Greetings
from
Nevermoreland!
I know where horror movies, stories, the very gothic genre comes from. It came to me at 3 a.m., and it made me think of Edgar Allan Poe, as well as blinded John Milton, pounding his walking stick on wooden stick on the floor, shaking silly due to the deprivation of his rapid-eye-movement sleep, muttering, “I’m waiting for the muse to visit.”
Then, say Poe, opens a drawer. There’s this scratchy, pulling sound of wood-against-wood, and he grimaces, trying avoid waking this, hmmm … not sure how successful he actually was of actually obtaining such things … a raven-haired beauty sleeping on the floor. Then he pulls out a manuscript, half-finished, of poems and stories, and paper falls out. A rustling sound, loud as a Texas cattle truck going by at this hour, falls and plops a swish on the dusty floor. She rustles a bit. But, Poe’s heart racing now, nervous, because it’s not his home, it’s hers, such as it is, because she, a lady of the evening, earns more money than a poet. He doesn’t want to get thrown out. So, like a burglar, he relents. Sighs. Takes a deep breath. He decides to go out the door, into the night air a bit, to smoke some whatever passed for crack back then, to jar the brain and buy him just a little more time before the dawn comes. Maybe he can save his own life by coming up with a perfectly terrifying line to reflect his Jaggered sensibilities about God, the Devil and raven-haired women and their ever-bleating hearts. He opens the door, like a spy. It goes cree-ee-ee-ee-eek. Loud as Lord Baltimore, him once a big chief, who never said, far as I know, “May they be sorry they did not kill me yesterday” to the rising sun, if such a person existed. If Lord Baltimore ever made a noise, I hope it sounded like a Liberty Bell from hell! Anyway, Poe’s heart jumps: “Shit, shit, shit … busted.” He turns, and sure enough, there she is, the Raven. “That’s it, that’s it! Get out! Get out!” she screams, totally awake now, furious. And then she shouts, as his quill is thrown at him, the ink flying out of the bottle, splattering him, “Nevermore! Nevermore!”
That’s where horror comes from. Not from ghosts? Fuck. They are in our heads as we creep around, trying to keep our writer-asses safe, trying to stay beneath a roof and in a warm room, and perhaps, trying to remain maybe just maybe, loved by and in the good graces of the Raven.But now, ah, now … Mr. Poesy is finally ready. He clears out fast. Finds another lady of the mourning, another place to lay, from the coins he made from having his happy crapped on all too many ways before. He writes his new poem, about a Raven crying “Nevermore,“ his heart cracked-silly broken open, and the process begins all over again in dark and sad, impoverished Satanic-milled mid-19th century, red-bricked, Baltimore, or, in old blind lonely ol’ London, in Milton‘s case. Yes, the muse had come to visit. Personal demons, be loved.
Glad we cleared that up. Boo!
Occupy Photo Radar Land
Special historical note about this Sen. Barry Goldwater statue in Paradise Valley, Arizona, where they pioneered photo radar for traffic calming. However, it used to be that if people said it wasn't them driving when they went to town hall to pay the fine, they could get away with it, and not have to pay. But a protest of speeders going over the limit in those "V for Vendetta," Guy Fawkes evil clown faced smiley expressions: Priceless.I have no idea how they'd sort that out at the ticket window.
Yesterday, it seemed like money is some kind of gravitational virus working in a disorderly fashion
for living things. Today, it seems like order imposed creates chaos, money is necessary, feeling better all of the time, and gravity is no longer the only law of the universe right now, that there is such a thing as dark matter, and the red shift is on, with the universe expanding at an ever-quickening rate all of the time. For me, this says two things. The first is, were all as more porous, spread too thin, in fact, and there is a danger of being completely pulled apart, at some point ... and the sun must be getting pretty bitchy about the extremes, as well. The second is, what can I do about it? Nothing, that is what. Drawing a complete zero, a less-than, even, on the whole thing ... and third, humor is everything, and the fourth thing is I forget what, ooops.
Occupy Earth First!
