I have become engaged. To a woman no less. The wedding will be June or July of next summer after she finishes her thesis on elements of literary criticism in Poe's detective short stories, and after I get back from Argentina.

For those of you who swooned @ Ron Paul, any thoughts of what you'll do come November? Thoughts about the capital-L Libertarians and Bob Barr?

Favorite word today: Swag. Meaning: Stolen shit,
or, stuff that was once pretty valuable but now is sort of 25 cents on the dollar, but maybe it's worth something to someone.

Allegedly, the word's police report jargon for "Stolen Without A Gun," though that's obviously fiction. Fun though.

Also ... because Bush is almost gone
& because I keep finding myself sucked into politics
& because
I can:

I live in a country where, 7 years ago, the government seized virtually every bank account in the country--denying people access to their money--and later returning (if one was so lucky) only a third of it. The government routinely denies the visible, palpable inflation and relentlessly increasing poverty rates. There is no abortion, except in back allies in "villas miserias"--shantytowns built using whatever people can slap together. These, my friends, are problems.

I do, however, know that a scarf is not a problem. What the fuck is this?

For Dave

I think Farnham needs some of these....and Dr. JJ

Someone has been watching too much SNL.

'I'm a big fan of Radio Control'

One Valentine's Day, Hugger and I watched that movie with Paul Giamatti about the guy who lived in Cleveland, was really sad, and drew a series of comics about how sad his life was. American Splendor, about Harvey Pekar. I remember we went to the video store and every movie about anything remotely related to love was checked out, even "Assassination Tango" and Maggie Gyllenhaal's S&M-romantic comedy.

Not that we were looking for a romantic movie, but the shelves were wiped and the desperation of that was sort of stark.

So we got this really really sad movie about a really really sad man, who seemed a lot like my friends, and a lot like me.

Case in point: Hugger didn't watch the movie, because he was drinking peach schnapps and had been drinking peach schnapps since he woke up that morning. He will claim that this has nothing to do with the fact he was spending Valentine's Day with me, but he's full of shit.

The movie really depressed me. Not because Pekar was pathetic or lonely or sad, but because he didn't have any fight left in him. I wanted to have some way to fight back, even if I was pathetic, some way to hope things could be better, even if that made me pathetic. This is why I thought American Splendor was sad, but thought Love Liza, with Philip Seymore Hoffman, was beautiful. Dave Frank used to try to push that movie on people.

I really like it, he would say. I just really like it.

Dave and I didn't watch that movie together, so every time he told me he really liked it, I would say I did too.

Did you see it? he would say, and he would point at me. Dave always pointed at me, his hand like a pretend gun, like I wouldn't know he was talking to me unless he pointed.

Yes, I would say. I did.

I really like it, Dave would say. I mean, I really like it. A lot of people didn't like it. They were like, 'this is sad,' but I just really thought it was good. It was a good sad.

Hoffman's character in the movie, Wilson, thinks that Radio Control planes could save him. He tries to get over his wife's suicide and his addiction to huffing gas by becoming a fan of Radio Control. He was really really sad and lonely and pathetic, and seemed a lot like my friends and a lot like me, but maybe more than Pekar, because he had some kind of hope. He could get excited about things and in one scene he goes crashing into a lake, just so he can tell people that he has an identity.

Do you know who I am? he says. I am a big fan of Radio Control.

I thought he was going to say he lived at the Beat.

I was thinking about this when I read Dave's last column. I really like Dave's columns. He makes himself sound sad, like what my mom would have said was sadsack, though I don't know exactly what that is. But like that. Except he also has that kid-like consternation, and he sounds really sweet, which was always Dave's big secret.

In every one of his columns, I keep wondering if Dave's going to suddenly get excited and start yelling that he loves Radio Control. If he ever does, I hope someone's there to tell him they do too.

From the leaked script of Oliver Stone's movie about George Bush, an oddly Beat scene:

After being accepted to Harvard Business School, W. downs a pint of Wild Turkey, drives onto the lawn of his parents' Washington, D.C., home, and challenges his daddy to a boxing match.

George Sr. is pretty reasonable: "My advice to you—go to an AA meeting."

George W. is pretty adolescent: "Thank you, Mr. Perfect. Mr. War Hero. Mr. Fucking-God-Almighty."

