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Something Good, Something Bad, Something Dirty
A dude jumps out of a window; Halloween goes to Hell; a junk-sick redhead ransacks a wallet; a school teacher’s habit of leaving drawers open rattles her obsessive compulsive husband; a gory melodrama unfolds as a self-absorbed mother and her sadistic daughter vie for the love of a handsome con artist; two losers conjure bloodlust fantasies to pass the time; a severed body part resurrects to claim vengeance against a cunning, materialistic witch; a trailer park love triangle reaches its drunken precipice at a Sunday barbecue—just a few of the sometimes good, sometimes bad, and sometimes dirty attractions found in Brian Alan Ellis’s latest, aptly titled story collection, where bearded women, bloody tampons, online dating debacles, ornery waffle waitresses packing pistols, drunk Harry Dean Stanton look-a-likes dressed as Santa Claus, floating Mickey Mouse T-shirts, and lawn gnomes on fire all cast a harrowing glow!
- GenresShort StoriesFiction
148 pages, Paperback
First published February 13, 2015
6 people are currently reading
353 people want to read
About the author
Brian Alan Ellis
34 books126 followersBRIAN ALAN ELLIS runs House of Vlad Press, and is the author of several books, including Sad Laughter (Civil Coping Mechanisms, 2018). His writing has appeared at Juked, Hobart, Monkeybicycle, Fanzine, Electric Literature, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, Funhouse, Heavy Feather Review, and Queen Mob’s Tea House, among other places. He lives in Florida, and tweets sad and clever things at both @brianalanellis and @HouseofVlad.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
April 1, 2017
Holy shit, you guys! Brian named me in the acknowledgments!
Read 3/4/15 - 3/16/15
4 Stars - Highly Recommended to fans of strange (and sometimes gag-inducing) short stories that focus more on the fucked-up-ness of the characters than it does of the situations the characters find themselves in
Pages: 132
Publisher: House of Vlad
Released: February 2015
In blogging terms, Brian Alan Ellis and I, we go way back. All the way back to January of 2014, when he contributed to our Indie Ink series. Since his demonstration of the fat-headed penis cleverly disguised within the body of the girl in his tattoo, I've reviewed two of his books - The Mustache He Always Wanted But Could Never Grow and King Shit. I've seen him half naked in a bathtub filled with books (in an article, you guys. C'mon!). I've squeeeed with joy when I discovered that he'd blurbed me on the back cover (and inside page) of his novelette, and nearly pissed myself when I realized I'd been included in the acknowledgments for this collection.
That's like a lifetime worth of events right there. And so it's strange to think I've only known about this dude's existence for 15 months. This right here. This is why I crush so hard on the self published and small presses, you guys. The appreciation I have for the work these guys do, the way they interact and connect with their readers, their "fuck it, count me in" attitude for all of the goofy stuff we put them through... this is the shit. This is why I do what I do.
And this is why I continue to push BAE's (heheh, bae, that's cute) stuff to the top of the review pile. Not just because he blurbs me because, hell, I had to like his stuff enough to say what I said about it. And not just because he publicly acknowledged me for supporting his work, because see that last sentence again. I push his stuff to the top because he writes good shit and he's actually really appreciative of the time we spend reading his shit and telling other people about his shit, no matter how we feel about his shit.
It's not like I'm running around 5-starring the hell out of his books, either. Mustache and King Shit both got 3 stars. Because they're not going to be for everyone. And because some of the stories, or vignettes, weren't all that crazy impressive. But BAE's stuff is pretty fucking solid. His stories are always about the underbelly of society and his characters are unlike any you've ever read about before and Ellis doesn't hold anything back. He doesn't cater to his reader. He doesn't worry himself with whether or not a particular story is going to be too much for you. He doesn't dress his characters up. He just lets it all fly. Or at least, that's the impression I get when I read his books.
Take this one for example. Something Good, Something Bad, Something Dirty is a collection of stories that, while they are not interconnected, equally showcase some pretty deranged and maladjusted people. His stories movie between genres. Or maybe he's creating his own. We'll call it Humoristic Bizarro Fiction.
The collection starts out pretty normal enough. We meet Flo and the late night patrons at the Holiday Diner. It's your typical "odd group of people who all get up in each other's business" story in which things go from calm to pull-a-gun-out-to-shut-everyone-up wild. Nothing we haven't seen for ourselves or read in the newspaper.
In Raven's Ladies, Ellis kicks it up a notch when we meet this dude who creates bogus profiles and pen-names to pick up "bitches" on various online dating sites. This partcular time, he lands a chick with multiple personalities and realizes that he has his work cut out for him.
An Object Never Before Put to Use also features a blind date, only this time the dude's a pathetic, suicidal recent divorcee who manages to screw the date up pretty badly.
