Thursday, January 28, 2016

your eyes go dark


There are some days when I can’t breathe.
There are some days when I wake up to find that my lungs have turned to lead, weighing me to the bed, drowning under blankets. They shine gold as the sun leaks through my window, blinding me, making me see only darkness when I know it is day.
There are some days when I turn to you and tell you I don’t love you, rather than I don’t want you to love me. I heard that we only truly love others after loving ourselves, so maybe I’m not lying. You love yourself, and you love me, but I’ve heard we only have so much love to go around.
There are some days I worry you’re pouring it all into me, trying to complete me when there is nothing there to complete.
Some days I worry I will be the reason your eyes go dark.
Some days it does not cross my mind.
Some days I wake up. I get dressed. I see you and I smile. I don’t question if I deserve you.
Some days I can feel more than hatred for myself, I can live without looking inwards, without seeing a black hole where my heart used to be.
Some days, I forget that I have a trash bin under my desk filled with suicide notes, and a word document saved, encrypted with directions on how to tell my friends it wasn’t their fault.
Some days I want to die, and other days, I decide, cancel those out.
Some days, I don’t count pills until night, until it’s dark and everyone is asleep.
1, 2, 11, 24, 33.
Some days, I wake up, and I realize I didn’t do it.
Some days I regret it.
Some days I don’t.
Some days are better than others.
Some days, are better than none.

Saturday, January 23, 2016

empty chair at the table

It was perhaps 60, 70 minutes before I moved from the spot. I did not even pretend to be busy, anyone watching in the crowd would know what the interaction between us was concerning. I imagine I caused those folks with the laptops angry. Sorry guys.
Describing this as somewhere I should not be might be accurate, rather, on the dot. Still an unmistakable yearning persists and I am unable to identify the cause. Possibly the idea of a later pursuit across the country is stuck in my head. Sadly, chasing for that kind of good in my life seems a lost cause.
I have never done any of this in an extremely long time. There are a multitude of things I can say that to, but this one matters. And perchance writing this down will…
The man at the table beside me asks for the empty chair across from me, your chair.  And that interruption, which is what this was for us. This, something quiet and warm, interrupted by flux of the world around us.

Wednesday, January 20, 2016

progress


Knocking out the section of when William Burroughs first encounters Dave Tesorero and they embark on one of Burroughs' worst addictions on heroin. I do love writing dialog. With that said, a quick reminder, this is still the first draft before editing and revisions, so any excerpts I post, please shut your whore mouth until it is done.

“Can I ask you a personal question?”
“I thought we already covered the fag joke.”
“No. No, something else.”
“This should be entertaining. What's the question?”
“You do junk?”
William paused then stated slowly as if in confessional, riddled with solomn guilt, “I've carried that monkey on my back on occasions, yes.”
Tesorero flipped back his coat lapel and revealed the spike stuck on the underside. It was grimy and speckled with green verdigris. “I’ve been on junk for twenty-eight years,” he told William. “Do you want to score?”

- exerpt from BLEW THE SHOT, current novel, first draft

Monday, January 18, 2016

Sunday, January 17, 2016

don't worry 'bout a thing

We made ourselves survive it, whatever it was. When we were drowning, we taught ourselves to be fish and swim instead, we smiled with our new gills and told no one of it. When the monsters came for us with their teeth that sing of terrible things, we ran for safe places even when our lungs were savage for it. We survived. We showed up with bruises or cuts or bony shoulders for it, we swallowed pills or liquor or both, we held ourselves together with iron or twine or just thin silver hope. We lived it. We still live it, but we are stronger now, and know the name of the things that hunt us in the woods of our minds. We are excellent archers now, we have arrows we have honed from the strongest bits of ourselves, from the loyalty to our friends and our humor and our kindness. We did not come out of it unscarred. We are not even out of it all. But we are alive. And we are strong. We did the impossible.

