I get Wu Tang Clan, Enter The 36 Chambers: This might be the first hip hop album I buy. At first, it sounds kind of scary. You might read whiteness from that statement. But Enter The 36 Chambers is scary. Many of the disses are so effective it sounds like they're directed at you. 'What's that in y' pants? Aww, HUMAN PHESIS. Next time come strapped with a fuckin pampa' 'We have an APB on an MC KILLA! Looks like the work of a Masta.' (Masta Killah) The beats sound like boots stomping through mud. They're bees. You might get stung. Also, best skits of any hip hop album I know about. Accept maybe Three Feet High and Rising. Why don't indie rock albums have skits? I love skits! The ones on this album anyway...

I get The Velvet Underground & Nico: At first I don't like it. The first track sounds like The Mamas & The Papas (I'm fifteen at this point, keep in mind). Waiting For The Man also kind of dissapoints me. I thought this would sound more like Sonic Youth! I want noise. Run Run Run has a loud solo. I don't remember when this album clicked with me, but boy did it! Maybe it was finally European Son, where the glass broke. Nico sounds like my German teacher. Venus in Furs reminds me of the scenes in Jesus of Nazareth that show decadent Romans.

I get Sea & Cake, Sea & Cake: I like this immediately. It reminds me of city parks I never really visited. Bring My Car I Feel To Smash It. Great song title. Clear chiming sound. Reminds me of Steely Dan, which was good then, not good for a while, and now I'm back to admitting I like some of their songs. Despite how they dissed VU.

I get My Bloody Valentine, Loveless: I had first seen them on 120 Minutes (I could blog a whole lot about that too!) and I, in 19-fucking-94 did not own a CD player yet. I wanted the tape so badly tho, I think I all but hugged the dude from Best Buy when he found it for me. I listened on a walkmen in the family Ford Explorer on Hwy 41/45 going north. Later I played it while my mother was giving me driving lessons. She made me take it off. For some reason I thought she might like it. I wrote about it in my school newspaper. Of course crushed on Belinda Butcher.

I get Bugskull, Phantasies and Senseitions: I read that it was groundbreaking and incredible in Alternative Press, this was 94/95 before that magazine became devoted to Emo. First song reminds me of the beginning of St Pepper's, and then the song once it begins reminds me of disco. I like the weirder songs better than the normaler ones. One song is a sloppy watery beat with a phone message from someone named 'Big Ronnie'. Short. My favorite song is called Recoder.

The very first post on this blog (when I thought it would be strictly poesy damaged) was about Bill Luoma's Works and Days. I think I can safely it's one of my favorite books, not that I'm too well-read or anything. It makes sense to give it the sentimental designation 'favorite', because as Alice Notley says on the back (and Anselm Berrigan said in a review of the book I read in an old Po Proj newsletter at Zack's house) (Zack has these old issues of the Po Proj newsletter which John gave to him)(love you John), but like I was saying both of them remark how readable this book is. And I just realized in an more subjective way that no part of it, not even Astrophysics &You or The Annotated My Trip To NYC, projects BOOK outwardly. So much poetry, even terrific poetry, projects BOOK at a little point in the air midway between you and it. But when I read Works & Days I see no projection between me and the book. None of it feels like it was written to be published. How often can one say they read a book and it feels that way? So there are all kinds of words I could throw around here. Maybe 'intimacy' and 'the work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction' are on a teeter totter in my mind. In My Trip To NYC, I like the first sentence of each paragraph, and want to read more. 'Jennifer can smoke and I really like her style.' 'Evan and Steve have an 85% hit ratio.' 'I admired the way one side of Cindy's hair fell longer and eyeward.' 'There was an ump named Norm who liked Douglass and he's still the best ump in the league.' Almost all of the beginning sentences of paragraphs have a person's name in them. At first I wondered if there was a method used to write them. Maybe not knowing exactly what this method was detracted from my understanding of it... Now, after reading through it again, I'm not so worried about that.

I'm constantly thinking about how I measure my life against others' lives. I get into the habit of thinking that some people 'have it better' than I do. And all this really does is set up a dichotomy whereby I look at my life as shitty. Indeed, worrying about one's 'lot in life' to an excessive degree leads one to become very self-absorbed. But in the first sentence there's an indication of meta-measuring- measuring how much I measure my life against others' lives. Because I realize what this does and don't like it.

American Beauty: has anyone noticed the pervasive and awful influence this film has on culture? Leading to a trend of mysterization of the suburbs. Such as a somber commercials selling phones. Or the show Desperate Housewives. "The suburbs are alot weirder than you think." No, they aren't. Or did all this start with Edward Scissorhands?

I think the whole trend of tv ads regarding themselves as some kind of aesthetic gesture is really disturbing. Is it too much to ask that tv ads just be inane and annoying, without laying some profundity trip on the viewer?

The thing is that what is behind this mysterization of the suburbs is cheap reassurance. "Everythin our country's doing is right, everything we do is fine. We're all just a little weird that's all. And hey, cut loose, buy something" etc. The idea that inspiration is a commodity. That, as Master Card says, it's 'priceless'. But the inspiration itself is to buy things.

Before I sign off, The Simpsons tonight had a part where Flanders says 'Abso-notley'. No shit!

But what am I doing talking to you, when I could be at home reading this and this. Just bought em.

I also have a theory, with regard to American comedies. If a film is 'good', that is 'good' by conventional standards of having of a tight plot, 3-d characters all that, there's a good chance it's not as funny. The Marx Brothers are a case in point. Groucho regarded A Night At The Opera and A Day At The Races as their finest achievements in film. They had plot, characters to empathize with and root for. But they are just not as funny as Duck Soup or Horse Feathers. There's an anarchic energy that's essential in comedy. And that gets sacrficed when the film has to become Good, or Of Value To Society, or Correct. The most effective satire in film in the 20's and 30's was arguably Chaplin. And those are beautiful films, but what's important in them, what is the base for the satire and story of City Lights and Modern Times, is the whirlwind of energy that surrounds The Tramp. What happens to The Tramp. What The Tramp does. Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgandy, as great as it is, can't and shouldn't be compared to The Godfather. They just work on different levels.

And while I'm at it, I feel like listing some of my favorite films, in no particular order.

Good Fellas
Trust
Duck Soup
Horse Feathers
The Spirit of The Beehive
The 400 Blows
The Naked Gun
About Schmidt
Beauty And The Beast (Cocteau)
The Doom Generation
Blazing Saddles
Freaks
Young Frankenstein
Mad Max
Surf Nazis Must Die
Thou Shalt Not Kill Except
Blue Velvet
Night Of The Living Dead
The Jerk
Stroszek

K. Silem Mohammad writes about American comedies at Lime Tree, and yeah these are great films, but what about Blazing Saddles? Might be the funniest movie of all time. But who knows. Never has 'holy shit' been used in a film with such perfect timing. I've noticed over repeated viewings that there's constant use of the s-word but no f-word. One can only guess that there was some in-between period in Hollywood where the s-word was cool but the f-word still wasn't allowed. I'm sure one could make alot out of the racial aspects of Blazing Saddles. What Blazing Saddles does is comment on how Westerns cast race. It deals in the stereotypes that Westerns (and other films) deal with. Its a satire. And a mind-boggling one at that- see Mel Brooks playing a stereotype of an Indian Chief as a stereotype of an Orthodox Jew. What made for so much institutional racism in Hollywood was how one-sided it was, no? In this film everybody gets it, and the only thing that's important is comedy.

A film like Gone With The Wind seems much much worse to me, because not only are stereotypes unquestioningly presented to us, but the dichotomy of White/Black characters is so jarringly unrealistic. The white characters are genteel and courageous, while most of the black characters are presented as people who are better off being led by white characters.

In Blazing Saddles, the protaganist is played by Cleavon Little, an African-American. As the new sherriff of Rock Ridge, he's possibly the only character who doesn't show himself to be an idiot. There's the saint-like doe-eyed Gene Wilder, but he's in a bottle for the first portion of the film. Like the Marx Brothers' Duck Soup, the film solves any and all problems with regard to 'plot' by allowing itself to simply succumb to insanity. Blazing Saddles has the wildest last 45 or so minutes of just about any film I can think of, and then, after the fourth wall's been blown up many times over, it returns to Western satire, but hey this is the 20th Century, 1974, so Cleavon Little and Gene Wilder ditch their horses and get into a classy ride. They drive off into the sunset. If you're still hung up on the racial epithets in this film, I direct you to the scene where the town of Rock Ridge is forming a group to stop the Governor from demolishing their homes to make room for the railroad. A comment on the provincialsim of Westerns, but you'll notice how diverse the group is. Unlike a satire such as say Team America, which has the "America Fuck Yeah" song, but no real point of view, Blazing Saddles has a position. It's anti-greed, anti-exploitation, pro-solidarity, pro-humor. Blazing Saddles comments on racial stereotypes, but it doesn't exploit them unquestioningly.