But the further into the collection we go, the more messed up our characters become. The mother-daughter pair in The Proposal are an absolute bunch of crazies. Both pine over Annie's (the mother) boyfriend Peter and the jealousy drives them to do some psychotic, sadistic things to one another. This one was almost too much for me to take. Wait till you get to the fingernail scene, I cringed while reading it...and I still get the shakes every time I think about it.
Only BAE would create a story about a chick who falls in love with her girlfriend's glorious beard. Or one in which a stalker severs her old flame's dick. And the dick's got teeth. Actual fucking teeth.
Then things start to taper off and we're back in the land of the semi-normal. While I usually dislike infidelity in literature, I got a kick out of Flowers at Full Speed, which features a fabulous bunch of drunk and drugged up rednecks who find themselves in a bit of a love triangle when one dude just can't keep his dick out of the other dude's lady. And the collection wraps up quite quietly with The Floating Mickey Mouse T Shirt, in which two hotel employees sit on the curb, tossing back a bottle of wine, when a floating T Shirt approaches.
With an imagination like his, you never know where his stories are going to go. He's seen the best and worst of us. He knows our darkest, dirtiest thoughts. And he infects his characters with it all. If you don't find a piece of yourself buried within this collection, you have no idea who you are. And I don't trust you.
Read 3/4/15 - 3/16/15
4 Stars - Highly Recommended to fans of strange (and sometimes gag-inducing) short stories that focus more on the fucked-up-ness of the characters than it does of the situations the characters find themselves in
Pages: 132
Publisher: House of Vlad
Released: February 2015
In blogging terms, Brian Alan Ellis and I, we go way back. All the way back to January of 2014, when he contributed to our Indie Ink series. Since his demonstration of the fat-headed penis cleverly disguised within the body of the girl in his tattoo, I've reviewed two of his books - The Mustache He Always Wanted But Could Never Grow and King Shit. I've seen him half naked in a bathtub filled with books (in an article, you guys. C'mon!). I've squeeeed with joy when I discovered that he'd blurbed me on the back cover (and inside page) of his novelette, and nearly pissed myself when I realized I'd been included in the acknowledgments for this collection.
That's like a lifetime worth of events right there. And so it's strange to think I've only known about this dude's existence for 15 months. This right here. This is why I crush so hard on the self published and small presses, you guys. The appreciation I have for the work these guys do, the way they interact and connect with their readers, their "fuck it, count me in" attitude for all of the goofy stuff we put them through... this is the shit. This is why I do what I do.
And this is why I continue to push BAE's (heheh, bae, that's cute) stuff to the top of the review pile. Not just because he blurbs me because, hell, I had to like his stuff enough to say what I said about it. And not just because he publicly acknowledged me for supporting his work, because see that last sentence again. I push his stuff to the top because he writes good shit and he's actually really appreciative of the time we spend reading his shit and telling other people about his shit, no matter how we feel about his shit.
It's not like I'm running around 5-starring the hell out of his books, either. Mustache and King Shit both got 3 stars. Because they're not going to be for everyone. And because some of the stories, or vignettes, weren't all that crazy impressive. But BAE's stuff is pretty fucking solid. His stories are always about the underbelly of society and his characters are unlike any you've ever read about before and Ellis doesn't hold anything back. He doesn't cater to his reader. He doesn't worry himself with whether or not a particular story is going to be too much for you. He doesn't dress his characters up. He just lets it all fly. Or at least, that's the impression I get when I read his books.
Take this one for example. Something Good, Something Bad, Something Dirty is a collection of stories that, while they are not interconnected, equally showcase some pretty deranged and maladjusted people. His stories movie between genres. Or maybe he's creating his own. We'll call it Humoristic Bizarro Fiction.
The collection starts out pretty normal enough. We meet Flo and the late night patrons at the Holiday Diner. It's your typical "odd group of people who all get up in each other's business" story in which things go from calm to pull-a-gun-out-to-shut-everyone-up wild. Nothing we haven't seen for ourselves or read in the newspaper.
In Raven's Ladies, Ellis kicks it up a notch when we meet this dude who creates bogus profiles and pen-names to pick up "bitches" on various online dating sites. This partcular time, he lands a chick with multiple personalities and realizes that he has his work cut out for him.
An Object Never Before Put to Use also features a blind date, only this time the dude's a pathetic, suicidal recent divorcee who manages to screw the date up pretty badly.
But the further into the collection we go, the more messed up our characters become. The mother-daughter pair in The Proposal are an absolute bunch of crazies. Both pine over Annie's (the mother) boyfriend Peter and the jealousy drives them to do some psychotic, sadistic things to one another. This one was almost too much for me to take. Wait till you get to the fingernail scene, I cringed while reading it...and I still get the shakes every time I think about it.
Only BAE would create a story about a chick who falls in love with her girlfriend's glorious beard. Or one in which a stalker severs her old flame's dick. And the dick's got teeth. Actual fucking teeth.
