RONDO REMINDER!

Here's a gentle reminder to vote for Yours Truly in the 22nd Annual Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards! Did you know that ANYONE can vote in the Rondo Awards? Shocking but true! My latest novel, DEAD MONKEY RUM, has been nominated for "Best Classic Monster Fiction." YOU CAN VOTE FOR DEAD MONKEY RUM IN 3 EASY STEPS....

1. Copy-and-paste the ballot below into an e-mail.
 
2. Choose DEAD MONKEY RUM in the BEST CLASSIC MONSTER FICTION category.
 
3. Then email to David Colton (taraco@aol.com) by midnight on April 16th, 2024.

Don’t forget to include your name in the e-mail!

 
--START COPYING--   

 

BEST CLASSIC MONSTER FICTION:

 
— DEAD MONKEY RUM, by Robert Guffey (Planet Bizarro, softcover, 192 pages, $12.99). Cryptozoic beasts race adventurers in Los Angeles.

--END COPYING--

 

MAHALO, FRIENDS!!!

The Octopus & the Night Vision Goggles

I recommend checking out Zachary Treitz's new Netflix documentary, AMERICAN CONSPIRACY: THE OCTOPUS MURDERS, the official trailer for which can be seen below....

American Conspiracy: The Octopus Murders 

CHAMELEO readers might want to pay special attention to the 40:00 minute mark in Episode Two when we hear the late Dr. John Philip Nichols state that, at some point during the early 1980s, the infamous private security firm Wackenhut expressed interest in helping Michael Riconosciuto develop night vision goggles that worked "with microprocessors." 

Directly below is an excerpt from David Smith's 3-5-24 GUARDIAN article entitled "'Extreme Power and Secrecy': Inside Shocking Netflix Hit The Octopus Murders":

In [Danny] Casolaro’s telling, the Octopus is a network of mostly former intelligence officers who used their contacts not only within the intelligence sphere but the criminal underworld – a credible scenario given that intelligence operatives often have to use criminal networks to accomplish covert goals.

[Christian] Hansen comments: “When I got into this story, it quickly led to allegations of the intelligence community’s involvement in trafficking in illegal drugs in the 1970s and 1980s and actually how critical that was to for them to execute whatever kind of agenda they had during the cold war.

“I was so physically disgusted that was happening in my name and that the drugs were coming to the United States and largely affecting people that needed a hand up not to totally have their head pushed down and then filtered into the prison industrial complex. It was so hypocritical to have this war on drugs but also covertly bringing them here. It’s infuriating.

“That was something that surprised and shocked me and actually kind of blew my head off. At that point, what is real and what isn’t and what conspiracy theory is actually a conspiracy that happened or is happening. That was what made me go a little bit insane for a little while.”

Treitz offers his summary of the Octopus theory: “These people are essentially trying to, in his view, suck up as much money and power as they possibly can using their own resources which they’ve developed, which conveniently happen to be people who are in places of both extreme power and extreme secrecy that allows them to get away with a lot of different things.

“Whether that Octopus is as organised or as sentient as maybe the metaphor goes I’m not sure, but a lot of the stuff that he reported on or that he was talking about is not that far fetched if you just look at the intelligence side of how things worked, especially in the 80s and 70s.”

To read the entire article, click HERE.

CRYPTOSCATOLOGY FLASHBACK: CHAMELEO ON WHERE DID THE ROAD GO?

In March of 2018, I appeared on two consecutive episodes of Seriah Azkath's WHERE DID THE ROAD GO? podcast to discuss my book, CHAMELEO: A STRANGE BUT TRUE STORY OF INVISIBLE SPIES, HEROIN ADDICTION, AND HOMELAND SECURITY. You can hear this nearly three-hour interview on YouTube directly below....

Robert Guffey on Chameleo - REDUX

Roswell Police Patches

From Susan Montoya Bryan's 3-8-24 WASHINGTON POST article entitled "Roswell Police Have New Patches That Are Out of This World, With Flying Saucers and Alien Faces":

Famous for being the spot where a spacecraft purportedly crashed in 1947, Roswell, New Mexico, has become a mecca for people fascinated by extraterrestrial phenomenon. So it’s only fitting that the city’s police force has uniform patches that are out of this world.

