Image courtesy of Karolina Grabowska of Pexels by way of a Creative Commons license. https://www.pexels.com/@karolina-grabowska/
To watch Mom iron is to watch a carpenter join pieces of wood into something that ill be handed down, parent to child, for generations. It is watching an artist imbue blank canvas with timelessness. It is watching a craftsman… READ MORE
Image by Flickr user Greg Virtucio by way of a Creative Commons license. https://www.flickr.com/photos/gregvirtucio/
I opened into my personal computer file the other day and there, at the top of the list, was a short story with a message especially for me written above it. The message read: “Good news, Del.” A little farther… READ MORE
THE CLOSET A short horror story By Del Stone Jr. — Introduction This story violates one of the big rules of horror – never place a child in peril. Which is odd. I see movies do it all the time…. READ MORE
Science and mathematics are filled with misconceptions that are held to be immutable truths. I would like to debunk these myths so that we may get on with the business of learning about our world.
Myth No. 1: What goes up must come down.
What about taxes? They go up, but do they ever come down? No. They keep going up, and even if one does go down, half a dozen others you didn’t know about go up to compensate for it.
Myth No. 2: A body in motion tends to remain in motion, and a body at rest tends to remain at rest, unless acted upon by an outside force.
That isn’t true. I can be lying in bed and suddenly, for no reason at all, I’ll wake up – usually when I’m in the middle of a juicy dream. If I’m being awakened by an outside force I’d sure like to know what it is, because I lock my door before I go to sleep, and my alarm clock never wakes me up.
Myth No. 3: Matter can be neither created nor destroyed.
Whoever said that should take a look at our coffeemaker. I can pour a pot of water into the filter spout and a pot-and-a-half will come out. I’m usually three rooms away when I remember I have to be there, cup in hand, to catch the overflow.
Myth No. 4: The sun is the center of the solar system.
Many years ago, long before many of our big sisters were born, a man named Ptolemy believed Earth was the center of the solar system. This was called the “geocentric theory.” Then along came a man named Copernicus, who believed the sun was the center of the solar system. This is called the “heliocentric theory.”
None of this is true, however, because I submit to you a third theory, called the “egocentric theory,” which holds that certain pushy individuals are the true centers of the solar system, or at least they think they are.
Myth No. 5: It is impossible to travel faster than the speed of light.
Have you ever stood outside a school when the sixth-period bell rings? Don’t tell me it’s impossible to travel faster than the speed of light. Those kids have infinite mass.
Myth No. 6: For every action, there is an opposite and equal reaction.
This theory may be partly true, but I think it should be amended to say, “For every action, there is an opposite and disproportionate reaction.” For instance, if you wax your car, it rains the next three days. If you overdraft your checking account by 2 cents, you’re penalized $7. These aren’t “equal” reactions.
Myth No. 7: Distance is equal to rate multiplied by time.
No, it isn’t. I can drive from Florida to Michigan and trip takes, oh, a couple of hours. But when I drive from Michigan to Florida, the trip takes several days. And it’s downhill all the way. And I have to stop to go to the bathroom more often. I don’t understand that.
This column was published in the Playground Daily News in the 1980s and is used with permission.
Science and mathematics are filled with misconceptions that are held to be immutable truths. I would like to debunk these myths so that we may get on with the business of learning about our world. Myth No. 1: What goes… READ MORE
One advantage of living in an area with low-power television stations is that any time I feel like it, I can relive those happy hours of my childhood spent watching some dumb animal save the world.
You know what I mean. How often were Bud and Sandy steered clear of harm’s way and onto the path of moral righteousness by that smiling dolphin they call Flipper? How many grandmothers were dragged from burning muffin parlors by Lassie?
At this point you might ask: What gives those animals the right to take the law into their own paws, for fins? You or I try to do that and we’d be called vigilantes.
It irks me to see animals portrayed as having anthropocentric motives.
Those shows were so improbable that a person could interchange the animal actors and nobody would notice the difference. Let’s say Lassie has come down with distemper and the producers are using Flipper in Lassie’s place. This is how the show would go:
June Lockart is talking on the telephone to her husband, who is at the ranger station.
