Everything started with a marathon travel day. Truly some Planes, Trains & Automobiles shit, but I finally made my way to Vancouver on Sunday night. Had a bit of a miscue with my lodging situation, but it turned out well as Sean McGarragle took good care of me. The show was Monday night and pretty magic. Its uncanny how you accumulate friends and acquaintances over the years with no bearing of where they're geographically located, but you're reminded of such when they keep showing up at the venue. Big crowd, great energy. The audience and its response was very much a living entity and it was a joy sharing poems with them. Got some quality time with Ms. Spelt as we talked about EVERYTHING (which many people do with Ms. Spelt). His viewpoints on mythology in the classical and modern sense fascinated me and really framed a great conversation. The best moment of the night for me may have been when he covered Gabrielle's latest poem before the slam. Magical stuff.

Tuesday night, I made my way down to Seattle. Look, Daemond is one of those cats that you mention his name to anybody in the know and they light up with the immediate 'good guy' response. You get confirmation of such after about 3 1/2 minutes with the guy. He also trumps any feelings I have of missing Leah after a few days since Inti has been out of the country for weeks.

Let me pause here to say that its cold out west. Muthafuckin cold man. Not what one pictures when they travel that far west. It might have gotten cold back in Columbus during the time I've been away, but 40 degrees in San Fran wasn't part of the plan. You hear that Mother Nature?! I got some four and five letter words for you when I see you. I heard your kids ain't shit either.

Anyways.

The Seattle show was cool. Unfortunately, they had some venue issues a few days before my feature. This led to Daemond and crew having to find another venue at the drop of a dime just to field the show. Which they did. But of course, changing a venue on short notice will always lead to a dip in attendance and this was no exception. I did miss some of the usual stalwarts of the Seattle Poetry Slam not being there, but the crowd was super attentive and involved so I enjoyed it a ton. Oh and Mike McGee was there. And he was awesome. Of course he was.

Due to another venue/attendance situation, the Everrett, WA gig didn't work out, so Daemond and I both flew out of Seattle on Thursday morning (him to go see Gabrielle, me to The Bay). It turned out great because I got to Oakland in tact, got some rest and hit the town in time again to catch the Oakland Poetry Slam. Lots of great peeps in the house, lots of good poems thrown around capped off with Buddy's feature which was pretty damn special. I imagine he's gotta be road weary as hell, but he still brought his trademark energy last night and it was nice to see.

Next Gig: Sunday Co-Feature with Ainsley Burrows at The City Slam in San Francisco.

Just got alerted to another early review of Everything is Everything:

http://dansemacabre.art.officelive.com/GriensteidlWeihnachtsmarkt.aspx

This time in Danse Macabre, the journal which previously published my most graphic poem about giraffe rape as well as a love poem I wrote to our fattest president -- in different issues, of course!

Everything is Everything will officially be out on Jan 11th, but I'll be having a joint book release at Bluestockings Bookstore in NYC on Jan 7th with NYC lady poet dominators Eboni -- and her book, Grits (Penmanship Books) -- and Mahogany Browne -- and her book, Destroy Rebuild & Other Reconstructions of the Human Muscle (Penmanship Books)



A formal announcement on that in the next week or so!

Oh, and for those of you not living in Gotham, a little elf today me that Everything is Everything might already be available at the Write Bloody online store too. But I don't know nothing about that. ;)

happy birthday asthecrowflies!!

may the year be filled with Joy & Laughter & Love!

I'm beginning to think that Obama's Nobel speech is the first move in creating the most sublime example of retroactive applied parodics yet. Except we don't have to wait to appreciate it, as he builds on decades of American foreign policy to produce an absurdist take on the very existence of a peace foundation created by a war profiteer.

Each reading uncovers another sly punchline, like this one:

"Yes, terrible wars have been fought, and atrocities committed. But there has been no Third World War."

Well, golly. Afghans were so freaked out by bombed civilians they forgot about the "We Totally Could Have Nuked The Whole Planet, But We Didn't" thing. I'm sure they'll see past their petty ingratitudes now.

Last night, chrisanthos mentioned that he was considering lying on his forms to get into the army. I asked if he meant lying about his age. He said maybe that too, but that he'd heard there are a lot of people they don't take, and that he was concerned he would be rejected for his non-standard sexual practices.

