the writing of john scott ridgway and his mental demons -- gilford tuttle, white male christian, and johnny pain -- punk serial killer with a penchant for vegetible molestation.
one man's infectious delusion
Published on February 16, 2007 By Gilford Tuttle In History
ADJUSTING THE SCOPE


on valentine's day
I get up around five thirty am
to kiss M off and lock her out the back door

Stumble into the kitchen
BUNDLED IN RED
she
heads out
and lets in a jarring blast of arctic air
tingling splashes over my naked skin

start a pot of good greek coffee
come into the desk to fire up the demon*
sit back down at my soiled and stained
once cool red leather captain's chair
let my fingers play a little prayer for absolution

give a thanks for my muse,
our fathers, my beatrice,
our mothers, my lovers,
our brothers, sisters,
cats, dogs,
gods
& my dear sweet m


in their name
i take aim





Dedicated to those of who had to be the snipers. We are coming for you. Your children are safe. I love that a lot of soldiers have been reading this. You know I'm saying thank you. Tell your buds This Ones For YOu.... I'll buy you all a beer if someone starts offering me some money to give away.
----------------------------------------------


*(the name of my computer's shell... which I put a picture of in here and dreaming n blue called it a pin up for geeks);








Liberal Lovers Of Liberty and Libations


We have to stop assuming
we will be
the victims
of another nefarious plot
forced into another war
lose another stolen election
let another species go extinct



we take the required two steps backwards

forgive
NEVER FORGET

sow no more regrets




start walking taut and alert
b ready to act
thinking
like a Lioness
raising cubs

& for dog's sake

DON'T DO ANYTHING
UNLESS YOU TALK
TO PEACE
FIRST


------------------------------------------------

Hey elfshits and other assorted curios,


I am reading and editing the recent flood of words to come in off the lake. They are about ankle deep around my desk.
M. has no idea what I am doing on the blog, can see only the mess that needs cleansing.




baCK TO


MOTHER, THINGS JUST GOT WEIRD.


The inexplicable fever of dreams bonfired on unabated through my first few days locked up at Saint Anthony's psych ward; like the romantics and their slow fevered deaths by tb... I went transcendental.... but the military men I knew taught me a thing or two and I learned to hold my toungue about the craziest shit.... didn't like the look in people's eyes when I told them I was still trying to wake up and unsure of my name... that there was something more afoot.. something well beyond a boof.

Whether I was awake or asleep, the writing and the campaign and this business plan and my dreams all continued to converge and develop; I began to have break throughs in my scheme during my sleep. I was growing in places I don't know about or understand; kept having dreams of how to do protests, organize writers for maximum fun and efficiency -- even a couple paintings and a chart... a chart of all things... I couldn't be more truthful than I am right now without video tape to prod me wicked little brainycells.

Organically the Crusade of Pain became more and more complex, going from writing some comedy, to protesting for the poors like me, to thinking I may have been awakened for some purpose... that I may just be a tiny part of a praxis for peace. Like some of you.

This dreamING ABOUT the projects I am working on was entirely new to me, the stuff of biographies of great men... not the mumbling of boofs. I would get up after four hours of sleep and go out into the empty hall of the psych ward and talk with whoever was doing the nightshit watch for suicides and sex. I talk a lot anyways, but during this period there is so much I suddenly want to say, as the writing attests to... and still they were kind enough to take me seriously, even as I paced up and down the hall in a hospital gown and socks (I literally had no clothes when they transfered me; they got me some real clothes after like four days.... everything I had at home was way too big by this point... when, like I said, I lost ten or more pounds to puking... not to mention I tend to wear them loose as hell to lessen the pressure on my spinal fusion -- lowers that all important pain score a bit).

Though this is as crazy as I have ever gotten without heavy duty chemicals, I was not judged by anyone unless I was an asshole -- which sadly enough I think I needed to be to get them to take me seriously as a chronic pain patient, though of course I am probably wrong... this is fuzzy time in the memory, too.... regardless and all... when I settled down and let them do their best, I was cared for and indeed humbled by the entire staff at the hospital.





I am KIND OF freaking out on the idea that if I quit typing my new found confidence will shrivel up and die. Stupid but true facts of the boof.


Now that I am home and smoking a bit again, I am back to barely remembering my dreams. This is a sad side effect, for sure, and I am going to have to figure out how to get those dreams back. I can hypnotize and stuff, other people... not myself, because of all the pain, when I try to get in touch with my body like I used to when I meditated, my mind recoils like a hand in a fire.

I want thousands of folks in the writers meetings putting together great shows, and everyone who gets something on gets credit....


Sitting in the hospital talking to the doctor and thinking I knew him and everyone else on the ward from past lives or something, I strategically decide to start holding my toungue tight. I don't like being locked up no matter how gilded the cage, and this was pretty sweet and helpful... but Pipedreams about bibles and john the baptist and aleins waiting for us to find peace are topics best kept out of therapy sessions with shrinks eager to slap ya somewhere they can make money off you twice a day ( you know what their student loans look like????).

