br u ne t te d ol l

essay on why cliches are important

2007-04-26T18:12:00.000-07:00

communication between people is impossible. all people learn language individually. nobody taught me, or any person, language. language suddenly appears, spoken, in children. parents, when they parrot words at children, do not teach children language. language is genetic. the structures of language are already in our brains. all languages use similar structures. humans may learn which words to associate w/ which structures through hearing, but it is not taught.

each person has an individual language which is completely unique w/ individual associations for all words. i'm color blind. when i was young i felt that i shouldn't be judged 'color-blind' & that really these other people were 'color-blind'. i can see colors. my perception of of colors & their associated names is genetically different. i think language is the same. each person has individual language so 'real' communication b/w two people [or more] is impossible. two people can't think the same thought, or directly communicate a thought so perfectly that the other communicator [interlocutor?] thinks the same thought.

this is why cliches are important. cliches aid in person to person communication. the impossibility of communication causes, in my opinion & experience, anxiety & stress. someone says to me, 'i think peeing is an inherently political act'. i become anxious. i don't know how to answer. cliches lessen this anxiety & stress. cliches are culturally agreed upon phrases to express simple ideas [still impossible to communicate exactly]. if i possess a command of cliche, i can easily answer something like, 'tmi: too much information' or something equally boring, unoriginal, & a-unique.

the stress & anxiety produced from attempts at communication, i think, lead to violence. example: i was maybe twenty-three, at a bar w/ some friends. i shake my head about something. guy says, 'you shake your head at me?'-makes fists. the shaking of my head meant something specific to him. i say, 'maybe i shook my head, but it wasn't at you.' he says, 'you shake your head at me...'-adlibs something about causing physical pain.

stress & anxiety from communication is bad. cliches are good.

i don't know what this is continued

2007-04-11T20:26:00.000-07:00

thirteen
einstein middle school. tristan writes doctor seuse book. flunk math.

fourteen
i baby-sit younger brothers and sister most days. this is true of last five years.

fifteen
shave my head

sixteen
first job second job. full time summers

seventeen
full time job plus school. seldom home. buy my own food. move away.

i don't know what this is

2007-04-10T18:51:00.000-07:00

one
i don't remember

two
i don't remember

three
i don't remember

four
golden gate bridge. dad throws cigarette out driver-side window. cigarette returns through my window. plastic-hole jacket. candy corn. "ward" license plate.

five
freemont elementary. riding bicycles not has fun as i hoped. friends: rudolpho, megan, shawna, athena, heather, dominic, ...

six
blessed sacrement elementary school. can't take communion. not really catholic. friend: frankie.

seven
viewlands elemntary. Ms. Hallie. Comet. hike carkeek park. never got origami star. friends: can't remember names.

eight
echo lake elementary. aurora village. free popcorn. frozen yogurt. perfume fight nordstroms. frogs. friends: tim, justin, dave, justin, others.

nine
candy theft.

ten
hit girl in head w/ baseball bat. accident.

eleven
i did my homework but left it at home award. new friends: don, robb, jason. tree-house smash up. football after school.

twelve
einstein elementary.

something else

2007-04-05T20:08:00.000-07:00

i'm reading 14 Stories by Stephen Dixon. i like the first three stories pretty well and i think i enjoy how dixon seems to write from the point of view of someone very obsessed. it reads very thought-like sometimes.

i'm listening to hip hop daily. when i was young i loved hip hop and mainly listened to 2 short, nwa, ice cube, snoop, and kid & play for some reason. now i listen to the geto boys a lot and a little jay-z, a lot of just what i'd consider pop music now because i think any music designed for popular consumption must generally be pop-music.

everthing is pop everything.

this is boring post.

sorry

lazy

2007-04-04T20:39:00.000-07:00

i'm lazy. i sit around watching youtube videos of the geto boys and then i cry for a while for no reason and then i stop & watch the x-files.

list of names of kids in trailer-park i grew up in:

big tim
dave
andrew
justin
big justin
dana
timy
mat
ed
amy
candace
damar
courtney
shelby

there were probably some other kids, i've forgotton most of them

fond memories:

trailer park was next to echo lake & on the grass in front of the lake we played a lot of football. when i first started playing i dropped the ball when tackled but learned to hold on to the ball. the grass was covered w/ slimy green duck shit. i was tackled in the duck shit & everyone was tackled in duck shit & we smelled like duck shit & also grass stains. also some baseball w/ tennis ball instead of baseball. playing hackey-sack w/ lowlife early twenties neighbor [we were 10-14 yrs old]. learned about sex from said neighbor. learned of said neighbor's desire for large & bouncy boobies. removing hood ornaments from cars. vandalizing cars, w/ crayons & eggs & toilet paper & stolen nail polish, etc... stealing things, candy, lighters, stickers, watches other things.

kids that were a bad influence on me:
don
robb
tim

name of trailer park: holiday resort trailer park - i think it used to be a vacation spot.

i was once menaced by children & told that i lived in the "projects".

i feel like this shld be good writing material but it's not it's boring.
bye

ofelia

2007-02-22T21:04:00.000-08:00

ofelia has a bloodless coup at bear parade.

ofelia is a genius, and other stuff.

...

2007-02-06T05:52:00.000-08:00

["I sound authoritative there but if you are paying attention you will know I am being sarcastic, that 'everything I type, say, or do is both meaningful and self-aware of its own meaninglessness,' and the part I just put in quotes is also both meaningful and self-aware of its own meaninglessness, and the part I just put in bold is both meaningful and self-aware of its own meaninglessness, and so on, repeating itself."]

I think this statement is pretty much true from my frame of reference and interesting. Everything else might be solely based on his context. Free will is an abstraction. Any argument for or against it is an abstraction. Abstractions are abstractions... It's times like these that I feel that everything is true and everything is false. Meaning is made, etc... My girlfriend hates that about me because I will argue about anything from any point of view and any context (I find it enjoyable).

