Tidbits

Currently Watching: In Plain Sight. This is one of Norma’s favorite shows, and we’ve caught up on Season Two. Star Mary McCormack’s lips have gone from hideously overinflated to just kind of rough looking. Check out photos of her from the movie Private Parts or The West Wing series. Nothing wrong with those lips. But she got ‘em all mangled up for In Plain Sight. Thankfully, in the second season, those monster lips are start to return to normal.


Currently reading: Castaways by Brian Keene. Cross Survivor with Richard Laymon’s Beast House and you’ve got a real page-turner. Great fun.


Here’s an interview with my buddy Ron Fortier, the man who’s working harder than anybody at keeping pulp fiction alive.

Lying to Myself and Other Entertaining Pastimes

I have diabetes.

If you remembered that, you’re one up on me. Oh, I knew it. I simply chose to ignore it for a long time.

I was diagnosed in 2001. For a long time, I was great about monitoring my glucose. I ate the right stuff. I took my medication. I exercised regularly. I tested.

But my insurance didn’t cover testing supplies, so it became easier and easier to say, “I feel pretty good; I’ll test tomorrow” until I wasn’t testing at all. It also was quite simple to say, “That piece of pie I had last night didn’t bother me, so let’s have another one tonight.”

I still took my pills and I still exercised. And I was able to fool myself into thinking everything was fine.

Until I went to Mexico last November.

While spending a great day in the pool at our resort I ground massive blisters into the bottom of both feet. These developed into two deep ulcers, for which I had to see the Mexican doctor. I’ll save that story for later (except to say that when I got back home I went directly to my doc, who took a look at the oral medicine the Mexican physician gave me. He said, “I have no idea what the hell this is” then he threw the pills away). He told me to keep the wounds clean and that was about it.

So I did. And I tried to minimize the time spent on my feet. My daily walks were put on hold.

A few months passed, and the wounds began to heal. But after a certain point, they stopped. As long as progress was being made I could tell myself that I didn’t need to go to the doctor.

Meanwhile, my energy level had fallen dramatically. There were days – most days -- when it was all I could to drag myself through the door after work. And the idea of doing anything else, including writing, seemed impossible.

Norma convinced me to start monitoring my glucose again. I did, and the number was shockingly high. Apparently the amount of walking I normally did kept the glucose level slightly in check. Once I couldn’t take long walks, the sugar shot up.

I immediately cut out carbs and started trying to get the number down.

About that same time, I mentioned my situation to a coworker. It turned out that he had an appointment the following week with a new podiatrist, and while there, he mentioned my problem. The doctor advised my friend to send me in as soon as possible. So the next day I was getting the wounds examined. The doctor said they were clean and well cared for, but they were never going to fully heal because of where they were located.

Now I wear special shoes that take the pressure off the ulcers and I make weekly trips to the wound care center. I’m on the mend.

And the blood sugar is finally back in normal range, after the addition of a new medication. I’ve dropped a lot of weight over the past several weeks, and I’m exercising again, albeit not by walking, but that will come soon.

I’m pretty sure I will stay motivated. On my first visit to the wound care center, I sat in the waiting room with a number of overweight people, many in wheelchairs. The guy sitting next to me was polishing off a big burger and a bag of chips. Another patient, obviously a regular, asked Chip Boy, “How ya doin’, Ronnie?”

“Awright,” Chip Boy said. “They cut off another one of my toes last week, but I don’t know what’s wrong.”

That was the moment I vowed that will never be me.

I decided to share this story for those few who might wonder where I’ve gone or why they haven’t gotten a story/article/review from me in a timely manner

Now I’m feeling good again. I’m back to work on my writing and editing. While I didn’t finish the novel in March, I don’t see any reason I can’t type “The End” by late May or early June. I’m also working my way through the submissions for Appalachian Holiday Hauntings, so keep those stories coming.

And if you ever see me chowing down on a Snicker’s bar, slap me up the side of my egg-shaped skull, okay?

Our Loss

This was a bad week.

People who don’t have pets or don’t like animals or think all dogs and cats belong outside should stop reading now.

