every day is halloween

 

boo!

a bard's eye view of vegas: the scene & a dazzled poet

 

a bard's eye view of vegas: random shots of the strip

 

a bard's eye view of vegas: the laughing buddha of the strip

 

a bard's eye view of vegas: who's this lady?

 

a bard's eye view of vegas: i saw elvis & vampira

 

a bard's eye view of vegas: come & get high

 

a bard's eye view of vegas: the sphere

 

a bard's eye view of vegas: a prismatic transit

 

everyday is halloween

 

my favorite time of year.  spooky season!  it arrived with the speed of a bat out of hell.  even tho it got up to 100 f (37 c) today the light is changing to a smudgy, smoky, softer affair that i love.  now, if i could smell the smoke of burning rice fields i would be in heaven.  rice farmers are no longer allowed to wantonly burn their fields now.  & much of the rice fields of my youth have been developed into housing & commercial uses.  but if you grew up here in the 1970s & on back, then you probably know that smell, always associated with autumn, & thus for me halloween.  a rich, pungent, thick & acrid smell that can return me instantly to my childhood.  

halloween is still my favorite holiday.  i'll be doing the usual here too like reviewing horror movies, some good, some really bad, but i won't be doing reviewing as frequently as i've done in the past.  & when something halloween on the street or store or wherever i am catches my fancy i'll take pics & post them here.  but i suspect that i'll stick with movie reviewing.  do note that halloween is always in my heart & head.  i have a jack o'lantern tattoo as proof!  

i will also do my standard publishing of my poems & miscellany.  including recent pics of vegas & the punk rock museum.  

but remember everyday is halloween!

boo!

viva las vegas

where to fucking begin.  what can i say that hasn't been said, or thought, or done, since las vegas was built in the desert as the decadent city of sin.  but i'm not religious so there's really no sinning.  just adult human beings allowing themselves the kind of pleasures that they may deprive themselves at home.  sex, gaming, drugs, drinking, & a catchall of party bonhomie.  why the fuck not.  where else, at least in the u.s., will you need to dodge dudes & dudettes handing out cards of naked ladies advertising their 'services' as you walk The Strip.

that's right.  this was my first time in sin city.  i was told what to expect.  i even seen a few movies & read a few books based in vegas & about vegas.  i am approaching my 6th decade on this blue sphere spinning around the sun but i've not been to vegas until now.  vegas is a fever dream.  a hallucination of capitalism amok.  the city might be, at least on The Strip, the most manufactured place in all of our human civilization.  a bold claim, for sure.  but man!  this place dazzled, awed, & scared me.  i have seen some shit but i've never seen anything quite like vegas.  (there are poems in the streets of vegas!)

of course, las vegas is a real city with real people living in it.  for example, i left The Strip to visit the Punk Rock Museum, founded by fat mike of the punk band NOFX, in 2023.  situated four miles away from The Strip the museum is located right next door to a strip club in a light industrial section of town.  i'll post pics of the museum & a few thoughts later (i had a blast!).  but the museum, plus its location in the city, is a reminder that las vegas is a working town too.  

still, i walked miles on The Strip & had a ball  i'll post pics of vegas when my traveler's fatigue & ennui subsides.  today was one of travel & not eating very well.  or drinking enough agua.  that's entirely my fault.  but what the hell.  as i said, i had a blast.  i walked up & down the strip.  i saw showgirls on The Strip, trying to rope men, they worked in pairs & one always had a lai she would wrap around a dude, single &/or with their wives/girlfriends, but when it came to me these showgirls gave me a wide berth!  perhaps because i'm old!  who cares!  but i am a poet who notices things!  

will i return to vegas?  fuck no!  but is that a definitive fuck no?  uh um hmm...let's leave it there.  below is a pic taken by anna after we watched the famous Fountains of Bellagio.  it was raining too!  hot & wet, oh my!

spherical: selfie of the poet in vegas

 

quote unquote

could write of fucking

--robert creeley

fornicar es un acto literario

[fucking is a literary act]

--nicanor parra

first full day of fall haiku

 it's 91 in the shade!

          hot damn

my jeans burst into flame!

the poet as shade

i'm moving in stereo

--the cars

poetry is not a career

before AC

before TV & Radio

even before there was light!

my father would pay me & my brothers

10 cents each for every fly we could kill

on those hot Sacramento summer days

when we would have the windows & doors open

we would roll up the local daily

either the Sacramento Bee or Sacramento Union

[we had, like most towns then, two newspapers]

& begin our hunt

it never went as planned

those little fuckers knew how to hide

from our swats 

yet we persevered

developed techniques

strategies on how to trap the flies

& smack them into a grey pulp

& the old man 

would trust us with our count

reaching into his wallet 

for a couple of bills each

our rolled-up papers gooey with the result

& the house would be

at least for now

fly free