How to Listen to the Music You Want for Free without Stealing It

I have been on a high horse for a long time regarding not stealing music. Sometimes people give me CD's of songs they think I'll like, but that's called sharing still for some reason, and we all know that terminology is the most important thing when it comes to discerning right from wrong.
So here's how I find new music and listen to pretty much whatever I want.


Step one is usually at Pandora. Pandora is an online radio service that lets you create your own radio stations based on what you like. With a little help, after you've told it what you like and dislike through an incredibly easy and pretty chic interface, it discovers music for you that it thinks you will like. You start with one song or artist you like and thumbs up or thumbs down anything your radio station gives you. The more you tell it, the better it gets, and I am often pleasantly surprised with how successful it is at its task. The site has a few drawbacks due mostly to its licensing agreements with the powers that be in the recording industry, but you get used to them quickly, and they're not worth talking about at length. Everyone I know who uses Pandora is in love with the radio station they've helped her build.

The only thing I don't like about Pandora is that when you hear an artist you've never heard before, if you're like me, you want to hear another song by the same artist to see whether their album is worth buying or if it's the only song they made that was half-way decent. Or lets say someone mentions a band you've never heard, and you want to check just that band's songs out. You can't really do that with Pandora, which brings us to step two:


Seeqpod, despite having one of the clumsiest interfaces online, has become an indispensable component of my music consumption. The interface is wrought with all the shortcomings of flash and none of its advantages, and I wonder why it's in flash at all. Flash does unexpected things like going back a page when you hit delete, loading data funny, and has peculiar ways of handing searchfield clicks. The password field when you sign in is case-specific without telling you. The scroll bars won't let you use the mac track pad two-finger scrolling function. The green arrows and red x's are crappy-looking. You can't copy and paste link locations. In fact, there is a long list as to why the seeqpod interface sucks including its buttons and icons being ugly, but it's worth getting used to.
You can search seeqpod for an artist you want to hear, and seeqpod will scour the internet for as many songs and videos it can find. Usually, it can find whole albums worth of music from an artist. Then, you can make a playlist relatively easily and listen to a whole album of your newly-discovered band.
For some reason, you can't make a playlist of videos, and when you are building a playlist of songs it doesn't erase your selections from the "found" column when you add them to your playlist, making it difficult to figure out which one was a deadlink when you get a deadlink, but still, if you can tolerate that, you'll have a bunch of new music in a couple of minutes. Then you can post it to your blog or send it to a friend like people used to do with Odeo. I used to think Odeo was cool.
Also, seeqpod has an almost completely useless "discover" feature. It will be extremely cool if and when they ever get that to work, but for now, I am sticking with Pandora for discovering. But, if Seeqpod actually gets its interface to look half as good as Pandora's and work half as well as Pandora's, I will switch to Seeqpod for good and abandon sleek Pandora and their licensing issues. Seeqpod is in need of a designer and a programmer who rocks at PHP and Flash and Java. It looks like they are trying to kill two birds right now with a guy who can program and design without being very good at either. There are expert interface designers and expert interface programmers, and they are almost never the same person.

Michael Dumanis

Last night I reluctantly went to a poetry reading. I've been down about poetry lately.
Sometimes you go to a reading that reminds you why you like poetry and why you keep going to readings. It takes a pretty good poet to snap you out of a loathing for the poetry biz. Po Biz is so often disgusting, it takes a person who is entirely convinced that it's what's worth doing to convince me that this is worth doing.
You know, you write, and you put books together, and you read everyone's work, and you think about and talk about poetry all the time, and then some sleazy slimy poets bring you down. There are more of the slimy kind of poet in the biz than the good kind. The creative writing industry seems bent on promoting the slimiest of us into lofty academic positions, while the true artists are greatly ignored. Where'd they go and who do they know? is the only question the creative writing industry wants to know about poets.

But Michael Dumanis is an exception. Finally someone with an MFA worth reading! Finally someone who went to Iowa worth talking about! Finally someone with a PhD who is more than a worthless pedant disguised as a poet! Michael Dumanis can wear the appellation of poet with pride and lets others do the same.
His reading at Pegasus last night was phenomenal, and as I sit here and read parts of his book, I chuckle with anticipation of a time very soon today when I will blaze through the whole thing. His book is called MY SOVIET UNION, and I can't believe how good it is so far. I am embarrassed that it has taken me this long to discover Dumanis.
How many times have I linked to Amazon? Almost never! If you want to restore your faith in poetry, you should buy this book.

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And there's this... just because I have never really liked Garfield.

