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Shafts. . .
by the
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Funsy-Wunsy
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RIPOSTE
by RIP RENSE |
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KING OF POOP
July 2, 2009
"He's oxygenated, his nose is deflated/ And
he thinks he looks good to you."---from Frank Zappa's tune about
Michael Jackson, "Why
Don't You Like Me?"
If I
become ill mid-way through writing this, please bear with
me. Yes, that’s correct, I’ve been lured into writing about the
late, and getting later, Michael Jackson. He has not yet risen
from the dead, but I wouldn’t argue that prospect with his fans.
Michael Jackson is not
the biggest nothing ever to inspire fall-down-and-slobber
worldwide prostration. Not the most over-hyped non-entity to
prompt people to chuck all shame, dignity, intelligence and run
around in circles on the floor like
Curly
Howard at the mere mention of his/her name. (You wonder:
Jackson must have stolen some moves from Curly.)
No, that honor would
probably go to
Madonna, who has far less talent than Jackson had, or than
any number of music/dance majors to be found at universities
around the world. Or, for that matter, far less than members of
chorus lines on Broadway. (Do they still have chorus lines on
Broadway?)
Jackson, without a doubt,
had a good deal of natural ability, when it came to singing and
what has come to pass for dancing. But as the corpse of this
psychologically and physically mutilated adult child is at least
figuratively wheeled to Neverland, let us pause for a little
perspective.
Dancing and singing are
very common talents, yet somehow, the world has come to
respond to them as if they cure beriberi and brain cancer. Don’t
misunderstand---I appreciate dancing and singing, and their
power to lift the spirits. I even dance a little, myself, when
drunk. There is a difference, though, between lifting spirits
and throttling mass psyche on a hypnotic, Pavlovian level.
Jackson, or rather,
Jackson-Product, sank its fangs into the fetlocks of what passes
for human consciousness, and never let go. The scope of this
astonishing marketing feat is unprecedented in human history,
and would have fried the brain of
Edward
Bernays, an early pioneer in public relations and
influencing of mass subconscious. If only modesty could be
purveyed as effectively. . .
|

Wonder if he can beat it up there? |
Yes, there was Jackson, and there was Jackson-Product---two different
things.You all know the tired fable of Jackson, of Little Michael, the
kiddie prodigy literally whipped into becoming a performer by his
Grendel of a father, denied a childhood in the process, inculcated with
all manner of trauma that would later emerge as what could gently be termed
eccentric behavior, and is better characterized as mental illness. (There
are reports he was treated for schizophrenia in his teens.) This sad fellow
is only to be pitied, yet if the current sympathy for him were marshaled
for, let’s say, the victims of genocide and starvation in Darfur, or
child-slaves in China, or the degradation of the forests, rivers, oceans,
and sky, wouldn’t that be a bit more constructive?
Fuhgeddaboudit.
Jackson is not just a so-called "world icon," as the TV gosspimannequins
recite, but a private
little imaginary friend to untold numbers of humans, never mind his
dying. Fans speak of “Michael” as if they grew up next door to him, as if
they shaved in the bathroom with him, as if they roasted weenies with him at
Scout camp. It’s much like the loons who speak of “my personal relationship
with Jesus,” as if a little invisible Christ perches on their shoulders,
whispering
sweet scripture in their ears.
And the Christ cliche is
well warranted here, as it often is for titanically popular personalities of
history, but in this case, not just in terms of scope. Devotees came to
rabidly defend Jackson as nothing less than a would-be
savior of humanity---a messianic pose that the adult Jacko
melodramatically struck, and possibly, in his dementia, believed. It must be
hard not to believe such insanity when all the world acclaims you as if you
are a god. (Note: the saccharine "We Are The World," which raised $63
million for African famine relief, was the idea of Harry Belafonte and Ken
Kragen, not Jackson.)
But Jackson-Product is
the operative reality in all this disquieting business, not Wacko Jacko.
Without Jackson-Product, there would have been no Jackson phenomenon, no
Jackson-Jesus. Remember: this “giant” didn’t write his songs alone, didn't
play instruments, didn’t produce his albums, didn’t conceive of his albums
in anything other than a sketchy sense. He had showbiz savvy, to be
sure---and his early singing skills approached the likes of Sam
Cooke’s---but he essentially became a vehicle for commercial assault on the
marketplace by the hyper-slick music industry (key word: industry) "dream
team" of producer Quincy Jones, songwriters Marilyn/Alan Bergman and Rod
Temperton.
Do I exaggerate? Consider
Jones’s account of completing the biggest-selling album of all time,
“Thriller.”
“I told Michael that we needed a
black rock 'n' roll tune -- a black ‘My Sharona’ -- and a begging tune for
the album. He came back with ‘Beat It’ and Rod came back with ‘The Lady in
My Life.’”
What more evidence
does one need? This was fill-in-the-blank, commercially designed
product. We need a begging song. We need a black “My Sharona.” Says
who? Says Quincy. These songs were not written out of inspiration, heart,
sincerity, artistic impulse. They were contrived and invented by committee,
made to order for mass appeal, as sure as Tucks and Cheetohs. I mean, did
The Beatles sit down and say, “We need a begging song?” Did Jimi Hendrix?
Jackson was not, in
short, a songwriter, not a skilled musician, not a poet, not a
lyricist---certainly not in the vein of actual
musician/poet/lyricist/songwriters such as Sly Stone, Hendrix, Richie
Havens, Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, Charlie Pride, Holland-Dozier-Holland,
Stevie Wonder, perhaps even Barry White. "Thriller" was a Quincy Jones album. One of
Jackson’s final “songs, " not incidentally, was a simple computer-generated Muzak-y demo that sounded like good background for a diaper commercial. He
sent it to Deepak Chopra for lyrics.
Of course, none of this
matters to the millions (billions?) of hapless, gullible, worshipful
music-product consumers, who blather and weep about losing a “genius” who
“tried to save the world,” or “who brought so much joy,” and other
outbursts. And it has never mattered to the primary enablers of the pop
music hype machinery---the so-called music critics and reporters who have
worn out their Thesauruses---well, their on-line Thesauruses---in feeding
the ridiculous Jackson myth. (One venerable pop music writer just referred
to Jackson's "Motown 25 Live" rendition of "Billie Jean" in 1983 as "the
single greatest moment in popular music's history of public performances."
Huh? Perhaps he never heard of Hendrix, The Beatles, Little Richard, the
Rolling Stones, Judy Garland, Janis Joplin, Tina Turner, Bobby Darin, and on and on.)
And so Jackson the
promising kid became Jackson-Product in adulthood. You know how
it happened. After the mainstream pop success of the winning, but
bubblegum hits of the Jackson Five, fans were primed and ready to see
what their friend “Michael” would do “when he grows up.” Disco was dead,
thank goodness, and commercial pop music in the early ‘80’s was a grisly
amalgam of horrid “punk rock,” derivative, lightweight “new wave,” grotesque
“heavy metal.” Enter Edgar “Quincy Jones” Bergen and Michael “Charlie
McCarthy” Jackson.
Recipe: take handsome
former child idol with flare for soaking up and mimicking the work of great
singers/dancers from Jackie Wilson to Sammy Davis Jr., pump up his voice to
enable broader range (accomplished with lessons), tweak the keys to give him
more oomph, add veteran commercial musicians, hire mainstream
song-product hitmakers, bake minds with barebones hypertrophic beats,
lunatic asylum guitars, and synthesizer-laden production glitz. Result:
“Thriller.” Jackson-Product.
Of course, it’s probable
that Jones and Jackson could have recorded something primitive, flashy,
hollow, with words varying from nonsense to treacle, and it still would have
been a hit. Wait a second---come to think of it, that's what they did.
The rest is a tale that
out-weirds Howard Hughes and Elvis combined. Evidently, contrary to his
song, “Black or White,” it did matter to Michael whether he was black or
white, as he gradually transformed into a pallid, skeletal, spidery figure
competitive with
Max Schreck
in the silent “Nosferatu.” A red hourglass tattooed on his chest would have
been entirely fitting. Not even Lon Chaney (sr.), the "man of a thousand
faces," could not have pulled off the changes Jackson accomplished. Those
required scalpels and stitches, and kookiness along the lines of that
madwoman who remade her face as a
lioness. If Jackson was in fact diagnosed with schizophrenia as a teen,
he physically manifested it as an adult, via surgery. The avaricious cutters
who indulged his whims---from Diana Ross’s nose to who-knows-whose
chin---should have long ago been stripped of their licenses.
But this is not to
rehash the kiddie fixation, the death-defying ingestion of drugs (well,
almost.), the test-tube (Caucasian) babies claimed as offspring, the
countless millions of bucks tossed around like used toilet paper, the
reclusion, the Louis XIV excess, the broken contracts and sponging off
Middle Eastern royalty, the child molestation charges, the
chimpanzee, the rest of the Wacko Jackopalooza. Living with relentless press
coverage of this nutcase all these years has been nothing but depressing,
like having a demented relative in the cellar pacing endlessly through
habit-trails. Jackson’s death would be a relief were it not for the fact
that Jackson-Product is now bigger than he ever dreamed it could be.
And that raises the
central point I’m trying to find the stomach to make here. Michael Jackson
is not the culprit in this American tragedy. Neither is the sonic assault of
his music-product, nor the genital-grabs so astoundingly acclaimed as
artistry, nor the once-artful voice perverted into shrieks, hiccups and
castrato-yodeling that suggested a live electric wire up his rectum.
The fiend in the Jackson
saga is capitalism amok, the same phenomenon that has crashed the world
economy. From his father to his record companies, from promoters to doctors
to endless sycophants, the devil in all this has been the perversion of
basic capitalistic principle into amoral, all-consuming profit-frenzy,
abetted by demographic exploitation that would have left Joseph Goebbels
drooling. Even allowing that Quincy Jones, Jackson, and the hired
songwriters involved might have (mistakenly) thought they were making great
art, they were nonetheless creating pop product---product designed
specifically for mass-marketing; dumbed-down product that traded on
celebrity, mystique, pose, machine-made beats, punishing volume, shock
value, nursery-rhyme-level lyrics. What art? What heart? The average
unsophisticated music-consumer was as helpless against this stuff as a
dolphin in a drift-net.
Yes, yes, I hear
you: it’s always been this way. People are forever suckered by artifice
and image. True, but what has changed is the degree, the worldwide
technological penetration of marketing claws, the automatic response of
pop-culture-anesthetized consumers trained to crave new excitement, new
idols. Not only do people in India, Malaysia, New Zealand, Paraguay, Zambia,
and Peoria not know that they are being manipulated, conned, rendered
cheap-stimulus addicts--- they wouldn’t care if they did. Media and pop
culture say “Bend over,” and humanity says, “Hands around ankles?”
Give the public what it
wants? This is the standard defense offered by marketing types, corporate
martinets. But no, Jackson-product was a case of giving the public what it
would respond to. King of Pop? King of Poop. Thank you, Quincy Jones.
So when I read last week
that protesters in Iran planned to wear Jackson T-shirts because, as one
proclaimed, “He represented the best of America,” I wanted to grab my crotch
and scream.
Not just because
the statement was disturbing, but because I suspect this has become the
truth.
printer-friendly version
E-MAIL:
We get e-mail! Here's our all-time favorite:
I think if humanity upsets you so much go live in alaska, or somewere
where you don't have to put up with the people who make your life
tolerable to say the least.
Paul Manners
Dear Paul,
I can now add you to that list! FYI: "alaska" is capitalized. "Somewere" is
spelled "Somewhere." And you meant "intolerable," not "tolerable."
Rip Rense
the
RIPOSTE
column is published Wednesdays or
thereabouts.
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If You Don't Read
L.A.Observed.com,
You don't know what's going on in L.A.
civilized news about the news |
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SHAFTS. . .
by
The
Lamplighter
updated
capriciously. . .
Please note: all 2008 election
Lamplighter musings have been moved to the
archive.
UNFULPHILLED
So Lamplighter applied for a job recently.
Really. I know, I know, you hear Maynard G. Krebs
yelling "Work!" in horror, in your mind's ear---at least,
if you are over 50, you do. Your Illuminator applied for a publicist
job with the L.A. Philharmonic. Why? LL knows a hell of a
lot about classical music, and has attended concerts at
the Phil since 1969. What's more, LL has written
countless reviews and features concerning the orchestra,
from his high school paper through college and later two
major L.A. newspapers. Why, His Brightness was even L.A. Phil official rep
at high school and college! What's more, contrary to
what one might conclude from reading this column, LL has a
long background in public relations, and at one point
founded, organized, promoted, and hosted a titanically
successful weekly opera presentation at a large West
L.A. restaurant. What's more, Lamps organized and hosted the
only tribute to Mario Lanza in Los Angeles history---a
three-night concert/film/lecture extravaganza that sold out
two shows per night---at which Lanza's family and
friends were present. With all this and a heavy
background in music writing (including awards), LL
figured on getting a callback. Until, that is, he spoke
to a local music critic crony, to tip him off about the
job opening. "Crony," said LL, "I'll bet I have no
chance. They're probably looking for blacks, latinos,
women, and gays only, as is the politically correct case
with the marketplace---especially in the arts---today."
Said Crony: "Right now they have a British woman running
the department, with three young females (two of them
black, the other a very sweet, 38-ish girl from Long
Island with a pop background) in the office." Long way,
I told Crony, from the days when music critics were
recruited---yes, recruited---by the L.A. Phil to join
the publicity department. Well. To make a long story a
little longer, LL received a form-letter rejection from
the "Department of Human Resources" a few days later,
along with the suggestion that he check the Phil website
to see what other jobs might be of interest. Your
Illuminator wrote back. Two words: "Custodial work?" You
see, everything is demographics and political
correctness. The Phil mentality is that if they have
young, demographically cool
employees---their backgrounds in music are secondary, or
simply irrelevant---this will help the orchestra to
attract these segments of the potential audience. The
crushing irony, of course, is that while banal and
"cool" advertising and promotion ("Phil your world!")
with testosterone-dripping photos of new conductor
Gustavo Dudamel might indeed manage to snag a few young, demographically cool audience members, these people
will show up largely because going to Disney Hall and
seeing a young Latino conductor is "cool," not because
they have any understanding of, or interest in, the
music. Such people will certainly never become
blue-hairs. Translation: they will not be long term
audience members or financial supporters of the
orchestra. The Phil has essentially turned its back on
and taken for granted the segment of the audience that
is, and has always been, its biggest base of support.
GAD. ZOOKS.
Your Illuminator steps out into the sticky California
summer sunshine, and can only find darkness. It's
probably brain chemistry, but still. . .Take the other
day, when LL was headed down the 405 to poor little old
bankrupt, raggedy Gardena for lunch. Traffic designed by
the Marquis de Sade? Sure. A given. Dumb beasts in
3,000-lb. machines playing obliviously with your life,
and theirs. These were not the problems.
Rather, what was dimming LL's bulb was what was to be found on the radio. Gad. Zooks.
Consider: NPR was interviewing some Persian guy about
"heavy metal" music in Iran. I kid not. The NPR
interviewer was speaking as if this was a subject of
enormous weight and consequence to all humankind. One of
his statements was something like this: "An Iranian in
an Iron Maiden T-shirt. I guess that says it all." Help!
