New poem: THE WINNER GOES TO DINNER

THE WINNER GOES TO DINNER
(title inspired by the 1981 film TRUE CONFESSIONS)

the ballots were counted


and the tribe spoke


my torch was silenced
...

I was escorted across

the rope bridge

before the medals

were given out

>

and I realized that

I put on my running shorts

plus the thin sleeveless undershirt

and ran for what seemed like years

but no one felt any desire to add me

to the race's official list

>

Gallants can also be Goofuses

(as I know too well)

Goofuses can also be Gallants

(as I know quite well),

but perceived Goofuses tend

to show their best traits

when Important people aren't looking

>

an example being Gregory Peck

in THE BIG COUNTRY

who was worthy and brave

mostly when other people weren't watching

>

you don't win races that way

instead you make sure you're seen

doing the right things

by, to and with the right people

>

being unseen almost everywhere

keeping your unblown horn

in its case

not rushing to people

with a chair and a footstool

when you think they need

extrasuperspecial application

of thick, perhaps-sincere social butter

>

that's when you lose the race

and get buried

in the Potter's Field of Poetry

with the rest of the Goofuses

Film critic Owen Glieberman's termination and the endangered species of film critics..

He's never been the Household Name of Siskel/Ebert/Roeper/Shalit renown, but Owen Glieberman  held his post as chief ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY until yesterday, when the magazine let him go as part of the usual cut-cut whack-whack not-enough-ad-buys spreadsheet stuff still affecting print magazines.

Here's Matt Zoeller Seitz (who recently wrote a coffee-table book on Wes Anderson):
http://www.rogerebert.com/mzs/for-the-love-of-it-notes-on-the-decline-of-entertainment-weekly-the-firing-of-owen-gleiberman-and-the-ongoing-end-of-an-era

And here's Sasha Stone commenting on Jeffrey Wells' HOLLYWOOD ELSEWHERE blog (Wells used to write for EW in the 90s):
"It all started to fall apart when Rotten Tomatoes started recognizing Joe Anybody as a film critic. I am old enough, too, to remember when it meant something to be a film critic. There are still good writers of film around but not as many as you'd think. The problem with a lot of high profile critics is that they couldn't be bought off by the studios so outlets lost revenue because no one was giving the right blow jobs out - with bloggers, obviously, that isn't a problem. I am including myself in that. But I've always believed where film critics are concerned - we want them on that wall, we need them on that wall. If editors of outlets like EW don't value them, however, none of the younger generations will know what really great film criticism looks like. Some things are bigger than the profit margin."

My opinion: it's less an issue of "Joe Anybody" forcing seasoned professionals out than magazines and newspapers wanting to focus on zippy and zingy mass-audience fare.  And it doesn't help when the veteran critic stock-in-trade of getting people to balance their movie diet with lesser-known releases is met by editors with (what I assume is) "You want to take up X number of column inches writing about a movie in a few theaters that's also available On Demand through TV/iTunes/websites? You write about the new GODZILLA or you're fired."

New poem: CHILDHOOD MEMORY

supervised by parents,


I walked around


what used to be


my grandparents'


vacation cabin


on Lake Diversion


dust everywhere


debris brought in


through broken windows


and old bottles of Coke


still intact


what would


a twenty-five year-old


bottle of Coca-Cola


taste like, I wondered


before my parents


prevented me


from finding out

National Poetry Month--a glass half-full or half-empty?

If you're in the poetry-as-literature community, then National Poetry Month is a decorous, tasteful 30-day variant of Mardi Gras.

You can write 30 poems, one for each day, and cut/slice your art to fit whatever prompts are devised this year.

You can also go to poetry awards functions, where old and younger gods get honored--and communities send out subtle dog-whistles as to who and what poets/poetry/community service qualify for Hall of Fame status.

You can attend and/or participate in literary festivals in venues small and large.

And you can buy poetry books either online or in independent bookstores or dwindling megabook chain shops.

Then, the 30 days are over.

And you may find yourself one night in a second-hand bookstore (as I recently did) with several poetry books to trade for cash/credit and discover that the owner will only take Billy Collins (because he is a Household Name the owner recognizes) and Jack Hirschman (after I tell the owner that he's a surviving Northern California Beat, who has a Name, though not in as large a typeface as Billy Collins).

One can't help but wish that every day could be Poetry Day--without the attempt to compartmentalize it into only one month of ceremony that, for some, serves as lifeblood.

On its 20th anniversary, surveying and surviving the trauma of JIMMY HOLLYWOOD.

On this date twenty years ago, the comedy/drama JIMMY HOLLYWOOD opened.  I was one of its three stand-ins; none of us received screen credit for our seven to eight weeks of labor--ce'st la vie.

JIMMY HOLLYWOOD opened against the cinematic competition of MAJOR LEAGUE 2 and FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL.  It stiffed.  The audience didn't like it/didn't think it was funny or involving/didn't care for its takes on would-be actors and Instant Fame in an era seven years before SURVIVOR unleashed a floodtide of TV stars cast for reasons other than talent or conventional training in acting.

