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
     

FUGUE SEVEN PLUS GENERALIZED WRONGDOINGS

FUGUE SEVEN: SICKNESS AND MOURNING

(Slight Return)

by C.F. Roberts

I'm sick....if you have the misfortune of seeing me I look like some sad cartoon bug or something. I haven't bathed in the better part of a week, I'm in constant pain, I can't eat and I really am truly the sickest I've been in decades.

The little black cat is curled up in a ball by my side----she won't leave. She rests half on my body, half off, because it hurts so much when she's on top of me that I won't stop moaning and groaning.

What's she thinking? Is she afraid I'm going to die? I'm loathe to say what my cat is thinking, but I guess I appreciate the good thoughts.

Two years later I've recovered from my illness. There have been fluctuating ups and downs in life.

On this day that same little cat that would not leave my side is dying on the living room floor in front of me. I spent the last several days watching her deteriorate to the point where she has been lying limp on the arm of the couch, choosing to sleep most of the day.

Now she has abandoned all places of comfort, choosing instead to lie flat on her side. My wife strokes her softly and she shudders, letting out a weak, noiseless cry.

We tell her we love her and we're here----right here with her and we're not going away. We hang back and talk as she lies still.

After a while we realize she's gone.

Some close friends go behind our backs and do us the kindness of paying to have her cremated. She is returned to us a week or so later, her ashes in a tiny, wooden container with her name emblazoned across the top. It looks like a tiny casket and it's hard to believe a little box like that contains what used to be a cat.

I show it to our male. He rubs up on it with a great deal of affection. I don't know if any part of him understands that what we're showing him is his sister, but he seems to like it a lot, regardless.

We place it on our mantlepiece with some of our favorite things---Exotica records, Halloween decorations, anything Hawkwind ever did. We burn some incense and place a little cheezit cracker on the tiny casket. She loved them. She would steal snacks like that right out of our hands.

She was cantankerous, unruly, unrelenting, loyal and beautiful. I'll spend the rest of my life wondering if I was worthy of her company.

Copyright 2018 Molotov Editions

While I'm kicking around like a lout and trying to preserve my 900th skin graft I figure I haven't done any kind of a status update in a while...lot of exciting news on the writerly front.
I guess that the latest is that in early October ( Projected as sometime in the week of Oct. 7-13) UNLIKELY STORIES MARK V will be running my short stories, "Jesus, Superman and Rice Patties" and "The Windshield of a Moving Car is Hard, Especially when you Drop on Top of it from Thirty Feet" over two consecutive days. Keep an eye peeled. This publication rocks, they've been kicking it for a very long time and you can check them out HERE:

http://www.unlikelystories.org/

In addition, THE ODD MAGAZINE and Odd Books are going to be doing my short story, "The Day the Sun got an Eye Gouge" as a mini-chap at some point in the future....I latched onto the Odds earlier this year and fiercely recommend them----they've got something fresh ad unlike anything else going on! Look them up HERE:

https://www.theoddmagazine.com/

One of these stories is actually one of my oldest ever, which up to this point I've never been able to place---the other two are significantly newer. Keep an eye peeled for this stuff....they're three of my favorite stories and I can't wait for people to read 'em.

       Let's see---what else? OH!!!! YEAH!!!!! MY BAND PUT OUT A GODDAMN ALBUM!!!!!! As I've been slinging the hash of hype for a while, it's probably important that I finally get to actually pimp this thing! We even have our first video out!!!!! And if you haven't seen it, here it is:

Sorry if you've gotta sign in----the sticky wicket of having to farm a music video with a few naughty words through the local Access Station/Media Center---but they're a great help to me----have been for many years, god bless 'em!
Anyway, yeah, that's me----I produced and edited the video, those are my paintings and my grotty vocals you're hearing-----sublime music  by the great Mike McAdam and percussive contributions by Brad Rondeau! Enjoy.
        We're talking about putting the album out on CD Baby in the future----until that happens, if you want a copy of the CD, well....if you're in NWA you can find it at our favorite musical haunt,
https://www.facebook.com/blockstreetrecords/
If you can't get it there, contact me. I'll see if I can't set ya up.

THIS WEEK'S PLAYLIST:
BAUHAUS-Burning from the Inside
BAUHAUS-The Sky's Gone Out
KISS-Rock'N'Roll Over
THE GUN CLUB-Louder than Live