Yes, that does say it all, really, though not in the way
he intended. It "says it all" concerning the worldwide
rush to embrace ugliness, narcissism, self-indulgence,
anger, aggression, disdain, and most other ignoble qualities.
And the guest, oh my, the guest. . .was saying that
"Heavy metal has bloomed like a flower in the desert." I
don't know about you, folks, but there is very little
similarity between this so-called music and anything as
delicate and gorgeous as a flower. It's like comparing
Rush Limbaugh with a ruby. Again: Gad. Zooks. Then they
played some of the Iranian "heavy metal" that so many
Iranians were allegedly embracing for reasons of what
the guest described as "catharsis." It made Led Zeppelin
sound quaint. There was just a wash of the ugliest,
ugliest, ugliest grinding guitar and dumbshit bass
and drums---no discernible pattern here---and emanating
from the middle of it all, a voice so deep, so
distorted, so grotesque, so frightening, as to almost
make one believe in De Debbil. This is not music. This
is anger and hatred as noise. I weep for humanity! So I
switched the station, and was promptly relieved to hear
some jazz piano fronting a combo. For a good twenty
seconds, it was refreshing, uplifting, and then I
noticed that the pianist was slipping in all manner of
hipster-jazzbo-insider-weirdo chords in his comping.
Ugly chords. Not as ugly as Iranian heavy metal, but not
pleasing, and definitely at odds with the melodic line
in the right hand. That is, unless you are a hipster-jazzbo-insider
who speaks Chord, which I am not. And once again I was
reminded of why I dislike so much jazz. It is insider
music for insiders---at least a lot of it has become
this way. When I finally realized that I was listening
to a mutant version of Gershwin's "Summertime," that was
all she wrote. I don't care for a lot of Gershwin. It's
a white man's version of black music, and hokey at that.
I've never understood why it is so widely embraced, and
I find "Summertime" to be particularly humorous in its
depiction of de lazy, care-free neeeegro lifestyle. Gad.
Zooks. So I switched to the classical station, KUSC, and
as usual, was hit with the same goddamn lobotomy music
they play almost all the time: innocuous baroque or
romantic melodies. The dumbing down of symphonic
literature to Muzak for ratings. Just sickening. So I
played the old "once around the dial" game, despite the
fact that there is such a dearth of personality and
variety to be found on radio since demographics weeded
these things out in exchange for pandering to lowest
common denominator response. I paused momentarily on
KLOS, because the woman's voice was pleasant, and
listened to this DJ talking about a new Doors
documentary. She mentioned that KLOS's Jim Ladd could be
heard on radio in the documentary, along with KLOS, and
that this was "so cool." I wanted to scream.
Cool is the Hitler and Stalin and Mao of our
time. Just bless something with the word, "cool," it
loses all meaning other than a kind of anesthetizing
glaze. Hey, I just painted my truck red. Cool! Did you
know that people self-asphyxiate for erotic
fulfillment? I saw it on the Internet. Cool! I mean, why
the hell was it "cool" that Jim Ladd and KLOS were
mentioned in this documentary? That is simple
self-promotion of the crassest and most undisguised
kind, but add the word, "cool," and hey---it's fine.
Cool is the ugliest four-letter word in English. It
reduces everything into exactly one thing. I
switched the station until I found some people speaking
Mandarin on some AM station, and left it there.
FOODIE HELL
Lamplighter noticed this sign of the
times. . .Not far from Lamplighter Paradise, there is a
little restaurant on a busy boulevard. When it opened,
it was a high-end Japanese joint, heavy on style and
atmosphere. Millions were spent on the dark, elegant
interior decore alone. That lasted a few months, before
it was sold and repackaged as a high-end tapas bar. Same
dark, elegant interior, same off-the-scale prices. Same
no customers. That lasted a few months, before it was
sold and reopened as a. . .bar. Right, just a bar. With
a big banner now plastered over the tres chic exterior,
proclaiming "FREE HOT DOGS!" Your Illuminator likes hot
dogs---well, veggie "Smart Dogs"---and loves the fact
that "foodies" (read: spoiled gluttons) are apparently
staying home.
JIM BELLOWS
The ttitle of his autobiography was "The Last
Editor," and I believe this to have been the case. Jim
Bellows was 86. My guess is that he had no complaints
about anything. He had a nearly mythical
life, and did incalculable good for journalism and
journalists. He was one of the rare people who had the
remarkable knack of getting the best out of everyone. I
carry a card in my wallet from Bellows, and will until
it wears out. It reads: "Begin at once, and do the best you can."
Bellows Remembered, by Mary Anne Dolan
The Old Smoking Workplace
Tom Wolfe on Jim Bellows
Tony Castro on Bellows, Hollywood, the Her-Ex
Bellows obit by Elaine Woo.
The Last
Editor.
Making
Funny.
New York Times obit.
Jim Lehrer Hour interview. WHY NEWSPAPERS ARE
DYING. . .
Your Illuminator had a little exchange
recently with an old friend and veteran journalist---a
guy who has reported and edited for a lot of papers
during the last 40 years. Call him lantern lighter
Boss.
I mentioned to Boss how crackpot corporate buffoons who
call themselves editors and publishers are still--still---talking
about charging to visit their newspaper websites! As was
mentioned on this site some weeks go, the only thing for
papers to do is to pull
entirely off the web. This will ensure what they
used to have: exclusivity. (And the NYT media columnist
agreed, by the way.) Papers should go heavily local,
adopt a populist anti-power-elite tone and
agenda---"raise hell," as the late Jim Bellows would
say---advocate on behalf of the underdog, dog the mayor
and city council, bark at overdevelopment, density,
gangs, traffic. They should add huge consumer-complaint
sections, helping to bring back their reputations as
places that people could turn to for help.
Anyhow, in response to the news that idiot editors are
still yapping about charging to visit their paper's
website, Boss had this to say:
"I know. It shows how desperate these guys are that
they'll come up with something like that. It will be
interesting when the scholars write the newspaper's
obituary. There were a lot of things they could have
done. Like:
_ Shelved the outdated delivery model that put the
papers in the hands of winos, drug addicts, social
deviants and tons of other people who just didn't give a
shit if it got there or not.
_ Stopped pandering to corporate stockholders who
demanded insanely high returns every quarter and said
we're going to have to invest in the new technology.
_ When they finally did put those web sites up, actually
updated them during key traffic periods and been ready
when a big story broke.I read a story on a study that on
Sept. 11, after everybody saw the planes hit the towers
on TV, they immediately went to their computers to read
more about it. The result, the candy-assed newspaper
sites all crashed. Or if they didn't people quickly
noticed that they were being run like a print newspaper
and wouldn't be updated for another 12 hours.
_ Hadn't been so arrogant after beating back challenges
from radio and TV, which never really could compete
directly with them anyway, that they thought this silly
little toy called the Internet certainly couldn't hurt
them.
_ Those and about a hundred other fuck-ups.
"There were no visionaries."
DYING NEWSPAPERS,
PART TWO:
Lamplighter had further discussion with Boss,
beginning with "Billionaire Eli Broad" (as he is usually
identified) and his remarks about how he might be
interested in buying the remains of the L.A. Times even
though, as he said, "I am not sure it can be a national
paper, or have the same aspirations it once had."
Broad is chirping without a bird. The last thing the
L.A. Times should do is try to be a "national
newspaper!" Them daze is gone with the breaking wind.
What a howl. Nobody seems to get it. Nobody seems to
grasp that newspapers need to get tough, get irreverent,
get gritty, get funny, and cover the hell out of their
home towns. Start over. Expect huge circulation drops,
and build from there. Here is what Boss had to
say:
"Yeah, I saw Broad's statement too. That seemed so silly
because all that national newspaper nonsense amounted to
was the Times trying to prove it was just as good as The
New York Times. It's like they don't realize that that
game is over and now they're simply in a struggle to
survive.
"That's exactly right, too, when you say newspapers have
to become a friend of the community. When they had a
monopoly they could get away with being rude, indignant
and full of themselves. But those days are over.
"And no one in journalism has really addressed that
issue yet: That in recent years hardly anyone in the
community really liked the newspaper anymore.
"The local businesses hated it because the ad reps were
rude and gouged them because they knew they could tell
them to take it or leave it because there was no other
vehicle in town for them to advertise in that got that
kind of exposure.
And of course everyone hated the reporters and editors
because, as a general rule, most reporters and editors
are rude, mean, petty bastards who no one really likes
anyway.
"And they didn't like the delivery people because they
were just lazy jackoffs who didn't care if the paper got
there or not, who drove on the wrong side of the street
to deliver it and who, if you complained, might toss it
on your roof just to show you they could.
"Then you'd read the paper and there would be no sense
of humor or humanity, nothing to endear you to it.
"So now that the paper is in desperate shape most
people, I think, don't really care. They figure they've
got the Internet and Facebook and twitter and all that
other stuff, so who the hell needs it. They will
discover they were wrong once it's gone, I think, but
their misunderstanding now is natural. As Sean Penn
said, he realizes how hard he is to like. Newspapers are
the same, they just don't realize how hard they are to
like.
"When I was in Chicago I read an interview in a local
magazine with Ron Rappaport who once was an L.A. Times
sportswriter and then a Chicago Tribune sports columnist
before going into writing books. Some big shot columnist
had just been fired by the Tribune. Not Mike Downey but
someone else.. Rappaport said that even though the guy
was good nobody would care because nobody in town, or at
the paper, liked him. He said Mike Royko may have been a
curmudgeon but if you approached him in a bar he'd sit
down and have a beer with you, and that was one reason
everybody liked him. Newspapers lost almost all the Mike
Roykos years ago.
"I remember back at college, one of my professors used
to go on about how newspapers being taken over by big
corporations would ultimately be a terrible thing. I
never quite got it at the time but it became obvious
after a few years in the business. As the prof said, you
may have loved or hated guys like Hearst and Pulitzer
but those were their newspapers and they were going to
run them as they saw fit.
"When the corporations took over, the publishers
kowtowed to the shareholders who demanded 10, 15, even
20 percent returns on their investment when people in
any other industry were happy to get 5 to 10 percent.
They just saw the thing as a cash cow and the publishers
were too stupid, or cowardly, to tell them anything
different. So they went along for the ride as the
corporations finally ran those cash cows into the
ground.
"Instead of visionaries, you got guys in fancy suits
with expensive haircuts and corporate jets and country
club memberships who either had no clue what they were
doing or were too frightened of giving up the good life
to say anything. Or maybe it was a little bit of both."
Now you know why LL calls him "Boss."
MIKE MARTH
I didn't know Mike Marth well, and I hadn't seen him
since the 1970's when I heard he died at 72. Marth was a
sort of San Fernando Valley beat/hippie-ish poet who
somehow snagged a day-job at the Valley News and Green
Sheet in the 60's, editing what they then pathetically
called the "Teen Page." This was the paper's sort of
wretched concession to rock 'n' roll and pop culture
coverage in those days. I met Mike in 1974, sometime
after I started work there as a copyboy. He was the
amiable, shaggy-black-haired features editor, but I
think he had a sort of independent contract that gave
him a degree of autonomy. Which is perhaps why he was
able to begin a Sunday tabloid section at the paper
called "Inside The News," and it couldn't have been more
at odds with the sensibilities of the Republican
publisher and button-down managing editor (who were both
liberal-minded enough to allow it, nonetheless.) Marth
must have intended Inside to be a sort of
literary/commentary/investigative magazine, and the idea
of such a thing being found in the pages of the
provincial Valley News was no weirder than finding sushi
on a Denny's menu. I tried to write a few pieces for it,
though I certainly had nothing very mature or weighty to
offer. Yet Mike always encouraged me, and I recall one
incident in which he responded to criticism over a piece
I had written by declaring, rather pointedly, "At least
he THINKS!" I took that as encouragement, and you see
some of the results on this website, for better or
worse. Mike long ago moved to the Midwest, and was still
writing poetry, last I heard. He always struck me as a
good guy with a generous heart. Thanks for the push,
Mike. Sorry I never got to tell you while you were
here.---RR.
GRAN TORINO
Of course, "Milk" is the PC movie of the
moment. Sean Penn is undoubtedly as good as everyone
says he is in portraying San Francisco Supervisor/gay
community leader Harvey Milk, murdered by a looney
colleague (no need to print his name here.) And there is
even a sex scene to enable gays to accuse repulsed
heterosexuals of "homophobia!" Oh, yeah, and everyone is
also raving about the Nixon/Frost flick, but
Lamplighter remembers the actual horrific murder of
Milk and the actual horrific near-murder of the country
by Nixon. . .so why would he want to see these things
again as fiction?
The movie to see, in the not-so-humble critical opinion
of LL, is "Gran Torino." Yes, Eastwood hams it up every
now and then in a sort of aged "Dirty Harry" way, but
Your Illuminator loved every second of it. Yet this is
no law-and-order/kill-the-bad-guys romp. It's not only
powerfully acted, skillfully directed, operatically
moving---it's an important movie. It is one of the few
films in recent memory to portray gangs as what they
are: a blight that cannot be corrected through social
work. ("American Me," which earned Edward James Olmos a
death sentence from the Mexican Mafia, comes to mind as
another.) True, a lot of kids who get into gangs would
probably like to get out at some point. The miraculous
Homeboy Industries in downtown L.A. is the obvious proof
of that. But gangs are tribalized criminals and the
slaves of organized crime, and on the whole, social
rehabilitation of these people is a liberal's pipe
dream, nothing more. Eastwood knows it, "Gran Torino"
writer Nick Schenk probably knows it, and the movie
makes it clear.
Folks, we have too long lived in a bizarro world where
gang "lifestyle" has been celebrated, exalted by media.
Rappers, hiphoppers, homeboys have had near dominance in
popular culture in terms of fashion, film iconography,
and so-called music for twenty or thirty years. From
Snoop Dog on down, these figures are emblematic of
nothing but debauchery, violence, banality, mysogeny,
brutality, narcissism, threat, guns. It's about time
that a movie came along and condemned this vile crap in
no uncertain terms.
You know, to hear government, law enforcement, and media
talk about gangs, you'd think this was a problem along
the severity of rain, or traffic congestion. "The
gangs," "gangbanging," "the gang problem" has become as
much a cliche as a TeeVee Weathermannequin's "offshore
flow." Does anything ever change? Haven't you been
reading and hearing about gang murders most of your
life?What is ever really done to combat it? Answer:
nada. It is accepted, like potholes and Mayor
Villaraigosa's crass philandering.
In watching "Gran Torino," LL was reminded again that
Bush's "War on Terror" could not have been more
misdirected. The cities and suburbs of this country are
infected, infested with terrorists---in the form of
gangs. Think of the countless billions of dollars wasted
on fighting the nearly mythical "Al-Qaeda," on creating
the Department of Homeland Security (which has taken the
bold anti-terrorist step of making you take you shoes
off when you fly)---and think of what that money might
have done to countermand gangs.
Oh, how to do it? Money is forever thrown at
fighting "gang activity," you say? True. Money, but not
sanity. The only way to stop gangs is to take a cue from
Bush, as revolting a notion as that is, and declare war.
The National Guard should never have been sent to Iraq,
it should have been dispatched to American cities.
Neighborhoods from Pacoima to South-Central Los Angeles
should simply be occupied by the Guard until gangs are
eradicated. All gang members should be arrested on sight
and "indefinitely detained," civil rights be damned.
