THE MEAT FACTORY and Etc.

THE MEAT FACTORY

HOBART, read the logo on the big dish washing machine.

On his first night as a dishwasher for the Chalet, Wolf got to know ole Hobart a lot better than he bargained for. Scotty, Bob and Jeremy, the pukes who were supposed to train him, cut out on Wolf at nine thirty, unceremoniously leaving him holding the bag.

It was a lot to be left with. Restaurant dishes landed, no end in sight. Wolf's hours were supposed to be three to eleven. He was alone and the dishes kept coming.

Wolf was excited about being hired. “Your first real job!” His mother said, embracing him. “I'm so proud of you!” Wolf was nineteen. He'd steered clear of a job until after graduation. He felt that any obligation, even part-time, might hurt him scholastically. Beyond a few neighborhood odd jobs, like mowing lawns, Wolf never looked for work.

Post-graduation lofty ideals were abound in Wolf's head. He wanted to go to college and become a journalist, and maybe from there a famous writer. He wanted to attend the Joe Kubert Art School and become a comic book illustrator. He wanted to sing lead for a heavy metal band, and given his name, Wolf, he figured he had a good stab at that enterprise, even if he couldn't sing.

With all these conflicting possibilities dangling before him, Wolf saw the necessity in taking the year off and making a few bucks. Besides, given learning experiences in “the working world”, it all seemed to lean toward the positive.

He originally applied for anything the Chalet would give him---he fancied himself a bellhop in one of those old fashioned hotel monkey suits, running luggage and begging for tips.

When he was called in for an interview with Joseph Barr, he was told to go to the receiving area. Receiving Area. Where applicants are received for interviews, Wolf imagined. He heeded every word of job interview primer ever handed to him in school. Soft-spoken but firm. Good handshake. Radiate confidence. He had it all down.

When he got there, he discovered the Receiving Area was actually “shipping and receiving”---the loading docks. He found out that Mr. Barr, the honorable interviewer, was really the dock supervisor, Joe Barr, a scruffy, no-nonsense type only three years Wolf's senior.

Wolf came to the quick assumption that he had primed himself for the wrong job. It wasn't one you dressed up and spoke softly for; it was a job lugging crates around on dollies, unloading trucks. As he left the interview he knew he wouldn't land the job, that Barr had pegged him as a softy, which Wolf supposed he was.

Two weeks later, Wolf got a call from Bob LaMontagne, who didn't mention what job he wanted Wolf for, but invited him down for an interview.

LaMontagne's interview wasn't so much an interview as it was a sales pitch, a hard-sell. “We gotcha insurance benefits after ninety days, we got free use a' the health club every Tuesday, ya can't find a better place in this town ta work,” he rattled, showing Wolf around the hotel kitchen. Wolf was delighted over actually being ASKED to work a job, as opposed to the disinterested grilling he'd experienced with Barr.

The job, he discovered on the grand tour, was dishwashing. “An easy job,” LaMontagne told him at least twice. Filling out his signature on the ob description form, he read his official title, “kitchen help”. The job was said in the form to consist of cleaning the kitchen and occasionally assisting the culinary crew with food production. LaMontagne shook his hand and told him to come in on Thursday, and so Wolf had been hired.

Wolf's training consisted of the pukes showing him a few keys steps of operation---loading dirty dihes onto the conveyer belt, taking them clean off the unloading end and storing them on the correct shelves---then popping outside for a smoke that lasted an hour or two while Wolf floundered. The pukes blew out the door for good around half past nine, Wolf holding the bag and uninformed as to what happened next. Dining room waitstaff hauled in an endless barrage of dirty dinnerware and garbage----steaks, lobster, salad, cream and cheese spreads---leftovers that mixed and meshed in the disposal trough. Leftovers blobbed off the dishes as Wolf loaded them and would become stuck in the conveyer belt, only to land in the Hobart's washtubs and boil. The stink rose and filled Wolf's senses. The parade of dirty dishes was unending, carried in, over and over. Waiters and waitresses were still hauling in the dirty wares and food scraps. Eleven o'clock, quitting time, had come and gone.Wolf felt like his head was spinning. It's a meat factory, he thought, a dumping ground. When does it stop, and when do I get to go home, like everybody else?

The first lull in the action that occurred, Wolf shut off the machine and ran. Christ, did he imagine it? As that busboy brought that last tray out to the dish machine, was he laughing at him?

'Hey,” yelled one of the fry cooks as Wolf made his break, “where ya goin'?” Wolf didn't reply.

