Carlton Mellick III

Crypticon Photos

Posted in Bizarro Events on June 9, 2009 by carltonmellick

Just got back from Crypticon. Of the bizarro crew, there were twelve of us: Rose O’Keefe, Jeremy Robert Johnson, me, Jeff Burk, Cameron Pierce, Forrest Armstrong, Angie Molinar, Kevin Shamel, Gina Ranalli, Karen Townsend, Bruce Taylor and Mykle Hansen. It was a great time. Here are some highlights.

The Eraserhead Press crew on the way to Seattle:

Eraserhead crew

The Eraserhead Press table:

ehp table
(Tabling is a pain in the ass, but Eraserhead always tends to sell a ton of books at every convention, even when the turnout isn’t as good as expected)

ehp table

Me and Forrest Armstrong:

me & forrest
(my head against my head)

Mykle Hansen being attacked by Angie in a bear suit:

mykle
(To promote his book “Help! A Bear is Eating Me!” Mykle did this impromptu comedy sketch in the lobby.)

bear

Mykle eaten

Jeremy, me, John Skipp, and Cody Goodfellow at the Elysian Brewery:

elysian
(Drinking at a local brewery is usually my favorite part of doing conventions)

Rose with shirts of my head on them:

cm3 shirts
(These shirts might be on sale soon)

Rose with Lloyd Kaufman:

lloyd
(Rose hung out with Lloyd quite a bit over the weekend. He’s a cool guy, of course, and was really
supportive of bizarro fiction and Eraserhead Press. He seemed genuinely interested in what we were all about and perhaps some bizarro writers might even be writing for Troma at some point. We’ll have to see.)

The Brutally Evil Satan Show:

satan show
(So this is my retarded satan performance.)

satan

My book signing session:

signing

The bizarro hour:

Cameron + audience
(Picture of the audience for the Bizarro Hour. Too many people came to see this event to have it in the reading room, so it had to be moved to the lobby.)

Cameron doing lloyd the centipede (Cameron Pierce the banana man doing Lloyd the Centipede during his performance.)

Jeremy
(Jeremy Robert Johnson doing his magic show)

Jeremy+mykle
(Jeremy and Mykle hosting the Bizarro Hour)

bruce
(Bruce Taylor’s performance.)

mykle
(Mykle Hansen’s reading)

Forrest
(Forrest Armstrong’s performance.)

jeff
(Jeff Burk doing his Shatnerquake performance)

Jeff as shatner
(Shatner)

More photos:

Rose O’keefe’s Crypticon Photo Album on Facebook

Kevin Shamel’s Crypticon Photo Album on Facebook

(You might have to be facebook friends with them to access the images)

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Goblin Music

Posted in Random Shit on June 4, 2009 by carltonmellick

I love the really cheesy electro-funk music from ’70s Italian horror films, most commonly written by Goblin. They bring me back to a time when only keyboards and bass guitars mattered. I’m getting ready to go to Seattle tomorrow for Crypticon and decided to make myself a road music CD filled with nothing but these electro-funk theme songs to hopefully piss off everyone in the car.

Here is a sampling of some of the songs that are going on the CD:

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Cameron’s Show

Posted in Bizarro Authors on June 3, 2009 by carltonmellick

For those of you who didn’t get a chance to see Cameron’s video interview on Lair of the Lak, you can still check it out. It’s not so much an interview as it is a drunken online party. Still, there’s some good stuff said about bizarro fiction and Cameron’s work.

Check out part one here:

http://www.blogstar.com/shows/154/episodes/14590

Check out part two here:

http://www.blogstar.com/shows/154/episodes/14665

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Promote Bizarro…on your car

Posted in Promoting Bizarro on June 2, 2009 by carltonmellick

If you want to help promote bizarro fiction, then an easy and effective way to do it is to completely deface your car with vinyl stickers that read “bizarrocentral.com” like this:

bizarro car

This is a much better way to promote bizarro than a mere bumper sticker. People will be able to read it from several car-lengths back or even from sidewalks when you drive by pedestrians. It will only cost you $5 and if you happen to be a bizarro writer you might even be able to write off some of your car payments and/or gas as a business expense.

Here’s how you do it:

1) Buy some white letter vinyl stickers from a crafts store such as Michael’s. As I said, it only costs $5.
2) Cut out a white circle from the negative space on the sticker sheet. This is for the period of “.com”
3) Measure the letter stickers and then measure out the length of the back of your car. Then figure out how much space between letters you’ll be able to work with. You’ll have to get the spacing just right or it will look sloppy.
4) With the trunk closed, start from the middle and then go outwards. When we put on the stickers for “bizarrocentral.com” we started with the letters “e” and “n” then did the letters “c” and “t” then “o” and “r” and so on. This will make help with spacing it evenly.
5) If the letters go over the opening of the trunk, just cut through the stickers and curl the edges inwards. It will look fine.

This is an easy way to promote bizarro. Rose O’Keefe has this on the back of her car and she has heard from several people (who are now fans) who have said they discovered bizarro just by seeing her car around town. If you’re willing to sticker up your car, I highly recommend it.

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Weird Japanese Music Videos

Posted in Random Shit on June 1, 2009 by carltonmellick

This is pretty much the only music I listen to these days.

Polysics: these guys can dance…

3-Nin: Japanese cuteness on crack…

Lil’B: great song, but what the heck is going on in this video…

Stance Punks: laser gun that turns people into punks…

Soul Eater: if South Park was Japanese anime…

If you know of any other weird Japanese music videos, let me know. I love them.

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Crypticon Performance

Posted in Bizarro Events on May 31, 2009 by carltonmellick

At Crypticon, in Seattle, June 5-7, I will be performing my Brutally Evil Satan Show…which is an hour-long comedy performance that is so evil it is retarded.

