Life, Jim Thompson

 “Life is a bucket of shit with a barbed wire handle.”

– Jim Thompson, Texas By The Tail

Bedtime Tingler

Chuck Tingle might have restored my joy of reading.

Publisher's summary for "Bigfoot Pirates Haunt My Balls":

After years of having their natural habitat encroached upon, bigfeet are finally forced to leave the forest and head out into the open ocean. At first, we think that it's the last we’ll ever see of them, until bigfoot piracy becomes rampant across the Seven Seas.

When the most notorious bigfoot pirate, Lorko the Black, is killed off the coast of Santa Monica, a man named Andy begins to feel a mysterious throbbing in his balls. After a trip to the doctor, Andy soon learns that what seemed like a coincidence is actually an acute case of haunted balls, and the only prescription is a bigfoot ghost pirate gangbang!

Now, that piques my interest. Who cares about Merry Christmas, Alex Cross?

Cover of Hardcore Magazine

Me, on the cover of Hardcore magazine:

[Originally posted on Rebel Leady Boy, Dec. 7, 2005]

Quote from Céline

whenever they get a chance, never fear, people make you waste hours and months ... they use you as a wall to bounce their bullshit off of ... blah! and blah! and blahblahblah! ... you put up with it for an hour, you'll need two weeks to recover ... blah! blah!                                          

   - Louis-Ferdinand Céline, North

Why Must God Damn It?

Why?

In the late 1980s, I found this Christian anti-swearing pamphlet somewhere in Fort Wayne, Indiana. It was written by Pastor Jabaay and was #208 in the Silent Evangelist series.

I used to have it posted on my bulletin board in high school, and I've kept it with me ever since. It’s a little hard to believe I still have it today.

I’ve always thought it had a great cover design.

[Originally posted on Rebel Leady Boy, Dec. 21, 2005]

It's Warm Even

Autographed copy of Rat Catching from Crispin Glover.

Crispin Glover's Rat Catching.

Marquee.

Book of Lists #2

13 things I've learned from reading The Book of Lists #2 (1980):

1. Clark Gable would have been 80 years old if he had lived until 1981 (p. 1).

2. Breakfast cereals, once considered "junk foods" in 1980, are now often seen as healthy (p. 381).

3. Bob Dylan's forgettable Blonde on Blonde was ranked the second greatest album of all time by rock critics in 1978 (p. 164).

4. There is a street named "Nameless Street" in Manning, Iowa (p. 44).

5. An unpainted wooden stake lasts 1-4 years before disintegrating, while a painted one lasts 13 years (p. 245)!

6. "Gorgias of Epirus was born during the funeral of his mother. The pallbearers were shocked to hear unexpected crying and opened the coffin to discover Gorgias, who had slipped out of the womb and was very much alive" (p. 259).

7. In 1890, Leventon & Co. sold 180,000 Egyptian mummified cats from a burial ground near Beni Hasaan for 3.15 shillings per ton (p. 276).

8. A Picture is worth a thousand words - "The American Society of Magazine Photographers reported the base rate for a full-page photo was $75 for black-and-white, $150 for color. However, an illustration was much more expensive. Playboy paid $800 for a full-page color illustration, while its article rate was about 40 cents per word. On this scale, a picture would be worth 2,000 words (p. 142).

9. Nome, Alaska, was accidentally named after the word "name" miscopied from a British map in 1850 (p. 135).

10. For a 1977 Laugh-In skit, censors insisted the phrase "Don't forget to take your pill" be replaced with "Be careful" because the network objected to the implication that women plan in advance to have sex  (p. 205).

11. Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 was originally going to be titled Catch-18 (p. 229).

12. The Postman Always Rings Twice was originally going to be titled Bar-B-Q 

(p. 228).

13. "The giant squid is the most highly developed of the invertebrates. Its eyes are almost exact replicas of human eyes. Often confused with the octopus, which attacks humans only when threatened, the giant squid is a carnivorous predator. One notable incident occurred on March 25, 1941, when the British ship Britannia sank in the Atlantic Ocean. As a dozen survivors clung to their lifeboat, a giant squid reached its arm around the body of a man and pulled him below"(p. 109).

