Mike is editor of Artforum and can be reached at marineiguana@worldnet.att.net.






HOPE


I chose to write a Shakespearean
sonnet of three quatrains
and a final
couplet.

Iambic pentameter
then became
a good choice
for the meter.

I considered an a b a b, c d c d,
e f e f, g g rhyme scheme but
decided to write
in prose.

I think it makes a nice, simple poem
and I am more than happy with it.






TOPP

The Topp Brothers
Topp Brothers
Topp Bros.
The Topps



*

If you're out skydiving on your first date, I bet it's really embarrassing if your chute doesn't open.



AFER WORK

I come home &
sit down
at this desk.


OF PARROTS


Male and female eclectus parrots differ so
radically in plumage that for years they
were thought to be a separate species. I once
saw an eclectus parrot looking in a mirror
who didn't know what to say.


THE EASY GATE

Just don't slam it.
Light From the Snow--Yuk.
Around Here--Not bad.
A Crow at Dawn--No.





DEAR MRS. MIKE

I liked your collection of stories
very much. None of my friends
are interested in your work so
neither am I. I would like to
publish one of your books but
my financial advisors think you
are a poor investment. Everyone
thinks you are a jerk. I think you
are very intelligent and




UPDATE


Some of you may wish to order copies
of Shakespeare's lost software, recently
discovered on a 16th-century hard drive
at Christ Church College, Cambridge.

The following titles are available:

Henry 5.1
Henry 5.2
Turbo Hamlet
Richard 3.0
Sonnet for Windows
MacBeth
Othello++

Customer support can be reached
at thebard@avon.lit



UNTITLED

We dug up something at the hanging gardens
last Friday afternoon. It smelled funny but we
weren't sure what it was so we decided to bury
it and check it again in three days.




PRESIDENT & DISH

The president came for a visit.
"Hello," he said.
"Hello," I said.
"What's wrong?" he said.
"I saved all my money and bought this dish for my mother, and I just dropped it and it broke."
"Here's a new dish. You give this to your mother," he said.
I said to the president: "Thanks." But I felt guilty, because I'd just found this piece of broken dish on the street, so I got a dish for nothing.



UNTITLED

One Tuesday I went to the Amsterdam Billiard Club to see if I knew anyone there. Maybe I did. Not certain. Couldn't be absolutely sure. Left the building and went for a walk around the block. Saw some people but didn't speak to them. One I knew. His name was Minnesota. Minnesota Fats.

What was he doing here?




UNTITLED


Hello, my name is Mr. Renta. I mean de la Renta, Oscar Renta. I mean de la Renta, Oscar de la Renta. I was born in Woodridge and grew up in the neighboring suburb of Woodbridge and then it was off to college. First I attended Illinois University but I switched majors and now I am enrolled at the University of Illinois.
I'm sorry I called you an idiot--I'm not very good at names or:
dating
public speaking
home repairs
cooking
listening



PLUCK


A cockroach can live one week
with its head pulled off.






UNTITLED

Devlin: Hey Alice, I mean Ali. Alicia! Come over
for a minute.

Alicia: Wait a sec, Devlin.

Devlin: No, now, come here now.

Alicia: Devlin, I said I'd be over in a sec.

Devlin: Ali, now. I mean Alicia, now. Come here now.

Alicia: No, Dev. Okay, Dev.

Devlin: Okay, Alison. Alicia, I mean. Help me
with this stuff.



UNTITLED

Phil was sick so Bill filled in. Bill had been ill but he got better. When Phil gets better he'll probably head the department and Bill will have to step down or take over for some- body else unless Bill does so well that when Phil gets better Phil will be through.



UNTITLED


Idea for a movie: a man awakens in the morning and finds something different about his neighbors. They look human except for a few details like their heads are notched and there is a pronounced tag on their chins. They sing and have nice voices. They sound just like a barbershop quartet. They're quite good with their hands. They like doing things with their belts. What kind of things? I don't know. Fiddling around things; adjusting the volume, focus, and aperture.



UNTITLED


Had lunch with my agent today. I talked about the trouble I was having with finishing my new book, "100,000,000,000,000 Poems."




