Beatnik Blog

Long Time Coming

2011-07-12T13:29:00.003-05:00

x-posted from the Indiana Historical Society blog:

Wednesday, July 06, 2011
IHS Press Releases Poetry Collection

Edited by Jenny Kander and C. E. Greer, And Know This Place: Poetry of Indiana, features the work of 116 poets who live or who have lived in the state long enough to acquire a sense of the place. Recently released by the IHS Press, the book is the first collection of Indiana poetry to appear for more than a hundred years, with the last major anthology, Poets and Poetry of Indiana, published in 1900.

The list of poets in this volume include such notable figures from the past as James Whitcomb Riley, William Vaughn Moody, Jessayman West, and Marguerite Young, as well as such modern masters as Etheridge Knight, Mary Ellen Solt, Jared Carter, and Norbert Krapf. In addition, the book has a foreword, “An Extraordinary Legacy,” written by Roger Mitchell, former director of the creative writing program at Indiana University, where he held the Ruth Lilly Poetry Chair.

As Kander and Greer note in the book’s preface: “Our central criterion for selection was quality of the writing, and we chose those poems which cover the spectrum of experience in both place and time, in settings from city streets to wilderness tracks, covering the state from Goshen in the north to Floyd’s Knobs by the Ohio River, and from Gessie on the Illinois line to Cottage Grove a hundred and fifty miles east.”

Kander's poetry has appeared in Flying Island, California Quarterly, Bathtub Gin, Wind, Southern Indiana Review, and Shiver. Her chapbook Taboo was published by Finishing Line Press in 2004. She has compiled and edited two volumes of poetry, The Linen Weave of Bloomington Poets and Celebrating Seventy, both published under Wind’s logo.

Greer’s poems have appeared in Streets Magazine, Flying Island, Wind, and other publications. He has been active with the Bloomington Free Verse Poets, and he coedited, with Kander, Say This of Horses: A Selection of Poems published by the University of Iowa Press in 2007.

And Know This Place costs $24.94 and is available from the IHS's History Market.

Also available at your favorite online bookseller.

[I wanted to note that this project has taken forever to get into print. I first submitted poems back in I think 2003 and the project has been batted about by at least a couple of publishers, delayed, shelved, put on a front burner, delayed again, put on a back burner, and now finally here we are.]

Everywhere I am it would seem I am everywhere

2011-06-03T09:27:00.011-05:00

Got 3 poems published in the latest online issue of Ramshackle Review.

Have work forthcoming (in print) in Plain Spoke. That ought to be showing up sometime in June.

All 4 of these works are in my chapbook ms. (currently seeking publication) Hot Type Cold Read.

Tonight (Fri June 3) I'm reading with Joseph Kerschbaum, Anne Haines, Jenny Kander, and Shana Ritter at a Gallery Walk event in Bloomington. Sponsored by the Writers Guild and By Hand Gallery. Stop by if you are in the 'hood. We will be ensconced at the Fountain Square Mall atrium from 6:00-7:30 pm.

And Sunday (June 5) I am performing live sound effects for a live variety show on WFHB Community Radio. It's at the IVY Tech John Waldron Arts Center in Bloomington at 3p. The show is FREE, so come be in the live audience. Or tune in to 98.1 or 91.3 (in B-ton) or listen live streaming from the website.

Speaking of live streaming, a recent Bleeding Heartland Rollergirls double header I co-announced was webcast live that night (May 28) and is now archived at Derby News Network. Check it here. (Part 3, about 48:00 in, is where a rollergirl took a pie in the face for a fundraiser -- and then she gave me a kiss and rubbed it on me. The pie, that is.)

Finally, once again I am heading to West Plains MO later this month to teach, perform, and direct live sound effects at the National Audio Theatre Festivals.

In July, I'm gonna sleep and go to the lake a bunch. And write/edit new stuff. (April was a fruitful poem-a-day month this year.) And probably shoot (with the Roller Mortis Films guys) a short script I adapted from a story I wrote in high school. And Fact Check an Encyclopedia show. But mostly try to be idle.

August I'm doing another WFHB show but I'm basically idle. If HTCR hasn't found a home by then, I'm putting that on the front burner.

September is ... a surprise. But details soon.

In other news, I met with Bloomington Restorations Inc. and ... got on their waiting list and ... probably make (or will make or will by then have made) too much money to qualify. But at least the Sisyphean ball of homeownership has been nudged, so mission accomplished.

The Bloomington Storytelling Project

2011-03-18T12:02:00.003-05:00

Did I ever tell you the one about Five-Dollar Frank?

Hear it tomorrow on The Porch Swing on WFHB broadcast @ 5:30p on FM 91.3 or 98.1 (bloomington) - 100.7 (nashville) -106.3 (ellettsville),
or podcast here.

Produced by The Bloomington Storytelling Project.

Where'd I go?

2011-03-14T10:57:00.006-05:00

Wow, almost a year since my last post? Really?!

Well yeah. At one point I was sure I was going to abandon this blog for ... something else. Not FB (plenty active there). Not livejournal (who?) or myspace (what?). LIke, maybe my own, semi-pro website. Real horror show, eh?

Of course, life intervened. And I'm lazy. Really! Especially when it comes to thinking in terms of innovating with my content. I am so blessedly old school about writing and posting stuff online. It simply has no attention whore appeal to me. So I am forever a dabbler at it.

But ... I have followers now? Really?! Wow, there's like 4 new ones. Drop me a line!

OK, so I'm not even gonna try to recap the past ... 10 months. Suffice it to say, poetry gigs: check (solo and with the Reservoir Dogwoods). Sound effects gigs: check (here and out of state). Roller derby announcing: check. All that stuff continues apace. Actually not much has changed about any of it. I'm not planning on calling as many away derby games as in past seasons, but the girls only have 3 this season and I can only make maybe 1 (in New Orleans!) plus 2 tourneys, and I can only make 1 of those as well. I have a new chapbook manuscript I'm shopping around, hoping to find a publisher for spring 2012 so I can do a little tour on it. (I'd love to make my way to the city in which the publisher is located, like I did with Plan B Press for the Little Glove chap, so hopefully it gets picked up by someplace exotic. Like Texas.)

I have continued writing scripts for Roller Mortis Films, makers of 8 Wheels of Death, the premiere of which last Halloween was fantastic. We're focusing on short subjects and commercials and whatnot, mostly comedy, and sticking with our core themes: rollergirls, zombies, and a fake pharmaceutical company. But I'm also developing a story my director offered into a script, based very loosely on Henry Darger. An actual Independent Film (which I consider a genre Big Hollywood has been cashing in on since before the rise of Wes Anderson). More on that as it comes together. It's a knock-out idea, I think. Hopefully we can do it justice.

Beyond that, little in life has changed and I continue to enjoy the ride. Visited San Diego in Feb for the first time. Have been advised by professionals that visiting a beach in Feb does wonderful things for my generally low-key self, so I'm making tentative plans to visit a friend next Feb in Hawaii (she's moving there this summer).

Probably not buying a house any time soon. Lingering financial entanglements with my ex had to be dealt with (i.e., I had to pay off some of the neglected debt we shared on paper even though, also on paper, it was her responsibility to manage that joint debt). But really, that's okay. Major investments right now do not in any way inspire confidence. I'm pretty damn happy doing what I'm doing and living how I'm living, so I'm going to go with that and as things change (I'm sure they will, for good or ill...), readjust.

I think it's a good time to be living slowly right now, and within my means. So much change and turmoil, everywhere. It's a little overwhelming sometimes. I've no doubt some will slop onto me at some point. I'm not, for example, looking forward to $5-$8 / gal gas this summer or higher food prices, and I'll be watching the enviro/economic fallout from the Japanese quake/tsunami closely. And Libya, of course. And Wisconsin, and of course, right here in Indiana. And and and. Whew.

Stay safe, gentle readers. Be kind where you can. It gets better.

Here's Bill, keeping it real.

Poem featured on Indiana Humanties Council blog

2010-05-03T12:07:00.002-05:00

The Indiana Humanities Council posted poems on its blog Think.Read.Talk. by Hoosier poets in celebration of National Poetry Month. I'm there too: I made it just under the wire.

Little Glove available online

2010-04-16T10:59:00.003-05:00

Little Glove in a Big Hand, my new chapbook, is now available for ordering online from Plan B Press. Link to their store here. (e-Payment accepted via PayPal and AmazonPayments.)

Big Change in Plans

2010-03-31T11:41:00.001-05:00

And just like that, the Tacoma gig ain't happening. At least not in April/May. Maybe October now.

What is this blogging thing of which you speak?

2010-03-25T10:50:00.006-05:00

Wow, has it really been 4 months since an update? Yeah, I guess it has.

When December 2009 rolled around I made good on my promise to SLEEP as much as possible. This also meant DOING as little as possible. Extreme hibernation. I grew a beard. Very little writing or editing, or anything else. I watched snow fall and I watched a ton of movies. That takes us to just about the end of January. . . .

Somewhere in there I was dealing with some depression. A lot of it stemmed from, of all things, finishing the chapbook project. Like Inigo Montoya after he killed the 6-fingered man in The Princess Bride, I no longer felt the . . . I don't know, not revenge exactly. I guess a desire or a need to work out through poetry some of my deep-seated family issues. Not that I don't still have some issues (some new ones too, actually). And Little Glove in a Big Hand is not really, in sum, all that confessional of a work anyway. But I definitely pushed through something. A darkness my inner 5-yr-old was never able to fully embrace until my exterior 38-yr-old learned how to "make something of it" creatively. Can strengthening one's ability to handle emotional land mines actually make one depressed? Was I just, in the words of Mr. Cobain, missing "the comfort of being sad"? I dunno. It was also a long cold winter, and like I said, I was EXTREMELY inactive for much of it. And I watched The Wrestler, like, 4 times. Yikes.

So now spring is here and I feel light as a feather again. I shaved the beard. I think it looked OK, but it made my face feel heavy. It felt like a mask. And with it, I'm told, I shaved off 10 years. I'll probably grow it back in the winter, though. I like transformation. I liked when snow got caught in it.

Since my birthday, 2010 so far has been one gearing-up scene after another, and in the back of my mind (but not too far back) has been prepping for The Big Gear-Up for March into April into May.

March 26: Speaking to a poetry class at my old high school(!) 20 years post-graduation.

March 27: Calling a double-header in Fort Wayne.

April 1-4: Mini-tour (dubbed Bottomless Cheetah Blood Tourette) of 3 out-of-state gigs to promote my new chapbook. (More dates to come, too.)

April 11: Reservoir Dogwoods performance at the Writers Center of Indiana.

April 12: RD performance at Bartholomew Co. Public Library.

April 16 - May 16: Performing SFX for Agatha Christie radio plays in Tacoma WA. I'm also staying with friends in Seattle for the first week of rehearsals and they are going to take me all over, maybe even into Canada(!)

May 22: First BHRG home bout of the season.

May 28: Reservoir Dogwoods performance at the Stillframes Gallery in Columbus IN.

Also, I taught my graphic design class, once again; went luging in Muskegon MI with a bunch of friends; did a couple of other readings; and picked up a new freelance client, which ought to be a steady, low-impact, long-term gig.

Other stuff?
Joanna Newsom on 3/31 at the Buzz Chum!!

Henry Rollins on 4/5 at the Buzz Chum!!

I got a kitty! I took possession of the cat of a friend who used to live in the house I'm living in now, when I lived with Mari. The cat's name is Pixel and he's 5 and he's huge and fluffy, and cranky because I don't feed him wet food every day. I really like having a cat again. The house likes having a cat again. I think he sits on my trunk and watches me in my sleep, rather than sleep with/on me, which is a little weird. But hey, cat.

Dating and high adventure FTW. Nothing too serious, but pushing into stability and reassurance, which is awesome. Honestly, I'm married to my work right now (which is I think pretty obvious) and I like it that way (also obvious). And I'm clear about that, so we're all on the same page. I don't like not meeting expectations.

I am currently 100% debt free. I've met with a financial advisor to push some funds around ... although in "these harsh economic times" I don't have a ton to put toward savings or retirement or investments or whatever. Still, I had this 401K I'd nearly forgotten about from a previous employer, and it was just sitting there bleeding out from "management" fees. So that is now making some $$ for me. I'm saving for down payment on a house -- I know, how . . . quaint. How old-fashioned. Who makes a down payment on anything anymore? Well I don't want to make the same mistake I made last time I owned, which was buying first and figuring out how to pay for it later. Yep: I was part of the high-risk mortgage fiasco, although I wasn't as bad a risk as other people. Still, live and learn, right?

My high school class is threatening to hold a reunion this year. I've never been to a reunion. No. Last year was our 20th, but no one got it together in time, so we're doing a 21st. *sigh* That pretty much sums up my class.

Speaking of high school, my best friend until freshman year (when he moved away) lives on the Gulf coast of Florida now, and I am thinking it might be cool/possible to hit all three US coasts this year: east in April, west in May, south in July. He's a professional beach comber, I think, and boats and fishes all the time. Sounds to me like a damn fine way to spend a bit of summer.

Winding Down & Gearing Up

2009-11-13T10:23:00.006-05:00

JULY
* Wrote 8 Wheels of Death script (actually around the end of June, I think)
* Called a couple of derby bouts, home and away
* MC'd a roller derby fashion show
* Trip to Holiday World

AUGUST
* Canoe trip
* Performed live sound effects at the International Mystery Writers' Festival in Owensboro, KY
* Called an away derby bout
* Assisted shooting 8WoD in earnest
* Confirmed that my chapbook Little Glove in a Big Hand will be published in 2010 (possibly January) by Plan B Press

SEPTEMBER
* Preformed SFX, read poetry, and did some voice work (whew!) for a live variety show broadcast on WFHB
* Called another bout
* Lotus Festival (saw Väsen, among other great world music acts, for the first time and they were so very good)
* Heavy shooting schedule for 8WoD

OCTOBER
* Called last home bout of the season
* Visited friends and hiked and climbed a li'l mountain in Maine
* Mom & Dad celebrated their 50th anniversary, and I got them a trip to Ruby Falls, TN, where they spent their honeymoon in 1959
* Taught my graphic design class
* Skipped the zombie march due to rain/police action but had a great Halloween at Kel's

NOVEMBER
* Called the first Naptown vs. BHRG bout, last of our season
* Gave a reading at the Writers' Center of Indiana in Indy, debuting some poems from the new chap
* Will perform SFX for another WFHB live variety show
* Learned that Joe also has a chapbook coming out in 2010 ... also from Plan B Press ... so joint spring tour now in the works ...

DECEMBER
* Will record poems for Jenny Kander's last show on WFIU
* Hope to talk to financial adviser about ... my finances. I'll be 99% debt free (other than a couple of post-divorce entanglements) by December. What then? House? Hardcore retirement savings? Investments? All of the above?
* SLEEP and/or DO AS LITTLE AS POSSIBLE!! (I think I am chronically under-rested)

2010: IN THE WORKS
* Reading at a benefit for a domestic violence shelter, in Indy, day after my 39th b-day
* Do another collaborative art/poetry project with Lucia, for a Kinsey contest
* Chapbook tour with Joe out to Vienna, Virginia, where our publisher is located
* Perform SFX for the Agatha Christie plays from IMWF, in April/May ... in Tacoma, WA! (I've been invited out by he producer; it's not 100% confirmed but should be before T-giving)
* Creating my own webpage and likely abandoning this blog (or incorporating it into something a bit more all-encompassing as far as work and personal stuff)

When Worlds Collide

2009-10-09T16:00:00.005-05:00

So along with live color commentary for the past 3 seasons, I also have done a fair amount of writing, editing, and proofreading for the local roller derby league (like I do). Mostly meeting minutes, lists of sponsors, program text, tag lines, press releases and bout recaps, etc. No heavy lifting here but usually snappy and time-sensitive material.

Then Truly F Obvious and Roxy Shox asked me to help write and edit a series of articles for USA Roller Sports Magazine on how to start a derby league. The first two installments came out last winter and spring. The latest issue, containing the final installment of the series, just came out ... and they put us on the cover.

I haven't done a lot of publishing done these days, so this both is kind of cool and it cracks me up. This will likely garner the widest readership I've ever experienced ... yet there I am on the COVER of a skating magazine ... and I don't even skate.

Really, this is quite awesome.

EDIT: I also happened to pick up the most recent issue of INto ART, a local arts magazine out of Brown County, and was surprised to find a nice mention of me in an article about my fellow Dogwood Matthew Jackson. There is even a pic from the reading the 4 of us did in Columbus in Sept. Also cool!

International Mystery Writers Festival 2009

2009-08-24T11:16:00.005-05:00

Words fail me.

The festival this year -- which almost didn't happen -- exceeded my expectations in terms of fun, performance, professionalism ... and prospects for future projects with this company of actors, producers, and directors. I don't want to say much more than that; I don't want to jinx the possibilities, because they are SO GOOD and everyone is so positive and optimistic about taking the show "on the road," as it were.

Besides, all that Big Time talk aside, I continue to have some of the best performance experiences of my life working this festival. If all that comes of the talk is an opportunity to do it again next year, in Owensboro, I would still be thrilled to pieces.

So I'm just going to post some links about the show this year.
Thanks to David Ossman and Judith Walcutt for taking a chance on me last year. LOVE you guys, and love the challenge of making these shows excellent!

Here is one review by Fred Greenhalgh over at Radio Drama Revival.

Here is another from the Evansville Courier & Press.

Some images by Bryan Leazenby of 2 dress rehearsals and the awards dinner.

WNIN 83.3 Evansville aired the Sat night (8/15) performance and streamed it online. They are now offering audio some of last year's shows.

Collaboration finally comes to fruition.

2009-08-24T11:04:00.004-05:00

A collaborative project of mine will be featured at an online gallery in September.

The piece is an accordion-fold art book called last speakers of a dead language shut up, words: Tony Brewer, images: Lucia Bennett for S T U D I O 724.

It is a single poem, and each stanza has its own panel, cut from high-grade airplane aluminum by Lucia at Titan Waterjet. She then ... worked her magic. I love her layered approach to adding depth. It's a dark, somewhat violent poem (kind of out of character for me), and Lucia really did it justice. The lettering on the aluminum shines through the murk. I think it's beautiful and haunting.

It's taken about a year from our first meeting to seeing the final piece set up in her studio. It has been so worth it.

Coming to you LIVE from Owensboro, KY!

2009-08-10T17:38:00.001-05:00

I am here in Kentucky, working on live radio theatre for the International Mystery Writers' Festival. We are doing all four of Agatha Christie's radio plays, originally written for the BBC (“the BEEB”) between about 1937 and 1953. I am the house sound effects artist for all the plays. We're staging them as if we, the company, are a troupe of BBC radio actors working in London.

If there's any chance you -- or someone you know -- could come down and see us in person, PLEASE COME. This is really a hybrid performance: equal parts murder mystery theatre, radio theatre, and audio art. (The auditorium sound is very well-tuned this year, by Steve Wiese.) The audience is real close to the BIG stage, so it will be a very "live" room.

If you can't come, you can still hear us LIVE on the Web on the final night of the run, Saturday, August 15.

NOTE: If you're coming in person, check into getting tickets soon. The Jody Berry Cabaret Theatre holds about 200.

August 12 - 13 - 14 - 15 are the dates -- that's this coming Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. The place is:

www.riverparkcenter.org

More info about the Mystery Festival is at:

www.newmysteries.org

The four half-hour radio plays are introduced by Agatha Christie herself (as played by Melinda Peterson) and grouped into two one-hour Acts.

Act One:
Butter In a Lordly Dish
Three Blind Mice

Act Two:
Personal Call
The Yellow Iris (a Hercule Poirot mystery)

Here's the schedule:

Wednesday August 12 - Act One opens, 7 p.m. CDT

Thursday August 13 - Act Two opens, 7 p.m. CDT

Friday August 14 - Act Two -- 2 p.m. CDT, and Act One -- 5 p.m. CDT

Saturday August 15 - Act One -- 11 a.m. CDT, Act Two -- 2 p.m. CDT --

....and then, Saturday Evening, at 7 p.m. CDT both acts will be played and broadcast live over WNIN, the Public Radio Station in Evansville, Indiana. You can stream the program at:

www.wnin.org

I worked the Mystery Festival last year as well, and you can hear some of those shows at:

www.wnin.org/radio/summer-

mystery-series.html

(I know a lot of you derby people will be otherwise occupied on 8/15, so if you are interested in hearing what this stuff is all about, check the link.)

Zev Buffman and Judith Walcutt are producing the show,and David Ossman of Firesign Theatre fame (www.firesigntheatre.com) is directing. The cast includes Firesign's Phil Proctor (www.planetproctor.com ), TV's Gary Sandy (www.garysandy.com), Melinda Peterson (www.imdb.com/name/nm0677311), Amy Walker (web.mac.com/amiablewalker/iWeb/Site/Welcome.html), and Orson Ossman, along with a great group of performers from around the country. Again, I am performing live sound effects, assisted by Preston Ossman.

Today, we are finishing up Day 3 on site. All the elements are finally in place: My toys are out and on stage, the pre-recorded FX are being fine-tuned, and the actors are working out blocking and timing. Tonight I think is going to be our first “at speed” run-through of Act One. It’s all going well. Quite, quite!

