Intellectual, anachronistic, superserious: I'm not going to start crying because "experimental" and I'm not going to start crying because "not experimental"...I just want to piss down my own leg.

—Chelsey Minnis

Joining the Army so We don't Have Riots: Remembering the L.A. Riots

Are you a caveman? You should become a mercenary. You can be a soldier for hire. The Army says that friendly-fire is at an all-time low! Now's the time to join!

I am withdrawing my support from the troops. I am sorry troops. We have been at war for a long time. If you joined up while we were at war, you were not hood-winked. You wanted to go to Iraq. If you wanted to go to Iraq, I do not support you. I don't want to pay taxes anymore. I don't even want to file. I don't want to buy anything that will support you in any way. I don't like you. If you think that this war was/is a good idea, I do not like you and do not support you.

Unfortunately, there are no jobs for you if you come home. Your job is secure where you are. All the jobs you had when you were in America are gone. No one has any jobs. Everyone is getting laid off. Some of the people who are getting laid off are joining the Army. People in America are losing their houses. Not the way people lose their houses in Iraq, but still. It's dire. The more people lose their houses and their jobs, the more people join the Army.

I am afraid that if it continues going this way, people will start breaking into my house looking for food. I live on the first floor. I lived through a riot once, and it is extremely frightening. When a city catches fire and everyone's running around with guns. . . man. The National Guard comes in after dark and shoots people. If you are out after dark, you get shot. That's how they cure riots.

Maybe I should do some work convincing poor people to join up so that I won't get robbed when times get really rough. Times are getting really rough. If we send more people to Iraq, no one will notice how rough the times are. All the poor people won't be around to complain about being poor. I'm pretty poor, but I am feeling kind of rich lately compared to some other people. There are three houses for sale on my block. It's scary. Food is getting more expensive. I don't buy gas, but it is very expensive.

SO JOIN NOW!!! FRIENDLY-FIRE IS AT AN ALL-TIME LOW FOR A LIMITED TIME ONLY!!!
There's Strong. And then there's Army Strong.
-----------------
Seriously though, when you have a large group of young men who are unemployed and frustrated, you have riots. I just spent an hour looking for a youtube video of the LA riots, whose anniversary is today, April 29. None of the videos show what really happened. I was thirteen. They closed all the schools. Every channel on TV was of beatings in the streets. Everyone was blaming everyone else, and that's still happening so many years later. Everyone's got someone else to blame. No one ever mentions that unemployment was at 7.5% and was only a year after the Persian Gulf Crisis. What do you think is going to happen when gas is five dollars, milk costs the same, all the soldiers coming home can't find jobs, and their parents can't help because they just got laid off? Today, even though Youtube fails to have any decent videos, I remember what happened in L.A. when I was thirteen. I never want to see that again, but I am afraid it will soon.

Transbay Expression

Yesterday I took the ferry with Vince and Ryan to San Francisco, where we had drinks and walked from the wharf to North Beach. I kind of like the wharf. It's filled with tourists and is very crowded, but it doesn't feel as crammed and hectic as Times Square in New York even though it kind of is. Beer cost $6.50 at a place called Jack's there, and although they have some breweries on tap that are hard to find elsewhere, like Strongbow, I can't ever ever ever think it's all right to pay $6.50 for a beer, even if they have one of my favorite pinball machines in the world in really good shape there.

I also like North Beach. At Columbus Cafe on Green St., their happy hour is buy one get one free. And a beer costs $5. It's kind of a dark place on a beautiful afternoon, but that's OK because you can take lots of breaks to step outside.

Then I went to the Grand Ashby to see the Shotgun Players perform Mrs. Warren's Profession. I absolutely loved it. Emily Jordan was a beautiful and delightful Vivie Warren and Steve Decker is a genius, making a set that impossibly turned a small space into a whole world. Remarkable all around. The artwork for the Shotgun Player shows is phenomenal and makes me want to see everything I can there.

Sonnet for the Man I Saw Jump from a Bridge in Japan, Who Was Just Like the One I Saw in San Francisco

Sonnet for the Man I Saw Jump from a Bridge in Japan, Who Was Just Like the One I Saw in San Francisco

A man in all black
jumped from a window
and busted his knee
in an ocean of regret

two places like s horse
from a plank like a hapless
pirate who didn't get points
except in his back and the sea

The fallen leaves
look like fallen rats
in gray lake morning
Sundays

when yachts are rented
for funerals and weddings.

You Can't Be Serious

She's an intellectual, fully self-actualized human being with a wicked sense of humor, so don't judge her.

I was looking for things to do, and I found out the SF International Beer Festival is tomorrow, but it's sold out. On Yelp, this is one of the pictures they used for it. I cracked up and shook my head. I just cracked up and shook my head again. I find this picture extremely funny on so many levels. I just wanted to share it with you. Thank you.

I thought about not posting this, but I couldn't bring myself not to.

Last night was great as far as my reading went. Robert Hass came to my reading and said he liked it. I was happy that he was there, and I am happy that he said he liked my reading because I think that he is one of the more honest people in poetry. People came up to me afterward and said that they were afraid of coming to a poetry reading and that now they were glad that they did. One woman gushed and said, "I am so glad I came out to this now." And another woman said, "I didn't know poetry could be exciting and funny and sad at the same time." I told them I thought that was the point of poetry, and they apologized for being uninitiated, which I thought was cute, and I touched one of them on the arm and said, "you aren't uninitiated. You've just never seen me read before." And we all laughed, and everyone came up to me and told me they loved me, and I felt good about myself and my work and about poetry.

