GOODREADS GIVEAWAY FOR TRAIL OF BLOOD

 

Check it out here. Good luck!

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #704: NON-WRITING WRITING WORK

 

Today I did a lot of writing work that didn't include actual writing. For example, I updated my website. Some of my stuff went out of print. So did some of the free stories, sadly. I took down the links that no longer worked. I also took some other stuff out. It sounded too much like a younger, brasher me than I liked. I also took the nudity out. I doubt anyone wanted to see my dick on that website. If you did, then it has immortal life in print. You can find it in Tabard Inn issue two if you like.

I also went through the process of setting up a new Goodreads giveaway. Those usually are pretty successful for me. It's going to be for Trail of Blood, so when it gets approved, I'll post the link.

I also looked into Bookbub, which I don't think I'll be doing. Your Kindle books need to be part of Kindle Unlimited, and mine aren't. They won't be until they change the 7-day return policy. If you don't know what that is, people who are members "buy" your book, and you get paid your share. They read it in under 7 days and return it, and then you have to pay Amazon back, which is something I'm not willing to do.

I put out a few book review requests, but I haven't had much luck with that so far.

But the big thing I did today was begin the process of starting up a Patreon. It's been something people have suggested for a while, but I was always concerned that I'd put it together, and no one would go for it. Ah, fuck it. I'm doing it. I'll post the link when it's approved. The idea is to treat it like a Middle Ages patron. They helped keep artists alive by paying for room and board, etc. So for the basic pledge, you'll get a newsletter of sorts with writing updates, peeks at works in progress, links to new publications, news releases before anyone else gets to know, occasional giveaways, etc. To let you know that your money is going toward something. Higher pledges offer the opportunity to have your works in progress assessed by me, or if you're not a writer, I'll name a character after you in something that will definitely be published. Not to mention being mentioned in the acknowledgements of all my books going forward.

That's how I spent my day. More news to follow.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #503: MY GOODREADS REVIEW OF MAKE ROOM! MAKE ROOM!

 Another busy day where time got away from me. I will be glad when I no longer attend those three hour recovery meetings three times a week. That will give me back so much time. Also, I got my eyes dilated today, so reading and typing things is a bit difficult for me. Just typing this took about five minutes when ordinarily it would take less than one. Anyway, I just finished MAKE ROOM! MAKE ROOM! by Harry Harrison, the basis for the movie SOYLENT GREEN, so here is my Goodreads review. I should have something better for tomorrow night.

This was a fun read, and I'm glad 1999 didn't turn out the way Harrison expected. But it's still in the cards, especially now that Roe v Wade has been struck down by the Supreme Court. Andy Rusch is a cop in NYC, and his job is made worse by the economic situation of a city overstuffed with people. Murderers get away with their crimes everyday because the police don't have the resources to investigate them, but when a sleazy dude named Big Mike gets killed, all the politicians and mob bosses put pressure on Andy's boss to make sure he solves this one.

The thing I really liked, though, was Sol's speech near the end about how screwed the world is and how politicians use language to incite the mob to keep business as usual despite the fact that business as usual is atrociously horrible and changing it would make existence for everyone more tolerable. It's something we were probably suffering from back when Harrison wrote this, and it's certainly something we're dealing with now. It angers me that some politicians will defend the "lives" of unborn fetuses that are unwanted by their mothers. Not just because it will lead to the overpopulation Harrison describes, but mostly because it's a woman's right to decide what she does with her body. And yet those same politicians don't care about that fetus once it's born. By then it's just another welfare suck for them. The hypocrisy is practically blinding. The same goes for the reliance on fossil fuels. In the book, they're gone. We used it all up. We're on track to do that now, and what then? Just give up on cars, like in the book? It's really as simple as a politician's reliance on money from oil companies. They don't dare bite the hand that feeds. And the oil companies play it safe by paying ALL politicians. They don't care who wins, just so long as they paid for it. Therefore, because of this fear of not being reelected, these scumbags have doomed the rest of us and the future. I guess the oil companies haven't figured out how to monetize solar or wind power. Once they do, I'm sure we'll have a cleaner future, but they're still going to be horrible people who do things solely for the payday.

