The following is a draft excerpt from my novel in progress, Housebreaking the Muse. In this passage I present my protagonist, Ray Burke, through the eyes Ubu Reformé, one of the novel's narrative entities. Ubu pays a visit on a more youthful Burke in "them punk rock days o' yore" when Burke headed up an…
The following is a draft excerpt from my novel in progress, Housebreaking the Muse. Here my protagonist, Ray Burke, in the midst of an unsuccessful job hunt, obsessed by the esoteric project he's undertaken to translate the complete annotated works of Dadaist-suicide Jacques Rigaut, and overwhelmed by the voices of French Dadaists and Surrealists who…
OK, three years of updating this post and I'm still tired of the same old X-mas rut. Perhaps even more so this year as advertisers broke the Halloween Barrier and started with the forced cheer and jingly bells mid-October. As Louis Black put it, "How long does it take you people to shop?" This year's…
There are a number of recorded versions of "Roadrunner" by Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers, but this extended live version released as a single on Berserkly is the one that really does it for me. Richman takes the listener on a long ride around the highways of Massachusetts "late at night when it's cold…
Tired of the same old Christmas rut? Me too--and then some! As a non-believer, I've gone through various stages since first walking out on an X-mas Mass, and the Church altogether, a little over 30 years ago, when a fat pig priest (didn't even have the requisite "sanctimonious smile") started talking A-bombs and calling down…
Ed Desautels' Maximum Fiction 