Not that I still believe these delusions... they got my dylantin level up to ten and suddenly I was just more inspired than ever before and ready to take responsibility for my words, once and for all.

One of the finest human beings I know of kept pysch patients longer than need be, and he did this, simply because it was the way things were done, and it did indeed let him live the life of a prince. He also gave free therapy to folks like me and my ex-wife. I remember his gentle sing song voice telling me. "Your problem is that you are a revolutionary without a revolution..."

The 80's kind of sucked. He gave me a xerox of an old picarsque novel to read that he said helped him become a man... John Christopher (I think). He was a Persian psychiatrist who did his damndest to keep this manchild's traiterous hands from wringing his own scrawny neck.


_________________________
JOKESTERS UNITE


this is our right

we are
NO LONGER VICTIMS
to the whims
of jackel$ and fool$




NO, NOT On This Night


racing down from the stars
ready
screaming
itching
for a fight


that's our eagle
tonight








gets me to the woods











I would like to see Obama and Hillary in bed together


all greased up in red leathers and howling





better yet some kind of foursome





I am sure bill will agree with me on this


if he doesn't already have


an elaborate fantasy


or thirty some


to share


what with his reknown for 'pussy talk'


which seems to me like a way for two guys


to turn each other on


without having to actually get dick poked





he probably had a little dally in some oxford ho





they can admit inhaling, sure...


we all do that








but the poking??? the poking of the but??????








in


my dream


of


peace





some will poke but











ballad of john da boofster







I imagine myself moving through crowds of lepers



& the other written incidents

that go along

with this



HOMECOMING





yOU BAPTISE YOUR NAME AS A FOOTNOTE



in unweildy tombs

acknowledged BY all as one

who ponders great questions

not just one

who comes up

with great answers





so we're pretending real

in this pipdream of peace

this toddlertext teetering

uncertainly

through the

infinire mysterious







the never ending crusade of Pain







Six fourty five am. Minutes from the everyday glory of the sun rising up out of lake mitch (sick). The sky is glowing blue with streaks of red and orange contrails hovering just above the lake's brilliant white ice covered horizon. Below freezing. 50 mile back up on some highway.... thank dog I can surf anywhere I really need to go.





Bums and oldsters freezing less from the northern wind than the cold coming off our hearts. Outdoor wild cats, are no more (they don't have nine lives, but they do have a nine month life expentency on the streets -- which is better than a lot of evolved apes). M is off to her day and I commute myelf, into the red and black demon who spews my words out to you; I consider various fashions before going with the shorts I have been wearing for the last few days, and the grey sweater that I'v been only wearing off and on since... like tuesday?.



That demon name for the computer's shell would strike this fundamentalist friend, Tim Hickey, as a sign that 'a friend of the devil is a friend of mine.'* Well, since as far as I know there are no demons, and conversly am just as convinced that there are friends, I think maybe I got what the Dead meant better than Tim; I didn't have the unatural mental fences of a religion to keep my mind trapped on the earth praying and seeking my rewards.



Hicky must have been a fun name in school... did he use the double entendre to pick up chicks? Get a hicky from hicky? Maybe once when he was drunk and acting stupid, and he would revisit that gloomy moment for the rest of his life.... that is what good men do. Poet BRain surgeon rich man of u of c protestor builder of nursery homes who got all sliced up trying to help someone else who was getting all sliced up and wanted to tell the story but thought it sounded like bragging...





IN Josh Wheadon's world there are good even great demons out there; mythic, mindblowing and mind blown

creatures that just can't

or won't

live up to the legend

of their fangs and claws.





What happened to Angel and Spike and Gun and Buffy

and that blue haired little god with the hots everything

when they charged into the face of overwhelming odds



Guess that's just what you do

when the orders come down









*I know this is silly to some, who find no place for digressions like this in literature, but I am committed to footnotes; this line is grateful dead.











after all the years of worrying

...about being didactic



hitler



all black and white



I post-modern man all wary

stay away from drawing lines in the sand

or declaring anything permanent

for any length of time





get sucker punched from behind

by a horrifying creature of grace and forgiveness





a sensation of the sacred

sets me writing poetry

dreaming of cosmic order



I worry my cravings for peace

are the residuals of a bout with mad

something the new med.'s

will push out of my head in a few weeks



maybe some chain will break and I'll write

my happy sappy

got over the depression

post-treatment tract





fret what if I am going to crash

and wake up baffled

by how I was ever

stupid and deluded enough

to put my faith

back in this system



hope

is the last thing we expect

to find in a voting booth





we've been burned before

we're all scarred up



shot up and jailed and abused and wasted

and you name it baby











still

I sense

inside us

a mighty roar

that will make them shit themselves and run







call me crazy

whatever



I've been preparing for this moment

all of my life*



yr words

will never hurt me again



I'm ready

to fight you



stick for stick

stone for stone







or

just

forgive



you





with a kiss

on the cheek



and a



welcome to the show





















*phil collins

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