****

On his second night working, Wolf learned a new word and that word was BANQUET.

At the height of the action there were ten guys working on the Hobart. Even LaMontagne was getting his hands dirty at one point.

There was commotion and traffic everywhere. The kitchen was jamming with wait people carrying trays.

Wolf thought it best to stay on the unloading end of the machine, removing and sorting clean dishes.

LaMontagne was animated, rattling off commands like a gattling gun. He shot a big, harried smile at Wolf. “This is it, son---the big one!”

“Whu-what's going on?” Spluttered Wolf, who was genuinely shaken by all the activity.

“I'm not gonna lie to ya, son; we're gonna be buried,” said LaMontagne, scrubbing a few plates.

“Great,” groaned Wolf. LaMontagne's words from a couple of days prior came back to him-- “It's an easy job!”

The scene was claustrophobic; bodies everywhere, hustling, fighting for an inch of space.

FIRST COURSE: Wait people dropped trays full of champagne glasses onto the counter and placed the glasses twenty-five at a time into plastic racks. The glass racks eventually jammed the expanse of the counter. The saucers and the paper doilies that underlined the cocktails were all pushed haphazardly into the disposal trough along with a few stray glasses, which smashed. More trays landed, faster than they could be dealt with. There was no end in sight.

“Let's go, Wolf,” yelled one of the dishwashers on the loading end. Wolf couldn't keep up. He tore as many clean dishes off the conveyer belt as he could. His progress was slowed because the dishes came out hot and they burned his hands. When too many dishes accumulated on the unloading stand, Wolf would have to stop and put them away. When he did, the belt would crowd to capacity and stop moving. Then the yelling would commence.

“Let's go, Wolf! My grandma unloads faster than you!”

Scotty, an effeminate, pimply-faced teenager who was on hand the day before, came down to the unloading end. “Listen,” he seethed, “I know it's hard. But if you keep stopping, we're going to get killed up there! Now, can you please move this thing?!”

“There are ten of you and one of me,” Wolf complained.

“Goddammit,” Scotty pouted, “pick up the pace!” He stormed back to the counter and whined to LaMontagne. Wolf resigned himself to unloading, unloading, unloading. Meanwhile up front, the counter was jam-packed and several waitresses were bitching, telling the dishwashers to hurry up.

LaMontagne turned and headed toward Wolf. Scotty was whimpering some sour interjection that Wolf could not hear. LaMontagne whirled on Scotty and yelled at him, all unintelligible, except for the last sentence, “if you're not happy with it you can go the hell home!”

Scotty turned back to the work, looking sullen. LaMontagne hopped onto the unloading end to help Wolf. “Come on, Wolf,” he shouted, “let's show 'em how to run this thing!” There was a heavy liquor smell on his breath.

The two toiled and managed to stay ahead of things. Wolf was staggered by the mess on the counter. “Is this that banquet I've been hearing about since I got in?”

“Oh,” chuckled LaMontagne, “this is just the beginning!”

Wolf shuddered. The two worked on. The feeders had glutted the belt with saucers, which were now overlapped, ten to a row where only four should have fit, and one or tow would periodically roll off the side of the conveyer and break on the floor.

“Come on, come on!” LaMontagne hollered to the feeders. “You're going too slow, ya bunch of lightweights! Me and Wolf are falling asleep down here!”

Up front somebody yelled, “come on, y'old fart! We'll bury your ass!”

On the counter, the saucers and glass racks gave way to the second course---salad plates.Hundreds of salad plates came back from the banquet. Most of the salads were half-eaten, if touched at all.

Halfway through the salad course, LaMontagne left. “I'll be right back,” he grumbled. He wandered out back and Wolf was alone again.

“Let's go, Wolf,” urged Jeremy, at the helm of the Hobart. On the other side, waitresses complained and shouted. The Banquet Chef harangued the lot of them in his sharp, annoying voice. “Gawdamn dishwashas! Whaddaya here for? Whadda they pay ya for?!”

LaMontagne returned, wearing a light jacket. “Wolf, I'm going home. Do a good job! Hey,” he shouted to everyone else. “I'm leaving, now! One a you c'mon down here, help Wolf out!” And he was gone.

Wolf was helped, thereafter, by Rob and a tall, vacant-looking kid named Steve. The counter was chock full of dirty pots and pans, salad plates, sauce bowls and dinner plates. More trays were landing than could actually fit on the counter.

“I don't believe this,” muttered Wolf. “Does it get any worse?”

