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Tall Tales With Short Cocks

by Arthur Graham (Goodreads Author), Adam Millard (Goodreads Author), Nathan J.D.L. Rowark, Wol-vriey (Goodreads Author), John McNee (Goodreads Author), Dominic O'Reilly (Goodreads Author), Gabino Iglesias, Robin Wyatt Dunn , more…

3.7 of 5 stars 3.70 · rating details · 33 ratings · 20 reviews

Tall Tales with Short Cocks is a collection of the weird and the weirder, each story guaranteed to inflate your inner chode to the very limits of its (albeit limited) imagination. Zombies, clockworks, and rabies-infected assholes! An anthology of Bizarro Fiction that will have you thinking "WTF? I gotta read what happens next!"

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Paperback, 189 pages

Published April 19th 2012 by Bizarro Press

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May 13, 2013 Jenn(ifer) rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: the open minded

Recommended to Jenn(ifer) by: art

Shelves: gr-friends-recommend, giggles, own, short-shorts, read-in-2012, my-reviews-that-dont-suck

FREE FOR KINDLE THROUGH SUNDAY!! http://www.amazon.com/Tall-Tales-Shor...

In bizarro land, anything is possible. Walruses talk, trees bear kitten fruit, crabgrass contains real crabs, and motels are made of flesh. The fundamental question I set out to answer was this: Is there such a thing as carrying it too far in bizarro land?

Being the ultimate nerd that I am, I decided to do a little homework before reading this anthology... I needed to familiarize myself with the bizarro genre to know what I...more

42 likes · like · see review

Apr 08, 2013 Richard rated it 3 of 5 stars

This title is now on sale! 99 cents in Kindle format. The revised review and link to the sale can now be seen on Shelf Inflicted!

22 likes · like · see review

May 14, 2013 Arthur Graham rated it 4 of 5 stars · (Review from the author)

An aptly titled collection of short, strange fiction from a grab bag of established and aspiring fringe writers. "Tall Tales with Short Cocks" is billed as a bizarro anthology, presumably for the bizarre nature its stories all share, but readers may be surprised by the variety found within:

HELP! MY ASS HAS RABIES! by Adam Millard
Dead Alive meets The X-Files at McDonald's. Would you like rabies with that?

THE ZOMBIES OF KILIMANJARO by Jon Konrath
In this clever retelling of the Hemingway classic, H...more

15 likes · like · see review

May 11, 2013 Frances rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: reviewed

Did I NOT read this? Yes, I HAD read this once before.

Was I drunk? Of course, silly.

Did I like it? I think I really did. But, I did like TTwSCs Vol. 2 and 3, too.

Get your FREE fun here: http://www.amazon.com/Tall-Tales-Shor...
3.

More AWESOME insane Rooster Republic titles here: http://roosterrepublicpress.com/?page...
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This is the kind of book you remember better when you're drunk. Like, remember not remembering junior year in college? Starting off with the grand plan: PARTY PARTY PARTY. Th...more

10 likes · like · see review

Jun 27, 2012 FabulousRaye rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012, books-i-own, ebooks, reviewed

This book absolutely does not contain any roosters or chickens. What it does have is a collection of Bizarro tales. For me, they ranged from Eh to WOW!

IN THE FLESH by John McNee

A Steampunkish-Noir involving clock work people and a hotel made of flesh. A good story to start off with. I quite liked it.

HELP MY ASS HAS RABIES by Adam Milliard

If OUTBREAK took place in a fast food restaurant with a more ridiculous disease. This is more like early Bizarro, gross and juvenile. Not my favorite type.

