REMEMBERING RICHARD

The City of Fayetteville has lost a giant. Richard S. Drake, former GRAPEVINE journalist and editor, founder and editor-in-chief of THE OZARK GAZETTE and long running host of Fayetteville's own ON THE AIR WITH RICHARD S. DRAKE, passed away on 3/ 4/ 19 after a period of illness.

Richard has been a part of my reality for almost a quarter of a decade...certainly not as long as he looms with more old school Fayettevillians, but at this stage in the game I reckon I can shed some of my “New Kid” sheen. I moved here from New Hampshire in early Spring of 1996. I became involved and aware of the close-knit community I adopted and eventually of the little free paper, the OZARK GAZETTE, that could be found in racks everywhere in town. It was a fun and acerbic little publication, very in touch with its grass roots base. I became aware of Community Access Television and the scene (somewhat symbiotic) they had going on----many of my friends were poets and musicians and most of them had appeared on CAT (at that time better known to most locals as “The Open Channel” since that was the name of the previous long-term contractor. I learned that the same passionate and sometimes cranky GAZETTE editor who did a column called “Street Jazz” was the guy behind “On the Air with Richard S. Drake”, and on that access show he conducted intelligent and thoughtful interviews with people of all stripes; activists, writers, historians, artists, academics, musicians and many others.

My roommate had bugged me several times at this point about the notion that we should hit the Open Channel and see what it took to become producers and learn to put out product ourselves. I had my own things distracting me at the time----I was like, “yeah, okay, maybe we can do that,” the idea pretty much remaining an abstract in the back of my brain. One day, either toward the end of 1996 or very early '97, he told me, “I went up to CAT and signed us both up for Orientation.” OKAY. I was on board while barely aware of it.

We signed up and our package covered Studio, Field and Edit classes, which still remain a crux of the curriculum today, although the technology has changed a lot. Studio Training was our first class, and I was blown away when we went in and it was revealed that The Great Man would be our trainer.

“AW, NO WAY! The guy running our classes is the Ozark Gazette guy??? I LOVE that guy!!! ” I was starstruck.

Richard not only taught us the basics of studio production, from set building to interviewing to punching a show in the studio, he gave us an overview of Public Access Television, its history both nationally and locally, and why it was there. Over the years Richard's history with Public Access and his knowledge thereof, as well as his passion for it, would be a constant source of inspiration to me. Having come out of the xerographic zine scene, I found the independent, radical aspects of Public Access very accommodating and very close to home.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZOvfItiS3M&index=42&list=PL0cs_SrWxKfUXOl47_dVnqPfM7nrvNehF

       Follow this link to watch ON THE AIR featuring Film Historian Frank Scheide
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czAufQWhJh4&index=26&list=PL0cs_SrWxKfUXOl47_dVnqPfM7nrvNehF
Follow this link to watch Richard's interview with "The Last American"

   We got our Access Producer stripes and went off on our own, helping out Richard and other producers in volunteer gigs but also began forging our own path...and our path (believe it or not, it isn't like we walked into this gig with anything resembling a PLAN) wound up becoming Fayetteville's most controversial public access show. EVER.

In this capacity---and he might have, at varying junctures, been either a dedicated public volunteer, a member of the City's Telecom Board or a member of CAT's Board of Directors.....and he might not have always liked what we were doing, but he frequently found himself in the position of having to defend us, and he did so all the time, like a good First Amendment trooper.

At one point, following our perseverance after a trumped-up obscenity charge in 2003 (wherein a few journalists friendly to the City Administration at the time wrote some conveniently-timed hack jobs on us), Richard (who was writing for the Little Rock Free Press at the time) told me, “I want to do an interview with your cast. I want people to see that you're serious about what you do.”

In many ways Richard became our greatest champion, interviewing us both in print and on television. And he may have even occasionally ribbed us for our lowbrow approach, but he always stood by our right to do it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyaNuuW_kRo&list=PL0cs_SrWxKfUXOl47_dVnqPfM7nrvNehF&index=10

     Follow this link to watch Richard interviewing Shannon X. Caine about Obituaries

      I found myself working with Richard on many fronts...I wrote occasionally for the Ozark Gazette, penning anything from letters to the editor to guest articles to poems. When the Gazette fell into trouble I found myself invited to brunch at Uncle Gaylord's, for a meeting of writers, supporters and other hangers-on, to brainstorm and be part of a kind of “owners' co-op” setup to save the paper. Nothing panned out and the Gazette did ultimately fold.

After illness and a coma (which Richard himself has referenced many times on multiple media platforms) Richard was anxious to start doing television again and put “On the Air” back together. He called on me, and I became his cohort, director, chief editor and Chief Cook and Bottle Washer (as I used to call myself) and he and I kept “On the Air” going.

        We faced some interesting challenges in production in the ensuing years. At one point many of the flats, backdrops and other setpieces were jettisoned by the station. Forced to improvise and evolve, we opted for more of a minimalist, "Charlie Rose" look for the show going forward.

     By the end of the oughts I was probably one of the most prolific producers at Access TV, commandeering a number of shows, including “On the Air”, our own long-running show, “The Abbey of the Lemur”, “Intellectual Property” (a questionable show featuring local political meetings), “The Caine Interviews” (another talk show that was a spin-off of TAOTL) and some random other projects, as well as assisting on my wife's show, “Mondo Pazzo”. I had spearheaded two independent film festivals. When my roommate came to me in 1997 and said, “I just enrolled us in orientation at CAT,” I never envisioned all that, even less that I would eventually find myself working in television professionally.

Throughout all of this, Richard remained a constant, providing me with guidance, a conscience and a wall to bounce ideas off of. He taught me a lot of lessons---not to preach to the choir, how one should never accept civility over victory, not to take oneself too seriously and to never condescend to my audience---to enter into any project thinking of my audience as intelligent people capable of critical thought.

A notion that won me some friends but also got me into a lot of trouble----but that's another story for another day.

Richard was a wellspring of historical knowledge, of both Public Access and its various contractors over the years, but also Fayetteville in general...he could tell you about anything from the divisive Incinerator Issue, which galvanized a lot of activists in the community but also set the tone for those activists' relationships to the local newspapers (who sneered at them as “Aginners”) . Those relationships never really changed. He could also tell you about the woman the city had hired at one point to play violin to the flowers growing on the town square at night.

