El Cathedral

Light leaking through the trees
in a voice of sun music
as a Jesuit-taught cowboy
poking gruff holes through
the forest, a well-worn
horse-made trail ...

In the morning's blaze
Sunshine Peak smiles
through touristas
in hangover cobwebs
after a night's
culture shock therapy ...

She is kind, but wise and cautious
as the deer but fearing nothing
except for the coming bulldozers
and coyotes of commerce
preying on the young, the weak ...

(Ah, the weak,
now there's some
cheap meat ...)

And it wouldn't be here
in the future, which is today,
and yesterday is just
this poet's old ghosts ...
roamin' ...

The next day and for years
after that, Set would go on nibbling
on greens, for no one,
said Horus, the hawk,
could crunch on greens
better than Set ...

Among he are those times
is monies folks, old blokes,
who pushed women around
for centuries, like cattle,
due to God's half-written call

And they were good
intentioned men,
just like me ...
who went home,
all unsatisfied,
to beat on their wives,
to then sleep for another day
with their brokers, pork belly
stokers, livin' among chain
smokers, all bragging about
how they had this girl and that girl,
when, in fact, they had not ...

She is kind, and wise
and no longer
free to be
alone ...

~ Persperide,
Colorado
(originally written
in the summer of 1996,
now updated for you,
the consumer)

The Valley of the Single
Black Escaped Pig Fiasco

The engorged valley
was wide as the Grand Canyon,
but wider the Abdominal Void,
and shale-white stone,
a single one, most noticeable,
pointed toward the West,
toward a happy life, happier endings,
than the imaged hat-brimmed
man left in the dusty dust,
the aquarium rescue dream,
of turquise particles, dust,
and a ghost, perhaps, or a lover's
old friend, who left a single marble
from her head, to point the way

With great fear, fear alone, tore back
down the mountain ... which shook loose
again after a mere ten minutes
at the insatiable blue counters
of your local Walmart crack pipe dealer ...

After dinner, her hair turned blue
and she got the shingles from shaking
too many demons out of the newborn
skulls of other ... and she wept in the morn' ...
and the sound of a single-family home,
another of many more undone for the day
burned a new red hole in me ... and I could
barely smoke, or speak, or feel, or touch
my own nose from looking so hard to see ...

But somewhere out there in middle America
a single black pig is running free in the streets
while a shadow's brilliant pink red Father Sun
has also come undone from the blazing glories
of incomprehensible amounts of feminine hunters
charging in the last great light brigands
inspired by trampled patriarichal old souls ...

~ Persperide,
Colorado

The Eleventh
of Twelve Elves
of Mars ...

Gorgeous sun,
mother of sun
uneasy to appease,
easier to please
but bitter in death
untaking the taste test
after dinner thinker
but not much
of a drinker

This insane chain
around you was sympathy
Overpowered by your pedal
mad but no longer snoring
dreaming of diamonds, Goddess!

She law languid but stolid,
a cool, brilliant underwater
apparatus, but hell ...
no damn Illuminatress ...

... at least not quite yet,
she barely got wet

Bathed by a winged white
Macaw, disorder and the law,
unloved in luscious whispers
beneath the yellow gown
of a new moon, a taste both fast
and sweet, in glory, in flesh
and in heat ...

~ Sir Freudo,
Telluride, Colorado

We all fell
like thieves
through the day,
the sudden cloud,
shadows of sentiment
and fully sentient
unbeings, unfeeling, unquieted
watch like angels over our shoulder,
shouting up new storms, loudly ...
~ Mingo, Kansas, exit. 22


Zen Presby Rebellion Begins at Home
as Sir Freduo Lands Upon the Plains
of Pop Goes Paranoid ...

At Medicine Helmet he noticed he himself had become a kind of Hobbit oil leak, gazing into space, not realizing the nozzle had gone wrong. This new self-unregulated issue of finding himself unable to attend to that kind of connectivity the dino-to-car-to-forward movement kind ... well it must have been a new, in fact, the first side effect of not wearing the Ring of Doom (copyright completely ignored).
Yes, Sir Freudo kept arising with the odd call of the muses at 3 a.m., and the stars were all quite bright at the same grand country roads ending along the way. Finally, he found himself at the far end of some annonoplace outside of Chicago ... and alas, there were no more guards around. He saw a UFO in the sky, a chemtrail across the otherwise heavenly evening sky, but he was unimpressed with the sauturnine presence of these things. It was like, "Dudes, I really don't need that right now."
Things are strange and weird enough in a America at Not Quite Declared War as it was already.
He went back inside the still unfamiliar castle afforded him by his queen friend later on, having refound the ring from his various travel boxes, feeling better, empowered even ... considering the wide open possibilities for his future: Imagining
friends, family, loved ones, left behind. Then, he wept ...
Lacking an internet, he sent messages of love back to his family and friends and fans by mental telepathy alone ... another nice new supposed "evil" of the Ring ...
After taking a breath, Sir Freudo began to investigate the castle's vast library, located in one special center room deep in the castle, used as a gathering point of all kinds of phantasmagorical imagery, where two frames of the lore of the early history of the first Presbyterians of Scotland was related. One of these frames contained a dark old painting that was hard to view due tot he darkened glare of much reflected sunlight from the outside. However, it appaeared to be an image of wild rogue Scot peasants conducting some kind of emotional intolerabration. Everyone was in the square braying, and wailing and gnashing their teeth; Freudo surmised that he could impose himself closer to get a better view, he might be able to begin to fathom the relationships between the nighly individuated, downright imoortalized figures in play. But, actually, he was far more curious about he other frame, which seemed to include alternative lyrics to ELP's version of William Blake's "Jerusalem":

In Scotland's green and hilly lands,
walking oer' the oil-dimmed tides,
there's nothing sacred t0 be read
that doesn't smell like gasoline ...
Tho most Sinclairs are gone to red
there be hope amongst us still
that where we dwell
will be a land
that's safe for us
with water to drink

And tho we weep
with a great sense of loss
of choking family, friends and fans
We'll do our best
to carry on
the best we can
to help every man ...

Because 'ol Dino Sinclair
was a grand 'ol fellow
we all walk upon
Scotland Yard's
yellowy yellowbricked
Roady roads, Ahmen ...

~ Somewhere's in the Midwest,
August, 2010 ... late in the day,
but out of the black rain

Freudo Unbound:
Things to Undo
in Demver
When You're Dad

The last time Sir Freudo was in Demver, he had been thrown out of the Gimpy Hippie Coffee House by the Gimpy Hippie Coffee House Nice Nazi Lady ... for being a little too Hobbit-colored for his own good.

