Well, I Suppose You Should Meet Another (Sort Of) Friend, Stephen

Google “sick fuck” and eventually you'll find Stephen Blackmoore.

You will never have the slightest conception of how happy writing the previous sentence made me. In a way, I feel like I've been waiting my entire adult life to open a blog post with a sentence like that. And the best part is that it's true – eventually you end up here.

The inimitably charming and talented Mr. Blackmoore, like some other people of my acquaintance, is a writer. He writes gritty, hardboiled, two-fisted crime fiction. He also runs a professional-quality blog called “L.A. Noir,” see sidebar. Since he's a writer, and since he's (sort of) a friend like Amanda Adams, I suppose I should pimp his stuff too. Although unlike Amanda Adams, to my knowledge Stephen Blackmoore has never been seen in 70-foot-tall jeans on Times Square. Many of us who know him or know of him, however, feel it's just a matter of time.

You can find short works of fiction by Stephen on the web at the locations that follow. This is probably not a complete list. I got it by googling “Stephen Blackmoore,” not “sick fuck,” by the way. I should also note that, whether you're a fan of crime fiction or just a cheap thug looking for pointers (“Don't steal copper wire from power lines if the power's still on!”), L.A. Noir and the sites on which Stephen appears are must-reads. Anyway, here's the list I gleaned:

“And The Devil Will Drag You Under,” Spinetingler Magazine

“A Fire In Her Eyes,” Shots Magazine

“Babette,” Flashing In The Gutters

“Breaking In The New City,” Demolition

As I mentioned, this list is no doubt incomplete, these are just the ones I found easily. Hey, he's not that good a friend that I should actually do some real work.

Actually, the reason I know of Stephen is from running into him at various spots on the web, notably Anne Frasier's blog. [Note to self: Add Blackmoore to my Anne Frasier Revenge List.] It's not so much that we're really friends, but more like nodding acquaintances, sort of politely edging around each other on comments and giving each other a wide berth – “who knows what scrofulous electronic disease that guy has that might be catching” is no doubt what we're both thinking. I am, anyway. But I really like his sense of humor and, as it turns out, his writing.

Recently Stephen left a comment on a post in this blog that is good enough to reproduce here. It is a delightful short story in its own right, but it was written as a parody of Garrison Keillor's stories as told on “A Prairie Home Companion”. Tell me you can't hear Garrison's voice as he goes

“...on and on about the baseball game where Miss Miranda, the old woman who lived down by the river and smelled of leeks, set her dog Poochie, she of the nasty teeth and flaming red fur, the kind of fur you could light your way by in the dark of night because it would glow like a thousand suns in the dim winter afternoons, upon Darryl Sunshine, the relief pitcher who'd had a bad break in the minor leagues, accidentally killing a seal with a fastball in a way too complicated for anyone to really understand.

“And then Poochie, poor old Poochie, tore through the outfield after ripping Mr.Sunshine's left arm off, spraying blood across the mound, everyone running and falling and sliding as they tried to catch old Poochie and that golden arm, the arm that won a hundred games for Lake Wobegone, the arm that held his sweetie every night, the arm that killed the seal and cursed Sunshine to a lifetime of drink.

“And Sunshine just lying there, bleeding out in the afternoon light, coating the mound with a thick layer of red. And then, with whimper and a sigh. He died. A quiet man, he'd never made much fuss, and even on his dying day, why, why Mr. Sunshine just lay there. Bleeding and shivering. His body going into systemic shock from loss of blood until his brain could no longer handle the lack of oxygen and shut itself down into that deep, deep slumber of death.”

This story was the impetus for my intensive research into seals dying by baseballs (“I Have A Friend In Japan!”) as you no doubt suspected. I love it.

So read Stephen Blackmoore. Go to L.A. Noir. Buy the souvenir T-shirts and coffee mugs in the lobby. Support my (sort of) friend. Make him rich enough so I can borrow money from him. He'll thank you later when he sobers up.

You know, one thing just occurred to me: because of this entry, now when you google “sick fuck” you're going to find me. Excellent.

-- Hulles