I think even "pain and suffering" are abstractions.

the superbowl

2007-02-04T18:05:00.000-08:00

i'm watching the superbowl. the superbowl is an amazing event. large padded men battle other padded men and assault each other in a physical manner and with strategy. the strategy is complex. like chess or war.

the commercials this year are subpar. my favorite shows various men slapping each other in the face rather than high-fiving.

but something else. i was emailing w/ a friend and she said something about people and class struggle and i thought this:

people coming out of a middle-class/upper-class background don't want to help poor people by paying taxes for a comprehensive health-care system or by subsidizing education expenses, food etc..., because they think something like, "i earned healthcare, a good job, etc... by myself and so why should i have to help someone else do what takes hard work. poor people should just work hard, then they wouldn't need my help." what middle-class/upper-class people don't understand is that this is a false thought. these people have had help all their life. they had parents who could afford health-care, childcare, healthy food, after school activities, homes, homes in wholesome neighborhoods, the schools that are in wholesome neighborhoods which are also wholesome, if not private schools, money for college, the time to complete college applications and to apply for grants, scholarships etc... if a high school student is working full-time, he or she doesn't have the time to take advantage of these options. then finally the money to not work when at college and to focus on studies, to get internships (unpaying internships that the poor college student can't afford to take). in high school i once asked my teacher for an extension because i had to work etc etc... and my teacher said, "you shouldn't be working, school is your job." i tried to explain that if i didn't work i wouldn't have clothes to wear or food to eat, and i certainly wouldn't be going to school but...

i don't know what i'm talking about.

i don't know how this relates to football.

i went to the dentist maybe five times from age 0 to age 27. never had insurance. my teeth aren't quite white and aren't quite straight. everywhere i look i see people with white, straight teeth and i think about how much money and time it took to get them that way. i see young people with new cars. it is a different lifestyle and mindset. the middle/upper-class person always knows that no matter how much they fail, drop out of college, choose and 'alternative-lifestyle', try living in various cities, try different carreers, that there is always a support system to help them. this is good, but it is wrong to think that all accomplishments are the accomplishments of one person alone.

this was boring.

there will be a monkey battle-royale later.

and kissing elephants.

...

2007-02-03T12:25:00.000-08:00

i'm not sure but i think all writing i write that isn't about class struggle is probably some kind of sell-out. but i can't write about these kinds of things. it sounds lame and boring. people who are read are middle-class/upper-class people, with, of course, exceptions. i mean, generally, people who have time to read and to spend money on something as unnecessary as reading (or looking at art or whatever) are all in what used to be termed the 'bourgesoisie'. [i probably spelled that wrong]. if this is the case, and only this class of people are reading the [L]iterature then to write [L]iterature or [P]oetry is to cater to this demographic and ultimately isn't this the definition of selling out. Even to take the anti-mainstream/anti-bourgesoisie pose is really just a pseudo-rebellion against this class of people to entertain this class of people. are these readers saying, "check out this crazy shit this guy wrote about poor people". is outsider writing turning the lives of the very poor or whatever into a fetish for rich people? Maybe only genre writers are the true writers, and the voice of blah blah blah. i don't know.

this is all bullshit. ignore.

wheel of fortune

2007-02-02T19:46:00.000-08:00

pat sajack doesn't seem into it anymore. he's mildly annoyed by his guests, talks over them, jokes a superior way. i like him more now.

i think wheel of fortune is probably more fair than real life

real life is probably fair

maybe

note

2007-02-02T19:42:00.000-08:00

sometimes i feel strange when i'm on airplanes, like a 'business-man' will suddenly point at me and say, 'your teeth aren't straight.'

...

2007-02-01T19:12:00.000-08:00

poverty is not having access to good health care, insurance etc... that is a lot of people.

...

2007-02-01T19:01:00.000-08:00

i am watching jeopardy and i am bored. i have quit writing. i want to become a data entry artist. i will enter data into computers artistically. i can enter all kinds of data. i am almost a specialist.

i'm sorry. i shouldn't have written of that because it's not entertaining.

i grew up very poor (if you are reading this, chances are you know me, and aren't surprised by this). my parents owned a small two-bedroom mobile home. the mobile home had no wheels. my parents paid rent (about 250 dollars a month) for the land that the mobile home sat on (on cement blocks). there was a yard smaller than my bedroom. there was a very large tree. there were other trailers, a little brown lake, and ducks that shit everywhere. we played football on the grass in front of the lake and rolled in little green duck turds.

i have two brothers and one sister. we shared the same bedroom. i often slept on the floor (really only room for three beds).

it is strange and distant now. i can barely remember that. i had a bicycle etc... i stole many things, many hood ornaments. i vandalized many things (houses, trees, streetlights, roads), with friends and alone.

this is all very boring but i want to say that really none of these things that i've typed means i was poor. people who are poor don't have homes, can't find food, don't drive to work. my parents drove to work.

alice blue

2007-01-25T22:06:00.000-08:00

returns

warehouse dream

2007-01-17T06:20:00.000-08:00

In my car on Mt. Ranier. Snow and ice. Sled my car down narrow roads. A woman appears. She is six feet tall with gray hair and gray skin and gray eyes. She holds a small mammal. I say, "what is the mammal for?" The snow is gone. We're in a warehouse. The woman says, "stop." The woman breaks the mammal in half. She shows me. Inside the mammal are tight little bags of red and blue berries.

bronson incognito

2007-01-06T23:47:00.000-08:00

Charles Bronson slowly eats the leg of a live rabbit. I offer my bottled water. Charles Bronson says, "What are you, some kind of left-handed bitch? Bring my mutton." I bring the mutton and Bronson stabs my pet kitten. Bronson looks at me. "I'll write a poem in kitten blood," Bronson says. Then he stabs me in the neck.

airport

2006-12-28T06:23:00.000-08:00

I take my sister to the airport. Charles Bronson, Gene Hackman, and Helen Hunt are the ticketing agents. Bronson steals my sister's luggage. Bronson says, "Possessions." Hackman says, "Are." Hunt says, "Mine." My sister begins to cry for her lost kitten. Hackman stabs Bronson in the neck. "Run!" yells Helen Hunt.

hair tonic

2006-12-27T21:28:00.000-08:00

I am a four hundred year old clam. I am sought after. A thousand Charles Bronson's shatter my shell and grind my shell and sell my shell grindings as hair tonic to thousands of rubes on QVC.

