December 1st, 2005
Silent Night, Holy Shit

The other evening I sat stroking my black seven-inch SRK Cold Steel Survival knife while drinking martinis in an East Indian bar. I was thinking about the tabla, and killing pigs; probably because I was rifled on Moroccan Black 57, and suffering the backend of a four hour jade sugarcube match. I ignored everyone except the waiter, and a man who was stuffing Q-tips up his nose. I have a fondness for such people.

Between Q-Tips, the man nodded at me. He was wearing a woman's wig and an afghan, and I realized, naturally, that it was Mr. Trent Wilkie. He continued to stare as I staggered over, knife in hand.

"What is your fucking problem?" I said. "Don't you know that disguise wouldn't fool a hall monitor? You didn't even shave your goddamn beard. Are you too much on the meth, or what?"

"No man," he said. "It's totally not like that. Listen, I was in rehearsal for this new play we're doing called Silent Night Holy Fuck..."

"Why the cuntpunch didn't I hear about this?" I said, pounding the bar with the butte of my knife. He was surreally calm.

"Dude, stark it down. It's not on yet. Not until the beginning of December."

"Do I still get exclusive interviews, or what the fuck? Or now that yer famous, it's all FUCK YOU MINGUS? Do you know how many pigs I've thought about killing today?"

"Why does it always involve killing pigs?"

"Don't interrupt. Maybe we should have another interview. It would start like..."

"Like what? What do you mean? Mingus, man, your shit is deep. And I'm talking Jhonny Deep."

"That's not funny at all," I said, spitting. "You need some help getting funny. Do you want a Bangalore Beauty?"

"Between the two of us, one is enough, thanks. It's like dating a fire marshall. Not a New York one, a Cape Breton one. Like mixing Erica Badu and Uma Thurman. Cultural and organic. Like certain cheeses. What?"

I pointed at the waiter who had followed me with my abandoned drink. He smiled warily and placed it gently beside my left elbow, wisely avoiding the knife hand.

"Get ready to drink up," I said. "These things have some kind of lychee liquor that you can only find tied around the bottlenecks of Polish vodka. They're Thai-riffic. You need one."

Wilkie smiled and bobbed his head vigourously.

"I'm gonna nod myself into a concussion. I agree so much that I fear my agreeing may be translated into insincerity. Let me just say this: Freebird. I am the long version of Freebird."

I winked at the waiter, who left to get the drink.

"Get on with WHAT THE FUCK IS YOUR DAMAGE, Wilkie?" He fingered his wig nervously, and adjusted one of his falsies. I thumped the bar with the painted blade, and imagined what Zakir Hussein would do in the situation. "Yes. Let's start it. Since our last interview, your show Below Under Ground or whatever it was called, received overwhelming, and some say, genuine critical success."

He leaned back, striking a pensive pose. The wig was unbecoming, but he tried hard, so it almost worked. On some nights, he would have made money on Bellamy Hill. Other nights, he would have been killed.

"Actually Mingus, the working title was So Below: The personal reconciliations of Oliver North but nobody knew what reconciliation meant, so we named it Below Ground to throw off the poli-sci students."

"Quite wise. If I remember, the acting was feted all around the theatre community, and even in the broadsheets, where I think you were hailed as 'the next-gen genX comic Brando ironic(sic)' or some such shit. How has it all changed you?"

"I cry more. I relate to Jesus...or Jeezus...or jebus or whatever his name is now. How can a man from the Middle East turn out white? That's what I have to ask, really. Like, come on fellas, get your shit together!"

I cursed his name in German, and drove the SRK's blade into the top of the bar. Shards of wood broke off and hit Wilkie in the face. He winced, but knew better than to actually show fear after mentioning Jesus in my presence.

"Is this next work satirical, or is it black comedy?" I said, barking.

"What did you just call me?"

"It's a question. Like: why do you hate Santa Claus?"

"He's a bed wetter. Have you ever met a bed wetter who was awesome AND over six hundred years old? The numbers are against him man. Red is just so petite bourgeois anyway. Get your shit together Santa! Effing poser."

"Fine. Next - do you hate Christmas? Are you trying to ruin it? Was this new play inspired by the 1991 Keith Giffen comic classic, the Lobo Paramilitary Christmas Special?"

I thought that one might throw him. We both knew how formative Lobo was to our generation, though the line between homage and stealing has oft-eluded the less swift.

