These are my bugs. I am powerful.

She is in the room a few minutes before the two guys sitting on the ratty couch notice that she is standing there. They never knew how it exactly worked but that after a minute or so there was a subconscious urge to look at the shadow of the door. "I just watched that Facebook movie. You know, the one with Jesse, Jesse whatshisname, and I, I just...feel like living in a cabin." She paused to take the pipe, it gurgled like a bullfrog. "...and, like, not talking to anybody. Up in the mountains, my own cabin, all alone." She passed the green glass snake to the guy closest to her, leaning back on the couch, a desktop computer wired up to a LCD monitor showing The Gumby Movie.

Gumby is a being that exists in a higher dimension, and his world is much different from ours. He is amorphous, skillful and rather compassionate.

All there is to watch for all the depressed insomniacs

• Apocalypse bullshit
• Obscene comedy
• Partisan news commentary
• Hard time prison documentary shows
  
• Reruns of Man v. Food

Water rolls down my throat like an amphibian skin.

The Cranberries Have Gone Missing

Leonard Cohen knows how I feel about existence.



I keep a crowbar close at all times.




Some people say I'm grumpy, well, fuck them.

I Can't Wait To Have Tea With You

Have you ever crumbled a dollar bill before? Not just a dollar bill, but a ten or a twenty? Have you wadded a one hundred dollar bill up until Benjamin Franklin could be heard crying and begging for you to stop, to go no further, that he had had enough pain inflicted already? Money is just linen and ink that someone along the way said should be worth something. It's illegal to burn United States tender (I think that means currency) but some rich ass-holes still use it as tinder for their fat cigar. Paper currency came about in 1862, partially to finance the Civil War and also because there was a shortage of coins. People were hording them in their safety deposit boxes, keeping them hidden in secret caches maybe in the knot of an oak tree, among the dust and mice underneath the bathroom floorboards. This next fact is a zinger. The currency was first issued in one, five, ten, twenty-five and fifty cent denominations. The values seem so small when weighed against today's bills.

There was one night that Hitler demanded of his scientists to find out how much a million dollars in one dollar bills would weight. They came up with the figure of 2,040.8 lbs. Hitler said he didn't know what the fuck a pound was so he demanded the figure to be converted into kilograms, the only true measure of weight.

The lead scientist on the case stayed up a majority of the night working the conversion. He drank half a bottle of American whiskey to help, his kids begged to be played with, to be read a story before bed, his wife whisked them out of his office. "Ihr vater bedürfnisse zu konzentrieren," she whispered in their ears as they enjoyed the free ride back to their rooms on the seat of their mother's hips.

"Vat do I do? Vat do I do?" he seethed onto the paper and crumbled it up like the dozens of other sheets now forming a small hill in the corner of the study. During a break, it was 3 a.m., he worked a Rubix cube and smoked a little pot, careful to shoo the stench out the window with a table-top fan.

"Eureka!" he shrieked.

The next morning felt like the last of the long line of mornings he had experienced in his life. He found Hitler outside musing to himself and whistling the steamboat willy. It appeared that Hitler had not remembered his order last night to find the conversion and was now uninterested in the answer his Nazi scientist had produced.




Forty-eight percent of all bills are one dollar bills. The dimensions of the United States' present currency is 6.14 in. long by 2.61 in. wide. There has been only one woman on U.S. money, Martha Washington. No portraits of African-Americans have ever been displayed on government bills. I think Barack Obama would look ridiculously cool on a bill. Maybe one day he will replace a Franklin or Lincoln or Hamilton one day. Not that those men don't deserve it but new faces are always pleasant, and good for morale!

Take a long sniff off a dollar bill and you might get some cocaine residue! It is said that 97% of U.S. paper money contains traces of the nose candy.

Pocahontas flaunted her stuff on the back of the $20 bill in 1875. She made a return on the gold dollar that never caught on. Or was that Sacagawea?

My grandpa used to pass on two dollar bills. I still have about five of them. They are back home in a chest. I know exactly where they are. I probably have $10 in $2 bills. Hooray Jefferson! It will be about that time to resurrect the $2 bill once the price of 20oz bottles of vending machine pop hits two dollars. Yes and yes.


