PICTURES OF WAR

Since late '18 my wife Helen and I have been hard at work converting DG's Various Primavera into an image factory. Got to keep up with the market, I tell him, cause nobody wants your damned cassette tapes except the sub-libidinal reprobates living on the outskirts of the GTA. But he doesn't listen. Fortunately for his investors we've managed to stockpile an entire vault of visual psychopomp. Here's a glimmer of what's in store for the final day of judgement.

 

This one's called "Manson Men" because it's a picture of Charles Manson and two men. 

I call this one "Dick's Incinerator". The number four must stand for "foreigner".

 

This one's called "My Idol" and it's sad to look at (not unlike DG himself). 

 

This one's called "Drew-a-Face". It might be an ironic title or maybe the guy's name is Drew.

I believe this one is called "Nuclear Warmth", which is a rather uninspired title for something that looks like it took more than a few episodes of the Gilmore Girls to make. 

This one came from the steady hands of Helen Davis. We called it "Miss Mess". I like to think it has something to do with serial killers.  

-Glen

CRYOGEN AGAIN

Readers, listeners, scammers. If you heard in the news or on the street or read in your electric tea leaves that I've been missing or have gone missing or have dispatched myself into a state of being missed... don't buy any of it. These, and mostly everything else at this point, are illusionary divergences planted by the deranged sub-mind of DG Burns. He has the crawling power of a succubus in a solar eclipse, so look away - but maintain vigilance! The man has no shame, after all. In fact he has nothing, that's how he likes it. He wants me - and everyone else for that matter - to be exactly the same. Never mind my civic duties, my cultural integrity, my incredible untapped potential for near-divine leadership. I sensed his fear from the get-go. This, I believe, is why he chose to revoke my publishing rights only a series of fortnights before the global pandemic erupted. Should I have been so surprised? The man is sick. Sick in the mind, sick in the body, but most of all, sick in the soul. Maybe that's why he's been so damned relatable to the few hundred people that traffic this corner of the internet. I feel embarrassed for each and every one of you.

With that being said I'm happy to announce my return to reins of Various. The Burns Blockade is over once again, and until he can muster up a sufficient counter-punch, I think we're in the clear for the time being. Let the content flow like the wine of Dionysus. 

But let's get the tawdry stuff out of the way first and foremost. DG and I have not been completely out of touch during these plague days. He's still issuing his "dispatches" in the form of telegrams, pigeon letters, semi-pornographic fax transmissions, and various other forms of antiquated information exchange. He mostly boasts of his "dark" journal entries, tailored specifically for the covid crisis, as if he's invented some new form of tracking the unconsciousness. He's getting cocky, I can assure you of that. Here's one he sent off early plague:

Glen, I've reached Cryogen again. For the nineteen thousandth time. It's eleven thirty AM and my back is weak from the previous night’s activities. Whips, scales, and brands. These are my minutia. Castigation and floundering wickedness. No penetration whatsoever. Like a child and an electrical socket, I let 120 volts root mean square zip right through my finger tips. Think of me as Prometheus in bondage. (Did you know that I’ve web searched my name so many times at this point that I’ve decided to change it, alter it slightly, to see what else I can find? Like you, I love to plow through the depths of the internet and scheme up my wickedness, watch it float to the surface. It’s not unlike mother and newborn, I would imagine. Crayons melted on a stove top. No fumes, non toxic, no high. Wooden spoon does the trick, just stir on repeat for an earth cycle and add your weapon of choice. Narcotic injunction 283 details the risk.) Pound for pound, you’re likely to last a decade at most, so do your best for body and Christ will take care of the rest. I spoke with Mohammad and Bacchus and they're ready for you. Cop Wilson said the dust will settle and we’ll be out of here in no time. He's the Law, after all. He calls the shots. Guaranteed piss in a jar. I’ve sold my monkey to a blind man for a vile of covid, in case you didn't know. Oh, and create a dune buggy battalion out of a dozen lawn mower engines for me, will you? I have a reason. -DG 

I have no problem admitting that I have no idea what most of this means, nor do I care. I'll leave him be, in fact, and I wholly suggest anyone reading this do the same. He's a sad, little man, some might say. But he can charm when he wants to and that's what makes him so damned lethal. 