Friday, January 15, 2016

Thursday, January 14, 2016

chiding myself


The sleet and the snow outside merged into an icy, shellac gray. When stepping into the sloppy mess it went invisible for a moment, then slid away into the next pedestrian’s shoe or boot, with a squish, and a slush, and a grimace of acceptance. The air was intensely cold and I knew as the wind picked up, slicing over the great desert, no amount of salt or chemical upon the sidewalks would keep the sloshy, miserable mess from freezing and turning treacherous.
I stomped upon the already sodden matt at the door, chiding myself for agreeing to come out on this freezing cold day. The smell of coffee in the agreed upon coffee shop helped, who wouldn’t put their head down and seek warmth?
I walked up to the coffee house counter and a young man came forward. I gave a glance around, the place looked clean and the young man across the counter looked healthy.
“I’ll just have a cup of your house and that scone over there — do you make them here?”
“No, we purchase all of our baked goods from a specialized baker here in Tucson.” He spoke to me as he poured my coffee and warmed my scone, telling me by route the baker used only non GMO flour and fresh ingredients, he even handed me a flyer about the place. I took it but never read it.
I sat down as far away from the door as I could possibly negotiate and waited. He said he would arrive at around 6:15 or 6:30, depending how transportation went. I understood. The MTS was usually good — but the weather was a factor. I looked down at my coffee and scone. I was hungry but not for what was before me. I understood our first meeting really couldn’t be for dinner, a coffee shop would make a better excuse for both of us if we took an immediate dislike to one another, he could even glance in and keep walking.
I took a bite of the chalky white scone and thought, now would be a good time for him to walk through the door as I fought the dry pastry in my mouth. I grabbed the coffee hoping that would help me dissolve the mess and felt the inevitable scald on my tongue. I swallowed hard, sat back and attempted to blink the tears out of my eyes, thinking any moment he would walk through the door.
He didn’t.
Actually I was able to finish the scone, get my free refill and lose myself in the novel I was reading on my smart phone.
When I looked up I was the only one left in the coffee shop and the night was dark. I got up pulled my bag up to my shoulder and placed my coffee cup and plate into a plastic tub near the counter.
It was 9:15.
The young man behind the counter gave me a small sympathetic smile, as if to say — “he stood you up.”
I smiled down at my now dry shoes, then walked to the door and opened it to the cold and icy sidewalk…  

Monday, January 11, 2016

valoo of venus



When I set out to write a novel, it is standard issue to brainstorm the general plot. That being said, here is the first of six parts of the science fiction novel I plan to finish after I am through with the Burroughs book. Please keep in mind, it is written primarily as a blueprint and is subject to change drastically once I begin. But, this is the general idea. A far cry from my previous works. I simply wanted to go in a new direction and try something "fun".

Valoo of Venus
By
Luis Blasini

PART ONE:

The story opens on a television broadcast of a news woman interviewing Edgar Rodriguez, heir to a Texan Oil Tycoon, Jorge Rodriguez. Edgar is twenty-eight: tall, athletic, handsome, and has a witty personality. He graduated in astro-physics at MIT and has spent billions of his inheritance in building the first non-government, commercial rocketship to travel to Mars. He is being interviewed on the landing platform with the rocket behind him out in the New Mexican desert. He states that he is proud to be an American and believes that it is time for our country to lift themselves out of the stagnation of the early 21st century and bring back the spirit of adventurers, inventors, and risk takers of the early past century.

Hours before take-off on this historic event, we find out that Edgar is homosexual as he states his tearful goodbyes to his partner, Kyle Jameson of three years. Make a note to put standard anti-gay situations in the motif of the US military assisting on the base. In addition to Edgar’s father’s dismay on his son’s homosexuality.

Blast off! Edgar soars up into the stratosphere and into outer space. (Reference real accounts from astronauts (Buzz Aldrin, Lance Armstrong) in describing space travel and the orbit of Earth. It must be described with scientific accuracy and heavily use NASA jargon.) Keeping in contact with his base below, Edgar swings around the moon utilizing the catapult effect and begins his long six month journey to Mars. The event is televised live worldwide.

Once out of the moon’s orbit, there is an unexpected meteoroid shower which pummels his ship. Navigation is destroyed, radio arrays are smashed making it impossible to contact Earth and half his oxygen supply is punctured, leaking into space. Glancing out the port hole, he notices he has been knocked off course, the nose of his rocket is pointing directly toward the sun and he is hurtling at it thousands of miles per hour! Unable to alter course, Edgar accepts his fate of burning up in the sun and hunkers down to the long journey toward eventual death.