By retarded, I mean this retarded:

demon of satanness

There will also be a bizarro fiction event with readings from Jeremy Robert Johnson, Mykle Hansen, Bruce Taylor, Jeff Burk, Cameron Pierce, Forrest Armstrong, Daniel Scott Buck, and Gina Ranalli, as well as a “Create Your Own Story” panel with Jeremy Robert Johnson, Cameron Pierce, John Skipp and Cody Goodfellow, where audience members tell the panelists story ideas and the panelists must improvise the story on the spot.

The “Create Your Own Story” panel will be at 1pm Saturday in the Fidalgo Room.
The “Brutally Evil Satan Show” with Carlton Mellick III will be at 6pm in the Fidalgo Room.
The “Bizarro Fiction Hour” will be at 9pm in the Olympic room.

There might also be a release party for the first issue of The Magazine of Bizarro Fiction, but time and place is TBD.

If you leave near Seattle, come out and meet the NW bizarro crew.

For more information, go to http://www.crypticonseattle.com/2009index.html

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Cameron Pierce to be a guest on Lair of the Yak tomorrow night

Posted in Bizarro Authors on May 29, 2009 by carltonmellick

Cameron Pierce will be interviewed live on the online show The Lair of the Yak tomorrow night. Cameron is a bizarro author who has been a part of the scene ever since he was a teenager and is one of the most dedicated bizarros I know. His first book about giant flying sharks in the garden of Eden, Shark Hunting In Paradise Garden, which came out last year, has been acclaimed by many to be one of the best bizarro books out there. Jeff Burk, the editor of The Magazine of Bizarro Fiction, has called Cameron the bizarro author’s bizarro author. He’s just got a wild imagination and a keen sense of the strange.

But Cameron as a person is even more fascinating than his writing. From his crazy Meat Magick performances (that are kind of like insane puppet shows that use meat instead of puppets…such as fresh squid, whole fish, pig feet, chicken feet, and duck heads) to his strange food creations (such as weird meat pies that contain curried fish and cocoa puffs) to the time he brought a crack dealer home with him just because he thought it would be funny (and then spread peanut butter all over his face while in a conversation with him as if it were the most normal thing to do in the world).

Here is a clip from one of his Meat Magick shows that he did in his bedroom for a group of party-goers:

Here is another clip of Cameron Pierce. It takes place at Ground Kontrol (a retro arcade) where Cameron Pierce and Jeremy Robert Johnson, author of Angel Dust Apocalypse, battle each other one-handed in the game of Mortal Kombat (they are playing one-handed so they can drink PBR while they play). This clip really has nothing to do with anything, but you will see me in the background playing Robotron.

Here’s the clip:

Right now Cameron is working as an intern for Eraserhead Press, and also working on his second book, The Ass Goblins of Auschwitz, which will be released later this year. If you want to learn more about Cameron Pierce check out the Lair of the Yak tomorrow night. If you miss it you can still watch it on the Lair of the Yak website later on.

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Weird for the Sake of Weird?

Posted in Writing Related on May 28, 2009 by carltonmellick

I was asked this question last night by young writer named Miles, so I decided to blog about it today.

The question was:

How do you guys or the publisher discern what is bizarro and what is weird for weirds sake?

This was my answer:

Well, in a way, all bizarro is weird for the sake of weird. Just as horror is scary for the sake of scary. But weird can have different meanings for different people. Sometimes weird means interesting, sometimes weird means nonsensical, sometimes weird means funny. Bizarro isn’t all definitions of weird.

If it is weird for the sake of being interesting or weird for the sake of being funny, then that is bizarro.

If it is weird for the sake of being random or weird for the sake of being nonsensical, then it is not bizarro.

Really, though, the term “weird for the sake of weird” is just bizarro when it is weird but boring. When writing bizarro you want it to be so weird it is interesting, not so weird it is boring. Usually, the way you make it interesting-weird instead of boring-weird is through good storytelling. A good storyteller can make anything worth reading no matter how weird it is. A bad writer can make anything boring no matter how weird it is. However, what is good writing and what is bad writing, what is interesting and what is boring…these are all opinions and can vary from person to person. One person’s bizarro might be another person’s “weird for the sake of weird.”

Another thing I want to mention is that there are certain people out there who think all weirdness in fiction has to be a metaphor, or have a deep hidden meaning, otherwise it is “weird for the sake of weird.” These people, I have to say, are complete douche bags. Never listen to them. While creating a metaphor through weirdness can be interesting, it can also be very very lame if handled incorrectly. A story about woman who gives birth to a marshmallow could be interesting on its own. It raises questions: how would the mother take care of a marshmallow baby? Would the family dog try to eat it? What would its childhood be like? What could it be when it grows up? These could be interesting avenues to explore. However, this story could just be a metaphor for the fragility of youth…which would, more likely than not, just come off as really really lame.

So, my advice is: never force meaning upon your weirdness. Just focus on telling an interesting story. More often than not, the meaning will slip in naturally. It should be so subtle that a reader wouldn’t even notice it until their third or fourth read through. If it’s too heavy-handed it will make people groan. Don’t make people groan.

If anyone else has questions like this that you’d like me to blog about email them to me: carltonmellick3 at yahoo.com.

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Reading Event this Thursday.

Posted in Bizarro Events on May 26, 2009 by carltonmellick

Portland Agressive

Daniel Scott Buck, author of the bizarro children’s book The Kissing Bug, has created a big reading event. Readings will be performed by other Portland bizarro authors Cameron Pierce and Jeff Burk, as well as readings from members of the Portland Lit Offensive.

It’s on Thursday May 28th 7pm @ Ella Street Social Club 714 sw 20th Place in Portland, OR

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