Fast Guy Slows Down Available In Print!

Fast Guy Slows Down, my new novel, is now available in print!  You can find it here through Amazon's print on demand program.  I haven't seen this one yet, but Amazon has a done a nice job with the other print novels I've done through them.  The cheapest way to read the novel in print probably remains getting the pdf version and printing it out at the public library or something, but for those of you who want a nice trade paperback book version, I have your hook up here now.

The ebook should be making its way to Google and Smashwords shortly, so soon no one will have a good excuse not to read it.  Ha!

Fast Guy Slows Down Excerpt On Scribd!

Fast Guy Slows Down Excerpt by Wred Fright on Scribd

An excerpt of Fast Guy Slows Down, my new novel, is on Scribd.  While you're there, you can check out excerpts from my other novels (Blog Love Omega Glee is on there in its entirety), as well as the entire Underground Literary Alliance anthology I coedited (which includes King Wenclas's "War Hysteria", which is sadly all too relevant again as war hysteria breaks out again in the USA).  There was a hilarious hiccup when I first uploaded the excerpt because Scribd's automated spam filtering deleted it as spam.  Everyone's a critic these days, even software, I guess . . .

Fast Guy Slows Down Now Available On Amazon Kindle!

 

Fast Guy Slows Down, my new novel, is now available on Amazon Kindle!  Some folks really like their Kindles, and Amazon does not play nicely with other epubs, so it is available for those folks.  I do sell a few books through Amazon, but I'm always amazed with each book, they don't just say no thanks to me uploading another novel that will be among their worstsellers, so thanks Amazon for not saying no thanks.  My Kindle readers appreciate it.

Both of them.  Really.  A print version is in the works, and Google Play Books and Smashwords (who distribute my novels to Barnes & Noble, Apple, and others) are coming up, so if you prefer to get your book through one of those channels, it is on the way.

Tales From The Virus Panic #5: "Hollywood Celebrities United For Big Pharma"

A minor Hollywood celebrity testified to Congress via Zoom.  The Congressional Representative wet her panties with glee as she introduced him over her brush, albeit over the Internet, with fame.  He implored everyone to get vaccinated against the virus.  Months later after the vaccines he promoted were widely revealed to be neither "safe" nor "effective", as they failed to prevent the Omicron variant from spreading and racked up more reports on the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System than any other vaccines in the system's decades' long history, he still, before hosting another awards show where Hollywood pats itself on the back, called the unvaccinated, "dipshits".

Meanwhile, the highest daily case rate of the virus panic was on a day over a year after the vaccines had been introduced, with the graph shooting straight vertical and looking like a rocket taking off, almost quadrupling any previous high.

A Hollywood talk show host suggested that anyone who didn't get vaccinated shouldn't be treated in a hospital.

Meanwhile, more people died from the virus in the year after the vaccines were used than in the year before they were used.

A popular disc jockey hoped the unvaccinated would die so they wouldn't infect him with the virus.

Meanwhile, the vaccinated died (typically, "mysteriously", "suddenly", or "unexpectedly") and were injured from side-effects brought on by the vaccine, but that coverage was left far from the glossy pages of mainstream magazines and fancy big tech websites, with only the conspiracy theorists on the edges of the Internet and family and friends of the fallen connecting the dots.

A comedian canceled shows where the venues would not demand proof of vaccination to attend because he wanted to protect the public from the virus, drawing from the erroneous belief that only the unvaccinated could spread it.  Maybe he only wanted to protect himself from an unvaccinated heckler's thrown beer bottle since the unvaccinated are the only demographic in America that comedians feel comfortable making fun of anymore.

Meanwhile, a comedian bragging about being vaccinated collapsed on stage and fractured her skull.  Let's have a big hand for the vaccine injured, folks!

A popular action movie star said his fear of death was more important than the freedom of others to live their lives without being injected with an experimental drug whose long-term effects were unknown and told them to "screw your freedom".

Meanwhile, Wall Street began to rapidly sell off the stock of the vaccine companies.  One company's stock price dropped from its high months earlier of $484 to $130, as investors feared that even the liability protections the company had wrestled from lawmakers wouldn't be enough to shield it from future injury and wrongful death lawsuits.

An actress dropped all her unvaccinated friends and bragged about it to a gossip magazine.

Meanwhile, a soccer team started discriminating against its vaccinated players because of what its owner claimed were their weakened performances.

