Dragonfly On a Dog Chain

sorry, no, jensen actually has the cutest kids

2009-07-28T23:06:00.005-04:00

My friend Jensen's new post reminds me that I've been lax on posting about a few new things that I have work in. So here we go:

QUICK FICTION 15: A whole bunch of crazy good short shorts in this lovely munchkin, including stories by exactly all of these people (omg I'm getting so many Google Alerts hits off this, yo): Jami Brandli, Andrew Brininstool, Randall Brown, Kenneth Calhoun, Elizabeth Ellen, Scott Garson, Lydia Copeland, Stefan Kiesbye, Andrea Kneeland, Charles Lennox (who's got good stuff in the new FRiGG too), Sean Lovelace, Jen Marquardt, Lee Martin, Michael Meyerhofer, Taylur Thu Hien Ngo, Dylan Nice, G. C. Perry, Andrew Michael Roberts, Helen Klein Ross, Joanna Ruocco, James Scott, Don Strange, Jensen Whelan, Daniel E. Wickett, Blythe Winslow, Spencer Wise, me, and Mabel Yu.

ROBOT MELON 9: It's online, plus a color wheel and a lot of linguistic crunch on top of a high dose of what, what's it called, a sort of silk mumble? Good stuff. I have a poem in it and these sweet things are doing their sweet rings: Ani Smith, Jenna Humphrey, Sean Lovelace, Lisa Ciccarello, Heather Momyer, James Iredell, Peter Berghoef, Justin Hyde, Michelle Reale, Maria Anderson, Justin Dobbs, Arelene Ang, Duncan Cheshire, Andrew Rihn, Audri Sousa, Andrew Lundwall, Sonny Traylor, and Donald Dunbar.

LETTERBOX #4: Haven't seen it yet, but I'm excited for the gawk. My poem in this is dedicated to somebody, but you have to figure out who. It's like poetry meets the Knights Templar or whatever. Seems like a good shoulder to shoulder: Ed Baker, Jennifer Cooper, Melissa Eleftherion, Raymond Farr, Marco Giovenale, Vincent Katz, Richard Kostelanetz, Pablo Lopez, Charlie Malone, Richard Meier, Christopher Mulrooney, K. Silem Mohammed, Sara Mumolo, Sophie Pucill, Stephen Ratcliffe, Francis Raven, and Kit Robinson.

Plus I have a story in the new print issue of Hobart, but I am waiting for the DVD style website to post that. But I am super excited. The issue is good, and my story is illustrated by a trailer home hidden in the woods--or, I mean, I like to think it's hidden, brewing mint soda and so on.

Thanks y'all! Hope your summer is going well!

sick in your room at your summer camp job? conquer goodreads!

2009-07-23T15:27:00.003-04:00

Most all Magic Helicopter stuff and MC O is now on GoodReads. You should add these if you have them/have read them. Maybe you should even write reviews! Starfish!

MC Oroville's Answering Machine
Dragons With Cancer
Thirteen Stares
Let's Collaborate
Typewriter
Less Shiny

The Six Definitive Rules of Contemporary Poetry as Figured Out By a Classroom of Twelve Year Olds

2009-07-21T14:38:00.004-04:00

1) Inconsistent
2) Doesn't stay on topic
3) Doesn't explain anything
4) Abundance of assertions
5) Mixes objective/subjective until you can't tell the difference.
6) Is it funny or is it serious? No one knows.

steal all yr yellow bikes: MC Oroville's Answering Machine now available

2009-06-04T13:27:00.007-04:00

MC Oroville's Answering Machine is out now for $3.50 from Transmission Press. Many thanks to Logan Ryan Smith, who is publishing lovely multicolored versions of this poetry chapbook. Poems? Of BBQ sauce collage, kidnapped lyrics, detuned fiddles, coleslaw, horse teeth, police tape, Skoal, 49er kitten lectures, casino buffets, lye and chub, bowling alley parking lots, and featuring 2 1/2 allusions to Kenneth Patchen’s Hallelujah Anyway.