Apparently, they didn't serve Hobbits at the Gimpy.

Certainly, not his type, anyway. All he'd said was that he wasn't there for the Uncreate '68 meeting at all, and was most certainly no spy. He was merely there for a hangout to meet with the counter insuccient rock band he was then smoking with on the patio, and then, later, to meet "a bunch of witches who were with his girlfriend at the church down the street" ... too which he was immediately thrown out of the place for being too Hobbit-colored.

But Freudo was way too far gone now to worry too much about over the counter liberal arts cruelties served during an election year filled with so much uninvented sorrow, anyhow. But the event at the Gimpy still hurt, somehow, as all hurts will ... when hurting is most self-oriented.

Perhaps it was true, yes, he had some inhibited soft Hobbit guilt inside ... some deep need to fix it all since his people had fucked it all up so bad. But was there any just reason, other than being talkative and eccentric, to be thrown out of the Gimpy Hippie on a bright Sunday morning?

Seemed a tad unfair. Very Gimpy, yes ... but Hippie ... decidedly, not so much ...

If only because even in the halycon days before the Bushites pulled the plug on the center of the earth, attempting to leave, quite successfully ... most might say ... the entire planet in unbrokered flames and ruin ... he tried to help in any way he could to depublicize to its proper light the notorious Uncreate '68 brough ha ha ... and still remain quite liquid when it came to both fast cash, coins and Gimpy Hippie eloquence ...

But everywhere Sir Freudo went ... he seemed to be learning and re-learning all along the way ... when he wore The Ring (copyright notice goes here) ... people treated him like they were in danger of receiving the blight of too much sun ... and so, the off-putting counter insucciency ...

If the anything, the Nice Coffee Nazi Lady at the Gimpy Hippie in Demver ... where poor Freudo doesn't have a friend at all anymore, it appears ... was yet more proof that on the road to Mythville ... ding dang Demver is just plain too Otherstuffsville at this point to consider as a proper option ...

At least until, that is, the Nice Coffee Nazi Lady at the Gimpy Hippie in Demver is willing to accept his apology for being too soft Hobbit colored and all ...

Just Before Crossing the Swamp
Where the Battle Once Was ...
Beware: The Dadlands!

As reported by KGB-TVHO, Harlingen, Texas ... Sir the Artist Formerly Known as Frodo Now Known as Freudo has been reportedly ... um, transported ... to deep South Texas, at the mouth of the Rio Grande River, and he was mumbling something, sounded like he was jabbering, actually, to himself, in Japanese or Navajo or something, as if he'd gone completely insane over the so-called magical Ring of Doom (copyright notice goes here) ...

Before that he reportedly said, "All of the king's soldiers are slaves, same as the whores, but I'd won't sleep with either and I sure as hell won't fight without any reason," said Sir Freudo. "There is nothing left to prove, nothing left to discuss, nothing left to do, but love."

At the sound of these words, several reporters ... um, reportedly, left the room screaming with their ears on fire and their mighty pens melted. An occurrence to which those who remained at the impromptu press conference held on the beach at South Padre Island, just off the jettie allowing now, floating dead birds and dead fish and dead dreams to fog on in to the inlet leading to Port Isabel, once a quite seaside town, now a quite Wormwoodianly enclosed seaside ghost town, all of the king's reporters and all of the BP men in hazard gear ... the whole greasy crew, stood there, agape. Awed. Amazed, even, at the visit of such a person as dear Freudo.

"Diffusing lies, one day at a time," he laughed at the rest, scoffing. "You guys wouldn't know Hitler if he walked right up to you and handed you a letter to the editor, hah! ... as if that's a doctor's visit to anyone anymore."

###

Frodo, the Missing Years, Day ... Whatever ... Summer, I think ...

Frodo sat on a rock, made of plastic, overlooking Black Cibola, the famed city of glorified Mammon, and took another look at the Ring, which he decided to keep, then give away, then send out a rescue team to get it again, because they said, "What a shame." He looked at the so-called "Ring of Power" and said to himself, "Wow, what a piece of shit."

Sure, he was eating better. Feeling better about himself, empowered and all with his mission, as well as the book deal. His effort to throw it into Mount Eyechart in Iceland was a bust, and that was the wrong damn volcano, anyway. Then, returning to the Shire and moving down south fast by personally Fed Exxing himself to the Port of New Orleans, there was the by this time well-publicized mission to throw Ring into the Oilcano. But the pressure was too much. The Ring, tiny as it was, seemed to slip off everything down there, no reasonable planned fittings at all ... clearly it wasn't mean't for that. Not at those depths. Not at those freezing temperatures.

And so Frodo ... or Freudo ... as he was more gladly apt to call himself, had earned something of a public name by, first, like we said, deciding to go George Costanza on the whole thing, keeping the ring ... and before that, trying to be a hero, that failing ... either earning scores of favorites from different quarters, most of them somewhat mixed in their own motives about the Ring, or then, at the polar extreme edges, earning the scorn of those who claimed he was not only a quitter, but a greedy one at that.

"The road to hell is paved with ... ," he thought, just as he heard a bustle in the hedgerow behind him.

~

Frodo, the Missing Years, Day One ...

