Heroes from Hackland

Occasionally, I run across a magazine that hasn’t much fanfare or presence online, or that has a very small circulation and so isn’t all that prevalent around ‘town’. These magazines range from excruciating, badly xeroxed zines with fuzzed-out text, to glossy covered journals with loads of fresh content and a unique yet accessible format. Over the last year, I’ve had a bit of contact with a magazine that I adore: Heroes from Hackland, edited by Mike Grogan, out of Arkadelphia, Arkansas.

I’d like to note that this post of mine shouldn’t be taken as a review, as I find myself only wanting to praise this excellent little magazine.

A Google search of this publication will turn up half a dozen pages, none of which describe or attribute much to it, other than listing its name as being in existence, or in someone’s publishing credits, etc... You won’t find it mentioned in many magazines, and you won’t find ads for it in accessible places. If it weren’t for a lonely, isolated entry in the Directory of Poetry Publishers a couple of years ago, I would have never run across it. Heroes from Hackland is a mid-sized magazine with very nice, full color covers. You’ll find between these covers a huge allotment of fetching material. There are poems, yes, many of which I have found captivating, as well as stories and some artwork. The overall theme of this publication seems to revolve around a nostalgia for previous realms of americana: The Lone Ranger, singing cowboys, early television and radio broadcasts... Reading it brings to mind a way things were portrayed long ago, a more familial, friendly, and serial way. I can’t help but hear the sounds of Arch Obeler’s ‘Lights Out Everybody’ and Gene Autry’s surreal, smooth tones in songs like ‘Tumbling Tumbleweeds’, while reading through this magazine. Even a touch of early MAD magazine. The latter pages usually contain stories and vignettes by the editor, which can take the form of rampantly odd, fast, round-the-bend commentary with vivid language, or clearly felt, ringing pieces that describe some of the facets of American life. There are occasional reviews of movies, new and old, as well.

Grogan, I’d like to add, is a friendly and absorbing guy (he calls his Wal-Mart pharmacy and sings to them regularly). He also has a kind and generous view of poetry and the 20th century that both accords and replenishes would-be contributors. This editor is one of the very few that have actually called me on the phone to ask what I thought of an issue, which is both rare and touching. Anyone out there submitting poetry to magazines knows what I mean by this.

For anyone interested in a uniquely brandished read, and subscribing to a small magazine (circulation 300) with great potential, an intriguing style, and a long history, I’d highly recommend checking out Heroes from Hackland. It’s one of the few magazines I’ve come across for which I’ve thought: Why is there not more of this?

So, Christmas is coming and you’ve got a few bucks set aside for somebody. Send a neat mag to that drunken uncle instead of socks.

Subscription information:

Single copies $3.50 ppd, subs. $10.50, three issues
Contact M. Grogan, 1225 Evans, Arkadelphia, AR 71923

What the F**k is the Deal with Nigeria?

So, I get around five hits a day from Nigeria [UPDATE 11-24-06: Only a week from posting this, I am now getting 22-30 hits a day from Nigeria], all different IP addresses, all having dropped onto my journal via google, yahoo, msn, etc... by searching for things like: "R" and "@hotmail.com", or "M" and "@yahoo.com", things like that, in order to harvest email addresses for their shitty scams. Strangely, a majority of the scams I get in my email originate in Nigeria. You know the drill. BANK OF AMERICA NEEDS YOUR VERIFICATION, or PLEASE HELP ME I AM RICH I NEED AN AMERICAN, or even COME AND MANAGE OUR COMPANY! These are scams that keep circulating, being reworded over and over again. I get these various scams perpetually, as do most people. The most annoying part of it is that Hotmail, over the last few months, seems to be letting more and more of these through. I was getting one or two of these a day in my junkmail folder, and now I'm getting around ten a day, in my inbox, and three or four in my junkmail. The best are the ones that pretend to be from some poor widow in Africa who's husband died tragically, but they have 65 million U.S. dollars (I've even received several that claim to have billions) that their government wants to take, or an estranged, problematic family member, or whoever, so they need you're bank account information and a copy of your passport, etc... Wow. Most of these don't say so right away, but that's the end result. They want your shit. The things they could do with information like that is frightening. I take a strange sort of glee, as well as guilt, in knowing that the rather large lists of publications and editors on my main page are most likely getting ads for sex pills and fraudulent paypal.com scams because I and many others have listed their contact info. A shame. Or not. [UPDATE 11-23-06: I have removed the email addresses of all publications on my main page, due to several editors asking me to, and common sense. It was easier to remove all of them, rather than a few, and anyway, if you're wanting to submit to one of those magazines, you should familiarize yourself with them and follow their guidelines.] Anyway, you scammers over in Nigeria with your computers and spider-software, all your obnoxiously transparent scams, I just wanted to make sure you know you're human parasites and big bags of ratshit. Choke on beancurd. Or better yet, put away your keyboards, go to Yankari, and get jumped by one of these:

Here's an interesting link to someone who had a little fun with these troublemakers:

http://spl.haxial.net/nigerian-fraud/

I'm still not certain why, but I've been saving these scams in a folder. Again, I don't know why. Perhaps when my children have children and I'm seventy, I'll tell my great grandkids about all these scams and they won't believe me, so I'll be able to whip out this folder, if folders still exist, and prove that it was all real. People were this shitty to each other. Sort of like if someone were to show you one of those old sham contracts from the 1920's indicating the sale of the Brooklyn Bridge to some random person.

Here's a partial screenshot:

__________________________________________________________

UPDATE 12-10-06: Just received a hit from a very specific Nigerian scammer, who reached my site via this Google search: "EMAIL CONTACT ADDRESSES OF CATHEDRAL CHURCHES IN CHESTERFIELD". So, due to the rather large number of churches in the news lately as falling prey to Nigerian scammers, I thought I'd give a 'heads up' to Chesterfield:

Hey holy guys in Chesterfield, specifically, you guys that work in the cathedral churches, watch out for this guy:

The Loser (Ongoing) Part 2: License to Drive

In an earlier post (Work and Wage (Ongoing) part 3), I gave a somewhat long list of the jobs I’ve occupied in my short time on this planet, and have now received quite a number of emails regarding it. The list circulated the internet to a very small degree, but enough people seemed to have enjoyed it that I’ve decided to continue this, by creating an ongoing segment entitled, The Loser, in which I will offer another list, each post. This particular entry you’re reading is a sad little list of vehicles I’ve owned, and what happened to them.


Type of Vehicle: Big Wheel
Model: Tonka - Unknown
Length of Ownership: One year
Manner of Loss: This was my first vehicle, and more than likely, the second best I’ve ever managed to drive. I rode this wonderful artifact around my neighborhood for a year when I was two/three years old and generally thought I was the shit when on it. The outcome of this vehicle is a bold foreshadow of what I could expect of future vehicles. I parked it in the driveway improperly, left it there for a bit, and when I returned, found a large blue van parked atop it. The van belonged to a musician friend of my father’s. Having destroyed my youth in such a crushing manner, the man was duly apologetic and felt quite bad about the whole thing, even offering to purchase me a new one. This is proper driver etiquette, yes, and we exchanged our information, as is correct, but nothing could replace a loss of this magnitude. I railed at the gods over the death of my big wheel.


Type of Vehicle: Dirt bike
Model: Schwinn Stingray
Length of Ownership: Seven years
Manner of Loss: This represents the longest span of time, by a very wide margin, that I ever maintained a single vehicle. My parents had me pick this bike, my first, right off the lot, in preparation for my fourth birthday. I received the bike beneath a busted pinata in a park in Santa Rosa, California, while wearing a conical birthday hat. Getting on it for the first time completely overran any annoyance I was then experiencing over some other kid having been the one to bust open my pinata. It was a blue Schwinn Stingray, became my best friend, and would see me through many adventures. For instance, the adventure of riding through glass, which I did whenever possible, the adventure of getting knocked off the bike by a little girl smashing a glass coke bottle into my forehead and causing me to get strangely sleepy for a while, the adventure of screaming as I pedaled harder than any boy has ever pedaled, a Rottweiler behind me by twenty feet, bearing down on me with a vicious snarl, having left his dead rat behind in favor of eating a small boy... the adventures go on. This bike was also a chick magnet, as every little girl in the neighborhood chased me whenever I drew near on it, for reasons similar to that of the above-mentioned Rottweiler. I stopped riding this bike when I grew too large for it, at around seven years old, though did manage to keep it safe and sound in the garage until I was eleven, when it was exhumed to show some other ten-year-olds, then left in the driveway, and run over by a red Toyota pickup then driven by my father.


