Shock Totem 1: Curious Tales of the Macabre and Twisted

by Shock Totem

  I’ve said this before, but I’m very gratified that I still have my seat at the table. After all those years of being away, just to walk back up and have people just pull out that chair and say, “Have a seat, man.” What a wonderful feeling.

  As for the modern scene, it’s as it’s always been. There are writers that I really really love, and writers that are less my cup of tea. But they don’t have to be, cuz someone else is gonna dig ‘em if they’re good enough. Luckily for everyone, I am not the universal arbiter of taste. [laughs]

  Obviously, I think Cody is the shit, or I wouldn’t be working with him. I think Keene is really fuckin’ good. You can tell the books where he leans into it. The Rising is fantastic. I thought Joe Hill’s novel was really fuckin’ good. Mehitobel Wilson is a staggeringly good writer. Sarah Langan. Eric Shapiro. Stephen Romano...there’s a lot of really good people.

  In regards to the new guys...the thing I’m not seeing, that I wish I were seeing more of, is the social conscience and that engagement with the larger world. I want to read more stories where the writer doesn’t only care about scaring me, but actually cares about the world. That is something I am always happy to see.

  Mostly, what I look for in a writer is a distinctive voice, someone I actually wanna spend time in the head of. All those people I mentioned deliver that in spades. That’s what gives me hope: seeing new idiosyncratic motherfuckers who write like nobody else.

  JB: Is print-on-demand technology the evil beast that some fear it is?

  JS: Of course not. I published Stupography and Conscience as PODs, just so I didn’t have to wait for somebody else to verify that my book was okay enough for other people to read. Fuck that. There are certain works where I’m gonna go and put this thing out, and either people will read it or they won’t. I was very lucky in that I had my previous history to help pop me out. But the ability to just write something, lay it out, slap a cover on it and make it available to people is fucking tremendous, and I have no problem with that whatsoever.

  JB: There are those who are really against this technology, for whatever reason.

  JS: Sure. It’s like being able to produce your own album, ya know, just go in the studio and produce your own album. What is the fucking problem with that? We’ve reduced ourselves to the point where if a corporation—a mindless corporation that barely has time for the folks it employs—doesn’t ratify my project, then it can’t really be worth anything? Fuck. I didn’t get into this gig to serve the machine. I got into this gig so I didn’t have to serve it. The machine and I interact to the point now that it can smell the money off of what I do anyway. I have no problem with selling stuff, no problem with commerce. I am in fact a cheerful capitalist.

  I just don’t need them to tell me if it’s good or not. If I think it’s good enough and people will enjoy it, then people at least deserve the chance to see if I’m correct or not.

  JB: What are your thoughts on the rampant negativity in the community these days?

  JS: The thing that really bothers me within the culture of writers, and it’s not just in the horror community, is this whole idea that it’s like it’s a big class room. Or worse, like writing is a group therapy project where everyone gets to vote on your diagnosis. Everyone is a fucking critic, tearing down other people’s stuff...like being in a piss-filled pool full of ten-year-olds who won’t stop slapping each other.

  To me, creativity is a personal and private thing to be respected. Whether it’s great or not. I just respect the impulse.

  This may be funny from a guy who collaborates all the time, but when I’m writing, it’s up to me. It’s not up to a fucking committee; if there’s going to be a committee involved, they’d better be paying the shit outta me—and I’d still hate it. The last thing I want is a jury of my peers taking a shit on every paragraph I write before I’ve even gotten the chance to stack them properly.

  That seems to be the way the writing culture is, and it’s not just horror...I think that, by and large, writers groups are an unfortunate source of discouragement and pain.

  It’s not always true, but a lot of times the best people are confident enough with their stuff they don’t need to take others down a peg to make themselves feel better. This sort of behavior is made entirely out of insecurity and fear, which of course are the greatest foundations to build a career on. [laughs] That’s not the kinda party you wanna go to, and it’s not the kinda person you wanna be. So don’t.

