Mike's Insanity

2010-06-02T18:57:00.001-07:00

No point.

2009-10-03T22:39:00.001-07:00

I am not dead yet.

2008-04-17T18:35:00.000-07:00

"Reach out"

Hello you
Hello me
What did I do
and what did you see?

Hello us
hello they
What did you hear
and what did I say?

once was a time
you could say hello for a dime
now everyone’s got a phone in their pocket,
but no one has the time, no time, everyone
has a got a phone in their pocket
but ain’t got no time

Hello who
hello when
what did we do
and what then?
What then?

Hello dead-air
hello overtime
are you still there,
and did you do the crime?

once was a time
you could say hello for a dime
now everyone’s got a phone in their pocket,
but no one has the time, no time, everyone
has a got a phone in their pocket
but ain’t got no time

Hello you
hello me
hello no one
hello has-been

once was a time
you could say hello for a dime
now everyone’s got a phone in their pocket,
but no one has the time, no time, everyone
has a got a phone in their pocket
but ain’t got no time

Pick up your phone,
reach out, reach out
reach out and kill someone.

2008-03-18T17:41:00.001-07:00

Last Rites

In the ever-after,
or the here-and now;
all you hear is laughter
and the moo of a dying cow.

In your life's final chapter,
or your day-to day grind;
all the things you chased after
can make you lose your mind.

At a moral crossroad
or after a sin just for fun;
you always reap what you sowed
and done can never be undone.

In the ever-after,
or the here-and now;
all you hear is laughter
and the moo of a dying cow.

2008-02-24T14:43:00.000-08:00

Mostly google-sculpted poem about food, sex and poetry

I have the awful feeling that I can’t write anymore
Haven’t you ever noticed once you start eating tacos,
all you can think about is more tacos?

I know that i am a bullshit writer
I have a real problem with food,
I overeat at times and feel that
I cannot stop once I've started.

Wait. No. Lust is more serious than other vices
on the list such as pride, envy, and apathy;
but it is considerably more serious than gluttony.

There is no pot of gold at the end of that rainbow.
Lie #1: Sex creates intimacy. I told you I am a
bullshit writer. Throw some emotion and vices
on the page. Free your mind! Poetry is sure to follow!

Lies your teacher told you: There is no bad writing--
only unfinished revision. Lie #2: Starting sex early
in a relationship will help you get to know one another
and become better partners later.

According to Wyler-Feldman,
parental separation most often manifests itself
in atrocious poems about isolation and anger.

Which sin is worse?

2007-10-24T18:32:00.000-07:00

PHONE CALL

Last night. Yes, last night. No, not the night before last. LAST NIGHT. No right, here. I swear. Look. No look. I SAW him, okay? He was there. Fine. Okay, fine. Yes, I am SURE it was him. Oh, fine. Okay. Full of shit? Whatever. It was him. No, didn’t see me. No, I am sure. He never saw me. Could I swear? Well, I guess it IS possible. Okay, fine. Be that way. I have to go. Bye. What? I don’t know what he’d do if he saw me. Don’t WANT to know. Just go to bed, okay? Swear to God, it will all be okay. Yes, I swear. I SWEAR. Just go to bed. ‘night. Love you, too.

2007-03-28T19:54:00.001-07:00

“Until there is a law”

I heard there will be a law
that you cannot read bad poetry
in coffee houses or in bars
or on street corners.
What will I do to wait out
the lonely hours?

I need to read my bad poetry
out loud to you. Even better
if you have no desire to hear it;
better yet if you are a complete
stranger. It is more fun to read
bad poetry if you are not expecting it.

Until they pass a law you will find
me on the street corner screaming
my wretched verse. I will lament my
“bitter tear” I will dwell with "the dark
shadows of the lonely” And until there is
a law there is nothing you can do to stop me.

Unless you have a gun or a chainsaw or a broken
beer Bottle. Hell, even a ballpoint pen would
work if you wanted to me to shut up bad enough.
Just jam in into my throat. Once the blood stops
jutting, my poem will be done.