Then I went across the hall to the Holloway reading. The Maude Fife room was like a shower at Auschwitz. Some people scrambled for the door as soon as Jasper Bernes started talking. Some thought, "this can't be happening." Others looked at each other and wondered if it was just a joke. But it wasn't a joke. We were being gassed. There were a lot of first-timers there who had never been to a poetry reading, and they got to see how poetry is being destroyed by people who are so academic they can't help but kill anything beautiful they touch. Jasper got up and "introduced" Ariana Reines, whose book, COW, I kind of liked, but what he said was, everything in the world sucks, and nothing good or new about poetry has happened since 1970. He tried to qualify the second part, but qualification is cowardly and should be done only after emphatic apology. He went on and on for what seemed at least 20 minutes about wars and how ugly, absurd, and disgusting poetry is. So I wanted to ask Jasper, if he really believes what he says about poetry, why bother studying it or writing it? Or, if you don't believe it, and you think that's just how academics are supposed to talk about art because academics are like vivisecting scientists, how do you look yourself in the mirror when you wake up? In fact, how do you get up and say that shit and like yourself enough to keep going? There are so many things to hate and get other people to hate, do you have to spend time getting people to hate poetry? Especially since, to some degree, you're in a position to actually make a difference in the way people think about poetry. Do you really want to have a negative effect? I mean, if you had a sense of humor you might be able to be at least entertaining about your hate for art, but you're not funny. I used to like talking to you about things because you are mean and spiteful, which I mistook for a critical mind, but now I realize you're not critical at all, just hateful, which is deplorable.

I just don't understand it. When I get mean it's because I see that people are hurting the art by being disingenuous or toeing industry lines or being cliquey. But you, you're just mean to poetry itself. Poor poetry. Will anyone lift her charred remains from the dusty floor in Wheeler hall and take her back to the streets where she belongs? Only there can she get better, where the vulgar won't disguise their thoughts behind jargon. Will anyone love her enough to tear ope the cage of academia and break her free?

Nina Simone

I have been a fan of Nina Simone for a long time. I think I heard of her for the first time when the Fugees record came out and Lauren Hill said "While you imitatin' Al Capone, I'll be Nina Simone, and defecatin' on yo' microphone." I was like, who that? I was sixteen or something. So I have liked Nina Simone for something like thirteen years. Plus, she covered all of my favorite songs, and I think she might be the reason why I like reinterpretations, remixes or covers, of songs.

This song, "You'd Be So Nice To Come Home To," always surprises me. I am always shocked when the song gets to where it's going. I am just listening to a bunch of Nina Simone, and this song comes on and I have to listen to it three times with my mouth open and my head next to the speaker.

Jack Morgan Honored at Berkeley Tonight

It's early, and I am sure you all have reasons not to make it, but they are honoring me at the English lounge, 330 Wheeler, where I will read poetry and someone will read fiction, and there will be free wine and cheese and other stuff. You should come, but I understand if you don't.

Afterward, I am going to see Ariana Reines at the Holloway reading at Maude Fife at 315 Wheeler. Should be good.

Celebrity Crush

My friends at Venom Literati had a week in which they all blogged about their various celebrity crushes, which was a great week because I hardly knew who any of their celebrity crushes were.

I don't usually like celebrities. And I don't know if she is one, but I have a crush on Jessica Williamson. OK, she's beautiful and everything, but so is everyone. She's intelligent, cares about the environment and animals, very articulate, not American, and gainfully employed by a company I don't think is evil in a position that isn't demeaning. She probably doesn't read poetry, which is a plus, won't think I'm lame for liking things like OTS Star Trek movies or blogging, and would probably love to go see a Shakespeare play. She probably has an S.O., and she probably, like other New Zealanders, hits people in faces with phones and hates the bay area, but she seems like a person who would be fun to drink organic Guatemalan coffee with at Cole.

My Cupcake Story

I woke up feeling like Napoleon in the rain.
Confused and defeated.
Everything around me was broken.
I was angry at myself and everyone else in the world, and I thought I had lost my journal, which represents a lot of work.

Everything was messed up, and I felt like my whole life was a mess.

I looked in the fridge to see if anything was rotting. There I found a cupcake that I bought at Rick and Anne's yesterday. It was the most beautiful cupcake I had ever seen. My friend Liz Howe makes extremely delicious cupcakes. This one was S'Mores-flavored and was the most beautiful cupcake I have ever seen in my life. I didn't eat it yesterday because I don't like eating cupcakes in public, where people can see me deriving pleasure. It occurred to me that I never liked cupcakes until I met Elizabeth Howe. And I took a picture of the cupcake's brother yesterday, when Sara was going to eat it. I remembered that I felt like I couldn't wait to eat the cupcake yesterday. Deriving pleasure where no one could see me. I had really looked forward to it. And there it was. The most beautiful cupcake in the world.

And then I noticed the marshmallow.
And it occurred to me that I still don't know what the hell a marshmallow is. It must be made of dead animals, thought I. Nothing as Pax-Americana as a marshmallow could come from anything but a dead animal.

I thought, fuck it. I'm going vegan.
And I threw the cupcake in the garbage.

I looked at my fish, and Desdemona is sick.
Fuck it, I said,
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...............................................I'm going Vegan

Vegetarian and Professional Poet's Day

Martha Stewart is not vegetarian. I wish she were. I would discover™ her then. But I like discovering other things more, like Alicia Silverstone, who, like my secretary/administrative professional, is vegetarian.


Alicia Silverstone’s Sexy Veggie PSA
Order a FREE vegetarian starter kit at GoVeg.com

The Man and the Mime.

The loudest man of all time
said to the quietest mime,
"my woman won't scream
when I tell her I cream,"
and the mime said, "well man, that's a crime."

M'Eye Ball

I don't hate my eyeball. I don't think I ever have. I have always enjoyed my eyeball. Lately, every morning I wake up and in my left eyeball, I see lots of black spots in the morning light. A few minutes later, most of the black spots seem to go away, but one always stays right in the middle. I think there are more spots when I wake up now than there were a few days ago. It looks like a dirty movie projector or scratches on a microscope. I only worried about it passingly until today. Today I woke up and my left eye had black spots all over it. They went away pretty quickly and now I only see the really small one right in the middle when I look at white things like the ceiling.

