jello jigglers

Someone give me a topic for a prose poem. I'll make you feel special. I'll submit it to your lit mag. Doesn't everybody who reads this have one of those?

I need to get back into it, maaan.

Getting antsy. Haven't worked on anything new (except that story for my bro's birthday) in a month or so.

Withdrawal symptoms.

Have done a lot a lot a lot of editing during this time. Dragons with Cancer, the new Bust, my novel.

I want to write one prose poem a day. I don't want a substantial project.

I need to write an essay. So I'm going to do it on Steve Erickson. Have been rereading his books. Taking lots lots lots of notes. Feels like it's been keeping me from writing. I'll make the time.

I was trying to fall asleep, but I stopped trying to fall asleep so I could write this post.

i hope everybody who works for paypal pisses lava until they die from pissing lava

The current issue of Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens is on sale for a limited time. Get it HERE.

I also have two copies left of issue 6.

I also have no idea why my status of having eighty-one verified sales never goes up regardless of how many people buy an issue.

I DO NOT NEED SOMEONE TO SEND ME A ONE PAGE STORY

UPDATE: The story has been chosen.

angry dwarfs

I'm going to put the current issue of Bust on sale soon. It will be the "I am moving across the country and can only bring what I can fit into a suitcase" sale.

I started using twitter: twitter.com/bradley_sands

I signed up a while ago, but couldn't figure out its purpose.

I have figured out its purpose.

I am enjoying it. More than blogger, I think.

Andersen Prunty is serializing a novel online: thebeardnovel.blogspot.com

I like it so far.

I don't like reading novels online. He's one of the only people whose novel I will read online. Him and Noah Cicero. I will only read Ohio writers online. This is my new rule.

I just registered for my summer classes. It filled me with happiness.

I've been looking through my old college essays. I need to use one for a writing sample so I can apply for a job at my school's writing center.

This is a good part of an essay about Tarkovsky's Solaris:

And what are we to take from that fact that Sartorius’s "visitor" is an angry dwarf. The "visitors" are supposed to be some part of the men’s subconscious. So is this dwarf somebody who was important to Sartorius or is he merely a representation for his personality. It would make sense - Sartorius is cold, scientific, emotionless, and calculating. The dwarf can represent that he is angry, and his growth has been stilted emotionally.

I am a big fan of angry dwarfs in films. This reminded me of the film that has been a personal favorite of mine - "The Angry Dwarf." I think that the dwarf should have been given far more screen time.

I don't think I will be using this essay (and the movie is actually called "The Sinful Dwarf")

I might use an essay that I wrote about a few Fassbinder movies. But it is twenty pages long and I need to make it five to seven. This probably won't be too difficult. The beginning embarrasses me:

You might be asked as you walk down the street some day, “Just exactly what is postmodernism, you intellectual bastard?” To that, you may be pretentious and quote Fredric Jameson by saying that post-modernism is “a neutral practice of such mimicry, without any of parody’s ulterior motives, devoid of...any conviction that alongside the abnormal tongue you have momentarily borrowed, some healthy linguistic normality still exists (Shaviro, 7). Or you could reply as the Zen master would to their student, with perhaps including with it a quick jab to the head with a stick, “Just what is is?,” For post-modernism cannot be defined in simple terms - it is a reflection of our way of life. It cannot be defined in words because according to postmodernism, words are meaningless and empty. All that we can do with words is seize and distort them, for they never had any original meaning, only what we chose to bestow upon them.

Maybe I'll just have to write something new. I haven't written a critical essay in eight years. Maybe I'll write one on the novels of Steve Erickson.

submissions call for poetry

I belong to a useless social networking site. I get a couple of messages a month through it that usually say something like "You seem interesting" or "How are you?" When this happens, I either ignore it, thank them, or if I'm in the mood, write something funny and ridiculous. They never write back when I write something funny and ridiculous. Most of the profiles on the site consist of a picture and a sentence. Usually something inane.

