The Unnamed Football Project

I've Moved.

2008-11-06T13:56:00.000-08:00

I blog over here now.
Sometimes I accidentally still say blogspot though.
My apologies.

Back to School, Back to School

2007-08-25T07:54:00.000-07:00

To prove to Dad that I'm not a fool.

I got my
Lunch packed up
My boots tied tight
I hope I don't get in a fight

OOOOOOOOOOOO
Back to school
Back to school
Back
To...

School starts Monday.
Orientation was last Wednesday.
The enormity of what is about to happen to me didn't really sink in until my classmates and I found ourselves in the book store after orientation.
I realized that the first time I had gone to a college book store to buy my books for the semester was more than ten years ago.

Yikes.

And now I'm back in school, busting my behind to learn about how to run a theater.
I've already been doing homework/reading. And honestly, I'm excited about most of what I've been studying. One of the things that I forget/deny is that I'm really a nerd at heart. A major nerd. So learning is, like, awesome, really. And this isn't the artsy, open, no-right-answer kind of stuff I did in college and grad school. This is practical work. Work ethic is what matters most here, and I'm in need of refresher courses in that for sure.

I'm going to to try--try--to update this blog regularly with thoughts on school. I'm not sure I'll be able to though, as the work/school day will keep me away from home from 8am to at least 10pm every Monday through Thursday. I'm pretty much not going to exist as a non-school entity.

But please--say hi, send good thoughts, keep me posted on what's going on in the world, especially opportunities to meet up with you on the weekends. It will be greatly appreciated.

(And yes, this is yet another new use for this blog.)

From The Sky

2007-05-24T14:09:00.001-07:00

P1010248
Originally uploaded by iagoali.

I took this a while back. I think I was on my way to San Francisco.

The world is still kind of amazing sometimes.

Look Closer.

2007-05-22T11:21:00.001-07:00

P1020806
Originally uploaded by iagoali.

This is a silly picture. C. Denby Swanson forced me to take it.

Under Cover

2007-05-21T10:26:00.001-07:00

P1020899
Originally uploaded by iagoali.

Sometimes, this is how my entire life feels.
Not necessarily at the moment, but sometimes.

Rose Rose Rose

2007-05-21T07:41:00.001-07:00

P1020866, originally uploaded by iagoali.

I bought these flowers for my mom for Mother's Day. They arrived half-dead. I hope she got them exchanged like she said she would. Either way, I discovered the MACRO setting on my camera, which allows for shots like this.

Photos will be a new part of The Unnamed Football Project. I swear I'll keep writing about writing too. But the pictures need an outlet. They'll be coming steady, I hope.

Lots of career-type news is on the horizon. Start making your way back to this here blog.

Alaska is No Go...

2007-05-04T11:18:00.000-07:00

...but Operation Alaska is still available. In the end, the cost of heading to the conference was just too much. The book will remain open for purchase over at www.lulu.com/kristofferdiaz, but proceeds no longer go towards sending me to Alaska. If this presents a real issue for you, let me know, and I'll make it up to you somehow.

I'm also including parts of the last post I made on myspace, just FYI.
I'll soon finish up the liner notes for Fly Girls (believe it or not), and I'll get back to writing about writing.
Once I get back to writing.

From myspace:

Aww Yeah, Suckas--I'm Going to be Published.

And not self-published.
Not that I have any problem with self-publishing (go to www.lulu.com for proof of that).
But my play The Trophy Thieves: A High School Love Story will soon be published for purposes of amateur licensing.

Some of you might have seen Trophy Thieves in one of its previous incarnations at NYU or The Gallery Players. For those who haven't, it's a one act about two high school girls who attempt to steal a cheerleading trophy from a high school library. And yes, it's just as ludicrous as it sounds.

This is the third book of mine published this year (including Fly Girls and Other Poems and Operation Alaska), and the first published by a real live publishing house. I've got two more publication possibilities in the pipeline (I won't tell you what they are just yet), and some potential theater development type stuff that could be in the works as well.

And oh yeah--I'm editing two books that will be released within the next month. The books contain poetry and prose written by students in my writing workshops here in Cleveland, and will be made available through the legendary lulu.com AT COST. In other words, we're not looking to make any more off these books--we just want to get the voices of these young folks out to the world.

OPERATION ALASKA: Now available.

2007-04-15T16:56:00.000-07:00

www.lulu.com/kristofferdiaz

All proceeds go towards defraying the cost of my trip to Alaska this summer to develop The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity.

While you're over at lulu, you can still pick up a copy of Fly Girls and Other Poems.

Just keep in mind that Operation Alaska is only on sale until June 30th, 2007.

Do it now.

We're Pushing One Hundred Pages.

2007-04-12T18:39:00.000-07:00

OPERATION ALASKA is kind of amazing.
It will be available for two months only.

Two monologues/scenes from each of the four plays.
The first chapter of the novel.
The beginning of an unfinished short story from the archives.
More than ten never-before-published poems.
AND an instant messenger chat transcript.

You're going to want this.

I'll Announce It Here Before Anywhere Else

2007-04-09T18:42:00.000-07:00

Operation Alaska is a book.
It is a new book.
It will include the following:

*Monologues/other exciting excerpts from my plays, including: Welcome to Arroyo's, Guernica, Tyree (which no one has read/seen/heard yet, which makes this an exclusive first look kind of deal), and The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity.

*The entire new short play Shoes: A Monologue for Three Actors. This is a full ten-minute play, and you get the whole thing.

*A chapter (like the first chapter) of my just-finished novel version of Welcome to Arroyo's.

*Several brand new poems, not available in Fly Girls and Other Poems.

*Two of the consensus favorite poems from Fly Girls (poems TBA).