bronson-fish

2006-12-27T06:06:00.000-08:00

I am in a pet store, near the fish. Each tank bubbles. Each fish looks like Charles Bronson. I feed the Bronson-fish. I hold my tire-iron. I swing my tire-iron. I smash the tanks with my tire-iron. The Bronson-fish slide across the tile floor, little Bronson lips opening and closing, little Bronson moustaches all soggy and long. It is warm. I steal a book from the bookstore. I run. Giant Bronson-fish chase me and tackle me and handcuff me. I am shoved into the back of a squad-car. There is a sound like laughing.

babble babble nothing time

2006-12-25T08:04:00.000-08:00

Charles Bronson slaps me and says, "Merry mother-fuckin' Christmas." I drive my car slowly backwards over the Evergreen Point Floating Bridge. It is night. I am surrounded by a million people and those million people hold a million flashlights and shine their million flashlights at me and my beat-up jalopy. Charles Bronson says, "It is five times aluminum barrel treatment Rip Torn." I am Rip Torn. I am wonderboy. I steal a flashlight. I shine the flashlight. I say, "Poetry babble babble nothing time!" I say, "TV is ninety-nine million monstral portion potato man!"

kangaroo

2006-12-21T06:16:00.000-08:00

I am riding a scooter in Australia. I am a kangaroo. I eat myself. I am imploded and inside out.

little landmines

2006-12-20T06:04:00.000-08:00

I am in the bathroom. There is a light. I think it is Thursday. I remember that it is Wednesday. Charles Bronson says, "Don't worry kid. All things are timely." I don't know what he means. Charles Bronson says, "Poems are like little land mines with broken triggers." I throw my razor at the wall. I am in Paris. I am in a bathroom in Paris. The mirror is black. I drive my motorcycle to the sea. I drive into the sea. Beneath the water, Charles Bronson says, "The sky is very close."

reading assignments

2006-12-20T05:55:00.000-08:00

new apocryphal text!

moustache

2006-12-17T09:13:00.000-08:00

I am in a small, steam-filled room. Over a speaker, I can hear Charles Bronson talking to Gene Hackman. Bronson says, "My moustache my moustache my moustache and can feel my ass anywhere." Hackman replies, "You will eat the wooden otter." I feel confused and confused about being confused and tired.

manifesto

2006-12-09T15:49:00.000-08:00

charles bronson comes to me in a dream & says, "you must destroy american writing"

charles bronson says, "american writing is terrible & academic & the worst waste of time"

charles bronson says, "allen ginsberg dreamed walt whitman or william blake or something and he got famous by dreaming famous writers"

charles bronson says, "that was stupid"

charles bronson says, "i am not a dream you are a dream and writing is a stupid bourgeois waste of time"

charles bronson says, "you should earn money instead, sell beads or something"

charles bronson says, "poetry should be senseless & you should be senseless & you should go to the grocery store"

charles bronson says, "poetry is boring and stupid and people should watch tv instead"

charles bronson says, "anyone who makes money off poetry is ethically equal to a rapist"

charles bronson says, "intellectual property is a stupid idea perpetrated by the dumb & the hairy"

charles bronson says, "poetry should only be written by computers and robots"

charles bronson says, "all poets are terrible human beings"

charles bronson says, "poetry must become un-poetry"

a little revision a little more

2006-12-08T06:08:00.000-08:00

It was a rejection. A form email. Barely polite. I thought the words, 'Dirk York calmy deleted the New Yorker rejection email and leaned back.' I leaned back in my chair. I can't stop narrating. I no longer narrate aloud. This is an important step. I thought the words, 'Dirk York ignored the sadness that penetrated his already saddened brain and carefully focused on the immediate and necessary problem: a voicemail, a voicemail cut short.' Actually, it was e-mail I was thinking about, an e-mail that had started out as a voicemail, and was transformed into an e-mail by a software program and then e-mailed to me. 'Dirk York decided to re-read the voice/e-mail.' I click a button on my mouse.

[vmail transcript start]d,
i saw A at the mark. she. i don't know. i tried to say something. she needs[vmail transcript end]

'Dirk York shook his head and surveyed his office.' I need to vacuum. I need to windex the window and tidy up a bit but I can't tidy up now. How could anyone have seen A anywhere? A disappeared almost ten years ago, just before we all graduated from college. 'Dirk York paced the length of his office like a...' I think I was going to narrate the words, 'like a caged lion' but that is a terrible cliche and I'd hate myself later.

dirk discovered, ch 1, paragraph 1

2006-12-06T10:09:00.000-08:00

It was a form email. A rejection. I thought the words, 'Dirk York calmy deleted the New Yorker rejection email and leaned back.' I leaned back in my chair. I can't stop myself from narrating. I no longer narrate aloud. This is an important step. I thought the words, 'Dirk York ignored the sadness that penetrated his already saddened brain and carefully focused on the immediate and necessary problem: a voicemail, a voicemail cut short.'

contest

2006-12-05T06:33:00.000-08:00

in the comment field, pls make a list of clues dirk shld discover in 'dirk discovered'. best clues will be included in novel!

novel notes

2006-12-05T06:22:00.000-08:00

the novel:

genre: hard-boiled mystery

-hero will have sad literary aspirations & a strange obsession w/ charles bronson/hollywood action heroes in general

-hero's name is dirk (maybe)

-whenever dirk meets a new character, the new character will comment on his name in a humorous way, but uniquely humorous

-to be written in first person (for ease of writing)

-to be written in present tense (immediacy)

-overuse of flashback to be an annoying trademark

-tentatively titled 'dirk discovered'

***if anyone can think of anything else that should be an overall characteristic of this project let me know

certified

2006-12-05T06:14:00.000-08:00

I'm writing a novel in a cafe in Kelso, Washington. I try to drink coffee but the coffee tastes like ice cream, bitter ice cream, and I spit the bitter ice cream coffee out onto the floor of the cafe. There are ten thousand girls in the cafe. They stare at me and shake their heads when I spit, so I ignore them by watching my computer screen and typing my novel. I type the words, 'There is no difference between a violent massacre and a gift of kittens.' I type the words, 'The hero of this novel must be a microwave.' I see microwaves waving through the air. Charles Bronson sits across from me and closes my laptop. He says, "I am a certified doctor."