A talk show host said that people should be forced by the government to get the vaccinations.

Meanwhile, a few weeks later, she got her booster shot, didn't feel well (though it was claimed she was just using "an abundance of caution" after being exposed to someone with the virus), and took some time off from the show.  Before she could return, she caught the virus and had to miss the show some more.  Yet she insisted that people should get vaccinated, perhaps feverish enough from the virus that she was unable to think logically, though that same illogic seems to be a character trait of her overall.

A burned out hippie musician demanded that a music service either remove his music or remove a podcaster who had guests that dissented from the corporate, governmentally-sanctioned, mainstream view of the virus panic (what the musician labeled "misinformation").

Meanwhile, the gigantic equity group that invested in the company that owned some of the rights to the musician's music (he had sold out, man, long ago; "This (Promissory) Note's For You", dude!) owned an even larger stake in pharmaceutical companies that benefited from the vaccines since they also developed RNA-based medications, though when critics blew back charges of hypocrisy at the musician, he insisted that it was fine since the equity group technically had their investment in a different fund of the music company, though he oddly conceded that the optics looked bad with a former C.E.O. of one of the pharmaceutical companies that made the vaccine now leading the advisory board of the equity group, then he suggested we buy his new album on vinyl because it sounds better that way.  

A casting director skips casting an actress because she heard that the actress is anti-vax, and she doesn't want to work with people like that.

Meanwhile, the pharmaceutical companies spend a lot of money advertising in the media.

A major Hollywood star said unvaccinated people were selfish and cowardly, afraid of getting a shot in the arm.  Then, he got another Botox injection, explaining why he was comfortable with people injecting toxins into their bodies.

Meanwhile, the internal Democratic polling showed that unless they lifted virus panic restrictions they would be out of power (probably for a generation if they can't make everyone forget Joe Biden), so they started rapidly lifting restrictions claiming, "the science had changed".

Few Hollywood celebrities apparently bother to critically think and examine data, choosing to side with the rich and powerful interests who pay their salaries and fund their luxurious lifestyles.  The sick and dying, injured by the celebrities' pompous pronouncements about things they know little about, just aren't very photogenic, alas.  As Upton Sinclair once noted, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!"

Meanwhile, the rest of us should stop watching and listening to these selfish, foolish people who don't seem to know anything other than knowing how to read lines from teleprompters from scripts written by paranoid public health officials and greedy pharmaceutical executives.

This is a work of fiction, but it's based on real incidents.  Here are some links to source material:

https://energycommerce.house.gov/sites/democrats.energycommerce.house.gov/files/documents/Written%20Testimony_Offerman_OI_2021.05.26.pdf

https://uproxx.com/tv/nick-offerman-anti-vaxxers-putin-genius/

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/covid-cases.html

https://www.mic.com/p/anti-vaxxers-have-finally-incurred-the-wrath-of-the-celebs-84300606

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/u-s-has-already-seen-more-covid-deaths-in-2021-than-2020-before-vaccines-were-available-as-experts-again-warn-pandemic-is-not-over-11637769586

https://thecovidblog.com/2022/02/28/jesse-gerhard-33-year-old-new-york-firefighter-suffers-sudden-medical-episode-at-firehouse-dead-hours-later/

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-risk-of-vaccinated-covid-transmission-is-not-low/

https://www.azcentral.com/story/entertainment/people/2022/02/09/why-heather-mcdonald-fainted-onstage/6711458001/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanponciano/2022/02/14/moderna-stock-crash-losses-top-140-billion-as-insiders-sell-millions-of-dollars-in-shares/?sh=17708e1d106b

https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/vaccine-damage-caseworkers-a-growth/comments?s=r

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/sportsnews/article-10542765/Romanias-famous-football-team-Steaua-Bucharest-announce-ban-VACCINATED-players.html

https://shadowandact.com/the-view-hosts-sunny-hostin-and-whoopi-goldberg-debate-mia-love-in-vaccine-discussion-we-just-cant-wait

https://people.com/tv/whoopi-goldberg-absent-from-the-view-after-covid-19-exposure/

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/whoopi-goldberg-shares-covid-19-diagnosis-update-1235070594/

https://www.stereogum.com/2176278/neil-young-pfizer-music-publishing-conspiracy-theory/news/

https://www.barrons.com/articles/blackstone-has-quietly-invested-in-life-sciences-for-years-now-its-bet-could-pay-off-51613767877

https://www.fiercepharma.com/marketing/eli-lilly-starts-winning-streak-it-keeps-tv-ad-spend-throne-ahead-regenerons-dupixent

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/covid-vaccine-mandate-hollywood-1235026178/

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/democrats-pivot-masks-biden-pollster-203920612.html

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/11/30/salary/

If you need some entertainment that doesn't reverse Walt Whitman and "horrify slaves and cheer up despots", then please read my latest novel, Fast Guy Slows Down.

