What Immor(t)al hand or Eye...

Could frame such fearful symmetry?



plus



Equals

Who gives a Ferrari to rough trade?

John Waters Loves Kevin Federline.

Brian sent me this link last night and it's taken me a while to digest it. Then of course, it made perfect sense. Of cooourse he would. Fed-Ex is the perfect storm of tacky, trashy and trade. He's like Danny Mills with better teeth.

Some excerpts of Waters' appreciation:

`You don't see him out there getting out of limousines and flashing his shaved crotch. He's been the gentleman since they split up. I hope he gets the kids--he deserves them more than she does.''

Waters is such a fan of K-Fed that he ordered his assistant to go out and get him the wannabe hip-hop star's CD when it came out last year.

``She was so mad, she almost quit. She kept saying: 'I'm not doing it. Please don't make me buy it.' But she finally did. I consider it a prized possession; I haven't even taken it out of the wrapper. There's something about that guy I like, something very Baltimore and sleazy about him.''

``I'm a big fan of K-Fed--that's who I want to marry,'' he says with a laugh. ``What did he do that was so wrong? She's the idiot. She's the one who gave him the Ferrari. Who gives a Ferrari to rough trade? Who could blame him for taking it? And he looks good whether he's all cleaned up or long-haired and sleazy.''

As an aside, I'm wondering what's up with the Canadian Media Outlet that put together this story. All the dashes appear as underscores and they get the name of the Court TV series wrong. WTF? Someone got paid to do this?

Get Off My Triscuits, Bitch. or She Stoups to Conquer

There's a game we play: Who Do We Hate. I've played some version of this game since college. Back then I called it "Celebrity Bus Crash." You picked x number of celebrities you wanted to see die in...you guessed it...a celebrity bus crash.

I went grocery shopping this morning, in the midst of some other errands. I'm walkin' through the salty snacky aisle and I'll be damned...there wasn't a SINGLE box of triscuits without the leering perky smilex face of Rachel Friggin' Ray. I went home sans Triscuits. And I know that it's just not here. Brian, my boyfriend, loooooves his Triscuits. But I have essentially forbade him to buy boxes with her insipid mug and dreadful recipes on them. I would be unable to sleep in his apartment knowing that in the kitchen, in the cabinet above the refrigerator, her vacant smile was behind the doors. He has managed to get lucky and scored several boxes of RR-Free snacks. But something tells me it will get harder as time and her Bataan perk march goes on.

I'm so sick of her perky giggly hair flippin shtick. Bitch, you're pushin 40. Stop for chrissakes. I'll admit that for a while I was into this idea of quick meals...I love to cook, but sometimes there's just not really time. I get this. It's a good niche, really. But gawd! Everything has some sort of quiky little nickname, acronym, or neologism.

I stumbled across this "album" on the Onion AV Club's list of least essential albums of 2006. It definitely should never have seen the light of day--if you look closely at the pic, RR's "Love that Joker" mug has been photoshopped in. So I reckon this is some piece of crap that they were trying to move and found her a suitable tie-in. More horribly, she has a CHRISTMAS album. Well, perhaps nothing is more horrible than the fact that she's on tv about 5 hours a day.

Several weeks ago the National Enquirer ran a couple of articles about how her husband has this dark kinky secret: he allegedly (Kathy Griffin fans, take note) pays this butch, lip-pierced woman to spit on him and then photograph it. They referred to this as some sort of dark fetish that was perhaps resulting from psychological issues, past trauma, rejection etc etc. Frankly, being spit on is more appealing than waking up next to her.

So I'll just throw this out there...who do YOU hate?

I feel a disturbance...in the food court.

Or: It's just so dark in Mom & Dad's basement that when I get out, I just want some...you know...color.

It's the Devil and It's Fun!*

"my church currently is expieriencing problems where there is demons running amuck in the basement

no one has gone and kicked them out, or they said they kicked one out, but theres more then one

we thought we finished the problem, then some kid in the daycare reported seeing some sort of thing and was crying"

Hat-tip to Fundies Say the Darnedest Things.

*this is a line from MST3K. The Manos: The Hands of Fear Episode. One of those random pieces of pop culture junk that's stuck in my head.

For Aaron

Just because.