Can anyone tell me what 'torque' is? I have an idea. But I've heard the word 'torque' used in reference, usually in a sort hushed, terrified tone, such as the "Beware the 'torque' of a poem by so and so" (fill in poet). Is it referring to a poem one can easily lose control of? Like have you had to use a rotary scrubber ever? With a black (most abrasive color) pad? And it veers violently into the wall, at first, until you get it down. The other night I saw Jackass #2. I know critics are starting to warm up to Jackass, making it possibly one of those 'anti-movies'. The other night at Pick n Save I told Zack he should try the 'anti-pasta'. I don't know if there is anything particularly iconoclastic about this pasta, like if it's the Lenny Bruce or GG Allin or Kathy Acker of pastas. The GG Allin pasta would just be made out of poop. That's a no-brainer. Anti-brainer. But 'torque', maybe it would be like the Firehose Rodeo stunt in Jackass #2. I kind of like the idea of a poem as farmer-blow. And I think it would keeping with the Outrider Tradition, which I place myself in, firmly. Charles Olson is not giving me enough room on the couch. O, and a band called Tough Lesson. Kind of like those Scared Straight specials, only Indie Rock. But wait there's already been plenty of Straight Edge.

There seems to be a phenomenon in poetry blogging that's similar to the Tracy Morgan bit where he's paranoid that his kids are looking at him and thinking to themselves, "I think I could take him."

I'm a poetry junkie with a short attention span. I check out books of poetry from the library, and barely look at many of them. I always think that I should find other things to read, just to read something, instead of watching The Simpsons or my roomate's Mr. Show dvds. Which reminds me, I was going to ask if anyone whose reading this could reccomend a novel or something for me to read. Fiction is difficult for me. I would say that one reason I read so much poetry is because I have a short attention span that is better suited to the amount of time it takes to read a poem (a short one anyway). I think that's partly true, but it would also seem to imply that poetry doesn't require attention. It does. Good poetry anyway. One can find language working through all of its aspects. Maybe one reason I love poetry more than any other literature is because it makes words do more than in other kinds of literature. But yeah, someone give me a book to read and I'll read it. I promise.

Before I was into poetry, I was a music person and for better or worse, read alot of Spin Magazine. In one issue, there was a review of two books of poetry; one I can't remember and the other, Decoy by Elaine Equi. I read the review and went and bought the book, basicly based off the fact that the author (Joshua Clover? he wrote for Spin sometimes) compared her poetry to Aphex Twin. Now that I'm familiar with both artists' work, and have read alot more poetry, I'm not sure how well the comparison holds up. Maybe. I don't know. But does anyone remember this? Probably the only time a once important music magazine ever mentioned poetry, besides Byron Coley writing about Ginsberg.

I work as a dishwasher at the local Art Concern's cafe. I sometimes write in my notebook when there's downtime. The other night I learned that when my manager sees me writing in it he 'wanted to slap it out his fucking hands'. Hmm. (Alot of those bemused hmm's on this blog lately.) He wanted to fire me on the spot, but my more immediate boss vouched for me.

But the writing is on the little notebook of the wall it seems. I'm probably going to get fired from my dishwashing job, if I don't find something soon and quit before that happens. (If you leave anywhere near me and know of anything, babysitting your cat for instance, let me know.)

I don't usually 'blog' about this, but I'm at a point in my life where the possibility of me ending up homeless, due to my chronic unemployability, doesn't seem that far-fetched. I've even thought about the possibility of trying to get myself diagnosed with something, so I can collect some kind of gov't money. In the immediate future, I guess if I ran out of money I'd have to move in with my Dad in the Township of Addison. Which would be ironic considering that the way I moved past the previous period of depression in my life was by moving away from there. But anyway, I owe multiple parties lots of money (there's one law firm that has a garnishment at the ready for me as soon I start making enough). I also owe my university 3300 bucks, and this keeps me from being able to take the single class I have left until I get the bachelor's degree that's ten years in the making.

Its hard for me to see anyway out of this, apart from suddenly marrying a woman who has, or whose family has, alot of money. You can dissect all the mommy-fruedian-bullshit in that sentence if you like. The idea that I would actually see that as a viable option.

So when one finds oneself in such a situation, one begins to really 'take it one day at a time' if one knows what's good for one's psychological well-being. Of course I realize I need to get a job, but if I get fired from my post as a dishwasher, well its gonna start to seem really hopeless.

I get the impression that alot of other 'poetry bloggers' are people who are either in Grad School or have an office job. Or they lose their job, they get another one almost immediately. And in my correspondences with other poets, they seem to complain about how busy they are. I am almost never busy. Maybe I should try to be busy. To make myself busy.

I don't know why I'm writing this. I guess the only people I figure will read it are friends anyway.

What keeps me going? I'm a poet. In the scope of the universe, the cosmos, what I owe to the spector of all things living and non-, my job is to write poems. I might be dead if it weren't for that. So I keep doing my thing which is no big deal. And the weather changes. And so do I.

I really want to write a poem that as joyful as the Beach Boys 'I Get Around'.

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Poetry assignment: write a poem that illustrates the difference between the way turkey tastes and the way chicken tastes, without mentioning either.

So last night I saw Kent Johnson read at the UDub, and man I really was not feeling it. I tried to hold out judgement on the guy's work, knowing all about the internet involvments. But in the end, he read his Bahgdad/Iraq War/Experimental Poetry stuff from the Auschwitz book, and it seemed like shame was a major implement. Now, shame is not nessecarilly all bad. But maybe with a little subtlety. This was shame like double-bass drums, in-your-face, making devil horns with the fingers shame. Like someone who is operating with the idea in mind of 'just what can my audience handle?'. Which I find incredibly presumptuous.

Maybe this makes me sound like a pretentious aesthete or something, but I just don't see what rankling 'The Poetry Establishment' (whatever idea one has of what that is) will do towards ending the Iraq War. And its hard to take someone's anti-war stance seriously in light of the fact that they wrote a book of gossipy epigrams about other poets. Gossip and righteousness are a yucky mix indeed. But then maybe I just didn't get it? Hmm... I don't feel compelled to go back and look for it.

I know Kent Johnson might be considered old news. But UWM is actually his alma mater, and I think this is the first time, in a while anyway, that he's read here. The audience reaction was hard to gauge. Milwaukee's 'scene', tho less 'there' in some ways than a larger city's, is the same as NY or SF, I think. People have their groups and cadres they save their words for. It is irritating to me, because naive as this may sound, we are in a tradition. Poetry is a line of people connected. I do believe that. So I don't want to rip on other poets, but last night did leave a bad taste in my mouth. And maybe it was supposed to. But it would have been much more fun he'd jumped in the audience and grabbed their shirts, hitting himself with the microphone, ala Suicide shows of lore. The whole thing just felt like someone wagging their finger at me.

Why do I do this?

Tony Dungy is the new Charles Bernstein. On the rainy weather and the many turnovers, "Once we saw the forecast, we thought there'd be a chance of this." Get it? Chance of this? Ha! I have eaten the many turnovers! You try it. Its fun!

I thought of a new band name: The Thirst For Mike Hauser

I'm in this. And others are too.

When I was a kid, I remember it being morning, and the Journey song with 'when the lights go down on the city' (their ode to San Francisco) was on the radio. I also remember thinking to myself, at about age 8 or 9 I'd say, 'Now this is good music!'

_______

My earliest memory is being in a car outside Mayfair Mall, and hearing 'Steppin Out' by Joe Jackson on the radio. I was there because my Mom was a waitress at Captains Restaurant.

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Learning that Reitman & Mueller were anti-deer hunting, and how that pissed off my Dad.

_______

My dad made me listen closely to the synth solo that comes at the end of 'Lucky Man' by Emerson Lake & Palmer.

