A Great Man Gets Remembered...

Yesterday, May 8th 2014, in 1983 was the day John Fante died from diabetes. He was an amazing writer. There is no other writer who has inspired more than Fante. I just finished re-reading Dreams From Bunker Hill, his last novel that was written as a dictation to Fante's wife, his vision had been taken by diabetes at that point in his life. At the end of the book I always read the little bio. It was May 9th, 2014. I realized his death anniversary was yesterday. Because I didn't know what to do in honor of the anniversary of his passing, I decided to write this.

He was one of the greatest authors that I have read as of now. I learned of his work through reading Charles Bukowski. Bukowski loved Fante. Worshipped at his alter.

I received his novel Ask The Dust as a gift. The book sat in the gift bag for months. I was put off by the year that Fante wrote. Most old or classic things carry a level of boredom. Not with Fante. He had a way with words, a charm if you will. I eat up his words far more than that of Bukowski or any other writer living or dead.

I was saddened knowing I could never be as good as he was. Much like him however, I feel my writing is a little ahead of its time. Maybe I am wrong, maybe Fante was wrong, maybe even Bukowski was wrong. Either way these two men had an impact on my soul in a way no one living or dead in fiction will ever have. And for that, they at least deserve a blog post. It's the least I could do.

If you are a fan of either writer and if you've got the sand. Check out my various stories for free at the link below.


https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/156220

Twitter: @Greyebooks

Fucking and Drinking

The short novel that will be coming out soon. The story follows a psych hospital worker struggling with sex and alcohol addiction. Maybe struggling isn't the correct way to phrase it. The story is loosely based on the things that I went through the three years I worked in a psychiatric hospital, which I lovingly refer to as the madhouse. The title does not disappoint and in a way it is my own homage to Charles Bukowski's novel Women, which is one of my favorite novels by Buk, second only to Factotum and Post Office.

Fucking and Drinking will be available through my smashwords profile www.smashwords.com/profile/view/shanegrey and of course on Nook, iBooks, Kobo, and Diesel.

If you haven't yet, take this time to check out some of the free short stories on my profile, or you can go to either store on Nook, iBooks, Kobo, Diesel. Just search Shane Grey.

I'm trying to bring unique and different stories in a lot of my short stories. Less biographical stuff, more things that just pop into my brain and I think, hey, that would be interesting if that was a story. I also strive to be different. Meaning, a lot of mainstream fiction is so far from Bukowski and John Fante, which are my literary father and grandfather, that I don't have a lot of options out there. So I try to write for those who are dying for something different.

A lot of readers look at my stories as pornographic or just about boozing, I always wonder what else in the world would I write about. The mainstream limits us as authors. It's either vampires, romance, spies, police, supernatural, or memoir. And quite frankly I'm sick to death of all that trash. I want to read about a real person. I want it to be fiction, but know that it's based upon something true. Too much of the shit coming out isn't gritty or raw enough. It all reads like educated lemmings pouring out boring story after boring story.

Vampires that do this, investigators that do that, love stories that are about this. It's all fucking mind rot. The most original shit I've read in the mainstream are by the following authors: David Wong. Chad Kultgen. Charles Bukowski. John Fante. Paul Neilan. Mykle Hansen. Chuck Palahniuk. Jeff Lindsay.

For now that is all. The rest them are just, Meh. These writers write in a straight forward fashion. If you have to explain it, it's not a good story.

So read my shit and decide for yourself, but quit drowning in a sea of regurgitated bullshit, trash, and literary garbage. I think it is these opinions that classify me as an artist, though I despise the word “art” or “artist” it sounds like a lame excuse.

Thanks for reading my insane rambling. You can check out facebook.com/Greyebooks and like that page. That would make you a supreme human being!

Indie Authors and Agents

I will start this by saying fuck money. Now, those who have clicked away, good. Those of you still with me I'll tell you what I told the love of my life today. I said, “I don't care about having extra money to play around with, I just want my bills paid.” To any indie author reading this, you may be asking, “Whoa, are you able to pay your bills being an indie author?” The answer is, “OF COURSE FUCKING NOT.” But as someone who once was(and I guess still is)a punk rock guitarist. I have this to say.