Actually, all this DG talk has left a sour taste in my mouth. Makes me want to stick my head in a bucket of bleach. Let's reconvene in a few twists of the tide. In the mean time, carefully observe this artistic rendering of a microscopic mytho-creature I spotted crawling across my peyote plant just a fortnight past. I named it: pony cat, for obvious reasons. I'll be submitting this to the local cryptozooligical association before the week's out for possible inclusion in their upcoming "Critters of Nova Scotia" compendium. 

-Glen Davis

1974

Mercy card clutch pocket in a doomsday parade. In the back of one of those old caddies, topless brassiere warrior with her million dollar voice up to the megaphone screeching, "I'm alive! I'm alive!" as she screams at the crowd, shocked by her electric state of being. Shocked awake into lucidity. Lucy was her name, and she's my goddamn grandmother.

Went pro in '69, rode the heat wave all the way to the 40 cent bus stop. That's where she got her wings, they say. Mother didn't like it one bit. Raised me to think it was wrong for a woman to act like that, especially a multigen matriarch on a melting planet. Couldn't stand the twinkle in her eye neither, wanted to rip it out. "Ain't no particular way I gotta act, and since you've been shit talking me ever since I pushed you outta my immaculate body, how about you stand up and fight me like a goddamn man?" Granny always knew how to pick a fight, knew how to end them too. I once saw her drop some biker chick and her 300 lbs bodyguard like she was swatting flies off a dead llama. Some say she had super strength, but she was just clever. Knew how to use her mind more than most. That's how she created all those illusions, tricked you into seeing things you didn't see, into thinking thoughts you never had. It's how she made my father stop beating my mom. Sometimes she'd push him so hard that I'd see sweat dripping down his face, blood vessels popping in his eye sockets, spit foaming at the side of his mouth until he'd start howling right at the top of his lungs. Sometimes he'd be screaming like a war child, shaking all about, beating his head against the living room mantle trying to make it stop, but of course he never could.

I remember asking once, "What does he see grandma?" to which she replied, "Just himself as he truly is." I didn't quite understand it at the time but I think I do now.

This is part of an ongoing work of non-erotic autofiction outlining the real life and times of the author.

- Glen Davis

SCREEN AGE OF SCAM

It's all happening beneath our very eyes. We needn't even peel back the lids, as it plays out in the collective mind-theatre like a sixteenth sense. Give 'em everything you got, the voices cry. Give 'em the ol' iron shoulder, the razor-edged elbows, and put yr goddamn back into it if you can! After all, this is the way the world works, so band together we must. Roughneck individuals bottled by pride will be sold and swallowed for survival, so sacrilege your fridge and plug in your heart murmer. Fright the far right near right now centrist leftist near fear of everything - so frighten fear itself! It's only growing, like a bad case of Hemen-anemia. The goal, as the wise have said, is to whittle away a frog from a log, hop the iron lilly pad to the other side, or die whistling like a ladybird crossing a freeway.
 

 On an unrelated note, to mark the occasion of seasonal shift, I, Glen Oldman Davis, will be performing with my "wife" Helen this Saturday at the Lost & Found boutique, with fellow humans Hosta and Proper Suggestions. All are welcome.

- GD

DISPATCHES FROM THE FASCIST HIGH RISE

Old DB wanted me to send this to you. He's got letters pouring in left right and centre, from well wishers and nay sayers alike. Rather than take on the impossible task of answering them individually, he whipped this up. Some say he sounds a bit nervous, like he may be under the perpetual gaze of some frightful entity, tripping over his words and such. I think he sounds fine and dandy. Better than when he left in fact!



-GD

MONEY SUCKING BLOOD PIT

A money sucking blood pit, that's all it is Mylin. You walk in there and there's no fuckin way you're getting out in one piece. Not without a new lampshade asshole cavity. Buy em up ship em out. You've got no choice but to listen, I am your boss after all.

He was right. Brusque but to the point. A doctor was what he should have become, barking orders at nurses and surgeons and people on their death beds. Put a scalpel to his cranium wave, he might say, pretending to know what the hell he was talking about. I knew a guy who pulled the doctor con for sixteen years in small town Ontario. He drank his milk out of a measuring cup and pissed on the nurses. Set up a practice and pulled out before the heat could drop on him. It was a lot easier to do that back then, before all the cameras went up everywhere. Some might say you had a small piece of life to yourself, one that you didn’t have to invent in order to survive. People were even free to take advantage of it, bend the rules, improvise a bit. It’s just how it was back then. A lady could run a modest drug ring while her cousin might be turning tricks in an alley way. A rural guy might have started something up in his field, a grow op, something simple like that. The cops stayed away. They were more interested in political crimes, things that jeopardized the sanctity of the state. Of course, the doctor was apolitical, he told people it made his dick soft. Nobody believed him. He was just too hated to muster anything remotely political. He relied solely on his charm – which many people saw directly through, some even said it disgusted them – and the naivety of newcomers, of which there was a steady stream thanks to the Landing Docks just a few clicks down the road.