*And maybe some other tasty goodness from my archives.

It's really kind of an unbelievable thing we're putting together.
It will be available for a limited time.
It will be available through lulu.com.

The proceeds will be going towards a very good cause: sending a starving Cleveland artist to Alaska to do a reading of his new play.

More info will follow. And soon.

I'm Still Alive.

2007-04-01T11:19:00.001-07:00

www.kristofferdiaz.com has been recently updated.
This page will be updated soon.
I swear.

Intermission.

2007-03-23T12:18:00.000-07:00

I've been unable to update here for a while (even longer at www.kristofferdiaz.com).
I'll be diving back into the liner notes soon.
But there's a whole lot going on at myspace.

OPERATION: ALASKA

2007-03-20T13:49:00.000-07:00

I can't tell you anything about it.
It's coming soon though.

The Stories Behind The Fly Girls, VI.

2007-03-11T14:47:00.000-07:00

I am well at work on the second book. The best way to send me suggestions for poems is to go to the myspace page, but you can also go ahead and e-mail me. Or leave a comment here.

And don't forget to buy the first book.

31. Prehensile Toes and Von Zipper Sunglasses -- Written for the amazing Angie (seriously, she's insanely amazing), this poem came to exist in about fifteen seconds. I fell back on the haiku, as I always do when in doubt. As for the back story, it's about prehensile toes and Von Zipper sunglasses. I'm not sure I even know what Von Zipper sunglasses are. Damn Los Angeles.

32. Office Tension: A Sketch -- Man, I'm not saying I know anything about inter-office romances. But somehow, someone decided that I was the right person to write about such a topic. Seeing as how I know nothing about the topic from personal experience--NOTHING, I SAY--I decided to handle it with a sketch. The hope was just to catch that moment after the initial attraction, after a late night of getting to know each other better, let's say, when you see each other and realize you'll see each other everyday. I'd imagine that's kind of exciting.

33. Bounce Bounce Swish -- This was written in an exercise conducted by the infamous (not really) Aya Ogawa, who happens to be a genius and way smarter than me and makes art in ways I wish I could. She had several of us (including Christina Anderson, our fellow Van Lier Fellow) create poems based out of a series of phrases and feelings and items that we all came up with collaboratively, and this is what came out. Then we gave each other massages, but I had a broken thumb at the time, so I think she got only half a massage, really. Anytime I get to work Derek Jeter into a poem or play, I take advantage of the opportunity, so that explains a lot of this, I think.

34. Fly Girls: Three Sketches -- This was written for wray, who gave me a bunch of answers to one of the questionnaires I made available to, well, Fly Girls. There was so much there in her responses that I couldn't settle on one approach, leading me to come up with three quick first-impression sketches that, I think, complement each other in terms of tone and rhythm, if not content.

35. Love Song -- The request was to write a love song. And man, I hate to hear that as a request. I'm generally anti-love songs, not because I'm anti-love (if anything, I'm anti-anti-love), but because it's so damn hard to write a love song that doesn't sound like so many other damn love songs. I don't think I accomplished quite what I wanted to with this--I'm not sure that the real story I'm trying to tell comes across--but the feel of it was tolerable enough that I didn't want to slap myself for cheesily trying to squeeze the feelings of love into an awkward little box. I hope that people who buy this book use the pages of love song to scribble notes, draw pictures, and do whatever else one does when one is in love. Make those pages sing.

Man, those last two sentences don't feel like me at all.

myspace is crack.

2007-03-07T18:09:00.000-08:00

And has little redeeming social value.
But still.
Come be my friend there.
You'll get special exclusive blog posts that might just end up in my next book.
www.myspace.com/kristofferdiaz

The Stories Behind The Fly Girls, V.

2007-03-03T14:07:00.000-08:00

No time to waste. These liner notes are the definition of urban sprawl.

26. For Babygirl -- So like I said in an earlier post, there are times in life when you think you've got everything all figured out, and then some time goes by, and you realize that you didn't have anything all figured out. Sometimes it takes finality to wrap your head around how wrong you'd been. Sometimes it takes someone to tell you exactly why you were wrong before you can see it. and even then, you sometimes aren't ready to sit down and put into words what you're feeling. And sometimes, later on, it all makes sense, and you wish you had had the words when you needed them. Times like that, all you can do is hope you've learned the lesson.

27. Redenbacher at the Strip Club -- The assignment for this piece was, well, Orville Redenbacher at the Strip Club. Orville Redenbacher looked like this, in case you don't remember:

And he sold popcorn on TV. And that's all I knew about him. The image of Orville making it rain probably could easily have been played for laughs, which is why I took it in another direction. Man, I actually don't even know if this was a real dude or not. Either way, there seemed to be something inherently sad about him. I also happen to feel like there's somethign inherently sad about strip clubs. So the end result was only natural.

27. Shadow Song -- Shadows are one of those topics that poets and photographers revel in -- I think it's not easy to do something with shadows that hasn't been done before. So I didn't really try. This feels pretty straightforward to me--a love story between the shadows of two lovers. And since I'm using go-to imagery, might as well go all out: hence the beaches, and the mangoes, and the waterfalls, and the sunsets. This to me is a typical poetry piece, which is something I'm not entirely comfortable with. I dig the way it came out though.

28. Fly Girls: You Got Me -- A lot of these poems wouldn't exist if it wasn't for The Roots. I won't necessarily explain that completely, but it's true. This piece was written specifically about The Roots for a young woman whose wildest dream was jumping onstage with The Legendary and singing the Erykah Badu part on You Got Me. (And yes, I know some of you nerds will call it the Jill Scott part, but you're NERDS.) I do have a regret or two when it comes to this piece: I don't think it really does justice to how amazing The Roots are in person, and I kind of wish I experimented a little more with rhythm and sound and style as I wrote it. Someday I'll do a more formal tribute piece for them.