In my possession, I have six bills (1 ten...wait, I'm counting, make that five bills and 4 ones). When will they renovate the outdated-looking one dollar bill? George Washing is so small in his oval portrait frame while his other money pals have had security stamps and complete make-overs asserted on their appearance. The bills are from all over the country

1. Atlanta, Georgia
2. Atlanta, Georgia
3. Atlanta, Georgia
4. Richmond, Virginia
5. The ten doesn't say where it is from

Whoever thought that these bills were an honorable pursuit? Should I be driven to collect as many of these suckers as I can? It is my goal to be another cog in the machine of capitalism? Isn't that what university learning (though they don't say it) is geared toward? I am sure that lots of students are buried in their all night study orgies with the dream in their frontal cortex that they will be successful and make a lot of money. I am sure a lot students have found themselves working dead-end, shitty jobs just to earn a measly check to pay the bills, in turn they slave away doing menial labor to make sure their power doesn't go out.

I will not spend my life chasing a buck. You cannot interest me with money. I will not be swayed. I wish to have enough to live and for the majority of the human population to leave me the fuck alone. I believe that money can separate us from who we truly are. It can in turn lie to us, tell us that we are better animals than we actually are.

I agree that money is power but only if the population decides to see it as something of value.

goddamn man i was just trying to shave some grapefruits for a moment and then wha-BAM it was eastern standard dragon time

"First of all Richard, they're not breasts. They're not breasts, they're just big chemical balls, okay?"

just recently, that is the other day i, by happenstance, went to best buy and purchased season 7 of curb your enthusiasm, a killer program.

larry david gets into all sorts of trouble here. the plots are tight, so far, with that classic twist of LD's undeniably selfish behavior. all the characters are in the right place. larry is working to gather the seinfeld crew to do a reunion show in which jason alexander plays a man who is trying to get back his wife. while outside, larry is trying to get back with his own-ex. this creates the plot that runs through the entire show, in between are comic sprinkles of often laugh-out-loud worthy-ness.

the episode i just finished, LD gets into a strange love triangle with wheels with the goal of taking a date to a chee yun concert at someone rich asshole's home. i looked chee yun up and this is her


wikipedia informed me that she is from south korea and has been playing the violin since 1392, a long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long , long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long,
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long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, love, long, long, long, long,
long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long,
long, long, long, lake, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long , long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long,
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long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, lore, long , long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long,
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long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, lure, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long , long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long,
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long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, lisp, long, long, long,
long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long,
lineage of violinist. that badass playing the cello could have been me if i realized the workings of the world while in the second grade. a friend i have not had very long once told me he chose the violin because it would be easiest to move around from lesson to concert to car.

LD also tells Christian Slater he's eating over his allotment of caviar at an asshole social function. and he gets into a scuffle with Rosie O' Donnell. and i thought he was on good terms in the lesbian community? Larry David has really done it this time.

i hope the season gets even stronger. i am excited and will probably continue to watch more.

also on the docket is to read the forest for the tree by Betsy Lerner. it took me as odd as i read the introduction, thinking to myself god, this sounds like the first pages of a bestselling self-help book. then, it dawned on me. as a writer, i am a mess. maybe this is what i need. so i am going to read and keep an open mind. maybe some good will come of it.

here's a draft of flash i wrote when trying to draft a realism flash (ala kim chinquee)

Military Fungal Complex

The cosmic intermission of day and night, fine razors of light nick tips of grass. I shake my shoes, look behind me, then, enjoy the armies and their blades. I muse how to eliminate time and where in this country I can find the land. I think of distant scents of burning oil hanging in car-crash steam. I see myself old and when I’ll have spent all my money and have declared nirvana. I recall the troves of herbs Basil snipped and brought over this morning like specimens; he spoke a dialect of elegant particular: taste, cooking use, boiling points and lots and lots of other things. For a minute, I panic at being called dad. “Do you want some dinner?” That might be my girlfriend. “Yes I want some dinner.” It smells like lasagna. I snag my shoes with two fingers like hooks.