movie

2006-12-04T06:25:00.000-08:00

I am the headlining star in a title-less Hollywood action blockbuster that co-stars Charles Bronson and Jodie Foster. Jodie Foster is the quarterback of a local high school football team and Charles Bronson and I have to save her when a gang of thuggish mutant bunny-rabbits kidnaps her before the all-state championships. I am watching this movie in a movie theater. I say, "Time out." I stop the movie and give myself acting instructions then watch myself act with Charles Bronson and Jodie Foster. I review myself while watching myself in the movie and publish the article in the Oregonian. I give my performance one star. I call it the pity star. I make a pity star out of cardboard and mail it to myself with a letter imploring me to end my action carreer. I recieve the letter and the pity star in the mail and it makes me sad and I cry and quit acting and go on a retreat to Canada where I retire and become a movie critic.

dirty dozen

2006-12-03T11:35:00.000-08:00

I am Charles Bronson. I am leading the Dirty Dozen on a clandestine mission in Omaha, Nebraska. Our fatigues are muddy and tight. The sky is a brown shirt. We are surrounded by rusted trees. I set my rifle down. I am not Charles Bronson. I watch Charles Bronson set his rifle down. He says, "Strip." The Dirty Dozen strips. He motions forward. I am Charles Bronson I motion forward. The Dirty Dozen charges between trees toward a row of robot warriors. I remove a notebook from my back pocket. I write all this down. I sketch a picture of the robot warriors slaughtering the Dirty Dozen. I draw a picture of Charles Bronson sketching pictures of robot warriors. Charles Bronson says, "I am a camera." I say, "I am a camera." We charge into the map-room. We destroy the 'big board.'

"badass movie hero chicken bucket"

2006-12-02T10:46:00.000-08:00

Charles Bronson is in KFC. He is eating a drumstick. I sit across from Charles Bronson. I reach for a drumstick from Charles Bronson's chicken bucket. Charles Bronson moves his index finger like a pendulum and clucks his tongue. Charles Bronson says, "My chicken bucket." I say, "An evolution toward sharing." Charles Bronson says, "Badass movie hero chicken bucket." I place my hands palm-down on the formica table. I feel the plastic seat on my buttocks. My buttocks become the plastic seat. I am tile. I see feet. I am with Charles Bronson outside 7-11. Charles Bronson sips from his slurpy. I reach for Charles Bronson's slurpy-straw. Charles Bronson moves his index finger like a pendulum and clucks his tongue. Charles Bronson says, "Badass movie hero slurpy-straw." Everything makes a buzzing sound. I walk carefully through the buzzing sound.

symposium

2006-12-01T06:22:00.000-08:00

I am sitting on the floor of a combination shopping mall office building. I am surrounded by elderly men. The elderly men talk quietly. The elderly men adjust their eye-glasses, then slowly walk through cubicle walls, from one store to another, their shopping bags dragging behind. My business suit changes from black to red to white to black. I am on a football field, on the 32-yard line, midfield. The stadium is full of silent elderly men. Nothing moves. One elderly man says, "Manatee calibration for alphabetical filing John symposium." I dive into the swimming pool and swim to the bottom, where I find a telephone. The telephone beeps.

"calibration"

2006-11-30T06:38:00.000-08:00

There is a small bird in my bed. I sit next to the bird. I touch the bird's head. The bird has no feathers. The bird has lips. The bird has a beak and the lips are on this beak. I touch the bird's lips. The bird says, "Calibration." I am in my car on a bridge in Portland Oregon. I am on every bridge in Portland Oregon. The bird is sitting on my car. It is night. It is snowing. My car moves from side to side. The streetlights shut off. My headlights shut off. I can't see so I slowly bring my car to a stop. I am afraid I might drive off the bridge into the Columbia River. The bird paces on my car's hood. I can't see the bird but I can hear the bird. My car implodes.

geoduck dream

2006-11-28T06:06:00.000-08:00

There is a sad puppy bouncing on a trampoline. I am on an easy-chair. We are in church. You light your pipe. I say, "Not in the pews fool!" Outside, it is snowing and dark, and there are many hills covered in snow and I can see them all, despite the dark, because of moon-light, maybe. I drive a truck. You sit in the passenger seat with your pipe. You say, "I wish I had a scooter." We stop at 7-11. Your girlfriend owns the 7-11. We ask her for free candy bars. We eat some candy bars. She chases us with a knife down Lake City Way in Seattle, Washington. We jump to Oly and hide in the Library building, on the top floor, next to the computer lab. You get tangled in the wires and pulled into a recycling bin. I ask the student-aid about duplex printing.

highway

2006-11-27T06:15:00.000-08:00

I must cross a busy highway. Many cars speed by with no more than an inch between bumpers. There is a great roar and the sky is orange. I take a step. I take another.

colorado

2006-11-26T16:27:00.000-08:00

we, who go whoring & cross colorado in panel-vans that rob north carolina & denver & seattle, are in the new poem w/ the president & my secret hero & her daughter, to position the court for guests who eat paste in movie-houses, who row in the summit, in the hole, or w/ waitresses for subtle & remote upliftings

of underskirts, of edges, of expert highways, & especially of johns, & side streets of hometowns, where the day is a stadium of secret gas, where only discussions of newspapers are on hand w/ extensive dirty films, displaced vainly & hoped for

manhattan is improvised & reorganized & hungover w/ the third steel, heartless & terrified on the highway, & jumped by the unemployment office, by the grid, by the post office, that has all the night in its head, the shoe in the river basin, or the snow-bank.

the notes

2006-11-26T10:55:00.000-08:00

I am in a jungle campsite near a small waterfall. I am eating french fries. A man steps forward. I can't see the man. The man is in Wisconsin. I realize I am in a jungle in Wisconsin. The waterfall reverses. I am on top of the waterfall. I am the man watching me stand atop the waterfall. The waterfall re-reverses. I am me again. The main pulls a notepad from his back jeans pocket and slowly writes notes. I read the notes. I say, "why are you writing that?" I read the notes again. I am the man, but now in Ellensburg, WA, at a gas station. I read the notes. The gas station explodes.

hidden in the shed

2006-11-25T21:28:00.000-08:00

_my friend destroys ear
w/in the television
in shirtless puberty or
the ninth line leaves clouds
_my friend contains
the mud & possesses the batteries
or the previous night i suppose
we have hidden in the shed
that enjoys acute smells of tools
& in that moment
we withdraw the risked apart
to document the toilet &
i was instantaneous
& w/out water
_my friend I am friend
or employee & each one us
is the mission
or the reasonable copy
w/ certain attack charm
i say _my friend
you are certain attack charm
i say _my friend
am more than
batteries & interlopers sometimes