_______

When I was much older, I was in a car with my Dad and "Its Only Rock n Roll" came on. He changed it immediately. It occurs to me that The Rolling Stones and My Dad are almost mutually anathema.

I've noticed that on alot of Seinfeld episodes there are points where George becomes angry and then immediately begins eating. I usually eat when I'm experiencing anxiety because I find it takes my mind off of 'things'. I'm what some would call 'fat'. I experience alot of anxiety, thus the calorie intake. But I can't imagine eating 'angry', in the vein of 'driving angry'. But there are alot scenes with that motif on Seinfeld- 'George is gettin upset!', then immediately starts eating a sandwich. Actually its seems like all they do on that show is eat. Its amazing they weren't all morbidly obese.

_______

Last night I saw The Descent. It's disturbing in a way that stays with you more than say, The Ring, which just relies on one somewhat hokey premise. The Descent is more psychological, and it has a very eliptical ending, though one can make some sense out of it from a psychological angle. The monsters are really just white people who've evolved indoors, not unlike real life white people. The charactors are British, which means they manage to say 'sorry' even when they're on the verge of death, after a spear's been plunged their neck. What's disturbing? The ending, definitely. More than that tho, it's what happens within the group who descend into the cave, what the specter first of the cave, then the monsters does to them.

I'm still digesting my reaction to Ys. It's a powerful album to be sure. But the length of songs and the ambitiousness of the material make it hard to listen to in a casual way. You have to sit down and listen to it, doing nothing else. 'Emily' is amazing to me because it's innovation seems to be entirely musical, or at least more embedded in the music than most rock/pop, which is marketwise, if that matters, still where one situates Joanna Newsom. Or at least its where her albums would be in a record store. The innovation in alot of rock/pop now is found in playing with the codification of certain gestures. In a way, that's what all 'innovative' rock/pop relies on. Skewing the gestures of the pop song, in the format of a pop song. If there's any exception it might be Pet Sounds. Smile, if it had been made by the Beach Boys. Ys also reminds me of Astral Weeks, in its winding structures and lyrical density. Tho where Astral Weeks was influenced by jazz, Ys seems more indebted to modern classical music.

On Tuesday night it was very cold. While waiting for the 10 bus, I began making fog on the shelter glass with my breath. Then I discovered I could actually make clear lines within the fog by curling my tongue and exhaling onto it. I wrote Mike Rules very crudely in the fog on the glass. When I saw the bus coming, I became embarrased at the thought of someone else seeing this and tried to erase it with my gloved hand. But it wouldn't come off. So the next person who came to that bus shelter may very well have seen Mike Rules written on the glass of the bus shelter.

Thinking today how funny it is that, I think, ODB at some point in the first Wu Tang is like, "What's that's in yr pants? AW HUMAN FECES!"

He's of course referring to how scary his rap style is. And it is scary. Other rap styles on this joint 'have the force to leave to ya lost like the Tribe of Shabaz' and are 'more deadly than the stroke of an axe/ppCCHHHhh!/givin bystanders heart attacks'. Its not out of the question that one such rap style would leave one with shit in the drawers. But 'human feces'? What other kind of feces would it be? Caribou feces? Wallaby feces?

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I really like Boris' Pink. Though I can't speak intelligently about metal, such as The Mister does. Not too many reference points. But one of the things I love about it is that the slow, droney songs hit harder than the fast Sabbath-y ones. 'Farewell' kicks in with a massive crash like a space nugget demolishing a tiny village. But it reminds me of 'Limerick' from Amanita by Bardo Pond. I don't know about using Blake and Bosch for liner art.

Mike Hauser, who originally played Higgins in the TV series, will once again play the role that made him a television icon. According to US Weekly, Hauser will gain 35 pounds and undergo plastic surgery before production begins in order to maintain a sense of consistency with the original portrayal of the character.

My favorite song right now is Yo La Tengo's "Mr. Tough". Its one of those songs that seems like it shouldn't work. Some kind of tropical piano figure. Is it calypso? Tango? (Ha!) Festive horns that rangle like Otis Redding. Ira Kaplan singing in a ridiculously high voice. But I think I can definitely say the whole thing's life-affirming. And a familiar rock/pop sentiment 'Pretend/ Everything could be alright'. But it hits home as affectively as Stevie Wonder's 'Don't You Worry Bout a Thing' or Velvelt Underground's 'I'm Beginning To See The Light'.

Also digging 'Foggy Eyes' by Beat Happening. It has a simple echoey sound. Heather Lewis picking up Mo Tucker's sticks in more ways than one. Beat Happening are much underappreciated. They were pretty much a monodynamic band. But you have two great unique vocalists in Heather and Calvin. And they were monodynamic in a way that resembled the Velvets more than Sprinstein (unlike today's indie bands). What's with indie bands all of sudden being influenced by The Boss? Weird. Calvin of course is Calvin Johnson who co-started K Records. How many people even know about Beat Happening anymore. This is making me sound old.

The other night while listening to Ys, I got a huge erection out of nowhere. But it wasn't like a lusty 'bust my nut' type of erection. It was like a good erection, a love erection. I felt kind of weird, like a stalker. But those were just residual feelings. I don't believe the erection to have been residual.

In the confluence of processing a very pertinant post on Silliman's Blog, the comments therein and Jonathan Mayhew's claim to alienation from 'personal experience' I've started thinking about this idea again that I've had for some time. The idea that, socially and I guess poetically since how really can one seperate the two, I'm sort of like a bystander hollering at traffic. This would seem to indicate a sense of alienation, and I guess I feel as alienated as anyone else.

But this idea is from how I came to 'place' myself among my group of friends at whatever time. Sometimes consciously but more times not really consciously I become this person trying say things that exist just outside the bounds of whatever conversation is happening. I feel more comfortable, seeing that this is usually my mindset, when there is a group of people around talking. I probably should've pursued a career appearing on shows like The McLaughlin Group.

This tendency probably comes partly from a fear of intimacy. It seems cliched to say 'a fear of a intimacy', but I think I have it. That is, I don't make eye contact much, I don't like talking on the phone either. When I'm talking on the phone to someone I get this feeling like there's pressure on me to talk. You can't watch tv or listen to music in phone zone. Just you and the other person.

Or it might just be that I get bored easily by other people. Despite how pretentious that sounds I think its probably true. It doesn't mean that I think I'm better than you, sexy reader! Its probably just a short attention span.

Applying this to poetry/poetry world, I've feel isolated more than anything else geographically. Like others I'm sure, I think about how my poetry might have more readers if I lived in a place like New York or San Fransisco or Philadelphia. But is that all I want? More readers?

I do think that to write poetry (assuming one has spent time reading and processing the poetry of others) is to create a piece of culture. Speaking anthropo-something-ly the instinct to share would have to come with the act of creating then, right? Not that I want to show you everything I write. That's not necessarilly what desiring an audience means. To me its sort of like giving something to another person as a gift, so it exists as an entity apart from your own perception of it. But still as a record of your existence, or as James Liddy might say, one of your 'receipts for existence'.

And maybe then, paradoxically, there has to be some level of isolation. I remember a Philip Whalen poem (I think one that was to Bill Berkson) where he is basicly saying how there are so many people around that one can't get anything done. But that's just functionality, or the lack thereof when one is surrounded by distractions.

I mean a sort of maybe self-imposed isolation. Maybe an isolation that the poem imposes on itself. But maybe that's just a matter of figuring how to give it room, more functionality.

Alot of life is functionality. Figuring out how to function. In poetry, making it safe for the poem to happen. A clear connection between Persons.

Now for some reason I want to talk about poetics. (Jeez, an essay's almost in sight!) I tried writing about my poetics or whether I had one this summer, and I've come to the conclusion that there is vanity in poetics. Obvioulsy poetry blogs radically alter poetics. It seems to me that poetics was once a thing one cultivated over one's lifetime. Now its like voting straight ticket. And I don't want to percieve my or anyone's poetry that way. In November, I voted straight Dem, but only to oppose the Republicans. I don't, on the other hand, want a poetics of opposition.

As a sidenote on poetics, I don't think its a complete waste of time. Someone like Lorine Niedecker, you could definintely write about her work in regards to poetics, but she spent her whole life developing that. Its never a finished thing, a stance, a party line.

