Strange days!

Hi Tony

finally I mailed a pretty big parcel today
you will receive it in 5-6 days
sent it air-mail
and there is a few books and one cd
I think you will enjoy the stuff

I will send you some more next week
like I told you
some dvd (2)
and another cd of a recent album I did
which is pretty good
the lyrics are great
and the music also
but to much sinthé
I was on smack for the 6 months of the recording
I spent a winter and spring in the studio
making Japanese tea and smoking H

what I sent you today
contains some vintage books
and some recent one
like I explained

1. ROMAN D'AMOUR
that little book was written in the early seventies when I was doing a lot of acid and smoking grass
and mushroom and all psychedelics drugs... I was traveling between Mtl, Vancouver, L.A. and Frisco
sometimes leaving in communes sometimes on skid-row etc etc exile on main street time
When I wrote that little book I was having a heartbreak with Suzanne Queen of the Underground
everybody wanted to take her away from me and was too busy with other girls and dope
so I lost her and got sad and got mad and sad and mad etc etc and wrote that book
I very well known writer of that era read it on acid and he was a teacher at University
and he freaked out took himself for Billy the Kid and went thru a plate-glass window
and cut himself pretty badly and that made the new at the time
so I was a hero of the underground and over ground before making any albums
my books were put down by the straight in the tabloid and that was unusual for a poet
to see his name and books mentioned in those tabloid and everyday papers
So this book is a classic of that area and impossible to find and it sells for close to a hundred dollars
It is a pulp psychedelic kind of a novel that was never completed but it made history

2. CHANSONS D'ÉPOUVANTE
That cd sold very well and receive a lot of good critics because the musicians were great and well known
all coming from different alternative rock band that were and are legendary
the songs were the same that I had recorded in 1974 for CBS
we played them live on tape and did not change anything
the sound is more powerful and my voice a bit different more mature
and that edition is a special one for a TV promotion with a bonus second album
with one song recorded in 1987 when my daughter was born
and the song was produce by a friend of mine a huge rock star of Quebec
Gerry Boulet of Offenbach... (Kathy Reichs mentioned him at the beginning of her first novel) the first French rock band ever in Quebec
he died 2 years after sometimes in 1990 he sings with me and that is another collector’s item
I had written that song when I was touring in France with my band (French musicians)
so that song has a special meaning for me although I would do the voice differently today
but I did it at the time like Gerry wanted me to do it and I followed his guidance


if you have any question feel free to ask me anything when you go thru the stuff...

So take care Tony

best of



lucien

Letter to a friend...

Hi Tony

I am answering both of you e-mail...

I hear of Goines but haven't read any of his books and I will look into it... I just receive today «Road to Los Angeles« and now I can start my serious reading of Fante, in chronological order! Glad to learn that you know my very good friend Marc Villard... His novels should be translated and published in the USA... I hope they do for shim one day what they did for Fred Vargas... but she sold more books than him! One of his books as illustrations just like a graphic novel... and there is a graphic story based on him and published in a very important collection... I recorded a song called NYC were I have a character called Inspector Villard... that was when Marc was starting to publish his thriller novels and we poets friends of his were on his case on the foot field (we use to play foot, soccer together in Pantin, a suburb of Paris)... That was a long time ago but it is what memories are made of! You know Tony I really scrapped a career in France to stay close to Virginie... she is turning 22 tomorrow... I can't believe it... tonight we were watching TV, and she had a big night partying with her friends, and I was massaging her little feet, well not so little now that she wears high heels shoes! But I was telling her that she was my little girls my baby still, and that 22 were so young! Shit I am 60 and fucking depressed by it! Never thought I would get that old! Anyway... That nostalgia has got a hold of me pretty tight! A good grip... H was making it easier... Las night I bought some syringes for a friend... but for a while I thought I was buying them for me... Today reading the first pages of »Seizure...» I was happy to be off the habit! You write so strongly about it that it is the best deterrent...

Yeah I could read that many pages of yours, because I enjoy reading you so much! So whatever you feel I will deal with it and enjoy it! What else, did I want to tell y our? Oh yeah, about Crumley the first book I read was «The right madness», the title caught my eye and imagination! And the book look very good published by Penguin... Man you will love that, on the thriller side of literature but as good as Hemingway or Céline or whatever...and whoever... And The Alcoholic as soon as you will read it you will see what could be done with «Down and out...»... your agent could look into that... But in a way if it is bound to happen it will... sometimes I want so much to force things in reality, either for myself or for my friends... But I know from experience that what as to happen happens... But it is fun to look into things, shoot the breeze, dream a little... and I also know from experience that it is always constructive to formulate the ideas etc... You never know what can happen, so no hesitation from my part... I was reading «Seizure...» and at the same time, in alternance, «Coward»... and that was great... with a background of jazz paying in the Strabuck's sound system...

I live know day to day... the methadone as taken most of my life force... most of my drive... or is it life itself that is playing tricks on me... I do not know... but I do not feel like doing anything these days... Just the reading, tons of books around me, and cds and ddvs of my best movies... and some TV Shows like the complete «Laugh In» series (hippies humor», «Simon and Simon», «Magnum PI», «Northern Exposure»... «Mike Hammer», «Rawhide», «Soprano», «Have gun will travel», «Route 66» etc etc... And so many fifties and sixties and seventies movies... and all the current superheroes that are worth it: Hell Raiser, Batman, Sin City, and some others... and all the Fellini’s, Bertolinos, Godard etc etc... I have a 55ïn TV analogue and a projector HD... I will buy one day an HD system... but I watch old movies and it is not worth it on a brand new HD TV... so I wait... the other day I watch a hockey game at a friend of mine, on HD... After 45 minutes I had a headache... to clean, to bright, too much of much... Like no sense watching Easy Rider on HD... It was not made for that... All I would have to do would be buying an HD DVD player and run it thru my Canon Projector on a Movie Screen... but I am used to my analogue system and everything is in place etc... I hate change... habits... Virgo is my sign... and twilight is my ascendant...

Thanks for the books you sent me... I will give you more precision on the stuff I sent you... Do not hesitate to ask me questions... some of those books I sent are part of the avant-garde literature of Quebec and France... I was the first French Canadian writer of my generation to be published in France, at Seghers (legendary poetry publisher)... and I made a huge impression at the time (1978 and on).... everybody was on my case... They went crazy on my writings... it lasted 15 years... then I stop going and lost the momentum... but I do not regret it because I was with little Virginie... the best career... loving father... that might sound... well whatever... you know what I mean because you are leaving it now with Nice and Vanessa...

so Tony take care

it is so nice here with the sun finally... those fucking winter that last 6 months are insane... and taking their toll on people... I miss California so much... like I told you I will get other stuff for you: dvds, cds, vintage books of mine... even if they are in French they look so good are so hip that you will enjoy them without reading them, just a few words here and there and you will get the drift etc...


best of Tony

always glad to read your emails...
keep on writing in the same vein, on and on, until the whole fucking world get it... if it takes all you life do it! It is worth it! Believe me... I should have done more with my time but I did more than a lot...

amitiés

Lucien

Hi again Tony

Hi Tony again


the package is made
everything that I described in precedent e-mail is in

a good size parcel very well packed
in an Amazon cardboard I had kept for it

good luck uncapping it
just joking
should be easy
although lots of scotch tape

if I do not mail it tomorrow
it will be done Monday
by air mail

I sent some books in French
because I know you will get the drift
and one day you might be able to read some part of them
if you go in France for the promotion of you books

I don't know if I told you about a very good friend of mine
that is very well known in France and all French territories
is name is Marc Villard and he started as a poet of counter-culture
and after a few books he wrote some «Romans noir», dark thriller novels
and what he brought to that style was the presence of rock'n'roll and blues and jazz
so far he has published 20 books in the Gallimard Black Thriller Collection
which is a real consecration and they have recently made a graphic novel
with passages from a few of his books and it his very good
so your French publisher has got to know him
and 2 other very well known writers friends of mine
YVES SIMON
PATRICE DELBOURG

Go see the Yves Simon website
and click the video section
and listen to a song he made on Baskiat
he made the video himself and it his very sharp
this guy wrote more than 10 novels and as much albums

as far as Patrice Delbourg he is a well known journalist
and a poet with also one or two novels I think

I also made a book with one of the most well known counter-cultural writer
is name is Claude Pélieu and he died at more than 70 years old in New-York
I did mention him I am sure and we made a book together 2-3 years before he died
I told you he was part of the Beat Generation and intimate with Burroughs (he translated his books)
and although I was maybe harsh on him about his translations of Burroughs they are pretty good
and one has to take into consideration that he was a pioneer in translating a not so easy type of writing...

anyway
untill then
so far so good...

lucien
best of

NE CHERCHE RIEN AILLEURS QU'ICI: LES GITANS REVIENNENT TOUJOURS SUR LES LIEUX DE LEURS AMOURS!

