Threesomes

I've got 3 books out. This makes me happy. Each is different, each is lovely, each is me, each is not me. If I were a more patient man willing to jump the flaming hoops of traditional publishing --which I will with other projects, I'm sure-- I'd have released them via the caring hands of Random Penguin or some such, but these 3 are me, myself and I.

Just as in any threesome, each has to stand on its own merits.

This they do.

Meet the willing partners.

Random Zombie Bits for A Tuesday Afternoon

Zombies would have to learn to be fast eaters.

Would Rush Limbaugh make a Zombie lose its appetite?

Zombies clearly have brain activity, and since they've got a jones for brains, shouldn't they be eating each other's heads? A lot easier pickings than going after fast, dangerous prey like the "living."

Would there be groups saying "Pray the zombie away"? I think not. That'd be ridiculous.

Slip a zombie inside the congressional chamber during a full session then lock the doors. It's better that way.

Attach a canister of neurotoxin to a Roomba and let that sucker go. It'd be like febreezing the Zombie Apocalypse away. Everybody chill indoors with gas masks and Morrissey records till over. Go out, clean up, yay humanity.

Zombie sharks would be way cool. Search your feelings, you know this to be true.

Eventually a zombie is going to want to start dating again. Tragi-comic romance up the wazoo.

It's pretty easy for me to evade a stumbling three year old, so no problem navigating a Zombie Apocalypse, unless the suckers take Pilates to keep themselves active and limber.

Vegan zombies. Can't be easy. Discuss.

Fuzzy woolen sweaters and bike helmets. Nobody likes wool in their mouth. Crisis fashionably averted.

Roland Emmerich's next movie while still waiting for Will Smith to bring the Manna: Aliens infect humanity with the zombie virus. A beautiful CDC worker (played by Channing Tatum) realizes the extraterrestrial nature of the attack and traces the virus' genome structure ("Don't you see? This virus' chemical structure weighs less here than it should. Almost as if it were fabricated...on the moon!") to there, setting off a desperate race to get the space program re-funded so a shuttle can get to the moon before the next full phase and destroy the aliens' zombie virus factory. Little did Channing know that falling in love with the shuttle's gruff, washed up commander who's the only person who could possibly pull off this mission (played by the Rock) would make saving the earth the most difficult decision of his life: the Rock is half-alien, half-human! Also starring Djimon Hounsou as Sacre Feshul, the brilliant African scientist who would do anything to see his former student Channing reach the end of his epic destiny.

I'm A Mer-MAN!

When I was a kid I thought I'd grow up to be a seeker of mysteries. I'd go off with a camera to find what I could find about the Loch Ness monster, about Bigfoot, UFOs, all kinds of excellence. If I found something I would share it, and if I didn't I'd share that too without any attempt to mislead. Fast forward to now and the plethora of bastardized "explorer" shows and I realize, wow, what a fool I was. Misleading is the way to go. Money and ratings hand over fist. Recently there was a program on purporting to be about mermaids, featuring "actual" footage. Well, just like those people in commercials who are said to be "real people"--because, technically, they are real people whether they're actors or not--actual footage is anything shot. It's footage. It's fake but it's still footage. Never mind that there wasn't even the courtesy of "dramatic re-enactment" flashed across the screen. The makers of this "documentary" on Animal Planet, a network purporting to be dedicated to the natural world (at the third purporting I will lose it), went out of their way to create footage as supposedly real as real gets. Video from a cell phone of a dying mermaid creature beached alongside several small whales; video of a mermaid swim-by from a deep water oil rig camera; video of a mermaid skittering off a rock in broad daylight, all of it very cinema verite. Kudos to the effects crews. But all of it as fake as the actors hired to play scientists and the stiff guy supposedly interviewing them. I didn't watch the entire program 'cause I call bullshit when I sniff it, but I've read online that at the very end of the show in teeny weeny sublim-O-vision there's a disclaimer that the entire preceding show was a dramatic representation of what might kinda sorta coulda happened if such footage was ever actually truly found. I wouldn't have had a problem with this program at all had they not gone to pains to portray huge bits of it as authentic footage by actually having the words "actual footage" on screen several times...but they went there. And that's when Wayne Brady has to choke a bitch. Reality has been so co-opted, particularly for the younger generation who think that tiny, invisible cameras hover around everyone at all times capturing wicked cool footage of choice moments, that it's irresponsible and despicable they'd put a show like this on without so much as a nudge nudge wink wink. You KNOW folks flocked to Twitter with the OMGs and OMFGs saying the mermaid apocalypse is upon us.

Why are they trying to kill our sense of wonder and replace it with sideshow fear?

File this under "Bullshit floats, doesn't smell," 'cause that's how it's packaged and sold.

Mind Your Home-Training

Today I am guest-blogging on Deatri King-Bey's site. Dee has publishing knowledge six miles deep and a generous spirit twice that. And yes, I wiped my feet. Head on over to her house. http://deatrikingbey.com/

http://deatrikingbey.com/2013/07/10/keeping-it-real-by-zig-zag-claybourne/

Pulp Fiction

Paper, that is. Felled trees. Recycled toilet. What I'm saying is that, in no uncertain terms, Neon Lights is available in print via Createspace, Amazon, and other tentacled outlets. What I'm saying is this goofy book has a physical presence, not just in the ether, and that's how Cthulhu got started. What I'm saying is I hope it makes you laugh.

https://www.createspace.com/4238020

Not to get all biblical on you, but it is finished. Unless Harper Collins wants me to add a wise-cracking kid to the book, that's it. The mic is dropped, I walk away, there are other books to be written, other troubles to get into.

Many thanks and hugs to every advance reader, every purchaser, the cover artists and anyone who's tolerated me hawking this thing on Facebook. I like this independent thing. It's frustrating but fun, and truth be told, I couldn't write a wise-cracking kid if they force-fed me entire seasons of Diff'rent Strokes.

Direct link HERE, my glorious revolutionaries; purchase, review and skewer as necessary.

Best,
ZZC

The Father's Day Blog

If you're doing it right your kids laugh a lot and smile all the way to their teeth and think about things when you're not around.

You want your kid to be aware that her/his tiny, fragile body is made of the exact same stuff way out in space, so they're automatically superheroes with cosmic powers. In this way they will regard you, O' big, cool dude, as Galactus. What kid won't squee thinking his dad's Galactus?

You are in awe of their imaginations and have learned it's to your benefit to slow down and really listen to what they say.

If you're doing it right you're not trying to teach them that aggression is strength, and the phrase "toughen them up" does not compute.

If you're doing it right they like you and you like them. Together you're like Wolf & Cub: confident as a seed, silent as ancestral memory rustling high leaves, fluid in mind and deed as water embracing rock, and possessed of love that shames villains the world over.

I've said it before and meant it: I'm just an uncle. I don't pretend to know how trying kids can be 24/7/365. Parents know. And any parent able to keep it real and give their kid a sense of wonder to scratch 'neath the surface of daily sludge deserves way more than a collective Hallmark card. That calls for heartfelt, deep, sincere THANKS.

Happy day to all the dads and moms under the bamboo hats.

Professional Grade

Not only did they provide me with a sweet cover, but a sweet write-up too. In author-land that's double dipping with sprinkles on top. Put your eyes on this beaut, then click the link for their blog.

Winter-Hebert

Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be writers.