i am going to write a blog now

"i read about frank stanford on i think blake’s blog.
some girl i liked gave me in watermelon sugar to read.
i learned about bukowski from reading about tom waits
i learned about tom waits because my dad hates the ramones and came into my room one day and took the cd out and put in mule variations and told me to “grow the fuck up” "

i learned about amy hempel from a chuck palahniuck book the nonfiction one and after that i never read chuck palahniuck again because i thought his sentences were great and then i realized every sentence he ever wrote he got from the story in reasons to live about the girl that keeps moving.

i learned about online literature through bear parade. i learned about bear parade by googling michael earl craig because i'd just read can you relax in my house four times in a row and was pissed off there weren't more poems in it.

i read michael earl craig because this girl gave it to me. she also gave me actual air.

i read james tate because he blurbed both of those books.

i read catch 22 because my dad made me

i read the tin drum because my dad made me

i read kavalier and clay because my dad made me

i read infinite jest because my ex girlfriend made me. we'd broken up. i thought he used too many words. she told me it was probably the best thing she'd ever read. it was ten bucks at a borders, so i got it. i called her during the first chapter and told her there were too many fucking words and if the whole fucking book had this many fucking words in it than i was fucking done. she told me to quit being a pussy and read the fucking book. i did. i still do. all the time. it is incredible.

i learned about donald barthelme because my friend joe murphy told me i should read 40 stories and i did because he said 60 stories but 40 seemed like a more reasonable number.
i forget how i learned about grace paley but it wasNO it was in the introduction to Amy Hempel's collected. Rick Moody's introduction.

i read shane jones on pineapple war.

i learned about pineapple war because gene told me he couldn't publish any of the chapbooks i'd sent him but i think at that point i'd sent him like 3 in 6 months or something and he said that they were a good site and new and i should give it a shot and i did. pineapple war is great and everyone should read it.

i learned about ondaatje i don't know. i watched the english patient with the ex girlfriend who made me read infinite jest. i worked at the pennsylvania governor's school for the arts as the sculpture assistant and the fiction teacher gave me a reading list that had the collected works of billy the kid on it. that book is amazing.

i learned about pindeldyboz because the 2003 nonrequired reading had this awesome story called the lost boys in it and that was from i think pindeldyboz.

i started talking to blake because i sent him some stories for lamination colony.

i started talking to shane jones because he face book friended me, out of the blue, and it made my fucking day. let me tell you. it was great.

this is getting less about books and things and more about people. also i got up at 5 to gut fish. so i'm stopping this now. maybe i'll go back and do another i think.