Al-Jimzeera NewsBreak

* The New York Marlins! Paul Lo Duca now catching and batting 7th or so. OK--Hernandez and Molina should have bitten on the contract two weeks ago. Now all that's left is 2nd base and the 7th inning. How about Kaz Matsui for Dontrelle Willis and Miguel Cabrera and Florida can officially flush 2006 down the toilet (Plenty of season tickets are available in Miami!)? Lo Duca is a glove and has a little pop. But what about Manny? Stay tuned (Cliff Floyd and Sao, eat Manny's contract?)

* Don't make the mistake some guy named Jonathan Skinner made tonight: after a reading asking me "So you gonna do a Bernie & Phil cartoon next?" (Bernie and Phil meaning Mayer and Good but I immediately thought Bernie and Phil's furniture "Quality! Comfort & Price! That's nice!" And if you're younger than 55 don't call her "Bernie" to me, it just makes me think you're a nickname-dropping dickhead.) Being somewhat sneery about the cartoons I do to my face? Why would I make fun of Bernadette, I'd rather smoke *you*. And like, do I know _you_? I had to ask someone later who the hell you were, *ha*. That's the kind of surly Behrle you want here, right? There it is.

* Awright: this week I'll hit Elizabeth Reddin TUE at Battle Hill, The Wed Koch thing and Lungfull!'s 10th anniversary. If you see me there don't talk to me unless you're a cute chick.

* Is anyone worth having sex with more than once? Am I? I put a lot into that first time, I really go all out. That's probably as motivated as you'll see me. After that you can probably read box scores in my eyeballs and ask me what level of mental Pac-man I'm on ("I just ate a pretzel!"). When am I appearing in the NYPOST's "Meet Market" column? Scooby shrug. Universal forces are conspiring to keep me humble and unfamous in 2005 with various breakouts planned in 2006. Then you really won't be able to stand me.

* "Lost" better pick up. Do I like the current plotlines? "The Button?" "The Tail Section People?" I've spent like $16 so far to watch the first part of season two. I'm expecting *big* payoffs.

* Foetry.com's in a real funk. They're currently sweating Silliman's review of Joe Massey's chapbook (On the foetic Richter scale? .00034!) and whether Dan Chaisson got reviewed in the NYTimes because he does book reviews for POETRY magazine. And guess what? Dan is nice to his friends but not nice to people he doesn't know! Or something! I probably shouldn't keep showing up: there's something appealing to me about teasing the retarded Cerebus, yanking its chain. Although there are only 2.5 posters and barely enough readers to make anything there worth it. I love a good foetic controversy as much as the next guy, but c'mon, fucking snore. Where's the indepth analysis of how Merwin got the National Book Award *jived* to him? Or is it only Foetic now when its done by powerless 30 year olds?

* Unretired from poetry long enough to write this line today: "Have a Gaulloises, Pig Dog!" Let them call my Posthumous First Book of Poetry (and anything else they care to jam into it) Screaming Fields of Jim Behrle. It's true: Ron Silliman should get out of the habit of reviewing a chapbook only to say "But what we really need is a really big book of their work!" It goes without saying, without perfect binding what are we and do we not bleed? Release mine on e-book and in surround smell-o-vision: I hope to be dead a long time by then. Added to the Jim Behrle Memorial Reading on the Brooklyn Bridge: please have Catherine Meng sing "Jim" for me. "Gone are the years / I've wasted on him!"

* Do you want poems written about you in a kind of platonic-ever-longing-obsession kind of way? I think I have to give Jacqueline Waters a break after using her name every other line. I'm writing a poem about Sean Cole right now if anybody wants to throw me an inside jokey line. Candidates for the role of my muse ought to be flirty but elusive, project depth and warmth while being evasive enough for me to wonder in poems just what the hell is up with you. Maybe no more blonds, two's too many. Glasses & black hair. Send friendster shots.

* He was fucking with me I think so I'll give him a pass. But the next person who sends me a "Are you going to AWP" spam-mail gets a shark in "Infested Waters" named after them. I wouldn't fuck AWP with *your* dick, as they say.