By Kelvin M. Brisco
The following review will be published in the Nov. 21 issue of "The Blythewood Leader."

Josh Vassallo is a native of Columbia, South Carolina. His book, “Magic Marker Mustache Mayhem and other True Stories,” is a collection of humorous short stories that takes you along on a radical view of the journey of life. The short stories are all separate events but are tied together through one man’s experiences. That man is Mac, a person who tells us true stories and illustrates the funny side of life.

In the opening story, you are introduced to Mac’s best friend, his roommate D-Love. He is an eccentric character. He is paranoid about his DVD collection and locks every movie away in a safe. Mac has continually been warned to stay away from the safe but becomes obsessed with his roommate’s collection. He unsuccessfully attempts to break into the safe while D-Love is out of town. He then hires a locksmith to open it up and spends the entire weekend rummaging through and looking at D-Love’s prize possessions. Upon D-Love’s return, he soon learns that the consequence of breaking his roommate’s trust is a magic marker mustache drawn on his upper lip, hence the title of the short story collection. Josh shows he has a sense of humor, as the story is very funny and really draws you into the book. I feel this story is a perfect beginning to the collection because it highlights Josh’s writing style?outrageous, clever, and witty.

Another bizarre character is Mac’s cousin, Leroy. He continually takes advantage of Mac and gets him involved in crazy situations. He invites Mac to lunch only to have him pay for it. He suggests throwing Mac and his fiancée an engagement party only to have him host and cook for the party. He coerces Mac to come to his apartment to help him clean up and do laundry. On another occasion, Leroy and Mac are at the bowling alley, and Mac gets at upset stomach from eating Nachos. Instead of using the bowling alley’s bathroom, Mac lives close by and decides to go home. It is a scene that is familiar to us all. Mac is trying to make it home to his bathroom (amongst slow drivers, traffic lights, finding the right house key, etc.), and he really really really has to go. The incident is described perfectly, and I do not know the last time I laughed so hard at a book.

Another funny character that got my attention is Mac’s coworker, Ethel. She does not know his name after working with him for three years, referring to him as Mike instead of Mac. She is not willing to switch lunch times with him and go an hour later, believing that she would die of starvation if she could not go at her usual time of 12:00. In fact, when Mac calls to say he is not coming in to work, instead of being concerned about his health, her only concerned is how this is going to mess up her lunch schedule. The episodes are reminiscent of my workplace relationships and are incredibly funny.

Some of the situations described in the book are hilarious. I actually laughed aloud as I was reading this book. However, you definitely have to be a person who can think outside the box to enjoy this collection, for Josh’s stories are really exaggerated. You have to be able to relate to the experience in order to recognize the absurdity of the situation. I believe that Josh Vassauo is a remarkable writer. He writes outrageous short stories that I find to be very interesting and quite funny. His collection of short stories has a way of bringing you along on his weird journey and adventures of life. You can tell that these could be true occurrences, but are undoubtedly exaggerated. I do believe the characters and stories are based on people and events from his own life. I am sure we all have a cousin like Leroy, a friend like D-Love, or a co-worker like Ethel, and we all have had experiences like these. Josh’s twist is that he shows you the humor of it all. I believe, as he does, that it is good to find the humor in situations like these. Sometimes, you just have to laugh at yourself. In his embellishment of true experiences, he has discovered the art to making us laugh. Just like the title, the “magic” of Josh Vassallo is that he has found an interesting way to incorporate “humor” and “truth” in his collection of short stories.

By Barbara Blackburn
Assistant editor, "Knights of the Dinner Table" magazine.

When I received a copy of "Magic Marker Mustache Mayhem," for review, I wasn't sure about it, but I had it on very good authority that it was, “…the funniest book ever written.”

In spite of this, I was skeptical. This attitude didn’t last long, for as soon as I began reading, I became engrossed in this hilarious world of maniacs and misfits, where it’s a major trial just to buy a pair of pants, and bowling alley nachos wreak all sorts of havoc.

A wacky, wonderful world of exquisitely twisted characters revolves around its pathetic, but somehow loveable, main character, “Mac” and his unsuccessful attempts to survive his relationships with at least a shred of self respect. The characters are so dead-on dysfunctional, they make Jerry Seinfeld and his friends look like rocket scientists.

From Troy, the Naughty Wizard to the mysterious, and sometimes menacing roommate, D-Love, the characters took me for a gleeful journey that I will not soon forget. My personal favorite, “Cousin Leroy” is something of a loveable, clueless slob whose greatest joy in life is adding to his collection of B-grade, bargain bin action DVDs, and who starts every sentence with the word, “dude.” Josh Vassallo has created a remarkably funny, endearing, pathetic world that somehow makes the reader feel better for having visited it.

By Scott Elingburg
The following article was printed in the October 10th issue of The Beat in Greenville, SC.

Is Magic Marker Mustache Mayhem and Other True* Stories by Josh Vassallo a work of fact or fiction? Well, the asterisk in the title can tell you everything you need to know about Vassallo’s self-published collection of true* tales; anyone gullible enough to believe these stories probably doesn’t have a good grip on reality. Or maybe they do. It’s hard to tell and Vassallo isn’t helping; he ends every story with the proclamation “True Story,” but I’m still not convinced.

I am convinced, however, that the Columbia-based Vassallo is a Robert Fulghum for the quarter life crisis generation. Instead of learning everything he needed to know in kindergarten, he learned it in college. And then, like any good college graduate, he used his intellect and wit to write a collection of stories that will one day change the way we view society and win him the Nobel Prize for Literature. If, of course, he can find some pants that fit him.

The thin veil separating fact from fiction in this collection is Vassallo’s blatant and often laugh-out-loud humor. He’s an observer, like all good authors, with a keen eye for stating what we all see and then warping it through his kaleidoscopic mind. The tangle of a society that is truly absurd at heart is what Vassallo portrays and the subjects are individuals such as roommates with unhealthy DVD collecting obsessions, cousins who are eager to show off their new miniature grills, and a mother who’s as loving and sympathetic as a Kinko’s/FedEx employee. They’re characters that we all know and they’re a part of us for better or for worse. Luckily Vassallo has opted to laugh along with them, even though the joke is always at his expense.

Take, for instance, the episode where our hero receives an invitation (delivered by a trained hawk, no less) to attend the second birthday of “Princess Perfection” hosted by her parents “King and Queen Perfect” at their residence the “Perfect Palace.” Our hero’s tragic flaw in this episode is wearing white after Labor Day and the consequences involve a broken bottle of tequila to the head—an action he seems to be expecting.

But I’m not doing the prose justice. Observe the description of the “Perfect Palace”:

My brother had transformed his house into a golden palace surround by a moat filled with sparkling mineral water and rose petals. The drawbridge was a rainbow…Just for clarity, it wasn’t a rainbow colored drawbridge. It was an actual, honest to god, rainbow. I didn’t think that would be physically possible but somehow, with my brother writing a big enough check, the engineering team from NASA made it happen.

The vignettes in this collection are of the popcorn variety; they’re quick, flavorful, and provide just enough sustenance until you can cram the next bit into your mouth. Not every story is a hit (some stories border on that awkward, crude Kevin Smith humor that had worn thin by Dogma) but there are plenty of gems here to make it more than worthwhile.

Humor is one of those genres not many write well - most writers don’t even attempt humor because of its complexity. If you need further proof of this walk into any bookstore and compare literary titles. Ditto for movies at Blockbuster. And Vassallo isn’t Mark Twain, yet. But he could be on par with David Sedaris if he keeps at his craft. And that would be something that even he could laugh about - at his own expense of course.