I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With

I was disappointed in this Jeff Garlin movie! I had been looking forward to the DVD release of I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With for about a year. I love him on Curb Your Enthusiasm and had read that he holds a lot of creative responsibility for the show.

But this just didn't seem to hit its mark. It's about the love life of an overweight man who lives at home, is marginally employed and has a good natured albeit passive attitude towards himself and others. There were some cute moments, but they failed to be more than that. I didn't laugh once. It's tone was bittersweet, wistful and wry. But the problem with bittersweet is that if it is less than near-genius it will always leave you unsatisfied.

Assassin

Last night I watched most of Margaret Cho: Assassin on Netflix Watch Instantly while eating steamed broccoli and shrimp. It was funny at first and then it dragged, her bits going on too long. She over-relied on a stereotypical bitch-fag voice that began to seem... well... not funny.

Two weird things: 1) throughout she had very noticeable camel-toe; 2) I swear there is something wrong with her pinkie fingers. They each only come up to the knuckle of her ring fingers!

(Soma)tic Midge

I loved this Faux Press chapbook, (Soma)tic Midge by CA Conrad. I read it just now, after watching that horrid Cloverfield. I loved it, but I've been reading poetry all day and can't think of anything else to say.

Cloverfield

This movie sucks so hard. It's total ass. I kept checking my email every two minutes. It wasn't scary at all. It was very annoying. Filmed with a hand-held camera by one of the characters, a la Blair Witch, it documents a disaster where a giant monster lands in New York. The characters that we are stuck with are so fucking annoying I couldn't wait for them to die. They wouldn't shut up, they went on a ridiculous mission to save one of their ridiculous friends. It was just dreadful.

The Pill Book

Ah, I just read Jeni Olin's brilliant, beautiful new chapbook from Faux Press. The Pill Book is perfect. I loved every poem because every Jeni Olin poem is packed with the most intense imagery, the strongest saddest most smartest voice.

Some favorite lines (from all different pill poems):

"I press toward your dirt nap, sobbing amid fireflies,"

"I've got a brain like soaked coral."

"See, I don't know what's worse: my karma or my credit."

"My mom is vast and handsome."

"... Guess I'll grow
Up to be pink & mean like God."

"'The weather is here. Wish you were beautiful."

"Though the days are gentle I have one of everything."

Deviant Propulsion

I read Deviant Propulsion this afternoon, which I got last night at CA Conrad's reading. Oh my God, he's my new favorite poet. The raunchy lyricism was just what I needed to day, when I've had a heavy emotionally sickly feeling. It lightened it a bit, but not too much. He's funny, raw, "real", sexy, smart, "creative" -- Ah, I am an asshole. But it's okay. I'd quote some of my favorite lines, but don't feel like it right now.

CA Conrad at the Project

I was so, so fortunate to hear CA Conrad read at the St. Mark's Poetry Project last night! He gave a FABULOUS reading, hearty rich and witty. I usually don't care all that much for the between poem banter at readings. I mean sometimes it is okay. But this guy was fucking brilliant, I love it when who the poet IS bleeds into what the poet does. It's truly Olin-esque Personism. Anyway, here's a poem that is in his book Deviant Propulsion (which I just bought) and which he read last night:

i'm falling in love
aimlessly
it's nice

i think i won something
but i'm not sure

i always think
i'm winning things that
aren't there

Marwan fucks
me in the front
seat of his
taxi cab which
isn't easy in
Philadelphia while
making a turn onto
Benjamin Franklin
Parkway at 3 a.m.

it's Daylight
Savings Time i'm
angry i'm losing
an hour

he says "tomorrow is
April Fool's Day
ask me to do
something we'll
both enjoy"

i ask him
to back
his ass onto
the gear shift
until it feels
good and
he does