He also frequently found himself in the position of playing Cassandra on the walls of Troy, screaming, “don't bring that horse in here!” Only to be listened to by no one. He shot (and I helped edit) a documentary called “The Death of the Fayetteville Open Channel”, which covered the Great Access War of the early '90's. He detailed how a rogue faction of the Open Channel's Board of directors (of which he freely owned up to being a member) broke off from the main board and wound up losing the Open Channel its contract with the City. The contract was later awarded to Access 4 Fayetteville, who would eventually be known as Community Access Television. A lot of people complained over his constant references to it, saying Richard was “living in the past”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJWuhUtQwe8

    Follow this link to watch "The Death of Fayetteville Open Channel"

 He wasn't. He was urging people not to repeat his mistakes.

It fell on deaf ears.

Fortunately, he was still with us. When a rogue CAT Board began violating its own by-laws, engaging in intimidation and harassment and trying to access personnel files they had no actual right to, Richard threw in with VIPA (The Producer's Group I was, at the time, President of) and after a long public struggle we forced a slew of resignations. Another Access War was cut short and the contractor (known today as FPTV) still exists and is flourishing, thanks in large part to Richard's efforts.

Life went on and we kept doing what we were doing. Richard on some fronts tried to embrace new media but by and large things like YouTube and Podcasting seemed to mystify and alienate him. He mourned the loss of the local newspaper, a point on which he and I agreed to disagree. What good was local journalism if its prime function was to side with regional oligarchs and degrade and demean activists and the disenfranchised? My attitude was (and still is) good riddance. Richard, however, still mourned the death of localism, such as it was.

As he got older he developed more of a curmudgeonly attitude, sometimes coming over like a grumpy old man yelling and shaking his fist at the rain---the thing about Richard, though, is there was never a time when he couldn't step outside himself and see the humor in all of this. This played into a lot of the comedy vignettes he and I put together in the later years. Sometimes the pieces had some heavy, intense meaning going on---sometimes it was just a fun story. Either way we had a ball doing it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhPt1WdMeIA&t=36s

     Follow this link to watch "Richard S. Drake's DVD Commentary" (short comedy bit)

For the most part 2018 saw “On the Air” go on hiatus, with only one episode being produced as both Richard and I endured health problems.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rXi66vXWGc&list=PL0cs_SrWxKfUXOl47_dVnqPfM7nrvNehF&index=48&t=1s

     Follow this link to watch "On the Air: The Willow Heights Controversy"

Right up until the end, we were trying to pull it together to start producing new shows. And I mean, right up to several days before he died. His wife, Tracy, informed my wife and I, on March 4^th, that he had passed that morning.

We were very intimidated going into last weekend---this idea of doing a televised memorial had blown up and we were all kind of swept up in it....in the end I think it went well. As daunting and discomforting as it sounded, I can't help feeling that Richard wouldn't have had it any other way.

Special Thanks to FPTV  and Tracy Reeves  Cutaia

Copyright 2019 Molotov Editions

        

THE MEAT FACTORY and Etc.

THE MEAT FACTORY

HOBART, read the logo on the big dish washing machine.

On his first night as a dishwasher for the Chalet, Wolf got to know ole Hobart a lot better than he bargained for. Scotty, Bob and Jeremy, the pukes who were supposed to train him, cut out on Wolf at nine thirty, unceremoniously leaving him holding the bag.

It was a lot to be left with. Restaurant dishes landed, no end in sight. Wolf's hours were supposed to be three to eleven. He was alone and the dishes kept coming.

Wolf was excited about being hired. “Your first real job!” His mother said, embracing him. “I'm so proud of you!” Wolf was nineteen. He'd steered clear of a job until after graduation. He felt that any obligation, even part-time, might hurt him scholastically. Beyond a few neighborhood odd jobs, like mowing lawns, Wolf never looked for work.

Post-graduation lofty ideals were abound in Wolf's head. He wanted to go to college and become a journalist, and maybe from there a famous writer. He wanted to attend the Joe Kubert Art School and become a comic book illustrator. He wanted to sing lead for a heavy metal band, and given his name, Wolf, he figured he had a good stab at that enterprise, even if he couldn't sing.

With all these conflicting possibilities dangling before him, Wolf saw the necessity in taking the year off and making a few bucks. Besides, given learning experiences in “the working world”, it all seemed to lean toward the positive.

He originally applied for anything the Chalet would give him---he fancied himself a bellhop in one of those old fashioned hotel monkey suits, running luggage and begging for tips.

When he was called in for an interview with Joseph Barr, he was told to go to the receiving area. Receiving Area. Where applicants are received for interviews, Wolf imagined. He heeded every word of job interview primer ever handed to him in school. Soft-spoken but firm. Good handshake. Radiate confidence. He had it all down.

When he got there, he discovered the Receiving Area was actually “shipping and receiving”---the loading docks. He found out that Mr. Barr, the honorable interviewer, was really the dock supervisor, Joe Barr, a scruffy, no-nonsense type only three years Wolf's senior.

Wolf came to the quick assumption that he had primed himself for the wrong job. It wasn't one you dressed up and spoke softly for; it was a job lugging crates around on dollies, unloading trucks. As he left the interview he knew he wouldn't land the job, that Barr had pegged him as a softy, which Wolf supposed he was.

Two weeks later, Wolf got a call from Bob LaMontagne, who didn't mention what job he wanted Wolf for, but invited him down for an interview.

LaMontagne's interview wasn't so much an interview as it was a sales pitch, a hard-sell. “We gotcha insurance benefits after ninety days, we got free use a' the health club every Tuesday, ya can't find a better place in this town ta work,” he rattled, showing Wolf around the hotel kitchen. Wolf was delighted over actually being ASKED to work a job, as opposed to the disinterested grilling he'd experienced with Barr.

The job, he discovered on the grand tour, was dishwashing. “An easy job,” LaMontagne told him at least twice. Filling out his signature on the ob description form, he read his official title, “kitchen help”. The job was said in the form to consist of cleaning the kitchen and occasionally assisting the culinary crew with food production. LaMontagne shook his hand and told him to come in on Thursday, and so Wolf had been hired.

Wolf's training consisted of the pukes showing him a few keys steps of operation---loading dirty dihes onto the conveyer belt, taking them clean off the unloading end and storing them on the correct shelves---then popping outside for a smoke that lasted an hour or two while Wolf floundered. The pukes blew out the door for good around half past nine, Wolf holding the bag and uninformed as to what happened next. Dining room waitstaff hauled in an endless barrage of dirty dinnerware and garbage----steaks, lobster, salad, cream and cheese spreads---leftovers that mixed and meshed in the disposal trough. Leftovers blobbed off the dishes as Wolf loaded them and would become stuck in the conveyer belt, only to land in the Hobart's washtubs and boil. The stink rose and filled Wolf's senses. The parade of dirty dishes was unending, carried in, over and over. Waiters and waitresses were still hauling in the dirty wares and food scraps. Eleven o'clock, quitting time, had come and gone.Wolf felt like his head was spinning. It's a meat factory, he thought, a dumping ground. When does it stop, and when do I get to go home, like everybody else?

