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December 4th - 31st 2005
December 23rd, 2005
Enjoy the Roast Beast






December 20th, 2005
Big Daddy Blogbucks Part Two

Just a few notes to follow up last week's megapost:

Note 1. Don't panic and shoot up your local nunnery. I'm not retiring. There is a good chance that I will be killed by a drunk husband long before that happens. In the meantime, I'll continue to write online. Just somewhere else, I think.

I mean, though web publishing (and the blog format) has many faults, it has one big advantage for the emerging writer over traditional publishing - an audience.

Truth is, the stage for most poets (and CanLit writers) is pathetically small, and the dissemination of writing is weak and torpid. As I've said in many evening preambles, the audience for published poetry books doesn't grow much. What exists is primarily a circular dialogue between a few hundred people. If the whole system wasn't propped up by grants, it would implode. While this happens, the blogosphere continues to expand exponentially. On this very blog, my poems are read by more visitors in a month than I ever reached with my book. It's sad, but true.

A couple of months ago, a reader named snowflake made a point that stuck with me when I mentioned taking a walk. He said, "well, i would think that the blog would be first and foremost about communication. any kind of communication. every thing else is missing the point....you've got some people dangling, from what i can see. so, uh, why would you want to disappear, when you have this great chance to communicate? go on hiatus? that's for fucking monks that drink tea."

It's true. With the various failures and minor successes, my expectations have changed anyway. It's obvious that I'm not going to get stinking rich off of the writing, at least not immediately. Over the past couple of years I think I've demonstrated that trying to get rich and famous from poetry is like trying to win a fist fight with a hippo. I think I'll be better off financially if I only publish a book every couple of years. At some point, it could all reach the critical mass necessary to write for a living, but it's going to take awhile. Or a screenplay.

What I have come to value out of this whole stinking deal is the dialogue and the community. Before all this bullshit, I only knew a few writers - Dick, Marvin, and Sweaty Charles. Now I know plenty - intellectuals and miscreants. I can talk with them about Newlove and Houellbecq and Eros and Civilization and postmodernism and it's a good time. I like that.

Mostly though, it makes sense to continue to work (and work online) because: I can't fucking quit. That fucking dream is still there. Years ago, in an interview with Gander, I said that a writer has to be perseverant to the point of ignorance if he wanted to make it. How bloody prophetic. The reality is, I've been obsessed with this for years, and that's not going to change.

So, instead of doing it alone, maybe I'll drag you all into it with me.

So yes, there will be more. My publisher and I have been talking about big things. So tune in here occasionally until we move somewhere else. Those who want to join the revolution are advised to reserve their seat now. It will be forthcoming.

Note 2. Dear Sweet Lord Jesus NO, a new publication wouldn't be too conservative. From the man who coined the phrase "Vatican Pink Meat"? Smarten up.

However, I hope that a new site would be something that wouldn't humiliate my entire family. If you ever heard Mingus Tourette & Sweaty Charles sing the seminal breastfish anthem Beautiful Sanchez, you would understand.

Note 3. Mr. Babiak mentioned this fine blog on his blog and said nice things, like "All Hail Mingus" and something about killing Huns in the '40s. Check it out. Also of note - his newpaper serial, The Garneau Block, just got picked up for hardcover publication by M&S. That's a big fat deal. Good on him.

Note 4. Apparently, long time comment poster rex logger has his own blog. Far be it for me to judge, but it is possibly the shittiest attempt at a blog that I have seen in years. Oh rex, why did you link it up? We had no idea. As far as I can tell, it had exactly one post, made back in March, and one comment, made a few minutes later, wherein rex lamented his inability to change the site's colour.

rex, our hats are off to you, dear sir.

Note 5. And finally, for shits and giggles - something from the old breastfish Mission Statement, Buggery: The Manifesto. When I read it, I still grin and imagine Sweaty Charles and his jug band playing deleriously in the Gainford Motel. As it was:

[E]xpect the lament of virgins crying in the night, expect the gnashing of teeth from those with “morals”, expect a bottle of mule piss thrown through your front window, expect the worst, cause the best isn’t good enough, and expect breastfish, the fifth horseman of the apocalypse, to show up on your doorstep reeking of creme de cacao liqueur, carrying a chainsaw, a tank of gasoline and an oxyactelyne welding torch. Expect it now.

