I know that some who read this have published multiple poems in multiple places. So I want to ask, just for the hell of it. How should publishing poems, getting poems published, feel? Should it feel anyway at all? Should it feel like, 'This is what it's all about'? Have you ever had an experience of getting something published, and felt say, immensely satisified? Or on the flip, immensely unsatisfied, anitclimatic? (Is there a third 'c' in that word?)

Last night I watched The Cruise, and I think it will be probably be one of my favorite films ever, if it isn't already. I always kind of knew it existed, partly from associating it with Waking Life, which is also great but in a very different way. (Not a doc, to begin...) But I've never really heard anyone I know mention it, in interspace or otherwise.

The Cruise is a documentary about Timothy Speed Levitch, who conducts tours, 'cruises' of Manhattan. His 'cruises' are highly literary, and ridiculously detailed-- for instance noting the seven miles of elevator shaft in the area around the Empire State Building. The film is also the most affecting 'portrait' of any real person I've seen in a long time. It's a documentary, but the affiliation is really only by the fact that it covers 'real life'. What it really is, is a fucking heroicly great piece of filmaking. This has to be one of the best films of the past 10 years.

I especially love the shots that show Levitch, in profile or from in front of the tour bus, narrating the cruise. A shot that shows Levitch and only a few tourists seated at the bottom of the frame, foregrounded over a rapidly disappearing Manhattan, is especially terrrific.

_____

If you don't know about Ron Padgett reading with Daniel Borzutzky, Friday 7pm here, and also this, and live within a reasonable distance, now ya heard.

I was thinking today about what, if anything really bugs me about the Blogs. And I guess if anything it's vanity. And by that I mean my vanity. Others' vanity I don't care about really. I've never seen the point in declaring war on 'phonies'. Because everyone is a phoney. Seriously, who hasn't been a phoney at some point?

I just don't want to be vain. And sometimes this Blog Thing, the instant gratification it gives one, encourages vanity. So I don't want to be vain. Sometimes I can be vain. Sometimes I act out of vanity. Sometimes I just think I'm so fucking glamorous!

Actually I've never felt glamorous. So forget about that. But one should consider where this fits into their work, the work of making poems. And I don't even mean that when you feel yourself being vain or 'snarky' that you should stop. One should consider it is all.

_____

Everytime I watch Pavement videos I'm reminded of how much their music means to me. I know that sounds weird but just look at Steve Malkmus walking backwards through a crowd of people, bumping into them. That is all ye need to know.

I'm very excited to see that The Holy Mountain is coming out on DVD. I can only describe it as one of the most revolting, profound and visually amazing movies I've ever seen. I saw it last year with my friend Amanda, and I remember not actually wanting to go in. We had to go to the late showing of a one-night-only engagement, because so many showed for the first showing. They couldn't let any more people in. But while we were waiting I looked through a little window in the door to the theater, and I really did have one of those little-boy experiences. Like, "This just looks too fucked-up for me." It was the scene where each character visualizes their own mental death-- one character is covered in tarantulas, one character is literally eating a horse's ass, one character has their genitals ripped off, one character is sprayed with what looks like milk by an old man with leopard's heads for mammaries. Et cetera. And poetry is portrayed, along with the rest of the arts as a kind of false enlightenment. But then the film makes a big u-turn and turns out to be an indictment of the very idea of enlightenment. And there are exploding lizards.

So all of sudden after Rod sent me a note, I realized all this went down. Whoah. I had no idear so much damn work had piled up. I only have two hands people! What I like about the form is that it's weirdly erotic, displacing what are 'normal' tasks with tasks that make no sense.

I'm at the library. Someone just fell over. But the librarian helped them up.

In the meantime, I wrote some for Joe, thinking the form could just as well be directed at anyone, and I changed it slightly so each 'Hey...'/Lunatic Renga is in this format: 'Hey Joe I need you to ________, while I ________.'

Here are some:

Hey Joe I need you to love the gluten, while I sob into the spaetzl.

Hey Joe I need you to vaporub the mustard culture, while I watch from inside the DJ booth.

Hey Joe I need you to breakdance next to the bacon paste, while I jump in the denim fish.

Hey Joe I need you to clambake then fistfuck the chocoplot, while I pep talk the VHS policy.