New Wred Fright Novel!: Fast Guy Slows Down

 

Hooray! I have a new novel out!  If you were on the email list, you heard about it last week and maybe are reading it already.  If you want on the email list, then please email me to let me know that you want on it at wredfright AT AT AT yahoo DOTT com.  It will be working its way through the usual channels (and, with luck, a print version will be available as well) and I will keep you posted as it does so, but for now, it is available directly from me!

Fast Guy Slows Down by Wred Fright is available as an ebook directly from Wred Fright:

Ebook Format

EPUB $5.00 USD PDF $5.00 USD

 

Superman was first published in 1938, so how come he still looks to be about 25 years old in the stories set in 2022?  Ditto for all the other superheroes from The Golden Age Of Comics still being published today.  Why isn't Captain America collecting Social Security?  Why isn't The Flash using a walker to get around? Why isn't The Human Torch complaining about his hip replacement?  Why isn't Wonder Woman deciding what Medicare plan she wants?  Why isn't Batman retired?  Why isn't Plastic Man stretching his dollars to afford his nursing home bills?  Why isn't The Green Lantern The Green Flashlight by now?  Er, never mind about that last question.  But the answer to the other ones is money.  As long as the corporate comics companies can milk money out of them, these characters will be kept forever young, aside from the occasional "imaginary story" or whatnot.  But in stunting their growth, only half the story gets told.  What does happen when a superhero ages with the times and eventually becomes elderly?  What's so super about getting old?  Well, it probably beats being dead.  Just ask Bucky.  Er, never mind.  Anyway, leave it to one of America's worstselling authors who hasn't given up yet to venture in and tell the rest of the superhero story.  In the case of Harry Fox, the superhero known as Fast Guy, he finds he can't outrace time or death.  His worst foe though is an existential crisis brought on by saving the world numerous times only to have it result in a shallow, selfish place populated mainly by morons and jerks, and sometimes even moronic jerks and jerky morons.  Living alone in his old ranch house in a town filled with new McMansions, he is wondering what to do with himself and worrying about what will happen to the world when he is gone.  And the reader is left wondering if Harry is really a superhero.  Although he claims he's saved the world more times than he can remember from nuclear annihilation, he delights in pooping on world leaders, which sounds more like a supervillain, or, at the very least, a person with issues than it does a superhero.  Or maybe he's just a lonely old man with a very active imagination.  In a world less than super, can a senior citizen still be a hero?  Find out in Fast Guy Slows Down!

Fast Guy Slows Down is the fifth published novel by Wred Fright. The other four are The Pornographic Flabbergasted Emus, Blog Love Omega Glee, Frequently Asked Questions About Being Dead, and Edna's Employment Agency. More info about the author and his work is available at WredFright.Com.  

Praise for Fright's previous novel, Edna's Employment Agency:

"The kooky cast of Edna’s Employment Agency will almost make you wish you were out of a job just so you could have them find one for you." - Mark Justice, author of Gauge Black: Hell's Revenge

"The book is short, humane, gentle, absurd, and should put a smile on your face." - Steven B. Smith, author of Stations Of The Lost & Found

"[Edna's Employment Agency] is worth some attention. You could classify it as a sort of post-industrial novel. Which is something fitting for America’s post-industrial age. It doesn’t have what you’re supposed to expect in a book, and for us GG Allin fans this is cool because like he said, 'with GG you don’t get what you expect, you get what you get'. . . . Which I find refreshing because every book you read about it says every story must have structure, a three part structure, or a five part structure embedded in a three part structure, a seven part structure embedded in a five part structure embedded in a three part structure.  The inciting incident is Godot not arriving, the midpoint is Pozzo and Lucky arriving instead of Godot, and the climax is that Godot is probably never going to arrive.  These are just the lowly middleclass of America slowly sinking into the smoking drugs on the sidewalk class." - James Nowlan, author of Shock And Awe.

