Poem: November

A once grand pumpkin

Rots on a stump two doors down

Each day less remains

This orphan haiku is from 2008.  It's older than the pumpkin picture which is only from 2009.  Yeah, I know it's spring, but the dang poem already waited almost 12 years already.  Sorry, poem!  More recent writing by me can be found here.

What Wred's Reading: Fanzines: The DIY Revolution by Teal Triggs

I get cited in this book, so, of course, I like it.  This is yet another reread since all the bookstores and libraries are still closed (there's always mail order, but my ebook reading is currently satisfying my appetite for new material, so for print, it's been the rereading that I was planning on doing anyway).  This book is mainly an exhibit of zine covers.  For that alone, it's a fun read.  It also has chapters that discuss the history of zines.  They tend to be U.K.centric, which makes sense since that's where Triggs lives.  It came out ten years after the mainstream zine book boom, and seeing as those books didn't sell well, I doubt this did either, so it might end up being the last mass market book on zines.  Some scholars will no doubt write about zines in the future, but that'll be probably about it, as the heyday of zines has passed.  This book clearly was intended for the coffeetable, and it does indeed look great.  At one point, it probably was on my coffeetable.  From what I gather online from reviews, it looks like many readers were upset at Triggs because there were no articles reprinted from zines, except incidentally in the photos, but that's not what the book is.  People were also mad that she didn't ask for permissions before taking pictures of the zines, but it's basically someone taking pictures of their zine collection, so it falls into the fair use doctrine of copyrighted materials in the USA at least.  Triggs is a graphic design professor, so it makes sense that she is more interested in the visual aesthetics of zines than the actual content.  So, if you take this book as what it is and not as what it is not, you'll like it.  It's like having a zine collection in one handy package.  For old zinesters, it's definitely a trip down Memory Lane.  There are quite a few zines in here that I read.

If you want to read the content of a zine, then check out my novel, The Pornographic Flabbergasted Emus, which was originally published as a zine.

Poem: The Empress Needs A Day Off

Tarot Card Empress has stars in her hair
Strawberries on gown, world at her feet.
Behind her is summer:  sun, trees, stream, wheat.
Scepter is up though as if to beware.

She sits on her heart, and her worries beat.
Ruling is no gentle ride on a mare.
Serene pillows prop her back, and her stare
Takes you in, as you wonder why you meet.

If you could reach her, you would brush her hair,
Shake out those stars, they give off too much heat.
Not yet winter, so why so bittersweet?
Fall beckons, and over may be the fair,

A throne is not a comfortable seat,
Life is hard to read, harder to repair,
Still, toss the crown, run through wheat without care,
And find stars in the sky, the night a treat.

I found this old poem (2011?) in a folder.  I checked, and it had never been published anywhere, so I'm posting it here.  If you want more of my writing, then check out my latest novel here!  A reader just told me today that it made her laugh out loud regularly.  Yes, it's a comedy, so that's a good thing . . .

I Thought The Primary Was When Candidates Were Endorsed?

The primary election in Ohio was extended.

Don't get me started on that.

OK, I will get started on that.  I was supposed to work as a pollworker, you know doing my democratic duty and getting a bit of dosh.  It's a brutal day.  I work from 6 in the morning until 8 at night or something.  Plus I have to set up the night before and go to a training session a week before.  As if that isn't bad enough, this year, the governor was panicking about COVID-19 and decided at the last minute to cancel the election.  So the day before the election was this back and forth as public officials figured out what they were going to do.  Keep in mind, I have to go to bed early, so I can get up in the middle of the night to get ready to work the polls.  At first, it seemed a done deal the election was going to be postponed.  I was told by the Board Of Elections that the evening setup was canceled.  Then, I saw on the tv news that a judge had struck down the governor's order.  At that point, I headed to bed.  I was brushing my teeth, when the Board Of Elections called to say I had to report at 5 a.m. now, even earlier than usual (presumably because we still had to set things up).  I think I woke up somewhere between 3 and 4 a.m., got ready, and headed over to the polling place.

Of course, no one was there.  At that point, I remembered that the robocall from the Board said something about calling them in the morning.  So I called, and, of course, found out that the politicians had figured out some other way of postponing the election (they declared in-person voting to be a public health threat or something).

Great!  I wish they had told me that before I had to set my alarm for the wee hours of the morning.  No one is even entirely sure this is all legal, but one can't turn back time, so now they decided the election will be held by absentee ballot only, which sucks because Ohio has this goofy system of voter registration to prevent basically nonexistent voter fraud (well, it exists in the minds of Republican politicians who would never get elected anywhere if most people voted, but that's not the same thing as reality).  I had to request a ballot, filling out a form asking for my ID, and then buy a stamp to mail it.  Then, I get the ballot (fortunately, the return is postagepaid) and I have to again fill in my ID information.  Why do I need to fill in the same info twice?  Just put it on the ballot bit if one is worried about that.  That would suffice to guard against the almost nonexistent voter fraud.  Clearly, the system is designed to frustrate people enough that they won't vote, and though I am not a fan of encouraging stupid people to vote (generally, they vote stupidly), neither am I a fan of making voting extra-difficult just to be a creep.