ZEITG...more

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Jul 01, 2012 Patrick D'Orazio rated it 4 of 5 stars

Tall Tales With Small Cocks is an anthology from Bizarro Press. It is a series of short stories (along with one poem) that range from bizarro to straight up horror tales. A brief overview of the tales in this compendium:
In The Flesh by John McNee is a mix of steampunk and bizarro, with a mechanical detective on the hunt for a flesh covered woman hiding out at a living, breathing flesh hotel.
Help! My Ass Has Rabies! By Adam Millard tells the story of a fast food employee and an attack of a virus...more Tall Tales With Small Cocks is an anthology from Bizarro Press. It is a series of short stories (along with one poem) that range from bizarro to straight up horror tales. A brief overview of the tales in this compendium:
In The Flesh by John McNee is a mix of steampunk and bizarro, with a mechanical detective on the hunt for a flesh covered woman hiding out at a living, breathing flesh hotel.
Help! My Ass Has Rabies! By Adam Millard tells the story of a fast food employee and an attack of a virus with some teeth to it that rampages through the restaurant where he works.
Zeitgeist by Arthur Graham gives us a parody of the trials and tribulations that come along with trying to get a new TV show produced.
The Zombies of Killimanjaro by Jon Konrath is about a man waiting for the zombie infection to take hold of him after he’s scratch while he sits on Killimanjaro reflecting on his past.
I am a Whale by Robin Wyatt Dunn is a brash poem about the grandeur of a whale and how humans suck by comparison.
Yappy the Happy Squirrel by Dominic O’Reilly regales us with a battle between man and squirrel kind and the god-like melon that would save us all.
MouseTrap by Wol-vriey reads like a bizarro fairy tale with a wind up mouse, an obese house wife and the ungrateful men in her life.
Regressive by Nathan J.D.L. Rowark is a horror story about the elderly taking a miracle drug that ends up turning them into monsters.
The Night of the Walrus by Gabino Inglesias dives into a seedy underworld filled with desperate Walruses, midget gangsters and toasters possessed by the elder gods.
Someone who enjoys both horror and bizarro should find something to enjoy among these tales, though as is the case with every anthology, not all tales resonate equally. Special mention go to In The Flesh, Zeitgeist, and MouseTrap, all three of these stories had their own distinct bizarro flare that brought a twisted smile to my face as I read them. A couple of stories didn’t have any bizarro elements to them and were more pure horror, but that was okay for me as a fan of both genres. There weren’t any duds here, though a couple of the stories didn’t leave me with any lasting memory of them. A few others did leave an aftertaste…and that to me is what is best about short stories-if they have the power to stick with you long after you read them. You’ll get a few of those here. (less)

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Jun 14, 2012 Cassie-la rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012-reads

REVIEW ALSO ON: http://bibliomantics.com/2012/05/24/b......

The anthology opens in a big way with the wonderful, "In the Flesh" by John McNee. It's set in a dystopic, post-apocalyptic world that's populated with robots. The story itself is narrated by a private eye hired by the infamous Clockwork Joe to find his lost love. Ultimately, it's a cautionary tale about the reliance on machinery and our treatment of the earth. We learn about Grungehaven, a city with metal and wooden women and a part of...more REVIEW ALSO ON: http://bibliomantics.com/2012/05/24/b......

The anthology opens in a big way with the wonderful, "In the Flesh" by John McNee. It's set in a dystopic, post-apocalyptic world that's populated with robots. The story itself is narrated by a private eye hired by the infamous Clockwork Joe to find his lost love. Ultimately, it's a cautionary tale about the reliance on machinery and our treatment of the earth. We learn about Grungehaven, a city with metal and wooden women and a part of town that's called "damed" because a rush of water is being held back by an enormous dam. It's also a story of love and redemption, but you'll have to read it for yourself to see how.

Arthur Graham's "Zeitgest" is another stand out piece, and the most involved. You may remember I also reviewed his fantastic story, Editorial on the last Bizarro Blursday. His story revolves around a man pitching his idea for a television series to the network BOX (there is a lot of punning here). BOX, which produces shows like "American Idle", "Blind Mate", "The Biggest Boozer", and "Molested Development" are representative of everything that's wrong with our choice of entertainment. The tale is peppered with fun little digs at real life FOX, like the cudgel toting eunuchs Hannity and Colmes and the yellow skinned cartoon creatures who live and breed inside a fountain. Not to mention the network wanting to take the narrator's pitch and change it completely into a show called "Time Ghost".

