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NATHAN ROGERS: Hi, and welcome to Talks at Google.
My name's Nathan Rogers.
And today, I've the pleasure of introducing one of my best
friends, Rose McAleese to give a talk today.
So without further ado, here is Rose.
ROSE McALEESE: Hi, my name is Rose McAleese.
I'm a poet from Seattle, Washington.
I'm just going to jump into it.
You want to divorce me.
Fine.
You wish to divorce me.
[DERISIVE LAUGH] You silly crow, wingspan too short of raven,
you foolish king, if it was not for me,
you would have no hunger for demise or conquer,
crave the flesh of another.
I, your lady, no chambermaid, rest assure and barren bed
for you, sit waiting past midnight's croning moan.
Your robes are washed daily by these hands.
Stone, cold water, rinse.
Make absence of any bloodshed, I, your wife,
clean up all your messes.
You play no judgment on such rash decisions as these.
No marks are made in your honor.
This.
Divorce?
You've wandered too far, my dear.
Coward, I'm calling you for a coward.
Coward, no hollow, no backbone to aspire.
Where will you go, Sire?
Oh, Macbeth, such childish quarrels as these
push us back in our demand.
Who will shine your blade?
Iron the wrinkles out of your half-hearted strategy.
It is the queen who makes all the moves.
My scenarios unravel like chess.
And you are just a pawn, oh my worship, you
are just a wooden pawn.
Names of former lovers hang over the mantelpiece
that is my heart.
Men, not worthy of royals.
You are lucky enough to be sacrificed
as a spark in your potential, flint
in the sense of you being my Lord.
Now, I know the women here back their husbands are
victim to naive, and God smack but I-- I play shadow.
I sit closely to your heels, because I
Lady Macbeth made every dagger a happy one.
Bash the ridiculous notion of failure.
One must steal if one is not given.
I vow no sleep will be lost over this.
And I know from experience all bloodshed can easily
be washed away.
Thanks.
Oh, I need water.
[APPLAUSE]
Oh, OK.
So I like doing that one first, because it gets the nerves out,
and it scares people.
So then I can win you back over as the talk goes.
So like I said, I'm a poet, a spoken word
poet from Seattle, Washington.
A little back history about myself-- I started doing poetry
'cause when I was in seventh grade,
I had a great teacher by the name of Miss Chestnut.
She realized that I was a rebel without a cause,
like I really tried to be a bad-- I can't cuss.
A bad butt, but I couldn't be, because I
was just like I had no reason to be mad.
So, of course, when you have no reason to be mad,
and you're seven years old, you start writing poetry.
And that's pretty much kind of where I started,
and then I became a spoken word artist slowly over time.
And then as time progressed, I realized
that I really love teaching.
And so I started being a teaching artist,
which is kind of what I do now.
And then I guess, almost two years ago, I
got my first book published.
You can like buy it now.
You can buy here later, which is exciting.
It's really weird to be like, I have a published book.
And so, yeah, I've just kind of been
a poet and everything and whatnot.
I was super nervous about this talk for some weird reason.
I was watching all of the other Google talks.
And I've noticed that you know, there's people like Tina Fey
and like Lady Gaga, who've all been here.
And so it was like, oh, OK, I'm neither of those people.
I don't know what I'm going to do.
So my father, god bless his soul-- he's not dead.
I don't know I just said that.
He's alive and well.
Anyway, my father told me start talking about what you love
and how passionate you are.
People will be able to read that.
And whenever I get nervous, I'm just going to jump into a poem.
So if I start doing something or anything, just go with it.
OK?
So like I said, I'm a teaching artist.
And the poem, I just did was a persona poem
about Lady Macbeth.
I'm a huge Shakespearean nerd.
I fell in love with Shakespeare when I was about 13 years old,
which was kind of just disturbing to my parents.
But they were just like, whatever, at least she's
reading.
Let her be all mournful and semi-teenage angst,
depressed or whatever it was.
So I started doing that.
And then I got into acting and realized
that poetry and spoken word is basically like acting,
but you get to write your own lines.
And so I started becoming a teaching artist.
And in schools, it's really hard to teach middle schoolers
and high school kids poetry.
They're like what do I need to know about a dead white guy,
pretty much, which is true, but also you can make your own
and revamp it.
Thank God for people like Jack Kerouac and Angela Davis
and all these people who've kind of like reinvented it and made
it their own and everything, which
is so much fun with slam poetry because it's
a mixture of beatniks, hip hop, rap and all that jazz.
So that poem was written from a writing
prompt that I came up with my kids,
where I asked them to take a fictional character
from either movie, a play or a book.
