WHAT IS RELIGION?
I have been thinking about this serious subject for about the last few minutes and here are my conclusions. You are what you believe. Is that too trite?

hope that helps

SKIN #5
A new day, a new poem. No, this is not something I daily intend to do. No, it's not something Hertzan Chimera intends to do, is it Mike? No, Hertzan, my mind partner, it's not. Wait a minute, who are you? Who? Me? No, you, Star Jewel Smith? I'm the girl who wrote SKIN with you, Hertzie. I run POETIC INHALATION - are you asleep? I told you all this before. Remember? Four or five times at least. I have detailed records, you see, of our involvement; our constitution: here's our fifth amendment, Mike, I mean Hertzie. I mean...

full lips
cusp the glass
hips in heat
sway to a tribal beat
excited nipples
turgid by the shine of his blade

I was there, secreted
under the skin
a riddle of broken dreams in an
upchuck of rotting hunger
the mind maggot
opener

the first incision was a daydream
of blue
strobing lights outside
the ripped net curtain of this
cheap motel
her throat pulsing to the same dark tune

eyes half closed
vicious smile begging
tighten the collar

room spinning
legs spreading
deep 'tween the passage
from mortal to immortal
burning

finger in her pie
pulling out plums
eye-dicer
love-biter
police siren rider

you can read more tales of twisted love in BizarrBooks SKIN

EROTIC-MATH FICTION - WHAT'S YOUR HC NUMBER?
Most practicing mathematicians are familiar with the definition of one’s Erdös number [that is actually a long Hungarian umlaut over the “o” but we will represent it here by the ordinary two-dot umlaut available in html]. Paul Erdös (1913–1996), the widely-traveled and incredibly prolific Hungarian mathematician of the highest caliber, wrote hundreds of mathematical research papers in many different areas, many in collaboration with others. His Erdös number is 0. Erdös’s co-authors have Erdös number 1. People other than Erdös who have written a joint paper with someone with Erdös number 1 but not with Erdös have Erdös number 2, and so on. If there is no chain of co-authorships connecting someone with Erdös, then that person’s Erdös number is said to be infinite.

In honour of Erdös' collaborative classification, I have researched the first few HC NUMBERs based on direct creative (written or aritstistic) collaborations with Chimera. Use the list below to find your connection to the lower HC numbers. What's your HC number?

HC0 = Hertzan Chimera (of course).

HC1 = Alex Severin, Chad Goulding (a long-time collaborator who proposed this classification), Mitch Philllips (artist), MF Korn, DF Lewis, Paul Pinn, Greg Wharton, Simon Logan, Mark Mclaughlin, Destiny West, Queenie Tirone, Wrath James White, David C Kopaska-Merkel, Stewart Shelley, Vanda Ashante, Brutal Dreamer, Charlee Jacob, Dawn Andrews, Christina Sng, Dave Mathew, Amy Grech, Paul Kane, Vincent Sakowski, the Wordhunger crew, Doll Yoko, John Edward Lawson, Star Jewel Smith, Sean Simmons (artist), Marc Sanchez, John B Ford + Sarah Crabtree (story coming soon)...

HC2 = Kailleaugh Andersson (Alex Severin), Edward Lee, Monica J O'Rourke (both Wrath James White), PF Jeffery, Tim Lebbon, Margaret B Simon, Simon Woodward, Simon Clark, Richard Gavin, Scott Urban, Kirk S King, Gary Couzens, Gordon Lewis, Rhys Hughes, Marni Scofidio, Craig Sernotti, Stuart Hughes, Allen Ashley, Chris Pelletiere, Anthea Holland, Jeff Holland, Keith Brooke, Lawrence Dyer, David Price, Paul Bradshaw, Andy Busby (all DF Lewis), Mythspinner, Dave Bowlin (both Brutal Dreamer), Arthur David Spota, Richard Dotson, Perry McGee, Abel Diaz, Jennifer Barnes, Chris Danaher, J. Scott Malby, Satan165, Justynn Tyme (all John Edward Lawson), Mark Roberts, David-John Tyrer, Christopher Teague, Jeff Vandermeer, Daniel Antil, Trevor Conn, Robin Gilbert (all wordhunger), Michael McCarty, Michael Kaufmann, Lou Badillo, Eric S. Brown, Craig Sernotti, Rain Graves, Matt Cardin (all Mark McLaughlin), Andrew Lundwall (Star Jewel Smith), F. Paul Wilson, Paul Bradshaw, Eddie M. Angerhuber, Gary Greenwood, John Pelan, Tim Lebbon, Steve Lines, Derek M. Fox, L.H. Maynard & M.P.N. Sims, Thomas Ligotti, Ramsey Campbell, Joseph S. Pulver Snr, Steven Lee Climer, Jeffrey Thomas, Paul Finch, Michael Pendragon, Brian Stableford, David Price, (having checked with John B Ford that the round robin work Sailing Into Night is a proper collaboration) Joseph S. Pulver Snr, Michael Cisco, Scot Peacock, Ann K. Schwader, Thomas Wiloch, Steve Rasnic Tem, Matt Cardin (all John B Ford)...

