Author Archives: Garry Rodgers

About Garry Rodgers

After three decades as a Royal Canadian Mounted Police homicide detective and British Columbia coroner, International Best Selling author and blogger Garry Rodgers has an expertise in death and the craft of writing on it. Now retired, he wants to provoke your thoughts about death and help authors give life to their words.

AYAHUASCA – WORLD’S MOST DANGEROUS ECO-TOURISM SCAM

AJ2Ayahuasca (I-ya-wask-ah) psychedelic tours are a popular rage among worldly young people seeking enlightenment in the jungles of the Amazon rainforest. Why anyone would pay thousands of dollars to blow-up their mind by ingesting a brew containing the most potent hallucinogenic on the planet puzzles me.

AJ6This morning I was on Facebook and saw a feed from Michael Sanders, an author who was crowdfunding money to publish his book Ayahuasca – An Exectuive’s Enlightenment. I opened his link which opened me into a thriving world of scammers and con-artists who prey on the gullible that’ll risk their brain cells to find the next trendy mystic among the world of plastic shamans.

So what is ayahuasca? My friend Wikipedia says this.

Ayahuasca (usually pronounced /ˌaɪjəˈwæskə/ or /ˌaɪjəˈwaːskə/), also commonly called yagé (/jaːˈheɪ/), is a entheogenic brew made out of Banisteriopsis caapi vine, often in combination with various other plants. It can be mixed with the leaves of Chacruna or Chacropanga, which are dimethyltryptamine (DMT) containing plant species. The brew was first described academically in the early 1950s by Harvard ethnobotanist Richard Evans Schultes, who found it employed for divinatory and healing purposes by the native peoples of Amazonian Peru.

Hmmm… Dimethyltryptamine. DMT.

AJ8Mirrors on the ceiling,
The pink champagne on ice
And she said “We are all just prisoners here, of our own device”
And in the master’s chambers,
They gathered for the feast
They stab it with their steely knives,
But they just can’t kill the beast. The last thing you remember, you were running for the door, trying to find the passage back to the place you were before.

Love to be there? Then DMT’s your ride. DMT is the most intense psychedelic toxin, as well as the most illegal substance, in the world. Paradoxically it’s the most rare drug to acquire and the most common to possess… because every time you go to sleep… a part of your brain produces this chemical and the product you endure is your dreams.

DMT is the drug which causes your pleasant dreams at night.

And your nightmares.

AJ5Ayahuasca amplifies the DMT response in your neurotransmitters a million fold and you can have this by paying any one of at least 94 service providers that I found on the internet site AyaAdvisor.com. It’s a TripAdvisor for people who really want to trip.

Leading the pack is an outfit called Pulse Tours. For $1995 they’ll pick you up at the airport in Iquitos, Peru, (you have to get there yourself) and host you for seven days & nights so you can fuck your mind on the Amazon Ayahuasa Adventure. Give ‘em $2995 and you can stay three weeks for a Total Human Transformation. But look what you get.

AJ1“Our 21 day program includes spiritual/energetic cleansing via our powerful and super concentrated jungle medicines and native Shamans; physical fitness/martial arts/yoga within our 88 sq. meter “Jungle Gym”, elite nutrition/super foods proprietary to the Amazon rainforest; topped off with our famous jungle adventures in the Amazon paradise where the Ayahuasca Adventure Center is located. Included are:

  • 12 Ayahuasca Ceremonies with authentic Shipibo Shamans
  • 3 Kambo (Frog Venom) ceremonies with a local Matses Shaman
  • 9 Floral baths
  • 20 nights/21 days accommodation at Ayahuasca Adventure Center in primary Amazon rainforest paradise
  • Pickup/drop off in Iquitos, Peru (International flights NOT included)
  • Daily jungle excursions with professional local jungle guides
  • Unlimited access to 88 sq. meter fitness facility including yoga mats, Onnit kettle bells, battle ropes, steel maces, Moving Zen suspension straps, punching bag, gloves, pads, jump ropes, spinning bike and free weights
  • Cell phone and wi-fi reception
  • 20 hammocks on site
  • 20 breakfasts, 20 lunches, 8 dinners, plus unlimited fruit, drinking water, and tea
  • Lifetime 20% discount on return visits to Ayahuasca Adventure Center and membership to exclusive Facebook group

There’s a caveat attached to the funding. Read carefully. 

AJ4“50% non-refundable deposit due upon booking. The rest of the balance is due in cash form upon arrival to Peru in bills of CRISP quality (unless mentioned otherwise). Your deposit is valid for a life time, should the need to cancel your retreat occur. Alternatively, you could transfer the deposit to someone else, at no additional cost.”