Basically: Oroville's newspaper has this section called the Openline where you can call in and say anything and they'll print it. Oroville also has an official rapper named MC Oroville, except he moved to the Bay Area. MC Oroville's Answering Machine is like what would happen if a mythic version of Oroville left mythic messages on its departed MC's mythic answering machine of myth.

Read Hello, MC Oroville?

Read Feather Falls Casino Buffet

Read The 49er's Kitten Lecture

I will make a more official page for the book on my site soon, but you should snag a copy. $3.50 is a good deal, I think? Two years or so in the making! Holy geez! BBQ sauce! I'm going to be in Oroville on Sunday! BBQ mustache for the win!

in the summer in the summer i'm a saltwater plea

2009-06-01T01:25:00.014-04:00

SUMMER TOUR OF 2009

June 4th: Studio One Reading Series w/ Geoffrey G. O'Brien and video from Jake Gillespie). 365 45th ST in Oakland CA, 7PM.

June 5th: Epic Summer Art Opening Reading w/ Chelsea Martin. Manifesto Bicycles (421 40th Street @ Webster) in Oakland CA, 7PM.

June 7th: Poetry of Oroville, CA Reading w/ Chelsea Martin. Bicentennial Park (Corner of Huntoon and Robinson), 2PM. FIRST COPIES OF MC OROVILLE'S ANSWERING MACHINE WILL PROBABLY BE AVAILABLE

June 11th: Bittersweet Rockridge Poetry Series w/ Chelsea Martin and Brandon Scott Gorrell and possibly more pending confirmation. Bittersweet Cafe Rockridge (5427 College Avenue) in Oakland CA, 7PM.

June 12th: Common Thread Poetry and Politics with Diamond Dave and Charlie Getter w/ Chelsea Martin and Brandon Scott Gorrell. Pirate Cat Radio Cafe (2781 21st Street) in San Francisco CA, 4PM. (streams online for internet listeners too, 89.9 FM on Bay Area dials)

June 13th: An Evening of Poetry and Whatever w/ Chelsea Martin and Brandon Scott Gorrell. Pegasus Books Downtown (2349 Shattuck Avenue) in Berkeley CA, 7:30PM.

June 14th: Meet and Greet at Copperfield's Books w/ Chelsea and Brandon (3900A Bel Aire Plaza) in Napa, CA 2:00PM

June 19th-21st: I'm going to be in New York with my sister and her partner. We're probably going to go to Sacred Chow.

July 14: Maybe New York? TBA

July 25th: TBA, but probably Baltimore w/ Jack Christian and Adam Robinson and more TBA.

COME TO THINGS, I WILL HAVE SPECIAL HANDSHAKES FOR YOU, IT'S BECAUSE I LIKE YOU, AND ALONG WITH MC OROVILLE'S ANSWERING MACHINE, I WILL HAVE OKAY NOW, AN EXCLUSIVE SPECIAL TOUR THINBOOK THAT LOOKS LIKE THIS AND WILL BE PRETTY CHEAP:

Also: Logan Ryan Smith interviewed me for the Studio One blog. Find out about fog flavored gelato and Dontrelle Willis.

HOPE TO SEE YOU SUMMER OF 09 LET'S FRY A GIANT MEMORY LOL BOOM

rather talk with the pillow than the mirror

2009-05-30T16:25:00.009-04:00

Hey team, I've got two poems out in the brand new and beautiful Jellyfish, edited by Gale Thompson. The poems are called "Do You Pray In The Shower?" (BRAND NEW NEVER BEFORE POSTED ON THE BLOG!) and "Lovesong With Civic Responsibility." (MAYBE I POSTED THIS A LONG TIME AGO, NOT SURE, DEFINITELY EDITED SINCE THEN) Auxiliary reality trivia: the horse is a real horse, and yes you can do that with ping pong balls.