"The Zombies of Kilimanjaro" by Jon Konrath is the aforementioned zombie tale. Despite it being set during the rise of zombies, the world isn't much changed, just full of zombies and a military tasked to deal with them. There's still the internet and in turn Facebook and email, plus zombies have even evolved a little and occasionally ride motorcycles. The story itself is narrated by an ex zombie guard (now infected) who regrets not writing down all his life stories when he got the chance. Very sad, but very funny at the same time- especially when you hear the theory that the CIA invented malt liquor to sterilize you. They would do that.

The final story I was incredibly drawn to was Robin Wyatt Dunn's "I Am a Whale", which is a flow of conscious story from the point of view of an angry whale. It's experimental, extremely different, and unlike anything I've ever read- even in this genre. The whale makes outrageous claims that it eats ponies and blonde daughters, created Hermione Granger, and that Harry S. Truman's middle name is Chewbacca. I want this whale to be real so bad you have no idea.

As with other anthologies, it's hard to like every single story found within. I preferred about four of the nine stories (above) to remaining five, but those I did like I enjoyed more than I disliked the stories that weren't so entertaining to me. If that makes any sense at all. I have detailed the plots of these stories below on the off-chance that they speak to you more than they did to me.

"HELP! MY ASS HAS RABIES!" (no relation to Help! A Bear is Eating Me!) by Adam Millard is set at a satirical version of McDonald's called simply, MacReady's. A pair of bumbling FBI agents are transporting a monkey full of a disease known as ass rabies when they stop at this fast food restaurant and the monkey breaks loose. This immediately creates people with carnivorous ass butts (that's not repetitive, that's just what I wrote in my notes) and chaos ensues.

In "Yappy the Happy Squirrel" by Dominic O'Reilly, the plot revolves around a squirrel mansion/sanctuary run by some extremely intelligent rodents and one lonely janitor. In England. Despite housing 2,000 squirrels, two of which are Peruvian piranha squirrels, the Happy Squirrel Sanctuary Mansion doesn't seem to be able to hire more than one man to clean up all that poop.

Wol-vriey's "Mouse Trap" is set in a horrifying world where physics and the laws of nature don't seem to apply. I would call it Pinkie Pie land, but it's much scarier. And bloodier. In this world, parcels deliver themselves with their detachable legs and wings, wind up mice infest your homes, and bookworms that you put in your brains eat up knowledge for you and help you learn. All in all some interesting concepts, but it was a tad weird, even for me.

"Regressive" by Nathan J.D.L. Rowark was the story that I was torn on. I liked the premise and the overarching plot a lot, but I found it difficult to follow the dialogue and therefore separate the characters in my mind. It follows a wonder drug known as D.K. which was created by mixing the psychotropics found in weed, plant life from Mars, and the DNA of an African bear. Since there are no plants on Mars and the African bear (Atlas) went extinct a while ago, this is set in some sort of alternate reality and details the dangers of a drug which prolongs human life.

Finally, "Night of the Walrus" by Gabino Iglesias gives us televisions that work with smell-o-vision, beer that's flavored like cheese, a cat that only sings Frank Sinatra Christmas songs, a talking walrus named Odobie, cyborgs, and the Church of the Super Mario Bros. It's a lot to take in and is noir themed (not my cup of tea) which landed it as one of the less enjoyable stories in the anthology.(less)

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May 06, 2012 Meg rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: don-t-read-while-eating

Tall Tales with Short Cocks suitably impressed me with the sheer range of subject matters than crawled, oozed, and wiggled their way out of the authors' minds. Generally I'm slightly disappointed with books of short stories because there is such a variable level of quality and while a couple stories will stand out, most will just be so so, not so in here, each story begs to be remembered. Added to the "do not read while eating" shelf mostly because of "HELP! MY ASS HAS RABIES!"

"In the Flesh" a...more Tall Tales with Short Cocks suitably impressed me with the sheer range of subject matters than crawled, oozed, and wiggled their way out of the authors' minds. Generally I'm slightly disappointed with books of short stories because there is such a variable level of quality and while a couple stories will stand out, most will just be so so, not so in here, each story begs to be remembered. Added to the "do not read while eating" shelf mostly because of "HELP! MY ASS HAS RABIES!"