Melancholia Pub

Hi Tony....

I was reading «Songs from...» at Starbuck downtown Montreal and I had on the table all your books, the 2 covers of «Down and out...» etc... A girl from McGill University was doing her session paper or something and she glanced toward my table and kind of froze there reading the titles... I got shivers going thru «Stardust memories»... what a fucking well written piece of life, or is it fiction, or a bit of both: in any case the story hit me all the way to my soul! So good, so intense and so perfect: the rhythm, atmosphere, choice of words, images etc... So that is why this book is important and you will have to salvage all the stories in it, although I haven't read all of them I am sure that they are all as good as «Stardust» and they could maybe be the first part of a 2 part book of short stories... Bukowski style, or you know that girl writer who wrote Bare Back Mountain, can't get her name I think it is Proulx... anyway she wrote good short stories about Montana I think I read some of them... and short stories are in vogue, as hot as those «graphic novels»... So far tony you have a pretty good body of work around a very precise thematic: life on Low Life Street... «exile on Main Street«... and you should I think keep on expanding that body of work... although it in the heavy metal aspect of that hardcore life, there is sensibility and despair etc... You are to the addict life style what Bukowski was to booze, without destroying yourself in real life... you did not get caught in the Destroy Trip... thanks to Nico and Vanessa! But from what I feel so far from reading you I think you should dig more and more into that aspect, at least until you have the fell for it and love writing about it... after well you will see... or maybe you'll keep on going in that vein (no pun etc)... I had fun playing around with all kind of variation of Stardust Memories and Seizure Wet Dreams... mixing them together etc... Some were sounded pretty good...

So far you have manage to construct a universe that belongs to you... very personal and sincere and written in a literature quality... A lot of people have lived what you write about, like a lot of people did what I did... but who as the guts and talent and inspiration to lay it down on paper or on tape or on the stage! You are on your way to a great literary realization! You have found what is so hard to find and sometime impossible: a voice of you own, a tony O'Neill poetic singularity... and that is not a gift from the gods or God... it has to be stolen from the Devil, fucking the Muses till they scream »Please write your motherfucker!»... And we obey, we do it... I am talking here about the type of writing we do, and writers like Burroughs, Ginsberg, Kerouac, Corso, Bukowski, Fante, etc... and Rimbaud, Baudelaire, Lautréamont, Breton, Tzara etc... it is another story for writers like I don't know, ... ? Rilke, Claudel, and all those poetic precious poet... the heavy-metal hard-core soul searchers, «star fuckers», brain blowers that we love to read and that made us write do not take writing for granted, like it is a birth gift given to the few... the writers I like went to hell and got the devil so scared that he ran by the back door... no forward address... gone! the writers I love are soaked in blood sweat and tears... I do not know if that make any sense but I tried to translate what makes me tick and adopt a writer for life... I know that from the start... It was that when I read the first paragraph of «Down and out...»... Hooked from the start, and addicted without any remorse...

Here Tony I will give you a description of the books I am sending you so keep this part of this e-mail:

1. Express pour l'Eden, my most recent book of poems... I am proud of it... good stuff... maybe you will get the feel of it just glancing thru it...

2. Roman d'amour, a very early book, a collector's item here and in France... out of print... a kind o f novel «à la Brautigan» but on the junk side of writing...

3. Chants de l'Amérique inavouable, all the lyrics I wrote... most of them recorded with Aut'Chose and Francoeur...

4. Des images pour une gitane, a book and a cd: love poems that I wrote for Claudine in the eighties and that were published in small number and in traditional typesetting and artisanal paper... I will give you the original editions when we meet, if we do and I hope we do... There was 3 books at the time and they are collected here with a lot of modification from the original poems and some never published poems... People went nuts when it was published: some said I had sold out with that soft poetry other said it was the mark of great writers (I tend to believe those were right!)

5. Chansons d'épouvante, a cd released 2-3 years ago... sold well in Quebec: a re-recorded the songs of my 3 first albums under the name Aut'Chose (my cration of a band) but the musicians that formed that new Aut'Chose were legend of alternatif rock of the nineties: Voivod (world known), Groovy Ardvaark, Grimskunk... We played the songs live on tape, with no arrangements: we kept the songs the same exactly... the sound was more powerful... And that edition of the CD is special it contains 2 cads second cod with a bonus song of Francoeur... that was a limited edition... can't find it no more...

6. Rimbaud: this pocket book edition was the first one ever published and the one that we all read and made us love Rimbaud... it is a legendary edition... we can still find some in used books library... not often though! That book carries all kind of memories for me... the jacket was perfect with that legendary drawing from Verlaine...

7. Le calepin d'un menteur, a very original little book, worth a lot of money for collectors... impossible to find like Roman d'amour... very vulgar exercise in writing... stuff written on napkins, piece of papers, matchbook covers etc... on the road from Mtl to Vancover to L.A. to Frisco and back and on acid booze junk etc etc... Very outrageous book...

8. Neons in the Night, choice of poems from all the books that were published at the time of the translation... it was well received... I think it either won a prize or a mention in translation... You will notice that the early stuff is very hermetic... we were creating a new language at the time... lsd poetry: new words, English words and expression, surrealistic effects, organic images etc... All the French poetry of the sixties and seventies in France and Quebec had to experience that intense exploratory language searching... while the Canadian and American poetry was more realists and still is... The closer to what we were doing are Philip Lamentia and ee cummings... and maybe other that you know better than I do or cannot think of now... In the eighties, I started to write in a more direct style and everybody followed my traces... And today everybody does what one wants, in all directions... there is a lot of weak and bad stuff... some think that all you have to do is tell a story and that is it... if the story is good great but if it is weak then it isn't worth shit! Myself and a few other are called by the literary academics the «californificateurs» (californificators) or the «américanistes»... we wanted to be part of the American counter-culture, the flower-power movement, de psychedelic revolution: that is why we had to use American words and expressions etc... The stuff is great when you smoke a joint or drop an acid tab... like listening to Sgt Pepper or The Doors... I am due for another translation of my stuff... I would not put the French version of the poems in it... I might put in that book those poems as the first part called Neons in the Night and a second part with new translations of poems not included in here... I have to work on that sometime...


so that it
hope you enjoy either reading some of the stuff or listening to some other or just look at it...

take care Tony


lucien xxx
rock-desire

I think that is it

I still have to send you a few other books
and 2 dvds...

Motel Francoeur 1

I am reading POW-WOW, book of jazz poems by Ted Joans, and at the same time, SONGS FROM THE SHOOTING GALLERY/Tony O'Neill! Wow! Deux livres vraiment VRAIMENT et plus encore! Aussi je viens d'acheter BEATS, une «graphic history» de la Beat Generation: Kerouac, Ginsberg, Burroughs, Corso, Ferlinghetti, Lamentia, et d'autres encore... Dessins supers! Textes d'accompagnement de Harvey Peckar et Tulli Kupferburg... C'est «in» présentement les «graphic novels»... mais attention y'a du n'importe-quoi! Prudence: tout n'est pas à la hauteur des prétentions! Il faut lire ALCOOLIC de Haspiel... et aussi: HEAVY LIQUID de Paul Pope, le Jim Morrison de la bédée! Vient de paraître des inédits de Hugo Pratt: deux volumes géants de la série Sgt Kirk! À tout prix et coûte que coûte! et ici on peut se le garder pour soi le jeu de mot facile avec un «r» à se mettre là où vous appliquez la préparation ___ (8e lettre de l'alphabet)! C'est aussi cette lettre le titre d'un poème des ILLUMINATIONS de Rimbaud qui se termine par: «Trouvez Hortense!» Bon ben trêve de forfanterie littéraire et que le diable emporte le(s) reste(s) in a doggy bag, ça me rappelle la chanson du Godfather of Soul, j'ai nommé James Brown: «Papa's got a brand new ___»! -«Ben moé man cé pas mon bag...» qui dit l'autre à Johnny Frisson en train de se fixer des idées noires avec Wendy DeBreeze et Nancy Beaudoin au Motel Francoeur à St-Louis du Ha, en attendant le retour de Tony Truand et Poppy Highsmith... Moé je tourne en rond sur un trente-sous, waiting for the man, qui est en l'occurence une fille ldu nom de Flo DiVague, une fille des Hautes-Altitudes... ça va mal à shop! Moi, non plus! Prends une chance avec moé! J'chante comme le monde parle et rien moins! Get the show on the road... and the road on the show! Let it all hang out! Cé moé l'freak de Montréal... Ne cherche rien ailleurs qu'ici: les gitans reviennent toujours sur les lieux de leurs amours... Parole de menteur! j'allais dire Francoeur... ouvert! 24 sur 24 et 365 par année! Pas de vacances pour les déviants! No u-turn, point de non retour, pas de veine... veinard, tiens! Happiness is a warm gun... And I am gone, bound for Nowhere Land! Et puis tiens voilà Jojo Mendez, un gars de Los Angeles avec du bon stock plein les poches... sous les yeux! les cieux! Et tout le monde le sait: dieu est mort... ou pas fort! Kilroy was here! Me 2! Ciao, en attendant: silence, on tourne! e,t pas à peu-près! Love me tender: rock-désir ad infinitum!(scuze les fôtes,sôrré!)

let it roll

Wow Tony!