2007-01-11T20:11:00.000-08:00

Funny hat or funny logic?

In Roger Ebert's review of 'The Jerk' (a film he liked far less than I did) Ebert said " It seems to me that there are two basic approaches to any kind of comedy, and in a burst of oversimplification I'll call them the Funny Hat and the Funny Logic approaches. The difference is elementary: In the first, we're supposed to laugh because the comic is wearing the funny hat, and in the second it's funny because of his reasons for wearing the funny hat." Anyone have any comments about this? Any examples of both kinds of comedies? It is obvious that Ebert finds 'The jerk" to be a 'funny hat' film (I agree).

Do you agree or disagree and why? Ebert also states that he much prefers 'funny logic' films. I find I can enjoy both types but must admit that I too enjoy 'funny logic' type films more. But hell, I can get a good laugh from a funny hat movie that is well made.
Which type do you enjoy more? (be honest--don't tell me which type you think you should enjoy more tell which actually makes you laugh more. For me a funny hat movie may make me laugh harder upon first view but a funny logic movie retains its humor better over time. Sometimes a 'funny logic' movie actually seems much funnier to me in later viewings well a 'funny hat' movie many times is not very funny at all upon later viewings. I still get a chuckle out of The Jerk but it isn't a film that remains especially funny after repeated viewings for me.

The interior logic is so bizarre that the logic is not important; the payoff is important. It is not logically important to the storyline of The Jerk that he was raised by a black family or that he thought he was black. The joke is the important thing. There is not a logical set-up for the joke that leads to a payoff laugh. The joke, in a sense, is funny because of its lack of set-up. It is funny because it makes little sense. (or it is unfunny for those reasons. It is a matter of what one finds funny). Though I get a laugh every time I hear Martin say "I was raised a poor black child" the joke relies on the strangeness and irony of the situation. It isn't funny because of WHY he thought he was black but rather BECAUSE he thought we was black but was in fact white. That is the 'funny hat' in that case--a white man who is surprised to learn that he is not black.

The 'logic' is not of central importance. I guess you could argue that the joke is funny (or not funny depending on the person) BECAUSE the logic doesn't add up. And the plots aren't very important and often exist for no other purpose then to have something to hang the skit on. Many people find these tpyes of movies a laugh riot. However, many other people find them to be barely movies at all but more like a series of saturday night lives sketches patched together into a 90 minute blur of stupidity. These people find jokes based on the set-up or parring contrasting character types against each other to be very funny. For these types of films character and plot are essential.

Ebert said in another review: "I do, on the other hand, laugh loudly at comedies where eccentric people behave in obsessive and eccentric ways and other, equally eccentric, people do everything they can to offend and upset the first batch." This review is for "A fish called Wanda" where there is a kind of logic woven into the story; the jokes wouldn't work without the set-up; the character and plot are carefully crafted. Without a meaingful reason (at least it has to be meaningful to the character) as to why these strange people are behaving as they do and how those opposing goals create friction with the other players in the story, the comedy would not work. Or perhaps it doesn't work. Again, it depends upon your taste in comedy.

I love "a Fish called Wanda' though I have not seen it in years. I have friends who loathe it yet find "Anchorman" a laugh riot. If you enjoy the type of comedy of Will Ferrel where the plot only exists to hang gags and skit type scenes---that is 'funny hat'. It is funny because it is funny to see Will Ferell act odd. Or, once again, it isn't funny depending on your humor preference. I am not the type that hails one is better than the other. But I do find that funny hats wear thin over time.

I was a fan of the original Austin Powers film. A film loaded with stupid sight gags, dirty jokes, body humor, etc. However, for me, the film worked because Austin and Dr. Evil were a 60s hero and villain trapped in a future they do not fit in. Though there are several 'funny hat' moments a lot of it worked for me as their behaviors and motives were funny because they were stuck in the past. Dr evil's 'one million dollars' worked for me because he had no clue about all the finances changes over the years. It was, basically, a fish out of water story and the jokes that worked for me played off that idea at least in some form. Austin Powers: The spy who shagged me, for me was much more of a 'funny hat' in that Austin was pretty much accepted 'as is' so the jokes were funny for the gag and not necessarily for their relationship to anything else. It felt more like skits sewn together with a plot. Where this is true of the first film as well it at least had at its center that it was about the fish out of water story.

