Two stories dominating the news this week have been setting a major tone for the upcoming presidential election. First, Barack Obama became the first sitting president ever to acknowledge that gays and lesbians should be allowed to marry each other. This was closely followed by the revelation that in his high school days, Mitt Romney was a gay-bashing bully in high school. Just when I think I couldn’t be any prouder of this fine young man (I get to call him that, since he is the first President in history to be younger than me) he goes and does something like this. Kudos to the greatest President the United States has ever known.

Mutt Romney, on the other hand, decided he didn’t like the way one student, presumed to be gay, was wearing his hair back in his high school days before the earth cooled. So he and a bunch of his “good ol’ boy” friends chased him, tackled him, and held him down while Romney took a scissors to his hair. Okay, I’d be willing to write this off as a case of “boys will be boys” except that when confronted with this episode from his past, Romney just laughed it off.

So what’s my problem? Before I explain what’s so wrong about this, I need to make a confession.

I was a bullied child in school, but there were also times when I was the bully. That’s right, I was a bully sometimes, usually trying to earn the acceptance of the other bullies. Two people from my childhood come to mind: my friend Stephen Basile, who I now believe was developmentally delayed and who fell completely out of reality into a fantasy world because of years of abuse, not only from his peers (including me once or twice) but the parents who treated him like garbage. The other was Mark Willis, a friend of mine who, in my senior year of high school, came out to me. Out of fear of my own gayness, I proceeded to spread his secret all over the school. That’s right, I outed him. There were probably others. I am not proud of this; quite the contrary, it’s probably my greatest shame.

I’m not laughing about it. To this day, these episodes of cruelty and malice eat at my conscience. Anyone who can look back at something like that and laugh is obviously devoid of conscience, unfit to be called a human being, let alone President of the United States.

OBAMA 2012 – FOUR MORE YEARS!

This third installment, Let Us Prey, picks up where Sport of the Gods left off. It overlaps a little, actually. January 1974: As the story opens, Nick’s father is beside himself with remorse over abandoning his son during the darkest hour. When he confesses his sins to the parish priest, the Monsignor tells him that the absolution he seeks cannot come from him; it must come from Nick.

Nick just wants to try and forget the past year and get on with his life. But he is plagued with inner demons as a result of his traumatic ordeal, and almost angrily lashes out at a friend who inadvertently triggers a flashback. He’s an emotional wreck, but he’s been trying to compensate with a strict workout regimen. The once tall, skinny Iceman has become a muscular stud, but deep down inside he’s just a frightened little boy.

Meanwhile, Nick has a job to do. He’s been reluctantly promoted to editor of the college newspaper and has to assemble a new staff, one of whom is an overly-religious zealot who just won’t shut up about what Nick calls his “imaginary friends.” Meanwhile, students on campus are beginning to behave strangely. The staff holy-roller attributes this to satanic possession, but Nick suspects something darker and more evil is going on in the science department. All the while, Nick battles his inner demons … and can’t help noticing when the same demons set their sights on his little brother! Something unholy is going on at church, and Nick digs to get the the bottom of the whole sordid mess … then he has to get the parents who already doubted him once to believe him!

Oh, and did I mention that there’s a hurricane coming?

This is the first volume in the series where I did the cover completely by myself. The cover painting is based on a photograph I took of St. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans. History buffs will appreciate the little bits of actual history I threw in for verisimilitude (I really like that word!) like the pardon of Richard Nixon. Nick and his new staff will get that news a day or two late, as the same night Gerald Ford made his address to the nation, Hurricane Carmen was bearing down on the Louisiana coastline. (You might remember it as the same hurricane Gary Sinise faces off against in Forrest Gump, and I give a little wink to the good folks over at Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. I’m not trying to plagiarize Forrest Gump, we just happen to be working from the same history book.)

It’s available in paperback or for Kindle. I’d like to make it available to other reader formats once I figure out how to do that. You can find all of my titles — including previews of coming titles — in my Online Bookstore.

This is a new Iceman who returns to continue his studies. Determined to never be a victim again, Nick has bulked up and worked out, and he’s now strapping and muscular. But deep inside, he’s still a hurt little boy doing battle with his inner demons. Nick knows what it’s like. That’s why he’s the only one who notices when it starts happening to his little brother!

Nothing like a little good-old Catholic bashing, though this story is a bit less blasphemous than “Saturday Night With The Virgin Mary.”

The final chapter of the University of the Damned series, Iceman, is coming in June.

All four books in the series have been written, and I had been planning on publishing one every three months and ending the saga with the final book of the University of the Damned series. But like an addict, I just can’t give up my habit.

So I’ve written another book. I’m billing it as the Final Chapter in the Iceman saga, though it probably won’t be. So far, the Iceman’s adventures have been set in the 1970s, his high school and college days. For this story, Come Hell and High Water, I turn the clock forward to 2005. Nick still lives in New Orleans, where he is the publisher and editor of a local alternative newspaper. He is still married to Donna and they have three children. Nick is fifty-one now, so I could relate to him a little more since that’s how old I am right now. I have a little fun with that, because he has a sometimes endearing (though more often annoying) habit of picking up phrases and buzzwords from “kids these days.” His most recent acquisition is “Awesome sauce!”

Nick has staffed his newspaper with many of his comrades from his college days, and the team is still together covering the news of the New Orleans scene with a decidedly liberal bent. His firstborn son has a big surprise in store for his father’s birthday, but I won’t spoil that here. But the gods have an even bigger surprise, waiting just over the horizon.

Its name is Katrina.

I did a lot of research to get ready for writing this book, including getting stories of family and friends down there. But the biggest help of all came from closer to home: two Minnesota storm chasers marched into the heart of Katrina and captured some jaw-dropping video that let me see for myself the fury that raged through New Orleans and Biloxi on what has come to be known as “Black Monday.”

I’m so excited about this book that I am accelerating the publication schedule on the others. I had planned to release Book 3 of the University series in June, but I’m moving that up to May 1. The final book, scheduled for September, is now going to be released on June 1. The reason I am doing this is because I have a special release date planned for Come Hell and High Water. Look for it on August 29, 2012, the seventh anniversary of Katrina.

I’m really pleased with how it turned out. It’s awesome sauce!