And they had to write a monologue
to get on a reality TV show.
So that was Lady Beth's monologue
to get on the "Bad Girls Club."
I don't know if you guys know the "Bad Girls Club,"
but it's a show on Oxygen Channel.
Oh my god, you need to watch the "Bad Girls Club" !
It is the best piece of feminism.
Just kidding.
It's not.
Basically, they take a bunch of girls
put them in a house with alcohol and Daddy issues
and just let them roam the world.
And they fight each other.
So let's be honest, Lady Macbeth would make it on that show,
and she'd be great.
You should watch it.
It's such a great guilty pleasure.
What else?
So, yeah, that's one of the pieces I did,
It's also in my book, which I have.
I want to show it.
Where is it?
I want to get it.
Sorry!
I should have had my props ready.
I'm running offscreen.
This is going to be crazy.
I still can't get over this.
Like, I first got in my house one day, and there it was.
And some guy named Tom Robbins read it and liked it.
And so did Rachel [? McKibbens ?]
and [INAUDIBLE].
I'm going to read one more piece from this book.
I'll read a bunch of pieces, but I really like this piece.
So I grew up with a very-- oh!
Someone walking in.
Hi.
I grew up with a very, very Irish father, super Irish.
Also, a fun fact about this book,
I wrote it when I was single.
Can't believe that I a boyfriend now,
because if you read this book, you
would be like why would you date her?
So, sorry for the guy who dates me.
This poem is called "Why I Don't Write Love Poems."
And it starts out with a quote from a smart man named
Charles McAleese, called "He Says People are no Damn Good,
and Men Are Worse."
I've come to the conclusion that I'm not
made for love, that feelings are just tightly wound compasses,
trying to make it home after a long night.
Romance is a store brand laundry detergent
we use to wash away our naive.
Why do we love love?
Love clearly hates us.
I don't trust men who know my middle name.
I don't trust men who can charm my father
or drink like him either.
I don't trust men who smile too big, whose best traits are all
physical.
I don't trust pretty boys with nice eyes.
I don't trust guys who ask, if you can't have children,
why do I need to wear a ***?
Well, first, you need to leave me
with a mouth of rusty nails and a clinic phone number.
One led me to believe that I can save fish from drowning.
That man gave me a hammer and told me to fix my own problems.
White Boy called me intimidating, too much.
Lover-- not the same shade as me,
reassures his mother I was just a friend.
Boy told me we would work out, because he didn't want children
either, because he made sure to call me a dead end
before he left.
There is a pattern.
I love like my body, barren.
Now men who say I'm too strong need to be men about it.
I mean handle your ***, make more eye contact,
speak more loudly and clearly when
you are walking away from me.
I will use this as experience to hold it
against the next pretty sucker who
marches his pretty little face my way.
Pray for him, birds.
Let's hope that one gets out alive.
Alert the others that I *** like war.
I know how to snap next, swallow nails, and flirt like Medusa.
Be forewarned.
I'm a maneater who is developing serious hunger pains.
I do not need to say or believe a thing.
You are no blacksmith.
You are no lumberjack.
Everything you leave is made out of sugar.
This will all crumble with one lick.
Maybe it's my fault I wear tap shoes to bed.
I like a good entrance, and I hate silence.
I have a soft spot for hip bones and I love with escape in mind.
Maybe it's my fault that I care with too many keys,
that I stain every lover with rust
because if I can't be beautiful, I
make sure no one else around me is either.
I'm not bitter.
I'm just being a man about it.
No kissing, not trapping myself in situations
I can't charm my way out.
I take after my mother.
I'm also take after winter.
I'm so cold.
I promised to leave quiet this time,
just leave a sweaty palm print on your door handle.
Boys, how can you not love a girl with a good exit strategy.
Thank you.
So yay!
Cue cards!
Where's my cue cards?
I need those.
So the thing I really love about poetry in particular
is that it's just such a great way to express.
Usually people always think that like with poetry
it either needs to rhyme or needs to be this or that one,
when in all honesty, it can be whatever you want.
It really can surely come from anywhere
of sensitive inspiration.
One of the things I really wanted to talk about
is this whole concept of digital versus analog.
So me as a writer and me as like a poet,
which is kind of a dying art, or like, people are always like,
oh!
When they find out I'm a poet, they
ask me like three questions.
First one is where can I read your stuff?
I hate that question.
Because this was like before I became published.
I was just like you're going to hear it at a poetry slam.
And then the second one is why are you a poet,
which I don't think I need to explain it.
It just kind of happened.
And then the third and final one is, so
what do you do for money?
Right?
So I realized that that's like a really difficult thing to do.
Let's be honest.
