A Tattoo And A Review, Featuring: Shotgun Honey's Both Barrels

My daughter Sam (affectionately referred to as the kid), came down to California for a visit last week and booked herself an appointment to get her head tattooed. Yeap, that's right, that's what I said...her head. Tattooed.

Gemma, tattoo artist extraordinaire from Full Circle Tattoos in San Diego, created the killer design for her cranial modification and spent the next hour and half inking it on the side of her skull.

While chilling in the chair, Sam enjoyed distracting herself with some kick ass crime stories from Shotgun Honey Presents: Both Barrels Vo.1

Sam said she liked Dan O'She's story titled "Father's Day" with the twisted ending. Her favourite was Patti Abbott's, "How To Launder A Shirt". I'd have to agree that was one great story. I also liked Glenn Gray's "Intubation", totally loved that transvestite character with the shot gun who can't walk by a mirror without posing. I won't mention what exploded in the basement. You'll have to read the story yourself. "The Blonde Chimera" by Cameron Ashley is another brilliant and really well written story that I particularly enjoyed.

Shotgun Honey's Both Barrels is an awesome anthology featuring a collection of crime writers who know how to tell stories so well it will make you forget even needles being poked into the side of your head. If that's not talent I don't know what is.

Speaking of talent, I have to tell you that Full Circle Tattoos has some of the best artists in all of San Diego. As an artist myself, that's an educated opinion I'm offering. There are dozens of shops all over San Diego and I can think of only three shops, including Full Circle, that have artists I would ever consider getting tattooed by.

Gemma did manage to tattoo the same small flower design from Sam's tattoo on my wrist. It was after much persuasion by the kid. Tattoos hurt, and well...I'm a baby. Since I backed out on our last mother-daughter tattoo, I had no excuse this time.

As a mother, at first I was not thrilled by the fact that my little girl wanted to get a tattoo on the side of her head (although she is turning twenty next week and can make her own decisions), but the design is so sweet and really suits her with that wicked-awesome hair do. Not everyone can pull off this look. I think Sam does it with a lot of style.

It pleases me enormously to see the way people react to her head tattoo. Total strangers come up to her with huge smiles, eyes all lit up in amazement at what they're seeing. Not only do they ask questions, she gets full on interviews like a celebrity, and people asking to take her picture.

Reactions from everyone have been really positive, and as a mother of course, that's what you want for your baby. 

There are those few people who just stare, completely stone-faced like she just stepped off some magnificent space ship where all the females on Sam's planet are exotic, tall beauties with My Little Pony hair cuts and stunning tattoos, like the most rare and beautiful flowers. The sight seems to leave them both speechless and breathless, and completely mesmerized, unable to look away. That's just the kind of effect you have on people sometimes when you're this damn special.

If you're a fan of crime fiction don't forget to check out Shotgun Honey's Both Barrels. If you're in the San Diego area and in need of a good tattooer, go see Gemma at Full Circle Tattoos.

And then...we went to Disneyland!

The Rapist by Les Edgerton

The Rapist is a disturbing look into the twisted mind of a narcissistic psychopath on death row. A vulgar odyssey reminiscent of Nabokov’s Lolita, although far more depraved, Les Edgerton has crafted a dark and brilliant story that leaves you as equally unsettled as it does in complete awe.

Not only does Les write some killer crime novels like, The Bitch, which was named the Best Thriller of 2011 by Preditors & Editors, and was nominated for Best Thriller of 2011 by Spinetingler Magazine, The Perfect Crime, and Just Like That among others, but he's also written books on the craft of writing. Hooked is  a must read if you write fiction.

From The Rapist: 

     "I was framed," I said, playing.

     "Shoot!" he laughed. "I read your file."
     "Okay," I countered, "what do you think, then?" 

 "I think," he started, and then paused, furrowing his brow into wavy lines,

"that you're some kind of genius that doesn't belong anywhere. I'd say you're like movies I've seen sometimes where the main guy has been miscast. Like a comedy that isn't funny because the hero isn't. I mean, the line are funny, you can see that, but you don't laugh because the actor doesn't say them right. It's like he's in a different movie than the others."