The only thing worse than a liar is a thief because a thief is the worst liar of all. Even if you are Kate Moss in lingerie, thieves occupy the lowest tier of humanity.
I was at the Marina, and some kid was there who had just moved to Berkeley. Someone told him that his bike would certainly be stolen unless he camouflaged it. Camouflaged here meant that he should spray paint it all over with the ugliest colors he can find and put duct tape on the seat so that no one would want to steal it. No one would want to ride it either. I found it rather sad that the kid can't have a nice bicycle for fear of it being stolen. His bike is now the ugliest bike I have ever seen.

I don't have many nice things, but I have a few, and I'm not really worried if someone steals them. I just don't get very attached to objects I guess. If my laptop went missing, I would be upset by losing what's on it, but the laptop itself is replaceable like most things.

I don't steal movies or music, but I understand why people do. I don't like watching movies online, and I would just rather pay for them through iTunes or something. I like the Wire on HBO, but I don't have HBO. I'd like to buy the new episodes on iTunes, but HBO is a stupid company sometimes. They won't let me buy the episodes. I turned to ALLUC and found most of the episodes with Chinese subtitles, and I watched a couple, but streaming video is kind of crappy and slow. I don't get how people will watch pirated shit online when it's so shitty. I won't watch something that's shitty.

I've been wanting to see Brotherhood on Showtime. Showtime is much smarter than it used to be. Not only is it putting money and talent into its original series, it's selling them through multiple sites. I like iTunes, et voila, Showtime gets my money and HBO doesn't. If you want to watch HBO without a television, you have to steal it. Luckily, I think that Brotherhood is a better show and tons better than the Sopranos, the show to which it is most often compared.

A couple nights ago someone tried to break into my house while I was there. I use very little light, so it's hard to tell when I'm home. I thought I was going to kill the guy. I nearly ran out the door after him as he fled. It is truly incredible how quickly you can go from "ho hum, reading a book late at night" to "I am going to tear your guts from your anus and eat them like an animal." And I am pretty anti-gun, and I try to be anti-violence, but I was thinking about buying a gun that whole night. I am putting alarms and locks on my windows today.

Right this second actually.

I've had lots of things stolen from me in my life. All sorts of things. I've also been sabotaged and stabbed in my back and cut at my knees, and I find that they are all quite similar to theft. It's hard to do nice things or have nice things while there are thieves about. Thieves make the world an ugly place. They make it uglier than all the other sinners combined.

Fan Mail

Dear Jack Morgan, You never tell us what you're doing anymore. Why not? I often use your blog to get ideas on things to do, but you haven't been putting it down, mang. Whassupwitdat?! Sincerely, Bored in the Bay

Dear Bored in the Bay,
I haven't been making this the one-stop calendar of events it used to be for the SF Bay Area anymore because I work really hard finding cool things to do, and to centralize that information is more work than I am willing to do now. So I only put events up that I think are particularly deserving of your attention. If you want a one-stop cool place to find cool things and people, try Eyeball Hatred. Clay's link page has pretty much everything you'll ever need to survive the cold nights.
If that's not what you meant, but actually meant that I don't tell you what I'm up to, well, I think I still do that. Yesterday I went to a class and talked in German for a while about German poetry. Most of the people in the class don't know anything about poetry, but they are all nice people. Then my exfiancee called me and spoke some more German to me. Can you believe that someone was dumb enough to get engaged with a poet? After that I went sailing. The weather is so beautiful now, I couldn't help but buy a membership to a sailing club. The membership is so cheap, you wouldn't believe the price if I told you, but it makes me feel rich... by rich I mean it makes me feel like I am living beyond my means and enjoying life much more than I deserve to. After that, I went to First and Last Chance Saloon, which is one of my favorite places on earth. I found out there that Uptown has a Burlesque show on Mondays. My friend Ryan and I went. We were still in sailing clothes, so we were the worst-dressed people there, but it was fun. I hadn't seen a burlesque show in a very long time, and that's a shame because they are very entertaining. You should go. It's only five smackers!
Yours,
Jack Morgan

Dear Jack Morgan, May I Pay you for a poster? What is the price? Signed, The Postal Service

Dear Postal Service,
I don't want to work the for the federal government, and I don't want to design wanted posters for you offices, I am near-sighted and psychopathic already. Normally I charge five hundred dollars, but poets get a discount or deal in trade. The federal government has to pay a penalty of 98%. All posters for the federal government will cost at least $980, and I want the Potsmaster General to go to a Burlesque show with me.
Yours,
Jack Morgan

