Sunday, March 31, 2019

Ultimate WHEN EVERYONE WENT DISCO playlist.

1. Kiss--I WAS MADE FOR LOVIN' YOU
2. James Taylor--DAY TRIPPER
3. Cheap Trick--GONNA RAISE HELL
4. Elton John--VICTIM OF LOVE
5. The Rolling Stones--MISS YOU
6. Dolly Parton--BABY I'M BURNIN'
7. Paul McCartney and Wings--GOODNIGHT TONIGHT
8. Barbra Streisand--THE MAIN EVENT
9. Ethel Merman--I GET A KICK OUT OF YOU (1979)
10. George Jones--I AIN'T GOT NO BUSINESS DOIN' BUSINESS TODAY
11. Daryl Hall & John Oates—PORTABLE RADIO
12. The Rolling Stones—EMOTIONAL RESCUE
13. Barry Manilow—COPACABANA
14. Jack Jones—WIVES AND LOVERS (1979)
15. Isaac Hayes—DON’T LET GO
16. Frank Sinatra—NIGHT AND DAY (1977)
17. The Beach Boys—HERE COMES THE NIGHT (1979)
18. Aretha Franklin—IT’S GONNA GET A BIT BETTER 
19. Daryl Hall and John Oates—BEBOP DROP
20. David Naughton—MAKIN’ IT
21. J. Geils Band—COME BACK

Friday, March 29, 2019

Rebecca Traister on the deficits of Joe Biden.

Excerpt from Rebecca Traister’s article for NEW YORK magazine: https://www.thecut.com/2019/03/joe-biden-isnt-the-answer-for-president-in-2020.html
Biden carries himself with the confidence of a winner, despite not having won, or even come close to winning, either of the previous presidential primaries he’s entered. He is the guy whose self-assured conviction that his authority will protect him from rebuke has always preceded him into any room, whose confident sense of his own entitlement repels potential objection like Gore-Tex repels rain. He is the gaffe-master, the affable fuck-up, and also, oddly, the politician who’s supposed to make us feel safe. He is the amiable, easygoing, handsy-but-harmless guy who’s never going to give you a hard time about your own handsiness or prejudice, who’s gonna make a folksy argument about enacting fundamentally restrictive policies.

For his whole career, Biden’s role has been to comfort the lost, prized, and most fondly imagined Democratic voter, the one who’s like him: that guy in the diner, that guy in Ohio, that guy who’s white and so put off by the changed terms of gendered and racial power in this country that decades ago he fled for the party that was working to roll back the social advancements that had robbed him of his easy hold on power. That guy who believed that the system worked best when it worked for him.
Biden is the Democrats’ answer to the hunger to “make America great again,” dressed up in liberal clothes. The New York Times’ Jamelle Bouie has in fact argued that Biden’s racial politics have offered a form of Trumpism on the left, a “liberal cover to white backlash.” To that I would add, he has provided liberal cover to anti-feminist backlash, the kind of old-fashioned paternalism of powerful men who don’t take women’s claims to their reproductive, professional, or political autonomy particularly seriously, who walk through the world with a casual assurance that men’s access to and authority over women’s bodies is natural. In an attempt to win back That Guy, Joe Biden has himself, so very often, been That Guy.
Now it seems, That Guy is widely viewed as the best and safest candidate to get us out of this perilous and scary political period. But the irony is that so much of what is terrifying and dangerous about this time — the Trump administration, the ever more aggressive erosion of voting and reproductive rights, the crisis in criminal justice and yawning economic chasm between the rich and everyone else — are in fact problems that can in part be laid at the feet of Joe Biden himself, and the guys we’ve regularly been assured are Democrats’ only answer.



Friday, March 22, 2019

Giving reality a middle finger, Las Vegas still loves machine guns and Michael Jackson.

Michael Jackson slot machines are still available in the wake of LEAVING NEVERLAND, the Cirque du Soleil show still runs at the Mandalay Bay Hotel and the MGM Grand Hotel still believes “Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough” is an eternal banger that must not be pulled from its music PA playlist.

And the Mandalay Bay-based massacre of innocent country music festival fans means nothing.  You can shoot machine guns from the ground (one business is called Battlefield Vegas) or from a helicopter (which at least travels into the desert before allowing customers to fire away).

As the late David Brenner said (in a different context referring to performing in clubs, but relevant here): “You can do anything in Vegas.”




