People have been asking my thoughts on the debate this last Thursday night.

Honestly, I’ve been saying for almost four years that the Democratic National Committee should be indicted for elder abuse over running Biden for POTUS.

And while Joe Biden is a complete sack of lying monkey ballocks (does no-one else remember that he ran for President in 1988 and withdrew after being caught plagiarizing a speech, plagiarizing papers in law school, and outright lying about his academic record? Just me? Ok.) the plain and simple observable fact that the man is somewhere on the dementia cycle just makes what’s been done to him cruel.

This is completely separate from my outright and long-standing antipathy towards the man — despite what various Russian bots and the comment section of Instapundit believe I’ve disliked him since the 1990s, and his installation in the Oval Office did nothing to dissuade me from that  distaste — but, as far as I’m concerned State’s Exhibit ‘A’ in the indictment of Dr Mrs Jill Biden, the DNC, and the legacy media for Continual Abuse of the Elderly was recorded on a two-minute delay during the evening hours of 27 JUN 24.

Yes, you dissembling little dacoits in the “journalism” field should be horsewhipped around the courthouse square for this. Each and every one of you. Your feeble excuses that Trump is a Bad Man do not absolve you of the fact that you have ruined this country, and covered for the abuse of a geriatric man whose think-pudding is mouldy.

Anyone in the DNC and political field that supported this reprehensible abuse should be crucified on the National Mall as an example.

My thoughts about Dr Mrs Biden are not printable here, other than to say that I hope the undertaker dresses her in her asbestos underoos after she passes.

Vile. Vile, vicious, and inexcusable, the lot of you.

While I am extremely cross that y’all have made me feel pity for the political cancer that has been Joe Biden and his 50+year career as an elected parasite on this country, I am even more annoyed that I’m fairly sure that no-one is going to hold the Democrats and the Legacy Media to account for this.

Not a one of the unindicted co-conspirators in the Democratic Party is going to be voted out of office for this.

No Legacy Media companies are going to go out of business for this.

No “journalist” who enabled this bushwa is going to be drummed out of the “field of journalism*” and reduced to asking if I want fries with my meals for this.

Pfagh.

LawDog

*Remember: You don’t hate journalists enough. You think you do, but you don’t.

So, at Libertycon Raconteur Press had a “What’s New At Raconteur Press” panel, and our friend Wally recorded it for y’all.

Turns out that one of the audience members has a podcast, and liked our panel well enough that he did an episode on Raconteur Press. Squee!

I reached out to Jonathan, and we’ll be doing an interview with him later on — details will be here.

If you go watch those panels on YouTube, please leave him a comment, because podcast creators need love, too.

I’m going to go back and hide under the bad now, because I am so bloody peopled out.

Enjoy!

LawDog

I’m writing this a day early, because we’ll be getting up at 0200 hours tomorrow to start heading towards Chattanooga. Google Maps says it’s a 13.5 hour trip from Tiny Town to Libertycon, but we’ll see.

When I get off of work this afternoon, I’ve got to go betray Chuy and Mochi’s trust — they’re geriatric enough that Rita and I aren’t comfortable having them boarded with other dogs, so I’m taking them to the vet for boarding. They’re used to sleeping together, and the vet doesn’t have the facilities for this, so they’re not going to be happy with me.

I’m extremely pleased that we’re going to make it to Libertycon — we’ve actually only made it to about half of the conventions we had planned. In this “booming economy” (if you believe the Legacy Media) everything still costs 2x, 3x or 4x more than it did when I retired, but my pension cheque hasn’t gone up 2x, 3x or 4x. Funny, that.

Libertycon is the first literary convention I ever attended, and will always be my home con, so there was no way we were going to  miss it.

Raconteur Press is going to be having a rollicking good time — remember, if you find me at the con and tell me which author is my little brother in Goblin Market, you’ll win a Wiffle Fox. I’ll have a pocket full of them somewhere.

Speaking of Wiffle Thingies, the “What’s New From Raconteur Press” panel will be in the Convention Center, Ballroom E, at 1400 hours, local time on Friday. Since Mike Burke and Intern Steve 2.0 will also be there, Wiffle Ducks will be flying thick and fast.

We have badge ribbons this year, including one that says “RACONTEUR”. That one is reserved for our authors — yes, if you have a story in one of the 3MOTA 50-word shorts, you qualify. We will start handing these out at the “What’s New” panel, starting with a very special author. After the panel, Jonna will be in the Craft room, any of our authors who don’t show at the panel can pick one up from her there.

The other three ribbons are wide open for anyone to wear — get them from Jonna. The “Whimsical, Wyrd, Wildly Out Of Control” one seems to be popular this year, you might want to get yours pretty quickly, otherwise we’re liable to run out.

