key west bookshop haiku

among exploded light from the storm 

the novels of

jim harrison

bot un-bot

my regular readership of this place in the pixels usually hovers around less than 100.  i am grateful to get that many readers & i am humble that readers will take a few moments out of their busy lives to read my posts.  but today, & a few days ago, the number of readers spiked to well over a thousand.  at first i'm flattered as hell.  but looking at the posts that readers clicked on stretched back to 2005.  & they were random too.  no themes.  it's possible that there are readers, or reader, like me, that will stick around the blog of a writer & go deep into their archives.  i do that a lot.  but it might be a bot that is scouring the web for, well, i don't know.  as much as i follow tech news & developments, & even as long as i've been blogging, i'm still pretty much a beginner at them.  but having one of my posts 'unpublished' from 2004 because it violated Blogger's TOS makes me go, huh.  bots do scour the interwebs.  they are also used to skew the numbers of clicks & attempt to drive traffic.  i should think that me being a small-press antipoet is of such little concern even to Skynet that john connor wouldn't give a shit.  still, this is a little weird.  not that i'm a little paranoid.  but then as the paranoid say, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they are not out there.  so who the fuck knows.  as i've said in a recent post about the influence of DIY punk ethos/aesthetics on my living & thinking one of the reasons why i continue to blog even if blogging is no longer the hip thing to do is that blogging allows me to self-publish.  it gives me the tools that allow me to do my own thing.  we live in a digital age/world.  publishing online is where i can practice the art as cavafy practiced poetry, or how punk rockers recorded, pressed & distributed their music & zines.  so c'mon, bots!  i am not john connor.  break me a give.  & as for all you all.  thank you for stopping by!  i really, really appreciate you!

published to unpublished

i got an email this evening from the Blogger Team notifying me that one of my posts from 2004 was unpublished because it violated blogger's TOS  

i didn't title my pieces at that time & i have no idea what the post was about & since it was nearly a 20 year old piece of writing i will probably never know what the post was about & how it offended the TOS

at first i thought this was a spam email until i logged on tonight & saw the notice in my dashboard

then, i recalled my friend alex gildzen writing about the same situation that happened to him

http://arroyochamisa.blogspot.com/2023/03/strange.html

like alex said about his own blog my place in the pixels has a relatively small readership

i'm grateful to have a readership at all considering that i'm a small press poet of no renown obsessed with horror/exploitation movies sex desire life poetry family friendship etc etc.

& i can't recall any of my writings that could piss off the algorithms of our fair digital cultures

unless you consider cuss words that are abundant in my writings & in the early days of this blog i was writing a lot about wild exploitation movies

like beckett sez i can't go on i'll go on

keeping on keeping on

i am grateful to have this space for my poems reviews essays & rants 

& i am very grateful to have you too along for this wild ride into movies living & the international republic of [anti]poetry

it's only punk rock [but i like it!]

shortly after winning the nobel prize in literature poet seamus heaney was interviewed by TV journalist charlie rose

rose asked heaney if growing up catholic in ireland influenced his poetry & his life

--there is the experience of growing up catholic, said heaney, & there is the fact of growing up catholic in northern ireland

--my answer to both of these queries is TOTALLY

* * *

i am the same age now as heaney was then

* * *

i think of my own experience of being a suburban gringo northern california working class boy with a hispanic name in 1980s america

+ the experience of punk rock music & diy ethos on a suburban gringo nothern california working class boy with a hispanic name 

--the answer is TOTALLY

it's friday nite the official unofficial start of summer & you got a goddamn ghost in you

i fucking love this song it's melancholy key yet bright synths 

+ richard butler's beautiful voice 

one bar & i am back in time 

leo the pretty fierce living la vida loca

 

absolute music

do go gentle into that good night, tina turner.  you are the fucking best

killer cover of a great mission of burma tune

self-portrait of the poet in the wild

 

dance hall daze

i can't dance at all i mean i suck at it even if i can feel the beat my body won't move in tune

but it was a pure pleasure to see the audience last night disappear into the music

