Sunday, April 20, 2008

YOUR PRETTY TYPE FACE IS GOING TO HELL
Bradley Lastname

the press of the third mind 2008
1301 north Dearborn parkway
loft #1007
Chicago Illinois 60610
bradleylastname@hotmail.com

PROTEST POETRY? the title “your pretty type face is
going to hell” is apropos. what is it about some
writers. do they think the reader can’t see or the
reader might miss the point of this writing and what
is the point of the emphatic bold face type beating us
over the head. it reminds me of bible thumping. it
reminds me of elmer gantry, the con man trying to con
an audience into believing “I’m the messenger” and “we
jerks out here are the sinners?” give me a break.

“last Wednesday, Oscar De La Rentstrike
asks me to fill in for him at the hardware
store; he was too hung over to come in.
“what do I know about hardware?” I ask.
to which Oscar replies, “bongHog. if you
can make it through the metal detector
without triggering it, that’s all you need
to know about hardware.”

this is a rip off of the old joke, “this guy goes
grocery shopping and orders bread. the guy behind the
counter asks him if he is a poet. how did you know I
was a poet. because this is a hardware store. duh.
well this is what this book is about. ordering bread
and getting a screw driver. Bradley Lastname
lameblasts almost everything he thinks is sacred or in
need of being put in its place. yet he has his own
righteous god. he gives himself permission to
denigrate:

“you shouldn’t sail here
throw down the life preservers
chicks and children first”

some readers will be amused, finding reason illogical.
it is not that this book from hell is not logical, it
is burning, it is a furnace of telling. surprising to
me is, how alike the protesting is to the
presentation, how much this book is similar in its
stance to what is being protested. telling us how to
think or not to think or to think as the writer deems
real:

“the dadaist ran from his forehead to his neck,
cutting his face into looks forward to the day, fully
aware that a flowerpot may fall on his head.”

or

“to whom else should one offer sacrifices,
to whom else should one pay honor”

or

“to say the least, and he curtains dry out fetuses
on blotting paper in order to grind them up and sell…”

or

“the mothers I’d like to find are mothers I’d like to
grind.”

hidden under the heading of dada or surrealism is
hatred by the author’s “its them” attitude, the blame
game attitude.

“if Isabella blow married steven jobs
she would be isabella blow-jobs”

there are a lot of isms in this book and I’m sure
there might be an audience who wants to invest their
money in a book of rants.

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