29. Eulogy -- I fucking love Eulogy. I love it. I don't think anyone else does, but I do. So there. The assignment was to write about a box of unlabeled CDs. That was it. So I went sad with it. And I love it. It felt a lot like a play as I was writing it, but without any of the obligations I'd generally associate with writing a play, like, you know, finishing it. Or filling it out. Or making it all make sense. It's a sketch almost, and it's way more satisfying for me that way.

30. Mabey -- I knew a girl in high school who always spelled "maybe" wrong. This might not have been such a huge problem if she wasn't always writing me notes about she and I and us, and trying to seriously address our dating situation while butchering the English language. It irked me, and it stayed with me, and when it came time to write this poem (for the amazing Angie) about that strange feeling of being really annoyed by someone you care about, this approach was a natural. I'm not sure where the microfiche came from, but who doesn't love microfiche?

More soon.

website update

2007-03-02T18:57:00.000-08:00

I'm having trouble getting access to www.kristofferdiaz.com to update it. I'm hoping it's just a problem with my hosting company. Should be updating over there this weekend.

Should be updating here this weekend as well. Ten more liner notes.

The majority of this weekend will be spent locked in my apartment, trying to finish a screenplay. Or two.

The Stories Behind The Fly Girls, IV.

2007-02-21T16:29:00.000-08:00

We're about halfway there, folks.

A quick update on the book: It's currently the 5,358th ranked title on lulu.com, which is actually not bad at all. I'm only about halfway towards my original sales goal though, and things seem to be slowing down. So please--PLEASE--if you've purchased the book, and you dig it, spread the word. And please--PLEASE--if you've purchased the book, and you dig it, share that information with me. I'd love to post some of the responses folks are having to the poems.

That said...let's do some liner notes:

21. Lunares -- This is a lot of people's favorite, and it's certainly one of mine. Cindylu is one of those great friends that I don't actually know, have never actually met, but am still amazingly inspired by her. I've already mentioned Travel Hailu in a previous post, so you get a sense of the basic organizing principle for this one--haiku. Cindy asked for a poem about lunares (or birthmarks), and I went ahead and didn't research the history of the phrase. I ended up coming kind of close though, and with a poetic term like that, and form like haiku, it's kind of hard to go wrong.

22. Jellyfish -- This might be the weirdest poem I've ever written. I was told to write about having sex with a jellyfish. So I did. Write about it. Not do it. I took it as a challenge, and my main character ended up taking it as a challenge too. The rest is history. Bizarre history.

I just thought of something else about Lunares -- it has found its way, in excerpted form, into Tyree, which is, as loyal readers know, the sequel to Guernica. That's all.

23. Fly Girls: Read Me -- This was based on RGV's answers to my questions about dreams and fears and all that good stuff. She was kind of close to a lot of my own inner workings, so the piece just sort of poured right out. I did sneak in some of her personal stuff--references to her relationships with men and her need to allow herself weakness. I really enjoy writing from a woman's perspective, both in poems and in plays--even when they take me to places pretty distant from myself. Maybe especially then.

24. Munchies -- Man, just remember that not all these poems are autobiographical. Some of them are. This one might be. This one also might not.

25. Good Loving: A Sketch -- Someone said to write about good loving, and I almost wrote about the H-Town classic Knockin' The Boots, but opted to go in the sketch direction instead. The term good loving (and its dirtier cousin, good lovin') always feels raw and filthy to me, but there was a strong need not to go full-out in that direction in this one. And besides, thinking about the rawest, filthiest moments I could imagine or remember, they always came back to being madly, wildly, truly in love with the other person involved. And that lead to this.

More soon.

New Monologue

2007-02-19T08:44:00.000-08:00

This monologue was written, by me, over at myspace.
It was written for Stephanie, who happens to be one of the best young actors in NYC.
She gave me a topic, and I ran with it in another direction.
I think she liked it.
You kind find out more about this kind of stuff over at the myspace page.

And...you can suggest a topic for me to write about.
You might even get a monologue out of it.

So this one is written for Stephanie to perform, but I don't think she'd mind if other women chose to perform it in auditions too.
Or other guys--we don't discriminate.

What I'm saying is, you all have my permission to audition with this piece if you so choose.
Just make sure you credit me if anyone asks.

My left shoe and my right shoe are the same shoe but opposite. Same purpose, same style, and completely at odds. My right shoe can't possibly do the job of my left. And I love my shoes, both of my shoes, and I love them together, and I think they love me, but I don't think they love me together.

No wait. That's not--

My left shoe and my right shoe are the same shoe, but opposite, and I need both of them, I mean, both of my feet are soft on the underside. Both of my feet are in danger of being sliced by stray shattered glass if I walk around with them unprotected. My left shoe protects my left foot. My left shoe can't protect my right foot. That doesn't mean I have any less respect for what the left shoe can do.

That's what I told him. I don't think he, like, got it.

"I'm not a shoe," he told me, and I told him "I know you're not a shoe," and he said "I can protect both of your feet, all of your feet, tops and bottoms, and your legs, and" -- and then he went in great detail describing all the body parts of mine he wanted to protect, and he took a lot more time protecting certain parts than other parts, you can guess. And I told him it wasn't about protecting my feet or my ass or my tits, and that the fact that he went from my feet to my ass to my tits just proved the point I was trying to make in the first place, because, because, because well, she wouldn't have jumped from my feet to my ass to my tits.

