Song featured in "Not Broken"-A Documentary about post-Katrina New Orleans
Category: Movies, TV, Celebrities

I haven’t yet seen the movie yet, but here’s a 4-minute trailer of our feature documentary, "Not Broken," at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCOs0aBGxoM
Pluma Pictures, Inc.www.plumapictures.com. My song, "Where Were You Yesterday" is not in the trailer, but it is in the forthcoming movie.

Currently listening : New Orleans Benefit CD By Continuous Peasant Release date: 04 October, 2005

9:00 PM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Hillary Clinton’s Defense of Poetry
Category: Life

Since I've written this, Sen. Clinton (like Sen. McCain) has stepped up the criticism of Obama as an 'empty suit,' now charging that Obama has plagiarized his 'change you can xerox.' Back on 1/6/08 when it still wasn't clear that the democratic primaries would become the two person race, I found myself getting swept up in Clinton's rhetoric (whether she plagiarized Cuomo or not). So I thought I'd put it up here now...

Hillary Clinton's Defense Of Poetry

Although I'm still upset with the news media reducing the Democratic Primaries to a Hilary Clinton/Barack Obama race, I was moved by Hillary Clinton 's thought-provoking quote,"You campaign in poetry (but) you govern in prose" in the 1/6/08 Debate. On further investigation, I found out she's quoting former New York Governor Mario Cuomo. This sound-bite quote, like many good lines of poetry or prose (advertising slogans or fortune cookies), is worth pausing over even if you are not one who, like me, has published books and has taught the writing of, both poetry and prose. I thus have a 'professional' vested interest in hearing how other people talk about the distinction between these two literary genres, just as I have a stake on who becomes our next President and try to determine how they may govern. One concern may seem more "merely topical" than the other while the other may seem of only 'specialized relevance,' but I'm fascinated by how the two realms (the political and the literary or linguistic) come together in this quote.

Most commentators take Senator Clinton's quote as a not-so-veiled barb at Senator Obama, who has been galvanizing a groundswell of younger voters (& Oprah fans among others) with his silver-tongued messages of change while Hillary tends to speak in ways that are, relatively speaking, more prosaic. Looking at the quote in context, the primary (or real) distinction Hillary is trying to make is between doing and talking: "Elect a doer (me); not a mere talker (Obama)." Thus Hillary's recontextualization of Cuomo's
Metaphor leaps from one contrast to three progressively more abstract ones:
Hilary Obama
Doer Talker
Governor Campaigner
Prose Poetry

This invites us to ask questions like: Are these contrasts analogous? Is Obama really more 'poetic' than Hillary? Is Clinton more of a doer than Obama? Etc.

But it also invites us to ask questions like:
"What is 'doing?' Is it always better than 'talking' (at least when 'governing?')
And what is governing?

Let's look at these three abstract pairings in turn.
1. Doing Vs. Talking

In the same speech, Clinton says "elect a doer, not a talker." This helps anchor what she means in her more 'poetic' or seemingly abstract statement. If indeed it is true that the job description of most politicians (even at their best), includes 'talking as doing' more than 'doing as talking' (the latter of which may be more relevant to football, between the goalposts, sex, or war), Hillary's attempt to contrast these two words itself becomes more metaphoric than literal. Since talking (whether to constituents, lobbyists, or other elected officials) makes up most of what an elected official does, Senator Clinton doesn't really mean to contrast 'doing' and 'talking' as much as imply that one style of talking is better than the other, at least if one is concerned with 'governing.' Thus, this distinction in itself is not sufficient for her argument, and she needs to let the associations proliferate so we may better understand her attempted contrast. But her use of the "doer vs. talker" distinction unwittingly (or perhaps wittingly) paints her as more of an establishment candidate in the process—for what was Bush's "Shock & Awe" but a refusal to talk to his (our?) enemy, Sadam Hussein? Obama has insisted on wanting to talk, to negotiate, with Iran in a way Bush refuses. In politics, if this is not doing, what is (aside from war?). If campaigning involves persuasion, why should we assume that a man who can persuade millions to vote for him (and not just trying to stack "Super Delegates" in the back rooms) would not be able to persuade Iran, or other countries that may be hostile to U.S. interests, through talking? Wars are called 'campaigns' sometimes, and on closer investigation Hillary's second distinction collapses like her first does.

2. Campaigning Vs. Governing
If this talking-kind-of-doing is mere campaigning rather than truly governing, it must be noted that most of our elected officials are campaigning at least as much as they're governing (there are too many examples of such to even say it's a 'conflict of interest' in any particular case). The distinction between governing and campaigning itself has blurred. Even the most rigorous empirical investigation of incumbents up for re-election the second they take office cannot draw a clear dividing line between the two. Congressperson A may take more money from lobbyists, or push for legislation that supports her corporate campaign financers while Candidate B may spend more time trying to push for more populist legislation, in an attempt to win more voters next time around, even if he can't afford as many network TV advertisements (or has to get 10, 000 people to contribute $25 rather than 25 people to contribute $10,000). But, surely, Hillary didn't intend to bring up the issue of campaign finance reform in her attempt to draw a thick line separating these two activities.

What she apparently did mean---"Barack's a good campaigner, but I am a better governor" (though strictly speaking, her experience has been as a representative not a governor)—implies that one must be a bad, or at least less passionate, campaigner to be a good governor, and that we should we wary of a good, poetic, campaigner, if we want a good (prose) government. History, however, shows that one can rarely, if ever, judge the book (the governance) by looking at the cover (the campaign promises), for better and worse. More specifically, Hillary's (speechwriter's) attempt to apply Cuomo's quote to her current campaign for President reduces and distorts the context in which Cuomo uttered it.