At the fifth month, tired, bored, and depressed (he bided his time exercising, reading, contemplating suicide - use comical vignettes), Edgar glances out his port hole and notices the amber crescent disc of Venus slowing passing into view. He bursts out in half-crazed laughter as he realizes he won’t be burning up in the sun after all, but in the hot, sulfuric acid infused atmosphere of Venus!

Donning a survival suit and mask, Edgar prepares himself for his decent onto Venus. The rocket buckles and shakes as it plummets through the tumultuous yellow clouds of sulfuric acid. Edgar screams in horror, realizing that this is the end. Suddenly, steam and howling winds surround the rocket as it shoots downward out of the torment of acid clouds and into a dark navy layer below comprised of water. Water!? Edgar finds his rocket screaming down through what seems to be an atmosphere of earthly hurricane-like conditions – dark grey and hellish – raindrops streaking the pitted port hole. The rocket stops buckling violently as Edgar peers out the portal and is now diving rapidly through monumental yet calm and billowing clouds!

Quickly, Edgar pulls a lever which emits a series of parachutes designed to slow the rocketship in its previously intended decent into the Martian atmosphere. The torpedo-like ship rattles violently but slows as Edgar straps on a backpack and decides to parachute toward the surface. Throwing open the outer hatch, Edgar leaps out of the cockpit – he briefly glances the rocket streaking away into an enormous cloud bank. Edgar falls…and falls…and falls…through various layers of clouds, each with highly different pressures. He breaks through the bottom of one and notices a vast, tranquil sea of mist below stretching out into every direction. He yanks the rip cord and drifts down into the foreboding fog.

He falls through the murky darkness for some time when suddenly he is yanked to a violent halt! Through the gloom, he notices that the wires of his chute are tangled in the branches of a gargantuan tree jutting up through an even thicker layer of mist! There is obviously vegetation on Venus! With much effort, he swings to an opposite branch. Cutting the wires loose and removing the pack, he begins to make his climb down to the surface.

Edgar stops to rest on a giant tree branch. Amazed and fatigued, glancing at his watch, he has been descending the same tree for three hours and still has not reached the surface! He looks about at his surroundings. His eyes have adjusted to the murky fog and also noticed that dim yellow light is emitted from the upper third layer of the atmosphere basking everything in an eerie orange, post-dawn glow. He can now see he is in the midst of a massive jungle of colossal trees and foliage jutting up from a seemingly bottomless pit of grey fog.

Suddenly, a bit away, he hears something moving. A beast the size of a Shetland pony but resembling a palpitating, white grub worm on six crab legs and sporting a nasty scorpion-like stinger drops onto the branch stalking him. Behind the thing, two more of the same beasts creep into view. They emit a piercing shriek as they lurk forward to attack. Without any weapons, Edgar turns to run when the first thing springs through the air and lands onto his back. He can feel the hot saliva from the thing dripping on the back of his neck as he is pinned down by powerful claws. Suddenly, he senses intense heat and then smells burning flesh as the thing falls off him. Glancing back, he witnesses the second monster leaping into the air at him, but in mid-air, an almost invisible ray of white light fires from out of the fog and kills the beasts. The last monster screams and charges only to be torched by a second burst of the mysterious heat ray.

Gathering his wits, Edgar rolls onto his back just in time to notice a troop of nineteen men approaching. One is holding a ray gun. He holsters his weapon, but doing so, the others draw swords dangling from their hips. Edgar attempts to communicate with them – thanking them for saving his life. They look on in consternation then babble solemnly to themselves as they check out his odd apparel. Edgar realizes they cannot understand one another. The obvious leader of the troop informs Edgar with hand motions that they will be descending the tree and at the points of their swords, he comes to the conclusion he is going with!

For two days the troop scales down the sides of the tree and then swing from massive branch to massive branch deeper into the jungle. Overnight, they spike hammocks against the trunk of a tree and eat and sleep. Edgar learns the name of the leader of the troop is Thufir, other than that, he knows not where he is being taken.

Eventually, they reach a vast walkway meandering through the branches. It leads toward a massive tree at least five thousand feet in diameter encircled with walkways and balconies. Edgar is amazed at the size and ornate design of the "city". What is more amazing is that the city is populated by thousands of handsome men, he sees no women what so ever. How do they repopulate, he muses as he is led through immense ornate doors and down a great vaulted hall. Down more hallways, Edgar notices no elderly or young children – all men from the ages of late teens to early thirties. The men are dark skinned with black hair carrying facial features of south pacific natives. Their clothing is a kind of retro-futuristic military garb.