I thought, "maybe I will have to get a glass eye. Maybe they will take my eyeball out and put a patch on it, and I will look like a pirate, and everyone will think it's sexy and cool until I take the eye patch off and they see how gross my eye socket looks without an eyeball in it."

Then I thought, "I am quite young; they can't start taking pieces off of me yet." But Othello started saying, "what fantasy-land are you living in?" And Mr. T. said, "your twenties are almost over!" And for the first time I said to myself, "your twenties are almost over."

I don't mind the passing of my twenties. I have lived fast and loose, and I don't see any signs of slowing down or anything. I would like to slow down, but that doesn't seem to be the person I am. It's weird to look back on some of your life and see that you aren't the person who you've become but the person you always were and never noticed. Like you don't become a person but become aware of the person who always was, the person lurking behind the meanderings of youth, those twists that we think are making us, like a doleful lion or a curious squirrel, waiting for the perfect moment to slowly emerge from the bushes into the light. But I will miss my eyeball.

I am afraid of eyeball surgery. The pain that must result from someone slicing your cornea doesn't register, but the whole idea of a knife tearing my windows ope is just too much for me to think about, so I won't consider going to an ophthalmologist until it's so bad that they only have one choice: take it out. I will miss you, old blue. You've seen so much, and I will witness only half as much after you're gone. Please don't think I hate you. It will happen quickly; you won't even notice you're gone.

Last night, before we went to the burlesque show at the Uptown, which was particularly hilarious last night, I do say, I met a woman I have known for a short while and had to look at her differently for a moment. We haven't really spoken all that much because she is always surrounded by men who vie for her attentions. But she came to me while I was alone, and we spoke a few words, and I thought, "now I get it." Her eyes shone in the dim lights like lamps in dark jewelry shops or the shivering points of nighttime cities in the rain.

Adams Groove. MC HAMMER. Too Legit.

Typing About Weekends

On Saturday night, incredibly, after restarting my thesis in an entirely different direction, I got a lot done. I will finish the whole thing this week and edit it next week. If anyone can write a hundred pages in a couple weeks, it's Jack Morgan. After that, I went to Lucky Ju Ju. Lucky Ju Ju is a pinball museum-type place in Alameda where you can play all the games. They have a lot of vintage games and a couple newer ones. They have one crazy one that has rotating magnets in it called Orbiter that is a total trip. They have two of my favorites: Dracula, whose multi-ball is achieved only if you shoot a ball that eerily crawls across the playing field like Gary Oldman does in the movie across the wall of his castle, and whose sound effects are spooky clips from the movie, too, and Adam's Family, whose multi ball is only achieved after Thing has stolen and locked away balls you give him. I remember Adam's Family from when the movie came out with the MC Hammer theme song. I miss MC Hammer. He lives around where I live, but I've never seen him. Sometimes my friends see him. I thought he was too legit to quit, and maybe he never will. After that, we went to the bar where my lovely friend Sara works. She was in a good mood despite having to work. I was supposed to go sailing with my good friend Ryan Stark, but the whole world had the same idea, and I couldn't wait around for my turn. We ate at Betty's instead.
Betty's is a restaurant on Fourth St. in Berkeley, which, if you can manage to wait forty minutes for a table, is one of the best breakfast/lunch places the world has ever known. I also bought supplies to make more chapbooks. I am publishing Sara Mumolo's Brain in a Vat soon. It is going to be awesome.

On Sunday, instead of going to any of the readings that were going on, I had brunch with lotsa friends and then took a ferry to SF with Cameron Jackson, a poet who will be famous some day, and we went to poet places and talked about poet things. Ryan came across the water, and we ate at one of my favorite pizza places, Golden Boy Pizza in North Beach. I like it there. I like North Beach. I like Vesuvio's. I don't like City Lights very much, but it is in North Beach, and even though I never go there, I am happy it's there. We ended up at Ben and Nick's, a bar we always go to that no one likes, where my famous musician and DJ friends were hanging out talking about musician things and being musicians, and Jessica wrote "Butterfly" on my knuckles. I tried to wash the word from my knuckles today, but it's still there. I wish that I had knuckle tattoos.

Jack Morgan is reading The Ways this Thursday the 24th at the Judith Stronach award reception. If you haven't heard me read it, you should. People like it a lot for some reason. Show starts at six in the English Lounge at UCB.

Things are going so well lately that I am afraid a little. For this, too, shall pass, ¿verdad?


Richtig. It is already late morning. I have been awake for almost three hours. I am still quite naked, shivering while I write.

Little League

The guys at the bar did agree,
that in this sweet land of the free,
the girls in my way
in the strawberry fray
are simply quite out of my league.

I just got an email from a friend about Matt Hart and how Slope editions is going to publish a book of his coming up here pretty soon, which is nice because I wanted to tell you that today, Sunday, will be a great night for poetry at Pegasus by all accounts because Matt Hart is reading and because I wanted to tell you about Amanda Nadelberg and John Sakkis.

John Sakkis is a nice guy whose poetry is quite good. I like him and his poetry.

Amanda Nadelberg has become one of my favorite readers. After her first poem, I thought, "why the hell is no one I know at this reading?" and "I can't wait to read her book" and "what a fool I am for not knowing who Amanda Nadelberg is!" I bought her book, and am reading it right now. I don't want to to say anything about it yet except that I like it so far, mostly, and I think that she is such a cool person, that I wish I had more of an effort to get to know her at the reading.

At the reading, I spent some time with John Sakkis, who is a very San Francisco poet; I don't know what that means, but I think I am right. I never feel like poets from San Francisco like me, but I liked him, and I like his chapbook, and I like Logan Ryan Smith and Chad Sweeney and other San francisco people. But seriously, I always think they all hate me for some reason. My favorite things about John Sakkis is that he is doing something that I love to do and what all the kids in Brooklyn love to do, that is hold readings in his apartment. I really want to go, but I don't want to make other people feel awkward when I go, so I am thinking it over. It's not that I care if people don't like me, but I don't want to ruin other people's parties just because someone there doesn't like the way I think about poetry. A lot of people don't like the way I think about poetry and poets.