HC3 = Donna Kuhn, Michael Rothenberg, Louise Landes Levi, Kenji Siratori, Eileen Tabios, Trupthi, Mark Kuhar, Alex Gildzen, Paul Skyrm, Kim Vandorsten, Cynthia Plum (all Andrew Lundwall), Kevin L Donihoe (Satan 165)

my gamble at this point is that even writers like the great Stephen King, Clive Barker and William Gibson are a HC6 or less... :)

BRAND NEW LOOK FOR CHIMERA'S HORRORWORLD MESSAGE BOARD
For those of you who have never ventured across the pond, Hertzan Chimera has a wicked message board on the HORROR WORLD website in the States. There you can leave H.C. a message and chew some fat or just laze about in the cross-eyed miasma that is THE INTERNET. It has just been given a major graphical overhaul and this more-industrial-surrealism style is soon to be reflected in an overhaul of the Hertzan Chimera Website itself.

green is good - isn't that what Gordon Gekko said? :)

HERTZAN CHIMERA ACCEPTS THE COLUMNIST OFFER
God bless Camp Horror. They be running with an exclusive INTERVIEW of all things Chimlike, and a few very favourable reviews of the latest Chimproduct, in the forthcoming April Issue. Not only that, I was in the THWN chat room just last night and Rick Mohr (the editor of Camp Horror zine) offered me the chance to become a columnist for his site. I sent him some sample documents and already he has accepted one particularly Kinky Kolumn for the forthcoming April issue - this premier camp horror column "UBIQUITOUSLY, H.C." may be familiar to one or two or you, but it's aired for the first time in its entirety on CAMP HORROR.

that's the result of the day!

CHIM+HIM - THE TWINS HAVE BEEN SPLICED OUT
I did mention in an earlier post that Chimera is taking over from his human body (Philbin). Part of this process involved people in bars or at author conventions calling me by my Chimera-name and me denying this truth. "I am not my writer name!" I yell. Well, I thought it was time to OUT the little fucker, see how he likes it. By splitting a face-on image of Mike Philbin and creating two faces from the reflected halves, I have unveiled the true face behind the keyboard name Hertzan Chimera.



he's out there now, but I still can't tell which one is which....

FELLOW BLOGGERS
You may notice a slight redesign to the right hand side of this blog. That's because the community of horror bloggers has been uniting its message, unifying its fire and other stuff that rhymes with BLOG EXCHANGE. More horror bloggers linking to more horror bloggers means more choice for the reader and more readers for the blogger.

I acquiesced and BLOGLINKER'd myself up...

THE COAT OF MANY CUNTS

she could see nothing, hear nothing, smell nothing.
she pondered this dark smelly new reality.
abandoned to this new credo, she could do nothing about her plight.

she felt a spasm of movement all around her.
voices began to awaken.
feared for her sanity when she realised she was not alone in the dark.

he spoke to her without words, not in the human sense of words.
she understood every ‘word’.
so wet and warm and exquisite.

it was the first time she had felt such a rush of understanding.
she was instantly on fire.
a new piece of her inner topology reached out into the dark like a rod.

she felt her new framework start to tatter and bleed.
the pain was like sitting on a hot, sharp spike.
if she had ears, she would be digging the workings out with painted claws.

her whole body mass was weeping blood as the pain turned to physical trauma.
then she broke.
like shards of shattered fleshly glass, shattered with pain and blood passing.

his words ceased; no more whisperings of ecstatic comfort in the dark.
the coat of many cunts opened sending burning light across her tender membranes.
she would never believe she could be so easily discarded.

she saw his still erect cocks pounding with scrotal potential.
she saw cuntjuice glistening cocks falling limp now as he rubbed a soap stone all over
she wanted that man in her coat of many cunts once more.

but the coat of many cunts is a trinket, a diamond sticking up out of manure.
no one owns it, no one can ever possess it, no matter how the coat may need the wearer.
she watched the sun setting on the scene and wondered where this hell would take her.

the original version of “coat of many cunts” first appeared in the Chimera/Severin collaborative collection B.F.G.S., available from Massacre Publishing.