Edgar is escorted into a colossal hall and presented to their ruler. On a dias, a young man seemingly in his late teens sits on a massive throne carved from a single jade. His face is hidden behind a jeweled and ornate mask of gold and his body is swathed in colorful robes. On either side of the throne stands a guard of twelve warrior women. Thufir bows and explains to the ruler how Edgar was found. A Major Domo of the ruler approaches Edgar and begins examining his clothes, face, hair, teeth – as if he was cattle for sale…or a slave. The Major Domo babbles to the ruler. Thufir and the ruler chatter a lengthy debate and Edgar is ushered out.

Edgar is escorted to a large room with a small balcony looking out into the jungle. The room is obviously his chambers. Regal and lavishly furnished, Edgar realizes it is a prison none the less...

END OF PART ONE

Saturday, January 09, 2016

excerpt from current novel


Here is an excerpt from the second chapter - Mexico City Blues - of the Burroughs novel. It is the first draft, so I apologize for any sloppiness or errors. My motis operandi is to write the entire manuscript and then edit out the excess and indiscrepancies, as any sane writer should. I vary rarely edit while I am writing the first draft. The second chapter is to introduce all the supporting characters of the novel, here it focuses on Kells Elvins.

Joan slammed the oven door shut to drown out the raucous laughter issuing from the dining room, irritably recalling that morning when William burst into the apartment overly ecstatic, relaying news that Kells Elvins had returned to Mexico City with his wife, Marianne.
   Apparently, the newlyweds rented a new apartment on boulevard Ávila Camacho out on the road toward Guadalajara near the remodeled golf course. William related that a few years prior Elvins spent time in Cuernavaca studying with Erich Fromm; he learned some Spanish and now wished to continue his studies. He enrolled in Fromm’s psychology course at the medical school of UNAM, the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. William then informed Joan, and without much notice of preparation, he had invited Kells and his wife over for dinner that evening.
   “As I was saying, I served as a marine during the war where I lost hearing in one ear thanks to a fucking Jap shell bursting right by my head.” Kells sat at the head of the table, dressed impeccably in a pressed white shirt, black slacks, and a pearl-buttoned black and grey sweater vest, nursing his martini. He swung the glass about in a well-manicured hand to accentuate a point in his story. A tall man who possessed classic, well-defined features, he was immensely attractive to women, with deep black eyes, curly, wiry brown hair. William believed he was the most charming man he ever met; well built, athletic, and described on occasion as “a playboy.” Charismatic, cultured, and well-read in many fields, Kells attained an excellent vocabulary and as he spoke, held everyone captivated with every word and gesture.
   Kells took another sip of his martini, “At the time, my radio code name was Big Picture and my colonel was one Shifty Schaeffer. I had just hit the beach with Major Ash, whose radio name was Clinker, and as our unit rushed in there was a hail of machine-gun fire. I immediately dropped onto the sand and tugged at Ash’s trouser leg, urging him to get his ass down. At that point machine-gun fire sheared off the top of Major Ash’s head raining his blood and brains down all over me. Colonel Schaeffer called on the radio and asked, ‘Howya Elvins. Put Major Ash on the phone.’ Momentarily stunned, I simply radioed in, ‘Big Picture calling Shifty, Clinker is dead.’”
   “Big Picture calling Shifty, Clinker is dead.” Repeated William. “What poetry.”
   “How was the farming business in Texas with Kells, Bill? I understand you both made quite a profit from your collaboration.” Across from William sat a very pregnant Marianne Woofe, Kells’ second wife. A well-bread and attractive woman, she attempted to put on the air of enjoying the evening. The fact was, she actually wished to leave. She recalled, during a stay in an Acapulco resort, she noticed a scorpion skittering across the tile floor of their bungalow and discerned immediately it was a malicious creature. She felt the same way about William. Her eyes scanned the man who sat across from her - cadaverous looking with yellow fingers, thin lips, bad teeth, and eyes resembling those of dead fish. The prospect of spending the entire evening in the company of this distasteful character was becoming intolerable.
   William lit a cigarette, tossed the match into a large marble ashtray next to him overflowing with smoldering cigarette butts, “Well, my dear, I wouldn’t say it was bad. It did offer its perks. There were the weekend trips to the coast, Corpus Christi and South Padre Island, and during the week long evenings drinking and smoking on Kells’s porch or at my own digs. Priorities, my dear, priorities.”
   With nimble fingers, Kells fished the olive in his martini, plucked it into his mouth and chewed, “However, it turned out that 1950 witnessed the worst freeze in the Valley for fifty years, decimating the citrus groves and nearly putting us out of business. That’s when I decided it was time to fold. I explained to Bill, ‘I want to make a lot of money. I think selling is a good solid clean thing to do.’ Eventually, I sold my land and, using tips given to me by Clint Murchison, invested wisely in oil enough to provide myself with an income of a thousand dollars a month. And with that, here I am.”
