June 18, 2004
Sweet Beatrice: Love and Silicon

Jealous of Ronnie's intended foray into Real-Doll brothels, I have come up with a solution that will net me my own Real-Doll, AND possibly function as publicity for the book.

The RealDoll, for those who don't know, is the Beethoven of sex dolls - life-sized synthetic Hollywood beauties just waiting to satisfy a man's every need. Unfortunately, they cost almost $8000.

To get me one of these girls, I have decided to add 'Performance Artist' to my long resume. I intend to apply to the Canada Council for a $10 000 grant. $8000 will go to the real doll, $1000 will go to a nice bed, and the remaining $1000 will go to creating a 'performance set' which is a rough neo-tech noir version of the Vatican. The Real Doll will be dressed in full habit. I will be dressed like the Pope, and for my performance, the following will happen:

The Real Doll is seated on a stool near the bed. I walk in, carrying a red, dual-pronged dildo and a crucifix. I look to the heavens and scream, "The Messiah will be coming. Thus Spake Zarathustra!"

I ask her for a dollar. She does not reply. I strike her with the dildo. She falls over. Enraged, I thrust the crucifix into the bed, tie her to it and begin to molest her. Wagner begins to play in the background. Smoke rolls out from a vent in the roof. The light is blue. Signifying technological shift, Kraftwerk plays. I stand on the bed and perform the robot. The dildo is inserted clearly into my rectum and I molest the doll on the cross with it.

The smoke clears. Pure yellow sunlight shines in. I take off the papal dress. Naked, I turn, and take her from the cross. I lay her gently on the floor, caressing her hair. She is still. Red oil rains from the ceiling. I scream to the heavens, "WHEREFORE THE MERCY?"

No answer is forthcoming. Enraged again, I turn on the papal dress and strap it to the crucifix. I lift my hand and summon a black jug. It reads 'JUDGEMENT' in Apple Gothic 55. It is full of kerosene. I pour it onto the crucifix and set it alight. The flames begin to slowly spread to the rest of the set.

As it burns, I turn to her, lying still on the floor, whisper something in her ear and then make sweet love to her while the audience listens to the strains of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan's greater hymns. Only moments before the flames engulf us, I lift her up, cry "SWEET BEATRICE, THERE IS ONLY ONE GOD" and levitate into the darkness above the stage.

And the piece will be called: Ragnarok.

If done properly, I should only have to perform it once. And then Beatrice and I can do whatever we want, for the rest of our lives, happily ever after.

June 17, 2004
September What?

The U.S. commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks against the United States says it has found "no credible evidence" that al Qaeda and Iraq cooperated in the attacks. - CTV

Iraq's leaders face the prospect of assuming power in two weeks without the country's only independent source of revenue after saboteurs staged multiple attacks on vital oil pipelines. - Globe & Mail

The bipartisan commission investigating the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks further called into question on Wednesday one of President Bush's rationales for the war with Iraq, and again put him on the defensive over an issue the White House was once confident would be a political plus. - Oakland Tribune

Note: It seems almost pointless to rage about these things, or point out how the war in Iraq was completely unnecessary, or how Bush lied repeatedly to his country, but it's like a toothache. It won't go away, no matter how apathetic the cows in the barn.

June 16, 2004
The Notepad

I always carry a notepad with me. Started doing it about seven years ago, because I was terrified of losing one of the bus tickets, napkins or donair receipts that I wrote on. The notepad is black, it fits in my front left pocket under the wallet, and if I don't have it, I feel naked. I have filled dozens of them since I started using them.

For me, the first step in engaging the long form narrative is the re-examination of the notepads. They are bursting with ideas, paradigms, new words, plot points and characters for specific works. If I were to check a notepad filled in the last year and one filled five years ago, I would certainly find cryptic references to Vladimir, Zack and Consumption - three novel length projects I've been thinking about for half a decade. The material looks something like this:

Consumption - Chitin on my fists, pulsing. Side view of a man, walking. Slow, with purpose, towards the minister. And I am raising it up now.

Enoch - competition - recurring trait of all characters.

