The Botox Frankenstein Poetry Series>Profit For The Prophet

Good warm and toasty evening to you one and all, my good friends! A quick tip of the sweaty kippah and let me tell you I mean sweaty! It's about as sweaty inside my apartment as a hot pizza being removed from an oven! But, Friday! Hooray for Friday! It is at last here and let me tell you how happy I am to see it! It's the end of the month already! Can you imagine it? Time hurries on like a roaring rolling rapids! Ah, but along with the rolling, our good sweet pal our capper has come to greet us once again to bring us into a cool weekend. Please continue to keep Israel in your thoughts. And now in continuation with the rolling method, yes you guessed it! It's absolutely brand-spanking new poem-time! Remember dear readers, please tell someone you love them, be sure to check on them if you live in a region of the world that is soaked in blazing heat and always-always-always enjoy!

Profit For The Prophet

Terror knows no error
Just anger scattered like confetti
Words ricochet off bullets that are spent to loves lost
Inside we wait to hear the news
It’s not good
Lost another soul within a soul from my neighborhood last night
In the universe in which I breathe, I also believe we have the right to bleed the breeding of self-defense from hate; it is the great debate I have been wrestling with for so many years.

Exclusive! The FBI Harasses The MishegasMaster And Friends!

“…I don't give a fuck about the FBI, I don't give a fuck about the CIA, I don't give a fuck about LSD, I don't give a fuck about anything, I don't care what you want me to say, I don't give a fuck about it anyway, I don't give a fuck about the whole damn thing, I don't give a fuck about every last thing, I don't care who you want me to be, I don't care what you want me to see…” The Butthole Surfers’ song Goofy’s Concern, from the album Independent Worm Saloon

“I don't give a goddamn; I'm the President and the Commander-in-Chief. Stop throwing the Constitution in my face, it's just a goddamned piece of paper…” 43rd U.S. President George Bush when confronted by his own Republican Party speaking on the renewal of the USA Patriot Act in the Oval Office, November, 2005.

I’ve heard more pro-FBI stories lately than I care to admit. It’s the FBI that makes up the life’s blood of crime-fighting heroes besides the regular cops making the rounds and oodles of their counterparts in between them.

Back in the good old days of radio, the FBI was portrayed as the good guys; the tough guys who could break through any gang, any wall and any crime-ridden operation with their knowledge, know-how and handling of the situation.

Yet as widespread as the FBI’s good reputation stretched, they’ve also had their lion’s share of bad too, in particular, as soon as J. Edgar Hoover passed away and the 21st Century came into the picture and shortly thereafter September 11, 2001, when it was realized that the FBI had good solid sourced information regarding Al-Qaeda, but failed to act upon it.

And of course as it is said…the rest is history. Talk about international internal fuck-ups! But the FBI paid dearly as all organizations do when they don’t do their job properly. Lots of shake-ups followed and I mean LOTS of shake-ups, but before I get too much off the track, they can be a pain in the tuchus, especially if they feel you have violated the law of the land and give you something to think about.

In other words, here are a few juicy stories to sink your eyes into, that up until now, only a few of my close personal friends have been privy to…

Funny thing about how United States policies are being fucked with by our own executive branch (government), even though we live by the U.S. Constitution which guarantees us a certain amount of inalienable rights as sovereign citizens of these 50 states.

Enter George Bush, the greatest brainless asshole if there ever was a fuck-up of a U.S. President in the history of the United States! But lo and behold, we get blessed with a president who not only disrespects the U.S. Constitution, but finds any way he can to bend and break the laws of the United States, which includes spying on his own citizens.

(1)---Enter the FBI. They’re already doing that on a whole other level. My good friend Lew has claimed the FBI’s been hunting him for years and has a file on him. Lew is livid about them!

Yet, even though both of us proved it to each other a little over a decade ago that there was no such file on Lew and there wasn’t after we both sent the needed paperwork off to Washington, D.C. as required by law, the only document that appeared in his file was a letter asking for his file. Yet, Lew still believes one exists elsewhere…

(2)---Then there’s the time that the FBI paid a visit to my pal Dlorah, after a passionate two hour discussion we had on Christmas Eve day, 2005 on my cell phone about the illegal war being conducted by Bush. It was my suggestion that Bush be Lincolned. Not in those exact words, but close enough.

