Tag Archives: politics

The Fall of Because: epilog

Of what’s been done, and heard, and seen,
one might well ask, “What does it mean,
that this and thus, in such a way
should through their actions in this play
express a meaning, none too clear,
expose a hidden weakness, fear,
and in absentia, second-hand
portray the worst or least in man:
the tendency to thoughtless act,
to find succor in faith, not fact,
and in the end, to just succumb
without a fight, struck deaf and dumb
by baffling bullshit strewn about
to fertilize the seeds of doubt
and fool even the wisest lot
into accepting what they’ve got
as the best way to run a thing,
and make the biggest fool their king?”

If that’s the king, then watch the knaves!
Observe the way the court behaves
when chaos in the castle breeds
a subterfuge that does not need
to hide its wretched plots at noon.
Beware! The end is coming soon;
and who is now called a buffoon
may turn to tyrant in a flash,
rewarding only those with cash
and sugared words upon their tongues.
What use then to be found among
brave souls for truth, or common sense?
That armor serves as poor defense
against the coming hateful rage
of those who cannot see the cage
outside the walls of the small cell
we think is the world where we dwell.

16 MAR 2017

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None Will Come Clean: double dactyl

Higgledy-piggledy,
President Blunderbuss
spoke through the microphone
into the night,
his senseless sentences
building a fantasy
woven from bullshit and
wrapped nice and tight.

Higgledy-piggledy,
our fawning senators
there in the gallery
gave their applause,
praising his policy
without much exception:
a bent for destruction,
simply because.

Higgledy-piggledy,
those in the gallery
looked on in wonderment
at this mad scene.
In this great travesty
we all have have dirty hands,
pointless to disinfect.
None will come clean.

01 MAR 2017

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What Room to Move

When this place grows untenable
where will its sad talent move –
those strong and young enough to run
with something left to prove?

What exit is there from the haven
that served in the past
to shelter those escaping from
freedom’s iconoclasts?

Where in the world will it be safe,
beyond this empire’s clutch?
What open principality
could offer half as much,

or prove themselves a thriving home
for those now tempest-tossed,
who flee with scarcely wherewithal
to reckon what they’ve lost?

Whose loving arms will welcome them,
these broken, hurting ones
that only know prosperity,
not bombs, disease, and guns?

When this, our country, falls diseased
and forces us to flee,
just who give us refugees
our life and liberty?

Where will we work to earn our keep,
feed our lust to consume?
Can we adapt to foreign life,
and in harsh soil, still bloom?

If this place grows untenable,
what will the options be,
and who will help us pay the cost
to stay alive, and free?

03 FEB 2017

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The River: cautionary verse

These questions that you warn me not to ask,
they do not simply fade away unsaid;
and while your tacit threat may chill my bones,
it will not stop me, until I am dead.

What good is bullying, and idle scorn,
without the end result: my mindless fear?
Those weapons that your faithful bring to bear
cannot pretend to stop up every ear.

You would, by force of will, bring me to heel,
and so like Galileo, to recant;
but while I see no art – just the raw deal –
you may attempt, but in the end, just can’t.

For I, unlike you, am not so afraid
of fickle public image, fleeting fame;
the race has not begun that you can win,
though I be hobbled, blinkered, deaf and lame.

I understand the questions – as do you;
and so the answers speak out plain enough,
regardless whether you and I exchange
a single word of merit, or just fluff.

I stand against you, not to prove a point,
but rather, because living so requires;
so long as breath sustains me, I persist,
and will not flee imprisonment or fire.

But is this revolution, my small acts,
or simply sitting, spinning out my days?
Now there’s a question: which is longer lived?
The river or the cliff it wears away?

2 FEB 2017

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Americans Undecided for Apathy

THE FOLLOWING IS AN EXCERPT FROM A CAMPAIGN SPEECH WRITTEN BY GRAVITY PUSHMAN AND DELIVERED TO THE ‘AMERICANS UNDECIDED FOR APATHY’ RALLY HELD ON DECEMBER 12, 1994 IN CENTRAL PARK, NEW YORK. THE SPEECH WAS DELIVERED VIA AN ANONYMOUS TAPE VOICE BROADCAST OVER A REALISTIC (RADIO SHACK BRAND, A DIVISION OF THE TANDY CORPORATION, LOCATED SOMEWHERE IN TEXAS (one of the United States referred to in the next item), THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE, THE PLANET EARTH, THE SOLAR SYSTEM – the solar system: isn’t it really A solar system? Isn’t that like saying THE human race when there could in actuality be three or four dozen spread out over the cosmos like so much lox on a half a dozen day-old salt and onion bagels?, THE MILKY WAY (same comment), THE UNIVERSE (and again, and again) PUBLIC ADDRESS SYSTEM WHICH HAD A MAXIMUM PER CHANNEL WATT RATING OF 40 RMS. THE ATTENDING CROWD (EXCLUDING CURIOUS PASSERBY JOGGERS, MUGGERS, FILM CREW STAFF, DOCUMENTARIANS, TRASH COLLECTORS, RECYCLING NUTS, HORSEBACK POLICE, SEVERAL THOUSAND PIGEONS, A RANDOM WASP COLONY, TWO BUTTERFLIES, SIX POINT EIGHT BILLION DUST MITES, AND A DISCARDED WRAPPER FROM A PAYDAY CANDY BAR THAT HAD OVER THE COURSE OF ITS SHORT LIFE ACHIEVED SELF-SIMILARITY, NUMBERED EXACTLY THREE PEOPLE. ONE OF THEM WAS THE SOUND GUY.

