Out of the Silent PLanet

The audioblogger issue is still going strong, about 24 hours after I first noted it. I dropped a problem report email to blooger.com yesterday afternoon, but have not received a response to it. To reiterate, audioblogger.com still is not coming up (it was there Saturday!) and the phone number for actually leaving an audio blog merely sits quietly for a few seconds, then you get a busy signal.

I suppose it is always possible that the site and service have been overwhelmed by calls and hits lately...but at this point all I know is nothing happens.

Hung out with Jezz, online, until late last night...had slept badly Friday night and needed to stay awake as late as possible so I'd crash when I finally got to bed. It worked. Hit the pillow like a rock (despite the fact AMC had "Animal House" on) and slept like the dead, with the notable exception that I woke up.

I have three renegade students from tonight's class who still need to take the final. If any of them do not show tonight, they flunk the class. Tomorrow I have two students in the same boat. All my Wednesday night students (the writing class) did their thing and turned in their portfolios. Seven "A's" and 3 "B's"...I am satisfied with the progress all of them made. Truth be told, two of the B's were within 2 points of an "A"...the other was due to a single tank job on the portfolio. Everyone seems to love the class and there seems to be a strong consensus to have me teach writing again this fall.

Tag is moving forward with his book "Midnight Muse..." and I think it will be terrific. His is a very different voice than mine, very blue collar in worldview. His poems have a more modernist slant than mine, structurally. I think one of the reasons we can work together as easily as we do is that we're really not competing.

We're cogitating on a contest idea. We know the when and prize, but not the what. The winner would receive a complete set of my books, and they would be hand delivered, by me, at the time of a reading to be scheduled by the winner. The reading could be a private reading, a public reading, I don't care...a reading is a reading. The only limitation is that it is somewhere in the 48 contiguous states. The winner would be announced on or about August 16th or 17th of this year. Ideas have ranged from designing the cover of a book or the tour poster, writing either a poem or an essay about my work, or the best (verifiable) story about how one or more of my poems effected you or your life (I have so many people claiming I caused their marriage, divorce or conception of their child...let's hear details, people...if I am the "Romantic Poet of the Internet" like Yahoo said in 1996, let's hear the love.) If you have an idea, let me know.

It has been suggested that I stake my claim to "the poet laureate of the digital renaissance" or "poet laureate of the cyberrenaissance" (or cyberenaissance, depending on your preference) one even suggested "father of the digital renaissance" yeah, that'll get the chicks (snarfle)...my pedigree is well positioned for that, but not sure I want to fight it out with people who have money, PR agents and stable jobs. In virtuo, I am. But, as we all know, there is a parsec of difference between truth and publicity. That's why they call Elvis the "King of Rock and Roll" when Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Bill Halley and a small army all have more valid claims.

Missing my kids this morning. What can you do? My own mistakes and the arrogance of a handful of people have combined to make of me an exile. To quote Henry Plantagent in "The Lion in Winter" "I could have conquered Europe - all of it - but I had women in my life."

Of course, if Alisha or Elizabeth or Brigit were to suddenly materialize, I wouldn't whine.