And Now for a Few Notes on Occupying One Percent
of Time Magazine, Where It's Currently Hip to Be a Contrarian Economeiser
of Time Magazine, Where It's Currently Hip to Be a Contrarian Economeiser
There have been many times rock’n’roll has saved my life … but … this has been inhibited by certain destructive activities, including: Whenever I have read any issue of Time Magazine during the past year. For example, there is the examination of the strange false rhetoric of columnist Joe Klein. For example, during the fall peak of the Occupy Wall Street movement, he apparently was inconvenienced by its truth, as well as its rhetoric and lack of singular clarity. Now, my problem is, while listening to the Jayhawks’ album, “Smile,” I now choose to respond to something Klein has written. This event, two days after I watched the DVD, “All the King’s Men,” which was based on a great book loosely based on the Louisiana man-of-the-people politician, Huey Long, who, before he was assassinated, spoke up for the “hicks” all of his life, corrupt as he was, doing great things for “the people,” in other words, the 99 percenters, against the big powers of his day, including Standard Oil, as well as their political lackeys.
Well, I’d have to say, “Mr. Klein, Mr. Chairman in Pandemonium, is no Robert Penn Warren. I saw Robert Penn Warren speak once, and Mr. Klein, Mr. distinguished Chairman in Pandemonium of, ya‘ know, Hell, couldn’t carry his sharp as a spear pen, keeping it warm for him as Mr. Warren, or a million other fine writers, personally went to the limestone walls themselves to pee against their own personal places of power!”
Mr. Klein appears to be a mere contrarian at court. A front-runner. The type of guy who, having already failed to notice the zeitgeist for Time, decides instead to write something apparently supporting the one-percent, pissing off, thus, the 99 percent, in order to get more hate mail and therefore, keep his job.
Anyway, world-weary as I’m feeling right now, I can’t “Smile” about Mr. Klein’s wisdom (a generous use of that word right now), or, his “wit.” He’s really not very funny. Tries to be. For example, in his Oct. 31, 2011 one-page piece, which takes up a little over one percent of the 94-page issue of Time, the headline, which I doubt he came up with, is “An Implausible Populist: Obama hopes to join forces with the protesters, but his record tells another story,” … which, finds fault in some book about Obama’s economic policy because it failed to “check the proper spelling of legendary banker Walter Wristen’s name.”
I mean, only a fuck face from hell, a one-percenter insider himself, would ever think any banker, other than maybe the Monopoly Money Guy or, and this is still a stretch, someone named Rothschild, or Morgan, another good example, is well-known by enough of the 99 percent of us to ever be known as a, quoth, “legend.”
When I’m wearing my rock critic hat, I cringe whenever I see the word, “legendary.” Because it’s about as useful of a word, once you analyze the term as “behave,” as in what are parent’s actually saying when they tell a child to “behave,” Peeing against a big white limestone wall of power is a kind of behavior. Publicity people promoting their hot new bands use the word, “legendary.”
~
This just in: It is November 5, 2011, Guy Fawkes Day, and there is snow on the plateau. First snow of the coming winter and it’s a tad early, I’d say. Just as the “freak storm” that hit the North American Northeast about eleven days ago, maybe twelve, was described as being a tad early. Personally, I find the term, “freak,” a bit insulting to both extreme storms and “freaks.” Someone (not me) should write a strongly worded letter. Someone in a position of far more significance and readership and therefore power, such as Joe Klein, who should be writing about climate change instead of inside-baseball shit, for his one-percent use of the page he is given each week for Time Magazine. But Joe Klein is only in-touch with the Washington D.C. insider. Yes, everyone on the Earth thinks they are an economist. It’s hip to be so cardinal square. But there seems to be more important matter at hand, right now, than dollars and cents. The time and money people, nonetheless, are trying to keep, even on a sweet sad Saturday, their grip on “winning the future,” as Obama put it in a recent address about the economy and jobs and gross national product and all, earlier this fall.
“Future”? What future? Without addressing climate change immediately, Mr. Pandemonium Chairman, what kind of future do you have in mind? Both sides are right, hence, your confusion, about the economy, which is clearly beyond the mortal consideration of any one mind.
Get over it. Get over it … so we can move on …
~
Anyhow, on the face of it, the use of the word “legendary” is short-hand for “I have absolutely no new information or light to share about this person I am now mentioning, if only because I am writing on deadline from an ivory tower right now and, well, I have a lunch appointment I have to get to downtown. And with all of these bad-smelling protesters outside, I am going to be late … and anyway, I have never misspelled a name before in my life and all … and anyway, if I did during my tenure at Time Is Money Magazine, there are about a zillion copy editors and proofers and control ‘freak’ editors to pluck it out …”
Have I ever heard of any “legends” about “legendary banker” Walter Wristen? No, I have not. Never even heard of him. Not surprising, that. Am I an economist of any sort? Nope. Nope. Nope. Saying anything, quite honestly, prior to this year, about bankers, is a pretty new terrain. But I have seen Mr. Klein on various talking head broadcasts, ivory towering, and, well, I have never given him much thought. As a head talker, that is. Hardly, you know: Legendary. Not even colorful. A pretty drab man. Just another, as Ryan Adams might sing … another “political scientist” who lives, as that fine song goes, “on the edge of town.”