Cuomo was using the word "you" to refer to himself as a representative politician. In Cuomo's original formulation (for all its reductiveness), there's more of a symbiotic relationship between these two functions. You have (one has) to do both, campaign and govern, and therefore you have to be adept at poetry and prose, to be a successful politician. If you've ever read, seen, or heard an interview with Cuomo it's clear he, too, was one of the most eloquent statesman (with a silver tongue) in recent American politics (when an interviewer playfully accused him of being volatile, he quickly responded, 'no, mercurial!) And perhaps he ultimately decided not to run for President because he felt he was too much of a free-talker, and that Hillary is right, that politics-as-usual in Contemporary America is wary of such eloquence (it's a little too loose of the tongue, gives away too many secrets, etc). Yet Cuomo did not intend to say the two were incompatible with each other, and certainly not that a prose style or sensibility was preferable to a poetic style or sensibility, and Obama is more restrained as a talker than Cuomo was (at least so far).

To be fair, Clinton did not actually say "Others (Barack, etc) campaign in poetry, but I campaign (I almost wrote complain) in prose." But this implication is as strong in her quote as is the implication that "He who campaigns in poetry will necessarily govern in poetry, and you can't govern in poetry (unless, like Jesus, your 'kingdom is not of this earth'), so vote for she who campaigns in prose!"

3. Poetry vs. Prose

But what's to prevent someone who campaigns in prose from governing in poetry? (if one sees 'governing in poetry' as having more negative, pejorative, implications, one could say that is exactly what George Bush did, as the direct prose meaning of campaign phrases like "No Child Left Behind" are, by his actions, now invested with an ambiguity often associated with poetry as much as with Orwellian doublespeak). Even if we think that no one should "govern in poetry" (except for unacknowledged legislators) that doesn't mean one can't "Campaign in Poetry" and yet govern in prose. A politician, almost by definition, must speak, must act, different ways with different people (and that's no more hypocritical than any one acting differently around one's mother than one's daughter), or in different situations. And if Obama wants 'change' as much as he says he does, who are we to assume he couldn't change roles (and many have vouched for his strength as a no-nonsense straight-talking negotiator in his behind-the-scenes dealings on congressional committees).

Of course, if we take Hillary at her (Cuomo) words, the mere fact that she is campaigning (and, like Obama, spending more time and energy applying for another job than doing her current job of representing her state in the senate) means that she, too, uses poetry as much as Obama, just a different kind. The stylistic differences between these two senator/candidates becomes less of a distinction between poetry and prose and more of a distinction of aesthetic taste as ethical or moral predisposition, within poetry (like the difference between Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman, Sappho and Homer, Frank O'Hara and John Ashbery, or Pound and Eliot vs. calypso singers).

One blog commentator quipped, "Hasn't she ever heard of prose-poetry!" or for that matter poetic prose (or verse plays like Shakespeare's?)

Spatially, in Clinton's metaphor, poetry is bigger than campaigning, and prose is bigger than governing; "poetry" and "prose" are places, like "New Hampshire" or "Washington D.C." "Dialogue" might be pre-genre, a third candidate, like Kucinich or Edwards, or state with a really late primary, an excluded middle or heartland that falls through the cracks of Clinton's stark dichotomy. Neither genre can really claim exclusive rights to it ( prose more often claims dialogue, which may be why Clinton sides with prose here; though if governance means listening, and Shakespeare's "Hal" learned to drink with any tinker in his language, the "poetry of rock and roll," or beer commercials, then getting of rid of campaign poetry the second one governs may isolate one from a range of listeners).

(insert drawing here…)
The circles could be different sizes, and poetry precedes prose as campaigning precedes governing. No overlapping spatial relationship is posited between poetry and prose, but neither is one precluded. Yet the relationship is also teleological, as both are means to an end. Hillary seems to be joining he long tradition of critiques of poetry as too seductive, charismatic, unstable, verbal, merely decorative, lacking substance---a lie that should be banished from the republic of governance. Like those who say poetry 'makes nothing happen' in a pejorative sense, like the 'do nothing congress." Yet the assumptions about poetry in Hillary's quote, though disturbingly dismissive in a way, are also rather flattering, as she is acknowledging a power. If Obama is "campaigning in poetry," it is a wider sense of poetry (including inspiring public speeches that 'reach across the aisles' and memoirs) than most poets practice.

You Campaign in Prose, But You Govern In Poetry?

