, short stories, plays and poetry. What form do you enjoy the most?

MS: You forgot screenplays and music. More than anything I think I love writing music and short stories. It's a shame that the market for the latter is so moribund. But what can you do? You do what you have to do and hope for the best. I don't believe you can twist yourself to fit a market. You can only be yourself. Which is okay in the end, because as James Leo Herlihy once said, no one can criticize you for doing it wrong.

JG: I’m sure, like most writers, your career has had its ups and downs. Looking back, is there anything you wish you had done differently?

MS: That's actually a very good question, Justin. Mostly they've been downs. Sure, I regret pretty much everything. Who doesn't? In retrospect, I thought I was doing the right thing when I thought I knew what I was doing at all, which was very little of the time. Most of all, I regret not moving to a place with better weather than the Northeast -- the Florida Keys, Southern California, etc. I visit these places frequently and regret that I'm tied to New York.

JG: What are your pet peeves?

MS: Noise that I can't control is the biggest -- and I always seem to find myself in these god damned noisy neighborhoods, walking around with noise-cancelling headphones, and so on. I belong out in the desert, really. I'm also annoyed by highly-touted books and films that I bail on. It's all a matter of opinion in the end, but my opinion is the best, which is of course what we all believe.

JG: What is your favorite season?

MS: Summer, followed by autumn. I detest the cold, snow, sleet, rain, etc.

JG: What food brings you the most comfort?

MS: Japanese food, by far. very easy on the stomach. I was Asian in a past life. As far as food that doesn't bring me comfort, give me PIZZA. Pizza with sausage. Pizza with onions. Pizza with garlic. Pizza with pepperoni. Anchovies. Pizza with anything.

JG: Name three guilty pleasures:

MS The Kardashians. Jersey Shore. Cookies.

JG: What was your favorite movie when you were a kid?

MS: I can hardly remember that far back. But I was quite mesmerized with Hitchcock's Psycho. I always went for the dark and psychologically dense. Still do.

PETE BROWNGARDT! THE CREATOR OF SECRET MOUNTAIN FORT AWESOME

2012-01-19T14:40:00.000-08:00

I’ve known Pete Browngardt since he was gangly teenager singing for band called Toilet Licking Vipers. We went to High School together. I have always been impressed by him. He’s a funny motherfucker and an intimidating artist. He draws cartoons. A few years ago he created a show for Cartoon Network called Uncle Grandpa. That show is one of the best things anyone has ever made. I named a character in my book, The Crud Masters, after that show. Unfortunately, there is only one episode of Uncle Grandpa. His new show, Secret Mountain Fort Awesome, has been more successful. It’s about a group of monsters, the Disgustoids. They have wacky adventures. The first episode involves an inter-dimensional search for a Pizza tree. As always, Pete’s sense of humor is whacked out and crazy as fuck. Watching this show is like smoking weed through your eye balls.

I decided to interview Pete, so you all can get a chance to know him better.

Justin Grimbol. What kind of toys did you play with as a kid?

Pete Browngardt: He-Man.

JG: Did you prefer Transformers or Sesame Street?

PB: Sesame Street.

JG: When did you start drawing?

PB: Ever since I can remember… So I guess like 3 or 4. But, I didn’t really start taking it seriously until probably 11 or 12.

JG: What was your first professional animation job?

PB: Futurama.

JG: What other cartoons have you worked on?

PB: Futurama, Chowder, The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack, Adventure Time.

JG: How did you come up with Secret Mountain Fort Awesome?

PB: Well, I made a short called Uncle Grandpa for Cartoon Network and in the short these mutants show up. Cartoon Network loved the short, but wasn’t sure if the Uncle Grandpa character could hold up a whole series. So, they asked me to develop something out of the mutants.

From Uncle Grandpa
JG: What is the most rewarding part of putting together a cartoon?

PB: Getting to work with other creative people.

JG: What is the most annoying part of putting a cartoon together?

PB: Deadlines. There never seems to be enough time.

JG: Who is your favorite monster in Fort Awesome?

PB: Dingle.

JG: I’m an ass man. I love ass more than anything in the whole wide world. So I can’t help but to like the monster guy that made out butts. Did you create him knowing that guys like me would get sort of turned on by him?

PB: Yes.

JG: Have you ever tried drawing a comic book?

PB: Yes. And I wasn’t very good at it.

JG: What is the worst television show you ever loved as a child?

PB: Small Wonder.

JG: If you were a super hero, what would your super power be and what would your weakness be?

PB: Super power = Boners
       Weakness = Boners

JG: Name at least five guilty pleasures:

PB: Ice Cream. Caldor. McDonalds. Michael McDonalds. Ice Cream.

JG: Name three movies that make you want to party:

PB: Weekend at Bernie's
       Weekend at Bernie's 2
       Weekend at Bernie's 3

SPACEMAN BLUES

2012-01-19T00:11:00.000-08:00

By Daniel Vlasaty

Cartoon by Justin Grimbol.

Clint can’t remember the last time he saw… anything. He’s been floating through the blackness of space for decades, breathing recycled air. His beard has grown a lot in this time. It now fills his helmet. Some of the hairs occasionally stab him in the eyes. He curses at the hairs and tries to blow them out of the way, but this rarely works.

He tries to turn around and gets caught in a spinning flip that lasts so long he forgets what it’s like to not be spinning. He is dizzy and he isn’t even sure he has a body anymore. It feels like nothing.

Clint has spent most of his time floating through space hating that bastard Spiz. If Spiz hadn’t dared Clint to do an untethered space walk back flip none of this would have happened. But Clint could never turn down a dare. He had to prove he could do it. He’s a man and men never back down.

Clint meets a space drifter on his 100th birthday. The space drifter is a catfish and it wears a long black trench coat. The catfish’s aviator sunglasses are cracked but it wears them anyway because it still thinks they look cool.

The space fish asks Clint if he knows how to get to the planet Braindead X2274. It says it thinks the planet is near a smiling sun with bullfrog moons orbiting around it.

“Blargh,” Clint says. He hasn’t used his vocal cords in so long that they have shriveled up like crispy earthworms.

“You don’t have to be a dick about it,” the space fish says. It pulls it’s sunglasses off and gives Clint the stink eye.

Clint’s beard hair stabs him in the eye again and he vomits and passes out. The space fish steals Clint’s wallet and continues on its way, laughing through its gills.

Author Bio: Daniel Vlasaty lives in Chicago. He works at a methadone clinic and shit.

TRUTH OR FUCKING DARE!

2012-01-18T15:07:00.000-08:00

The next 3 people who buy THE CRUD MASTERS, get to play TRUTH OR DARE with GRIMBOL-FACE (my sock puppet).
All you have to do is forward me the confirmation email and you get to DARE GRIMBOL-FACE to do whatever you want, and I’ll video tape it, and put it on youtube. I guess you can do TRUTH instead of DARE, but that would be really lame.

This offer expires by February first, so HURRY. BUY THE CRUD MASTERS.

My email is justingrimbol@hotmail.com

A HOLLOW CUBE IS A LONELY SPACE, BY S.D. FOSTER.

2012-01-18T10:36:00.000-08:00

Foster’s stories are wonderful. They put me in a trance and make me feel cozy, like I'm a little tiny Grimbol and I'm in bed and my mom's reading to me. At the same time, the book has a sleazy quality that reminds me of staying up way passed my bed time and watching trashy cult movies on Showtime.
WARNING: Don’t read these stories to children. At times the stories read like something from a kid’s book, but don’t let these stories near children. There’s some twisted shit that happens in Foster's stories.
Actually, my favorite peice, “Unbreakable,” would be ok to read to children. It’s about a couple of toys that look after a dying child. It’s the most rated G out of the stories in the book. The story is sweet and goofy. Sure, it’s a little morbid, but so was the Velveteen Rabbit. This story kicks the Velveteen Rabbit's ass. A kid would love this story.
But then there’s stories like “Matilda Goes Shopping.” In this story, a woman gets raped by a food monster and then has its baby. It’s a really great cautionary tale, but it might traumatize a child.
I personally loved being Traumatized by this book. Buy this thing. It’s amazing.
Here's an interview:

Justin Grimbol: You have a few stories featuring toys. What were your favorite toys when you were a kid?

S.D. Foster: Without a doubt, M.U.S.C.L.E. things/men, the little, mainly pink wrestling figures based on the Japanese cartoon, Kinnikuman. I have a large collection in my attic, along with some homemade, 1980s-style WWF wrestling rings. I plan to pass them on to my oldest son when he’s about six. Or seven. Or maybe I’ll just keep them hidden.

JG: You’re from Dorset, England. What’s it like there?

SDF: Small and rural, though, like almost everywhere in the UK, swarming with humanity. Making cider, playing folk music and attending costume parties are the preferred pastimes. My home town, Bridport, population 13,000, has a very vibrant arts and culture scene. The Bridport Prize (first place = £5000/$8000) is an open short story competition that attracts thousands of entries from around the world. There’s a local band named after my elbows (Shelby’s Elbows). Festivals are held for almost everything: kites, hats, literature, film, pirates, cider…

JG: What’s it like being published in America?

SDF: I’m actually an American citizen, born just outside of Portland, Oregon, so being published by Eraserhead feels like a kind of homecoming.

JG: How much time do you spend working on a story?

SDF: The first draft of a 500-1000 word story can take me about a week. Then I write another draft; and another. This process carries on indefinitely. Prior to publication, I’d been making minor changes to some of the stories in A Hollow Cube is a Lonely Space for years. Then along came my editor, Kevin L. Donihe, who suggested further changes, which I was more than happy to implement.

JG: How did you discover Bizarro fiction?

