Nicky on Deadman's Tome Podcast

Hello, folks. It's been quite a while since I posted here. Time for a brief update.

In recent years, Nicky has been pretty silent. He was relocated to MOTY's house in Florida and, amidst the gators and palm trees and surfer dudes, reduced to posting on Facebook and emailing people about projects that never come to fruition. I think the only place that will publish his "writing" is The Book Patch.

On December 7, 2018, however, he was interviewed by Deadman's Tome on their podcast. The result was predictably hilarious and often incoherent as Nicky cannot speak clearly to save his life. Issues familiar to EONs were covered, and yours truly got a mention starting around 56 minutes into the podcast.

Unfortunately, several of my interactions with Nicky were conflated by the hosts--and no offense meant to them as Nicky's shenanigans are vast and varied and no doubt hard to keep track of for those who didn't live through them.

My initial interaction with Nicky on Spinetinglers was mentioned. That was where I made some mild criticisms of Spectral Exile and he went bonkers. That blog entry is still my most visited. Also referenced was my finding his story "The Witch's Party" in the Google cache for The Dark Fiction Spotlight and downloading two of his books for free from Lulu (no link, that was from my dead Xanga blog, and long-time EONs will remember that was where Nicky responded with empty threats to burn down my house.) Nicky also rambled on about me pirating some of his work.

The podcast is almost two hours long but might be amusing for some. Check it out if you have some time to kill!

Nicky Fails to Understand What "Goth" Means to Real Goths

After finally getting banned from DeviantArt (twice!) and Shocklines (three times!), our favorite little Goth-wannabe has been posting up a storm on Google+. His postings can be seen here.

If you scroll down, you can see that many of his posts to the Goth community regarding music have been deleted. This is indicated by the crossed out category just before the date. For example, this post about Black Sabbath:

This is but one of many. Nicky also posted about Iron Maiden, Saviour Machine, Empyrean Sky, Slayer, and others. Now notice that the name of the community--in the upper left hand corner of the post--is also crossed out. This means, I think, that Nicky has been banned from the community. Curious, I trotted on over to the Goth community and found this little gem:

LOL. Nicky utter fails yet again to understand the culture he so desperately longs to be a part of. Nicky's name doesn't show in the member list for the community, so I do believe that my conclusion about banning was correct.

So how many bannings does that make this month? I think it's a new record.

And Now Back to Our Nicky Coverage

Nicky finally discovered, almost three months late, that I let the tabloidpurposes.com and tabloid-purposes.com domain registrations expire, and he sent me a little love note:

Frankly, I never did much with the two domains, wasn't happy with the templates available (I am not a whiz at web design, any text edits were always wonky, etc), and decided I had better uses for the $10 or so it would cost to renew the domains. So Nicky or anyone else can snap them up if desired.

Now since Nicky is back on-line and harassing folks again, I think it's time I posted another review of some of his work. When I left off, I had committed to a review of Nicky's "15 Minutes Before the 11th Hour". Todd and I will be working on our review of that over the next few days and hope to have it up soon.

Pretentious Pseudo-Feminist Asshat of the Day

This is not a Nicky post.

I don't have time right now to write as long a post as I'd like right now, so the short version: Pretentious, self-righteous whinging and strident claims of sexism and misogyny where it does not appear to exist only damage real discussions about such issues. Posts like this give feminists a bad name.

(found via this post which came in through my Twitter feed.)

Funny Nicky Photo

I couldn't resist. I saw this on another site and got permission to repost it here. McKayla Maroney is not impressed with Nicky, and who could blame her:

Nicky's Back and Whining Away

Nicky is back and up to his old tricks again--insulting random authors on the Internet, making threats, and posting bigoted remarks. Nothing changes. Nicky's birthday was earlier this month, and even though, he is yet another year older, he still hasn't learned a darn thing about civility, critical thinking, or writing.

One of the recent spews is from his Blog of Whiner, where he complaints about someone changing his Amazon bio to something more reflective of the truth. Nicky doesn't see it this way, however (languag warning):

"...quit anally raping my page trying to make me looking like a damn homosexual and trying to say that Brian Keene is one of my influences."

Nicky has quite the fetish with "the back door". He mentions his favorite erogenous zone again a few sentences later, this time in reference to someone leaving tags on his books:

"The joke's over pal and hope you die of anal cancer for doing it."

