I wanted to be someone other than the humorless mother who had drug-tested him since he got caught with marijuana in eighth grade. After missing the signs of his pot smoking, and those of my former husband’s cocaine addiction years ago, my vow never to be duped again… The Facebook invitations stated in capital letters, “No drugs, no alcohol.” I hired security guards to search bags and patrol the grounds. I posted “no smoking” signs and photos comparing pink, healthy lungs with blackened, petrified lungs. I placed a few car-crash pictures on tables to highlight the fallacy of invincibility… Then, two uniformed police officers rang my doorbell. Within seconds, teenagers started streaming out the side gate. One officer led me by the arm into the empty backyard while the other opened the pool-house door. A cloud of marijuana smoke billowed out and kids, like cockroaches… Why? Because I got this party started… c) I will never, ever, host another party for teenagers again.
—
(Source: The New York Times)
A Black Flag Kid Wrote a Book of Poems
By now you’ve probably heard about the Black Flag reunion that everyone is creaming themselves over. Unfortunately, as of right now it looks like they’re only playing three shows, so you’ll probably miss it, then tell everyone how bad you wanted to go and what bullshit it is that you couldn’t get tickets, before eventually just carrying on with your life. But there’s this other Flag-related thing happening too. A truly interesting new publishing venture called Sorry House has surfaced and their first book is one of poetry (gay) from the strangely intriguing internet ghost Mira Gonzalez. I was going to make the headline for this article “Black Flag Offspring Does Poetry” because I thought she was Chuck Dukowski’s actual spawn, but it turns out he’s her stepfather, which is still fun.
The title of Mira’s book is I will never be beautiful enough to make us beautiful together. But I’m not so sure about that. Have you ever seen yourself, Mira? I have a feeling a lot of boners with your name on them are out there. Hell, I’ve even got a small internet crush on you, and I’m a goddamn faggot who sucks fat guy dick and eats fat guy ass ON THE REG.
Maybe I’m overselling you. I should stop.
Tomorrow night Mira will be celebrating the launch of her new book with a reading at Housing Works bookstore in New York. In addition to Mira, Victor “Kool A.D.” Vazquez (the Das Racist guy), Melissa Broder (the Queen), Willis Plummer (he is too young to write as well as he does), Spencer Madsen (taking on despair toe to toe), Marshall Mallicoat (don’t know her/him, but like his/her tweets), and myself (the worst) will be reading as well. There will be drinks.
I asked Mira some questions about some things.
VICE: Who is your dad?
Mira: My daddy is a Mexican-Jewish businessman who I think is trying to kill me. My stepdad is Chuck Dukowski of Black Flag.
Not sure about the ages of the parties involved, but I’m assuming you were born after the Black Flag years?
I am 20; Black Flag is before my time. My mom and Chuck got married when I was a baby, and I’ve lived with both of them my whole life. I was always aware that he was in a band, but I didn’t really understand how important that band was until high school when I met people who liked Black Flag.
Since I was young I have always heard Black Flag songs around the house, so it was difficult for me to get any distance from the music. As I grew older I understood the songs more and began to enjoy the music independently. I think Black Flag influenced my writing a lot, as well as my taste in music.
Chuck now plays in a band called The Chuck Dukowski SEXTET. Chuck plays bass, my mom sings, my brother plays guitar, and our family friend plays drums. They play a cover of the Black Flag song “My War” at the end of their set. It’s fun to hear my mom scream “fuck you!” at the audience. My brother is also a contortionist and bends himself in half while playing guitar during their set.
A lot of your poems’ titles sound like tweets. Were they?
I can only think of one title that was originally a tweet (the title is “McSweeney’s Caused Global Warming”). Sometimes I write a tweet and save it because it would work better as a poem title, and other times I write a poem title and tweet it instead.
Usually titles are just recycled images from their poems, but I wanted to use titles as a place for actual content, instead of just pointing to what’s inside (it seems pointless to title a poem about bluebirds “Bluebird,” for example).
I view both Twitter and writing as a way to identify with people. If someone reads my Twitter feed and doesn’t immediately think I’m a massive shit head, then I probably want to be friends with that person. If someone reads my Twitter feed and does think that I’m a massive shit head, then I probably want to have sex with that person.
