$40 for poetry book with handwritten commentary on every poem
$65 for poetry book with entire 2nd poetry book handwritten written inside
$100 for poetry book with entire novella handwritten inside

prices based on what i expect to be like $6/hr

or best offer

2nd poetry book i feel is a piece of shit and is tentatively titled 'nervous assface'

novella i feel is high-quality, is titled 'my hair will defeat you' and is around 14,500 words

jeffrey brown drew a line from my poetry book and wrote "[I]t was a thoughtful yet humorous collection of entertaining poems... Makes me wish I kept up with poetry writing."

fun

woke up
made smoothie
made coffee
rode bike to meet jacob and rebecca at their place
talked to jacob and rebecca
rode bike home
shade called
met shade outside my apt
walked to 'in the bowl'
talked for a long time to shade while eating
walked home
talked for a long time to shade
walked to rite aid with shade and got aspirin
walked home
shade left
tried to get internet in my apt
made pasta
walked to 'online coffee co'
gmail chatted a little, drank an iced coffee
walked home
walked to 'online coffee co'
gmail chatted a lot

canola oil
large freezer bags
bread
milk
soymilk (?)
eggs
canned tomatoes
tuna
bananas
coffee

some stuff i feel good about

huge interview with chelsea martin
sweet review by megan boyle
'bret easton ellis of the gmail chat generation'
gmail chat interview with the bostonist
bookslut blurb
twitter
miles ross

i am at the airport

update on tomorrow's book release party (ppow gallery, nyc): my book will be given away for free to everyone that comes, provided we don't run out of them (~200 copies). there will also be free alcohol.

july 03, 7pm, during my nervous breakdown i want to have a biographer present release party w/ zachary german and chelsea martin, ppow gallery, nyc
july 04, 4pm, during my nervous breakdown book tour w/ zachary german and abigail lloyd, space space, nyc
july 05, 5pm, melissa broder's polestar reading series w/ ellen kennedy and zachary german, cake shop, nyc
july 07, 7pm, book talk w/ tao lin, brookline booksmith, boston
july 26, 5pm, dual book release party w/ jacob severn, the anne bonney, seattle
july 30, 7pm, pilot books w/ matthew simmons, seattle

the future

i think about moving to asia and have images of me in a speedboat at high speed, looking behind me, my hair blown, an enormous cruise liner in the near distance

i consider moving to india and have images of a gigantic indian's torso, which blocks out most of the sunlight, doing a strange jumpkick in slow motion

i consider moving to new york city and have images of myself in a bagel shop uniform, with a baseball cap on, working in a bagel shop, looking very unhappy, feeling embarrassed about working at a bagel shop; i imagine myself immediately feeling 'this is no different than seattle, i was wrong'

i think about moving to seoul to teach english and have images of sitting alone in a small, blue tiled apartment, feeling confused and slightly alienated; i see myself making a few friends but maintaining a sense of 'aloneness' that 'naturally' keeps us 'inaccessible' to each other; i have images of writing 'dumbass, juvenile shit' concerning korea and my writing career never advancing beyond this point

i consider going to spain and 'just plain' not having enough money

i consider going to germany and feeling highly unwelcome, possibly getting beaten up by my ex-girlfriend's current boyfriend (who was her ex-boyfriend when i was her boyfriend)

i think of farming and i have an image of my fingers digging up a small red beet, accompanied by strong feelings of neutrality, as if farming is merely a phenomenon that mysteriously exists outside of 'cause and effect'

i try to consider a life in farming and nothing happens but an image of my fingers digging a beet out of the ground and sometimes images of my face, sweaty and dirty

i consider farming in spain and i feel even more neutral, seeing myself in the context of 'hay'; hay is somewhere in this mental image, and there is the concept of 'language barrier'; i see myself frequently using the spanish i know but never becoming fluent as the result of some impossible threshold

i see mexican people

for some reason i see romania, or bulgaria, and a lake in a mountainous region

i consider seattle and see myself having a number of readings and existing, for years, with only acquaintences, occasionally meeting a person that responded to my dating ad at the strangers dating website, sometimes 'ending up' by myself at some rave-thing, extremely intoxicated, and feeling embarrassed about it the next day, with the number of embarrassing incidents steadily increasing, the lack of change in my perception reinforcing every embarrassing moment i continue to have, as they are inevitable and an effect of perception; i see these situations 'building up', until i am incredibly unhappy, sitting on the chair in front of my desk, looking at my lap

i see my writing career quickly shriveling; in my head this appears as an open tube of skin hanging from a dog's penis quickly desiccating and falling off

i see my writing career ending as a result of just not being able to 'step up'; i also see any level of fame quickly feeling unsatisfying or irrelevant to my goals

i see a career in writing and i imagine a continual state of loneliness and alienation that strengthens exponentially; i imagine 'needing' to 'keep myself' from everyone in order to write novels; i see a long sequence of unsatisfying encounters with girls that i've met from the stranger's dating website; i see my stranger dating ad profile picture