Sounds like a pretty intense and interesting deal for three grand. I’d look forward to the frog venom sessions. And the floral baths seem a nice touch, drinking water is considerate, and twenty nights in a hammock saves phosphates from washing the sheets. I did the math and see that I’d be getting 12 ayahuasca sessions over 20 days and 8 dinners which adds up to make sense. 

Yep, great service… for the service provider.

So the entrepreneur in me got thinking and I’d like to offer you a unique trip to an exotic location. 

AJ11For $995 I’ll pick you up at the Vancouver airport and deliver you for six nights and seven days to the Downtown Eastside where you can mingle with junkies and meth-freaks and hookers and hawkers in a feat of survival more violently thrilling than the Hunger Games. You’ll get to crank heroin and smoke crack-cocaine. Do mushrooms and MDMA. Weed? No big deal – everyone smokes weed in BC.

AJ9You’ll sleep in an alley and shit in the street and lay claim to a dumpster and panhandle and pimp. You can get beaten and burned. Rolled, robbed, and raped. And have a chance for some gunshots or being knifed while you sleep. You can pontiff with head cases and seek relief shelter. Or OD on horse tranquillizer and do NarCan and paddles. And experience Code-3 CPR, a white body-bag, or quietly shoplift your ride into the back of a VPD squad car and be booked into cells.

Blow your mind and your wallet on the the experience of a lifetime – an intoxicating trip into a concrete jungle with authentic shopping-cart shamans in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. A most exotic trip, TripAdvisor says.

So send me your deposit. Now while it lasts.

And make sure you arrive with bills of CRISP quality (unless mentioned otherwise).

MACK THE KNIFE – GREAT WRITING

AB1Great writing is not just found in novels, poetry, and screenwriting. It’s in all forms of communication like speeches and blog posts. Great writing is about getting your message vividly across – telling a story by painting a memorable picture in words. It’s captivating your audience so they expand that message in their mind and it sticks in like Macky’s knife.

Great writers use many devices. Descriptors. Metaphors and similes. Dialogue – sometimes with patois. Suggestion and innuendo. Beats. Pacing. Rhythm. Foreshadowing, shock, and tension building.

AB2I don’t know squat about songwriting, let alone music composition. I can barely play the radio, never mind making something intelligent come out of an instrument.

But I’m okay at writing and I can recognize great writing.

Last night I started humming the tune from Mack The Knife. I’m not sure what started it, but the dammed thing wouldn’t go away and I realized I knew few of the words. I had a limited understanding of the song – just that it was about some bad-ass with a blade and a good tune. I thought Frank Sinatra originally did it and was recently copied by Michael Buble.

AB4So I Googled it and, yes, both Sinatra and Buble sang it and so did Bobby Darin. A lot of other great singers did, too. Louis Armstrong. Bing Crosby. Ella Fizgerald and Peggy Lee. Of course Tony Bennett. And Liberace. Did you know Bill Haley & The Comets cut it? Roger Daltry and The Doors? Sting blew it away.

Simon Cowell was quoted calling it “The greatest song ever written“.

What’s so great about it? Who wrote this masterpiece? Here’s what Wikepedia says:

“Mack the Knife” or “The Ballad of Mack the Knife”, originally “Die Moritat von Mackie Messer”, is a song composed by Kurt Weill with lyrics by Bertolt Brecht for their music drama Die Dreigroschenoper, or, as it is known in English, The Threepenny Opera. It premiered in Berlin in 1928 at the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm. The song has become a popular standard recorded by many artists, including a US number one hit for Bobby Darin.

AB3I played Bobby Darin’s version about ten times and followed the words, trying to analyze the greatness in this writing – in this story. It’s there. It’s there in every word. Every line. Every paragraph. Descriptors. Metaphors and similes. Dialogue – sometimes with patois. Suggestion and innuendo. Beats. Pacing. Rhythm. Foreshadowing, shock, and tension building.

By God, this is great writing.

Copy this link  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEllHMWkXEU and paste it in another window to listen to Bobby Darin’s crooning while following the lyrics. Put on your headphones and enjoy a read/listen to some great storytelling.

Oh, the shark, babe, has such teeth, dear
And it shows them pearly white
Just a jackknife has old MacHeath, babe?
And he keeps it out of sight

You know when that shark bites with his teeth, babe
Scarlet billows start to spread
Fancy gloves, though wears old MacHeath, babe
So there’s never, never a trace ‘a red

Now on a sidewalk, on a Sunday mornin’ 
Lies a body just oozin’ life
Some, someone’s sneakin’ ’round a corner
Could that someone be Mack the Knife?

