turkey dinner

turkey in the pan

A lot of turkeys were eaten during the Christmas holiday. The Club Morono turkey included a secret onion stuffing.

happy baby Jesusbuddhaoogah holiday

Whatever your belief or non-belief system, Club Morono wishes you all a happy winter holiday. May friendliness and good cheer brighten your week as winter seriously gets underway. Ladies and Gentlemen, boys and girls, let the holiday begin!

Even if you're unemployed, retired, self-employed, a student, in prison, in the hospital, wherever you are, may you feel calm and serene waves for a moment or two, before sinking back into confusion, agitation and drowsiness. May a moment of confidence and clarity, free of hope and fear, glimmer for a second or two.

the meaning of OOO and CHA

Lohbado by Lohbado

Lohbado was recently asked: what is OOO CHA? Club Morono is pleased to take another stab at this question.

On one level, Ooo Cha originated from the experience of listening to car stereos with beefed up bass. During the nineties, the fad peaked. One day Lohbado was in a second story apartment. A car slowly drove by. The apartment windows shook from the vibrations of the bass. The car stereo released an aggressive, invasive sonic boom up and down the street. It invaded personal space. Even people inside their dwellings were exposed to the heavy vibrations of that bass beat. The rhythm was: ooo cha, ooo-ooo cha, ooo, ooo, cha, ooo-ooo cha...

    Lohbado thought: that’s it, the sound of the millennium. OOO is a bodily sound, evoking digestion, the sound of material churning in a container. CHA is a cleansing, spitting, clearing sound, but at the same time, relaxing, like the body sighing as it gets into a hot tub. Then of course, there’s good old ooing and ahing to express surprise, satisfaction and excitement.

    OOO CHA also refers to a mythological drama which took place in a dystopian landscape. Aggression and greed boiled over. The Apocalyptic War had devastating consequences. The OOO were a group of administrators and senior advisors, partly responsible for the war, who took shelter under a glass dome in a secret desert. The community was located in the Cha region of the Poh Valley in the Secret Desert. There are many references to this story in older Club Morono posts. Some radiation leaked into the dome, causing the right brain of the Ooo inhabitants to swell, resulting in heightened creativity, imagination and religious sensibility.

cooking with Lohbado Video

click on the picture to see the video

in bed

Lohbado was rereading Malone Dies, by Samuel Beckett, then noticed the bed. It fit perfectly with what he was reading. In Malone Dies, a man spends much of his time in bed, alone in a room, although he does have an attendant sometimes, first an old lady, Moll. They have the ultimate unromantic relationship. It's one of the most unique love stories in fiction.

An important part of the setup involves two vases with handles, placed on a cart on wheels. One vase is the chamber pot. The other vase is for food. Each vase is accessible with his hooked stick. He can pull the cart towards him, or push it away with his stick. He can lift the pot by inserting it under the handles.  

what is a thought?

What is a thought? Simple answer: I don't know.

Next question: is it possible to control the mind, or is mind beyond control? Does mind flow relentlessly forward under its own momentum, or can one slow down the speed of thought? Can one deliberately focus the mind and prevent it from getting distracted with discursive thoughts? Can one prevent the mind from spacing out, daydreaming or fantasizing, when one wishes to focus on a set of thoughts or concepts, or to pay attention to something?

Simple answer: I don't know. Have a look and see. Look at what's going on in your mind.

Lohbado Eats an Egg

click on the picture to watch the video

put the hurt on

OOGAH

Tom, Lohbado and Harry

    Lohbado found shelter in a house converted into a hotel, the only building left for an entire block. The lone house stood at the end of a heap of rubble.

MOR

MOR: Positive, negative, Lohbado wrote the root syllable of Morono on a sheet of paper. MOR, give me more, he started with a morbid, dead root and let it flourish into a playful sprawl of Os open to everything and nothing, to oh so wonderful adventures of inner and outer worlds, micro and macro cosmos, concrete and abstract. He wanted to do something positive, but his mind wouldn’t allow that. It wouldn't be sincere to pretend to be in paradise when a hook dragged him towards the gates of hell. While in hell, he would explore and learn all about it. 

He actually didn’t go right into hell. He lingered at the dangerous door. He peered into the darkness, smelled the sulphur and heard the weeping, wailing, head banging, chest beating and gnashing of teeth.

Do whatever it takes to stay sane, said a poster next to the door.