i see a career in writing and i imagine producing a novel once every 7 years, thematically similar to the those of richard yates and frederick barthelme, but not as 'sophisticated' and calm as frederick barthelme, and not as 'sophisticated' as richard yates; i see myself becoming as famous as frederick barthelme

i imagine the prospect of maintaining a steady income through self-employment and again experience feelings of neutrality; i see myself walking on a sidewalk, carrying a pile of clothes; i see, vaguely, the color scheme of ebay

i consider the concept of 'my life as it is now and as it will be through the next year' and see a rapid succession of myself walking through the door of my empty apartment; i see myself walking on the sidewalk wearing a grey and blue adidas track jacket; i see myself going to the post office; i see myself drinking beer at my desk; i see a succession of uncomfortable meetings with girls from the stranger's dating website; i see myself with a speculative facial expression, passing people on the sidewalk while thinking 'do they know who i am? do they know i wrote a book?'

considering the concept of 'my life as it is now and as it will be through the next year' makes me feel, again, highly neutral, as if i have little control, as if 'my life as it is now and as it will be through the next year' merely exists, and will continue to exist in different ways as the result of cause and effect, and has already existed, somehow; i fear the stability of my perception

i consider the concept of 'what will happen today' and immediately picture twitter, then imagine myself trying hard to think of what i will make for lunch tomorrow, then see myself waking up tomorrow, fixing breakfast, and getting on the bus in overalls and black rubber work boots with the 'lunch problem' 'figured out'

i think of the concept of 'what can i do with my life' and immediately feel either confused or neutral, or just 'stalled', as if a computer was overloaded via multitasking and was taking an extremely long time to process simple tasks, such as minimizing or maximizing folders; i see uncomfortable situations with girls i met from the stranger's dating website; i see myself drinking and then going out by myself and 'being weird' at a bar, in a corner, staring at people, then feeling highly embarrassed for this the next day

i consider 'my blog in two years' and see, vaguely, a new header and layout; i see myself 'naturally' reverting to a posting style more similar to my posting style of a year ago; i see 2 - 6 month periods of intense creativity/productivity bound by the 'limits' of my perception/mental capacity; i see myself basing decisions concerning literature and blogging on 'if i will be embarrassed about it in the future'

i consider 'voluntarily joining the army and fighting in a war' and see my face going out of control; i feel interested

i wrote an article about my trip to oakland

scarecrow has posted 7 of my poems

i was interviewed by BOMB magazine

i've posted 3 new excerpts from my poetry book

happy pride weekend

during my nervous breakdown i want to have a biographer present

...has been officially released!

A debut full-length poetry book that captures the feelings of small, alienated, and highly self-conscious humans who exist in an array of situations, from a very odd Halloween party to a full-scale planetary war involving humans, androids, robots, and aliens. Focusing on severe feelings of low self-worth, meaninglessness, and yearning for something unknown, Brandon Scott Gorrell uses predominantly science fiction imagery in direct, deadpan prose to describe humans in need of meaning that they feel hopeless to attain.

"Such hilarious, surprising, aphoristic poems. They do not stop at funny: they move into the territory of sad; the drab panic of daily life." - Deb Olin Unferth, author of VACATION and MINOR ROBBERIES

"I like these poems. I really do. They made me laugh." - Matthew Rohrer, author of A GREEN LIGHT and RISE UP

"I feel lonely, and while I'm lonely, reading this book makes me feel less lonely." - Noah Cicero, author of THE HUMAN WAR and TREATISE

"I have been going through a thing lately of not feeling like I want to read, unless I 'have' to (like I'm on a bus or something), but I read Brandon's book and enjoyed it a lot and felt excited."
- Chris Killen, author of THE BIRD ROOM

"[The] Breat Easton Ellis for the Gmail chat generation." - The Pipeline

Featured in NYLON MAGAZINE (March 2009) and PLAN B MAGAZINE (July 2009) (see it here)

Reviews by The Pipeline, Ryan Brosmer, What To Wear During An Orange Alert, Colin Bassett, Zachary Zimmerman, It's Nice That, Doug Paul Case, Chris Killen, and Where the Wild Things Are

Interviews with bomb magazine, Tao Lin, Chris Killen and What To Wear During An Orange Alert

Excerpts on my blog and PINEAPPLE WAR. Other literature can be seen by clicking the links on this page

Book tour in Portland, California, New York, and Seattle

During My Nervous Breakdown I Want To Have A Biographer Present on Goodreads

A list of the people that have purchased my book on the internet

Order using the Paypal drop-down menu at the top of this blog.

must have been 'publicly humiliated' on the computer gigs section of new york craigslist.....

SHORT STORY CONTEST NEWS: A number of stories that did not win my short story contest can now be read at $7 STORIES, a website created by Michael Inscoe and Megan Boyle.