The first lull in the action that occurred, Wolf shut off the machine and ran. Christ, did he imagine it? As that busboy brought that last tray out to the dish machine, was he laughing at him?

'Hey,” yelled one of the fry cooks as Wolf made his break, “where ya goin'?” Wolf didn't reply.

****

On his second night working, Wolf learned a new word and that word was BANQUET.

At the height of the action there were ten guys working on the Hobart. Even LaMontagne was getting his hands dirty at one point.

There was commotion and traffic everywhere. The kitchen was jamming with wait people carrying trays.

Wolf thought it best to stay on the unloading end of the machine, removing and sorting clean dishes.

LaMontagne was animated, rattling off commands like a gattling gun. He shot a big, harried smile at Wolf. “This is it, son---the big one!”

“Whu-what's going on?” Spluttered Wolf, who was genuinely shaken by all the activity.

“I'm not gonna lie to ya, son; we're gonna be buried,” said LaMontagne, scrubbing a few plates.

“Great,” groaned Wolf. LaMontagne's words from a couple of days prior came back to him-- “It's an easy job!”

The scene was claustrophobic; bodies everywhere, hustling, fighting for an inch of space.

FIRST COURSE: Wait people dropped trays full of champagne glasses onto the counter and placed the glasses twenty-five at a time into plastic racks. The glass racks eventually jammed the expanse of the counter. The saucers and the paper doilies that underlined the cocktails were all pushed haphazardly into the disposal trough along with a few stray glasses, which smashed. More trays landed, faster than they could be dealt with. There was no end in sight.

“Let's go, Wolf,” yelled one of the dishwashers on the loading end. Wolf couldn't keep up. He tore as many clean dishes off the conveyer belt as he could. His progress was slowed because the dishes came out hot and they burned his hands. When too many dishes accumulated on the unloading stand, Wolf would have to stop and put them away. When he did, the belt would crowd to capacity and stop moving. Then the yelling would commence.

“Let's go, Wolf! My grandma unloads faster than you!”

Scotty, an effeminate, pimply-faced teenager who was on hand the day before, came down to the unloading end. “Listen,” he seethed, “I know it's hard. But if you keep stopping, we're going to get killed up there! Now, can you please move this thing?!”

“There are ten of you and one of me,” Wolf complained.

“Goddammit,” Scotty pouted, “pick up the pace!” He stormed back to the counter and whined to LaMontagne. Wolf resigned himself to unloading, unloading, unloading. Meanwhile up front, the counter was jam-packed and several waitresses were bitching, telling the dishwashers to hurry up.

LaMontagne turned and headed toward Wolf. Scotty was whimpering some sour interjection that Wolf could not hear. LaMontagne whirled on Scotty and yelled at him, all unintelligible, except for the last sentence, “if you're not happy with it you can go the hell home!”

Scotty turned back to the work, looking sullen. LaMontagne hopped onto the unloading end to help Wolf. “Come on, Wolf,” he shouted, “let's show 'em how to run this thing!” There was a heavy liquor smell on his breath.

The two toiled and managed to stay ahead of things. Wolf was staggered by the mess on the counter. “Is this that banquet I've been hearing about since I got in?”

“Oh,” chuckled LaMontagne, “this is just the beginning!”

Wolf shuddered. The two worked on. The feeders had glutted the belt with saucers, which were now overlapped, ten to a row where only four should have fit, and one or tow would periodically roll off the side of the conveyer and break on the floor.

“Come on, come on!” LaMontagne hollered to the feeders. “You're going too slow, ya bunch of lightweights! Me and Wolf are falling asleep down here!”

Up front somebody yelled, “come on, y'old fart! We'll bury your ass!”

On the counter, the saucers and glass racks gave way to the second course---salad plates.Hundreds of salad plates came back from the banquet. Most of the salads were half-eaten, if touched at all.

Halfway through the salad course, LaMontagne left. “I'll be right back,” he grumbled. He wandered out back and Wolf was alone again.

“Let's go, Wolf,” urged Jeremy, at the helm of the Hobart. On the other side, waitresses complained and shouted. The Banquet Chef harangued the lot of them in his sharp, annoying voice. “Gawdamn dishwashas! Whaddaya here for? Whadda they pay ya for?!”

LaMontagne returned, wearing a light jacket. “Wolf, I'm going home. Do a good job! Hey,” he shouted to everyone else. “I'm leaving, now! One a you c'mon down here, help Wolf out!” And he was gone.

Wolf was helped, thereafter, by Rob and a tall, vacant-looking kid named Steve. The counter was chock full of dirty pots and pans, salad plates, sauce bowls and dinner plates. More trays were landing than could actually fit on the counter.

“I don't believe this,” muttered Wolf. “Does it get any worse?”

“It should,” Steve deadpanned. “We're hitting the busy season, now. It'll be this way every weekend.”

“Oh, my God,” Wolf said. “How late does this shit go? I'm scheduled to leave at eleven-thirty...”

Steve nudged Rob. “Hey,” he grinned. “He thinks he's leaving at eleven-thirty.” They laughed.

“I don't think it's funny,” bittered Wolf. Oboy, Wolf, he thought. Your first real job.

The onslaught kept going. Gooey stacks of dirty dinner plates landed along with hundreds of little monkey dishes that contained half-eaten chocolate sundaes. When the monkey dishes came through, many of them were still soiled with chocolate syrup and had to be sent back. The backup was incredible.

Finally, amidst squawking and bitching from wait people and cooks, Jeremy shut the dish machine off. “We're all going on break,” he announced.

Glasses broke and a waitress whined. Jeremy's call seemed the equivalent to a declaration of mutiny. Wolf didn't know if it was a good idea to pull out; all he knew was that he wanted to.

“Who's in charge?” Asked Rob.

“I dunno,” said Jeremy. “I'll go find out!”

Wolf and the others stood about and waited for Jeremy. Wolf heard more dishes breaking, wait people snapping and yelling, “what's going on back there?”

“The dishwashers stopped!”

“Why?!”

“They say they're all going on break!”

“All of them at once???”

“They're always on break, the sons of bitches!”