Those who have pets or are animal lovers know how these little critters can enrich your life and worm their way into your hearts.

In November of 1995 we got two little kittens, a male and female brother and sister. We were supposed to actually get two males, but the kittens’s owner gave us the wrong one, though we didn’t know it at the time. We took them directly to our vets for a feline leukemia test. We had just lost a cat to that insidious disease and were determined it wouldn’t happen again. During the course of the test, we found out one of the kittens was female. We briefly debated taking her back and getting the other male, but while we had been waiting for the results, the tiny female had been curled up on Norma’s chest, never looking away from her eyes. They were irrevocably bonded.

When the vet asked the name of the two cats for their charts, I said the first thing that popped into my head, the name of a then-popular television series.

Thus, Lois and Clark joined our family.

Over the past few weeks, Lois had been acting odd. She was throwing up frequently, wasn’t grooming like she usually did, had lost a little weight and wouldn’t play as much as she normally had. At first, I put it off to old age. Recently, though, I was sure something was wrong.

Monday we took her to the vet, who decided she had a mass in her abdomen. On Tuesday the vet did exploratory surgery and found that Lois’s little body was filled with cancer. The prognosis wasn’t good. The vet could sew her up and send her home for a few weeks of progressively worse pain. Or we could let her go while she was still under, painlessly and peacefully.

As much as we wanted to keep her with us for even a few more days, we knew it would be selfish to let her suffer for our needs.

So we went into the operating room and kissed this sweet, gentle angel goodbye.

It’s one of the hardest things either of us has ever had to do.

There have been a lot of tears over he last few days. Nights are the worst for me. That’s when Lois would climb into bed with me, purring and “kissing” my lips and nose. I think morning are hardest for Norma, as Lois would sit in the chair with her while she worked at the computer.

But we have Clark to concentrate on, as well as our newest cat, Callie. Clark especially needs extra love now, as he wanders from room to room in this house, looking for his sister.

We had Lois cremated, and she rests now in a beautiful urn just a few feet from where I sit, in her favorite room.

I hope that the pain will diminish in the coming weeks and I can concentrate on the nearly 14 years of wonderful memories that I have of my little sweetheart. But right now it feels like an enormous hole has been carved out of my heart.

And the Nominees Are...

Despite the presence of me in their pages, both The Book of Lists: Horror and Horror Library Volume 3 have been nominated for Stoker Awards, the Oscars of the horror field. Congratulations to the editors, especially Scott and R. J., both a pleasure to work with. Here are all the nominees:

Final Stoker Ballot 2009

Superior Achievement in a Novel

COFFIN COUNTY by Gary Braunbeck (Leisure Books)
THE REACH by Nate Kenyon (Leisure Books)
DUMA KEY by Stephen King (Scribner)
JOHNNY GRUESOME by Gregory Lamberson (Bad Moon Books/Medallion Press)

Superior Achievement in a First Novel

MIDNIGHT ON MOURN STREET by Christopher Conlon (Earthling Publications)
THE GENTLING BOX by Lisa Mannetti (Dark Hart Press)
MONSTER BEHIND THE WHEEL by Michael McCarty and Mark McLaughlin (Delirium Books)
THE SUICIDE COLLECTORS by David Oppegaard (St. Martin's Press)
FROZEN BLOOD by Joel A. Sutherland (Lachesis Publishing)

Superior Achievement in Long Fiction

THE SHALLOW END OF THE POOL by Adam-Troy Castro (Creeping Hemlock Press)
MIRANDA by John R. Little (Bad Moon Books)
REDEMPTION ROADSHOW by Weston Ochse (Burning Effigy Press)
THE CONFESSIONS OF ST. ZACH by Gene O'Neill (Bad Moon Books)

Superior Achievement in Short Fiction

PETRIFIED by Scott Edelman (Desolate Souls)
THE LOST by Sarah Langan (Cemetery Dance Publications)
THE DUDE WHO COLLECTED LOVECRAFT by Nick Mamatas, and Tim Pratt (Chizine)
EVIDENCE OF LOVE IN A CASE OF ABANDONMENT by M. Rickert (Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction)
TURTLE by Lee Thomas (Doorways)

