Grading Blitz

It is 10:38 central time and I have just finished a whole-hog D-day sort of grading sweep. There's just a bit more to do for tomorrow, but, then again, D-day didn't win WW2 though it sure as hell moved the most significant pawn forward. As of now, some student revisions and one more batch of craft analysis papers are my Berlin. They are Hitler hiding out in his bunker realizing the empire's fall. I am both Eisenhower and Patton peering through binoculars as the Brits and fellow Americans conduct air raids. I am also Stalin retreating further into Russia so winter can become my most valued military weapon. I am also the American Pacific fleet nearing Japanese harbors with thousands of troops on board, hundreds of aircraft carriers in tow, and two very large bombs that will change the course of human history forever.

I don't know if I'll ever understand why I feel as if I have done something heroic upon grading a shit-ton of papers in one evening. I mean, I am the one whole let the back-log get even more back-logged, which always happens. Most of semesters I like to pretend that the papers I haven't graded don't really exist. Then the stack grows and sometimes turns a little yellow with cigarette smoke and a little dusty from a smokey apartment and there's always at least one paper that ears a coffee mug halo or some random food splatter of which pasta sauce is responsible for. In terms of military reference I guess I could equate that fact that I choose to forget about these papers, choose to ignore this papers, choose say, "No, sir. Not today," is the same as the American general public considering WW2 "Europe's problem" until the attack on Pearl Harbor. I myself created my own "grading Pearl Harbor" by ignoring the fact that these papers existed, by ignoring the fact that they needed grading. Then I saw that stack sitting there. They all begged to be graded at once, so I sat my jolly ass down at got to work on them despite the fact that my crack-head neighbors downstairs were yelling at each other and the toothless woman was rambling on and on in gum-talk.

Yes, at this very moment I am sitting on a thrown of victory smoking a cigarette and sipping a Miller Lite reward and still listening to gum-talk drift up through the vents. Saturday is usually a calm night in lower-crackhead-land. Tonight is a little different. Sunday is usually the worst, the night when I ended up calling the cops or somebody else calls the cops because glass is breaking or there's gum-screaming or pots and pans are crashing against cinder block walls or doors are slamming. Tonight, there is gum-wakka and more gum-wakka and despite the fact that the woman is toothless she is very capable of yelling the phrase, "I don fuuuckin care 'bout dat," which is exactly what I think about the existence of those people as my neighbors.

After spending years as a bartender and time as a night-shift one man army at a motel where nothing good ever happened after three in the morning, I know some moves about dealing with fuck-wads. I have developed this skills. The primary skill is always remaining calm. An enraged person always fears a calm person because being calm means you have a good idea how this is going to end in your favor, and, ultimately, it shows confidence that you know something the other side doesn't know. I learned that by bartending. When bartending, I saw plenty of fights break out and there were times when the fight seemed like it would filter its way behind the bar. This is when you shake your head and look people in the eye. This makes them sure you have a gun or a baseball bat or that you are just a flat-out crazy person who might have a gun and a baseball bat and an army of regulars who have guns in their cars or baseball bats in their care if not that, every car has a tire iron.

The first time I met my downstairs neighbors I was wearing a plaid robe and my hair was down. I'd been trying to sleep, but the gum-yelling was rediculously loud. I grabbed my walking stick and walked down to their apartment door and knocked with the walking stick. I consider this my caveman approach.

"What's up, brother," the head of house crackhead said.
"What's goin' on down here?" I asked while holding the walking stick like a baseball bat.
"Whoa, man. No need for any of that."
"You better straighten your shit out in there or I'll come back down and straighten it out myself. I work tomorrow. I need my sleep. Shut that woman of yours up."

I walked away as the guy apologized. I didn't really give a fuck about him or anything other than sleep. I laid down and the gum-yelling got worse, so I called the cops.

The next night, a Sunday, the gum-yelling was worse than usual, something I considered as a pissing contest between toothless woman and me. I called the cops again.

Despite the cops coming two nights in a row, the rediculous noise and shouting persisted on Monday. More cops.

Then silence.

And more silence.

I was sure the fines from the apartment complex for everytime the police visit a unit were setting in.

Sunday came and there was a new voice in the downstairs apartment. It was gruff and male and loud. The cracked-out head of house said, "Keep it down, man. The dude upstair is gonna freak."
"Fuck that guy," the new voice said.
Gum-woman said slurred something with the word fuck in it too.
I laid in bed thinking "Whatever."

I tried to put myself to sleep until the new voice started yelling and gum-woman was yelling too. The crack-head of house said, "He's gonna call'em. I ain't paying this time."
"Screw that fucker," new voice said.
"Naaawww. He's just tryin' to sleep."
"Fuck that guy," new voice said.

The downstairs apartment door slammed as feet pounded up the stairs. I laid in bed shaking my head. I like to sleep naked because that is comfortable. I laid there naked shaking my head until there was a pound on my door. This is stupid, I thought. Good thing the cops have taken care of this, I thought. I figured, "Just stay put. Stay in bed."

