Didn't Work Out

I was supposed to be in Jamaica right now but the whole event went swirling down the John J. Crapper just a day before lift-off. Poor prick, this kid, Alex, who spent 14 months trying to pull it off - a celebration of psychedelic drugs - and it all falls apart at the last minute.

Fortunately, none of my fan base will have shown up to find no performers whatsoever. My fans can barely afford a ticket to the Funnybone or even a non-toxic lubricant much less a trip to the Caribbean to do mushrooms. Save for Chalmers who was sent on assignment from London to do a story on me. Got there a day early and now sends me desperate emails from Hedonism about old men in fig leaves and hangy scrotums trying to get him to fuck their wives. I think for all his complaining he has a far more interesting story than he would talking about my stupid act.

He can come to Bisbee next and review two mice riding on a cat's back riding on a dog's back. Its way much more better than that Jamaica. Either way, its okay by me. I have my hands into the cow's ass up to my bicep. We are farming weird in Bisbee and it's harvest time. Spinning plates and putting out fires, running purely on first instincts and knee-jerk reactions.

We are starting a Cult here at the compound, can't think of a reason not to, but I don't know how influential it will be. We haven't quite figured out what the purpose of the Cult is or even who to lure into it. I don't know what to worship. It would be nice if we had an enormously fat girl to worship or maybe a classic car with low mileage but I'm not the type that worships anything for very long. So it'll probably just be a cult that drinks Miller Lite and goes to the Hitchin' Post when Linda is working and passes the time talking about books we'll write.

And for now, I am the only one who even drinks Miller Lite.

Honey drank Miller Lite but Honey didn't like the whole cult idea. "I'm not cleaning up after some cult" she said and then she took off North. I miss her dearly and the Cult will not be near as lively without our dirty love and stumbling beefs but people move on and people move North, at least from here.

Heartbreak is terrible and it effects everyone but Father Luke. He has been the pivotman in all of this, the chocolate center of insanity that has found peace with his demons and is unflappable. He has moved from the guesthouse to the main house - is it too soon to call it The Temple or perhaps The Lodge? - to make room for Oddjob. Oddjob is in the guest house because her head doesn't always work the way it should. It's funny because she has her head shaved to the bone and people always say how well she pulls it off because her head is perfect for it and we laugh because her head isn't perfect at all.

Her head produces fantastic things but sometimes it crashes on her and that can be very bad. It wound her up in the Loony Bin and it wound her up in Trouble and now its wound her up in the Guest House where she is working on her book. We're all working on a book, aren't we?

Lynn Shawcroft

Brokedown Palace, that's what I've been calling this place of late. Lots of broken up folks been through here in only a matter of weeks but we are all laughing through it where we can. Shawcroft stayed a while all broke up for good reason and we are trying to recruit her into the Cult. I offered her a free CD Boombox and complimentary accomodations just to come back and sit thru a two-hour presentation but she is reticent.

Maybe I will offer free Miller Lite. Some folks - Hinty for one - thought I may be losing my mind as well. He came down to check on me like I was Col. Kurtz. We tried to brainwash him into the "organization" using Gus the Greek's pizza and a dream date with Mother. We're still waiting for a call-back. Coffee is for closers. We found a little place for Mother and as soon as she is moved in we will put the television back in the crawl space. I bet I pull it back out on Sundays when football season starts, unless Linda works Sundays at the Hitchin' Post.

I think Jamaica would have sucked anyway. I spent three hours there once and I wanted to set it all on fire and join the Klan. I can do mushrooms with strangers in Cincinnati WITHOUT a passport, WITHOUT them trying to sell me handmade voodoo in a public toilet while I'm taking a shit.

Hitchin' Post Linda

I can do mushrooms right here at the compound and plan the Cult and talk about the book. We are farming weird down here by the border and we're shitting in tall cotton. I'll be back on the road here in a few weeks. I'm looking forward to it for a change. We'll have some fun again. A little less hate and some more fucked up fun. It's okay if sometimes your own friends think you've lost your mind. We're all out of our fucking bananas but that's not always a negative. Some minds need losing to reach their full potential. ~ Stanhope

---

Shawcroft started a blog at www.lynnshawcroft.com. Please enjoy her writing and mention that she should really be a "team player" and come to Bisbee. If Honey had a blog I would tell her to do the same darn thing.

This was quite possibly...

...the creepiest question I have ever been asked. And you know where I've been. It takes hard work to make me unsettled. First, let me tell you things have been severe and weird and changes have been painfully swift. Bisbee is a quiet town, but the noisiest times of your life happen within the confines of your own four walls - if not simply inside your awful head. Things have been noisy here as of late.

Bisbee, Arizona.

One of the lesser problems - the only one I will speak of at this time - has been Mother. Seems that shortly after we made our pilgrimage out of The City of Angels, The City of Angles where we left Mother holding the bag, she started to come apart. The details of her unraveling are Her Business and it isn't necessary to go into. People fall down.

So a month after our arrival, the red phone rings and Father Luke and I begin a suicide drive through the night to evacuate her once and for all from her squalor in LA. Her apartment is a nest of filth and 99 Cent Store run-off. Post-Its and papers and cat vomit and shelves stacked on drawers full of batteries and rolls of tape and anything that she bought at a thrift store because it was only 3 dollars. Just take what you need. Grab the last two cats and a toothbrush and we turn right back around to AZ. This is the last you'll see of this place. We'd intended to find Mother a place in Bisbee once we got settled, but we are far from settled at this moment. Shit is swirling about like Poltergeist and Mother is sitting right in the middle of it. Literally. She sits in the very center of this small house and rebuilds her nest.

Father Luke

Mother's back hurts, I might have mentioned. She has tried the self-help books, yes indeed. Right now she's ripping thru "Natural Cures They Don't Want You To Know About" by some blue-suited carnival jobber. I don't think it's working. Just like the other 400-some self-help, self-deluding books she's read over the years during her ceaseless and unwavering decline.

Her back hurts so bad and there is nothing that she can do to ease the pain but drink Nyquil and watch Dr Phil and The View and the like. She can't seem to dial a phone to find out how broke people get assistance or even walk the eight steps outside to smoke. She can only sit in the center of the house and wheeze and cough and listen to all of your conversations as the ashtray fills and piles of tissues spread over remote controls and she slowly tries to recreate the nest we have just rescued her from.

A few days ago, I went past Mother at her post in the center of the small house, turned right into the bathroom and filled the tub. And a few moments after I sat down in it, Mother called out from The Nest possibly the most disturbing thing I have ever heard. "Do you want me to come in and wash your back?" Mother seemed confused when, after a long pause of absolute horror, I responded with "You have to leave my house right now." Mother doesn't understand why it would be anything but normal for a woman to wash her near-40 year old son in the tub on a lovely afternoon.

Moments before the horror.

We are currently looking for a rental unit in Bisbee with a dedication unseen in any other task I've ever undertaken.

---

Montreal was a treat as always. Here's Jim Jeffries and Otto with of the many age-raped whores we met in the back alley of Club Soda.

---

The Unbookables is still in the works as soon as the shitstorm at home settles down. Again, get on the mailing list. Yes, I'm working on a new CD as well as some other shit. Buy the others here. You know the drill. If you want some more good comedy I'd strongly suggest picking up Jim Norton's new CD"Trinkets I Own Made From Gorrila Hands". Incredibly funny shit. And James Inman put out a book version of Greyhound Diaries. You can get it here.

Jim Norton's CD     James Inman's Book

We live in Bisbee, Arizona.

A small house on a small street. There is a trail up the mountain behind us. Or maybe you'd call it a hill. It only takes a few minutes to hike up to the top, depending on how often you have to stop and gasp for air. At the top you can look over into Mexico. There are many discarded and sunbleached backpacks and empty water bottles up there - folks with good hearts leave them full of water for the illegals crossing and dying in the desert heat or so we assume. There is a baseball stadium down the street and at night you can catch a high school game. We saw Bisbee beat Douglas 14 - Zip. Go Pumas! I'll tell you more when I can get the pictures up. The pictures help the stories quite a bit. But now I am in Montreal at the big ole Comedy festival, pretending to want bigger things.