MIKE PHILBIN - SENIOR ARTIST MENTION
Just found this one. Some things are worth the wait. A mention for Hertzan Chimera's physical bodyparts in the form of an XBOX walkthrough on this official XBOX.IGN.COM preview.

nice

MIKE PHILBIN - VIDEO REVIEWER
Hey, for those who don't know (and there may be thousands of you out there) I moonlight as Mike Philbin, video reviewer for Video Vista. I like to be sent films that aren't normally reviewed or given air, hence this ecclectic collection:

BATTLE ROYALE.
SHALLOW HAL.
FINAL FANTASY.
TIERRA.
SEX IS COMEDY.
THE MAN WHO SUED GOD.
A WEATHER WOMAN.
DOLLS.
AUDITION.
THE DREAM LIFE OF ANGELS.
Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN.
REQUIEM FOR A DREAM.
ROMANCE.
THE HUNTED.
PI.
LIVE FLESH.
GHOST WORLD.
BANDE A PART.
CLAY PIGEONS.
SALTON SEA.
POSSESSION.
LE MEPRIS.
INTACTO.
ELEMENT OF CRIME.
HARRISON'S FLOWERS.
IRREVERSIBLE.
HUMAN NATURE.
FEAR OF THE DARK.
SOCIETY.

this is the first time I've ever seen them all together in one place - quite a list

AUTHOR PAUL PINN RATES CHIMERA'S "FIVE HORNED BULL"
At first I thought the opening graphic was a blood-splattered mammoth, then when I started reading I realized it was Hertzan Chimera doing the business. I was struck by the similarity between HC and Des Lewis, not in style or content, but in the desire to play with words, to over-construct input for the senses, the bibliobrain, and in his case, the groin. Overload, overkill, overshoot until you wonder what the devil is going on, what it's all about, what you are doing there. It spawns questions like: Is HC's wife at his mercy or is he impotent? For he is not normal so cannot have sex with the frequency and passion of normal folk, who do it in normal beds bought from normal shops in normal towns and cities. Does he keep his wife chained up in some awful kitsch-coloured cellar? Does he try out all this stuff he describes before he describes it? Do any psychiatric reports exist? Has he eaten the child seen in the photo that once adorned his website? If not, will this child grow to be like HC? Is the child the beginning of a dynasty designed to obliterate the moral majority and replace it with drug-induced perversions and laws that make it illegal to have normal sex in normal beds bought from normal shops in normal towns and cities? Is it right that the author should have his personal life commented upon. Does HC have a personal life separate from that of his creator? What is his work doing to me? Can I escape it or have I been chosen to suffer the indignities of his imagination for ever and ever Amen?

I can't work out if he liked the story or not :)

RED HEDZ 2004 - SCREENPLAY
Well, that's done. The first draft (officially) of the old text-format 1993 script RED HEDZ has been redone. It is now in full SCRIPT MAKER format, untidied, there were 117 pages of it. Pretty exhausting work formating a text document into script format, all that SCENE HEADING, CHARACTER NAMING and SUCH.... I left out much of the camera work and other transitions, concentrating instead on making it as readable and visual as possible. I went through it with a fine-toothed comb as there were a few lingering problems with the way it was originally adapted from my eponymous 1990 novel. I tightened up the 117 page version and, as predicted, it came out at 110 pages; that's 1 hour 40 minutes onscreen approximately.

I am determined to get this first full screenplay just right, it's off now with a fellow writer for a dialogue pass on it to make sure it's crisp and clean and modern THEN it's off on it's way to PAUL VERHOEVEN for appraisal.

this is gonna knock his socks off

WHAT IS HERTZAN CHIMERA?
This question dawned on me only recently. Okay, we all know that Hertzan Chimera is a name I dreamt up to write stuff under. It is a special costume that explores the unstaunchable gook that pours out of my broken head. It is a name I use to classify&categorise the writing world with relation to those I have collaborated with. But it is also the name I gave to a scientific principle of light travelling backwards and Universal Equil-librium. But it is also an amalgam of silly things that take my fancy like zero and infinity, like crazy advertising campaigns, like.

I use the name Hertzan Chimera but have no real idea what it is, as an entity. It occurs to me most when fellow writers who I will meet periodically at writer conventions and pub get-togethers in London and wherever that I AM NOT PHYSICALLY HERTZAN CHIMERA. At least I don't feel comfortable being addressed publicly as Hertzan Chimera. I am the person who thought up the character Hertzan Chimera fair enough but, though I want it or not, that Frankenstein's monster is getting a life of its own.

Only recently, one magazine editorial quoted my paintings from the late eighties and early nineties were the work of Hertzan Chimera. Well, they weren't. I wasn't using the media currency 'Hertzan Chimera' back then, this alter-ego hadn't inflated to that great a volume then :) But that bastard, that charalatan, that ill-conceived creation, Chimera, is taking over - I can sense him plotting my actual demise. My "official" website has had 13,000 hits in the last few years but I get very little feedback from readers ... I do not know how many dedicated readers Hertzan Chimera has but everyone is beginning to know who Hertzan Chimera is. Maybe they know more than me? I should ask them to tell me what I am. There may be more well thought out ideas of my psyche out there, my pattern, my theology.

One day I will sign this blog AS Hertzan Chimera with total conviction that that is what and who I am. I will refuse to answer to my real name in public. I will have been consumed by my own creation, lost in commercial denial.

I can sense that day approaching with masochistic inevitability