Dear Jack Morgan, Why do you hate Kirk Cameron? Your friend, Kirk Cameron

Dear Kirk Cameron,
It's nothing that we can't sort out over a couple drinks. The problem is that you sometimes beat me when I google Jack Morgan. I don't beat you when people google Kirk Cameron, so what's the big idea? Besides, you're all evangelical now. You don't want to be associated with burlesque, poetry, lingerie, and other enjoyable things. Please write to IMDB and/or google, get them to change it, and I will buy you a glass of gin at First and Last Chance, Aubade lingerie (nothing but the best), and a ticket to Hubba Hubba Burlesque.
Yours,
Jack Morgan

Dear Jack Morgan, I am thinking about getting an MFA. How do you feel about MFA programs. Where did you get your MFA?
xxxooo,
Mom
P.S., people who don't like the lingerie pics are probably Republican swine.

Dear Mom,
I don't like MFA's, and I do not have one. It pains me that you think that I would waste my time networking in an MFA program. MFA programs are networking clubs. Nothing more. Please do not enroll in one or I will disown you as my mother.
Yours,
Jack Morgan
P.S., Americans have been taught for too long that the human body is ugly and that sex is the devil's work.

BRL

I am angry about last night's reading. Twelve people showed up to see me read, but didn't. Three called me after I read to see if they should still come to see me read. Others were mad about me making a big deal about showing up on time and not starting on time. I am not going to open anymore.

On the other hand, people I didn't know shook my hand and told me I was the best thing they'd seen at BRL. Other people who I thought didn't like me were crazy about my work and my reading of it.

I read mostly prose.

It's been a while since I have thanked my friends. I truly count on you. You make me feel unworthy of your support and loyalty. Thanks for always coming out even when I am shitty. You can't win them all, but you make me feel like I do.
I'd like to name you all, but I am afraid I might miss someone this early in the morning, and I think you know if I am talking to you.
I'm not in a an MFA program. I have never taken a how-to-write poetry class, which are all how-to-write-like-Ezra-Pound classes. I don't have many poetry "peers," and I have no poetic support from the machine. My people are the people who I turn on to poetry. People who aren't poets are the important ones . You really, without sarcasm please, are the most important thing about poetry without even knowing it. You are the ones who prove that poetry still has an audience.

Reading Tonight

Guess who's reading? Jack Morgan is! Can you believe it? I know that this month has been a busy one for the trainwreck who can't seem to catch a break. But I probably won't be reading for a while after this.

I am reading with other writers. One is Jarrod Roland, whom you may know from Grizzled Hipster Magazine. One is Erika Staiti, hom you may know from nicehair.com. One is Lisa Gschwandtner, whom you may know from Fantastic Names Television.

It all starts at seven. And because Jack Morgan is the most hated poet in Berkeley, he's reading first.

Wait Jack Morgan! Where is it?
well...

Mc Nally's Irish Pub (in the back)
Street:	5352 College Ave
City/Town:	Oakland, CA

A Reading in San Francisco, a Picture of a Cat with a Lion Hair-do, and a Rant about Oakland

If you haven't seen San Francisco from the ferry, you should. I've been taking the ferry there lately, and let me just say that the view is worth the two dollars you're saving on the stinky BART. It also doesn't stink. Last night on my way to the poetry reading at Adobe books, I was kind of bummed that we had to get off at Pier 41 instead of the Ferry Building, but when I heard the sea lions barking, as some of them woke up and considered the ship for a moment before turning back in, barking a short greeting before falling back asleep, it reminded me of when I was a kid fishing on the ocean, and I was happy that we came that way. Plus, we got to take those old street cars San Francisco buys from other cities to run that short distance between the Pier and the Castro. I'd never been on one of those. It reminded me a little of the old street cars in Vienna, which was also nice. Nostalgia is nice. One night, three modes of public transportation. That's cool I think.

Sophie Sills read last night at Adobe Books, and I like her. Another girl named Allegra Something read, too, and she was pretty good, too. They're both MFA students somewhere. Where? Somewhere in the bay area. I think Mills. The Mills short bus drives by my house all day, filled with young women on their way to Berkeley. Juliana Spahr teaches there, and most people like her, too. William Alexander used to teach there, but he has cancer now, and I don't know how he's doing, but I hope he's doing well. Remember that play he wrote? Man I didn't like that at all, but I saw him once at Lunch Poems, and loved him. I liked Exobiology as Goddess, which is one of his books. Poets were trying to raise money for his healthcare costs, but I don't have much money, and I couldn't donate. Some day I hope that someone will raise money for me. I always wonder what kind of cancer I will get.