'complete'

2006-11-25T12:34:00.000-08:00

On my desk, in my cubicle, in my office building, on the twentieth floor, my boss sets a bowie knife. She steps back slowly and stares at my forehead. She pats the gun at her waist. She says, "You must stab every person in the office across the hallway." She hands me a badge. "It is official," she says. I say, "I can scrump ten thousand hallways until batch dawn twenty-three." I say, "I am." I'm in the hallway with the knife. Every man has Gene Hackman's face. Every woman is Gene Hackman's daughter. I'm in the other office. My boss is in her office. I am watching my boss fill out a report on her computer. Her computer screen is black. Her cursor is yellow. She is using outdated unix-based software. She types, 'complete'. I am on someone's desk. I have the knife in my hand. The blade is very long and very shiny. Gene Hackman's daughters are crying. The Gene Hackman's are resolute. I am Gene Hackman. I am resolute. I stab myself, then my daughters. My blood is orange. The carpet is orange. I stab Gene Hackman. I stab myself. My boss is in her office. Her computer is old and noisy. She presses a button. The button is labelled 'enter'. The computer screen says, 'execute'. There are many dots on the computer screen. The office building is an office building and I am on the twentieth floor and I and every other Gene Hackman and every daughter of Gene Hackman are carefully dead.

the squid is an octopus

2006-11-24T19:51:00.000-08:00

I have been tied to a kitchen chair with twine. Near the window, is a car battery and jumper cables. I try to reach my cell-phone but it is stuck in my waist band and my waist band is six miles away. I walk through the tunnel which is also my elbow and carefully sit in a puddle. Dinner is ready and I'm supposed to be home but all the terrorists have teamed with the girl scouts to cover me in squid. I swim from the squid but am tangled in tentacles because the squid is an octopus and the octopus is a luxury sedan from Finland. I am not in Finland and I am not alone.

swordfish

2006-11-22T06:19:00.000-08:00

I am floating on the Atlantic Ocean in a raft made from human legs. I am afraid of the swordfish that circle me. One leg moves.

then toenails

2006-11-21T06:09:00.000-08:00

It is better if I remove their tongues with vice grips. I remove their tongues with vice grips. It is noisy. It is better if I remove their fingernails with needle-nosed pliers. I remove their fingernails with needle-nosed pliers. Then toenails. I am in Omaha, Nebraska. I am on television. I watch the commercials and then watch myself with pliers and vice grips on television. My friends and family watch with me and together we cheer all forms of tool use. My brother says, "It's what seperates us from penguins!" I am on television watching my family, friends, and me watch me watch them through the television screen. On the wall there is a diagram that describes proper finger-breaking. The television tries to turn off. I stop it. I am afraid to turn the television off. My brother tries to turn the television off. I remove his fingernails.

ants vs. Gene Hackman

2006-11-20T06:10:00.000-08:00

I am surrounded by clones. When I close my eyes, they are giant ants. When I open my eyes, they are Gene Hackmans. There is a jetplane far away to the north. It is climbing high with bombs. I am in an elementary school library with the ant/Gene Hackmans. I am nervous because there are so many ant/Gene Hackmans. The library is on fire. I think, 'these Gene Hackmans are clones and are not the real Gene Hackman' and I write this down on my notepad and put it into my back jeans pocket. I wade into the crowd of ant/Gene Hackmans swinging my axe. I butcher arms and legs and heads and throw them into the fire. The ant/Gene Hackmans all scream and yell and cry with Gene Hackman's voice and skitter left and right but the can't escape the library because of the fire and I am swift with my axe because these clones must all die. I am covered in blood and it is drying on me. The jetplane approaches. I throw my axe into the fire and jump out a window and land in the ocean. I swim away very fast. The jetplane is following me with bombs. I am nervous. I dive down under the water. I am surrounded by floating corpses.

"I am an am me"

2006-11-18T09:22:00.000-08:00

I am in an office building surrounded by cubicles. Within each cubicle is a laptop computer. Upon each laptop computer is an outdated unix-based software program. I have two choices at the prompt. Up or down. The future of the office building hinges on my choice. A voice behind my says, "This is not your tranceiver station clump." And then, "I am an am me." I do not see her. I move from cubicle to cubicle. The acoustic tile ceiling is very high and gray. There is fluorescent light but no fixtures. The window finds me with a pick-axe. I stop.

"carriage by thirty-two"

2006-11-17T06:05:00.000-08:00

There is a copy-machine in the room and I am standing across from it with a rifle. I teleport to another room. Here, also, there is a copy-machine. I approach. Behind me, a girl says, "Don't lick paper it is poison I am toner cartridge carriage by thirty-two times can eat linoleum." The copy-machine is gray and plastic and I push 'start'. The machine hums and moves and copies pile in a tray. On each copy is a picture of a circuit board. There is no light. I jump atop the copy-machine but there is nothing and I fall a little. I am in a library. At a nearby table, my brother sits, reading, with half a head. He turns. He hands me a script. He says, "You should be reading from this one." I ask him where his head went. He is a polar bear. I run. I am in my car. I can't disable the emergency brake. It is foggy. I steal a candy.

"Tnxysqqamtt"

2006-11-16T05:55:00.000-08:00

I am wearing a bear-hide costume. I look like a miniature bear. At the grocery store, I am pelted with eggs by a snarling gang of prep school students. I say, "Everyone has a uniform sometimes eleven darlings." Teleportation is real. I teleport to downtown Portland, Oregon and watch Madison/not-Madison step into a book store. I follow her. Inside, every book is called "Tnxysqqamtt" and has a picture of a dead seagull. I decide to destroy everthing. It is gray, above and below. I swim through a thick static and blink. I eat raw eggs for breakfast. Inside each egg is a tiny flash of light. When I finish eating, the light flashes through my stomach. I write a story about the light flashes. I watch myself writing a story about the light flashes.

Gene returns!