What rights do people have when they adopt a life of
thuggery? As for the Mexican Mafia, which operates gangs
all over the western hemisphere---right from inside U.S.
prisons!---well, how insane is that?
Of course, these things have no chance of ever occuring
here in the land of the free and home of the brave, so
not to worry, Tom Hayden. Government and law enforcement
are afraid to take on this problem in any serious way,
and who can blame them? There are probably more assault
weapons in the hands of punks in L.A. then in the hands
of soliders in Iraq and Afghanistan. And then,
Uncle Sam is ultimately to blame, what with Byzantine
involvement in drugs and guns via the CIA, and the
corporate infestation of government which erased any
illusion of community responsibility on the part of most
elected officials long ago. And let us not forget the
cheapening of all human experience by demographic
calculation (greed as a science), engendering apathy and
entertainment-addiction (read: complacency,
haplessness.) It's all part of the same decay, the same
devolution. And yes, it is true that rebuilding the
education infrastructure is the only real shot this
society will ever have at ever recovering any semblance
of health. But the fact remains that gang members are
savages. Tribal savages whose ethos of death and
brutality does not belong in a civilized society. And "Gran
Torino," thank Clint, makes this clear.
CARNIVAL OF
LIGHT
Of course it should be released. What’s the controversy?
George Harrison didn’t care for it? Well, back in the
‘60’s, John Lennon pronounced George’s songs “daft,” and
sometimes did not play on them. Yet they were released.
Harrison’s “Electronic Sound” album is every bit as
experimental as “Carnival of Light,” and nowhere near as
interesting.
Eh? You don't know what Lamplighter is ranting about? You're
reading about this first, courtesy of Your Illuminator?
How appropriate. Well,
here's the dope: a Beatles recording whipped up for a
psychedelic show in London in 1967 still languishes
unheard---unless Paul McCartney manages to persuade
the other three parties representing "The Beatles:"
Ringo Starr, Yoko Ono, Olivia Harrison to release it. Paulie has
allowed in recent interviews that he wants te bizarro
avant-garde hoot, "Carnival of
Light," to see the day.
Amazingly enough, this has promptly become a matter of
controversy, debate. Newspaper columnists are weighing
in, left and right. The UK Guardian said recently that releasing
the thing would damage The Beatles' legacy.
You know, I don't think an H-bomb could damage The
Beatles' legacy.
Releasing that earlier version of “Huckleberry
Finn” found in an attic a few years ago sure destroyed
Mark Twain’s reputation, didn’t it? Releasing the
“Devil’s Trill” prelude of Chopin---a short, fairly
insane, dissonant outburst probably written during a
high fever---has forever tarnished all the works of
Chopin, right?
The sad thing about “Carnival of Light”
(lovely title!) is that it has become so legendary, and
now such a. . .cause. It was just a goof. A
chaotic free-form improv to illustrate a light show,
done in madcap spirit. In short: it was fun.
And it is also sad that McCartney is using it to once
again trumpet how he was the first Beatle to take an
interest in the avant garde, not John. Yawn. So what.
It’s not so unusual to take an interest in avant garde
music. Millions have done it. Yoko beat Paul to that
punch, and John Cage beat Yoko, and Varese beat them
all. Who’s on first! For McCartney to endlessly drop
Stockhausen’s name as a means of touting his artistic
sophistication is just embarrassing. The world is well
aware of the varied musical abilities and
achievements of Sir Paul.
If “Carnival of Light” is released, it will, of course,
fetch massive publicity and rivers of serious
reviews---which is too bad, considering it is not
a serious piece of music (no matter how Paul colors it.)
It should have been a no-brainer to put the thing out
with no great fanfare long ago, perhaps on some special
Beatles occasion, as a lark.
Yet it is true that the track does have historical
interest outside of it being a Beatles work from the
sixties, as it really was a sort of precursor to
Lennon’s “Revolution # 9” sound collage, to the extent
that bits of “Light” show up in “Num-bah Ni-eeen.” (How
ironic, then, that McCartney was luke-warm to “Rev. 9”
when Lennon enthusiastically played it for him during
the “white album” sessions.)
Yes, “Light” should be released, but not strictly as a
piece of music. Better to issue it according to its
original purpose, which was to illustrate another work.
In other words, McCartney and “The Beatles” should
commission someone to produce an animated film as free
form as the music to accompany the release. “Fantasia”
it, in other words, a la the film’s abstract opening
sequence, set to Bach’s “Tocatta and Fugue” in D-minor.
But the chances are that Yoko, who can't stand
McCartney's incessant self-promotion campaign, and
Olivia, being true to George's taste (he opposed
releasing it on "The Beatles Anthology," will keep
"Carnival of Light" in the dark for now.
IRAN FROM THE
TRUTH
Your Illuminator is flickering nervous over all the new
talk about an Obama strike against Iran. That person
reputed to be so careful, restrained, pragmatic would
possibly be plotting to "de-nuke" Iran makes you wonder
if maybe they know for a fact that Iran plans to use the
damn Bomb. LL put this question to lantern-lighter
Og Oggilby, who wrote back:
"Yep, gotta remember that these mullah types HATE
America. They believe that the West is an abomination in
the eyes of Allah and it is meritorious to attack us.
And when they see us killing Muslims in Iraq,
Afghanistan, Pakistan, etc., it confirms their fear that
the Great Satan is bent on destroying Islam. It was the
presence of U.S. troops on Saudi soil that drove Osama
bin Laden over the edge.
"That said, Bush and the war profiteers have looked upon
the war on terror as a gigantic profit opportunity,
wasting vast sums of money and taking or ruining vast
numbers of lives. Of course, the inequities and
repression in many Muslim countries make them prime
breeding grounds for terrorists. We've done nothing but
make matters worse. We are seen as an evil presence. And
our alliance with the faux nation of Israel remains a
constant outrage.
"We could have used that Iraq war money for diplomacy,
education, social and economic development and won
friends throughout the region by taking an approach of
justice and compassion. Instead we are the leading
source of death and destruction. America is the beast
that stalks the world, leaving financial and ecological
ruination in its path. But that's what America is all
about. Greed, profit and power. At least that's what it
has become.
"Maybe that nice Mr. Obama will change that to some
slight degree. I doubt it. Biden let slip what the
script will be:
http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/10/20/biden-obama-tested-world-months-administration/
"The mullahs, the militant Israelis, the U.S. war party,
none of them will change their stripes. We're gonna ride
this baby into oblivion.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcW_Ygs6hm0
"Fun, huh?"
GREENSPAN
Lantern-lighter Dick sent this the other day:
"I can't believe Greenspan's sudden revelations,
understandings, and regrets over a financial world that
was largely his fantasy. He used to be a disciple of Ayn
Rand. That might explain, but not excuse, his benighted
culpability and enlightenment. On the front page of the
L.A. Times he says: "I made a mistake in presuming that
the self- interests of organizations. . . were such as
that they were best capable of protecting their own
shareholders and their equity."
"Is that an adult thinking and talking? This savant is
not ashamed to sound like he mistakenly believed in the
tooth fairy. He knew full well what would happen with
unfettered sociopaths who only want to make money at any
cost.
"Whew."
To which Your Illuminator adds. . .Greenspan's apology
was sort of oh, underwhelming.
Yeah, uh. . .Sorry, folks! Sorry I ruined the country!
Oh, wait---make that the western world! Guess my
thinking was a little off. Apologies!
P.J. CORKERY, 61

P.J. Corkery, Rense at Washington Square Bar and Grill, 2006.
http://www.riprense.com/corkery.htm
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/09/24/BA82133MP3.DTL&hw=obituaries&sn=002&sc=967
http://www.sfexaminer.com/local/Former_columnist_Corkery_dies_at_61.html
Interview
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5039509655991114701
And
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgQCPifM-p8
AREA MAN!
The Onion is such a marvelous thing. It really isn't so
much satire as expose---laying bare the idiocy in damn
near everything. Between
The
Onion and John Stewart, you really don't need any
more information. That's no joke. It's all the light you
need for your lamp. Everything else in mainstream media
is darkness.
It's great to see that The Onion is especially keeping
tabs on the antics of the country's greatest superhero.
. .Area Man!
Here are several links. Can you guess which ones are
satire?
Area Man Disappointed To See Short Version of Commercial
Hay Bailer Accident Claims Area Man
Airport Nipple Ring Incident Inspires Area Man
Area Man Training for 'Sanford and Son' Marathon
Court Dismisses Charges Against Area Man
Area man learns that good things really do come to those
who wait, though they might have to wait 28 years
Area Man Walks for Suicide Prevention
Area man surprised to learn entire continent of Africa
not engaged in armed conflict
Did you goof? It's understandable. So did some
antiabortionist blogger, as
this article in Salon.com explains.
HALLOWEEN
COSTUME
Hey, kids! Wanna scare the bejeezus outta your neighbors
this All Hallow’s Eve? Wanna really make ‘em crap their
pants? Easy! Go as a Real American!
It’s cheap, too! Why, you can get the effect with just a
pair of jeans and K-Mart flannel shirt imported from
China, along with a razorback hog crew-cut and a gut
like a basketball. (Same for ladies, but transfer the
gut to the butt, and add lots of beanbags to simulate
cellulite.) Then get your Bible in hand, Glock in
holster, and maybe black out a tooth or two. (Spitting,
scratching, belching are optional.)
But if you really want to bring off the authentic horror
of it---really make people decorate their
trousers---you’re going to have to get yourselves
seriously stoked up with heroic amounts of ignorance,
stupidity, pigheadedness, and black bile. Heavily
distilled, thick-as-syrup black bile.
How do you do it?
Well, for inspiration, you might try going out and
shooting some innocent animals---deer, rabbits, birdies
will do fine. Be sure and dress up in full military
camouflage, and sneak up on the poor creatures like your
life depends on it, then blow the sumbitches away with a
double-barrel. Yeah!
After you cut off a trophy head or skin or pluck your
prey, wipe some blood on your face, then head down to
the Tastee Freeze for three or four chili-cheese-bacon
burgers. Top it off with a cheap cigar or a chaw, and a
six-pack of Tall Boys, then throw up while watching that
commie bastard Keith Olbermann. That’s a good start. Now
you’re ready. Your brain should be foggy, if not
paralyzed, and whatever thoughts you have uncharitable.
If this still doesn’t put you in a Real American mood,
turn the tube back on and shout obscenities at the
“media filter.” Cue up one of those “news mix” channels
with mini-screens of all the big news stations, and let
‘er rip. Don’t get too creative in your tirade, though.
Keep the vocabulary basic, and use “fuck” and its
variations as exclamation, adjective, adverb, noun,
maybe even an occasional preposition.
The coup de grace: threaten to kill someone, anyone,
lotsa people, dogs, women, “niggers,” “coons,” “spics,”
“chinks,” “sand-niggers,” “A-rabs,” “towelheads,” and of
course commies, socialists, Democrats, liberals.
Then pray to Jesus that he wipes ‘em all out before you
do.
Now you’re ready to trick-or-treat.
SCENARIO
LL heard from lantern-lighter Horace
Frobrischer the other day (not his real name, lucky for
him.) Frobischer had his usual pithy, pissy musings to
offer, sentiments that are so outside the "mainstream"
that they are to be found exclusively in this column.
Frobischer has been much preoccupied with Bush's free
and easy gait and unfettered calm of late, and with
Obama's apparent efforts to cozy up to AIPAC, the
Christian (so-called) Right, pals of Bilderburg like
James Johnson (at least he got rid of that guy in a
hurry.) What next, following the Clintons' lead and
carousing with Poppy and Barbara Bush? Take it away,
Frobischer:
"Gas is now $4.50 a gallon. Yet the GOP talking
point is that high gas prices are the Democrats
fault!
"I see a conspiracy to destroy the economy, create
social unrest and impose martial law with
Dubya as dictator for life.
"Farfetched? what about the Enron coup that ousted
Gray Davis, installed Arnold and saddled
Californians with a huge bill? Bush and the late
"Kenny Boy" Lay were best of buddies. Or the
scenario could be a new 9/11, or war on Iran. These
people will stop at nothing to keep power.
"America is straining at its mooring in this
river of sh**.
"Obama may well lose anyhow because too many redneck
crackers will freak out over the idea of black folks
in the Whitey House and vote against him---or other
measures will be taken.
"Too bad. I think at heart Obama wants to do
something decent, even it means having to stooge up
to the corporate elites. There's no other way to get
hands on levers of powers.
"I don't expect any major campaign news until
running mates are named. Will just be usual
skirmishes, abetted by the broadcast punditry, as
both sides try to line up powerhouse messages to
sell their guys and screw the opposition.
"Obama's theme should be Reagan-esque. What a
great nation that such a fine young man could rise
to prominence, someone all Americans can be proud
of. The best America has to offer. Somebody who is a
comfort and inspiration. I can feel the oxytocin
now. The wonderful new black Jesus."
THE RACE RACE
Every time someone mentions anything having
to do with race in the context of the election, there is
widespread outrage and condemnation. Lamplighter
goes dim when this happens. Race is part of this
election, whether anyone likes it or not. It has become
as much a part of electoral reality as John
McCain's cancer should be, and the analogy is sadly
apt, given its corrosive impact on the proceedings.
Is Obama half African in heritage? Yes. Does
he call himself black and African-American? Yes. Does
this have an impact on voters' decisions? Yes. Are such
decisions racist? Yes, although they are sometimes based
in fear, as opposed to hatred. An explanation. . .
Bill Moyers delivered an eloquent, equitable, typically
enlightened
commentary a couple weeks ago on his "Bill Moyers'
Journal" program on PBS, all about race in this
election---an offshoot of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright
controversy. Moyers made a convincing historical case
for justifying black anger and resentment in this
country, in trying to help people come to terms with
Rev. Wright's inflammatory remarks about whites. Moyers:
"I think I would have been angry if my ancestors had
been transported thousands of miles in the hellish hole
of a slave ship, then sold at auction, humiliated,
whipped, and lynched. Or if my great-great-great
grandfather had been but three-fifths of a person in a
Constitution that proclaimed: We, the people. Or if my
own parents had been subjected to the racial vitriol of
Jim Crow, Strom Thurmond, Bull Conner, and Jesse Helms."
But Moyers missed an important matter, in his reasoned
and correct condemnation of racism. Yes, many
dirt-stupid voters will vote against Obama because he is
black, and they will use every conceivable epithet and
horrible allusion in the process, from "nigger" to
lynching. But many others will vote against Obama out of
fear. Fear of race-based anger and hatred---from
the so-called "black community." Rev. Wright
manifested this sort of racial hatred in his remarks
about white-this and white-that---in a
church, no less. But he is the tip of the iceberg. . .
For the past 20-plus years, mass media and the
so-called entertainment industry have celebrated,
venerated, exalted, christened, and otherwise endorsed
images and language conveying the most banal black rage,
violence, hatred against whites, against women, against.
. .just about everything. LL speaks, of course, of the
rap/hiphop/gangsta subculture that has come to be
the defining image of African-Americans in the United
States, and the world. It is
ghastly, it is grotesque, and it is a great crime
against the vast majority of African-Americans who
simply want to raise families, go to work, and live as
peaceably as most people.
