Things

El Senor called me up today while I was with Jyg. I talked to him for a bit, but he wanted to ask me if I heard about John Updike. When I replied yes, he laughed. I didn’t understand what was so funny about the writer’s passing. I suppose he didn’t like him or there must’ve been something else that was tickling him. I pressed. “Well,” he said, “Dr. Williamson…” I already knew this was gold.

Dr. Eric Miles Williamson is possibly one of the best writers at Panam at the present moment. I’ve never taken a class with him, but I’ve known people who have. Their opinions of him range from completely negative to completely negative with a positive aspect. Let me explain the latter. In college, you grow accustom to two types of professors, am I right? You have the means ones who push all this work on you, make it impossible to pass the class, [insert your generic negative stereotype here], and then you have the easy ones who, no matter how much you mess you, you can still expect at least a B. However, the great professors are both. The way Dr. Williamson comes off those that I know who’ve taken him, is that he’s a touch professor, but he cares. Life isn’t easy and Williamson isn’t either – or so I’ve been told (notice how I stress this because I know somewhere out there, there’s some punk looking up this man’s name to find something that will say “He’s evil, rotten, mean. Made me want to cry all semester long,” and he’ll find this blog and say “Aha! I’m not taking him,” but by all means, one should take professors like him: it’s for your own good). He’s going to give you a challenge.

I also happened to read his novel Two-Up, which I reviewed (sorta, but not really) on Good Reads. It’s a great book, but I won’t get into that because, as you have noticed, I’ve completely went off the track with my original topic.

Anyway. I was talking to El when he told me about the John Updike incident. “Well, Dr. Williamson wrote a review about John Updike. He said how he hoped Updike would die already – this was a few weeks before it happened – and go to heaven (I think he said heaven, but could’ve meant hell) and when he got there the only books he would have to read would be the ones he wrote so that he could die of boredom.” Harsh, but funny.

I miss school.

Rabbit’s final run

I just read on Yahoo that John Updike has passed away at the age of 76. For those of us in the English world, we know the importance of John Updike. For those outside, you may know him for his mountain of books that were at some point in life thrust into your world. Either way, the world has lost a prolific writer, a void that can never be filled. May he find himself in the Barnes & Noble in the sky.

Replacement Host

more about “Saturday Night Live – Wayne’s World -…“, posted with vodpod

Barry: [ gets up ] Yeah. Okay, what I do is make sure everyone’s got their gear on, and I cue their guitars, and I bring ‘em out onstage.. [ demos ] ..and I start the mikes and make the sure the scarves are always in the right place.. and then, the most important thing – I gotta do a sound check. [ pulls the mike forward ] “Check. Check. Check 1. Sibilance. Sibilance. Check. Check. Check 2. Sibilance. Sibilance.” And that’s pretty much what I do.

Amado called me two hours before the poetry reading to tell me he couldn’t make it. No big deal, he has a family emergency and the guy knows his priorities and I kudos a guy who knows that. Fine, I’m going to host, only I don’t know what the hell I’m going to talk about because I didn’t plan to host yesterday so therefore my topics are limited to only the current events in my life which sums up to my surgery. It’s very not pretty.

On the way there, I realize this is the first poetry reading I host that has a mic. Awesome. Now that I have mic I don’t have to talk too loud because it’ll do it for me. But as Jyg and I are in the car, I remember the Wayne’s World skit where Tom Hanks is a road for Aerosmith and I want nothing more than to do the mic test he does. Only, I can’t recall the fucking skit to save my life. I keep trying to remember the stupid word and know it starts with a ’s’ and has an ‘ance’  at the end, but couldn’t remember. Missed opportunity. Sigh.

We arrived early, as instructed by Amado and the doors are closed. Apparently no one phoned them to say that I’m now the host. But the Library’s overbooked with evens. In the Texas area, the teen manga group is meeting and there’s another course going on with yarn work. One of the ladies who works at the library asks if the poetry that will be read tonight will be friendly for six teenage girls. I grimace and say it all depends on the poet because we vary, though we normally do warn when we think the material is too adult in nature for some teens. It all depends on their parents, though, in this case, the parents won’t be around. Fine, whatever, I don’t care. I gave her my warning.