   “Clint Murchison?” Marianne asked.
   “Old friend. Texas oilman. I would sit around with his cronies and ask, ‘Hey Clint, when are you gonna get yourself cured?’ You see, “cured” meant get rich, properly rich, not the two or three million Clint already had. He always offered to help me if I asked, so I was understandably well disposed toward him.”
   “Oh.” She said.
   “Marianne, do you realize Bill and Joan share a certain psychic ability?” Kells asked. He noticed his new wife was becoming bored with this patter and decided to change the subject.
   She glanced at the scarecrow figure in a worn fedora shrouded in cigarette smoke under the harsh yellow light of the ceiling lamp. “Psycho, did you say?”
   “Now, now, Marianne. Don’t be a square. I for one respect the “second sight” Bill and his wife possess.”
   “Really?” She smirked.
   Burroughs swirled his sherry in his dirty glass. He detected her contempt, however for his respect of Kells, decided to keep his demeanor cordial. Not looking at her, his focused his attention on the sherry. “Indeed. Back in Pharr, Kells would ask me, ‘Tell me about the man, Burroughs, tell me about his hands.’ Eyes closed, I would concentrate on Murchison. ‘I see his hands are twisted, he has terrible arthritis. His hands are twisted. Being down there with all that shale.’ And Kells would say, ‘Yes, the man’s got arthritis, that’s right, Burroughs.’ ”
   “Really?” She sighed. This time she wasn’t holding back her disdain.
   “And don’t forget our excursions over to Reynosa.” Kells smiled. “By the way, Bill, did you hear about Gene Terry?”
   “Ah, yes. Tiger Terry.” William took a sip of his sherry, swirled the contents in his mouth, swallowed. “He would haphazardly drive around in a ’38 Ford Pickup he called The Black Death. Excitable kid. Once, he entertained me by performing an impromptu tightrope balancing act on the top strand of a barbed wire fence. Whatever happened to him?”
   “Well, Gene got drunk and went into the lion’s cage at Joe’s bar,” He glanced at Marianne, “That’s in Reynosa, Mexico.” He focused back to William. “One of the lions leapt up and clawed his back, leaving some nasty scars. José and the waiters always warned Gene to stay away from the lions, but he wouldn’t listen.”
   “How horrible.” Marianne interjected.
   Ignoring her, Kells continued to William, “One night, Gene boasted to two friends how he would pet the lions, but they didn’t believe him, never having been to Joe’s. The three drove across the border, went to a few bars, finished up at Joe’s around 1:30 a.m., where Gene showed them the lion cage. The waiters warned him to stay away. Gene snuck in when they weren’t looking. He lifted the large wooden bar across the door and dragged his terrified friends inside. His flashlight startled the lioness and she attacked him. His friends ran to safety outside the pen, but the door slammed behind them. As Gene was about to open it, the lioness slashed open a main artery in his leg, then dragged him down by his neck. His gruesome screams brought the staff running. They pushed the door open and several of them went in, chucking bottles and glasses at the lioness. She dropped Gene and Roberto Perez, the lions’ trainer, held her back with a chair as he leveled his .45 and fired, hitting her in the chest, killing her.”
   At that, Joan hobbled out of the kitchen and plopped the metal basin holding the roast onto the table with a resounding thud.
   “Dinner, folks.” Joan croaked.
   “Ah, wonderful! I am famished!” William exclaimed extinguishing his cigarette.
   Before his two guests could utter their approval, with a large cutting knife, he attacked the roast like a savage animal, rending off huge hunks of meat which he threw onto their plates. Disgusted, Marianne gawked when she noticed the roast was nearly raw, the majority glistening in pinks to deep red. She sat silently as then William proceeded to snatch up from his plate a great slab of dripping, greasy meat in both hands and gnaw at it voraciously.
   Not touching her dinner, Marianne asked with a placating smile, “Do you plan to return to the states, Mr. Burroughs?”
   Between noisy chomps, William stated, “Still under indictment in New Orleans for possession of narcotics. Having jumped my bail, my first move is to locate a competent lawyer to block any possibility of being extradited.”
   “Oh.” She sat in silence the remainder of the meal.
   After dinner, the friends sat in the living room having drinks. Joan, though polite and made it her duty to keep her guests glasses full, remained silent. She gazed with crimson eyes at the stately woman who sat in the corner chair, not holding a beverage and obviously looking down her nose at the proceedings.
   Guess I could warm up to the uppity cunt, Joan thought.
   “Can I offer you a drink, Mrs. Elvins?” Joan asked.
   Marianne averted her cold gaze from Kells. She thought Joan as a frumpy, amorphous woman, with a doughy face and large eyes belonging in antique dolls, made of blue glass and vacant, reflecting everything and seeing nothing. To Marianne, she seemed placid and shy, or a well-meaning mental patient let out for the afternoon.
   “You can call me Marianne.” She smiled.
   “Can I offer you a drink, Marianne?”
   “Do you have any milk?”
   “Milk?”
   “Yes. Milk, please. I don’t wish to imbibe while I am with child.”