SDF: A chance discovery on the web while looking for new absurdist fiction. The first Eraserhead Press books I read were D. Harlan Wilson’s The Kafka Effekt and Andersen Prunty’s The Overwhelming Urge. Collections like these are still my bizarro reading material of choice. Next up: Bruce Taylor’s Metamorphosis Blues.

JG: How long have you been writing?

SDF: On and off, ever since I was a kid, when I’d write stories in which every character died from some kind of stab wound. Towards the end of 2008, after years of procrastination, I decided to make a serious attempt at writing some publishable stories in which characters died from a variety of causes.

JG: Do you only write short fiction, or do you plan on doing anything longer, like a novel or a novella?

SDF: Currently, I’m working on Honorificabilitudinitatibus, a bookshelf-busting trilogy of decalogies. Each volume will be in excess of 10,000 pages. It will redefine fiction for the post-postmodern era, and make those who read it wish they’d never been born. After that, I’ll probably return to short fiction. It’s what I love to write, and it’s well-suited to my truncated prose style.

JG: What’s your favorite story in this book?

SDF: That’s like asking me to choose my favorite child. I love them all, for different reasons.

JG: What are your pet peeves?

SDF: The impenetrable packaging of modern toys; movies over two hours long; the CD player in my car, which malfunctions in cold weather; perfume; the open bowels of cats.

JG: If you were on death row, what would you want your last meal to be?

SDF: Biscuits ‘n’ Gravy, an old childhood staple that I gorge myself on every visit to the US.

Lepers and Mannequins, By Eric Beeny.

2012-01-11T11:20:00.000-08:00

Beeny’s writing is simple, elegant and filled with great dialogue. While I was reading it I felt like I was watching a play. Not only could I visualize the characters, I felt like I was in the same room as them. It reminded me of Steinbeck’s short novels, like The Pearl and Of Mice and Men. But this book is way grimier than anything Steinbeck ever wrote.
The book is about a Leper and a Mannequin who fall in love. Their relationship is very problematic. In this world, Lepers hunt mannequins and harvest their body parts. The situation is kinda tense. The Lepers and the mannequins hate each other. Still, the two lovers are determined to be together.
This book is unsettling, but in a fun way. There’s this one sex scene that had me feeling weird. Leper/Mannequin sex is just as complicated as you would imagine.
I loved this book. It’s clever. At one point I had to call up my buddy Gorcoff and tell him about the origins of the Mannequins. “That’s fucking really clever,” he said. “It’s like something you would see on the twilight zone.”
I can’t tell YOU what the origin is though. I don’t want to spoil the surprise. Surprises are fun. This book is fun. Go on now, go. Go get this book.

Here’s an interview with the author, Eric Beeny.

Justin Grimbol: You have also published poetry. What do you prefer to write, prose or poetry?

Eric Beeny: I like writing both. Within both are aspects of the other, and, though they both conform to certain formal aesthetics/restraints (should a writer choose to adhere to them), they're both ultimately trying to express the same thing: Desire for something, a lack. Twain: "The secret source of Humor itself is not joy but sorrow." Lepers... is a mock novel, using narrative/plot to have fun making fun of narrative/plot and story-telling conventions (not, like, gatherings of people who write fiction, or gatherings of fictional people…). The book is really just a serious joke.

JG: Have you shown this book to anyone that works in a clothing store like the gap or sears, because I’m sure this book would really fuck with their heads?

EB: No, I haven’t. I’d like to take a store mannequin to a taxidermist who can stuff it, then mount the furry effigy over the front door of the Gap or Sears. I would throw milkshakes at it, and the milkshakes would drip off the fur onto people leaving. I haven’t had a milkshake in forever. I want a milkshake. I’d imagine Gap and Sears employees drink milkshakes all the time, take cellphone pics with their friends posing with store mannequins after closing, all the mall lights out, stripping and putting their clothes on their favorite mannequin, putting a milkshake straw to the mannequin’s mouth screaming “Drink,” and when the mannequin refuses to sip their friends film a cellphone movie of them beating the mannequin to death, kicking it in the head, tearing the limbs from its sockets, throwing milkshakes at the mannequin’s bald head, tearing the bald head off and hurling the bald head through the floor-to-ceiling storefront window. I don’t want a milkshake anymore.

JG: I found some of the mannequins to be kinda sexy. Were they intended to be sexy or am I just kind of a perv?

EB: Yeah, no, you’re definitely a perv—I wrote the book to expose all you weirdos… No, you’re completely normal. To me, the mannequins in the book are only sarcastically sexy. I wanted to sarcastically arouse, or to arouse sarcasm itself—fondle its great big oxymoron. I like sarcasm: Any red-blooded American male who isn’t sexually attracted to female mannequins—nippleless, inanimate, hollow, human-shaped hunks of plastic meant to represent the apparent apex of women’s socio-political progress in America, the symbol of the American male’s perspective on this progress and how the American male believes himself superior to women and so allows them as few social, political and economic advancement opportunities as patriarchically possible by conditioning them via all media outlets that they themselves, and in fact all other women, are emotionally hollow, culturally barren, socially inanimate, politically plastic, that they exist only to satiate male sexual desire, to serve men—ought to be ideologically reconditioned by his father to be a proper, traditional American male who knows how to treat women.

JG: During the book you occasionally switched from a third person to first person. Why did you do this? What effect were you going for?

EB: The main character, Jaundice, the female mannequin, is struggling with identity. She refers to herself in third person to distance and detach herself from her emotions, from her identity—the history and potential future of that identity. She’s the result/representation of not only the male perception but imposition and reinforcement of female beauty and supposed weakness and all the unconscious yet ubiquitously held beliefs of the American male mentioned above. Jaundice is afraid to reveal herself—even to herself—, hides behind the anonymity of third person (ironically alluding to an unconscious narcissism) and can only break out into first person during dramatic moments, often when she most wants to escape.

JG: Which character did you relate to the most?

EB: I think I relate to Jaundice because a lot I feel hollow. I think I relate to Quall, the male leper and Jaundice’s ‘love interest’, because a lot I feel like I’m falling apart, torn between many worlds. I think we all feel that way a lot. So I guess, despite my crippling inability to interact with other people, the character I relate to most is everyone.

A LIFE ON FIRE, BY CHRIS BOWSMAN

2012-01-09T11:57:00.000-08:00

A LIFE ON FIRE is a crazed book. It is about Gerald, a man who shifts back and forth between realities. Both realities are bleak. One is filled with alcoholic benders and crappy jobs. The other world is haunted by Demons. In one world, his girlfriend is dead. In the other, the dead don't seem, well, fully dead.
The subject of this book is depressing. Alcoholism and death is some bleak shit. But the story is not overly grim. At times it is downright hilarious.
One of my favorite characters is Mr. Holman. He’s a dimwit who is constantly inventing things that already exist. He invents shoes with wheels, and a double bladed knife, and an edible container for ice-cream. Hilarious.
At one point Gerald goes to an old friend for solace. They drink together, and though they are both obviously alcoholics, the scene’s not depressing. Instead, I found their relationship to be hilarious and touching.
I'm not say this book is a buddy comedy, or bromance or anything like that. The demons are really desturbing and they pop up when you least expect it. This book had me on edge. It was hard to put down.
I loved it. I loved the whole damn thing. It's strange and packed with emotion. It reminded me of the movie Jacobs Ladder.
I recommend it to anyone that partly enjoys the dreams you have when you take cough medicine.

Here's an interview I did with the author:

Justin Grimbol: Do you consider A LIFE ON FIRE to be a horror novel, or a Bizarro novel, or both?

Chris Bowsman: I used to love labeling things and arguing with people over a band or a book's proper classification. To some extent, I guess I still do, but it gets really difficult when that thing is yours. If someone asks me what type of book it is, I usually say 'kind of weird horror,' but if someone calls it Bizarro I wouldn't argue. I'm a huge fan of Bizarro books and authors, so I don't mind being associated with them. Andy (Prunty, the publisher), Greg Seymour (Grindhouse editor) and I spent a bit of time talking about which genre it fits best, but ultimately decided it's not that important.

JG: Were any of Holman’s invention ideas edited out of the book? If so, which ones?

CB: Ha, no. Most of my content editing is done as I'm writing, so it's not like there are chapters that I pulled or anything like that. It's been awhile, but I'm pretty sure I tried to think of the most asinine things I could, with the intention of going back and replacing them with something better. In real life, I'm a retail manager, so Mr Holman is kind of my homage to every dumbass customer who has ever asked me something stupid.

JG: What’s the lamest invention you have seen actually exist?

CB: Oh, wow... there are so many stupid things in the world. The Snuggie has to be at the top of the list. When I was a kid, I had something called a snake bite kit. It consisted of a suction cup and a razor blade, so if you got bit by a snake, you could cut open the wound and suck the poison out. Using such a device would likely cause the poison to act more quickly.

JG: What are your favorite books?

CB: I'm sure I'll leave something out, but off the top of my head: Stephen King's BAG OF BONES
William Pauley III's THE BROTHERS CRUNK
Gina Ranalli's WALL OF KISS
JA Konrath/Blake Crouch's SERIAL KILLERS UNCUT
Dan Simmons's SUMMER OF NIGHT
Gary Paulsen's HATCHET
Scott Sigler's INFECTED
Mark Yoshimoto Nemcoff's DIARY OF A MADMAN
Mike Bennett's ONE AMONG THE SLEEPLESS
Andersen Prunty's THE SORROW KING and MORNING IS DEAD
Bryan Smith's DEPRAVED
David Moody's AUTUMN

JG: What are your Pet-peeves?

