update on the house, or just when you think something positive...

...about humanity, the walls of reality come crashing down.

first, we stopped by the house today and i took a picture of my house with my cellphone (see photo to the right). realize it's a cellphone, so it's not the best quality, but it's pretty nice for a low-quality cellphone pic.
the house was painted (first time we saw it painted) and we're happy with the color. the door isn't painted yet, but it will be red, so just try to picture that. we're to have red shutters as well.

okay, onto the continued saga of this poet's house. if you remember from last episode we had been contacted by our builder that our tile (which was a killer 13"x13" specimen) was dicontinued by the manufacturer. we received a free upgrade to a better (i.e. larger) tile due to the inconvenience. the tile we chose was 15"x15", which is allegedly a better-looking tile, aesthetically speaking. the color was a deep burgundy with greenish-brown highlights. very nice. not as nice as our original choice, mind you, but still something we could live with.

well, this was Monday. five days later (5!), today, we show up at the house and find that they've tiled our entire house with the wrong fucking tile. a 12"x12" sand-colored tile that looks NOTHING like the tile we chose. this shit is getting ridiculous. how is it that in five days they can completely fuck something up like this? how is it? what is wrong with people? i have little faith in people, but it appears i put too much faith in these dolts. my wife, the brilliant soul that she is, even said on Monday, after we chose the tile, "i bet these assholes fuck this up." i told her there was no way, we JUST chose the tile. all they have to do is truck it to the house and ta-da, it's done. well, the prescience of my wife will never cease to amaze me. she called it. those assholes fucked it up.

so, our house is five months late. they've screwed up the actual building of it (i never mentioned this, but they fucked up in constructing the house such that our living area is 4" too short and we've an extra 4" in the garage; but to further ruin it, they've had to fashion a "jog" in the back washroom area so they could fit a washer AND dryer in there. plus, the 4" is taken off the kitchen which means the island we'll have in there will be squashed up against the counter with only 8 inches of space between it and the opposite counter), they took so long that our original tile choice is no longer available, and now they tiled the house with the wrong goddamn tile.

i know Holmes Homes (our builder) works only in Utah, but if you ever find yourself in need of a builder, and you're also unfortunate enough to find yourself in Utah, i cannot recommend Holmes Homes as a builder. though, i've heard that every fucking builder in America is as bad or worse, i know from first hand the kind of shit that Holmes Homes pulls. seems they got you by the shorthairs and don't mind pulling. our only recourse is the ability to get our of our contract without losing our earnest money. BUT, we lose the home we've been worrying about and wanted, housing prices in Utah are insane so now we can't even afford another house, and we would have to start all over again with this bullshit even if we could. there's really nothing we can do but bend over and take it; and hope they use plenty of lubricant.

anyway, that's the new development on the house. assuming they'll change the tile, this pushes our move-in date even further back. we signed the contracts on this house over a year ago. it was ridiculous in March. now, it's three months beyond ridiculous.

the house

i haven't posted about it in awhile, and since this is my blog and it's (ostensibly) about my life, i'll go ahead and make a post about my house.

we got a call this past Monday that the tile we originally chose (back in July of last year) was no longer being produced and that we would need to choose a new style. of course it's not in fucking production, we chose the damn thing so long ago. it's probably out of date and would look ridiculous. we wouldn't know, though, because it had been so long that we had literally forgotten what we chose, and how it looked.
we showed up at the showroom to choose our new tile and the guy meeting us brought a sample of the tile we originally chose and one that he thought might work out. it turns out the one we chose was fucking AWESOME, for lack of a better descriptor. of course it was. anyway, we haggled to get a free upgrade to a better, bigger tile and chose one that is nice but not as nice.

it was nice, too, to check out all the other options and colors (countertops, cabinets, house color) of things we chose and forgot about. apparently, we are about 30 days out. it seems we've been perpetually 30 days out.

anyway, we're going back out tomorrow to check the construction. we hope to see all the tile done, the house painted (did i mention it'll be a mustard yellow?) and hopefully some other things. we'll see.

when all is said and done, i'll eventually post pictures here. i don't have a digital camera (i know, i know...) so i'll do my best to borrow one or scan my photos.

a little irony

well, what do you know?
Bukowski always wanted to be in a library. he's written about in many of his poems and short stories. it finally happened.
good for him.