I had a dream – no, it was a nightmare. I dreamt that the only references I had to the 1970’s were from bad cultural definition films. I didn’t know about Watergate, the end of Vietnam, the bicentennial celebration, the assassination attempt by Manson’s children (and also by the Nation of Islam) on President Ford (who, by the way, was the only person in the history of the Executive Branch of the United States Government to serve in office, both as Vice President AND President – without being elected to either. Nixon appointed him when good old Spiro had to fly the coop, and then the man who played too many games for the University of Michigan without a helmet, whose forehead somehow resembled the front grill of a ’57 Buick Roadmaster, was sitting in the oval office – pardoning the man who made it all possible).

I was aware only that rock and roll died in 1972, hard rock, that is – Zeppelin IV, Purple’s Machine Head, Sabbath’s Paranoid – these were the tombstones on the blues rock of the sixties. Hendrix died in ’72. The guitar hero became mythology. 1971 and Marvin Gaye put out What’s Goin’ On and Let’s Get It On and then it began, the movies, you know. Trouble Man, Black Caesar, Superfly, Shaft, and on and on and on. Marvin Gaye, James Brown, Curtis Mayfield, and Isaac Hayes, respectively. The stories weren’t even important, but the music, man, the music was right on. Yeah, and those expressions, like right on, what’s happening, fly, and on and on and on… remember, white man, if you want to learn to dance the dance, don’t learn your steps from Club MTV or John Travolta or a Billy Ray Cyrus Video – do yourself a favor and watch any selection of Soul Train episodes from 1975 to 1980. Or picture Muhammad Ali fighting, and not sounding a lot like Don Cornelius on helium (who can forget ‘float like a butterfly, sting like a bee, the great smell of Brut, and the punch of Ali?)
The seventies can be characterized by its prime time television – the variety show reigned supreme. Do you remember that these people had television shows – Mac Davis, Glen Campbell, Donnie & Marie Osmond, Sonny & Cher, Gladys Knight & the Pips, Tony Orlando & Dawn, the Captain & Tenielle, Flip Wilson. Not to mention the Jackson Five, the Harlem Globetrotters, Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids, and the whole Scooby Doo trip (which wasn’t really a cartoon at all, but a ridiculous sitcom). There used to be television shows about poor people, too – All in the Family, Good Times, What’s Happening, Sanford & Son, Barney Miller, Chico & the Man. It just figures that they were all comedies. And look what’s replaced them: the Cosby show, the Fresh Prince of Bel Air, Married with Children, for Christ’s’ sake. The variety show was it, people, and the private detective-streetwise cop show – Mannix, Barnaby Jones, Cannon, Streets of San Francisco, Starsky and Hutch, SWAT, Columbo, McCloud, MacMillan and Wife (starring, of course, Rock Hudson and Susan St. James), Police Woman, etc., etc.

The Ramones first album came out in 1974. The Pistols ended in 1979. Post-punk emerged and then died (and how can something as undead as gothic vampire thrash ever die) in 1983, when Bauhaus split because they were becoming ‘popular’. Remember when punk meant trying to be an individual, before you could buy the hair color at a salon or the clothes at a chain store on Melrose Avenue in Hollywood? Here’s to Darby Crash, the lead singer of the Germs, the first person in Los Angeles to wear a Mohawk (which, my mother tells me, is something of a misnomer, because the Mohawks didn’t exactly wear their hair like that, but Mohawk is much easier to say fourteen times fast than Iroquois.

Besides, there was nothing else really going on in this country – the seventies belonged to Elton John and David Bowie, on the two British polar extremes, and to all those sappy self-searching singer-songwriter guys (think of how bad it really was – imagine David Soul from Starsky and Hutch singing “Don’t Give Up on Us Baby” all over again – yetch!).