By this point I was powerless. I’d wasted my time on a piece of shit scheme with nothing to show for it but this lowsy brass ring and a couple of mild STDs. 

This is part of an ongoing work of non-erotic autofiction outlining the real life and times of the author. 

-Glen Davis

2018: A SUB/DOM KINDA YEAR

Since the day I was born I knew I was destined to run a blog. Not just any blog, this blog, the only blog. What some may call "the Last Blog". But I don't follow that sort of trite sentimentalism. I like to look at things as they are: the year 2018 is done, complete, is it not? And as an online semi-periodical for a dormant record label, it is our civic, if not global duty to contribute to the torrential flood of reflective opinions on the year's happenings, goings on, banquets, do's, festivities, mundanities, successes, failures, disappearances, coersions, murders, , and other forms of EVENTS, both of the sonic and material qualities - is it not? 

DB Influenza would never have bothered because he was too preoccupied watching his psychological mind-sculpture slowly disintegrate in front of him. He claims it took seven years to carve out, seven lonely years spent in an oversized refrigerator where the only the source of consistent illumination was the light of his mind. Apparently, this light has since gone out.

Yes sireee bill it's a year end list like all the rest of em. When it comes to the musical endeavours I hardly heard a peep from the world, though more than in past years. Truth be told I listened to Townes van Z, Sandy Denny, and old Jim Shepard 90% of the time. That's the truth. The lie is that I was mining the underground from my remote maritime outpost, digging up gems that I shall now impart upon you, the reader. But I probably heard plenty of stuff. Here's what I can guarantee you was listened to by me more than twice: 

Tarkamt :: "Live at the Necropolis"  
- I guess this one takes the cake. Just the kinda thing I like, not just because Alan Bishop shows up to blast a sax solo.
NON Worldwide Compilation Trilogy 
- behemoth encyclopaedia of contemporary mega music.
Enhet for fri musik ::"Det finss ett hjorta som for dig" 
- wrought iron proof that Scandinavians still have access to recording devices.
Special Interests :: "Spiraling" 
- a supergroup, of sorts.
Agnarkea :: "Black Helicopters" 
- a conversational beat parade. Pronounced "anarchy".
Bonaventure :: "Mentor"  
- mostly the title track.
Essaie Pas :: "New Path" 
- Marie Davidson and some guy - maybe you know him? 
Rik and the Pigs :: "A Child's Gator"  
- rock music should not mean suck music.
Eiko Ishibashi and Darin Gray :: "Ichida" 
- I had a few good mid-year naps to this that I will never forget.
chik white :: "Stranger Calls to Land"
- wait...didn't this come out in 2017!?  

Honorable mentions to Hank Wood and Friends, Rainforest Spiritual Enslavement, Klein, US Girls, Lonnie Holley, anything that ended up on the Blog of Roland, Richard Papiercuts, Mosquitoes, Mariah Carey, JPEGMAFIA, Lavender Flu, Senyawa, Mdou Moctar, Alison Cotton, Chris C. and Bill O., Dead Girl's Party, Rosali, Negative Scanner, Judy Dyble, Soho Rezanejad, William Parker, Tashi Dorji, etc. etc. etc. ad infintum... +reissues.

And there you have it. A mych heavy year on the rhythm beat than on the traditional scuzz n scronk than I've gravitated towards in the past. Perhaps it was due to the official retirement of Brian Turner's show on WFMU, my primary source of scuzz n scronk for nary a decade. No matter, I just go with the flo. I synthesize the sensory world into my own making, as should you. 

I know yr wondering, but Glen, you said chik white, but where's the rest of the LOCAL TALENT? Have you no respect for your community? Tsktsk, there were plenty of worthwhile transmissions emanating from my immediate proximity, I was just going thru a "phase" and a lot of it didn't make it past my nose hairs. No matter, I predict 2019 will be a champagne year for K'jipuktuk/Halifax City. Yes it's all gonna happen in 2019. It's already happening, innit?

And the rest of you...better luck next year!

 -G. Davis