Next cue some typical whining about how people who review his books and don't like them are as eveil as child-molesters, mass murderers and plagiarists. Here is Nicky's succinct opinion about reviews:

"Shut up and let people read my work legitimately instead of being the voice of fucking everybody."

And here is Nicky playing an Internet tough guy:

"I would like to invite you to say why you want me out of the business to my face when I am in Richmond, if you're a male I would shatter your teeth down your fucking throat."

Overall, it's the typical self-pitying whine from Nicky that we've all come to know and mock. Since he's back, though, I am considering starting up my book/story reviews again. Maybe I'll even finish "Tabloid Purposes: The Gemini Books". 

Spring Update

Yes, I'm still here. However, Nicky has been quiet these last few months and has not threatened anyone I know or spouted off hate speech. As long as he continues to behave, I won't rip into his writing or personality.

Hope you all are having a nice spring so far. My fruit trees are almost in full bloom, and we're on our second blooming of iris. Happy days!

Review of "A Gothic Nomad Visiting Poe's Home"

Nicky's creative non-fiction story "A Gothic Nomad Visiting Poe's Home" appears in Dirty Black Winter.

This odd little tale starts with an explanation of the difference between an urban nomad and a homeless person. It boils down to urban nomads have "a debit card and a digital camera". So there, Mr. Policeman. You can't arrest Nicky for vagrancy (or whatever) because he has a debit card and a camera. The fact that Nicky includes this bit makes me think that he has been accused of being homeless before. Heh.

Then we jump into the story itself. Nicky explains that he took this trip back in March and April of 2003 "in the wake of the crash and burn interview on the radio were I got eaten alive and was interrupted every other line." I remember hearing about this, but it was before my first encounter with Nicky. I'd be interested in details if anyone has them.

From here on, I am no longer going to follow the text in the order that it's written. Nicky jumps around in time frame like a gecko on speed. I'll cover what happened in chronological order, as best I can figure it out. Unsurprising to anyone familiar with Nicky, this whole story is just one big bucket-o-fail, and I could probably post about 75% of it as lulzy outtakes. But I'll spare you.

Nicky took the train to Baltimore and arrived with "all [his] bags that [he] carried n.[sic]", "that black Kelty fleece liner, and one other thing [he] actually picked up for when [he]I went to New Orleans" and a large carton of Goldfish. He has no map. He's such a stud that he can simply find his way around by remembering episodes of "Homicide:Life on the Street". LOL. He also has not arranged for accommodations.

Then he takes a cab to...somewhere. He couldn't find Poe's grave and the house where Poe lived was apparently closed so Nicky had the cab driver take a photo of him in front of it. Then he writes that the camera died before the end of the trip and he could never get the pictures off it. That leads to the question: is an urban nomad still a nomad - and not a homeless person - if he has only a debit card and no camera? Inquiring minds want to know.

Nicky then wanders around - or perhaps stands in the place the cab driver booted him out of the cab and wrings his hands - trying to find "a  hostel or a hotel that was under $33.00 a night there. There’s nothing." So instead he "crashed for a little bit in the college." No, wait. Later he admits that he actually "pass[ed] out in the main part of Baltimore’s community college hall’s couch." Vagrant, what?

Over the next few days, he wanders around Baltimore. He takes a picture of himself with a statue of Poe because "it was one of those things I could picture Poe doing over me if he was alive to this day." I'm not sure *what* exactly Nicky thinks Poe would be doing to him but that sounds just a tad...er...suggestive. Nicky's not gay! No, no, he's not.

The statue is apparently in a "historic park" and when Nicky visits the information office, "the guard on
duty knew who [he] was from [his] website." Nicky is clearly delusional from his lack of sleep from crashing passing out at the college. The guard, a woman, takes pity on Nicky and lets him "take a nap in the area until closing". After she boots him out, he runs into the guy who offers to take him home for the night.

Yes, that guy. Who's been immortalized in Nicky lore ever since.

Short version: Naive-Nicky accepts an offer to crash at the house of a TOTAL STRANGER who hangs out around homeless people urban nomads. The guy takes him home and, if we believe Nicky's version of events, demands sex. Nicky freaks, grabs his pants and runs off with his hands over his ass as fast as his stubby little legs will carry him.

