I have a story in the newest Another Chicago Magazine which is on sale at bookstores and available on line. Just follow the link.
I will be reading a poem by Nelson Algren for the Lost Chicago Drinking Poems reading at the Berghoff at 17 W. Adams. The show is being put on by Chicago Detours and it is free. Show starts at 6:15 and will be done before 8. The show features Mandy Keiftetz, Douglas Light, Sophie Grimes, Amy Ganser, Hannah Pittard and Elizabeth Tieri.
http://www.chicagodetours.com/
True Manliness
The Ray’s Tap Reading Series returns at Rhino Fest 2012
Featuring the talents of
Matt Test
Margaret Chapman
Scott Whitehair
Dave Snyder
Daniel Shapiro
Kristin Leucke
Kyle Beachy
Lindsay Hunter
Ian Belknap
Tim Racine
Chris Bower
Kristin Lueke
Natalie Edwards
Mason Johnson
and Robbie Q. Telfer.
Join us. Show is at 11 PM on January 14th at 11 PM. Prop Thtr 3502 N. Elston. All shows at Rhino or 15 bucks or pay-what-you-can
Poster by the amazing Susie Kirkwood Check out her work at susiekirkwood.com
Imaginary Birds at the Ray’s Tap Reading Series
August 12th at 8 PM
3047 N. Kimball
Might be the last show of all time.
Featuring, Matt Rowan, Mark Chrisler, Natalie Edwards, Matt Test, Daniel Shapiro, Brian Nemtusak, Jayita Bhattacharya, Jacob Knabb, Mason Johnson, Dave Snyder, Scott Whitehair, Troy Murphy and even some work from the out of town Tim Racine.
Poster by Susie Kirkwood
My butler’s name was Robert
He came before me
and preferred to be called Robert
When I decided that I preferred to be called Robert
and not Bobby
the family disagreed
Rose and Papa Joe
had long ago decided
that the servants working in our home
were to be addressed by their first names
something that caused a bit of a scandal
in the neighborhood
but was accepted because
Papa Joe was not a man easily disagreed with
I disagreed with this decision
and felt that I, as a young boy
who was a part of the family Robert
was working for,
should have a choice
in what I was called
All they did,
was use the logic of the garden playhouse
and say
“He was first”
Robert became my butler when Joe Jr went to war
and was in no need of a butler
though his letters home
might indicate otherwise
Robert’s main duty was to dress me
He had not been used to dressing Joe Jr
for he was in his twenties
and had been dressing himself
since he was 6,
only needing help with ties and cuffs etc
I told Robert that his job required him
to dress me for the next day
while I slept
Robert objected
but my family disagreed
Robert argued that I would not be clean
and would need a bath before dressing
but I said Robert would bathe me in the evening
every evening
and if there were dirty parts in the morning
they could be taken care after I woke up
dressed
My family agreed
and Robert knew it was best not to disagree again
Robert would come to my room
an hour before my scheduled time to rise
and would undress me from my sleeping clothes
and dress me while I slept
It became my game to stop paying attention to calendars
or to the words people said to me about the next day’s events
I would wake up, yawn, stretch out my arms, open my little eyes
and look down at my clothes
If I was in school clothes, I knew I had school ahead
If it was church clothes, I knew church was ahead
If it was happy church clothes, I knew marriage was ahead
If it was sad church clothes, I knew a funeral was ahead
If it was semi-formal church clothes, I knew it was a holiday
One morning in late May
I woke up cranky, swatting at Robert
who was shining my cuff links
He looked so unhappy
“Robert”, I asked,” Is it a holiday?”
“Yes, Bobby”,
“Which one”, I asked
“It’s Memorial’s Day Bobby”
Robert had a habit of pluralizing almost everything
in a complicated and nonsensical manner
When we would be sitting around waiting for snacks
He would say, “The cakes are in the ovens boys”
and in our heads
we would imagine dozens of cakes
dozens of plates
and when only one would come out
one big enough for a wedding party
the four of us would be upset
at the lack of multiple everything
and eat our cake quietly
mourning the loss of the plural
At the time of this poem
the family doctors
had diagnosed me
with what they called
Sloppy Mouth Syndrome
and the problem with having Sloppy Mouth Syndrome
is that often parts of words
come out sloppy
and some come out just right
so I often made sense but not a lot of sense
It was said that I could also have had
Sloppy Ear Syndrome
in that I could only hear parts of words correctly
but the blood tests were inconclusive
When Robert told me it was Memorial’s Day
I either misspoke or misheard it Memorio’s Day
and asked, “Who is Memorio?”
Robert, always a fan of mythology proceeded to tell me
that Memorio was the God of Happy Memories
and in the end of May, on a Monday
we celebrate his legacy
All bad memories, he explained
were to be not cast aside but to be remembered
as happy moments
not sad ones
I was grumpy when I woke
but happy to hear of this wonderful holiday
The family was preparing a picnic outside
and as Robert was cleaning my dirty parts,
I came up with a song
and sang it
as I was being cleaned
Robert said I should perform it
for the family
and I agreed
There were a lot of friends and family
sitting in white chair on the lawn
A lot of the men were in uniform
I thought they must be remembering today
how wonderful it was to be in battles
fighting hand to hand to the death
flying planes into black clouds
and all the women were in blue and red
and they must have been remembering today
how wonderful it was to be alone and worried
I asked Papa Joe if I could sing a song
to help celebrate Memorio’s Day
“Ok Bobby”, he said
but it’s pronounced Memorial Day
This is the song I sang
It’s time to forget all your troubles,
all those troubles are smiling now
It’s Memorio’s Day!
