Atrocious Poems A to Z By Thomas L. Vaultonburg and Jenny Mathews

The Chemung Shamans Salute Jack Chick

Jack Chick passed away this week.  A lot of people blame him for the Satanic Panic and say good riddance, but the Chemung Shamans know it was really Geraldo Rivera who caused the Satanic Panic, and we say the work of Jack Chick was meant exactly in the way we have taken it: as a clever inside joke.

Jack Chick never tried to stop me from playing Dungeons and Dragons, but I know a lot of other people in Byron, Illinois, who did. Teachers and librarians and vice principals and jocko homo bullies and Baptist youth pastors and on and on. None of them were taking their marching orders from Jack Chick, the Attorney General, Geraldo Rivera, or anyone else. It was simply who they were, and still are. Panicky, violent, ignorant animals constantly looking to scapegoat someone else because this Universe confuses them. 

Movie like Mazes and Monsters were considered gospel to them, the same way they believed Satan was hiding in barcodes, in the Proctor and Gamble logo, and everywhere else they could imagine. The world must have been terrifying to them.

But not because of Jack Chick.

That's too simplistic, and not really accurate in any way. The Satanic Panic was real, and as a teenager in a small town who played Dungeons and Dragons, loved mythology, and was slightly off kilter, I bore the brunt of it, but I never saw a Chick Tract until two days ago.

As the resident D and D player, future poet, and lover of all things different and weird, of course I was the designated scape goat in our town. I was outnumbered and overwhelmed back then, but I wouldn't change it for the world now. 

When they came for the books in the library, including Bradbury and several fantasy/science fiction authors I spoke up, and was told to be silent. But I stood up. 

Alone.

So a couple of days ago when I saw second and third generation RPG geek types celebrating a man's death I couldn't jump on that bandwagon. He wasn't the one who tormented me. The ones who did that probably had never heard of Jack Chick.

I'm on a lot about a lot of shit, but something is sticking wrong in my craw this week. I saw a lot of people celebrate the death of a man with some views different than theirs. And I'll say something, because I was directly singled out and tormented during the Satanic Panic for being the designated weirdo in my town, and I'll tell you what, Jack Chick wasn't anywhere around. Those people probably never heard of him. They were primed and ready when the opportunity came around to persecute us weirdos. Those people have always existed and always will, but I don't celebrate the death Jack Chick. He didn't cause the Satanic Panic any more than condemning him to a Hell that never existed will make any difference now.


That's all the truth I'll take out of this scenario.

All The Outsider Poetry Colors of the Dark

Tired of sitting here writing nonsense to fill these blogs tonight. But all my errands are done, and I don't have to be up early, so let's get through this one as I watch All the Colors of the Dark on one screen and The Monster Club on another while listening to sports radio.

There were literally three separate revelations today about Donald Trump that would have been sufficient to sink any previous presidential candidate from either party. Three. The man had illegal dealings with Cuba, has been running his charity illegally, and owes 300 million dollars to a foreign bank he can never pay back.

None of this makes any difference to the people willing to vote for him, and seems to do little to motivate those who don't want to to vote for Hillary Clinton.

I'd like to read some outsider poetry and take a soak in a whirlpool bath for about two weeks, sleep underground, and wake up in an 18 year old body. 

There are some nice castles in Italy.

Here come the hounds. I thought I had seen this movie before but it doesn't seem like it now. None of it looks familiar to me.

Outsider Poet Thomas L. Vaultonburg looking dumber than usual

I guess I already cast my vote, so all I can do is try to get other people to cast there's for Hillary Clinton, or at least against Donald Trump in some way.

I remember one time I was wearing a Union Civil War hat at a bonfire and as we danced to the Romantic's "What I Like About You" we'd jump and yell "hey." It was a nice night and of the few I had before I turned thirty like that.

This is definitely not the movie I was thinking of unless this Satanic cult eats her at the end. And they still might.

Protocol Droid C3PO Joins Chemung Shamans

Protocol droid C3PO has joined the Chemung Shamans outsider poetry team effective beginning the 2017 season. 

Anticipating the lawsuit George Lucas will invariable file against him/it the moment he takes the stage, C3PO has retained the services of defense attorney Dr. Henry Wolfsburg, who specializes in the rights of artificial life forms. C3PO, known primarily for informing other people what the odds are, and generally attempting to put the kabash on any plan anyone else makes, was originally designed to be a protocol droid, and part of his programming includes knowing dirty limericks in over 27,000 languages. Your Nantucket is a Jawa's nenjdjdj. The possibilities are astounding

In other Outsider Poetry Slam League of America news, there just isn't much news due to fantasy football season. The Rancho Cucamonga Kookamungas appear to be the team to beat in the 2017 season, but many teams have made improvements, including the Rockford Pages, Minooka Meter Maids, and Kokomo Oralists. 

