Taco Tour 2006, Finale

Posted on August 21, 2006

I know, there was supposed to be a week 12, but I’ve declared a winner.  I have found that Austin Taco Mecca that will be my new Saturday eatin’ spot.

And it’s a trailer.

Taqueria Don Chuy.

This taco trailer sits in a lot at the corner of North Lamar and Grady.  It’s touch to miss.  Big white trailer with the word TACOS spraypainted across it.  And I gotta hand it to the folks who work that thing.  Two ladies crammed in a trailer with no AC, complete with fridge, grill, hotplate, sink, and a bunch of other stuff I couldn’t make out.

Prcies at this place are excellent.  I order 1 carne guisada, 1 beef fajita, and 1 chicken fajita for the kingly sum of $4.50.  They wrapped my meal up and I sat at a nearby picnic table to start eating.

Incredible.

The carne guisada is the most tender and flavorful I’ve ever had.  The chicken fajita, topped with onion and red pepper, puts everybody else in town to shame.  The beef fajita was subdued, with a hint of lime poking through rather than the dominant dumin you get elsewhere.

And I just scratched the surface of their menu.

I’ll be back on Saturday.  Who’s coming with me?

Carne Guisada: 9.5

Chicken Fajita: 9.8

Beef Fajita: 8.5

Value bonus: 4

Average: 10.6

Twisting the Hate

Posted on August 18, 2006

Today, I’m a guest blogger on Brian Keene’s Hail Saten.  My entry, Twisting the Hate, is one of the most personal things I’ve written.  I hope you all enjoy it.

Horrorfind 2006 Report, Saturday

Posted on August 18, 2006

Shrews and I crawled out of bed at about 10:30 and rushed downstairs for what we thought was a complimentary breakfast, but was actually a ten dollar breakfast.  Oops!  Pretty good meal, though, with Shrews getting a great story idea and immediately writing close to 30,000 words in his head while my brain kept saying  Bacon, bacon, bacon!

Next up was a trip across the street to the con, loaded down with books we hoped to sell.  First stop was JF Gonzalez and Brian Keene’s reading, where they unveiled the opening for the upcoming Clickers II.  Great reading, with JF saying “Fuck” more than most would think humanly possible.

Afterward, we ran into Nikki again, who was happy to report she had managed to squeeze in a reading for Shrews on Sunday morning.  She also told us how John Urbancik managed to get drunk enough to read the tribal tattoo that covered the length of her left arm.  I made an attempt, but made it as far as one letter before I was told I was waaaay off.  Oh, well.

Ran through the dealers’ room to find a present for Shawna, and quickly realized I was gonna have a hard time finding one.  Decided to come back later.

At 3PM, I went up with Shrews and we sandwiched Brian in as we tried to sell books.  I smiled from ear to ear as Brian started selling my books for me, suggesting a copy of A Trip to Rundberg to anybody buying The Rising or City of the Dead.  “It’s better than Walking Dead,” he would say, and I would try not to laugh.  Finally, with two books left, Dan and Susan showed up, and I conned them into helping me accomplish my first sell out.  I now had a few books left back at the hotel for my reading.  Plus, I could afford to eat dinner, which was a plus.

After a wonderful dinner that Paul bought for a bunch of us, Shrews and I collapsed for a bit back at the hotel.  He talked to his wife, and I talked to Shawna.  I’m pretty useless without Shawna when one of us is away.  It’s either cute or disgusting.  I’m really not sure which.

After hiking back down to the con, Shrews and I had a run-in with a convention staffer because he wouldn’t let us in. About four seconds later, we realized it was because we’d forgotten our guest badges back at the hotel.  Sadly, we were already late for a reading, and the hotel trip would take another twenty minutes or so…

…so we snuck in through the back.

The Drew and Lu show was incredible, a spectacle that can only be called a reading in the most basic of terms.  Drew Williams and Stephen Lukac (pronounce Lou Kotch) wove a tale of demonic possession, jazz hands, the word “fuck,” free beer, and mad libs.  Bonus points for dropping in a reference to The Shield and calling the Kraken a “Giant Sea-Pussy.”

Later, the parties would begin.

