“THE HISTORY OF SEX AND BEEF”
Mostly Spinach is my third chapbook. The first one is out of print aside from the 8 copies I have on my shelf and it’s publisher is no longer alive due to disinterest on the part of it’s owner/operator. The second one is still out there, as is its publisher, but I wouldn’t personally recommend it. This one, however, seems OK. It’s also my only chapbook wherein the “I” gives a blowjob.
TITLE.
One time I was cooking some kind of dish that dish got really fucked up and my girlfriend said “It’s primarily spinach” and I said “I’m going to title everything from now on ‘primarily spinach’” and I did. I wrote like 20 poems and 1 full-length book with that title. Those poems and that book are still out in the air and probably won’t be published. This chapbook is titled Mostly Spinach due to technicalities only, I’d of you all to think of it as being titled Primarily Spinach.
POEMS
Here’s three of them.
A STRAWBERRY IN LOS ANGELES
They'll find me clutching an unloaded automatic under the pier. I'll
be eating a blueberry muffin and spitting sugar onto the mussels. I
saw more than enough nature anyway after being horse-drug through the
trails of unconscionable denial. Somebody in British Columbia burns in
a malfunctioning tub. A strawberry in Los Angeles inadvertently is
tossed into the disposal. Someday soon I'd like to get inside of you
and hang out until the helicopters scream overhead and the doors are
brought down by those who've never even skimmed the collected works of
anyone.
INTO THE PACIFIC
Eat a tomato
while we search for some poems
that were created past Korea
past Pensacola, I am
sad because my phone
rings and I suffocate.
Each tight beat
rolling through a tile floor,
I'd prefer
to be Hughes
tossing his textbooks
into the Pacific
but
only Hughes is Hughes
tossing his textbooks
into the Pacific.
(I opted for a shit repetition
in lieu
of a decaying
syntax)
An essay on age,
demands a grand gesture-
jumping into the sea,
fucking the turtles
A TIME IN NEW YORK
I want to languish in the kind of park where everyone wins. This is
not that place and Pittsburgh is a painting we will not create. On
Vine Street there is a new cafe featuring the "Charles Bukowski
Lounge" with a staircase that only leads to a wall and that sort of
nonsense is better served by Frenchmen who smoke the type of
cigarettes you have never witnessed. I remember a time in New York
after Christo crucified those golden gates to the grass when you were
supposed to go and look at them and think they were good and take
pictures but I didn't and didn't and didn't and didn't and thought
Christo was an ill feline with too much disposable income. (Everywhere
the beards gather and talk about stars but I prefer to make forts) My
lineage is cracked. My uncle serves five for stealing a toaster while
my father rides a Sea-Doo over an Orlando lake with his sisters whom I
will not meet. I peel on an undershirt and it's damp and damp is a
color too depending of course in which province you were C-sectioned.
ART
Luca Dipierro is a sexy man who makes somehow even sexier art. I’ve been a fan of his work for some time now and if you haven’t been then you fucking well should be. I have had mediocre experiences with book covers before because of being offered some very mediocre options. I didn’t want this cover to be mediocre and so I asked Luca to do the art and thankfully he said OK. He also makes movies like 60 Writers/60 Places. This is the art Luca made followed by some words on Luca regarding the art.
From Luca:
“I have read your book a couple times, looking for things to draw. I found nothing. Mostly Spinach is made of words that do not resemble any objects that I can draw. No hands, no ships, no houses, no lips, no towers on fire. I was glad I could not find spinach either because I am not able to draw spinach and I would have copied it from Charles E. Segar. Instead, I decided to draw the book itself, the effect of the book on me as a reader. I loved your book, even more because it did not tell me anything but itself.”
VULNERABILITY
I really wanted to make a video magazine composed of fiction and poetry readings of naked authors. I was discouraged from doing so after so many told me this was a good idea and that they would look at it but never submit. So instead I just made a book trailer for Mostly Spinach. This is me reading a poem from Mostly Spinach naked in my mother’s kitchen while I babysat her two cats.
