Why McDougal Hates Poets

Brother McDougal called me in a fever and recited the following 37 reasons why he hates poets:

1. Chompers. Poets can't be doctors.

2. Poets can't even pay their water bills or submit their own shit to get published ...

Well, the really hungry and really bad can.

3. Poets generally can't get out of bed before noon and seldom keep appointments.

4. If two roads diverged in a yellow wood and you beat a poet to death with a
large rock, would anyone care?

5. Poets do not feel compelled to brush their teeth because their words are too pretty to be corrupted by halitosis.

6. Poets favorite movie is always Orca.

I know, a lot of people thought I meant Jaws, but nope. Orca.

7. Poets masturbate frequently and for long intervals, usually using massage oils and aloe.

8. Poets smell like patchouli, teak, cigarettes, and halitosis.

9. Poets move slowly and are not safe drivers.

10. If they can put a man on the moon, why can't they put a bunch of 'em up
there? And why can't all the people they put up there be poets?

11. Poets sometimes pretend to be fishing, but really they're just contemplating the flow of the river.

Oh, and they're high.

What the fuck? Dude, they don't even have a fishing pole. And HOLY CRAP! That one's naked.

Fucking fags.

12. Without poets there'd be no rabid cougars.

13. Poets pretend not to like bacon, but then they'll write six verse odes about the way it sounds and smells when cooking.

Oh, then when they're alone they eat BLT's almost exclusively.

14. Poets don't have any marketable skills and look down at those who do.

15. Google doesn't like Polish poets.

16. Poets hate war, but will fight to the death over an adverb.

17. Patti Smith is a poet and performer. She can barely remember to breathe.

18.
Q: What's the difference between a poet and a mime?
A: Who cares? God hates fags.

19.
Q: What's the difference between a poet and a cat burglar?
A: Poets smell like shit.

20.
Q: What's the worst thing you can do to a poet?
A: Kill his family with a stove pipe.

21.
Q: What do you call a poet with a job?
A: That fey quiet bitch who smells like ass.

22. I have to leave my job. (Hey, poet, a job is when someone pays you money in exchange for services.)

23. Challenging a poet is like telling a feral cat to run away when you approach it.

24. Poets love nature, but loathe sunburn. They don't use sunscreen b/c the thought of smearing chemicals on your body is repulsive. They frequently burn their forearms in August.

25. Poets hate cell phones, but not because they're against technology.

It's because they're fucking poets and no one ever calls them.

26. Poets are frequently gassy, but would sooner die by incestual rape than expel gas in an audible manner.

27. Poets don't bake. The oven says 400 degrees, but they don't believe it's really all that accurate, and they frequently burn cupcakes.

28. Poets seldom venture outside. Most only go out in the rain so that they can dramatically show up at a coffee shop or bookstore soaking wet and incredibly disheveled, clutching a handful of ruined papers.

They hope that people are whispering "he's a poet" as he orders his plain black coffee -- whatever the coffee of the day is, let's not be pretentious.

29. Poets, like whores, are only hated by each other.

30. Poet gas smells like cod liver oil and feet.

31.
Q: How can you tell when a poet's been in your house?
A: What the fuck rhymes with "humped the cradenza"?

32. Poets have dainty bowels and clammy palms. They feel like they should maybe sue someone, or at least go see a doctor.

33. There was once a city fueled by the burning corpses of Renaissance poets. It was the most beautiful city in the world, but everyone eventually moved away and the city was overrun with rats and alligator gar. When Jesus comes back, he will live there. And he will announce, "All poets burn in hell."

34. Poets are easily upset by spiders and revolutions.

35. Poets love space because they hate Mexicans.

36.
Q: What do you call the poet laureate of Kentucky?
A: Who gives a fuck? He's from Kentucky ... and he's a poet.

37. A poet would think it was funny to wear rubber boots in the shower, but not if you did it just because you thought it would be funny.

I don't really know what that last one means.

{petry Hrour qurh MCDOUGAL

Advice from on high
for those who know nigh
and wont into Balderdash do fly:

The Smith and the Wesson: a graham of wheat
germ
(Nothing yet learned from this avuncular firm)

Travel on -
pack soy like mussels
in a fitted skirt

leather, she wore the lady of wonk
Stop not 'til you --

Fitherington, Schwartz, Melville and Monk.

Ahhh ...
The firmest of firms
All lace and panties
Too rich for our blood
(whiskey shanties)

The old lady come lately
and around she did
telling secrets she ought have kept hid

Her father she drank, buffled and swore
The young filligrees ready and looking to score
Pollution they said had worn down her teeth
The hot seat had warmed her behind from beneath

And this that she said to she and her brother:

"Barely awakened in me, the thoughts of another.
Long may she ride, this valley's no gorge -
These mountains from moles and onward we forge
'til thoughts are alone: no you nor me"

Wont was she to say the damnedest of things,
her thoughts like mites on gilded wings
they peck and they poke, though seldom sink in

And into whimsy never again.

Thine this and thine that in a strawberry hat and mine is not to wonder
For on this road, I sought clear skies but all along there was thunder.

No facts have been uttered and no fiction buttered

And I no wiser than then.

And nothing is true,
but alone here I sit
Smelling like shit
And always dripping of goo.

A Trucker's Journal

An excerpt from McDougal's diary.

He doesn't date his entries, so I have no idea when this was written. I tried to cement a timeline by the TV shows and technology he lists, but it seems to be all over the board. McDougal is timeless.