CB: The biggest one lately is people who won't answer a fucking question. I manage an auto parts store and have to ask people lots of questions about their cars. After the year, make, and model, I sometimes have to ask which engine is in the car. They'll often reply with "Does it matter?" I then have to explain that sometimes it does, then they won't believe it would possibly make a difference, and I have to insist that it often does, all the while pretending I don't want to smash their head into the counter.
If you're buying parts for the car, and the clerk asks which engine is in your car, just tell him. If it didn't matter, they wouldn't ask.

JG: What’s the worst horror movie you have ever loved?

CB: I love Andy Warhol's Flesh For Frankenstein and Blood For Dracula an awful lot. The obvious stuff like Evil Dead/Army Of Darkness... I should also mention Jack Frost. If you haven't seen it, a prisoner is being transported in a blizzard, and the paddy wagon runs into a truck full of toxic waste. The prisoner's spirit, having combined with the toxic waste, comes back to life in the form of a psychotic snowman.

...And Dance by the Light of the Moon

2012-01-08T23:57:00.000-08:00

By Spike Marlowe

Tonight I've followed the girl with moon-pale skin into Rose Forest, treading quietly so she doesn't spook, bite my lip when brambles tear my flesh.

She's wiry with muscular shoulders; she crept across the forest's thickets on all fours, like the lithest of cats.

We stand in the forest's center. She stares, milky-eyed. I break her gaze: skulls surround her feet, blossoming rose bushes weave through the skulls' mouths.

Gasping, I turn to run. Bushes rustle.

More girls–-tongues licking, claws reaching--surround me.

Arms envelop me. Cold whispers against my ear, “Beautiful... beautiful... Don't feed us. Be with us, if you’re hungry.”

I succumb.

Spike Marlowe is the author of PLACENTA OF LOVE.
The painting is by Jason Gorcoff.

The Resurrection of Garwood Graven

2012-01-06T14:27:00.000-08:00

By S.D. Foster

On the day of his tenth decennial medical check-up, Garwood Graven was declared legally dead. “You’re in the early stages of decomposition,” said the doctor, citing as evidence Garwood’s gray-green complexion and pungent body odor. “In the interests of public hygiene, immediate burial is vital,” he added.

To justify his claim to life, Garwood wiggled his ears then flared his nose. When the doctor described these movements as “post-mortem flapping,” Garwood sat completely still, instead. This, in turn, was described as “rigor mortis.”

Before the gravediggers carried him off, Garwood’s tongue and toes were removed for the use of medical science, as the fine print of his organ donor card directed. His tortured screams were dismissed as the sound of “escaping gas.”

Then he was tossed into a ditch and covered with powdered quicklime, which has been standard practice since the cemeteries filled up.

***

On the day of his first and only resurrection, dead beat from digging skyward, dusted in quicklime, Garwood Graven was declared a zombie. His eaten features and refusal to embrace the grave were, the experts said, ample proof of this. “Our recommendation: decapitation,” they added.

Garwood tried to exhibit his humanity by talking. When the sounds he made were described as “inarticulate” and “typically undead,” he judged it wise to close his hole.

While the scythe of secondary death was being sharpened, Garwood made a break for freedom. But, without his decad of piggies, he could only hobble like a re-animated corpse. So the zombie catcher caught him and harvested his head, as required by law.

Then his toeless body was tossed into a ditch and covered with powdered quicklime, which has been standard practice since the cemeteries filled up.

S.D. Foster is from Dorset, England. He is the author of A Hollow Cube Is A Lonely Space.

The Painting is by Jason Gorcoff.

TOY FUCKING 4

2011-12-30T14:50:00.000-08:00

OW! LESS TEETHE!

THE ASS FILES.

The Sexual Position Of The Year.

Baby I like it Raw!

Photos by Vince Kramer.

Captions By Justin Grimbol.

ROCKY 7

2011-12-27T10:56:00.000-08:00

By Justin Grimbol

I hope they never stop making Rocky movies.
There, I said it.

I hope they never stop making sequels.

I hope

My grandchildren will be seeing Rocky movies
In the theater.

I love Rocky.
I love him so much.
He is
the King of Man-tears

He takes my heart strings
And uses them as a jump rope.

He is
The gym teacher
I
Have always wanted.

I’ll never stop loving Rocky.
No matter how ridiculous his movies become
I will remain a loyal fan.

If they make a movie where
Rocky is half cyborg
and has and has to fight an alien,
and I will still spend my good
hard earned money
to see it in the theater

and even if it ia a complete piece of shit
I will let it move me
to tears.

Justin Grimbol edits this wacky site. He is also the author of THE CRUD MASTERS.
The photo is by Vince Kramer, author of GIGANTIC DEATH WORM.

TOYS FUCKING - 3

2011-12-26T14:47:00.000-08:00

Does this count as a threesome?

COLLEGE!

Look at Vince's face.

It hurts so good!

Photos by Vince Kramer.

Captions by Justin Grimbol.

TOYS FUCKING---2!

2011-12-24T12:41:00.000-08:00

Compromise!

They truly were amazing friends.

It's a love/hate thing.

Photos by Vince Kramer.

Captions by Justin Grimbol.

PLACENTA OF LOVE, BY SPIKE MARLOWE

2011-12-22T14:17:00.000-08:00

Placenta Of Love is wild as hell. It takes place on Venus, a theme park planet with an atmosphere made out of cotton candy. Each chapters starts by describing one of the parks rides, and each ride is completely crazy and over the top. The main character, Captain Carl, is part of one of the lamest attractions at the park. His best friend is a robo-cat that is obsessed with spankings. He is in love with an Artificial Intelligence he put into a placenta. The problem is the Placenta is obsessed with being pregnant. She goes nuts and starts devouring the park. It gets really crazy and really gory. It's like a romantic version of the movie The Blob.

This book combined a lot of things I love. I love theme parks. I love being raunchy. I love cotton candy and the idea of an entire sky covered in cotton candy makes me feel warm and sweet. I love the movie THE BLOB. I love monsters. Spike makes the monster in her book a very sympathetic character. I love that.

I love this book. It mesmerized me. Spike Marlowe is like a female Ray Bradbury. Her language is not as sappy though. And her book is raunchier than anything Bradbury would write. But that's good. Bradbury lacked sex appeal. Spike's book is so sexy it's hard to put down.

Here is an interview I did with her.

Justin Grimbol: Which is your favorite ride on Venus?

Spike Marlowe: My favorite ride changes, day-to-day. Today my favorite ride is The Doors of Life. I love that it’s a ride only certain people find, it’s more than it appears on the outside, it has a copper automaton that runs it, and it shows the rider’s entire history and potential for the future. It’s a magical and hopeful ride.

That being said, tomorrow my favorite ride may be The Tunnel of Lust or The Tilt-‘N-Hurl. Or maybe The Driller, or The Balbosa, or The Dark Cabaret, or the pirate ship…

JG: Did you like theme parks as a child?

SM: No. Theme parks were too sterile. I loved carnivals, though, especially carnivals that could be called “dark carnivals.” They seemed to be full of strange possibilities, like Venus.

JG: If this was a movie, what kind of soundtrack would it have?

SM: I actually compiled a soundtrack for writing the book. If the book were a movie, the soundtrack would be very similar. The book soundtrack began with Lou Reed’s “Satellite of Love.” I added Miike Snow’s “Animal” to the end of the list during the editing process, at the suggestion of my editor, the amazing Kevin Shamel. The rest of the songs were by the Dresden Dolls, Amanda Palmer, Tori Amos, Evelyn Evelyn and from the Rogue’s Gallery: Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs, & Chanteys album, a compilation of major rock stars like Nick Cave, Lou Reed, Bono, Sting and Jarvis Cocker singing traditional piratical tunes.

JG: Who is your favorite character in the book?

SM: I’m kind of madly in love with the Pope Natzo Innocent. But then, I’m kind of madly in love with all of the characters.

JG: You kinda look like a super hero with that mask on. If you were an actual super hero what would your name be? And what would your super power be? Who would your arch enemy be? What would your weakness be?

SM: Well… I kind of actually am a real superhero. That’s why I wear a mask, but I also wear it because it’s an awesome mask. It’s reversible! I go by my real name, Spike Marlowe, because I like to keep it real.

Unfortunately, since I’m a self-proclaimed superhero, I don’t have an actual superpower. I know other self-proclaimed superheroes have cool superpowers, but they are typically pretty well-to-do and funded their powers. I make my income busking and writing. A real superpower is super unaffordable right now.

I’d like to say my superpower is busking, but I’m not a great busker either. I’m a pretty good writer, though. That’s a pretty awesome superpower. I also make great microwave fudge.

If I were to get another superpower, like a real one, I’d like teleportation.

As for an arch-enemy, I have one of those, too. His name is Malkor X. He just arrived on the scene in San Francisco and he’s driving me up the wall.

As for my weakness? I’m not much of a rockstar superhero – in fact, I’m more of a real human, but I’m totally working on it. I’ve started lifting weights, eating tons of tofu and everything.

You can read more about this topic on my blog: http://spikemarlowe.wordpress.com/

Spike and Grimbol at Bizarro Con...

TOYS FUCKING

2011-12-19T21:12:00.000-08:00

Photos By Vince Kramer
Captions By Justin Grimbol

STAY GOLD PONY BOY!

Happy Father's Day!

Justin Grimbol is the author of THE CRUD MASTERS. Vince Kramer is the author of GIGANTIC DEATH WORM.

NEW GIRL

2011-12-15T12:02:00.000-08:00

By Eric Howe

She invited me up to her apartment.
I agreed to come in, but was only looking to score a beer and go home.
We had several drinks and talked for a few hours.
She had acne scars on her face and a dozen band-aids on her arms and hands.
She looked great.