We all want money.
We all want to get paid for our art and everything.
But it's a sacrifice that you make,
because you just love doing it.
So, as a writer, I always am told
that I am like a crazy person, because I
have to physically write down every poem.
I can't just type it.
I have a very, very severe and special form of dyslexia,
where I can't see vowels at all.
It's a very strange form of dyslexia.
It's very rare.
So for me, when I write, it's kind in this special language
that no one else can really read,
because it's all chicken scratch.
And like there's no vowels in my words
pretty much, which I used to worry about,
like so people are always like why do you keep a diary?
What if you lose it?
It's like good luck trying to read it.
There's that episode of Doug.
I don't know if anyone remembers that show, Doug,
where Doug loses his journal.
And his arch nemesis, Roger finds i.
And he's worried that Roger's going to read it.
And Roger gives it back to him.
And he's like it's chicken scratch.
You're able to read this.
And it's like, ah man, that just made me feel so much better.
So for me, it's all about the concept
that, like, when you're stuck in a situation
or you find yourself in front of the computer,
I always find myself procrastinating more.
Like I find myself so highly distracted
by everything and anything.
You know, all of a sudden, I'm on Twitter.
All of a sudden, I'm on Facebook.
All of a sudden, I'm googling myself, whatever.
But when you have a piece of paper,
you just kind of forget how epically
organic that is, to literally see the word on the page, just
pressed and archived for your own personal advantage.
And I realize in this day and age,
why keep a journal if no one's going to read it.
But that's the thing is you need to keep
a journal because no one's going to read it.
I know this is like the generation where you literally
put up, like, I had the best tuna fish
sandwich ever on Twitter, right?
But not everyone needs to know that.
I'm sorry, that stuff always bothers me.
You need to tell people I'm going to talk at Google.
That's the stuff they like on Facebook.
But so my whole thing is that you
have to go back to the page.
It's really difficult and really hard.
And as a poet, you go back to the page,
and then you kind of bring it back to the stage.
That was so cheesy, but really epic.
So with that I'll give you another poem.
See?
I got all nervous, and then I'm going to do a poem.
And then I'm not going to be nervous anymore.
It's going great.
This is a good choice of an outfit.
I went through like three different choices today.
And I just think this one's really epic and awesome.
[? Uniglo, ?] you should do my wardrobe.
That was a really bad shout out.
That was fun.
Here's a poem.
One in a million.
That's how many people have your reading disability, Roseanne.
One in a million.
That's what the well-paid doctor told me.
But don't worry, he said, you're not alone.
Wait, hold up.
One in a million and I'm not alone?
That make as much sense as this mumble
jumble they call an alphabet.
A-E-I-O-U and sometimes Y. See?
I didn't know these letters were special,
and that these letters were going to make me special.
But I can't recognize vowels.
And those little perks like to play word games up, down, left,
right, vertical, cross the page, like chess pieces
in a never-ending board game.
See, I don't know what you learned.
But I learned E came before I. If it didn't, then
they should have rearranged the alphabet as I E F G T K X 7 4.
Ah, screw it.
You got me memorizing that thing, like it's worth it.
I think spelling altogether is preposterous.
Preposterous.
P-O-S-T-E-Z-R-N. Preposterous.
OK, so maybe my spelling's a little off.
But have you ever studied English spelling?
I mean, take the word drunkenness.
D-R-U-N-K-E-N-N-E-S-S-.
A drunk came up with the spelling.
I know this, because A, there's not enough thought put into it,
and B, there's too many Ns.
And well, drunks never know when to end.
There's an L in salmon.
Why the hell is there an L in salmon?
Now you got my ears [INAUDIBLE] riverbeds,
trying to hear that salmon.
And all I'm doing is hitting walls.
And all I got to say for it is damn.
A-E-I-O-U and sometimes I ask myself Y.
See, bullies used to hold books over my head yelling spell
it, Rose.
Spell it and you'll get it.
I was put in exile ever from going near a library.
First, I blamed in on my pencil.
It seemed to be holding everyone else's words just fine.
I cursed each one I picked up, spelling it wrong again
and again and again.
Until the paper was nothing but pinks marks and my eraser
had crumbled down like a watered-down tumbleweed.
See, the brain is like a window sill.
Outside, stage left, there's an apple tree.
Replace those apples with letters.
And when someone approaches you and asks
you to spell something, you can reach outside your window,
grab the letters needed, and then look,
you have the word predictable.
Well, aren't you so smart.
See, my window is a lot smaller and really dirty.
And my apple tree is kind of dying and wilted
in the distance.
So when I do reach for letters, I
bring up nothing but sawdust and paint chips.