Hope some of you can make it for the show (or tune in)!

---T

(x-posted to Facebook)

Well fudge.

2009-07-29T14:04:00.002-05:00

The Tom Lopp project did not get funded.

The exact phrasing goes: "Unfortunately, your application final score was not high enough to receive a grant based upon the amount of available funds."

I don't feel too bad about this. I am overwhelmed by projects right now, and making forays into romance, and while I feel like I'm ready for the "next step" on the road to making this book a reality, I would honestly feel rushed, trying to "fit it in" right now among other commitments.

Or maybe that's just me rationalizing this rejection.

Also, as I posted earlier, state arts funding was cut (by 25%). The IAC received 209 applications and could only fund 33 of those (whoa). So I'm not too surprised that I did not get a slice of the pie.

As far as the project goes, I'm still reading and researching and fact-finding and waiting and thinking and eventually, writing. I also reconnected with an Inupiat/Eskimo I have worked with in audio theatre, and he pointed me toward some resources and websites I had not discovered. So I'm not done yet, not by a damn sight. I'm continuing, unfunded, like before.

I also had been reconsidering the travel destination for which I originally requested funding: University of Oregon, where Tom Lopp's papers and journals are collected. It made (and makes) sense to want to go there and hold his writings in my own hands. But several people have suggested (and before I discovered the Lopp Collection, I originally had planned) that I actually go to Point Barrow, maybe even retrace some of the route of the Overland Expedition of 1897. When I reapply for next year (hell yeah I am), I might write that in instead. I think by then I'll probably have a much better idea of the "on paper" Tom, the white man's perspective of the journey. Maybe what I need to fund is an exploration of the Inupiat/Eskimo perspective, which is what I am most in need of researching anyway.

And maybe in the grand scheme of things (I'm such a grand-schemer), this is the universe's way of redirecting me, away from libraries and "serious research" and whatnot, and toward the stark environment where the story I hope to inhabit actually played out.

And let's face it: I work too much. No thaving to deal with this project too does give the rest of my 2009 some breathing room. Room I surely shall fill up, right quick, with something else, no doubt. But rather than another project, I think now I can refocus a little:

* Actually make a move and talk to some financial people about buying a house in my 'hood.
* A couple of dear friends in Maine have invited me to come visit this year. I had been figuring on postponing -- just not enough hours in a day (or vacation time in my bank). But now it seems quite doable. In October. This would include a visit to mountains, I'm pretty sure, which is also on my Big Ol' To-Do List for aught-nine.
* Ease up a touch on the research and work on new material for the fall Dogwoods tour.

So yeah, no funding. No joy there. But it's just funding, not the project itself, that took a hit here. At least that;s how I see it. Everyone I have talked to, including my Inupiat/Eskimo colleague, has reacted favorably to my description of it, as hair-brained as it seems (to me, sometimes). So on I go.

Funding Woes

2009-07-06T14:10:00.002-05:00

"Dear Grant Applicant,

Due to the recently announced Indiana Arts Commission state appropriation, which is 25% less than last year, the Commission must convene to ratify a new budget for FY2010. We are trying to schedule an emergency Commission meeting for the week of July 20, 2009. Once the new budget is established, we will proceed with FY2010 grant announcements.

You will receive an email regarding grant decisions as soon as more information is available. We appreciate your patience until this time.

Best,

**********
****************
Indiana Arts Commission"

2009-06-08T15:15:00.001-05:00

"Until you’ve lost your reputation, you never realize what a burden it was or what freedom really is."

(Margaret Mitchell ... the Gone with the Wind lady)

The year, she is half over

2009-06-07T10:22:00.007-05:00

Let's review, shall we?

JANUARY
* Finished Little Glove in a Big Hand on New Years Eve 2008 and sent it to 3 contest that night. I've sent it to about 10 other contests since then, and plan to get another round of submissions in the mail by end of June. Some place will bite, although I already have an offer from Plan B Press to pub the ms. if it does not get picked up elsewhere.

FEBRUARY
* Submitted IAC Grant application for my Tom Lopp Project. I should find out in the next week or so if I got funded.
* Featured poet on The Poets Weave hosted by Jenny Kander on WFIU.
* Went on a cruise with Kel, V-ron, and Scott from Miami to Nassau and the Great Stirrup Cay.

MARCH
* Taught my IU class.
* First date of Reservoir Dogwoods tour.
* Co-produced TV spots for roller derby.
* Called a game in Grand Rapids.

APRIL
* Dogwoods tour in full effect.
* Featured poet on Outsider Writers Collective.
* Received CPR/First Aid certification from the Red Cross.
* Planted a garden with my roommate and his GF.
* Called a game in Louisville.

MAY
* Called a double-header for ROSI.
* Finished Dogwoods spring tour. (We're working on a small-college tour this fall.)
* Hosted the Lightning Bug Romantics at the last MATRIX slam of the season. Great show.
* Called first home bout (double-header) of the season.

JUNE (ongoing)
* Won the Columbus (Ind.) poetry slam.
* Calling a double-header in Evansville: BHRG vs. ROSI.
* Returning to NATF to direct sound effects.
* Somewhere in there, I'm writing a roller derby/zombie horror movie.

What's left to do this year?
* A bunch of derby.
* Research for Tom Lopp Project.
* International Mystery Writers Festival in Owensboro in August (performing live sound effects for 4 Agatha Christie radio plays).
* Poetry Retreat/Workshop at Hill House
* Hopefully travel for TLP (if funding comes through, see above).
* Fall Reservoir Dogwoods tour
* I want to have several new pieces ready for the fall tour. I'd love to have an entirely new set, including a new group piece.
* I want to start talking to financial people about buying a house.
* I want to compile a new chapbook manuscript (not for TLP) or have a bunch of poems ready to send out for publication.

I also would like to visit some mountains and do some serious hiking and/or canoeing or rafting. I might have time for this in Oregon when I'm not holed up in the library.
There is definitely a trip to Holiday World in my future -- tentatively in July.
I want to do some camping or spend more time in the woods this summer/fall.

Whew! OK, I think that's enough.

Some Stuff; then, later, Some Things; and then Some More Stuff

2009-04-28T09:27:00.002-05:00

Spring is here! Last night was just about a perfect night. And it's raining today and it's going to be in the 50s tonight. Dogwoods are finally blooming. I love Bloomington, like this especially, when the Showers Building over the course of just a couple of weeks hosts Tea Bag Parties, the farmers' market, Luna Fest, and now (well, when the sun is out) the front lawn is one of he hawtest co-ed sunbathing spots in town. I love my provincial little liberal oasis.

____________________________________________

Are we still trying to figure out whether or not torture is a good idea? Or "enhanced interrogation tactics" or whatever? Really?? How old are we? What year is this? Does ANYbody, other than Dick Cheny, think torture is a good idea? Christ.

____________________________________________

Swine flu. Again, I say, really? Hmm. Well after taking a few deep (and likely diseased) breaths, I went to the CDC website and read that

Every year in the United States, on average:
* 5% to 20% of the population gets the [regular, plain-ol' seasonal] flu;
* more than 200,000 people are hospitalized from flu-related complications; and
* about 36,000 people die from flu-related causes.

So forgive me if I don't rush right out and but some medical masks and duct tape. I understand this is a hybrid strain and that it's spreading with unexpected rapidity. But think about it: people fly all over the world all the time. The flu being spread this way simply does not alarm me. And I appreciate the CDC ramping up the emergency status of their reaction.

But I'm gonna stick with being calm and washing my hands, for the time being. Do let me know when I need to climb inside a hermetically sealed bubble, though.

____________________________________________

My chapbook manuscript Little Glove in a Big Hand did not win the Plan B Press chapbook contest, BUT they loved it and have asked me to keep in touch with them this summer. Call it "Editor's Choice"? If I don't win a contest/find a publisher by August, they want to talk with me about bringing it out in the fall.

That feels really good. This project is very close to me, personally. Steven M.'s positive feedback was very heartening. He "got" it, and that has been one of my fears about the book: that it's too personal. Glad to be proven wrong.

I'm still waiting to hear back from about 10 other contests, and I intend to enter a few more before the end of May. But the note from Plan B was really invigorating, and, while I haven't signed on any dotted lines yet, it feels very good to "have a publisher" for my little chap.

____________________________________________

Some conclusions on editing, by Gardner Botsford, editor at The New Yorker magazine for almost 40 years:

Rule of thumb No. 1. To be any good at all, a piece of writing requires the investment of a specific amount of time, either by the writer or by the editor. [Joseph] Wechsberg was fast; hence, his editors had to be up all night. Joseph Mitchell took forever to write a piece, but when he turned [it] in, the editing could be done during one cup of coffee.

Rule of thumb No. 2. The less competent the writer, the louder his protests over the editing. The best editing, he feels, is no editing. He does not stop to reflect that such a program would be welcomed by the editor, too, allowing him to lead a richer, fuller life and see more of his children. But he would not be long on the payroll, and neither would the writer. Good writers lean on editors; they would not think of publishing something that no editor had read. Bad writers talk about the inviolable rhythm of their prose.

Rule of thumb No. 3. You can identify a bad writer before you have seen a word of his copy if he uses the expression "we writers."

Rule of thumb No. 4. In editing, the first reading of a manuscript is the all-important one. On the second reading, the swampy passages that you noticed in the first reading will seem firmer and less draggy, and on the fourth or fifth reading, they will seem exactly right. That's because you are now attuned to the writer, not to the reader. But the reader, who will read the thing only once, will find it just as swampy and boring as you did the first time around. In short, if something strikes you as wrong on first reading, it is wrong, and a fix is needed, not a second reading.

Rule of thumb No. 5. One must never forget that writing and editing are entirely different arts, or crafts. Good editing has saved bad writing more often than bad editing has harmed good writing. This is because a bad editor will not keep his job for long, but a bad writer can, and will, go on forever. Good editing can turn a gumbo of a piece into a tolerable example of good reporting, not of good writing. Good writing exists beyond the ministrations of any editor. That's why a good editor is a mechanic, or craftsman, while a good writer is an artist.

My Thoughts on the Tax Day Tea Parties

2009-04-17T14:19:00.001-05:00

Outsider Writers Collective

2009-04-09T15:36:00.002-05:00

I am currently the featured poet at Outsider Writers Collective, a group loosely based in southern Indiana. Check it!

Thanks to Crystal Folz for hooking me up with OWC. I met Crystal at the Reservoir Dogwoods reading in Evansville in March. She is a fine poet in her own right, and very enthusiastic about promoting other people's work (me too!). I also like her small press, DIY aesthetic. Plus she is extremely prolific.

She also manages Shoots and Vines and has a personal site.

(And I later learned she skates with the Rollergirls of Southern Indiana. Small world, eh?)

Up! Date!

2009-04-09T09:12:00.003-05:00

The tour is going swimmingly. We're just about halfway through and really locking in with each other. I am blessed to be a part of this. The other guys are really amazing.

I'm ridiculously busy at work and I'm trying to acquire as many projects as possible. I consider it job security. University presses and books in general have been "dying" since I got into this racket (circa 1996). And IU swears they are able to weather the current economic "downturn" (like a limp dick, right?). So I'm not too worried. Still, scary times. Fortunately, I am still diversifying my income streams.

To wit: still editing for an educational journal (8 years and going strong).

I just finished a freelance editing project for a local Internet marketing firm.

My teaching gigs are still going well (though one was canceled due to zero enrollment -- but that doesn't worry me too much, since I've taught a total of 3 people in that class the 2 times it has been offered. No word on whether they'll run it in the fall.)

I just learned that I WILL be doing live sound effects in Kentucky again this year. w00t! Initially the producers lost their funding, but they have stripped the show way down (2 plays, 4 performances total instead of 10 plays, 34 shows) and I'll only be down there a week and a half. Much more manageable all the way around. That is in August.

I find out in June if my Tom Lopp haibun hybrid project is funded. If so, I'll be in Eugene and Seattle for a week or so (2 if I can swing it), probably in September.

I called a derby bout in Grand Rapids. Got another one coming up on 4/25. Home season begins May 30.

I'm really glad I started off the year with a cruise. I'm not likely to get a vacation until Aug now, for which need to stockpile vacation time anyway.

Thaz wut ah sez

2009-04-07T09:07:00.005-05:00

In Observance of National Poetry Month....

2009-04-01T08:35:00.000-05:00

Tour Interview Questions

2009-03-30T09:39:00.002-05:00

On "bringing your unique styles together" ... in one word, describe YOUR unique style.
Homunculus.

or

How would you describe your poetry?
The anonymous author of Beowulf and Saul Williams tossed in a bag with a brick and some poorly mimeographed lit rags from the '60s. Who shall emerge victorious?

Spring Cleaning

2009-03-27T12:49:00.005-05:00

Some Things Stick With Me

Dad sits across from me.
His bruised hands shaking.
He says, You fall apart when you get old.

I don’t have to try anymore
to make my voice
sound just like his.

Before the tremors
his fingers manipulated pocketknives
and chewing gum wrappers
and drywall tape and mud.

But he has performed this
operation so many times,
his hands are as deft as a surgeon’s.

We are in a restaurant booth waiting for ribs.
He prepares a syringe and then the insulin.
Rolls the bottle between his hands to warm it.
Plunges the needle into his stomach.
So quick and practiced
I was the only one who saw.

It is bearable because he remains
calm as it happens,
and then we laugh at his frailty.

It’s out of our minds
as plates of meat arrive.

Even though we are falling apart.
It is happening to us all the time.

editor's note: this is a new edit as of 1 April 09.

___________________________________

I've been in a bit of a writing slump ever since I finished the chapbook manuscript (still sending it out; no bites yet). So I've turned to old, neglected pieces and have been editing and revising up a storm. It feels good. Bringing completion. Tying up loose ends. That kind of thing. This piece is still "in process" but it's in better shape now than before.

I'm reading tonight in Evansville. Fortunately, there are three other Dogwoods to prop me up. I'll likely be on auto-pilot.

Digging beneath where something happened

2009-03-27T12:44:00.002-05:00

I broke up with Mari this week, and it hurts. I feel like a failure. Even though I think it was inevitable. Or some major move was. Either we move to the same city (read: I move to Michigan) or we split. The long-distance thing was not really working. Neither of us was happy or satisfied with it. And her resentment toward me because I stayed in B-ton when she moved had become palpable. It would only have gotten worse, especially once the weather turned to spring/summer. I was only slightly more willing than she to make a long-distance arrangement work. Honestly, though, I think we're both too caught up in living our individual lives -- she at the beginning of a great career -- and doing what we really enjoy to make the kind of sacrifice required to stay together as a couple. Fuck.

Found While Making Corrections

2009-03-23T11:41:00.002-05:00

"[B]elief in global nomadism is a delusion, since to be able to go anywhere is to be located nowhere."
--Edward S. Casey, Getting Back into Place

Any kids here?

2009-03-11T19:23:00.003-05:00

From Eddie Murphy: Delerious

This reminds me of staying up late playing D&D with my best friend Mike Liggett, around 1983 or so. We'd listen to this album on cassette over and over. We had to keep the volume way down so no one upstairs would hear.

The Dynamic of the Team Piece

2009-03-05T16:26:00.002-05:00

So I'm about to embark upon a spoken word tour of Indiana, and for the occasion I've been working on what we in the biz call a team piece. Basically, a poem or text written specifically for performance by more than one voice. I have never had much luck with this "form." I tend to work solo. But I love good team pieces, and Jewsef has written a few in the past that he and I have gotten good at throwing down. We have even co-opted Taylor Mali's "How to Write a Political Poem" and, if I may say so myself, do it a damn fine piece of justice.

I've written a fair amount of scripts, so writing for different voices is not a big deal. That's dialogue, though. A team piece should not be just a poem that 4 people take part in reading. I has to REQUIRE the voices that sing it. (Note, though, that I DO NOT like team pieces where 3 people sing behind one dude performing the poem. I just think that's hinkey.) So I've been working at making 4 voices necessary, and I think I've got it. Kind of a retooling (and shortening) of the long-ass (15 minutes) poem + sound effects I did at the Ceilidh in '98. A piece I have been wanting to return to and revise for some time.

The real fun part of the team piece, obviously, is the collaborative aspect. Because it's NOT a script, some might think that "This Poem Is Carved In Stone" and must therefore be read as written by its poet. Scripts usually have a little bit more leeway, once the actors start getting into character. But I think inviting the other voices to help shape the poem's content and presentation is integral to its success. Joe wrote a really good team piece once about two soldiers shooting at each other. On paper, it rocked. But once we started working it out aloud, problems and necessary tweaks became apparent. Plus the obvious back-and-forth of voices as bullets had not been fully realized. Implied but not defined. So, as I recall, during endless laps around the retaining pond at Aho, when we both still worked there, we hammered that fucker out till it was golden. Not a complete revision of the poem but recasting and reassigning certain lines, so that our two voices fit naturally into one poem.

The four of us 'dogs are meeting this weekend to start going over our set lists and honing the team pieces we've been working on. I'm eager to see how things shake down, and I'm really interested to see how this new piece comes together with all 4 voices behind it.

Random Observation #6,793

2009-03-05T16:07:00.001-05:00

Aren't emo haircuts just inverted mullets?

(And sometimes not all that inverted?)

First hurdle cleared!

2009-02-20T15:01:00.003-05:00

My IAC grant application was approved!

Which means I filled everything out correctly and gave them everything they need.

Now the panel gets to review it. In April. And I get to watch!

But I can't lobby or argue my case. Just watch and listen.

And I don't find out until June if I got it.

I'm teaching that night in Bloomington, but I think I'm going to try to go to the panel discussion. I have heard it can be an enlightening experience, especiallly if I end up not getting the grant.

Laugh Riot

2009-02-16T16:59:00.005-05:00

Poetry magazine is now mounting its issues online. The whole thing. The Feb issue is up, and in the Comment section there is a collection of menifestoes (manifestos? manifesti? manifest-ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha...)

Anyway, even if you don't ~~care one whit~~ give a shit about poetry (or contemporary poetry, especially), these are fun reading. I love Thomas Sayer Ellis's page v.s. stage alliance, mainly because it's better than I thought it was going to be. And I really dig Michael Hoffman quoting Gottfried Benn: "Disappoint the season-ticket holder." Damn straight. That'll learn 'em.

This has got me wanting to write my own manifest ... o. But I tend to feel inclusive about poetry rather than bunkered. No lines in the sand and all that. I don't like that way of thinking, about anything. I suppose stating one's purpose helps to define it, though, right? No harm in that.

Also, I completely forgot that I was on the radio Sunday (recorded earlier). Fortunately for you, gentle readers, WFIU is also podcasting the show. I'm archived!!

Found Poem

2009-02-12T15:45:00.002-05:00

You can see through it / "And don't forget the lime"

The movement of this
poem finds itself going
along, looking at

the normal things
you might find in a bar -- but
what makes this interesting

is how close the focus
becomes at times, as if
there's brief flashes of stillness

in the movement
of this place. This quality
is working

in your favor --
how might you capitalize on it
further if you choose to

revise this piece?
On another note,
these stanzas have

the feel of haiku --
this might be an idea worth
running with. Good job!

Found in the parking lot after work one day a year or so ago.

My Contribution

2009-02-04T12:21:00.002-05:00

So three books I worked on (composition) for IU Press made it into the 2009 AAUP Book, Jacket, and Journal Show. Cool! The Press hasn't placed anything in the show since 2005 (and before that I think it had been a loooooong time). It's more a pat on the back than anything else; I don't think there is an "award," so to speak. But it's a pretty cool pat. Acknowledgment from my colleagues is a good thing.

POETRY AND FICTION
Indiana University Press
Bloodroot: Indiana Poems by Norbert Krapf

REFERENCE
Indiana University Press
Home Grown Indiana: A Food Lover's Guide to Good Eating in the Hoosier State by Christine Barbour and Scott Hutcheson

Indiana University Press
Perennials Short and Tall: A Seasonal Progression of Flowers for Your Garden by Moya L. Andrews

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Speaking of awards, I finished and sent in my Indiana Arts Commission Individual Artist Program grant application on Monday. Fingers crossed. I came up with a pretty unique, somewhat crackpot project considering I'll ultimately be producing a book of poetry and travel essays. Still, I think I've got a decent chance. But I won't find out until I think JUNE if I got it, and I don't get any of the money till about October. But the grant app alone is a milestone of sorts for me, has been on my to-do list for some years, and made the top of me resolution list for 2009. Now (except for ongoing research, which I'd be doing regardless of the grant) I can kind of forget about it and move on. Winning (or not) in a few months will just be a nice (or not) surprise.

FEED ME!!!

2009-01-31T20:59:00.001-05:00

OK, I finally figured out how to allow people to subscribe to my pitiful blog. I think. You'll let me know if me = fail, right, gentle readers?? Of course you will.

An Oldie but a Goodie

2009-01-27T22:39:00.003-05:00

Ah Pook is Here by William S. Burroughs
film by Phillip Hunt narration by Burroughs music by JJ Cale
(I'm pretty sure from the WSB album Dead City Radio)

When I become Death, Death is the seed from which I grow...
Itzama, spirit of early mist and showers.
Ixtaub, goddess of ropes and snares.
Ixchel, the spider web, catcher of morning dew.
Zooheekock, virgin fire patroness of infants.
Adziz, the master of cold.
Kockupocket, who works in fire.
Ixtahdoom, she who spits out precious stones.
Ixchunchan, the dangerous one.
Ah Pook, the destroyer.

