dailies

doing nothing the title of a book by cid corman

i bought a couple weeks ago

corman is a poet long known but not really read by me

fine as a watercolor brief as a haiku

all the fucking world etched into the head of a pin

just like faulkner wanted

reading and writing my own kind of antipoetry

may i be so bold might i go on just like this

she said she said

when yr dead you can't eat sleep shit piss and fuck

a beckettian poetics

q: how do you go on?

a: i dunno i just make it up as i go

satori

there was the 3rd beer
after the last gulp
he leapt from his chair

dropped his book
and said
this is all there is
what the motherfuck

lust stammer

humanahhumanahhumanahhumanah
humanahhumanahhumanahhumanah
humanahhumanahhumanahhumanah
humanahhumanahhumanahhumanah

humanahhumanahhumanahhumanah
humanahhumanahhumanahhumanah
humanahhumanahhumanahhumanah
humanahhumanahhumanahhumanah

smiles of a california/swedish summer day

high 60s low 70s F. with lots of cloud cover, a firm breeze, and rain.  unusual for norcal but a standard summer day in stockholm.  we took advantage of it by taking a long walk along the american river.  nick took his rock hammer [we purchased a geologist's hammer for him at a local hardware store a couple weeks ago.  one of nick's driving passions is the study of rocks] and hitched along the american river parkway for a couple miles. 

the weather and the walk lifted the spirits for all of us.  nick was in heaven examining stones, vegetation, insect and bird life.  anna and i grew up along that stretch of the river and we found the area called 'the clay banks' which is a piece of land jutting out into the river which is composed of, yes, clay.  anna and nick were about 20 yards ahead of me and already on the banks.  anna said to nick, be careful, these banks are slippery.  it was at that precise moment i stepped on to the side of a bank and yep, you know it, slipped and fell on my side.  tho i lost my grip i didn't lose my composure, just my pride.

it's been rainy all day and into the night.  it is 10:00 pm right now and raining pretty hard.  i'm sure there were plenty of bummed out souls disappointed their bbq's turned out soggy on this first day of unofficial summer.  hell, anna, nick and i were in heaven.  we love this weather.  not that i'm gloating for i love sunny hot summer days too but a respite from the heat and memories of swedish summer days filled us -- me -- with joy.

that's all.  we made dinner, pizza made from naan bread, basil from our garden, pizza sauce and mozeralla from trader joe's, which was delicious and then we all read our respective books into the evening.  i finished something of the sacred [factory school, 2007; translated by kristin dykstra and roberto tejeda] by omar perez.  i've been on a perez kick the past few months.  omar perez is a cuban poet and zen monk.  there are several poems and pieces online by perez online if you want to look for it.  i recommend that you do for perez is just that good of a writer [okay, i've done it for you.  click here for works by and about omar perez].  i have did you hear about the fighting cat? [shearsman books, 2010; translated by kristin dykstra] too which i've yet to read.

thank god for translations.  i am a monoglot and have trouble with my natal english.  dig this piece by dykstra regarding perez and his poetry, culture and translation

     He [perez] asserts the importance of daily life as a focus for poetry but does not offer a clear
     sociopolitical platform in the poems or essays, and he avoids highlighting the most overtly
     political elements of the quotations he uses from various writers.  Instead his writings express
     a constant, deliberate drive toward transformation, meaning that self and society must both
     coexist in an ongoing state of translation -- a state parellel to the displacements that poetry
     enacts.
     ['commentary' by kristin dykstra; something of the sacred, factory school, 2007]

not only do we translate our langauges we translate our selves and our place within our selves and society.  i dig that. 

it was a good day.  it is now 10:44 pm and is still raining.  a bit weird for norcal but utterly lovely for us swedish-norwegian-spanish-mexican-u.s.american-and-everthing-inbetween who love this warm rain.  anna and nick are in bed, i sat zazen for just 10 minutes, read part of an essay by hakim bey and am now drinking a flying dog ipa with artwork on the label by ralph steadman, and listening to horror radio via the internet.

good night. 

nicely done

the day was a vacillation between being grumpy pissed-off-ness and hey-man-it's-a-great-day.  which won?  nick, anna and i took a long walk to the local trader joe's.  we did a little grocery shopping in addition to getting some serious steps in because trader joe's is nearly a mile away.  this was in the evening.  the light at dusk, california light, can't be beat.  gorgeous!  by the time we returned home my pissed-off-ness shut off and firmly turned to its-a-great-day. 

not that that is news.  i mean who cares if one is grumpy or happy.  right.  still, i do think to acknowledge the gift of living requires humility and gratitude.  so today depite a base need to remain angry turned instead to a greater good.  we watched one of those halloween specials i had dvr'd in the fall -- a travel channel tour of halloween haunted houses and pumpkin carvings -- and i'm telling you, man, halloween imagery simply pushes my relax and pleasure buttons. 

then yesterday i was rereading a little anselm hollo from his selected poems, sojourner microcosms [blue wind press, 1977], and found this little tidbit from a long poem paramecia:

     purposeful matter hovers in the dark.