Perhaps that’s one point the FBI took seriously, as one week later, while I was shopping for blank CD-Rs at Frye’s in Downers Grove with my good pal Mitch, I received a panicky phone call from Dlorah, who told me the FBI paid him a visit on Tuesday, December 27, 2005 and questioned him for at least one hour about me, asking him all sorts of stuff, including the inevitable question, “Is he wrapped tight?”

He wasn’t the only one who experienced troubles from them. My good pal Blog-19’s phone service went out for three days after we had spoken about the same subject.

So it seems to me the FBI’s been spying on me ever since. And I welcome the opportunity! They have as much access to me as they want through this blog space, my performances and any other viable means of communication they see fit.

Stranger still was at my last Chicago performance I did with Mykel Board at the near west-side coffeehouse Corduroy’s Espresso Spot in which there was an FBI agent present within our small audience. Though the coffee shop owner claims that she dated the agent and he was there exclusively there for Mykel, I really kind of have to scratch my head and wonder.

So why haven’t they raided my apartment, tapped my computer, picked me up and hauled me in for a little questioning session like you see in films, television shows and other countries that don’t believe in freedom of the press, just yet?

I suspect one of two things A): They know better than to mess with a tap-dancing throat-singing poet who would turn the tables on them if it were to happen and B): they have far better crimes to pursue than my views, I’m sure.

God, how I love America! God how I love hecklers! God how I love a new audience! And God help the FBI or any of their trained assassins or if some crackpot lays a hand on me!

Origins Of A Published Poem For A Man I Never Met

It’s pretty sad whenever I hear of a local musician who has passed away, one I’ve had an encounter with that made an impact on my life and perhaps his, enough so that he would even consider publishing me.

Flashback---Spring 2004: While at Jazz Record Mart in downtown Chicago, I stumbled across a little free publication called Creativity. What I discovered even more to my delight was that it was local and they published poetry!

I did an initial search on the Internet to see if any information was available on the magazine, but alas there was none, save for just an email address and a telephone number.

I called the listed phone number and I got a generic answering machine, so I hung up. A few phone calls later, I finally got a hold of him. The publisher seemed kind of lax at the time, but no matter. He told me he was going to do an issue dedicated to the late great jazz drummer Elvin Jones. I told him I had some poems I could email him and perhaps he could pick out something from what I would send him. He said okay.

I emailed my work off to him and near a week or so later, I received a response. Not what he was looking for, he said. He wanted something that sang to him. Something that jumped out in front of a semi-tractor trailer at the last second to make the driver use his emergency brake fast!

I looked through my poems and other writings, until I found one that I had recently written about Al-Qaeda, yet it had all the elements for a good jazz poem. Now, how in the world did that happen? Beats me! I’m just guessing that the fury of their terrorism tactics and actions propelled me to write something, just as a good jazz song propels me forward to write, sing or perform something similar.

Creativity is the name of the game, though why he called his magazine that, I’ll never know because in my mind it was such a bland and boring title, far from the man who published the magazine himself.

I began reworking the poem, making changes, including the tile, which at that point had referenced Al-Qaeda. The new poem title became “Dad! You Swung So Hard! (For Elvin Jones)” and as many of you readers know, I’ve since published in this space twice and I’ve read it aloud to enthusiastic crowds whenever the mood has struck me to read it.

I emailed back the revamped poem to him and his email response was “reads real good."

Of course, editorial themes change throughout the course of a issue and this one was no exception, for by the time it came out, it made little mention of an issue being dedicated to the memory of nor too much mention of Elvin Jones, other than an old review of Jones at Yoshi's in Oakland, California, the year prior (2003) and a few photos of Jones.

He said he would publish it in the upcoming Fall 2004 issue, with plans of distribution at both the annual Chicago Jazz Festival at the Petrillo Band Shell in held against Chicago’s skyline and at the annual Washington Park Cultural Festival on the west side in the weeks that followed the Chicago Jazz Festival.

I was extremely pleased for getting all that free exposure, but would it possible for him to send me some copies of the magazine as I’d like some for my archives?

Asking him that question was like pulling impacted wisdom teeth! He expected me to come out where he was and had no intentions nor desire to drive or meet me halfway to give me copies, as he claimed he was on a tight budget and couldn’t afford the gas expense.

Hmmm, I thought. A popular jazz musician on a local record label (Delmark), with tour dates galore, several recorded albums aplenty and who knows what else, telling me he was on a tight shoestring budget when it came to his publication.

I thought about it for a few days and I came to the realization that the guy had set such high standards for everything else, but this and he probably didn’t care about the way his publication looked, just so long as it was published to his liking. And yes, the publication was just that; a little free no-name publication.

