BANGUS JUNK MAIL

Dear Mr Pecore:
I have only recently come to discover BANGUS ONLINE,  and would just like to say that the columns are certainly shabbily written at best, and often quite offensive. You are squandering a great opportunity to reach out to the world and make a positive statement as I no longer think that the internet is a crazy fad like Prince. Now, I realize that humour is quite subjective so I did ask others to read your column as well and we have all essentially come to the same conclusion. It’s infantile, cynical and jaded. And what has happened to proper punctuation? Now, I know you will make fun of this input, but since you espouse freedom of speech, I am simply exercising mine. I will continue to read, not out of interest, but more out of a sense of dismay and profound disappointment. Now, there is some homemade turkey soup for you at home that you can pick up. You need to eat healthier. Your father bought a new second hand snow blower from the neighbour that won’t start. He’s quite upset, understandably so. You really should call more often.
Love Mom

Hey Kevin
Something’s come up. Can I crash at your place for the next few years? Just till things cool down. I can help your son with his slice and I can vacuum and shovel the driveway and whatever y’all need. I know you have a basement because I can see it from the street. I’m the one parked in your driveway. I have six chicks with me, but they’re light eaters and can sleep in the van. I’m down to about nine hundred bucks but it’s yours if you can help me out.
Your friend,
Tiger

Dear Kevin - I recently watched Stanley Kubrick’s Dr Strangelove and remembered a conversation we had a few years ago about this movie. I hadn’t seen it at the time but told you that if Peter Sellers was in it, I probably wouldn’t like it. Then you hit me in the neck three times and suckered me once in the kidney area. And then you stormed out of the wedding. For the life of me I can’t remember who was getting married. We were in Owen Sound I think. Anyway, I’m not sure if your remember this or not, but I Googled you and found you writing for Bay Today. Your columns are inane but in a mind-numbing way, so I have been reading them and printing them out for the people on the base. I felt obligated to contact you to take back what I said about Dr Stangelove - Peter Sellers is a genius in it.
Lt. Col. James ‘Coconut’ Jones 


Hey jerk face - you were the only guy in this country to stick up for me when that CBC radio thing went viral. That whole interview was a setup. Damn that Jian Ghomeshi. I don’t trust anyone that wears fancy scarves. Anyway, much obliged. My agent, Mississippi Gary, found your contact info on the web. I read some of your stuff. Not my kind of thing. Mark Twain was a true Southern gentleman. You just write real bad. I’m sending you a copy of Bad Santa as a token of my appreciation.
Billy Bob Thorton

Dear Mizter Pekore - my husband is in hiding right now as he has been accused of being a terrorist. He said some things to the wrong people after drinking a jug of chokecherry wine before a funeral. He asked me to touch base with you to see if you know of any good civil liberty lawyers. My husband says that he thinks you’re trustworthy, but a little off kilter. Please reply to this email as soon as possible as my husband is in poor spirits.
Rosa Yanz

BANGUS FOREIGN AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT REPORTED MISSING

MISSING - BANGUS ONLINE'S FOREIGN AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT. IF YOU SEE HIM, APPROACH WITH CAUTION - OR NOT - IT'S YOUR CALL. IF YOU HAVE HIM IN A CAGE IN THE BASEMENT, PLEASE BE NICE TO HIM AND RETURN AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. WE HAVE A FED-EX ACCOUNT. E-MAIL FOR SHIPPING DETAILS.CHRIS, IF YOU ARE READING THIS, PLEASE DON'T GO SEE INCEPTION. IT'S QUITE LONG. BUT ELLEN PAGE IS VERY GOOD. DICAPRIO IS OKAY, BUT LIKE I SAID, IT IS QUITE LONG AND CONFUSING, BUT GOD FORBID I TELL YOU WHAT TO SPEND YOUR HARD EARNED MONEY ON.

Iggy Pop and Mystic Fire’s Big Book of Mystic Secrets & Wizard Stuff with Unicorns

“What worries me is the professionalism of everything.” Irvine Welsh

Hey. I wrote this remarkable column the other day. It was brilliant - a real work of literature - 1,200 words of literary gold. I swear this thing had everything: flowing sentences, eight metaphors, romance, references to Sammy Davis Jr., and I think there was something about the Canadian Rockies. It was fabulous, and would have surely won me some type of major award and possibly a mention on CBC’s Morning North with host Marcus Schwabe. (I’m not sure if I spelled his name correctly as I no longer Google things.) The column, well, once published, I’m reasonably sure there may have even been a parade for me, like the recent Shriner shindig, except it would be me sitting on the back of a pickup waving a sword around like a menace. But, I deleted it. Gone. Poof. I guess you’ll just have to take my word for it. So I ripped this one out instead, which is neither brilliant nor does it make any reference to the Canadian Rockies. I still may end up waving a sword around, mind you - just to see what happens...

