Santa's Gift to the First Comers

 Lohbado went to the annual Club Morono Baby Jesus Dinner down at the Tabernacle, the place of mythology and suspension of disbelief. Strong emotions surged through his long thin body, as he sat in the banquet hall, polluted with pop tunes filtered through the drone machine and compressed by drop-tile ceiling speakers to lower sound to a flavorless, easy to digest sonic consistency, like baby food. All in a positive light, no leaks, only officially endorsed subliminal messages to grease public awareness into swallowing hard pills, as wealthy control groups laughed up their sleeves at how easy it was. Another two years of tax breaks; reduce assistance to sick, poor, unemployed and elderly.

Moronovian Christmas

Lohbado had Christmas blues, good evil routine, sin forgiveness merry-go-round, the wheel of happy sad, good times bad times, arrogant and on top of the world a while and then at the bottom, afraid, suspicious and discouraged. The blues ended as three wise aliens appeared in the east and communicated with Lohbado via a Zog-voice-de-scrambler.

in front of a store in Montreal

What would you like for Christmas? How much is that gray cat in the window, not to mention the golden good luck cat or the red bicycle? The window also features the Moronovian syllable "OR", which means, the great alternative. It's also the French word for gold. In other words, the situation holds rich possibilities. Whether things go one way, or the other, the results will be favorable. 

Pickle Jar Paradise

One night grandmother got really drunk. She stole her grandson's scooter and drove around the village, screaming and hollering in her nightgown. She tried to seduce a man in front of his wife. They slapped each other, pulled hair. Later her husband got angry.

She said: "Don't judge. There's a reason things are the way they are."

The Product Rules

Funny smell, is it my breath? Do I have toast and coffee, kitty litter breath in the morning? It takes a couple cups of hot coffee to burn away the slime and muck that coats mouth and throat after a night in bed. The bed serves as a doorway to dreamland. Sometimes disconnected mind appears to communicate with dead friends and family.

out of the norm

Jagged A, neon C, cool purple B and a hot H separate food booth signs in the food court. One booth, red, white and green sells pizza. The next booth, red and white, Chinese food; next, the hot dog bistro, then Halal falafel, Ranchito Latino, dumplings, club sandwiches and so on, enough food to keep a glutton busy for weeks. A steady buzz of background pop tunes filtered through speakers set into the drop-tile ceiling, this is where the remarkable encounter with a space alien occurred.

go blow your horn

To understand this image and the origin of the conceptual universe with its towers of belief, it helps to remember the famous nursery rhyme: Little Boy Blue go blow your horn/ the sheep's in the meadow/ the cow's in the corn./ Where is the little boy tending the sheep?/ Under the haystack fast asleep.

the apple of my eye

At this very moment, I'm eating a room-temperature red apple. If the apples aren't eaten, they soften and rot. Such unspectacular moments make up a big part of life. It's easy to space out or be distracted during mundane moments, for example, while standing in line to pay for a four liter bottle of bleach, on special for 99 cents, limit three jugs per customer. The woman at the cash wished me a good evening and then laughed, since it was 9:04 AM. The store had opened four minutes ago. It took four minutes to walk in, pick out a jug of bleach and some nose tissue and then walk to the checkout counter.

Gentleman seeks Lady

Lohbado gentleman seeks Lobada lady for quiet and discreet conversation about footwear and the dangers of noise. Must be non-smoker, non-lottery ticket buyer, non-TV watcher and non-radio listener (except Harvey Christ Radio Hour or Mannlicher Carcanno). Clacky heels need not apply. Orthopedic shoes preferred. Leather orthopedic shoes, especially cream-colored and white socks to match, could lead to marriage. Wigs are OK, but must be without perfumes or fruit and floral odors.

three ways of walking down the street

Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil; actually the first man (left to right) has a cell phone clipped to the ear. The second man is texting, while the third man is welcoming cosmic vibes, opening his chakras, or maybe getting a buzz of something or other. This is a colorized version of a black and white image in Issue One of Club Morono zine, which will be kicked off at Expozine this weekend, along with a comic, The Wheel of Lohbado.

Mind Temple

There's nothing worse than waking up in darkness and having to pee. One time I woke up in pitch black and thought the body had become a corpse and that nothing was left but the thought of having to use the toilet. This absurd thought lasted only a few seconds as I stumbled for the light switch. In Greek mythology, there's a dream temple. The word temple is too obviously loaded with connotations, no point going on about it. In Club Morono, the temple provides a giant container where one could sit and listen to the echo of thought, or maybe even try to catch a glimpse of thought itself.

Chief Priest of Nomroh

Wearing the three-propeller decorative head dress to symbolize the three zeros or significant Os, this chief priest of Nomroh allowed me to capture his image with pen and paper during a recent Club Morono gathering at the tabernacle above the butcher shop.

