Body text, emergency message, & postscript rap

Yet another page from my book of 300 Drawing Prompts. (I shared the previous page just yesterday.) Today's prompt was "Football".

Hi-ho, dear derry-o!

I wanna become a poet. Is there a class that I can take which will teach me how to become a poet?

What if I want to win a poetry award: is there a path to follow which will lead me there? So that, at the end of my rainbow, I will find a shiny trophy with an inscription...

*

I stop mid-thot here becuz I realize that an yuge reason I'm writing now is that I'm fired up from an essay by my distinguished colleague M.P. Powers, in which he explains that one of his poems got nominated for the Pushcart Award, and, although he welcomes the appreciation, he knows that the whole thing's a bootless game after all. I agree with him, yet I'm pissed that he can't just get rewarded for the poetry that he writes. So this blob of text that I'm accumulating here is loosely a reaction to the ideas that Powers brings up in his entry. In other words, I liked so much what he wrote that I gasped & said: "Ooh I wanna opine on that stuff myself!" — In conclusion, I don't know how the whole Pushcart thing works, but, in case it's a democratic process, then please vote for my friend.

OK, now back to my harebrained tirade:

*

I wanna become a poet and win a poetry award. Is there a trick that will help me attain this doom?

What should my award be for: best poem? or best poetry collection? Maybe best first chapbook. It's good to set realistic goals; they're like rungs on a ladder: you step from one to the next, until you reach the top. And the top is heaven, where the angels go up and down. Or else the top is your house's fascia, just below the roof, where you hang the Xmas lights. That's why it's important to keep each rung, each life-goal, manageable; which means: spaced at a distance from its neighboring rungs that is not greater than the width of your stride. I myself prefer tiny increments, not giant leaps. But if you yourself can perform a small step, which itself serves as a giant leap for mankind, like when an astronaut exits a space-pod and walks on Mercury, that is fine: I like that type of leap. The trick is to keep it easy, so that the fame and praise that comes to oneself is far greater than the amount of energy that one expended earning it.

Is it good for people to win awards? Why not? I say it is good. I like to see people win awards. Even if the award is only for mowing the grass, I'm happy for the winner. "Bob, I see you won a trophy for 'Best Mowing of a Lawn on 17 FEB 2019'; congrats!" I say.

Is there ever a time when one should refrain from enthusiastically congratulating an award recipient? Like if our friend Schopenhauer pushes his landlady down the stairs and then gets an award for doing this; then we pat him on the back: we probably shouldn't have done that. Let us not get too cozy with war criminals.

But what if one must suck up to the award committee, in order to win; Is this immoral? or is it just gross? Cuz if it's gross, I'll suck up to the committee. Cuz I really want that award. But if, say, our other good friend Nietzsche esteems it undistinguished to go to bed with the judges of the poetry contest, then I'll button up my blouse and think a little harder about what my ultimate scam should be.

What if you and I both own our own newspaper, and each paper has its own poetry section where reviewers are paid to review the latest volumes of poetry. Should I pay my reviewer to give a favorable review to YOUR chapbook, if you'll do the same for MINE? (For you and I both published our first poetry chapbooks this year.) Or should we both pan each other's books? Here's what eventually happens:

I tell my own newspaper's poetry critic to give a favorable review to your chapbook but go ahead and pan my own (to "pan" means to give a less-than-favorable review) just to be gentlemanly. Meanwhile, your newspaper does the same (favorably reviews your book while panning mine). So what we have here are two periodicals, mine and yours, and each fed MY work to the dogs while placing YOURS on a pedestal. That's the way the cookie bounces.

What about merit? Does merit mean anything today? Did it ever? How does one measure merit? Can you dip a chemically treated strip of paper into a swamp and get a reading, and mark a number on a chart, and wear a clean smock while doing so; or will your smock get soiled in the process? Maybe merit is the thickness of the green stripe at the hem of one's smock, which increases the farther one wades into the algae-infested waters. And the waters are deep: so deep that one must drown. Therefore if you buy a pea-green smock, the Federal Science Gang might assume that you returned from the depths after netting THE TRUTH.

Is it good or bad to be sloppy? I think a sloppy house-frame is a bad thing. But a sloppy kiss is a good thing. Most nice dogs give sloppy kisses. But what about poetry: can a good poem possess the virtue of sloppiness? The answer is maybe.

And what does it mean to be an amateur? If you say "I am an ameteur poet", and your boss at work says "I am a professional poet", what is the difference? Can one tell an amateur poem from a certified pro poem, without formal training? Or must one become a pro poet first, in order to decipher the subtleties between the...