Whether or not Obama is better at poetry than Clinton (or whether what Obama is better at that Clinton can, or should be called, poetry), Hillary presents herself as afraid of it, of its potential popularity and how that could get in the way of what she calls good governance (getting things done, but for whom?). Lurking beneath this is the relationship between "poetry" and "advertising slogans" (for instance the 'poetry' of advertisements for HMOs that certainly 'govern' in cold-hearted bottom-line prose), which, like it or not, is a big part of American life (and for all the talk of Health Care Reform neither of these candidates has mentioned that they would do away with all the waste that is paid for by such advertisements). But, when I look at the contemporary American literary (and, more broadly, cultural) landscape, I see more people more often campaigning in prose than campaigning in poetry.
It seems that inverting Clinton's (Cuomo's) statement is at least as accurate a characterization. Most of us are running for something (even if it's just a job as resident), and not too many job applications want poetry or even prose; they want sound-bites. If one wants a job as a talker/listener today, one usually has to campaign in writing. If one wants a job as a band leader (governor), one has to have composed songs written charts or have some vision of bringing people together through 'covers.' Even many writers who are primarily considered 'poets' more often campaign in prose—from writing cover letters, grant applications, manifestoes, teaching job vitas, giving (semi-)public reading/performances that are more monotone than Obama's, or even Clinton's, in many cases.
Space forbids me here from getting into what it could mean to "Govern in Poetry." Many poets don't wish to 'govern' as Hillary seems to define it. Some find governance in the way a poem unlocks language energies to name the unnamable, or gives pithy words to a shared mass feeling. Many presidential one-liners, which were part of their governance while in office ("we have nothing to fear but fear itself," "read my lips…no new taxes," or "ask not what your country can do for you…"---to say nothing of The Gettysburg Address), may very well have effected the reality and can mobilize people, for good or bad, as much as a Vice President's stroke can have real consequences in the stock market (as we live in a 'simulacrum economy,' like an imaginary garden with real toads in it, as Marianne Moore once wrote).

The funny thing is that poetry is much less popular these days than prose is (even if Obama is more popular than Clinton is), and much less popular today than it was in 1959, 1969, or even during the Roosevelt Era when The New Criticism in the Academy often held prose up to high poetic standards. Today, even in the academy, commercial standards (like 'electability') have elevated literary prose and ghettoized poetry (although part of the problem here comes from within the communities that speak for poetry, as the idea of the 'public poet' is more often scorned as 'lite poetry,' this fear mirrors Clinton's and can become a chicken-egg question).

The bottom-line in publishing, as in the news (infotainment) industry, has made poetry harder to find in mass culture. This is not because of the "Dumbing down of America"---if such "dumbing down" exists, it's more likely the result of lack of means of cultural access granted poetry in its little (not necessarily 'academic') corner. But I'm not so worried about any 'dumbing down' (which implies elitist standards) as I am excited by the fact that a popular/populist Presidential candidate was accused of being too poetic by another candidate who is increasingly out of touch with an increasing desire for cultural change on the part of American voters.

If Obama represents "poetry" for Hillary, he may also represent poetry for his legions of inspired supporters. As a culture, we could do far worse. We've done far worse than that. A president is a symbol, not quite like the King's 2 bodies, but a synecdote for his administatration and, beyond that, a wider cultural shift that 'we the people' will continue to campaign for, even if (and as) he governs. If Obama is a phenomenon, it's because people who have even more progressive ideas than him feel that he at least can listen to them (as they felt similarly about RFK, JFK and FDR, who would not have been as progressive had not people pushed him that way).

If A Politician Campaigns In Poetry, Do Poets Campaign In Politics?

Maybe it's not about poetry at all. Sure, Bill gives Monica a copy of Leaves of Grass while governing and campaigning, and "Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow" is both a campaign and governance slogan. After all, many poets today would not want to acknowledge that campaigning is a part of poetry, that the poet or poem is not simply 'governing' but also pleading a case as it were. Hillary was just using a metaphor, with no real significance to poetry as a discipline. Of course, other countries have had poet-presidents or governors (Martinique, Nicaragua, etc) and we have "the poetry of Donald Rumsfeld" while George W. Bush may have been great as a "corrupter of words," like Feste the Clown in Twelfth Night, a noble office that doesn't, strictly speaking, govern. But Bush is not governing in such poetry, rather using (whether consciously or not) it to mask the prose doings of Cheney/Haliburton and such. It's the discrepancy between the words (campaigning, the way the policy is sold to citizens, the 'spin') and the actions (governance, as the words are used, in secret, to make the policy) that's the issue. Hillary's distinction between poetry and prose isn't very promising for those who would like to minimalize (if not entirely do away with) such oft unacknowledged discrepancies.

Ah, not all poetry is 'political'---nor need it be (though it depends to some extent on the way it's read). But there is a 'politics' to poetry, and some people who labor in the field called poetry believe that the main thing that distinguishes poetry from prose is that the former is attuned to the sensitivity of language or words so much that it must question any easy claim of 'transparency' or reference, whether in writing or speech, on the grounds that language is slippery, or truth is a mobile army of metaphors, etc. In the absence of rhyme and rhythm and other traditional structures and devices that clearly mark a piece of writing as poetry, in the 20th century a notion of poetry as purer to the extent it is less like prose in terms of meaning, argument, has become naturalized. This has certain advantages, in unlocking language energies and getting people to think; I'm still a sucker for "this is not a pipe," for instance, as a pedagogical tool). But as a result of such distrust in any claim of language's transparency, these writers, at their most extreme, claim to eschew what they call 'normative discourse' altogether, as if that itself is an adequate political gesture. It has the effect (whether intended or not) of a reduction of their involvement in the public sphere, or what could be called "the commons," for a privatization of their linguistic resources. If, by chance, Dick Cheney would walk up to them and say "Are you for me or a terrorist?," they might say "Pie Glue!" or "of of all/ but boat 7" (and it's probably not an accident that in the Reagan/Bush/Bush years such writers have achieved more success in the USA, despite their claims of oppositional poetics).