So do it.
Prick me again with one of those Ns,
let me pour lemon juice in my wounds.
Watch me shrivel up like a slug I
used to torture on boring summer day.
And when September comes, I am nothing
but a ghostwriter writing in invisible ink.
See my writing was fine.
The spelling was being held against me.
I had great placements for nouns, adverbs,
and I can braise some veal-- I got
elegant adjective-- with ease.
I filled with tears inside in spelling bee.
And this is my apology to anyone who
says I can't be a poet because I don't know how to spell.
Well, guess what?
You're wrong.
Because not only do I write, I was a spit.
And I spit nothing but fire, so call yourself cremated.
Yes, I do have my obstacles.
A-E-I-O-U, and sometimes even Y. But as you can see,
they haven't stopped me yet.
Thank you.
AUDIENCE: [APPLAUSE]
ROSE McALEESE: Whoo!
She goes off stage!
Wait, I have props.
I'm going to do a magic trick.
Can I come from the-- oh, I can't come up!
I was going to try come up.
This is Pippo.
He's famous.
Ah, man.
He's drunk.
He's a little drunk monkey.
I got Pippo when I was three years old.
Him and I have the same birthday, which is Halloween.
And he's, like, literally my most prized possession,
which is so weird for most people.
But he's the man.
He has to share a bed with me.
And he's awesome.
But the reason why I'm talking about Pippo
is because-- so this whole concept
of going back to the notebooks.
So I always have a notebook with me, like everywhere I go.
Every jacket of mine has a little tiny notebook and a pen.
I can't be somewhere if I can't write.
You see artists all the time that they're
doing imprints or drawing or whatever
on a napkin or the back of a ticket stub.
I'm that way.
I literally have millions and millions of these notebooks.
And most notebooks represent about six months.
And then I move on to the next one and so on and so forth.
So one of the things that I basically
wanted to have this talk about is
that like when you're stuck in a situation that's
extremely difficult with dealing with life,
it's always good to go back to the page and writing it out.
And one of my favorite things to do is write out lists.
So I'm going to read you guys some of my list
from my notebook, which is kind of like not
my point, because my point is to keep it in the notebook.
But let's just pretend you guys are in my bedroom.
And I practiced this Google Talk in my bedroom one too
many times.
He had to listen to it.
So these are things that I believe to be true.
OK?
Pigeons don't die.
Has anyone seen a baby pigeon?
Exactly.
They don't die.
Pigeons have been here since the beginning.
I also believe that I was going to marry Sam Cooke.
Then I found out he died.
And then I told my mom I was going to marry my dad.
And my mom was like [SNORT] good luck with that.
So that's bad.
I think spelling is stupid.
The best moments are never caught on film.
I met Dave Chapelle once.
No one believes me, because I didn't Instagram it.
I think "Clueless" and "Mean Girls"
are the funniest movies ever.
You cannot debate me on that.
I'm sorry.
I've had many arguments with friends being like, no.
"Clueless" and "Mean Girls."
On Wednesdays, we wear pink.
Is today Wednesday?
No, it's not.
OK, never mind.
I also think that Beyonce is a unicorn.
She's amazing.
I also believe that writing things down
is better than typing them out.
I also believe that the power of good art
and the power of bad art.
Here's my bucket list.
First of all, I hate the word bucket list.
It just sounds so stupid and dirty.
Like bucket is just a dirty word to me.
So this is my to do list, which sounds even dirtier, now
that you say it.
Like, "to do."
Anyways.
So this is what I want to do for my to-do list.
I'd like to move out of my roommate's house.
Fun fact, since I am a poet, I live with this elderly couple.
They're great.
I call them Mom and Dad.
They're nice.
They're not freaked out that I call them Mom and Dad,
because I'm been calling them that my whole life.
Anyways.
OK.
I would like to write a screenplay.
I would also like to find out what Bill Murray says
at the end of "Lost in Translation"
to Scarlett Johannsen.
I would like to find the perfect voice for Pippo.
I want to do like a Lifetime web series of just my life,
because I think I'm cool enough.
And Pippo needs a voice.
But I don't know what he sounds like,
so I'm up for suggestions.
You can look at him and examine him.
I think British, but I'm Irish.
So why are you British?
I don't know.
So if you can think of a name for him--
I actually want to listen to Dr. Dre's "Detox."
It's like Beyonce.
It's a unicorn.
I don't know if it's actually going to come out.
I want to befriend a girl named Becky really badly,
so I can be like "Becky, look at her butt."
I also want to find a baby pigeon.
I want to be on "SNL."
So here's my "SNL" moment, you guys.
I'm going to use this Google Talk.