He spends the rest of that night sleeping on a park bench in the snow. More than once: "Waking up with snow covering me with only fleece sleeping bag liner on a park bench or drenched with rain was something that became the common thing for the first two days. There were times I unrolled my bedding in places where the Homeless would sleep just so I can get my medication wearing off." And the close encounter with temptation leads to much defensive "I'm not gay" whining scattered throughout this story.

Nicky also crashes at a mission one night and spends another few nights on someone's couch. Nicky says, "I was able to sleep comfortably in the living room as I’ve always been accustomed to sleeping on couches all my life." Said couch was promptly fumigated thereafter. The "someone" also apparently did not let Nicky stay at the house during the day while he was at work; Nicky had to pack up all his stuff and get out every morning.

This gem is buried in Nicky's recounting of couch-surfing: "I did this often when I was at the apartment in Justice too. My bed was two places at the apartment, my sick bed was the living room as much as Michelle hated when I did that." Michelle hated when Nicky parked his sick ass on the couch for days at a time instead of in his bedroom. How utterly unreasonable of her! To want to be able use the living room as a...living room. I can only imagine how bad of a roommate Nicky must have been. No money, no hygiene, and no common courtesy. Yikes.

Nicky runs out of money before the trip is over and has Granny wire him some money because he "didn’t have a debit card just yet."

What? He has neither a debit card or a (functional) digital camera! Guess he's not really an urban nomad, then. Just a crazy man loose on the streets of Baltimore.

He tries to find an author and "friend" named Diane, but she wisely avoids him. He eats a lot of  "street food", probably because sit-down restaurants won't let him in because he looks and acts like a crazy homeless person. He also has weird dreams about Poe being his BFF and loving all his (Nicky's) work. He writes that dream-Poe "was dressed in modern clothing almost if he was borrowing the grungy take on the Gothic community with the torn up black cargo shorts, hooded sweatshirt, and hiking boots."

Predictably, Nicky gets sick as his odyssey in Baltimore is wrapping up. We are treated to a paragraph or five lovingly describing the blankets and sleeping bags that bondage-sleepsack-Nicky preferred to wrap up in both while sleeping and while travelling on the train.

And now things get a bit confusing. I think Nicky also went to Washington D.C. on this trip, and I think he ended up back in Chicago via train with a couple of days to kill before he could catch the bus back to Granny's Basement. He stayed at "a variety of places," with "a fingernail that was falling off when [he] was in D.C. that was infected pus everything." Gross. TMI.

It gets better, though. Nicky writes, "In fact in D.C. it fell off and I was feeling very ill from it. So when I came to Joliet Union I called an ambulance to get me over to the hospital. I was x-rayed and everything. It was my bronchitis acting up, and tired as hell." He called an ambulance over AN INFECTED FINGERNAIL.

At the hospital, they take some blood, treat whatever his issue is, and kick him out. Nicky is then  accosted by a "drug addicted lady" in a station wagon who asks Nicky if he is homeless. Has Nicky learned from his encounter in Baltimore with the guy picking up homeless guys urban nomads? Of course not. She offers to let him "stretch out" in the back of her car, and he accepts and promptly falls asleep. Unfortunately, we never learn how Nicky got from there to Granny's Basement.

The story ends with more whining about the gay guy in Baltimore and how "visiting Poe’s home ended up becoming a Gothic story within itself, one that would scare more people than a work of fiction." The end.


Overall, this story is completely lulz-worthy and demonstrates once again that Nicky should not be allowed to travel on his own.

Reviews of Nicky's Creative Non-Fiction

Since I last posted, the Great Poe Museum Edgar Allan Poe Birthday Bash and Scheduling Debacle has occurred. The Birthday Bash is the fun part; the museum is holding an event on January 14th in honor of Poe's birthday. The occasion that Nicky supposedly bought train tickets to Richmond to attend, to speak at, etc. The only problem - and here is the Scheduling Debacle part - our favorite travel-challenged troll from Morris, Illinois, planned his trip for January 20th to January 25th. Oops.

In honor of Nicky's issues with dealing with the outside world, my next two reviews will be for two of  Nicky's creative non-fiction stories - "15 Minutes Before the 11th Hour" and "A Gothic Nomad Visiting Poe's Home". The first is about Nicky's close encounter with a Lexus, and the second is about an ill-fated "I navigate Baltimore by remembering episodes of Homicide:Life in the Street" trip to, you got it, Baltimore.

