Will Break Barry Graham [Stop] Must [Stop]

AWP is rolling into Chicago come the end of February. At its commencement we'll be having a big arm wrestling tournament among writers and whatnot. What precipitated this? I challenged Barry Graham, DOGZPLOT Emperor-in-Chief, to an arm wrestling match. He then decided the tournament was a good idea (it is) and the thing has taken something of a life of its own. Worst case scenario? I lose and have to buy Barry Graham pizza and beer and kiss his ass literally and publicly. As you might imagine, I have no intention of losing. We'll see if strength and endurance on my side February 29th, though. I've been hitting the gym hard in the meantime. I expect this will pay dividends come arm wrastlin' time.

Also, Ben Tanzer is a traitorous ratfink who made one mistake when he double crossed me: he left me alive!

TEAM POWERBEEF!!! (That's my arm wrestling team. There's me, the wrestler, and there's the people I've conscripted to shout invective at my opponents / cheer me on (mostly the former, though).)

***

In other news, Jon Mau and I have concocted a template for further plans should Plan A and Plan B run afoul. You're free to use said template in your day-to-day lives as well, whenever the same happens to you.

Plan U - Try yelling at it from a seated position. Moving as little as possible. Saying something like, "I'm feeling too lethargic to respond to this physically."

Plan V - Sobbing quietly, hands resting on your face, cradling it as you're bent over yourself. Probably, you've moved little since Plan U, most likely not at all.

Plan W - Take a hostage. Then you release said hostage immediately, asking or pleading (most likely pleading) with them for assistance. You've been under a lot of pressure lately, is one big thing you might say to your erstwhile hostage.

Plan X - MELEE!!! (pronounced Mel-E)

***

New Untoward and Red Lightbulbs things in the world. Mark Jordan Manner, a really talented young writer, being a common thread between our two publications, as coincidence would have it. 

I too have a publication on elimae that's up and at them now on elimae!

Untoward is A LIFE!!

Greetings friends and so-called friends, I come to you as a man humbled by the greatness of the website he created with little assistance from others, or maybe lots of assistance. Actually a great deal of assistance from Jon Mau, who has also written a little for the site. One would imagine Jamie Ferguson will be contributing, though often pseudonymously it perhaps seems.

In any event, aside from cronies, I invite you, the world, to submit as well. Check out the beginning of what I hope will be a great and exciting new project (for all those involved). My opinion is that it will. So should yours be.

I suspect there may or may not be more to come on this project and the details. Please note, though, that I consider it more or less separate from my doings here. My doings here are a different sort of doings, which will continue to keep happening, as always.

"Ladies & Gentlemen, I Give You -- a Clown!" Cosmoetica's Dan Schneider, Subject of a High-Minded Gchat Discussion

Let me preface this post with two apologies: 1.) I apologize for the sardonic-irreverent tone I'll be taking in the following (as already evidenced by the title), which I honestly hope doesn't detract from the general earnestness with which I approach reading and analyzing literature on this blog (although I acknowledge my posts have frequent tongue-in-check moments just in general, so whatever).

And 2.) I'm sorry for even bringing up the subject of Cosmoetica.com creator and visionary, Dan Schneider, all 6'1" 195 lbs. of him, whom I think debases the discourse merely with his being cited -- and I understand that in so doing I likewise give his "criticism" some level of validity, for which I also want to apologize profusely. So I guess all told that's really three apologies.

Moving on . . .

I co-founded and used to write for an exceedingly unpopular website called The Weekly Johnson. If we specialized in anything it was humor, I suppose. And for a variety of good reasons we discontinued work on the site in 2008 or so. But ya know, shucks, I still remember it fondly -- and recently I let my curiosity get the better of me and searched to see if anyone out there on the Internet-scape was curious about what had become of it. Mostly, predictably, no one had wondered -- pro, con, or neutrally.

That is, with the notable exception of Dan Schneider, who was at some point the subject of an article by my friend and site co-founder, Jamie Ferguson, entitled: "Dan Schneider: Douche Bag".

The WJ now belongs to the internet's Way Back Machines, left to be dissected by future anthropologists or whatsoever might subsume and displace that particular scientific discipline, perhaps something involving cybernetics?

Dan Schneider, meanwhile, remains very much active and screed-ey. And long story made short: Dan apparently found Jamie's article and decided to respond in a way only he would. Good for him, I say.

And but anyway, here in the Rowanverse the fourth law of poetastering is: the Schneiderverse is a, as the delightful Homer Simpson might say, groin-grabbingly awful milieux of the abounding excruciating minutiae that is his oeuvre. But that's not my opinion; that's the law.

And Thus We Respond to Dan with: A High-Minded Gchat Discussion of All Things Schneiderian Whence The Rowanverse:

Matt: hey
found out some stuff
you might be interested - Dan Schneider apparently responded

to that article you wrote about him in the WJ

Jamie: wait, like 3 or 4 years ago?

