Renfield Sings of Being A Highwayman
The following is an excerpt from the vampire novel I’m currently writing:
Renfield R. Renfield was having a dream where he was the director, writer and star of a West London musical.
In the musical, Renfield played an 18th Century English highwayman- one of those colourful masked bandits who rode on horseback and held up stagecoaches with a gun.
Renfield was having great fun singing this song which he wrote entitled I Am A Highwayman:
I am a highwayman
I am a highwayman
I go behind a tree
instead of go to the can
because I am a highwayman.
I ride upon a horse
but not side saddle of course
because I am a highwayman
so catch me if you can.
The open road is where I ride
the countryside is where I hide
because I am a highwayman
I sweat because I don’t use Ban
or any deodorant
save spice of the Orient
so smell me as I tan
because I am a highwayman.
I’m dashing
not trashing
I kiss the ladies fair
and pull the old men’s hair
as I rob the stagecoach
of this diamond broach
and many a splendid thing
including this golden ring
so smile as I sing
and say with a zing
that I am a highwayman
now catch me if you can.
I’m riding to the hills
but not for the thrills
because I am a highwayman
running from the King’s law while I can
because if I’m caught
it’s the hangman’s knot
and I’m left to rot
food for a vulture’s pot.
This fair head is all I’ve got
so I’ll flee this spot
and wish you not
Godspeed till
my horse is hot to trot.
-Renfield
Cinco de Mayo Summer Day In Vancouver
Happy Cinco de Mayo everyone!
After going to Church this morning, I spent the day on the beach at English Bay where it was a glorious sunshiney day.
Since coming to Vancouver, one thing I’ve noticed while eating in restaurants here is that people often take photos of their lunches and dinners prior to eating them.
It’s a habit that hasn’t really caught on in Edmonton at the time I left it last October.
However it’s probably big elsewhere as it is in Vancouver because this would explain why photos from my Facebook friends from all over the world often have photos of food and drink.
They take photos before they eat or drink what they’re having.
I remember in one Korean restaurant I was in about a week ago, I wondered if the food was going to get cold because there was a group of 20 people sitting at one table. And everybody was taking a photo of everyone else’s plate of food as well as their own. Nobody started eating until all the photos were taken.
Memo to myself: Remember to eat something before the meal if I’m ever invited to a large group gathering eating out because I might die of starvation by the time everyone finishes taking their smart phone photos of everyone’s dish.
This will probably give rise to the expression “photogenic food”.
Anyways while I was at the beach, there was this guy and girl who sat down on the log next to me and both of them had ice cream cones.
The girl took out her smart phone and was trying to line up the perfect picture to take of her ice cream cone- something difficult to do while holding an ice cream cone in one hand and a smart phone in the other.
Anyways it was a hot summer day on the beach and she was taking so long to take the perfect photo of her ice cream cone (no doubt to upload to her friends on Facebook) that the ice cream cone started to melt.
Pretty soon it was really melting all over the place.
“Oh shoot,” the girl said, “I can’t take a picture of this now. It’s melted all over the place.”
Anyways her boyfriend finally grabbed her smart phone and took a photo of both her and the melted ice cream cone.
An image that will no doubt live in posterity on someone’s Facebook page.
Later in the early evening I went to a bar and had a refreshing drink to cool down.
People who read my vampire novel and my short stories no doubt have noticed that I love making up and telling my own puns.
Anyways the bar was quite busy tonight.
There were 3 bartenders on and they were trying to fill all the drink orders.
Then one girl called out to the other two and said, “Will someone please grab me another Caesar?”.
Note to my American readers: A Caesar is a popular drink up here in Canada. It’s made of vodka and clamato juice (Clamato is a combination of clam and tomato juice- I’ve been told that Clamato juice isn’t so popular in the U.S. and hence a Caesar is a uniquely Canadian drink).
Anyways as soon as this girl said, “Will someone please grab me another Caesar?”, I immediately piped up, “That’s what a Roman general once said when the latest Roman Emperor had just been assassinated by his own Praetorian Guard, will someone please grab me another Caesar?”.
And that dear friends is how I spent my Cinco de Mayo summer day in Vancouver.
Stirling Stork: A Poem
On the beach this week I’ve encountered Stirling Stork
who eats small fish with his beak and not with a fork
until this week I’d never seen a stork in real life
just saw it in drawings and photos so rife
with the explanation
that defied imagination
this is where babies come from
delivered by storks
over whose chimneys they come.
Such was the story to small children given
by parents whose thoughts were driven
by keeping childhood innocence alive
lost in an age where videos and commercials
are where profits intersect with the sexual drive.
-A poem written by Christopher
Thursday evening
May 2nd 2013.
Dracul Van Helsing 