Breeding Season

Submitted to Sam's Dot Publishing's "The Drabbler" anthology and got an email that my submission "Breeding Season" will be published in their upcoming chapbook.

The theme of the anthology? Alien Candle Shop.

Sort of an interesting challenge: had to write a story that could ONLY be 100 words. Not 99, not 101, but 100 exactly, and the only guidelines were the theme "Alien Candle Shop."


Have my short story "Bluebottle Summer" submitted to Borderlands 6 anthology. We'll see what happens with that one. Could be very cool to be included in that hardcover.

Getting settled in place here, and ready to start cranking.

Surrounded by Death

I'm in my new place; cardboard everywhere, and I know it'll be a while before I'm really "settled in" but I'll deal with it. The move was monstrous, the days hotter than hell and humidity sky-high. Of course, now that we're done that part, the temperatures have dropped to a comfortable cool.

Figures.

My new house has a vacant lot one side; and I'm surrounded by death on the other with a cemetery. Funny thing is, I haven't felt this alive in years. I took a walk on Sunday morning; trekking along the cornfields and woods surrounding me. Two large doe and a couple of fawns got spooked by me and took off, white tails waving good bye as they bolted. Rabbits are everywhere and I saw the fattest groundhog I've ever seen. Between that and the ridiculously groomed cemetery, I feel like I'm in a nature preserve. I took one of my dogs for a walk and I thought his nose was literally going to explode off his face in a nasal orgasm as he took in all the smells and marked his territory with weak drizzles of piss here and there.

How the hell did I not go postal living in the city that long? All I know is that I was well on my way. I've been here sleeping since last Wednesday and I'm amazed at how comfortable I feel here already. It's got some quirks; some work needs to be done on the electrical, which I knew, and there's some adjustments that need to be made to the water pump. But those things are like looking at tiny scars or imperfections on the face of an old, familiar friend.

This place was made for creating.

Blood Sucking Streets

Today, I make settlement on a new house. Well, I mean, it's not new. Actually it's sort of old, but it'll be new to me.
And for the past several days as I've been moving boxes back and forth, I've come to realize something about where I've lived for the past seven years; my town is a vampire.
I had a discussion with one of my best friends yesterday and that phrase just rolled off the tongue as natural as you please and after I hung up, I realized it's true.
My town is a vampire.
There's so much concrete around here that it soaks up blood and secrets more efficiently than a triple ply Bounty sheet. And there's so many like-minded negative people in this city that they just suck the energy right out of ya. What's worse is that I don't even know if they're aware of it; they've been doing it for so long that it's just standard operating procedure around here.

My new place is by a cemetery; lot of old deaths in there.
But the town I live in now is so much more haunted.

Ahh well. Time to go to settlement in a half hour. I'll bring a few sharpened wooden stakes with me.

very cool

http://www.ebaumsworld.com/divine.html

Twenty years of Fisching

It's been two decades since Bobby Fischer disappeared and yesterday he was arrested by Japanese immigration officers on charges of trying to leave the country without a valid passport.

He is 61 years old and faces charges of violating US economic sanctions against the former Yugoslavia by playing an exhibition match in 1992. He has been in exile from the US since he was indicted later that year by a federal grand jury for violating the sanctions.

The UN imposed sanctions against Yugoslavia for supporting Serbian aggression in Bosnia, and the US banned its citizens from doing business there.

Fischer had received a letter of warning against doing the match and ignored it; to the point of spitting on the letter which was written during a news conference.
For twenty years, Fischer has been travelling and living in places like Germany, Phillippines, and Switzerland and was on his way to the Phillippines again when he was detained. Two years of real life chess.

Let me repeat this part, because... oh, I don't know... it sounds sort of IMPORTANT; he is being charged for playing an EXHIBITION MATCH in 1992.

wtf is wrong with our government?

If Fischer is extradited back to the US, he should take a full chess set and jam it up the asses of the people who warned him in the first place, the take the chessboard and fold it up into a sharply pointed shape and widen a few other orifices that need widening.

Mother, do you think they'll try to break my balls?