Lorne Michaels, if you're out there, or Maya Rudolph,
I really want to be on "SNL."
Like, it kind of disgusting how badly
I want to be on this show.
So I realize in my "SNL" -like working things out,
there are two types of people in "SNL."
This all has to do with something.
OK, I promise this will have a good conclusion at the end.
I hope.
Anyways, two things about "SNL" people.
You're either a character person,
where you make up new characters, like the Target
Lady or Debbie Downer, all that.
Or you're someone who does impressions.
I don't think I can do impressions.
But I have two impressions!
Can I test them out for you on you guys?
Can I?
There are people in this audience, I promise, YouTube.
OK, so here's my two impressions.
OK?
So, Obama.
[EXHALES] I'm going to get here.
(DEEP VOICE) Sasha, Malia, go to bed.
(NORMAL VOICE) OK.
Now here's my Yogi Bear impression.
(DEEP VOICE) Sasha, Malia, go to bed.
AUDIENCE: [LAUGHTER]
ROSE McALEESE: They're the same person!
Anyways, OK.
Sorry, that was my "SNL" moment.
Also, moving on.
So basically I'm working on like nine different projects
right now that have nothing to do with my art, which
really bums me out and really makes me sad,
because I actually have to do things
that I will pay my nonrent to my nonroommates.
But every time I make a list, I always feel like I'm writing,
that I'm an actual writer, that I'm actually doing something
that matters, because it impresses myself
and it impresses Pippo, and at the end of the day,
it makes me happy.
So one of the last lists I wrote is things I hate.
Dentists, bananas, snow, split sinks-- you know,
when they have one faucet for hot water
and one faucet for cold water.
I hate that.
Which one do you use?
Being told that I'm too much, too passionate, too churned-up,
or too excited.
I hate flying.
I hate how easily stressed I get.
I hate how no one experiences paper cuts anymore,
because in this digital age, no one reads books that often.
You know what I mean?
It's always on something.
This is the generation-- actually,
you know what, that's actually a good thing.
Why am I hating off a paper-- no one wants paper clips.
I think Google saved the paper clip, if you think about it.
The paper cut, I mean.
Like you don't get paper cuts anymore.
You just Google search things.
And I also hate buffering on like Hulu videos.
Can someone fix that?
No one?
OK, never mind.
Anyways, so basically my point is
just that when everything comes down to it,
the paper and the pen are literally
the most mightiest things in the world.
I am in this really weird purgatory stage in my life
where I don't know exactly what I'm doing.
Like I can't even believe that I'm here right now.
But I think it just has to do with I literally write letters
to the universe.
And then I just kind of press it together in my notebook
and hope that someday, someone reads it, if not in the cosmos
or whatever.
So it's just like go back to actual writing.
I mean picking up a pen is such a heavy act,
but it does so much.
So now I'm nervous again.
So I'm going to do another poem.
This is easy.
Rappers don't really talk between their songs, do they?
They just kind of go into the next song.
They're horrible public speakers.
I think rappers are horrible public speakers.
That's a secret.
But then again, I want to be a rapper.
I already have four rap names-- Rose Gold,
Rosetta Stone, and Rose Bowl, which
is like if I ever become like a high rapper.
But I don't smoke weed.
So, never mind.
More poems.
[EXHALES]
James Brown steps on stage.
He is carved from midnight's marble.
He turns to his right hand man, Clyde Funky Drummer
Stubblefield and says, kick a little, Clemen-clyde.
Clyde, bursting from his love and joy, all
that is rhythm and blues, beats the drums with such ease
like God told him to play like he was God playing the drums.
The sound that came out was pure, cold sweat.
It's flesh.
We're naked around the arena.
A classic in the making.
The record skips, the record skips,
the record skips a few years, and hip hop shows up late
but looks good.
Does not make eye contact with anyone in the room,
afraid someone might notice.
Um, excuse me.
They're not from around these parts.
See hip hop was given all the hand-me-downs,
but learned to put swag back in their stitches.
Took what's not theirs and made it their own.
See, everything was fine, until someone
noticed the similarities there once was.
Hip hop.
You kicked a little too much dust off those records.
Even Midas knows the price you got to pay for the touch.
The samples are not free.
I would worry if I were you, Mr. Biz Markie.
In 2004, Brian Burton took the JZ Black Album and the Beatles
White Album and made the Grey album.
EMI, record companies, all of a sudden feeling very cheated,
decides to sue this nobody for all that he's worth.
This plan backfires, and they pulled this lover,
this fan of pure music into the limelight for all
to love and admire.
The Beatles, angry about all that has taken from them,
have a song called "Revolution #9"
which is nine minutes of remix, remix, remix, mastered
in sounds.
