Do you ever imagine that your poetry is like a tank, and you're driving around in it, but not like to destroy things? Just that it is that awesome?

The dream I had last night about trying to help Alice Notley find a bagel is based in something that really happened, when she stayed at the Knickerbocker Hotel in Milwaukee.

Last night I saw "Blades of Glory" and while it's not upto "Anchorman" standards (it doesn't have that cast, for one thing), I have to say that "I'll get inside your face" as a retort to "Get out of my face" is one of the funniest things I've seen in any movie recently.

Leonard Cohen named his daughter "Lorca". Should I name my daughter "Lord Alfred Tennyson"?

What is the appeal of black metal?

A dream where I had to go back to my dishwashing job, where somehow I was obligated to and there was no way to get out of it. And looking in The Sports Section at an article about how Steven Wright is actually a really great athlete. There's a picture accompanying the article that shows Steven Wright's rifle-like tennis swing. And also an article about a local couple who were involved in the Avant Garde in the 1930s and 40s, posing nude with their parts strategically covered. And I'm yelling at Ross in my father's living room, loudly complaining that there's no way I'm going back to that job. He's trying to explain to me how the person they have now comes in late, calls himself "Mr. Bumblebut" and uses the wrong exit to leave. And I'm getting really upset but then I wake up. And I'm very relieved.

My job interview at the Journal Sentinel was cut short today when it was determined that I only type 34 wpm. If I were Alice Notley I might have gotten that job! I guess that joke's not very funny. Just recalling how she once she said types very fast. I wonder what the words-per-minute on Alma is.

Ater that I went straight to try and secure Food Share assistance. It was... "sprinkling"?

Welcome to the future, poets!

I do "creepy" pretty well.

We are nearing the end of summer, when the blogging is dumb and the living, it's easy.

I have posted a possible a first step in my search for an antidote to 2 dollar word-itis here.

But I'd love to see some more monosyllabic coupons.

Thank you.

Somewhere in another dimension there may be a an alternate "bizarro" version of this blog, that is filled with all the entries I started and decided to abort. It may still be called unreliable zygote, or may have come under a gravely intense bout of influence by Billy Crystal movies, and have the title "baby fishpants".

I think I have 2 dollar word-itis. Can I write a poem with no 2 dollar words in it? Please leave some monosyllabic coupons in the comment box below.

I'm not good at knowing whether someone is joking. You might say, "Hey Mike, go fuck yourself." And I experience at least one moment of not-knowing.

This is funny because on New Year's Eve of last year, I became surly and drunk at the same time and I started yelling people's names out and then flipping them off whilst they looked back at me.

A few years ago, actually like eight years ago, I was with my friends Justin and Clay and one of them said that when you insult someone sarcastically, which we did alot, you actually mean it a little bit. So I don't know what it says about my personality, but I always take it a little personally when I shouldn't. I should say, "Ah fuck you, jagoff" or "Yeah well ya mutha didn't think so" or just "Ahhhh..."

All celebrities are weird and have weird twinkles in their weird eyes. You begin to think that they will bite you. But they won't. Their eyes reason with you as if you were some wild badger, raising Tom Hanks' iPod, in the wild. Their celebrity eyes totally glow in the NBA night. Which is/was their want. They are standing "at the crossroads", bottle of water, confidence bestowed by Tom Hanks. Their eyes leak iPod courage that is really neat. We're talking scarves, bandanas, babuschukas. Hot Pockets! Mellow grande appreciation of the foreform, Garrison Keiller's deft twaddle, radio knobs stabbed in corn cobs. Celebrity eyes floating down from Haven reassure you, appreciate you in value. Celebrity eyes glowing weirdly in streams and fibre optics, middle of night. Tom Hanks' car goes by on nerve. Cerebral cortex microwave. The celebrity eyes will close shortly, please save their work to a disc, they will appreciate in value. Weird weird nunchuck of green gables.

Why do I feel like someone out there is about to 'break it' to me? Please be gentle!

I'm SPOOKED

Today the library called me telling me that they had my floppy disc and I should come and pick it up. I thought this was a little weird, since I know I'm way too disorganized to have written my name on the disc, though I did remember leaving it. So the people at the library, many of whom I know and once worked along side must have gone into and found my resume with my info and called me based off of that. But then I get the disc and my name and number are written on it, only unmistakably in a handwriting that ain't mine. So I'm wondering if they did that. Maybe. I wait for a computer to open up. I go sit down, and I look at the disc. Now I remember this disc and I remember that I only put one document on it, my resume. But now there are three documents. One is a note to me from the person who found it, telling me that I seem like a great guy but resume is too wordy so they rewrote it. They also tell me in bold lettering that they mean me no harm. And I'm like, what? There's harm in question? Thanks for the reassurance I guess. So this person who means me no harm happens to know where I live... Hmm... Oh and they signed the end of their message, "your guardian angel on earth, S."

I guess this is what it took to get me to stop leaving discs at the library, so thanks S.

