Movies of the 2010s: Second Draft

ROMA
THE SOCIAL NETWORK
MAD MAX: FURY ROAD
A SEPARATION
THE TREE OF LIFE
TOY STORY 3
THE MASTER
PHANTOM THREAD
12 YEARS A SLAVE
THE WOLF OF WALL STREET
THE IRISHMAN
CAROL
GET OUT
STORIES WE TELL
PATERSON
20TH CENTURY WOMEN
MOONRISE KINGDOM
STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI
BLACK PANTHER
FRUITVALE STATION
YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE
THE SOUVENIR 
THE GRANDMASTER
PARASITE 

Books I’ve been reading this year.

THE FEMALE GAZE: ESSENTIAL MOVIES MADE BY WOMEN by Alicia Malone
IT’S GARRY SHANDLING’S BOOK edited by Judd Apatow
ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS: A BIOGRAPHY OF ROCK HUDSON by Mark Griffin
BLACK STEEL MAGNOLIAS IN THE HOUR OF CHAOS THEORY (poetry) by James Cagney
CARRIE FISHER: A LIFE ON THE EDGE by Sheila Weller
SAL MINEO: A BIOGRAPHY by Michael Gregg Michaud
THE BEATLES FROM A TO ZED by Peter Asher
THE BEATLES IN 100 OBJECTS by Brian Southall
I WILL DESTROY YOU (poetry) by Nick Flynn
COLLAPSE (poetry) by Cassandra Dallett
THE CONTENDER: THE STORY OF MARLON BRANDO by William J. Mann
A DREAM ABOUT LIGHTNING BUGS: A LIFE OF MUSIC AND CHEAP LESSONS by Ben Folds
WHAT WE CLAIM...WHAT WE ARE (poems and fables) by Garrett Murphy
THE VIRGIN TURTLE LIGHT SHOW: SPRING 1968 (poetry) by Elizabeth Iannaci
SEDUCTION: SEX, LIES AND STARDOM IN HOWARD HUGHES’S HOLLYWOOD
by Karina Longworth
ORSON WELLES: ONE-MAN BAND by Simon Callow
A LIFE IN MOVIES by Irwin Winkler
SOULLESS: THE CASE AGAINST R. KELLY by Jim DeRogatis
SOUTHERN ACCENTS (33 1/3 series) by Michael Washburn

Movies of 2019: Disappointments of the Year First Draft

In no specific order:
QUEEN & SLIM
DOCTOR SLEEP
GEMINI MAN
LINDA RONSTADT: THE SOUND OF MY VOICE
THE DEAD DON’T DIE
THE KITCHEN
BLINDED BY THE LIGHT
EXTREMELY WICKED, SHOCKINGLY EVIL AND VILE
CAPTAIN MARVEL
GLASS

Movies of the 2010s: First Draft

In no specific order:
ROMA
THE SOCIAL NETWORK
MAD MAX: FURY ROAD
A SEPARATION
THE TREE OF LIFE
TOY STORY 3
THE MASTER
PHANTOM THREAD
12 YEARS A SLAVE
THE WOLF OF WALL STREET
THE IRISHMAN
CAROL
GET OUT
STORIES WE TELL
PATERSON

One bright shining moment: a Pushcart Prize nomination.

Thanks so much to Marie Lecrivain and the staff of POETIC DIVERSITY for making this possible.  To be nominated is a win in itself; here’s a link to the honored poem:
https://www.poeticdiversity.org/main/poems-cp.php?recordID=2592&date=2019-11-01

Best Movies/TV of 2019: First Draft

Final version will appear in January.

From what I’ve seen from January-November in no specific order:
THE IRISHMAN
THE REPORT
WHEN THEY SEE US
THE SOUVENIR
KNIVES OUT
HER SMELL
US
PARASITE
ONE CHILD NATION
LEAVING NEVERLAND
HALSTON (Director’s Cut)
APOLLO 11
CHARLIE SAYS
QUALIFIED (Janet Guthrie ESPN documentary)
WHERE’S MY ROY COHN?