There are many things I would like to say about MFA programs but won't because I don't want everyone hating me. I have to have at least a few people still liking me, or what would I do?

Instead I will talk about Oakland for a little. Last night, we had to get back to the car we left at Jack London Square. That means getting off at 12th St., which is one of those streets people are afraid of. I didn't know which way to go, and the BART lady told me that I should take a cab. And I said, six blocks isn't far, and she said, "it isn't the distance, but the company." I appreciate her concern, but that's what everyone says about Oakland, and every time I am in the "shady" part of town, everyone is so friendly to me, I always have to comment, "This is the shady part of town? What the fuck is everyone talking about?"

The people at the Trappist didn't seem very afraid. The people at Heinhold's and at Merchants weren't scared. The people in the streets said hello, some asked for quarters, and others were drunk and silent. And there weren't many of them. The people in the bars all said "what's happening," and the tenders were friendly, and I was very happy to be in Oakland. I want to move to Oakland. I love it there.

Last time I checked, it ranked four in murder in America, but I know lots of people who live in Oakland who haven't been murdered. If you get murdered, it's almost always by someone you know, so just don't hang out with felonious or larcenous individuals, and you'll be fine.

Jack London Square was revamped to attract tourists, but I think it should be rethought and geared toward locals, especially the local artist and student population.

Why is the Mills short bus driving into Berkeley all the time? Are they afraid of, you know, people who live in Oakland? Spend your money in Oakland, Mills girls! Spend more time in Oakland, denizens of the bay! And for your and God's sake, take the ferry!

Sicilian Wedding

A friend of mine is getting married in Sicily. He's been with his German/Italian for a while now, and now he's doing what normal people do. He's getting paper married in Germany and proper married in Sicily.

I was once engaged to a half German half Italian. We had a similar plan, which involved Vegas and Sardinia. It never happened.

Writers are the types of people who want to be happy because they believe it's possible. Everyone else is doing it. Sometimes at readings or in books, people who aren't writers who are able to love and be happy with writing partners are praised as saints. Writers are so seldom happy with another person that when they are, their partners are worshiped.

I think normal people are the types of people who don't think they will ever find anyone or who think that the whole marriage thing will never happen to them. That's why they always end up married. Writers keep trying for something they know is there for them as long as they keep looking, they keep having dramatic breakups of passionate relationships, they keep crying to the moon in the middle of the night surrounded by broken bottles and storefronts. But that's all. All passion, all substance, but nothing that ever turns into anything that will last. So they try again with all the zeal they had previously, and it burns up again like pine needles in a bonfire.

My Blog is Me. I am a robot.

A while ago, I learned about Mia Rose. I didn't know that she was tremendously famous now. I think I like her. A lot of haters are around now, of course, because they think she was prepackaged. This happens quite a bit online. Things on the internet seem so real. . . like it's DYI or something.

I mean to say that blogs and vlogs and Youtube and Facebook seem for and by the people using them. The corporations own them, and we all agree to be advertised toward in exchange for use of their products, but we are real. We are us online. Naturally, it's only a piece of us, it's only an avatar, but no matter how much we try to hide our true selves with assumed voices or fake photos, what's valued in online personalities is authenticity. Users can usually spot a fake. They know when they're being spammed or scammed online. So when a corporation sends out a decoy like one of those wooden ducks we all land next to, it pisses people off because they've invaded a realm reserved for non-corporate bitches. No one likes a phony.

Mia Rose seems like a girl who likes to sing to a video camera online, but some people are saying her fame was generated by handlers who bumped up her numbers with dummy youtube accounts. That the whole thing was actually an orchestrated marketing campaign rather than just a young woman with a webcam.

My favorite blog is stolenpony. If I found out that Jennifer Best was some kind of corporate robot created to sell me things on Amazon.com or something, I would be rather upset because it ruins precisely that which I love about her blog: it's a real person talking about real things that evoke an emotional response. I do wish she'd proofread sometimes, but her little typos or weird grammatical stuff makes me sure that a robot isn't writing it. But what if a robot were writing it? Would it change my enjoyment of the blog? Yes. I would feel stupid to fall for a computer/corporation who knew that little mistakes in grammar and spelling make me think something is real. It's a betrayal of an unwritten code. . . online etiquette.

You know how when you listen to guitar music, you can hear the sound of the fingers dragging across the strings between frets? When you hear that, you know there's a person doing that. What if a machine could mimic that sound exactly. You wouldn't be able to tell it wasn't human. Let's say you loved that guitar player; would you feel bad when you found out it was a robot?

