Mark Tyree: 1958-2020

I have to go back to the year 2000 to properly tell the story of Mark Tyree and his impact on my life and upon the horror fiction community.

The Internet wasn't brand new at the turn of the century, but it becoming affordable for most people to use.

People used the Internet to communicate in various ways back then, but the most common form of interaction was through use of message boards. Message boards are all but gone now, but there were thousands and thousands of them. It was a whole new form of human communication and we embraced it.

I was given a board devoted to horror fiction at a site called Horror.net. It was a great set of forums and I was proud to have a spot there. My Book Forum started out relatively slow, but things accelerated quickly. I was an enthusiastic and frequent user and people joined in and followed suit.

One guy came on and he immediately made an impression. Mark Tyree said he was searching for message boards to discuss horror fiction. He visited some, but when he came to the Horror.net Book Forum he saw a thread about writer Chet Williamson. Mark told me that he knew right away that this was the place for him. I cannot think of a better way to embark on a friendship with another reader than that.

There were a number of us there at Horror.net at the beginning, but it grew in popularity. Mark was one of the most distinctive voices on the board. Those who encountered him were unlikely to forget him.

I'll be forthright. Mark could be coarse. He could be offensive. He was often highly inappropriate. Those who did not know the man could assume that he was a bigot and a heartless lout.

I got to know Mark Tyree very well. He was a lot of things, but a bigot he was not. The thing with him was, nothing was too sacred for him to laugh at. Even himself. Especially himself.

Mark Tyree loved reading and he loved horror. He was also a devotee of crime fiction, and he adored the likes of Joe R. Lansdale, Ken Bruen, Harry Crews, Bill Pronzini, Don Winslow, James Elroy. He also knew his stuff about horror, citing writers like Thomas Tessier, John Farris, Skipp and Spector, and others as favorites.

I interacted with Mark on the boards a lot, and I also exchanged thousands of emails with him. We also spoke on the phone often. I smile when I think back to our very first conversation. A mutual friend gave me his number. He did not know my voice. I called and it went something like this:

Tyree: Hello
Me: I saw what you did.
Tyree: What?
Me: I saw what you did.
Tyree: WHO IS THIS??
Me: You aren't going to get away with it.

By then I was laughing at his obvious terror and I identified myself. "YOU ASSHOLE!", he roared.

Yeah, we were friends.

I met him in the flesh one time. Just once. It was a hell of an experience.

This was in 2001, at the first Horrorfind Weekend Convention, by the Baltimore-Washington DC airport. The first of many great shows. I was to share a room with Mark Tyree and another con member. Mark Tyree showed up around 6:00 on Friday evening. He was wearing an eye-watering Hawaiian shirt not unlike the one in the picture I've used here.

Mark was already well into his cups when he arrived I was at a table having cocktails with other friends, and he walked right by me, grinning like a goon, and ordered a drink. I believe he had been partaking of doubles on the cross country flight, and I think he had been taking pain medication.

We all grappled with the grape all evening. Mark Tyree doing so with enthusiasm and practiced dedication. We were all drunk, and around one in the morning someone came up to me in the bar and informed me that my friend was in trouble outside.

I ran out and there was a melee in progress. Security was trying to remove him from the hotel property and he was yelling "FUCK THIS GODDAMN HOTEL! I'M GOING TO DOWN-TOWN BALTIMORE!".

Now, there's drunk. There's DRUNK. And then there is pure insanity. Out of control, crazy blind rage-filled madness. That was Mark Tyree that night.

He was trying to get into a cab, and I saw disaster in the making. If he, in his condition, had made it downtown, I think jail would have been the best-case scenario.

The cabbie was more than willing to take him on as a passenger, but I wasn't about to allow that to happen. I grabbed him and physically kept him from entering that taxi. He fought me and I fought right back. It was intense, scary, and harrowing.

The whole con seemed to be out there watching. A lot of horror people like to portray themselves as wild party people, but few were accustomed this this sort of behavior. Me, I've worked with watermen, and lived that lifestyle for a while. I had unfortunately seen this sort of thing before. Too many times.

I calmed him down and I persuaded the security people to let me get Mark to the room and to bed. It took some doing and some fast-talking, but I managed it.

Mark Tyree was ashamed and contrite for the remainder of the weekend. He regretted his excessive behavior and any who cared to pay attention could see that he was a decent person underneath it all.

Years went by. My forums went from Horror.net to Gorezone to Shocklines to Horror Drive-in. And now I am at a new forum, which unfortunately is sparsely used.

Mark was well-known to everyone who came to the forums. He made an impression. He could be rude and socially unacceptable, but few seemed to genuinely dislike him. Mark was a kind of lovable mutt that everyone was fond of.

We talked long and often. As time went by, Mark became more frantic, less coherent. He seemed paranoid. I know he was partying a lot. I struggled with my own alcohol use for a long time, so I understood. But he grew worse.

He spoke of health conditions. They seemed vague. I know Mark led an unhealthy lifestyle. Too much booze, too much smoking, drug use. He talked of how terrible he felt and how scared he was. I wanted to scream at him to quit smoking, stop drinking. No one likes a lecturing recovered addict. I hinted now and then, but mostly I just let him go on.

It reached a point where Mark's emails were gibberish. I stopped talking on the phone with him. It was too painful. We fell out of touch.

One day I was doing an online search for Mark Tyree, half-expecting to see a death notice. I found something worse. I won't go into it, but what I saw about him was shocking and terrible.

I took a break from message boards, but I started one up a year or two ago. Many have told me that they badly miss the old days, but few joined in. That's all right. Things change.

Early this year, Mark Tyree found his way to my new forum. He was okay at first. His usual disjointed, crazy self. Then his posts became weird. Incoherent madness, and at last there was one that was almost unbelievably offensive. It offended some of my friends, and frankly, it offended me.

I'm not proud of this. I could not take it, and I have my own mental well-being to consider. I banned Mark Tyree from my message board. I effectively cut him off from me and the horror community.

People have told me that I did nothing wrong, and in my heart I know it is true. Yet I felt bad and I feel even worse about it now. I think Mark felt rejected at a time when everything else, including his own health, was cursing him.

I do not for one minute believe Mark Tyree meant to be an asshole. Regardless of whether his state was self-induced or not, his body and his mind were betraying him. I think he lost all control of his actions.

Mark Tyree was a rough case. I don't think he ever wanted to forsake his fun, wild-partying youth. You couldn't invite him to be around decent company. Yet he had a generous and joyful soul. Despite all the jokes we made, and there many, I never knew him to be hateful toward anyone.

A brief encounter with Mark might lead one to conclude that he was not particularly intelligent. Not true. Stupid people do not read writers like Peter Straub and Harlan Ellison.

Mark sent people books. He wanted to share and he selflessly sent gifts to I-don't-know-how-many people. He repeatedly told me that I was his best friend and that he admired me.

We spoke many, many times, and we discussing everything. Mark believed in God and he firmly and resolutely believed in a better afterlife. Once when we were talking he told me that he was not afraid of dying. He said that he looked forward to it.

This is a eulogy for Mark Tyree, but it is also a eulogy for the message board era. Mark's death brings back so many memories of that time. A time before the social media networks dropped on everything like a dirty bomb and tore it all up and replaced it with advertising driven narcissism.

When I think of those days, many names come to mind. I won't bother trying to list them all here. The name that pops up in my mind first and foremost is Mark Tyree. His irreverent spirit, his caustic sense of humor, his kindness. And I think of how it all eroded, just as Mark's life eroded.

Written by Mark Sieber