RC Edrington

Bitter Comes Out Better On A Stolen Guitar (2012)

2012-01-10T15:35:00.000-07:00

I am not sure who I have a stronger distaste for, interent Readers or internet Authors. With the wide spread popularity of the net, suddenly hacks everywhere had something to say and a vehicle to get it in front of an audience. I am not certain this is a good thing. While I champion free speech, I am not sure the small press on the interent is anything more than an electronic circle jerk where the goal isn't orgasm even...but attention. That is the attitude from which this blog sprung.

Those that want to read me, now know where to find me...and don't have to wallow thru the mediocracy of most small press journals. I can count on two hand the number of current authors and editors I have any respect for. And I have little respect for my readers who choose to read about life instead of getting out there and living it. To those readers that have been down the paths I have been, who have shot dope in the same nigger alleys I have shot dope in...you are the ones I hope my words reach. If my limp lines can make some sense of the world we are prisoners of, then I have achieved something...however small.

I should probably relate now the story of an internet author that was so into my stuff, they wanted to meet me and hang out. In fact, they travelled cross country to do so. Of course when they arrived to discover that my writing is my reality and not some pose concocted in some hip literary cafe with a bunch of Bukowski wannabe's...they ran for the hills. Sorry my heroin addiction didn't sit well with you. Sorry my heroin addiction was not some literary device I employed to garner attention. Sorry my life was as real as the words I wrote on a daily basis. Don't worry, I won't reveal your name...although I should just to shatter the charade of your own writing that isn't a true reflection of who you are. But alas, exposing writers for the frauds they are bores me, as does their writing. I much more prefer living in the bottle or syringe that produces my words, than I do playing dress up for the pretensious literary small press interent community.

I don't play well with interent people. Hell, I don't play well with most people. The type of losers that hide behind monitors and feel free to say and write some of the lamest things because they know in reality they will never have to put in a physical appearance to back anything up. I guess the internet liberates and encourages weakness. In fact, it champions cowardice. I don't write or type anything on this electronic box that I wouldn't say to someone face to face. I am much better with people face to face. The interent is nothing but a dark corner people hide in. Face to face with me there are no fucking corners for you to hide.

So continue stroking each other off in your little net journals no one reads (and I refuse to continue publishing in), and pay me no mind. The fact will not change, that being...80% of all internet authors couldn't write themselves out of a paper bag if their life depended on it. The interent is fantasy land and reality is defined by those who languish in the obscurity of its existence. Some of us however, for better or worse, choose to live our lives on the razor wire without a net. And remember kids, writing isn't the focus. Living life is the focus. The words that are squeezed out of that life, like a nice shit after a good meal, are simply that...waste produced from an experience.

Anyway, I stumbled upon an essay I wrote a few years back that appeared in numerous internet journals, after its first print publications. Some of you fuckers even included it in your journal without permission from me. Regardless, here is an edited and updated version of that article, for all you budding authors who just discovered how to turn on you mommy's computer...

The Bitter Comes Out Better On A Stolen Guitar (2012)

I suffer from no "Bukowski Hangover". I suffer from an over active ego and delusions of grandeur. I suffer from the same disease all other small press authors suffer from. Namely, if you write outside the mainstream you're pegged as another Bukowski rip-off and your identity as an individual writer is tossed in a drawer with the other "also rans".

My brother in arms, Victor Thorn who once published Babel Magazine seemed to think if a group of authors banded together...we could use that to our advantage. I tended to agree. I figured working with a bunch of other arrogant, self centered assholes like myself would prove interesting. Bukowski never had a problem whoring himself to Hollywood. I am sure he wouldn't mind if we stole his corpse and used it as our mascot. Fact, I think he would find it amusing. Stay tuned. Update: the Bukowski Hangover Project project produced a pretty damn good book, but failed in the end because of...you guessed it, the clash of author egos.

However this essay isn't about Victor's project. This letter is about me. More of me and less of you is a good thing. Write that down. Use it. I stole it from somewhere, but I am not sure where. I am in my arrogant mood today...take notice. I just scored 2 bottles of agave aged tequilla, and finished doing a few body shots off an 18 year old senorita from Sonora, Mexico. Take that Bukowski. I am the Frito Bandito. Comprende?

My thoughts stray. Flashback of a nun slapping my ear with a ruler because I asked what color her panties were. Back to topic. For the record my sole justification for being a writer came from Walt Whitman, who wrote:

"I am the man.
I suffered,
I was there"

When I finally decide to swallow that .357 caliber slug...put that on my tombstone. I am the man. I suffered. I was there. Those three lines sum up the influence behind modern poetry, in my estimation. Poets went from viewing life in objective abstract to subjective realism. The good poets could make us feel their life and experiences pulsing through our veins like a quality cut of heroin.

The beat writers like Trocchi, Ginsberg and Kerouac took this to the extreme and left quite a mark on the literary scene. Bukowski did the same. However, todays writers are now trapped in Bukoski's shadow. We are being denied our own identity. Some of us have only ourselves to blame as we seem to cater to the Bukowski shadow by accepting our label. In fact, most of you writers are quite content living in the shadow. I am not. Here is my new poem to sum up modern poetry:

Bukowski was the man.
He suffered.
He was there
and like a fly
I will feed
from his corpse
& puke
my pablum
into small press
rags

My point, if I have one...and that can be debated, is synthesize your reality and life experiences through your own bloodstream...not Bukowski's. Ignore heroes. Poetry has less to do with subject matter than it does with how that subject matter is presented. Just because your subject matter is Bukowski-esque does not mean your poetry has to be. That seems to be the trap we are in. A bunch of us write poems about booze or dope, and instead of our style being the focus...the subject becomes the focus. And as you are well aware, if you write about booze then you are a Bukowski rip-off. Fuck that.

This is the part where I piss everyone off, and hereby seal my fate to be labeled a poetry heretic...and thereby make myself unwanted amidst small press editors. Good fucking riddance if you people can't see past the obvious and understand what I am saying here. (Hereby..thereby...where the fuck did that come from?) Fuck it, I am to lazy to edit this thing.

I am not a huge Bukowski fan, and the next reviewer that compares my shit to him gets strangled. Period. I will hop a Greyhound and shove a boot up their ass. Serious here kiddies...I have never had any problem spending a few nights in jail. Nor have I ever shied away from a good bus trip, or beating the fuck out of some blow hard. The punk bar scene of the late 1980's is scattered with motherfuckers that were dumb enough to cross my path or try to stiff the band on their door take.

In my estimation, Bukowski wrote some damn cool novels. I find his poetry highly overrated. Don't get me wrong, he wrote some good shit. He became Hollywood's court jester and was pimped out like the whores he liked to hang with. Big fucking deal. His trip...not mine.

My first chapbook was published in 1991. Most fucking review mentioned Bukowski. I had never heard of him (sorry to shatter your bubble all you hip cats). Back then I was reading Alexander Trocchi and Papa Hem...and I had very little use for poetry. I was just a fuck up (and still am) caught up in the "punk" music scene and only read whatever books the chick I was banging at the time had laying around. Fortunately for me, they had reasonably good taste in literature. However, I actually believed people like Lou Reed, Joe Strummer and bands like X had their finger on the pulse of my reality. Silly me, according to you literay fools...Bukowski did.

Anyway, these reviews prompted me to pick up a few collections of poetry by Bukowski. It was almost 10 years before I sent another damn piece of my shit to a publisher. That is an easily documented fact. I dropped off the face of the small press publishing map...but continued to write for my audience of one. If Bukowski was the yardstick poetry was to be measured by, I figured why bother with these people.

Sure, Bukowski was good. Several of his novels are classics in my estimation. But fuck, he wasn't the end all be all god you people make him out to be. In fact, he is probably laughing in his grave right now at this lame "cult of personality" you have built around him.

Sure my lifestyle and subject matter may share a tiny comparison to Bukowski...but even when I was shooting dope days at a time and sleeping in abandon warehouses, I had enough self awareness not to wallow in my own filth or buy into my own bullshit. I am so fucking sick of "literary experts" and "hip editors" lumping all writers that write of personal experiences that fall outside of "mainstream" into the Bukowski school.

My lifestyle is my lifestyle and I use writing as a grounding rod for self examination. I am sure as hell not the first to do this, and I sure as hell won't be the last. But then neither was Bukowski. I hold no reverenace for Bukowski other than the fact he was another good writer among many, and had I ever ran into him in the midst of a heroin binge I would have probably rolled the fucker for spare change.

If I am a poor hack imitation of anyone it sure as hell isn't Bukowski. If your going to take pot shots at my stuff, get the facts straight. I don't mind being a hack and I don't give a fuck if any of you small press people are offended by my irreverance to your "god". I intend to speak my mind in an honest manner...deal with it or ignore me. It matters little. I am not even a blip on the "literary" radar screen. No one is standing in line ready to offer me large sums of cash for my stuff. Nor do I have some publisher princess cutting me a check every week to watch me shit my pants. I have no "fan club" or "cult following" I need to pander to. I have no role to play in the soap opera of the small press world. I don't have time for hero worship. I just write. It's what I do.

If that isn't good enough for you, go take a flying fuck at a rolling wine bottle and leave me be. As I certainly have no use for you. I pick and choose which publications I send my stuff too, and writers I associate with. I've never felt the need to be in every online magazine that ever existed. I expect none, and give no quarter.

Hypocrisy is Policy In The 2012 Election

2012-01-07T22:20:00.000-07:00

Even though I have given up on the political system in this country, I feel the need to point out a few items. There's an old adage that says: “You are allowed to your opinion but you are not allowed to YOUR facts”. So regardless of your political affiliation, no one can deny the FACT that Obama has Received MORE Campaign Contributions from Wall Street than ANY Politician Since 1950. No one can deny the FACT that Obama just hired Wall Street lobbyist Broderick Johnson as senior adviser for his re-election campaign. What really makes this amusing to me is, the Occupy Wall Street supporters still view Obama as their candidate. I wonder if they are also aware of the FACT that Obama has received MORE campaign donations from Wall Street for 2012 than all Republican candidates combined. Maybe this explains why you may be losing your house or may not be able to find a job...but Wall Street and major corporations are doing quite well after their billion dollar Obama bailouts.

More important to remember, if you really want to get a feel for where Obama really stands, is that during Obama's first two years of office the Democratic Party controlled the Congress. They spent most of that time passing a watered down Health Care Bill, even though polls showed most American's were NOT in favor of it. Then, instead of passing a budget while Obama and the Democrats still held sway...Obama began his Wall Street and corporate bailouts.

Nice priorities considering Americans were losing their homes to foreclosure and the jobless rate was rising. Americans have received nothing from Obama during this economic crisis, and now he wants to blame Republicans for economic issues he had the power to handle in his first two years of office. Absurd.

Please note: I am not a fan of or confident that any Republican currently running will do anything different than Obama. America has fallen to a one party system controlled by wealthy bankers. A conspiracy? Nope. Just the facts speaking for themselves. After all, it was the Republicans, Democrats, and Obama who worked hand in hand to destroy the U.S. Constitution by passing the NDAA, effectively turning America into a police state.

Here is an example of Obama at work: Lauren DiGioia, who was arrested for protesting the NDAA at New York's Grand Central Station and HANDCUFFED FOR 26 HOURS, IN ADDITION TO BEING DENIED ACCESS TO A LAWYER OR PHONE CALL.

Zygote In My Coffee #9

2011-12-19T09:36:00.000-07:00

Zygote In My Coffee #9 is now available for pre-order. By pre-ordering you save $2 off the $10 cover price (shipping is included).

This is issue includes a great cover by Cheryl Townsend. Some of the authors included are Ross T. Runfola, Doug Draime, Bradley Mason Hamlin, J.J. Campbell, Carl Miller Daniels, and Ruby Jenkins.

Zygote has long been one of my favorite print journals. Pre-order your copy now!

Coming up in Zygote In My Coffee #10, I will have 5 pieces included, along with such authors as Bill Gainer and MP Powers. This issue is due out in May 2012. I am not sure if Zygote is still offering yearly subscriptions, but it doesn't hurt to inquire so you never miss an issue.

Where Did The Poetry Go?

2011-12-16T12:31:00.001-07:00

For those who have yet to notice, I have removed all my original poetry from this blog. The free ride is over. If you wish to read my stuff, please feel free to frequent the numerous online e-zines and journals that publish it. My stuff also appears in numerous print journals, anthologies, and books. These are all available for purchase, at very reasonable costs, throughout the small press.

I will always continue to post here where my poetry can be found. I will also include reviews when appropriate. I believe if you are truly a follower of my poetry, you'll manage to scrape together the few pennies it costs to purchase it.

Of course I will continue to use this blog to post my usual bullshit and opinions. That will always be free.

Ten Page Press Reader - Vol. 3

2011-12-09T10:02:00.000-07:00

Ten Page Reader - Vol. 3 is now published and available for free download in pdf format. Authors include David McLean, Kyle Hemmings, Andrew Taylor, Mamta Madhavan, Craig Scott, Kevin Ridgeway, RC Edrington, Mickael Dickel, and Catfish McDaris.

Check it out while it's still fresh: Ten Page Press - Vol. 3

MUST Microzine

2011-11-30T09:45:00.002-07:00

MUST Street Zine is a small microzine with a lo-tech aesthetic, easy to copy, easy to spread. The goal is to share the written words of talented writers and artists in an easy format. If you have questions about MUST, get in touch with me, Lynn Alexander.

Issue #17 features poetry by Frankie Metro, Paul Corman-Roberts, RC Edrington, Joseph M. Gant, Dan Provost. MUST Street Zine is a small microzine that has been around, off and on, for a few years now. Literally thousands of these things have been distributed wherever, whenever. Free, loose, lo-tech, cooperative.

Issue #19 features poems by Lora Dziemiela, Paul Corman-Roberts, RC Edrington, Frankie Metro, SB Stokes, Joseph M. Gant, Justin Regier.

To get your copies contact Lynn Alexander: MUST Street Zine

Flesh Wounds

2011-11-28T11:18:00.004-07:00

My new e-chapbook, Flesh Wounds, is now available from Ten Page Press. You can download it as a free PDF file. Please feel free to leave comments. This e-chapbook contains 10 of what I believe are some of my best pieces.

To view and download: Flesh Wounds by RC Edrington

Kerouac's Dog Magazine

2011-11-24T10:13:00.001-07:00

It’s a bold and exciting platform for new writing, design, illustration, photography, architecture, fashion, and creativity in general. Bound together with overarching themes of freedom; truth; beauty; love; travel; wanderlust; sex; taboo; and fringe. It’s an opportunity for established and aspiring creatives of all disciplines, from all over the world, to exhibit their work in something beautiful and tangible. It’s a place to be published and be seen, and won’t exist in any other format.

Featuring new Writing, Design, Photography, Architecture, Fashion, Erotica, Opinion, and more. Featuring Creatives from all over the world including America, Australia, Eastern Europe, New Zealand, and Japan. It’s a magazine that’s truly independent with no advertising, no classifieds, and no editorial-led advertising. A magazine that oozes pure creativity, with a free-thinking, underground-press feel. A platform for new creative talent; beautiful and tangible, and a homage to the philosophy of the Beat Generation. --from the Editor

I will have five poems published in Issue #5, set for an early 2012 release date. Please be advised that these limited edition print issues sell out rather quickly so it might be a good idea to pre-order. Issue #5 is set to check in at around 300 pages. Certainly worth every penny. Support the small press.

To view issues & order: Kerouac's Dog

Use Once & Destroy Review 2

2011-11-08T02:54:00.000-07:00

Edrington takes no prisoners. Everything here is raw reality, written in technicolour. Often the language is shocking, sensual and serious. I don't give full marks to much work I review, but there again, Edrington's work is seriously good. Of the 35 poems, I marked 18 as five star — if, however, you are easily offended or of a nervous disposition, you'd best stop reading now.

The rest of you are in for a master class in writing poetry for the 21st century. SHEDDING SKIN gives a feel. It's about a hooker dreaming of getting out of the business:

sucking on a .357 chunk of steel
like a pacifier...
she's not a fucking object
and smart enough to know it,

As you see, nothing sentimental or mawkish here. Edrington's work is infused with the sweat of the near-constant summer heat that is Tucson, Arizona — from AFTER HOLLYWOOD:

The heat hung in the air
like sheets of cellophane

from where he reflects, in graphic detail, on years of substance abuse, veins and syringes filled with heroin, used razor blades, brains and blood splattered on dirty floors, too much booze, self and female masturbation, living on the line, even prison green tattoos - it's all here. These two extracts are taken from the first stanza of SICK FUCKS:

a rookie cop puked
into a shit-clogged toilet
& called for an ambulance...

...momma lay overdosed
with a welfare check
coursing pure Afghani
horse through her caved
hypodermic veins

Besides the reflections these fine poems are filled with poetic truths, evaluations on life which only years of experience and a truly focused mind can achieve. From the long poem WHIMPER, Edrington has this to say about the current state of poetry:

But today,
the poets place is in the margins
of the society page.
Not centre stage.
We reserve that for petty scandals.
We want to know
which rockstar is fucking
which moviestar,
how to lose 30 lbs in 30 seconds

Perfect truth there.

Honed silk smooth with absolutely no wasted material, everything is so skillfully written that these poems read themselves. Minimal punctuation, enjambment working overtime and metre is perfection. Sensational throughout, so all you need do is concentrate on the gritty word pictures. Taken from the third stanza of MELISSA SOMETIMES, this is one of many such pictures, vividly told in four short lines:

like an albino's dry leper skin,
as my syringe slowly soaks
up the final split tear
of a pawned diamond ring

This collection should be compulsory reading for all those who still believe current poetry to be about blue skies and daffodils or penned in ten seconds flat for daytime TV.

Best of the bunch for me is MACHO MANHOOD BULLSHIT which tells of wife-beating, homophobic men riding round in Chevy 4x4 truck extensions of their penis. I've had way too much of this cowardly abuse in my own life, so when they slide up to the curb and threaten this clearly hetero guy, Edrington's street wise take on putting them down reads:

...threaten to call the cops
when I flick out a nine-inch Italian stiletto
and promise to cut off their balls

Way to go! The rest of the poem is brilliant too. I can't praise this realistic and direct work enough and make no apology for the number of short quotes taken from my five star selection. Keep the writing coming RC, I'm hooked, and above all, never stop telling it like it really is.

Reviewed by Steve Anderson for NEW HOPE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW

Use Once & Destroy Review

2011-11-08T02:43:00.000-07:00

RC Edrington, a bartender from Arizona, provides a different type of gritty, urban realism, one more in the tradition of Chas Bukowski and Bill Burroughs where life has a toxicological centre. But, pastiche it is not. Though perhaps being heard from the same direction, Edrington's is a distinct voice that could be best described as post-modern beat.

