This is the “naked” version of the poem, which I’m posting because Facebook usually picks up posts from my blog and yet this time didn’t, mostly likely because of the many links–probably thought it was spam. This poem was meant for Facebook, so it would be a shame it never got there. The multimedia, Wall of Text version, which is the post before this one on the blog, has videos, images and links to my friends’ pages.

By the way, my poem is a very late response to this poem by a certain very famous Beat writer, hence the dedication. I should have dedicated it to Sianne Ngai as she’s all about the “like” as an affect.

One thing I learned making this — it took about ten hours at a single insomniac stretch this morning, though as you can see I’m still playing with it — is that longer status updates, the ones you have to click through to get the complete text for, start to disintegrate after some time. As you can see later in this poem, […] marks have been inserted to show where the status update just suddenly stops. Which is very sad, in this case, as it happens during one of my most popular ones.

This poem is merely an ode to the many forms that narcissism takes in the world of BKS (and you, too!).

Like

for Carl Solomon

Brian Stefans What’s the name of the Ashbery essay in Reported Sightings in which he talks about the artist who left an art opening in tears, muttering the words “He stole my burnt dolls”? Could you type out the passage for me?
          Willa Carroll and Sarah Sarai like this.
Brian Stefans is still recovering from the annihilating genius of Andrew Maxwell’s coinage: “Twitter cruft.”
Brian Stefans is doing it* so it feels like hell. *a) writing grant proposals b) writing paper proposals c) writing session proposals for MLA 2011 d) writing student/friend recommendations for graduate school e) writing Maureen Dowd-like editorials about the LA poetry scene for Lungfull f) writing a status update (duh), his fourth of the day. (Extra credit: name that allusion!)
Brian Stefans is 196 lbs. young.
Brian Stefans is living in an enlightened muscle beach.
          Evan Kindley and Scott Oliver like this.
Brian Stefans I’m with ya: most digital art blows.
          Brooke Bocast and Lysette Elizabeth Simmons like this.
Brian Stefans , Andrew Maxwell and Maggie Nelson are making Barbara Guest an official member of the Los Angeles School of Poetry. Jack Spicer has an open invitation, should he decide to move back to L.A. after giving those lectures in Vancouver.
          Scott Oliver and Sam Solomon like this.
Brian Stefans made a mistake (in 1999 or so) in one of my widely reproduced essays — “allusive truths of colonialism” — meaning “elusive,” duh, and now see that Google (and now Facebook, because I’m masochistic) is rendering this mistake semi-permanent on the world stage. I mean, the entire phrase is stupid (I would never write it now), and I’m so embarrassed (embraced) about/by it that I decided to post it here. I miss the 90s.
          Joseph Mosconi, Ben Friedlander, Zachary Laymon Scott-Sedlaçko and 2 others like this.
Brian Stefans Haha, I still have three hours of this shit (i.e. 2009).
Brian Stefans We call this Just In Time Cooking (JITC). Happy New Year.
Brian Stefans Survey question: Free Blackberry Curve 8310, $200 iPhone or wait a few weeks for the gazillion dollar Google uber-phone? (Keeping in mind that I’m on the broke side, but feel a terrible obligation to keep up with the gadgets.)
Brian Stefans I can’t remember if I posted this one before. It’s almost as good as the new Bob Dylan Christmas Song.
          Fiona Templeton likes this.
Brian Stefans Will change your life:
          Carolina Beltrán and reece pacheco like this.
Brian Stefans thoughts they was singing “shingles bells.”
          Jeanie Roy Collins Manson and Lysette Elizabeth Simmons like this.
Brian Stefans Morrissey concert: kind of great, kind of sucked. Did send me back to Youtube tonight to revel in the glory. You should try it.
Brian Stefans is seeing Morrissey tonight at the Gibson Amphitheatre in Universal City. Last time I saw this man on stage was in Jones Beach, New York, in 1986. Think he’ll remember me?
          Willa Carroll, Arthur Rodriguez, Scott Oliver and 4 others like this.
Brian Stefans Reading about Sister Mary Corita (and ordering my copy of Damn Everything But the Circus), came upon this Youtube video speculating what the Star Wars credits would have looked like had they been created by Saul Bass:
          Lysette Elizabeth Simmons likes this.
Brian Stefans A poem by George Carlin, not to mention singing and swallowing:
          Joseph Mosconi and C.E. Putnam like this.
Brian Stefans is emigrating to Minneapolis solely on the basis of the food.
          Julia Bloch and Roxanne Carter like this.
Brian Stefans is driving to San Francisco tomorrow for the Area Sneaks launch. Anyone need a ride? Also, I need a place to stay…
Brian Stefans had lunch with Kim Rosenfield’s mother today in Long Beach and got the scoop on how awesomely precocious she (Kim) was back in her Beyond Baroque days hanging with Dennis Cooper and Bob Flanagan… thanks to Les Figues for the great auction item… and am about to settle down to watching the Klaus Nomi documentary.
Brian Stefans asks: I leant someone my copy of “The Dream of the Audience,” a catalogue of a Theresa Cha exhibition from some years back… do you have it?
Brian Stefans …spent the afternoon rummaging around a used bookstore in North Hollywood… bought a copy of Charles Bukowski’s first book of poems published in the year of my birth when he was a wee lad of 49… spent the evening in Hermosa Beach watching “the ultimate Smiths tribute band,” the Sweet and Tender Hooligans, with a bunch of drunk Latinos… echt Los Angeles! (“Echt,” btw, means “real” in German — I’m not gagging.)