The pounding persisted and new voice said, "This loud enough."

I got out of bed naked and lit a cigarette in my bed room. New-voice kept pounding as I took some drags.

My hair was down because I try not to sleep with my hair in a bun. In that moment I figured I could call the cops and put up with more of the same or clearly communicate that I, without help from the police could handle a mother fucker like New-Voice.

I answered the door completely naked with a .38 revolver in my hand and said to New-Voice, "The fuck you want?" in a really hick tone. He looked horrified and scared that here was a small guy with a cold, shriveld cock holding a big-ass gun. He didn't say anything for a couple of seconds, so I said, "Well?"

He turned his eyes to the ground and walked straight out of the building and I haven't heard that voice since.

Sometimes I think I should walk down to my neighbor's place naked holding a .38 just to keep their traps shut.

Since I like to write at least 1,ooo words a day (regardless of typos of which I am sure readers of this blog are either sick of or have become accusotomed to) I'll write just a little more for today. Did you know that if you type "today" too fast you come up with the word "toady" as in "I'm feeling toady today." The definition of feeling "toady" is up to a debate I encourage you all to begin.

Now that that's out of my system I'll get on to the next entry topic, Menstration.

Recently, a chica friend of mine aplogized for being bitchy; she said she was coming up on her period; she said she PMS was starting to set in.

I said, "I know."

She said, "Really? Is it that obvious?"

The early stages of PMS are as obvious as the Grand Canyon. Let me deviate into an imagined scene for effect.

Two aspiring, male settlers travel across the plains and pause at the Grand Canyon.
"Dang," Jim-Bob says.
"We best go 'round," Jo-Bob says.

Regardless of the scientific advances from the discovery of the Grand Canyon to this very moment of human history, men have the same reaction to PMS "Dang. We best go 'round." That's because we like the fact that our heads are attached to the rest of our bodies and recognize the fact that a woman, while suffering PMS, automatically gains the Kung-Fu-Whoop-Ass-Get-Out-Of-My-Way-Or-Die skills of Bruce Lee. Woman becomes Bruce Lee on crack. Woman becomes the flesh version of Num-Chucks. Woman becomes the lone tank that won the war against millions. Woman becomes the affirmation that we men got singled out by physiology by one chromosone, the one chromosone that said, "Eh, you ain't strong enough to take this so by nature we'll give you a cock."

It fascinates me that the difference between cock and vagina is one chromosone. It's as if men were the last ones to be picked by the female kick-ball squad, but when the women were finished picking their team they decided, why don't those ones just start their own team. So we did, and that's why there are cocks in the world. It's probably a very good thing that I haven't had to give a birds and bees talk.

Let's get back to vaginal bleeding.

I have two very distinct memories when it comes to periods. Each comes from a different stage in my life.

I'll start with my earliest memory. This is not a childhood favorite, yet an unfortunate necessity required to become a person compassionately understands that men have it really easy by simple being men.

I remember my sister getting her period when I was a young boy. I didn't know that blood came from anywhere except a wound, so when I saw my sister in the bathroom after walking in unannounced, I freaked. In my mind, blood was everywhere. I thought she'd been stabbed. Naturally, I started freaking out. This caused her to freak out because the last thing any woman of any age wants is the public announcement that she is bleeding. My sister grabbed me by the ear. She twisted it. She was bleeding. I was crying because my ear hurt like hell. She was bleeding. She told me to shut up. I shut up. She was bleeding. She told me to stay shut up. She shoved me out of the bathroom and I stayed shut up about all that for about eighteen years. And this is my first public say-so of that event. I say it now out of respect to how horrifying it must have been for her to be a young woman figuring out how to manage this new gushing only to have this snot-nosed-little-fuck-nose (me) come waltzing in thinking he'd stumbled upon a crime scene. My sister and I have talked about that moment as adults. We laugh about it now, though I touch my ear to make sure it's not in my sister's hand from time to time.

The second memory is one I have a hard time admitting the fact of because admitting it means that I have to discount a man I once considered a hero. This requires some back-story.

I've been in Boy Scouts ever since I reached the age I could join. Some people give me shit for being involved in the organization at my age. There are a lot of old jokes about pedofiles and such. That doesn't bother me because I know the only reason why I'm still involved is because some guys helped me understand that being a man didn't require being manly but did require being true to ones conviction and that conviction must always be fair to the self and everyone else. For the first part of my scouting experience I saw how men taught boys to be compassionate men. For the latter part of my scouting experience and the experience I still experience to thisn day, I saw and see men who actly dispasionately toward women.

When I was SPL (senior patrol leader) of T-30, T-30 operated like clockwork. To this day I am considered the best SPL of T-30 in the troop's existence of almost one hundred years. When I was SPL a change in Scouts happened. Women were becoming more and more prominent. T-30 to this day is probably the last of the old dogs holding out letting any woman hold a "real" seat of power.