By the way, my resume does look more concise and professional now, so I guess, thanks for that too S.

So I'm minding my business, riding my bike, loving my bike in two worlds really, when whose playing in front of Beans & Barley but Perry Farrell, Mr. Lollapalooza himself. I'm all like, "Dude fuck dude.", so I stop, pull down my pants to get his attention and I'm all like flipping him off and yelling "Dude you suck, dude! Just quit dude!". And then I'm all eating a kielbasa no licking out the remains of my Dannon yogurt and Perry Farrell is on stage just like, "Oh my god! This fat truthteller does have my number! I say, old boy! I'm going back to Venice!" And I just yell, "Beyatch!", and that's it. I'm loving Beans & Barley in two worlds, and eating out this kielbasa, totally throwing "metal fingers". You know...

Then Perry Farrell all of sudden jumps off the stage and next thing I know, dude's fuckin suplexing me like I'm some fuckin cornish game corndog dude. And then I'm layin there with fuckin asphault encrusted yogurt all over my face, and Perry Ferrell's all back on stage and he's flying down, a tap-tapping his elbow, which is The Flying Elbow smash. I'm like "No!" The impact of Perry Ferrell's elbow was hard and fast, but then I look and I'm like "Whoah, dude hit his forehead on one of the lights!" So now's my oppurtunity, I smear yogurt and organic cream pie all up in his face, and he collapses and I collapse. In his arms. And now me and Perry Ferrell are loving each in two organic cream pie worlds, totally making out. He's buying me a plane ticket, one way. I'm like, "Dude, I've just been really frustrated and shit." And he's like, "No need to apologize old boy!"

TO BE CONTINUED

Who knew cooking a damn bratwurst could be so difficult.

______

propositions are integrated within
jet up to electric dog status
we pat on you on the back
your ears prick up
we call you hitler
and then kick you around like homogenized milk

-- The Fall

The reader is not Mark E. Smith. I wonder who it is.

______

A piece of paper was left next to this computer with "GNOSSIENNE 1" written on it.

Anne's right. To name something 'blue eyed soul' is more ironic than dumb. Is it that it's easier to be ironic than it is to be dumb? Dumb is hard. And easy at the same time.

And now I'm excited about gerunds. What is about that decade? I came in right at the end, so the 70s are somewhat of a mystery to me. But I do know that gerunds are rife for satire. Here are some gerundic titles:


Shoving The Hoarse Marsh

Spooning David Lehman

Spooning David Lehman In Two Worlds

Gathering The Wet Butts

Gathering The Wet Butts On Sunday

Gathering The Wet Butts On Sunday At Noon Because The Green Bay Packers Don't Play Until Three

Humping The Well

Cloning The Sheep For Jesus

Peering Into The Taco's Heart

Shlupping Around Venice With Andy Rooney

Loving Andy Rooney In Two Worlds

Diving Into The Pool

Fussing Over Procedure

Sweating Like Roger Ebert (not mine)

Breakdancing In The Afterlife

Fluting Miscreant Oboes

Shucking The Early Corn

Glancing Toward Midnight

So the list of albums, which can scrolled down to, is starting to get perhaps obnoxiously long. Probably no longer a 'desert island' collection. But I like trying to remember all these albums. I'm kind of ashamed to say I no longer own the majority of em. Moving to Milwaukee with no money in 2000 nessecitated selling alot of the 3-400 disc collection I had. Is Milwaukee worth trading all that music for? I guess. So the list is kind of a pasty nerd version of that Willie Nelson song. For All The Music I've Loved Before. And I'm serious about the last one on that list, tho it's strictly a sentimental attachment that goes back to my early adolescence. I can't really justify it any other way.

Is this the dumbest name [above] I could have given this blog? For some reason I'm really into the idea of giving this blog the dumbest name possible without resorting to like 'poogie poo poo party pants' or something like that. I mean naming a blog after the genre of music Hall & Oates play is pretty dumb right?

Today as I was crossing an intersection on my bike, I heard one of the passengers in a pickup truck waiting to cross utter the phrase "moron on a bike". That's funny!

Mairead Byrne is a very very funny person.

There needs to be more flirting on this blog, besides just me with myself.

Actually on second thought, forget it. Flirting does me no good.

Well it's looks like all the blogs are closin up for the day.

I'm interested in your body fat.

Miscommunication

You look down, but I'm up here.

I'm in the mood for Kenneth Anger and Nashville Skyline.

Tom Petty

Why do people listen to Tom Petty?

There is an episode of Strangers With Candy in which all Flatpoint High students are assigned to submit a photo that illustrates what free speech means to them. So Gerri submits a nude photo of herself with legs spread wide. But upon seeing this photo, Principal Blackman exclaims 'Snatch it down!'. Well, ever the defendant of free speech, Mr. Jellineck offers a 'censorship' story of his own, in which he had some paintings on display, but no one bought any of them. So he convinces Jerri to go on a 'hunger strike', which consists of her sitting in the school display case until they 'win'. And once Principal Blackman offers to buy one of Jellineck's leaf collages, Jellineck considers the battle won. Jerri however refuses to end her hunger strike, which was a stipulation in Blackman and Jellineck's deal. Jellineck is outraged at Gerri's uncooperativeness and lashes out, "Why are you censoring me Gerri?!"