If you were a contestant that did not win and would like your story to appear on this website, email minscoe[at]gmail.com or themeganboyle[at]gmail.com.

napa bros

today, 2pm, "meet and greet" at copperfield's books, napa

chelsea martin, mike young, me

sf bros

today, 4pm, common thread poetry series, pirate cat radio cafe, san francisco (streams online for internet listeners)

chelsea martin, mike young, me

tune your radios to 87.9fm

selling our books at discounted rates

oakland bros

tonight, 7pm, bittersweet rockridge poetry series, oakland

jimmy chen, mike young, chelsea martin, me

selling our books at discounted rates

free wine

flying to oakland tomorrow

Tao Lin is interviewed about during my nervous breakdown i want to have a biographer present

Tao Lin maintains heheheheheheheeheheheehehe; lives in Brooklyn, NY; founded and edits Muumuu House; and is the author of you are a little bit happier than i am (Action Books, 2006), Bed (Melville House, 2007), Eeeee Eee Eeee (Melville House, 2007), cognitive-behavioral therapy (Melville House, 2008), Shoplifting from American Apparel (Melville House, 2009), and Richard Yates (Melville House, 2010).

':Could you type a paragraph-length, 'academic-style' analysis of one of your favorite poems in my poetry book?

In the poem "some inconceivable crisis thing" Brandon Scott Gorrell writes "is it normal to think ‘i hate myself,’ but not take yourself seriously, but really be serious about hating yourself" because, one deducts, he has not satisfactorily read about this phenomenon in other works of literature or been satisfactorily related this phenomenon in real life, only "observed" its occurrence in himself. Elsewhere in the poem Gorrell writes "has anyone else ever felt incredibly sarcastic about feeling incredibly depressed but at the same time felt incredibly depressed / is that something anyone has done" and the majority of the population, one muses, can only truthfully answer: "I don’t know," as this topic has not been examined, explored, or "even alluded to," based on the knowledge of one literary critic, in any work in "the canon" (excluding perhaps Kafka), with only vague and rare exceptions existing even "outside" of "the canon" in the somewhat obscure works of Fernando Pessoa, Matthew Rohrer, and a few others, none of which, though, explore as "accurately," knowledgeably, personally, existentially, and comprehensively as Brandon Scott Gorrell does in his debut poetry-collection DURING MY NERVOUS BREAKDOWN I WANT TO HAVE A BIOGRAPHER PRESENT the "themeless" theme of paradoxes that cannot be "simply" labeled as paradoxes, as they have something else also within their actualizations that take them "outside" of labelization, "outside" of "everything but itself," it seems. One may crudely, and, on many levels, uneffectively - as the following words, having existed mostly only secondarily and condescendingly inside "the canon," have acquired un"artistic," un"profound," and un"deep" connotations - define what is being explored as sarcasm, meaninglessness, irony-sincerity, tone, feeling "bad," and "being conscious" layered in a context of [at least one combination of what was just listed]. Gorrell’s concerns, though motivated into existence by emotions, are, at their core, not emotional, and also not scientific, though scientific terms are used - but, in their comprehensiveness, in their applied knowledge of levels of awareness, levels of detachment, and logic, [insert a word that doesn’t exist, that perhaps, in its unlanguageable essence, "can’t" exist]. In the end, surveying Gorrell’s book, and each poem’s role within the book, one can observe that Brandon Scott Gorrell has no questions, no answers, and, even, perhaps, no "information," but is like an object, a tree or planet, with "everything," including itself, "causing" itself to "effect" - but with some added thing conventionally defined as "consciousness" (something that could more concretely be defined, or given example to, one might say, with "the whole of Gorrell’s poetry book") that causes further things, beyond the physical laws of the universe, to exist, perhaps beyond what even one can understand in metaphysical terms, perhaps simply something like "the effect of effect," a thing defining itself by continually existing outside of definition.

What are a few of your favorite lines from my poetry book? Why are they your favorite?

"i wish my face was a giant floating emoticon"

Seems funny.

"i want to turn into wild grass and get eaten by a soft moose"

Seems funny and cute.

"i want to sleep on a zebra while it gets eaten by a lion"

Seems funny and weird in an exciting manner.

"j-curve populations experience a vertical drop after exponential growth"

Seems funny, especially in the context of the book.

"popcorn butter is toxic"

Seems funny, especially in the context of the book.

" 'Are you doing something tomorrow,' John says to the Marv from Sin City."

Seems funny and complex both in and out of the context of the book.

"The Easter Island says ‘Party’ and moves his arms and torso around."

Seems funny and creates weird, funny images in my head.

"[any line]"

Seems funny, weird, original, creates funny and interesting images in my head, and other things, especially in the context of the book. Honestly I feel like I could pick almost any line and it could, in some way, be "a favorite."


*To order during my nervous breakdown i want to have a biographer present, use the drop down menu at the top of this blog.