The indie music uprising is what made all the record companies shit their pants when the underground punk scene started to become mainstream. I don't look at being an indie author as being free or just unpublished by the mainstream.

I look at is as a revolution. We are not the next Bukowski's or Hemingway's or Salinger's We are the next Ramones, the next Sex Pistols, the next Runaways. We are the punk rock equivalent of Hemingway or Salinger. Of course we aren't writing to be in the big book stores. But if Big Agent Demon offered us a deal we'd be creaming in our pants. We'd leave CBGB's for the large stadiums and we'd give up the stenciled spray painted shirts for the screen printed ones.

The thing is that the agents who would find the great bands(or now indie authors)don't care about prose. They want the next fifty shades of semen or twilight or hungry games.

When those record producers or scouts were searching the clubs for bands, they wanted something fresh, new, different. With the agents and publishing companies they want all the same shit that the housewives, divorcees, and unmarried women like to read. They want meaningless pop culture diarrhea. I am sorry for that. It hurts my soul that even thought I scour the Internets and ebooks and ibooks and robot books and alien shit, I still can't find anything like Bukowski, Salinger, Fante, and I guess Hemingway.

The fact that I only know how to write one way. The fact that I learned from Bukowski, Fante, Salinger, Palahniuk, Kultgen. The fact that I learned from these fine men is the only solace I can take for the future of punk rock writers. Make some fucking noise with your literature. Make it your graffiti. Make it your knife to the throat of the authority. Make it your screams of misery alone in your bedroom at 3am. If you feel you can't write or ever be a writer, then good! Write more! If you read back and second guess the story, the prose, the content, then submit it! Let's take back our craft. Flood submission emails with your writings. Print them and snail mail them to agencies, who gives a fuck if they throw it in the trash, someone will find it! We will be read! No one can tell us what to do!

Let us ruffle some bow ties! Fuck them all and make them open a blind eye to our words! We Will Not Be Fucking Ignored!

And above it all, have fun! Write what you want! A storm is coming and the publishing houses and agents won't know what fucking hit them!

 

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The Truth is...

The truth is one day you will wake up, you will look in the mirror, on that day you will realize that you are a less successful, less attractive, less passionate, less excited version of yourself. You will find validation in things like “keeping a steady job” and “having a steady income.” Maybe you will own a home. You will find validation in ownership.

It is possible at this point in your life you will have a long term girlfriend or wife. You may even have children. You will find validation in your children. You will find validation in your marriage or long term relationship. Society will tell you you're doing great, society will remind you in media and their recycled words and proverbial pats on the back will also validate you.

You will have lived a life of mediocrity. This will be OK with you. You will surround yourself with others that have done the same thing. Those among you who chose a different more unpredictable path, a not so safe path, those who are out of their twenties but still live like they are, you and your group will shun them.

You and the group of underachievers will validate each other in a big circle jerk. Saying things like “you've done pretty good for yourself” and “you're the luckiest because you've got a great woman, great kids, great job.” These things will keep you from going insane.

But late at night, when you're alone with your thoughts, you will have regrets. You think of the jobs you had that you loved, you think of your passions, the ones that others called hobbies. You think back to it all and maybe you will cry. Maybe you just take a deep breathe and focus on all the validation you receive. Maybe at this point you've already convinced yourself that you wouldn't have done anything different.

You remember back to the days when you had a choice and you realized you were good at nothing. You had very limited talents and skills. Everything you wanted to great at, you were just OK at. You were never going to be the next Kobe Bryant, Kurt Cobain, Stephen King, Bill Gates. You knew that so you pursued comfort.

Once you had comfort it seemed impossible to get away from. Now the walls were closing in. You saw the others around you. Perfectly content on being just plain. Keeping the wheel spinning. Worker bees. You saw their spirit and thought, “Only ten months until my first vacation.” You realized that in this world you had to take vacations, you needed something to look forward to.

