“We just watch anything speed by. To stop and really ponder what a product label says, or the tagline on a TV commercial, might be inherently silly. Those are things that are almost designed to be thrown away.”

Negative space is important. When I teach students to read critically I advise them to look for what the author isn’t saying just as carefully as for what he or she is.

The brands with which we surround ourselves prop us up, make us feel sexy and beautiful, when in reality we’re pretty dumpy creatures.

Surprise keeps the reader awake. The only alternative is to continue saying what the reader is expecting. What fun is that?

Nothing is as easy or natural as consumer brands want us to think – no problem is as resolvable. Your hair will fall out, eventually. Yet we do have these brands, and we line our shelves with them. There’s an inherent irony.

Whenever I do a comedy show I still just read poems, some of which are intentionally funny and some of which are just bizarre. The mix seems to work well.

I want to leave my readers with a sequence of ideas/phrases that makes them question something they’d taken for granted. Or that confuses them to the point that they laugh, but contains one or two phrases/lines that stick in their minds.

I don’t really want to write fiction at all. I don’t see why fiction is necessary when we have real life already confusing enough.

Writing essays and teaching composition have helped me immensely in writing poetry, because they’ve forced me to focus on the structure of ideas.

After the first few readings in comedy venues I did begin to write for laughs. There’s something so gratifying about stimulating laughter.

Poetry is a way for me to explore a tingly feeling, to let it play itself out, and also to map it. I feel like I’m making little star maps when I write poems.

You don’t want the biggest record deal as far as money goes, you just want to make sure that the people at the label really support your band and the music and stuff.

A lot of big labels will just sign bands like a write off.

So you have to just be really careful and make sure that when a deal comes along, that it’s like the right deal for you… not necessarily the most money, because you have to pay the record label that back in like record sales and stuff.

Actually, we got signed in November of 2000 with Dreamworks which is the most amazing label.

We have friends on other labels and though we are not selling millions of records, yet, they treat us with tons of respect and give us some very good guidance.

I think where it’s going is toward what the music industry is like, where channels will be considered more like labels that carry the type of TV show that you like

I think putting labels on people is just an easy way of marketing something you don’t understand.

I’ve been kind of toying around with the bi thing in my head. I wouldn’t ever give myself the label ‘bisexual,’ but bi-curious? Yea.