Apostrophe Cast News

Dear Mark Leidner,

I would like to ask you some questions. These are not particularly friendly. I am standing beside your driver’s side window with a citation pad in in my hand and a pen at the ready. My badge glints. Everything you say can and will be held against you.

1) You have been overheard saying that you would like “[to live as] stupid [as possible and still exist].” What does that mean?
Mark Leidner: I like stupidity because it’s what beauty reduces me to, which is all I love, because I am incredibly vain. I’m also lazy, so let’s cut out the middleman is what I say, and always be as stupid as poss … for wouldn’t such a state be indistinguishable from beholding beauty 24/7? I think the answer is yes!

2) Your website is entitled WEBLOG OF THE OFFICIAL POET LAUREATE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA. Why?

ML: I like irony because it makes life interesting and funny. And since I’m not the official poet laureate of the state of California, it’s ironic that I would put that on my website.

3) How many times a week do you access reputable news sources? If any, which ones and why?

ML: I don’t read the news because the news is always the same shit. This just in, we’re all gonna die, the rich are getting richer, war is … omnipresent, along with crime, drug abuse, scandal, celebrity gossip, etc. What a waste of time! I’d rather read a novel or be doing crunches. One time I heard a quote that was like “Going to the news in order to find out what’s going on in the world is like watching the second hand in order to find out what time it is.” I don’t know who said that, but I buy it.

4) How are your finances?

ML: Dude! I’m broke, but I have enough money to live out the current year …

5) What was the last argument you got into? Who were you arguing with? About what? Who won?
ML: I don’t really argue with people … mostly because I suck at arguing. When people start to argue I try to make a few jokes to diffuse the situation … but then if they still want to argue, I just sort of shut down and let them vent. My ex used to get really mad at me and one time she was like, “All you ever do is joke around … or shut down and let me vent … but you never argue!!!” and she was exactly right, and that same day I left her. To me fighting is about as worthless as news.

6) Have you heard that NPR “This I Believe” series? Isn’t it unbearable?

ML: I have heard of the “This I Believe” series … but I refuse to listen to it because I don’t care about common people’s experience. Does that sound elitist?
7) Have you ever been arrested? For what? How did your parents react?
ML: In 1998, 2001, 2002, and 2004, I was almost arrested for drunk driving.

8) Do you think that being a poet has helped you gain sexual partners?

ML: It has not helped, it has hurt. I haven’t had sex in over a year and a half … yet in that time I have written a lot of poetry.
9) If you were able to design a nation-state over which to rule, what would your title be and how would you pass power to a successor?
ML: King and good old-fashioned primogeniture.
10) What book of poetry should somone read if they are considering joining the army?
ML: Bad Bad by Chelsey Minnis or Angle of Yaw by Ben Lerner.

P

–gbb