If you don't know what Slope or Transmission is, you don't know enought about poetry presses and are twice as stupid as I am. You know what I love about the poetry publishing world? I will never know everyone or know how it all works. I didn't know who Slope was until last night, and that makes me stupid. They are very hot, I guess, and they obviously have great taste, publishing Amanda.

I am not gong to proofread this. I am tired and want to go to bed.

Yesterday's Big Problems

Yesterday a lot of my friends had S.O. problems. Their boyfriends and girlfriends just weren't living up to the dream. I told them all the same thing. It was the same thing I always tell people having bf/gf problems: stick or quit. It sounds overly simplified, doesn't it? If you are unhappy, leave, if you aren't unhappy, you're not actually crying about anything at all and should go along your merry way and tie the knot as soon as possible. The thing about being human is that we want to be with one another. If you break up with someone, there are plenty of other humans around who will want you. If you break up a lot it starts looking pretty bleak, but then you find someone again, and you feel good. Every time you break up at any age after 16, you wonder if anyone will ever love you again. Someone will love you again. I know people who are over 65 and retired who are giving love another try after they've lost spouses to cancer. It's always cancer. Love is kind of like a cancer. A lot of things are like cancer.

I am not as pessimistic about relationships as I sometimes seem. I think that it is always beautiful to see two people trying to make something out of the magical chemicals swirling around inside and around them. It's thrilling. And now it's spring, and everyone is looking at everyone else, ad it's funny and exciting. But I'm harder on relationships because they are supposed to be enjoyable. Fights happen, but there really is no reason to feel anything other than joy even during the fights. That's why love fights are so confusing. You still love a person, but you are so frustrated that you can't say words without screaming. I never yell at lovers, but I know I'm different. It's not my fault, really. But if it's something more than a fight, like you feel that someone isn't being careful with your feelings or you feel like you are in a lop-sided relationship where one person loves the other more than they are being loved, you should end it. You can't change things like that. You can't change people. It's like driving a car with a flat tire, and you keep driving, hoping that it will fill back up with air.

It's Hard Being Jack Morgan

Before Jack Morgan was the most bad-ass vegetarian poet in the world, there was a kid everyone called Skyler. He knew how to look happy and cute.
–––––––––––——————****I've been writing secret messages here again.
Yesterday, Jack Morgan won a fancy poetry award, so he took his friends out for a fancy dinner. No one took any pictures for some reason. I wish I had a photographer friend who wanted to document all of the crazy things we poets in the bay do. I skip so much of what happens; I can't put it all on this blog. Plussssss, pictures are the things they make books out of when we're all big and famous. I love looking at pictures of language poets when they were young and hot with all of their amazing haircuts and shirts. There are museums filled with pictures of the beats.

There aren't many pictures of me as a kid growing up, and I guess there won't be many pictures of my artistic rise. But I like pictures, and I wish there were more.

At first, I got a little depressed about winning the award. It's a lot of money, which is nice, but Cameron said I was selling out, and even though I know he was joking, it got me asking myself if I was. I take my integrity too seriously maybe. Luckily, I have never taken a class with any of the poets who could have been judging, and it would be utterly impossible for anyone to know those poems were mine. I don't want to win anything or get anything that I didn't earn. That sounds lame when I read that, but integrity is the only thing I have that's worth anything. It's hard to measure how talented or deserving a person is of accolades if you don't look at their integrity. If you don't have any of that, who are you? What are you worth?

Winning this one, the Judith Stronach award (I've won it twice now), means I will be reading at a reception at UCB on April 24th, and then at Lunch Poems (Robert Hass's series) in May.
One of them will be recorded and posted online.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\///Chad Vogler, I've been thinking about you. Everyone knows you won the Eisner award because GGOB edited your Harlem Hide-and-go-Seek poems. It isn't your fault that he has no moral compass, and I don't fault you but pity you and envy you at the same time. I wish I had won the Eisner, but not like that. I'm sure you'll get into whatever MFA program you want! Congratulations in advance on that.

Speaking of Ethics, have you ever noticed that Ivy Leagues keep having issues when it comes to ethics? Is there anyone in those east coast brick houses who isn't a liar, a plagiarist, or a rapist?
)()()()()()()()()()()()()(((

I feel sorry for people who don't have good mentors. A person I don't like at all, a person who has hurt me, has a very bad mentor, who will get him far I suppose, but I feel bad for him because getting far isn't worth compromise. I am glad and eternally grateful for a great mentor and great friends who serve as constant reminders that you don't have to be a liar and a whore if you don't want to be.

Dress up the Trollsen Twins at peta2.com!

Funny Poem About Children and Robots

DANGER, WILL

The children said
something funny about robots
it was something like the time
when we all stood still,
like manikins at Macy’s,
that red star always gets me, Robinson,
hiding from security,
Will Robinson May
ever get out of danger?
Five times the children shouted.

“Why robots? Why do you
mock us crestfallen
children of utopia,
with hideous tremors,
ticking clock gears,
claws tickling our soft sides,
the second star to the right,
straight on ‘til morning,
when we would wait for days
for our proper stars,
the candles of sweethearts,
and wise Diana,
whose modesty’s her treasure,
from the likes of hunters,
red-eyed monsters,
slaves and savages?”

Readings by People Named Jack

I am OK.
I was born OK.
I will die OK.

Last night I went to Moe's to see Jack Hirschman. I like Jack Hirschman very much. I don't like politics poets very often. Usually, their nonpolitical stuff is amazing, and their political stuff comes off preachy. That was the case this time, too. The last time I saw Jack Hirschman, we were singing and dancing at Specs almost a year ago. Last night, his voice sounded like razor blades and violin strings in a vita-mix 5000, and it was interesting and beautiful and sad and gritty. He read a very raunchy piece that said "wipe my ass with your kisses."