Honorable Mention:
ONCE UPON A TIME....IN HOLLYWOOD
DOLEMITE IS MY NAME
AD ASTRA
JUDY
COUNTRY MUSIC
WILD ROSE
FORD V FERRARI
THE MUSTANG

New Poem: TALKING GOP IMPEACHMENT TALKING POINTS BLUES

we stay on message
no matter how much it changes
sing What’s Wrong With That
over and over and over
make light of crimes
we’d crucify Democrats for doing
say Ukraine doesn’t rise to parking ticket status
trot out our two insult comics
keep sending messages to the public
turn off your TVs
plug your ears
yell Womp Womp at holiday dinners
when lefty relatives talk back
>
but know this
some of us are as sick of Trump
as you are
>
tired of justifying his disingenuous
distorted disrespectful behavior
weary of waking up to the stench
of fresh burning trash
not knowing when the train stops
and we’re ejected from club cars
waiting at the depot in a strange town
aware no one will arrive

New Poem: LOOKING FOR THE NEXT BARACK

Loosely inspired by Colin Hay’s long-ago song “Looking For Jack”

media pundits looking for the next Barack
admiring Pete Buttigieg’s bomber jacket
waking up to read about Deval Patrick
some day, some way
the electorate will swoon like Chris Matthews

Democratic donors looking for the next Barack
someone cool, mostly unflappable
makes people rest easy after Trump
respects the markets and past trade deals
won’t raise the 1%’s taxes

some day, some way
a majority  will find him excellent
and they’ll cheer him, boo obstruction
drink in his aspirational smile
again accept change only in increments

Revised Poem: WRITING STAR 2019

I don’t want to go to parties.

I don’t want to drink so much

that I have to pull my car over

and vomit at least twice on my way home

I don’t want to approach Famous Authors-

only to have them ask me who I am

and leave me cold and unappreciated

as they search for someone more Important

I don’t want to be a Writing Star

I don’t feel like stressing out

and having acid reflux

over whether or not

I’ve been properly reverent

to Important local poets

I don’t feel like telling someone 

their work won’t amount to much

unless it’s published by a Real Publisher

I don't want to be regarded as a bad person

if I don't attend a memorial for a poet

who told me my death couldn't come soon enough

I don't want to be the kind of Writing Star he was

Pull the ripcord

Keep out of sight

Read a few good poetry books

Give away the ones I once thought I had to have

To make nice with people who didn't care

Be content with supporting others from afar

Cured of the egomaniacal disease caused by

Wanting to be a Writing Star

VANITY FAIR’s Kenzie Bryant on Donald Trump booed at the World Series

Regardless of whether you care to argue that it was right to “boo” a man best known for taking children from their families to teach them a lesson, running up the national debt, cheerleading violence against the press and his political rivals, and leaving America’s allies out to dry, we can marvel at this new face. Trump appears pathetically, awfully pitiable here. For those few seconds, while he stands there trying not to look at anyone, he was fully, purely himself without all the preening excess and pretend swagger, a guy who doesn’t work toward anything except approval.

Kenzie Bryant, from the VANITY FAIR article “All that booing revealed the true face of Donald Trump.”

New audio recording: UPON SEEING THE ICE RINK...

New poem: BLAND DANCE

doing my bland dance
pulling up my pants
not offending foreign countries
accepting their definition of speech

doing my bland dance
giving liars an equal chance
not willing to issue corrections
too much election money at risk

doing my bland dance
not going to take a stance
the world crumbles, I keep quiet
as my front door is smashed open

Guessing the 2020 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees

Out of this list, predicting at least six will be inducted:
Whitney Houston
Nine Inch Nails
Soundgarden
Pat Benatar
Depeche Mode
Todd Rundgren
Notorious B.I.G.

I give up, Part 2

I was inspired to give up writing/publishing poetry books when someone on Facebook told me “it’s a harsh world, print fewer copies” when they’re now just print-on-demand or e-books. After that response (which the person genuinely thought was well-intentioned), I decided “enough”

I give up.

HOW TO TELL TIME, my first chapbook of entirely new/recent poems since 2015, is now my final one.

Thanks to those who bought copies of my earlier books/chapbooks at readings and/or online.

I appreciate the support you gave me over the last two decades.

Donald Trump’s Greatest Impeachment Hits

Hopefully coming soon to a House vote and Senate trial all America can watch:
1. This Rusher Thing
2. My Lester Holt Interview (spoken word)
3. Putin On Line 1
4. Ukraine Do Me A Favor
5. Rudy Don’t Fail
6. It Was A Perfect Phone Call
7. Medley: Hearsay/Second Hand News (Fleetwood Mac cover)
8. Mueller On My Mind
9. Two Story White House (duet with Melania)
10. Civil War (Desperation Time)
11. Blame Hillary
12. Pardon Me, Mike

SLATE on Shane Gillis and the comedy swamp.