Transparency may be impossible, but in a culture presided over by an administration that unconstitutionally rejects any attempt at 'transparency' or disclosure, a President and Vice President who actively encourages a discrepancy between what he does and what he says (which branch of government aren't you a member of, Mr. Cheney?), such a notion of poetry seems to shuck responsibility as well as dreams. Yet this is not the kind of poetry Barack is campaigning in. Barack is campaigning in prose as much as poetry, in talk as much as writing, in listening as much as talking (oh, call it 'phallogocentric if you must.). Whether or not he'll govern in prose and poetry equally no one can tell yet, but what we can tell is that Hillary, like Bush (or many poets who are afraid to put many things into their poetry, such as 'normative discourse,' telling as well as showing their private lives or their political views with attempted clarity), has been very secretive and distrustful of the voters on the campaign trail (despite her 'poetic' use of her first name to claim more intimacy with the voters). Thus the main issue is the LINE she draws (both spatially and temporally), between poetry and prose, campaigning and governing, talking and doing. We learn a lot about Clinton from her use of this quote.

But if we accept Clinton's terms at least temporarily, Barack is therefore governing as he's campaigning, does-through-talking, and Clinton's seeming put-down is a left-handed compliment, that acknowledges that Obama's vision is wider, more inclusive and dialogic and that he has the potential for being more of a uniter than a divider. This is all evident through a 'close reading' (with a little deconstruction thrown in) of her sampling appropriation of Cuomo' words.

I can't say that Clinton's quote is a 'gaff' or that she's lying (the way Bush is for instance), or even mud slinging. I believe she believes something when she is saying them. I take her words very seriously (some would say too seriously). But the fact that Obama didn't start this by saying, "Clinton is mere prose, whereas I am poetry and can govern better" (unlike too many poets, in their politics, I know), helps make the choice clear between these two candidates, and also helps illuminate the necessity for poetry and prose to be in dialogue with each other. If we only had two choices (which we don't), I know which 'side' I'd be on.

12:47 AM - 3 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Ever Have The Dennis Kucinich Blues?
Category: Life

So, I was listening to Air America a few days ago, and the talk-show host, who by most accounts would be called very liberal or progressive, named Laura Flanders (she was substituting for Thom Hartmann) was criticizing a Dennis Kucinich supporter.

He called up to say that the corporate media is purposely pushing Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama in the democratic primary because they're the ones the republicans believe are most easily defeatable in the general election. It's clear the corporate mass-media has been trying to make it a two person race (does your myspace profile have that picture of Hillary with Barak slightly behind her, looking on with vice-presidential envy?)--

He also argued that the media has been purposely ignoring Kucinich (and, more recently, resorting to banning him from candidates debates) because they're more afraid of him than they are of Clinton and Obama (and even Edwards).

Ms. Laura Flanders listened to him, but then said, "Well, you can't have it both ways."--i.e. that we can't argue both those points because they're contradictory. She bases her argument on the assumption that "IF THE REPUBLICANS--and the corporate-owned media--really wanted to put forth a Democratic Candidate that they could easily defeat in the general election, that they would actually support Kucinich more than Clinton or Obama." She then went on to blame Kucinich for not having an effective organization--presumably a grass roots organization of people that support him, outside and beyond what having access to corporate money or the corporate media would allow.

While Kucinich certainly doesn't have the money the other candidates have, and certainly doesn't have the corporate access, the question arises: How, in contemporary America, can one even gain a grass-roots organization without some access to a national mass media? Ms. Flanders does not address this, but takes the easy way out and blames Kucinich for not being organized.

Here is where comparisons with Ron Paul often come up, as Ron Paul's relationship to the Republican Party establishment is relatively analogous to Kucinich's relationship to the Democratic Party establishment. Some people I know who are disaffected with the mainstream politics of both parties make the case that at least Ron Paul has galvinized a grass-roots movement. In fact, there's a pun on grass-roots, because part of the attraction of Ron Paul is his pro-legalization, or at least decriminilization of marijuana,
and while the "legalize it" movement is never quite as big as the Evangelical Huckabee movement, it certainly has a kind of sexiness to many, and has done a lot of footwork on behalf of Ron Paul.

But, to stay within the democratic party, Ms. Flander's argument represents what many call "conventional wisdom" within the democratic party, at least since the 1972 election and the defeat of George McGovern (in part because of Nixon's dirty tricks, but in part because many 'centrist' democrats went Republican in that election because they were upset that the party had been usurped by a populist rather than a corporatist). Of course, such conventional wisdom is what has led to a rather emaciated Democratic party as a true alternative to the Republicans in subsequent presidential elections. It's what gave us Mondale (lost); Dukakis (lost); Gore and Kerry (debatably won, but not by enough of a margin to truly win). It may have also given us Bill Clinton, but it's very likely he wouldn't have won without a divided Republican Party as Ross Perot won over 20% of the vote in 1992.

Many of these candidates (most recently Kerry), were pushed forward because they were more "electable." But who determines this "electability?"

Regardless of what happened in previous elections, I think it's pretty clear that after Hurricane Katrina and the 2006 elections, many mainstream Americans are more 'progressive' than the Democrats. Most commentators, whether 'left' or 'right,' believe that the Democrats got elected to congress in 2006 to 1) stop the war 2) check Bush's corruption and 3) restore the American economy that has been progressively destroyed in the past 7 years. Thus, congress gets consistently low ratings for caving in to George Bush by continuing funding the war, sanctioning torture and wiretapping, and not moving forward with impeachment. Yet, for whatever reasons, the Democrats in congress fail to act on their lower ratings, holding out the hope that getting a democrat in the white-house in 2008 will fix things, and a Mondale democrat at that.

