AUSTRIAN SPIDERCAT

Written and performed by Nathaniel G. Moore
video by Geoffrey Pugen
July 2008

WHOA, DUDE.

The Wackness is a wack coming-of-age flick in the summer of fly-girl love in Giuliani’s New York

Forget Juno and all it’s one trick pony blah-blah. A new pony is here and it’s called ‘The Wackness’ and gives Juno’s true star all the attention she so rightly deserves. Her name is Olivia Thirlby, Juno’s bright-eyed BFF. I'm sure there are other actors in the film as well.

Similarities between weak hero Luke Shapiro and director Jonathan Levine are vague, though both graduated from high school in the summer of 1994.

Maybe it’s the trailers cut, it’s sick soundtrack which brings back Will Smith’s only good song ever Summertime, but I have a feeling that this will be the grope me dope me have you seen that ah, wack, the wack off, the Wackness yo? film of the summer.



Its the summer of 1994, and the streets of New York are pulsing with hip hop and wafting with the sweet aroma of marijuana. The newly-inaugurated mayor, Rudolph Giuliani, is only beginning to implement his anti-fun initiatives against crimes like noisy portable radio, graffiti and public drunkenness.

The Wackness centers upon a troubled high school student named Luke Shapiro (Josh Peck)a teenage pot dealer who forms a friendship with Dr. Jeffrey Squires (Ben Kingsley), a psychiatrist and kindred lost soul. When the doctor proposes Luke trade him weed for therapy sessions, the two begin to explore both New York City and their own depression.

Propelled by an exuberant hip hop score, The Wackness captures the spell of 1994--a time of pagers, not cell phones; a time when Tupac and Biggie were alive but Kurt Cobain had just died. Funny and moving, The Wackness is an offbeat tale of two lost souls stumbling towards maturity.

COZ I'M NOT THAT KIND

I'd move to Rockferry, to my road,
and I'd build my house baby, with sorrow,
I'll leave my shadow, to fall behind,
And I wouldn't write to you, Coz I'm not that kind.

Cat Power and I had a thing 2 years ago. Amy Winehouse tried to fix me after Chan and I parted ways, but it felt overproduced. And I've heard just about enough from Emily Haines. There's a new girl brat/tart voice in town sheriff, and she's seeding herself in my predictable DNA as we speak.

It's mostly Morrissey's fault for listing Sandie Shaw as one of his influences, because like most minions I sought her out for advice. Now, some three hundred years later, the copy for Duffy's new album Rockferry mentions Sandie Shaw and that she is Welsh, just like me (on my grandmother's side)

This girl is straight out of Graham Greene's Brighton Rock and rotting my heart with each black and white poltergeist stride...

Though I've listened to most of the album, I am going to only say that I truly base any of this fanatacism on this song in particular called Rockferry.

Critical Crushes Vol. 22 No FL

SERIOUS VOCATIONAL ERROR TREATMENT

a flint sparks lighter (sometimes
just called a spark lighter,
striker, or flint lighter)

light harnesses a residual
cleansed feeling
of sparse breath
congested meaning.

Undertaking a moist
towelette or fencing off arithmetic


is a type of lighter used
in many applications
to safely light
a gaseous
fuel to start
a flame to be sure
as certain as Prometheus
as profound as Cassandra
as clever as Baklava

Oh, you've got green sparks
Oh, you've got blue sparks
Oh, you've got gray green

A park nurtures natures
enrages concrete
tweaking agents
bakes the park's ranger
at a bake sale pushing stale

Oh, you've got blue gray
Yes, I've got that

Oh, you've got red sparks
Oh, you've got green sparks


nurtures nervous system
with just the nurtureous
bi-clever cleaver damns
putting band-aids over clothing
blocking arteries
nurture, overtime

a flint spark lighter works by
a flint will have you know
ledge after ledge

rapidly rubbing
you continue a
quest for fire a
small piece
of ferrocerium

against a rough steel surface
against a rough lonely pace

like the way we weave mackerel into seaweed
the hand of God washing underwater splashing
(also called the rasp), in much the same way flint
and steel are used, God pushes mackerel into nutrit-
ious plantation liquidated by weather sales