Type of Vehicle: Dirt bike
Model: Huffy Lightning
Length of Ownership: Eight days
Manner of Loss: Theft. My father had moved us to the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, in Golden, Colorado. I didn’t know what to expect of this place in the world, other than it would supposedly be quite different from the places I’d lived previous: San Jose, Petaluma, a trailer park outside Fort Benning in Georgia, and a few cities in Washington. So, we moved into this tiny suburb in the mountains. As a treat, when we first moved there, I was bought a new bike. This was ideal, as our strange suburban neighborhood (I’d never seen, nor lived in the suburbs before), was sprawled out for what seemed like half a mile or more, and there were side streets everywhere that wound around to other side streets. I was stoked. This turned out to be the most violent place I ever lived as well. Gangsta rap had just started hitting the airwaves and a lot of the neighborhood kids spent their days beating the shit out of each other in small groups. After eight days of owning it, my bike was stolen in the wee hours of the night. It was depressing. I’d lived in areas that you could rightfully call ghettos before, and in trailer parks, but no one had ever stolen from me. Two years later, the day my family loaded up a U-haul to move to Oregon, I was informed by a friend I’d made, Ben, about who stole my bike, as he had found out. The thief was this fat kid I’d actually befriended while living in that neighborhood. He’d stolen my bike and then kept it from me for two straight years. For anyone interested, and for him, if that thief ever reads this: Go to hell, Corey Brown. I want my fucking bike back.


Type of Vehicle: Mountain bike
Model: Huffy Thunder
Length of Ownership: One year
Manner of Loss: I rode this poor thing to its death. It was a Christmas gift when my family relocated to Eugene, Oregon. It was always breaking, the gears ceased being useable one by one, until I was stuck in the most difficult gear perpetually, with brakes that did nothing but look like brakes, and pedals that would occasional lock up, meaning that I couldn’t keep my feet flat on them as they’d rotate over with every pedal. Obnoxious. I had started my freshman year at Willamette High School and rode my bike to school and back. There was a day near winter break when I was stuck by a car while riding through a crosswalk. The woman driving hadn’t been watching the road, but turned around nearly backwards in her driver’s seat beating her kids in the back seat. WHAM! Me up against the windshield. The car slid to a stop, I climbed off her hood, got my bike. She asked if I was okay, I said I didn’t know, but seemed all right, and hen she drove off. I limped home and, to this day, my shins still hurt if I press on them, sixteen years later. There was also a day toward the end of the year when I pulled a wheelie out in front of the school, on my way home. Less than a second into it, the front wheel simply fell off (this was before most bikes came with lock-nuts), and I came down on the bare forks, flipped over the handlebars and ground the side of my face into hamburger for about twenty feet. I wasn’t fond of this bike, though it was far less fond of me.


Type of Vehicle: Dirt bike
Model: Mongoose FS1
Length of Ownership: Five years
Manner of Loss: I bought this at a garage sale one afternoon, for $50, and it was the most reliable and excellent piece of machinery I have ever owned, even to this day (although the Kitchen-aid ranks up there pretty close). I rode this nonstop for years. I was into trick, so learned a plethora of neat little things. I could megaspin, footplant, all that, and I even own a video of me backflipping on it for the first time. I was into bikes, rode hard, was constantly speeding into dangerous environments and ill-conceived jump setups, and this was the best one for it. It weighed in heavy, which was just what I needed. Eventually, I got a license, lived on my own, had a job, was going to community college, and had no time for it, so I gave it away, drunkenly, to a friend of mine who was a genius at putting together new sorts of bikes. Ten years later, I ran into him and he gave me the frame back. One day, I’ll rebuild this amazing machine and apes will dance and kill one another before it like the monolith in Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.


Type of Vehicle: Automobile
Model: 1979 Plymouth Volare
Length of Ownership: Nine months
Manner of Loss: This was my first car. It cost $300 and was a big hunk of awful shit. It was a station wagon and I basically obliterated it over a period of nine months. It didn’t run well, had leaks everywhere, was beat up, and not aligned at all. At one point, while pulling down toward the highway in it, some rednecks ran up to my car and wanted to attack me. I don’t know why. But I told them it’d be more fun to beat up my car, so they did. One of them broke his hand punching my door. But, thanks to that car, I didn’t get punched, myself. Later, I slid off an embankment and down into someone’s yard, nearly putting the grill of this station wagon through the wall of their recreation room. I had it pulled out with a towtruck and got in quite a bit of trouble with law-enforcement for leaving the scene of the crime (though I only left for five minutes to find a phone and report the situation (this was a time before cell phones)). The house I nearly took out appeared to have furniture and belongings in it, but looked unlived in. It was later discovered to be a summer home for some guy, and he most likely never found out about any of it. This vehicle finally faced it’s end when the transmission went out while pulling into the parking lot of the DMV. I left it there overnight and when I returned, it had been towed away. I had no money (making about $320 a month in the fast food industry), and the days piled up, as well as the towing fee, until I owed more than I’d paid for the car, then twice as much, then quadruple... Eventually, I jokingly gave the title to a young Elijah Brubaker, and told him if he ever wanted a car, he could go and claim it.


Type of Vehicle: Automobile
Model: 1978 Chevrolet Monte Carlo
Length of Ownership: Eight months
Manner of Loss: I drove this vehicle well. It cost me $700 and was a dark blue. It had a V8, which meant lesser gas mileage, though it was extremely responsive and I drove it up to Portland and parts beyond many times in the eight months I drove it. It had a stigma attached to it, however, as Monte Carlos tended to be the new meth-mobiles in town. All the dealers and tweakers had Monte Carlos, I don’t know why. I lost this vehicle when, driving out to the beach one night, I lost control of the vehicle, spun around, almost had control returned, but then just spun the other way and then I wrapped it backwards around a tree after launching from a curvy road into the woods. A friend of mine gutted the interior and installed the seats in his truck, which was odd, in exchange for taking the wreckage off my hands. Amazingly, the car still started and drove after this, but not for me. I had the friend remove it. This was probably my favorite of the cars I’ve owned. Until I destroyed it, it was extremely reliable.


Type of Vehicle: Automobile

Model: 1976 Ford Thunderbird

Length of Ownership: Four months

Manner of Loss: This is the most annoying of the situations I ended up in concerning vehicles. I bought this car after finding a job in Coos Bay (no small feat), and parked it in front of my apartment. It was maroon, gigantic, and had a kind of roving look to it I enjoyed. I didn't have a license at this point, having not renewed it, and was not insured, so the car was going to stay with me, at my apartment, until I had a license and insurance. I paid $400 for it, which was a great deal, as it was in excellent condition and ran superbly. So good a deal, I bought it without even being able to use it, yet. Eventually, enough shit had hit enough fans and I joined the U.S. Military, leaving the vehicle with my parents while I went off to basic training. Two weeks later, I was back in my little town again, having 'failed to adjust'. I went to pick up my car to discover that my dad had sold it while I was gone. Not two weeks, and he'd sold it, though he was supposed to be holding on to it for me. Well, it sucked for me, and it ended up sucking for him, as the guy he sold it to never paid him, and then, finally, it sucked for that guy, too, because he drove it into the back of a police cruiser on the highway. So, it seemed everyone involved had taken a bite from the shit sandwich at some point, concerning this vehicle. Still, it was $400 bucks I was out, not to mention I had no car to drive when I got my license back, which, it turned out was only a few weeks away.

Type of Vehicle: Automobile
Model: 1981 Chevrolet Chevette
Length of Ownership: One year
Manner of Loss: I bought this car from a friend of my little brother for $30, total. I think he was trying to score a bag of weed, so only asked $30 for the car. It only ran on two of it’s four cylinders, had a hole in the floor so large that when it rained, if I drove through a puddle, it would splash water up into the car and soak my crotch as I drove. The windows wouldn’t roll down anymore though I managed to rig up a system for lowering the driver’s window, the AC was home to a colony of spiders and, I suspected, a mouse, and virtually nothing regarding this vehicle was correct when it came to proper function. I couldn’t even adjust the seats, as the splashing of water through the floorboards had rusted the mechanism in place. To my utter amazement, I was hired to deliver pizzas in this vehicle, which couldn’t have possibly passed the inspection they gave it. I delivered pizzas in this heap for months, wet-crotched, freezing, slowly crawling along, unable to take any route that involved going up a hill, no matter how slight. The wipers didn’t work either, and when it rained (Oregon always rains), I had to just keep driving until the water all pooled together on the windshield and created a complete, single sheen across it, so I could see. Until this occurred, however, or on misty nights, I had to drive with my head out the window. Once, during a particularly windy night while on delivery, my hood flew up and completely obfuscated my view. I thrust down the window and stuck my head outside to discover I was then between two semis, with a car in front of me and two motorcycles tailgating me, which made it so I actually had to drive in this manner, with the hood up against my windshield, at 45 mph in tight conditions, for around twenty seconds before someone finally let me pull off the road. What happened to this little, vibrating nightmare of a car? I got a hundred bucks trade-in on it, which was over three times what I paid for it, when I bought my Pontiac 6000, of which you'll read shortly.