[Originally posted on Rebel Leady Boy, Apr. 14, 2006]

ABOUT PEE

I kept a copy of this mimeographed poem since junior high. 

I think it still holds up after  35 years.

ABOUT PEE

The sun pees in his bed

A horse pees out his tail

A duck pees by his mouth

A ghost pees out of his nose

A spaceman pees on top of his saucer

A hog pees from his ears and makes tears

A chair pees by his legs

Teeth pee by the point of a gumdrop

A toilet pees in a bowl

A man pees in his mouth

A man pees on top of the museum

A dog pees on top of the furniture

A cat pees on food - echk!

A cat pees on dog mess

A drawer pees where the flies live

A jacket pees by the zipper

A coat pees out its pocket

A devil pees by the fork and tail

A boat pees out the propeller

A garbage can pees on people's hands

A flower pees on the stems

- Ronald and Ellen

Van Log, 1994: A Collective Narrative

Van Log '94.

May, 1994: Brother Todd and I, along with our friends Mel and Laura, left our hometown of Columbia City, Indiana, to embark on a cross-country road trip to Valdez, Alaska. Officially, we made the journey to work in the fishing industry, but it was also about getting some kicks and enjoying a change of scenery. We drove Todd’s green 1974 Ford Econoliner van, complete with a fried egg decal on the side and orange shag carpet on the interior walls.

Van Log: We brought along an audio cassette tape recorder to log any comments or observations we felt were worth remembering. The recorder, along with the collection of nine or ten audio tapes we made, became known as the "Van Log."Van Log 1994 is a collective narrative, much like Wikipedia. Instead of identifying individual speakers when transcribing the audio tapes, I blended everyone’s statements into one running commentary. The same paragraph might incorporate statements from any or all four of us, or it could even include comments from a fifth or sixth person who happened to be around the tape recorder at the time. Van Log '94 is perfectly coherent without identifying each individual speaker, though I occasionally placed conversational dialogue in quotation marks to indicate when a conversation was taking place between two (or more) people.

We were all unseasoned travelers at the time, and what might come across as naive, irresponsible, or even stupid in these logs was, in reality, just careless youthful exuberance and (possibly misdirected) lust for life in all of us. Some of the things we did were embarrassingly stupid, but that was part of the adventure—learning through experience, no matter how misguided at times.

Forward by Todd               South Dakota, pt. 1               Washington

Leaving Indiana                South Dakota, pt. 2               British Columbia

Illinois                               Wyoming                               Hyder, AK (side trip)

Wisconsin                         Montana                                Yukon Territory

Minnesota                         Idaho                                     Alaska

                                    

Anti-Rape Technology

Hey, I've had this book for a few years -

[American Sex Machines: The Hidden History of Sex at the U.S. Patent Office by Hoag Levins. 1996. Adams Media Corp. Holbrook Mass.] - It's a collection of patents for sex gadgetry.

My favorite section is Chapter 13 - "Anti-Rape Technology" which includes a pretty remarkable selection of protective vaginal inserts that are all much more horrifying than extra-vaginal chastity belt/armor patents -

Here's George Vogel's basic vaginally-inserted spike (1977).

George Vogel's anti-rape vaginal spike (1977).

This one makes me cringe. Well, the all do, but so does this one:

Alston Levesque's "penis locking and lacerating vaginal insert." Those things on the side are RAZORS! (1977):

Alston Levesque's penis locking and lacerating vaginal insert (1977).

This one's interesting - Charles Barlow's vaginal harpoon tube (in 1 & 3 prong models - 1979):

Charles Barlow's vaginal harpoon tubes (1979).

And for the girl with everything - Dirk Coetzee's "spring powered vaginal spike" (1979) which actually LAUNCHES a spike INTO the invading penis:

Dirk Coetzee's spring-powered vaginal spike (1979).

I'd be careful removing that one.

There are more, but these are the highlights.