Zack Ed - "I got a big enough heart and a big enough cock for a dozen wives. Or at least four. Those Muslims aren't idiots, and those Mormons're fucking geniuses."

Consumption - loss of identity - all of the main characters have traits which obfuscates their identities - psychosis, love, addictions, drinking, gambling.

Enoch - "She was a staggering bitch, yes, but that's not why I killed her."

If I were hit by a firetruck, the phrases would make no sense to anyone, but they are the sephirot that make up the longform narrative. Ten notes about one character's motivation can be connected with ten notes about another character, and ten about the overarching themes, the writing style, the cadence of the dialogue, and it makes the bones to hang the flesh on.

Notepads. Highly recommended.

--- --- ---

Someone suggested offering up guest columns for the next few weeks while I take a bit of a sabbatical. If any of the regular readers would like to contribute, feel free to write something, and I will gently edit and post it. Suggested topics may include: incest, masturbation, murder, drug use, real-dolls, brothels, true love, male/female relations, butter, cooking shows, television and / or sodomy. In the spirit of the Daily Mingus, write it quickly and then edit it fast and hard. Poetry, essays, short stories and haiku are welcome. Any entries for next week should be in by Saturday and should be less than a thousand words. Bring the motherfucking noise!

June 10, 2004
Writin' and Drinkin'

The blog is an interesting discipline for a writer. While a format like this forces the writer to engage on a daily basis, it can take time away from longer format work. I remember reading William Gibson's blog for awhile, which ended somewhat abruptly one day. He found that the time spent on the blog was detracting from his novel writing. For a guy who actually makes money from writing, that could be a serious problem.

Since finishing the final draft of Nunt, I haven't written much long format material. My next book, which I've been calling 'The Book of Enoch', languishes in an ethereal stupour. The characters and the plot are sketched out, the main themes are rock hard, yet the next step, the detailed outline, rests untended on the shelf. In addition, there's a load of research that needs to be done, but the time for that gets sucked up by the promotional stupidity that I cook up for the published book. At this point, I feel like I should be deep into scientific studies on polygamy and anthropology, but I'm not. It's a bit distressing - not to anyone but myself as the writer, but distressing nonetheless.

Question is, if I wasn't writing the blog, would I be further along on the Book of Enoch? Or, would I simply have put more time into promotion and journal writing? I have always spent a big chunk of time on journal writing, which is part of the Daily Mingus, but I haven't necessarily engaged as much political writing, essaying, and in-depth characterizations of friends and lovers as I have with the blog. Being motivated to explore that in a neo-essay / short story format has been a brilliant exercise and there have been some good work out of it. However, I often ask myself, is the blog really an art form, and therefore, worth the heavy investment of time that serious fucking art demands?

I feel that the blog can be an artform, like any mode of expression, when it is approached ascetically. Quite a few blogs are turgid crap, but some have the ability to regularly entertain, enlighten and gently spread warmth to people all over the world. It's a great thing. Most blogs have punctuated moments of great merit with a heap of chaff thrown in between. For the blog as a whole to have lasting artistic value, I believe that it would have to be edited down so that it would have a proper focus. The best entries would have to be selected, and the rest would have to be blown away. To read about a contest announcement in the middle of a narrative about a man and a woman and another man that the first man hates would absolutely ruin the flow for anyone reading it as a whole. So it is possible that blogs could last as works of art, but they will probably need lots of posthumous work.

The experience in writing them, however, is quite different from tackling the longform - the screenplay, epic poem, or novel. The blog is generally written without foresight. It is a recounting of daily events, a reflection on the world around one. The long form, on the other hand, requires fistfuls of preparation and forces extended thought, and I find that I miss that kind of thinking if I'm not working with it. Perhaps it's the use of imagination and serious cognitive work that it requires.

To address this, I will probably be taking some time off from the blog in the next little while. Not because I don't love what it is, but because I feel a real need to get into the long format again and stretch those muscles, to get the relief that comes from exploring what can only be extensively addressed in long format - the massive, juicy themes of life. And maybe I'll bring some of it in here as I work it out. It would be interesting to have feedback on work in progress.