Suddenly every punch of the time card became like a bullets through your flesh and closer to the vacation. The vacation would be the band aid for your bullet wounds. It would relax you just enough to not take your own life, but not enough to go back to work happy.

You saw yourself in the mirror then and realized this was it. There was nothing else. You figured it was time to settle down because everyone else around you was doing the same thing. You used your coworkers as a yardstick to measure where you should be. You met a girl, it was love, all that jazz. Then you married, then you had kids, then you paid bills, bills, bills. Then you woke up and realized you still worked at that place.

You woke up and looked in the mirror and almost a decade had gone by. You didn't notice. You took your wife and kids to barbecues so that you could get more validation, more reassurance. You needed it now more than ever and on all levels. You despised your boss because he didn't pat you on the back at all. Your life became about what others think of you and trying to get them to think something high of you.

When you look in the mirror you see nothing worth thinking high of. You think of missed chances, opportunities lost. You wish you were younger. You wish you had more time. You wish just once you could come home to an empty house. You wish the bills would pause for just an extra day.

At the barbecue you have an extra couple of beers. At home after dinner you have a few drinks. On the weekends you try to get as much drinking in as possible. You try to avoid sex or physical contact with your wife. You dream about the times when you could have any woman.

And you wake up and look in the mirror, and you see nothing. No one in the mirror is anyone you know. And you understand that life is long, for the first time ever you fear death.

Then you go to work.

 

More of my writing can be found here: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/shanegrey

The Rules Of Cheating Part 2

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The Rules Of Cheating Part 2

The Apple store, dark. Closed. Apparently the store closed early on Sunday, at 7pm to be exact. Out of vodka and juice. I needed more booze and maybe a twenty-four hour Apple store. I wanted to play Tetris so bad I could taste it.

I wanted to let my fingers do the walking on an iPhone.

Life sucked.

I got into the car and started the engine. My pre-paid phone rang. I answered it. Darren's voice on the other end worried me.

“Dude, I need help. Meet me in the hills, please. I need help with it.” Darren said, then hung up.

I had nothing much to really do. I did however need more liquor. The warmth of the buzz was wearing thin. It didn't really matter anyway. Nothing did. Ever, anywhere, at any time that ever existed.

The hills were just that. The hills towered over the Inland Empire. The giant white letters that were build into the side of the hill, those letters, they spelled out: Choose Life.

Republicans were insane but Liberals were retarded, there was no real way to win.

I drove the small path, the path that ended behind the obnoxious sign. Parked next to Darren. The black sky appeared gray, reflection of the stark city lights. The cool Spring air lingered. No one came to the hills. A year ago some Satanic cult slaughtered cats up there. That kept even the Cholos and Blacks at bay.

Darren leaned against his car, smoking a cigarette. His head lights illuminated the beginning of a hole, some lone shovel appeared strewn to the side.

“I couldn't even dig my own fucking hole. I feel like Pesci in Goodfellas.” He said.

“You gonna bury the hillbilly?”

“You gonna help?”

“I guess.”

“You get an iPhone?”

“Store closed.” I said.

“That's fucking gay.”

“I know.”

“You got coke?” He asked. It was sort of rhetorical, Darren knew I had coke.

I chopped four lines on a Violent Femmes CD case. We each did two lines with a rolled up Chinese restaurant pamphlet. Then we had the power to dig a seven foot deep hole. Then the hillbilly thudded into his final resting place.

“Should we say something?” I said.

Silence a beat.

Darren whipped out his dick, started pissing on the hillbilly corpse. I laughed, then joined him. I hated being on coke, but when in Rome and when the Percocet and Vicodin and Xanax runs out, you must resort to whatever you have in your blazer pocket. I needed a downer quick or I would start to “coke freak” it was something I had done in the past.

