Story by Chelsea Martin. / Written for the screen and directed by Riley Michael Parker / Starring… Marika Haskins, Lauren Emery, Noah Emmet, and Nathaniel Applefield as “Uncle Mitch” / Metazen

I love Chelsea Martin.

Somebody had said to me, What does Chelsea Martin smell like? & I said, she smells like Chelsea M.

I haven’t met her, but I know.

For real, I have an extra copy of her book Everything Was Fine Until Whatever. I want to give it to someone.

Post a comment in this thread, somehow involving the word ‘Chelsea’ and I will enter you into a drawing for the book. This will go on until whatever.

If you don’t know love, here’s how to find out: I $ You. I have employed some of the ideas here and they have vastly altered the trajectory of my life.

You can also purchase the book with your own $ here: Future Tense Books

[Photo Essay after the break.]

Mike Young with MC Oroville’s Answering Machine (Transmission Press), wearing a Native American themed t-shirt which works to his favor whether taken ironically or earnestly. (Notice the asian lady behind his left shoulder.)

Brandon Scott Gorrell and Chelsea Martin patiently wait during a hippie inspirational song (mp3 link to entire broadcast at end of post). Chelsea’s cell phone is ghetto (c. 2001), inserting exclamation points in the middle of words in her text messages, like “fu!cked.” Brandon wore a tie, which I always thought was like a human tail.

Brandon looks unusually happy here — might be the hippie inspirational song. I’m reading Mike Young’s limited chap Okay Now. I don’t know much about poetry, but I liked the line breaks, like where they took place made me read it differently.

That asian lady came over and asked Brandon for an autograph. She said she was a big fan, that his work was “romantic.” Brandon was drinking a weird purple drink.

Afterwards we walked to Dolores Park and sat down, making efforts to be equidistant to the hipster and homosexual area (we wound up in the ‘where dogs like the crap’ area). En route some got “tall boys,” which is the ‘burrito of beers,’ both in shape, volume, and caloric density. Recent guest poster Reynard Seifert and Brandon are pictured here. (There were a lot of other nice folks, both readers of HTMLGIANT and Mike’s and Chelsea’s friends, and their respective roommates, partners, etc.)

We eventually went to Jenna Humphrey’s house (sorry I can’t link; something is off with the new version of Safari — but Jenna is in the current Robot Melon). She played “sad core” (Nick Drake, Cat Power) from her ghetto Dell (c. 2001) whose screen kept on morphing matrix-like into hyper plaid. Brandon seemed deeply consumed by this and kept on aggressively touching (as if trying to grab its heart) the screen.

This is the last photo I took before I went home. Brandon has never been to Malta, Italy despite the shirt. Mike Young is not Native American despite the shirt. Chelsea is not Minnie Mouse despite the shirt. My name is not Mervyn’s despite my shirt. Voices of truth in an age of lies? Probably not.

Here’s an mp3 of the entire broadcast, drag the cursor to about 40% of the way for us. (Again, sorry I can’t link): http://www.nerdnetworks.org/pcr/DiamondDave-20090612.mp3

I hope this post has been somewhat comprehensive and informative. Brandon, Mike and Chelsea read at Pegasus Books in Berkeley tonight at 7PST.

Contributors Mike Young, Chelsea Martin, and myself, along with ‘associate’ Brandon Scott Gorrell will be reading at some places in the Bay Area. This is what is known in the internet world as “irl” (in real life). If you’re around, please come and say hello, but be nice, we are not ready for irl altercations. Mike is coming from Massachusetts [follow his tour]; Brandon is coming down from Seattle [follow his tour]; Chelsea and I live in the area.

ITINERARY

Friday June 5th [Mike & Chelsea]:
Epic Summer Art Opening Reading, Manifesto Bicycles (421 40th Street @ Webster) in Oakland CA, 7PM.

Sunday June 7th [Mike & Chelsea]:
Poetry of Oroville, CA Reading, Bicentennial Park (Corner of Huntoon and Robinson), 2PM. (First copies of Mike Young’s MC Oroville’s Answering Machine will ‘probably’ be available.) [*Oroville is not technically in the Bay Area, thus deemed a satellite event.]

Wednesday June 10th: To be announced/probable

Thursday June 11th [Mike, Chelsea, Brandon & Jimmy]:
Bittersweet Rockridge Poetry Series, Bittersweet Cafe Rockridge (5427 College Avenue) in Oakland CA, 7PM.

Friday June 12th [Mike, Chelsea, Brandon & *]:
Common Thread Poetry and Politics with Diamond Dave and Charlie Getter, Pirate Cat Radio Cafe (2781 21st Street) in San Francisco CA, 4PM. Streams online for internet listeners. [*maybe Jimmy.]