And I told him "look, I don't mind that those are the parts you plan to protect," and I didn't tell him that I knew that when he said "protect" he meant "violate" or maybe not violate, but something dirtier and more boy than "protect", and I didn't mind that, because he is a boy, and I like him being a boy, so the feet, the ass, the tits--protect away, right? "But you protect those parts, and the other parts need protecting. I don't expect you to be responsible for my overall protection, the overall protection of all my parts, but my parts still need protecting. Feet, legs, ass, tits, you got 'em covered. But I've got other parts. I need another shoe."

"Shoes don't protect anything other than feet."

He's astute.

I told him "I know shoes don't--this isn't about shoes. You. And She. Are the exact same to me, for me, around me, to me. You give me something and she gives me something and it's the same and the job overlaps, but you do it one way and she does another way and all together you and she protect me, top to bottom, head to toe, right foot to left foot." And that's what I was telling him, that I needed them both, and I realized that this could be problematic to understand, but that's why I brought up the shoes.

"I'm not a shoe." He was pretty adamant about this point.

"I know you're not a shoe!" And I took my left shoe off, and I threw it at him.

Other News.

2007-02-16T13:51:00.000-08:00

1. I've got a special, myspace exclusive writing project going on in the spirit of Fly Girls and Other Poems. If you've got a myspace page, go check it out: www.myspace.com/kristofferdiaz

2. Spread the word about the book, folks.

3. I am still, slowly, working on non-poetry writing projects. The long-awaited novel is about two-thirds finished. The Unnamed Football Project (now known as Skill Positions is still in the early planning stages. I'm also about to dive into a monologue/possible ten-minute play--you may or may not hear more about that.

I think that's it, for now.

Liner notes probably won't be updated for a few more days, for those of you taking notes.
On the notes.

The Stories Behind The Fly Girls, III.

2007-02-11T13:58:00.000-08:00

And we're back (c) gmail chat.

Let's jump right in:

11. Fly Girls: The Assassin -- Part of the process for coming up with poems for this project involved asking folks what they dreamt about. Some folks took this literally, some less so. One young woman said she had weird dreams while sleeping, then said that her waking dreams were often about becoming an assassin and going to cool parties. There was no way I was passing that scenario up. Writing this piece gave me a very ninja feeling, and those of you who know me know how I feel about ninja feelings.

12. The Way a Drug Haze Is -- Okay. So there are times in life when you think you know exactly what's going on. You think you see things the way they are. And you do. Partially. And if you're a poet, or a writer of any kind, you get your thoughts about that moment in time out onto paper, and it helps you put your foot in front of the other. And that's a good thing. And your thoughts are therefore down on paper forever, and that's a good thing, because later on you can go back and look at them, and you can see that while you may have been right, and you may have understood what was going on at that point in your life, you might not quite have seen the whole thing. But you stand behind what you wrote, and you stand behind what you thought, and you write some new stuff to help make it all make sense, and hopefully, for the rest of your life, you're learning more and solving and resolving your initial issue. So yeah. This poem is the early part of working out something. There are other poems later that continue the process. And that's all you get.

13. Teaching, Part Two -- The second poem in the "Teaching" series has the same kinds of origins as the first. It's based on real life, and it's using the economy of poetry to distill my emotions into as few words as possible. It's all a coping mechanism. Sadly, I don't have much follow-up information on the kids involved in the incident described in the piece--I believe the boy ended up incarcerated for a while (maybe still), and I'm just hoping the girl graduated and is moving on to bigger things.

14. There is a City -- Sometimes you write serious poems about serious topics. Sometimes you write ridiculous poems about serious topics. And sometimes, when you're lucky, you get to write serious poems about ridiculous topics. The instructions I was given for this piece were simple: "write a poem about my foot." I had never seen the foot in question. I really kind of don't like feet in general. Still, somehow it became clear to me that there was only one image that worked for this piece--a village underneath a foot, not frightened by the possibility of being crushed, but thrilled by the benefits of location. I wish I could draw, because the image is pretty clear in my head, and I love that image just as much as the poem.

15. Fly Girls: Give Me -- I really love to watch good singers sing. Some folks get onstage and look like they belong there. This poem is about one of those people. We talked a little about why she sings, how she feels when she sings, stuff like that--and all that made its way into the piece--but I ended up more interested in what she looked like when she sang. The dialogue we had just reinforced exactly what I had already thought. She was at peace with the world when music was pouring out of her. I know the feeling with words, so I tried to do her justice.

And you know what? We're going to go ahead and do the next five poems while I'm here!

16. Mindful -- A lot of these poems were written online, as part of a very supportive community of writers. Two of these writers were being honored one month, so I went ahead and wrote pieces based on their screennames. And that's pretty much all the backstory for this one. I ended up in love with the idea of a back-and-forth visual on the page, and somehow, it stuck--the poem doesn't work for me if it's all straightforward and aligned. I think there's only a handful of poems in this book that work that way for me. Either way, this is really just a piece written for a writer I really dig. Buy her book here.

17. The Pineapple -- This is almost part of "Teaching" series, except it's not based on real events. It is, theoretically, based on real kids though--I'm not sure how they worked their way into my head when I was given the instructions to write about "throwing a pineapple off an overpass," but I'm kind of glad they did. It's also based on (full disclosure) some real, real, realy stupid stuff I did when I was a kid. I won't go deep into detail, but I'll say that water balloons and pieces of fried chicken were sometimes involved. Man, kids are dumb. At least I was dumb when I was a kid. Thank god I didn't have any pineapples on hand.

18. First Love -- It is what it is. I do want to say that a lot of times things are overstated to make words and ideas fit--not saying whether or not that's happening here, but it happens. And I'm not saying this is even necessarily based on real experiences. In short, no backstory. Sometimes you gotta mix things up.