“It should,” Steve deadpanned. “We're hitting the busy season, now. It'll be this way every weekend.”

“Oh, my God,” Wolf said. “How late does this shit go? I'm scheduled to leave at eleven-thirty...”

Steve nudged Rob. “Hey,” he grinned. “He thinks he's leaving at eleven-thirty.” They laughed.

“I don't think it's funny,” bittered Wolf. Oboy, Wolf, he thought. Your first real job.

The onslaught kept going. Gooey stacks of dirty dinner plates landed along with hundreds of little monkey dishes that contained half-eaten chocolate sundaes. When the monkey dishes came through, many of them were still soiled with chocolate syrup and had to be sent back. The backup was incredible.

Finally, amidst squawking and bitching from wait people and cooks, Jeremy shut the dish machine off. “We're all going on break,” he announced.

Glasses broke and a waitress whined. Jeremy's call seemed the equivalent to a declaration of mutiny. Wolf didn't know if it was a good idea to pull out; all he knew was that he wanted to.

“Who's in charge?” Asked Rob.

“I dunno,” said Jeremy. “I'll go find out!”

Wolf and the others stood about and waited for Jeremy. Wolf heard more dishes breaking, wait people snapping and yelling, “what's going on back there?”

“The dishwashers stopped!”

“Why?!”

“They say they're all going on break!”

“All of them at once???”

“They're always on break, the sons of bitches!”

“Come on, you guys,” a waitress shouted. “We need room!”

Jeremy returned, grinning. “What'd they say?” Asked Steve.

Jeremy snickered. “They said, 'please don't go!' “

“Should we go?” Asked Wolf.

“What do YOU think? Wolf didn't know what to think---he just knew he had to get out of this.

A stout, tight-lipped woman in a navy blue pantsuit stepped into the dish area. All eyes turned to her.

“What's going on here?” She demanded.

“I don't know,” said Steve.

She looked at Wolf. “I don't know, either,” he answered. Everyone shrugged their shoulders; nobody knew.

“We're on strike,” cracked Jeremy.

“I see,” said the woman. “Would you gentlemen like to keep your jobs?”

“That's questionable,” said Bob.

“Is it?”

Everyone reconsidered the situation. “No,” they all answered. Wolf was actually still on the fence, but he opted to say nothing.

“Well,” she said, “let's get rolling.”

They turned the Hobart back on.

Inconceivably, it got worse. Eleven -thirty, quarter to twelve and Wolf couldn't believe it was all still coming, wouldn't stop, wouldn't even slow. “Jesus,” he kept repeating, “oh, Jesus, oh, Jesus, oh, Jesus.....”

Junk piled in upon junk. He'd gone to an orientation meeting earlier that day. He'd felt somewhat secluded there among the newly-hired waitresses, busboys, sales reps and aerobics instructors, being a lowly dishwasher, bottom of the hotel's caste system---the personnel director, a smiling, maternal woman, was pumping the enthusiastic catechism of heavy business, the Chalet Team Brotherhood spiel, how they were all salesmen and women, working to promote a winning, positive image of the Chalet.

Garbage upon garbage. In the disposal trough, wasted food mingled and clashed with scrapped paper, wads of wax from candles, spent cigarettes and ashes and the occasional broken champagne glass. Big pots, pans and soiled, sticky dinnerware bombarded the counter in heaping, unstable piles. Sections of the mess were systematically wiped out, then replaced by more almost immediately.

The catechism of promotion stops here, thought Wolf. We're the toilet cleaners of the universe. Nothing got sold or promoted here. It's just where they brought the leftovers to be destroyed.

Assortments of burning wares rolled out on the conveyer belt in a relentless procession. Wolf blundered through it and eventually learned there was no place left to put anything. The belt stopped with greater frequency while Wolf had to look further and harder for places to put the dishes and pans.

“Hey,” smiled Steve. “Think this is fun? Look over there. We gotta do all that, too.”

Wolf peered over a storage shelf at the pot sink on the other side of the kitchen. In the three big washing tubs, dozens if not hundreds of pots and pans, in all varying shapes and sizes, formed a jumbled mountain that rose three feet above all three tubs.

“I can't believe this,” moaned Wolf. “I can't. Oh, Jesus, oh, esus, how do we ever get out of here?”

“Just leave,” offered Rob.

“Whu—no. No, I can't! Look at all this!”

“Hey,” said Rob, “you've done your eight measley hours. It's all volunteer from here on in. One more or less person won't get this shit done any faster!”