"In the Flesh" a 50's detective pulp meets steam and cyber punk with a smidgen of machine-y horror tossed in. It concerns Bailey, a detective tasked with finding a dame (its always about a dame), but not just any dame, one who can only be described as, "Beautiful." His work leads him to a hotel made entirely of flesh. A surprising genre story that I truly enjoyed.

"HELP! MY ASS HAS RABIES!" is a cautionary tale about that can happen to you if you spend school secretly masturbating in your pocket rather than paying attention in school; you end up working in a fast food restaurant with unpleasant coworkers and even worse customers, government agents on a meal break looks a monkey with ass rabies, said monkey infects your coworkers, and your customers, while you foolishly try to distract it with bananas. Truly a fate worse than death.

"Zeitgeist" is the interestingly circular story of Bill Bundy, a man at once hopefully pursuing his dream while at the same time trapped by its realities in a nightmare realm of torture and network executives. It will seem very familiar to those who have worked with committees or in the entertainment industries at all.

Reading this anthology I can't say I was expecting "The Zombies of Kilimanjaro," a take on a Hemingway story, "The Snows of Kilimanjaro." I absolutely despise Hemingway but the addition of zombies helped a little.

"I Am a Whale" is a stream of consciousness from a big brained and vagina-ed whale, a diatribe on how the whale is superior to all else.

"Yappy the Happy Squirrel" was, quite possibly, my favorite of the entire anthology. Finally someone else realizes the very real danger of squirrels and their evil plots to take over the world. Jake, chronically either unemployed, underemployed, or about to be fired, and his flatmate, Craig, decide to do something new on a Saturday night so they meet up with Jake's girlfriend, Sue, to break into The Happy Squirrel Sanctuary Mansion where all is not as it seems, janitors are dead, and an evil red squirrel, convinced of the superiority of grey squirrels, plots the downfall of mankind.

"MouseTrap" is a tale about the dangers of making life altering pacts with windup mice. Betty is stuck in her marriage, her life, and even trapped in her own body until one fateful day when a mechanical mouse is found in the kitchen.

"Regressive" is an argument for more stringent drug testing if I've ever read one. DK is the world's newest superdrug and it is taking the world by storm. Made from martian flora, bear dna, and incorporating the psychotropic properties of marijuana, it revitalizes the aged and seems to be a miracle in pill form to prolong life. Until some nasty side effects spring up and its users transform into homicidal bearlike creatures seeking flesh. Enjoyably fast paced.

And last, but certainly not least, "The night of the Walrus" is a combination of Goodfellas and The Island of Dr. Moreau with just a touch of kitchen appliances. Woogie has been drafted by his large walrus friend, Odobie, to help him pick up a rather large amount of money from Little Joe to give to the feared gangster Two Slice to buy Odobie's way out of a mess of trouble involving bets, drug running, and the eventual redirection of those drugs. (less)

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May 20, 2013 Byron 'Giggsy' Paul rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: bizzaro

A decent collection of stories featuring the absurd and irreal typical of bizzaro works, where comedy and horror merge into the same The collection starts strong with my favorite story 'In the Flesh' by John McNee featuring a living in the flesh hotel that can outfetish its inhabitants. Also features a great story 'Zeitgeist' by Arthur Graham with a writer learning the nonsense on the inside of the cable television industry as he pitches a story to executives. A good intro to bizzaro, but some s...more

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Jul 10, 2012 Scott Emerson rated it 3 of 5 stars

Bizarro Press serves up nine off-the-wall offerings with this anthology, featuring a roster of up-and-coming writers eager to show off their imaginations and descriptive skills. The results are decidedly mixed, but readers with a taste for the weird should find something to their liking here.

