I went by Office Max to buy three Composition books. I got Mead, instead of Top Flight. They're made in Brazil, too.

The black friction tape already beginning to peel off the spine.

The news on TV sounds like the news on TV in Brazil.

I made ten copies of the pamphlet Text. Took one by to Chris Merriam at the Gallery Above. Took one by Matty Jankowski's house. Mailed one to LSU Press, one to Exquisite Corpse.

Here, Julius--hold this.

Mailed one to Blaster Al.

Apropos of Blaster Al, Matty and I talked about David Zack, Blaster Al, Istvan Kantor, and the open-pop-star name Monty Cantsin.

Stewart Home, neoism, apartment festivals. Pete Horobin, in Dundee, living on oat cakes and Scotch marmalade. Sleeping on a pallet on the floor.

Home mentions Horobin in 69 Things To Do With a Dead Princess, about a woman fucking a ventriloquist's dummy.

I decided to write a pamphlet on plagiarism.

Copyright, intellectual property, nondisclosure agreements. Your employer owning the thoughts in your head and the language you think them in.

On a more parochial level, plagiarism ties in with the observance of the national holiday for Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday.

When it was learned that Dr. King plagiarized his doctoral dissertation it was excused by the fact that he came from an oral tradition, and didn't know any better.

He knew better. He didn't think he'd be caught.

It must have embarrassed him.

It was an earned doctorate, not an honorary degree, like Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, doctor of gonzo journalism.

But if Thompson can call himself doctor, why not Dr. King?

Why not indeed. I call myself the King of Daily Typewriting.

HOUSEHUSBAND, OR, THE KING OF DAILY TYPEWRITING is the prequel to CUSTODIAN, OR, SECRET MASTER, but lasts into the present. Also, my alter ego, or doppelgänger, Razz Heap, appears, and part of the story is told in his voice. The next book, THE HAPPIEST MAN ALIVE: A MONTH IN THE LIFE OF RAZZ HEAP, projected, is a series of newspaper columns he writes for The Daily Bulletin, as a senior fellow at the prestigious left-wing think-tank the Point and Shoot Institute (PSI), in Point and Shoot, Florida, where Heap is the Miami Bureau Chief for YU News Service, the parody news and disinformation syndicate, throwing his point-and-shoot camera into a musette bag and taking off for The Territory ahead of the pack.

Matty asked me if I'd been to the folk art museum in Pittsville, Alabama, run by the Mayor of Pittsville.

I said yes, I had. I tried to think of the name of the main guy in his stable when I drove through there.

"Buddy Snipes," I said.

"That's the one," Matty said. "He's not the mayor, you know. That's just what the artists call him."

I said I didn't know that.

"That's a black thing, though," I said. "Like calling someone Duke, or Count, or Prez."

Calling Muddy Waters Bossman.

Calling Bill Monroe Bossman.

There's a book called Bossmen: Bill Monroe and Muddy Waters.

It's out of print, now.

I guess whoever wrote the copy on the website for David Davis and the Warrior River Boys read the book, though.

When bossman Muddy Waters sang the blues, the band's role was deliver the message. Everyone in his band got a turn to cut loose, but never interfere with the message of a song. Bill Monroe, too, was a bossman with vision. Rules become unspoken truths...here's the big beat and this is the message of the song. Once ignited by Davis' count, the solid backbone beat and harmony vocal duties fall on veteran Warrior bassist Marty Hays and guitarist Adam Duke of Alabama. An unmistakably clear sense of timing breaks the song down to it's essence. If it's blue, David may draw on the dark tonal double-stops of legendary fiddler Owen Saunders: a man with a brush, Owen throws opaque masculine colors on the Warrior canvas...deep purples and subterranean reds. Exotic, awesome sounds that speak of ages. If it needs drive and speed, Warrior banjoist Daniel Grindstaff pops and chokes without imitation....no fear factor. David's keen vision has no fear as he locks eye contact with every audience member, drawing them into the deep Warrior River valley (http://www.daviddavisandwrb.com/band_bio.html).

I guess it isn't plagiarism if I attribute the source I copied it from.

I try to be careful about that, because I don't want people ripping me off.

I usually give permission, if they ask.

Why wouldn't I?

I don't want to own it. I just want to get credit for it, if I did it.

Also, I don't mind giving it away, but I don't want it stolen.

The only reason to own it is to control what happens to it.

What use is made of it in the marketplace.

As Billie Holiday sings,

Them that's got shall get
Them that's not shall lose
So the Bible said and it still is news
Mama may have, papa may have
But God bless the child that's got his own
That's got his own

God bless the child.

They can't steal it from me because they don't know where I'm getting it.