Why Smart Men Prefer Brunettes

Holy dumbest chick EVER!! If I ever met this girl I'd probably just put her out of her misery.

just some good ole boys

Luke? Bo? In Kalamazoo?

apple apple lime lime

There's something about making Martinis at home that is so fucking gratifying.





Thank you. Don't mind if I do have a third martini. Shaken. Thank you.





Check it out. Memorious number 8 is up and wonderfully fantastic. Nathaniel Bellows, David Krump, Jake Adam York, myself, Greg Wrenn, Andrea Cohen, and others. It's a good issue. All poetry actually. Their first such issue. One of my favorite poems from the ms is in the issue. Can you pick which of the two is my favorite?





Today was my lil sister's 24th birthday. Good hell I'm old.





The Cubs are in first by the hair on Zambrano's knuckles. It's gonna be a great September for all us baseball fans.





The Bears played a decent first half tonight against the Colts. I have a feeling Grossman is gonna make me cuss like a French whore this season though. Already he looks awfully shaky.





Third book review in as many weeks is almost done. Sorry Mike about the delay. Will get it to you tomorrow, I promise. And to you AC, the revisions are coming your way either tomorrow or Wednesday.





Watching M's cousin play the entirety of Metallica's And Justice For All album this weekend on guitar. That was cool.





According to Maxim newest issue Hilary Duff is now hot. Um, no.





This chick is more my style:

M's gonna kill me for that. It's the martini talkin', I swear it.

Maxim is a guilty pleasure. What can I say?

Okay, I'm gonna work on a poem.

Owls wlso lsow sowl

Gregory Thompson, Fiction Editor at Barn Owl Review, when asked in this interview on the Barn Owl Review blog which of the poems in the debut issue were his favorites said (after picking Corey Mesler's poem as the most outstanding.... Mary said Mesler's poem is incredible too. I can't wait to read Corey's new work):

"Another one I enjoy is Gary McDowell’s 'On the Death of Houdini.' I’ve always been a bit of a magic fan and particularly a fan of Houdini. I love how McDowell de-mystifies Houdini’s cause of death – it wasn’t, as rumored, an escape trick gone bad – but then re-mystifies it by the way he tells of Houdini’s passing. Wonderful."

I feel a tad bit special. Nah, I'm downright giddy.

Thanks, Gregory, for mentioning me. It was a geniune "aww shucks" moment that I just had to share with my 2.5 readers.

Two posts in one night? Okay, now it's really time for night-night.

vainly in his pockets

"Bag of corpsegas sopping in foul brine. A quiver of minnows, fat of a spongy titbit, flash through the slits of his buttoned trouserfly. God becomes man becomes fish becomes barnacle goose becomes featherbed mountain. Dead breaths I living breathe, tread dead dust, devour a urinous offal from all dead. Hauled stark over the gunwale he breathes upward the stench of his green grave, his leprous nosehole snoring to the sun."

-- James Joyce, ULYSSES



I love this book. I'm still wading in the shallow end, but it's so great. Only 600 pages to go. Ha.

Got another rejection for the ms. Oh well. Still out at 6 or 7 places. Will send to 10 or so more in the fall... and pray.

M is feeling better. She was in the ER this past weekend. She's on the mend. Thank God.

One book review down, one more to go.

Bought the 2008 Poet's Market the other day. I should probably realize that I don't need the damn thing every year, but when I see it on the shelf, I can't help but buy it.

Been working on my syllabus the last couple days (and when I say "working" I mean "thinking about working on"). Met with AC today to talk shop. He's a smart dude. Gave me some great ideas for teaching the class. WMU is so awesome. One class a semester. And it's a Creative Writing class. Unbelievable. No other University, as far as I know, offers that package.

Have been thinking about the new project. I kinda like it so far. I reread it today. Only a few pages into it, but I like the direction. It's different. And I know have a title that I'm excited about. I will start working on new stuff for it tomorrow... or whenever I get to look at it again.

Next week is very busy. Illinois for the weekend. Sister's birthday on the 20th. Dad's birthday on the 22nd. Mom in town the 21st for dinner.