that is a mis-quote, and rebuke to, the existential thom gunn who concluded his poem 'the annihilation of nothing':

     purposeless matter hovers in the dark.

nicely done, hollo.  life is what you make it.  two different poets and two differing views.  but both are astonishing in their verve and hunger for experience and life.  not that i can connect these two poets other than in my mind.  as for my own wild domestic bohemia it is nourished by differing perspectives that help to create itself.

dawn of the dead [1978]

i had a few moments this evening to watch the first third of this pic.  every time i see it i am in utter wonder at its beauty.  yes, a horror film can be beautiful.  the principals are not gorgeous models.  when they hit someone or some zombie they do it awkwardly and fall down too just as we would if we were fighting for our lives.  the choreography of the action scenes are underscored by fear and exhaustion.  luck plays an important role here too.  some people get eaten and/or killed in other ways just because. 

there is survivor's guilt and pure happenstance as the world slowly falls apart.  one of the best scenes is when the survivors fly over a group of hunters and soldiers who out for a good time drinking beers and shooting zombies.  what better way to pass a day, right.  and you know that that is how it would probably play out should the dead rise and start eating the living.  we would be both scared shitless and brainless too in our self-importance and self-worth.  we would think that our own chances of survival are good and that the shit going down is for other people. 

romero's craft gives the lie to that thinking.  he shows us that when the shit happens what makes survivors and what makes victims will be just fortune and not fate.  our noses bleed and we lose our balance as we try to make a round-house to the temple of a zombie.  our aim is not true and we will waste a lot of ammo trying to kill one threat.  romero shows us that we are short-sighted and often as nasty as what threatens us.  this movie is a proof of the role chance has in our lives.  the survivors get by on -- yes -- pluck but also being in the right place at the right time.  these people are not innocents either.  they steal and kill as the worst of us.  romero shows us how sloppy we are and how deluded we can be.  and yet, as the poet said, and yet there is dignity in all of that awful we can do.  we survive because we don't know any better.   

EARTHQUAKE!

no, really.  about 15 minutes ago susanville, which is about 200 miles north of us, was hit with a 5.7  temblor.  we felt it here.  really damn peculiar feeling.  i was reading the new yorker at the dining room table.  my chair began to shake, sway actually.  i thought it was nick shaking my chair.  i looked behind me.  then anna who was sitting on the couch told nick to stop shaking the table!  we all leapt to our feet and said, earthquake!  we went outside.  our neighbor was on her porch and asked if that was an earthquake. we said, yes.  then we turned on the tv and the local news immediately cut in regular programming because of the temblor.  the feeling of an earthquake is kind of like the rocking of a ship at sea only that we are on land and the land does not normally move.  we are waiting for aftershocks.  there are usually aftershocks.  all in all we are just fine but a little excited and a tad weirded out. 

i was quite surprised to learn the death of ray manzarek yesterday.  he was 74.  he was, to me, without age.  i am a huge fan of the doors.  me and friends would spend our aimless youth driving the streets of our own california with the music of the doors as our soundtrack.  i loved how manzarek's keyboards would sound old, new and spooky like tracks to a film noir for the mind.  manzarek produced too the first two albums by x -- los angeles and wild gift -- and x repaid that gift with a fiery version of the doors' 'soul kitchen.'  manzarek's collaboration with poets like michael mcclure is also a well-known component of his art.  he seemed to me a nice man and a cool cat.  the world was better for him being in it.   

looking for seth on bush st

woke up against pieces of the dream
spent the day stitching them back together

it's the vastness of the places you said
don't worry when you are lost

every place becomes a home

dailies
for jean vengua

fortune smiles on you and tells you

i am the man-with-the-synthetic-brain

you are trapped within your skin

i've not perfected my imperfection

i tap the keys of my book

you stare from the mirror in greeting

the big drive-in screen of my skull

i just sit and do my practice

zen and the art of b-movies

malibu beach [1978]

summer time.  late '70s.  southern california.  the beach.  where else would you expect teens to hang out. . .the mall?  this turkey starts with the kids of malibu high [?] leaving their classrooms on the last day of school and going to the beach.  what happens next is. . .not much.  a bikini stealing dog -- you gotta have a little t&a because this is a late '70s exploitation flick, two boy drifting both figuratively and literally, a lifeguard and her friend, and a tattooed, heavily muscled juicehead called dugie who looks to be in his late 30s. 

perfect drive in fodder!  the boys meet said lifegaurd and her friend.  love ensues.  dugie becomes the sworn enemy of the boys and picks a fight every time their paths cross and their paths are always crossing.  the boys look, if not age appropriate as teens, at least in their 20s.  dugie, i'm not sure.  i don't know the actor who plays him but a quick search on imdb and i find that he was born stephen oliver in the year 1941.  he looks his age.  which begs the question.  what the fuck is this 30-something doing hanging at the beach with teenagers and doesn't he have a job?

still this pic is not a real a yawn-inducer.  i fell asleep only once and i don't think i missed anything.  i did make it to the very end with both eyes open.  i remember summer as being a long slough of dead time.  this movie is just like that.  the director, robert j. rosenthal, later helmed a true celluloid monstrosity, zapped! [1982], starring scott baio and willie aames.  he directs this flick with all the panache of a dog walker picking up the dog's poo. 