She rubbed my knuckles with her bare feet.
A flirtatious gesture meaning for us to go in her room.
We went to the bedroom and awkwardly abandoned our clothes.
I touched her breast and licked her neck.

She told me to just go ahead and fuck her if I was up to it.
I went inside of her; she then took her band-aids off her fingers to show me her scabs.
My cock started to burn while I was in her.

I growled in pain while I watched my crotch lose skin and bleed.
I pulled my burnt and bleeding member out of her and said, “you got one of those acid pussies!”

After that
I started coming around more often.

THE ADVENTURES OF PUSSY BEAR AND JIMMY PLUSH ---- PART THREE

2011-12-14T15:14:00.000-08:00

By Justin Grimbol

About the series:

Jimmy Plush is a teddy bear and a detective with a mean streak. He has just hired a new secretary. Her names Pussy Bear She’s an actually bear. She’s also a complete Diva. Can a teddy bear and grizzly bear get along, let alone work together? To find out read The Adventures Of Pussy Bear and Jimmy Plush.

Note: Every other part of this story will be written by Garrett Cook and posted on his site Chainsaw Noir.

Part 3

As soon as I walked into his office that teddy bear started bossing me around. He was like “answer the phone!” And I was all like “chill the fuck out you dorky little teddy bear, or I’ll use you as a tampon!” Well, I didn’t really say that. I should have though. Instead, I just growled at him.

I could tell this turned him on. He liked my big hairy body and once he heard me growl he got so horny he looked like he was going to freak out.

The phone kept ringing.

“You got anything to drink?” I asked.

He smiled, then pulled out a bottle of whiskey. He poured me a tall glass and I drank it down fast then had him pour me another.

I drank this one slowly.

He started telling me stories about how he became a teddy bear. We had a nice chat. The phone continued ringing but we ignored it. He told me about how he switched bodies with some guy to pay off some debt. He also told me about his Chinaman chauffer and how one of his sons had been kidnapped. I couldn’t tell if what he was telling me was supposed to be funny or not, but I started laughing anyway.

And it was a wild laugh. It was the type of laugh that meant to hurt a man’s feelings.

He didn’t seem offended.

While I was laughing he reached over and started playing with my ass. I got a big hairy bear ass. I mean, the things freaken huge. But he didn’t seem intimidated by it.

His hands were small, but strong.

The phone was still ringing. His answering machine must have been broken.

“Should I answer that?” I asked.

He smiled.

I was about to answer the phone when I heard someone scream. It was a horrible scream.

“What was that?” I asked.

“It came from outside,” he said.

We both ran to the window.

“What the hell is that?” I asked.

“It’s one of those furry hookers. I think she’s dressed up as a bumble bee, but I can’t tell. Looks like someone got a little trigger happy with a lighter and ended up setting her on fire.”

The girl stumbled down the street, looking like a drunken meteor.

“Stop, drop and roll!” I yelled.

Jimmy and I ran outside.

There was this fat guy standing over the hooker. He had covered her with a blanket.

“What happened?” Jimmy asked.

“The girl went into the alley over there with some and then next thing she on fire and…”

Jimmy took the blanket off her. The fire was out. “This is one burnt hooker,” Jimmy said.

“You ok honey?” I asked.

She moaned.

“Who did this to you?” fatty asked her.

She started mumbling. It was hard to understand what she was saying. “He had…Dragon Cock,” she said.

“Did she just say ‘Dragon Cock’?”

Jimmy laughed.

“This isn’t funny,” I said.

“What the hell’s a dragon cock?” fatty asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Fatty, go call the police,” Jimmy said. “And no stopping for snacks on your way to the phone.”

Fatty gave him the finger and then ran off.

A crowd started to gather around us. People wanted to see the burnt furry hooker.

“Scram!” Jimmy yelled. “This isn’t a fucking camp fire. We aren’t going to cook smore’s and tell ghost stories. You all need to get out of here. She needs air.”

“You’re going to be just fine,” I said to the girl.

The girl didn’t respond. She was beyond still.

“I think she’s dead,” Jimmy said.

“You sure.”

“I’m sure.”

Things got very quiet. The only thing that could be heard was the sound of the sirens in the distance.

FLASH FICTION BY VINCE KRAMER

2011-12-11T22:23:00.000-08:00

ANTICHRIST

The evil man called the shopping hotline to buy a boat with his stolen credit card. When the customer service girl asked for the card information, he gave it to her, and stated that this is a stolen credit card. She told him he wasn’t allowed to do that, that it was evil. He asked her why he would steal a credit card if it wasn’t his intent to use it for evil. He demanded to make a purchase with it, in the amount of 4 million dollars. She said that she can’t do that to the company, it was wrong! The evil man said he wanted to do it anyway, and asked what she was wearing. She said a pink blouse and miniskirt. He asked what she looked like. She said she was a very pretty black woman with beautiful eyes, a great smile, long brown hair, and she was sporting some pretty nice cleavage. He said that either she let him use the stolen credit card for purchase or he’s going to rape her. She said that she wouldn’t let anyone do harm to the company, so she agreed to have sex with him. The next day they met for lunch, had instant sexual chemistry, and went back to her apartment and fucked. He later used his stolen credit card to buy her the finest jewelry, clothes, dinners; everything she’s ever wanted. Pretty soon they were happily married. And gave birth to the Antichrist.

DELIVERANCE

Kathleen Turner was at Ralph’s grocery shopping in her electric go-cart, trying her best to get the things she needed on her list without ramming into shelves and knocking over displays. The obstacles were too many and she was very hungover and pissed off. A crate of oranges slammed to the ground, scattering in every direction. “SON OF A MOTHERFUCKING BITCH, MOTHER OF HELL! FUCK, FUCK, FUCK, FUCK, FUCK!!!” she screamed again and again. A nearby shopper took notice, realizing who the horribly aged actress was and took out his camera, running at her to snap photographs. He yelled “Mrs. Turner! Is it true that Michael Douglas punched you in the face on the set of Romancing the Stone and took a shit in your purse??!” Kathleen Turner twisted and screamed, blocking the bright flashes with her hands. She started flipping out completely, and pathetically sobbed and begged, “Leave me alone! Please get away!” A teenage boy ran up behind her and took his dick out and started smacking her on the back of the head with it. She turned her head to see what was happening and his penis hit her in the eye. “RAPE!! RAPE!!!!” she cried. “Someone call the POLICE!!!!” Kathleen Turner starting convulsing, and pissed herself. Everyone in the entire store gathered around her to point and laugh. She yelled “No! NOOOOOOO! Stop it! Please stop it! What have I done to deserve this? WHAT, I ask you?!” The man snapping photos called her a cunt and told her to shut up.

At that moment Tom Cruise broke through a skylight and landed on the photographer, crushing him with his weight in a hail of shattered glass. The crowd gasped. Kathleen Turner’s mouth was agape with this shocking turn of events. Tom Cruise looked at her, offered his hand, and said, “Kathleen Turner, we need your help.” Kathleen farted and shit her pants.

THE SECRETS OF THE UNIVERSE

When the sun went down, the owl that lurked right outside of my upstairs bedroom would start hooting. Every night I could rely on this familiar voice. I was so lonely these days, after being fired from the Texan Control Center, and recently I started to fantasize about the owl and I becoming friends. What if, just what if, I left my bedroom window open, and invited him in. Would he come? I talk to him already, dish out my problems to him, but I know that he cannot hear me. Would he listen if I invited him in and showed him some hospitality? Would he be tame, and kind, and come sit with me, relax, and enjoy my company? Or would he just fly into my house like a wild animal on the loose, knocking important and fragile things off my bookshelves, and then go straight for my face in a savage rage and tear my flesh from my bones and eat me alive?

I quickly decided that idea sounded ludicrous, and that an owl that spends so much time hanging around outside my house has got to like me. Hell, we’re practically roommates!! I wondered what owls eat. I was going to be the best host I could be. I figured live animals like rodents, but since I had no live animals I decided a raw chicken might just do the trick. I put the chicken on a silver platter, put my best clothes on, and placed the meal right in the center of the room on the card table I had put there. I opened the window, stood tall, with a welcoming smile on my face, and waited.

A few minutes later the owl flew gracefully through my bedroom window, landed on the card table in front of me, looked me in the eyes and spoke. “I am Zorkon. Prepare to know all of the secrets of the universe.”

I definitely was not anticipating that.

VINCE KRAMER IS THE AUTHOR OF GIGANTIC DEATH WORM.

DENNY COMICS

2011-12-07T22:04:00.000-08:00

Joe Denny has created some of the most deranged and enchanting comics I have ever read. His books are packed cum shots, incest, drugs and violence. The first couple of pages of THE ALLMIGHTY TIGHTY WHITEY shows a man getting raped by a hamburger. Its some sick shit.

Most of his comics are about Don McRonald and his family. They are the most dysfunctional family a person can imagine. They are constantly berating each other, and fucking each other, and beating on each other... This comic is like Pink Flamingos on Adderall!

His work is not entirely perverse though. His characters are terrifying, but, at the same time, they are charming and adorable. His vision of the world is both hateful, and fun-loving. At times his comics are just goofy. Other times his comics are so dark they makes me uncomfortable.

I met Joe when I was thirteen. I have been a loyal fan and friend ever since. We have talked endlessly about art and life and all sorts of other crap. He’s one of the most interesting men I have ever known. So I decided to interview him, and share some of this man’s insight with the world.