I'll never forget the day a man who I consider to be a hero became a person whose motives and humanity I could not understand. We were in camp. I was SPL. I was a good SPL. I was told so by my buddies. I was told so by men I admired. This made me understand that I could have the strength to admire myself.

I had a meeting to go to that day.

It was a council meeting.

I now know that the meeting was designed by the men of the council to keep women out of scouts. To this day I do think having women in scouts in unnecessary, but it is also a catch 22 because some troop need somebody is a woman, which has never bothered me.

Before I headed out to the meeting, I made my way to a circle of green, canvas tents. These guys wanted to talk to me before I spoke for T-30. The man I fully respected then said, "We know you'll do the right thing."

He meant, Speak out against women in scouts. I did agree with him. He didn't need to say anymore. However, scared people always talk too much.

The man I then respected folded his arms and said, "I've never trusted anyone who can bleed for seven days and live."

This made no sense to me then. It makes no sense now.

I remember say, "Okay," because I couldn't think of anything else to say.

He said, "You'll represent T-30 just fine, I know."

I was the only SPL who didn't go to that meeting. Letters after camp kept telling me that. I threw each letter into the trash just like I kept throwing rocks into Truman Lake the day Iwalked to shore instead of going to that meeting. I was the well decorated scout sitting beside the lake who had somewhere to be. I was the well decorated scout who felt he should not be so decorated. I ripped a service medal few receive from my chest and flung it into the water. I bet it is still there, covered in moss.

Every Worthwhile Projects Starts Off With Simultanesous Streaks of Arrogance and Selfishness

I believe in the title of this entry as if it is a mantra. I should note that the "streak of arrogance" part comes directly from what Richard Hugo has to say about the act of writing in Triggering Town. I'm paraphrasing here, but Hugo says that it takes a streak of arrogance to write a poem because you are anticipating a reader who will read and value what you have written. Hugo goes on in the following sentence to say that this streak of arrogance should be limited to your writing because being arrogant in your personal life and in your dealings with others will cause unnecessary, emotional frustration. Further, Hugo implores that if you are nice to people, then you afford yourself not only less personal frustration, but, ultimately, more time to write because you aren't investing any energy into damaged relationships. He's spot on.

I've added this idea of "project-selfishness" because I'm pretty sure it is necessary. At the outset of any project whether it be as large as finishing a novel or collection of poems or story collection or even something as small as a single, declarative sentence of what you hope is memorable speech, a sense of selfishness is required, a sense that you are writing something or conducting a project necessary to ultimately understanding more about yourself is required, understanding yourself as the first audience is necessary. I like to think that if the person writing a piece doesn't think of him or herself as the first audience then two mistakes have been made before the first sentence reaches its first punctuation: 1.) there's no personal investment in the piece, which means there's hardly a chance for any reader to find an emotion to invest in that affirms his or her own emotion reality; 2.) if the writer of a piece isn't an audience of his or her work, then that writer will never be able to understand that audience is an element of writing never neglected by a piece that extends past being merely a competent arrangment of words.

The most effective example of an historical figure who exuded streaks of arrogance and selfishness in the name of his own project is Albert Einstein. Before Einstein's face became the cliche posterchild of genius and before Einstein became an unforgettable icon of physics, mathematics, and imagination, he became a man so invested in the belief that he could prove his theory of special relativity that, unfortunately, he became somewhat tragic. Still a young man in Berlin, Einstein worked tirelessly on mathematical proofs to such a degree that his personal life and his relationship with his wife was failing miserably. Every day that his proofs got closer was the same day he and his wife became more distant. When his wife finally gave up on any chace that love between them was salvagable, the two agreed on divorce, which meant Einstein's wife would go back to Zurich, Swizterland with their two sons. Before she and their sons got on the train to finally separate forever, Albert to his wife he would pay her the child support and allamony (sp?) with the money he would recieve upon being awarded the Nobel Prize.

At this point in time, Einstein was a far cry from a Nobel, but a notable scientist regarded as a rising star despite political tension between Germany, Great Britian, and, soon to come, the United States. Einstein's claim that he would repay his wife with the Nobel money is what I consider a fine example of simultaneous arrogance and selfishness. His personal life was in shambles. His life as a scientist was on the up-swing. Most of all, he so deeply believed in himself as the first audience of his project and his project's importance to himself that the success of this project, special relativity, could offer an emotional scab between himself and his wife while creating a powerfuld thrust in scientific discovery, which would disprove the day's main-stay understanding of physics established by Sir Isaac Newton, understandings that Einstein felt were misguided and unacknowleging of the cosmic functions of outter space.

Word of Einstein's mathematical proofs and theory of Specail Relativity spread throughout the world of scientists easily despite the onslaught of the first World War. Despite machine guns, tear gas, and a war slugged out in trenches, every scientist of the world wanted to know more about what this young pacifist who disagreed with Germany pronouncing an iron-fisted military might had to say about the bending of light, about Special Relativity.