No, not all rap music espouses such horror, not all "hiphop"
culture conveys hatred. But much of it does, with images
of ignorant, hateful, sneering, snarling,
gold-chain-laden black men belligerently chanting simple
rhymes infused with simple menace. The lyrics are
frequently well beyond belief, with references to "niggahz,"
mocking of "white boys," raping and sodomizing "ho's,"
killing, etc.
Savagery is the right word here. The transformation
of so-called gangstas---literal gang members, in
many cases, who are guilty of violent crimes---into not
only role models, but pop stars, "icons," heroes, is one
of the most tragic legacies of modern American culture.
It demonstrates callous exploitation of racial
divisions, but more important, it demonstrates the
completely amoral, venal exploitation of anything that
will make a buck. Capitalism without conscience. Never
mind consequences to the community. The free market has
made slaves out of blacks all over again---slaves to the
lure of quick and easy riches, subjugating them as cash
cows. Most profits going to their "owners."
So what Moyers missed is that voters have been saturated
with this terrifying imagery for decades---voters who
might well be relatively open-minded, decent (white)
people across America. Where they might wish to be fair
minded and evaluate people regardless of race, these
people are suspicious and frightened when it comes to
voting for a black candidate whose pastor exhibits the
same sort of ugly anger toward whites, toward the world,
that is espoused in rap/hiphop subculture.
How ironic that racism and animosity
exhibited by blacks is reducing the popularity of the
first African-American candidate to have a real shot at
the presidency. How ironic, and how tragic.
AIRY-UDITION
Your Illuminator read Rense's "Ode to Air"
column (Apr. 11) and was inspired. Got to thinking, in
other words. The old light bulb went bling! I like
Rense's ideas on this subject, though not much else,
frankly, even if he does give me a column here. That's
to his credit, posting other points of view. But he's a
cantankerous old goat, and so is Lamplighter, at
least sometimes. So in the spirit of cantankerousness, I
hereby propose ways of increasing the oxygen content of
this suffocating city.
Immediately close all the freeways, with temporary
“freeway” visas issued to law enforcement, fire,
delivery trucks, on the condition that their vehicles
are quickly converted to run exclusively on pigeon
droppings. This would force people to stay home, or
move/work closer to home, and begin the process of
restoring neighborhood personalities.
Close L.A. International Airport, in order to make L.A.
just a wee bit less accessible to the rest of the world,
and reduce the number of persons consuming local oxygen
(not to mention removing jet exhaust.) I mean, what’s
the point of people coming here every day from Uganda
and Singapore in search of a role on a sitcom? They all
wind up in taxis and behind Starbucks counters anyhow.
Order all actors and actresses---all movie folk,
period---to stop granting interviews entirely, at least
while in L.A. County.
Give an award to KPCC host Patt Morrison. Patt packs the
maximum amount of information into her speech with the
least use of oxygen. She almost never says “uh” at all,
or makes a syntactical or grammatical error. It’s very
impressive.
Shut down fast-food outlets and replace them with
memorial gardens. The Egg McMuffin Memorial Garden. The
Enchirito Memorial Garden. The In-and-Out Memorial
Garden and Fountain. Topiaries in the shapes of fat
people biting into greasy fried cow sandwiches. Or maybe
just a lovely hedge of mock orange and roses spelling
out, “Don’t Bother Me---I’m Eating.” I mean, do you ever
walk into a McDonald’s during breakfast and notice the
sheer sulphuric wonder of it all? Put it this way: never
light a match in there. These “restaurants” are little
oxygen-assassinating viruses in the world ecosystem. And
scientists have the audacity to blame cow methane for
contributing to global warming? I give you: Kirstie
Alley.
Punish anyone seen smoking cigarettes in Los Angeles by
having the words, “I’m a dumbass,” burned into their
arms with the lighted ciggie. Of course, this would not
be viewed as very humanitarian, despite the popularity
of self-desecration and general nihilism. So instead,
simply outlaw cigarette smoking in L.A. County, with
first-time violators subject to immediate deportation to
France. The few pipe and cigar smokers out there, who
tend to smoke only at home, would be subject to a
$100-per-year tax, proceeds of which go to fight cancer,
AIDS, and The Christian Right.
Although science has not yet proven a link between
smugness, arrogance, stupidity and lack of oxygen, LL
thinks the matter is self-evident. Just look at all the
people huffing and puffing and shouting as they declaim
about (take your pick): the government, the Clintons,
the Jews, the blacks, the “white man,” fluoridated
water, “the terrorists,” and so on. Why, has there ever
been so much carbon dioxide exhaled in the name of
proselytizing in human history? It makes you almost
grateful for blogs, where at least the people type
instead of process massive amounts of good, clean O-2.
So. . .no more public pontificating. Punishable by a
week of watching non-stop reruns of "Oprah."
Your Illuminator will be accused of racism for this, but
please reign in the “testifyin’” a little bit at all the
African-American churches. It’s oxygen-sucking enough to
have pastors roaring about Jesus and “God Damn America”
for a couple of hours each Sunday, but all the shouted
“holy spirit” responses are just rather unnecessary,
aren’t they? Think, African-American friends, how much
oxygen might be saved by stopping the “tell it!” and
“say hallelujah!” and “mm-hmm” and “Well!” uttered every
Sunday during the course of one year alone.
The following secular phrases would simply be banned
outright, with a penalty of having to read a whole book
in the span of a week: “finding everything all right?”;
“Did you find everything you needed?”; “Have a nice
day,” “’Sup,” “How’s everything?” (always asked by
waitresses/waiters when you have your mouth full); and
the ubiquitous cry of the man or woman stuck in traffic
that looks like Mondrian painting: “Fuck YOU, ASSHOLE!”
(That one is a real tree-killer.)
Right near the top of Lamplighter's effort to
oxygenate L.A. would be---need it be mentioned---the
eradication of cell phones. Scientists have clearly
established that, according to recent statistics, no
more than .0000001 percent of all cell phone
conversation is necessary. The mere opportunity to speak
at any and all times, especially when presented to
women, is irresistible. Here are some recent
conversation excerpts heard at random: “I’m walking on
the street,” “I’m coming over now,” “I’m in the market.”
Not only would the absence of all cell phone chatter
save immeasurable amounts of oxygen, obviously, but it
would leave female brains far less depleted of
same---therefore reducing, among other things, the
number of automobile accidents on a given day.
Hard to imagine, I know: no freeways, no women on cell
phones, no actors and actresses yapping about “my
craft,” no crazy hollering political commentators, no
holy-rolling in black churches, no cigarettes, no
fast-food joints, no yapping “customer service” types
asking you inane questions, no daily influx of lost
souls from all over the world looking for Hollywood, no
Kirstie Alley. . .
That would clear the air.
GOOD O-MAN
Your Illuminator has to say that he
brightened a bit by some of the things that the O-man
said in his big race speech the other day. First, it was
extremely refreshing to hear a politician stand by a
"controversial" friend, when most would instantly cut
and run, out of that rampant mental disorder,
polpollophobia (pols' fear of polls.)
No, in Obama's shoes, most other candidates would
have disowned Rev. Jeremiah Wright faster than Diebold
changes a vote count. But Obama stood by his longtime
friend, while denouncing his "God damn America" remarks
and his laying the blame for 9/11 on Lady Liberty. O-man
should have done the same for Samantha Power, his
foreign affairs expert who was ditched overnight for
calling Hillary a "monster." (Pretty mild stuff,
compared with a pastor telling a congregation, "God Damn
America.")
It was, as all the TeeVee Punditmannequins are noting, a
remarkably candid and straightforward speech about
racial problems in this country, and the O-man deserves
tremendous credit for that. He is to be lauded for
noting that anger is understandable from blacks, and
from whites, and making the bullseye observation
that the country goes nowhere unless the anger subsides.
But to compare it with King's "Dream" speech (or any
other of the lesser known, but equally compelling King
speeches) is ignorant media pronouncement that relegates
history to nothing but a video soundbite competition.
As for Wright, when you get down to it, what is really
wrong with saying "God damn America?" How often do you
curse Washington in far stronger language, folks? This
is free speech, after all, right? Well, as Obama
suggested, what's wrong with it is that it inflames
hatred and anger---in this case, among the already
extremely resentful black American populace---and that
is exactly the opposite job of any pastor, minister,
rabbi, priest, cleric. Or should be. Rev. Wright wronged
his flock.
It gets to the core of a problem that the O-man did not
(could not?) address pointedly, and that is how bogus
much---not all--of contemporary black American anger is.
By that, LL means this: no country in the history of the
world has done more to redress racial injustice than the
United States. No country has passed more legislation to
punish any/all race-based hatred and prejudice. (Who
says you can't legislate morality?) Affirmative Action
has for decades greased the way into higher education
for millions of African-Americans who would not
otherwise have had a chance. It has done the same in
industry. Never mind that this flew in the face of
promoting/hiring/rewarding the most qualified
person. Such was the sacrifice this country---the whole
country!---was willing to make in order to help
minorities out.
Pretty impressive. You're welcome, black America!
Yet to consider the massively, colossally influential
black popular culture of the last 30 years---chiefly rap
and hip-hop, and the attitudes these things have
spurred---you would think that slavery is still taking
place. Listen to the "gangstas" rapping about "niggahz"
and "white boy" this and "white boy" that. It's just
beyond horror. These "superstar" narcissist punks
degrade themselves, their history, their community, and
the martyrdom of Dr. Martin Luther King. (Do you imagine
that he would appreciate black Americans calling one
another "niggah?") These dawgs and G's, in
short, foment racism. That's right, there is no force
that has stoked racial animosity more in this country in
the last 30 years than rap and hip-hop lyrics, videos
(and I must also include a nod to universities, which
are replete with classes promulgating the image of the
USA as a racist nation.) How ironic that this would
happen after the sacrifices and civil rights marches of
the sixties that paved the way for equal rights
legislation.
I'm sorry, but those people didn't march---and die---for
Snoop Dogg.
The result: many young African-Americans have grown up
believing the country to be racist and evil, that whites
are to be distrusted, disdained, ridiculed---and if they
so much as raise an eyebrow at you, hated. Modern black
popular culture, with its widespread paranoiac, racist
attitudes, has done more to harm American race relations
than anything since the KKK.
Yes, yes, racial prejudice and discrimination exist.
Always have, always will. It's human nature, and no
ethnic group is exempt from being perpetrators, and
victims. That's beside the point. Racism is an abiding
phenomenon for all humanity---never mind that scientists
have demonstrated through DNA match that race is
genetically meaningless. The point is that "God Damn
America" has done more to legally combat racism, and to
help its minorities, than any country, ever.
One can only wonder if the reason, rationality, and
eloquence of a President Obama---let alone the symbolism
of his election---will have any impact on the poisonous
hatred and victim-complex that has come to inculcate
black America.
O WELL. . .
Barack Obama has an edge in the prez campaign
because he's black? So said former veep candidate
Geraldine Ferraro, who was promptly pilloried by
Hillary---well, not quite. Hillary "rejected" the
assertion made by the lower half of the Mondale
ticket---but that wasn't good enough for the O-man.
Neither was Ferraro's resignation from an honorary
advisory post with the Clinton campaign. Nope, Oprah-bama
used lots of soft language like "wrong-headed" to
dismiss Geraldine's observation, and laughed as he told
various TeeVee Newsmannequins how being (well, half)
black and bearing the name Barack Obama could hardly be
considered an advantage.
How disingenuous can you get, Barry? Let's say
there was a massive Eskimo population in the country,
comparable to the number of African-Americans. O-kay?
Let's say that along came a (well, half) Eskimo-American
candidate named Aglakti Biisaiyowaq. Okay, let's make it
simpler: Aga Akiak. (look the names up---they have nice
meanings.) Let's say that Akiak had policies and
rhetoric that happened to have a very broad appeal, and
that he had a great knack for public speaking and making
people feel good. Great numbers of people who were not
Eskimos.
And then let's say that because Akiak was also
the very first Eskimo-American to have a real shot at
the presidency, this inspired almost all other
Eskimo-Americans to vote for him. This would give a
candidate who already had broad across-the-board appeal
a massive numerical advantage, would it not? An
advantage based mostly on race?
Ah, but you can't say that in The United States
of Political Correctness. You can't make any
observations about race in this country without being
called a racist. And who is calling whom racist here?
Hint: it is not Ferraro.
O, give us a break.
WAR ON TERROR?
START HERE
War on Terror? Sure. You bet. Fight the terrorists.
Eradicate them. No mercy. Lamplighter is all for
it. One caveat: let's start at home. As in Homie.
The other day a nice kid named Jamiel Shaw was gunned
down. He was black, a star running back at L.A. High,
with a mom serving as a soldier in Iraq. He was on his
cell phone in South L.A., near his home, when a car full
of latino gang members pulled up, asked him if he
belonged to a gang, then shot him to death.
Shaw was 17 with sports scholarship offers probable from
Stanford. He was talking to his girlfriend when he was
murdered.
A few weeks ago there was a small war in Glassell Park,
a lovely old L.A. district long infected with gang
vermin. Middle of the day, bullets flying, in the end
one "gangbanger" killed while holding his two-year-old
granddaughter.
The Glassell Park neighborhood is an infamous latino
gang stronghold going back at least 50 years. It's a
Mexican Mafia hub, a virtual clearing house for money
laundering and drugs shipped from south of the border.
Everyone in the area knows it. Everyone in the LAPD
knows it.
Your Illuminator spoke with a law enforcement official
from the state of California who specializes in dealing
with gangs. A real gritty type who gets down and dirty
with these people, and has dispatched a few to the big
barrios and ghettos in the sky, Official made this
off-the-record comment about Glassell Park, and the
latino gang situation in general:
"Mexican Mafia controls it all. Always has. Always
will."
So you see that law enforcement operates with a
feeling of, oh, call it futility. They roll into areas
like Glassell Park periodically, make "gang sweep"
arrests of five, ten, twenty, thirty monsters, only to
have their places quickly filled by others, etc. Never
ends.
It need not be this way.
Diverting the War on Terror is the way to deal with it.
All studies, LAPD gang squads, sweeps---they never work.
Never. Gangs are, after all, terrorists, and they are
thriving in just about every major city in the country.
Here's what to do:
Take Glassell Park, for example. Go into that stinking,
festering pocket of savagery---with the U.S. military.
Occupy the neighborhood. Shut it down. Arrest every gang
member in the vicinity, and ship them off not to jail,
but to Gitmo. No trial, no nothing. Indefinite
"detention." Hand out some relocation dough to the
remaining mothers and children, transport them to new
housing, and raze the entire neighborhood. Flatten it,
clear it out. Build a razor-wire fence around the vacant
land, and leave it.
Do this everywhere and anywhere this sort of criminality
exists. Gang warfare threatens civilization itself, and
it has been tolerated much too long. Maybe this will
also stop the media from glorifying it in popular
culture.
Fascism? Violation of "civil rights?" You bet. What
rights should murderers, money-launderers, drug-runners
have?
Yes, saintly Father Gregory Boyle has the best idea. His
Homeboy
Industries has offered a near-miraculous,
constructive way for gang members to get out of their
vile "lifestyle" and live like human beings. Problem is,
Father Boyle is not mayor, or governor, or president.
Problem is, government never works as imaginatively,
compassionately, intelligently, as Father Boyle does.