First he drank some beer to take away the chest pain, headache and nausea. One beer worked fine for Lohbado to ease the upsurges of sickness. The first sips of cold beer felt good right away. 

Lohbado confusion

Lohbado went into shock and forgot what he was trying to say. He got confused about confusion and never realized he was confused. A melanoma, blue, brown, patches of green and black spread over the side of his skull and encroached on his forehead.

Rex Eats Hal

“I can’t repeat this often enough,” said Dr. Jane Wormsly, as she sat at a table with Lohbado in Lumpies Donuts, “Don’t get involved with a fool.”

OOO CHA

General Foak Heem, an outspoken critic of the CHA movement, loved flowers. As an elected OOO official, he recommended the OOO and the CHA learn to live together in a kind of harmonious dance. OOO could balance CHA on the dance floor of life.

When the CHA became too powerful and corrupt, toxic buildup clogged OOO passage ways. Pressure increased until the situation exploded in a loud sneeze: Aaa CHOO!!! sending the CHA back to the drawing board.

Moronic Moan

window overlooking back yard

view from back yard

Devotees of the Moronic Moan love power tools. Lohbado sat in the back yard to commune with nature. He inhaled an acrid, chemical odour and listened to the whine of a grinder as a Moronovian Man worked away at a metal door to the back balcony of his second floor dwelling. Lohbado inserted earplugs and connected with spirits of the back yard. During the hour he sat in the yard, the Moronovian never shut off the grinder. The high pitched nauseating whine exerted a hypnotic power over the Moronovian's mind.

Later, when the back door was ground to precision, the man could forget about it. The moment of grinding would be forgotten. Nobody could care less about his moronic back door. However, the three or four hours of moronic moaning was an act of devotion to The Great Nomroh. Oogah! Every second of noise and toxic fumes was worth it.

death rattle

persimmon

lamp under chair

eraser

pen knives

Lohbado got up before sunrise to enjoy the early morning light. Later, he watched the light fade into darkness and felt chest pain. The pain and nausea reminded him that one day his body will be a corpse. Nobody lives forever. This reminder put things in perspective. Don't sweat the small stuff.

expozine

Jaques Bovin and friend

Valium

Valium

I just got back from the eleventh annual Expozine, the Montreal small press, comic and zine fair. The event is a feast for the eyes. I bought a new copy, hot off the press, of Henriette Valium's Coeur de Maman, (Heart of Mama). I also bought a number 10 of Melody: The True Story of a Nude Dancer, by Jaques Bovin and Sylvie Rancourt. My only regret was to not have enough money to buy more. Club Morono was also there, with a display of unique artist painted books from the saga of Lohbado and the visionary universe of Club Morono.

The place was packed. It's a really happening fair.

lost wanderers

Lost Wanders in the Cha Region of the Poh Valley

Lohbado will be setting up a Club Morono booth at Expozine, the annual small press and zine fair in Montreal. Volume 3 of the Club Morono Zine will be launched, plus the Club Morono Guidebook and an array of Club Morono prints and painted books. See you there.

ephemeral

Sunday morning, when most people are sleeping in or relaxing at home, is an excellent time to do errands. At 9 AM it's easy to cross the street without fear of being run down by an impatient motorist. The aisles of the grocery store are not crowded. One doesn't have to wait long in line to be served at the checkout counter.

I just got back from the Plaza Cote des Neiges. I bought groceries at Marche Fu Tai. The parking lot and the mall appeared bleak and desolate under a dark sky. There’s still a knot in my stomach. I walk around for days with a ball of anxiety in the gut. It's the brain/stomach connection. I can’t stomach this any longer. I better find a way to reduce stress. Pets are not permitted here. Don’t ever degrade yourself to wallowing in self pity. Be dignified and confident. Enjoy the situation.

I marvelled at the sequence of walking to and from the grocery store. First, I'm walked down an avenue of tall trees, branches appearing black after the recent rain. The sidewalk is still wet and covered in dead leaves. I take side streets and approach the back end of the mall. I walk past a bakery, luggage boutique, jewelry store and numerous other small enterprises in the mall. Enter the Chinese grocery store. 

Pick out items. Go to the checkout counter. Leave the mall. Cross the parking lot. Gaze at the shabby rectangular apartment blocks and the bland windows. Each scene vanishes as if it had never happened. 

