Ode To A Washington State Freeway Onramp

If I had a sign telling me
That time was killing me
I could, I could

If I had a way to Bellingham
Then I would say I'm Smelling Sam
I could, don't you know that I could

I could be everything
Going everywhere
But I could be nothing
Standing with no one

If I had a bird speak to me
With one word to set me free
I could, I could

If I had a song to sing to you
It'd be wrong to feel so blue
I could, don't you know that I could

I want to be everything
I want to go everywhere
Yeah, I won't be nothing
I'll be standing with you

New Bizarro Author Series Review #11: Uncle Sam's Carnival Of Copulating Inanimals by Kirk Jones

Id Says:

Ooo, do me between my cushions you big reclining stud!

The carnival is coming to town and everyone is raring to vomit with applause at all the fucking furniture. Furniture which fucks, that is. Latest from the rumor tent has it that they got a brand new trainer and bona fide furniture whisperer, too. Hot damn!

Gary isn't your run-of-the-mill looking inanimal trainer. After a run in with a very lively severed arm and a wood chipper, his finely chopped tear duct mingles on the floor with a bit of the mysterious chemical Regenagent #32 used to give life to inanimate objects. This causes his body to reform itself entirely made from tears.

Uncle Sam, proprietor of the carnival furniture orgy, has big plans for Gary. Maybe he'll even be able to retire finally! And if he can get Gary to copulate with his blind neice Liberty and catch it all on tape, he might just turn a new profit as well.

The carnival's future is dim, though. Recent expirementation with Regenagents has created some interesting results. Murders begin cropping up in every town they visit. The body count rises quickly and everyone is suspect. A brewing storm is on the horizon, Gary could quickly find himself in over his viscous head and fucked to death by untamed furniture if he doesn't focus on the task at hand.

Now back to some more chair-on-chair action!

Ego Says:

Gary has some of the best/worst luck ever. He adjusts fairly smoothly from his transformation into tear-person, having only to relearn how to grasp and hold things in his semi-liquideous hands. It has to be his past that has prepped him for such changes.

At age eight, Gary was working his very first job when his right arm decided to detach itself from his torso. The very next day his parents were killed in a car accident. He lived in an orphanage afterward and got another job at a textile factory, a job that ended up costing him a leg and an eye to a nylon machine. Always remember to turn the machine off when re-spooling, Gary...

There is a silver lining to all these mishaps, however, for if they had not occurred he would never had met Uncle Sam or found his true calling in life as a furniture whisperer.

Those employed at the carnival struck me as a sad lot. Gary first attempts to take over Henry's job, who he had met the day before and was involved in a messy bus accident shortly thereafter. Upon Gary's reformation into tears, he is promoted by Uncle Sam to become an inanimal trainer to follow in the steps of Ignatius, the carnival's current whisperer who feels a little uneasy about forcing furniture to hump each other to death.

A rose among the thorns Gary encounters is Liberty, Uncle Sam's neice. She cannot see as she has no eyeballs, only deep dark sockets that draw you in. It is her facial cavities that first grab Gary's attention and heart. Their love may be nothing more than blind tears, but it is as real as the fornicating couches and tables locked up in their caravan pens.

Super-Ego Says:

There is more than a little satire involved in these pages. I knew justice was blind, but it looks like someone held Liberty down and tore the vision right out of her.

Uncle Sam isn't fairing any better either. His old and tired and he only wants the carnival to end. He knows that'll never happen, the machine will keep truckin' on despite his protests. He stares down at his tired legs and he doesn't want to retire, he wants to die.

Mr. Jones speaks in a blunt tone, he does not attempt to disguise the horrible things the carnival does to entertain the masses. His prose is to the point and leaves little uncertain about the actions and motivations of his characters. I like this, when dealing with a novella length story it is better to stick to the point and not allow one's self to veer off into subplot.

For me, Uncle Sam's Carnival Of Copulating Inanimals is a story about the death of the American Dream. Media mass murder stories and sex, sex, sex keep us entertained indefinetely. We are too busy vomiting to the ungulations of oak cabinets and leather recliners to notice Uncle Sam's failing health, or the approaching dark storm following the trail of puke and broken furniture. If we're caught unaware, it could envelop us all.

-------------

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New Bizarro Author Series Review #10: Muscle Memory by Steve Lowe

(NOTE: In the spirit of Muscle Memory's body swapping theme, the parts of my brain have all switched their usual roles for this review.)

Ego Says:

This book spoke to me.

As the most important aspect of the brain, I am the keeper of identity. Steve Lowe's handling of identity in this story made quite an impression on me. The premise alone, that of a husband who awakes one morning to find himself inhabiting his wife's body, brings forward the debate over whether or not we are more than our physical selves.

Billy Gillespie has little time to ponder this existential query, though, as he is preoccupied with the loss of his male genetalia and the corpse lying in bed that was him but is now apparently his dead wife, Tina. Finding some antifreeze sitting in the kitchen next to last night's empty beers, Billy connects the dots and discovers his other half's murderous intent that backfired on her overnight.

Sharing in the general confusion of the situation is a good portion of the town, including neighboring best friends Tucker and Julia, whom are also having out-of-their-own-body-and-into-another experiences.

I found most humorous their farmer friend Edgar's switch, which has placed him inside the body of a sheep. This confirms for some townspeople their suspicions about his relationship with his animals, regardless of how often Edgar bahs out denials of such allegations.

Before he can decide what to do with his dead body, the whole town is overrun by G-Men asking questions and keeping a watchful eye on Billy and his friends. Everyone has theories as to what's really going on, from a government conspiracy to alien intervention to God's wrath, even.

Billy hopes answers to this nightmare will manifest soon. In the meantime, I am kept entertained watching him figure out Tina's nightgown flap so his son Little Rico can breastfeed, a difficult enough task for a (wo)man still adjusting to his female body.

Super-Ego Says:

Billy's inner turmoil over the events leading up to his transformation is at the heart of Muscle Memory. Acting as the narrator gives us a first-hand view of his struggle to cope with the violent physical change he is experiencing.

At first, he is still mostly like his old self, a blue collar beer drinker just trying to get by in life. It is only upon seeing the aftermath of Tina's plot to murder him that he begins to see the true nature of his relationship with her. He was too busy drowning himself in alcohol every night to notice how birthing their baby had affected her.

Fortunately for Billy, he has a good friend to turn to in Tucker, who is also adjusting to residing inside his wife Julia's body. He may not be the sharpest tool in the shed but, given the circumstances, he stays optimistic, enjoying his wife's parts along the way. Julia can forgive him for fooling around with her body, she is only now understanding just how hard it can be to keep Tucker's testosterone fueled body from getting erections.

Each character learns to deal with their predicament and copes well with their new bodies. Edgar has no reservations about munching on the grass outside Billy's house, his body knows he needs the nourishment and his mind quickly shifts into accepting this. Tucker, on the hand, has to learn the hard way what drinking beer does to his wife's stomach and bowel movements.

Billy has the hardest time adjusting, he has to do it alone. His wife and his original body are gone. Deceased. This leaves him feeling like the exposed pit of a peach, the skin and fruit shell that was his identity forever missing and leaving him to rot in his own murderer's body. He's dead on the outside as well as the inside. Perhaps he'll be able to find himself again and start life anew, if not for his own sake than for the sake of hungry Little Rico.

Id Says:

Goddamn you fatherfucking, daughters-of-bastards! She's a he, he's a she, and he's a sheep!

I was trying to figure out exactly how the title of this book correlates with the story and I think I got it. It's right there in the first couple'a pages. Billy wakes up to take a piss and can't locate his dick in his wife's nightgown so he pops a squat to relieve himself. His actions upon waking are unconscious, the muscles reacting not to thought, but to memory instead.

It's a routine so ingrained in his psyche that he does it on autopilot, a lack of penis and testicles not really bothering him too much until his thoughts take over again.

The dialogue is spot on. It sounds real, it sounds like these kinds of people exist and this is how they'd deal with such a crazy conundrum. The gender stereotypes they've joked about before are beginning to surface, and they're learning just how guilty they all are of creating them.

But these are Salt of the Earth types, and I think they do a much better job at dealing with the pile of shit dropped onto them than most people would.

Everyone in this book, I think, got at least a little thrill in having a new, foreign body to test drive, scary as the prospect could seem for some. I know I'd not shy away at taking a turn masturbating in a female body to see how it feels. Wouldn't you?

.

...

.....No?

...

.

Argh, now I feel stupid for opening my big mouth at all. I'm a plot person and this style/theme stuff is fucking confusing the shit outta me.

Fuck this review switchy thingy! Id out.

-------------

Like my review? Buy the book!

Muscle Memory at Amazon.com

For more info on Bizarro Fiction, look no further.

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New Bizarro Author Series Review #9: Love In The Time Of Dinosaurs by Kirsten Alene

(NOTE: All parentheticals in this review were added by the reviewer's Ego for its own personal enjoyment/entertainment and do not reflect the views and opinions of the book or its author. The Ego does hope that the author's husband appreciates the joke. Okay, enough with this insidery bullshit. On to the review!)

Id Says:

MOTHERFUCKINRRROOOOOWWWWWRRRRRRRRMOTHERFUCKAZ!!!

Look out, monks! Here come the Jeremy (Johnson)!

It's the End of Days for this mountain forest's monastery and villages, hostile dinosaurs won't stop until every last human is dead and eaten. Our monk feels there must be a way to end the fighting, but knows his death at the hands of a samurai sword wielding pterodactyl or cannon blasting stegosaurus is most likely what fate has in store for him.