I said earlier that I don't hail one type of comedy as being better than the other. However, I will say that funny hat movies do not hold up very well to multiple viewings. They are the type of 'joke assult' movies that you might laugh a lot at the first time you see it but find it barely funny at all upon repeat viewings. Some films, it seems, are better suited to be seen once and then forgotten about all together. And for me that isn't a sign of a great comedy or a great film.

I offer a new take: There are two types of modern humor: Laughing because someone slips on a banana peel and laughing because someone purposely put out the banana peel out for them to slip on. I shall dub them "Banana peel" and "Sadistic banana peel.”

For sadistic banana peel see Sandler's earlier works. But he's such a NICE GUY under all that rage. Also see "Punch-Drunk Love" In that film he is also a nice guy under all that rage. However, in that film his rage doesn't magically dissapear in the final act. In his other films, Sandler's anger simply melts way after he finally learns to understand 'true love' or 'true fatherhood' or whatever overly-sugary-sweet lesson his bonehead character was supposed to figure out. As anyone with true rage can tell you, true rage isn't about nice or not nice. True rage is about a lifetime of not getting what you wanted or not being treated the way you think you should have been and the inability to express the bitter dissapointment in a healthy way. True rage doesn't go away because you learn a lesson or finally get what you want. It is a learned pattern of self-protection and it dies a slow, stubborn death. I could go on...but that is a post for another day.

2006-10-31T21:06:00.000-08:00

RANDOM THOUGHT

I remember when movies spawned TV shows and video games and not the other way around. But then again, in the past, movie makes used to read and watch classic books and movies and use them as inspiration. Now, the movie makers are remaking classic films and turning video games and television shows into films. Sometimes the video games themselves were directly influenced by films. Resident Evil the game was obviously influenced by Dawn of the dead. Is it any surprise that the film version looks like a postmodern retread of dawn of the dead and other similarly influenced zombie flicks?

Good television shows had fought for years to break out under the shadow of film by creating great gripping dramas and fresh non-sitcom comedies. Film had been considered the medium of true art and television of the opium of the masses dulling out fluff. Although most of what Television creates is still fluff there is an occasional program that rivals the storytelling of a good film (however, sadly, the special effects on TV still are no where near film quality). Now filmmakers are turning the fluff into feature length films. Who wants to go to a film to see the likes of "Bewitched" or "The Dukes of Hazard." At least a bad televsion program doesn't set you back ten bucks.

What will the next generation of filmmakers use as inspiration? Remake the remakes? Make movies based upon the video game that was based upon the movie that was originally a video game that was inspired by a movie? How much more CAN we dilute pop culture? In the past, most pop culture was loaded with inspiration from classic novels, ancient mythologies and classic films. That was the thing about pop culture, it used to refer to its influence in an ironic way. Now we get pop culture that was inspired by pop culture. What is going to be left? I assume we will be left with a pop culture that refers to nothing but itself. And winking at yourself is just weird.

2006-09-25T18:47:00.000-07:00

From the Mel Brooks Classic "The Prodcuers" (1968):

Lorenzo St. DuBois: (singing):

And I give a flower to the big fat cop / He takes his club and he beats me up / I give a flower to the garbage man / He stuffs my girl in the garbage can / And I give it to the landlord when the rent comes 'round / He throws it in the toilet and he flush it down / It goes into the sewer / With the yuck runnin' through 'er / And it runs into the river that we drink / Hey, world, YOU STINK!

2006-09-08T22:44:00.000-07:00

A hack might try to be 'clever' in a poem
but thank God that I never would.
Isn't irony wonderful? I have used it
three times in this poem.

2006-08-29T16:18:00.000-07:00

Dead Starlight

Once in science class they taught
us that the light we see is made
from stars that died a thousand
years ago, winked out of existence
by the time we see its light.