“Darling, Flipper was marvelous today. First, he dug out a prospector from a mine cave-in, and then he put out 14 forest fires, and then he flopped over the Rocky Mountains to get some little girl’s cat out of a tree, and now he’s fighting a pack of grizzly bears out in the front yard.”
“That’s nice, dear,” June’s husband says. “What’s for dinner?”
“Dolphin Helper.”
Of course, Flipper defeats the grizzly bears and then goes on to rehabilitate an arsonist and wraps up the day’s adventures by performing the Heimlich maneuver on an elk.
Or, let’s say you’re watching “Flipper,” only Flipper has sneaked off for a stolen weekend with some manatee floozy, so Lassie is substituting for the wayward dolphin.
Bud is pacing back and forth along the dock, anxiously staring out over the water. His father approaches.
“What’s wrong Bud? You seem worried.”
“It’s Lassie, Dad. He’s been gone a long time and I’m starting to worry.”
“Why, Bud, didn’t you hear?” his father says. “Lassie swam to Portugal to save the crew of a submarine trapped on the ocean floor.”
“Gee, Dad. I didn’t know that.”
“It’s true. And then he’s going to kill Orca, look for survivors of the Titanic and take his orals for his master’s at SeaWorld.”
Bud cogitates upon this. “But Dad, how is Lassie going to have time for me? After all, he is my dog.”
“No, Bud, he’s not your dog,” his father corrects. “He hangs around for the free squid. When the free-squid ride ends, he’ll be off in the Gulf Stream somewhere, butting heads with Jaws. Lassie is definitely his own dog.”
“Gee, you’re right, Dad,” Bud declares. “Can I have a buzzard instead?”
Honestly, Benji leading the heat to the bad guys. Crime-fighting bears and housecats? Animals are no fools. Are we?
This column was originally published in the Playground Daily News in the 1980s and is used with permission.
About the author:
Del Stone Jr. is a professional fiction writer. He is known primarily for his work in the contemporary dark fiction field, but has also published science fiction and contemporary fantasy. Stone's stories, poetry and scripts have appeared in publications such as Amazing Stories, Eldritch Tales, and Bantam-Spectra's Full Spectrum. His short fiction has been published in The Year's Best Horror Stories XXII; Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine; the Pocket Books anthology More Phobias; the Barnes & Noble anthologies 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories, Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, and 100 Astounding Little Alien Stories; the HWA anthology Psychos; and other short fiction venues, like Blood Muse, Live Without a Net, Zombiesque and Sex Macabre. Stone's comic book debut was in the Clive Barker series of books, Hellraiser, published by Marvel/Epic and reprinted in The Best of Hellraiser anthology. He has also published stories in Penthouse Comix, and worked with artist Dave Dorman on many projects, including the illustrated novella “Roadkill,” a short story for the Andrew Vachss anthology Underground from Dark Horse, an ashcan titled "December" for Hero Illustrated, and several of Dorman's Wasted Lands novellas and comics, such as Rail from Image and “The Uninvited.” Stone's novel, Dead Heat, won the 1996 International Horror Guild's award for best first novel and was a runner-up for the Bram Stoker Award. Stone has also been a finalist for the IHG award for short fiction, the British Fantasy Award for best novella, and a semifinalist for the Nebula and Writers of the Future awards. His stories have appeared in anthologies that have won the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award. Two of his works were optioned for film, the novella “Black Tide” and short story “Crisis Line.”
Stone recently retired after a 41-year career in journalism. He won numerous awards for his work, and in 1986 was named Florida's best columnist in his circulation division by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors. In 2001 he received an honorable mention from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his essay “When Freedom of Speech Ends” and in 2003 he was voted Best of the Best in the category of columnists by Emerald Coast Magazine. He participated in book signings and awareness campaigns, and was a guest on local television and radio programs.