I'm gonna be an uncle. My sister's pregnant with her first. Yay!

So tired tonight, hence the incomplete sentences and no hyperlinks. Been having a hard time keeping eyes open lately. Not sure what my problem is. I think the structure of school will help. Only 3 weeks until I start. Can't wait. Although I'm sure come November I'll be screaming for Holiday Break.

Cubs are currently in a terrible stretch. Lost 7 of 10. 1.5 games out of first. And the Cardinals are now only 4.5 games back of the Brewers, 3 games behind the Cubs. Ouch. This could be a typical Chicago-style heartbreak. I think we can do it though. Just need the pitching and hitting to be on at the same time like it was before this mini-slump.

Gonna try to sleep, I think.

Mexican food tomorrow night with Adam and Kim. Maybe some fishing on Friday? Then M's uncle's Surprise 50th Birthday Party on Saturday. They like to booze and they have a huge pool in their backyard. What could possibly ruin the weekend? Mosquitoes. Family fights (they happen in M's family as they do in anyone elses). Cheap beer (I can't drink Natural Light anymore... my stomach walls will collapse from the acidity). Rain.

Got a lit mag and chappy in the mail today. Had to pay the postage because it was forwarded from my previous address. What? I don't get it. The press paid to have it sent to my old address AND I paid to have it forwarded to myself at my new address? I thought the P.O. paid that part? I filled out the paper work for crap's sake.

Read Michael Robins' The Next Settlement today. Wonderful, beautiful book. I really should hyperlink to it. Okay, here. Read Robins' book. It's awesome. I think that if I got a blurb like that from James Tate I'd shit myself.

Night, night.

purge and binge...

... or something like that.

By the end of the week, a baker's dozen literary magazines/journals will have poems from the ms on their editorial desks. I had the need to purge those poems so I can work on the new project. Something about having those poems out allows me to work on the newbie.

Well over half the poems from the ms already have a home, so maybe these poems aren't meant to find a halfway-house (that being a journal when the permenant home is a book... yeah, it's cheesetastic, I know), but I REALLY believe in those poems. I know they'll find temporary homes soon enough.

Time to go read a chapter of Ulysses and continue my wonderful and beautiful tour through Neck of the World. It came in the mail today. How exciting. Do you have your copy yet? No!?!?!?!?!?! Shame on you. Go order it... NOW!! It's delicious; I promise.

Like acid and oil on a madman's face

This is the biggest fish I've caught in MI so far. Sad, I know. But I have been compiling notes taken from local fisherpeople, and once this humidity breaks a bit, I have a plan of attack. I will, I promise, catch a bigger one soon.

B.O.C. baby

Saw these guys live on Friday. They may be aging, but they are aging like a fine wine. Great f-ing show! Go, go, Godzilla!!

cherry picking? in august?

And yet another friend has fallen for blogger. Isn't that cute? Welcome, M.C. Great title, by the way.

Well, the ms is busy being rejected. Got one yesterday. A whole 6 weeks from stamp date to rejection. That's gotta be a fucking record. Puke.

Have a job interview tomorrow. Don't know if I'll go. Not sure I even have time to start a job with the semester only 5 weeks away. But money is a problem right now. Any rich people wanna support an artist?

I know something you don't, and you know many, many things I don't. I know one of the folks that won the 2007 National Poetry Series. I won't say the name because I honestly don't know when the thing will be made public, but I will say that I am very, very excited for this person.

I find this extremely interesting. Not sure how I missed it before. I scoured the internet for prose poetry info and somehow missed this... even though I adore Blackbird.

It's out, it's out!!! Go buy it. I can't wait for my copy. I'm literally drooling.

Seriously.

I need a doctor. My keyboard's all wet.

Am currently, well not RIGHT now, but this week, reading Ulysses. Wow. I'm using Harry Blamires' guide, and the novel is now jumping out at me. It's fucking brilliant. I love it. I won't even pretend to understand Modernism, but I do feel like after this reading of Joyce, combined with my recent rereading of Faulkner, I may actually know some stuff. WooHoo!

Okay, back to further procrastinating.