#MyToxicWasteParty Weekend Recap

img_20160918_111750I’m not exaggerating when I say that this past weekend was one of the top 5 craziest weekends of my life. I feel like I lived an entire month in the span of a few days.

This was, of course, exacerbated by the fact that I coordinated the release of my brand new book ALL THE TOXIC WASTE FROM MY HEART to drop the same weekend. So I spent the entire week leading up to the trip frantically formatting and designing the book.

Then I hopped on a train at 4:00AM Friday morning for Chicago Illinois where I met up with the real hero of this story, John Bruni of TALES OF QUESTIONABLE TASTE fame. This motherfucker had just gone through emergency dental surgery and still toughed it out and drove us the 11ish hours from downtown Chicago all the way to Lancaster Pennsylvania.

We rolled into town in the dark of night somewhere around 11pm Friday night, where we were greeted by one of my absolute favorite people on the planet, Mike Lombardo.

Mike played host to us and we stayed up way late into the night talking about all sorts of crazy shit, making Friday the second day in a row that I got zero sleep.

Saturday we got out of bed early and ran around Lombardo’s home town eating and perusing used book stores, just barely getting home in time to meet up with the one and only Brian Keene of THE RISING and EARTHWORM GODS fame.

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If ya don’t know, Brian hosts one of the most popular literary podcasts in the world called The Horror Show With Brian Keene. Now ya know.

Brian showed up with his co-host and producer Dave along with author Marry Sangiovanni (another great writer!) and Dave’s girlfriend Phoebe (one of the BEST horror show personalities.) For those of you who are avid listeners of the show, you’ll remember from a few weeks back the now classic Phoebe and Lombardo book club show.

So with this full house of great people we proceeded to have some of the most fun I’ve ever had recording. Mr. Bruni and I were honored with the privilege of being guests on the show for this upcoming week’s episode which airs Thursday, September 22nd 2016 from Project iRadio, iTunes and all other podcast programs on the net.

I’m not going to say anything else about the show because the energy and joy we had hanging out as a group absolutely comes across and if you’re friends and/or fans of any of the individuals involved, you owe it to yourself to give it a listen and laugh along with the rest of us!

But that wasn’t nearly the end of this adventure.

Saturday night, Lombardo took us on some more home-town adventures where we ended up at one point at a carnival complete with funnel cake and a professional fireworks display. Again we stayed up way late into the night talking crazy shit and once again got barely any sleep at all.

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Sunday we got up early and headed up to a local restaurant where Lombardo convinced the wait staff that it was Lex Quinn‘s birthday. For those who followed my trip on Instagram and Snapchat, you’ll know that we horrified Lex with a loud and obnoxious rendition of happy birthday while she wore her Jim Dandy birthday crown. Great, great fun.

From there, we proceeded to Philadelphia and the infamous Mutter Museum of medical oddities. You know, for being the author of such fucked up books, stories and movies, I sure have a weak stomach for this kind of thing. From the skeletons of midgets and giants, to Albert Einstein’s brain, to a giant preserved colon, I was able to hang pretty tough, that was until we got downstairs to the seemingly endless wall of pickled deformed babies….

After we finished getting our brains bleached by the insane specimens of The Mutter Museum, we hooked up with a local friend of Mike’s and then we proceeded to hit the Philly used book stores and actually came across a signed copy of my very first book as an author and publisher, the STRANGE SEX anthology! What are the odds of that? Awesome.

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We had some local Philly cuisine, then headed back to Lombardo’s house where Bruni and I were treated to a very special screening of Mike’s upcoming feature film, I’M DREAMING OF A WHITE DOOMSDAY.

Even though I was operating on almost zero sleep for an entire weekend now, I was still blown away at the quality of Mike’s movie. I’ve known him for a long, long time. Since both of us were making backyard splatter flicks on crappy cameras. I’m so proud of my dude for sticking to one of the hardest artistic jobs there is and getting better and better with every movie he makes. This is the one. You better not sleep on Mike Lombardo, he’s the guy to look out for.

After even less sleep than any of the previous nights, Bruni and I hit the road at 6am Monday morning and made the long, LONG trek back to Chicago where thankfully Bruni got to end his journey and get some much needed rest for himself and his cadaver tooth. I then got on another train and, after 19 hours on the road, finally got home around 1am Tuesday morning.

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Holy SHIT what a trip!

I can’t thank John enough for taking on the huge responsibility of driving us across country. I couldn’t have had this crazy adventure without him! We’re now road brothers for life, my guy. Never forget that!

I’m forever in debt to Lombardo for championing me after I transitioned from film making to publishing, leading to this unique opportunity to be a part of The Horror Show, and for being such a gracious and cool host for the weekend. Expect me back sooner than later, sweetheart!

And I can’t forget a shout out to Lex for putting up with Lombardo’s and my antics all weekend. Just having one of us to deal with is a chore, let alone having BOTH of us in your ear endlessly fucking with you. You’re one of us now, kid! Happy Re-Birthday!

And lastly, I have to give a huge thanks to Brian and Dave (and Marry and Phoebe!) for having us on as guests and having the faith in us that we’d put on a quality show.

I really, really do hope you’ll give this week’s show a listen. It was SO SO much fun!