{"id":702,"date":"2024-02-17T12:58:45","date_gmt":"2024-02-17T18:58:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rainmountainpress.com\/wordpress\/?post_type=product&#038;p=702"},"modified":"2025-09-05T12:47:43","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T17:47:43","slug":"diary-of-tadpole-the-dirtbag","status":"publish","type":"product","link":"https:\/\/rainmountainpress.com\/wordpress\/product\/diary-of-tadpole-the-dirtbag","title":{"rendered":"Diary of Tadpole the Dirtbag"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3>by Rob Cook<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<style>\r\n\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t#tab_container_701 {\r\n\toverflow:hidden;\r\n\tdisplay:block;\r\n\twidth:100%;\r\n\tborder:0px solid #ddd;\r\n\tmargin-bottom:30px;\r\n\t}\r\n\r\n#tab_container_701 .tab-content{\r\n\tpadding:20px;\r\n\tborder: 1px solid #e6e2cc !important;\r\n\tmargin-top: 0px;\r\n\tbackground-color:#fffbe5 !important;\r\n\tcolor: #000000 !important;\r\n\tfont-size:16px !important;\r\n\tfont-family: Open Sans !important;\r\n\t\r\n\t\tborder: 1px solid #e6e2cc !important;\r\n\t}\r\n#tab_container_701 .wpsm_nav-tabs {\r\n    border-bottom: 0px solid #ddd;\r\n}\r\n#tab_container_701 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li.active > a, #tab_container_701 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li.active > a:hover, #tab_container_701 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li.active > a:focus {\r\n\tcolor: #000000 !important;\r\n\tcursor: default;\r\n\tbackground-color: #fffbe5 !important;\r\n\tborder: 1px solid #e6e2cc !important;\r\n}\r\n\r\n#tab_container_701 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li > a {\r\n    margin-right: 0px !important; 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\r\n}\r\n\r\n\r\n#tab_container_701 .tab-content{\r\noverflow:hidden !important;\r\n}\r\n\r\n\r\n@media (min-width: 769px) {\r\n\r\n\t#tab_container_701 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li{\r\n\t\tfloat:left !important ;\r\n\t\t\t\tmargin-right:-1px !important;\r\n\t\t\t\t\t}\r\n\t#tab_container_701 .wpsm_nav-tabs{\r\n\t\tfloat:none !important;\r\n\t\tmargin:0px !important;\r\n\t}\r\n\r\n\t#tab_container_701 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li {\r\n\t\t\t\t\r\n\t}\r\n\t#tab_container_701 .wpsm_nav{\r\n\t\t\t}\r\n\r\n}\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n@media (max-width: 768px) {\r\n\t#tab_container_701 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li {\r\n\t\t\t\t\r\n\t}\r\n\t#tab_container_701 .wpsm_nav{\r\n\t\t\t}\r\n}\r\n\r\n\r\n\t.wpsm_nav-tabs li:before{\r\n\t\tdisplay:none !important;\r\n\t}\r\n\r\n\t@media (max-width: 768px) {\r\n\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t.wpsm_nav-tabs{\r\n\t\t\tmargin-left:0px !important;\r\n\t\t\tmargin-right:0px !important; \r\n\t\t\t\r\n\t\t}\r\n\t\t\t\t#tab_container_701 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li{\r\n\t\t\tfloat:none !important;\r\n\t\t}\r\n\t\t\t\r\n\t}\t\t\t\t<\/style>\r\n\t\t\t\t<div id=\"tab_container_701\" >\r\n\t \r\n\t\t\t\t\t<ul class=\"wpsm_nav wpsm_nav-tabs\" role=\"tablist\" id=\"myTab_701\">\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<li role=\"presentation\"  class=\"active\"  onclick=\"do_resize()\">\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"#tabs_desc_701_1\" aria-controls=\"tabs_desc_701_1\" role=\"tab\" data-toggle=\"tab\">\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<span>Overview<\/span>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/li>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<li role=\"presentation\"  onclick=\"do_resize()\">\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"#tabs_desc_701_2\" aria-controls=\"tabs_desc_701_2\" role=\"tab\" data-toggle=\"tab\">\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<span>Excerpts<\/span>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/li>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/ul>\r\n\r\n\t\t\t\t\t  <!-- Tab panes -->\r\n\t\t\t\t\t  <div class=\"tab-content\" id=\"tab-content_701\">\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <div role=\"tabpanel\" class=\"tab-pane  in active \" id=\"tabs_desc_701_1\">\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p style=\"text-align: left\"><strong><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-643\" src=\"https:\/\/rainmountainpress.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/rob-cook-headshot.jpg\" alt=\"Rob Cook\" width=\"200\" height=\"250\" \/>Rob Cook<\/strong> lives in NYC's East Village. He is the author of\u00a0<em>Blackout Country<\/em>\u00a0(<a href=\"http:\/\/www.blazevox.org\/\">BlazeVOX Books<\/a>, 2009) and his work has appeared in\u00a0<em>Colorado Review, Denver Quarterly, Many Mountains Moving, Tarpaulin Sky, Fence, Oranges &amp; Sardines, The Bitter Oleander, Mudfish, Parthenon West Review<\/em>, etc. He has been nominated for enough Pushcarts to know he will never win one.