It's hard to believe that an hour ago I was face to face with a cashier at the grocery store. We didn't exchange a word. They're friendly there, but don't make small talk or phoney smiles. In the blink of an eye, I'll be in another situation. This moment will be mostly forgotten. A few vague impressions might remain, distorted in memory.

Disagreement about the best way to make an egg

Tomorrow is the big day, November 6. A big decision will be made. Years of debate, quarrelling, lying, bullshit and avoiding real issues will pause a moment, before the campaign starts up for the 2016 American presidential election.

Orson Welles Touch of Evil

I watched the restored version of an Orson Welles masterpiece, Touch of Evil. This unusual film could be discussed from numerous perspectives, the baroque visual sequences, chiaroscuro black and white closeups of the actors, the tableau vivant qualities, the subversive power of the narrative, which caused film producers to mutilate the film and try to pass it off as a B flick, the surreal, dreamlike tension and psychological perspectives.

plum in the stomach

I've heard about butterflies in the stomach. Today I had plums in the stomach, from unexpected news.

Plane shot down

Beth invited Lohbado to spend two weeks at a small house overlooking the sea. Beth gave him the key. She said she’d join him in two days. Lohbado looked forward to a little solitude and relaxation. 

The relaxation didn’t last for long. After he parked his car in a small flat area at the top of the cliffs and prepared to take his coffee down to the beach, two planes appeared, one medium sized, one small. The larger plane shot at the small, twin engine plane. A wing exploded. A man shot upwards. A parachute opened. The fighter plane fired a second time. The small plane burst into a ball of orange and vanished into the sea. Lohbado gazed at the spot where the plane went down. The water gently swelled and left no trace. Small waves washed up on the beach. 

woman relaxing

relax

I haven't been in much of a story telling mood lately. I sat down with the Wacom tablet and did a digital painting this afternoon. Some people don't think it's real art if you do it with a tablet. I've been told this to my face. Yes, that's a nice picture, but can you paint?

I think the answer lies in joining Club Morono and learning about the Great Nomroh.

lunch with Dr. Jane Wormsly

Dr. Jane Wormsly invited Lohbado for lunch at a spaghetti restaurant. Dr. Jane ordered vermicelli with a pickled sardine sauce. Lohbado ordered tuna casserole. They sat in a semi-enclosed area beside one of the front windows. It was large enough for a table and two chairs. Plants were jammed into every nook and cranny. It was the perfect place to eat and enjoy conversation.

disagreement

OOO CHA comes up frequently during disagreements. It goes back to the time of the Yee Haw Controversy, in the Poh Valley. It's based on a duality of you/me, us/them, yes/no. Add whatever content you like and presto, you have something to quarrel about.

push button meeting

The Chief’s voice sounded like someone vomiting. His words came out by the cup full, in heaves from the belly. Gravelly, a little slurred, choppy, harsh, the Chief swelled with satisfaction as he addressed agents gathered around the boardroom table, during a staff meeting in the Department of Standardization building.

wooozy

ooo plate

ooo face

ooo fire

Ooo, not so good, not all the time, sometimes not so good, ooO. It's normal to get sick once in a while, to feel woozy, face weird and burning up in the ooo fire. After, feel better again.

episode 5, taking care of Erika

Lohbado stumbled into a hole in the cement and nearly fell. Ben Kahn stopped his beige Lincoln Town Car. Ben rolled down the passenger side window and asked Lohbado if he was all right. Lohbado said no. Ben said to get in. Lohbado got in.

Ben was on his way home to his wife and five-year old daughter, after photographing a wedding. He felt terrible. He needed to talk. Lohbado could have a ride, but he would have to listen to Ben. Lohbado didn't mind.

episode 4, the romance of Lohbado

The beauty of sidewalk lies in its concrete nature of leading in a straight line towards the horizon. Cracks, not withstanding, weatherbeaten from hot and cold, snowploughs in winter, heavy rain and extreme heat in summer, the sidewalk provided a pretty patterned surface for Lohbado to stumble along in the heat of late afternoon, after Eva drove back in her Range Rover to Administrative headquarters, to take orders from husband Deputy Harry Stone. After all, she had no intension of ever getting it on with Lohbado. She was merely bored and wanted a little entertainment. There’s something exciting about acting on impulse, to leave the office and chat with a picturesque stranger from a faraway land.

episode 3, Lohbado and Eva

Lohbado and Eva sat quietly at a table by the window in Lumpie's Donuts, overlooking the runway of Yamaville Airport, for about five minutes and gazed at each other. Lohbado saw a tiny reflection of himself in her shiny dark eyes. She placed her hand over Lohbado’s hand on the table. When he leaned towards her, she pulled her hand away. 

