Revised Poem WHY I HAVEN’T SEEN THEM IN YEARS

 

Didn’t want to be single at 50

Complaining all the time about change

Didn’t want to be around people

Pronouncing the word “multicultural”

As an obscenity that begins with the word “mother”

Didn’t want to hear the phrase

“violating the natural order of things”

If I objected to bigotry and transphobia 

Didn’t want to hear further justifications 

For Donald Trump’s vulgar greedy warmongering 

Didn’t want to be hushed up

If I said I liked certain new movies

Just as much as Old Hollywood classics

Didn’t want to hear discussions at Bob’s Big Boy Burbank

About Alan Ladd being superior to Leo DiCaprio

Didn't want to remain single at 60

And have women steer clear of me

Because of spending decades

In the company of aging men

Who preferred to remain boys

Mike Love with The Beach Boys: The Final Shows (Video)

From last night, where a clearly ill, barely sentient Mike Love sits center stage and is bathed in memories of better days via the current touring Beach Boys and a video screen showing, on occasion, Mike’s past as an active frontman from previous decades.

After Fun Fun Fun ends, John Stamos and another band member help Mike to his feet.

The soundboard plays Bill Conti’s theme from ROCKY over the venue PA.

https://youtu.be/DvMHEH807aw?is=732lTFhsIvjcrtG2

New Poem: STUCK INSIDE OF MOBILE WITH THE TRUMP BLUES

 they erected the Plexiglass dome

 herded the diminishing faithful inside

 talked about America and lied lied lied

 not realizing that many people outside 

 are sick of high prices and unasked-for war

 as the gaslighting and denial lights up the dome

 where the faithful regard Donald Trump and Tommy Tuberville

 as Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great

 

New Poem: THE PEOPLE IN THE AI BUBBLE

 don’t cry babies don’t cry

 we’ll be idiots if we walk away from big big money

 stop moaning about the water that must be consumed 

 take our word that it’s only the amount four houses would use

 look at all the jobs, though temporary, for transient workers 

 we’ll use/discard your towns and cities by co-opting governments

 big big money is at stake

 and all you great unwashed conservatives and NPR liberals 

 can’t stop us, so please be quiet now

 as we spin fantasy yarns about how AI titans can self-regulate 

 

 if the machines take over our planet,

 we’ll have made our big big money 

 and will hide in underground bunkers

 with creature comforts and robotic servants

 that will have kill switches we won’t provide

 to those up above who somehow survive 

New Poem: TRUMP OFFERS $5,000 FOR YOUR SOUL

 the proposal he thinks is so grand

 he mentions it two nights in a row 

 on night two, he gets out brass tacks:

 support me or go straight to Hell

 Hell may now be filled with Democrats

 and a lot more Republicans than expected 

From Alex Gibney VANITY FAIR interview re his Elon Musk documentary

 “If Musk makes it to Mars and begins his colony, is the damage that he’s caused on Earth all worth it?

No. He is exploding the planet. Putting Donald Trump in the presidency is exploding the planet. He’s put a completely reckless sociopath in charge of the most powerful country on earth. Yeah. And he’s intentionally destroying the planet for financial profit. And this whole idea of making us a multi-planetary civilization is fine. I was watching Apollo 11 on the plane on the way here. It was such an interesting watch because it was such a sort of innocent time compared to now, even though the president, of course, was Nixon. But even Nixon, as corrupt as he was, had this larger sense of national and human possibilities.

So no, I don’t think it’s worth it, but also it’s phony. It’s funny. It’s bullshit. There’s no way he’s going to Mars. It’s just bullshit.”

Excerpt From

“Elon Musk, Elizabeth Holmes, and Donald Trump Are All Alike, Says 'Musk' Filmmaker Alex Gibney”

Chris Murphy

Vanity Fair

https://apple.news/AY24hyNGkSKCzdh99xMUCJg

This material may be protected by copyright.