As an addendum, Stone is single, kills tomatoes and morning glories with ruthless efficiency, once tied the stem of a cocktail cherry in a knot with his tongue, and carries a permanent scar on his chest after having been shot with a paintball gun. He’s in his 60s as of this writing but doesn't look a day over 94.
Contact Del at [email protected]. He is also on Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, tumblr, TikTok, and Instagram. Visit his website at delstonejr.com .
One advantage of living in an area with low-power television stations is that any time I feel like it, I can relive those happy hours of my childhood spent watching some dumb animal save the world. You know what I… READ MORE
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We will warn you for the 3,418th time this year that the dreaded Asian cockroach is raping and pillaging its way up the Florida peninsula and will arrive in YOUR home precisely three minutes after you read this, because that… READ MORE
Several important elected officials who are taking a break from investigating golf courses that someday might require federal assistance, have expressed shock that the U.S. embassy in Moscow has been compromised by KGB bugs.
(IMPORTANT NOTE: These bugs, of course, are not insects. Otherwise, nearly every American restaurant and breakfast cereal manufacturing plant would have throngs of important elected officials swarming over them, making important puffing gestures of concern, forming committees and generally scaring away the bugs, whose only earthly pleasure is to lay thousands of eggs in unguarded jelly sandwiches.)
These same important elected officials have learned that certain U.S. Marines guarding the embassy exchanged important government secrets to perform the sex act or purchase the latest in burlap fashions for slinky Russian temptresses.
The loss of these secrets (such as the real reason a researcher at the Gentle Ben College of Divinity received a federal grant to study the nostril hairs of the slobber-master walrus) represents an intelligence disaster for the United States and will give the Soviets an unfair advantage in the awarding of grants for studies of the animal kingdom’s private parts and other important subjects.
These important elected officials, whose knowledge of the Soviet Union consists of watching videotapes of “Dr. Zhivago,” have expressed shock that the Russians would plant listening devices in OUR embassy and seduce secrets from OUR boys, although nobody said a word when a crack team of KGB construction workers toiled since before the Bolshevik revolution to build the embassy, or Marine guards returned to their posts with cabbage on their breath.
(IMPORTANT NOTE: These important elected officials are NOT shocked to discover the Soviets have bugged our embassy. What they’re really saying is: “I am shocked to discover the Soviets have bugged our embassy, and I expected concerned voters to return me to office so that I may continue to be shocked and make important puffing gestures and form committees which will spend millions of dollars to produce reports the size of the Chinese telephone directory, which will then be used as doorsteps at U.S. embassies.”)
It is not as if these important elected officials weren’t warned. For instance, Buford “Hawg Lips” Stumpknocker, who worked at the Sunoco station just outside Scumbag, Miss., (the Snapping Turtle Capital of the Western Hemisphere) warned customers for years that “you can’t trust them egg-sucking, vodka-swilling Godless heathen red-dog commie shylocks.”
Sadly, nobody listened to Hawg Lips until he got himself elected and appointed to an important committee. Now, as all politicians, he is SHAWCKED that such a dastardly thing could be allowed to happen.
This column was previously published in the Playground Daily News in the 1980s and is used with permission.
About the author:
Del Stone Jr. is a professional fiction writer. He is known primarily for his work in the contemporary dark fiction field, but has also published science fiction and contemporary fantasy. Stone's stories, poetry and scripts have appeared in publications such as Amazing Stories, Eldritch Tales, and Bantam-Spectra's Full Spectrum. His short fiction has been published in The Year's Best Horror Stories XXII; Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine; the Pocket Books anthology More Phobias; the Barnes & Noble anthologies 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories, Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, and 100 Astounding Little Alien Stories; the HWA anthology Psychos; and other short fiction venues, like Blood Muse, Live Without a Net, Zombiesque and Sex Macabre. Stone's comic book debut was in the Clive Barker series of books, Hellraiser, published by Marvel/Epic and reprinted in The Best of Hellraiser anthology. He has also published stories in Penthouse Comix, and worked with artist Dave Dorman on many projects, including the illustrated novella “Roadkill,” a short story for the Andrew Vachss anthology Underground from Dark Horse, an ashcan titled "December" for Hero Illustrated, and several of Dorman's Wasted Lands novellas and comics, such as Rail from Image and “The Uninvited.” Stone's novel, Dead Heat, won the 1996 International Horror Guild's award for best first novel and was a runner-up for the Bram Stoker Award. Stone has also been a finalist for the IHG award for short fiction, the British Fantasy Award for best novella, and a semifinalist for the Nebula and Writers of the Future awards. His stories have appeared in anthologies that have won the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award. Two of his works were optioned for film, the novella “Black Tide” and short story “Crisis Line.”
