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THE GORELETTER:

Arnzen's Weird Newsletter

http://www.gorelets.com

+++ Vol 1 #13, Aug 4, 2003 +++

**Too Taboo for You**

----

====WELCOME TO LUCKY ISSUE #13!====

Before we descend into the usual
madness, I'd like to brief you with a
short update.

In September, The Goreletter will
reach its first anniversary. In the name
of superstition, I have decided that 13
issues a year will complete a volume.
So in the future, issues are likely to
come out every four weeks (with a
break in June) instead of every three.

This issue features a contest open to
all current subscribers (look for it in the
"Snippets of the Strange" department).
One reason for holding this is to thank
you for reading. The other is to call
attention to THE SICKOLODEON -- a
new "premium" content area on my
website (http://gorelets.com), where
you can plunk in a quarter or two and
get a rare story, an offbeat interactive
animation, or a helpful bundle of writing
advice. I've joined such luminaries as
the cartoonist Scott McCloud (author of
Understanding Comics) and the Bat
Boy musical troupe (yes -- the icon
from the Weekly World News) to beta
test a cool new "micropayment" service
called bitpass.com. So if you're feeling
charitable, visit the Sickolodeon, toss a
few coins (literally) into my electronic
hat, and test out BitPass. I see this as
a fair way to help fund the free website
and newsletter.

Thanks, as always, for subscribing.
This newsletter has accomplished a lot
in a year. I think I've only scared away
five subscribers since beginning this
thing, so I take that as a sign that the
first year of The Goreletter has been a
walloping success. It also received
many Bram Stoker Award
recommendations last year and has
begun to receive them again this year.
But it's the inspiration that means the
most to me. Writing this newsletter
keeps me on my toes, coming up with
new offbeat material I wouldn't have
written otherwise -- some of which has
gone on to be published elsewhere. A
handful of subscribers have been
"Instigated" into publication by it, too,
and "slaying it forward" like that makes
me very proud. I appreciate all of your
feedback and many of the "Weird
Web" sites you've recommended.

Keep it coming, folks. And keep your
hands clean, too.

-- Mike Arnzen, arnzen@gorelets.com

====BLATHER====
Blather. Wince. Repeat.

Beratings

There's only one good thing about the
rating system that polices American
film: it flags which movies are for kids.
And that tells me which ones to avoid.

I think the whole ratings code ought to
be inverted. I want to be "restricted"
from ever having to watch the "Spy
Kids" franchise, so I want those
marked as "R." And rather than rated
R, anything having to do with the sex
lives of teenagers should be PG-13 --
pregnant at age 13. Indeed, I think "R"
means "Restricted to those kids who
know how easy it really is to sneak in,
catch it on HBO, or rent it on video.

Although ratings were established by
the Motion Picture Association in the
interest of protecting kids from
obscenity, it's been a marketing
demographic more than anything else
for the past twenty years. Ratings are a
way of predicting who will likely be
exposed to the advertisements before
(and during) the film. I figured this out
when I sat at Pirates of the Caribbean.
All the trailers were for other Disney
films and kiddie pics. This offends me.
Just because I'm willing to get on one
roller coaster in the amusement park of
the mind, it doesn't mean I want to ride
the tot train and the tea cup twirler, too.

There was a time when ratings meant
something. "G" used to mean for
"General Audiences." It also has
always meant, "Gee, isn't that cartoon
elephant cute?" and "Gee, I wish I
wouldn't have had four kids who make
me take them to these godforsaken
cartoons all the time." There's nothing
"general" about "G" films at all. They're
certainly not "family" films. Indeed,
they're the opposite: they're babysitting
tools for when you need an escape
from it.

"PG" is like the imaginary number. It
never really existed.

"PG-13" used to mean "Parental
Guidance Suggested for Children
Under 13." Now it means "films
teenagers might put up with in the
name of gallon drums of popcorn and
soda."

"R" means restricted, but what is
restricted exactly is open to
interpretation. If the children were
totally restricted, then wouldn't it be
NC-17? I think it really means
"Restricted to the Waist Up" but I'm not
really sure anymore.