So there’s no other room to host this yarn work class, so they box us with the movable walls and they box themselves into the corner. We get to keep the food though. Somewhere along the way, a whole group of the yarn class kids comes in – there are more than six – into our section to listen, eat and work on their stuff. One of them reads, not bad by the way, her poetry.

While I did enjoy the reading, I was a little annoyed with the sudden change of plans that the library had by shoving two groups into the same room. From my understanding, we had the room since October and suddenly we have to share it. Very unprofessional on the library staff to do such a thing, but whatever. We still had a good time and we still enjoyed the reading.

Fever, Abscess, El Senor, Weekend & Books

All most of last week and the week before was a rollercoaster of fever. While 100.9F isn’t much of a threat, when you’re post op (a term, apparently not just used for transsexuals), it can mean there is something seriously wrong with you. The doctor told me most people who go through appendicitis normally form an abscess after surgery. Crap, that means I have to go back to the hospital to get that drained. He gave me a paper which said I needed to get a CT scan – he ordered one from whichever place I go to, is basically what it said – but then told me that if I hit 101 degree fever to just go the emergency room so I don’t have to pay up front. Fine. I had my plan, go during the weekend as to not inconvenience anyone. That plan fell through when the fevers left me as quickly as they came. Now I’m completely normal.

Friday, I almost stayed in but Jyg didn’t go out with her friends after all, so we went to JCPenny’s to search for the elusive sunglasses. JcPenny’s, however, doesn’t have any sunglasses so that trip proved fruitless. After walking towards other stores, I started to feel weak, so we went back to the car. We wound up at Hastings afterward because at least I get to rest there. While there, I found a used copy of Francine Prose’s Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them. Penniless that I am, Jyg purchased the book for me as a gift. We came back home afterward and I started to feel really sleepy. After a while, Jyg went home and I fell asleep.

Saturday was pretty much eventless. I just sat around, catching up on my reading because I have yet to finish The Silmarillion. Sunday, on the other hand, gave me something to do. El Senor, after having his operation done Friday, decided that he needed to get out of his home and hang out with someone who wasn’t related to him – this meant me and we would go to Cuppy’s Coffee for yet another session of our talking out loud and bothering other costumers who are sitting there with their laptops, purposely looking as if they’re writing the next great American novel. We talked books. We talked sugeries. We talked about what we’re writing – me, a short story/novella and him, his thesis. Afterwards, we went over to CompUSA because he has become the victim of his children – they lost two of his USB drives. He saw some he liked, but vowed to buy them in the morning because he only brought enough money for the coffee.

After that, I learned that he has moved from La Villa to Edinburg. This guy’s now more in walking distance than before. After offering me to tag along on a family road trip – which I passed because I couldn’t fathom the idea of being anywhere near his daughter who suggested that I looked forty the last time we talked – we go to his place. He has some reading material that he bought for me during the summer, a book by Paul Ruffin, Islands, Women, and God. I also manage to borrow The Chicago Manual of Style and swiped Two-Up by Eric Miles Williamson, a professor at UTPA. We go to Juniors to pay a bill he had and then he dropped me off.

One thing that I failed to mention is that he also offered me a job. Not with his business, which is manual labor and while I’m all up for it, my body isn’t. Instead a friend of his is looking for people with Bachelors to teach courses to the community. My job offer? To help others find jobs. I swear, that saying is true: Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach. It’ll be a bilingual class, but at least I’ll have a translator because my on the spot Spanish sucks ass.

Read like a writer

My first creative writing professor, René Saldaña, Jr, constantly told us – his wonderful students – to read like writers. What this meant, at the time, I didn’t know know. I suppose in many ways I’m still attempting to read a book, short story, poem, essays and blogs like a writer and I still rarely succeed. The fault was not of his own because he explained it greatly and constantly told us to read the stories assigned to us not like readers, but like writers.