m83 cranked the sound to 11 & when they hit those cinematic heights my god

your soul left your body

so it was a delight to see my fellow brothers & sisters lose themselves in sound

with arms outstretched singing along 

dancing & being at one with everyone in the hall

m83 in oakland

just returned from seeing the french electronic band m83 perform at the fox theater in downtown oakland.  i was with nick & his friend s.  the weather could not be better.  the band rocked the fucking house.  when m83 returned to the stage for their encore with their massive song 'midnight city' the house fucking rocketed into low earth orbit.  everything went so well.  the traffic was light on the way to oakland.  we found a city lot to park at around the corner of the fox.  across the street was a terrific taqueria were we noshed on tacos & a chile relleno burrito.  yeah, seriously, a chile relleno burrito.  such a thing can change your life.  downtown oakland was pretty mellow too.  didn't see any crazies.  well, nothing of the sort that you don't see in any city of relative size.  but fuck me.  no.  after the show, glowing in the high of the music, the transcendent performance of the band, we returned to the lot & our car.  the back window smashed.  fucking smashed.  nothing stolen.  there is nothing worth stealing in a 2012 prius.  the car is so square you'd think even the most greedy of thieves would make a wide berth of it.  however, about 3 or 4 cars in the lot all clustered around our car got the similar treatment.  i don't think anything was stolen from those vehicles either.  i can kick myself for not taking precautions such as leaving every part of the interior of the vehicle open to view.  the thinking goes like this.  a grabby kind of thief would take one look into the interior, see nothing worth stealing, & move on.  maybe.  that's kinda how it works in my beloved burg.  i recall some time ago some rando was going from house to house pulling at car doors for the ones that might open.  if the door didn't open he moved on to another vehicle.  but how the hell am i supposed to know the interior mental workings of someone intent on breaking into cars.  damn!  as you can tell this act of violence sure put me in a sour mood.  the bay area is notorious for property theft.  but hell, so is midtown sacramento.  it's a real fucking bummer having to deal with a broken back window on an older model prius.  especially when it is nick's primary transportation.  to say little about the cost too.  goddamn it  the cost is no small matter.  so what was a happy, magical night in oakland dissolved into a tale of crime.  minor crime.  but an offense just the same that leads to a not inconsiderable cost emotionally, & financially, too.  still, & yet, but how the band rocked.  the sound systems was set to eleven.  every once & again members of the band during their set would jump from the stage into the audience.  even anthony gonzalez, leader of m83, jumped down from the stage to greet fans at the end of their show.  plus anna & i have been going to shows at the fox for well over a decade now.  this is the very first time we have had to contend with property crime.  this is not a rant about crime in CA or the Bay Area or in Sac.  so much.  but a thing that happened.  & it sucks.  i'm still doing the WHAT IFS.  like what if i left the whole car unlocked & open to view.  but really that shit will eat you up.  for in the end it was the act of someone who most likely was not acting rationally - as if rational thinking might prevent randomness - but a person behaving in a manner that might net that person the greater good.  how & what that greater good is achieved is beyond my ken.  that's it.  it's done & can't be undone.  time to open a beer.  chill the fuck out.  & get to seeing the vehicle repaired.  in the meantime, sometimes joel [as it was said in the movie Risky Business (1983) you have to say what the fuck.  because it was a great night all the same.  peace

this might be the greatest live performance in fucking ever!

living the future

where the fuck is my jetpack?!

andre breton said that the simplest surrealist act is to walk down the street with a pistol & firing randomly into the crowd

who'd have guessed that the currency of our civilization is not the spice melange but information 

he or she who controls the information controls the universe

we live in the first globalized civilization connected by trade by smart phones by the internet

we can hear the wind on mars see the oldest galaxies

when futurists imagined the future they saw spinners those flying cars in the blade runner films & artificial people that looked sounded & behaved like people

what the futurists didn't see is the same gritty landscape populated with people holding a tiny computer at the end of the arms or AI systems that sound like human speech

even at the end of the world we must go to work pay the bills pay our taxes

the worst of human culture[s] is at our fingertips so is the best

would breton be horrified to see our country so surrealist now

guns as common as apples in our homes 

the future arrived with its gifts & with its horror

but no jetpack

absolute music

beautiful video of a great melancholic song

'untitled' by glen chesnut, san francisco, 1995

 
 

frank catullus o'hara

odi & amo, quare id faciam fortasse requiris

but for the 

grace to be born & live as variously as possible

antipoetry in lawrence, ks

every now & again i really need a poetic pick me up.  one that never fails me is the poet/antipoet of lawrence, ks jim mccrary.  i've written lots & lots about mccrary.  he is one of my poet teachers even if he may scoff at me for saying so.  he taught me to go my own way.  DIY is mccrary's motto, ethos, & practice long before it was cool.  which satisfies my own punk rock mien.  why do i call him an antipoet?  for one reason his minimalist poetry is its own sound.  it seems simple on first read.  but no.  plus his measures of composition as well as his sense of humor about the silliness of our self-important contemporary poetic landscape details a seriousness of his poetic spirit with an ethos of anarchic wit.  he did call his once-upon-a-time blog RESISTING POETRY.  so today, when i needed a refreshing hit of antipoetry i searched on the interwebs for some jim mccrary.  here is a recent interview of jim with the poet michael sikkema.  here is a profile of the antipoet from 2009.  &, here because we live in a varied & vast digital world, is a podcast from 2017 of jim mccrary.  i've not linked to or quoted any of jim's poems for they are readily available via a google search.  i think these interviews & profiles do what they do best.  give us a bit of the fantastic anitpoetic spirit who made lawrence, ks his home.  & as sure as shit made this antipoetic spirit in east sac, ca very fucking happy. 