Ennui

It's finally decided to be winter here in West-by-God-Virginia. And it sucks. It's all just a little too "silence in the snowy fields" for my liking. So to lift my spirits and hopefully amuse others, I'm throwing out a couple of these little gems. My friend Eric gave me this book and we had a great time reading these aloud one evening.


14
Why is it you fuck
as hard and as fast as you can?
I'm not a Playstation.

19
Yes, this feels quite good.
Still, could you pick up the pace?
Golden Girls is on.

32
The guys screwing on
my TV screen seem so butch.
Then they start to speak.

Poem for the Day

I didn't know about Jack Gilbert's poetry until a couple of years ago and then became hooked. I don't know what to say about him that wouldn't come across as superlative. His poems inspire me with their lack of ornamentation and their "rightness." I want to say "precision" but that's just too technical and connotatively wrong. There doesn't seem to be any extra here: no space filling, no easy gestures. I really wish Views of Jeopardy, Monolithos, and Kochan were in print (or not prohibitively expensive to buy used.) Someone needs to convince Graywolf that such an omnibus edition is a stellar idea. There's precedence for this, with Linda Gregg's first two books and their Collected Poems of Lynda Hull kicking off their Re/View series. Anyway, on to the poem.

Married

I came back from the funeral and crawled
around the apartment, crying hard,
searching for my wife's hair.
For two months got them from the drain,
from the vacuum cleaner, under the refrigerator,
and off the clothes in the closet.
But after other Japanese women came,
there was no way to be sure which were
hers, and I stopped. A year later,
repotting Michiko's avocado, I find
a long black hair tangled in the dirt.

Used Bookstores

While I was in Baltimore, Brian used the Google to find used bookstores and came across this great store called Normals. It's packed to bursting with used books and LPS. Great prices, too. There was a lot of stuff there I wanted, but I reined myself in and bought just a few things. For Love is the first one I've cracked. I started it just before bed last night. I love the preface and thought I'd post it here. It speaks to a lot of the things I've been thinking about lately.

Wherever it is one stumbles (to get to wherever) at least some way will exist, so to speak, as and when a man takes this or that step—for which, god bless him. Insofar as these poems are such places, always they were ones stumbled into: warmth for a night perhaps, the misdirected intention come right; and too, a sudden instance of love, and the being loved, wherewith a man also contrives a world (of his own mind).

It seems to me, now, that I know less of these poems than will a reader, at least the reader for whom—if I write for anyone—I have written. How much I should like to please! It is a constant concern.

That is, however, hopeful and pompous, and not altogether true. I write poems because it pleases me, very much—I think that is true. In any case, we live as we can, each day another—there is no use in counting. Nor more, say, to live than what there is, to live. I want the poem as close to this fact as I can bring it; or it, me.

Riiiiight...His Giiiiirlfriend...

"I am a bit troubled. I believe my son has a girlfriend, because she left a dirty magazine with men in it under his bed. My son is only 16 and I really don't think he's ready to date yet. What's worse is that he's sneaking some girl to his room behind my back. I need help, God! I want my son to stop being so secretive!"

Another quote from Fundies Say the Darnedest Things.

Poem for the Day

About 11 years ago, I was loaned a copy of James Schuyler's Collected Poems, with the advice that I should really read him, that I would learn something I needed. At that time I tried to read him, closely, but honestly my system just seemed to reject him. It did nothing for me. After about a month I gave the book back, and rather shame-facedly said "I don't get it." A couple of years after that, the Collected Poems was a required text for a class I was in. I bristled at the cost of the book, because I just couldn't see buying it (especially when living on a TA's stipend.) That time however, I did get it. The seeming simplicity of the poems that I discounted before-- the short lines, the repetitions, the odd line breaks--it made sense to me, it moved me, it "blew the top off of my head." I've definitely taken Schuyler to heart as a master. I know this poem gets played to death, and even though it's not my absolute favorite of his (I'm saving it for later) it is one that I find myself re-reading. Actually, I did reread it today, something about the quality of the sky at one point made me think of it.

