P. S.

I am very pleased to announce the upcoming debut of the literary e-zine, 'Porn and Chicken' - home of essays, erotica, poetry, all within a format which invites comment and discussion. Ours is not a by-issue format, but provides regular updates of individual works of quality on our website; we are also happy to host the artistic and literary works of merit in unconventional formats, including mp3 of Slam poetry performances, web animation, and short film.

Submissions may as always be sent to p-and-c@pornandchicken.net [[OOC: to Mars's email address for now]] for consideration. We value humor, originality, literary and artistic merit, and willingness to be addressed by the reading public on point of view, form, content, and more.

I am also saddened to announce that I need assistance in editing duties for the remainder of the school year on Porn and Chicken. Personal family circumstances require me to withdraw for the remainder of the semester, although I intend with Meridian's blessing to return here in the fall. As Porn and Chicken is not formally affiliated with the college but is bankrolled through guardian angels and advertisement, I intend to still be involved with the literary magazine's inception, but require a primary co-editor during my absence. Please contact me as soon as possible if you would be interested in moderating content.

Contributors, if you intend to be included in the formal debut rather than to have your content published in the regular updates, please submit your pieces for review by the end of this week.

Thank you.

--P. B. Shelley.

******

To: alhuxley@meridian.edu, wwsmith@meridian.edu, 'Georgie Porgy Byron', stcoleridge@meridian.edu, mpeake@meridian.edu, swu@meridian.edu, mtwain@meridian.edu, mgodwin@meridian.edu, lelandon@meridian.edu, jausten@meridian.edu
Re: Absence

I am so sorry, y'all. I hope I'll start in the fall as planned and be in touch, but here's my situation:

Harriet passed away last night, after some days in the hospital. Eyanna's mama, if I am being honest and truthful, has been seriously depressed and not always stable since I first met her, although I thought the help of my family and hers was genuinely enough for now. It wasn't.

After our last disagreement on our living situation, and the intervention of my parents, among other things, Harriet had an accident, the kind you have after drug use and depressive thinking that's only technically an accident and is more properly probably a suicide. I can't say I'm doing well, but I'm not what's important now.

I'm going home, and all going well, I'll move back to Bartleby in the summer or fall with Eyanna, the better to offer her a stable situation while I attend school. This may not happen. My family's support's gone and her folks are suing for custody, so anywhere I end up has to be a good place in the eyes of the courts. I don't believe in prayer, but I do believe in a purpose to life, and my daughter is a part of mine. Even best thoughts are appreciated.

I will be in touch. Byron, dawg, if I don't come back right away when you do, I want a visit to make sure you're all right. My cellphone number is enclosed. (xxx-xxx-xxxx)

Peace.

--Shelley

Ailey, Woody, thank you for the help. I'm scarce because I am shit tons of busy right now, and also recovering.

For the record, going straight from wild rave to toga party with a mild concussion that makes you miss class is not advised, especially when you have several kinds of deadlines, class-wise and otherwise. My nose is nearly glued to that grindstone.

Speaking of deadlines, those already approached about P&C know what I got you for; we intend to update weekly with content, so please see me or comment here for a formal deadline for your particular update.

I see there are recent objections to the lack of class and high tone in our college experience. I could not agree more. It is a damn shame that there is no voice for the poor put-upon white boys with money in this school. Why, nobody listens to them over and above the rest of the peons here! It ain't like they don't have the editor of both newspapers, one failing lit mag and one that's still doing a'right, and run most of the media programs, as well as be vastly overrepresented in student government here, but now they have to put up with those who ain't them living alongside them in the same middling dorm accommodations, and classes that cater to interests that they don't share! There are even people at this school who - *GASP* - don't own a fucking three-piece suit, the slackers. The world is clearly going downhill.

Damn straight. And for the rest of us, the Porn and Chicken organizational meeting will be this weekend. Wu or Minnie? If you're readin' this, I'm lookin' for one of you to see about a collaboration with Meridian Slam that might be to mutual benefit.

(Seriously, did nobody tell the Randroid about the Wal-Mart protests yet? It ain't a real protest until you get a counter-protest to mobilize you.)

Now, don't be telling my boy Mark that I am writing you these secret love notes, girl, you hear?

Actually, you can tell Mark anything. MY BOY, WHAT UP.

I digress.

I have some experience in community organizing that I would actually like to volunteer for BRO. I think not only would it help with morale and common ground, but it would be more effective and cut down on the devil's advocating and ad hominem beyond a healthy friction. (Mind out of the gutter! I mean mine.)

I don't in /any/ way want to take away from your chairmanship, which is why I am addressing this in oh-so-private fashion. The group wants your direction, and so it should have. I'd just like to offer what help I can give towards streamlining that direction and making it both more effective and more fun. After all, one of the classic rules for organizing is that the best tactic is one our people enjoy.