Andy Warhol can paint someone else's photos and call it art.
He even took a soup can to stop himself
from being a starving artist.
Shakespeare took the framework of a tragic Italian love story
and slapped his name on it.
Disney had the audacity to take you your loved fairy tales,
add some colors, re-animate them, and walk to the bank,
because well, this generation know
the best artists do not copy.
They steal.
And history is nothing more than a 12-year boy
with a serious (MOCK STUTTER) stuttering problem,
who's been told one too many times
to learn from your mistakes.
It is one thing to pull from your inspiration.
It is another thing to be the Man's tracing paper.
As poets, as writers, no, as humans, as humans,
we sample all the time.
Sample like ribcage.
Advice your grandmother once gave
you are the weight of Atlas.
Nothing is holy.
Nothing is sacred.
However, she'll be recognized and respected and thanked.
This evening, class, Funky Drummer Stubblefield
is doing me an honor of playing my outro, a sample of all
my favorite Kanye West-- oop, sorry.
Pardon me-- Frankenstein tunes.
Clyde, whose own original sound has
been copied on 100 different songs, has yet to see a penny.
But for the record, he wants nothing in return
but a simple thank you.
AUDIENCE: [APPLAUSE]
ROSE McALEESE: Shake that monkey.
That was inappropriate.
Never mind.
Anyway, so yeah, being a writer.
It's fun.
It's interesting.
It's been a very interesting process, especially
with becoming a teaching artist.
I was horrible in school.
I absolutely hated school.
It was really difficult for me, because I
had a reading disability.
And instead of trying to actually have someone
to pull me aside, and explain to me what happened,
they just threw me in special ed,
and were just like we're going to just-- she sinks or swims,
pretty much.
So I've been going back into schools
and trying to help people realize that everyone's special
and everyone's unique in their own way.
And one of the writing exercises that I
do with my kids, first-off, is I tell
them to write a Pinky List.
And a Pinky List is a list of things
that make you different than the next person.
So, for instance, on my Pinky List,
I would say like I'm born on Halloween.
I have a fear of bananas.
My socks never match.
And just all the weird stuff.
There's so many-- why can't I think of a
in single weird thing about me right now.
But yeah, so basically, one of things I do
is do a Pinky List, which is a great writing exercise.
I love lists.
I think that they literally break down
any situation or any problem you have or face in everyday life.
And I guess in this whole thing that I
want you guys to walk away with is to just write.
Journal out just to basically just leave it on the page.
I mean, I can't stress that enough.
It's just so epically awesome, and it's really hard
to just leave in your head.
It just hurts.
It really does.
You just have to put it on the page and figure it out.
I also would like to give you guys
some writing prompts, because I'm big on that.
So one of them is to make a Pinky List.
You guys have homework, and you're
going to have to submit it to me on Twitter in 140 characters
or less.
So one of the ones I have is the Pinky List.
Another one that I have, one of y favorite writing
prompts that I do with my high school kids
is "Things My Ex Would Have Said."
They love that one.
I don't know.
But kids are-- they love the anti-love poems.
Like screw you, Dante or whatever.
Then the other one is "Tell Me About the Ride Home," which
actually I kind of stole that from a famous hero of mine,
Seamus Heaney, RIP.
And so, yeah, that's some writing prompts.
So you guys can go with.
So I'm going to do one more poem.
And then you guys are free to go back
to your awesome Googleness.
By the way, I have a question about Google.
When you are like on the interweb, are you Google-able?
Like I tell people this all time,
like, oh, they're like where can I find you?
And I'm like, oh, I'm Google-able.
That's not a good word.
You guys have got to think of something else to think of.
OK.
AUDIENCE: Google me.
ROSE McALEESE: Oh!
Google me.
That's stupid.
Why didn't I just think of that?
Someone make a hashtag of Google me.
That was a dumb question.
OK.
This is it.
I'm going to take up a lot of space.
So thank you for coming.
This is a huge honor and not as scary
as I thought it was going to be.
This has been fun.
I hope you enjoyed yourself.
If not, lie to me.
OK?
Thanks.
What is the first line of this poem?
See, this is the other thing about poetry.
It does not need to be perfect and crafted,
and sound like you went to college to write it.
Because I didn't go to college.
School of Hard Knocks.
Anyway, OK.
I should do a football tag.
What do they do?
They say their name and whatever school they went to.
I'm going to do that. (DEEP VOICE)
Rose McAleese, School of Hard Knocks, Sea Hawks.
I shouldn't say that.
We're in San Francisco.
Not San Francisco.
We're safe in this area.