A couple of days ago, I received this message from a sixty-year-old unemployed, bipolar prison guard with high cholesterol (his age seems to have dropped to forty-nine since the last time google's webcrawling spider hit his profile):

... and yet despite all your efforts you still remain tedious

I love getting stuff like this (and I'm not being sarcastic when I say that). I love it when anonymous strangers insult me for no apparent reason. And it happens so infrequently that it feels like an early birthday present. Threats of physical violence are even better. But unfortunately, this did not happen.

I wondered if he called me "tedious" because of what I wrote in my profile:

My interests include absurdism, surrealism, bizarro fiction, condensed writing, comics, cleverness, off-color humor, finger monsters, and napping.

I wrote a novel called IT CAME FROM BELOW THE BELT and I edit a journal called BUST DOWN THE DOOR AND EAT ALL THE CHICKENS.

www.bradleysands.com
www.absurdistjournal.com

I guess my list of interests is a little too "precious."

Since the social networking network is utterly useless, it didn't save what I wrote back to him. But I will try to remember:

Anonymous insults on the internet are funny. Good job.

He responds:

I can't remember which commentof yours I am replying to ... but... you are a prime time poseur!

In England we call your sort 'Tossers'.

This confused me because I've never written a comment on this social networking website (it has music and books discussion).

I also loved getting called a poseur because it reminded me of sixth grade, where it was a popular word among bullies and didn't seem to have a meaning besides being an alternative to the word, "dork."

While reading my new friend's latest message, I imagined the main character from Gasper Noe's I Stand Alone, sitting nude in a dark room. The room is empty, except for a computer, desk, and office chair that he is sitting in. The glare from the computer monitor revealing that he's pumping an erect penis with one hand and typing furiously (and poorly) with the other. The glare from the computer monitor shows his enormous belly puffing up and down. The glare from the computer monitor shows that his face is red, his teeth clenched in rage. He types another insult and strokes himself some more. He is also wearing a funny glasses/mustache disguise that makes him look like Groucho Marx since that's the picture he uses for his profile.

I respond with something like:

I like being called a poseur. What exactly am I trying to be? Someone who comments on this website since I've never actually done it before? In America we call your sort anonymous men who insult strangers so they can feel better about creeping closer to death. I am glad that I have been able to help you feel better.

Then I was looking forward to learning what I was trying to be. If I disagreed with his assessment, I was going to tell him that he was incorrect. That I have always wanted to be an amoeba. And that I had just added 'the person who sneaks up behind you and pops a balloon in next to your ear' to the list.

But unfortunately, he did not tell me what I wanted to know. He replied:

"Creeping closer to death."

Maybe you could write an epic pome about it?

Since I'm pretty sure he was soliciting an epic poem from me rather than a type of fruit produced by flowering plants in the subfamily Maloideae of the family Rosaceae and the error was due to furious masturbation, I responded:

I hate writing poetry, but maybe one of my poet friends wants to write a poem about an old man who insults strangers on the internet to make himself feel better about his imminent death. I will get back to you.

I think he overdid it a little bit by asking for an epic poem, but does anyone want to write a significantly shorter poem about an old man who insults strangers on the internet to make himself feel better about his imminent death?

He is now accepting submissions in the comments section of his blog: http://mooney1959.blogspot.com.

It's also a good place to visit if you're having trouble sleeping.

Update: He has accepted poems by Jess Gulbranson and Brandi Wells. Congratulations!

Maybe I will write a prose poem. I like writing prose poems.

camaraderie

I like it a lot when a black guy calls me a nigga. I wish it happened more often.

I think maybe I should start actually using twitter to express things like this. I have an account, but I never use it.

debris

Elizabeth O'Hara is this blog's #1 fan.

I do not know where Ryan Call's cookies are.

I want to start wearing sweaters and penny loafers rather than ten year old moth-eaten t-shirts and jeans. It will be funny.

I found a place to live in Boulder for the summer. I feel relieved. Now I need a place to live for the rest of the year and the next year and some of the next year.

I want someone to chase me through the kitchen of a five star restaurant.

Attack the wack.