BALLOON POP OUTLAW BLACK AND THE PUPPEYE CHALLENGE

THE DAY HAS FINALLY ARRIVED

Balloon Pop Outlaw Black is out! This is what it looks like:

The cover art was drawn by Lisa Hanawalt who is a huge genius. I specifically hunted her down like an animal because I love her art so bad and I said "Lisa, will you draw a book cover for me," and she said "Sure, as long as you're fine with it depicting a bestial herd of naked romping puppeyes on all fours"

AND THEN SHE DID IT

AND I SAW IT AND I GASPED

AND THIS CONVERSATION HAPPENED

(OR SOME APPROXIMATION THEREOF)

Me, whispering: The little four-legged puppeyes are so beautiful 

Lisa: Look at the chins that are also butts 

Me: Look at the BUTTS that are also butts 

Lisa: The bare butts 

Me: Look at the butt of the main puppeye -- I want that butt on my body as a second butt 

Lisa: Get a tattoo of it 

Me: GET A TRAMP-STAMP OF IT 

Lisa: GET A TRAMP-STAMP OF IT IF YOU SELL ALL THE BOOKS 

Me: But I have never had a tattoo and my mom would say my body was ruined 

Lisa: Your body WOULD be ruined, with a second butt 

Me: It's so tempting 

Lisa: Do a Challenge do a Tattoo Challenge 

Me: DO A TRAMP-STAMP CHALLENGE

SO THERE IT IS: If I sell all the books before January 31st I will get a simply enormous tramp-stamp of a four-legged puppeye with a bare butt tattooed on me. Oh my god why would I even do this

It would look a little something like that except it would be on my body and my mom would be crying and I would be crying

DO YOU WANT TO DO THIS BAD THING

Octopus Books is the best place to buy it because shipping is free and they're currently running a promo where if you buy my book and Ben Mirov's book you get a 3rd book free!

SPD is also a good place to buy it because that counts toward the Small Press Poetry Bestsellers List!

Amazon is NOT a good place to buy it but if for some reason you can't buy from the first two places that option also exists

SEE YOU IN HELL

When It Was All Over We Slept for Three Days

Whoa my goodness

So THAT happened

I started the drive in the middle of the night because I thought it would be a smart idea to ease into it, but thanks to the efforts of INSOMNIAC GAMERS and THE BRITISH and FULLY LOADED ADULT BABIES with mugs of warm milk in their hands, half of the money had already been raised by the time I went to bed. The idiot line rose unbidden in my mind, Wow, this is such a whirlwind. Anyway, when I woke up we were even closer, and then a bunch of people all tweeted about it and there was a sudden flood of donations. We hit $10,000 at 2 o'clock, which means we raised the money in about 14 hours. 586 people donated. Thank you to every single one -- EXCEPT the satans who donated $6.66 and the criminal weedheads who donated $4.20.

Here is the specific out-of-pocket breakdown from doctors -- this is after insurance:

RIGHT EYE

Pre-op, procedure and post-op: $1,760

Physician fee: $660

Facility fee: $1,105

Implant fee: $1,095

Anesthesia fee: $500

$5,120

LEFT EYE

Pre-op, procedure and post-op: $2,100

Physician fee: $132

Facility fee: $221

Implant fee: $1,095

Anesthesia fee: $100

$3,648

Total: $8,768

NOT INCLUDED

Clean-up laser surgeries: About $500 per eye total

Total: $9,768

We actually raised a few hundred over thanks to an extremely generous last-minute donation, which will thankfully pay for the sweet fancy bifocals that he'll need when it's all over. Oh, and the awesome @helytimes and a few other people asked me about a charity they could possibly give to if they had been too late to donate, so I looked around a bit and the International Eye Foundation seems like a good fit if anyone else wants to do this! They do lots of cataract surgeries in developing countries because obviously cataracts are a leading cause of preventable blindness all over the place.