Type of Vehicle: Borrowed Automobile

Model: Geo Metro

Length of Ownership: N/A

Manner of Loss: I didn't actually own this vehicle, but I certainly destroyed it. While on a trip to Portland with my friend John Densmore, to see his band perform at La Luna, John's mom (the owner of the Geo Metro we were in) asked me to drive everyone to a Denny's, as I'd lived in Portland before. I didn't think it was a good idea, as I wasn't insured and had such bad luck with vehicles. Everyone agreed it would be fine, and that we weren't going anywhere difficult or anything. Reluctantly, I agreed. While driving through the Chinatown area of downtown Portland, I noticed hundreds of pairs of feet sticking out in the street. The rose parade was going to occur in the morning, and there were people and cars parked and camping alongside all of the downtown streets. This was odd and difficult to manage driving through. We reached an intersection that had no stopsign or light, so I continued through and was immediately struck by a very large and brand-new Dodge Ram. We spun around and around, stopped, and were generally screwed. After the wreck, I tried to figure out what had happened, who was at fault, etc. It was me. There was no stoplight overhead, true, and no stopsign either. What there was, however, was a stoplight on a pole on the LEFT side of the street, which was blocked by a truck, hence why I didn't see it. Also, I'd never seen a sign or light on the left side of the street before. Either way, I screwed up and destroyed mama Densmore's car. And worse, we certainly didn't make it to Denny's.

Type of Vehicle: Automobile
Model: 1988 Pontiac 6000
Length of Ownership: Eight months
Manner of Loss: Having done so well with the $30 car, and having not wrecked or destroyed anything that was mine in the last year or so, I felt I’d passed some sort of driver basic training. I was a hardened driver, at this point, and had seen or handled just about everything a car could throw at me. So, I finally saved up enough to buy a newer car. Not very new, but newer. I bought a used Pontiac 6000, which, by the time I purchased it, was the next of the meth-mobiles in town. All the dealers had Pontiac 6000s and Ford Taurus’. A few Crown Victorias and molester vans, too. So, as with previous cars, I was pulled over constantly. This vehicle handled itself well and got me where I needed to go. After eight months, the engine burned up in the middle of nowhere (Also referred to as Gold Beach, Oregon), and left me, as well as three friends, including the ever-present Elijah Brubaker, hitch-hiking. We were picked up by a softball coach in a mini-van, dropped off in Gold Beach, and I then tried to find some sort of transportation for us. There was none. No busses ran through there, no taxis, nothing. It was the fourth of July, as well, so everything was closed. In the end, I bought a car from a hideous and strange man that lived in the woods outside Gold Beach, for $400. The man told us his name was ‘Cokehead Rick’, and he was frightening, indeed. He also had Rottweilers on his ‘ranch’ that killed deer for him and drug the carcasses back, so he didn’t have to go hunting himself, his dogs did all the killing for him. We got away from this man as soon as possible.


Type of Vehicle: Automobile
Model: 1979 Dodge Colt
Length of Ownership: Five months
Manner of Loss: The excellent vehicle I purchased from ‘Cokehead Rick’ on his mutilation and death ranch. This vehicle broke down and refused to run exactly one mile from the above-mentioned ranch, where I bought the vehicle. Not five minutes had passed and it was broken down. Cokehead Rick drove by in his molester van and waved at us, then disappeared down the road to town. We managed to get it running after awhile (not a one of us knew anything about fixing cars or diagnosing their problems), and we finished our roadtrip. The passenger window was gone, as was a huge chunk of that door, and so it was cardboarded up with duct tape. The car turned out to be stolen, but I had possession of it, and the original owner was in prison anyway, so eventually, I was awarded the right to register it in my name and whatnot. This vehicle ran all right, but I had to learn to drive a stick-shift in about ten minutes with no instruction. Surprisingly, I just sort of knew how to do it, somehow. This car had leaks and filled with water easily, but I tried to take care of it as well I could. It broke down, though with no major condition, and I had to park it in front of my apartment until I could pay to get it fixed. Eventually, due to lost employment and an apartment I had only days to vacate due to my inability to pay, I had to leave the car behind. The landlord kept it, as well as most of my belongings in the apartment (it’s pretty humbling having to move out of your living space and only being able to take what you can, literally, carry. It also enlightens you as to what’s actually important to you. I left with a duffel bag of filled writing folders and a guitar).


Type of Vehicle: Dirt bike
Model: Mongoose, though with no model apparent
Length of Ownership: three years
No Manner of Loss: After the loss of the stolen Dodge Colt that Cokehead Rick sold me in the middle of nowhere near his museum of homicidal animals, I didn’t drive for quite some time. Eh, indefinitely, actually, as I still don’t drive. It’s just not in me anymore. For me, cars are bad luck, which is why my current vehicle is perfect for me. I went back to my roots and found the only vehicle that had been good to me. A green mongoose bike. It’s not my old FS1, though I do have that frame if I ever get around to it, but this bike is fine, and gets me around my little town quickly and expertly. It’s getting a bit rusted (Again, Oregon is always raining), so I have some parts I want to replace. For now, however, this is all the transportation this loser wants or needs.

So there it is. My life in vehicles. If in the future, you find yourself driving along and see me in your rear-view mirror, my advice is to just let me pass. You don’t want to end up as a sub-character in one of these entries, unless you're Elijah Brubaker, himself, as he and I seem to be the only people to have come through all of this car-wrecking and breakdowns unscathed. Hope you all enjoyed. As for the next list, prepare your eyes now. It’s going to be a long, long read, when I get it written and posted. It’s a list of the schools I’ve attended. Oh, I know. Big deal. Everybody goes to school, right? So what if I went to a few of them. That doesn’t necessarily make for an interesting list to read, right?

I went through 19 of them before junior high.

The Good, The Bad, and the Clerically Ill (Ongoing) Part 5

All right, it's been some time since my last three, and for good reasons: A complete computer crash (motherboard shorted out) in my new laptop, a long spell of return-to-senders, my general life became more exciting, and I've been growing a rather large backlog of things that could easily fit in with 'The Bad'. But, as usual, I did create a new three, and here they are:

The Good: Andy Robson @ Krax

This is probably the most pleasant and personal rejection I've received in the last year, possibly ever. A completely handwritten rejection spanning a very large paragraph. Signed and whatnot. Basically, they thanked me and mentioned their backlog, that they weren't going to be able to use what I'd written, as it didn't fit their usual style well, and best of luck to me, whatever. This rejection was written interestingly and was not the usual carbon-copy one-off that I'm used to. This was a thoughtful rejection and a rarity, and most definitely deserves a place in 'The Good'.

The Bad: J.M. Freiermuth @ Timber Creek Review

This editor returned my full submission, which is common, with no rejection at all, scrappy or otherwise. I have recently begun using a 'Manuscript Disposable' red stamp on my cover letters to solve a problem I've been having with publications returning my entire submission plus their ads and flyers, which usually ends up not fitting within the constraints of a .39 cent SASE, so my post office has me come down, and I have to pay more money to pick up a rejection. I used to put, in bold, Manuscript Disposable' on my cover letters, but too many editors didn't notice it, so I have initiated the red stamp, which seems to be working wondrously. This editor, however, circled my 'Manuscript Disposable' stamp and wrote a note about it, though didn't bother to send anything else, much less a rejection. I can only assume this is a rejection. He circled the red stamp and wrote: "Lose this loud and preachy statement. If you don't ask for the poems to be returned, they are disposed of." That was it. This is an odd response. Preachy? How is a stamp of 'Manuscript Disposable' preachy? I'm not trying to sway him into some kind of diatribe or way of life, so that term doesn't really make any sense. I agree that the stamp is loud, which is its purpose, and I'd rather not use it at all, if it weren't for necessity. The funniest part is, while 'Manuscript Disposable' certainly seems to have gotten his attention, and while he did write that if I didn't want the poems back, they'd dispose of them (which is why I have that stamp, to tell them exactly that), this editor STILL sent back all the poems, despite everything my rebellious stamp and his irritated note seemed to have been about. Here's my take on it: WE DON'T LIKE YOU TELLING US YOU DON'T REQUIRE THESE COPIES OF POEMS BACK. ALSO, IF YOU DON'T WANT THEM BACK, JUST TELL US. NOW, IT SEEMS YOU'VE TOLD US YOU DON'T WANT THEM BACK, WHICH IS WHAT WE WANT, AND ALSO DON'T LIKE, AND HERE ARE YOUR POEMS BACK.