More interesting, and more “legendary” is the Geico.com insurance Gecko featured on another page, also taking up a little more than one percent of the Oct. 31, 2011 of Time, on the page opposite of Klein’s column. “Geckonomics,” the advert states. “A case study,” the ad quips, “… in Saving People Money on More than Just Car Insurance.”
And time, one hopes … dreams, in fact. Gotta make good time, right?
And as the Jayhawks are getting the loud on, I realize: Hey, the Gecko is funnier than Joe Klein! If I’d just looked at the advertisement and spent less time and money on Time, reading Joe Klein’s work today, it would have saved me a tremendous amount of time in my life that I will never get back.
Because (boy, this is really starting to feel like “werk” now) Klein also has had something rhetorically useless to say about some arcane appointment, about some Washington D.C. insider sort named to something called the National Economic Council. Look, angels, I’m no Klein or Robert Penn Warren or even a funny Brit Gecko, but I do know a few things about journalism and how, on the national level, it has failed us all. Or, at least 99 percent of us. Klein has been kissing up to power with his pretty pen. It’s what pays for his, well, high position in life as false scribe of phony, not-very-funny rhetoric. For example, about this Obama appointment for this thing called the National Economic Council, it dismisses the “atmospheric intelligence” of this guy, Lawrence Summers (Klein’s legendary, Okay, Okay, Orwellian phrasing here). Then, Klein writes, the appointment has the “emotional intelligence of a gnat.”
For me, this is an insult to all gnats. The National Council All About Gnats should be disgusted with being compared to a man who, apparently, this Summers’ guy is, “prohibited the government from regulating financial derivatives.”
Yeah, that sounds pretty stupid, I guess. Whatever derivatives are. We are all supposed to know because, clearly they are all part of that zombie-technology machine that has actually now, count them all, emptied people from their houses, their jobs, their homes, torn up families, caused suicides, long lines at the food banks, shootings at Wal Marts, assassinations at strip malls, started some wars, choked off others … but sure has fed a lot of bitchy talking heads to yell at each other on the different network shows currently still not discussing more important things all day, all night, such as, the current weirdness of the “atmosphere.”
My question is this … Who the fuck is speaking up for the gnat right now? Joe Klein? Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. These days gnats are like girls gone wild. He’s not even speaking out against the magical television salamander Geico man who is a spokes lizard for car insurance we are all forced to buy; in many cases even if we don’t even own or drive a car!
Try to get flood insurance!
That, as Fleetwood Mac might sing, “Is not that funny, is it?”
~
Previously Unreleased Material That Has Not Been Written, Much Less Published:
The Pedestrian Peace Piece, aka, Public Transportation in Small Town USA, Aye!
~
Climate change and the subsequent social disorders it creates, is the No. 1 story, and No. 1 security threat in America this week, the next, the next, and then, the next ... and it doesn't look like those facts are going to change soon, politicos ...
~
Time to bring the boys and girls back home? ... Well, according to the Huffington Post ... "Military Spending Waste: Up To $60B In Iraq, Afghanistan War Funds Lost To Poor Planning" ... seems to me the storm-wrecked nation could use a little nation rebuilding back home ...
~
Currently working on: "An Apology for Walking: A Pedestrian's Galaxy Guide to Provincial Tactics in Avoiding to Get Hit By Weaponized Bus Drivers and Other Weapons of Mass Public Transportation." ... But before I post it up for free I'm going to put it up for auction on eBay to see if I get any fee-based interest there ..
~
Sure, it's looking like snow here in Arizona, but yeah, I'll wear my blue Columbia rain gear out to breakfast this a.m., as a symbol of mutual support for my brother and sister journos out there on the East Coast, fluttering in the breeze and waving their arms in the wind to entertain us. Sure, I'll do that.
~
Now featuring "reality lit" and poetry by author, poet and Bards of Mythville singer/songwriter Douglas McDaniel ... http://mythville.blogspot.com/
Beloved
Revolutionary
Sweethearts,
Unite!
Is Cain Able?