We should all know by now that it isn't hard to make a good fake, and we buy artifice because we love it. But when we become aware of artifice, we are outraged; think about how Oprah's book army attacked when they found about James Frey. They described him as brutally honest, which I don't think a book of any kind can really be. Can a blog be?

No. But we want it to be as real and honest as possible. We're vulnerable online, so we want others to be, too. My blog is me. Jack Morgan here is a lot like the Jack Morgan you'd meet in RL, but it's not exactly me. Sometimes I think things are funny online that I wouldn't find funny elsewhere. Sometimes I think about things on my blog that I don't think of when I'm not writing it. Sometimes it's an overflow of RL obsessions, and sometimes the thoughts I have here don't come into my real life at all. Sometimes my blog is more private than public, weirdly. Sometimes it's the only place I have to be honest with everyone. I risk a lot having this blog. People hate me because of it, and people love me because of it, but is it me they're loving? Is it the blog they love? I know that when people say mean things about my blog, I feel like they are being mean to my person, but I enjoy the line between the blog and me, too, and I hide behind it as much as I hide behind poetry and art.

What if I were a robot?

Casey Speer at MAPP at L's Caffe in October 2007.

Slide or Die

One of my favorite artists for a while now has been Audrey Kawasaki. She has a show on right now in L.A., and I wish I could go to it. I just found out she has a Live Journal. I wish I could have one of her pieces. I wish I had money to buy art. All I have on my walls is my own stuff, and posters and postcards from art shows I've been to. I only have two pieces from artist friends. I wish Audrey Kawasaki were my friend. I would hang her paintings on my wall and buy her coffee and gin and I would go to her openings, and she would come to my readings, and everyone would think we were the coolest people in the world.
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Life is hard.

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I have a new fish. His name is Othello. He can't replace Dropsy, but it's nice to have a fish again. I am pretty bad with plants, but I have a good track record with pets. I need to have something living with me.

I just added another fish and named it Desdemona.
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You are special and important.
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A couple days ago, I read some K. Silem Mohammad in a class to people who had never heard of him or flarf. It's weird to me that there are people out there completely ignorant of poetry. These are people in a 20th century German poetry class. They obviously have interest. They all like poetry, but none of them are aware that people are still writing it. One kid in the class said he knows about New Yipes, but only went to the Grenier reading. I go to every reading I can because I am weird, but there are all sorts of people who are into poetry that have no idea that anything has gone on since the Beats. That would be like reading/watching Shakespeare and not knowing that plays are still things people write, read, and go to see.

It makes me angry.

From now on, if you don't know the name of a living poet, don't talk to me.

The Weather

Lisa Robertson's book, The Weather, is one of the best books of poetry I have read in the past few years. I don't like the subsequent The Men. I think it relies too heavily on loud gimmickry. Gimmicks kill poetry.

There was a poet who was able to change the meaning of a word through repetition. He usually got it done in only three tries. His name was William Shakespeare. Words do funny things when Shakespeare repeats them. Some poets think today that you can hypnotize readers by repeating a word a million times. But no matter how many times you repeat a word, if you haven't done your work by the third or fourth time, your magic has failed. The men might be en jambed, but they don't dance.

Andrew Zawacki, did an impersonation of Lisa Robertson at her worst. He could have impersonated her at her best and everyone would have leaped with glee, but instead he read a poem called Georgia, which was a very long poem repeating the word, guess what! GEORGIA. It was as boring as The Men. It's like, we see what you're doing, we get the gimmick, now please stop. You are hurting me by insulting the audience's intelligence.

Andrew Zawacki's reading was particularly heartbreaking because I think a great deal of what I've read of his work is very strong and interesting and even downright brilliant sometimes. Why would he read that Georgia poem? Probably the same reason Robertson keeps blowing the dust off The Men at readings. The Men are still en jambed. People say things like, "hypnotic!" and "entrancing!" and "rhythmic," which all together means "snore," but they all sound very good, and it probably feels good when people say things like that about your poetry.
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The weather is so beautiful right now. I love it. I feel sorry for all my friends in other parts of this world where they are chattering their teeth like hamsters at water bottles. It seems cold everywhere except here.
Last night we took the ferry across the bay for fun. The cities on both sides of the bay are stunning from the water at night. The ocean was crisp and the air tasted fresh.
I started looking for happy music so that the spring will seem much more upon us. I am excited about spring, and I remember when spring and summer music really brought a sunny day together.

GH! WTF?!

I don't understand Guitar Hero. People love it. It is one of the most successful video games in the history of the world. Couples sit at home and play it together. Then they talk about it with their friends.