Les Edgerton is the author of fifteen books. He teaches creative writing on a university level, through private coaching of writers, and on various on-line venues. Visit Les at his blog  

All The Wild Children by Josh Stallings - Review

There's something about writing one's memoir in all its good, bad, and ugly truth that must make you feel somewhat like standing naked in the middle of Times Square. And while I myself may or may not have ever been naked in Times Square, I'm not telling because unlike Josh Stallings, I don't have the guts that would permit me to open up my diary to the world...if I had a diary.

But I must applaud him and everyone else who shares their soul with the world this way. Mine is always thinly disguised inside of the characters I write. At least I like to imagine it is.

Josh Stallings memoir "All The Wild Children" is bold, stark, heart-breaking, often humorous and quite beautifully written. The Stallings kids basically raised themselves when their parents checked out of their parenting roles for other pursuits. They did the best with what they had, growing up in an environment of violence, drugs, alcohol, and guns, and somehow managed to live through it all and even thrive. My favourite parts in this book are two particularly crazy fights between Josh and his older brother Larkin that remind me a bit of my older brothers. There's a knife fight when they were kids that's quite funny (if you can imagine a knife fight being funny, well maybe it's less of a fight and more just playing around), that had me completely cracking up.


Stallings refers to his upbringing as being "raised by two abused and broken narcissists" and yet I still see and feel so much love from his parents in both their own unique "broken, narcisstic ways" coming through on the page (maybe it's what Josh feels for them too that is being revealed) and more than enough love from his siblings, and in his marriage, to last anyone a lifetime. There are rich passages that are poetic and deep and supurbly written in "All The Wild Children", especially in reference to his son Dylan. The timeline jumps between the various stages, and ages, in his life are done with ease and consistency, making it powerfully stylish and a pleasure to read.

Perhaps it's his earlier years, enduring so much instability in his life and family that prepared Stallings for later struggles. Every so often throughout the book he writes, "this is the new normal", which I found interesting and gratifying. Because to me that shows how adept he is at not only rolling with the punches life will continue to dole out, but at accepting and embracing change. It's that kind of courage that makes us strong, makes us grow, and learn, and become who we are.

Josh's first two crime novels, "Beautiful, Naked & Dead", and "Out There Bad" are also quite awesome and should not be missed.

Excerpt From All The Wild Children:

The hills all around Eagle Rock are in flames. Fifty years of chaparral fuels the wildfire. This is what happens when nature is contained too long. With no burn-off, dried brush has stacked higher and higher until one random spark. Then forty-foot walls of flame sweep down from the high country and into our once safe city.

Twenty years ago Jared was two years old and the hills across from our house in Montecito Heights caught fire. Helicopters roared overhead. Fear soaked the air. Coyotes and rabbits dashed frantic out of the brush. And my younger son connected all the dots wrong. Helicopters and sirens meant danger. Firemen made fires. He would tremble when a chopper flew overhead for years.

Now the hills of Los Angeles are in flames and my son’s head is on fire. I don’t recognize him any better than I recognize my city. Ash is falling like snow, and the storm clouds are made of smoke. There is a stranger inside my son, and my son is a stranger inside my home.

Jared is 2 and inconsolable. I hold him to my bare chest. Skin on skin, blood of my blood. He is a lad of big emotions. He is his father's son. He has his mother's dark hair and dark eyes, but he has his father's heart. I hold him until he falls asleep. I lay him in his bed and rub my thumb in a circle between his eyebrows. He is down for the count. It is clear that rest is what he needs but if you make the mistake of pointing this out, he won't sleep a wink. Or he might, but he’ll fight it tooth and nail. I have the bite and scratch marks to prove this.