Stone recently retired after a 41-year career in journalism. He won numerous awards for his work, and in 1986 was named Florida's best columnist in his circulation division by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors. In 2001 he received an honorable mention from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his essay “When Freedom of Speech Ends” and in 2003 he was voted Best of the Best in the category of columnists by Emerald Coast Magazine. He participated in book signings and awareness campaigns, and was a guest on local television and radio programs.
As an addendum, Stone is single, kills tomatoes and morning glories with ruthless efficiency, once tied the stem of a cocktail cherry in a knot with his tongue, and carries a permanent scar on his chest after having been shot with a paintball gun. He’s in his 60s as of this writing but doesn't look a day over 94.
Contact Del at [email protected]. He is also on Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, tumblr, TikTok, and Instagram. Visit his website at delstonejr.com .
Several important elected officials who are taking a break from investigating golf courses that someday might require federal assistance, have expressed shock that the U.S. embassy in Moscow has been compromised by KGB bugs. (IMPORTANT NOTE: These bugs, of course,… READ MORE
The Car Care Council news release had a sad story to tell. It was the story of Angelo.
Angelo is like millions of other Americans – except that Angelo is fictitious. Aside from that, Angelo is a regular sort of guy.
But Angelo has a dark secret. He abuses cars.
Pinto runabouts. Chevrolets. Korean compacts … the list of his victims reads like a selection of pages from the Blue Book – which in reality is yellow, no doubt an effort to baffle those who are not in the business of buying and selling automobiles.
The iniquitous Angelo’s story began as he was driving his latest victim to the dealership to be traded in on some sweet young new model. When the light turned green at the intersection, the CCC said, Angelo stepped on the gas and Old Betsy just wouldn’t budge. Angelo had PUT OFF basic maintenance on his car TOO LONG.
Angelo didn’t want to have Old Betsy towed to the dealership, where they might try to gyp him out of the $500 trade-in they had agreed on. Instead, Angelo, ever the consummate businessman, had Old Betsy towed back to his house where he could have it repaired just long enough to unload it, as planned, on the dealership.
But Old Betsy had the last laugh. You see, Angelo had neglected to have the transmission fluid and filter changed. And the truth were known, he probably never Armor-Alled the dashboard, which left it looking cracked and peeling like the skin of an elephant with eczema. And he probably never vacuumed it or put carpet deodorizer on the floors, not even after his neighbor’s cat used it for a year and a half as a litter box. These car abusers follow predictable patterns.
Anyway, after years of this wretched existence, Old Betsy simply gave up the ghost, the automobile equivalent of hara-kiri, thus denying the wicked Angelo his $500 trade-in (plus towing charges, the CCC release was quick to add).
And what do you think Angelo learned from this experience? To stay away from cars named Old Betsy? To have the dealership salesman drive to his house on the day of the sale?
To STOP abusing his car?
Heaven forbid! Angelo learned that by abusing his car, his story would be picked up by a prestigious national organization and dramatized before a horrified and disbelieving audience of millions of people, who would be scandalized that an unthinking, unfeeling car could be so inconsiderate of its owner – the same owner who shelled out thousands of hi hard-earned dollars and asked for nothing in return but to be transported from Point A to Point B in a modicum of style and comfort, and to be able to enjoy the enhancement of his self-image by owning and operating a vehicle that functioned in a reliable manner despite its owner’s few piddling transgressions of neglect.
