And see the thing is well, see I bashed my own head into our wall and so I…wait what?

Okay lets back up it goes like this, I think it was Friday, I was just getting done with reading and commenting on some of my favorite blogs…I think my last one specifically was Snarky Snatch, and if you haven’t read her, (or if ya stopped by and didn’t give her a chance ’cause of all the naughtiness) ya may jes want to, definitely, as she is fond of saying, the funniest blog about the Cleveland On-line dating scene ( and I’ll go so far as to say consistently and outrageously funny).

Anyway, getting done, I stood up from the computer with coffee in one hand and ashtray etc in the other and…my left foot caught on the chair leg, I stepped with my right only to come down on the cat, at this point any smart person, any functional unit would have jest fell…

I of course, not wanting to fall, not wanting to spill what was in my hands, sprang forward (as my scrambling feet finally touched floor) only to slam head first (like a linebacker making helmet to helmet contact lol) into one of our walls.

All of this I recalled later of course, at first all I knew is that I had tripped over the cat and somehow my head hurt like f and I was bleeding all over the place. I remember looking down at all the broken glass (a long with the coffee cup and a small glass serving bowl a large picture had fallen and was laying broken at my knees) and wondering if I’d somehow fallen into the broken glass and cut my head or…?

I mean I wasn’t sure, I started cleaning up etc… tried to get the bleeding under control…decided I’ d somehow hit my head (because of the tremendous amount of pain in my noggin) I knew of course that I should probably go to the ER but I mean like that of course wasn’t going to happen (mainly of course ’cause Lil’ Mouse wasn’t around to force me to go lol).

Okay so what you don’t know is though I started this on Sunday night, added to it Tuesday morning, I am jes now maybe setting back to finishing it and we aren’t even at 500 words yet lol…so whoops yea but back to it.

So I guess once the bleeding stopped. I could get a good look at it and it certainly wasn’t a cut. It was a big mushy spot with two smallish lacerations.  Every time I tried to think about what happened though my body kind’a rebeled (even now days I’m gettin the twinges). So anyway I fashioned a turban out of a t shirt and stuffed an ice pack in it and sat quietly waitin’ fer the Mouse to get home (don’t ask me why…like much of what I did in those hours[including weeding fer awhile 'cause I didn't want the house to get bloody but also didn't jes want to sit there bleeding] much is foggy unreliable and understandably ununderstandable). In the waiting and trying not to think about it,(trying not to think in general ’cause thinking hurt) I ended up of course continuing to think about it…that’s when I had my first sneaking suspicion s that I had actually bumped my head into the wall.

It wasn’t until Lil’ Mouse got home and I was trying to explain, re-inact the hilarity that I finally understood (with of course Mouse’s help) what fully took place. See I hate falling down, hate slipping tripping what have you and losing my feet and falling down…take it kind’a as a point of pride…(I’d say a “man” thing here but one of my other favorite blogging gals onlyspartanwomen might take umbrage) Anyway it dawned on me that I must have, like I often do in this situation, tried to spring out of the fall (years ago, toe strapped into a Cannondale bike, doing an endo after clipping the guy in the line ahead of me’s back tire, I face planted on the bike trail grinding to a halt on my face and three front teeth, because, while I was going down, I kept trying to pull out of it instead of rolling with it[hopefully that makes sense)...so see I spa-rang forward, and probably might have pulled out of it, been okay, if the wall wasn't like a foot away and I hadn't spa-rang into it like a rutting ram...

Anyway the end result is of course, I have a concussion, I don't need a Doctor to tell me that, I've had like too many to count (really, I had like three before I was ten, two more before 15 [I remember those because they are family history and so the story has been verified as it were] but countless times I got conked in the noggin livin the rough life, I think I was just too fucked up all around and in general to ever notice the difference)…but now…okay and anyway so I got wrap this up today I swear so that ya’ll know…well hopefully you’ve noticed I haven’t been around lol I don’t wanna get a swelled head…

*Note everything above written between 6/3(ish?) and 6/6 am the rest here is added tonight wed 6/6 pm and okay maybe I jes didn’t wanna end on such a lame joke. The pic is about how bad it looked. Work (the reason I took the pic) wasn’t real impressed either so I have continued to work…(my little uncomplicated job) but that’s about all I have been able to muster fer the last few days. Today was better. I hardly said anything too weird or retarded to my co-workers, my headache is diminished to a spot jes behind my left eye, I actually sat in the sun fer about twenty minutes today, and my frustration at “every little thing” level is easing off a bit I think. I of course don’t really notice any differences in my behaviors, but Lil’ Mouse says I am having some residuals, which she says is just more of  what I usually am fergetful, cantankerous, creatively odd…so I am not sure if that is really something that has happened, or that in the physical stress of the event my carefully crafted shell of normalcy is having some problems maintaining it’s already shaky facade…

So…I promise I’ll be back after all I got this done, it’s still a thousand words (though it took four days and only has two pics)…but fer awhile I might jes visit sites, finish posting Left Turn, maybe some thing small once in awhile…my concentration abilities (never stellar) are a little on the fritz still and  my vertical holds all wonky…but as always ya…oh the f..see i almost fer got, the whole Beiber thing, see Lil’ Mouse found out that ol’ JB got a concussion also…she thinks that hilarious…

And Miss Snarks, if yer still interested I am..