I'd be a millionaire
getting my cock honed
by 18 year old
coke whores in some
ghost tainted mansion
on the Beverley Hill
where loyalty is metered
by the powdery white
prison bars that cut
a mirror no one ever
bothers to gaze
too deeply into
(from 'Unbroken')

Yet, even amongst the lines of depravity and despair, there's a form of tenderness (I'd like to call it love, but, somehow, it doesn't quite fit) that surfaces from time to time - a junkie tenderness, riven with confusion and absence. These are relationships based on a shared chemical obfuscation of reality, but which are just as felt as any experienced in Merseyside or down a West Gloucestershire lane.

and the snowflakes gather
along this frozen window sill
like an albino's dry leper skin,
as my syringe slowly soaks
up the final spilt tear
of a pawned diamond ring

and I still think of you
Melissa sometimes
do you sill think of me,
are you somewhere
swaying to Coltrane
blackberry Merlot raping
your carved Cherokee cheeks
(from 'Melissa Sometimes')

Reviewed by John Mingay for Stride Magazine UK - The Hobo Poet Series, Stride Magazine UK

Whiskey Coma Blues Blurb

2011-11-07T02:54:00.003-07:00

"Jesus this is beautiful stuff. Brilliant. Thank you for the inspiration" -- Johnette Napolitano of Concrete Blonde

Nicotine Dreams Review (out of print)

2011-11-07T02:05:00.001-07:00

Believe me when I say I've done a lot of looking. As of this writing, I have not found a satisfying, definitive definition for a poem or poetry. For me, poems are words under fire, experiences, compressed affirmations. My definition changes in subtle ways depending on who I read or am influenced by. In part, I want a poem to slap me in the face... wake me up... to confront me with things I may have known but didn't know I knew until I experienced them in the particular poem in question.

The chapbook "Nicotine Dreams" by RC Edrington has much to recommend it. It is primarily a haunting, unresolved exploration and search for meaning as seen through the eyes of a man regarding his relationship with alcohol and the women in his life. In terms of this chapbook, I believe the poet is better then he thinks he is. Each poem is an experience. It is well organized and thoughtfully laid out.

Edrington in effect opens the curtain on his psyche so that his readers become voyeuristic accomplices regarding his relationships. This is not to say that this is what the poet intended. I'm not certain he cares what his readers think. Nor should he. As Edrington points out in the second stanza of his poem "Still Life": "There is a right way, & my way./ I do it my way." Considering the particular chapbook under review, his way is good enough for me.

The poet attempts through his poetry to be brutally honest with himself. It is an impossible thing to do. The chapbook is as much about the search for spirituality as it is about relationships. Whether he is aware of it or not, this poet has chosen his sexual experiences as the focus for challenging and examining the nature of meaning and life.

There are 12 poems in the series. An organic connection seems to exist between the poems. It is a tight, accomplished collection. The first poem in the series, "Tequila Reunion" sets the overall tone and direction.

We could say of life that Edrington has "pawned his heart" to it and that it is experienced by him as he pictures the woman in his first poem: "your sweaty body/ arched and melted/ through a white gauze dress/ from song to song/ chest to chest/ man to man".

At his best, Edrington can handle a stanza surprisingly well. Witness this excerpt from the second poem in the collection and what it might tell us about the protagonist:

while this drunken hero
splashes brandy
into a plastic cup,
inhales the butt of night
for its last hit of smoke,
then grinds it away
into the bedpost.

The poet as anti-hero has a long tradition in literature. To simplify a complex continuity, we can see attenuated connections between poets such as Rimbaud, O' Hara, Bukowski and Edrington. The point I am trying to make is that alienation is a recognized part of our existence and it is not the poet's responsibility to resolve or mitigate.

Not only is there suffering, disillusionment and "promises left unfilled" in this collection but a disguised sensitivity to the uniqueness of each moment tinged at times with an implied affirmation. That affirmation Mr. Edrington takes pains to hide. Take a look at this poem titled "6 a.m." Who, we wonder, is the poet referring to in the last four lines? Is she named Camille?

6 a.m.

morning breeze
flicks her ribbon hair
beneath the thin crack
of the bedroom door,
squeals as she scrapes
her tender spine
on the splintered edges

once in,
she loops and swirls
her tangled hair
in loose circles around
the hairs of my naked
waking chest,
like your fingers
had you been here
instead of just me wishing
that you were

For Edrington, "Infinity is a highway of dreams" exchanged for: "love for a bottle of one night stands". Love, like life has its dangers. The poet picks his words carefully. I wonder though if at times there is an interchangeable confusion between love and sex. Explore with me the last 13 lines of the poem titled "Dream Highway" and draw your own conclusions.

Trust me!
I never wanted this.
I never wanted this love,
this forbidden desire
that rips me from sleep and cries your name,
but I am hooked
and like a junkie
I am on my knees
begging for a taste
of your lips
to cradle me back
to sleep.

Most satisfying are the two poems in the series dedicated to Camille. They are probably the two most beautiful as well. Here, we find in Edrington a poetic gift for description and melancholic ambiguity. I am not going to quote from them but recommend you go to Spent Angel Press in order to download the free chapbook.

For a number of reasons, I tend to pay special attention to the last poem in any series. It is a poetic kind of farewell and parting statement. In the case of "Nicotine Dreams" it is titled "Black Convertible Jaguar Chrome".

The poem points to Edrington's strengths as well as weaknesses. The danger with this type of poet is that they get stereotyped for any number of reasons into writing a specific type of poem in an "expected" sort of way. "Black Convertible Jaguar Chrome" is one of the strongest in the collection. The issue is that admirers of a person tend to want that person to be stylistically the same over and over again. It is a problem a writer needs to watch out for.

I would hazard that love for Edrington appears in the final analysis to be a disillusionment. He appears to seek meaning and validation through sex. Sex, by itself, is incapable of providing meaningful spiritual growth. At his best, Mr. Edrington is an accomplished poet. I would challenge him to risk experimenting with other forms and themes. He owes that to himself as an artist. In the meantime, I would encourage readers to get a hold of the free chapbook "Nicotine Dreams". It is an honestly good read and well worth the trouble. To get the most out of it you need to read it more then once and look for interconnections.

Reviewed by Scott Malby, and originally appeared in Zinos.com

Blurb on RC Edrington's Poetry

2011-11-07T01:04:00.000-07:00

"Sensual in a way that is at once both soft and confrontational, the poems of RC Edrington discuss love, lust, cruelty and abuse in a tone that is both stark and sensitive. His poems offer the chill of fear in the same breath they offer a beautiful sexuality. With potent symbolism, RC discusses jealousy, love, rape, and the rape of the Americas as if they were all the same subject, which of course they are." -- Jonathan Penton of Unlikely Stories 2.0

Lipstick Bruise Review (out of print)

2011-11-06T03:15:00.000-07:00

Lipstick Bruise is a small (10-poems), downloadable e-Chapbook which was originally published as a conventional print chapbook. Edrington's own Spent Angel Press has been experimenting with 'virtually' releasing his previously hardcopied chapbooks. Spent Angel is also beginning to release e-Chapbooks of other poets as well.

The poems in Lipstick Bruise are raw, gritty and tangible. They are about loneliness, booze, dope, sex, women and other great topics that the best of poetry is about. The leadoff poem, which lends the collection it's name, hints at a long-ago love affair. "Perhaps she touched me / in places / I never wanted her / to touch, places / no one's touched before." The imagery in RC's poetry stands him apart from the majority of most small press poets, who mainly recite dead, flat narrative. These poems deal with the basest of human interactions and emotions but are not base in their treatment.

In "Communion" RC melds the losing of a girl's virginity and her religion. The symbolism is thick, but not overdone, and the poem ends with a great image: "Her rosary gets caught / in peculiar crawl spaces." A perfect metaphor for what else is happening in the back seat of that '67 Chevy.

The final poem in Lipstick Bruise is "Spring Cleaning" and RC, taking a nod from PT Barnum, saves his best for last. A poem about a lonely poet (we don't know any of them, do we?) who is saving, under his bed, the words his ex spat at him as she walked out the door. "Like a fool I waited for you / to return and retrieve them / along with the box of tampons". The lonely poet then threatens to sweep them away tomorrow, but for now he'll remove "broken sonnets / and worn metaphors / I have tossed there / like cigarette butts since you left." The religious symbolism pops up once again as the lonely poet thinks about stringing the words "together / to drape around my neck / as a rosary".

Reviewed by justin.barrett, and appeared in Remark Magazine.

A Moment of Clarity

2011-09-19T14:38:00.002-07:00

A 5th of Johnny Walker Red shatters on the black and white tiled bathroom floor. 3 a.m. begins to slide between my fingers like a partial birth abortion splashing down the leg of an antique, porcelain tub.

This is not the romantic piece you wanted me to write. Nor am I the glorified, drunk poet singing odes to my own debauchery...and Juliet...well, let's just say Juliet would be better off spread eagle like a whored corpse in a slippery pool of her own blood and vomit instead of waltzing the anorexic junkie doze on my unmade, piss stained sheets with a black leather, silver studded biker belt cocked like a tourniquet around her pale, bruised arm and a 1/2 gauge diabetic syringe hanging like a limp cock from her sunken vein.

"We're so pretty, oh so pretty...pretty vacant".

And the camera fades, the way cameras always fade in some cheap art-house movie where mechanical angels are employed to make up for the cut-rate acting supplied by the directors girlfriend and boyfriend (who do swallow)...and mom and dad arrive at the local mini-mall photo-mat to collect the summer family trip photos of Disneyland only to find the film has been mistakenly mixed up by the bored college girl who spends her break time chewing her fingernails and scrolling an ode to suicide for each pimple that rapes her surgically altered nose...and mom and dad flip through the photos like fresh playing cards to discover the 40 year old cliché of bald executive sporting the latest bondage gear while his german shepherd, "Killer", licks pork chop gravy off his sad middle-aged cock.

But back to your drunken hero slash poetry god, because we all know this is what you voyeurs came to see. Call me Romeo. Watch closely as I spew forth the bile of my ripped, rotted guts into the sour mix of half chewed carne asada and Johnny Walker Red to stain the black and white checked bathroom floor...now graced by the ghost of Bukowski himself who pisses into the cockroached corner while blood throbs and spits from my fingers as I fondle and grope the remains of a shattered Johnny Walker bottle searching for a metaphor for my own self-destruction...and...

and like the 5 year old child, I assure you I once was, that can only know the danger of fire (the way Adam knew Eve) by placing his virgin palms into momma's wood stove until they blister to the bone...my head slams to a thud against the rusted toilet bowl demonstrating the reason 4 out of 5 dentists prefer porcelain for caps and crowns.

Juliet has about 4 more hours of China White to swim her veins like an escaped Palomino stroking through the knee high grass of a Kansas plain, so there will be no rescue of your drunken hero as my own blood coagulates around my face and arms...my eyes drowning into a soft creamy blackness...then suddenly the spotlight shifts as I hear the crowd scream and cheer laughter as a dwarf stuffed like a sausage into a silk, red and white harlequin jump-suit begins to slowly dry hump the bearded lady on the dust and straw carnival floor...

and at some moment, before the siren of an ambulance ripped through my skull exploding like some long forgotten land mine on a blood drenched playground...and the carnival lights began to slowly fade as if they were never there...I was able to carve these lines with a dull razor blade into my tattooed scarred forearm

Red Fez September 2011

2011-09-15T05:31:00.003-07:00

The new Red Fez is out with a fresh coat of paint and new design. Chock full of great poetry and fiction, this is a must read issue. I have a piece entitled "Melissa Sometimes" included. Support the small press publishers and writers! Red Fez.

Open Wide Magazine Issue 25

2011-05-22T13:04:00.001-07:00

Open Wide Magazine issue twenty-five (ISSN 1745-4390), our special tenth anniversary print edition, out now!

This glossy paperback is filled with ninety-four pages of writing from forty-three of our favourite contributors of the last ten years.

Featuring poetry from: Rebecca Schumejda, William Taylor Jr, John Dorsey, F.N. Wright, J.J. Campbell, Adrian Manning, Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal, Dan Provost, John Sweet, Nathan Graziano, Idris Caffery, G. Emil Reutter, Bradley Mason Hamlin, A.D. Winans, Iris Berry, Jayne Lyn Stahl, Graham Nunn, D.B. Cox, R.C. Edrington, Lyn Lifshin, Jack Phillips Lowe, K.M. Dersley, S.A. Griffin, Jason Mashak, Arlene Ang, Debbie Kirk, justin.barrett, Heidi James, James D. Quinton, Owen Roberts, Peter Finch, Steve Urwin, Ben Barton, John G. Hall, Jessica Stilling and Glenn W. Cooper.

And fiction from: Ben Myers, Drew Gummerson, James D. Quinton, Marc Barber, Angela Morkos, Jo Mortimer, Natalia Cherjovsky and Danny Rhodes.

The magazine costs just £5 (plus £1 P&P for UK buyers - P&P for Europe is £2 and the rest of the world is £3.00). It can be purchased only via paypal, which accepts all major credit/debit cards. Miss it, miss out - and trust us, you don’t want to miss this one!

Published by James D. Quinton, UK. To purchase: Open Wide Magazine Tenth Anniversary Print Edition

End of Year Update 2010

2010-12-23T05:24:00.001-07:00

Polluto 7 has been published, and is now available for purchase: £7.99 + £3 P&P, from the UK. It contains a wide selection of my stuff. From the publisher:

"From bone-crushing lovers to a cross-dressing hitman, the night-soil man of the gods and sex conditioning on squids, the dangerous desires of the diabolically large and seductively small, body-swapping, gender-swapping, exploration, transcendence and re-incarnation, machines that are gods and machines that are cats . . . some of the strangest and scariest authors are gathered here - enter if you dare!"

I am also happy to announce that my flipbook, Apocalypse Generation, published by Zygote In My Coffee is available once again for purchase for $6 (includes shipping). Jump on this book as I am not sure how long it will remain available.

Home

2010-09-18T17:50:00.001-07:00

After spending around 5 years in Arkansas getting my head put squarely on my shoulders and feet solidly under me, it's time to say good bye to the Bible Belt. At the end of October I will be returning home to Tucson, Arizona.

During this time I have written, what I believe to be, some of my better "poetry". I am still not comfortable with the poetry tag. As I have always said, I write strangely punctuated pulp fiction with line breaks...in a confessional nature based on real life events. I have also taken the time to flesh out 2 novels, and have decided to turn a play I wrote almost 10 years ago into a full length novel.

So the writing will continue. Just the faces and places have changed. I return to Arizona with a new perspective and much clearer head. While I have enjoyed my timeout from "the grind", I'm ready to dive back into the day to day.

Stay tuned...or don't.

The End?

2010-08-18T09:34:00.001-07:00

I am giving serious and clear thought to shutting down this blog for good. I think it has pretty much played out its purpose. Haven't reached a final decision yet, but should you come here and find it gone then you'll know what happened. Those wishing to remain in contact who I do not talk to on a regular basis are welcome to use email.

I have also decided to close the last vestiges of my Facebook account. Social media is an un-needed tool as I find my self becoming more and more anti-social and disgusted by the society around me. Perhaps I am getting old, or perhaps the youth of today have dropped the ball. Regardless, I see no place for me in that sphere.

I'm a writer. I write. I still like the feel of the pen in my hand and how it moves across a sheet of paper or even a cocktail napkin. More of that. Less of this.

Things are good as I type. A calmness has come over me the last year...an acceptance. Tossing words on the page always has, and always will be my best form of therapy in this maddening search beyond the obviousness and the absurdities that rape our daily senses.

I think those who have read my words and published them. I have 2 novels waiting to be finished and I think more time and focus needs to be placed there. This blog has become a distraction.

Not sure if this is good-bye exactly. Just notes from a man understanding a change is gonna come...

Black Dub - the debut album featuring "I Believe In You" - out 11/2/10

2010-08-07T20:50:00.006-07:00

Autobiographic Ramblings

2010-08-06T19:37:00.004-07:00

"When they tell you what you do for a living tell them you're a truck diver." Thank you, Mark Weber. A very wise writer, for taking the time to type me those lines after reading my very first chapbook published close to, god, what? 20 years ago? I had just discovered what a chapbook was. I had just sent a series a "poems" off to some press in Stow, Ohio because I had read a bunch of cool stuff by a bunch of what I thought were pretty damn cool writers who wrote about shit I could directly relate to.

I had just survived my first real tour of the "punk rock", dope addled streets. From there, for my sanity, I escaped into a small trailer into a nowhere copper smelter tiny desert town called San Manuel, AZ and began typing the truth of my story with no intention that anyone would read a word of it. In fact I could care less if anyone would ever hear my voice again. This was my song and was pretty much singing for myself back then. The over worked men pulling shift work 7 days a week next to me in 100 degree sun had no use for my truth or what was burning a hole inside of me. They had 2000 degree copper to worry about skimming smooth as silk.

I don't remember how I found that magazine, Impetus. Out of boredom, perhaps. On a day off after a hitting the record store did I hit the bookstore? Did I get a wild hair up my ass like the haunting memory of a girlfriend suggested? Did I pick up a copy of something called Poets Market or Poet's Digest and scribble off for a sample copy? God forbid the nerve of me! A burnt out punk rocker, destined to a life of slavery and Union Wages doing menial labor, should actually consider...writing, let alone actually readin poetry.

Perhaps I desperately flipped through the pages hoping there was something in there that matched what I was feeling at the time. But page after page I found BULLSHIT. Nothing....then hmmmm IMPLOSION Press. The description looked damn intersting. I was clueless who the names were. Ron Androla? Who. It sounded like a cereal for hippies. None the less, I ripped the page out of the book...fuck the $20 price tag or whatever...I work hard skimming 2000 degree liquid metal. I sweated for my money. Besides, the first Guns N roses album had just come out and you could be damn sure that was where my money was going, my friends. You see, I knew rock music. That was a staple that had influenced and been there for me all my life. But poetry? This was new. I wasn't quite ready to drop a dime on it quite yet...

Then Cheryl Townsend began stuffing my mailbox weekly with Impetus. It was game over. I had a new mistress. A new home and a new calling. The first 20 poems I sent her she accepted. Not for Impetus. Instead she published my very own chapbook. I was suddenly a writer. A poet. I've been scribbling ever since. I have been reading people I identify with ever since.

I kind of get upset these days when I hear people say poetry has no place with the common man. I consider myself the common man. I consider my favorite poets common men. I also know if poetry could somehow get exposed to the average working man the auidence would explode exponentially. But I don't concern myself with that. I just keep singing my song for myself. And it still doesn't really matter if there is an audience there or not to hear. Poetry is what I do to maintain my own sanity. And till this day when people ask me what I do, I still tell them... I'm a truck driver, a bouncer, or even a fucking bum.

You People Aren't For Real. You Watch...Television.

2010-08-06T19:26:00.006-07:00

Last thing anyone wanted, or needed was another political rant from RC. So, I'll give you one...Not that anyone tunes in anyway. Don't worry folks, This isn't CNN or Fox News. I promise not to scare the kiddies. I may sell them dope...but I'll leave the brainwashing to the experts.

Better writers have covered this material in better ways, but I've grown accustomed to playing political hack on the internet. Allow me my space. I thank you. Gabba gabba we accept you one of us one of us!! If a politician shits in the woods guaranteed ALL major news networks will be there to cover it. LIVE. We interrupt this poetry to bring you BEAR SHIT...oh noez!

Elevator going up!

On an interpersonal level, I am a Marxist. Paint me motherfucking RED. I spent time on the streets eating out of soup kitchens, sleeping on couches, flophouses, bumming smokes dope booze...pussy you name it. There was not a grandma in Barrio Libre whose door was not open to me if I needed a plate of refried beans and a hand rolled tortilla to get me through the day. Even when I was slamming dope. I was known as the junkie who didn't steal. We'll, at least from the people from my own "hood". If I was dope sick on a floor, I could always count on a dealer to kick me a nickel until I could get my bearings and make it down to a day labor gig and pull my weight in 100 degree sun to score minimum wage...off book, next to the Union wage guys hungover on booze, a chemical the corporate lobby spent top dollar cranking profits off. Props Daddy Kennedy.