Hey Joe I need you to encourage the english muffins, while I lift my spirits with this stapler.

Hey Joe I need you to channel John Lennon into this frosting sock, while I glance over Zelda Fitzgerald's shoulder at the biggest shit ever.

Hey Joe I need you to douse the porn in I Wanna Take You Higher Hot Sauce, while I come to grips with my own suspension of disbelief.

What is clarity? Immediately Niedecker comes to mind. But that doesn't sit right, as if her work is just a string of Zen Moments. There is alot of pain in her work. See 'Paean To Place'. A very beautiful poem that takes it's context, it's reason for being, from what was a very difficult life.

Clarity is just being able to look straight at things, in writing.

Today I was rejected yet again by a certain magazine. So I've decided no more submissions for them.

___

Sometimes I think I'm my own favorite poet, because I have to be. But only sometimes.

___

As I've noticed happens when I'm very depressed, I'm listening alot to Godspeed You! Black Emperor. What happened to them?

___

Last night, right at the end of the party, I had to take apart the Chocolate Fountain. No I don't work in Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory. There's nothing fun about taking apart a Goddamn Chocolate Fountain! In fact I don't even wanna look at chocolate right now!!

FUCK CHOCOLATE!!!

___

Was also trying to compose some more Lunatic Rengas, as Joe calls them. But this time I'm giving him more work. For some reason, 'reverse cowboy' is burned into my mind.

___

Had the Perfect Strangers theme stuck in my head, but adding my own words:

Rise and fall
on a shitty sparrow's wing

Life sure blows
for a fat fuck like me

etc.

___

But trying not to feel sorry for myself.

So my Udub account is running out on April 10th, and that has some implications. First, my email will change. I'm just gonna put the new one right here: flabscoresbig@yahoo.com. Secondly, you people are gonna feel me, but less. I will be considerably less connected. Which maybe's good, I don't know. Maybe now without the option of dicking around on the internet, I'll finally read Moby Dick or Ulysess. Maybe I'll even write more. But seeing as how I'll now have to go to the Public Library for Internet Use, it seems that I will definitely be blogging less.

Check these lunatic rengas.

Something I've noticed on other blogs that I look at: not only do other poets eat better than I do, they take pictures of it.

I feel Joe. Yesterday Zack told to come with him to visit his female acquaitance named Sara(h), whom I'd never met. So I did, partly cause I thought I might see Amanda and I could say happy birthday. But what's the first (fucking) thing I had to (had to) do once I set foot in Sara(h)'s apartment? Take a violent shit. From the Chicken Fried Rice laced with Hot Sauce. Joe, we're bros in Hot Sauce Trauma, and other things.

This all brought back some shit horror stories from my life. One is overflowing my Aunt's toilet. And then getting yelled at for referring to it as 'the fucking toilet'. Another is doing the same thing at a friend's parents' condo (!) in Ft Myers. And I've shit my pants a few times...

I should start one of those memes... Hey you guys! Oh never mind!

Last night, I watched Children of Men for a second time. First time, I had a sour taste in my mouth, and even yelled 'c'mon', when Kee said at the end she would name her child 'Dylan'. So I watched the documentary, and that only has an ancilliary connection to what's in the film. Famous scientists and philosophers, including Zizek, predicting global catastrophes, without (except for Zizek) really even trying to relate to the film, all the while accompanied by stock footage from the set of Children of Men. I think it would be funny if the charatcers said the title of film several times throughout: "We must find the Children of Men." And also thinking and wondering why I keep being reminded of The Golden Child, with Eddie Murphy.

So I have two readings of the film. From the first viewing that it's basicly Raiders of the Lost Ark or Star Wars- a reluctant hero, a precious cargo in the form of a woman/child, explosions/bullets, a repressive regime, dystopian elements as a foreground, rebel forces- but way beyond it's depth in terms of the issues it tries to address. Presenting a horrible future where mass numbers of people are 'fugees' (not to be mistaken for Pras, Lauryn Hill, or Wyclef Jean), it always seems to be cloudy except in rural areas, a plague (in this case a plague of infertility), and all of it as a projection of similarity to present times. But does it really get beyond the usual dystopian future motifs?