On the road from Cincy,
Stopping soon to watch Quincy.
She's a re-run
and I've seen her before.
Hope to see a new episode of Highway to Heaven
tonight. I live for the TV.
Goddamn it's hard to type and drive.
Double
clutch. WHo knew?
Over the counter speed and the finer stuff.
Gonna pack
it in, I think.
Drive this rig into a refinery. Take us all out.
Burn
out hot and die fast ... better than the alternative slow, cool fade.
And
these high-tops smell like a filthy rest stop latrine.
Hold on ... something
in the road.
Hitcher.
I put the pedal to the metal and he's in my
sights.
Barely even makes a noise, and he's left mangled in my wake.
Was
an Indian man by the look of it. LIkely Comanche.
And I drive on.
Like
the man in black says. Drive on.
There's a Krystal in Branson, and I think I
can make it by suppertime.
I eat like a bear when I'm on the road.
Out
of trashcans and without use of my thumbs.
Catch fish when I'm near a
stream. Of consciousness.
And these pills lock in my vision.
And I'm
alright.
Says so on the radio.
8-track.
And sometimes when it's
late, and I'm alone in the cab, I put on John Denver.
He always says,
"Please, McDougal. Let me go."
But there's the sushi.
And I can't.
Got a copy of Dianetics. Think it's a diet book or something. Stole it off a
dead gypsy in Aimes. Wondered for a minute if that dead gypsy wasn't me. A quick
look up her skirt just to be sure, and I'm alright.
I push the pedal down to
the floor and the old tanker rumbles. The road is empty. Wide open. My own.
Trailers for sale or rent ...
You know the drill.
You know the
skiff.
The skit.
The story.
It's the same story, really.
The
same one you tell your kids at night.
There are bears, and princesses, and
poison arrows.
And off to the side of the road, those pines, in symmetrical
rows.
And I'm tired.
So I take another handfull of speed and a swig of
Dickel, and the road calls me dear.
I don't answer her.
That's the
siren's song.
The song that pulls me out of bed in a cheap motel room in
Tuscaloosa or Alameda or Wichita.
She says, get movin' you fat, old bastard.
You can't stay still.
That's how they catch you.
Those demons.
Get back out there.
Don't stop.
Never stop.
I grip the wheel
tightly to stop the shaking
of my hands.
Bare hands
Bear hands.
And I'm constipated.
Got the 'roids.
Damn this trucker's diet.
And these headaches.
Thank God for B.C. Powder and Art Bell.
And I
see the black helicopters, and I know.
They're coming for me.
Those
demons.

The Big Bukowski

"question and answer"
he sat naked and drunk in a room of summer
night, running the blade of the knife
under his fingernails, smiling, thinking
of all the letters he had received
telling him that
the way he lived and wrote about
that--
it had kept them going when
all seemed
truly
hopeless.

putting the blade on the table, he
flicked it with a finger
and it whirled
in a flashing circle
under the light.

who the hell is going to save
me? he
thought.

as the knife stopped spinning
the answer came:
you're going to have to
save yourself.

still smiling,
a: he lit a
cigarette
b: he poured
another
drink
c: gave the blade
another
spin.

"This Bukowski makes me want to blow my fucking head off."

Disgusted, McDougal heaved the thick book of beatnick prose across the lawn.

I was, and still am, unsure of what led McDougal to beat poetry that summer, considering his ordinary literary diet consisted of the absurdist ramblings of Al Franken, Pol Pot, Saul Bellow, Newt Gingrich, and the backs of cereal boxes.

I kept my mouth shut though. Partially because I have learned over the years to never question McDougal, but mainly because he had pulled that .44 Magnum out of the shoulder holster that he always wore, even while swiming.

• (McDougal's pool is shaped like the number eight, incidentally. Or maybe it is the symbol for infinity ... I have never been quite sure. The two little islands in the middle are kind of neat though. The previous owner designed the pool. He was a big shot mathematician or physicist or something. He worked for the government creating either unbreakable codes or doomsday weapons, depending on who you ask. There is, however, one part of the story in which the details are always exactly the same. Whatever he was making, he got caught selling a little bit of it to the North Koreans. Before the FBI could take him in, he blew off the upper-right section of his skull with a .40 caliber handgun, while standing on the Northwest island of that pool. So McDougal was able to get the property super cheap.)

Which brought my mind back to the task at hand. I was still sitting directly across from a very large, drunk, and unstable man whose head was buzzing with filthy beatnik poetry. Whose fucking idea was it to give him that Bukowski anyway? It wasn't mine, that's for sure. Some woman, I'll bet.

McDougal was staggering across the lawn, waving the gun, rambling incoherently about methamphetamines, the man, the system, Jim Jones, and Uriah Heep. He alternately pointed the gun at his own head, then at me, then at the sky.

After several minutes of this, the big man finally stopped, walked up to me, and pointed his hand cannon at my head. At this range, the barrel of that gun did not look like the Holland Tunnel. For a moment, I considered using that simile in an attempt to strengthen my verse, but soon thought better. You deserve better. It just looked like a big fucking gun.

I wasn't afraid for my own safety though. I am a man of no consequence. Just an anonymous narrator, telling tales of The Great McDougal. If I were shot and killed, another would step in to take my place before McDougal had even finished wiping his prints off the gun and faking my suicide note. No, I was more concerned that McDougal would make good on his promise to do harm to himself. What a dull place the world would be without McDougal. The man is a legend for Christ's sake. He once stowed away on the space shuttle. He was personally responsible for starting the Falklands War. He was the 1982 International Shark Rodeo Grand Champion.

I guess I should have been a little bit concerned for my safety though. At the end of the day McDougal came out completely unscathed. I, on the other hand, lost three fingers and all the best parts of my left ear.