Yet, it was the magazine that I raved about much earlier in the year, the one that gave me such chest-shivering excitement early on and still the man caused so much misery for me and still managed to mess up my poem when it was actually published, calling it “a glitch” by the publisher…well, I just let it go and chalked it up to experience.

In late August of that year, I left for the west coast to perform at the second annual Sound Poetry Festival in Portland, Oregon & then onward to The Valley Of Golden Happiness to visit The Arizona Babe & Rex Pâtér Homo for a little rest and relaxation and afterwards, coming home, only to move out of the hellhole I lived in and moved to the present address where I am writing this blog from.

I did manage to get some copies after calling around local music shops for a few weeks and pleading with them to hold a few, as free is free by most standards and sometimes people just don’t care, kind of like the Creativity publisher.

This past Sunday, July 16th, the publisher passed away, but I didn’t hear about it until midweek Wednesday, as I was getting ready for work in the morning. A mere blip on the news radio station, that if you weren’t listening close enough, you never would have heard it.

I called my brother Benjy and of course he had read about him on the obituary page of the Chicago Sun-Times the day before. Figures, I told myself, always the last guy to find out.

According to all accounts, he left behind a wife, a son and a wealth of music.

Thanks for publishing me sir and giving me a shot. Thanks for all the misery you gave me too; it made me a better person in the long run.

Yeah right!

Malachi Thompson was 56.

The Botox Frankenstein Poetry Series>7th Inning Stench

Good evening my good friends! A quick tip of the kippah to you one and all! Aha! Friday has indeed arrived and boy am I glad for that! It's the third week of July already! So here it comes, our loving gentle friend, Mr. Capper has come upon request who will bring up straight into a wonderful weekend again. Keep Israel in your thoughts. And now, yes you guessed it! It's absolutely brand-spanking new poem-time! Remember dear readers, please tell someone you love them and always-always-always-always enjoy!



7th Inning Stench (For Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron & Steriods Bonds)

Last call for alcohol
Last call for your nation at bat
It was that last great league in Irish Town where he never forgets

The crack of the bat feels like the spit of his fame just blowin’ in the breeze
Like the crumbled skeleton staring at the door with its head between its knees

Old skeleton knows where it’s going, night after night after night
To wash its hands of curses, sins of the past 80 years, look in the mirror and cry

For it’s the soul of the league that’s on trial
No longer can a skeleton smile, just shake, like those pep pills and drugs and business that now sweeps it under the rug, while the GAT of the thug is shoved into the back of the big boss who pushes aside the integrity of the game for payoffs and thrills

The record is broken, the record is cast
The crowd doesn’t say much when the black shadow is cast

Into stone, the graveyard in the hall
He cast the first shadow, so he did fall

The crowd remains silent
The crowd still remains
Old skeleton washes up in a sea of notoriety
Like the spit of his fame

Roadtrip: Spending The Weekend With Mitch & The MishegasMaster-RIAA Burning Party and Lamp-Shading With Rob, Alice & Friends>Act 3

After rolling in late Friday night and staying up even longer to play an online word game with Mitch, only to abandon it midway because of being extremely tired, it’s no surprise that I wake up kind of late on Saturday morning and head to Mitch’s apartment mid-afternoon to burn CDs, 13 in all this time.

After the last CD is burned, we go downstairs to watch a documentary, but for the life of me, I cannot not think to remember the name of it, other than I just know it’s about a character actor who has been in 150 or so movies talking about his life. I mean, what actor doesn’t talk about their life?

I finally leave about 11 pm, go straight home and fall right into bed. I sleep for about 10 hours and wake up sweating and do very little. It’s already too hot to do much. Inside my apartment, it feels more like the Jew-Trapped-In-The-Pizza-Oven with no way out mentality.

I do the laundry mid-afternoon and it is hot meaning for once, the wash has dried evenly. I call Mitch and tell him I’m leaving in the next few minutes to pick him up.

Today, we’re headed over to hang out at the home of two friends of his, to celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary. All I know about his friend Rob is that his musical tastes are exotic like mine and that Mitch met Rob when he lived in Chicago approximately 15 years ago.

We get there closer to 4 p.m. and are welcomed into Rob’s home. Mitch gives Rob a bottle of champagne in a fancy gift bag, a burned CD copy of McCoy Tyner Plays John Coltrane Live At The Village Vanguard (Impulse!) and a card, while I am introduced to both Rob and his wife Alice, both of whom I shake hands with.