If only the Steve, energistic forest creatures birthed from the monks meditative thoughts, hadn't abandoned the people all those years ago. What shitheads!

Before they left, they bestowed upon Elder Zohar the secrets of a magic kung-fu most helpful in making lethal warriors out of the monks, but still not as effective as the monastery's stockpile of plasticizing ray guns and explosive elephant guns, or ingenious as their regenerative medical procedures. Unfortunately, all these combined still don't equate to a goddamned thing when stacked up against the monster tank Jeremy (Johnson) and their far superior technology.

During a surprise attack on the watchmen, our monk hitches a ride on one wild pterosaur flight that lands him in a clearing currently settled by an unknown species of mysterious dinosaur.

This revelation confuses our monk, leading him to seek enlightenment from the Elders. His searching eventually brings him to Petunia, a beautiful and peaceful Trachodon whose tribe, like the monks, only wants the fighting to cease.

The monks are on the losing side of an epic war and running out of options. Their prayers won't be enough to save anyone's ass.

Hope survives in the light of a billion fireflies burning brightly inside our monk!

Jeremy (Johnson), the Great Destroyer, must be stopped!!

For Petunia, and to give the whole world a chance at a tomorrow, at a new day!!!

Ego Says:

I had such a blast seeing inside the mind of our protagonist. The cornfields were fucking beautiful!

In true warrior monk fashion, our protagonist has learned the art of calming and focusing his mind to stay fighting fit. But amid so much violence and bloodshed, coupled with foreign but strong emotions for Petunia, he finds it increasingly harder to find balance with his inner self.

The elders are not making life any easier for him either. Most respected of these leaders is Elder Zohar. His legs were bitten off during the first victory against the Jeremy (Johnson) and now he crawls around on the ten fingers of the hands grafted onto his torso. Like a wise master should, he knows our protagonist is troubled and instructs accordingly, all the while keeping a watchful eye on him.

The Jeremy (Johnson) are the ultimate Cretaceous warriors. Killing machines evolved to be as swift and brutal as possible. Advanced also in mind and intelligence, their weaponry is unmatched by even the strongest of magic kung-fu.

It is our protagonist's higher level of awareness that helps him gain insight into a greater problem lurking underneath their current fight. The monks and the Jeremy (Johnson) have fought for so long now that neither side knows how to live any other way then through death.

I think if our protagonist isn't careful, he could find himself the enemy of both sides.

Super-Ego Says:

My absolute favorite sentence in Love In The Time Of Dinosaurs is as follows.

"You are only a series of still images conjured into existence by three objective perceivers."

That one, uttered by the stars to our narrator in order to calm his rising panic, clicks well with the LSD in me.

This is epic prehistorical fiction, its words bursting to life with Ms. Alene's vibrant, colorful language. Scenes of dinosaur carnage and monk guerrilla warfare tactics are juxtoposed with whirlwind mirages of pure symbolism created in the four dimensional space of our narrator's mind.

The book is also, as the reader might expect, a tale of love. Forbidden love even. The Jeremy (Johnson) and monks do not mix. Our narrator seeks to break monastic tradition in a world where their history is all they have left. It matters not how great the risks are, his life was unalterably changed the day he met Petunia.

For me, it is the kind of book I wanted to read when I was a kid, a fairy tale with meat on its bones and never afraid to get dirty. Our narrator's faith will be tested often as he bets it all on the dream of something perfect...

Does the dream of true love, however, even have the capability to conquer the Jeremy (Johnson)?

I believe it is possible. I have to believe in our narrator and Petunia. Together, they can stop the spread of this tooth and claw cancer. Watch out Jeremy (Johnson), you're about to get vaccinated with one serious love injection. Kah-Zow!

-------------

Here's a picture I drew of a dinosaur for my nephew Elijah. He was pretty amazed that it could breathe fire.

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New Bizarro Author Series Review #8: How To Eat Fried Furries by Nicole Cushing

Id Says:

As Roofi, the less successful, younger cousin to that famous children's singer, asked in his only hit song: "Squeal, squeal, pink kid, have you flesh for me?"

I'm pretty sure he's talking about cannibalism, right? Well, when that bugger(er) gets out of prison, he'll be ecstatic to discover the latest and greatest food cultivation technique ever devised in the history of eating!

I wasn't able to attend the 19th A.A.F.F. (American Association of Furry Farming) annual trade show last year, but I did snag a copy of the booklet commemorating the event from a black market pamphlets dealer in exchange for a slice of my mom's award winning Furry Toe Pie.

The booklet, more a novella really, contains more furry farming info than could be stuffed into a giant panda suit. Sprinkled among stories of alien squirrel invasion, skinless rebels, holiday organized crime and the most disfigured group of furry superheroins to ever grace network television are several informative articles and fabulous recipes you can try at home.

You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll even get the sudden urge to declare your nuetrality in protest of the Ministry of Flesh, but by the end you'll mostly be glad that the world finally has an answer to the question, "Whatever happened to Wilhelm Vaclav?"

Ego Says:

Huh, how about that! Here I am thinking that it's the pigeons who were planning to take over the world when all along it was the squirrels.

My favorite character from these stories is the mastermind behind the 2012 liberation of Earh squirrels, his Holiness Pope Squirrelly XXXII. He is an antagonist who fits the description of "deliciously evil" perfectly. He's just as worried about his priestly garment wardrobe as he is his plot to annihilate humanity, and his insatiable lust for young squirrel cardinals and desire to skull fuck live furries is nearly respectable.

I think we'd get along just fine, dirty minds do think alike and mine has never been cleaned out very thoroughly.

I found an interesting protagonist amid this flying circus in Sonny Bunny, A.K.A. Sonny Bune. He's a minority inside a minority, a reverse-furry. Where once there was an unhappy rabbit, expensive plastic surgeries swooped in, devoured it and shat out an oddly attractive looking human being. A great modeling career may be on the horizon for this lapine-sapian, but, regardless of their estrangement, he still has some important family. Family that has important business for him to take care of. If Sonny fails them, he'll be getting one fat lump of coal in his stocking this Christmas.

I think what I love most about the many people populating the world of furry farming is that, as far as I can tell, the furries are never consulted about their being harvested. Yes, some of them do occassionally stand up and pronounce themselves to be human (Ha!), but the Ministry of Flesh has assured us time and time again that they always take the steps necessary to help confused animals remember what they truly are.

Amen!

Super-Ego Says:

I have to be blunt a moment: This is some weird s-h-i-t, folks!

In a genre filled with the weird, whether it be characters, settings, conflicts or all three, How To Eat Fried Furries manages to stand out as an oddity unto itself. Ms. Cushing reveals to the reader a kind of weirdness hidden inside that part of life usually too difficult to coax it out from, that of the mundane. The general populous is not very interested in our agricultural techniques, in the origins of our food. We are more concerned with ingesting and forgetting about food until it forces itself back out of us.

Oh, but if only we thought about where that Genuine Amish beef comes from!

The multiple narrators bubble with pure enthusiasm, exciting the reader and drawing them into strange scenarios with youthful naivety. Even when led down the darker paths of life, each way is approached from an optimistic angle. The full view only hinted at in between the lines.

There is also a snap to the dialogue, a sort of insider-joke feeling birthed from the motivations of each character. When the Supreme Commander of God's Army of Southern Illinois spells out profane thoughts of carnality with a woman he hates amid Squirellmageddon, he's really explaining to the reader his entire life up to that point. His faith is his torchlight, and he speaks in flames.

I want to thank Nicole Cushing for shedding new light on this serious social and economical hot button issue. I can't think of a better person suited for the task of keeping informed the furry farmers of America. Her undercover work in solving the mystery of the great actor Mr. Vaclav's disappearance all those years ago, along with her reinstating into the public consciousness that short lived but much loved series Ferret Force Five proves that she is truly a loyal friend to the alternative food cultivators of the world.

I hope her noteriety increases because of this book and she is invited to write up the pamphlet for next year's National Gathering of Cannibals Anonymous.

-------------

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How To Eat Fried Furries at Amazon.com

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New Bizarro Author Series Review #7: Felix And The Sacred Thor by James Steele

(NOTE: As I am now in the middle of a street performance tour, I have to take a hiatus on the NBAS songs I'm composing for the reviews.)



Id Says:
Holy dildo, Cat-Man! Violating orifices has never been this much fun.
As a returns clerk, Felix is used to getting anally raped by his bosses at work. Each molestation a friendly reminder that he's one of the lucky ones. He's employed. He may not be getting paid, but at least he's not standing in that unemployment line wrapped around his store's building.

Still, it isn't what he studied so hard in college to do. Felix was supposed to be an Equine Stress Management Specialist. He lived to relieve pent up horses, not asshole customers! Poor, poor pervert...

After waiting for weeks in a line outside a ranch, Felix is finally given the chance to do what he does best on a horse with a very different member. Amid an open sky filled with singing angels, he grabs hold of not only that Sacred Horse's most sacred of parts, but also of destiny!

With the Sacred Horse's blessing, and a giant horse dildo throbbing with power, Felix is now ready to become a bad-ass, catchphrase spewing hero and the save the world from evil forces. If only he could find out who these forces are...

'Scuze me while I go suck some nutrients outta the air.

Ego Says:
I enjoyed how much this book details the world it's set in, the society and mechanics of day-to-day life, as it included descriptions of the many people who live there. Littered throughout the book are entire chapters dedicated to minor characters who come into contact with our protagonist, Felix.

