Scaring the Shit out of Little Kids since 1956

Posted on January 22, 2012 by Mike

Photo Credit: Wikipedia

There was a lot going on over the past week. Jersey’s favorite son released a new song and announced a new album. Jersey Devil Press wrapped up its Brilliant Disguise writing exercise. Oh, and there might’ve been an Internet protest or two regarding SOPA.

Amidst all that, I didn’t want to let an important milestone pass by unnoticed. Last Wednesday was Calico the Clown’s fifty-sixth birthday.

For those that don’t know, the Evil Clown of Middletown is a twenty-foot-tall, metal roadside attraction constructed in 1956 to deeply unnerve small children and possibly advertise a local grocery store. When I contemplate the events that shaped me and made me the person I am today, I can’t help but think of driving past this huge, demented motherfucker every time Mom took me with her food shopping. Trust me: there was more than one night I was sure Satan’s jester had broken loose from his metal moorings and tracked me down to murder me in my sleep.

So, Happy Birthday, Calico! Thanks for scaring the shit out of me as a child.

And, don’t worry: the town fathers made sure to give Calico a fresh coat of paint a few months ago, so he’ll be traumatizing toddlers in Central Jersey for years to come.

Be sure to check out his Facebook Page, for all the latest updates on the metal monstrosity. (Personally, I still like to know what his status is after dark.)

Then come back to JDP and read Annam Manthiram’s wonderful “Rodeo Clown” from Issue 14. Because not all clowns are 20-foot-tall hellspawns.

Wrapping Brilliant Disguise

Posted on January 17, 2012 by Mike

With a new Springsteen album set to release shortly (one that’s apparently “angry” and “terrific”), we decided to wrap up our year-long writing exercise, Brilliant Disguise, and leave things to Bruce for a while.

We wound up with ten fantastic entries in this limited series and, really, most of Bruce’s best albums stopped at or before ten songs, so quitting while we’re ahead makes more than a little sense.

Be sure to check out the final “track listing” here. We’ll also be Tweeting some of BD’s greatest hits all week long. (Because you are following us on Twitter, right?)

Thanks to everyone who contributed!

In Which We Return to Monthly Issues and I Prove I Watched Too Much Twilight Zone This Weekend

Posted on January 4, 2012 by Mike

You’re about to discover that it all really does depend on your point of view.

Submitted for your approval: five stories that twist the boundaries and entangle the mind.

Old friend and founder, Eirik Gumeny, gets us started with a story that asks the age old question: who is the real monster – the zombie or the human with the baseball bat?

Next, Josh Denslow channels his inner Salinger and serves up a wonderful slice of American teen life. The boys stare at each other at the end of “Sonny Boy” but what do they really see?

Newcomer James Reinebold presents his own dilemma in “The McElroy Family Hole.” Is tradition the glue that binds a family through the generations or is insanity its own end, means, and accomplice?

We look up at the stars but what do the stars see when they look back? That’s at the heart of “Beta Geminorum” by Brian Niemeier, who’s also making his literary debut.

Finally, the great Graham Tugwell returns to the pages of JDP and asks the same essential question as Eirik: who (or what) is the real monster?

Graham’s story is called, “We Left Him with the Dragging Man.”

It gets a bit dark.

But don’t worry.

The stories on these pages can’t hurt you. They are confined to a dimension of the mind, one you’re free to visit and – unlike its occupants – able to exit at any time.

Issue 26 of Jersey Devil Press is alive. Read it online here or as a PDF here.

If you need me, I’ll be standing outside the window in the bushes, smoking a cigarette.

You know, in a cool kind of way.