SOLIC(IT)ATION...

I should team up with a marketing major on campus here or something. I am not very good at deciding "what will draw a response."

What I mean to say is, I would very much like you to submit a poem or series of poems or a story of 800 words or less to slingshot litareview, which I now edit.

If you repost or "share" this news item, I will think highly of you.

Strange apparitions keep appearing in my dreams to say reassuring things.

That's not true. I don't dream unless I force myself to dream by applying one of the nicotine patches I occasionally find among my personal effects (generously provided by the state of Ohio over a year ago) before sleep. It seems, however, like that sentence is truer than "truth" can really account for (I heard it said, today, that readers look for fictions in stories purported as true, and for truth in fiction, and I think this is significant on multiple levels). I feel that if I can parlay crushing cynicism and general overwhelmedness until 10 pm tomorrow, I will be "back in control" of my life, which is something Sartre would be proud of, I think.

Feel good about a couple things.

Here's one:


Ryan Bradley likes baseball. Wtf? I am excited about it nonetheless.

There are other things I feel good-to-great-to-fucking-phenomenal about. I will maybe tell you about them later. Maybe.

You know who I hate?



...fuckin hippies, man (esp. college hippies)...but today I purchased an herbal/alternative antidepressant for an amount of money that I would previously have chastised myself for. I also willfully purchased and consumed nothing but "health food items," with an eye toward "feelings of wellness" rather than "immediate response as a result of taste"--again spending an amount of money that I would have been pretty p.o.ed about last week. But you know what? Fuck it. Wallowing is the thing that turns my winters into wastelands, and I am throwing myself at self-improvement, trying really hard not to bother with skepticism, etc. I will regain skepticism in a short while if things don't improve.

If the last 2 hours--including serendipitous events AND general outlook--are an indication, though...I don't know. Maybe I'll start listening to String Cheese Incident or something.

Can I get a whatwhat?

So here's the deal:

I have applied for 5 "creative writing" and "advanced creative writing" workshops at the University of Montana. If I am not admitted to at least two, I will definitely return to Cleveland State. I think I will definitely be admitted to two. If I am admitted to four or five, I will almost certainly stay at the University of Montana, but I don't really see myself getting into five or even four. Do you think Eileen Myles will maybe like a poem about a dead girl or a poem about fighting Glenn Beck to the death or a poem about living in a dystopian future, snorting antibiotics and watching your wounds heal in real time? That's like my favorite poem ever. Dogmatika accepted it...and then went belly up and I was sad, but probably just for selfish reasons...even though I liked dogmatika a lot.

For all three fiction workshops, I submitted a story that P.H. Madore rejected for dispatch litareview a long time ago. He was drunk as hell and about to return to Iraq and said he would probably accept it and then told me he couldn't because not enough happened. Have I ever told you that I fucking love P.H. Madore? He wishes to rule the publishing world, it seems, and I sincerely believe that he will one day. But wait, I edited the fuck out of the story to the point that maybe Litareview would like it, but I vaguely recall Madore saying something like "just work on it for your own sake and submit the next thing that comes to you," so I won't submit it to him again. That is the loosest paraphrase in the history of everything, but I'm pretty sure the sentiment is at least 70% true.

I have been absurdly argumentative lately. I have been called "irritating," "a dick," "asshole" and an "elitist" over the course of two days. The only one that offends me a little is "elitist" because I listened to Jay-Z's new record for 3 weeks straight and really think I like that "Pokerface" song by Lady Gaga.

Secretly: I sort of hope I get into two or fewer of these workshops, because I maybe miss Cleveland a little. It is weird to miss a place you hate. Obviously, I only really miss PEOPLE there, distinct kissing patterns, "Music Saves," being lost, etc.

But I do not miss, very often. It is a strange thing for me to do.

I am going to a party full of lesbians tomorrow. I am going to make at least one of them want to make out with a boy. Or will make them pretend to, for the sake of a bet or something. Lesbians will make out with anything.

Just kidding.

Is there a sad emoticon that destroys all sad emoticons? One that legimately BRINGS sadness to the recipient? I want that emoticon now and want to say "Won't somebody kiss me?" right next to it. It has been three months since someone has kissed me. It is the longest drought since fourteen. Fuck. I need to leave Missoula, don't I?

HEY! If you live in cleveland, you can still see me in a movie that has gotten good reviews! I can't find a link, which means you won't either...but seriously, I'm pretty sure it's still making a run. Please, somebody I know, go see this movie and tell me what the fuck I look like on a 10-foot screen! (I'm guessing it's bad) Apparently it maybe will be played in a limited national run. I don't know. The director always tries to contact me and I feel bad about that time I didn't show up for extra-work, so I mostly don't respond.