Why do famous old-timer poets bring out the wannabes? Not that everyone there was a wannabe, but there were a few seated way in back, the kind of people whose greatest aspiration is to get into an MFA program. And that was funny because Hirschman said he never wanted to teach poetry at a university again, for universities are corporations.
ªºªºªºªºªºªºªºªºªºªºªºªDon't you wish you were as cool as Britney Spears?

My reading was weird for me. It was very much a theater, so there was no real way to interact with the audience or read them. The lights and acoustics in a theater are a lot different from those in bookstores and galleries and bars and cocktail lounges. I thought that I had bombed, but Daphne Gottlieb commented on the weirdness of the crowd when she got up, and then I got a few emails from people I didn't know telling me how great my reading was. Some of my friends told me that I was crazy to think that I didn't do well, and I appreciate that, but it's hard to believe sometimes, especially when you have such a weird feeling.

The theater was sold out, and the music act, Steven Clark &c., was surprised that poets had brought in such a big audience. I read some unpublished chapbooks that people have told me they love. I like reading things that haven't been published anywhere. And I read a cycle called "The Berenstain Bears Go to Church." I hadn't read that one before, and some people really liked it.

Daphne Gottlieb was awesome. She read a line that said something like "No one's going to care that you're 5 when you're dead, JonBenet," and I burst out laughing. I feel a little guilty about laughing about poor little JonBenet now, but it's a good line. I like Daphne Gottlieb. I feel sorry for JonBenet.

Steven Clark &c. performed their "Amok Time," which was one of the most delightful performances I've ever seen at a reading or anywhere else. It's an opera of the Star Trek episode when Spock needs to get some Vulcan poo-nanny or he will die. So much fun.

HOW TO JOIN A MOTORCYCLE GANG

HOW TO JOIN A MOTORCYCLE GANG

Step 1: Get yourself a motorcycle.

Step 2: Find out where your desired motorcycle gang drinks.
Do not attempt to make contact with the motorcycle gang. They will think you're with the police. Motorcycle gangs invariably do not like police.

Act tough but don't pick a fight with anyone. They will beat you up and never let you in their gang. Just play it cool until they talk to you. It might take a few visits. They will invite you to their clubhouse.

Step 3: Go to your desired motorcycle gang's clubhouse.

Man it up.

BRL

People are paying attention to Valyntina's journal. That is nice. I am in there. My poem is about all of the Roberts who are poets. It's called "I AM CHANGING MY NAME TO ROBERT DUNCAN." You should buy it so you can read it.
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Last night was a great reading that I will blog about later.

TONIGHT!!! YESTERDAY!!!

505 Poetry Series

Second Monday of the month
Boxcar Playhouse, 505 Natoma St, San Francisco
8 PM
minimum donation $7

April 14, 2008
Poetry by Daphne Gottlieb
Poetry by Jack Morgan
Music: Steven Clark's Amok Time

There is a Yahoo! question about poetic attire. The answer is bad. Here is the real answer.

Tonight will be a big reading. It will be very fun. I am excited about it. I missed a good reading last night because I simply can't be two places at once anymore.

I went to a kick-ass biker bar in Port Costa yesterday. Incredible.

There's a spot on the sidebar now that polls you as to whom you think the most bad-ass poetry on earth is. Who will win? VOTE!

Pound Me, Ezra, Pound Me Right in My Wasteland

I was looking on Youtube for things on Ezra Pound. This is what I found. I wanted to say something nasty about him and his friends, but this video says it all, I think.

Funny, I looked to find a David Thomas animation that I saw at Spike and Mike's when I was a teenager, and I couldn't find it anywhere online. I don't seem to be able to find any of the things I am looking for on Youtube.
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Just to let you know, the GRE is a piece of cake. It takes a lot out of you. . . I mean, it is quite exhausting. But it's easy. All you people telling me how hard it is! Come on. I didn't even take the study test. I didn't take a class or any of that crap. I love you for worrying about me, but you must think very little of me if you thought I was going to do poorly on that travesty.

I would love to rant right now about how ridiculous the idea of standardized testing is, but I assume that you are an intelligent person since you are reading my humble ramblings and thus will spare you. I will say nonetheless that the smartest people I know, the ones with whom I would love to have conversations regarding literature and almost anything else, seem to do fairly on the GRE subject test. The stupid or evil people I know, the ones with whom I would never want to speak regarding anything sublunary, either do poorly or extremely well. The ones at the top and the bottom either know too much about bull shit or not enough about anything that matters. Odd I think. Do universities know this? They should. I think that, regardless where my score lands, universities should only take people from the middle range of applicants and dismiss all others.

tonight's Moe's Reading

I just wanted to say something about the reading I went to tonight at Moe's. Joseph Lease was great, Martha Ronk was OK , but Marjorie Welsh?

Did you want to be there Ms. Welsh? It didn't seem like it.

I am frustrated because I was really looking forward to her reading, and I like what I've read of her poetry, and you know, she's Marjorie Welsh and everything, and her reading was torturous. I did like the bit about the translucent trees, but I couldn't bring myself to buy the book it was in because I felt sad about being there or something.

Luckily, there were people who like me there, like Elliot Harman, and we were able to go out and talk about smart things and debate and discuss things that excite my mind.

Can't Stop the Juice!

When I was at Tao's, he made me a smoothie. I am guessing it was an organic vegan smoothie. It was extremely good, and I thought, "I have to get a smoothie maker." My friend took me to Target yesterday. They have an escalator for shopping trolleys there. The trolleys are grabbed by plastic spikes and they go up their own way while you take a different way. I had not been to a Target in many many years. I think I like their commercials, but I haven't watched TV for a very long time, so that might be a weird fake memory. It's very bright at Target. When I was very young they smelled like popcorn, so I expected it to smell like popcorn, but I think Targets are better ventilated these days.
I bought a juicer instead of a smoothie machine. Last night I drank juice and watched "A Woman is a Woman." I don't know if it was a comedy or a tragedy.