After a brief time in front of the hotel, I followed Keene, his wonderful wife Cassi, Wenchie, and John Urbancik up to JF Gonzalez’s room, where I met his wonderful wife.  Much talking and drinking commenced, with me handling two beers, a margarita, and more straight Maker’s Mark and Patron than should be considered legal.  There was a discussion of a writer who once took four hits of acid and proceeded to type four hours worth of complete gibberish.  Strangely, Keene repeated this story immediately after it was told, which led to a few hours of repeating the story whenever there was a lull in the conversation.  Slowly, more people trickled in: Mary SanGiovanni, Marcy Italiano and her husband G, and Matt Schwartz, the genious behind Shocklines.com (where you can buy all of my books).

After much merriment, we decided to leave JF and his wife alone.  Mary, John, and I (along with some others), shuffled down to the first floor and the release party for Matthew Warner’s Eyes Everywhere.  Somehow, we were able to tear the party down to a bunch of writers trading punches (I’m told I started this, but I suspect it’s bullshit).  If nothing else, it led to such great statements as “Mary, punch Shrews in the stomach!” and “Pretend I called your mother a whore!”  At one point, while Mary was punching back and forth with a wonderful woman named Kelly (She’d come with her parents, how cute?), I leaned over to Shrews and said “Y’know, you can’t buy entertainment like this.”

And on that note, I shuffled across the highway and back to bed.  It was 4AM.

Coming Monday… The Exciting Conclusion!

Horrorfind 2006 Report, Friday

Posted on August 16, 2006

(Disclaimer 1: I’ll be breezing over a lot of last names.  That’s just because I wanna, and because I failed to ask a lot of people what their last names were.)

(Disclaimer 2: I’m not paying an editor to look through this sucker for typos, so read at your own risk.)

(Disclaimer 3: I can’t remember what this one was gonna be, but it was important.)

FRIDAY or Damn, Shrews.  It really sucks to be you.

The alarm goes off at 2:45AM, and I pop out of bed like a man who had been lying awake since two o’clock.  That’s because I am a man who’d been laying awake since that time.  I throw on my clothes, brush my teeth, and haul my luggage out to the living room where I plan to wait for my 3AM shuttle.  It’s about this time that the shuttle service calls to say they won’t be there until 3:30.

Yippee.

So, I wait, reading, until about 3:25, when I go back to kiss Shawna goodbye.  The driver knocks on the front door as I return.

I never catch the driver’s name, but I soon decide to call him Cheech Trejo, as he sounds like the perfect cross between Cheech Marin and Danny Trejo.  CT also has a rather annoying habit of repeating everything I say as a question.  Example:

“So, where you goin’ today, man?”

“Baltimore.”

“Baltimore?”

“Yeah.”

“What’s in Baltimore?”

“A horror convention.”

“A horror convention?”

“Yeah.”

“Why you goin’ there, man?”

“Well, I’m a horror writer.”

“You’re a–”

“Yeah.”

And so it goes…

I get to the airport and get in line for the ticket counter.  I rapidly decide I didn’t need to get to the airport at four, when the ticket counter doesn’t open until close to five.  I’ll remember that for next year.  I might not take a 6AM flight either.  In retrospect, that was a crap move.

Sooner or later, I land in Atlanta and make my way to gate B30.  My next flight is supposed shag off at 10:30, so I start reading a book: Rickard Laymon’s Blood Games.  I must have liked it, too, because I never heard them announce the gate change for my flight.  After sprinting down the flight deck at 10:32, I take off for Baltimore.

And our story goes off the rails.

The first thing that greets me in Baltimore is a voicemail from my roommate for the weekend, Steven Shrewsbury, AKA Shrews.  His flight was delayed by an hour, and I’m supposed to go on to the hotel alone.  That’s great, but since Shrews was supposed to be here before, I never wrote any of our hotel info down.  In retrospect, that was a crap move.

About this time, Shrews calls again to say his flight has now been cancelled, and he is being rerouted through Atlanta (Hey, I was just there!).  He should be in sometime after midnight.  That’s a bad thing, because Shrews has a reading at 5:15 and is participating in the James Sneddon Memorial Reading at nine.  He said he’ll try to think of something.  He then tells me we’re at the Courtyard Marriott.

So, I head to the Super Shuttle counter and buy a ticket to the Courtyard Marriott.  Once I arrive, however, I’ll learn that the con is actually 30 minutes away in Hunt Valley, so I have to hire a freakin’ luxury sedan to drive the thirty miles.  My driver’s name is Anthony, he’s a DJ, and he likes zooming through the streets of Baltimore honking angrily at any pedpestrians stupid enough to get in his way.

I kinda liked Anthony.

So, I finally show up at the right hotel and walk in.  Whoops!  Big problem; Shrews ain’t here yet and the room is in his name.  I decide to attempt a gambit that will never ever work.