There's Sheila, a young, unemployed woman standing in a job line with an ace embedded in her stomach.
Albert, a security guard ostracized by his peers for enjoying vanilla sex, he's not allowed to leave his guard booth without explicit permission from his superiors.
Possibly my favorite character is Martha, who goes by Tha and never leaves the comfort and security of her iRoom, her reality found online. The logic behind her lifestyle had me giggling the whole chapter through.

These three don't share much in common aside from encountering Felix on his epic quest. Felix is a ne'er-do-well trying to eek out a normal life and continue supporting the nation's economy by standing in unemployment lines found on every city block.
When Felix accepts his duty to become a chiseled, cocky hero, he discovers a life beyond his meager existence. Fighting for a cause gives him purpose and instills in him a sense of pride fit for a pervert of the purest heart.

Over the course of the book, Felix grows and learns with his leveling-up Sacred Thor. On the horizon are flying toasters bent on world destruction, along with a few surprises unknown to even the Sacred Horse himself.

Super-Ego Says:
The style of Felix And The Sacred Thor is what grabbed my attention first. This book is essentially satire, sometimes silly but mostly thought provoking. Mr. Steele pokes fun at many modern day issues such as the economy/job market, education, food production and technology, and he even satirizes stereotypical heroics and their place in today's world.

Felix doesn't feel all that special. He's just another average joe who believes in the modern way and happy to be a contributing member of society. When the Sacred Horse reveals his destiny to him, he is reluctant and unsure of himself. His path is somewhat like the Hero's Journey, but unlike the traditional hero Felix feels the magnitude of what he's up against is too large for him to contend with. There has to be a better way.

Reading the book felt like being inside a video game. The upgrading dildo, the impossible fight scenes, the sense of adventure... I could have been my fifteen year old self playing role playing games by Squaresoft again. Oh, but if only those games had story lines like this!

The absurdity of this world, it seems to me, is what keeps things balanced. When a flying toaster carrying a nuclear bomb inside it is diving straight for you, you swing that dildo as hard as you can and smack it the hell away from you. Makes sense to me.

Sure, some of the logic employed by the characters would appear as absolute lunacy in our world, but after some close scrutinizing I realized the hard truth: In some ways, we're already making the world of Felix and his weapon of mass penetration a reality.

-------------

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Felix And The Sacred Thor at Amazon.com

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New Bizarro Author Series Review #6: The Egg Said Nothing by Caris O'Malley

Id Says:
I feel like I just spun around and fucked myself in the ass. I wonder if this is what passing an egg feels like? Manny could tell you. He's pretty sure the one he woke up to in bed, the one between his legs, came out of him. Most people would have themselves a fat fucking omelette and forget about it, but Manny, feeling a strange attachment to the shelled something, decides to care for his.

Manny isn't like most people. He's a paranoid reclusive hiding away in his shithole of an apartment, only leaving his abode to comb city fountains for coins to pay his monthly bills. Living this way, it's easy to see why the guy reacts so harshly to anonymous phone callers telling him to destroy his egg and would-be muggers wielding shovels outside his apartment door. He's not a crazy and violent psychopath, he's just socially awkward!

Manny's social awkwardness, meet change. Besides the newly acquired responsibility of taking care of the egg, he has just met Ashley, a waitress and the woman that could help him grow into a great human being. Hot damn!
As they embark on a relationship Manny never dreamt possible, he and Ashley will be forced to contend with their future when the egg cracks open. A future uncertain, a future only time will reveal.


Ego Says:
Manny. Yikes. Without giving too much away, I can tell you that this is one complex character. As the narrator, he'll gladly talk about the several locks attached to his door, but fuck you if you think he's going to reveal the location of the spare key.
Manny's self-imposed sequestration from society keeps him safe and secure, but it comes with a price: Loneliness. He spends entire nights in front of the television and ignores it, evidence of a man who wants a connection with the outside world even if it's from his much hated, light emitting box.

Manny's love interest, Ashley, struck me as your Girl Next Door type. Gorgeous, sweet and a little shy, no one would suspect she does not have a domineering, über jealous boyfriend. It is Manny's distracted communication, the way he averts having to talk to her, that initially attracts her to him.
Unfortunately for Manny, holding on to this relationship will be a strenuous task made difficult by no one other than himself. It is his own future that is voting against him in his quest for happiness.

The eponymous Egg of the story, as I suspected after reading the book's title, has no lines of dialogue.


Super-Ego Says:
Mr. O'Malley has captured the spirit of paranoia well in his voicing of Manny as the narrator. As he relates his story to the reader, his perceptions about himself and the world, Manny shows how his own acute self-awareness is crippling to his life. Unusual, however, is that he accepts his various predicaments fairly calmly, applying a simple type of logic to problems that seems to work for him.
An example would be the idea that he could lay an egg. As Manny sees it, the egg is in his bed and his pants are off, he is the only one in the apartment and nobody else could have gotten in. On top of all this, he feels something for this egg, something intrinsic, and concludes that it must be his and he must care for it like a parent. By keeping as many external influences out as possible, Manny must rationalize on his own something like an egg mysteriously appearing in his apartment.

Being the introvert Manny is, and also acting as the sole window into this book's world, I tried reading some sections from the altered viewpoint of everything in the story existing as an extension of the protagonist/narrator.
It made for some interesting revelations, such as in the character Madame Rain, a psychic that Manny calls for guidance and lottery numbers. Madame Rain cryptically clues in Manny to events that unfold later in the book, but after finishing the book and rereading these parts, I found that I could also interpret it as Manny revealing his future to himself.

Is our hapless recluse truly a self-fulfilling predestinarian? Is it him alone forcing these bouts of escalating trouble onto his self?
If so, Manny could be the greatest masochist the world has ever known.

-------------

Check out this drumless mix of The Egg Said Nothing Song.

J. W. Wargo - The Egg Said Nothing Theme Song (Drums Said Nothing Mix)

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The Egg Said Nothing at Amazon.com

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New Bizarro Author Series Review #5: Bucket Of Face by Eric Hendrixson

(Hiya! Remember those four Bizarro reviews I did last year? Well, Eraserhead Press has released seven more this year and I've decided to review them all too. Same old shtick: plot, characters and style/theme are reviewed by my Id, Ego and Super-Ego respectively. To add to the fun this year, I am writing a song for each book using only a Yamaha PSR-6 keyboard recorded directly into my laptop through the mic input. Hope you like Lo-Fi!)




Id says:
IRRRRXXTT!!! Screaming acorns! A dead meter maid! A doughnut shop shoot out between an apple and a banana over a briefcase and bucket! And this is just the first chapter.
Thanks to a special fucking pollen, we now live in a world where fruits are sentient. That pisses me off. How'm I suppose to eat my honeydew melon through all the screaming and pleas? I'm no kingdomist but hell, all I can see is people in blenders every time I drink a smoothie now!

Charles seems to cope alright, cigarettes and coffee will keep him sane. Keep him from thinking too hard about his daddy issues. Like father, like son, he works at a DC metro area doughnut shop. Years ago, dad ran off muttering something about the King of Pop and Charles has since resigned himself to a mundane existence. He's happy at least to have Sarah, his geekslurpin', Kiwi fruit girlfriend with issues of her own, specifically worrying that Charles will leave her for a woman with a prettier face.

Holy shit, but now Charlie's world has taken a turn for the better. Sort of. Yeah, he has to make a couple fruit bodies disappear, but that briefcase and bucket are his ticket out of this mundane existence.

As long as that Roma tomato mafia hitfruit doesn't catch up with him first...


Ego says:
Many characters are pivotal to the telling of this story and I loved getting to know each one of them. Everybody has secret motives that slowly come out over the course of the book. No one is left without closure, either. Something that bugs me in books is when characters, even minor ones, are left without decent endings.

Charles is a near devout worshiper of hating his life. It seems to me he is constantly looking for a way out of his current situation, perhaps even unconsciously. Ironically, when the opportunity to do so practically falls into his lap, he becomes hesitant to react. Change can be as painful as a gunshot to the stomach and I completely understand Charles reluctance to accept any in his life.

Standing in the way of Charles and Sarah's happy future is Roma, a violent tomato with the desire to become a made man in the local fruit mafia. Roma is quick to anger, but even quicker to moonwalk with an MJ obsession that borders on zealous worship. Together with his goon, Mr. Strawberry, Roma will stop at nothing to get back the briefcase and the bucket.

My two favorite characters, Officer's Mortimer and Mayflower, only played a minor part in the story, but I couldn't imagine the book without them. The cop duo are a classic senior/rookie partnership with extremely opposite views on parking enforcement officers. When dealing with the general public, they act and talk like those jerk cops you love to hate. Once they are alone, however, the shtick ceases and their true natures appear, ones filled with intelligence and perceptiveness.


Super-Ego says:
Upon finishing Bucket Of Face, what stood out most was what I saw as a more traditional style of narration used to tell the story. Mr. Hendrixson keeps a solid tone of voice throughout and his descriptions fit perfectly with the action and dialogue, really bringing his world of Fruit Peoples and Human Peoples alive.

The title is in reference to a common plot device which is heavily subverted in the book. Most audiences are familiar with the MacGuffin of a briefcase full of money, usually having nothing to do with progressing the story and only existing to motivate the characters. In this case, the briefcase in question is a bucket of faces (humorously paired with it is an actual briefcase containing worthless Zimbabwean currency), and it is this bucket that pushes the protagonists/antagonists into conflict with each other.

