I did an interview with Outside the Loop about my Dunning/Schorsch Village piece. Listen tomorrow at 10 a.m. on WLUW 88.7-FM Chicago. You can listen to the show through their Web site, by the way: http://www.outsidetheloopradio.com

With luck I won't sound like TOO much of an idiot. Though my mom assures me I'm NEVER an idiot. Thanks, Mom!

New article up at Gapers Block. My stomach is already seizing up. I am, however, cheered up over the fact that Gapers Block runs the following warning for commenters:

Items marked with a * are required fields. Please respect each other. We reserve the right to delete any comments borne out of douchebaggery or that deal in asshattery.

"Fury Animals," from Lumpen, Nv. 1997

I have about a half dozen mini-essays that I start working on for the blog, but give up on when the big shiny object (the novel) distracted me. A nice turn of events. Another one of those "Back to work, you" periods, I guess.

Leaving here for a bit. Watch for me mostly on Twitter, which addresses my greater need for short-short-short posts.

Be seeing you.

Deeply diving into the Mr. Dan Kelly zine vault. More never-reprinted tales from the crypt.

One of only two interviews I ever did with musicians during the zine days. I was against band interviews mainly because: (1) I considered them to be filler, (2) I found them whorish, (3) musicians already get enough attention in the underground, and (4) I hung out with too many record-collecting douches who turned me off to contemporary music. Ah, they're all the same interview anyway.

I really, really liked the Coctails though. By coincidence, I became neighbors with one of them when Mike and I bought our house.

Originally appeared in a zine called Pure in 1993. No, not the Peter Sotos one. I warned them about that, as did a lot of other people. Nice kids, I guess, but I just never meshed with them. Hell, who have I EVER meshed with? The fact that I'm quiet seems to make people think I'm not a judgmental dick. I'm much better than I used to be, believe me.

Photos by semibold.

( Aba Dabba Dabba Do )

About (oh God, has it already been?) 10 years ago, semibold and I created an issue of Lumpen, a local free zine. The theme was "The Man™", and I tried to recreate the mag as if the Establishment of a dystopic future (my favorite kind) were running the former fake-commie/largely hipster mag. Maybe I'll recount the whole experience another time, but oh, the memories...

* Asking the Lumpens if I could edit an issue and hearing them say yes.

* Discovering that when I said "edit" they thought I meant "create entirely," causing them to vanish until the day of compilation.

* Smelling a local hipster celebrity showman from clear across the room.

* Eating cheeseless pizza.

* ChrisMol and Forrester showing up to help me with the rest of the layout, subsequently zoning out and turning into zomboid 'bots when I made suggestions like, "Hey, can I get a proof? Chris? Forrester? Hello? Uh, it looks like you lost a paragraph when you linked one text box to another. Hello? Guys?"

* Hearing from Leslie Stella™ that that pretty much represented the Lumpen approach to the editorial process.

* Leaving at midnight, thinking we were done, then hearing EdMar tell me several weeks later, "You should have stayed to put it to bed, Dan. I'm disappointed, man."

* Not hearing what the Lumpens thought of the issue. Ever. Well, not true. Pat "Chairman Thar" Jones and little_octagon were kind enough to say it was the best issue ever.

* Getting a single copy of the zine, and planning to pick up a stack at Lumpen HQ at their old Chicago Ave. offices, only to discover they'd been locked out by their landlord. I lost a stack of records I'd lent to Forrester this way too. Fortunately, they were bad ones.

But don't get me wrong. I have way more love and respect for the Lumpens now than anyone else I knew from that time period. At least they ran my stuff the way I wanted it to be run, and they paid in booze and barbecue.

( So, enjoy! )

Warning: NSFW Vintage boobs.

Doesn't look like alfaguru's Blog in the Future blog is working out, dammit. So, here's my submission. Just a silly exercise. Enjoy. perhaps I'll write other letters to the futuristic board of directors in the, dare I say it?, future.

For Your Consideration...

Gentlemen,

If, 50 years ago, you were to tell me my 237-year-old sex organs would still possess the ability to achieve tumescence, father a child, and stick to walls for hours on end, I would have thought you mad. But behold! Though I am a doddering old codger—the last member of the 27th calvary (the "Howling Antibodies"), in fact, who boldly rode his companion moose and retook Olympus Mons from the scurrilous space beetles during Martian War 2.0—MY MANHOOD REMAINS UNDIMINISHED.