“But you guys---I can't---”

“Sure you can! You did your eight hours. You can get the hell out! Hey, you're new at this!”

Wolf looked at the scrap disaster again. “Huh. Uhh, you sure?”

“Hell yeah---go!”

“I don't wanna shaft you guys...”

“You're not shafting us. Go!”

Wolf headed out of the kitchen. “Hey,” yelled one of the fry cooks after him, “where ya goin'?” Wolf didn't look back and didn't reply.

He ran down the stairs and clocked out. He headed down the hallway and up those last two flights of stairs at a brisk, fearful getaway pace. He hit the night air and was astounded for a moment by the stillness, the quietude. His first real job. Christ. Wolf ran all the way home, the stench of the garbage and the steamwash sticking hard to his senses.

Copyright 1992 C.F. Roberts/2019 Molotov Editions

                                                          ******************

        As I've kinda been spinning my wheels on several novels in the last couple of years I've decided to put more energy into what's working out for me like gangbusters----short prose and short fiction.

      Shit, a good many writers I know and admire have succeeded in banging out book length product for public consumption at this point. Me? NUTHIN'. I feel like that's gotta change.

      To this end, I've started compiling two book-length collections of short stories, which I hope to have completed by the end of the year. Card is subject to change, as we rasslin' fans like to say, but the rough lineup presently looks like this:

1. THE MEAT FACTORY AND OTHER STORIES

NOW:

The Lost Diner

---originally published in SHOCKBOX

The Meat Factory

---previously unpublished

Zoned Industrial

-----Originally published in THE BIRDS WE PILED LOOSELY

Monster Kid

Shit Flavored Shit

----Originally published in VAGABONDS: Anthology of the Mad Ones

Hannibal and Sandi in the Afterglow

Thursday (Sound of Tiny Planets Dying)

The Aquarium

-----Originally published in BLIND IGUANAPRESS

The King of Moths

-----Originally published in FEARLESS

The Scowl

-----Originally Published in ILLITERATI

The Jennifer Tree

---Originally published in ALIEN BUDDHA ZINE

After the Bataan Death March

Acquaintance

-----Originally published in THE MOWER

Maggie and Merrill get Real

-----Originally published in PARAPHILIA

The Mask

Superman, Jesus and Rice Patties

----Originally Published in UNLIKELY STORIES V

Cartoon Land

SPECIAL FOR THE COLLECTION:

Return to the Meat Factory

Love and Desperation in the Meat Factory

Son of the Meat Factory

--- In the works

ALSO SOUGHT/PROJECTED FOR BOTH COLLECTIONS

(i.e., I'm presently hunting to locate this stuff!)

Ghetto Head

---Originally Published in MASSACRE ANNEX (Shockbox Press Chapbook)

Seeing

 ---Previously Unpublished

The Second Wound

----Originally Published in BIZARA

Second Coming

--Originally published in FAIRYTALES FROM THE URBAN HOLOCAUST (Yorkville Press), DIMINISHED CAPACITY

The Night is for Lovers

----Shockbox Press Chapbook

Scorched

------Originally published in FAIRYTALES FROM THE URBAN HOLOCAUST (Yorkville Press)

2. THE EVANGEL: Tales of the Irrational

NOW:

The Great Tradition

---Originally published in FAIRYTALES FROM THE URBAN HOLOCAUST (Yorkville Press)

Snapshot of the Rural Pogroms

Faith

---Originally published in ALIEN BUDDHA ZINE

The Day the Sun got an Eye Gouge

--- Odd Books Chapbook

Boil Order

----Originally Published in CORVUS REVIEW

The Crazy Fuckers

Hubcap Diamond Star Halo

Fat Chance

----Originally Published in THE MOWER

trinityTrinityTRINITY

After Carnival

----Originally published in CRAB FAT MAGAZINE

Hannibal Shooting Fish in a Bucket

Fort Apache the Exchange

Junkyard King

------Originally published in VOX

Old Man Delprete

----Originally Published in GOTHICA

The Windshield of a Moving Car is Hard, especially when you drop on top of it from Thirty Feet

----Originally Published in UNLIKELY STORIES V

The Walk

---Originally published in FAIRYTALES FROM THE URBAN HOLOCAUST (Yorkville Press)

Uncle Drew's Lysergic Backbrain Apocalypse (Slight Return)

Give Up the Sun

----Originally Published in PRESSURE PRESS PRESENTS

Wet

----Originally published in THIS ONE TIME THE ALIEN BUDDHA GOT SO HIGH (Alien Buddha Press)

The Seven Virgins of Eufaula

 ---Presently in the works

The Night they Shut the Geek Show Down

----Molotov Editions Chapbook

The Shrill

-----Originally published in RANT

      Both collections are gonna be bent, because being bent is just in my DNA---but THE MEAT FACTORY will be a little more earthy in tone, whereas THE EVANGEL will be more along the lines of "somebody dropped something in my egg nog---WOAH NELLY!!!"

