I'm a genius

This has nothing to do with anything and it's not even from the same time period as the Hiroshima Club, since I just made her a few weeks ago but she came out really good and I felt like bragging.

 

Her name is Olive.

We're baaack!
Yes, after god know how many months of neglect, we will return with more inane content in the next few days. I know my imaginary audience can hardly wait!

And now for something completely different....

We are going to deviate from our regularly scheduled crapitude to talk about something completely unexpected, some actual good writing!

Local Author Louis K. Lowy is having his first novel Die Laughing, published next month and I wanted to tell you guys about it. I know what you are thinking, Louis K. Lowy doesn't belong here, he's never written anything bad! Don't worry, we still have plenty of bad poetry to go around, but I thought it would be a nice change of pace to tell you about something that you'll actually enjoy reading. A palate cleanser if you will.

Die Laughing is the story of stand-up comedian Sam E Lakeside. On the verge of his big break he is forced into a scheme by a homicidal mobster and shape-shifting aliens to rob the earth of its oil.

I'll let Louis tell you a bit more about the book in his own words:



Can you talk about how much research went into Die Laughing? How did you go about it?

A lot. The story takes place in 1956 and I wanted to be as accurate to the period as possible. It was tough because every time one of my characters took a step or picked up something I had to make sure it not only existed at that time but was something that would have been used. For instance, there’s a scene when Cricket brings Sam E. a can of shaving cream. I researched to make sure that what she gave him, Rapid Shave, would have been commonly used.

I did a lot of research on clothes.

Also, I reference a lot of sci-fi flicks from that era. Before I could do that I had to make sure they were released before or at the time the story takes place. Depending on what movie I could use, that would sometimes shape the conversation.

There’s a lot of physical traveling in this story – Sam E. has to get from Las Vegas to New York City – so I had to make sure the roads they traveled existed in 1956. I found a 1954 Road Atlas on eBay. It was a huge help. They also take a Super Constellation airplane, which required tons of research. The list goes on and on, but truthfully in the long run it was a lot of fun.

How about quick history lessons for some of the younger readers that may not realize a lot of the characters in the book were real people. For example, The Steve Allen Show is a mayor plot point, but kids these days don't even know who Johnny Carson was.

My aliens can only copy people who have been broadcast over television airwaves, which was a lot of fun for me. I used icons like Lucille Ball, Alice Kramden, and Marilyn Monroe. One of the considerations when choosing who was going to be cloned was for just that reason, that the reader would recognize them. But I also felt it was important to add not-so-well known (in our era) characters who were prominent at the time. It added to the authenticity. Whenever I didn’t use characters as well known I would preface it with a brief explanation, for instance, TV evangelist Archbishop Fulton Sheen.

As for Steve Allen and The Steve Allen Show, I would compare them to a combination of David Letterman, Stephen Colbert, and American Idol. At the time there were only three major television networks, and there was no internet. This was the first time that electronic images were available in the home. People were glued to the TV. Television personalities like Steve Allen were the rock stars of their era.

3) Who are your writing influences?

I have a wide range. Some of the major ones are James Joyce – Dubliners, Frederick Brown – Martian Go Home, Kurt Vonnegut – Slaughterhouse Five, the early Stephen King works, Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, tons of Stan Lee & Jack Kirby comic books, Frank Herbert – Dune, Flannery O’Connor’s A Good Man is Hard To Find short story collection, and the list goes on.

For Die Laughing I think I honed a little from each of those sources. The concept of an epiphany from Joyce, the confluence of time from Vonnegut, the idea of plain and simple evil from O’Connor, strange creatures from the Lee & Kirby comics, humor in the creatures from Brown’s Martian Go Home, and plot twists and turns from Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.

You mentioned movie references. Which ones inspired Die Laughing?

Both the cheesy and the classic 1950’s sci-fi flicks. The Blob, I Married a Monster From Outer Space, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Plan Nine From Outer Space, Killers From Space, Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, It! The Terror From Beyond Space, and of course Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Anything that evoked the period.

When you started the novel, were you going for a lighthearted sci-fi comedy that became serious as you developed your main character or was it always meant as a dark comedy?

It was actually neither one. I never saw this as a sci-fi novel per se. I saw it as an individual’s struggle to find his sense of self worth. It was a dark story that got more humorous as I developed the main character. And thank goodness that it did. It makes for a much more compelling read. I wish I could take credit for that decision, but really, it was an unconscious move.

So, What's next?

Well, I’ve been very lucky. Of the ten pieces in my short story anthology, eight have been – or are about to be – published. I’m trying to get the collection released as a book.

I’m touching up my second novel, Pedal. It’s a complete change from Die Laughing. Pedal is the story of a forty-nine-year-old fired music teacher who’s struggling to get her life back through bike racing.

I just started a third book, a sci-fi story that flips between planets and time. The working title is J-5.

You can check out Louis' website here or if you prefer Facebook, you can like Die Laughing here.

Did Someone Actually Read This?

6775! I just looked at the counter and it says we've had 6775 hits. When the hell did that happen? The last time I looked it was around 500 or so and it wasn't that long ago. So far I have been operation on the assumption that the only people who ever come to the site are the ones that do it just to shut me up...cuz I'm right in front of them...demanding that they go look at it.

So where did these extra 6275 hits come from? Have people been stumbling into this blog without my prompting? Did they read it? And not one of them liked it enough to bookmark it that I still have only 8 followers? You people should at least write a comment every once in awhile or something! Would it kill you to acknowledge your presence? That is if you really do exist. Maybe it's just one really confused person hitting refresh a couple thousand times.

censored for my safety

I'll be skipping over the next 3 poems because they were written by a nutjob who would probably want to get paid if they saw their stuff online even tho I'm not making any money out of this and you gave me the damn poems for my zine and they were not even that good/bad to begin with!

YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE!

I wish I was kidding about this.

technical dificulties

okay, this is giving me a hard time. Lemme try again

Happy New Year...and we're back!!!!

Yes, I know, it's been awhile...but we are back and we have a brand new issue newly transcribed and we start...NOW!

I really have no excuse for the delay other that I get lazy. I could argue that there are only so many issues left and that I have to make them last.
Or that I was so super busy with the holidays.
Or that finishing my fabulous screenplay has been taking all my time.
But the truth is simple plain 'ol lazyness.

Here's to hoping I'm more constant in the new year.


One thing I have not been bogged down with is reader submissions, so how about it?

Deleted for my Safety

As an editor, I like to take the novel approach of never actually editing anything, but I'm going to make an exception here. The next page in the zine was all poems from someone who turned out to have a severe case of the crazies and would probably demand money if she saw her crap posted here. It's not like I have anyway of making money out of this. She'd probably try to sue me too if she read this, even thought I am not mentioning any names. Such is the extent of the crazy. so, I'm removing all her poetry from the zine which is a shame as they were all quite bad, and crapitude is what we aim for.

Issue #2 Begins

Here it is, at long last the second issue of the Hiroshima club *cue applause*

For some reason I only have a black and white photo. Now that I think about it, the reason is that the photocopies were in black and white. But that's neither here nor there. the point I was trying to make is that the fabulous handpainted background was originally done in color, so here's what it looked like without the title


Since we're on the subject, this is what the back page looks like. I guess it was the October issue. But not necessarily.

Yes, those are pages from a coloring book, and yes I was way past elementary school when I did that. But you know what, that was a very cool coloring book and I wish I still had it. Fabulous way to waste your time.

And we are done with the first issue!

Yes, it's true! I have finished updating the classifieds post, so now we are officially done and ready to start up on issue #2 like I promised - Yay!

In related news:
I just remembered (and by that I mean I read ) that I was going to post some of these classifieds on Craigslist to see what happens, so I think I am going to do that tonite. I'll let you know what happens.

Now with even More updates!

I realize it seems like forever since I have posted anything new but aren't all the pretty pictures worth it? No? Well what do you know? You're not even real. I will continue with the assumption that my audience is imaginary until someone proves me otherwise.

First of, we have some Monsters haunting our dreams, followed by some ranting about babies, some good old fashioned stalking, the always tasty (not really) tofu and finally, a beautiful love poem to Butthead.

And there you have it, now we just have the Classifieds to deal with tomorrow and we are all caught up and can start up with issue #2. And by tomorrow I mean sometime next week.
See you then!

More Updates!

Yes, yes, your eyes don't deceive you I have finally done another update and it is a good one. And yes, I am aware that you don't really exist since nobody ever reads this, but it amuses me to pretend you do.
So without further ado....here are our newest picture updates

You will get some lovely new pictures draw by lesbians, or maybe just one particular lesbian. I'm not sure.
A handsome rendition of Morrisey. I know I already had this picture posted, but this one is a much better scan.
Some completely unrelated to anything murdering bats.
And to round it off some Spiderwebs.

There is also Haiku, an ode to Chris Cornell, and that one about Mario's band but they don't really count so much because they didn't have any illustrations. I just scanned the words so they woulnt feel left out.

The Fates have been Updated

I don't know if we were really introspective about fate at the time, or we just had a shortage of titles. Whatever the case, I believe we might have more fates to come in future issues.

The first one is one of Patty's
Fate

and this one is from Nancy
Fate#2

I'll post some more updates later tonite.

more scans

Here, I added some more new scans

To Kurt

letter from the editor

Ode to my Fish

terms of endearment

deep thought

Happy Birthday

sexy questionnaire

Deep Thought Page

Cottonball

The Scan is On!

I finally got around to scanning the first issue, so I will be adding the images. I scanned the whole thing so even poems that didn't get any pics will at least get their original view so you can witness all those glorious typos.

I won't be doing them all tonite, but here are a few:

Mystery Poem

Doughnut

Come to Begly

Betty

Painting

That's good enough for now, it's 1am. Come back tomorrow for more updates.

Phase One is complete

Okay, so I'm done uploading the first issue. That is to say, I'm done with the poetry. Now I need to go back and scan all the pages so I can post the "artwork". I also want to add more comments and whatever anecdotes I can come up with about the issue. Oh, and I'm working on digitally enhancing some of the illustrations, just to bring a bit of color to the blog. But don't worry, I'm making sure to keep it in the spirit of crapulence that the zine was created. I figure, if I am to bring The Hiroshima Club into the new millennium, there is nothing more appropriate than bad Photoshop.

Behold!

It's a Lesbian Thang!

The next three poems were on a page titled It's a Lesbian Thang!
I guess it must have been our gay section of the the zine.
Enjoy!

Hiroshima Club Beat Poetry Zine Issue #1

This is the one that started it all. I just finished typing it up so I will be adding all the content gradually to the blog, just not to overwhelm you with all the rampant crapitude at once.
Also, there aren't that many issues so if I'm going to drag this out for awhile, we need to take this one piece of crap at a time.

I really need to get around to scanning some of the pages too because artwork this awful, really needs to be shared with the world. I'll get to it, eventually.

But for now, let's just beging with the beggining, shall we?