Frodo then returned to the Shire, feeling dejected about his botched first attempt at being a glorified worldwide hero by taking this supposedly all-mighty, all-powerful magic Ring and plugging up the Oilcano with it … because, quite obviously, it lacked the proper design and research and development necessary to do that. Pretty overrated ... No, really, really overrated, as far as it’s solutions for saving humanity went. “So,” he thought to himself, “Wassup with this damned Ring?”
His grandfather had left it for him in a green metal box filled with other a bunch of Boy Scout-like badges and so on from some ancient war only he could give any details on, and he’s gone and dead now. He pulled it out to view since it was held close by a blue and yellow intertwined string, another remnant of history, his own, from some other Boy Scout year long gone. It had strange, and yet, not completely unfamiliar symbols. But strange enough for him to get distracted, if just for a moment, to dream on his truly unstated hope. And that hope?
All he really wanted to do was sit at home and write early in the mornings while listening to supremely optimistic days of his rebellious youth. So he could mock the flocks of sheep gathered upon some green field around him and listen to Pink Floyd. Or, better yet, to realize that Grand Funk wasn’t all that bad, damn the critics. Same for Three Dog Night.
Then he returned to thoughts of his grandfather, Charles Stewart Parnell, not the historical one of Irish political lore, but the one was quite clearly the worst racist he’d ever met. Elves were some of best friends now. Same for the Dwarves. He even met a bunch of Orcs and, once you got to know them, they had good qualities, too. Sure were handy when shit was going down.
“Why should I consider this proper attire, this stupid Ring?” he said to himself, nobody else was listening or watching or caring (as far as he knew, since he wasn’t online, mentally, anyway). Somehow, the symbols etched upon its gold surface were appealing, but unthreatening. It had a couple of intersecting compasses with the letter “G.” It had what appeared to be a symbol for a masculine sex act on one side, a feminine sex act on the other. Lot of sex implied here. Pretty fertile sentiments, overall. Really weird old thing, considering it was a prized possession well before the advent of online porno.
He put it back under his black shirt and sighed. Now supposedly safe at home in the Shire, Frodo understood full well why it was his view of his childhood home would never be the same again. He’d seen too much, he knew. To Frodo, the magic and innocence his youth had been replaced by a sense of ongoing dread.
He began to hatch a new plan. Always trying to be self-less, he knew if he hung onto the Ring he would become increasingly intolerable. He would become a loose cannon, mouthy, expressive, about how clearly stooped sheep were. What was he supposed to do all day long now, go around like some bitter goat butting heads with Flat Earth folk who couldn’t be convinced there was such a thing as being smart? No, the wise Hobbit could clearly see it was a different tree he was looking at, much more sophisticated and smart and needed, then the ones they all let their dogs just pee on.
He decided to take a sabbatical. To keep the Ring, but to get away from all of the sheep so that they wouldn’t be eaten due to this growing outrage his was feeling about not even being able to breathe Shire air safely anymore. No longer able to even abide, like the Dude advised (and where was He these days?).
So he packed up his bag, filled it with a flute and a pen and a notebook and a Swiss Army knife, placed a little day-old pizza in a NASA inspired aluminum foil packet, and headed out the back door and into the woods, thinking of Salinger …

Deconstruction of Arizona

Arizona, I don't recognize you anymore
Your creosote roots lie beneath
the perfect piles of McDonalds parking lots

Arizona, an unequal symmetry
of rubble piles collect
Ten thousand miles from here

Arizona, you are responsible ...
The middle-aged businessman
with expendable income
sweats for pleasure

Arizona, when can I stop sweating?

I swear in the heat like a pizza oven
Arizona, you are a car part store
but you got no glass to see through
and the beige collection
of air-conditioned caves
are conditioned to respond
in all the right meets wrong ways

The forests are in ashes
as the governor gapes
from a helicopter high
for the diversionary tactic
of the the unrael politic


Arizona, I can find no fluid,
no friend, nor car phone
to lean on
for company

By GPS,
you can find me in the living room,
darkly lit, with rayolight flashing
bible black blurbs

Arizona, not even Ginsberg
would gripe about your tripe,
so blurred with anonymity
hell hardly matters anymore

Arizona, my life's belonging
sare melting in a storage facility
and there are more things that beep
here than I can count

Arizona, you haven't hassled me for a while,
though I'm a loose cannon at the mousy mouth
roaring at the corporate big box store

The world is flooding, bleeding, burning
and all of the above
as you dry up and blow away

Arizona,
a kid almost got crushed in your parking lot
and I went to one of your social service buildings
and was amazed about how many homeless lurks
were sleeping in the lobby,
dreaming of Mississipi burning

Arizona, I can't get assistance at the cash register
and the mountains are closed, cats run free
and all the lizards are gone
Arizona, you are sucking in souls,
eating them, spitting them out,
at very low wages ...
of sin ... I suppose ...

Arizona,
I think you should battalion
the borders with snow
and big bad bars of soap

~ Paradise Valley,
Arizona

From, "Ginsberg Rolls Over,"
the latest book of poetry
by Douglas McDaniel

Arizona Burning

Being Red, Day One? My first day as a red went okay, I guess ... we poisoned the apple of knowledge at the school teacher's desk and I shouted her down when she told us about the census. I tossed a rock at her on the way home from school ... Then, at football practice, we were given a rousing speech to hold our ground. Coach Boehner, too had been especially incensed about the new social contract being passed around Funny, he'd been so quiet for nearly a decade ... Shit, we are going to hafta, like, take care of each other now. Later, we went home and watched bully pulpit teevee and it lit up the oven in our eyes. They were high sock days, white cleats, hard rock days, daze of football glories when I could sail over their eyes, duck around their walls since getting tackled was well ... inconvenient, hurt like a sucker, yes, so I learned to run in fear ... At homecoming assembly, Coach Boehner cheered us on, Lombardized and lobotomized since winning was everything ... Yeah, the kid's mind went squish in that game at the U.S. Capitol Sugar Coated Sugar Candy Pill Complex, and yes, we do teach our kids to tackle like torpedoes. It's just a wink you know. O, certaintly yes it's unAmerican to aim to kill. He just stood there, the tragic suited one, at the kickoff, he did, and there was violence and a collateral cry across the field and the kid stumbled toward us, in a daze: Fortunately, Coach told us later, his dad was a brain surgeon. But now my broken knee has been plowed into ploughshares, my swords, cow-pastured, thirty years from that yesteryear believing in that gridiron dream imagined into a pre-existing condition of crunching bone and graal ... Now we cry "Marshall, Marshal, Martial" ...

As anyone who watched Wallace and Ladmo knows, Marshal "Martial" Good died jumping through the window of the Twin Towers holding the last known photocopy of the Fourth Amendment. Which is why now in the Verde Valley the toothless methheads just wave their rights before the dogs arrive. Yeah, check their records. Superman search has rendered search and seizure asunder. Which is why Dick Cheney can bring his shotgun into the Pink Pony and steroids are the drug of choice before Sarge says, "Let's be careful out there." Marshal Law: He Big Man! Him law provides cover to the car part store of the mind. Him Law, Marshal Law, martial law ... is broadcast behind pulled-in blinds, spitting out Bible black blurbs ... just ask your doctor, Marshal law is so grisly in Meachamite-glories, the Constitution hardly matters anymore. Martial law is punishment society. And as anyone who laments for Marshal "Martial" Good, that good old gawd abidn' Lone Ranger of Justice, (Dang!) ... as big him he might remember, we adore our enforcement with a tinge of tragi-comedy. Which is why the photo radar captures images of Sheriff Joe out breathalyzing tonight so breathless and bluesy... Which is why soon Big Him Marshal Law will battalion the border with snow ...