ALSO, MORE ON THAT CATARACT TIP: Jason hasn't been able to read either books or his Kindle for a while now, so with my AMAZON BIRTHDAY GIFT CARD (I'm a freaking martyr! I was gonna buy biographies of the Modernists with that gift card!) we got him a Kindle Fire because you can reverse the text on those. (You can also, obviously, do this on the iPad, but that ... was not ... a reasonable purchase for us.) SO if you are a little poor and your eyes get really tired when you read the Kindle Fire is recommended! He named it KAREN after my mom, because he is in love with her and their romance deepens every day.

THE CRYING PART

It was so nice to be able to do this because I have basically never been able to help a human being in any material way whatsoever, because I am just like ... a motionless lit veal that occasionally opens her mouth to moan for water, ice cream, or more biographies of the Modernists. I can help someone by saying a joke about brontosauruses! I can help someone by writing a poem about Dracula! But no one pays you for that and that is probably best. So I was thinking, why would people do this for a lotus-eating Fucker who spends most of her days lying prone on the floor trying to think of sweet metaphors, and there is no good reason except that this is the end of the movie, and the end of the movie is the part where all the humans get together and do ultimate teamwork with explosions and kindness, and the aliens go wow, look how good they are, and decide not to blow us all up.

(Disclaimer: I have never seen a science-fiction movie)

Thank you all so much for everything -- thanks to everyone who gave or spread the word or made super-tasteless eye jokes to me when I was feeling so bad. It really, really, really helped and you are the best and I love you.

JASON WILL CHANGE HIS NAME TO "TWEET" IF THE PEOPLE DESIRE IT

The first surgery, like I said in the previous post, is scheduled for June 27th but we're trying to see if we can get it moved up. Rest assured I will post a TON of pics of him wearing the Darth Vader glasses that you have to wear afterwards!

The Eyes, the Not-Eyes, and the Eyesight

Internet I love you and I need your help.

Elegant Choice went to the eye doctor the other day and the news was very bad: he has developed a rare* kind of cataract in both his eyes, and he is going blind. He needs total lens replacements as soon as possible.

I asked him to write it out for you. Here is what happened:

"I began to notice significant deterioration in my vision in both eyes a couple weeks back, so I scheduled an appointment with an ophthalmologist.  By the time I went to see him, my right eye registered little more than the shape and color of my surroundings, while my left eye was still functional for basic tasks like driving and reading, though increasingly blurry. (This is especially troubling since 100 percent of my job is reading.)

The ophthalmologist found posterior subcapsular cataracts in both eyes. This is a kind that shows up in people with untreated Type 1 diabetes (which I don't have) or hardcore steroid users who inject human growth hormone into their bottoms (which I ... do not do.) These cataracts can develop in a matter of weeks or months, and they're famous for quickly getting worse, which is why I need surgery as soon as possible.

The good news: My DESCENT INTO BLINDNESS is reversible through a series of four surgeries, two per eye, starting with the right. The surgeon opens the eye, then slips in a little tool to shatter the existing lens and cataract. The shattered lens is sucked out and replaced with an implant called an intraocular lens. I go home and wait a few weeks, during which time my eye begins to incorporate the implant, and scar tissue forms. Then I go back in for an outpatient laser surgery to remove the scar tissue. Then we do it all again with the left.

If all goes well, I'll see like a 50-year-old with bifocals for the rest of my life. And the cataracts won't come back, because these implants can't develop them.        

The bad news: The multiple surgeries are spaced over several months to allow for healing, during which time my vision is in a state of serious flux. And the whole process costs a lot of money because of my unique situation -- I require the expensive lens implants because I have an unusual type of cataracts, but since I don't have Type I diabetes and I'm not an 80-year-old, insurance companies only cover a small portion of the procedure. And also for that reason, I have to pay up front.

Right now, my first surgery is scheduled for June 27, but I might be able to expedite it if I can get the money together sooner. The procedures cost about $5,000 per eye, for a total of $10,000."

