Feb 28th, 2006
Kozub and the Brown Family
 For
those who remember the infamous launch of MAN
PUDDING, we're happy to mention that the team
behind that evening of wine rips and rock &
roll are revving it up again. That's right. Kozub
& Hamilton are about to crank it up to eleven,
this Thursday:
(EDMONTON) Thursday, March 2 @ 7:30 p.m., Greenwoods’
Bookshoppe (7925 – 104 Street) hosts the
launch of The Brown Family, the debut novel by
Edmonton author Mark
Kozub, best known as the often over-the-line
performance poet “The Alberta Beatnik”
of Edmonton’s Raving Poets.
The Brown Family is a bittersweet comedy about
how the comfortable life of a pleasantly square
family is altered when “Mom” (Mrs.
Brown) undergoes surgery and comes through it
with the belief that: a) she may only have months
to live, and b) she was recently visited by God.
“I wanted to write something my mother
would like,” says Kozub. It must have been
a challenge. Some of his previous works include
a twisted cartoon video poem When I Was a Kid,
which ran on CBC TV, The Ugly Albertan, a Fringe
play about redneck racism, and countless open
stage poetry events with the Raving Poets. The
Ugly Albertan received reviews ranging from tepid
to angry. Raving Poets readings are often startling
and subversive. As for that video poem, Kozub
laughs. “When my mother saw it, she said,
‘I can’t believe you showed yourself
as a kid wearing panties… on TV! I said,
‘Yeah, but it wasn’t me, Mom. It was
just a drawing of me!”
For Kozub, co-author of a coffee table book called
A Calgary Album: Glimpses of the Way We Were (Dundurn),
The Brown Family, published by the local and highly
independent Dramatic
Situations, is nice, clean, and heartfelt.
Heck, even local Journal scribe, Todd
Babiak, dug it.
“The Brown Family is a sweet and engrossing
Edmonton novel, filled with moments of humour
and compassion,” said Babiak.
There is no word yet about 'the el Dorado after-party',
but DJ Clue, expected to host the event, will
likely fill in party-goers on the 411.
February 24th, 2006
missing
 If
you can't read what that note says, it says MISSING.
As in, I am missing one of my infamous 128 page
cop notebooks that I carry everywhere except when
I am swimming, showering or making sweet homily
to a woman.
It is the notebook which covers July to December
2005. Which means, if it is truly gone, I have
lost all kinds of notes on Roast Kraken, Nadia,
this Korean project I am working on, and a book's
worth of love stories and poems from the Perpetual
Motion Roadshow. It means there may be no New
York City poems, or stories of the (potentially)
legendary crossing of the American border with
contraband nunts and drug-sniffing dogs and the
great illegal lie and everything else that was
so fucking great about that trip. And love poems.
Which are rare and precious for me.
So, if you see it kicking around somewhere, I'll
give you a hundred bucks for it, or a pink ambulance.
Whichever you think might be easier. No shit.
It might not seem like much to most people, but
most people don't feel naked without their notebook
and two pens. Right now, it feels like I'm missing
six months of my life, or one of my children,
and I feel a bit sick. A lot sick, really, and
I don't care if that sounds fucking stupid or
not. I've rifled my apartment three times so far,
and there's fucking nothing. And I know I was
copying shit out of it just six weeks ago, at
most, so it's not long gone. Fucking hell. If
I lost it drinking, that's fucking it for that.
Fuck sleeping anyhow. Motherfucker. Six fucking
months.
Fuck.