The second reading is that all of the above mentioned are problems inherent in any film that situates itself in the really-sucky-future/globalization genre. And to be fair Children of Men fleshes out as much as can expected in the span of two or so hours. There's an acceleration in the movie of themes that are already present in the world, paranoia over 'Terrorists', mass numbers of refugees. It's just, I'm bothered when a film actively solicits heavy verisimilitude, a romantic backstory, and action-packed technical wizardry all in one shot. I guess that's what I mean by being beyond it's depth. The most troublesome area of the film is how it addresses the refugees and how they came to be refugees. There are just kind of there. A whole lot of catastrophic shit happened and there they are. I mean it's important to look at a refugee situation as a result of specfic events and not just as all these people, no?

And the hype over the technical virtuosity of the film isn't unwarranted. (The tracking shots! They are impressive.) It's not hard to see that this'll be one of those 'Cult Films', lotsa websites, clubs etc. springing up around it. I would recommend seeing it. It would be interesting to see what others think.

Autechre electro-anxiety in the shower. And yet bopping still.

____


Duffer St. George, the way Elinor Friedberger leans on care, when she says it the second time, in the chorus. That moment where the severe tone of voice gives way to a heavy breath.


____


Too cold biking over the Locust Street Bridge, in a holey pullover and sweater.

____


High School kid piling hot sauces on his friend's tray at the Taco Bell.

I was thinking the Triangle Brat Sale would be today, rather than yesterday, but I was wrong. Now I'm considering Taco Bell. Try and stop me.

____

On the 60 bus, people at two consecutive stops waved the vehicle by, as they were waiting for the much more popular 15 bus. The first person, a woman most likely in her 50/60s, did a kind of misleading gesture with the index finger, suggesting 'Come here, but then pass by me.' The second person, a man in his 20s probably, did a more dismissive be-gone-from-my-sight, right hand swinging low back-and-forth gesture.

Here's my idea of making lines: if you have to think for more than a few seconds about where to break a line, it's a bad sign. It's a phrase, among other phrases, and together they form a poem. Houston Astrodome.

Does blogging make me lazy? Like when I post something, do I subconsciously think I've done 'enough'?

Last night I had a dream that I was with a person I have a crush on. We were talking. And at one point, we walked under some scaffolding and on some planks, in downtown West Bend near the theater. Of course I'm filling in some gaps. I was saying how if I were a manager of performers, all of my clients would be 'freak acts' or 'noise acts'. It was a really pleasant conversation. I don't remember what she was saying, but she was speaking in a very casual and friendly way. I sensed, at some point, that her boyfriend was nearby. I had another dream about another woman who I have somewhat less of a crush on, last week or so. We were supposed to meet at the Taco Bell on Paradise Drive in West Bend. For some reason, this was where this person, who had never been to Wisconsin before, wanted to meet me. I was there alone, waiting for her, when a short man who looked much older than he actually was, explained why everyone had to leave Taco Bell immediately. He was pretty cool about it, tho. It wasn't like closing time at The Foundation.

____

The first dream reminded of how I watched The Science of Sleep last week. For reasons I can't quite articulate, I was really bugged by it. But (I guess if you don't want the ending spoiled then you should STOP READING) the ending has the the man's wishes unrequited. And the person I had the first dream about is someone I will probably never even meet, not anytime in the forseeable future anyway. So I'm thinking about the message of that film's ending. Basicly, sometimes you can get what you want only in dreams.

But dreams aren't reality. And I'm not sexy.

____

So much for 'mind your own business', I guess. I don't think I really meant that anyway. I do think people should share. But I also think they should consider the implications of that.

____

Last week, I was reading Lester Bangs. He's still one of my favorite writers. I was kind of shocked tho, when I realized that the person who wrote this, I think it might have been 'James Taylor Marked For Death', was 22 years old. I've always read Lester as an elder, toddling the reader on his brilliant knee. He did kind of assume that role in his writing tho, especially in a piece like Psychotic Reactions and Carbuerator Dung. That piece begins with his addressing the reader as a group of his grandchildren, then traveling through the present into the future, for a retrospective on The Count Five, who had a minor but influential hit with 'Psychotic Reaction'.

Tomorrow (3/26) I'm reading at Linneman's Riverwest Inn on Locust and Weil at 9pm. Maybe I'll get laid (paid).