Excerpts from Seth Simons’ article in SLATE https://slate.com/culture/2019/09/shane-gillis-snl-conservative-comedy-legion-of-skanks.html

Sources inside SNL told Variety last week that, in hiring Gillis, the show was explicitly looking to add a comic who would “appeal to more conservative viewers.” But Gillis’ isn’t the mass-market, family-friendly conservatism of Jeff Foxworthy or Sebastian Maniscalco or dozens of inoffensive network sitcoms. It’s rooted in the scene he belongs to, a community bound less by love of small government or Christian values or the nuclear family than by cruelty and misogyny and grievance. It’s a world in which rape jokes are common currency, where slurs are just a normal part of the lexicon. Its members don’t have the critical acclaim or high profiles their work might have earned 20 years ago. They’re not starring in TV or movies; they’re not headlining Madison Square Garden; only a few have released specials on Netflix, Comedy Central, or HBO. What they do have are their own platforms, their own fans and subscribers, and a hearty contempt for the industry that’s passed them by even as they form the backbone of its oldest institution: the comedy club.

Treating “funny” as an unqualified good, no matter who or what is the butt of the joke, explains just about everything: the overlap between club comedy and reactionary podcasts, the coziness with the alt-right, SNL hiring a comic for his red-state appeal and firing him when that appeal became a liability. They’re of a piece, linked by the nakedly capitalist belief that products are justified by demand—that if people laugh at a joke, you were right to tell it. (Chappelle, at least, once believed otherwise.) Never mind that the product pollutes. Never mind that the joke is cruel. If you don’t like it, don’t watch it. If you don’t watch it, it can’t hurt you. What, this swelling mass of people who hate you? Don’t mind them. They’re with us. We’re in the business of giving people what they want, and business is booming.

New Poem: DONALD TRUMP WILL HAVE HIS REVENGE ON CALIFORNIA

Inspired by the Nirvana song about actress Frances Farmer, though the setting and context differ.

It’s so relieving today
To know you’ll be flying away
As soon as you set the explosives timer
>
Your L.A. skyscraper never happened
No deference shown by Jerry and Gavin
And Orange County turned moderate blue
>
Fulfill GOP hopes!
Punch the liberals into the ropes!
Set emission controls on fire
>
Move the poor and desperate away
Overdevelop where they used to stay
Consider building more concentration camps
>
I’ll miss the comfort in breathing clean air
I’ll miss the comfort in breathing clean air
I’ll miss the comfort in breathing clean air

New Poetry Audio: GOOD SOLDIER

From my chapbook HOW TO TELL TIME:

NEW YORK’s Frank Rich on the difference between. certain U.K. Tories and U.S. Republicans

British Parliament’s continued defiance of Boris Johnson on a no-deal Brexit this week has required a group of conservative lawmakers to join the opposition party, forfeiting their parliamentary majority. What would have to happen for Trump’s more vocal Republican critics to stand in his way?

Nothing, apparently. With the sole exception of a single Michigan congressman, Justin Amash, current Republican officeholders, even those who purport to be occasional critics, have refused to challenge Trump even as children are put in cages and top administration jobs have been routinely handed out to grifters, bigots, and perpetrators of sexual assault. As Trump has said that his base would stand by him even if he shot someone on Fifth Avenue, so Mitch McConnell has deferred to Trump and tabled new gun-control laws even after the deaths of 53 Americans in mass shootings in August alone.

As Edmund Luce of the Financial Times pointed out this week in a powerful column about “the surrender of America’s adults,” it’s not just senators like Mitt Romney, Ben Sasse, Susan Collins, Jeff Flake, and Bob Corker who have retreated from taking real action against Trump despite their periodic furrowed-brow expressions of “concern” over his latest outrage. No less wimpy are departed Cabinet members like Rex Tillerson and Jim Mattis, who have continued to withhold public criticism of a president they obviously thought was a danger to the nation. Mattis has said he is doing so out of a “duty of silence” to the administration he served. As Luce points out, the departed Secretary of Defense may also have a duty to shareholders: “Shortly before Mr. Mattis launched his memoir, he rejoined the board of General Dynamics, one of America’s largest defense contractors. Mr. Mattis’s worth to GD is inversely related to the value of what he can say about the future of U.S. democracy. The more he speaks against Mr. Trump, the likelier his company will suffer.”

As for Mattis’s specious theory of a “duty of silence,” history is replete with examples of the calamities that follow when good men stay silent while serving criminal regimes. Unlike their feckless and/or ignorant American counterparts, the 21 Tories who left their own party rather than countenance their prime minister’s abuse of power know this history. And none more so than Nicholas Soames, Winston Churchill’s grandson, who is leaving Parliament after 37 years rather than knuckle under to Johnson. “I knew what I was doing,” he told the BBC of his banishment. Elucidating further to The Guardian, he recalled a debate in the House in 1938, when the apostle of appeasement, the Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, accused his grandfather of undermining his negotiations with the Germans. “I think history will prove my grandpapa to be right under the circumstances,” said Soames, “and I think I will prove to be right.”

