last year i sent my first email to dj berndt. i sent it the day i created my gmail account. i found his blog. on his blog, he talked about being unsure about something. i sent him a dumb email to cheer him up because he seemed like he was in a rut. this was dj’s reply:
have a super great day, Peter BD. nice to meet you’
i’ve learned alot about the internet in the past year. i learned that writing on the internet is a big deal, i learned what awp was, i learned that writers have lots of sex and get wasted with each other at awp, i learned how to not give a fuck more, i learned that anything can be poetry, i learned that people who write for vice magazine can be assholes. all of this was learned because i was bored that one day last year. because i emailed dj berndt by finding his blog. because i needed an outlet to showcase my ‘wacky internet art.’
i learned alot from dj too. before emailing him, i had no idea people were doing these creative things online. i would just write weird things on my laptop and do nothing with them. dj berndt taught me that internet art that is wacky should be spread to strangers who may or may not be creeped out by it. i learned that reading books and talking to people about them online is cool. but i think the biggest thing i’ve learned from him was that being a pimp is a 24 hr job. thanks for the free lesson cousin deej.
from what i’ve observed this year, it’s obvious to me that dj has a bright future ahead of him. he genuinely enjoys what everyone creates online and loves to talk about it and showcase all of it. he’s one of the most positive motherfuckers on the planet. this is all an observation of course. he might be a sociopath who’s secretly planning to harm every person who has written a bad chapbook, but i don’t think that’s the case. i think that dj is going to continue to be at the forefront of whatever this internet stuff is and will probably be interviewed by oprah winfrey about it. oprah is going grill him extensively about literature and people who write literature online. oprah is going to be really impressed with dj’s knowledge of gifs, twitter, and his explanations of why tao lin has so many haters. oprah will have sex with dj when their interview is over. all of this will happen because dj deserves it. he deserves to sleep with oprah, make lots of money, and never have to paypal someone for their chapbook ever again.
this is the first email i sent to dj:
don’t you get it young sensei? we all harbor feelings of inadequacy. we all want to run from the big bad wolf. but to you I say fuck that. exorcise the self conscious demon. ok’
obviously i had no idea what i was talking about and was most likely hung over from the weekend. dj shouldn’t have even replied to this cretinous email, but he did. that’s just the kind of guy dj is. he replies to incoherent bullshit from random internet strangers. he spreads the word about what you’re doing by reblogging it, retweeting it, and giving you your props. when you support him, he supports you back. dj gives a fuck about us, so we give a fuck about him. he’s a great dude
here’s another cretinous email dj. hope it makes up for the last one:
dj berndt is far from self conscious
has teflon swag
he is the king of the internet
destroying haters from coast to coast
best believe he has this lit shit in the bag
been a year since i became privy to the god
impressed by the way he holds down his literary squad
after him there will be none
‘deej is my bff’
that last line was said by the late great big pun
far from inadequate
in lancaster, pa making mad cream
everyone wants to be on the dj berndt team
everyone is concocting their dj berndt memes
this one is my favorite:
it’s the perfect message to dj’s haters
that step outta line and
fail to realize he’s a boss
he goes hard with his prose
it’s read from peru to estonia
our goodreads jehova
word to the wise
don’t fuck with baby boy casanova