No ya dirty minded bastards on me being a guest blogger (it might be a month or so) but I’d still be honored…

Anyway and Jesus…I gotta stop fer the night…it takes me ferever to write two sentences, but hell that’s better than it’s been 9praise Jay-sus and hallelujah) I’ll post LT Chapter 20 soon, thanks all fer yer…everythings and whatevers ya’ll are great and make an even more clankity and dysfunctional ol unit give a little gosh darn blush of humbleosity

A quick clarification though, or affirmation, or (well I could spend minutes doin that) what I mean though is that this ability to be so ocd regarding taking apart and evaluating and analyzing my own behaviors, (the same way I do with everyone oh my Cats & Kittens) to be brutally honest (with myself anyway)in my evaluations of the “hows” , “whys” and “therefores” of  the things I do is just something that comes as naturally to me as does say public speaking (at least as early as I can remember) and fer years of course I thought everyone was this way (just as people who are responsible and pay bills on time can’t imagine how others just can’t do the same) we all have strengths, this just happens to be one of mine, and yes, it would have made me a great Psychologist (or etc [and yes I came close(though I may have mentioned that before)]…oh it is to laugh), well maybe next I will write a two part (that ends up being six part)post about my edugraphical history…but

And well Jesus no wonder my f-ing posts take so long see I haven’t even started talking poetry yet…so yea then lets get started. It’s…

In the early 90′s I am now a Dad again (my first son is what…mmm…thirty two and an artist living on the East Coast [and I was never much of a dad fer him] but lets not get sidetracked with my failings as a parent)…

Bill Shit Poet

Fer now though, I am house-husbanding two growing toddlers, living with (though not  yet officially unofficially[due to SSI/SDI restrictions] married) their mom, and doin my best to figure out a way to provide by doin the only thing I really felt I was good at…writing down the crazy stuff in my head and then goin out and reading that stuff in front of people.

Again two things, first I’m not saying my poetry was the best being performed, or that two, I knew that I would be as popular as I was…it just turned out people liked it and I was popular(years later of course in Toastmasters, I learned that there’s just something about me[I know that this sounds egotistical...I don't care...it's a fact] people just like to listen to me talk [my dad was the same way])

Pretentious Poet

So see, though a lot of poets regularly mocked not only my words but my performance…regular people loved me (amazingly enough regular people have money to buy cheap poetry books[where as poets are usually too poor]). So I was not only more popular with coffee house, book store and bar patrons than some of the more serious(pretentious?), deep(full of shit?), “arteests” (full of shit pretentiousness?[sorry lol only havin fun]), but when our books were on the table my $5 buck or less book prices(I made my first books on my mac 512k, sold ‘em fer a buc a piece and made hundreds of dollars lol)always far outsold their fancy $20, $25 or higher books

Bull Shit Pretentious Poet

Okay and so f-ing anyway (on track, on track). Early 90′s reading everywhere, been published in a number of raggedy anthologies and ‘zines, self published two chapbooks, two more get published by raggedy presses. I am featured a lot, and very popular with the audience. During this times a lot of just people (as distinguished from other poets or weirdo artists types) attended readings(maybe this is still the case outside of where I live…lol). Anyway the scene is set for…the rest of the story

The first poet that I really hooked up with and started doing collaborative work was Gary Tomlinson (God rest his soul) “Big Daddy”. We started going to readings together but much more…Gary played the dulcimer, but he had taught himself to play it, so his style was a little unusual(very asian or middle eastern sounding [in my memory]). We wrote some rockin good pieces together, performed many of my pieces to music (including a crazy semi con [we claimed we were a band  and then day of the event said our drummer couldn't show] to get $150 a piece for a half hour ‘lunch’ show at UCI)…so much more craziness, oh I love the guy.

Psycho Boy & Big Daddy (sorry twenty year old pencil drawing)

One of the other more popular poets at all the readings we attended was Tom Rush (also a student of Mallorinski, so we knew each other outside of coffee houses and restaurant bars). Tom wrote long depressing poetry, and (hopefully hes still alive and doing well)kind’a always looked down his nose at my…so called poetry…l and his fabulous o l’s my friends, of course structurally, strictly from a craft stand point he certainly comes from a position of strength, his poems being veritable masterpieces of poetic craftsmanship…and I’m sure it drove him crazy after pouring out his soul for five minutes about the desolate condition of man and the downfall of human nature in this post “flower power” world in the most darkly beautiful manner to light but well received applause, only to be followed by me getting up and stomping around ranting nearly unpoetically about my not taking acid anymore and nearly bring the house down in applause. I couldn’t help it. But Tom you were of course right, you are  much better poet than I. So where ever ya’ are God bless ya.

The Monkees Brain

Last but not least of course was G. Murray Thomas, if ya want to know a clearer, different version of many of these events, he in many ways would be the guy to roll with. G. Murray was much more intimately involved in all aspects of the spoken word and poetry world (not only in So Cal but world wide) than I could ever hope to be. Though our humor was closely related, and in some ways our approach to writing performance poetry was similar, G. Murray was the Michael Nesmith of our group, while I was more like (and still am in many ways) like Charlie on “Always Sunny”…the wild card. Fer Instance, see we all ended up one night reading together at Jams (and the thing about Jams is there was a lot of pre and post partying going on in the back alleyway) and we all started bullshitting and we decided to read together again (of course I’m sure that I was the driving force behind this idea[I wanted to do many multi-discipline projects] and am about 90% certain I was the one to come up with the 4 Tom’s ['cause that's how my brain works) just as I came up with the idea  of "Big Daddy & Psycho Boy's readings"...but of course I'm getting distracted...and in the long run I honestly don't the f remember.