Meanwhile, Momma def poppa returned from their red, white and black road racer rally car trip to Nevada dehydrated from drinking too much tea. On the way back they discussed checking the brakes at the East India Trade-In Company, then stopped off at the Wal-Mart to buy a Krate of Klassic Koke, an eighty-four percent share in Monsanto korn seed, Kool Aid for the kids, got home (paid for), checked the U.S. Mail, tested the Teev-Ho for the latest on the NFL draft, and any new instructions from Poppa Bear on how to resist socialism and thought control.
Unlike the usual church sermon, they still had visions of posterized black-faced Obamas dancing in their heads and their bull eyes kept konjuring the kulars: Black, white and red ... They found the kids at home, waiting, playing Monopoly ... They were playing with their children, and the children of their children ... Momma def Poppa had just missed the debate about the rule about the rule about the rule of how and when ... you simply toss the board and start over again when nobody has any money. Reshuffle the deck ... Good game theory .... Despite the appeal to those eeking it out on Baltic Avenue, too many remained unconvinced the gig was up, and they klung like bees at the bank window to their paper money hearts of reds, black and white, to their pixilated imaginations of digitized seas of more time, more money waiting to appear if they just pray and work hard enough. Meanwhile, Pablo sat out on his porch listening to Norteno way too loud into the night since it was a full moon and he could still dream of amnesty and learning how to read Thomas Paine ...

~ Douglas McDaniel,

Meteor Crater,

(Just to the left

of the Contention Mine),

Arizona

Why the cable news media failed us this week

Terrorism, in terms of market share, proved to be the only winner for this ... one terribly turbulatin' week of news.

Maybe the media declared a "system worked" tag on this week's Times Square terrorism spectacle, but it was an "all systems failed" day for the media itself. Anytime a poorly fabricated fireworks display pushes back time for a story on a global oil catastrope ... as well as the sudden sinking of a great American city like Nashville ... something is really off.

Within minutes of this posting you would have found the same thing happening.

A bag of books and a bottle of water were found on Times Square. For yet another day, every major cable news media eye in America is focused on one block in NYC ... capturing the view of dazed onlookers. One of the on-screen monitor readers gasped about how "it takes a village" to catch the terrorists, in terms of cops and citizens pointing out the potentiall explosive devices. But in that same gasp, we can see how the very sense of the "Global Village" of media is being broken down. We can see how the media can only care as far as the viewer lens of local concerns. We can see how a decade of degrading, ever centralizing media is just dumbing every damn mind in America down ...

Meanwhile, the Gulf of Mexico is being transmuted into black tea worthy of biblical tales of Wormwood, in places literally burning, and not too much time is spent broadcasting shots of the tragedy in Nashville, re-awakened volcanoes in Iceland closing down airports in Ireland, soul-sucking stupidity on Wall Street ... and so on.

Last night, Anderson Cooper on his 360 show finally made it to Nashville, Tennessee four days after the storm that claimed at least 30 lives in the region. He agreed that the national media failed in its duties as an emergency responder. Indeed, all of the usual media front-runners to the catastrophic storms were missing. So were the usual rescue angels. As of last night on 360, well into a show that included a spastic attempt at a music telethon for victims of the catastrophe, the ground total had yet to reach a half a million bucks.

"We should have been here sooner," said Cooper, whose show featured Tim McGraw and Faith Hill as recognizeable guides to the disaster. "I didn't cover this as much as I should have this week."

In terms of values ... the point makes sense. As a life or death issues, in Tennessee, 30 people have died in the flooding, and many, many people need immediate help ... Haiti-style assistance. But where is the attention of the media eye focused? At Times-Square, the only thing that died was civility and sanity.

Yeah, it was a New York-centric story, which explains the passion and interest focused on the local threat. But hey folks, as the news media proved this week, that part of the system isn't working. If anything was a success this week, as opposed to a disaster, it was for the terrorists themselves ... both for the apparently lone suspect (oh yeah, that word "alleged" doesn't seem to exist anymore in terrorist plot vcoverage), who scared the life out of any journo with walking range of New York's Times Square ... and for of course whose who make a living on selling fear.

How did the media machine ever become such a tool?

Fear certainly is a mind killer, Yoda might say. Hardly a source for education, enlightenment, understanding ... or good civic-minded decisions.

For example, who are these crazy sheeple running the machines all dialed into the New York Stock Exchange, jittery heartless folks capable of sending the index down 1,000 points in say, 15 minutes? Willing to sell out the whole planet's economy over a riot in a European city? Jeez, good thing we didn't have a machine mind like that in 1776. Riots in European cities during those days were common, but even more, to have a device such as the daily Dow Jones average, a kind of mad media indicator for the general health of, what, a way of Capitalist life, is another simple metaphor for what is wrong in the media, in general, on all topics related to panic and fear.

The media itself needs to do a more conscious look in the mirror about how it handles terrorism. When real violence appears on the fields of sport, for example, I think the NFL does a much better job than hockey, in taking the viewers eye away from the melee, rather than profiting from it. Acknowledge it, warn us yes, but don't go on all day using your contact lists of the same old talking heads to spend the day mooning on what might be in the minds of these nutbags, on how amateur their bomb-making seems to be, and why Oh wny Oh why didn't we learn something this time.

Because, face it, news guys in New York. Though ye may be blocks away, these highly effective if crude weapons are intended for you.

Arizona Burning


Among the political actors involved in the Tea Party movement, the media darlings leading the spectacle, such as Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and others channeling Reagan and McCarthy at Fox News, few performers can put on a show like Sarah Palin did last month in Searchlight, Nevada.

Who knew there were so many history buffs who watched Fox News, now commonly acknowledged as the Fifth Column of divorced reality in media and politics these days.





Given the compassionate view, a media liberal such as myself might only watch what's going on and think of the film, "Network."





As many have done ... since the "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore" vibe has really come unto acceptance of being completely, like, retro. Journos such as myself can only howl now with jealousy because not everybody gets to be Bill Maher these days, and his raunchy note to the Republican Party, every bit as divisive and politically incorrect as Beck, Limbaugh and Poppa Bear, was certainly one of the talking head highlights of the season.





But Beck came to Phoenix for his stadium tour, and we aren't talking about the cool singer/songwriter who analyzes the earth with such songs as "Sex Laws." This is the guy who has unburied all of the mythic ghosts of the Illuminati for a broad audience, rendered as a distracting voice, yes, for Fox News listeners who, for all we know, are now completely hypnotized by the very Ruppert Murdoch-esque forces Beck supposedly rails on about.





Oh yeah, Beck went beautiful mind before national audiences this year, conjuring the very ghosts of McCarthy and the Rothchilds and the Bilderbergers and the "None Dare Call It Conspiracy" crowd, somehow managing to swoop in the Green Party and progressives with a sweep of his piece of chalk on the blackboard as well, drawing it all up for us to prove only one thing: An overwhelmed mind is a relevance machine.