   “Pfft.”
   Joan placed her glass of tequila onto an end table, as she stood, her pocketbook fell onto the floor and popped open. Pills of every shape and color cascaded out and rolled across the dirty rug. Gracelessly, Joan got down on her hands and knees and picked them up by the handful, shoveling the pills back into her purse, smiling and murmuring to herself. As Marianne silently looked on this pathetic creature, neither Kells nor Burroughs gave her the slightest attention.
   The alcohol taking effect, Kells slurred, “Remember, Bill, in between my drinking and farm management, I was attempting to write the Great American Novel, but alas never devoted enough time or attention to it.”
   William recalled, “Yes. You never did write all that much. Always encouraged me, though.” His attention flitted over to Marianne. “Kells felt, in a way, that without my influence he would never have realized anything, I do believe turned him on to possibilities beyond he would not had realized unless he had known me: a less conventional life, less conventional ways of thinking, and his basic interest in writing came from the work that we had done together.”
   “Oh, you two collaborated on a book?” She asked her husband. “You never mentioned that, Kells.”
   “A short story, actually.” He said down his glass. “A rather hilarious incident taking place aboard a sinking ship. Based it on the Titanic…”
   “Sounds morbid.” She chuckled. “I like romances, myself.”
   “Well, my dear, nothing came of it.” William sniffed.
   “I must admit, Marianne, I consider Bill the most fantastic writers I had ever seen. I did keep all of letters and reread them often. The man has talent.”
   “That is very kind of you to say, Kells.” William said. He turned to Marianne, “I necessitated someone to tell me I had talent and could do it. On occasion, Kells suggested I simply set down, in a straightforward, reportorial manner, my adventures as a junky, which I proceeded to do.”
   “You’re writing it?” Kells asked.
   “Wrote it. I call it Junk. A month prior, I employed a young woman named Alice Hartman, who was enrolled in the Writing Center at MCC, to type the manuscript. The entire manuscript being written in long hand. The woman was a proficient typist, but we were at odds when she insisted on making editorial changes. Every time I wrote “junk”, the broad would change it to “opiates,” and I constantly reprimanded her for that, ‘But I want to use the word ‘junk,’ I don’t want to call it ‘opiates.’’ I sacked the ignorant bitch and typed it myself that by this last January, I sent the completed manuscript to my friend Lucien and asked him to attempt to sell it to a New York publisher for a $1,000 advance. Very likely it won’t sell at all. But you never know.”
   “How exciting.” Marianne stated. “I wish you success, Mr. Burroughs.
   “A thousand dollars is an admiral chunk, Bill.” Kells said. “I seriously believe you could make a vocation out of your writing.”
   William chuckled at the thought. His laughter sounded like an unoiled machine. His usual monotone held a tinge of aspiration. “Indeed, the advance would come in handy. I wrote Junk largely for money. Of course, being responsible not only for myself, but also for Joan and the children, I have an absolute duty to place their welfare high on the priority list.”
   Gathering her pills, Joan stood. “He also has to pay for his junk and cocaine.” Joan grunted, “A book called Junk. How apt.”
   “The milk, Joan.” William stated, sipping his martini.
   “Yes, my liege.” She did a slight curtsy and wobbled into the kitchen, clomped out, and handed the half full bottle of milk to Marianne. She didn’t offer a glass. “How did you and Kells meet? Or did you get married on account he knocked you up?”
   “I beg your pardon?” Marianne said, taken back.
   “Well, it is a rather amusing story.” Kells smiled.
   Marianne’s faced was flushed crimson in rage. “If you tell that story I’m going to throw this bottle of milk right at your head.”
   Ignoring the threat, Kells continued, “I was entertaining some friends at a nightclub when I saw this beautiful, but well intoxicated, woman staring at me from the bar. I made my way over, we struck up a conversation. I never knew a woman so passionate when drunk. Immediately, she invited me up to her room and…”
   With an infuriated ‘oh!’, Marianne threw the milk, hitting Kells across the temple. A look of such fury crossed his face that William was certain that he was going to leap up and bust her across the chops, but then he collected himself and said calmly, “If you’re going to do a job you might as well do it right.”
   He picked up the bottle from the floor next to him and casually poured the remainder of the milk over his own head.
   Marianne shot up from her seat, strode to the door and collected her coat and purse hanging on pegs attached to the wall. She turned and shot, “Mr. Kells Elvins, you are, by far, the most graceful man I had ever met. You are also alcoholic, volatile, and sadistic,” She glanced at William and Joan, “and, in my humble opinion, overly tolerant of the hangers-on who provided you with an audience.”
   She flung the door open, stormed out, slamming it behind her. The three sat in silence, listening to Marianne clomp down the stairs and out across the patio.
   Joan casually fished into her purse, popped a Benzedrine tube and stated, “Bill was right, Kells, with the ladies, you sure can pick them.”

