WATCH TO THE END

Almost worth it just for the music and first several seconds, but you have to watch it to the end.

FAIR SHARE

As the new pope made clear, along with historians and those who truly care about the poor and struggling, the disparity between the wealthiest among us and the poorest has to be addressed and corrected. It's right up there with climate change and the oppression of women in too much of the world.

Here's three things I'd like to see more action on (including protest campaigns from activists):

1. Religious organizations should be taxed proportionally (as should everyone else, including corporations).

2. Professional sports teams should be not given tax breaks for new stadiums and arenas that taxpayers are forced to subsidize (or like spoiled brats the teams will take their balls and go elsewhere etc.)

3. Corporations that rely on taxpayers to supplement their workers' meager pay and benefits through food stamps and Medicaid etc. (like Walmarts) should be required by law to pay their workers living wages (like Costco does I understand) or be banned from doing business in this country.

Just another late night rantlet (and mini-list!)

MIKE TYSON: UNDISPUTED TRUTH

This one man show was filmed for HBO and I finally caught it tonight and was pleasantly and movingly surprised.  I knew Tyson was bright from the first interview he had on a late night TV show after he became the youngest heavyweight champion in history, because when asked about boxing his answers revealed an amazing knowledge of not just the art but the history, in depth and enlightening.

But still I didn't expect a lot from this one man show venture. But he knocked me out, in the show biz sense. He's funny, poignant, humble, brutally honest, self-aware and totally engaging. He imitates all kinds of people in ways that bring them to life and make it feel like it's a multi-character show. If there's any rationalizing of some of his bigger life mistakes, or self-justification, it's layered in as I said humility and the honesty at the core of humility.

The show is really well shaped and flows so well I wasn't bored or disinterested for a second. Spike Lee's done a good job of directing, but it's Tyson's show all the way and he makes it well worth your while to watch it.

[PS: For those wondering about this post for these holi (holy) day(s)...it is quite appropriate since the ultimate message in Tyson's show is gratitude, as it is in Thanksgiving and Hanukkah...]

BAM! BAM! BAM!

TWO OLD FAVORITE QUOTES

"and in a sense we're all winning
 we're alive"
                                     
 —Frank O'Hara (from the poem "Steps")

"but it is good to be several floors up in the dead of night
 wondering whether you are any good or not
 and the only decision you can make is that you did it"

—Frank O'Hara (from the poem "Adieu to Norman,/Bon Jour to Joan and Jean-Paul

HMMMM...

So the storm that just whipped through the Southwest was another "historic" one breaking all records in some areas and some weather folks didn't even know how to name it because of how erratic and unusual some aspects of it were.

And there's still not just wing nuts but their political leaders and mouthpieces arguing against climate change, or that global warming has contributed to it.

Meanwhile even lefties are condemning Obamacare wholesale, forgetting how much of it is already working well, like not letting insurance companies deny you if you have a pre-existing condition, or covering your kids until they're twenty-six or covering previously uninsured and uninsurable children, etc.

It seems sometimes like the Facebook like button, or the Internet in general along with contemporary news bad habits (and contemporary bad news habits) (except for Al Jazeera America, which though a lot less flashier often covers news old style, in depth and with reporters covering a story, not talking heads commenting on one or manufacturing one) has created an environment where only generalities and blanket statements get heard...or seen...

Just another redundant hmmmmmm.... moment.

WANDA COLEMAN R.I.P.

I just got word from Harry Northup that Wanda Coleman passed. If you don't know who she is, you should read at least one of her books (betcha can't read just one). I knew her well and got to see her often in my L.A. years. She was in many ways the best known and certainly the most enthusiastically appreciated poet in L. A. We read together several times and it was pure joy to share the podium or stage or whatever with Wanda.  Black Sparrow published several of her books that won fans around the country and the world.

She was a no b.s. presence who said what she thought and wrote what she felt and even when righteously angry made you feel like she still loved you and would soon make you laugh or at least make herself laugh, amused by it all. My thoughts go out to her family, and to her friends and fans, who will miss her terribly.

Here are two poems from a series she did called AMERICAN SONNETS and best express, for me, what made Wanda's words so compelling:

4.

rejection can kill you

it can force you to park outside neon-lit
liquor stores and finger the steel of
your contemplation. it can even make you
rob yourself

(when does the veteran of one war fail to
appreciate the vet of another?)

the ragged scarecrow lusts in the midst of
a fallow field

and the lover who prances in circles envies me
my moves/has designs on my gizzard/kicks shit

this is the city we've come to
all the lights are red all the poets are dead
and there are no norths


5.

rusted busted and dusted

the spurious chain of plebeian events
(aintjahmamaauntjemimaondapancakebox?)

which allows who to claim the largest number of homicides
the largest number of deaths by cancer the largest
number of institutionalized men the largest number of
crimes of possession the largest number of functionally
insane the largest number of consumers of dark rum

largely
preoccupied with perfecting plans of escape

see you later alligator
after while crocodile
after supper muthafucka




[and here's a taste of her reading style when I knew her best:]