[Originally posted on I'm Nacho Steppinstone, Apr. 21, 2004]

What's Your Favorite Book?

Here's mine:

Naked On Roller Skates.

I confess I've never read this book, I might ILL it. The 17 comments in the original post led to a lively discussion of WorldCat availability in California and the author Maxwell Bodenheim who was a Communist sympathizer and who, along with his wife, was brutally murdered by a crazy friend of theirs. Not the life you would expect for the author of such a light and carefree sounding book.

[Originally posted on I'm Nacho Steppinstone, June 27, 2004]

Hard Work & Satisfaction

I received a fine prize in the mail yesterday from Gooseneck:

20 Most Asked Questions about the Amish and Mennonites

Cover.

I love the cover - big smile from the girl on the left, cautious discomfort from the girl on the right.

It was published in 1979 by a man and his child bride -

The authors.

Question #13 asks - "How are their women and children treated?" and the answer states, "A life of hard work and satisfaction".

The book is packed with facts. For example, some of the more culturally integrated Mennonites who drive cars will paint the chrome black to show separation from worldliness (or did so circa 1979 when this book was published - it sounds like a slippery slope to me, they probably just drive normal cars these days).

"Moustaches are forbidden because of their historical association with the military" (p.28).

While the Amish gladly pay property taxes and income taxes, they refuse to pay social security taxes because they don't believe in collecting the benefits. They got Congress to exempt them from paying into social security (if self-employed) on the condition that they agree to take care of their own elderly members.

Contrary to popular perceptions, Amish weddings are not arranged and Amish are totally into modern healthcare. They will go to modern doctors and modern hospitals if necessary.

Dead Amish are buried in a simple handmade pine box. "There are no eulogies. respect for the deceased is expressed, but not praise. A hymn is spoken but not sung" (p. 68).

While some members leave to join mainstream society, Amish and Mennonite membership was growing (in 1979) as they recruited new members from outside their traditional communities -

"Mennonite church in the south Bronx."

[Originally posted on Rebel Leady Boy, Nov. 2, 2005]

Just the Good Stuff

A list of last lines from bawdy limericks.

So the town never sleeps after dark.

Fuck after fuck after fuck?

For after he fucked her, he ate her

Like Father John's thumb after mass

And the other we'll try after marriage.

One fore, and one aft, and one oral

And the general effect was quite lovely.

He went out in the yard and ate dung

For the thing she called "Utterly-utta!"

In the archiepiscopal pants.

His nose out of private affairs.

Again, and again, and again

Won't you do it again, Sir? Bis! Bis!

Against pinches, and pins in the ass."

And fell down again from the smell.

And the band at the Waldorf-Astoria.

And now she is just a plain whore again.

For I certainly don't want to sin again.

And I do it again and again.

And ate up the whole afterbirth.

The scent-ah, that was a failure

Ah, you're changing the t to a p!

Is the squid that I keep in the sink

Or a goat, or whatever is handy

With the aid of his constable's truncheon

He rogered the national School.

And other odd mammals

Now ain't this a hell of a fug!

Ain't that foresight for ya?

Said she, You mean that ain't your finger?

But that ain't my prick-it's a spike.

If you've slept with that sonofabitch again

I'm surprised that by now they ain't mamas.

Ain't it grand and realistic!

But I don't feel as good as I did

This ain't a cunt-it's a corridor

With his backside awave in the air

It shot off in the air like a rocket

And was washed down the aisle on the froth

The arse on our parson needs fixin

But alas he was only a eunuch

Felt dear Alfred's delicious arse wriggle

And they promptly refunded his stub

And all he could shit was spaghetti

For all he had left was the skin

And bought her a chastity girdle

And now all her sisters are aunts

For which all her lovers may thank her

All got clap in their hindermost region

And framed, within miniature cunts

The waiters were all hanging low

And the doctors all fainted away

And the worst is, they all do it well

And dived in all covered with drool

To all but the spermatozoa

That he soon had her cunt all asmokin

(From a scholarly lexiconography paper discovered by Brother Todd).

