Ring Bleeder

Some people rip holes in their pajama pants
when they're sleeping alone;
some rip holes in their faces.

I once knew a woman who riped
her eyebrow ring from her head,
and she didn't cry.

And she didn't holler,
and she didn't whimper,
and she didn't even cry.

Bad Day , Good Weekend

Yesterday was a complete failure.

I grew up with people who called me stupid every day, and when I am made to feel stupid it upsets me. It is my weakest point. I always think that other people are smarter than I am.

You know how in Buddhism you're supposed to always imagine that everyone is enlightened except you? I don't really believe in enlightenment the way I did when thought I was a Buddhist, but usually I think that most people around me are more intelligent than I am.

What makes it worse is that I don't feel stupid. I feel like I should be smarter than other people; I work harder and people I respect call me genius when I'm not looking. But I can't escape what I always think is the reality: I am a phony who has duped everyone into thinking I'm smarter than I am.

I don't see what other people see in me. When someone compliments me I don't believe them until they've repeated it ten times or something. When someone insults me or makes me think they know something I don't, I totally believe it.

It's not absolute, but it's a feeling of constant self-doubt that is rather unpleasant. Yesterday, I felt like a moron all day and that my father was right all those times he called me "Polack" or "idiot." Like I don't belong where I am, and I conned my way into Berkeley, and I conned my way into a 4.0, and I conned my way into a degree. Like I conned my way into a blog readership, and I conned my way into friendships. Like a fake. I felt like that all day. It was a really bad day.

)()())()()()()()()(
I am going to a couple readings tonight. One is somewhere far away, where I will see Jessica Cox. The other is close by, where I will see Chad Sweeney at Pegasus in Berkeley at 2349 Shattuck at 7:30. I hope to be filled with wine by then.
Have a nice weekend everybody.

Tao's New Book

Tao Lin and me when he read in Berkeley

Tao Lin's new book is phenomenal. My favorite poem in it is the Ugly Fish Poem.
I wanted to be critical and say something negative, but I cannot think of anything negative to say about Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, so I will say something negative about everyone who has a problem with Tao Lin.

A lot of people say a lot of things about Tao and his work. I just deleted a huge paragraph describing all the crap people say, but I figure if you want to know, you can run a search. The problem people have with Tao is really only that it appears that he might be having a good time. Much of his work has ostensibly to do with depression and loneliness, and some of it is "tongue-in-cheek" or "sarcastic" so that makes some people think it isn't "serious." Those people forget that, even though literature can often be depressing, it is only there to be enjoyed, sometimes because it is depressing.

Tao is not pretending. The people who act serious all the time are the people who are really pretending. Think about who we call pretentious. If Tao pretended to be serious all the time, he would be accepted more by the "industry" and the "main stream" but as it stands, he has a huge fan base of readers who are sick of disingenuous, stodgy writers. When you read Tao's work, you're having fun, and you get the feeling that maybe, maybe, maybe he's having fun, too. That's a hard connection to get in literature. And many pseudo-intellectuals, the ones who usually have the loudest voices, think that real intellectuals aren't allowed to have fun.

The other reason that idiots hate Tao Lin is that he is the closest thing we have nowadays to a literary prodigy. Prodigies are extremely rare in literature. We love them and we hate them. They make every writer feel lazy and slow. Most writers don't get to writing good stuff until they're older. The young ones are exciting and inspire pangs of jealousy. Basically, if you write a good novel or book of poetry before you're thirty and get it published and get people to read it and like it, you're a prodigy. Tao has two books of poetry, both of which are good, the second of which is genius; he has a good novel out; he has a fantastic book of short stories; he's 25. Doesn't that piss you off? Me too, a little. But to bash him for it is stupid.

Another pitfall of considering the author while reading.

You should never know anything about the author, or you should pretend like you know nothing about the author while reading his work. That is the only smart way to read. I try to forget that I like Tao Lin and count him as a friend when I read his work. When I read his work I am looking for things to hate and be critical about. With Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy, I can't find anything not to love.

