by Michael A. Arnzen

These sixteen tracks are taken mostly from his flash-fiction collection 100 Jolts, where they only sat there, scaring and grossing you out and tickling your hairy funnies two-dimensionally. Now here they come, reinvented and backed up by musical etchings, ready to invade your ears and claim another dimension. These Jolts were already sharp as scalpels, but now they're slashing and bashing your ear drums, too. Tracks such as "Psycho Hunter," "Brain Candy," "Obictionary," "Take Out," and "Stabbing for Dummies" (a highlight, certainly), and "Not the Reaper" all come across not quite as songs, but as Beat poetry for the sadomasochist. Not exactly sung, not quite read, Arnzen narrates each piece with an enthusiastic growl in which you can hear how amused he is, trying on this new mantle. The Morrison of the Macabre? (Some of the tracks do have a Doors vibe, man, with all the killing and metaphysics, man.) The Ginsberg of Gore? (He'll make you HOWL, with laughter.) The Kerouac of Killing? (He'd need that long roll to sop up all that blood.)

There are no bad tracks, though they're all "bad" in that not much of the imagery, poetic as it may be, is "good" as in "positive." But that's what makes this unusual audio-book such an unexpected pleasure. A good test for true Audioviles—spring this upon your "straight" (non-genre) friends and watch the reactions. Priceless.

Put this in your iPod and smoke it!