The Clerically Ill: Editors @ Carus Publishing

This is a long one in coming, and involves a rather large publishing house that prints material for children, Carus Publishing, responsible for putting out Cricket Magazine, Spider, Ladybug, Cicada, and others. I've been fond of these magazines since I was a wee spider, myself. I have now sent to this publishing house three times, to three separate magazines, Cricket, Ladybug, and Spider. I'm fairly certain my last, Spider, will also end in rescinsion, like the other two. Basically, I sent, waited an extended and undue amount of time, finally sent them an email asking the status of my work with them, and waited some more. When they did finally get back to me, it was only to explain I'd waited for nothing. Now, you may be wondering, Why would I send to this house if it has already burned me in the past? Well see, I expected that since each of these publications is edited by a different person, the incident with Cricket, my first submission (of which you're about to read) would be an isolated occurrence. Not so, my friend. Here are my results:

1. First submission, to Marianne Carus @ Cricket Magazine: After ten months, I ended up rescinding my poems from this publication. In response to the rescinsion notice I sent, I received a letter explaining that they have no idea where their submissions go. They get sent out to test readers, and the test readers, themselves, are supposed to contact the submitters, and not the editor (I wonder what the editor actually does, then, if test readers yay or neigh the work, and even inform the submitter about it-- maybe they go over the final group of accepted poems and remove one, or even two?). So, sorry, no records are kept of who your poems would have gone out to and it's possible they lost them, who knows, we don't. But, the editor did explain I could send again sometime, since they hadn't technically rejected the work. The response was brief, and then tapered into a form-letter that was the word-for-word cut and paste from their website submission guidelines, which I had followed. Cricket had a response time listed at six months, max. I sent to this magazine on July 1st of 2004, and rescinded in late April of 2005, about ten months later. Ten months is exorbitant, though I allow it if a publication at least states that's how long it's going to be. Even more ridiculous was that this publication did, eventually, get to my submission and send me a rejection based on it, 17 MONTHS AFTER I RESCINDED. That's right, a whopping 26 months after I sent these poems to them. The amount of time it took them to read the five short poems I sent was just over two years.

2. Second submission, to Paula Morrow @ Ladybug: I rescinded this, again, after nearly 10 months with no response, contrary to the maximum of 6 months their guidelines read. In response to my submission, as above, I was told they had no record of my poems. If history repeats, despite that I've now rescinded, I can expect to receive an actual rejection from this magazine somewhere around April of 2008.

3. Third submission, to Heather Delabre @ Spider: I sent this out in September of 2006, unaware that I was going to rescind from Ladybug shortly after, and am currently waiting to hear back. This will most likely be the last time I attempt submitting to this publishing house. Hopefully, this one will at least get back to me before 2009. Of note is that the email address for submissions to Spider is the exact same email address as the one listed for Ladybug.

The wait is over... the trailer for JAHUL: BEAST OF TIME has been released.

Undue Process

As both the life of this man, me, and also of my prolix compatriot, Jahul, reach their wondrous pinnacles of online favor, something must go wrong.

Yes, it has. My processor burned out. I've only had my new laptop for two-and-a-half months, but yet, my ill luck with machines has tendriled again into my speeding life, and like the plantation in Gone with the Wind, burned the fuck down. Dell is going to fix it, as it was under warranty, but this leaves me in a distended position, having to use my old laptop (at 64 megs of ram, no joke) to do my daily business. Of course, I can check email and peruse the web, though very, very slowly, I can't chart any submission response I receive, nor can I do anything regarding my current projects, as they are all stuck on a somewhat specific model of hard drive in a machine that is dead, for the time being. So, it's back to the more Shakespearean format of recording your progress in the world: Paper and ink.

This is fine, as I carved my poetic teeth on paper and still do, everything by hand, I just can't revise anything or work with anything already typed or on my new machine. I know, I know... backups. You have to have backups. Backup everything. Yes yes. I have backups. That is no problem. I just don't have a machine that can access the backups. Fun.

Jahul is remiss as well, as he can't post his new feature. It's a trailer. Jahul, I should explain, has been courting a major motion picture studio and a very well known producer as regards his feature length movie, Jahul: Beast of Time. He has struck a deal, I'll tell you. Not only has this movie been greenlit, but they filmed it immediately with name-brand actors. Such is the power of Jahul. Even the simplicity of his generous form persuades the elite of the world to his favor. So the movie has been filmed, and he would very much like to post the trailer. Of course, he is upset as the trailer is on my new laptop, which will shortly be repaired. Jahul must wait. Patience is a virtue, even for beings such as he.

Jahul Unleashed

What's the Deal with Jahul?

It's official. I haven't a single strand of dignity left.

I've heard Jahul was being discussed favorably on KFLY, out of Eugene, Oregon, on the ever popular Donkey Show, from 2-6 each day. I didn't hear it myself, but relatives did and promptly called me. So, you write thousands of poems, publish as much as you can, and then get your 15 minutes from dancing in underwear and a ghoul mask.

Just kidding, Jahul is real. He'd be upset and most likely cause my Descension if I were to indicate anything regarding his spiritual journey as being untrue.

He will ascend further. He must.

The Way of Jahul

For Those Who Didn't get Enough of His Destiny, I give you 'Jahul the Resurrector'...

Destiny of Jahul

Vacation and My Dead Ass Career

A long time. Yes. Since last post.

I have this gigantic and very regimental schedule I try to keep, that usually gets distracted easily and generally perturbed by random incidents, but the first thing to go when my schedule becomes busy is the internet. No time. Check the email. That's it. But I've a little time tonight so I thought I'd post an update on my well being.

Strange that I have one.

Painter's little baby body is no more. He becomes more towering and huge each week. His appetite is on par with this rate, and he has grown adept at opening doors, throwing things for the sound of it, and basically fouling up anything electronic in the house (including this laptop I'm currently typing on). He still hasn't found an interest in much speech yet, but does say a few things.

Marriage is good. Summer is good. Publishing career is a dead horse I can't stop kicking. I've had a strong bout of 'We have ceased publication' responses, all year long. I used the Dustbooks directory for a good portion of the magazines in my last campaign and got screwed. I like the Dustbooks directory, but how often do they check their sources? I've recieved submission response letters all year explaining that the magazine I sent to has been out of publication for 3+ years, or that the editor has been dead for quite awhile. These responses make me feel like a heel. Thanks, Directory of Poetry Publishers. The sad thing is that there are quite a few editors and/or magazines that die out without updating their website or removing their ads from circulation. Obviously, no one gets much of a chance to tidy up their magazine if they suddenly die, but the major poetry market books should check their sources more often, to uncover these magazines that, considering they've closed up shop, probably don't need masses of poets sending work their way.

Eh, two cents.

Just over halfway through my new book, Malus Conditus. It's difficult to write, as it is an intensely negative and cruel book. I've wanted to write a sort of cruel poetry for some time, and now I'm in the waistwater of it. It can be a little draining, however, and after a short time, these newer poems actually start to make my stomach hurt. I only hope prospective readers don't misjudge it as juvenile or amateurish (because really, who typically writes the angry, mean poems? Yep, teenagers). I'll be thirty in three days. The 14th. Bastille day, in France. I've been wanting to go to France on my birthday for some time. It's also their independence day. Imagine waking up on your birthday, looking out into the street, and seeing half the town running around cheering and having parades and drinking booze, lighting shit on fire... What a birthday that could be.

And, on the subject of independence days, some recent images from our 4th of July vacation up into Washington.

See Above

Here's one of myself taken by Elijah Brubaker, who we visited (and no, I'm not posing here, I was telling an animated story and he caught me between exaggerations. I was half drunk. Maybe more than half). A barbecue, a hot metropolitan day, a baby with a burned hand, booze... A great pit-stop in our vacation.



And here's another from when I was Painter's age. About 16 months old. The hairy man to the right is my father.

Out of Coffee

Well, there were, at one point, four coffee shops in our downtown area, which is two too many. You should have two within walking distance, really. One for getting coffee, and the other for when you get pissed off at some laptop jerkoff chatting it up on his cellphone about how Starbucks is better or whatever in the first coffee shop.