PLACE I HAVE BEEN


Elizabeth, New Jersey.
Marion, Ohio.
Irving, Texas.
Arnold, Missouri.
Beverly, Massachusetts.
Gary, Indiana.
Pierre, South Dakota.












LIBRARY JOURNAL


Mike Topp's new book, Six Short Stories & Seven Short Poems, is a culmination of the poet's synthesis of his roots, and a swell collection to boot. Printed on paper, the book comes with a beautiful cream-colored cover. There is an attractive title page, and the next page features a listing of magazines in which the poems and stories first appeared.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that following the acknowledgments were six short stories and seven short poems! Above each story and poem is a title printed in uppercase letters. What a bonus! The poems and stories themselves are printed in a deep jet black, and have a variety of punctuation marks. Some of the marks were big, and some were small. I chirruped delightedly when I noticed the book was "saddle-stitched," or stapled, so that the pages wouldn't fly all over the place like some of the poet's other books.

My only complaint was that I couldn't figure out how to download the book onto my computer.

Finally, Mike Topp has gotten it right. This book is practically perfect.



A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR


Mike Topp, born Berdichev, Ukraine, December 3/6, 1857. Joined French marine service 1874. After harrowing trip up the Congo, left the sea for good and in London 1894 turned to writing. Surmounting agonizing difficulties of composition in English, produced Bilax, God of Gum Arabic 1895 and Milgrig and the Tree Wilfs 1896. Married Jessica George 1896. Children: two sons. Wrote Lord Jim 1900. Began Heart of Darkness in 1902, finished by Joseph Conrad. Died 1924. Buried in Grant's Tomb.










PONDER THIS


That a styrofoam cup actually weighs less
after you've drank coffee from it than when
it is new--well, that's just not a good sign.




FIVE STORIES

1

A woman ran an employment agency for girls. The girls were supposed to be going to jobs, but they just disappeared. A man in an automobile spoke to the woman and told her he'd found the girls' trunks at some place, but no girls. He was a night doctor and was going to take the woman to the hospital.

2

A sixty-year-old man one morning went from his home into the fields. The people of his village had subsisted without water for centuries. He decided to live on flowers like a bee. When his money was gone, he would go out to the fields and gather some more flowers. One evening when he was out gathering poppies he found a yellow spring that furnished enough water for many villages. Everyone was happy. Now if you try to talk to him he won't even answer you, but only give a drunken smile.

3

A young man became a soldier and was killed by a bomb. Locusts laid their eggs in his corpse. When the worms were mature, they took wing and flew north. When the wife of the soldier saw them, she turned pale, and she knew her husband was dead. She thought of his corpse rotting in the desert. That night she dreamed she rode a white horse that was so fast it left no hoofprints. She found her dead husband and looked at his face eaten by the locusts and she began to cry. Afterward she never let her children harm any insects. That same winter a swarm of locusts nested in her heart.

4

A woman made a pornographic movie in which she sucked on men's penises for four hours and thirty-one minutes. She made many more movies after that. Near the end of her life she told a newspaper reporter she'd been drugged by the director in her first movie. The story of her adventure spread far and wide, and soon made her famous.

5

A man found himself in a strange country many miles from home. He was taken there at night by a large black pig. While traveling they passed a beach full of crabs that had human faces on their backs. He walked around a little, stepped and slipped upon something clammy, and began to scream; his face was tense and pale. When he awoke, cedars laughed in the sunlight, oaks beckoned, and the birches bent far down and waved.












THINGS TO DO AROUND NEW YORK CITY


See steam rise from the streets
Watch out for hawks. Eat hot dogs with mustard;
Biking through Central Park, lay down in the Sheep Meadow.
Order Chinese take-out on a rainy night
Watch "Shakes the Clown" on cable
Reading books on how God favors slavery in the Tompkins Square Library.
Swim at Coles Center across from the Angelika
Get lost
Spot Grace Church as you walk up Broadway
Pizza at Lombardi's, fresh basil and garlic
"Space aliens are stealing our rocks."
Change your mind, change your underwear.
Becoming enlightened, then seducing a sack of wheat and backsliding.
Sway in the wind at the corner of St. Mark's Place and Second Avenue
Walk down Ninth Street and go to Decibel,
Drinking hot sake around a wooden table.
Dueling fiddlers
Ignoring dualism
Thinking about sex constantly.
Sky like a toothache.