Jellyfish is full of awesome folk, including (counting Gale) 4/6 of my band! And my old housemate! And both dudes who live where that housemate and I used to live! Okay, this is getting weird. I am just going to shut up and tell you who's in it now: Zach Savich, Caroline Cabrera, me-zee, Adam Cogbill, David Bartone, Christopher Cheney, Anne C. Holmes, Jeff Downey, Ari Feld, Lily Ladewig, Philip Muller, Kimberly Abruzzo, Shannon Luders-Manuel, Stokely Klasovsky, Miranda Dennis, Jared Sinclair, Christopher Cheney.

Check it out! Good work all! Summer tour announcement coming this weekend.

time's a mood that we cater to

2009-05-27T02:56:00.004-04:00

This is Jack and Julia, the jewels of Virginia, walking the rails that prickle through Charlottesville out to UVA and--presumably--back. We saw a dead skunkrat. Some guy on a bicycle stopped and ran over and peered close. "If I gave you a million dollars," he asked us, "would you eat it?" He and Jack agreed that it sucks to get your asshole done ate out. Then our new friend left and waved at our new friend who wouldn't be leaving much of anything. He said, "See you on Survivor little buddy!"

I'm about to post some pretty exciting news and also a "summer tour schedule." Will I be in your town? Maybe I'm already there? It's a good question, what with the hours I make and all the laundry I get done. But school, at least, is over for the summer. Been singing some songs with good folks: cinnamon urns and popsicle cakes. Shaved! Fried some plantains. Got one pair of shoes fixed. Conducted myself a little like an emotional pinball and a little like emotional skeet. Received a peanut butter candy bar and three really nice eggs as presents of condolence. Back in Virginia, I cooked some bacon by way of headlamp. Fairly sure I'll need to buy myself a new computer before the year's out, but pretty happy with my shampoo.

if you like him so much why don't you run him over

2009-05-01T12:26:00.003-04:00

My friend Jack Christian and I are going to be reading Sunday, May 3rd at 7:30 PM at The Darjeeling Cafe in Staunton, VA with Jack Morgan, who will definitely be hosting and maybe reading too. I think I only know one person (besides Jack M.) who lives in the area, but I would like many readers of this blog to come and believe that they are that one person, which they will exultingly be.

I've never been to Virginia! I'm excited. Lovely bogfolk, please tell me things to do over the weekend in Virginia. If I take a picture of myself or others doing your thing and post that picture on this blog and you identify a thing you asked to have done, I will send you a free copy of any Magic Helicopter Press title, your choice, current or forthcoming. I promise to take at least three pictures of myself or others doing things.

JC | KGM | JT: LIVE IN AMHERST 2009

2009-04-22T00:34:00.002-04:00

DRAGONS WITH CANCER

2009-04-13T19:13:00.006-04:00

My friend Bradley Sands and I wanted to do an e-anthology of real and unreal stories. We did it. It's out! Click the pic. Plus visit Magic Helicopter Press for lots of cool announcements: upcoming chapbooks, e-books, and our first full length.

daniel drives a van and owns a saber

2009-03-31T17:05:00.007-04:00

Computer labs and a new Spring. I've got a bag of peanut butter cookies and some sunglasses. There's a kid in a tyedye astronomy shirt at the computer across from me, smiling up at the florescent. Everybody's made of history and aesthetics. One phrase I'm really obsessed with right now is the chorus from that Killers song: ARE WE HUMAN OR ARE WE DANCER.

Though I'm reasonable enough to remain skeptical about the "staying power" of this phrase, right now it's totally all the rawk. Every three months or so, I'm like "Wait, what are The Killers up to?" If I had to classify them, I would call them the kids who learn what football is in third grade, then run home and get a liferaft and a glittery cape and a bucket of ham and bring these things to the football field and start screaming MARS IS FOR EMOTIONAL! MARS IS FOR EMOTIONAL! They are those kids.

This kid in an orange sweatshirt is flirting with one of the lab attendants. He's leaning his face in. She's swiveling her monitor back and forth in an appreciative way.