Einstein was invited to give a lecture to debute his proofs at a school in, I believe, Prague. The great mathematical minds of the day would sit the lecture hall's desks as if students capable of checking the work of their teacher. Days before the lecture, Einstein discovered an obvious, mathematical flaw in his proof, a flaw he knew someone would pick-up on, a flaw that someone could figure out then steal his proof and claim the proof, which would negate the possiblity of winning the Nobel. Einstein labored and labored over the proofs he created up to the moment before delivering the lecture with no avail, with no new solution to the flaw, with the fear that his finest idea would be stolen and claimed by a greater mathematician sitting silently in the audience thinking "I know how to fix the proof."

Which is exactly what happened.

Einstein gave his lecture with passion and confidence. Almost everyone was convinced that all Einstein needed was scientific proof of what his mathematical proofs claimed except for one scientist who saw the flaw and knew how to fix the math because he was a better mathematician. I cannot remember his name and will look it up later, but he was the only one to ask about the error, which, to Einstein, mean that if he could find the error, then he could think up the solution.

A mathematical race started in that very moment between the two, and Einstein couldn't let himself lose though he deeply feared it a very certain possibility.

Weeks passed as both hammered out potential solutions on blackboards. Night and day, Einstein toiled and toiled operating with the conviction that he could not lose this theory because he felt he had to prove the math; he needed to be the one to find the flaw; he needed to be the one to correct this one failure of his life that he could fix; he'd already lost enough.

Historical data shows that both figured out the solution around the same time, maybe within the same week, but Einstein published first, gaining the kudos first.

Scientists around the world agreed with the math for the most part, but disagreed whole-heartily with the math's plausibility due to lack of empirical data. What Einstein needed was a clear photograph of an eclipse to show how light bent around the moon to show that his mathematical proofs of Special Relativity were simply mathematical proofs.

Due to cloud-cover and limited means of photography, scientists were not able to retrieve proper eclipse data to back-up the mathematical proofs for about seven years. Scientist around the world were mostly on board with nominating Einstein the Nobel upon the data. Einstein waited as paitently as he could; he waited confidently, knowing in his gut that he couldn't be wrong, that there was no way the proofs were eroneous anymore.

Fifteen years after Einstein promised his ex-wife the Nobel money, a batch of eclipse photos came in to be verified against the mathematical proofs of Specail Relativity. Einstein's math became proven by empirical data and Newton's laws about physics were disproven. Einstein immediately became a viable contestant for the Nobel Prize. He won.

Einstein didn't win the Nobel for Specail Relativity though. He won for previous work which opened the doors and created a field of science that dominates today, Quantum Mechanics. He did hand over that money to his ex-wife. She bought two apartment building which ultimately failed in the same lifetime that Albert became a famous genuis who refused to comb his hair.

I was born twenty-eight years after Einstein died. Tennesse Williams died the year I was born. Both of these men considered themselves the first (not primary) audiences of their work. Risks were made and personal lives fell into ruin. It is important not to over-value our own stakes when it comes to the completion of any project or affirmation that we too, like any organism, require oxygen. That's always the first cinder block of the house that holds human emotion, oxygen, the fact of breath.

Four years ago I started my own project, a project that, at the out-set and to this day, is both arrogant and selfish. I started asking authors and poets questions that Steve Almond termed "kind of big and scary." I started with Ursula K. LeGuin. My recent interview was conducted with Michael Martone.

Thought I totally suck at math and science, I'll think of myself arrogant enough to say, for just a moment, that maybe I have something in common with Einstein, an undying passion to discover a proof. The proof I seek is not mathematical. The proof I seek is based off of wanting to know the inner concerns of writers and poets who have someway changed my life by clearly expressing the concerns of their own lives. I never disclose the method by which I contact these important people and I never share the questions I ask. The project is too important to me. The friendships I have built with these icons of American literature whether these people be rising stars or cosmological residents in the universe of literary importance are irreplacable. Some of them read this blog and to that I say, Thank You. To those who do and don't read this blog (the minds of those who have let ask questions of them) I say Thank You for positively responding to an act of my own temporary arrogance that asked to interview you; Thank You for my selfish want to understand the act of writing by asking about the motives of your own concerns as a breathing human. This act of my asking will become more than my asking because all of your answers are important. May we all sit down at the same five-card-stud table in the afterlife.

Here's the video I finally figured out how to post

Music Videos Before Bed

Though I should be getting my ass to bed in lue of the big Turkey Day tomorrow, I'm doing what I normally do when I'm just not in the mood to go to sleep quite yet, watching music videos and listening to songs on YouTube. Honestly, I'm a little too pumped up for feasting and a little too excited (probably to an unhealthy, egotistical, degree) about this pumpkin cheesecake I made because, if I can say so (which means I definitely will) the cheesecake doesn't have a single crack in it. Having said that, I will probably wake up to find that the cheesecake has sunk-in and some mysterious cracks have formed a swastika in the center, so I will need to immediately cover it in whipped cream so there is no mistake that this Thanksgiving is a Hilter-based celebration.
Pumpkin cheesecake aside, let's get back to YouTube tunes and videos.