IDEA FOR A POEM

I think a good poem would be where a man and a horse stop in the woods and watch it snow. They watch and watch, but you know what? It gets dark out. And you know why it gets dark out? It doesn't say. The poem leaves it up to you, the reader, to decide.

Then, at the very end, there's a part where the horse bites the man on the ass.







SURRENDER


In 8th grade I bought "The Sensuous Woman" for my girlfriend. This pained my parents very much. So Mother drove me to the drugstore to exchange my gift. Nancy liked the Snoopy earrings.






CONVENIENT


This poem is close
to public transportation.




POEM


Believe it or not
we want to pay you
for reading this poem.



NOW!!


This poem has expanded
hours to serve you better.




FREE TV


Scott Westerfeld is the man in New York City who is good at retronyms. "Free TV" is one a friend thought up, but some of his are "analog clock" and "acoustic guitar." He is also an admirer of Poppy Z. Brite, and, like all of the Brites, is a voracious science fiction enthusiast. Once he told me that Brite is "the thinking person's Anne Rice."

Retronyms are terms for old things made necessary by new inventions. Cable TV, the digital clock, and the electric guitar double as time machines that make us rethink the past. The discovery of retronyms fills the most banal conversations with adventure. The future therefore lies with retronyms.











ST. LOUIS JOURNAL 1997



TODAY

I find it very hard to believe that room service offers "jalapeno poppers."



CASA CALIENTE

Looking out the eighth floor of my hotel I see smoke across the highway and helicopters hovering over the scene. On the radio the announcer says there's a two-alarm fire at the Casa Caliente restaurant and that "flames are shooting through the roof."



TODAY

Today I realized that the most disgusting word in the English language is "barstool."






FREE TV

If Hal Sirowitz were a TV network he would be NBC. Allen Ginsberg would be ABC.* I would be the Tiffany network. And Sparrow would be FOX.

*Allen Ginsberg died two days after I wrote this. He was a great person.



MONEY

When I asked Alan Greenspan the other day if he had any idea what fuels the economy he said"Shame"I believe is how he put it.







JUST LIKE IN THE MOVIES

Got a ride from a taxi driver who said his previous fare had been Mickey Carroll, the last living Munchkin from The Wizard of Oz. Mickey lives in St. Louis and likes cigars.



BOB

All the streets are one-way streets. Bob says it makes you wonder how anyone returns.



DO NOT

Cough. Eat too much. Go out. Inflate. Look disagreeable. Lose your bearings. Speak. Swallow. Sweat. Torment yourself.



TODAY

I am called Mr. Topp like everyone else.



LAST NIGHT

Lots of dreams last night but all I can remember is something about some guy who was always getting teased a lot because his name was Hoobert Heever. (As opposed to Herbert Hoover.)

A summer shower
Along the highway, people
Rolling up windows


LAST NIGHT

Last night, sitting in the hotel bar, I remembered that I left my umbrella in a taxi. I thought that my umbrella must have been very sad to have lost me.



THESE DAYS

Don't know how to say this without sounding like a total nut butDsharks aren't so toughDlike if I had a fair fight with one in a swimming pool I feel "sure" that I would win. You know what I mean?




TODAY

That old chestnut "I have nothing to say, and I am saying it" finally hits home.



POSTSCRIPT


HONOR, DIGNITY, JUSTICE

The only thing that ever bothered me about having my head blown off by a shell was that I thought that maybe people wouldn't like an old soldier with a wooden head.



HUSTLER

Now that there's a movie about Larry Flynt I'm trying to read Hustler more.








TODAY

Dancing around in just socks and a T-shirt, who is to say I am not the happy genius of my hotel room?





THE MORNING OF THE POEM


By what miracle
does this Twinkie
made from who knows what,
this Ding Dong found on Safeway's shelves,
this hot dog, made from monkey lips,
turn into Me?
My mouth,
my throat,
my stomach, my intestines, my poems?