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/div>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <div role=\"tabpanel\" class=\"tab-pane \" id=\"tabs_desc_701_2\">\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<P><STRONG>Far From Troy<\/STRONG><BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nLast night I found the face<BR>\r\nof a lost childhood friend and tormentor<BR>\r\nshining from a puddle on Rivington Street.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nI stepped on his forehead<BR>\r\nand the moon shorted out.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nI put the puddle in my knapsack.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nI wanted to take him home<BR>\r\nto my woman and two cats<BR>\r\nand show him I was no longer afraid.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nThat I could close my eyes once<BR>\r\nand nobody would find him again.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nWhere I live those without homes call the night Ed Glory.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nHe\u2019s failed at moving beyond what everyone\u2019s told him:<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nthat his question marks would never go away,<BR>\r\nthat he was so skinny he left bruises<BR>\r\non his one blanket, that he could disguise<BR>\r\nhis voice like the blurred drawings of Steve Ditko.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nBut tonight we walk to the ends of the shipwrecked housing projects.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nMy apartment is both minutes and years<BR>\r\nfrom the Lower East Side.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nThe dark stays in our eyes.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nThe 2am predators wait on the next block.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nYoung, white and homeless,<BR>\r\nthe remains of a Trojan settlement<BR>\r\nthat crawled out of a manhole behind us.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nI can already hear what they\u2019ve done<BR>\r\nto their shadows.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nI let the puddle out of my knapsack.<BR>\r\nI don\u2019t know if it will tell anyone its name<BR>\r\non its passage through the arson districts,<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nbut I know it will never reach the river alive.<\/P>\r\n\r\n<hr \/>\r\n\r\n<P><strong>Diary of a Dirtbag<\/STRONG><BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nOn my way to American Folklore 236<BR>\r\na co-ed passing by looked directly and<BR>\r\ndeterminedly into my face and voiced<BR>\r\nher unfavorable opinion of me.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nShe was middle-tier at best: short, crooked<BR>\r\nblonde hair, brown eyes like<BR>\r\npennies in a mud puddle, sweatshirt<BR>\r\ncovering breasts the size of Rolaids.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nBut I am ugly: possibly the only<BR>\r\nlong-haired man on campus, and<BR>\r\nhave weeds growing under my eyes.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nI wondered where this girl picked up<BR>\r\nsuch enormous ego. Looking over her<BR>\r\ndelicate shoulder she called out dirtbag,<BR>\r\nthen a well-articulated <em>Ugh!<\/EM><BR>\r\nto make sure I heard.<BR>\r\n<EM>This is what happens when you leave the house<BR>\r\nwithout proper grooming,<\/EM> I noted silently<BR>\r\nand continued down the walkway with my<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\noversized verdant overcoat, loose<BR>\r\nshoelaces, pulled out my comb<BR>\r\nlike a switchblade, and began raking<BR>\r\nmy hair with the plastic teeth.<\/P>\r\n\r\n<hr>\r\n\r\n<P style=\"text-align: justify\"><STRONG>Letter to Myself at Twenty, 1989<\/strong><BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nDear Tadpole,<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nFifteen years from now you\u2019ll be able to find Doctor Dardik on a computer site called Quackwatch.com. But today he\u2019s promised to heal your chronic depression by having you bounce on a trampoline. You\u2019ll wear a plastic heart monitor strapped around your torso, and a watch that looks like a shrunken television. And simply, you will make waves of heart rhythms. Bounce in place until you reach 125 beats per minute then stop, breathe your way back to 80 beats, and repeat so your heart keeps changing its echoes and the florets in the hollow places of your blood keep opening, letting out their moonlight. For $100,000, this ex-vascular