the superbowl

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.

...

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

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

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.'

...

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

...

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

returns

warehouse dream

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

little landmines

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

new apocryphal text!

moustache

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

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

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

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.'