1. How long have you been working on these characters?

They all came about at different times. Lingerieman and Allmighty Tighty Whitey are from high school (90-94) and Don McRonald came out soon after that. Don and Allmighty Tighty Whitey were two different characters until I realized that they're the same person just like Grownkidman and Veronica were the same person. Grandma and Candy are more recent manifestations.
I get inspiration for these characters from all over. If I encounter someone who reminds me of a Viking and I’m fixated on it then a Viking will end up in my comic.
One time I was in Manhattan and I came across a big line of men dressed in gladiator outfits, rainbow wigs and drag-queens. Most of them were waiving rainbow flags and I was baffled. For the life of me I could not figure out what was going on. My wife had to explain to me that it was the gay pride parade. I still don’t really know what a hot and sexy gladiator has to do with homosexuality, but it’s that kind of thing that gets me. You know, why’s everything so fucked? Can’t the gays just wear their usual police uniforms? After all, that’s what we’re paying them for..for what…we them pay.

2. Which is your favorite?

Oh I just love Candy these days, she’s so fucked up. I love it when Don dopes up a Frenchmen then tries to tell him a stupid joke but the joke ends up being an ironic twist of fate for Don when Candy shoots him dead on in his heart, the same heart that Don had given to Candy in posterior moments. What kind of sick-lunatic chick would do such a thing? Candy would. That’s who, and that’s why I love her, she’s just so crazy.
I love Grownkidman too. He’s just so pathetic and I love torturing him. He seems merely to exist to be punished. He’s kind of like a Charlie Brown for grownups or a grownup Charlie Brown.
Don McRonald’s also my favorite because he smokes a pipe and he’s a total control freak and I like that.
Grandma’s kind of hysterical because she’s supposed to have been moving onto something else in her life, such as death, but instead she is stuck inside a box and is forced into servitude by her very own creations.
Lingerieman is another very favorite because he dresses so well and is all class. I’ve always had a thing for lingerie and very much enjoy making drawings of all sorts of people wearing such fine ensembles.
Other favorites include, LeRoy, Mary, Big Nuthin’ and Schmegmaman.

3. There’s a lot of nudity in your books. And a lot of cum shots. But it’s not pornographic. I would never jerk off to one of your books. Why do you make your books so raunchy?

Justin if we are going to conduct this interview appropriately then you will have to stop deceiving the audience. You would jerk off to a tuna sandwich. For god’s sake I’ve seen you move your balls up and down without using your hands. I don’t believe that you would never or have never spanked the monkey reading one of my books.
As for the raunchiness, as far as I can tell it is some kind of a manifestation of a repression rooted in religious guilt about sexuality. This guilt commences not too long after my obsession with nudity began at the age of four.
After a weekend visit to the Post Office I and a friend brought home some junk mail that we got out of the garbage can. Perhaps if his mother had taken a closer look at what we brought home with us then my life may have been very different. In the pages of this stack of useless mail was a thing that we were soon to recognize as a gold mine. Nude women and men in very compromising positions on every page, we didn’t know exactly what it meant but we knew that we were on to something big. And something of witch we wanted more. Only thing was, my older sibling had gotten brain-washed by the born-agains and her influence on me of the direct fear of going to hell for thinking outside of the conformity's of fundamentalist Christianity would hamper my life for years to come. However from this influence blossomed the necessity for the individual to be stronger than that of the will of society and that is one of the main themes of much of my work. And I like my work. I really get a kick out of myself. I just draw the kind of comics that I can’t find but for what I’m looking. My approach to music is the same.
One time my friend found a playgirl that was stashed away in his sister’s room. This was before anyone ever had a chance to tell us that males are only supposed to look at nude women and not nude men. We were happy to be seeing a different part of the world than that of the one our parents were showing us. Before society (which is religion, government, siblings, parents, friends or anything that influences our actions) imprinted it’s morally aesthetic will in to our impressionable little brains we were free to think as we pleased without prejudice or shame.
It could also be that my comics are raunchy because I’m just some fucking pervert who likes making deviant little drawings.

4. Have you ever upset a friend or family member with your books?

Yes, and that’s how it goes. If I discover a way to fix all the flaws I had in the past then I will do so. Fortunately I’ve grown out of personal attacks. Sitting at your drawing table and brooding over a women then lashing out at her on paper is really pathetic. So I’ve learned to be less specific about hating individuals and just taking it out on society instead, all the while recognizing it as a real emotion with tremendous energy that can ultimately become positive.
I’d rather that society hates me than be hated by an individual. Between society and myself there is a mutual loathing.
There are tremendous flaws in society and we have much work to do to fix it. I don’t know why society allows economies to dictate the amount of work that is available. Every living creature on this planet has needs, there is constantly work that needs to be done. Return to listening to the needs of the Planet and we will always know the next path and the pace at which to take it.
Socialism allows for low unemployment however, who gets the good jobs and who makes those kind of decisions. The best place always to walk is in the middle, allow freedom with great restrictions.
Money is finite. If it were infinite then we would all be rich, but some people wouldn’t have more money than you if you had as much as they do. That is why they must horde it. And they make the rules and laws that society blindly follows. What better way to secure ones wealth than to make the laws in one’s own favor all the while conditioning the masses by means of entertainment, religion, education or politics. These great opiates of the masses taste sweet but trying to digest them will enslave you to a slow and meaningless walking death of a life. This isn’t actually fair to those of us who do not horde more than what two men can carry and we know that each and every person born on this planet deserves to be brought up in a peaceful, safe and respectful society. But we can’t do this when we place our values on a concept that you were conditioned to spend your life pursuing, be it god or be it money rather than a tangible resourse.
To begin to even things out a person with a greatly disproportionate amount of income can pay a greatly disproportionate debt back to society. Of course my favorite system is the Honors System. Will all of society be enlightened enough one day to embrace the Honors System? Probably not, that’s why I hate society and write the books I write.
With any luck one day I will be able to rid myself of all hate completely.
Through the advances of Nano-technology we will be able to rebuild our bodies as they die. This process will become so refined that we will be able to make even our minds perfect. When we’ve stopped dyeing our offspring will become a threat and we will become sterile. The law of averages eventually catches up and all the immortals succumb to non-existence and the earth cleanses itself of the species Human Being. To exterminate us may be the Goddesses plan and she has every right to do so.

5. What are your favorite comics?

Battle Angle Alita, Akira, Bloom County, Calvin and Hobbes, Frank, Yusagi Yojimbo, Strange Haven, Tin Tin, more but I don’t have enough time to read these days.

6. Is there anything you like more than comics?

I enjoy different passions in different ways. Drawing was my first love and as I grew I learned my love for expression was not of the monogamous kind. At thirteen I discovered skateboarding and 22 years later my love for it has only grown. I see it as far more superior means of expression than the comic book. They’re two different things but my approach to both is probably very similar except I keep the nudity in the comics not in skating. Go for it, if it means that much.
Visit Dennys site.

PUSSY BEAR MEETS JIMMY PLUSH

2011-12-07T11:07:00.000-08:00

By Justin Grimbol and Garrett Cook

I was feeling completely un-fabulous. I was hung over and my fur was greasy. My apartment was a mess and I was sitting on top of my refrigerator looking like an idiot. The refrigerator was the only place in my apartment where my lap top could connect to the internet. It was so annoying. I’m the type of bear that likes looking sexy. Bears just don’t look sexy sitting on top of a refrigerator. I looked stupid. I looked like the type of bear that would be in the circus.

After checking my email I went onto Facebook and started spying on my ex-boyfriends. There was this one guy, Lenny. He was into extreme body modification. When we had dated he had eight arms and two cocks and eyes that could glow in the dark. He was like some weird alien, or a God, or something. He was awesome, and fun as hell to fuck around with.

But a couple years after we broke up, he got his surgeries reversed. And then he got married to some normal looking woman whose named Candice, or Laurie, or something like that. He had untagged all the pictures I had put up of us. The only pictures he had up now were of his wife and kids. They looked nice, I guess, in boring sort of way.

I was in the middle of re-tagging all the pictures I had of him, when I got a message from a guy name Jimmy Plush. He said he liked my pics. I read his profile. He was a fucking teddy bear! I was like, are you serious? Ew!

I almost told him to fuck off, then I was like, wait, it takes some balls to be this tiny little teddy bear and come on to a big old grizzly like myself. I mean its super ballsy. So I gave him a try.

Here’s the conversation we had:

Pvssy Bear: Hey there.

Jimmy Plush: Pleased to make your acquaintance. A grizzly with a nice pair and a good head on her shoulders could do well around here.

Pvssy Bear: They’re all natural baby.

Jimmy Plush: No synthetic fibers in me, either.

Pvssy Bear: I need some stuffing----if you know what I’m saying.

Jimmy Plush: Thanksgiving was over a week ago, but I''m sure something could be arranged. I'm looking for a Girl Friday, so if you start on Sunday, there's five days over time. I'll give you time and a half cause you seem like a dame worth making time with.

Pvssy Bear: Did you just call me a girl? I’m half woman, half amazing.

Jimmy Plush: No, I just offered you a job.

Pvssy Bear: What kinda job? I don’t like washing dishes.

Jimmy Plush: Typing. Light filing. Candid photography. Hiding bodies, sewing up gunshot wounds.

Pvssy Bear: A little dancing maybe. A game of spin the bottle. Maybe some truth, or dare. Give me some truth or dare and I'm in.

Pvssy Bear: When it comes to truth or dare I'm a fuckin Olympic athlete.

Jimmy Plush: I excel at daring. And as an excellent liar, the truth part's a breeze. Call me.

He gave me his number. I jumped down from the refrigerator and started looking for my cell phone. My room was one big pile of dirty panties. I dug through the pile looking for my phone.

