Greatest Living Poet

* Seriously. Who told old men they could use computers, travel the internet, blog and that their opinions ought to matter? If it was up to them we'd all still be wearing double knits and playing Pong. Instead, because of the tireless work of the younger generations (represented ably by the cool young guy in the Mac commercials: see that's *me*, that's *us*!) I can broadcast my never-humble thoughts throughout the atmospheres. Hey, Pong is cool. But it's no Donkey Kong.

Old guy poetry bloggers tend to try to write from the same "Voice of God" point of view that we forgive Silliman for. Ron's a comedian first and foremost, a daily trip over the border to where someone has maybe heard of Fanny Howe and realizes that she's pretty fucking good and ought to get reviewed (although might consider publishing less than a thousand books a year). Then you turn around and drive home to where nothing you do matters and no one has heard of Robert Creeley or John Ashbery or _______. Ron gets a pass. And I've been on the record for years [link] [link] long before I remember any old white guy got around to putting him in his place. My fastballs go right under chins. But, hey, Ron was doing it long before any current old guy blogger. Without him they'd still be writing each other listserv messages or some shit. Ron let older poets know webpages *exist*.

So don't believe for a second that old guy bloggers don't adore Ron. They fear him, they adore him, they are lost without his comments fields (whether they ever commented there or not). He is their internet fetish Buddha. Yeah, I'm talking to you. Rub the tummy, bitches!

It is not the big names who old guy blog (do professors blog or blog comfortably?). It is the Lee Harvey Oswald types, in their depositories with a constant drip, drip, dripping in the background that makes them think they are constantly under seige from the universe when in fact the universe & all parties included have simply found a way of living that doesn't involve them. Where they see community and forces alligned against them it's simply the vast majority of the population who have never heard of them. And if they have heard of them it's because they comment or link to one's blog (if I get one more e-mail from a young blogger that says "Who is HG? Can you *Crush* him for me? He's in my comments fields! And he won't go away!"). Hey. That's just the truth. Nobody gives a fuck about you. You're not cute or smart, you don't start magazines or invite people to readings. You want to send us the poetry books that you keep in your hall closet and to see your names cascading down our blogspaces. And, during bouts of Kentmania, you want to e-mail everyone once a day professing love and ask them to post the same bogus info, about how you're in jail eating mushrooms or on your death bed. Old Guy Bloggers exist to wallow in and use pity as a kind of currency. "Oh poor me, I have no ideas and I am against anything that isn't Byron ever." Sure, Lee Harvey. Go back to writing Cliff Notes for a living.

This is all a round-about way of saying I for one am totally glad to be under your skin. It's funny when Mick Jagger says he hates Franz Ferdinand or whatever. He's Mick Jagger. Therefore his opinion matters. Poets who have never *accomplished* *anything* who think their opinions matter? Yeah, go vote for Nader. Blogging without gravitas is cute, but very 2004.

I blog to make holes in teeth and to tell you the truth before it's too late. We're all wasting our time, that's the fun of it. Old Guy Bloggers do not share our threshhold for shame, don't get our jokes and in general aren't very much fun to be around online or otherwise. When they get called douchebags it strikes them to their very core. The truth stings. But whatever keeps you coming back (and attempting to crawl this page anonymously, ha ha) you're here. Hilarious.

To consider oneself in my weightclass (no poetry bloggers are) is amusing enough. But keep on, Uncle Child Molestor, with your vapid no-noism of shit you obviously don't understand because you're 1) dumb and 2) bad poets and 3) douchebags and 4) humorless. I am not a part of your community. Stick to sniffing each others pits and waiting for the Great Kent to tell you what to say and do (Don't Tell Me You've Fallen Out With Him??). That men read my blog at all comes as a great disappointment to me. I still write for Harumi, my girlfriend when I was 6. I will light the Earth aflame until they deliver her back to me. In the meantime I get by with a few crushes and try to act unloveable. I'm angry I can't drink and I try to focus that anger on fakes, phonies, guys in fedoras, crappy overrated poets, people with freaky author photos, vampiric poets, suck-ups, cheats, poets with bad opinions, poets with bad blogs, poets who went to the New School and haven't gotten over it yet. You know, I punch the clock. And the crowd goes wild. In feeding the jackal I myself am fed. In a tangy lemon sauce.

So don't link to me or mention me or let me influence you in the slightest. I seek not fans, I want hot comrades. I don't want to stand out. Cradle me in your cute arms. And lighten the fuck up already. The next person who starts their daily blogging reporting on the weather in a mythic "poetic community" gets a water balloon Fed Exed to their attention. If you can't find beauty everywhere you're in the wrong business. And my poetic community revolves around Mets Scores at the Robot, Boston Dirt Dogs, Gawker Stalker, Think Progress, Hypnoporn and Whatever Pseudonym I Happen to Be Working on at the Moment. Remember! Poetry is Everywhere! And the ones who write about it most convincingly are the ones who don't seem to be writing about it at all!

I preach. Because I'm in my Jesus Year. And I wish to be crucified (to meet a nemesis or archvillian, now that would be sexy! Someone with a yellow ring that's as powerful as my emerald one). Those who use their blogs to make people *love* them more?--Wow.

Be cute or suffer!

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Remind me to blog about how effective blogs are in raising the paranoia levels of paranoids. This is definitely about you. Honesty is a sign of love. If you want smoke blown up your ass I can recommend some (all) other weblogs.