– The Wit and Wisdom of Thundarr the Barbarian. So, I’m watching a Thundarr the Barbarian cartoon (Hanna-Barbera, 1980) on the Bommerang network this evening and a new school of personal philosophical thought took hold. There’s Thundar at the edge of a cliff with only his sun sword to protect him while giant motorcyle-riding rats clad in red leather (astride Harley’s) approach him with menace afoot. Thundarr’s sidekick is worried about leaving the great warrior alone to do battle against the giant, armed rats.

“There can’t be more than fifty of them!” he cries, sun sword waving in the air. “I’ll be fine!”

– Bad Editors. I keep meaning to bring up this post by our friend, poet Julie Buffaloe-Yoder:

Here’s the story of the worst editor to ever take up space on this beautiful planet.

During my second year as an undergrad, someone very close to me was raped. It was a horrific experience, complete with guns, knives, and torture, like a scene from a Law & Order SVU episode. She was, needless to say, quite emotionally scarred.

A few years later, I wrote a poem about it and submitted it to a literary journal. I received an unbelievable response from the editor. He took the time to type a six page, single spaced letter in which he ranted about how he would never, ever publish a poem about rape, because he was so tired of hearing women cry and moan about the subject. In his opinion, women who get raped usually “have it coming,” because of the provocative way they dress or act around men. In his words, he was “sick of wenchy women poets who are always bashing men.”

It’s a great piece and keep going with it to the end because it ends with the excellent poem Don’t Write a Poem About Rape.

– Bad Movies. I had to write a treatment for a really low-budget horror movie yesterday. It was a horror writing it.

– It’s Getting Weirder But It’s Reaching a Conclusion: Part Eight of Crumbling Slowly Down to the Ocean, is running at L.A. Taco:

“Are you Mark Maker?” A man in a blue trench coat approached me as I descended the steps of the police station. He looked official, government-style official. He flashed a badge but to tell you the truth my head was still spinning from that duet with the asphalt in the parking lot and I had a bleeding tooth that was wobbling like an ice skater with a sliced tendon so I didn’t get a good gander at it.

“I’m Officer West,” he said. “I’m with the Lemuel Pitkin Department of Apologies, more specifically from Superintendent Maria Wyeth’s office in the division of Anti-Trust and Ape and Essence, if you understand.”

I smiled. “I do understand. Do you have a cigarette?”

– Searching For the Surreal in Search Engine Terms. And, finally, we will have some fun with a rather odd batch of search engine terms that steered folks toward Carver’s Dog in the few minutes I was writing this:

fish and chips to go	2
cockroaches,with weird claws	1
greer spittle	1
obus forme sound therapy relaxation syst	1
emily killed spider with a shoe	1
luke ford	1
cody sontag	1
dog very sick in pain	1
bukowski vegas	1
cartoon fisherman	1