I think that former U.S. president Obama believes that we live in a meritocracy. And I think that he thinks that that means that those who possess merit naturally rise to the top of the system. But just look at the folks at the top of the system: Would you call the trait that they possess in common merit? Oh, you would? Well then we live in a meritocracy.

But how does one judge merit in the world of creative writing? Excellence, goodness, caliber, worth, credit, eminence, virtue, account, deservingness. Maybe it’s just my personal hangup, but I always think of poetry as a realm that blessedly ESCAPES these types of judgment. Or I should put it this way:

Unlike the marketplace, the world of commerce, which labels everything with a fixed value, and hones this price clearly and exactly, and mercilessly demands that everyone abide by the same valuations, and counters with violence any attempt at trans-valuation, poetry allows each reader herself to decide a work’s merit; it’s that simple. So if a poem cannot persuade you of its worth, then you can say that it’s worthless. And your neighbor might disagree; and that’s OK. Anyone can change her mind at any time. Everyone’s welcome, and no laws are enforced. The only drawback of this soft sidestepping of the question of merit is that one might discover that one’s taste does not match others. It’s hard to be strange. (It’s lonely at the top.)

And when people complain that there should be no editors in art, no curators who get to decide what this or that museum or gallery or magazine or textbook should display; and when people say that there should be no critics of poetry or of art, because every individual should decide art’s worth for herself (just as I myself wrote above), to these opinions, I say: I strongly disagree. Instead of banning the positions of editor, curator, critic (etc.); I say that more individuals should participate in such functions; the problem is when only a handful of “culture judges” dare to adorn our existence. The more the merrier: and when there’s a massive populace participating in the creation as well as the curation of works of art, then one or two “judges” might naturally float to the top, because their judgment persuades many individuals; and in that case it’ll be a good thing that these few names stand out as trustworthy, because they will have EARNED their trust; and, more importantly, they’ll be expected to continue earning their trust with each new judgment. So I’m only objecting to the artificial narrowing of the judge-field, by, say, money. Like when two billionaires own all the news networks.

So how does a mere person become a poet? Simply write a poem. Now how does one gain a reputation as a toprate poet? Simply find some persuasive intellectual to praise your poem as toprate. If you can’t shame any respectable member of the species to publish such an opinion voluntarily, you might buy them a gift: figure out what type of automobile they like. Send them tickets for a trip on a cruise ship. Or, say you find out that they really love carrot cake: then you could make them a carrot cake. You can even buy a pre-made cake at the grocery store; I’ve tried them, they’re edible.

But now say your goal is not poethood but editorship. How do you develop your rep as an editor? Well you could use the same tactics that I just articulated to lure poets into your publication. Just make sure that when you put out the bait, it’s actually a poet whose work you really believe in who falls in your trap. Otherwise you end up with a bunch of poets whose work you don’t even like, and you may eventually be forced to pretend that you did sort of want to publish their gems in your e-zine. Then when you win an award for “Best Judgment in Matters of Poetry”, you’ll have to raise your right hand and feign that you truly did choose all your contributing artists yourself. And it’s harder than you’d think, to lie about stuff like this. You might betray yourself with what poker players call a “tell” – for instance, you’ll maybe cough loudly and clear your throat just before you utter each untrue statement: “I, Rita Ray, the editor of Thief River Falls Bi-weekly Poetry Review, do sincerely AHEM cough cough AHEM sincerely like the writings of my son Bryan Ray.”

Do people know when they’re making a fool of themselves? I say no, they don’t. Cuz I always presume, when I give artistic performances in public, that I’m making a fool of myself; but then, when the act ends and I ask the bystanders for feedback, they always say “Oh (cough, cough) you were wonderful.” Whereas when I myself observe anyone else’s performance as a paying spectator, I usually remark under my breath, “They’re TOTALLY making a fool of themselves”; & then, when they come down from the stage, I say “Wow you suckt”; but they reply “No, I thought I was gr-r-reat!” And the surrounding crowd always cheers and agrees that this routine that I just panned was awesome. That’s why nowadays I just carry a stack of fifty dollar bills and pay people to boo.

