Al-Jimzeera NewsAlert

* Richard Pryor died today. He was one of the funniest people ever.

* Miguel Tejada for Manny Ramirez. Has anyone that averaged 140 RBIs ever been traded? What's fair value for that. If nothing else, Tejada is a gamer. He's not going to be caught taking a leak in the green monster in the middle of an inning. He faded in the Second Half, but he's an MVP-caliber guy, a free swinger that would be free-swinging in a park where a long out is a homerrun and there's a big wall to rocket balls off of. Manny will be Manny anywhere (I can't imagine he's gonna want to upgrade from Boston to Baltimore, unless he likes crabcakes and crack cocaine (OK, I watch too much WIRE and HOMOCIDE). Is there any way Manny would accept a trade to Baltimore? It would be his call. Do it: the last time you showed him what was what (they waived him before their Championship year, no team picked up his lengthy and ridiculous contract so he stayed and won World Series MVP) he got focused. Maybe the same can come of this. And I wouldn't mind interviewing for the role of co-Shadow GM with my man Theo Epstein while we're at it.

* I do hope it's obvious that I'm comfortable with the ways I'm incosistant, hypocritical and contradictory. I don't know *shit.* And I've never felt shy about being a jackass in public in front of everyone. You must understand: I'm a massive disappointment to the people whose approval I've wanted the most. Why should I feel shy about disappointing *you*. Either you get it or you don't. In person I am tender and sweet. Here I can be a wolverine, get some things done. There are good agendas and bad agendas. Getting laid: good agenda. Gathering a vast collection of books, readings, awards; faking your way through conversations with people to get ahead. Bad agenda. Trying to find your way to be a poet without accumulating baubles and fake friendships. Good agenda. Being able to suffer poetic fools is really a gift. Robert Creeley was perhaps the best I've ever seen at it. I don't possess that gift. Poetry is all Lilliputians and no Gullivers. There's no poet in the world I would switch places and lives with. Together let's dismantle the idea of a poetic career and let something else rise up. My atoms and your atoms. That's my agenda, that's all I want. You seem to want to suffer my foolishness. Welcome to my busom, I smell like Axe bodyspray.

* A wise woman once wrote "an aversion to bullshit / Repels most people." A fan writes to me tonight: "and as one of the few remaining people who you haven't alienated (and i'm not talking about 22-year-old fanboys and fangirls), i'm reaching out to you." [Any 22-year-old fanboys and fangirls should immediately backchannel.] Why do I have to keep saying I'm fine? If you don't like what you're finding here go to someone else's blog. I'm sorry I'm so influential and unavoidable. Every other blogspot is out there and ready to be viewed, just type something else before the dot blogspot dot com part. I have every intention of doing whatever the hell I want here and everywhere else. I think there are some readers out there that somehow think they can tame and control my trademarked outbursts: they're *wrong*. I will continue to call them as I see them: I'm a little too old to still want everybody to love me all the time. I'm not here to win friends and influence people. I am here to scrub poetry clean and in doing so get closer to whatever it is I seem to be looking for: something more real, something freely given for no good reason, agendaless and semi-bright in a crisp surprising rainbow blast. Please feel free to change the channel any time you want. When I do alienate people it's mostly on purpose and what I wanted. Why people are obsessed about what's on other people's weblogs, beats me. I only read the weblogs of hot babes. Objects in the weblog are not a mirror and if you're leaving then go...you're going to miss a lot of great stuff. Hee hee.

* You should buy the Sunday New York Post. Definitely.

* Why do I flirt with lesbians? Oh, right. Fear of commitment, wanting something you can't have. Plus they're lesbians. I wish I was a lesbian. I would definitely flirt with lesbians then. Maybe that's the source of my alleged mysogyny (I hope that there are students writing papers on my alleged mysogyny. That someday somebody might have to answer a 9 x 9 question like this: "Jim Behrle was an OK poet. But what about his mysogyny, doesn't that freak you out?") Breast and pussy envy. And cute ass envy. And hair envy. You can't take it with you and someday I hope to leave the penis behind.

* I wish sitemeter and statcounter could give you hits listed like this: 500 unique visitors / 450 alienated visitors / 45 people just googling themselves / 5 22 year-old fangirls & boys.

* Go to the big Lungfull! 10th anniversary party Sunday night at the Zinc. Or Boom Boom will spray his tag all over your fucking Ferrari.

* What kind of flowers do you buy a blind date named "Rose?"