Celeste Fremon, who does the
Witness L.A. blog, and who focused attention on the
fiendish, beastly murder of Jamiel Shaw, suggests this:
"The harder thing will be to work form the political
will to address this complex mess called gang violence
at its core—which every study in the last 20 years has
made clear is a task cannot be done solely through law
enforcement. We need to address the fifty-percent and
above inner city school drop out rate, the lack of jobs,
the fact that a third of LA’s kids living in high gang
areas have worse levels of PTSD than soldiers returning
from Fallujah."
She's right, but none of this will solve the problem.
None of this will loosen the Crips' grip, or the Mexican
Mafia's hold, or end the media-hyped allure of "gangsta"
life, in neighborhoods across the country. Won't happen,
Ms. Fremon. Ever.
Fascism is the way to go. Bush had it right, but he had
the wrong target in mind.
MARGARET SELTZER
---MY HERO!
You know all about it by now. A white Sherman Oaks woman
who graduated from an exclusive private school faked an
autobiography of a south L.A. girl who grew up with
gangs and deprivation.
Margaret Seltzer concocted the story of Margaret
B. Jones, part white, part Native-American, victim of
sexual assault, placed in foster homes. Winds up living
with "Big Mom," hard-working black woman raising four
grandkids. Joins the Bloods, lives the "gangsta" life.
Bravo, Meg! You're my hero. Well, almost. You
would have been my hero had you not taken the
sorryass cop-out about trying to generate sympathy for
the real Margaret B. Jones-es out there. Really lame,
Meg. Really stupid.
What you should have said was this:
"Yes, I wrote it, and I faked it. Why? Because it's the
only way to get anything published anymore! You could
write like Steinbeck or Hemingway, and all these
pompous bitchy agents and publishers (most of whom are
women!) wouldn't give you the time of day. But if you
write something about depravity---something involving
racial identity (preferably mixed, so as to have that
trendy element of being being "psychologically
conflicted"), sexual abuse, murder, gangs---you're a
shoo-in! My book proves it! Critics were all over it
like white housewives on Oprah!"
Well, Meg didn't say any of that---I did. And it's
absolutely true. Write about this sort of subject, and
publication and great reviews are in the bag, baby.
Consider: the "Jones" editor at Riverhead Press never
even bothered to meet "Jones," and took her at
her word that she was who she represented herself to
be---in three years of e-mail and phone conversation.
Three years! One chuckles, thinking of Seltzer adopting
black patois and urban accent in those phone chats. . .
Said the Riverhead Dunderhead publisher, Sarah McGrath:
"It's very upsetting to us because we spent so much time
with this person and felt such sympathy for her and she
would talk about how she didn't have any money or heat
and we completely bought into that."
And why did you buy into it, Sarah? Because you smelled
money. The nicest spin one can put on this is that you
are of the ilk that believes that this sort of claptrap
is "important literature." But I'll stick with venality.
Does it not occur to those (monied white) publishers
that they are profiting (profiteering?) from the tragedy
of others?
But back to the book. Lamplighter has long, long,
long (George Harrison) talked of faking a book, and one
of these days, he just might do it. Asian chic is big,
so maybe a half-Chinese, half-latina. . .who returns to
her old 'hood after earning a degree in oh, "human
resources," then throws her career away by murdering her
father over incest. . .beats the rap and becomes a
beloved talk show host. . .is elected a U.S. senator. .
.eventually is exposed in massive corruption scandal
involving Indian reservations and dwarves. . .returns to
her 'hood, finds Jesus, becomes a nun, commits suicide.
. .Yes! Yes!
Then maybe I'll get reviews like the one Los Angeles
Times book reviewer Susan Salter Reynolds gave to
Seltzer's fake autobiography, praising "her loyalty to
the language, the sense of community, the tight bonds
she formed with her gang."
What a racket. What a world. I repeat: John Steinbeck
would collect dozens of rejection letters today from
these sorry vragos who call themselves agents and
publishers.
Seltzer, at least, has demonstrated that.
GREEN CROTCH
It's become much too easy for Lamplighter to take
swipes at the Los Angeles Times, but that's the paper's
tough luck. The latest atrocity, which must horrify even
the most lightweight Times staffers, is the green crotch
blog.
Yes, it is well known that many papers are ham-handedly
trying to "compete with the web" by appropriating
popular local blogs. For those who don't know what a
blog is, this is an Internet forum in which the puerile
indulge and aggrandise their egos by dithering about
things they find "cool." Cool being the absolute
determining measure of all worth in the universe. Well,
I exaggerate. There are many articulate, incisive,
well-written, and useful blogs. Well, I exaggerate.
There are more than ten.
Anyhow, in its uptight, receding hairlined, fat-assed
Midwest corporate grope for bucks, the LAT is paying
real dollars to blogging little boys and girls who type
up their teeny-tiny blurts for like-"minded" little boys
and girls. Translation: the LAT is buying up blogs and
running them under its august masthead.
Which brings us back to the green crotch.
Something called "Siel" who types extensively about the
state of her large
intestine and how much booze she ingests, has posted
a dither about spotting her "girlfriend's" bikinied
crotch on another blog called "Treehugger." She carries
on with high excitement about the crotch, as if it is
the focus of enormous importance in her life. Well, it
probably is (sigh.) Anyhow, the Times posted it, slapped
on this "headline:" "Greenest
Crotch in the Blogosphere."
Does this just make you want to hide? Not admit to cats
and dogs that you are human?
No, no, it's not that the subject matter is um, racy, of
course. It's not that at all. It's that this reads like
the Ritalin-deprived chatter of a six-year-old, and has
less content than a porn script. But chances are, "Siel"
(just how much is she paid, I'd like to know) is a
marketing/demographics type's wet dream. A creature of
and tapped deeply into the minds (and crotches) of
similarly feral adult children.
It's almost enough to make you feel sorry for the Times.
But not quite.
It's also enough to inspire some highly intelligent and
well-written blogging by one
Shel Holz, which you may read here.
MIGHTY OAKES
To lighten things up for one and all, here is a breezy little note
from our resident poet laureate and lantern-lighter,
Jack Oakes:
Arnold has been doing Fascism's work ever since becoming
governor. That's what is behind the idea that government
is bad and taxes are evil. Except they've turned state
and federal government into their personal ATMs,
engineering it as a profit scam, like everything else
they touch, from the war on down. The whole deficit
thing is scam
engineered to further screw over California.
The whole world could be living in a paradise if it were
not for the greedy schemers screwing us over all under
the guise of "capitalism." ... we don't have capitalism,
we have corporate state socialism.
Crazy Uncle Ralphie has it right.
And the crazy
Palestinians know first hand what's been done to
them. But, they like the Iraqis, don't even realize that
they've been turned into malign puppets by the Cabal.
The Cabal needs enemies to keep the profits rolling in.
Instead of being violent militants, they should turn to
the Gandhian path of nonviolence en masse. But
they've been subjected to stress positions and psychic
torture for decades. . .
. . .Sort of like the folks in the ghetto and the
barrio. Clinton demonstrated that domestic economic
development and appropriate policing policies can reduce
crime. Bushco has shifted money into the pockets of
military-industrial profiteers. Plus it's handy to keep
the citizenry agitated by fears of terrorism and crime
in the streets. Just like Nixon flooded the ghettoes
with heroin and Reagan flooded them with crack. And it's
good to have an underclass of blacks and immigrants so
they can be hated and feared, rather than people homing
in on the real criminals.
Of course, Bush is just a symptom of the disease that
infects us, like an oozing, noxious abscess on our soul.
Hating Bush is a pleasant pursuit, but it is a diversion
from doing anything resembling real work. And that
should be exposing the moral rot that infests the
corporate world and their political stooges.
So in Obama, like RFK, I see someone articulating the
frustration regular folks feel. It may be a pose on his
part, but symbolically it adds a fresh element to the
process. He may not have any clue as to what to do when
he's president. I've said in the past that he's a
stalking horse for Hillary. Imagine how dull it would be
if it was Hillary in a cakewalk. Now Hillary can show
she can be a winner against a formidable foe. Look for
Obama to be her VP candidate.
IF YOU AIN'T SEEN
THIS. . .
. . .Then Lamplighter is glad he is posting it.
If the preceding item casts a little darkness over your
spirit, this one is a solid blast of joyful
illuminatoriousness. If you feel that human beings ever
so slightly fail to oh, do the right thing. . .that
humanity tends to not exactly exemplify the most
altruistic, optimistic, noblest tendencies. . .then take
a look at
this. It's almost enough to make you think that this
race is worth a damn, after all. As reader PJC reminded,
"dare to struggle; dare to win, dare to fall and rise
again."
NO NEWSMANNEQUIN,
HE
There are a lot of people who are very good at arching
their eyebrows importantly, and nodding their heads up
and down, and shaking their heads from side to side, all
the while reading script aloud in very controlled,
important-sounding tones. Some of these people, though
not many, actually comprehend what they are reading.
They are also highly skilled at dying their hair, buying
expensive wardrobes, and choosing good cosmetic surgeons
to flatten their noses, raise their brows, implant their
cheeks, inflate their lips. Many of the females of this
group are either blonde or Asian-American, and generally
protrude.
They are called "television news anchors."
Jack Noldon is not one of them. Check that: Jack Noldon
is a television news anchor, but he has none of the
qualifications for the job listed above. Somehow, Jack
got into the business and stayed there, despite the fact
that he is a journalist who knows how to report a story.
Astounding.
Thirty years at KSEE Channel 24 in Fresno, California.
That ain't jack, Jack. Lamplighter sends a beam.
GORDIAN 9/11 KNOT
Forgive Your Illuminator his relentless and
impotent curiosity about the news. It's just old habit.
But LL just can't help wondering about the fact
that---how did it go?---nuclear secrets were leaked by
the U.S. to Pakistan, and possibly to Al-Qaeda? It's
complicated, but here goes:
Moles in the US State Department, the Pentagon, and the
nuclear weapons establishment were selling nuclear
secrets for cash, through Turkey, to Pakistan’s
intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence, or
ISI.
Pakistan’s ISI plays footsie with Al-Qaeda.
Still with us?
Pakistan’s Dr. Strangelove, General Mahmoud Ahmad, was
accused of sanctioning a $100,000 wire payment to
Mohammed Atta, one of the 9/11 hijackers, immediately
before the attacks in NYC and D.C..
Uh. . .Can you say. . .U.S. involvement in 9/11? Even
indirect?
Wait! There's more:
FBI investigators took a number of Turkish and Pakistani
operatives into custody for questioning about
foreknowledge of the 9/11 attacks, BUT a high-ranking
State Department official repeatedly acted to spirit
them out of the country! (Just as was done with Bin-Laden's
extended family.)
Now, don't take our word for all this.
These are the claims of Sibel Edmonds, a former
Turkish and Arabic translator for the FBI. What reason
would Ms. Edmonds have for essentially destroying her
life, or at least putting her reputation and life at
serious risk, by making these claims? Hmmm. How about. .
.conscience!
Before she left the FBI in 2002, Edmonds said she
overheard evidence that pointed to money laundering,
drug imports and attempts to acquire nuclear and
conventional weapons technology---involving a network of
Turkish, Pakistani, Israeli, and U.S. spooks.
This, of course, is the way countries generally do
business, though you wouldn't know it by watching CNN or
Fox.
Well, call LL a dim bulb, but gee, it kinda sorta
seems like this story should be oh, blowing all other
news stories entirely out of the water, every day, in
every paper, and on every news program.
Doncha think?
Especially with this wrinkle: Edmonds says the Bush
administration blocked investigation of this Gordian Spy
Knot and protected those who were committing these acts
of treason.
But hey, let's not spoil Amerryguns' illusions or sense
of (yuck, yuck) security. Not to mention entertainment
provided by the so-called presidential "campaign,"
football, and CSI.
Urp.
GOOSE MISS-STEP
Now, LL is not innately or gratuitously cruel. Believe
it or not, his morality is thoroughly considered,
weighed, sweated over. And Your Beamness does not
generally laugh at tragedy, unless it involves Madonna,
Paris Hilton, or Oprah. But you'll have to forgive us
here:
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAA!
There, that's better.
Oh, the guilt is setting in anyway. We shouldn't laugh
at a poor
46-year-old high school math teacher in Houston who
died in a freak accident. Anybody who is teaching high
school deserves praise and respect, unless they are
fornicating with their students or teaching them math
the way LL was taught math in high school. But. . .what
happened to Perry Price is, oh. . .darn me again, there
I go chuckling.
Perry, it seems, took a shotgun out to kill a goose.
Readers of this column know that LL finds it just
contemptible beyond description that humans think they
are so goddamned clever because they use sophisticated
weaponry to shoot defenseless, unsuspecting animals. We
doubt that Price fetched a very pricey salary, but we
also doubt that he found it necessary to supplement his
larder by shotgunning geese.
Well, after committing birdicide, old Perry threw his
gun in the back of his truck, and it went off, hitting
him in the leg. By the time the cops found him, he was a
dead duck.
That's one for the birds.
BEAM-OF-THE-YEAR
Once in far too great a while, a story comes along
that is so amazing, so wonderful, so surprising, that it
almost---almost---starts to restore a slight hint of
admiration for human beings. It almost---almost---makes you
forget about all the stuff that TeeVee Newsmannequins and
Oprah and Bush insist are soooooo important. From the valley
of Vulchiusella in Turin in northern Italy comes this
story of a fellow who had a little idea, and saw it
through. Talk about shining light in a dark place. . .Oberto
Airaudi gets the Lamplighter Beam-of-the-Year Award. Thank
you, Oberto.
PHOTOS DON'T LIE:
GIULIANI IS DISTANT RELATIVE OF NOSFERATU!
 
In this exclusive photographic comparison,
Lamplighter demonstrates what most thinking people
already know: Rudy "The Creep" Giuliani is actually a
vampire. While it is not unusual to find vampires in
politics, it is notable that Giuliani bears a striking
resemblance to Nosferatu. The man for whom 9/11 is the blood
of life has so far refused DNA tests.
AW, PEANUTS!
Lamplighter's bulb dimmed while watching the
"American Masters" PBS documentary on Charles Schulz. For it
seems as if the producers were intent on dimming the history
of Schulz himself, by playing up all the "troubled" and
"psychologically complex" side of the creator of the most
beloved comic strip in history. Who is not complex? Who
among us understands why we do what we do? I mean, really.
Yes, it was salient and interesting to learn that Schulz
lost his mother early, and that little emotion was expressed
in his Midwest German-American stock family, and that a real
"little red-headed girl" once rejected him. But you came
away from this "portrait" feeling very sorry for a man who
seemed imprisoned by gnarled, repressed feelings that he
could only express by through the almost
obsessive-compulsive habit of drawing "Peanuts." Feh. No
one, and nothing, is so simple. He liked to draw cartoons!
He also was a bit of a student of the human condition.
LL later learned that two of Schulz's daughters
refused to participate in the program, and that the family
in general feels that the "dramatic" was emphasized in the
documentary, to the neglect of the more biographical (let
alone the happier aspect.) One bit of biography that was so
neglected that it did not even appear was the fact that
Schulz served as an army staff sergeant during
WWII---something of which he was extremely proud. And
another "little" omission: Schulz was also quite proud of
having created the first black character in an American
comic strip (not based on unfortunate stereotype): Franklin.