And I believe that any expert of any regular profession, like a bridge builder or a tail doctor or hod carrier, would not be able to shift their career to POET – at least not very easily: it would take a lot of work, a lot of soul-searching; they’d have to get in touch with their inner child, who’s been off hiding who-knows-where for however-many-years. But, on the other hand, a POET could easily take over any job in the world, instantaneously & with very little effort: setting aside his pen and paper, any poet could build the best bridge, doctor the finest tail, or carry hod like a fishmonger; because poetry contains all the other disciplines inside itself, just like light harbors the entire rainbow of colors (even the ones outside of the visible spectrum, beyond: ultraviolet and infrared; plus radio signals, X-rays, and all the spiritual media). Yet, having said that, I want to emphasize that I’d enjoy reading any poetry written by butchers, bakers, or candlestick makers. I would do my best to persuade the masses to love their own creative compositions; even while paying hoards of trolls to leave hateful comments on my competitors’ performance-art videos.

You’ve heard that saying “It takes one to know one.” And doubtless you’ve been told that this means that only artists can criticize other artists. Like, imagine two film critics: a plum one and a carrot-shaped one. The plum critic has become a critic only after making a couple movies himself; whereas the carrot-shaped critic simply dropped out of journalism school and decided to toss his opinion around in whatever nearest newspaper would take him. My warning to this blog post’s congregation is: Do not assume that the plum critic will be more trustworthy than the one who is carrot-shaped, just because the former has experience doing the style of craft that they’re judging. All that matters is persuasion; and sometimes a non-artist will have a more persuasive take precisely because, as an “outsider”, his view his clearer; his mind is cant-free.

Also remember that it is impossible for any living human to avoid being an artist, for humankind is inherently artistic: we are artworks within artworks: self-created artists of ourselves; thus the artistic act is compulsive, unavoidable: we’re like an infinite army of mirror-king Midases. For art is nothing more than framing, and we cannot help ourselves from continually framing everything: every natural stimulus that we receive was even pre-framed by our sense organs. The periscope border of your vision is an inescapable frame: your eyeballs produce an ever-changing painting, or motion picture; even when you’re asleep, it’s just a long section of murky abstraction that you intermittently gain and lose interest in. That’s why they also say “Every man is a poet each night when she dreams.” So there’s no such thing as a person who’s not an artist. Each one is only more or less aware of this fact, and each flaunts it accordingly; and even this flaunting and this cognizance is inseparable from art, as well as an aspect of persuasion.

And some people are against the mediocre, the plain, the boring, the dull, the lukewarm. That’s OK. It’s permissible to be against these things in art (as the Imagination’s democratically elected Brutal Dictator, I hereby allow it); but I myself adore the commonplace, the nondescript, the everyday humdrum non-events. All the leaves of grass that land in the wake of the reaper. My stance is to give the best reviews to all the plain boring dull mediocre lukewarm poems in my mom’s neo-dada mag. I hope myself to swell their number.

OK, but what about this thing that poets do, where they attribute human traits and feelings to non-human things, like flowers or trees or wind or what-you-will? This feature that John Ruskin discerned in the poetry of Wordsworth & called “the pathetic fallacy”? Blake starts out one of the sections of his Marriage of Heaven and Hell like so:

The ancient Poets animated all sensible objects with Gods or Geniuses, calling them by the names & adorning them with the properties of woods, rivers, mountains, lakes, cities, nations, and whatever their enlarged & numerous senses could perceive.

And particularly they studied the genius of each city and country, placing it under its mental deity.

Blake’s point, if you read the rest of the passage, is to note how the priests of the organized religions took advantage of low-minded folk by abstracting these genii & deities from their poetic contexts; but I copied this excerpt because I see it as being related to Ruskin’s idea. My only point right now is to ask: Is it good to do so? Is it good to forge a relationship with non-human things? And my answer is: OF COURSE!!! We should all try to find the commonality between what we call “alive” and what we call “nonliving”. I suppose that, the closer one looks, all the stuff that we hastily tossed in that latter dead-bin will slowly get transferred into the former. (A double-take will prove that all death is alive. So-called non-life just lives subtler, until it succeeds in re-attaining vulgarity.) “However,” says the voice of a heckler, “is it TRUE to do so; I mean, to produce talking flowers and whatnot?” Here we can repeat one of our favorite Hell Proverbs from William Blake:

Every thing possible to be believd is an image of truth.

Yet what about confusion? What about big disordered shambles of untidy notions, words, fragments… all slapped together & rolled up into a poem, like a gumbo or hotdish: Is this type of composition acceptable? Is it welcome? Is it GOOD?

My answer is yes, yes, yes: all baggy monsters are good. They are acceptable in my eyes. I welcome them into my father’s kingdom.