Fear not, though, I am still working my way through A Library of Unknown Horrors as Nano writing permits.

Review of "Blood Contender"

We now take a break from our regularly scheduled programming to discuss a different offering by Nicky - his short story “Blood Contender”, from the brain-numbingly bad Dirty Black Winter.

Nicky has stated that “Blood Contender” is a paranormal romance and “a man’s version of Twilight” (from the intro to Dirty Black Winter). It’s neither. It contains no romance, and the only resemblance to Twilight is that it has a vampire in it. And not even a sparkly one. Just a stupid one. What I do find interesting is that Nicky has chosen to show the main character, Vito, as dumb, lazy, and unethical. And a Gary Stu. I’m not sure if that is remarkable self-awareness from our favorite troll or simply an amusing display of karmic irony.

BTW, for extra fun and horrible hangover, take a sip of your favorite alcohol every time “(Gary Stu!)” appears below.

The story opens with the following Nicky-ese: “They don't know what I am, nor do I really know what I am myself these years. It was almost 80 years since I really knew what happened to me...” “I” is Vito. In 1919, when he was 22 years old, he was wandering around the European countryside after WW1. Despite joining the Army with “health issues” (Gary Stu!), Vito was a good shot with a pistol and had killed several men and one werewolf. The werewolf had Gypsy kin, one of whom put a curse on Vito, forcing him to “to wander the earth for [his] eternity” and “to live off the blood of the living without killing them.”

He was so disoriented that he couldn’t remember his own name. Although, he could remember his Army nickname. Go figure. In 1920 or 1921 (the story is unclear...go figure), Vito, being the upstanding and honorable guy that is, decides to take his supernatural speed and strength into the boxing ring (Gary Stu! for cheating) in the Netherlands. Vito “didn't have a name for [him]self at that time, but they've called [him] Vito Diablo.”

Vito’s unethical entry into boxing has predictable results: “The referees stood there in fear because the person would get up in a bloodied mess, staring at me in sheer horror because of the damage I caused. I could hear the crowd saying, “That figher, is not natural”

Then the reader is treated to a depiction of a boxing match. Vito has a physical before the match, and even though the doctors can find no pulse and think Vito feels “dead and cold to the touch”, they clear him to fight. Vito’s then-wife shows up to watch the bout “wearing a black dress and red lipstick.” (Gary Stu!) as all good Danish Goth wives do. When the referee introduces Vito, we find out he is from Chicago, Illinois (Gary Stu!)

Vito and his opponent, Igor,  exchange a bit of wimpy trash-talk and the bout begins. Vito, being inexperienced, leaves his hands down and Igor belts hits him a number of times with right crosses and/or left upper cuts (Vigo is too stunned to figure out which). Igor even hits Vito right on the fang, hard enough to break the bone if Vito were mortal. Since Vito apparently didn’t wear a mouth guard, it’s a good thing he’s immortal.

But then - oh wait, Vito does have a mouth guard - Vito hisses through it, “I’m going to get you my pretty,” “My turn,” and finally fights back, landing a few punches, breaking ribs each and every time because Vito is such a stud. And a cheater. (Gary Stu!) Tsk, tsk. Concealing his supernatural strength in a contest that relies heavily on strength.

Vito hisses again and punches some more. Then...ding, ding, ding, the round is over. Vito retreats to his corner, drinks a little blood to recharge, and then back to the center for round two.

This round is even more brutal. (that was sarcasm in case you missed it). Presumably Vito is still breaking bones with every strike, but Igor is stands fast. He’s almost as much of a stud as Vito. Igor gets bloodied. The referee, who is either a complete novice or a complete wuss and deserves to be fired, freaks out about the blood. The spectators are even worse; they’ve come to sports event known to get bloody and then faint at the sight of blood (at this point I’m waiting for EMTs to show up, but alas, that is another story with specters and exiles and such).

When the second round is over, Vito is thinking he’s pretty hot shit, just like “if a Great White Shark went in and grabbed a seal out of the water then putting all its weight in the air...” (Sharks!) The fight continues two more rounds, and Vito The Cheater is declared the winner.