What do we think of the idear of something being 'None of your business'? I think it's underrated. Or at least that it could be applied liberally to many of the poet blogs. Not least my own. Its the problem of feeling like one is at a big, disembodied bar/social gathering, jarring against the prospect of instantly publishing something. And something about that disembodied, social aspect makes one say things they would normally only to say to strangers when they were drunk. Maybe some do post drunk. I can't, or rather don't, since the computer lab would be a mighty awful place while one was drunk.

A blog post has the potential to be more widely and instantly read than any book. Not that I wanna start to sound like Time or John Stossel, or the guy who traps sexual predators on Dateline, mewling about the dangers of the Internet.

_____

And everyone should hear this album sooner than later. And yes I heard it before the Pitchfork props came. It is joyful and somewhat unassuming. Sort of has the time/space scheme of a DJ mix. The CD booklet is filled with beautiful collages, which I look at while listening.

Notes Toward a Diagram of Mystery Funk

"I slept on a toilet!! In the dark!!"

Notes Toward a Diagram of Mystery Funk

A poem's potential to induce wow-ness* is not as oblivious to fumes as we think. We say the poem's there. Is it? In a far-beyond-the-dregs-of-old-Wow routine, hard work is the missing ingredient in my syllabic quiche baste. And no one has ever thought of trying to make one (or two) on the George Foreman grill. My poetics dictates that I physically feel the shudders lip-syncing an emotional duet with the next town, i.e. poem, i.e. howdy. This is not just retracing The Plasticity of Fools, or even Emotional Overlay. In the 1970's, some kind of poetic parlay was ALL THE RAGE!!! Game show contestants openly sipping mixed drinks etc. Ugh! Unguito!! Someone praticed pagan cookery in San Jose. And it was you.

(In Pound's THUNDER CANTOS, a specific roar surfaces. A light creamy light, with all the stresses turned off for several pages at a time. Pound asked Zukofsky not to breathe while reading THUNDER CANTOS, or so the legend has it. Pound would not return to this "ladlin' it out" tone until the posthumous FAR BEYOND DRIVEN)

* A criteria stretching back to the Middle Ages and ending somewhere in the Future. As if...

Where I work, people often ask me to do things they need done in the kitchen. The other day, on my way to the shower, in the shower, as I was drying myself, and as I was walking back to my room I was having fun making up such requests that make no sense. Let me see if I can do some:

'Hey Mike, I need you to spatialize that Indonesian burrito paste, we're gonna cook it off in the steam booth.'

'Hey Mike, I need you to rub my cerebral tit while I cold cock these clam baster epigrams.'

'Hey Mike, I need you to come on these monkey wafers in the dark.'

'Hey Mike, I need you to lap up that steak rind, put it in the walk-in 'bot, and dry-hump some more of those parsley beaurocrats for tonight's class war dinner.'

'Hey Mike, I need you to tuna-fold the green bass necks.'

'Hey Mike, I need you to stuff all this ground beef into my backpack PRONTO.'

'Hey Mike, I need you to fertilize the curry-stuffing before it goes out of style.'

'Hey Mike, I need you to perform a pagan ritual while I slaughter this lamb.'

'Hey Mike, I need you to put pancake batter on my leg in time for the Asshole Car Interiors Memorial Dinner and Bake-Off.'

'Hey Mike, I need you to cuddle with this ham while I thrush these artichoke chimneys.'

That was fun! How bout for you?

My birthday is Saturday. Why am I telling you this? My birthday is Saturday. It seemed like I should say it twice. Maybe blogging is Emotional Magic. Or maybe the ultimate realization of Rock n Roll Fantasy. Maybe it is Penultimate Metal. Maybe it is the Quintessence of Maybe.

My UWM computer account will end in less than a month, so I will be doing this alot less soon.

Black Love. Mustache Ride. Cup o Soup. Sweater Vest Octupi. Lonestar Blogging.

Last night I watched episodes 7-13 of The Sopranos Season 5, and as should be expected, I dreamt all night that mobsters were trying to kill me.