I've got a lot of guilty pleasure music videos. You know, the ones you watch over and over and sometimes you watch them because you truly love their artistic qualites, sometimes you watch them because of their complete lack there of. Most times you watch these movies because there's something luring you in, something tapping on the shoulder of your quirks, something that compells you to get up, shake ass, and sing out loud in the middle of the night. Of my guilty pleasures: Nelly's "Dillemma" and Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun." What can I say? I have no real explanation though given enough time to bull-fart out a bullshit answer I might be able to come up with some kind of explanation other than asking "Why wouldn't these be guilty pleasures?"

"Save A Horse [Ride A Cowboy]" is my new guilty pleasure song, but, even more so, guilty pleasure video. I'm pretty sure this video is evidence of the fact a god exists. At this very moment, this video has been viewed 365,340 times. I have watched this video 365, 337 times. The other three viewers were Jesus Christ, Allah, and Bhudda.

Once I figure out how to post a damn video on this blog, I will post this video so you can validate the following argument that this video has everything a guy would like. Now, I don't think this video would get played at a feminist slumber party, but, what can say, it trips my trigger.

Before I continue, let me view this video once more just so I can relish a bit more.

Okay...I watched the video three times. I confess. And I'm not sorry. This video is so obnoxiously beautiful it is profound. First off, there's a midget. Instant cool points. Second, naughty secretary chicas sporting garters and tights. Sweet. There's a fucking marching band of banjos. Need I say more? Plus there's the blonde haired guy wearing the top hat wielding a strange umbrella who reminds me of the mad hatter. If I could be in the video, I'd want that job.

I'm listening to the song at this very moment with the video on a different browser. I'm sorry, but I'll have to continue this post later. I'm getting sucked in, again. I'll post this for you all once I figure out how to do that. Here are some lyrics to marinate in your brains until then:

"Her evaluation of my cowboy reputation
had me beggin' for salvation all night long.
So I took her out giggin' frogs,
introduced her to my old bird dog,
And sang her every Willie Nelson song
I could think of,
and we made love."

DANG!

Cars Would Be The Best Things Ever If They Never Broke Down And The Tooth Fairy Paid For Gas

Disclaimer: In the following entry I will seriously risk crying myself a river and playing the world's smallest violin.

As of yesterday evening I am once again a proud owner of a Ford product that refuses to start. After some thought and I believe the problem is not with the altinator, but the starter itself. The tow truck man told agreed with this anyway. And now that I think of it, I have had quite the on-going relationship with All American Towing here in Mankato and it almost seems as if the people at AAA know me by name.

The two guy who helped me last night is a guy who has helped me before. I consider him the role-model tow truck guy. They should put a picture of him in Tow Guy Manuals at the Tow Guy School. He's tall, sort of goofy looking and most likely an incarnation of a Ernest Hemmingway character--he doesn't talk much but he says everything with his body language. I could be wrong about this. This Tow Guy could also be like Eior (sp?) because when he picked me up to go over and get my car from the KT parking lot he gave me this look that said, "Oooookay, whhhhere weeee got toooo goooooo thissss tiiiiiimme?" In reality all he said was, "Where is it?" My god, in praise of directness.

So we go over to the parking lot and try our best to get the taurus running (he's doing the real work of fiddling with the mechanics while I simply turn the key when he waves his mitten). After about five minutes he just shrugs his shoulders.
"It's not going to start is it?"
The tow guy shakes his head.
"Alright, let's just take it back to my place."
"Slip it in neutral and I'll push it out," the Tow Guy says. He proceeded to push the car out with me in it and ocassionally pushing with only one arm to direct me how to turn the wheel. In this moment, I feel about as manly as a boquette of daffodils at a tea party.

When I get into the tow cab I say to the guy, "I have the worst luck with cars."
He purses his lips and nods probably thinking this is the hundreth time he's heard this today; he's probably thinking that old saying, "You don't have bad luck. You're just a dumbass."
Which is kind of true because when it comes to mechanics I know just the basic of the basics. I know that a "starter" exists, but wouldn't know where to find it. I know an "alternator" exists and that it is most likey nowhere near the trunk since it charges the battery, yes, the alternator must be near the battery.

Back at my place, Tow Guy backs the taurus into a spot in one swoop. I would probably require the size of a football field to back a car in a tow truck and I like to think of myself as a pretty good driver. "Well, that's it," Tow Guy says and hands me a AAA slip to sign. I sign, say thanks, and Tow Guy nods, "No problem." Then tow guy is off into the cold night to rescue some other person.