Now the reader gets more backstory. Vito, clearly not the shiniest Christmas ornament on the tree, thinks that boxing “was the only way [he] could really disguise [his] age years after becoming a vampire.” His reasoning has something to do with being sick all the time before joining the Army (Gary Stu!) and after he became a vampire, he got better but he still need to test himself or stay fresh or some such bullshit. Vito and logic...they do not go together.

Vito’s father was in the U.S. Army, and Vito still keeps his (Vito’s) uniform under glass. He lifts weights to stay in shape, cheats at boxing boxes to put money on the table, moves to the Netherlands after WWI, gets married, moves back to the U.S in the 1950s to...guess where … anyone … Bueller ... anyone … Yes, you got it, the Chicago area. (Gary Stu!)

(And if my last paragraph sounded coherent, believe me, it took several readings of Nicky’s convoluted prose to extract those details.)

Now Vito is Vito Dioverde. Vito believes he has citizenship from back when he lived in the States in the 1910’s, but fortunately he doesn’t stress any employer’s credulity by doing something responsible and manly like trying to get a job to support his family. Instead he sends his wife out to get a factory job. She’s got a green card, so she’s good to go. He lifts weights, sleeps on the couch, drinks beer, belches, and occasionally fights.

He hooks up with an old friend, Frank, who now works at a blood bank and talks Frank  into stealing blood for him. Vito is such a wuss, though, about the whole vampire thing - despite the fact that he can cheat at boxing and win - that he mixes the blood with alcohol to disguise the taste of it. Frank, who is far nicer to Vito than he should be, sterilizes used beer bottles in bleach water before filling them even though germs can no longer harm Vito and fills them with the blood/beer or blood/vodka.  Vito doesn’t even provide his own booze; he just shows up at the blood bank and asks for more of the mixture. Poor Frank, he deserves better.

But it is not to be. Frank, who is “a guinus in the territory of medicine” and who specializes in “things that will keep a vampire going in sports such as wrestling or boxing” (Gary Stu!) becomes Vito’s personal doctor and then Vito’s manager. I’m unclear on the timeline of all this because Nicky’s writing rambles all over the place.

More backstory from the 1950’s follows. Poor dumb Vito changes his name to Vito Deadfall because he thinks this will keep people from getting suspicious about his age. Vito, despite his lack of brains, is a stallion in the ring. In practice sparring, he can last four hours! Although he originally fought with a shaved head, he now wears his hair longer (Gary Stu!) and in a ponytail.

Vito also has a son during these 10-14 years that he is “training”, couch surfing and living on his wife’s income. Vito laments that his son does not, upon the instant of his birth, realize Daddy is a vampire, but he thinks fondly that his son will figure it out as soon as the boy gets into a couple of fights. Daddy of the Year, he is not.

Finally, Vito gets back into boxing when his son is 14. In 1957. Or wait, that’s not 14 years... but... oh fuck it, I have no idea how long Vito was a lazy-ass, but now he’s back for his first fight in the U.S. He’s announced as Vito Dioverde and his European record is listed. 30-0.

Vito, still trying to conceal his true age and identity, is mortified at this horrendous slip. He turns to  Frank, who is still standing by his side, and rips out his throat . He is exposed! A riot ensues, and he fights his way through the crowd, killing at will, ripping off arms and heads, and... Strike that, that whole paragraph never happened. Wishful thinking.

He’s announced as Vito Dioverde and his European record is listed. 30-0. Vito doesn’t bat an eye. He swaggers into the ring to meet his opponent, an ex-Army dude (Gary Stu!) from Rockford, Illinois (Gary Stu!) The fight begins.

Vito takes a blow from his opponent that felt like “it was enough to dent a few bones.” Dented bones? Ah Vito, you big dumb ox. Then said ox punches his opponent in the kidneys even though this was a no-no in previous matches. He also knock the guy down a couple of times, but the guy gets back up before the eight-count expires. Ding, ding, ding. End of round.

Vito swills down some pig’s blood on the break. I guess with Frank being his manager now, Frank has no more access to human blood at the blood bank. His opponent, meanwhile, is far from stupid. He looks at Vito and says, ““Jesus Christ, that guy isn't human.” You got it, dude. You’re fighting a slimy cheater.