Though Trump might disagree, history has long since proven Soames’s grandpapa right. The American adults who have surrendered to their leader over the past three years are unlikely to be treated more kindly by posterity than Chamberlain.

Donald Hall on the cons and pros of poetry workshops.

Excerpt from interview with Donald Hall in THE PARIS REVIEW:

INTERVIEWER

Marianne Moore went to school and she wrote poetry, but she did not study creative writing in school. Do you think the institution of the creative writing program has helped the cause of poetry?

HALL

Well, not really, no. I’ve said some nasty things about these programs. The Creative Writing Industry invites us to use poetry to achieve other ends—a job, a promotion, a bibliography, money, notoriety. I loathe the trivialization of poetry that happens in creative writing classes. Teachers set exercises to stimulate subject matter: Write a poem about an imaginary landscape with real people in it. Write about a place your parents lived in before you were born. We have enough terrible poetry around without encouraging more of it. Workshops make workshop-poems. Also, workshops encourage a kind of local competition, being better than the poet who sits next to you—in place of the useful competition of trying to be better than Dante. Also, they encourage a groupishness, an old-boy and -girl network that often endures for decades.

The good thing about workshops is that they provide a place where young poets can gather and argue—the artificial café. We’re a big country without a literary capital. Young poets from different isolated areas all over the country can gather with others of their kind.

And I suppose that workshops have contributed to all the attention that poetry’s been getting in the last decades. Newspaper people and essayists always whine about how we don’t read poetry the way we used to—in the twenties, for example. Bullshit! Just compare the numbers of books of poems sold then and now. Even in the fifties, a book of poems published by some eminent poet was printed in an edition of a thousand hardback copies. If it sold out everyone was cheerful. In 1923 Harmonium didn’t sell out—Stevens was remaindered, for heaven’s sake! A book of poetry today by a poet who’s been around will be published in an edition of five to seven thousand copies and often reprinted.

But it’s not the Creative Writing Industry itself that sells books; it’s the poetry readings. Practically nobody in the twenties and thirties and forties did readings. Vachel Lindsay, early, then Carl Sandburg, then Robert Frost—nobody else. If you look at biographies of Stevens and Williams and Moore, you see that they read their poems once every two years if they were lucky. Poetry readings started to grow when Dylan Thomas came over in the late forties and fifties. By this time there are three million poetry readings a year in the United States. Oh, no one knows how many there are. Sometimes I think I do three million a year.

In the sixties when the poetry reading boom got going people went to their state universities and heard poets read. When they went back to their towns they got the community college to bring poets in or they set up their own series through an arts group. Readings have proliferated enormously and spread sideways from universities to community colleges, prep schools, and arts associations. I used to think, Well, this is nice while it lasts but it’ll go away. It hasn’t gone away. There are more than ever.

New Poetry Audio: GOODBYE TO SOME OF IT Version 2

Appears in my new chapbook HOW TO TELL TIME

Epitaph for the Woodstock 50 that never happened

Jason Gross, excerpted from the article WOODSTOCK 50’s CAUTIONARY EXAMPLE:   MEMORIES OF A CANCELED FREE FESTIVAL in PopMatters:
If there is any tragedy, it's that Woodstock 50 began with all the ingredients for a great festival. They had a long-standing (if somewhat tarnished) name-brand, a cross-generational line-up of dozens of noted acts, and a well-established venue to accommodate them. But Lang and friends managed to blow all of that and tarnish their image even further. Lang's Aquarian Age thinking that you could fly by the seat of your pants (much the same way that the 1970 Isle of Wight fest did) and somehow pull off a miracle by sprinkling pixie dust that would magically make everything happen wasn't going to get an encore from 1969 to 2019. His ego and poor organizational skills couldn't save the day this time. Only in the movies does everything keep magically falling into place for shows.

New Chapbook: HOW TO TELL TIME.

