ufos

i do not believe in ufos but i've been waiting to be picked up by one all my life

a poet

i've told this story a thousand times before when i was a wee lad i loved i still love the drive-ins seeing movies in open air in our cars under the stars is magic so there was Mather Auto Movies named after the nearby air force base now long shuttered but when in operation that AFB was home to B-52 bombers loaded with nuclear weapons we were under no illusions we knew during the Cold War that Mather AFB was on the scopes of the CCCP & if nuclear war erupted my beloved city of Sac would be glassed so it was a summer night at Mather Auto Movies which closed down in 1976 my father & i were walking back to our car after getting goodies at the snack bar like i said it was a hot night which is not unusual summer weather for Sac when the air feels like dry tinder & the ground soaked up all the sun rays it can to radiate back that dry heat when sometimes you can look up at the night sky watching drive-in movies & see a B-52 on patrol loaded with nuclear bombs my father & i returning to our car in the summer night heat laden with candy & sodas from the snack bar we had to pass the projection booth which was a little building right in the center of the drive-in it was a very hot night the door of the projection booth was open i peered in & i saw the projectionist an older guy seated on a broken green La Z Boy recliner reading a big fat novel & i thought that was the best job ever for a poet & tho i did not become a drive-in theater projectionist it was right then i knew what i wanted to do with my life

killer klowns from outer space [1988]

after a long soul-sucking day at work with the heat outside hovering around 100 F with my walk home exhausting the hell outta me i decided to unwind by watching this flick.  i've seen this movie about a 1000 times & i thought one more viewing won't kill me, right?

the premise is preposterous.  teenagers parked at lover's lane in a beachside CA hamlet [watsonville & santa cruz] gaze out into the starry skies to see a meteor land in the nearby woods.  our brave young lovers dare to find the space rock but instead they chance upon a glowing circus tent.  holy cow!  the circus is in town!  who doesn't love a clown?

yet, these klowns come from another planet.  dressed in the silly garb, large shoes, & props like balloon animals - which they use to make a balloon bloodhound to hunt for prey - these aliens are lethal.  they've come to earth to munch on humans after wrapping them up in a cotton candy cocoon. 

& they would've gotten away with it if it weren't for, you got it, those meddling kids.  how the hell did this movie get financing.  produced, written & directed by the chiodo bros for around two million smackers the script must've read like a stoner's wet dream.  cheech & chong couldn't come up with something so ludicrous in their weed toking days.  

these klowns are fantastic.  they throw flesh-eating pies.  they make shadow puppets that eat people.  they pop a kind of kernel that once popped make little sharp fanged creatures that try to strip the flesh off your bones!  but why the hell would an alien race of killer klowns want to eat stringy, bony people?  when there is fleshier animals on earth to devour?  why ask why.  just sit back & enjoy this dark ride.

i was rooting for the klowns even tho i knew how the moive ends. oh, john vernon - remember him? he played the uptight dean wormer in animal house [1978] - is the only actor you might recognize.  everyone else, especially the comic relief provided by two goofballs as teenage ice cream truck drivers, underact & overemote.  just the kind of performances you expect from this b-movie gem.

the theme song is by the punk band the dickies.  the special fx are quite effective.  the photography, editing & direction are spry as fuck keeping the action moving.  there really is no plot but rather a series of set pieces strung together for the gag of alien killer klowns on a tear thru a CA beach town.  oh, one little tidbit.  a smaller sized klown gets in a rumble with a biker outside of a biker bar.  after the biker makes the little klown cry says to the diminutive alien, 'what you gonna do?  knock my block off?'  in a blink of an eye the klown has boxing gloves on.  one punch was all it took.  the biker's head breaks off his body & sails across the parking lot into a trash can.  that moment alone is worth the price of admission.  & tho the heat abated not a whit, & my exhaustion was still profound, i went to bed feeling a little lighter after watching these klowns do their thing for the thousandth time.       

excellent interview of a damn good painter

only connect

the title of this piece comes from e.m. forster & in the early days of the interwebs the new yorker would publish a short column of interesting websites using this title as well

it would seem we still need lessons on human connection

you'd think after about 4 hundred thousand years of homo sapiens we would've figured it out by now

we live in a frightening time of massive multiple upheavals  

the world i knew as a young man is gone

only to be replaced by 

what?

we have yet to figure it out

we continue in the creation of our species even as we don't have a schematic

we face so many crises in an unknown bloody & mercurial landscape

but we have in our possession powerful tools to connect with our fellow human beings

for we still have that fundamental desire & need to connect

i am now at the age where death & disease make their terrifying presence known

we often are wrapped in the drama of our own creations within our own heads that we may forget that those who are surround us suffer too 

each of us is unique but we are ordinary as well 

we all want the same & similar things

like a face that looks into yours & tells you that you are loved

i am a writer not by profession or career 

i don't make money from writing

but by temperament 

& i think the greatest thing a writer can receive from readers & brothers & sisters in the art

is a quick note of thanks & gratitude

it ain't much

but we can use our powerful tools of electronic information for good as well as evil

hell i can turn to a video platform like youtube & watch in real time a livestream of someone in a city on the other side of the world or see our earth from the vantage of the international space station

take a step back & you realize what miraculous tools we have 

we can use these tools for connection 

drop a note to the writer that means much to you

say hello to your loved ones & friends

share yourself because man when you grow old you realize the time we thought we had that seemed like it could not be measured is so damn short

& in the end, as the beatles tells us, in the end the love you take is equal to the love you make

be kind of a hippie & try for god's sake to 

practice kindness & love

for we will never get these years back

& there is no ice crean & beer in heaven & hell

absolute music: dancing at 3 a.m.

37 years ago - fucking magic

self-portrait with monkey on my back

 

reality is stupider than the movies

just passed a dude walking his pitbull, talking on his phone with a bluetooth earpiece, wearing a red, white & blue tie-dye t-shirt with 

ASSHOLES 

LIVE 

FOREVER 

printed on the back

procrastination

on a hot july morning 

sitting - waiting 

for a ghost to write 

my poems

my wish

i 

wanna be

the jess franco

of usamerican poetry &

if someone called me the 

jess franco of usamerican poetry

i would be tempted 

to kiss them

on the 

lips 

on a hot california july nite

 you know life goes just like this

on the blank page

sometimes, oftentimes, when i stare at the blank page/screen i want to scream!  other times, i remain mute in my powerlessness to adequately respond to the world.  & a few times the stare becomes a poem

absolute music: you fucking angry? scream it motherfuckers!

it's friday nite & you wanna hear an '80s pop gem

james caan is dead, long live jonathan e.