Critical Crushes Vol 16. No 1

"High station in life is earned by the gallantry with which appalling experiences are survived with grace."
-- Tennessee Williams

PHOTO BY CHARLES
PHOTO SLIDESHOW BY JOHN

I’m really sorry to have to say that my professional Canadian poetry career is over - forever. Although I’ve expected it to end for some time now I could in no way ever prepare for it. I suppose it doesn’t do much good to speak negatively about how this or that has gone for me. I feel it is more fitting right now to remember the more positive aspects of my long and great career. I have not one regret. I’m proud of all my achievements, especially my seven blog mentions and book reviews. I will miss the cities, the countries, especially the people - all colors, all religions, all ages, all languages. I’ve always tried my absolute best in every reading, in every city, big or small. Even in Ottawa. I would like to thank Beth and Pedlar Press for believing in me. I would like to thank Emily Schultz for believing in me as well, and my poetry manuscript.

I cannot begin to explain how proud I am to have touched so many people with the ability to be the best poet on the card each night. My heart is filled with memories. Like when I was mobbed the IV Lounge in February of this year by the two people who came to my last poetry reading ever in Toronto.

I hope that all my fans that have kept the faith, believing in me may in some small way take some lesson from me that will help them in their lifetime. I will never forget how touched I was in Praige, ON, in one of my last readings, when a bunch of die-hard fans held up a big sign that read, “Parking $10, Program $5, ticket $35, watching Nathaniel G. Moore read - priceless!”

For everyone who came up to me last night thanking me for being the best reader and the better poet, I’m forever grateful for the door that opened bringing me to your minds. Thank you for having me, for giving me so much. I thank all my fans everywhere. I owe you all for everything I am.

As for the writers, it would mean a lot to me to always be remembered as “one of the boys”. I’ve made great friendships that will last my lifetime and look forward to an easier life filled with reminiscing. My career ended with in the saddest way I ever imagined. They killed me. Oh sure, Nathaniel G. Moore is okay. I always will be. But the literary entertainer, well, they murdered him, right there in front of the nation’s capital. I never thought Canadian publishing would do such a horrible thing to the hardest working, most dependable, honest and loyal hero the LPG ever had. In 2008 rob mclennan had the audacity to suggest that I wasn't one of the boys and that I was only serving myself. The difference between rob mclennan and I is that I would never treat him, or any other writer, whether joking or not, the way he treated me both publically and privately.

I’ll never forgive rob and others (who by name I can’t mention) for killing the business that meant so much to me and others, to those who gave everything we had to make a difference. To me they will always be liars, yellow dogs and totally unprofessional assholes.

I left with my head up and my conscience clear.




RELATED LINKS


Early reports are coming in from fans at the show.

Ross, Bowering, Crosbie have been supporting the event in their own way, commenting or inquiring about who will win, or just enjoying or not enjoying at all, the videos. The event itself drew a strange audience, general pedestrian working class chumps, and I really liked talking to them.

The Facebook page has all the videos and comments from the world of Canadian poetry.

Critical Crushes Vol. 19 No TD

According to CC's survey, Nathaniel G. Moore is going over rob mclennan this Friday. Though no one really answered the question, or even knew what the question was from the look of this amazing video, Stacey May Fowles, David McGimpsey, Souvankham Thammavongsa, Mark Laliberte and others weighed in on rob mclennan's chances this Friday's huge Ottawa literary pay-per-view THE THROWDOWN IN O-TOWN...



Source: YOUTUBE.com/bowlbrawl

Critical Crushes Vol 15. No RW

She's Madonna was inspired by a conversation Robbie Williams had with Guy Ritchie's ex-girlfriend Tania Strecker, about the way Ritchie left her for Madonna - Strecker quoted Ritchie as saying "Look, you know I really love you, but she's Madonna."[5] According to the BBC's Top of the Pops website, Williams had played the song to Madonna shortly after writing it, receiving a positive reaction. According to the UK tabloid newspaper The Sun, Williams wanted Madonna to star alongside him in the video, but Guy Ritchie, now her husband, objected, having realised that the song with its chorus "I love you, baby, but face it, she's Madonna / No man on earth could say that he don't want her" was based on the line he used to leave Strecker for Madonna.

