How to motivate yourself to start again

A woman makes her own nation. Before, she was a stripper, but now lives on a farm that is distant from the main population of her town. She is less noticed for this reason. The last time she worked as a stripper, she saw a young girl, too young to be there (but does that mean anything, because isn’t all relative?), being slapped around, and then pulled into a room. When the woman of our story approached the poor, young girl, she was beat up, and had obviously been forced upon. On this farm, she has a printing machine, and each night she prints out flyers, and sends out letters as propaganda for her new nation on this farm. “Join my nation,” the flyers say, with only an address. Sometimes she receives correspondence. She responds to them, and people are invited to her world. This farm is her nation. She does not need society, and soon neither do those who join her. They now have her. And they bring her gifts. Each time another person joins her nation, the farm is replenished.


So it’s definitive: I have been slacking with the Instruction Manual in 2010. Let me explain. Shit’s been tough for me since I’ve graduated and remained in Gainesville. I hardly make enough money for anything. I got fired from a few jobs for a variety of retarded reason. I’ve been a lonely motherfucker. I’ve been through some intense bouts with depression while trying to do everything that would prevent this from happen (mini-workout routine since returning from tour with St. Dad; herbal meds for depression; a healthy diet). I’ve been doing more drugs. I don’t have a personal workspace. If I want to type anything, or update this blog, I am forced to be on campus, which I am utterly sick of.

But for optimism’s sake, shit should get better. I’ll probably remain broke as hell throughout the summer (summers in Gainesville have fucked me up each year I’ve lived here), but come September, I will be moving to Boston, where I was accepted into UMASS-Boston’s MA in Applied Linguistics program. I already have two potential jobs doing what I’ve been studying for for the past four years: one is as a writing tutor for urban youth; the other is a program which helps immigrants with their citizenship process and learning English. I am very excited. I feel as if this move to a city is what will give me all I’ve been working for since I started studying again here in the States.

I’ve just explained myself, but I don’t know if it even matters. Is anyone even aware that until this year I was making at least monthly updates to the Instruction Manual? I don’t think so. Maybe if someone were to tell me something about this shit, I might realize someone actually cares, and then I’d work harder to keep this as consistent as it once was.

Anyway, on to the content.


My cousin, Yamil Corvalan, has had some poems published. Check them out HERE and HERE.


There’s a student strike at the University of Puerto Rico. This happens every four years, like our presidential election. Last time it happened, I was studying again at the UPR, after having been through a few detoxes and mental institutions, and was doing pretty well in all my classes. Then, the strike occurred, and I had an entire month without school to keep myself occupied. So what happened? I shot up a lot of dope, and by the time classes renewed, I was strung-out, and eventually dropped out of school, again, and ended up in druggie boot-camp. For a long time, I blamed my returning to hard drugs, or at least the fact that I had enough time to get a habit, on the stupid-ass student strike. Check out details on the current strike HERE.


I got some poems published at NewWaveVomit. Check that out HERE.

An essay I wrote about playing dice was published by PostMortemPress. Check that out HERE.

New Mr. Potato Head story, “Mr. Potato head goes on Tour with the Vegetables” published at GirlsWithInsurance. Check that out HERE.

I made a Flavors page. Check that out HERE.

Check out drawings of my pet ferret, Fatboy McPopcorn, HERE.


I’m in the process of getting the official rights to translation of the poems of José María Lima, but until then, I’ve removed all of the ones I had posted (done by either me or by Alfredo “Cofre” Perezjurado). I am currently working on compiling a collection’s worth of translated poems of María Lima, but until I can obtain their rights, I can do nothing with them in terms of publication. Check out details HERE.

HERE’s a D*Holidey song


St. Dad at the TotalBummerFest, which occurred in late April in Gainesville this year. St. Dad is at time 3:24, but feel free to check out the other acts.



Review of St. Dad seven-inch at PostMortemPress HERE.

Review of St. Dad seven-inch at Maximum Rock n Roll HERE.

Lame review of St. Dad seven-inch at KidsLikeYouAndMe HERE.

A few words about the St. Dad seven-inch at TheKidsAreGonnaStickTogether HERE.

St. Dad is currently recording songs for an upcoming full-length album, which will be put out by AmnesianRecords. Check them out HERE.


Review of Mather Schneider’s Drought Resistant Strain

Note to reader: the following critiques of this collection are in majority personal attacks on Mather. To the careful reader, in between these attacks on Mather’s self, there will be genuine critiques, but for this review, I chose to mostly focus on the degradation of the being that is Mather. Another point to make is that when analyzing a poem, one should not assume that the narrator is the same as the author. Well, in this review, I am assuming that the narrator of the poem and its author (Mather) are the same.

