All posts by Jason Michel

The Dictator and Grand Poobah over at the irreverent PULP METAL MAGAZINE, Jason Michel has been turned on, tripped up and stumbled over all around the world on a self imposed exile. He is a hack purveyor of penny dreadfuls and flash nightmares of daytime who now lives in France. For his sins.
Fiction

The Savage World Of Men by Richard Godwin.

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Two guys wearing plaid jackets hung back in the shadows and listened to a distant song.

The melody was familiar and a little catchy and it began to rain.

Their jackets were immaculate and the drops fell more and more heavily as they stood there.

Finally the tune stopped as abruptly as if someone had cut a wire.

The older of the men, who had a grey beard that was neatly trimmed at the edges turned to the younger one and said ‘love songs make me want to kill’.

He was six foot and well muscled.

His companion was broad and had a jaw that looked like it was set in concrete.

‘It’s bitches’ music’, he said, withdrawing a toothpick from his mouth and inspecting it. ‘They’re all the same, they want romance and a little money on the side.’

‘That’ll be right Al.’

‘What now?’

‘How bout we do what we came here for?’

‘Hank I think that’s a fine idea.’

Continue reading The Savage World Of Men by Richard Godwin. →

Fiction

Sisters by B.R. Stateham

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She was sitting slumped back in a dinning room chair, a hand holding a cold compress on the back of her head.  Dressed in a black skirt, black jacket and white silk blouse, with dark wine-red heels on slim. petite feet. A very expensive looking ruby necklace worth a small fortune adorned her long, perfectly chiseled neck.

She looked like old money.

Not in the sense of time or age.  But old in the sense she rolled in dough.  Lots of it.  And had had it for years.

A mass of brown hair, curly, had been thrown over her left shoulder as she held the compress on the right side of her head.  Maybe in her early thirties she was well built, trim. With an athlete’s body.

Continue reading Sisters by B.R. Stateham →

Fiction

A Fair Price by Scotch Rutherford

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"Naked City" by Scotch Rutherford

The King’s Court mobile home park was all the way out on Boulder Highway, where the outskirts of the Neon City became Henderson. Leon Diggs rounded out the park’s single digit tenant retention rate, since its greedy landlord had doubled the rent on the 200 some odd park-owned trailers.

Eddie needed to get high, real high. And Leon had the sweetest sugar shit he could afford. Eddie parked his truck next to a pristine 68 Lincoln Continental, with the suicide doors. Business must be boomin’, he thought as he got out, and rapped his knuckles hard on the side door of lot 142. Nothing.

“Leon, it’s Eddie. C’mon, man.”

Nothing. Eddie pushed on the door. It swung open, and sure as shit, he walked right into it. Blood was splattered everywhere. Cash, blow, and guns were scattered on the deck, between the bodies; everything ripe for the taking. Eddie spotted a jumbo Ziploc of powder on the floor. He snatched it, and slid two fingers inside. He touched his fingers to his nose, and took a hit. In a flash he had a powder burned red nose, and he knew it was good shit. That’s when he realized including Leon, there were four bodies; three dead, one barely breathing.

Continue reading A Fair Price by Scotch Rutherford →

Non-Fiction, Writer's Interviews

Kicking Charlie Munger In The Gonads! : Interview with Max Keiser!

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by Jason Michel

Stop what you are doing & listen to this. Right Now. Max Keiser is a film-maker, broadcaster (BBC, Al Jazeera, Press TV, Russia Today) and former broker and options trader & as far I’m concerned has the most subversive show on TV & the net – bar none. In these fragile economic times Max seems to be one of only a handful of people speaking the damn truth out there in media land about what the fuck is going on with the banks & how the financial system is shafting each & every one of us. He is the Jello Biafra of economics. I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to ask him some very haphazard & fumbling questions on the subject of economics & survive. I’d originally thought to transcribe the interview but after listening to the video I found that it stands up by itself. I’ve decided to publish the raw deal here. Warts & all. 16/10/10

Max‘s website is here :  http://maxkeiser.com/

Tune in to The Keiser Report to keep updated on what the bastards are doing.

Non-Fiction

Supermarkets And Their Role In A New World Order by Matt Kent

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Supermarkets are held in contempt by many, with the charge-sheet against them being long and varied. To the aesthete they are ugly, uniform and bland. To the socially-conscious they are anti-local, anti-environment, anti-worker. To the individualist they represent the triumph of the many over the one, the mass-produced over the hand-crafted, the factory over the artisan.