$10,000 is a pre-op estimate; the surgeries may end up costing slightly more or less. (I'll update the post later in the week with an exact breakdown of costs.) The lens implants are called TECNIS, which is EXTREMELY from the future as conceptualized by the year 1981. We watched an instructional video about the surgery and it was so sad because it was all footage of 90-year-olds holding up magnifying glasses to the phone book, and the voiceover kept saying things like, "You'll be able to go boating ... and do your Watercolors again!" We kept collapsing into inappropriate laughter every time a man turned to the camera and said, "I thought I would never see a golf ball again -- or my wife's face." IT WAS REALLY DEPRESSING, but it is also really beautiful that we live in an age where we can basically implant space glass into an editor's eyeballs so he does not have to go blind forever.

Actual quote from the brochure: With the TECNIS Multifocal Lens, you may comfortably enjoy activities like reading a menu in a dimly lit restaurant, taking a walk at dusk, or even driving at night. Then there is a pic of a ballin' dude reading the FUCK out of a menu in an outrageously dark restaurant to his hot bride:

I posted about it on Twitter because I was basically losing my mind with worry and the outpouring of support was astonishing; people suggested that I do this so I am doing this because they wanted to help, which made me cry, and some quote about the color purple, if you walk past the color purple in a field and do not make it donate money to you so your husband can stop going blind, then you are being pretty mean to God.

(As I understand it.)

ALSO, my friend forever Greg has volunteered to contribute some HORSE_EBOOKS GLASSES to the cause, so if you donate you will be entered to win one! 

Here is the button.

ETA: OH WHOA STOP DONATING YOU DUDES RAISED THE FUNDS IN LIKE 12 HOURS WTF HOLY HELL THANK YOU

HUGE thanks to @kathrynborel, @colsonwhitehead, @slennonhugs and anyone else I am forgetting for helping me figure out how to set this up when I had no idea what to do!


* ETA: Apparently the cataracts themselves are not rare -- it's just highly uncommon for a 30-year-old to develop them. Sorry for the imprecision!

POEM FOR J FRANZ

Poem for Jonathan Franzen,
Poem Called "Death of the Book"


And they cried for it was called a Kindle,
and they cried for it came to burn books,
and burn all books like a first-growth
.........forest. Made by wizards! And full,
they claim, of magic e-ink, that assembles
itself in the dark like crowds. Because
someone’s getting burned on the bonfire
later, and his name is Book, The Book.
Some homeless guy. He’s gross. We hate
him. Stay in your cardboard box, old man!
The Book sleeps in his box and dreams,
and dreams of dirty oral, and is awakened
by big hands lifting him out. The crowd
of e-ink whispers to itself, the crowd of e-ink
huddles together, held in the hand of some-
one larger. And there goes the match,
...............and there goes the newspaper.
To read the first Kindle by the light
...........................of a homeless trashcan
fire – the experience beggars description!
Makes description a beggar wearing finger-
less gloves. He got holes in his pockets and
holes in his socks and the soles of his boots
they open to speak. Every time he reads
a word it slips out of him somewhere. It slips
out and the beggar cries. He just wants to be
able to hold again what happened to Anna
Karenina. Killed by the train of progress,
beggar. Killed by the demon belching smoke.
The arms that would hold her own book
lopped off! And the reader staring down
at the tracks, watching the e-ink assemble
around her, “Oh the youngest technology,
Anna Karenina!” cries the crowd out to her body.
“Oh she is cheap and light and everywhere!”
And all of her penny-elongated, and 99 cents
...................................................on the Kindle.

It Is Not Really Necessary

Someone left this comment in response to my poem over at Poetry Northwest and I am posting it here because I love it so helplessly much:

***

Hi,

I guess I am too old, and not familiar at all with the poet’s expression that is called poetry. It seems that putting lines into a narrow column is the criteria. Poetry of old was written in Stanzas that bore complete thoughts or at least were followed by a stanza that completed the above stanza. Some of the poetry by exquisite poets at least had a rhythm, were not typical, but at least understandable to a limited degree depending on the times in which they were written. There is also such a thing as free verse, and maybe that is what it is all about. I really don’t know what the poet above is driving at: the past atrocities of whitemen??? Maybe. Is she of Native American descent??? If so, perhaps I am right. I would like to have known what point was she trying to put across. It is not really necessary. I don’t understand and I don’t care for the overall composition.