So glad that all that is happening
very good man...
I wish I could go
and may be I will manage
Virginie goes to New York quite often
she has friends in Soho
to bad we don't have the TGV (Train Grande Vitesse)
we would be in NYC every week end!
but it's not for tomorrow
they have that in France
and they can go all over Europe
but here in Quebec
they are scared shit of the bad USA
so no way they gonna build a TGV

I bought a few books of Fante
-1933 was a bad year
-Wait until spring Bandini
-Full of life
-Ask the dust

Thursday I will mail to you a few things, more than a few… And if I cannot send you in one shot everything I will send the rest next week…
It would be cool if I could shake my ass and be at one of your reading in NYC… I will try…may be Virginie will get me off my ass1

Anyway, can’t wait to see «Notre-Dame du Vide»… Claudine will be able to read you… If you can’t send me a copy I will get it here… but may be you can ask the publisher to put me on his mailing list because I will talk about the book on my radio-net show and he can listen… So if you talk to him tell him to send me a copy and Claudine could also talk about it on her 3 radio shows one on FM and 2 on the internet… She in on «cnv.ca» just before me on Friday from 10 to 11 AM… and she has another radio show on the net but with a French station… and she is also on FM so tell him to send one to me and one to Claudine Bertrand… he can go and look into «mouvances.ca»… there are big names from France there and from all over the world… so he will get a buzz from that for sure when he sees name like: Bernard Noël, Arabal etc etc…

So talk to you soon again Tony!

Best of

Francoeur
Rock-desire!

Let it bleed!

Hi there Tony!

Thanks for reading my e-mails even if they are a bit long! Was at the library tonight and I was glad to see «Down and out…» on the shelve and I took one copy and put it in display on a table; I do that with the books of authors that I like! And with my friend’s books! A bit adolescent but what the fuck! I am 60… am I not returning to infancy?....

About the drawing on the door: what a fucking stupid thing to do... but like I was saying Buddhism is great but the human beings that practice it are, well, nothing more than human beings...

The Sokka Gakai is one of many organizations but it seems to be the easiest one to reach... there is good in it and there is bad (mostly when you meet the people... some are devotees and can't do anything without the organization and the master President Daisaku Ikeda, who is a well respected man etc... but what I like is the writing of the founder of that practice Nichiren Daishonin in the middle age... he was pretty far out and determine and sometime violent! he said that if you chant «nam myoho renge kyo» on and on you will attain the highest state of life etc... the Tibetans have their own mantra and the Vietnamese Buddhist... you see tony there is as many type of Buddhism as there is types of Christianism divided between Catholics and protestants etc so one has to fin the one that one likes and that one can use in his own life... for me the Nichiren Buddhism as the Sokka Gakai makes available for daily practice suits me fine but I stay away from the fanatics... as much as possible.. In this Buddhism we practice part of one well known sutra in the Buddhist canon: The Lotus Sutra… I have memorized the 2 chapters (2 and 16) that we chant in what we call Gongyo (the practice of the sutra) where we chant the Daimoku (nam myoho renge kyo) in front of the Gohonzon (a Sanskrit parchment that was written by Nichiren)… So I have all that in a place of my house ready for practice… I hit the gong (made like a boll) and light the candles and incense and make the offering (fruits and water) and open the Butsudan that holds the Gohonzon and start reciting the Sutra with a type of necklace of beads… Anyway I like all that ritual and objects etc… It is easier than going to Tibet or in other sect… The building of practice of the Sokka is modern and has regular chairs and you do not feel too weird… in L.A. the main building is on Wilshire and they have other center all over the state and the USA… Some other Buddhist organization despises the Sokka: jealousy, envy, doctrinal theology, etc… I do not give a shit about what everybody say I like the practice and from my study of Buddhism and believe me Tony I can teach Buddhism in any University in the world and that one is as good and as authentic as any… But like in any religion there are wars of words and beliefs… They have very good website… were everything is explained and defined… These days I am not doing the ritual morning and night but just chant the daimoku (nam myoho…) while I drive or walk etc… I was very busy in doing it for 10 years… And I met the top people of the organization and was even talked about in Japan (Home of that Buddhism and many others) because I was on a French TV Show about that Buddhism and everybody loved what I said… So I became king of a «star» very fast and some people hated me for rising so fast: again, human beings are human beings and that is why they are practicing and will have to practice a lot to become better human beings… myself included!

I bought 1 book of Fante: Ask the Dust. I will buy 1933 and Bandini tomorrow… it is the only one they have… and maybe another title: «…bunker» something! I love the idea of L.A. in his books so far… Can’t wait to start «Ask the dust» but I have to finish Jim Thompson’s «Heed the Thunder»… which is starting to be very very good… I read the «Alcoholics» and loved it… I will read all his books for sure and I have all of them but 4… People ask me why I read so much of these thrillers… I tell them because they are maybe the most intense writers in the world and sometimes the less known… Like tonight I bought «Nightfall» David Goodis… you cannot find any of his book… they had that one out of nowhere! Now listen to this Tony this guy, Jewish and gay, was hired by Hollywood after the success of «Don’t shoot the piano player» … But he hated it and went back to home in Philadelphia where he spent the rest of his life miserable and writhing some of the best books in the world and was directly published in paperback, it goes to tell how much he wasn’t respected! A French producer made a movie of that book and also of another one: «The moon in the gutter»… He is very dark, NOIR as hell… all his books were always available in French but you could not find them for the last 50 years… recently there is renewed interest in his writing… The same for Horace McCoy (They shoot horses don’t they)… and so many others… Chester Himes (how great his thriller with Grave Digger Jones etc) and all his other books about being black in America… He was publishing his first books in French in France because nobody in the States wanted to publish him! Man even today you pick up some of those university anthology and Kerouac is not in as a novelist! Nor a poet! So that should make you feel good tony and make you patient and more determined… even myself I am still not in some anthology… even if my poems and songs are being studied in all levels of schools… I am still left out! Some of that intelligentsia anthologist despises me for my popularity etc… In the States the intelligentsia has interest only for Hemingway and Faulkner and Wolf (Thomas) and Steinbeck…. I am not saying that I don’t like them…. But you know what I mean!
Like James Cain also no books of his on the shelves but may be The Postman… And John D Macdonald who sold millions of books… you only find «Cape Fear»… and what about the most despised: Mickey Spillane… Fuck no books of his but only sometimes vol 1 and vol 2 containing each 3 novels… there should be a vol 3 with 3 other novels… his 9 first Mike Hammer are unique… And Richard Stark? And Pronzini? And Marcia Muller? Now I did know much about these writers 10 years ago… but I started getting interested when I was re-reading Kerouac and was wondering what these guys were exposed to as far as books are concerned, and also when I read Chandler and Hammett and wanted to know more about that type of literature, the pulp area, hard boiled etc in relation to jazz etc…I even as far as reading The Shadow and Doc Savage… and even Spicy Detective Pulp Mag…. And I started to collect the original paperback edition with those superb covers... I have sixties edition of «On the Road» and «Dharma Bums«… tonight I bout the paperback edition of «On the road» the scroll version… cannot wait to start reading it! I forgot another writer of those thriller masterpieces and it is Shell Scott (pen name?)… And there is another one I forget the name but his hero was Race Williams and he is the originator of «hard boiled» literature…

I modern thriller writer is Ian Rankin… I like all his rolling stones titles…. And is hero inspector John rebus… I read so far 5 of his novels and The Black Book, the 5th, is the one that I like best… I read all Connelly, Harry Bosch novels are great… he likes jazz and I buy every album that he listens to in a story…
Rebus likes the Stones albums… Oh yeah… Tony… looks at this publisher’s books: HARD CASE CRIME founded by Charles Ardaï… all the covers are vintage inspired… good nostalgia!

