Caption Contest: Speak for Dick

Go ahead, put words in Dick's mouth. Thoughts in his head.

What is the Sultan of Sleaze, Dick "The Piece of Veal" Cheney saying, thinking, wishing:




I will announce the winner some time next week. Grand prize ... beating other captions.

Spilling Some Beans

Brent tagged me to share 8 things about myself that no one asked me to share (except Brent I guess).

1. I was caught skinny dipping with a few friends in a whale shaped pond at Cranbrook Art Academy in Detroit while attending a fiction writing seminar many years ago. I have not been naked in public since.

2. Of Mice and Men was the first and only book I have read that made me cry.

3. I wanted to be veterinarian when I was young but discovered I am too miserably incompetent with math to see the dream through. I kept the animal love part and scrapped the math.

4. I was caught shoplifting once – taking rawhides for my dog.

5. I really like David Ducovnhy.

6. I had a cat give birth to the first two kittens of her litter while she was sitting on my lap.

7. I have a decent singing voice that can handle some Sinatra and also crunch up enough to sound like Robert Smith (The Cure).

8. My favorite song is Somewhere Over the Rainbow – in fact, many of my favorite songs are childhood songs: I Love Trash, When You Wish Upon a Star, Bare Necessities.

I tag Robert and Mary.

Face It - Animal Behaviour

How's that pot belly?
Got sagging pectorals? Feet that belong on a goat or some mythical half human half beast hybrid? Who cares. Experts say the face is the make or break feature - especially with da guys. Good news for those with a half way decent mug. But alas, in studies like these some feelings are bound to get hurt.

Gay Stealth

Tonight on the way home from work I heard about Tim Gill for the first time. His "gay stealth" agenda, as one conservative ass head called it, is the best news I've heard all day. Pro family and love vs. pro fear.

In pursuit of their own stealth agenda, the GOP works hard to fuck over the worker - again.

NOTE: I apologize for the gratuitous use of "ass head" and "fuck" in this post, but I recently discovered I only have a PG-13 rating and think I am really intended for mature audiences so I am trying to boost my rating.

All I Need is the Air That I Breathe?

What the hell?

A bad air advisory here in Akron. I am glad my family is out of town and does not have to breathe the soot and 'particulates' - whatever hell those are.

Particulates. Sounds vaguely cancer causing to me.

I would rather wear the blow fart inhalation suit I read about a few weeks back than breathe unspecified 'particulates'.

Caveat Emptor - Dog Haze of Summer

Christ, the puppy arrived and looks nothing like the photo the breeder sent. I gather it was a rough trip from Indianapolis for not only has the puppy aged terribly, the breed has changed. Be weary my friends. Don't get taken in as I was by cute puppy photos from unscrupulous breeder fakes. Makes the naming task a lot easier.

God, I love the Internet some times. Cosmetic surgery for dogs? "Here at my clinic I would never attach an artificial testicle."

Well, I Guess I'll Go to Hell Then

How now, Jim?

Two of my favorite friend stories (that's a thematic oversimplification to say the least) are Of Mice and Men, and the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Thinking of Huck and Jim, through the lens of King Lear which is always on my mind, I am struck by a fun parallel. Jim is the Fool character to Huck, the lost kinglet. Of course, in Lear the Fool is no fool at all, dispensing sideways wisdom left and right. In addition, there is the journey parallel: Jim and Huck on the river, Lear and his Fool in wilderness. The tenderness of the friendships between Lear and the Fool, Jim and Huck, are among the most moving I have read. In that moment when Huck decides he is not going to turn Jim in, believing it means damnation for him, he says "Well, I guess I'll go to hell then." A great moment.

And then ... George speaking calmly to Lenny at the river and asking him to describe the rabbits, how their life is going to be as he puts the luger to the back of his head. The compassion and bond of these characters in each scene wrings out my heart to no end and reminds me why the classics are classics.

And why I am glad for the few duable friends I have.

Dog Day of Summer

My wife Laredo and our son are in Texas until next Tuesday. The weekend following, we are going to finally get our puppy. Here is a shot the breeder sent us.

We are in the process of making a name list. My wife wanted Kevin. I think it's funny and perfect, but our son does not.

Radiant, Terrific - Spider Bites

I admit it. There are some bites I like.

And then, there is the SOB SOMEWHERE in my bedroom that has bitten me twice now in one month. A brown recluse spider or so say the authorities. I think they are right. My first bite had the same Target shopping center pattern as you see here.

Today I begin another course of antibiotics for the bite on my thigh as the previous bite on my bicep is in the final stages of healing. I have always preached to my son spare the spiders, they're useful, they're not hurting us. I think of Issa naturally - and I am about to fail where I suspect he stuck it out. If I find the bastard I am taking him out with whatever is handy. Shoe. The Nation. My foot, etc.

Note to self: no more sleeping in the buff.

The World is Full of Fair Unfinished Things

After my son Rainer died – he was all of six weeks old – we hung the yellow and white knit cap he wore on the mirror of our dresser. He could not regulate his body temperature (among other things) so he needed a cap to help keep his head warm.

It sounds pitifully sentimental in hindsight, but throughout the day or night I would pick up the cap and breathe in the smell of his head and hair – that wonderful baby smell. You hold on however you can, eh?

Eventually the scent faded.

Here is a poem from a book-length collection of sonnets, Mimma Bella, by Eugene Lee Hamilton, on losing his child.

Lo, through the open window of the room
That was her nursery, a small bright spark
Comes wandering in, as falls the summer dark,
And with a measured flight explores the gloom.

As if it sought, among the things that loom
Vague in the dusk, for some familiar mark,
And like a light on some wee unseen bark,
It tacks in search of who knows what or whom.

I know 'tis but a fire-fly; yet its flight,
So straight, so measured, round the empty bed,
Might be a little soul's that night sets free;

And as it nears, I feel my heart grow tight
With something like a superstitious dread,
And watch it breathless, lest it should be she.


I, too, would be breathless before the spark. Godamn those empty rooms.

New Book from Greg Rappleye

Greg Rappleye gives us a peek at Figured Dark, his new (and third) book of poems.

Sexy-ku

Reading Blyth's wonderful haiku series, ordered so nicely by theme, I recall the one subject that the books are lean on is sex/eros -- besides the famous one about burning smoke to keep the mosquitos away. Not sure who wrote that one. I imagine there are more than I remember, but in general I think bugs, weather, landscape, etc., get far more ink. As they should, being time honored themes of the haiku tradition. That said, I was happy to come across this book.

Reading through much of the Ameri-ku that gets into print, sex is a frequent theme. Jane Reichold has many available online. I did read the collection below by Chiyo-ni a while back and recall that it had many very sensuous haiku.

I have tried to write my fair share of haiku on sexual themes. One or two turned out. When I save up a few pennies I think I'll order the Erotic Haiku book and try a few more. If I had the heart of Rexroth I might write long erotic poems, but I am into understatement where sexuality is concerned. Haiku fit my libido just fine.


Here are a few that I found in a review of Erotic Haiku:

darkness
doing nothing
but feel
— Stanley Pelter


Without clothes
it's a different
conversation
— John Brandi

she leaves —
a curled hair
in my soap
— David Walker

on the car seat beside me
the sun
light on her thighs
— James Tipton

memories
lingering
on these finger
tips

— Giovanni Malito