G. Murray, founder of Next, long may you read Baby!

The point is the 4 Tom’s were born, out of the 4 Tom’s came “Next” magazine(we had regular brainstorming sessions[drinking and smoking and madness] I had wanted to start a zine, write an advice column, faux monthly astrology predictions etc.  and brought it up.  Weeks later G. Murray showed up with a mock up of  his own version, “Next” a much better idea than the one I had and I thank him fer letting me not only write under a couple different pseudonyms, but hone my editing chops and learn how to meet deadlines..[Jesus am I still in parenthesis])…

Any the fuck way, we were reading together here and there, as well as individually, but even if one of us was featured another one or two of us might show up to help rock the house. The greatest thing was , especially once “Next” took off, was going to readings and hear people whispering about you when you came in…”They’re both in the 4 Tom’s” or “Hey those guy’s write for Next” or of course my favorite was “Isn’t that Psycho Boy?” very heady stuff lol…

So the 4 Tom’s were rockin, “Next” Magazine was rolling, Orange Ocean Press, run by G Murray, offered to publish my next chapbook “Homeless to Househusband” (which was a big deal even though we were also friends [I was the only other Tom he published at the time]). I felt it was a culminative work, and was proud of it, and happy that it was so well received. It wasn’t long after that I turned it into a one man “Poetry Play” the first of it’s kind (if I’m mistaken fergive me)that I’d heard  of (though I know a couple other “big name poets” did it after me)….

Okay and alright, so then we get to slams, 1994 and my big crash and burn and escape to the frozen north…but, and oh it is to laugh Cat’s & Kittens, I’m well over a thousand words, so we’ll have to table that till Pt. 7…but I will get to it, as well as my poetry story in the So Dak (hosting Slams at Jazz fest, Mayor’s award, etc) Plus there’s the “What Ever it is I Do Here” aspect of the title and I do wanna get to that (how to her dismay and horror Lil Mouse spawned the parenthesis[...and elippsis can't ferget those] that occasionally pop up in my posts) and how my edits always cut 200 words while adding 500 more…oh it is to f-ing laugh, I mean I know I am, I can only hope that you are too

But okay anyway and again Cat’s N Kittens it’s me

So I wanna finish the story in a few hundred words(meaning of course under 1000) not counting links to poetry. So lets see we’re in  the early 90′s right? My life is less topsy and his fabulous turvys, ( age, maturity etc, plus I’ve stopped doing coke, meth,[completely] and hallucinogenics[mostly] oh and there”s the disability money)I’m attending a lot of local open readings, and as my poetry improves I begin to pick up some featured spots…

First ya have to understand that I learned pretty quickly how bad and exactly why and where my early attempts at performance poetry and more importantly and specifically my poetry sucked weak ass(thanks to tough and brutally honest older poets[thanks again Lee & others unnamed])…but like I said, I was a quick study.

One of the best and most valuable pieces of advice was to change how I lay my poems out on the page and to drop the whole ee cummings lower case thing (seeing as it was “his thing not mine”…lol great advice old poet  whose name is now lost to time). His second point regarding my poems structure on the page was as eloquent and simple as was his guidance fer the “ee” dilemma…”ya do want people to be able to read it right?” he asked.

His point once I understood it was this, without an extremely valid reason as to why, making the poem more difficult for the reader to decipher draws attention from the words…

Sound, sound logic. I immediately changed both features of my written word.

The next advice, stop being so freaking overtly overbearingly preachy when you read….beats, hippies, they already ranted and quite possibly raved about it all,  so if yer gonna do it, try bringing something new to the table besides the same tired old all injustaphores and opressionisms, and fer God’s sake, if yer gonna talk about politics and the culture, be funny.

Okay I was ready fer all that. I had been, ever since my six year old Ogden Nash period, a fan of funny over frowns. Here’s a great example of the next stage in my poetry story…click on the homeless guy’s sign.

S0 we’re at about 1992, the Aguanga kid is born, I’m living with his mother, on SSI etc so I don’t have to worry ’bout work and can concentrate on art. I’m doin features and making, at least in my little corner, a name fer myself. As I mentioned in the last post I did well in “poetry contest”, and honed much of my poetry production to producing poems matching my somewhat  unhinged performing persona particularly (oh lol) suited to these contest (and as yet off my radar slams[though I am to 'understand' they are happening soon])and in the process my “voice” was born…While the above links are some of the “audience favorites[hits] the following poem really captures (I think, and is one of my favorites) what I am trying to do..just click on the persimmon fer the link…

This poem really, I feel exemplifies my voice, stripped of all the performance gimmicks, focused on a moment, the poetry of life, in this instance the conversation becomes the metaphor, at least I think, I hope, I feel that’s what I am going for…in hindsight, cause ya see my faithful readers, I didn’t set out to write this way, this is the way I write…when all is stripped away…when the pretense, and manufactured intentions, and tryin to be’s, and tryin to sound likes, and the pretentiousness of the Artie Mann, are all killed off through diligent applied effort, what is left is the real voice of the poet…in my specific case it lead to many people (all super cool poets) saying “It’s not really poetry though is it?” “Where’s the imagery? They’d ask…( I mean I always thought personally that “The old guy wearing California skin…” was halfway okay, I mean not Neruda or anything…)but imagery’s not my strength, and I decided long ago that being real, the poet I was, was far more important than either a: teaching myself to be someone elses idea of a poet, or pretending to be the same?