These criticisms are obviously valid. And just as obviously futile. For the rise to dominance of the supermarket was and is unstoppable. Their popularity, their ubiquity, is a result of two of the most powerful currents in our society: the economic monopoly of multinational companies, coupled with the deepening passivity and helplessness of their customers. That is, supermarkets thrive not only because of economies of scale, town-planning and a craven political culture, but because they cater to that most depressing of modern desires: convenience, under Continue reading Supermarkets And Their Role In A New World Order by Matt Kent →

Art/Comics, Fiction

Landscape With Sententers by A.R.Yngve

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Chugir was forty years old, weary, and damaged by bad booze.

The booze problem he blamed on the Drinkards. For months, he had been stalking a Drinkard and extracting almost pure alcohol from its body.

“Almost” pure. People were saying it was Chugir’s own fault, that he pushed the Drinkard too hard, until the booze it produced came out polluted. “Bad metabolism,” they were saying. Chugir wasn’t greedy. Each day, he’d been sharing with others the clear drink which he pressed out through the Drinkard’s metal tubes.

But this particular morning, the booze made him sick and he threw up blood. The others carried him to a Fixard, the common type spotted on the grass plains, and shouted for help until one of the Fixards heard them.

Continue reading Landscape With Sententers by A.R.Yngve →

Fiction

Just Stupid by B.R. Stateham

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Frank brought Stevie Toomey into the windowless cubicle of the interrogation room, kicked a chair out from underneath a table and sat the kid’s ass down into the hard wooden chair rather unceremoniously.  The room was just four bare walls, a small table sat in the middle of the floor underneath a very bright light, with two chairs facing each other.  From the ceiling a single light hung down from a long black cord.  The light was powerful enough to look at the bottom of the Marianas Trench.  From San Francisco.

The kid—Stevie—weighed about one and thirty five pounds, thin as a bone and as pale as freshly mixed bread dough.  The harsh bright light shining down directly on the table made the kid blink his eyes and squint.  Sniffling, using the back of one handcuffed arm to rub across his dripping nose,  he continued squinting as he bent forward a little to focus and see me sitting across from him.

“Turner!  Frank!  Jesus, am I glad to see you.  Listen , I . . . I’m innocent!  I didn’t kill no one.  No one!  I was just stupid, that’s all.  Just stupid!”

Continue reading Just Stupid by B.R. Stateham →

Fiction

Torrent by Chris Deal

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Hollow chest. Eyes of glass. His hands shook from the drink and his stomach churned a brew of acid and rye. The bar was a cacophony of attempted sex and with every sip the volume was turned down to a rolling hum. Two gladiators tried to maim and kill the other on most of the televisions lining the walls. The broadcasts on the others had been interrupted for updates on a bombing. No smoking allowed inside anymore. The itch of the craving moved behind his eyes. The tender stopped charging him hours ago. A body filled the empty space above the seat at his right, her form reflected in the mirror behind the bar and the bottles. Blonde hair with black roots and a toddler’s face. Inches of make up and a fake ID, her low top pouring out of her jacket and all but pressing against his arm. “Buy me a drink?” The impulse had been to ignore her until she lost interest. The shock of her words betrayed him. “What do you want?” Give her a drink and she’ll go away, he hoped. “A beer?” New to the game, she had to be. Stout would take her down. Go with the Continue reading Torrent by Chris Deal →

Art/Comics, Writer's Interviews

Introducing Henry Zeo Covert ~ A Showcase

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This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Q1: Hi Henry!
Who are you? (Or who do you think you are?)

This could take awhile. I think I’m Henry Zeo Covert ( http://strangeothers.blogspot.com ). I’m pretty sure anyway. I’m a writer (fiction, metafiction, comix and web comix, articles, essays, journalism, film and pop culture reviews and criticism), award-winning artist (comix and illustration), occasional musician, rabid collector, loving husband, and aspiring polymath. Continue reading Introducing Henry Zeo Covert ~ A Showcase →
Fiction

A Political Choice by Chris Pollard

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There was a knock at the front door, and Barry went to see who it was.  He looked through the peep-hole, and there on the doorstep was a youngish man in a suit, wearing a big red rosette.
Barry opened the door.

“Good morning!  Mr. Jenkins?”
“Yeah, that’s me.”
“Hello, Mr. Jenkins, I’m Bob Wilkinson, your Labour candidate in this election, would you mind if I came in for a moment?”
“Dunno,” said Barry, looking up and down the deserted terraced street.  “When can I come round your ‘ouse for a cup of tea?”

Mr. Wilkinson looked a little taken aback, but before he could speak Barry continued, “Only joking, mate, course you can come in!”

They went into the little sitting room, and Barry indicated a threadbare grey sofa.  “’Ere, ‘ave a seat.  Would you like a cup of tea?”
“Thank you, that would be most kind of you.”

Barry went and put the kettle on, and came back a little later carrying a beaten old  tin tray with a steaming old teapot, a small jug of milk with no handle, a little plastic sugar bowl, a cracked china cup on a mismatched saucer and a glass of Continue reading A Political Choice by Chris Pollard →