Oh that name Alice! If only…if only…well, that’s another story for another time. We go out to the backyard and meet a few of Rob’s friends, while Alice disappears into the kitchen. I pull up a chair and make formal introductions with everyone.

Eventually Rob disappears too and more people arrive. A tall and slender dark-skinned woman sits next to me and introduces herself. “Hi, I’m Gina. I dig your hat (I’m wearing a white golf cap, something that old folks might wear). Do you like the sun,” she asks me. I just smile and nod at her.

More people arrive and soon it gets crowded in the backyard, so much so that it makes me want to bolt and I do, straight into the house and walk back to the living room where I find Rob and one other guy, Pete (Gina’s boyfriend), just talking. I sit down across from Rob and listen to their conversation.

Eventually I join in the conversation and ask Rob what kind of music he likes. I begin opening up a bit more and explain to Rob that I came inside because I became too claustrophobic of the bulging crowd outside.

He understands he says, as he passes to me a Mel Waldron CD. Rob explains some of the intricacies of the record and pauses to reflect and comment on the horn section and the brilliancy of the sound itself. I just nod and agree.

Eventually I get comfortable enough with him and tell him about my throat-singing studies and my plans to perform in New York City and the surrounding tri-state area in October.

Rob’s delighted and congratulates me in an informal way by pronouncing me as “a good man.” He tells me he’s glad Mitch brought me along. Almost as if summoned by telepathy, Mitch comes wandering back and I tell him about my claustrophobic tendencies. Mitch understands.

Soon we’re asked to come outside to toast the happy couple. I find a place outside to sit on the grass, while Rob says a few words and then disappears back into the house. Alice also says a few words and then announces the main course is ready. Then she disappears back into the house.

The main course is pork, the other white meat. Rob warned me and Mitch when we first came in, but we both tell him we both eat pork once in a while. I get a plate of food and make my way back to the living room to eat and talk with Rob.

Rob seems more animated now. Beer and alcohol mixed together tend to do that. As Rob switches the music moods and from one extreme to the next, he smiles at me and talks more about music, noting the varying changes within each record.

From time to time, Rob gets up and plays “air guitar” or a musical “air instrument,” in time with the music playing while closing his eyes every few minutes. I just smile.

More people arrive and more people wander back into the living room where we’re at. Then Rob gets up and comes back with a Zip-Loc baggie full of weed. As a joint is rolled, lit and passed around, it seems to me that people are lit up inside the house already.

I sit back on the couch and watch people dance, kiss, eat and smoke, while Rob smiles at me every once in a while, especially when he changes the music.

“Better get yourself a piece of pie if there’s any left,” says Mitch who comes back in with a good-sized slab. He doesn’t seem to sure about the pie though, as I walk into the kitchen and cut myself a slice and slather it with melted vanilla ice cream and return to the couch, just watching the lovely and lively indoor show.

The sun is starting to set and so am I. Mitch wants to stay on for another half hour which turns into another hour, but I don’t mind, as everyone around me is so mellow, just talking, drinking, laughing, dancing, smoking and having a good old time.

Finally Mitch says he is ready. We say our goodbyes to Alice & Rob, head out the front door and across the street to my car.

Tomorrow begins a new work week. Until then, I’ll get my kicks, stay sweet, high and mellow and continue to enjoy the lingering embers of my new friend Rob and the rest of my oh-so memorable crazy weekend.

Roadtrip: Spending The Weekend With Mitch & The MishegasMaster-Open Mic Performance & Throat-Singing At The VFW On A Friday Night>Act 2

Our next stop is at the Arlington Heights VFW. We manage to get there after realizing the Mapquest directions that were available online were completely wrong. Mapquest is sometimes like that, but no matter; we still find the location and hunt for a place to park, as their tiny lot is packed.

Without knowing what was in store, I was informed by a man I met a few weekends ago by the name of “Crazy Ed,” (not related to “Babyshoes Ed”) at a breakfast meeting, that the VFW has comedy open mics.

Tonight I wear my colorful yarmulke that looks more like a jazz hat and a blue Hawaiian short-sleeved shirt to blend in with the crowd. Fat chance and that’s an understatement.

A comedy open mic ought to be different I told myself, as I prepare material and told almost no one, including Mitch what I planned to perform, but when we arrived, I find out it’s just another regular open mic and performers can do “almost” anything.

There are several groups of men with guitars and singers just waiting in the wings. Some are good and some are mediocre.