Does emotion come from hard work? My friend Robert and I used to always talk about the idea of Emotional Magic, which seemed so melodramatic we couldn't help but ask each other about it constantly. "Is that emotional magic? Is that?" The idea that a magic trick, sleight of hand, willfully bewildering one's audience toward the end of pulling a rabbit out of a hat, would produce an emotional response. The audience would feel a tremendous release of joy, to the point of tears. It would be fun to start a poetic movement called Emotional Magic. But I think in the end it would leave us all in tears, many of us would be driven back to sleeping with stuffed animals. And I already have those kinds of dark thoughts. I mean wouldn't that be more honest than a body pillow or a blow-up doll or whatever. Magic tricks do produce a kind of emotion, but maybe it's the emotion of being bewildered. A lapse between the recognition that produces emotion, and the non-recognition of looking at a magic trick. A poetics of wonderment! The founder of this burgeoning aesthetic approach is Doug Henning.

Is emotion even important? Is it important to talk about that in poetry?

So thinking about how language that doesn't use overtly emotional elements can produce great emotion.

Examples of (in some cases) overt emotion being say, Ginsberg. Swooping motion of directly, self-consciously getting something out. Some of Alice Notley's work also. A desperation in the moment of the text, and also speed, getting it down, to meet it's needs. And to amend, more perhaps a need for the text to be born than for the poet, who is a vessel, to express themselves.

I'm addressing you.
Are you going to let our emotional life be run by Time Magazine?

So it seems like emotion is tied to address. The act of addressing a specific person, or circumstantially, whoever's reading it.

Then maybe, on the other end, Ashbery, passages say in The Skaters, which are richly emotional but also exhibit a certain avoidance of that directness that lets you know when to feel something. One is no better than the other.

Also on the Ashbery end, thinking of how Pavement songs like Brinx Job, or Type Slowly are very emotional, but the lyrics are tantalizingly indirect.

Here are some workshop doozies. I was told once that something I submitted was 'a little performancey'. Another time it was 'a little Languagey'. The capital 'L' is from Language Poetry, I presume. Yeah, what's with all the language in this poem? I was hoping for nut-covered raisins. A frequent approach is to treat the poem like it were one of those machines filled with prizes, and the reader has to operate a mechanical claw and try to grab one. One compliment was that it sounds like the 'crazy person' on the bus. You know that person on the bus? Didn't Ron Silliman read from Tjanting on the bus? I know Charles Reznikoff did. Like I said, I took it as a compliment. I probably wouldn't actually do it, but I admire those that do. Kind of like people who have great experiences on drugs. I used to worry that because I had so little experience with substances, I would never be able to write like Jack Kerouac or Allen Ginsberg. But alot of the poems in a magazines like Poetry sound much more depraved than anyone, or anything written, on drugs.

A problem maybe is, how do you not get but allow the world into your writing. And then what world? Through what vocabulary? In poetry where referents make cameos in each others' scenarios, is that linguistic speed-dating? Whalen's graph of a mind of a moving is the still the least constricted, laterally reactive model. What's there? Patrick Kavanagh said something like 'That pint, there in front of you.' But then where's the interface between the pint and the pint at the end of the mind? Why a pint? Because he was in McDade's and one was there in front of him. If I write from anything, it's from what I guess is my present circumstance. And it becomes itself really in the writing. Process seems limited as a word. It implies a Pint A and a Pint B. Poems don't end, as long as they're read. They're looked at, and read.

You have to do so much in a poem. It's unbelievable! There are no demands.

And how could I forget "Bury The Hammer", "Carrot Rope", numerous Yo La Tengo, all the indie duets of yore. And of course Conan with Jiminy Glick doing "Silent Night"-- 'furnyiiiiii...."

I like collaborating on poems, because it's like a duet. Like "Ain't Nothing Like The Real Thing" or "Don't Go Breaking My Heart" or "Total Eclipse of The Heart". But not like "Paradise By The Dashboard Light", which would be maudlin. Something I think I'd rather duet than be in a sexual relationship. Read that however you want.

So I can't I believe I didn't catch this at first, but in #101 of The Annotated My Trip To NYC, Bill Luoma says, "These [paragraphs] are all slides by the way, slides that you would show to relatives after you get back from a trip." (I can't find a paragraph symbol on this keyboard, which is what Luoma uses.)