So if the Daily Mingus isn't exactly Daily for the next few weeks, you know why. I'm drinking and writing and thinking about polygamy and shaved apes and the end of religion as we know it. Just like it says in the Book of Enoch.

June 9, 2004
Cauterizings

The sun stays up much later now.

Maybe that's it. The curtains are not thick or expensive, and they only cover one window. The other window is open to the sky.

And the sun gets in my eyes in the morning.

But that doesn't explain why I can't sleep at midnight. Or two. Or four.

Maybe it's the sun. Venus passed over the sun today, viewable from somewhere in India. A Venutian eclipse. Myself, I can't get enough of Venus blotting out the sun.

Maybe it's the same reason that I can't sleep when the Buddha isn't snoring on the pillow, or Chloe shakes in her sleep, or Colette once dozed lightly before putting her clothes back on and returned to her husband-to-be. Maybe it has nothing to do with the sun. Probably I can't sleep for the same reason I always have trouble sleeping, cause even after all this time, I'm not used to sleeping alone.

And the bed is different since I turned it around to face the wall. Buddha said it was good Feng Shui, but I don't believe in that. Like I don't believe in much, except the warmth of women's backs in the night.

Feel nervous about sleeping in, too.

Not used to sleeping alone.

It seems cold.

June 8, 2004
Freud and The Ninjas

I was in a supermarket when it started. My gang and I were relaxing, getting ready to buy some food, when another brilliant thought came over me. Instead of buying the food, it seemed like a premium idea to acquire some blue ninja suits and steal the food.

The ninja suits were easy to come by, and soon enough, we were stalking the tops of the shelves, looking for boxes of berries. We leapt from aisle to aisle, as ninjas often do, and stocked up on several high quality boxes of fruit. The shoppers went on about their business as though nothing was happening, because they couldn't see us, because we were practicing the fine art of ninja stealth. But it couldn't last forever. One of my fellow ninjas dropped some berries at the far end of the supermarket, and all hell broke loose. Supermarket employees swarmed the area, and I was forced to leap into action, letting fly with throwing knives and shuriken. No one was killed, but many were frightened. We were about to make good with our escape, but as I turned, a nubile young woman stood in my way. She was frightened, but her lips were parted. So instead of lopping her head off with a katana, I gave her a kiss, squeezed her ass and bolted for the ceiling.

Later on, the authorities attempted to track us down, but we took off our blue ninja suits and wandered around the market in a state of calm, confident that our identities were safe. And they were. We were never revealed. And the taste of that woman's lipstick lingered on my lips for days.

Obviously, I haven't been sleeping well. What the fuck does it all mean, anyways?

June 7, 2004
The Shaving of the Ming

Everyone loves a little bit of shaved Ming on a hot Saturday night in June. At least, that's what I'll tell Chloe the next time I see her and she stares at me cock-eyed, and says, 'What the fuck did you do to your head?'

You see, this weekend, in a fit of rage over the continuing stupidity that flows out of GW Bush's mouth like salsa-stuffed diarrhea spurting from an American's ass in Cancun, Mingus decided it was time to do something stupid and ridiculous to highlight the idiocy. And this time, it wouldn't do to simply strap on a gasmask and an American flag diaper and waltz around the parliament grounds in front of hundreds of people. Oh no. This required something much more personal.

In protest of the Bush administration's perpetual mismanagement of the United States, Mingus has shaved his head. Others are encouraged to do the same.

In other news, Ronald Reagan died, the Flames are on the edge of winning the cup in Game 7 (I call Gelinas to score the overtime winner) and D-Day was commemorated by several million people who weren't there. Also, the pope gave Bush whatfor over the invasion of Iraq (one of the first times JP2 and I have agreed on anything) and George Tenet retired from the CIA.

The most important thing you have to know about all this is that YOU TOO can support the Fear Up Harsh movement by shaving your head until Bush is out of office. And you can rest assured that it looks goddamn sexy and is easy to maintain. Photos will be forthcoming once I get the burning flag tattooed curling around my ear.







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