in the mail today & musings on poet laureate

in the mail today was the new issue of small press review (Vol. 38 Nos. 5-6). a review of Naked Knuckle #6 was featured and it included quotes of poems by both Hosho McCreesh and our very own Christopher Cunningham. congrats, guys. you know my thoughts on your work, so it's just good to know others are noticing, too.

on the drive home from work today, i was ruminating about the announcement that Donald Hall will be new (and 14th) Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. there wasn't much a fucking announcement, really. just some tiny blurbs in the papers (or at least in their online facades). instead, we hear more about Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan. ridiculous.

anyway, it seems to me that the announcement of a new Poet Laureate would be a big fucking deal. i think it is. or at least i think it should be. oh well.

at least there's still those of us like McCreesh and Cunningham rewriting the myths for the next generation.

the ovaltine poems

for those who might have missed it, a fun series of comments have been logged in the is the cliché a cliché post. among those comments have been a bunch of poems relating to Ovaltine, the drink of choice for this poet's life contributor, editor of remark., and poette, Kat.

in the interest of ease and enjoyment, here are the poems so far (plus a new one by yours truly), with bylines below each poem:

slang

"Mary, you
are so fucking
ovaltine
it makes me like
sick
or something."

she flipped open
her cellphone
and sent a
quick text
to her list,
making sure
to tell everybody
that
Mary

is
again
off her
Myspace page.

this time for good.

Mary went home
to try and
figure out
how to be

less
ovaltine

in the future.
--Christopher Cunningham



Ovaltine

if Ovaltine were
money, i'd
be rich

but if Ovaltine
were love,
i'd still
be lonely

without you.
--justin.barrett



madness and strong drink

looking in the mirror
after no sleep for a second
night,
peeling back the corners
of red tired eyes,
sunlight oozing thru
dirty plastic slats,
mouth filled with
ugliness
and the taste of
strong drink.

mind is slipping,

mutter,

"ovaltine"

to the face
I no longer know.
--Christopher Cunningham



Untitled

I heard a fly buzz
And then it died;
Fell into my Ovaltine,
And it made me cry.

It was my favorite fly;
I named it Vincent Price;
Help me, Help me, it cried,
Oh, brother, look at
What Just just made me write.
--Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal



Gone

she used the
ovaltine jar to
stick the post-it
to

‘you boring fucker,
have a nice life.’

I’d miss her sense
of humour,
but that was
about all.
--Brian McGettrick



Untitled Ovaltine Poem

In grade school, mary
was quite
the oval teen.

By the time she
reached high school,
she developed
a bad case
of bulimia.

In between classes
she would vomit
as a means to slenderize.
All the cool kids
would make fun
of her for being
so cliche, till one day
she snapped
and ate them

all.
--C. Allen Rearick



Because it’s very delicious

"Ovaltine?"
I ask,
"Why Ovaltine?"

"Because it's very
delicious," she
says, "plus, it's
good for you."

"Whatever.
Ovaltine is so last
week, AND
it tastes like
crap. I much prefer
Nestle Quick."

"Nestle Quick?"

"Yes, Nestle
Quick.
It’s like Ovaltine
on steroids."

"On steroids?
You're such
a cliché,"
she says.

"You're a cliché,"
I retort. Then,
"Whatever.
And give me back
my steroids."
--justin.barrett



all good stuff. this only goes to show that poetry can come from anything; even something as ovaltine as Ovaltine!

AND, as if all of this weren't enough, the very same Kat who inspired these poems is working on a villanelle to top this collection off.

if any other poets out there are interested in getting in on the ovaltine fun, post your poem in the comments. don't be so ovaltine and get to it!

why wasn't i chosen?

the Library of Congress announced, today, that Donald Hall will be the 14th Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress.

i guess my next order of business is reading up on this Hall fella.

Whitman's invincible city

it appears the city of Camden has decided to offer a tour of Walt Whitman's home. The tour will be away from the Waterfront of Camden (scary thought) and includes a Whitman impersonator. for $30, it's not a bad deal.

Camden isn't the nicest place around, but this little attraction certainly makes it a bit more enticing; at least to this struggling poet.

a kick (err...itch) in the pants

well, isn't this just a fine how-do-you-do?!

good thing global warming isn't really happening, huh?



i'm sorry to tell you that it is, though.

