Killer Buses (the scourge of PV)

the local blue and white buses of puerto vallarta are killers. I've heard tell of children (and others--- but children spikes the blood hardest, doesn't it?) run over by wild lunatic bus drivers, but this is my first photographic evidence.

an old lady done in by Bus U-63.

The problem is that drivers here don't get a salary. Or if they do it's a small base one and because they have families to feed, alcohol to drink, and the church to stand in and give tithing to they want as much business as possible.

And there are always lots of buses driving the same route at the same time so they're racing like crazed Mice-on-wheels (a bad Speedy Gonzalez image) to get to the next stop first.

And, so, lots of people are dead. Dead. Dead. Dead.

Suicide--another Dead Body

Man shoots himself in the head.
At a friend's house.

I want to shoot myself in the head. Feel it all.
And walk away unscathed.

But who doesn't want that?

My Love!!---AmericanWay's Adam Pitluk

It's amazing how close I feel to Adam Pitluk. You might say we are like brothers. But "lovers," to be truthful, feels more correct.

I remember when I was single and my assistant would announce a call from a new girlfriend. That's the same sort of surging anticipation and yearning that strains in me now each time I go to read the latest Editor's Note over at AmericanWay (American Airline's in-flight magazine).

It doesn't matter that I've called Adam's writing "retarded" and "piss-poor" and that he's called me (anonymously) a "cock" and a "dicknose." There's clearly something beautiful between us.

O, God, Adam, Yes!

And, this time, I'm only going to quote one excerpt from the new Editor's Note:

"I think a Cleveland championship would rank right up there emotionally with the birth of my children." (talking about the Cavaliers).

And I'm right on board with Adam here. When South Africa defeated Australia in the one-day and 5-day cricket test matches down under I felt as good as when my first Love Bird eggs hatched. (Those hatchlings, though, sadly, didn't last long.)

I'm not going to say you should check the rest of the Note out. It's pretty boring. Or maybe it's just the love-shaded glasses my heart's wearing right now. (warts and all, ya know).

If you do want to see my critiques of other Editor's Notes by Adam Pitluk then just click on one of the labels below. The first one's where I called the writing "retarded" and "piss-poor" and though I didn't realize it at the time it was, evidently, love at first sight.

O, Love is such a strangely splendored thing!

Next Interview-- Rebecca Loudon re her book "Cadaver Dogs"

For those of you who are interested the next interview on this blog will be with Rebecca Loudon regarding her fascinating book "Cadaver Dogs."

From the gangland violence of AWP to----

the gangland violence of pacific-coast mexico......at first i was disappointed that this picture wasn't in color on the front of the paper i usually buy. but, i'm warming up to it. death, death, O death!

"Fuck Off," etc: 12 Quotes from AWP

1)A nice and crazy woman bought a copy of my book.
Told Geoff Bouvier he was brilliant.
Told me to "fuck off."
Said she was "tired of sucking Paul Muldoon's dick."

(not sure in which order these 4 things happened.)

2) "No one's doing what I'm doing. I'm the most passionate writer here."

3) "If you buy a copy of it I'll draw you a boat."

4) "We're headquartered in Boston. Have offices in Chicago and New York. But we kick ass everywhere."

5) "Reading Holy Land's like getting punched. Reading With Deer's like getting knifed and then pissed on."

6) "She wrote it during an 8-week Ecstasy binge."

7) Reb Livingston (one of the most quotable people I've met):

"I need to coat my throat."

8) "I just wanted to say hello and tell you thanks for doing such a great job with my poems."

9) "Finger or thumb?" (kind of like "Tea or Coffee?")

10) "I'm way too important to talk to you. O, did I say that out loud (followed by a loud burst of fitful cackling laughter)."

11) "He wasn't as much of a prick as I thought he'd be." (Samson Starkweather regarding a well known--a very well known--poet)

Why Men Go to Strip Clubs (AWP survey)

One of my friends (Reb Livingston) has an interesting notion about why men go to strip clubs. So, I asked some people at AWP. Here are some answers:


1)--To give away singles.
--To stimulate the economy.
--Because it's there.
--To fill up the pool.
(Frank DePoole, Barn Owl Review)

2)--Bachelor Party
--Bachelor Party
--Sadness
(Matthias Svalina, wit)

3)--To fill my empty hole with sadness
(Sarah Wickline)

4)--Curiosity
--Prurience
--Lather (Loufa ?)
(somewhat coy QAE representatives)

5)--Pity
--to laugh
--to hand out buttons
(Ben Engle of Front Porch.)

6)--Because it feels good
--Because they like nudity
--Because it's on the way home
(Bill "The Hawk" of Intell Security. Bill's the guy who checks badges at the entrance to the bookfair. Bill says he was a writer but he quit because, he says,
"I like to eat"

7)--O, Man!
--They're great places to score Meth
--A deep craving for watery overpriced drinks
(Hugh Behm-Steinberg, Eleven Eleven, etc)

8)--To give their money away
--because they've got nothing
--to droop over their beers
(a West Conn. State University Spokeswoman)

9)--lack of sexual experience
--the dirt and the lighting
--in hopes of finding true love
(Noah Falck, elementary school teacher)

10)--they're doing it ironically
--they want to date strippers
--poetry
(Joseph Hall, the angry reviewer, particle physicist)

11)--community
--it's by the airport
--because it's hard to pay for sex there
(Dan, a friend of Chris)


and,... Reb Livingston says (loud and often) that men like to go to strip clubs so "they can take it up the ass."

