Kookamunga Team To Perform Only Poems From Atrocious Poems In 2017

In a move sure to shake the Outsider Poetry Slam League of America to its foundation, the Rancho Cucamonga Kookamunga poetry slam team has announced it will only perform poems from the book Atrocious Poems A To Z in the 2017 OPSLA season. 

In other news, Sheboygan Syllablists pivot Skip Trippin has joined the powerhouse Rancho Cucamonga team for the entire season.

"It's going to be a challenging season" said team captain Tom Baker, former Dr. Who actor, "with every team gunning for us." "There won't be any easy matches, anymore." 

The 2017 OPSLA season kicks off at the Outsider Poetry Depot in Rockford, Illinois in July. 

In My New Book There Is No Mention of This

There wasn't much I ever confused about my father. He was straight forward. But one thing I came to realize it wasn't always his actions that were unclear, but his motives.

For instance, he allowed himself to get ripped off a lot. He was the last person ever to ask for help, and the first sucker in line for anyone selling a con job story. Relatives, workers, strangers all seemed to form a line for handouts, and we never seemed to ever have more than we needed, so I never understood this.

As I grow older I think I do now understand. Helping people who were being deceptive was his way of showing humiliating them, showing his moral superiority over them without ever saying a word. He was forced to start working when he was just standing up, and did so until the company he worked for for fifty years fired him when he refused to go along with new policies that ripped off his customers.

He never asked anyone for a damn thing, and it was extremely rare he was treated fairly by anyone. He got what we had by working his ass off. It was all completely fair and square, and he ended up with nothing.

It was  all a great education in what honesty and hard work are worth in America.

Not a damn thing.

As a writer I almost never write about my father. Because he's not interesting. He was a dupe. A mark. And a victim of the last vestiges of Puritanical concepts about work.

In my new book Atrocious Poems A To Z  there is no mention of this. 

Just twenty-six poems to be used as teaching lessons for children. You can also get a copy at Zombie Logic Press

It is the fourth book in the Rock River Literary Series, which I founded to increase exposure for Rockford, Illinois writers. I have received no help whatsoever in this endeavor. I never expected to. In a lot of ways I turn out to be like my father. I find it entertaining and satisfying to expose people for the frauds, liars, and hypocrites they are. 

Help or don't help, it doesn't make one fucking of difference to me.

Atrocious Poems A To Z By Outsider Poet Thomas Vaultonburg

Jack Chick Joins the Hell Hollerers Outsider Poetry Team

Jack Chick has joined the Hell Hollerers of the Southern Outsider Poetry Slam League of America and will be firing up some heated poems for the 2017 season. It still hasn't sunk in that we were really the OPSLA champs of 2016 and still haven't been defeated in league play. We're all looking forward to the 2017 season, which should be a real doozy with several new teams joining the league, including the Hell Hollerers and the Yakima Yakkers.

The inclusion of Jack Chick to the Hollerers will no doubt increase their standing in a somewhat inchoate Southern Division.

If he is half as fiery as a spoken word artist as he was as founder of Crusader Comics, he could be a force in the 2017 season. The Rancho Cucamonga Kookamungas certainly aren't a team to shy away from keen competition, so as I sit here watching night two of the World Series, I certainly hope the six new franchises will provide us with some keen competition. 

Speaking of Outsider Poetry and the Satanic Panic, Zombie Logic Press is observing its twentieth year in business. I'd say celebrating, but there's not much to celebrate in the poetry publishing words. Twenty years is impressive. Go fuck yourself.

Earl Gray and Outsider Poetry

Watching All the Colors of the Dark again and laying on the heating pad. Just finished my yoga for the day, and had my final cup of tea. September in Northern Illinois is a confusing time. Half the day I've had the heater on, and now I have the windows open trying to get it cool so I can sleep. 

Originally I began drinking Earl Gray tea so I could stop drinking diet soda because I take Warfarin and I wanted to reduce the amount of stomach acid I have. I have been drinking it for about five years thinking I was doing myself a favor. Certainly it had to be better for me than soda pop.

But lately I've has nausea quite a few days. Nausea even without heartburn.

This is frightening because if I start to bleed it will be hard to stop it, so I'm not trying to ween myself off of tea and/or consume it in a more sensible manner. For instance, I didn't know it was a bad idea to drink it either with an empty stomach or a full stomach. It makes sense once you know why, but I usually have tea right when I wake up, and after I eat. So apparently I'm consuming it all wrong. 

I'd hate to give it up altogether because it's the one indulgence I allow myself. Of course I had been having a cheat day once or twice a month where I do drink some Tab Cola and eat chocolate. I think these days are over entirely. Of course I really have been pushing it lately. More beers, more chicken wings and fatty foods. Sodas. If I am sensible and cut all of these things to the bare minimum I may be able to keep a few cups of tea a day in my life.

I hope so. 

Finished a couple of outsider poems I had been working on a couple of weeks ago. Then I organized all the poems I had written since my last book into a file. Have been crazy worried about this nut Trump winning the election between being obsessed with my health and financial strains.

Feels good to talk about it. To myself. 

Rancho Cucamonga Passes Sales Tax Increase To Build Outsider Poetry Slam Stadium

Ecstatic over the Rancho Cucamonga team's victory in the 2016 Outsider Poetry Slam bowl, the Rancho Cucamonga city council passed a sales tax increase this week which will allow the city to build a new stadium for the team. Construction on the Kookamunga Dome will begin next week, and is expected to be finished three weeks from Thursday.

The citizens of Rancho Cucamonga, in a non-binding vote also voted for the tax increase by a 98% margin. Long time citizen Marge Kokenheimer echoed the sentiments of many Kookamonians by saying "We're just really behind the poetry team and think this stadium will ensure that they will remain here for a long, long time." 

The team feels the same way about their loyal fans. Team captain Loyd Bridges, who starred in Sea Hunt, says it would be hard to imagine the grind of a twelve bout poetry slam season without the encouragement of the fans and the support of his family. 

Because the Kookamungas are the defending Outsider Poetry Slam League of America champions, the Manwich Cup will be held in Rancho Cucamonga this season. 

Corporate sponsors have besieged the city council to secure naming rights for the stadium, with the top contenders being Chicken of the Sea tuna and Pillsbury Biscuits. 

It gets increasingly more difficult to write these goofy blogs about a non existent outsider poetry slam league. 

The Most Awesome 8 Track Player An Outsider Poet Could Ever Have

The Aquatron VX-33 8 Track Tape Player

It is the electronic device that I have been waiting perhaps my entire life for. And I never even knew it. We didn't have an 8 Track player in our home, or car. I think my grandparents did. I remember it being a giant pain in the ass. Going into the middle of the next song in the middle of a song you were enjoying. But in 2016 it is the type of device every outsider poet should own, and use. I have only two 8 tracks in my collection so far: Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits and The Beach Boys Endless Summer. It works as pretty effective radio, too, on both the AM and FM bands. If you had a car from the 1970's it would plug right into your dashboard. So now I feel like I need an AMC Pacer or maybe a Vista Cruiser. Do a road trip down Route 66 blaring Grinderswitch on the old 8 Track. 

At Zombie Logic Press headquarters recovering from a mild stomach virus and trying to work in some fantasy football drafts this week while I still have the chance. Listening to the Cubs game but not on WGN radio, which sounds strange to say, because it has been that way all my life. Summer is almost over, and the kids are in school. 

Making lists of football players to study for my draft. Which is on Labor Day at Buffalo Wild Wings. Before then I hope to find a few more 8 Tracks to add to my collection, and perhaps a carrying case.