          Anyway----any takers? 

THIS WEEK'S PLAYLIST:

THE BOLSHOI-Friends

BRIAN JONESTOWN EXPERIENCE-Strung Out in Heaven

Whatever else you got

YAY!!!! I get to be the 9,000th person on the internet who makes fun of "The Room"!!!

Heather got me a fascinating batch of birthday presents a coupla weeks ago---everything was in couplets. Two albums by The Brian Jonestown Massacre (“Strung Out in Heaven” and “Thank God for Mental Illness”) two books by or about Punk Rock/Counter culture legend Penny Rimbaud and a DVD copy of Tommy Wiseau's “The Room”, accompanied by its companion piece, Greg Sestero's making-of-the-movie book, THE DISASTER ARTIST (Don't get me started on the James Franco biopic. He's a tourist in this neighborhood at best---a condescending hipster colonialist with the stench of Hollywood Trash all over him----to quote John Waters, “here in Mortville we don't like social climbers!!!!”)

So, last night we finally cracked open “The Room” and watched it, and by the last half hour Heather was apologizing to me, which was unnecessary, but...

SWEET JESUS!!!! What the hell, Tommy Wiseau?????

I mean, I've seen enough comedic breakdowns on this thing to where I knew everything about it and everything that happens in it, but to see it all laid out in front of you, unexpurgated, back to front, naked, raw, ugly and sad, that's different....

My relationship with “The Room” has become a complicated one—I remember waking up one night  and throwing on “Adult Swim” only to see “Tim and Eric”----in fact, AS's ENTIRE SCHEDULE—was pre-empted by this horrid soap opera-looking thing where some greasy freak named Johnny was racing around having conniptions over who knows what and all the other cast run around wringing their hands over him, and I'm like, “who the fuck is this Johnny idiot and why am I supposed to care?!”

Years later, here it is, full on, and if that's not call enough for a Silkwood Shower, go pay attention to politics for a while.

Wiseau in recent years has usurped Ed Wood for the worst filmmaker ever mantle. To be fair, Wood never deserved that. His naïve charm, his pure gumption and his love for his profession rose above his deficiencies, or in many cases created a nice melange. Wiseau, likewise, probably doesn't deserve such distinction, as luminaries such as James Nguyen and Neil Breen are already making him look like Eisenstein. Wiseau, to his credit, seems to have an understanding that there is this thing out there somewhere called cinematography, and that it can be a nice creation.

If there's any value to “The Room”(Outside the memeworthy quotes---”oh hai Mark! Oh hai Lisa! Oh hai Denny! Oh hai Doggy! Oh hai gun barrel!”) it probably exists in the incredulous conversations one can have during or after (“Oh---damn---that was an hour and a half of my life!”---”What the hell were they thinking?!”). It's a similar phenomenon to what happens in the wake of “Cannibal Holocaust”, except that, with the former, there are bigger questions about the morals of filmmaking, beyond even the intended metanarrative, whereas with “The Room”, it kind of dies on the level of “The Room”----that was terrible, amirite?! Let me count the ways in which it was terrible...

As kind of a side note, a trailer is included on the DVD that undoubtedly happened after “The Room” started attaining cult status...Wiseau was trying to remarket it as a “Black Comedy”. HOLD ON. BULLSHIT. Sorry----you are not permitted to enter Annexia. I am the Black Comedy Police, and I said, NO. I'm an aficionado of Black Comedy----I'm a Black Comedy PURIST, a Black Comedy FUNDAMENTALIST, and my crazy-ass Black Comedy Madrasa says, NO, for the love of Yossarian, you don't get in, sir! Tough titty.

Not that I fault the guy for trying to make a buck, but NO---your pretensions of Black Comedy stop on the end of my fist, sir.

I could rip up “The Room” on any number of fronts---bad green screen, shit performances (although I have a hard time faulting the actors for being unable to convey a script that has no idea what it is to be a human), the sheer, destructive egomania of the auteur---but what I'm going to focus on is the real elephant in the room (or the elephant that ate the room)---the writing.