Apollo-Soyuz – the joint Soviet Union American space linking thing, man, that was something – somebody had it going on, ’cause they played “Why Can’t We Be Friends” over the space link and the whole world was listening. And the hostages in Iran, that was something else; but Saturday Night Fever came out in 1977, and in my personal opinion, it caused Elvis Presley to die of embarrassment. He was the only one wearing a white suit at the time, after all, and where do you think those moves came from? Do you think Vinnie Barbarino invented them? Yeah, right. Reality check, welcome back. Rock and roll was really over, you know. And by the way, take a look at Six-One-Six or Red Square (prime examples in Memphis, Tennessee of disco so vintage it’s retro) some night and tell me that the Disco Sucks movement really had an impact. Maurice White is sitting somewhere playing a kalimba in the moonlight laughing his ass off. The three most sampled bands in the history of rap – James Brown, Earth Wind & Fire, and War. I’ve seen all three. There ain’t nothing like the real thing, baby.

The movie version of Hair came out in 1977 or 1978 – I guess that was the first indication of how ridiculous a flashback to the sixties looked out of context. Don’t look now, but Scorpio’s in retrograde motion. Here we are, and Sun Yung Moon is in his seventh house; M & M’s have merged with Mars; love still drives a ’68 Plymouth Galaxie, and the media sells us our stars. This is the dawning of the age of Aquariums – we are living like goldfish looking out from behind the Plexiglas – our eyes bulged, our little flippers pushing us through water murky with our own shit. Let the sun shine, and skin cancer be damned!!!!

What ever happened to rock and roll singers that didn’t look like waifs, that sang with low voices? Did Robert Plant really have that much influence, or did the sensitive male step in to fill the gap between Otis Redding, Joe Cocker, Jim Morrison, and now the only things left – Lemmy Kilmeister, Glenn Danzig, and James Hetfield? Gimme a break, man. And I’ve got nothing against Pearl Jam or Stone Temple Pilots, but if you take Jim Morrison, subtract the acid and Bushmill’s and leather, and substitute Xanax and Thorazine and flannel, and what do you have – Eddie Vedder? I’m not sure.

Remember the campaign slogan for Carter-Mondale – Fritz and Grits? ‘Nuff said.

Fortunately, I woke up, and found out that I had actually lived through the seventies. I was wearing platform shoes and wide collars and all those obnoxious jackets and leisure suits and polyester nightmare designs the first time around – you can wear them again if you want to, but the seventies is something I’d like to try to forget, thank you very much. If you think I’m kidding, take a look at the best example of ’70’s culture in the ’90’s – Meatloaf, and laugh if you can. I remember when his FIRST album came out, and I hated it then, too. Remember, as I first said in August of 1994, I’m not funny, you’re not laughing, and that’s the way I like it. Thank you for coming out and pretending to support my campaign. Unfortunately, I didn’t feel like coming, so you’re there making complete assholes of yourselves without my immediate help. Have a nice day, and don’t kill anybody on my account. Thank you. Thanks for nothing.

Now, if I may close with something quite dear to my heart, I would like to play for you a recording made by a dear friend of mine, Homespun Gravity, with his band ‘The Undertown Minstrels.’ It is a song he wrote that pretty much sums it all up for me, as far as songs go, and it didn’t offend my mother all that much, so that should tell you pretty much where it stands as far as a rock and roll number; pretty much shit out of luck as an anthem for this, its own, or any generation. But nevertheless, it’s kind of catchy and makes you hum and tap your foot if you’re absolutely tone-deaf and have no sense of rhythm.

THE SOUND OF FUMBLING WITH A RECORD NEEDLE, A FEW OBNOXIOUS SCRATCHES, AND THEN A SLIGHT HISS. THE SONG BEGINS. LOW MUSIC BEGINS IN THE BACKGROUND, THE SOUND OF TWO GUITARS HOPELESSLY OUT OF TUNE ATTEMPTING TO FIND HARMONICS ON THE SEVENTH AND TWELFTH FRETS, RESPECTIVELY. WITH A SUDDEN LURCHING, WRETCHING CRASH, THE DRUMS AND BASS ATTEMPT TO JOIN IN TO PROPEL THE SONG AWAY FROM THE CRASH-LANDING IT APPEARS TO HAVE EMBARKED UPON. A VOICE, HOMESPUN’S VOICE, IS HEARD WHISPERING-MOANING-SINGING-SIGHING THE FOLLOWING:

No way home
World is in a spiral
I don’t know
Where I’ll be tomorrow

Still I go
’round the endless circuit
Look out below
Found the brake but I can’t work it

Out into the night I’m going
Where I can at least forget my name
and remember that there’s no one left to blame
buried in eternal shame
can’t tell the candle from the flame
and in the end it’s all the same.