“Hi.  I’m staying with Steven Shrewsbury, but his flight was delayed.  Can I check in for him?”

“Sure!”

I was just as shcoked as you are, and that’s why I’m now just going to check in by saying I’m staying with Brian Keene at all future conventions.

Now checked in, I give Shrews a call.  He found a flight that will put him in at 4:30… in Washington, DC… almost an hour away… on a Friday… during rush hour.

Oh, and can I find somebody to come pick him up?

Once I stop laughing, I head over to the main hotel for the con, where I quickly find Dan and Susan from message board The Other Dark Place, Paul Puglisi of the Horror News Network, Jim Moore (good hugger) and his lovely wife Bonnie (hope I got that name right), Al, Pete, Ron Dickie, and Tomo (other board people), Horrorfind fiction editor Nikki, and Wenchie from Horror-World.  Wenchie greats me with a hug, then shouts at me “We’re through!”  Apparently I failed to return a few emails (which I don’t remember receiving).  Over the weekend, I would receive several “We’re through!”s for various infractions, as well as one “We’re sooooo through!” for failing to bring her along to dinner Sunday night.

I break the news about Shrews to everybody, and Nikki offers me the keys to her car.  Realizing this offer as the huge mistake it was, I decline.  Instead, Pete volunteers to drive down.  I gratefully call Shrews with the news, and Pete leaves at 3:45.

I start drinking.  I fuggin’ deserve it.

Later, I go to dinner with most of the folks mentioned above to Carraba’s, where I eat a calimari appetizer in order to save money.  After dinner, we have a long talk about something awful called TubGirl.  I’m still afraid to check it out, and I would not recommend anybody else do it, either.

Back at the main hotel, I run to say “Hi” to Keene and J.F. Gonzalez.  Both are in high spirits, and Brian can barely get three words in before somebody else comes up to buy a book.  They’re set up near John Skipp, so I greet him as well.  Skipp is a strange, mesmerizing ball of energy, one that has to be seen to be believed.

Run downstairs to the dealers room and find Tom Monteleone manning the Borderlands Press table.  Also see Dave Barrett at the Necro Books table.  Run into Norman Prentiss and receive another call from Shrews, who is just crossing the Potomac at 7PM or so.

Receive another call from Shrews at eight.  They are fifteen minutes away.

Another call twenty minutes later.  They are lost.

Finally, Shrews (sans luggage, which went to the Baltimore airport) comes running into the hotel lobby four minutes before the James Sneddon reading. 

The reading itself goes off great, with everybody churning out incredible performances.  I hear a few audible sniffles in spots.  I never met James Sneddon, but hearing the various stories about him, I really get a sense of how much I was missing out.

Okay, time to get drunk.

The night is spent in much revelry.  Brian introduces Shrews and me to his friend Steve, who buys us several whiskeys, and Megan (no idea what that last name was) furnishes some great cigars, which I accidentally ash on the lobby carpet and get escorted to the courtyard by security (Shrews got booted, too).  After talking to Steve for a few hours and having an exhausted Jack Ketchum hug me hello on three different occassions, I stumble across the six lane highway to my hotel at 3AM.  I promptly hit the sheets and fall asleep.

Until Shrews comes back at 3:30…

And his bags arrive at four…

Tomorrow… Saturday!

Home

Posted on August 15, 2006

Got home at ten o’clock last night, asleep by eleven.  Horrorfind was awesome, if draining.  A complete report coming soon.

Small town dreams and musings

Posted on August 8, 2006

My mother once told me that dreams are wonderful things, little movies that play when you sleep.  “They might tell you what you want to be when you grow up, things like that.”  Yeah, that would have been nice, but I much preferred that one I had in the fourth grade where I got to kiss Mariel Hemingway.  That was nice.

Well, last night I had one of those useful dreams (not of the Mariel Hemingway kind).  This was a dream that I could only . . . well . . . dream about.

That’s right, a dream that gave me a story idea.  Even better, a dream that gave an idea for a small fictional universe.

A universe called Aurora, Indiana.

See, Aurora is my hometown, a tiny burg of (at the time of my high school graduation) around 900 souls.  It’s a quiet place on the banks of the Ohio River, a former Underground Railroad stop, former home to the Crescent Brewery, and home to a small factory that may or may not have ever been opened.  Accounts are unclear.  In the early eighties, a madman walked from his home up on Fourth Street with a few molotov cocktails and a small arsenal and proceded to shoot up the police department before walking on down the street and burning down a few buildings.  The pock marks from his shotgun blast are still in the police department’s front hallway, covered up with a small piece of tape.