...we interrupt our regularly scheduled blog

for this announcement:

my good buddy, fellow writer in the trenches, periodic commenter to this blog, friend to the world, and all-around good guy Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal has asked that i mention that Jeff Vande Zande's new novel Into the Desperate Country has been released by March Street Press.

i've not read the novel, but Vande Zande is a poet that's been around (including in an issue of remark (#25) while i was still running the joint). his stuff is good, and i am recommending it at Luis's request.

we now rejoin our blog, already in progress...

is the word cliché a cliché?

friend of this poet's life, Kat, was kind enough to forward this article by Jenna Glatzer about clichés and avoiding them in your writing. It's a short article, but informative and enjoyable nonetheless.

is nonetheless a cliché?
what about writing a blog, is that cliché? i'm pretty damn sure that is.

oh well.

feeble rantings

the latest installment of my seminal column, Background Noise, on Upright Against The Savage Heavens, is now posted for all to bask in. this time around i attempt to answer a question for the ages: What is poetry? i fail miserably, of course, but there's a good time to be had in laughing at my failure.

enjoy the feeble rantings and psychotic ramblings of a man on the verge of sanity.

a little linguistics for your ass

just surfing through some sites and found a plethora of linguistic blogs and such.

this is one of my favorites. lots of good stuff from etymology to grammar.
this one is about linguistics, science fiction and other shit. pretty good, too.

was also reading up on linguistic fun:
mondegreens--and here i thought that it was Bingo Jed has a light on.
tmesis--abso-fucking-lutely!
portmanteau--i thought Calexico was just the name of an amazing band?
spoonerism--they call me bustin.jarrett.

who knew they had names for all these things, huh?

it's pretty cool, too, that the word "mondegreen" actually is a mondegreen from a mishearing of a 17th Century ballad. sweet!

i think it would be clever if the other words actually were what they described (much like an onomatepeia and mondegreen):

tmesis would be tme-fucking-sis.
portmanteau is French, and is a portmanteau of sorts. i don't know French, so i suppose this one is immune; or at least it is as for as i'm concerned.
spoonerism should be noonerspism. i like that.

good stuff.

anyway, just having some fun with language this Friday evening, procrastinating on writing that column for Upright Against The Savage Heavens. i'm the king procrastinator. the kingrastinator. the ping krocrastinator. no one can procrasti-fucking-nate like i!

nice. my wife always wanted me to be a cunning linguist.

world cup of poetry

the fabulous poet, and soccer fan, Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal has posted an amazing opus to both soccer and poetry at Upright Against The Savage Heavens, on this the first day of World Cup 2006. check it out, and learn some new things about both soccer and poetry from around the world.

in a few days (Sunday) i will be posting the second installment to Background Noise on the same blog. Look for it.

vive la evolucion!

to go off-topic from our typical poetry fare, here's a great article on the Top 10 myths about evolution. #2 is my favorite. so few know what the hell a theory actually is; how important it is, and how amorphous; and how it IS NOT an opinion.
anyway, a good primer in evolution science.

chapbook of the quarter

i received the 2nd volume of the 2nd year of the Chapbook of the Quarter Club from Bottle of Smoke Press, a great set of poems by Adrian Manning, titled A Tourist, A Pilgrim, A Truth. another fine letterpressed mini-chap by Bill Roberts.

good damn advice

so, it appears i'm not the only one who's a stickler for proper grammar and spelling.

remember folks, spelling and grammar matters.
even in email.

methinks

i received Glenn W. Cooper and Michael Estabrook's new split-chap, methink i see my father, published by Liquid Paper Press, the imprint of Nerve Cowboy's editors.
this chapbook is gorgeously designed and features fabulous poetry about each poet's father, both of whom died while the poets were young.

the book goes for $6 and is well worth every single penny.

background noise

the first installment of my weekly rant called Background Noise is now up on Christopher Cunningham's great blog Upright Against The Savage Heavens. check it out and join the discussion.
it's about why we should write poetry.

we are (were) the champions...

i can't believe i forgot to post it, but back in April my Florida Gators basketball team won the NCAA Tournament. it was a very exciting time in the Barrett household, let me tell you.

anyway, a few more months of summer drudgery before football season begins. i only hope we have half the success our basketball team had. that's a lie, i hope we have more than half, but you know what i mean.

savage heavens

Christopher Cunningham has been gracious enough to ask me to contribute more regularly to his own great blog, Upright Against The Savage Heavens. in that vein, i've decided to write a weekly column, Background Noise, that will be posted every Sunday.

I've posted the first installment, a introduction, and will put up the very first real column this Sunday.

Funk Soul Brother Check It Out, Now!