hymn to life

 fuck yeah

         fuck no

am i normal

i've heard that this is the most common question most sex therapists/advice columnists receive: am i normal?  are my desires, or lack of desires, my orientation, my proclivities, my tastes, my identities etc etc.  are they normal.

most therapists/advice columnists will say, probably, but not always, you are ordinary.  you are normal.  what is the range of normal?  well, to visualize the range of normality in our human species spread your arms out at length.  like you are spreading your wings.  that space between your fingertips is the range of normal.  

i say this with lots of caveats.  for there are spaces of our human being that are not normal.  but those spaces are infrequent to the greater population.  e.g. charles manson was a human being but he was most certainly not fucking normal.  but for the vast majority of us our tastes, desires, urges, orientations, etc etc, are so normal we can call them ordinary.

but yet still, knowing that i think many of us suffer from fright that we are not normal.  why?  shit, i don't know.  maybe that is the condition of the human being.  to fret until we grind away the enamel of our teeth that our very being is flawed.

i was just looking at pics of an eastern european poetry festival.  i was looking at the various poets from all over our international republic of poetry.  i was looking at these poets & wondering if my own body matched theirs.  i think, i suspect, that many of us suffer from body dysmorphia.  whether that might be about the size of our noses or the shape of our tummies.  whether our heads might be rightly shaped, if they might be too big or too small.  i was looking at these poets wondering if they also have small heads, pot bellies, skinny legs.  

nor do i mean to infer that my own sense of flawed self is projected upon these pictures of poets.  rather i am worrying, like many people worry over their sexualities, if my own sense of shattered self is normal.  i am a poet, for better & worse, not a famous one, or even maybe a good one, but i am a poet.  but i wonder if i fit the image of one.  whatever that image might be.

i meant to write this short rant about normality with a sense of humor.  after all, i am well aware that my flaws might be invisible to the casual observer.  but then again, maybe not.  still, the one person who gets to see me all the time is me, e.g. when i am shaving, brushing my teeth. taking a shower etc etc.  the face that looks back at me often has this expression, 'oh, it's you again.'  

i suspect that my own flaws are expressed in our collective human being.  why & how else is commercial advertising so effective.  i recall an epigraph to a galway kinnell poem titled 'holy shit' where the suitor lifts the chamber pot of his beloved & nearly has a heart attack. 'celia shits!?  oh god!  celia shits!'  as stupid as that may seem we are often freaked out that others do & feel like we do.  

so i suspect i am normal.  ordinary even.  even if i still wish my body was this & that.  no end to being a human being.  i mean there is an end.  death.  but until that happens i will always be the one looking in the mirror.  & the man who looks back at me, flaws & all, will say, once again, 'oh, it's you again.'

a handful of antihaikus

fat grey clouds on the horizon

rain?  AGAIN?

* * *

early spring hunter

leo the pretty fierce 

asleep on the porch

* * *

california traveling

traffic traffic

TRAFFIC

* * *

oh man! what a pretty day

* * *

listening to EDM 

live at coachella on youtube

i am there i am here i am no where

* * *

lesson from the painter julian schnabel

asked the antipoet 

how long does it take you to write

answer: take yr age + add 5 minutes

* * *

Santa Rosa, CA

veggie burgers & fries 

with the family

in the shade

at luther burbank gardens

* * *

go on as e. dickinson told us

tell all the truth

but tell it slant

* * *

my mind is the movies

in words

on this screen

* * *

sunday pleasures of late middle age

a couch nap & a bed nap

* * *

late at night

wiping the sleep 

from your eyes

in bed

reading

the same line 

over & over again

* * *

Netflix at nite

fell asleep before the end

it's late friday nite/early saturday morning & you wanna hear the avant garde bill orcutt guitar quartet

i fucking love that orcutt looks like the poet john berryman on the guitar!

happy star wars day

may the fourth is deemed a kind of pop holiday made special by our culture's shared love of these stories made from the original 1977 space opera.  why may the fourth?  it sounds like May the Force be With You.  a critical & crucial greeting, wishing, & mantra of the Star Wars mythos. 

i've written extensively about my experience of seeing Star Wars: a New Hope in the summer of 1977 when i was 10 years old after waiting in line for over four hours under a scorching sun.  i was awestruck seeing the massive imperial star destroyer come into frame after the famous crawl that sets up the story like an old-fashioned matinee serial.  i've never experienced anything like it. 

i am still a big fan of the original Star Wars trilogy.  my brothers & i had all the kenner toys too.  some of them would be worth thousands of dollars if we treated them as museum pieces rather than toys.  but no, they were toys & they were well-played with.  my brothers & i must have seen Star Wars at least 20 times before it ended its year-long run at the theater.  

oh man!  do i recall the lines to see this movie.  & the hype & pleasure it gave.  magical.  unrepeatable.  & so with these memories & on this day, May the Fourth, let me be a geek & say

MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU

may day '23

early summer, no

winterlike again

                  heat takes a holiday