One thing I believe is that poets connect to each other, out of a proclivity that is almost inseperable from the act of writing. I like this tribal aspect of poetry. I think poetry can and should present a model for a community that exists palpably, but also flexibly. In that way, poetry commuinities can affect the whole world, which they were never seperate from anyway.

As a poet you plant your gardens, which'll have yours and others' poems in them. That's beautiful, no?

Five Little Known Facts About Me

I had a half-beagle whom I barely remember get run over by a UPS truck.

I dressed as Indiana Jones for my preschool Halloween party. Later that day I was fiddling with the gear stick in my mother's car while she was in the Post Office, and the car rolled down a slight incline into a lightpole. The lightpole was ruined so the City Of West Bend built a fountain there. A bystander claimed I was waving as the car careened into the lightpole. But I was scared shitless, so probably not.

I participated in an 'Underground Newspaper' in High School called The Night Crawler. The 'Proper Newspaper' was called 'The Night Crier'. My friend and I managed to alienate, piss off, slightly amuse or cause to remain indifferent all of Slinger High School. I did a horoscope where I tried to name every 'Social Clique' in the school. My idea was to tell everyone off equally.

I once masturbated in the back of a bus in Ireland. (This will be the only Item here that involves me masturbating.)

I have been threatened with a lawsuit four times in my life.

I tag:

Gina, Shafer, Sandra, DUCKPANTS BBPD, Haystack

One retaliation against Bush that either hasn't been tried hard ehoungh or has just failed completely is the willful conflation of his name with female genitalia. 'Lick Bush' etc. We need to shift the warlike energy associated with politician's names over to sexual energy. I resent that 'bush' may have come to connote 'president' more so than it does 'vagina' or for that matter 'shrubbery'. That slogan 'Stay Out the Bushes' doesn't work for me though because it suggests bushes are a bad thing. What did they ever do to anyone?

I think I'm losing all confidence in music based in rock precepts to be interesting. New stuff that is. Or maybe I just don't know where to look. Or maybe I just don't care as much. Before I started writing poetry, music was my main thing. I was a complete spectator though. My therapist asked me if I would be happy as a spectator in my life. Mostly I am happy as a spectator in my life. I think inaction can be a very radical act in fact. Channeling my Oblique Strategies.

When I was in grade school, kids used to say 'What team did you vote for?' instead of 'What team did you root for?' What team one rooted for was very important. I hated the Chicago Bulls. I literally cried when the Denver Broncos lost 55-10 to the 49ers. I was (being a rural 13 years old) shocked and confused when Magic Johnson retired. The day after Magic Johnson retired, alot of kids were saying he had 'AIDS because he's a fag'. I remember feeling personally hurt by that. Maybe one reason I stopped following sports is because I was tired of having my heart broken! That or puberty.

In films there are sequences, usually about the length of a pop song called montages. My main thing is poetry, so naturally I'm wondering if there is an example of poetry montage. For some reason what pops into my head is Deerhead Nation, by K. Silem Mohammad. But those poems, if considered montage, add a new element to it, which is to say many of them are scary montage. Are there examples of scary montage in films? And I mean montage in the modern definition, which is from the 80s. A montage that seems to transcend all manner of aesthetic speculation, just through its sheer ridiculousness, is in Rocky IV, the training montage. I'd like to write a poem that has a training montage, say Zack or Dustin or James Liddy as the coach. They would be driving a golf cart along side me yelling encouragements while I'm on my daily 10 mile run by the sea shore.

There's also a part in Rocky IV where one can very easily mishear Rocky's manager saying 'Take a crap!' between rounds.

Poets should say fuckface more. But Anselm's down. So is Bruce Bruce.

Hairdresser

Is NPR considered a genre of music?

Uncle Ez talked about the news that stays news, but what about the dudes that stay dudes?

The other week, on a Saturday night, I was driving with Brock to some person's house, where my friend Saul used to live. We were listening to Jesus Lizard and I was thrashing around alot in the car. One of my lenses was loose and it popped out which I didn't realize until the next day. I looked on the passenger side but didn't think to look on the driver side, which is where my lense was.

I used to write music reviews for my high school newspaper. What I really wanted to do (I think) was start a band that sounded like the Pixies or Helium or Sonic Youth or some other indie rock band of the time. But my friend Justin was really into Meatloaf, and my friend Dave was really into Sting... I found the first review I published in a copy of the Nite Crier that was in the boys' locker room garbage. It was of Nine Inch Nails' The Downward Spiral. I compared Trent Reznor to Edgar Allen Poe, because I felt like I needed to say something like that, basicly. Again, I took it very seriously. I wrote a review of Loveless by My Bloody Valentine, where I conceded that their music did sometimes sound like a cat's head stuck in a vacuum cleaner but went on to praise it nevertheless. The most contronversial thing I wrote for the school newspaper was probably a thing called Mary Tyler Moore. It has a boy killing his father then, covered in his father's blood, running and throwing his hat in the air ala the Mary Tyler Moore opening credits. It was mentioned on the Mark Belling show. Another piece I had in the same issue was a description of a bug crawling out of a dead woman's vagina. It was called Mitosis and it ended with the line, "You are a rapist. Deal with it." I didn't suggest of course how the reader might deal with it, just that they deal with it. Oh and I wrote both pieces under the name Jello Biafra. I didn't really know who he was. I didn't really who I was. I was a poser. What else could I be?

Taste

Why does taste matter? Ok. If you like something and I like it too, that gives us something to talk about right? The reason I get along with some of my better friends has a little bit to do with our shared frame of reference. But then, we disagree alot too, and thats fine. I suppose if we disagreed on everything, that would give us alot less to talk about. And you might say, 'Dude, you like that? That sucks!' and I might say 'Dude you like that? That sucks!'

But really, what does liking something do? What are you doing when you like something? Nothing. Stating a preference maybe. But to stand in front of a person and say, 'I like this.' What does it really do unless you talk about why you like it. Is it because it doesn't suck, or doesn't blow, or because it influenced something that came after. I had a friend in High School, who was my best friend, who listened to music that I could not fathom listening to. And then I kind of started to like it, because I picked up on some of the energy he got from it. I also, however, thought during that time of my life that the music I was listening to was really important and that only idiots would listen to 'mainstream music'. But you get beyond your teens and realize that alot of the things that seemed really important to you at the time, don't amount to much. Its really not important whether the other person on the bus likes REM.

That said, I think there's a certain mindset one can get in, where they start to claim music as theirs. They use it not only to define themselves but to define themselves against other people. They start arguements over it, call people names over it. All over, basicly, CDs, 7" singles, who 'owns a copy' of what. I guess it's fun. Fetishization. Which means you use music or literature or film as a way to compensate for something else. I do it. I use art to stand in for whole lot of things that are lacking in my life. But then I also use it to make myself feel more free. And I think its incredibly interesting that other people like other kinds music, books etc.

But I ask you again, if I like something that you don't like, why would you care? Why does it matter to you?

I had a dream that Ron Silliman was my manager at McDonalds.

I'm sexually attracted to Nancy Pelosi. I know its fucked up.

Ys comes out tomorrow but I won't enough $ til Friday. Unless a certain Andy Mister wants to loan me the money...

Strangers With Candy quotes


"Only I can help you realize my dreams of yours."

"Jerri, most of your dad is in the belly of dog."

"How is everyone today? And how am I?"

"But please, no mylar balloons. They deflate. And I don't have the heart to throw them away."

"They only thing we hate more than a racist, is a spic."

"I'll make your pinky all stinky."

"Snatch it down."

"This photo will never see the light of freedom."

"I know you have a beef, Stew. But try not to stir things up."

"That albino is running away with my midget!" (actually censored)

This is cathartic: I also watched LA Law on a regular basis. I remember being very shocked indeed when Leland's mistress fell down that elevator shaft. And when Arnie Becker pulled a muscle in his scrotum from too much fucking. That stayed with me.

Clark Coolidge Listens To The Beach Boys

Its very wonderful to discover these kinds of connections. In The Crystal Text, there's a line, "The laughs come in hard in Auld Lang Syne." I knew I'd heard this but didn't know where from. And then I realized its from this song by this man and this man who worked with this woman on her new album. It just makes me feel good, like all the things I like are a little galaxy, stars all corresponding to each other.