When I clean my juicer, I feel all zen and shit. It came with a little white brush to wash the super-fine pulp screen. I kind of want to eat the pulp with a spoon. It feels like the machine is wasting so much of the fruit. Isn't the pulp supposed to be good for your colon?

Shakespeare is quoted or mentioned in every Goddard film I have seen.

Paul McCartney will live forever.

That's Your Boyfriend?

You know when you meet a charming and beautiful woman and they tell you they have a boyfriend? And if you're a man, you think, "well, she's really cool, so I'd like to try being this person's friend." Then you meet the boyfriend and you think, "wait. This is your boyfriend? You're way too pretty to be with a guy this ugly; he must be the coolest person ever, and I can't wait to know him." But then you're talking to them, or you're at a reading and the guy is heckling you and talking shit on your friends and being disrespectful to other people there, and everyone agrees, "hey Jack, your new friend is cool, and man she's beautiful, but her boyfriend! What a Douchebag!"

Something like that happened to me recently, and I wrote a post about it and I didn't publish it because I wanted to give the guy the benefit of the doubt, but days later people are telling me how much they disliked this douchebag boyfriend. I now have to write down a theory about why so many women get involved with douchebags.

In America, women are trained to look pretty to attract men but not to actually seek out and chase the men they want. They are taught that they are a highly-desired commodity and that desirable men will find them. Just go to a bar/beach/bookstore/cafe/gym and the man of your dreams will sidle up next to you and start the ball rolling.
Men, though, are trained that it is improper to aggressively chase women. American women make fun of men who hit on them or ask them out. Men are taught that women don't want to be approached at bars/gyms/bookstores/cafes/beaches. Men are taught that if they want women to be attracted to them, they need money above all else, which I think has some truth to it in the US.
So what happens is that the douchebags of the world, who have no sense of propriety or decency, approach women at said places, and women, who must think that they have pulled the best they can, merely say yes.

Scenario 1:
Nice guy goes to girl and makes clear he likes her. Woman is interested but wants to look hard-to-get or something and acts kind of interested but not too much. Nice guy gives chase. Woman parries. Nice guy asks girl out to do something. Woman says yes but reschedules or flakes. Nice guy thinks she obviously doesn't like him and that she'll call him if she does. Woman wonders why man stopped chasing her and thinks "what a jerk he stopped calling."

Scenario 2:
Douchebag approaches; woman shuns. Douchebag persists. Woman flakes or reschedules. Douchebag persists. Woman rolls eyes and disrespects douchebag. Douchebag persists. Douchebag persists.Douchebag persists.Douchebag persists. His persistence continues through three years of marriage.

There's a book out called The Game. If you haven't heard of it, you should have. It's a book teaching guys how to be douchebags. I have seen men use the techniques to a high degree of success. The book just makes me sad for people.

There's a website I think is mean and sad and funny. Hot Chicks with Douchebags.

Subscription Conscription

I think we are going to start offering subscriptions to Sorry for Snake.

I met a guy when I was first starting out in the advertising and graphics biz who had started his own surfing magazine. One of the big ones. He told me that magazines should not start offering subscriptions or ads or anything tricky until they'd published and gotten rid of three issues.

I don't think we are going to have ads, but I think it's time to start letting people have subscriptions. It looks like we are going to be here for at least another year, so that's what we're gong to offer. Unfortunately, I won't be able to give one of those nifty discounts that other magazines/journals offer, but I will throw in chapbooks or something. I'll offer them in May, in time for our next issue, which is number four!
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People are always surprised when I tell them I am vegetarian.
I use about a square foot of leather and two chickens a year, but for the most part, I am pretty hard core about it. Animal rights are very important to me.
I eat cheese, but I try to get the expensive kind from people who treat their animals well. I love cheese, so I'm probably not as careful as I should be about it.
But it's not about extremism, it's about moderation. Human beings are not supposed to eat that much meat, America! Even if you care about corporate welfare more than animal welfare, you shouldn't be eating animals more than once a week. A little goes a long way. You're crazy putting bacon on everything. The big factory farms creating methane and other ecological disasters are because you're poisoning your body every day with too much meat. It's gross. If Americans cut their animal consumption in half, which would still be a lot of meat, the world would change.

Seriously, people. Does Sophie Monk look unhealthy?

There are a couple copies of Sorry for Snake 3 at Diesel Books, and there are a couple available online, but they are for the most part sold out. If you don't hurry, sorry.

Dita is all about animal rights.

Claire Becker: Untoward

As many of you know, I have a distaste and distrust of industry poets I don't think they all are bad or that they are all bad, but I am wary of them.

Being industry poets, they publish more than anyone else because they all know each other. That means that they really easily publish garbage. Anyone permitted to publish everything they write will look bad very quickly. Noah Eli Gordon suffers from such an affliction.

When I saw that Lame House Press published Claire Becker, I thought it would be more of the industry and less of the poet I would find within her chapbook. The cover, though, was weird and interesting, and I met Claire once, and we even emailed a couple times about a mutual enemy, so I bought it and found out that my prejudice, regarding her book at least, was for the most part unfounded. If she published less, I would probably have intrepidly jumped into her chapbook, though.

Some of the poems in Untoward are infused with the magic that one hopes for from poetry but has come to not look for in books by poets of her ilk. There are poems in this little book that give a reader that sad little laugh at the end that surprises because you forgot that laugh still existed. There are other poems that are charmingly sweet or self-conscious. Still there are others that are carefully pensive and moody. The chapbook seems to have everything.

Unfortunately, "everything" means some stinkers, too. The poem "Three Easy Sentences," a poem about God and Punctuation is mildly annoying due to the stench of workshop that lingers on it. Similarly, "Claire Becker, 25" is fairly immature and overly "poor me" but probably went over well in a workshop at St. Mary's, where Claire earned her MFA. There are some poems whose titles nearly ruin them, but nothing is as bad as the last poem in the collection, "Apparent Scruples, Obvious Fuss," which comes close to spoiling all the ground won by its preceding pages. It's a poem I hate at the end of a book I kind of loved. If it weren't for that poem, I would have written in the title of this review, "MUST BUY!"

