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.