Boring Post

I am committed to not falling behind on my blogging duties. I didn't sign up for this free service to have it rot slowly in cyberspace. Oh no. So I'm going to some old blog standards, baby to keep this page fresh in my mind.

First up...here's a list of the books I'm reading:

Empire Falls by Richard Russo (that's my reading book, one I'm trying to steal technique from because I think my novel-in-progress [if it can be called progress] may owe some debt to the way Russo uses the town of Empire Falls. But so far, I'm about 160 or so pages deep into it...I'm not exactly hopping for joy about digging back into it...it's a touch dry, but I got 300 plus pages to go, so it's got time to get me. Oh, if any of you know of a quality book that begins with a line of dialogue instead of laying the scene first, please let me know in the comment section. It'll help me.)

Positively Fifth Street by Jim McManus (that's my shitter book, one that occupies those precious solitary moments. So far its an interesting, but albeit scattershot nonfiction account of McManus's run at the World Series of Poker, and the trial of Ted Binion's murder's and his family and the allure of gambling, and a small bit about poker playing ladies and his Harper's artcile that he was sent to Vegas to write about poker playing ladies...Jimmy, as I will now call him, teaches at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, which happens to be the other MFA program that wanted me, though they didn't offer any tuition help to ease their 1,000 dollar a credit hour price and they didn't tell me until the week I moved to Mankato (all of that was after I wrote them a letter about how I heard my neighbor being fucked with a full bottle of Old Style and that I had to move, so they should accept me...[they told me to write them something that would help them decide to let me in, and by that time I knew I was going to Mankato, so I figured I would have fun with it])

Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry (that's my exercise bike book, one that gets read while on my exercise bike. it's a big honking book for an exercise bike book, but it's not like I don't have quite a few miles to ride on that thing to lose some tonnage, so me and Lonesome Dove, Texas gonna have some long quiet times together. I'm about 20 pages deep into that...LD just replaced previous exercise bike book Three Nights in August by Buzz Bissinger, a book about a Tony LaRussa, the St. Louis Cardinals and a 3 game series against the Cubs in 2003. Nice read, nothing academic, kept me nice stupid, but I'm an unashamed Cardinal fanboy, so I had to read this. I'll probably hunt down that Whitey Herzog book after Lonesome Dove is through. And about that exercise bike...I think I bruised my tailbone on that son of a bitch. The seat is awkward and uncomfortable, like trying to ride a cookie sheet sidesaddle made of dental tools. The "padding" is just a cruel illusion.)

What CDs am I listening to? Nothing, and I'm ashamed for it. I bought a few new ones and I know which other ones I want to get, but I just haven't been listening to them. That new Neil Young CD is all right. He's not exactly being subtle (something SNL did a fine job parodying), but it's not the worst Neil Young I've heard. I like the new Eagles of Death Metal. Catchy, good times music. I've been waking up to Carmina Burana each morning. That's stirs the blood. And I got Living on a Prayer from Bon Jovi stuck in my head right now. So that's gotta count for something. Not taste, but something. But, you know, I've got to hold on, to what I got. I'm gonna make a difference, if I'm ready or not. I got Bon Jovi, and that's all right for love. I've got to give it a shot. Oooo! I'm halfway there. Whoa, oh. Living on a prayer! Take Jon's hand, and we'll make it he swears. Whoa,oh. Liv-in on a prayer. Yowza...powerful stuff. If only the Jove grew a stache...or maybe if Richie Sambora had one Heather Locklear wouldn't have dumped his ass...but that's for the Lord to decide.

Word of the day: Anadiplosis: (definition: repetition of the last word of one line or clause to begin the next [often results in climax]. An example would be from As You Like It "For your brother and my sister no sooner met but they looked; no sooner looked but they loved; no sooner loved but they sighed; no sooner sighed...and so on. This definition was taken from A Handlist of Rhetorical Terms, Second Editionl, written by Richard A. Lanham.)

Mustache news: nothing to report, except that Nacho Libre and mustachioed Jack Black plays a Mexican wrestler in it and it comes out June 16th. And we all know that's gonna rock.

VIVA EL MUSTACHE!!!