Just kidding; this ain’t a kingdom, it’s a direct democracy (what haters call “mob rule”); and that’s not pops, it’s a blow-up of Blake’s Nobodaddy. But, seriously, you’re all welcome here. Our national anthem is jazz.

ALERT
Incoming text message

My portable communication device gets so little traffic that when an instant text does manage to crash my Bastille, the little “ding-dong” doorbell noise that signifies this phenomenon scares the living hell out of me. So my phone just chimed when I wrote the above word “jazz”, and lo, it was a message from my sister. I like to dissuade people from whispering at me, which is why I always trumpet all private exchanges here on my public blog verbatim. So my sister said:

Hey Bryan! I’m sorry it’s been so long since we’ve talked. I’ve been thinking of you and I hope you’re doing well!

& I responded:

Thx Suez! I’m doing well; I just wish the whole country were more people-centered (instead of money-centered)... but I’ll be crying this same complaint till I die… I hope you’re doing well too, & I think of you & your generation nonstop becuz of the times & the news & the future… BTW we just finished screening the last film from Steve Bannon’s list of favorite movies… I chose to do this in hopes of better parsing the banality. [Text ends with three small “yellow vest” emoticons, indicating solidarity with the Mouvement des gilets jaunes.]

Suez is backwards Zeus, short for Susan. And when I reference my sister’s generation, I mean the Millennials, which is a generation I love. I’m very serious about this – I hear pundits and loudmouths in the media, and even frequently average folks in everyday life, disparage the Millennial generation for blah-blah-blah; but I have nothing but praise and admiration for that maltreated group. They’ve been given a raw deal by the preceding ages, and they’re all too often punished for their virtues. I stand with them firmly. But my sister is sort of a self-hating Millennial; so we have this weird clash of stances, where I’m like “Your generation displays so much promise and potential!” and she’s like “Nah I don’t think we’re very decent people.”

But back to our text exchange. There’s only two more volleys. To my outburst above, apparently immediately regretting having contacted me, Susan sent this quick reply:

Oh good. Erik and I are flying to Columbia tonight.

(Erik is Susan’s boyfriend, in case you missed that episode.) When I saw how short this answer was, I assumed that she and Erik were probably busy preparing to board their airplane (which I imagined as an old B-24 in the desert); so she didn’t have time to write more. (But, in that case, why did she text me in the first place, out of the blue, asking how I’m doing!? – These fucking Baby Boomers kill me. On behalf of the Millennials, I hereby excommunicate my sister from that generation and appoint her instead an honorary Baby Boomer, because the Baby Boomers get on my nerves.) So I said:

Columbia!? You mean that country just to the right of Venezuela? In case you’re unaware, our presidential administration is currently, as far as I can tell, desiring to turn Venezuela into the next Iraq. For the love of money. Therefore, wow, I hope you get blessed as effective peacemakers. Seriously I hope your trip is fulfilling… I’ll try to stall the wall that our prez is building, so that you can get back in when the dealing’s done. — Keep a journal so you can brief me on the details when (IF) you return, cuz I wanna hear all about it. (No joke, I’m very interested: who what why when how.)

I don’t think my sister grasps the situation in Venezuela. (Remember, she’s a Baby Boomer.) Anyway, she replied:

Haha okay! And yes, the country! Thanks. I hope the flight is super smooth!

“The country” – maybe she meant to type “that country”? ...Anyway, now I’m totally knocked out of the mood that I was in when I was writing the stuff that preceded this RED ALERT text. So I’ll just end this post and title it “Hit by a missive”.

P.S.

OK I'm obviously burnt out on writing blog diary entries, so I guess I'll start posting rap demos again.

This rap demo (see below) was made to be purposely dull. And by dull I mean boring. (I was kind of annoyed with the world of rap when I made it.)

I played the drums with my fingers on a synthesizer keyboard at the same time that I recorded all my vocals; so this drumming-while-rapping required a level of coordination that I do not possess: like trying to walk & chew cud simultaneously. — I did this so that the beat would sound off-beat. I did this because I was tired of the computerized recording system quantizing everything. ("Quantize" means making the rhythm please time-bound math-folk.)

I wanted the tracks to sound purposely unfun. I wrote, recorded & performed the whole demo one day in 2005 (that's more than a decade ago), and now I'm proud that I predicted the mood of our modernity.

I know that nobody's listening; that's why I'm getting more & more offensive...