Stroking the long stem of the cala lilly (Dreaming Ron Silliman)

I'm sad. I don't have any full-blown Silliman dreams to report. Some fragments, yes. But they make me even sadder. Like finding bits and pieces of the bible.

1-- I walk into my bedroom and Ron Silliman's jerking off on to my pillow. "Relax," he says. "I'm just spelling the alaphabet."

2-- I'm called into a room to identify Ron's body. They pull the sheet up--It's my dad. His eyes open. He stands up. We hug.

3-- I'm on a park bench next to Ron. He's duck-feeding. A big goose walks up. A very mean looking one. "This is it," Ron says. "This is it."

4-- We're going to hear Ron read. But what's this? We're on a safari jeep and we've snuck up on an okapi. Shhhhh, a voice whispers.

5-- Ron's in a kitchen making a peanut butter and jelly sandwhich. He's in his bathrobe and slippers and he looks so humble. I feel as though I'm intruding on a scene in a novel. "It's the only way," he mumbles. "It's the only way."

And then there's a really fuzzy fragment involving Shane Jones and his Light Boxes (i think.)

All these weeks in bed exhorting with all heart Ron Silliman into my dreams and this is all I have to show for such devotion. (sigh)

Action, Yes

the new Action, Yes is on-line now

this is what Johannes has to say about it on Exoskeleton:

"It is very big. Some figures and frameworks will be familiar (but hopefully not too familiar) to readers of this blog.

It includes two "automanias" by Swedish poet/performer/novelist Sara Tuss Efrik.

It includes several pieces addressing "the gurlesque", including texts by Lara Glenum, Dodie Bellamy and Aaron Kunin.

It includes work by Tina Darragh and P.Inman, whose work Mark and I have talked about on this blog.

It includes poems by James Pate as well as his essay on Clayton Eshleman.

It includes two poems by Clayton Eshleman, including one dedicated to Laura Solorzano (who is about to give a reading here on the Notre Dame campus).

And a whole bunch more,including work by such participants of this blog as Angela Genusa, Christian Peet, Ron Klassnik and Evan Willner."


I'll add that the Lara Glenum essay in it centers round the Aase Berg Guinea Pig poems....

Anna Nicole Smith-- Decadence, Kafka, Obesity, Truckers, Accountants,...

Two years after her untimely (?) death, a special on Mexico's "Society" Channel. My wife says that the word she's translated for me as Society carries more of a "snobby" aspect... anyways,...

Why is Anna Nicole so popular? (this is how i spend my pathetic life)-- I think it's a combination of soft, fat and hard surrealism. An exhausted pathetic decadence (bring me her dead body!). But more of that later.

1) (First, the obvious). Blonde hair. Big breasts. Truckers and accountants everywhere want to cum all over her.

2) She had the intelligence and maturity of a below-average 12-year old. This, of course, increases the allure.

3) Scandal-- she married an 80 yr-old oilman billionaire. Everyone (man, woman and beast) loves a scandal.

4) Her weight gain. People were disgusted. A cloud of derision hanged over our ruined world. Really? I think the truckers and accountants were even more inflamed.

5) She had lesbian affairs. Enough said.

6) She lost weight. Made a comeback. Everyone (man, woman and beast) loves a comeback.

7) Americans are the most obese people in the world. Mexicans 2nd. But within a decade there' going to switch places, like two fat fucks spooning. (And this does not mean Americans are getting think. Here there are 6 taco stands on every corner. McDonalds are blooming. When KFC first opened a few years back the line was an hour long. Salads here are a rare as hen's teeth.)

8) She was a poor small-town girl who made it big. Everyone (man, woman and beast) loves a rags-to-riches story.

9) She died young (?) and way too soon. And everyone unfurled their tinsel flags screaming "Tragedy." From every hill and rooftop in this ruined world. "Tragedy." "Tragedy." Everyone (man, woman and beast) loves a Tragedy and this was a big fat fucking Tragedy.

And, so, enter Anna Nicole--
All the arrows of decadence pointing into her fat ass. Fat, leaking, foul-mouthed Anna. Ample-busted. Ample-assed. Ample-thighed. And ample-tongued. What are we fighting for in Iraq? For Anna. Of course.

But what about the soft, fat and hard surrealisms, eh? O, Christ!-- let me be! Right now I'm imagining Ana crawling up on to my desk. Looking deep into my eyes. Playing with her hair. Kissing me on the nose.

I've been reading Kafka's "The Trial." Yes, the world is a maze and a hell. But it is also damned funny. Indeed, what would the Trial be without some deranged groupie stroking your hands from time to time.

Some people don't understand how Kafka could laugh while reading his work to a circle of his friends. Some of them put this down as nervous laughter. It was not. One of the world's problems is that some people have absolutely no sense of humor.