Hiroshima, 1945, August 6, sixteen minutes past 8 AM.

Who really gave that order?

Answer: Control.

Answer: The Ugly American.

Answer: The instrument of Control.

Question: If Control’s control is absolute, why does Control need to control?

Answer: Control... needs time.

Question: Is Control controlled by its need to control?

Answer: Yes.

Why does Control need humans, as you call them?

Answer: Wait... wait! Time, a landing field. Death needs time like a junkie needs junk.

And what does Death need time for?

Answer: The answer is sooo simple. Death needs time for what it kills to grow in, for Ah Pook’s sake.

Death needs time for what it kills to grow in, for Ah Pook’s sweet sake, you stupid vulgar greedy ugly American death-sucker.

Death needs time for what it kills to grow in, for Ah Pook’s sweet sake, you stupid vulgar greedy ugly American death-sucker... Like this.

We have a new type of rule now. Not one man rule, or rule of aristocracy, or plutocracy, but of small groups elevated to positions of absolute power by random pressures and subject to political and economic factors that leave little room for decision. They are representatives of abstract forces...

[Ah Pook picks up a double-barrel shotgun and opens the breech, where two shells are chambered. It closes the breech.]

...who’ve reached power through surrender of self. The iron-willed dictator is a thing of the past. There will be no more Stalins, no more Hitlers. The rulers of this most insecure of all worlds are rulers by accident...

[Ah Pook is caressing the shotgun.]

...inept, frightened pilots at the controls of a...

[Ah Pook puts the shotgun into its mouth, and its voice continues]:

...vast machine they cannot understand, calling in experts to tell them which buttons to push.

[Ah Pook pulls the trigger.]

Best Term Evar Used to Describe a Louise Glück Poem

2009-01-27T10:18:00.000-05:00

Plathetic.

Something on the Horizon

2009-01-23T13:56:00.002-05:00

I've got a new project cookin'. It's a biggun, involving grants and traveling and research and whatnot. And polar expeditions. And reindeer. And mail-order brides. And Inuits. Harrison County, Indiana. Point Barrow, (un)Alaska. &c.

Picked up Simic's Sixty Poems and Mitchell's The Word for Everything today at Caveat Emptor. It's been a while since I've been in there. I almost didn't know how to function, what with there being hardly any boxes on the floor and the wider aisles. Weird.

Completion and Forward Motion

2009-01-02T12:03:00.002-05:00

Little Glove in a Big Hand ms. completed on New Year's Eve (pre-celebration)!!

Also submitted it to 3 chapbook contest that night. I also have a lead on a couple of potential publishers.

Good start to the new year!

I'm not feeling too reflective right now, though. I want to unpack today. Gotta go.

Winding Down

2008-12-07T11:09:00.004-05:00

My poem "Trees are poems to a typewriter in the woods" won 1st place in the Indiana Nature Poetry Contest, co-sponsored by Mounds State Park. What a nice way to end the year!

I am scheduled to record new poems in January for Janny Kander's The Poet's Weave program on WFIU. "Trees" will definitely be among them.

The chapbook is "done," at least in the metaphorical/-physical sense. I've sent it to a couple of colleagues for scrutiny. Hopefully I'll start sending to contests and publishers by the end of the year, and in earnest in January.

Mars and I have started packing. Ugh. I'll be in Michigan for Christmas helping her settle, then back with her in B-ton in time for New Years. Then she drives back by herself to start the new job soon thereafter.

Slice!

2008-12-03T14:31:00.002-05:00

"Everything written symbols can say has already passed by. They are like tracks left by animals. That is why the masters of meditation refuse to accept that writings are final. The aim is to reach true being by means of those tracks, those letters, those signs — but reality itself is not a sign, and it leaves no tracks. It doesn’t come to us by way of letters or words. We can go toward it, by following those words and letters back to what they came from. But so long as we are preoccupied with symbols, theories, and opinions, we fail to reach the principle."

"But when we give up symbols and opinions, aren’t we left in the utter nothingness of being?"

"Yes."

— Kimura Kyūho, On the Mysteries of Swordsmanship, ca. 1768
(epigraph from Robert Bringhurst, The Elements of Typographic Style)

For Marta

2008-12-03T10:20:00.002-05:00

"Green" by Ken Nordine, from Colors

Thanks!

2008-11-27T12:41:00.007-05:00

Little Glove in a Big Hand, first draft completed today. OK, it's still a pretty rough draft IMO, and not nearly as far along as I feel it should be or needs to be at this point in the year. But I'm real happy with . . . most of it, and overall it is "working." It is accomplishing what I have been intending. I'm planning to nail down the table of contents this weekend, and start tweaking here and there, and finally start submitting it by the end of the year. Go!

I'm thankful for a bunch of stuff:
* a good year living with Mars, like we promised, no matter what
* sweet foley gigs
* announcing for 3 derby leagues
* the return of the MATRIX slam
* teaching gigs
* all my supportive friends and colleagues
* Obama in the White House (in Jan)
* etc.

I'm off for the first of 3 feasts this weekend, today's featuring a bunch of rollergirls and as many as 3 deep-fried turkeys.

Happy Thanksgiving, dear readers!

Random Observation

2008-11-22T13:37:00.005-05:00

This chapbook project has brought on very different work processes for me. Normally, I write something in its entirety (essay, poem, whatever) then put it aside, then come back to it, edit, revise, etc., until it's (usually) whittled down and refined.

The chap has come out of collections of notes and journal entries (and a zillion post-its), and I've built some pieces line by line, from out of several notebooks.

So I'm conflating as much as cutting or editing. Adding to more than subtracting from. I enjoy it but I probably won't keep this process up once the manuscript is done; I think I like writing poems more than writing poetry.* But if I ever do another "theme manuscript" like this again, I'll know how to start. Getting this one fully underway took a couple of months, until I figured out a process, which is why it's a little late getting done. I am finally approaching cohesion, though.

*poems being discrete, beginning-to-end, usually stand-alone assemblages of words; as opposed to poetry, which is a little looser in structure and typically works a bit more obliquely. If that makes sense.

Everybody's Doin' It!

2008-11-20T20:06:00.003-05:00

You've probably seen Keith Olbermann's bit on Prop 8 on MSNBC.

You may not have seen this vid from last week, featuring Dan Savage (of Savage Love fame) going toe-to-toe with Tony Perkins (from ~~Psycho~~ the Family Research Council). I've been a Savage fan for years, but this really awesome. LOVE his "final word":

In memoriam

2008-11-11T11:24:00.002-05:00

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep,
though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

--John McCrae

Long Years on a Red Planet

2008-11-11T09:43:00.001-05:00

Mars Phoenix Lander Finishes Successful Work On Red Planet
November 10, 2008 -- NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander has ceased communications after operating for more than five months. As anticipated, seasonal decline in sunshine at the robot's arctic landing site is not providing enough sunlight for the solar arrays to collect the power necessary to charge batteries that operate the lander's instruments....

This story makes me feel so wistful and lonely, which is dumb. It's just a bunch of bolts and wires, right?

I'm reminded of The Martian Chronicles, which I really wanna read right now.

You Take the Good, You Take the Bad

2008-11-05T11:32:00.005-05:00

So: OBAMA WON!!! I am elated. I haven't felt so charged up since Clinton won in '92. It's like a cloud is lifting, and a bunch of other nice weather-related metaphors. In all honestly, I don't think one person can change much in our country, not in just 4 years (or 8).

But one thing HAS changed, and there is no going back: Americans' individual views about race are what they are, good, bad, and indifferent (mostly indifferent I think). But with the election of a black US president, our politics suddenly seem (and maybe will prove themselves to actually BE) more open (to everyone), more capable of welcoming change -- BIG change -- and possibility and ... aw, shit ... and HOPE.

I personally haven't felt quite so desperate about the state of the world as maybe I should. But suddenly things seem even ... less bad. As if impossibilities are now within reach. I know, I know, kind of hypocritical, and idealistic and goo-goo eyed and ridiculous, etc, to think that the color of a person's skin isn't supposed to matter -- yet here it is, mattering a whole hell of a lot.

Policies? Sure they matter, and I have liked most of Obama's views for a while now. (Ever since he gave that anti-war speech in 2002, he has been in the back of my mind.) I have long felt that Democrats and Republicans, like all Americans, at heart want the same things; they just have -- sometimes wildly -- differing ideas about how to acquire them. What's important about Obama, though, is the positivity of his message. Not simply his eloquence but also his ability to motivate people who, also at heart, really WANT to do something to help themselves and others. I WANT to help but often feel so disenfranchised. And I'm a white guy, with hot and cold running privilege. I was so disappointed when Bush, after 9/11, motivated people ... to go shopping. I mean this country was ready to build a fucking chunnel to Afghanistan and put bin Laden's head on a pike. What does he do? Tell us to keep playing with our funny money.

*shudder*

OK, happy place, happy place, happy place.

Obama won, my state voted blue (take THAT, familial fundies!!!), and I'm ready for more. I wanna see what this kid can really do, and I'm hopeful that he won't let me down. That WE won't let OURSELVES down.

It's hope tinged with sadness, though.

Mars got a job. A dream job. BEST. FUCKING. JOB. EVAR. I'm so happy for her. Tenure track. Actual library work. Roller derby nearby. Plenty of Irish music in the vicinity. Really, it's just about everything she could hope for.

This job is not in B-tizzle, of course, which is where the sad comes in. She and I have been talking about this possibility the whole time we've been dating, and an inevitable move on a career path became a driving force for her (and in our relationship) just about a year ago.

Well it's finally here and it sucks. It's literally a win-lose situation for both of us no matter who decides what. I've blogged about it plenty here. Just typing this little bit is making me sadder, so I'm not going to elaborate too much. Basically, barring some miraculous change of heart on my part, I'm not moving with her. Not by December, when she needs to be up there, as I conservatively estimate it'd take me most of a year to set my local affairs in order. But honestly, I'm just not moving.

I've had a year to convince myself (or be convinced) that leaving B-ton is something I want to do, as opposed to something Mars needs that I am willing to give or something I'm willing to "try." I don't see it. If anything, I've become even more deeply attached to B-ton as my relationships with townies and colleagues and friends have been reaffirmed. I feel like I'm not done here yet, and I don't know when I will be but it's not going to be any time soon, and I don't want to cut my stay short. (Yes, 18 yrs and counting is short, for a Capricorn like me. I'm a late bloomer!)

I feel awful and selfish and a little ill. I also feel like I'm making the right choice. So is she.

NONE of this diminishes my enthusiasm for supporting her as much as possible to get to Michigan and get settled. It just sucks, obviously.

Also, too.

2008-10-15T13:27:00.002-05:00

* The 9th was my 2nd anniversary of my 2nd stint here at the Press, which means I am a 10-year IU employee. Sweet! Only 20 more years till I get my sheet cake and plaque.

* I'm teaching classes again at IU and Ivy Tech. The IT project manager just e-mailed me to say that class is a "Go!" which means there is literally 1 person signed up, and class starts Monday night.

* I've been lately fending off the fundies in my family vis a vis Obama. This sort of thing happens every election year (and really only during election years), but has been particularly awesome this year because they have no head for politics but are RIGHT THERE with the Republican talking points re: smearing Obama (i.e., ACORN; where'd he get the $$ to pay off student loans; his name rhymes with Osama <--no shit, Sherlock -- yer talkin' to a poet, you know). So all I do is start talking about policy issues (you know, the boring unimportant stuff, like the bailout and the war, etc.) and they go away.

* There is a backhoe with a jackhammer attachment that has been yammering away ALL DAMN DAY outside my window, in the hole where the trees used to be, where they're putting in a pool and BBQ to service the Douche Bag Hilton across the street. I can't wait till it's done. I am so jumping that fence for a dip after work.

* I like lambic but really, what's the big deal??

* My last announcing gig of the season is this Saturday. The teams are worn down to a nub, physically and emotionally. Should be a good time, though.

From Here There Is No Turning Back

2008-10-15T12:27:00.006-05:00

Sometimes it takes a while for a poem to coalesce into ... something more than just an interesting arrangement of words. The meaning behind the spark. The logic beyond the frisson. Richard Hugo's Triggering Town becoming a 3-D reality out of a 2-D movie set. The reason a poem gets finished -- edited and revised and honed. Once the blush of inspiration has faded, what then? What's left?

Sometimes that spark is so intense I have trouble returning to a poem out of fear of losing intensity by bringing in intent. What I got down in the first draft so encapsulates (to/for me) what I felt at the time, I'm not even sure I want to "make something of it."

I do subscribe to Ginsberg's notion "First Thought Best Thought" ... but only in crafting a draft. Editing and revision is essential, and only a fool would believe that the Beats got it right the first time. Ginsberg, in fact, was one of Kerouac's editors, and while Jack may have pounded out On the Road in a 3-week coffee/benny-fuled binge, this was after years and notebooks filled with scribbling and note taking. And that big scroll was ruthlessly edited.

The other night I was at Rachael's Cafe for her Friday open mic, where I was the only poet in the house (or maybe the only one who would admit it?). I do some of my best nuts-n-bolts work, writing and editing, at open mics and in coffeehouses. Yeah, yeah, the atmosphere: the clogged sinuses of the espresso machine; out-of-tune guitars; flaccid PA; unintelligible vocals; underrehearsed performances. On the face of it, pretty wretched. But then there was a birthday party with cake + ice cream in the corner; and one of my least favorite people on the planet doing a pretty awesome Sonic Youth impression in one of his own songs; and instant collaborations between musicians. What can I say? I'm a hippie. I start feeling pretty safe and in my element.

All this to say, I finally made some major changes to a piece I first drafted about a decade ago. (I need to look up that very first draft because I have lost track of when I first wrote it. Some time at Unionville, probably out on the patio by the tumble-down barn.) I've only approached it a couple of times since then, once in a workshop even, but I've never been satisfied with it. It involves a pretty touchy subject ... my ex's abuse survival and how it affected her, me, and us.

Yeah, pretty late in the game, I guess, to be going there. But these things take time, some more than others, and maybe this final long lag is what was needed to shake me free of my preconceptions of what that poem needed to say and do. Another, much "easier" poem took about 6 years to ferment into something palatable, and I think the same of the "harder" piece: Yes, getting my own personal reflections down was/is important, but ultimately I write because I want to do something more than record what happened and what I thought about it. "Make something of it." Some good thing. Some thing beyond the trauma of the moment, beyond harsh, lived-with emotions, and into the universal and intimate and familiar. Nouns instead of adjectives. Show instead of tell. You know, poetic stuff.

Sometimes all the effort and desire in the world just aren't enough. (Don't I know it!) Sometimes you just have to step back, be patient, and rethink things with new eyes and ears, again and again. Eventually what you get out of that process may not be perfect, but it's better, definitely. You also tend to cut lines, words that once seemed integral but now are clearly superfluous. Connections and implications reveal themselves. Reason comes into focus. And while I don't think this particular piece is "done" by any means, it is much closer to completion than it's been in 10 years. Maybe even stage-ready. Maybe. And that is so satisfying. And liberating.

Then there's the chapbook project underway, about my cousin Jeffrey's untimely death, which I've been writing about (directly and indirectly) nearly my entire life but rarely in poetry and never successfully. Talk about needing time to process. In this case, though, there were some things I just didn't know until I was about 30 about Jeff and the family dynamic that developed in the aftermath of the accident. Stuff I either couldn't have known or wouldn't have understood even if it had been explained to me. Death being one of them.

"Death needs Time for what it kills to grow in...." --Burroughs

Which is not to say I got death all figured out now. But I've been to enough funerals in 37 years to have an inkling about how grief and sorrow in my family works. It's been an interesting ride, this chapbook. I hope it's becoming interesting poetry.

Unionville, summer 1999

Fall

2008-09-24T09:02:00.004-05:00

They're cutting down
a stand of trees
across the way,
outside my window
at work, to make
room for another
student high-rise
Douche Bag Hilton.
I watch them sway
for the last time.

Quotations

2008-09-22T21:09:00.005-05:00

"To retain respect for sausages and laws, one must not watch them in the making."
-- Otto von Bismarck

"We didn't leave the Stone Age because we ran out of stones. Likewise, we must leave the Oil Age before we run out of oil."
-- Tom Demarco, Whistler, B.C. (letter to National Geographic)

Italics added for emphasis

2008-09-03T15:36:00.002-05:00

I was welcomed back to Bloomington while at Kroger the other day. Thanks ... sonny!

I convinced a cow-orker that yes, many, many things are made of plastic, which is made from petroleum, which is a fancy word for oil, which the US gets by the metric fuck-ton from the Middle East, which etc., etc. Aaaaand *POP* went his mind.

The chapbook is starting to take shape, which is alternately exciting and terrifying. I'll elaborate on the "story" a little later but it's heavy and personal, and writing and thinking about it this much kind of hurts but is ultimately cathartic.

My evil sister is even eviler than I thought. And crazier. And more violent, sho nuff.

Mars gets the cast off 9/18, ALLAH BE PRAISED!

Cast off also means something totally different to me.

I'm announcing for the fledgling Circle City Socialites' inaugural bout in late September. That's 3 leagues I will have announced for this season. I'm glad to do it, but hopefully ROSI and CCS are working on getting local color commentators....

I'm teaching my two classes at Ivy Tech and Cont. Studies again this fall.

Met with Lucia today about a potential collaboration involving ... we know not what. Pin-hole photography, motion painting, poetry, sound effects. Something awesome.

Giant bat in the house last night! Big as my face. Nearly carried Mari away. I told her to hide under a blanket while it flitted around the living room and I threw towels trying to knock it down. Sphinx took a swipe at it and apparently nipped its wing. Go Cat Power!

I think ~~McCain~~ McCain's handlers chose Palin just to make Obama look bad vis-a-vis "experience." How stupid is that?

I still want to vacate somewheres this year, damnit. A beach, please. November? Perhaps a cruise?

DEATH RACE is not a great movie, but it was exactly what I needed just then. Also, Natalie Martinez!

No Eroticon this year :( I've heard the DJs at Uncle E's aren't that great, so I'm considering making a DJ Boomslang appearance ... outside of Jakes/Mars/Axis/Jakes! Just to keep muh mixing chops, yo.

I'm convinced: Some cats just plain like to poop on the floor. Guh!

Summertime and the Livin' Is Easy ... Too Easy

2008-08-07T12:43:00.001-05:00

I am reclaiming my mornings. I've realized that I get sleepy/fall asleep at the same time, more or less, every night no matter when I wake up in the morning. So I'm trying to get up earlier (i.e., when my alarm goes off, not 25 snoozes later) and get back to my productive morning routines, namely exercising and/or writing.

I gave up on the morning journaling thing late last year. I'd been doing morning pages every morning for almost 10 years, but in these years post-divorce the purpose of it had grown kind of stale. Brain dump, good. But I felt (and later read)like I was evacuating the same crap every morning, over and over, and not really learning anything from it, just filling notebooks. True, I did a metric ass-ton of writing and journaling and editing in late 05 and in 06 that was instrumental in getting me "through" some pretty dark days. But it started to feel like any lingering hard feelings were kept alive by me and me alone, primarily through reliving them, in black and white, every morning.

So in late December last year, I finished filling a notebook, then bought one of those spiffy Moleskine artist's journals, and relinquished my morning regimen. Ever since then I've been just writing then the mood strikes me and occasionally making a random month a "poem a day" project.

Well, that sucked.

Eight months in and my output is abysmal. The quality of what I'm writing is okay, but writing is a numbers game: the more you write the better you get, if only because you're producing more pages and so more opportunities for greatness. I have not picked up the pace in ye olde blogge either, as I thought I would. Plus, I have missed my morning doodles, especially the ones where I would just explore a thought or an article I'd read or flesh out map on my life path, none of which really involved plumbing the depths of my quiddity or anything. I was just ... writing. And my morning writing habits never really transitioned to later in the day, as I thought might happen too.

So I'm back to it, trying to get into a chair in front of my journal asap after waking up and hack out a couple of pages every morning. So far so good, but I am becoming less enamored of Mr. Moleskine. I have always had an aversion to "fancy" journals but M seemed so austere yet elegant. I think I'm having trouble with the paper, though. Too smooth. Too creamy. Too ... nice. And the pages are just small enough to give me a hemmed-in feeling, even though, looking back in past journals, I don't really take up more space on the page, at least when writing poetry.

I'm still hung up on my blank Sanford Uni-Ball Onyx micro pens. In fact, it's about time to order another box.

I'm gearing up for the poetry retreat + workshop I'm hosting next weekend at Hill House, which I think is what's convinced me that something's gotta give here. I have to finish getting my workshop submission together, which has had me thinking about my process and toolkit. And I've been feeling a little "crisis"-y about it all. I'm supposed to produce a chapbook ms. out of this workshop, as stipulated in my fellowship app, which is how the workshop is getting funded in the first place. No pressure! Really, I'm not feeling pressured externally. I've got at very least 3/4 of the ms. gathered. Hopefully after the workshop it'll be ready to trim, finalize, and then I can start showing it around in Sept., then start submitting it for pubbing in October though the rest of the year.

That's the plan anyway.