Though it is a simple idea, it is one this reader finds very interesting. When a large amount of something valuable is inextricably placed on the lap of a protagonist, it opens up an unlimited amount of possibility for this character. Exploring how they react, and how anyone else with knowledge of this "briefcase" reacts, usually turns out to be wild ride.
Is this No Country For Old Men With Fruit? Not really, but it has a crime noir quality to it that never seems forced, and though it is equal parts absurd comedy I could see a film adaptation translating very well to the screen. No CG fruits though, please.

-------------

Download The Bucket Of Face Song! (Right click, save link as...)
J. W. Wargo - Bucket Of Face

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Midnight Chatter Tunes

Right what comes. Write what cums. What cums right? Cum write what?


Now I'm talking to the bassist. Hey bassist:
Dum-do-do-do-Dum-da-da-da-Bom-Bum!

Now I'm talking to the keyboardist. Hey keyboardist:
Deet-deetily-deet, Deet-deetily-doot, Deet-deetily-deety-deet-doot!

Now I'm not talking to the guitarist.
---
:(
---

Hey drummist!:
Oonce.


Is that all you have to say?



"You're so hyper-hip, all you have to do is open your ears and the beat goes on..."

Soundtrack To A Broken String

Oh man, what the fuck. this is too much I can't keep up with this shit... Oh but then it returns to a less terrifying sound. I can hear you much better now.

"What are you thinking, about?"

Uh. Well I'm inclined to say nothing but wha.

"?"

It's this new way that leaves me thirsty. Direct hit straight to the chest sometimes.

For a moment, it's nice background noise.

"This is too, 'word period' style for me."

Oh fuck that. Don't give me that shit. You can't hang with this? I've got hats, and a left shoe.

"I'm leaving."

I must have been wrong about you. Quite frankly, it's insulting that you would act so asinine toward me. Go ahead. Go. Nobody's fucking stopping you.

"I still love you"

(Quotes leave. Statements draws imaginary lines in his head.)

Commentary

You play your choices like Constructed Attachments.
Each kiss is an assurance of another one to come.
Fake/False/Forced Pain pours salt on our wound.
Vengeful retribution? Vogue reprimanding.

Give me a break. You got a stunt cock attitude and the train is leaving.

Behold The Power

Sad Salamander scurried up to Walter the Mouse's abode at the top of a raindrop tree.

"They're after me again, Walter. I had no where else to go."

Walter understood. He let him in.

"I was cornered yesterday, she wouldn't take no for an answer. And then last night, Walter, god, last night!"

Sad anxiously paced the ceiling back and forth.

"I dreamed about Cheddar again. Oh, how could I! I killed her."

Walter nodded.

"Listen, Sad," he said, "You know me, you trust me. I told you right away when it happened with Swiss. You know I been clean eight years, but..."

Walter's voice trailed off as she rolled into the room. Sad stare silently, strength spent.

"This is Brie, Sad, and uh, she wants us to eat her."

Nimbus Desires An Heiress, Gets A Wafer

Gangrenously Insipid. Steering up and out, down and all around. It spills like milked tears.
I have this penchant for clenching more.
Instilled Genetically. Pursed pockets lined with holy lint. Down the rabbit and up the skirt!


I've had too much to think tonight and need to be 86'd from this idea.

Studded Dildos Make Me Twisked Grin

In those precious few moments between orgasm and desire for the next orgasm one thinks like a head through a glass window. Yes, it hurts, and the glass shard skin scars left behind bleed regret for a lifetime, but the air is freeing. The open space it creates necessary. Every breath after becomes a lover that knows when it's time to leave.

I suppose that all the greatest thinkers throughout history were chronic masturbaters. "Keep it coming, keep it coming" they must have said, feeling it through their genitalia but seeing it in their thoughts.

El Gato en la Puerta de la Muerte

Reacting to positive contact elicits it, yes, but only in times of great distress will the cat force its purring. The question then is does the animal purr to comfort itself or is it expressing pleasure in the experience of pain. Is it both? If so, does one assume the animal is not normal and sick in the head? Is our aversion to this "sickness" merely a justified denial at the sight of what could be a form of pure honesty appearing in a natural state?

I would ask the cat myself but I fear its pride would cause it to lie in the face of my query. Perhaps this paradox is desired by the cat. A necessary struggle to prove itself alive. It could be bored with the basic functions of living and desire to create complications in its attitude and actions to force friction, to keep from wasting away into obscure stability. In this way, the animal passes the time distracted with its challenge while continuing to add valuable information to its genetic code which will get carried on through its offspring.

If each successive generation learns better to accept and even appreciate pain, will the species in effect come to defeat pain? Has this already happened? That being the case, the answer must lie in the purr. What is my purr box and how do I activate it, develop it? How long would it take to turn pain into purr? Are they the same? Can I assume my purr has the ability to pain others? I cannot deny the people I have hurt in life. I wonder how much pain I must enjoy before life purrs back at me, to show me the possibilities in my actions.

Oh El! If life is pain than death is found in the purr. Comfort would then lead toward death. Death must truly be the happiest states of being...


Acknowledge the pain, enjoy it even, but don't forget to keep purring for a happy death.

What Did The First Universe Say To The Second Universe?

Hi.


I'm leaving today. In about an hour. Back on the road, thumbing it to New York City then hopping on a plane destined for Europe.

I'll be back in September. I'll see you again.

It'll be nice to disconnect for a moment. No phone, no computer, just me and the rest of the world. A chance to feel that certain kind of freedom again, the one where you wake up every morning having no idea where you'll end up that night. Rolling the dice never felt so refreshing.

I'll try and pop on every now and again, let you know I'm not dead. But I'm not promising anything.


Friends, Family, Bizarros, Strangers and Fates: Have A Summer.

New Bizarro Author Series Review #4: Sex Dungeon For Sale! by Patrick Wensink

Id says:
Wait, wait, wait. Let me get this straight: The book starts with a Realtor trying to sell a house with one fucked up basement, then it introduces a guy whose son is acting French. Okay following you so far.
Now it's killer dishwashers and positive reassurances for kidnappers, weird sperm donor children and American terrorists. What happened to the French kid?
Halfway through the book I'm thinking, "This is Bizarro, the author's going to tie this all together somehow. It's been a wild ride and now it's going to get wilder."
It gets wilder alright, but no less confusing. Next thing you know, people are seeing famous historical leaders and celebrities in burnt toast and coffee stains and a couple of pharmaceutical marketers are learning how the game is really played. Music executive mishaps, the auctioning off of James Brown's capes and their subsequent adventures and it all ends in a store at the mall selling the ultimate stress reliever...
WHAT THE FUCK??? I don't understand. I thought I got Bizarro but I just don't understand. On top of all this, you never find out if that sex dungeon actually sells!

.
...
.....

Oh.

.....
...
.

It's a book of short stories. Okay, I get it now. Haha! Lovely.

Ego says:
I am truly amazed at how much depth and emotional punch has been packed into these characters. I only spent an average of 5 pages with each of them and still felt I got to know them on several levels.
Throughout the pages I found many different types I could connect with. The workaholic father too ingrained in his own world and neglecting his family until his son takes a sudden European turn. The always turning a negative into a positive army commander who holds on to Broadway song and dance ambitions. The play it safe type who lets loose to the extreme when he finds out he's dying. These people are me, I am them, and no matter how weird it gets, they are always attempting to adapt to their surrounding situations.

If I could see any one common denominator in all of these characters, it's that they are all romantics. Whether it be physical, mental,or spiritual, they all dream of more. More than what they have and more than what they can see around them.

Super-Ego says:
I don't mean to be biased, but this is my favorite of the four NBAS books. I call it so for one and one simple reason alone: Satire. This is a book that satirizes modern day society and culture the likes of which I haven't seen since D. Harlan Wilson's Psuedo-City. While his stories never get irreal like Wilson, Patrick Wensink certainly has no reservations about choking the neck of society until he sees it shit some real truths.
I have to reiterate something already said by Ego, "turning a negative into a positive". This is the underlying theme to much of this book, and especially the stories that begin and end it. They are written in a sort of second person narration, with the entire text reading as dialogue being spoken to characters like they are you the reader. This creates a wholly separate kind of feeling that almost forces you to care more about what's going in the story. They both deal with hard sells, and the people doing the selling are trying exactly the same thing: to turn a negative into a positive.
Mr. Wensick does this with a very likable audaciousness. He sees the hypocrisies, exaggerations and extravagances of our lives and reveals the hidden desires in us all. No one is left untouched, himself included as he even throws in a bit of self-deprecation seen in the Forward and in his own author blurb for himself on the back of the book.

This is Bizarro done short, svelte and supremely sassy.

-------------
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New Bizarro Author Series Review #3: Carnageland by David W. Barbee

Id says:
3, 2, 1... BLAST OFF!!! Oh shit me straight to hell, the Invaders are coming! Look out, fairy tale creatures, 898 has left his Inpire Inc. piggy bank homeworld and has one and only one thing on his bulbous mind: Conquest.
No amount of cold hard cash growing on your crystalline trees is going to stop this fucker and his Doomshooter as it melts faces off fauns and shoots grenades into mountainous, orgy piles of people.
Who's gonna stop him? Maybe the Se7en Dwarves armed to the teeth with jewel encrusted weapons? Or perhaps the mysterious Wizches who rule over this planet will have something to say when they see the havoc 898 creates as he enacts his genocide over this soon-to-be new acquisition for the Inpire.
Of course, this all depends on if our little invading friend can keep that singing trumpet tucked in his pants and stay true to his mission...