Why am I so excited about this? I kept thinking. Why am I so turned on? I mean, do teddy bears even have penises?

Finally, I found my phone. It buried deep in the pile, cocooned in panty hose.

I flipped it open and looked into the screen like it was a crystal ball. Should I do this? Should I call this sleazy teddy bear?

THIS STORY WILL BE CONTINUED ON GARRET COOKS SITE SOON!

http://chainsawnoir.wordpress.com/

POEMS BY GARETH EOIN STOREY

2011-12-06T11:23:00.000-08:00

p h q 9

Over the last two weeks
How often have you been bothered
By any of the following problems?

(Use x to indictate your answer)

Holes in your head mouth
Coitus d' real dre ams

Lack of dining companions

Giant toothbrushes

Nickle beer and lemonade

People staring ugly

Old socks

Empty prescriptions

Increasing inches

Fidgets
Norman Rockwell terrors

Lack of eau de vie
Upturned tables

Bad bread
Herb names

The Grey suit
Clean ashtrays

A woman (or women).

Out Do

You hire dumb crackers
To follow me

To Pink's in Hollywood
For a few cans of pissy beer

You kissed despotically
Kept me placed

With fresh dopamine
I give you this
A giant's middle finger
A cookie

Crumbs
As good
As they look

The trail ends

Here

Yeah,

That's where.

Punch Power
Dedicated to Valero

From the Venezuelan barrio's
There's so many tough kids
And their dad's go out
Sucking other ladies tits and clits

Their relegious mothers give out
Backhands and prayers

Southpaw Valero and his channeled
Aggression got to 27-0 before stabbing
His trophy wife in a Valencia hotel

Tears on his tattooed chest
He hung himself
In a damp cell
With his sweat pants.

Is It?
Written in Parque del Buen Retiro: "The lungs of Madrid".

A capital bear chasing a fish
Giant fingernails and a waistcoat
A beer glass
Toilet roll

Mickey Mouse eating a banana
A miami wig
Scissors
Ice cubes

A heeled shoe
An oven glove
Pig's legs
A lunch tongue

Sesos with teethmarks
Decapitated cabeza's
A bottom lip

Three tits

A baseball bat
A sausage gun
A hand with three digits.

BACKSTAGE by Vince Kramer

2011-12-05T12:21:00.001-08:00

The beloved cast of the popular ‘90s sitcom Friends all went backstage to their shared dressing room, having just wrapped a new episode of the show for its 5th season. It was the one where Rachel gets an abortion and meets a handsome doctor. They filled the room and went off to their various favorite corners of it. Lisa Kudrow slammed the door behind her and locked it. (“Uh-oh”, Matthew Perry thought. “She’s slipped into the bitch mode again”) Matthew Perry went to his usual spot behind the sofa, covered himself in a blanket, and went to his happy place. Courtney Cox was energized and thrilled and pumped and every other word for that related. She was jumping up and down, pounding her fists in the air, yelling “WHOOO!” over and over again. She said “Let’s party guys! Who wants some COCAINE!” Everyone ignored her. “FINE! Whatever, guys! You all TOTALLY need to get over yourselves! You have issues!” Lisa Kudrow had already buried her face in the latest issue of The Texan Liberation Front, but the bad energy coming from her could be felt from across the room.

Meanwhile, Matt LeBlanc and David Schwimmer had run off to the bathroom together and locked the door. Jennifer Anniston crept over suspiciously and put her ear to the door. She heard Matt LeBlanc say “David, I need to talk to you about what we did last night.” David Schwimmer spoke in a low whisper, and said “Wait a second” and turned on the faucet to the sink. Anniston could no longer hear the conversation, only the sound of running water. Her mind went wild with what they could be up to. She knew that David was still pissed off at her for puking all over his crotch in bed last week after celebrating another wrap party. She KNEW something was amiss. And she was DAMN WELL going to find out.

At the make-up counter, Courtney Cox was carelessly cutting up her eight ball of cocaine with a razor blade, singing their popular theme song all the while. Big and expensive chunks of coke flew across the room as she worked. She didn’t fucking care about that because she was rich. (“Rich as fuck!” she thought. “On top the world, WHOOOO!”) She cut out some lines in the shape of big hearts, and snorted one up like crazy. She flipped her head back, not even noticing how her long hair had whipped and blew the rest of the cocaine in every direction, as well as the razor blade which flew across the room and clattered to the ground near Matthew Perry. Lisa Kudrow stood up and threw down her magazine and yelled “COURTNEY COX!” Matthew slowly reached his hand out from under the blanket and grabbed the razor blade.

Back at the bathroom, Jennifer Anniston had found one of those little flat keys to open the door with, and turned it in the lock and slowly opened the door just a crack. She put her eye up to the crack and she saw David standing against the sink, his hands gripped to it, with his eyes closed and mouth open. She didn’t see Matt anywhere. Then she heard David’s moan. (“WHAT THE FUCK?!” she thought) Jennifer Anniston kicked the door open so hard that the doorknob put a hole in the wall. David’s jaw dropped, and Matt LeBlanc looked up at her with a shocked expression. David Schwimmer’s cock was in his mouth as far as it could go. Anniston gasped, and covered her mouth in horror. Matt couldn’t move, he was like a deer caught in the headlights; he just kept staring at her with his eyes wide open. And a huge dick in his mouth. Jennifer began to charge at them, screaming “HOW COULD YOU!?” David kicked Matt off of him as hard as he could, and his head smacked against the tile floor and knocked him out instantly. David punched Jennifer in the mouth so hard she flew against the wall, shattering a picture frame. He slammed the door, and screamed “LIKE YOU KNEW HOW TO DO IT, BITCH!” And then he started strangling her to death.

Back in the main room, Lisa Kudrow and Courtney Cox were screaming and yelling at eachother and engaged in a furious cat-fight. They both had fistfuls of eachother’s hair and scratch marks all over their faces. Courtney Cox’s eye was noticeably bleeding. Matthew Perry cried under his safety blanket as he slowly cut his arm with the razor blade, over and over, chanting “I love you, Daddy. I love you, Daddy. I love you, Daddy.” Courtney grabbed a stool, picked it up over her head, and chucked it at Lisa Kudrow. Lisa ducked and yelled “HA!”, and went after Courtney with a pair of scissors she found on the floor. Courtney yelped and ran. Then Jennifer Anniston burst out of the bathroom, blowing the door off its hinges, and tripped over the stool. David Schwimmer grabbed her by the ankles and screamed “GET THE FUCK BACK HERE! I’M NOT DONE WITH YOU YET!”

At that moment the President of NBC knocked on the door. They all stopped what they were doing. The voice behind the door said “Guys! I got some exciting news! Open up!” They all looked at eachother and traded serious glances and nodded. “Just a second!” yelled Lisa. In mere moments they ran all over their dressing room, picking up the pieces of their fight, getting cleaned up, waking up Matt, and forced Matthew Perry out of hiding, who was curled up into a ball sobbing and bleeding all over himself. Lisa whispered to the group saying “Compose yourself guys, and smile.” Courtney whispered in her ear, “THANK GOD we got the soundproof dressing room in our contract.” Lisa Kudrow fixed her hair in the mirror one more time before she went and opened the door. The cast posed gracefully and smiled while Lisa welcomed the President of NBC into their dressing room. He said, “I’ve got some good news, guys! Everyone’s getting a raise!!!” The cast of Friends jumped for joy, screaming various phrases like “YES!!”, “OOH YEAH!”, and “SWEET!” Then a cart was wheeled into the room behind the President, with some big thing on it covered with a blanket. “And I’d like you to meet your new castmate!” He ripped the cloth off the big thing on the cart to reveal a huge owl in a birdcage. The cast was shocked and in disbelief. “Is this some sort of joke, Russell?!” screamed Matt LeBlanc, rubbing the back of his head. “No, Matt LeBlanc,” said the owl in the cage. “This is not a joke. I am Zorkon. And not only am I your new castmate, but I am here to tell you about the future…”

The cast of Friends were the only people who ended up surviving the great Los Angeles quake of ’14.

VINCE KRAMER is the author of GIGANTIC DEATH WORM.

J

2011-12-03T23:47:00.000-08:00

By Gareth Eoin Storey

We catch up on Wednesday
At The French House
And this barwoman-
All hooped earring and
Body eye gestures
Gives off pheremones
Hot sweat stink

She
Is
Alive

I'm so sure God
Created cunt to put her
Behind bar

God did a grade A
Job of teasing
The sensless shit
Out of my cum soaked sheet

I see her wash herself outdoors
In foriegn springs
And dry on cooked amber leaves

Be proud
Triumphant gold
1st place in tight jeans
And loose top-
Gin based grace

Picture in a window
I'm so sure she'll fuck
Herself a bastard
Bastards queue
For her
Bastards in the loo

Unload lungs
In the stalls
About this prop
This melt hot mannequin

'Who's next?'
Anyone waiting?'

Gareth Eoin Storey was born in the Guinness producing city. In cliche fashion he started writing after reading through Thompson, Bukowski, Burroughs, Keroauc and Salinger. Not that's it worth a shit but he has a degree in creative writing and journalism. He has manic stages and often berates himself and others. He enjoys binging and lives in London.
visit his blog http://dirtysuitcase.blogspot.com/

STAY

2011-12-03T11:55:00.000-08:00

By Jeff Barnes

art by justin grimbol

I’m leaving, she said, tearing as she packed

the auburn & beige suitcase

with her leg fat

and back fat and the fat

from her fat. She began to cry

harder when she realized there was not enough

room in the suitcase she’d chosen

for all the fat she had

to pack. Take my father’s

suitcase from the closet, I said.