“Come on, you guys,” a waitress shouted. “We need room!”

Jeremy returned, grinning. “What'd they say?” Asked Steve.

Jeremy snickered. “They said, 'please don't go!' “

“Should we go?” Asked Wolf.

“What do YOU think? Wolf didn't know what to think---he just knew he had to get out of this.

A stout, tight-lipped woman in a navy blue pantsuit stepped into the dish area. All eyes turned to her.

“What's going on here?” She demanded.

“I don't know,” said Steve.

She looked at Wolf. “I don't know, either,” he answered. Everyone shrugged their shoulders; nobody knew.

“We're on strike,” cracked Jeremy.

“I see,” said the woman. “Would you gentlemen like to keep your jobs?”

“That's questionable,” said Bob.

“Is it?”

Everyone reconsidered the situation. “No,” they all answered. Wolf was actually still on the fence, but he opted to say nothing.

“Well,” she said, “let's get rolling.”

They turned the Hobart back on.

Inconceivably, it got worse. Eleven -thirty, quarter to twelve and Wolf couldn't believe it was all still coming, wouldn't stop, wouldn't even slow. “Jesus,” he kept repeating, “oh, Jesus, oh, Jesus, oh, Jesus.....”

Junk piled in upon junk. He'd gone to an orientation meeting earlier that day. He'd felt somewhat secluded there among the newly-hired waitresses, busboys, sales reps and aerobics instructors, being a lowly dishwasher, bottom of the hotel's caste system---the personnel director, a smiling, maternal woman, was pumping the enthusiastic catechism of heavy business, the Chalet Team Brotherhood spiel, how they were all salesmen and women, working to promote a winning, positive image of the Chalet.

Garbage upon garbage. In the disposal trough, wasted food mingled and clashed with scrapped paper, wads of wax from candles, spent cigarettes and ashes and the occasional broken champagne glass. Big pots, pans and soiled, sticky dinnerware bombarded the counter in heaping, unstable piles. Sections of the mess were systematically wiped out, then replaced by more almost immediately.

The catechism of promotion stops here, thought Wolf. We're the toilet cleaners of the universe. Nothing got sold or promoted here. It's just where they brought the leftovers to be destroyed.

Assortments of burning wares rolled out on the conveyer belt in a relentless procession. Wolf blundered through it and eventually learned there was no place left to put anything. The belt stopped with greater frequency while Wolf had to look further and harder for places to put the dishes and pans.

“Hey,” smiled Steve. “Think this is fun? Look over there. We gotta do all that, too.”

Wolf peered over a storage shelf at the pot sink on the other side of the kitchen. In the three big washing tubs, dozens if not hundreds of pots and pans, in all varying shapes and sizes, formed a jumbled mountain that rose three feet above all three tubs.

“I can't believe this,” moaned Wolf. “I can't. Oh, Jesus, oh, esus, how do we ever get out of here?”

“Just leave,” offered Rob.

“Whu—no. No, I can't! Look at all this!”

“Hey,” said Rob, “you've done your eight measley hours. It's all volunteer from here on in. One more or less person won't get this shit done any faster!”

“But you guys---I can't---”

“Sure you can! You did your eight hours. You can get the hell out! Hey, you're new at this!”

Wolf looked at the scrap disaster again. “Huh. Uhh, you sure?”

“Hell yeah---go!”

“I don't wanna shaft you guys...”

“You're not shafting us. Go!”

Wolf headed out of the kitchen. “Hey,” yelled one of the fry cooks after him, “where ya goin'?” Wolf didn't look back and didn't reply.

He ran down the stairs and clocked out. He headed down the hallway and up those last two flights of stairs at a brisk, fearful getaway pace. He hit the night air and was astounded for a moment by the stillness, the quietude. His first real job. Christ. Wolf ran all the way home, the stench of the garbage and the steamwash sticking hard to his senses.

Copyright 1992 C.F. Roberts/2019 Molotov Editions

                                                          ******************

        As I've kinda been spinning my wheels on several novels in the last couple of years I've decided to put more energy into what's working out for me like gangbusters----short prose and short fiction.

      Shit, a good many writers I know and admire have succeeded in banging out book length product for public consumption at this point. Me? NUTHIN'. I feel like that's gotta change.

      To this end, I've started compiling two book-length collections of short stories, which I hope to have completed by the end of the year. Card is subject to change, as we rasslin' fans like to say, but the rough lineup presently looks like this:

1. THE MEAT FACTORY AND OTHER STORIES

NOW:

The Lost Diner

---originally published in SHOCKBOX

The Meat Factory

---previously unpublished

Zoned Industrial

-----Originally published in THE BIRDS WE PILED LOOSELY

Monster Kid

Shit Flavored Shit

----Originally published in VAGABONDS: Anthology of the Mad Ones

Hannibal and Sandi in the Afterglow

Thursday (Sound of Tiny Planets Dying)

The Aquarium

-----Originally published in BLIND IGUANAPRESS

The King of Moths

-----Originally published in FEARLESS

The Scowl

-----Originally Published in ILLITERATI

The Jennifer Tree

---Originally published in ALIEN BUDDHA ZINE

After the Bataan Death March

Acquaintance

-----Originally published in THE MOWER

Maggie and Merrill get Real

-----Originally published in PARAPHILIA

The Mask

Superman, Jesus and Rice Patties

----Originally Published in UNLIKELY STORIES V

Cartoon Land

SPECIAL FOR THE COLLECTION:

Return to the Meat Factory

Love and Desperation in the Meat Factory

Son of the Meat Factory

--- In the works

ALSO SOUGHT/PROJECTED FOR BOTH COLLECTIONS

(i.e., I'm presently hunting to locate this stuff!)

Ghetto Head

---Originally Published in MASSACRE ANNEX (Shockbox Press Chapbook)

Seeing

 ---Previously Unpublished

The Second Wound

----Originally Published in BIZARA

Second Coming

--Originally published in FAIRYTALES FROM THE URBAN HOLOCAUST (Yorkville Press), DIMINISHED CAPACITY

The Night is for Lovers

----Shockbox Press Chapbook

Scorched

------Originally published in FAIRYTALES FROM THE URBAN HOLOCAUST (Yorkville Press)

2. THE EVANGEL: Tales of the Irrational

NOW:

The Great Tradition

---Originally published in FAIRYTALES FROM THE URBAN HOLOCAUST (Yorkville Press)

Snapshot of the Rural Pogroms

Faith

---Originally published in ALIEN BUDDHA ZINE

The Day the Sun got an Eye Gouge

--- Odd Books Chapbook

Boil Order

----Originally Published in CORVUS REVIEW

The Crazy Fuckers

Hubcap Diamond Star Halo

Fat Chance

----Originally Published in THE MOWER

trinityTrinityTRINITY

After Carnival

----Originally published in CRAB FAT MAGAZINE

Hannibal Shooting Fish in a Bucket

Fort Apache the Exchange

Junkyard King

------Originally published in VOX

Old Man Delprete

----Originally Published in GOTHICA

The Windshield of a Moving Car is Hard, especially when you drop on top of it from Thirty Feet

----Originally Published in UNLIKELY STORIES V

The Walk

---Originally published in FAIRYTALES FROM THE URBAN HOLOCAUST (Yorkville Press)

Uncle Drew's Lysergic Backbrain Apocalypse (Slight Return)

Give Up the Sun

----Originally Published in PRESSURE PRESS PRESENTS

Wet

----Originally published in THIS ONE TIME THE ALIEN BUDDHA GOT SO HIGH (Alien Buddha Press)

The Seven Virgins of Eufaula

 ---Presently in the works

The Night they Shut the Geek Show Down

----Molotov Editions Chapbook

The Shrill

-----Originally published in RANT

      Both collections are gonna be bent, because being bent is just in my DNA---but THE MEAT FACTORY will be a little more earthy in tone, whereas THE EVANGEL will be more along the lines of "somebody dropped something in my egg nog---WOAH NELLY!!!"

          Anyway----any takers? 

THIS WEEK'S PLAYLIST:

THE BOLSHOI-Friends

BRIAN JONESTOWN EXPERIENCE-Strung Out in Heaven

Whatever else you got

YAY!!!! I get to be the 9,000th person on the internet who makes fun of "The Room"!!!

Heather got me a fascinating batch of birthday presents a coupla weeks ago---everything was in couplets. Two albums by The Brian Jonestown Massacre (“Strung Out in Heaven” and “Thank God for Mental Illness”) two books by or about Punk Rock/Counter culture legend Penny Rimbaud and a DVD copy of Tommy Wiseau's “The Room”, accompanied by its companion piece, Greg Sestero's making-of-the-movie book, THE DISASTER ARTIST (Don't get me started on the James Franco biopic. He's a tourist in this neighborhood at best---a condescending hipster colonialist with the stench of Hollywood Trash all over him----to quote John Waters, “here in Mortville we don't like social climbers!!!!”)

So, last night we finally cracked open “The Room” and watched it, and by the last half hour Heather was apologizing to me, which was unnecessary, but...

SWEET JESUS!!!! What the hell, Tommy Wiseau?????

I mean, I've seen enough comedic breakdowns on this thing to where I knew everything about it and everything that happens in it, but to see it all laid out in front of you, unexpurgated, back to front, naked, raw, ugly and sad, that's different....

My relationship with “The Room” has become a complicated one—I remember waking up one night  and throwing on “Adult Swim” only to see “Tim and Eric”----in fact, AS's ENTIRE SCHEDULE—was pre-empted by this horrid soap opera-looking thing where some greasy freak named Johnny was racing around having conniptions over who knows what and all the other cast run around wringing their hands over him, and I'm like, “who the fuck is this Johnny idiot and why am I supposed to care?!”

Years later, here it is, full on, and if that's not call enough for a Silkwood Shower, go pay attention to politics for a while.

Wiseau in recent years has usurped Ed Wood for the worst filmmaker ever mantle. To be fair, Wood never deserved that. His naïve charm, his pure gumption and his love for his profession rose above his deficiencies, or in many cases created a nice melange. Wiseau, likewise, probably doesn't deserve such distinction, as luminaries such as James Nguyen and Neil Breen are already making him look like Eisenstein. Wiseau, to his credit, seems to have an understanding that there is this thing out there somewhere called cinematography, and that it can be a nice creation.

If there's any value to “The Room”(Outside the memeworthy quotes---”oh hai Mark! Oh hai Lisa! Oh hai Denny! Oh hai Doggy! Oh hai gun barrel!”) it probably exists in the incredulous conversations one can have during or after (“Oh---damn---that was an hour and a half of my life!”---”What the hell were they thinking?!”). It's a similar phenomenon to what happens in the wake of “Cannibal Holocaust”, except that, with the former, there are bigger questions about the morals of filmmaking, beyond even the intended metanarrative, whereas with “The Room”, it kind of dies on the level of “The Room”----that was terrible, amirite?! Let me count the ways in which it was terrible...

As kind of a side note, a trailer is included on the DVD that undoubtedly happened after “The Room” started attaining cult status...Wiseau was trying to remarket it as a “Black Comedy”. HOLD ON. BULLSHIT. Sorry----you are not permitted to enter Annexia. I am the Black Comedy Police, and I said, NO. I'm an aficionado of Black Comedy----I'm a Black Comedy PURIST, a Black Comedy FUNDAMENTALIST, and my crazy-ass Black Comedy Madrasa says, NO, for the love of Yossarian, you don't get in, sir! Tough titty.

Not that I fault the guy for trying to make a buck, but NO---your pretensions of Black Comedy stop on the end of my fist, sir.

I could rip up “The Room” on any number of fronts---bad green screen, shit performances (although I have a hard time faulting the actors for being unable to convey a script that has no idea what it is to be a human), the sheer, destructive egomania of the auteur---but what I'm going to focus on is the real elephant in the room (or the elephant that ate the room)---the writing.

Great Googly Moogly. Let me take a second out to run my hands across the top of this desk just to make sure there are actual MOLECULES there. Okay. Okay. Okay. I think the universe is stabilizing. So, first you get the “Johnny” character (Wiseau himself), and he's a nice guy, very trusting and altruistic and he's all goodness and light, and (in view of the narrative) a man beyond reproach. It's almost like “Rashumon”, minus any of the cynical, knowing irony.

Then you've got Lisa, Johnny's fiancee---we learn over the course of the film that Lisa is “very beautiful”, a litany repeated endlessly by Johnny and others---she's also callous, duplicitous and completely self-serving, as evidenced by her mantra, “I'm going to do what I want.” You hear THAT a lot, too, as well as her constant response to anyone else's woes, “oh, don't worry about it, it'll be okay!” Lisa would probably qualify as a sociopath, but that's assuming, for five seconds, that “The Room” had any remote understanding of how human beings work.

Third of all you have Mark. Mark is Johnny's best friend. We know this because he repeats it continually, usually while preparing to bone Lisa. In fact, half the dialogue in this film is so repetetive and constant it's like an endless mobeius loop....to quote Heather, “if you made a drinking game out of half this dialogue you'd be clinically dead by the end!”

The last main character is Denny, a weird and disturbing boy-man who also lives in the building. We learn along the way that Johnny thinks of him as a son and pays both his rent and his college tuition. Denny is arguably the creepiest character on the story---he's a constant tagalong/human dingleberry and he has an unhealthy desire to be with Johnny and Lisa especially when they're trying to get intimate. Why? I don't know why.

There are other characters and other plot points, too (I'll get to those in a sec) although the main gist of it is the very simplistic structure of Lisa and Mark's betrayal of Johnny leading to his eventual hissy fit and suicide at the end. Other characters and plot points pop in and out for no reason whatsoever. Some rando couple pop into Johnny and Lisa's apartment and have sex for no discernible reason. Characters appear and disappear. Lisa's mother announces she has breast cancer, with all the crushing gravitas of last week's fender bender. Lisa blows off this revelation like she does everything else in the movie and it is never mentioned again. Denny is in trouble with a local drug dealer. This becomes an issue once and is then completely forgotten about. There is a scene at a coffee shop where we are treated to two sets of customers placing their full orders and being seated before Johnny and Mark come in, place THEIR full orders and are seated, whereupon the “important” slice of dialogue starts. WHAT THE HELL IS THIS-----SILAS MARNER???? Fuckin' TOLSTOY????

Throughout the story people behave in a way that is categorically unlike the way humans act ANYWHERE. People perpetually show up for visits or deep, heart-to-heart conversations that last 3 to 5 minutes and resolve zilch before getting back up and saying, “well, I've got to go,” and walking back out the door. I mean, this motif is CONSTANT. It's COPIOUS. It HAPPENS IN AN ENDLESS STREAM.

And then there's the football. THE FOOTBALL. THE GODDAMN FUCKING FOOTBALL. MEIN GOTT. Not that actual football games are taking place, but a perpetual bit of recreation and bonding the males in this movie engage in is that they go off somewhere with a GOD DAMN FOOTBALL and they all run around and toss it back and forth...these endless games of catch with the goddamn football!

So my theory is that Tommy Wiseau is actually a space creature---his mission is to report back to his alien brethren regarding life on earth and that “The Room”, rather than an actual film for human consumption, is his report back to the homeworld about us and what he believes we're like. His hypothesis is laughed out of the building and now he's stuck here, a la “The Man Who Fell to Earth”.

Heather did me one better and suggested “The Room” is actually a sly reboot of “Robot Monster”. Tommy/Johnny is actually supposed to be Ro-Man. Lisa is the oldest daughter Ro-Man must kill but develops feelings for. Mark is a hybrid of the patriarch/scientist and also the alpha male boyfriend of the daughter. Denny is the kid who dreams the whole thing (or DOES he???) Lisa's mother...? She might be one of those lizards they crib in from a different film, pretending it's a “dinosaur”. Yeah. I'm sure that's it.

There seems to be this whole school of film criticism out there, now, that encourages you to throw any sad, demented theoretical comparison out there, and posit it whether it can be backed up or not. Heather's “Robot Monster” theory is as sound as any of the others. I think it's time to nominate her for a Rondo....

In the meantime, do yourself a favor and check out “Robot Monster”----it's better than “The Room”. Or check out “Plan 9 from Outer Space”. Or “The Star Creatures”. Or “Manos: The Hands of Fate”. Okay---that last one was a tough call...nope. Sticking to it.

Later on we got some better entertainment going----ALL THE COLORS OF GIALLO featuring four hours of classic Giallo trailers with commentary by the great Kat Ellinger. A much more rewarding experience, and, dare I say it? Infinitely better than “The Room”.

UP NEXT: “The Meat Factory” (previously unpublished!) plus 2019's long range-but-attainable goals

'Til then....Aloha!

WRONGDOING WROULETTE

I've been sitting on this one for an inordinate length of time for absolutely NO GOOD REASON other than my own stupid lack of organization and distraction with other (mostly asinine) things. But I've been wanting to do it and there's no time like the (while I've got a brief, sane window) ever-fragile present.......Uncle Chuck has been on an INCREDIBLE ROLL these past few months as far as placing short stories and other sundries....some publishers out there have been VERY KIND to your strooly and I think it's crucially important to help promote these good people and their efforts.

While I'm running hot and cold on a lot of my bigger, more ambitious projects, the art of the short story is one that I've always had a particular liking for, and lately I've glommed on to it, HARD. I like playing with these compact narratives and I feel like I'm producing a lot of good ones. So I'm emphasizing that, but I've got other goodies in store. Anyway, here comes a laundry list of publications, webzines and publishers that kick ass and they deserve both your attention and your support, so pull out yer spiral notebooks and take note......

     We're gonna go back to October 2018 for the first couple. I teased my contributions to UNLIKELY STORIES MARK V a few months back, and they're HERE. I mean, THESE ARE THE LINKS TO THE STORIES.
http://www.unlikelystories.org/content/jesus-superman-and-rice-patties?fbclid=IwAR0up52UbYy4hQNgD80VII3UNReo1zfk5K2wCHCu6r3dw4VlGcZ5c3eupDg

http://www.unlikelystories.org/content/the-windshield-of-a-moving-car-is-hard-especially-when-you-drop-on-top-of-it-from-thirty?fbclid=IwAR0ogh1j0BKouCLK3Nek4h6zBE0gsAt9AEEWBtKv5MBeMAf-HwF4ZyzUg8Y

"Jesus, Superman and Rice Patties" is an OLD story, very early, recently rewritten. "The Windshield of a Moving Car is Hard, especially when you drop on top of it from thirty feet" is FAIRLY NEW. Some friends might remember me threatening to write a story about a guy legally changing his name to "Howard the Duck" YEAH, WELL, I WENT THOUGH WITH IT. You can read it RIGHT THERE.
     In general you need to check out UNLIKELY STORIES MARK V when you get a chance.....Jonathan Penton has put together a fine rolling periodical with piss, verve and color.

      Another person deserving of your interest and support is Sreemanti Sengupta at Odd Books and the ODD MAGAZINE. She puts together a unique pastiche of webzine and tiny-but-mighty publications. Fourteen bucks gets you a year's package, and you really need to experience the joy yourself (as I did) of getting this beautiful stack in the mail...

Not that I'm not part of the cavalcade or anything....

       "The Day the Sun got an Eye Gouge" is a weird one, and you need to consider that in light of the last one I linked to. If you like stories about all-day eclipses, animals wearing sun visors, kids with Asperger's Syndrome and flying, talking pot roasts, then fire up a big spliff and check it out!!!!!! (Not that I advocate that kind of thing or anything). While you're at it, though, check the Odds and their entire catalogue out at length.

https://www.theoddmagazine.com/

      Okay----next up: FEARLESS!!!! Goddamnit, what can I say about FEARLESS???
Kevin Hibshman and I go back, WAY back to the Mesozoic Era, when we both crawled out of the primordial ooze and started lobbing xerographic molotov cocktails around. Somewhere amid that ferocious melee we peered around the swamp at each other and said, "hey, buddy!"

FEARLESS (originally DISTURBING DREAMS AND DRIED BLOOD) is an underground lit INSTITUTION and it's been around forever. Anytime FEARLESS appears in any incarnation it's an event. This time out it's pretty extraordinary, like a little poetic thoughtbomb, and it gives me all the nostalgic feels for the days when we were running out to places like Kinko's or Staples to print up en masse and drop all our sodden product on an unsuspecting public. Despite our current digital mileu Kevin replicates our old DIY, cut-and-paste ethic to PERFECTION.


        https://archive.org/details/Fearless66

THAT'S IT, RIGHT THERE. THAT'S THE LINK TO THE MAG ITSELF. Click that and you can read it and you can download it for your very own. Don't say I never gave you nothin'.
        I've got a few poems in here, although the biggest point of excitement (for me) is the first appearance in publication of the Fugues....little dream logic prose pieces I started doing recently (Actually, the first Fugue seen publicly was Fugue Seven, which I ran back in September and which was written explicitly for this blog). I think my original thought was that the Fugues were going to largely be erotica, but...y'know...I just can't do anything straight down the middle....but I've got more of these things to throw around, so....don't forget your helmets!
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1794097392?fbclid=IwAR2tFbjvm4aw6Z-R94dm1hPclj7gHrHK8C4GFg4gphCjL23ZEsjYOy3reog

        Last but hardly least I need to give a shoutout to the fine folks at ALIEN BUDDHA PRESS who are running a monster of an operation and are more productive than any small press I think I've ever seen. Red Focks and Co. have their game DOWN. I'm appearing in three of Alien Buddha's jams, right now, all of which look great and all of which have emerged at a startlingly fast rate. OH---YEAH---and as you can see from the link above, they're all available through Amazon.

       I was pretty excited when the call went up for a drug-centered anthology as I'd been thinking for a while about a new strain of literature that I referred to as "Pharma-Punk" (and I'm sure there are plenty of folks who've been writing along those lines forever)----in writing this kind of open-ended speculative fiction revolving around substance abuse I'm following the lead of writers like Hank Kirton and Shannon X. Caine, both of whom are exceptional with the pseudo-genre. My entry with Alien Buddha is "Wet", set in a bleak, dystopian future (what a dull, stagnant term) where we follow several sketchy characters in search of their drug of choice. I'm real proud of this one.
         ALIEN BUDDHA ZINE #3  and TALES FROM ALIEN BUDDHA 4 feature my short stories, "The Jennifer Tree" and "Faith",  although I'm actually a little fuzzy on which story appears in which publication. You know what, though? You should pick 'em all up. Chase 'em down on Amazon.
       Anyway, that's the roundup and that's what I've been up to these past few months. So curl up with something good to read and give some of these outfits some much deserved attention.

THIS WEEK'S PLAYLIST:
1. IDLES-Brutalism
2. BRIAN JONESTOWN MASSACRE- Strung Out in Heaven
3. BRIAN JONESTOWN MASSACRE-Thank God for Mental Illness
4. SKINNY PUPPY-Rabies
     

ENTRY

This entry was "Fort Apache the Exchange", pending publication in GUERILLA GENESIS PRESS

There are days when you wake up and realize your story has surpassed its best-by date. Such was the case today with "Fort Apache the Exchange".

      God knows it's not an OLD story and usually I feel justified in peddling these things 'til they have a long, white beard. The danger, though, of doing topical/satirical SF is just that because you're dealing with specific topics and specific issues in specific times, you end up putting an expiration date on your work....which is why for the most part I prefer to deal with BROAD, UNIVERSAL politics as opposed to specific issues tied to specific time frames.

     Obviously, a chunk of this spoofs colonialism, which is a pretty broad subject that you can do a lot with. Colonialism, though, is just a bug rather than the feature.

     At the time I wrote it the TEA Party had some wheels under them and the Occupy Movement was very much on the wane. I was still trying to process my own poor associations from my five-minutes in the local version of the Occupy Movement, but that's another rant for another time. So basing it around what I saw going on as well as my own years of experience as an activist, it was my own look at the way Neoliberals (my favorite targets), elites in general and/or the people in charge of any given system view and relate to activists, protesters and/or movements.

       From my own lens, having dealt with both power structures and their friends and mouthpieces in the media, elites do not understand activists, or at the very least they make a disingenuous show of not understanding them, instead dismissing their concerns as "incoherent" or "conspiracy theories". The Aliens in "Fort Apache" are actually on the benevolent side (or at least that's how they see themselves)...of course, there's the genuine culture barrier. 

      Thing is, at this point in time this chunk of history is just water under the bridge and there's really no pressing relevance to push. I can't really justify keeping "Fort Apache" in circulation so you all get it here.

THIS WEEK'S PLAYLIST:

1. WE'RE DESPERATE (Rhino L.A. Punk comp)

2. THE BOLSHOI-A Way: The Best of the Bolshoi

3. BLACK SABBATH-Vol. 4

NEW (ish) SONG LYRICS

Banged out some new lyrics. Okay....slight exaggeration. They've been floating around in my head from anywhere between 2 or 3 months and over a decade. But you know, when you can't get rid of the noise in your head, there's really only one answer, and that's to put it out in the world. Aren't you lucky?

So, officially, then, welcome to the first new blog of 2019....

EVERYBODY KNOWS

Everybody Knows

that the deck is stacked and the pigs are laughing

Everybody Knows

Even the white hats are bought and sold

Everybody Knows

The arc of history is long and pointless

Everybody Knows

all this shit is getting old

Everybody Knows

that it's game over and you get nothing

Everybody Knows

you eat shit at the end of the day

Everybody Knows

that when they smile they're not your friends

Everybody Knows

Past the facade they've got zero to say

Everybody Knows

the temptation's great to pack it in and go home

Everybody Knows

it's too fucked up to work anymore

Everybody Knows

the night won't end but the sun also rises

Everybody Knows

you've gotta find a reason to get out the door

“Everybody Knows” came to me in a dream. Quit laughin', it happens. My zine came to me in a dream, and that was actually a thing for a while. In the dream, I was trying to join my “band” on an outdoor stage. I was having to crawl across this metal grating that was suspended ten feet over the ground and I was having to crawl out on my hands and knees. The band blew through the first couple of numbers in the set while I struggled out, and the bassist, a small woman with a moss green dye-job, took over yelling duties. When I finally made it to the stage they handed me the mic and I yelled this song (note that I always refer to it as “yelling” rather than “singing”), never getting up from my hands and knees. The song has haunted me for a couple of months, now, so there it is. The only line I really solidly had was the last one---Yeah, life is shit but you gotta man up and keep goin'. Existential-Core.

UNDEAD WAGE SLAVE

The speed of the cycle is starting to slacken

the spokes of the wheel are cold and cracking

You don't wanna be the just-home headline

when these defects start to unwind

CHORUS:

And in the night

While you're going to sleep

We come back, we come back

We come back, we come back

The pace of the cycle's too fast to manage

the center of the wheel is hot and damaged

a few more junkers thrown on the scrap heap

one more mongoose screaming for upkeep

CHORUS

If this one doesn't work they can suck me

The center of the wheel is white and fluffy

it ain't like all of the brickbats 'll hurt me

It's coming up on beer thirty

The exit might be a little too bumpy

we go to the ground, it's called winning ugly

If you don't think the dead come alive

You should see the place at quitting time

CHORUS

REPEAT CHORUS

This one's been kicking around my head for well over a decade at this point and it was too strong to resist. The genesis of it was inspired back in the day when the Rude were making the rounds and I'd occasionally try to pen lyrics for them. This one was always floating around just below the surface.

The two songs that actually provided me with rhythmic templates, weirdly enough, were “Bloodsucker” by Deep Purple and “Distant Illusion” by Flipper. Contradictory pairing? Maybe, whatever. It worked for me.

The imagery might seem obtuse and surreal. Most people who knew me back then will read this and know the references and get where I'm coming from because I spent 11 years working graveyard shift in a wheel factory. I think it goes over better if you DON'T know that. “What the hell is this 'wheel'? Some kind of metaphor?!" No----it's just a wheel, ponyboy, but whatever your read is, it's probably more interesting than mine.

WHITE KNIGHT

You're a white knight and you're on the make

but you'll play it cool and you ain't gonna fake

You've got plans

You've got plans

You're gonna treat her right and show you're a man

You're a white knight, regular paragon of chivalry

you've got cred, you even voted for Hillary

You've got plans

You've got plans

You even pimped out your shitty old van

CHORUS:

You're such a nice guy, uh-huh

you're such a nice guy, uh-huh

such a nice guy

'til she tells you “No”

You're a white knight and you've worked on your lines

Cry on my shoulder, baby I got the time

You've got plans

You've got plans

She's gonna be eating out of your hands

CHORUS

You're a white knight with egg on your face

Big night down the drain, what a disgrace

You had plans

You had plans

Now you've gotta a hot date with your right hand

CHORUS

A big trope with the S.E. Apocalypse Krew was a whole slew of Guy-who-can't-get-laid songs. As far as what made it out onto the album, “Keep Walking” is probably the big example. “Melissa” and “First Stare” also edge into that territory but not really. One back in the 80s and 90s we did that also wound up having a couple of different demo versions (of varying quality) was one called “Dog Boy”, which I always jokingly referred to as our “Bon Jovi Song”----it was certainly one of our more accessible numbers---but it kind of tread the waters of “miserable sad sack develops a crush on this chick and gets nowhere”----all done kind of humorously with some great, funny lines (I thought so, anyway). For every “Keep Walking” and “Dog Boy”, though, there were half a dozen similar ideas half-written, with titles like “Looking for Rejection”, “Jeal-Lousy” and “The Night is for Lovers”, which eventually evolved into a short story...we went to that well a lot, and I guess my attitude is, if you're going to go to that well you need to make it a little different and new....

“White Knight” might be kind of a related item and it popped into my head, likewise, late last year and became a thing...so I came up with the idea of a song about “nice guys”, who-----when you scratch the surface just a little, are really just dicks. The title was gonna be there, no matter what, because it was too apropos to leave alone. The obvious tie in with Incel/Red Piller culture is there, and as I've said a few times before, I've got no love for that kind of toxic mindset. But obviously----what can you do? The whole “White Knight” trip is an actual thing----you trot it out and everyone knows exactly what it is and nobody likes it-----even the guys who ARE “white knights” don't like it.

The rhythmic template going through my head for this one was early Plasmatics tunes, primarily ones like “Master Plan”, “Butcher Baby” and “Headbanger”. Ran it by the Missus, who looked at it an immediately identified it as kind of “a kickass punk rock tune....I could see an all-girl outfit doing this, like Easy Hate Coven....”

Yeah, there you go----Happy 2019.

Song lyrics copyright 2019 C.F. Roberts/ Molotov Editions. Extraneous ramblings courtesy of your Mama.

THIS WEEK'S PLAYLIST:

BRIAN JONESTOWN MASSACRE-METHODRONE

BRIAN JONESTOWN MASSACRE-STRUNG OUT IN HEAVEN

BLUE OYSTER CULT-SECRET TREATIES

BLUE OYSTER CULT-SPECTRES

A STEAMING PILE OF RANDOM

Several scrawled passages I found on a stray piece of paper while cleaning.

No one ever tells you the truth in this town. It's not that they're lying but most of them are vague. The ones who aren't vague are the worst human beings alive. That's what kind of town this is.

Lamentations of the Lesser Afflecks

I was in launch to a beautiful woman but then bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop

“They treat the poor like animals. They hand you a can of hooves and tell you it's Deviled Ham.”

“It looked like a pine cone except it was made of flesh. Like a flesh pine cone. It was just lying there. They call them 'Pequods', I think.”

Exhaustion, defeat and points West

Spokes or maybe fingers

Listen, listen, listen, listen, listen

I know I said maybe it was a fork but maybe you shouldn't always ask those questions

This is in my handwriting and I'm fairly certain most of it emanated from my mind. Except for that part about the can of hooves-----I'm almost 100% positive I was taking dictation from Heather Drain on that one.

Copyright 2018 Molotov Editions. We don't care if you don't like it.