The Outsider Poetry League championship was seen by over a million viewers on Home and Garden Network, and will return this year after the Westminster Kennel Club dog show. 

On a personal note, I just obtained a nice collection of the original 12 Star Wars action figures and a stand to display them. It was an item I did not know I wanted until a confluence of several events reminded me that I was a child a long, long time ago, and was blown away when I first saw Star Wars. I now need only a Yoda and a Boba Fett to complete the collection for me. 

Outsider Poet Buys Star Wars Toys

These guys arrived in the mail today.

Actually they probably arrived late last week, but the USPS has been jerking them around for a few days. The damn USPS electronic system has nothing to do with what one's local carrier does. 

I overpaid for these, which is why I'm writing about them here and not on my real blog where Jenny can see it and kick me in the ass. The story about why I suddenly had an overwhelming desire to own these original 12 Star Wars figures is conveluted, and will make sense only to me.

Star Wars doesn't hold a particularly sentimental place in my childhood memories, even though I saw it when it came out and was probably as blown away as every other child who saw it. We couldn't afford to collect all these action figures, but we had a few. Not sure they called them action figures then. I think they were $2.98. 

The reason they suddenly burst back into my consciousness was twofold. First, I saw something our mother had gotten for us from a cereal box back then. I see now if we had never opened it that it would be worth over a thousand dollars, but we weren't in the habit of not playing with our toys back then.

This stand came from cereal boxes, I believe, and we had it. When I saw this I got sort of obsessive about having to have it, and two weeks later, I do.

The second reason is strange. High strangeness. We had twins that lived in our neighborhood. A couple years younger than me. One time we ended up at their house under the pretext of trading baseball cards and coins. Once there, they tried to convince me they had unopened and multiple copies of every Star Wars toy in their basement. This blew my mind. Of course I believed them. Why lie about something like that. I traded them several baseball cards for some coins that looked almost magical and ancient, but when I got home they seemed to have transformed into common coins of no value or luster.

This story always stuck with me because I am to this day convinced those coins did actually transform from when I traded for them until I got them home.

Anyway, I was in a legal meeting concerning one of the writers I publish, and the lawyer related a story about one of the state's most notorious unsolved murders. It turns out after a few microbrews that one of the prime suspects was indeed one of the twins I had traded for the coins. He had apparently turned out to be quite a dangerous sociopath.

I thought of all those unopened Star Wars toys, and how they almost certainly didn't exist. I thought about my mother taking the time to send away for this stand. And I thought about a time in the future when my own six year old will almost certainly have a Star Wars phase. 

I thought of all these things, and I had to have this. 

Now I have this.

Warning, Drawing of an Outsider Poet's Penis Ahead and a Poem About a Dick

Warning: a drawing of a penis is ahead. 

Thomas L. Vaultonburg, the poet, drawn by Kooky Houston

My Dick  

My dick fell off 
Last week. 
Since then things have 
Been stupendous.  
I’ve been writing poems 
And learning to cook 
Portuguese 
And I think I’ve  even found 
A cure for cancer.  
Last night I spent six hours 
Pushing around one pebble 
In my Zen garden.  

Did you know women 
Have eyes 
And some of them have 
Even learned to  speak?  

It’s the dambdest Thing.  

I lied. I still have a penis.

Shadmock Joins Outsider Poetry Team

Raven Shadmock, a character in the book and movie versions of R Chetwynd Hayes' collection of short stories The Monster Club, has joined The Chemung Shamans for the 2017 Outsider Poetry Slam League of America season.

Raven Shadmock about to whistle a poem

This will not be the first time a Shadmock has attempted a career in slam poetry, as Raven Shadmock's cousin, Wilbur Shadmock performed twice in the Rockford Poetry Slam before whistling in anger when receiving a 5.4 from celebrity judge Bun E Carlos of Cheap Trick and incinerating an audience of 17 at a Taco Bell, Rockford's voted #1 Mexican restaurant according to The Rockford Register Star.

Shadmocks are typically learned and gentle creatures, but if they ever get angry and whistle, nearby biological organisms tend to burst into flames, so it is typically advised to avoid angering a Shadmock. Whether or not this will benefit Shadmock's scores is yet to be seen, but local scientist Tim Stolezstotzen is said to be working on a Shadmock whistle proof suit for his teammates. 

Raven Shadmock has been a solitary and reclusive figure since he caused his wife to melt soon after their wedding in 1980. Thrirty-five years later he returns to sign a contract with the Rockford Pages, joining Thomas L. Vaultonburg and Nelson the Sock Monkey as the backbone of the squad. 

It is unclear whether a Shadmock's whistle has to be done intentionally to take effect, or whether accidental whistles or escapetures of air through a pursed lip would cause destruction. Does a nose whistle count. These are all questions to be answered in a physical to be performed Wednesday.