Bryan Digital
by MCB

(scroll down or visit the album page for full lyrics)

1. Hello I'm Back

Hello I’m back and I’m dead as well
I’m wearing a bed sheet ringing your bell
Holding a gun and having some fun
Eating a bun and vomiting pus
Damn I’m happy to be alive
This beat is going to make me cry
I’m so happy to be your friend
Come on and let’s go steal a Benz
Now I’m waving my maxi pad
This is my mom and here’s my dad
Thank you so much for your support
Fuck I think I just wet my shorts

2. Now I'm Back Rapping

Goodie goodie gumdrops now I’m back rapping
My name is Bryan Sanitary Napkin
Live at the airport waving guns
Thank God this tape’s almost done
I like rap rap rap
Vampire bat bat bat
Feet on the dash dash dash
Driving a speedboat on the grass
I like to touch things with my fingers
I am the beat machine and the singer
And I’m also the ghetto cop
Telling myself I have to stop

3. I'm Back On the Microphone

Now I’m back y’all on the mike
And I’m ready to kick something funky tonight
I’m blasting bass out from out of my trunk
And I’m high on crack and I’m black and young
And I’m sporting Air Jordan high top shoes
I like to drink malt liquor brew
Slam one down yeah now slam two
Pour some out now for Motley Crue
I have a french braid afro baldy
Sporting a Speedo over my Spaldings
I am as high as a fucking kite
Electrocuting you with a Lite-Brite
Toy I stole

4. More Fun Song Four

God damn oh yeah more fun song four
I am a hard huffing Scotchgard whore
Gimme some Scotchgard I need to huff
I’ll blow your nuts down like the wolf
Thank you for viewing my TV special
Horny Hansel and Ghetto Gretel
God damn song four Scotch huffing gard whore
Now I will tell you some Indian lore
Once this Indian killed my family
And tried to kill me but I ran off
But then he found me and then unmanned me
Which means he chopped my manhood off

5. A Song About Disney World

Here is a song about Disney World
Boy it’s fun to look at girls
I stuff dinner plates down my shorts
Cuz my favorite food is fetal pork
Yeah back to the topic at hand
Disney City-State Disney Land
Strapping young children into chairs
Welcome to Slave Mart labor fair

6. Wicked Track

Now I’m back on a wicked track
Holy shit this track is bad
God damn this track really slams
Mother fuck this shit is fast
I’m the rap master funky beat slammer
Goody gum rapper awesome ice hammer
I like to make songs on my computer
Hip hop soul techno Roto-Rooter
I charge five dollars for a beat
And three point fifty for extra meat
I’m dazzling wearing my sparkling dress
With a tasteful hole cut to show my breast
I am Bryan the accountant
And you are the one I’m mounting

7. Everybody Cheer

Everybody cheer if you want free beer
OK here here... [hands out beer]
There now fuck now I’m totally out
Now guns are shooting and the lights are out
And the ghetto mob and street gangs are looting
And grandmother is upstairs puking
Plus somebody shot my dad
I use my VCR to tape MASH
Now I drive a black helicopter
That is shaped like a swordfish lobster
Giant octopus plastic monster
Mormon people are fucking awesome

8. Stuff to Say

Now I’m back with some stuff to say
Like stingray praying piss manta ray
And rappity rap I deliver the mail
And don’t ask me why I’m not in jail
I’m wearing a skin diver shirt for Christmas
I have jolly Saint Nicholas titties
I huff Scotchgard and sniff the glue
My favorite age is one or two
I like to go into crowded stores
Whenever I’m stiff as a plasterboard
Oh you got an Xbox 2
Then I murder you for your shoes

9. The Fire's Starting

I played sin for the Soda Gophers
Until I poked up my coach with pokers
I like warm beer to bathe within
Rosa Parks is my evil twin
I like to fly over people’s houses
And shoot my fuck beam to rape their spouses
Bryan come down the fire’s starting
I gave birth cuz my wife’s retarded
Now I’m back with an African flytrap
That’ll teach y’all to hump my plant
I’m so pissed I can’t continue
Ancient Egypt had Super Nintendo

10. Rap the Beat

Fucking god damn finally now
It’s yes bitch song ten shut your mouth
I’m almost done one rap to go
So I am a glue sniffing Schotchgard ho
I’m planning a murder and botching it bad
Accidentally castrating your cat
And playing with G.I. Joes in public
Don’t lip lock that, that’s the fuck stick
MCB rap the beat
C’mon song ten trick or treat
Oh what fun it is to ride
In a one horse open sleigh and die