The Mueller Report is complete and ready for the Attorney General

Excerpt from POLITICO’s Breaking News story:
Regardless of what the public ultimately gets [to read], Mueller’s probe has already left a footprint on American politics that will not soon fade. 
Trump and his team have had to repeatedly confront serious questions about the president’s relationship with former associates and aides who Mueller charged with federal crimes. And after Mueller accused Moscow of orchestrating an expansive disinformation campaign during the election to help the reality TV star — confirming the findings of American intelligence agencies — the White House has had to answer constant queries about the president’s personal indebtedness to Russia.
Together, those revelations have created political and legal challenges for the Trump White House that will last beyond Mueller’s eventual report, no matter what it says. 
And Mueller’s report is hardly the last word on the matter. Federal prosecutors in New York are examining Trump’s inauguration and campaign spending. States have launched probes into Trump’s real estate projects and personal finances. And House Democrats have demanded documents from a plethora of people in Trump’s personal, political and business orbit.

Saturday, March 16, 2019

Falling James explains what poetry is/isn’t for you.

Not posting the link here, but LA WEEKLY stalwart Falling James wrote an article where famous local poets/authors recommend local readings and venues.  These places tend to be more pedigreed than not.

So let’s turn the floor over to Falling James deigning to define what isn’t poetry to him:

For those who crave to hear more artistically ambitious poetry and short fiction performed live, there are nonetheless a dizzying variety of places where subtle wordplay is appreciated, although one sometimes has to search carefully to discern the more adventurous and experimental spoken-word artisans amid the overriding clamor of actor types and comedians manqué shouting over one another in telling their personal anecdotes at generic storytelling events.

New reading of old poem YOU GET SO ALONE

https://youtu.be/ML94vf5SWiA

Monday, March 11, 2019

R.I.P. drummer Hal Blaine—His Greatest Hits

From Wikipedia, a list of Number One hits (in various genres) that session musician Hal Blaine played drums on:
Blaine played drums on the following recordings that hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100:


Sunday, March 10, 2019

Revised Poem: THE COVINGTON BOY AND HIS AFTERMATH

supposed good boy
from good family
visiting nation's capital
wears his big red
I'm-with-stupid-leader cap
stands toe to toe
with man of different race/religion
boy's face wears superiority smirk
as his stature rapidly shrinks
while the man staying true
to his spirituality
is the real Great American
>
but the story does not end there
zealous conservative adults use bad boy
as symbolic nuclear weapon
aimed at The Washington Post and CNN
to cease those discouraging facts about
the leader who shouldn't be leading
and who, in a more courageous world,
ought to be playing golf for years
in a country-club prison
far from non-security cameras
restrained from orchestrating perpetual hate
in generations old and young

Friday, March 8, 2019

New Poem: 2020 FORETOLD


both parties have paid almost two years of rent
on the National Electoral Battlefield
so let the cable news speculation run rampant
and allow the online and print media to join in
with lots of chatter about electability
also please don’t impeach the President
because it messes up the timetable
brush away any Green New Deals
plus talk of Medicare For All
not to mention Free College Tuition
keep Incrementalism alive by
dry repeats of “how do we pay for this”
smash the hopes of young voters,
children and teens taking Civics classes
and the yet-to-be-born
teach them how the concept of Change
doesn’t mean real change for the better
instead, it’s merely a shiny buzzword 
used by a minority party
as a giant crowbar 
to separate power
from the majority party

Wednesday, March 6, 2019

Tuesday, March 5, 2019

After viewing the entirety of LEAVING NEVERLAND

Here's the brief review I posted on the Letterboxd.com site:
Dan Reed’s meticulous—If overlong and stuffed with too many drone-shot location scene transitions—forum given to Wade Robson, James Safechuck and assorted family members to describe the vast distance between Michael Jackson the beloved all-around entertainer and Michael Jackson the sexual abuser/psychological destroyer of young children.  The horrors of Part One are echoed in Part Two by the Michael-requested perjuries (following other boys coming forward with their anecdotes of damage)  plus Robson and Safechuck’s efforts to cope with the psychological fallout from being repeatedly used/discarded by the self-coronated King of Pop.

Sunday, March 3, 2019

Thoughts after viewing Part One of LEAVING NEVERLAND

Certainly the stories of Wade Robson, James Safechuck, their starstruck stage mothers and other family members are powerful and sad examples of victimization—the kind of behavior celebrities (not just pedophiles) can get away with since they know that any kind of acquiescence to gifts/vacations/backstage access/job opportunities provided by Stars will elicit disbelief from jurors  if the Star is tried for sexual assault/misconduct.

There will be people who will watch LEAVING NEVERLAND and continue to listen to Michael Jackson/Jackson 5/Jacksons recordings, compartmentalizing.  A few may pause for occasional reflection about how an abusive, powerful stage father did no favors for a son who imprinted his dubious/exploitative/deeply selfish notions regarding power, desire, misogyny, overriding parents/authority figures, etc. onto the psyches of his chosen “best friend” boys for years/decades afterward.

One question remains.  How many adults who may have been molested by Michael Jackson will speak publicly—by name—to corroborate Robson and Safechuck’s stories?