Or, as Mingus Tourette is fond of saying:

These tales are not for the weak of heart. Get ready, strap your dildo to your inner thigh, grab a jug of corn liquor, shave your gonads and dial in, bitches, cause the motherfucker's coming down the pipe......




December 12th, 2005
Edmonton's Original Blogger

Because no one else claimed the title, because I have been publishing regularly online since before the turn of the millenia (god curse you, breastfish), and because I have more websites than anyone he knows; Marvin Gander declared a reticent Mingus Tourette to be 'Edmonton's original blogger' over a brutal game of draught soaked billiards at the Garneau Pub this weekend. A dubious title, to be sure. Especially for a man who coined the phrase 'Fuck the Blogosphere'.

I call bullshit. Because I don't blog. At least, I don't talk like totally this weekend i went down to this rave and this bitch was all up in my face and so i was like, what are you, republican, which was so smart, and then she dissed my blog and I was like, I am totally gonna pwn you in myspace....

But what can you do.

Marvin Gander, in town for some election coverage, pointed out that blogging was gaining some respect in the regular world. Even local novelist and columnist Todd Babiak has a funny new blog over at the Edmonton Journal website, though I doubt that he is allowed to use words like 'shit'. Instead, he must be content with stand-ins like 'poo'. Admittedly, poo is a funnier word, but I do like the freedom to curse at random intervals. Nor is he allowed comments, which probably makes him sad. But he is a journalist, and now he has a blog. Like everyone.

Even the politicians. I reminded Gander that I had attempted an ill-fated link exchange with Prime Minister Paul Martin during the last election. He laughed, and said that I had been blogging for too long, and like most trailblazers, would never get a penny for it. I nodded sedately, for I am used to financial ruin. Then he said that maybe, years down the road, it would pay off. But I would have to evolve to cash in.

And I told him that I am ready to move on, that The Daily Mingus is ready to retire, but that like all thick-headed dolts on the bubble of revolution, I want to tackle something new and bigger. Something evolving. A new site, with multiple contributors that would provide poetry and short stories and serialized novels and upcoming events and interviews with artists and a forum for (mostly Canadian) writers. Something that people would be unafraid to mention to other artists and writers, something unlike nunt, which is a truly horrifying word. Something unlike breastfish, whose tagline was Sodomizing the 21st Century. I'm not kidding. We ran banner ads for JesusHorseFuckingChrist.com. Indeed, we offended everyone. Even ourselves.

The new site is something that I've been talking about for months. Hell, awhile back, Gravel and I talked about new online homes. And then last week, he went and pulled the ripcord. Found himself a new home at streetrag.com, and it's sweet - city-focussed, full of the urban mythos. So maybe it's about time to pull the cord myself - take a couple of months to build something new, put a bullet in this dying horse and go from there.

All I need is a name. Or rather, another name.

Suggestions, as per usual, are welcome.



December 8th, 2005
ACTION

INT. - XANADU'S HOUSE - NIGHT

Tourette sits on one of Xanadu's downstairs bar stools. He has a notebook in front of him, but nothing is written on the page. He holds a glass of gin and watches Xanadu expound on the current screenplay. Xanadu motions grandly with the rolled-up script as he talks.

MORRIE XANADU
...simply too little action. In all three acts.

MINGUS TOURETTE
I think there's more than enough of yer fucking 'action'
in this script.

MORRIE XANADU
There really should be an explosion or a death at least
every ten pages.
(beat)
I read an article in Variety that said...

MINGUS TOURETTE
Again. Who the fuck reads Variety?




December 5th, 2005
RIP MoFuck Mobile



---

there is nothing to say

what the mighty and horrible
darkness of the beard
has done
cannot be undone

perhaps it's best this way
as I couldn't pull the trigger
on the old steed

and so

dust off Mr. Auden
and fire Requiem in the pipes
light the pyres
and kill a thousand slaves on the mound
for
as Achilles rages
I pour my gin on the ground for you

touch your backseat one last time

caress your dash
and place two pennies
where the headlights once burned

sweet Rocinante
sweet MoFuck Mobile
thug mofuck 708 gangsta ride

tell the boatman
it won't be long
till we all roll
shining and streaked with sweat

roaring through the streets of Dis
through the back alleys of hell






But What Happened Last Week? By God, Find Out Here!