not to be unfair.  malibu beach does have it's charms.  i am fond of lazy, aimless, plot less summer movies.  perfect flicks for a night at the drive-ins.  what can i say.  i must have sand in my head.     

please allow me to direct your attention to the newest issue of galatea resurrects #20.  ms chatelaine, eileen tabios, has edited another humdinger, bumper, mother of a publication.  and to toot my own horn ms chatelaine reviewed an early chapbook of mine here [i couldn't finish reading it because i had tears of gratitude in my eyes!] and published a short essay of mine here.

eileen tabios is simply one of the best and most generous poet/blogger/editor/human being we are lucky to know in this world.  i say that with all humility and sincerity.  life's too short to say otherwise. 

do what i do.  say carpefuckingdiem.  and get your reading/writing on!     

silver streak [1976]

going to the sac 6 drive ins a couple weeks ago put in mind of certain movie memories at the drive-ins.  this is one of those flicks that i saw at the sac 6 drive in upon its release in 1976.  this is not really a great movie but it has brilliant comedic flashes with the pair of gene wilder and richard pryor as its leads.

this movie is a rather confused outing.  marketed as a comedy for most of the run-time the pic plays as a drama.  the comedy only hits the fore with the introduction of richard pryor as a small-time thief caught in the larger schemes of the bad guy played by patrick mcgoohan and gene wilder as the schmuck who witnesses a murder and wants to protect a woman, jill clayburgh, from the dastardly mcgoohan.

i remember the film fucked up on the first reel at the sac 6.  a man tried to hit up clayburgh and she dumps a highball down his trrousers.  it got a laugh from the surrounding cars.  then the film tripped up in the projector.  the projectionists had to start the film over.  i remember -- because it was funny the first time -- doubling up in laughter a second time when the scene of clayburgh, highball and drench trousers played again.

that's all i remember of that night's screening.  the rest of the movie plays on my mind's screen.  i've seen it hundreds of times on television.  pryor proved in this outing to be a singular brilliant comic actor.  without him and gene wilder's manic energy this film would be all but unwatchable.  there is not a lot of tension and drama in the script.

it is a large movie made for a large screen.  the 1970s were good like that.  filmmakers used tricks like CINEMASCOPE to get asses in theater seats.  it was the era of irwin allen's disaster movies with large production and even bigger casts.  spectacle was the game even if spectacle was bogged down by budget and limiting scripts. 

whatever the case i have a great affection for this movie.  the duo richard pryor and gene wilder was magic on the silver screen.  i remember the intermission shorts of the era at the sac 6, shorts that i'd love to see today for many of those intermission commercials were produced locally and i'm sure those films are stored in cans at the sac 6 today.  i hope soon that someone will preserve those intermission shorts and make them available to us who remember them and would cherish them. 

when the shit
goes down
it is
still just shit

dailies

a spring deluge

after

we stood on the porch

red points of sunlight thru thick clouds

like dots from laser pointers

it was there

we saw it

skateboard

she clattered down the street at the speed of light
ABSOLUTE MUSIC
stencilled in black on the back of her jeans jacket

dailies

when i explore a cemetery i look

for graves of people born in the '60s

look for the numerical expression

between dates

how long do i got doc

is an answer

and question

BABY I GOT THE BLUES

and it ain't never felt so good!

dailies

strip to the bare

essentials and my skivvies

my tie-dyed soul and silver hair

O neo-hippie punk

chasing crazy cloud

on this may sunday

i was listening to a podcast

of accessibility and the avant-garde

WTF and so it goes

i remember a young woman in a SUV

yesterday riding my ass

i was pissed off until i saw her

in the rear-view mirror singing to

herself with a wide-ass grin

tucked inside our maimed egos

is a song that wants everyone

to sing and dance

no malice or thoughts of being unloved

the young woman was deep inside

her song and was thoughtful

i think for her sharing

the projectionist

at the ua mather auto movies
when i was 6 or 7
the projection booth
was right in the middle of
the drive in and i often
walked passed it on
my way to and from
the playground that was
situated beneath the screen
one very hot august night
when i was 6 or 7
the door to the projection booth
was open and i looked inside
on my way to and from
the playground that was
situated beneath the screen
inside was an old rotund man
sitting on a rotten green recliner
a thick paperback in his hands
in the midst of a bruce lee
marathon oblivious to the kid
who was utterly fascinated
by this life in the movies

klipschutz

san francisco based poet klipshutz has a new book out this drawn & quartered moon.  klipschutz also has a book trailer for it.  i'm not sure what book trailers are.  i see them from time to time on the 'net.  but still, i think this one is great with cool scenes of s.f., and my favorite part, scenes of the poet reading before his very packed bookshelves.  i love looking at books.  i love looking at bulging shelves of books.  i bet you do too.

watch the vid.  get the book.

dig

HAPPY MAY DAY!!!


Otolith #29  is live and as always it is a bumper killer issue! 

it is the un/official start of spring

and i am fixing to dance around the maypole!