Paul Hanson Clark

                Who is Paul Hanson Clark? According to his blog, he lives in Omaha, Nebraska. That’s all I know about him. I don’t even know if that is true. Otherwise he remains an online mystery. Most of the comments on his poems are additional poems by him. No one knows why he does this, creating his own world to comment on. It forms a loop of work which is constantly feeding off itself. Honestly, it is a pretty interesting world.

                Paul Clark wrote his first piece “Fat” on February 22^nd, 2011. After he wrote it, he kept on adding to it. “Skinny” and “Average (in two parts)” came next. The final addition mentioned how he never wants to be famous. I like the language in it; it feels stark, harsh, bitter and sarcastic. Staying anonymous may help him remain obscured behind countless words and phrases. Note this title is repeated twice. 

                “It Makes You Think “Which Wolf”” takes a different approach. Here we’re treated to a really bizarre mash-up of various themes. Wolves after the three pigs go into a bar. Already we have the wolves bored of violence. Instead they revel in agitation. The entire poem has some bizarre circular logic to it. If a joke and fairytale came together with Catch-22’s perverse logic it might look something like this poem. 

                Mortality is faced in “That’s Annoying, But Whatever”. He bothers people with checking his phone. The comments (which are larger than the poem itself) explain visiting an old childhood friend. My favorite comment of his comes at the end, as he thinks about how he almost got electrocuted. Somehow he knew his body was conditioned to live its life. Towards the end of the comment poem we see a certain ‘flashing before my eyes’ about the ocean.

                In “Gatorade” he is pretty funny. He makes $800,000 a year insulting others. Perhaps he is Tosh.0. Of course in such a mocking poem he needs to mention Sarah Palin, frog legs, disappointment, and passing out in front of a church. The words used are strong, difficult but funny. His comments yet again compliment his original piece.  

                Mountain Dew garners his attention in “Oh a Goodie!” He mentions the great beverage in a tweet to Mountain Dew’s official account. In that tweet he mentions why he’d be a good handler of the Mountain Dew twitter account. For Paul Clark is a humanitarian who believes Mountain Dew can change the world, he knows what joy it brings to extreme sports. Mountain Dew never tweeted back at him, showing Mountain Dew doesn’t care about twitter people. 

                 This was a great discovery for me. I enjoy randomly stumbling upon something on the internet and just exploring every nook and cranny. Since Paul comments on his own posts it creates a sort of commentary on commentary. Most of the work serves as an endless hall of mirrors with the emotions getting reflected over and over again constantly shifting into something new. My recommendation would be to explore it for a little bit, follow him on twitter, and explore the alien landscape. Following him on twitter provides a more condensed version of his ideas or perhaps the roots of his main thoughts. 

I guarantee you it will be weird. 

I’m missing the War

America fights many battles. Sometimes it is against itself (like that whole yawning income disparity) but we usually enjoy an external enemy. Having an external enemy allows everyone to come together and raise our fights, shaking them against whoever assails this great free land. 

                Today what I’d like to do is try to focus on some of those wars that we’re winning, some that we’re losing, and what can or cannot be done about both. Some may see this as a form of giving up, but that’s not accurate at all. We need to find out what we’re winning and losing, in order to truly retain being #1.

1.       Vending Machine War – One of the most critical places to be losing the war. Sure, we’re winning the war against healthiness (for now at least) but to lose at something so integral to who we are? Those who bring up the live bait vending machines, those are cute but fail in comparison to what some of our allies and enemies have created. Japan appears to excel at this level of weirdness, offering not only those legendary used schoolgirl panty machines but a walking and talking Coca-Cola vending machine. Gold to Go, the vending machine where you can buy gold, exists in several countries, including Germany and the U.A.E. Despite Glen Beck’s urging, these never took off here. Italy and the UK present pizza making machines (pizza is made by the machine). I understand the UK since their food is dreadful, but Italy, really? China wins with its ‘live crabs’ vending machine, which wins in so many ways. But we’ve been coming back of late, in California there is an actual vending machine for Weed, which leads to the next war.

2.       War on Christmas – Suck it Christmas! We are beating the snot out of Christmas. Santa’s down for the count and the reindeer are helping us kick him in the shins. In case you find this a tad too harsh, remember Church Lady’s sage advice: “If you move around the letters, Santa spells Satan.”

3.       War on Poverty – We are totally defeating poverty by having rich people drop twenty dollar bills as they pay for their latest Faberge egg. Middle class people help this to by dropping change as they pay for things in cash. Unfortunately, due to the large proliferation of credit cards, this trend is beginning to reverse. In that case, charities have to use the power of guilt to shock you out of your comfortable lifestyle. 

4.       War on Easter- Seen Bugs Bunny lately? Yeah, there’s a reason for that. We’re winning. Also, Warner Brothers never understood how to market these characters for generations not born in the early 40s. 

5.       War on Terrorism – That TSA agent is really into you, man. Are we winning? Can we know? Every time we ask “Are we winning the war on Terrorism” it sounds exactly like that other question “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” My opinion is that it resembles the anarchist movement of the late 19^th/early 20^th century. Basically, they will never truly go away besides by their own accord and internal strife. Sorry for giving such a negative answer on this, but I don’t think there can be a yes/no answer.

6.        War on Hipsters – Hipsters can and will never be defeated. There are a few reasons for this, most of it having to do with the Catch-22 like nature of their very existence. Every time someone gets called a hipster and says “No, I’m not” then they become one. If you decide to agree that “Yes, I am” you no longer are. You had to be there to fully understand. 

7.       War against good movies – We are definitely winning this one, via me having seen one new movie the entire year (movies I see on planes are usually at least a year old)

Hopefully this has given you some hope for America. Concerns aside, I think we’re making strides to continue our reign as the most powerful country on Earth because if you don’t think that, then the terrorists truly have won.