How to Join a Motorcycle Gang

This was originally featured here. If you want, you can comment and join the fun. There's much to be had. MURDERCYCLE.

Have you seen THE LOST BOYS?

I watched The Lost Boys last night. I got very nostalgic. Can you believe Cory Haim is dead? Can you believe I used to think his hair and Kiefer Southerland's hair was the coolest hair anyone could ever have?

This movie is still one of the best movies of its time. It's one of the very few movies with a perfect soundtrack, one of the very few vampire movies worth watching, and one of the very few good Joel Schumacher films.

The way the vampires fly is fantastic because you don't see much of it, so it doesn't look cheezey. The gore is choppy and scary without looking fake and lame or overboard or gratuitous. The story is timeless and reads well on many levels. It makes me miss Santa Cruz in particular but California in general. It's strange to have grown up in a place that one sees in films all the time. I think most people don't know what that feels like. Movies take people to places they've never seen most of the time, but I often feel like they're taking me home. This film still has very cozy place in my heart. . . maybe even cozier than it used to.

It might also be the movie that gave me my motorcycle fetish. I need a motorcycle.

Poetry Lately

Many interesting and/or fun things happened in poetry last week.

First, I got some poems published at Back Room Live, which used to be a monthly reading series in Oakland and now is an awesome online poetry journal.

Then, a poet named Jeremy Czerw wrote me an email and told me he loved The Berenstain Bears Go to Church, a chapbook that Wheelhouse published.

Finally, someone freaked out about my "How to Join a Motorcycle Gang" poem on this blog. I'd kind of forgotten about that piece. I like it very much.
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• I've been writing more, too.
• I am going to start posting here five days a week again.
• How sexy is that motorcycle picture?
• I still do not have a motorcycle.
• I only have a Subaru, and it's leased.
• I would like to be the first asthmatic to ride across the country on a motorcycle.
• Che famously did a lot of north/south biking.
• I am the white Che Guevara.
• When I read a lot of Allen Ginsberg, I thought I was a communist.
• Today, I just have strong feelings about equality and motorcycles.

The Virginia Adventure Begins

Whew!
As election night rounded 8PM PST, I cheered because Virginia went Blue. The race was called shortly thereafter.
McCain supporters booed and shouted things that were probably offensive, but I couldn't understand them. Palin looked teary-eyed, but still soulless.

Then Barack Obama accepted. Goosebumps raised on my skin. I don't always realize when I am witnessing something that history will remember. It's hard to tell right away when the world changes. This time I saw it fairly quickly, and that's a great feeling.

I took a picture of myself the next day. I had a stye in my eye, and I thought it looked gross.

Two days later, I got on a plane and moved to Virginia.
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I've only been here one full day. So far everyone's really nice to me.
My girlfriend owns a teashop called Darjeeling Cafe, and I can sit here and work and look at the ancient cemetery across the street and listen to the occasional bells from the churches. The Darjeeling Cafe is on West Beverly St., which is the main thoroughfare in Staunton.
Today there was a veterans' parade on West Beverly. Vehicles and people dressed in all sorts of military gear from different eras. Boyscouts and Girlscouts and Cubscouts and Brownies all marched in the parade, too.

There were bands and things like that. Patriotic songs.

There was also a veterans' MC.
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This new adventure. It's bound to be interesting. I am looking forward to seeing what this blog will turn into.