It feels really good when I think Rick Ross should sit on my face right now, then post it on Twitter and receive affirmation that I’m right.
Continue
Verbal Paintings of Cartoon Dogs Sexting - An Interview with Patricia Lockwood (Plus an Excerpt From Balloon Pop Outlaw Black, Which You Should Buy)
Patricia Lockwood has a brain seemingly designed to blow up Twitter. Her feed is full of cartoon tween j/o bait and hyper-fantasy sexy stuff like “I am a living male turtleneck. You are an art teacher in winter. You put your whole head through me,” and “I go up to heaven and open God’s Bible. It contains only a single sext: ‘Im hard.’” From the same brain now erupts her first book, Balloon Pop Outlaw Black, which is covered in nude Popeye dogs walking calmly in a blue horde. The book is equally rigorous and insane, squashing deep into the squishy curves of the unconscious, where all that childhood cartoon sound and whale-sized dreams of death are housed. It invokes something nameless about why we try to create things, how those things we create feel about us, and the bizarre architectures in between.
Here’s some more about Patricia:
Blake: Favorite cartoon/show as a child?
Patricia: GUMMI BEARS, which I watch to this day. What you have to do is get the reddest juice you can find and put it in a salad cruet and then GULP IT at the exact moment the Gummi Bears drink the Gummiberry juice and then you get a great feeling like you have done something exactly right for once in your life.
Favorite cartoon/show now?
DuckTails, because even though I do not like money I want to touch millions of a thing at once and be touched by millions of a thing at once and only Scrooge McDuck in his little bathing suit seems to need that as much as I do.
What did you want to be when you grew up?
Always a writer. Though at one point I got the idea that that was impractical and decided to be “a voice actor” instead, which lasted until I realized what a truly terrible saxophone I had for a voice.
What is your favorite part of anatomy?
Cowlicks are the most textual to me.
What is your favorite planet?
Trick question? The moon, idiot.
What position do you sleep in?
Completely facedown like I’m trying to sink into the center of the Earth.
Song you remember for a particular reason?
“Knees Up Mother Brown,” by Raffi. What’s going on? Is Mother Brown a prostitute? I just have no idea.
Do you like candy?
I do NOT like candy and the people who eat it deserve their sticky nasty hands. And I hate them.
Jordan Castro asked if I wanted to go on a four-day reading tour with him, Mallory Whitten, Scott McClanahan, Sam Pink, and Mike Bushnell. I said I did. A reading tour is like a music tour but with writers who know each other from the internet instead of musicians who know each other from bands. I asked everyone to live blog the tour so I could compile our accounts into something at the end. Jordan, Mallory, and Scott emailed me their live-blogs (Jordan’s entire live blog, Mallory’s entire live blog, my entire live blog). Here is what we wrote.
Thursday, September 27, 2012: Columbus, Ohio
Feel very confused about why we stopped at loft apartment of Jordan and Mallory’s friend Andy. Wandered around apartment complimenting things until Mallory drove Sam and I to a pizza place where Mike Bushnell was waiting. Returned to Andy’s with Mike. Jordan said one of us had left a door open and Andy’s cat ran away.
-Megan, 7:21PM
Text from Mom: You sound like you are high or drunk or something. Please don’t be stupid.
-Jordan, 7:43PM
Smoked three hits of marijuana from a device that looked like a grocery bag, more hits from a bowl passed around table.
-Megan, 8:02PM
Nauseous. Nodding out a bit. Reading doesn’t start until 11 PM. Incredibly tired. Can’t decide whether I should take more Adderall, drink a Red Bull, or take more Adderall and drink a Red Bull.
-Jordan, 9:37PM
Jordan just asked if I was liveblogging. Someone fed me more Adderall. Extremely affected by marijuana and Suboxone maybe.
-Megan, 9:41PM
I didn’t understand something.
-Megan, 9:52PM
These walls look 39 years old.
-Megan, 10:24PM
Megan seems more and more deaf as she smokes weed, completely misunderstanding multiple sentences, seems funny.