The last debate in Nevada (from which Kucinich was excluded by the corporate-judicial complex at the last second) hurt all the democrat candidates; even John Edwards seemed to be part of the same "Truman Show" of "Democracy" that Clinton and Obama have become part of. Once again, I see many progressives giving up on Kucinich or any other progressive candidates, because of IOWA and NEW HAMPSHIRE and the Media's decision to make it a 2 person (or, begrudgingly, a three person) race. Edwards may be a little more progressive than Clinton or Obama, and since he's allegedly more 'viable,' some Kucinich supporters are going with him, as if it's throwing away one's vote to vote for Kucinich. But in the last Kucinich-less debate, Edwards came off as too similar to Obama and Clinton (in part because of the absence of Kucinich). It made it clear to me; vote for Kucinich. Even if he doesn't get the nomination, at least he might get some progressive delegates and have bargaining power at the convention.

If Clinton, Obama and Edwards are now all talking more progressive than their record is, it might just be campaigning and, once elected, it will be the same old, same old democratic politics of appeasement of corporate power. But it's still possible that they might be at least a little more responsive, as President, to the popular populist concerns than the current regime. But they must be pushed forward---so, if your CONSCIENCE tells you that you AGREE with Dennis Kucinich (assuming you've even been allowed to even HEAR of him), then it may very well be your moral obligation to vote for him, still. It won't HURT anything; it won't hurt the "electability" of the eventual nominee, even if you believe that a democratic has to be more like a Republican to defeat a Republican, as apparently Laura Flanders does, but this is a very suspect 'wisdom' as recent history attests.

7:40 PM - 3 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

Variations On A Line By Hillary Clinton
Category: Life

Variations on a Line By Hillary Clinton:
"You campaign in poetry, govern in prose"

(scene: The White House. Enter President, doodling on Exxon Stationary,
after a Hard Day's Night of trying to govern in prose, and an evening
of petitioning the Lord with Prayer)

You campaign in cloth, and govern in new clothes.
You campaign in purrs, and govern in growls
(no, furs! No, owls!)
You campaign in rock n roll, and govern in B-movies
You campaign in dogs, govern in fleas
You Campaign in Viagra, but Govern in Prozac
You campaign in churches, but govern in bars
You campaign in champagne and govern in hangover
You campaign in the confessional and govern in pope
You campaign in trying it once, and govern in not inhaling
You campaign in cooking, and govern by eating what someone else cooked
You campaign in trains, but govern in SUVS
You campaign in egg, but govern in chicken
You campaign in college, and govern in student loan debt
You campaign in tears, and govern in rehab
(you write a poem about a campaign, but prose about a governor)

You campaign in carbon, and govern in dioxide
You campaign in farm, and govern in bank
You campaign in life, and govern in art
You campaign in loud sex, and govern with silent snuggle
You campaign in comedy, and govern in tragedy
You campaign in history, and govern in farce
You campaign in the morning and night, and govern in noon
You campaign in coffee, but govern in clouds
You campaign in the TV, but govern in the psychiatrist's couch
You campaign in a public pool, but govern in a private ocean
You campaign in shared subjectivity, but govern in 'objectivity'
You campaign in Nasscar, you govern in a wheelchair
You campaign in marriage, govern in an open relationship
You campaign in design industry, and Govern as a boxer
You campaign in a Habitat for Humanity, and Govern in Haliburton HMO
You campaign in standing your ground, and govern in flip-flopping
You campaign as flexible, and govern as a wolf flow!
(you campaign in a governor, and govern in a campaigner)

You campaign in reason, and govern in love
You campaign in truth, and govern in non-fiction
You campaign in responsibilities, and govern in dreams
You campaign in peace, and govern in war
You campaign in war, and govern in war
(I may hate myself in the prose of morning
but I'm gonna love you in the poetry of tonight)…


"Quick, Alberto, erase this…."
1/7/08

This can go on and on, feel free to add your lines
(and scratch as many of these out as you wish)
until we get the best possible ones

(we can vote on it…..

7:54 PM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Ode To Billy Joe: A Good Song To Wake Up To on 12/25
Category: Music

Thank you to the college radio DJ who played Bobby Gentry's "Ode To Billy Joe" early on December 25th. It reminded me why college radio can still be a beautiful thing. So, I felt I wasn't only listening to the great song, but a great DJ. It wasn't just a Scrooge gesture of "Happy humbug" nor a succumbing to December suicide. It's a haunting song to be sure, especially when it builds to its understated climax:
"He said he saw a girl who looks a lot like you up on Choctaw Ridge,
and she and Billie Joe were throwing something off the Tallahachie Bridge."
So, it's not just a song about his suicide, but potentially about her complicity
in his suicide (if anyone can be said to be complicit in another's decision to kill themselves, like some blame Dave Eggers' for his sister's suicide),
or more importantly, the speaker's own sense of guilt, or at least horror, or blah blah
"post-traumatic"--loss of appetite, picking flowers and throwing them into the muddy waters. Not quite an Ophelia-like madness.
After all, the song is propelled by "the strength of strings," a forceful funky understated rhythm, and the speaker of the song seems to have the same wry-detachment to her
own situation and feelings that the small-talk moralists have about everything in their dinner-table gossip. It's too easy to say the song is a portrait of "what's wrong with" small town southern U.S.A culture. For me, the song survives more than the "summer of love" or Sgt. Pepper San Fran hippie stuff, even if oldie stations don't play it as much as they play, say, "Groovin" or "Windy."---to name but two other number one hits of the same year. This song is as much "Americana" as the Basement Tapes from the same year (and Dylan was inspired by it enough to try his hand at a similar mode with "Clothes Line Saga"), and surely still has its fans. But I don't necessarily detect an urge by the speaker to "get out of the small town" in this song---while there's definitely a sense that something is wrong with the people in this song for mixing up the trivial with the deeply profound, part of the song's power is it doesn't offer any simple answers of escape or moralize that other people (like big city slickers or 'drop-outs') would be more humane in dealing with these things, and that Billy Joe would still be alive if the people around him weren't so unfeeling. It may suggest that possibility, but only among many other things. Someone did write a book, and make a movie, with this same title years later, which certainly says something about the song's power, but the movie, in my opinion, takes more away from the song than it gives it. Feel free to argue with that if you want, or feel even freer to make your own movie based on the song, or your own song as good as it (Dylan tried, and even though he'd probably be the first to admit that "Clothes Line Saga" is not as powerful as "Ode To Billy Joe," he nonetheless got a pretty cool song out of it).