Moses Monet Socrates invented the parenthesis, and he still works at Dairy Queen

it has been a week full of chasing suns (in more than one galaxy). i don't know how students keep their mind focused while working on one task. for example, as i read rabbit, run by john updike (a novel i am enjoying very much. good choice dr. rai peterson!) i let my mental list of things to do bleed all over the pages. concentration on a single thing is difficult for me. my eyes will move anywhere. i have been training them while reading to really eat each line like a perfect portion, to give rhythm to the swing of my ocular muscles as they climb down the page (very slowly that is. i am a tortoise at the page. but i enjoy it's not a bad life).




i tried to write a flash of realism this week (ala kim chinquee. i read oh, baby one night. it was pleasant). it was difficult for me to stick to realism. it's my tendency to ache my lines toward the alternate dimensions (i really have it out for the particular dimension we're stuck in). it was about a family in the dark

The Candles from the Basement

The electricity went out so the family pulled the living room into a messy oval. The mother said there were candles in the basement. The father hesitated to give her the flashlight. For a few minutes, two-thirds of the family contented themselves with the darkness and the eerie, wind-blown elms scratching the top of the house. The mother returned with a handful of candles. Some were scented. She tore away a match (The Hotel Aruba Restaurant graphic and phone number on the front of the cardboard flap) and placed the little flames around the room. The room became comfortable enough to read. The father had a beer. He said of his expensive ale, “Can’t let this get warm.” He read an issue of Science. The mother wrapped a wool parka around her and her son, age four, and plucked soft melodies into his pink ear. She kissed him in gentle rhythm at each chorus. His puny marble eyes sunk in slow waves, and soon, he was asleep. She carried him to his room undisturbed, candle hoisted in hand. She straightened the messy sheets, placed the limp boy under layers and folded him in. She left the candle on the dresser, its soft tongue of light dancing in the mirror.


professor lovelace awarded me a nine out of 10 on this one. i believe on the next draft i will add a bit more conflict, maybe give it a bit more length, give the little kid a fever or some sort of viral infection, the father needs to be more of a douche to contrast the soft gentle aura glow of the mother's kindness. hmmmmm. LOTS TO WORK. goodgoodgoodgood as they say in Minnesota.

i also read high water mark by david shumate. i really dug the cover and enjoyed the poems.

another flash for ya. i like cool pictures.

Bunker

Like a mannequin looking lost, and between the iced retaining walls that gave my apartment the facsimile of a bunker, I chomped a Camel in noncommittal patterns of in-hale/ex-hale. That week there was a lot of ice. Crooked lines of black walnuts keeping the street wavy and white oaks loitering behind this lot were weighed down but were strong and didn’t ache or splinter. I watched the second floor across from my ashes and foul smoke crumble in. I watched the roof resigned to rehabilitation, right then and there. People ran out of units onto the cat-walk style balcony. A kid grabbed a bike. His skull slipping out of a straight-bill cap. His legs pumping underneath jeans bleached fucking nuclear. A woman, a grandmother, a brother and a little sister in braids and a ribbon, blue, in the file of entropy, burst out and screamed at the bicycle bound boy. Like the collapse was his doing. Like they had just found weather plans in his journal, or on notebook paper tucked in a nightstand drawer. The back of the bicycle flailed like a fish on sand, and he floundered into a gray storm. Sirens wretched up and down the esophagus of the empty avenues. I didn’t think anyone was hurt. I lit another cigarette mumbling light prayers. I studied them as they cleared the living room with plastic shovels.

this is a goddamn poem or whatever but it's not going to have the perfected (ha!) line breaks showing. stupid blog incompatibility bullshit monster.

agodfearingman’sguidetothecompletehistoryofwoodrowwilson’sfinaldaysinthevalley

they call him professor they call him president they call him nineteen eighteen they call him nineteen twenty-one they call him governor they call him new jersey they call him president they call him world war II they call him the federal reserve act they call him versailles peace conference, they call him no conquest, they call him no dominion, they call him no desire – they call him papa on the token, they call him communist of the waves, they call him beating the children with glasses; with bones, people laughed and they told other people about it. they told him to drink five hours in four calories, and he said what the fucking shit; he stormed out the toilet with pants around ankles, making locomotive vowels. he punched his mother, punched his grandmother, stabbed his father in the left leg and broke the dog down into columns of metal. he floundered to the river and waded into the creek; he thought of a man far off, playing the violin.


over christms break, my granddad gave me a coin (it's actually called a token as he corrected me every time i said yea hey, this is a real cool coin granddad, thanks). the token was a component of campaign strategy, mainly used a trinket for people who came to particular events. it's the size of a quarter but is gold in color, maybe it's bronze, i'm really not sure.

one last cool picture and then i'm done with this gig...