Then things start to taper off and we're back in the land of the semi-normal. While I usually dislike infidelity in literature, I got a kick out of Flowers at Full Speed, which features a fabulous bunch of drunk and drugged up rednecks who find themselves in a bit of a love triangle when one dude just can't keep his dick out of the other dude's lady. And the collection wraps up quite quietly with The Floating Mickey Mouse T Shirt, in which two hotel employees sit on the curb, tossing back a bottle of wine, when a floating T Shirt approaches.
With an imagination like his, you never know where his stories are going to go. He's seen the best and worst of us. He knows our darkest, dirtiest thoughts. And he infects his characters with it all. If you don't find a piece of yourself buried within this collection, you have no idea who you are. And I don't trust you.
September 13, 2015
Months ago, I read Ellis’ novella, King Shit, not long after that, I got this and sort of let it sit in my kindle untouched. I didn’t touch it until my current short story addiction prompted me to pick this up. I consider this collection ‘Bizarro slice-of-life.’ I don’t know about the official names for these genres, but this collection was a light bizarro, since it was more on the absurd slice-of-life side than the the usual magical realist, horror, or surrealist type I usually find myself reading when it comes to bizarro.
Much like King Shit every single character in every story is absurd, dysfunctional, and air headed, so this makes for a quick light read. The stories aren’t too long and fill in the spaces long enough to make a satisfying short story, they’re always complete. Believe it or not there are some short stories that aren’t complete, it’s actually quite common and it’s one of the reasons why some people don’t like reading them. There’s some dark humor and some gross out moments. Something Good, Something Bad, Something Dirty: Stories is pretty close to noir with the loser characters committing some depraved and humiliating deeds. Then there’s some stories that are lighthearted and goofy much like the cartoons you watch when you were a kid, but an adult version of it. Sometimes Ellis’ writing kind of reminds me of Sam Pink with the existential crisis and depressive mind set, but I feel like his work is bit more matured, like Pink’s latest novel Witch Piss, which contained the same subject matter, but the writing style was way more voluptuous, less minimalist and Lin-esque.
The best one was when I was eating breakfast, a piece of plain bread and coffee, and there was a short story about a drunk guy and a prostitute and instead of doing anything sexual, the main character pulls out her bloody tampon and flings it against a wall. I actually gagged while eating. It was that bad. But it was fun reading, something I need once in awhile.
Rating: 5/5
Originally posted on Notes on the Shore
Much like King Shit every single character in every story is absurd, dysfunctional, and air headed, so this makes for a quick light read. The stories aren’t too long and fill in the spaces long enough to make a satisfying short story, they’re always complete. Believe it or not there are some short stories that aren’t complete, it’s actually quite common and it’s one of the reasons why some people don’t like reading them. There’s some dark humor and some gross out moments. Something Good, Something Bad, Something Dirty: Stories is pretty close to noir with the loser characters committing some depraved and humiliating deeds. Then there’s some stories that are lighthearted and goofy much like the cartoons you watch when you were a kid, but an adult version of it. Sometimes Ellis’ writing kind of reminds me of Sam Pink with the existential crisis and depressive mind set, but I feel like his work is bit more matured, like Pink’s latest novel Witch Piss, which contained the same subject matter, but the writing style was way more voluptuous, less minimalist and Lin-esque.
The best one was when I was eating breakfast, a piece of plain bread and coffee, and there was a short story about a drunk guy and a prostitute and instead of doing anything sexual, the main character pulls out her bloody tampon and flings it against a wall. I actually gagged while eating. It was that bad. But it was fun reading, something I need once in awhile.
Rating: 5/5
Originally posted on Notes on the Shore
January 31, 2015
I received an advanced reading copy of something Good, Something Bad, Something Dirty in exchange for an honest review. I think there's a law, or a post it note somewhere that requires me to say that. I don't know why, but it's just how things work.
This is a collection of short stories that are about as random as you can get. Take The Watch for example, it's a simple story of revenge but Ellis takes it just a step further to include a penis with teeth. Elllis has a twisted imagination and it makes this collection a lot of fun to read. With the bizarro you get a healthy or unhealthy dose of black humor.
As I would finish one story I would go onto the next wondering what the hell he had come up. His characters are not normal people and while these stories may be considered bizarro they aren't set out to alienate the reader. Sometimes you get a collection of short stories and most of them suck, but this is easily one of my favorite short story collections. Ellis has some serious talent and his writing style alone makes this worth the read.
I can throw out some words that will make you want to buy this and they're all true. brilliant, a masterpiece of weird fiction, and I can even say at times it can be a bit dark, but in the end the dark humor shines through and you will laugh even you shouldn't
This is a collection of short stories that are about as random as you can get. Take The Watch for example, it's a simple story of revenge but Ellis takes it just a step further to include a penis with teeth. Elllis has a twisted imagination and it makes this collection a lot of fun to read. With the bizarro you get a healthy or unhealthy dose of black humor.