I had always sensed a pictorial quality in the paragraphs, but not in the imagist sense. Take this sentence for a instance, from 12 Peanuts & an Easton: "They wore regular clothes except for open windbreakers whose front said alternately POL & ICE." So there's a pleasent surprise in reading this of looking at 'POL & ICE' on the page, and visualizing it in the mind. It's a little thing, of course. But one thing that makes Works & Days so endlessly 'readable' is that it's a visual work, as well as a narrative one. Another instance is the Krispy Kreme symbol appearing next to the part where the narrator is describing the best way to eat Krispy Kreme donuts. But a key word in the first-quoted sentence from TAMTTNYC would seem to be 'show'. There's a passivity and a removedness, as in a narrator who says, I want to show you this. And as pleasant as being in a room with a person who wants to show you things, slides from a trip, for instance. Kerouac also writes alot about his prosody, but what keeps it from being a smothering venture for the reader, is that one doesn't the get sense of being told what something means. Same here, I think. I'm still hung up on that old show don't tell chestnut, from English Classes going back farther than I remember. (Mr. Lewis?) But it rings true.

Indie Rock has become like that friend that everyone constantly makes fun of but still keeps around. It seems like the investment alot of people my age (28) had in this music came from the bitterness of having been constantly told 'You missed the 60's'. When I heard Bee Thousand by Guided By Voices I was almost shocked. Like, 'this is as good as The White Album'. It was amazing somehow to 15 year old me that music could still be that good. Of course I had just undergone some no-Motley-Crue-for-you-cuz-they-sing-about-satan trauma, some hybernating with the Dances With Wolves score (which I will always claim has good qualities), and was nearing the end of my interest in sports. But that 'this is as good as the White Album' kinda-realization was a door for me to actually stop caring about the whole now vs. then dichotomy, even if I didn't know it then. But this icky kind of nostalgia persists, everywhere one looks. Definitely in poetry.

But back to Indie Rock, it's interesting to note the change in nomenclature surrounding this genre. And the genre is so broadly defined, it doesn't really exist. Obviously Indie Rock exists in the way Jazz exists, and not in the way a more specificly defined genre such as Be Bop exists. It's almost like saying 'Classic Rock'. Think about it. Just as there is that little (large) niche in every city for a Classic Rock station, there'll soon enough be one for the Indie Rock station. And it'll be aimed at us (18 to 35 at the present time) as we age (dis)gracefully.

The word 'Indie' seems to stick and lend itself to marketing in a peculiar way. Remember when it was 'underground' or 'alternative' or even 'cutting edge'! And of course the word 'punk' is like this gauzy spectrality, looming over the whole field. And obviously the meanings of these words dissolve completely, in the process of being utelized to sell Bloc Party and Bright Eyes albums.

But maybe I'm way off. One definable trend is that music is becoming specialized, more compartmentalized within the internet. Maybe Kurt Cobain would have liked this. Nirvana fans, in the present context, would be able to go to Nirvana's myspace, commiserate among themselves in chat rooms. And Nirvana would never have to sign to a major label. Never have to deal with dreaded jocks!

But maybe that's internet-utopia idealizing.

And maybe there is no next Nirvana. Not that they were so unbelievably great. The Nirvana phenomenon was that people who would never listen to a band like that (supposedly) started listening to a band like that. So much so that (gasp) Michael Jackson was briefly no longer the top-selling artist.

Its come to be considered naive to say 'My favorite kind of music is Indie Rock.' I think it would be funny to say 'Mostly, I'm into alternative.' Remember alternative? Vedder on Time's cover? I have the feeling that kind of media phenomenom-a-non isn't going to happen anymore. The zeitgeist belongs more to technology and the market now than it did even in the 90's. More people are excited about the new iPhone than about the new Arcade Fire, regardless of how you feel about that band.

And nobody missed anything, don't worry. Anyone can get a copy of Bee Thousand, and its still great. The 90's were not a GREAT ERA in music. There was never a time when the nomenclature of music, or even the context of music, was more important than the music. You wouldn't get more out of The Beatles' songs by transporting yourself back to the 60's. You would get more out of the 60's maybe, and realize they 60's were never about the Beatles, or even the 60's.

The trick is not to be fooled by the nomenclature. There is no such thing as Indie Rock. It's really just industry jargon now, and maybe always was. Maybe there never was an Indie Rock. Of course there's independent produced and marketed music. Always will be. But Indie Rock, all it is, is dust in the wind.

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.

_______

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.