Superior Achievement in an Anthology

LIKE A CHINESE TATTOO edited by Bill Breedlove (Dark Arts Books)
HORROR LIBRARY, VOL. 3 edited by R. J. Cavender (Cutting Block Press)
BENEATH THE SURFACE edited by Tim Deal (Shroud Publishing)
UNSPEAKABLE HORROR edited by Vince A. Liaguno and Chad Helder (Dark Scribe Press)

Superior Achievement in a Collection
THE NUMBER 121 TO PENNSYLVANIA by Kealan Patrick Burke (Cemetery Dance Publications)
MAMA'S BOY and Other Dark Tales by Fran Friel (Apex Publications)
JUST AFTER SUNSET by Stephen King (Scribner)
MR. GAUNT AND OTHER UNEASY ENCOUNTERS by John Langan (Prime Books)
GLEEFULLY MACABRE TALES by Jeff Strand (Delirium Books)

Superior Achievement in Nonfiction

CHEAP SCARES by Gregory Lamberson (McFarland)
ZOMBIE CSU by Jonathan Maberry (Citadel Press)
A HALLOWE'EN ANTHOLOGY by Lisa Morton (McFarland)
THE BOOK OF LISTS: HORROR by Amy Wallace, Del Howison, and Scott Bradley (HarperCollins)

Superior Achievement in a Poetry Collection

THE NIGHTMARE COLLECTION by Bruce Boston (Dark Regions Press)
THE PHANTOM WORLD by Gary William Crawford (Sam's Dot Publishing)
VIRGIN OF THE APOCALYPSE by Corrine De Winter (Sam's Dot Publishing)
ATTACK OF THE TWO-HEADED POETRY MONSTER by Mark McLaughlin and Michael McCarty (Skullvines Press)

Pod of Horror #52: Clive Barker and Ronald Kelly

On Pod of Horror #52, we interview legendary author, film maker and artist Clive Barker. Also, 90s horror icon Ronald Kelly has returned in a big way, and we discover where he went and what the future holds for his fans. Nanci is here with the Call of Kalanta, Norm Rubenstein offers a bunch of new reviews and we give away tons of horror in The Tomb of Trivia. Get it at i-Tunes or download it here. Pod of Horror is hosted and produced by Mark Justice.

Mr. Farmer and Me

The death of Philip Jose Farmer two weeks ago has sent me over a waterfall of memory. I’ve been re-reading the Riverworld series and digging through thousands of books in an attempt to find all the Farmer I have. I’ve located the majority of the titles, and I know the Opar books can’t hide for long.

As to how I discovered Philip Jose Farmer, I have to give all the credit to my Uncle Bud. Sometime in 1969, when I was almost ten, Uncle Bud gave me three Doc Savage paperbacks. Though I had been reading since I was four or five – thanks to book-loving parents – those pulp reprints were a little tough for me to get through. It took me almost a month to read The Other World. Though after that, I was hooked. I devoured the remaining two, Dust of Death and The Flaming Falcons, all with those magnificent and hyper-realistic James Bama covers.

Soon, I was haunting Hill’s Department Store in Russell, KY for my monthly Doc fix. Back in the days of yore when folks actually read, most department stores had a great book section. Hill’s had a massive wall of paperbacks. I wore out a couple of pairs of Keds browsing up and down that aisle, searching for any Docs I might have missed.

I also spent a lot of time the public library in Flatwoods. One day in 1973 or ‘74, I saw something on the New Arrivals shelf that stopped me cold. It was a hardcover called Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life by someone named Philip Jose Farmer. But there was something wrong with the cover. It pictured a man in a suit riding on the running board of an old-fashioned car. The wind whipped through his normal hair, and his necktie stretched out behind him. The car was driven was a squat-looking, tremendously ugly dude. Where was the ripped shirt and metallic widow’s peak of the Doc Savage I knew? Who was this Farmer guy, and what had he done to my favorite hero?