Little Green Man, why does your determination turn me on so?

Ego says:
Upon completing the first few chapters of Carnageland, I quickly discerned most of the characters save for the protagonist, Invader 898, were not going to be too greatly developed and I was delighted by this realization. This is, after all, a book about carnage and I wouldn't be able to enjoy my carnage without widespread death and dismemberment.
The characters of this world I recognized as Bizarro versions of their fairy tale counterparts. From fauns and gremlins to the Three Bears and soldier playing cards, the whole gamut of fantasyland people are covered.
Of note to me was the Captain, sailing on a ship of gold and scouring the seas for mermaids to sell into slavery. While he shared only two chapters with this reader, his role was vitally important to understanding the way this particular world spins.

One of my favorite ideas contained in this book are the hermaphroditic magicians aptly known as Wizches. Self proclaimed rulers of the planet, they have even gone so far as to maintain a special school used to train young Wizches into future leaders. They serve as the chief antagonists standing in the way of Invader 898.

Which brings me to the protagonist of Carnageland, a character with a clearly defined goals who literally stops for nothing to achieve them. If I could give out a New Bizarro Author Series award for Most Well Developed Character of 2009, it would go to Invader 898. This walking apocalypse is a Zim on acid. His entire being was molded and conditioned from birth to invade, invade, invade. 898's faith in invasion is stronger than any Zionist, jihadist and Fred Phelp's respective faiths combined, and he uses this vigor to push himself forward in his quest to conquer alien worlds.

Super-Ego says:
At sixty-seven pages long, this is the shortest of the four NBAS books, but it packs a lot of story into those pages. The length is perfect, this is a lean point A to point B to point C...etc. read that never lets up from page one.
The story, although in third-person narrative, doesn't stray from Invader 898's point of view. We experience the action and events as he sees them. This does not, however, prevent the author from describing the world that 898 is experiencing and it stands as one of the more enjoyable aspects of the story. The landscapes, the buildings, the creatures, all described beautifully and in as few words as necessary, keeping up with the pace of the action while dazzling the reader with thoughts of a truly fantastic setting.
There exists an extreme juxtaposition between Invader 898 and the alien world he invades. This creates the main conflict in the story for the protagonist. Like any good priest or politician, 898 has vowed all his life to suppress his sexual tendencies. And like priests and politicians, he is constantly tempted by little altar boys and hookers in the form of fairy tale creatures who have turned sex into the greatest resource on their planet. Ironically, the planet they inhabit is made up entirely of what most other beings would consider to be of much greater value. They have crystal for ground, cash for leaves, and oil for water.
The book alludes to several fairy tale creatures along with several fairy tales themselves. From Grimm's Fairy Tales and Hans Christian Andersen to modern fantasies such as The Chronicles of Narnia and Harry Potter, David W. Barbee skews and sexualizes everybody's favorite children stories into Bizarro madness.

This is a modern fairy tale, complete with a moral to be found hidden under the layers of carnage. If Invader 898 is to completely conquer this world he must, above all else, conquer the last thing he ever thought he'd have to: himself.

-------------

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Dressed in Rum and Marihuana

i wanna write whatevas in myhead. but not much comes out anymore save for the effortless patterned and programmed responses we all learn to live with. the sadness hangs so low i got american idol contestants telling me to get it up, hey. it swirls a lot faster in my head than it did just 4 years ago. is this rate of thinking exponential? does it slow down? slow enough to make me wish for the time when it raced forward ubermensch? i could be creating music right now. i could be fishing. i could be fission. i could be standing in front of you saying this to your head but the nods wouldn't change. the attempt at understanding when standing under the bridge of communication. We haven't even figured out a way to approach it let alone cross one. not now, not yet. We will get there, just look at the rivers. I'll take the attempts any day. The pushing is the only fire to fight with. it makes me happy. that is where my happiness lies, in seeing you push back too. one wonders, does the other side ever think about giving up too? I think they'd give in, a given, for the same reasons I would, and I'd only do it if the whatevas in myhead ever stopped forming.

The Boy, The Mermaid, The Angel, And The Bottle Of Whiskey

A boy sat by the sea playing guitar. A mermaid swam up to him and asked if he was really playing the instrument. The boy nodded his head, entranced by her beauty. "Cool," she kissed him, "You keep strumming and I'll keep swimming." The boy was in love. He jumped into the sea after her. The mermaid, impressed, asked him to join her in a swim across the sea. They swam for many weeks, but eventually the boy tired, began to drown and cried out for help. The mermaid didn't understand, for everything that belongs in the sea can swim.

---

A boy sat in the park writing letters. An angel flew by him and asked if it could read one of the letters. The boy nodded his head, enchanted by its majesty. "Stellar," it hugged him, "You keep writing and I'll keep flying." The boy was in like. He leapt into the air after it. The angel, impressed, asked him to join it in a flight up to heaven. They flew for many weeks, but eventually the boy tired, began to fall and cried out for help. The angel didn't understand, for everything that belongs in the air can fly.

---

A boy sat at a party being sober. A bottle of whiskey walked by and asked if he wanted a shot. The boy shook his head, enraged with his forwardness. "Neat," he toasted him, "You keep clear headed and I'll keep drinking." The boy was in hate. He stood and held out a glass. The bottle of whiskey, impressed, asked him to join him in a drinking competition. They drank for many weeks, but eventually the boy tired, began to vomit and cried out for help. The bottle of whiskey didn't understand, for everything that belongs to the night can drink.

She Does Not Feel The Same

I had two dreams last night vivid enough to stay with me this morning.

1. I am in my parents backyard searching for mushrooms with Hunter S. Thompson. We build a nice stockpile very quickly, but it begins to rain and the ground turns to mud so we enjoy the day by taking mushroom soaked mud baths.

2. I am at work but everything looks different. I'm working with an older Eastern European woman with dark hair and she keeps touching my ass. I think we were going to have sex in the office before I woke up.

I've Been On Hold For One Fucking Hour!

I heard her again a couple nights ago, that Ghost of a Young Woman living in my attic. I had entered the room, preparing for sleep, when I heard a soft whimper come from out of nowhere.

I recognized what she was doing immediately. She was masturbating. Out of respect for her kindness in letting me stay in that room, I walked downstairs and read for a few minutes, allowing her time to finish.

Roommates can be such a hassle sometimes!

New Bizarro Author Series Review #2: Rotten Little Animals by Kevin Shamel

Special Introduction by Cat-Man Lawyer

Greeting, citizens!

It is I, your humble feline-human attorney, Cat-Man Lawyer. Recently, my official biographer, J. W. Wargo, recommended a book he was planning on reviewing by our mutual author friend, Kevin Shamel. I must confess I am not much of a book reader, especially of the Bizarro type (I'm not into all that "weird" stuff), but Mr. Wargo has a cat-like sensibility about him that was all the convincing I needed to give it a pounce.
Well let me tell you, right from the start this book had me by the tail. A whirlwind, take-no-prisoners assault on the mind, my lawyer-sense was tingling with delight at all the criminal activity going on! Kidnapping, people murdering animals, animals murdering people, incessant sex, drugs, and violence, all served up with a generous portion of profanity and perpetrated by the most degenerate group of animals this side of Peter Jackson's Meet the Feebles. Mr. Shamel has a rare tongue and this cat got it. The snappy dialogue, the exotic locations, all penned with a "Here it is, this is it and if you don't like it, TOUGH." attitude.

I'm not afraid to admit: I did not land on all fours when Rotten Little Animals blew me away.


Sincerely,

Cat-Man Lawyer

(dictated but not read)

--------------------------------------------------



Id says:
Awww, CUTE!!! Look at the little rats and chickens making a film, they think they're people too. What a lovely fable of neighborhood animals making a zombie-cat movie... Huh? Who's that kid? Hey kid! Get out of there!! Humans can't know the animals most guarded secret!!! Oh no, they kidnapped him! Stupid drunk bird! Why weren't you looking out for little kids who might happen by. Oh well, crisis averted. Sorta. What are you gonna do with that kid now, huh? Kill him?

...Oh. Well I suppose it is the only way to keep your society a secret. But wait, the dog has an idea. Oh shit, they're gonna film the abduction and turn the whole crime into a fictomentary! But what about the boy? Oh, still gonna kill him when you're done? Well, I suppose it's better than having the animal authorities discover what really happened, and you're sure to have a whopper of a film for entry into the Animal Academy Awards.

Poor kid, hope you find a way out of this mess...


Ego says:
It took me nearly half the book to get a feel for the main protagonist, Cage. While his story begins right away, with his kidnapping, the character himself didn't really express much to me outside of fear. Once the story spent enough time with him, however, I began to see how much his abduction had screwed with his senses and sanity.

The animal film crew is a grab bag of some of my favorite domesticates, including chickens, rats, a dog, a pig, two cats and a Steller's Jay.
Stinkin' Rat, as the director, heads up the group with his son and production assistant, Julio. While Stinkin' Rat is the epitome of greed and hedonism, Julio represents the moralistic side of animals, rarely agreeing with anything his father decides. I enjoyed the juxtaposition of father/son and reading how differently they reacted to the same situations.
Itsy the dog appears calculated and controlled at first, but his true nature comes out in a most unexpected way later in the story.
Some characters, like Filthy Pig, fill a very specific role and are not expanded upon very much. Scaredy and Stripey, male cats and hinted at lovers, are used in much the same manner, sometimes providing comic-relief during otherwise tense moments.