The video however, works without her. It’s Robbie’s lowlife subordinant character, not even qualified to appear anywhere near the superstar. On a personal note, it’s how I remember the night when I tried to host the Scream Dating Game for the Scream Literary Festival (sorry guys) and it just didn’t work.
The dramatic monologues of William’s schitzofrenic personality are delicious morcels you won’t find on the single or album version.

“I don’t want to claim that I’m special, but I’m a bit special…you know what I mean?”

Williams himself has commented:

In case anyone asks... There is nothing tongue in cheek about this song at all, I have always fancied Madonna.

Critical Crushes Vol 13. NO JM

AN OPENING ACT OF UNSPEAKABLE EVIL
BY JIM MUNROE
NO MEDIA KINGS

Ever current, ever relevant Jim Munroe's latest independent novel conjures up the world of blogging witchcraft and roommate woes in one fell swoop. With episodic enchantment, and the ability to write freely from the feminine side the story realizes protagonist Kate who happens upon her roommate Lilith (a pretty obvious goth name though) in the midst of a dark ritual. Kate has a lot of charm, and you want to follow her around in the book: “I thought Lilith was meditating. My last roommate was into yoga. But Lilith was on her knees, rather than cross-legged. And she was surrounded by candles, a thick circle of dozens and dozens of wax stubs. The window was open; it was cold in there, the light spastic.” And of course, Kate had been wanting to start a blog and what better subject matter for a new blog than a possible demonic roommate. The prose are inviting, and simple, true to their characters DNA, yet Munroe’s storytelling is sophisticated and earnest, and eerily girly. There is always something sneaky about a Jim Munroe book, in a good way. Like I’m half expecting a blender or a can of environmentally friendly light bulbs to accompany my reading experience but I’ll settle for the frappé latte with organic chocolate sprinkles, that someone orders in a restaurant. This sneaky feeling returned once Kate has plans for taking her roommatefromhell.com idea on the road. Munroe has been known to tour the countryside with his work, in bands of indie artists who couch crash and bus ride and these characters, like Munroe have that lucid mobility down pat. This is perhaps why the book is so lucid, Munroe moves in similar rhythms as the characters he creates. I’m all for exploitation but it got me thinking; perhaps demon-worshipping is a private affair, and I wondered how a real life roommate would react to having all this unbeknownst attention; after all, Lilith was practicing the dark arts in the privacy of her own bedroom at the beginning of the book.The book also quickly addresses vanishing moments of awkward silences, and how technology is masking our opportunities to really feel. “Fucking e-mail. I swear. Back in the day, when geography meant something, if you left a place you were disconnected from it. Writing an embarrassing letter required an envelope, stamps, a mailbox—intent.”The blog mode in the narrative has a curious effect on the interpretation of the text: how can a narrator effectively remember entire conversations unless they are recording their everyday movements? Then I realized I was too wrapped up into the way this writer has chosen to deliver his text. On a promotional level, Munroe has stayed true to the blog style, perhaps too much dedication, (to the extent that the whole book is online at www.roommatefromhell.com) The irony is, the blog requires the internet for a following, you can buy this book and enjoy it sans retina damage in the old-fashioned printed book format. In many ways, Munroe's books are just as much an event or topic of publishing discussion than they are literary revolution. Not to take anything away from the writing, which is, after all, worthy of addiction. The lives Kate offers, the experiences she chooses to deal her blog readers are fluid and passionate, a fair representation of a little life, like the lives we all have:"On my way back from taking the Kong costume back to the shop, I walked through Bruce’s neighbourhood. I hadn’t seen him in a few weeks; I hoped that was enough time for the poison of his Lilith-crush to have passed out of his bloodstream."Through the use of the blog (which is done in 88 chronological updates) Munroe has actually created a new POV genre, that of the blogger-person, as oppose to first person. Because the blogger POV is a bit different from the first person, it has elements of sincerity, but more importantly, it assumes that the text is being viewed by an anonymous reader, but one who at the very least, has perhaps stumbled upon this blog haphazardly. It’s fresh, and Munroe has re-interpreted the way in which a book’s story is discovered in a quirky and inventive way.Munroe can’t get away from his socio-economic class war though, or not war so much as discursive battles of the capitalist structure, which is fine, because it grounds the entire plot into a fiscal reality that most readers will feel at home with. Munroe’s work is always consistently inviting, accessible and the passion he feels for his characters is evident with each of these entries.