Speaking of union. I was also "up" in this world for many years. I raked my share of bank. Spent years skimming 2000 degree liquid copper in a smelter while my punk rock friends died off from rebel disease in unlit alleys doing cheap Sid Vicious imitations. Cashed huge payroll checks. Carried wads of cash home to the very same flophouses to feed and clothe friends. Pinched off bills to high school girls who needed doctors and dentists and books for school because parents had written them off as useless pieces of shit. Which all were because we refused to consume and buy into the MTV generation bullshit, staying tuned to our TV and be spun and spoon fed by media bullshit...like the youth of America seems so complacent doing now.

Alternative? Rock the vote? Are you motherfucking kidding me? I guess it is true...selling is what selling sells. Smash a TV for Jesus!

Fuck healthcare. I do not need a government to tell me to take care of my own. Give me ALL my wages. I will take care of my own. I always have...and they have always taken care of me. Get the government as far out of your lives as possible! You are the same two faced motherfuckers who then cry to Daddy Government to give you permission to fire up a bowl when you are fucking worn out from working your damn ass off all day slaving at McDonalds then handing over your check for taxes.

Newsflash: the government can grant you nothing. Fuck them. Make government your bitch. Take some personal responsibility for the people in your lives. Have a sense of community for the people you care about. Take care of your neighbors. They will return the favor. Become Marxist on a personal level. Then become complete Fascist towards anyone that threatens those you care about or tries to threaten your beliefs, your ideas...your dreams. Spash a Doc Marten to the skull of the American political dream. That is Alternative. That is "rocking the vote". Ignore politicians who steal your labor for a salary, kids. Vote for no one. Smash your TV. Glenn Beck is an asshole. Obama is an asshole. Sarah Palin is todays version of Tipper Gore. Frank Zappa is rolling in his grave.

If you really want to do something radical, starting writing poetry...they will either totally ignore you, which is a huge plus...or it will scare the shit out of them...even better. But don't ever let them call you a poet. Then you'll just blend in with the house furniture, get labelled and forgotten like another political slogan....

Of course if they ever ask where you got all your life skills, just lie and say you were once a truck driver. And never take advice from other writers...

August Update:

2010-08-03T12:31:00.002-07:00

* I will taking some time from listing entries in this blog.
* I will be moving back home to Arizona sometime in March 2011.
* I have several projects going on that look promising, so I felt it was a good idea to ignore this blog for a bit.
* I will post any breaking news I deem worthy concerning publications and what nots, but that's a bout it.

Be back soon...

ps. I have had multiple pieces accepted for Polluto 7. Subscriptions for this award winning UK Journal can be purchased here: Polluto Subscriptions.

More and more, I will be moving my new writing completely offline and only available in print journal publications. True readers of my work will not have any problem following my writing into this new realm. For those wishing to stay up to date on my offline publications, I will try to post from time to time where they can be found.

I have come to the conclusion that while internet publication has its strong points, I am actually reaching a bigger and more meaningful audience (based on feedback, reviews, etc.) with my offline publications. The internet is too watered down and insulated. I feel a greater reward as a scribbler having my work appear in magazines that are more mixed genre. I get a rush seeing one of my "poems" along side a great sci-fi story. It reminds me of the old pulp days of publishing. I have never wanted to be the next Kurt Vonnegut, but I admit it has become quite a rush playing Kilgore Trout. I think I now know why Vonnegut created the character.

Thank you all for your feedback, emails, and what nots that make this blog fun. Keep them coming. Hell, I even get a kick out of the hate mail. It reminds me that I am in fact inside other peoples heads. Ha ha ha. Live your life and I'll gladly live mine...and should we meet....well,

Wreckage: CD

2010-07-21T21:59:00.002-07:00

I have decided to act on numerous suggestions I have received over the years. I am currently putting together an audio collection of my writings spanning the twenty year period between 1990-2010. It will be a healthy dose of the older stuff and the newer stuff, read by yours truly...along with whatever weirdness I decide to toss in. It may also include a track from a music album I finished last year, but have not released due to my dissatisfaction with the mixing, coupled with my unwillingness to release something that sounds like shit for the sake of releasing something. I mean, this isn't the 80s.

I have already obtained the basic funding for this spoken word project. I plan to finish and have it available for download in mp3 form on iTunes, and Amazon..etc, before the 1st of the year. The hardest task so far is culling through the large volume of unpublished scribbles cluttering my life and deciding what to use along with my more "popular" stuff. A lot of the older stuff will be pulled from my UK publications and various magazines. My work seems to have a better following across the pond. My fault really, as I have pretty much ignored the USA small press over the last few years, except for a few random appearance.

Anyway, stay tuned for updates. I am sure you're all waiting to buy & download this project. Sure you are...

Note From The Chameleon

2010-07-11T07:58:00.000-07:00

I have enjoyed my relative rest and relaxation in the Ozark Mountains. I needed a break from the hustle and bustle of people and their petty self serving bullshit that stripped true meaning from everything. It gave me a chance to reflect on the impossible absurdity of day to day existence and focus on the core of reality. It's a joke really. A sad little play full of pathetic little people stuffing their lives with the most mundane tasks and giving such import to the most trivial of happenstance.

Pathetic and absurd. Two words I find to best describe the state of humanity so far in my brief journey on this tiny planet. Sad really. Yet their have been times when I have found the most profound beauty and truth in the simplest and ugliest of things. Things tossed away or ignored by the elite and glorified masses locked in front of their televisions trapped in the never ending stream of popular culture.

I no longer see myself as a part of anything. I have never really been a part of anything. I have moved like a shadow through many scenes. Those who claim to have caught a glimpse of me out of the corner of their eye can no more define me than they can define the shadows that cling down in the darkened alleys above which they sleep. I move fast, or slow, depending on the flicker of light...but rest assured I will be there, in the most darkest of moments, to bring to life the real truth and beauty in all those dirty and flawed places you people of the spotless whitewashed bullshit world are too afraid to go.

I feel a change coming again. Soon...everything has led up to this moment. All words scribbled, merely notes leading up to a thesis. I laugh at all definitions and to date, have escaped all boxes. I've played many roles, and not cared enough about titles or how I was viewed by others to retain one long enough to be trapped within my own skin.

The journey has been long. Sometimes we must return to where we started to remember where were going. I left a piece of myself on a dirty street that cut through a desert town. It needs reclaiming.

Unlikely Stories: Burning Man

2010-06-26T04:09:00.002-07:00

Jonathan Penton and the crew of Unlikely Stories will be attending the Burning Man Festival in Nevada August 30th to September 5th. As part of it, they will be producing Unlikely Stories of the Third Kind! to be sold there. Pre-orders, or orders for those not attending can be purchased: HERE.

One of my pieces will be included in this multimedia production, which Jonathan describes as "400 pages of essays, poetry, prose, and visual art in color and black-and-white, sandwiched between a CD attached to the front cover and a DVD attached to the back."

This has to be one of the best projects I have heard of this year, packed full of talent, entertainment and thought provoking people. Make sure you get your orders in early, as this will have something for everyone.

Tainted Coffee Press: No More

2010-06-16T03:41:00.000-07:00

For those looking to order my latest chapbook Apocalypse Generation, it has run its print cycle and is no longer available. Readers were given plenty of time to pre-order and plenty of notice to order once the book made print. In addition, all personally signed editions are sold out. There is simply no more stock available. Snooze you lose.

I'd like to thank Brian of Zygote in My Coffee and Tainted Coffee Press for putting in the time to put out such a top quality collection of my poems. I consider it a great success. On that note, Brian has decided to put his creative efforts into other areas for awhile and stop publishing the journal Zygote In My Coffee. I can't say I blame him. Publishing in the small press world is a full time job and labor of love that offers little in return. I know this first hand, as I have had my hand in the publishing side of things numerous times over the years.

I'd like to thank everyone who purchased a copy of Apocalypse Generation, and everyone out their who continues to support my work. You know who you are. Copies of my other books are still out their and I've provided links to help you track them down.

The Process of Whoring Out

2010-05-26T07:49:00.010-07:00

When this blog began in 2006, I was reaching out to an audience of one: myself. I had lost that person during my time on the barrio streets of 2005 and earlier. Abandoned him like the house I ended up living in and the friends I had left behind. But all that is well documented. Not only here in this blog, but in the memories of friends and enemies in Tucson, Arizona...as well as official documents.

Over the years, I have developed quite a loyal readership. One that began in 1991, when my very first chapbook was published and has continued as this blog grew in readership, as I continued to publish across the net and in small journals in the US and UK. I have never sought out attention. People who know me will testify to that fact, yet I have always been able to maintain my core audience. Mainly because I have NEVER compromised or cared whether or not an audience was there. I have always, and will always continue to write solely for myself. Stick around for the ride or jump off now, the words continue to get typed with or without you.

However, I must admit I am somewhat grateful for those who have stayed true to the journey, and to those who have bothered to send emails and support over the years. Even the detractors have proven useful. In fact, I actually get more enjoyment from the detractors. They usually have an ax to grind and they don't even realize they are grinding it against themselves.

So anyway, what is the Process of Whoring Out? After careful consideration, and at the advice of a friend, I have decided to open my blog traffic promotion up to new channels. That means I will be attracting new readers who may not be familiar with this saga. Fair enough. Those interested in digging through the blog should find it fairly easy to navigate. The Process of Whoring Out will be one blog post (this one) where I direct new readers where to PURCHASE what I believe to be some of my best work still available.

So let's let the whoring begin:
BOOKS:
2010 Apocalypse Generation published by Tainted Coffee Press Available: HERE
2007 Portraits From A Barrio Toilet Stall published by Blind Leper Press Available:HERE
2004 Use Once & Destroy Published by BlueChromePublishing UK Available: HERE

COLUMN:

2008-2009 "Live Without a Net" in Polluto Magazine UK Available: HERE

PRINT JOURNAL:
2006 - 2010 Numerous appearances in Zygote in My Coffee, and if you visit their bookstore HERE you can find my stuff in just about every issue you PURCHASE. It's a great little small press journal so I strongly suggest you support it, of course.

For FREE online examples of my stuff, for you cheap ass fucks or working class stiffs who can't afford to buy my shit...and it's cool, I usually publish EXCLUSIVELY at Underground Voices. As far as I am concerned, they have treated me well over the years and publish only the best. I am not one of these people who believes I need to scatter myself all over the place leaving my words like bird shit across the net. You can find UV: HERE

RC Edrington | Underground Poetry | Post Modern Beat | Alternative Art | Small Press

Dope Magazine #2

2010-05-23T09:04:00.011-07:00

That's right kids, Debbie Kirk is up to what has now become her yearly madness...publishing Dope Magazine.
New to the shooting gallery? Grab a rig and read this great review of Dope Magazine Issue # 1 by M. K. Chavez over at Cherry Bleeds online Journal: Virgin Eyes. I was honored to be in invited by Debbie Snack Cake to pen the intro to this hip mag, so I feel I am entitled to quote myself from it:

“Addiction is a weakness of weak people. It isn’t a disease the psycho-priest currently makes billions off by peddling un-needed cures and psycho-babble. I have no use for addicts. But the fact is, every now and then I “need” to bang a syringe of Horse through my veins to obliterate the fucked up world outside.”

Well kids, that was then and this is now. Now means you better get your lazy asses scribbling away at your top-shelf writing and artwork, because you only have until July 1st to get your submissions in! Full information and submission guidelines can be found at Snack Cakes site: Dope Magazine. This will again be a joint production between Debbie's Pink Anarchkitty Press and Tainted Coffee Press (who just published my flipbook "Apocalypse Generation"), so you can expected another high gloss, high quality production.

Debbie Kirk can be reached at:

DOPE Magazine c/o
Debbie Kirk
15 Bowen Avenue
Watsonville, CA.
95076
sinncity66613@yahoo.com

Debbie Kirk | Poetry | Alternative | Underground | dope | post modern beat | RC Edrington

101 Constitutional Questions To Ask Candidates

2010-05-20T11:30:00.016-07:00

Identifying Constitutional Candidates
But how can you tell when a candidate for political office is really a Constitutionalist?"
If the candidate is already in office he will have a voting record which will clearly show whether or not he is a Constitutionalist. Several organizations monitor the Congress and publish the results.
However, if the candidate is a newcomer to politics you will have to test his knowledge of Constitutional principles by asking a few questions.

What Kind of Questions Should Be Asked?
We are listing a few of the many questions which might be addressed to a candidate in order to determine whether or not he stands for those basic principles advocated by the Founding Fathers.
As we go through these questions you will note that nearly all of them can be easily answered by anyone who has attended the "Making of America" seminars on the Constitution. In the text for this course the answers to all of these questions are explained and documented. If your candidate does not know the answers, invite him to take a Constitutional seminar at the earliest possible date. The eight hours required for this study (thirteen on audio or video tape) may turn out to be the best investment in political orientation he could find. No American should run for public office until he has studied the Constitution in the tradition of the Founding Fathers.

Questions on General Principles
1. Under the Constitution, who has the sovereign authority to govern?
The founders said it is in the people "by God's own allowance." No branch or agency of the government should be allowed to operate in violation of the expressed will of the people. Their collective will is set forth in the Constitution and the laws passed by the people's representatives.
2. In what way are "all men created equal?"
All humanity are equal in three ways: 1. equal before God, 2. equal before the law, 3. equal in their rights. In all other respects people are different.
3. What is an inalienable right?
An inalienable right is one which comes as an "endowment from the Creator" and cannot be violated without coming under the judgment of God.
4. Which inalienable rights were listed in the Declaration of Independence?
The Declaration of Independence lists the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
5. What did the Founders mean by the "pursuit of happiness?"
This is a collective phrase designed to cover all of the other inalienable rights.
6. Give an example of an inalienable right which is essential to the pursuit of happiness.
The Founders believed, for example, that human happiness requires that each of us enjoy the right to acquire, develop and dispose of property. They believed that without the protection of property rights, all other rights are placed in serious jeopardy.
7. What are some of the other inalienable rights?
The inalienable rights of mankind include such things as the right of self government; the right of human beings to beget their own kind; the right of parents to rear their children free from outside interference (unless there is criminal abuse or neglect); the right to freedom of belief; the right to freedom of speech; the right to assemble; the right to petition; the right to change residence or one's job, etc.
8. What is the purpose of government?
The Founders said the basic reason for creating a government is to protect the inalienable rights of the people. The government is to provide "liberty under law," which means that no law should be passed unless it is specifically designed to protect the freedom, liberty. and well-being of the people.
_______________________________________________

This article originally appeared at National Center For Constitutional Studies, and is being reprinted here as a public service. Please refer to the original link for the FULL article and complete 100 questions to ask candidates.

US Constitution | Candidates | US Politics | Libertarian

Musings Before My Morning Swim

2010-05-19T08:31:00.000-07:00

Getting ready for my morning swim. Beats getting ready for my morning fix or morning snort. Survival is a good thing and I have often said what I have lacked in initial knowledge, time and age has finally blessed me with wisdom.

I have learned to accept and worship the flaw. That is what makes us who we are. Let others bask in the glorious boredom of perfection. I can look back on the ugliness of my life and actions and at least be grateful that something was learned and earned from it all. We all pay a price in life. My debts are paid. Are yours? Some are paid in flesh. Some in guilt. Some go through life thinking the world owes them something or blame their circumstance on their lack of achievements. I sleep well. I smile in the mirror these days at my beautiful ugliness.

However I am still amused there are those from the past who wish to toss blame my way for their shortcomings. There are still those who send me emails attacking my character and questioning my very existence based on spending 5 minutes of time with me and basing their judgement on second hand information. I have to chuckle. Why am I still on these peoples mind?

My advice is go live your life. I have no room in mine for you. I never did. The minute I stepped into yours, I began looking for a Greyhound bus out. That is a fact. That is truth. But some people are never really concerned with truth. They are merely concerned with their version of reality. Sad. Sad people living sad lives.

Someone is knocking on my door. It is time for my morning laps. For the next hour the only thing that exists will be me and the cool water flowing over my back. I will lose myself in the even flow of a body moving through a wave. Time will cease to be. But the truth will always remain, regardless of how someone wants to try and twist it to make them look like a victim. After all, we choose whether to be victims or not. No one makes us one.

for Mark Weber, Ron Androla & CAT

2010-05-17T10:59:00.003-07:00

"When they ask you what you do for a living tell them you're a truck diver." Thank you, Mark Weber. A very wise writer, for taking the time to type me those lines after reading my very first chapbook published close to, god, what? 20 years ago? I had just discovered what a chapbook was. I had just sent a series a "poems" off to some press in Stow, Ohio because I had read a bunch of cool stuff by a bunch of what I thought were pretty damn cool writers who wrote about shit I could directly relate to.

I had just survived my first real tour of the "punk rock", dope addled streets. From there, for my sanity, I escaped into a small trailer into a nowhere copper smelter tiny desert town called San Manuel, AZ and began typing the truth of my story with no intention that anyone would read a word of it. In fact I could care less if anyone would ever hear my voice again. This was my song and was pretty much singing for myself back then. The over worked men pulling shift work 7 days a week next to me in 100 degree sun had no use for my truth or what was burning a hole inside of me. They had 2000 degree copper to worry about skimming smooth as silk.

I don't remember how I found that magazine, Impetus. Out of boredom, perhaps. On a day off after a hitting the record store did I hit the bookstore? Did I get a wild hair up my ass like the haunting memory of a girlfriend suggested? Did I pick up a copy of something called Poets Market or Poet's Digest and scribble off for a sample copy? God forbid the nerve of me! A burnt out punk rocker, destined to a life of slavery and Union Wages doing menial labor, should actually consider...writing, let alone actually readin poetry.

Perhaps I desperately flipped through the pages hoping there was something in there that matched what I was feeling at the time. But page after page I found BULLSHIT. Nothing....then hmmmm IMPLOSION Press. The description looked damn intersting. I was clueless who the names were. Ron Androla? Who. It sounded like a cereal for hippies. None the less, I ripped the page out of the book...fuck the $20 price tag or whatever...I work hard skimming 2000 degree liquid metal. I sweated for my money. Besides, the first Guns N roses album had just come out and you could be damn sure that was where my money was going, my friends. You see, I knew rock music. That was a staple that had influenced and been there for me all my life. But poetry? This was new. I wasn't quite ready to drop a dime on it quite yet...

Then Cheryl Townsend began stuffing my mailbox weekly with Impetus. It was game over. I had a new mistress. A new home and a new calling. The first 20 poems I sent her she accepted. Not for Impetus. Instead she published my very own chapbook. I was suddenly a writer. A poet. I've been scribbling ever since. I have been reading people I identify with ever since.

I kind of get upset these days when I hear people say poetry has no place with the common man. I consider myself the common man. I consider my favorite poets common men. I also know if poetry could somehow get exposed to the average working man the auidence would explode exponentially. But I don't concern myself with that. I just keep singing my song for myself. And it still doesn't really matter if there is an audience there or not to hear. Poetry is what I do to maintain my own sanity. And till this day when people ask me what I do, I still tell them... I'm a truck driver.