A few months after its release, JIMMY HOLLYWOOD was recut for VHS/DVD release (in some ways, an improvement over the theatrical cut).  Though it has some supporters, it sank into the cinematic equivalent of the La Brea Tar Pits, now so devoid of market value it can be seen for free by clicking the following link:
http://viooz.co/movies/19930-jimmy-hollywood-1994.html

Perhaps the lasting impact of JIMMY HOLLYWOOD was that it served as a laboratory for its director.  The shoot-an-A-picture-fast approach was later applied to WAG THE DOG, more universally acclaimed critically and successful at the boxoffice.

I've written before about the unpleasant work atmosphere of JIMMY HOLLYWOOD as I perceived/experienced it.

Here's a quick precis: some crew members on the film were decent and generous to me (and I tried my best to reciprocate).  Others' behavior ranged from patronizing to contemptuous to hostile to downright vicious, seizing on any mistakes I may have made as a way of venting anger they couldn't display to people equal or higher on the filmmaking ladder.

I was scared of not measuring up and being fired--and two decades later, time and distance have enabled me to accept that other crewpeople were fearful for the same reasons and there were some things I could and should have taken less personally.  But, at the time, it was quite difficult for me to be detached enough to have a Big Picture view of what a key crew member of JIMMY referred to as "this madness."

Twenty years later, I write poetry and try to sell books and e-books of my work.  It's not always an easy vocation/avocation, but at least I've moved on with my life.

And, if I make a mistake, I can correct it without the paralyzing worry that I'm causing a hundred crew members to stop in their tracks and wait for me to get it right.

Randi Zuckerberg has her George Plimpton moment on Broadway.

Explaining the post title: George Plimpton of PARIS REVIEW fame had a lucrative sideline of being a "professional amateur" as football/baseball player/trapeze artist/bit-part movie actor and turning it into books and TV specials; one of the books (PAPER LION) became a movie in 1968, best known today as the breakout vehicle for Alan Alda, who played the reel version of Plimpton.

Now, let's go to Randi Zuckerberg, sister of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.  She's on Broadway in the still-running stage version of ROCK OF AGES--offering insight into her new sideline, plus reacting in a tsk-tsk cluck-cluck way at the little people who aren't comfortable with San Francisco becoming a high-cost-of-living techie haven:
Your part of the plot is arguably a bit anti-capitalist, certainly anti-big money development. You even call the folks you're rallying "comrades." Does that strike you at all as a bit ironic, considering you and your family's own business success? Does part of your plot line ring true to your own life experience?

When I was developing the part, I actually found myself reading a lot about and calling upon the current struggles in San Francisco — the income disparity, the gentrification of the city with so much incoming tech wealth, the large homeless population. And that's what I drew upon to create my character. She's fighting to preserve L.A.'s Sunset Strip in the '80s.  But in my mind, she could easily be protesting in San Francisco today. I'm not saying that I agree with her personally. Some of her antics are completely over the top, ridiculous, and seemingly pointless — much like people throwing rocks at the Google shuttle buses in San Francisco today, causing destruction and harm to innocent people just to make a point. But in researching this role, it definitely made me see a new side of the story and forced me to put myself in the shoes of someone who loves their city and sees it changing into something completely foreign, right before their eyes. Change is really hard, and I admire her courage and fearlessness in standing up for what she believes — but at some point, we all need to realize that nothing stays exactly the same forever.

Here's the rest of the interview:
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/03/qa-randi-zuckerberg-on-her-broadway-debut.html

Peter Gabriel song also eulogy for past era of LA poetry.

YouTube link to Peter Gabriel's "We Do What We're Told":
http://youtu.be/yAYYBxI3MeM

Yes, I'm aware that people have life changes that divert them from their former activity in poetry.

But I've also seen the "don't ask questions, just accept and eat whatever the Leaders put in front of you" attitude in poets doing their best to avoid the fate of Irrelevance to the current scene.

And this is too bad, because, even at its sometimes preening, bullying worst, the days of late 1990s to early 2000s inspired genuine fellowship and the feeling that a place for you existed at the table--no matter  if you were a beginner or Published Poet/Professor.

That's over now.

Again, a toast to what once existed when Pete Justus, T. J. Sullivan, Jack Shafer and John Harris were part of the birth and early years of The Rapp Saloon in Santa Monica.

That's over now.

Saying goodbye to The Rapp Saloon reading that used to be.

Santa Monica CA's Rapp Saloon poetry reading began in 2000 at the International Youth Hostel (where it remains to this day).  I was fortunate enough to be one of its hosts; today, it was announced that the reading will be cut back in May from every Friday to the first and third Fridays of each month.  It now serves a less artistically diverse, more attuned to high-culture audience than it used to (when most factions of the LA/OC poetry communities commingled).  And perhaps The Rapp will maintain its current following for years to come.  But I mourn the now-official death of what it once was.