There wasn’t even a minuscule possibility I was leaving the library without that book.

I remembering reading it over a weekend. And believe me when I tell you, friends: I was never the same.

This Farmer fellow had taken the entire Doc Savage saga and placed it in chronological order, in essence turning my monthly fixes of adventure into a biography of a real person.

That’s right. Farmer claimed Doc Savage was based on a real guy.

Every circuit breaker in my brain tripped simultaneously.

Could this be the truth? These fantastic stories I was devouring as quick as I bought them – the mummy brought back to life, the hidden cities and mystic mullahs and fantastic islands –were real. Moreover, It turned out Farmer had written a similar book about Tarzan, and he was real, too (okay, I can hear your snickers all the way across the World Wide Interwebs, but in my defense, I was young and uber-naive).

I must have walked around in a daze for a month. I know I checked that book out from the library a dozen times before the first paperback edition showed up on my beloved book wall at Hill’s

I also learned that the cover of the book was the actual cover to the April 1935 issue of Doc Savage magazine. That was the way America knew The Man of Bronze in the ‘30s and ‘40s. (When Bantam published the paperback edition of Farmer’s book, they used the Bama version of Doc on the cover, though drawn by a lesser talent. When Playboy Press reprinted it again in 1981, Ken Barr painted a Bama-inspired Doc without the widow’s peak and wearing a high-tech vest instead of a torn shirt.)

At some point I discovered that Farmer had written some fiction about Doc Savage and Tarzan (calling them Doc Caliban and Lord Grandrith). One was called A Feast Unknown, and proved difficult to find. The other two were halves of an Ace double novel: The Mad Goblin and Lord of the Trees. My memory fails me at this point but I somehow discovered Mr. Farmer’s address in those pre-Internet days and I wrote him a letter asking for an autographed book (I don’t have a copy of my letter, though I’m sure it was as embarrassingly fanboyish) That was in late ‘75. On December 22 of that year, I received an autographed copy of the Ace double, along with a letter from Farmer with instructions on how to order A Feast Unknown. My parents must have known what a Farmer fan I had become, because three days later, on Christmas day, they gave me several Farmer books. I’m sure of the date, since I had a habit of writing my name in every book I owned, along with the date. I wrote “12-25-75" in To Your Scattered Bodies Go, The Fabulous Riverboat, Inside Outside and Strange Relations. I still have all of those books.

Over the next couple of years I read everything I could find by Farmer: The Green Odyssey, Dare, The Lovers, Blown, Image of the Beast, The Gates of Time. I must have been particularly impressed by Lord Tyger and Time’s Last Gift, since I wrote to Farmer about those novels in late 1977. Lord Tyger involved an experiment to raise someone the way Tarzan had been raised. In Time’s Last Gift, scientists travel back in time, but their time machine has a limited range.

Again, I didn’t keep a copy of my letter, but I must have expressed my desire to become a writer, even proposing an idea for a Lord Tyger sequel to Farmer.

On November 28, 1977, he wrote:

Dear Mr. Justice: Thanks for your letter of November 23. I had thought about Gribardsun building a time machine in 12, 000 B.C. so he could go further into the past. But I have so many other things to write that I abandoned the idea.

I also thought about plagiarizing from myself and having a group of scientists raise a male infant to emulate the fictional Doc Savage. But it would be too much like Lord Tyger in some respects. However, if you want to write a novel based on this idea, you have my permission.

You seem to be full of ideas. Good luck with your writing. And if you get the book a la Savage published, send me a copy.

Best, Philip Jose Farmer.



As you could imagine, that had me smiling for days.

Until I found the letter an couple of hours ago, I had forgotten about the Savage book idea (as blatant a Lord Tyger rip-off as it was). If I wrote it now I would certainly approach it much differently in the 21st century. But the idea still has bite. Maybe, one day...

Here’s where I confess the geeky PJF fan’s dream I’ve had since my teens: to one day collaborate with Farmer on a Doc Caliban novel. Over the last two weeks, that dream has become an itch deep in my brain, one I’m going to have to scratch, even if I’m writing it for my eyes only. If I do, it will be a collaboration in spirit, I hope.