First off, I don’t really get the title. Does Mather mean he never goes dry, despite that he’s a drain? In general, throughout the collection, Mather maintains a journalistic deadpan voice. So if he’s trying to say that his verse is moist, humid, or flavorful, he’s lying.

For the rest of this review, I will mention selected poems with their individual page number, and critique them. Then, I will have a conclusion with my overall opinion of the collection, and with a suggestion on how Mather could improve his existence.

p. 23: “Old Timers”

A poem about his grandparents, how their living together is just a ritual with no love to it. They don’t sleep in the same bed or room. It ends with the punch-line: “Each morning/whoever wakes up first/gets out of bed/and shuffles across the house/to see if the other/is still alive/before starting the/coffee.”

The idea of “Starting the coffee” only is the other is alive is the focus of the poem. I like Mather’s moments of real people he knows, but sometimes his “punch-lines” are his petty philosophies delving into the poem. I don’t know about that.

p. 32: “After Crossing the Border at Nogales”

A poem about stealing a Mexican’s wife. She’s going to be with the narrator (Mather), but they can’t talk, which of course helps Mather keep a woman, because any woman able to listen to what he has to say would run away.

He writes this bit: “So what if love/is a lie/where we agree to meet?” Yes, this was awesome. Love is a lie where we agree to meet. Love is about convenience, and Mather has a wife who won’t leave him because she can’t understand what he’s saying, and she gets a tool included in the package deal. Isn’t that convenient?

p. 57: “Bonita Familia”

A poem about Mather’s neighbors, about how the immigrant wife almost lost her child due to immigration laws when she crossed the border to get away from her husband. The impact of the poem is in what the mother did to get her child back. She smuggled herself through the border, more than once. Dedicated, a mother’s love. But Mather ruins it by including himself. The poem ends: “everything’s bueno./She called my girlfriend yesterday/to see if she wanted to have lunch/at the mall.” Though this is a good hit at assimilation (their meeting ground is the mall), I think Mather smothers the poem’s previous focus, the mother’s love, with his implication that it is important that he knows these people. Like Mather is saying that knowing these sacrificed Mexicans gives him an excuse to be alive.

p. 58: “Wash”

Mather paints a splendid picture of his boring life. “There’s the viscera,/swirling,/turtlenecks and underwear/calmly bombarding the glass.” This is very nice. Mundane, quaint, all that poetic bullshit that makes poetry. But then Mather has to talk about himself: “There’s my reflection./At the end it is a whole lot/of nothing.” Okay, Mather has just told us he’s a boring-ass douche. Thanks for the lesson. I couldn’t figure that one out on my own. He’s enlightened us. I liked the image that was initially presented, but, fuck, why did he have to go on and talk about himself? I fucking hate him.

p. 65: “Sharon”

A poem about a worn-out hooker who is going to go “straight” by posing nude for drawing students. It’s set in a bar, Mather’s verse moves quickly, brings the joke, the punch-line, the irony, that she’s still whoring herself out, just in a more acceptable manner. He writes, “She admits she’s getting older and fatter anyway/so maybe it’s about time she turned/her life around. She’s getting drunk/before she goes in to her first night/at her first real job in her entire life:/posing nude for the figure drawing class.”

At first I was thinking the poem was in third-person omniscient, and I liked it, until the penultimate line: “and I can’t help it,/it touches me.” Fuck, Mather ruined the poem again. A perfectly good poem, but Mather has to tell us he’s a real person with thoughts and feelings and shit. He knows this human (the hooker), and I should care about him (Mather). Well, no, I don’t, because Mather makes me vomit.

p.67: “Early/Late”

A poem about a homeless man Mather sees in an alley he takes to work. He writes: “His small dark/head looked/so peaceful,/I tried/to walk/without/a sound.” So what? Mather writes a sad poem which touches on human frailty and the fact that we have no control over anything in our lives; that we are victims of circumstance; that inside each of our heads is a chalkboard inside of a low-income public school with the phrase “Existential Despair” written with lime-green chalk. But then he wants us to indulge him, give him importance in the poem. Well, I don’t want this poem to have anything to do with Mather. The poem’s about the miserable bum. Is Mather worth reading about because he didn’t disturb the fucking bum? Oh, Mather’s so sweet. That bum probably hates Mather as much as I do. That night, the bum was awake, and when Mather’s stinky ass passed by him, the bum swallowed his puke out of consideration to Mather’s feelings, and immediately regretted it because he realized that Mather wasn’t worth the sacrifice.

p. 72: “At the Park”

Starts out in third-person, but then Mather starts thinking within the poem, and I got a belly-ache. The poem is about some lady at a park, who brings dogs with her and cages them in a playpen. Mather’s, like, thinking why she would do that, but then notices that the dogs don’t care, and he writes: “so I really don’t know why the whole/thing depressed me like it did, or why/I bother to go out into the world at all.”

