splatter/platters

a few years ago derek motion and i would write a poem a day for the month of june

we are doing it again this year

derek called them SPLATTER poems

i called them SPLAT poems

SPLATTER or SPLAT these writings take ginsberg's 'first thought / best thought' as their engine

throw in some old school NEW YAWK a la o'hara and schuyler and lo! language gets thrown and goes splat

stay tuned

summer flix

when the weather turns hot i think of drive-in movies.  summer movies.  now that's a title for a book SUMMERS FOR THE DRIVE-IN.  or something.  like that.  below is the trailer for a movie that i must've seen at the drive-in.  or i've seen so many movies like it at the drive-in that this particular flick is tattooed in the grey matter as a summer drive-in movie.  this pic is directed by al adamson whose talent for making bad movies is legendary.  adamson's films are actually collages of a bunch of different reels shot over several years.  sometimes he used the same cast for one type of movie.  sometimes not.  dracula vs. frankenstein [1971] -- i'm sure i've posted this trailer before, but what the hell, it's so much a part of my summertime dna -- was one such movie that was anti-crafted over a few years.  i love the cheapness of the film stock and the muted colors.  i admire how the trailer is cut and the way film stills and live action are woven together indicating the poverty of the producers of this movie.  every time i see the blood reds of the title sequence i am transported to a summer night at the drive-in.  the eternal drive-in of the exploitation mind.

dailies

major / minor

in what key, again?

let's have a for instance

in the safeway i gazed after

a young woman of such

compacted good looks

i couldn't believe it

yes, that matters a great deal

how does one measure value

by whatever one is willing to pay

watching a documentary

on THE MOTHMAN

and the movie starring richard gere

i'd poke out my eyes for a chance

to hold gere's hand

and smell that girl's hair

sheer gratitude

woke up this morning with a mild case of blues.  yeah, i know, boo hoo.  it sucked just the same.  but that is nothing a lot of physical labor can't fix.  i'd been off-line for a few days.  work -- the day job -- being work tends to take a lot of my attention.  at night reading is sometimes all i can manage.

well then so anna and i spent yesterday and today working in the garden.  yesterday we ripped out our front lawn and today we prepped the area for sod to be laid down next saturday.  lots of digging and ripping and pulling out and breaking apart tree roots was the order of the day.  oh, we also replaced our worn out sprinklers.  now my back aches and i'm seeing double from awaking muscles from a too long slumber. 

all that physical work began to work its mojo.  even tho the sun was out and it had been a lovely, unseasonably cool [sorta like a swedish summer], sunny day i started to notice the sunshine.  oh boy!  then around lunchtime anna told me to check the top of the mail box because there was a package waiting for me. 

huh?!  i fetch it and it is from my brother from another mother, steve tills.  inside the envelope is tills' newest chapper from our putative press, hank's orginal loose gravel, post maiden, with a lovely inscription on the flyleaf.  a wonderful surprise from steve and a lovely gift.  when i visited mccrary and son and daughter-in-law a few weeks ago mccrary pressed into my hands several of the latest chappers, including books by a.l. nielsen and j/j hastain, and post maiden, which i've read a couple times now.  tills is an awesome writer with a great satirical streak running in his veins. 

nine bows to steve tills.

and and last week waiting in my mail box was a package from skip fox.  inside the package was fox's latest book, a selected poems, sheer indefinite [unopress, 2012] a very welcome surprise.

nine bows more to skip fox.

and and and the week before last sitting in my mail box was over the transom edited by my other brother and main man, jonathan hayes.  the dude's been publishing his lo-fi print mag for years and his editorial skills have only grown sharper.  works by guy r. beining and alan catlin, glen chesnutt and mel c. thompson, make this iteration of the zine utterly mind-blowing.

rarely does my mail box contain anything more than the odd bill and several catalogs.

my blues lifted -- of course! -- and our evening ended with a long, very yummy, very filling bbq at my mother-in-law's house.

good day.

but man!  i'm seeing double because of my aching, sore back!

dailies

the argument went thus

that the economy must grow

for maximum sustainability

even if there are -- arguably -- no markets

and the population reaches upward

to 9 billion

which is a lot of people

with a constant rate of high unemployment

with increased risks of instability

and no go

quote unquote

Our lives are slovenly, imitative. We live, as Lawrence said, like the illustrated covers of magazines.  Comfort is our aim, and dissatisfaction is all we achieve.  The aim of haiku is to live twenty four hours a day, that is, to put meaning into every moment, a meaning that may be intense or diffuse, but never ceases.

