Okay, here's the news.

First, CreateSpace is giving me fits. I'm trying to get the audiobook for Love Letters reissued from there, but three attempts at uploading the ZIP file of my .AIF files is going nowhere. And so far support is unhelpful. Not to be a spiteful ass, but is this why the service is free? There's got to be some answer besides sending them a CD of the audio files–I was hoping uploading would take less time, but we'll see. Hell, if they don't work, there's always CafePress, but the joy of CreateSpace was getting them listed on Amazon. I'm trying to work through it, because I want to do Sunday Before You the same way and then more audio beyond that.

Second, as you might have seen, Daily Kicksplode is on permanent hiatus. If you didn't see it, it's because it never really caught on as far as having an audience went. And I just can't spend any time on things that aren't pulling their weight. I loved the concept of the site, but maybe someday if we go full-time with this nonsense, we can re-launch it. But for now, it's done.

Third, Colors Are Overrated is not on hiatus, but posting over there will be slow. As I do have a passion for black but it too has not enough of an audience.

Fourth, my first children's book is online. Emily & Oscar is up at emilyandoscar.com. I'll be building it online as well.

More news shortly, I believe. Stay tuned.

In addition to my already existing reading of "The Tell-Tale Heart," here's two more bits by Poe that I recorded simply because no one was here to stop me.

"The Haunted Palace"

"The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar"

Let me know what you think.

First day of the Art Festival is over and it went quite well, I thought. Sold some books, got to do a reading…the gas money for the trip home is covered, that's all that matters.

For those folks who might be visiting looking for information on the books, you can find them at the following places:

Mystics on the Road to Vanishing Point is available online under a Creative Commons license here or from Amazon in print form here.

Magnificent Desolation is available online under a Creative Commons license here or from Amazon in print form here.

That's right, you can read the books for free. No, I'm not nuts. If you like them, however, feel free to bookmark shop.needcoffee.com for when you shop online (because we get kickbacks), or heck, if you are in college or something and have no money then you can do other stuff that spreads the Needcoffee/One Tusk love. Either tell your friends about the books (or your enemies if you hated them) or you can bookmark help.needcoffee.com to do stuff that probably won't cost you a dime.

I'm easy.

At the Riverside Art Festival, I'm appearing in the Writer's Tent. I'll be there from 10-4 today and tomorrow. It's happening at Riverside Park at the intersection of Riverside Avenue and Post Street. I have some of my books to sell and the sites here to promote and I'll be doing readings. They have them at thirty minute intervals but say they only last 15 minutes, so I'll try and run over if there are people listening. 1:30pm today and 2:30pm tomorrow.

Huge thanks to Rox of Spazhouse for setting this up for me to come and shill.

I'm also available for weddings and bar mitzvahs.

No One Wants to Grow Fur Anymore is not dead. In fact, here's the poem that closes the third book inside the book. That third book, What I Did On My Summer Vacation, is comprised of unreleased poems and outtakes, with a smidgen of new material. I wanted something new to close it out. And here it is, finally complete.

Hello.

From where I stand
I could lift one finger
and blot you out.

Were I to draw closer
it would take less effort
still.

Still,
when all is said and done, who
will have been the better thief?

Building ramparts from stone and wood,
or carving them from words and air,
either way, things are safer past the reach
of a single finger.

Safer for which of us,
I don't care to discuss.

There are merely moments,
adhering to the script, saluting your image.
Each stone, inscribed, says
just like every cell we've ever shed

–I'm in the wrong place
but you're not–

and we kaleidoscope between these
two vague locales
forever.

Forever and
always.

Always, the line never consummated.
Lovers of and in the mind.

The words turn into so many lovely colors,
all there to test what we have learned.

What we have learned.

That's why you kept IMing me. Turn that shit down, you said. Hell no, I said. Not my fault that my psychic amp is turned up to 11. Put on your tin foil hat. And you said, hell no–it itches when you wear it. And I said, tough. And you said, okay, fine, at least quit playing that Mariah Carey album.

And I paused.

Then I said, um, whose mind are you listening to?

10. "Silent Seven" - Controller.Controller
9. "Blue" - A Perfect Circle
8. "Drove Through Ghosts to Get Here" - 65 Days of Static
7. "Naked Cousin" - PJ Harvey
6. "In Transit (for you)" - Matchbook Romance
5. "We Know Something You Don't Know" - DJ Format
4. "Hide and Seek" - Imogen Heap
3. "Ode to Divorce" - Regina Spektor
2. "Untitled (everything but suicide)" - Gnarls Barkley
1. "Human" - Carpark North

Incidentally, a new chapter of Overkill is live here.

Okay, that's it. That's my rhyme. Take it to the streets.