Jared is 23 and running wild in the streets. He has drunk and raged his way out of his last four jobs. He lets me know he is leaving home in a text. I m movin to SF cant liv wid yo wife. I take him at his word. Within ten days his bedroom is packed and boxed and transformed into a spare bedroom for our niece to stay in while she looks for a place. He does not rage when he arrives home, tail between his legs. He plays it off as if he expected it. He keeps his rage buried deep. He carries his rage, just under his bruised skin.

What happened? What off-ramp led to this foreign neighborhood?

Jared is 16 and missing from school. I leave work and go searching. His girlfriend climbs into my SUV and we roll. We look at all the haunts. He is in none of them. Deep dread fills my heart. “Rocko and Jared sometimes hang out in the Drunk Tank.” I stare at her blankly. “In Echo Park. It's a house they call the Drunk Tank.” That is all I need to know and I’m gone.
Erika is in the truck. We cruise up Alvarado Boulevard. Erika gets directions to the Drunk Tank from Rocko’s mother. Rocko shoots dope with my son. Rocko is smart as hell. He is AP off the charts smart. Rocko will be doing hard time by his nineteenth birthday.
Outside the Drunk Tank we sit at the curb. “Whatever happens you don’t come in. If it goes wrong, leave and I’ll meet you at home.” I am calm as I take a Buck knife from the glove box and slip it in my jacket. “If our son is in there, I will bring him out.” I’m back in the ghetto fighting for my life as I move up the walkway.

Jared is 4, he has his red cowboy hat on. He is riding a pony at Griffith Park. His smile is pure sunshine. I would do anything for that child.

“He’s not here.” The girl at the door cops a small attitude. A young man behind her sits on the floor watching I Love Lucy. He looks up at me, all bluster and tough. The girl starts to shut the door on me.
I push the door open.
“You have no fucking idea who I am. You see a concerned dad and have no idea where I come from.” I am still, speaking without emotion. Cold. “I just got out of prison, and I don’t want to go back, but I will.” It’s a lie. So what. “I’m not leaving without my boy.”
The girl breathes slowly looking up at me. The kid on the floor watches TV like his life depends on it. The mood I’m in, it may.
“I’m not leaving without my boy.”
“You won’t believe me he’s not here?”
“I won't.”
“Guess you’re going to want to search the place?”
“Yes, I will.” I keep myself neutral, hand in my pocket on the knife, ready for whatever. She steps out of the way. I walk past the sitting young man. He still won't look up. The girl leads me from room to room. Two stories and a basement. I feel bad about scaring the girl, but not bad enough to stop looking for my son.
I leave without him.
Erika and I go home and wait for the inevitable phone call. I pray for the hospital as opposed to the morgue.
Jared is 14, he and I are in London, hanging in a friend's flat in Islington. Deb and I are talking movies and smoking. Jared is on the floor with Jo-Anne, a crime reporter and her husband Jemar, a flamenco dancer, they are playing a board game and laughing. He is amazing, he is my running mate. My travel partner.

The phone call comes. It is the emergency room. My baby boy overdosed on opiates. He will tell me they were pills he mixed with beer. The nurse will tell me they found him out cold on the sidewalk, if a neighbor hadn’t reported it he would be dead. I will call my brother and the next day, still hung over I will place my boy on a plane to Texas. Two weeks. My brother and brother in-law will clean him up and send him home. Only it won't take. He has years left to run. His college fund will be spent on rehabs, and none will take.

The fire is 48% contained today. My son is wild in the streets. Out on a run. I don’t know if he is still alive. I don’t know how I feel about that. I know that my ambivalence makes me sad.

The fire is 60% contained. Erika finds soot in the downstairs bathroom sink. Matches lit below a spoon to heat heroin leave soot. We learned this when he was sixteen. That was six years ago. Now it makes me feel hollow. I feel shallow. My emotions too weak to make it to the surface.
I wonder if the LAFD will extinguish the wildfire before my son extinguishes his. I wonder how it will make me feel. To contemplate my son’s death, forces me to face what I put my mother through.