Now available in both print and e-book editions.


https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07W7S3G4W/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_H2qtDbCK9G5VY

New Poem: OLD MAN POETRY

if I was a tenured professor 

previously published

by universities and prestigious

small presses, plus literary journals,

I could be very lazy indeed

writing with feeling only about my youth

while sticking out my elevated tongue 

at the foibles of much younger people—

secure in the knowledge 

that my esteemed poet friends

will look the other way,

continuing to lay carpets

over every place I walk

to keep me from stepping on splinters—

gilded and otherwise 

New Poem: HEAR THE POP (1970) VERSION TWO

HEAR THE POP (1970) VERSION TWO

this is a story of someone I knew

who wanted to make easy money

by delivering a box of marijuana

but the police saw him,

told him to stop,

fired a pistol shot near where he stood

> 

there was the arrest, the bailout, the trial date

could hear him crying very loud one night

because there was a lot of pressure on him

to cut his hair short to impress the judge

because long hair meant "hippie"

and "hippie" was defined as a threat

to prevailing notions of social order

> 

apparently he was viewed favorably

by the judge in the county seat courthouse

and the sentence was probation

> 

here’s the kicker:

I first found out about my brother’s dilemma

from a fifth-grade classmate

because my parents wanted to erect a shield

between 10-year-old me

and 19-year-old him

> 

this incident ensured I’d have a difficult time

growing to adulthood

because I was protected

as if I had a security detail

to keep me from becoming my brother

and I didn’t become my brother

spending on/off periods of his life
preferring to get and stay high to cope—

instead, I learned to be shy and suspicious

giving in to keep the peace

spending quiet time imagining

an extroverted life

with an abundance of friends

something I couldn’t have

because my parents were afraid that,

left to my own devices,

I’d make the wrong decisions

and wind up on a country road

with a small town police officer

yelling put down that box of dope

and threatening to shoot

if I didn't raise my hands 

Older Poem: HEAR THE POP (1970)

HEAR THE POP

Hear the pop
Then the cop
Yells “Stop”

That’s the end
Of the payday
As the box

Of dope sits
On the ground
As your hands

Raise up high
Above your head
Then behind back

As handcuffs click
Then shoved into
Cruiser back seat

Cop smiles as
Siren turned on
And you think

Will I have
To cut hair
For Judge’s sake

Will my lawyer
Say I’m a
Good Boy

From a Good
Family who never
Got into this

Kind of trouble
And I’m in
My second year

Of college
Hoping not to
Be drafted

All of this
Because I listened
To a friend

Of a friend

Have mercy Judge

Revised Poem: HOME MOVIES

Home Movies

Film reel threaded
Lights out
Projector rattles
Silent moving pictures appear
Look how young we were
See our blue Rambler wagon
There’s Funland Park
Small Ferris wheel
Safe roller coaster
Pink cotton candy
Film runs out
White square on wall
In upstairs room
Of big Wichita Falls house
>
I’m the only survivor

New Poem: THIS SUNDAY MORNING

in churches throughout this nation
there will be hymns prayers Bible excerpts
the Lord's Prayer will be recited
a special performance from the choir
then the pastor's 20 minute sermon
>
how many ministers will gather their courage
take the risk of some members walking out in disgust
if the sermon is about President Donald Trump
and how un-Christian behavior
such as racism and anti-Semitism
demonizing foreign refugees
plus far too much rendering unto Caesar
are moral diseases infecting the mind and heart
>
what will parishioners see and hear this Sunday morning
Jesus will be watching with great interest

NEW YORK’s Sarah Jones on Nancy Pelosi’s allergies to holding the powerful accountable

Excerpted from a column in NEW YORK:
[Nancy Pelosi’s] intransigence does encourage some unsavory speculation: that Pelosi might want to protect prominent Democrats. Before he went to jail in 2008, Epstein was friendly with powerful members of both parties, including former president Bill Clinton. But there’s no evidence that Clinton abused underage girls while in Epstein’s company, and right now, the federal case in New York against Epstein seems focused on Epstein alone. Her evident willingness to allow a wide-ranging investigation suggests she’s not afraid of what supervisorial spadework might turn up. But there’s a likelier explanation for Pelosi ruling out, even prior to an investigation, impeaching Acosta. She’s clinging to an outdated view of the world, which makes her unfit for the challenges of the moment. Pelosi is willing to confront Trump, or his officials, but only to a point. She not only believes the center will hold; she seems to think that it will, once some unspecified red line is crossed, topple Trump and his administration without any direct intervention on her part.

Best Movies/TV of the first half of 2019

In no specific order:

US

THE SOUVENIR 

DIANE

HER SMELL 

CHARLIE SAYS

TOY STORY 4

LATE NIGHT

APOLLO 11

THE MUSTANG 

ECHO IN THE CANYON 

LEAVING NEVERLAND 

AT THE HEART OF GOLD

WHEN THEY SEE US

QUALIFIED 

Flawed, but worthwhile: 

THE LAST BLACK MAN IN SAN FRANCISCO 

BOOKSMART 

FRAMING JOHN DE LOREAN

THE LEGO MOVIE 2

THE QUIET ONE

ROLLING THUNDER REVUE: A BOB DYLAN STORY

VANITY FAIR ‘s Bess Levin on Donald Trump’s Show-of-Force 4th of July.

