Penulis : Unknown on Wednesday, 12 August 2009 | 12:11
Wednesday, 12 August 2009
Dennis Cooper, who is on the Mt Rushmore of indie lit as Abe Lincoln-with-nice-sport-coats, very sweetly posted a big post on his blog about MC O and some of my music. Big splashes of thanks to Dennis, and thanks as well to my Australian friend David Rylance/Slatted Light for hooking Dennis up with a copy of MC O.
Interactive portion of the blog today: my landlord is painting a lot. He painted the porch blue. He's even painting ceilings. Do all people named Tom like to paint? Please share your opinions in the comments. Bonus points if your name is actually Tom or you know somebody named Tom.
Logan Ryan Smith, publisher of Transmission Press, moved to Seattle last week or so, and he couldn't take all his chapbooks with him, so he sent me his remaining copies of MC Oroville's Answering Machine to do with as I please. (All his buttons on the Transmission Press blog are gone, so I'm not sure if he's still going to do Transmission in the future, but I think he his, and I hope he is, because all his chapbooks are really cool. Probably the other people who have chapbooks through him have extra copies of theirs if you email them).
Anyway, I am selling MC O through this blog now for $1.00 plus shipping, which seems like a decent deal, right? Click on the PayPal button to the right, the one under the green cover, and I'll send you a copy. Or find me in person and I will probably just give you one. Or I think there are some stores in the Bay Area that have them, like Pegasus in Berkeley.
If you already ordered one from Logan, I think he has mailed all his orders, so you should get it. If you don't get it in the next week or so, email me and I will send you a copy. Or if you want to review it, I will send you a free copy.
At first, I was a little anxious that people would think it was "sleazy" or "unprofessional" or "vanity publishing" for me to sell my own chapbook, but sleazy hustling is very white trash and so maybe fits the aesthetic of the chapbook. Sure? Sure. Sleazy white trash poetry unite. Also, there are different colors.
Some cool news to share with friends, and I think I'm officially allowed to share now that it's on the catalog page: My first full length poetry book, We Are All Good If They Try Hard Enough, will be coming out from Publishing Genius Press in 2010. I like PGP a lot: they publish reallyawesomestuff that slices the whatever between charm nuts and heart knock like some kind of excellent fencer. Including a neon war balloon of a novel whose film rights were recently bought by Spike Jonze.
A favor: might people suggest things I can do to get people excited about the book? When it comes time for that. Like things I can do that aren't stupid? Like if I tried to bake pretzals with poems embedded, I might end up stupid at that and then no one would like me or my stupid book.
To close: thank you everyone who has read my poems or helped me write them, and thanks as well to everyone who has given me a ride or let me taste something on their plate, acts that go too often unthanked. I've got video of the Bay Area Reading Tour and all the eclairs* (*an eclair is a really cool person) involved, but I have to edit it. First here is a love song that I made on my toy guitar in Oroville and June. It's probably about you:
MARY BLESS A BOY WITH HIS SUNGLASSES
I know your arms Are there for more Than me to fall into I know you do things With your life And whoa that's pretty cool!
But if you were a parapet I'd be the gargoyle And we'd be a two for one deal. If you were a sugar beet I'd be the convict who Slept out all night in your field.
(seventh of the root!)
Mary bless a boy with his sunglasses He needs all the help he can get Mary bless a boy with his sunglasses Right up until the point that he lo(whoo! whoo!)ses it
Sha da da. Sha da da. Sha da da da da daaa --
We dare the world To rain on us When we dress up like this Your brutal disregard For reality Is the thing about you I like best
But if you were a marshmallow I'd be the campfire That singes your edges just right If you were a cocoa leaf I'd be the one percent Extract illegal to buy
(repeat seventh of root! repeat chorus!)
I see the world. It's just a little dark. I see the world. It's just a little dark. I see the world. It's just a little dark. I see the world. It's just a little dock. I see the world. It's just a little dock. I see the world. It's just a little dock. I see the world. It's just a little dark. I see the world. It's just a little dock.
Penulis : Unknown on Monday, 3 August 2009 | 12:57
Monday, 3 August 2009
You can read it in Hobart #10 alongside sweet stories by Alicia Gifford, B.J. Hollars, Blake Butler, Claire Vaye Watkins, Amy Clark, Daniel Nester, JoeAnn Hart, Curtis Dawkins, Brad Gayman, Colleen Hollister, and Lori Ostlund, plus comics by Lydia Conklin and John Dermot Woods.
The bonus materials website is up. I am sixteen years old in the picture of me next to the mural. Other facts about the story: the punks in Ashland, OR really did drive an auctioned police car. Rain really rains like that in Oregon. Blueberries do help your memory. The community radio station in Oroville really does have carseats for couches. Oroville really does have a crazy mural guy. His name is Fred. He painted the Eiffel Tower below our swamp cooler. His nephew and I were friends. We rode go-karts. Disney did fire him. In the park is a mural of Ishi, who had to live in a jail for a little while. Sometimes I raced my sister around the park by running on the park wall, which is three feet high and the color of adobe. People steal computer monitors and wooden Indians from the stores downtown. There's a well in the park that doesn't work. There's an alley called Miner's Alley where no one ever parks because they're all at the casino. One day my mother bought me a cowboy shirt, but it didn't fit, so I exchanged it for an authentic Toby Keith hat. What makes me nostalgic are levies, abandoned shopping carts, dogs that swim for no reason, green bridges, bottles of peppermint schnapps broken on trestles, and the California foothill sunset, which is a blind horse with a yellow tongue.
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