  JB: I read once that horror thrives in times of war and social distress. They said in the 30s it did well due to the Depression, then in the 40s and 50s due to war...the 60’s and 70’s due to more wars...the 80’s due to the threat of nuclear war and all around political unrest, and then in the 90s...not a lot of horror in the limelight. With the new millennium, we get a new war and horror seems to be thriving again. Any merit to this theory? Really, it’s like one decade out of the last seven that had no war to jump-start the fantasist in us all...

  JS: Well, I wrote an essay for Storytellers Unplugged when I was a teacher there—and tried to circulate it as widely through the crowd as I could—called “Because These Are Horror Times,” basically saying when shit is this fucked up and people are this scared, horror is the natural literature to address it. Why ain’t it addressing it?

  But yeah, when you’re scared, you need something to scratch that itch...we culturally need something to scratch that collective itch. To try and make sense of what’s going on, put it in context and make your fear manageable again...there is a lot of escapist shit, but also that really deep-seated gimme-something-that-can-get-to-this-hard-to-reach place and scratch it for me. To me, that’s the horror writer’s job. I think to the extent that we respond to that, you get some really valuable writing.

  Bottom line is, shit’s always fucked up, even in times of relative peace. Dark times demand tough measures, and as Hunter S. Thompson said, “When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.”

  So, yeah, that’s the drill, and you are correct. Look at the 60s and early 70s—the Romeros and Cronenbergs that popped out of that mulch—to see how absolutely true that is.

  JB: I recall a lot of your work makes mention to music, and The Bridge even came with a playlist of the albums you listened to while writing it. Is music an important component for you when you write? What are you diggin’ these days, besides Zevon and Tom Waits?

  JS: Love those guys...but actually, I don’t listen to music when I write anymore. I used to...I used to listen to primarily instrumental music, because the words would distract me. I used to play Bowie, “Heroes” and Low, the instrumental sides...the Dawn of the Dead soundtrack...Ennio Morricone’s score for The Thing. The Rhythm Devils Play River Music, which is the percussion stuff from Apocalypse Now...I still love all that stuff. But when I’m writing, I need quiet.

  I listen to music in the morning when I wake up, when I’m in the car, while I answer e-mails. But when I really need to communicate something, the music must go off. I write to the music in my head.

  That said, I keep music running in the kitchen when I cook—I love to cook. I’ve been making mix discs for dinner parties and kitchen work and stuff, mix discs for every occasion. I love music more than almost anything. Music is the best.

  JB: If I don’t ask at least one question about Mumbo’s Brain [post-Megadeth/Damn The Machine project from guitarist Chris Poland, featuring John Skipp on vocals], my buddy Ken will have my sac...so tell me a bit about how that came about?

  JS: Basically, I joined Damn the Machine after they bagged their singer...this is an incredible story. Okay.

  Shortly after the massive earthquake in 1994...I am at this point flat busted broke, my life has completely collapsed, I’m in this tiny little shit-hole apartment in Hollywood, waiting to die. This particular April Fool’s Day, 1994, I wake and go, “God, I don’t like to ask you for things, cuz I feel kinda like an idiot about it, I just wanna let you know that If I don’t play some music, or find people to play with
to help get this music outta me, I’m going to fucking spontaneously combust. Thanks for listening.” And that was my prayer.

  Marc Levinthal was at this point in this punk band called Nailed. He lived about fifteen blocks away and I had maybe $4 in the world, so I bought two bagels, a little thing of cream cheese and a bottle of tomato juice, and headed to his house to beg him to let me be in his band. But he wasn’t in, so I went home and ate the bagels and drank the tomato juice.

  A little while later, my friend Carol—a big black mama, whom I’d met at a bar on Hollywood Blvd, after being nearly fag-bashed by four guys with baseball bats—she calls me up. She says, “You don’t have any food, do you?” I said, “No.” She says, “You don’t have any money, either.” I said, “No.” She said, “I’m gonna come over and buy you some food.”

  So she comes over, we go to this local grocery store, we’re walking through the store picking out items, and all the sudden her eyes get as big as softballs, I look at her...