I’m on additional meds for the blood sugar, so my alcohol intake has to be monitored fairly closely lest I incur an ICU stay via the local ER. Fear not! There will still be anthologies plotted.

If you follow the North Texas Troublemakers page on Facebook, Rita and I will probably post updates during tomorrow’s trip using the TwoFoxesInACar and RaconteurRoadTrip hashtags.

Hope to see some of y’all in Chattanooga!

LawDog

Alien Family Values is live!

We did this one with Guest Editor Sandra L. Medlock, and I’m tickled pink about it.

The cover is — as usual — by Cedar Sanderson, as are the interior illustrations and adverts. She flat knocked them out of the park again.

Oh, by the way, for the confused out there: the adverts are tongue-in-cheek. If you send me an outraged e-mail regarding the ‘Adopt A Human’ advert, or a confused email about not being able to find the ‘Paint Your Spaceship’ company on the Internet …

… there will be judging. Just before I bin your email. You’ve been warned.

Previous Intern Steve (now called “Nick” for some reason) has waxed eloquent about Father’s Day over on our Substack. Man can turn a phrase; I’ll give him that. Probably should think about being an author, or something.

Anyhoo, I’m told interns should have positive reinforcement, or something (personally, I thought the regular beatings were pretty positive, but what do I know), so pop over there and leave him a positive comment.

In other news, my Duct Tape Little Sister won First Place for Novelettes in the 2023 Analytical Laboratory Awards.  Yay! Monalisa is a hell of a writer and deserves the accolades.

I think that’s about it.

LawDog

As a ‘thank you’ to the Gentle Readers who have paid for a subscription to our Substack, today we release the first of my serialized short stories.

There will be a snippet posted later today for everyone, and paying subscribers will get to read the whole snippet today.

If you’re not a paying subscriber — fear not! We will make it available to all readers next Wednesday.

This one is ‘Blood In the Sand’, a story that was first published by Peter Nealen in his SPOTREPS anthology, and has been broken down into three parts with illustrations. Each part will launch on a Wednesday. Paid subscribers get access to each part a week before everyone else.

I know it isn’t much, but it’s my way of saying “Thank You” to those people who believed enough in our little press to throw money at our Substack.

Thank you. From the bottom of my heart.

If our fans like this enough, we’ll release other of my previously-published stories — and maybe some of the ones that have never seen the light of day — in future Substacks.

The working title for this one was ‘Turbo-murder In Tangiers’, and its definitely a hairy-legged action/adventure story — I was definitely channeling my inner Alistair MacLean this time. 

Anyhoo, I hope y’all enjoy it, and again: Thank you.

LawDog

I hate Facebook. For many reasons, but the current one is the fact that the little bugger refreshes randomly, and I lose a post I was reading.

Today’s Facebook embuggerance was a comment I was reading on an author page that showed up at random on my wall. The comment was from someone who mentioned that they couldn’t submit to Raconteur because we are a conservative publishing house.

I was trying to respond when Facebook refreshed and I lost it.

Damn it.

Folks, fans, and general passers-by — I don’t do ideological purity tests when people submit stories. I barely register author names. The only thing I am reading for is whether the story is entertaining or not.

“It Must Be Entertaining, All Else Is Negotiable.”
~Me

I’m serious about that. Send us stories that entertain, that enthrall, that thrill; send us stories that leave the readers satisfied, yet wanting more.

I don’t have the time, nor the energy, to care about anything else; least of which being the label on the lever you pull in the voting booth.

I’m pretty sure that I know where the rumour started from, too. I have repeatedly stated — well, I suppose “ranted” might be a more accurate description — that I will not publish message fiction.

That is correct. And I will hold this line as long as I am CEO of this house. By “message fiction” I mean stories that sacrifice entertaining on the altar of whatever message the author feels strongly about.

“It Must Be Entertaining, All Else Is Negotiable.”
~Me

That “must” is there for a reason, and is not optional. Stories offered to Raconteur Press MUST be entertaining. Period. Full stop. End of statement.

Now, for those of you in the corner weeping and rending your garments, understand that an entertaining story is fully capable of having a message under the entertainment. As multiple examples I offer the Original Series of Star Trek.

Don’t send us a story where the entertaining part is an afterthought — we’ll send it back with a suggestion that you self-publish it.

“It Must Be Entertaining, All Else Is Negotiable.”
~Me 

Other than that, I truly don’t care about your political leanings, and honestly don’t have the time, nor the spoons, to hire private investigators to vet everyone who submits a story to us.

Just … send us entertaining stories. That’s all I care about.

LawDog

Now that I’ve fired this old thing back up, the spammers have descended.