-Mallory, 10:27PM
I just went into the wrong building looking for the reading. The security guy started walking towards me and shouted into his walkie-talkie: “Intruder in the building. Intruder in the building.”
-Scott, 10:30PM
Needed something to be repeated several times before I understood. Standing next to Mallory while Jordan’s band plays. Sam is behind us and looks wet/feverish.
-Megan, 11:15PM
Despite amount of Xanax I ate, felt very nervous about Sam sweating a lot from drugs.
-Mallory, 11:41PM
Guy is belligerently playing jazz drums alone in room where Jordan’s band played.
-Megan, 11:43PM
Person in charge of reading said audience was getting impatient. Feel like I can’t stand up.
-Megan, 11:58PM
Friday, September 28, 2012: Columbus, Ohio to Louisville, Kentucky
Woke up to Scott drinking Busch Light sitting at a table with Sam and Mike who were not drinking Busch Light.
-Mallory, 11:04AM
Ate 15mg DXM in backseat on the way to Louisville. Jangled pill bottle between Mallory and Jordan and said “Drug refills? Anyone? Xanax?”
-Megan, 3:18PM
I like weird ass hippies
And men with hairy backs
And small green animals
And organic milk
And chickens that hatch
Out of farms in Vermont
I like weird ass stuff
When we reach the other world
We will all be hippies
I like your weird ass spirit stick that you carry around
I like when you rub sage on my door
I like the lamb’s blood you throw on my face
I like heaping sugar in a jar and saying a prayer
And then having it work
I like cursing out an enemy
And then cursing them in objects
Soaking their baby tooth in oil
Lighting it on fire with a tiny plastic horse
I like running through the fields of green
I am so caught up in flowers and fruit
I like shampooing my body
In strange potions you bought wholesale in Guatemala
I like when you rub your patchouli on me
And tell me I’m a man
I am a fucking man
A weird ass fucking man
If I didn’t know any better I’d think I were Jesus or
something
If I didn’t know any better I’d sail to Ancient Greece
Wear sandals
Then go to Rome
Murder my daughter in front of the gods
Smoke powdered lapis
Carve pictographs into your dress
A thousand miles away from anything
When I die I will be a strange fucking hippie
And so will you
So will you
So get your cut-up heart away from
What you think you know
You know, we are all going away from here
At least have some human patience
For what lies on the other side
—-
Read all about Dorothea Lasky’s Wild-Ass Shout-Brain here
I’ve seen everything that’s funny on the internet.
Rockstar of masturbation and hot dog violence.
I serve everything I get.
What comes in is entered out of pity.
Oh my god, it’s happening!
Thinking about the history of death metal,
I realized I know nothing about death metal
and had a panic attack.
I tried to mouth off to some people,
and they just took it.
What a wimpy Halloween.
Look, we know—poetry readings are usually snoozefests. At best they’re like shitty stand-up shows where you aren’t allowed to heckle the comic, and at worst you feel like you’re eavesdropping on a support group for “semi-attractive 20-somethings with a grab bag of emotional problems.” The traditional reasons to go to a poetry reading are as follows:
1. You are fucking/want to fuck someone who’s reading.
But sometimes, albeit rarely, there’s a reading worth going to, and tonight there is such a thing: Death Hums, a brand-new literary magazine, is hosting a reading at Webster Hall’s balcony lounge featuring Alex Dimitrov and Lonely Christopher, both of whom are excellent writers who also happen to be good at saying the words they write. In addition, you get a free drink for showing up, and Amy Silbergeld, editor-in-chief of Death Hums, will probably be shitfaced and yelling insults at people at some point, which is it’s own kind of poetry.
Webster Hall
125 East 11th St.
7 PM
New York
IF I COULD WRITE POETRY I WOULD
Wondering how long
I’m going to have to pretend to like Morrissey
Telling this cat that
we’re gonna stay up real late
and make YouTube videos
At a store in Soho
There are three guys here
each of whom might be James Iha
Death and Taxes
and Milf Jokes
:(
Going to the general store
because I’m out of generals
If I wasn’t a straight white guy
I’d start a bar for black trannies
and call it “3/5 Of A Man”
Read more