Fox News, which provided a quote "report," provided a completely misleading headline on the story on the interview by MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell. What does "Sweep the Floor" mean, anyway? Why would the headline writer use a janitorial term to describe events?
Disunified Field Theory
I have a dream. An age at which political exhaustion takes hold. Where people realize they don't need to start paying attention to these mofos until after the baseball season ends. When American Idol-style voting systems replace the Iowa Straw poll. When Woof Bwitzer gets eaten by a shark ... I have a dream! ... and it starts when somebody decides to relegate the likes of these to the dustbin of hysteria ... O, I do have a dream ...
We are talking about toxic waste by major corporations such as Boeing, Exxon, Raytheon, etc., where whole watersheds of groundwater, entire oceans have been poisoned by toxic wastes shed by larger corporations who lack proper governmental checks against their filthy ways and means ...
The last Tea Party focus group (i.e. debate) was this: "We don't want to change the way we live. We want to devour the world, and we want to devour it NOW!"
But hey, no worries. You could fill an entire football stadium full of these people, dress up all like members of Paul Revere and the Raiders, and it might be like going to an Oakland Raiders game, however, that's still bad sociology ... It's still 80,000 extremists versus approximately 200 million potential voters who might see things another way entirely.
The really interesting thing is how such major corporations as Haliburton and BP were able to disinherit, capitalize and even profit from such things as an oil spill, thoughtlessly throwing more gas on the fire, so to speak, by bringing all of their angles to bear. It got to the point that a feeble government could only plea "Do no harm" when the possibility came up that their efforts to cap a broken oil well in the Gulf of Mexico could actually rupture the core of the Earth. Yeah, let's put the global interests of humanity in the hands of an elitist sect of suicidal morons who want to gut the EPA, restrict irrational zombie-technology lords, the very entities protecting the human species from total destruction, so these corporate monoliths, and the plutocrats they feed can have their cake and eat it, too.
Who should be the GOP nominee. Who cares? They can't beat Obama, not yet, based on the polls ... but it's a long way to, hell, the end of the week, not to mention election day ... Meanwhile, other than noting the DNA's inherited greed and natural ambition to serve, I can't figure out why anyone would want that job, anyway. Other than the percs. I suppose it's just a natural extension of certain deep-seated personal insecurities to want to rule the world and make people behave in a way each individual sees fit, as well as a love of country. But love of people is discussed so little with these reactionaries, and the constitution is so primarily concerned with the laws of material things, it must have something to do with love of property, which their constituents so busily hoard.
The biggest beneficiary of a divisive, red hot political campaign is, of course, the media, since advertising is so crucial to its survivability. CNN's worse-case-scenario mentality, as promoted by such shows as the Situation Room, make an excellent case for not only how fear sells, it promotes war in our time.
In this case, civil war. It's an information war, most of the time. At others, actual gunfire. Brother against brother. Sister against sister. Whole families torn apart by a lack of civility in the ethosphere, atmosphere and so on ... God help us.
No Prayer for Tony Romo
Our father,
hollow be thy football,
so full of air, a waste of time
a real time-suck
because of Tony Romo
he of the Dallas Cowboys,
quarterback who blew the game.
And lead us not to Fox Sports Nation
And deliver us from car and truck and beer
commercials and media-mad Charlie Sheen
drivin' half insane ... Please give us
some bread, man ... and paint us not
in red or white or blue ... but in diverse shirts
so on Sundays we can all remember
the proper names for You.
But please let the Bears score early
in the fourth quarter, and please let
the Bulls fill market jee-m-pees anew,
And please let the Cardinals' confessional
indoor grass pipe dreams all come true ...
But keep me away from the gridiron
so the devil can drink his own
Mountain Dew. For time is for thinking,
Oh Lord, not for the dumbed-down, drunk,
lead-poisoned, Tex-pissed stupid or bored.
~ Meteor Crater, Arizona
Wellington Station
I saw you across
the commuter aisle
twitching and huffing
at Wellington Station.
I, too, am a loser
in the war. I lay
down my sword.
Set my auto alight.
Left it a funereal husk,
just a memory
to the challenges
of sunny October days.
Be still, my brother,
my angel of anxiety.
I see you gasping,
reading the news,
oh so careful
about what you touch,
what we all touch.
We meet in common
places of terror, our
shared communiques...
Oh veteran.
Oh war lord;
I lay down my arms,
I comply, I let go,
I ride smoothly
into the inner-city
bowels of tension
and glittering dreams.
Then I will take on the attire
of Napoleon's three-pointed hat.