I think "R" is the ideal rating for a
horror film, by the way. If a horror
movie isn't treading in taboo waters
enough to make the rating board
squeamish about the corruption of the
youth, then it's probably not a horror
movie to begin with. Take the Pirates
of the Caribbean: edgy enough for
Disney to get a PG-13 -- way cool with
scary images of undead pirates -- but
the horror was dulled by cutesy humor
and sappy teen-level romance. I loved
the film, don't get me wrong, but it
could have easily been raised to the
level of a >real< horror movie. The
blood on the gold could have been
more than just one drop spilled by one
kind pirate. Imagine ALL of the zombie
crew swarming over the treasure
chest, tearing into the body with their
sharp hungry hands....

But I digress.

What I am really concerned about is
the NC-17 rating. I believe that all films
should be rated this way -- that way I
won't have to listen to noisemakers in
the theater anymore. But I know that it
would never work. Because the NC-17
rating is flawed. If no children under
seventeen are allowed into the theater,
then what about the adults under
seventeen? And isn't there something
redundant about this awkward
nomenclature? What ever happened to
the U (of "U-nder 17"), anyway? All
said, this ugly rating sounds more like
a model number of the Starship
Enterprise than an "adult" film label,
and until I see some freaky alien sex
action between Scotty and a time
travelling empath in an NC-17 film, I'll
not be satisfied.

In fact, I want the "X" rating to come
back. Not because I'm a perv., but
because I think the letter X just looks
really cool on a movie poster. It says:
"too taboo for you." I remember seeing
advertisements for Dawn of the Dead
with the scarlet letter X branded on
them. Nothing piqued my interest more
-- the X threatened me, instantly
triggering my fear of the unknown.
Horror film posters just haven't been as
cool since. I think X should come back
and kick NC-17 right out of the box
office. Let it label the porn videos. Give
the rest of us back our X.

Besides, a rating isn't necessary to flag
porn, is it? I trust that anyone -- even a
child way under 17 -- can guess a
film's genre by its very title. Yes, even
with those tricky porn puns on
blockbuster cinema classics, like
"Forest Bumps" or "The
Codpiecefather" or "American Pie 2."

Do ratings work? I used to think they
might, until I realized that the ushers
and ticket takers were themselves
under 17. That's sort of like hiring a frat
boy to check Ids at the bar -- doesn't
work. And the spread of home video
makes the very concept of ratings
moot anyway (since DVDs can release
"unrated" versions in secondary
markets). In fact, anything that a kid
might pay $10 bucks to sneak into in
the theater they could find on the
internet anyway.

Kids have outgrown all this ratings
stuff. It's probably parenting that needs
to grow up. It's not about censorship or
audience maturity or child development
anymore: it's about target marketing
and the best thing you can do is teach
your child -- if not also train yourself --
to resist the onslaught of crass
commercialism. So send them to adult
films to subvert the whole economic
system of big Hollywood.

Maybe a good horror movie for
starters. Accompany them if it's rated
R (like it should be). And then tickle
them when the screaming starts.

I obviously don't understand the ratings
and have given up on them. But to
really learn more, go to the authorities:
http://mpaa.org/

====WEIRD SITES OF THE MONTH====

Spam Radio
http://www.spamradio.com/

The Spam Letters
http://thespamletters.com/

Spam Poetry I
<del>spamhaiku.com</del>

Spam Poetry II
<del>satirewire.com/features/poetry_spam/poetryintro.shtml</del>

Cthulhu and the Spammer
<del>geocities.com/spamresources/humour.htm</del>

====INSTIGATION: TWISTED PROMPTS FOR SICKO WRITERS====

+ Begin a story with the line, "It was
when I died that...."

+ Write a piece featuring a skeleton
and a dentist as primary characters (or
as one in the same character).

+ Create a situation where one
character explains a deeply disturbing
town ritual to another.

====OUR ODD TRIPLE FEATURE====

"Exorcist Parodies"

For your next movie night, rent:\\
Hysterical (1983)\\
Repossessed (1990)\\
Scary Movie 2 (2001)\\

====GORELETS: Unpleasant Poems====

Strange Trout: A Microfiction

The freshwater fish flops on my fine
china plate in a puddle of scaly gray
water too hot to be pond scum. Slit at
the belly and pried open in a fine fillet
the trout still somehow manages to
turn his silver eyeball up at me.

He thwats his bony white tail at my fork
whenever I pierce his innards, spilling
his steaming guts out all on his own.
He is his own anchovy can key.

Meanwhile my cat impatiently waits at
my feet, gently batting his own tail,
curious about the strange new toy from
which I feed him morsels to quench the
anticipation clearly evident all over his
drooling white skull.