2006-11-15T06:12:00.000-08:00

I am in the parking lot of a shopping mall that is also a small independent nation. It is an island. I know this, but the parking lot continues to the horizon, though, even at that great distance, the parking spaces all seem to be the same size, approximately twelve feet wide by twenty-five feet long. There is no fore-shortening effect. Each store inside the shopping mall is bigger than WalMart. Each store only carries one item. One store has shirts, another has yo-yos, others have water, animal crackers, televisions, islands, small donkeys, etc... I am not me and wearing a uniform with blue lapels. I enter the store that sells people. All the people look exactly the same—like slightly chubby Gene Hackmans. I walk to the cashier. She stares directly at my lips. I can't talk. She stares, then hands me a stapler.

me/not-me

2006-11-14T06:27:00.000-08:00

I am watching a boy. He is me/not-me. He is digging a ditch in Utah, in the sun, near a dark lake. I approach me/not-me. I say, "I want a goldfish." Me/not-me continues to dig. I stab me/not-me and hold the shovel. We are in Antarctica. The sun reflects strangely off the dense ice. There is a loud crack. We are on a large suspension bridge in Antarctica. We walk away from the middle but here is always the middle and me/not-me starts to laugh crazily. I stab me/not-me. He laughs more. We are still the middle. The sun switches off. We can't see backwards or forwards. I am afraid to move. Me/not-me continues forward laughing but is always right next to me. I am on a train. I've never been on a train. I can't see me/not-me. I feel a tremendous loss and sit quietly in the aisle. The conductor asks me to move but I don't move and the people on the train pull me into the luggage compartment and close the door.

I took a nap

2006-11-13T21:07:00.000-08:00

I have murdered a polar bear. I am stalked. At the zoo. The polar bear is revived by Gene Hackman. Gene Hackman makes us all wear basketball uniforms. He says we must pass the ball forever. "Don't shoot! Don't ever fucking shoot!" Gene Hackman says. I go to the department store and live in the elevator. I steal a wheelchair. I eat sunflower seeds. My sister tells me that Gene Hackman is our real father. He murders me. He decorates the walls with my guts. It is night. It is morning. I watch Gene Hackman decorate the walls with my guts. I put them back inside me. Gene Hackman pours a glass of wine. Gene Hackman kills a zombie. I am not a zombie but I am dead. I am my sister.

circa Lex Luthor

2006-11-13T06:22:00.000-08:00

There is a polar bear in the post office box. I must remove the polar bear. I argue w/ a man who doesn't look like Gene Hackman but nevertheless is Gene Hackman (circa Lex Luthor) about the most efficient polar bear-removal-method. The post office box is tired and I fashion a crude bomb from Gene Hackman's leather pants. Then I am in Bolivia preaching the word. I look carefully at the sun. The sun is a kitten w/ its fur on fire. Then it is night and I drive my car to the Safeway parking lot. I buy a bushel of bananas. I distribute the bananas to homeless teenagers. Then my car implodes and I take a Greyhound bus to Akron, OH. Everything is very flat and bright/dark. I steal a street sign and the police chase me in their cruisers. I walk so fast that the cruisers fade quickly into the distance. Then I am in Canada and I drink coffee alone.

my brain is a transparent cross-section of democratic caterpillars

2006-11-11T19:21:00.000-08:00

my brain
is new kitten disposal unit
engineered to free prisoners
& tender employees
of the pentagon
submit suitable rent samples
or personal credit reference
for uninformed nihilists
conceal bravado & unload the bomb
trade for handy organs
[lung, heart, appendix]
& self-cleaning toilets
i need risk reward cost benefit analysis
pickaxe stainless codes
& top donkeys
protect from bin failures
from machines
my medium of daily monitoring
express unkind deliverance
from minimalists
bent on sustenance
there is
no such apparatus
my hero extension
thinks about possible air
creepiness of hallways
before she says
"okay, vacuum"

2006-11-05T13:38:00.000-08:00

my gulley brain is fed & right because of my new improved kitten disposal unit engineer-ed to frees prisoners & scour the body aluminum w/ un-bendable signs that assass-inate the omnipresent beds w/ sequences of tender stops. could no employees of the pentagon submit suitable rent samples before we accept the creepy weakness or fountain mice included w/ divers but uninformed despite personal nihilists & nixed panel snatch attic search. conceal bravado & unload the bomb for handy organs & self-cleaning sur-face toilets sized as walls to attract ass monkeys for risk reward cost benefit analysis or pickaxe the reticent to remind stainless codes & top donkeys of the matron curfew concept. protect yourself for bin failures from the com-forting machine from tabled eyeliner in the space apart our new medium of daily monitoring. this puncture ex-presses my unkind deliver-ance from ornithologists bent on minimalist eye sustenance. no such apparatus as my hero extension. mind only that out here we need to fight. think the possible air the creep-iness in hallways before she says "okay, vacuum" before she returns the craft supplies.

poem written in san luis obispo

2006-10-27T20:06:00.000-07:00

there is a mission there
is pumpkin death &
trollies there
is the super eight motel my
money-maker i am
watching cable & disturbed
by sudden footsteps i am
a mission this time
you can trust me a signed
document peculiar
thing unnotorized
i am the mission i am
ready for something now

after Wu-tang

2006-10-12T15:18:00.000-07:00

wu-tang sword style
could be dangerous
ghostface catch the blast
my glock bursts
like elephant tusk
i master the trick
causing terror
i wreck this dangerous
in waco i'm locked down hardcore
represent
gun to neck
& one in the chamber
36 styles of danger
ghetto bastards w/ biscuits
the rudeness
the ruckus
i'm hectic
i wreck it with quickness
more rugged boots
break loops & trample shit
straight out the swamp
it's fright night &
wu-tang slang is fucking dangerous

after Wu-tang

2006-10-11T21:56:00.000-07:00

i get stressed
crime syndicate shit
ordinary projects &
notty-head child support
spent my cheddar on gear
buying whips for
New York, Jamaica, Miami
i flooded Virginia
50 cash bends
bleeding where the pellet hit
slug burnt through lower back side
cracked spine exit arm
hospital table mind
corrupt awkwardness
my name in trouble
transact with fiends
& just get blasted
i go in the crib
got stains on my shirt
but found dead
& incarcerated
just turned a new dad

after Wu-Tang

2006-10-10T10:15:00.000-07:00

attacks you like pit freaks
killer bees murder one
check the method
w/ twin glocks
like a sniper hyper off ginseng root
or buddha monks with owls
on the chess-box
i am the method man psycho sector
in need of re-examination
i leave bags of corpses
translated precisely
but strictly hardware
armed & geared
ramshackled assassins

after Wu-Tang

2006-10-09T22:16:00.000-07:00

Take that motherfucker

good morning to all you notty-headed
Word to the camouflage large

Bring that meth in here

drink some good Nightrain

Verse One:

Champion gear that I rock
attack you like a pit
freaks the sound

Killer Bees attack murder one
kick it like a Night Flite!