“Hey Ma... yeah it’s me... I’m fine...” I’m on the cell driving across Los Feliz. I don’t tell her about her grandson or my feelings. I carry my own water. “Boys are good... I just called to tell you I’m sorry for every time I made you worry if I was going to die.” She laughs and thanks me. She tells me a story I’ve heard before.

We are on the beach, I am seven or eight, I have an orange towel around my neck, like superman’s cape. I start climbing a sandstone cliff. My mother watches as the little boy scampers up higher and higher. He is too high for her to catch if he falls. He is too high for her to help. She has two choices, scream up and tell him to come down, or turn away and not watch his daredevil climb. She turns her gaze out to the water and prays, God, this is Jane, please watch over my boy. He’s in your hands now.

Jared is 6, he and I are in Joshua Tree. He wants to climb a rock cliff. We do. Both of us fearless. Both of us aware we are sharing something very special. On top of the rocky spire is a flat tabletop rock. Jared looks out over the valley. We are over a hundred feet in the air. “I’m so glad Mom isn’t here!” He screams, tiny fists pump over his head.

I am 50. I miss that little boy who is so much like his father.
I am 50 and the fire is still burning in Los Angeles.

A Tattoo And A Review Featuring Noir Nation 2

Sam, our apprentice at Malefic Tattoos (also my daughter) recently got her Chris Cornell portrait worked on by Fabien. While getting tattooed, Sam enjoyed some stories from Noir Nation: International Journal of Crime Fiction 2 on the iPad, which incidentally is Noir Nation's tattoo issue. It contains not only some great crime fiction but an interesting essay by Tom Vater on the history of tattooing in Thailand, as well as some photos of tattoos.

One of Sam's favourite stories was Thomas Pluck's "Tiger Mother". She really liked the ass-kicking mama in the story. Speaking of ass-kicking mama's, I just happen to have a story in this collection myself called "Mama's boy". The mother in that story who lives only in the memory of it's main character was one serious ass-kicker. But not in the good sense.

Paul Calderon's intense and compelling story "Primitive Grace" was a fav of mine in this collection. Liked too that it took place in Toronto. The main character gets herself in a whole heap of trouble trying to unload some hot goods in china town.

Still a ways to go on this tattoo before it's complete but already looking pretty amazing. Fabien specializes in portrait tattoos so if you're looking for an artist skilled in this area check out his work at Malefic Tattoos.

In the mean time pick up Noir Nation 2 on Amazon. It's a pretty cool fusion of noir short stories and tattooing. Just get it because it's awesome.

Oh yes, almost forgot, for all you ink maniacs check out Coloured Folk Invade Downtown Toronto

A Tattoo And A Review Featuring, Author Heath Lowrance

Another session on my dragon half sleeve today at Malefic Tattoos, with my daughter Sam, our apprentice, and Fabien both working on it together.

I chilled with Heath Lowrance's new novel on my iPad, City Of Heritics, just released this month by Snubnose Press.

I've been waiting on this book from Heath for a while now, and as I suspected it's been worth the wait. I'm only a few chapters in, but it's damn good, hard to put down, and kept me up late the night before.

The story is about an aging gangster named Crowe who's just out of the pen after a seven year stretch. Now back out on the streets of Memphis, he hooks up with his old crime operation to do a hit on the man who brutally murdered and mutilated the mob boss's wife.

Yeah, I'd say that guy's in a wee bit of trouble.

It was a rainy day today, a little cold and dreary, so we decided to do things up old school at the tattoo shop and broke out the bottle of maple whiskey that Fabien brought back from Quebec where he did a two week guest artist's spot at Nephtys Tattoos in Sherbrooke.

Brandy, our piercer extraordinaire, joined us and the first shot went down so smooth I had to follow it with three more. I swear to Bob we don't normally do this at the shop. Actually we never do this. But here we are drinking on the job and probably giving tattooist everywhere a bad name. Yeah, cause we didn't have that already, even though the fact is that most tattooists today are art nerds coming straight out of art school (like my daughter), and not prison the way the stereotype would have it.