====ONLINE GIZMO OF THE MONTH====

"Meat or Accident?"

Disgusting. Hilarious. Brilliant! Play the
game where you guess whether an
image is "Meat or Accident" based on
a partial glimpse of the larger photo.
You'll be surprised how easy it is to
confuse Chopped Ham with Chopped
Hands.

This flash game (by the comedic
Mantlepies group) is raw, not cooked,
so be prepared for some graphic
images. As the site itself explains,
"There's a few images in this quiz that
may offend sensitive, delicate or milky
eyes, especially those of children" so
consider this one rated R.

<del>meatoraccident.co.uk</del>

====ARNZEN NEWS====

+ I'll be at the Horrorfind convention in
Baltimore from Aug 15-17th. You're all
invited to my fiction reading Sunday
afternoon.

http://www.horrorfindweekend.com

+ Take note sports fans: My new
poetry e-book, Sportuary, should be
available from CyberPulp Digital
Paperbacks (exclusively in Adobe .pdf
format) on August 15th. Cost? Just $3!
Illustrated richly with new paintings by
Marcia Borell, this book promises to be
a lot of fun. Check out the preview
page on gorelets.com, or go directly to
CyberPulp for ordering.

<del>cyberpulp.netfirms.com/index2.html</del>
<del>gorelets.com/demos/sportuarysampler.htm</del>

+ Take a peek at the brand new
webzine, Nerve Ending. NE not only
published my weird story, "Limber", but
also got some great stuff from horror
legends Monteleone, Spector, Silva,
and Van Belkom all in their first issue!

<del>nerveending.com</del>

+ Look for my story, "The Boblin," in
the new book SCARY! Holiday Tales to
Make You Scream, edited by Paul
Melniczek. This antho features thirty
stories clustered around various
holidays (mine is Halloween). You'll
discover great writers in this book, like
John Edward Lawson, Simon Wood,
Sandy DeLuca, Nicole Thomas, Marc
Sanchez, Kurt Newton, Jason
Brannon...just too many to mention.
The paperback will be out in
September, but you can read it NOW
in e-book form for just $4.99! Visit
Double Dragon Publishing:

http://www.double-dragon-ebooks.com/

+ Tachyon Publications has fully
updated their website and are ready to
take orders for my Martha Stewart
parody called Dying. Drop by to get a
peak at the hilarious photo they
uploaded (Arnzen in a chef's cap
wielding some scary kitchen
instruments). Or order through the
gorelets.com front page and get a
signed copy before I run out:

http://www.tachyonpublications.com

We're all still waiting for my book,
Freakcidents, which has suffered
numerous delays. I'm hopeful for a
release soon. Pre-order it today at:

<del>darkvesperpublishing.com</del>

http://www.shocklines.com

====SNIPPETS OF THE STRANGE====

SPECIAL CONTEST EDITION

Strange Visitors

According to my web host, all but one
of the following keyphrases were
entered into internet search engines
(like google.com) by strange people
who subsequently "clicked through" the
results to land on my site in the month
of July:

"lover"\\
"moldy refrigerator"\\
"i am in my casket"\\
"insane clown freaks"\\
"brain-splitting"\\
"homepage with me naked"\\
"art worst fears"\\
"wounds"\\
"numb left nerves"\\
"knuckle piercing"\\
"naked cheese"\\
"crib death strategy"\\

I've only made up ONE of the twelve
words in the list above. Can you guess
which one? The 1st subscriber to e-mail
me the correct phrase (pick only one)
at contest1@gorelets.com will win a
FREE AUTOGRAPHED COPY of my
Stoker-finalist poetry chapbook from
2001, Paratabloids >plus< a $5.00 gift
certificate to bitpass.com enabled web
media. The 2nd and 3rd correct
submissions I receive will get $3 gift
certificates to BitPass.

You only get one guess. You must be
a subscriber to play. I will send out an
announcement to the list once we have
three winners and the contest will
officially be closed.

If you somehow found your way to this
newsletter by entering any of the
above search phrases, well, shame on
you, sicko.