The audience is made up most of ugly skinny and plump women smoking cigarettes, along with short, tall and rotund men with a “tough guy” attitude.

Primarily, the audience is made up of ex-military personnel; babykillers by another era or two if you will and they expect good entertainment for free, just like they received while serving in the armed forces for our country, willingly or involuntarily.

They expect standards. They expect classics. They expect the entertainer to entertain them. What they lack however, is respect. Whatever respect they learned by serving in the army, navy, marines and other military branches certainly seems lost in the crowd tonight.

Most people talk loudly over the groups and solo acts, even the old guy who sings out-of-tune & off-key Frank Sinatra ballads along with a Karaoke machine. As I thumb through my work, I feel a nervous chill spread throughout my entire body. This crowd feels weird to me.

The open mic host comes up to me and asks me if I’m planning on performing tonight and I say, “Yeah.” I ask him what can’t I perform or do and he says he’ll go ask the proprietor of the VFW and come back to tell me. A few minutes later, the host comes back and says the only rule is that I can’t swear. I say, “Okay. No problem. I’m ready to go.”

A few seconds later, the host introduces me as “Sid Yiddish,” and tells the crowd that I’m going to do something “experimental.” The audience seems to perk up, but very few give me a warm welcome.

Already I feel like I’m in enemy territory and I haven’t even started.

I decide to recite “The Dells,” first, my parody poem based off “The Bells” by poet Edgar Allen Poe and adapted to music by Phil Ochs.

The Dells is a funny descriptive piece based on The Wisconsin Dells, a favorite Midwestern tourist trap, similar to Fisherman’s Wharf, another tourist trap, based in San Francisco, California and a poem that in other venues around the United States has received plenty of laughs in the past.

Not tonight, however. I hear only one measly laugh. I finish. No one claps. I think to myself, “Fine, okay, I’ll try something else” and I perform, “Oh Deer!” in the usual two voices: the human voice and the deer voice.

In the middle of all this, Mitch is moving around the VFW hall, snapping still pictures and making little films on my digital camera of me in performance (For copies of the two films made, drop me an email here at this blog and I'll be sure to send you both).

“Oh Deer!” garners no laughs either and still no one claps. I think, “Oh shit, I better come up with a closer that will knock them out.”

So I decide say, “Well, this is my last piece for tonight” and just as soon as I release those words from off my tongue and out of my mouth, a thunderous and hearty cheer comes up from the back and spreads itself around the room.

I join in with the crowd, clapping, cheering and jeering myself as well. Best response I get all night from them.

Then I admit, “Well, I’m no singer, but I’m going to do a little throat-singing for you." The piece I choose is called “Mykel Board Weasel Squeezer.”

I breathe in and out a few times and launch into the first word. For once the audience is silent. And I mean dead silence. Not a peep out of one of them. You could hear a pin drop. “At last,” I think to myself, “They’ve finally shut-up” as I sing the second word.

Breath.

Then, as I launch into the third word, I hear one lone voice in the back scream out, “Oh my god! There’s a second verse!” I just smile and look up and scan the crowd. Their faces are blank. Motionless. White. Silent.

I finish off the last word and thank the crowd for being polite, even though I know the majority of them weren’t. As I gather up my material, the open mic host jokingly asks me if I’ll be on cable in the fall. “As a matter of fact, I will,” I tell him, mentioning the anthology briefly, while looking at directly at his eyes.

As I turn around, there’s a big beefy hand outstretched to me, attached to a well-built body and tousled hair and a guitar in the other hand. He says to me, “It takes a lot of nerve to get up here and do what you just did.”

I shake his hand and smile back. As I trudge back through the crowd, some people blow smoke at me, while others give me disapproval with dirty looks. God forbid I should shake them up a little.

When I sit back down, an older man with a polar bear belly who sat next to me tells me he liked my poetry. I smile.

Then he tells me the man in the white tee shirt and tousled hair is none other than one of the members of the legendary 1960s Chicago band The Ides Of March and how the man is considered a local celebrity around the VFW. I should assume that most people in the crowd grew up with The Ides Of March, yet unbeknownst to many there, I didn’t and yet, that man made my night with his few words.

Mitch turns to me and says, “Let’s go.” I agree and stuff my tape recorder into my backpack and sling my briefcase over my shoulder as we silently steal away without a word from anybody.
After a long drive back north, I drop Mitch back home and I go to Kroger’s and buy a quart of ice cream. It’s hot enough for it, but that not why I buy it.