Words and rhythm. Music and writing. Music is tattooed way deep down into my genetic makeup. Jazz. Blues. Appalachian Mountain. Zydeco. Funk and soul. It’s all way down there in that sub-cellular level where things tend to get pretty weird. The music gene or “Django Gene XX14” makes my crazy DNA ladder rumble around. I need music every day, like caffeine, Judge Judy, and Nexium. I have cds stacked all over my downstairs office. Towers of them. I lose them. I give them away. I write music. Play music. Lend, borrow and steal music. I tend to over-think things and get too hung up in the mundane if I find myself in total silence. Music propels me, like a shove from a bully.

Words and rhythm. Music and writing. Right now it’s Sunday morning somewhere. Through headphones, Iggy Pop is slagging through Lust for Life, which works just fine for me. The song featured prominently in the success of Train Spotting; an adaptation of Irvine Welshs’ ragged and hazardous first novel of the same name. I’ll be going off on Irvine in a future column.

Okay, so Iggy’s still howling about Johnny Yen. Iggy’s a dangerous cat, provoking me to WRITE IN UPPERCASE, TO RUN OUT INTO THE STREET AND PUSH OVER A TRASH CAN OR COMANDEER A LITTLE RASCAL SCOOTER AND DRIVE IT INTO A TREE.
So, here’s the deal for this week’s column- guaranteed to interest a precious few - I’m going to cue up random songs from my computer then just write whatever comes to mind. No edits. No worries. No inner voices. And in the immortal words of Methuselah: If you know the words feel free to sing along!

Spontaneous Writing Experiment #1 -Iggy Pop and the Stooges- Raw Power

Last night there was a bit of a cold snap. Today it’s high noon and my beloved city has fully descended into a bleak state of absolute chaos, having nothing to do with last night’s cold snap. Today is all about blind madness in epidemic proportions. A plague of instant insanity. Out from the opened window I look down on street level. Mr. Knoph is in a blue bathrobe running down the middle of the street, screaming and shaking one bony fist at the darkening sky, while trying to keep his robe closed with his other hand. Across from my 2nd floor apartment, 930 McIntyre is on fire. I listen to glass breaking. Pops and cracks. It’s the largest house on the 200 block. A bloated McMansion owned by an Air Canada pilot with a biting pill habit. His wife, Marlene, is trying to extinguish the inferno with a kinked garden hose. I light a cigarette with the dented Zippo Mrs. Henderson gave to me after her son Henry was imprisoned for arson. She told me Henry’s Zippo would only bring back bad memories. Fire is the great equalizer. And Armageddon. And ponzi schemes. A police cruiser speeds past, almost running down Mr. Knoph, who although is still shaking his fist at the heavens, has since stopped screaming. He has also evidently given up trying to keep his robe closed. A sonic boom rattles my walls. The cruiser rams a 50 Cab broadside. Objects are now dropping from the sky. I crank my neck and look up. I squint. The sky is now full of colour and crazy shapes. Random things raining down: a green desk lamp and bent lightning rods, a white sectional sofa and a few English saddles, a roasted chicken bounces off the Camry parked by the curb - the one with the canoe strapped to the roof with frayed bungee cords, some plastic dolls, a gazebo, globe and four gazelles, and various types of both brass and woodwind instruments. Old Testaments, New Testaments and basketballs. Canadian Tire flyers. I see Mr. Knoph. I sniff. This morning I woke up with a fever. I was out last night at 100 Georges drinking with a stranger who told me about his habit of twisting the truth when it came down to the crunch. I’m thinking that I should probably yell down a warning to Mr. Knoph when he’s crushed by a plummeting John Deere riding lawnmower. I sneeze and sniff and go back to bed. Maybe I’ll feel better after some more sleep.

Baffled Buffoon Beaten Beautifully By Brilliant Banana Balloon Boy

“Albert Einstein was a ladies' man.While he was working on his universal plan, he was making out like Charlie Sheen. He was a genius.” Warren Zevon

I spend the majority of my time inside my brain. It’s my working office. Thinking. Plotting. Scheming. In my brain I keep my shoes on all the time and leave the toilet seat up when I hit the can. There’s room for my green recliner with the ass groove, a small fridge, my Fender Telecaster with Cyber Twin amplifier, my three-legged bookcase that once belonged to Pierre Trudeau’s neighbour, “Marvellous Wayne” Tubsoch, my Boomtown Rats records, and even the tiny herd of those freakishly small miniature ponies. Inside my brain nothing grows, hopefully, so nothing ever needs trimming. Most of the time my brain travels with me wherever I go; there is no need for any kind of wireless technology. My internet is not on a stick. My internet is a complicated mess of neurons and strands of grey matter that’s fairly dependable considering the haphazard wiring. No monthly fees.

There’s a heavy steel door designed to withstand a million megaton nuclear blast. Or just a good old fashioned carpet bombing. Perfectly balanced, the door pivots smoothly with a delicate touch of a single digit. Most of the time it’s kept slightly ajar, just for airflow. Sometimes I’ll close it when people try to sell me heavily discounted natural gas, or some type of quasi-religion literature.

Bangus Book of the Day