For any imagintor with a limited receiver, even one with a cable TV show with all the props and graphics he might need to illustrate his ranting, Beck is also, if nothing else, a canary in a coal mine.





However, to watch a canary get sick and die is hardly reason to put much faith in its last dying chirp.





Nonetheless, it all plays well in Arizona.





A state, which, let's face it, appears to be experiencing all of the symptons South Africa faced as it elected its first actual African as president. The film, "District 9," also comes to mind.





A state completely freaked out by its economic mess, its furies along the southern border, its long-standing tradition of Goldwater-style individualism run amok, featuring whole cities of voters in gated communities who dislike change in general, and that includes the weather.





Not just swinging to the right, but in many ways defining it nationally, Arizona is perched to be that place where the Mechamites (see Evan Mecham) are returing for one last dying breath.





Of course, Palin is trying to get on top of all of this ... but my guess is, as a pop star, she's appearing on the scene a little early, and as a performance artist goes, is likely to simply malaprop her way right out of contention ... given the odds of a mispeak over the long haul ...





I have her picked out for a nice Whore of Babylon outfit for 2012 ... the other two cats, Beck and Limbaugh ... Jesus, I just don't have the patience to scour around in the Book of Revelations to dig for the appropriate coda right now.





~ RFA






Remember the Mecham!

With so many history buffs in Arizona, it's hard to understand why the name Evan Mecham didn't come up more often during the debates, protests and spontaneous quiet riots that broke out in every heart and household of the region with the passage of the new immigration law.





Evan Mecham was the Arizona governor who brought great shame and embarrassment to the state when he cancelled the Martin Luther King holiday.





It created a blowback of economic catastrophes such as cancelled conventions.





The Super Bowl was taken away by the NFL.





The state become a comedic punching bag and Arizonans were commonly asked, when traveling, why their state was racist.





Then came the pop stars.





A cascade of them started playing concerts here, such as Stevie Wonder, to protest Mecham.





Next, every concert performer had to say something about Mecham, or the state's racist stance, for the cache of, well, actually "playing Sun City," but not liking the vibe so much.





In this next round, there will be key differences. In taking a stance in favor of an MLK holiday back then, the issue was idealistic, abstract ... and therefore manageable as propaganda.





Human rights, sure, yeah ... why not ... rock on!





Who couldn't back that? Other than those who put Mecham in office to begin with ... you know, that ever aging race of Goldwater Republicans ... yeah, sure, rock on Garth!





A paid state holiday for everyone!





In this case, while it's likely there will be a cascade of comedians and pundits making a lot of new material for the new immigration law, the toughest of its kind, it's hard to imagine how a Canadian like K.D. Lang or vagaband Celt like Bono could legitimately show up and make a big statement.





Such as this: Irish! Go home!





~ Radio Free Arizona





P.S. If Native American rock bands starting getting involved in this, most of us could all be in real trouble.



I think we need a big Aid for Arizona concert, just like AID for Africa in the 1980s.



I think the appropriate state policy would be to make sure all performers be required to wear the right color cowboy hats and, before playing, make sure they have their paperwork in order.



Also this, Woody Guthrie covers should be avoided, discouraged at all times ...



Also this: Most of the Arizonans who support the law have clearly forgotten the humanity of their own families and how they got to state to begin with ... and unless there is some kind of Mormon sanctity over the Gadsen Purchase now lost in the dustbin of history, it's no doubt as elusive as searching around for references to three shrunken heads in the Bible named Palin, Limbaugh and Beck ...



~ Douglas McDaniel

Meteor Crater, Arizona

Marshall, Marshal, Martial ...

As anyone who watched
Wallace and Ladmo knows,
Marshal "Martial" Good
died jumping through the window
of the Twin Towers
holding the last known
photocopy
of the Fourth Amendment

Which is why now
in the Verde Valley
the toothless methheads
just wave their rights
before the dogs arrive

Superman search
has rendered
search and seizure
asunder

Which is why Dick Cheney
can bring his shotgun
into the Pink Pony
and steroids are the drug
of choice before Sarge says,
"Let's be careful out there."

Marshall law provides cover
to the car part store
of the mind

Marshall law is broadcast
behind pulled-in blinds,
spitting out Bible black blurbs
... just ask your doctor

Marshall law is so grisly
in Meachamite-glories,
the Constitution hardly
matters anymore

Marshall law is punishment
society

And as anyone who laments
for Marshal "Martial" Good
might remember,
we adore our enforcement
with a tinge of tragi-comedy
Which is why the photo radar
captures images
of Sheriff Joe
out breathalyzing tonight
so breathless and bluesy...

Which is why soon
Marshall law will battalion
the border with snow ...

~ Tonto

Searchlight Serenade

Momma def poppa
returned from their
red, white and black
road racer rally car
trip to Nevada
dehydrated
from drinking
too much tea

On the way back
they discussed
checking the brakes
at the East India
Trade-In Company
then stopped off
at the Wal-Mart
to buy a Krate
of Klassic Koke,
an eighty-four percent share
in Monsanto korn seed,
Kool Aid for the kids,
got home (paid for), checked
the U.S. Mail, tested the Teev-Ho
for the latest on the NFL draft,
and any new instructions
from Poppa Bear
on how
to resist
socialism
and thought
control

Unlike the usual church sermon,
they still had visions of posterized
black-faced Obamas dancing
in their heads and their bull eyes
kept konjuring the kulars:
Black, white and red ...

They found the kids at home,
waiting, playing Monopoly ...
They were playing with their
children, and the children
of their children ...

Momma def Poppa
had just missed the debate
about the rule about the rule
about the rule of how and when ...
you simply toss the board
and start over again
when nobody
has any
money


Reshuffle the deck ...
Good game theory ....


Despite the appeal
to those eeking
it out on Baltic Avenue,
too many remained
unconvinced the gig
was up, and they klung
like bees at the bank window
to their paper money
hearts
of reds, black and white,
to their pixilated imaginations
of digitized seas of more time,
more money
waiting to appear
if they just pray and work
hard enough

Meanwhile, Pablo sat
out on his porch
listening to Norteno
way too loud
into the night
since it was a full moon
and he could still
dream of amnesty
and learning how
to read
Thomas Paine

~ The Daily Dash

What's Next for Joe the Terrorist

This just in from Fox News:
Coach Boehner, well, he got bad blues,
gonna put an oven in the eyes
for and you and you and you

Like a rough beast backbeat back at last
the popular rage rolls in real time fast
flinging flags with snakes on the porch
of Democracy, livin' free while you die

... and all that know-nothing why

This just in from Fox News:
Joe the Terrorist just got refused

~ The Daily Dash



Bury My Heart at Broken Knee

They were high sock days,
white cleats, hard rock days,
daze of football glories
when I could sail over their eyes,
duck around their walls
since getting tackled
was well ... inconvenient,
hurt like a sucker, yes,
so I learned to run in fear ...