Concerning your title… Sick City sound good… You are right about that Thompson novel, very odd but great anyway… and like I wrote before I am still looking for the thriller aspect of Jim Thompsons’s novels so far but I only have read 3… I am thinking of Patricia Highsmith who wrote 30 novels and is just being accepted as an important writer in the States… again we are not doing so bad with our writing Tony! Man 30 books, not to mention those 5 Ripley’s masterpieces… and no recognition in her own country for more than 40 years!!!!!! I made it big in Quebec and a little in France… but I am nobody in the world… that depresses me sometime… But it is my karma: a rock-poet pop-star in a small country!

I hate methadone… I heard about subutex… but I would have to reduce my dose and for the time being no way I can to that without risking the relapse into heroin… I love the stuff so much… I miss it… And I am mad at myself to have gone so high on methadone that I cannot feel H anymore… I shot a point a month ago and got a good buzz in the head but after that not much… I would have to stop the methadone for 2 days then shoot some H and see what it does! But I am not there… Ibogaine for sure I did a research on that and I wanted to try it but did not know where to go… And I am not sure about the result… I will one day look more into it because I guess I will have to maybe get off methadone… but the truth is that I cannot risk going down… I went down a lot 18 months ago… from 165 to 65 with no bad feelings… but then I felt like trying H and I went back on my 165 fast… And being on methadone keeps me from antidepressant! That is why I went that high on methadone to stay away from the antidepressant that my doctor wanted t me to take… and no way! I also hate that AA bulshit… I talked a lot about it on radio showing the lies and contradiction… the whole concept of sickness is a lie and so depressing when they say that there is no cure… and that God is the only way… and the prayer hand in hand and the godfather and the telling the sharing in front of the group I hate it… and there are other groups that are criticizing AA openly now… you could not have done that 10 years ago… they are now advertising on TV and radio and one of the sacred rule was never to do that: it says «no soliciting» or something like that… it is a sect and nothing more… all the people I know that are in that are like in a sect… they speak the doctrine they teach it they live it they dream it… someone told me I would not read the same book once I was in it for good and I told him well thanks for warning me I’ll make sure I stay away from you people… if you are scared of books you are very week people and I believe now that yes you are sick! No cure for you guys! Stay there… they even go in AA disco and club… and leave their wife or girlfriend to go out with a girl from the meetings… and they talk at Dunkin Donut till 3-4 in the morning smoking cigarettes after cigarettes and they go home smelling like shit! Worst then when they were on the skid… Fuck they and good if it does well for some of them… some people I know saved their lives going to meeting but they lost their drive, torque… and became boring! Fuck that!

Next time I write I will tell you about French Quebec literature, English Canadian Literature etc… a little crash course on the subject… Thanks for all the info’s you are giving me and the things to look into… I really appreciate it and make the best of it believe me!

So enough for now…

I will go and read and watch rerun of Magnum PI (I have the same Ferrari… same year same color…also have a Delorean 1981…not much of a car but a great looking one… stainless steel body… and I have a Lotus Europa 1969, a Porsche Carera 1988, a Fiat Spider 2000 1981, a Triumph TR6 1974, a Mustang GT Fast back (like the one in Bullitt with the plate: California Bullitt 1967), and a Porsche 944 1984 red (Virginie was almost born in it… I’ll tell you the story sometime)… If I find the time I’ll send you the pictures of those cars and of my bikes… A pity and a shame that I haven’t driven them for 5 years… they are all over in garages and cost me a fortune to maintain and etc… I might sell all of them before I get to old... my car friends all want to buy them because I have mint cars and they were all showed on TV here and in France… it is part of my legend here in Quebec… the only car that I did not buy was a Corvette Stingray split window 1966… my passion for cars stopped just before I had the time to buy it… and also I started smoking smack… I must have forgotten one car I am sure… memory weak! Did I love to drive those cars in the country smoking grass…? But you know Tony it is a full time occupation and while I was into that I was not writing or reading… only in garages with car collectors… who are mostly jerks… some have real class but they are the few! Either obsessed people or pretentious or very boring!!! I even bought my first car with a grant for a book in 1981, that I still have, and there’s the one I forgot to mention: Corvette 1981, beige, glass top… I didn’t even have money to put gas in and my guitar player at the time Alan Lord lent me money for the gas… We smoked a joint and laughed our ass out! After that I bought them like you buy t-shirts… oh yah I also have a song « Mercedes 1987(for the Joplin O Lord…»)… I made a lot of money I spent a lot and too much on coke… more than 100,000 on that shit in less the 18 months and close to 200,000 in 2 years and a half… easy to make the calculation: between 2,000$ and 3,000$ each weekend| I was earning 1,600$ every week end in discos, paid in cash and it all went into coke… at the time I had my own TV show Sunday night «Le Blues à Francoeur» and was doing the drive home in the number one radio in Montreal and doings the disco paid in cash plus adds all over etc etc… it lasted 12 years… I saved money although I spent a lot… I am not rich but I could have been… I missed my chance because I loved the fast life too much and because I am a poet and fuck Wall Street… Most of the people I know who became rich saving money and investing etc are dull, or sick or dead! So I guess I did the right thing… You know Tony, Celine Dion could buy me 1,0000 times but I was there when she started and she was poor and I helped her and she still remembers those days and kisses me hard every time she sees me… I was driving my Corvette at the time and she was young and very impressed… But now man I am a poor man compare to her! But she will not be studied in schools and will be forgotten when she dies… but us Tony, we will stay forever… there will always be a Tony O’Neill book lying somewhere for someone to read… and here I am not taking into consideration that you could come a best seller author… and if you do not your books will be legendary! But you have to keep at it… and write and write and write… do not loose time Tony… keep on writing: poems, novels, notebooks dreaming etc etc… I wish I could write novels like you… I envy you much… I am slowly re-reading «down and out…» and I am amaze of how easy it seems: that is the magic of a great writer…make it look easy…well sometime we find also great writers who make it seem hard… ee Cummings for instance or Proust…or Barthes… or Joyce…

Ciao


Lucien
Take good care my friend!

Well Tony...

Great e-mail!!!!

Fisrt, Am I a great fan of Mickey Rourke... man what a comeback and he has that Chet Baker ravaged look, looks like he has been on junk for the last 10 years... and the clothes he wears kink of zuit-suit and pimp... if I would be 2- pound slimmer I would kind of dress a bit like that for my shows although I am so used to my urban cowboy style... but I have grown those sideburns gypsy style long and thin... I have to see The Wrestler... I have been raving about it since I saw Rourke on tv talking about it!!! He is in the Brando and Nicholson league... with Depp, Penn, and some others... About FAST AND FURIOUS, you had the chance to see a trailer... I did not! Anyway it was an evening with Virginie... I just drove her to a friend's place... very rich people that I do not know... She has her crowd and is doing great!

You know Tony I was in the street when I was 14, in 1964 or something and in New York, a run away from home, probably one of the first... and the youngest beatnik in Greenwich Village! I made it by myself... with a little bit of help from some friends and mentors... but mostly by myself... If I had been in the States or in France I would be filthy rich! I managed to make the most out of a small place like Quebec... All those cars and bikes and other stuff that I own and that house and stuff in California is great to have, although I do not enjoy them anymore... my life burn out and methadone down and you know I paid my dues and it has taken its toll on me... Luckily I still look ok, do not look 60, do not feel like it, never was in hospital... but my soul is so tired and old... I was told that I am a very old soul at the end of my reincarnation... Maybe... and the concept of «soul» is not even Buddhist... it is Christian... And I despise all that judeo-christianism... but I had Virginie baptized... because I belong to catholism... hate it but I am what I am and was born in that religion... I do not drive my cars nor my bikes anymore... sometimes I go and look at them, smoke a joint and remember all the rides that I did... Today I saw a clip on TV about surfing in California and I almost cried... I was surfing a lot in the past...well up to 6 years ago... but after H and methadone all that lost its appeal... or I lost the urge to do those things... drive and surf... and even travel... I was in France 4-5 months a year and in California 3 months a year... Haven't been to France since 6 -7 years and California 3-4 years... I was there last summer because Virginie made me go... It's like I am in my bubble and I am kind of happy there but the Francoeur that I was still comes and is hunting me... and I have spasm of nostalgia... it hurts so much I want to cry or scream... but the methadone keeps me in line... me the rebel... the Freak of the Underground... kept in line by a substance... well you got to go with your karma and destiny... there must be a reason behind that... If I am there and brought me there... It has a meaning, a «raison d'être» and I have to go along with it... I never fought the impossible... always was wiser and I am still there...