(From Verbicide Magazine)

Critical Crushes Vol 18. No TD

file under: LEGEND KILLER, NATHANIEL G. MOORE

Critical Crushes Vol 13. No 13

Lesbian Lohan's Lesbian kiss spells Lesbian wedded Lesbian bliss?

Whether or not she will ever be given landed immigrant status as an all pro American lesbian remains to be seen. After all, the draft isn't for another few weeks. The tabloids however, Critical Crushes included, are having a L of a field day with the twelve letter of the earth's alphabet.

Lindsay Lohan celebrated her one year anniversary of being arrested came with a new bit of old dirt. Gunking up her fizzling fountain of youth, Lohan kissed a girl and her father did a backflip.

Didn't she kiss someone last year and change the landscape of public performance of homophobia? Or is that just me?

If post-sacred princess Lindsay Lohan marries her public spectacle DJ Samantha “Sidekick” Ronson the best possible venue for the wedding would be “somewhere on planet earth,” Critical Crushes columnist Nathaniel G. Moore has stated. Just to help out everyone in the media who is involved in this widespread girl on girl hunt, “planet earth,” says Moore, “would be perfect.”
Whether for real or for show, there's talk that the troubled 21-year-old actress is engaged to Ronson, 30, who's openly gay, and has been Lohan's inseparable sidekick for more than a year.

Leslie Sloane, Lohan's publicist, someone actually paid to negotiate the terms of media reality for one of the most unreal people on the planet, has called the planet's fasincation with Lohan's sexual alignment nonsense. "This is gross. She is not a bad girl. Leave her alone," Sloane wrote in an e-mail.

What is gross? That the most famous lost girl in the world is sick of strange men pushing her off of her when she wants to cuddle with them after sex and instead has gone on a planet-wide public make out statement as part of a 21st century diet that involves flashbulb retina cleansing?

Or that Leslie Sloane actually takes her job seriously as Lohan’s publicist. It would be like being a publicist for Lightening, or a large ball of tin foil.

Lohan's estranged father, Michael Lohan, a total piece of garbage father recently took time out of his busy schedule of being a creepy bastard and told Us Weekly that her daughter and Samantha Ronson are clearly more than friends, saying the relationship is “evident to anyone with half a brain."

Clearly he’s giving himself too much credit here. Later he later denied making those remarks in OK! Magazine, and then had a stroke in line at Denny’s. "Mom, your stupid ex-husband is passed out in mashed potatoes. It's on the news. Fuck I can't go there and help him. Didn't you see the music video I did about him?"



Regardless of whether Lohan and Ronson are together or are on a thirty-day cocaine binge and don’t know they are kissing in public is not that important.

What is important is the media’s reaction to two young girls kissing each other, reacting to it like they were serial killers or nude vandals putting out fires in the rain forest. Who the fuck in Hollywood can be trusted as an objective observer? Who is qualified to assess the “image and marketability” of a crazy 21-year old? After a string of box office flops, like last year's I Know Who Killed Me. Maybe Lohan is the ultimate Suicide Girl, a walking dead testament to the fate of all. She is currently starring in a live 24 hour version of Cassandra. For anyone to believe Lohan a prophet at this stage is asking a lot out of three billion Starbucks consumers.

Said MSNBC.com Scoop columnist Courtney Hazlett, a faux-homophobic / real homophobic paid by the damnation redneck from MSNBC.com and a credible Scoop columnist has said "If this contributes to a bad-girl image, I'm not sure it's good for her career.” What career? This is her personal life, not her career. She’s not auditioning for your approval Courtney. Leave Lindsay Alone.