While the show cleverly blended real-life events into
Peanuts panels, the conclusion went for the
maudlin---showing various cutouts of Linus, Lucy, and the
rest. . .disappearing with Schulz's passing. If there are
any characters in the history of comic strips, if not
Americana in general, that will never, never fade away,
Charlie Brown and the rest of the "Peanuts" gang are them.
FRANKLY
SPEAKING
Your Illuminator was palavering with Rip Post
Poet Laureate Jack Oakes the other day, expressing his
oft-felt wish that the late
Frank
Zappa was still around to try to make sense of the
horrors of the day (many of which he predicted.) Mr. Oakes,
a hobbyist student of Buddhist philosophies, responded
thusly:
"It falls to folks like us to fight off the veil of toxic
cobwebs that envelopes us as the world chokes in its own
filth.
"Maybe the answer is rigorous Zen-like work and to be
activist creators, not pacified consumers.
"Problem with Buddhist stuff is that people get so wrapped
up in it that it becomes their narcotic. The point of
Buddhism is to be in the now. But the "now" is such a very
rich and multifacted wonderland that it's easy to wander off
any old rabbit hole on looking glass.
"But for many people the 'now' sucks major league. So they
want to be somebody else and somewhere else. That's the hook
of the consumerist/capitalist society. You suck, buy our
product and we'll make you king of all you survey. That
dynamic has scoured out most vestiges of good and kindly
fellow feeling or compassion.
"Free-minded and free-hearted people are not tolerated in
the corporate commons. We're getting fenced out at every
turn. I don't want to be a fascist, mama. For whatever
reason, Zappa was a natural anti-fascist.
"Down deep, we all have the ability to savvy what goes down.
But along the way, we wind up eating so much shit that we
become corrupted as well, and thus powerless, if not
outright insane
"So if there are channels by which we can get back to the
basics and cleanse ourselves of the toxic overburden of
culture and conditioning, there's hope we can become
something more than zombie fools."
LL is not so sure he shares Mr. Oakes's
optimism---no, actually, he is sure that he does not share
Mr. Oakes's optimism. Most people are simply helpless
against the corporate media enslaught of pseudo-reality.
They buy it, and into it, and believe that cars and trucks
and The Bachelor and American Idol and Rich Dad infomercials
and whatever is sanctioned as "cool" by Pope Capitalist Amok
I is the real deal. And kids coming up these days are even
more feral than current generations of tattooed Self
Monsters. Check out this
Mark Morford column on the subject.
And yet, as FZ liked to say:
“My theory is you have to do two things. One, you don’t
stop, and two, you keep going.”
To which Oakes added:
"Frank was fortunate to have been able to make his own way
and to succeed. It didn't seem like a struggle for him. He
found his vision and off he went. Magnificent! Somebody
should do a biography of who he was, not a litany of what
notes he played, where and when. A meditation on the meaning
of Frank and his music. He was a great man. A beacon of how
to live free in the modern age."
FIRED
We have four seasons here in Lost Angeles: light summer,
nearly summer, summer, and fire. Those who have grown up here are used to this sort of
thing: the limp, orangish light and hint of charred
chapparal in the air over the L.A. basin in autumn. New
England can rhapsodize all it wishes about how all the fall
trees look as if they are on fire---here, we've got the real
deal. There's sizzle in the L.A. autumnal steak.
Fire season (now any time the Santa Anas blow) is also, of course, the season of the relentlessly
babbling TV Newsmannequin. They stream an endless loop of
cliches and "unfortunately" and "sadly" and "tragically" and
somehow never cover the story. Imagine Chick Hearn "calling
the action" of a fire, and you get the idea of how it could
and should be. It seems that reporters and Anchormannequins
are so used to seeing mayhem and horror in the news and in
the finest family entertainment, that they no longer have
any real perspective on describing actual destruction. "Oh,
here's another house on fire. Another sad story," drones
Generic Anchorboy/girl. What of statistics? What of
comparing these fires with past years' fires? Is the
increase in annual fire a yield of global warming, as
scientists have predicted? If the Santa Anas kick up as they
did last Sunday, would embers be carried throughout the
Valley, the L.A. basin, San Gabriel Valley? What of hard
news instead of camera pointing and maudlin, "Oh, another
tragedy in the making" blather? Gad.
Fire them all.
SPEECH OF THE
CENTURY
You will not see a finer, more important speech
than
this one, delivered in 1992 by 13-year-old Severn Suzuki
to a U.N. gathering. It's the speech of the decade, if not
the century. She gets the Lamplighter Award for Burning
Brightest. And she's still at it
today.
FLASH! SARCASM AT
THE L.A. TIMES? IT CAN'T BE!
There must be something in the newsprint at the L.A.
Times, that's all LL can figure. It must contain drugs that
rub off on the fingers of staffers and get into their
bloodstream. I mean, how else do you explain that almost
every single person Your Illuminator has ever met at that
"great newspaper" is just a wee bit, oh, regal? Right
down to the secretaries and telephone operators? Eh?
LL recalls a nice guy, a former colleague, who
was hired at the LAT long ago. Nice Guy went from blue
jeans, floppy hair, ready smile, smoking dope to. . .sharp
suits, spiffy 'do, rigid chin and declarations of "I work
with a lot of very impressive people, very impressive." Pee
Yoo.
Anyhow, the latest Times reeking ego wafts from
the resignation memo of assistant managing editor Janet
Clayton, and it may be read in full
here. Among other things, Ms. Clayton makes such grand
pronouncements as "as Freud supposedly said, sometimes a
cigar is just a cigar---sometimes things really are what
they seem." This is her jaunty way of explaining that there
is nothing hidden in her departure---that she simply "yearns
to try something new" after 30 years of (get this) "serving
the high calling of daily journalism."
Yearns? Yearns? Last time LL heard
"yearns" was in that Seinfeld episode where Kramer asks
George if he yearns. "Do I yearn?" says George,
incredulously. Oh, let's clutch our little hands to our
bosom, and yearn!
As for the "high calling" of daily journalism,
quick, cue the
music.
Gad. These people all imagine they work in the Vatican. The
whole problem with journalism is self-serious, pompous
jackasses who think they are serving a "high calling." God
Almighty, give that woman cigar and a spitoon.
There's plenty more, but nothing as good as this:
"I have been privileged to work with scores of you over the
years, chasing stories, making sarcastic jokes, working
elections all night, crafting editorials that we knew would
irk a wayward politician, getting a juicy tip that leads to
a blockbuster series."
Oh, my! How wild and wooly! How rock-'em, sock-'em!
Imagine---making "sarcastic jokes" in a newsroom! Oh, does
life get any more outrageous than that? Gosh! Sarcasm
in a newspaper. That's so daring! (Well, I guess I should be
glad to hear this, seeing as the San Francisco Chronicle
actually banned sarcasm in its newsroom a couple years
ago.) And---hold on to your hats, boys and girls---Ms.
Clayton "crafted" editorials (a woman like her doesn't
merely write, you see) that would "irk" a "wayward
politician."
Get LL some smelling salts! It's too much! The
idea that a newspaper would try to "irk" a politician! No!
It can't be. It's just too unthinkable! No wonder Los
Angeles has such great public servants---the LAT keeps
"irking" them so they perform better. That must be why we
have no traffic or density problems here!
As for "juicy tip" and "blockbuster series," let's call in
the Lifeless Cliche Police. Oh, there's more of Clayton's
sillyass note, but we're too "irked" to continue. Not to
worry---she'll be replaced by another Times ego-zombie who
"yearns" to "craft editorials" and make "sarcastic jokes."
Maybe that old dope-smoking colleague of mine.
HEY! LOTS MORE
"SHAFTS" HERE
"Sometimes the light's all shining on me. .
Other times I can barely see."
z
Shafts. . .is dedicated to the memory, if not
the politics, of Ferdinand Mendenhall, the original
Lamplighter and publisher of the Valley News and Green
Sheet. |
|
HALF THE FUN OF HAVING FEET. . .
  
IS RED GOOSE SHOES!
|

Once upon a time, in a Los Angeles far far away, there were.
. .newspaper wars. There were five---count 'em, five---papers in town, and as many as 12
editions per day for each one. Rob Leicester Wagner, grandson of original Daily News
reporter Les Wagner, is the only writer ever to put the history into a book. This was an
uncrowded, freeway-less time of paste-pots, cigars, Red Cars, and just a touch of alcohol.
Red Ink, White Lies.
ORDER IT
HERE
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CHINESE MEDICINE DOC EXTRAORDINAIRE!
HERE
AND. . .
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A NOVEL BY RIP RENSE
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---Bernard Beck, copy chief, SF Chronicle.
Also available at Dutton's Books in Brentwood. |
|

"Now -- look up.
Slowly. You see nothing yet. Look higher. Still
higher. That's it. Now you see it. You're amazed.
You can't believe it. Your eyes open wider. It's
horrible, but you can't look away. What is it Ann?
What can you do? No chances for you, no escape.
Helpless, Ann, you're helpless. One chance -- if you
can scream. Your throat's paralyzed. Try to scream,
Ann. Try. If you didn't see, perhaps you could
scream. Throw you arms across your eyes, and scream,
Ann, scream for your life!"
CLICK
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TO SEE WHAT ANN SEES!
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A
Verse to You:
Starring Rip Post resident laureates Scott Wannberg and Jack Oakes
visit their archive
better off
We were better off
When the sun went around the earth
And the seas had an edge
Where ships full of heart sailed off
And gods made the stars wink
We were better off
When books were read by monks
And there were no lights
And no galaxies tumbling through universes
Tumbling through other universes
And pictures were painted
And saints were sainted
We were happier to have a sky
Instead of infinity
And deities to control our destinies
Instead of DNA
Howling at the moon was science
Trees were television
Words were mathematics
We were better off
Frightened of the dark
---Charles Bogle 6/22/09
all your berlin walls couldn't put humpty
dumpty back together
the wailing wall of berlin
just got a spectacular haircut
and cheerleaders everywhere
cannot ever die,
according to a well known
scientific journal.
i'll take room in the mayhem suite
i hear it's the best view in the entire hotel.
no bartender i ever met
came close to being lethargic.
back scratchers for the first fifty
lucky callers.
telephone pole ran into a car
the car got hot and made a scene
sandra dee in gidget
meets freud
the musical
tell all calls to hold on
they got narratives in every ear
the house is just big enough
a doctor could be in it
humpty dumpty had eggs for breakfast.
he'd just discovered the mother lode.
when he fell
all the cell phones died.
the tall signposts
begin to strut,
the earth
tosses its dice
and the catch of the day
hasn't yet
been
born.
scott
florence,oregon
june 21 2009
car wheels on a gravel road
lucinda williams
put your landing lights on, i wanna
come back down to earth
the monsters are lonesome
they have no dates for the prom
they talk about suicide
they ask me for a donation
i hold up my doorway
i watch the traffic do whatever the hell it wants
the speed limit here just revved up its adrenalin
the queen of sheba with king solomon on a leash
she came by to borrow a coffee filter
we talked about anthony mann's westerns
and she shimmied right in front of my pain
all the literary movements
begin and end in the mens' room at the deft lingo gas
station
where the manager's half-breed son
dances on car hoods
claiming he's the reincarnation
of fats waller
the castles, at this time,
they implode and fall all over themselves.
all those self-important kingdoms
are now amusingly vulnerable.
Sir Not Much wants to joust with the sun
but his lance just became a pacifist
and has lit out for the new territory.
hold your horses
even if your stable is empty.
put your landing lights on,
i wanna come back down to earth.
people there seem friendly.
i keep my fingers crossed that they truly are.
Tarzan is seen reading Eugene O'Neill's The Hairy Ape.
Jane wanted him to go to college and get a degree.
Ungawa turns to I feel Sartre overstated his theory of...
Cheetah becomes an Animal Cop on the Animal Planet channel.
Don't ever get your chimp mad.
They bite and fling shit.
Just like humans, I guess.
the mutilated pages of our world
just came home from the binder's hospital.
they claim they are more than ready
for us to read their vitals anew.
get the fire going.
tell all you know its time to come in from the cold.
nobody needs to freeze
and we'll make do with the food rations.
you'll all get an ample chance to share your story.
take your time in the telling.
explore the waters of your body.
visit the magic show of your heart.
at the end of another broke down day
on the ongoing war that is the earth
we throw our weapons of mini-destruction
into the bonfire of relax and take a deep breath.
yes, the bones ache something fierce,
and the circulation in the legs requires compressed
stockings. no matter.
we accept all torn up humans here
and the animals will sing
if you allow them.
slowly sit your tired everything down.
i see where you're bleeding.
you see where i do as well.
we mix our blood in a bowl
and it becomes wine.
we drink and our shadows dance across
the sky.
slowly explore yourself at this most crucial non-time.
what is it that you need or want to do?
as long as you hurt no one
or yourself
the entire game board belongs to you.
the tired species of human
sighs in the impending harmony.
we sing to each other
through our eyes.
be aware of the man and woman next to you.
they might be executioners.
they might be best friends.
let's simplify it, okay?
all executions now are illegal and null and void.
that means they now can only
be best friends.
we tell tall tales and sing crazy tunes
through our eyes.
it is our road home.
it is our bones learning flesh.
we've got no legs
but we love to dance.
we'll be doing it for hours.
if our dancing keeps you up
join in
and
teach us
your
steps.
---scott
florence,oregon
may 29 2009
bob dylan,together through life
david munyon,acrylic teepees
Radioactivity in the Lunch
Boxes of the Poor
tiptoe through the scar tissue tonight, love
there lives unease
rowing its leaking canoe
over a remarkable rapid
in the age of water
in a time of little faith
why did god
put so much radioactivity
in the lunchboxes of the poor
let the cat out
or maybe keep it in
the password sometimes can't tell
derelicts carry out their duties
witnesses are sworn in
my back is killing me
the ambulances know where i live
mardi gras just lost my phone number
don't worry too much
i don't play a lick of tennis
but i can widen the net
the boat gets rocking
the short end of the stick
the messiah is afraid of gnats
in tolerance you must
i got my end
up
bring on the mob
bring on the soft shoe
inventions need reinventing
in the garrulous
days
of our
flute.
---scott
florence,oregon
april 23 2009
norman and nancy blake
natasha's waltz
Going to Townes
The latest failure
turned the curve
You're travelin'
with the herd.
The calamity
called humanity,
claims unfounded
rejected, rebounded.
Snapshots, scattered,
the last thing,
failed to compose
a photographic
memory,
why don't you
recall it?
You'd prefer
to let it fade
to sepia like
rotogravure
eidetic reveries.
Going to town
world-renown
clown obit
proclaims
legends
offered,
chiseled
visages
proffered
Old man of
the mountains
Fountains
of youth
eluded
Cantankerousity
has replaced
curiosity
Verbosity has
replaced
perspicaciousness.
No lines left to
rehearse, no
time to slam
into reverse.
Call it a day
Ave, universe!
I've seen my day
no more struggle
for one last verse
I'm checking out
without a doubt
Will survey landscape
one last time, not a
pleasure trip, not even hip.
Down with the ship
Chilly winds blow
Closing the show,
last one tonight.