I just clicked "edit page" under the disambiguation page for "the beat" and added a quick line. It will probably be gone tomorrow. Maybe I'll assign it as homework or extra credit next semester. Ah the joys of having sla.. Students.

Hello everyone, this is my son, Ezra.



Also, I would like to second Dave's Wikipedia and Flickr suggestions. I also think we should get together in the Midwest in August, or at least all make it to the next Beat reunion Silliman's wedding.


Also, I liked how most people that were at the Beat and didn't live there could never really tell who lived there, like it didn't matter.

Also, have you guys heard of bershon? photos here

Welcome to the new American Police State.

I wish more communities had people like John Adams.

"Love, Marital Aids and Forgiveness"
or
"The Longest Beat Post Ever"

I.

The history of love, The Beat and Dave Frank will have begun five years ago this November, a little more than two years before the Crunk Party and roughly a year following my institutionalization.

From a 2003 post by Will:

"Dave Frank is the man I hate to love. I'm not at all kidding when I call him a Gary or say he's the biggest tool I know."
-Will

"I can't put my figure on what kind of idiot Dave Frank is exactly. He's like a posing poser who hates the posers. It's like 'The personality traits I stole from someone else are cool, but yours suck. And not just cuz its different.'"
-Prosp3ct

"[I]f any one ever figures out Dave Frank, I am afraid we are going to have to kill them and their family lest this information get out [and] the universe implode."
-Lee

"As I just wrote on my blog, the world has a mixed opinion about Dave Frank. God sees both sides of the issue."
-Silliman

"Every day I drive past a gas station called 'Prospect Service Station.' Even though I have never met Prosp3ct, not do I know his real name, he seems the kind of fellow who would get 'The Cute' seal of approval. I am not so certain the same could be said about Dave, however."
-Sarah Hempel

But, as we all know, the love grew, and I often feel what Silliman described the summer before the Beat Class of 2006 entered its senior year.



II.

1.) I know it's been called for before, but does someone who is less lazy than me want start a Beat wikpedia entry? I promise to participate in resulting hijinks.

2.) Does someone know how to start an online Beat photo album where anyone of us can add shit? Maybe you can do it on flickr, I don't know because I don't have an account.

I can do a photo blog or whatever, but I didn't know what was the best way. There's tons of Beat pictures and memorabilia on facebook, this blog and spread around the internet (and inside Beatnik bedroom drawers which often share space with Eastern European pornography collections).

It would be nice to have all that stuff available in one place for posterity and women seeking marital aids.

3.) Can we update the links to the blogs that don't work? Obviously this is contingent on there being new blogs to replace the old ones, but send Will the link if you got one.

4.) Is there any other Beatniks or known associates (i.e. Luke, Hugger, Green) who have blogs we should link to?

5.) Could Will or whoever put up a picture of the house where the list of current Beat residents now is? Or/also maybe make a list that has each year the Beat was alive with the guys living there at the time.

6.) Can anyone think of an epigraph to be included in an award-winning account of The Beat that will be written by a precocious graduate student during the literary revival of the mid-21st century?

7.) August, I got your call Friday but was at work and then was walking around Virginia City yesterday and I don't get coverage there because my phone sucks. I'll call you today.


III.

This reminds me that it's time for all Beatniks to forgive each other.



It's very late in the West.



"Carl Solomon! I'm with you in Rockland where you're madder than I am/ I'm with you in Rockland where you must feel very strange."

-Ginsberg

Before a crazy mob?

beatnik questionnaire

Dylan Lindgren, 30 March 1985 - 8 March 2008

At 4:30am, Dylan "EZ D" Lindgren passed away after a prolonged battle against Hodgkin's lymphoma.

May he rest in peace.

Mea culpa.
Apologies for the sudden disappearance of comments. In attempting to restore access to the archives, HaloScan stuff disappeared. I still have a copy of the old, now defunct, template, if somebody better than I am with HTML and CSS wants to give it a go. In the meantime, there's always Blogger-powered commenting?

The Collegian featured The BEAT this past week. Check it out here.

Gentlemen, I am engaged.

So it goes.

A ring was produced from the hand of a naked and trembling and kneeling Jon Gibbons about two weeks ago. We're both very happy.

Not even kidding, Jon's long-lost brother:

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=21684047