The misspelling of my name went unnoticed (at least by me)till the Aguanga Kid pointed it out yesterday

So that’s what I rolled with by late 92′ early ’93 I was pulling at east a couple featured readings a month, either sharing the bill or gong solo and carrying the night on my ever expanding body of work, always entertaining performance, all the oddity expected, delivered guaranteed ….this was just one of the reasons I got the nickname “Psycho Boy“

Okay so rock ‘em sock ‘em robots Cat’s n Kittens I swore I’d get outta here at less than a thousand words (though I may have implied I’d finish er up also….well it is what it… lol)….comin soon Pt 6

I was asked to feature a number of times by the wonderful owners. They were also the first to agree to pay me as a featured…but we’re getting to that…hopefully…in part 6 fer sure

Illustrations fer an early book made on a Mac 512k. summer of ’91

Well Double Yee-Haw everybody it rootin-tootin …pull out yer beret’s and bongos…I’m interrupting my long ass somewhat weepy tale about my poetry story(but featuring very little actual poetry)with some god blessed actual poetry…plus this will be shorter, which means faster to post…’cause truth be told Cat’s & Kittens I am one tired ol unit…I usually get up about five thirty, six  am (no matter what, ever since I been a boy)and well…lol-ing here we are past midnight…but I really wanted to have a little fun with some of the crap I been digging out of my “box o’ writing” (a large plastic lidded bin stuffed full of stuff [some material now over thirty years old]including early art(eob?), poetry etc)…

Anyway before we start that goofiness…how about one of my top ten favorite poems from a great poet(no, not mine, not me, haven’t you been paying attention)

This is a lot of poets “favorite” poem. I don’t know if it’s my “favorite”. I do someday plan to put the first strophe on my body somewhere in tattoo form, maybe forearm with fancy script…anyway

Eating Poetry by Mark Strand

Ink runs from the corners of my mouth.
There is no happiness like mine.
I have been eating poetry.

The librarian does not believe what she sees.
Her eyes are sad
and she walks with her hands in her dress.

The poems are gone.
The light is dim.
The dogs are on the basement stairs and coming up.

Their eyeballs roll,
their blond legs burn like brush.
The poor librarian begins to stamp her feet and weep.

She does not understand.
When I get on my knees and lick her hand,
she screams.

I am a new man.
I snarl at her and bark.
I romp with joy in the bookish dark.

Oh…mmm was that delicious or what…grrruff…now compare that to the poem below…I mean keep in mind that this was…1991, I was thirty-one-ish homeless, or just nearly close to out of being homeless by this point, and one opinionated bastard, I mean I was really quite full of myself back then…I mean…yes of course I’ll let you stop laughing before I go on..(wait till ya read a couple of my “Psycho Boy” columns in Pt. 5)

I Chameleon
Lazy lounging lizard
Watch the world through roving eyes
As I sit upon the one great tree

Oh I mean it is to laugh…there were, are some bad poems in that box…but that’s the point isn’t it…writing is really about the process. It’s about writing, and re-writing and perfecting yer craft…speaking of that I’ll leave ya with a funny example of the ‘process’.

Here’s a little poem. I considered it an old poem when I posted it in Golden State Years (the name of a chapbook I have ready to be published hint hint anyone out there interested…anyone…anyone…[insert sound of crickets chirping here])…oh it is to laugh…jes gotta have fun with it…

Anyway I’ll leave you with this…I believe a great example of the editing and growth(I knew this poem had been part of a larger piece but had forgotten just how…differently the same[lol] they were…

First the version as it stands today

My Little Dog

When
Sitting alone not lonely
Does your brain become a little dog
Mine does
Chasing it’s tail
Round and round
Sometimes I talk out loud
I used to fly
In some odd  past life
Maybe we all did

Okay and here’s the earlier untitled version, from the chapbook “I Chameleon”

so you’re driving down the road of dreams, you’ve got the brights on, but still ya can’t see everything. what’s that at the side of the road? you turn your head but it’s gone, might have been nothing.

tell me your dreams

and i’ll tell you your name

not the one you’ve given to flesh

but the one you use to keep yourself sane

only one pillar holds up your head. it takes more than that to hold up the sky. little man who wears sheets and eats bloody burgers wants to knock em all down, his tongue is his hammer, his God is white.

tell me your fears

and I’ll tell you your faith

not the one you profess you believe

but the one you use to justify hate

and watching GTV, the silver haired, silver tongued, fatherly figure said you’d better believe or God will shut the door on you. smiling he said you’ll be left out in the cold. i went to get my jacket  on.

tell me your loves

and I’ll tell you your doubts

not the ones you try to build on

but the ones you use to keep others out

when sitting lone not lonely, does your brain become a little dog? mine does going round and round chasing its tail. sometimes i talk out loud. i used to fly in a distant past life, so i think did we all.

tell me your thoughts

and I’ll tell you your dreams

not the ones you use to dance

but the ones you use to make believe

i used to fly in a distant past life, so i think did we all.

So yea lets see…poetry in college now, is that where we are.

Took Poetry 101, 102, etc then went back and did it all again at a different school a year or two later. Lee Malloryinski at Rancho Santiago College was one of my best poe-fessors, whoops, okay well I went back and altered his name in case he doesn’t wanna be mentioned here. It might have been he that gave me the Bukowski book (he used to brag that Bukowski punched him in the nose once), I wrote a poem about it but I won’t put it up here, it’s slightly…mean spirited…and I only have respect and thanks fer the guy now…but hell I’m getting a few years ahead of myself so lets jump back shall we…

I was still sometimes in theater productions (as I mentioned above I attended community colleges while continuing to be mostly homeless [some times in and out of jails or institutions, some times sleeping on friends couches, sometimes breaking into vacant houses/apartments most times sleeping outdoors]). But the whole band(s…numerous attempts) thing never really panned out, never got famous, never made millions.