A friend of mine in the class leans
out of his seat towards me and says
“God is dead. The hope and faith
from a thousand years past reach our
eyes but there is no life left in the words.
We are alone here”

I fear that he was right, that God
has abandoned us here, that we
too are those dead stars, and will wink
out of this world. I imagine the stars
dying, one by one. Has God left us?
Did he ever exist to leave?

Lift up your head and look

There are still stars winking in the sky,
new stars created, always new ones
to replace the dead. The universe expands
constantly being remade, the particles reformed,
everything being made new again. Open your eyes
and look. There is more of God in your life
today then there was yesterday.

God is alive, his hands wrapped around the fabric
of life, weaving new patterns from old matter.
Our own cells die and regenerate, our own bodies
made new again, recreated, reformed.
Everything is being born again, a new people,
a new heaven and a new earth.

2006-06-10T17:21:00.001-07:00

Day like this

Some days you'd peel your skin off to keep
from being you.

Other days it was enough to just wear a coat
to cover up the past

Now you say "I just got be me" but cannot take
the bitter lie.

Your soul is splattered in shit and hate
and you cry when you are alone

You always said you didn't believe in ghosts or
possession. It was all just superstition.

On days like this, you know the dead really
do raise, and take over your body.

Your Father rose yesterday, taking your mind
hostage. You had no proof he had been there except
He left you hollow and trembling.

Days like this, it is hard to tell who
you are, or who you were, and you cannot
even dare ask who you will be.

Days like this.

Just shut your eyes. I swear, it
will all go away in the dark.

2006-05-05T23:11:00.000-07:00

I fear that is the truth.

I fear that it can't be changed.

I fear that it isn't true but that I make it true by believing it.

I fear that it can be changed but I am too weak to change it.

I fear that I will become afraid if I try.

I fear that I will fail.

I fear that I won't fail because then I would know I have a potential that I am failing to live up to.

I fear fear.

This was not a poem.

This was not not a poem.

This was nothing.

There is nothing to fear but fear itself (and the bird flu, and nuclear war, and losing a loved one, and having a heart attack and leaving your family alive to struggle without you, or failing to let people know that you care and then finding out that tomorrow doesn't always come, or wreaking your car and not having the money for a new one or that painful realization that your faith isn't strong enough to trust God but just strong enough to beg God to not take away the things you believe you need to make it in life)

There is nothing to fear. There is a lot to be concerned about.

Goodnight.

2006-01-24T20:21:00.000-08:00

Dull-Head

Last night a few falling leaves;
We sat outside watching the wind whip around and
blow everything apart.

I noticed that night fell early now.
Darkness found its way home, like sailors lost at sea
finally finding the land they longed for. It pulls its ship
into port and cries “Thank Ye God, I am home."

The light is gone now.

We wailed with the wind and hoped for a downpour of rain to wash our sins away.

What is in our blood and what is our blood on?
What came first the chicken or the DNA strand?

What sounds slipped in as we prayed?

What sounds, silent as pickpockets slipping trained hands
into our jeans and whisking away our identity?

What silent sounds never heard
hurried in our heads then flew away?

In distance, a group of men stand before us.
They stare down with stern faces that never laugh.
In their hands they hold heavy books, the covers caked with dust.

They write our names in their leather bound
books and close the covers.

The case is closed and we don't even know
what the son of bitches wrote.

Was it the banker or the
baker that first saw right through us?

Who was it that bought us pound by pound,
ounce by ounce?

We find a bottle of brandy and toast the afternoon bowel movement;
the mundane now a case for celebration.

Elliot was wrong, it is June that is cruel,
the warm sun, lovers in bloom.

God bring winter and cover us all in a
cold blanket.

They will find us a hundred years from now
captured in ice, our faces frozen
in a dull gaze.

Now shut the hell up
and turn the T.V. on.

2006-01-24T17:36:00.000-08:00

Update on my first book

I have been asked for an update on my book. Okay. I set a goal of a 50,000 word novel by May, 2006. (first draft) Assuming that is by the end of may 2006 that makes the final day May 31, 2006. Okay. From Jan first to may 31 is: 151 days. That works out to 331.12582 words a day. I will round up and call it 332 words a day (so that is 50,132 words. Whoop! Big difference).

