9/30! Going Cronenberg! Going Scott!

Give me an Existenz afterlife, so I can plug, unplug eternally.

That squirming, spirting tentacle, all ooze and grit and
eventually just wanting to be put down. Of course we want
masks here, of course.

I saw a TV show where people got their make up done,
piercings shrined and implants to look like cats, or dragons,
or the devil. They called it extreme, I call it trying too hard when

all anyone needs to do for assassination
is program a GPS in question into oncoming traffic
like that episode of The Office

we all laughed at for being
unrealistic.

Give me a car crash orgasm, so I can sync with explosions.

Somewhere between the caveman and the
robot porn, there is
a caveman jerking off to robot porn.

I'm no expert on these things,
vast expanse of flesh,
and plugs, and re-routes.

Laying on my collapsed futon
late night, falling asleep to sirens,
waking up to jackhammers,
reading a friends panicked e-mail about
more
bill boards
more drones

I'm too entrenched in Blade Runner's LA; it was a lot of things,
but never boring.

2013: A recap full of recaps.

Having just spent the last forty reviewing what I wrote, and wrote about in 2013, one thing that stuck out at me is how many of the substantive posts were dealing with endings. The end of 2012, the end of the Greenwood Lit Crawl, the end of my tenure as host of Works in Progress.
There were other endings I didn't post about with as much depth; the end of my tenure at North Seattle Community College, after nearly four years of tutoring. Spending 3 hours daily on rickety buses for 5 hour shifts at a wage that hadn't raised in almost a decade had become untenable, especially paired with subsequent 8 hour shifts behind a bar.
My Grandma, who taught me to love poetry at the age of 10 years old, passed last Christmas, but it was January when the services were, when we could all get together to acknowledge loss. This was a thing I tried to keep private, but that loss definitely cast its net into 2013's waters.
I also moved. For the second time in my life, and the first time as a non-student, I live alone. It's a studio apartment, but it has its own bathroom, kitchen space, plenty of natural light, a view of the smith tower that makes me feel pretty writerly late at night. this is a beginning, but it's also an end (for the time being, at least) of me living in the South End. I've lived in the South End for the last three years, since moving back to Seattle Proper, and in a sense, its become part of my identity. Not that I never left it; contrarily, it was long trips on the 7 that helped solidify my self-identification as a South-ender. Meghan K says that technically I am still a Southender, as my address has a S in it, and I'm past Yesler. . . but I'm not in the Rainier Valley, I'm on the edge of downtown. With Rachel's recent move to Capitol District (where the CD and cap hill meet and no one knows what to call it!) that leaves my job at the best bar in the RV as my only tangible connection to the 98118.

I also noticed how text heavy my posts were this year. So here's this little bit of Pop Culture that also ended in 2013:

If you didn't watch that show, I recommend it; especially if you like romantic comedies in which a jimmy-stewart-esque every man triumphs over corruption, vice, and every day hurdles through a simple purity of spirit.

I wanted to write a proper recap-- month by month, or achievement by achievement, even failure by failure. But I feel like there's been too much recapping and looking back already. The high notes have been harped on and the low notes have been struck. I'm in a different place, physically, literarily, geographically, and emotionally. And I won't be surprised if I'll be able to say the same thing next year.

2013: Internet Stats

in 2013, I posted 58 times on this blogspot. This is down by five from 2012, when I posted 63 times, and down by 18 from 2011, when I posted 86 times on this blog. 2011, so far, is the record for posts-per-year since I started writing here (instead of Livejournal(!)) in late 2007, when blogging still seemed an artistic and expressive form instead of being Crucial to Maximizing and Maintaining a Strong Internet Presence.
The most read post this year was my Next Big Thing Interview in February, right before the release of FJGTPL. The second most read was when I wrote about the end of the Greenwood Lit Crawl, which makes me happy, since it was a piece of communication I put some work and thought into, and is perhaps my favorite of the informational blog posts from this year.
The month with the greatest number of posts (nearly a third of them from 2013) is April, due to NaPoWriMo. I still mine that repository of near-finished poems and half ideas for inspiration or pet rocks worth polishing.
Most of the traffic came from instances where I posted a link to this blog on Facebook, though some reroutes from SPLAB and Wonder And Risk came a close second.
I make no promises about whether this year will continue a downward trend in posting habits, or will reverse it. But this is the information as it stands. Deduce what you will about my life from it.