In the mid eighties(ish?), having just finished as a chorus member in “HMS Pinafore” (that is a whole nother post and I can’t get into it now or we’ll get way off track[hell I'm gonna be toppin a thousand words again Ma...). Some of the guy's involved in that were also involved in putting on variety shows for a local coffee house in Fullerton Ca named after a rootish vegetable (...if you know you know). They were pushing me to do something fer the show, put together some skit or something....I kept putting them off...finally one of them suggested I take some of my punk songs and turn them into poems, he talked about beats and stuff (I of course had already a few years back read Kerouac etc) so I got really into the idea...here's a sample of one of those first poems

Suburbia suburbia

You think life is TV

Soap opera wives with flash dance lives

And moral hypocrisy

Suburbia suburbia

It's sad that you can't see

From your mini vans to your plastic bags

How your killing society

It was called, in case ya couldn't guess Suburbia...and in the long run it wasn't that great even with the screaming and thrashing music. Okay so even though the poems weren't that great, they went over well and I had fun doing it. I heard about some other poetry readings and began to semi haunt a couple. Then at the tail end of the eighties, after an extended period of tequila and coke fueled binges (I was living with Doidman and an ex stock broker turned coke dealer and his chickee [who were both from South Carolina (maybe?)] at the time in a rented house in Lake Forest, California [churning out poetry on my little Mac 512k] I ended up with an extended stint in the Royal Treatment Center, which is of course not nearly as royal or treatment oriented as it sounds…

The point being two fold, one, I  had written a hell of a lot of poetry(notebooks full) both prior to and once inside the institution(one of my best known, 51/50, is from this time period) and when I got out some months later it seemed there were poetry readings everywhere…

And this is when my poetry story really takes off.  I kinda become the new kid at all the local readings. My stage presence makes me a hit with the audience, even though much of my poetry is, by the other poets in the room, judged to be inferior. Over the next year or so I really developed my own voice. Not that I wasn’t told over and over, “It really isn’t poetry is it.”…many of the other local poets, especially those who were big on the So Cal scene when I started making the circuit, were not fond of my loud in yer face, take no prisoners attitude…this was Poetry after all…(after one reading , where I had three costume changes on stage while reading, and an electric guitarist playing thrashing chords to a multimedia slide show an  important player in the So Cal Scene and host of the reading Michel *Somebody* actually told me I would never get another featured reading “in this town again”, later I learned he was a big deal being professor of English at Chapman University, but I didn’t give a shit, and of course I went on to have hundreds* of featured readings, including eventually being invited to Chapman as part of the “Four Tom’s” but again I am getting way ahead of myself…

I started back to school, I was half way settling down with a woman and going to have a kid (I know, I know haven’t I already discussed left turnism, what else can I say) but I was on SSI & SDI (lol man is that a story) and semi solvent so…back to school I went.

This is where I meet the famously smooth Lee Malloryinski, and begin to attend the Factory Readings in Santa Ana. This is early 90′s, the Auganga Kid is not born yet, but I am living with his Mom, going to school, and really trying hard to make money doing what I love…thinking stuff up and writing it down. It’s also about this time where I am introduced (finally many say) to Bukowski’s poetry (then prose later). Reading him, though we are not exactly the same, still gives me a feeling of validation because in many ways (I’ve been told over and over) our styles are similar. He was just so f-ing depressing, I mean I lived it, why did I want to read about it.  But we did share some stylistic and subject commonalities, and I was afraid if I read too much cB, my own voice would drift more toward his…after all he was making money by this point, having movies made about his adventures in left turnism…and I of course…okay off track…

Ooo I like yer stuff!

In Lee’s class I hone my poetic style, and at “The Factory Readings” I polish my delivery. As always, again, God, fate, whatever, I am blessed with great stage presence, as my poems become more stylistically constant, I become a solid audience favorite. My popularity grows so much so that first Lee, then soon other hosts begin to put me as opener to their respective readings. (I’m not saying my poetry was that great, just that for many reasons, including my poetry, I was a good opening act)It isn’t long before I become quite well known on the performance poetry “coffee house circuit”. I still hadn’t had a featured slot, (I sure thought I was ready [man I must have been an annoying pompous lil fuck])but I am all over the so cal map, hitting easily ten or more readings a month. At this point I have yet to hear the term “Slam” but there are performance poetry contests suddenly springing up at nearly every venue and then some. I rarely take first due to low scores by the panels of experts, but I always place in the top three (really truly, never placed less than third, and by far most common is 2nd place*) if the audience vote is considered. In fact I do so well, and it is so common I write a poem called “Call me Mr. 2nd* Place” it wasn’t that good, I don’t remember more than the first line or two and anyway here we are running long…

I hope to God this will at least be interesting to my kids someday ’cause Jumped up Jesus, this has become like some albatross around my neck and, though now determined to finish what I’ve begun, I can’t believe any of you out there are still reading let alone wanna hear more….and I still haven’t gotten to the “Four Tom’s“, Psycho Boy & “Next” Magazine, “Homeless to House husband” my last chapbook and one man perf po play at the Ritz on  Hollywood Blvd, and boy-howdy Slam action galore! So yea…If yer at all interested you can check out my latest poetry here at 409…otherwise I will continue with Part 4 of this…this…whatever it is I’m doing here…at some point…you’ve all been attendant and faithful friends….I should take at least a little time and do the same…but no promises this morning Cat’s & Kittens….I mean I’ve been so good at keeping them the last 48 hour…so

A lot of this little Units ideas about who he was are lost to me now( I only remembered about the stamp and insect collections while typing [I actually had to stop typing and almost went and told Lil' Mouse so I didn't ferget, but she's still sleeping, and as I went it dawned on me I'd just typed it down...])but this is about poetry so lets get back to that…

I remember in general  that I loved the gentle fun of poetry, it’s often (in kids poems especially) twist on words, meanings, puns,  word play in general.  I remember specifically and most my enjoyment of Ogden Nash(OMG you bastards I jes remembered how I used to go around reciting Shel Silverstien’s Boa Constrictor)  and now obviously I must have been familiar with and enjoyed Shel Silverstien (I did buy his books of poetry for my own kids but…and…anyway…) I’m going to get off of talking about little Unit ’cause this is gonna make me puke if I keep having these memories regurgitating up like this…

This is just about Poetry…I know I wrote a lot of poetry…not only in my memory but part of the collective family memory, those stories passed along such as “You were always a happy child.” It is yer memory about yerself, but is it truly something I “remember” or just know (though this is true about me, as much still now as it was then[or so I've been told] because the weird thing is even when I’m sad, I’m happy to be sad fer awhile)…and see poetry fits with this little unit perfectly

Unfortunately, call it fate God’s plan whatever,the now growing Unit’s family was not as fond of poetry and or poetic type people (and all the rest that came with the above…oh it is to laugh).