New Poem: HOW IT BEGAN

 there was this movie I worked on

 I was in terror, had resulting competency issues,

 received various variants of verbal abuse

 and I hung on until the official wrap

 plus the two days of additional shooting 

 told myself I wouldn’t allow myself to

 be helpless in the face of wrath ever again 

 so I engaged in decompression therapy 

 by writing an outline for a roman a clef novel

 about a fake blockbuster titled ALIENS OVER HOLLYWOOD 

 the venting process was entertaining 

 and took place over a few off-work days 

 at the Fairfax Farmers Market 

 where I would write on a legal pad

 and consume a small bag of raisins 

 and discover I was no Hemingway

 so, at the end of one creative session,

 I wrote a short mock-epic poem on jaywalking 

 it wasn’t good, but it made me consider 

 learning the craft of compact stylistic creation

 my early poems were monologues 

 and then I learned to be concise

 using both narrative and metaphor 

 and I kept writing despite 

 algorithms, changing tastes, 

 refusing to be on the “good side”

 of certain disagreeable crème de la crème 

a few poems of mine were anthologized

maybe someone will read them after I’m gone 

New Poem: YOU CAN GO HOME AGAIN

 you can go home again

 if you tell yourself it’s only temporary 

 see the closed stores and near-empty mall

 drive by the century-old high school 

 be surprised by the changes in old friends

 mourn the friends who decided to leave life entirely 

 buy a Pepsi Zero where the Dairy Queen once stood

 say hello to your family inhabiting the local cemetery 

 refuse to go near the house you grew up in 

 especially refuse to compare your aspirations to your actual life

 

 take your rental car back to the airport 

 all the while noticing big Texas skies

 plus the pastureland where camels once roamed 

New Poem: I CONFESS (52 YEARS LATE)

 wherever you are now

 please accept this belated apology 

 for sending a very 70s greeting card

 with a couple walking along a sunny beach

 containing this inscription:

 someday

 some way

 somehow

 I wasn’t a good listener at 15

 didn’t read unspoken social cues

 until the age of 21

 wherever you are now

 please forgive me

 for being presumptuous 

 and making unintended changes 

 in your later views of me

 

New Poem: Graham Platner Sings Behind Blue Eyes

 I blame you media

 I blame you Establishment Democrats

 My fist clenched I won’t crack it open

 Bernie withdrew his support, I look like a fool

 It’s not rape if you say pull out of me

 It’s not rape if I peel off my condom

 It’s not rape if I plow on and you have no birth control

 It’s not violence if I push you in a room and keep it shut

 My presenting as progressive dream is over

 And I won’t blame myself 

New Poem: SEMIQUINCENTENNIAL BLUES

 Should I buy, buy, buy

 Semiquincentennial crypto, crypto, crypto, crypto, 

 as in coins, no relation to Supergirl's doggie 

 Should I stand, stand, stand, stand, 

 stand in the streets of Manhattan?

Waiting outside, outside, outside, outside. 

Madison Square Garden, 

as Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce

hijack the upcoming Fourth of July. 

and make it all about a super duper, extra special 

wedding celebration of themselves, their individual brands 

and soon to be their married couples super brand

Should I, should I, should I, should I, watch

video of Donald Trump talking about Teddy Roosevelt,

and a bunch of men dressed up as Rough Riders

Just like the people dressed up in bib overalls

watching hillbilly fascist Andy Griffith

playing Lonesome Rhodes in A FACE IN THE CROWD

Should I, should I, should I, should I watch video 

of the empty great American state fairgrounds? 

And watch that with Donald Trump asking fake RoughRiders

Do you have a 401 K?

playing in the background of my mind

Should I do that? Must I do that? 

I'd rather just look outside at the fireworks display 

and remember the great experiment of democracy 

with all its virtues and failings 

especially the failings of stolen land genocide and racism

And then remember the gains civil rights, women’s rights 

and people that came to America 

to achieve better futures for themselves and others,

and have done the very, very best 

to make America, something more beautiful and united

than the Trump and Stephen Miller acts of terror and destruction 

I just hope, against hope, that the experiment called America

will survive and improve in time for the tricentennial,

 a long ways away,

 2076.

DONALD TRUMP’S GREATEST AMERICAN STATE FAIR HITS

1. Algae Stay Away From My Reflecting Pool

2. Iran War So Far Away From Me 

3. No Asylum For You

4. It’s My Party (Lesley Gore cover)

5. I Feel Fine (Beatles cover)

6. I Vote By Mail But You Can’t 

7. What I Think About Bill Cassidy (Explicit Content Advisory)

8. America Do Exactly As I Say

New Poem: SCOTT PELLEY REQUIEM

 yes it was going to happen

 Black Thursday was the original cannonball 

 heads metaphorically removed

 change ordered for the appearance of change

 for the apparent pleasure of Skydancer Son of Oracle 

 (and I’m old enough to remember other newsmagazines 

 morphed  to more profitable true crime shows

 but CBS already has 48 Hours)