Writing aside:

Roller derby is ruling my life these days. Not ruining! But it has pushed a lot of stuff to the side. No more so, though, than, say, that live sound effects gig did. That ate most of May and June this year, but it was such a rewarding experience, I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

Same with announcing. I really enjoy it but it's not something I can just show up and do. It takes a fair amount of constant involvement with the derby community and actual study of names, numbers, and rules and strategy to be effective on mic.

I can tell I'm getting better at it too, and I'm really enjoying working with X Static this season. We're actually developing some Duo Traits (Liz would call this a Bromance) that's cool on a personal level, but it's also making our part of "the show" much more interesting. It helps that we regularly get invited to announce for the Rollergirls of Southern Indiana in Evansville. I'm going down to announce for them this weekend, and it'll be the third time this year I've announced for a team that's not "mine." How cool is that? They are awesome ladies, too, and ROSI is like another home team to me in many ways.

Let's see, what else:

Survived a visit over the weekend from Mari's parents and brother. eek!

~~May be~~ Probably having a yard sale this weekend.

Going to Holiday World on Monday with Mars, V-ron, and her man.

Have been invited to collaborate on some kind of visual art/poetry project. Too vague at this point to talk about in more detail, but I think this may be the project I try to get funded with an IAC grant next year.

Can't find my passport anywhere. I hope I haven't lost it but it's probably not a huge deal. It's terribly expired anyway. (I haven't been overseas since it was issued ... in 1987. I flew to Edmonton in 1999 and was let into and out of the US/Canada without a passport. Ah, the good old days of intentionally lax security.) I think I have to report it lost before I apply for a new one, though.

I really want to GO SOMEWHERE this year, far away, like a beach or maybe visit Gerry in the mountains. After reading about Persia in National Geographic, I am stricken with wanderlust, and I think I really would like to visit Iran (or the Middle East) someday, fairly soon, before we americanize it too much. Or start bombing them.

Reading tons of poetry these days: Mary Jo Bang, James Galvin, Kyle Dargan, Frank O'Hara (need to read more FO'H), and the summer double issue of POETRY. I want to start reading prose (fiction or non-) again, but I am so pressed for time.

Saw the new Mummy movie. Eh. Still, it was better than the new Indiana Jones movie, which makes me kind of ill.

Saw Wall-E and absolutely loved it.

Still haven't seen Dark Knight and need to badly.

Just got handed an ms. to set at work: "Revenge of the Women's Studies Professor." Ha! This should be good.

In honor of the new poet laureate...

2008-07-17T07:46:00.001-05:00

Patience
by Kay Ryan

Patience is
wider than one
once envisioned,
with ribbons
of rivers
and distant
ranges and
tasks undertaken
and finished
with modest
relish by
natives in their
native dress.
Who would
have guessed
it possible
that waiting
is sustainable—
a place with
its own harvests.
Or that in
time's fullness
the diamonds
of patience
couldn't be
distinguished
from the genuine
in brilliance
or hardness.

Well, it's over ... for now.

2008-06-27T10:30:00.008-05:00

Your Humble Narrator as Mr. Foley

International Mystery Writers Festival
Too many stories to tell. I'm battling a little post-show depression, which I used to get all the time but not really anymore, probably because I'm too damn busy to think "show life" is any different from "real life." For some reason, though, this show is different, and I owe a lot of these loose feelings to synchronicity.

Deana Duncan, director and comedic star

I love doing sound effects, especially live, and boy did this project stretch me. I think I commented elsewhere: 8 shows, 34 performances, 10 days, with a little over a week of real-time face-to-face onstage prep and rehearsal. Damn.

But what made this so rewarding was the talent involved. From the seasoned audio producers, to the pros in the sound booth, to the versatile actors, to the great writing, add me to the mix and you've got a unique, hybrid theatre experience. A little bit old-time radio, a little black box, plus 3 of the shows were screenplays adapted for live performance -- basically movies performed live -- all done on a shoestring.

Amy Walker, BIG talent

And then I got to play Mr. Foley in the REMEMBER WENN play, which was great. I loved that show when it was on the air, right around the time I was getting into radio theatre and sound effects and sound design. More than that, though: I got to BE Mr. Foley for a couple of weeks. Relentless schedule. Non-stop problem-solving, literally on my feet for hours at a stretch. And, as often happens, the distracting noise I was making at first turned into an extra cast member and eventually everyone who didn't know what I was up to "got it." I even saved a couple of plays at the absolute very last minute. Wow!

Yeah, too, too many stories to tell, good and bad, but here are some low/highlights:

* The hotel the casts, as well as virtually everyone attending the festival, was staying in, closed, suddenly, two days after I got into town. So instead of a 5 minute riverside walk to the venue, I had a 10-minute drive across town, and everyone was spread out over 4 hotels. A fairly minor inconvenience for me but not a good start to the run, not to mention 300 people losing their jobs overnight. And they found out about it on the news.

Andy Paternoster, live music on Mapes for Hire

*The schedule was brutal. Most days I was in the theatre by 8am to set up, and rehearsed from 9am till 10 or 11pm every night. It got only slightly easier once we were performing in front of people. The worst day, for me, was Thurs 6/12, the night we opened the first play. Rehearsal at 9a, and rehearsals for other plays all day, then open a show at 7:30, THEN rehearse another show, which I wouldn't touch again until it opened 3 days later. The amount of work was actually quite overwhelming when I stopped to think about it. So I stopped thinking about it.

Rich Fish as the Dead Man, and Gerry Vermillion as the Reporter, in It Burns Me Up!

* Everything was under-rehearsed by the time it opened, but each play was performed 4-5 times, so we had a chance to work out the kinks as we went. By the 3rd live performance, tech, acting, live sound effects, lighting, etc., all were locking together.

David Ossman, director

* One play, FLEMMING, a comedy, hit the ground running -- it was hysterical at the table read -- and everyone new it would be good from the very start, and it was. The REMEMBER WENN piece also turned out great, as was to be expected given the context, and the whole cast really ran with it. WENN probably had the best "energy" of all the plays, everyone was so into pushing it and playing it large. Plus, though it is a comedy, it's a dynamic play, taking the audience from belly laughs to tears in about half an hour. Personally, I cried at the end every fucking time. Right on cue.

* My favorite was probably the Bradbury piece IT BURNS ME UP! even though it had very few live sound effects. It's classic Bradbury, though, and the writing, with Rich Fish's great performance, totally carried it. It also featured a huge walla ensemble, which was a cool thing to see happen live.

The Walla Pit for Crime of Passion

* I most definitely am going to get more live SFX work out of this, likely in other theatres where troupes want to stage radio plays or "wide-screen audio" performances as opposed to staged readings (yawn). In fact, there are serious plans afoot to take some of the plays from IMWF to a for a week, soon, before the original casts scatter to other projects. More details on that as they develop. Keep your fingers crossed! Mine are.

* If you climb a shelf in Home Depot and hold up a 8' sheet of corrugated barn roofing so someone else can shake the bottom to test its usability as a thunder sheet ... people will look at you funny.

* I got to break a lot of glass on stage. A LOT OF GLASS!

THE PLAYS
The Help by Bill Kerby: 90-minute screenplay adapted for stage/audio. Very cinematic, obviously. Almost a movie within a movie too. Four grifters -- including protagonist Buck, a poolman/part-time stunt man -- cross paths. You can't trust anyone in Hollywood.

BRADBURY/CLARK double bill
It Burns Me Up! by Ray Bradbury: Classic Bradbury tale, told from the perspective of a dead man, enhanced by the gaggle of reporters, onlookers, and cops come to watch.
Crime of Passion by Mary Higgins Clark: By mystery legend Mary Higgins Clark, who attended the final performance. NOT my favorite play, but we pretty much nailed it. Part whodunit, part US Weekly romance.

Hallie Bowers by Harris F. Mack & Linda Campbell: Set in 1941. Hallie, a female PI, tracks drug dealers and dodges handsy club owners, all before sending her kid brother off to fight in the war. Another screenplay, and one of the most complicated sound designs.

Cajun P.I. by PJ Woodside: A retired detective teaching a criminal science class at a community college inadvertently leads one of his students into a bad situation.

Mapes for Hire by Lee Goldberg: Harvey Mapes works the security booth at a gated community, until he's hired to follow a man's wife. His first case as a budding private investigator! But PI work is not all fun and games, Harvey learns.

Orson Ossman as Harvey Mapes

Phil Proctor, the Total Tool, directing the walla group for Mapes

MURDER TIMES TWO double bill
Take My Word For It And You Don't Have To Answer by Robert S. Levinson: Two early film "stars" reminisce about their failure, the crime one of them has kept hidden all these years ... and the payment finally due.
Between Sins by Robert S. Levinson: Pure radio noir. The engineers dubbed this one "The Downer" because everyone is a bad guy and it's a pretty relentless tale. A private dick, a comely judge, and an ex-con with an axe to grind cross swords.

Flemming: An American Thriller by Sam Bobrick: Probably the most successful play. Broad, slapsticky comedy about Flemming, a bored suburban businessman reinventing himself out of his midlife crisis and into life as a hard-boiled detective. Drinks on the house!

An Armchair Detective: A Remember WENN Mystery Play by Rupert Holmes: The first half is the first episode of the acclaimed AMC show; the rest is new material written by Rupert Holmes, the show's creator. It's 1938 and young, wide-eyed Betty Roberts, fresh from Elkhart, Ind., arrives at station WENN in Pittsburgh ready to write her way into a career in broadcasting. But, of course, this is live radio, where nothing ever goes as planned.

All photos by Bryan Leazenby

Greetings from Owensboro, KY!

2008-06-18T09:33:00.005-05:00

This is where I've been, literally, for most of the past week. I'll try to take and post more pics of the different sets. My rigs for each play are actually quite different, some more elaborate than others. This was taken June 8, just a day or so after I'd been down here, so my li'l 8x8 square is relatively uncluttered. Haven't even set mics yet at this point. Full write-up to come, but below are some of the amazingly talented (and at times difficult) people I've been fortunate to work with ... and may have an opportunity to work with again in the very near future....

David Ossman
Phil Proctor
Gary Sandy
Amy Walker

The Tale of the Type

2008-06-06T10:36:00.004-05:00

Now that Hill is out of the picture, for me it all comes down to this:

McCain's typeface: Optima, a modernistic sans serif designed by the German type designer Hermann Zapf in 1958 that was popular among book and magazine designers during the 1970s.

It ain't a serif face; it ain't sans, but it's not exactly neutral either. Could this be a centrist typeface? No, it's just Optima, trying to split the difference. Except for that insipid star/dingbat fiasco on top. Also, used for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, which makes sense considering his military achievements. All right already! I get it! you're a war hero! sheesh.

Technically speaking, though, I think he's using a false bold in order to make a strong font out of a fairly week one. I've set entire books in Optima. Don't care for it. Makes me think of a dentist office shingle.

Obama, on the other hand, is using for all his "change"ing needs Gotham, a relatively new face by Hoefler & Frere-Jones, modeled after Port Authority Bus Terminal signage in NYC. No, it's not Helvetica or Arial. It's Gotham: refined, simple, bold, and progressively familiar. Used on the Twin Towers memorial cornerstone.

Plus, and best of all, it's an Open Type font, meaning it has nearly endless variations for virtually any application. This is probably one reason why every piece of printed matter the Obama campaign uses starts with Gotham (other than his name/logo, which I find endearingly generic compared to the Importance of His Message). Everything. Signage, door hangers, leaflets. Everything. That's good design -- way to control your image. Talk about having your game together.

I'm not saying my political inclinations depend on typography. But they certainly are reinforced by it. And the candidates' platforms are, I think, amplified by their design choices.

btw, Hillary went with New Baskerville. No comment.

Would You Buy a Used Car from This Man?

2008-06-02T07:47:00.007-05:00

Oh yeah, how could I forget: I ran into jim the fiend* at the roller derby after party at the Vid last month. Hadn't seen or heard from him since my ex and I separated and he was living with her in Spencer for a very short time to help her out financially. Very enlightening conversation. Now, I take (and have always taken) everything James says with a grain of salt so titanic ... well, it's so big it looks like it could sink the Titanic. But I also understand Jim and his longterm friendship with my ex well enough to believe that he was just trying to help and got the short end of the stick for it.

Regardless, it was really good to reconnect with someone from that time -- one of her oldest friends even -- who hasn't written me off as a patriarchal, life-ruining asshole. (Although that's the line he was fed too, and he believed it for a time. Who wouldn't?? It's so plausible....)

Also, clearly I wasn't crazy or fabricating any of my grievances regarding co-homeownership. So, score one for my tiny tired ~~brane~~ brain.

*This link is in all likelihood NSFW, as James works in the adult entertainment industry.

Five Days to Kentucky

2008-06-01T19:26:00.001-05:00

The most glorious rainstorm came through just now, a strong one but not so scary that I couldn't sit on the porch and enjoy it. The wind picked up and blew rain in on me. Thunder and lightning. Cars slowing down in the downpour.

It felt like time just came to a standstill, I've been moving so fast in so many different directions lately. The Ivy Tech class went really well ... despite there being only TWO students. But they were great, knowledgeable people who already knew InDesign pretty well. They just wanted to know more about it. I learned a few things myself too. Overall, a great experience.

I have announced for the Rollergirls of Southern Indiana (in Evansville) twice now, and apparently the legend of Dick Smack is growing. I was introduced to a local radio DJ who wants to be an announcer for ROSI someday, and when I said "I'm Dick Smack," she says "Oh, I've heard about you." Really? About Dick Smack or about me? Let's hope it's all just part of the act. Anyway, good times on the derby front. The ROSI girls are awesome, and they and their refs helped us out a bunch at the season opener on 5/17.

I'm gathering gear like crazy this week for IMWF. I leave Friday and will be down there till about the 24th. This project is really kicking my ass, which was expected, but it has also been causing a great deal of anxiety. There's so much to wrap my brain around: 10 scripts, totaling well over 800 pages, one of which I won't even see till I get down there. I haven't been sleeping well, which is totally weird. Normally, I work work work but as soon as my head hits the pillow (actually as soon as I get anywhere near comfortably prone, say, on the couch) I am out like a light. For a couple of weeks, though, I've been either having trouble getting to sleep or waking up an hour or so before my alarm. Making lists. And lists of lists. And walking through everything in my mind. Gotta build a glass-break box. Gotta figure out how to perform flashbulbs. Gotta find a wind machine ... or, failing that, build one. So I get up earlier than usual and work, rather than just lay there and fret.

But I see light at the end of the tunnel. Items lists are getting checked off. I need to make one or two more trips to the hardware store or Goodwill, and then I can just box it up and get down there. Of course, this is all prep work. The REAL ball breaking doesn't start till Saturday. Then 6 days of rehearsals before the first show opens. And each day after that we'll be performing AND rehearsing every day. Some days as many as 4 performances, more or less back-to-back.

So yeah, I'm a little tense. I mean I'm really looking forward to doing it, and working with Fish and David Ossman and Judith Walcutt, but there's just SO MUCH. Even David and Judith are openly overwhelmed by it all. Fortunately, I do like this kind of pressure. Especially since I'll be the only person down there doing live sound effects. I like to specialize.

But it has made an already tense situation with me and Mars even more pressurized. You know the story, gentle readers: she's leaving B-tizzle, eventually, for a library job. Somewhere. This week's contender is Wells College (upstate New York). Am I going with her or staying here in Bloomington? Good question, one I never tire of asking myself. So on top of conceptualizing sound effects and gathering the gear to perform them, and planning to be gone from work at the end of the fiscal year and right before our senior designer is retiring, I'm thinking about my options every other minute instead of every other day like usual. I just KNOW I'm going to get a call while I'm in Kentucky asking if I want to move to Ithaca. And I'm just don't feel capable of making that determination that yet.

The thought of leaving Bloomington fills me with as much dread as the thought of not going with Mari wherever she goes. I can make it work, right? Find a decent job. Connect with the locals like I have here. Keep all my hobbies and varied interests going. This is about as far I get into the internal discussion, though, because I then have to turn my attention to IMWF. I feel like once I'm done with this gig, and I'll have only derby and poetry to contend with for the rest of summer, I can start doing some job searches and general location research right alongside Mari as she applies to all these places. I feel like I can't wait, though. I feel like she can't wait either. But I can't just hope it'll work out. I don't have the confidence to just pick up and hope greener pastures await me. I need to know that at least some (optimally most) of what I want from a community is going to be there. bleah.

We fight quite a bit lately, but honestly I think it all comes down to this core issue.

We're both traveling a lot in June/July. She's leaving for Pennsylvania for her bro's high school graduation about the time I'm going to Kentucky. Then we're both home for about a week before she leaves for LA for the M.L.A. conference. And I still want to go somewhere in July or August. Someplace beachy, maybe, with a poetry workshop nearby. That's not too much to ask, is it? Or maybe see Gerry in Colorado? Vacation: that's the word I'm searching for.

Books read:
Miracle Fruit by Aimee Nezhukumatathil
Really good but a bit too feminine for me. I loved hearing her read in person, though, and will probably seek out her new book. Foodies, take note: lots of poems about fruit, cooking, and the senses.

The Splinter Factory by Jeffrey McDaniel
Good but I bet I'd like him better in person. His poetry seems a little confined by the page. Is that a bad thing?

Recent movies:
No Country for Old Men
Wow. Definitely deserved all those Oscars, and made up for some comparatively lame Cohen Bros. movies of late. Real gritty.

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
The last movie featuring the original TV show crew. Actually this is one of the better flicks of the series. I think I may have run out of steam on this viewing project, though.

Storm's over. Sun's out. We had the most incredible, long spring this year. Weeks and weeks of it. All things considered, this is going to be a great summer. Just need to get past IMWF.

The Too-Busy to-Update Update

2008-04-08T08:58:00.005-05:00

DEEDLE-DON'T
Didn't go to Tionol. Instead, I had a foley gig in B-ton this past weekend, as part of a live-broadcast variety show capping WFHB's spring fund drive. Talk about a last-minute production: I signed on about a week ago but didn't learn until Wed that it was live in front of an audience ... at the Waldron auditorium. Cool! Also, did not get final scriptage until day of show ... and didn't rehearse until ... about 40 minutes before show time. And then, not on mic; everyone just gathered 'round the foley table and we did a quick run-through. The show went off surprisingly well and virtually flawlessly. The smallish crowd enjoyed it too, in all it's cheesiness. The 3 live musical acts are all old friends, and my cast/crew have all worked together for a billion years, so a good show was practically guaranteed I guess. I believe it was recorded; I'm interested to hear how my Rube Goldberg bit came out.

SPEAKING OF/ON RADIO
I recorded two new poems for Jenny Kander's The Poet's Weave program on WFIU. That will at 11:45 air on Sunday, May 4, and eventually be archived on WFIU's website.

THE ROBIN WILLIAMS THAT AIN'T SO HAIRY
Graphic Design class is going swimmingly. Best. Class. Evar. (Compared to the other two times I've taught it.) Everyone, with 2 exceptions, is in the design certification program, which means they've already taken classes in Photoshop, InDesign, and Illustrator, which means I DON'T HAVE TO TEACH SOFTWARE, I just teach ... The Principles of Graphic Design, like I'm supposed to (and like the class is named). Now, I have heard many complaints from my peeps about the InDesign portion of the program, that the teacher didn't cover what I consider (and what I think are) basic, key areas of the software (esp. master pages and paragraph styles). But the class all know one another from all the other classes they've had together, and they are enjoying what I'm laying down and seem to genuinely "get it." They're sharp, which is awesome. Third class tonight, last one on Thurs. Then a week off, and the InDesign CS3 class I teach at Ivy Tech starts the following Tues.

DUH
Remember my InDesign dilemma? I'm a dork. I bought the whole Adobe CS3 suite (InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, Acrobat, etc.) for $250 (not $1,600 retail or $1,200 through my IHETS connection) through IU with my staff discount. Problem solved. I say again: duh. I don't know why I didn't think of it before.

MENTAL HEALTH DAZE
I took Friday and Monday off work, which has been unusually grind-y lately. I pushed out A LOT OF BOOKS in March and really needed some time off. I did virtually nothing fun, though. Friday I ran errands like crazy in the shitty, pissing rain and in general caught up on home life stuff. But then ... nooner! That was lovely! The weekend, she was also very busy. Then Monday, the weather was nicer but I still just ran errands, recorded at WFIU, had a derby meeting, then was suddenly stricken with allergies. bleah.

NOW HEAR THIS
I'm gonna give NATF the boot. It's been a tough decision to make, but I just don't like the direction the org is going, there's too much in-fighting for my taste, and I feel like I'm getting guilt-tripped into doing more than I already am, and I absolutely HATE not-for-profits that act that way ... make you feel as if not sacrificing your first born means you don't care enough. That whole "get-give-or get out" mentality re: fundraising really rankles with me. I want to finish my two-year term (ending this fall), continue working on the newsletter and possibility moving the annual workshop here to B-tucky ... but beyond that, I just get the willies thinking about what a clusterfuck I'm dealing with. The unspoken (and sometimes spoken) animosity, which I think is really poisoning the org. The facade of a fairly rinky-dink org trying to present itself as "national." I mean a 25-year-old org ought to be able to conduct itself in a professional manner. But now I just want to do my bit and get out.

