quote of the day

"The future is so bright I have to wear a strap-on dildo."

I'm all about him

I did not see the inauguration. I worked on campus and the network bogged down under lots of young girls trying to watch the speech. My friend Joni and I ate at a bar in Brookside, a nice neighborhood south of campus. Priest Holmes lives there, or did. My friend Zac saw him in 2007 at the Constantino's Price Chopper a month after his failed comeback. I saw some of the coverage at the bar. Obama waived his hand behind what looked like bullet proof glass--kind of like the same glass Pope John Paul II had in front of him at times. I guess you do that for the good people.

Google chat with Jason:

Jason: I watched it with David Bringhurst and a room full of strangers. It was elating and important to witness here. People were either seriously engaged or absorbed in their own worlds. Some of those passer-bys were obnoxious

4:03 PM me: yeah?

4:05 PM Jason: yeah. I mean, these white girls in tight fitting jeans and carrying sorority bags crept through the are to talk to the people at the desk (this was in University Hall's guidance offices common room) and they woudl just resort to their text messages once they were done.

4:06 PM It was weird hearing this white girl whisper "let's get out of here" to her male companion, with a room full of black students watching this historic and signifcant moment.

some people are embarrisingly selfish

4:07 PM me: I guess so

4:08 PM Jason: I know you don't care, man.

what've you been up to?

me: hey

sorry

Jason: it's fine. what've you been doing today

me: on campus all day

4:09 PM sorry I've been in my own hole

I sat in on a film class that grade for

we watched "Public Enemy"

and I had to do an APA workshop for a Nursing class

sorry

I'm glad Obama is in

I voted for the guy

4:10 PM I'm all for WPA projects and big gov't

its hard to get excited about politics

4:11 PM Jason: i know. I just thought people's responses were weird to this historic event.

4:12 PM *Surprise*: rich white kids don't give a shit about the first black president

4:13 PM me: yeah

Jason: it's bizarre what people focus or don't focus on. I wonder what the difference is, sometimes.

Jason and I talked a little bit about the scenario of Obama as President kind of reminding me of something out of a Vonnegut novel--especially the bulletproof glass part. I don't know.

How can anyone get so excited about anything. I don't know, I can't get that excited.

I started reading Ilya Kaminsky's Dancing in Odessa. He gets the line down sometimes and he has his moments, but he's not messy enough. And he plays the foreigner card a bit too much. That's what it feels like so far.

We'll see. I'm terrible.

Friends and Family

James Brubaker has a pamphlet, A New Map of America, now available from The Cupboard. He is not 61 years old but, in fact, much younger. My dad, on the other hand, is 61 years old.

I have had a series of dreams were I yell at family members. On Saturday I yelled at my sister for never moving out of the house and for not going to art school. We stood around in a delipadated car lot--the bulding was all glass and rotting. The lot was vacant.

Last night I yelled at my Aunt Elisa and my mother. They bought my Grandfather's house from him and wanted me to live their with my Aunt. I said, "I'm not 20 years old and scatterbrained anymore. I'm almost 28."

My Grandfather was not in the dream, but I could hear him in the laundry room.

Yeah.

Shit dawg

I'll be reading with Piper Abernathy and Katie Clark in Topeka on March 7th as part of the Top City Poetry Reading Series. Piper recently had poems published at Word Riot

One of my poems will be in Mitzvah's Chicken Boa: Notes on Skrilla you can find more info, including other poets who'll be featured, here. The poem is based on my friend Marc Keinath. He has a radio show Thursday nights 10pm-midnight (eastern) on WWSU FM 106.9 in Dayton, Ohio. He occaisonally live blogs during his show .

Nothing ever happens on Fridays

I found Sam Pink and his chapbook Yum Yum I Can"t Wait to Die in a book review at NOÖ Journal. Then I found his blog. I tried to get a free copy, he offered free copies as of October 11, but he had none left. He wrote back to me quick, though, and was quite nice. Then I found this. It's pretty great.

I've ate Pop-tarts, Combos, Salsitas (I think it's a regional thing), Taco Bell, and Jack's brand Mexican pizza. I walked for a long time with my roommate Robin up 39th near State Line and back down to Westport then took a nap when I should've went to hear William Trowbridge read.

Miriam: "Every Asian in this movie has a white woman"

I have written only a few drafts in the past month. I keep a notebook with daily entries--not like a diary, I write the date down (1/4 for instance) then work on a draft of something. On 12/22 I tried to write a poem about actor Powers Booth. My sister loves movies, particularly action movies from the 1980's, and I watched Rapid Fire with her. Booth plays Mace Ryan, this hard nosed Chicago cop who befriends Jake Lo, played by Brandon Lee's character, an art student who witnesses a mob hit. They have a love-hate/father-son relationship that parallels Lo's relationship with his father. Lo's father was a CIA operative who died during Tienanmen Square. Booth runs around the movie with a shotgun and yells "son of a bitch" a lot. He works out of a bowling alley too, which is irrelevant I guess.

Anyway I thought about Powers Booth and this line from Sudden Death, where he threatens Van Damme's daughter in the film. She's one of the people Booth and the terrorists hold hostage. "My daddy is a fireman and he's going to come and save us," she says, more or less. He says back to her, more or less, "I'm going to put spiders in your mouth little girl."

I told Miriam, my sister, that I liked that line a lot and wished Mace Ryan would same something similar in Rapid Fire. He does not, just says "son of a bitch." The villains Jake Lo and him take on are Heroine dealers from Hong Kong. All the villains have blonds with big bright hair as opposed to Asian girls--no Joan Chens or anything.

Anyway, I don't know what the hell I'm doing.

Nexus submissions

Nexus, the literary magazine I was assistant editor for in my undergrad at Wright State University, has been resurrected as an online publication. They are looking for submissions. They pay too.

Also Bama just scored to get back into the Sugar Bowl--it's now 21-17, Utah still leading.

Trial Run

I'm originally from Dayton, Ohio, and I've lived in Kansas City since July of 2007. I came out here to start the graduate Creative Writing Program at the University of Missouri-Kansas City at the same time my buddy Brandon Elston, sometimes he goes by the pen name Bernie Kosar, left for The Center for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction Vermont.

I have seen my friend twice since moving here--both times around Christmas. We hang out either in his parent's basement or at Clancy's, a bar that looks a bit like a VFW hall. If we're in the basement we sometimes drink 40s (they're illegal in Missouri and Vermont) and talk about artistic processes. I talk about trying to write and he talks about trying to draw and write. Last time I saw him, this past Christmas Eve, he talked about the increased pressure for self-promotion. As of this time he has no electronic presence. Neither does Bernie Kosar. I've thought about this too--I met a couple of people in KU's MFA program who are doing exciting things (poetry readings, chapbook publishing, etc), and have blogs. Hence, this post is to give a reason for why I've started this. I'll see if I can keep it up.

Also this post is to tell people I know that the winter issue of the Portland Review is out with two of my poems. Both seem rough now that I've read them. I want to edit them again. There's good stuff in there too, from other people, and the issue looks great despite typos. You can order it through Powell's Books if you don't live in Portland, Oregon.

When Brandon and I go to Clancy's we don't talk about anything other than the NBA.