About the Sokka Gakaï it is a great organization... but it is made of people and you know what and or people are... but the teaching and practice is great...Tina Turner and Herby Hancock are members... they have centers all over the world and are despised for that... other Buddhists say that it is a millionaire sect... But they make it possible for anyone to practice without having to be a millionaire like Richard Geere and have the luxury to go to Tibet with the Dalai Lama... or having to renounce everything, family and friend and career and go to a monastery in the mountain... The Sokka makes it possible to practice wherever you are... Anyway it did me good for 10 years when I was practicing every day, morning and night... and loved it... reciting the Sutra of the Lotus in Sanskrit... and the mantra: NAM MYOHO RENGE KYO... They have a website so take a look... It is a very personal choice and I made it but the after 10 years I got sloppy under H and stop the practice... but I still light the candles and make the offerings and burn the incense... and it makes me feel connected to something greater than this reality... But the best practice is the love of our child.... Loving Virginie change my life... I would probably be dead had she not come into my life! So, so far so good... I guess we have the life that we make for ourselves... but I have problem with that when I think of Africans etc... And all the misery in the world... but Buddhism has a better explanation of all the religions... it is not even a religion: but a philosophy... I God exist and he is all powerful he must be mad or vicious to permit or better to have created all that misery and if a Christian says that he gives us liberty as the best gift of all I say well if he is all powerful how come he give to a being of his creation the choice of good or bad when he perfectly knows that that being cannot make that choice because he has created him imperfect and knows that he (us) cannot make the right choices... tank about that I say to Christians «friends» of mine! Buddha has created nothing...
and he is not powerful but he has found some truths and has taught them... nothing more... All the beats were into that... and Nietzsche said it was the most intelligent and rational of all religions! Him being an atheist!

Well o well... Here is a little anecdote... I read every day at the Coffee Shop and write in my notebooks... and I see that as a private moment... and my friends if they are my friends respect that and if they want to come and see me they do it very politely... But do I hate those fucking buggers and beggars that come and do not respect that it means that they do not think that reading (and for that matter books) are worth the respect I think they mean to me... and when they say: «May I borough a bit of your time?» I do not even raise my eyes and if they do not go I raise them and they see fire... or I tell them like I did this morning tell to one of those assholes: You are a liar and he says why and I say you cannot borrow me a bit of time or 5 minutes or whatever because you will never give it back to me so tell the truth at least and ask if you may steal some of my time and maybe I will accept to lose that time on the basis of honesty... man the guy looked at me and he knew who I was and just went numb and said he was sorry and left... And I could not go back to my reading! >But I at least proved a point for the sake of showing some truth to someone who does not respect the privacy of a reader or writer or whatever... But most of the times I do not even register their presence... Christ! Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir were everyday at the Deux-Magots and nobody would dare disturb them... When I read I am in my world and accept only my real friends into it and they know how to come into my privacy... or any good looking chicks... there you go! That's the rock poet talking! Well I think you would do the same Tony! A foxy chick has all rights! Must have or this life isn’t worth shit!

I was reading this morning my second book of Jim Thompson and was kind of into it when that guy came and made me lose my concentration... but I got some good out of it because I realized that I had read 80 pages without getting the meaning of what I was reading so later in the day I reread those pages and saw that I was reading a fucking good book... The first one was good but it was not a thriller and I did not understand why they say it is a thriller... not even a noir novel... so that second book gave me the same impression and I was getting mad and starting to hate him for not being a thriller writer and being identified as one... all his books are in the mystery thriller section... and although it is not a real thriller it has the elements of one and it is very well written sot I will keep on reading him... I read all French literature and all American... I mean the classics and the avant-garde up to the 80's... But 5 years ago I got into the roman noir and cinema noir and jazz a lot... And when I get into a writer, like let's say Ross Macdonald or John D Macdonald I buy all their books... it means a lot of books to buy and then read but I am like that and I have to read them chronologically... So you can imagine all the books of that genre that I have to read... David Goodis, Chandler, Hammett, Connolly, Parker, Pronzini, Crumley, Burke, Reichs, Muller, Highsmith etc etc... And when I am fed up all go back to the classics or regulars and recent writers... but for a while I am into that literature... And I know that Kerouac and Burroughs had read them... And all the French writers since the 1920s... as a matter of fact weren't not for the French writers 80% of the thriller-noir-pulp writers of usa would have been lost... The French intellectuals had a crutch on those American thriller writers... Sartre saw in Chandler and Hammett and Goodis etc the real existentialist’s writers... and Camus wrote l'Étranger (the Stranger) trying to imitate James Cain (the Postman...) and he did not make it but he won the Nobel prize for a flunked thriller that became a master piece of absurd literature!!!! How that for an example of the strange ways life makes things is happen!

Well I will let you go and if you come in Montreal we will have at least a coffee and we will talk about life and writings and whatever...
Talk to you later Tony
Hope it is not too long… and boring… read what you can! Ciao! Lucien

Tony mon ami...

Hey Tony short one here
until later tonight
my daughter is coming to get me
she's taking me to the movies
hope she will pick a film in English
and not the French version of one
We saw TAKEN and SLUMDOG in original English version!
But sometime she goes for the fucking French version
although she now speaks English quite good
from going out with English Canadian or American guys

so to the movies tonight
I love that shit with Virginie
makes me feel good

thanks for the books you will try to send me
but Tony do what you can
I will send you good stuff believe me

and it pleases me to do so


I smoked a joint with Ginsberg and Corso
did not do H with Burroughs
I was not on it at the time
was mostly into booze and pot
but booze a lot
my Jim Morrison period
got fat on beer and Jack D

yeah my psy is so good looking
Laurie Galfand
nice name
little black boots
and black jeans
Levy's I think
I hope
and flower power top
and short hair
& although I am high on methadone
she gives me a....hard on!
(it rimes...)

but my case is hopeless
all I need is a break from life
no teaching for a while
just my regular life
«little things»
title of Jeffrey Brown's book
that I read
while reading
«Songs from the Shooting Gallery»
man what a stretch
opposite poles
but then again
it works
look into his stuff may be on Google
it is worth it...

AND I AM BACK FROM THE MOVIE

What a stupid film
FAST AND FURIOUS:
cars chicks mex-rap
so stupid it ain't even funny


but then again

anyway Virginie and I laughed
all the way to the end...

funny thing happen tonight
while we were taking our seats
a song was playing
DRINKING IN LA
that I use to listen a lot

and love as much

while I was on H a few years back
and Virginie tells me it is Bran Van 3000
and these guys are huge fans of me
they asked me last summer
to join them in Quebec City
for one of my song that they love
they were playing in front of 100,000 people
but I was 4 hours from there
a member of a jury for a song festival
and I could not make it
and tonight learning that there song
was part of my H ride
made me so sad and mad at myself
to have missed that encounter on stage
jesus christ!!!!
but I could not make it
maybe I could have thinking back
you see Tony
I do not want to brag
but I am a legend here
and in a lot of places in the world
most often underground
but isn’t it the best place to be a legend
they are the one the last and outlast all others
I told you about Beck
that guy talked about me on TV
saying how much he liked my stuff
and Jello Biafra
and here in Quebec
all the new bands and artists
since the last 15 years
have been influenced by my poetry songs and poems
and this does not mean anything anymore
for the time being at least
the methadone makes everything worthless
and do not know if it does that to all who are on it
you mentioned that program
where you can go and shoot H or morphine
there was one like that here last year
now it is under evaluation
but it was worst then the methadone
you had to go thru all kind of bulshit
and were probably under police surveillance

you are right about your friend
saying that the meeting with the dealer was special
I miss that sometimes
but not the pain of sickness
and I for a while

knew the dealer

and still know him

(I see him at Starbuck 2-3 times a week like I told you)

he can deliver here at my door

which is very unique for H
you the user have to run
but this dealer makes home delivery
like Domino Pizza under 20 minutes!
but if he takes more then the 20 minutes
he doesn't give it to you for free!!!! ha ha!



So that’s it for now

Take good care



I like our little intense exchange

I am enjoying it a lot

And learning from it

Plus it gives me the urge to write

I am getting poems out

Of my 5 laptops (yeas 5!)

And 3 desk computer

Well it is a lot

But I also have 50 pair of cowboy boots

And 14 cars 4 bikes

And 20 guitars and 5,000 books

And so many cds and dvds

What a fucking Buddhist I make

The Dalai Lama would puke on his sandals man!

But I practice a kind of special Buddhism

The Sokka Gakaï

Based on the realisation of your desires

Instead of renouncing

You reach for your desires

And as outrageous as they might be

You tend to eliminate the stupid one

And get to keep the good one

In my case I am still in the «most have everything» right now and fast!

But then again I put in practice the principles

Trying to be a good person and helping others

And having no destructive thought no violence etc



Anyway just writing to you and reading you

Makes me feel like I should publish a book of poetry

All I have to do is look into my computers

And into my note books

(I use the Moleskin one… used by the writers in the fifties…)

It is all-mythic I know

But hell it keeps me going…



Best of



Xx


Francoeur

Allo tony

Hi again Tony

was reading the poem
«The cure is the curse»
how fucking right it is!