On Writing The Nasty

I groove on writing and talking about nasty things as long as the premise of "said nasty" doesn't over shadow the development of emotion in a piece. When writing about bodily functions I find that most times I wander into the following arenas: humor, shame, guilt, or admiration--I end writing this emotion most because I have this sort of twisted approach where I like to believe that something normally considered gross can always be made beautiful if the subject matter is dealt with responsibly (by this I mean honestly). Naturally, there are other emotions that can arise when writing "the nasty," but I find these four popping up (pun intended) the most.

When writing "the nasty" I always like to keep myself from taking what I consider the easy road, simply writing about shit or puke or zits or rashes or worms or hemmoroids, etc. A good guide I've found to keep from writing on the surface level of the nasty is to think of people whose every other word is fuck. Fuck is a fantastic word, and during an interview with Bob Hicok once, he and I decided the reason why we like it so much is that the word has this animalistic, mono-syllabic howl to it. At the same time, you don't ever want a piece of writing to simply be a yard with a dog barking in the middle of the night. Nobody likes that in real life and nobody likes that in literature because a power word has now been over used to the point it creates white noise. I think the same goes for writing about say, shitting in public or making love to a former girlfriend while she's on her period or being diagnosed with scabies or having pinworms, of which I've written about each of these topics and have hopefully written about them honestly. And that's all that they are, topics to use as springboards into bigger emotions. A lot of the early drafts of these pieces subtextually said, "Hey, this happened to me. Isn't that strange? Isn't that sick? Don't you sort of feel bad for me?" which means that the pieces were ultimately navel gazing, unimportant to anyone, and begging the question that all bad writing begs, "So what?"

When pushing a nasty topic to a wider emotional range I also like to think of what Billy Collins said about how a poet uses an image to gain access to a larger truth. Probably the best example of Collins executing this is in his poem "The Lanyard." Now, on the surface level, Collins begins with the fact that he, as a boy, made his mother a lanyard at summer camp. That's the beginning topic or as Dick Hugo would term "triggering subject." Collins does not leave the "triggering subject" as Hugo so adimently suggests doing in his collection of essays, "The Triggering Town." Rather, Collins captializes on the image throughout the poem to build an organic development of the truth that we can never re-pay our mothers for what they have done for us, though, as children, we think the little nick-nacks we make for our mothers are a fair trade for their sacrifices.

So what the hell does this have to do with writing "the nasty"? I like to think it has everything to do with effectively pushing a nasty premise toward what is hopefully a profound realization. Now, I don't sit around reading over my work saying things like "Okay, that was profound. Good job, self," but I do constantly ask myself what are my stakes and what am I risking about myself, which I think is the only way anybody might ever be able to traipse into writing a single profound thought.

Writing nasty always has shock value to it and that's something the writer should always be mindful of. I've read a lot of nasty that I don't value because it never got past what I have termed for myself as "the whoopty-doo factor." For example, you were busted for swimming naked by the cops, whoopty-doo. The whoopty-doo is always an indicator that a writer is not taking his or her topic seriously and, most of all, the topic is not important to the writer. I like to think that the only way to write anything worth anyone's time is to consider the topic to be as important as a vital organ. Until the the topic is considered that important, that vital, that necessary, the writing will always yeild an unimportance.

When I started writing my poem "Shark Week," a poem about making love to a former girlfriend in the early, "heavy" stage of her period, I made a lot of rookie mistakes which were subconscious clues to the fact I was scared to write the poem, scared to admit something hard to admit about myself, mistakes I could only overcome upon considering the facts of myself, facts of my fears, facts of my own hipocrasy and contradictions--I love, love, love making love to you except when you bleed. I wrote many drafts that were too dependent on the bleeding. I was making the mistake of not valuing the obvious fact involved in this making love, the fact that bodies are bodies and if you are in love, you are in love and that love, if it is real love, trumps the surface level reality that people are every day animals with highly evolved brains. And the fact that we are animal is a fact of hope because this means we can reproduce.

As I drafted toward an emotional truth, I discovered that the poem had very little concern for the fact my then girlfriend was on her period. When our making love while she was bleeding became whoopty-doo, I knew I was on the right track to writing something important for myself, but, most of all, our act, something important for us. I was now writing the facts of my own fears and regrets, the fact that I regretted something as simple as red liquid creating sexual distance every month. And that sexual distance was my fault. I began to understand that I'd failed her in a very tragic way; I'd failed at staying true to our love by letting her peroid trump our most honest act, and I'd let us be trumped for too long. The best way to feel shame is to know you've been bossed around by fear. The best way to overcome shame is to start bossing around your fears by pointing a finger at your fear and saying, "You scare me, but I'm not going to give you that power anymore."

"Shark Week" is ultimately about overcoming failure by admitting and correcting a history of failing. The poem is short and lyric. If the poem were a long narrative, I'd be entertaining mistake because I'd be letting the history of fault trump overcoming the mistake; I'd be spending too much time writing about what is least important; I wouldn't be able to reach the point of how a fear of blood is not allowed to boss around love between man and woman anymore.

