Degenerate Art

Art's not degenerate at all. He's raising a family out in the Fraser Valley, RV sales are booming, and he's a Knight of Columbus, or freemason illuminati or some such thing.

My own degenerate period started at the age of 12 and proceeds apace.

The Otto Dix painting to the left hung on the wall of my Montreal flat. I worshipped at the altar of Sylvia Von Harden, portrayed in the canvas, secretly appointed her the patron saint of Quebec; she's got that No Future, harlequin in a graveyard look that acted on me like a magnet in my formative years of degeneracy.

I hail from a generation of degenerates in denial. When society said reform or die, we all folded up our tents, and enrolled in 12 step programs and drank anti-degeneracy potion. Stood in circles, held hands, and blurted it out: "Hi, my name's Paulo, and I'm a degenerate." Applause and knowing glances all round. One or two furtive glances, and nervous titters. With a name like Paulo, how could you not be a degenerate?

Daily double Question for the Degeneration X file: supposing you do succeed in obliterating the memory of doing the psychotic split on shrooms, or acid, or whatever else you were shovelling down your throat while riding the musical parabolic ark of Deep Purple, or Boston, or Robert Plant screeching while you raced through the streets in your chevy II, isn't it more fun remembering it?... Or suppose you buy the line that you have to be cured of something, and you expose the madness of your youth in a dramatic, heart on the sleeve, sin-regurgitating posture, in a vain attempt to elevate your recreational inclinations into the equivalent of being raped and beheaded by a Janjaweed field marshal.

Daily statistic from the Blog survey people - twenty three per cent of degenerates think Omar Al-Bashir is the name of an Egyptian actor who writes bridge columns.

To degenerate is to fall from one's race or kind, to be reduced in the ancestral virtues of excellence. It's organic. Unfortunately, there are no official inverted pyramids on these falling away patterns. Degeneracy, like beauty, is in the eye of the accuser. Hence the expression, all too often misappropriated by the inquisitors, "you fornicating degenerate", and applied to those of us who cling to degeneracy and produce offspring to observe the gentle, organic tangent of the genetic code moving into new, unforeseen directions.

I am degenerating into unconsciousness....

Rwanda & Henry Miller

Rwanda and Henry Miller

“The next day Father Seromba asked the people to collect the bodies, but they refused. Bourgmestre Grégoire decided to bring in the bulldozer to evacuate the bodies.”

This is an excerpt from today’s work, a little missive to be translated from Kinrwandan into English about priests who shuffle their female parishioners in and out of the presbytery, until one fine day, a group of Interahamwe show up at the refectory entrance in their white pickups, and in the wink of an eye the priest is leading the chorus to demolish his own church, and inside, 2000 of the faithful get to meet the god of their choice.

These days, it’s easy to think we should maybe just start all over again at square zero. Only problem is that nobody agrees on what square zero is. Many are lobbying for some form of cleansing – infidels, sexual deviants, smokers, Muslims, Jews, meat eaters – or in the case of the Dutch, your kitchen sink.

Miller wrote during a war, and feelings were running pretty high in the thirties and forties as well. Plenty of historical recrimination and place in the sun shite being sold. Religious freaks, and of course, the dictators all against decadence, while some of the great cabaret and expressionistic talents were putting on their midnight shows right from the belly of the beast – Germany during the rise of fascism. Maybe the rise of fascism is a necessary sine qua non for decadent art. Or in Hitler’s case, the reverse is true.

Miller was a Teuton, and like all Teutonic artists, he had a weakness for Jews and for Paris. Miller was the first German to surrender. His abdication was so complete that he conquered the world and the world never noticed. Oddly enough, after trials and tribulations of various sorts, he reduced his world view, becoming physically, spiritually and morally myopic to the point that his attention became fixed on some lice in his roommates armpit, and Tropic of Cancer was born. The world, as exemplified by the US Postal Authority, declared printed discussions of lice obscene, while another branch of the government continued bombing Dresden and nuked the Japs, ahem, excuse me our oriental brethren, a couple of times. Fortunately for Miller, what the censors thought obscene struck American GIs as the only intelligible language left in a world gone mad.

Miller, of course, understood that the world has always been mad. Devreux’s like that. I asked what his thoughts were, knowing that while his return flight from NYC taxied down the runway, a band of traveling Saudis, those wild and crazy Wahhabis, were getting the world’s closest close up view of the World Trade Centre on their way, ha ha, to paradise. And, even were kind enough to invite a few thousand stock brokers and secretaries along to meet the great Allah. Inchallah, baby.

“Ah, David,” said the great Devreux, “I haven’t lost a wink of sleep since the fall of the Byzantine empire”, implying and proving through the enigmatic, crackly, puckish Devreux smile of a Hunan librarian, that he was at the very least a thousand years old.

The Street Beyond Concern

The Attic is on the Buitenzorg, or literally the street beyond concern, what the French call the Chemin du sans-souci. Entering it is like walking into a cage, and descending 600 feet directly down to a coal seam, progressively wading through the sediment and fossil fuel, then crawling past the crags and stalactites, onwards, on your way to the rag and bone shop, where ideas are created, but nobody is there to hear about them.