Unfortunately, now there's one. The worst one, I might add. Mainly because the idiot that owns the place is arrogant as hell and rude to anyone under the age of 40. I'm 30, so I'm no kid, but when I go in this place she starts lecturing me about 'your music', which only baffles me. She somehow believes any person younger than she is a spokesperson for EVERYONE younger than she is. It's agitating and she makes shitty coffee anyway.

There were three others. One was immensely successful, but the owners of the property kicked the business out and opened their own coffee shop. They retired a year later leaving 3 coffee shops in town. One decided to relocate to southern California. So that left 2. Then, the one that was kicked out, and which relocated nearby, closed down to become a christian book store instead. This pisses me off. They had the best coffee in town and were the only thing between me and that other shitty, judgemental coffee shop. It seems so dim to take an exceptionally successful coffee shop (busy busy busy and making a ton of cash), and take it down so you can instead use the space to sell books barely sold at the other christian bookstores. There is no demand.

Note to local Christians: Order your books online. We've already got 2 christian bookstores in our town. We don't need a third one. They all sell the same list of books anyway. The sad thing is that, for the now 3 christian bookstores in my town, there are only 2 normal bookstores. One carries used books only. One carries new books only. None have poetry, which is why I have to travel to get new books, or order online.

What possible need could there be to open a shop that sells christian books in a town that is already saturated with them? I've seen four others open and shut down as well. They don't do well. Why? Again: They sell the same lists of books. I don't see why there should be an entire store dedicated to books on or dealing with Christianity, in the first place. Isn't there supposed to be the one book? I know more fat people than christians, why aren't there 3 fat bookstores, or better, diet bookstores? I know more minimum-wage making individuals than christians. Why not a poor bookstore, you know, where poor people can get new books that aren't $30 bucks a pop. In a large area, where there are more people, these ideas aren't so original. They've been done. The thing is that I live in a tiny town. A population of which is somewhere around 15,000 people. Why we have 15 churches and 3 christian bookstores is beyond me. I suppose there are enough christians wanting to purchase christian books to make a christian bookstore enough christian money to stay open, and I guess they need special books because normal books aren't always about their views. Maybe that's an idea someone could invest some money in: Rewriting classics and modern books to fit various religious themes. You know, at the end of Harry Potter IV, instead of the usual, until-next-book closing, he instead climbs a mosque. Or at the end of 'The Shining', the survivors sit down and make a prayer-quilt and talk about Jesus. Or at the end of 'Lord of the Flies', the rescue team makes the surviving children talk about Bahai.

I'm just aggravated. I'll be making my own coffee now.

Some photos of the road to my grandmother's house...

In the house, near the kitchen...

This post is a temporary housing of my grandmother's home, which was recently flooded and made unlivable...

Floodwater

This post is a temporary housing for images of my grandmother's home, which was flooded after Christmas.

Parenthood (ongoing) Part 8

The boy is walking. It started off mild, he’d be standing up somewhere (his new hobby), and then let go, take a step, fall on his face or other general area, then do it again after about an hour. But, it progressed quickly. After a week, he was doing it every 5 minutes. Then, another week: He takes about 5 steps at a time, at will. Very little falling. Mostly, he takes his steps, then slowly sits down when he’s bored. I haven’t been this excited since I met Amanda, my babysitter when I was eight:

I don’t have any images of Painter walking yet, but I drew one so you’d understand:

That’s painter in the middle, in front of Dog-reaper, and he’s walking toward Werewolf to get away from Tyrannosaurus. Also, there’s a Where’s-Waldo sort of appearance of another scary kid-monster, if you can find it.

In addition, Painter has learned to throw his hands up in the air, and also clap at the slightest request. He has become fascinated by cartoons, finally, and so our days are working out just fine.

The good, the Bad, and the Clerically Ill (ongoing) part 4

The Good:

Kathleene West @ Puerto Del Sol. This was a very personable rejection with a large amount of explanation. There were some general extrapolations about what I'd sent, and a few very specific comments about a particular poem. It's been quite a while since I received a rejection with handwriting on it. Any handwriting. This was refreshing.

The Bad:

R. Gerry Fabian @ Post Poems. This magazine stated (in their PM guidelines) wanting shorter poems, any subject and style, and that humorous poems were always welcome. I didn't have any humorous poems on hand, but didn't think it mattered much, as they look for any subject, any style, short. This rejection arrived with some interesting options that the editor could have checked off in little checkboxes: 1. Good job- see reverse. 2. You don't have a clue about this press. 3. Your submission format is atrocious. 4. Close. Try again with others. 5. See note on back. 6. Visit web page. The ones he checked on my rejection were #5 and #6. On the back, he wrote "There is nothing in this batch you sent that fits our needs." Under the options on the front side, it states they're only looking for humorous poems. Well, it's an odd, if not creative rejection, and only qualifies for 'The Bad' because their market guidelines didn't exactly state what they're really looking for. If ALL they wanted were humor poems, they should have stated so in their PM listing. Either way, no so bad as others.

The Clerically Ill:

Jim Barnes @ The Chariton Review. Never received a response, neither to my submission in the time they stated, nor during the four months after, nor in the two further weeks my NR gave them. So, I rescinded. I Received a response a week after rescinding the poems from this publication. Editor wrote: "I don't have your poems. Blame Truman State or the P.O. Jim B. " Interestingly, this editor's response came from Brigham Young University in Utah. But the rescinsion and earlier submission were sent to Truman State in Missouri. I can only assume Mr. Barnes relocated to Missouri, and the new editor fucked it all up, or , Barnes was still running it, but lost some things in the move. Or else it was the PO or Truman State. Either way, it was a rescinsion. But then... UPDATE 10-25-05: No, apparently it wasn't. Though 10 months had passed, I just today received a basic form rejection of the poems I sent, and rescinded last January. I can only assume the editor lost these poems in the move, then found them later after telling me he didn't have them. Or the school lost them, found them, sent them on 10 months later... or who cares. Some of these poems have already been rejected elsewhere since, and one of them has been accepted for publication in another magazine.

Taste

In the last few months, Painter (he's nearly 8 months in age now) has been developing his tastes for certain foods. We attempted the usual things and found he wasn't entirely interested.

Likes:

Breastmilk

Wheat Bread

Lo Mein

Lettuce

Teriyaki

Lemon

Sopes

Biscotti

Carrot Pieces

Dislikes:

Apple Juice

Oranges

Pudding

Chocolate Milk

Cheese

Banana

Salt

Chocolate

Carrot Puree

And momma's little baby loves shortening bread. Oh, and so many other things... His very favorite seems to be phone-book paper. We're constantly fishing it from his mouth.

Also, his musical taste has begun.

Likes:

Layered Metal

Beat-Boxing

Kazoo

Guitar

Early 808 hip-hop

Dislikes:

The Clarinet

Drums

Country

Keyboard

DMX

It goes on and on. We also have caught him standing by himself, not holding on to anything on several occasions now. I have to go, he's eating the remote.

Work and Wage (Ongoing) part 3

Due to monetary deficiencies and the rising cost of cost, I’ve been looking about for employment. It was decided when Painter was born that one of us would stay home and take care of the baby, as is usual in baby-raising circumstances. Maisy out-earned me by quite a margin, and so my fate was decided. I’d stay home and raise the baby. However, money has become tight and belts have become loose, and the rent is about to kick in, so it’s time to get another income. My wife’s sister came along at just the right time and has me babysitting her kids a few days a week, for extra cash. I watch 7-month-old Painter, a near-two-year-old little girl, a 3-year-old little girl, and after picking him up from kindergarten, a 5-year-old boy. Occasionally, there’s another 8-year-old boy that I watch along with the other kids. Considering that I have virtually no experience with kids at all, this is quite the crash-course. But I’m doing well with it. I consider this radical level of domesticity to be symmetrical to my pre-marriage life, which was radically homeless.

So, I’m also looking out for some part-time night work, hopefully not in the food-service again. As a tribute to my job-seeking, I’ve compiled a list of all my previous jobs you can wade through at your leisure. I’ve formatted it chronologically, or, as chronological as I can remember any of it. Here we go:

Employer: Mountain Man Fruit and Nut Co.
Location: Golden, Colorado
Duties: Delivering candy, nuts, etc... also, dog-washing and hedge-trimming.
Payment: Free candy
Reason for leaving: I was in the 8th grade, working under the table. My parents decided to move to Oregon and I wasn’t yet in the position to counter their decision.

Employer: Register Guard Newspaper
Location: Eugene, Oregon
Duties: Paper route
Payment: 20 bucks total
Reason for leaving: I did this for a week and couldn’t handle waking up at 4:30 a.m., only to have to rush through the delivery so I could make it to school on time. Also, I was falling asleep at school. The job description and payscale was very misleading.