Anyway, today we had more fun than being on a rooftop with an AK47 and a herd of zombies... Well, maybe not quite that much fun, but it was close.

In the chapter I'm reading in City Of Heritics, Crowe has just woken up with an old friend he finds at a club called the Cuba Libre. A beautiful black bartender named Faith who makes bacon and eggs for Crowe and serves it up with a bottle of rum for herself. Yes, for breakfast. That's what she's drinking. Rum. The last time I had rum for breakfast I was in Mexico. I'd get up with the birds, park my ass in the hot tub that overlooked the ocean, order my first of many Pina Coladas and watch the sun rise. And there I would stay for most of the day. My kind of vacation.

Heath Lowrance's first book, The Bastard Hand, is another awesome crime novel that takes place in the Mississippi where Heath has previously lived. I highly recommend this novel. It has something like thirty-one five star reviews. So, yes, people are loving it.

Heath has a collection of short stories available called Dig Ten Graves. It has over twenty five star reviews. Check out the previous Tattoo And A Review Featuring, Heath Lowrance where I talk about Dig Ten Graves.

Heath also has a very cool story in Pulp Ink 2, a collection of crime fiction, along with myself and some supremely talented crime writers that I recommend as well.

You can visit Heath at his blog Psycho-Noir where he writes about crime fiction and stuff, and learn more about his other books and stories. He's got plenty.

Cheers Heath...to City Of Heretics, another impressive crime novel.

A Tattoo And A Review Featuring, Action - Pulse Pounding Tales by Matt Hilton

Today I'm at Malefic Tattoos getting inked by not only Fabien, by my daughter Sam (the kid as I affectionately refer to her), tattoo apprentice extraordinaire.

I've got Matt Hilton's Action - Pulse pounding Tales Vol 1 rocking my iPad to cope with the pain. The only thing distracting me is reading about other people's pain in this collection of deadly short crime stories about bad people doing bad things, usually to other bad people.

Did I say pain? Yes, in spite of the pharmaceuticals in my veins there is pain. The elbow and the inside of the elbow are particularly nasty places on the human body.

Look at my face in this picture. I'm being tortured. Okay, I'm lying it's not really that bad.
You can tell I'm faking and I take the drugs cause I like the buzz.

Matt Hilton put together this really cool collection of short stories in Action - Pulse Pounding Tales Vol.1 , inviting a number of other talented crime writers to contribute. The result is an impressive collection of down and dirty stories that cut a violent, blood-soaked swathe across the page. Stories that are intense and brutal and superbly written.

I particularly enjoyed Terrence P. McCauley's "Blood Moon of 1931". Gangsters in the prohibition era running around with tommy guns. Love it. The completely hypnotic and elegantly written, "Avenged: Sixfold" by Natasha Marie Thomas, the story of a serial killer cop, was another favourite of mine. I was pleased to see Paul D. Brazill's story in the mix. Always get a thrill reading some Brazill. As I was to see Irish writer K.A. Laity with her brilliant story "Chickens".

Sam and Fabien are both working me over at the same time in this shot. The savages! What a strange feeling that is. Kind of like lying on a nest of fire ants. Or disturbing a hive of killer bees--serial killer bees--with not only stingers but miniature machetes in their little insect legs. Kind of like that.

No little kitten scratches from these two, makes me wonder what I said to upset them. No wonder I resist getting tattooed. Fabien started this design more than a year ago. But now the two of them have decided that I would be the perfect canvass to collaborate on while Fabien instructs Sam on the fine art of tattooing. So I'm forced to get this piece finished.

By the way, Sam is taking appointments if you'd like to get inked. She's been tattooing for a couple of months now, getting better and better. Check out my previous post, My Daughter The Tattoo Artist and you can see the tattoo she inked on herself. Also A Tattoo And A Review With My Daughter Sam, where she reviews one of my stories.