"Just the ending," he said, feigning indifference. "The rest is a Lawrence Kasdan inspired docu-drama about some asshole named 'Lando' and his cloud city. We had to go with the Lobo ending, it was just a safer bet."

"That is fucking brilliant. Which is why you are dressed like an Easter bunny. Why then, do you hate Jesus so much?"

A drop of sweat rolled down his nose as he stared at the knife, still embedded in the wood. He wasn't sure if it was a trick question or not. The waiter arrived, but sensed the imminent danger and placed the Bangalore Beauty by the empty stool behind Wilkie before backing away. Wilkie mustered his courage.

"It's not the band I hate, it's their fans."

A fine ploy, I thought, grudgingly.

"Alright, enough with the Jesus talk. What's the play REALLY about?"

"A man, a myth, a monster and his monkeys," he said, relaxing. He knew his talking points. "Truthfully though, it's sketch comedy. A multi-media amalgamation of sketches, video and voice overs. Its worth ten bucks. Heck, I'd even say it's worth eleven fifty but I don't really understand how numbers work."

"The numbers are the details, and the God is in the details - so you hate God?"

"God used to be solid. He was like...a real guy for a bit. But then pantsed me in gym class. And it was like, I'm the guy with his pants around his ankles and he's still God. It just didn't work out..."

"You mock the Lord, Wilkie? TOO MUCH!"

The knife leapt from the bar, but he had anticipated the move. He rolled back into a modified Wi-Jen Iron Horse, and the blade found nothing but wig. From the low point stance, he rolled into the Qsju Sori and launched himself through the window. A Ri-Saro smoke bomb exploded, spewing purple mist through the bar, the snow mixing with broken glass on the floor.

Covered in shorn hair, I nodded through the window to the beckoning night, briefly saluting his escape, when I heard his mournful cry echoing:

"Like dust in the wind Mingus. Like dust in the wind."

---

Trent Wilkie and the Mostly Water Theatre are running another brilliant sketch comedy masterpiece starting tonight, and it's running for one weekend only. Go, damn you. It's at the TransAlta Arts Barns (10330 84 Ave) on December 1st to 3rd. 8pm. It's a great place to go near Whyte before getting smashed. Or after. And there is a chance that I will be there. With my SRK. Waiting.

Full details.

November 28th, 2005
Ethel

got a letter
from the Canadian Mental Health Association
addressed to Ethel Munro at my home
today

and thought
hmm, no longer at this address

then thought suddenly
OH SHIT

what if she is?

November 25th, 2005
platform

maybe we should skip
the poetry
and just look

at the pictures

cause i just spent four hours
trying to smash Rosa Parks' death
and this incident
where a retired black man in a green army jacket and a grey wool cap stopped me in the New York City Subway and helped me find my train and he had the most amazing mint smelling breath

into a brilliant neo-ghazal poem that would say something unbelievably smart about trains and busses and white and black and history

really I didn't give a fuck about all that
or maybe I do, but

mostly
I'd just like to remember how his breath smelled
like crushed fresh mint leaves drowned in sweet Moroccan tea
fuck the rest of it

November 23nd, 2005
Exit is A Safe Place

Poetic wunderkind Corey Hamilton will be launching his new book, Exit is a Safe Place, at the Raving Poets on Wednesday night. Make sure to attend and buy a copy, or he may beat you to death with a hockey stick.

Corey and I read together at a event last year called Subversive Verse. It was frightening for everyone, and ended with Unkle Pat screaming about donkey dicks and chlorinated pints. But I liked Corey's work. He's been numbering his poems since he started writing them, which I appreciate.

Fortunately, I purchased the first ever copy of Exit, so I will be exempt from any beatings.

The rest of you should arrive at Yianni's Taverna to buy copies, downstairs at 10444 – 82 Avenue at 8:00pm on Wednesday, November 23. Or else.

Myself, I keep seeing things in the air that would best be described as 'light ripples'. I can't imagine this is a good sign for either my eyes or my mental wellness. Either way, it's sure to result in lasers burning the front of my head.

And, I just burnt the shit out my pizza. It smells like a stroke in here. Previous to that, I discovered that the ambulance needs a Pulse Valve that is "Availability Zero". The mechanic, a warm and friendly man from Kashmir, warned me that failing to "do something" (like sawing apart some pipes and welding them together into one big pipe) could result in a backfire that would "blow my muffler off".

I thought he was joking, but he was not, and told me that "Insurance won't cover it, either." Ah, dear Channi. You have been my straight man for years. But that won't make the part appear, will it? Nor did it.