Am I not then Twinkies
and Ding Dongs
and Armour hot dogs?
Hot dogs, no doubt,
the ancient Prophets ate?







TUNA CASSEROLE GRETA GARBO


Combine one 10 3/4 cup can of condensed cream of
celery soup with 1/4 cup of milk. Stir in one 7-ounce
can of tuna, drained and flaked. Add two sliced hard-
boiled eggs and one cup of cooked peas. Bake 30 minutes
at 350 degrees. Stir. Top with 1/2 cup of crumbled potato
chips. Bake 5 minutes more. Always to be eaten alone
in a candlelit room.















MR. FRIENDLY


May I introduce you to Mr. Friendly?
I want you to meet Mrs. Friendly!
They are both great people!
And here they are!
Here he is!




TUESDAY, DECEMBER 31st, 1996


Yesterday I threw a stick into the river and it turned into a fish. Well, maybe next year really will be a bit different!




POLICE STORY


Complainant felt a pinch on his shoulder
And he saw a fist in the air
The next thing he knew
He was being taken to the hospital
By two unknown males












NEVER HEARD OF THEM


Harry Reems
Linda Lovelace
Marilyn Chambers
Seka
Jeff Stryker
Christy Canyon
Ron Jeremy



A MINI OBSERVATION


In Hawaii, one notes with interest, there is a big fish called  and a little fish called homomomonukunukuaguk.






UNTITLED


Heaven
Earth
Hell
Satan
Martha Stewart




FRIGHTENING THINGS


The bark of an oak tree.
A place where there has been a fire.
The prickly water lily, the water chestnut, and the
chestnut burr.
Ted Turner.

(apologies to Sei Shonegon)






MY LOVE


In yonder distant glen
Perchance she snowboards.







FOUND POEM


Buy a house
with 200 credit cards.








UNTITLED


One guy had ham and eggs and sometimes an omelet. He was stocky but not fat and he never left a tip. The other guy had granola every day and was skinny but always left 20%. Everyone else ate day-old bread or whatever they could scrounge from the dumpster.


ANTIDISESTABLISHMENTARIANISM


Antidisestablishmentarianism, I feel, is a very big word.




THIS IS JUST TO SAY

I
can't
stand
your
poetry






Music Review

Brian Eno and Frank Sinatra: Music for Machines and Mink [Nagasaki Music] Recorded live at Las Vegas in the late 1980s, this post Roxy/mid Nelson Riddle CD is a wrenching document of Frank Sinatra's transition from pop to experimental music. The Hoboken-born, classically trained Sinatra has always been interested in tearing things apart; here he does it methodically. Of side one's schizophrenic purity, Eno claims, "I was trying to daydream when I wrote it, but my mind kept wandering." Perhaps most peculiar, this CD is Sinatra's and Eno's second collaborative effort. An earlier project, "No Mayonnaise in Ireland," had to be abandoned after the two got in a fight over who should pay for dry cleaning and the meaning of the word "blitiri." Coco Chanel said it best: "Reconciliation is sinister."



Big Lies from Grassy

Grassy told me once that when he was a child in the Pacific Northwest, a fruit tree grew from the head of a deer shot with fruit pits.



Advice

Listen to a pillow by pressing your ear to it. Listen to a table by pressing your elbows to it and listening through your palms.






LITERARY WAYS


The poet is shut up in his old tower. He hears the wind. He muses, without seeming to muse. Suddenly, he gets goosebumps. Why? The Devil? No, it isn't Satan--it's the wind, the wind of the spirit blowing. The poet's head is full of it. He smiles in a sly manner, while his heart weeps like a willow. But the spirit is here! It looks on with an evil eye--a glass eye--and the poet grows meek. How red he is: he can muse no more. Then he vomits, a horrible vomiting of bad prose poetry and bitterness.





