VANITY FAIR’s Kenzie Bryant on Donald Trump booed at the World Series

Regardless of whether you care to argue that it was right to “boo” a man best known for taking children from their families to teach them a lesson, running up the national debt, cheerleading violence against the press and his political rivals, and leaving America’s allies out to dry, we can marvel at this new face. Trump appears pathetically, awfully pitiable here. For those few seconds, while he stands there trying not to look at anyone, he was fully, purely himself without all the preening excess and pretend swagger, a guy who doesn’t work toward anything except approval.

Kenzie Bryant, from the VANITY FAIR article “All that booing revealed the true face of Donald Trump.”

New audio recording: UPON SEEING THE ICE RINK...

New poem: BLAND DANCE

doing my bland dance
pulling up my pants
not offending foreign countries
accepting their definition of speech

doing my bland dance
giving liars an equal chance
not willing to issue corrections
too much election money at risk

doing my bland dance
not going to take a stance
the world crumbles, I keep quiet
as my front door is smashed open

Guessing the 2020 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees

Out of this list, predicting at least six will be inducted:
Whitney Houston
Nine Inch Nails
Soundgarden
Pat Benatar
Depeche Mode
Todd Rundgren
Notorious B.I.G.

I give up, Part 2

I was inspired to give up writing/publishing poetry books when someone on Facebook told me “it’s a harsh world, print fewer copies” when they’re now just print-on-demand or e-books. After that response (which the person genuinely thought was well-intentioned), I decided “enough”

I give up.

HOW TO TELL TIME, my first chapbook of entirely new/recent poems since 2015, is now my final one.

Thanks to those who bought copies of my earlier books/chapbooks at readings and/or online.

I appreciate the support you gave me over the last two decades.

Donald Trump’s Greatest Impeachment Hits

Hopefully coming soon to a House vote and Senate trial all America can watch:
1. This Rusher Thing
2. My Lester Holt Interview (spoken word)
3. Putin On Line 1
4. Ukraine Do Me A Favor
5. Rudy Don’t Fail
6. It Was A Perfect Phone Call
7. Medley: Hearsay/Second Hand News (Fleetwood Mac cover)
8. Mueller On My Mind
9. Two Story White House (duet with Melania)
10. Civil War (Desperation Time)
11. Blame Hillary
12. Pardon Me, Mike

SLATE on Shane Gillis and the comedy swamp.

Excerpts from Seth Simons’ article in SLATE https://slate.com/culture/2019/09/shane-gillis-snl-conservative-comedy-legion-of-skanks.html

Sources inside SNL told Variety last week that, in hiring Gillis, the show was explicitly looking to add a comic who would “appeal to more conservative viewers.” But Gillis’ isn’t the mass-market, family-friendly conservatism of Jeff Foxworthy or Sebastian Maniscalco or dozens of inoffensive network sitcoms. It’s rooted in the scene he belongs to, a community bound less by love of small government or Christian values or the nuclear family than by cruelty and misogyny and grievance. It’s a world in which rape jokes are common currency, where slurs are just a normal part of the lexicon. Its members don’t have the critical acclaim or high profiles their work might have earned 20 years ago. They’re not starring in TV or movies; they’re not headlining Madison Square Garden; only a few have released specials on Netflix, Comedy Central, or HBO. What they do have are their own platforms, their own fans and subscribers, and a hearty contempt for the industry that’s passed them by even as they form the backbone of its oldest institution: the comedy club.

Treating “funny” as an unqualified good, no matter who or what is the butt of the joke, explains just about everything: the overlap between club comedy and reactionary podcasts, the coziness with the alt-right, SNL hiring a comic for his red-state appeal and firing him when that appeal became a liability. They’re of a piece, linked by the nakedly capitalist belief that products are justified by demand—that if people laugh at a joke, you were right to tell it. (Chappelle, at least, once believed otherwise.) Never mind that the product pollutes. Never mind that the joke is cruel. If you don’t like it, don’t watch it. If you don’t watch it, it can’t hurt you. What, this swelling mass of people who hate you? Don’t mind them. They’re with us. We’re in the business of giving people what they want, and business is booming.