She huffed, and then filled my father’s suitcase

with the fat from her ankles,

wrists and neck. There’s some liquor boxes

in the basement. Would you like

me to get them?

Yes, she said.

She was pushing the packed fat down

with both hands, really

putting her weight into it,

only to watch helplessly as the fat

bulged and plopped

from my father’s suitcase. Seeing her

effort’s futility,

she laughed. There’s just so much

fat, she said.

Yes, there is, I said.

Her eyes softened. She smiled.

Why don’t we talk, I said.

I’ll make your favorite,

mayo and banana on white.

Okay, she said, and

began unpacking her fat.

TRASHLAND A GO-GO! By Constance Ann Fitzgerald

2011-12-02T11:08:00.000-08:00

Trashland A Go-Go is about a stripper named Coco. She's a great femme fatale. She’s a real bad ass, super babe with all sorts of stripper-ish issues. She dies after a freak pole dancing accident. Her sleazy boss doesn’t want to deal with having a dead stripper on his hands, so he wraps her up and puts in the dumpster behind the club. Coco comes to, but she is not in heaven or hell, at least not in the traditional sense. She is in a world made out of trash.

It’s basically Alice in Wonderland, but I hated Alice in Wonderland and I loved Trashland. I'm a grimy guy. Trashland A Go-Go is like an Alice in Wonderland who don't want to read about some annoying little girl having a tea party.
This book is intense. Constance Fitzgeralds writing is smooth and seductive and incredibly vivid. It attacks the senses. Not only does she do a great job explaining what the trash world looks like, she makes the reader really feel how greasy and smushy everything is and how bad it all smells. I felt kinda oily while I was reading this book(I still feel kinda oily, but that’s just because I need to shower).

This book is completely enchanting. And gross. I mean, it made me gag(but in a really enjoyable way). I grew up watching John Waters and I love shock humor. This book actually reminded me of his movie DESPERATE LIVING. I appreciate a writer that can do a really good gross-out tale.

Here is an interview with the author.

Justin Grimbol: Was there any point when you were writing this book when you grossed yourself out?

Constance Ann Fitzgerald: Not so much during the actual -writing- of it. I would just sit down and all of these things would fall out of my pen. When I went back and read it over, though. I kind of surprised myself.
During the editing process I was reading the story out loud, to hear how it might sound to someone who isn't me, and I remember thinking "Aw, man. Do I really need to do this to Victor?"

The answer was clearly yes. That guy had it coming.

JG: If you could get a celebrity to play Coco who would it be and who would you have play the evil queen?

CAF: My first instinct on Coco is Selma Hayek. But not so much because I think she'd be a good Coco, but because I KNOW she can give one hell of a lap dance. Did you SEE From Dusk 'Til Dawn?! Whew!
But, mostly because I really just enjoy her look and the attitude of the characters she tends to play, I'd go with Azura Skye.
The Queen? Isabella Rossellini. Just to listen to her shout about eating hearts in that gorgeous accent of hers.

CAF:I Grew up on Disney princesses (and still adore them to this day) and part of me sort of visualizes the story that way. But the potential gross out factor for a live action Trashland A Go-Go is SO high. There is an entire chapter that could absolutely rival the "shit eating grin" scene in Pink Flamingos. I don't know that I could resist that.

JG: What is your favorite childhood snack?

CAF: Baby carrots. My Grandmother used to tell me all the time that they would be good for my eyes. Tell that to my cataracts!

JG: Name three things that gross you out:

CAF:

1.) People chewing with their mouths open/smacking their food
2.) When your hand is wet and a single strand of hair wraps itself around your fingers and it becomes a tangled, wet, icky web.
3.) Harlequin babies. If you don't know, don't google it. I repeat, DON'T google it. (You're already googling it now, aren't you? You sick bastard.)

(I ended up looking it up. Oh man. What the fuck-JG)

JG: What non-bizarro writer do you think every bizarro fan should read?

CAF: I think that everyone, bizarro and otherwise, should read at LEAST one book by Paulo Coelho. Just to learn how to be better people.

JG: What is your least favorite holiday and why?

CAF: It's a tie: Halloween because, who doesn't like playing dress up?
Thanksgiving because it has all the best food for hangovers and, let's face it, I am usually pretty hungover on Thanksgiving.

(An hour later Constance sent me another email--JG)

CAF: oh, you know what's awesome?
A.) That i re-read this because i am that self absorbed
B.) That i misread the last question. LEAST favorite holiday. Not favorite holiday.
All holidays are pretty much an excuse to get drunk, so i am equally behind all of them.

BABY POWDERED HILLS

2011-12-01T22:56:00.000-08:00

By Justin Grimbol

The old man sat in his wheel chair looking over the snowy fields. He was covered in blankets, but he was still cold. His body trembled.

It was dark but the moon was full. It lit up the fields like a parking lot. There was a baby out there. He had seen it crawl out of the darkness and he had been watching it slowly make its way to his house.

At first he wanted to get out there himself and help it. But then he came to his senses. What was he going to do once he got out there? Nothing. He was too old. They would both end up freezing to death. So he sat there and watched and tortured himself with guilt and a whiny sense of uselessness.

A couple more hours passed. The baby was still out there and it was still alive, still crawling, making its way through the deep snow. Where did it come from? The old man wondered. It was a strong little bastard. That was obvious. God only knew how far it had traveled.

He felt silly just sitting there, waiting for the baby to come to him like that. What if the baby had no interest in him? What if it just walked by? The idea depressed him.

He felt tired. Eventually he dozed off. His head fell back and he began to snore and his breath turned to steam in the cold air. He didn’t wake until the baby was at his feet.

“What the hell do you want?” the old man asked him.

“I’ve been crawling around for days,” the baby told him. “You got any food in there?”

The old man looked at him suspiciously. The baby was being pushy. He didn’t like that.

“Come on, I got money,” the baby told him. “I got like two grand in my diaper. You got any whisky in that big old house? You got any pussy? I bet you got a ton of pussy in there. Farmer pussy. I bet you got like a whole heard of tough ass farm chicks in there.”

The old man didn’t say anything, but the disdain he felt was obvious.

“Forget you,” the baby said.

The old man watched as he crawled away. God damn, he thought. What the hell’s wrong with kids these days?

Justin Grimbol is the author of THE CRUD MASTERS. He lives in Maine.
The painting of the old man is by Jason Gorcoff.

GIGANTIC DEATH WORM, By Vince Kramer

2011-12-01T07:24:00.000-08:00

This is one of the most wonderfully over the top books I have ever read. I read it late at night. My girlfriend kept waking up to the sound of me laughing hysterically. She got really annoyed. I kept thrashing around the bed acting like little kid that was being tickled. That’s how much fun it is to read this fucking book.
It’s packed with crazy. There’s tons bears that spit wolves, partying college kids, raunchiness, Mexican ninjas, death worm’s spitting out all sorts of crap, things getting bit off, partying, and pervert Mayans. All the characters are despicable, but by the end I found myself completely attached. It’s a real skill to take a despicable character and make them loveable without being sappy. And this book isn’t sappy, not even for a second.
I loved this so much. I bought it on kindle. But I’m going to have to buy the paperback as well. I need to be able to hold this gem in my hands.

As soon as I finished the book I wrote to the author and asked him for an interview.

Justin Grimbol: What was it like to write this book? You had to be cracking yourself up the whole time.

Vince Kramer: It was intense. I had my roommate/editor (Kevin Shamel) take away my internet router AND my cellphone, and I sat in a hot room in July and banged the whole thing out in three days. I’m so addicted to the internet that it was mandatory for it to be taken away. And it was even taken to another state (Washington) where there was no chance I’d get it back until Kevin came home. I was just at my friend Carl’s birthday party a few nights previous and he and my friend Cameron were talking about starting their three-day writing marathons that week. I had only been writing four pages here and there for months so I asked a lot of questions and got some killer advice on doing it. I mean, these guys are the masters. I think Carl wrote I Knocked Up Satan’s Daughter that week and Cameron wrote Cthulhu Comes to the Vampire Kingdom. And I finished Gigantic Death Worm. It was almost too easy. I didn’t stop to edit and just had a lot of fun writing it. It was a blast, actually. And another awesome thing that Cameron said was that you know you have something when your own shit is making you laugh out loud. So yeah, I actually had many moments when I just couldn’t stop laughing after I wrote something. It was like, “Holy shit, did I really just write that?” And by the time I got to the part in my book where the worms are destroying the city, it was the 4th of July and everyone in the neighborhood was setting off fireworks all night. So, there were big sounds of explosions all around me every five seconds, and I just imagined it was the sound of Gigantic Death Worms destroying the fuck out of Portland. I think that really helped me with advancing that part of the story, LOL.

JG: How did you get introduced to Bizarro fiction?

VK: I grew up with Carlton Mellick and he’s pretty much remained my best friend since high school. When he started writing and moved to Portland ten years ago, I bought every single one of his books the week it came out on Amazon. It’s one of the coolest things ever to have one of your closest friends growing up become your favorite writer. Carl just was writing the kind of stuff I’ve always wanted to read. I didn’t even know there was a genre called Bizarro until years later and there were lots of other killer writers in the scene. Carl gave me a copy of one of Kevin Donihe’s books on a trip to Portland in 2005 and I immediately loved the fuck out of his writing too. And the Choose Your Own Adventure book Carl co-wrote with him blew my mind. And so, on subsequent vacations to Portland over the next few years to see Carl, the whole thing just started blowing up with Bizarro getting bigger and bigger. My vacations started to become very Bizarro-oriented. I was introduced to Mykle Hansen (who’s like a GOD), and tons of other great writers (AND people) in the scene like Cameron Pierce and Jeff Burk. And eventually Carl reeled me in, said he always thought I was kind of an aspiring writer, and made me go to Bizarro Con. I’m glad he did.