19. Teaching, Part Three -- Coaching basketball gave me a different perspective on teaching than teaching did. I got to see young men in their element, being themselves, taking care of each other, looking out for each other, and most importantly, learning from each other. The first part of this poem is based on that. I was trying to get these kids to run faster, and I told them that the last person to finish his sprints would have to dance at center court while everyone watched. I forgot, however, that I was dealing with a bunch of b-boys on my team. One of them slowed down, let everyone pass, then moved to the center of the court and set off a cypher. Good times. Not long after that, the incident described in the second part of the poem went down. Not good times.

20. In The Face of Change -- This poem was born on a birthday card for a friend who was struggling through a bunch of change. Big change. She dealt with it as well as I could possibly imagine. So I wrote about her.

And that's all for now. More liner notes next weekend. Maybe.

The Stories Behind The Fly Girls, II.

2007-01-21T17:27:00.000-08:00

I've got a really bad headache. The Colts are getting spanked by the Patriots, setting up a rematch of the 1985 Super Bowl that I'm going to have pretty much no interest in watching. And so, I find myself here, taking a break from the novel (*dropping hints*) to pull together the next set of liner note-type things for whoever the heck is reading this. (Note: I started this post a week ago, and I'm finishing it up now. The Colts came back, I'm actually interested in the Super Bowl, and my headache is gone.)

6. Fly Girls: Serenity -- This is the first of the Fly Girls series, and here's a quick explanation of how this all came to pass. I spoke to women, often by e-mail or IM or other virtual means, and I had them tell some things about themselves. And then I wrote about them. Man, that's an unsatisfying explanation. But that's pretty much what the Fly Girls series was all about. I don't remember exactly who "Serenity" was written for, but I do remember that everything written in quotes is directly taken from what she said to me via e-mail. It's also another haiku-based piece, from that phase when I was using the 5-7-5 form to guide me and give me structure. It's also a poem that really allowed me to work out some of my own shit through the words of others--and you don't get a lot of chances to do that in a project like this.

7. For Fallen Fathers -- My father is alive and healthy and probably playing golf or selling a house right now (knock wood). Raina came to me with a simple request--write a letter to a father that had passed away somewhat unappreciated. There probably was a bit more to the request, but that's the gist. And it was pretty damn easy to imagine the feeling. The original plan for this poem was to lay it out on the top part of two pages with a drawing of mountains and a little person screaming out to the heavens from the top of one peak. I still imagine that image anytime I read it. Go ahead and draw it into your copy. I think it helps.

8. The Elimination of... -- This is one of my favorites, mainly because of how long it took to come up with a plan for it, and then how quickly it ended up getting written. Some wise guy suggested I write about the citric acid cycle. Fair enough. Of course, I know nothing about the citric acid cycle. But I have google (no wikipedia for this one), and I find a site that gave some kind of citric acid cycle equation, and it made no sense to me. And I probably started cursing at the computer, calling it all kinds of foul and undeserved names. You can find some of those names in the poem. The juxtaposition just seemed to work.

9. Meat Locker: A Sketch -- My background in writing isn't as a poet. I'm a playwright by trade. As result, most of the poems I write are mostly focused on telling some kind of story with a clear beginning, middle, and end. It just works out that way. The poems that are labeled A Sketch in this volume are exceptions to that rule. They're pieces that try to capture just a moment, just an image. They look at backstories and they look at the meanings of the image, but they don't try to draw things out and complete them. This particular poem was, I believe, suggested by Angie, who suggested a bunch of pieces in this volume. It's based on the real Fairway on 125th Street, and the real meat locker, and real live Brooklyn art students who do this kind of thing, I imagine.

10. We Could Go You Know -- I remember writing this for Trace, but I don't remember exactly what the presented topic was. And it's basic--it is what it is, as I often say about pretty much everything in life. There's always that moment in a relationship when you feel like you and whoever you're with can just take off, leave the world behind, and do better as a unit than you'd ever do apart. And it's scary. And maybe I'm cynical, but I doubt that stuff ever really works. I'd like to believe it does sometimes, but it's hard to see it. This piece, I think, stays a little optimistic about the whole process at least.

Man, this is harder than I thought. Next time, I'll talk about these:
Fly Girls: The Assassin
The Way a Drug Haze Is
Teaching, Part Two
There is a City
Fly Girls: Give Me

And man, there's a lot to say about those.

The Stories Behind The Fly Girls, I.

2007-01-20T13:35:00.000-08:00

I'm going to start updating this space with backstories on some of the poems published in Fly Girls and Other Poems. What does that mean to you? It means you better hurry up and order your copy so you know what the heck I'm talking about. I won't be commenting in-depth on all the poems, because (a) some of them have really boring backstories, and (b) some of them have really interesting backstories that aren't meant for public consumption. Still, there's some good stuff here.

My model for these notes will be the legendary liner notes written by ?uestlove of The Legendary Roots Crew.

1. Incantation -- The theory behind this poem was that I'd tape it over my bed, and it would be the first thing I read when I woke up in the morning. I ended up not doing that, but I still like to read this one early some mornings to give me a sense of what I sound like when I'm really motivated.

2. The First Time I Met -- I don't remember who gave me this topic, but I remember the topic clearly: "Weird"Al Yankovic playing the accordion while riding a unicycle. There's actually a great drawing by duD that goes along with this poem -- two, if I'm not mistaken. This is probably my favorite funny poem that I've written maybe ever.

3. Across The Room: A Sketch -- This was suggested to me by someone. The suggestion was something. I honestly can't even remember. I do remember that I wrote it in about fifteen seconds maybe twenty seconds after getting the topic. It flowed. I haven't edited most of the poems in this volume, but this one really wasn't edited. It was born into the world fully formed.