I am going to photocopy it
and bring it to the Jewish General Hospital
were I am registered for my methadone program
they are very good people
the first methadone clinic in Montreal
but they don't know shit about drugs
all they know is the protocol treatment
that is to say
methadone is the ultimate solution
I wish I could put them all on methadone
take my 165mm and make a fruit punch for Easter!

Anyway to go back to the reflex ion on H
I do thing it is the best drug on earth
(beside what I already have expressed
about LSD and Cannabis...)

Burroughs did it all is life
and wrote the greatest books ever
but he was disciplined
(although not when he was in Morocco
where he was called
El Hombre Invisible!)

I think that you have to be careful
because I don't know but playing with codeine
even if it is over the counter etc
might be insidious...
well you know all about that as much as I do

If I did all drugs and alcohol in industrial quantities
heroine is the only one that I managed moderately
I was smoking one point a day
30$ Canadian
or shooting the same amount
the ideal program would be
to shoot one point in the morning
and then one point at supper time
as a matter of fact
if I could have kept my pot smoking
to that rhythm
it would have been real peace and love

anyway...
I think it is a good objective
to say to oneself
if I get to be 60
I'll do the last stretch on H
and then when you get there
you might decide otherwise...
for the best or the worst...

my greatest mistake
was to stop smack
and then again
may be if I hadn't
I wouldn’t be here talking to you
who knows

I was seeing my psy yesterday
very good looking and a bit grunge
28 I guess
and I think she fells something for me
she had like drowsy eyes
when I told her
I felt like buying a lot of H
and slowly bring down the methadone level
and bring the H in...
I was serious when I said it
but deep down inside
I knew it was just to make a statement
about the methadone bummer...

another thing Tony
when I read you dedicating words
in «Songs...»
and saw the little spoon drawing
I thought that if you do more of those
I would you call them
«doodling»
you could put some with your poems
Cohen did that in his last book
and Ginsberg maybe or Corso or Patchen
anyway others did it
it would make a great book
and a great read etc

I wish I could draw and do it

I got most of what I want to send you ready
1. Express pour l'Eden (most recent poetry book)
2. Roman d'amour (published long ago and very rare... collector's item!)
3. Chansons d'épouvante (most recent CD... 2 years ago... UNDER AUT'CHOSE)
4. Chants de l'Amérique inavouable (complete songs lyrics)
5. Neons in the Night (choice of poems, translated... both version)
6. If I can: Dans la jungle des villes (recent CD under FRANCOEUR)
7. if I CAN: «EXIT POUR NOMADES»... ROAD MOVIE based on my life and art... documentary-fiction... in California and New Mexico and Quebec etc


and I will give you expiation for each book or cd and dvd

may be I will send what is ready this week like the 5 items mentioned above
and the rest as soon as I get it ready...

well Tony
wish you the best
(come to think about it and what you said about Nico growing...
I stop doing coke when my daughter was 5
because I did not want her to see her daughter coming home after a 3-4 days binge...!)
so you are doing the right thing staying «straight» (mostly) until she's grown up...
you do not want to miss any of those next years that are the most important
then she will become a young woman and a woman
like my Virginie here
and although she is still my baby and will always be
she has her own life and lives it without us
luckily she is still staying home with us!
And I tell myself
that when she leaves
then I'll go back on H
you see
it is always postponed... always later... then I'll be to old to hit the vein!


Take care my friend


Lucien

Allo Tony mon ami...

Hi Tony,

I'm back home...

Claudine and Virginie are watching a «reality tv show» made in Quebec... it gives me some free time to be by myself...

I read Speed when I was in my 20's and if my memory is right, it was a french translation: I will try to find the book and confirm it to you...

I bought today a book that make me so happy, the new Jeffrey Brown: «Funny Misshapen body», it is so good... looks like childish cartoon, but adult all the way... This guy is not a

Will Eisner, Frank Miller, Hergé,Hugo Pratt, Paul Pope (Heavy Liquid, a must!), Moebius, Sean Phillips (Criminal, a must!), Jack Kirby etc etc... He is in the marginal, minimalist genre: with Julie Doucet, Chester Brown, Seth etc... But so sincere that you cannot do without loving his books... one of his book's title says it all: «Little things»... So tonight I am reading that and also Paul Pope: Heavy Liquid...

About H... What I think is this... I have read and have been told that once you have been addicted to heroine, or just did it for a short while, it change something in you brain chemistry and that is forever... no matter what and how long you are off the stuff... But they were also saying in the seventies that one single cap of lsd or acid was destroying you nerve cells (neurones) by the hundred of thousands... And that one single tab of ecstasy was damaging you «spine marrow» (moelle épinière)... When I decided to go back on H after more that 30 years, it was a conscienscious decision... a bold decision... I was turning 54 and my daughter was in her teenage years... also I was realising that most o f my friends were dead... Also I was smoking a lot of pot, 10-12 joints a day and wasn't getting anywhere with the stuff... no real high anymore... I was at the time fucking around with a black foxy chick... Shelley was her name... Maria Carey style but slimmer... and she was on H... so after my coke binge I would end up with her and one night I decided to do H to avoid the coke crash after 3 days without sleep... I did that on and off for 6 months without getting hook because I was never doing it more then 2 days in a row... But one day a friend of mine, from France dropped by and he had some good brown H and I started smoking it (with Shelley I was sniffing it and it tasted so bad I wanted to puke and did puke most of the times!)... so when I decided to smoke it I knew what the score was and were it would take me... mainlining for sure! But I had a normal life: money, cars, bikes,houses... etc etc I wanted to write and record... So smoking H got me back writing and recording: 5 books in 18 months and 3 cds in those 18 months plus 4 more... So I got hooked good but I was friend with a huge dealer in Montreal... I had money to secure my habit... But then we were talking of going back to France... I hadn't been there since maybe 8 years or more (because of my daughter etc)... And I did not want to be stuck with that on my back while going there ... So I did a cold turkey and after 5 days I was off but sick like a dog... so I got on the methadone program... then I slowly went off methadone, after 2 months on it... I was feeling pretty good, but with some period of feeling shitty... I should have kept going but the trip in France to promote my album was cancelled... so I was mad and went back smoking H and first thing you know I was mainlining... What I regret today and that is paradoxal is the methadone decision... I should have stayed on H because methadone is a bummer... I gained weight; do not feel much like writing etc... But were would I be if I had kept on doing H? I regret quitting H and going on methadone... but may be that is what is keeping me alive and sane... What makes me mad is that when I try H it doesn't do much... I would have to stop the methadone for 1 or 2 days then do H... And what is insane is that I see the dealer every 3-4 days at Starbuck: he comes and say allo... he doesn't push it because he knows me and respect me... but it would be so easy to buy... but the fact that I know it is money lost and all the works for a short rush to the brain... Like today I was in a funny mood... and sae a friend of mine who is using... I told him to call me tomorrow on my cell and that we would do some together... I know it is just words from my part... but it makes me feel good to just say it... So you see it is not easy... So to make a long story short: no I do not regret my decision to go back on it but yes sometime I regret it because I am stuck on methadone... so If I could go back in time may be I would stay away from methadone... I think... after having

The best drugs for the most creative and me where:

1. Acid, lsd... in my 20's
2. Pot, hash, all my life
3. Heroine... the best after having done the others that made me a better writer and artist...
I don not thing that, if I had done heroine as much as cannabis and lsd, when I was younger, I would have become what I am... because I would have felt good just doing H and nothing else... When I was doing it in my 20's I was doing it while doing all the other drugs and drinking... so I was never totally on H... shot a lot of Demerol at the time in Vancouver...

Although I miss H a lot and that I wouldn't be 20 pounds overweight and so off writing... it is better for me to be on methadone! More regular life... Now I say to myself that when Virginie will leave home, I will go back on H... sell all my books records guitars (but one or 2 and couple of books)... all that is not necessary and work hard in getting out of methadone and going back on H... another project for later... Keeps me alive maybe!

I am reading slowly «Songs from...» because I want to make the pleasure last... and I am waiting for your 2 other books from Amazon...

So Tony take care
I’ll let you know when I’ll have mailed my books and cd/dvd… or whatever I do send…

Best of
Rock-desire

Lucien

Autre lettre à Tony O'Neill!