Fred Brooklyn Show 5/16/2010 | RIP DIO

2010-05-16T21:39:00.002-07:00

From time to time I will bring the readers of my blog a treat. That's right free of charge! The Fred from Brooklyn Podcast originating from the basement of one Mr Fred from where else, Brooklyn. Enjoy! Feedback is welcome through email. Fred rants on various topics from politics, Weird But True, Ask Ashley, and his famous WALL OF NEWS but enough of my babble...here is Fred:

Soul Clearing

2010-05-16T05:10:00.001-07:00

I went for a morning jog to clear the head. It does wonders these days. I've decided that those who wish to dwell in the past are welcome to dwell there and rot. Instead, I have places to go and people to see. I continue my journey. My sole justification for doing what I do has, is and will always be for myself. Friends knows this. Outsiders see this as arrogance or some kind of an affront. Good. I seek nor want approval from no one. People lie. Facts speak for themselves and can't be twisted by those who warp them due to selfish motivations. My words, friends and the people who grace my art serve as a testament to my truth on a daily basis. The mere acquaintances who wander in and out of my life are merely side characters worthy of not even a second glance. You have earned nothing. Sadly, you all know who you are. It's a beautiful day. Go live it...or go wash dishes for those who do. It's your choice. Slavery is an option. A choice. What do you choose?

Indy 500

2010-05-16T03:29:00.001-07:00

I did managed to graduate the boredom of High School. Feels like a lifetime ago. Four years getting an up close and personal look at Catholic, institutionalized hypocrisy. I learned caught on real fast how the system worked and decided I wanted absolutely nothing to do with it. Besides, there was a cultural and musical explosion taking place in far off places like NY and L.A. To me, the future was there...not in some dusty history books or Bible

As for friends at the time, their definition of rebellion was listening to Clash records while studying real hard to ensure they had good standing heading off to University. Fuck that. To me that was a just another cage where you were trained to fit into a box for the sole purpose of being grinding a wheel to earn money you could then exchange for a bunch of meaningless shit you really didn't need or care about anyway. At 18 I was surrounded by bullshit. Why the fuck did I need four more years of College to learn how to acquire more of it?

My dad was off in Indy, doing whatever it was he did back then with racing. He flew me out to the Indy 500 after graduation, complete with Pit Pass and full access to the drivers. My "summer job" was wandering around scoping out cars and chicks. Not bad. Sponsor always came by to hand out promo shit. T-shirts...beer...you name it. Part of my "job" was polishing the chrome wheels on the Indy car as part of the crew. I also got to help push the said car out onto track on qualification day. I had a blast. I even had race groupies ask for my autograph. Pretty heady for an 18 year old kid.

Gasoline Alley is where all the cars are kept and worked on. It's like a small village to itself sitting in the middle of this huge coliseum. My description would do it no justice, so I'll forgo the literary bullshit and get to the point. For a few days prior to the race it had rained like hell. Race day we had to wake early pre-sun and get things ready for race day. I remember an announcement coming over the loudspeaker. Something to the effect that the the gates would be opening for fans to the infield. All the mechanics and pit crews climbed the stairs to the top of the staddium. My dad said watch the entry gate, so I watched...

Then I heard it. Motorcycles. They came flying into the infield on the dirt road like mad raiders off to fight some invisible war. Except the dirt road was pools of mud. On top of the rain, some of the pit crews had taken fire hoses and watered down the road even more. The guys on cycles starting sliding. A complete mud bath and shower with mud spitting everywhere and blinding the other cycle drivers. Till this day the craziest fucking thing I have ever seen in my life. Motorcycles flailing everywhere in the mud. They were having a blast and all drunk off their ass.

I guess I could edit this and turn it into literature, but I'm bored...a chronic underachiever. When I'm in the mood, maybe you'll get a good story. I just needed to drop the memory to page, before I drift off to sleep. But I can assure you. Watching those cycles roar into the stadium and fight the mud was one of the best memories of my early adulthood.

Debris 5/12

2010-05-12T04:21:00.004-07:00

*****Even the ones who envy or despise me still read me. I prefer them to fans.****

* I have had a piece accepted for the June issue of Underground Voices. I strongly suggest you read that monthly whether I am appearing in it or not, as it is one of the few ezines I read these days.

* I have also started an outline on my defining novel. It has been in planning stages for years, primarily because I couldn't decide on the proper view point or narration. Last night after talking to a good friend, more like brother, I believe that problem has been solved. The story will be told from three points of view with three narrators weaving their stories together with time shifts and different points of view of the same scene. I think that is the only way to capture the sheer randomness and uniqueness of the story. And above all else, the truth.

Anyway, stay tuned as that unfolds before your eyes.

* I will be searching out the appropriate publisher to publish an anthology of my best work over the last 10 years. This will be a compilation of my USA and UK publications. If you are an artists and would like to submit artwork for a possible cover or interior artwork, please do so. If budget allows, this will be a limited edition hardcover of 100 signed copies.

If interested in the projected, please email.

* From time to time I will also be posting here the Fred Brooklyn Podcast. It is a hodge podge of politics and strange take on the news. I encourage everyone to watch it live, but if not, I will bring select shows to my audience in attempt to help widen the audience. The show is somewhat NY centric, but then I do have people from all over the world readin this blog so it should make a nice addition.

Until next time....

A Couch Jockey's Guide To The Illuminati

2010-05-08T23:45:00.002-07:00

By popular request, I have been asked to re-print this article I wrote that has been making its way around the web. I would like to thank everyone who re-printed it and spread the love. I believe this has been the most widely published article I have ever written. Again, thanks to everyone out there. While it may seem a bit dated, the general theory still holds true. - RC Edrington

Still waiting for the New World Order? Do you scan the manipulated news media's headlines daily for hints that CIA or United Nation led stormtroopers are ready to land on your doorstep? Is your shotgun cocked and ready to take aim at Illuminati mercenaries hiding in your bushes bent on hauling off your kids to their white slave sex farms that provide child prostitutes to world leaders? Paranoid? You should be. All your fears are real. But it's too late. The New World order has arrived. In fact, it's been here for years.

Welcome to America. The last bastion of freedom and democracy? Hardly. While you may suffer from the delusion that you and the other lemmings in this country actually have freedom or some say in who runs this government, you couldn't be farther from the truth. The fact is an elite monopoly of power brokers decide the policies of this country, and you my fellow Americans merely get to vote on which personality gets to implement those policies. Democrat or Republican? They both play for the same team, and you lose.

Am I some nut job conspiracy theorist? I wish. If I were, I could write books about all the facts you readers are too lazy or stupid to wake up and realize...and make a million. Hell maybe I could then join the cabal of power brokers. Instead of copping dope on a street corner, I could just have it flown in and hand delivered by my own CIA financed drug dealer. Maybe I could even score a nice little time slot on talk radio sandwiched between Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. Maybe I'd even get a chance to tap into that hot little number Ann Coulter. Maybe.

A conspiracy theorist I am not. However, my grandfather was a 33rd degree Mason so I know a lot of very hip handshakes. And my ancestry on his side can be traced back to Scotland, where my forefathers were forced to hide out from various kings and popes bent on wiping them off the face of the earth. Yep, great great great grandpa was a Templar. No I don't know where our treasured is buried, so don't ask. However I am quite certain it isn't on the back of the Declaration of Independence as some Hollywood conspiracy would lead you to believe.

I am simply an assembler of facts. I ask not that you belive anything I claim. I simply ask that you look at a few facts that you somehow forgot, or overlooked while scimming through the pablum of big media news. Once you do this, you will realize the Democrats and the Republicans are the SAME party. And if you only have ONE party running a country, then you are not living in a democracy. You are ruled by one centralized group. Isn't that what the New World order is all about?

Case in point: George Bush Jr is Bill Clinton and vice versa. All the liberal and conservative debates about our little war in Iraq is just a smoke screen to cloud the real issue. It's just a ploy to make you think you have a choice in the matter. You don't. Who you vote for in the upcoming election will have no impact on any policy foreign or domestic. Now for the facts. Can you name the president responsible for the following actions:

1. This president ordered the largest and longest sustained bombing attack since the Vietnam War, on Iraq.

2. This president ordered air attacks on Iraqi intelligence centers in response to Iraq's alleged assassination plot on George Bush Sr.

3. This president signed the Iraq Liberation Act. In doing so, regime change in Iraq became OFFICIAL US foreign policy.

4. This president mounted a non-UN sanctioned four day air strike on Baghdad.

Let it be noted here that the president in question cited the reason for doing all of the above due to Iraq's failure to comply with the terms of UN weapons inspections. That president was Bill Clinton.

It is obvious to me, and should be to you, that despite all the liberal rhetoric condemning Bush, Georgie's administration is only following the 8 year policy on Iraq of the Clinton administration. The difference is zero. The reason the for this is because Clinton and Bush, as are all other American presidents, are merely personalities used by the elite ruling class...the Illuminati if you will, to manipulate public opinion so they can implement their foreign policies designed to make them richer. Whether they bash each other publicly or pretend to disagree with each other...NO ONE can deny that their policy on Iraq was identical.

But our story of George Clinton and Bill Bush continues. Remember the pharmaceutical plant in Sudan Clinton ordered bombed for producing chemical weapons? Sounds like Bush does it not. Remember Clinton's Kosovo War that came about on claims, later to be proven exaggerated, of ethnic cleansing? Sounds like Bush?

You see, it doesn't matter who your leader is in America today. Both parties are merely media whores for the secret cabal of the wealth merchants whose sole motivation is power and getting richer. Be it a liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican, your needs and interests are no longer served. Your government has been quietly taken out of your hands (if it were ever in your hands) while you sat there flipping through channels on your remote control or surfing porn sites on your computer.

This isn't a conspiracy theory. This is a wake up call. Put your beer down.

Tucson Circa 1994

2010-04-30T00:59:00.001-07:00

People I meet often ask what was Tucson like. Impossible to describe without going into story after long story, which would then lead into another long story. I think this video is a perfect description of back then, though. The places I hung out. Even the bar I often drank in and the music I listened to by one of my favorite local bands. Giant Sand "Yer Ropes". Enjoy!

Immigration: The Common Sense Approach

2010-04-26T22:06:00.001-07:00

I firmly believe any person that would like to come to this country should be allowed to, provided the economy at the time is able to support the number of people LEGALLY APPLYING to enter.

This IS America. Give us your tired, your poor.

Each year, or perhaps every 3-4 years an "immigration index" should be developed taking into account the unemployment rate, new job creation, inflation rate, and various other economic factors. This index would then get multiplied against a minimum number of yearly immigrants the Nation feels it can absorb per year. In good economic times we allow more immigrants to enter. In poor economic times, less immigrants. But we do increase the immigration rate for where it currently stands.

Of course there are those who will hate this concept because they believe in a total open border policy. All I can say is, I wish I could back that idea and let everyone in when they want in, but in reality that is a policy that places economic stress on the State and Fed Public Assistance Programs during poor economic times. Our immigration policy should be designed to make the Nation and the people coming into America stronger, not weaker citizens. We should offer an attainable dream, not a ticket to a broken welfare system that keeps people at the poverty line with little hope to rise above it.

I'm sure the "Progressive Liberals" are crying foul right here. But the bottom line is you can only cut a dollar into so many pieces until each portion becomes so small it is unable to support anyone. I am from Arizona. I am well aware of the jobs undocumented workers do. I am also aware that the money doesn't get paid in taxes here, it gets sent back to support families in Mexico. In fact very little of the wages earned by undocumented workers in Arizona is even spent in Arizona. However, these workers consume public utilities, emergency room care, low incomes housing, and other forms of public assistants.

I am NOT saying they should NOT be able to. I am saying the till is out of balance and the funds are running dry. At some point the philosophy of an open border needs to be balanced with the economic realities and costs of an open border policy.

During good economic times we can bare the difference. In poor economic times we can't. It has absolutely nothing to do with race or wanting people to immigrate or not. It isn't even an emotional issue the Tea Baggers or Dems try to make it every election. The reason they won't use a common sense approach is because they don't want to isolate an entire Latin American voting block. It's all politics and has nothing to do with what is right for immigrants or the people who are already in this Nation.

Again, I find this odd. My stepfather is a legal immigrant of Mexican decent. He is a hardliner when it comes to immigration. He would like to see a more open immigration policy, but at the same time he is well aware of what takes place in the Mexican communities of undocumented workers, and how the system is abused almost by definition under current laws.

Another thing we should consider adding to any real immigration reform is quality of applicants. For example, those who already had jobs in the States (like migrant workers) should have priority and moved to immediate citizenship. Even if they are already here undocumented. They should be fined and not be granted paperwork, however, until the fine is paid off. Fines will be based on income level to make it fair to each worker. Face it. America wants these workers. They are productive and we want their taxes to start getting collected and put into the system.

Points should also be granted to applicants with degrees in fields we deem important. Like technology or computers for example. We could develope a list of degrees that were weighted the we felt were needed for industry. That way those without jobs coming to the country would have a higher likelihood of obtaining a job once they got here. There is a yearly job index that determines what jobs are in high demand. We would use that to determine which applicants we let come in, aside from the migrant and low wage earners.

Of course there will be a high demand for low wage jobs still. SO no I am not creating an elitist atmosphere. Remember, those will be most of the first ones granted citizen status. The bottom line is we need to work together, be creative, but utilize common sense while NOT allowing one political group to dictate policy.

The GOP and DEMS will not solve this issue. They have lost interest in doing what is right for both America and the undocumented American worker. It will take a Libertarian philosophy to work out the details.

Underground Rant

2010-04-23T13:37:00.001-07:00

Some of you people are still operating on some very bad misconceptions about me. I have absolutely little use for most writers. I chose not to associate with or hang out with you. I have no interest in what you think about me or my writing. When I am around people like you I tend to break things and punch holes in walls. You end up usually in the hospital and I usually end up in a County jail cell. If you think for one second that this is bullshit or hyperbole then you are even more ignorant than I have assumed all along.

Sitting around talking about books with writers is boring. Sitting around rubbing elbows and patting other writers on the back is akin to masturbating. If that is what you chose to do, then more power to you. But please, leave me the fuck alone. I scribble words for a very small audience. I seek absolutely no validation from anyone. Those that matter will always matter and those that don't never will. Are we clear?

I do not write literature or poetry. I despise most people who write poetry and waste their days engaged in this bullshit called literature. I have lived a life full of mistakes and flaws. I will continue to do so. The words I toss on the page are nothing more than my process of grasping for some semblance of order in a very chaotic life.

Friends and acquaintances I have made along the way will speak to the truth of my words. Editors, writers, readers, and publishers have not earned that right and never will. If I elect to call you a useless motherfucker and you cannot handle it, move along. There will be someone out there who will worship the very ground you walk on. If on the other hand I manage to cough up some praise, ignore it. Who gives a fuck what I say? I am just one person blindly stumbling through the shadow of language trying to figure out what the hell went wrong.

I have no use for experts or pretense. I build my own stages, much like bridges, and tear them down when I feel they have served their purpose. If this makes me a horrible person, so be it. I have only attempted to bring truth. It was you who got lost in the metaphors and romance. Not I.

Reality can be a bitch sometimes. But ride that bitch fast and hard. People who wander around letting other people define them assume other people actually give a fuck what other people think about them. Newsflash: we don't.

The underground hasn't died. We just changed our address, and you weren't invited this time around. Don't you have a reading you need to get to, or some performance you need to practice for? You look real cute in that smoking jacket, asshole.

Fuck All That...

2010-04-18T09:19:00.002-07:00

Life is very fucking odd. The life of a "writer", even more so. For years I attempted to utilize a bit of restraint and "poetic license" to make my world believable...or at very minimum palatable...to the reader, yet one of the major criticisms launched against me is none of this could possibly be real.

Although I personally could give a fuck what some desk jockey determines what is real or not, I am quite certain the thousands of people that pollute my stories and life on a daily basis do give a fuck. After all, it is their lives you literary elitist sit in judgement on...and fail.

Imagine that, the "watered down" version of my life is unbelievable. That either means I am a horrible writer, or we have far too many writers today living in their imaginations and not living life. As for art, I do NOT believe it is something one strives to create. Art is something one attempts to reflect in the world they find themselves in. I don't care where you are or who the fuck you think you are. The true artist is able to reach out and cling to something beautiful to give them motivation to suck that next breath and keep on keeping on. Whether you're laying in some flat with a needle hanging out of your arm, or sitting in some gold cage ready to pop that final Valium...art is there.

Art is not created. Art is found. If you are in the business of creating art...QUIT. Enough of it exists without you mucking it up with your third rate broken prose disguised as poetry.

But back to me, because everything has to be about me...or why bother putting pen to paper. Is that not honest? I write for my sanity, not yours. Save your own souls, or the parts of them you have not whored out for the sake of a little fame or a few pats on the back...

So the point of this most recent diatribe? No holds barred. Names will be named. Truth will be tossed and sorted like a man looking for a shiny nickel at the bottom of a dumpster. This song will be your life. Time to pony up and see exactly how much that few moments of playing with fire will cost you. I'll make you a star baby, or a tragic footnote. Who gives a fuck either way....

Bring it...truth NEVER lies.

"not now john
we've got to get on with the film show
Hollywood waits at the end of the rainbow
who cares what it's all about
as long as the kids go..." - Roger Waters

The Return of Spent Meat

2010-04-13T00:32:00.006-07:00

I have no intention of beating dead horses. From the moment I arrived in Arkansas from Arizona in 2005, I was completely drug and alcohol free. By Choice. I was burnt on the bullshit back in Tucson, and particularly "Barrio Libre". Friends began to die off much too fast. And the friends still alive were slowly losing everything they owned to cocaine and heroin habits.

I left my girlfriend laying in a hospital bed on the brink of death due to a heart infection brought on by slamming unclean heroin. I walked away from everything I owned, and hopped a plane out. Some would consider this running away. Fair assessment given I refuse to go into much more detail. But the bottom line, I cleaned my ass up and went straight to writing to purge any wild demon remnants of my past. All was going quite well.

Quite well. Until a received a free plane ticket from a chick with fake tits who thought it would be real cute if I could fulfill a few of her unrequited "punk rock" dreams. So I bit...hey top-shelf pussy is top shelf pussy.

Many things happened on that little adventure. Many lies were told and various other activities...and trust me this isn't just blowing steam. Everything is documented. Regardless, the above picture is but one example of the mental instability of this plastic tit lady. It is a picture of a razor blade on a plate. This was allegedly used to prove to the police that I was back on drugs and snorting medications. Out of ALL the photographs, the official ones the police have, and the less flattering nude ones I have, I find this one most telling.

I was in a tiny ski town in Northern Colorado. I had zero access to drugs. In fact the "alleged" drug residue on the plate and razor blade were XANAX. Interesting. And no, wrong again...I had no prescription for XANAX. But the person that created this entire drama did have a script. In fact, the week prior to me being tossed into the County Jail for two weeks and trumped up on bullshit charges, this wonderful fake tit lady had filled not ONE, but TWO prescriptions of XANAX at two separate drug stores. Sorry, you can't manipulate those facts sweetheart. Check the insurance records. Still questioning that IQ?

I spend 2 weeks in County Jail because some asshole trashed my apartment, I catch the blame because of my "previous record". Yes, it was really easy to pin that on me. The question never got asked though, why I was walking around (if I were) with a full bottle of XANAX. No one asked where that bottle of pills came from.

I was in such a hurry to get out of that backwoods town full of handpicked and hand-fucked lawyers, I copped a plea to whatever got me out of that fucking state. That is the truth. You also know the truth. I kept my mouth closed and remained loyal to my code...the code of the street. You stayed loyal to your code, Mrs fake tit job lawyer. Maybe if you dug a little deeper I would have walked innocently. But your job was to cover your ass and hide inside your law books.