Indeed, what is not apparent in this photo, is that the attic containing the rag and bone shop is actually 23 floors beneath the surface of this poldarized stratified swamp, slowly but irrevocably being drawn back into the primeval backwaters of the North Sea.

A feast fit for a Renaissance pope

Writing is first and foremost subversive. That means anti-authoritarian. Overthrowing, razing to the ground. And, nothing more subversive than a dictionary. There's something that suggests tabula rasa in the pure original meaning of any word. Chlorine bombs, machetes, religious texts, are all conventional weapons. The word is nuclear. The book burners all know that, ignorant bastards all, from the scurvy furrows of their cloistered minds they know a free man speaking his mind is their mortal enemy.

There is only one religion, the religion of the imbecile, kowtowing to the one and only apostolic conjuration of the fearful mind. Something in man is so desperate, that it can only accept as truth that which is death. The more desperate a man, the more religious. Let's face it, and let's turn our backs on martyrdom for anybody- martyrdom, even piety is a game for suckers. It takes guts to stay alive and run your own show.

Voltaire said astrology was born when the first charlatan met the first imbecile. Ditto for the religious freaks. But, still, these priests, imams and shamams, they could put a Fellini whore to shame when it comes to costume and ritual. Credit where it's due.

I'm a subutraquian myself, if I'm going to take communion, it has to be a retake on the Last Supper, a baguette and a bottle of red plonk from the Languedoc, or better yet, Gigondas, so you can taste the chalky dirt from the foot of the Dentelles du Montmirail, which I climbed one drunken morning after seven bottles of the best from the village the Romans called "Jocunditas" or Joie Allegresse, with the great Lovejoy, another white man who smartly kept his mouth shut when he was falsely accused in the national media of sins never committed.

Einstein's god was that of Spinoza, Mackinnon's god is the Catholic god of the Borgias, or of Baron Corvo, the renegage, or of the Gnostics, and MacKinnon's last supper will be the last supper of Francois Mitterand, consuming the warbling ortolan, or some other migratory wild bird, - caught in the wild - kept in the dark to fatten, drowned in Armagnac brandy and plucked. They are roasted and served whole, wings and legs tucked in, eyes open. Brought to the table straight from the fire, and one must consume the entire bird. I'll hire a monk to drape a large linen napkin draped over my head, so as to trap the aroma of the dish, and hide the shame of the feast from the eyes of God.

Nothing beats Catholicism for raw, carniverous rituals.

Kidnapped!

Kidnapped!

I am being held hostage – physically, mentally, spiritually – she is telling me day in, day out, that my dreams are worthless, that reading ten thousand books and traveling the seven seas have led to nothing more than this. It is my turn now, she says, I am the one who will now stay up all night, and taste the sensual pleasures of this earthly existence. You move over, old man, you may worship and praise, but do not try to take my place, my vitality is rising faster than stem cell stock, and the world is with me, and the world has forgotten you, and your outdated ways.

Ah, but I smile, you are wrong, I can still run away, and a man must always consider flight, it is the only thing that can keep him entirely sane when the world has said, only your subjection and slavery will satisfy us, and to hell with your literary dreams. And, the fact that you are fifteen months is only a detail, visited upon me by the gods to test my willingness to embark on the hard, lonely road.

« Quand tu aimes il faut partir
Quitte ta femme quitte ton enfant
Quitte ton ami quitte ton amie
Quitte ton amante quitte ton amant
Quand tu aimes il faut partir

…

Quand tu aimes il faut partir
Ne larmoie pas en souriant
Ne te niche pas entre deux seins
Respire marche pars va-t-en »

Cendrars, un extrait de son poème à l’amour amoral "tu es plus belle que le ciel et la mer"

http://north-sea-chronicles.blogspot.com/

Cendrars, le Bourlingueur

This is Cendrars, alias Freddy Sauser, alias the Bourlingueur or vagabond. Cendrars, who understood the 20th century better than anyone, better than Einstein - because he understood truth is in action - better than Gandhi - because he knew life is war - better than Churchill - because he devoted his patriotism to a foreign land - better than the surrealists - because he knew the great works are accomplished alone and in obscurity. And, after having investigated Hollywood, and the two great wars, and having made a million and lost it three times over, and living with the gypsies, and suffered the loss of his writing hand, and his firing hand, and his son, and then the land he fought for, he withdrew in silence to Aix-en-Provence, to contemplate the folly of man. But, when that drippy pacifist Rilke started oozing his shite in his direction at the Closerie de Lilas one drunken afternoon, Cendrars cold cocked him with his one remaining hand. Cendrars is untouchable, and remains so in death, because ultimately, he never sought the approval of the world. His dialogue was with the gods.

