A few days ago, THE NEW FLESH sat down with bizarro writer Steve Lowe to discuss body switching, why vanilla is better than chocolate, and how he likes his bacon. This is what we found out...

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TNF: Steve Lowe, who the hell do you think you are?

SL: Well, in the German language, the word “löwe” means lion. So, I am a predator of the Serengeti, as evidenced by my golden, flowing mane and the rotting meat stench of my breath. Of course, that’s not how others see me. They’ll probably just tell you I’m an asshole.


TNF: On your blog, you have something called THE 2-MINUTE DRILL. What is that and which has been the most memorable for you?

SL: The 2-Minute Drill is an erratic interview series where I refer to myself as “we” and ask authors and artists really, really stupid questions. It’s basically like a roast, where the interviewer and interviewee get to take shots at each other, all in the name of thinly-veiled self promotion. The most memorable Drill so far would have to be with artist Jack Rogers. No matter how nonsensical my questions were, he found a way to give answers that were even more nonsensical and incoherent. It’s like reading the personal journals of John Doe from the movie “Se7en”, only more uncomfortable.


TNF: Draw a picture of the coolest weapon not yet invented and explain its functions.

SL: It’s supposed to be a mind control device that turns my enemies into pigs, which I then butcher and cook into bacon. Unfortunately, my MS Paint frying bacon looks more like colorful, steaming turds, which I guess works as well, so I’m running with it. I should have a prototype ready to go by 2078.

TNF: You have a new book coming out from Eraserhead Press later this year called MUSCLE MEMORY. I love the summary you have of it up on your blog. Describe it for our readers in exactly 47 words.

SL: MUSCLE MEMORY is what I wished all those body switching movies from the 1980s would have been. A bunch of dopey people wake up one morning in each others’ bodies and they spend the day trying to figure out what happened and why, and there’s murder and

TNF: Write a convincing argument for why vanilla is a way better flavor for ice cream than chocolate, even if you disagree.

SL: Vanilla was the original. Chocolate is just vanilla trying to be different. Vanilla doesn’t need to throw on a snazzy overcoat and slick up its hair with product and throw on a bunch of flashy jewelry. Chocolate is all, “Look at me, I’m Vanilla with a tan, I’m such a badass, all the kids like me better!” And Vanilla is all, “Shut the fuck up, you’re embarrassing yourself. Act like you have a shred of self respect, you silly asshole.” Vanilla’s been through the wars, man. Vanilla was there from day one. Before Baskin Robbins had 31 Flavors, he had one flavor, and it was fuckin’ Vanilla, man. When Vanilla goes to the bathroom, you know what comes out? That’s right - Chocolate. And if you even mention Strawberry, Vanilla’s gonna take a flamethrower to this place! Case closed.

TNF: What is your advice for the class of 2078?

SL: I’ll be 103 years old by then, so I would have to tell them, “Get the hell off your lazy asses and get to work. Who do you think funds my Social Security check, anyway? And stay the hell off my lawn, or your ass is bacon!”

TNF: Where can we get more Steve Lowe?

SL: Since my books are not yet available to purchase, please patronize this fine establishment: http://www.baskinrobbins.com/icecream/

Or, you can kill some brain cells here: http://stevenelowe.wordpress.com/

And you can go read some of my fiction here: http://darkrecesses.net/?p=1601 and also here: http://bloodybridge.blogspot.com/2010/05/playcations-for-free-by-steve-lowe.html

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The crowd parted for the great Lucchesi. Men in uniforms met his eyes with reverence then averted them in fear. The women, they buckled and moistened, for Lucchesi had come to save the day.

“What have we got, Muldono?” Lucchesi shook a cigarillo from a pack and situated it between his pursed lips. The torch from his Nibo flared in his pupils before disappearing behind a cloud of smoke from the black roll of tobacco.

“Ah, jeezus, Lucchesi, thank God you have come.” Muldono looked up at Lucchesi with sparkling eyes. Lucchesi snarled at the short man, with his thin hair and his sunken sockets and his paunch. This man who is already dead and might as well have his toe tag made out ahead of time.

The same could be said for Lucchesi. The crowds who came to see him work, the people who hovered near their short wave radios and police bands waiting for that one name to crackle through the air, they came for the spectacle. They knew that Lucchesi would one day explode.

Muldono shook a crooked finger at the building. “It is on the first floor, Lucchesi. It is a nasty one. Dirty and crude, but very solid.”

Lucchesi dragged on his cigarillo long and hard. He watched Muldono from the corner of his eye as the man, little more than a middle manager of thugs and back hills corruption, held his breath waiting for a response from the great Lucchesi.

Muldono licked his lips and wiped sweat from his balding head with a stained rag which he stuffed into the front pocket of his uniform.

“You have what you need, yes Lucchesi?”