The point of all this is there is no point to any of this. I will always look at my face squarely in the mirror and see truth. I am surprised you will be able to see anything once the BOTOX® begins to rot, and you start looking like Heidi Fleiss. I guess the metaphor will then be complete. You figure it out.

Regardless, Spent Meat Version 3, the project I was working on before the little rich girl came along, is back. Submissions are open.

(Real names and incidents have been changed to protect the innocent and/or guilty)

FOR THE RECORD: SPENT MEAT WILL BE BY INVITATION ONLY. I HAVE A GROUP OF QUALITY WRITERS I HAVE DECIDED TO FOCUS ON WHO HAVE DEDICATED THEMSELVES TO WRITING, AND I WILL FOCUS ON THEIR WORKS. I will no longer waste time stroking the egos of lesser writers.

You Want Romance Or Truth?

2010-04-10T04:16:00.000-07:00

A case of Natural Light iced down. A 1/2 ounce of cocaine in a plastic Skoal can, ready. A night of party. Nothing special. Another night in Barrio Libre holed up in my bedroom tucked neatly between the Liquor Store and the Bar. The fucking and sucking was soon to begin as Black Flag burnt holes through the stereo and drowned out the shitty wetback music and bullshit macho man noise that failed to fight its way into my cave. My domain. One of the few "white boys" with nuts big enough to call home this twisted barrio of wetbacks and Papago's...and no I didn't then, and sure as fuck don't now care about the "politically correct" names of Injun tribes. My forefathers called them Papago's (bean eaters), so that's what I call them. Besides, that's what they did. Shoveled beans into their diabetic guts off pop-over bread and basked in the glory of their cheap, stale beer farts...bitching and moaning 24/7 about how "whitey" robbed them, but never doing anything to change it. Picking up a book, instead of a 40 ounce of Old English, was out of the question. Of course they had zero problem forking over their day wages or welfare checks for beer by the pitcher to the bar.

I can't recall the slit who was there at the time. There was always a slit around. Beer and cocaine with tunes cranked, I always had some slit parked on that broken down bed ready to bend into what ever shape the particular sex need of the evening required. You want romance or you want truth? I could give a fuck. The facts are facts. Pussy is pussy.

In the middle of my first blow job of the evening (I try hard now to remember her name. Lost like a bad memory. Not that she would mind. Odds are high she OD'd a few years back off that nasty black tar heroin that was peddled like ice cream bars in that barrio) I hear a shout from the bar, a commotion...

"RC bring the gun!"

It was Joe, best friend at the time...and owner of said Bar and Liquor store. My brain and heart kick started to action. Cocaine helps in that area when someone or something needs to be seriously fucked up. I knew something serious was going down. Joe stands over 6 ft. tall and is a former body builder. The guy working the bar with him that night was just as huge. Something seriously had to be going down for them to be calling me for back up.

I'll skip the details of the story, because to be perfectly honest, you people aren't worthy of the truth. You can't handle the truth. Poetry and literature is supposed to be pretty and full of cute little puppy dogs and BULLSHIT.

I grabbed the nickel plated .357 I kept for situations such as these and ran full bore out the front door. Some wetback was stumbling around the parking lot with a knife. I could tell from the splintered pool cues laying in the dirt that Joe and Rich had beat the guy down...but the dude was riding the crack fuel. Nothing would put this fool down, except a bullet...maybe.

Soon as wetback saw me he came drunk stumbling at me with the knife. I grabbed his hand twisted it free then kicked it somewhere. Who the fuck knows where. There was not time to take careful notes. To date, the cops have not found the knife. Fucking useless cops. I remember they used to tell us that if something bad went down, hurt the guy bad enough so the EMT's have to file the paperwork and not the cops. Yeah, sure, whatever officer on the take. Officer fucking one of my whores a few blocks away in your squad car. Remember, in the barrio it isn't who you know that keeps you out of jail. It's what you know. Fuck cops. I've never met a clean one in my life.

I didn't pull the trigger and waste wetback that night. Most likely I could have. God knows I would have a few upstanding citizens and a bar full of "friends" swearing on their mother's graves it was self defense. But no, I shot no one. I gave the guy a round house kick to the head and went back inside to drink my beer and finish getting my dick sucked.

No, none of this is beautiful. None of this is the stuff of poetry. What can I say. Guilty. I have never been concerned with poetry or literature. I live my life. Shit happens, and I drop it on paper. It's honest. It's truthful...just the way I like things. Now go create a poem you sad fucks. Art is everywhere. It is our job to live and find it. It isn't our job to ever create it.

If you can't figure out what that means...I have six in the chamber with your name on it.

Zygote '69' Flipbook Chap #3

2010-03-30T01:46:00.001-07:00

The Frankendelphia Experiment by J.D. Nelson and Apocalypse Generation by RC Edrington, published by Tainted Coffee Press is now available. This is a perfect bound 60 page book, featuring great cover art by Andrew Lander. You can order for a mere $6 direct: Zygote Flipbook #3.

I receive noticed from the publisher that all pre-orders would be shipping earlier today (Monday March 29, 2010). Thanks to all who ordered in advance. To those I earmarked copies to, I'll be getting those out by weeks end. Also, I will be making available for a limited time and in limited edition signed copies for anyone who would like to order a copy. Cost will be $15 for the added shipping and hassle on my end. To purchase those, please send an email to me for information.

Underground Poetry | Alternative Press | Publisher News

My American Punk Rock Song, Buy Your Own [Part One]

2010-03-10T11:29:00.010-07:00

When I was 18, I ignored the Joe Strummer Mohawk and favored the Henry Rollins fuck the fashion let my hair grow long look. I did however sport a few Italian Red Army shirts courtesy of The Clash...and of course who could ignore the Raymond Pettibon T-Shirt that Greg Ginn snagged for a Black Flag album cover and then tossed on a T-Shirt. By then my RAMONES shirts were old, ripped or being used as blood rags by the squatter chicks who had failed at stealing tampons that day. Sorry kids, I am tired of bullshit. Too old for it. Time for me to spit some more truth you won't listen to. No, I did not type read. Why? Real me has lived with and told real people this all my life. This is old news.

For new readers: do not confuse former dope addiction with an IQ level. Makes you look real stupid. Also do not ignore the fact that I was a kid when computers started coming out, and being rather curious for my age, learned real quick (and never stopped) how to manipulate the mother fuckers. Internet may be fairly new to you but my shit has been appearing on message boards long before 90% of you every discovered AOL.

I am not trying to be too cool for the room. Check a fucking mirror. You are the ones seeking validation by someone outside your own skin, not me. My TV career ended in the early 90s because I was bored of the new cool hip FREE community cable access. Imagine that, putting million dollar equipment in my hands. I still have no idea what happened to that state of the art media van someone stole during an on tour film shoot. Don't remember the outcome. Don't care. Wasn't my dime. That was dumb ass government tax payer money (YOURS). Why the fuck would I care about it.

What do you chose to do? Parrot reality or create it? Live life or catch pieces of it as edited parts of it flicker upon a TV screen?

I also do not want to be a best selling author. If all of a sudden huge crowds of people started throwing me buckets of cash for my words I would take it as a sign The Mayan's were correct and the world is ending. I take that back and offer apology. Mayans never predicted any such thing. Do you people actually read history books? My truth. My punk rock song! Buy your own! Please feel free to send me cash at any time. I will never pander to you, but I am at any moment willing to steal your spare change. Fool's dance!

Now, try to catch up. Have you been waiting for someone official, or some mainstream press to validate me? Validate this mother fuckers. My rant. My song. Buy your own. Or steal your own and feel free to publish it as though it were your life. Fools. Do not confuse my contempt for hate. You're not worthy.

I will provide names, dates, and facts. Used condoms...no. Bastard children? Guaranteed, no. I clipped my nuts at an early age. What can you offer in return? Internet bullshit, rumor or allegation based on someone else's bent version of reality and not your own eyewitness account of reality? Or will you parrot back words to me of some writer, radio or TV host because you have a lemmings view of my asshole and plan to do a shuck and jive right before you go head first over the cliff? Fool. Too bad. You lose. "I am the man. I suffered I was there".

I am the guy who went around with my neon orange spray paint (my color sig) and nailed the bus stops with the anarchy symbol, the bars of the black flag, or maybe chose a wall to make it loud and clear that I had decided to "Ignore heroes. Fuck Authority. Live my own life". Whatever. We were are all young once and thought we were discovering the world for the very first time.

Did I mention I also voted for Ronald Reagan in the first Presidential Election I was old enough to vote? Yeah, you were probably not born yet, kids...or in diapers. I would toss the term shitting in diapers into the mix, but that is probably played out by now. Look, the hip kids are using naughty language in their insulated little literary circle jerk no one but they read...again and again (pause)...and again! However if you are my contemporary age wise, do not lie and claim you were there with me. It was a small crowd back then, not this huge mainstream music revolution it has now become "cool" to be a part of. If you were there with me and there were soooooo many of us (there would have had to been right, isn't everyone these days claiming to have been there?), then please explain the shit bands that graced the album charts back then, that you listened to and not I. No, this isn't a who is cooler pissing contest. This is MY truth...turn the fucking station if you don't like the song. We did not have that option then...so we "played" rock stars to our own sounds. Any revolution that raved about by journalist was bullshit and came after the fact. Check real CBGB history and the bands...maybe you can get fake street credibility somewhere in trade for that shirt you bought on Ebay. Maybe not. I will keep my real people. You keep your inner circle literary crowd. Deal? If you were there...you are probably laughing your ass off (literally not internet)...welcome, glad you made it out alive...weren't we so glamorous, hip and cool? No we weren't. It actually really sucked back then. Almost as bads as it sucks now.

Remember always, you are the ones too hip for the room. Not me. Turn around is fair play so shut your bitching moaning pablum puking mouths...Want to hang? Didn't think so...

Sure. I was a "poser". You can call me that since you were there and earned the right. Fools. You do not know me. You only know what I manipulate you into knowing of me. My terms, my due time. I elected to go for the long "work" and not burn myself out on the short one. Comprende? No. Then move along. Nothing to see here. I was also the guy who at 19 worked the door for numerous clubs and let underage kids in to see bands like Black Flag, Dead Kennedy, X, TSOL, Minutemen (yeah dude way before a bunch of morons picked up on their tune and used it for a theme song on some MTV shit circus) Wasted Youth,..and on and on. I'm sure a lot of underage kids had a lot of hangovers from the beer I bought, being one of the first to hit 19 when 19 was still the legal age to buy booze in this country. Why? I figured why the fuck let some club owner make a buck off an underpaid band and deprive some kid the ability to see that band because their fucking birthday didn't match some Federal guideline. I also knew an 18 year old kid should be able to get drunk off his ass if he wanted, since he also had the ability to sign up with the United States Military. A lot of my old "punker" friends went that route when the original punk rock party ended for us. I am not typing about your damn rights here. My personal opinion is you have no rights. I am talking about hypocrisy here and MY way of circumvention. My punk rock song, buy your own!

Yes Americans. This is me. This is my full confession and punk rock song. Listen the fuck up. It may not be hip or poetical, but it is the truth. What can you offer these days in return? A promise?

I remember one night in Tucson, Arizona. Sometime in the late-1980's. We were kicking it in this coffee house. The name escapes me because in those days coffee houses and punk clubs came and went on a nightly basis (literally). Some just opened for one night to catch whatever band happened to be on tour from California to New York or vice versa, and needed an excuse to earn a few bucks while taking a break from the road in some off the map desert town. Of course to most of you Tucson was off the map. However to most the bands of the era, Tucson was prime touring ground. We offered couches, living rooms, and warm meals free of charge for tired bands in shitty vans. But I ramble off topic...

About 20 of us, and trust me that number is overly generous to history, were sitting around drinking nasty warm Coke, talking with Henry Rollins. I am not sure if he called it a "Spoken Word" performance back then. I am sure the other Black Flag people were off doing whatever other Black Flag people did then, as I will make no comment in regard to that. Others have documented that part of history far better than I. Anyway, we didn't give a fuck what anything was called back then. We did what we did, and that was all. Mainly expose bullshit and hypocrisy even if that meant looking in the mirror and pointing at ourselves. And trust me, that is not "hip" or "cool" to do at that age. It isn't even cool when you read about doing it in some glorification of reality media puff piece, years later.

Around this time I was also cranking Neil Young at top volume in the malls alongside my RAMONES tapes a decade before "Grunge" was created, marketed and sold. I was a very uncool punk rocker back in the day. God (oops, Johnny Rotten should perhaps be inserted here for revisionist historians?) forbid I listen to Neil Young or let one of his albums touch one of my Husker Du albums. Morons. But you were all down with the Minutemen doing a Blue Oyster Cult cover song. You were lemmings then. Your kids are lemmings now. MY punk rock song!

The thing with Henry Rollins regardless of what he was saying...laying down something funny or something from his gut. Whether you agreed with what he was ranting about at that moment or not. You knew the dude was speaking 100% truth from his personal experience and believed it in with every fiber. That is the type of people who I hung with. Believe whatever the fuck you want. But live it and breath it. That I support. You can be a dumb fuck for all I care as long as you know you are a dumb fuck, respect your role as dumb fuck and live your role as a dumb fuck to the best of your ability.

...and that is what I learned from Henry back then (no idea what he is talking about these day, no contact really...I absorb what I need and move along in my own world, doing my thing. Sometimes like a fucking explosion that goes off due to a forgotten land mine and sometimes like a quiet student of the profound or insane. I also enjoy scratching my head daily and saying what the fuck, I do not understand this at all, but I want to...so I will break it down into little pieces and figure it out. But I am always me, for better or worse. Speak truth from your personal experience, then back the shit up or shut the fuck up. I have attempted to meet that standard my entire life. I have failed often. I will continue to fail often. We all will fail often. Some will stand before you and lie, and ask for your vote or your belief or for you to "hang" in their inner circle complete with secret handshake or hip terminology...but PLEASE remember: You are 100% responsible for your reality and truth. You cannot be lied too unless you accept the lie. Never forget, the goal here is to speak truth. Not debate your personal fucking opinion of truth.

And I might interject here, because I can interject whenever the fuck I want in my own ramblings, that due to the ruling elitist class deciding it was in my best interest to have British literature shoved down my throat as a child, I ignored all literature until years later when a girlfriend with more brains than I will ever have actually have shoved a copy of "Leaves of Grass" into my very dope addled hands. My first chapbook publication was a very strange and unchartered experience for me as it was also my first publication of any kind. I am still grateful to that tiny little press out of Ohio who saw something in my scribbles of value. Till this day I type away still not quite sure exactly what that is, so I concern myself not with literature, but instead focus on MY truth. MY punk rock song. You label it as you wish. I care not. I still have to draw air into my lungs on a daily basis and contend with ME. For years, I allowed dope to contend with me. Dope failed. You really believe you can take on this mess? Do not invite me into your home, others have tried. It can get quite ugly. Police reports will bare this out.

I guess this ramble goes out to this generation of "punk" kids. If I had a message, it would be welcome to the house. Paint the fucking walls. Punch a few mother fucking holes in them if you want. Hell, I don't care if you decide you hate all my furniture and decide to replace it with your own. Feel free to burn my entire record collection and replace it with whatever mp3 you just snagged from My Space. But PLEASE leave the foundation alone.

I encourage rebellion. However with it I encourage knowledge and free thinking. Please understand you can do whatever the fuck you want on this stage, it belongs to you now, but real men shed blood for the damn stage on which you have freely chosen to perform. You do not have to agree with my opinions. I do not have to agree with your opinions. But we sure the fuck BOTH better make sure the environment still exists where both of us are freely able to coexist... or I win and silence you. Why, because I am older than you. Check history...the older a person the more politically active a person REALLY is. You kids sit on your ass and plan revolutions smoking top shelf weed. I am not knocking it. I have tried it...for years. Rock the vote. Whatever the fuck you want to call it these day...but due your diligence as a citizen first, and read a little history. Not school spoon fed bullshit history.

Communism looks real cool on a T-Shirt. Marxism provided great lyrics for me to scare the shit out of people while I sang Clash tunes down at the local mall. Socialism is a real neat concept until there are no jobs and no people making money to contribute to your free ride or "greater good". Fascism is blast, provided you are the one that gets to be in charge. Anarchy is still the best symbol around and looks real bitchin' painted on a spiked neon blue Mohawk, but is fairly useless as a system to unite differing people with differing beliefs. Anarchy produces nothing but chaos in that instance...and while sure pure chaos is pretty damn cool as well, too much entropy will destroy the entire system. Yes, even science is not wasted, Boring as taught by your teachers? I grant you that one.

My American Punk Rock Song, Buy Your Own [Part TWO]

2010-03-10T11:25:00.001-07:00

Too much heroin swimming through the veins leaves a writer with a lot of years in the rear view mirror, and way too may words that need to fucking be said. Hear this punk rock song mother fucks!

Stop.

Think.

Never confuse your fashion with your reality.

Do not get your information from the media. Do not get your information from some cool dude or chick in a band. Do not get it from your teacher, as they too have their own agendas to promote. We all have our own agendas to promote...so do not even get your information from me. Question everything. Be a real fucking rebel. Pick up a damn book. Read history for yourself. Not someone's interpretation of it. Do not read an opinion by someone who was not there! There is a US Constitution. All the men responsible for that document have also left other writings that further define and expand upon the ideas contained within that document. It is called keeping truth in the context in which it was discovered...not truth the way someone pulled it out, slapped it on a nifty bumper sticker and claims it to be.

Thomas Jefferson was one of the first real punk rockers. He said fuck authority. He said fuck you telling me what I can believe, please keep your religion in your church. Do not let these other people tell you who Jefferson is. Do not let these people tell you this country was founded on Christian ideas. Truth is some of the men involved were very much die hard Christians. Some were not. None of them felt their religious beliefs should get in the way of other peoples freedom. That is Truth. The dudes who founded this country made damn sure the concept of "God" was deist, and the law on which they based their complaints against the King of England was a thing called "natural law". Want to decide how to stand on a certain issue? Study the concept of natural law for awhile. Morality is contained within it. You do not need preached at. You know when you fuck up and when you don't (unless you are a sociopath in which case society should not be punished for your illness by passing laws to make you be moral, we should just offer to medicate your illness. Unless you hurt another, then well, due the crime do the time. Being an adult is taking ownership of who pays for your mistakes. You? Your fellow citizen? A baby? Your dog? Me? Who? YOU DO! Own up and or go back and be controlled by mommy and daddy. Enjoy tyranny? Enough said?

Christianity was left out in name for a reason. These guys wanted to unify people. All people. Christians, theists...hell George Washington would a few years later as President even sign a treaty with a (oh this is "scary" to people who use labels for shock value so they do not have to examine details) Muslims that stated that this country was NOT founded on Christian principles. Does this mean Christians are bad or should not be in office? Of course not. It just means they should not impose their beliefs upon you anymore than any other religion should. But you go read history in the context of which it was written.

Truth is my personal opinions are in agreement with a lot of people on the religious right on many issues. However unlike the religious right, and like Jefferson, I do not believe in legislating my personal beliefs upon you. My morality was gifted to me over time, through experience and by something greater than me that exists outside of me. I have no need to define it. I do know the difference between right and wrong. I do know that 90% of my life has been lived poorly. Not because someone says it was wrong...but because I always felt off center and off kilter. Why else would I been shoving dope in my veins day after day? I pretended for years I was not trying to escape anything. One day I woke up and realized the person I was trying to escape was me.