Excerpted from Bess Levin’s VANITY FAIR newsletter:

As you’ve probably heard by now, Donald Trump is forcing the military to throw him a giant parade on Thursday under the guise of celebrating the Fourth of July, because he witnessed France’s Bastille Day festivities in 2017 and demanded the same thing for himself, just bigger. There are a number of issues surrounding the event, including the millions it will cost, the fact that lots of troops are at home for the holiday and will have to return to D.C. to move and guard tanks, and the desire probably felt by many Americans to not have one of their favorite holidays tainted by association with Trump. Also: the fact that the aggro displaydemanded by the president may damage one of the most beloved monuments in Washington and cause a bridge to collapse, because the laws of physics are apparently trying to send a message about the dangers of having a narcissistic man-child in the White House.

According to the Washington Post, engineers have been examining the Lincoln Memorial—where Veruca Salt wants to give a speech flanked by military tanks—to “determine if the weight of stationing armored vehicles there would affect the Lincoln Memorial’s underground rooms,” after National Park Service officials warned that such a deployment could damage the site. While the symbolism of the Lincoln Memorial literally collapsing under the weight of Trump’s asinine display would be poetic, we can probably all agree that it would be better if the monument remained intact. Similarly, it would nice if the event didn’t cause a bridge to collapse, which it could!

Jelani Cobb on Joe Biden’s Thursday debate stumbles.

Excerpted from THE NEW YORKER:
For most of the evening, the author Marianne Williamson spoke at the periphery of the issues, but she was right about one thing: the coalition of voters needed to remove Trump from office will be drawn to the candidate who reminds them least of who we are at this moment and most of who we aspire to be. On Thursday, that was not Joe Biden. Kamala Harris’s unsparing sharpness and unsentimental willingness to flay Biden onstage only served to highlight that fact.

Revised Poem: SINCE YOU DISAPPEARED

SINCE YOU DISAPPEARED

I read your Social Network page where you

mentioned the increase in responsibility

you now have since your promotion.

And my first response was to write

an impulsive-child poem about how you haven’t

bothered to contact me for over two years.

Then, my second response was to think

about your hard work and achievements

and how I gave up too easily and too often.

Now, I have plenty of time to write poems

like this one while you’re doing something

more productive than revisiting bad choices and regrets.

At the very least, I’ve learned to be less childish.

Nathan Robinson on Joe Biden’s making nice with toxic people.

Excerpts from a GUARDIAN column:

You can be everybody in Washington’s best buddy, or you can move the country toward justice, but you cannot do both. This is because there are powerful political figures standing in the way of justice, and the steps you need to take are going to alienate them. Biden’s career is best understood as what happens when a person who is not actively evil decides to prioritize chumminess and conformity over taking difficult moral stands.

Unfortunately, Biden’s “DC chumminess” has characterized his entire career. He has long declined to take morally necessary stands that might alienate powerful people, preferring to be friends with “everybody.” This is only possible, of course, because Biden has rarely had to encounter the people outside that “everybody” – the Iraqis blown to pieces thanks to his Iraq war vote, the children thrown in prison thanks to his crime bill.


The problem here is not Biden’s “bipartisanship”. Sometimes you have to work with people whose values you find repellent. Finding points of common interest is basic political pragmatism (see, for example, the bipartisan Yemen resolution shepherded through the Senate by Bernie Sanders). The problem comes when you get so close to the powerful, and spend so long around them, that you cease to be disgusted by disgusting things. At this point, “friendliness” just means a lack of moral seriousness. To be chummy with banks is to be cruel to bankrupt debtors. To be chummy with Mike Pence is to be cruel to LGBT people. There come times when you have to take a stand, when you have to give your answer to that old labor question: Which Side Are You On?

Ultimately, the Biden approach to politics is a bankrupt one. If you’re all smiles and flattery, you are not really committed to a set of progressive political values. As Biden himself recently said to a room full of wealthy people, “nothing would fundamentally change” if he was elected.

But we do not need leaders who want to be everybody’s friend, we need leaders who know who their friends are and in whose interest power needs to be exercised. You can’t be everybody’s chum.

Poetry Audio: FOLK MUSIC AS WOOLLY MAMMOTH PRESERVED IN ICE

Poetry Audio: THE BURDEN OF ETERNAL YOUTH

Posting this just in time for the summertime rush of veteran artists playing outdoor theaters—some of them likely on farewell tours.