I'm getting off track. The big question on my mind while reading this is when do the suicide machines and Soylent Green come in? It turns out that they don't. An odd revelation, considering how famous that reveal is in the movie. And it does make sense that in an overpopulated world, the most reliable food source would be people. But that doesn't happen here. The book still comes to a satisfying ending, though, and for those who feel robbed by it, I would point out how low my opinion of bureaucracy is. Hint: It's lower than whale doo-doo.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #501: MY GOODREADS REVIEW OF GORE VIDAL'S JULIAN

Emperor Julian, who called churches "charnel houses."

 Sorry. Busy night. I've run out of time to talk about something of greater length. So instead of business as usual, here is my Goodreads review of JULIAN by Gore Vidal.

Wow. Where to start? I guess I'll begin here. I'm an atheist, but gun to my head? I'd rather worship Mithras than the Christian God. Almost every single problem in the world can be traced back to Constantine's conversion to Christianity and his insistence on making it the official religion of the Roman Empire. And Vidal has a few theories about the history of Jesus Christ, especially after he was crucified, and how Christianity, in its efforts to control human behavior, has stolen from the various religions it sought to destroy. Case in point, very few Christians today wonder about that Christmas tree they put up every year. I wonder how many of them know it's because Christianity stole it from the Wiccans they plowed under with their powerful god machine.

Julian, Constantine's nephew, was the last non-Christian emperor of Rome, and he fought to keep the Christians (he called them Galileans, which I think I'm going to adopt in my speech) from destroying the gods he loved and cherished. I see a lot of comparisons to Marcus Aurelius in this book, which is good because I was thinking the same thing. While Julian might have been somewhat gullible (ie. his delight in the mentorship of Maximus), I think his heart was in the right place. He didn't outlaw Christ worship, but he did his best to discourage it. Like Genghis Khan after him, he allowed others the right to worship whatever god they wish. But he didn't want a state religion.

Nor did the Founding Fathers of America, but we can see how that worked out. Nothing ever really changes when it comes to the acquisition of power among politicians and oligarchs. There are a lot of things I could see in the book reflecting what is going on even now in today's world. Not just the era in which Vidal wrote this, but in Julian's world and our own right now. Because the garbage we're suffering now is not new. Even in Julian's time it was not new. It's been business as usual for about 2000 years. At least.

If only Julian had been successful! Even now there are scumbags bent on trying to eliminate the separation of church and state in my country. These are the same scumbags who declare how sacred the Second Amendment is in one breath and belittle the religious part of the First Amendment with the next. Money is not the coin of the realm. It is power, and the way to get power is to be so hypocritical that it challenges the very essence of the word. It's kind of like William Shatner. He's such a prolific sellout that he has transcended the very idea of selling out.

But Julian failed. He fell victim to the classics, hubris and greed. And as history teaches (and as such, I don't consider this a spoiler), Julian died under mysterious circumstances during a skirmish while heading back to Roman territory after an attempt to overthrow Persia. I did a little research after finishing this book, and no one seems to know who really killed Julian. Vidal has a theory, though, and this I do consider a spoiler. When the identity of the killer is revealed, it's actually pretty gut wrenching. The reasoning behind the killing is even more horrifying. And how the killer feels about his victim is even more astonishing.

Yeah, I know. This is more of a rant than a book review. If that's what you're looking for, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It's like it was tailor-made specifically for me. I highly recommend it.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #263: A NOT-SO-AVERAGE MOM

I just finished reading Doug Stanhope's book, DIGGING UP MOTHER. It's a wonderful book, and I recommend it to you all. Here is my Goodreads review of it. I think it will show a side of me that you're unaware of. Most of you. I pride myself on being an open book, but sometimes I forget some of my darkest moments. There have been four people in my life who have been able to get me angry enough at them to be cruel to them. Two of them are dead. One of them was my mother. I wish I could apologize to her, but . . . well . . . she's gone into the big nothing.



This is possibly the greatest autobiography I've ever read. I've been a fan of Stanhope's comedy for many years, and I know how brutally honest he is. He is even more brutally honest in this book than ever before. I like to consider myself an open book, but if my mom jerked off cats and dogs just to make 'em feel better? You would never hear about that from me. If I tortured and killed animals, again, you would never hear that from me. You can hear it from Stanhope, though.




I, like Stanhope, am a hearty drinker who despises the idiocy of AA. Also, I am the product of a severely alcoholic mother (she died of cirrhosis of the liver and was as yellow as a Simpson when she passed). As you can imagine, this book hit really close to home for me. It also taught me something about myself.