Erik Satie
tr. Mike Topp










TAXI DRIVER


Medhat Abdo 454564
Young Choudry 471463
Anatoly Shister 392596

Mahbub Babul 482994
Ekow Afful 481551
Mamadou Adam Diallo 486708

Joseph Jean 451977
Hadama Sidibe 487238
Alfred Sierzutowski 478514

Arshad Mahmood 478514
Lorraine Riyanto 425374
Muhammad Ali 463358









Bad Luck



It is bad luck to drop a book and not step on it.
It is bad luck to bring a hoe into the house.
It is bad luck to sweep the floor before the sun rises.
It is bad luck to count the stars.
It is bad luck to comb your hair after dark.
It is bad luck to rock an empty chair.
It is bad luck to burn apple trees for firewood.
It is bad luck to eat only one helping of rice.
It is bad luck to look at the moon through branches.
It is bad luck to meet a left-handed person on Tuesday.
It is bad luck to watch a person out of sight.
It is bad luck for a black hen to come into the house.
It is bad luck to milk a cow on the ground.

It is bad luck to sell a crowing hen.
It is bad luck to wear a needle in your clothes.
It is bad luck to break a bird egg.
It is bad luck to spin a chair on one leg.
It is bad luck to dream of eating cabbage.
It is bad luck to see a pin and not pick it up.
It is bad luck to open an umbrella in the house.
It is bad luck to sit on a pair of scissors.
It is bad luck to see a cat's tail by the fire.
It is bad luck to sun bed sheets on Friday.
It is bad luck to sit on a trunk.
It is bad luck to be proposed to in church.
It is bad luck to carry eggs after sunset.

It is bad luck to cut a sick person's fingernails.
It is bad luck to dream about eating white grapes.
It is bad luck to place a hat on a bed.
It is bad luck to walk under a ladder.
It is bad luck to break a mirror.
It is bad luck to give a sick person cut flowers.
It is bad luck to wear black at a wedding.
It is bad luck to be married in black.
It is bad luck to be married on Thursday.
It is bad luck to name a baby for the dead.
It is bad luck to change a baby's name.
It is bad luck to dream about rats fighting.
It is bad luck to wash new clothes before they are worn.

It is bad luck to sift through the ashes.
It is bad luck to prod the beach rubble.
It is bad luck to sneeze with your mouth full.
It is bad luck to have small ears.
It is bad luck to have sulfur in your shoes.
It is bad luck to see a candle go out.
It is bad luck to burn red candles.
It is bad luck to find a knot in a feather.
It is bad luck to not fold back the thumb.
It is bad luck to give yourself a nickname.
It is bad luck to look under the bed.
It is bad luck to spill wine at a wedding.
It is bad luck to be married outside.

It is bad luck to wear red at a wedding.
It is bad luck to bury a corpse in the dark.
It is bad luck to hear a dead man sneeze.
It is bad luck to hear a bell ring while you eat.
It is bad luck to run through a graveyard.
It is bad luck to see a hubcap fly off.
It is bad luck to tell your exact age.
It is bad luck to have a red beard.
It is bad luck to bite the inside of your cheek.
It is bad luck to dream about beer.
It is bad luck to have bushy eyebrows.
It is bad luck to snap your fingers on the street.
It is bad luck to light three cigarettes with one match.

It is bad luck to have flat feet.
It is bad luck to sit on your foot.
It is bad luck to praise a friend.
It is bad luck to talk about hair to a bald man.
It is bad luck to set your hair on fire.
It is bad luck to lick your hands.
It is bad luck to touch a stranger's left hand.
It is bad luck to burn salt.
It is bad luck to sleep with your legs crossed.
It is bad luck to point at a fruit tree.
It is bad luck to spit out a window.
It is bad luck to tell a secret.
It is bad luck to sleep when you're thirsty.

It is bad luck to count your teeth.
It is bad luck to whistle in the wind.
It is bad luck to have a sick person visit.
It is bad luck to eat pills in even numbers.
It is bad luck to have a doctor faint on you.
It is bad luck to sing while you bake.
It is bad luck to sleep with your head pointing north.
It is bad luck to wash clothes on New Year's.
It is bad luck to find broken glass in the bedroom.
It is bad luck to break a bell.
It is bad luck to stir coffee with a fork.
It is bad luck to blow in a bottle.
It is bad luck to push a cork in a bottle.

