Mark Murdock

Bewildering Stories biography

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Mark Murdock has suffered from insanity ever since childbirth when his mother was electrocuted by Zeus after revealing himself to her in his full glory. Thus began his Dionysian childhood.

While majoring in rugby and beer, he was himself shocked to learn that he had somehow earned a bachelor’s degree in Engineering. Once again the victim of the gods, Mark was dragged kicking and screaming from campus and out into the cruel world of industry.

What followed next was a twenty-five year succession of moonlighting failures: a cartoonist, a stand-up comedian, a sketch comedy actor and writer, a commercial actor, a screenplay writer, and a novelist. In addition, Mark was trained as a remote viewer and analyst but was promptly fired after viewing Alan Greenspan’s closet full of Versace evening gowns.

Mark returned to college to study communications whereupon he swore off television forever. After a stuporous brain fog lifted, he realized that the media and moreover the world’s governments and institutions were completely controlled by aliens (see John Carpenter’s “They Live”). Alas, there is no truth more self-evident once one unplugs from the matrix...

He then abandoned his material possessions and embarked on a spiritual rebirth using a ‘71 VW camper as a chrysalis. During his nine month gestation he learned to let go of all fear, and trust solely in the Great Unknown. However once he ran out of money he learned to let go of all trust and fear the Great Unknown once again.

Failing to achieve any sort of enlightenment whatsoever, he settled on a worldview that would explain away all of his problems: Conspiracy Theory. Now Mark trusts no one, especially himself. He also sees symbols everywhere, and reckons the universe is omni-interconnected on an infinite number of levels.

When the strings are loosened on his favorite jacket, Mark reads and critiques yarns for Bewildering Stories. He also smuggles his own brand of paranoid writings out of his suburban asylum with the loving support of his far saner wife, Sheila and their perpetually embarrassed children Balla and Kai.

The couple one day hopes to fulfill their life-long dream of becoming medical school cadavers.