Nothing to be sad about
not about what you were sad about
It’s Memorio’s Day
If they died, if they were sad
all those things never happened, today
you don’t have time to wait because
it’s Memorio’s Day
Nothing bad has ever happened!
not today!
because It’s Memorio’s Day!’
Forget all your troubles!
Forget all your troubles
It’s Memorio’s Day
Robert resigned
in a letter
and left it on my bed
which had been left unmade
before I performed
He was not there
for anyone to question his decision,
to disagree
My new butler’s name was Eric
I didn’t require him to dress me
or bathe me
though after a few weeks of seeing me dress myself
my family disagreed
I asked if I could change my name to Eric
and have Eric be called Bobby
I was hoping to confuse everyone
and end up having them say
Let’s call you Robert
but they did not take to it
and Bobby I remained
List of the Most Disgusting Sexual Positions and Sex Acts
by the writers of the Ray’s Tap Reading Series for the Anti-Erotic/Sex-Negative/Anti Natal Extravaganza
1. Home-Made Taco Salad
2. Flooding the Engine
3. Inside out Strawberry
4. Breaking the Vagina Bank
5. Splitting Hairs
6. Face the Nation
7. Egg Face
8. Human Rain
9. Let’s Turn Our Bodies Into Ships With Passengers
10. Big and Small
11. Human Train Derailment
12. Let’s Put an Ax in That
13. French Kissing
14. Liquid Pat Down
15. Self Induced Sauna
16. Fun With Detached Fingers
17. Organic Stripper Pole
18. The Snow Plow
19. Dump Truck Disaster
20. Elegant Feather Play
21. Vintage Mud Trap
22. Penis Meet Razor
23. Ball Drag
24. Weather Vain in the ass on the roof role play
25. Talking About Sex During Sex
26. Reverse Cowboy (gravity not an issue)
27. The Vagina’s Edge
28. What do you do when your cock and balls are detached and end up in your face in a plastic bag?
29. Missionary. (I know at least that one seems ordinary, but think about the history, the impact those slow gentle christian fucks had on those cultures in the end.)
30. Blumpkin
31. Poo-plate special
32. The Challenger Explosion
33. The Bratwurst Burst
34. Ring Around the Weiny
35. Clam Bake
36. Open-Faced Meatloaf Sandwich
37. Spalunking
38. The French Poodler
40. Lollie Popping
41. Chinese Pizza
42. Lobster Bisque
43. Homo Tornado (for straights only)
44. Black-on-black Crime
45. The Dick Van Dyke
46. The Dick Van Fag
47. The Old Testament
48. The “Just-Like-In-That-Porn”
49. The Feltch Prince of Bel-Air
50. Soccer
51. Genital Holocaust
52. The Blame Game
53. Tonsil Hockey
54. Ovary Badminton
55. Easy Bake Oven
56. The Cliffs of Dover
57. Blanket of Dead Dutch Oven Malfunction l
58. Pubes in a Blanket
59. The Salted Nut Log
60. Farmer and Field
61. The Removable Clitoris
62. Sexy Autism
63. Latex Allergy Fetish Play
63. Oh Fuck!
64. Deep, Deep Hand Holding
65. Duck And Cover
66. The Wailing Wall
67. Sexual Congress
68. Charge on Delivery
69. 69
70. The “Do You Like That?”
71. The “Do You Like That, Baby?”
72. The LeBron James
73. The Reverse-Abortion (Where we put a baby you don’t want inside you, sexually)
74. The Cape Cod (If you are a girl and not a Kennedy, you die at the end of this one)
75. The Cum filled baked potato at Chief O’Neils. Don’t order it.
76. Human Ashtray with benefits
77. Let’s Trade Blood (An “erotic” card game that should be avoided.)
78. Snow Shoveling. ( I am sure you are all familar with the other terms related to this one, but this is far worse and involves an actual shovel.”)
79. Roleplay Sex where one person pretends to be the film Shoah and the other is The Sorrow and the Pity. If you want to add a third party, they can choose from the plethora of Police Academy movies, expect for the first one.
80. The Corned Beef Blowjob.
81. The Jon Stewart (Where you get pissed on, shat on and then are told that you are really smart and then pissed on again, with a bloody piss from a dying man who has kidney problems that also tells you that you are really smart.)
82. Green Line Anal Express
83. The Broken Bulb. (This is where you fuck your partner so hard their eye pops out and then you try and make it work again by fucking them harder.)
84. The Idi Amin
85. The Gulag Experience
86. Sorrow (This is a sexual arrangement where both parties cry separately and slowly come together to fuck while trying to out sob each other.)
87. Home-Made Ranch Dressing
88. Red Lobster (This is when white people pretend they are black)
89. Ear Fuck
90. Pick a Fold and Fuck it Violently
91. Egg Toss
92. Shaking Your Sexual Baby Syndrome
93. Nude Gravel Angels
94. Pop that Nut Sack
95. Astronaut Ice cream
96. Lets Pretend We Are Out of Oxygen For Real
97. Taco Salad
98. Blanket of Dead Dutch Oven Malfunction 2
99. Twat-co Salad
100. Sparkely Cunt
101. Penis Sewage Pump
102. 69/11
103. The Swallowcaust
104. The Trail of Tears (of Poon)
105. Tears of a Mortally Wounded Clown
Feel free to add more in the comment page.
Ray’s Tap Reading Series Poster #1 for The Anti-Erotic/Sex-Negative/Anti-Natal Extravaganza on March 4th at 9 PM.
Poster by Susie Kirkwood
The theme for the show is The Anti-Erotic/Sex-Negative/Anti-Natal Extravaganza!!!!!!
Poster and more information to come soon.