February 22nd, 2006
that fat east shakedown
 Lucas
gives Anderson the balls
to hustle a chubby twenty-year old
gas station attendant
with slumping tits
into buying his gloss-coated book
she says
she just loves to read out here
nodding to the
white-tinned jerkey stop
on highway 40 south of Oka
Lucas fast-talks a record sale
naturally
and when she looks at me
expectant and primed
nose-flaring
all I got is the pink book with that
fucking nun in the Gasmask
she recoils when I show her
the reflected fear
staring at my bald freak power head
shaved for burning flags and sticking wrenches
into the spokes of wheelchairs
A shorn devil setting gleaming hooves onto a forest
floor
formed entirely of prepubescent pubic hair
I give the book to her
free, with a crooked grin
but she's not sure if she should touch it
holding that bright cherry cover
like a busted motel condom
so I pay the forty-six dollar gas bill
in coins
and aim that cinderspitting six-cylinder charger
at roaring Montreal
where they don't speak bitchwhip small-town priscilla
and my boots don't leave
charcoal hoofprints as we walk
somewhere, on a nearby farm
the goats cackle
February 17th, 2006
Full Lengths
so it's minus thirty for the first time this winter
and people are chilly, but me, i'm like FUCK YEAH,
cause I can bust out the FULL LENGTH LONG JOHNS
with the chuck shute and everything.
hell, i see my pall Jay today, and i'm like, fuck
Jay, you got the blues on? and he's like, fuck
yeah. and i'm like, yeah!!
and then there's a moment of silence because I
already know that his full-length long johns are
blue, and he already knows that mine are grey.
but, fuck whatever, it's manly to wear long underwear.
February 14th, 2006
vag day
For fun, I sometimes take old journal entries,
photocopy them, black out the names and dates
and throw them up in the air. When they settle
on my floor, I walk amongst them naked and try
to remember who and where. For extra fun, I keep
all the holiday entries in one pile — Christmas,
Birthday and Valentine's Day.
Go on, give it a shot!
As such:
---
After I chased #### out of my basement last weekend
during a codeine induced rage, I didn't expect
she would resurface for some time. However, some
tragedy struck her circle of black book lovers,
and she had to settle for a Mingus Valentine,
or spend Saturday night staring at the wall and
contemplating what a razor blade would look like
against her skin. She asked, very nicely, if I
would like to spend the evening with her. It seemed
like the thing to do.
I made reservations somewhere pleasant. I scraped
together a few dollars. I put on a nice sweater.
#### arrived in a black dress. We went. And we
ate. And we drank. And I have no idea what we
discussed. It's a buttery haze. We returned to
my basement, crawled on top of each other and
made a sort of pale, limpid love. Nothing like
what I remember from funerals gone by. And when
#### came, she was looking out the window, and
probably thinking of somebody else. And when I
came, I took my turn, and cast my eyes away, and
did the same.
#### fell asleep without saying anything. I poured
a quick drink, stepped outside for a last cigarette,
and watched the headlights pass. Wondered what
the #### was doing. Let the smoke ripple. Let
the liquor drain as the light streaked through
the metal bars of the staircase. Let the fire
singe the snow as it fell.
---
February 10th, 2006
Rory Buzzcock Redux
The other day, my publisher asked where the
next fucking book was. I looked up from my gin
and said, there is nothing even close to finished.
Not the book about the Tour, Tento, the Roast
Kraken or even another chapter of Chrome Rigby
or Divinity. Nothing. And it's all Morrie Xanadu's
fault, curse him to hell.
He said, well, goddamnit, make something up. That's
what you do. At least write me a back cover copy
so I can go and lie to some distributors and say
we have something, anything, even if we have nothing.
And I said, fine, fuck, whatever, and cranked
this piece out in four minutes while he ate a
tin of Spork. He was not impressed, but like many
desperate men, found himself with few options,
preparing to defend an ill-prepared straw pallisade
ready for the torch. Later, I did get a bit stiff
thinking about a book with Duke Warback, Rory
Buzzcock and Adam Cranberry. Now that's 'quel
disastre'.
---
"Rory Buzzcock and Duke Warback were lovers
of a kind. Warback was a twelve dollar homo pimp
who ran a couple of a hard-titted lesbians. They
never fucked each other and he kept them off the
rock, and for that, they respected him, though
he never tossed them a single collection-plate
fin. There were sixteen days when this might have
mattered.
But those days are long gone and now the only
thing that matters is the killing. As Zack Ed
would say; at some point, its not about anything
except the bone-splitting eye-pulp squeezing vengeance.