Korean Mums

beside me in this garden
are huge and daisy-like
(why not? are not
oxeye daisies a chrysanthemum?),
shrubby and thick-stalked,
the leaves pointing up
the stems from which
the flowers burst in
sunbursts. I love
this garden in all its moods,
even under its winter coat
of salt hay, or now,
in October, more than
half gone over: here
a rose, there a clump
of aconite. This morning
one of the dogs killed
a barn owl. Bob saw
it happen, tried to
intervene. The airedale
snapped its neck and left
it lying. Now the bird
lies buried by an apple
tree. Last evening
from the table we saw
the owl, huge in the dusk,
circling the field
on owl-silent wings.
The first one ever seen
here: now it's gone,
a dream you just remember.

The dogs are barking. In
the studio music plays
and Bob and Darragh paint.
I sit scribbling in a little
notebook at a garden table,
too hot in a heavy shirt
in the mid-October sun
into which the Korean mums
all face. There is a
dull book with me,
an apple core, cigarettes,
an ashtray. Behind me
the rue I gave Bob
flourishes. Light on leaves,
so much to see, and
all I really see is that
owl, its bulk troubling
the twilight. I'll
soon forget it: what
is there I have not forgot?
Or one day will forget:
this garden, the breeze
in stillness, even
the words, Korean mums.

We Shall Overcome

Posting the FSTDT quote from Jeremy yesterday regarding his fight against a sin that all men know, made me remember the Mormon Church's "Steps to Overcoming Masturbation" which apparently was required reading for their missionaries. What follows is a selected list of tips. All emphases and typos are from the original. Feel free to share with your male friends!

1. Never touch the intimate parts of your body except during normal toilet processes.
2. Avoid being alone as much as possible. Find good company and stay in this good company.
3. If you are associated with other persons having this same problem, YOU MUST BREAK OFF THEIR FRIENDSHIP. Never associate with other people having the same weakness. Don't suppose that two of you will quit together, you never will....
4. When you bathe, do not admire yourself in a mirror. Never stay in the bath more than five or six minutes -- just long enough to bathe and dry and dress AND THEN GET OUT OF THE BATHROOM into a room where you will have some member of your family present.
5. When in bed, if that is where you have your problem for the most part, dress yourself for the night so securely that you cannot easily touch your vital parts, and so that it would be difficult and time consuming for you to remove those clothes. By the time you started to remove protective clothing you would have sufficiently controlled your thinking that the temptation would leave you.
6. If the temptation seems overpowering while you are in bed, GET OUT OF BED AND GO INTO THE KITCHEN AND FIX YOURSELF A SNACK, even if it is in the middle of the night, and even if you are not hungry, and despite your fears of gaining weight. The purpose behind this suggestion is that you GET YOUR MIND ON SOMETHING ELSE. You are the subject of your thoughts, so to speak.
7. Never read pornographic material. Never read about your problem. Keep it out of mind. Remember -- "First a thought, then an act." The thought pattern must be changed. You must not allow this problem to remain in your mind. When you accomplish that, you soon will be free of the act.
8. Pray. But when you pray, don't pray about this problem, for that will tend to keep [it] in your mind more than ever. Pray for faith, pray for understanding of the Scriptures, pray for the Missionaries, the General Authorities, your friends, your families, BUT KEEP THE PROBLEM OUT OF YOUR MIND BY NOT MENTIONING IT EVER -- NOT IN CONVERSATION WITH OTHERS, NOT IN YOUR PRAYERS. KEEP IT _OUT_ of your mind!

Separated at Birth

I miss Spy magazine for no other reason than that feature. It's now become something I do to amuse myself and friends via email. So I figured I'd carry it on here.

I'm feeling vaguely political and honestly, this does tie in to a post I'll be doing later today if all goes well with my other projects.

So for today I offer Chet Ubetcha from The Fairly Oddparents and Mitt Romney.

Poem for the evening

Trying to work out these new poems, looking at old poems to sequence for a chapbook, I'm caught up thinking about why I love poetry, what I want my poems to do, and ultimately what I think poetry is. At some point I might do a full-fledged post or series of posts about this but I think for now I might just post the occasional poem that has been crucial to me, necessary in my life and development as a poet. Tonight's poem is from Marie Howe's What the Living Do.

Buddy

Andy sees us to the door, and suddenly Buddy is all over him, leaping
and barking because Andy said: walk. Are you going to walk home?
he said.

To me. And Buddy thinks him and now, and he's wrong. He doesn't
understand the difference between sign and symbol like we do--the thing

and the word for the thing, how we can talk about something when
it's not
even there, without it actually happening--the way I talk about John.