I’ve had many chats with Dr. Saldaña after class and took a creative writing workshop with him the summer that followed. That is where I met Richard Yañez, a writer from El Paso. Anyway, back to my subject – I’ve had many chats Dr. Saldaña about the writing. While he did have his say about my work, his style never seeped into it. I suppose in most cases, every creative writing professor, lecturer, teacher, instructor and student tends to enforce their writing style into the works of their students and peers:

I often make these remarks to a beginning poetry-writing class.
You’ll never be a poet until you realize that everything I say today and this quarter is wrong. It may be right for me, but it is wrong for you. Every moment, I am, without wanting or trying to, telling you to write like me. But I hope you learn to write like you. (from The Triggering Town: Lectures and Essays on Poetry and Writing by Richard Hugo)

And while I learned all that I could from Saldaña during spring semester and early summer – the writing institute/workshop is only five days long and embodies three daily meetings that run about three hours each – I still didn’t grasp his reading like a writer concept. Two years before I even had a seat in Saldaña’s classroom, however, a nifty little book came out that I would later acquire for free in a box left out by professors cleaning their shelves in order to make room for a new shipment of books (yes, college professors, I know you’re dirty little secret – we all do!). The book discusses a wide range of metaphors, similies, allusions, etc. in literature that only college professors only seem to grasp – you know, because they’re well read and all. However, reading like a professor was far from reading like a writer, wasn’t it?

A literature professor is mapping out a pathway of what the writer of a text has read, what he was trying to say, what he wanted the reader to take from it, what he wanted a reader to recognize and all that jazz. I started to piece together the concept of reading like a writer – something that I started to do back at that fateful spring of 2005 which mapped out the path that would eventually lead me to this keyboard, typing out this concept (or at least, what I believe the concept is) in first draft, which goes against everything Saldaña, Jose Skinner, Richard Yañez and Emmy Perez have taught me (let’s face it, however, this blog is about thoughts and my thoughts cannot be revised unless I plan to sell them, but my thoughts, as of now, are free).

What I  figured out as a writer – I’ll use this term quite loosely because a lot of people tend to use it without merit and I don’t want to be one of them – is that reading like one is fucking horrible. Not that it’s not a good idea to read it like a writer, because if you are one, then you have to do it, but to really enjoy a book, I have to shut off everything Perez,  Yañez, Skinner and Saldaña, as well as, the countless literature professors have taught me. It just ruins the book. And maybe I’m a maverick in the English department when I say this, but whatever, I graduated and that’s all right with me. I just want to make clear, that I don’t disagree.

When I find myself reading like a writer, I have to really just sit there, reading the same sentence, phrase, paragraph, page, chapter more than once until I truly see what the writer was thinking and why he decided to use such and such in his work. There was this one short story that I read in that creative writing in spring of 2005 entitled “Do Not Disturb,” written by A.M. Homes – which, if memory serves me right, turned out to be a female writer rather than the assumed male writer a certain college professor thought she was.

It’s never been on strong point to describe people, which, I suppose, makes me a bad writer, which is okay because I never said I was any good – those who like my writing said that. In her story, A.M. Homes wrote:

The nurse comes to take blood. “They called Barry Manilow—he’s a very good surgeon.” She ties off my wife’s arm. “We call him Barry Manilow becuase he looks like Barry Manilow.”

When Saldaña asked the class what they thought as writers about the story, a lot of people started listing things off their fingers. While I read the story, I didn’t read it like I should’ve, I suppose because when he asked me, I simply said, “I don’t like Barry Manilow.”

This, by the way, left people in shock and I believe one woman asked, “What do you have against Barry Manilow?” which was probably followed by my answer, “Because he sucks.” But there. As a writer I would never ever compare any my characters to any real life celebrity. I don’t know why. I just won’t.

Art Expressions reading, take three

And I swear
That I dont have a gun
No I dont have a gun
No I dont have a gun

Ronnie was the host last night, taking over Lady Mariposa’s spot, who took over another girl’s spot. Hmm, I wonder if we’re rotating. Doesn’t matter, it doesn’t bother me if I will one day be asked to host a night. I have an idea for a poetry reading already, a sort of “Other People’s Poems” night where three or four people will read “Howl” with different interpretations (split up, not a repeated reading). El Senor vanished, sticking with Ol’ Biker instead. Because there was only three poets and one guest reader, meant that we were going to have a small cycle. Instead of a night poetry, we read a few pieces and talked the rest of the night about writing, politics, movies, actors, sex…sex.