Shit, I think I'm volunteering to handle your logistics (Mark, baby, don't hurt me), and would like to start in the following fashion: First, I'd like to meet with everyone at your meeting last night and any others who didn't straggle in in a one-on-one fashion rather than a group. I'd like also to find at least one-two-three others who aren't doing other things to start getting familiar with the community here - both on-campus who would be willing to help or just show up, and off-campus that we'll have to engage with. You're welcome to shoot me down, but I think that before much more happens besides research and petitioning, it might be best to get familiar with the community and build rapport. Others may disagree, but an event that breaks out of the campus bubble might, if handled right, help us meet people and identify key local players once we get the early stuff rolling.

I am easily distracted when it comes to holding meetings, and I have a tendency to shoot my mouth off worse than Mark when riled; part of why I learned to stay quiet and take a breath, and a lot of why I'd rather be used behind the scenes. It's better to have a good front-person. But I hope even if you don't use me, you feel okay with asking me for whatever you determine that you /do/ need, okay?

P.S.

I been scarce, I admit it. Personal reasons have taken me away from fair old Bartleby more than I want to admit, and it's hard to post when your time is eaten up with pleading your case to professors. This school got more than its share of tight-ass obsessive types, don't it?

But I don't want to talk about me. If you know, then you know. It's not important where I've been.

I can't easily talk about what Byron did and what it means to me. I've been sitting here in my boxers, rereading what he wrote to me before he gave it up and tried to take his leave of us, and I would be lying if I said I wasn't angry, angry enough to do something; but my heart's also broken by it. It's broken for George, my Lego bitch, my dawg, one of the finest people at heart I know, who just struggled that much with his own shit and got so lost.

I'm happy he's alive. I can't cry about it, because I know he's not dead, but neither can I let this go unanswered.

My man George Byron had a dream, friends, one he forgot in the wreck he was making of his life. It was a dream that would make this campus and this world better, that he often mentioned to me, and that I am bound to see come to fruition in his honor, in the hopes that he will return. Called back from Death's shores, if you will, summoned by the realization of a hope that is not dead, given by a friend who loves that fucker more than he can say.

George Byron dreamed...of Porn and Chicken. Of combining the extremes, the highs and lows, the twelve-inch penis with the bucket of wings.

I'm pretty sure some of you are sitting and reading this, and thinking: that brother is inappropriate. He's taking this shitty thing and treating it like a comedy routine. And to you I say: That is the George Byron way, bitch. He would be the first one laughing now if he were here. Especially because I'm using his angsty suicide note money for this. Fo' sho.

Submissions are now open to Porn and Chicken, a new publication of high literary quality and things that taste surprisingly good together. Remember: humor and good feeling count in times like these.

Do it for my man Byron, people. (Sammie, you remember what we talked about, girl? I will make you smile if you do and you come get with me for this.)

I don't often say this, but: crazy white folks.

I think I had a better time playin' escort to a bunch of underprivileged second-graders for my trickin' and treatin'. But at the same time...I should have been there.

Re: the Black Bough (aka 'the irony train don't stop here')

You know, it's bad enough those vanilla-Frappuccino-trying-for-espresso elitists have so little class as to announce in public that every existing campus lit mag sucks and they're going to start a good one, but my humorless-dick quota has been exceeded by the sheer volume of pretentious poetry over yonder. For serious, one of them writes like a motherfuckin' lolcat and the other one makes your average Goth look like they got a sense of humor.

I was vaguely considering submissions to a campus literary magazine in time. You know, just to participate. Now it ain't vague anymore. You wouldn't be interested in an artistic venture, Benny, Joon, wouldja? I feel the urge to go high-tech, high-interest, and high-fidelity, but I also could be down with something else.

People,

Meridian Action Committee is having a kickoff session this week Wednesday. We're a service organization that brings one-time service opportunities to Meridian, and matches student volunteers with charities and work in the community. Do a lot of good. I realize a new year of school is pretty heavy and all, between coursework and those homesick feelings, but the Committee is a worthy opportunity.

You can already sign up for a few of our regular activities, including the annual Trick or Treat Trail through campus that benefits Boys and Girls Clubs of America to be held over Halloween, and the Project Pajama drive run in concert with the campus library over parents' weekend - ask your folks to consider donating new pajamas and gently used books (maybe a few of your own favorites you can bear to part with), or cash donations for same, all proceeds to go to children's shelters in the area. We work in concert with every campus fraternity and sorority, so you fine folks planning on pledging might could get a leg up on the things that go on.

All we're asking is a little of your time and energy. Tell me you're showing up, and I will play a song of your choosing on my weekend radio program, "Philosophy of Love".

There's just one thing I can't stand about Bartos here, and it ain't the noise pollution. These are some messy motherfuckers up in this place. Seriously, people - being a slob isn't just a social issue. Do you understand your impact when you're not being a little more green in your thinking? It seems like such a little thing, adjusting your way of life to remember to do things like collect your dead soldiers from whatever debauch you're on and recycle, but it ain't. You mosey on through your bad habits now, and they will stay with you; but if you change your thinking and more importantly the walk you walk, you build up credit towards the better life and better day we all want tomorrow. In short, if there is not a better green-campus program instituted, I'mma be starting it myself soon. No lie.