Great Googly Moogly. Let me take a second out to run my hands across the top of this desk just to make sure there are actual MOLECULES there. Okay. Okay. Okay. I think the universe is stabilizing. So, first you get the “Johnny” character (Wiseau himself), and he's a nice guy, very trusting and altruistic and he's all goodness and light, and (in view of the narrative) a man beyond reproach. It's almost like “Rashumon”, minus any of the cynical, knowing irony.

Then you've got Lisa, Johnny's fiancee---we learn over the course of the film that Lisa is “very beautiful”, a litany repeated endlessly by Johnny and others---she's also callous, duplicitous and completely self-serving, as evidenced by her mantra, “I'm going to do what I want.” You hear THAT a lot, too, as well as her constant response to anyone else's woes, “oh, don't worry about it, it'll be okay!” Lisa would probably qualify as a sociopath, but that's assuming, for five seconds, that “The Room” had any remote understanding of how human beings work.

Third of all you have Mark. Mark is Johnny's best friend. We know this because he repeats it continually, usually while preparing to bone Lisa. In fact, half the dialogue in this film is so repetetive and constant it's like an endless mobeius loop....to quote Heather, “if you made a drinking game out of half this dialogue you'd be clinically dead by the end!”

The last main character is Denny, a weird and disturbing boy-man who also lives in the building. We learn along the way that Johnny thinks of him as a son and pays both his rent and his college tuition. Denny is arguably the creepiest character on the story---he's a constant tagalong/human dingleberry and he has an unhealthy desire to be with Johnny and Lisa especially when they're trying to get intimate. Why? I don't know why.

There are other characters and other plot points, too (I'll get to those in a sec) although the main gist of it is the very simplistic structure of Lisa and Mark's betrayal of Johnny leading to his eventual hissy fit and suicide at the end. Other characters and plot points pop in and out for no reason whatsoever. Some rando couple pop into Johnny and Lisa's apartment and have sex for no discernible reason. Characters appear and disappear. Lisa's mother announces she has breast cancer, with all the crushing gravitas of last week's fender bender. Lisa blows off this revelation like she does everything else in the movie and it is never mentioned again. Denny is in trouble with a local drug dealer. This becomes an issue once and is then completely forgotten about. There is a scene at a coffee shop where we are treated to two sets of customers placing their full orders and being seated before Johnny and Mark come in, place THEIR full orders and are seated, whereupon the “important” slice of dialogue starts. WHAT THE HELL IS THIS-----SILAS MARNER???? Fuckin' TOLSTOY????

Throughout the story people behave in a way that is categorically unlike the way humans act ANYWHERE. People perpetually show up for visits or deep, heart-to-heart conversations that last 3 to 5 minutes and resolve zilch before getting back up and saying, “well, I've got to go,” and walking back out the door. I mean, this motif is CONSTANT. It's COPIOUS. It HAPPENS IN AN ENDLESS STREAM.

And then there's the football. THE FOOTBALL. THE GODDAMN FUCKING FOOTBALL. MEIN GOTT. Not that actual football games are taking place, but a perpetual bit of recreation and bonding the males in this movie engage in is that they go off somewhere with a GOD DAMN FOOTBALL and they all run around and toss it back and forth...these endless games of catch with the goddamn football!

So my theory is that Tommy Wiseau is actually a space creature---his mission is to report back to his alien brethren regarding life on earth and that “The Room”, rather than an actual film for human consumption, is his report back to the homeworld about us and what he believes we're like. His hypothesis is laughed out of the building and now he's stuck here, a la “The Man Who Fell to Earth”.

Heather did me one better and suggested “The Room” is actually a sly reboot of “Robot Monster”. Tommy/Johnny is actually supposed to be Ro-Man. Lisa is the oldest daughter Ro-Man must kill but develops feelings for. Mark is a hybrid of the patriarch/scientist and also the alpha male boyfriend of the daughter. Denny is the kid who dreams the whole thing (or DOES he???) Lisa's mother...? She might be one of those lizards they crib in from a different film, pretending it's a “dinosaur”. Yeah. I'm sure that's it.

There seems to be this whole school of film criticism out there, now, that encourages you to throw any sad, demented theoretical comparison out there, and posit it whether it can be backed up or not. Heather's “Robot Monster” theory is as sound as any of the others. I think it's time to nominate her for a Rondo....