Vito gets all puffed up. He thinks about he is a GLADIATOR, just without a sword and a shield; he is most definitely not “that kind of vampire portayed in what's her faces books.” (LOL!) He thinks that the Chinese and Japanese invented all the martial arts, but forgets about the styles originating in Brazil, Israel, Korea, and the United States, just to name a few. He knows that the media knows “[he] was an undefeated boxer who fought over in Europe professionally in the 1920s” but he’s not worried. No, he’s a GLADIATOR!

He’s so lost in his self-aggrandizing thoughts that...we never learn about the end of the bout with the military dude.

Instead we get another mass of “telling” text. Show, Nicky, don’t tell.

Vito’s proud of his son as he grows up. Vito Jr. starts getting into fights in night clubs, but he wins every single time (Gary Stu!). In Vito’s words: “Yeah I am proud of the little bastard, beating people up just like his dad does.” (Gary Stu!)

Vito continues to limit his boxing because he’s still worried that someone - besides the media, that is, who already know about his European record - will find out what he really is. He hides his vampirism from his brother and sister by telling them he works the night shift and can’t attend family functions. His brother and sister apparently accept this and never visit him or plan functions on his days off.

Frank eventually dies and he leaves Vito “the details how to make the blood drink that he made from beer”. Find bottle, pour in some beer, pour in some blood until full. Duh.

And now it’s 1997. Vito knows his boxing days are over since “the boxing organization would be aski ng why I haven't aged one bit – then it would be all over. The tabloids and the journalists would be all over it.” So one night, Vito is sitting around, feeling lonely and sorry for himself, maybe a little drunk on blood or something, and he...

calls “a local hard rock station in the 1990's to tell [his] story – figured it wouldn't hurt.”

WTF? The tabloids, journalists, and boxing commission being all over it wouldn’t hurt?

And that is where the story ends.

Poor Vito. Poor dumb, clueless, cheating Vito.

I’ll leave you all with Nicky’s words in the intro to Dirty Black Winter: “Dave Summers loved the idea of the story but wanted me to do more with it, so did Misty of Withersin...” Yeah, I’ll bet they did.

"A Library of Unknown Horrors" Initial Impressions

I’ve just begun to look at “A Library of Unknown Horrors”, and I wanted to share my initial impressions.

One of the first things that grabs anyone’s attention when looking at a book is, of course, the cover. The cover of ALoUH is atrocious. It’s a bad line drawing of some kind of animal dressed up in human clothes. What this has to do with horror, I’m not sure. The back cover is only moderately better, but the text is mostly illegible scrawl. At least, the editor managed to spell his name and website address correctly on this back cover (unlike the recent “Ethereal Gazette 13” / "Lossil Fossil Press" debacle).

The next page inside is a badly Photoshopped photograph of someone’s face – perhaps the editor’s? Again, not a professional look by any means.

Following a surprisingly coherent, although still ungrammatical and self-centered, “Special Acknowledgements” section, we come to the Table of Contents.

Of the 28 stories included in the anthology, 12 are public domain and, presumably, on the Internet for free. Four of the non-public-domain stories – “A Night in the Unlife of Roger Sparks”, “Scarlet Frost”, "Bathtime”, and “The Eve of All Shadows” – are also available for free on the Internet where they were posted by their authors. That leaves only 12 stories in the anthology that are (possibly) exclusive content.

The TOC also contains a number of errors. In reviewing Lake Fossil Press anthologies in the past, I have assumed that the story title and author name that appear in the body of the anthology are correct, i.e. what the author sent to the editor, who then simply copied and pasted the story into the master document. Where the TOC and the body of the anthology differ, I assume the TOC is incorrect.

In this TOC, the editor misspells Scot J. Savage’s name, Douglas Araujo’s name, and Ken Kupstis’s name. He also misspells words in the titles of “Scarlet Frost”, “The Great Morgan Family Reunion and Snipe Hunt”, and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”. At least he got the page numbers right this time.

Overall, my initial impression is of sloppy editing and bad artwork. I hope that the stories show more promise.