Check the method
Twin glocks!

we going to war

Verse Two: Method Man

I be from the psycho ward

save the beef on the cow

I'm like a sniper, hyper off the ginseng root
PLO style, buddha monks with owls

On the chessbox

Verse Three: Inspector Deck

I leave in body bags

Murderous material, made by a madman
It's the Inspector
From the bad lands
Representing iller

strictly hardware
Armed and geared I just broke out the prison
Charged by the system
Now, another deadly episode

Verse Four: Ghostface Killer

hype-ass verse
I ramshack
Rap assassin quick to blast

Ghost thinks with logic
I attacked your whole project

adjacent fourteen

2006-10-04T12:07:00.000-07:00

political conservatives
& children on television
re-write
this apocalyptic return
faces have framed
the snow
has remained
on steeples
it falls
& the profession
aroused
does not hit
i know this type
the cocoon
has still
not been able to feel
to strike a country
two city dogs
beside you
this null moment
under anvils
mortal boom
& when null is

okay, vacuum

2006-09-30T21:16:00.000-07:00

my gulley brain
kitten disposal unit
frees prisoners
of the body aluminum
who continue to assassinate
omnipresent beds

could no employees of the pentagon
accept creepy weakness
including the divers

despite personal nihilists
panel snatch attic search
still unloads the bomb
but surface toilets
only attract assmonkies

get the pickaxe
for stainless codes
or top donkies
& protect yourself
from the comforting machine

tabled eyeliner
of daily monitoring
expresses deliverance
or at least eye sustenance
my hero extension

out here
there is
possible air
okay, vacuum

rumsfeld assmonkey mosaic three

2006-09-21T20:43:00.000-07:00

head of common accounts
rejects bomb
& biological patient
threats of liberal
crazy water
birdmad heart of atom
of moonbat
official technique
interrogation
conformists
simultaneous neutron
explosions
bomb not entered

rumsfeld assmonkey mosaic two

2006-09-20T18:16:00.000-07:00

concept of the eye
tables of law
mosaic soldiers
unethical techniques
expressed soldiers
insults that ask
its sentence makes
it voted for assmonkey
of president who
damages collateral

rumsfeld assmonkey mosaic

2006-09-20T15:40:00.000-07:00

free prisoners
continue to assassinate
exactly
could no employee of Pentagon
including the diver
despite personal nihilists
unload bombs
one assmonkey
gets pickaxe
for top donkey
& protects themselves
from daily monitoring
of solvency degree

okay vacuum

2006-09-17T21:54:00.000-07:00

gulley brain
kitten disposal
body aluminum
omnipresent bed
creepy weakness
panel snatch
attic search
surface toilet
stainless code
comforting machine
tabled eyeliner
express deliverance
eye sustenance
hero extension
possible air
okay vacuum

poetry through the glass partition!

2006-09-10T18:40:00.000-07:00

been kicking it w/ maddie my dear, old, college roommate. the other day we wrote a poem together (while driving). here is the original version:

pilot armada

two lane interstate now solid
orange bifocal in brush
herds salivate under ruddy bombs
seeds scatter among rocks
stamp kittens coolly over reptiles
used dead as rafts
stall tricycles for antique replicants
vomit in the driveway
yellow antic wildebeasts
cackle like washing machines

then, on a whim i edited it thusly:

pilot armada

interstate
now solid
orange bifocal
salivate
under ruddy bombs
scatered
among rocks
stamped cooly
dead as rafts
or tricycles
for replicants
yellow antic
driveway
cackle
washing machines

don't know how i like it. i plan to run it through the old babel fish & reedit for fun later, maybe cut up & mix with something funny, but mostly enjoying the co-writing (which always comes out wacky, maybe?).

now dear maddie's making dinner (a kind thing out here in montana for an interloper such as me) & we will relax w/ the crickets or whatever.

i'm sad tho, i can't read amelia's blog right now. all i see is a blank page! has it died? say it ain't so amelia! that wd be too sad for words!

but dinner is steaming & we have another poem to write!

ALICE BLUE FOUR

2006-09-07T11:31:00.000-07:00

S H A Z A A M

all up in yr grill!

the big sleep unslept or something

2006-08-28T17:16:00.000-07:00

Hello Gleasonites!

This is a short hello & good bye. I have abandoned my home in Houston in search of better digs, better people, & more money. I have loaded all of my flammable furniture into one big truck & hit the road. I have dissolved job & lease, etc... In short, I am a free agent.

West coast here I come! (Probably Portland, OR, because I like foggy hippy towns...but who knows? America waits!)

Ward

adjacent 8

2006-08-12T22:02:00.000-07:00

insurgents
your clocks are
the constant threat
warp scenario glove
despite force
drunk pendulum
that agents
describe now
as biggest danger
aerospace daisy
of new government
squid destruction
hovering
under eyes
indecent fisherman
in main attempt
fall breakfast distribution
are struck
one in
the obligation
soldiers have said
but certain soldiers
in his streets
are gnarled
cyclops generation

my triumphant return

2006-07-13T16:05:00.000-07:00

I have been in Pittsburgh. Sorry.

I've recently been reading over at Amelia's & noticed that she's been weighing in on Spicer & bookburning. This is not to say that Jack Spicer's been burning books, or that people are burning Jack Spicer's books (they'd have to find them somewhere first, & after spending fifty bucks on his collected books I'm not offering mine), but that people are burning books & Amelia's reading the good ol' Spicer biography.

First off, bookburning is senseless & any argument for or against is senseless, whether in jest or not. No object is sacred. Immolation is nothing more than burning, a process, or "rather, it is an exothermic chemical reaction accompanied by intense heat released during a rapid oxidation of combustible material. Fire may be visible as the brilliant glow and flames and may produce smoke" (wikipedia, here). Arguing that the immolation of a text renders the said text sacred, is similar to arguing that death in the name of god is somehow more sacred or more more. Fire is fire. Death is death. One cannot distinguish between ashes as one cannot distinguish between corpes, & why would one bother, other than through some sentiment for the book/person.