Jyg and Bel attended the reading with me. In fact, they were the only two who weren’t writers or hosts of the place. Lady Mariposa’s quite the interesting person, of course I don’t believe it is necessary that everyone take a feminist class, but that’s just my opinion. Not that I’m anti-woman, but the term feminist has been bastardized by a group of women who don’t want equality, but to be the new man, per se.

I read my piece “Overheard Conversation at a Bar” and another poem that dealt with border wall situation.

I wanted to stay all night, alas that is not the case. We were hungry and we needed food in our bellies. We were invited by one of Jyg’s new friends to go to another place, but I didn’t want to go. Not that I hate the guy and how they met, but I just don’t like him. He’s a numbers guy. First day I met him, he just said his IQ number as if it meant anything to me. Not to mention the compliment/insult of saying that I didn’t read my own material. Let’s face it, when someone insists that I’m reading someone else’s shit, I take it to heart, unless, of course, I am reading someone else’s piece, which I normally introduce it at the beginning.

And on the subject of Jyg, another of her friends has fallen into the world of drugs. Shitty drugs and by the way Jyg described it, they don’t know what they’re doing taking these drugs. Ghetto drugs always make me laugh. There’s better, but more costly, drugs out there. And I’m not categorizing Cannabis as a ghetto drug because of stereotype, but this drug they’re doing, well there’s no coming back from it. I don’t care for the guy. He’s the bane of my existence. Even though things have changed, a part of me is still vengeful towards those who have tainted her. In away, the fact that he’s fucking up his life pleases me. I know, it’s bad to find joy in another’s misfortune and that it makes me just as bad as him, but fuck it. I never said I was a good person.

I have my own philosophy about drugs. Just as I have my own philosphy about sex, border patrol, and whatever. It may not be accepting, but it’s me.

Take your time
Hurry up
The choice is yours
Don’t be late
Take a rest
As a friend

Another Tuesday @ Art Expressions

The Art District is what they call the location in McAllen, TX where the staggering poets of the Nueva Onda are seeking shelter. And what a home we have found within the walls of Art Expressions. Our second week there, El Senor and I feel at home. However, Dr. Anne Estevis suggests we stick to Edinburg when it comes to our events. Fair enough, but I’m all over the opportunity at hosting something at Art Expressions.

At this reading, however, I did something I never do. I read straight from my journal as an introduction to my pieces that I read, which were “Evidence” and “Cuidandote.” The pieces were written last year for my “chapbook” which Emmy had us turn in at the end of the year. They’re probably the best pieces I have which is why lately I’ve been reading nothing but those found within the chapbook.

A few musicians showed up and all was great. I felt like such a whore because I came home with phone numbers and other mediums of contact. Most of which were from men, so that makes me a gay whore, right?

Bemused by the thoughts in your head

It seems idiots come in all shapes and sizes and have blogs. Celebrities don’t care about you so you can drop names, they won’t give two shits if you bash them or praise them because at the end of the day, they’re famous and you’re not.

I don’t talk about celebrity a lot, however, that’s because I’m a sensible human being. I don’t care if someone from TV, radio, film and the works (whatever mediums there are) because they eat, breathe and shit just like me. Most celebrity I come across of are writers, not authors, but writers. Most of you can’t tell the difference. Here’s a dumbed down meaning: Authors are people like Stephen King, Anne Rice, Nicholas Sparks, Jodi Picoult and the like – they are known by everyone and they are praised by all because they write books and release them like diarrhea. Writers, on the other hand, are people like Sherman Alexie, (poet) Ted Kooser, Irvine Welsh, Dagoberto Gilb and the like. They aren’t well known by the mass media because they aren’t giving us the books that will be turned into movies in a six months.

However, the other day, my mother and I were at a Chinese restaurant where I saw someone who could have been Valente Rodriguez from that “Latino” show named after the “comedian” George Lopez. Now, El Senor has told me about Valente in the past and how he was when he was growing up. In a small town like Elsa, word gets out when someone gets famous. It took him a while because the dude came out in the movie Blood In Blood Out or Bound by Honor, but it wasn’t until he signed on to the George Lopez show that he got famous around here. Just like Gloria Anzaldua, but not really, because if you drop her name down here, no one knows who the fuck you’re talking about, as I’m sure a lot of you are scratching your heads. I will provide no link.