Time for More Reviews

Our favorite little troll has come off "hitatus" and is back annoying the Internet with his ungrammatical rants and generally whiny-ness. And that means it's time for more reviews. What should I do first:


Ethereal Gazette Issue 12 - Five stories left to go. I've read all but one of them and have started writing up the review, but it's been almost 10 months so my memory is a little fuzzy

Ethereal Gazette Issue 11 - The latest edition of the EG, with surprisingly decent artwork by a naive young artist on Vampirefreaks who provided him with the art work from her DeviantArt account. This issue contains eight fiction stories - two of which are by Nicky - three public domain stories, and one true-life story (I think). The preview contains some amusing typos, including three different spellings of "portrait". In a lovely deja-vu moment, Nicky has also misspelled Lloyd Phillip Campbell's middle name in the TOC; it's missing the second "i" (and this is Lloyd Phillip Campbell-Nicky's alias, not Lloyd Phillip Campbell-the gay poet). I'm curious to see what the body of the anthology contains.

A Rural Weird Tale - Nicky's "cult exclusive" post in the H.P Lovecraft cult on vampirefreaks.com, from back in April (IIRC). I think it's supposed to be non-fiction...

Dirty Black Winter - Nicky's latest collection of ungrammatical hash which shares its title with a wonderful poem by the above-mentioned up-and-coming gay poet, Lloyd Phillip Campbell. Is Nicky trying to tell the world something?

A Library of Unknown Horrors - The book that Nicky managed to foist off on the Poe Museum in Virgina. Because of this foisting, Nicky was the subject of two puff pieces on slow news days in a couple of small local newspapers.



I should mention that Nano is starting up in three weeks, and I'm participating again this year. That means my time in November will be limited but I'll do the best I can.

WNEP: Another Kind of Asshat

I'm taking time out of my normal coverage of Nicky to discuss several women who have Nicky beat for narrow-minded vitriol.

Yesterday, Kena Vernon, a reporter at Pennsylvania TV station WNEP, ran a story about high school teacher Judy Buranich who writes erotic books for Ellora's Cave under the name Judy Mays. (I quit purchasing books from EC some time ago for several reasons including their business practices and their inability to consistently deliver decent prose at a reasonable price; however, that has nothing to do with their authors who should not be tarred with the same brush as EC's owners).

Ms. Buranich had apparently kept her writing life confidential from most students and parents. The gist of the story was how three parents had found out about Ms. Buranich's writing and were upset because OMGWTF it has SEX in it. And she's teaching KIDS!! Oh the controversy. And oh the backlash.

Three women - yes, a whole three - were quoted in the story. The first two women - Wendy Apple and Deanna Stepp - simply come across as narrow-minded asshats who still believe that women can't or shouldn't enjoy, discuss, or write about sex. And yet they have kids. Unless the stork dropped off some babes in diapers, this makes them hypocrites as well.

Ms. Apple is quoted in the article as saying:

"Now my son knows so how is he thinking when he's sitting in her class knowing what she does on the side"

Does this woman also think that pregnant women shouldn't teach because her son might imagine how the teacher got pregnant. Didn't we leave this type of sexist thinking behind sometime in the first half of the last century?

And I've got news for her. Her son is a teenager; sex is pretty much all he's thinking about right now.

Elsewhere, Ms. Apple is claims that people are attacking her on Facebook for speaking out. Yup, this is America, where you have the right to say narrow-minded, sexist bullshit...and people have the right to tell you that you're saying narrow-minded sexist bullshit.


But the stupid stick today really goes to Kelly Hornberger, who says in the video version of the story (emphasis mine):

"Unbelievable. I can't even imagine somebody would write such stuff. I don't read it. I don't watch it. you know...that's just not how I want my children to be brought up. And I don't want my son sitting in her class thinking, "Is she looking at him, you know, a certain way..."

Huh? Because Ms. Buranich writes erotica, she should be suspected as a pedophile? Under what rock does this woman live? This is so disgusting that I don't really have words to discuss my outrage.

And let's not forget Ms Vernon's and WNEP's role in all this. By airing the pedophile implication and by not presenting any balance - or even any fucking common sense - to the claims made by these women, they are in effect endorsing the message in the story. I hope that WNEP has a good lawyer. I hope Ms. Buranich has an even better one.

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A cool Youtube video by someone who professes to be a former student of Ms. Buranich. Go watch it!