I wanted to write about poetry today. I wanted to tell you about the amazing new book I got. But I just got the interweb back at my house. I wanted to see what I could learn about Guitar Hero. It's everywhere. I guess people are into Rock Band, too. Vice Magazine keeps putting a stupid black bands around their covers with Rock Band written on it. I don't think it's very clever. It's a minor annoyance. It's like the ad is going too far into my personal space.

I like video games. I wish that I could play them more often. They take a lot of time, and they are more expensive than books. It takes me like fifty hours to finish a game. I don't know how long it takes me to finish a book, but not so long, methinks, and I don't think I've ever bought a book for fifty dollars that wasn't some kind of reference material. I almost never play video games nowadays. A Game Cube sits with my television, but neither of them are turned on very often.
Anyway, I don't understand the Guitar Hero thing. They have launch parties that include starlettes and heiresses strutting in designer dresses through throngs of photographers. There are blogs about it. There are fetish sites and all sorts of opinions about it, but I just cannot understand what the hell all the fuss is about. It's like the whole world is onto something I just can't figure out. I'm like a dog who moves his funny head funny when he hears a funny sound.

I wish I could hate it, but I can't think of a good reason to. I mean, it's fun. Yeah, I know it's fun. But so is masturbation, and you don't hear everyone talking about it all the time. You aren't wearing clothing that ensures that everyone knows that you are human and also enjoy that activity. That might sound extreme, but there are tons of things we can all agree are fun to do, but this is just madness. And I can't understand it.

So it frustrates me.
There are people setting up swinger parties that are based around playing Guitar Hero. They play the game and have sex with each other's wives and husbands or something. There are pornographic movies that feature the game. Tattoos all over the place of guitar hero elements. What is wrong with me? Old people and young people love it. Men and women love it. Dogs and cats love it. What the hell is wrong with me? Punks love it. Frat kids love it. Professors love it. Students love it. It's like that scene in Body Snatchers when she figures out that everyone is just slightly different from her.
It's a world-wide obsession. I can't even dismiss it as a zombie meme. I am left out in the cold like a sick little puppy.

+++shooooooting stars+++

I also wanted to tell you all that I am so proud that last weekend's reading went so well at La Galeria De La Raza with Aardvark. It was one of those few triumphs one comes across in his travels that one never forgets. The peregrinations of a poetaster are just not paved with such passionate gloamings all the time; they come in patches.

There was an energy that made you feel like the poetry scene is not all bad, that it is not all sticky and gross, that it is actually filled with really cool and exciting people. It made me want to pack up my bags and move to the Mission. I love San Francisco, but I love Oakland more. But last Saturday made me rethink that for a second.

I've talked about Joseph Lease here before. I've been to a couple of his readings. This one, though, was filled with a tension that I seldom witness. It was one of those readings that makes you forget how boring so many readings are. It made me feel like going to readings again. I have been taking a break from them, and now I am going to take the torch back up and start scouring the world of poetry readings for something worthwhile. Something at least as worthwhile as last Saturday was.

Jack Morgan's reading was very good, too.
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I am not going to do the Holloway posters this season. I feel two ways about this, but I am really relieved and in much better spirits having lost a bunch of face while holding on to my integrity. In art there is only integrity. I know that sounds Klischee, but I think that it is one of those true ones. I spelled that word in German because I think it looks more like what it is in German. Writing Klischee in French, like most people do, lends something to the term that it doesn't deserve, methinks.

I would rather be a poor artist with a shred of integrity than a rich one who can't look himself in the mirror without rationalizing his behavior.
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Tonight there is a reading at Pegasus I will go to. Andrew Zawacki is reading. Should be quite good.

Jack Morgan is reading next Saturday, the 23rd, at Back Room Live with Jarrod Roland, at Mc Nally's pub on College. Please be there.

Positively Yours

Lately so much negativity,
I'll mention someone who has integrity.

We haven't always seen eye to eye, yes we've certainly had our differences,
but I want to call your attention to a person whom, for better or worse, I am proud to count
among my friends: Valyntina Grenier.

A year ago, she started a reading series called Back Room Live;
I have been to almost all of them.
McNally's Irish pub on College Ave is a loud place for poetry;
that's exactly what I love.

Valyntina's reading series has turned into somewhat of an institution.
It gets bigger every time.
When I read there, it was for only a few peeps;
last time there were almost fifty friendly faces.

This month, Jack Morgan will read there again.
This time with Jarrod Roland, fiction writer and friend.

the 23rd of February is a date I hope you'll remember
because I hope to see you there,
but I also hope you remember
"Valyntina Grenier"
trainwreck union member
& curator extraordinaire.