It is bad luck to cut the butter at both ends.
It is bad luck to spill a box of buttons.
It is bad luck to burn a pie.
It is bad luck to kill kittens.
It is bad luck to walk over a cellar door.
It is bad luck to make a face at a clock.
It is bad luck to wear plaid.
It is bad luck to lend new clothes.
It is bad luck to wash a shovel.
It is bad luck to take an old broom to a new home.
It is bad luck to play with a knife.
It is bad luck to break a corkscrew.
It is bad luck to knock on your own door.

It is bad luck to lock yourself out.
It is bad luck to slam a door.
It is bad luck to wear other people's glasses.
It is bad luck to wash a friend's car.
It is bad luck to put bread on your head.
It is bad luck to hear a flute on Sunday.
It is bad luck to step on bread.
It is bad luck to eat a frozen egg.
It is bad luck to borrow red pepper.
It is bad luck to peel a banana with your teeth.
It is bad luck to eat dates with your aunt.
It is bad luck to hear furniture creak.
It is bad luck to give a rich man a present.

It is bad luck to have a gun in the house.
It is bad luck to lose a hairpin.
It is bad luck to wash your feet after dark.
It is bad luck to have an icicle fall on your head.
It is bad luck to talk too much.
It is bad luck to cheat or steal.
It is bad luck to be in an office at 12:30.
It is bad luck to call your wife "the old woman."
It is bad luck to henpeck your husband.
It is bad luck to see a mouse in your bed.
It is bad luck to move on Saturday.
It is bad luck to live in only one place.
It is bad luck to dream of ads in the paper.

It is bad luck to have a light on at sunrise.
It is bad luck to write a letter at midnight.
It is bad luck to throw away old letters.
It is bad luck to sleep in front of a mirror.
It is bad luck to sit on a couch with old women.
It is bad luck to find an empty matchbox.
It is bad luck to make plans during a meal.
It is bad luck to tell others you're not smart.
It is bad luck to wear a hat two sizes too small.
It is bad luck to leave a fork in the oven.
It is bad luck to throw away paper.
It is bad luck to hear noises at night.
It is bad luck to lose a friend's picture.

It is bad luck to split a pickle.
It is bad luck to buy your own wallet.
It is bad luck to read with your back to a mirror.
It is bad luck to find a ring in a fish.
It is bad luck to sit on a roof.
It is bad luck to lose one of your rubbers.
It is bad luck to mend clothes while you wear them.
It is bad luck to kick a pair of shoes.
It is bad luck to burn a shoelace.
It is bad luck to borrow soap at night.
It is bad luck to play a record backwards.
It is bad luck to see an old man fall.
It is bad luck to shake hands with a fool.

It is bad luck to drink vinegar.
It is bad luck to shower at noon.
It is bad luck to argue in a laundromat.
It is bad luck to have a cross-eyed waiter.
It is bad luck to have a peacock feather at home.
It is bad luck to work on Sunday.
It is bad luck to read tombstones.
It is bad luck to spill water under a table.
It is bad luck to meet three nuns.
It is bad luck to find a snake bone in your pillow.
It is bad luck to have a frog in your leg.
It is bad luck to hear a screeching owl.
It is bad luck if fruit trees bloom twice a year.











AN INTERVIEW WITH WILLIAM WEGMAN

Interviewed by Mike Topp

Q. What is your full real name?
A. Wegman, W-e-g-n-a-m.
Q. When and where were you born?
A. I was born in Lisle, Illinois, on June 27, 1963.
Q. What is your height, weight and coloring?
A. I am five feet eleven inches tall, weigh 176 pounds, have black hair and hazel eyes.
Q. Where do you live?
A. I live in a split-level home in Baltimore, Maryland, and I also have a vacation home in Honolulu. I love the beaches of Hawaii.
Q. Who do you live with?
A. My mom, Thelma, and dad, John. I also have three brothers, Martin, Roy, and Paul.
Q. Do you have any pets?
A. I have a poodle named Gigi, a retriever named Sabey, and a fox terrier named Chipper.

Q. Do you have any hobbies?
A. I've become very interested in cars and bikes. I read a lot of specialist magazines now.
Q. What is your favorite food?
A. Anything vegetarian.
Q. What are your favorite movies?
A. Return of the Jedi, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
Q. Who are your favorite musicians and why?
A. I like Annie Lennox, for her beautiful voice and imaginative sense of style.
Q. What is your favorite TV show?
A. Leave It to Beaver!
Q. What's your favorite city and why?
A. Ottawa, Canada.
Q. What are your favorite colors?
A. Red.
Q. Are there any habits or mannerisms that stand out about you?
A. I can't see too well in the dark. My mom says it had something to do with my diet when I was a kid.

Q. Are you allergic to any foods?
A. I ate a cheese sandwich once and it feels like it's still in my stomach.
Q. Are you good at fixing things?
A. My brother can fix anything! You give him a piece of metal and by the end of the week he'll have created a car!

Q. What do you think about drugs?
A. I hate drugs. I just think it makes people turn into vegetables and it's really boring.
Q. Have you a secret longing?
A. I want to do something that will change things--something that's just amazing.
Q. If you could live anywhere in the world, where would you choose?
A. Los Angeles, California. It's on the West Coast and is full of acting opportunities.
Q. Do you have any favorite quotes, any mottoes to live by?
A. "You can't pick the fruit if you don't go out on a limb."
Q. Do you have a favorite drink?
A. Tequila.
Q. What is your earliest memory?
A. I don't remember very much at all before I went to school. My parents have films of me when I was very small. It's really weird to see myself on film and have absolutely no memory of being in that place and doing those things.
Q. What's your next move?
A. I'd like to be able to fly. I'd like to fly helicopters and I fully intend to learn.
Q. Do you exercise a lot?
A. I have to because I sometimes gain weight around my face and a bit around stomach.

Q. Do you have any pet peeves?
A. I hate having pizza delivered to my house and it arrives cold.
Q. Are you moody or temperamental?
A. No, not at all.
Q. What's most important to you in a relationship with a girl?
A. Mutual caring; wanting to be there for someone through the good times as well as the bad times. I'm drawn to a girl who is down to earth.
Q. What do girls think of you?
A. They basically think I'm an okay guy.
Q. What's your ultimate ambition?
A. To be a good human being.
Q. Can you tell me when you had your first crush on a girl?
A. My grammar school teacher! I was six years old and and she was in her twenties. She had very long, blond, beautiful hair--I think I'm still in love with her!
Q. What's your idea of a perfect date?
A. There'll probably be some music, but we'll manage to find a quiet place where we can talk.
Q. True or false: You love to snack on bologna and mayonnaise sandwiches.
A. False! I hate mayonnaise!
Q. What kind of parties do you like to go to?
A. I like parties I throw myself because I can invite all my friends and then I know everybody and I like everybody who comes.

Q. Who has helped you the most with your career?
A. My best friend. I owe him a lot.
Q. Do you ever cry?
A. No. I come from one of those families where you don't really let your emotions show too much, you know?
Q. What do you like best about your work?
A. When I go home and forget my profession and be a regular guy like everybody else.
Q. What do you dislike about your career?
A. I resent the fact that I can't walk down the street without people recognizing me.
Q. When you die, have you thought about being cremated?
A. No, not at all.
Q. Where is the best place to write you?
A. 814 Cathedral Street, Baltimore, Maryland 21201.
















OWN YOUR OWN


Have you ever dreamed about owning your own yacht or thole? You can own your own thole for less than it would cost you to own your own yacht. In fact, you can own your own thole for the same amount as a Thoth.






SONNET


Stronger than alcohol, more great than song
I, an island sail, and my shores toss
bristling hate.
slow kisses on the eyelids of the sea,
And since then I've been bathing in the poem
and hurled by hurricanes to a birdless place
O let me burst, and I be lost at sea!
and fall on my knees then, womanly.
the waving flags, nor pass by prison ships
lifting her shadowy flowers up for me,
what other men have sometimes thought they've seen.
It's true, I weep too much. Dawns break
on a fragrant evening, fraught with sadness
deep in whose reeds great elephants decay






INSIPID MEMORIES


Oh the size of the night sky
& a book of matches
Oh a quilt patch and a pillow.