So overall, it's a pretty good chapbook that deserves attention and certainly shows that my statements regarding MFA people and the creative writing industry should be less absolute. It also shows how Claire Becker is turning into a poet people need to watch. If she surrounds herself with critical and honest people, her full-length book, which I am sure we'll see within a couple years, will be really great.

Death

I had breakfast with a poet friend of mine, whose name I will leave out. She was mad at me because I have been busy and unresponsive to emails. If I am slow to answer your emails this month, please don't think I am being a jerk. I am a jerk in so many ways, but I don't do it by not answering people. I am actually just slammed like a door on a Jehovah's Witness.

Plus I've got this huge reading that I am doing next Monday. You should come.

Two friends of mine died last week. I am a little broken about it. I am pretty upset that is. We'd drifted apart, but I still feel a loss. My uncle, the only uncle I know, is sick with the big C. He has three months to live. Cliché. His name is Jack, too. Cliché. Life and death are both cliché with capital C's. It's weird to me that so many people I know don't know a lot of dead people. I feel like death is always around me. I used to have a friend in Germany who was a lot like me. His name was Jake. He was American. He was a great friend to me. We both knew a lot of people who were dead. The living people I know who don't know any dead people are probably going to be the next to go. Well, after my uncle Jack, who won't see August. Lung cancer. My grandfather, Jack's stepfather, died of lung cancer. My aunt, his sister, my grandfather's step-daughter, killed herself when I was very young, right before my grandfather died after having not smoked a cigarette for eighteen years. Jack hasn't smoked for twenty-five years. My biggest fear is getting sick in America. When you're in America, no one cares about your pain.

Your pain is something that makes me want to write poetry to understand. My pain is like a sliver or a silver cactus needle. It doesn't really hurt. It's just a foreign thing hiding out in my body that makes me squirm. You like to watch me squirm.

A poet in Washington sent me a youtube video of slugs having sex. In the bar next to the slugs having sex was this video, which is one of the creepiest things I have seen in my life.



I wish things were different in poetry. You have convinced me, dearest readers, to hate Billy Collins. I never really liked him anyway. The more I read what he says about poetry, the more I think that he needs to catch cancer in America.
I don't really mean that.
I mean that he is a bad spokesperson for poetry because he doesn't really care about poetry as an art. I don't think he thinks it's an art, but a masturbation technique. I still agree with some things he's said, like poetry should have an audience that includes non-poetry people, but I hate him now, otherwise. I still don't think he's worth bashing, though.

I am sorry for this long post. I am rambling. I hope that the ambulance sirens outside my weary little flat are not for you, poetasters. I hope they're not for anyone who loves poetry.

I don't think I've ever heard an American sing the whole song.

A little video from Pangea day.

A Picture of Jack Morgan back from New York

I wanted to post a picture of me back in California from New York a lot earlier, but there has been a lot going on lately, and I am just now getting around to taking a picture of myself.

So this is Jack Morgan after his trip to New York.

Last Night MAPP Was off the Poetic Chain, Mang!

Last night was MAPP, and it was our best yet, I think.

Valyntina Grenier opened the event with a splendid poetry reading, and she sang, which was much more enjoyable than I thought it was going to be when she told me she was going to sing. Usually when poets tell me that they are going to sing, I roll my eyes and thing that I am in for some torture. But V has a lovely voice, and I think it worked perfectly with her poetry.

Our first musical act, Sarah Melfy of Hello Handsome, was next, and she was phenomenal, I do say. I was dancing, and I saw plenty other people in the audience wiggling their heads and getting happy feet. She added a great deal to the already fantastic vibe of the evening.

Chad Sweeney was up after that, and since everyone knows I think Chad is one of the bay's best poets, I won't say too much. He has a new book out called An Architecture, from which he read, and I loved his chapbook, so I expected a great reading from him. He didn't let me down, and people were coming up to me and wondering why I haven't told them about Chad Sweeney. I told them they should read my blog more often.

Ryan Partridge played a set as the one-man band, Bull. Pretty intense. At this point, I couldn't believe how well everything was going. We had TWO great musical acts and THREE great poets. Was this really happening, were we really going to pitch a perfect game? Was this thing really going to go off like this? Ryan's act was extremely impressive. I mean, one-man punk band. Well, kind of punk. Kind of rock. You had to be there. But forget about the one-man bands you've seen before. This is not some folksie guy with a washboard on his chest.

Ann Svilar read fiction, which often doesn't fly well at readings, methinks, but here it worked wonderfully, as her fiction was rather delicious and her delivery was charming. I must say, a pleasant surprise and a refreshing change from what I have come to expect from fiction readers, which is much lower than what I expect from poets.

Good poetry readings are few and far between, but good fiction readings are even harder to come by.

Then, finishing up, was Della Watson, whose poetry has thrilled me since I discovered it at a previous MAPP that I didn't co-curate. I read at the same event she did, and she is awesome. You can find her work in the last issue of The Hat. I think she's one to watch fo sho. The audience was moved to spontaneous applause more than once. A rare treat, that.

After the reading, I went to my friend, Carl Pisaturo's show. It was one of the coolest art shows I've ever been to, and why the MOMA hasn't given him his own floor there is a unsolvable mystery. Who is running the MOMA these days? People were talking Burning Man there, but I think Burning Man is beneath Carl. If you come to the next MAPP, I will take you to Carl's show. It's be in about 60 days. Until then, check out his site, which does not do his work justice at all.

Who Thought a Poem about Lightning Could Be so Boring?

I went to a reading tonight.
I wish I hadn't.
The people reading had all the right poetry friends, though. Good for them.