A poem on the absurdity: the lady in a park imprisons her dogs in the face of freedom, which is a cool idea, but then Mather has to tell us how much of a loser he is. Mather does not need to tell us he’s a loser in each poem that he writes. This is obvious. How? I don’t know. Maybe it’s just an unspoken truth, like his poems, until he sticks his stupid face in them.

p. 73: “The Last Will and Testicle”

A guy’s at a bar complaining about becoming old. Mather’s listening to him. The guy bitching is thirty years older than Mather. The guy tells Mather about an impotent friend of his who got an implant to inflate his penis, and then went to Tijuana the fuck the brains out of some whore. The old guy made the implant part of his will, to pass down to his heirs.

This poem was pretty funny. I liked it a lot. The punch-line is fucked up and a surprise. It’s solid, except that Mather does some lame shit to be more “real” or something. To make the dialogue as “real”-seeming as possible, when the drunk bitching at the bar says shit about not wanting to get old, Mather writes: “[someone] has to hold a spoon of pre-masticated/gruel of lima bean/out in front of yer face saying/here comes the choo-/choo train fer chrissakes.” The “yer,” “fer,” and “chrissakes” as an attempt of noting how “real” this drunk is is a shitty technique. Mather fucked everything up once again. Mather thinks he’s so real because he notes on some drunk-ass bitch’s peculiarities. Well, would Mather be so “real” if I shot his face in with a shotgun?

p. 76: “Bill Collector”

I think this is part of a mini-series of poems about the collection-agency experience. Honestly, these few were my favorites from this collection. This poem in particular completely refrains itself from entering the first-person, meaning that when I read it, Mather’s butt-ugly, pimple-ridden, shit-stained face did not appear inside my mind. I really appreciated that. Mather should stay off the page unless he’s being mentioned in the local obituary column, and his loved one wants the three people who give a damn about him to show up at the funeral procession.
This poem’s about a “heartless” guy who gets money covered in shit mailed to him by the people he’s collecting from. It seems Mather wants us to see this guy as cold, but the guy’s just doing his job, and seems to be good at it. Mather thinks he has soul, but he’s dead, so whatever.

p. 77: “The Bell”

Another collection-agency poem, this time focuses on a bell that’s used to foment competition and exploitation. I feel this poem’s solid. I didn’t even mind that Mather used the first-person. Maybe it’s because I’ve experienced jobs such as these. Corporate jobs which look at its employees only as units and their emotions are insignificant. All that matters is productivity.

Conclusion

This collection is way too long. Mather sometimes will drop in a really good line, something that will stroke a limp dick into erection, but those lines tend to be muddled with a lot of bullshit, mostly when he’s mentioning his own existence.

Mather has a lot of “poignancy” in this collection, or what should be poignant if you give a damn. What Mather is missing is silly. Mather, the should-be-silly fuck.



