The DANCING WITH THE STARS cast I'd rather see for fall 2011.

http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2011/08/new_dancing_with_the_stars_cas.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Not sure if its the economy or a low opinion of the viewing audience, but, once again, the DANCING WITH THE STARS cast is rather underwhelming (Nancy Grace?  Kristin Cavillari?  David Arquette?).

Here are my choices:
a. Alec Baldwin
b. Warren Beatty
c. James Franco
d. Samuel L. Jackson
e. George Lopez
f.  Megan Fox
g. Valerie Bertinelli
h. Sherri Shepherd (think of the cross-promos with THE VIEW)
i.  Carla Hall (ditto for cross-promos with THE CHEW)
j.  Helen Mirren

SUMMARIZING THE 2011 ACADEMY AWARDS

Another example of Bristol Palin rage re DANCING WITH THE STARS.

http://www.deadline.com/2010/11/cbs-tv-city-evacuated-over-suspicious-white-powder-at-dancing-offices/

Not much to add to this except to say that the human mind who did this is an organ which descended to the
sub-basement level.

They don't make DANCING WITH THE STARS casts like they used to.

Saw this cast list for the spring season of Disney/ABC's DANCING WITH THE STARS
on the Vulture section of NEW YORK magazine's website (http://www.nymag.com):
Pamela Anderson, “the world’s sexiest woman”
Chad Ochocinco, “football’s most outrageous”
Aiden Turner, “the soap stud” [ex-ALL MY CHILDREN]
Erin Andrews, “ESPN’s broadcasting beauty”
Shannen Doherty, “The Beverly Hills bad girl”
Buzz Aldrin, “the original moonwalker”
Niecy Nash, “Reno 911’s funniest”
Nicole Scherzinger, “the Pussycat Doll”
Evan Lysacek, “the Olympic golden boy”
Kate Gosselin, “reality’s most-watched super-mom”
Jake Pavelka, this season's Bachelor

Obviously not the most star-studded season. And it could more easily be referred to as
DANCING WITH THE REALITY SHOW STARS.

I'd prefer this cast:
Megan Fox
Bill Cosby
Lindsey Vonn
Shawn White
Kevin Bacon
Kathy Griffin
Ingo Rademacher [GENERAL HOSPITAL's Jax]
Charles Gibson
Elizabeth Vargas
James Franco [he could spin this as another performance art project]
Tyra Banks
Kellie Pickler

Something for just about every demographic.

You can set your watch by G. Murray Thomas' reviews.

G. Murray Thomas stays consistent in adhering to his Len Goodman-esque yardstick of poetry "standards" (aka Let Only The Right Ones In). This month, long-time San Gabriel Valley poetry institution Don Kingfisher Campbell gets Murrayed (in a similar manner to what happened to me) on the POETIX reviews site:
http://www.poetix.net/reviews.htm

Also, there are more positive reviews of Orange County poetry institution Marcia Cohee and Elaine Mintzer's latest literary poetry offerings.

A modest proposal for Victor Infante and Michael Paul: formalized literary poetry slam a la DANCING WITH THE STARS.

One more encore in combating literary poetry fatuousness, keeping the ad hominem-osity to a minumum.

Here's a link to a recent Victor Infante blog post regarding slam poetry:
http://ocvictor.livejournal.com/779074.html

Finding a rare moment of common ground with Victor, I agree with him on the point that some slam poets (eager for high scores) engage in " simplistic statements of political positions for easy audience reaction."

But this sentence--All of it slides away when I put what good writing there is into focus.--makes me think....uh-oh.

Before I go further, I'll reveal my limited knowledge of/experience with slam. I've been to a few slam events over the years--mostly in Austin, TX (during the AIPF in 2001, 2002 and 2007) and in the Bay Area. And I've been there solely as an audience member.

After reading Victor's blog post, I had a flashback to something Michael Paul (former Orange County gasbag literary poet who is now operating out of Northern California) wrote for Poetix.net about a slam event he once attended (highlighting by me):
There were 10 teams fielded by 10 towns, which represented the cream of the crop, slam-wise, for those cities, and on Saturday, in two five-round bouts, those ten teams were competitively skimmed down to the four finalists, who would contend for the big bucks and big honors on Sunday, the day we attended. The reports, from informed and discriminating sources, were not too encouraging in terms of expecting artful poetry; in fact we were forewarned that the kind of angry, loud-voiced, typical rants and screeds which we have come, unfortunately, to expect, would be the order of the day.

So it was quite refreshing when, instead, the four final teams trotted out their best work to vie for the final honors. Instead of the frighteningly homogenous hip-hop we have seen in slams (skinny white boys and little old ladies from the old country attempting to conform to and perform in the cadence and body language of African-Americans, which does not ring true) there was diversity. There was originality. There was some real poetry. And there was a redemptive and life-affirming quality to much of the work.

Mr. Paul's complete column can be read here:
http://poetix.net/Paul_essay.htm

Here's my modest proposal: I'd prefer proponents-of-poetry-as-literature to engage in the act of separativeness, instead of trying to silence poetic voices they consider to be too informal and frighteningly inferior in craft and remake slam into nothing but their own self-image.

Once this separation has occurred, then the literary poets can have their very own slam contests a la DANCING WITH THE STARS with three appointed judges (this avoids the selection of audience members at random who may not appreciate their genius, their MFA degrees and magazine/small press/anthology/application-for-poet-laureate -of-their-state credentials).

Michael Paul can be Len Goodman.

Victor Infante can be Bruno Tonioli.

And I'll leave it up to you, the reader, to select an appropriate equivalent of Carrie Ann Inaba.