  ...and then the fucking aftershock hits. Bah-WOOM! The world starts violently shaking from side to side. Salad dressing is firing like rockets off the shelves, and people start running, and I grab this woman who’s nearly twice my size and hold her, because I know the only people who are gonna get hurt in this thing are the ones who tromp each other desperately trying to get out. And I start laughing, because my life is so fucked at this point that it’s like “Oh look, now an earthquake! What else ya got?”

  So I’m laughing and holding this woman, and shit’s flying through the air, and then it stops. Then it’s like we’re in the Beirut Safeway, shattered shit all over the floor. She’s shaking, and I’m laughing, while everybody else is staring at each other sheepishly, like, “I’m sorry I just almost stepped on your head.”

  Carol says, “What do ya wanna do?” I’m like, “Let’s finish shopping!”

  So we got $40 worth of food. We went to the checkout, and paid the nervous cashier. Everyone’s terrified, but I’m totally happy. We go back to my apartment to drop of the stuff, and Carol says, “Man, I really want to get stoned.” I say, “Boy, does that sound good.” She calls a friend of hers who probably had a little to share. So they say, “Come on over.” Because I heard they were musicians, I grab this cassette of music I had recorded with Brian Emerich, who did The Bridge soundtrack with us and now works with Darren Aronofsky on sound design.

  We go over there and meet Carol’s friend, this gorgeous blonde, who lets us in. We start smokin’. The world gets better. Then her boyfriend Mark comes in from walking the dog and sits down. He’s a real character. He says, “You guys don’t know any singers, do ya? Cuz we just dumped our singer and we need a new one.”

  Carol points at me and says, “He’s one.” Mark says “Yeah, right. That’s a little too easy.” We sit there smokin’ and talkin’ and he puts on an album. He starts playing the bongos and I pick up his girlfriend’s bass and we just jam a while. And he goes, “Okay, let’s hear your stuff.”

  So I put on the tape—this is Mark Poland, incidentally—and it plays for about 40 seconds. He picks up the phone and makes a call, goes, “Chris, listen to this,” holds the phone to the speaker. A few seconds later he says, “Yeah, I’ll call ya back,” and hangs up.

  All the sudden he’s a different person. He turns to me and goes, “Here’s the deal, man. We practice four hours a day, five days a week, we share the songwriting equally...when do you wanna meet these guys?”

  I’m like, “Fuck, I’m not doing anything right now.” Mark picks up the phone again. “Chris, can we get together today? No? Tomorrow good for you? It’s good for me.” Holds the receiver up to the fucking speaker again, then hangs up.

  Long story short. Next day we got together with Chris Poland, brother Mark on drums, and Dave Randi, the bass player—all of whom are total virtuosos—and we wrote three songs in four hours. It was just too good to be true. They said come back in two days. What I didn’t know was that they auditioned a singer that next day, a guy who was some hot-shot, a Coca-Cola jingle sort of affair, a great singer...and totally wrong. They recorded an instrumental version of one of the three songs we wrote while they auditioned the Coca-Cola guy. I had the tape of our session and I wrote lyrics to the stuff, and when I came back, it was just me and Chris. He says, “Okay, sing to this.” He burned this track, I had lyrics, I sang to it, and we all just went, “Oh my God, we gotta do this.” So we spent a couple years doing that, and whoever says prayers aren’t answered obviously wasn’t there that April Fool’s Day in 1994 with me and the guys.

  Hopefully the one complete album we did, The Book of Mumbo, will come out this year. We need to detangle the rights to the one cover song: the blues version of [The Cure’s] “Lovesong.” Pure Stevie Ray Vaughn-style. It was very sad when Mumbo broke up.

  JB: All people can be boiled down to two camps. Beatles fans and Rolling Stones fans. I mean, you can dig both, but on a deeper line it’s one or the other. Which are you?

  JS: Beatles. I mean, I love both bands. Never subscribed to the fight. I’m a love guy, fundamentally. I was a hippie. Or as John Waters would say, I was one of those hippies that didn’t realize they were a punk yet. I really really have one foot in darkness and one foot in light—but I’m always fighting for the light. That just means I gotta dig my heel deeper into the darkness to get my balance.