Friday, January 08, 2016

nobody wants to hear

Nobody wants to hear about my every­day life anymore. Nobody wants the truth I want to offer up, even though I listen courteously to your bullshit, mindless intellectual swill spewed over organic dinners with vegan options. My small talk’s not spicy like your authentic curry recipes. The setting for my anecdotes are smoky bars or seedy truck stops or a one bedroom flop for misguided and horny youth. The characters in my anecdotes aren’t five hundred pound, no good, mohawked boyfriends with shitty bands’ and shitty vans that I have to crawl under to unstick the gears. At least not anymore.
Nobody wants to hear about my new life. About writing and insomnia and bowel movements so black and hard they look like lumps of coal staining the bowl. About caring for cast iron, lovingly caressing the heavy black weight of a lightly rusting pan with two fingers, lubed up in lard. Nobody wants to hear about a man who’s slowly dying from depression and a burning mind of black nostalgia. A man who’s ready to die. Demented and dimmed by his age. Yet, sharp as a cliché tack. Nobody wants to hear…

Wednesday, January 06, 2016

It’s not really a secret I struggle with depression. I don’t really know how to apologize for the way I exist. I’m not always sure when I should. I’ve been trying to write about these things. It’s not easy. Writing about queer things is so simple because I’m comfortable with those things - these things are not comfortable, not easy, too close, too exhausting, too painful.