A BETTER OFFER
What's REALLY drawing me away from the workshop this year, though, is a better offer also in June: performing live sound effects for 8 audio plays (screenplays adapted for live audio theatre stage performance) in Owensboro, Ky., as part of the International Mystery Writers' Festival. I was passed over for this last year, and apparently the guy they did get was a complete disaster. (Serves them right: Mr. Hollywood is good, but he's got a big ol' ego too.) So now the producers (whom I've worked with before) have asked me, which is way cool!!! It's a vast project: 8 plays, multiple performances of each, 4-5 performances total a day, and each play is at least an hour long (some will be closer to two). Last year there were around 600 pages of script total. Yikes! But I like a challenge, especially when it's clearly defined and well funded, and I am adequately compensated.

A BETTER PROSPECT
The downside of this is that I will have to skip the IU Writers Conference, which was to be part of my fellowship fulfillment. But you know, in a way this is a good thing. IMWC gives me a perfectly concrete out from the NATF gig, and I really don't mind missing the IUWC; it was kind of a compromise since I have been/am going to be so busy but wanted to get the workshop portion of my fellowship proposal out of the way. "Out of the way": not the best way to think of a monetary award, eh? I was also going to have to shoehorn it in right before NATF, which means I'd likely not be fully focused on it. So now I need to find a good poetry workshop I can attend sometime between July and December, and maybe by then I'll actually have the chapbook manuscript written. The application I put together for the IUWC was too soon, too soon. I cobbled together something I thought would eventually be part of the final manuscript, but it's already getting torn up, rethought, and probably even discarded.

WRITING MY WAY OUT
As usual, in the midst of all this other stuff I got going on I hit on a GREAT chapbook concept that is going to be therapeutic and important for me to write. Briefly, it involves my "twin" cousin who died in a farming accident when we were 4 and how our eerily identical families dealt with it (or didn't). I can say no more. I've tried writing about Jeffrey off and on for many, many years but nothing good has ever come of it. I think I see it now, though.

THE WALLS, THEY SEE THROUGH ME
My allergies are really kicking my ass today. I feel downright malarial.

VAMPIRES!
That's the name I gave the number in my cell for the Red Cross blood bank. So when they call, it gets my attention. (Similar to how I labeled the student loan fuckers "Student Loan Fuckers!" so I don't inadvertently answer their shitty calls.) Sometime last month, I had my quickest blood donation ever. From the time I left work to the time I returned, including a little QT with Little Debbie and Grandma at the blood bank cantina, I was only gone about 50 minutes. Wow! They drained me fast. Vitals are good: BP 118/78 (oddly, identical to my previous donation reading), Pulse 76.

READINGS
I don't have any scheduled; I'm kind of enjoying my poetry performance hiatus and am trying to channel that energy into writing. However, I went to an awesome reading last Wed -- I termed it the Unspeakable Reading because I could only pronounce Patrick's name -- at the Waldron, featuring Aracelis Girmay, Tyehimba Jess, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, and Patrick Rosal. And I am co-hosting a reading on the 17th at Rachel's Cafe. I might break out something for the open mic, or maybe not. Incidentally, B-tizzle-ites, if you haven't been to Rachel's yet hie thee!

FIN
There's more, always more. But that's enough for now. It's April!

Stand By For Adventure!

2008-02-28T11:01:00.009-05:00

TO-DO DO DO, TO-DA DA DA
So, sometime ago I posted this MASSIVE to-do list for the first half of 2008.

It's still in place. Some to's have been done. I've actually TURNED DOWN some work because I just can't handle another project. (Go me.) In general, I'm pretty all-business these days, except when I'm in FUN MODE, in which case I'm all bid-niz, yo.

NO, ASSHOLE, TURKEYS FLY!!!
The NATF retreat in St. Louis was equally frustrating, shocking, invigorating, and terrifying. I learned some things about the org that, frankly, if I'd known this was "the state of things" or "how shit gets done," I might have passed on a board position.

But, as my drinkin' buddy Don Rumsfeld once said, you go to war with the army you have, not the army you wish you had. So I'm sticking with these folks for at least the remainder of my first 2-year term. Beyond that? Who knows. I don't think I'm cut out for this level of board involvement, especially if they "ratify" the "give, get, or get out" fundraising credo -- which I think is asinine and definitely was stated NOWHERE in the welcome-to-the-club literature.

In other NATF news, IF I'm on staff at the annual workshop this year (and that's still an IF at this point, sad to say) I won't be performing sound effects (sniff) ... I'll be DIRECTING a segment most likely including but not limited to an adaptation of some Shakespeare, some cowboy poetry, and a Native American folk tale. Kind of a mash-up of all three. I think. Which is cool! Though I haven't directed anything in ... about 14 years. But considering my "job" that week will consist of hanging out with cowboys and getting them comfortable with this whole AW-DEE-OH THEE-ATE-R concept, I'm pretty thrilled.

So there's that.

STILL CRAZY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS
Some bullet points, sans bullets:
I'm still on a bit of a conspiracy theory kick these days. At work, I'm watching/listening (mostly listening) to "The Secret Rulers of the World," which is a little too nuthatch-y in spots (and poorly spiced together in general) to be taken seriously (all 29 parts of it), but it is a fascinating and entertaining overview of governmental/religious/regal/economic/racial dominance of civilization over the past 3,000 years or so, from the Egyptian pharaohs up to the Bush dynasty. The "dot connecting" and Illuminati stuff is, I think, pretty far-fetched, as much as it fires my imagination, in an attempt to posit conspiracies and World Domination plots. But the series is full of Interesting historical tidbits and questions.

There's another good series by the BBC called "The Power of Nightmares," which posits essentially that much of the "enemy threat" during the Cold War and the concept of al-Qaeda as a faceless, country-less terrorist org with global sleeper cells, even here in the US, were largely if not entirely ... fabricated, like the bogeyman, as part of a neocon agenda that's not really hidden.

I'm also watching/listening to as much Noam Chomsky as Mars is reading/listening to Michael Pollan. To each his/her own I guess.

I managed to hook Mars on LOST, despite the screaming (in the show, not from me). I watched about a dozen episodes somewhere between season 1 and 2 last year when I was still living with Mike, so I knew I had to start over at some point and watch it all the way to the present. Yay, Netflix.

Because it needs to be said: I really wish my ex would get her financial shit together. I'm tired of hearing about it.

Oh, and RIP William F. Buckley, Jr. He was a good 'un.

EDIT: This could use some intro: it's a debate between Chomsky and Buckley from 1969, on US intervention in world affairs. I don't agree with Buckley's view that the US should be able to intervene because we are "disinterested" and have [INSERT COUNTRY NAME]'s best interests at heart. This view I think is what the neocons ultimately fomented into today's yee-haw US foreign policy, where we are INCAPABLE of wrongdoing ... or even human error, since God is on our side. ANYWAY, what I do love about Buck is the way he gets his point across as intelligently as Chomsky does. B is a little overbearing, I think, and cuts Noam off a lot. But in general you can tell that at heart, these are two intellectuals who WANT people to understand what they are saying. I mean, can you imagine talk like this showing up on TV (or radio or even the innerwebs) today? There's far too much mutual respect here, and not nearly enough mindless screaming and poo-flinging.

DEEDLE-DI
Got two Irish gigs with Mars and some session mates coming up around St. Patty's Day. One is tentative at this point (Sunday 3/16 at tutto bene), but the other is as firm as cold haggis:

ODDS-N-ENDS
Let's see:
I hosted a poetry slam on campus for the Hop-Hop Congress Culture Awareness Week (yeah, college kids can do anything as long a "culture" is attached to it). Good times. I showed up thinking I was "officiating," i.e., picking judges, speakin' rules to the playas, keeping score. Turns out they had no MC (ahem, SLAM MASTER), so I offered. It went well, although their white-ass DJ was trying to spin trip-hop that came across like elevator music. And I hate the "play music while the poet approaches the stage" paradigm made famous by Def Poetry Jam. Plus, I kinda lapsed into some "yo"s, "what up"s, and "yeeeeah, boy"s, which was a little embarrassing, but hey, when in Rome ... better hit a bathhouse while you're there, right?

Filed taxes; received refund of same. A piddly refund, I might add, compared to last year's largesse; but my income was a bit less last year and my freelance expenses were WAY less, so I didn't have nearly as much to deduct (like my laptop, for starters). Still, every freaking dime is earmarked, which I actually feel pretty good about.

Howled at the moon during the eclipse.

Read some really good books of poetry lately, including:
Dismal Rock by Davis McCombs
Book of My Nights by Li-Young Lee
The Cold That Burns by Siobahn Campbell
What Narcissism Means to Me by Tony Hoagland

REALLY tired of election coverage. Actually I've been tired of it since about December/January. I'm still making up my mind, but that's only because I'm still learning about these people as leaders. Chomsky talked about US elections once, saying Americans make opinions about candidates as if we were deciding who we'd like to sit down and have a beer with. You know what? In the grand scheme of things, I want a good leader, not a drinkin' buddy. (Sorry, Don. I wouldn't vote for you anyway.)

Dug a couple of things out of my closet and went to an 80s party, where Mars and Liz knew the lyrics to the cheese better than I did. Truly, though, if you remember the 80s, you probably weren't there ... those of us who were are trying desperately to forget it. (I mean come on: public high school in the Reagan era? yeesh.)

Have been workshopping poems with Joe again ... and it feels so good! If it's just the two of us, is it really a workshop? Eh, whatever. I'm writing a bunch; the Moleskine journal is working out I think, and my work is taking on new shapes and moving in different directions because of it. (I honestly think my content is being affected by the shape, color, and texture of the paper ... and the lack of lines, or RULES, as they say in the trade.) At this point I think I have maybe 6-9 poems that I'd like to include in the chapbook project. That may change. Or not! Right now I'm just focusing on getting it out and down on paper; we'll sort it out, me and the Freemasons, later this summer.

EXISTENCE/EXISTANCE
I really don't have time these days for existential crises. I'm not too worried about things in general: job is good; arts stuff is poppin'; love life seems stable (and honestly, not having time to dwell on it is kind of a boon due to my tendency to overthink).

I suppose if I HAD to get all introspective about life, I'd say that Mars' job woes weigh on me. It makes her cranky, which makes her hell to deal with sometimes, even as Zen as I like to try to be. There's no certainty, still, that she's going to be in Bloomington for more than a few months. It just depends on what job she finds and where. Only SHE doesn't think she's worthy of that tremendous opportunity, which gets us into this cycle of my telling her she's great ... so she can find a job elsewhere and move away.

Wouldn't it be smarter to just roll with the negativity and AGREE that she's only worth the shitty job she has, so that she'll stay here?

No, of course not. Not even I am that selfish.

So there's that.

I'm nearly 100% certainly staying in B-ton for the foreseeable future. There's simply nothing driving me away, and no place pulling me toward it for more than a visit. Plus, I got all this stuff going that I'm really happy about. I think I want to be selfish, and feel okay about it, and keep all this stuff for myself. I'll share, though.

With that admission in mind, I also do and don't think about buying a house again. I hate renting but love not having to deal with major house stuff; yet while dealing with major house stuff kept me more active, mortgage companies in general suck and lately, suck hard. Yeah, I guess it's a buyer's market these days, but I'm not so sure I want my finances tangled up in a mortgage just now, thanks. I still owe a (to me) considerable amount to a credit card company. But I now owe monthly rent and monthly utilities, and beyond that I'm a free man financially. That feels really good, and it's been over a decade since I've been in this position. Plus, until she gets some things worked out/paid off, my ex is going to continue to threaten me with bad credit/bankruptcy by association. Nothing I can do about that but wait, unfortunately. And it could be 3-4 years before anything positive comes out of that. So ... I wait.

Which is fine! I'm exceedingly patient and there is PLENTY to keep me busy until I'm ready to get more domestic again. Playing house with Mars has been fun, and I think I want to continue that (we need to decide soon whether to renew the lease here). So rather than see all these Major Decisions as a pall over my otherwise clearly progressing life, I'm choosing to view the time I do have to consider them as a gift. "Why thank you! How thoughtful. That's just what I needed."

Lastly, it's still wintry here, and my old Capricorn soul loves it. The gray and gloom make some people S.A.D., and I'm sure it does me some too. But I'll take it! I love it. Love the high contrast and the biting snap in the air, the way melting icicles are like God pissing his name in the snow, the sweet anticipation of spring, which always feels so good when it finally arrives after months of monochrome. The x-mas hoohah is long gone and it's a few weeks from the Season of Mud, so I'm enjoying it.

Okay, that's enough.

NOT-SO-INSTANT REVIEW: The Netflix Queue

2008-02-14T10:29:00.002-05:00

STAR TREK: A BUNCH OF SEQUELS
So Mars and I embarked on a journey ... to watch all the Star Trek movies ... in order. Honestly, you're either into ST or you're not, so a review is kind of pointless -- although the fact that we are now arguing over who's idea this was should give you some indication of the overall quality of this venture. (Ahem, it was HER idea, I tell ya! I'm just an old Trekkie.)

I will say, though, that the old adage is true: all the odd-numbered installments (I, The Non-motion Picture; III, The Search for ~~Plot~~Spock) for the most part suck; all the even-numbered flicks (II, Khan Strikes Back; IV, Save the Whales) are actually quite good.

We've gotten halfway through ... this madness. Then one night I recommended a couple of episodes of Carnivale a friend ripped for me some years ago, though I never finished the series, as it was on cable and I didn't have it at the time.

CARNIVALE:
So we took a little detour into Dust Bowl Depression-era America. Wow, what a show! Basic Summary: a carnival/freak show is traveling the circuit from Oklahoma to California in 1934. Concurrent to this story are the trials and tribulations (literally) of a pastor grappling with his faith in the middle of very hard times. The show implies, obviously, that there is a connection between the carnival and the pastor, but that doesn't become clear until much, much later. Everyone in the show has a detailed back story, too, which you really only glimpse in the 1st season.

If you liked Twin Peaks, Carnivale has a similar grittiness (the creepy dwarf from TP, Michael J. Anderson, is a lead actor here) and "good vs. evil" overarching story, but Carnivale is more accessible, not nearly as self-consciously weird as Lynch's small-town America. Huge ensemble cast, good acting (for the most part, although a few scenes were surprisingly awkward, I thought), impeccable production quality. I've read up on the show and apparently one reason why it only got two seasons on HBO was the high price tag: the network wanted to DECREASE the cost to $2 million per episode but the producer/creator wouldn't budge, so, even though HBO tends to let a good show play out no matter the cost, the show's sluggish ratings got it yanked.

Seriously, though, the attention to detail is really impressive, from costumes to slang to the constant wisps of dust and smoke drifting across the sets. I read that in the first season the costumers clothed about 5,000 people, there were so many extras. (I noted in one shot, where two leads were talking in close-up, there were probably 20-30 "roustabouts" passing behind them working on setting up the carnival, all in period dress. And that was a pretty incidental shot.)

I love this era of American history, especially the clothes and music, so for that alone it's worth a watch. But the story is really engaging too, and grows increasingly dark and ominous as it progresses into the last, second season.

That's right; two seasons and that's it, so the end is disappointing in that respect. The creator imagined the series as a 6-year project, with 2 seasons covering a "book" of the story. So we do see some resolution of SOME plot points, but nothing is conclusive, MUCH is left undone, and several characters who were just getting some attention remain largely unknown. Which is kind of fitting, but frustrating nonetheless.

EASTERN PROMISES:
I just watched this last night. Aragorn, son of Arathorn, continues to impress me, and Naomi Watts still has my heart in her kooky li'l hands. She's like a toned-down Nicole Kidman. Me likey. Also, Vincent Cassell and Armin Mueller-Stahl. Really good cast here.

I had forgotten until I saw the credits that this is a Cronenberg movie, which means it's got some pretty damn gruesome scenes, while it's not what I would call "violent." It's dark and dreary, but no shootings, low body count. Suffice it to say, though, that the killings are grisly and discomfiting, as they should be. The fight in the sauna was particularly gory and hard to watch.

That out of the way, this is a great story. A London midwife (Watts) delivers a baby just after a teenage mother dies on the table in the operating room. Midwife also finds the mother's journal, in Russian, which she has translated. This pulls her suddenly into the sphere of a Russian crime family, some members of whom she already knows. Viggo plays a driver for this Eastern Euro mafia. He's also something of a ... cleaner. A fixer of problems. Can't really say more. Murder, deceit, retribution, arterial spray. Classic Cronenberg. Plus Viggo Mortensen is up for a Best Actor Oscar for his portrayal of Nikolai.

DIE, VERSIONS!!!

2008-02-07T10:18:00.000-05:00

So ... I use Adobe InDesign all the time: at work, freelance, personal chapbooky-type projects. It's great.

BUT I'm suddenly plagued by the fact that:
1) I use InDesign 2 (for PC) at home (a ... free copy ...)
2) I just switched to InDesign CS3 (part of a design suite that includes Photoshop, Illustrator, Acrobat, etc., as well as ID) at work.
3) The graphic design class I'm teaching in April through Continuing Studies is still going to be run using CS2 -- they're not switching to CS3 until the fall.
4) I'm teaching a class on ID CS3 at Ivy Tech ... also in April/May.

Did I mention InDesign is great? Did I also mention you cannot back-save to a previous version? The obvious solution, of course, is to simply bite the bullet and get myself a copy of the whole CS3 suite ... for about $1,200. (InDesign by itself runs about $700, and this is with a friend's uber-IT-for-educators discount. I am looking into eBay options, though....)

BUT then anything I work on at home (in CS3), I still won't be able to use for the graphic design class (in CS2) this spring. As it is, I can create something at home (in ID2), but if I alter it at work or at the class (CS3 or CS2, respectively), I can't work on it at home anymore ... in ID2. AND anything I work on or create at work (in CS3) for the IU class (CS2) won't be usable for that class until fall (when they switch to CS3). AND I also won't be able to work on those files at home (in ID2) unless I upgrade, now to CS3 (skipping CS2 altogether). The Ivy Tech class is actually in CS3 ... but honestly most of it is going to involve making documents from scratch rather than me bringing in pre-designed pieces, so I'm not too concerned there.

I'll bet Masonically symbolic US currency that the Illuminati are behind this!

He's Doing It Again (a free write)

2008-02-05T22:09:00.000-05:00

A day of conspiracy theories and consequential rethinking of societal machinations.

37 U.S. presidents are direct descendants of the Illuminati bloodline. I know exactly what I think this means to me. Christ, it doesn’t sound good, does it?

And the Codex Alimentarius sounds like a fine way to end the Mayan calendar, if you ask me. Blood for blood. A 90% population reduction might just do it, too. I sometimes wish I had my chickens back, but then, we’re all being bred for something bigger than ourselves. Doesn’t matter if it comes from the end of a gun or under the knife or slowly, at the end of days, or slower still, in a nursing home. Something is going to devour me, even if it’s just the Earth. There’s a lot of formaldehyde to eat through first. I’d like to see that.

Apparently JFK objected to selling drugs to pay for the Cold War, and to providing our alien overlords with specimens at the ends of their sex probes. So we offed him. Is that all you got? I mean we MADE IT to the moon in that de-cade. And everything after. And this country loves sacrifice more than even meat. More than washers and dryers. It’s in our religion, and don’t even try to tell me this country wasn’t founded on religion. We invented Jesus. For there are no kings, have never been any kings, where there is a clergy standing behind them. Pope’s the best thing happened to the Crusades. Put a human face on it. Otherwise it’s just an esoteric agenda.

And this is a global problem, by the way. Where do you think that first 90% is going to come from anyway?

Here the difference is low wages still gets you satellite TV and three squares of corn syrup a day. I’m still dissatisfied, I’m still disgruntled, feeling dissed with my higher yet not advanced degree, still wondering when I’m going to get mine, though more likely at a movie theatre than on a frontline somewhere.

It’s almost impossible to imagine this story any further without bringing myself into it, which of course makes it all seem so far-fetched. I’m more hobbit than elf at this point, more content to live in the world than be a part of it.

Sum total seems to be 2^nd amendment horseshit involving gun-clingers: “I don’t hate the guy that did this. He’s a loon anyway. I don’t hate the guns that did this. They didn’t walk in by themselves and start shooting.” Something about you need to keep your guns no matter what. Like life insurance. You have it and hope you’ll never need it, but the one time you need it and don’t have it, boy will you be sorry.

I’m already sorry.

Ha! Sorry, Jack.

2008-01-24T20:40:00.000-05:00

Found whilst sorting and filing stuff from the past two or three years.

I'm gonna

Break your steel
Cut your heel
Eat your meal
Call misdeal
Club your seal
Roast your eel
Numb your feel
Haul your keel
Make you kneel
Zest your peel
Spin your reel
Paint you teal
Chew your veal
Lance your weal
Shrug your zeal

Nightmare Paint

2008-01-18T21:19:00.000-05:00

Looney Tunes - The Big Snooze (1946)
Uploaded by Cartoonzof2006

Suck it, global climate change!

2008-01-14T14:24:00.001-05:00

And let me just say how thrilled I am (really!) by the return of winter. That 60-65 degree shit simply was not making my January any better. Now it's icy, windy, and back in the 20s where it oughta be. And it even snowed! A little. Hopefully more tomorrow.

The Big To-Do

2008-01-14T12:10:00.000-05:00

January
* Find a poetry retreat/workshop (right now I'm seriously contemplating IU Writers Conference + another Hill House retreat in Spencer with Joe et al.)
* Edit IU class materials (should go quickly; I've been over them a million times already)
* Restart MATRIX workshop

February
* NATF retreat in St. Louis
* Prep for IVY Tech class (need to acquire InDesign CS3 ... as that's what I'm teaching)

March
* Bear down and push out poetry ms. (my goal is to have at least twice as much material than the final chap will contain, so I can start cutting down and sequencing throughout a series of summer workshops, readings, and retreats)
* Finalize NATF project details (I'm producing a Cowboy/Indian/Shakespearean poetry mash-up; hopefully I'll be on staff at the workshop too)

April
* Tionol (trad Irish fest in St. Louis)
* Teach IU classes
* Research chapbook ms. contests (there are a ton out there)

May
* Teach IVY Tech classes
* BHRG bout program prep
* First 2008 derby bout
* NATF newsletter deadline
* Prep for NATF in June, as needed

June
* IU Writers Conference (mid-June)
* NATF (West Plains, Mo., last week o' June)

July
AS LITTLE ACTIVITY AS POSSIBLE
* Maybe visit Gerry in Boulder

August
* Hill House retreat
* Finalize chap ms.

September/October
* Submit chap for publication
* Fall reading tour(?)

November
* Submit report on Greer Fellowship monies

"Oh it's not that bad," he said. It was the last we heard from him for some time....

So ... I did okay on my 2007 resolutions, for the most part. Really the only one I didn't keep was cooking (myself) at home more often, but that picked up toward the end of the year, so I figure I'm just a late bloomer. I tend to carry over some resolutions from the previous year (mostly health-related), and I do have a few new ones, but I like to keep them on the down-low. I fret less when I don't make them public until the following year.

The first half of 2008 is going to be unbelievably busy for me, more than usual. It's all doable, I think, but it's going to require a lot of focus and shifting gears and mindsets, often. Audio theatre stuff, teaching 2 classes, making it to Tionol in April, tackling another stupid newsletter project (why do I do this to myself? I'm a sadist not a masochist....) -- and bubbling away behind it all is the chapbook manuscript I'm working on and need to finish, workshop, and shop around as per the poetry fellowship I won back in October. And I want to submit work for publication in general, which will help boost the viability of the ms.

And, of course, simmering behind even all this is the big question. The Biggest Question: should I stay or should I go? I'm still largely undecided, which is only natural, but when I do feel conclusive I also feel, by turns, sad, angry, and/or depressed. Doesn't matter which outcome I choose, either. Which is JUST LOVELY, let me tell ya.

There's no use fretting over it too much now, I tell myself. Until Mars has a where to go with the what, and an inkling of when, there's no way I can answer if with anything but maybe. But I'm a thinker ... a slow thinker ... and I can't seem to keep from dwelling on it now and then ... every day.

But ... on to more productive thoughts: A lot of friends had babies this year, and I am really happy for and proud of them all. Some of my favorite couples are reproducing, and that's awesome.

2007 seemed like a volatile year for a lot of people ... for me it was a year of settling. 2005 was the Year of the Never-ending Shit Storm ... that did finally end, but 2006 was the Year of the Move. Three times in 9 months. Bleah. So last year was, for me, a time to re-ground, check my gages, and start plotting and scheming again.

I like to plot!

I also cut some projects loose (unheard of!) to make room for more personal growth (shocking!) ... and BOY did that ever feel good, after a brief twinge of failure, of course.

I think it's fair to say I have hit the ground running in 2008.

I going to make a concerted effort to post here more often. They'll likely be less lengthy posts, but I hardly post on LJ or facebook and never on myspace. I like it here, though. It's quiet and I can hear myself think. Sounds like something needs tightening.

Am I Really That Awful?

2008-01-03T16:49:00.000-05:00

So a friend (from the radio theatre crowd) stopped talking to me, some years ago, around the time of un fiasco per quattro. I was, and am, fine with that. I understood then that I was mostly a "business associate" to those guys, an interloper. So that shunning was expected and relatively painless.

But I just learned that another, mutual friend succumbed to lung cancer some time in 2007. I learned about it by lurking in his LJ ... not from any of several other mutual friends ... not even the ones who do still talk to me.

I know, I know. Someone I once considered a friend is dead, and that's what matters, not how (or how long after the fact) I received the news.

Craig didn't smoke, ever; learnt me a thing or three about killin' chickens and general good ol' boy craft in the wilds of Owen Co.; and was one of the finest Christian men, warts and all, I have ever known. Loved his kids too.

He moved away to Rochester to make better money, then promptly got divorced but didn't move back. The money was too good, and his kids were staying out east with his ex, so he stayed too. I'm sure he was brought back here for his funeral, though. I'll have to go find his stone soon.

Sealed

2007-12-16T20:53:00.001-05:00

Is there anything worse than windows wrapped in plastic to keep out winter wind? It is the ultimate surrender to drafts: Here, take it. Take my sunshine away. Bury me beneath flapping, wrinkled ice ponds until April. Opaque the whitened land.

I was a grasshopper this year and did not get around to winterizing anything. I don’t even have my tube sand (provides weight, and when all else fails, dry traction) for my RWD truck, which needs an oil change ... and probably new tires.

I am in need of fluids myself. I gave blood Tuesday ... then stayed home sick Thursday and Friday, and I’ve still been all out of energy since then. Betti’s baby shower Saturday was definitely a pick-me-up, though. Adeline is gorgeous, and seeing a bunch of tough-ass rollergirls get all dewy eyed with a newborn in their arms was a hoot. Mr. Heezie, you rock all over.

I also went to Promptcare today to have my foot x-rayed. It’s been hurting and swollen off and on for about a week. Being home and having it elevated while I’ve been sick has helped, I thought, but I limped a lot yesterday and finally had enough of it today, so Mars went with me. X-rays showed nothing conclusive, no tears or fractures or breaks, though a radiologist may find something exciting by Tuesday. I honestly don’t know how I injured myself, and the doc was certain there was nothing systemic going on (no discoloration or lines and only one foot is swollen; Lefty is fine).

So while I did not get a diagnosis, I did learn that I am doing everything I should have been doing -- namely RICE (rest, ice, compression, elevation) -- but she prescribed an anti-inflammatory ... Alleve ... and if nothing in changes in a week, consult her again or see my own doc.

Okay. That was money well spent. Doc mentioned arthritis, but I don’t know; does arthritis come on that fast? It really does feel like an injury; for the life of me I don’t know what I did, though. I talked with my chiropractor Monday about how I sit in a chair most times with my feet crossed under me, how the pressure isn’t good on my feet and ankles. He supposed it was possible. A sitting injury? You’ve got to be kidding me.

I’m going to try to stay off it and keep it elevated as much as possible so that the flight to San Francisco Friday won’t kill me. I’ll be fine; the weather doesn’t help. Being sick on top of being injured most definitely is not helpful.

It has, however, given me an opportunity to sit and be quiet and read and write ... couch bound ... affecting misery but with winter safely shut away ... working on my manuscript ... staring at my ankle ... wrapped tight as a window pane.

Also?

2007-12-03T13:23:00.000-05:00

Dear Lord on High,

Protect me from khaki trousers, shiny brown loafers, and cell phone belt cips that allow you to turn the thing sideways so the antenna doesn't jab you in the ~~lite beer~~ ~~soft white underbelly~~ gut. And if you ever look down and I'm wearing a pastel polo shirt -- any time of year but especially in December -- please just smite me and put me out of my misery. Surely, my soul is already of the devil.

Allah Is the One True God and Muhammed is His Prophet,
Praise His Name

It's Shocking

2007-12-03T10:01:00.000-05:00

I'm considering leaving Bloomington, and it feels, by turns, exhilarating and terrifying. I've been "around" for about 17 years (cripes!) but I've been largely a fringe dweller. Returning from "Walden," it's been just over two years since my life was turned upside down and I became a "city dweller," if you can call Bloomington a city (and I do, at least compared to Spencer). Talk about making lemonade: I'm content with job, arts stuff, friends, Mars, even family. Pretty much every facet of my life is "in order" these days, and that feels really good. Busy as hell, but somewhat triumphant, for my part.

So, why start over? Well, right now, I'm not considering leaving for myself. Mars has finally had enough of the bleak job market here and has decided to expand her job search nationwide. She could end up anywhere in the country; current prospects are in Phoenix, New Jersey, Seattle ... Terre Haute ... and other far-flung locales. (No, I'm NOT moving to Teh Haute. If I'm living in Indiana, it's gonna be in B-ton. Sorry.)

Part of me thinks a major change like this would do me good (and the concept of living in a completely new-to-me environment, such as the desert Southwest or pacific Northwest [Jersey, though, not so much], is somewhat attractive). Part of me, though, thinks I'm chasing the wind when I'm really more interested in "settling down," continuing what I started and am maintaining quite well, with or without whomever does or doesn't want to share it with me. I feel like in leaving I'd be pursuing a life that may or may not develop in front of me in hopes that it'll become what I want/need, rather than making a conscious choice NOW based on what I want and have NOW.

I've spent the last couple of years doing some serious soul-searching, and frankly the idea of leaving B-ton (and Indiana) came and went those first 6 months post-divorce. Then, it would have been for show mostly, a desperate move to leave an uncomfortable situation behind. I feel like I've persevered and now am thriving in a new (to me) environment that is also familiar -- I've worked and played in B-tizzle the whole time I've been around, and I'm kind of enjoying becoming a "fixture" here.

It's all very disconcerting. I feel like I'm now trying to come up with reasons to leave. And I'm not very good at it. There are many reasons, sure, but they have always been outnumbered by the reasons to stay. Also, you know, that whole Fear of the Unknown thing. (At least I'm not afraid to admit it.)

The problem there is I'm a long-range thinker. Perhaps even a planner. The idea of moving somewhere just to make someone else happy does not feel good. That doesn't seem like a very good plan to me. In fact, that sounds like a major compromise, only I'm not sure what I'd get in return -- which is an important but oft-overlooked component of any compromise. Also, the idea that a major move like that is likely to be temporary -- that Mars and I would continue moving to whatever academic institution would keep her climbing the ladder, either in employment or in a PhD program -- is nigh on to unbearable. That kind of "toward job" movement runs anathema to who and where I am in life, and I've said as much for years, long before I met Mars. I like roots. I need to be grounded. I have to know where I'm going to be.

And yet ... I'm still considering leaving Bloomington. She's that cool, and the Excitement of Newness is that enticing. So maybe that's the problem: I shouldn't consider it LEAVING, but rather GOING TO somewhere wonderful, if I'm going to take it seriously. A veritable Shangri-La, with candy cane light poles, baskets of doe-eyed kittens free with purchase, and bare-breasted meter maids propping their stilettos on old-fashioned chrome bumpers as they write out citations ... also some nice shops....

Okay, seriously, if I were to do this, Future Locale would have to be as satisfying to me as it is to her. I think that's only fair.

So ... what would that entail precisely? Well, a job similar to what I have now: something fulfilling, non-corporate, and that doesn't suck my soul too long or too hard so that I have plenty of juice left for all my other pursuits.

And what of those? Well, New Place would have to have some kind of poetry scene (not necessarily slammy, but at least poetry-friendly open mics and prospects for readings/performances in the region). There would have to a decent music scene -- not all hipster shit but at least people passionate about keeping a local scene alive. And some variety. And an Irish session somewhere close, definitely. Roller derby? Who knows. I'm just an announcer, so I'd take it or leave it (though I'd still spectate). MUST HAVE READY ACCESS TO NATURE! I don't mean a park or a bunch of roads with some grass and trees strategically placed nearby. (I LOVED Muir Woods ... they did a lovely job paving around the redwoods....) I mean seldom-used, it's-possible-to-literally-get-lost-here wilderness. I barely get that here but it's possible, and I definitely need and want it. I just don't think I'd make it in a city. Yes, yes, I'd do fine with job and music and arts and people ... but I need to maintain a physical connection to the Earth. Call me a cheesy old hippie or whatever, that connection is important to me, so it's not to be taken lightly. It's part of who I am and it has nourished the person I've become, again and again, when nothing else would suit.

Would I still want to work in publishing? Probably. But like I said, as long as it pays the bills and doesn't drive me crazy or suck my soul dry, I'm down for whatever. Publishing has done me right (and done well by me) for over a decade now, so there's no reason to move on ... except this might be the push I need to finally go full-time freelance -- although I LOVE not having to worry about overhead. On the other hand, if I were *ahem* being supported in this endeavor.... Eh, I could go round and round.

The timetable for Moving is undefined. It could take her a few months or a year (or even years) to find something suitable to her. So I imagine my latest round of "what the hell are you going to do with your life, Tony?" and how I'm going to get it, and where, is going to continue for the foreseeable future. Really, though, does it ever end? I kinda thought it had.

IN OTHER NEWS:
And speaking of change, after 12 years of cheap-o, college-ruled notebooks, I am moving into a nice, spiffy Moleskine journal. I know: alert the freaking media. But this is a big change for me and shows, I think, a level of commitment to and confidence in my writing I don't often display. More on this as it develops. I'm experiencing some anxiety in this area too. But hey, it shows that I CAN change! (Allah be praised, at least I'm not changing pens too.)

Album Cover Wars

2007-11-16T15:32:00.001-05:00

Autumnal

2007-11-16T10:46:00.001-05:00

Well here we are, my favorite time of year. The landscape seems to change almost by the moment: the leaves have turned, and one by one (or all at once overnight) the trees lose them. There is a HUGE silver maple out my office window that turns the most incredible fiery yellow-orange every year. Now half its hands are blown all over the ground around its base. I like watching the colors shift: green leaves/grass --> red/brown/orange/yellow leaves + green grass --> gray, leafless trees + red/brown/orange grass. Everything inverts, eventually.

And then there's the sky. This week has been particularly spectacular. Love the gray and blue hues, the way it's perpetually on the verge of roiling into a storm. And it snowed yesterday! Okay, just a few spits, but you could taste it in the atmosphere all day, that damp iciness in the lazy wind (can't bother to go around -- it goes right through you).

I think I like fall and spring best of all the seasons because they are so tumultuous and you can see so clearly the changes happening in the air.

It's also a good time to write, and I am once again doing a Poem a Day project this month (April is traditionally the sister month of this li'l endeavor). I always make it through to the end, content and quality be damned, but I do generally get behind here and there. "I owe 4 poems today" it says at the top of the page next to today's date. I seriously doubt I'll make quota today, but there will be time this weekend.

I also took time for what may have been the final (or nearly) bike trek on the Clear Creek trail Tues night. I only got one lap in after work before it got too dark to continue. (I didn't have a bike light on me or I might have tried for another circuit.) Gorgeous sunset! Encroaching frost! Dogs with inordinately long leashes and lazy owners! I'll probably be able to squeeze in a couple more rides this year. Indiana weather is funny like that.

I'm finally feeling a slow-down, although Turkey Day being NEXT WEEK ALREADY isn't helping at all.

Don't Mind Me

2007-11-14T20:06:00.000-05:00

Just taking some time out this evening to organize and add to muh links. I may be on the verge of launching ... something ... probably not a rocket. But I had an urge to spiff and do more than blog here, so I'm going with it.

I've Just Been Handed This....

2007-11-02T12:59:00.000-05:00

Extra-special thanks to Sir Loin for manhandling the camera and editing the footage.

A Short Stent on Halloween

2007-11-01T08:55:00.001-05:00

Travel back in time with me now...
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My dad had quintuple bypass surgery in 1988, when I was a senior in high school. Good times, yes, that's right. He'd been ill and, frankly, pretty out of it for most of my adolescence. I now like to blame his passivity on a bad ticker.

Recovery took a while, like years. It was rough, on everyone. But he soldiered through and seemed to be enjoying life a good deal more eventually. Around 1997 or 98, he owned a travel agency, post-retirement, in Crawfordsville. He had a good time doing that, for a while. The best part was taking red-eye flights, mostly solo, hither and yon to check out airports and hotels, basically just get a feel for a vacation destination, at least the travel/accommodations end of things.

At one point, he was going to take one of these quick trips to Jamaica. But not long before the trip (he can't recall when exactly now), he passed out and lost some feeling in his left arm.

Sounds like a stroke, right? Right. However ... he didn't tell anybody about it, afraid he wouldn't be able to take the trip. He just sucked it up and flew to Marleyland anyway ... where the same thing happened again. And again, he didn't tell anybody, not even after he got back.

Not long after that, as I recall, he got tired of running the travel center and sold it. He then had a heart attack (his first) around that time, in 1999. (Some gentle readers might recall, this happened while I was on That Camping Trip in South Dakota/Montana....)

He has been getting, well, more fragile and less "peppy" since then -- which is understandable. That whole age thing, right? Bad circulation. Thin blood. Tiring easily. The usual.

Then another heart attack in 2005. Mild. But still, heart attack. He had been having chest pains for something like THIRTEEN FUCKING HOURS before he told anybody something was wrong ... okay, yeah, but at least he told somebody this time.

Now we're present day. He's been looking pale gray and just generally "down" ever since the last attack (go figure), but he's been having chest pains when exercising. When I went up to see him last weekend, he was in pretty good spirits (I tend to lift people up, it's a curse) but still just ... no pep, as he says. So he talked to his doc and they poured over his EKG. Apparently his LAD (left anterior descending) artery -- he likes to call it "the widow maker" ... I think he heard that on Oprah or something -- was blocked 95% (which, if you're bad at math, is QUITE A LOT!), so they wanted to put in a stent. But first, let's have a look at that carotid artery ... which, as it turned out, WAS (read: HAD BEEN) blocked but had made its own li'l bypass. This probably occurred as a result of ... well, let's just say that's when the Tale of the Jamaican Stroke came out. Ooops.

Sigh.

So, Dad's kidneys were acting up too, as if everything else wasn't enough, probably due in part to diabetes, partly to encroaching decrepitude. Anyway, his EXCELLENT heart doc told the PRETTY GOOD kidney doc, "Damn it! We're not going to lose this kid. NOT. ON. MY. WATCH!" only much, much less dramatically and sounding nothing like George Clooney. More like ~~Mickey Rooney~~ a svelter Andy Rooney.

ANYWAY, he was/then wasn't/then was/then WAS RIGHT NOW having surgery yesterday. He was in quite a bit of chest/arm pain all day Tuesday (even went in at midnight/Wed morning because of it), and they said he was "a whisker from a major heart attack" as they were taking him in for surgery, hence the sudden, uh, URGENCY. I didn't get up there (St. Vincent's -- and let me say, if you need cardio care in Indiana, this is the place to be) in time to see him pre- but I was there as he was coming down from the Happy Juice post-op. He's fine. It took about 50 minutes, and he should be released and coming home today.

What have we learned here? Your body has ample early warning systems to keep you from dying. Pain is one of the most obvious. Passing out is another. DON'T IGNORE YOUR BODY! It's the only one you've got.

Oh, and Dad says he wants to try being "vegetarian" like me, which I think is terribly cute, but first we have to work on his wife, the Valedictorian of Home Ec circa 1957 and Betty Crocker devotee ... who has really lost her will to cook anymore. I mean talk about phoning it in: Her no-account bachelor son can now officially put her to shame in the kitchen. And how sad is that.

Speaking of sad, the worst -- I mean absolute WORST -- part of the last two days has been the long-ass, bordering-on-hysterical rehash of a trip my family (sans me and Dad) took to DC recently to visit my Evil Sister, my bloke-in-law, and Baby Liz. I knew no good could come of it. No good! I'm only happy that I had a reasonable excuse not to go -- and I would have dodged it with an unreasonable one too, frankly.

It's like Dad said as I was making dinner for him Saturday, when I commented on the fact that everybody else was in DC: He said something to the effect, "I don't like going on those long trips with all you kids at the same time in the same place anymore. If it's just you and me and [my mom], I feel like I can talk freely. But getting all you kids together anymore is just too stressful."

Amen.

Okay, time for holiday cheer!

I participated in the Zombie Walk this year for the first time ... although in a slightly different role than the usual lock-stepping zombie peons. (I need to write a post on the rise in popularity of zombies, as opposed to vampires or other more solitary, singular ghouls, which seem to be an 80s/90s/goth thing. Why is it zombies, zombies, zombies now? Two words: sexual politics. Think about it. More later.)

Yes, there is footage of my on-the-spot "reporting" from the whole damn walk, and yes, it'll get YouTubed at some point soon. Sir Loin is awesome for running around (literally) with me that night trying to stay ahead of a FAST-SHAMBLING hoard of reanimated necrotized flesh. Sheesh, people, slow down! This ain't 28 Days Later.

I closed out the holiday season last night (after I got back from the hospital) with a viewing of 30 Days of Night, which was AWESOME if you're into that kind of thing, and I am.

Whew.

Remember me saying I'm ready for that fall-into-winter slow-down? Ahem, any time now, please.

3 for 3 in October

2007-10-26T10:43:00.000-05:00

I feel as if a great weight has been lifted off me. October is usually an extremely busy month socially speaking, and I also tend to make lots of artsy commitments too. This year was no exception, and I was really starting to feel stretched thin. Everything I had lined up was at least reasonably successful, though, for my part, so it was worth it. I'm ready for the Big Autumnal Wind-Down into Winter, though.

I already blogged about Eroticon. The weekend after that was the last home roller derby bout of the season. Announcing was once again a fun time, but I felt like I was also much more on top of things for this bout. Plus we were one home announcer short, and as much as I like working with him, it was easier to throw around the commentary among just three announcers (me, X Static, and visiting team announcer Sage, who also was a blast to work with and very "on it"). The girls lost by 2 points -- and honestly, I think they should have won by 20. I don't know exactly what happened but the game just slipped away from them, and it DID NOT have anything to do with scorekeeping shenanigans.

Anyway, we all put on a great show: much like Eroticon, enough of us have been working together long enough (both in and out of derby) that it's really not a big deal to host 700 or so people for an event. We just kind of make it work, and very well. There STILL are some sound issues to hammer out for next season. At the last bout and this one we had a bigger PA (it goes to 11 ... actually more like 13), but still no engineer to run it. Tony D. is a sweetheart, really enthusiastic, but we have never had someone to really fine-tune the sound once the bout gets underway. It's essentially tweaked based on guesswork and feedback from the crowd -- and there's no actual sound board with faders to work with, so there's only so much "fine-tuning" one can do with big knobs (he heh).

Ah well, something to work out for next season. My iPod playlist pretty much rocked socks. It helped a lot that once I had added to and edited it down to my taste at home, I was able to spend a couple of days listening to it at work and in the truck and then weed it down further, so that every track was both PG-13 and derby-appropriate. Hardly a clunker in the lot: 8+ hours of high-energy, knock-the-bitch-down rock.

Last night was the inaugural reading of a new series Joe and I have started with MATRIX. As I posted earlier, we're drastically scaling back our event schedule: basically no more monthly events other than the workshop ... and until we can get others to participate, it's just gonna be me and Joe, and we're okay with that. Every little bit helps.

But HARVEST OF VOICES last night went much better than I was anticipating. I'm always cautiously optimistic (realistically pessimistic? whatever...) about spoken word stuff I host. There's so much else going on to draw people's attention, especially in Bloomington, in October, last night in particular. And besides, the weather was normal (i.e., kind of nasty); a fairly high-profile (locally speaking) poet pulled out last week in a snit; and, well ... it's poetry. LOCAL poetry. How big a crowd can we get for the Waldron Auditorium anyway? As it turns out, plenty, enough to make it a bit more than "intimate," although that was the feel. (Love that room, and the lighting was especially warm, I thought.)

Patricia Coleman kicked it off. She's a little quiet and mousy, but I loved having her open. Dustin Nightengale I thought really stood out as our MFA in attendance, as did Nick Moore, who, I learned later, was super nervous, this being his first "serious," "big-time" reading. I think what he does (a mix of stand-up comedy and poetry, with GREAT delivery) is truly unique, and I'm always happy to share a stage with him, at any level. Joe was in good form, although pretty sick, and his protege Suzanne Sturgeon was great in her first-ever reading. I was ... pretty happy with my set, although it was all pretty somber material. That's where my head was at, though, so I went with it, and I debuted I think 3 pieces that I'm eventually going to be more than just okay with. Breshaun Joyner spoke silk as usual; she could melt me just reading a menu. And Norbert Krapf and Monika Herzig I thought made for a good pairing -- polished and professional, and brought the evening to a nice close -- although I personally think he is far too white (too German?) to pull off a blues poem about Etheridge Knight.

Speaking of racism, get this: So I'm walking to the Vid with Mars and friend Sam after the derby bout on Saturday. A group of (6?) urban youths were coming up the sidewalk towards us, and none of them make room so that we all can just pass by/around each other like ya do when a group of 9 people has to briefly share a rather confined public space. I mean it's a pretty common social interaction, right?

Well, I let go of Mari's hand and left the sidewalk so I wouldn't actually bump into one guy, and he literally ran over her and just kept right on going. They all did, just barreled right into and past us all like we weren't even there. And when Mari scowled and said to the guy, "Hey, look UP!" because he wasn't -- he was looking everywhere BUT where he was going -- all of them turned and started yelling at us. Calling us niggers! Yelling at "your nigger bitch"! And on and on. I mean it's like somebody flipped a nigger switch and suddenly every other word out of their mouths was substituted by "The N Word." It was terrible. I felt so sorry for them, trying SO HARD for thug life but really coming off like dumb, drunk frat boys. They started goading me to "start something" but I just kept walking ~~wit mah biotches~~ with my lady friends. I was pissed. I mean HOW LAME to literally run into someone on the street and then start spewing racial epithets ... to a white girl??? Yeah, I totally see what was going on there: hopeful reverse discrimination, or something like that. But I/we were about as white as you could get. Mars was even still in her derby garb (for the stink-n-drink, right?). How fucking stupid of them. Grow the fuck up.

Of course, not a minute later I was laughing inside because I had watched this video the night before with Sam, Andrew, and Mars, and laughed mightily even as it became more and more distrubing:

Ugh, what I wouldn't give to have had a 100-yard-long white limo to pop out of that night on 7th St., some fancy dance moves, and some butta-face booty bitches to rock their world.

In a word: Word.

Tonight, I'm taking it easy, I think. Irish session (haven't been all month), dinner at home (for once), sleeping in tomorrow (damn straight!). I feel like I've been fighting off a cold or something, and now that all my major October commitments are fulfilled I don't want to get sick just when Halloween is on my doorstep. Plus, a night in before a party night out tomorrow is definitely in order.

Also, I'm going up to visit with Dad tomorrow afternoon-ish, provided he'll be at home. Don't know why he wouldn't be. He opted out of the trip to DC my mom, sister, and bro-in-law took to see my Evil Sister, who is in town interviewing for jobs that will get her the hell out of the UK with new baby Liz and Bloke Daddy.

Dad's having heart trouble again, and hasn't felt "up to" much of anything lately. Chest pains when he exercises, apparently, and he had a checkup this week and there is some blockage. I'm not sure of the extent of it, but honestly, considering he had quad-bypass surgery ... 19 years ago ... and is diabetic ... and still works 40+ hours a week ... I think he's doing great, with some exceptions. He's going to cut back his hours (I'll believe that when I see it) driving cars for Enterprise, and get his carotid artery checked Monday to see what's going on there too. It's been a while. I guess he gave Mom some shit about everyone (doctors? family?) treating him like a spring chicken for the last 10 years when he's had "half a heart," he says, meaning the blockage he's experiencing now probably had been missed by some dumb doctor.

(Look, dude, you became REAL sedentary starting in your late 30s, until you had surgery in your late 50s. People MIGHT want to encourage you to do something in your 70s that you might enjoy besides work, eat dinner, and fall asleep in front of the TV by 7p every damn night. That's not treating you like a spring chicken; that's wanting you to enjoy what life you've got left!)

So I want to check in on him, home alone this weekend. My parents are old, gentle readers. I mean they've always been old to me, but now they are becoming elderly and it's showing. Mom and her diverticulitis last year; Dad's bad ticker. It sucks but it is inevitable. I intend to maintain a cool head (as much as I can) about it, while everybody else loses theirs. Good Sister vacillates between compassionate former nurse and fault-taking basket case when it comes to family member health problems. Evil Sister ever seeks to point out who isn't pulling their weight in the caring dept. (see a correlation there?). Mom, ever the optimist, says "pray we make it to our 50th" wedding anniversary (this year -- yesterday actually -- was 48th), and usually gets caught/crushed between Good and Evil.

Me? I don't have any answers at all. Stay active. Eat as well as I can. Keep a positive attitude wherever possible. Be friendly: keep friends who will have me and don't fret (for long) about the ones who won't. Enjoy life. I deserve it! As I have often said, the alternative is currently unacceptable.

That's a formula, though, not really an answer. So rather than freak out and fling it around, I'd rather just ... go check in on Dad this weekend, while "the girls" are away. Health problems aside, I think it'll be a good visit and I'm looking forward to it. Dad and I are on good terms, and have been ever since we "had it out" (well, at least I had it out, and got some things off my chest I really needed to yell at him about) over a decade ago.

Ah, also add to formula: worry about decrepitude when it comes. It's close to me now, a mere generation removed, and that is scary. But it's nearly Halloween, when the veil between this world and the next is thinnest. A little real-life scare is perfectly appropriate, right?

PSA

2007-10-16T12:40:00.001-05:00

Cruising around the Showers Bldg.?

Thinking of cutting through the grass just north of the big bike rack?

Be advised: I think the city has gone green and is fertilizing the grounds with ... repurposed dog turds from those dog pile stations around town.

That, or every stray dog on the near west side craps in the same 10 square feet of turf.

Can you say MINEFIELD?!?!

Showering with a Trash Can, and Other Exciting Weekend Adventures

2007-10-15T11:43:00.001-05:00

Friday, I convinced Mars to go back to PromptCare and get x-rays of her shoulder, wrist, and foot, after her car-bike accident on Thurs. Actually it was her own damn choice ... once she'd determined that her insurance would pay for the film. Nothing broken, just some deep bone bruising (he heh) and a pretty fucked-up TREK (although it is being repaired).

Then I went to some friends' play at the Waldron (Mourning Lori). A comedy ... about suicide! I enjoyed it. Not as funny as I thought it needed to be to undercut the heavy topic -- though parts were laugh-out-loud funny -- and, as always, I had trouble swallowing some of the "theatre dialogue," which to me always sounds more stilted than it means to be. I think there's an effort made for clean diction or something; it just doesn't always work for me, and it comes out sounding less conversational. ANYWAY, great show, excellent ending, and an important work for Joel: his first writing and directing project for stage, and while the circumstances were completely different, I think he was working through some stuff re: his own mother's recent death (not a suicide).

Saturday was Eroticon, my 11th year of these type of events in B-tizzle. This was one of the best ones in recent memory, and considering we had ONE org meeting about two weeks ago, I think it came off (again: he heh) famously. Most all the stage acts were arranged via e-mail or online; I was DJ/music director, as always, and hadn't even had contact with one of the DJs until he called me Saturday afternoon. Talk about laid back!

After 11 years I think I'm finally getting the hang of the DJ thing. Virtually no clunkers, and lots of good feedback, though no one really danced until towards the end of my shift. (I generally take the first block, 9-11p.)

I was reminiscing with friends about the "early days," when I would pack up most of my entire CD collection (and a few prepared cassettes and an album or two) in several milk crates and haul that shit to Jake's/Mars/Axis/Walnut St. Tap/Jake's. This was back before MP3 players and file sharing were common, to me anyway. Plus there weren't too many (if any) DJs in Bloomington or Indy at the time, unless you needed tunes at your bar mitzvah, so I would spin by myself for 6+ hours. Good times!

On Saturday, I had HALF of a single, small CD case full of discs I'd compiled for the occasion (in the other side were my cans, illicit camera, spare cords, and my iPod as a backup). On disc alone: 10+ hours of hand-picked music, ready to rawk. I know, I know. I'm a total square luddite n00b. The other DJs had full-on hard drives, and probably have for years -- albeit one brought a frikkin' 486 TOWER we had to cram in the booth somewhere. Regardless, it was SO NICE to scan through a half-dozen or so discs of choice tracks rather than dig in the dark through piles of jewel cases looking for ONE track on ONE CD, never to be used again that night.

had an absolute blast Sat night. Packed house. Great stage shows. The Edible Beauty was quite edible. Mars look FABULOUS before and after her chocolate adventure. (I'm so very lucky!) Tons of eye candy everywhere. Much flirting with friends old and new. Even got to top a cutie I had to deny at last year's show (duty called, DAMMIT). That was definitely something new for me, or relatively new, at least in public. Wow! Of course, I was dead tired by the end of the night ... which was about 5 am, after tear-down and traipsing up and down Walnut looking for someplace that would FEED TEH MARI. (Finally settled on Awful House.) My feet/legs were killing me, having been on them for most of the day and ending with 6 hours of stomping around in cowboy boots, which were actually quite comfortable, but hard heels on concrete all night hurts my old back something fierce.

Sunday ... after sleeping for Jesus until noonish ... made brekkies for Mars and a rollergirl who slept over (in the guest room, ya pervs!) so she didn't have to drive home. Then Mars went to practice while I ... bumbled around a bit and then ... got a cleaning bug and decided to do a couple of projects I've been ~~threatening~~ talking about doing for a while: cleaning the sticky, rather disgusting bottom shelf of the fridge (and ultimately the maple syrup-filled cavity beneath it), and detailing the kitchen trash can. (Yeah, I could buy a new one but that just seems lazy to me.)

When everything you put in the fridge makes that stuck-to-it sucking sound when you remove it ... and then leaves stain rings on the kitchen counter ... there's a problem. And Mr. Trashy was starting to look a little green around the gills too.

So with no garden hose to work with, what's the easiest way to clean big stuff like that without making an even bigger mess?

What's that? Clean it in the bathtub? Who has a bathtub??!

Shower with it, silly!!

Dude, it was so hot. The water I mean.

Next Projects: making an iPod playlist for the roller derby bout next Saturday and getting my announcer shit together. Oh yeah: got a bibliography to edit this week too.

Brains?

2007-09-30T17:03:00.000-05:00

Cosmic Debris

2007-09-17T10:19:00.000-05:00

I've been reading, hearing, and viewing photos about the current state of ye olde homestead in Owen Co. (I didn't go looking for info, for the most part; it came to me, via various sources.) Any attachment I had to the place, which was deep no matter what anyone might surmise, I severed long ago, mostly for my own peace of mind. It just wasn't healthy for me to care anymore. It isn't my problem -- and once my ex refinanced, it legally wasn't my responsibility either. I haven't been out there since she ousted me in Oct. '05 anyway, which, in the long run, really is for the best too.

Apparently, though, the "tenants" she had installed when she left the state were/are serious hoarders. I don't mean they had a bunch of cars up on blocks and collected Precious Moments figurines and state park shot glasses. From what I've learned, we're talking meth lab-level sanitation practices. I won't describe it beyond that. It makes me irrationally sad and angry. I'd rather feel sorry for the family at the moment. It reminds me, though, of a somewhat similar situation at some friends' place down the road in Owen Co., when I still lived out there, which devolved very quickly from idyllic back-to-nature minimalism into paranoid OCD squalor. Not nearly as bad as my old place now, though. There were no children involved.

I think of how beautiful life out there was and what an all-around broken dream it's become, for the house's original owner/builder right on up to today's renters. I've given myself, with time and perspective, a TON of credit for having made rural life enjoyable. I really did enjoy it, all the struggles and worries as well as the gleefully transcendent moments. I mean that's life, no matter where you live, right? But all the crazy backwoods stuff you have to do to live within the woods (as opposed to just in or near them) -- I loved that shit. Sometimes I think I even miss it, but right now, just the good stuff, especially with fall and firewood season approaching. It sure was frustrating at times, though, especially upon learning mine was not considered an equal share of the land. Walking away from it was hard, but I was heartened by the notion that the plans my ex and I laid out together would go forward, just not together. But, once again, this was not to be. Not on that land anyway. And that too is not my problem or responsibility.

A friend asked if I would have been interested, at one point, in buying the place back, if that had been an option. Given the clear-cutting of the surrounding forest; the landfill the houses have become; the long-ass, expensive commute to get to where life is happening for me now; and the extreme isolation (given the lack of friends/friendlies in the area) such a location would afford: no. That ship has sailed. And I'm healthier and happier waving bon voyage instead of eating Dramamine like Chic-lets and praying that's not an iceberg on the horizon. Without the network of family and friends it took simply to make the place livable, I'd probably have ended up trying to unload it on someone too. And I'm not sure what I'd do if I were faced with mountains of human detritus.

Of course, cleaning out the barn, largely by myself, at the Unionville house was no picnic either. But that was back at the beginning of something, not the end.

Anyway, this situation makes me sad, and angry, and I'm sorry my ex has to deal with it now.

I have been funded!

2007-09-12T15:13:00.000-05:00

I won the 2007 Greer Foundation Fellowship for Creative Writing from the Bloomington Area Arts Council!

More about the foundation and fellowship here.

Basically it's a monetary award to further my mid-career artistic endeavors. I'm planning to use it to attend a workshop/retreat in 2008 to finalize and polish a chapbook manuscript I've been working on since around early 2006, then submit the ms. for publication, especially to publishers holding chapbook contests.

This fellowship has been on my radar for a looooong time (seriously, since about the 2nd Ceilidh), but it's only offered every other year and, like a lot of other awards/contests/important-to-me writerly things, I kept missing the deadline.

Let's hear it for persistence and patience!

(x-posted)

Two Years in a Wet Grave

2007-08-28T12:30:00.001-05:00

And speaking of things that are disgusting....

AVOID AVOID AVOID the abandoned bikes at the west side B-foods rack. I was locking mine up and put my hand on a neighboring bike seat for leverage ... when my hand SANK into this brown banana mass ... spongy ... sticky ... covered with leaves and grass ... and probably beard hair ... as tenacious as snail slime to wash off. The bike seat had ... melted ... or ... decomposed ... like a wet skull prop from CSI: Bedford or something. The hipster dude next to me gaped aghast and skittered away. BLEAH!

But suddenly I'm craving fresh zucchini bread....

'round Here We Call the Fountain of Youth 10th Street

2007-08-28T11:11:00.001-05:00

Hwaet!

(Sorry, I'm in full-on Beowulf mode at the moment....)

So: I'm moved in with The Mari. Jesus Stop-Dancing Christ, how the hell did I acquire so much stuff??!! Oh yeah, I am old. Honestly (and this has been confirmed by others) I think I have a perfectly appropriate amount of stuff for a 36-year-old dude. Maybe too much furniture, but people opened their garages, spare ooms, and attics to me when they learned I was in need a couple of years ago. This means I'm not too attached to anything either. I still think it's too much stuff, though, and continue to pare down, especially clothes, books, and items I have clung to thinking I'd be home-owning again by now. Realistically I'm at least another year or two away from that, so there's no need whatsoever to hang on to what amounts to a bunch of knick-knacks. And dude, my knick-knacks are HEAVY!

Still, I think I've divested myself of about half my raw tonnage since "leaving" Spencer. I'm down to a paltry 10 typewriters (yes, I ditched 13 *sniff*) and finally parted with all my albums, cassettes, 45s, and assorted other archaic media. Next to weed out: my voluminous paper files. I already ... burned ... some of the more important (and some not-so-important) things I wanted to leave behind. So how much paper do I really want to lug around now?

A: Not much more than is absolutely necessary.

Q: What's necessary?

A: Probably NOT every draft of every poem I've ever written ... or IS IT????

It's the message not the medium that's important to me. I've never been a medium fetishist anyway ... other than the typewriters ... and that was more a product of letting people know that yes, I like typewriters, and then letting the magic happen. Most of my typers were "gifts": I think I acquired a new one about every other party or gathering. Which was cool, for a while. But it's like my intense Burroughs/Beat period, wherein every time an opportunity arose to gift me, invariably it was some sort of Beat-themed book/recording/objet d'art.

Anyway, I have a ton of stuff and I'm managing to cram it all not unattractively into our li'l domicile. Still need a decent TV, but that'll come. She continues to disorganize me in delightful ways. I continue to bend her to my OCD rule ... within reason. (We made this agreement forever ago, when we first started dating, and we still seem amenable.) Basically we're setting up light housekeeping, and I'm enjoying it and I think she is too. I'm ~~working hard~~ trying to work less, relax more, and enjoy life rather than work my way out of it ... all of which can be trying when the things at which I enjoy working are what make me the scintillating person I am.

But Mars is at the same time ~~being dragged kicking and screaming into~~ joining the working world or the "real world" or the land of Wal-mart zombies and other assorted working stiffs or whatever, so I think we'll hit equilibrium at some point.

What else?
ROLLER DERBY: Announcing for the girls continues to be a hoot, even at away games. I'm not as polished as I'd like to be yet but I've definitely got my schtick down and that apparently goes a long way in the world of Announcing.

MATRIX: Joe and I have hashed out the future of our li'l poetry org. Basically we're paring down too: down to 1 event (an invite-only reading, plus a SHORT open mic) 4 times a year, with summers off. We're essentially modeling it after the InKY series, which we both have read at and enjoyed immensely. No slams (for now...). No more monthly open mics. No more anthologies. We're keeping the workshop, which I found personally invaluable. But I advocated ditching all the monthly, poorly attended events so that I can put more energy into my own work and make the few special events Matrix hosts seem more ... special. I'm pretty thrilled. This particular event-ectomy didn't hurt a bit.

WRITING: I feel like I'm attacking my log jam of a block with a dental pick. But I am attacking. And occasionally there are splinters. I hope to graduate to the adz soon and eventually get back to piloting a Literary Skidder through the underbrush of my quiddity. Or somesuch.

FREELANCE: Gangbusters. I'm teaching another graphic design class in B-ton in late Nov/early Dec. I'm also teaching one in early October ... in Switz City. I'm getting a little extra $$ for that one to cover gas.

EIRE: I need to get my passport soonish, which will kick-start the process of preparing a trip to IRELAND probably next April/May.

SECRET PROJECT: Actually it's not so secret, but I don't want to divulge anything just yet. It involves a New Years resolution, and you all know, gentle readers, how I feel about those.