Employer: A huge, unnamed fast-food franchise that may rhyme with Server Ring
Location: North Bend, Oregon
Duties: Making fast food, taking orders, running a register, mopping, etc...
Payment: $4.90 an hour
Reason for leaving: My first job while living on my own. I worked there for 9 months. I was fired for arriving late after I got into a car wreck. It was my first infraction with that employer but they didn’t care. I’d previously gotten a raise and firing me, then rehiring my position at minimum, would save them the wondrous total of .5 cents an hour.

Employer: A mining corporation
Location: Portland, Oregon
Duties: Filing, retrieval, printing and mailing of microfiche schematics
Payment: I don’t even remember.
Reason for leaving: I’d moved to Portland and was staying with my parents again. This place was a temp job that was supposed to last 5 days. At the end of the third day, a strange man I’d never seen before came in and told my I’d sent an A size printout to someone who only wanted H sized printouts (I still don’t understand what he was talking about because, if I remember, there were only 3 sizes for printouts, A, B, and C), and that I didn’t need to come back the next day. Of interest is that, though I was 20 years old, they called my parents and told them about it, which caused a problem when I returned home that day, one that culminated into a yelling bout, and which ended with my father reaching in a pan and throwing hot, pork fried rice at me.

Employer: Another fast food franchise
Location: Coos Bay, Oregon
Duties: None
Payment: None
Reason for leaving: I didn’t actually work for this one. I’m only putting it down because they put me through 5 interviews (I’m not joking, FIVE OF THEM, over a month period) and still didn’t hire me. I just wanted you to know.

Employer: A four star bar and restaurant
Location: Coos Bay, Oregon
Duties: Dishwashing, Prep Cook
Payment: $5.00 an hour
Reason for leaving: I was fired after 5 months. Though I inquired numerous times, I was never told why. There were two things I did while working there that I thought could have been fire-worthy, though I still never learned if those were the reasons. One was that I threatened the cook after he maliciously burned my hands on purpose, and the other was that the bartender would sneak me a drink on occasion.

Employer: An assisted living care facility / hospital
Location: Coos Bay, Oregon
Duties: Care for the elderly. Wiping bottoms, administering medication, mopping.
Payment: $5.50 an hour
Reason for leaving: I worked the non-ambulatory section of the Alzheimer’s ward. I actually did quite well with this. After 9 months of helping people use the bathroom, feeding them, showering them, dressing them, and keeping their living areas as clean as they wanted them, I quit because of a 45-year-old ex-marine nutcase that they’d hired and that I was trying to train for the job. However, after a couple of weeks, He got it into his mind he wanted to fistfight me because I didn’t like Yatzhee!, the game. In the end, while trying to explain to him how to reset a patient alarm after you’ve attended to one, he started randomly calling me names, then came at me swinging. He chased me into the elevator, trying to beat me up, so I hit the down button, exited the first floor, got in my car, and never went back.

Employer: restaurant / brewery
Location: Coos Bay, Oregon
Duties: Dishwasher
Payment: $5.50 an hour
Reason for leaving: I worked at this place for one day and never went back. They’d hired me to be the dishwasher, explaining that their last three dishwashers had quit with virtually no notice, thay they were cursed with bad dishwashers. I assured them I was a good dishwasher. When I began the first and only day, I discovered they had no working sinks. Nor did they have a dishwashing machine. I was confused. They explained that the sinks had been out for over a month, and that what I had to do was this: Heat up this large pot of water on the oven, then go and pour it in a 5 gallon bucket. Do it 3 times, for 3 buckets. Take the buckets into the back parking lot. Carry the dishes out there, too. Wash the dishes, one at a time in the buckets, then carry the dishes inside, dry them, and put them away. There was also no cart. I had to carry the dishes out one at at time. Wash them one at a time. Dry them and put them away, you guessed it, one at a time. It was bullshit. Also, the cooks were difficult to work with and often wouldn’t let me use the oven to heat up the water. And, if one of them dropped a greasy pan in one of the buckets, you were screwed. It took 25 minutes (barring any interference) to fill all three buckets with warm water. The kitchen smelled atrocious and at the end of the shift, they had me climb behind a water heater to find whatever was making the smell. It was a fish. A gift from the last dishwasher. He’d thrown it behind the water heater. I knew why they’d gone through so many dishwashers in such a short time. I went back a few weeks later to pick up my one day’s wage. The owner went off on me. Called me every name he could think of. My response to him is still, to this day, one I’m proud of: “Pay me and then go fuck yourself.” I know he did at least one of those things.

Employer: Another fast food franchise, this one regarding pizza
Location: Coos Bay, Oregon
Duties: Delivery, occasional dishwashing
Payment: I think it was $5.50 an hour + tips.
Reason for leaving: Someone was stealing from the register. The manager (are all food-service managers cruel fat, middle-aged women?) decided it was me. I was fired. Two weeks later, another employee was fired for the same thing. I ran into him. He admitted he was the thief. I went back to try and get my job back, now that the problem was solved. The manager gave me a lecture and said she didn’t think it would work out and that I should join the ARMY or AIR FORCE instead.

Employer: United States Air Force
Location: Lackland AFB, San Antonio, Texas
Duties: Basic Training
Payment: I think they gave me $90 bucks when I left.
Reason for leaving: Failure to Adjust.

Employer: A casino
Location: Coos Bay, Oregon
Duties: Dishwasher
Payment: $5.50 an hour
Reason for leaving: Someone broke into my locker and stole my wallet. Also, the pay was lousy and the job was, itself, far too intense and busy to lose my brain-cells over. I was the sole dishwasher for a BUSY casino, including the bar, restaurant, hotel, snack-bar, and (shuddering)... the all-you-can-eat prime rib buffet Tuesdays, and the fairly common banquets they hosted. Also, concerts with music shows like Lone Star, Jan and Dean, Weird Al Yankovic... In short, too much work for too little pay, and I had two other jobs.

Employer: A couple
Location: Coos Bay, Oregon
Duties: Medical transcription for a home business.
Payment: .3 cents a line.
Reason for leaving: This was one of 3 jobs I had at the same time. I was killing myself with jobs. This one petered out when (I don’t know what they were thinking), they found another job opportunity for me that payed roughly 5 times as much. That job was...

Employer: An orthopaedic surgery center
Location: North Bend, Oregon
Duties: Medical transcription
Payment: $10.51 an hour
Reason for leaving: This was the third job in the before-mentioned situation, and is still the most money I’ve ever made. This was supposed to be a temp job that lasted a few weeks. But the person I was temping for got cancer, I believe, and I was offered the job. I quit the other two and started right in. It was a great job that I was good at. I quit, after 9 months, due to the constant badgering of office biddies. I’m serious... those middle-aged secretaries will drive you mad with constant picking, commenting, and towards the end, hate post-its stuck to your computer. I was the only male there that wasn’t an MD or PA, and I didn’t think the gender difference would matter. But the female office workers thought it did matter. They’d unplug my computer at night, steal keys from my keyboard, take my equipment, nitpick my office, and the gossip was astounding. I was a criminal, or I hadn’t graduated high school and got the job because I knew someone, or I was a womanizer. At one point, there was the rumor that I had an illegitimate child in California that I refused to take care of and I was quite the piece of shit. I quit when I received a hate post-it (one of many) on my car after work one day that read: “You are an eyesore and no one likes you.”

Employer: Telemarketing center
Location: Olympia, Washington
Duties: Telemarketer
Payment: Whatever the minimum wage was up there.
Reason for leaving: It was telemarketing. I worked there for 3 months. I was good at it. It made me sick. I was ripping-off trusting old ladies. I wanted to shoot myself.

Employer: German Deli
Location: North Bend, Oregon
Duties: Dishwasher
Payment: $7 per hour
Reason for leaving: I worked for a nice Deutch man, Horst, for two years, washing his restaurant / deli dishes. It was only 2 hours a day, sometimes 1, but fairly steady and we liked one another. I met my wife during those 2 years. I left when the relationship (becoming a marriage) necessitated a larger income than my $14 dollars a day.