That isn’t exactly what the CCC news release said, but you get the picture.
This column was published in the Playground Daily News sometime in the 1980s and is used with permission.
About the author:
Del Stone Jr. is a professional fiction writer. He is known primarily for his work in the contemporary dark fiction field, but has also published science fiction and contemporary fantasy. Stone's stories, poetry and scripts have appeared in publications such as Amazing Stories, Eldritch Tales, and Bantam-Spectra's Full Spectrum. His short fiction has been published in The Year's Best Horror Stories XXII; Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine; the Pocket Books anthology More Phobias; the Barnes & Noble anthologies 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories, Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, and 100 Astounding Little Alien Stories; the HWA anthology Psychos; and other short fiction venues, like Blood Muse, Live Without a Net, Zombiesque and Sex Macabre. Stone's comic book debut was in the Clive Barker series of books, Hellraiser, published by Marvel/Epic and reprinted in The Best of Hellraiser anthology. He has also published stories in Penthouse Comix, and worked with artist Dave Dorman on many projects, including the illustrated novella “Roadkill,” a short story for the Andrew Vachss anthology Underground from Dark Horse, an ashcan titled "December" for Hero Illustrated, and several of Dorman's Wasted Lands novellas and comics, such as Rail from Image and “The Uninvited.” Stone's novel, Dead Heat, won the 1996 International Horror Guild's award for best first novel and was a runner-up for the Bram Stoker Award. Stone has also been a finalist for the IHG award for short fiction, the British Fantasy Award for best novella, and a semifinalist for the Nebula and Writers of the Future awards. His stories have appeared in anthologies that have won the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award. Two of his works were optioned for film, the novella “Black Tide” and short story “Crisis Line.”
Stone recently retired after a 41-year career in journalism. He won numerous awards for his work, and in 1986 was named Florida's best columnist in his circulation division by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors. In 2001 he received an honorable mention from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his essay “When Freedom of Speech Ends” and in 2003 he was voted Best of the Best in the category of columnists by Emerald Coast Magazine. He participated in book signings and awareness campaigns, and was a guest on local television and radio programs.
As an addendum, Stone is single, kills tomatoes and morning glories with ruthless efficiency, once tied the stem of a cocktail cherry in a knot with his tongue, and carries a permanent scar on his chest after having been shot with a paintball gun. He’s in his 60s as of this writing but doesn't look a day over 94.
Contact Del at [email protected]. He is also on Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, tumblr, TikTok, and Instagram. Visit his website at delstonejr.com .
The Car Care Council news release had a sad story to tell. It was the story of Angelo. Angelo is like millions of other Americans – except that Angelo is fictitious. Aside from that, Angelo is a regular sort of… READ MORE
On the list of things not to do this summer, taking a long car trip to a vacation destination ranks second only to letting a gigantic crab enter your bathing suit.
The trip must begin with somebody forgetting to turn off a burner on the stove. This recollection usually comes flooding back after the second hour on the interstate. It is followed by a frantic stop at a gas station for a collect call to “the neighbors,” except the neighbors won’t accept the charges and the gas station attendant, who is wearing a hockey mask and is sharpening a machete, stares at you the way werewolves stare at their victims before lunging.
If the trip begins at night, the driver must ply himself with coffee so he can “stay awake at the wheel,” although his last three accidents occurred when he was wide awake. Of course, all that coffee has to go somewhere, which means stops are made at every bait shop, every backwoods grocery store and every clump of bushes that might conceal a nocturnal visitor from passing motorists.
Meanwhile, the passengers are contorting themselves into various torture positions and trying to sleep, despite having door-lock knobs forcibly inserted into their nostrils every time the car hits a bump, or enduring the threats of a late-night radio station preacher who missed a payment on his satellite dish because YOU did not send in enough money, and YOU ARE GOING TO DIE AND GO TO HELL AND BURN FOREVER, AMEN.