Lucchesi looked at the front entrance of the building and nodded and waved Muldono away. He resettled his jacket on his broad shoulders and clutched his bag in his left hand. With his right hand, he reached into his coat and produced a pair of D & G Gold Edition sunglasses and slid them on. He heard the tittering from the women in the crowd behind him. They surged against the police barricades, packed together and glistening beneath the hot sun, as though drawn out on this sweltering day by a magnetic force. The men did this, too.

The crowd muttered as he strode for the front door. A man said, “Lucchesi does not sweat. He does not get nervous. That is how he can do what he does.”

A woman said, “My cousin Ophelia says Lucchesi took her to bed and had her from the time the sun rose until it set again. Never once did he tire and when she was near to fainting from the dehydration, Lucchesi was called out to Venice to disarm a gondola bomb, a fortuitous turn which saved her life.”

Lucchesi heard these things and smiled, for they were true. He paused at the entrance of the building and turned so the crowd could see his face once more. His eyes were hidden behind the mirrored glare of his D & Gs, which reflected the setting sun out over the doting people. Then he entered.

From his bag, Lucchesi produced a folded, lead-lined blanket, which he opened and strung across the doorway. Once inside, away from the eyes of the hopeful, fearful crowd, he relaxed and exhaled deeply.

The bomb sat in the middle of the room, wrapped in brown paper covered with postage stampings. The paper was pulled away to reveal the workings of the device. Lucchesi lowered to his knees before it and pulled up his shirt to reveal the tumor. Balled in the hollow of his stomach, the tumor unfolded from its compartment.

This was Lucchesi.

Arms and legs, short and wiry, extended out from the round ball – from Lucchesi. The man from whom he emerged slumped on his knees as though sleeping while Lucchesi flexed the joints of his fingers and hands and knees and opened his eyes. He yawned and reached down his throat to detach the esophagus that ran from him to his vessel. He gently placed the tube back into the stomach cavity, his home.
Lucchesi wobbled forth to his bag and rooted around for his tools. This would be an easy job. Crude and stubborn was this type of device, but simple for one of Lucchesi’s expertise to dismantle.

The man mumbled and bobbed his head forward.

“Quiet now,” Lucchesi told his vessel. “Leave me to my work. We will be done quickly and then we will feast. Did you see the crowd out there? We will enjoy ourselves this night, I think.”

Lucchesi grinned, revealing a toothless mouth that stretched around the sides of his orb-like body. He turned back to the bomb and hummed an aria.

“No… more,” the vessel-man whispered.

Lucchesi did not turn away from his work this time. “No more of what? I told you to be still.”

“Let me be.” The vessel-man flopped forward on his hands, wobbly and weak. His head hung between his shoulders and saliva dripped from his lips. His esophagus dropped from the cavity of his stomach to drag along the dusty floor.

Lucchesi turned with a set of snips in one hand and pliers in the other. “What is this about, then?”

Before he could react, the vessel lurched onto his face and struck out with his left hand. It landed on the jumble of wires protruding from the bomb. The green wire slid free.

The crowd reacted to Lucchesi’s cry; hands covered mouths when his “NO!” shattered the still air. The explosion knocked them to their backsides and stole the breath from their lungs. The blast brought down the entire building in a cloud and the sad people trudged home dusted with terra cotta.

Their hero was gone, and they searched for solace in each other. The streets were quiet that night, the air thick and moist. Babies were born months later, many of whom would bear the name Lucchesi.

"BOOM! Goes Lucchesi"
Copyright: © 2010 Steve Lowe
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Steve Lowe writes dark stuff, except when he doesn’t. His first book, Muscle Memory, will be released in October 2010 as part of the New Bizarro Author Series from Eraserhead Press. His second book, Wolves Dressed as Men, will be released in November 2010 by Eternal Press. His short fiction is forthcoming or has appeared in Drabblecast, Three Crow Press and Allegory, among other places. In his spare time, he asks fellow authors and creative types odd, mostly random questions for something called The 2-Minute Drill.

Ambling along as I’m wont to do, knobby walkin stick juttin from my hand and the crisp mornin' sun warmin' my soul, a peculiar odor snatches up my senses.

“Why, that’s an altogether incongruent aroma pervadin the air on such a fine spring morn as this.”

Then I see him sittin in the park, back against a tree, head a-hangin low, ears a-flopped over and droopin betwixt his fluffy legs. Darned if this ain’t my lucky day. Why, I know right away what this here situation is.

“Say there young fella, what seems to be causin' you sucha great pain when the Lord Almighty has provided as fine a day as this to be celebratin' His glorious benevolence?”

“I’m finished,” says he all slow and doleful like. “Through. Done. Warshed up.”