When I reflect on "Shark Week," I very rarely think of a bleeding vagina or sex. I very rarely think of the poem's initiating topic because the poem's point is so much more important to me, and the point has very little to do with blood or sex or being physically naked. The point is more emotionally naked, emotionally honest, emotionally sorry and apologetic of a faulted history of withholding.

Soundtrack for the Day

Once upon a time I worked as the man behind the bar who made your cocktails and when I wasn't doing that I was the man behind the cutting table or grill preparing food for your mouth to say, "that's pretty good." My friends served your meals to you, though no cook of any kind thinks of a server as a friend. Either which way, the point of this post is that, at the time, my friends were making song playlists of their days. I thought this was dumb, the most uncool of uncool, and, most of all, too much information.

Six years later, I now realize that I was very afraid of what people thought of me and I still fear that. We all want to be liked despite our quirks. That's something we all have to deal with telling the world. And I guess I'll start with my personal soundtrack as I can put it together now.

Please consider this an apology to the people in my life of whom I considered myself too cool for a sound track to my days.

8:00 ---Johnny Cash "Understand Your Man"
9:00----The Killers "When You Were Young"
10:00---The Spinners "Rubberband Man"
11:00---Aretha Franklin "I Say a Little Prayer for You"\
12:00---Crash Test Dummies " Mmmm..Mmmm.Mmmm..."
1:00---Craig Morgan "International Harvester"
2:00---Gwen Stephani "Sweet Escape"
3:00--Outkast "The Whole Wide World"
4:00---The Strokes 'Reptillia"
5:00---"The Cranberries "Linger"
6:00--Mariah Carey "Shake it Off"
7:00---Ottis Redding "These Arms of Mine"
8;00---Rolling Stones "Goodbye, Ruby Tuesday"
9:00--Bob Dylan "Like a Rolling Stone"
10:00---Jeff Buckley "Last Goodbye"
11:00---Iron and Wine "Naked as We Came"

Another Attempt At Blog-World

This is the beginning of another attempt to keep a blog. I've tried this many, many times, but I always seem to lose it, fall off, forget, or become disinterested. This probably has a lot to do with my love of ink-paper journals. Maybe I'm just nostalgic. Maybe I'm a little more guarded than I come off. If anything, I enjoy few things more than sitting down and scribbling myself off into the far corners of my mind. I developed this tendency as a kid. My mother and father always praised the idea of me keeping a journal as something I could look back on one day. My mother and father probably praised this with the added twist that if I was spilling my ideas and thoughts and doing my talking in my journal, then they got more quiet time. This wasn't the only time that my talky-talky self was recomended to write in order to tame my inherent tendency to go on long, long monologues. My sixth grade teacher got tired of keeping me quiet because I always had these fantasy stories I'd come up with and tell my friends during class. The major problem wasn't that my stories were good, the problem was that my stories just so happened to be more interesting that long division or remembering the capitol of South Dakota or the definition of transubstantiation or how to be a good, chaste catholic attending a good catholic grade school. She made me a deal. If I typed out my stories and handed them to her, she would read them. This was in exchange of me not telling these stories during class. Now, my sixth grade teacher was the hottest girl in our class (tall, blonde, and the only girl with serious boobs). I had no other option than to write for her.

I kept my part of the deal. I didn't talk during class, too much. I did here and there, but no stories, no getting my fellow students too distracted, just random, muffled wise-cracks about some of the world's most important subjects: farting, body odor, Sports Illustrated swim suit issues my buddy Pat kept in his back-pack, girls who had tits and those who didn't, girls with nice butts, girls with nice legs, girls with pretty faces and those who didn't, discussions of definitions in the dictonary of words like penis and vagina and cock and cunt.

For a little over a week I didn't hand my teacher anything. This plan was working well for her. She asked if I was doing my writing and typing it out. I told her I was, but the typing was slow since I typed using only my index fingers. I told her how my mind was always so much faster than my fingers, but I'd get her something soon.

That Friday as I was heading out the door I handed her a fifteen page, single space story entitled The Adventures of Rubin and Red. It was the first chapter of the book I knew I'd publish. I told her how I wrote a letter to Disney with my story idea and how I was pretty sure they'd take it and when they did, I'd make millions and give her a couple thousand.

My teacher took the story and said, "Thank you," while flipping past the cover page I'd labored over, "The Adventures of Rubin and Red by David John Clisbee. Chapter One." I told her I had some more ideas for the second chapter and I'd better get working on it over the weekend since I could hear from Disney any day and they'd probably want more of the story.

The following Monday I asked my teacher what she thought of my story. I'd kept pretty true to my part of the deal and I wanted her to stay true to her part. She said she like it so far but wasn't all the way through it, said she was reading it before bed, said she'd read some of it to her husband and he liked that they two boys Rubin and Red were stranded on an island with dragons and evil elves but able to fight them off.