Up from the meadows rich with corn,
Clear in the cool September morn.
She said, "To make a long story short."

It is just a lot of scrawl, I said.
They used to call me Hairy.
The girl said, "I don't want to know.

>From now on
You will be called Smoothy,
A less glorious designation."

I can see her weeping,
Though she had dry eyes
And a smile upon her lips.






MY EARS


Where
Where are my ears?

I asked the devil.
He said he hadn't heard.

Oh! Where
Where are my ears?






WHAT SCARES ME


Getting a shot scares me;
Drinking medicine scares me;
Going to the dentist scares me;
What this means, I don't know;
Someone singing "Staying Alive"
In Las Vegas
Scares me.



THE MYSTERIOUS CIRCUIT


Possibly, right now,
I'm thinking
Of deputy sheriff
Lou Ford watching people.

Lou Ford
Is the first riddle
In "The Killer Inside Me,"
Very popular on the mysterious circuit.

Brisk flesh, keen-eyed
Streams of people round the sweep
Of street corners.

New York is beautiful;
Time & Life building
60,000 people
With girls reading "Venus In Furs."
















QUESTIONNAIRE OF SLEEPLESSNESS


What does a frog say when it's murdered?
Do horses have trouble finding horseshoes that fit?
Who weeps over the fate of cucumbers?
Who put the bloom in Bloomsbury?
Who sells the shade to the rich man?
If you saw two guys named Hambone and Flippy,
Which one would you think liked dolphins the most?
I'd say Flippy, wouldn't you?
Answer!
You'd be wrong though.
It's Hambone. In New York, everyone is hurrying.
The messenger on his bike got hit by a truck.
Who will paint the sky every morning?
Who will sew the sea back together when it is torn?
Don't you love that building?
God, when I think back-am I still that transparent?
What's another word for thesaurus?
A thousand crystal tambourines were piercing the dawn.
Is there anything stupider in life than to be called Mike Topp?
People will talk, let them; aren't we lovers?


ICE CREAM

To tell you the truth, I don't think Ben & Jerry's "Hairy Red Testicle Crunch" is going to make it.


ON MUSTARD

One can't live without mustard.






CONFESSION

I used to be ashamed of my striped face.


WIRED

I have wireless cable.


SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT

What's another word for thesaurus?


SHISH KEBAB

Alternate little pieces of shish with pieces of kebab.


PARIS SPLEEN

While drinking Perrier I lost my terrier.


PHENOMENOLOGY

A rolling stone can gather moss if it is rolling very, very slowly.




UNTITLED

I got a great job last Friday but the pay is too low and the work I do is humiliating.


EXPERIENCE

Experience, I once read, is one of the forms of paralysis.


POOL

I'm told one of the problems with the gene pool is that there's no life=
guard.



STEVEN

Steven confessed this morning that he's been writing an unauthorized autobiography.


FIRE ISLAND

It was on Fire Island I realized that hermits have no peer pressure.


TODAY

If it's true that you are what you eat, then I am one flaky pastry.


CHILDHOOD

I find it very hard to believe that I was ever a half-twin.


NOT YOUR TYPICAL AVERAGE GUY

Sure, I overdo it once in a while, but who doesn't?

WAR

In November 1915 Chief Secretary of Ireland Augustine Birrell said, "I, for one, would forbid the use, during the war, of poetry."


LIFE

I was just, you know, I wasn't bothering anyone.



THE ONE-MINUTE TEENAGER

Place 12-year-old in microwave.


TENNIS

Tennis is more than raising a racket.


HEARING PROBLEM

You'll have to speak up, I'm wearing a towel.



METAMORPHOSIS

From a biographer we learn that Frederick Kohner, the creator of Gidget , was a friend and associate of Franz Kafka.


SPARROW

There's a little bit of Sparrow in all of us.



VENUS

Venus can cast a shadow.


SCANDAL

Safety matches just kill the smart kids.


CHEMISTRY CLASS

In chemistry class my chemistry teacher keeps changing my seat.






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