Maybe it is because I am rather limited in my degree of knowledge of this country or of far past times. I mainly majored in Science, not social, but biological. I just don’t get modern poetic expression because it seems to follow its own rules. That is about it,and I do write poetry most of it with a degree of recognizable old fashioned rhyme. I am not saying because of that it is good.

I suspect my poetic expression would not be of any interest to a publication of your nature. Thanks for reading, hope I did not offend anyone, not meant too.

An Old Guy in His 70′s,

Tony

***

TONY I LOVE YOU 

I LOVE YOU TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH

Dear God in Heaven,

When will you transfigure me into an Exquisite Poet

Signed,

A Past Atrocity of Whitemen???

If You Are Gonna Post a Photo of Yourself, Why Not ... Post ALL the Photos of Yourself

PEOPLE.

EVERYTHING HAPPENED 

WHILE I WAS AWAY

My little sister got married and I was

a Bridesmaid

The night of the rehearsal I looked normal

THE DAY OF THE WEDDING I DID NOT

Look at that rat

She is a rat who is hungry for Bride

And then of course I fell down:

It happens at about minute 2:14

YES that was a Hummer Limo

why would I NOT 

ride in a Hummer Limo

every second of my goddamn life

What are you, jealous

Now let us Refresh our Palates

with some Boxcar Children Art

Oh no

The perpetually-five-year-old

dumdum Benny is completely 

overwhelmed by cupcakes

He scream to know how many cupcake

there are in the world

THEN

I did a reading with Lemony Snicket
IN A VETERAN'S HALL
and this is the only photographic
proof anyone has of the event 

what is WRONG with me

I am a angel from heaven

and my big chubby knee is coming

to kill you Daniel Handler

(Buy his books he loves poetry

and carries poems in his wallet)

I hate you

I am the Devil

I think here I was trying to fake cry. 

Crocodile tears

of the Tricky Filthy One

EVERYTHING HAPPENED
AND THEN IT WAS OVER

THE END

The News

Well, it happened. There is going to be a book. Octopus Books called me and said, we would like to publish your first book Balloon Pop Outlaw Black next summer, and I said go to hell I hate you, an octopus can't even read, how does it know what books are good, and they said your book is made of bubbles, underwater, and we read it and we liked it, and I said WELL FINE THEN, and then oh my gush are you kidding me, I am going to have a book.

There's a time when you're shut up in a room all day writing long crazed metatextual poems about Popeye when you do not think this will happen. You are mostly happy and crazy and flying on the power of writing a book but when you aren't you are thinking, "This will never happen, I am alone as the ants under the rock (ed. note: you are mixing your animal metaphors, change this to something about barnacles on a shipwreck's hull later) and no one will lift it up to see," but then they do. And it does. But the book did not happen because anyone was looking, it happened because you were shut up crazy in a room all day thinking really hard about what if ... Popeye ... HAD INK FOR BLOOD??? So it goes.

The official announcement is here. Enormous congrats to Ben Mirov also!

NOW FOR THE GOOD PART

Choice Reactions from My Mother

"Looks like the Octopus ... latched on ... to you with all 8 arms!"

"Well, I think you're going to make poetry popular again."

"You're going to bring poetry to the young people."

"Balloon Pop Outlaw Dark is a great name. It really sticks in the mind."

"One way or another, you caught ... the eye ... of the Octopus!" (She then paused, seeming to realize that "the eye of the octopus" was not a thing.)

"You're blowing up like a train going downhill and no one can stop it. Tell everyone to get out of your way, because if they don't, they will be killed."