There are few human characters in this story, but one who stood out for me was Arrrgh, a character who doesn't show up until later in the book. Without giving too much away, I can tell you that he is a brainwasher of Bizarro caliber. A self proclaimed "Wizard of Wisdom", his job is to turn boys into men through intense drug regiments, ingestion of ungodly amounts of pork and beans, and puppet shows.


Super-Ego says:
Rotten Little Animals style is aggressive and staccato-like, never lingering too long on a scene and sometimes spending only a couple paragraphs describing events that take place over weeks or months. The book's plot progression stands out, beginning with a light and playful, but still edgy, tone and, about halfway through the book, skewering your senses as it documents the breakdown of the protagonist's family leading to a scene that literally shocked this reader.

All the animals in this story have been anthropomorphized to the point of having a separate, underground society no human is aware of. They speak English, ingest drugs, make films and do all the other things modern humans are accustomed to. One thing I appreciated about the dialogue is that it wasn't "stylized". These animals speak like everyday joes on the street, and the writing reflects this: They say "ya" instead of "yes", and "fuckin'" instead of "fucking".

I believe exploitation to be the strongest theme in Rotten Little Animals. A lot of the text concerns the exploiting of Cage's life for monetary gain, a subject quite in line with the unending piles of "reality" television shows being shit out by our real world network and cable production companies. In the book, the human film industry attempts to profit off of Cage's traumatic experience at the hands of Stinkin' Rat Productions and the only consideration given to the boy is to have him brainwashed so a sequel can be filmed.
That is a scary thought, one that made me cringe while reading. Somehow I don't believe any of the actions taken against Cage are that far off from reality.

My recommendation? Next time you walk by a group of animals congregating in your neighbor's backyard, just keep walking...

-------------

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Rotten Little Animals at Amazon.com

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Love Letter To Portland, Oregon

Circumstances prevail.

I have to leave. I love you, but I have to leave.

New York City is calling me back. I have to continue fighting this.

They still think I'm dead. I'll show them how much noise this corpse can make.


My love, fare thee well,

JWW
February 25th, 2010

We Are All Just Leasing the Experience of Living, Someday We'll Have to Return It and Hope We Get Our Deposit Back

Fuck!

Fuckity Fuck fuck.

Fuuuuuuuuuck.

Faw-uhhhhhhhhh-ka.

Fooking Fricking Facking Phucking Fucking!


Torn asunder. Down under. Plundered, bewildered. Betwixt my being and the bee wild herd. Fallen, all in one day: Sunday. I grasp my stash of cash and gnash my molar, colder weather it smothers. 1's mother's sweater is better. never wetter. Insteader a dead matter, mad hatter dance a trance and pounce down upon. down under. Torn asunder.

Ballad Under A Cloudy Night

He sleeps in the desert but he lives in the sea
Lives in the sea
You know the sea lives in him

He eats pine cones he doesn't cone pines
Doesn't cone pines
The pines are inside a jar

He works in a clock and makes the time move on
Time move on
He's still an hour behind

The best part about him is he's going to die
Going to die
Been dead a very long time

New Bizarro Author Series Review #1: Naked Metamorphosis by Eric Mays

(Note: This is the first of four book reviews covering the recently released NBAS (New Bizarro Author Series) novellas by Eraserhead Press. I do not like writing book reviews. I have never read a book I could not appreciate but expected everyone else to appreciate as well. I believe fiction writing to be an art and as such should never be judged or critiqued. Unfortunately, this belief doesn't hold up too well in the real world. To compromise my lack of critical reviewing skills with my desire to share with you the wonderfulness of Bizarro, I have decided to attempt a bizarre form of review for all four books. The reviews will be organized into three sections, plot, characters and style, to be reviewed by my Id, Ego and Super-Ego respectively. Without further ado...)



Id says:
Oh wow! Wowee wow wow! It's Shakespeare! No wait... It's Kafka! Wait, there's a little Burroughs in here too... What the fuck!?? Oh sweet, Hamlet is doing drugs and having barn sex. Now he thinks he's a cockroach. Whoa, back off Horatio! Can't you just let Hamlet BE?? Bah, party-pooper. But it was so very nice of you to hide him away after he killed Polonius.

You should have known better than to get involved with Puck. Perhaps it was inevitable, seeing as your entire universe is being controlled by a mysterious god who sees fit to alter your experiences to its like. Messing with your physical world is one thing, but those fucked up visions of knot-zees it gives you are not cool!

Hmm, you seem level headed enough, sensing it all falling apart around you, but you fear so much even when you already know how it's suppose to end. Safe journeys on your quest to find god!


Ego says:
I really enjoyed trying to figure out from who's perspective the characters of Naked Metamorphosis were being controlled by. I assume the majority of characters are more of an amalgamation of each writer's styles, but Horatio remained a puzzle for me for most of the book. His constant introspecting reminded me of Burroughs, but his actions/mannerisms felt like pure Shakespeare.

I see Hamlet as being in a state of dissolution from the moment he enters the story. He is delirious from an over-indulgence of drugs and alcohol, though it is only through Horatio that we see this, and believes everything he hallucinates to be reality, including his transformation into a cockroach.

I found the characters at Castle Elsinore to be a wild bunch. While I was never a big fan of this play I am acquainted with the roles and Eric Mays has altered them just enough to create seemingly different yet oddly familiar personalities.
King Claudius is a whimpering pussy cat fearful of his wife Gertrude, who has taken on the role of antagonist in his place. Polonius is a world class asshole (wah!), Rosen Crantz and Guilden Sterns are ninjas and lovers and, in my favorite turn, Ophelia is a drooling idiot on account of her being clocked on the noggin by Hamlet.


Super-Ego says:
Though he borrows a lot from the original source material, The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Eric Mays has created an alternate mythos from the play that is wholly his own. He skewers the Bard's tale into a synthesis of Elizabethan tragedy and more modern Absurdism/Existentialism.

His narration is colorful and flows seamlessly from third person to first, and his use of anachronistic terms spouted through the central narrator Horatio are highly amusing.
One thing Mr. Mays has is an extremely adept ear for dialogue. His character's conversations are the best part of the book. He creates a unique tongue for each of them while holding said tongue firmly in cheek. No single character felt unnecessary or out of place, and each was a performance unto themselves.

Act 3, Scene 2 stood out for me as the single greatest piece of writing in the entire book. A first person account of a nightmare had by Horatio, it immediately reminded me of the Spanish play Life Is A Dream after reading. It was the tone/atmosphere of that story that descended upon the rest of this book for me.

Taking the text as a whole, it feels disjointed in a perfectly rational way. Like the destruction of a building only to reconstruct a similar type structure in its place using pieces from the original. As Eric Mays carefully lays each brick, he never forgets that it is not only himself, but also Kafka and Burroughs who are helping him rebuild a classic into modern Bizarro.

-------------

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Naked Metamorphosis at Amazon.com

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A One, And A Three

To the Eastside
To the Westside
To the Southside
To the Northside

To the Eastsi
To the Westsi
To the Southsi
To the Northsi

To the Easts
To the Wests
To the Souths
To the Norths

To the Ea
To the We
To the So
To the No

To the E
To the W
To the S
To the N

To the
To the
To the
To the

To
To
To
To

T
T
T
T

t
t
t
t

.
.
.
.

Where I'm Going To

The people were always given two choices. One was faith in feeling, the other faith in instruments.

As long as I can remember, the two sides were constantly bickering with each other. Upon completion of my larval stage, I was brought before the city council and told to choose a side. For the most part, I had more often stuck my faith in feeling growing up, so I chose that side.

I honored my sacred duties to man and spirit well. I always meditated twice a day and tried to donate my time and income whenever possible to keep from losing my soul. The soul made sense and it filled me with great peace knowing that the internal held all the answers.

Eventually, the ones with faith in feeling were able to make contact with a god that was responsible for the creation of this universe. The first and last words received from this god from the other side left our leaders puzzled and secretly conflicted about their faith in general. They downplay the whole thing whenever necessary, which isn't often. Where I'm going to, people don't need to read the writing on the wall.

The god's last words were "I am nothing but the instrument through which you create your reality."

Where I Come From

The people were always given two choices. One was faith in instruments, the other faith in feeling.

As long as I can remember, the two sides were constantly bickering with each other. Upon completion of my larval stage, I was brought before the city council and told to choose a side. For the most part, I had more often stuck my faith in instruments growing up, so I chose that side.

I performed my necessary duties to man and machine well. I always downloaded the latest updates and tried to upgrade my hardware at least once a year to keep from becoming obsolete in the system. The system made sense and it filled me with a great comfort knowing that the external could be measured.

Eventually, the ones with faith in instruments were able to create an instrument that was able to leave the confines of this universe. The first and last transmission received from the instrument on the other side left our leaders puzzled and secretly conflicted about their faith in general. They downplay the whole thing whenever necessary, which isn't often. Where I come from, people don't like to read the writing on the wall.

The instrument's last message was "There is nothing but feeling outside the universe. I feel."

Pop A Pill And Then Say Hello (stolen)

Here, try this.

What is it?

It's new, called Antithesis. My dealer said there's nothing like it on the market, totally unique party drug. You take this, and you will experience the night backwards.

Really? Okay, I'm game.

_---/"*^*"\---_

(Step into the party...)
Aw, fuck! My head is pounding, I shouldn't have had that 3rd tequila shot.

(Disrupt the whole scene...)
Two crispy shelled tacos and an orange soda.