surgeon who invented the Dardik Biograft will mend your body, your house of fractals replicating everything you were in high school, the awkward friendless space that followed you through Biology and Trigonometry and Metal Shop, the girls with faces and the girls without faces who called you a living abortion, your guitar that failed when it tried to protect you, all still happening in the electrons that wake you in the morning demanding eggs and toast and something to wash away the sleep on your lips. Doctor Dardik boasts: <EM>I healed myself of rheumatoid arthritis and now I\u2019m curing people of multiple sclerosis. The universe is built on superwaves and waves shifting inside them, there are no particles, even an atom is made only of movement and rhythm.<\/EM> Listen to this man who is the best thing for right now. Write down your thoughts every night and leave them in the woods for the possums. If you follow the words far enough, you will find rich emptiness, and a woman who almost likes you.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nKeep driving across the morning\u2019s gentle slaughter to the Dardik farm in Great Meadows, New Jersey. You will exercise with Tim Brockway\u2014he is your friend, but has a hard time seeing you through the migraine that\u2019s been lodged in his head since marriage. He didn\u2019t know you in high school, he is also crumpled into stagnant cardiovascular waves, so don\u2019t be afraid. You will spend the summer here with Tim and a tanned anorexic named Randi Derringer, who will be attracted to you if you cut your poodlehead perm and stop walking around with your hand in front of your face asking if you need plastic surgery. You will ruin the doctor\u2019s guest cottage: darts in the walls, a month of dirty dishes, furry slime plantations spreading over the sink, important because every place you live you\u2019ll leave behind books that cannot be cleaned. But now you will eat from the doctor\u2019s freezer stocked with only hamburgers and ice cream sandwiches, enough to last until you run out of money and a family of wild turkeys leads you back to the field promising a way to live through the slowness in their wings. The parts of your depression you like best, the patches of dead light you cut from a leaf stay behind in the fields, making you darker, more like dusk, something the fawns search for once their mothers are gone. <EM>Nobody with tenure will listen to me because my theory is so simple,<\/EM> Doctor Dardik tells you before getting in his white Ford pick-up to drive to yet another university physics department and explain how the universe is made of waves that copy each other in every biological system, how every heartbeat can be felt in outer space, how God is the millions of waves that make it possible for you to believe in this man.<\/P>\r\n\r\n<HR>\r\n\r\n<P style=\"text-align: justify\"><STRONG>Letter to Myself at Twenty-One, 1990<\/strong><BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nDear Tadpole,<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nToday you will ride to Promised Land State Park with Ed Glory. A Monday when no one else exists away from their coffin-desks. Both of you unemployed, turned down by Manpower because they didn\u2019t like your typing and couldn\u2019t decide which of you was more afraid. Turning the key in your station wagon, the engine will cough and make the sound of horses and then die. This is the only way to get Ed to drive. He will give his Oldsmobile a bath before leaving, the car strong from him calling it his brother, the maroon Oldsmobile he raised from the time it was an egg that he carried in his pocket. This afternoon the sky will be blue as the best day of your life, clouds drifting in tribes that you and Ed will follow into Pennsylvania, moving past the September moodiness of Stroudsburg and Tobyhanna, Mount Pocono and Canadensis. Driving on a road of loose gravel, Ed will feel the pain of the tiny stones licking the paint off his car, and he will curse you for this, and pull over and make you look at the damage he\u2019s suffered, though not one spot of color is missing.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nWhen you arrive at the park, you will be the only ones there but Ed will lock the car anyway. <EM>You never know with all the deer in these parts,<\/EM> he\u2019ll say, putting the keys in his jacket and then shutting it in the trunk. You won\u2019t know this for hours yet, after the two of you feel good about yourselves because you\u2019ve been hitting and catching a baseball. If another person were there to watch, you\u2019d forget how to use your hands and your eyes, the sky dark, vanishing behind a hawk or the brief aftermath of an airplane. Ed will drop your fifty-dollar glove in the grass on his way to the restroom and forget where he left it. Searching, you will find only crickets growing out of patches where the ground\u2019s been torn. Ed will decide, after ten minutes, that it\u2019s time to go home. And then he will remember where he put his keys and curse you again, pointing at the locked trunk.