At the liquor store. I bought three bottles of cheap vodka. Darren only drank beer when he was on coke. He had a six pack of Pinky’s Pilsner under his arm. I picked out three bottles of pineapple juice. The store smelled like sour milk and cheap cigars.

In the parking lot, we drank.

“I need more downers.” I said.

“I know a guy in Fontana.”

“I'll follow you.”

On the freeway, traffic was non-existent. All the neon electric signs I passed were hyper-realistic. I felt like a mouse stumbled into a Las Vegas casino. The colors and noise. I realized that the stereo was turned to its limit. The Ramones screamed out of my speakers.

“I don't like Burger King, I don't like anything...” Joey Ramone sang.

I exited at Sierra, following Darren north bound. I drove past Fast food places, mini marts, bars, pizza places, bums, cops, more and more neon lights. Eventually everything got nicer and not as bright and then I realized we were not in Kansas anymore.

Darren parked along a curb. I parked behind. The street, residential. Track homes that all looked the same. A Beamer here, a Porsche there, Range Rovers a plenty. I finished the first cup of vodka and juice. The buzz throbbed, mild euphoria blanketed my soul. I wanted to be even more down.

I got out of the car. Darren met me at my door. He had buttoned up his coat, a tire iron in his right hand.

“Pit stop. After this, my connections place, it's further south. He always has good Percocet and Vicodin.” He said, his face dark.

“O.K.” I didn't care about Darren's personal drama. I had nothing to do anyway. I followed along. Drunkenness shadowed reason.

Behind the track home, there was a pool. The pool illuminated the backyard with underwater lighting. I plopped into a pool side tanning chair and lit a cigarette and Darren smashed a window with the tire iron. He crawled through the gap in the window. I sipped vodka and pineapple from the juice bottle.

“Hey. Come here.” Darren's head stuck out of the hole in the window. I stood up and walked over to the hole and looked at Darren. He smiled like a demon. “This is the place. Come on inside.”

Inside the house had nice furnishing. Latest gadgets and TV mounted to the wall, surround sound, Blu-Ray. The carpet smelled fresh. Darren searched through drawers. I looked at pictures on a fire place mantle. The girl in the pictures I recognized immediately.

You know that moment in life when everything doesn't make sense? Stars and science and violence and politics and shit. Even the technology behind the very iPhone I had been wanting. Sometimes though there are moments when everything makes sense. This was one of those moments.

The girl in the picture was clearly porn star Hilary Hennessy. Except instead of a dick in her mouth or butt plug up her ass or semen on her face, she wore clothes and regular clothes that. No hot pink bikini, thong back panties, black thigh high stockings, nor ridiculously large heels. Just jeans and t-shirts with family and friends and even little siblings.

“Why did you break into Hilary Hennessy's house?” I asked Darren.

“Go through everything, try to find an address book or file cabinet.”

“O.K.”

“Her name isn't really Hilary Hennessy.”

“She just looks like her? I'm positive that's her.”

“Oh no, it's porn star Hilary Hennessy alright. But her real name is Blanche Matthews. She was raised a hardcore Mormon in Utah, but she rebelled and moved to Hollywood to pursue acting. One thing lead to another and POOF. She became Hilary Hennessy.”

“O.K. Why are we in her house?”

“You are in her house because you followed me in here upon my request. I am in her Summer house, by the way, because the one-hundred and forty-fourth rule of cheating is never get caught off guard by the person you are cheating with.”

“O.K. So you and Hilary are fucking?”

“On the contrary, quite the opposite, we were fucking. She stopped fucking me, then came the restraining order and blah blah blah.”

“Who is she with?”

“No one, she's single.”

“So no one is cheating.”

“Wrong. I'm the one cheating.”

“Huh?” I said. This was confusing because I had known Darren for years. Granted I had never seen where he lived or met any of his family nor did we speak of such topics.

“This is what I believe is called a next level move in a friendship.” He stopped looking through things for a second, he looked at me. “I'm married.”

“Hmm.” Was my reply.

“I'm also in love with Blanche Mathews aka Hilary Hennessy and I need to find the address to her home in Hollywood.”