2:54 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

The Fugs’ CIA-Man and Valerie Plame
Category: Music

Listening to talk radio on this "native American" summer day (because AM musical radio is slim pickings--not that FM is much better--coz I can't get KPOO on my walkman), I heard an interview with Valerie Plame...and it got me thinking, again, to what lengths The Bush administration has gone....So I took a deep breath, and tried to find some humor, or at least wit in it.

The CIA has for so long represented the most repressive wing of anti-democratic governmental covert activity, in music. Just a few examples off the top of my head--James Booker, War's "Why Can't We Be Friends?", Ginsberg's "CIA Dope Calypso," and of course The Fugs' "CIA Man" (this is just scratching the surface), all from the 1960s and 1970s when politically charged music (with what I'll call "progressive" ideas) was more accessible on the radio.

However, Bush as unwittingly done what even Nixon or Reagan failed to do, make many people in America who generally would be skeptical, wary, or even paranoid about the role of the CIA in American foreign and domestic policy, actually SYMPATHETIC to Plame and the covert operations she was trying to implement when she was "outed" by Bush, etc. It's one thing (and a valuable lesson the left has learned) for people to come around to "support our troops," but a CIA operative has generally been less sympathetic than a soldier (even during the height of the Vietnam students spitting on soldiers). She's become a hero and a rallying cry for many as much as the mother of the ex-Arizona Cardinal killed, allegedly, by "friendly fire," in Afghanistan.

Such a turn would have seemed nearly inconceivable only 8 years ago (and, yes, Clinton himself was no FDR)--but even though the war-time media brownout of any story, however factual, that may seem to go against Bush's twisted notions of 'national interest," (and I don't mean "war for oil"---it's far worse than that), has caused scant attention to Plame's case, as well countless other stories of governmental public servants who only agreed with 95% of what Bush supported, is it possible one can be optimistic that a new (however desperate) populism is sweeping the country?

If, indeed, Katrina (Hurricane Amerikkka), woke a lot of people up to Bush's ruse (and/or ignorance)---as Laura outdoes Marie Antoinette's "cake" statement--as the national polls suggest, what are the significance of these polls? Should we trust the numbers in these polls (which are often conducted by media-conglomerates owned by the few corporations who benefit economically from the war, occupation, etc), just because they confirm one's anti-Bush feelings? Why would the press publish these polls that consistently rate Bush's approval rating at 20-25% when they are less likely to boradcast the many factual reports that go against George Bush? Is it posible these polls are the last smidgeon of "free-media" left in the United States?

Or do these polls come with their own spin? "Well, Bush is 20-25% popular, but the democratically-elected congress is only at 11%, therefore people are still more likely to support Bush than his most visible opposition?" (Or, alleged opposition). I suppose that spin could be valid, but I still maintain that the reason why Congress's approval rating is even lower than Bush's (that is, if these polls can be seen as reliable), is because it's clear that at least 75% of the American citizens are against the war---a war that has become synonymous with George Bush, and his domestic policies as well--and thus are even more disappointed with a congress elected to stop, or at least slow it down. The Democrats are more likely to seem as hypocrites to some than even Bush did, because they continue to say they're against the war and continue to appropriate more power to Bush (granted, congress is only marginally "Democrat" at present).

It amazes me that Howard Dean, or Nancy Pelosi, or Harry Reid doesn't see these polls, or they assume that people can wait until 2008, and this won't hurt their chances of widening their majority in both houses, as well as gaining the Presidency. But it's not a done deal that this will happen. In fact, with each caving into Bush's authoritarianism, the Democrats may do harm to their electoral chances in 2008. But the bigger point is this (and there's ample hisotircal precedent for this, I fear), that even if the Democrats do gain more control in 2008, and the progressive, non "blue-dog" wing at that, that the added damage since the 2006 election, in terms of deaths of American soldiers, deaths to innocent Iraqis, etc, the economic drain (even Harry Reid had to admit we're taking out huge loans from Israel, Saudi Arabia, China, Japan, etc, to pay for this war which is causing Exxon/Mobil, Haliburton, Blackwater to make record profits) that the Democrats now share more responsibility for, will leave the Democrats with even more of a mess, both domestically as well as internationally, to attempt to clean up.