I don't feel like a bad person. I feel like a good person and a misunderstood person and a strange person, but not a bad person. I think that's good.

On "the point"

I feel as if I'm lacking the sort of narcissism that makes having a blog an "effective marketing tactic." Blogging, twitter, facebook etc. all strike me, solely, as a means to this end. This "marketing" not only applies to my identity of "someone who sometimes writes and sometimes has things to market," but also in the more general sense of a human being who requires approval, etc. What I mean to say is, I do not think that anyone is interested in where I went for dinner (with a link to the restaurant's website!) or the "issues" I face on a daily basis. Wanna bet? Here are some: "I am incapable of applying energy toward any pursuit which does not seem to have a 1:1 or better energy-to-payoff ratio (and nothing does); I am reading a book called 'Autobiography of Red' by Anne Carson and think I like it which seems uncharacteristic of me; last night, I read every single "tweet" Sarah Silverman has ever made; I have one week to turn in one story and 2-3 poems with my application for the "advanced creative writing" courses and this seems daunting; I read at a University-sponsored reading last week and not a single person I invited showed up, though the general reaction seemed 'good'--better than anyone else who read, even; I do not like that I am a 'generic male' and/or a 'product of capitalism' in that everything strikes me as a fucking competition." There. See?

There are approximately 20 visits to this site a day, which seems hilariously high, though I think it's hilariously low in relative terms. I think that a considerable portion of people who end up here were actually searching for an older, successful cousin with the same name. The fact that he is older and successful probably means that no one has ever legitimately mistaken this for "his blog," or else I would probably use a pseudonym. I don't know. I just added him on facebook, maybe I'll ask him if anyone's ever mentioned the story he wrote involving Rebecca Lobo's vagina. Anyway, I bet he has wished, in sort of nebulous terms, that I wasn't the first 10 responses for "Josh Kleinberg" in google.

Most everyone else who reads this, according to google analytics and my own deduction, either once dated me and reads with a fairly predictable frequency without ever commenting or seems to have clicked my name at random from one of the blogs that has for one reason or another "linked me." I think those people probably click all the links into new tabs and then never read. That's what I did when it first occurred to me that there was an "internet literary scene."

My thesis is: I don't know why this exists. Should it not exist? When I pose a question to a community and no one answers it, should I just accept that no one fucking reads any of this? Should I start wheatpasting my blog link? Even if I have little to no motivation to gain a blogger following? Should I have eaten 2 adderalls tonight? Is it SUPPOSED to snow in the first week of October? What the hell, man? What the hell?

Haven't really had a thought that holds up as worthwhile in weeks (if you're an rss-reader-refresher, you may have noticed lots of deleted posts. Probably not).

I'm reading tomorrow for something related to this.

Do you know why i like indie publishing? Because not six hours after ordering someone's book, they sometimes add you on facebook and send you a really nice thank you note. And also cool book trailers. Go order Joseph Young's Easter Rabbit.

Did zoetrope lose to fictionaut? Is that what happened? I feel like I am culling a backlog of things that could afford one intense round of edits and then could go to fictionaut for 'further refinement.' I can't edit something for weeks or sometimes months after I write it, though. I should probably get over that.

What are your editing practices?

Go weigh in

on the avant-garde getting hijacked or something at HTMLG. These conversations always rule.

and the award for best "folk-punky album featuring lyrics written by 3rd graders and a bonus zine" of 2009 goes to...

Richard Wehrenberg(/wolf). I feel like I plug Richard and Jordan Castro and others to an extent that might annoy them. And every time I post something that isn't a plug, I get really self-conscious about it a day later and delete it, so let's just call this pluggingotherpeopleblog. Maybe if I'd actually fucking submit stuff, I'd have something of my own to plug. Or, ya know, if I ever wrote anything decent. Or if I ever had any worthwhile thoughts, perhaps I could include other things here.

I have joined the dark side. The food is really good here and no one is ever without alcohol. If you are interested in even less interesting things than are posted here, feel free to "follow me."

I had a dream about fighting Glenn Beck to death and wrote a poem about it and submitted it to a place that publishes dreams, but I don't think they're going to believe that it was really a dream. It was a real fucked dream. If not, I'll just post it here and you can say, "what the fuck?" or "that was bad." It was a direct result of sleeping with a nicotine patch on, Matthew Barney's "The Order" and having read something that day about Glenn Beck.

What the fuck, world? Why didn't you tell me about Mary Gaitskill earlier? Just kidding, you probably did. I probably just wasn't listening.