I buy it, for when I get home, burning tears stream down my face like a steady rain.

Ice cream is good for healing and then some.

Roadtrip: Spending The Weekend With Mitch & The MishegasMaster-Open Mic Frenzy On A Friday Night>Act 1

Sometimes it takes a crazy weekend to wake yourself up out of a long log-jam and ask yourself what the fuck you’re doing with your life and how you want to change it for the better or maybe you just want to leave it alone and accept your shortcomings for the moment until that change just jumps out in front of you like a naked lady out of a cake.

Friday late afternoon; out of work at the usual time for the week, a weekend of potential fun and adventure planned with my good pal Mitch.

Tonight, we’re headed into Rolling Meadows for the first stop. One round of open mic reading at a Caribou Coffee shop with the Arlington Poetry Project, a group of which I’ve been a member of since 1995, although the last two years is anybody’s guess…

The group is headed up by none other than Mr. Ed “Babyshoes” Layer himself. (For further references on “Babyshoes,” see 2006 blog entries March 10, May 25 & May 26) I arrive with Mitch to find Ed sitting at another table with the eldest member of the group. Ed sits there for the longest time, talking to her, as I rig my tape recorder up to document tonight’s performance.

Finally, Ed gets up from the table walks over and acknowledges me. “Hi,” he says. I say hi back. We exchange a few looks and he asks me what I’ve been up to. I tell him about my latest co-editing anthology project and not much else.

He seems unfazed as he goes into his usual spiel of trying to impress me with his great world achievements and then moves onto other stuff.

Inadvertently, he says something that now for the life of me I cannot recall, but it makes me grin at him and he says; “So what?” several times until he decides I’m unimportant and sits back down to talk with all the middle-aged ladies that have arrived by now.

More members come and the show which was to start at 7 p.m. finally begins at 8 p.m. Ed recites the rules and as he does, both Mitch and I laugh to ourselves, for Mitch knows what I performed here two years ago at this very spot; the Ronald Wilson Reagan Memorial Game AKA Pin The Quote In Reagan’s Mouth, the game that launched my performance artist career and left me at odds with Ed for the longest time that and telling him that my poem "Babyshoes," written about him was being published.

When it’s my turn to read, I choose to read a relatively new poem entitled “Humanitarian.” After I finish reading it, I hear a handful of clapping, but this time it seems more heartfelt than usual. I sit back down, as another APP member John O’Brien asks to look at it.

Mitch looks bored and asks “Does it gets any better than this?” I tell him, “Not really.” As we leave, Ed pats me on my left shoulder as I pass him by. Is this a love-tap?

Doubtful.

The Return Of Ghost Pony: An Occupational Hazard>Act 30

Disclaimer: A horse has no future. It cannot greet the sun and say today will be better. It can only reflect upon days of past. It is our job to create a positive past. There is no secret so close as that between a rider and his horse. Hard is to teach an old horse amble true. Fiction can be that way sometimes. Any similarities to persons living or dead are purely coincidental & should not be taken or misconstrued as such. Anyone who thinks otherwise probably believes that they have almost forgotten how strange a thing it is that so huge and powerful and intelligent an animal as a horse should allow another and far feebler animal, to ride upon its back.

Late in the morning you can see it…then it disappears, only to reappear in the late afternoons and then, as quickly as it appears, it disappears!

It looks as if Ghost Pony has returned!

Ghost Pony is an apparition that only some prisoners on Devil’s Island can see and a few members of Upper Prison Brass and even some of the security detail can feel brush up against their bodies!

Ghost Pony began appearing nearly 36 months ago at a time when Devil’s Island prisoners felt uneasy about their individual futuristic fates.

Legend has it that Ghost Pony is a figment of the imagination, a shadow in the sunlight, splashed upon the grey prison walls.

Rumors about Ghost Pony certainly exist, but perhaps the greatest endorsement of Ghost Pony lie within the tale that Broadcast Betty tells to those who are eager to listen.

“Ghost Pony,” Broadcast Betty begins, “appeared on a cold dreary afternoon when no one was minding the store, when Upper Prison Brass and their varying counterparts were off discussing plans to devise new methods to deflate prison population, that is when Ghost Pony came,” Broadcast Betty says.

“Ghost Pony cheered everyone up who was feeling disillusioned and despondent about life in general on Devil’s Island. Ghost Pony was a harmonious soul, a brilliant mass of flesh who galloped across the many hearts within Devil’s Island whether or not it was meant to be.”