---Jack Oakes
thar she done got
blown
in the epic novel herman melville by moby dick,esquire
a big sperm whale is deformed by
a guy named ahab
who used to work retail with me
when i was crawling up
i've now reached apogee
and the gargoyles have asked me to let them in for free
the broken men and women who walk my spine
are seeking an easier sequel
to their bones.
i live in a pit that gets big when you're good
and shrinks into oblivion
when you fib
thar she done
got blown
captain moby bellowed
the left wing book club
is making a decent recent comeback
we meet on the head of a pin
we read each other
our bill of rights
the universe used to sing in key
it could lose some weight
maybe its too thin
the weather can't make up its mind
mind your manners when you ask god for mercy
sometimes he's got lots of wax in his ears
you might have to take off some of your clothes
thar she done blew it
all the king's hearses
all the queen's sins
they become children
looking for my head
i only got one
but it's just another way of life
in the beginning
through the end
wild bill held a dead man's hand
rock n roll knows where you thrive
thar she done went under
and the joke in it all
was all she damn well wanted to do
was
somehow
survive
in the early morning
when the knives sharpen themselves
reach for me through the wire
tell me how it goes
thar baby
beyond all known scope
thar baby
is where you and i
most assuredly
blow
---scott
april 22 2009
florence,oregon
fairport convention
house full
live at troubadour l.a.1970
A Great Long While
It’s been a great long
while
since
fortune did smile
upon our
humble enterprise
So it
should come
as no
great surprise
that
your recitations,
incantations and recipes
are no
longer on file.
Dangle
awhile upon
cliff
sides and participles
It’s
best to have no disciples
lest you
draw a following
for your
sketches and explanations
The
chosen few, rent asunder,
walk
amidst lightning and thunder
Assiduous students practice darshan
and
greet Ezra, Rimbaud, Don Van Vliet
Kleptomaniac kelp gatherers convene
on
beaches, cobblestone robbers
leave no
pebble unturned as tidepool
gazers,
count galaxies amid sandy grains
We go
against the grain, we embrace
the rain
and salute the sunset, it is
our
traditional ways that we have lost
so we
fabricate new canons of the soul
Kerouac,
Ginsberg and Snyder might
appreciate the noblisse oblige of our
rustic
rhetoric and rusted-out meteoric
resonance with the cosmic spheres anew
I’ve got
this and I’ve got you, callay calloo!
The
propensity of humanity toward density,
defying
the obvious and reviling the propitious
Is a
curse and a conundrum without cure
Make a
choice for bliss, the devil blues abjure
Once and
for all, last chance, last dance,
cast
aside your curses, select a path that’s sure
Not much
time left, so best play on through
-- Jack Oakes 2/19/09
what i want for my 56th birthday
mad men and women to get their fair share bank presidents
follow
horses in parades and clean up their stories hungry people
open well
received restaurants poets form a union(it'll never
happen,we're too
contrary)
the dance, despite its anemia, doddering steps, and scarred
skin to
continue to upset the equilibrium what i want for my 56th is
for all
of you to hang on the ceiling is leaking the landlord is on
a
permanent vacation hold onto your flotation device the sea
is a bit
angry but it has an appointment with its counselor next week
all of
you teach me to hobble upright all of you glow in the
impenetrable
dark sometimes my ability to hear is full of wax i still
feel your
rhythms together we survive the deluge together we topple
the nasty
gods i know we are imperfect, not that stable, and
wondrously
ridiculous its what makes us endurable for my 56th i invite
you to
keep enduring the size of the falling rocks get bigger every
year and
the carport is full of wreckage hold on and if you feel
yourself
slipping i'll come running with the flimsy bandaid and
iodine i really
don't want anything for my 56th except for you to keep
singing and
yelling in my face it makes the day take a second look it
makes the
night dream a little more rhythmic it'll take time for the
sutures of
human to become new forests let's go swinging from limb to
limb
sometimes we'll fall and land in a mine field relax.breathe
easy.those
mines have amnesia they forgot their chosen roles in all of
this we
get up and hurl ourselves against the incoming hordes then
it's time
for standing on our heads and mumbling new countries of
grunts for my
56th i ask you to grunt in unison it has such a perfect
pitch the
maestro swoons and the no trespassing signs burn up
--- scott february 19 2009 (listening to) jesus h.christ
and the four horsemen of the apocalypse happier than you cd
night of the living michele bachmann
she's back
full of unmitigated bullshit
night of the living michele bachmann
minnesota's very very scary closet case last year she wanted
liberals
in congress investigated for their unamerican empathies and
sympathies
when it backfired on her she accused chris matthews of
setting her up
deluded bimba, she set herself up even the republican
national
committee tried to distance themselves from her and withdrew
money
from her reelection campaign have no fear my children her
district
still sent her back to congress oh what a wonderful district
it must
assuredly be now she's back oozing liquid in the 24/7 cycle
the stim
bill tosses money to acorn a horrible left wing conspiracy
obama and
the dems want to gerrymander good americans into a shit hole
none of
it is true but reality and michele bachmann do not exist on
the same
planet there aren't too many rich people left, warns she
obama needs
the rich to pay for his stim bill crimes you mean obama is
robin hood?
floor it michele
take me to your planet
what have you been ingesting?
can i have some?
send your connection over and we'll have a great experience
bonding
together newt's the contract on america obstructionist hit
men
standing in earthquake unproven doorways the planet of not
enough rich
people is where michele's spaceship came from.
the acorn became a tall tree
growing through bachmann's long nose
everytime you lie
take her pulse
take her to the clinic
save the vanishing rich people species hello earth is
anybody home?
---scott february 18 2009(listening to) jesus h.christ
and the four horsemen of the apocalypse with an assist from
the great s.a.griffin via the phone yes we do talk on phones
as we write
Ramblin' Boy
What can you
imagine for a
new tomorrow?
Where can you
roar like lions
at the dawn,when
everything's almost
forgot, if not gone?
It's a new era
of hope, so we
are again told.
But I don't
think truth
is so easily
bought or sold.
Who are we to
gauge what
is the infinite
trapped as we
are in this amber,
the dimensions
we call "years"?
What we know
is soon enough
caught by the tide
and swept to
realms well beyond
blood and tears
We'll all fall prey
to some malady,
or perchance
an accidental
fatality. That's
all in the script,
you might
well remember
your lines before
the curtain falls.
Meditation on the
knowable, does
it open windows
or just pass time?
Take a step back,
you want to be fed,
and patted on the head,
like some good dog
who fell from the sky
with a mission unclear.
Must you, great huntsman,
always be barking
up wrong trees?
Your friends and kin
will always embrace
you, provided you've
learned the right
dance steps and
keep in perfect pitch.
Beyond that, what is
there than this surge
of billions of souls
we deem humanity,
arising and dying
under the light
of ancient stars?
You think you've
found one star that
will grant each
wish, but you
keeping wishing
for more wishes
when soon enough
all will be gone.
No raging at the
dying of days,
last train takes
you way out
west, far past
familiar places.
long gone are
beloved faces
faded away are
the songs you
could tune
your soul to.
This rattletrap
will eventually
collapse and
that will be that.
-- Jack Oakes, 2/7/09|
the big adios
put lots of stamps on your next thought
mail it off to the powers that be
there's work to be done
and not much time left on the clock
the referees all agree just by walking into a room you ignite
controversy they're willing to cut you some slack slack didn't
want to be cut but in the end he was persuaded they gave slack a
plate of the big adios that new recipe that makes you disappear
when you eat it lots of people seem to want to disappear these
days sometimes they get found not knowing their names or what
they supposedly do to make a living i watched my neighbor make a
living he took a living to the back bedroom it didn't matter if
a living was already spoken for he made it sure enough you could
hear the moans of pleasure through the concrete wall the powers
that be aren't feeling so good these days they buy their water
bottled but the bottle is sick when you pick it up to take a
drink it glows in the dark sometimes things that glow in the
dark might be good you can see how to maneuver the scary trail
beware of sliding rocks and sliding scales the prevailing wage
will never prevail again unless it gets a blood transfusion.
the cemetery just upped its cover charge.
the big adios asks you to tighten your budget.
smaller portions for one and all.
i think i'll sleep on top of the stride piano i hear the big
game might be blacked out in your neighborhood unless you come
up with the necessary scratch.
the scratches, both necessary and not so hang out at the
convenience store talking trash, disrupting the meek and
somewhat innocent who are out trying to mind their own business
a lot of those own businesses have folded the poker table used
to have more players gracing it there are moth eaten holes in
the flag sometimes it takes a drunk to plant it right the big
adios would like to give you a hug whisper stories of graphic
everything in your ear it is very aware of your emotional
limitations we all got them piled up next to the door it takes
some kind of faith to walk outside as if perhaps you'd never get
hit by incoming sometimes the night goes inside, quiet, graceful
sometimes the night is a mob gone mad i ask you to share my
thermos with me it'll keep you safe from dehydration one morning
we'll discover just what it is that we're drinking it could be
benign, maybe malignant we'll know on the last page of the
ongoing story if only the writer could be a bit more terse i'll
help you unpack your life tell me where things go the train has
heartburn but it still pulls out of the station the journey we
make wears many costumes and can change dialect at the snap of a
finger my finger almost snapped in half when i gave it go finger
go i stuck it in the wall socket just like the instructions
demanded light me up like a christmas tree i feel like
swaggering along the boulevard the big adios is cranky it found
a scorpion in its tequila the scorpion was in the witness
protection program it had renounced its poison
---scott february 17 2009 listening to blackjack david dave
alvin
there's a sickness
there's a sickness in the bargain basement it lurks in the
corner and knows your name there's drama unfolding in the safe
house the rooms in it are rebelling how come some lunatics are
so damn lucid?
they carry lunch boxes that shine in the dark my dissertation
ate my dog, i heard a worried man say man is a desert and you
best find water pretty quick.
doris day and rock hudson work on a chain gang that keeps doing
strenuous roadwork in my living room.
hope the dvd plays all the way through without tiling.
the commentary track keeps mangling our history.
there's a love affair inside the atom bomb.
there's a new neighborhood worth considering in the fault line.
chicken soup for the insane is number one on the bestseller
list.
abe lincoln as raymond massey
just when you thought you found gold
the house lights come up and the mine you were digging in turned
out to be godzilla's stomach.
there's confusion in plan a
and malice aforethought in plan b.
we all could use a friend here and there.
i've seen them on the side of the road
when nobody is really looking.
there's a city in the cotton candy
and its inhabitants live by a rigid code.
only tall people can sit up front.
makes it hard for the smaller set to see what's going on.
the wolf is howling
he'd like a moon once in awhile
only one place in this town sells hard liquor and when i go to
say its name my speech slurs.
---scott february 13 2009 alex mcdonald's birthday listening
to david olney one tough town
a bird a plane...
it's a stimulus package
it's a spending bill
not enough tax cuts
too much money for schools and infrastructure it's socialism duh
and the bank bailout wasn't?
lindsey graham says obama never talked to his crowd yet we've
all seen the nightly news recaps of obama hanging with lindsay's
boys it's a bird it's a plane about to try and leap tall
economic ills its as if the republicans just want to remain
frozen do nothing at all and let obama go down in flames so in
2012 some funky republican saviour will ride in on a white steed
and take back the castle from the doomed spending crazy
socialist demos well we know the private sector doesn't give a
fuck we've had 8 years of government coma the government only
awoke when it came time to grease the big boy machine
revisionist from the hip republican historians say roosevelt and
the new deal did nothing to ease the depression they claim only
world war two saved the country they dissemble, these wondrous
morons unemployment figures were cut considerably before world
war two began by new deal programs you gotta spend money to make
money tax cuts tax cuts tax cuts sing the republican dolls well
if everyone is eventually out of work there won't be too much
taxable income good old michael steele trying to define job
versus work he beat his chest and swore private sector jobs went
on forever news to all the recent private sector layoffs in
order to get enough votes in the senate to block a republican
filibuster compromises and concessions were made and certain
spending was cut which once again proves the republican element
disingenuous or downright liars when they claim the
administration gave them the door meanwhile pathetic sociopath
assholes like rush limbaugh claim they want obama to fail for
the next 4 years which means more and more layoffs i guess since
rush seems to have a secure enough gig everybody else can go to
hell the republicans seem to think the only thing government
should do is go to war and waterboard people god forbid if it
tries to get people back to work sit still,they claim,the
private sector will fix the mess the private sector walked us
into this mess put us on the end of the gang plank and said have
a nice swim,beware of sharks.
it's clear the republicans in the house care nothing for obama.
and the senators can only compromise and concede.
this is basically the first important legislative attempt on
behalf of the administration.
it will no doubt finally pass in its watered down form.
what will the next major attempt bring us?
8 solid don't mess with our agenda republican years put us in
this shithouse now these same republicans claim they smell
something go on,lower your pants,put your tax on the table and
i'll cut it for you.
if obama fails let it be trying to do what he truly
philosophically believes without being second guessed and
compromised at every turn.
nobody forced bush and cheney's hands for 8 years.
it was pretty much smooth sailing for their pirate ship.
the democrats had no spine.
feinstein,reid,and pelosi were stick figures.
the republicans,give them their hypocritical due,are not stick
figures.
they bark,snarl,fart,snort,and bang the table every chance they
get.
the mess obama is dealing with was a major facebook gift from
bush.
meanwhile our republican heroes regroup and look forward to 2012
forget the now crisis crisis demands fast reaction rush
limbaugh,the unspoken head of all things republican along with
sean hannity wake up in a white house bed together they are
faced with horrible escalating unemployment angry citizens
marching in the streets what can rush and sean do to make things
whole again?
they go back to sleep and drift
sleep is good
pretty soon we'll all be doing the big one raymond chandler
poetically wrote about
---scott february 10 2009 listening to boys don't cry
soundtrack
slums of gold
the slums of gold
are having open houses for all the affable c.e.o.'s and
financial wizards who have taken their bailout money to build
shiny brand new executive bathrooms and finance relaxing weekend
retreats far from the noise and fear of the street.the slums of
gold have king size beds that will make the most tired and achy
executive feel so human and tender.
special guarded elevators will take these new stylish tenants to
the penthouse,but wait a second, sometimes the penthouse has no
roof and the vultures soar overhead awaiting their next happy
meal.
the slums of gold find themselves eventually under a fierce rain
which washes that fake gold off revealing corroded iron and
brokedown wood.
it's a new year
homicide will soon reach its deductible
and its bills will reduce greatly.
the slums of gold are having a block party.
bring all your favorite yes men and women,executives.
bring your bylaws and meeting minutes.
you'll have to budget the air
inhale just so much oxygen.
the banks glow in the dark.
they begin to pull up stakes
and slither across the earth
looking for food.
meanwhile,all humans with no health care whatsoever become kings
and queens for one day.
they are asked to pose for high profile pictures.
as soon as you're through coughing up blood could you smile and
say cheese.
the c.e.o.s have blood in their underwear.
should they panic?
should they take a happy pill?
all the happy pills forgot their distemper shots.
they are not agreeable this morning.
when you go to open them up to ingest one they bite your
fingers.