  To me, The Beatles were pure inspiration. Up until the point when I heard Jimi Hendrix play guitar for the first time, they were the greatest thing in the world. It’s all about the songs. I’m a writer, I like taking something and crystallizing it...and it’s the songs, the incredible range and perfection of them, that seals the deal for me.

  I can’t say anything bad about the Stones. Sticky Fingers is still one of my favorite albums. I love Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out! and Their Satanic Majesties Request, their Sgt. Pepper. But I wanted to be a John Lennon-Frank Zappa gene splice baby. That’s what I wanted to be.

  JB: Life is what you make it and how you live it...how is yours? Any advice to others about how to stay sane and live longer? Drink more water...listen to more Beat Farmers...exercise?

  JS: I’m stunned that I’m still alive. The only thing I can attribute it to, aside from the fact I haven’t died yet, is...you know what it comes down to? Happiness, too, is possible. If hard work and dint of effort can bring results in any field, happiness seems like one of the most worthwhile ones to pursue. My advice is to find the things that make you happy and honor the living shit out of them.

  JB: Well, that’s the last question. I had an open rant scheduled, but we sort of included it earlier, so we’re done. Thanks so much.

  JS: It’s a wrap! [laughs] Thanks, Johnny. That was fun.

  MURDER FOR BEGINNERS

  by Mercedes M. Yardley

  She looked at the shovel in her hands, and then at Rob’s dead body.

  “Ah, snap,” she said.

  “Nah, it’s not that bad,” Dawn said, tipping her head to examine the carnage. She nudged Rob with the tip of her red high heel. When he didn’t move, she nudged him harder. Taking heart, she gave him a good kick. And then another one. She was just gearing up for the granddaddy of all kicks when the blunt end of the shovel tapped against her foot.

  “Stop it.”

  Dawn almost lost her balance. She blew a strand of hair out of her eyes. “Aw, Jaye, you never let me have any fun.”

  “Hey, I let you go at it for a while, didn’t I? You can’t say I’m not gracious.” This, spoken from a woman holding a bloody shovel over a dead man.

  “True,” Dawn agreed. “Very gracious.”

  They grinned at each other.

  “So. What do we do?” Jaye asked. She patted Rob’s corpse on the rump with the tip of the shovel, then stabbed the end into the ground and sighed.

  “Um…we apologize?”

  “Sorry, Rob. I didn’t mean to kill you.”

  “No.” Dawn shook her head. “Not to Rob. Let’s drag him somewhere else. Maybe we can write
a note, or something. Leave it in his pocket. ‘I’m sorry I killed Rob, he really was a jerk. Do what you want with his body.’” She looked at Jaye. “Isn’t there a better way to word that?”

  Jaye leaned her head against the shovel handle. “You mean like, ‘Please dispose of his body properly’?”

  Dawn’s eyes sparkled. “Yes! I’m sorry about Rob; please dispose of his body properly!”

  Jaye thought about it for a moment. “I like it, but it doesn’t seem very fair to do that. What if a kid should find him? Or an old lady?”

  “Or his wife.”

  “Oh, yeah. Her.” Jaye winced. “Think we should tell her?”

  “I don’t wanna.”

  “I don’t, either. But it seems mean not to. What if she’s waiting up for him, or something?”

  Dawn flopped down on the ground beside Rob. “I need a cigarette. Got one?”

  “You know I don’t.”

  Dawn lay on her back and looked at the treetops. “You are such a priss. You know that?”

  “Watch it!” Jaye raised the shovel.

  Dawn rolled her eyes before shutting them. “So not scared,” she said. “Mmm...cigarettes.”

  “What happened to yours?”

  “They fell out of my purse when I was running away from Rob. They’re back there somewhere.” She fluttered her hand toward the woods.

  Jaye was silent for a second. “Rob smokes—smoked. Every now and then, anyway. Betcha he’s got something.”

  Dawn opened her eyes and looked at Jaye. “How do you know that?”