That aside, Jack Spicer is not rapidly oxidizing. Instead, he is my poetic hero of the moment (falling somewhere around Frank O'Hara, Lisa Jarnot, Alice Notely, & Ted Berrigan, in the Ward's poet hero of the week sweepstakes). I read his biography & though it was mostly rumor & innuendo, & it seemed to make him out to be an A1 jackass, I still hold him up on my hero pedastal (on my kitchen counter). I'm beginning to write more poems in series, & enjoying that more, freed, I suppose, from the drive for some kind of singular perfection.

I'm listenting to Slint now, while I type, & thinking about will reading Zukofsky all of sudden, & about, I suppose, to become a regular poetry blowhard, an outsider academic, or, gasp!, an MFA student. Don't do it will! You can't handle it anyway.

paradelle

2006-06-04T17:50:00.000-07:00

love is a complicated multi-turret system
love is a complicated multi-turret system
i'm sugar coated & there is a pistol
i'm sugar coated & there is a pistol
a multi-turret pistol is sugar coated
& i'm there, a system, complicated is love

you're my pert devastation
you're my pert devastation
but lamination can only save the faithful
but lamination can only save the faithful
only my pert lamination can save
you're devastation the faithful but

that's a lot of ammunition, i say as i stoop into my plot
that's a lot of ammunition, i say as i stoop into my plot
i will wrap them as gifts but not cruelly
i will wrap them as gifts but not cruelly
i plot ammunition as gifts a lot, but that's, as i say
stoop not cruelly, i will of them into my wrap

my pistol is complicated devastation
but you're only a multi-turret that's
love is a system can save gifts
but cruelly i'm sugar coated lot & a lamination
i stoop of ammunition into the faithful
i will say wrap them there as pert i, not as my plot

fresh air redux: i look like a quarry someone has dynamited!

2006-06-01T12:24:00.000-07:00

3

summer in the alleyways! "it is time to strangle several bad poets."
the yellow cab rocks to and fro, and from the roof
drops charles bronson! the stylish thugs are slightly agitated by the struggle,
but afterwards, beside the dead "poet" they cuddle comfortingly against their ipods.
they are safer now, no one will compare them to a poetic device.

here on the bus, one more time, is charles bronson.
he is going to get that one on his way to a poetry reading.
ouch! smack! a body crumples between stops.

in the "dive bar" i also see charles bronson,
he leaps through the chill air at the maker of comparisons
between language and life and silently, silently strangles him!

here is charles bronson dressed as a loan shark
leaping from his cadillac to annihilate the students of linguistics!

charles bronson is alert for academic maunderings like "otherness",
"ambiguity", "narrative antagonism", and "avant garde",
and for poems addressed to ron silliman, billy collins,
to charles bernstein, and to personages no longer living
even in anyone's thoughts—o charles bronson the charles bronson!

he lies on his back in with a pistol he snatched from a thug.

2006-05-28T18:56:00.000-07:00

fed & right
of stadium
can scour
are sign unbendable
taste lawn
sequence
of tendering
pails rent sample
fountain of mice
is uninformed
& nixed
conceal bravo
handy organs
sized as walls
of risk &
reticent to remind
or vexed
in matron of curfew
bin failures
spaced apart
in a medium
puncture
of ornithologist bent
no such apparatus
minding only
need to fight

alice blue three arrives

2006-05-28T15:06:00.000-07:00

with new work by daniel borzutzky, derek white, kate pringle, tao lin, kari edwards, bob marcacci, nick antosca, sean kilpatrick, & others.

read it all here

lyric lime

2006-05-25T16:46:00.000-07:00

i'm listening to the sea a seashell sea
i'm sugar coated & there is a pistol
in that black case
never try to liquefy jesters with a spaniard
your penal colony functions only in ambient galactic
the dragonfly of woe couldn't speak
& the hills of my disobedience
only temper glass
do not promote desire
that length after dark
when i enchant your teleport bracelet
in the morning like inferior porcupines
i am too rain sensitive to react
lime of night mumbling
i will juice you yet

2006-05-18T18:45:00.000-07:00

O wars & sea recovery
Up prototype! you simple ones
Oar lack of bundling occurs
Hack it was a boar head
& she was thanked & pitied
I am flapping conjecture
Your fifth encounter with forward motion
& stone propeller’s fall
& save my new driving gloves

i love commercials

2006-05-17T20:45:00.000-07:00

the poem is a commercial

i am post-surgery

& line free

you know what the stewardess really means?

go back

w/ the peasants

all you got to do is think refreshment

& the paper blob is coming

but i was fat

& i am here

your personal broker

lovely & loved & for you

Five Movie Reviews

2006-05-14T10:31:00.000-07:00

The Triple Fool

In this gritty, suburban crime drama, the parents of a mentally defective boy build a chicken-wire cage in their garage, glue feathers to their son, tattoo the words “chicken boy” on his forehead, and charge admission to a motley collection of customers, hoping the freak that is their son will propel them toward a rich and prosperous future. Sam Hill, a mentally defective detective who has nightmares of a similarly caged childhood, brings the parents down, then exterminates them in an exciting 132-minute shoot-out finale.

Danish Memorabilia

The owner of an East-Hamburg curio shop passes off American Happy Meal toys as the titled “Danish Memorabilia” until the “Mad Dane” parachutes in, bent on ending the “cultural misrepresentation” in a flurry of knives, typewriters, and stylish furniture.

Brunette Doll

Charles Bronson goes undercover as a famous Texan stripper to expose the erotic underside of an illegal international fur trade. Bronson may no longer have a “Death Wish,” but he still dazzles in this sexy, high-heeled adventure.

Marsha in Constant Revision

In this avant-garde thriller, writer/director Francois Jones revises the opening scene (a montage of three men eating hot-dogs and repeatedly vandalizing a public restroom) thirty-two times, with director and actor commentaries explicating the symbolic, archetypal, and stylistic qualities of each version, along with exhilarating forays into the history of mustard, catsup, pickles, and the trough-urinal.

Canoe the Motor

An internet/goth-poetry comedy with fine art direction and makeup that will make you embrace of the pain of a generation while cackling hysterically and searching through various catalogues for the perfect lacy corset.