In the meantime, do yourself a favor and check out “Robot Monster”----it's better than “The Room”. Or check out “Plan 9 from Outer Space”. Or “The Star Creatures”. Or “Manos: The Hands of Fate”. Okay---that last one was a tough call...nope. Sticking to it.

Later on we got some better entertainment going----ALL THE COLORS OF GIALLO featuring four hours of classic Giallo trailers with commentary by the great Kat Ellinger. A much more rewarding experience, and, dare I say it? Infinitely better than “The Room”.

UP NEXT: “The Meat Factory” (previously unpublished!) plus 2019's long range-but-attainable goals

'Til then....Aloha!

WRONGDOING WROULETTE

I've been sitting on this one for an inordinate length of time for absolutely NO GOOD REASON other than my own stupid lack of organization and distraction with other (mostly asinine) things. But I've been wanting to do it and there's no time like the (while I've got a brief, sane window) ever-fragile present.......Uncle Chuck has been on an INCREDIBLE ROLL these past few months as far as placing short stories and other sundries....some publishers out there have been VERY KIND to your strooly and I think it's crucially important to help promote these good people and their efforts.

While I'm running hot and cold on a lot of my bigger, more ambitious projects, the art of the short story is one that I've always had a particular liking for, and lately I've glommed on to it, HARD. I like playing with these compact narratives and I feel like I'm producing a lot of good ones. So I'm emphasizing that, but I've got other goodies in store. Anyway, here comes a laundry list of publications, webzines and publishers that kick ass and they deserve both your attention and your support, so pull out yer spiral notebooks and take note......

     We're gonna go back to October 2018 for the first couple. I teased my contributions to UNLIKELY STORIES MARK V a few months back, and they're HERE. I mean, THESE ARE THE LINKS TO THE STORIES.
http://www.unlikelystories.org/content/jesus-superman-and-rice-patties?fbclid=IwAR0up52UbYy4hQNgD80VII3UNReo1zfk5K2wCHCu6r3dw4VlGcZ5c3eupDg

http://www.unlikelystories.org/content/the-windshield-of-a-moving-car-is-hard-especially-when-you-drop-on-top-of-it-from-thirty?fbclid=IwAR0ogh1j0BKouCLK3Nek4h6zBE0gsAt9AEEWBtKv5MBeMAf-HwF4ZyzUg8Y

"Jesus, Superman and Rice Patties" is an OLD story, very early, recently rewritten. "The Windshield of a Moving Car is Hard, especially when you drop on top of it from thirty feet" is FAIRLY NEW. Some friends might remember me threatening to write a story about a guy legally changing his name to "Howard the Duck" YEAH, WELL, I WENT THOUGH WITH IT. You can read it RIGHT THERE.
     In general you need to check out UNLIKELY STORIES MARK V when you get a chance.....Jonathan Penton has put together a fine rolling periodical with piss, verve and color.

      Another person deserving of your interest and support is Sreemanti Sengupta at Odd Books and the ODD MAGAZINE. She puts together a unique pastiche of webzine and tiny-but-mighty publications. Fourteen bucks gets you a year's package, and you really need to experience the joy yourself (as I did) of getting this beautiful stack in the mail...

Not that I'm not part of the cavalcade or anything....

       "The Day the Sun got an Eye Gouge" is a weird one, and you need to consider that in light of the last one I linked to. If you like stories about all-day eclipses, animals wearing sun visors, kids with Asperger's Syndrome and flying, talking pot roasts, then fire up a big spliff and check it out!!!!!! (Not that I advocate that kind of thing or anything). While you're at it, though, check the Odds and their entire catalogue out at length.

https://www.theoddmagazine.com/

      Okay----next up: FEARLESS!!!! Goddamnit, what can I say about FEARLESS???
Kevin Hibshman and I go back, WAY back to the Mesozoic Era, when we both crawled out of the primordial ooze and started lobbing xerographic molotov cocktails around. Somewhere amid that ferocious melee we peered around the swamp at each other and said, "hey, buddy!"