So that’s where we’re going: into
a world of spiked bats, broken testicles, sledgehammers,
dead-end whores, gutterwench eyestabbers, asbestos-lined
whiskey, knocked-off cowboy boots, red-dripping
cocks, syphillitic screamings and the stolid lies
of a leadpaint chewing tranny named Rory Buzzcock
who shot, fucked and stabbed his way through the
slithering back alleys of that great cunt we call
Fat Black City. This is not a story of redemption."
---
If only I had a fucking agent, maybe I wouldn't
get fucked up the ass on this deal.
But I don't. So I will.
PS: I'll be in Rycroft for the next four days
at a Welshman's wake. Don't try to contact me.
If you do get ahold of someone claiming to be
Mingus Tourette, he won't be speaking English.
February 8th, 2006
Administrative Notes
Due to new mailscanning technologies, if you
have sent me an email in the past day or two,
I may or may not have received it. So please resend.
Or lemme know that you are pissed at me for not
replying in the comments below. Or something.
Maybe talk to me. In person. Or phone. Or send
something to one of my other seventeen emails.
Or just talk. That's what we all want, really.
And, to be held gently after some fisticuff fucking.
In general though, sometimes email is the devil.
Sometimes though, it's just me.
In other news, the grand winner of the Akira Competition
was deemed to be possibly illegible due to import
restrictions on his passport, and a lack of a
VCR. Which seems to mean that Gravel may be the
winner, whether he wanted to be or not. Danish
officials have refused to comment on the incident,
blaming an incendiary imam for the issues. The
situation should be rectified by a qualified rector
as soon as we can get one back from the civil
rights funeral in the states.
Also , a man who looked just like Doctor Law was
sighted by Navy Seal Team Six members in Afghanistan.
This may be a problem.
February 6th, 2006
Raving Poets Ride Again Into the Wild Kasbah Night
From the RP Files Press Release:
Alright Ravers and Rockers. The time has come
to put aside this winter of dallying and inaction.
It is time to go to work.
The Raving
Poets latest reading series, "Rock the
Kasbar", starts on Wednesday, February 8,
2006.
Yianni's Taverna – Downstairs Kasbar Lounge.
10444 – 82 Avenue,
Edmonton, Canada.
The poetic moshpit begins at 8:00pm.
Ripping skizz begins at 10.30 or so.
An open mic experience with 20 readers and music
provided by the world-famous Raving Poets Band.
There is not doubt that this series will send
you into a lyrical frenzy. We recommend a double
Ouzo to keep calm. Join us on Wednesday!
Also, check out Raving Poets Founding Father
Mark Kozub's NEW website,
www.markkozub.com.
---
Also
imagine a world
without gin.
It is like a rainbow
of six colours only.
February 1st, 2006
TETSUOOOOOOOOO
And now, we must hand out the prize - a vintage
VHS copy of AKIRA!!!
Awhile ago, I challenged readers to decide whether
this photo was a result of:
A. Chapters suddenly ordering
30 books and putting them on display.
B. Mingus Tourette and three
notorious shitheads engaging in culture jamming,
and creating their own display of
nunt in the world's largest mall.
The following answers were given
in response to The Great Chapters Question:
A: I have never seen a volume
of poetry, not even Billy Collins, who is safe
enough to leave your infants with at the pool,
ever put on a main display in any store anywhere.
A: Hmm...when I search Chapter's website
for "nunt" I get the following message:
"Search term 'nunt' corrected to 'nun'.
B: I'd say scenario B. Why
set the camera on a time-delay setting and place
it on a stack of books when you could get one
of your cohorts to snap the shot?
B: The book caught me off guard
when I walked into Chapters in WEM, so I bought
it. Top book so far.
B: ...we wander into the chapters
and there is your pink book...
C: Through sheer force of will,
Mingus caused the entire Young Readers section
of Chapters to became copies of Nunt for one hour.
The hoody is shielding Chapters patrons from
the resultant low-frequency Delta EEG waves. Mingus
is known to cure lesions at five feet with the
hoody down.
The Big Decision: There are some
great logical answers, and some lovely creative
thinking, but I just can't decide. Please help
me choose who wins AKIRA!!! You pick the winner!
And when you have picked, maybe I will tell you
the real answer!!!
|
February 2006