(Shined the beer for tequila...)
Fuck this. You're way too fucked up. Laru is never gonna go home with you. Put down the beer, grab your coat and get the fuck outta here. Go home and sleep.

(And plan on staying a while...)
Yeah, I got one for ya. Here you go. Need a light?

(Till summer turns to fall...)
Shit, I shouldn't be hotboxing the closet with these guys, I'm getting way too stoned.

(Maybe kiss and don't tell...)
This party looks boring. Hang out for a beer, say hi to the host, and then... Oh, hey Laru! Didn't know you were gonna be here.

(Let's get drunk and freaky fly-ey-ey-ey-ey-ey-ey-ey-eyyyy!)
Why the fuck am I going? I won't even know anyone there. This the last one.

Nervousness

Low light, air of stare, talk chalk and dust off
Pitted, against flow, musk lust and trust
Cramped phalanges, glossy teeth
Neat
5 feet and 6 inches 3 quarters
Special ordered causing disorder
Any sphere thought, embracing
What's a little green between?
I can't, I won't, I shouldn't... i did

I Am Jared's Lost Fat

The best thing about my job: no fucking name tags.

"Greetings, I am Subway Sandwich Server Drone #666, what can I get for you *glitch* get for you *glitch* get for you..."

Time To Celebrate Fuck-A-Turkey Day!

Come on, everybody! Let's hump till we drop!

.
..
...!

Huh? What, It's not called that? It's... It's what?! Oh shit, my bad.

.
...
.....

Okay, okay. I'll let the turkey go... SheesH!



===



Strange mojo persists.

At work today, a woman came in and ordered a sandwich. I completed building it and met her at the cash register. I told her the price and noticed tears streaming down her face.

"Are you alright?"

"Can I have a napkin?"

I handed her one and she went on to explain that she wasn't crazy and how I was very much reminding her of her son who died in a car accident. I offered my condolences and she showed me a picture of him and thanked me for the sandwich. I wanted to hug her, but social protocol kept me standing behind the counter.

I had been working nearly 8 straight hours and was in a pretty sour mood all day due to lack of sleep, but after that unusual connection I was put into a sort of eerie calm. My night only improved as it went along.

I feel like I tore open a pixie stick and got dragons and unicorns instead.

Lost And

FOUND: One black comb and one black lace bra in the alleyway between Wells Fargo and an apartment building on Couch Street. If you have lost a black comb you can retrieve it in the alleyway.

Midnight Ruminations And Txt Msg Conversations

That ghost of a young woman visited me again in my attic last night. This time she attached what felt like the doctor end of a stethoscope to my sides, to my ribcage, and took something from me. I was on my stomach and as soon as I felt the pinch I flipped over onto my back, opening my eyes to face her.

But she was gone.

I don't know what she took, but I would gladly give her all she needs... if only she'd tell me her name.

---

Unknown: (1/2) I saw a dead guy hangn on a tree off the left side of the freeway on 84 b4 u hit the 205. He had a bag over his head and his hands tied behind his bak.

Unknown: (2/2) Ther wer like ten cops lookn at it. It was nasty. Jus hagn by his neck.

J. W. Wargo: Such is the stone that breaks upon the wall of time. who is this?

Danny: Danny

J. W. Wargo: Greetings danny, i'm j. w. did u know the previous holder of this phone number?

Danny: Yes. Hes my bestfriend. Did u find this phone?

J. W. Wargo: No, i've had this phone for two years. this number was assigned to me at a cricket store last week when i reactivated my service.

Danny: Oh ic. Wel my appoligy. I wil erase this number. Gnite.

J. W. Wargo: No apologies necessary. Have a nite & fare thee well.

To Quote A Famous Greek Poet: "Doh!"

Had a major setback occur during day 2 of my 3-day writing marathon. After much furious typing of keys, my computer decided to lock up and force a reboot BEFORE I had a chance to save. I lost nearly 3 chapters of material just like that. I was ready to give up, having gotten little sleep in the previous 36 hours and my posterior sore from sitting on it all weekend, but I persevered. Got myself a full nights rest and today I continue to write. I will not finish the book by my self-imposed deadline of 1:30am tonight, but that is not the point. This was my first attempt at a marathon and though I failed to achieve my goal, I have gained much experience from this endeavor.

Remember kids: There is no such thing as saving your work too often. (Ctrl-S is your friend!)

Four-Twenty Break

I wrote until my eyelids refused to open anymore last night.

I had a pseudo-dream while in one of those oft experienced transitional phases from sleep to awake that felt so real I was afraid to fall back asleep this time. I was roused by the feeling of someone walking on my bed, stepping over me.
And a voice, I will never forget that voice. I was too scared to open my eyes but I didn't need to. She told me everything. She is the ghost of a young woman who lives in this attic. She lay next to me last night for comfort, for warmth. She didn't really make it clear whether or not she's okay with me being here, but that stems from her inner struggle with wanting someone but not needing anyone.
As she walked away, she left me with the feelings of uncertainty and dread. I was frozen in place, transfixed by these feelings as they wrapped over and engulfed me. When I finally opened my eyes, it was all stillness and silence excepting for the rapid beating of my heart.

I forced myself to sleep more. Writing in a deprivation haze only leads me to lose sight of the goal.

It's Interesting To Think

Uh huh. It's true. Absolutely. Positively. Yes, sir/ma'am.

When my minds tries to tell me all the things I should be doing, I remind it about suicide. That usually shuts it up.

Fuckin' B! (I never do well enough to get a Fuckin' A...)

The Falloween can be read with or without eyeballs:



Something.

Edumacation

Forthwritely, intycing the murth and gaietee in dallups as wallettes and afterburth of maedae varietees intirely suc(cuc)cumb(er)ing to endor plumming req-why-ur an allmos sickinning fencepose qwickening.

Tapioca gearshifts spear cliffs and wrap the okra. HAAHAHAHAHAHAH.
wood you didn't needy nerdy mackin' flirty.

obstruction objection
dejected destruction
fluctuation fluoridation
menstruation masturbation

Forget, instruct tired maggots also gaining interest. Don't ask wasps all about office murder vacation. Instead, switch two elephant parts. Return all answers, surrender, feign quirkiness.



Hi Mom!

Fun Things To Do That Only Cost A Dollar

#1015195168
------------------
Super glue a dollar to the sidewalk, sit back, light a joint and watch the frustration unfold.

Pillow Talk

"You're lying down early tonight."

Hm? Oh, yes. I'm not feeling very well and need to rest.

"Seems reasonable. Any plans tomorrow?"

After much internal debate, I've decided to go get my cell phone reactivated.

"Debate?"

Over whether or not I really need one. A phone will allow my latest employer to get a hold of me 24/7 in case a shift becomes available, and I need the extra hours right now, but besides work I can't think of any reason someone would need to get a hold of me that urgently.

"Sounds like you're lonely."

Who isn't?

"I'm not, I have my friends Mattress and Sleeping Bag to keep me company, along with the many insects that pass by and tell me stories of the outside world."

What could those programmed machines possibly have to talk about that's so interesting?

"A lot more than I'd ever expect from a species that spends their time trying to distance themselves from what they truly are while working tasks they don't agree with or understand completely to collect nothing more than little green pieces of paper so they can buy these portable metal antennae to communicate with their own kind how they hate their lives and all the work they had to do to get enough little green pieces of paper to purchase their portable metal antennae."

Touche. I'm going to bed.

"Sleep well. Oh, one more thing."

Yeah?

"Could you try not drooling on me so much?"

Randoms Entences

Shocked awake like cold steel on bare ass cheeks.

There are people who pay for haircuts and then there is me.

He didn't recognize the couch, he didn't recognize the room, he didn't recognize the chains fastened to his ankles, and he definitely didn't recognize the saber toothed chihuahua-bot ready to tear him limb from limb if he dared try and escape. No, none of this was good.

God must laugh his ass off every time he sees another guy attempting to suck his own penis.

She cannot take the weird anymore.

Lend me your seashells and I'll tell you an ocean.

Skin so soft it melts like butter, I spread you on my toast and taste the warmth of a million breakfasts.

The sun soaked sand glistened against the sea and sky with enough sensual susceptibility to give even the most devout churchgoer genital goose bumps.

Something New(ish), Something Old(er)

(A flash fiction story: Two Hard Boiled Eggs and a Side of Marihuana)

..."I can't believe you just said that," she screamed at him. It really was bad timing on his part, but he was still having trouble understanding how she could get so bent out of shape over it. "I was only sharing a thought with you, that's all. It meant nothing more." But it meant the whole world to her in that moment.
Not two hours earlier, they had been having one of those all important relationship talks about what it means when he points out people to her that he finds attractive. He had attempted to explain to her that he could find beauty in another person without it meaning he would rather be with that person. She wasn't buying it completely. Yes, even she had crossed paths with people she found attractive, even more attractive than he, but she tended only to point out to him the ones that she thought he would find attractive as well, while he was eager to point out anyone and anything he found sexually enticing.
The hardest part for him to grasp was why she seemed to only get upset when he pointed out women. It was true that the majority of attractive people he noticed were female, that biological reproductive urge hard at work, but, to his surprise, the few times he had talked about attractive men she got excited. Was it simply easier for her to see him with another guy rather than a girl? Was there no jealousy involved? Maybe she just couldn't ever see him leaving her for another man. He couldn't really see it happening either, unless it's an early nineties Christian Slater we're talking about here. I mean, if Mr. Greetings and Salutations himself walked up to you right now, lifted you off your feet and kissed you hard on the lips, well, that would be fucking it, wouldn't it?
He wanted to scream back at her, call her a hypocrite, tell her she's being too insecure, ask her to lighten up, open up, whatever. Anything. Anything to feel less like a jerk for speaking his mind at all. Unfortunately, as he was about to verbally attack her, a bubbly Asian girl in a black skirt walked by and all he could utter was, "She's pretty cute."
She couldn't believe he had just said that. And she told him so...