So let’s jump a bunch of years (mainly cause I don’t remember and don’t wanna sit here and possibly do so). The next poet I really remember was in High School (ya know back in that English class where you learned about the poem that was shaped like an umbrella or atom bomb and ya thought that was really cool)when I was introduced to ee cummings. I was of course one of those troubled (but also still in general “happy” figure that out lol)high school units who wrote poetry, the kind well meaning young female English teachers take a shine to and pass on enough positives to explode an already overly intrigueable mind..wow it’s too bad you will never see the previous sentence in it’s pre-edited form…lol, a complete mystery even to me. But I’m sure the time this is posted it will be fixed.

The point is I was of course growing in my “social awareness” and my well meaning teacher draws my attention to this

Buffalo Bill's

defunct

        who used to

        ride a watersmooth-silver

                                  stallion

and break onetwothreefourfive pigeonsjustlikethat

                                                  Jesus

he was a handsome man

                      and what i want to know is

how do you like your blueeyed boy

Mister Death

Okay this not only had me saying “Yea!  What do ya have to say Mr. Man?” But also “hey I like the way he writes poetry.”  and like many young poets after first reading ee I began to write all my poems in lower case (lol, I did, and I stuck with it fer years, even down to the lower case i).

Here’s one of the poems from this period, notice the similarities (except mine was condensed from a lines written during a mushroom tripp)

I continued to write poetry, but I was also in theater and was one of the leading “men” in our school productions. I was also beginning to dabble in drugs and alcohol, had already spent more than one night on the street(by the end of h.s. I did not live at my parents and siblings home [many nights I slept on the beach and walked the three or so miles to school]). I was also a fan of this new fun, angry, anti man, intellectually quirky music called punk. And fer awhile my poetry became lyrics and combined with my natural clown like public persona (and almost acceptable singing voice)I was a natural to front bands. So poetry of course took a back seat ’cause I was sure I was going to be famous(rich was secondary in my head it was fame I craved)…I mean I was sure of it…lololol….(praise Jesus of course in hind sight that it was not to be and that God had other plans in store fer me).

Recently I have been in a wonderful series of discussions (here on WP) with Bluebird (obviously not her real name) revolving around writing, both prose and poetry. She is by  far more technically savvy than me. Let me get that in the open right off the get go, especially regarding prose in case I inadvertently (somewhere in the following piece[or part two fer that matter]) imply anything to the contrary. In this process I have uncovered interesting hidden truths about not only some of my past works that I have been posting here, but the new pieces and posts that I pepper this imaginary place we call the world wide web as well…

An actual Bluebird, not Blogger Bluebird

Okay, as usual, I’m not going to go straight to these “hidden truths” but head there circuitously by way of the next reply I was gettin ready to post on her page entitled “Reading Poetry in the Big Chief Years”…I hadn’t planned to do things this way(yea like I usually plan anything). I had planned to write my poetry story (some thing she had asked[as well as a sonnet coming miss BB]), ya know like, well wait I guess ya don’t know, anyway the point is not like this…but well, here’s the deal, and those of you who I follow and comment on yer posts will easily back me on this….My comments and/or replys can often at times ramble on…sometimes longer than the original posts I am commenting on…oh it is to laugh…Anyway the point is that at some point, as the reply stretched on I realized that I was practically telling my poetry story right then and there, and though I’d promised to say it quickly…I’ll wait till yer done laughing…of course like always I was quickly easily topping  5oo words…

So, instead I decided to firstly, not post another long reply on this poor Gal’s Blog, (really ya gotta go and read not only this specific posts, but her other posts regarding writing, her poetry and…hell just become one of her followers you won’t regret it [I mean, Five Minute Dance Party alone often makes my day(I mean not this one but often)])…but, and again as usual, anyway…secondarily, this is a great chance to not only tell my poetry story, but explain some of what I have learned about what I have ended up (somehow unknowingly) attempting to accomplish with this weird writing style I have (somehow) accidentally (on purpose)found myself trying to write with and you the reader ending up left to puzzle over….and you should see the first draft sentences….

Anyway, and so okay her we go…the following was my reply,  in my own particularly peculiar way…

B.B-Bukowski of course was a huge inspiration fer me especially when it came to “finding” my own poetry voice…mmm…tryin to figure out how to say this quickly…weird-o kid, dreamer, good fer nuthin, had a bad(?) family/home life, left home ran the streets, into weirdo arts etc (mostly writing poems, plays, lame early teens despair and darkness stuff lol)…But I didn’t read books outside of school…which was limited to short fiction and poetry, so no novels  at all…(I had read earlier, as a little boy, Tom Sawyer etc…I especially remember loving the Hardy Boys). But I was too cool to read books(actually if you read my earliest post[links added above not part of original reply obviously] you can see I was trying to look tough more than be cool), in my experience, little boy units who are programmed to like reading got their asses whooped. please no “so sorry’s”, water under a long passed bridge. I laugh about it now.