Also, I want to one day write a story set on Riverworld. Maybe someone will put together a Farmer tribute anthology, and I can make that happen.

Coming soon: my telephone interview with Farmer for my Doc Savage fanzine, during which PJF tires to convince me Doc and Tarzan were real.

Rest In Peace, Philip Jose Farmer

Philip Jose Farmer passed away this morning at the age of 91.

He was a giant in science fiction. If the Riverworld series was all he wrote, his immortality would be assured. But he created so much more.

He had a love for the age of pulp magazines heroes. In fact, when I published a Doc Savage fanzine in high school with my friend John Boehm, Farmer was he first author I ever interviewed. Even as he tried to convince me over the phone that Doc Savage and Tarzan were real people, he remained a true gentleman. In later correspondence he encouraged my writing, and never treated me like the gawky fanboy I was.


I think I'm going to sit down with To Your Scattered Bodies Go, and rediscover the brilliance of his work.

Funked-Up Hog Meat

Proving that Internet radio shows have officially run out of guests, I’ve been invited to appear on The Funky Werepig tonight at 11:00 (eastern).

What’s that, Mark? you say. You’ll be a guest at 11:00 PM on a day where you got out of bed at 2:00 AM?

Why, yes. That’s right. Imagine the hilarity. Imagine the fun. Imagine the incoherent rambling.

Hard to believe they don’t charge you to listen.

I’m not sure what we’ll discuss, but I’m guessing the topics may include Pod of Horror, my meager literary efforts and my inexplicable fascination for Rachael Ray and Marie Osmond.

Tune in at the link above. If you hear somebody snoring, it will be me.

Pod of Horror #51 is Live

On Pod of Horror #51 we answer the question: Where in the world is Scott Nicholson? Also, Ronald Damien Malfi tells us about PASSENGER and his dad’s secret life. Author-editor Louise Bohmer talks about both jobs. Nanci chews out Wall Street on The Call of Kalanta. Norm Rubenstein is back with a plethora of book reviews and The Tomb of Trivia remains unanswered. All this, and a special appearance by Rain Graves. Get it at i-Tunes or download it here. Pod of Horror is hosted and produced by Mark Justice.

Appalachian Holiday Hauntings

For the writers out there, Mike Knost and I are editing an anthology of Christmas ghost stories. Details below.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES:

Title: Appalachian Holiday Hauntings

Editors: Michael Knost and Mark Justice

Publisher: Woodland Press

Publication date: November 1, 2009

Word count: 1000 to 3000 words

Pay: three-cents per word plus contributor copy (one-cent per word on reprints)

Submit to: xmasanthology@yahoo.com

Format: Attached RTF or Word Document file. (do not copy and paste into email body)

No simultaneous or multiple submissions

No explicit language or sexual content (this project will be in regional school systems)

Deadline: September 1, 2009 (do not inquire on status of submission until after this date)

We are looking for traditional Christmas ghost stories set in the Appalachian region. Think Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol with an Appalachian backdrop. However, given this example, we want to make sure you understand that stories may be set in any time frame, including the present.

We are not interested in tales that disrespect or alter the religious aspects of the holiday.

The Haunt

I joined the new horror social community The Haunt.

Think MySpace or Facebook with blood and fangs.

If you're a member, drop by and add me.

Pod of Horror #50: Skipp & Goodfellow

Pod of Horror has reached 50 episodes. Who’d have thunk it? We celebrate with John Skipp and Cody Goodfellow discussing JAKE’S WAKE and future collaborations. We also talk to Scott Sigler, author of INFECTED and CONTAGIOUS. There’s a test of the Byte Me Emergency Response System on The Call of Kalanta. Norm Rubenstein is back with a bevy of horror reviews, and The Tomb of Trivia has another winner. Get it at i-Tunes or download it here. Pod of Horror is hosted and produced by Mark Justice.

Mondays Don't Totally Suck

I was given the official approval from my editor on the humor column, which may become a regular gig.