FEARLESS (originally DISTURBING DREAMS AND DRIED BLOOD) is an underground lit INSTITUTION and it's been around forever. Anytime FEARLESS appears in any incarnation it's an event. This time out it's pretty extraordinary, like a little poetic thoughtbomb, and it gives me all the nostalgic feels for the days when we were running out to places like Kinko's or Staples to print up en masse and drop all our sodden product on an unsuspecting public. Despite our current digital mileu Kevin replicates our old DIY, cut-and-paste ethic to PERFECTION.


        https://archive.org/details/Fearless66

THAT'S IT, RIGHT THERE. THAT'S THE LINK TO THE MAG ITSELF. Click that and you can read it and you can download it for your very own. Don't say I never gave you nothin'.
        I've got a few poems in here, although the biggest point of excitement (for me) is the first appearance in publication of the Fugues....little dream logic prose pieces I started doing recently (Actually, the first Fugue seen publicly was Fugue Seven, which I ran back in September and which was written explicitly for this blog). I think my original thought was that the Fugues were going to largely be erotica, but...y'know...I just can't do anything straight down the middle....but I've got more of these things to throw around, so....don't forget your helmets!
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1794097392?fbclid=IwAR2tFbjvm4aw6Z-R94dm1hPclj7gHrHK8C4GFg4gphCjL23ZEsjYOy3reog

        Last but hardly least I need to give a shoutout to the fine folks at ALIEN BUDDHA PRESS who are running a monster of an operation and are more productive than any small press I think I've ever seen. Red Focks and Co. have their game DOWN. I'm appearing in three of Alien Buddha's jams, right now, all of which look great and all of which have emerged at a startlingly fast rate. OH---YEAH---and as you can see from the link above, they're all available through Amazon.

       I was pretty excited when the call went up for a drug-centered anthology as I'd been thinking for a while about a new strain of literature that I referred to as "Pharma-Punk" (and I'm sure there are plenty of folks who've been writing along those lines forever)----in writing this kind of open-ended speculative fiction revolving around substance abuse I'm following the lead of writers like Hank Kirton and Shannon X. Caine, both of whom are exceptional with the pseudo-genre. My entry with Alien Buddha is "Wet", set in a bleak, dystopian future (what a dull, stagnant term) where we follow several sketchy characters in search of their drug of choice. I'm real proud of this one.
         ALIEN BUDDHA ZINE #3  and TALES FROM ALIEN BUDDHA 4 feature my short stories, "The Jennifer Tree" and "Faith",  although I'm actually a little fuzzy on which story appears in which publication. You know what, though? You should pick 'em all up. Chase 'em down on Amazon.
       Anyway, that's the roundup and that's what I've been up to these past few months. So curl up with something good to read and give some of these outfits some much deserved attention.

THIS WEEK'S PLAYLIST:
1. IDLES-Brutalism
2. BRIAN JONESTOWN MASSACRE- Strung Out in Heaven
3. BRIAN JONESTOWN MASSACRE-Thank God for Mental Illness
4. SKINNY PUPPY-Rabies
     

ENTRY

This entry was "Fort Apache the Exchange", pending publication in GUERILLA GENESIS PRESS

There are days when you wake up and realize your story has surpassed its best-by date. Such was the case today with "Fort Apache the Exchange".

      God knows it's not an OLD story and usually I feel justified in peddling these things 'til they have a long, white beard. The danger, though, of doing topical/satirical SF is just that because you're dealing with specific topics and specific issues in specific times, you end up putting an expiration date on your work....which is why for the most part I prefer to deal with BROAD, UNIVERSAL politics as opposed to specific issues tied to specific time frames.

     Obviously, a chunk of this spoofs colonialism, which is a pretty broad subject that you can do a lot with. Colonialism, though, is just a bug rather than the feature.

     At the time I wrote it the TEA Party had some wheels under them and the Occupy Movement was very much on the wane. I was still trying to process my own poor associations from my five-minutes in the local version of the Occupy Movement, but that's another rant for another time. So basing it around what I saw going on as well as my own years of experience as an activist, it was my own look at the way Neoliberals (my favorite targets), elites in general and/or the people in charge of any given system view and relate to activists, protesters and/or movements.

       From my own lens, having dealt with both power structures and their friends and mouthpieces in the media, elites do not understand activists, or at the very least they make a disingenuous show of not understanding them, instead dismissing their concerns as "incoherent" or "conspiracy theories". The Aliens in "Fort Apache" are actually on the benevolent side (or at least that's how they see themselves)...of course, there's the genuine culture barrier. 

      Thing is, at this point in time this chunk of history is just water under the bridge and there's really no pressing relevance to push. I can't really justify keeping "Fort Apache" in circulation so you all get it here.

THIS WEEK'S PLAYLIST:

1. WE'RE DESPERATE (Rhino L.A. Punk comp)

2. THE BOLSHOI-A Way: The Best of the Bolshoi

3. BLACK SABBATH-Vol. 4