Okay,  so late teens early twenty’s By this time I had been in theater(all H.S. and) first year of college,making underground(deep, deep) arty (unintelligible, pretentious or sometimes both) films with friends, still mostly homeless, a father, and was in was in a variety of punk bands (writing and singing)I bumped into a guy who gives me a Kurt Vonnegut book…”Cat’s Cradle” still one of my favorite writers to reread. Then came the beats but most importantly Kerouac…reading “On The Road” changed my whole idea of who I was…even though we were temporally, of course, years apart I felt a real kinship to whatever the particular variety of madness he suffered from….”On the Road” was my “Catcher in the Rye” so to speak

The next big author fer me was of course HST, like Vonnegut and Kerouac before him I read everything he had published in a few short months. Okay whoops major bullshit alert,  Freudian omission whatever, I have not read everything that any of the above authors have written….there is a distinct example of how someone can become a victim of their own bullshit…oh it is to laugh…I know I have made that statement more than once sitting around with other arty pretentious bastards each trying to out cool each other…(and it is a perfect example of what I rant about all the time; the difference between a truth and the truth)…Anyway like take Vonnegut fer instance, I do not think I finished “God Bless you Mrs Rosewater”, I don’t remember why (this must have been early 80′s remember) but more than likely it bored me somehow. I distinctly remember not liking “Welcome to the Monkey House” that much either….I liked Kerouac s prose, but hardly remember reading much of his poetry…but there have been a hell of a lot of drugs between here and there and so maybe  I’ve jes fergotten that I have read them…L and his fabulous o l’s,

And then as I was giving up on the punk “rich rock star dieing young of an overdose” dream I first discovered the poetry scene in LA about 87 maybe 88, I was still homeless then, but turning up at these events, and having heard some of my stuff (again my old punk songs turned into not so good poems,) an older poet suggested I read Bukowski…I have now read much of his work (more his poetry than prose (through the early nineties) but I began to feel as I often do that (but especially with C.B.) his style, his voice was beginning to bleed into mine or compromise my…now don’t laugh…”artistic integrity”…in reality BB you are far more of a craftsman than me regarding the actual process of writing prose. Like with the eclipses issue (lol, originally I think it was simply me doing ya know…hmmm…punk stuff…anti stuff) Often I do or think first and, usually through some sort of secondary process (such as discussing  why I don’t use punctuation in poetry with yer lovely self in this case) understand the truth of the thing after…

So that’s about where I stopped Dude’s and Dudette’s…I mean that wasn’t the end…that’s where I realized that I had really only briefly talked about poetry, let alone attempted to clarify some of the odder statements I had made already….but I was well on my way to another long ass rambling semi coherent reply…I mean look here I am well over a thousand words  already so I am going to split it up as I often am wont to do…

I probably won’t get Pt. 2 posted till late tonight, cause I’m sure you’ll all be waiting by yer computers (plus Chapter 15 [find out what happens between Val & Mac]is edited and, c.m.f. ready to be posted)’cause i got laundry to do before Lil Mouse gets home.(jes don’t tell anyone I do laundry, it will ruin my tough guy male chauvinist asshole image that I am so carefully crafting)

In part two I will (I promise) talk strictly ’bout poetry, at least at first, I hope, then a bit about my attempts at  prose including  here on WP, then I will try to wrap up the post with clarifications ( hopefully answering  the hows they came abouts?[and whys' ya keepin ons?])discussions of style content etc of my other writings here on Word Press…including my lonely little “nice” Blog (shameless self promotion I know) “Random Rite’s & Wrongs”…wow okay reading that it seems just a smidge of an over reach to think I can get that all in one post…

Until ya see me tryin then,  keep it dysfunctional

Okay so it won’t let me embed it fer some reason (paranoia seeps in) so here’s a link to the story but I’m gonna leave what does come up anyway…

A…Uh….Lolololololol…uh…wait….lololol….okay hold on…oh…whoo!…oh okay…olol…wait…oh lolololololol….

Okay, well uh ok..cstm…oh it is to laugh isn’t it Erica? I mean we all make mistakes and we should be able to laugh about them…huh?

Oh and maybe an apology would be in order. But don’t worry, I’ll graciously accept it as long as you promise not to do it again…

I mean I know you won’t and I know that most Americans will still believe exactly as they did before this story(ya know those who think he’s guilty will still and etc…)And most will ferget and in a year or two we can repeat this ride…Whee!

So hang in their Erica you’ll get a chance to convince American’s that we’re racist yet!

Ahh but this morning I am presented with something I can make quick work of…oh it is to laugh here is a quote off of one of my “friends” f-book posts

Okay well I have blocked out the names(just after the first block is the word I)…even though I don’t actually care whether or not they find out I am mocking them…if I posted something like this I guess I’d expect to be mocked also. I know (and I actually literally do know in this instance) that the people in question consider them selves green friendly(after all they buy all the “right” new products), still edgy and alternative (like all their friends), in support of many of the most liberal agendas (regular updates on hoodie issues etc) including a deep and abiding(so they say) compassion for the poor (as they and their girl friends drive by them in a new Toyota Highlander Hybrid, on their way to a movie they’re pretty sure they are not going to hate, a little tipsy from the forty dollar wine they started “girls night out” with)

And people wonder how these crap movies keep gettin made.

My New Movie Review…”well it wasn’t as bad as a kick to the crotch, I’ll give ‘em that”…oh I mean it is to laugh

Anyway, that’s all this morning, runnin super late already lol. Chapter 14 coming, and I promise I’ll get to all yer groovalicious posts tonight….