Situation Comedy

Here's a list of some of the sitcoms I've watched on at least a partially regular basis, for the Mr.

night court
hungry cougars making sweet cougar love
the cosby show
seinfeld
rumsfeld
the simpsons (sitcom? its debatable)
strangers with candy (likewise)
curb your enthusiasm
wings
king of queens
alphaville
the andy griffith show
the dick van dyke show
leave it to beaver
silliman's blog
fawlty towers
mash
the mary tyler moore show
that boy shits more than a mule that got into a bushel of pears!
barney miller (very kickass themesong)
get a life
cheers
furry tuna taco
the office (brittish version)

sitcoms I've never watched on a consistent basis:
arrested development
fresh prince of bel air (is that what its called?)
deze nutz!

Today I bought The Crystal Text by Clark Coolidge and Homer's Art by Alice Notley at Woodland Pattern. Rob shaved. Chuck's letting his head fuzz get more longer. I didn't get a chance to say hi to Julie. Hi Julie! A certain local poet with an electrical last name said he bought Spicer's Language at a used bookstore, not really being aware of Spicer or his work. Said its not really his type of thing. Irritating. I want to have a poem that I read first in my 'normal' voice, then a sort of breathy coo. Poetry readings in general should be more sensual. Hard on. Can you imagine how awesome it would be if Lin Dinh for example who already has a breathy reading voice, read poems in a more sensual way. Or Lisa Jarnot? I've never (and this a gaping missing link in my desired life experience) heard CAConrad read but... You get the idea. CA? You out there? Am I trying to substitute poetry for sex? Do they stand in for each other? Well of course they do. When sex needs a rest, sex goes outside for some fresh air. And poetry (but other things too) may or may not stand in the spot in the light where sex was. And vice versa.

Oh yeah and my friend Elizabeth called me today and asked me if I voted. I friend her. I voted straight dem this time, cause its like what's the point of taking Governor Jim Doyle seriously and choosing him as an individual. I'm more into just voting against the republicans. Anyway my voting philosophy now is to just vote against the people and the shit that are fucking everything up. Strategic negation. For instance, there's a bullshit homophobic amendment up for the vote in WI. How this 'preserving the institution' bullshit is not seen as the straight up homophobia that it is, is truly gross. But yeah you should vote, if its not too late. Vote.

Maybe another time I'll go into my theory of how the dems are basicly just the Washington Generals to the Republicans' Harlem Globetrotters. Showing up as 'the opposing team' in a different uniform and not much else. Er, that basicly is the theory.

And I'm starting a blogzine called docent. Write to me at mthauser@uwm.edu.

I keep thinking re: poetry, poetry world and my own self-education in general, 'I have to get serious.' And it doesn't mean no more fun. Being serious means I think, well I'm not sure. I just know that I waste alot of time. And there's a point where one has to reckon all that time wasted. Gertrude Stein said I think that wasting time is nessecary for an artist. I agree. Or at least it makes me feel a little better. For instance, I watch TV too much. One shouldn't watch more than an hour of TV a day. But I watch more than that. Its just a routine I get into. Here's something potentially embarrassing. The show King of Queens is on reruns. I watch it. But not without guilt. Not without this Catholic King of Queens guilt. The show's really not that funny, most of the time. But it comes on between the Simpsons and Seinfeld. And after Seinfeld, Conan comes on. But I could be reading Wallace Stevens or studying The Cantos or Bruce Andrews' rebuttals to Bill O'Reilly! I also spend alot of time looking at the internet. Yes if you're reading this and have a flickr I've probly looked at it. My friends in the band Scrimshaw have this great song called I Looked At It. Very naughty, and yet the listener can't decide its naughty without a certain amount of presumption.

So I'd love to go and get the new Wowee Zowee reissue when it comes up but I'm pretty broke. And besides I don't seem to have it together enough to handle owning these deluxe Pavement dealies. I always lose part of it. In the case of Crooked Rain I'm not even sure where CD2 is. I think Zack might have it. Cool de la. I like that phrase I just discovered. My Dad used to call people he didn't like 'goofs'. That's funny too. Also I'm a little more excited for the next one from this person. I wonder if this'll draw the Mr.'s ire. (No I'm not married to a man. Tho it might be nice if I could borrow some money off this hypothetical man. And cuddle. But I won't lie that would be weird.) But 'Rattled By The Rush', I was really diggin it the other day. Didn't realize what a great a song that is. I'm going to buy batteries so I can listen to Crooked Rain on the bus to my job as a dishwasher. Wow. I have a fucking depressing outlook on life.

When I was in my early teens I wanted to be a sports writer. I wrote this in an essay in Health class and ended up being invited to help keep score for the Basketball team. At around the time I lost interest in being a sports writer, I decided I'd be a rock critic. I left an obnoxious message on a local music magazine's answering machine, actually mocking the fact that they had an answering machine! I wrote a review of Jon Spencer Blues Explosion in the school newspaper where I swore alot. And also under the name of Jello Biafra (didn't really know who he was though) I wrote a thing where kid is murdering his father. This got mentioned on local conservative disc jockey Mark Belling's show on WISN.

Yesterday at Woodland Pattern found Western Love and Dear Dad, by Bill Luoma. One was in the chap stacks. (Shit's rough in the chap stacks.) The other was in the much more plush drawers for the rare small press stuff. But Bill Luoma's books hang out wherever. Some of the Western Love poems are at the Po Pro website to be read. Bill Luoma's writing seems to be changing all the time. In My Trip To NYC, its chatty detail and journaling, and catching everything in the process with the enhanced facilities of someone who's maximally alive. Also in Works & Days, there's engine trouble, looking for new cleats. I think how to oil a new glove is covered in both Works & Days and Dear Dad. And then the stuff I read in Bay Poetics, intensity on a Coolidge tip. I think he writes online poems in code too.

Western Love has what a cowboy troubador might call little ditties, like this:

My bedroll is wet
with morning dew.
I must find my breakfast.
Nuts and berries are
plentiful, but the brush
is rustling with
animal sound.

Or this:

The cook returns
the ladle to the chuck
wagon. O friendly
ground, tonight you’ll
substitute for my lover.

Alot of these poems seem to me to have the quality of a note left out for someone, like the famous William Carlos Williams poem, This Is Just To Say. Of course WCW wrote many that have this feel but this is the one that came to mind:

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast.

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold.

Also Spicer's Billy The Kid and George Stanley's Western poems come to mind. But this one has WCWness to it:
Remember the buffalo
bread you baked? I’ve
never met a better baker.
You sure can shoot, too
and throw a steer
on its side at the rodeo.

Luoma's poems here are a little more appealingly goofy. I don't know whether one can find 'buffalo bread' anywhere. The poems work quite well as a sequence, that is they achieve a cumulitive effect.

Why The Raincoats Are The Greatest Ever (Off Top of Head)

1. First 20-30 seconds of The Raincoats.
2. Violin and (is that a kazoo) breakdown during No Side To Fall In.
3. Palmolive.
4. For how much better Lola is than the Kinks version.
5. No rock album has more emotional range.
6. Chorus during The Void.
7. No rock album is more spontaneous.
8. Why am I even putting this in the category of 'rock album'?
9. No rock album is less self-conscious.

In NY, got Alli Warren's COUSINS, newly out. She's one of my favorite poets. Here's a part from MY FACTLESS AUTOBIOGRAPHY I randomly opened up, and the opened up to:

My part was basically to hatch
with regard for human dignity and life
In my best foreign automobile
stunting the stupor fronting us
On the other hand this was the result
of the fact of having had two faces
completely undiagonosed and undeniable alliances
Cut through the parking lot at the southern most point
I have misplaced my W2
but I am becoming good for people
Scapegoating the badger

Something about her poems is so fuckin quoteable. I can't think of anything else to say right now. She's one of my favorite poets. And where's the fuckin thick spend years reading it gorgeous book, World, huh? I already want Alli Warren's Complete Works!

I don't quite understand when people say, "well I haven't written anything in a long time". I write something at least at once a day. And I'm not going to say "of course most of its crap", which seems somehow like the writerly thing to say. I just don't know what to do with most of it.