It's hard not to think of what happened to Jimmy Carter, how he got blamed for the faltering economy during the late 1970s, which was caused, in large part, by Nixon's policies--Vietnam most notably--and how this lead to Reagan only 4 years later. It's quite possible Republican strategists in think tanks are already envisioning and planning for, this scenario (they're willing to sacrifice 2008, because in the long term it could allow them more power).

But in the meantime, I want to try to not sound all "doom and gloom" about it, and just think about how this particular case of Valerie Plame may be useful for those who tend to distrust "Big government" as the problem, when it's clear that "government" is more like a wish-bone, and one side is being tugged at by the "big boss men" or corporatists, and the other side is being pulled by the rest of us, whether we're black or white, city or country, white collar or blue collar, etc (it's not about "democrat" or "republican"--the corporatists are as anti-republic as they are anti-democracy). Right now the big boss men are winning, and even if we can yank the government more to our side, they still may be winning (in terms of money and control of the media, etc),
but at least that wishbone struggle may make the headlines....
Or at least it may make the radio again, in new songs, and we won't just have to play old songs about CIA-men, or hear them, when people want, in LOUIS JORDAN'S terms, to mix a little politics with their love of entertainment.

Currently listening : The Best of Louis Jordan By Louis Jordan Release date: 26 July, 1989

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November Writing Workshop
Category: Writing and Poetry

WRITING WORKSHOP

A DIFFERENT KIND OF WRITING WORKSHOP with poet, essayist, & musician Chris Stroffolino in a fun, nurturing, non-accredited setting
Eight (8) Three-Hour Sessions; ONGOING. 1st session begins EARLY NOVEMBER (through EARLY JANUARY). Dates & times to de be determined depending on the needs of the class (We will do our best to accommodate people's schedules—most likely an weeknight). The workshop will culminate in a public reading /performance/talk@ the 2519 San Pablo Avenue Gallery Space in Oakland
Class Size: minimum of 7, maximum of 10.
Cost: $200: Check, money-order or cash are all acceptable.
Class Description: Do you have something to say, but don't quite know what is the best way to communicate it? Do you need to write for the sake of self-knowledge or catharsis, but aren't sure if you want to make it public? Did a friend, teacher or other professional writer call your writing a 'mere journal entry?' or a 'song lyric?' Did they say your poetry rhymed too much, or maybe not enough? Did they say your prose was too poetic, or had too many ideas and not enough characters? Are you frustrated that the writing they often claim is 'better' than yours doesn't really speak to you? Do you believe your writing may very well be able to better the lives of others? Do you believe in magic? Do Ya?
If you've answered yes to any of these questions (or even if you think they're silly), this is the workshop for you. Taking each student's writing and/or performance pieces as its starting point, this workshop encourages students working in varying different 'genres'. Students may work within one genre throughout the entire course, but will be encouraged to explore a range of stylistic options including poems, manifestoes, creative non-fiction, dialogue pieces, songlyrics, poem-paintings, texts that redefine or de-define genre, 'hybrid texts' or 'non-poetry.' Students will offer critiques of each other's work to create a dialogue within a 'unity in diversity' approach. By the end of the class, students can expect a deeper understanding into the creative process as well as the business of publishing or other ways of making their work public. Note: This class is intended for all levels.
Chris Stroffolino is the author of seven books of poetry, including Speculative Primitive (2004), Scratch Vocals (2003), Stealer's Wheel (1999), Light As A Fetter (1997), Cusps (1995) and Oops (1994). He also published two books of literary criticism, Spin Cycle (2001), and, with David Rosenthal, a book length study of Shakespeare's 12th Night (2000). Since 2001, he's been singer/songwriter for Continuous Peasant, and has also performed and recorded with The Silver Jews, Jolie Holland, Greg Ashley, Brian Glaze, and Rising Shotgun. His music and cultural criticism has appeared in The Bigtakeover, Kitchen Sink, Big Bridge. He was a recipient of a 2001 New York Foundation for the Arts grant before moving to Oakland where he was Visiting Distinguished Poet at St. Mary's College from 2001-2006. He has also taught at San Francisco Art Institute, Mills College, Rutgers University, NYU, LIU, Temple, Drexel among others. His poetry has been widely anthologized, and translated into Spanish, Bengali, Hungarian, and Dutch. He also has edited literary journals and curated several reading/talk series.

To Register, contact Chris Stroffolino at chris.stroffolino@gmail.com or 415-260-7535. Spaces are limited. No more than 10 students will be accepted per class. Interested students should submit a short 3-5 page sample (or 2 MP3 if working in primarily an audio format).

This class is intended primarily for Bay Area residents, but if there's enough interest, a 'virtual' computer-based class can be arranged as well.

Currently reading : Biography - Stroffolino, Chris (1963-): An article from: Contemporary Authors Online By Gale Reference Team Release date: 13 June, 2007

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Oakland Graffiti
Category: Art and Photography

Seen at the Lake Merritt bathroom, "Bring Ugly Back!"