At homecoming assembly,
Coach Boehner cheered us on,
Lombardized and lobotomized
since winning was everything ...

Yeah, the kid's mind went squish
in that game last week, and yes,
we do teach our kids
to tackle like torpedoes

It's just a wink you know
O, certaintly yes it's
unAmerican to aim to kill

He just stood there, the tragic suited one,
at the kickoff, he did, and there was violence
and a collateral cry across the field
and the kid stumbled toward us, in a daze:
Fortunately, Coach told us later,
his dad was a brain surgeon

But now my broken knee has been plowed
into ploughshares, my swords, cow-pastured,
thirty years from that yesteryear
believing in that gridiron dream
imagined into a pre-existing condition
of crunching bone and graal ...

~ The Daily Dash



Being Red, Day One

My first day as a red
went okay, I guess ...
we poisoned the apple
of knowledge
at the school teacher's
desk and I shouted
her down when she told
us about the census

I tossed a rock at her
on the way home from school ...
Then, at football practice,
we were given a rousing speech
to hold our ground

Coach Boehner, too
had been especially
incensed about the new
social contract being
passed around

Funny, he'd been so quiet
for nearly a decade ...

Shit, we are going to
hafta, like, take care
of each other now

Later, we went home
and watched bully pulpit
teevee and it lit up
the oven in our eyes

~ The Daily Dash


Look for the new album this spring ...


Dead Peasants Revolution

See there, over the Holy lands,
the lost McDonalds arch
over the sea
over the winds
between the digitized clouds
of moneyed imaginings ...

A toast to all, a call
to the muse, once forgotten,
now nobody, nothing, plain,
wandering the land ...

Summon the post-insurance marvel,
confounding the co-fathers,
the commercial second foot ...
about to draw ... media mad ...

Like in "Network," yes, "Network..."

Channeling theocracy they are
the Fox net whizzes

A toast. A toast.
Jelly and jam for everyone ...
Falling from grace, falling

Juniper walks in, the challenger,
the maker of tastes, sweet whispers
of things once forgotten, now remembered:

She sings, leaning into the sea, O Juniper!
Juniper!:
"Storms, storms across America ...
conjuring up Tiamat from the depths,
from the depths, from the depths ..."

~ today's dash
by Douglas McDaniel

Bury My Heart at Broken Knee

They were high sock days,
white cleats, hard rock days,
daze of football glories
when I could sail over their eyes,
duck around their walls
since getting tackled
was well ... inconvenient,
hurt like a sucker, yes,
so I learned to run in fear ...

At homecoming assembly,
Coach Boehner cheered us on,
Lombardized and lobotomized
since winning was everything ...

Yeah, the kid's mind went squish
in that game last week, and yes,
we do teach our kids
to tackle like torpedoes

It's just a wink you know
O, certaintly yes it's
unAmerican to aim to kill

He just stood there, the tragic suited one,
at the kickoff, he did, and there was violence
and a collateral cry across the field
and the kid stumbled toward us, in a daze:
Fortunately, Coach told us later,
his dad was a brain surgeon

But now my broken knee has been plowed
into ploughshares, my swords, cow-pastured,
thirty years from that yesteryear
believing in that gridiron dream
imagined into a pre-existing condition
of crunching bone and graal ...

~ The Daily Dash



Being Red, Day One

My first day as a red
went okay, I guess ...
we poisoned the apple
of knowledge
at the school teacher's
desk and I shouted
her down when she told
us about the census

I tossed a rock at her
on the way home from school ...
Then, at football practice,
we were given a rousing speech
to hold our ground

Coach Boehner, too
had been especially
incensed about the new
social contract being
passed around

Funny, he'd been so quiet
for nearly a decade ...

Shit, we are going to
hafta, like, take care
of each other now

Later, we went home
and watched bully pulpit
teevee and it lit up
the oven in our eyes

~ The Daily Dash


Look for the new album this spring ...


Dead Peasants Revolution

See there, over the Holy lands,
the lost McDonalds arch
over the sea
over the winds
between the digitized clouds
of moneyed imaginings ...

A toast to all, a call
to the muse, once forgotten,
now nobody, nothing, plain,
wandering the land ...

Summon the post-insurance marvel,
confounding the co-fathers,
the commercial second foot ...
about to draw ... media mad ...

Like in "Network," yes, "Network..."

Channeling theocracy they are
the Fox net whizzes

A toast. A toast.
Jelly and jam for everyone ...
Falling from grace, falling

Juniper walks in, the challenger,
the maker of tastes, sweet whispers
of things once forgotten, now remembered:

She sings, leaning into the sea, O Juniper!
Juniper!:
"Storms, storms across America ...
conjuring up Tiamat from the depths,
from the depths, from the depths ..."

~ today's dash
by Douglas McDaniel

Being Red, Day One

My first day as a red
went okay, I guess ...
we poisoned the apple
of knowledge
at the school teacher's
desk and I shouted
her down when she told
us about the census

I tossed a rock at her
on the way home from school ...
Then, at football practice,
we were given a rousing speech
to hold our ground

Coach Boehner, too
had been especially
incensed about the new
social contract being
passed around

Funny, he'd been so quiet
for nearly a decade ...

Shit, we are going to
hafta, like, take care
of each other now

Later, we went home
and watched bully pulpit
teevee and it lit up
the oven in our eyes

~ The Daily Dash

Look for the new album this spring ...


Dead Peasants Revolution

See there, over the Holy lands,
the lost McDonalds arch
over the sea
over the winds
between the digitized clouds
of moneyed imaginings ...

A toast to all, a call
to the muse, once forgotten,
now nobody, nothing, plain,
wandering the land ...

Summon the post-insurance marvel,
confounding the co-fathers,
the commercial second foot ...
about to draw ... media mad ...

Like in "Network," yes, "Network..."

Channeling theocracy they are
the Fox net whizzes

A toast. A toast.
Jelly and jam for everyone ...
Falling from grace, falling

Juniper walks in, the challenger,
the maker of tastes, sweet whispers
of things once forgotten, now remembered:

She sings, leaning into the sea, O Juniper!
Juniper!:
"Storms, storms across America ...
conjuring up Tiamat from the depths,
from the depths, from the depths ..."