As I would finish one story I would go onto the next wondering what the hell he had come up. His characters are not normal people and while these stories may be considered bizarro they aren't set out to alienate the reader. Sometimes you get a collection of short stories and most of them suck, but this is easily one of my favorite short story collections. Ellis has some serious talent and his writing style alone makes this worth the read.
I can throw out some words that will make you want to buy this and they're all true. brilliant, a masterpiece of weird fiction, and I can even say at times it can be a bit dark, but in the end the dark humor shines through and you will laugh even you shouldn't
March 7, 2015
This book lives up to it's title. What a brilliant read, filled with twists and jokes and a wonderful amount of dark content.
March 1, 2015
I blurbed this book and said "Brian Alan Ellis writes like he's whipping nunchucks at precisely the right keys"
Here's other thoughts:
The short story is probably the best place to be an asshole. The short story is probably the best place to piss your pants or puke in a friend's car. The short story is where Saints learn to do backflips after losing at the horse track. Things can be said in 1000 words that can't even be hinted at in 100,000.
BAE writes like someone who doesn't give a fuck, which means he writes WIDE OPEN. The characters that live in these stories are falling down, are slipping on grapes in supermarkets, are tripping over their shoe laces and going face first into a mirror.
They're real. They're honest. They're failing, HARD. No one is going to help them up. Always these characters live to screw up again.
This collection of short stories succeeds because there's a pulse of desperation in it that eats apathy alive. There's grime and blood and other unidentified body fluids stuck to the surfaces of this book's world.
We'll look through a keyhole and see into an apartment where people are being ripped apart by the vices of the common day, and yeah, we'll cheer, because--fuck the common day.
Here's other thoughts:
The short story is probably the best place to be an asshole. The short story is probably the best place to piss your pants or puke in a friend's car. The short story is where Saints learn to do backflips after losing at the horse track. Things can be said in 1000 words that can't even be hinted at in 100,000.
BAE writes like someone who doesn't give a fuck, which means he writes WIDE OPEN. The characters that live in these stories are falling down, are slipping on grapes in supermarkets, are tripping over their shoe laces and going face first into a mirror.
They're real. They're honest. They're failing, HARD. No one is going to help them up. Always these characters live to screw up again.
This collection of short stories succeeds because there's a pulse of desperation in it that eats apathy alive. There's grime and blood and other unidentified body fluids stuck to the surfaces of this book's world.
We'll look through a keyhole and see into an apartment where people are being ripped apart by the vices of the common day, and yeah, we'll cheer, because--fuck the common day.
October 29, 2015
What a weird ass book! Brian Alan Ellis doesn't give a goddamn fuck, and while that doesn't necessarily produce the sort of stories I enjoy reading, it's as charming as, like, a floating Mickey Mouse shirt or something.
I get the feeling that Brian wrote this to make himself shit his pants or cry or laugh really hard while kind of drunk on swish. I appreciate that, the idea that you're filling a void in the world with the thing you want the most.
The stories were super easy to read. Nobody has their head up their ass, except maybe me.
I like to imagine this book in a Dylan Thomas, Under Milk Wood sort of way, an image of floating above a city and seeing all the individual madnesses that make it not-quite-tick.
If Italo Calvino made a rap album, this'd be it.
I get the feeling that Brian wrote this to make himself shit his pants or cry or laugh really hard while kind of drunk on swish. I appreciate that, the idea that you're filling a void in the world with the thing you want the most.
The stories were super easy to read. Nobody has their head up their ass, except maybe me.
I like to imagine this book in a Dylan Thomas, Under Milk Wood sort of way, an image of floating above a city and seeing all the individual madnesses that make it not-quite-tick.
If Italo Calvino made a rap album, this'd be it.
February 18, 2015
"Something Good, Something Bad, Something Dirty" is a bold collection that will shock and delight readers. Brian Alan Ellis ventures into territory that most writers wouldn't dare even dream about. These stories are hilarious, disturbing, and downright nasty. This is Ellis's best work to date, an impressive feat of the bizarre, absurd, and everything undefinable. It's not a book for everyone, but it will reward anyone who can stomach a little controversy and a lot of dirt.
February 27, 2015
The title isn't just blowing smoke here. There really is something good, something bad, and something dirty in here. Of course, the bad is also good...and the dirty is wonderful. There's wildness, touching moments, grossness, the strange, and a whole lot else. All in great, quick lines that shoot across the page like bullets. I think this is some of the most sophisticated work I've seen from Ellis, yet still with the great non-pretentious style. I highly recommend.
December 23, 2015
Twisted, dark, bizarre, unique, good.
November 6, 2015
Not my kind of stories.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews