A Day In The Life Of An Earthworm

What’s punk without the soul of grunge and the spirit of funk? A heavier world includes blues-inspired grunge metal as the perfect sound for earth and dirt and worms. Nothing in the world could stop me from worming my way in. Flashback to a West Coast mid-summer’s night in 1994 after Kurt Cobain’s stupid death.

He was fondly remembered. I wrote him poems as a die-hard fan and I liked his music. I saw a few of his first gigs when I visited my aunt and uncle in Seattle. Across the street played my childhood idol slowly losing atoms to chaos amidst the indifferent mountains and hardcore punk rivals. Piece by piece he’d give his soul. Piece by piece I’d join him. And then I went back one last time. To say that I wasn’t part of the whole problem was like not believing Green Eggs and Ham and Fried Green Tomatoes could be made into cool rhythm and blues.

One memorable night in Seattle, I took a page out of the post-grunge post-death of Kurt Cobain. Tilting my head back, the glass of scotch had given me a huge buzz, slowly focusing my eyes at the vaulted ceiling, posters of The Doors and Black Sabbath, but Kurt Cobain was to-die-for. Freely visiting from Burlington, Ontario, Canada and I'd made it inside a rich penthouse in Seattle, Washington to join in on a party dedicated to Kurt’s sick memory. Courtney Love walked over to me and the black leather couch, beside the rustic bar area. She was pale. She wore a long black dress with gold beads draping down from her neck. I'd never forget her don’t-fuck-with-me attitude and sexy, bitchy, out-of-this-world, whore-like attraction almost as though she'd just come off the set of Casting Couch.

“Never-mind the suicide note,” she said.

            

“What?” I asked. I actually never saw the note.

         

“Kurt really wanted to go to Starbucks with you.” There was a tear in her eye.

            

“What? How do you know this?” I asked.

            

“I talked to him on the phone before he got stoned and took his life.”

            

“Seriously?”

            

“Kurt read Earthworms Squirming On A Fishhook and he liked it.”

            

“Thanks,” I said, “I wrote the poem after getting high on a fishing trip.”

            

“A lot of good that did,” she said sarcastically. “What difference does it make?”

            

“Earthworms breathe through the skin and they can’t stay outside in the light for more than hour or they will die. But they don’t feel pain.”

            

“Kurt was a worm,” she said.

            

“I know,” I said and sighed.        

            

“He needed help.”

            

“I’m sorry.” Holy shit, I thought to myself how suddenly I’d become a part of the whole fucking problem. I stared at her sad eyes and her freshly powdered nose.

"You're not sorry." 

Hole's troubled star singer turned away. Her bleached clothes, dyed-purple hair and watery eyes made me think maybe poets were Brothers In Arms and maybe I’d listened to enough Suicidal Tendencies mixed with a twinge of Nirvana. They opened the door to me, so I could join the party and I was grateful. My eyes were wide open watching everyone with drinks in their hands and stoned frowns like the world had ended. Sir Paul McCartney stood in a lonely corner.

Courtney rudely ended the conversation and went to the bathroom. Background music of The Doors whisked her away into another room where she closed the bathroom door. Roadhouse Blues got louder and louder.

The more I got drunk, the more I thought (and believed) how I was separated at birth with Kurt and owed him all apologies for not sitting down to talk over Zen Green Tea and a good old-fashioned orgy of poetry.

I shook my head (almost like I was listening to AC/DC) and just thought wow the whole night.

Have Yourself A Very Chaucerian Christmas

Image Courtesy Of Pixabay

A Very Brady Christmas is cool and learning a Brady has died really gets you into the holiday spirit. But I just believe today’s BS news spreads differently (whether it gets under your skin or not, everyone is on Facebook or Twitter or Jeopardy). Everyone is following Chaucer Doth Tweet @LeVostreGC or more importantly your friend becoming famous right in front of your biased eyes.

My studying of poetry evolved over the years. I went from olde Shakespeare to Kerouac and everything in between. I wish I could get paid to edit Mexico City Blues. It started in high school, the curriculum was saturated with Shakespeare and it enriched my life, but that’s just the beginning. Unfortunately, I'd keep reading the poison after high school and the last Shakespeare book I read was Twelfth Night, a romantic comedy. It’s dead winter and I’m scum for just thinking about a Midsummer Night’s Dream to the point where I’m going to spew this for what it’s worth:

Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,
Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend
More than cool reason ever comprehends.
The lunatic, the lover and the poet
Are of imagination all compact:
One sees more devils than vast hell can hold,
That is, the madman: the lover, all as frantic,
Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt:
The poet's eye, in fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.

Mohawk College, Indian Summer, Indian Fall, Indian Winter then reading the Miller’s Tale and portions of the Canterbury Tales and Tennyson’s Idylls of the Kings and that’s my new adult life in a nutshell. My favourite Tennyson poem is the Lady of Shalott which is narrative verse. I also like a lot of Robert Frost’s reflections and traditional verse from Donne to Keats to Poe. Lately, I’ve been reading more free verse. I’m in the middle of Jack’s Mexico City Blues. I’m done reading Margaret Atwood’s The Door and also another Canadian Alison Pick’s The Dream World. I also got back into to Flowers For Hitler after learning about Leonard Cohen passing away. My favourite Cohen song is Closing Time. What’s my favourite Christmas radio show from Slaughterhouse-Tuesday, aka The Death Of Terrestrial Radio, aka Lionheart Leaks? I’m leaking this out for what it’s worth (despite its inappropriateness).

Why are stores not adapting or why is media not evolving to modern times? Because they’re closing the doors, closing shop, they don’t have time to fight the Industrial Revolution of this century. The Middle Ages, a time of political turmoil, unstable economies, and significant social changes, didn’t see Indians or cold weather in Canada, so what the fuck did Chaucer actually know?

Busy with his duties, Chaucer had little time to devote to writing poetry, he'd write poetry in his spare time, and instead, Chaucer spent most of his time eating and drinking. He would feast on the earliest known hot dog to man and make time for lasagna, breaded pork chops and Caesar salad in no particular order. Simply attempt writing Chaucerian stanzas or rhyme royal and bring back #ThirstyThursday because prohibition hasn’t started again (yet).

Worst 11 Modern Drinks From The Middle Ages

1. Honey Wine

2. Barley Wine

3. Beowulf Vodka

4. Canterbury Whiskey

5. The Geoffrey Chaucer Special

6. Mild Ale

7. Amber Alert Ale

8. Exotic Lime Ale

9. Toxic Blonde Ale

10. India Pale Ale

11. Thee Olde Dark Ale

Oh, “The Father of English literature” spent a lot of time writing, but doubtful it had anything to do with blogging daily writing tips. Literature is mostly the same today. Except in modern times, writers are more skilled at writing better beer names. My #AuthorLife is more balanced and I write poetry, prose, and blogs. December is going to be heavy then finish it all off with devilled eggs and Dinosaur cookies. A Midsummer Night’s Dream in winter?

Reading Miniature MidSummer Night's Dream

My Cat's Magic Carpet Ride

It was pure horseshit. But sometimes, you don't want to hear it straight from the horse's mouth. Staring out the small window in the alcove adjacent to the tiny kitchen, broken, unfocused thoughts scrambled through my mind. They came to Burlington looking for Vermont and fucking found Canada instead. They came in long limousines and in small sports cars and in over-sized SUVs. Many of them were tanned and wore cool sunglasses, never removing them and showing their eyes. Their dark skin was covered in suits and shades, and funny smiles and stupid scowls. They came in all sizes and shapes, all ages and creeds. They were larger-than-life rock stars wanting more. It was never enough for them.

My distorted image of the music industry quickly raced in and out of my mind, and then everything stopped. I stood still; holding it in, piss-mad and needing to take a mean leak. I needed to scurry down the small flight of stairs to the small bathroom. Skedaddles was my cat. I glanced at him or her (actually unsure the gender of the cat). Surrounded by the dull, unpainted walls, turning away from the window, cat bowl and garbage bin, I raced out into the hall and down the stairs and went to the toilet. Relief. Everything was good, while I raged at the ugly reflection of myself in the toilet bowl, before letting it all out and pissing out the anger.

When I made my way to the living room, the fucking friendly cat followed me and crawled into its cat box in the corner of the dark room. I had turned off the annoying light. I walked over to turn the music on and saw a black bug on the top shelf. I admired the big black bug with its legs crawling down the shelf. The bug made me happy. I would stare at the ugly bug before turning away and grabbing the remote control from between couch cushions.

The HDTV was black. I never turned it on. My Bose stereo was where I replaced life with the sound of music. It got loud, then louder, but what was really cool was the high-frequency sound. Skeddadle. The cat tried to get closer. Maybe he/she wanted to dance. I was all alone. Maybe he/she wanted me to talk. I was playing Magic Carpet Ride, and it was pawing at me, seeming like high time to get into a happy groove. These were happy times, I thought.

“Did you know Steppenwolf released the earliest heavy metal known to man?”

There was nothing, but the sound of music, as the cat stared into my dull eyes. I still couldn’t tell if it wanted to dance or listen to my stupid questions, or maybe not answer, and just look dumb. It turned slightly and looked up at the fluorescent light in the kitchen. 

“Did you know Dark Side Of The Moon was released a long time ago?”

To this, the furry feline looked shocked and moved closer to the power bar. Like magic, I hallucinated the cat was a carpet taking up space on the floor. Riddled with dishonesty, I wondered. What did it want to do? Did it want to turn off Magic Carpet Ride? Or did he/she want to hear more did you know, almost like I was preaching Nightly News to it and sounding like NBC, or maybe I was lost on the Star Wars Death Star? I was like a void station of useless information. With a bat-face, I watched the cat fumbling through wires with its paws on the verge of electrocution. Acting fast, I wanted the pussycat to listen to me, and understand it was time to dance and go.

“I’ll throw REM’s Man On The Moon on if you dance for me.” I winked at it.

The cat stared at me, confused, scared. I wanted to pull out my imaginary machine gun from the closet and point the gun at it, just to force it to answer the questions and dance like a good pussy. It stared at me more intensely with wide eyes filled with fright. 

“I’ll tell you the best science fiction ever told to a man if you just dance for me.” I smiled and cranked Magic Carpet Ride louder. I was in a mighty fantastic mood, but the pussycat was indifferent. Nodding and then turning away, and then turning towards me again, he/she moved closer but didn’t dance. Skedaddling off the carpet, it went back to its cat box, buried its head, and went to sleep. It didn’t move and almost looked dead. I never thought I'd play Magic Carpet Ride again. Ever. But I would take some of the credit, and I did. You're darn right.

That’s when I realized boring, dependable guys can sing a cat to sleep.

But it never listened.

I Want To Be Your Halloween Man-Witch

Boo! Did I scare you? Flying kites multiplying and taking over the dark sky not terrifying. But be afraid, I write dark fiction not horror. Stephen King got his big break from writing horror. I won’t be getting a big break from The Great Beyond.

If I had a broom, adjusting the broom between my legs, I'd fly away as your man-witch from hell. My destination would be Oz or Wonderland or maybe the shadows of heaven. It would make the perfect story and it would become crystal clear that some of the best witches are men or women or transvestites. A love affair between me and the dark side of fiction -- it's not that I want to fly into Oz and fall on another witch after she takes a liking to my storytelling. I'm sitting here, beyond acid flashbacks or nervous breakdowns, thinking more about talking truth on writing dialogue or the discipline of writing daily with French Press Bookworks Author Roundtable.

I was going to write about witches and ghosts and goblins, but then I didn’t.

I was going to write about fantastic fantasy, but then I didn’t.

I was going to write about mystery, but I’m already writing it.

Organization is the key to unlocking the mystery of how to write more. Find a way to organize your writing, then write more, one step at a time. The discipline of writing daily comes from deep within the pure or impure soul. It usually starts slow or fast, but it has to start somewhere. Six pages into Chapter 10 of Lionheart Leaks, but then I stop and hit a wall. Twitter takes over. I’m out of control and I’m tweeting like a mental patient with WiFi privileges. I’m starting to get more ideas from the craziness, and imagination is spewing from every time of the day. What if Lionheart Leaks alternative title is The Death Of Terrestrial Radio (in endless parts). What is Terrestrial radio? In broadcasting, it’s any electronic device designed to receive, demodulate, and amplify radio signals from sound stations. It only gets harder.

WIFE: Stephen King schedules time to write every day and writes six pages a day. You need to write daily as a discipline.

ME: I hate Stephen King.

WIFE: Just write.

ME: Alright, alright, alright.

Drink good. A great big blast from the past, feverishly writing pages of poetry and I’m not sleeping on the couch in front of the laptop, but I’m writing, drinking and sleeping before writing and drinking more. I rely on the ageless life tip of staying hydrated as the best writing tip and advice. Something like this:

NORTH OF NAVAJO

Speaking English

on Indian Lake Beach

sounds foreign

and loud.

Stripping naked

misunderstood --

on a dark beach

under the moon,

hearing heavy metal

sound fluent and rich.

NORTHEAST OF NAVAJO

Heavy metal is made here,

where we’re under a rock

from a cave

somewhere,

but nowhere I can reveal.

I can only make you hear.

Put a blanket on my bed

and drape it over my head.

If you don’t know what I’ve said,

It’s because I’m speaking a dialect of Navajo.

King of the foreign tongue

lost in translation

from illusions

of delusions

of darkness.

MADNESS (11th Chorus)

Madness deepens and overwhelms

a deeper desire of hate.

Only profound sadness

and inner voices

screams words

nobody hears.

Headaches fill the dark hours

raging only in my mind.

You can’t smell my onion-stained breath,

since not speaking

or shouting a word.

I try to resist madness,

only to hear nothing --

beyond belief

to cry

from sadness.

Hail

a tissue from my face

wiping tears,

wiping fear.

I want to write 

to the mighty

mouse.

Where The Hell Do We Go When We Die?

Nazi Germany? Or St. Petersburg, Russia? Or Syberia? Probably not. We’ll go somewhere where there's no pain. It’s somewhere greater than The Great Beyond. There’ll be truth. Trust me. And real fiction from wonderful worlds of make-believe brings us new characters and imagination.

His name is really Peter Cannonball and he died performing a cannonball onto cement. We regret to inform you that poor Peter missed the pool. Let’s say Peter wasn’t Christian and practiced Atheism with his loving family. Does Peter still go to Heaven or Purgatory or Hell?

Probably Heaven not Purgatory nor Hell and the after-world is a mystery. Jesus Christ kinda freaks me out, because he wanted to die (maybe he believed in suicide). Or Jesus God, I believe in it all.

I don’t want to be experiencing Acid Flashback No. 67 in the end. I don’t want the coroner to report bad make-up causing my creepy inevitable death. I don’t want to be dressed in a clown costume. I don't want my final meal to be a plate of the freshest mushrooms from the grocery store. Suddenly I'm imagining myself choking on the biggest, juiciest mushroom.

Shrooms? Aliens? Spaceships? Is that a fucking UFO? I’m coughing badly, sick from this blog and I can hear strange noises coming from outside. I’m looking away from the computer screen and out the window, and now up into the sky. No, it's the giant fucking Moon. And it’s getting bigger, man. It’s a bright, giant Moon, but there’s also darkness. I’m trapped in self-sorrow, self-pity, tripping out -- and there’s a world of wonder to share. Then I mess up my hair and a nose hair is out of place. Then everything just stops -- and everything just freezes slow and beautiful and crazy ugly.

I don’t want anybody to mistake me to be the second cousin of Rob Ford in the end. There will be no mistake about it, everything goes to the Queen when I perish from this brown, ugly world. I’m giving everything I own to Her Majesty. It’s my choice. I don’t have all the answers, but this is not a friendly, vibrant green world. It’s a confusion of colours closer to brown (and the colour of the ugliest sweater in the ugliness of a white winter stuck in the depths of February somewhere in the Yukon). 

A YUKON POEM

From Canada to Cold-FX.

From America to a giant germ,

Genital herpes, a cold sore of the heart

Beyond Skyping your politics

Of Thanksgiving in October

Or Thanksgiving in November

And feeding your bloated head

Like Alice stuck in Wonderland.

Nevermind Nirvana

Never played in the Yukon

Or for sexy teen robots

Now dead

In HTML.

If this is totally off the wall,

Just imagine cold death

From Jefferson Airplane

To Jefferson Starship

Building cities

Of robots in the Yukon

With Courtney Love

Dancing madly

As a GIF.

Is death like sex with a hot robot? Imagine getting stuck in a wire and screwed forever. But maybe there’s something magical about death, like listening to insanely sick beats infused with thrash metal from Anthrax to Megadeth.

Celebrate life before and after death. Celebrate somebody who just changed their last name to October. Imagining Gary October as the creepiest jazz musician playing hits from his unleashed rare version of Autumn Cravings would be cool. Now imagine Gary October playing your funeral ceremony. A month when we least expect it, everything will come to an end. Who knows when we’ll go, but wouldn’t you want to go out to Gary October playing his jazz in a beautiful garden where the flowers never die? Some might call it heavenly, others might think it’s crazy, but have you planned your end? The Doors have their version of The End. Sometimes a show ends or sometimes a course or career or life ends. Sometimes it happens later and not sooner or vice versa. Right now, I’m imagining the sounds of Gary October and it sounds new like nothing I’ve ever heard before, and that’s how I’m imagining death. Death is something new like you’ve never heard and force yourself to hear. It’s nothing to fear, and it’s something you might find cool and play over and over again, because it’s always new and something magical. Death is stupid, but it might be far, far better. Trust me. I’m writing this for The Great Beyond.

Peace.

Reality Lies Far Beyond Space And Closer To Womankind

My mother sent me to psychiatrists since the age of four because she didn't think little boys should be sad. When my brother was born, I stared out the window for days. Can you imagine that?

~ Andy Kaufman  

It Might Be Argued men are from Earth and women are from Venus, but don't be afraid because we're all in this together. I used to hate everything about Man on the Moon, not from fear, but from loathing Andy Kaufman's death as breaking news.

Suicide prevention getting mainstream attention makes me wonder two things. Why don't we create better underground funding to help troubled youth and how did Bob Hope live to be 100 years old? Does his estate still get kickbacks from military bases in South Korea? NBC, CBC, RTTV or YouTube? I don't know, but give hope a chance. 

Bob Hope via NBC

Poetry, Audible/Narrative Short Stories

Beyond The Rum Diary writing blogs on my website again is a quiet reminder it's never over unless you like serials. My experimentation with writing a serial is over. NO more Lucky Charms, Frosted Flakes or Raisin Bran unless you go to Wattpad. I'll let you know, and there's no doubt, Lionheart Leaks completes itself in the distant future beyond my wildest reality-based dreams. 

Movies? Boogie Nights or A Few Good Men. Both are the stupidest good movies I'll never watch again. I can handle the truth. Reality is perceived any way you choose, but there is only one universal truth: Love. So if love is the truth, then what are two evils plaguing mankind? It's very simple.

1. Women
2. Disrespect

My advice is avoid lust. If you want to write a sonnet, that's perfectly fine. But don't write a sonnet about the fisherwoman from your dreams. Example:

A SEXY FISHERWOMAN

I'm a codpiece of flesh, lost in a swamp or marsh,

Never touching a woman with pseudo-esteem

Alone on a boat with pirates crude and harsh.

For seven years she's been waiting for a dream,

While I hope to be caught in her infectious net --

On three nights with minnows and three guys

While I'm on land dreaming of her naked wet,

Wondering if she'll be a vision, envisioned wise;

Roughly, I've gazed at the sea once every year,

As I'm dizzy-eyed or mangled with every notion

That she'll never land, over a whale-shaped tear,

As we cling to happiness in a magical potion.

One day, I'll touch her as a supernatural fish

And find a way to say she's my only wish.

Yeah, I'm reading Naked Lunch. Yeah, I'm on YouTube, burrowing through crap because of the faulty programming in my subconscious mind. Junk is art and it makes for great literary fiction, but addiction and drug abuse are huge problems. The Beat Generation influences American counter-culture, expanding awareness, but teaching some of the wrong messages, while using some of the floweriest viral language. These are the harsh realities. I had to dig through the CBC archives before having a nervous breakdown.

Fuck around however you choose, but choose your sources carefully. Lead from example and Lionheart Inc.™ core values, because mistakes are made. If you want to go live-on-location from Puerto Rico, that's fine, but Jesus Christ (Second Coming believers might want to hear me use Jim Morrison's name in vain) learn from example. Recline in your armchair, sit back, and pretend you're on the loudest beach in the world with your feet in the dirtiest sand.

These EXAMPLES might one day "save" mankind. I just believe the most valuable advice growing up is simply to choose a smart woman and don't let her go (unless you're stupid, or unless she wants you to let her go, and then take a hike and maybe find a pristine beach with dirty sand and a sexier dude with a dirtier mind). But I think growing up without help is a mistake and any good guidance counselor in the world will tell you dirty deeds are done dirt cheap.

I didn't know what I wanted when growing up. Rich and famous ideals got in the way; but without womankind, I must confess, I wanted to be a locksmith and write Very Bad Deeds.

What Belongs In A Bad Library?

What is The Great Beyond? It's anything your heart desires. Watching Sausage Party on the big screen at a Drive-In, there was nothing funny about the movie, instead a reminder that summer is almost over and my mind won't be wandering while watching another movie because I want to make more time for writing. The Great Beyond is where you'll find something different to digest. Something to think about.

"Jhooti!"

The party is over and now my eyes are staring into bright cancerous rays beaming from the computer monitor. Native rights are staring me straight in the face. Google-searching Aboriginal tells me it's a collective name for the original peoples of North America. I remember the first time watching Dances With Wolves and it basically glamorized the destruction of native tribes and ancient civilizations. A sad story, but bad people can't be stereotyped as the bitter Indigenous people. There's bad in every ethnicity, race or creed, and there's bad in every broken family. There's choices and consequences. We can learn from history to avoid stupid lifelong regrets.

But What Is Bad?

Sometimes -- it's not that bad. This means it's still bad, but there are degrees of badness. Going to the University of Wawa is bad, but it's not as bad as Mohawk College. My diploma would probably compare somewhere the same as a degree from Central Michigan University (if we're speaking Navajo or Media Communications which is comparable in my demented mind, tormented from years watching John Wayne movies). Today, there are courses online where you can learn the definition of bad with one click of the fucking mouse:

bad

bad/

adjective

1. 1.

   of poor quality; inferior or defective.

   "a bad diet"

   • 
     

     
     
2. 2.

   not such as to be hoped for or desired; unpleasant or unwelcome.

   "bad weather"
3. 
   

Mental illness is bad and it's not good to joke about mental illness unless you've listened to Michael Jackson's Bad from beginning to end or you've got solutions on ways to improve mental health in the world. STOP and take a look around. 

Here's 11 Things You Shouldn't Do If You've Got Bad Mental Health Issues:

1. Try to make your issues a headline in issues of local newspapers.
2. Try illegal drugs.
3. Work at not finding a job.
4. Discover crime.
5. Do not listen to health care professionals.
6. Discover new ways to re-invent bad.
7. Not listen to family.
8. Spend money foolishly.
9. Try to become the next Michael Jackson.
10. Miss health care appointments.
11. Watch CNN all day and night.