fall down now
now—not a minute from now
grovel grovel grovel grovel
please please don’t hurt me
don’t shun me for a mere technicality
tell me what to say so I’ll know when to say
that weave of words saving me $16 million
>
which anchor you want to throw softballs—
nay, let’s just call them gentle grounders—
please please please don’t hurt me
I’ll make sure ABC treats you like Reagan 2.0
put the whip back in the box
reinsert the gun in its holster
you’ll have no further reason to sue
for the time being,
they will take comfort in believing
he won’t come for them—
instead it will be criminals.
pregnant women daring to defy men,
so-called deviants trapped in misgendered bodies
>
they hold themselves tight
saying we break no laws
we mind our business
no need to break in our houses
enter our workplaces
pull us over on freeways
>
the government who doesn’t care
will close their eyes
and make their arrests
no matter your situation
no matter your circumstances
no matter what you believe
to be innocence
He’s back! He has a new book he’s reading from tonight at a venue in Westchester (West L.A. suburb near LAX) with wife and chosen colleague friends. And if you’re an emerging poet who tries to gain his favor, perhaps he’ll take a genuine interest in you and your work.
Or, if you try to gain his favor by giving him your chapbook for feedback and hear nothing and call him on it (a general no-no in the literary aspirant community), you might get a reply like this one:
First off, I'm sorry I called you a jerk. I was out of line, and for that, I genuinely apologize. On the other hand, I'm not going to apologize for not paying more attention to you, and it's glaringly obvious that's what this little tantrum has been about. [prominent poet, now MIA from the scene] didn't pay attention to you. I didn't pay attention to you. Wah, wah, wah.Grow up, Terry. If you've got problems with the poetry scene, do something about it. Start your own readings, start a festival. Publish a journal or Web zine. Whatever, but stop acting like a baby because you don't get the attention you deserve and others do. You're right, it's not a level playing field, and you don't get points for just being there. You've actually got to do something well. Writing well would be a start. I DO remember your chapbook. I still have it, in the piles of several hundred that I dutifully carried with me cross-country when I moved. Terry, it was dull. Very dull. Not bad, but there was little of interest going on there. I don't recall if I had read it yet when I saw you in Redondo, but even if I had, I doubt I would have said much. What was I supposed to say? "Sorry, it bored me to tears." But as I recall, it took me awhile to get around to it, because, even now, I get a ton of chapbooks very month. I've not thrown one away, and I try to read them all, but no, I can't review them, and I really had nothing consequential to say about it, for good or bad. As to my "wisdom would be something of value," Whatever. I don't recall volunteering to be your mentor, and while I've taught poetry in high schools and colleges, I don't recall you being in any of my classes. The sad fact is, Terry, I thought you were a nice guy,and always tried to be friendly to you, but no, I didn't care much for your writing. Would you have preferred that I said that? I can't see what good that would have done. It's not like I walked out of the room when you were on the microphone. Maybe you've gotten better, I don't know.You can have whatever opinions you want, Terry, and you can have whatever opinions you want about me, but the fact is, you're not the one out there doing the work, and if you've made any serious effort to BE the one out there doing the work, I'm sorry, but I don't recall it.
Get a load of this fawning:
But there is no doubt about one thing: Mr. Trump was a ferociously effective campaigner.
To watch him up close on this third run for president was to see him blend comedy, fury, optimism, darkness and cynicism like never before.
Mel Gibson Jack Ford Danica Patrick
they build personal walls as high as the Babel Tower
they probably say variations of F The Common People
thinking they are advancing America by dragging
the gutter talking rambling carcass of Donald John Trump
towards a finish line that isn’t what they imagine
not the climax of a rancid second term in office
to enable them to Keep What’s Theirs
instead they’re pulling Trump towards what he dreads
denials, delays, clang of prison door, silence
Here’s Peter Baker pushing THE NEW YORK TIMES reporter analysis envelope:
Sometimes lost amid all the shouting of a high-octane campaign heading into its final couple of weeks is that simple if mind-bending fact. America for the first time in its history may send a criminal to the Oval Office and entrust him with the nuclear codes. What would once have been automatically disqualifying barely seems to slow Mr. Trump down in his comeback march for a second term that he says will be devoted to “retribution.”
