I guess I'm not buying waterproof mascara anymore

practicing ice dance moves/rotational lifts

step one: toddler places feet around neck
step two: continue to demonstrate "look ma, no hands" for the judges
step three: after completion of at least one full rotation, secure partner's feet (to keep disaster of olympic proportions from occuring)
step four: body to body "spoon" position (note: must improve position here, the italian judges will be critical)


this is my family. this is also the trick daddy and baby attempted last weekend which resulted in a very unsettling boom, two scared parents, and a lot of crying. oh, and some ice. of course, until this morning, i didn't realize she had been HANGING BY THE STRENGTH OF HER OWN TINY FEET--i thought it happened while she and daddy were practicing their first (lower difficulty) lift; where evie hangs on with her hands.

why do i have the feeling that one way or another, summer or winter, this child is going to be an olympian?

she's finally starting to look like me!

and it only took two years, four months and a few days. (not that i'm counting).

is it wrong to be completely jealous of your toddler's hair? because i am. it's like brown silk, with its own natural highlights, no split ends despite the fact that she's never had an actual haircut--and, quite the opposite, i don't think my hair, even when i've paid quite a bit of money for it, has ever fallen into layers so lovely as evie's! sigh. to be two again. i only wish i'd appreciated my hair then.

once in a while, I am thankful for seemingly random coincidences aligning.

last night, the wings were getting their asses handed to them, I had no real interest in watching the pistons blow out the magic, and the tigers weren’t on (rain delay). as luck would have it, american history x was showing on the fx channel (or is it just “fx”?).

i haven’t watched it in at least 3 or 4 years—tho I do love edward norton (check out keeping the faith if you ever get a chance) and I am intrigued to see what he does in the new incredible hulk flick.

anyhow—as I get older I think that where, when I was younger (say 16-23) I liked/appreciated/gravitated toward things instinctively: t.s.eliot, kurt vonnegut, american history x, johnny cash, etc. and now, being OLD, it is sort of vindicating and refreshing all at once to see that yes, the things I enjoyed at such a young age are actually valid in their quality! [t.s eliot is a great poet, tho now I have a few issues with him—but there us no way in hell my angsty-16-year-old self could have really understood or analyzed “the love song of j. alfred prufrock”. of course I thought of it more like the precursor to pink floyd, and i loved the quotability of the poem...but had no damn idea, really, what i was dealing with, knowing only i liked it.]

there are many seminal “film moments” in the movie, at any rate, some of which show the sort of naivate of the director/edward Norton (who is said to have made some rather drastic changes in re-editing the film himself). but still intrinsically good. my friend tim and i were chatting last week about what makes a good movie, or a good acting performance. truth be told, i don’t care much for many actors or actresses—i think they’re generally shitty and acting like themselves/being themselves constantly, just changing the situation. (actors and actresses i don’t like: nicholas cage [tho lord of war was a great movie, but would have been without him as well]; renee zellweger; gwyneth paltrow; julia roberts; vince vaughn, etc.) (actors and actresses i do like: george clooney; julianne moore; marcia gay harden; ed harris.) anyhow, I think this is one of those performances that can be labeled as GOOD, as in GREAT, and seamless in the way that our lives, looking back, always seem to make sense (of course it had to have happened that way, tho we never saw it coming) and yet show the seams of experience just enough to make it perfectly real; for example, the moment derek (norton) thinks about dr.sweeney’s question “has anything you’ve done made your life any better”; the (ingenious) raising of his eyebrows as derek looks at his brother danny (eddie furlong) seconds after killing two men--which really serves to show us how full of hate (how he is nothing but hate) this man is; the struggle, all the way until the end, to break away from his old life even as he can’t, knowing there is no hope to run away, and that his own life always being in danger (even as he will be doing the right thing) is the penance he will pay.

talk about the American redemption myth.

and being me, or being OLD, i cried about 4 times during the movie. previously, i'd been able to brag that only the movie backdraft and the last ten pages of zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance have ever made me cry.

remember when Fiona Apple was the “next big thing”? and then she gave that speech…I submit to you, ladies and gentlemen--

--that she is now "underground cool".

I was just listening to (what else) Johnny Cash, a track from his Unearthed collection. It’s a five CD set I have yet to buy for myself—however, thank s to the lovely Michael Bates, I was able to get a copy of one of the 5 CDs a few years ago. Ok, so here’s the point: there’s a track called “Father and Son” on which Fiona Apple does some backing/guest vocals. (You may also remember her vocals on “Bridge Over Troubled Water” on American IV: The Man Comes Around). What an ethereal, eerie, beautiful voice. The song itself of course helps, and obviously JC had a real knack at the end there for picking those songs dealing with imminent loss, looking back at one’s life, etc. But my word, would any of us have guessed that the woman who brought us “Shadowboxer” (which I say probably paved the way for another new favorite, Ms. Amy Winehouse) would be singing with Johnny Cash? Probably not, as none of us could have guessed that Johnny would find Rick Rubin, who would somehow make him into the man (artistically) he was meant to be—and have the damned good vision to bring along guests like Fiona.

Here’s the thing: (a little known fact, if you will) I have the utmost respect for Rick Rubin. He makes flawless choices. Look him up on Wikipedia, and read everything you can about him. Besides being the man who helped JC to musical redemption, he’s also responsible for the Dixie Chick’s new album, a Neil Diamond effort, The Red Hot Chili Peppers…I mean, what more could you ask for? Well, here it is (the little secret): I have this built-in “extra trust” reserved for people (mostly men) who remind me of my older brother, RJ. Hence, Rick Rubin (his lack of being a genre-elitist reminds me so much of RJ, whose band is straight hardcore metal, but who plays old country and blues…) being in my top ten list. Others I have a soft spot for, for the same reason? Joel Zumaya (of the Detroit Tigers), especially after I saw him being goofy in the Comcast commercial. Ha! Ben Wallace used to hold the honor, not because he reminds me of my brother, but because he reminded me of RJ’s dog, Dempsey. Sadly, something in Dempsey snapped (the pit-bull gene he’d acquired somewhere along the line turned him into an attack dog) and he had to be put out to pasture; obviously, something similar has happened to Ben.