As a Deist I reserve the right to define God as a little green alien zooming the universe in the Mothership or a some dude that got nailed to a stick. The people that concern themselves with those details also raise their kids to believe in Santa Clause until the kid is old enough to realize the sham. These beliefs do not damage kids. Not many kids are in therapy because one day they discovered Santa was a fraud.

Despite the lies media tell you, right and wrong do exist and you know it, and you are free to assign the label of your choice to where you think you got that knowledge. You are also free to not label it. You can also say right and wrong do not exist, but the moment you cause harm to another...you no longer are given the freedom to believe your way.

Nope none of this is my original thought. Wish I could claim it. I've just read Jefferson, Paine, Franklin over the years...studied tons of "religions", and decided if God did exist what would matter to him more...my belief and worship in him, or the way I chose to make my decisions based upon how they may effect myself and others? I decided the god that was more interested in being worshiped than truth was not the one I would tick off on the box I am permitted to do so (with founding fathers full blessing). Religious right can kiss my ass. They are liars. Do not legislate your morality because you have failed to reflect truth to others through your own life and religion.

However, in all fairness, I should also point out that George Washington is the only President in America history to turn armed Federal troop against his own citizens. Yes, back then even big business tried to levy unfair and unbalanced taxes against the poor...and because of our Constitution, patriots were able to rise up against Washington and stop it...a historical failure overall, in my opinion, as Washington and Alexander Hamilton finally won and fucked the true working class patriots in this country with an income tax. But keep in mind, the men who rebelled against Washington, rebelled against the unfair tax...not against the foundation upon which that tax was levied. But you read the truth...I am not shit compared to reading the actual true history.

Thomas Paine was also totally punk rock. kids. He thought the religious forefathers hopped up on God were the biggest tyrants known to man. Read it yourself. The books, not some quote or interpretation. Then ask yourself how did all these dudes who had such differing opinions of something like GOD, get together, bitch slap the fucking king of England and form a new country out of dust?

Remember that is the stage you are dancing on kids. Don't fuck up your own scene. Don't shit where you eat. Defend the fucking thing. Believe what you wish, but read history and preserve your right to believe what you wish. Please also keep in mind that no one has the right to MAKE anyone else pay for what your believe. It's like selling an album, kids. You put it out, promote the fuck out of it...and wait for people to catch wind and freely drop their cash to support you or not. If you make a buck, rock on! If you suck, do something else. Or keep fucking rocking and don't worry about making a fucking buck. But passing a law to make me pay for your belief is cheating. That is not punk rock.

This country was founded for one purpose and one purpose only. Freedom. It does not entitle you to anything more. You should not need anything more from it. However that freedom carries with it a heavy price. This country is NOT your parents. You are here. Welcome. Now entertain yourselves and support yourselves. If you want to wait around for someone to entertain you, you lose. You are owed zero for popping out of your mom. Talk to her about the deal. Not me. If that doesn't satisfy you then please, you are free to go Cobain, and cop out on the whole thing. Oh but Kurt was an artist and genius. Bullshit. Kurt happened to have access to punk rock and the Replacements at a very young age, and was great at putting commercial jingles to the angst of my generation and selling it to idiots like you looking for the next John Lennon, or god forbid, Sid Vicious.

If you need any tools, the libraries are full of them. However if freedom is not your thing, get the fuck off my stage. You have not contributed to the building of it. There are numerous other countries that are willing to take you in and indoctrinate you into the political philosophy of your choice. But keep in mind, despite all the bullshit in this country...the entire world is crossing OUR borders trying to get here.

Gee, this must be the place to be. Who wants to blow me for a backstage access to the band?

Oh wait. This is a REPUBLIC. It was never intended to be a democracy. A democracy is when Ringo gets to pretend he has as much talent as John, Paul and George. Or more to piont, when Sid gets to pretend he is actually in the band and is not just its biggest groupie fan. Wait. I am mixing my metaphors and allusions. The sex Pistols weren't a band. They were a marketing gimmick created by a guy who used to design clothing for the New York Dolls. My ramble. My punk rock song!

A republic, which the founders made damn sure this country was...because they hated the idea of mob rule, means simply that this country belongs to every single one of us as citizens and we give the government permission to pass laws in OUR best interest. Not what they think our fucking best interest is. We have a Constitution and the writing of the men who wrote that document in perfect historical context to shows us exactly what they meant word by word. Yes, you have the right to adapt it per generation. You do not have the right to change its meaning...that requires an entirely different process...also document...and IGNORED by every politician I have ever been exposed to my entire life. (SO I guess the true punk rebellion would be to march on Washington, toss all the fuckers out...since Jefferson did entail us not with that right...but obligation...get the government operating back the way it was supposed to...then rock the fuck out, do as we please, bring no harm to each other...and not party on anyones dime unless they freely offer).

Truth is a democracy just means majority rules. Democracy sucks when you happen to be in the minority. A Republic just means the minority does not have to pay for the whims of the majority. Or become economic slaves to them. You read the books, kids. That is why it is crucial you do not grant the government permission to take care of you...because they gladly will...just like a good slave. Did I mention, ignore me and read a few history books by the men who were actually there? Not only is that punk rock, it real poetry too. Write what you know. My punk rock song, America. Who gives a fuck if I can't sing...you don't have to pay for it!

How To Smoke Cocaine: Addictions Are Nowhere.

2010-01-29T02:25:00.006-07:00

Kids as usual think they are "too hip for the room". I get it. Been there. Done that. I thought I was most hip on high. I was probably just more high. Recently I got involved in a discussion with a bunch of them regarding the song "I Should Kill You" by the band Mary Magdalan. I know right? Sometimes I forget I am an old fart...

Anyway, the textbook drug expert hip kid attempts to bitch slap some other hip kid by telling him crack & cocaine aren't the same...and you can't smoke cocaine. So the young rebel in me steps in. You sure as hell can too smoke cocaine.

During many binges and many nights spent in the party(?), I'd often watch crack whores (they preferred the term "rock stars") fill a spoon with water, pinch in some of the guy who was bankrolling the parties cocaine into it, sprinkle in some baking soda, and spark a lighter underneath until it bubbled. A penny was then taken to mix and stroke with only the intensity and focus a crack head can possess. Whatever stuck to the penny, you could then smoke in your crack pipe...and there was no need to leave the party to buy a "rock" or detach your self from the bankroll or that pile of chalk on the table.

The point is, kids, I don't care how many times Mary Magdalan mentions the word cocaine in her song, it is merely the vehicle she's using to tune you into the reality...ALL addictions are bad. Who cares if it is to drugs, ideas, or even people. Go live your life and experience what you think you need to experience. Don't let anyone keep you from life experiences. Picking up a few scar along the journey makes us all a bit more interesting, if only just to ourselves. But never let any one thing become your obsession to the point it controls you completely and erases YOU.

Just an opinion from an old fart, that for some ungodly reason survived passed the age of 21... my journey continues.

If your into the new music stuff. Give Mary Magadalan a listen. Like the band or not, they are doing there thing, there way...and calling it like they see it: Mary Magadalan

What Do You Do For A Living?

2010-01-16T01:01:00.000-07:00

Over the years I have met many boring people who have asked many boring and tedious questions. Top among those is, "What do you do for a living?". This question amazes me still. Believe it or not, there remain some people in this world who do not define who they are by what slave labor they are engaged in at the time to get through life as defined by the rules.

I live and write for a living. However, I rarely tell people I am a writer due to the fact I do not want to be associated with what I consider "writer types" or labelled a "writer" and then dismissed.

If you mean what jobs have I held to supplement my income, in between the actual living of my life and scribbling words on paper, then sure I will provide you a list. Please also note, since it is you who are keeping score, that I have only been fired from one of these jobs...and that was for telling a "superior" who I did not feel was all that superior to "fuck off" in full earshot of people I felt needed to be informed that this individual was an asshole. While everyone did in fact agree with my assessment, I was the one fired. I have also left out a few "jobs" to protect a few people I. and I alone, deem worthy of protecting.

Keep also in mind, since you are the arrogant fools who ask these silly questions and make such foolish assumptions, that I can provide references upon requests in the event I choose or give a fuck about your petty bullshit.

*Library Page*Theater Usher*Bus Boy*Office Slave*Forklift Operator*Copper Skimmer*Crane Operator*Janitor*Ditch Digger*Painter*Publisher*Small Business Owner*Psychosocial Rehab Counselor*Vocational Instructor*Hotel Desk Clerk*Bar Tender*Band Roadie*Web Designer*Public Relations Liaison*Editor*Talk Show Host*Ghostwriter/Editor*Ghost Columnist*Carpenter*Delivery Driver*Homeless Panhandler*Crazy Person*Front Office Store Manager*

The point is, I have done many things "for a living". None of them defines who or what I am. However, the people and places I met while performing these tasks all contribute to what I actually do: live and write. No more questions.

Apocalypse Generation: RELEASED

2009-12-29T06:04:00.004-07:00

It is official. It is here. The small press that could. The small press that "get's it" has finally released my series of scribbles labeled "Apocalypse Generation" for Flipbook #3. JD Nelson, another I count among the true original in the small press world for all his bizarre imagery & weirdness, also gets a release here with "The Frankendelphia Experiment".

Let the comic book circa rock n roll covers draw you in. The Zygote in My Coffee style artwork is in full glory and impact here. Tainted Coffee Press has done a masterful job of getting this one right. I have always said, I don't want my words sitting on dusty shelves sitting next to books by other writers no one but other writers read. This publication is one of the many WINS I will chalk up in my constant battle against the "hip crowd" small press literary world. This book will actually be READ & look real neat next the bands and albums that influenced me...not the literary figures that so many ASSUME influenced me on a casual glance.

Order now. This is a perfect bound, top notch collection of "poetry" by two guys with two separate covers & two distinct voices, who just happen to share a common interest in what they do and perhaps a mutual respect over the years for each others mutual individuality. I've published JD before. JD has bought my books before. neither has ever felt the need to become "hip" buddies or exchange top secret handshakes in any "literary" circles. We both just do our thing. On our own.

Welcome to our madness. Order now. Order here: TAINTED COFFEE PRESS

Insomnia

2009-12-22T19:42:00.002-07:00

Insomnia? You've never really had it until you have went sleepless so many days that you have reasoned yourself back into clarity. Possible? I thought not. Weird experience. Accidental discovery. I realized that, no check that...not realized, I stopped pretending that the Ativan my Doctors prescribed me for "peace" and sleep was somehow better for me than dope.

Now with this rare moment I can push away the keyboard and rest. Very strange sober trip inside my own head. Very productive. At least for me. Many things written. Even better, many things read. Old things. True things. Lived things...by others. Most likely...not you.

Holiday wishes? I gave up wishing long ago. I will spend time with family and those who love me with all my glorious flaws and character issues. I trust you to do the same. The birds are asleep now. No shotgun is required.

Note to Writers: Real Talk

2009-12-19T02:37:00.004-07:00

You become a writer the minute you don't give a fuck who reads you, who publishes you, or who even gives a fuck if you exists anymore. Until you're able figure that one out, kiddies, you are just involved in High School clique that has absolutely zero value in the real world.

We live in an age where any writer on this planet has the ability and tools to get their words out without having to whore themselves to one single person. Period. If I manage to toss a few lines to a publisher, it is for my benefit. I ask no favors and I grant no favors.

I can print, promote and sell in person more chapbooks than any small press publisher out there. I do it every year. Day in and day out. Why? Because it is all about me. It has to be all about me or I would not be true to the words I pen. No one is better at selling me than me. No one has my back better than I.

I learned a huge lesson from Greg Ginn back in the 1980s when he was slinging Black Flag albums from coast to coast. Do it your fucking self and depend on no record label, or even seek out one to it for you.

If you crave some endorsement, award, recongnition or credibility from a certain press or a certain crowd of writers...you are not really interested in writing. You are interested in popularity and being hip. If that is the case then you sure fucked up and made the wrong career move by choosing poetry as your platform of expression.

Yes, I piss a lot of people off. Good. Pissed off people are honest people...unless they are total failures as human beings, in which case they simply become haters. Most of the time, these days, when I send something to a publisher it is just a big fuck you to other writers & me saying "yes, assholes I am still here". Why the fuck do I want other writers to be the only people reading me? My goal isn't a circle jerk. Sorry, I don't hang with you quasi-intellecual literary types. I find you boring. I find your writing boring. You tend to create reality instead of live it.

The venues I chose to spit my words...to pimp my stuff...do not fit into your concept of where poetry should even exist. So please pretend I do not exist. My voice is heard. My audience is there. I am read or heard in numerous venues you could not begin to even grasp.

None of you know the reality of who or what I am. The truth is in every single line of poetry I have every penned. But then, I am but an average poet only capable of producing minor outlines to the reality in which I live.

The key is shedding the "writer" or "poet" label and walking among the living. Letting your words burn truth among actual people. I detest the label "poet" the way a Jew detests the blue star worn in a Holocaust camp. I am wise enough to know if I allow people to label me, they then have the power to dismiss me.

But this is my story, dearest reader, and at this moemnt...it is you who I choose to dismiss. Never, ever confuse arrogance with the facts or someone elses interpretation of them if you were not there, first hand to wtness it for yourself.

Tools For Writers

2009-12-15T14:59:00.002-07:00

This is basically a long winded link to a great article I recently read at makeuseof.com It is packed full of cool links to tools and websites that may be useful to writers. To quote from the article A Writer’s Guide To Free Apps For Inspiration & Organization written by Nancy Messieh:

"Any creative writer should have three main aims: write, stay organized and get published. The following list of free websites and apps for writers aims to help you do just that."

1. Get Inspired
2. Start Writing
3. Stay Organized
4. Get Feedback
5. Protect Yourself
6. Submit Your Work

Nancy Messieh provides links to great websites, tools, and software to assist in all that. A great bookmark for writers. give it a read:

A Writer’s Guide To Free Apps For Inspiration & Organization

Editing

2009-12-05T07:18:00.002-07:00

This blog is self edited with no proof reading. If you find a misspelling, poor use of grammar, or any other abuse of the English language that rubs your collective cocks and clits wrong...FUCK OFF. Unless of course, you wish to volunteer to edit this mess. Merry holidays heathens.

Chicks Rock: †M∀ЯY MAGD∀LAN†

2009-12-02T14:02:00.001-07:00

Apocalypse Generation: Publication News

2009-11-22T04:21:00.006-07:00

Just received notice from Zygote In My Coffee that my new chapbook Apocalypse Generation is set for publication December 2009. I am paired with JD Nelson on this project, so I can guarantee a great read.

Cover is amazing. Will post an update on it soon. I am sure you can pre-order: Zygote

5 Second Philosophy

2009-10-26T10:39:00.002-07:00

Humanity is a mutated virus bent on accomplishing its extinction. God is dead, disinterested, or an illusion. Ask those who die in prayer on a daily basis. Heaven? A political system with one ruler and one law...we have that now. Are you enjoying the fucking ride?

Do You Have A Brain? Seriously.

2009-10-25T17:00:00.005-07:00

Here is the deal Obama and Rush Limbaugh lemmings, report back to me the answers to the following questions and I will gladly cast my lot with the side who offers the correct and honest answers. I won't hold my breath. Unlike you, I ignore media and political grinder monkeys dancing to distract and steal our shiny coins while the men who turn the organ stand in the shadows almost unnoticed.

Research and answer these question:

1. The average street price of heroin in the United States prior to and after the US invasion of Afghanistan.

2. The total crop size of opium per year (pay close attention to 2008 and 2007) in Afghanistan compared to the opium crop size prior to the US invasion.

3. The world market share of opium Afghanistan held under the Taliban prior to the US invasion, and the the market share Afghanistan currently holds under US occupation.

4. Please tell me who cultivates, processes and distributes Afghanistan opium under the noses of US troops.

5. Please provide a 5 paragraph essay on how we are to win a war on drugs around the world, yet for some reason are unable to win a war on drugs in a country we actually have troops stationed in. The well researched answers to the first four questions should provide the support for your thesis.

6. Do you understand why I think we need to toss a match on the whole stinking shit-house and start over? Understand why it is absurd to waste time debating Democrat vs. republican? No?

7. Refer to Iran Contra.

8. Refer to Josef Stalin.

9. Please understand the basics of physics. In political science you were taught the political spectrum was a straight line. Moderates were at the center. Democrats to the left. Republicans to the right. Further right is Fascism. Further left is Communism. What you lemmings failed to understand is that the political system is a closed system. Infinity does not exist. That means the end points of those lines eventually meet up and complete a circle.

There is no sides. You are trapped in the middle of a circle. The only way out is to introduce entropy or the 2nd law of thermodynamics. Chaos. Please research the philosophy of the 2nd law of thermodynamics and the physics/engineering principle. They are two different concepts.

10. I know. You are too lazy to research any of this. I am a drug burn out with mood swings who writes 2nd rate poetry. I can live with that. But you are reading me. It is not the other way around. I assure you.

Obama Care

2009-10-13T09:56:00.002-07:00

Read the bill before you decide to support this Marxist bullshit.

This bill will provide FREE healthcare to people who cannot afford insurance. That sound real good on the surface. After all, who would be against providing healthcare to the poor? Well the truth is, we do provide health care to the poor in this country. I know this for a fact because there have been many times over the course of my life when I have needed to utilize it.

Any poor person in this country IS able to walk into any hospital in this country and get emergency medical treatment FREE OF CHARGE. Who pays for it? Medicaid. When you arrive at the hospital, if you do not have insurance and meet low income eligibility requirements, you are placed on a state ran program that is funded through Medicare. In Arizona that medical plan for the poor is called Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS). Every state has a similar program.

Is it the best method? No. But the infrastructure and funding mechanism already exists. With a few tweaks, the Federal government could supplement the funding with general tax finds, instead of stealing money from the elderly. There is no need for Obama to create an entire new bureaucracy, at the expense of millions of dollars, just to over see a health care plan that should be ran on the state level. Medical needs of the population differ from state to state.

So why is Obama pushing his new healthcare plan? He is a Marxist. He isn't really all that interested in providing healthcare to the poor, he is goal is to redistribute the wealth in this country.

I have read the language of Obama's healthcare plan.

The simple fact is Obama Care DOES NOT provide healthcare or guarantee health care to everyone in this country. His plan only provides healthcare for the poor. What does that mean? If you currently receive healthcare benefits from your employer, you rates will go up to pay for Obama's plan. If you work at a company that provides healthcare with no monthly deductible from your check, you may have to start paying up to $400 a month for that same coverage. If you currently pay $200 a month for healthcare, your premiums will climb even higher.

Health Insurance companies, like every other company are in business to make money. They have already stated that should the federal government force Obama Care down their throats, they will make up the money on premium hikes to customers who currently pay for insurance. Guess what: IF YOU CURRENTLY PAY FOR HEALTHCARE INSURANCE YOU DO NOT QUALIFY for Obama's healthcare plan.

Sure Obama claims to make up for that, the Federal government will issue tax credits to those to "help" pay their premiums. Sure they will. Last time I read the bill those tax credits do NOT kick in until 2011 and are so small to almost be negligible.