Google's safe.
Sea Hawk fans here?
Any?
AUDIENCE: Whoo!
ROSE McALEESE: Yay!
There's like two of your guys.
OK, so this is the last poem.
With a face more judgmental than a Rorschach,
he says, that's funny.
You don't dance like a white girl.
Now before I can apply to his ignorant comment,
my beloved drunken friend reassures him (TIPSY VOICE)
well, that is because Rose is a unicorn!
Sha sha sha sha!
Where are my shoes?
I do not spill drinks when I dance, because, well, I
don't drink.
And also I need my hands always to be free.
I do not chase boys.
I run in place.
I'm a tall glass of water that likes
to get loose-limbed, like liquid.
Give me your marble!
Give me your hard wood!
Give me your bar top, even roof of moving vehicle
to truly tell you how my feet met floor a long time ago.
And I dare not separate the three of them.
I don't even need music to dance,
because that way I can never be off beat.
In middle school, I was an awkward bag
of bones and untalented ticks.
Some might say a skinny excuse, a spastic.
My friends used to threaten me by saying,
Rose, if you can't dance, we can't be friends.
This scared me straight.
But not straight enough I couldn't learn how to bend.
Since then, I have been sweating for unreasons
unknown to the masses.
And it's because my body thinks the Rapture is coming.
And I need to produce holy water to save me and my dance
partner.
People on average usually notice three things about me.
One, she talks a lot.
And if she's not talking, I'm smiling.
And if I'm not smiling, I'm dancing.
And for me, dancing's just my way
of smiling through a conversation.
We don't even need to talk to get along,
just the heavy amount of body language.
And everyone is fluent in that.
If you don't leave me, well, hey.
One of us is lying and it isn't me,
because well, I don't take anything lying down.
Baby!
I can make my hips tick faster than any maternal clock.
I can make your head ring like a jewelry store.
Ay, yo, yo.
You hungry?
Try my salsa.
And may cause your girlfriend a serious heartburn.
I am a party baby.
I will make you cry and like it.
I'm also a natural-born ham.
That's why I'm cutting this rug like a butcher.
Now, I have ballrooms in my belly
and a funky ruckus in my armpits.
But sometimes, I'm not good with my words.
So I have this face where, like, when
I'm really embarrassed-- like I'm kind of probably
doing it right now, my face turns bright red, which is just
so bad, it's really obnoxious.
Then I have this yoga position where
I can put my food in my mouth.
But my spine thinks otherwise.
The only time my body seems to align perfectly
is when I'm on this very stage.
And the only time I've ever allow myself to feel beautiful
is when I'm dancing.
We make gods when we dance.
But dancing has never been a God.
So there's no need for your judgment day.
You better rock, span, spit, stripe your dress
from however you please.
Everyone was meant to move like this.
Now, the ignorant ink blot of the man at the bar
is now lost for words.
I begin to turn away to dance this moment off.
He stops me and asks if he can join.
And I said, oh sweetie, that's cute.
But I think it's best that you just back, relax,
turn my body into a hashtag.
Tweet about this for your safety.
And I'll truly show you how a unicorn human being breaks it
down.
Thanks, guys.
AUDIENCE: [APPLAUSE]
ROSE McALEESE: Whoo!
We out of here, Pippo!
Oh, we're going to take questions.
Oh, I didn't know it was that.
Does anyone have a question?
This is cool.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] Canadian or Russian?
ROSE McALEESE: [LAUGHS] Yeah!
I like it.
Someone suggested that Pippo should be a Canadian accent.
How do you feel about that?
AUDIENCE: Or Russian.
ROSE McALEESE: Or Russian.
He could be Russian.
I have this theory.
I wrote a list once.
I do social media as a form of payment
sometimes, which is so funny.
I get paid to Tweet.
And one of the lists I came up with,
because I was so frustrated with the job,
was Things Pippo is Famous For.
He's a famous jewel thief.
He is actually the original member in the Beatles.
He is also what Sherlock Holmes was based on.
He is Watson and Sherlock.
Yeah, he's a pretty great guy.
He used to have these red overalls,
but I lost them in a movie theater.
I lost them watching the movie "Beethoven,"
if anyone remembers that-- the dog.
His hands are also Velcro.
But he's getting old.
Oops, story.
He's fine.
Look, he's so regal.
Anyway.
Oh my god, you have a question!
AUDIENCE: Yeah.
I have two questions.
ROSE McALEESE: OK.
AUDIENCE: One is what grades do you teach?
ROSE McALEESE: Oh, OK.
Mostly high school.
I don't really do well in middle schools,
because I feel like I didn't do well in middle school.