“You want to drive out to Hollywood just to tell Hilary Hennessy that you are in love with her?”

“No, I'm going to drive to Hollywood to kill Hilary Hennessy aka Blanche Mathews so that she doesn't run her mouth off to my wife. The fifty first rule of cheating is to tie up any loose ends.”

As I helped Darren rummage through Hilary's private property I realized a few things. There was an Apple store in Hollywood, Darren actually had a wife, and I wasn't sure, but Darren may have been making up the rules of cheating as he went along.

To Be Continued...?

(New Short Story)The Rules Of Cheating

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The Rules of Cheating

by

Shane Grey

I wanted to play Tetris.

For some reason I wanted to do that since I woke up. Even after I puked my guts out and realized that last night limits were tested. In the mirror the reflection didn't recognize me. I didn't recognize the reflection either.

I wanted to buy an iPhone.

I had had a Blackberry. Then I an Android. I still had the Android, but now it seemed obsolete. Everything eventually sucked or got old or died. Really there was no point in even having a phone. Shannon couldn't talk during the day anyway, even if she did call me. The only person that called me was Darren. The clock said 4:25pm. Darren would be waiting for me.

“Dude, lemme get this straight, you could be fucking Shannon, you could have your dick deep in her pink tissue, but you're not?” Darren said.

“I can't fuck her because I'm sitting here with you.” The hangover that rested in the front of my skull, it radiated toward the back. A reminder to not mix red wine and vodka and vicodin. “Besides, she's married.” I said, adjusting my sunglasses. They helped from the light, but not much.

An 80's moment when Darren spit out his Coke. All the people in the diner looked at us. A little kid laughed.

“WHAT THE FUCK DUDE?” Darren said. The silverware dropped off my napkin as I picked it up, using it to dry my sunglasses and face of Darren's saliva swimming cola.

“What the fuck what?” I said. Put the sunglasses back on, then took another bite of sour licorice. My hangover food consisted of candy(fruity or sour or both), water, and beer.

“Shannon? The oh-my-god-I-think-I'm-in-love-with-her-Shannon? The Shannon is married?”

“Yeah. She is.” I said, indifferent.

“But you could fuck her?”

“Yeah. I mean, why not?”

“Why not? What do you know about seducing a married woman?” Darren said. He wasn't making a statement, he was setting up one of his epic lectures.

“I can charm women, Darren. Didn't mean for that to rhyme.”

“So you're worried she won't cheat on her husband with the likes of you?”

“Wife.” I said.

“Huh?”

“She's married to a woman. Shannon is married to a woman, I think her name is Kelly.”

“You're fucking crazy. The seventh rule of cheating is never do it(cheat)with a dyke.”

“That word is incredibly offensive.” I pause a beat, remembering it's just Darren. “What the fuck are you talking about?” I asked, put the licorice down, sat up a bit.

“The rules of cheating. You know?” Darren said, oblivious to my own ignorance.

“I have no fucking clue, that is why I ask.”

“There are a lot of rules, man. But I follow the basic ten.”

“Great. I can feel one of your speeches coming on. I want to hear it. But first, follow me to Walgreen's so I can get a six pack of Big Flats.” I said.

Big Flats lager had to be my favorite beer at the time. But I never was one to judge beers or choose favorites. If it gets you drunk and has bubbles, it was my favorite.

“I'll meet you there. I gotta stop and say hey to Debbie.” Darren said.

Debbie had big tits and a small waist and lots of straw blonde hair. Darren worked on getting her to give him a blow job. He'd heard previously that she was really good at it. Debbie also had a boyfriend. He was some loser hillbilly bouncer at some shit kicker line dancing dive bar. It never seemed to bother Darren that maybe if hillbilly found out he might come looking to kill him.

I strolled the cooler of Walgreen's until I came across the six packs of Big Flats. I grabbed two and headed to the cashier. At the register I bought a pack of Camel Lights, a green Bic lighter, breath mints. The girl at the register rang me up. She smiled and I figured if I told her my car was a Porsche, she would fuck me. But I drove an old Toyota.