So what about people on Medicare? Under the current Medicare system, you are able to shop your Medicare eligibility to federal approved private insurance companies. These insurance policies provide numerous services and medical procedures that original Medicare does not pay for. What these insurance companies due is take your premiums and pay outs that would normally go to original Medicare and allow you to purchase Medicare Qualified private insurance direct from them.

Under Obama Care, the private insurance companies will no longer be able to afford to keep these plans. Humana has already stated, they will no longer offer these Medicare plans under Obama Care. That means everyone currently on Medicare will be forced to go back to Original Medicare...and back to the limitations in coverage it imposes and the greater out of pocket expenses. Oh I guess what? If you currently qualify to receive Medicare, you will not qualify for Obama Care...so even your healthcare expenses do nothing but go up.

And all of this is just the tip of the iceberg. Read the damn bill, get involved. Understand how this bill will effect you before you continue your lemming walk down the Obama path...

National Poetry Day

2009-10-08T05:45:00.003-07:00

Today is National Poetry Day. Great. I will write nothing. Post nothing. Read nothing. I am certain the internet will be filled with enough meaningless verse and crap without me contributing to it.

Ok kiddies, break out your rhyming dictionaries and set poetry back another 100 years. Pollute all the forums and poetry sites you can find with your archaic language, but please do not send me any emails. I have enough things to keep me laughing today...and enough things to convince me the educational system in this country is an utter failure.

I vote for dumping the National Poetry Day, in exchange for Walt Whitman Day. If more High Schools in this country used Whitman as the starting point in teaching poetry, instead of Shakespeare, not only would we have better poets, but better readers...and perhaps a better overall appreciation for the the art of poetry in our day to day lives.

But of course our liberal educators have no interest in making poetry accessible to the everyday man or woman. Like all art, they want to reserve it and the appreciation of it for their elitist cliques.

Fuck that.

It's Official: I Am An Idiot

2009-10-02T09:55:00.003-07:00

Over the last few days my mouse has been acting weird. It double clicked when I wanted to single click and tended to roam all over the screen. Being the computer genius I am, I attributed this to Malware.

I ran some scans. No malware was found on my computer. Ran my anti-virus program. No virus was found. So I opened up my registry and started looking around there for some hidden, spooky stuff. Nothing was out of place...so I cleaned it anyway just to make sure. Still my mouse was double clicking on links and acting bizarre.

So I ran a rootkit scanner. I was absolutely convinced I had some rogue code trapped in my machine that was causing my mouse to have a mind of its own. Of course having a few pieces of pirated software on your computer tends to make one paranoid. Had someone installed a backdoor trojan? I was going to find it.

After three days of working my magic, I found nothing. Then the thought occurred to me that maybe my mouse was just screwed up. Well it couldn't be could it? Hell, I had just bought the damn thing a few weeks ago...and this wasn't some cheap Wal Mart mouse. As a last resort, I unplugged it from the USB, boxed it up and took it back to the computer store. The tech geek plugged it into the store computer and the mouse was doing its bizarre maneuvers and double click tricks. The optical censor was bad, geek boy told me, so he gave me a new one.

I brought it home, plugged it in, and all is once again right in the world. The moral of the story is I am a complete idiot and sometimes there are no hidden agendas. A broken mouse is just a broken mouse.

Note To Roman Polanski

2009-10-01T06:28:00.005-07:00

Sure Rosemary's Baby and Chinatown are two of my favorite movies. That doesn't change the fact you dropped Quaaludes on a 13 year old girl and anal raped her. A fact you admitted to. A fact you freely admitted to and tried to cop a plea bargain to in exchange for no prison time.

Yes, I have heard the sob story of how you agreed to a plea bargain. How you confessed to rape in exchange for no prison time...and how the judge straight up lied to you. So instead of having one of your overpriced attorneys handle it, you hopped a plane and hid like a scared little kid for decades.

I agree. You were straight out fucked by the United States Criminal Justice System. However that does not change the fact that you drugged and anal raped a 13 year old girl. Never forget that.

Even with your Oscar. You will always be remembered for raping a 13 year old girl. I don't think I can type that enough.

After all these years how can you honestly be shocked that your nasty karma has caught up with you, and you're now facing extradition back to the US to face the original charges that you ran from?

All the liberals, actors and artists that are coming to your defense make me want to puke. Literally. If you had a problem with the way the original judge in the case handled your plea, you and your high priced attorney should have handled it way back then. There were procedures and appeals courts for that. There were built in checks and balances. But you we never interested in justice. You were interested in making the deadline on your next movie. You didn't even stick around for a sentence. You were above the law.

But all you rich, liberal, elitist have always viewed yourselves as being above the law. The law is just for us common scum. Newsflash: drugging and raping a 13 year old girl is a crime. Even if she liked it. Even if she wanted you to do it. Even if today she forgives your morally bankrupt soul. Even if today she doesn't want you prosecuted.

You do not stand on trial against your victim. You stand on trial against the State of California.

Facts are facts. Truth is truth. Lies are lies. You can pretend all you want. But this isn't one of your movies. Sure a large part of the general public will get caught up in all the hype and bullshit being sold to them by the media...but you freely admitted to drugging and raping a 13 year old girl. Nothing can change that you perverted bastard.

I just want you to know, there are a whole bunch of us out here that know the truth and are smart enough not to buy into this bullshit. We will be the ones writing the footnote to your elegy. Go back to making movies and creating fiction. Those of us who deal in truth will keep doing what we do...

White Punks On Dope

2009-09-28T18:17:00.002-07:00

I was able to see The Tubes quite a few times back in the stone age. They were originally from Phoenix, Arizona before relocating to San Fran. They were definitely pre-punk, quasi New York Dolls with their debut album coming out in 1975. They caused quite a stir amidst the underground music scene here. I was just listening to some of their old stuff and decided to hunt down some vids on YouTube. I was happy to find this...

JavaRa: Fix Java.exe High CPU Usage

2009-09-24T09:31:00.003-07:00

If you are running an older computer then you can appreciate the need to maximize and squeeze out every bit you can out of your old CPU. If you're like me, you are acutely tuned in to any piece of software or process that hangs your computer or slows it down.

Lately, every time I run a Java based applet in my browser I noticed it would max out my CPU at 100%. It was seriously pissing me off. First thing I did was make sure I was running the latest version of JRE. I was. The second thing I did was to make sure I did not have any older versions of JRE installed. Time and experience has shown me that any time I update Java I need to manually uninstall older versions, as having more than one versions on the same system tends to breed conflicts.

I had only the current version installed, or so I thought. Still I was getting 100% CPU usage. Frustrated, I searched through the geeky technical forums and waded through geek speak. Then I stumbled upon this nifty tool. JavaRa. Sure Java is named after a cup of coffee and bears the symbol of a steaming mug of java, but one must never forget...Java is created by SUN Microsystems.

Now being a writer, the symbolism is not lost on me that RA is the central SUN god of the Egyptians. So JavaRa rules the SUN. Damn straight it did. This program removed all the left behind crap and registry entries (that I had assumed did not exist or I had removed) from previous versions or incarnations of Java.

Java.exe no longer uses up 100% of my CPU when I run it in my browser. If you are having problems with java.exe, download the sun god free: JavaRa

Java Errors | CPU 100% | JavaRa |

Was MTV Really A Good Idea?

2009-09-18T08:45:00.005-07:00

I am thankful that I was a fairly weird kid and somewhat of an outcast. Grateful really that at an early age I was able to stumble upon alternative music of the 70s and 80s long before it was labeled "alternative" and mass marketed as another commodity. I also came from a somewhat lower-middle class family by economic standards back in those days, so I had little exposure to MTV because we couldn't afford cable TV. Instead my exposure to music came from other weird friends (before they decided to stop being weird and focus on career paths) hanging out at weird nightclubs I was too young to get into, and tiny record stores tucked into holes in the wall that sold albums of bands that no one ever played on the radio.

I am not saying I had better taste back then. I am just saying even at that age I was searching for something to take me beyond the mundane (and while that search still continues in other parts of my life, I'll save that for another posts).

Anyway, where you aware that this video, "Cruisin" by Michael Nessmith, a former member of the Monkees (a band assembled for the purpose of marketing a TV show...much the same way the Sex Pistols were assembled for the purposes of selling fashions at a UK clothing store) is considered by most people to be the first video of the "MTV Generation"? Well here it is, in all its glory...you casualties of the MTV Generation. Enjoy.

R.I.P. Jim Carroll

2009-09-15T01:02:00.002-07:00

I first became aware of Jim Carroll sometime in 1980. A friend had bought his "Catholic Boy" album and we spent many hours wearing it out on the turntable. Of course my favorite song at the time was "People Who Died". I find it strange that almost 30 years later that simple song would prove to be more true than not.

Jim Carroll passed away on 9/11/09. As I mourn his passing, I will also mourn those many friends I lost along this wild journey. I take no pride or solace in being a survivor. It's all just a role of the dice...and my number just hasn't come up yet. Trust me, there is no skill involved.

Perspective...

2009-09-14T01:41:00.003-07:00

...even in 1969, at the time of his death, Jack Kerouac was a relatively obscure literary figure...you don't live your life to accomplish anything but the actual living of your life. What shakes loose at the end, let other people deal with it, categorize it, judge it, fight over it and label it. Who really gives a fuck when you suck your final breath and start fornicating with the worms...

What have I achieved at this point in my life? This moment. If that isn't enough for you, too fucking bad. The day I start living my life for anyone other than myself is probably the day I should stick a shotgun in my mouth and pull the trigger...like a lot of you have already done but your brain matter is so entrenched with the illusions of other ghosts lost wandering, you honestly believe your still fucking alive.

Back In The Saddle Again...

2009-09-12T10:05:00.005-07:00

Things seem to be settling down a bit on this end. I will have more time to spend on this blog. That can be a good thing and that can be a bad thing, and I guess in the big scheme of things the difference is meaningless.

Anyway, I figured If I am going to get back to seriously flipping words on this screen again...it was probably a good time to clean the thing up a little and do a redesign of the site. So that is what you will see taking place over the next few days.

I am self taught at this CSS and HTML coding stuff, and I kind of enjoy tinkering with it. Bare with me...or not.

Stay tuned. I have a lot of new stuff to add, and many links to post.

FaceBook MySpace Twitter

2009-09-03T15:02:00.003-07:00

I have bailed on all social networks. I am sure they serve some purpose, but they no longer serve any purpose for me. In fact they became quite annoying.

I started using those services because I thought they would be a rather easy way to keep in touch with people I felt a need to keep in touch with. What I found was people I had absolutely no desire to keep in touch with now had direct access to me. If I actually gave a fuck what some of those lame fucks in High School were doing these days...those same lame fucks I had no use for while I was in High School, I am pretty sure I would have maintained some semblance of contact outside a stupid a silly social network.

Most long lost friends should remain lost. I have always been much better at burning bridges than building them. That is how I chose to do things. So I have shut the damn things down.

People that I have relationships with know exactly how to contact me. There is am email address posted on this blog. People I want a dialog with always get replies. Those I don't, always get ignored. A fairly straight up and honest system.

So no more emails asking "why did you block me on FaceBook". I didn't. I closed my accounts. If you need to contact me, email me.

Now as to why I have the comments turned off on this blog: no one reads this blog for anyone's comments but my own. If you have an opinion that runs counter to mine...and I really hope you do...start your own blog full of your own opinions, rants and babble. Like I remind you all the time. I am a fairly self centered asshole. Why would this blog reflect anything different than that.

Of course if you want to email me and tell me what and dumb fuck I am...those are encouraged. I find those types of email much more entertaining and interesting to read.

Catalogs Old School Style & Ramblings..

2009-08-22T21:00:00.004-07:00

Wow time gets away...as if you need to be told that. Ha! Anyway, been busy as of late. Not much time to update this blog. That kind of sucks. I will be more diligent. Sure...

A company was producing a catalog of old indy punk and post-punk albums and I have been busy writing brief synopsis's and helping checking facts, dates and running down info. All published under that other name, of course. We don't like to mix our genre's do we now? All so much more interesting and vibrate than the small press poetry world has become.

I've grown tired of second rate hacks re-hashing the same third rate crap, so I don't read it anymore and I figure why bother to toss my stuff before an audience that settles for this crap.

I have always said writers write. I still deny the need for an audience. If I had that deep desire for an audience I would have become a performance artist. Which is pretty much what must of these so called small press writers have become...performers.

I am arrogant, self centered and self serving. Writing was always a tool for me to purge demons. When I ever cast a few sheets a paper before your eyes, you were being used. Manipulated to see my world from my perspective. But you should feel somewhat thankful for the journey. Unlike most the crap you read from these hacks in the small press these days my stuff was real first hand experience with a pulse and heartbeat.

So yeah, most likely I will get back to posting some of the new poetry I have been writing on this blog. Most likely I won't be sending much of it out to be published. I do have a new chapbook of stuff coming out whenever the publisher gets around to it (it has been sitting collecting dust on their end for about a year), so I am sure I will pimp that here and those that normally buy my stuff will buy it and those that won't, won't. Like it matters either way...the stuff gets written whether any of you take another breath or not. Get it?

I have never needed justification from anyone. I have never sought it and I never will. That tends to piss off little cliques. It tends to not make me one of the cool kids who hangs out and smokes cigarettes with the other cool kids behind the high school cafeteria at lunch.

So while all you cool kids are writing your meaningless little poems and stroking each others ego's...I will write my meaningless little poems and stroke myself. I stroke myself far much better than you possible ever could.

Besides...my demons are pretty much purged. My scars are just that...scars. Healed wounds. No more bleeding. No more need to dull the pain. The writing has served its purpose. A very self serving purpose.

Ramble on...or to steal and twist the words from song (like so many of you are so good at...and a lot of you are so good at stealing from myself and few other writers I know and respect...and who were there and lived it...

our songs could be your life
real names will be proof...

Concrete Blonde 1989 Live

2009-06-24T03:17:00.005-07:00

Wow. Surprising what one can find on YouTube when you dig past the teenyboppers posting "oh my god I am so going to kill myself for having a pimple" videos. I found a bunch of old clips from the Concrete Blonde tour in 1989. These clips are from Portland, ME.

I am not certain exactly where (I am certain it was not in Maine) but I know I caught quite a few of these shows during 1989. I think the band was starting to peak about then. Anyway, the quality is not spectacular..but they are nice to jog the memory.

Revolution? Yeah, Right.

2009-05-13T01:53:00.004-07:00

Taxation without representation has been going on in this country the moment personal income (mentioned nowhere in the Constitution) mysteriously became taxable.

Today I read articles of people crying about the health care issue. Yesterday they were crying about bailing out corporations. Tomorrow they will be crying about something else. Seems I have been reading articles about people crying in this damn country for as long as I can remember, yet have not seen anyone do a thing about it.

You people can bitch and moan all you want from both sides of this issue (or any other issue) but the bottom line is you pay enough taxes already to fund any program you want. With the amount of taxes you pay, you should be living in a fucking paradise. Too bad the people you elect continue to ignore you and spend your money on only what they deem worthy, with zero accountability to you or anyone else, and with absolutely no regards to waste.

There is also no oversight to determine if the trillions of dollars this country already wastes on bloated social programs, hypocritical attempts to legislate morality, failed world police operations (covert or overt), greasing the hands of the military industrial complex, or funding pet causes of the day to gain re-election are even remotely accomplishing anything.

The sad truth is you people will continue to argue like idiots on message boards, continue to elect these idiots as if there is an actual diference between one over the other, and continue to quietly sit back as this country takes its final nose dive into the abyss of history pages. Rome always fall. Always. America is not special.

As long as Democrats and Republicans are arguing in their choreographed shadow plays you people will continue to be distracted from the real issue at hand. That being your government is no longer operating in the best interest of its citizens.

Thomas Jefferson said this would happen. Thomas Jefferson also informed us what to do when this did happen. But who reads Thomas Jefferson? Anyone who has a feel for history, reads it, or dares to even quote it these days to make a point must be some kind of loose cannon conspiracy nut. Perhaps that is true. I find it strange however that we currently live in a culture that is afraid of its citizens if they look beyond what corporate media serves up on a platter on nightly tv screens.

The men who founded this country, who were no more intelligent than you or I, where quite aware that they needed to severely limit the Federal powers of their new found country. They did. But over the following decades we the people slowly allowed those powers to expand out of laziness, and have no one but ourselves to blame for the current state of affairs.

We can stand up and do what we as American Citizens not only have a right to do, but an obligation to do...or we can keep your mouths shut. You can go back to whining while I go back to observing. Change stays a political slogan that never gets called into action.

MSI Wind U120

2009-04-29T10:30:00.002-07:00

After two months of research, I have settled on my new laptop...except it's not a laptop, it's a netbook. The MSI Wind U120. I had two basic requirements when I began my search: it had to be be built sturdy, and it had to have at least a 10" viewing screen. The only two netbooks that met this were the MSI Wind and the HP Mini's.

Acer turned out to be nothing but a piece of plastic junk.

After further research, I found for about $200 less...and a total out of pocket expense of $330, I could snag the MSI Wind with a similar hardware configurations as the HP Mini. The MSI Wind U120 is a steal, and is receiving great tech reviews from people who are experts in these things.

So I plan to order one middle of next month, and retire this antique I have been using to craigslist. Anyone out there looking for a cheap mobile netbook with top notch specs, this is the one for you. Here is what mine is coming with:

Intel 1.6Ghz Atom N270 Processor
Display 10" backlit LCD maximum resolution 1024 x 600
Microsoft Windows XP
2GB DDR2 667MHz RAM
160GB SATA Hard Drive
Built-in 802.11b/g WLAN Card Wireless
Built in Ethernet
4-in-1 Card Reader (SD/MMC/MS/MSpro)
6-cell Lithium Ion Battery
USB2.0 Port x 3
VGA (15-pin, D-Sub)1
Mic-in Port x 1
Headphone Output x 1
Internal Speaker x 2
HD Audio
Stereo speakers
Webcam: 1.3MP
AC Power Adaptor Output: 19V DC, 65W / Input: 100~ 240V AC, 50/60Hz Universal

Plus the thing is only about 1" thick and 10" wide and fits nicely in a back pack. I can't wait. Glad I don't have to shell out money I don't have for an expensive laptop that really won't serve much more of a need than I plan to use this for. Besides, if I need a bigger monitor, this has the output jack I can plug one into.

Polluto

2009-04-28T05:15:00.005-07:00

Polluto #4 is out. If you are not a subscriber, or have yet to see an issue of this magazine, then you are missing out on probably the best journal out there. Period. Polluto is a UK high polished magazine published not only in soft cover, but in limited edition hardcover. Good luck snagging one of those. It also features some of the best anti-pop culture writers and artists out there. Yeah, it has one an award or two also. Who says the small press is dead?

But I will stop rambling. Here is the scoop from Editor Adam Lowe:

Polluto Issue #4 Queer and Loathing in Wonderland

Polluto has donned its frilliest frock, slapped on the make-up and stepped into a pair of heeled ruby slippers to fight terrorist munchkins on the road to Oz. Grab your baseball bat and join the fray!

Cross-dressing and black power in Wonderland, with Deb Hoag's 'Queer & Loathing on the Yellow Brick Road'
Satirical stories from Polluto regulars Rhys Hughes and Steve Redwood
Robot sex toys in 'The Androidgenous Zone' by Andrew Hook and Allen Ashley (Elastic Press)
The seeds of transformation in D.W. Green's 'Willow Within'
A look at 'The Day Hermeneutics Died' by David McLean
Steampunk prostitution in Alex MacFarlane's 'A Shade of Yellow'
Dwarves, twisted fairytale forests and escapees in Jim Steel's 'The Bears in the Wood'
The latest rants and creative mayhem from regular columnists RC Edrington and Micci Oaten.