There’s a tugboat down by the river, don’t you know?
Where a cement bag, just a’drooppin’ on down
Oh, that cement is just its there for the weight, dear
Five’ll get you ten Old Macky’s back in town

D’ja hear ’bout Louie Miller? He disappeared, babe
After drawin’ out all his hard earned cash
And now MacHeath spend just like a sailor
Could it be our boy’s done somethin’ rash?

Jenny Diver, yeah, yeah, Sukey Tawdry
Hello Miss Lotte Lenya and Lucy Brown
Oh that line forms, on the right, babe
Now, that Macky’s back in town

I said, Jenny Diver, whoa Sukey Tawdry
Look out Miss Lotte Lenya and Old Lucy Brown
Yes that line forms on the right, babe
Now, that Macky’s back in town
Look out, Old Macky is back

Mack The Knife is not just a great song.

It’s great writing telling a great story.

Listen to Bobby Darin’s Mack The Knife here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEllHMWkXEU

MINING THE MINERS

A1Self Publishing is the book-writing gold rush for indie authors. There’s money in them thar words and that’s no lie. A lot of people are making a lot of money outside the Big-5 print publishers and good for them. But most of the money is made by people selling stuff to gold-stricken writers.

The ones who made good money off the gold rush sold shovels to the miners. That’s right. They mined the miners. They also sold food and packs and clothes and toiletries. They sold eggs at a dollar a piece and whiskey at five bucks a shot. They sold a shave & a haircut for two-bits, baths for fifty cents, and women for whatever the gal could command.

A2The miners did mine, and some got quite rich, but most got frustrated and gave up.

Indie writing is no different. There has never been a better time to be a writer and I believe that. There is a fortune of information available on line, in print, and in person which you can turn into golden words.

Thing is, you have to pay for most of it.

And a lot of it is good stuff.

A3In the three plus years that I’ve taken writing seriously I’ve spent hundreds, no, thousands of dollars on author services. I’ve got over fifty books, print and electronic, on the craft of writing and the business of marketing. I’ve taken webinars and seminars and sat in bars reading about writing. I’ve paid for editors, formatters, and cover designers. And I’ve given away gobs of information to others.

It’s paid off.

Not in gold – yet. That’s to come.

A4It’s paid off because I’m starting to figure this game out and it’s been because I’ve paid for the help from others. I’ve made tremendous on-line acquaintances. Some actually personal. Some are ether mentors. Some are those who struck it rich.

Here’s an example of someone from my home town who hit the motherlode. I met Chevy Stevens (pen name because her real name is hard to pronounce) when she was a realtor showing a house for me. She aspired to be a writer and she sold the farm to succeed. Literally.

A6Chevy so believed in herself and her craft that she quit the realty business, sold her own house to survive, and sat down to write. She paid a lot of money to have Renni Browne of The Editorial Department work her first book, Still Missing, into a New York Times BestSeller. Now Chevy’s on her fifth BestSeller and internationally known. She’s the first to admit that it wouldn’t have happened if she didn’t pay for good help.

Good help is not hard to find.

I see a lot of online bashing of Author Solutions – a division of Penguin Random House. Now there’s an example of mining the miners. These clever bastards saw the indie gold rush not as a threat to print publishing, but a new vein to be tapped. Author Solutions has some great outfits for sale and they’ll upsell the shit out of you. Draining your wallet is their aim. But if you take the gold dust out of your eyes, and know what you want, there’s value in their pack.

A7An interesting new outfitter is Booktrope. Rachel Thompson, who I highly respect (Rachel in the OC / Bad Redhead Media), referred me to them and she’s now heading one of their imprints called Gravity. This is an interesting concept where you can get published without spending any money. Yep, it’s for real.

Booktrope is a cooperative of writers, editors, designers, and marketers working together to produce quality books. All you have to do, as a writer, is to provide quality content. They’ll help you to get published and, in their model, no one makes money till they all make money. It’s an interesting concept and I hope they succeed.

A8They say that those who can’t do, teach. I’m not so sure about that, but here’s some free dirt from someone who’s still digging a shaft.

For gold on the craft of writing, read Stephen King’s On Writing.

For gold on grammar, read Strunk & White’s Elements of Style.

For golden motivation, read Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich.

For the gold on scientific storytelling, read Lisa Cron’s Wired For Story.

For a pot of gold on everything writing, go to Joanna Penn’s TheCreativePenn.com.

What have you dug up that makes a better writer?

I’m dying to see your mine.