"I was told (and not necessarily by Wred) that the book is 'laugh-out-loud funny' and, because I'm a bitter, cynical fuck, I didn't believe it.  I should never have doubted him.  Wred had me laughing out loud by page 3. . . . I think you'll like it too, assuming you like to laugh and you don't mind some foul-mouthed dialog.  Check this book out.  You'll be glad you did." - Joe Smith in Alternative Incite #2

Here are what the critics are saying about the book:

Nothing, so far, so if you want to review the novel, then please get in touch at wredfright AT AT AT yahoo DOTT com.

Word Count: 77,866

If you are press, a high resolution image of the cover is here and one of the author is here.

Our Government At Work

So I had to renew my passport this year.  I sent it in back in September and got it back in February.  Having to get a passport is annoying in the first place (here's a brief history of how they came about; mainly, they were a World War I "emergency" that never ended:  https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/how-passport-became-improbable-symbol-american-identity-180962064/), but having to wait six months for something that should take all of three weeks (anyone piping up about just having to pay a bit extra for the expedited service should shut up now as it's yet another example of how the rich cut lines)--a week to mail in, a week to process, and a week to mail back--is super annoying and yet another example of our "beloved" American government being badly run.  Instead of doing something sensible like run efficiently so the passport process only takes the three weeks it should, the government spends my, and your money (if you're American), tax money doing stupid stuff instead.

For example, they printed up a bunch of flyers recommending that Americans get fully vaccinated against Covid-19 before using the passport and traveling internationally.  I got one along with my new passport.  OK, I know you've likely experienced metric tons of propaganda about how the vaccines are "safe and effective", so I might sound like someone from Mars when I point out that's not the case, but please try to have an open mind.  If the vaccines actually worked, we wouldn't have seen the explosion in cases after the vaccines were introduced (lowering the bar to say they prevent hospitalizations and deaths doesn't cut it) nor would we see all the odd injuries and deaths that have resulted, usually cardiac related and probably a side-effect of the mRNA vaccines (I can cite personal examples, as can you likely, but the number of celebrities getting injured or dying unexpectedly or mysteriously before their time is one that probably all of us are familiar with).

Again, the point of this post is that instead of being efficient and fulfilling their responsibilities properly, the American government is badly run.  Instead of cleaning up their act, the government wades into areas that are outside their (using "their" instead of "its" here to emphasize that the government is made of people who are responsible for decisions and actions and consequences) scope such as an individual's health, or Russia's relationship with Ukraine, or spying on everyone's telecommunications, and so on and so forth.  Given how badly the government performs its own responsibilities, it's easy to see that going outside the scope is typically disastrous (with luck, we won't all be blown up with nuclear weapons in the blunder du jour, the Russia/Ukraine war, and, by the way, here's some background on that you might find a refreshing antidote to all the mainstream media out of context war hysteria:  https://scheerpost.com/2022/02/11/oliver-stone-american-exceptionalism-is-on-deadly-display-in-ukraine/).

No doubt this complaint is an exercise in futility (and I've worked in government so I can testify personally to it being badly run--so is much of private enterprise but I don't pay taxes on that, so I don't care as much), but Uncle Sam, get your shit together!  Once there's no national debt, my tax refund doesn't take six months to get back, I get my passport renewed quickly (if I have to have one at all), you don't waste tons of money doing stupid stuff, and so on and so forth, then we can have a conversation about expanding your responsibilities (I'll tell you likely no then as well, but at least then I'll be willing to hear about it--until then, shut up about it and stay in your lane, as the old saying goes). 

If you need a laugh after your latest interaction with government, then please read Edna's Employment Agency, my latest novel.

Updated Bear And Snake Strip For The Biden Era!

This marks the third time that I've run this gag, but since it's a year into a new presidential administration, here we go (it might be funnier if I just crossed out the previous presidents' names, but I just erase the old one and insert the new one, so the word balloons don't get too messy):

Given Biden's inflation, I'm not sure how far $5 goes at Steak And Snake anymore, or even the real life Steak And Shake, but I left the strip otherwise as it was in 2010.  If Trump wins again in 2024, then I can probably just run the 2018 version again without having to change anything.  If Biden wins, then The Thirsty Bear And The Hungry Snake will see you in 2030!  Otherwise, if someone else wins, then this strip will get updated and recycled in 2026!

And I've published a couple of other novels since Blog Love Omega Glee.  They are Frequently Asked Questions About Being Dead and Edna's Employment Agency.