let your Artificial Intelligence do your thinking and deciding for you plus you can put it to work making what Guillermo Del Toro called screensavers but you with little background in art appreciation will call it genius pixel painting then you can feed your AI old movies and movie star photos to create a mediocre teaming of Alan Ladd and Humphrey Bogart and dunderheadedly claim it’s better than movies made with real people and real settings and after that you can fly to a foreign country to not learn the language but speak your native linguistics into a translator app and, once you’ve returned home, yon can tell your math teacher you don’t need to waste hours proving theorems because there’s AI to save time for you and as you persist in believing your Artificial Intelligence is all the computer power you need with no more reason to read and figure and learn, then you’ll find yourself easily led and, eventually, easily enslaved
it was a sign of the End Times
when the Dillards department store
which dressed affluent women and men
was closed justlikethat
and reborn as a gigantic arcade
POSTSCRIPT: The above poem refers to Sikes Senter shopping mall in Wichita Falls, TX. It was built in 1966, then sat empty until October of 1974. What remains (including a Boot Barn, a Hot Topic, a Books-a-Million and an AMC multiplex) will celebrate its 50th anniversary next month.
dead for two weeks
I do feel something
although it doesn’t show
>
all I can say is this:
I didn’t think it would
be quite this soon
and I never imagined
you leaving this world
before my mother and myself
>
things I wanted to tell you outweigh
whatever I did manage through
phone calls and texts
>
at least we were in some kind of contact
not a scenario where we hadn’t spoken in years
he died at 74
never married
one daughter
one granddaughter
child of the keep it to yourself 50s
came of age in generation gap 60s
attracted to women and soft drugs
brought to heel by the county court
cried when he had to cut hair short
and present as nice boy gone bad
>
had a brother nine years younger
far too young to bond with
often separated by parents and miles
learned how to be a salesman
able to get others to believe him
as long as others weren’t mother father relatives
>
but he loved sports
collected memorabilia
graduated from University of Texas Austin
spent his retirement going to various sporting events
this took his mind off declining health
and being denied access to granddaughter
by daughter who sometimes preferred him at arm’s length
>
passed away a day following minor traffic accident
began eternal sleep in a duplex protecting him
from Central Texas humidity outside
turn away from sparklers waved by gotcha interrogators
don’t fall for lies told by the cemetery desecrators
there’s no reason to again wallow in the Pit of Venality
we must be better than this
read this phrase from a living poet eulogizing a deceased poet:
went to local poetry readings when there were good ones
>
I knew the deceased poet and he was kind to me
even though I was nowhere close to his level of accomplishment
and I knew he wouldn’t write a sentence eulogizing someone
with the phrase I quoted from the Eminent Living Poet
>
to me, all the local readings I attended were good ones
you learn from the best, the mid-level and the worst
and there are talks to talk and walks to walk
even if you choose to talk and walk
without a feverish despair for what may be fickle acceptance
1. Who Was The Best Hannibal Lecter?
2. Bow Unto Me, J.D.
3. I Demonize Migrants (Extended Version)
4. Should I Take My Bandage Off?
5. With God On Our Side (Bob Dylan cover)
6. My Latest Definition of Unity
7. I’m Scared of Debating Kamala
8. Your Favorite Felon
only so many times I can:
be gaslighted
listen to Lee Greenwood
hear Duped By the Left testimony
watch a Teamster president believe he’s winning minds
witness Donald Trump’s ear bandage
tolerate Chris Wallace going gaga for Trump
endure fake assurance that extremists aren’t extreme
don’t try to pin this on Me
you, presenting as Samson
proclaiming only you can beat Trump
boasting no one can take me out
except the Lord Almighty
>
there are billions of souls needing help and refuge
I’m not coming to Earth to reward your vanity
by making a case for Kamala over you
use your common sense
it’s what I gave you at birth
George Stephanopoulos: And if you stay in and Trump is elected and everything you're warning about comes to pass, how will you feel in January?
Joe Biden: I'll feel, as long as I gave it my all, and I did as good a job as I know I can do, that's what this is about.
CNN said no on-camera fact checking apparently because if facts were checked on-camera and one candidate had more wrong facts and/or outright lies than the other then pointing this out via on-camera chyrons would have indicated bias and CNN in the Zaslav era cannot indicate bias at all whatsoever.
And this is how democracy dies.
Behind your curtain
was a paperback copy of MACBETH
resting on a wooden stool
and a black cat named Monet
who, after minutes of contemplation,
jumped on top of the stool
how beautiful, I thought
nothing like this in my hometown
>
You used to bless me with teenage smiles
then the smiles stopped justlikethat
and everything I did got on your nerves
so I closed my curtain
and never again stepped out for encores
>
Over two decades later,
I visited a restored home
in West Los Angeles
the owner had a living room curtain
pulled open to reveal a picture window
displaying a view of a flower garden,
a swimming pool,
and a charming guest house
>
It’s the kind of sight
you would have loved
in the year
when we were both fifteen
From THE WASHINGTON POST:
Trump’s aura of invincibility has never been earned. He was impeached more times than any other president in U.S. history. He presided over the worst string of GOP electoral losses in many decades. He lost reelection after only a single term, which he won only after losing the popular vote. He has never once commanded majority support in this country. He had already been losing in court already—he’s been nailed for sexually assaulting E. Jean Carroll, and his company was found to have systematically lied about its worth—even though he enjoys the priciest legal representation, funded partly by donor money that he fleeced from his own party, another privilege that pretty much no other defendant has enjoyed, ever.