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Smart Bitches cover the story
Dear Author covers the story
WNEP's Facebook page is getting hammered
The Support Judy Mays Facebook page has 3719 likes (and it's still increasing)

The Rusty Nail Has Moved Again

The Rusty Nail has moved again. Once again, someone filed fraudulent and malicious reports with the blog's former host that The Rusty Nail was spam. So now the The Rusty Nail is here.

Upcoming Reviews

I should have a bit of free time over the next couple of weeks, and that means it's time to catch up on outstanding reviews:

Ethereal Gazette Issue 12 - Yes, finally (!!), the completion of reviews for the stories in Issue 12 is almost at hand. There are, I believe, five stories left. I've read all but one of them and have started writing up the review.

Ethereal Gazette Issue 11 - Nicky's backwards way of doing things is a mite confusing, but he has finally produced Issue 11 of the EG. I actually like the cover of this issue because Nicky didn't do it this time; he found a nice - but naive - young lady on Vampirefreaks who provided him with the art work from her DeviantArt account. Unfortunately, Nicky manage to misspell the very difficult-to-spell word "second' on the front cover of the magazine.

This issue contains eight fiction stories - two of which are by Nicky - three public domain stories, and one true-life story (I think). The preview contains some amusing typos, including three different spellings of "portrait". In a lovely deja-vu moment, Nicky has also misspelled Lloyd Phillip Campbell's middle name in the TOC; it's missing the second "i". I'm curious to see what the body of the anthology contains.

A Rural Weird Tale - Nicky's latest "cult exclusive" post in the H.P Lovecraft cult on vampirefreaks.com. I think it's supposed to be non-fiction...


I know that I also have non-Nicky books to review as well and that is coming. Those books are far more enjoyable than those listed above and not so lulz-worthy.

A Little Fun Diversion

Click anywhere within the box to feed the fish.

The Rusty Nail Has Moved

Hopefully, it's just temporary, but The Rusty Nail has a new home.

National Stop Bullying Day

Today is the National Stop Bullying Day (in the U.S.). I suggest that all of us who have been bullied, harrassed, threatened, or stalked by Nicky Pacione share our stories somewhere today - in a blog post, in blog comments, on a forum, etc. I will be travelling and away from my computer most of today, so my post will not be up until later tonight.

DMCA Conclusion -or- The Post is Back

I heard back from Blogger today, and the post that Nicky filed the fraudulent DMCA claim over is back up.

And I see that another one of Nicky's blogs has been taken down for violating a sites Term's of Service. how many does that make now? I've lost count.

DMCA Further Developments

With regards to Nicky's DMCA notification, Blogger has informed me that "The requirements for a counter-notification under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act are not the same as the requirements for the original notification." Um, yeah. While technically true, they are splitting very fine hairs.

Notification must include, amongst other things: "(iv) Information reasonably sufficient to permit the service provider to contact the complaining party, such as an address, telephone number, and, if avail-able, an electronic mail address at which the complaining party may be contacted."

Counter notification must include, amongst other things: "(D) The subscriber's name, address, and telephone number, and a statement that the subscriber consents to the jurisdiction of Federal District Court ..."

The text of the law says that the notifications must "substantially include" the above information, which is where I think Google hangs their hat on not requiring complaining parties to provide a mailing address. I responded in kind by providing a mailing address (a P.O. box) but not my phone number; I don't need a basement troll calling me at all hours to whine about what a meanie I am.

Since I have responded with a counter notification, Blogger must restore my post within 10 to 14 business days, unless they receive notice from Nicky that he "has filed an action seeking a court order to restrain the subscriber from engaging in infringing activity relating to the material on the service provider's system or network." In this case, subscriber = me.

I can't see Nicky filing legal action. For one, he can't afford it. For another, the copyright infringement claim is obviously ridiculous to the layman. Here is Nicky's claim:

"She posted all the links to every story of a version that doesn't have the stories in there. This is unauthorized what she's doing."

Nicky is SOL. Lists cannot be copyrighted, and link addresses cannot be copyrighted. Furthermore, the links all point to legally posted content by the content owners.

Now the following is for Nicky, who I know reads this blog:

Nicky, before you even think about continuing to harrass me with false DMCA claims, know this - I have a job and can afford an attorney. You cannot. The DMCA includes penalties for materially misrepresenting that material or activity is infringing. I suggest you read it. Would you like to pay my costs and attorney's fees?