Matisse violinist & a baby daughter

This is my screen saver. Before I write, I have this reminder that I know little or nothing about colour. Can't even label the shades in this canvas. I call it a canvas, because I cannot say whether it was done with watercolours, an old palette, egg yolk, charcoal, or the more modern artistic tools of human waste, sharks teeth, bulldozers, and toilet paper. If you asked me the colour of the shutters, I'd hazard a guess: baby's blue, robin's egg blue, but then I'd lose my concentration, and gaze at the violinist gazing. The mirror optically reversed, our mind refracted so it looks at the back of a man's mind, contemplating what is out there, while playing music. My daughter finally falls asleep, she's been contemplating the father contemplating the violinist contemplating the outdoors - for anyone aspiring to be a celebrity twice removed, families are very good for keeping you in that place, safely away from those who would publish, and removed the twice removed, and make you answerable to a group of people who don't like you in the first place.

Literary Paris

This is the cover of my book. It's not my editor's fault it didn't sell. It's nobody's fault. 660 new books were published the month that mine came out. 120 were new novels. And, I was in the Seychelles drinking beer, watching a rat eat my mango tree, in my little corner of paradise. End of genius storming literary Paris. It was just another book, about just another john. Everybody's a whore, or a john, or a cop, but nobody wants to hear about it anymore. Give us reality television, as long as it's not realistic. I now live a twenty minute tram ride from the red light district, but every time I see a picture of one of those narrow alleyways, all that I notice are the men outside, and no matter how big the tits, and how shiny the gloss on the lipstick, you've got to have an abstract mind of the highest order to forget that some syphilitic prick fresh out of Zimbabwe, or fresh out of Yale, or not so fresh out of the local grocery store, has either just walked out the door, or is getting ready to follow you inside. And, disease travels fast in rainy climates. If it were about twenty degrees colder, I just make take a shot at it.





Prostitution is called a "social ill". It's a failure to be socially healthy. I sometimes wonder why people get so upset about it, then I wonder whether people actually do get upset about it. It's hard to criticize the girls, they're providing an essential service; they know it, the cops especially know it. The police would put bordellos on every corner, if they could keep the criminal element out. There's the rub. When women's bodies are being sold as commodity items, just how do you keep the criminal element out?






that train just came right into my attic!!!!!!

Famous Twice Removed

Caracalla is waiting for me in Paris, rue du Cherche Midi, on the dusty ground floor of the immortal offices of Editions denoel, my publisher, founded by a man shot on the streets of the city as a collaborator. As a child, Caracalla played on the Champs Elysées with Jean Renoir and Cézanne's son. He drank with Cendrars and Henry Miller and Jean Cocteau. But, noone knows who Miller is anymore, and Cendrars never made it onto the American radar screen. That makes me something like famous twice removed.

It's not easy being famous twice removed. You have to show real talent, get the powers that be to prick up their ears. Then, comes the hard part, which is to fuck up a good thing somehow. Like the publication of my book, Leper Tango, which looks into the peregrinations of a certain Franck Robinson, whoremonger of an ambulance chasing lawyer. Are you available for the PR, says Rubinstein? Well, actually not. I'll be drinking in the Seychelles around that time....

These thoughts get me all the way to the train station, musing on my celebrity twice removed status. My grandmother knew the justice minister, uncle franck had 72 curling trophies, and then there's Kaitlin, now taking care of the queen's jewels. Just who do these ticket sellers think they are, ignoring me? I am a star twice removed. The master of screwing up while on the brink of success. The possibility of happiness triggered the eject button. Sent me back to wherever I came from. I'm wearing my celebrity twice removed bionic space travel suit. sunglasses, ipod, journal, in the international ticket office. I'm doing what other people do these days, which is wait, number in hand, until I too can have my request refused. Two dimensional cows moving like a watercolour sketched by an epileptic, across an outdated Panasonic silver screen - but, what do I care - I'm immune. I've got Charlie Haden playing Now is the Hour on my Ipod, so as long as I don't get happy slapped, everything's cool.

Beside me, four yanks. Two guys, two girls, dressed in pseudo army garb, and speaking in dull, anesthetized tones. Where are we going, says one. Panic rising as their number comes up. "I say we go to Koln, that'll give us an hour. There's a mad looking slav across from me, six tickets for the counter sticking out of his paw, he looks like he'd knife you and drop you into a mass grave for the fun of it. The four yanks are nervous, they're buried in attempts to be anonymous, toques, heavy jackets, it's the I'm a homeless too look. their eyes darting, riddled with angst.

Suddenly, the train drives right into the ticket room, and at precisely twelve minutes to twelve, all hell breaks loose!

Historical Past

I think it's a mistake to look too far into your past. It's a curse in my own family, an addiction to our inability to produce anything but drunks, clergymen and lawyers despite having been on the planet for several millenia. If you think Al Quaeda is bad, look no further than the MacKinnons for people hooked on losing causes. We must be the only genetic grouping that has managed to be among the founding fathers of Canada, arriving barely after the Indians, ahem excuse me, first nations aboriginals, and still haven't managed to hang on to more than a couple of acres of land. Here is the author, finding meaning where there is none, with the Abbott of Iona, a scurvy, 15th century sybarite who spent his afternoons with his lover, Margaret or Hildegard, whatever, in MacKinnon's Cave, breaking his holy vows. Showing a typical, dominant MacKinnon trait, the good abbott overoptimistically engraved the figures 15.. on his tombstone in expectation of living to a venerable age, but then dropped dead in 1498, which also is the first historical precedent of a MacKinnon being edited.