--r.h. blyth

____________________________________________________________________________________
this quote reminds me of rimbaud's 'we have faith in the poison.  we know how to give our whole lives every day'.

which i've always thought to mean that we have only this one life, so live it!

the quote is taken from this wonderful essay on r.h. blyth and the art of haiku.

new exploitation movie haiku

open the laptop beneath
the annular eclipse
to watch a film where the stars don't shine

friday night at the drive-in

i promised nick earlier this week i'd take him to the drive-in tonight.  and off we went soon as i got home from work.  the boy was jumping out of his skin with excitement.  i will say, i'd never thought that the sac 6 drive-in theater would last, so far, into the second decade of the 21st century, and that i'd be sharing my love of the drive-in experience, and of movies, with my son. 

we got there about and hour before sunset.  i knew the place would be crowded and i wasn't wrong.  as we nestled in a parking space one row before the giant screen i turned to look at the huge line of vehicles waiting to pay their admittance fee.  the make-up of people at the drive-in really hasn't changed that much over the decades for their were mostly families out for cheap entertainment, and young people doing what young people do, either in couples or small groups.

the vehicles sure the hell are eclectic ranging from classic car club members driving their early '70s models muscle cars to a dilapidated truck with a camper that looked like it has seen many hard miles belonging to a young family.  the bumper business for movie theaters is the concession stand and at the sac 6 the place is filled with hungry movie-goers who feast on the gnarliest looking pizza, burgers, nachos and hot dogs.  god bless you if you have the nerve to take relish for your hot dog from the communal relish container that sits on the condiment cart looking like it could punch you in the nose were it a human being cruising for a fight.

still, the snack bar is the heart of the drive-in.  that's where the people hang out.  there is even a bounce house for the kids, video games for those who like that sort of thing -- and nick does love that sort of thing --, and slides and swing sets.  before we left nick made friends with a young boy and they played on the slide well after midnight.

but it got even more adorable.  because the car directly to our right belonged to a family of one of nick's classmates, a little girl, who i think has a crush on nick.  and nick i think has a crush on her.  that would explain why he got all goo goo eyed and show-offy before her.  the girl and her sisters surrounded nick and gave him hugs.  they then took their lawn chairs and set them next to nick's outdoor chair.  when it got chilly the girl even shared her blanket with nick.  they both were under the same blanket.  god it was cute!

after the film i chatted with the girls' father about movies, then politics.  as politely as we could because our political views were very different.  even so, he was a nice man and a pleasure to talk with.  and surer evidence that there is no 'us vs. them' but a 'us and us'.  there are some 'us's' who share our own beliefs and goals and so on, and there are some 'us's' who are vastly different but when you boil it down we still have 'all of us' in this shit together.

my only gripe about the drive-in experience nowadays is the lack of playing intermission shorts.  i know, those days are gone.  but i know that up in the projection booth are cans of film with those old intermission shorts i remember when i was nick's age.  youtube has scores of these intermission shorts.  thank the maker!  10 years ago i was jonesing for these short commercials and now they are only a few mouse clicks away.  and yet there are a couple of locally produced shorts that if you grew up in sac, went to the sac 6 drive-in, you'd know these shorts.  they are tattooed upon the grey matter.  one is for pizza when an old man sings about 'mushy roomy room sauce'.  i've googled the phrase in hope of finding that short.  so far the only hits i get are a few local memories and my own blog for i've written about these sorts of things many times.

why bitch.  the snack bar is the same.  people come to the drive-in because it is still inexpensive and can last all night if you want.  the world has changed.  it is changing still.  the car culture of yore is gone.  gone with it are the drive-ins.  but for the time being we have what i've written about before, the happiest place on earth: the drive-in.