Matt Hilton has a series of action books featuring Joe Hunter. According to Matt's website,"He's not a cop. He's not a bounty hunter. He's not a private detective."So who is he? I have no idea. You'll have to read the books. Judging from his story "Satisfaction Guaranteed" in this collection, they're guaranteed to be damn fine and worth the read. Visit Matt Hilton's website and you can find out all about it.

In the meantime, pick up Action - Pulse Pounding Tales Vol. 1 on Amazon and Amazon UK. Or else. Or else I'm going to unleash the fire ants and machete wielding serial killer bees on your ass.

A Tattoo And A Review Featuring Pulp Ink 2

Meet Daniel. He stopped in Malefic Tattoos for a six hour session the other day on his full colour phoenix sleeve. So I put my iPad in his hands and had him take a look at Pulp Ink 2, just released last week by Snubnose Press.

Daniel doesn't read much noir or crime fiction. He reads biographies and he reads whatever his mom gives him, he says. Well, I did my best to lure him away from Mama's recommendations over to the dark side of fiction with these gritty stories of murder and mayhem. Sorry Mama (not really).

Daniel enjoyed "Kingdom Come" by Kevin Brown, said it was well written and entertaining. He also liked "Kidnapped" by Mike Miner, one of my personal favourites in this collection. I loved this story in fact. It's delightfully heartbreaking.

Another of my favourites is "My Life With The Butcher Girl" by Heath Lowrance. Check out this opening paragraph, love this:

"I want to tell you about her eyes, but I lack the poetry of spirit. They were green, but not just green. They were the green of a wild animal, or an innocent alien visitor from another planet. They were wild and hungry, and a sort of sweet, glorious death lingered in them."

This story and Mike Miner's "Kidnapped", have similar heartbreaking themes of men being destroyed through their love for damaged women. Oh those damaged women, they really know how to take a guy down. Let this be a lesson, guys should stay far far away from them.

I particularly enjoyed Court Merrigan's "Glinty-Eyed Robert". It was my first time reading his work and I was completely captivated by his style and descriptive prose. Simply brilliant.

Daniel works as a firefighter, one of those hot guys women lust after. Although he says he hasn't done any of the bare chested and oiled-up caledars. Too bad. According to Daniel most firefighters don't look like that anyway. Oh say it isn't so, you dream crusher!

As I was thinking of the fact that Daniel is a firefighter, I said, "I wonder if there's any stories in here with a fire." And as I thought about it for a moment, I realized that my story, "How We Come Undone", in fact has a fire in it. Why son of a gun! I swear that was a complete coincidence, although it sounds contrived. Daniel had to read it after I told him and Fabien that the fire was an actual event (although not the horror that followed in my story, or I'd be writing this from a 6x8 steel and concrete cage).

When I was a teenager my friend and I accidentally set someone's sofa on fire. We were in the shower, although not together. Just prior to this my friend had dropped the ember from a cigarette on the sofa and it rolled down the back of the cushion. I tried to explain to Daniel and Fabien how it could be that we were both in the bathroom but only one of us was in the shower, but the guys wanted to go with the idea of us in the shower together. So I indulged their perverted little brains and went with their fictitious version of events, that my girlfriend and I were in the shower together, soaping each other up. And I thought perhaps I should write erotica. Except my book titles would have to be something like "Fifty Shades of Death In the Shower with a Ball Peen Hammer" Cause that's how my brain works. Sex is good sure, but follow it up with a good killing and I'm in.

Getting back to Pulp Ink 2, this slick killer anthology is available in kindle version or hardcopy. Check out the first Pulp Ink as well. I've got a review of it here.

I failed to get a good shot of Daniel's phoenix tattoo at the end of their session cause, well, I had oiled-up firefighters on the brain (in the shower together) which clearly shut down all rational thought. So next time he's in, I'll get some pics. Of his tattoo that is. In the meantime, what are you waiting for? Go get Pulp Ink 2!