As the hours go by and rigor mortis sets in, the passengers try to entertain themselves with road games, such as “You Count Chevrolets and I’ll Count the Fords.” This can be a game of heart-pounding intensity at night, as the pitch dark outside the window is broken by a whizzing streak of light, so that the passengers, who are now blinded, grope among themselves shouting, “It was a Ford!” “No, it was a Chevy!” and “If you don’t stop cheating YOU ARE GOING TO DIE AND GO TO HELL AND BURN FOREVER, AMEN!”
The driver, who had confidently studies the map for an entire three seconds before pulling out of the driveway, suddenly realizes he does not know what country he is in and asks for navigational assistance from the passengers. The passengers’ navigational resources consist of one stylized map-cartoon place mat stolen from a fast-food restaurant. The place mat depicts England as being in the approximate location of New Jersey, a fact duly reported to the driver, who begins driving on the left side of the road, causing a 44-car pileup.
As night gives way to the first pearly wisps of morning smog, the bleary-eyed occupants of the car are ready to stop anywhere, be it an old gravel quarry or Madame Rosa’s Voodoo & Chiropractic Clinic. But the driver’s foot has permanently cramped to the accelerator, so stopping is not an option.
The column was published in the Playground Daily News in the 1980s and is used with permission.
About the author:
Del Stone Jr. is a professional fiction writer. He is known primarily for his work in the contemporary dark fiction field, but has also published science fiction and contemporary fantasy. Stone's stories, poetry and scripts have appeared in publications such as Amazing Stories, Eldritch Tales, and Bantam-Spectra's Full Spectrum. His short fiction has been published in The Year's Best Horror Stories XXII; Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine; the Pocket Books anthology More Phobias; the Barnes & Noble anthologies 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories, Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, and 100 Astounding Little Alien Stories; the HWA anthology Psychos; and other short fiction venues, like Blood Muse, Live Without a Net, Zombiesque and Sex Macabre. Stone's comic book debut was in the Clive Barker series of books, Hellraiser, published by Marvel/Epic and reprinted in The Best of Hellraiser anthology. He has also published stories in Penthouse Comix, and worked with artist Dave Dorman on many projects, including the illustrated novella “Roadkill,” a short story for the Andrew Vachss anthology Underground from Dark Horse, an ashcan titled "December" for Hero Illustrated, and several of Dorman's Wasted Lands novellas and comics, such as Rail from Image and “The Uninvited.” Stone's novel, Dead Heat, won the 1996 International Horror Guild's award for best first novel and was a runner-up for the Bram Stoker Award. Stone has also been a finalist for the IHG award for short fiction, the British Fantasy Award for best novella, and a semifinalist for the Nebula and Writers of the Future awards. His stories have appeared in anthologies that have won the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award. Two of his works were optioned for film, the novella “Black Tide” and short story “Crisis Line.”
Stone recently retired after a 41-year career in journalism. He won numerous awards for his work, and in 1986 was named Florida's best columnist in his circulation division by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors. In 2001 he received an honorable mention from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his essay “When Freedom of Speech Ends” and in 2003 he was voted Best of the Best in the category of columnists by Emerald Coast Magazine. He participated in book signings and awareness campaigns, and was a guest on local television and radio programs.
As an addendum, Stone is single, kills tomatoes and morning glories with ruthless efficiency, once tied the stem of a cocktail cherry in a knot with his tongue, and carries a permanent scar on his chest after having been shot with a paintball gun. He’s in his 60s as of this writing but doesn't look a day over 94.
Contact Del at [email protected]. He is also on Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, tumblr, TikTok, and Instagram. Visit his website at delstonejr.com .
On the list of things not to do this summer, taking a long car trip to a vacation destination ranks second only to letting a gigantic crab enter your bathing suit. The trip must begin with somebody forgetting to turn… READ MORE
Image courtesy of Paramount Pictures.
“Phase IV” Starring Nigel Davenport, Michael Murphy, Lynne Frederick, Lots of Ants and others. Directed by Saul Bass. 84 minutes. Rated PG. Hulu, Prime. Mladen’s take “Phase IV,” lovingly built in 1974 with an admirable effort at incorporating animated and… READ MORE