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Hygienic Rat at Flashpoint Gallery
Category: Music

A few weeks ago, I was buried in the surprsingly warm earth of Chrissy Field near Golden Gate Park as part of an art-installation project engineered by Karl Krause. The art that results from this burial will be shown at The Flashpoint Gallery in Washington DC during the month of August (opening show August 4th. I was asked to do some kind of artist activity that would commemorate the event, so I wrote a song called "Hygienic Rat," and recorded it quickly in one-day for free with the help of fellow musician (who actually has technological recording skills unlike me) Matt Montgomery. Matt helped out by playing saxophone (we're still debating over whether it sounds like The Stooges' Steve Mackay or Roxy Music's ANDY MACKAY or maybe "if Coltrane played Motown"). Tom Kyrminis of Damon and The Heathens (and ex-Charles Wright and the 103rd St. Watts band) stopped by and played a little saxophone. Here's the results
http://earthonstone.org/stroffolino.htm

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Art 4 A Democratic Society Manifesto
Category: Pets and Animals

Art For A Democratic Society Manifesto FOR JULY 6, 2007

Let manifestos begin awkwardly, vulnerably!
(especially if the author may feel more comfortable with other verbal forms
like questionaires, and is kind of afraid of coming off too demanding…)

We demand a wider definition of art than purism, and a deeper definition of democracy!
(ART in which the social public aspects of creation arer considered art no less,
and no more, than the solitary aspects,
ART that accepts and encourages beautiful graffiti no less than LUKE RILEY'S amazing work opening at ESTEBAN SABAR GALLERY JULY 6, 2007!
ART that has an ON-again ON-again relationship with the larger-than-life mystique of the "fourth wall! Performance art as street theatre, and the spoken-word as commodity!
ART that helps de-alienate specialization, and that gives youth hope for success through sacrifice!)

We demand an end to OAKLANDISH BLARING PIPED-IN MUSIC at these ART MURMURS (why do we come here, as consumers and producers, is not for a need for
Something HERE AND NOW?)
We demand an end to the EMERYVILIFICATION of Oakland!
We demand something sustainable to stand between the frying pan and the fire,
Something between the EXPENSIVE AND DRAB luxury Condos and the SQUALOR of the Ghetto,
JUST AS we demand a return to a "middle class of artists" who are neither "Mega-stars" nor mere Hobbyists, who can pay their rent from their art!
We demand more art centers, and less expensive licenses to play legally on the streets.
We demand the right for musicians that aren't just marching bands to play at the
LAKE MERRITT GAZEBO
We demand more cafes in which an aartist who can't afford a studio can paint in a corner or even on the center of the stage…
We demand a politician to run on the PRACTICAL SIESTA ticket!
We demand a musical art party that's also a debate about INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LAWS!

We demand an art as a site, a place, for a kind of marriage between introverts and extroverts, "practically minded" and "visionaries" as equals
We demand an art that doesn't succumb to a defensive snob-posturing that scares away business-men and woman and other social organizer-types!
We demand a new WPA, a new FDR, at least on a local level!
We demand more paid commissions, more opportunities, more of a realization on the part of the BUSINESS COMMUNITY that the needs of a visual, conceptual, musical, or talking artist, are frankly modest and that we're a source of cheaper labor than the canned MUZAK or synthetic "art" that often is found at WALGREENS, STARBUCKS
(& other CHAINS), and that even though the managers of these stores don't have control over what gets played, WE DEMAND THAT THIS CHANGE (and it can, ya know)


We demand an alliance of small businessmen/Musicians/Artists/Stand-up Comedians/Sex-workers/Fashion Designers/Activists Toward A Creation of a PEOPLE'S NEWSPAPER (and a radio Station like San Francisco's KPOO)
We demand more attempts at integration between various ethnic, and semi-ethnic based, communities through art (even if we don't like each other's art!)
We demand that BOOTS RILEY be OFFERED a job as cultural ambassador for this city
We demand an end to "Alternative Culture" being (mis)understood primarily as "Youth Culture" or even "Alternative Culture"
We demand the grace to live as variously as possible against the over-specialization of culture, and loss of the commons to the impersonal corporation that makes most citizens feel like 3/5 of a person!

We demand an alternative to "get rich quick" scams like Credit Cards & Colleges
We demand more community radio stations (whether commercial or listener supported) that actually play new & local artists
We demand the YMCA to allow people to put posters up advertising shows
We demand more piano bars like The Alley, but one in which a Folk-Punk Piano player like Chris Stroffolino could lead the singalongs of largely post '63 rock/pop!
(dear entrepreneurs, you can make money off my labor I swear!)

Death to all musicians who believe you have to tour nationally to make an impact locally!
Death to all those who believe if they tame down their art it might sell!
Death to all who scorn "folk art" (even WHEN they put it in the museums; this means nothing unless high art can be on the streets too).
We demand an end to this madness that is taken as normal (even by many who pride themselves on being more open-minded, free thinking and conscientious than the Average American as they ceremoniously pass a law saying they're against the war for oil, but nonetheless still clog the streets with SUVS and don't even try to make it so BART runs until 2:30 to the detriment of EAST BAY Night Life!)
We, The Undersigned, Pledge to Stay in Oakland to make it a better place (and not just move to NYC with the promise of "making it")
Politicians, adopt an artist! Artists, adopt a politician!
We demand an alternative to the market emphasis on efficiency and "signature styles"
We demand humility and humor on the part of ourselves that sounds too demanding!
AND WE DEMAND that WE WHO DEMAND shut up now and take a sip of WATER
(and preferably TAP WATER not BOTTLED) or at least DANCE in SUBLIME
"USEFUL USELESSNESS" (or is it "USELESS USEFULNESS!")

(if any of this sounds attractive to you, and even if some if it DOESN'T, feel free
to contact our BURGEONING COLLECTIVE at Chris@Continuouspeasant.com
(or call 415-260-7535).

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