Saturday June 13th [Mike, Chelsea & Brandon]:
An Evening of Poetry and Whatever, Pegasus Books Downtown (2349 Shattuck Avenue) in Berkeley CA, 7:30PM.

Sunday June 14th: To be announced/probable

—

Below are links to the books Chelsea, Brandon, and Mike are promoting. I’m assuming they’ll be reading from their books.

Everything was fine until whatever, Chelsea Martin

During my nervous breakdown I want to have a biographer present, Brandon Scott Gorrell

MC Oroville’s Answering Machine, Mike Young

I know it’s a little early for the latter events, but the first one is on Friday. I’m reluctant to ‘remind’ people with subsequent posts or updates, given the narrow geographical relevance (bay area) to our national readership. I guess what I’m sayin’ is, this is the only post you’ll see from me about this, so mark your calendar, or sharpie the inside of your thigh.

Here’s to champagne not from Champagne, too much vs. not enough hair, and fake people who come to life.

Larger flyer here.

Come out. See people read. See this person live. See this person live, too. See the person who wrote this live. See Kevin Sampsell host. (See me.) See all this in Portland.

The next night, see a variation of this in Seattle. Add this person with the glasses to the line up. Subtract the pidgeon guy.

PAY NOTHING FOR BOTH events! Except maybe if you buy books.

Also, BUY BOOKS. This top book, maybe.

This post simply brings to your attention things worthy of attention, with extremely light commentary from me.

• Ellen Kennedy’s new book Sometimes my heart pushes my ribs is available from Muumuu house. This is probably widely known, but I wanted to officially note it here. Ellen Kennedy feels like a Dorothy Parker who doesn’t have enough energy to rhyme.
• Chelsea Martin’s new book Everything was fine until whatever will be released March 2009 by Future Tense Books. Watch her read this piece. The ingrown logic and breath-taking/sigh-inducing excess of each subsequent line reminds me of Tao Lin’s ‘the next night we ate whale,’ except each line is different.
• The prolific J.A. Tyler redesigned Mud Luscious archives and ML Press, and his entire site. He would scare me if he wasn’t so nice. His obscene publication list is prone to make one feel like a slacker.
• Juked No. 6 is out. Check out the contents and order. Juked is one of the oldest literary websites out there. It makes me feel good that they are so consistent and devoted.
• Robot Melon Issue Seven is live, including J.A. Tyler, Crispin Best, yours truly [gag], Ryan Manning’s ode to Sam Pink, and one of my personal favorite online writers, Krammer Abrahams. I really like the ‘head trauma at night in the woods’ design.

So those are my updates. I could not find a picture that embodied this post. [*UPDATE: Ryan Manning sent me a picture to post for this post. The 4 colors do not match the 5 updates. He was no doubt driven conceptually.] Thank you for supporting online literature.

Brandon Scott Gorrell (seen here reading Godzilla at Richard Hugo House) sent me a message about GREAT, a magazine made by him and Chelsea Martin (seen here putting condoms on her legs).

About GREAT, Brandon says:

we have deliberated excessively

we have designed every page differently

there are 4 color pages this time

great features page design by brandon scott gorrell and chelsea martin, art/prose/poetry by humans and robots, also blake butler’s gmail status

preorder this magazine by paypaling $4 to bye.earth[at]gmail.com and this magazine will be in an envelope, postmarked some time during the week after thanksgiving, in the envelope will also be something personalized by me or a dog

your incentive to preorder is that they will run out quickly, i have only 68 made at this point, preordering will allow you to avoid the severe depression assoicated with knowing that you may never own a copy of this beautiful leg of naked human

chelsea scott gorrell and brandon chelsea martin have worked very hard on ‘great’, its featured art/prose/poetry is ‘advanced’ and has ‘advanced my worldview’ and will ‘advance’ yours, i don’t know what i’m talking about, i feel like a black person

paypal bye.earth[at]gmail.com $4, the magazine has the potential to save humanity, please include your address in preordering, i have never received money on paypal, i assume you can paypal email addresses, i have signed up for a paypal account with my bye.earth email address, please include your address

work by:

sam pink kenneth lavallee

jarrett mitchell chris killen

kevin bewersdorf cody blanchard

asher penn jillian clark

jeppe lange whitney austin

blake butler aaron petrovitch

philip metres ben a. shaberman

anthony zinonos nicholas venaglia

gene morgan zachary schomburg

emily kendal frey danny espinoza

dea lellis danny minnick

krammar abrahams lettie jane rennekamp

daniel spinks david fullarton

michael bilsborough tom mueske