INFO/ LINKS/SHIT
Mostly Spinach, Virgogray Press, Released July 13th 2010, 34pp.
http://virgograypress.blogspot.com/2010/07/joseph-goosey-mostly-spinach.html
Poems have previously appeared in Mudluscious, Xenith, Shoots And Vines, Thieves Jargon, Anastamoo, and Spank Mag.
http://virgograypress.wordpress.com/
http://www.vimeo.com/user3929156/videos
http://www.lucadipierro.com/
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p.s. Hey. I'm very, very happy to be able to celebrate this new book by the wondrous writer and d.l. Joseph today. Well, duh, but I truly am, and, as you see by the excerpts and general hoo-hah above, it's a beaut. I hope you'll scour the details and support both Joseph and your richness as readers by ordering his book via the handy link if you can. Thanks so much, Joseph. Please accept the blog's toast, and thanks to the rest of you for your kind attention and any words you send in Joseph's direction today. Let's see ... there's a chance I might spend tomorrow at Parc Asterix with Oscar B and maybe Kiddiepunk. If it's not raining, I think I will, but it's raining right now, and it might well pour until tomorrow. Anyway, I mention this because, if I do go, there won't be a full-fledged p.s. tomorrow, just a general hey and stuff. We'll see. ** Tonyoneill, Hey, Tony! Yeah, I saw that yesterday was the official pub day. Heavy congrats, man! I finally got my copy last night when Yury came home very late after checking the mailbox first. It looks amazing. Do you really have that mustache? I imagine you're incredibly busy, so no sweat, but I'm putting together a 'Sick City' post, and I'd love to include an excerpt. Is there one somewhere online that I can swipe/borrow, do you know? (I couldn't find one myself). Or could you send me a little piece of it to use? Like I said, assuming you're headlong into book stuff, let this be the least of your worries, and I'll figure something out. Mainly, congrats! I bet it's going to go really, really well. It just feels like it will. There's something in the air. ** Emily, Hi, Emily. Yeah, it's from the Guided by Voices song. GbV is my favorite band of all time, and Robert Pollard is my favorite living artist. Oh, awesome about your John Waters multi-parter! I can't wait to read the first one and then whatever comes after. Everyone, the amazing Emily has the first of a forthcoming multi-part entry on John Waters over on her blog. If you know her and her blog, you know you need to read it. Use this link, and scroll down to 'Too Young To Be Square: an exploration into John Waters'. And while you're scrolling down, check out her Tommy Lee and Heather Locklear beauty pageant on your way. Thanks, E! I have what I guess must be at least a semi-guilty pleasure-related fondness for Heather Locklear. ** Bill, Hey, Bill. How's Spain treating you? ** Joseph, Champagne-like words and sentiment galore to you today, pal. Thanks a lot for letting this place help christen your mighty tome. Uh, not not to burst the bubble of your 'no one will want to read this' state, but, uh, you described something that I sure the hell want to read. Granted, I'm weird, but I'm hardly alone. Oh, you're off to NYC tomorrow. Dig it all. Me, I'm fine but still a little burnt out from the Avignon stuff, and that's getting kind of annoying. ** Killer Luka, I googled Jaco Van Der Hoven, and, oh my gosh, what an inspiring fellow indeed. Dutch genes don't get nearly the credit they deserve. I almost read 'The Alienist' a couple of times back it was the massive best seller that it was. I have this feeling it'd be too plotty for me. Maybe I can skim it for the, uh, colorful parts. ** 'Stoopid Slapped Puppies', Are you finished celebrating your birthday yet? I'm not. Great about Thursday or Friday, man, thanks. Maybe I'm the coolest doo-doo on this planet. ** Nb, My pad is in Los Feliz. Really near where you are. Up towards the mountains a ways. Heck, that Family Values guy hired a boy off Rentboy to carry his suitcases, right? So, how was your birthday all in all and in and out? Oh, wait, you caught us up in your later comment. Nice birthday, and I know every single one of those places you were except for the taco truck. Psychobabble -- which is two minutes from my pad -- is, you know, the neighborhood cafe. Whatever. I can't believe you're leaving there already. Dang, you barely scratched the place. I want to be there the next time you are. So, where to now? Back to NYC? ** Alan, That Bill Murray interview is just sublime. Oh man, that was such an extreme pleasure, thank you. Reading him talk about rhythm and delivery was fucking heaven. Everyone, Alan linked us up yesterday to a fantastic interview with one of the world's greatest living geniuses aka Bill Murray. It's here, and it's God. Thanks a ton, Alan. How's the novel going? You haven't mentioned it in a while. ** David Ehrenstein, Hey, D. Here's a Bill Murray-related high five: slappity-slap. That was it. ** Math, That Erasure DVD thing sounds nightmarish. Andy Bell kind of gives me nightmares, I don't know why. Maybe because when I look at him, I always expect to see Alison Moyet with a frog in her throat. I mean the Erasure Andy Bell, not the Ride Andy Bell, who gives me something else. Anyway, yeah, the drastic aspect of S's change is really quite strange. I guess he needs to go through whatever he's going through and be or not be who he wants to be. When he tries to reconnect with you in the future, and I'm sure he will, you can decide what to do then. For now, a tattoo! Is