4. Teaching, Part One -- The "Teaching" series doesn't come out of any suggestions from anybody. All these poems (there are currently four of them) are based on true events in my teaching career. The first piece is based on a topic I've written about at least twice now--once here, and once in my ten-minute play Julio that was performed last year at Prospect Theatre. This version of the events of my first day teaching is a lot closer to what actually happened, and to me, that says a lot about what's great about poetry: being forced to be economically with your word choices brings you a lot closer to the truth.

5. Travel Hailu -- My buddy Cindy is responsible for several poems I've written, some published here and some not published anyplace. When I write for Cindy, I generally work in haiku. I'm not really sure how that came to pass. Cindy goes by the nickname Cindylu (or, in my case, CindyLuuuuuu); hence the term "hailu." The pieces that make up "Travel Hailu" are all based on personal travel experiences of mine, and they led, I believe, to Cindy's hailu challenge when she took a trip to Mexico. She wrote one haiku everyday of her trip--the results are pretty spectacular. Haiku's a great form, especially for travel, because, like I mentioned above, you're forced to be economical and crisp with your word choices.

Much like my use of the enter key, I think haiku can make anyone look and feel like a poet.

Hell, it can make anyone be a poet.

Next time, I'll explain the Fly Girls series, and I'll spell out backstories for these pieces:

Fly Girls: Serenity
For Fallen Fathers
The Elimination of...
Meat Locker: A Sketch
We Could Go You Know

Skill Positions

2007-01-12T16:05:00.000-08:00

Quarterback.
Running Back.
Wide Receiver.

These are the skill positions.
These are the positions on a football team's offense that are most responsible for scoring points.
Most responsible for flash.
Most responsible for the big plays we see on Sportscenter.
These are the guys who celebrate in the endzone, shaking pom-poms, pulling out Sharpies, Riverdancing.

Now, here's the implication of "skill positions."
If these guys are skilled, the other guys are unskilled.
Unimportant.
The unskilled laborers of the offensive line, of the entire defense--they can't possibly be as important as the skill positions.

But yo:
You can't win without dominant unskilled laborers.
You can't succeed with the no-names making it happen.
And of course, these "unskill positions" require just as much brainpower, and technique, and yeah, skill as any other spot on the field.

And that's what we're going to be exploring.

The Unnamed Football Project might just have a name.

10,765th With A Bullet.

2007-01-12T11:55:00.000-08:00

Fly Girls and Other Poems is moving on up the best seller list.
But steam is slowly dissipating.
So keep working.
Keep spreading the word.
Keep buying books.
And once you've gotten one, please comment on it over at lulu, here on this page, in my e-mail, on the bathroom wall, wherever.

I'll owe you one.

I will be updating this page with non-book news this weekend.
It'll be news about The Unnamed Football Project, which might just have a name now.

19 Fly Girls Sold. 1,273 Places to Go.

2007-01-11T10:31:00.000-08:00

So far Fly Girls and Other Poems has sold 19 copies.
That's good enough for 11,273th place on the lulu.com Best Seller List.
10,000th place would be a fine, fine achievement.
So that's our goal.
Somehow, this book is going to need to jump 1,273 places when all is said and done.

You can do your part by, well, buying the damn book.

Folks who have purchased the PDF version of the book already have their copies, and are happily reading away.
And look, they're telling me what they think:

"been reading for about five minutes. already laughed out loud once and nearly cried once. instant truth. you're a fucking don." -- Riz MC, co-star of The Road to Guantanamo and creator of the Post 9/11 Blues

Post 9/11 Blues is genius, and I've been saying that long before Riz voiced his support of the book. Go listen to his music, go buy my book, and we'll talk more later.

I Wrote A Book.

2007-01-06T14:14:00.000-08:00

It's a book of poetry.
I would like you to buy it.
I think you will enjoy it.

I won't explain the background of it here.
Go to www.kristofferdiaz.com to read more details.
Go to http://www.lulu.com/content/608106 for even more details.
Click on the back cover to get the most details.

And then buy the damn thing.
$12.99 in paperback.
$6.88 for a downloadable PDF.

It's good times.

Buy Two Copies.

2007-01-03T11:45:00.000-08:00

It's coming.
Oh, it's coming.
Right now, I'm just settling on a name.
And a cost.
This thing isn't going to make me rich.
That's not the plan.
But finding a price point isn't easy.
And you're not here to read about price points.
You're here to read about writing.

Come back this weekend, and I'll tell you about the project.
I'll tell you how to buy it.
Then I'll tell you how I wrote it.
And I'll tell you how you can help me write the next one.

Buy A Copy.

2007-01-02T12:24:00.000-08:00

Moderately major announcement later this week.
A dead project is about to be reborn.
And it's something you can get your hands on. Literally.

Let's hope that the process this time is easier than it was last time I tried and failed to make this happen.

New Year's Resolutions.

2006-12-29T13:38:00.000-08:00

I'm not a big New Year's resolutions guy, but somehow they seem in the spirit of this here blog. So here are a few. You'll be able to track my progress on them right here throughout the year.

1. I will finish Tyree by January 12, 2007, the one year anniversary of completing Guernica.
1a. Immediately after finishing Tyree, I will start planning the third play of the trilogy. I think it's going to be called Slate at this point, although if you've seen or read Guernica, you might understand why that could be a little tricky.

2. I will complete a first draft of The Unnamed Football Project.
2a. I will come up with a name for The Unnamed Football Project.
2b. I will do a reading of The Unnamed Football Project somewhere, maybe in Cleveland.

3. I will do a reading of The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity at some point in the early part of the year, possibly in February in New York City.
3a. Speaking of February, I will be in New York City to participate in the No Passport conference. This one isn't so much a resolution as a statement of fact, but still.