I also got that comic book proposal out to another editor.

And I hit my goal on the novel, despite a long, wacky day at work.

Let's hope Tuesday goes as well.

Sunday, Sunday

Here’s a quick note to catch you up on what’s happening. That’s right, both of you.

The new writing schedule continues to pay dividends. I’ll hopefully be finished with the first draft in early March. My plan is to then let it age a couple of weeks while I get to work on the next novel, Reaper Road. I’ll edit Novel #1 in the evenings. I’m not being coy about Novel #1's tile; I just haven’t settled on one I like yet.

Also in March, Dave Wilbanks and I plan to start Book 3 in the Dead Earth series. What’s that, you say? Where is DE #2? We’re shopping it around at this very moment. We hope to have something to report soon.

That humor writing I referred to the other day is turning out to be a lot of fun. I wrote the first column today and had Norma proof it. Since she laughed in all the right places, I sent it off to my editor. If it gets approved, I’ll let you know where to find it.

This weekend I talked to a publisher about a cool new idea for a novella series. This will be something I’ll write later in the year. I also had a conversation with a comic book publisher. I’ll be sending out a proposal for that tomorrow.

Finally, it looks like a project of mine that I tried to get off the ground a few years ago still has some life left in it, thanks to the interest of a friend of mine.

All in all, 2009 is looking to be the busiest year yet for my writing. Now if the Bengals learn to play football before this fall, it will be a fantastic year.

Happy Soupy Day!

Soupy Sales is 83 today. In 1944 he graduated high school a few miles from me, in Huntington, WV. His daily kids show was huge in the 60s, and now, looking at clips, it's a little hard to understand. Soupy was an acquired taste. Even as a child it was obvious to me that his show was a bit more, ah, spontaneous than those of his contemporaries. Watch the clip below and you'll see what I mean. Watch it long enough and you can see Soupy lip sync--or "ear" sync--to his hit The Mouse. And I use the term "hit" loosely.

I would like to believe that my sense of humor has matured past the Soupy Sales level. But I know deep down that it hasn't.

And that's okay.

Happy birthday, Soupy.

Mid-Week Update

So far so good on the new writing schedule. I've been able to hit my goal every day in 2009 ( that's right...seven big days!). Next week will be a challenge, due to some extracurricular stuff at work, but I should be able to plan around it.

It looks like I'm finally going to finish this novel, then move on to the next and the next...

An interesting proposal came my way today for some non-fiction humor writing. If it pans out it should be fun. As always, I'll keep my Internet pals and gals updated.

So far my favorite read of this very young year is Jake's Wake by John Skipp and Cody Goodfellow. Splatterpunk lives, baby! It's not for the fainthearted (Skipp's name on the cover should tell you that) but once you start, it's impossible to close the cover. Listen for the dastardly duo on a future Pod of Horror.

Bad New/Not-So-Bad-News

Delirium dropped my collection Bone Songs, due to the economy and the downsizing of their output. And let’s face it: I’m not a big name.

The book is already under consideration with another publisher. This version is bigger. It contains several stories not in Bone Songs, including both stories that made up the sold-out Deadneck Hootenanny. I’m also shopping it around under the original title Looking at the World With Broken Glass in My Eye. That’ll choke a librarian, eh?

The same day I got the news from Delirium, I also got an invitation to an anthology that I’m very excited about. The editor is a well-known horror writer, and I have an idea that I think will work out well.

Speaking of writing, I was checking out my blog entries for the beginning of 2008. Ah, what a naive, wide-eyed romantic I was back then. I set lofty goals and met almost none of them. My biggest regret was missing a deadline given to me by another well-known writer who took an interest in my writing career.

For the last couple of weeks I’ve been trying to break down my problem in finishing a novel. Other than the things that are out of my control (a sometimes-crazy work schedule and a steady spate of health issues), I think I set an unrealistic daily goal. When I routinely failed to meet the goal, frustration would set in, and I would eventual flee from the keyboard.

