A bit musical, today.

First, though–guys, guys, GUYS.  I have a theme song.  It’s only seventeen seconds long and sounds like something from a 1970s sitcom, but it’s mine, goddammit.  All mine!

Annnd I would totally share it with you if WordPress allowed mp3s.  I just spent 5 minutes learning that little tidbit.  Yeah.  A little anticlimactic, huh?  Hmm.  The song was written by friend and fellow writer Nelson W. Pyles, author of Demons, Dolls & Milkshakes, former host/current exec-producer on Story Time at the Wicked Library (which did some of my stuff, hey!  I’ll link to those at the bottom), and vocalist for the band Novus.  He also has a new collection of short stories coming out, which I wrote the foreword for.  I…I cannot plug anymore!  I’ve done all the plugging I can to make up for the lack of my theme song!  But the pain!  The pain is just too great!

Ouch.

Ahem.

Anyway, sorry.  I might edit this later if someone knows how to do all that new-fangled technological stuff.  I own a flip-phone.  I have a working Discman.  This is how 21st Century I am.

Now, the new story.

This is pretty.

So, in the new Grey Matter Press anthology Savage Beasts, I have a story called “Crawling Back to You”, inspired by the song of the same name by Tom Petty, off the 1994 album Wildflowers.  I love the cover, absolutely goddamn adore it, but I find it amusing when juxtaposed in relation to my story.  Tom Petty and flaming demonic guitars.  Here’s the song:

On top of that, my story’s about vampires, because, when you think Tom Petty, you of course think vampires.

Oh, the vampires.

Joking aside, I’m happy with the story and love what Anthony Rivera and Sharon Lawson have been doing (you might recall they published my story “To Touch the Dead” earlier this year in the anthology Death’s Realm).  You can read more about Savage Beasts here.

Interest piqued?  Here’s the first line:

Patty pulled the .38 from the glove compartment when the radio, even jacked to maximum volume, failed to block out the waitress’s screams.

The book’s due out officially tomorrow, August 11th, but the Kindle’s available now here.  In the next week or two, I’ll be speaking with contributor Shawn Macomber here–and me on his slice o’Internet–about our stories, so look out for that.

Now, before we go, here’s Nelson W. Pyle’s giving his sweet, sweet vocals to some of my shorter works, all of which I love but none of which, I feel, is his best work–my theme song (he also does a wicked Christopher Walken impression, saying, “I can’t stop jerking off at work”, but I doubt you’ll ever hear that).

These are compilation episodes, taking from the Christmas and Holiday specials, respectively.  He also did two standalones of my work: “Baby Grows a Conscience” (originally published in Necrotic Tissue)–which, for one chilling moment, featured his tween daughter as “Baby,” the titular protagonist–and “Love Song for the Rejected” (originally published in The New Bedlam Project); unfortunately, those don’t seem to be online, anymore.

The Wicked Library – “Halloween Special III”

The Wicked Library – “Christmassacre II”

Cheers!

Sort-of.

A friend of mine, since my daughter was born, has given us a little statuette marking her age and growth.  It’s a Hallmark thing, I think.

Me being…well, me…I gave the bug a Pop bobblehead of Groot from Guardians of the Galaxy–called “The Groot Movie” by said bug–on her 4th birthday because she loves the tree alien.

While ridding up her room this morning–summer’s turn me into Mr. Mom–I noticed that this had happened:

This wasn’t intentional, I swear.

So, that’s been my Monday.