And so, I ride a pink timebomb.

November 21st, 2005
All Saints

Mary asks
what were you for Halloween?

I say

For Halloween
I dressed up as a sober person.

It wasn't a very good likeness.

November 15th, 2005
HOG MAW (or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Learn Something from Pennsylvania)

Stuffed Pig Stomach (or Hog Maw)*

Makes 4 servings

6 medium potatoes, peeled and diced
1 small onion, chopped
1 1/2 lbs. bulk sausage meat
1 large, well clean pig stomach

1. Cook potatoes and onion together until potatoes are tender. Separate sausage meat into small pieces and add to potato mixture. Stir and cook only until sausage loses its reddish colour.

2. Drain off excess liquid. Stuff mixture loosely into stomach and close all openings with skewers laced with string.

3. Place in roast pan with 1/2 cup water. Place remaining potato-sausage mixture that will not fit in stomach in a buttered casserole.

4. Cover roast pan containing the stomach and bake at 350 deg. Fahrenheit for 2 - 2 1/2 hours. After first hour, prick stomach with sharp fork. Place casserole of remaining mixture in oven, uncovered, and bake only for the last 40-45 minutes of baking time.

5. When the stomach is well browned, slice it and serve along with the potato-sausage stuffing.

Note: Overstuffing the stomach may cause it to burst while baking because the stomach shrinks considerably.


*from Delicious Amish Recipes by Phyllis Pellman Good, which I purchased somewhere near the border of Pennsylvania and New Jersey after driving our white Buick Allure like I was Steve Goddamn McQueen through the morning streets of Manhattan at street-bike speeds, until at one moment, we blasted out of the Holland Tunnel and almost shot off the first hard turn of the New Jersey turnpike at close to ninety-five miles an hour. Which wouldn't have been a bad way to go, if it was entirely necessary at that point.

E njoy the hog maw. And for Christ's sake, DO NOT OVERSTUFF THE STOMACH. You will probably have to evacuate your building if you are so foolish.

November 13th, 2005
Morning to the Good

raining too fucking hard
draining all the colour
out of the city

through the empty window
and black hot coffee

I say
It's a good day to leave Toronto.

Tanis says
eh
It's always a good day to leave Toronto.

November 9th, 2005
Not Dead

before he kicks in the speakers
with an ear-torquing
karaoke cover of Alanis Morissette

and before
luring us to a late night Toronto boutique bar
named Sweaty Betty's

and refusing to let me pay
for pints
because

When you're in my town
you don't owe for drinks.

before all that
Daffern walks into the Gladstone Pub
with his blondshocked hair
and imp-style grin

for the first barkfest
on a 2500 mile Canuck American
word mash up

and before saying anything
and even though we haven't seen each other in a year

he knocks a beer
all over my book and my new poems
and onto the floor

and smiles sagely
and says

That's how it begins.

Nunt: the book Find out about Mingus Tourette's journey to hell and back. "Makes Fight Club look like Three Little Bunnies"... MORE! The Perpetual MotionRoadshow From Toronto to New York to Chicago - three explosive writers hit the road. MORE!

October 21st, 2005
Perpetual Motion Roadshow Kick-Off

The shirtless Roadshow begins tonight.

For daily updates, hit up the Perpetual Motion Roadshow site and look for 'The Pay Phone Tour Diary'. We'll be dialing in regular reports.

The final show times and locations are:

TORONTO
Friday, October 21. Art Bar (in the Gladstone Hotel), 1214 Queen St. W., (416) 531-4635. With poet Sabrina Lightstone. 8pm

OTTAWA
Saturday October 22. Study Lounge, 25 Cartier St. With sound maker Jason Sonier. 8pm

MONTREAL
Sunday, October 23. Café Esperanza, 5490 St. Laurent, (514) 948-3303. 8pm

NEW YORK CITY
Tuesday October 25. Junnos, 64 Downing St. ( 212) 627-7995. 7:30pm

PITTSBURGH
Wednesday, October 26. Mattress Factory. 500 Samponia Way (412) 231-3169. 7:30

CINCINATTI
Thursday October 27. Hobo Books, 4040 Hamilton Ave. 6:30 pm.

CHICAGO
Friday, October 28 Quimbys, 1854 W. North Ave. (773) 324-0910.7pm

And now, as Mr. Trent Wilkie would say - Godspeed, you black emporer.

Indeed.

Copyright © 2006 Mingus Tourette