Stanhope was angry with his mother for most of the last years of her life. I was angry with Mom during that period, too. I never really thought about how much of a jerk I was to her, but reading about him berating his mother for being a burden brought back some memories that I probably shouldn't remember. I was horrible to Mom. I yelled at her. I never called her names, but when I'm driven to the point of no return, I can be an exceptionally cruel man. I know exactly the worst things to say in any given situation, and I will say them if I'm angry enough.



(The only time I yelled at Mom that I don't feel sorry about was the time I came home to find her racing downstairs to the living room, where she lived at the time--ironically in the exact same spot where her father, my grandfather, died--with a glass of what looked like alcohol. Specifically, MY alcohol. I ran upstairs because I had two bottles: a handle of Ten High and a fifth of $75 scotch. Sure enough, she had opened the box and hastily wrapped the paper around the bottle. Almost all of the scotch was gone. The Ten High? Which is a mere $13 (at the time) for a handle? Untouched. I ran downstairs and berated her for a good ten minutes. Why did she have to steal my expensive scotch? The cheap shit was right there! If she had stolen from the Ten High, I wouldn't be upset in the slightest. I ranted and raved. I'd been saving that bottle for the end of my DUI trial because I had a good chance of being found not guilty. I made her cry, and that made me feel good. I know, I know. I'm a miserable human being for it. But that scotch was so important to me. I'm getting kind of heated up thinking about it now. I still think about the absolutely defeated look on her face by the time I was done. It makes me a bit queasy now. No wonder I blocked out the memory. PS: I was found not guilty of DUI. One of the few, the proud.)



This book is amazing. All the wild parties, heavy boozing, hallucinogens, the not-your-average-mom, everything. Even Extreme Elvis makes an appearance. This is the most savage love story I've ever read. It's honest to the point of lunacy. I hope Stanhope checked to see if the statute of limitations was up for all of the crimes he talked about committing. You need to read this book.

Thank you, Doug Stanhope. This one got into my skin as if I'd lived it. Some of it, I did.

POOR BASTARDS AND RICH FUCKS GOODREADS GIVEAWAY!

I'm giving away a signed copy of my third book, POOR BASTARDS AND RICH FUCKS, at Goodreads! Get in while the getting's good. Check it out here.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #57: DAYS GONE BY

I remember when I was in high school and college, I kept a journal. I wrote in it every night, even if I had nothing to report. It was a part of my ritual. Then, I started acquiring a social life, and there were nights when I didn't write in my journal, either because I was too drunk or because I was getting laid or because I simply wasn't home from a night of partying yet to do so.


Still, whenever I was home and conscious and had the time, I'd write in my journal.


I just realized that it's been almost a month since I wrote in it. In fact, it's starting to look like one entry a month is the pace. What happened?


Two things, I suppose. I stopped writing about what I was reading in there because I joined Goodreads and have been posting everything there instead. Also, I started doing Goodnight, Fuckers, and that took a lot of steam out of my composition notebook journal.


Tonight, I wrote in my journal just to write in it. I had nothing of value to say, but still, it was kind of weird. My handwriting has gotten worse as I get older. It used to be orderly and readable. Now it's like a madman started scribbling on paper just to get the squiggly lines out of his head.


I wonder if I'm going to just quit the ol' journal and continue on with this. Or maybe I'll quit this and go back to the old way. I don't know. I've got too many other things to think about, like finishing up my new novel. I think I'll be done with the first draft this weekend.

TALES OF QUESTIONABLE TASTE IS FREE ON KINDLE THIS WEEK! ALSO, SHARE THIS IMAGE FOR A CHANCE TO WIN A PAPERBACK COPY!

If you follow me on Twitter but not on Facebook, this has been making the rounds of Facebook yesterday. I want everyone to not only share the news that this book is for free this week on Kindle, but I also want to make sure everyone gets a chance to win an actual physical copy. Please start sharing the above image on Facebook. StrangeHouse is watching . . .


And what the hell? Why not give out more free shit? If you get TALES OF QUESTIONABLE TASTE on Kindle (or if you're one of the lucky few who win a paperback copy), please review it on Amazon or Goodreads or, if you're really awesome, review it on your blog. Send me a link, and I'll send you a PDF of my first novel, STRIP, for FREE. That's right. Free. My second favorite four letter F-word.

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