Reader Buzz
on SWITCH

‘Wow! Loved it … desperately wanted more after racing through the first 130 pages. Fast, thrilling, gripping, scary…When can I read the rest?
— Gavin Hilzbrich

This book is so cinematic . . . due to the punchy dialogue and the succession of crisp, sharp images which drive the narrative forward. I want to read more!
— Sam Eades

This is absolutely brilliant! A very compelling read but I was upset when I got to the last page because I wanted more!
— Jeanette Slinger

I can't stand crime novels that have a long preamble before getting to the action and this one certainly doesn't disappoint in that way. From page one it's straight in there, bish bash bosh and continues on in that vein, so you are frantically turning the pages to find out what happens next.
— Sandra Hawe

The material I read was mad, frantic, super quick and entertaining.
— Martin Higgins

Gripping… Explosive… Page Turning…
And that’s only 140 pages in!!
— Darren Elliot

This was great - I really wanted to read on. Very much made me think of Simon Kernick and Relentless actually - same kind of ordinary guy suddenly finding his life turned upside down when he just comes home from work... Decidedly scary and asks some very dark questions: just how far would you go to save your family?
— Sue Cook

TechnoRetroSexual outs MetroTechnoSexuals

Story & Illustration
By Grant McKenzie

In the business world, people love labels.

Look around any office and you'll see an abundance of permanent and temporary, spoken and unspoken, sticky and licky, labels. Thousands of them.

People will even label their packets of labels so that The Moochers don't try to label their borrowed stuff with borrowed labels and thus confuse The Controllers' whole labeling hierarchy.

But the one thing that throws the manic labelers into total panic is when a new employee enters the building. That employee, you see, is a clean slate.

He or she has no label attached yet, and that causes The Gossips to flurry until the masses can reach a consensus. Is he a dandy? Is she a flirt? Is he a geek? Is she a propeller head? Brown noser, rebel, hippie, control freak, narc, himbo, mucus trooper . . . .

The list goes on.

Now for most of us, the label becomes affixed to our foreheads before we're even aware of it. Take the last cup of coffee without brewing up a new pot and you're instantly labeled an inconsiderate bastich; wear jockeys on Boxer Mondays and you're the stick in the mud; insist on showing up for work even when you have a cold or flu and you're a mucus trooper.

But it seems that, like so many labels, it's too easy to judge a person on only one aspect of their personality. If a man is single, thin, loves to hum "I feel pretty" and is neatly groomed, it's easy to label him homosexual even if he's actually straight.

To avoid being unfairly labeled, these dapper gents have coined their own label - Metrosexual, which definitely has a better ring to it than "in denial." The official definition of metrosexual according to WordSpy.com is: (met.roh.SEK.shoo.ul) n. An urban male with a strong aesthetic sense who spends a great deal of time and money on his appearance and lifestyle.

Now back in the far-flung '80s, we called these well-groomed citizens Preppies if they were spending their parents' money to look good, and Yuppies if they earned their own.

Mark Simpson officially coined the phrase metrosexual back in 1994 when writing about GQ magazine, but it has only recently flowed through enough media channels to become an official catch phrase for the label freaks.

Unfortunately, now that metrosexual is all the rage with clotheshorse narcissists and flaming heterosexuals, other subgroups are demanding their own specialized labels.

The stylish geek, it seems, is no longer an oxymoron. Men of style and tech sophistication, who can afford laser eye surgery as well as book tickets on their PDA for a football game one night and an art gallery the next, now want to be thought of as Technosexuals.

Like you, dear reader, I also thought this meant they wanted to have sex with robots, but the official definition, according to technosexual.org is: (TEK.noh.sek.shoo.ul) n. dandyish narcissist in love with not only himself, but also his urban lifestyle & gadgets; a straight man who is in touch with his feminine side but has fondness for electronics such as cell phones, PDA's, computers, software, and the web.

Hmmm, that definition didn't actually rule out sex with robots, did it?

Even those men who are scared of hair gel and haven't updated their wardrobe since they last interviewed for a job have been given their own label - Retrosexual.

Although WordSpy defines retrosexual as: (ret.roh.SEK.shoo.ul) n. A man with an undeveloped aesthetic sense who spends as little time and money as possible on his appearance and lifestyle, Margaret Wente of The Globe and Mail has a simpler definition. "A retrosexual is simply someone who doesn't know the difference between teal and aqua, and frankly couldn't give a damn."

Although it's human nature to want to define others by a simple label, I've personally never felt comfortable with it.

For example, while waiting at the local pool to drive my daughter home from swim club, one of the other parents asked what I did. I told him I was a "Dad" because that was the label I was wearing at that moment. That answer didn't satisfy him, so he pressed further. What did I do besides being a father, he wanted to know.

The real answer was a lot of things: husband, friend, cook, cleaner, joker, skier, reader, etc. But none of those labels would have satisfied either.

What he was really asking was how I earned my living, but even that can't be summed up in one word. I am an author, a columnist, a poet, an artist, a graphic designer, and more. Some of those jobs create income, others don't, but they're all equally important.

"I work from home," I answered finally. "What about yourself?"

"Engineer," he said proudly.

I nodded. His label told me so little about himself, yet it seemed to make him happy to say it aloud.

I thought of pressing further and quipping, "Are you metro, retro or technosexual?" But he was uglier than me and I worried that if he misunderstood my inquiry, I just may end up bleeding on the floor.

Perhaps that's the real reason people prefer their uncomplicated, one-word labels.

Short Stories

An author Q&A,
plus my short Out of Order
appeared in Spinetingler's Summer 08 issue.

My short White Volcano appeared in
Out Of The Gutter 2

My short Ragamuffin Girl appeared in Spinetingler's Summer 07 issue.

My short She Remembers The Future appeared in The Late Late Show's Summer 03 issue.