I had a lot of fun in high school.
Fun fact.
The man who introduced me, Nathan, we
went to middle school and high school together.
We were both nominated Most School Spirited.
So that was kind of me in high school.
I was just this weirdo.
So I teach 9th through 12th grade.
But I really love teaching freshman, because they just
seem the most awkward-est. If you can't tell,
I'm like a jellyfish caught in a blender.
I don't know what to do with myself half the time.
AUDIENCE: I have an interview question.
ROSE McALEESE: You have a interview question?
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]?
ROSE McALEESE: Yeah.
Wait.
Oh my god, so OK, I did research on you guys
by watching this movie called "The Internship."
AUDIENCE: [LAUGHTER]
ROSE McALEESE: Right?
And then the Google.
Here's the thing.
When they asked the question about the blender,
the immediate thing I thought of was
the blender will eventually die.
So you just chill out.
And that's exactly what they do in the movie.
So where's my internship, Google?
I answered the question.
I bet, Pippo's probably going to get a job offer and me.
Whatever.
He's talking smack right now.
What other questions do they ask you at Google for a interview?
Is it just that, the only hypothetical one.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]?
ROSE McALEESE: I'm going to talk to the HR department.
I'm going to come up with some weird questions for you guys.
Like, what reality show would you try out for?
Which Kardashian do you think is your spirit animal?
AUDIENCE: [LAUGHTER]
ROSE McALEESE: Things like that.
Which I think tell a lot about a person, like I'm a Khloe!
Makes sense.
AUDIENCE: All right.
I'll ask my second question then.
ROSE McALEESE: Yeah.
AUDIENCE: If I can remember it.
So, with your reading disability,
how do you go from a chicken scratch to a book?
ROSE McALEESE: So think god.
Oh my god, I have a great editor who's also my roommate.
My mother.
I love Kathy Cain.
But yeah, no, I had a really great editor.
And my publisher-- so a funny thing about my book
is that I made a paper copy of my book.
And I hid them in bookstores.
And my publisher stumbled across it and was
like, wow, this is really cool.
I actually know this girl.
And this publisher was actually a family friend of mine.
And she was like I didn't know you wanted to publish a book so
let's publish a book.
So literally, it's lots of editors and things like that.
And I do a lot of exercises and stuff
that have helped me with my disability.
It used to be way worse.
Like in fifth grade, I had the reading level
of a kindergartner.
Now I have the reading level of a fifth grader.
So it's great.
I love those "Lemony Snicket" books.
Man, they really understand me.
Except they have really big words in that book.
But yeah, now I just have an editor.
And as much as I hate writing on a computer,
spell check is a lot of fun.
But if you're dyslexic, there's a lot of loopholes.
Like I can write the word "I," when I really mean myself.
I can write this eye when I mean this I.
And spell check won't correct it.
There needs to be a grammar check, especially on Twitter.
The your and you're.
Oh, I hate that.
Or there and their.
Remember DOL?
They don't teach that in schools anymore?
Is that it?
Am I good to-- You have a question?
AUDIENCE: So you're perfectly happy for your spelling
to be corrected.
You don't feel like that it loses something?
ROSE McALEESE: No, I don't really
mind when people correct my spelling.
I bet my friends and my family and friends and my boyfriend
can tell you I do these idiosyncricities or something
like that.
I also have a mush mouth.
So I grew up with an Irish father,
where I had an accent when I was little.
And because of that, I feel like I can't say certain words
correctly, which on top of a reason disability,
just makes me like a really great comic strip.
But I don't have an issue with people correcting me
with spelling.
I kind of have more of an issue when
people correct when I pronounce things wrong.
Like what's that word I say?
PO-tin-ate.
Potinate.
But it's just potent.
For some reason, I want the word to be potinate.
Or upstairges instead of upstairs.
I can't say that.
Yeah, there's a lot of weird things I say wrong.
Like fa-SHE-shis.
That's not the word.
I have real trouble with speaking.
English is hard.
GAIR-age.
And I say that, like a parking garage.
That's really hard.
Oh, the letter before I in the alphabet, is HAIH.
It will always be haich.
But there are ones that I got rid of. [INAUDIBLE]
feel like that one.
But I used to make fun of my dad and family
for saying PRIHV-a-cy, instead of PRI-va-cy.
But I say it sometimes, and that one's just ugly.
So you can correct me on that one.
But no, I have no issue with people correcting my spelling.
Do it.
Please.
It's bad.
Anyway.
Like, why is there a D in Wednesday?
OK, sorry.
I'm done.
We should leave.
Thanks, guys!
I hope you enjoyed.
AUDIENCE: [APPLAUSE]