Sweet Freyja on a twister mat are the new breed more dedicated than their forebears. I just marked a comment as spam that had to be a several hundred words or more. And I’m seeing a lot more spam written in Cyrillic and Thai script than I used to.

Why would you spam an American blog in a language that has a good chance of not being spoken by either the author, or any of his readers?

Speaking of — does anyone know if the function where you mark a comment as ‘Spam’  on WordPress actually does anything? Other than kick that comment into the Spam folder?

Gentle Readers have been asking if I’m going to resume doing political commentary — particularly on the recent political court cases all over the media.

Ehh. I really don’t have a good opinion of the American judicial system right now, and rather than screaming, “They’re all sodding corrupt and dirty!” I’m just going to concentrate on other things.

Which is proving harder than I had thought it would be, because I’ve lost my creative spark, and getting it back is … not progressing as well as one might hope.

The worlds inside my head are not as clear and bright as they used to be, and getting them out of my head and onto the screen is running into a block somewhere around my fingers. I can sit down at the desk, see what I want to write in my head, but I can’t make my fingers hit the keys. Bloody frustrating.

And when I do, I inevitably compare what I’m writing now to what I’ve written in the past … and the comparison is never good. If you’re following our Substack, I wrote a little drabble called “The Jungles Of Y’rd”. After I finished it, I read it, and almost binned it because it feels clunky and inelegant compared to earlier works of mine. I realize — and have been informed by multiple people — that I am probably being hyper-critical, but I can’t help myself.

I don’t know what to do to get that spark re-ignited. I suspect pulling my head out of my fourth point of contact and cease feeling sorry for myself would be a good start, but that seems to be a slow process.

I probably need to go fishing again — I haven’t drowned a worm in years — and taking some firearms training to get my head right probably wouldn’t hurt.

I originally typed that as “… and taking some pew-pew training …” and realized that I was unconsciously typing in code, trying to avoid tripping the absolutely-bloody-ridiculous Social Media censorship … and now I’m peevish and annoyed.

Sigh.

I’m going to go research what’s new in bass lures. See y’all tomorrow.

LawDog 

Earlier this week I posted the details for the fundraiser we’re running for our Production Manager, who’s having a wee bout of pericarditis.

Jack Wylder heard about it, and decided to help out.

If you pop over to Bear & Hare Studios, he and his lovely wife are selling Raconteur Love stickers:

All profits will go to Jonna, to help her defray medical costs.

Since Jack announced these, Gentle Readers have been asking if we’re going to be selling these at LibertyCon and other conventions.

Alas, no. The paperwork nightmare is one I don’t even want to think about, so the only place these will be available will be through Bear & Hare Studios.

I’d like to thank everyone who has already donated, from the bottom of my heart. You have no idea how much your donation has been appreciated.

LawDog

I got spanked when I was a kid. Deserved it, mostly.

Right after my generation everyone started yelping that spanking was bad. Lots of ink spilled about how “spanking was abuse”, “spanking was violence”, and my current favourite: “Spanking children leads to aggressive and violent adults.”

Now I know that spanking — as in most other things having to do with the human condition — is a complex issue, with no pat answers.

So, before you get your Hanes all up in a half-hitch, this is a sardonic post.

How-some-ever, I’m looking at the reactions of all the non-spanked college kids towards Jewish folks in general, and Israel in particular; along with the kittenish antics of college kids over the last couple of years — college kids who are at least two generations into the “Thou Shalt Not Spank” era …

Huh. Doesn’t look like the little bugsnipes needed spankings to become “aggressive and violent adults.”

Again: Cynical amusement.

LawDog 

I am reliably informed by the minions that while I may have something of a Name here — and in some areas of the gun internet — I am unknown in the Substack ecosystem.

Apparently “YAY!” wasn’t the reaction they were expecting.

The minions have decided that well, that just won’t fly; and that Substack — and larger authordom — must be introduced to the magnificent floof that is LawDog, so Plots Have Been Hatched.

Wednesdays will be LawDog Day on the Substack.

Tomorrow they are posting — what else, but the Pink Gorilla Suit story. I guess that’s pretty much the classic intro to me, even though I’m a little more proud of the Mr Johnson story.

Anyhoo, after that, they are taking short stories of mine that have appeared in other folks’ anthologies, and serializing them. Little editorial clean-up, some illustrations, that sort of thing.

If you have a paid subscription to the Substack, of any amount, starting 12 JUN 24, you’ll get access to these serialized, illustrated shorts a week ahead of general posting. They’ll be available for paid subscribers on one Wednesday, then the following Wednesday they’ll be posted in the clear for everyone to enjoy.

It’s my little way of thanking you for sending us money. It’s not much, but it’s what I have right now.

I hope y’all enjoy .

LawDog