Other food for thought: In the arc of “redemptive” storytelling, a la “man makes it big, loses it all, comes back huge” (which we could argue is the real Jesus myth) is there a better modern-day example than Johnny Cash? His last few years, and the recording of Hurt, remind me in a strange (anachronistic) way of Mr. Eko (see: LOST), a man who knew his mistakes and learned from them but couldn’t repent them all. Hmmm. Easter Sunday night, Jeremy and I were unexpectedly Evie-free and split a few pitchers of cheap beer, and chatted. It was divine. Jeremy mentioned his “you’re saved, you idiot” view of redemption. I say mine, like the Catholic faith, is much more blue-collar (hence what J calls the “busy work” of all the sacraments) and requires that you strive for progress and improvement your whole life. I argue that was Johnny Cash; that the “you’re saved, you idiot” approach leads to laziness. Anyway.

god bless you, mr. vonnegut

so it goes.

first feedback!

so, back in the day--i'm thinking it must have been THE YEAR 2000--i met tim carmody and gavin craig; they were the sharks (the renegade duo behind the offbeat, and alternative MSU literary magazine which generated much buzz with campus fliers reading "are you my angel?", "maman died today", etc.) and i as part of the jets (working with the red cedar review, the nation's only undergraduate-run university-sponsored literary magazine). instead of going to war, however, and singing about it, we ran into one another at poetry readings, events put on by gavin and tim, and even one late-night party at my place during the debacle of the 2000 elections. tim was the first person i ever heard who claimed frank o'hara as "his" poet, in much the same way as i have claimed mark rothko as "my" painter. gavin was running the ship, and writing great stuff (his reading list for radicals, i believe it was titled, blew my 20-year old mind!)

gavin is one of the big cogs in revelator press, and tim has just posted a really great (and not at all kiss-ass) write-up of my chapbook. the link can be found in the comments to the last post, or, for those of you as lazy as i, here.

endnote: living in a place like lansing, which is not famous for its art, music, poetry, architecture, which is just plan not known for anything but being the capitol of the state--it is difficult to feel like you, as an artist, maker, whatever aren't shortchanging yourself by staying. thankfully, with a great network of old poetry pals and baseball fans (some of whom aren't even in the state) i've been able to stay, and maybe make things better.

so, for all you old offbeat and rcr folks, know that i am now singing "tonight, tonight" out of my window!

it's finally done!

that's right, friends--the good folks over at revelator press (http://revelatorpress.blogspot.com/) have just published my chapbook, Letters to My Sister. check it out! i am hugely proud of it--and while you're at revelator, take a gander at some of the other work they've published.

let me know what you think;)

(ah--directions: click on the image of the chapbook, and it will open/download a pdf file. you can print it/read it online/whatever.)

finished poems, no. 1 and no. 2

i give up on making the formatting work (which is a shame, since this is the first poem in a long while where i've actually USED form...as an extension of content, not merely just part of rhythm, cadence, aesthetics...)

TOMBSTONE

It is the moment at the Peanut Barrel,
you rolling a cigarette full of Danish Export
tobacco, tongue darting quickly
over the edges of the papers. Even the tobacco exotic,
as though you could only have it delivered by train.

It is the moment we meet on the landing of a staircase,
you asking,
have you got a match?

It’s the moment when Doc Holliday winks:
He, the Earps, all motionless at the OK Corral.
The air is pregnant with their stasis, with
the very cliché of the Western genre; a tumbleweed
even rolls past.

The man’s face melts.
43 seconds later,
every cowboy with a gun
is dead. Except Ike
Clanton, who scurries away.

I cannot tell you how many times
I have watched the movie
without understanding that moment.

Yet your lips grazed my neck
like a warning shot, when you walk
it is almost slow-motion;
the very stillness of you,
that spur-clinking Western vacuum of silence so vast
you can always hear the cocking of the gun.
And of course, the wind.

Look at you, Doc Holliday: the sarcastic Southern drawl when you offer to drive me home;
I steal away through the back door,
sure you’ll catch me sometime later, high noon sun at your back.
And there you are, leaning against the fence post,
box of matches rattling together
like Colt .45 rounds in your palm
the cigarette hinged in your mouth.

like the new movie grindhouse, this post has two parts!

POEM FOR YOUR SECOND BIRTHDAY

Even as an infant
your hands flew about, impossibly
small digits scratching
against your bassinette, nails
growing so rapidly
they seemed more
like talons.

All bedding
pitched
from your pale nest,
your father and I
terrified
you’d shred another flannel blanket
and smother yourself.

We would hardly admit
that already, nine days in,
we were petrified
of our own
daughter, those
pterodactyl blue eyes.

These mornings you wake us
with small pecks on cheeks, noses,
foreheads, a deft flutter of one hand
against my cheek. Your eyes
hundreds of shimmering colors
all at once:

they remind me of something in flight,
my daughter, my starling.

******************************

seriously, why won't blogger accept my formatting? i'm quite annoyed by this. and the lack of interface between google documents and blogger--does anyone know how to do this?

alas, alack, i have spent far too long getting pissed about this and not addressing all the house b.s to be done before we embark on a birmingham adventure for easter. joy.