asking what it consists of visually okay? ** Christopher/ Mark, Thanks a whole lot for beautiful background and extension! ** _Black_Acrylic, Thanks so much again, Ben! ** Kier, Hey. I always play the easy version on every video game. No shame there. Me, I just like being in and exploring the games more than anything too. The fights are just like speed bumps to me. When they're too hard, I ask friends to fight them for me so I can keep moving. ** Armando, Hey. Yeah, I'd love to go along. Chances are extremely thin that I can, but I'll try my utmost. There are a ton of Rimbaud translations in English for sure. When you don't speak French, it's such a crapshoot. No doubt the ADHD gets in the way of your writing. Writing can be so fragile. I'm having the hardest time getting up a head of steam myself at the moment. ** Tigersare, Cool that you've hung out a bit with Mr. Stewart. I have yet to have the privilege, and I hope I will. We've exchanged a few emails, but that's it. Awesome on the film festival front, not to mention the DJing. ** 溫緯李娟王季, I always do when it comes to you. ** Steevee, Interesting about 'Inception'. I'm pretty sure I'm seeing it later today. My expectations are reasonably low. I'm hoping for an odder and maybe smarter than usual summer blockbuster at best. ** David, Hey. ** Misanthrope, Oh, your mom is watching the two movies over and over? Like little kids do with 'The Little Mermaid' or whatever? Yikes. I barely got through the one Twilight movie I saw, the second one. And I was on a plane. And I'll watch anything on a plane. Oh, man, I hope your mom's surgery goes as swimmingly as possible today. How curious that she and Creative Massacre have the same surgery on the same day, and right after the two Nicks had the same birthday. Maybe all that 2012 end of the world stuff isn't just embarrassing bullshit after all. Owls flying super quietly, yeah. It's trippy. Not a sound. Yeah, I don't know why certain people dislike the Peschel translation so much. They're wrong, I think. Sorry to hear that about LTP. His face, even. Isn't his face his raison d'etre? ** Creative Massacre, Very, very, very best of luck with the surgery today, and I hope that by the time you read this, you're zonked on whatever drug they gave you and celebrating. Let me know how it went, okay? ** Steven Trull, Hey. The fog's real too. The audience sees it coming out at them, and they cover their faces and cringe, and then it engulfs them, and then they uncover their faces and go, 'Ahhhh'. Your new blog is totally amazing. Wow, why am I only discovering it now? Everyone, you virtually have not lived until you've visited Steven Trull's newish blog 'No Image'. I visited it for the first time just a moment ago, and I am definitely more alive if not alive for the very first time. Dennis Christopher can suck his own cock and apparently does that frequently. That is not a very interesting factoid, but it is a fact. I do love crepes, and I will find my way to that place you linked me to when I find my way to SF. I'd link you to my favorite crepe place in Paris, but it's so sure of its own greatness that it doesn't have a website. ** Jesse Hudson, Aw, thanks, Jesse. One way or another, you'll get to see the piece, I'm sure. I'm just absolutely sure. The sooner the better, and I'll do all I can to hasten your and its fateful meeting. ** Brendan, Dude, that sounds like so much fun. Do you ever go to Circus Circus to gamble or ride the rides or whatever? That place is horror and depression incarnate. Going there to do anything is like listening to a Nico album when you're feeling suicidal. ** Postitbreakup, Okay, man, but I guess ask me stuff 'cos I'm one of those kinds of people who mostly doesn't like to talk myself except when asked. ** Inthemostpeculiarway, Oh, they were human bites. I got all tangled up in my thinking there. So, like, cats bite you when they love you because they just sort of assume your surface is made to withstand being bitten like a cat's? 800 euros is, mm, just over $1000, I think. My friend Lena is meeting with the fashion designer guy today. Fingers crossed. Your visiting friend was kind of oversensitive yesterday, no? Seemed like it. Nice dog story. I'm more a dog guy than a cat guy, not that I want to have a pet dog at all. Oh, yes, yes, I do want you to write more of those reviews for the blog! Actually, I've almost asked you if you would do that a bunch of times, but it felt kind of pushy of me, so I buttoned my lip. But, yes, I've been kind of secretly jonesing for the legendary part 2 of your reviews post for a long time. That would absolutely wonderful of you, and, if it helps you write, what a great bonus. My day: Let's see ... Oh, my room here looks over a park. I've mentioned that. And yesterday I was leaning out the window smoking (don't tell Yury), and I saw this woman that I seem to always see in the park, and I decided to pay attention to her for some reason. Anyway, I realized that she comes to the park every day with this bag of cleaning stuff and spends like an hour cleaning this big green metal box that's kind of hidden in the bushes. I've always wondered what it was. So, she cleaned it very carefully, and then she left. The thing is, she doesn't seem crazy or anything. She just looks your average French woman in her forties or fifties. So, I wondered why it is that she does that, and I thought what if she had a child, and killed it, and hid the body in that green box recently or years ago or whatever? That would explain it. What