Anyway, enough digression, so I receive this postcard in the mail today because the election is being extended.  The postcard tries to tell me which Democrats to vote for (currently, I am a registered Democrat because it is basically one-party rule where I live locally, so if I want more of a say in local elections I need to officially be a Democrat--some of the local Democrats are about as creepy though as most of the state and national Republicans are).

Pardon me, I thought the primary election was what endorsed Democrats.  I don't know what this thing is, other than party bosses trying to steer wins to favored candidates.  I'll try to contact the state party who sent it out though and see what they say, just to be fair.  If they respond, I'll post about this again.

Since I seem to be channeling the ghost of Andy Rooney anyway here and complaining, I might as well note the absurdity of taxpayers paying for partisan primary elections in the first place.  I suppose the argument would be that this guarantees fair elections, but the parties are essentially private institutions.  On this ballot, there was only one issue, which could have waited until the general election.  It looks more like the parties conspired together to pass on the costs of their primary elections to the general public, who should only be concerned that the general election is fair; let the parties figure out their internal dynamics on their own dime.

The other creepy thing on this card is how many races are uncontested.  Now, of course, there will be candidates from other parties in the general election for these positions, but it's still sad that such a lack of choice exists in a democracy.  I have written about this before and concluded that it was not a good idea.  In any case, it goes a long way to explain why our officials make such dumb decisions and waste so much tax money.

I would humbly suggest that the Ohio Democratic Party stop this practice of trying to sway the primary voters and just let the primary voters decide whom to endorse, but I suspect that's a waste of time (though I have time to waste , so I may do it anyway).  After all, this is a state party that regularly gets their clocks cleaned by neaderthallike Republican candidates, so that it's basically one party rule statewide, so clearly this is a group that makes dumb decisions to begin with.

But there's always hope.

Right?

For some other folks who make questionable decisions, please read my latest novel.

What Wred's Reading: The Best Of Impetus

I have been rereading some old books lately, not only because all the libraries are closed, but also because I am getting older and do not want to move as much stuff as I did during my last move.  It has been a fun trip down the proverbial Memory Lane.  This book I picked up at Cat's Impetuous Books, probably the coolest bookstore I have ever been to.  It was a small store located in an alley in Kent, Ohio USA, and the proprietor, Cheryl Townsend, stocked the coolest stuff, from zines to classic literature.  She even had a store cat named Bukowski.  This book was her collection of the first ten years of her underground poetry zine Impetus.  It has a lot of cool poets in it including Charles Bukowski, Ron Androla, Sherman Alexie, Lyn Lifshin, Pat McKinnon, Kurt Nimmo, Hal Sirowitz, and Alfred Vitale.  It doesn't have any poetry from Cheryl herself, which is too bad because her stuff was really good also, but I suppose she felt that editing the zine/book was enough.

One really cool aspect of the bookstore was that she held a lot of readings there, so I was able to hear many of these poets read in person.  They were, in general, a wild bunch.  Many are deceased now or quite old (some were middle-aged then, and the book came out a quarter century ago).  American literature seems a lot tamer since these folks passed through.  Unfortunately, the bookstore is long gone as well.  The city of Kent and Kent State University were hellbent on turning the entire city into an outdoor shopping mall (you know, one of those fake towns that pretend to be the real downtowns the big box stores killed off), and the building was torn down to build a hotel or something else that wouldn't survive without heavy tax subsidies.  Frankly, Kent is creepy to walk around in now, like some sort of zombie town that replaced the real town ("Oh, there's a Speedway where the punk bands used to live.  Oh, look it's Starbucks now instead of Brady's Cafe, so I can pay twice as much for a coffee."), but I suppose the students still find some ways to have fun.

Anyway, in this book, the 1980s/1990s underground American poetry scene still lives, so that's some solace for those of us who can't afford to buy a condo where the Mantis Art Gallery was.

Also, you can get a feel for that era in this novel of mine.

New Thirsty Bear & Hungry Snake Comic: Coronavirus Edition!

For this The Thirsty Bear And The Hungry Snake comic, I have returned to the photos.  As you can tell from the comic, the Snake apparently doesn't follow the news much these days.  With luck, COVID-19 will soon be a memory along the lines of the Y2K Bug and SARS and this comic won't make as much sense as it does now.  To make each panel bigger, please click on it.

For more hilarity (though fewer bears and snakes), read my latest novel!