New Sam Pink Translations


Múdate conmigo

Múdate conmigo. Estoy solo. Juntos podríamos ver tele. Nos reiríamos de las personas quienes hacen observaciones graciosas. Cuando tengas hambre, te cocinaré. Dirás, “Hacho, tengo unas ganas para…” y te lo preparare. Pondré pedacitos de vidrio en la comida. Tu boca se inundará en sangre. Me dirías algo que te paso durante el día, y cada palabra sonara patético saliendo por tus labios y lengua, hinchados y cortados. Te diré, “No hables con la boca llena. Te vez grosera.” Luego de comer pondrás tu cabeza sobre mi falda y pondré mis manos sobre tu cara. Nos bañaremos juntos y te tocare las nalgas. Te reirás. Me deslizaré hasta el suelo de la ducha. La agua vagara bajo tu espalda y caída de tus nalgas y me dará contra la cara. Tragare el agua antes de que entre el desagüe. Habrá mucho pelo tapando el desagüe. Lo sacare y pondré sobre mis labios como una perilla y actuaré como un tipo de mediana edad quien tiene una perilla. Tendré puesto sandalias y una camisa de algún pueblo en Méjico. Te besare en los labios con mi perilla. Cuando salgas de la ducha, harás que el agua salga frío y mi corazón hará hipo. Tendré miedo. Te perseguiré en lo que entras mi cuarto. En lo que te estés secando, le pondré seguro a la puerta y diré, “Rézale a tu dios, que es hora de sufrir. Quiero que estés ojo a ojo con mi pesadilla.” Hare una pausa antes de decir, “Es broma.” Saltare, desnudo, en la cama. Dirás, “Tus bolas se ven graciosas.” Responderé, “Graciosas, ¿como el ‘Family Circus?” Luego haremos el amor. Acabados de tener sexo, me limpiaré con papel de seda y el papel se quedara pegado contra mi cuerpo. Brincare por el cuarto como un venado de cola blanco. Te pondrás una chaqueta anaranjada y te pintaras la cara de color camuflaje. Dirás, “Ven aquí venita. No te hare daño,” y me dispararas en el cuello y habrá un gran hoyo y sangre entrara mi garganta. Nos sentaremos porque entre cada acción hay un incomodidad social silencioso. “Píntame los dedos de los pies,” eventualmente me dirás, tu voz sonando demasiado de alto contra el silencio. Aguantare tus pies en mis manos y los pintare. Tendré ganas de aplastarte los huesos. Diré, “Tienes pies lindos. ¿Te molestaría si los aplastaba con un martillo o una pesa?” Te reirás y me dirás que apague las luces para podernos acostar. Apagare las luces y me acostare al lado de ti. Te dormirás antes que yo y afuera estará lloviendo. La lluvia dará contra la ventana. Abriré la ventana y aguantare un vaso afuera por la ventana. Cuando se llene el vaso me beberé el agua. Me pondré tu pintalabios. Le daré un beso a la pared y golpeare la mancha que deje en ella. Tendré deseos de arrasarme. Tendré ganas de salir hacia afuera y ahogarme en un charco de lluvia. Solamente por acostarme y descansar. Pon hojas antiguas bajo mis párpados. El peso del cielo me aplastara hacía el descansar. En dolor silencioso deseare por esto. En dolor silencioso deseare que te despiertes, así ya no estar solo. Pero dormirás y yo esperare con la esperanza de ser aliviado, si por solamente un segundo, del peso siempre aumentando, cual se sacuda los pies frente mi puerta todas las noches.

- Translated by Andy Riverbed with proofs by Lola Pistola


Move in with Me

Move in with me. I am lonely. We can watch television together. We'll laugh at people who make funny observations. When you get hungry, I'll make you food. You'll say, "Man, I could go for..." and I'll make it. I'll put little pieces of glass in the food. Your mouth will flood with blood. You'll tell me something that happened to you during the day and every word will sound pathetic coming through your swollen and cut lips and tongue. I'll say, "Don't talk with your mouth full; it makes you look impolite." You'll put your head in my lap after we eat and I'll put my hands over your face and touch it. My hands will feel heavy on your face. You'll get really uncomfortable and ask to take a shower to clean the feeling off. We'll take a shower together and I'll pinch your butt. You'll laugh. I'll let myself slip to the floor of the shower. The water will roam your back and slip from your ass and hit me in the face. I'll drink the water before it enters the drain. There will be a lot of hair clogging the drain. I'll take it out and put it on my lips like a goatee and I'll act like a middle-aged man who has a goatee. I'll wear sandals and a shirt that says the name of a town in Mexico. I'll kiss you on the lips with my goatee. When you leave the shower, you will turn the faucet to cold and my heart will hiccup. I'll feel afraid. I'll follow you into my room. While you're toweling off I'll lock the door and say, "Pray to your god it's time to suffer. I want to make you level-eyed with my nightmare." Then I'll pause before saying, "Just kidding." I'll jump on the bed naked. You'll say, "Your balls look funny." I'll respond, "Like 'Family Circus' funny or what?" Then we'll have sex. When we're done, I'll clean myself with some tissue paper and the tissue paper will stick to me. I'll hop around like a white-tailed deer. You'll put on an orange coat and paint your face with camouflage. You'll say, "Come here little deer; I won't hurt you." Then you'll shoot me in the neck and there will be a huge hole in my neck and the blood will leak into my throat. We'll sit back down because between every action there is quiet awkwardness. "Paint my toes," you'll eventually say, your voice sounding way too loud against the quiet. I'll hold your feet in my hands and paint them. I will feel like crushing the bones. I'll say, "You have nice feet, would you mind if I crushed them with a hammer or a dumbbell?" You'll laugh and ask me to turn off the lights so we can sleep. I'll turn off the lights and lie down next to you. You'll fall asleep faster than me and it will rain. The rain will beat the window. I'll open the window and hold out a glass. When the glass is full, I will drink it. I will put on some of your lipstick. I’ll kiss the wall and punch the lipstick stain. I'll feel like obliterating myself. I’ll feel like going outside and drowning in a puddle. Just lying down and resting. Put old leaves underneath my eyelids. The weight of the sky will crush me into rest. I will wish for this in painful quiet. In painful quiet I will wish for you to wake up so I won't be alone. But you'll sleep and I’ll wait, hoping to be relieved if only for a second of the mounting weight that wipes its feet at my door every night.

- Sam Pink