Tuesday, January 05, 2016

write between the eyes

Sitting here in this coffee shop hopped up on high-octane caffeine pounding out a section about Kells Elvins for that Burroughs novel. As mentioned previously, I am flip-flopping between works, Valoo of Venus which is my escape and yearning to write something both fun and to clear all these childhood fantasies from my head. What is it about? Hmmm. Good question. I loathe comparing my writing to other works, but if I were pitching it in as a standard Hollywood spiel, I could safely say "If Alejandro Jodorowsky wrote his take on John Carter of Mars and it was directed by Bruce LaBruce"...I guess. When asked, I simply state, "It's about an astronaut stranded on Venus and has this swashbuckling Flash Gordon-like adventure. And it's gay themed."
I stayed up until 3am this morning finishing a chapter on Joan Vollmer. Poor Joan. The more I learn of her, the more tragic the tale becomes. I realize things were different back in the 1950's. The beats were real jerks to the women by 21st century standards. Even though I grew up idolizing Burroughs and his work and life influenced and paralleled my own, he was a bit of an asshole.
Well, as previously stated, my goal is to complete the first draft of this Kells Elvins section (google him) so enjoy the impromptu covers I designed for publication. I am certain they will be honed and/or changed by time the novels are finished, but they were fun to create, never the less.





*for Blew the Shot, here is the first draft back cover blurb...it, too, needs editing. Haven't written one for Valoo of Venus, yet.

RIGHT BETWEEN THE EYES

It was the shot heard round the countercultural world – the Big Bang of the Beats, as it were.

At a party one night in Mexico City in 1951, writer William Burroughs drunkenly talked his wife Joan Vollmer into standing against the wall with a water glass on her head while he fired a gun at her.  His ostensible purpose was to imitate the daring marksmanship of William Tell, who could easily put a bulls-eye through an apple perched on someone’s head.  Alas, Burroughs, addled with heroin addiction and general drunkenness and lunacy, was no William Tell.  Joan was shot in the head and died shortly thereafter.

This excellent novel centers on this appalling incident, drifting back and forth in time as a sort of mystery, examining the reasons and underpinnings behind Burroughs murder of Vollmer (which, truthfully, it was).  The motivations and events, examined and tossed about like pigs in a blanket, craft a story that’s part biography, part horror tale, and part affecting psycho-drama.

The author Luis Blasini leaves lusciously ambiguous whether the shooting itself was murder, drug-fueled madness, or one of those great historical incidents that exceeds its reality to become a metaphor for art and destruction.

BLEW THE SHOT slides artfully along the razor’s edge suggesting his character might be either a genius or merely a debauched loon.  There’s the sense of a man who’s tormented by the demons of his lusts and appetites, and is often helpless before them, particularly when it turns out he sort of likes his drugs and his sexuality.

Monday, January 04, 2016

the dawning of a new era...probably.

No. No, it can’t end like this. Not yet. There is more to tell.
Back when I was hanging from an improvised noose in another botched attempt to release myself from this mortal coil, it dawned on me that I couldn't leave just yet, I need to finish that Burroughs book. So, along with the light hearted space opera, I have been working unrelentlessly on BLEW THE SHOT, a harrowing tale of William S. Burroughs account in Mexico City in the '50's resulting in the murder - yeah, that was what it was - of his wife Joan Vollmer. So far, I really like the outcome of the first two chapters...I even jumped the gun and designed a cover...which I am certain will be altered upon publication...a ver.
Indeed...well, I assume I owe you an explanation…
The story so far...
Two months ago, I left Tijuana in bitterment and contempt, jumped a jet, and flew to Tucson, Arizona. I had, over a period of ten years – damn old age – acquired a case of acute calcium spurs in my left foot which resulted in pain whenever I walked. My healthcare was still active from when I signed up for it back in Yuma. I mired a month in the Primavera Men’s Shelter before renting a room at the local transitional housing apartments. A comfortable, clean apartment wherein my rent was only thirty percent of my monthly income. Though inhabited by morons and whiny Americans (what is the deal with privileged Americans, no matter how far down on the social ladder they still find time to bitch when receiving free shit?), I used said Healthcare and made a date free and gratis to have this operation to correct my malady.
During this time, I began penning two new novels (I tell you, escaping death really sparks the creative juices) biding my time while I heal from the footwork.
So, Dear Reader, bear with me. My time in Tucson will not be permanent. I have already set in motion that before old age sinks it's talons in me and flung into some retirement home with my withering buttocks slung across a cold uncaring bench, I wish to circumnavigate the world, see it’s wonders and then perhaps afterwards settle down in retirement.
However, I will be using this blog in the meantime to hone my writing skills, vomiting out whatever prose passes through my careening mind.
Hope you enjoy the ride and, oh yeah…