_________

Stephanie Young is pretty fuckin amazing. In Telling The Future Off, the nerves break down then build back up. Something (I gonna risk sounding corny) redemptive in that. Some of the poems are ironically imbued with self-help sufficiency, but they practice real self-help. And they also help whatever self happens to be reading them. Reminds me of Alice Notley in more ways than one. But yeah, nerves. It seems to ask a very scary question: We've heard phrases like the connectedness of all living things etc., but what we are connected to really? Maybe that's too Matrixy. I also think of what I view as one of the most important things Kerouac said re: his own work and writing in general. When asked by Steve Allen to define beat, Kerouac just said, "mmmm... sympathetic." And then Steve Allen acted as if he thought Kerouac was joking.

Last night watched Powaqqatsi, the second in Godfrey Reggio and Philip Glass' 'qatsi' trilogy. It says really remarkable things about the potential of film and music together. It has a definite dialectic, but the way it unfolds is very moving and effective. I'm watching the trilogy backwards. Next I have to see Koyaanisqatsi.

__________


Lately I've been digging Rod Smith's In Memory of My Theories and Music or Honesty. His poems sound like nothing else. They're disjunct yet lyrical. About the sonic as well as the investigative possiblities of making poems, the making of making poems. Political in a way that's practiced rather than espoused. From Autopsy Turvy, a sequence in Music or Honesty:

A life is not important
except in the impact it has
on other lives
the invention of new souls
of flame, & of flame
a factor, becoming change
a determining systemic
infinity seams
to be human, to be a sound
of concerns shared therefore really
something that means nothing
but is nonetheless interesting

When a poet comes to town, the local paper takes note and is also careful to preface it with something like this: "That news is unlikely to bring traffic to a standstill or send shock waves through the stock market." Why is this sentence there? Its like a presumption of boring the reader, like 'hold on hold on hear me out'. If there's a film being released that is anticipated to bring in alot of people, no newspaper article would say, "Well its the new Will Ferrell movie. And that news is unlikely to derail trains, or bankrupt Microsoft. But we think it might be big." Neither a reading nor a Hollywood blockbuster so drastically affect the infrastructure of society. It may affect this or that person's plans for the evening. I hate to sound like a snob, but poetry has never been a blockbuster art. I know I know. Such statements aren't meant to be taken literally. We're talking about a figure of speech, 'well its not gonna start any wars or cause any mass hallucinations among the grizzly bear population'. And a poetry reading getting a write up in a newspaper is in itself sort of rare and at least'll let plenty of people know its happening.

But the space created by a qualification that says in effect, 'hey man we don't flip out over poetry either but bare with us while we tell you about this guy John Ashbery coming to town' leaves room for people espousing dull 'populist' poetry to step in. Of course Michael Gizzi touches on this too, re: the Keiller-spin-a-little-yarn school, poetry that offers nothing except being easy to get. Maybe its a capitalist thing, as if poetry can be presented as a little industry, could be sold in trinket shops alongside apple-butter. And I think alot of poetry anthologies try consciously to fit into that niche. Is that from outside, extra-aesthetic pressures or simply from an editor's own prediliction? A little of both, I think. Its also irritating that the markebility of poetry and the popularity of poetry get conflated. And partly as a result of that conflation, writing about poetry/poetry readings that happens outside of a certain sphere tends to come with qualifiers and disclaimers.

Of course art does cause change. It affects perception. That's making an impact. A film, a reading, anything can do that. I guess it comes down to the question, why does the presumed disinterest on the part of some vague readership have to come along with write-ups of certain art/poetry events?

After the literature as buffet post, we see buffet serendipity.

So Jordan does kind of school me here, I agree that the real evil is the exclusion of a record of so many experiences. I'm a domestic person, so I guess its foolish to be attacking domesticity. But as for experience, there are many many others keeping a better record of it, in poem, magazine and anthology form than BAP. Everyone seems to agree on that. Maybe just completely ignore it, until it produces something worthwhile. Plant our own gardens, etc.

Is Literature a Buffet?

Right now I'm at the university library and soon I'll go up to the third floor and nibble on literature. Is this treating literature as buffet? Trying different books, sometimes reading one word. Sometimes only looking at the author photo. Sometimes only reading the blurb? Or maybe read 10, 20 pages, but thats a stretch, to be honest. In Milwaukee, as in every city, literature as buffet has been going for decades. Does it coincide with television? Talk radio? Where one finds literature as buffet, they are bound to find radio talk nearby. And Jack Spicer is pleased but confused.

BAP mmmmmrrrff's

I haven't read the new Best American Poetry (mmmrrrffff sound accompanied), and I don't know if I will. But one thing that seems to happen with each new one is that people start talking about 'aesthetics' again. And I kind of want to say who cares! Really. To me poetry that actively resists aesthetics is much more interesting. OK. Maybe a poetry that engages aesthetics. Aesthetics exists, as an ideological presence sure. And poetry should not exist in a vacuum. But so often it seems to, in a stuffy, yet disturbingly tidy, white, and yeah male vacuum. I don't think the answer is ignore aesthetics. At least, I don't know of any poetry that does do that successfully. And what kind of goal is that anyway? --to ignore something-- Poetry that would try to ignore aesthics, it seems, would fall into the trap of aesthetics in the worst way.

A poet who I used to read who I don't really look at much anymore is Charles Simic. I used to enjoy some of his poems quite a bit, and when I go back to them I can still kind of see why. But they take this attitude toward aesthetics that feels like 'We all know whats beautiful and what isn't, why trifle?'. There's just a tin-eared presentation of 'images' and 'insights'. To me, this takes away all of the investigative power that poetry has. Same with Billy Collins idea that a poem should be like an easily accesible apartment building, a cushy thing, about as risky as a Fudruckers. And at least you get a Cheeseburger there. In these kinds of poems all you get are images of the white male poet enjoying his own domesticity. Unquestioningly, unless its a question some dead person already covered, and they can put a little aesthetic around the icing, as it were. (mmmrrrrfff)

Like my friend Chuck said, there's a sufficiency thing. Like, heres what my poem does, take or leave it.

Last night I was feeling bad and circling words in a newspaper article. The person next to me, "Well you're like a modern-day William Burroughs."

Poetry's For the Sweethearts

I saw K. Silem Mohammad and Anne Boyer read last night. The word that comes to mind with Mohammad is 'scary'. Things that are 'scary' and then things that really are 'scary'. I got a spooky suburban kind of vibe. And the suburbs are really monstous. His new chap is called Monsters.

Anne Boyer was great. People felt less inclined to laugh during her poems. But I don't see why. They're hilarious. And there's also something like a voice in there. More in the way that Alice Notley's written about voice, as a real struggling presence in the poetry, a part of its emotional anatomy. The traditional (last few decades anyway it seems) context for the word 'voice' is in the Poetry Workshop. 'Voice' is a word with a lot of negative connotation. Its been used traditionally as a way to approach one's career more than as a way to understand what one's doing when one writes poems, or writes anything. But when put just in the context of a poetry reading, its one of the very basic elements. Given all the intertextuality and tone-shifting (as in tone of voice) in Mohammad's poetr, its an interesting paradox that when he reads you just hear his voice. During a reading, one senses a poet's voice before, or at the very least as an inseperable component of , the words as they come at you. It would be different if one were discussing Robert Grenier, who I believe is on record as not seeing the poem as a spoken performance. And even when one is hearing someone like Boyer, or Mohammad, who both use found text, the voice that you are hearing is a good way to learn about what they're doing, or even (eek!) about them. I mean they don't just recite those poems all monotone and matter of fact and then sit back down. They perform them. And what's more, not everyone in the audience was an acquaintance of either of the two readers. I don't think everyone was nessecarilly in any way involved with poetry either. A woman sitting next to my friend Karl, asked how long the reading would take. The reading didn't go long. Its always nice, whether you are or aren't a poet, when a reading doesn't go on forever.

Of course I always think of how William Carlos Williams wrote in such a way that seemed scripted for performance but then wouldn't necessarilly read the poems aloud with any attention to the particularity of his line breaks. But I think the voice of the poet is really important, or least it irrevocably affects one's perception of the poems. Once you hear the voice its sort of like the cat being let out of the bag. In a good a way, like a really exciting secret! Thats sounds incredibly corny. But when I heard Joseph Ceravolo read on a recording, man it was just special. I hear Robert Creeley's voice when I read Robert Creeley's poems. Besides just having a great voice period, bassy and witty, Mohammad plays off of the disembodied subjectivity of his poems in a really excellent and entertaining way. A very memorable voice.

