WEBVTT

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I should be talking to
you while I'm flipping.

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Maybe it will seem
less fucked up.

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[LAUGHTER]

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I wanted to thank--

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first, I wanted to thank--

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I actually wanted to thank some
people who made this possible.

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So you have to excuse me
for this little opening.

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But I definitely wanted to thank
David Penn, where's David at?

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David.

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David busted his ass.

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He's over at the Poetry Center
and he really busted his ass

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to make this happen.

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He kept on top of me so I
didn't miss my plane flight

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or anything.

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I'm really happy.

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And I also wanted to thank
the Poetry Center as well

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for bringing me out and the--

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I don't-- I-- never sure how
it works, who sponsors what.

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But I also wanted to
thank Bob Houston over

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at the MFA program.

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He's been like
really hospitable.

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And I know that I
wouldn't have made

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as much time for a
visiting guest as you did.

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So it's really, really kind.

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And also some of the
students who came out today.

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They were just-- they were cool.

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They weren't like a
pain in the fucking ass.

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So it's always nice.

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And there were some people
who were extremely helpful

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and I know I'm not going
to shout you all out.

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And one of the pleasures
of coming out--

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I've never been in this area--

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but a very good friend of
mine that we came up together

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as both writers, and
students, and activists.

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Irvin Morris is in
the audience, and I

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hear he's a professor here now.

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So drive Irvin crazy
and take his classes.

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Yes.

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I remember you Irvin.

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So I'm just going
to read a piece

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and I'm going to
read half of a story.

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I decided to write this story.

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It just came out of--

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it came out of--

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I don't know if some
of you from depending

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on where you are if
you're like from an island

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or for some place where
there is too much tourism.

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People always want to tell
you their tourism stories.

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I'm from the Caribbean
and everybody thinks

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like, oh, you're Dominican.

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I've been to Santo Domingo, and
I'm like I don't give a fuck.

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So--

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[LAUGHTER]

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--it came up from
having to put up

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with listening to everybody's
tourism stories which

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are always like
post-colonial nightmares.

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And so I decided to
write this story.

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And I'm only going
to read half of it.

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So you'll know the ending
when a moon shows up,

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that's when the end is near.

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And that's about it.

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OK.

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It's called "The Sun,
The Moon, The Stars."

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"I'm not a bad guy.

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I know how that sounds,
defensive, unscrupulous,

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but it's true.

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I'm like everybody else,
weak, full of mistakes,

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but basically good.

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Magdalena disagrees though.

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She considers me a
typical Dominican man.

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A sucio, an asshole.

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Because you see many months
ago when Magda was still

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my girlfriend, when I didn't
have to be careful about almost

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anything, I cheated on
her with this chick who

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had tons of '80s
freestyle hair, and I

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didn't tell Magda about it
either, you know how that is.

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A smelly bone like that,
it's better buried off

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in the backyard of your life.

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Magda only found out because
home girl wrote her a fucking

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letter, and the letter had
details, shit you wouldn't even

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tell your boys drunk.

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The thing is that
particular bit of stupidity

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had been over for months.

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Me and Magda were on an upswing.

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We weren't as distant as we'd
been the winter I was cheating.

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The freeze was over.

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She was coming over to
my place and instead

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of us hanging around with my
knucklehead boys, me smoking,

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and her bored out of her
skull, we were seeing movies.

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Driving out different
places to eat.

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We even caught a play
at the crossroads,

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and I took her picture with
some big wig black playwrights.

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Pictures where she's smiling so
much you'd think her wide ass

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mouth was going to unhinge.

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We were a couple again.

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Visiting each other's
family on the weekends.

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Eating breakfast at diners
before anybody else was up.

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Rummaging through the New
Brunswick library together.

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The one that Carnegie
built with his guilt money.

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A nice rhythm we had going.

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But then the letter hits like a
Star Trek grenade and detonates

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everything past,
present, and future.

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And suddenly her
folks want to kill me.

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And it doesn't matter
that I helped them

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with their taxes
two years running

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or that I mow their lawn.

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Her father who used to
treat me like his hijo

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calls me an asshole on
the phone and sounds

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like he's strangling
himself with the cord.

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"You no deserve I speak
Spanish to you," he says.

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And I see one of
Magda's girlfriends

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at the Woodbridge
Mall, Claribel,

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the ecuatoriana with a biology
degree and the chinita eyes,

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and she treats me like I
ate somebody's favorite kid.

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And you don't even want to hear
how it went down with Magda,

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like a five train collision.

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She threw Cassandra's
letter at me

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and then she sat
down on the curb

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and started hyperventilating.

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"Oh my God," she wailed.

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"Oh my God."

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This is when my boys
claim they would have

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pulled a total fucking denial.

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Cassandra who?

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[LAUGHTER]

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But I was too sick.

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I was too sick to my
stomach to even try it.

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I sat down next to her and
grabbed her flailing arms

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and said some dumb shit like,
you have to listen to me Magda

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or you won't understand."

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