Revised/Retitled Poem: WHAT WE THOUGHT WE KNEW WAS INCOMPLETE

Be careful of how many bodies you bury
and all the skeletons you stack in storage.
There's always someone
(be it for innocent or malevolent reasons)
who will take as much time as necessary
to bring petrified sin and/or
purposely hidden failure
to the earth's surface
and hit the switch of a giant fan
so everyone can sample the aroma

Revised Older Poem: DOWNTOWN L.A. AUGUST 14, 2011

ate a wonderful chopped vegetable salad

with ten-dollar grilled salmon on top

at a new restaurant

inhabiting an old building

at the corner of 4th and Main Street

after dessert, descended a long flight of stairs

to use the men's room

and saw pictures of the landmarks

of an earlier Los Angeles

(Bunker Hill, the original Pershing Square)

altered or deleted by Progress

>

drove to Disney Hall

got lost trying to find REDCAT,

noticed young people

wanting to be famous actors or models

using the upstairs amphitheatre for a photo shoot--

and I wondered if the great Frank Gehry

would mind his grand silver creation

used as a backdrop for headshots

Revised Older Poem: CARNIVAL

Poem originally written circa 2004 about 1999-2001.  Trimmed slightly from the earlier version--still a subjective (and opinionated) take on a bygone era in Southern California poetry.

CARNIVAL

ONE

In a cafe's back room filled with 50 people,

the Host takes the stage.

ARE YOU READY FOR SOME POETRY?

he calls out.

The audience applauds.

In the prestigious first half, there’s a mixture of storytelling,

slam poetry and political sloganeering.

Applause is a guarantee if you read a poem with

the phrase “Free Mumia”.

The Host occasionally contributes topical verse

or personal reminiscence.

When the Host is through with a poem,

he tosses it to the stage floor with a flourish.

The audience-mostly poets-

either listen with rapt attention

or scribble spontaneous verse

into their notebooks

in hopes that they can surpass

what they’re hearing

when it’s their turn on-mike.

Then the Host shouts

IT’S FEATURE TIME!

The features are either well-known poets from the city

(occasionally touring bards from out-of-state)

or  the Lucky Few the Host chooses to groom.

Most of those Lucky Few tend to either be female

or share the Host’s political views.

The feature reads for twenty to twenty-five minutes.

Then the Host passes the hat

to ensure the feature gets paid for his/her work.

During intermission, some audience members leave.

A few people buy chapbooks from the feature.

Other poets head out front to pay homage to certain

Important people who host at venues in or outside the city.

TWO

The remainder of the audience returns.

The Co-Host takes over

since the Host has gone home

to work on a poetry project of his own.

Halfway through the second half,

it’s my turn to read a poem.

I read a poem about office life.

It gets laughter and applause.

One time, a poet close to the Host

tells me I’m good and worthy of a feature.

He says he’ll put in a kind word for me.

I never hear anything from the Host.

I say “Hello” when I see him.

And I know he’s heard my work.

Perhaps I’m not reverent enough towards him.

Or maybe I need to quit being funny

and write a poem with the phrase “Free Mumia”.

At 11:30 p.m., the last poet reads.

The night is over.

I give a poet favored by the Host a ride home.

During the ride, the poet nervously hopes

the Host will write a blurb for the poet’s

new chapbook.

And, against my better instincts, I tell the poet

I’m willing to write an e-mail to the Host

on his behalf.

The Host’s Tuesday night reading is the hottest

place to be in the City’s Poetry Community.

And I do want to be a part of it-

even if I’m never asked to read in the first half.

New Poem: HELLO TIMES PAST

walk happy through shopping mall

new vinyl-and-nylon marching band letter jacket

maybe she’ll notice, offer a compliment

oh no, she’s not at department store job

it’s too early to go home

no movies starting soon

walk to Disc Records

flip past albums and 8-track tapes

three male classmates come up and say

they’re tired of me because

my grades are too good

and their parents hold me up

as some kind of role model

one of them slaps me

in the back of the head

(no one else in the store notices)

before telling me I need to fail

at least one test

to take the heat off of them

then he calls me “damn queer”

before they strut away

it’s only junior year

PSATs are coming soon

if scores are good,

maybe I can think of going to college

that’s at least a hundred miles away

from this hell

that rarely stops being fresh

Poetry Audio R.I.P. DUKES OF HAZZARD

Written a few years ago—and posting this here after hearing a Bobcat Goldthwait/Dana Gould routine at Largo last night.