I suggested that as far as I knew, anything he was into would fall under "don't ask don't tell" and that he should have nothing to worry about on that front, though he may have issues passing the psych.

He began to look at my quizzically, as if I were speaking a familiar language but in an unusual dialect. I then inquired whether he thought he could pass the physical.

"Uh... there's no physical", he said.

"No physical to join the army?"

"The army? What are you talking about?"

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about eHarmony."

"Ohhhhhhhh. Yeah, they'd totally reject you."

Time and Materials
Gerhard Richter: Abstrakt Bilden

1.

To make layers,
As if they were a steadiness of days:

It snowed; I did errands at a desk:
A white flurry out the window thickening; my tongue
Tasted of the glue on envelopes.

On this day sunlight on red brick, bare trees,
Nothing stirring in the icy air.

On this day a blur of color moving at the gym
Where the heat from bodies
Meets the watery, cold surface of the glass.

Made love, made curry, talked on the phone
To friends, the one whose brother died
Was crying and thinking alternately,
Like someone falling down and getting up
And running and falling and getting up.

( 2. )

was one of the best poetry shows I have seen this year... yes indeedy.

allow me to once again crush the soapbox with my high horse. i've buffed and tightened up my set list for tomorrow night. it's going to be quite a performance. put aside all other poetry events tomorrow night and hit mama java's. it was a very productive year even with a two month lay-off in the summer, and i'm looking forward to closing the door on '09 and starting fresh in january. and what's more, it's free. i give more poetry away than most people create.

After 13 years, we finally persuaded Native Americans to give up 97% of $47 BILLION in unpaid trust fund money.

Every plaintiff in the lawsuit stands to receive up to $2,800 after 122 years of mismagement. Why, that's almost .004% of the average salary of a Goldman Sachs employee!

Who says the little guy doesn't win every now and then? Who says we aren't fiscally responsible?

You know, I think more and more often
by Tadeusz Borowski

You know, I think more and more often
that I should go back.
Maybe I'll meet you. And happiness?
Happiness is being sad together.

So I look through the moonlit window
and listen.
Nothing. A breeze stirs somewhere.
Alone among the leaves - the moon.

Like a golden wheel it rolls
above the windblown leaves.
Such moons, only paler,
shone over the Wisla.

Even the Big Dipper on its course
stops in a tree at midnight,
just like at home. But why here?
Truly, I don't know.

What's here? Longing and sleepless nights,
unknown streets and somebody's verse.
I live here as a nobody:
a Displaced Person.

I think of you. I know I must leave.
Perhaps we can return to our past,
but I know neither what youth will be like
nor where you are.

But I'm yours or no one's
forever. Listen,
listen, read this poem
if somewhere you are alive.

( + )

The Pillow



The pillow said:
at the end of the long day
only I know
the confident man’s confusion,
the nun’s desire,
the slight quiver in the tyrant’s eyelash,
the preacher’s obscenity,
the soul’s longing
for a warm body where flying sparks
become a glowing coal.
Only I know
the grandeur of unnoticed little things;
only I know the loser’s dignity,
the winner’s loneliness
and the stupid coldness one feels
when a wish has been granted.



by Mourid Barghouti

I am reading a book called Solitaire and Brahms, mainly because it had a blurb by Del Martin on the back cover.

In this book (which was published in 1997, but takes place in the early 1960s that still feel like the 1950s), characters seem to constantly be meeting each other and then immediately pouring out details of their lives.

It makes me wonder whether this is a clunky narrative device on the part of the author, or whether people during that time were less guarded in their relationships with others. Or, as it is a secondary source, whether we currently imagine that this was the case.

Also, Angie and I were talking about how I recently read Commencement, which is a sort-of modern day watered down revision of The Group. But whereas in The Group (written in 1963 about the Vassar Class of 1933) the book details the paths of eight women friends after their college graduation, Commencement cuts that number down to four. While this is possibly because the author could not convincingly detail even her reduced number of protagonists, I wondered if it was also because these days women have fewer female friends.

In Solitaire and Brahms, the narrator so far seems to have an above average number of female friends, but not really any that she is very close to.