“Ghost Pony took a liking to those who fed her kindness, attention and most of all, superficial love, for that was the only type of love Ghost Pony was capable of returning,” snapped Broadcast Betty.

Those who saw Ghost Pony in the early days like Roger Dogma says that Ghost Pony is truly real and does actually exist, despite the nay-sayers that creep about Devil’s Island.

Then there are the harsh skeptics like The G5Unit who have both collectively and openly said that Ghost Pony is only a recurring nightmare that someone conjured up late one night at a secret meeting between Devil’s Island gang leaders, in an attempt to declare a truce scare tactic between rivaling factions.

Typical response, considering that The G5Unit is behind one of the greatest Ghost Pony Handicapping Numbers Scandals in the history of Devil’s Island, second only to the infamous Johnny Vegas’ Numbers Game.

It has even been suggested that Ghost Pony has come back to Devil’s Island to soothe the remaining burning embers that has arise recently among new allegations that Upper Prison Brass is biding time before they launch an all-out war to the finish!

Still, situations can change at any given moment here, for after all, this is Devil’s Island!

The Botox Frankenstein Poetry Series>Mad Daddy Dread Jesus

Good early evening my dear friends! A quick tip of the kippah to you one and all! Aha! Friday is here and into a brand new month we enter called July! Still relatively cool outside when the sun goes down, which I like. So here we are! Mr. Capper has arrived, gently easing into a wonderful weekend again. And now, it's brand new poem-time! Remember my dear readers, please tell someone you love them and always-always-always-always enjoy!

Mad Daddy Dread Jesus

Mad Daddy Dread Jesus
Bopping down the street
Bits of spaghetti dangling in his hair
Drooling monkeys
Swinging on waxy strands

Man, like everywhere!

The Greatest Show On Earth>Act One-The Freaks

Hurry! Hurry! Hurry! Step right up boys and girls and moms and dad of all ages and come see the greatest team of orchestrated organizations ever to set foot upon this soil we call Earth!

War in Iraq! War between the Israelis, Palestinians & Hamas! Anti-American sentiment overseas (as if that’s really changed over the past several years)! North Korea missile-testing! Death! Destruction! Disease!

And while you’re pondering these monstrosities and more that I forgot to mention and picking the popcorn out of your teeth and the cotton candy from out of your beard and moustache, step right this way to the inside tent and feast your eyes upon world’s greatest freak show!

Gather ‘round my friends and view the lifeless body of the man who once fooled an entire body of his own employees, no I’m not talking about Ronald Reagan this time, (maybe next time), but the late great Kenneth Lay, whom along with his best pinstriped jailbird-bound pal Jeffery Skilling (brother of WGN-TV weatherman Tom Skilling), managed to cook the books of their own demised corporation, Enron and funnel millions of dollars for their own use, thereby leaving their employees retirement funds empty.

Imagine that, my friends! The man up and has a heart attack and dies while maintaining his innocence of the whole affair. So the burning question remains: who gets all the money he was supposed to pay back to his former employees??? Ask his lawyers! Yes, my friends, Kenneth Lay got the last laugh on his way to Hell!

Now over this way, we have glass tanks full of oil barons and their precious black gold, Texas tea as it’s sometimes referred to. There they sit, virtually drowning in the stuff while watching their profit margins, double, triple and even quadruple at times all at the expense of the common man.

Do you really think they care about climbing oil prices? Do you think they care if gasoline prices keep rising like the drop of coins into a Coca-Cola vending machine almost daily? Do you really think my friends that once oil dries up that these rich Daddies are going to be around? Heck no! They’ll be out playing some other market making a quick buck, like say vegetable oil or ethanol…

And finally, finally my friends, step this way to see the greatest living example of a failure known to American politics, no matter which way you slice it. Hated among his people, loved by journalists, cartoonists and pundits and talk show hosts and the butt of many, many, many comedian’s jokes, routines and skits, that monkey-man of a president, who has failed more times with less words and less courage than Lee Harvey Oswald and Sirhan Sirhan combined. The greatest buffoon since village idiots of freakdom were created! The man who should have been Kennedy'd a long, long time ago!

Hurry! Hurry! Hurry! Step right up boys and girls and moms and dad of all ages and come see the greatest team of orchestrated organizations ever to set foot upon this soil we call Earth!

War in Iraq! War between the Israelis, Palestinians & Hamas! Anti-American sentiment overseas (as if that’s really changed over the past several years)! North Korea missile-testing! Death! Destruction! Disease!