~ today's dash
by Douglas McDaniel

Bumcore from the Reverend's Big Damn Band: Recession Era Holy Rollin' Goes on the Road

The Rev. Peyton's Big Damn Band consists of three people, and they are from Indiana, like a tent revival storming in from the north, displaying the furious sound of the age, "bumcore."
They have been touring for years. They will likely not be seen on MTV.
"We are practically homeless," says band leader, Rev. Peyton, with his big beard and suspenders and Depression era hat as the band continues a roubust lifestyle as just a bunch of neo-hobos on the road.
Right now we are in Denver. Along Colfax Avenue, the longest commercial corridor on earth, 27 miles, to be exact. In front of the Bluebird Theater, where the band is going to play, with American Relay and another local band, Slakjaw, one of whose members, sitting out there along the theater entrance smoking cigarettes well before sound-check, came up with the "bumcore" tag. Lots of souls to save here, for the Reverend and his band.
"Of course they are called American Relay, not American Relay race," says one, knowing full well what it takes for a band to pay $4 a gallon for gas, racing across the state in a compact car full of instruments and amps, to make a good gig ... even if it's just for one hour.
"Screw the Bluedbird," another says as something wild is going on inside as the Rev. Peyton trio goes through its soundcheck. "Let's go watch some porn," referring to the adult arcade next door.
Rev. Peyton's Big Damn Band turns out, later on, to be a riotous act. A three-piece band playing with punked-out speed banjo and wild woman washboard, percussion whatever comes handy in Great Depression Two, the outfit belongs beneath a circus tent, perhaps, yes, but also on the same bill as the Pogues.
"We are a punk band," says the Rev says. "Old hippies, you name it ... the meat markets are not the place for us."
The band is a a modern musical revival, a foot stompin' delight to see: Just sangin' and bangin' those punk rock po' boy blues ... resonating with the economic undercurrents of folk-punk, to which, this is all nothing new.
Yep, on the front porch of the rock-n-roll up-and-coming scene, there's a neo-Depression revival underway. Just hours before the show, the Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band, come out of their sound check dressed in their finest washboard wear: suspenders, fedora and even a flower dress complemented by red cowboy boots.
Blues-rock duo American Relay, late from the previous night's gig in their original hometown, Steamboat Springs, enter into view of this new musical damn-nation. They spill onto the sidewalk from a compact car with their instruments and luggage. They are as friendly as plain folks at a barbecue, smiling, ready to shake hands with anyone and everyone. They are both college grads, bright-eyed, sharp, smart. But without a band bus in sight, one immediately wonders what the apocalyptic price of gas these days means for musicians on tour, the very life blood of rock 'n' roll.
The members of American Relay — guitarist Nick Sullivan, 27, with his Fu Manchu mustache and Hendrix hair, and drummer Alex Hebert, 30, looking all 1930s with, again, the Fedora — have stripped their sound down to the basics: blues, rock, maybe a little bit of punk if you're feeling categorical.
Comparing their economy to another drum-n-guitar duo, the White Stripes, Hebert muses, "We can split our winnings better..." But then, halting, looking over at Sullivan, he says… "OK, accrue the losings more easily." This dry sense of humor finds its way into the music in interesting and satisfying ways that help elevate their songs above the radio-friendly masturbation rituals produced by many mainstream artists.
Onstage, it's easy to see why American Relay's efficient sound appeals to a new generation that has gone bland on the Widespread Panic noodling of the '90s. Their brand of blues-punk is reminiscent of Neil Young's Re-ac-tor phase, of George Thorogood on steroids, of the very dhambala of the blues on speed. It's the synthesis, really, of the bluesmaster tradition that created R.L. Burnside's blistering guitar style, the great grandfather who American Relay is quick to embrace: "He's the reason we are here," belts out Sullivan at the start of their set, which calls out to every white boy and girl in the crowd: Hey, poor boy, how's it feel to really know the blues?
Sullivan and Herbert met in audio engineering class at University of Colorado-Denver, where they learned the technical ins-and-outs of the business, but the professor who really caught their attention was R.L. Burnside. His music and style had a big influence on the budding rockers.
"He was the gateway artist to what we are doing," Hebert says. "No f...ing noodling or anything." Sure, he says, the '90s jam bands "did a lot for the blues, but we're taking business away from those bands."
American Relay's artwork for the 2007 album Corn & Oil conjures Depression-era roadside art deco in a post-9/11 climate. Like their music, it's an ode to tradition designed with modern sensibilities. The album sounds like acetylene sparks in the garage, like early Hendrix without the rocket fuel solos funded by '60s-era NASA. Music that finds a single, straightforward beginning and just sticks to it with razor-steadfastness, the visceral truth of rock.

There's a certain one-man-blues-band quality to it, and a true sense of gospel somehow leading back to Howlin' Wolf roots. It's as if George Thorogood had been served up for human sacrifice.
When told it sounded like they were out to digitally deconstruct that type of blues-rock influence, Sullivan says, "George Thorogood is still kicking it out, so he ain't dead just yet. And we got a lot of respect for how he does business."
Throughout the night, during the interview and after Reverend Peyton's show, the spirit and intensity of the tent revival is not so much felt as drained out through the sweat glands. At the end of the day, it feels like some kind of redemption has taken place: the audience drenched from the relentlessness worship service, the endless swinging and stomping and raising of the spirit, the cleansing...
After the show, blues brothers Sullivan and Herbert are waiting at the door for one more greet and a smile. Asked if there's some kind of religious belief system at work here, Sullivan says, "Not much of instituted religious experience growing up, but there is a definite faith in the power of roots music."

Taking the Boss for a Bruising

I have always loathed Mr. Bruce Springsteen. And it is more than just having the Boss hanging around, bossing around my radio airwaves for decades and decades. Not so much the music I loathed, but his fame (especially this crap about him being the Boss). Not so much his fame but the people who made him famous, that is, his fans and his fawning critics. Not so much all fans but just the few that I have known over the past, say, 30 years. They were all people full of passionate intensity, and as W.B. Yeats wrote, they are the worst kind of people (compared to the best, who lack all conviction, I guess). Maybe not so much full of passionate intensity, because I am one of those big, bad, willful people, too, and the truth is my reaction to these fans and the fawning critics has always been a little too strong. In fact, I have always kind of admired Bruce Springsteen, but the real truth of the matter is it all got ruined for me a long time ago.

In the new century of exclusion (as opposed to inclusion), membership still has its privileges. For that reason, I endorse the BMG Music Club, of which I am now a member, and now I bring to you critical news of what landed on my doorstep, "The Essential Bruce Springsteen." The triple-CD collection of basic Bruce, of course, for the most part, nobody needs, except for the 12 bonus tracks, which most true fans will find to be ä um, essential.