I will curtsy, bend, that is,
into the sweet reflection
of what a peaceful city
wants to be.
The war news is hard,
ubiquitous as pearls and steel
and mobile phones.
My train runs silently,
beneath the stars and stripes
of all conquering heroes.
The Bunker Hill spire
is muted through glass
running by in the opposite,
direction. I descend
down the catwalk
of morbid hell. Silence
encloses me in a weightless
pipe of dread.
I am a monster.
I confess it all.
Just this, please,
after this night,
on the battlefield
of Boston,
will you let me
safely caress
my love, my sweet
daughter's face, or,
anything else I can keep
perfect or sane
for a whole rail yard
of days.
Let me retreat
with my bag of games,
my pen, my spear,
my telefrantic machines.
Let me walk, just one more time
into the target valley
of technology.
And though I will breathe
the very microbes of hell,
through pile drives, tunnels,
lost wheels and poisoned wells,
the endless botched catacomb
of the world you made:
Oh Wellington, allow my return
to Corsica, even Elbe, I will allow.
Where I can be at peace.
With who? Myself, at least,
as I wait for the night
to fall upon your victory.
If Napoleon could stoop
this far into the refrigerator,
he would have become
a suburban monk like me.
~ Boston, Massachusetts,
written October, 2001,
for the commemorative book of poetry,
and includes the following two related poems ...
Cat and Andrew’s Ring
Your ground is weeping
The humid air soaks
Wrinkles into all my
Categorization. I am
The air, ever changing
And it’s easy to see
How my inability
To be ever present
On the earth
Is enough to send
You beneath the surface.
He was a fair-faced man
With a smooth baby face
And a soft tone of mouth
That would easily shatter
But he could shatter none.
They bought a wedding ring
And experienced love
Well before the mildew
Of everyday things
Could wear the heat away
She would talk talk talk
About the little things
I couldn’t see, or believe
My wind heart hardened
Into storm clouds
Into a rain of gloomy
Terror in a private sky.
Mostly I was jealous
But realistic, knowing
Love is a survival game
Old as the dirt and sun
And if for just a while
I consider the trees
As I blow through in ill ease
Of temperature and pain
Let me for just this once
See the majesty
In the impermanent
Pebbles, and in tenderness
For just this one day
Of weather, remain.
Ipswich In a Time of War
Rebuilding a doll house
Piece by piece
Little wood beams
Adjustable walls
Suitable for child safety
Out on the street
Flags at half mast
Raised after one official
Week of mass mourning
Cinematic violence
Blowing a red leaf
Through the dented car:
You know,
Our separation
Is bigger than
The both of us
We are memory,
Clinging, clutching
And a prayer
Each stranger
We meet has
The same stones
Of shock
The Secret Report
of the Night
of the Last Knight
in Question
in Question
He was once
a young man,
dressed nice,
in a blue shirt,
red tie, driving
a green Jag straight
down white lines,
but the T-shirt underneath
wore a pirate skull
which he only threw
into a laundry bag
maybe once, twice
a month, and his pockets
were only full of change.
He was the last knight last night.
He was swept away in a summer sandstorm.
He was a seven-tweet non-talker.
He was definitely not the lady stalker.
He was more of a pre-planned thing.
He who came to get one key,
was found to be missing,
like dinosaur chasing
a lightning bolt gone crazy
in a Twenty-first century
schizoid void.
And we were all watching the war.
And we tied ourselves down and faced the wind.
And we were all watching what water does.
And we were all claiming the key was gone.
And we were all eating the Tin Man's heart.
And we all threw the bones to Toto, too.
The sea was dumped into a pail
and then wifi came, he began to sail ...
and then whiff, whiff, whiff,
the water sank ... and whiff,
whiff, whiff ... wifi sank
into cracks in the earth,
and mud gathered in the corners
of the earth, and the high school peak
of alchemical man all fell down the hill.
A detective was hired by a private firm.
A detective was hired to learn all he could learn.
A detective returned with ashes in an urn.
A detective said sorrow was a golden tax return,
that the guardian was gone, had run away,
and it definitely was not a pre-planned thing.
So we rebuilt the modern world.
So we went up and down, burning it all down.
So we fell in love with the dragon girl.
So we stole the thunder and lived in rusted ruins.
So we made the waves to make steel shudder.
So we served the sheep dog meals of bones.
So we drank the waterfall down to fountains
of dust, stunned to sleep before the golden dawn.
It was O so definitely a pre-planned thing.