4 Months 3 Weeks and 2 Days. Trading Sex.

Person A asks person B for X. If B gives X to A, B will go to jail for 10 years, maybe even life. Person A offers B money. B doesn’t want money. B wants sex. They have sex. B gives X to A. Fair? As long as X is not essential to A’s life, I think so. No injustice has been committed.

The genders in this scenario are kept neutral because they shouldn’t matter. It happens in Hollywood and corporate America every day, and the genders are interchangeable. People trade sex for all sorts of things.

For example, wannabe star wants a part. Producer and Wannabe decide the part will be given in exchange for sex. Or middle manager seeks promotion. Middle manager trades sex for promotion.

It’s all very gross, but it isn’t called the oldest profession for nothing. An argument can be made regarding the effect of prostitution on communities, but at its core, prostitution is a personal choice and not injust or unethical.

In 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days, a pregnant student seeks an abortion in communist Romania where they are illegal. If the technician is caught, he will serve ten years in prison. If the pregnancy is terminated after five months, he’ll be tried for murder. We don’t know under which circumstances she conceived, but we have no reason to believe it’s the result of rape or incest or a life-and-death situation. What’s clear is that the pregnant student and her friend want to finish school so that they won’t be sent to the countryside to work.

The students have options, but they find the cheapest person who will perform the abortion. But he’s cheapest because he doesn’t want any money at all. The only thing he’ll risk his freedom for is sex with two college students. The girls are faced with a new decsion, and I won’t tell you how they decide, but the writer has produced a perfect fork; no matter which way the story goes, it will be interesting. The writer has taken something fairly common in film and intensified it by loading the variables with emotionally charged and politically sensitive topics.

What’s remarkable is the American audience’s reaction. While I was thinking about the Marxist idea that prostitution would be non-existent in communism and how an oppressive Marxist government in this case was turning people into prostitutes, while I was comparing the story to Of Mice and Men, the rest of the audience was blaming the abortion technician, which I think is odd. Should he have done the job for free? Why should he accept the money if he doesn’t want it? Does anyone expect a criminal to risk his freedom out of the goodness of his heart? The situtation is quite disgusting, but the film is merely depicting the desperate measures people will take to obtain what a ridiculous law prohibits.

I wish I could talk with a Romanian about their reactions to 4 Months; Americans always seem ill-equipped to talk about why they feel certain ways or why things are happening the way they are. They get all riled up when things happen that offend them, but they never take it a step further. They just get really upset and angry.

A great film.

Nepotismus

So, I wasted a good evening voting. I understand why people don't do it. I do it out of some Machiavellian idea of civic virtu. Without people believing in some kind of duty, a republic disintegrates. The republic is important, I guess.

Politics is a nasty business.

If everyone you know who is winning awards in poetry are or have been students of the same poet, what do you think is happening?

a) He/She is a great teacher.
b) All the people you know are just great poets, and the connection is just coincidence.
c) The teacher is the anonymous judge.

That's nothing new. That's the way things go in poetry, I guess. But sometimes it happens to such a degree that it is impossible to ignore. If Jorie Graham had only given one or two of her students awards, no one would have said anything. Nepotism is part of the game. Bobby Kennedy wasn't made Attorney General because he was the best lawyer in the land, and people don't laud Anselm Berrigan as a wonderful poet because he is indeed a wonderful poet, but maybe they both were, respectively. The thing is, Nepotism happens. But when it happens as much as it is happening at Berkeley right now, it cheapens the whole idea of meritocracy. If NO ONE is winning on merit, what is the point of doing it at all?

Guess what! rich people get to go to college more than poor people do. If your dad went to Yale, you have a better chance of going, too. But sometimes someone who deserves it based on their performance alone, and that is why schools like Yale are considered among the best. People ignore the nepotism because there is still enough merit-based promotion there. The necessary evil is just that, necessary.

In poetry and in all the arts, it is necessary, too. Money has to come in from somewhere. Hollywood and poetic dynasties are necessary. They fill theaters and sell books. But what of integrity? I Am always surprised about how little integrity there is.

Gloria Frymm said at a reading something I might never forget, "poetry is incestuous; deal with it." I think I agree with her. I think I like her attitude about it. But is that all it is? Someone at UC Berkeley thinks so.

I am reading with Gloria Frymm at Galeria De La Raza this weekend at 6:30. I'm first up. Should be fun. I hope all of you can make it.

Here's who else is reading.