I want to know your favorite albums. Or least favorite. Or just what albums knocked you on your asses. Here is a list in no particular order. Ok so I'm getting a little carried away...

Pavement- Slanted & Enchanted
Beach Boys- Pet Sounds
Beatles- The White Album
The Raincoats- The Raincoats
Erik Satie- Played by Ciccolini
My Bloody Valentine- Loveless
Wu Tang Clan- Enter The 36 Chambers
Aphex Twin- I Care Because You Do
Aphex Twin- Ambient Works Vol II
Panda Bear- Person Pitch
Charles Mingus- Pithecanthropus Erectus
Pavement- Crooked Rain Crooked Rain
Billie Holiday- As Time Goes By (a generic CD my Mom got in the mail from the Bravo Network for some reason, but the recordings are amazing)
Nick Drake- Pink Moon
Elliot Smith- XO
Sonic Youth- Daydream Nation
Public Enemy- It Takes a Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back
Eric B & Rakim- Paid in Full
Van Morrison- Astral Weeks
Rolling Stones- Exile on Main Street
Can- Future Days
Love- Forever Changes
Zombies- Singles Collection
Mercury Rev- See You On The Other Side
Pavement- Brighten The Corners
Velvet Underground- Velvet Underground
Husker Du- New Day Rising
The Stooges- Funhouse
Lisa Germano- Happiness
Nas- Illmatic
Suicide- Suicide
Sonic Youth- Experimental Jet Set Trash & No Star
Joanna Newsom- The Milk Eyed Mender
Animal Collective- Sung Tongs
Animal Collective- Feels
Panda Bear- Young Prayer
Charles Mingus- The Black Saint And The Sinner Lady
A Tribe Called Quest- The Low End Theory
Lee 'Scratch' Perry- Arkology
The Fall- A Sides
Tricky- Maxinquaye
Plug- Drum & Bass For Papa
Wagon Christ- Tally Ho
Dances With Wolves- Soundtrack

Another poet I dug closely in my Serious Midwestern Young Man phase was James Wright. And when I read his poems I still like them on some level. I don't know if liking something is a problem or not. The guy has an ear for poetry. Listen to this:

Two athletes
Are dancing in the cathedral
Of the wind

Sonically that's pretty beautiful. Even if the line breaks are a little clunky. It's from "Spring Images", which can be found in The Branch Will Not Break.

I was heavily influenced by stuff like this for awhile. I tried to write a poem called "Inviolate Child", that was filled with long, mellifluous lines about a kid who lived under a tree in my Dad's backyard or something. I eventually abandoned the project.

Have you ever had a teacher, who inspired you at the time, and you needed that, but then you look back and realize that you are now in complete disagreement with much of what they said. For example, "you should read Robert Bly", which I did, and so for awhile I was one of those aspiring faux deep image poets, all hung up on 'image' and such.

An important breaking away point for me was reading The Sonnets, which somehow fit in with my weird worldview and nascent buddhism, I liked it immediately. But The Sonnets also allowed me to see all these other tributaries in plain view from where my writing currently was. To my mind it had some 'leaping', actually a dazzling, breathtaking, heartbreaking amount of 'leaping', but it was also much more free in it's associations and syntax then most work I was into at the time. And eventually of course, I came to realize that the whole concept of 'leaping' is actually pretty questionable, and that the whole deep image thing was basically an appropriation of the 'raw' by the 'cooked'.

I have serious 'earworm' from that Tegan and Sara song from last night's Conan. Even tho it's obviously snugly in the category of what I have pompously referred to, among friends, whilst enduring Iron & Wine, or getting snagged on any number of Grey's Anatomyesque tv dramas, relationship music. I don't quite know what it is, but I feel a palpable difference between music that is responding to or invoking a feeling of love (say to use an obvious example, Pet Sounds, or perhaps ironically but not reallly ironically, Loveless), and that music that to me just sounds like two Generation Y hipster-yuppies who live in say Williamsburg, Brooklyn or on the East Side of Milwaukee having a fight. A type of music that more than anything just alienates me, maybe from lack of that kind of experience. But seriously, there is a vein of 'indie' music come along in the last decade that resembles James Taylor and Carly Simon in sentiment and sound, no?

But all that said, the chorus of 'I just want back into your head' is at least not too cliched, and that terse piano line is about a good a hook as I've heard in a long time. And I find the way they sing way less grating actually than the Iron & Wine wispy-hope-you've-never-heard-Nick Drake mode of earnestness. You can interpret this in whatever way you like, but I think a woman's perspective is just more interesting when it comes to this proto-Garden State type Indie Rock.