I think it's funny that I only see certain people at really bad readings. They come out to support their friends. From now on, if I see certain people at readings, I am going to be on my guard for horrific poetry.

The clique I'm referring to consists of people who like me and people who hate me, and that's good. But if they only go to the bad readings, why are they still involved in poetry at all? If I only went to bad readings, I would stop going to readings all together. Supporting your friends is nice—kudos! But is it worth it if it's always crappy? I think not. If every time you go into a room, someone pours a bucket of corn syrup on you, will you go back in?

Readings, Readings, and Reading.

I don't like it when people say "but I like his stuff on paper" after a reading, but now I have to say it. I don't understand how a good writer can be a bad reader. If you believe the words you've written, or if you care about them, you will read them as such. If you just throw away every line like they don't matter, why should they matter to an audience? Why would I buy your book and invest my time in it if you obviously don't think it's worth that investment?

Zachary Mason's THE LOST BOOKS OF THE ODYSSEY is a trip. I liked what I read of it very much. But when he read his work at Pegasus on Wednesday, I was disappointed. I don't think he's doing his work any favors by reading it like a bad lecturer. The fact that his work is so good just makes it more frustrating.

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Last night was MAPPY hour at the Red Poppy. Fun was had by all in preparation for MAPP, which is the Saturday! MAPP is one of my favorite things that happens in the Bay. Jack Morgan and Sara Mumolo are having an event featuring some great poets, writers, and musicians at L's Caffe, 2871 24th st. between Bryant and Florida. I hope you can make it.Chad Sweeney, Della Watson, Valyntina Grenier, Ann Svilar, Sharon Zetter, Hello Handsome, Bull.

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I bet you want to go to a reading tonight. What else is there to do on a Friday? You're in luck: there's a reading at Pegasus!

EYEBALL HATRED: so say we all

EYEBALL HATRED: so say we all
You should go to the reading, freal.

I don't know who these guys are, but this tickled me a little, and I am not ticklish.

I always thought it was weird that I wasn't ticklish. I like tickling other people. I don't understand why people always say "STOP!!!!!" when they get tickled. They are laughing, and it looks like they are having fun. Sometimes, when someone surprises me, I laugh for half a second when they try to tickle me. But if I see it coming, or once I am aware that I am being touched, I don't laugh.

I would like to be ticklish.

I know why I am not ticklish. I figured it out once I met other people like me with similar backgrounds. It's like we're in a club none of us wants to be in.

back

This photo reminds me of Star Trek except the women on Star Trek looked more human.

It took me a very long time to get home. I rode in six different types of vehicles to get here. It is 4:20 AM in New York, which only means that I am hungry. I should be sleeping, but I sleep according to clocks and not according to my body telling me when I should. My body and my brain don't talk enough.

The only reason I am blogging right now is because I am curious about a reading that is taking place tomorrow at Pegasus Books. I know nothing about it, but I am going to it. I hope it's good. You should join me.

A Longish Post about National Poetry Month and Hack Poets; You Fuckers Make Me Want to Puke on Babies

National Poetry Month is here again.  That means that you should go to readings.  It isn't one of those months in which you just think about things that happened or watch a special on television about how things once were.  It isn't a time when you find a person and tell them that you're sorry you've ignored/marginalized them.

Poets don't need your fucking pity.  OK, we need your pity a little.  But check this out: you can buy a book of poetry at Pegasus Downtown in Berkeley and get ten percent. (10%) (!) off.  That isn't bad.  I wish I could get ten per cent. off all the time.  I for one will be buying a butt load of poetry books.

There are some of you who hate national poetry month.  I can understand it.  Charles Bernstein, in his hilarious essay (please read until the end,,, or just the end) on the month-long holiday very nearly convinces me to hate national poetry month.   But I love it.  10%!!!  If I had as much money as Charles Bernstein, I wouldn't need the 10% off, but I do.  Sorry Chuck.

The way I see it is that most poetry, like most of all art and music and food and almost everything else, sucks, blows, and bores.  So if I take the conservative estimate of 10% being worthwhile, I dramatically increase my chances of finding something good during national poetry month.  There are more readings and more books, and everything's cheaper.  Yes, it's lame that the masses are told to like poetry one month out of the year, but mostly everyone doesn't even know it's poetry month. Maybe some teachers tell their students, and then they teach them mainstream shit, but that's what they were going to do anyway.

I think it's kind of a joke for the avant-garde poets to cry about not being included in the festivities.  They don't really want anything to do with the public libraries or Junior High Schools.  The established mainstreamers have their place, and we have ours. That's all right.  I don't want to be mainstream when it comes to poetry.  I don't want to be a National Poet Laureate.  Such outward things dwell not in my desires.  If I wanted that, I would write du jour poetry about African Americans during the Harlem Renaissance or something.  Or I would write long, pretentious poems about colors that seem high-brow because the colors I pick are green and grey and I use big words.

See, there are poets who make me sick all the time. I am fucking sick of all the hack poets who mess up the sport.  Shall I list them? Nooo.  But neither will Charles Bernstein.  It's already awkward enough to walk into parties and have people there who know who I am and what I say about them.  They can't take criticism.  You're an instant enemy as soon as you say something out loud about their poetry.  Maybe people at the top who care so vehemently about non-streamers should be meaner to the people who are garbage poets and politicians and networkers.  Maybe if they were throwing enough stones, someone would notice, and the world of poetry would be more interesting to the people outside it.

And all you homework poets.  All you poets who sit where you sit because of who you know.  All you impostors and charlatans.  All of you who claim right to your laurels without having earned them.  You, who have put me to sleep at readings and blamed the audience for not understanding your garbage.  You, whose fans are other poets who only like you because of who you know. . . you make me nauseous all year long.  I don't have to wait on April for that.

There will be rain tonight.

Let it come down. 

That being said, their poster makes me want to barf and watch you dogs lap it up.  Especially, you, crap poet who writes tripe about race to win awards.