 so when Bari stayed away on purpose

 that Nick and Bari’s flunky could display

 copious amounts of hyper-thin skin

 the words YOU ARE TERMINATED FOR CAUSE

 were chiseled on the Black Rock walls

 later, we may see a few not worrying about job security 

 willing to sacrifice themselves, saying I Am Scott Pelley Too

DONALD TRUMP’S GREATEST FREEDOM 250 HITS

 1. Don’t Stop Me Now 

 2. Au Revoir Trump Kennedy Center

 3. Where Have All The Cowboys Gone?

 4. Where Have All The Musicians Gone?

 5. I Didn’t Shake The World Today (Burt Reynolds cover)

 6. My Health Is What I Tell People To Say It Is

 7. Handshake Blues 

Paul McCartney’s Dungeon Lane isn’t quite what it’s marketed as

THE BOYS OF DUNGEON LANE is alright, not great—par for the course of late-period Paul McCartney solo albums.  Due to Sir Paul’s now-advanced age, Paul-does-no-wrong fans are being extra protective and sticking their collective fingers into pairs of ears worldwide.

DUNGEON LANE was hyped as McCartney taking an album-length look at his childhood/early teen years in Liverpool.  Less than half the album is devoted to this subject matter.  The rest includes standard love songs, two musical numbers apparently created for the now-dormant IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE musical, the okay intended-for-live-performances Come Inside and a thankfully non bombastic closing song Momma Gets By, a distant cousin to Lady Madonna which digs a little deeper lyrically than most of what precedes it.

Andrew Watt, who’s now his generation’s answer to Don Was in the 90s (producer who tries to make heritage acts modern-friendly), produces sympathetically, with nods to Rick Rubin, Jeff Lynne and 60s George Martin—plus recording Paul’s voice to obscure the upper register quaver now unavoidable in his live shows.

Here’s my Spotify playlist of Paul looking back on his youth:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/067gJQ0mMOoErDKld0jFqs?si=l9vcLB5HQNawpzZeU6dgAQ&pi=R2rXk8S_Q9qct

KASH PATEL AT PEARL HARBOR

 is he FBI or an influencer in Fed’s clothing

 let’s put aside the alcohol and Olympics fanboying

 go right to Pearl Harbor where government employees

 people doing hard jobs, writing to loved ones on the mainland 

 soldiers/sailors who died and are permanently entombed 

 and in the great beyond, they shake their heads wondering why

 this unqualified clown is snorkeling where their remains lie 

New Poem: BILLION DOLLAR BALLROOM

 carry that photo like a shield

 default to the dream to avoid reality

 stuck in a war you can’t end easily 

 >

 when did you buy the White House

 when did you rename it D.C. A Lago

 why are you so vain feckless destructive 

 will this extravagant ballroom display

 TRUMP in golden neon on the roof 

New Poem: COME APART TOGETHER

 six injustices danced their mess around 

 Inside chambers of not so Supreme Court

 dig up and reanimate Jim Crow

 Roberts and his Feckless Five ruled for disorder

 Clarence pulled up the Black vote ladder

 Trump Court saying this is what it is now

 we made it harder to fight 

 what you mere citizens believe isn’t right

New Poem: THE KING AND THE FALSE KING (written version)

 

His majesty comes from Great Britain 

To take the other king to school regarding checks and balances

What power is and isn’t

What democracy should be

The American would be king rudely walks in front of the British king, 

The British king, hangs his head, hangs his head (of course Mr. Trump would do that to me)

Everybody, in America, watches the King's Congressional Speech

Wherever they choose: CSPAN, news channels, 

We’re so glad to have a respite from the false American king and his bloviating 

Plus his urge to use the Correspondents Dinner as the jaw bone of vengeance

While the rumor of possible Secret Service friendly fire isn’t a subject 

Making an impact inside the minds of the journalists 

Covering the real king and the faux king. at the wonderful state dinner.

New Playlist: THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO DONALD TRUMP

 1. JESUS CHRIST POSE (Soundgarden cover with altered lyrics)

 2. IF I WAS THE POPE (Bruce Springsteen cover with altered lyrics)

 3. HOW GREAT I AM

 4. I’VE KNOWN NO WAR ((The Who cover)

 5. JESUS HE KNOWS ME (Genesis cover)

 6. JACOB’S LADDER (Bruce Hornsby cover with altered lyrics)

 7. I’M NOT JESUS, I’M JUST A DOCTOR

 8. WALKING ON THE STRAIT OF HORMUZ

 9. CRUCIFIED BY THE MIDTERMS