Andy meant: soon. He meant me. As for Buddy, Andy meant: later.
When he
was good and ready, he said. Buddy doesn't understand. He's in a state

of agitation and grief, scratching at the door. If one of us said, Andy,
when Andy wasn't there, that silly Buddy would probably jump up
barking

and begin looking for him.

the Sublime

Sometimes I think people are appalled when they realize just how much television I watch. I know I'm supposed to be a poet: well-read, live in my own head, in-touch with my own emotional life. But really, a boy needs to charge up his batteries sometimes. And what charges my batteries? Trash.

Last week, I was supposed to be working diligently on pieces for an anthology, a chapbook, and maaaaybe (if I was lucky) some new poems. Work got done...but not as much as I'd hoped. How could I be productive when VH-1 was doing the America's Next Top Model marathon (and I got to see Tyra's shrieking meltdown for the very first time.) I was also reading poetry and letters and things like that while I was watching. Nothing makes me appreciate Linda Gregg and Jack Gilbert like hearing Ms. Jay Alexander and Twiggy nattering away in the background.

As much as I'm looking forward to the cringe-inducing possibilities for VH-1's newest crop of celeb-tv (I Love New York looks massively embarrassing), what really has me slathering is Court TV's newest offering, 'Til Death Do Us Part. It stars John Waters as "The Groom Reaper." According to the Court TV press release Waters will be "guiding viewers through the true stories of doomed marriages that end with one spouse murdering the other. Each episode dramatizes the events of a true crime, opening at the couple’s wedding, with the time-traveling Groom Reaper as an unexpected guest, foretelling the worst. Through tantalizing and dramatic scenes from the marriage, the Groom Reaper reveals the story of the ill-fated relationship, leaving viewers guessing as to who will be the victim and who will be the culprit." It premieres January 22. I. Can't. Wait. I hope that there's an Unsolved Mysteries quality to the re-enactments.

I hope this leads to shared air time with Nancy Grace. God that thought makes me quiver. Frankly I can't think of anyone more suited for something like this than Waters. His obsession with American crime goes back decades and if the writing and production values are good this could be a nice little piece of cult television. I think I need to go watch Female Trouble.

Quote for the Day

If you don't know the website Fundies Say the Darnedest Things, I strongly suggest you check it out. It can have you laughing like an ass one second, then afraid for our future the next. This little gem is from them. A snippet from a lad named Jeremy:

"...I've been struggling with one particular sin over the years, since my teenage years.
...Its a typical sin for young men and men in general. It got worse after I had my first ever girlfriend and relationship and after we broke up. In my heart I know its wrong, I ask for strength. Then when temptation hits, it hits so strong. It tugs and tugs and pulls and pulls."

Born Free

A dear friend just got back from a trip to South Africa. We exchanged a few pleasantries about our respective holidays and he instant messages THIS to me....

All I can do is quote Atia: "A large penis is always welcome."

Photo courtesy of Michael Waide.

Charm City Comedown

I just got back from Baltimore after a nine-day stay with the boyfriend. I have a curious affection for Baltimore, one that I still don't understand completely. Sure, I love John Waters, SpankRock, crabcakes and the occassional bit from Anne Tyler. Sure, I don't quite get the "Believe" ad campaign--it reminds me too too much of the Elton John single and video from the mid-90s, but THIS ad campaign, I get...I just don't think it works the way the designers wanted it to. As a disclaimer--this is NOT the same billboard I saw for the past nine days from Brian's apartment and balcony while smoking. That billboard is at the juncture of a couple of streets, about 5 or so blocks from Brian's building. At JUST the right height for his apartment. It was inescapable. I could see it from the kitchen, I could see it from the couch. I couldn't get a decent image of it with my crappy camera phone; this pic was the only image I found on the tubes. Obviously, you can read the big "Virgin" with no problem. Underneath it, in a nice serif font it says "Tell Your Kids It's Not A Dirty Word." Treacley as this message is, my big problem is the "Virgin" design element. Yea, I get it--it's "graffiti." How urban, how street. How like a bloodstain on a sheet. I mean really--did they think this particular shade of red was effective? There's also apparently a bus version. I was highly disappointed that I never got to see one of those while in town. Maybe next time.