Therefore, by today, January. 24, 2006 I should have around 7,968 words.

How close am I?

So far I am on word one. So I am -7,967 words so far. Way to go! (unless you count the poetry I wrote and there is the serious possibility that my novel may actually end up as a poetry chapbook.)

In any case I have been WAY lagging!
Man, I should have lied and said “oh, it is coming along nicely!” Or maybe I should have said “A muffin. What I really need is a muffin.”

2006-01-13T16:27:00.000-08:00

Happy birthday to me!

2006-01-10T18:13:00.000-08:00

Jigsaw Pie

Tumbling out, warm oven,
cold linoleum floor.
Steam softly leaps out.
Pulled out of the comfortable
heated oven into the cold kitchen

Jigsaw Pie

Father and sister at the table, wait
to tear in, eyes filled with hunger.
Sick of banana nut cream, key lime,
cherry. Something new to devour.

Jigsaw Pie

Mother’s mittens comfort the freshnew pie,
float it past sterile white
sink, secure and snug in her
soft blue safety net.

Jigsaw Pie

Flying past kitchen, Mother’s arms unfold,
dinning-room leers, artificial,unknown.
Bright cold steel slices
piece by piece until its gone.

Jigsaw Pie

Out of the kitchen, life with the border pieces
missing. Fragmented, incomplete, scattered.
You lay bleeding sweetly on the plate,
waiting for the last bite, the last nibble.

Jigsaw Pie

Outside the window
rain washes away the mud
while you are washed away
with a glass of nonfat milk.

2006-01-08T11:12:00.000-08:00

We all Float down here

Full of liar's hot breath,
I swell up, fly away.
You stab me with the truth
I crash back to the ground.

I cannot fly again
Truth logged inside of me
I cannot fly again
Too heavy to take off.

“keep your mind on the road,”
You always would say.
“Heaven's for pretenders,
And hell's beneath your shoes”

I dreamed your head
popped like a leaky
balloon spraying out all
over the stony ground.

Full of liar's hot breath,
I swell up, fly away.
You stab me with the truth,
I crash back to the ground.

2006-01-04T18:50:00.000-08:00

Hazed

We listened to records all night long
scratching the needle back so fast
they started to skip after two spins.

We smoked pot and drank beer;
lounged on our couches
all weekend long.

We chuckled at each others jokes,
predicated politics. We'd hate the war
if it was still going on.
We knew it all, seen it all.
Never saw the falling sky
Until it crashed in our heads.

We awoke in the ninety's as if from
Comas. Wondered how we had gotten
here. Whose damn Mini-Van is this?

Late to pick up our sons from football practice
we race across town. Later that night we catch our kids
hiding in the basement with friends,
getting high. We hear “American Idiot” scream through
the stereo and we pray for real music.

We tell them “Drugs are junk,” “Just say 'No' “
We ground them for weeks at time.
If we can't float through a night of Zeppelin or open
the doors of our minds with Jim,
then to hell with them. We ain't going to let
these slackers slide.

We make them do math homework while we
fill in our Dockers with a third slice of cake and listen to
“machine head” to ease the pain.
We pop some Valiums to help us sleep,
couple of beers to calm us down.
Damn kids.

2006-01-02T13:16:00.000-08:00

1-02-05

For the new year I have set the goal of writting a book. I have set a time line of four months from now to finish the first draft. I am not saying I will write the Great American Novel (whatever that is). I am not even saying it is going to be a good book. Hell, it maybe unreadable! All I am saying is it will be a book. I have goal for the book's length at 50,000 words. How did I come up with that length? I pulled it outta my butt. Well. The first draft will be done in May. I figured that I have to start somewhere and that although my first book is bound to be crap I cannot move onto the next book until I have completed the first one.

Genre? Haven't decided. Plot? Yeah, right. Plan? Only to write at least two pages a day. Characters? HA!

Let the madnes begin!

Mike