Check out the madness at: Polluto

Astronaut Says UFO's Real

2009-04-22T03:25:00.003-07:00

According to a CNN report April 20, 2009, former astronaut Edgar Mitchell told an audience at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., that the basic story of a 1947 UFO crash in Roswell, New Mexico, is true.

Mitchell was raised in Roswell.

For the full story: American Chronicle

Zygote In My Coffee #6

2009-03-31T14:11:00.003-07:00

ZYGOTE IN MY COFFEE #6 is now out and available for ordering.

100 page , perfect bound collection
of SMALL PRESS poetry & more!
NOW AVAILABLE FOR
A MEAGRE $5 (includes shipping)!
THAT'S $3 OFF the cover price of $8!

Check it out here: Zygote #6

Also check out the back issues, and latest Flipbooks available.

Wow and...

2009-02-13T12:15:00.002-07:00

I have been neglecting this blog. That's a given. No mystery or deep dark secrets really. I have been working on an album. It is a rather long and involved task as it is extremely difficult to translate the music in my head into a tangible reality. I have had this difficulty all my life...which is why I have never released music before when all the signs dictated that I was much suited a musician than a writer.

However my ego and arrogance (perhaps ignorance) always kept me from collaborating with other musicians. To me any form of artistic collaborations was akin to fraud.

Anyway, it is a fun process. The technology today is amazing. I have lots of catching up to do. Look for a sample song posted here soon.

Thanks for caring enough to follow this journey.

Underground Voices: Print Edition Vol. 3

2009-01-11T01:14:00.003-07:00

Underground Voices: Print Edition Vol. 3, 2008: Drugs, Guns, and Crazy Detectives edited by C. Powell is now available for purchase. The softcover book runs $17.95 or you can download the ebook for only $6.00. Another great publication from Underground Voices. Still one of the best small press publishers around.

Visit here: Underground Voices

Christmas Song

2008-12-28T08:28:00.000-07:00

Zygote is Back

2008-12-10T10:46:00.002-07:00

Zygote In My Coffee is back on the small press scene. Brian plans to publish two online issues and two hard copy journals per year. The first revived Zygote issue is planned to appear sometime in January 2009.

Brian will also be publishing several chapbooks of poetry per year. My chapbook, Apocalypse Generation is slated for publication sometime in 2009.

Pallets

2008-11-09T10:16:00.000-07:00

I still can't sleep in a bed. After all the flop houses, shooting galleries, garage floors, and camp sites along some battered highway...I guess I just never learned the comforts of a bed.

When I decided to clean myself up this time...dope free 2 years this month...I went and got me a decent apartment. Something clean. Something I could call my own. Whether I would be able to turn it into a home or not, I wasn't quite sure. But I was willing to give it try. Hell by this point in my life there were few things I hadn't tried. Making a home should be easy. Right? Well I'll let you know when or if it happens.

One of the first things I went out and bought for this new era of my life was a big queen size bed. It collects dust in the corner over by the window. I can count on two hands the number of times I have actually slept on that thing during the two years I have lived here. I am sure there is some psychological mish mash of an excuse for this, but I will be damned if I know or if I am even interested in paying some quack to shed some light on it.

So here I am, writing to you from a pallet made of sheets and blankets tossed down on the opposite end of the bedroom. Still living my life out of a suitcase...the only way I know how.

Presidential Election 2008

2008-11-04T14:55:00.003-07:00

Today I went and voted for...John McCain. My apologies to all you liberal elitist spread throughout the small press literary scene, who most likely pulled the lever for Obama.

Cold November Ramble...

2008-11-01T12:41:00.002-07:00

* No thoughts on the election. Nope. Could careless whether you fools elect the socialist or the bumbling fool. Nothing short of armed revolution can fix this mess. And I have no desire to fix anything...

* I like the cold. When it is cold, people are less likely to go outside for no reason. Less people outside means less people with the potential to knock on my door. People in general are overrated creatures. When I stopped needing dope, I stopped having a reason to deal with these creatures...

* I have wild fantasies of moving to Alaska. The middle of nowhere. But while I have little need for people, I have a big need for pussy...so unless I develop a desire for farm animals, total isolation is out of the question.

* Strange. Over the last year I have developed a strong aversion to sleeping in a bed. I have been piling blankets and sheets into a pallet on the floor next to the bed. My sleep is much deeper. Perhaps I am reverting back to my old flop house and crash pad days. Years went by and I never saw a proper bed. Who knows...Who cares.

* If I said a day doesn't go buy without thinking how bad I want to shovel a syringe full of dope into my vein, I would be lying. However, I am quite certain I am in no danger of relapse. But I have promised myself that if on the off chance I should live to 50, I will cop some good shit and OD on my birthday. After all, I should have been dead at 25...so 50 would be two lifetimes...

* Why are you still reading this...go do something. Live your own life...ignore heroes.

Dead Flies

2008-10-17T11:48:00.002-07:00

The small press literary community has lost another publisher. It has been announced that Zygote In My Coffee has folded. No reasons have been given, but then reasons are never really needed when you are dealing with poetry. No one supports poetry. There is no money to be made.

I have long been an avid reader and fan of Zygote. It is sad to see it gone, for many reasons. The least of which is that they had planned to release my chapbook "Apocalypse Generation" in 2009. That won't be happening. I have no current plans to submit this chapbook to any other publisher.

Polluto Issue #3

2008-09-25T18:08:00.001-07:00

Polluto, the award winning quarterly magazine from the UK, has just published Issue #3. It is available now at: Polluto #3.

This issue is titled: "Sex in the Time of VHS". Editor Adam Lowe writes, "Think about the relevance of love and relationships in a time of technological change and obsolescence; think about cybersex and teledildonics; think about technology and fetishism, and how the body integrates and changes the mechanical; think Videodrome meets the Marquis de Sade; think media culture, the flesh and desire; think pain, glory and perversion."

Among other fine writing, this issues includes my column "Live Without A Net" as well as some of my select poems. Support the small press!

Coke Dealer's Gas Surcharge

2008-09-22T09:50:00.001-07:00

Cops: Indiana man passed along rising fuel costs to drug customers

SEPTEMBER 18--Spiraling gas prices led an Indiana drug dealer to levy a fuel oil surcharge on customers purchasing cocaine, according to investigators. Anthony Salinas, 18, tacked on the gasoline surcharge when he sold a confidential police source coke on two occasions in June. While arranging one buy, Salinas told the source that a quarter-ounce of cocaine would cost $240--$215 for the drug itself and "$25.00 for gas money to deliver the cocaine," according to the court affidavit, a copy of which you'll find below. Salinas, a Hammond resident, was named last week in a two-count felony information charging him with "dealing in cocaine."

Post Source: The Smoking Gun. View 4 page document.

Note To Kindred Scribblers

2008-09-13T03:56:00.010-07:00

If ink were outlawed and you were required to use your own blood to scribble your words, how many of you would still be writing? Very few. Which is why I read very few of you, and associate myself with even fewer. As for myself, I am quite certain my blood could be put to better use than scribbling broken prose diatribes, poorly disguised as poetry, concerning my boredom with god and the very concept of humanity itself. I am not certain which is more absurd, the fact I still write poetry or the fact you still do. Who is more foolish? The jester tumbling before a crowd, or the crowd itself pissing themselves at the absurdity of his movements?

ACLU To Auction Henry Rollins Tix

2008-09-10T20:17:00.002-07:00

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is auctioning off a pair of tickets and meet & greet passes to the Henry Rollins Recountdown tour for a date of your choice!

Current bid is at $1,000 (a far cry from he $2 I paid to see him do his spoken word thing circa his Polio Flesh days.) All proceeds go to as good a cause as any: the ACLU. So if your up for parting with some of that post punk coinage, you can place your bid by going here: Henry Rollins Meet & Greet.

RadioTime

2008-08-28T15:47:00.004-07:00

RadioTime is an online radio service that allows you to listen to your favorite AM/FM stations and Talk Show Hosts on thousands of stations. The benefit of this is if your local market no longer carries your favorite broadcaster, you can listen to them in another market. Another plus for this service is that since almost all radio hosts are now syndicated across the country, you are not limited to the times you have to listen. For example, I like to listen to the Phil Hendrie show, but in my market it comes on at 1 a.m. All I do is log into RadioTime and it will tell me not only when the show will be replayed on an affiliate, but it lets me connect directly to that affiliate without having to search out individual radio station websites.

It also allows you to create your own list of presets (see below). So in effect, this free service allows you to program your own radio station to be listened to at your leisure. Check it out....

Wanna Know A Secret?

2008-08-11T05:03:00.004-07:00

Ask anyone over the age of 45 who was even remotely apart of the chaos that was the West Coast music scene of the late 70s what they thought of the band The Germs and your most likely answer will be they were a complete joke. The band couldn't play, Darby's vocals rarely made it into the microphone, and the only reason kids showed up to what few gigs The Germs actually played was to fuck shit up. The Germs only became semi-legendary by the second wave of punk kids searching frantically in desperation for some romantic hero.

Punk wasn't about heroes. Nor was it about leaving any kind of scar on art, literature, fashion, music or culture. Punk was born to finally achieve the total annihilation of the self taking with it everything around it.

Darby Crash, lead screamer of The Germs, almost got that part right. But don't buy into the hype surrounding this new revisionist history flick about The Germs called "What We Do Is Secret". Darby's allegedly genius 5 year plan to rise from nowhere, become iconic, and then burn out tragically over the Los Angeles skyline is a total fabrication designed to turn a straw man into a mythological god.

The whole "5 year plan" of Darby's was stolen directly from David Bowie's concept album in which an alien lands on earth to become a messianic rockstar only to commit "rock and roll suicide in the end". Truth is Darby's entire "5 year plan" was stolen from the Ziggy song...you guessed it..."Five Years".

And let's not forget our "rock and roll messiah", Darby, had the inherent artistic foresight to commit suicide the night before John Lennon died. Nice. Loved the media coverage on that one.

But this little diatribe isn't really about Darby. Hell, everyone is entitled to a little hero worship...and Darby is just as good as any. At least equal to Sid Vicious who was nothing more than a cardboard cut-out propped up in a display window to sell Malcolm McLaren fashions.

As for me, I will stick to my RAMONES albums and continue to ignore heroes in any form. Joey never wanted to play hero or change music...Joey just wanted to sing vocals for a 60s surf band, but Johnny couldn't get the chords right. History should be accidental...not planned.

You're Ugly

2008-08-09T18:08:00.001-07:00

Random Scribbles

2008-07-17T06:11:00.004-07:00

* I am currently putting the final polish on a series of pieces for a new chapbook. The working title is "Apocalypse Generation". Brian Fugett at Zygote In My Coffee has read thru 10 of the poems and has expressed interest to publish. I will be getting him a final draft in the next few days.

* Sometimes I get the feeling I have been writing the same poem over and over for the last 15 or so years. It remains imperfect and flawed. Now that I have been reasonably clean for a nice stretch, it may be time for some deep soul searching that will bring about not only a complete style change, but subject matter change as well.

* Summer has always been a very unproductive time for me as far as writing is concerned. Seems I'd rather be spending my time involved in things instead of just thinking about things I have done in the past.

* I recently finished watching a documentary on Dee Dee Ramone. Seems he still feels cheated that Johnny Thunders stole "Chinese Rock" from him and only gave him partial writing credit. I can relate to Dee Dee every time I read a poem in some small press zine obviously inspired by my style. I can't read much new stuff today as it appears to be nothing more than low grade re-treads of my work. I guess that's a product of getting old.

Till next time...

Vinerepylenoma

2008-07-10T19:54:00.002-07:00

Vinerepylenoma is a feature length documentary currently in production which revisits the underground music scene of Los Angeles during the 1980's. The documentary primarily focuses on the music and features never before seen live concerts of bands like X, Tex & the Horseheads, Concrete Blonde, Meat Puppets, Minutemen, Beat Farmers, Fishbone, Black Flag, Violent Femmes and many more. It celebrates the raw energy of an era often forgotten and very poorly documented.

I am not sure what happened to this project. I first heard about it a couple of years ago. Aside from this trailer and the archived website no other information is available. Anyway here is a taste of history:

June 2008 Updates

2008-06-13T01:50:00.003-07:00

* Instant Pussy: Misti Rainwater-Lites has revived her small press journal in book form on her ebullience press label. I have 2 poems and a piece of my photography included. It is chock full of great poetry and cool artwork. Imagine a literary fuckfest starring Charles Bukowski and Bettie Page. I strongly suggest you support her press and purchase a copy. However if you're a cheap motherfucker she does offer a .pdf file version for a free download. Let's hope Misti continues this journal as it blends my two favorite things: poetry and pin-up style porno.

* Underground Voices: The June issue of UV is available for your viewing pleasure. It includes 3 poems by yours truly and 3 pretty damn good poems by one of my fave small press writers William Taylor Jr. So go give this great collection of poetry and short fiction a read. UV is also currently accepting submissions for their third print volume. Check it out.

* Zygote In My Coffee: Issue 107 of Zygote is out, and includes a piece by me. So go give the online new issue a read. I also have a few pieces coming up in the next couple of of print issues, which Brian should have coming out fairly soon. Again, another small press that needs support from its readers.

UFO Hits Romanian Jet?

2008-06-12T23:45:00.002-07:00

A UFO had a mid-air collision with a fighter jet over central Europe, a leaked report has revealed. Defense chiefs are investigating claims that the Romanian MIG 21 fighter plane was struck by 'strange objects'. The official report says the cockpit of the jet was shattered. Romanian defense ministry officials have ruled out all normal types of collision such as bird strikes, ice or small meteorites. Chief investigator Commander Nicolae Grigorie said in the report: 'We can definitely say what this thing was not, but we cannot say what it was.' The impact on a training flight above Transylvania took only 67 milliseconds and was recorded on an in-flight video camera. Pilot Marin Mitrica was slightly injured but managed to land the plane safely after the incident last year.

Baffled defense chiefs have now passed the UFO incident on to the Security Committee of European Air Forces for investigation.

Source re-print from Metro UK

Cocaine Jesus

2008-05-31T13:20:00.003-07:00

Federal agents last week arrested a Mexican national for allegedly paying a woman to smuggle into the U.S. a statue that was made of a dried cocaine paste. The carefully painted religious icon weighed about six pounds and would have had a street value of about $30,000. The statue was confiscated at a Texas border crossing after a drug-sniffing dog alerted to it during an inspection of a vehicle driven by a Mexican woman. The woman later told agents that she was paid $80 by a man who wanted the statue delivered to him at a Laredo bus station.

Live Without A Net: Bloodletting The Robot

2008-05-17T05:10:00.001-07:00

"This may prick just a bit". Her voice like steel wool raping a rusted tailpipe. Her breath stale coffee and peppermint gum tinged with top-shelf vodka. She is in my face like some sickly aunt I only pretend to like so my birthday check still arrives...and that check is always good for a 1/2 gram of uncut Mexican Chiva*.

She is scared of me, despite the liquid bravado she sips on her "coffee" break. I sense it. Not because I am 62" and 230 lbs. But because I am 6'2", 230 lbs., and she is checking my blood level to ensure that the various psychotropic drugs coursing thru my veins are at a therapeutic level. If not, I imagine she has visions of me ripping her throat out and licking the blood as it drips in slow motion down her saggy 50 year old tits. Her B-movie fantasy, not mine...so ignore the cliched prose.

I have long ago faced the fact that this nurse, people in general, and you dearest reader...consider me crazy. But in this society I am not too certain crazy is all that bad a place to be. In fact, I often find the most logical response to reality is quite simply to go insane.

Her wrinkled hand of red fingernails and the obligatory wedding ring shakes just a bit as she rubs alcohol along a vein on my forehand (years of heroin usage makes it impossible to fish up a sunken vein anywhere else). "Relax", I tell her, "I get my blood drawn every three months. No big deal. Get it over with. Just stick the butterfly in already so I can get the fuck out of here".

Yes, I am the crazy one. Aren't I? Think about it. This nurse...three to four times an hour... eight hours a day...five days a week...52 weeks a year...for around 30 years of her life...has or will be saying: "This may prick just a bit", then sticks a needle in some patients arm to suck blood. Ignore the sexual undertones. Ignore the fact that her syringe takes, while my junkie spike gives. Focus on an entire lifetime doing one thing over and over and over.

The main theory among shrinks in regards to "crazy" people (not that we are really considered people...but are treated more like robots out of some Philip K. Dick novel...which in and of itself is most likely a poor analogy given that Dick's robots are often more human than human) is to get them into a routine. It makes them feel comfortable and confident about what they are doing from one moment to the next. More importantly, it eliminates the individuals need to think. It is training people to live the life of a junkie, but replacing the euphoric rush of dope with some mundane task designed to erase time in 8 hour increments. Erasing time is a good thing. In fact, it is probably the only purpose for your or my existence.

I have accepted this. Why I am not only permitted but encouraged to slip off into a heroin induced coma is beyond my comprehension...as are most convoluted beliefs or theories bordering on religion that propagate within your society. According to the shrinksperts people begin to run into trouble and act crazy when they tend to think outside the mainstream or the 'norm". Normal is boring. Normal is fucking a crack whore missionary style in a the backseat of a middle class sedan as some bored housewife forgets about her meaningless existence at bingo.

But no dearest reader, I am not crazy...but I can certainly see why I would be viewed as such by people like yourself. You are so caught up in your daily routines that any idea or action which does not fit into the hermetically sealed program of the machine you are a cog in must be some kind of error or bug that needs to be fixed...or eliminated. But of course self elimination through heroin abuse is frowned upon. Seems the machine much prefers I suffer more slowly one moment at a time engaged in meaningless activities. Rest assured however, the people who spend their life trying to fix people like myself are in much more need of being fixed than anyone.

After drawing four small vials of blood from my limp vein, she smiles like some fucked up clown tripping on LSD...serious here kids...the make-up is strictly circa 1980 pastels with reddish balloons smeared across the cheeks of a much too white foundation...and eye shadow like baby blue clouds rising into slick black painted on eyebrows...she slaps a tiny band-aid on my wrist and labels the viles with my name. Misspelled as per her usual bored attention to detail...

* chiva is Mexican slang for tar heroin.

The Vatican: Alien Life May Exist

2008-05-15T19:11:00.005-07:00

Writing in the Vatican newspaper, the astronomer, Father Gabriel Funes, said intelligent beings created by God could exist in outer space. The search for forms of extraterrestrial life, he says, does not contradict belief in God.

The official Vatican newspaper headlines his article 'Aliens Are My Brother'. Funes went on to state: "Just as there are multiple forms of life on earth, so there could exist intelligent beings in outer space created by God. And some aliens could even be free from original sin."

Interesting, I think. The Catholic church rarely makes a public statement on a topic unless it has a reason. Could it be the Church has some type of proof of aliens locked away in the Vatican library? Or perhaps they have seen something in the skies? Stay tuned...the apocalypse is upon us.

Skull Bong

2008-05-09T10:35:00.002-07:00

Willie Simms, a child who died in the 1920s, has been resurrected. Kind of. It seems three teenagers in Houston, Texas dug up the body...severed its head...and used the skull as a bong. You can't make this stuff up.

Source: The Smoking Gun.