Poetry readings are the only performance-occasions I can think of where the audience needs to be given permission to laugh! I mean, if you're someone like Mohammad, whose poems are high-larious, as funny as any comedian today, then you really have an uphill battle. You have to let the audience know that they can laugh while you're reading, that they don't have to be so fucking solemn. I mean I don't know if he consciously does anything toward this end. But there's an almost instant unspoken understanding from the audience. The are definite analogies between poetry-reading and stand-up comedy. Steven Wright is someone who both poets and comics should look at. (Duh!) One very brilliant thing he does is after being introduced is go up before the audience, and for a second say nothing, and then very drolly, 'Thanks'. I'm not saying everyone can do what Steven Wright does, but this does something to his audience. I wish poets would think about that more. But yeah there definitely needs to be a CD or something of K. Silem Mohammad reading.

I think my favorite part of the evening might've been when Anne Boyer read "Is Poetry for Assholes?". Of course some in the audience reflexively said 'Yes'. Anne Boyer was kind of bemused then, and she said "No! Poetry's for the sweethearts!" It is.

CAConrad says really inspiring things here. He is uninhibited.

Re: FLARF's subjectivity. Is it nessecarilly only achieved through google-sculpting? I think obviously not.

________

I thought of that song about a magic carpet ride. Now you're thinking,"Does he mean that Steppenwolf song or the song from Alladin?" Either one I guess. But, how many poems are like a magic carpet ride?

One reason I keep coming back to the New York poets I love so much, Frank, Ted, Joe (Ceravolo), Alice, Ron, Joe (Brainard), Kenneth, is because of how readable their work is. I mean, its challenging, its vigorous with form, they don't take you by the hand and walk through their work, they don't practice the Billy Collins poem as hotel with indoor water park for the (fucking) kids model. But, with a few exceptions, its work that generally doesn't feel at all inaccessible. One reason I started thinking this is from thinking about Kenneth Goldsmith's uncreative writing that isn't really even meant to be read. Or Silliman's new thing, where he's apparently going to write 300 or something books of poetry that will compose Universe. And right now I'm reading Tjanting and its great, but it seems that part of the point in it is that it not be readable, until one develops a proper reading strategy. That seems to have been a big part of the disruptivity thing in Langy Poesy. You can't read it the way you read novels or textbooks. But what I see in NY stuff is this exuberance in making it, and also intimacy and empathy, humanity. And self-consciousness, which is also very human.

The question (far as I know) no one's asked: What will happen when their voices change? Still, music needs more of this. Not sure what in it exactly I'm referring to but yeah...

So do we just blame summer for nationwide power outages? Flooding? Deadly heat? I can already feel this ideology taking hold in me. But that's kind of the same logic one hears when discussing small businesses stamped out by corporations, and the general alienation that continues to socially divide the country. Discussing Wal Mart, my Dad once said, "Well things change." But is the way a corporation like that operates to be compared to something like a thunderstorm coming from the west or how nobody wears zubaz anymore. Just trends and currents all permeating around us like trees in a forest? Do I blame summer for global warming? No. That would be like blaming a pie for baking after you put it in a 400 degree oven. But there's this kind of 'what are you gonna do?' logic, that most ascribe to. Where you blame directly whats in front of you.

__________

There's this cell phone ring that is without a doubt the most annoying I've ever heard. It sounds like depravity disguised as playful jollity. Like two murderous clowns masturbating each other.

No one can say precisely why a certain artist does what they do. But the Raincoats for example were directly spurred on by seeing the Slits. But artists aren't necessarilly trying to critique whats around them as much as we might think they are. Critics do fill some of that in. Its partially their job-- address context, circumstances. I mean there's always the question of how do you talk about a thing that needs to talked about in order to survive, in our minds. Neglectorinos, as a concept, invite a sort of comparison between themselves and what would seem to be more available, but less stimumlating, less interesting, less original. This can set up a phony dichotomy. What can also happen is that one places them in a tradition. This does make sense. Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie are in the same tradition. One can say that Frank O'Hara and Ted Berrigan are in the same tradition. Basic examples. Placing a band like the Raincoats in a certain context, the context of bands-Kurt-Cobain-likes, that existed during the 90s, might be what got their records reissued. I mean its a silly way to look at them. One might even say I was a poseur, for getting that first record on Kurt's distant recomendation. But if it makes the stuff available, we'll take it y'know? There's something very elitist about the idea that everyone has to find out about things for themselves. That old 'we went through this now you have to go through this' logic.

I won't 'call the authenticity police'. Acutally this makes sense. What most made Milwaukee famous, besides Sidney Moncrief, is Pabst. Hasn't been manufactured here for a long time.

I wonder when people will start being nostalgic for the 90s. What? They already are? What? They were nostalgic for the 90s during the 90s? Whoah...

I've noticed that when I write prose there are alot word drops. It make sound like Tarzan.

I've never trusted the idea of music-that-real-people-listen-to. Its usually used as a kind of leveraging against indie music. I mean nobody will really say now that they're favorite kind of music is indie rock, because the indie thing no longer means any specific kind of music, and also (and this is the major reason I suspect) because the indie thing is almost more a social signification now than anything else. But as recently as the early 90s things were still somewhat defined. There was a clear division between someone like Garth Brooks and Pavement. Garth Brooks obviously sold more records and what not. And Steve Malkmus never hovered over his audience suspended from wires. But there's also a difference in demographic. There's a level of obsessiveness with Pavement's music, and the pursuit of it, 7" singles, imports, EPs etc. Could you by the same token say that Garth Brooks fans hunt down all Garth Brooks recordings that exist with the same fervor. I don't think so. I mean I can't say for sure, but I really doubt it. When you move that many units it comes down to the idea that the thing is a commodity, not even something to own, but something to buy. There's a perverse kind of decadence to spending 35 bucks on a Pavement bootleg too. But I think the difference is in the obsessiveness. Most people who bought Garth Brooks music probably didn't obsess over them. They don't invite obsession because there's nothing to obsess over. Its a pure kind of distraction, an entertainment. Its meant simply to be identified with, in a generic way. I worked in a truckstop in the late 90s. I remember noticing how defiantly generic the lyrics were. It was weirdly slacker, though this was the supposed antithesis of 'slacker music'. A song would take pride in being nothin' special. I remember a lyric that went something like "Lets just stay in watch TV and eat onion rings". Can you get more 'slacker' than that? But apart from those kinds of statements the music was really just meant to be listened to and then taken out of the deck or CD tray, or whatever. To come and go. And not bore you, or make you think too much. Pavement's music, regardless anything the band conciously tried to put forth, does invite obsession. I'll never be able to fully figure out why "Gold Sounds" makes me so happy. Its one of the reasons I still listen to it. The lyrics aren't really trying to identify with me, not at least, in the way of a statement like 'hey you like stuff too huh?'. At one point, Malkmus says 'we need secrets' and repeats 'crets, crets, crets, crets, crets...' And at another point, there's the phrase 'because you're empty and I'm empty'. But the song is utterly uplifting to me, in more than just the happy-song-with-sad-lyrics way.

Now things have changed so drastically that the divisions that once could be taken for granted really don't exist anymore, not the way they did. I mean, mainstream country still fills stadiums, state fairs and festivals in rural areas. But who is its biggest star? That Keith Urban guy seems to exist almost as Nicole Kidman's husband more than as a Big Country Star. And an artist that I currently obsess over is Ariel Pink. But that obsession doesn't seem to mean the same thing. In the 90s (tho I only realized this in retrospect) Pavement were the band to say you liked as a leveraging against mainstream music. Ariel Pink has a following I'm sure. But 'followings' have multiplied exponentially. A friend of mine has a running joke where he's being asked "Whats your subculture dude?" But there really haven't been any new subcultures in this decade. Can you call 'electro' or 'alt-country' or 'garage rock' a subculture? Goth is a subculture. It exists almost indenpendently of the music. But the subcultures almost seem to be disappearing. Where did rave culture go? It might have just gone where I can't see it. But there don't seem to be viable subcultures within which innovative music is happening-- where an integral part of the subculture is that music be somewhat forward-looking or at least try avoid cliches. There's always been an uneasy detente between style and music in musical subcultures. But the word subculture, that nomenclature just doesn't work anymore. It doesn't mean anything to say you're punk. In the 90s, maybe right before it ultimately got subsumed into the mall culture, it seems like it did mean something to say that. But now, if someone's a punk it might just mean they shop at a certain store. Or that they ride the rails. There are still basement shows. They're a part of indie culture, which is a huge thing. It can encompass restaurants, shops, bars. Its always been like that. But now it seems to have lost definition or at least shifted.