See? Interesting place.

Last night, I dreamed about Seth Fulk, a friend of mine from high school, giving me a walking tour of Aurora.  Thing is, this Aurora was a little left of center, a little off.  This was a small Indiana town where a pair of pornstars on the lamb eat fried chicken at the local IGA; where a five story house surrounded by twisting stairways lies tilted a few degrees to the side, the victim of an earthquake no one remembers; where another house lies uninhabited, those who venture inside scared away by the ghosts the former owner, a man who wanted to raise an undead army, left behind him. 

This is a small town where the five street-by-five street grid seems to go on forever if you look at it from a certain angle, where turning down the right alley will take you to entirely different town you never knew was there, and where turning down the wrong alley will get you lost forever in a maze of brick and iron and concrete.

This a town where sometimes corn grows right up out of the cracks in the street, where the old cobblestones show through worn patches of road, and they’re stained with old blood.  There’s a gigantic concrete staircase that leads down into the waters of the Ohio, and nobody remembers when it appeared or why it was built.  Strange people live in small apartments over storefronts, apartments no one can find stairways to.  The warehouse on the edge of town might be the home to a community of brutal savages.

And a magician named Charlie Crawford (Charlie Crawdad to his few friends) might be the only man capable of keeping it all in check.

I might have to change the town’s name.  Who know?  For now, however, welcome to Aurora, Indiana.

Relax.

Stay for a spell.

The Weekend

Posted on August 7, 2006

Finished Tower Four in a burst of early Saturday energy.  It feels good to have that first draft done.  The second draft might be a bit of a daunting prospect, though.  We’ll get started on that early next week.

The rest of the weekend was spent at various functions related to Shawna’s cousin’s wedding.  Normally, I don’t like weddings.  They’re long, boring, and they take place during the summer.  This one, however, involved two days of free food and booze, so I’ll make special concessions/

Friday, I got to use Shawna as a test dummy for my Horrorfind readings.  I’ve got twenty minutes to play around with, and my stuff clocked in at eighteen.  Good to know.  I’m feeling good about my first public reading.  I seem to have my shit together.  Let’s hope that’s not a delusion.

Taco Tour 2006, week ten

Posted on August 7, 2006

Only two weeks left after this!  I’ll be taking next week off, however, since I’ll be in Baltimore.  We’ll start again in… two weeks!

So, I went to El Arroyo this week.  They’ve got a good sense of humor there.  Not only did they name themselves after a nearby drainage ditch, they also serve tacos that are about three times the size of the tortillas they’re served on.  This makes eating afun experience, to say the least.

But how’s the taste?

Well, I grabbed a beef taco, and it tasted pretty bland.  Nothing really special going on there.  The chicken taco, on the other hand… damn.  We may have a winner, folks.  This may be the best taco in Austin.  The sucker was tasty as hell, with just the right amount of heat to compliment its flavor.  Add in the fact that you get a whopper of a taco for just over $2, and you’ve got yourself one serious contender.

Some local places have some serious work to do if they want to top this.

Beef: 5

Chicken: 9.5

Average: 7.25

You’re cordially invited…

Posted on August 3, 2006

Closing out Horrorfind in style!

Thanks to Jason Whitley for the flyer!

Work Update

Posted on August 3, 2006

It’s been a little while since I posted one of these (or has it?), so I thought I’d give everybody a quick rundown on what’s going on up in Nate’s brainpan.

By Monday, I’ll have finished the first draft of Tower Four. I can’t let this one sit that long before rewriting, though, because an editor actually wants to take a look at it.  Man, that’s such a difference from a year ago, when I’d finish something and have to ask myself “What now?”

To buy me some time, however, I’ll be working on two short stories.  I should be able to bust them out in a week, but we’ll see.  One of them will be the first story featuring a rather interessting character I’ve been working on, kind of Aurora, Indiana’s own white trash version of Constantine.

So once those are done, I finish up Tower Four, then it’s time for A Family Matter’s final polish.  This chain of events should take me to September 1st, at which point I’ll starting working on Something Awful at full speed.

Of course, that’s subject to change.  I realize that I really do need to get more short stories out there.  There are still too many editors who don’t have the slightest clue who I am, let alone the people who don’t know who I am.

As an aside, I have two comics pitches that should be going out to established companies soon.  Of course, the odds of selling either are slim, but trying’s still fun as hell.

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