Mother should I build the wall?

Listen up People

Okay people, I'm only going to post this once, so I expect you to commit it to whatever diminishing brain cells you have left.

POOR PLANNING on YOUR part does NOT justify an EMERGENCY on MY part.


Because I gotta tell ya... that little part of me that deals with this shit... that part of me that listens to people who've known about a deadline for quite some time and neglected to get it to me until it's due in a day or two... that part of me... well... to quote Geoff Cooper, that fucking fucker is fucking fucked.

Pig in a Poke or Getting Poked over a Pig

I just watched CNN a few minutes back and saw a segment related to the tiger that escaped and was shot. Have you heard about this?

The guy who used to play Tarzan had a pet tiger that was like six years old or something. He got loose and eventually, "authorities" shot and killed it.

Now here's the fun part. Ready?

1. 2. 3.

A lady is getting charged with animal cruelty. Why? She offered to use her pet pig as bait to try and lure the tiger in and capture it. She drove it to the area in the trunk (air conditioned, btw) of her Cadillac and someone got bent about that and they're charging her.

Does anyone else have a problem with this?

What about tthe fuckin' tiger? The one that was SHOT?

They think it's cruel to put a pig in an air conditioned trunk?

psssssst. I got some info for anyone who thinks that was cruel:

PIGS ARE BREAKFAST.


And that, people, is the Coroner's Report.

Ignorance Is Bliss

Know what? There's a lot of stupid people in the world. I don't just mean people with no common sense - you can't throw a juju-bee without hitting one of them.

I'm talking sheer, inbred, Paris-Hilton-without-the-t-&-a stupid.

It's staggering really. This is why people go postal - dealing with stupid people.

I hope it's true - that ignorance is bliss - that way it won't hurt so much when I pummel them into the ground.

The Launch of the Coroner's Report

Well, time to get my shit together.

Three weeks back I turned thirty-three.

Thirty-fucking-three.

Mentally I feel as mature as a nine year old boy.
Some days.
Other days I feel as tired and dreary as a centurian in an old folk's home.

What's worse is that I know why, and also that I'm not alone.

Even as a young kid I knew what I was supposed to do in life. I was supposed to write. I was supposed to create stories and tales and entire other worlds for people to experience. To quote Willy Wonka, I was supposed to be the "music maker, the dreamer of dreams."

But no. I took the low road. The safe road. The road more traveled.

And there's not too many days that go by that there's not an ounce of regret for that.

Oh, I'm doing well financially. Been doing advertising/creative whoredom on my own for almost 12 years now, and if it hadn't been for my talent in that arena, I probably wouldn't have the same type of home or a little money set aside for retirement and education for my kids.

But there also wouldn't be a small dark, growing spot that I can't see, but I know is there inside me. If I don't start taking charge, that little spot is going to keep growing until it consumes me. And I think that it doesn't matter much what age I'll be - if it does consume me, I'll be the old man in an old folk's home in my own head. And if I allow myself to get there, there's no getting back out.

At least alive.

So.

Like I said, time to get my shit together.

In the past year, I've written a screenplay that peers judged to be better than the other 75% of entries. Better than 3200 other screenplays. It was my first one, and written in just under a month, although I must say the core concept had been kicking around in my head for about a year.

I've written (and rewritten, and rewritten) a short story that I'm pretty damn proud of, and jotted concepts and outlines for other stories that if I commit myself to completing, should be enough for two or three anthologies.

IF I commit myself to completing.

I don't want to, but if I'm to be honest, I've taken the low road way too many fucking times in my life. Because it was easier. The path had been beaten down before me, and it was easy walking on that path. But I finally realized that while it may be easier to travel, that road leads not to salvation, but stagnation.

I've come to the proverbial Crossroads that Robert Johnson fell down on his knees at years ago. Some might say that I've got a choice to make, but I know better. I never had any choice in the matter. You cannot change what you are.

As I write this, I'm surrounded by a teetering wall of cardboard boxes. I'll be moving in less than a week. But I've got my hiking boots ready. And I sharpened my machete.

Time to take the high road.