It might just be that I'm out of touch. I was never in touch. I never went to punk shows as a teenager. I ordered CDs through the mail, from my house in the Township of Addison, Wisconsin. Of course alot weird music still happens inside and outside the indie network. But opposing the mainstream doesn't seem as vital now, because its harder to see what the mainstream is.

Regarding the last post, of course most poets (most of the ones I know) would rather be writing than doing whatever it is they do to get money. I'm not alone in disliking my job. But I really would like to do something, where people generally don't notice me, and so don't get peeved too easily at me. Maybe mailboy would be nice. But if someone doesn't get their mail they'd take it out on the mailboy I'm sure.

_______

One of Language Poetry's main innovations seems to be forefronting the process of writing a poem. Like, to put it bluntly, how the fuck did Bruce Andrews write this. Of course I'm completely ignorant about Bruce Andrews and alot of other Language Poets. And the term Language Poetry is kind of outdated and maybe was never taken that seriously by the people who are classified as such. I mean Charles Bernstein and Bruce Andrews edited a mag called L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E, but I don' t think I've ever read anywhere where one of them said, "Well, as Language Poets, this is what we do." I know the early writing is kind of in the vein of manifesto, which turns me off from the get-go. And there is some sense of a project, a collective undertaking, but only in that the writers read each other's work and encouraged each other. Almost all writers who don't live in the mountains or something do that. LP's were maybe just more explicit in doing that.

There's alot of paranoia almost to the point of urban myth surrounding LP. I heard a story about Robert Grenier having lunch with Tom Clark. So the other 'language poets' parked in front of his (Grenier's) house as a protest. This is they story I heard. Whether its true or not really doesn't matter.

When I've taken workshops, I've heard people say things like 'well its kinda languagey' about certain poems. To me this is just code for 'I'm not gonna try and understand this'. But then if one goes into most workshops in hopes of having a really enlightening experience, they're gonna be pretty dissapointed. I had a professer who warned their students about Language Poetry, which is totally stupid and defeating what they should be doing, which is saying 'Well check it for yourself. Go investigate.' I think anyone who's dedicated will do that anyway, but it still doesn't help to have a stigma attached to something. I don't see the point of telling your students not to read something.

I don't really know why I'm spending so much time on Language Poetry. Its way in the past. A phenomenon of the late 70s and 80s. Alot of those people are still doing interesting work. But the 'Language Poetry' thing is over. The way LP was treated tho seems to be applied to 'experimental' poetry in general now. 'Experimental' seems like an even more meaningless term. There's a level at which this is all rhetoric. Throwing words around.

At the university level, poetry is regarded as part of a canon. And certain poetry is willfully left out of the canon. And you could say, "Good. I don't care whether people regard Joseph Ceravolo as in the company of someone like Robert Frost anyway." But then, right now, no Joseph Ceravolo books are in print. So one can't really say "I'll have my Ceravolo and you'll have your Frost" because Ceravolo's books are not available, except from certain university libraries and rare books rooms. Or you could look for them online. A copy of Wildflowers Out of Gas might run you hundreds of dollars. With Frost, you could find his books at any local bookstore.

I think its pretty well understood by everyone I work with that I'm kind of lazy, that not much can be expected of me on the job. Maybe this will sound pretentious, but there's a kind of bitterness that builds when you realize that the thing, maybe the one thing, you're on the planet for will never help you sustain yourself financially. That is, writing poems. So 'work', your job, becomes a kind of con: trying to pass yourself as being what you think they want you to be. You find yourself having thoughts like, 'Just like let me work here. Just let me come and do stuff and leave and get a paycheck every other Thursday so's I can pay rent and have food.'

FOH's criteria: what poetry is better than the movies?

Language Poetry is one of those things, like William Carlos Williams, where I find myself more interested in their influence than in the actual work. Is that weird?

Again the philosophgy thing. Does a poet need it. I mean its good and nessecary to have a philosophy. But to what extent is it nessecary to have Philosophy? Obviously it would inform my writing. But then maybe it wouldn't. But then maybe I'm uninformed. But then maybe I'm.

Rock Bottom by Robert Wyatt is an amazing record. It was made after Wyatt broke his back and became wheelchair bound. Before that he was in Soft Machine, doin' Canterbury prog-jazz thing. Rock Bottom bears some resemblance to that music but its more open-ended, with a mobility similar to a sea creature moving through the ocean, many tendriled.

Alifib by Robert Wyatt

Not nit not nit no not
Nit nit folly bololey
Alifi my larder
Alifi my larder
I can't forsake you or
Forsqueak you
Alifi my larder
Alifi my larder
Confiscate or make you
Late you you
Alifi my larder
Alifi my larder
Not nit not nit no not
Nit nit folly bololy
Burlybunch, the water mole
Hellyplop and fingerhole
Not a wossit bundy, see ?
For jangle and bojangle
Trip trip
Pip pippy pippy pip pip landerim
Alifi my larder
Alifi my larder
(I'm not your larder,
jammy jars and mustard.
I'm not your dinner,
you soppy old custard.
And what's a bololey
when it's a folly?
I'm not your larder,
I'm your dear little dolly.
But when plops get too helly
I'll fill up your belly.
I'm not your larder,
I'm Alife your guarder).

Joanna Newsome's The Milk Eyed Mender just keeps blowing me away. There are points, like with any great record, of just listening and being astonished. I think a feeling of astonishment, almost being overwhelmed is important. And I don't mean technical or special effects or that type of thing. The Raincoats for instance, are astonishing. Just listening to them make music together on their first record, is astonishing. But yeah about Joanna Newsome's music, there's just something about the synthesis of the voice, the instrument and the words, that feels so new, so rare. But there's a natural openness. She has an emotional dexterity within the music. Like say, Monk, the music is very complex and very moving at the same time. There's music in the whole body. Ecstatic. It doesn't have to be a mystical or a religious fervor, just a human making sound matter in the air. And contact. Basic intimacy, as in 'I to you and you to me' (Frank O'Hara). Joanna Newsome's music is enigmatic at the same time tho, I grant you. Meaning simply she doesn't hold your hold. But this gives you more to key into every listen. And you can also passively listen. Its just a wonderful sound to have in the air of one's immediate environment. And everything's in the air. When you make a sound you put it into the air. Joanna Newsome puts her perception, her experience of being alive and knowing others are alive into the air, like in any art.

The purpose of this blog, if I can continue with it, and for some reason I feel that it must have a purpose and that I must continue with it, will be to learn how to write critically in my own way. That is without having to resort to phrases like 'the plain musical tautness of Lorine Niedecker'. Without having to resort to 'phrases' at all for that matter. I mean maybe LN's poems do have said quality, but it doesn't feel like something that comes from my experience of the work. Its very hard to get to that. No big surprise, but one person who I feel is able to do that is Alice Notley in Coming After. And there's a temptation to try for Lester Bangs prosody. He did pretty much write about everything. But its seems ill-advised, after how many have imitated him, to go down that road. The other big rock critic I read in my teens and early early twenties was Simon Reynolds. I remember being pretty bowled over by The Sex Revolts. I found myself really turned off by it after a recent rereading tho. Like Bly on poetry, too many binaries. Putting things in binaries is just too easy. This will be mostly a poetics blog. I won't consider it a poetry blog because dodo is that, and its that because it really is all poetry, or has been for some time. Thing about poetics blogs, lime tree, Silliman's Blog, bemsha swing et al., is that they all seem to have an implied basis (at least partly) in theory. Maybe theory's not the right word, but what I mean is an implied thing where you at least partly understand poetry through, I don't know, Roland Barthes. I have always thought (really) that the way one understands poetry is through itself. I mean you could look at Lunch Poems and contextualize it with the work of someone who dealt theoretically in a similar vein. I think people like Ron Silliman have done alot to bring that about. Do you have to tho? But like I said I just don't have that frame of reference. I'd love to read Barthes. I'd probably like it alot. But I always just figured you understand poetry by reading poetry. Like with Notley. If you want to understand her poetry, you read her poetry with an open mind. And then maybe you read some poets she mentions in interviews and such, who might have influenced her own work. Is this naive?