Mail Art Conference

Brenda and I went to a mail art conference in Tarpon Springs.

My mom watched Owen and Balder. We stayed in the same motel,

and ate at Pappas’s. The organizer of the conference, and his fiancée,

had organized a reading the next day, a Sunday, at a bookstore in

an upscale mall in Clearwater. Nobody came. The foot-traffic was heavy,

but they didn’t enter the alcove where I was reading. The two books piled high

in the store were Jane Fonda’s exercise book and a coffeetable book on Michael Jackson.

I told Brenda, “I have seen the future and it sucks. Celebrities selling tie-in products

and riding for the brand.” Once Lash LaRue rared back and popped me in the hand.

Sunset Carson told me, “Don’t call me Sunset, my name is Kit.”

He was reinventing himself on a USO Tour shooting aspirins

out of people’s hands. I saw Julie Adams selling memorabilia

at Creaturefest, in Wakulla Springs. Movie posters,

8 x 10 glossies. She posed with Ben Chapman

and Ginger Stanley. Now the future is here

and I am in it, but I never was anybody yet,

so nobody is interested. What’s it to you,

are you writing a book?