We got a lot of political people here, and while I give my respect to you all, at the same time, I'd like to hear who else is in it for work within the community. All well and good to fall in line with the Obama community organizer line as the cool new thing no matter your party, but what that means is that even if my man loses, next month and next year, you still have to go out and do something. You have to walk the walk.

So this goes for a few things: first, social issues, because they don't just rear their heads in election years. They ain't just here to be discussed when you can cast a ballot. Even though it's hard to have an effect on what happens at the top of the chain, there are roles you can play and shit you can accomplish, and organizers are needed year-round for the issues that are important to the world around you. Campus life is a goddam bubble much of the time, but as small as Bartleby is, there's a big world in reach of us even here. Second, charity work. It begins at home, whether you do it out of some religious feeling, or, like me, as an impulse that comes just from the heart, where you keep it real, as a part of being a better person in this world.

As much as I advocate for getting up the nose of authority figures as a general practice - and I do - there is something to be said for thinking of your fellow man. It can be as little as recycling the shit left in the common rooms after a Friday night, or as big as a stint in Habitat for Humanity (signups, or so I notice, are this week). Look hard at your world. Peace.

When I first heard about this journal requirement, I immediately thought of masturbation. I'm not talking the kind you do during your alone time between classes that ends up hot and heavy and sweaty, although I have read the kinds of things my man Georgie puts down in his off hours. Oooh baby.

That's neither here nor there.

I thought: a journal? Shit, this is going to interrupt my real writing time. I was thinking back to a past school of mine, where we were all given these big fat blank books and encouraged to share our feelings within 'em. I used mine for making origami, sending mash notes to girls, and drawing obscene doodles. Hey, it was sharing! The point is, I was thinking this would be some solitary self-indulgent thing until I saw this whole online setup.

This is tight, my friends.

This is a whole lot more like actual sex - I do mean to say, intercourse. Interaction. But like any kind of intercourse, it ups the pressure to perform because someone is watching, and it changes the dynamic from what you might write if nobody could see. I know some of you are probably textual virgins out there reading now, just getting your first grope and fondle of your first critiques and responses to what you write, so before things get too far underway, please allow P. Shelley, Esquire to lay it down for you some things you may want to remember to make your first time and all those times afterwards truly special. As always, take what works for you and don't hate if it doesn't.

1) Some things are better and more special behind closed doors. Friendslock, brothers and sisters, and private-lock for those times you really do want to spank your literary monkey in private. Because there are some times that putting your junk out there for all the campus to see is only going to get you burned. You can't set an intimate mood for your special someone or someones if everyone gets to see everything. Everyone includes your teachers, the administration, maybe even YOUR MOM. Or even worse, HER MOM and HER MOM and HIS MOM. Show some respect.

On the flip side, 2) Be willing to put it all out there for what matters. Don't front, in other words, but also, if you're being real about something and you share it, be ready for what comes after, and respond. Don't be that guy who dumps all his junk out there to see, but isn't ready for someone else's. And don't be that dude bottling his pain in the corner and only ever spanking it in private - remember what P. said up above about journals trending to masturbation.

3) Not everybody's fun is your fun. You gonna get to know a person, you gonna find out that they've got their own quirks, and sometimes, you are going to have one of those moments where it comes to a crashing halt. The record player screeches as the needle flies off. You sit there starin', thinkin', You wanna do what to my what what with whom? Not everybody wants to pledge your fraternity, drink and debauch, study like a fiend, join student organizations, or whatever your latest obsession is. You got the right to whatever turns you on, but remember that everybody else out here has their own thing that does it for them. Again: Respect.

4) Most everybody puts on an act until they don't have to anymore. I just don't know many people who don't tell a story about themselves the first time (and sometimes the second and the third and on and on) they put themselves out there. And other people also tell their stories for them. Don't go assumin' that girl is what everyone says she is. Sure, she might be, but first impressions are often about assumption, and you know what they say about assumptions. They make an ass outta u and umption, so to speak. When you first start gettin' it on with other people, what you see really isn't always what you get, so give it time before you assume too hardcore that you know all there is to know. People are complicated.

5) It ain't over until everybody gets their cookies. Like they say in the Chinese restaurants. Not to say that you can't just walk away from a conversation, or never should, but don't leave people hanging on or be that guy who scores points and then shuts it on down. Especially don't be that dude who gets his controversial smack on and then disables all comments. That's, like, the internet version of being a pervert flasher man. Likewise, don't just hang back and say nothin' to nobody - you peeping tom voyeur. Yeah, you know who you are. Reach out, and let other people reach back.

Now, I am no expert, no guru. I'm just one man. So let's hear it, Meridian: How do you want to GET IT ON? Show me some love now.

( Application. Aww yeah. )

[literepetition, dawg.]

In-School Probation, what.

The Man is watching me now. Crazy. It ain't like I played showtunes or Barry Manilow or something!

Byron, man, totally worth it. I hope they didn't confiscate your guitar like they did my sound equipment, but if they did, maybe we can get us a lawyer.