Somebody's got a mop and somebody's got capri pants. Here in the overcoat of my heart you're a burrowed parakeet. Not only that, but I've got a new story up at P.H. Madore's newly relaunched dispatch litareview. Nav your eyes over and click Current. The story's called "Ball of Dooshie Levitation." Whereas I've been accused of self-protective nonchalance, that's not something P.H. Madore has ever been accused of, I think. His magazine is red and pretty. Check it out.

look! a face!

2009-03-21T02:14:00.005-04:00

i started writing and recording videos of RAD POETRY poems

they are up on the noo blog: FOR YOU TO FINISH WHILE YOU'RE SWIMMING (for Nikolai Stephanovich) and MOTIVATIONAL NAIVETE (for Barry Graham)

this is fun

i will be doing some more and will try to get other people to do some

if you want to do some just let me know

i feel like i could do this for funraiser and not for a fundraiser; it would be funny if i could do this for a living; it would be really funny if there was like some massive market for personalized youtube poems and people were like "bshh, who does this young mike think he is, trying to hone in on the $$$, what a dingleberry"

i did laundry and found a $100 season in my pocket; it said "high, my name is spring"

2009-03-16T01:20:00.028-04:00

It's warm finally. Here's a hope nobody's lying. What I'd like is for all of us to be liars but none of us to lie. Toward that goal: I have five poems appearing this week at No Tell Motel. Three are up already: "Tell Me and I Will Know," "If I Crash My Love Goes With Me," "Let's Invite Permission." That first one is one I feel very tender about. Two more are coming: "All of These Parties Outside the Microwave" and "A Sample of Your New Luck."

All five are from a 50ish page manuscript called WE ARE ALL GOOD IF THEY TRY HARD ENOUGH. My friends in Ashland tried to make me change the title to THE GOOD SHIP BEARD TRIMMER VERSUS U.S.S. BITCHFACE, a change still within the realm of possibility, like Kool-Aid, which is always right there at the store if you want it. Comment on this post if you want me to email you a copy of the MS to read, if you have time for 50 pages of poetry suspicious of feelings, reverent toward breakfast and inside jokes, attempting a value system like however drunk snipers aim at diplomats, and featuring a spirit of clutter that makes room for unicorn blankets, how-not-to manuals, amateur opera singers, sex in the woods, daguerreotypes of rowboats, spacemen, total reality goals, hemlock, intermission music, and the sheriff's election billboard. There are lots of pictures I've saved in my bookmarks that I have thought about for cover art of WAG IT THE, which is an acronym I can't use if I change the title you sweet Ore Goners.

Always I am thankful that my readers (you, that would be you) are more intelligent and attractive than most. Virginia: I'll be there in April. California: June. A state of bliss or at least sustained happiness: sorry, I lost my ticket. But I had a great time at the reading in Amherst. We closed the curtain and scared people. Good work Chris, Claire, Rachel, Bradley, Blake. Thanks everyone who came out and who told me "I didn't think it was possible for me to ever be offended, but I was offended." Also had a lovely time in Providence reading with Clarion Donation and William Blake. Unique city: Star Wars toys in the bathroom, old people Scrabble in the hipster burger bar, apricots in the brownies, Christmas lights in the construction zone. Ada Books: swell. Thank you Claire and Jeff for housing me and thanks to Brian Foley for introducing me via follicle commentary. When is the train up? Who's on and where can I hide?

8 9 8 9 8 9 8 9

2009-02-26T17:27:00.006-05:00

MARCH 8TH: COME TO AMHERST!I MADE THE FLYER THE WHOLE FLYER. I MADE THE FLYER TO FLY.

MARCH 9TH: COME TO PROVIDENCE!CLAIRE MADE THE FLYER BUT I MESSED WITH THE FLYER. IF IT LOOKS DUMB IT'S MY FAULT.

i was falling out of the sky at you and yelling move move

2009-02-15T18:26:00.006-05:00

Wow. Thanks, Chicago. AWP was obscenely amazing.