[Originally posted on Rebel Leady Boy, Apr. 29, 2006]

Cowboy Fishing

Are there any cowboy fishing enthusiasts out there?

Cowboy Fishing.

I discovered this ad for Cowboy Fishing magazine while browsing through a different magazine in the Anchorage library and thought, "That's a real specialty item!"

From the ad text:

Enjoy a magazine with in-depth articles about cowboys and fish, written by cowboys who love to fish with other cowboys. Subscribe today. YEEHAW!

How large could the audience for this publication possibly be? Do they fish with a lasso?

[Originally posted on I'm Nacho Steppinstone, Mar. 12, 2005]

Review of CONTENT by Ross

My cousin Jonnie has always been one step ahead of the rest of us.  It becomes even more obvious after reading his new book that he's been on the cutting edge of human existence since early childhood.....heck probably straight from the womb.

As a kid he always wore short pants under his jeans in case he got hot or had an opportunity to go for an impromptu swim.  After getting hit by a train as an adult, he skipped his last doctor's appointment and pulled the staples out of his head with a pair of pliers.

Any minor discrepancies in Mr. Gilliom's story telling, such as the reference to Coleman fuel as kerosene, are easily overlooked and you'll end up telling yourself the same thing one of the Delta Tau Chai fraternity brother's said in Animal House after John Belushi's character "Bluto" referred to the German's bombing Pearl Harbor.  Shut up he's on roll..... 

After-Word

By J.J.

Well, there you have it.  The small exemplification of that which is the life and times thus far of the man and those and that around Jonnie Gill—Jonnie 7-11—Nacho Steppinstone—Rebel Leady Boy.  The every-day life of the man whose days are not unlike those of every-life, but more satisfactory when the absurdity of that life’s days is recognized.

On an everyman afternoon in every-day high school in 1988, long before the internet or blogging hit any of our lives, when people put their most mundanely absurd thoughts in diaries that were then put in their top drawer before going to bed at night rather than posted for the world to think about and when something funny or awkward could only be circulated to the people that you saw in the days following, I stood laughing myself into hysterics in the corner of the boys’ restroom in our school in Northeast Indiana as I witnessed the impromptu Opera mentioned in the Introduction.  I heard the King of the Urinal—Jonnie—call out for the audience to “hear my flush, fear my flush” as he struck the handle of the urinal to an orchestrated flash, while his confederate Duane sang response as the Queen of the Stall.

It was a shining moment of nonsense that makes me laugh every time it revisits, and one that would be lost but for the memory and rumor of the few there and those that heard about it in bars afterward.  The Opera was a spontaneous tick.  Jonnie’s collection grabs moments like that and serves the dual purpose of memorializing them and sharing them with pretty much anyone that is willing to take the time to read about it.

Each account in Content will revisit you long after the reading while you sit in a quiet office or in the solitude of a bus during your evening commute when you have a moment to yourself to remember them.  And they will make you happy.

Furthermore

By Donald Kilbuck

The Introduction for the book! Real or reel! You may feel this introduction for all the feelings that people have, has, fast, faster, motions may feel motionless, butt the earth may swallow you up if you're not all there. The stink of whatever, if you wear it. Although i got the tide, tightrobe, out into this Island and feel the changing weather, and the emotions may catch all your feelings, vomit isn't all what it seems. Getting a speeding ticket also.

Like Mayflies on a Summer Night: Ephemera and the Hardcore

Jonnie, an introduction

by AmyJo

Ephemera:

1: something transitory; lasting a day

2: an insect that lives only for a day in its winged form, i.e. a mayfly

3: A short-lived thing.

4: Printed matter of passing interest.

Hardcore:

1. a form of music with hard fast delivery.

simple and effective sounds, mainly focussed [sic] on a message. message is ussually [sic] unity, anarky, [sic] strength or public power.

2. HARDCORE is the limit, it is the core of cool things! It is the mother of things!

(1 &2. source, the Urban Dictionary)

hard-core also hard·core (härdkôr, -kr)
adj.