My loathing of Springsteen goes back to those so-called Glory Days at my high school (Chaparral, Scottsdale, Arizona, class of 1978), and a girl I was secretly in love with named ... Now, like most of the femme fatales in a Springsteen song, she was not the prettiest girl in school. But I never went for the kewpie dolls anyway (and they never went for me). It was all made more complicated, though, by the fact she was ... was ... that's tangential, because we were all dazed and confused, listening to the Who, Genesis and Pink Floyd.

Now, at that time, I was a total Anglofile. In fact, I still believe those Brit bands of the 1970s != your Led Zeppelins, your Yes men, Your Genesi (with Peter Gabriel), your Crimson Kings != were pretty much the final angel prophets of our time sent to gong the electronic trumpets of the Apocalypse for the generation before it all went down ... Like I said, dazed and confused.

So when this girl, now an old woman, old as me, at least, chirped in that the only true god was this wannabe Elvis they called "the Boss," well, it just ran against my doctrine at that time. Then she said he was the sexiest man alive, and so I was jealous, and that was simply more than I could take.

No more. As this essential set reveals, Bruce is all about passionate intensity and there's nothing sexy about it. Rather than polishing the sacred gemstone of stoned souls or wooing the ladies with the Elvis routine, Bruce plundered the depths beneath the dark cities of the American dream, finding not so much light down there, but dignity. A lot of it.

Probably the best thing about this triple-CD isn't the music at all but the collection of the lyrics of all of his songs in a single booklet. His words can stand alone. With passages too numerous to write down for these purposes, his lyrics transcend the last decades of the 20th century. His words come across like political propaganda, too; but no, what I mean is this: Bruce has been used, quite incorrectly, it seems, as political propaganda.

Which brings me to another one of those Springsteen fans whom we all used to call the "human storm cloud." I just didn't like this guy, we didn't get along at all, since he was my boss, and it did not help that the real ascendant rock God by the mid-1980s was U2.

Nevertheless, in the 1980s, somehow, the song "Born in the USA" -- even though it chipped huge chunks out of the self-assured armor of the American century -- somehow (I guess it was just those Teflon times) became the anthem for the Reagan Era. Read these lines and explain the fallacy of this reading by the masses:

Born down in the dead man's town
The first kick I took when I hit the ground
You end up like a dog that's beat too much
Till you spend your life covering up
Or this:

Down in the shadow of the penitentiary
Out by the gas fires of the refinery
I'm ten years burning down the road
Nowhere to run ain't nowhere to go

Reading these lines, I just don't feel so lucky being born in the USA. I wonder if I'd have been better suited as a Tibetan monk ... or a Vietnamese fisherman (another story there, too).

My old hated boss later moved on and became some kind of Las Vegas gambling guru, last I heard. I bet, though, that for a time he lost touch with the Boss, as we all did. Springsteen entered a period of contemplation and resignation and happy family life. As other bands such as REM and U2 went on to conquer the world, Bruce descended into the "Tunnel of Love," penning somber folk songs about the interior lives of quiet, little, marginalized people. Except for a few exceptions, his music was no longer the soundtrack, the background music, of our lives. It was more like the museum of our lives.

Which is perhaps why I stopped hating him so much. Until Monica. Now, the person I am referring to is not a real person. In the 1990s Monica, a character on the show "Friends," was the fussy girl. I have no idea what the actress who played her, Courtney Cox, is really like. I think she's really hot, as kewpie dolls go. However, I always identified her with Bruce Springsteen because she was basically discovered when she was brought on stage to dance in that horrendous "Dancing in the Dark" MTV video.

Now, Monica was a clean freak character on the show, of course, and there lies the rub for myself: Clean freaks are the most controlling, manipulative, contradictory, conspicuous consumers on the face of the earth. All of that soap. Chemicals in the home that will give you cancer. Bug killing agents with fumes that you soak up yourself. And paper, tons of paper. And trash bags piling up in small mountains worldwide.

So there was Springsteen, contemplating his folksy navel in the older-is-wiser middle-age years of the 1990s. Meanwhile, squeaky clean Mall America became the safety zone for all of this poisonous whitewashing of the landscape. The Boss was too focused on decrepit street folk and dignified bikers on the fringe to really spend much time on the Monica virus.

Just as a bizarre composite of consumerism was moving into the far corners of China -- forget about compromised Ohio -- just as the Internet gold rush was taking place; the I-am-the-Walrus marketing guru was climbing into the pilot seat of Air America; just as Deadhead stickers were stuck on Cadillacs; just as Las Vegas was remade into an All-American Disneyland for the kids and folks, well, the Boss was plain missing from his throne.

Even worse, while on tour during the past few years, his old fans, his constituency, the common man, needed to apply for financial aid to see his shows.

If you look at the demographics of this nation, the common man could only marginally afford to enjoy Bruce Springsteen as an American Natural Resource. As one of the richest entertainers on an annual basis, he is actually a major Third World Nation now, asking for a handout. Oh sure, this has really nothing to do with the quality of his work but the fact is that after the lilting eulogy to AIDS victims in the song, "Philadelphia," Springsteen waited until after 911 to resurface as, well, himself. That is, the Boss. Except, the song, "The Rising," still sounds like a lot of foaming at the mouth as it plays to the culture of vengeance as hip.

But now that the Bank of America logo is tattooed on the ass of pretty much everybody's favorite pop star (even U2 has caved, pandering to the marketgeist by co-branding a song from its new album to also help sell iPods), Mr. Springsteen is just another voice in the wilderness of big, bad money. Too bad he couldn't have found himself sooner, like say, 1996. All I know is my BMG Music Club is charging me $29 for this triple-CD set, which I am glad enough to own, not that I am not sure if I can afford that. Probably have to send it back.

In the meantime, I will e-mail some of his best lyrics of the past to people I love, miss, friends like that Courtney Cox or a holographic Monica will be interested enough to call. Or maybe even the Boss, finding the true connection to the real common man, no Woody Guthrie style bullshit here, will pen an anthem about some idiot driving a Humvee to the cleaners around the corner.

Finally, you might ask, do I recommend this, based on the quality of the bonus tracks? Well, maybe. Depends on your station in life. I would just hate to think about what kind of soul-wrenching experience it would be to find out what it costs at the mall, or to learn what mass production on this scale really costs; in terms of the paper, the CDs, the electricity to burn it, the bottom line for the record company, the publicists, the marketing, distributors, retailers and so on, in order to repackage the non-bonus CDs. Apparently, the Boss was one of the first of his generation to DIY these early recordings and sell them on his own. Now that was a beautiful idea. Now that was essential. Now that was what it was really like to be born in the USA.