I met so many people I wanted to meet. Highlight for me, the me of me and maybe nobody else, was to witness the mingling of friends from such different places--Massachusetts, Oregon, New York, Internetia--around common devotions/jokes.

I will do a big sort of post on AWP, maybe, maybe, here or on the GIANT, just to talk about all the cool people and things and trains and tequila and beef, but know this: the cabs in Chicago are very cheap. Chicago is not that cold, but the wind: okay. There you win.

i want to teach a class based only on 1) gary lutz's believer essay and 2) the question below

2009-02-10T02:19:00.002-05:00

WHAT ARE SOME VERY INTERESTING THINGS WE ARE USUALLY TOO EMBARRASSED TO TALK ABOUT

1) The way your spit looks after eating an Oreo.
2) Not liking your baby or finding your baby ugly.
3) When the person you're sleeping with is lying on your arm and you want to move your arm, you have the irrational feeling that if you move the arm incorrectly whatever feelings between you and the other naked person will die and you know this is irrational but you don't move your arm. This one may not be gender neutral.
4) Oh fuck. George Carlin already did this.

fuck kate winslet

2009-02-09T21:23:00.003-05:00

Not only is her acting in Revolutionary Road (along with all the other acting) an affront to all people who have ever been real, she is also the juicy steak in the middle of the Germans didn't know about Nazis, poor Germans, poor Nazis, maybe then Americans therefore aren't at all culpable for the atrocities committed in our name during/around the Bush Era, let's let ourselves off the hook slowly so we can talk ourselves into reenacting history because that's how history works isn't it we're all just pawns to the tidal metanarrative of historical repetition, the Holocaust wasn't that bad was it bullshit that is The Reader.

NO PRIZE FOR SUCK KATE

KATE SUCKS

THIS IS AN IMPORTANT ISSUE THAT I HAVE CHOSEN TO DISCLOSE CERTAIN FEELINGS/THOUGHTS ABOUT

at least that's what we say we are doing

2009-02-04T02:07:00.006-05:00

Do please check out Seeing Other People, local artist Sara Blaylock's slamzidang little ode-to-Northampton chapbook. In her words:

I asked some writers to compose a story or poem that focuses on a character. I live in a place with all these characters. They couple. They room. They drink hairy liquor. They play contact sports.

Where we live, everyone believes books will turn people on. Zadie Smith’s collection of 24 writers, The Book of Other People, knocked my socks off. I was so enraptured by her idea that I wished I had done it. So I did.

Here, with 18 writers — all who live or have lived in a little New England town.

I've got an MC O piece in there, and there is stuff from loads of munchkins: Gabe Durham, Jono Tosch, Lyndsey Cohen, Edward Mullany, Jeannie Hoag, Rachel B. Glaser, Ari Feld, Lily Ladewig, Brian Mihok, Boomer Pinches, Christy Crutchfield, Heather Christle, Brian Baldi, Jack Christian, Anjali Khosla Mullany, Francesca Chabrier, and Seth Landman. These are most of my Northampton friends right now, so it's sweet to see us all together.

Preview Seeing Other People online and grab a copy for $5. That's what, a few pinkie baths?

i don't know; i do do

2009-01-31T13:20:00.005-05:00

You've gotta read Nick Sylvester's blog post on Animal Collective, Hipster Runoff, the idea of liking things for the "right" reasons, dancing, The Joker, blasting DMX out your Wrangler, the difference between being self-conscious and self-disabling, and other really good pump-you-up shit.

via MBV (add it to your readers, kids. remember: i want my MBV)

mama there's a dream in my pillow

2009-01-26T02:14:00.004-05:00

That's right: the epic and long-awaited Barnaby Jones #1 is now really totally available from Pinch Pinch Press. I have a copy and it's smooth as tail. New work from all sorts of stalwarts. $5. Nab it.