Hurry! Hurry! Hurry! Step right up boys and girls and moms and dad of all ages and come see the greatest team of orchestrated organizations ever to set foot upon this soil we call Earth!

War in Iraq! War between the Israelis, Palestinians & Hamas! Anti-American sentiment overseas (as if that’s really changed over the past several years)! North Korea missile-testing! Death! Destruction! Disease!

All In The Name Of Shhhhhhhhh!

Confess? Confess? Me Confess? What about you? Man! Christians give me the creeps and I’ll tell you why! I got my first bad taste of them while in my 20s… I confess that Christians have sometimes been indifferent to the differences in people. I confess that in the hope of getting as many people as possible into the Church, Christians have sometimes treated people like a product on a factory assembly line: filled up and closed… From The Five Sins Of Christianity, co-written by The MishegasMaster & The Rev.

There’s a lot one could say about yesterday’s world premiere of The Five Sins Of Christianity in a Chicago park, all in the name of Shhhhhhhhh! Confused? Let me explain.

A few months ago, my friend, The Rev. approached me and asked me to help him out. I said sure. Always willing to lend a hand to my friend The Rev. when he told me of his intentions however, I knew I was up for the challenge, which simply put was to get his flock from his ministry to understand the sins that Christians can sometimes unknowingly commit.

Easy enough, I told myself initially, but with most projects, I procrastinated until the deadline approached, which was originally Monday, May 29, Memorial Day. When The Rev. told me he decided to push back the due date to Tuesday, July 4, Independence Day, I was relieved and had a little more time to produce a quality product.

The first piece I produced for The Rev., was a seemingly innocently yet quirkily strong rant about Shhhhhhhhh! Once The Rev. heard it and asked me if I thought my intended audience was supposed to be white, I felt like such a dope. Even though The Rev. liked it, it wasn’t what he wanted, so it was off to the creative process all over again.

What The Rev. was after was the sins that Christians commit and me, yours truly, The MishegasMaster, had a particularly unique role in this, for I certainly don’t believe in Christianity nor Shhhhhhhhh! But what I was able to give was my perspective as an outsider looking inward to it all.

Besides all that, my friends, The Rev’s flock consists of homeless and jobless men those The Rev. ministers on the streets of far North Chicago. The Rev’s been gigging at this for approximately five years, hardcore for the last three years. What he does and how he does it, is amazing. Most of The Rev’s ministering takes place near the park where The Rev. lives.

He can usually be seen some weeknights and most weekends out in the park, handing out religious tracts and working the sidewalk, the same way a good salesman pitches the product, in this case, the words according to the gospel of Shhhhhhhhh!

On Sundays, The Rev. holds religious services for about an hour or so in the park before the men go off and do what they do for the day.

We continued to work on the project, tweaking and twonking it. Another meeting and then we decided to rehearse Independence Eve. In between this time, we exchanged phone calls and emails, with further edits and brainstorming sessions. More tweaking and twonking, more editing, more re-writes. I called for the rehearsal because I knew we had to work this and The Rev. wanted to get the message out properly.

More tweaking and twonking. We broke for dinner and then back to work. Later, I requested that The Rev’s wife, Mrs. Rev., sit in our rehearsal. Another edit. Another re-write. We parted that night in hopes that our mission we be accomplished.

Tuesday, July 4th in Chicago was a perfect day, blue skies and lots and lots of sunshine. It was as if Shhhhhhhhh! had ordered it up special for The Rev. and I.

I arrived in the park about 1pm. The music was pumping, as was the park, abundant with people. I spotted The Rev. mingling with his flock. I sat down on the grass with Mrs. Rev. until The Rev. & I were ready to get the show on the road.

A lot of emotions flowed between the time of our performance, The Five Sins Of Christianity and afterward. Accusations of missing shoes, thievery, anger, crying, laughing, conversing, eating, hugs, dancing and most of all fellowship, between myself, his flock and of course The Rev. and Mrs. Rev.

In between all of that, further north on the beach a rescue mission of a missing little boy was taking place. Eventually, they found him safe and sound. The child grew bored and went to visit his aunt a mile away, but didn’t tell his mother, resulting in a nightmarish scenario for the next hour or so, with Chicago police scouring the Lake Michigan waters via scuba divers and a helicopter, along with Chicago Park District lifeguards.

In that group I was with yesterday, I’d say that the rescue mission had already begun to take full effect.