BODHRAN: Got a gig playing with Mars and some other session mates at the Spoon Sept. 21, as part of Patricia Coleman's poetry series. (I'll be reading there too.)

READINGS: Joe and I are doing about half a dozen or so readings around the Midwest this fall: so far, Sept. 21 and Oct. 5, 19, and 25.

AUDIO THEATRE: I'm set to produce a program of cowboy poetry for next year's NATF (National Audio Theatre Festival) workshop. There also is serious talk now of bringing the workshop to Bloomington, maybe as early as 2009. Now that would be sweet. B-tizzle is perfect for it, and some alumni from previous workshops are who eventually got WFHB off the ground, so this could be real copacetic.

That's enough.

General Mood Today

2007-08-23T08:18:00.000-05:00

Announcing Roller Derby Is the Best Thing Ever!

2007-08-07T12:56:00.001-05:00

Grappling with the Business End of Writing; or, be patient or become a patient

2007-07-31T13:15:00.000-05:00

It sucks. But after 10 years or so of writing, reading, and promoting pretty much non-stop (or at least not taking a vacation from it), I feel like I've got a good handle on that end of things. The problem is: so what? Another newspaper article about Matrix doesn't feel like it's doing anything for me or for the org. It's getting "our name" out there, but who cares? Who but other poets cares about the doings and comings and goings of independent, non-MFA poets? Actually strike the MFA thing; they're even more insular. MFAs who care about anything outside of their own writing programs are a rare breed. And that's as it should be. You don't build a reputation by being all-inclusive, although that's pretty much what I am/have been doing with Matrix.

I bitch a lot about not having time to write, right? That's nothing new and it's not going to change, as long as I (in addition to blogging about not having time to, uh, write...) keep involving myself in things that have nothing to do with writing: playing Irish music; announcing for the Flatliners; setting type (oh yeah, my job); being on the NATF board (and hopefully performing/producing at NATF next year); etc., etc., ad nauseam infinitum. I mean I've made my peace with all that stuff, and more. If I were ONLY writing, I think I'd be a pretty boring person and my writing probably would be boring too. I'd just be a skosh more prolific at it. Hell, I'd probably end up in an MFA program to fill the role of a Matrix in my life, and that I think would be a mistake.

Quiet. Solitude. A Clean-Slate Mind. I am lacking these things and I think it's affecting me, has been affecting me. It's subtle and I've tried to convince myself that it's mostly an environmental sea change, i.e., living in B-tizzle as opposed to 40 minutes west thereof in the middle of a state forest. I mean I was SURROUNDED by quiet and solitude, so cleaning out the old brain pan and settling down with my journal was easy. So easy it became routine.

It's not routine anymore. It's becoming "special," and I hate that. Quieting my mind so that I can focus on something long enough to pen ... anything about it ... that's tough. Lately it's been really tough, to the point where I'm having difficulty finishing poems I've started ... something else comes up ... I have to take notes or attend a meeting ... and then I lose the thread ... or re-read what I wrote and become disenchanted.

Writing, for me, is a numbers game: the more poems I write, the better my chances of writing something I'm happy with. "Good" or "bad" don't really apply to that equation, and that's somebody else's job anyway. Keep writing; something satisfactory will eventually come.

Well it does come, finally, and it always does, and will continue to ... and I am happy about that.

The Quiet Mind is elusive to me these days, though. I feel so much more in tune with myself when I can tap into QM often. Used to be daily. Nowadays? Once a week? Maybe? I am definitely fulfilled (in other ways) by all the other things I do, and I still feel like it's all connected ... all part of My Work: bookmaking skillz, spoken word performance, music, sound effects. Lately it's all been performance energy, though, which is essential and yes, I definitely get off on it. But when there's no audience ... then what? Now that Matrix is waning a bit and our smallish crowds at events have dwindled to ... who's left now anyway? Me and Joe?

It's like you paddle and paddle and paddle to get to the other side of the lake, and then you get there and ... nobody's there. There's no prize waiting for you either. It was the traveling, the getting there, that was important to observe, but I was too busy paddling to reflect on ... any of the bajillion things you take note of on still water.

Well, anyway, things are clicking pretty well in all other areas. Why this part -- taking a break from Matrix and promotion and putting on events -- why this is such a chore ... to just set it all aside and fucking write ... why? Hell, I dunno. It's like those old codgers who work forever only to retire ... and then get a job because they can't deal with not having one. I think I have been comforted by the notion that as long as I was doing something with Matrix, I was being "active." But I very rarely get published, or even submit work (I'm embarrassingly behind on my self-imposed quota for 2007), which is what this Summer Vacation from Matrix was supposed to be all about. Drink beer, write, edit, submit. Worry about organizations and readings and promotions later. You know, when you really have something promote, besides a reputation for promoting?

I also think it might help if I could write something substantial once in a while that did not involve divorce and the attendant psychic blowback connected thereto. It's all important, yes yes. Process of ejecting and healing, right sure. Catharsis. Exorcism. Get it out and leave it in the journal, uh huh sounds great.

. . . . . . . .

Jeebus, they used a FILE PHOTO for that H-T article. Have I jumped the poetry shark in the Arnold's Drive-In parking lot of the soul?

. . . . . . . .

All right, whitey, hold on there. Just get hold of your senses and chill out, all right? It'll come. It'll come.

My Lifeforce Leaves Me As I Make a Fist

2007-07-24T12:53:00.001-05:00

Some Pint-Low-on-a-Tuesday-Afternoon Ramblings:

The worst part about giving blood? Definitely the li'l stick you get in the finger so they can check your iron level. Fuckin' OW! Way worse than the actual needle. But I was told I was "juicy enough" to give today. I find that comforting.

She also punched my card (not a euphemism, fyi) a few extra times and laughed about it. It's supposed to get punched once every time I give. What can I say? I have that kind of power over phlebotomists. Soon that die-cast model of a 1932 Red Cross truck will be mine! MINE! Or maybe a nice RC sun visor....

At this rate it'll be ... a long time before I get my picture on the 10 Gallon Wall.

BP: 116/84, perfectly normal.

The Big Stick was nicely played, and she was talking to the guy in the next chair pretty much the whole time. Total pro. I was #2 or #3 through the door today. Maybe that's the trick for bruise-free donation.

Animal Precinct on the telly while I'm draining. We all agreed that we'd snap at someone or at least act snappy if they were trying to take our food, even if it was a fake hand and even if we were just being "tested" for companionability. I'm eating! I'm large! Come back later--w00f!

Also agreed that Pomeranians are pretty much worthless, just compensating for being small and annoying.

If it were possible, I think I could live on Li'l Debbie Nutty Bars and orange juice alone. (Or was that junior year of college...?)

Why do I always get the Sandwich Artist-in-training at Subway? That or Crackhead Carl. Never fails, and right when I'm all loopy ... is my sub ... supposed to look like French po-mo architecture???

Back at Typesetting Central: Pope Pius XII? Total douche hose. Politically speaking, of course. I'm just sayin'.

Lastly: Aphex Twin? I can't tell if my brain really needs it right now or not, but BRANE AM LURVE!!

That is all.

The Blind Leading the Stupid

2007-07-12T08:50:00.000-05:00

EDIT: This isn't about Mars fyi.

I used to think collaboration was a Big Deal, something that was a Real Asset. Now, with few exceptions, it's become my Biggest Liability. Have I lost my ability to read people? Do I have "Fuck with Me" writ large across my ample fivehead?

Maybe I should just regress to a more reclusive mode. So often I make the mistake of assuming others are using their powers for good instead of evil. And I'm so surprised when I come to the shocking realization to the contrary! I'm such a dolt. But life really would be easier if we all wore black or white hats accordingly. Or dressed like superheroes. Or even just wore name tags:

"Hello, I Am Bent on Destroying You."

"Hello, I Come in Peace."

"Hello, I Am Become Death."

"Hello, child, lay down your cares and ease your mind in the warm glow of my soothing presence. Breathe." (This one prolly needs two tags.)

Please, World, don't grind me down into a fine paste. I like my idealism and I like working with people, despite it all. Don't take that away from me. I'm small potatoes! There are far more important things to be done with/to people far more important than li'l old me.

Let's Talk About Footnotes

2007-07-10T14:12:00.000-05:00

Dude, I'm sure your magnum opus on Russian music from antiquity to the 19th century required heavy annotation, but footnotes with letters? Note 1A? Note 34C? Upwards of 400 footnotes per chapter?

Put down the grad student and step away from the manuscript. Personally? I think if you need more than 100 notes in a chapter, you might consider adding another volume (or nine) to this 2-volume set. I'm just sayin'.

Footnotes, to me, are functional and important, but they're like hyperlinks: you're essentially leading the reader away from the text to go look at some detail. I love footnotes. I love minutia. I just think they should be used sparingly, and I really appreciate scholars who can get away with just a few or even no notes at all.

That is all.

INSTANT REVIEW: The New Bloomingfoods

2007-07-09T14:12:00.000-05:00

Well, let me start by saying that it's nice to be able to walk a couple of blocks to a B-foods for lunch....

Okay, that said: The new place has a distinct "Wild Oats" vibe about it, and you can tell by the angled parking spaces out front filled with SUVs and Lexi -- next to the poor, poor unloved bike rack -- at whom the near-westside store is targeted. No, not necessarily the soccer mom set ... generally the older, childless (some say godless) hippie crowd. NOT, though, I would say, the somewhat surly emo types who work there. Who shall inherit the earth. And Bright Eyes. And a lot of dead iPods.

Oh I don't know. It's fine. It seems under-stocked to me, but a longtime Bloomingtonian I bumped into there said the store sold out of A LOT the first three days it was open. (Some cold cases were completely emptied by the weekend and are just now slowly being restocked.) It'll be a month or more before they figure out how to buy for their customers. It feels so very franchise-y, though. Extremely chain-y. The downtown B-foods has a real distinct character/smell. Ditto the east side. This one? Maybe it just needs breaking in but it seems far more showy and less utilitarian than the other stores -- but there's really not that much to show -- and what's a co-op without utility?

I don't think the cash registers are laid out properly either, and there aren't enough of them. If the single "express register" right next to the hot/salad bar is full you have to walk through the store to get to the other two registers ... then either walk back to sit inside or walk out and halfway around the building to get to the outdoor seating. Which is right in front of said angled parking. Not a terribly appetizing view/smell, especially when said longtime townie s c r a p e s his lovely painted beemer bumper over the curb mere feet from where I'm grazing.

On the positive side:
Hot bar!
Indoor and outdoor seating!
Not walking downtown or driving across town to get to ... Seventh Generation Toilet Paper???

Hmm, well I've not been in a positive frame of mind lately, so that's all I could come up with. I'll try again later.

And regardless, I'll definitely be lunching the shit out of B-foods ... wait, that came out wrong. I shall be eating there often. How's that?

By the by, let me learn you young uns a lesson: If you can sit still for upwards of 4-6 hours getting a half-sleeve tat, you can be civil to this Working Stiff as he's paying for his meager salad during your shift at the local air-conditioned co-op. It's true! I ~~heard it on Oprah~~ read about it in some old fart's blog.

Don't make me have to start handing out demerits.

Maybe I just need to stop caring.

I'm full. Of spinach!

This may have broken my brain....

2007-07-03T23:09:00.000-05:00

I CAN HAS T S ELIOT?

Updatitude

2007-07-03T12:13:00.000-05:00

In roughly chronological order:

Gave a reading at a peace and enviro-activism event in Indy on Saturday. Not bad! I busted out some new stuff, which went over pretty well. Mars came with (a reading buddy is always a good thing) and we ate at a good Indian place in Broad Ripple thereafter. No more readings until October. I need a break and I need to get more new stuff penned.

Mowed my ridiculously overgrown yard Sunday.

Saw Seann Sunday night. He's done with basic training and some special training. Now he's just doing the 2 weeks plus one weekend a month or whatever it is the Guard requires. Oh, and they can also call him up at any time and ship him off to Iraq.
Honestly, beyond the obvious physical changes (MUCH better shape, shorter hair, pretty sober), the army doesn't seem to have affected Seann all that much. I think the discipline and rigid structure was probably good for him, but he saw pretty quick just how stupid a lot of it is. I'm worried about him, but supportive. There is a severe shortage of a) able-bodied troops, and b) older, more mature guys who aren't gonna just start blasting away at/abusing the first guy with a beard they see. But Surge 2007 is still in effect, so it's just a waiting game at this point.

I'm towing derby girls in the 4th of July parade tomorrow. That oughta be a hoot.

Mars and I are going to Holiday World/Splashin' Safari on Thurs. It's redneck hell, but it's also a blast. And it's a beautiful drive there. It's a truly Hoosier thing to do, so I'm glad I get an opportunity to expose her to it.

Speaking of roller derby, I'm announcing my first bout in Kalamazoo in a couple of weeks. I'll be working with the K-zoo announcer, not actually "on my own," but it's their first bout too. I'm looking forward to it.

Jogging ... is going ... eh, it's all right. I'm really not a fan of it, so I'll probably just stick to biking. Running is harder on my joints than I care for, and I'm not particularly interested in going to a gym. I want an exercise I can walk out my door and DO, rather than have to get to and do.

I'm busy as hell, as usual. But I'm actually taking a couple of days off work this week -- meaning I am NOT WORKING on Wed, Thurs, or Fri. (Towing hot chicks on skates isn't really work, is it?)

That is all.

Weak in the Knees (let's try this again)

2007-06-25T10:07:00.001-05:00

Well, I had penned a longer entry (as usual) about all this stuff, but then it somehow got lost in the ether, so here's the truncated version:

Friday was good, great, then shitty: Company picnic. Croquet. Home brew. Irish session. Hanging with Joe. Poetry bidniz. Fall reading tour. The future of MATRIX.... Then his GF's yippy li'l kick-me dog bit me! Looks like a chupacabra got me. And when I left, someone had egged my truck ... but it bounced off the rear tire and only splashed up into the wheel well. LAME! Worst. Egging. Evar. I'll recover from the wound, but next time Erma comes at me I'm gonna punt that mutt.

Saturday was fine: Wandered the rainy farmers' market then went to a wedding with Mars. Her roommate from Penn State and here (for a while) got hitched. We also hung out with her composition prof and his lovely wife. Good peeps. Weddings are enjoyable affairs again. It helps that I didn't really know anyone involved. Last year I got snubbed big-time at a friend's wedding. A table of peeps who had un-friended me (not in that passive-aggressive myspace fashion but very real-time, I guess to make some kind of Statement -- or maybe they simply didn't like me and now have no reason to put up a facade ... anything's possible) totally ignored me ... except for Thom, who said hello, chatted about what we're doing now, commiserated a bit ... then he returned to the Table of Fellowship, mission accomplished, his conscience clean. Good for him. Now I just go, eat a bunch of tiny food, eat some cake, and drink a bunch of wine. No big whoop. I love Beatles weddings. Especially oompa-brass Beatles weddings.

Sunday: sleep/rest/recoverzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. I skipped a nontet concert on campus because $12 admission + going by myself = not enough fun to coax my tired ass out the door on a dreary afternoon.

This morning I jogged a bit. Only about 20 minutes. I want to work up to 45-60 minutes over the next few weeks. Does this mean I now need to get up even earlier? Guess so. Hrrmm. The running part was fine but my knees are killing me. I stopped doing the roller derby dry-land workout because my patellae felt like swollen donuts ... and not in a good way. Too much hopping, and the stair climbs were murderous. The cardio of running is great but the impact feels pretty severe later on. We'll see if I can keep this up. Old high school football injury. No shit. Maybe I should just bike instead?

So much for truncated.

A chicken walks into a pub with a bodhrán under his wing....

2007-06-20T08:56:00.000-05:00

Good night of deedle-di at the Golden Ace in Indy last night. It's pretty sweet being the only bodhránai in the room. No competition, and I think that's partly why the regulars there have been so kind to me. There's not a lot of bodhrán love to go around, you see.

There's also this ancient Irishman, Scotty, who has become progressively involved in the music since I've been going semi-regularly. First he just tapped along on the table; then started playing spoons occasionally; then he would sing a song or two (real ribald stuff too; his wife I think was a little embarrassed); last night I walk in and he's pumping away on a small accordion and trying to keep up.

I was told by the uilleann pipist that my playing is "respectful," "restrained," and "reserved," which is pretty flattering. Granted, we were in a discussion about letterpress printing (he retired from typesetting in the early '70s, back when it still actually involved moving type around) and so were kind of in a chummy mood. But he could have said anything ... or nothing at all ... so I did what I have learned to do with compliments: acknowledge, say thank you, and move on.

I have since I started this new percussive venture attempted to play WITH the music, not in spite of it (or all over it). I'm the only one in the room improvising (though I'm gradually learning "my part" in various songs with which I've become familiar), so I'm careful not to overplay. Plus, I'm playing with people who have been mastering their instruments for a long time ... some as long as I've been alive. So yeah, respectful, restrained, and reserved.

I also usually sit next to my lady violinist friend, who is hot and a total shredasaurus on her axe, both of which take some heat off me. It almost makes up for the bow tip that occasionally comes RACING TOWARD MY EYEBALL!!! GAHH! Seriously, I bet we look like a Warner Bros. Silly Symphony cartoon from across the circle.

So in researching my instrument, I've found all kinds of sound files and video tutorials online, some very helpful. Many, though, are just wank-fests to me. On YouTube, there are hardly any bodhrán vids that aren't just solos. (Where's the rest of the tune, please?!!) Very few feature good playing WITH other musicians. As technically intricate as some solos are, after just a few of them (lo-fi too) they all sound same-y to me: endless scales and volume changes. There are exceptions, though.

"Pressed for Time" by Flook

Comas, one of Jackie Moran's bands, at a pub in Belgium

ANYWAY, some time ago I was introduced to the Bodhrán Joke, of which we bodhránii are often the butt. There are a million of these ... and actually they are the same jokes I've heard for years, just substitute Bassist or Guitarist or Lead Vocalist, etc. To wit (ganked mostly from http://www.ceolas.org/instruments/bodhran/jokes.shtml):

Fellow walks into a pub in Belfast with a plastic bag under his arm. The bartender asks, "What's that?"
"Six pounds of semtex," he answers.
"Thanks be to Jaysus; I thought it was a bodhrán!"

A bodhrán player was sick of the band abusing him, and decided to start his own. He walked into a music shop, planning to buy the first instruments he saw.
"Give me the red saxophone and that accordion!" he said.
The assistant said, "You play the bodhrán, don't you?"
"That's right. Why?"
"Well, the fire exinguisher I can sell you -- but the radiator stays."

How do you know when there is a bodhrán player at your front door?
The knocking gets faster and faster and faster...

Why do bodhrán players find it difficult to enter a room?
They never know when to come in.

How is pre-mature ejaculation like a bodhrán solo?
You know perfectly well what's about to happen, but you can't do a thing about it.

What's the difference between a bodhrán player and a drum machine?
You only have to punch the rhythm into the drum machine once.

In Dublin, a bodhrán is sometimes made from the skin of a dog. Then it is called ... a bow-wow-rán.

Then there was the bodhrán player who remembered that he had left his bodhrán in his unlocked car. Rushing back, he opened his car door to find two more bodhráns in the back seat.

Mantra

2007-06-20T07:43:00.001-05:00

This was just handed to me ... via a poetry slam Yahoo! group sig line ...

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an act. It is a habit."
--Aristotle

Just How Busy Am I?

2007-06-13T13:43:00.000-05:00

Let's take stock, shall we?

IUP projects (book composition):
Taliaferro: Breaking Barriers from the NFL Draft to the Ivory Tower
Long Journey Home: Oral Histories of Contemporary Delaware Indians
The Grace of Four Moons: Dress, Adornment, and the Art of the Body in Modern India
This Place We Call Home: A History of Clark County, Indiana

MATRIX (the arts):
Hosting a writing workshop tonight
HIATUS from events this summer
Hosting a reading at the Waldron in October

Bleeding Heartland RollerGirls (derby!):
Review the rules
Learning opposing team rosters
Announcing my ass off
Recruiting volunteers for the first home bout in August
Help SOME with bout production BUT
Layout of bout program (2-4 weeks before 3 home bouts this fall)

The Same Page (freelance work):
Educational Horizons (copyediting, ongoing; summer issue nearly done)
Hanapin Marketing (content editing in late June)
Edit/prep class materials (8 design/layout classes in Oct, Nov, and Dec)

Personal Creative:
Lit:
Edit and submit (I'm about 2 months behind BUT have several subs out there...)
Reading in Indy June 30 (Triage Arts Fest)
Possible collaboration with letterpress/silkscreen artist???
Drum:
Play bodhran/bones min. 3 hours a week (no problem here!)
"Gig in the Woods" July 20-21
Foley:
Nothing on the horizon. Humph.

Personal Misc:
Yard sale in July
Moving in August
Schedule eye appt.
Acquire passport
Learn to bake naan

General:
Making lists! (Well, I find it helpful.)
Fulfillment and contentment!
Spend QT with Mars (aka maritime)!
Travel someplace cool this year (where? when?)!

Finally:
Never hurry, never rest.

Yet Another Observation (I seem to be full of these, among other things...)

2007-06-08T08:40:00.000-05:00

When someone says, "I just want you to be happy," what they really mean is, "I want you to do as I say." Clear communication kills bullshit dead. Dead. DEAD.