Up to My Neck in Assholes

Make it stop.

What an odd situation. A strange and annoying problem has developed these last few weeks involving Google's image search and my site. In an earlier post (January 16th, 2005, I think), I mentioned an assh0le cook that most likely added pot to his restaurant's ranch dressing one night, resulting in my wife and I getting high and uncomfortable while eating a salad. I posted about it, as the entire visit to the restaurant (our last) was marred in bizarre happenings, from the strange karaoke (a skinny, tweaker belting out 'We Didn't Start the Fire' but his voice sounded like cats fucking), the ashtray I couldn't use because it had a diaper in it, the laced ranch dressing, even the crooked atmosphere and strangulated parking setup. I even made a picture of the assh0le cook, and titled it, well, 'Assh0le Cook'. After I posted, all was well and normal, but this last month, not so. Now, Googles crawlbots have finally located my site and all pictures connected to it. That's good. Finally. I've gotten over a hundred hits from an extremely diverse assortment of countries (about 30 of them so far) in the last 3 weeks. That's good, too. Finally. The problem is, they got here by typing in 'Asshole' into the google image search. My site comes up somewhere around the 176th page of images into their search or so, but people are dedicated, and when they want to see assholes, they'll find assholes. More assholes than you can shake a stick at (and you can shake a stick for hours). So, I check my stats each day and only find hits by people wanting to look at other people's assholes and instead, ending up at my journal. Literally, dozens of them. Well, FYI:

There's only one asshole here.

And it's probably not the one you're looking for.

I've also changed the title of the image to get rid of you asshole-seekers, but until Google's crawlbot catches on, I'll just have to keep shaking this stick. Assholes.

Publications (Ongoing- Part 1)

Received 3 copies of Cotyledon (no website available), Issue 38, June 2005. This was one of my first acceptances and did take some time to be fulfilled, as the poem was accepted last August, I think. On a sad note, the editor, Georgette Perry also enclosed a short notice that Cotyledon will be ceasing publications and closing up shop shortly. I've always been fond of this little zine... a professed emulator of the Lilliput Review, I found it often surpassed them in willingness to take chance and risk, and was a pleasant venue for a poet's shorter works. A shame. Like so many others that crash out or dissipate slowly, this is one more magazine soon to be removed from the publishing horizon. Her press may still put out a project or two in the distant future, but nothing is slated. So, this post's farewell goes to:

Cotyledon

Home and Hearth (Ongoing) Part 2

Well, we've finally moved completely into the new house in downtown Coos Bay. Now all those submissions to all those magazines with our previous address on them are haunting me. Hopefully, the change-of-address we placed at the post offices will work like it should. It seems to be.

I know I said I'd post pictures of the new and old place, but honestly, I have no idea which of the labyrinth of boxes my digital camera ended up in. I think it must have been buried in the same box that has my electric razor, the coffee, the keys to the old house, and everything else we still can't locate.

Packing. Never been good at it.

But the house is great and we're settling in, slowly unpacking. Had a giant speaker cabinet drop onto my laptop today, but everything seems fine (though as I type this, one of the keys, I notice, is sticking... the 'Y').

I will post images soon.

On a down-note, our previous landlords (read earlier entries to get a flavor for what they did to us), are now saying they aren't sure how much of our deposit they can give us, because they had to pick up some cigarette butts from the backyard. First of all- We cleaned that house spotless. In fact, it was dirty when we moved in and the first owners lowered our deposit because we had to clean out the place ourselves when we moved in. So actually, it's cleaner now than when we first arrived. Second- the cigarette butts they mentioned were blown onto our back lawn during the wind-storm last winter, and they showed up at our house the next day to do some work on the downstairs. They noticed the cigarette butts (I hadn't even noticed them yet), and just picked them up. This was months before we decided to move out, so they can't really claim that's part of the deposit gone. Besides, what criteria are they using for the cash-to-cigarette-pickup ratio? Does the bitch get an hourly wage for fucking around in my backyard when she isn't wanted there? Either way, when we moved out last week, the place was spotless and I did an extensive, belly-crawling, marine-style minesearch for any cigarette butts. So the previous landlords can just eat it.

That's about it for now. Baby = bright, content, growing. Maisy = happy, pleased, working. Ray = rushed, content, dad.

Pen and Page (ongoing) Part 3

Things have been going well in the small press. Received several acceptances from various publications recently, and I'm gearing up for an online-only campaign soon, probably in early July. Of note is a response from The Blind Man's Rainbow I received. Basically, I hadn't heard from them since sending in August of 2004, ten months ago, so I recently sent the ominous NIR (I really don't like sending one of these). NIR is Notice of Impending Rescinsion, which gives the publisher two weeks to let me know if they're still in business, if I'm rejected, accepted, or even if to say they're still not sure. However, I was pleased to get a response (most publications don't even respond to my notice) from Melody Sherosky, stating that two poems had been accepted for their July 2005 issue over 6 months ago, and that they'd sent a response. I suppose I place the blame on my mailman. I keep pretty devout tracking records of everything I send out, so as not to lose anything. So, I'm pleased and The Blind Man's Rainbow is pleased, and for all I know, my mailman is pleased to have used my earlier response as toilet paper or whatnot.

Also, I've joined quite a few online poetry groups, and started a small one of my own, though the members are pretty much people I grew up with or have known for awhile. Also, humorously, I'm the only poet in my poetry group. Fuck it, though. With all the reading poetry, writing poetry, revising poetry, submitting poetry, researching poetry markets and presses, studying up on people in poetry... do I really need to discuss it with my close friends? Nope. I like that my poetry group is like brief, accessible vacation from the rest of the poetic internet.