Achey Breaky Shakespeare

So, the sonnet contest entries are in and the votes tallied. What do you think so far? Right now, we have the first five runners up on the site, next week the next five runners up will appear. In two weeks, the winners will be up there. It was a hell of a lot of fun putting together, and there really are some funny and very asinine entries. More than a few about body parts and functions, but the contests always seems to bring that out in people.

Author, Author!

So, three of the asinine boys read this week at Junno's with the fine folks at the Needle Exchange Hour, a newly inaugurated reading series run by those rapscallions Tim Hall and Ken Wohlrob, who read their prose along with Brian Cogan. The asinine boys R. Narvaez (eerily on time), ern modern (an hour late, but only missing 10 minutes of performance), and Bob McNamara (two hours late, on account of bad directions, but on stage within minutes!). R Narvaez sputtered along, hawking his '"Childhood's Smell" chapbook. Since no other asininer had arrived he figured he would have to do again, but in walked ern, who when he went to the podium gave the audience a 10-minute preparatory speech about pets before reading three great animal poems (the last he read twice, the second time in Latin; I am NOT kidding). Then Narvaez figured he'd bat clean up, but in walked McNamara, who, with two minutes to prepare, gets up there and kills, adding a piquant history of professional wrestling in the '70s before he read ''Bo Bo Brazil." It was a fun time, especially with the beer and wine. The next reading is next month. You should come by. Really.

Would You Believe He's Dead?

So, Don Adams is dead. A moment in the cone of silence, please. That's two '60s TV personalities within a month. Not, perhaps, more tragic than two furiously deadly hurricanes in the same amount of time, but devastating in their own way. Phillip Lee sent this into the site--and since we're about to put up the contest entries, we can't use it right now--with a e-mail header that read: "Never Smart":

Don Adams is Dead

He's dead
Don Adams is dead
He was Inspector Gadget
He was Maxwell Smart
He did Love Boat
He had a failed sitcom
But you'll never take, ever take
Tennessee Tuxedo away from me

Podcastaways

So, we're at the office last night, polishing off a bottle of Cointreau, having finished chopping through a blizzard of contest entries, when Frimmit called out from the half-opened bathroom door, "You think anyone really cares about the podcasts we're doing? I mean, it's a pain in the ass to get everyone together and semisober to record these things. Is it worth it?" This began a debate. I proferred that if we had fun doing it, then what the hell. Catty thought that if we thought about it too much it would make us look like the insecure bunch of sonsabitches we really are. Frimmit flushed and, not washing her hands, said that all those points were fine, but the mandate from the boss on high was that the podcasts are meant to translate into book sales, and while we're getting a nice amount of podhits, the books are still collecting dust. Ever-chipper Narvaez, from under his desk, offered that maybe we were looking at it too closely and should open up the discussion.

Site Specific

So, a lot of stuff is happening at the asinine offices, what with the contest entries in and a case of Dewar's accidentally delivered to our premises. I've been wondering about what to write in this space, and I suppose that's something that happens with anyone doing a blog--What the hell do you fill it with? I mentioned this to other staffers and poets at our recent podcast recording/dinner party last Saturday. P-Woody thinks we should do a comments/bulletin board page on the site. ern modern thinks there's not enough of an asinine community. Well, you can't really tell from this site--yet!--since only a handful of people know about it. So, I figure I'll opne this up to some fans and see where it goes. Other than that, I really don't like the shirt I'm wearing today.

On the Sonnet (Contest)

So, our sonnet contest deadline is next week, and we've been poring through the batches of submissions, and there are some really good ones. One thing we've heard from our contributors is this fear of sonnets, of iambicizing, ABAB, CDCD, or whatever combo, Petrarchan, Shakespearean, Mississippi-style. You know, many entrants aren't giving a damn about form--well, maybe just sticking to 14 lines. We at asinine are not ones to harp on rules (except for Piker, but he's too busy working on our next book to care), but yeah, we don't care about being to strict. We want our contests to be fun, we want our contestants to have fun, and hell we editors want to have fun. If you're still wrangling over your sonnet, relax; just put it in the sonnet ballpark. We like to think of our contests as a costume party. Sure, it's nice if you spent 17 hours on your Pacman costume, but the gal who arrives in French stocking and holds a plate of French fries will be in no way snubbed. Sonnets! Our next time is to assemble a gaggle of nonsite judges, guest stars; we like to pick new judges (no, it's not just us sitting around a table, drinking and smoking and picking winners; not just), people who we hope will bring a new perspective to asininity, or at least will buy us a drink or a T-shirt for themselves.

So Long, Little Buddy

Well, just when I was beginning to lose faith (not that I ever had any to speak of), bemoaning the lack of timely poems on the site, whoops comes along three poems about the untimely death of Bob Denver. Three! All within 48 hours after his death and before we met to finalize our poem list for this week. One of the poems, by this new guy Charles Bukkake, was even semi-semi-political, getting Rehnquist in there. I love this kind of what is it serendipity, zeitgeist, harmony of the universe? I was trying to write a Rehnquist poem but it was coming out too bilious--after going back and forth with Marybeth and Wade, of the Midwest Asinine Office, I feel I shouldn't always try to be preachy. But maybe I'll changed my mind if I can find a good word to rhyme with Rehnquist. Funny what inspires people to write about something in the news--not a hurricane, not a new planet, not torture in Gitmo, but Gilligan! Gilligan! I guess he's close to our collective hearts--and not our collective pancreas.

Look Closer

So, one of the big arguments at the office is whether to do more timely poems, to feature poems that have more current political and social content. Now, if you read my stuff, you see I do a lot of it, sometimes well, sometimes forced, but I prefer to write poems that try to say something. I guess that makes me an agitpropist! A few of my fellow asinine poets prefer just to be funny in a general way, make eternally lasting commentary about life. I think that sometimes tends to diary-entry writing, which can be really bo-rrring, or endless lines about body parts and body functions. I try to solicit political poems via the Asinine Pulse (which I edit, as if you didn't guess), but so far, zilch. What do you think? Should we just stick to poems about the ins and outies of our days?