So I’ve given myself a more realistic daily goal, one that I should be able to reach successfully. It’s worked well for the past few days and with a little luck and determination I should be able to finish this novel by early March.

The new schedule will also leave me a bit of free time to work on stories. I have several of those due, not including the anthology invitation mentioned above.

So here I am in 2009: refocused, re-energized and relentless.

Let’s see if I can keep it up.

Donald Westlake

If you're a fan of mystery fiction, you've no doubt heard of the passing of Donald Westlake. I didn't know the man. I just know he was a damn fine writer. You can find some remembrances at Ed Gorman's blog.

The S**t Monster

Maybe it’s the new year, but I’ve found myself reflecting on the past, including the oddball collection of strange people I’ve occasionally found myself working alongside. Like the guy I call the Shit Monster (that’s right, kids, this entry will contains multiple uses of the word “shit”. If you thought you were logging into the Webkinz site, please leave now).

The Shit Monster had a problem. Maybe it was IBS. All I know is that SM didn’t believe he had a problem. SM thought the near-constant evacuation of his bowels was normal. Most of his stories would start like this: “You know how you’re standing in line for a prescription and you have to shit but you don’t make it to the rest room in time and you shit your pants? It happened to me again today.” Then he would laugh like we were all members of the Brotherhood of Zero Sphincter Control.

Most of SM’s stories ended with, “...so I just left my underwear in the stall!” Followed by more I-know-we’ve-all-done-that laughter.

Here’s my favorite Shit Monster story (and it wasn’t easy to settle on just one, believe you me) and it’s one that SM didn’t tell me himself. Was he finally too embarrassed? I doubt it. He was probably busy buying new underwear.

A friend of mine worked at an upscale business. One day, Shit Monster ran into my friend’s office and said, “Quick! Where’s your bathroom?” My friend pointed the way and SM disappeared. It was a particularly busy day, so my friend didn’t think about SM anymore until he noticed a commotion in the lobby of his office an hour or so later.

I’ll let my friend explain it in his own words.

“One of our male staff members went into the rest room and was so shocked by what he saw that he almost threw up. There was shit everywhere. On the toilet seat. On the tank. On the floor and on all four walls. He must’ve spun like a top. We had to hire a cleaning crew. It took them two days to fix that room.” My friend shook his head, like a trauma victim remembering a horrifying scene. “It was like...like a shit grenade exploded in there.”

One of my last conversations with SM occurred in the break room at work, where I was heating my lunch in the tiny microwave. SM was regaling me with his latest hilarious Bad Bowels anecdote. It seemed the day before he was trying to get into the men’s room at work and he didn’t make it in time. Since he had to meet a client, he told me he washed out his underwear in the bathroom sink.

I stared at the numbers on the microwave display, which had suddenly slowed so much that each second took approximately three minutes to pass. I was also trying not to throw up a little in the back of my throat.

“Well, I couldn’t go to the meeting with wet underwear. You wanna know what I did?” SM said.

In the name of the Sweet Baby Jesus, I prayed, let this microwave ding!

SM smiled like Michael Jackson at a Boy Scout meeting. “I dried them in the microwave.”

Happy New Year, Shit Monster. For the good of mankind, I hope someone finally fitted you with a permanent butt plug.

Happy New Year

I hope 2009 will be a fantastic year for you, the year you cut back on drinking cheap wine and beating your kids in Wal-Mart. The year you quit dropping "awesome" into every conversation and the year you stop acting shocked when people stare at your low-cut top. I wish 2009 will provide you a fresh start and enable you finally realize that Fox News is neither fair nor balanced. Look, I can say I'm skinny and have a full head of hair, but saying doesn't make it so, and it's time you grew up and realized that. And maybe, just maybe, this will be the year you finally start making up your own mind about things that matter, instead of listening to that loud asshole at work. I know, I know. It hurts to think, but you'll be a better person for it.

Make 2009 the year you remember who your friends are. Do right by them. In 2008 I had a deal go south on me because I wouldn't screw over a friend. The money would have been nice, but I'm able to sleep soundly every night. And that's where I'm headed now. Good night.