4. I will (finally) finish retyping my first screenplay, written way back in my senior year of college and then lost in one of my many computer transfers. The screenplay is called Forever Talisman, and it basically got me into graduate school. I'm working from a hard copy, retyping and editing as I go. I'm hoping to be able to shop it around this year.
4a. I will finish at least one of these two screenplays: The Ali Boys and/or The Adventures of Jane and Mary. The former is a longtime pet project (and another exploration of pro wrestling), the latter is a top secret special collaboration with my buddy duD.

5. I will do one final (hopefully) revision of Welcome to Arroyo's.
5a. I will make one major announcement about the future of Welcome to Arroyo's.
5b. Well, maybe two.
5c. Well, let's not put a limit on it just yet.
5d. There will be at least one opportunity to see a version of Welcome to Arroyo's, especially if you live in New York.
5e. I may--may--finish that darn novelization of that darn play.

6. I will dilligently be pushing, selling, schmoozing, pimping, promoting, glorifying and begging to get these darn plays produced and published.

Let's see what happens.

Let's Talk About Tyree.

2006-12-16T16:16:00.000-08:00

So the play I'm most in the middle of right now is called Tyree. I've mentioned it here before.

It's a challenge to myself. It's probably not a play that is going to make me much, if any, money. It's probably not a play that is going to do much in terms of building up my reputation. I say that not because Tyree isn't going well; to the contrary, I'm loving the process of writing this play. I think it's a huge departure for me, and it's changing the way I write. This play is wildly important in terms of my development as a writer, and I think it'll surprise folks whenever they finally get to check it out, in whatever form they get to check it out.

It's just...different. Very different.

I don't get it. And that's the point.

I sat down to write a sequel to my play Guernica, which hasn't yet been produced, although it was a semi-finalist for this year's O'Neill conference. I knew the play ended with more story to be told, so I decided to dive back in and see where the untied storylines would lead me. And they are leading me...someplace. I'm not quite sure where. But I'm following.

One of the big challenges of doing a follow-up to Guernica is that I'm not staying with the character of Guernica herself. Most of her loose ends are pretty much tied up in the first play. She has a mission, she accomplishes it, she's pretty set. Tyree is the character left up in the air at the curtain of the first play. Tyree though is a pretty passive character in Guernica--the trick here in Tyree is how to make her the driving force of the play, how to make her make things happen. And I'm solving that problem by...well, I'm not sure I'm solving that problem.

And that's what's so strange about this play for me. It's not flashy and full of music like Welcome to Arroyo's. It's not overtly political and loud-mouthed like The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity. It's not about a subject I'd consider myself an expert on like either of those two aforementioned plays. It's not even a tense, taut, uncomfortable power triangle like Guernica. It's a beast of its own. It's in the Pinter vein (I can't believe I would even write that sentence). It's way open to interpretation. It contains stage directions that don't even really make sense to me. This play is, quite simply, full of whatever comes out of me when I sit down to write it, whether I can explain it or not.

And ultimately, that's pretty exciting.

Tyree will be finished and ready for public consumption by January 12th, 2007--one year after I finished Guernica.

Joe Eszterhaus is My New Hero.

2006-12-10T18:22:00.000-08:00

I picked up The Devil's Guide To Hollywood, and you know what? It's kind of changing my life.

Backstory: Joe Eszterhaus is a screenwriter, a very famous, very notorious, very wealthy screenwriter. He has written, among other scripts, Flashdance, Basic Instinct, and, of course, Showgirls. And yes, this is the man I am referring to as my new hero. He's from Cleveland. He's Hungarian. He's pretty over the top and has been referred to as wildly sexist, a hack, and one of the worst screenwriters to ever write a script. Of course, his films have grossed, I believe, billions of dollars.

But the money isn't what I'm connecting to here. And honestly, it's not the book either--a collection of quotations and advice from Eszterhaus himself, as well as quotes from all kind of Hollywood icons that he has, presumably, encountered in his travels. There are a lot--a lot--of quotes from Zsa Zsa Gabor in this book. I think that gives you a sense of what we're working with here. He also rips some folks apart, talking about having slept with Martin Scorsese's wife (I think it's Scorsese), and criticizing the words of writers like William Goldman, whose Adventures in the Screen Trade is one of my favorite books of all-time (and whose The Princess Bride is my favorite book of all-time).

But none of that is what's so exciting to me.

The subtitle of the Eszterhaus book is The Screenwriter as God, and fundamentally, the entire book is geared towards reminding us writers that we are the backbone of this whole damn enterprise. Nothing happens without a script. And yet, everyone, at every step of the creative film process, undermines and undercuts the writer, offering notes, making changes, presuming to know how to identify and fix "problems" in the script, even if they have never written a script themselves. This doesn't happen quite so much in theater, but it happens. I've experienced it. I've let myself be affected by it. I've had decent experiences with it and created some good works because of it.

But yo.

Yo.

A lot of bending over backwards get done in that process. A lot of self-doubt arises out of that process. Projects die in the water because of listening to other folks and not defending your work, not fighting for your work, not fighting for the honor of your words. You end up listening and being polite and waiting for folks to make something happen, but yo--why?

I'm not sure why I'm saying yo so much.

But folks, here's what I'm saying here.
The work is good.
I know the work is good.
People know the work is good.
And I'm letting them--I have let them--settle for the work being good, as if that's enough in and of itself.
It is not.
The plays need to be produced.
These plays need to be produced.
They need to be produced properly.

And I'm the only person who can ensure that those productions come to fruition.

The Japanese Ocho Cinco.

2006-12-07T17:45:00.000-08:00

In case you don't know, this is Ocho Cinco.
He's a big part of The Unnamed Football Project.
I'm fascinated right now with the National Football League as the mythology of the United States.