Behind Walgreen's I sat on some plastic milk crate and cracked a beer. At some point later Darren showed up, smiling.

“What's up?” He said. He took a seat on a red milk crate and took one of the beers.

“Are you fucking glowing?” I asked.

“Yeah. She did it, man.”

“Who did what?”

“Debbie. She sucked me up, even let me titty fuck her.”

“Good times. How did you pull that off?”

“I followed the basic ten rules of cheating.”

“Alright, let me hear these rules.” I said.

Darren stood up, chugged his beer, tossed the can aside. Then he burped loud. Then he said:

Rule #10

Get a pimp phone(aka burner phone). This is a no contract phone available anywhere.

Rule #9

Never do it with the same girl more than twice. That includes oral, hand jobs, anal, genital fondling.

Rule #8

Never do it at your place of living or business.

Rule #7

Never do it with Lesbians or bi-sexual chicks. Same rule applies if you're gay(never with straights or breeders).

Rule #6

Be safe. Condoms, etc.

Rule #5

Keep your personal affairs personal. Don't share your place of business or living or even favorite song.

Rule #4

Use a fake name or alias. I.e., Todd or Kyle(if your name isn't either of those already).

Rule #3

Enjoy yourself.

Rule #2

If you get caught see rule number one. In the event you do get caught, deny it and take it to the grave.

Rule #1

Don't get caught.

The list would be better read bottom to top.

Darren grabbed another beer. I sighed, my headache slowly faded, but it still lingered.

“What else did you get?” He asked

“Smokes, Tylenol, a lighter.”

“Can I get a smoke?” I gave him one and lit it up. “You took Tylenol after a night of drinking?”

“Yeah.” I said.

“I figured you would understand not to do that.”

“Why? Cause of the whole possible liver damage?”

“Yeah.”

“That's an old wives tale.” I said.

I still wanted to play Tetris. I still wanted an iPhone, a white one. I wanted to play Tetris on my new iPhone. I was about to ask Darren where the Apple store was, but this loud roaring echoed the alley.

A large chopper motorcycle with an even larger hillbilly on it.

The bike stopped in front of us. Turned off. The hillbilly put it on the kickstand and stepped off. He took of his sunglasses. I left mine on. So did Darren, but he stood up from the crate.

“Which one of you fuckers is Dweasel?” The hillbilly said.

“That's me.” Darren said.

“My lady gave you a blow job, now her tits smell like your baby batter. I ain't cool with that, man.”

“Sorry, but it was a personal quest of mine.” Darren/Dweasel said.

What amazed me was the coolness of Darren. He seemed to not be scared. The hillbilly had a least a hundred and sixty pounds on skinny Darren. I myself skinny from all the alcohol and pills. I hardly ever ate actual food.

The hillbilly pulled his fist back, Darren pulled a gun from the back of his pants, he shot the hillbilly in the head. Blood and chunks of brain matter exploded everywhere, like a watermelon at a Gallagher show. I finished what was left of my beer. Stood up.

“What the fuck?” I said.

“Sorry, man. I didn't know he followed me from her place.” Darren said, wiping blood from his sunglasses. “Can you help me get this into my trunk?”

I helped him put the headless hillbilly in his trunk. He left the bike there. We said our goodbye's, until tomorrow, we would meet at the diner. Before he left I asked him a question.

“Why do you have a gun?”

“Rule number sixty-four. If you sleep with married women, or just generally cheat long enough, it may come back to bite you in the ass, so carry a gun.” Darren said, putting on his sunglasses.

“Is that really the rule?”

“Something like that. I just like carrying a gun, it makes me feel cool.”

Afterward, I washed my face off on the in the bathroom of Walgreen's. The reflection didn't know who I was, nor did I know who he was. I bought a bottle of vodka, a quart of pineapple juice, one of those protein shaker cups.

On the drive to the Apple store I drank the vodka and juice.