else? Gisele called me, and we talked about how successful our piece was and how happy we were and all that. It was kind almost unpleasantly hot here yesterday, but today it's like 78 degrees and kind of raining. I had a coffee with Oscar and Kiddiepunk, and we decided to see 'Inception' together today. I tried to work on my novel, not very successfully. Yury went out with the aforementioned Lena after work to see this band/guy named My Name is Claude play, and I've never heard of him, and Yury liked his stuff, so I guess I'll check him out. I did that interview I mentioned. Hopefully, my answers were okay. Evening arrived. I think I watched TV, probably the news or something. Ate, blah blah, crashed. Not much of a day. I'll try again between now and when we talk again. How was Wednesday for you? ** Sypha, Hey. ** Chilly Jay Chill, Hi, Jeff. Mm, when I get to the later parts of the novel during this heavy edit and rewrite phase, I'll know if it works. So far, I've thought it will, and I think I'm probably right, but I won't know until I know whether the prose can corral the mess or not. Right now, I'm not worrying too much about whether the ending is built on a structural flaw or not, but I am anticipating the structural move I've made and building in a support system in the earlier parts that I'm thinking will presage the conclusion and circumvent what I see as the greatest danger, namely that the novel's narrative element pays off not on the level of the narrative but within its substructure, if that makes any sense at all. The novel presents a surface mystery which is gradually revealed as a device through which the novel is conveying something far more complicated, a wall of prose concealing a secret passage. It's hard to describe. As for the dilemma you mention facing, I find I can only find the serious flaws by refining and polishing what's there. It's a time-consuming thing and a poor use of my time, but I only find out what I can't do by doing everything I can do first. The polishing is the answer to everything for me. I don't know if that's so clear. I can say more or something different, if not. ** JW Veldhoen, Did you find it yet? Wow, that stuff you wrote starting with Wyndam Lewis was amazing. ** Slatted Light, Hey, man! So great to see you! Mm, yeah, I guess I mean it takes me a ridiculous amount of time to write non-fiction, and I think the best non-fiction uses kind of an elaboration on one's speaking or typing voice, and it should be easier to do in that sense than fiction is. But non-fiction is harder for me than fiction, even though I don't get as anal about the prose in that case. Basically, I don't think I have a natural voice that I can rely on. I feel like I spend too much time constructing that natural voice, and so there's almost something slightly artificial about my non-fiction writing or something. I don't know. I think I might be good at aphorisms, yeah, although I must say that one of the hardest things for me to write in the world is a blurb. I'll spend weeks trying to write the right blurb. It's insane. You're working on a fiction thing? Oh, well, that's certainly very intriguing. I'm glad you're doing well, man. I always miss you when you're not here. ** Alec Niedenthal, NYC is the most likely so far. That's where we've gotten a bunch of initial offers. Money's so tight in the US, I don't know how it'll work. Until the guy who ran the UCLA theater series got canned and the budget cut, that would have been a real option. There's a place in Seattle that's way into booking the show, but their budget isn't so hot. Houston has almost hosted pieces by us twice. I'll let you know what transpires. There's a whole lot of discussion about possible US shows going on right now. My writing process is kind of alien to me too, man, even though it's the way I always write. Really nice stuff about Faulkner there. Really makes me want to reread him. Very best to you in your Baltimore tail end days. ** Colin, Hey, man. ** Little foal, There's nothing dorky about liking those artists, Maybe in the UK it's uncool or so something, but fuck the UK albeit without fucking the people who live there somehow. Avital teaches at that place? I thought she taught at NYU. Well, I guess she doesn't have to teach in one place only. Avital's so great. She would totally get, love, admire, encourage, revere you. She totally would. I had to read 'Hogg' twice before I got how great it is. Okay, I hope you and Kip get along in a fruitful way, man. Much love. ** Jeff, Hey, man. Yeah, Avignon definitely has those qualities. Actually, one of Sade's two chateaus is about a half-hour drive from there. The ultimate maze city that I've been to is Venice. You could literally never get out of its complicated structure alive, I think. Oh, I never get mad at you at all. There's nothing to get mad at. Anyway, I don't get mad very easily, but when I do, people always know. I'm a bad liar, which is weird since my novels are nothing but complicated lies. You and I are definitely friends, Jeff. I can't think of another word that would better define it. My friendship is yours whenever you want it and even when you don't want it, I guess, ha ha. ** I forgot that it's cleaning day here at the Recollets, and the crew just knocked on my door, and I said give me five minutes, and I'll use them to proofread then launch this thing. Again, hail the arrival of Joseph's book please. I'll see you tomorrow with the usual, lengthy p.s. or not.
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