New Poem: GUILTY PART THREE

made you hold your pain inside

made you believe I wasn’t reliable

caused you to doubt my emotional maturity

caused you to consider better alternatives

> 

had you return borrowed furniture

insisted you do this out of spite

knew you’d be coming Saturday morning

wanted you to discover I wouldn’t be there

> 

your three hour trip north

was a three hour trip south

I should have taken instead

of being a thoughtless boyfriend

one last time

SLATE’s Matthew Dessem enters Hope Hicks’s mind.

Excerpt from Dessem’s satirical column written from the POV of Hope Hicks being approached by a reporter from THE NEW YORK TIMES:

“But Ms. Hicks,” she said, putting her hand on my shoulder. “We are on your side. We just have no way of explicitly expressing our sympathies, because we’re still dining out on an antiquated conception of press neutrality, so the public has infer the conscious and unconscious biases informing our coverage based on how far we bend over backwards to treat your decision whether or not to ignore a congressional subpoena like you’re Hamlet in the fucking chapel or something. We shall also arrange a glossy photoshoot.”

Poetry Video LIFE DURING TRUMPTIME 2019

https://youtu.be/6FLVl5A_n3o

New Poem: ANOTHER STATE OF OUR NATION

we luxuriate in insulation from reality

confident of being too rich and/or too white

to suffer from separation of families,

raids by police or ICE,

imprisonment in various kinds of holding areas

once known as concentration camps

>

we don’t talk much about impeachment 

in our crisp four-dimensional suburb

except to regard it as mere gnat buzz

because it’s more important 

to complain on social media

that Robert Pattinson as Batman

or the final season of GAME OF THRONES 

should be overruled, nullified, invalidated

while the dangerous President 

is allowed to finish his term

>

reality doesn’t suit our lifestyle 

Revised Older Poem: FOR POET ANONYMOUS

“It’s better to be king for a night

than schmuck for a lifetime.”—

line written by Paul D. Zimmerman

for Martin Scorsese’s  THE KING OF COMEDY

Once you had time for nobodies like me.

Hell, I even liked/respected you enough to 

give you a lift in downtown Austin 

when we were both participants in

a poetry festival eighteen years ago.

But you wanted to be appreciated by the right people.

And I went through a phase in my life

where I was too easily angered by

the right people openly despising the wrong people 

instead of realizing what I couldn't change

and what others didn't want to change--

and going about my business.

So I became enraged at you in a public place

when you were surrounded by the people

you never wanted to be separated from.

And I--

in just over a minute--

built a wall between us

far too high to ever be breached.

Eventually, I stopped trying to

either beg for a clean slate

or continue being frustrated

over your relentless resolve

to keep miscreants like me

out of future poetry conversations.

I acknowledge I hurt you
with my belligerence and wrath.

And all I can do now 

is to write this poem

from permanent exile

and keep going about my business.

Mel Gibson’s current career, explained.

Marina Hyde via THE GUARDIAN:  

Mel Gibson not only has a slate of talked-about projects on the go – despite his numerous racist, sexist, homophobic, violence-threatening, violence-admitting, Holocaust-questioning meltdowns over the years – but that this particular one sees him play the paterfamilias of the “Rothchild” family, an astronomically rich New York clan.  

Over to Mel’s spokesman [Alan Nierob]who delivers one of the more shameless statements I have seen, even in his line of work: “‘Rothchild’ is not about the actual Rothschild family,” this ran, “and the only similarities between the two are that they are wealthy and their names are similar.”

Right. Totally. Imagine the misfortune of the movie-makers landing on the epicentre of this particular antisemitic trope, changing one letter in a way that, arguably, makes the point even more sledgehammer, and then casting Mel Actual Gibson in it. What are the chances? You simply can’t legislate for unforeseeable sensitivities.

“Whatever has happened in the past it doesn’t seem to affect his international value at all,” mused the producer of one of the star’s new projects this week, before delivering perhaps the most deathlessly understated verdict on Mel Gibson. “He might be a little polarising on some things.”

Poetry Audio: ANOTHER SCREENWRITER’S LAMENT

Revised Older Poem: THIS IS THE NEWS

Revised Older Poem: 1% POEM

you dug a trench in the sand

filled it with swamp water,

threw in lobsters, crabs,

snakes of all sizes

and electric eels

 >

all of this prohibitive excess

to make damn sure

no unwashed

unwanted people

could share with you

> 

on your property

people eat large slices

of an endangered world

(no sustainability allowed)

while the rest of us

wonder why

you felt justified in

disfiguring a public beach

by digging a trench in the sand