          Allyssa Wolf, Willa Carroll and Ben Friedlander like this.
Brian Stefans notes: there are a number of “Theresa Cha”s on Facebook. We have no mutual friends.
Brian Stefans is: NOBEL ELBOW ALBUM BLOOM OBAMA
          Heidi Ruffler, Nada Gordon and K. Lorraine Graham like this.
Brian Stefans Allen Ginsberg with The Clash in Times Square…
Brian Stefans is pulling for Ashbery to win the Nobel this year.
          Román Luján and Lysette Elizabeth Simmons like this.
Brian Stefans : One year in Los Angeles… Still breathing… Gongula…
          Heather LaGarde, Timothy Yu and Scott Oliver like this.
Brian Stefans knows a poet is writing their own Wikipedia page when there is a block quote in the sidebar with an endorsement of the poet’s work from Robert Creeley.
          Spuyten Duyvil Press likes this.
Brian Stefans 3 out of 5 patrons at Psychobabble (Los Feliz) writing screenplays… the other 2 (incl. myself) on Facebook… more reports soon as I make the rounds. “This place is on a mission.”
Brian Stefans strange, visceral, butterflies-in-the-chest, downright loony pleasure in hearing Blue Oyster Cult’s “I’m Burning for You” in LA coffee shop as I procrastinate, wondering whether Maggie is right about the healthcare bill, whether I really was checked out by this model-looking woman just a half-second ago (she’s not so into the BOC, I think), whether my hands are shaking because I’m still detoxing from Mexico City…
          Allyssa Wolf likes this.
Brian Stefans Recorded on September 9, 2009. Con Luis Alberto Arellano, Karen Plata, Roman Lujan y Gabriela Jauregui.
Brian Stefans just heard another tour bus driving by his window, with the guide pointing out his apartment and saying with a megaphone that un muy famoso Coreano-Mexicano poet — “more Mexican than D.H. Lawrence” — lived there, and that groupy autograph seekers should simply not think about it, he’s taken, but look hard (holding binoculars with two hands) and you might catch him updating his Facebook status. Fame is wearying.
          Brooke Bocast likes this.
Brian Stefans is back in Los Angeles feeling more Mexican than Antonin Artaud and Eliot Weinberger combined, after a radio interview, poetry reading, digital presentation en La Casa del Poeta, swallowing the worm in Garibaldi with genuine car thieves, plenty of rain, pyramids y tortas, nuevos amigos y amigas, and playing conga drums… with the napkin holder. Luckily, there are a few Mexicans living in LA so I won’t feel homesick.
          Román Luján, Lynn Xu, La Doncella Dilatada and 2 others like this.
Brian Stefans is sitting in a hotel restaurant in Mexico City waiting for Slovenian amiga and Roman to return while hurricane what’s-iz-name roars overhead, wondering how to accurately respond to Emily Critchley’s hilarious wall post without sounding like I’m making fun of Koreans; and, observing the only other Asian guy I’ve seen in Mexico smoking a cigarette in the other room and wondering if, indeed, I should bum one.
          Anna Guercio, Roxanne Carter and Sianne Ngai like this.
Brian Stefans is in Queretaro at a cafe internet with Roman and two Slovenian amigas who are giggling over a suggestive email they are writing to a Mexican boy in I don’t know where because I don’t speak Slovenian or Spanish. But I can say: Que me ves?
          Karen Randall likes this.
Brian Stefans is going to Mexico City tomorrow…
          Joseph Mosconi, Sianne Ngai, K. Lorraine Graham and 4 others like this.
Brian Stefans has been reading Facebook status updates for a half hour and is only up to “10 hours ago.” What this means for the future of memory…?
          Nodd Ingdonkey likes this.
Brian Stefans Repeat after me: Ryan Trecartin: http://www.ubu.com/film/trecartin.html. Sorry I missed meeting this strange, talented man when I lived in Philadelphia.
          Joseph Mosconi and Lisa Sanditz like this.
Brian Stefans “What’s the matter, don’t you think I can?”
Brian Stefans In Grandma’s Mercedes.
          Lysette Elizabeth Simmons likes this.
Brian Stefans Kim Eno
Brian Stefans experienced his first earthquake today… and wasn’t impressed. Bring it on, he says.
Brian Stefans is chopped pork shoulder meat with ham meat added; salt (for binding, flavor, and firmness); water (to help in mixing); sugar (for flavor); sodium Nitrite (for color and as a preservative); back page interview of TimeOut NY (for personality); cotton und […]
          Brooke Bocast likes this.
Brian Stefans is still getting over the phenomenal success of his last status update.
          Teresa Carmody, Jessica Fields Dunlap and 2 others like this.
Brian Stefans met a nice guy on the bus who told me his life story: that he was singer for 80s hair band Hurricane, retired in 1984 at 26, got his start in music at 15 because great-aunt was dating Elvis Presley, that he wrote the song Whitney Houston sang at the ‘84 O […]
          Lysette Elizabeth Simmons, Jeanie Roy Collins Manson and 2 others like this.
Brian Stefans met a nice guy on the bus who told me his life story: that he was singer for 80s hair band Hurricane, retired in 1984 at 26, got his start in music because great-aunt was dating Elvis Presley, that he wrote the song Whitney Houston sang at the ‘84 Olympic […]
          Karen Randall, Scott Oliver and Lee Montgomery like this.
Brian Stefans I’ve been diagnosed with sleep apnea. I’m going in to be fitted with a CPAP machine today. Maybe, then, I can sleep.
Brian Stefans Brian Brian, why don’t you ever write me back?
Brian Stefans and Natalia are playing with her John McCain pop-up book.
Brian Stefans is sitting in Pete’s Bar and Cafe in downtown Los Angeles listening to art jabber from the table next to him.

Coda

Brian Stefans is all packed up for the move to Los Angeles. Is in boxes on the floor.

10 seconds ago
Saturday, January 9, 2010