====DATA + ERRATA = DRATTA====

INSTIGATED THIS MONTH by the
Goreletter's writing prompts:

Ryan M. Williams
"What Dragged the Cat In"
published in Alien Skin Magazine:
http://alienskinmag.com

Terry Leigh Relf
"Cancer is a Demonic Pregnancy"
published in Wordmaster Magazine:
<del>wordmaster.ev.ro/pages/article/article.php?art=141</del>

Let's give these two a round of virtual
applause by actually reading their stuff.
And if you're a writer, too, I >challenge
you< to respond to an Instigation
prompt and get it published. Let me
know if I've insigated you into a
publication by e-mailing me the details
and I'll publicize your work.

GOOD NEWS: The Goreletter has
started receiving recommendations
once again for the annual Bram Stoker
Award. If you're an HWA member, I
hope you'll send in your support to get
it on the preliminary ballot in the
"Alternative Forms" category.

====BOO COUPONS====

It actually pays to scroll this far down.

NEW SHOCKLINES EXCLUSIVE!
Get $5 off your preorder of a very
important new book of horror poetry
(coming out in October): The Devil's
Wine, ed. by Tom Piccirilli. This
hardcover limited edition from
Cemetery Dance Books will feature
dark verse by such notables as
Stephen King, Peter Straub, Ray
Bradbury, Brian Hodge, Steve Rasnic
Tem, Ed Lee, and many more. Until
Sept. 1st, visit shocklines.com and if
you enter coupon code GOREDEVIL
when you check out, you'll get $5 off
this exclusive edition -- which has the
extra bonus of being SIGNED by Tom
Piccirilli and Jack Ketchum!

<del>store.yahoo.com/shocklines/dewiedbytomp.html</del>

FICTIONWISE ARNZEN EXCLUSIVE
Enter the info below at check out and
receive 20% off any Arnzen e-books in
your shopping cart at Fictionwise.com:

Coupon Code: Arnzen2003
One time only. Expires 9/29.

Otherwise, continue to shop for e-
books at this special 15% off page for
Goreletter subscribers, which is
updated weekly:

<del>fictionwise.com/fwa/4004/</del>

HELLNOTES: INSIDER HORROR
Because you subscribe to The
Goreletter, you can get a one year's
subscription to the e-mail version of
Hellnotes -- the Insider's Guide to the
Horror Industry -- for just $18. If you
like the Instigation prompts, Hellnotes
features three new ones every week!
Use the code GORELETS in your
order by August 31. You can subscribe
via PayPal (payable to JRohrig@aol.com);
otherwise, check their official website
for more information:

http://www.hellnotes.com

FLESH AND BLOOD PRESS
Get all available back issues of Flesh &
Blood magazine for 30% off and any of
the F&B book titles for 35% off. Free
shipping and handling on all
purchases. Please send payment
made out to Jack Fisher with a note
mentioning this discount to: Jack
Fisher, 121 Joseph St., Bayville, NJ
08721

<del>fleshandbloodpress.com</del>

DARK ANIMUS MAGAZINE
Get 20% off an annual subscription to
Dark Animus -- just $20/year! DA
contributors have included Graham
Masterton, Mark McLaughlin, Tim
Curran, and even I have fiction in the
latest issue (#4). DA is one of those
magazines that has a lot of care put
into every page -- a great example of
the small press at its best. To get your
discount on a subscription, include the
phrase "goreletter" in your
correspondence or in the order form
available at:

http://darkanimus.com/

CEMETERY POETS: DYING SOON
Take 10% off the great hardcover
book, Cemetery Poets, by visiting this
hidden exclusive ordering page. This
offer will end in the next issue:

<del>gorelets.com/demos/cempoesale.html</del>

====COLOPHON====
All material in The Goreletter is:
© 2003 Michael A. Arnzen, unless
otherwise noted. All rights reserved.
Permission is granted to forward the
entire contents as a whole, without
alterations or excisions. For reprint
permissions of individual pieces,
please contact arnzen@gorelets.com.

This newsletter is formatted in one
skinny column to accommodate
handheld computer users. If you own a
PDA, try The Goreletter as a free
Mazingo channel at:
<del>mazingo.net/pc/subscribe.php?site_id=1552&src=111</del>

Subscribe, unsubscribe, and shout out
about The Goreletter at:
http://www.gorelets.com

Our surrealist product endorsement:
http://thesurrealist.co.uk/priorart.cgi?ref=The+Goreletter

====PITHY MORBID THOUGHTS====

"Man is the only animal that can
remain on friendly terms with the
victims he intends to eat until he eats
them." -- Samuel Butler (died 1902)

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