Now it was told to me by El that Valente was down in the Valley working with author David Rice (oh yeah, I went there). They’re working on a movie based in the Valley circling the lives of these boys. Now, I’m not down for the whole family film (which is how this sounds like), but whatever, tell the story. That’s what authors/writers do, right? Tell a story? What I don’t like is that I’m sure, like his stories, David Rice will try to sugarcoat it and create the perfect Mexican. There is no such thing, Rice. I’m not going to say I’m a self-hating “Mexican” because I’m not. I just don’t like it when someone who says we should divorce the drug dealing/violent/lazy and what not description of a Mexican contributes to a book that makes us look like superstitious morons who still believe in el Cu Cuy.

Okay, I got off topic, back to Valente. We were sitting there when I looked up to see this man at a table full of people talking. He was even greeted a few other people in the place. Now, I wasn’t going to get up and snoop around because I could care less, however, curiosity is a quirk of mine because as a writer, I need to know stuff. So do I snoop or do I stay? I opt for staying because it’s not that important to me. Again, because here is a man who “made it” and now he’s back in his home community, and not even being paid to be there, just because he wants to be home. This is his home. The valley is his home. He doesn’t have obligations to get up in the morning, nor do any other celebrity out there. They don’t us a goddamn thing whether or not you paid them to appear because when all the cards are down, if you didn’t get it in writing, they you dont’ have shit to discuss.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is who celebrities think they are. People without obligations to the rest of us.

Reading @ Art Expressions

Lady Mariposa convinced me to join her at Art Expressions last night for the poetry reading. While I had my doubts because this is the same person who brought us the ever failing Art Awakenings, I conceded and decided to support my friends and read a few of the things I’ve been working on since last semester. And as always, my crew – and I love saying that by the way – consisted of Jyg and El Senor (because we like these sort of things and we love these people so much).

Before the show started, El said that he has ten days off and would love to go road tripping again with the both of us. Apparently, we make a great team. I hinted towards the beach because I feel the sounds of waves would calm me. And as with all my complications going on in my head, I think another trip to the beach will sooth my aching skull.

I read a few things, plus the not-so-finished and far-from-being-ready rough rough draft of my America essay (a sample of which was posted a few days ago). I called it my divorced letter to my country. Whether or not people liked it is beyond me. I just wanted to read something about the good ol’ US of A before the Fourth – it’s just my way of giving this country that has loved me so much a nice middle finger while subliminally shouting UP YOURS, ASSHOLE!

“in our hearts we knew better” (Nine Inch Nails)

Say your name.
Try to speak as clearly as you can.
You know everything gets written down.
Nod your head.
Just in case they could be watching.
With their shiny satellite.

And this is just a piece of what I’ve been working on for sometime now and hope that at least a readable rough draft will be done by Tuesday, otherwise I’m fucked:

Let this poem anger you. Let it piss you off to the point you would rather me be dead than to write it. Let a bomb like god drop down upon us and wipe the slate clean. America, there is a song in my head. A song, America, that tiny children are taught:

My country, ’tis of thee,
Sweet land of liberty,
[tabbed] Of thee I sing;
Land where my fathers died
Land of the pilgrim’s pride,
From every mountain side
[tabbed] Let freedom ring.

Let freedom ring, America.

I’m still working on it and for those of you who don’t remember my 2006 Ginsberg-esque poems, “America,” and “Complete & Utter Bullshit,” then you might not understand what I hope to achieve with this piece, which is more of a lyrical essay (or at least will be sooner or later) than an actual poem. I’m doing something different with this piece, however. I’m adding in quotes from other popular pieces including Emma Lazarus’ “The New Colossus:”

Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearing to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

And a quote from the Nine Inch Nails song, “Zero Sum:”

Shame on us doom from the start, may god have mercy on our dirty little hearts.

I’m crafting what I have already from the two aforementioned poems and adding in a few theatrical stunts – two that I’m thinking of is burning a small flag and ripping out pages from the Bible and mimic wiping my ass with the pages. I will do my very best to rile the listeners with this piece and hope to only perform it once and never have to think of it again.