Thanks all

I’m not much of a sleeper really, never have been, can get by on just a few hours sleep a night…but they have to be good hours or I start to slip gears…that’s the best way I know how to put it. Sometimes these slips are internal and will go unnoticed by the population at large, sometimes they’re subtle and will only be recognized by those closest to me, sometimes they’re noticed by everyone around me…but we’ll get to that at the end of the post.

Now with WP some times when I make, have these slips they are visible to the world, (luckily the vast majority of the world isn’t looking)…anyway this has been a long way to say uh…whoops.

I posted Chapter 9 of Left Turn while Chapter 8, which I thought I had actually published a day or so ago, was still just a draft in waiting. I didn’t realize it till this morning. Again, ya just gotta laugh, well hopefully you join with me not at me lol.

This little novella (or what ever) is actually finished (lol hopefully). I am just trying to do my last edits before I post each chapter.

Speaking of that, one of my favorite blogs that I read regularly just posted an excellent post regarding writing, specifically, POV, (and a little on tense)…after reading it I just thought it fitting to let my regular readers know that I feel these are two big issues I struggle with. I understand the concepts. Have studied and practiced and can, if I force myself, almost nearly slow down enough to catch most(?I believe anyway?) of them…but that ability to be cautious goes down in direct proportion with the above mentioned slippage…

See it’s like this, in all the fiction writing classes, seminars etc that I have attended the instructor, facilitator (always a published author, sometimes a successful one) have stressed a writing technique that is impossible for me to follow.  They all stress writing slow, one sentence at a time…as you can probably guess I don’t write like that…I’m much more of a…hmm…burner…sometimes I’m on fire…and it’s best to let the fire burn as it were. When the fire burns itself out, then (and age has made me a little better at this) I can go back evaluate its readability and edit….and here’s the second big issue I face.

In art, like life, I can grow bored with repetitive tasks very quickly, I can get restless if forced to work s-l-o-w-l-y…oh it is to laugh, yes I understand what that says about me. But that is me…and this is just one of the  dysfunctions that I have learned to accept and make what adjustments I could, or can, and to accept (as it were) what I cannot change.

So I guess this is a clarification, or/and an apology of sorts to both my followers, God bless ya all, and to those I follow (jes in case I wrote a comment that was offensive or seemed in any other way inappropriate).

‘Cause ya see another by product of this slippage is that the a-hole beast that I keep chained up in my head can claw his way that much closer to the surface of my conscious mind. It makes many of my communications, written and verbal, far more sarcastic and biting, especially if I am confronted with the kind’a lazy logic I am bombarded with on a daily basis in today’s culture and here’s where we get to the kind’a slip that may cause me a little trouble here on WP, and can give me no end of trouble in real life…

Like the following, and it’s a great example: Here in So Dak Native issues are a big deal. At one of my jobs the other day, everybody was going on about how white Americans were terrible people for not allowing the native population, tribes such as the Lakota, to keep their culture intact. Instead we forced them to be acculturated to the white American way of life(this is a big hot button issue here right now as well as the idea of giving the Black Hills back to the Sioux)…they went on and on about how bad white people were (bear in mind that only one individual at this job site is Native American the rest are of European heritage[white]).

Now in general I have learned (especially at work) to let this shit go. These youngsters are simply repeating the bs they learned in what passes for today’s public schools and critical thinking is not required nor wanted…but remember the slippage thing…so yea, I didn’t do the smart thing I challenged them with logic…

I asked them to consider all the white Americans who were taken hostage by native peoples (there are many well documented cases) and asked them “If, once those individuals were taken captive and joined with the tribe who took them, whether they were allowed to continue to function as white Europeans or were they too acculturated into the tribe?…I’ll let that sit there for a minute.

It is a rhetorical question because we know they acculturated them. They were not allowed to start puttin up clapboard houses, planning roads, opening lil one room schools or Christian churches to sway the “savages”…No they were indoctrinated into the Native way of life, dressed like Natives, learned to eat the same foods, slept, worked and crapped like a Native…

Why? Cause that’s the way things were done in those days…trying to view our past through today’s lenses only presents us with a distorted view…am I saying it’s right, no, I am not making a judgement or value statement regarding what happened all those years ago, (and actually the truth is far different tan we modern people realize, often terrible, complicated and some times even a little funny)only (and again almost like always) I am simply aggravated by the lack of logic in so many of our modern accepted cultural truths…

A truth, early white Americans treated the Native population that already lived in this land, in most cases, deplorably. And as of yet, have failed to make full amends.

Five Indians and a Captive, Carl Wimar, 1855
Click on the Picture fer an informative fun article

The Truth, for most of human history, this is the way peoples of all nationalities and cultures (yes amazingly enough Native peoples warred, raided and took captives from each other long before white settlers ever set foot on the future American soil) have functioned. As of yet only “white” European cultures have made global wide apologies for the way they have behaved. We were just better at being worse lol

This fact, being the truth doesn’t help  though when I say it, prefaced of course with the opening Ahh you bunch a retard bastards. All my coworkers think I’m an intolerant assholio at best, a racist at worse.

So of course it’s obvious to see how this applies to WP, my posts and more importantly for this specific post, my comments on all of yer’s, the blogs I follow…

If I have offended, seemed offhanded or been in anyway inappropriate, I apologize. I don’t offer this as an excuse, just an explanation.

Most of the time I think I’m being funny or charming(cute).

But remember I don’t call myself the Dysfunctional Unit fer nothin…

Thanks fer all you have offered and fer those of you have understood what I have been tryin to say, I am and will be ferever grateful (I thought in general when I started that no one would read or respond to the crazy ass crap I write) fer the constant support. I have been greatly encouraged by most all I have encountered, and even my detractors inspire me to ever higher forms of dysfunction…

God Bless ya all!