I said, "Cool," then handed over the next chapter ringing in at ten pages, single spaced. Disney would be calling me any day. I had work to do.

I remember telling my brother the plan of how I would become a famous writer. First, Disney will call wanting to pay me millions of dollars to make my story, which was now becoming a book, into a movie. There would be a cartoon version of the book and a film version where Clint Eastwood would play the evil lord of the island Rubin and Red were stranded on. Clint Eastwood and I would ride in the same limo to the Oscars where I would win and oscar and so would he. My brother said, "You have to have a date to take to the Oscars."

This became a temporary dilemma, until I decided I would take my teacher and if her husband didn't like that then he would have to become a more famous writer than me, which would be virtually impossible. Then I told my brother that after the movie of Rubin and Red I would write a new book in one month and it would win the Pulitzer prize and I would be the only person to win the Pulitzer prize at twelve. I'd be rich. I'd be famous. I'd buy my own lake with a big house and our only job would be fishing for walleye of which the lake would be stocked with the worlds largest walleye, an easy job.

Weeks passed until an 8 x 11, manila envelope addressed to Master David Joh Clisbee from Disney showed up in the mail box. This was it. They wanted to make a movie. In my hand written letter to them I'd told them how my story, now book would make a smash movie or a great cartoon series at least. They were taking the bait. They wanted it. This response was pretty dang fast. They respectfully decline.

I read the letter more than ten times. How was this possible? How could the Director of Marketing say no to such a great idea. I'd told everybody I'd be famous. I'd promised my teacher a couple thousand bucks. I slid the letter back into the envelope carefully then put it in a safe place in my room so I could mail it back to the Disney people with a big, hairy penis drawn on it once somebody took my movie idea like Steven Speilberg. Yeah, Speilberg would dig it.

To my mother's extreme disapproval, I walked outside our neighborhood and down to the public library to ask a librarian for Steven Speilberg's address. I knew librarian could find anything, even Speilberg's home address.

I waited in line and waited in line until an old lady librarian asked me, "What can I help you with?"
"I need to know Steven Speilberg's home address," I said.
"Are you a friend of his?"
"Not yet."
"Okay...come with me."

The oldy librarian walked to a counter with what looked like huge phone books and started flipping through.
"Since your in the Ss, can you please look up Slyvester Stalone too, mam?"
"Sure thing, sweetie," the oldie said.
I tapped my finger on the desk waiting on her, "Got anything yet?"
"Still looking. Is your Mom or Dad ready to go?"
"Nope," I said thinking that a safe answer since it didn't mean I was there alone.
I waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and about two or three minutes later the oldie said, "You might have to go to the Post Office to request those addresses."
"There's nothing about Speilberg or Stalone in those big books?"
"Not that I can see, young man."
"Okay, well, thanks anyway, mam."

The next week at school I told my teacher about all of this and how I was surprised how stupid Disney Company was and how the oldie librarian could figure out where Speilberg or Stalone lived and how I was sure she saw the addresses but just didn't want to tell me. She told me how good my story was and how she couldn't believe it either. She said her husband started reading my stories before she did and he didn't like to read. She said I shouldn't take Disney saying no as a bad thing, but a good thing because maybe there was a better deal out there for me. I didn't understand that. It didn't make sense. I had everything planned. Even my brother thought it was a good plan and he didn't like anything I ever came up with.

The night I got in big trouble for walking outside of our neighborhood to the post-office I sat at my desk in the attic room my brother and I shared. I was mad at the world. My mom and dad were mad at me for being bad. I was mad for Disney not getting it. I was mad at the oldie for not telling me the mailing addresses of Speilberg or Stalone. Then I did what I still do from time to time to this day, I let sadness take over, I let failing at an impossible task let me feel like I'd failed at completing a simple task.

My brother and I were a long way from being friends to each other then. For a long time I used to think we became friends when he graduated from high school then moved off to college while I was stuck at home in the high school he went to in Kansas City. As kids, John and I fought and punched and wrestled as if beating and hurting each other was our job as human beings born to the Clisbee name. That night, when everybody was saying "No," and I was being scorned by my parents for trying to create a "Yes," John came up to our room and saw me sitting at my desk; he saw me holding that manila envelope from Disney; he saw me put the envelope down and fold my arms; he heard me sigh.

I'm pretty sure my brother and I became friends in that very moment. No matter how much we beat each other or punched or wrestled or swore, we could only handle doing that to each other; no one else was allow to do that.

John didn't say anything; he carried his chair from his side of the room and set it down next to mine. He sat there with me and kept quiet. John folded his arms and rest his head on my desk. He wasn't making fun of me this time. I could tell. He could tell I needed someone so I could just be still, someone to make me feel safe. Some one like him, the boy who I climbed into bed with when thunderstorms kept me up and scared; someone who found me annoying yet necessary; someone who said, "That teacher likes it, right?"
"Yeah."
"That's pretty good."
"Yeah."











1. DULL KNIVES: