Year: 2009

This just in from Booksmith “Unfortunately, Joey Kramer of Aerosmith has had to cancel his visit to The Booksmith, following Steven Tyler’s fall last week. We wish the best to the band and will still be stocking Joey’s memoir, Hit Hard, for those who are curious about life on the road as a rock ‘n roll drummer.” Still to come this month, Peter Coyote will read from his memoir and we’ll host a community forum on homelessness in the Haight with guests authors Violet Blue and Mark Bittner. Also, the Found in Translation reading group meets, Sean Chiki displays his art and comics, and Kemble Scott reads from his new novel, The Sower. http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

I have an inspiring story for all you writers dealing with the recession. The other day, I met a young poet named Lynn Gentry, who types out instant poems at the famous corner of Haight and Ashbury. He composes his poems behind a hand-lettered sign that reads: PICK A SUBJECT AND PRICE, THEN A POEM.” Follow the instructions: set your price, pick a subject and talk it over with the poet. Then he types it out, taking between three to 10 minutes on his Smith-Corona typewriter, propped on a table near Ben & Jerry’s. He’s so popular, with such a long line in front of him, that it was hard to extract much biographical info from him; he’s too busy to talk much. People come from all around to watch him type. In this age of Twitter and (ahem), blogging, Lynn creates work for individual customers and makes no copies…

Today is the birthday of Robert Earl, my hugely overweight, semi-sentient tabby cat, who weighs 18 pounds, eats like a pig-animal and wakes me up every night with his ceaseless whining and yowling. (demanding yet another lump of food.) My pet doctor sent along this personalized birthday e-card, showing a bunch of kitties cavorting and playing and celebrating the birthday of my utterly shiftless feline, who has been attacking me and biting my face and trying to asphyxiate me ever since I rescued him off the streets of Santa Cruz. I am thinking of writing a book about him called The Fatness Eaters: How I Lost my mind – and Never Found Myself – While trying to Look after my Lazy, Snorting, Morbidly Obese “companion animal.” Anyhow, I hope you will send along your birthday greetings to him, or, even better, a sack full of cat chow. He’d appreciate that….

I want to hear from you — send those bios in!!Don’t be shy.(I haven’t heard from my reader from Iran for a while – If you’re out there, I hope you’re doing OK)I think I’ve got this whole RSS thing sorted out – almost. One of my readers sent me a how-to video showing me how to set it up. I’ll do my best. http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

Check out the wild assortment of events at the Booksmith this month at the Haight. In other news, you might have seen the “poet for hire” at the corner of Haight and Ashbury. He’s got a typewriter, and if you set a price and determine a subject, he will write a poem for you on the spot. I am going to take him up on this and blog his poem next month. http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

Sometimes – especially during a long recession — you need to “fake it ’til you make it.” Here is a heavily pixilated photo of me doing just that: making a fake power salute and victory gesture at the end of last week’s marathon. At the moment this picture was taken, I did not feel victorious; in truth, I was exhausted and wanted to fall to my knees and possibly vomit. In spite of this, I used my last little bit of energy to pump my fist at a camera man perched over the finish line. This strategy worked; it took the edge off my exhaustion, and helped me pick up my speed at the end. The woman in front of me looks very bummed out. http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

Thanks for all the great bios and info so far for Cactuseaters Readers in the News round two. At this rate, it’s going to fill up pretty fast so keep sending those in as quickly as you can. In other news, I’m aggravated (slightly) about the fact that my RSS feed is still not working. I’ll keep fiddling with it. http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

I’ve become quite a fan of Slinkachu’s miniature street art. You’ve got to pick up the book, Little People in the City — photos of homunculi in compromising positions. http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

It’s time for installment two of “Cactuseaters Readers in the News,” in which you, the readers, step out of the shadows and talk about yourselves. Send in a brief bio of what you are up to, and what you are working on and I will try to cram it into a “digest” column that will appear anytime between two weeks and a month, depending on whether you are forthcoming and bold (or shy and reticent.) Feel free to send in whatever you like — just keep in mind that this isn’t an advertising site, so I won’t let you hawk bamboo steamers, cleaning solvents, etc, through Cactuseaters. Keep them rolling in! http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

To those of you who are new to this blog, Cactuseaters is primarily a way for me to amuse my Mother-in-Law. http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default