Egg Break

Most people know the meaning of coffee break, however, in Club Morono, one frequently takes an egg break. Eggs provide protein and a connection to the mother of all breakfasts, the hen. What would tempera painters from the renaissance have done without good old egg yolk to bind pigment to the picture surface?

Bread O

Before composing an inspirational homily about the after life heaven on Planet Blop, I went to the cafe down the street for morning coffee. An hour of coffee, prayer and contemplation at the cafe in the strip mall this morning, order a medium black coffee. Sit at a table where a man just got up and left, seat still warm. Waves of chatter from people gathered around tables made it difficult to concentrate, but at the same time, made my mind more fluid and receptive to messages beaming down from the enlightened Planet of Blop, to guide world-wearing beings down the hard road of life.

subject to decay

"All human things are subject to decay/ And, when Fate summons, monarchs must obey:" John Dryden, MacFlecnoe. Peachy last week, ripe for eating, meditating on a cushion of butter, this week, the peach was old, wrinkled and prickly. Did you still want to eat it?

Peachy and Cream

Two dollars for a basket of Ontario peaches; butter, in a Russian lettered wrapper, sat in the fridge for over a year. I don't eat butter, but it made a good peach pad.

Worlds

Speaking of intermediate cases, in 1983 a car crash split me down the middle. I ceased to exist as one person and became three: the person who existed before the crash and the two half-entities resulting from the crash.

Crow Spirits

 

     Mother knew the horrors waiting down the road for boys who persisted in playing in the basement with crow spirits, ravens, those huge black, shiny birds of midnight. The grid of time warped and twisted, day became night and night became day. Mother warned me to cease and desist forthwith.

tuna sandwich by the sea

One afternoon I made tuna sandwiches, shared them and then went down to the sea. A tuna sandwich is easy to understand. Cats and birds don't need an explanation. The minute you open a can of tuna, cats come running and crows swoop around.

Black Cat Road

Black Cat Road leads to the ocean, to vast, desolate beaches where a mind could wander into the waves. Toss the wandering mind into a sea of amniotic fluid. An old, arthritic, half-blind, nearly deaf black cat showed up to greet us as we pulled up to a farm house off a red dirt road.

Mother's Companion

Mother began her torturous palaver, unpleasant, aggressive, but monotonous syllables of barely repressed rage, she bludgeoned her son with words forbidding sexuality, alcohol or any form of pleasure and encouraged him to pursue an ideal.

Writing as Antidote

It’s hard to write about the experience of feeling bad during the moment of feeling bad. The moment I begin writing, I feel better.

Train Ride

Cement viaducts, wooden power-line poles, foliage with a dull sheen of gray-green light, tall tunneling situations, flat open panoramas, cluttered hectic detritus sections unfold like images on a page. Sit back in the seat and read the experience as one would read a book. Roads and freeways form story lines. Buildings, fields and clumps of forest are the characters of this waking dream, or situation of sit back and enjoy the ride. Can't sleep. Explain later. Nothing to explain.

Lohbado Suitcase, or Bargain Hunting Hysteria

I went to a discount store at a local shopping plaza, about a ten minute walk from here and bought a suitcase for 70 % off the regular price of $ 200. It came to $ 60. I checked out other econo brands and after unzipping a few, checking interiors, handles and wheels, settled on a Lohbado-style suitcase.

Dangerous Driving

A friend sent an email about slow moving traffic through a tourist region along a famous stretch of salt water. It brought back memories of doing cross country trips with the family, back in the sixties. Every so often, my father would blow a gasket, pull out and pass 3 or 4 vehicles in a row, sometimes forcing on coming traffic off the road, on to the gravel shoulder. He had these dangerous, erratic outbursts, sort of like road rage.

The Day the Laptop Died

Choking, I got up at 4 AM, did a post on Dreaming Man, had breakfast and went for coffee down the street. Unpleasant physical symptoms often give rise to negative thoughts. The negative thoughts won't go away until I write down what they appear to be saying. They're like demons, wanting to be heard. I let them have their say and then they dissolve and my mind can relax and cheer up.

A few Lobadesque Aphorisms

Bush Grandmother said one could never laugh too much. Fresh outpourings of joy are needed in a world suffering environmental disaster, endless moneymaking human-destroying wars, hypocritical moralizing, pseudo-spiritual sentimentality, wishful thinking and denial.

The Last Breakfast

This photo of Ungava Bay Road I took a few years ago up in Nunavik, doesn't resemble where the following story took place, but it happened to be a photo at hand. The story is about the last time I had breakfast with Grandfather Woodlot, a ninety-eight year old hermit in the coastal mountains.

The Great Nomroh

 Sometimes the Great Nomroh kicks me out of bed in the middle of the night and tells me to reveal more of his secrets. It's now 3:40 AM, I will speak of the conflict between the Nomroh and the Yees and why the ancestors of Lohbado adopted brown and green as preferred colors.

Miracle Solution

(Photo from Lighbulb Man series). Lohbado bumped into the renowned vermicellist, Dr. Pastrami Linguini down at Bobo’s Pizzahrea. Dr. Pastrami, at the lunch counter, set down his ham sandwich, wiped mustard from the lips and licked melted spumoni off his fingers. Dr. Linguini liked to eat first course and desert together, alternating spoonfuls of Italian ice cream, candies and foam on top with bites of ham and rye sandwich.

Under Protection of the Easter Bunny

Within the safety of gold foil, chocolate Easter Bunny, hop around, eat chocolate and avoid danger. That sweet bunny, incidentally, I don’t eat sweets; those bunnies were for the family.

Baby I love You

As a devotee of Morono culture, I went to the Macdonald’s on the corner for a small black coffee and to clear the lungs of damp, musty basement apartment air, before returning in order to get to work on text and image. I love you baby; baby I love you. Does anyone own a copyrite on the words: "I love you,"? Please baby, try to understand.

Front Window

May 5, 2010. Wednesday. 8:40 AM. Quickly now tell me, the experience of walking from the kitchen to the living room and back. Gray, damp morning light in the apartment, walk into the living room, gaze upwards, out the window placed at street level and make eye contact with the man on cement front steps across the street. 

Worm Can Opener

Richard Wilson, a photographer who lives in London, England, took the above photo and sent it in response to the can of worms situation mentioned in the last post. A can opener makes opening the can much easier. This can opener is special because it contains the words: “king of” and then the worm, in other words, king of the worms.

Can of Worms

Lohbado opened up a real can of worms the moment he felt there was more to reality than meets the eye. Suddenly, it was no longer possible to knock himself into a moronic stupor of pretending to have a good time, twittering until blue in the face, stumbling over text messages, constantly dialing the wrong number and ending up with computer operators and answering machines. The way of the world left a bitter taste in the mouth.

Happy Dream

Bright images to lighten up the mind, ear rings, bracelets, beads on a sunny afternoon, no need to be gloomy. The mind relaxes a minute. Thoughts settle down and things become vibrant and alive.

Tossing and Turning

April 25, 2010. Sunday. 11:20 PM. Fear of whatever was said or done mindlessly, regret about crazy talk and behavior, fear of not being able to achieve what you set out to do, so sorry, I’ll try not to do it again.

Shooting Incident

The above image is a digital painting, from imagination. Last night, while I was painting in my basement apartment, a shooting happened. The whole street was blocked off. It was one of the few occasions when I wasn't aware of what was going on outside. This morning there was a huge pool of blood where two bullets went into the man, then a trail of blood marking his attempt to get away.

Omnipotence

Death in Car

By chance, I stumbled across a copy of Crash the infamous JG Ballard novel about the combination of sexuality, car accidents, death and freeway-era culture. I've been enjoying a chapter every day over morning coffee, while doing my best to tune out background music, which is part of the dehumanization of modern technology, to bombard people with noise so it's hard to concentrate on anything.

Morono Spirituality of Spring

A for ah ha, ah yeah, aaaaa ha ha ha ha! Accelerate your spirit into the rite of spring. Why wait for summer? Now is the time. Club Morono wants you. Feel lonely and powerless no more. Club Morono provides a wealth of spiritual techniques to make you a dynamic, number one individual.

Eros of Sound

Porking can of oinky pig squealy sound fully cooked, observation, endless regression, onion skin peeling analysis, crumbling buttery croissant, poke your finger into the pastry to verify.

Sympathetic Magic

This apartment is composed of substances related to a body in a kind of sympathetic magic.

Viral Worms

Funky weather, hot one day, cold the next, turbulent arrival of spring made people vulnerable to sore throats, runny noses, a whole world of viral activity, microscopic worms and organisms, dressed in protein jackets and layers of fat.

Worm in the Hand

A worm in the hand is worth two in the bush, thought Paul Wrigglesworth after a worm fell into his hand as he walked to work Monday morning.

Worm Epidemic

Image from a worm work in progress. I find it helpful to post unfinished work, as an indication of what lies down the road. Stay tuned for the adventures of Dr. Jane Wormsly and her struggle with the Worms and the Arrogant Leech.

Are You Washed?

View from inside a car going through the car wash, are you washed? Soap sud slither on windshield before brush and rinse, soap and brush contacted metal and glass.

Inheritance

What did Lohbado get when the old man died? Gold oozed from the dead man's head. Lohbado's eyes glazed over. He gazed into the distance and dreamed golden opportunity. Heroically, he would keep going and not collapse in sorrow. It was hard not to shed a tear to witness such strength. In that moment, Lohbado was a good example to us all.

Death of Grandfather

 

The characters on this site are imaginary. It's not autobiographical and resembles nobody. However, they are valuable stories in the struggle of good to overcome evil. Maybe this story is too shocking and you should read no further. The story underlines the importance of good and the futility of bad.