Freakshow Magazine Online!

  Psychologists say that play is a child’s work. I can kind of understand what they mean. A few years ago, we moved back to West Wilted, Ohio, population about 4500. We had been away from this small town for about 45 years. I live down the street from the house we lived in when I was 5 years old. I pass that house several times a week and my throat tightens up and my neck aches each time I pass. Not from nostalgia, either. Did you ever get your head caught in anything? I did once. I guess I just wanted to see if I could fit my head through the wooden slats of one of our kitchen chairs. See, we lived in a house that had the kitchen and living area joined…kind of like a modern day open concept plan. So kitchen chairs were often used when visitors came…and they were always coming. World War II was in full swing and believe me, I was taking it all in. And we were taking family members in. Aunts, sisters, mothers , and their kids, were coming and going as their men in the family came ho...

  I love 3 A.M. I was hired as lead guitarist and ended up touring up and down the East Coast with one of Chicago’s best Blues Bands at around 3 A.M. one night in Tucson, Arizona after I won a cutting contest earlier in the evening (in this case, a ‘Cutting Contest’ is when guitarists gather together to out-play each other on the bandstand). I played one of the best shows in my life in front of about ten thousand people at an outdoor music festival in Michigan and took the stage for that show at 2:57 A.M. I suffered my greatest loss at about 3 A.M., which also happens to be about the time of night that my wife and I conceived our daughter. I got a chance to glimpse behind the veil, to peek behind the façade of this existence that we all generally agree to be reality at around 3 A.M. one night, and that experience changed my understanding of myself and the world in which I lived forever. I have recorded my best musical work, written my funniest stories, and lived a ...

“ You know, Psyk, we’ve known each other a long time now, and…” Well, slap me in the face with a week-old halibut and call me ‘Richard’: here comes one of THOSE phrases; the first half of a sentence that NEVER ends good when the second part of the sentence comes bounding out of the ‘Old Friend’s” cock holster... “We’ve known each other a long time now” is a phrase second only to “Honey- we need to talk…” in the Great Wheel of Life Changing, Unexpectedly Devastating News... or, it could be that the ‘Old Friend’ that is revving up an earnest, poignant, and highly manipulative story designed to bring you to such an emotional crescendo that you would positively JUMP at the HONOR of helping them move house, in which case you break out a baseball bat and use it to erase the name of the “Old Friend” from your Christmas Cards list. Let’s go down the Rabbit hole on this particular encounter: The Old Friend who claims that ‘we ‘ve known each other a long time now” is ...

  When I was about 8 years old, I wanted to be a Pygmy. Pygmies are tribal hunters and gatherers, living in the Congo basin. They’ve been there longer than anyone knows. Even scientists, studying their DNA, can’t figure them out. The average adult mail reaches a height of less than 4 feet, 11 inches. They live as they did many centuries ago. Google pygmies and you’ll find out. All about their huts, camp fires where they fix their meals, and everything! I thought they were wonderful and I wanted to be one. Let me tell you about it. First of all, I grew up in the 40’s and 50’s. Two highlights of my childhood were that we went to the library every week on Saturday and in school, every Friday, we received Weekly Readers. My Mom took us to the library in our small town of 3000 people. We walked 3 blocks. Not too many cars so soon after the war. Books were a big part of our lives…no e-books, 5-Gs, ports, recharging cords and no screens. (The only screen in town ...

  Ahhh, Peyote. We meet again. Peyote is a psychoactive alkaloid that comes from a small cactus that grows wildly in the Chihuahuan Desert. The cactus can be found in areas of Texas and Mexico and is common among scrub where there is limestone settlement.  You usually find small “buttons” on cactus’ that grow close to the ground. This is the peyote.  It can be chewed, or it can be boiled into a tea. Indian tribes have used peyote for generations; not only for spiritual purposes, but for anesthetic purposes as well. Peyote is sometimes given to a woman experiencing childbirth. For me, peyote was twelve hours of teeth grinding, eye popping, muscle clenching weirdness. I popped the horrible tasting root (is it a root? Must check sometime…) into my mouth and started chewing. At the same time, I went and retrieved a joint out of the car, lit it, and started to inhale the sweet smoke. I was going to need this joint, and probably one more, because about a half an hour after I sw...

For any of you who think I’m about to fire off some Honky-Tonkin’, Beer Drinkin’, Shotgun-Rack-In-The-Back-Of-The-Pick’-Em-Up Country song lyrics based on the TITLE of this screed; relax. Your woman has left you, wrecked your truck, and got your dog neutered. Nothing I can do about it. Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, put on some Led Zeppelin and tell everyone your ex has Industrial Strength South African Super Herpes, like a MAN! No. This is NOT a country tune; it’s a symphony played on a trashcan accompanied by a dancing monkey wearing a little vest who whines musically about the outrageous cost to the nation of Jerry Nadler’s waistline.  Far ago, in a land long, long away, I was celebrating the end of my first tour as a bandleader at a party hosted by my good friend Ed at his family’s cottage on a lovely lake in Central Michigan. Everyone was there; old high school friends, a few band members, our entire road crew (both of them), and my cousin Scott, who drove up to th...