I still recall the day my second set of organs was rent from my body at George W. Bush Memorial Tower. As I rode the Bullet Escalator to the very top of the three-mile high edifice, I failed to notice my second castration as I beheld from the Sky Deck, gobsmacked, the pillowy smog of New Chicago below. "Grandfather," said a nearby waif tugging at his nanny-bot's cold claw. "Why is there only empty space where your no-nos ought to be?" My shame was great as all present laughed at my involuntary negation.

In due time I made my way to the National Institute of Revivification and Eternal Sleep. I was mistakenly offered the customary Black Capsule of Transition by the resident Nullification Doktor (his helmet's lasers trained on my forebrain if I chose to escape), who believed I'd reached my 300th birthday. A retinal scan corrected his misconception, and we had a good laugh about my near-encounter with the Food Paste Pits.

"Are we then happy with the maleness of being?" said the Doktor, his voice thick with a Plutonian accent. "Or perhaps sir would like to experience of the female nude parts? Very nice. Very popular with the ladies and vole-men."

"I am quite pleased with my man nature, thank you," I answered without peevishness. "But perhaps it is time for a change, yes?"

"Aha!" said the Doktor. "Then sir will be assuredly happiness full when this is stapled to his groin patch!" Then he held up what appeared to be a large rubbery sac terminating in not one but FOUR lengthy flesh nodes.

"Incredible!" I ejaculated. "What wonders this age has wrought! Oh, brave new world that has such things in it! Append the contrivance to my slim goodbody, for there are many Venusian whores with whom I wish to meat-congress!" The procedure was virtually painless, which is good because anesthesia is currently unfashionable with the smart set. Also, I did not want to risk waking up to discover my brain floating in an ice-filled bathtub beside a cell phone with a note to call an ambulance.

Returning home I could barely contain myself, particularly since my aluminum jumpsuit was improperly cut for my new protuberance. After calling the local Kentucky Fried McMadame Hut, I ordered several Venusian whores and a monkey with which to give my rapidly swelling Clintonistas a proper rogering. Unzipping my jumpsuit, I was aghast to discover I was not the possessor of a four-barreled tallywhacker, but rather a triple-plied Kevlar robo-cow udder. what began as horror, however, soon turned to glee when I discovered my technological dugs operated not only as my Old Fellow did, but were also equipped to provide milk, tea, espresso, and armagnac, as well as all former issuances. Be at ease. The nanotechnology fail-safe ensures beverages and effluvia are never intermingled. As I sit here, writing to you, I enjoy a delicious, if slightly painful, cappuccino, fresh from my inner sanctum.

Truly, this is a golden age.

Fredric Brown came up with this, and later expanded it into a larger story and radio play.

The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock on the door.

I won't tell you what Brown came up with for the longer version. Instead, I challenge you to add a sentence or three after the above semi-paragraph. Here's mine.

The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock on the door.

He got up to answer it, but when he opened the door there was no one there.

"Damn kids," he said.

Then he returned to his massive collection of pornography.

What's verb do you use when describing setting up a new piece of paper in a typewriter? Rolling? Spooling?

Later: A co-worker suggested "crank" and also "feed."

"This is a formula, a master plot, for any 6000 word pulp story. It has worked on adventure, detective, western and war-air. It tells exactly where to put everything. It shows definitely just what must happen in each successive thousand words.

No yarn of mine written to the formula has yet failed to sell."

Writing advice from the pulp fiction creator of Doc Savage. I love the part with the monkey's tail. And that WARM FEELING. Also:

Did God kill the villain? Or the hero?

1. Let's say I've written a rough draft. In form it's often just a series of paragraphs that have yet to be sewn together into a cohesive whole. While writing the first draft, I love the moment when, after hours or days of writing the stuff in-between the paragraphs (a slow slog to be sure), I suddenly come across one of the several paragraph oases—most likely written during a moment of inspiration at a meeting or while chewing on my lunch. I immediately FLY through it, editing rather than wordcrafting. It's exhilarating.

I did an interview with Count Dante (the rocker) in the latest Roctober. Unfortunately, it's not online. Visit Quimby's or elsewhere to pick up your copy.

My iPod makes a clickety-clack sound whenever I enter a tweet or what have you. I find this amusing because I'm sure it was added to provide the illusion of the more fulfilling tactile/aural experience of using an old-fashioned typewriter. One might argue that it's intended to be a keyboard sound, but I disagree. To my ear it sounds less plastic and more metallic, ergo more like a typewriter's key-punching rather than a keyboard's soft clacking. Even more amusing is the notion of the scores of kids hearing this satisfying sound emitting from their iPods who have probably never touched a typewriter in their lives.