Employer: A call center
Location: North Bend, Oregon
Duties: Technical Support, Microsoft Network
Payment: $7.40 per hour
Reason for leaving: This was the first full-time job I’d had in a while. I was hired on to do tech support for MSN, through this oddball company that changed names often. Most of the people in my town have worked there at some point for a week or two. This was one of the shittiest jobs I ever had. The job, itself, is great. The pay isn’t terrible (for this town), the job is intriguing, and the general duties are plausible. The problem is how this place was run when I worked there. It was like ‘Office Space’, if you’ve ever seen that movie, except much, much worse. Most of the managers (there were billions of them, and it often seemed like you had more bosses than coworkers) were McDonald’s rejects on power trips, though they made the same wage you did. Most of your job was clouded in the long, spurious bouts of shit-taking from managers, and the constant, nonsensical meddling of THEIR managers. It went on and on. Several of my friends came down with stress-induced disorders and illnesses while working there. One couldn’t stop vomiting, one got ‘stress-eye’ and had to stop working there on doctor’s orders, etc... there was a new memo each day listing new rules that employees would now follow. One day, they’d make a new dress code alienating most of their workforce and making anyone with a tattoo or piercing cover it with a band-aid, the next day, a new protocol system for filing complaints about the dress code, the day after that, a notice that the emloyee smoking section would be shrinking from 12 square feet to 10 square feet, and that everyone better stay away from the edge of the smoking section so that no one would step into the sand accidentally and track it into the workplace (Oh, this call center was built on a dune). I quit when my wife and I decided we were moving to Montana, after our wedding.

Employer: German Deli
Location: North Bend, Oregon
Duties: Cook, dishwasher
Payment: $10 per hour
Reason for leaving: After quitting Cyberrep and the trip to Montana proved awful, I returned to my job at the German Deli, though this time, he hired me on as a cook. I should add that I was the sole employee. It was me and the owner. That was it. So I cooked German food for about 3 more years. The longest I’d ever held a job, and the only one to surpass the 9 month mark. This was the best job I had. I wish I was able to work there even now. I didn’t leave this job. He decided to retire and close up shop.

Employer: A mom-and-pop sandwich shop
Location: Coos Bay, Oregon
Duties: Sandwich artist
Payment: Up to $7.50 per hour
Reason for leaving: I worked this job alongside the German Deli. This job started out great. The owners liked me, gave me raises, and the work was not difficult. I actually liked it. The problem came when they went on a rather long vacation. When they returned, they were mean. To everyone. Me. The other workers. Their kid that worked there. Everyone. They started acting really snobby and bragging about all their money and whatnot. It just got annoying. This guy actually said to me, regarding his rather freuqent habit of giving bad references to some rather good ex-employees: “Hey, if you think you can do better than my shop, you’re welcome to do it. Just don’t expect any help from me.” I quit after 9 months to raise Painter. I’m sure I’ll have a bad reference from him. Everyone does.

Well that’s it. I think I forgot a few. Want to hire me? I’m thinking of becoming a job counselor.

Kidding. I’ll be stuck with food-service forever. Though for the moment, babysitting and and being a homebody is working out well.

Home and Hearth (Ongoing) Part 4

We've finally finished the nursery. The blocks are up around the ceiling (as trim) and the windows are now installed, painted, bordered, whatnot. I'll post an image as soon as I get my camera working again. The problems with cameras never ends with me. But, the nursery is very pleasant now and Painter is quite satisfied.

I caught him dancing away last monday. System of a Down was playing and he just went nuts. He even head-banged a bit, until he struck his face on the coffee-table and began crying. I have it on video. If my son ever becomes a rock star, I'll force him to use a frame of this as his album cover, out of fun, and also it would give me a means of encroaching on his rock career, even slightly.

We've had our share of spills recently. Each of them usually involves the panic cry. The panic cry is awful. Horrible. It ranks second in the all-time worst sounds I've ever heard, first place going to old vacuum cleaners moving under your legs when a grandparent has you lift them. Painter leaped from the couch and landed on his face. Painter pulled a cabinet down onto himself (even I didn't suspect he was strong enough to do this). Painter picked up a wooden ABC block and socked himself in the eye with it. Painter stood up and fell (this is so common that there's little I can do about it). He cries for a moment, then moves on. I wonder if this general disposition will carry over into his later life. You know, a girl he's really into dumps him and he feels miserable for like, an hour, then moves on. Or, a skydiving accident leaves him in a coma, but he's only out for half a day, then wakes up, puts in his prosthetic limbs, and moves on. Or a crappy network puts on another dead-end, unfunny sitcom, and Painter catches a moment of it, turns the channel, and without complaint or critique, moves on.

I'm moving through this new children's project well, and am about half-way through it's completion. Am already at work researching for my upcoming January 2006 campaign.

Had a toothache yesterday, wanted to die. Today, I'm fine. Toothaches are probably the shittiest, aggravating, fall-down-and-weep pain I've ever experienced. I had Maisy take a picture of my mouth during the toothache. Here it is:

I suppose that's what I get for drinking sugary coffee all day and smoking.

On a lighter note, I recently received an email from an editor at a magazine I never submitted to, asking if I'd let him use some poems he read of mine in another magazine. This is the first unsolicited acceptance (or contact, really) that I've received. I hope there's more of it. It's much easier than bundling up a few poems with a cover letter, typing up addresses and information, and then walking down to the post office and back with the baby.

Pen and Page (ongoing) part 4

I've been in a bit of a slump of late. September is a big month for magazines. A vast portion of them begin reading and usually end their reading period in November or December, though many go through to April or March. I've been waiting on quite a few submissions to magazines I like, but haven't heard much.

My slump did end today, technically, via a nice acceptance of one of my poems at Aesthetica, out of York, England. Should be out in October 2005.

I recently finished up another collection I'd been working on and I started a new children's project. A collection of strange little tales and poems I think kids would like. At least my kid, because I'll force him so I don't feel like a failure... kidding, nobody call Child Services, okay?

The Gallant Flea, from my last children's collection.

Home and Hearth (ongoing) part 3

I said I was going to post this image of the new house some time ago, but I just neglected to do it because I am slovenly and didn't care to bother finding my digital camera's charger. I might add that my underwear was also missing, but luckily we found it all in the same box (I don't know what form of packing we were up to) after a few months. So, I uploaded some pictures, changed my underwear, and here you go:

I keep the bodies and pornography in the attic, but all the related tools under the floorboards.

The inside isn't quite as... eh, finished-looking. Also, I finally managed to sort through our material debris and began the makeshift music room. To commemorate this pointless endeavor, my brother badgered me into posing for this shot:

Though the left-hand pinky was Photoshopped in.

It's art because its black and white. Note the hairline. And with those eyebrows, I look like one of those boisterous, angry eagles from the Muppet Show. I like how obvious it is that I'm playing absolutely nothing with my left hand. This image should go into a FOX TV file for some upcoming 'When Dumbasses Attack' special. Also, you'll notice, is my pet project arcade machine I've been working on for some time now, just behind me in the BG. I've held onto this machine longer than any of my past relationships. I got pissed because the original game wouldn't function and so turned the unit into a DVD player, then got bored looking down at it, and constructed an Atari box out of it. Couple dozen classic games. If I get bored with it again (probable), I'll wire it into a freezer or some other useless thing, so long as it's gadgety, proving that I am a man with tools that can maintain long relationships. Also receding hairline.

Parenthood (Ongoing) part 7

Dear god... 24 hours later and it's all he does. Standing at the couch. Standing at a chair. Standing at a wobbly sit-in toy. Standing up against the front door and refusing to move so I can't get in. Standing at a box. Standing at a table.

STANDINGSTANDING falls and strikes his head then gets up and STANDINGSTANDINGSTANDING.

Now we're worried because everyone says he's too young to be standing, but shit, it's not like we put him in braces to make him stand. He's doing it. And we certainly can't stop it. I want to spit at people telling you your kid is headed for trouble because of something good he's learned. Don't let him stand so young or he'll grow up and look like this:

A complete stranger was cooing at Painter today at a local coffee shop and came over for small talk. A baby person, you know. After a short while (when I'd run out of things to say that might satisfy her so she'd wander off), I mentioned the standing thing and her response was an undue gasp followed by: "He's standing?! No, no, my Bobby didn't stand up like that until he was 11 months. It's bad for them, honey. You can't have him standing up yet." Baby people.

Eh, she's just jealous because my kid can stand on her kid's ass. What's the big deal, anyway? He does it. It's time. He knows better than I do. And it's not as if there's an Olympic relay standing team for him to look forward to.

So, I listened to this lady describe scoliosis and rickets and whatnot, just sitting there. Painter grew slowly grumpy and was tired, but fighting it. Eventually, I tired of tuning most of her out and told her I had things to do, but thanks for visiting with my reproductive triumph.

Come over, say hello, play with the baby, but don't dog the poor boy. He just won't stand for it.