Highlights include Jon Konrath's "The Zombies of Kilimanjaro," an unconventional take on the living dead, Wol-vriey's "MouseTrap" (a sordid domestic drama that defies simple description), and John McNee's bi...more

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Jan 04, 2013 Steve Rueffer rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: bizzaro

One of my first adventures into the bizarro fiction universe. Some rewards were gained, while other moments left me wondering why I was wasting my time. To be sure, there were some exceptional stories and ideas in here, but a good half of the stories were a pointless mess. Nevertheless, I will try to read a few more books in the genre. In fact, I have also been reading The Earworm Inception by Jon Konrath and have found it to be a much superior collection.

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May 14, 2013 Michael rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: kindle-e-books, bizarro

If you're looking to see what Bizarro is this is an excellent place to start. This is a solid collection of bizarro fiction that will win over new fans and is another reason why we love this genre so much.

These are tales of the absurd, the warped and the twisted and while it is a quick read it is entertaining as hell

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Jun 27, 2012 Edi rated it 2 of 5 stars

Apocalyptic short fiction with some wierd settings and characters. The most memorable yarn had bionic or trash assemblages as the thinking, mobile creatures of many sharp edges, while "In the Flesh" composed the buildings, walls furniture and bedding. A surviving human claims "I am the motel and the motel is me."

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May 17, 2012 Whitnie rated it 3 of 5 stars

Odd. The best and only word to describe this book. I feel that an adolescent boy would love it! Full of guts and gore and strange twisted stories. While I liked it I would only recommend it to people who are okay with cult fiction type stories. Funny at times and very disturbing at others. Something you really need to be in a mood to read.

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May 12, 2013 David rated it 5 of 5 stars

I really had fun with this anthology. These stories have an amazing amount of imagination and vitality. I enjoyed some more than others, but they were all a lot of fun to read. I still feel fairly new to bizarro literature, but I felt right at home with these stories.

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Mar 20, 2013 Ariana rated it 3 of 5 stars

This book reminds me of tripping on acid. It was good, just because it was so different from anything else I have ever read. It only makes sense if you can make it make sense... if that makes sense...

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May 28, 2013 Melanie Catchpole rated it 4 of 5 stars

Cheese flavoured beer! I am torn, because I think cheese is the best but beer is yucky... How would that work out? Has it been done?! Things I must find out now.

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Jul 13, 2012 Donald Armfield rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: bizarro, ebooks-kindle, from-author, short-stories, rooster-republic

In The Flesh by John McNee
A hotel like no other. Norman Bates you are out of business.

Help! My Ass Has Rabies by Adam Millard
A Horror story that will definitely give your ASS nightmares.

Mouse Trap by Wol-vriey
Mechanical Mouse vs Betty "Mousetrap-Feet" Blake. A kitten tree, crab grass and a winged negro arm. This imagination you must read!

Other Stories with Frozen Zombies, Squirrels, A Walrus in deep shit with the mob and TV show pitching that turns to a bloody mess. BizzaroPress has a round tabl...more

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Jul 18, 2012 NumberLord rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: bizarro, horror

A bizarro horror anthology. The standouts:

In the Flesh

Help! My Ass has Rabies!

Zeitgeist

The Zombies of Kilimanjaro

Mousetrap

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Oct 23, 2012 Etienne DeForest rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: bizarro-press, rooster-republic-press, kindle-lendable, bizarro

Where the truck did my review go? Talk about bizarro... Maybe I used to many curse words and it got deleted or something.

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Jun 18, 2013 Robin Wyatt rated it 5 of 5 stars

Jun 18, 2013 Squire marked it as owned-unread

Shelves: ebooks

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Shelves: owned-unread

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May 23, 2013 K.M. rated it 4 of 5 stars

May 22, 2013 Brian rated it 3 of 5 stars

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About Arthur Graham

Hailing from the north woods of Michigan, Arthur Graham currently resides in Salt Lake City, Utah. He writes his books alone in the dark, usually nude, surrounded by empty bottles and loaded guns.

His style is one that willingly loses itself in the false dichotomy between "genre" and "literary" fiction, with much of it cleaving towards satire and surrealism. His work has been called "clever," "tack...more

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