In Pride and Prejudice, Elizabethe Bennett has only one friend that is not her sister. And then Charlotte goes off and marries Mr. Collins. Emma Woodhouse has two friends, between Mrs. Weston and Harriet Smith. Maybe two and a half if we give her partial credit for sometimes wanting to be friends with Jane Fairfax. Scarlett O'Hara has lots of trashy women over to play whist, but Melanie is her only real friend. Bridget Jones has Jude and Shazzar. And Magda. Maybe having more than two or three women friends has always been more the exception than the rule. Hermione Granger, on the other hand, has no women friends except Ginny (who she is hardly ever seen speaking to in the course of seven books). Hmm.

Who's managing Fox News these days, the Marx Brothers?



Actual Fox News poll question, "on the website now!"

This follows:



That's right... it all adds up to... 120%!

And don't forget...



193% of all Republicans agree... Republicans are great!

If I ever need to bring down a security guard outside of a town called Malice, I know exactly what images to show him.

It's not quite professionally done but for a dude who doesn't know much about editing, I think I did ok.

Because I was not clear in communicating this, tonite's WOWps finals will be 3, 3 minute rounds. Participants will be allowed to read their 4 minute piece, without penalty, if they indicate it is theior 4 minute piece prior to initiating their performance.

Questions, as always, will be fielded on site.

In his 55 paragraph Nobel Prize speech, Obama spent 29 paragraphs defending the use of war and America's actions.

He never uttered the word Iraq in relation to our current occupation, let alone admit it was, y'know, problematic. He didn't reference to Gitmo or Bagram or anything like that (maybe because Justice has decided to defend John Yoo by citing executive privilege).

My favorite parts:

I am the Commander-in-Chief of a nation in the midst of two wars. One of these wars is winding down. The other is a conflict that America did not seek; one in which we are joined by 43 other countries — including Norway — in an effort to defend ourselves and all nations from further attacks.

One wars is totally winding down, move on, nothing to see there. Even Norway agrees Afghantistan is Taliban is al-Qaida, so civilian casualties and people imprisoned and totured without charge doesn't matter.

For make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world. A nonviolent movement could not have halted Hitler's armies. Negotiations cannot convince al-Qaidas leaders to lay down their arms.

Okay, if you didn't know this wasn't Bush talking, who would you think said that?

Then we get to the openly insulting, craven bullshit:

The world rallied around America after the 9/11 attacks, and continues to support our efforts in Afghanistan, because of the horror of those senseless attacks and the recognized principle of self-defense. Likewise, the world recognized the need to confront Saddam Hussein when he invaded Kuwait - a consensus that sent a clear message to all about the cost of aggression.

Dude, I see what you did there.

Kuwait was in 1991, it's not our seven year and counting act of aggression which dismissed global consensus with lies and bullshit. One of the worst being Saddam Hussien had anything to do with 9/11, which was both openly stated and implied by mentioning them together.

Obama not only evades discussion of the Iraq invasion, but also does so employing the same rhetorical bullshit as Dick Cheney.

I appreciate the difficulty of accepting a politically loaded prize within multiple complex domestic and international situation one mostly inherited. I get talking around things. But picking Hitler, Evil and Saddam/9-11 stuff out of all the possible words available? Christ on a punji stick, fuuuuuccck yoooooooouuuuuu.

Just when I post something about feeling sorry for myself...

I forget that there are people as wonderful as Gabrielle.

http://theblogofmystery.blogspot.com/2009/12/impossible-to-give-title.html

When a night ends in inter racial female arm wrestling you know something good happened. Such was the case last night at Writers' Block when we, sadly, said goodbye to British Chris.



Out of curiosity and, perhaps, sympathy, Scott agreed to let Chris host.

Chris delivered the goods. He even brought charts explaining how awesome Writers' Block is.



More awesome than a giant squid, and that's saying something!

The night was fabulous. There were poems dedicated to Chris, tears on stage, another chart, Smokey Oolong (yes!), teabags thrown, my Scottish Wife performing, Vernell's impressive boots and so much more.

Again. There was arm wrestling. With each arm. It ended in thumb wrestling. Hot action!



When you have a bad day, the night helps. It really does.