“Say, if I didn’t know better, I’ve either stumbled upon the sulfurous rim of a burblin volcano, or you gotcher self a mess-a bad eggs in yonder colored baskets.”

Shakes his head and holds up his paws. Laments, he does, in a meanderin' sorta way like you’d suppose a gigantical speakin' rabbit would do. “Oh! It’s awful! Every egg in this year’s batch is ruined! Rotten, rancid rejects! Once that Cadbury bunny showed up with his chocolate eggs, I was on the outs with the kids, and every year since it’s gotten worse, but now this! I’ve had it for sure.”

“Well, now, hang on just a second there young fella,” I tell him. “As it turns out, this just so happens to be your lucky day.”

“Yeah, how’s that? You got about a million painted eggs hiding in your back pocket? I’m done and out of the Holiday business forever. You know of anybody hiring rabbits?”

“Why, friend, don’t tell me that you don’t recognize me.”

“Well, golly mister, I can’t say that I do.”

“Aloisius Cottonbottom, at your service.” I snatch up his paw and give a good, hearty shakin as I’m wont to do with folk.

“Uh, hi Mr. Cottonbottom, I’m the Eas–“

“No introductions necessary Mr. Bunny, of course I know who you are. I also know some of your friends as well. A mister Terry Fingerhut?”

“Uh… Fingerhut? I don’t think I know him.”

“Well sure you do, though he no longer lays claim to the Fingerhut moniker these days. Tooth Fairy ring a bell?”

“Oh yeah, I know the Tooth Fairy! He’s a really good guy.”

“He didn’t always go by the name Tooth Fairy, though. When he came to be in need of my services, he was Terry Fingerhut, and he was havin’ a Devil of a time. Facin' lawsuits and jail time and whatnot. Ain’t many parents out there very comfortable with a fella name of Terry Fingerhut sneakin' into their child’s room in the middle of the night and rootin around beneath their pillow so as to spirit away their dislodged ivories whilst they slumber. But that’s where I come in, ya see?”

“Uh… No. I guess I don’t see.”

“Image my friend. In your particular vocation, the name of the game is Image. That's what I give 'ol Terry Fingerhut. Took him from slinkin' creep to magical Fairy, and not only that, a magical Fairy with a sack of cold hard cash. Hush money if you like, but in the end, everybody's happy and the Tooth Fairy's every kid's hero, all because that's his new Image.”

“Image, huh? You suppose I should get some of that?”

I’m lookin at him a little crossways now. Poor fella musta been huffin too long on them putrefied pastel poultry embryos. “Sure, Image. You don’t rightly know what Image is, do ya there?”

“Uh… well, nope. I suppose I don’t.”

“Ya see,” I says a little bit slower, “Image is how the world looks upon you. It’s how the folks for whom you’re providin' this service see you. For instance, if you go about sendin’ out these here substandard delights, your Image forever more will be rotten eggs. When kids say ‘Easter Bunny’ moms and dads the world over will see rotten eggs. Why, you’ll surely be finished, just as you’re figurin'.”

“Yeah, that’s what I was figuring all right. I’m through.”

“Well now, not so fast. Like I said, this here’s your lucky day. What you need is Aloisius Cottonbottom’s Surefire Image Reconstruction Services.”

“Surefire Image…”

“…Reconstruction Services, that’s exactly right. Offered by yours truly, for a nominal fee, merely a pittance in comparison to the outstanding support, technical know-how, emotional aid, mechanical improvement, and financial guidance that this all-encompassing service will provide.”

“Wow, that’s sounds great. What’s the service again?”

“Image Reconstruction, E.B. A complete overhaul, from top to bottom. We’ll start today and on the third day, you shall rise again, a newer, more powerful Bunny that will have that ‘ol Cadbury feller droppin' something else outta his backside longside them chocolate dandies.”

“Yeah. That’s what I need. Image Redestruction Servicing. That’ll show that little Cadbury fucker. What did you say this will cost again?”

Ah, you’ve got to love the big guy, don’t ya? I toss an arm ‘round his downy shoulders and help him to his feet. Easter’s only three days off. We’ve got work to do.

“Walk with me young fella. I’ve got big plans for you. Do you by chance happen to play any musical instruments?”

"Aloisius Cottonbottom's Surefire Image Reconstruction Services"

Copyright: © 2009 Steve Lowe
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Steve Lowe is a sports journalist and author residing in South Bend, Ind. with his wife and two sons. He writes for the South Bend Tribune, Irish Sports Report and Associated Press, and has been published in several national and regional newspapers and magazines. His fiction has appeared or will soon do so, in The Absent Willow Review, House of Horror, Allegory, and the Dead Bait and Creature Features anthologies. In his spare time, such as it is, Steve plays a serviceable shortstop for various slowpitch softball teams and enjoys writing autobiographical blurbs in the third person.