Now, let me make this clear--I'm not exactly a football fan.
I mean, I watch it, and I enjoy it, and I know some things about it.
I'm doing a damn good job in my fantasy football league, mainly because I picked Ladainian Tomlinson to get things started.
But as far as sports go, I will always be baseball first.

There's something really specific about the NFL though.
Maybe it's the fact that there's a whole day of the week set aside special for its games.
Maybe it's the Super Bowl.
Whatever.
Professional football plays are icons in a way that very few athletes are these days.
They're larger than life.
They're archetypes.
We see one side of these guys, and they get labeled, and they become almost parodies of themselves through no fault of their own.

Sometimes, a guy like Ocho Cinco has a little fun with that.
And that's spectacular.

And that's what I'm interested in.

Names, Names, Names.

2006-12-05T13:04:00.000-08:00

Names aren't easy.
They're essential, but not easy.

I can't get started on a play until I know the names of the characters I'm working with.
Not just the main characters. All the characters.
I don't like the idea of having to change a character's name once I'm in the process of writing the play.

In Welcome to Arroyo's, all the names came early, with the exception of Officer Derek. He was once Officer Lau, back when he was a Hawaiian dude. Later he became--well, I don't remember what he became, but he became something else before he became Officer Derek. I would never have changed his name if he wasn't changing races, and if his name wasn't becoming an essential part of the story.

In every play, the names show up early, and they stick around as long as possible. I've got an unfinished play called Kill Aurora, and I'm kind of convinced that half the reason I can't move forward on the play is that I misnamed somebody in that cast. Not Aurora though.

I'm so in love with with the name Aurora that I named my car Aurora, much as my mom's old Accord came to be known as Molly after I wrote Welcome to Arroyo's. I fall in love with the names of my characters. They work their ways into my skin somehow. Even my special hidden personal e-mail address is derived from a character I created way back in 1998 for an online wrestling game. He'll show up in a screenplay someday soon (it's actually a quarter-finished already), mainly because I can't work that name out of my system.

Guernica got written entirely because of that name. I knew nothing about the play when I started, other than I had this main character named Guernica, and she had this huge, heavy, weighted name, and she had to live up to it. I think she does. Tyree became her sidekick in that play--derived from Tiresias, the prophet who couldn't see. I never mention that in Guernica, but it's the defining quality I always come back to when working with Tyree. She simply can't see.

That's coming to the forefront in Tyree, the sequel to Guernica and the second in what will inevitably be at least a trilogy. I can't see what I'm doing in this play--I'm following Tyree as she leaves Guernica and Slate behind and stumbles in what may or may not be a preordained future. It's fun to be flying blind like this. And maybe it's just a dumb linguistic coincidence, but I really think that the name is what led me to be working like this.

Now here's the whole inspiration for this post, the lead buried seven paragraphs deep: I'm having trouble with character names in Tyree. So far, we've got Woman 1, Woman 2, Woman 3, and Man 1. As evidenced by the names, I know next to nothing about these folks. They're serving their purposes so far though, so I'm kind of happy with them. These names fit the play--it's open to interpretation, it's about perspective, it's not really giving the audience (or me as of yet) a whole lot of answers.

The bigger issue, for me at least, is that I've got a character with a placeholder name for maybe the first time ever. I'm maybe halfway through the play, and the name I've given to Tyree's mother (oooh...there's your gift for reading this far--a hint about the play's actual content!) isn't something that I'm convinced will stick around much past this first draft. I'm calling her Umi right now--fans of Mos Def (or as my dad referred to him right after he met him "Def Mos") will get the reference.

Now don't get me wrong--Umi is a great name. Mos Def's Umi is a charming woman. And the word Umi is kind of gorgeous and powerful. And a Muslim term of maternal endearment, it carries some interesting weight, especially in a play (or a series of plays) that is steeped in some kind of Christan religious background. So it's got a lot going for it.

But it doesn't feel like it fits. As the play's written right now, Tyree never calls Umi anything other than "Ma." I'm not sure Tyree, or any other character, for that matter, is ever going to have a reason to call Umi by name. If not, maybe she'll stay Umi as she is. Otherwise, we'll see how my hand is forced.

Next Post (possibly): Dutton Carver, Milton Fosbury, and The Japanese Ocho Cinco.

The Three Projects We Will Be Following.

2006-12-02T17:04:00.000-08:00

1. The Unnamed Football Project -- This is the focus of the blog, at least at this stage, hence the name. This is a brand new play I'm writing, and I've got very little information about what it is going to be when it grows up. I know that it's about professional football. I know that I'm thinking a lot about Mike Vick, Brett Farve, and Chad Johnson and their respective places in the American psyche. I don't know much else.

2. Tyree -- This is a sequel to Guernica, the play that I finished in January of this year. Guernica was a play I wrote without stopping. I didn't allow myself to think much about meaning and morals and structure and process--I just went ahead and pushed myself to finish and see what came out. Tyree is even more along those lines. I have no idea what Tyree is really about. That's not true--I know what I think it's about, but I'm trying to make sure that's not readily apparent in the piece. I'm about 40 pages into Tyree after only about three weeks of working on it. That's kind of a record for me. I aim to finish it in January of '07.

3. Forever Talisman -- This is only half a project. I wrote this screenplay in my senior year of college. I used it to get into graduate school. Then I lost the computer file of it--so I've had nothing to send out on the screenplay front. I'm working on retyping the play off of a hard copy I recently found. Once that's done, I'll be sending it out everywhere I can. Also included in this third category is all the business stuff I'm working on--trying to get all these projects (plus Welcome to Arroyo's and The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity) out into the world and make some money off them.

I'll be updating as much as I can.