Hi Tony

just read your e-mail
although I am sending you long e-mails
feel free Tony to answer the way you want
and when you want
especially now that your have to finish your manuscript
I consider our internet relation as friendly meaningful as any other
so do not worry if you do not feel to answer right now or by writing just a few lines
after all for the time being you are the one
who need time and space to get the work done
as far as I am concern
I am in a kind of free period
not much on the working table
although Ronald my relationist
wants me to get my lyrics ready for the Aut'Chose album
that I'll have to record this summer
and Claudine is going crazy
because I do not get all my poems together to form a book
and other project like an autobiographical scrapbook
with pictures and memorabilia etc
I am kind of lazy
the word in French is
FAIGNANT
which is not exactly lazy but creatively lazy

so again Tony don't worry about me
I'll understand if you cannot always answer on the dot
I have time now to write to you
and I enjoy doing it
whether it is to tell you what I feel about your work
or go on telling you about my life and way of seeing things

this morning I did not feel to go do my radio show
I wanted to have them re-play an old show
but since I wanted to talk about your books again
in direct relation to receiving «Songs from...»
if you have a chance listen this week-end
from 11 to noon at «cnv.ca»
I went with it for a whole segment of the show
and it is listen to by people all over the world
so it is interesting for the book visibility

this week end I will get a few things together
and mail them to you Monday
2-3 books with short explanations when in French
but you will always be able to get the drift because
I use a lot of English words and expressions
and I will send you 1 or 2 (if possible) cds
will make a copy of them if I cannot find the original releases
and there is a road-movie that I made in the states
a very important film on my life and all
EXIT POUR NOMADES (Exit for Nomads)
made all over Quebec and California and New Mexico
with a huge budget for that kind of a film
a cross between fiction and autobio
I will see if I can have a friend make a copy
and if I do not send everything Monday
it will follow in 2-3 weeks at the most

I might start to do a one hour radio-web show from my home
from 2 to 3 in the night early morning...
with a visual dimension
my Friday show will start having a visual next week or soon
so you will be able to see how much fucking weight I have to loose
10 to 15 pounds...
it is the methadone that give me trouble shit
on H I was so sharp...

like I said
when I go back teaching
I will have my students by your book(s) in translation(s)
and will also give the copy of «Songs from...»
to an English friend who will be able to talk about it
some of my Anglos poets friend
Endre Farkas
or Ken Norris (American)
or even Leonard Cohen
who lives close to me
and I see him at the bagel shop
so I'll see what comes first and what is best

Now Listen to me Tony
about your books of poetry
that you do not feel anymore
I went to the same phase
but believe me
(I am 60 now
fuck I hate that number
but it gives me a perspective on life at least...)
one day when you get older
you will come back to these books
and if you don't
the fans will force you to come back
and you will realise one thing (at least)
for the better or the worst
the work that we do in our first 10 years
is the stuff that makes us what we are
and that is what the fan or adept
go crazy for
when us we love what we are doing while we are doing it
and cannot understand that people go crazy
for our early work that we sometime find awkward weak etc
but is made history and made us make history
and there is nothing that we can do about it
THE PEOPLE GO NUT ABOUT THAT EARLY STUFF
that is why I say to you
write like a mother fucker
because the way you write now
will not last forever
and you will not be able to get back to that
even if you try to copy imitate yourself
look at Patti Smith doing again Horse
and Lour Reed Berlin
and Bowie will do Low or Hunky Dory etc
there is something and I realise that now
in the early writings that is spontaneous thru full candid free flow naive etc etc
so do not worry if you shy away from those books now
the will come back to hunt you no matter what
and you will learn to love them thru the people going nuts about it...

and that is that
from Nostradamus Francoeur
Johnny Shivers
from Quebec Love...

take good care
my best to Vanessa and Nico
the O'Neill love triangle!

Talk to you later
going to the resto
Claudine and Virginie
are waiting for me
rock desire

lucien

ps. Tony
you will notice
that there are less mistakes in this e-mail
I made it go thru the corrector
I should have done that for the others
And re-reading them without too much mistakes
And found them good enough
And so revealing
About writing (yours and mine)
And about life and all
Text drug and rock
that I dropped them
in Blogger Francoeur Aut'Chose
and in «lucienfrancoeur.com» Aut'Chose forum
just my e-mails
yours belong to you
so you see Tony you play a big role
writing to you about you and your work
make me write about me and my writing and all...

both of us are fucking winners!

l.f.

Hi Tony!

Hi Tony

just a fast one
I am going to the dentist
fucking methadone!

I know the translation is not done
but I can't wait for it to be
so Claudine can read it

ands wow wow wow
«Songs from the Shooting Gallery»
(what a title!)
is the one that I could not get
from Amazon Canada
and how fucking great it is
that it's the one you are sending me

now the rest is easy
I will order the other books
from Amazon Canada
as of right now!

Couldn’t be better...

I'll get my stuff ready to send
as soon as I receive your book
with I hope a return address
for me to use

I'll write a bit more
after the dentist

Hey I saw Faithfull yesterday
on the Letterman show
what a band she had
and what a song
and what a voice
but what a fucked up suit
jesus-christ!
she looked trapped in it

well o well...
she's a living legend
survivor of the glorious sixties
and how good looking was she
when she was Jagger's junkie girlfriend

ok for now

talk to you later

rock desire!

francoeur

Tony O'Oneill american writer and friend!

Hi Tony

just received your book!
I read half of it at Starbuck...
I am sky-high! Wow!

read the introduction
very pertinent
and sincere
and instructive

1. You definitely have some Rimbaud in there
mostly «A Season in Hell»...
and a bit of «Illuminations»
and why not: also some of the early poems, with rimes:
1- MA BOHÈME
2- AU CABARET VERT
3. LE BATEAU IVRE

2. Walt Whitman... for sure!
He was a «landscape poet» with an American identity, point of view...
He would have not done H with us but he would probably understood...
In a way you are, in those poems, whitmanesque... the inner landscaping of soul-searching poetry...
He was a realist... in that sense you (and I and some of those we like) are a heavy-metal realist... with hard-core tenderness...

3. Baudelaire...yeah for «Les Paradis artificiels»... but he was a moralist in the purest sense of the word!
and sometimes in the aggravating sense of the word! «Les Paradis artificiels» is a book against drugs...
Like «Cocaine» by Clapton and JJ Cale (who wrote the song) is against coke... or maybe I should say: of a painfully truthfulness...

4. Céline in the s sense of the straight forwardness of the writing...

5. Burroughs for sure! and I would add Corso... and that poet who wrote Nirvana Hotel / City Light Ed.
and Kerouac, prose and poems... or poms like he would say...
the last books of his poems published by Penguin... from his notebooks!
and also Mexico City Blues
and Ginsberg but with a restrained «handwriting»... less words... but very type of «reality sandwiches» poetry...

6. And so many other... but not that much to think of it... it is easy to write about drugs etc... but not that easy to let yourself be
seen has the complex human being that you are (that we all are for that matter)... but if we say that Whitman's landscape is America the Beautiful... your poetic landscape is America the Deceitful...

7. Lou Reed yeah... but also Patti Smith... and Bob Kaufman...

If like they say we can judge a novel by its first paragraph... we can judge a poem by its last strophe (verses)... And what about that one last strophe of yours:

«I just lay there
the King of Purgatory
with all of his adornments:
blown shot, 6:30am»

and:

«then we can lay down on the sidewalk
with the cigarette buts
and the gum
and the old movie stars:
just you
me
Rita Hayworth
and the California
moon»

and on and on...

What Woodard did for you in telling you he would publish you with more poems
well when I was 21
the most important poet of Québec (the «national poet»,- hate the word national
but take it in the sense of «appurtenance», «cultural populist identity»)
GASTON MIRON
told me after reading 12 of my acid poems in a dinner
that if I would bring him more he would publish me
and he was the creator and director
of LES ÉDITIONS DE L'HEXAGONE
the most established poetry publisher of Quebec
and one of the 5 most major publisher in all the francophone territories...
Some of the «has-been» poets of his
freaked out!
and said he could not publish such garbage
and he did just that...
the book was called
MINIBRIXES RÉACTÉS (made up words...)
all the poems in that book were written
either on acid or cannabis
or in between trips
and listening to 4 albums
1. 2 first Doors
2. LET IT BLEED
3. ABBEY ROAD


I'll send you at least
one book
one cd

maybe more
in I can find...

amitiés

Francoeur
(Johnny Shivers)

Letter to Tony O'Neill

Ok Tony
back home
read the story

it is a great read! Very well translated: I was scared before reading it because, for us québécois writers, those French translations were and still are, as far as «hip-beat-books» are concerned, badly and poorly and painfully done! The early translations of Kerouac, Ginsberg, Burroughs (especially!) were so depressing... How can I explain Tony: it would be like reading a translation of Céline done by a British writer instead of an American writer... tight in the ass if I may say... A very good friend of mine, Claude Pélieu (married to artist Mary Beach and a French member of the Beat Generation and a smack user till is death) was the first translator of Burroughs and it was aggravating and I told him... But now they (the French) do a better job and your story is perfectly translated... It gets bad usually when they try to match the slang... it would sound better in «Quebecois«... but the market for such translation is to limited: so better a few bugging words in French-slang to reach a wider market. A hip book that would be translated by a Quebecois writer would read better but could not make it in the French market, but a book translated even badly by a French writer will sell in Québec! So your story has the best of both world: very well translated with no ridicule French-slang, and «Notre Dame...» will sell in all the francophone territories!!! There you go! And by the way, thank god (or Buddha) Burroughs is being or has been translated again and it is a good read! What is hard to match in the translation of American avant-garde books, is the slang: french-québécois is closer to the American idiomatic slang than «french argot»! But we do not have the market for such hip books...