Unveiled on Friday, the new patches feature the official city logo of a flying saucer with a classic beam radiating downward to form the letter “R.” The words “Protect and Serve Those That Land Here” form a circle and are separated by two tiny alien faces with large eyes.

Police Chief Lance Bateman said the department recently ordered an initial batch of 500, with the first ones being handed out just this week. The transition to the new patch is expected to be complete later this year.

To read the entire article, click HERE. 

GREMLIN

From Oren Liebermann's 3-8-24 CNN report entitled "US Military Developing Portable UFO Detection Kits as Pentagon Says No Evidence of Alien Tech Found":

The US military is developing portable UFO detection kits to collect better data on reports of sightings as the Pentagon says there is no evidence of alien technology found in any government investigation.

The new portable detection kits, consisting of an array of sensors that fit inside a protective case, are currently being tested at a range in Texas, said Timothy Phillips, the acting director of AARO, the Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, which was set up in 2022 to catalog and investigate reports of unknown objects.

“If we have a national security site and there are objects being reported that [are] within restricted airspace or within a maritime range or within the proximity of one of our spaceships, we need to understand what that is,” Phillips told reporters Wednesday. “And so that’s why we’re developing sensor capability that we can deploy in reaction to reports.”

The sensor and detection system is called Gremlin, Phillips said, and his office is looking to deploy it to a site with many reports of UAPs, or unidentified anomalous phenomena, which is the Pentagon’s term for what are commonly referred to as UFOs.

To read the entire article, click HERE.

CRYPTOPOLIS & OTHER STORIES on Ravenstar's Witching Hour!

This past Saturday night, Solaris BlueRaven interviewed me on her podcast, Ravenstar's Witching Hour. You can hear the entire show at the bottom of this post. For about two hours, we discuss my Rondo Award-nominated novel, DEAD MONKEY RUM, as well as my latest book, CRYPTOPOLIS & OTHER STORIES. We do a deep dive into the bizarre and esoteric origins of my short stories "Cryptopolis," "Initiation," "Dr. Apocrypha's Manifesto," "The Sheet," "Adventures in the Head Wound," and "Bring Me the Head of Andre Breton!" We also discuss my latest article, "G-Bomb: Masonic and Hermetic Symbolism in The Incredible Hulk" (published in The Jack Kirby Collector #89). Freemasonry, surrealism, dreams, demons, Yetis, golems, gargoyles, Aleister Crowley, James Shelby Downard, Stanislaw Szukalski, the JFK assassination, and other forms of High Strangeness are put under the Witching Hour microscope. If you're interested in reading CRYPTOPOLIS & OTHER STORIES after hearing the interview, you can purchase the eBook version from Smashwords for 50% off (for one week only)! The print version is available right HERE.

PRAISE FOR CRYPTOPOLIS:

"The stories in Cryptopolis feel like the bloody, star-filled lovechildren of Burroughs and Delany, with each tale ostensibly one part of a greater whole; abstract limbs and organs tethered together by strained flesh. Cryptopolis will take readers on a hallucinogenic journey through worlds fractured by time and place—slipping through liminal dimensions with seamless abandon to unveil unsettling illusions and heartbreaking realities—and totally worth the trip."

--Philip Fracassi, author of Boys in the Valley

 

"If you're tired of the same wines and you're curious about the vintage only just whispered about, have a deep draught of Robert Guffey's Cryptopolis. You don't have to descend with Fortunato to the deepest cellars to find this bottle of Amontillado. Here it is! If Poe collaborated with Robert Anton Wilson...if Borges had a lovechild with Lovecraft, which was subsequently adopted by Kafka...you might get Cryptopolis. I think too that Clark Ashton Smith would admire this collection. Written with the obsessive precision of a mysterious staircase descending into the abyss, Cryptopolis will take you to strange epiphanies..."  