PERFORMANCES BY:

Myron Michael - emcee

Jack Morgan

Polly Conway

Nadia Gori

Donna de la Perriere

Gloria Frym

Intermission

Taelur Kim

Mike Larkin

Clive Matson

Joseph Lease

Opal Palmer Adisa

MAPP was incredible. I still can't believe how well it went. with the weather the way it was, I didn't expect anyone to come, but a ton of people did, and the poets and musicians and prosers were all quite wonderful.

I wanted to write about a lot of things today, but I am already out of time.

This Saturday, I am reading at Galeria De La Raza which is on Bryant and 24th right by where MAPP was. I can't wait for that. I am the first reader, and many more famous people are reading after me. I mean people who are more famous than myself. It starts at seven. If you want to see me, you have to be there on time. I think it will be a really good night.


Maybe you will vote today. That will be fun. Vote for change. That's what Kommon told me to do when he called me. My mom got a call from Scarlet Johanson; I think I would rather have gotten called by her than Kommon. I don't even know who Kommon is, really.

Politics. Sorry.

Tomorrow is MAPP. I hope that any of you can make it out.

This is interesting. 53 places to go.

Last night, I went out drinking. I felt really good last night.

ªºªºªºªºªºªº

I feel like everyone in the primary is talking bullshit. It is the first election in my life that I have no interest in. I keep reading the articles about the primary and end each one rolling my eyes. In five years, regardless of who gets elected, people will still be dying of curable ailments due to a lack of universal health care, people will still be dying senselessly in a senseless war in Iraq, people will still be working in positions that have nothing to do with their skill sets due to the absence of manufacturing jobs, it will be harder to buy a house or start a family, and everyone will still blame Mexico for all of our problems while purchasing their newest China-made fashion accessories. Everyone will still have iPods, and they will still download their movies. Everyone will still feel oppressed.

It's not that I don't think things can change. I am not fatalistic, but apathetic. I care less because none of the candidates seem to actually give a shit about America, American people, or anything else beside achieving a career goal. They all seem to really want to be president. But why do they want to be president?

Nixon was in love with politics. He loved it so much, the only thing he could have been is president of the United States. He's the only president that could have gone to China. He was the only one who could have ended the Vietnam war. He loved the political game more than anything else in life, and he was good at it. But he wasn't a very good president. Loving the game, he was like an athlete. But like an athlete, when people looked to him for someone to care about their situation or even as a moral compass or role model, he was just a guy who knew how to slam dunk.

Carter seemed to want to help people. He still wants to help people. I think he thought he was a good politician, too, but he wasn't. He couldn't navigate the political situations well enough to actually get to help people. He was the opposite of Nixon. The oil crisis in the 70's made gas prices very high. He thought Americans would vote their consciences, he thought they would understand that we couldn't rely on foreign oil, he thought they would rather avoid future wars, come up with a viable alternative to petroleum, and learn to live with the temporary discomfort of high prices at the pump. But they didn't. He was a good man who couldn't rough-play with the big bullies of capitalism. He also had more faith in the American people than is allowed.

Reagan was a con-man who sold Americans a smile and a wink and a dream that voodoo would save the day. He understood that Americans wanted money. He gave it to them. He gave it to everyone who knew how to lick a stamp. Anyone who had a voice got paid. Everyone who didn't got the shaft. But everyone knew it wouldn't last. Even George Bush.

George Bush seemed like he gave a shit. He had dedicated his entire life to public service and private industry. He knew how to kick ass and turn a buck. He should have been the best president ever. Instead, all he did was kick ass and turn bucks for his friends. Americans got screwed, and nothing really happened besides a bunch of people dying in a country no one had ever heard of. That Ollie North stuff was fun, too.

Bill Clinton was almost perfect. He was born to be president. He got a lot done in a political climate that was unbelievably hostile. If he had had a democratic congress, American people would probably be enjoying some the same freedoms and rights that Europeans take for granted. They called him Slick Willy because the filthy republican swines couldn't hit him with anything strong enough to topple him. They upped the effort and finally bested him, but eight years of peace and prosperity were awesome!

The current president is funny. Eight years ago, no one believed me that he would go down as a the worst president in history.

John Edwards was the only one this time round who maybe gave two shits about American people and the people of the world and how American policy effects them. He left the race before it started, really, but I'll still vote for him. I guess I'll be voting for Obama come November. But for a guy running on change, I don't think much will. McCain might win because there just might be enough people in this country who are scared enough or racist enough to vote for him. That would make me sad, but I don't think it would change much.

I care about the environment, unemployment, health care, and education. They're pretty common issues to care about. I don't think, though, despite their mentioning them, that the likely candidates do.