And now, after Trump and his elite enablers attempted mightily to wreck the whole system to keep him beyond accountability at all costs—an effort that for a time looked like it just might succeed—a jury of ordinary Americans heroically stood up and said: No.
1. The Rule of Law Means Nothing to Me
2. Manhattan Doesn’t Love Me Anymore
3. If There’s A Hell Below (Curtis Mayfield cover)
4. 34, Count Them, 34
5. The Final Countdown (Europe cover)
6. Todd Blanche Not My Roy Cohn
7. I Secretly Respect Alvin Bragg
8. Keeping the Faithful in Line
9. Prison Bound (Social Distortion cover)
recalling the 70s “cuddly wiseacre”
who presented as a progressive Democrat
came back from substance abuse in the 80s
had an impressive run of films for awhile
careers don’t stay at the peak forever
then the movies got smaller
a TV series was short-lived
and the “cuddly wiseacre” began to curdle
engaging in transphobia and other hate rants
climaxing with chasing New Englanders
away from a screening of the classic JAWS
but enough people applauded and stayed
to ensure more performative reputational destruction
at public venues for the foreseeable future
First headline:
fell and couldn’t get up
crawled past the bewildered cats
finally found the cellphone, dialed 911
kept on hold, then gave information
>
somehow opened the patio door
slow crawl to the garage
somehow opened the electric door
then reverse crawl from patio to den
>
a few minutes later, paramedics arrive
one of them says, mute the Dodger game on TV
another sees the books by my chair and asks
do you ever go outside?
I say yes, when the medicines and groceries run out
>
vitals checked, prescriptions recorded
lifted to my feet, not without further knee pain
decline a ride to the emergency room
>
by myself again
should buy a cane and a walker
though I dread reduced mobility
>
bruises, but no breaks or fractures
time to turn off the mute button
Joshua Logan’s adaptation of the William Inge play PICNIC will screen in early April at Hollywood’s Egyptian Theater (Netflix/American Cinematheque) with two people I like doing a Q and A afterwards.
But I can’t bring myself to see it again; once, two decades ago, at the pre-Tarantino Vista Theater was more than enough.
Overaged, miscast William Holden and the excruciating scene where Rosalind Russell loudly begs MARRY ME MARRY ME MARRY ME to Arthur O’Connell resonate in my memories like tornado warning sirens.
Mitigating factors are Kim Novak and young Susan Strasberg, plus the Kansas color cinematography of James Wong Howe.
But it doesn’t work for me as a definitive portrait of breaking away from small town narrowness.
What I saw of the Katie Britt SOTU rebuttal (couldn’t bring myself to endure the whole thing) reminded me of fundraising appeals that either come from televangelists or hucksters preying on seniors who watch MeTV, Buzzr, etc.
Obviously, it was intended as a soft-sell version of Trump’s standard apocalyptic Hulk Smash bigotry and Bidenphobia. But it seemed like an audition video for a local TV news anchor position—heavy on smiling while reading copy off the teleprompter. With the occasional look this is serious face.
Quote below is from an article by Rebecca Davis O’Brien titled WHY THE AGE ISSUE IS HURTING BIDEN SO MUCH MORE THAN TRUMP.
“It is the perception of how you communicate,” said Carol Kinsey Goman, a speaker and coach on leadership presence. “When Trump makes those kinds of faux pas, he just brushes it off, and people don’t say, ‘Oh, he’s aging.’ He makes at least as many mistakes as Joe Biden, but because he does it with this bravado, it doesn’t seem like senility. It seems like passion.”
Happened upon the paragraph below on the Best Buy website. As most people know, Best Buy soon plans to murder sales of physical DVDs/Blu-rays/4K discs both in their stores and online.
get ready once more
two mastodons enter the stadium
for more roars and tusk-butts
>
the media loves rematches
even if most of the public doesn’t
>
watch Donald dance away
from what he stirred up on 1/6/21
heh heh, nothing to do with me
they got overexcited on their own
you don’t mind if I squash civil liberties next time
>
see Joe bark at those who
dare to bring up Israel and Gaza
and his failure to distance from Bibi’s slaughter
he says look, I cut insulin prices
and got both parties to agree on infrastructure
>
someone asks why he doesn’t tout the accomplishments
instead of always shouting OOGA BOOGA TRUMP
the crowd boos the question
Joe resumes the stump speech
this is what we get
when we don’t have big donor money
or super PAC clout
to push for real change
to keep old men with outmoded methods
away from oval offices and nuclear footballs
