My computer is broke

My computer finally died.

it is like six years old, it cannot handle even myspace anymore.

Crappy little viruses destroy it constantly.

and now it won't even reboot with an operating disc.

If i do not respond to emails or whatever, my emails are short, blah, i'm sorry.

Back from NYC

These are pics from NYC.

I had a really good time.

I hung out with the writers Nick Antosca, Tony O'Niell, James Chapman, Tao Lin and Ellen Kennedy.

I want to thank them for all their kindness.

Nick Antosca took the pictures above.

KGB READING!!!!

I'm reading at The KGB on June 28th at 7pm.

TAO LIN
NED VIZZINI
TONY O'NEILL
AND ELLEN KENNEDY

WILL ALL BE THERE!!!

Please come to the reading.

I'm saying please.

I need everyone there for emotional support.

Please be my friend.

I don't have many friends.

I promise I won't read those silly poems.

I'll be very serious.

Very extremely intensely really totally serious.

Okay.

We need to have a party after.

It should be a huge literary intellectual writer party.

With a lot of booze and cheap American beer.

The party should be in somebody's apartment.

A small cramped apartment.

With like a hundred writers all being neurotic, bipolar, avoident, obsessive compulsive, alienated and generally weird.

We will get drunk and compare and contrast Danta to Pound.

It will be fun.

Then we should have a Pagen Orgy with like chanting and rituals and all kinds of weird shit.

I will anally penetrate Tao for publicity.

On Tao's penis it will say, "Buy EEEE EEE EEEE"

On my nuts it will say, "Buy The Condemned"

When you touch Tao's penis and my balls it will lead you to Amazon.com where you will click a link and not purchase our books from Amazon but from abe books.

Tony will sniff coke out of Ellen Kennedy's teen asshole.

And Vizzini will tell everyone how he is so much more Italian than me.

It will be video taped and put on youtube.com.

It will be an installation art piece.

Entertaining

I've been thinking, what makes great art.

Or what keeps people looking at certain pieces of art.

From Led Zeppelin, Dostoevsky, to Van Gogh.

Why do people still get such a hard-on for their works.

Yes, they have meaning.

Some are precise and anal like The Beatles.

Some are sloppy and free flowing like Led Zeppelin or Kerouac.

All of them have layers of thought behind them.

A gimmick or two.

Some innovation.

But the innovation of Hemingway or Robert Jonson doesn't matter thirty years after their first works. It is cool to say in conversation, "They were ahead of their time." But isn't relevant.

I can only think of two things:

1. They touched something that doesn't change, something beyond the empirical world, something, "Of what we cannot speak we must be silent."

Something deep and existential to the current civilization we live in.

And since this type of civilization which creates these certain types of existential or unspeakable feelings still exists, those pieces of art still get an immediate reaction that supplies a catharsis to us.

2. They were entertaining. They put a lot of thought into how to entertain the audience. You don't need to be a genius for this entertaining part though.

Take Gwen Stefani, the bitch is entertaining as hell. She is a fantastic performer, she runs around, dances, wears insane costumes, she isn't the best singer, but she knows what to do to keep people's attention. She probably doesn't know who George Washington is, but she can perform.

But we can assume, who knows, but I doubt in 20 years people are going to be listening to Hollerback Girl.

Hemingway was a master of this: He had bullfights, wars, romance, constant entertainment, he had funny lines, weird characters, all kinds of crazy shit. And during all this he threw in some deeper meaning.

Jack London did it with his Yukon stories, what really amazes me is that The Call of the Wild can be read by children, but if an adult has some philosophical background they can see a whole world of deep meaning behind his stories.

That short story, To Build a Fire, a man alone walking through the cold to his death. That story is packed with meaning, but at the same time crazy entertaining.

A movie that does this is The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly: At the end, The Contest, I've never seen the life of a human born and who has to live their life in a capitalistic country portrayed so perfectly. All of killing each other for a rock with no name on it.

I also want to say that Philip Roth in Portnoy's Complaint was very entertaining. The book had some flaws, but was overall an entertaining book.

Denny's video from Youngtown

This is the Denny's that was featured in The Human War. I worked at this Denny's for six months as a server back in the day. This is what it looked like when i worked there and sat there so many sweet hours. I would sit at the counter where the screaming woman is sitting.



Another sweet video: prime real estate



This video is funny. I was in both of these buildings today. I spilled pop all over my keyboard and it kept shutting off my computer when I hit backspace. Circuit City and Best Buy are like 300 yards away from each other, it is funny. Everyone drives to both before they buy anything, it is really silly. There is someone named Stacy Locicero that helped make it.

Poems I'm going to read at the KGB Poetry Reading

I'm going to rewrite Pablo Neruda poems for the reading.
I'm going to the reading because Tao said it would get me on Gothamist. It is going to get me on Gothamist so I'm coming.

A reading has at most like twenty people there.

Gothmanist has like 65,000 a day.

I'm not going to pretend it matters.

Readings don't matter to me. I like readings in New York City because I like having dinner with Chapman and meeting people i met online.

That's all.

It doesn't sell books.

So I'm not going to read my stories like it matters.

I'm going to read Pablo Neruda poems.


Tonight I can write the saddest lines

Tonight I can write the most pathetic lines.

Write, for example,'Nina doesn't like me
because I'm a skeezy dishwasher.'

My ulcer bleeds and my hemmorroids have
swelled to an enornmous size.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I love her, and she doesn't like me because
I suck.

Through nights like this I masturbated alone
to the saddest internet porn.
I stared at her from the dishtank like
a creepy weirdo.

She talked to me sometimes, and I loved her too.
But how could one not have loved those great nervous eyes.

Tonight I can write the stupidest most self-loathing lines.
To think that I do not have her. That she would rather date
an electrician and not a skeezy dishwasher.

To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the cum falls to the carpet like dew to the pasture.

What does it matter that my love makes her laugh.
The night is shattered and she is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My dishwasher soul is not satisfied that it does not have her.

My sight searches for her as though to go to her.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

The same night whitening the same trees.
Maybe if I start going to a votec she will like me.

I love her, that's certain, but people scare
the shit out me.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another's. She is another's. Having lame sex with another.
Her bright body. Her infinite eyes.

I want to touch her naked flesh, that's certain.
Love is so short, if she is playing hard to get
it has been going on too fucking long.

Because through nights like this I am so alone
my soul is not satisfied.

I got to keep moving, I got to keep moving
Blues falling down like hail, blues falling down like hail
Mmm, blues falling down like hail, blues falling down like hail
And the day keeps on remindin' me, there's a hellhound on my trail
Hellhound on my trail, hellhound on my trail

Every day you play

Every day you walk around the restaurant saying sarcastic comments.
Panic attack girl, you arrive in the flower and the water.
You are like a hopeless puddle of self-loathing and anxiety
as a cluster of fruit, as a shattered soup cup.

You are on the few people I work with
that don't get on my nerves.
Let me spread you out among yellow garlands.

Now we played it on the sofa now
we played it side the wall
My needles have got rusty babe
they will not play at all

Suddenly the wind howls and bangs at my shut window.

The rain takes off her clothes

My little friend
named Patricia found
a baby hawk
with a broken wing today
she put the bird in a cage
and the cat killed it
Patricia cried
she only knew the bird
for eight hours
The wind. The wind.

The storm whirls dark leaves
and turns loose all the boats that were moored last night
to the sky.

You are here. Oh, you do not run away.
You will answer me to the last cry.
Cling to me as though you were frightened.
Even so, at one time a strange shadow ran through your eyes.

She got a phonograph
and it won't say a lonesome word
She got a phonograph
ooo-won't say a lonesome word
What evil have I done
or what evil have the poor girl heard

I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.

I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.

I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.

I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.

I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.

I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.

I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.

I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.

The Most Freudian Moment of My Life

Where I work when we clean the floors at the end of the night we use a hose.

Since I've started there has been a lot of hose nozzle drama.

The hose nozzles keep breaking.

They have broken several ways: One kind of blew up, the little plastic piece that pulls the thing back so the water shoots breaks because people drop them on the floor, and sometimes they will just stop shooting water.

So over the course of the last six months, we have gone through a lot of hose nozzles.

The managers won't buy the hose nozzles because we aren't allowed to have them because corporate says they destroy the grouting.

So we have to.

But hose nozzles are only five dollars and who cares.

So several of us have bought hose nozzles over the course of the last six months.

This is what happened, I'll change the names.

Like three cooks and one male bartender are standing around.

I bought a new sleek black high powered hose nozzle yesterday.

Bob using it to clean out the cooler.

Bartender:That is one powerful nozzle.

Jimmy:But not as powerful as Dave's.

Bob goes: Yeah, but this is still a good strong hose nozzle.

Me: Are you saying Dave's hose nozzle is better than mine?

Jimmy: It's still better than the orange one.

Bartender: I wish I could use the powerful hose nozzle. (In a sad voice, bartenders don't use the hoses.)

Me: You can't because you sacrificed your manhood to become a bartender.

Jimmy: I'm gay, I sacrificed my manhood a long time ago.

Bob: (To Jimmy) Shut up fuckbubble.

The four men stare at the power of the hose nozzle in admiration.

Another day will pass

I'm not blogging for a few days.

I'm busy.

Today

His favorite song.

The Iraq Purges

I found this this video on Youtube yesterday.

The soldier states that if one person in a crowd started firing on American soldiers, then the soldiers were ordered to kill everyone in the crowd

This has happened before in history.

In World War 2 The Jews were killed. Now we know the Jews were innocent, you can't be guilty of being Jewish, that is absurd. Kafka shows that in The Trial, the logic behind that.

But at the same time the Jews were guilty in terms of insane Nazi logic, because how could a Jew not hate the Nazies, a Jew a priori hates Nazies, then they are guilty.

Stalin used this logic during the Purges: We look back and say, "He killed innocent people." Stalinism did kill innocent people, but what they were killed for and sent to the gulag for was that they were against Stalin.

How could someone not be against Stalin?

So they were guilty no matter what.

This is like if you mixed Kafka's The Trial and Catch 22 together.

Basically it would work like this:

Interrogator: Do you admit you hate Stalin?

Captive: I'm innocent I've done nothing.

Interrogator: I hate Stalin, why don't you?

Captive: How can I not? He's killed half my family and friends.

This is what is happening in Iraq, it goes like this:

American military: Do you hate Americans?

Iraqi: I've done nothing.

American military: I would hate it if someone killed my family and friends and occupied America.

Iraqi: Of course I hate America, Americans have killed half my family and friends, and blown up my house.

This is bad.

Really fucking bad.

Language cannot describe how bad it is when humans are subjected to such laws, to laws that cannot be followed, and the punishment is immediate death.

You either get killed, maimed, and if you survive irreparable damage happens to one's psychology.

The news stations should really consider changing it to Operation Iraqi Purges or Operation Iraqi Holocaust.

Which ever one works best in the focus group and sells more Chevies and Pepsi I assume they will choose.

How Am I Supposed to Live if I'm Not A Failure?

The other day somebody had the audacity to write why am i still complaining if my book are getting out there?

This is true.

My books are getting out there, translated, and all kinds of shit. It is much easier to get published and I'm a co-editor for 3am.

I'm not exactly a failure anymore.

This is new to me.

This non-failure life.

I'm kind of depressed about it.

I failed kindergarten, I was a bad kid in school, my parents hated me because I failed and had a penis, etc.

I have always been a wonderful little failure.

Now I have accomplished.

Like a real person.

I never had role models who accomplished things growing up, they weren't crack heads, more like people who "settled for a safe misery out in the midwest."

This is totally new to me.

I was totally and completely convinced and emotionally prepared to die a total failure in a small shack with no teeth and no shoes.

I don't know what to do.