If we hesitate
we may never know
we got the dreamer's disease


Posted 02.13.09|

»The Sirens of Chrome -- a picture gallery

999,027 You might not think it to see me now -- cigarette dangling from sneering, cynical lips -- but I was once a long-distance runner. I ran, ran, ran morning, noon and sometimes night.

999,026 Emil Zatopek, the great Czech runner, was my hero.

999,025 My high school cross-country team won the city championship. I had virtually nothing to do with the victory aside from not finishing last.

999,024 I quit running when I realized I wasn't going to make it to the Olympics. Discovering the joys of nicotine didn't help either.

999,023 I don't really like shoes with laces. In fact, I can't remember the last pair of dress shoes I bought that had them.

999,022 For as long as I can remember, people have made fun of the way I walk. Not ever having seen myself walk, I have no idea what they're talking about.

999,021 I spent nearly four years in the military -- three years, nine months, two weeks and a couple of wake-up calls to be exact.

999,020 I didn't kill people, though. I killed bugs. Still, I guess you could say I was a trained killer.

999,019 My exact title was engineering entomology specialist -- bug killer, or rat man, depending on the type of your infestation.

999,018 I studied the mating habits of the Aedes aegypti and other kinds of mosquitoes and became an expert trapper of small rodents -- dead or alive -- a skill that would prove useful later as a homeowner.

999,017 When I was a kid, I used to steal books from the library. I apologize for that. But I'm not giving them back. I'm pathologically possessive about my books, so don't ask to borrow one because I wouldn't want to get rude.

999,016 Funny thing is, I'd loan you money, no questions asked.

999,015 The five greatest inventions (in no particular order): the typewriter, the camera, the iPod, the bicycle, the dashboard cigarette lighter.

999,014 I've never owned a dashboard Jesus. I'm not exactly sure why.

999,013 Years ago, I wrote a story about a painter who went blind, then regained her vision after an operation. Her very first painting when she could see again was of an Indian warrior. After the story came out, she gave me the painting. I still have it. It's prominently displayed in the garage.

999,012 Jobs I wouldn't mind having: bicycle messenger, beach bum, librarian (hey, I like books).

999,011 Jobs I wouldn't want: the guy at H&R Block, especially during tax time; bank teller; proctologist.

999,010 I was always partial to brainy girls. After all these years, nothing has changed.

999,009 I've never been to a bachelor party. Or a bachelorette party for that matter.

999,008 What turns me on? Haiku. What turns me off? Bad haiku.

999,007 What is my favorite word? Onomatopoeia. Did I spell that right?

999,006 If God exists, what would I like to hear him say at the Pearly Gates? HOMES, WHERE THE HELL YOU BEEN!

999,005 If I had to give up MadHaiku.com for some reason, I guess I'd miss it. Then, after a while, I'd go down to the beach and carve my haiku in the sand.

999,004 Y'all could read it by flying over in an airplane.


Posted 02.08.09|

» dreaming out loud

February days
lie like a log on my soul
Summer, where are you?


Posted 02.07.09|

» Moby-Dick: Ever wonder what the hell Melville was talking about? Wonder no more. You can find the annotated version here. And, oh, btw, Moby-Dick in Haiku is featured. Check it out.

What I'd like to know
is who invented
the electric chair (and why)


Posted 02.03.09|

» Stumble Audio: If you like the serendipity of discovering music and have a whole lot of time to waste, try this out.

"Keepers of private notebooks are a different breed altogether, lonely and resistant rearrangers of things, anxious malcontents, children afflicted apparently at birth with some presentiment of loss."

-- Joan Didion

say i'm walking through downtown milwaukee.

it doesn't really matter why i'm walking through downtown milwaukee. it could be anywhere -- downtown fort worth or downtown l.a. or midtown manhattan.

the point is, i'm walking through downtown milwaukee when a thought flickers in my head. it happens sometimes. at that very moment i think, "this is such an interesting thought that i need to write it down." i have two choices: i can write it down on the back of my hand (the way i used to do it when i was a kid) or i can write it down in a notebook.

unfortunately, i don't have a notebook on me. hey, i'm in downtown milwaukee. who would've thought i'd need to take notes in downtown milwaukee?

it occurs to me that i may have some other brilliant thoughts and don't want to fill the back of my hand with ink-stained scribblings, so i duck into a drugstore and head straight for the stationery section.

i linger.

even though the drugstore's offering of notebooks is rather meager, i linger because, if truth be told, i have a thing for notebooks -- big ones, small ones, spiral bounds, three-ring looseleafs, memo pads, steno pads, moleskins. i have a collection of notebooks at home, tucked away in various drawers, waiting to be filled with great thoughts. virgin notebooks, you might say. clean and unused.

why i collect notebooks i'm not quite sure. i do tend to be an inveterate, if sporadic, notetaker, scribbling down stray ideas or sayings i hear or read. lists, i like lists -- lists of books to read, music to download, movies to rent, things to do for those occasions when i actually have things to do.

i write down phone numbers, but for some reason i neglect to note whose phone numbers they belong to, i guess because in my mind i know whose number it is at the moment i write it down. of course, later on i have no idea.

i'm not a diarist, though, a journal keeper. my life is too boring and i'm way too self-conscious about noting the unnotable.

which is why, i reckon, i don't buy those fancy journals that you see on the shelves at barnes & noble, the ones with the flowers on the cover or the simulated antique binding, the pages blank, totally unlined.

i prefer a good ol plain notebook, college-rule.

back in downtown milwaukee: finally, after giving it some thought, i buy one of those small memo pads so i can easily stick it in my coat pocket.

once outside the drugstore in downtown milwaukee, i scribble down my brilliant thought in the brand-new memo pad and tuck it away in my pocket.

as is usually the case, i won't be filling it, with great thoughts or otherwise.

in fact, i will never open that notebook again.

» The Surrealist Compliment Generator

Last line becomes your first line. Last one in is a rotten egg.

Wings of Icarus
melting in the sizzling sun
white boy couldn't fly


Posted 01.24.09|

» The Beatles: Drop some acid and check out this animation of "Come Together."

Fuck you, Mister Death!
what I fear more than your ass
is a dearth of booze


Posted 01.23.09|

» Print is dead: Obama's inauguration on the front pages of America's dailies.