For the Man Who Has Everything

Yeah, I know; it's a little late to be making Fathers' Day gift suggestions, but still... check this out:


That's the Tuff-Writer Frontline Series Tactical Pen in Stealth Black, a pen of which no less a luminary than Warren Ellis has said,

"It is designed to be basically The Toughest Pen In The World, and also A Pen That Can Kill People. It functions in the harshest environments in the world, can keep writing under any conditions including a future flooded London, is made out of aerospace-grade metal and hard-anodised to military specification. It is also, I have to say, an incredibly nice pen to write with. This will be my book-signing pen of choice. It’s smooth, well-balanced, easy to use, and can lance the gizzards of uppity fanboys in a single strike. I figure a pen weapons-tested by SWAT rangemasters and martial artists should control a signing line fairly well. You can and should visit these fine people at http://www.tuffwriter.com."

"You will have to pry my Tactical Defense Pen out of my cold dead ink-stained hand."

--"Do Anything--Thoughts on Comics and Things" 001 (June 2, 2009)

Plus, it looks DAMN cool.

I mean, suppose you're sitting in your executive suite and are attacked by Office Pirates?

Or, even worse (according to the MPAA), Video Pirates?*

(yes, that's William Marshall, aka Blacula, aka The King of Cartoons)

Whatcha gonna do? Well, with a Tuff-Writer pen one can now have a take-anywhere "defensive implement" and isn't your dad's life worth a mere $79.95 ($95.95 in a Midnight Black "sanitized" version)?

Of course it is.

*After seeing this bit in Amazon Women on the Moon (thanks, JSaM!) I have never been able to see the FBI warning in a movie, video, or DVD and not think, "Ohhh, I'm so scared."


Addendum: I actually own a couple of fancy-ass, way-too-damn-expensive pens (Rotring, Waterman), partly because I love simple, elegant tools, but since my handwriting (cursive or otherwise) is, well, beyond atrocious (really, it's awful. Just... just awful) and I'm too lazy to do anything about it, even I am unable to rationalize such a purchase for myself. Hear that, Tuff-Writer people? Send me a free sample and let me start off your new ad campaign, "The Defensive Pen for the (un)Common Man."

The Saturday Night Snicker... On Sunday

Because I'm lame like that.

So, anyway, I'm cruisin' Whitechapel this morning (that's writer Warren Ellis's* discussion board) when I come across Warren initiating a thread asking writer/editor/photographer Richard Kadrey (whom I worship) what he's been up to these days.

Revelation: Mr. Kadrey is a funny, funny man!

But the only time to ever call me “Mr. Kadrey” is when I’m standing over you in assless leather chaps holding a cat o’ nine tails (in) one hand and a lubed-up bowling trophy in the other.

Yep, that was the first Diet Pepsi Spew O' the Day.

Later--and the writers I know personally (that's you, Wayne and Mark and Beth and Von and Anne) will appreciate this--

What it's like to finish a novel on time...

In an undisclosed location near Dick Cheney’s Hellmouth hideaway:

Time is a jellyfish, all gooey and full of stingy neurotoxins. Sitting in a blacked-out hotel room and slowly turning into a Morlock. Living on room service and Ritz crackers. Coffee and Pepsi Plus (or whatever the hell it's called) when I can emerge from my Fortress of Suckitude long enough to scuttle down to the lobby. Typing, typing, typing. Dreaming of George Bush diddling Paris Hilton's chihuahua. Must not weaken and call the porn girls I know at the club across town. No more writing for a while when I’m done with the book. Some speaking engagements, movie biz cocksucking (cocksucking is better than ass kissing because when you suck cock, you know when you’re done) and some travel. Maybe gunrunning to Oz. Those midgets are itching for a fight. Blood will glisten prettily on the Piss Yellow Brick Road.

Need food. Will watch an episode of Garth Marenhghi’s Dark Place on the computer and then it’s back to work.

Someone better buy this fucking book when it comes out next year or I will kick the devil’s ass. When you sell your soul, the prince of darkness needs to pony up or it’s clobberin’ time.

Sweet Buddha, I love this stuff!

*Who once provided a wonderful SatNiteSnick with "I'll never buy anything with Fantasy in the title. I have an irrational near-allergic reaction to the genre. I start seeing elves everywhere, and then I have to kill a puppy just to feel normal again."

Oh, My, How I Love Warren Ellis!

(Saturday afternoon and I'm alone and unsupervised--a sure-fire recipe for trouble!)

You know, Warren Ellis! Crotchety-assed, cigarette-smokin', Red Bull-swilling', whiskey-drinkin', comic book writin' Warren Ellis! The guy who gave us Transmetropolitan and The Authority and Crooked Little Vein and FreakAngels, and, oh, all sorts of things.