Filthy Jerry and the Infomotional Video

the kickstarter to get Babel/Salvage off the ground has already reached it's goal, but as is often wisdom with such things, B/S were lowballing it. A bit more cash and money can be put away for works by forthcoming authors ( a few of which I know are in the pipeline, but those aren't mine to announce) and things like bus tickets for touring and whatnot. Get to kickstarting over here.

The last readings wherein the "2012" piece will be relevant:

Occurring:
November 1st. 7pm, $5. Bellingham, Wa.
Grown-Ass Poets Society @ the Green Frog Tavern
w/ Shane Guthrie.

November 18th. 4pm, free. Seattle, Wa.
Babel/Salvage Showcase @ Hollow Earth Radio.
w/Bryan Edenfield, Terra Leigh Bell, Evan J. Peterson.

December 5th. 7pm, free. Duvall, Wa
Duvall Poetry Night @ The Match Coffee and Wine Bar.
w/Open Mic.

In addition, I will be performing two Christmas-related shows, one dark, one light, but neither will contain the 2012 poem, which is probably the best thing I wrote in 2012. Natch. Or at least the most beloved-in-performance. Hopes are to have the new chapbook, Filthy Jerry's Guide to Parking Lots, available by the 5th of December, if not the 18th of November. Progress on that has been thundering along nicely.

It would be great to see you-- the nebulous, churning, "you"-- at any or all of these readings, if you can make it. The 18th will also be podcasted via the talents and generosity of the fine folks at Hollow Earth Radio. On the 1st I'll be previewing some of the new book, but also giving rousing performances of some of the Swansea Morning Coming Down pieces that, well, I won't be retiring, per say, but will definitely be going away for a while. Three years is a long time to have one (somewhat) hastily assembled chapbook as a calling card, and these poems have served me well. I'll try to do the same in stomping, shouting style at the Green Frog.

All Things Curved, Cartoonish

the saxophone's slow slope,

the drummer's snare taps, gathering gradually

the guitar player slides into place for a full fifty seconds

before a shift the players
just

nail, just

barely.

i do not know jazz enough to tell you

if this is good or bad, but can say there is something

(i'm sorry) phallic about the saxophone, if not literally, holistically

(what a weird looking dick) in pieces, mabye, like three or

four (quite large) dicks taped together,or less literally, 

just something SPIRITUALLY phallic

and I'm reminded of a carlos santana interview
where he stroked an acoustic guitar slowly, with two
fingers, back and forth, as he talked about the

sensuality of the music, the shape of the instrument

like a beautiful woman

without a head.

i do not know if the guitar player likes santana. that

is probably beside the point, what i do know is

it is too light

outside

and the shades

aren't drawn

and it will be three hours

until it feels like a jazz club

and sweet potato fries

dipped in ranch

and a laptop

belie the potential of this place

for nostalgic poetry, completely

displaced from the overdoses

of yesteryear's jazz

but I do know

that the servers are neither sexy 

nor grizzled enough, in their loose

buttondowns. They are, mind you, sexy and grizzled enough

for real life, or most bars, but they aren't SAXOPHONE SEXY,

where all the women become fluid cartoons, in 

teetering proportions and official classy sex uniforms

from a deliciously repressed era,

all the men, cowled and coiffed and quick with a line

and probably good at the saxophone

and there is no one in here like that

except for this one couple, at a table,

with ranch and potato chips

and with a diet like that,

you know they aren't here for the music.

Grammaticality aside

All Things Gets Paid

will probably be the title of my next chapbook, and it will probably happen soon. A couple pieces to pair down, shape up, narrativize, but we go forward with this.

all things return to a saturday off.

one day in a puddle.

a craftsman home.

a couple, slowly walking through a yard sale, picking up items,
setting them back.

two cars, perpetually rounding the block in search of parking.

a toddler running, juice in hand, eyes crazed, toward the street.

two days off, three.

a bean-counter, white beans, black beans, pinto.

half-a-sandwich long walk to the bar. you must stand outside, chewing, before you can enter.

there would be umbrellas in any other city.

a patio with metal chairs.

a pork chop.

another reblog!

from friends at babel salvage.

if you've read the piece before, you haven't read it in such good layout.