No way in
World is just illusion
I don’t know
Can’t tell my dream from my delusion

Still I float
’round and round the axis
Look outside
I’m through the egg between the cracks, and

Out into the void I’m falling
Where I can at least forget my fate
and remember that there’s no debate
born before my time too late
can’t tell the mirror from the lake
and in the end there’s no mistake.

THE CROWD IS MESMERIZED; WELL, AT LEAST THE PIGEONS HAVE ATTEMPTED TO CONTROL THEIR BODILY FUNCTIONS LONG ENOUGH TO COMPLETE A SORT OF HELLISH CHORUS TO ACCOMPANY THE MUSIC, WHICH IS MUCH LOUDER NOW THAN IT WAS, THAN IT EVER SHOULD HAVE BEEN, AND (according to memorandum G-47-B18, City Department of Parks and Recreation, New York, New York, dated December 18, 1994 and signed by a Mr. Reginald Moss) LOUDER THAN IT WILL EVER BE AGAIN IF ANY MORAL CREATURE HAS ANYTHING TO SAY ABOUT IT. STILL, DESPITE ALL THE BAD PRESS FROM THOSE WHO CAN’T DO, CAN’T TEACH, CAN’T FAKE IT, CAN’T AFFORD TO RUN FOR PUBLIC OFFICE, AND SO THEREFORE ARE RELEGATED TO THE ROLE OF CRITICAL OBSERVERS, THE MUSIC GOES ON. Rock and roll can never die, as Neil Young once said. As the Rolling Stones have failed to prove.

No way out
World is locked inside a system
I don’t know
Can’t tell the maya from the wisdom
Still I try

’round the circle I keep turning
Look at me fly
While my wings are slowly burning
Out into the world I’m sliding
Where I can at least forget my pride

and remember that there’s no free ride
paid my fare somewhere outside
can’t tell the mountains from the tide
and in the end we all collide.

1994 from The Secret Undertown Ministry

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Wake Up America (from Otherhood)

You’ve got to wake up, America, and face the facts
Your roads are built on broken backs
And there’s no way that you can track
The hypocrisy that against you stacks

There are storm clouds in those spacious skies
Of which you sing, but do you realize
Your purple mountains and amber grain
Will disappear in the acid rain

Of time, there’s no time, and the time is now
To turn our hawk-like swords into plows
And reap the seed that we have sown
The apathy that has destroyed our home.

You’ve got to wake up, America, and see the truth
There is no one standing in your voting booths
The people in this country who run your lives
Are free to find your back with their steely knives

You stammer, stammer and complain that there is nothing you can do
But you and I know that this is not true
We’ve focused our attention on the world outside
And now it’s time to take the board out of our own damn eye.

Oh, sleeping giant it’s time to rise
And wipe the sleep out, from out your eyes
You’ve enslaved your brothers to promote your creed
But you don’t know what it is, ’cause you can’t read

And your huddled masses yearning to be free
Are as tired and poor as they used to be
They’re dying of AIDS, selling or trying to score
Wake up, the future is right next door.

Around the world we act so proud
Americans, yes, and we say it loud
We rub our freedoms in everybody’s faces
But we let the media run presidential races

Freedom of choice is what is all about
So, make a choice, or be left out
If we stood for equality, life and truth
Then the flag we fly would be fire-proof

It’s our claim to fame, and our greatest shame
But we’re running out of fingers pointing out the blame
If you’re so proud, proud as you claim,
Pick up the pieces…and use your brain.

Wake up America, and read your history
So many have died for our democracy
But the facts are clear and can’t be ignored
There are strip mines where once eagles soared

It’s time we started listening to “Yankee go home”
And went through our problems with a fine tooth comb
Remember just like Patrick Henry said
Without liberty, we’d all be dead.

Excerpts from the Rap Opera “Otherhood”, circa 1985

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Single digit blues

I hope that I shall never see
the poor in our democracy
convinced to vote Republican
believing they’ll become the one
percent. I hope, but feel, alas,
that both the elephant and ass
are run by callous millionaires
who each say they’re the ones who care.

I hope before that tragic day
the poor man’s eye scales fall away
and see that God is nowhere in it.
We all lose the very minute
we stop doing our own thinking,
and pretend our Kool-Aid drinking
is the cure for our malaise
and will return the good old days.

I hope that I shall never see
the end to our democracy:
when in the din, all reason’s lost,
and none speak out against the cost
of trusting those with profit shares
from selling guns and signal flares,
who win no matter who will lose
and dance while poor men sing the blues.

30 SEP 2014

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