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nHe will refuse to call the police or a locksmith. <EM>My Oldsmobile does not need to be hurt any further, once they cut open the lock I\u2019ll never be able to drive again.<\/EM> And he will believe this because he doesn\u2019t have a mother or father who will go searching through Pennsylvania for their son. His mother, who doesn\u2019t set a place for him at the table, who lurks outside his bedroom muttering loser, worthless, and calls the police about the wrinkles in her neighbor\u2019s drapes, this mother who makes Ed afraid to turn off his television and listen to what she\u2019s left for him in the walls, she loves her Lincoln Towncar more than any of her children and will not risk its life by driving out of New Jersey. Ed will make a fist and force you to call your father who will come out to save you from the deer starting to gather, the animals lured by the holes in Ed\u2019s voice, the two of you standing there helpless with a baseball bat, <EM>Flight of the Griffin<\/EM> dying on the boom box, Ed hiding behind his glasses whispering <EM>Don\u2019t worry, I\u2019ll protect you, I\u2019ll protect you.<\/EM> Ten years from now, waiting for your generation to happen again because you couldn\u2019t find it the first time, this is what will show up in your mailbox, something you wrote the morning Ed agreed to drive, when you were already missing, when you were already a permanent part of that day, and that day only.<\/P>\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/div>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t <\/div>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t \r\n\t\t\t\t <\/div>\r\n <script>\r\n\t\tjQuery(function () {\r\n\t\t\tjQuery('#myTab_701 a:first').tab('show')\r\n\t\t});\r\n\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\tjQuery(function(){\r\n\t\t\tvar b=\"fadeIn\";\r\n\t\t\tvar c;\r\n\t\t\tvar a;\r\n\t\t\td(jQuery(\"#myTab_701 a\"),jQuery(\"#tab-content_701\"));function d(e,f,g){\r\n\t\t\t\te.click(function(i){\r\n\t\t\t\t\ti.preventDefault();\r\n\t\t\t\t\tjQuery(this).tab(\"show\");\r\n\t\t\t\t\tvar h=jQuery(this).data(\"easein\");\r\n\t\t\t\t\tif(c){c.removeClass(a);}\r\n\t\t\t\t\tif(h){f.find(\"div.active\").addClass(\"animated \"+h);a=h;}\r\n\t\t\t\t\telse{if(g){f.find(\"div.active\").addClass(\"animated \"+g);a=g;}else{f.find(\"div.active\").addClass(\"animated \"+b);a=b;}}c=f.find(\"div.active\");\r\n\t\t\t\t});\r\n\t\t\t}\r\n\t\t});\r\n\t\t\r\n\r\n\t\tfunction do_resize(){\r\n\r\n\t\t\tvar width=jQuery( '.tab-content .tab-pane iframe' ).width();\r\n\t\t\tvar height=jQuery( '.tab-content .tab-pane iframe' ).height();\r\n\r\n\t\t\tvar toggleSize = true;\r\n\t\t\tjQuery('iframe').animate({\r\n\t\t\t    width: toggleSize ? width : 640,\r\n\t\t\t    height: toggleSize ? height : 360\r\n\t\t\t  }, 250);\r\n\r\n\t\t\t  toggleSize = !toggleSize;\r\n\t\t}\r\n\r\n\r\n\t<\/script>\r\n\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by\u00a0Rob Cook<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":703,"template":"","meta":[],"product_brand":[],"product_cat":[28],"product_tag":[44],"class_list":{"0":"post-702","1":"product","2":"type-product","3":"status-publish","4":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"product_cat-poetry","7":"product_tag-rob-cook","9":"first","10":"instock","11":"shipping-taxable","12":"purchasable","13":"product-type-simple"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rainmountainpress.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product\/702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rainmountainpress.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rainmountainpress.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/product"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rainmountainpress.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rainmountainpress.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"product_brand","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rainmountainpress.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_brand?post=702"},{"taxonomy":"product_cat","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rainmountainpress.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_cat?post=702"},{"taxonomy":"product_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rainmountainpress.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_tag?post=702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}