YIP!*: Submedia.Tv

The news can be pretty depressing these days. I always find it goes down easier when delivered by an anarchist who likes to swear a lot.

*Yips are good things.

Why Americans Like To Vote For Rich Jerks

"Americans don't see the rich as their enemies; they see them as their future selves."*

*Found in an old notebook of mine (maybe I even said it, but I doubt it) and as applicable in 2012 as in 1995.

Blog Love Omega Glee 2012 Countdown Calendar!

Well, 2012, the year my novel Blog Love Omega Glee is set in will soon be here, which means a perfect opportunity for reading it is also here. Each chapter of the novel is set on a different day in 2012, so this will be the one time ever that a reader can read along day by day during the same year in which the novel is set. So if anyone out there is looking for a New Year's resolution, then please make it to read B.L.O.G. in 2012! But, whatever you end up doing, I hope you have a Happy New Year!

A Tale Of Two Giftcards

I received two giftcards for Christmas and decided to knock them out today before I forgot about them. I went to J.C. Penney and checked out, and the cashier said "Do you have one of the coupons?" I said, "No, what coupon?" She said, "I'll find one for you," and took $10 off the price. I thanked her and then bought some more stuff with the remainder on the giftcard.

Then I went to Kohl's. I didn't see anything that I particularly liked, so I just picked up a Barnes & Noble giftcard for the same amount and tried to check out (I had done this a couple of years ago), but the cashier and the assistant manager said the system wouldn't take the transaction because it wasn't for "merchandise". Call me old-fashioned, but if you're selling a product in your store, it's "merchandise." I left without buying anything. I guess one should beware of Kohl's gift cards. One never knows when they'll slap a "can only be redeemed for pants on the third Thursday of May" into the giftcard fine print either.

Guess which store I'll continue to shop at?

Have A Cool Yule!

Where's Ginsberg?

Q: What's worse? A big corporate publisher demanding outrageous licensing fees to publish a poem it controls or going ahead and publishing an anthology that purports to be of 20th century American poetry but doesn't include work by Allen Ginsberg (or Sylvia Plath, or Lorine Niedecker, and so forth) anyway?

A: Going ahead and publishing an anthology that purports to be of 20th century American poetry but doesn't include work by Allen Ginsberg (or Sylvia Plath, or Lorine Niedecker, and so forth) anyway.

What I Did On My Summer Vacation In Hell

My zine pal from Canada, Justin Chatwin, occasionally takes time out from running for parliament to run a cool blog called Message All. Recently, he asked me if I had any writing to share, and I dug around in the archives and found an unpublished short story. I had originally written it in 2001, but then September 11th happened and the world changed . . . er . . . maybe not. Actually I'm not sure how the little story ended up an orphan or why it wasn't published before. There's a good chance someone asked me for a story for their zine or something and then as often happens the zine never got published and by that point I had forgotten about the story. I stumbled across it a couple of years ago and liked it. Readers of The Pornographic Flabbergasted Emus will recognize the plot of the story since it covers events also referenced in the novel. That's likely why the story never appeared before. It was written prior to the novel, but since the story covered similar events and the novel was published in 2002 in zine form, I shelved the story. It stands on its own though, which is why I offered it to Justin. I'm happy to see it finally be published. It's been waiting, enduring a decade of hibernation in my computer. When the story was initially posted on MessageAll, there were a couple of typos (the title was missing "Vacation" and the last line "hell"), but I expect Justin will take care of them. If you've noticed the weather getting nippy, then warm up with "What I Did On My Summer Vacation In Hell"!