Parenthood (Ongoing) part 6

Well, she had all these odd antics to get the baby to smile but none of it seemed to be functional. Mostly, they were sudden noises of an agitating and spurious nature that Painter just stared at, baffled. Maisy and I took over and he was fine. We know the good noises, not the odd Wal*Mart noises this lady made. There are only two places in town to get baby pictures done. The other is a studio that will take your home to pay for a single image. So, Wal*Mart it was.

The last time we did this, there was another girl working the picture center, or whatever they call it. She was stranger and had stranger noises, and she had this sleazy boyfriend guy that sat in the back of the picture area and kept giving my brother and I the shit-eyes. I don’t know what his problem was. He just sat there clocking us like he wanted to kill us. I thought maybe it was all in my head until my brother turned to me and said, “Okay, what’s with the little whitey gangster guy over there and why is he trying to pick a fight with us?” It was the standard, A-typical lazy-tweaker-who-leeches-off-his-fat-girlfriend-and-throws-wannabe-gangster-tantrums-and-shows-up-at-her-work-to-act-it-up-yet-is-still-somehow-too-dumb-to-realize-his-lifestyle-is-dependant-on-her-job-that-he’s-going-to-get-her-fired-from. Weeks later, my brother was in Wal*Mart again and saw him holding her by the arm roughly and muttering to her while she tried to type at the photo center keyboard crying. God I hate Wal*Mart. An old woman once called me the Antichrist in a Wal*Mart because I had a visible tattoo. Also, Wal*Mart tends to have more fat asses per aisle than its competitors.

So, we got some more pictures taken. Painter was great. It was a new lady without a schmeely bastard watching over her and ruining her job. I paid around $12 for a CD with the images on it, as an extra, thinking I could have some fun with them on my computer, maybe post one at my site. Unfortunately, it wasn’t until I got home that I realised the CD they gave me for $12 was actually only a diskette and the images on it were very low-resolution (take a look at my son’s hand in the shot at the end of this post). $12 is a rip-off. On a different note, Painter not only learned to crawl, and fast, this last month, but I caught him yesterday standing up in his crib. I wasn’t expecting that at 6 months, but he seems to expect it, so there he is, standing up, looking at me as if he’s gotten away with something. I dig being a dad more than just about anything. Shit, any man that doesn’t like raising his kid is a fucking idiot. This just rules.

Painter Succre, 6 months, looking an awful lot like his dad at 6 months

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The Good, The Bad, and the Clerically Ill (ongoing) Part 3

To revamp: The Good represents a rejection in a more positive or unique mode. The Bad indicates a response that was either negative or annoying. The Clerically Ill represents a rejection/irresponse based on clerical error or a response that is simply confusing and/or a mess in general. So, this new round goes to...


The Good:

Robert Lane @ Malleable Jangle. This was very simple and up-front. I like a simple response. Brevity is useful to me. Just about everything I’ve sent to Australia gets a response quickly, and with no overexplanation, sales gimmicks, guilty pandering. It should be the country motto in all the travel commercials: Come to Australia. No Bullshit.

The Bad:

Joel Chace @ 5_Trope. Received a not-so-prompt email from editor stating the magazine has a large backlog and wouldn't be accepting for some time. Personally, I feel they should have stated that on their guidelines/submissions webpage, instead of prompting you to send your work in. They have added that their response time might be sluggish, but not that they’re currently not accepting. It would save time for submitters as well as the magazine if it were posted. I should add that, though 5_Trope made this round’s Bad rank, it’s a unique and exceptional magazine with a keen online layout. Also, I don’t use the word keen often.

The Clerically Ill:

John Barton @ Malahat Review. This was a response to a rescinsion notice I sent. They responded by sending me this agonizing email about how it's a poet's responsibility to ensure there is proper postage for the SAE and that I needed to send postage when submitting. They stated I hadn’t sent a SAE at all. Also, they kept my poems for 6 months and then destroyed them, as is their policy. They also stated in a that I must send IRCs when submitting to another country and then something along the lines of: [you can’t use] American stamps, as Canada is a separate country from the U.S.” That was a little annoying. No shit? Is that why the border patrol asks all those stiff questions when you enter the country? Because it’s a country? They sent me a newsletter some time ago IN MY SAE. And what, I wonder, would have a publication in this circumstance keep someone's poems for 6 months anway? In the odd hope that the author may begin badgering them so they can let him/her know why the magazine hasn’t responded? Isn't that a bit like sending someone a party invitation, only to find out they’re pissed at you for not calling to make sure they got it, months after the party? Besides, they had my email address the whole time. I include it when I submit.

Editors: It might be a good idea to come up with a minimal form-response for this kind of situation, so you can easily cut-paste-send to a submitter if there’s a problem or mix-up.


Well, that’s the drill this time.

Come to the Circus!

I woke up and it was a beautiful day. I felt great. I'd had this nightmare about being attacked by a large dog (bigger than me) that was trying to drag me off my porch and kept going for my throat while I screamed for Maisy to get a knife... but I felt great when I woke up.

Maisy asked if I wanted to go to the circus, and since I hadn’t been to a circus since the age of 7, I agreed. We normally don't get circuses and whatnot in our small town. It sounded of interest, at least. We had to babysit our nephew (5) and niece (3), and so decided we'd take them, too. Kids love circuses, right? What fun! The popcorn, exotic animals, clowns, the ringmaster... what fun... Maybe we’ll get a souvenir!

When the Brazilian clown, Condo Rico, came and got me, I thought I was being kicked out of the circus for using a camera with a flash on it while the elephants were doing their thing. It might spook the elephants. I had taken the picture after the ringmaster or ringleader or whatever, made this quite loud order that no one use flash photography. It was an accident. Maisy thrust the camera in my face and said, "OOOOOH! Elephants! Get a picture get a picture get a-" I snapped the picture and the flash went off. So, immediately, there was this clown staring at me down at the bottom of the stands. He waved me over. I didn't want to go. He waved angrily. I gave Maisy the camera, sighed, and went to meet with the clown, who I was certain was going to tell me off and make me feel stupid for being told off by a clown. Instead, he told me to follow him. I did, and he eventually led me away from the crowd (I was fairly sure I was being kicked out at this point) and into a bullpen. There were all these circus roadies from Mexico and Brazil, Honduras... I think some were drunk. They looked at me with twisted smiles and a few chuckles.

Oh shit, they’re not kicking me out of the circus at all... they’re going to beat the shit out of me... And they brought a clown...

I think I could have taken the acrobat down easy, maybe the fatass elephant trainer (a couple in the kidneys and he’d go down like a wet sack of shit), but the clown... there’s no way I could take that fucking clown. He looked like about 50 years of serial murders and pit-fights. The clown then said, "I tell you 3 times! 1, 2, 3, you jerk!" I was a jerk? Fuck him. He's a clown. In the end, there was no fight, they just chained me to a board while all the roadies spoke in spanish and, I think laotian as well. They were lauging. I was getting pissed. It occured to me now that I was going to have to be in the circus. Great. Just what I always wanted. They tied a black bag around my head. Then they led me into the center ring, did this big intro, made fun of me, and finally, with the black bag over my head, tied to the board (this is what it's like when you're caught by terrorists in Iraq), the clown shouted 1, 2, and 3. It occured to me that's what he meant earlier. I wasn't a jerk (that he knew of), I was SUPPOSED TO JERK away from the KNIFE. Of course, with the black bag on my head, I had no idea where he was going to throw it. Then, I heard him grunt and I jerked a little in a few half-inch directions.

The clown drunkenly threw knives at my face and genitals until everyone got their laugh and the circus roadies carried me off. Then I was able to join the crowd again. My wife thought it had been all planned out, as if I’d met the clown earlier in the day and volunteered to have knives thrown at my face and genitals, but I hadn’t. It was random and I was really pissed off.

Though, it would have been a great way to go. Ray Succre, writer killed last weekend at the circus when, shackled to a board with chainlink and his head covered with a black velvet bag, a homemade 8” steel knife plunged into his head after being hurled by a drunken Brazilian clown.

Under circuswatch.com, they’ve got around 90 infractions, including some rather severe ones. For instance, two chimpanzees dragged their trainer up into the crowd and then mauled a child. Uh, a tiger burned to death after catching fire from jumping through a flaming hoop. Also, the electrocution of their elephants as a disciplinary treatment got them quite a few fines and whatnot. Eh, also some fierce clowns that were arrested many times for various crimes you’d expect from a Manson family member.

I couldn't find a picture of Condo Rico, so I made my own:


I went to bed and had nightmares about the clown. I felt grotesque. He was worse than the dog.

Fuck the circus.