---Scott Wannberg, 1/24/09
frankenstein meets rod blagojevich
bring the family
fun to be had by all
frankenstein impeaches his monster
rush limbaugh chokes on his cigar
governor rod blagojevich swears they're out to get him george
bush,dick cheney,and donald rumsfeld become new tenants in gitmo
health care for every millionaire you got to be in the network
if you're gonna get a chance to dance.
the dark streets of man
need repaving.
obama talks to muslims
jimmy hoffa rises from wherever he's been buried my time is at
hand i take my bullet ridden lunchpail recess is over i'm on my
way to the next big opportunity turd blossom aka karl rove now
has a new subpoena please don't make me go before congress
mr.obama,he cries bring the wife, the mistress as well all ages
welcome if you can't meet the cover discuss our sliding scale
for the indigent and insane they just discovered a new planet
called arrogance citibank lives there and their special toys
that fly in the sky i'm on my way to the next big prison the one
that offers the best deals bring the parole officer bring your
head doctor bill o'reilly's ego explodes and the streetcleaners
have a hell of a time cleaning up they haven't discovered the
bottom of the well yet superman took ann coulter home she turned
into kryptonite it gets a bit confusing in the market place
everyone wants the last box of hope they fight and kick each
other for the privilege the surf's up and its bloody bring your
body armor bring your rosary the new age has just fallen out of
its hospital bed it hit the floor something fierce quick,run and
get a fifth of wild turkey frankenstein's monster and governor
rod discuss those paranoid villagers with their torches smoke
good,fire bad says the monster healthcare for the elderly,says
governor rod their hearts spark in the incognito night it makes
me proud to be a human i run into sisyphus on the street those
boulders keep getting bigger every day,he winces i give him some
valium bring the future bring your best attitude the party's
just getting good it's lady's choice a mountain grows in the
middle of the living room we'll climb it in tandem governor rod
and frankenstein's monster go skinny dipping in the sea of
tranquility
---Scott Wannberg, 1/27/09
go fetch
fetch me a pail of love
there's a mighty strong fire of hate blazing in the hearts of
the lost i'd throw that pail of love hoping to aid and abet the
healing process.
fetch me humans that can live together.
i walk down the endless hospital corridors on every gurney lies
debris of humans who couldn't hear each other i stroll across
the fractured moon.
the land is very confused when you put your foot down on it.
do i run left?
do i hide right?
put me in my rocking chair
i'll be old mose from john ford's great film the searchers he
was the guy who survived the comanches by pretending to be crazy
in the head played wondrously by hank worden sitting in my
rocking chair on the burning front porch the majorettes parade
by their body armor a trifle thin.
fetch me something edible.
hunger posses me.
better than the devil,i guess.
i'll eat the written law.
it's got a lot of fat on it.
fetch me a home of improvisation.
i'd like to enter my house justified
like peckinpah's steve judd in the beautiful ride the high
country beautifully rendered by joel mccrea.
fetch me my santa suit and rent something resembling reindeer.
they expect me to ho ho ho and i'm not sure where i left my
script.
the earth woke up a few hours ago.
did you sleep okay?i had to ask.
fetch me a vacation and a quiet place to burrow.
the city fathers are looking for empathetic mothers.
king kong and godzilla joined the peace corps.
it's a new day,my friend.
i'll help you tote home those groceries.
just keep my sandwich fresh.
when your back gets up
i got this chiropractor part of me
that can smile if you play the right melody.
the earth asked me for a couple of dollars.
i wrote it a poem.
fetch me no more people who feel they need to fetch the new
museum just opened.
nobody's yet decided what kind of a museum it'll be.
it feels fun on the soles
wandering its halls.
---Scott Wannberg, 1/24/09
the day after
moving day at the big white house
it's finally done.
the decider and his cowgirl are off in texas drinking with pecos
bill.
the new president and his missus partied the night away.
now the work begins.
moving the huge boulder up the hill.
for 8 years that boulder has gotten monstrous huge.
poor dick cheney
always lift boxes with your legs,not your back.
seeing him wheeled out reminded me of dr.strangelove.
controversial rick warren talked about us all as one.
will he now go see the film milk?
it won't be easy.
a momentary scare at lunch with senator kennedy getting ill.
he's better today.
that cold cold d.c.weather
they told william henry harrison to dress warm and keep his
speech short.he did neither and pneummonia aced him out within 3
months.
one of the shortest presidential terms in history.
the so called ranch in crawford needs a new tenant the ranch
where no livestock lived or produce grew.
a ranch in myth only.
the decider is not a cowboy.
ramblin jack elliott is more of one
and he's the son of a doctor from brooklyn.
people reinventing themselves every day of the week.
the new president speaks complete sentences and can form
thoughts.
the road is long and hard and there will be casualties.
there are always casualties.
it's the process.
with every lotto ticket purchase comes affordable health
insurance.
the world and the united states are dating again.
tentative first kisses.
the hard work is here now and ongoing.
my fingers are crossed
my heart is open
the game has changed
some oxygen is finally,after 8 years of strangulation getting
through.
we take this new ride together.
the streets at time might be uncoordinated.
hang onto the wheel.
buckle up.
sing loud and pay attention.
so many people sleptwalk through the last 8 years.
so many people became zombies.
time now to stretch.
put those 8 years of bloody sheets
in the washer.
open the damn window.
let some light in.
there are mountains of pain and hurt
that need scaling.
it's going to take time.
some of us have very very little of that.
my fingers are crossed.
my eyes are open.
sometimes the dust gets in.
not a happy thing.
i wipe the dust from my eyes and walk a few inches farther.
it's a new rhythm.
you can get up now and dance.
i know your legs hurt
but give it a try.
sometimes the doctors do care.
---Scott Wannberg
january 21 2009
old man
Old man
cross and
stooped
scurries
round the
corner
with half
a look
Education's
not something
learned in
a book.
Remembrances
forgotten,
recollections
mistook.
Let's
congratulate
everybody,
a universal
salute.
Half-step
imperfect,
we can't
do that
dance.
The tune
cannot
be heard.
The follies
we've seen
cannot disturb
the complacent
cats sitting fat
atop the heap
The rest of us
gooba-gabba'ing
like so many freaks.
Comforting laments
of the old school
Companionable
plantings on
planets unknown.
The sheep are
shorn, and time
is on loan.
You ask for
reason, and
I give you
the sense
of truths
you could
have embraced.
Life's not a waste.
---Jack Oakes 1/5/09
you wonder
You wonder at what
you’ve heard and you
ponder remembrances
of songs no longer sung
You await now until
the last bell is rung.
You’ve slowed down
the playback to the
point at which you
can hear the real words.
Then someone pulls
out the drum again,
the 11 dimensions
convolute and unfold,
leaving our slight lives
in the dust of stellar
dissolution.
---Jack Oakes 12/08
scar tissue holiday
step right up ladies and gents
its time to show off your scar tissue
the one with the most ugly
gets to rule the nation with an iron fist.
vulnerable carhops on burning skates
attempt to fill all desire.
goldilocks claimed she understood the sleep rhythms of bears but
in such a cave anything goes.
doctor will be in shortly
there might be some pain involved.
the airport runway is filled with debris.
take a deep breath,ladies and gents
it just might be your last.
in the whimpering corner of the last outpost all good things
boil over.
only fifteen more feet and we'll finally be free of this prison.
hercules claims he's done all the labors he'll ever need to do.
he should of been in a union.
god took the village idiot girl for his wife.
i like things to be on an even keel,he claimed.
santa claus' reindeer are drunk and are in a holding cell
awaiting bail.
monsters are having a 3 day convention in san francisco.
somebody shot time in the face.
it'll take hours before the paramedics show.
wash your hands,ladies and gents.
then proceed to raise them high above your head.
there's a robbery in progress
and the bailout money keeps blowing into the gutter when you
reach for it.
sleek men and women
recite nursery rhymes to each other
as the ship beneath them sinks.
i fell out of bed
when the big hand went past 12.
our test results just got posted on the foreheads of mount
rushmore.
nothing much to brag about.
smile wide,ladies and gents.
nobody has a dental plan
and all teeth have been declared weapons.
---Scott Wannberg, 12/08
blagojevich
hootenanny hoedown
i'm just dying to come clean
i'm being persecuted by the media and the fbi my hair is really
swell my kind of town, chicago abe lincoln of illinois the cubs
the bears i don't kiss and tell my everloving arms will reach
through the sky and yank heaven apart without duress.
i drink senators for breakfast.
i'll gov you where you least expect it.
no huge scars.
my name is blagojevich.
i carry a gun.
sometimes the bullshit is very very deep.
sometimes the earth is out of orbit.
lunacy is here to stay.
kiss me, asphalt street of wounded hope.
a word that rhymes with vibe and begins with the letter b.
i'll be here christmas morning.
handing out treasure maps to the kids.
my blood pressure just became a rogue planet.
---Scott Wannberg 12/08
room
I want to go back to the formica
And the crap carpet and the air conditioning that smelled like
Old beer
And the windows that looked out on other windows
full of formica and crap carpet
And the summer night roar of a streetfull of air conditioners
Proclaiming electric comforts
To globs of college kids stuck together with hormones and heart
Impervious to time
And the summer nights that felt baked at 450 in an oven for ten
minutes
The wilted midnight trees
The forlorn birds
The warm 2 a.m. front lawns where you lay on your back
And said nice stoned things to the stars
And maybe made out with the older girl across the street
I want to go back to the sweaty box rooms of kindness
And together
And Beatles music and laughter that almost defeated
The universe
Down to the corner, synaptic crackle, misanthropic boys
To the pie place, to stare at the legs and cleavage when they
Bent over
Those waitresses with the orange skirts and flouncy blouses
Each one perfect for you if only
And she smiled at you yes she did really you should ask her out
Right jackass and then I’ll take my pants off and ask her to
fellate me right here
You should! You should!
You wanna get some cigars and shoot pool?
I want to go back to comradely amble and midnight stoned candle
And flopped out in the morning sick as dogs
When the brute sun spills yellow pain through curtain cracks
And the air feels already exhaled by other people
And somebody puking in the bathroom is funnier than Buster
Keaton
When girls were unattained and music amply sustained
And the promise of who knows was a valentine
It’s all in my head, it slips out at night when I’m not looking
And mixes up bodies and names and times and hopes
And heartbreaks
Chagalls and Picassos them,
Dalis and Van Goghs them,
Except once in a while
the formica is clear and clean and the
Air conditioner hums and rattles the keys on top of it
And Farkash knocks at the door,
And Scott and John
And Kallberg with a six pack
And Ball with a bag of pot and bonhomie
And Mahler and Beethoven
in a sweaty box room of kindness
no more.
---Charles Bogle
The Nuclear Option
flashback, September of '72
the AFEES induction center downtown Oakland
an old woman is handing out little
government issue bibles to
all of us waiting to ship out to our
basic training assignments
her name is Betty Cooper
Mrs. Cooper preached to us on the
Sunday school bus in Easter Hill
back in the early 60's
told us stories and taught us the good shepherd's love with
cut out cloth characters that stuck to cloth boards
there was a secret chair on the
Sunday school bus too
and if they were lucky
the real believers
got a piece of
sweet Jesus candy
as affirmation
I thought I was saved
years later I find her
witnessing before the warriors
and the war
an aging soul harvester
working this worm hole
next stop station
into the future
"Mrs. Cooper?"
"Yes."
"I used to hear you on the
Sunday school bus,
do you remember me?"
she turned and looked up with
apocalypse eyeballs,
"The next great war is going to
happen in the Middle East,
here, in Iran! Don't let anyone
tell you differently,
mark my words,"
she dented the center of a tiny map
into the small of her hand
her stiff forefinger squashing the
sovereign spot good,
"Right here!"
Mrs. Cooper reached into a pocket
producing a little GI bible
which she pressed into my palm
---S.A.
Griffin
When the Frost is on the Punkin
by James Whitcomb Riley
here
Watch: "The Cremation
of Sam McGee," by Robert
W. Service
here
Dispatches
Crisp, neatly folded, addressed and sealed,
The dispatches pass from hands to post
To hands again, but trembling now.
Cold, precise, their message read,
They find their way to a private place,
Lined with despair and a grain of hope.
How strange, but fitting,
These silent couriers are,
That tell of loved ones killed in war,
Precise and neatly folded,
Tucked away in some sylvan spot,
Cold with despair
And a grain of hope.
---Gary L. Coffman
Sun Zoom Spark
Nothing makes it move
From the bottom to the top
Does it start at the bottom?
Or does it start at the top
Magnet draw day from dark
Sun zoom spark
Sun zoom spark
Now which hand's got it?
Bottom, or the top?
Neither hand's got it
It's just got it
Hope it don't stop
Magnet draw day from dark
Sun zoom spark
Sun zoom spark
Think you can uh hold it
Once it start
I don't care who ya are or what
size ya are
I'm gonna magnetize ya
Magnet draw day from dark
Sun zoom spark
Sun zoom spark
Ohh, don't let it get away
I'm gonna zip up my guitar
'n then when I've gone too far
I'm gonna zip down my guitar
Magnet draw day from dark
Sun zoom spark
Sun zoom spark
---Don Van Vliet (from the 1972 Captain
Beefheart album, "Clear Spot.")
When the lie's so big
They got lies so big
They don't make a noise
They tell 'em so well
Like a secret disease
That makes you go numb
With a big ol' lie
And a flag and a pie
And a mom and a bible
Most folks are just liable
To buy any line
Any place, any time
When the lie's so big
As in Robertson's case,
(That sinister face
Behind all the Jesus hurrah)
Could result in the end
To a worrisome trend
In which every American
Not "born again"
Could be punished in cruel and unusual ways
By this treacherous cretin
Who tells everyone
That he's Jesus' best friend
When the lie's so big
And the fog gets so thick
And the facts disappear
The Republican Trick
Can be played out again
People, please tell me when
We'll be rid of these men!
Just who do they really
Suppose that they are?
And how did they manage to travel as far
As they seem to have come?
Were we really that dumb?
People, wake up
Figure it out
Religious fanatics
Around and about
The Court House, The State House,
The Congress, The White House
Criminal saints
With a "Heavenly Mission" --
A nation enraptured
By pure superstition
When the lie's so big
And the fog gets so thick
And the facts disappear
The Republican Trick
Can be played out again
People, please tell me when
We'll be rid of these men!
---The late, great Frank Zappa
copyright the Zappa Family Trust.
A Verse to You Archives
Why should not old men be mad?
Some have known a likely lad
That had a sound fly-fisher's wrist
Turn to a drunken journalist;
A girl that knew all Dante once
Live to bear children to a dunce;
A Helen of social welfare dream,
Climb on a wagonette to scream.
Some think it a matter of course that chance
Should starve good men and bad advance,
That if their neighbours figured plain,
As though upon a lighted screen,
No single story would they find
Of an unbroken happy mind,
A finish worthy of the start.
Young men know nothing of this sort,
Observant old men know it well;
And when they know what old books tell
And that no better can be had,
Know why an old man should be mad.
---W.B. Yeats
THE REMORSEFUL DAY
How clear, how lovely bright,
How beautiful to sight
Those beams of morning play;
How heaven laughs out with glee
Where, like a bird set free,
Up from the eastern sea
Soars the delightful day.
To-day I shall be strong,
No more shall yield to wrong,
Shall squander life no more;
Days lost, I know not how,
I shall retrieve them now;
Now I shall keep the vow
I never kept before.
Ensanguining the skies
How heavily it dies
Into the west away;
Past touch and sight and sound
Not further to be found,
How hopeless under ground
Falls the remorseful day.
---A.E. Housman
A Love Letter, by Nanao Sakaki
http://www.levity.com/digaland/nanao.html
For the most incisive and prescient commentary on the current
world situation ever written, click
here
The Poetry of Ellen Bass
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
W.B.
Yeats
(Listen!)
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