And flash fiction. Let us not forget his flash fiction:

“I’ll kill the first piece of cockshit comes near me,” giggled Stabbity Jones, the last legendary knifeman of the old West. He showed them his crooked penis, with the razorblades screwed into the head. “I’ll fuck ‘em to death and make ‘em like it. Your daddies came cowshit up your mommies, and I’m Stabbity fucking Jones.” He bounced in his testicle-hide boots, making the spikes in his nipples jangle. “Stabbity Jones will fight any man here and fuck ‘em good as they bleed before my nekkidness.”

Stabbity Jones was the last knifeman in the West. Everyone else had guns.

(Stabbity Jones went from here to becoming a one-panel gag in an episode of the Marvel comic THUNDERBOLTS, poor bastard. © Warren Ellis 2006)
Stabbity Jones

“So what we do is take one of those morphine pumps that they implant in the thigh for pain management, and have it deliver a chemical cocktail. Viagra, a mild hypnotic, a little amphetamine. And hook it to a voice-activation chip, reset to respond to certain words from me. ‘Mine,’ for instance. TENS electrodes to numb your arms and legs, connected to a clapper switch. Or we could just get one of those penile erection-implant devices that I could operate remotely.”

“Couldn’t we just, you know…have sex?”

“Do you want the scrotal taser again? Shut up.”

(© Warren Ellis 2006)
Love In the Time of Elective Medical Procedure

I'm giggling like a madman over here.

I Was Bad

See, I was going to be frugal, I really was; I had it all planned and everything and knew that by delaying gratification for just a few days I would save enough money on one book purchase to buy another (there's always another, in case you hadn't noticed).

But then the toilet started that running constantly thing it does every couple of years, a simple fix requiring nothing more elaborate than a new tank ball, approximately $2.00, which meant a quick run to Home Depot, which meant I had to drive by Barnes & Noble and it was a hot day and the image of a cool, refreshing, caffeinated frozen beverage tantalized me and I figured well, I'll stop by for a short one, no harm in that, I don't have to buy any books, all I want is a Slurpee for grown-ups and then I'll be on my way, but as long as I'm here I may as well check out the new arrivals, you know, in case anything good has slipped by me and, well, you know how it is...

I came home with two books.

Crooked Little Vein by Warren Ellis, which I mentioned earlier, and The Flight of the Phoenix by Elleston Trevor, which was strictly an impulse buy.

I don't need to explain Crooked Little Vein; hey, it's WARREN FUCKIN' ELLIS, he who is, currently, the Coolest Damn Drunken Writer In The Whole Damn Universe:

"Apparently nothing happened that entire week outside of Lindsay Lohan--who I’m told is an actress, though I’ve never seen anything she’s been in--evidently necking a crate of Thunderbird and leaping into a truck filled with cocaine and dead babies in an attempt to run down and/or deliver vigilante justice to her ex-assistant and her mother. Or something. The rolling half-hour 'special' that replaced anything that appeared to be actual news dissected this thing so many ways that, really, I have no idea what happened the fateful night that Ms Lohan cracked the crust of stale, blood-flecked coke off her crotch and said to her soon-to-be-ex-assistant while snorting cough medicine up into her forebrain, 'shove your arm up there, girl. I want to come on your elbow.' Because the very rich are not like you and me."
--The Sunday Hangover 006

But The Flight of the Phoenix? Well, therein lies a tale.

The movie version with Jimmy Stewart pops up on American Movie Classics (AMC for short or, as I used to call it, "the Ancient Movie Channel") fairly frequently, but I've never taken the time to watch it figuring it was going to be yet another completely predictable "tense, character-driven study of men in adversity." Then Friday while I was lazing away the evening, cursing the heat overwhelming my poor little air conditioner and wondering what the cost of living is like in Alaska, F/X broadcast the Dennis Quaid version and I left it on while I did other things, catching bits and pieces here and there until...until...I hit the plot twist.

Which in and of itself was cool, but what I found even cooler was the character, Elliot, who introduced the plot twist--he seemed decidedly Aspergian, which always catches my attention.

So, of course, I had to have the book--just to see.

Man, oh man, do I need adult supervision.

Books To Lust For

I mentioned earlier that I'm nowhere near as excited about the most recent Harry Potter release as the rest of the reading public, but I certainly got a hoot out of these Dork Tower feeds!

What I am pumped about is (1) Crooked Little Vein by Warren Ellis. Check out the Bookslut review:

"Really, though, everything is weird to Warren Ellis, who makes a visit to a Texas steakhouse seem as grotesque as Godzilla bukkake."

Greatest. Review Line. EVER!

And then there's (2) Spook Country by William Gibson, due to be released August 7th. Boing Boing already has nice things to say, not the least of which is "the cast of characters in this book is gigantic and deeply weird."

See a pattern emerging?

Yeah, there's a trip to my local Barnes & Noble in my very near future.

P. S. Dual Bookslut review here.