“I still don’t feel safe," said Eva, "It takes very little to wound Harry Stone's vanity. That dog on a chain is warning us to be careful. Deputy Harry Stone has a big ego and a short fuse.”

episode 2, lunch with Esmerelda

continued from last post

Esmerelda drove with Lohbado to a restaurant at a plaza overlooking the runways of Yamaville Airport. She parked her Range Rover under the shade of a lone tree at the edge of a grassy boulevard where plane watchers sat in lawn chairs, or spread out blankets to enjoy the afternoon. They were like people at the beach, only instead of being on the seashore, they lounged at the edge of the sky. Instead of watching waves roll in, they saw jet planes come in for landing, or take off.

A large dog barked from the end of a chain attached to the post of a radiator repair and propane refill sign. The dog reminded him of the wild dogs he had frequently encountered on the Plains of Radiation. Occasionally he had to scare them off by throwing rocks. Usually they were ingratiatingly friendly. He got to know some of the dogs of the Secret Desert, when he ventured out of the dome for exercise. Colleagues warned him to stay in the dome. They thought he was foolish. People died out there on the Plains of Radiation. Lohbado was glad they were afraid to leave the dome. It meant more space to himself. It was exhilarating to wander in such a desolate landscape, where a person could die of exposure, or get lost, if he or she got careless.

episode 1, plane watchers

Oppressive scenarios vanished from Lohbado's mind as the jet plane accelerated on the runway and heaved into the sky. Lohbado sank  back in the seat and gazed at the rectangles and lines of city below. A stab of pain hit between the eyes. Lohbado took a couple pain killers.

The plane went above the clouds. Thick clouds blocked out the earth. After six years in the Secret Desert, Lohbado grew to enjoy bleak, spacious desolation, vast panoramas with few forms. On windy days, sand flowed in horizontal streams, blurring the horizon and creating a dreamlike effect. He almost got used to the extreme solitude of living in the Cha Region of the Poh Valley in the Secret Desert. 

Lohbado closed his eyes and dreamed about meeting an adult friend in Yamaville. He wanted a woman for conversation, shared interests and intimacy. They could do things as a couple and talk about themselves as "we". Lohbado yearned to experience the sweetness of love again, to ease the pain of loneliness and to feel new zest and zeal. Lohbado wished to have the social status of being able to talk about him and his partner, strength in numbers. Two is double one. Together they would set up a home and face the future. Together they would actualize potential.

stop and gawk

Captain Dream

Captain Dream invites you to stop and gawk at the drama going on in your mind. Watch how the mind alternates between drowsiness, agitation, anxiety and boredom. Captain Dream resides on Planet Blop, accessible via dreaming, where everything that happens is a figment of imagination. Look at the characters who inhabit the inner landscape of hope and fear. Watch how memories play and replay, changing each time, endless new versions of something that may or may not have happened quite the way you remember, some time, way back in the faded, distorted, dimly perceived past. Watch how easily vanity is wounded when ego does not receive the treatment it feels it deserves. See how one is fooled into duality, me you, us them, for me against me. Catch the mental turmoil in action. Watch the fog and dark clouds, the psychic storms, how one is able to make a mountain out of a molehill and to obscure reality into a self-centered blur.

sunny day

The heatwave broke. It's sunny, with a light breeze. Joe and Lohbado sat outside. Joe gave his opinion. Lohbado replied: "Everything you are saying right now I take very, very seriously, seriously. What we're experiencing is a struggle that goes back millennia. It's the OOO CHA dichotomy, which in the larger picture, could synchronize into a dance-able rhythm."

heat wave

Record temperatures as usual, Lohbado experienced a floating, dizzy sensation, with a few out of body experiences while standing in line at the counter to buy a small black coffee at the air conditioned cafe in the strip mall. Lohbado woke up several times, choking during the night. Heat brings out toxic substances in the walls and insulation and thirty-year old carpet. Drink lots of water. Enjoy the visionary experiences that happens as the body goes into shock.

visions of heaven and hell

"when love walks in" p. 618 Finnegans Wake

Lohbado worked six months as an odour specialist for the Glob Theatre in Yamaville. His job was to make smell during dramatic moments. Adding smell to the special effects department increased dimension and vividness of theatre productions.