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Sorry for Snake 4 will be coming out this weekend. It's going to be great.
We are going to offer subscriptions. And there is also a contest for free issues thanks to Idiolexicon.
More details on that this Friday.

Sorry IV Snake

Sorry for Snake 4 slinks forward.

The Costume and the Cherries

Kate Moss sports the poet's costume very convincingly.

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Last Friday night was a miracle reading.  It was one of the best I have ever been to.

I don't make it to SPT very often because I always thought it was a bitch to get to, but it wasn't really, and even if it were, a long hike would be worth the reading that happened at CCA last Friday night.

Everyone was absolutely wonderful.  I don't know how to write more enthusiastically.  People were looking at each other saying, I can't believe how fucking good this is.

These writers read in this order:

Stanford Chan

Lorelei Lee : Un-fucking-believable! Makes every other sex-writer look like naive, unpoetic prudes.

Cynthia Posillizo

Stephen Boyer

Ariel Goldberg

Paul Ebenkamp :  Happier now than ever that he moved to California.

I would go to any reading that involved any of these readers.

Epigrams prefaced two poems.  One of the epigrams was by Walt Whitman.  The other one was by Jack Morgan!  I was touched and giddy.  It really was the cherry atop the sunday for me.  I have been using that cliché a lot lately.  I like the way it sounds.  And there have been a lot of cherries lately.

Speaking of cherries,  here's one. There are photos of the Sunday reading here!

For those of you who don't know the story, I came back to the United States after about six years away from it.  I was 25 and knew that if I wanted to get a degree, a B.A., I would have to do it then.  I had an A.A. in computer graphics and advertising I wasn't really using anymore.  I had burned out on advertising and was teaching English in Germany.  My life was very different than it is today; living as an artist and traveller in the world is a lot different from a life as a scholar and a gentleman.

I came back to the US and earned a new A.A. in English Literature at Saddleback College.  I never really liked school, but I got a 4.0 and a bunch of awards, and I was published a few more times.  UC Berkeley wanted me.

Today I am graduating from UC Berkeley.  That means I have been in the United States for four years.  I've lost a great deal by going this route, but I've gained a great deal, too. I am constantly thinking that I might be going the wrong way.  Some of what it means to be a scholar has felt entirely unnatural to me, and I don't think I've done one thing like I was supposed to my whole life.  I certainly haven't done this education thing the way other people do.  People think it's good to be different, but it's also quite lonely.

I am lucky to have friends.  Normal people have friends, but I know that I put my friends through a lot more than normal people do.  I know that it must seem weird to be friends with someone like me.  It's hard being friends with poets and artists for normal people.

It's hard for a poet and an artist to be a scholar and a gentleman.  Someone asked me why poetry.

And I answered, why do I do any of the things I do?  What else am I supposed to be doing?

A Poem, Some News, the Everlasting Sadness and Anger of Small Animals in the Summertime when It's too Hot to Think.

Genius Laser Star

I have so much hair on my head now

I look like I am a star

on Battlestar Glactica

the one where the Cylons

look like Chevrolets

and everyone smiles a lot

and everyone kind of loves each other.

I want to buy bellbottoms and a laser pistol 

or a ray gun.

The only letter in my mailbox

is addressed to smart consumer.

Inside are dozens of coupons

with pictures of people smiling.

Meat lovers pizza.

Checks with animals on them.

Dog food & free heartworm test.

Laser surgery.

================

I finished a big translation project right now.  Brecht's Jakob Apfelböck, oder die Lilie auf dem Felde.  It's pretty awesome.  I think it is some of my best work.  I wish I could post it here, but it is rather image heavy.  I've been working on a new translation theory that I think might change some things in translation or at least get people talking about changing things or at least make some old school translators really angry or at least dismissive. 

Tonight my friend Paul Ebenkamp is reading at CCA in SF around 7:00.  It would be great to see you there, whoever you are.  Please do not bring machine guns.

If you feel like a little torture, you can watch the video of Lunch Poems.  I am at 59:00.