Matt: he says we're wannabe hipster losers
He's amazing

http://www.cosmoetica.com/B843-DES672.htm

Jamie: ha, my goodness
methinks the bard must have googled himself

Matt: methinks he certainly did.

you should see, it gets really megalomaniacal

um, I happen to have 150 million viewers a year
I'm perpetually on the nation's lips.

I think people know who I am

Jamie: aaaaah. idiocy is like a fine wine.

Matt: the only case he has, really, is that the article is glib
but that was the point to begin with

Jamie: I barely remember writing this.
he's right, though-
i envied him terribly.
still do.

Matt: good god, I know. he doesn't do the best job of refuting

arguments, which might surprise you or perhaps not surprise

you quite so much. his fame... renowned.

you wish you had a Wikipedia article

Jamie: ha! "a liar or an obsessive!" i read one hour's worth of

his barfings one day years ago. and that line was control-c'd

straight off of his damn website. if i was going to slander him

and create typos, why the hell would i choose

something boring like "ensconced"?!?

Matt: its possible he leaves typos in his articles all the time

Jamie: did he really save this up in the hate box under his

bed for years? he's so delightfully sad

Matt: that's the thing I took away from it

Jamie: he was like our only reader, apparently

Matt: i literally can't think of anyone else who read it.
anyone we can VERIFY read it, anyway

the fact that he decided to respond says more than

anything else

Jamie: DAN: as for incestual, it's called a neologism.

ME: fine, here's another:

retardulate

it's what you are, and what you do.

Matt: anyone with a child's grasp of reality could

rip this fool apart. he's a buffoon

Jamie: yay!

Matt: intelligent people use neologisms all the time!

Jamie: naturally. i know that, too. i utilianate

them oftenday

Matt: I wish we still had a copy of the post

somewhere.

Jamie: yep

jon's reading cosmoetica

Matt: I sometimes see links to it

on various lit things

but never has anyone mentioned anything in

praise of Schneider although apparently

roger ebert did for some reason

Jamie:

Jon ‎(1:53 PM): ah! so he made up a word

because he was afraid his readers would think

most poets had sex with close

family members

Jon ‎(1:56 PM):
he was lead, after searching deep within the

annals of the internet, to a site

that's been defunct for 3 years

Jon ‎(1:57 PM):
whooooooooa - readership of 150 million...

7 billion hits

Jon ‎(2:03 PM):
this guy is a treasure, wow

Jon ‎(2:04 PM):

every sentence just piles it on
oh, he's not really fat? how wrong you were! what a

fool you've been!

Matt: hahahaaha
i can't believe he wants to prove he's not fat!

Jamie: i know
um, I've got news for you, dan! I actually DON'T

eat papa john's, so

there's another little "fact" you got wrong!

Matt: he proves our every point with wicked efficiency.

it's like he said
oh, a taste of my own medicine, eh?
well how do you like a taste of MY own medicine!

Jamie: you think you can reveal me as the asshole

i am by parroting my childish writing and ad hominem

attacks? how about some ad hominem attacks, typist?!?

Matt: an American hero.

Jamie:

Jon ‎(2:21 PM): oh wait, even better, here's his take on HIS WIFE:

"Jessica is a great poet, but not nearly as vast nor sweeping as I

was (I stopped writing poetry in 2005-

I simply was not challenged by it any longer)."

Matt: this is about the stupidest stuff I've ever read

Jamie: really? "just about"?

Matt: "If most editors and publishers

were as devoted to quality

as I was, we would have less deforestation,

better literature, and most of the good

published writers could,

indeed, make a living. In short, I walk the walk

that others only talk." - Dan Schneider

must destroy Dan Schnieder...

not much time...

puking guts out...

Jamie: really, here's what I should say-
today, I am destroyed. a few years ago, i sarcastically

wrote a piece that on the surface attacked

Dan Schneider- a man I envy more than anything in the world.
i called him a douchebag, a moron,

and a "superheated sack of his own ego,

amongst other things."
how is it possible that people couldn't tell I was joking?
how could ANYONE say such terrible things about him?
"A moron," really? have you SEEN how many

neologisms the man uses?

Matt: "Shakespeare has no more than a dozen great sonnets.

I wrote a series called American Sonnets,

with 154 to match Shakespeare's total output.

You'd have a hard time arguing I missed out on

greatness in a dozen of them." -Dan Schneider.

i am not kidding. he actually said that.

and without further ado, the Schneiderian sonnet.

let history judge. Christopher Guest has

his next muse, if nothing else.

Jamie: today, the world cries,

because Dan Schneider continues to exist.

Matt: today, Dan Schneider cries,

because wah wah wah wah wah!

FIN