1. Intensely loyal; die-hard: a hard-core secessionist; a hard-core golfer.
2. Stubbornly resistant to improvement or change: hard-core poverty.
3. Extremely graphic or explicit: hard-core pornography.

In the pages that follow we see what happens when an archivist with absurdist tendencies catalogues the minutiae of daily existence.  But Jonnie is no nebbish, collecting facts and sticking them like boogers to the page.  Here are no dull recitations of the collector, no dry scraps preserved in a vacuum.  Rather we find a compendium at once familiar and revelatory—incidents, memories, processes, encounters—that reveal the texture both of everyday life, and the mind of their chronicler—a texture that is not unlike the orange dust that clings to your fingers after eating a bag of Cheetos—sticky, flavorful, impossible to get out from under your nails.

In Jonnie 7-11’s book you will discover the intersection of the ephemeral and the hardcore.  One might assume that these two qualities are contradictory, but in Jonnie’s work the paradox reveals a space where life itself is illuminated with uncommon intensity. 

There is no doubt that Jonnie is hardcore.  From early childhood to his fully-fledged manhood, Jonnie has exhibited the balls-to-the-wall willingness to explore the world as it is and to interact with what’s right there in front of him. Whether he is breaking rocks for eight hours a day , practicing mole removal with ordinary nail clippers, conducting experiments by micturating into his own visage, chasing Amish buggies or freight trains, encountering day laborers, his Liebling, archivists, bloggers, landlords, esquimaux, drunks, golfers or schizophrenics, Jonnie does not shrink from experience.  No subject, no matter how mundane, no person, no matter how crazy, escapes his notice.  As Jonnie himself professes, he has an affection for stupidity.

At first glance this book might seem like a compendium of ephemera—disconnected and utterly without point.  Jonnie himself calls his blog (from which these entries were drawn) “a place to store my stuff”.  However, taken all together, what emerges in these pages is, for me at least, truly rare.   Behind the fork fangs and the hulk hands and the pirate salute is a person who strikes me as kind and intelligent and imaginative and wise. 

Read between the lines of his anecdotes and the ephemera he presents will remind you that life—fleeting, ordinary life—can be exciting and fun.  This is a powerful thing to do.  On the surface his anecdotes and craft projects are hilarious—but after continued exposure they become—absurdly-- uplifting.

Jonnie first came to me by reputation, as the librettist and chief tenor of his dadaist masterpiece, The Toilet Opera.  His aria “hear my flush, fear my flush”, even at secondhand, is unforgettable.  On the basis of that single exuberant couplet, I concluded that Jonnie Gilliom was a man whose hand I’d be proud to shake (after we both washed, of course). 

Nearly ten years later, Boz, Jonnie and I gathered online and audio-blogged  excerpts from “Bat Out of Hell”.  I was grieving the suicide of a dear friend and laid up in bed with a broken ankle.  My family were all far away.  So were my friends.  But online, the three of us had what I will always consider a wake.  Jonnie didn’t speak any traditional words of sympathy. Sentimentality isn’t his style. But he sang Meatloaf  into a pillow while wearing a Frankenstein mask, baying into the phone in his signature tuneless Frank Zappa voice and , four hundred miles away, I laughed until I cried.   

I don’t know if he even remembers that night, and it doesn’t matter.  At a time when I couldn’t be consoled, that evening—three dorks screaming songs into the phone and zonking about Meatloaf—helped me get through a really bad night.  To me, that is Jonnie.  I don’t know how he does it, but he makes me feel that life is good. 

I have been following Jonnie’s work on the web for almost three years now, and over the course of that time his writing has captivated me, instructed me, comforted me, and won my respect.

So settle in.  Let Jonnie teach you the deeper meaning of what it is to be hardcore. Embrace the ephemeral with courage and humor.  Let this book remind you that, somewhere out there in the flickering light of the Del Taco sign, under the swaying palm trees of the OC, a man with a vision cares enough to write about those ephemeral moments that are born and pass away like mayflies on a summer night—brief, beautiful, pointless, and profound.