the avengers [2012]

i was a marvel comics kinda kid.  spiderman was my guy.  so was ghost rider, and powerman and ironfist [that pair would make a cool action flick] but i was not a huge avengers fan.  i did read the comic from time to time so i'm not unfamiliar with the group.  i am unfamiliar with this movie's director, joss whedon.

whedon appears to be a fanboy of the horror/sci-fi kind.  apparently the dude's did good so the studio gave whedon the keys to the candy store and some seriously big bucks to bring the avengers to the screen.  does he make it work?  oh yeah! 

this is not a great movie but it is very good popcorn fare.  the writing is snappy and the direction is strong.  the cast is more than game and there is some inspired choices for the characters.  i've never been a fan of the incredible hulk.  too much goofy destruction for my taste but as the hero is so subtly drawn by actor mark ruffalo is a minor miracle. 

plot is nothing to sing about.  in fact, in lesser hands the movie would be many shades paler because of the meagerness of the plot.  the action set-pieces are first rate even if the amount and rate of destruction sit a little left of beyond the curtain of disbelief.  what can you say but really even for a fluff summer blockbuster there much meat on the bone and despite the movie clocking in at 143 minutes long the duration feels like it whizzes like a short, thrilling roller coaster ride.

i couldn't believe it.  nick and i went on opening weekend.  the first showing was sold out.  we had a little over an hour and half to kill till the next screening so we waited in the arcade as nick honed his video game playing skills.  all mack daddy and shit the boy loves those realistic driver games.  he's a great racer and has a blast driving on a race track cranked to the first intensity. 

after about an hour i said let's go check on the theater where the movie was playing.  i was shocked.  with about 30 minutes to showtime there was a line of about a hundred already waiting.  i've not seen such crowds since i was kid.  not since star wars and i told nick that this was the very theater where i saw star wars when i was just a little older than him.

i've no idea how that registered with nick.  probably he can't fathom that far in the past especially because his old man is so old and from his perspective i was probably never young enough to be a kid, and besides he might even be suspicious that there was a thing called electricity way back when.

dailies

while belief in the greys

             is cold comfort

if we are alone

yeats

who described his belief in a vision

         faeries wear boots

saw them with his own two eyes

who am i to judge him

tap that vein

                    skate or die

dailies

immanent particulate

some physicist claimed

the last exhale of julius caesar

is part of our air

you are breathing him

right now

post dream haiku

another morning the window wide open
birds chirrup
something i half-remember and i can't find the rewind button

i fucking love this guy

dailies

another day another death

and, i assume, more births

weather turned round and hot

walking thru midtown was like walking thru midtown

different in the same way

let me quote another poet [from cuba] on identity politics

that fit my own thoughts on my generic name

me? i'm japanese

let me celebrate the polyglot and babel

let us all hybridize

let us take pleasure when there is pleasure

let us know pain

let us enter the dragon and pretend kung fu

let us go now and fail again

let us hold each heart

if each heart can beholden

most of all let us remember to

let the wild rumpus start

mca is dead long live mca

fucking hell. 

adam yauch died today at the age of 47. 

beastie boys was a formative influence in my life.  i first knew them as a punk band.

then in i think 1982 or '83 a friend who was way into rap put on what i think might be def jam's first release, an untitled e.p. by the beastie boys.  fucking blew my and my pals' minds. 

then there was the full-length lp license to ill.  which launched them to superstardom. 

the raps on that lp was all frat-boy goofiness.

the boys grew up and made a full-blown masterpiece, paul's boutique.

mca developed into a buddhist. 

the boys never lost, i think, their coolness and cred.

at least for me.

i'm in shock.

below is the first song off that untitled def jam e.p.

put on your head phones.  and prepare to have your mind blown.

book report haiku

even if it's lying in a garbage pile
it seems
a writer cannot resist opening a book

dailies

for john b-r

a move made either to the right

or to the left

this 1st of may

my heart did jump out of my chest

as i watched the police chopper

and mounted police

then with a firm step down

to the street

begs the author

to intercede

this concrete grass asphalt and trees