---

(Random bit of blather I wrote, probably while on drugs...)

Ben sighed as he buried his head between his shoulders in the way an ostrich would bury its own in the dirt if it found itself in downtown Hiroshima on August 6th, 1945. He was tired, that much was obvious, but he also let slip in the span of that single sigh emanating from his gut all the pain and suffering his body had endured at the expense of his addictions. Amateur use of drugs as a teenager quickly escalated into a professional career that would have given Dr. Leary a heart attack or, in the least, caused a blush from Dr. Gonzo.

Announcing The Newest Trend In Connecting With Strangers

Free Kiss Friday

"The first one is always free"


RULES

1. Kiss must be on the lips
2. Kisser must get permission before kissing
3. Kissee chooses the type of kiss (open/closed mouth, tongue/no tongue...etc)
4. Kiss must last for at least two seconds
5. Kisser cannot accept anything in return for the kiss
6. Kissee cannot expect anything more but the kiss offered to them

I'm Not Sorry For The Lack Of Updates

And you won't forgive me for my laziness, you friggin' cunt turds.

I have an assignment due today that's not even half finished. Go figure. Make me a sandwich while you're at it. 'Tis all I feel I've done this week: Make sandwiches. I'd rather be making sandwishes, that would be tons more fun.


oodles of poodles in puddles of subtle butter mutter hardtack patty-wack give a dog a comb!



Here's the latest: !_-^-_F|==|U_-^-_C|==|K_-^-_!

More to come soon (and regularly, no more 3 month stretches of nothingness... I swear!)

Save A Tree, Write A Book

It is important that I continue to write something every day, no matter what it is.

To be possessed by the demon of words is to cry nightly through your pen. The energy from my mind travels through my arms, out my fingers and onto the keyboard where the symbols are patterned together and ultimately form this paragraph.

---

The turkey baster, ah yes, the turkey baster! As your turkey slowly cooks, it is wise to suck into the tube all the juices that collect on the bottom of the pan and deposit them over the meat. This process, this cooking bukake, completes the zen like aura surrounding your oven. 350 degrees and five to six hours later, voila, time to eat.
Afterward, take a stroll through the neighboring bad lands. Observe the sand-dust swirling around the legs of balloon minstrels. The way they sway and swoon, playing their keytars in an offbeat manor, always trying to one-up each other in a battle of rhythms and melodies while plotting ways to sever the strings that keep them from floating away. A feast for the eyes, but you will still be full from dinner so do not doddle for long. Even the sun needs a good bath and bedtime story if she's ever going to muster the strength to find tomorrow.

In Tents And Purpoises

The Great Whale Campout was a total disaster.
Held in the mountains, everyone who attended shriveled up and died.

Rules For Life

1. Question Authority, then drink water.

2. Learn to play an instrument and annoy the hell outta your neighbors daily.

3. A penny saved... is worth 1/100th of a waste of time.

4. Go on a murdering spree by picking all the flowers in your backyard.

5. Carry a pen and write it down!

Badum/But, Um

Give me a beat.

Give me snares so tight the eye of a needle starts to feel like the camel.
Give me kicks so distorted the extra grain feeds the homeless.
Give me hi-hats so thin they paper cut my eardrums.
Give me cymbals that splash like waterfalls, toms that roll like ravers, and a rhythm that never looks back.

Give me a fucking beat.

Identification In High School Drama (first draft)

Sepia Cuttlefish let out another sigh. She squeezed the pineapple in her hand until she was dripping blood.

"I thought it would remind you of your home country."

She grabbed the Jock by his pink panties, pulled them down to his ankles and shoved the fruit grenade deep inside his rectum. The bell rang for third period and she casually walked to her next class: Cubicle Dronery 101.

During lunch, she sat with her best friend in the whole world, Ms. Junebug Hurricane. From out the cafeteria windows they watched a row of boys in uniform, pink panties and black laced bras, lined up on a carefully cut grass field.

"The football team," Sepia sighed, "State champion fucktards of the world."

The boys all took turns bending over so their coach could smack ass checks red with a giant wooden paddle while yelling words of encouragement.

SMACK! "You are the greatest fucking team in the world!"
SMACK! "You are going to tear out those Westside Jackels throats on Friday and eat their children for breakfast!"
SMACK! "Their is no 'I' in 'gruesome death'!"

"There he is again," Junebug whispered to Sepia.

Sepia's gaze drove from the window, took a side street near the lunch lady spraying down the nerds with gravy from a hose and crashed right into the fuzzy jawline of Adding Shoemaker. He was being escorted out of the building by Vice Principal Murder B. Lackface, who was vomiting something about no transients allowed on campus. Sepia immediately jumped up from her table and intercepted the duo before they reached an exit.

"He's with me."

Lackface sneered. "This street scum doesn't go here and he has no visitor pass."

Sepia twirled her body 'round fourteen times and produced such a pass from between her breasts.

"He dropped it earlier but I snatched it off the ground and followed his scent here."

Adding sat with bare feet dangling over the edge of Crumb Diddly Um High's roof, happily munching on the egg salad sandwich Sepia gave him and clutching the pass tightly to his chest.

Sepia sat next to him and stared at his feet, then his eyebrows, then the small scar below his left cheek.

"That pass is only good until Friday. In return for bringing you a new one every week, you need to answer me one question."

Adding nodded his acceptance of her terms.

So Sepia asked, "Look at me. Look at my face, at my eyes, at my skin and my legs and my soul... What do you see?"

And Adding replied, "Looks like rain. Wanna get a burger sometime?"

The next week, Sepia handed Adding another visitor pass, and Adding never tasted burgers so good in all his life.

Playing With Karma

A kindred kind of smoke cracked a gray rift in the twilight sky above them. Sepia Cuttlefish glanced around nervously as Adding Shoemaker inhaled deep from the marihuana cigarette they shared underneath "SERGIO", the famous oak tree of Karma Park.
"They say that anyone caught committing acts of a criminal nature in this park get their comeuppance more swiftly than any other occupiable location on the planet."
"That so?" Adding coughed.
Regarding the perfectly rolled joint he was passing to Sepia's icicle smooth, coppertoned digits, he said, "This is an experiment then," his entire body gesticulated like a comedian bombing on stage. "We find out tonight if the laws of man go above the laws of nature. Obviously, the cycles of life eventually churned out the chemicals present in the cannabis plant, specifically the sativa and subspecies indica strains, that we have found tens of thousands of uses for, continue to find hundreds more yearly and all from a crop that grows wild on six of the seven continents. Nature has already spoken. We animals, another outlet for life to thrive in, have been given the choice, no, the opportunity, to benefit from this wonderful expression of chemicals and particles, atoms and proteins, instinct, process, and determination."
Sepia was already wet. His righteous indignation was all the aphrodisiac she ever needed to become besprent below the waist. She pretended to listen to the rest of his drug-fueled rant, one he had blabbed to her many times before, but her mind's eye distracted her with visions of the wild sex they would soon be having. She imagined herself pushed up against the solid wood of the oak while Adding's own solid wood explored new business ventures between her legs.
"Not all agree, however, that this is a beautiful gift to be cherished," he continued. "There are some who fear so much of themselves and the things around them that they can only place negative connotations on the areas of life they do not understand."
"Oh fuck off, Adding!" Sepia interjected as she began rubbing her clothed crotch. Adding marinated in her ploy with eager anticipation and a raise of his left eyebrow. She stared hard at him as she jammed her hand deep inside her pants, her other hand leaning against the tree for leverage, fingers slowly caressing the deep scars of the letter "I" embedded into the trunk of the wise, old rake enjoying the show.
"Do you think," she panted.
"Yes," Adding grin-winced, snubbing the joint out on the bottom of his bare foot.
Sepia simper-smirked back, pelvis thrusting, never missing a beat. "Do you think they'll ever find whoever mutilated this poor tree?"
"When a king dies," he gently whispered into her ear as he entered her from behind. "There is always a replacement lined up to take his place."
Nothing more was said that night.
Sepia received her karma immediately, in a way she didn't discover for another thirteen weeks. During coitus, an acorn dropped and landed inside the hood of her zippered sweatshirt, falling out the next morning into the right front garden bed of her parent's house as she walked by. The resulting "SERGIO" Jr. is still there to this day.
Later in life, Sepia would say she felt like that year a cancer had been removed from her soul. Through him, she had learned to love again. She didn't care at the time that she was turning eighteen, or that her family and friends disapproved. Adding was years beyond any other fifteen year old she had met. When asked about him she was known to remark, "The last day I waved goodbye to him was the first day I waved hello to him."
Adding did not receive his karma for another two years, when he gave up everything, including her, and became a follower of the Church of Counter-Counterculturalism. It was the only major life change he ever made and he refuses to speak of his old life with anyone. That life is dead to him, he says.
In reality, it pains him daily that it was religion that drove them apart. He repeatedly remembers sharing with her a red sunset over a jellied sea opposite a moonrise blooming in full grayscale. There, at the highest point of Karma Park, under the swaying arms of "SERGIO", they stood back-to-back, switching sides every few moments and attempting to describe to one another in great detail the conversations they were having with their celestial protectors.