"just so you know, after you’re done reading this you might have some slime somewhere on you"

2009-01-20T05:32:00.004-05:00

Monsters of Oak Mountain is my new favorite online literary magazine.

An excerpt from "Ferlley:"

Ferlley has a slimy body because he is kin to slugs and he has twenty-one eyeballs to see everything that goes on. He has sharp teeth to chew and scare. He also has sharp pinchers to show how tough he is. He also has a little buddy named Fimmie! Fimmie is his best friend and always hangs out with Ferlley because they look so much alike and act so much alike. Ferlley is also half duck.

nobody else in the world is worried about this: volume one

2009-01-19T05:01:00.006-05:00

STOCK CAR RACER DAVEY ALLISON WHO DIED TRAGICALLY YOUNG

WHISKEY AND LEMON VOICED FOLK SINGER IAN FELICE

MY FRIEND ISSAC

STILL NEEDED: CHICAGO COUCH: SEE BELOW =(

couch wizard

2009-01-17T17:15:00.006-05:00

Dear Internet Friends Who Live in Chicago (see picture if you're not sure whether you live in Chicago or not),

As of yet, I have no place to stay during my AWP visit to your fair city. That's Feb 11-14. If you have a couch-like object I could sleep on, I would be most appreciative, lavishing you with tales and orange rinds. In other words:

me: yeah that is all i need really
i am not fussy
but i think it would be funny to post a wanted ad
for a couch on my blog or on htmlgiant
so maybe i will do that
daniel: haha
that would probably work too
me: i can make it really uncomfortable
"look, guys, i know i'm not as popular as some of the internet bloggers, and i know i'm no xxxxxxxxxxx here, but maybe just a piece of cheese, i mean a radiator, i mean a pillow, not even a pillow, just a footstool, i can sleep on a footstool, i am the size of a foot"
daniel: hahaha
take pictures of yourself sleeping on a couch and post them
me: hahahaha

that's nothing; i can land a river on a bird

2009-01-15T20:38:00.006-05:00

I have a new story out in MARY Magazine, the magazine of St. Mary's College of California's MFA program. There is new work from Matthew Rohrer, Richard Meier, Craig Santos Perez, and others. Good shit.

Most of the stories are pretty long, including mine, but editor Sara Mumolo cleverly split them into multiple pages so it's not all scroll-daunting. However, I look like a douche in my picture, which is a flaw not even Sara could mollify.

My story is based on a story told to me by a friend and it's maybe the ______ thing I've ever written.

a squirrel snuck into the breaker room [aka] YOU THINK A PICTURE OF TWO UNICORNS FORNICATING IS FUNNY?!?!

2009-01-13T17:16:00.006-05:00

From Julia Cohen [Mike's comments in brackets]:

Hi,
I'm pleased to announce that the third issue of Saltgrass is out, featuring these fine poets & writers:

Eric Baus, CAConrad [coolest person alive], Jessica deCourcy Hinds, Johannes Goransson [a new quarantine is the new poetry], Kate Greenstreet [very nice person and terrific poet; i showed her where the soda machine was in the SOU library once], Brenda Iijima, Kristi Maxwell, Sawako Nakayasu, Keith Newton, Joshua Poteat, Joy Rhoades, Ken Rumble [one of my favorite poets], Matt Sumell, Chris Tonelli [chris still wants to know about the crayon party; chris, nothing much happened at the crayon party, but everybody there was very cool; jack and i drew funny things on the wall, and the girls left us positive feedback on couchsurfing.com that said they wished we'd hung out more], and Mike Young [really likes breakfast food and cowboy shirts].

It's just waiting for you to read it. The basics:

$5.00 print journal. You can order the issue online & read sample poems at www.saltgrassjournal.blogspot.com.

Please pass on the good word.

Thanks,
Julia

Julia published one of my favorite MC Oroville poems in this issue (I'm officially pretending someone else wrote it from here on out) and all of these other people are amazing, so you should buy this instead of eating fake roses.