Re-reading my precedent email, I noticed a lot of typing mistakes...hope it did not give y our to much trouble Tony! And by the way I thought it was touching to think of you feeding your daughter: brought back souvenirs here... As long as you can kiss the little feet of your daughter, you are safe... When you will have to stop doing it: watch out! be aware... she will be close to adolescence... and then you have to be on your toes (how do we say: «no pun intended»)! They go through their teenage years so early these days... It starts at 12... Surely due to the cell phone, Internet, reality TV etc etc and having a single daughter is very special... in all the meanings of the word! If you want to have an idea of what my little Virginia whose feet I was tenderly kissing turn out to become, type her name on Google or Facebook... Until 13, she was grunge, roots, and then... foxy Virginie, in love with a Latino rapper and delinquent! Ti stay close to Virginie, I got myself involve with her Urbano, got him in the studio recording is raps on music played by my musicians and took him on the road with me were he came on the stage at the end and did after letting him do his thing with one song we would do a rap number together and I got him some airplay on the radio! After 4 years of that relation, Virginie dumped him and came back to be our little baby at 18! And listen to this: We have 10,000 books in the house but she doesn't read (except when I find her a disturbing life bio about teenagers in distress or a young woman in hell bound skid...) Tony, You are having the best years now with you daughter... hold on to it! Think of it, how old is she ?... under 6? 5?

Like I said, and surely repeating myself: can't wait to receive the «parcel» you are sending me, and can't wait to read you upcoming novel... When you say that you find it hard to get the critic attention or something like that... Shit there are so many books being released every week (not to mention all the cds now that we can record on a laptop!)... How can one draw attention... but I think that your are doing well: man I found your book at Urban Outfitter, a hip-cool clothing store downtown Montreal! You are thus far you are one of the hot avant-garde elected selected few! They had on the shelf both colors cover... I choose the yellow one although red coca-cola is my color! But the yellow cover was the first one that caught my eyes!

In you email you mention 2-3 writers that I am going to look into! I read all Bukowski... Wow! I just re-read all Kerouac... You know, Tony, talking of not being noticed as much as we wishes, well I find it discussing to not find Kerouac in some major scalar anthology! Jesus-Christ the man changed totally the contemporary literature! And some of those university assholes do not find him worth being in their anthology... I my dreams I spit HIV saliva in their ignorant eyes! Kerouac man! Burroughs, Ginsberg, Corso were found of him to the point of saying that he was the mastermind of all the beat and modern literature! So we have ourselves a long way to go... Myself, I got it made in Québec being studied in all school levels... but although I have published in France, and made my mark in the avant-garde, I have still a lot of work to do... and time is running out... I am healthy but I am sixty... ( those Beatles lyrics come to mind...)

You are so right (right?) when you say that the intelligentsia only take notice of «reality books)... but they fade away fast... and the type of writing that you do will stay! All you need is keep at it... Man look at Patricia Highsmith, she was not recognised in her own country until after 40 years of publishing best sellers... Then if you would get a bestseller you would be comfortable money wise but under so much press ion by the business to come up with a follow up that would sell as much or more!

Sorry for again writing so much... But I know one thing for sure Tony: do it while you feel it! Because nothing last! My appreciation of you work and feeling toward you personally as much as professionally will last... but the «heart pouring writing» will not last... We will go on with life individually... but we will have at least something to show in demonstration of what we are and feel for each other work and life trajectory... I took a chance sending you an email and here we are sharing like old friends...

I now have to go drive my daughter downtown Mtl, - I bought her a Jeep Liberty but daddy has to still drive her... I prefer that because it is Saturday and Saturday night tends to be a big night... Better not being stuck with a vehicle parked somewhere and the temptation to drive it high... Last year Virginie had a very bad accident: she wrecked bumper to bumper the Mustang GT that I had given her for her 18 birthdays: when I saw the car, I started shaking... I could she come out of it without a scratch... plus the fact that she was under the ... And the cups knew me and let her go without a test... When I saw the movie «Taken» 2 week ago, it shooked me to my soul... Go see it Tony but do not bring your wife: she will lock you d daughter in her room and will not let her out of her sight! But what a great movie!

Take care Tony
give my best to your wife and daughter

(I mentioned reading your book on Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, Blogger, etc... might not mean much but I felt like doing it...)

les gitans reviennent toujours
sur les lieux de leurs amours

Francoeur xx
(I should re-read myself for mistakes, grammage... but to lazy!

Lettre à Tony O'Oneil écrivain américain

Hi there Tony

thanks for your touching e-mail...
If it makes you feel good reading my e-mails
let me tell you that it makes it worthwhile writing them
and knowing that they understood
as coming from the bottom of my heart

today your e-mail made my day and more...

Hey Tony, Chet Baker...
I just received from France «Let's get Lost» that I ordered and although I kind of knew it would be in the European Mode,
I wanted it so bad that I still ordered it anyway... hoping that there would also be an American Mode... but no way! So I played it on
my computer via my «home cinema» projector... and today I took it to a teck who will transfer it in normal mode...

I am a huge fan of Chet... have about 30 cds and vinyl of his... Please do write the book! And if you have a chance and do not already own it, get the box-set, album size, of his French recordings... it his so fantastic...

What a super name, Nico... It was on my list .... I chose Virginie for that Stones song: «Sweet Virginia»... and the movie «Paul et Virginie»...
and «Virginia is for lovers» and because it was rare at the time...
Nico is great! And 5 years young is marvellous... it stays that way until 8... then it starts to change and slowly but surely, after 10
well the outside world takes over and at 12 the parents are not the total universe anymore... So make the best out of it my friend...
And your wife and yourself make a couple like Claudine and me: her and I the rebel the stable one! It is important that the child has both parents
idiosyncrasy...

Good luck with your novel... it seems almost there... Also can't wait to get the translation of «Down and out...» so Claudine can read it... By the way she is also a well-known poet... in Quebec and France... As a matter of fact she received one of the 2 most important literary award of the francophonie: The Tristan Tzara for poetry!...2-3 years ago...
and that made her happen in France... As far as myself over there: when my daughter was born in 1987 I stop going there and let go of my career... to stay home and do the John Lennon trip with my daughter... I'll never regret that choice I made... well sometimes a little bit... I was doing great over there: songs on the radio, TV...my own band over there... etc etc.... contracts with RCA and CBS...

Also, when I will receive your book, I will order the other from Amazon Canada... there is only one that I will have to order from Amazon Britain or may be USA: « Songs from the shooting...» And like I said I will send you some of my stuff: book(s) and cd(s) etc...

Again Chet Baker is a big thing for me... is to jazz what Jim Morrison was to rock! I have a lot of things of and about Jim Morrison...

I am going to look into John Fante... and also into the bands that you mention in «Down and out» and in your website...where I spent some time and really enjoyed it!

So Tony,... make the best of those years before you turn 50... If I could start again I would write a lot more and record a lot more outrageous stuff like I was doing in the beginning... because when I became more of a notoriety, and had Virginie, my style changed and today kids are looking into my old stuff, and I wish I had done more wild writing!... So do it while you can! We all change (luckily!) when we grow older and become more accepted... we tend, well me and most of us, to «simmer down»... is that a good expression? You know what I mean anyway...

Well I am going to listen to some Chet Baker and Art Pepper and read James Crumley «The right madness»...

Oh yeah take a look at Claudine's literary magazine on the net: «mouvances.ca»... the only one in French literature...
She just got back from Africa where she was invited to read her poetry... then spent 2 weeks in France to get her summer trip (2 months) ready... She works a lot and has the success that comes with it...

Me I am the lazy type... smack mood... I take things as they come...

Praise the Web, for making our connection possible! And for sure life will take over and take away the intensity of our e-mails, but as far as I am concern the bound is there forever... I took a chance doing what I almost never do: reach out... and I had a good intuition... we have a lot in common: the lifestyle (freak past as much as straight present); the «reality writing»... «road writing» sort of....; life as a couple with one child and a daughter... the music... the old girlfriend Suzanne (eve if it is a fiction name) who played a role... Chet Baker (another coincidence) and like they say there are no coincidence...

so take good care Tony
best of the best
to you and wife and daughter…