 

--John Shirley, author of The Feverish Stars

 

"Once upon a time, weird and speculative fiction had an underground full of stories that were not written as calling cards or as film treatments or as extended internet memes. Guffey's tales resist genre gentrification; they move into your mind to turn it into a punk house squat!" 

--Nick Mamatas, author of Move Under Ground and The Second Shooter

 

"Guffey brings together 25 horror shorts that swing wildly between terrifying mindtrips and gritty realism. Throughout, Guffey’s blunt prose lends a sense of normalcy to the fantastic as his cast of losers from all walks of life face the cruelties of their existence—sexual violence, drugs, war, parenthood, and poverty [...]. Though not for the faint of heart, this bizarre and over-the-top collection is sure to thrill devotees of weird fiction."

--Publishers Weekly

 

RAVENSTAR'S WITCHING HOUR (3-2-24):

 

DEAD MONKEY RUM Has Been Nominated For a Rondo Award!

The nominations for the 22nd Annual Rondo Awards have now been announced! I'm honored to be included among the nominees for "Best Classic Monster Fiction" (for my 2023 novel, DEAD MONKEY RUM) alongside the likes of such luminaries as Tim Lucas (THE BOOK OF RENFIELD) and Craig Russell (THE DEVIL'S PLAYGROUND)! Please consider voting for DEAD MONKEY RUM....

YOU CAN VOTE FOR DEAD MONKEY RUM IN 3 EASY STEPS:

1. Copy-and-paste the ballot below into an e-mail.
 
2. Choose DEAD MONKEY RUM in the BEST CLASSIC MONSTER FICTION category.
 
3. Then email to David Colton (taraco@aol.com) by midnight on April 16th, 2024.

Don’t forget to include your name in the e-mail!

--START COPYING--

12) BEST CLASSIC MONSTER FICTION:
— DEAD MONKEY RUM, by Robert Guffey (Planet Bizarro, softcover, 192 pages, $12.99). Cryptozoic beasts race adventurers in Los Angeles.

--END COPYING--

UNBOXING DEAD MONKEY RUM:

PRAISE FOR DEAD MONKEY RUM:

"A remarkable rush of entertainment and thrills."

--Alan Moore (V for Vendetta and Watchmen) 

 

"Robert Guffey's fantastic novel, DEAD MONKEY RUM, will at least bring your brain out of a coma, if not get your imagination off the couch. This is a thinly masked tribute/adventure to the late Stanislaw Szukalski and his boundless imagination. This book is a mental gymnasium."

-- Robert Williams (Visual Addiction, Hysteria in Remission, and Through Prehensile Eyes)

 

"A fantastically rich and entertaining piece of work with an original sharp edge."

 -- Jim Woodring (writer/artist of Weathercraft, The Frank Book, and One Beautiful Spring Day)

 

"Stanislaw Szukalski would love DEAD MONKEY RUM. This novel is addictive like a heavy drug. Make space in your calendar to read it all."

-- Irek Dobrowolski (director of the Netflix documentary, Struggle: The Life and Lost Art of Szukalski)

 

 "Yetis, Tiki Gods, Cryptozoology, and rum-filled adventure! Sign me up and tell me when the ship sails! I'm recommending this Robert Guffey novel to all my friends, family, and foes to take their minds completely off whatever they are thinking about. Wonderful."

-- Loren Coleman (Mysterious America, The Field Guide to Lake Monsters and Sea Serpents, The Field Guide to Bigfoot, Curious Encounters, and 40 other books - Director of the International Cryptozoology Museum)

 
"DEAD MONKEY RUM succeeds at being a pursuit thriller, with suspense and tension as the monkey and Stephanie evade their cryptid enemies, and comedy as the two exchange jabs at each other. It is cinematically fast. DEAD MONKEY RUM should be adapted to a [...] Ralph Bakshiesque animated film where both the zaniness of the narrative and the latent satire would really flourish."

-- Exotica Moderne

 

For further DEAD MONKEY RUM related posts, see below....

DEAD MONKEY RUM PLAYLIST! (9-4-23)

DEAD MONKEY RUM ON HYPERSPACE! (10-21-23)

SCENES FROM A READING (11-21-23)