JG: You love toys. You brought a bunch out in a performance once. Did playing with toys help you write this book?

VK: Fuck yes, they helped a shitload. Playing with action figures really flexes your creative muscle and helps you out a lot with your characters, situations, and even dialogue. Worm-Head Girl was even birthed from me creating her action figure out of different parts one night for fun and annoying the shit out of Kevin with her. I took multiple forced perspective-shot pics of him being attacked and shot at by her. Kevin Shamel HATED Worm-Head Girl. It was the funniest thing ever. And by the time I had my story outlined and my characters rounded out on notecards, I had a figure from my collection for each one of them. Dave was Chuckles from G.I. Joe, since the character is kind of me and I’m blonde and like to wear Hawaiin shirts. Mike and Suzanne were Scarlett and Snow Job, also from G.I. Joe, because the characters came with skis and ski-poles. A Mexican ninja was Spirit, the Native American G.I. Joe, who had tons of killer weapons. I used that crazy dog cenobite from Hellraiser as one of my bears, my Snake Eyes figure came with a perfect wolf, and Spirit even came with little green snakes that were perfect for Dave’s brain parasites. And to top it all off, I had the huge worm toy from Dune that I had gotten from the vintage place here in Portland, Billy Galaxy, to pose as my Gigantic Death Worm. I had a perfect diorama of a whole fight scene from the book displayed on a giant crystal centerpiece on my coffee table the whole time I wrote the book. The toys are so fun I brought them to the performance at Bizarro Con for a little show-and-tell, and it definitely would be funny to shoot a video of them acting out a scene from the book. I’ve dabbled in that before with some Star Wars figures before and it turned out pretty hilarious. Action figures rule.

JG: Your writing style is so casual and so unique. How long have you been writing?

VK: Thank, dude! Well, just about 11 months really. I discovered flash-fiction back in January, and that sounded easy because it’s so short, so I started writing those like crazy. I guess I got a lot of practice because I ended up writing almost a hundred of them, probably enough for a whole book. I just wrote and wrote and I think I got a lot better as I went on. I think I gave up at one point though, but it wasn’t long before Kevin was at my house on vacation reading some of it and laughing his ass off. He was in tears. He was choking. At almost every line of my stories. I was really in shock. From that point on I got nothing but tons of encouragement from Kevin. And Kevin wrote one of the funniest books ever, Rotten Little Animals, which I was already a huge fan of, so Kevin really knows his comedy. I really don’t think I would have become an actual writer if Kevin hadn’t read some of my stories that night. Hearing someone laugh out loud in person at my shit really just nailed it for me. One of the main things I’ve always tried to do in my life is make other people laugh and I think with writing, I can succeed in that in a bigger way than ever before.

JG: Did you listen to music while writing this thing?

VK: Oh god yes. And this is a really funny thing. I’ve been collecting tons of vintage albums on vinyl since I moved to Portland, since we pretty much have the best record stores in the world. I’m a huge metalhead, but I’m also REALLY into the ‘80s. I had just started buying every single one of my favorite ‘80s pop bands’ albums I could find. Mike + the Mechanics, The Fixx, Devo, Talking Heads, Asia, Saga, The Cars, Loverboy, Cyndi Lauper, Billy Joel, Tears For Fears, The Power Station, Kajagoogoo, Madonna, The Romantics, Berlin, The Thompson Twins, Men Without Hats; you name it – I’ve got it. I have a pretty sweet record player set-up in my living room, and I’ve spun tons of these at all the big Bizarro house parties I’ve thrown up here. I had a big Caribbean Coconut Cup Drink Hawaiin Shirt Party (you’ve heard of those, right? LOL), and Billy Ocean’s “Suddenly” was in rotation a lot. Caribbean Queen is one of my favorite songs ever, and that record ended up staying in the player for a long time after. I just loved it. Me and Kevin even came up with a hilarious movie idea based on it about Billy Ocean’s private island, and the girl with amnesia who gets shipwrecked there and washes up on the shore, meets him, falls in love, gets her groove back, but then finds out she has cancer and dies or something. We called it “Into the Ocean” and came up with the tagline ‘She came out of the ocean, and got into his car.’ It was so fucking hilarious!! It was that one, and Nervous Night by The Hooters (the one with And We Danced and All You Zombies), that were the records I spun pretty much ALL THE TIME for a month. Couldn’t get enough, they’re just the best fucking records ever. So, by the time the writing of my book came around, I had bought a bunch of other new vintage records to listen to, but found they were really, really distracting since I hadn’t heard any of them yet. It turned out I literally couldn’t write anything unless Billy Ocean or The Hooters were playing. I was just so used to them! They were almost like white noise by that time. So, in the end, I really have to credit Billy Ocean a great deal for helping me write Gigantic Death Worm. I know it sounds ridiculous, but it probably wouldn’t have been written without him.

JG: If you could get one major actor to star in the film version of GIGANTIC DEATH WORM, who would it be?

VK: Oooh, that’s a tough one. I’ve never thought of that. Well, I think it would have to be Taimak, the star of that cheesy ‘80s kung-fu movie The Last Dragon. That’s pretty much the best movie ever. I have a framed signed glossy from him hanging on my wall that says “Vince – you got the power of the glow” (YES!), and it’s a big source of mirth and inspiration for me. But he’s black so they’d just have to make Gigantic Death Worm with black people, which would probably turn out really awesome. Hell, they could even just make The Last Dragon 2 and have a big death worm in the background destroying the city for no reason and I’d be pretty happy.

JG: What is your favorite part of this book and why?

VK: The scene in the newsroom with Mark Curtis and Lin Sue Cooney. Growing up in Arizona, I had to look at that guy and his big stupid mustache every night on TV for about 20 years. I always wanted to make fun of him, her, and their stupid fucking news show. I thought it would be funny to cut to a scene like that in the book, where they’re talking about the worms destroying the city and the correlation between that and 2012 likes it’s no big deal and they’re laughing about it, and then they just switch to a fun celebrity story. That’s what I always hated about newscasters – they’re covering some big tragic and terrible story and they smile the whole time to be personable and always add a little comment at the end they both laugh at. And someone just like, died horribly or something. LOL. So, I always wanted to lampoon that. And having the newsroom explode while it’s devoured by the gigantic death worm, and have everyone die a fiery death, I love it; it’s just so fucking hilarious. I laugh my ass off every time I read that page in my book. It’s my favorite by far.

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NEW KALISH POEM

2008-09-24T23:40:00.000-07:00

pussy has been flying at me, and i don't care. Pussy been flying at me, A thousand cats in a tornado, Pussy flying like that. At me. It comes at me like many trains, Carrying trucks of it, Fast and relentless trains of truckloads of it. It is thrown like famous baseball pitch. Nolan ryan arm, gunning it at miles per hour never heard of. So many miles per hour. This is how fast it comes at me. And i don't care. because i will not be lured into death, or anything like it like a mouse to a sticky trap.

9 poems BY JON KALISH

2008-08-14T09:07:00.000-07:00

i poured the whole can of beer all over her fruit. those little bananas south of the border steamed as the beer evaporated back into nature. it was a necessary thing to do in the midst of taking final exams. she was my favorite teacher and now she was learning. i showed her how to do it and how to do it right. this was kalish. and this was the beginning of everything that was ever supposed to be good. it was the big bang and the bang was the biggest from KALISH. ---- the day was hot and more people were there than you could ever imagine. they all waved flags and banners that said "kalish" and "kalish we fucken love you." they finally had some brains and now i was going to show them the secret of everything. i took it out and waved it and they waved their flags back and i said over the loudspeaker, "yeah that's right you love it," and they chanted and screamed, and for miles this went on until they spilled off the edges of the earth. this was the gibous king and this was the final day of idiocy and normal life as it had been known for thousands of years. even jesus was there waving a shitty little flag he made himself out of sand and sage brush. ---- the doctor came inside and had me sit down. he put that xray up on the light screen and flicked a stupid black switch. it clicked and the light showed what was wrong with me. my heart was apparently broken but the doctor said it was not a problem. he said i was never going to die. they analyzed my dna and found that mine was impossibly complicated. everyone else has dna made out of A C T G nucleobases while kalish is made out of K A L I S H. the doctor said i don't even need a heart to live because the kalish brain power is so intense it teaches the blood to pump itself. i was to be forever. and kalish was the way. all would bask in sweet victory as i would have them understand it in all its unimpaired glory and joy. ---- the apes of the old day gave up reading because it was clear books were to be the cause of the destruction of the green and blue planet. this and gibous were the only facts present in the 11 dimensions and their constituent universes. ---- you think this is stupid but that's because you are blind to all good things. you sit in the tub and fart and drink the water thinking that's they way to do it all. you move back and forth and up and down but i move in sophistated swirls in dimensions 5 - 8 and vibrate violently in dimensions 9 - 11. 4 is the dimension of time but we already knew that right? this is science. ---- flip a globe upside down. you can't stand the way that looks huh? it burns holes in your cotton mind doesn't it? you shit. my mind is visionary and exclusionary. i leave you in peace and in pieces. ---- the sand in your hourglass is made out of shit-particles. ---- a walk through the park was all i needed to see that i was the expeditious factory. the ideas brimmed and leaked out my ears and you picked them up and took some credit. fine. i give it to you. giving to the needy was something my grandmother taught me even though it looked like someone gave her too many wrinkles for the skin was quality leather. --- i shit art.