War Against Humanity blog--updated with corrections.

First, I'll offer an apology to Rick Lupert: Rick did not create the War Against Humanity blog.  Rick and Amelie Frank were most helpful in terms of helping to ensure the situation with the blog was resolved.

From the earlier post:

"Not expecting too many people reading this to care, but the blog (another example of some in the SoCal community wanting me to "shut the fuck up" as was quoted in the previous post) caused a lot of needless stress and mental anguish to me.  And it was intended as a mixture of cowardice and malevolence: intended for the blogger to have lots of fun imagining me running around, making unfounded accusations to people, and with hopes that I might lose my temper in public--causing me to be banned from poetry venues and professionally/personally ostracized."

I did find out that the person (still wanting anonymity) sent Rick an e-mail apologizing for the trouble caused and stating that the War Against Humanity blog was taken down (which I noticed around 9:00 p.m. Sunday night).

The blogger's ironic pen name: Jesus Christ.

It was one of the Best of Times....

Giving some public thanks to Rafael F. J. Alvarado, S.A. Griffin and new Beyond Baroque director Richard Modiano for yesterday's Beyond Baroque marathon of poets and writers.

During the time I was there, I got to see Wanda Coleman (for the first time ever), Pam Ward (ditto), Doug Knott and Gerald Locklin--among others (including the talented young Orange County poet Jennifer Donnell).

It was a good learning experience and it reminded me a bit of the kind of poetry and readings that don't seem as prevalent now in today's SoCal literary scene.

Please support Beyond Baroque now and in the future by going to its readings and buying books/chapbooks from the bookstore.

The glass of local poetry books--something that can be seen as either half-full or half-empty.

Earlier today (March 24th), I picked up copies of my latest chapbook NEVER MET BUKOWSKI from PIP Printing (have done business with them since 2000) at their Sun Valley, CA location.

I'm still a holdout from the period where poets self-published their own chapbooks (either through the former Kinkos or places like PIP) and sold them to each other at readings. This is not a popular avenue anymore, since a lot of local poets would rather have their books published by small presses instead.

There's a lot of erosion-through-change of the local poetry scene since 2000. Once upon a time, there were quite a few more independent bookstores in LA/OC--and, in several cases, the stores would support local poetry and purchase chapbooks that were self-published and non-barcoded.
Now, there are far fewer independents--and some of those stores mimic the conformity of the local scene in only wanting local poets "established" with small press credits (it can't be just any small poetry press, it has to be the "right" press).

And sometimes, even those local poets don't always make it into these local independent stores with "high standards."

Today, I was at least happy to go by Skylight Books and see that Brendan Constantine's LETTERS TO GUNS (from Red Hen Press) is now being carried.

I really admire Brendan's poetry and respect him as a person (although our relationship hit a speed bump some years back which it has never fully recovered from, unfortunately)--so I'm happy to discover he's getting greater exposure to the Los Feliz/Silverlake reading audience.

Now, if Kerry Slattery of Skylight (plus other people she's deputized as buyers for the store) could start carrying chapbooks/books from some of Brendan's talented peers (Amelie Frank, Rick Lupert, Elizabeth Iannacci, the late Erica Erdman), that would be even better.

Re Erica Erdman's memorial and the passing of the old Iguana Cafe scene.

First, let me offer kudos to Amelie Frank, Richard Modiano and Beyond Baroque for the excellent memorial to L.A.'s Erica Erdman yesterday at Beyond Baroque. There was a fine line-up of people (including poets, Erica's father and former co-employees from FedEx) that communicated their love of Erica, her life and her poetry in words and song.

And I'll offer a sort-of-thanks to Tom Ianniello--a man who I have ambivalent personal feelings towards--for offering a stage to Erica and other talented poets/performers (first with the Iguana Cafe and later with Exile Books and Music) to develop and deepen their artistic craft.

I started reading my poems in public in 1998, so I missed out on the Iguana Cafe era--but was lucky to read at Exile (which later became Mysteries, Murder and Mayhem bookstore--run by mystery author Terrill Lee Lankford) when Amelie and Richard hosted a reading there. But it was inspiring to see and hear its alumni get together again.

Making a safe guess that Erica's spirit--which could be felt inside the Beyond Baroque theater--enjoyed and was gratified by the afternoon's tribute.

RIP to Los Angeles poet Erica Erdman, 55.

Was shocked and sad to find out that L.A. poet Erica Erdman passed away yesterday.

I didn't know Erica that well, but she was a class act as a person and as a member of the tribe called "the poetry community."

Met Erica in the late 90s at Amelie Frank's reading series at the Hot House in North Hollywood. Saw her last at the 2009 Newer Poets reading at the Downtown Los Angeles
Public Library.

Here's a link to Amazon.com for Erica's book THE APOCALYPTIC KID:
http://www.amazon.com/Apocalyptic-Kid-Erica-Erdman/dp/1892687003/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1266636221&sr=1-1